← Southern Cannibal's Scary Stories
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- [00:05]
Original Poster
This occurred in the winter of 2013 when I was 21 and in the military. I'm a petite female for context, and I have the appearance of looking younger than I actually am. A little backstory at this point in time. I had been in the military for a little over two years, my first duty station being in Detroit. I had lived off base and at first lived in a township north of Detroit where my apartment was broken into. I woke up to my door handle being completely disassembled and my car was broken into, although that was partly my fault since my car at the time had manual locks and I might have had a back door unlocked the night it was broken into. After those events I decided to move since my lease was up and I chose a gated community even further north northwest into a different township. I lived on my own the entire time I was stationed in Detroit, which always kept me on edge because SVU and CSI really messed with my trust of strangers. Anyway, the new place was super nice and affordable and even though it wasn't completely secure as far as a literal gate surrounding the apartments, residents had to have a pass to even drive through the community and visitors had to check in with security before being allowed on the premises. And I felt way safer at this new place than my prior residence. The apartments were set up to have four units per housing building and the front doors leading into each of the apartments were on the outside. Due to this, each door had a light next to it so when you checked your people you could see who's there. That's important for later. Our duty rotation was similar to a firefighter's duty rotation where we would stand duty for two days and have sliding weekends duty every other weekend. Meaning it's a pretty predictable schedule. This will come into play later. I'm super introverted and I keep to myself most of the time, but I am friendly when I meet new people, etc. But never one to make best friends with the neighbors. So when I first moved in summer of 2012, I had a neighbor next to me on the second level and one below me on the first level. But over the next two months they moved out and I was alone in my housing building, which I would be lying if I said that didn't give me anxiety a bit. Fast forward to December 2012 and our duty rotation had a complete overhaul, making it a little less predictable. We would stay on duty for a day and overnight and the next day, work until 14:00 clock and go home for the next two days. Over the holidays my Then boyfriend visited me from out of state, which we were doing a distance relationship so we barely saw each other. A week later I was taking out my garbage to the dumpster and collecting my mail. Once I unlocked my mailbox by the dumpster and turned around, there was a guy standing around 30ft behind me just staring at me. I was startled because it was broad daylight and I didn't see him when I was walking to the dumpster mailbox area. He's dressed in black pants and a black hoodie and larger than me so I would have seen him or heard him at least. I just stand there not making a move and he says hi, I'm Jim, how are you? So I introduce myself and he asks if I'm in the military because he's seen me in some type of uniform. So I say yes and that I'm in a branch here. He then makes me super weirded out by mentioning my schedule.
- [03:37]
Jim
I've noticed your work schedule is different. You used to come home every two days, now it's like every other day. Is that going to be the new normal for you?
- [03:47]
Original Poster
So my spidey Chris Hansen senses kick in and I just say oh no, that's just the new holiday routine schedule they have me on. We will be having a completely different one in the coming weeks. Bold faced lie. That actually was the new normal, but he didn't need to know that. I then receive a trailing oh from him. Then he asks was that guy who.
- [04:13]
Jim
Was around you over the last week a family member?
- [04:16]
Original Poster
To which I reply that he's my boyfriend in former military and that's how we met, taking care to not mention he lived in a completely different state. Jim doesn't say anything and I want to scrim before anything crazy happens so I just say it's nice to meet him. And then he says if you want.
- [04:34]
Jim
To come to my apartment sometime, feel free to. I live in the first floor unit right over there. My buddy who's in a different branch.
