54 True Horror Stories That Will Give You Nightmares

"A few years ago my boss went on holiday for a couple of weeks to Spain. Mid-way through the holiday he got a phone call from the police informing him that his sister had [passed away] in a fire in her flat. So he rushes back home early, deals with the police and the [passing] and everything.

My employers told him to take some time off to grieve, which he duly did. When he came back to work on a Monday morning a few weeks later, we invited him into our coffee room to talk and offer him our sympathies and support. About half an hour later he excuses himself to start work.

He walks into his office, sits down at his desk, turns on his computer, and checks to see if there are any answer phone messages. And the very first message that plays is his sister, screaming down the phone "Help me! Help me! I'm trapped I can't breathe..."

Still sends chills down my spine to think about it. As you can imagine, he was pretty traumatized."

“My grandfather told me this story about how one time he was sitting in a chair in front of the house when he heard his wife repeatedly calling him from inside the house. The thing is, my grandmother passed away a few years before that. But he told me that the voice was so pressing that he actually got up to look inside the house, and as soon as he got inside he heard a loud crash behind him and turned around to see that the chair he has been sitting in moments ago had been crushed by the cast iron gutter that fell on it.

If he didn’t come inside the house he would have probably been seriously injured. Every time I think about it, it sends chills down my spine.”

In his adolescence, Ira Einhorn gave himself the moniker "The Unicorn," his German last name translated into English. When he slayed his ex-girlfriend Holly Maddux, Einhorn was an environmentalist and supporter of the anti-war movement.

After leaving Einhorn's Philadelphia residence in early September 1977 to collect her belongings, Maddux vanished. When authorities questioned Maddux's ex-boyfriend about her whereabouts a few weeks after the disappearance, he said she had disappeared en route to the local co-op. 18 months later, the police discovered Maddux's partially mummified body in a trunk in Einhorn's closet after neighbors complained to the authorities about a foul stench. Einhorn fled to Europe a few days before he was set to go on trial.

As he had previously been arraigned, Einhorn was tried, found guilty, and given a sentence in absentia. Despite this, Einhorn spent 23 years in France and even got married while deftly avoiding extradition. In 2002, the American government was able to repatriate him and re-convict him. Defending himself, he stated that the CIA had slayed his ex-girlfriend and had set him up. Einhorn was convicted and served a life sentence without the chance of parole until he passed away in prison in 2020.

“I was an RA in a dorm for two years in college. A girl who had been having stress issues finally snapped. She was found by someone in a dark stairwell (I was in an older dorm, circa 1887, so there were plenty of nooks and crannies). By the time she was found she had already torn out over half of her hair and had eaten it. She just kept on saying, “I just need a haircut,” in a perfectly normal voice. It took 6 of us and the police sedating her to finally get her strapped down to an ambulance gurney.

To this day I can’t forget how powerful she was. She couldn’t have weighed over 120 pounds, yet she had this sort of superhuman ability to rip her arms away to tear out another clump of hair and stuff it into her mouth. All with a perfectly straight face.”

“Driving home with a buddy from the high school summer job at the local amusement park. It’s about 3 in the morning, and there is no traffic at all. Get stuck at the red light that never ends and while we are waiting, another car pulls up next to us.

A big black hearse, in immaculate condition, with a clown in the driver’s seat, with full makeup and costume on.

He never moved, didn’t look at us, nothing; just stared straight ahead the whole time.”

In September 2014, a Utah boy discovered his parents and three brothers deceased after arriving home. The Salt Lake Tribune reported finding a "to-do list" in the house, which included tasks like "feed the pets," and "find someone to watch the house" written on it. The found list gave the impression that the parents were preparing to go on vacation. However, there was no suicide note, no warning that they would do this, and no explanation. After autopsies, it was revealed that the five family members consumed a lethal concoction of drugs that September day.

However, why and how the parents and kids consumed the drugs remained a mystery. Sometime later, police revealed more terrifying information about the case. According to family members' statements, the parents' motivations included believing that the world's end was near and frequently spoke of "leaving this world." Apparently, scared of the apocalypse, the parents poisoned the kids and themselves.

On November 10, 1923, Nathan Leopold committed to travel six hours from Chicago to the University of Michigan. Accompanied by his friend and lover, Richard Loeb, they intended to break into Loeb's former fraternity. But all they had taken was a typewriter, a few watches, some penknives, and around $80 in loose change.

