7 Freaky Urban Legends That Turned Out To Be Real

We all love a good urban legend. Stories that we suspect are myth but a part of us hopes are true are part of everyone’s childhood. Well, it turns out that quite a few of them are not as mythical as you might wish:

1. THE HINTERKAIFECK MURDERS

A family suspects that someone is lurking in their house, waiting for a chance to bump them off in their sleep. It happened, in 1922 in Hinterkaifeck in Bavaria, Germany.

Six months before the grisly murders, the Gruber family’s maid suddenly quit because she believed that the family house was haunted. The new maid reported footsteps in the attic, and what’s more that winter strange footprints were found leading to the house but not away from it. A strange newspaper was found in the living room, and someone tried to break into the tool shed. That’s where the family kept the mattock.

On March 6, 1922 each member of the family was apparently lured to the barn and hacked to death with that mattock. The bodies were not discovered for a week. It seems that the killer hung about – neighbour reported that someone fed the cows and let the dog out, and smoke was seen coming from the chimney after the family were killed. The killer was never found.

2. THE STALKER UNDER THE BED

Many a campfire tale tells of a creeper lurking in the backseat of the car or under the bed. In July 2014, a teenager living in Ellesmere Port, England received texts from a random creeper named Kyle Ravensport, who claimed he was watching her. Ravensport also told the girl he would hang himself outside her window, so she would wake up to see his dead body swaying in the breeze.

After she received a text saying, “I AM IN YOUR HOUSE” the girl decided to sleep in her mom’s room. The next morning, she was sitting on her own bed chatting to a friend on the phone when she became aware of someone watching her. Noticing some boxes were askew, she knelt to straighten them, only to find Ravensport under her bed, where he had been all night.

3. DEATH BY ATOMIC WEDGIE

All children like to spread stories about a friend of a friend who died when he was the victim of an atomic wedgie. But it turns out that it is true!

In December 2013, a guy called Brad Lee Davis got into a row with his stepdad, Denver Lee St Clair. Davis ended up giving St Clair an atomic wedgie so powerful that the elder man choked to death on the waistband of his tighty-whities. Davis, a former marine, pleaded guilty to first degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

4. THE CHICAGO TYLENOL MURDERS

We’ve all heard stories of poison put into random packs of candy, or drugs. In 1982 an unknown person tampered with random bottles of Tylenol, lacing the capsules with potassium cyanide. Seven people died from cyanide poisoning before maker Johnson & Johnson withdrew the product.

There was a positive to come out of such awfulness, as the pharmaceutical industry created tamper-proof packaging to protect and reassure the public.

5. KILLER SERVES VICTIMS UP FOR MEALS

In 1995, Joe Metheny, whose record of murder goes back to 1976, killed two prostitutes, chopped them up, mixed their meat in with pork, and sold them a pulled pork sandwiches to the unsuspecting public.

According to Metheny, “I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches. They were very good. The human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no one can tell the difference.”

6. GRUESOME HALLOWEEN DECORATION

We have all heard the story of the strangely realistic Halloween decoration that turns out to be real.

Back in 2005 in Frederica Delaware, a distraught 42-year-old woman hanged herself from a tree on a busy road and could easily be seen from passing vehicles. People noticed the poor woman, but apparently dismissed the sight as a horrible Halloween prank. Her body hung there until the next day when passers-by realised that she wasn’t just a scary decoration.

7. WAKING UP WITHOUT YOUR KIDNEYS

This is the classic urban legend of the young man or woman, wooed by a stranger and then waking the next day in an ice bath minus a kidney.

In the period 2000 – 2008 a group of four doctors, five nurses, twenty paramedics, and three private hospital conspired to rob up to 500 people of a kidney. The victims were generally picked up on the promise of work as day-laborers, and the horror unfolded from there.