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Small towns seem idyllic. They exist in a different world, one where danger stops at the city limits and neighbors are more like friends, or even family.
When you’re dealing with families, though, you know sometimes they can be harboring a dark side – and almost every small town in America has at least one dark secret.
These 13 people are sharing theirs, and I’m on the edge of my seat!
13. Mob justice. Shudder.
Back in the 80’s a couple were driving a motorcycle when they were stopped by three men, who then raped the woman while forcing her husband to watch, then they killed both. The police caught them not so long after.
The same night that they were caught, a mob of 300+ people gathered in front of the police department, broke in and told the sheriff “You guys did an excellent job, now leave it to us”. The mob broke the cell where the three men were, beat them up and attached them (alive) into cars and dragged them for 4 miles until a park in the middle of the city, where they set them on fire (alive) while everybody was clapping and cheering.
Almost nobody talks about it now, but theres even video of it, I will try to find in case anyone is interested.
12. And he’s still there?
The headmaster of one of the elementary schools has a long history of physically, and mentally abusing young boys.
11. How is he just going to tack that on the end?
About 40% of my hometown was homeless. No one had jobs, no one could afford any kind of housing situation. Neighbor’s paid for heat where they could on houses people were squatting in and everyone invited everyone else over for dinner ever night. We didn’t know who was homeless, we just did it. We hired anyone and everyone for odd jobs.
A lot of people just lived as they would when they were kids: keep the fireplace going with trees you chopped down, gathered water by the well and traded, farmed and trapped for food. I went to school with a lot of homeless kids, we had (looking back) the most robust school breakfast program I’ve ever heard of.
thought it was normal for over half the school to show up until I moved to the city, you just gave people the dignity they deserved. No one was shamed if they dropped out at grade 10, we all knew that if they needed the job they should take it.
Looking back I realize how wild it is. Our town was so, so poor and no one was treated any different by me and mine at least. Sure, there were some rich people, but they overwhelmingly went to the other school. And there were no panhandlers, no beggars, nothing like that. I was just told the Buseys were coming over for dinner.
Did I like them, no, I kinda think they were d*cks. But never did I make them feel uncomfortable, and most just ate, had some tea, and left.
And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy, a whale washed up on shore one week and all the guys in the local high school took turns having s^x with it. All of them.
10. A ghost baby.
There was a woman who was cheating on her husband and got pregnant with him. When she has the child it was quite clearly not the husbands child, so he kicked her out of the house. The woman broke down and went out drinking, then when she was about to return to her husband she picked her baby up, dropped it down a rubbish shoot and left it there.
The next morning she remembered what she did and went back to find the baby but of course only people with access to the shoot can go inside so she had to wait hours possibly days for someone to unlock it and go inside.
The baby was long dead by then. The woman killed herself shortly after.
This developed into a ghost story later. People say you can hear the baby crying from inside the rubbish shoot, and you can hear the woman crying on one of the stairways.
9. I don’t think he should be in charge.
The mayor of the town I live just outside of was murdered by his girlfriend a little while back. And there was a realtor that was using his company as a front for smuggling drugs.
Other than that it’s the usual small southern town crap.
8. People have short memories.
Look up the Gainesville Ripper.
Killed a bunch of students and dismembered the bodies in really gross ways.
This was about 30 years ago.
I guess it’s not really a secret if there are podcasts about it but it’s slowly being forgotten.
7. Someone just passing through?
When I was growing up my small town had a spate of murders. About 6 in about as many months.
This was in the 70s nothing like it before or after.
6. They got away with it.
I think I was senior in high school when this happened but it was in our local paper every day for a long time.
The details are hazy but I’ll do my best to recount them. 4 athletic male students had sexually assaulted a female sophomore student. One male had access to keys of the room it happened because his parent worked for the administration. They apparently picked her up to get food and then went to the school locker room. Two of them pressured her to participate in an act she did not want to and thought she was in physical danger had she not done anything.
The female student 100% went to court and then they completely turned it around on her, that she asked for it, that it was her fault, etc. they said if she really did not want to comply, she would have fought harder or her clothes would have been torn or bloodied up. she just left that school and moved instead of staying. I don’t believe much happened to the male students at all.
As for the male students? No one had to register for anything, no one went to jail, their futures were all in tact. I think two had to do service hours and probation, but that was it.
5. A sad, sad story.
We have a vineyard hill next to our village, on that hill there’s a big wooden cross, lots of people go there to drink, have a walk or with their dogs, but almost nobody knows why the cross is here.
During war, a vineyard keeper lived there with his son. His son was recruited and the man was left alone. When war ended, his son survived and wanted to “prank” his dad by sneaking on him at night. But vineyard keeper saw him and thought he was a robber, so he grabbed his rifle and shot the robber, when he found out it was his son, it broke his heart.
He dug a grave on top of the hill for his son and erected a big wooden cross next to the grave. When he was done, he laid next to his son and shot himself. From that day, no one worked on the vineyards and there’s a big wooden cross on top of the hill. Now, you can’t even recognize there’s a grave.
4. He should not have been in charge.
No one thought to look there.
About a decade ago there was a crime spike here. It was really bad because one cartel tried to displace the other, and because we’re a sleepy town across the border from the US, we’re prime cartel real estate.
However, when they weren’t tearing each other up in the streets, they would abduct, interrogate, kill and dispose of the bodies of their rivals until eventually one cartel managed to keep the town.
One thing that baffled the authorities was their stealth. They came out of nowhere, struck their target and vanished into the shadows. That may be possible for a small unit or even a lone agent, but that’s unheard of in a cartel.
Federal investigations were made, and no one was able to find the cartel’s hq. It had to be big because they had weapons, vehicles, metal shops, dorms, kitchens and the corpse disposal equipment. They looked everywhere: nearby ranches, warehouses, junkyards, nothing.
Until they looked were no one thought to look. A few kilometers outside of here is a fully operational state prison that they were using as their hq. Everyone was in on it, from the inmates to the guards to the warden to the Governor. People were killed there, dissolved in acid and the drums were dumped in a nearby river.
Since then the prison operation has been shut down, and the former governor is a wanted man by the interpol.
3. That’s…not funny.
Some high school football players shoved broomsticks up freshman players asses in the locker room after a practice.
The coach found out and did nothing about it.
The whole town knew and nothing happened to anyone in the form of punishment.
Every game for the rest of the year, opposing team’s fans brought broomsticks to games
2. Of course he did.
A girl I went to high school with vanished one day. From day one everyone was telling the police that her ex boyfriend had something to do with it, she already had a restraining order cause he held a knife to her throat and threatened to kidnap and kill her but with no evidence they couldn’t do anything. Over the years several people went to the police saying that he had admitted to killing her but they did nothing. He eventually got in trouble for threatening to kill another girlfriend and choking her and went to prison for 3 years.
After prison he came back to town and eventually asked another ex of his for a ride home from a party and then she went missing after that night and they found her car burned and they arrested him again and he had burns on his hands. A few months later someone found a set of remains outside of town and during the recovery they found another set of much older remains. He killed them both and the failure of our local police department caused the second girl to be murdered.
1. Someone’s always up to something.
As a teen in high school, the health teacher got caught sleeping with student, everyone magically passed that year (including me who skipped almost every day lol)
Then a few years ago in another small town, two different scandals within the space of 5 years.
First one, teachers at a preschool were dosing children with melatonin at nap time.
Second one, a very well known and respected funeral home went under investigation for selling body parts.
I don’t know why I enjoy stories like these, but I do.
If you’re from a small town, tell us its secret down in the comments!