- [04:42]
Original Poster
Is over and we're going to watch Star Wars. The unit he lived on was the unit directly across from mine but with a parking lot in between them. So I turn it down even though I love Star wars and I say my farewell. I felt weird about it but went about my day and over time it left my mind. Another fast forward to the end of January 2013. I was leaving work for the day after my duty day and one of my friends asked if I wanted to join him and another mutual friend at a bar later on for a beer and Karaoke. Of course I'm down. This person is my best friend and it's really depressing in the dirty deed during the winter months so it would lift my mood from here on out. We'll call my friend Tom. Tom was working in the galley at this time and didn't have to stand duty, but he planned to meet me in my apartment after he got off work at 5pm, meaning he would be at my place around 6 6:30. My duty section got off at 2pm so I went home and chilled out on my couch for a bit because I stood mid watch the night before. I was insanely tired and fell asleep on the couch probably around 3pm Obviously since it's wintertime in Detroit, the days are super short so it gets dark around 4:30 to 5pm While napping, I wake up to a knocking on my door. At first I thought that it was a dream so I kept snoozing. Then the knocking turned into banging and half awake, half asleep, I look at my phone and see that it's 5pm no way is it my friend. And besides, even if it was, he usually calls my phone if I didn't answer my door right away. In my utter exhaustion I blow it off and fall back to the snooze. I then wake up to my phone going off and it's my friend Tom. I pick up and he says he's there and to answer the door. I go to my people completely paranoid and I see that the area is completely black. So I call Tom back and ask if he can start talking in my door because I can't see that it's him. He does. I open it and he asked what happened to the light and why was it off? I had no idea why my external door light was not on and we go to fix it. Lo and behold, the bulb was twisted to make it turn off. We twisted back to the on position and I explained what happened earlier, finding the events of the day pretty shady right away. I didn't think that it might have been Jim, but it would make sense if it was. He gave me weird vibes and after that I didn't feel comfortable in my apartment and couldn't wait to leave. Side note, I watched that episode of Criminal Minds where the serial killers twist the light bulb to the off position of their victims outer lights. Like two weeks after this happened to me, it gave me chills and when I received orders two months later, I took them without ever looking back.
- [07:39]
Commercial Narrator 1
Marshall's buyers are hustling hard to get amazing new gifts into stores right up to the last minute. Like a designer perfume for that friend who never RSVP'd wishlist topping toys for her kids who came too.
- [07:51]
Original Poster
Mm.
- [07:51]
Commercial Narrator 1
Belgian chocolates for the neighbor, a cozy scarf for your boss, and a wool jacket for your husband that you definitely did not almost forget. Marshalls. We get the deals, you give the good stuff, even at the last minute.
- [08:05]
Original Poster
Phew.
- [08:06]
Commercial Narrator 1
Find a Marshall's near you.
- [08:09]
Commercial Narrator 2
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- [08:38]
Original Poster
When my husband and I first moved out on our own, we had this neighbor that we would sometimes see outside and would talk to. We even went to the local pool hall and played pool with them. One day we're hanging out at his house and we're sitting outside, the cutest little black kitten walks up in the yard. My husband and I are animal lovers, so I'm all about this kitten. My husband and the neighbor walk around the side of the house and are gone maybe a minute or two and my husband returns. The look on his face was horror and fury. He looks at me and says he killed that cat. I get up and walk around there and my husband is holding this kitten. The neighbor had hit him in the head with the rock, but at this point the kitten is breathing. It had knocked him out. Long story short, we took the kitten to the vet and he had to have an eye removed. We now have had this kitten who we named midnight for about 10 years. He's doing good now and one hell of a mouse killer. We found out a few years later that this neighbor had been out of town for work and was rooming with a co worker. He later went on to stab his roommate to death and he returned back to his home here. It is scary to believe someone like this lived right beside us and had been in our home and we had been in his. Obviously after the kitten thing happened, we stopped talking to him after letting him know what we thought about it and what a piece of shit he was.