Leopold was agitated on the way back to Chicago because the robbery had been a big effort for a small payoff. When Leopold finally stopped complaining, Loeb began to discuss his idea of committing the 'perfect' crime. While they continued to travel through the country roads toward Chicago, they broke into several homes and started a few fires, but none of their crimes had been published in the media. Loeb desired to commit a crime that would create a huge buzz - abduction and homicide of a child.

After plotting their plan through the winter, in May, they kidnapped a child they knew had a wealthy father who would pay the ransom. Following the abduction, they beat the boy's skull with a chisel, jammed a rag down his throat, and disposed of the body. When the two returned to the city, Leopold dropped the ransom letter into a post box. However, their plan to execute the "perfect" crime failed. The following day, a passerby spotted the child's lifeless body, and soon the police traced Leopold by finding the eyeglasses he dropped near the body.

On May 31, ten days after the homicide, both young men came clean and revealed to the state's attorney how they had slayed Bobby Franks. Nathan Leopold confessed that they had killed Bobby only for the thrill of it. At the time of the murder, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold were 18 and 19 years old. They were sentenced to 99 years in prison.

In 2007, ABC News reported on a series of ominously precise grave threats made to different families via cell phones. The families claim that the calls, which threatened to slay their children, pets, and grandparents, came in anytime at night. According to one family, the callers seemed to know when the kids left for school and when they were home alone. Families also received voicemails with recordings of their private conversations. According to the victims, the caller was aware of their activities and what they were wearing.

The family of Courtney Kuykendall, 16, said that her cell phone started sending text messages to her friends by itself in February, which is when the family's problems began. The Kuykendall family also reported a caller having a scratchy voice and threatening to slice their throats, which continued for months. Another victim reported receiving a call from an unknown caller saying they preferred lemons when the woman was slicing limes in her kitchen. The police couldn't find the perpetrators.

Between 1978 and 1991, American serial killer and s*x offender Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, monikered as the Milwaukee Cannibal, slayed and dismembered seventeen men and boys aged 14 to 33. Dahmer dismembered and kept their organs and bones in his home and used them for carnal pleasure.

Sources claim that Dahmer was fascinated with deceased animals from a young age. When he was four years old, Dahmer may have noticed his father removing animal corpses from the house's foundation. This may have sparked his mania with deceased animals. Dahmer referred to animal bones as his "fiddlesticks," and was "oddly pleased" by the sound the bones made.

In 1991, after one of his potential victims escaped, Dahner was captured and admitted to his crimes. Despite being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and psychotic disorder, Dahmer was named to be legally sane at his trial. Three years later, a fellow inmate fatally beat him.

On September 21, 2022, Netflix released a 10-part biographical crime drama series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Soon, Netflix's dramatization of Dahmer's murderous rampage in Milwaukee received a massive backlash from the public and people whose relatives were butchered by Dahmer.

Around 1980, a single mother of a toddler, Dorothy Jane Scott, started getting threatening phone calls at work. She paid the calls little attention until one night when the ominous voice on the other end of the line instructed her to look outside. On her car's windscreen was a single withered rose. The stalker would alternate between declaring his love for her and making threats of physical harm. The caller's voice sounded familiar, but Dorothy couldn't place who it was. And she never got to find out.

At a staff meeting, Dorothy noticed that one of her coworkers appeared unwell. She and another coworker took the man to a neighboring hospital. Dorothy went outside to the parking lot while her two coworkers waited for the prescription to be filled. She wasn't seen again after that.

According to her coworkers' testimony, they went outside to meet her in the parking lot after she didn't return. They suspected a problem had occurred with her son when they spotted her car rushing away as soon as they left the building.

Neither her son nor anyone else ever saw or heard from Dorothy again. Her burned remains were discovered at a construction site four years later. The discovery of a collection of dog bones next to her remains added even more confusion to the case. No one has ever been found guilty or detained on suspicion. The caller has never been located.

The late 1800s saw the homicides of at least 36 women by Moroccan shoemaker and trader Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi. Monikered as the “Marrakesh Arch-Killer”, he hosted dinner parties for affluent women at his home, where he would drug them and then decapitate them with a dagger while they were asleep. He robbed them of their possessions and money and buried them. Authorities in Morocco recovered the remains of 20 mutilated people in a deep trench beneath his store, and another 16 were located in the garden outside. Mesfewi admitted that he slayed for money, often very modest sums.

