Real Horror Stories

1. 9 real-life horror stories of people who disappeared and
were never found
These stories, taken from the files of the Charley Project,
are chilling reading.
The most terrifying stories out there are often true. And the best versions of those
are the ones where the answer can never truly be known. Why else do Jack the
Ripper and the Zodiac Killer occupy such outsize places in our collective
unconscious?
The Charley Project is a database that catalogs people who have disappeared
without a trace. The site is a great resource and repository for modern cases, but
if you look at its database chronologically, you will find cases from far earlier in the

2. 20th century that will likely never be solved, simply because all involved have
passed away.
It's these cases — from an older America where a disappearance was less likely to
turn into a mass media sensation — that haunt the memory the most. They're a
record of a time when so-called "stranger danger" wasn't a well-known topic, or
when a woman could run a business selling kidnapped children to the rich.
Here are a handful of the best historical disappearances contained in the Charley
Project's archives.
1) The Martin Family (Oregon, 1958)
Some of the best details in stories like these have to do with the lives of people
the disappeared left behind. What actually happened to the Martin family isn't
much of a mystery — they likely drove off the road on the way home, their car
plunging into the river below — but the evocative snapshots of a life never
resumed make this entry particularly eerie. It highlights all the mundane details of
life that might flash before your own eyes in the instant everything changes.
2) Bobby Dunbar (Louisiana, 1912)
Fans of This American Life will recognize this story, as it was the center of one of
the show's best episodes. When young Bobby Dunbar, just 4 years old, wandered
off from his family on a group outing, he was never seen again. It's possible he fell
from a railroad trestle and drowned. It's also possible he was abducted by a
"strange man" who was seen lurking in the area. But we'll likely never know,
because authorities thought they found Bobby Dunbar — and didn't realize it was
another child entirely (who simply stepped into Bobby's life) until 2004, long after
it would have been possible to solve the case.
3) Billy Gaffney (New York, 1927)
When 4-year-old Billy Gaffney was left to play with a 3-year-old friend in the

3. hallway of his Brooklyn apartment building for just a few moments, the two boys
disappeared. The 3-year-old was eventually found on the roof of the apartment
building, and he said the "boogey-man," an elderly gentlemen with a gray
mustache, had spirited Billy away. Serial killer Albert Fish (who fits the
boogey-man description) confessed to Billy's murder years later, but Billy's
remains have yet to be found.
4) Mary Moroney (Illinois, 1930)
Mary Moroney, just 2, is an example of a recurring motif in the Charley Project’s
archives: families desperate for cheap child care during the Great Depression who
simply trusted the wrong person. Moroney disappeared after her parents allowed
her to spend a day with a woman who called herself Julia Otis. A woman
purporting to be Otis’s cousin later wrote to the family to say Otis was “love
hungry” after the loss of a husband and child and that she would care for Mary.
Mary has never been found and would be in her 80s today. She may still be alive
and have no idea who she is.
5) Georgia Weckler (Wisconsin, 1947)
The sad story of the disappearance of Georgia Weckler, 8, is haunting for one
specific reason: "Curiously, prior to her disappearance, Georgia had made several
remarks indicating that she especially feared being kidnapped." What prompted
this, we'll likely never know.
6) Evelyn Hartley (Wisconsin, 1953)
The disappearance of Evelyn Hartley is straight out of a horror movie. The
teenager was babysitting one evening when she didn't call to check in with her
parents at the appointed time. Her father went to check on her and found a
completely locked house with the lights and radio still on — and no Evelyn inside.
Signs of a struggle and forced entry led to a desperate search for the girl, but she
was never found. Pools of blood that may have belonged to Evelyn, as well as
eyewitness accounts of a girl who might have been her, make this story all the
more mysterious.

4. 7) Bruce Kremen (California, 1960)
Bruce Kremen disappeared while attending camp. He was playing with a few other
boys just a short distance from his group, when he became separated from them
and was never seen again. Initially believing him to be lost in the San Gabriel
Mountains, authorities mounted a massive search, but were unable to find either
the boy or his remains. Now, however, authorities believe him to have come in
contact with Mack Ray Edwards, one of America’s least known yet most prolific
serial killers, who worked on highway construction and perhaps buried the
remains of his victims beneath the asphalt, where they would never be found.
8) Marjorie West (Pennsylvania, 1938)
The West family went out after church for an outing in the country, one that
involved Marjorie, 4, and her 11-year-old sister going to pick wildflowers. The
sister went to talk to their parents, and Marjorie disappeared from the middle of a
wide-open field. This might seem like a standard-issue kidnapping story save for
the fact that Marjorie's life might well have intersected with Georgia Tann, the
woman who ran the Tennessee Children's Home Society. Praised for her ability to
find homes for children who needed them, Tann actually abducted more than
1,200 children and then placed them with rich families in far-off states like
California — often for a hefty fee. If Marjorie did somehow meet Tann or
someone who worked with her, she could be alive today and unaware of her true
identity.
9) The Sodder children (West Virginia, 1945)
By far the eeriest story in the Charley Project archives is that of the five Sodder
children, who all disappeared under suspicious circumstances on Christmas Eve
night. The children (five out of 10 siblings) asked their parents if they might stay
up and play with their new toys, rather than go directly to bed. Their parents
agreed and turned in for the night, and a series of strange events transpired.
First, the phone rang, the children's mother answered, and the voice on the other
end asked for someone the mother had never heard of. When she said so, the
voice laughed and hung up. The mother later realized all of the lights in the house

5. were on, the shades were drawn, and the doors were unlocked. She awakened
again by a sound on the roof, and then she woke up for the final time at 1:30 am
with the realization that the house was on fire. She, her husband, and their other
five children got out, but the five children who had asked to stay up late never
emerged from the inferno. When their father went to climb his ladder up into
their bedrooms on the second floor, he could not find it. It was later found
dragged away from the house.
The official conclusion was that the children had died in the house fire, but the
Sodders never stopped believing their kids were still alive, right up until the two
parents died. And they were encouraged by a strange photograph mailed to them
in the '60s, purporting to show one of their sons as a grown adult. Did the Sodder
children die in a fire set by never-caught perpetrators? Perhaps. But the
tantalizing thought that they might have been kidnapped — might still, indeed, be
alive, perhaps in Italy — has kept some sliver of hope that this strange case might
find resolution.