- [10:13]
When I was 11, my single mom, 9 year old sister and 6 year old brother moved into a beautiful older craftsman style house. I'd heard it was about 80 years old back then. In 1984. Soon after we moved in, we found out it was infested with cockroaches. I've never seen anything like it. You'd turn on the lights at night and they'd scatter from every surface. We had to store all of our food that wasn't canned in the fridge so they wouldn't get into it. We tried bug bombs and professional exterminators numerous times with no effect. Those things can really survive a nuclear war. Anyway. They weren't the reason we lived in this house less than a year before fleeing for our lives. I just thought it was an interesting side story. To this day, roaches are near the top of my detested bugs list. I remember my mom discussing our next door neighbor's creepy son with my grandma. He was in his 20s or 30s. She had been doing dishes one day and looked up to see him standing directly on the other side of the kitchen window staring in at her. Normally she would have kept something scary like this from us kids, but about that time she told us to tell her if we ever saw him near the house and we weren't allowed to play outside. She also told us about a couple of times when she woke up to see him standing over her bed. And one time he put a cloth with chemicals over her face to knock her out. This is the part of the story I know the least about since she didn't tell us about it until years later. I think she might have thought she was dreaming, especially if he was drugging her. I don't know if anything else happened. I've never asked her about it in case something did and it brought up bad memories. So one afternoon we were all doing some spring cleaning when my brother said he had found a cigarette butt in the upstairs toilet. Weird, since nobody in our family smokes. Being a dumb little six year old, he flushed it before telling her mom. I still remember her trying to get the entire story out of him, being upset that the evidence was gone and thinking he might have been mistaken or maybe he'd picked up a butt somewhere outside. Out of curiosity. She soon dropped it and we mostly forgot about it. I think it was a few weeks later. My brother was spending the night at our grandparents and my sister and I were the only ones upstairs. Our mom's bedroom was downstairs. My sister heard a sound like a screen door slamming, but she insisted it came from in the house and she was freaked out. I told her it was just from outside and to go to sleep. A minute later we heard a strangled cough coming from just outside Our bedroom door. A man's cough and it sounded like he was trying to keep from making noise. I whispered that we needed to get downstairs immediately. We sneaked out of the room and I had the irrational urge to turn on the light in the bathroom which was just across the hall from our bedroom and check to see if anyone was there. Then just as strong of a feeling to get away from the bathroom and get downstairs now. The scariest moment of my life was when we were creeping down the stairs in the pitch black. It was a spiral enclosed stairway with walls. The perfect place for someone to hide. The stairway light was burned out and the wood steps were creaky so it was terrifying. Making our way down, we got downstairs and woke up. Our mom panicked that there was a guy upstairs in our bathroom. She started to tell us to just go back to bed but could say we were seriously scared. She went over to the bottom of the stairway to go up and show us that there was nothing to be scared about. Then she had just as strong of a feeling to close the stairway door and lock it immediately. She did called the cops. They found nothing and didn't really take it seriously. The next day she called a PD detective friend of hers from high school to come over and inspect the house. Remembering the cigarette butt in the toilet, she had him look at the upstairs bathroom window. It was a high narrow rectangular window, not very big but just wide enough for a person who knows how many times. The intruder climbed our roof to get in and was upstairs while we were sleeping across the hall. The window swung up on hinges when my mom's friend let the window drop. It sounded like a screen door slamming. He said the locks on all the windows were so old they were practically useless and we needed to get out of this house right away. We moved into my grandparents house that same day. When my mom went with her brothers a few days later to pack up some things. A back door had been smashed open but nothing in the house was disturbed. Edit to clarify why it seems like my mom was in denial about the guy going into her room. I'm honestly not really clear on the details since she never told us about what she saw. I think she might have been out of it because of the Quora forum and probably thought she was imagining it or something. The puzzle pieces came into place after the detective checked out our house and confirmed someone was breaking in. As soon as she knew we were in real danger, she got us out immediately. A few years later we heard the neighbor's son was actually arrested for rape and attempted murder. I still wonder what might have happened if I had turned on that bathroom light, if my mom didn't lock the stairway door, or if we didn't leave the house when we did. I also wonder if it's still infested with cockroaches.
- [15:39]
My mom got back to me. She said that she only remembers seeing him in her room one time and felt like she was struggling to stay awake. Another time she didn't clearly wake up, but felt like she was trying to get something off her mouth. That's all she can remember. So I did get the details a little wrong in my memory. It's no wonder she didn't think anything was wrong at first if she only thought they were dreams. The cigarette butt was a clue and what my sister and I heard was proof. I have to say, as a single mom myself, I can only imagine how freaked out my mom must have been when her friend told her we needed to get out immediately.