In 1906, Mesfewi was eventually arrested and executed. Mesfewi was initially ordered to be crucified. However, the sentence was then altered to beheading in response to public outrage. Ultimately, it was decided that he should suffer. Every day for four weeks, he was carried from his cell onto the market square and whipped 10 times with a rod made of prickly acacia. On June 11, 1906, Mesfewi was to be walled up alive in the Marrakesh marketplace bazaar. Mesfewi went silent on the third day, and many people in the crowd expressed their rage that he perished too quickly.

The creepy, old-fashioned porcelain doll with a Victorian appearance, red lips, rosy cheeks, and blue eyes, referring to Annabelle, may come to mind when one thinks of a haunted doll. However, it's unlikely that anyone still keeps one in their house. Unless that house is Warren's Occult Museum in Monroe, Conn. However, those dolls are not the only ones getting possessed.

Disney's Frozen Elsa doll, given as a Christmas 2013 gift in the Houston region, made headlines when it appeared to start acting paranormal. For two years, the doll was working as it was technically supposed to, reciting phrases from the movie and singing Let It Go when a button was pressed. In 2015, it started randomly alternating between English and Spanish languages.

The woman who purchased the doll claimed that, even with its switch off, the doll would start speaking and singing randomly. In December 2019, the family chose to get rid of the Elsa doll. Despite tossing it in the garbage, the family eventually discovered it hidden inside a bench in their living room weeks later. Following the discovery, Elsa started to speak and sing solely in Spanish, soon after which the family made another attempt to scrap the Elsa doll. The doll was double-bagged and put at the bottom of the garbage can, which was soon picked up by waste collectors.

The family left for a trip sometime later, but when they were back, the haunted doll was waiting in their backyard. In their last attempt, the family sent Elsa through the mail to a Minnesotan family friend, who fastened the possessed doll to the front bumper of his truck. According to the woman's most recent update in October 2020, the doll hasn't returned to Houston. Yet.

Yang Xinhai, dubbed the "Monster Killer" by the Chinese media, is thought to be the worst serial killer in China's modern history. From 1999 to 2003, he was accountable for more than 67 homicides and 23 r*pes.

The homicides committed by Yang occurred between 1999 and 2003. He would break into his victims' homes at night, slaying every person inside - primarily farmers - with axes, hammers, and shovels, often an entire family. He always wore brand-new clothing and oversized shoes. In one horrific homicide case, Xinhai forced the victim's husband and their six-year-old daughter to watch as he r*ped the woman. He slayed them afterward.

At the time of his arrest, various media sources claimed that Yang's motivation for the homicides was revenge against society due to a bad breakup. According to rumors, his girlfriend broke up with him due to his past convictions for r*pe and stealing. On February 14, 2004, Xinhai was executed by firing squad.

In 1946, in Texarkana, four horrifying crimes occurred in less than three months. On the Texas side of the town, three violent incidents targeted young people parked in lovers' lanes. The fourth, on the Arkansas side, was the shooting of an elderly couple in their remote farmstead. After the shooting spree, five individuals were lethally shot, and three suffered critical injuries. The cops received very little information from the distraught survivors.

The homicides shook the community to its grounds. While husbands were away on business trips, women packed up their belongings, took their kids, and checked into the hotel. Others devised security systems in the style of Rube Goldberg by connecting pots and pans to wire laid throughout their property. Normally unarmed citizens placed pallets on the floor so their kids could lie next to them as they slept with loaded pistols. Texarkana Gazette dubbed the assailant the “Phantom Killer”.

Several books about the case have been written, and a highly fictionalized film called "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" was made in 1976. In 2014, a remake of the original movie was released. The Texas Department of Public Safety once referred to Texarkana's serial killings as "the number one unsolved murder case in Texas history."

"I used to work in a hospital (in the IT department) and we did a number of overnight rollouts, as well as on-call work/response when issues occurred overnight. Many weird things happened or appeared to happen.

The thing that struck me as oddest, was when I saw the coroner running at full speed down the corridor, in the opposite direction, towards the morgue. This guy, an older guy in his 50s or so, was going at full speed! I had never seen him above an amble before, but this time he was really going for it. As he got close to me he yelled "Out of the way - I got another live one!".

I am not sure what was more disturbing, the fact that he was dealing with what I could only assume was a [deceased] body that now appeared to be alive or the fact he said 'another.'"

Robert Hansen was a reliable husband, father, and respected part of Anchorage society. The monikered “Butcher Baker”, however, held many sinister secrets. Between 1971 and 1983, he abducted, assaulted, and slayed at least 17 women aged 16 to 41.

