You guys must love urban legends because our first presentation was extremely popular! Since Part One was a hit, we just had to do another piece for all you horror buffs. A word of warning though, the urban legends below are far creepier, scarier, and will induce far more nightmares than those described in our first piece. So proceed with caution, and like always, don’t say we didn’t warn you!
2. 1. There’s Something In The Water
Several variations of this urban legend exist, but they all share the same premise:
Innocent people make the unfortunate (and disgusting) discovery that their
drinking water has a not-so-refreshing added ingredient.
Some stories tell of H2O laden with blood, feces, sewage, and pretty much
anything else that would make you want to vomit. Turns out, however, that this
urban legend actually happened at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles.
In 2013, guests of the now-closed hotel noticed that the water was rather, um,
gross, but they kept using (and probably drinking) it anyway. After the complaints
continued, hotel staff went to check out the problem and made a gruesome
discovery inside one of the water tanks.
They found the floating corpse of a young woman, which means that the foul-
tasting water was due to the added hint of decomposing body juice.
Excuse me while I go cry now.
3. 2. The Body In The Chimney
The old body-in-the-chimney legend has been told time and
time again; perhaps to deter little kids from playing where
they shouldn’t. What many folks don’t realize is that this
particular story happens to be true.
In 2010, Bakersfield resident Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac was
involved in an on-and-off relationship with William Moodie
when she decided that she wanted to get into his home.
The only problem was that she didn’t have a key, so she
either had to leave or figure out another way of getting
inside. Her ultimate decision? Break in by sliding down the
chimney.
Welp, her plan failed, and she got stuck and eventually died.
Her body was found three days later. Let’s just hope Santa
Claus doesn’t run into the same problem.
4. 3. The Murderous Chef
Surely you’ve heard the legend of the murderous chef who
flew off the rails and decided to put something new on the
menu—human.
This is precisely what happened in the case of David Veins, a
California Chef who murdered his wife. So, what’s a chef to
do when he has a dead body and nowhere to hide it?
Well, cook it in his restaurant of course. Seriously . . . Veins
slow-cooked his wife’s body because he thought that would
be the most clever way to dispose of the evidence.
His plan didn’t work, and thankfully he was caught before he could serve his new ingredient to restaurant
patrons. Veins even described his horrifying methods on tape revealing, “I just slowly cooked it and I ended up
cooking her for four days."
5. 4. The Killer In Cop’s Clothing
This is one of the scariest urban legends out there because we’re
hard-wired to trust law enforcement, so to think that an officer
might be a killer in disguise is truly terrifying.
Even more terrifying is the fact that this scenario is not merely a
scary story—it has actually happened several times. The most
well-known case is that of Ted Bundy, the sadistic sociopath
who lured women with his superficial charm and clever tactics.
Bundy dressed as a police officer and approached a young
woman named Carol DaRonch to tell her that her car had been
broken into. Bundy then offered to take her down to the police
station, and she agreed.
Once in his car (which was not a police car), DaRonch grew suspicious and tried to exit the vehicle.
Bundy attacked her and tried to handcuff her, but she escaped with one of the handcuffs still fastened
to her wrist.
6. 5. Frozen Solid
There are plenty of urban legends about people getting frozen
inside a block of ice, but the story usually ends there. Well, back
in 1981, this icy legend became a reality, but with an added plot
twist. 19-year-old Jean Hilliard was found frozen solid in North
Dakota after temperatures had plummeted to 22 below zero.
Hilliard had been walking home when she collapsed in the snow,
and when she was found the next morning, her body was so stiff
that neighbors had to load her into the car “diagonally” to
transport her to the hospital.
Doctors described the Hilliard’s frozen body comparing her to “a
piece of meat out of a deep freeze.” How official.
They assumed that she was dead, but they wouldn’t be able to tell for sure until she was thawed, and that’s when the
crazy part happened. Once Hilliard’s body temperature reached a normal level, she woke up. And get this—SHE. WAS.