- [16:23]
The story I'm about to tell is probably a lot less scary than many stories on this forum, but it was actually kind of traumatizing to me. This is a few years ago, so I'm sure I've left out some details and events. Please excuse my English. This happened in the summer of 2016 when I was 24 and my husband was 29. We had two years prior moved to a European capital and it was a real struggle to find a place to live. So we were living about an hour outside the city until the owner decided to sell his apartment and we had to find a new place. We were really lucky and we found this great apartment right in the middle of the city center. The rent was quite high and despite the fact that we were trying to save up to buy our own place, we decided it was worth it. The first two weeks were awesome. After we had been living in the suburbs for two years, we now had everything just outside of our building. My office was in walking distance and there were plenty of shops, restaurants and nightclubs. One evening after work we were chilling at home watching a movie when we became aware of someone screaming and singing songs with extremely violent Nazi content. We were looking out our window trying to locate the noise, but couldn't exactly figure out where it came from other than from inside the courtyard that was surrounded by several buildings and a lot of apartments. So we finally gave up and just shut the window so we could have some peace. Suddenly we hear a loud knock on our door. Kind of startled, we both went to open thinking this was either the police or some neighbors who were also bothered by the absurd singing and screaming. We opened the door and a man in his late 30s was looking back at us. He was probably about my height, 5 foot 8, a bit chubby and bald, and looked relatively normal. I later learned that this guy had been quite a famous child actor and had been in several movies up until his early 20s. Because he didn't look crazy and appeared relatively calm, we figured he was just another neighbor trying to locate the noise. This neighbor lived in the apartment next to us. The building was L shaped, and if we wanted to, we could look directly into his apartment from our windows. He then proceeded to accuse us of filming him through our window. We were so confused. We had been in our windows unlocked this evening, trying to locate the commotion, but we had never recorded anything. And why would we record his apartment? He now had this crazy look in his eyes and he was saying all kinds of crazy stuff that I have now forgotten. But it was some kind of insane Nazi conspiracy theory stuff, and we were of course sent by someone to come and harm him. That's when we realized that this is the guy behind the obscene singing and screaming. As he was getting more and more agitated, he tried to enter our apartment. But my husband shoved him out and closed and locked the door. We heard him walk into his apartment and slam the door. For some days, maybe a week, we didn't hear or see anything of this neighbor. But we did see some strange drug addict type of people coming and going from his apartment. Then the singing and screaming started again. This happened at all times, but especially at night when we were trying to sleep. We almost went crazy. But because it's so hard to find a place to live in this city, and because we really hate moving, we just put up with it. Later, one afternoon, I felt this burning smell and I went out in the hallway to try and figure out where it came from. And together with another neighbor, we quickly found out that it came from the Nazi guy's apartment. We tried knocking, but no one answered. We tried peeking through his mail slot, but saw nothing except for smoke. We obviously called the fire department who came and knocked down his door to find him sleeping naked with something burning on the stove. They put the small fire out. He apologized, and I don't think anything else ever came of it. Of course, though, he continued to sing and scream Nazi songs and racial stuff. But we were now also introduced to wolf howling. It sounded totally crazy. Even with our window shut, we could still hear him some more. Time passed, and one night before we were going to bed My husband felt a burning smell. We immediately suspected the smell to come from his apartment yet again. And we were just about to dial the fire department when we heard this loud bang in the courtyard. We looked out and could see the Nazi guy throwing out his belongings and furniture from his windows into the courtyard. And not only this, but his apartment was in flames. We were panicking because the hallway was starting to fill with smoke and we didn't want to die from inhaling the toxic smoke. On our way down from the third floor, we grabbed our stuff and my husband went knocking on all of the doors to get our neighbors out. He didn't get any answer from the crazy guy's apartment and together with another neighbor came up with the brilliant idea of breaking in to rescue the Nazi guy. They finally managed to knock on the door, covered their faces with some clothing and went in. They couldn't find the guy and they had to give up and run out before there was just too much smoke. Shortly after the fire rescuers came and put out the fire, but they also couldn't find anybody in the Nazi guy's apartment. He went missing for some time until eventually he showed up trying to get into his apartment. The locks had been changed at this point and the police were still investigating. He had actually started the fire and then left his apartment, apparently trying to burn down the whole building with all of the neighbors asleep. He was later on charged with arson, but managed to run away and didn't show up in court. We moved away shortly after. So I'm not sure what happened to this guy, if he ever did time in prison. But when I google his name, it looks like he's still living in the same apartment. I also found several stories about him online and police reports. So he's obviously a guy with a lot of issues. Too bad he has to involve other innocent people.