Hansen is thought to have commenced homicides around 1972. His modus operandi involved picking up a s*x worker in his car and, while holding her at gunpoint, driving her to his house, where he would r*pe her. He would then take the victim to a remote location where he would "hunt" her like a wild animal before finalizing the demise.

Hansen admitted that he took pleasure in using a knife and a gun to prey on his victims. Additionally, he acknowledged that he had little regard for women or their feelings. Hansen considered them to be just animals, things to be slain and hunted. In 1983, he was arrested, found guilty, and given a 461-year prison term with no chance of parole. He passed away in 2014 at 75 from natural causes due to lingering health conditions.

The homicide of Sylvia Likens was dubbed the worst crime ever perpetrated in Indiana. 50 years later, the title remains.

On October 26, 1965, police discovered Sylvia Likens' malnourished body sprawled on a filthy mattress in the Indianapolis home of 37-year-old Gertrude Baniszewski, mother of seven and the mind behind the girl's horrific demise. The body was covered in more than 150 wounds, including burns and cuts. Reportedly, Likens' body was used as a practice dummy for judo flips and punches, carving words into her stomach with a needle, and many more vicious attacks.

Sylvia and her sister Jenny were housed with Baniszewski for $20 weekly by their carnival-worker parents. However, Baniszewski beat the females, largely Sylvia, when the checks were late. Why neither Jenny nor Sylvia sought assistance before things got out of hand is, in fact, one of the unsolved mysteries surrounding the case. However, Baniszewski wasn't the only one responsible for Sylvia's demise. A large group of local kids watched or participated in the vicious attacks, along with some of Baniszewski's kids, some as young as 10.

Even more astonishing is that all the criminals involved eventually got off on their misdeeds, some following laughably short prison terms.

In February 1957, in Philadelphia, a college student discovered a young boy's remains in the woods and called the police to report his horrifying find. Visibly severely beaten, the boy was found unresponsive inside an old bassinet box. No one knew who the young victim was.

Numerous people came forward with information about the crime. Still, the police could not verify any of their claims, and many theories were dismissed. However, the media and police have shown much interest in two theories. Each one has been thoroughly examined.

In February 2002, a woman, only known as "Martha," brought forward one of the main case theories. Martha asserted that the boy named Jonathan was bought from his biological parents in the summer of 1954 by her violent mother. She claimed that the boy experienced physical and carnal torture inside the home. Martha knew of information that had not been made public, raising the police's attention to her statement.

The woman claimed that the young boy had baked beans just before being battered to demise, supporting the autopsy findings. She also said that he had been showered just before he passed away, which was consistent with the coroner's discovery of water-pruned fingertips. Although Martha's testimony appeared consistent with the evidence, her extensive history of mental illness rendered her an unreliable witness.

The case stays unsolved and is open to this date. The boy remains unidentified, and his grave in Philadelphia at Ivy Hill Cemetery has a large headstone bearing the words "America's Unknown Child."

In 1965, Fred and Edwina Rogers and their adult son Charles were residing in a peaceful area of Houston. The family tended to keep to themselves, especially with Charles's antisocial and reclusive behavior. In fact, many neighbors were unaware that Charles lived at home with his parents as they never saw him around.

A family member inquired that the Houston police check on his elderly aunt and uncle after not hearing from the Rogers for several days. The patrolmen saw food on the dining room table but could not find Fred or Edwina. When they opened the fridge, many meat packages were neatly stacked on top of one another. Two human heads were then discovered in the vegetable bin. When more police officers arrived on the scene, they began to remove the bags of severed body parts from the refrigerator. They were Fred and Edwina Rogers' remains. Autopsies revealed that Fred had sustained a severe head injury from a claw hammer, while Edwina had been severely battered and shot. Fred's genitalia had been cut out, and his eyes had been gouged out. The internal organs of the pair had been flushed down the toilet.

There was no sign of Charles. He is the only suspect in the case as of this writing. Charles was ruled deceased in 1975 because no sign of him could ever be located. The case has never been solved.

American serial killer Donald Henry Gaskins boldly proclaimed to have stabbed, shot, drowned, and poisoned hundreds of people. Due to his small frame, his friends and relatives referred to him as "pee wee." He was under 130 pounds and about 5'2" tall.

Despite asserting that he slayed between 100 and 110 people, investigators never discovered concrete proof of the homicides. Ten of the 15 victims Gaskins was verified to have slain during his lifetime were under 25 years old, and five were underage. After attempting self-harm in prison, Gaskins was executed in the electric chair on September 6, 1991.