COMPLETELY. FINE. It was as if nothing even happened, and doctors had no medical explanation for her recovery.
7. 6. Body Farms
The term “body farm” is creepy enough on its own,
and there are lots of urban legends out there
about vast areas of land scattered with corpses
and human body parts. Welllll, it turns out that
body farms are 100% real, but they’re slightly
different than the serial killer dumping grounds
you hear about in urban legends.
See, real body farms are used by crime scene
investigators and forensic anthropologists to
study decomposition patterns in different
conditions. The United States currently has three
body farms.
Yes, they are scattered with real human remains.
They may be totally legal and “for science,” but that
doesn’t make body farms any less creepy!
8. 7. Death By Garbage Truck
Every little kid has been scared to death by urban
legends about the troublemakers who hid in trash
cans, only to get crushed to death by the garbage
truck. First off, kids probably shouldn’t “play” in trash
cans. And second, this legend really happened—
multiple times. In one incident, a 17-year-old boy from
Luxembourg, France was crushed to death by a
garbage truck.
No one knows why the teen decided to enter the
trash can in the first place, and it will likely remain a
mystery forever. Another similar incident occurred
when a trash worker was crushed while trying to load
items into his truck.
Yet another garbage truck horror story, a drunk man sleeping in a dumpster was loaded into a garbage truck, but
luckily, this particular incident did not end in death. Garbage workers heard the man screaming and were able to
shut off the crushing mechanism just in the nick of time.
9. 8. The Sadistic Surgeon
You may remember the “Waking Up In The Middle Of
Surgery” legend that made an appearance on part one of
our list. Well, that seems like a walk in the park
compared to the Sadistic Surgeon legend, which goes a
little something like this:
Evil surgeon pretends to be a talented and prestigious
doctor, only to mutilate his patients while they’re under
the knife. That would never happen, right? Wrong.
Meet Glen Tucker, a prominent plastic surgeon who left
several patients mangled after botched surgeries.
Apparently, mutilating patients was just the surface of
his inner demons. At 80 years old, Tucker fatally shot his
wife, their cat, and then himself. The entire story is far
too complex to cover on our list, but you can read all
about it here.
10. 9. The Grave Robber
The “grave robber” is a somewhat iconic character that has
made many appearances in horror movies over the years. It’s
usually some creepy old man who goes around digging up
graves and collecting the corpses for who knows what reason.
Depends on the movie, I guess.
Unfortunately, this once-fictional character is no longer a
figment of our nightmares. Case in point—Russia, 2011. A man
dubbed the “Cemetery Collector” was arrested after
authorities discovered 29—yes, 29—unearthed corpses inside
his home.
That’s not even the worst part. The man, who was not named,
used the corpses for his own creepy pleasure, dressing them
up in women’s clothing in order to create life-sized dolls. If
that’s not the creepiest thing that’s ever happened, then I
don’t know what is.
11. 10. Hangin’ Out With A Dead Guy
You’ve seen Weekend At Bernie’s right? If not, it’s a
hilarious movie about two guys who parade around
with a dead guy to fool people into thinking he was
still alive. It’s totally unrealistic and would never,
ever, happen in the real world. At least that’s what
we all thought before we heard about two friends
who allegedly took their dead friend out for a night
on the town. It gets weirder, just wait.
So, Robert Young and Mark Rubinson went to pick
up their buddy, Jeffrey Jarrett, for a wild night on the
town. They encountered a problem when they found
Jarrett passed out drunk at home. They assumed he’d sober up soon, so they scooped up their “drunk” buddy, loaded him in
the back of the car, and headed out to party. They hopped around to several different spots including bars, strip clubs, and
even a mexican restaurant — using Jarret’s bank card the whole time. Well, Jarrett never did sober up because he was, uh,
dead. The party animals were charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft, and criminal impersonation.
12. Image urls
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13. Want more urban legends?
Click here to view Part One!
Part One
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