- [22:24]
Commercial Narrator 3
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- [22:54]
Original Poster
Limu Cable and Doug. Here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [23:12]
Commercial Narrator 1
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [23:14]
Original Poster
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty liberty savings, ferry, unwritten by liberty mutual insurance company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.
- [23:28]
Okay, so I'm a longtime lurker here and this is my first post on this sub throw away because obvious reasons, after reading someone else's story it reminded me about this one. I apologize in advance if this isn't written to perfection. I'm a very detailed, oriented person, so there might be a lot of parentheses further explaining stuff. I honestly don't even remember the guy's name, so we'll just call him Creeper Joe. This happened a good seven years ago, toward the end of high school for me. Anyway, this is my old neighbor's son who was in at least his mid-30s and he still lived at home with his completely able and mostly sane 70 something year old mother. He's moderately overweight, deathly pale, and a ginger. No offense to gingers obviously, but that coupled with never seeing daylight made him almost translucent. He also always wore stained clothes and he didn't have very good hygiene at all. Anyway, I didn't see him very often. He would stay inside and I'd leave his house for weeks if not months on end. He had no job, no friends, nothing. We'd occasionally catch each other getting the mail or something, so he'd strike up a conversation, usually about metal because he'd often hear my music coming from my room. I left my windows open a lot while I was at home because I liked the fresh air, so we'd awkwardly talk for a few minutes and then just go back to our respective houses. I figured he was just lonely so I didn't actively try to avoid him. My dad hangs out in the garage and a lot with the door open, having some beers with friends, working on cars, etc. One day he told me to stay clear of Creeper Joe because he saw him looking at our neighbor's kids a lot, mainly this kid Isaac across the street. He was a few years younger than me, so he was probably about 13 or 14 or so at the time I think. Anyway, I just tried to avoid him a little bit at that point because it kind of weirded me out. A few months go by without incident and my dad comes into the house visibly uneasy. My mom and I ask him what's wrong and he says the neighbor, Creepy Joe, just told him that he likes little boys. My mom and I are obviously distressed at that statement as well, so we talk to him and tell him that he needs to call the cops or something, especially after we noticed him checking out our neighbor's kids. So he calls the cops anonymously A few days later they show up at the house and sees his computer and all other electronics as well. They of course found child porn. I don't remember him being arrested, but I do remember not seeing him for a while again after that, so I'm not entirely sure whatever happened with that. When I did see him again, he actually seemed to avoid me in the sense that if I was outside getting mail, he'd wait until I went inside to get his. I didn't want anything to do with him at that point, so I didn't really care and just went about my business as usual. Several months go by and then there's an ambulance at the house. I thought maybe his mom was having issues, but nope. Turns out Creeper Joe kicked the bucket and apparently his mother only even realized it after three fucking days. And only because she put a meal in the microwave and he never came out and got it. Which means that for him to not even leave his room for several days at a time was a common enough occurrence for her to not be alarmed, not to shower, not to use the restroom, etc. I can't even begin to imagine how gross his room must have been. She also evidently had taken out a life insurance claim on him for a pretty good chunk of money, enough for her to redo her entire kitchen and live comfortably from then on out. Why she had life insurance on him, I have no idea. He didn't do anything. No job, no dangerous hobbies. He wasn't even her caretaker. She still took care of him at this point, so it was all pretty oddly suspicious. Also, supposedly, according to the autopsy, he died of a heart attack. To this day, all of the neighbors still have suspicions about the mother. Nothing would have seemed weird if it wasn't for the random life insurance on a guy whose biggest posed risk was losing the remote. While it may not have been as close a call as the other stories posted here, the whole thing creeps me the hell out.
- [28:13]
It.