Who doesn’t love Halloween? The screams and giggles of trick-or-treaters, the plastic skeletons hanging ready to scare those who are near, the fun and the frights of fancy dress parties. But sometimes, it can go too far. Here are 13 sinister stories from Halloween to remind you that humans are more terrifying than any haunted house.
1 – Peter Stumpp was a German serial killer in the 1500s. He killed at least 18 people and was nicknamed The Werewolf of Bedburg. Stumpp was executed on 31st October 1589 in a rather hideous way. Stumpp was placed on a wooden wheel, and red-hot pincers were used to tear flesh from his body. His bones were broken with the blunt side of an axe, and then he was beheaded and burnt on a fire. I suppose it’s one way of making sure he’s dead.
2 – On 31st October 1981, Sister Tadea Benz was found dead in a Texas convent; the autopsy showed that the nun had been sexually abused, stabbed and strangled. Johnny Frank Garrett was convicted and sentenced to death. His last words were, ‘I’d like to thank my family for loving me and taking care of me. The rest of the world can kiss my ass’.
3 – 21-year-old Karl Jackson and his partner went to pick her son up from a Halloween party on 31st October 1998. While waiting, a group of teenagers threw eggs at their car. Karl stepped out to admonish them and ask them to stop. Tragically, one of the teenagers, 17-year-old Curtis Sterling, pulled out a gun and shot Karl in the head, killing him instantly. Sterling is currently serving 20 years, and every year, on Halloween, he receives a card with the message ‘I’m glad you’re still there’.
4 – Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris were known as The Toolbox Killers. They would pick up female hitchhikers and torture them with various tools; they would even take photos of their victims during the horrific ordeal. In 1979, 16-year-old Shirley Ledford was leaving a Halloween party and was offered a lift by Bittaker and Norris. They tortured her before killing and dumping her body in a stranger’s garden; she was their last victim before being caught.
5 – In 1957, Peter and Betty Fabiano gave sweets to the last trick-or-treaters and retired to bed. Around midnight, their doorbell rang, and Peter went to answer it. A woman was standing on the doorstep, wearing a mask and a paper bag over her hand; she raised the hand with the paper bag on it and pulled the trigger on a gun hidden inside. She killed him instantly with a shot to the chest. Joan Rebel was arrested soon after; it appeared that Joan had been having an affair with Betty and had persuaded Goldyne Pizer to kill Peter on her behalf.
6 – In 2010, Devon Griffin stopped out for the night, went to church the following day and returned home on Halloween night. He walked into the house and found his stepfather slaughtered in bed. Devon alerted the police, who also discovered the bodies of Devon’s mother and brother. Devon’s stepbrother, William Liske, had shot his father five times, beaten his older stepbrother with a hammer, and then sexually assaulted and shot his stepmother. Liske killed himself in his jail cell in 2015.
7 – Ronald Clark O’Bryan was a man in a lot of debt. In 1974, he took his children trick or treating on Halloween night; when they returned home, he gave his 8-year-old son, Timothy, a Pixy Stix. The child began vomiting and died soon after. It turned out that O’Bryan had laced the sweet with potassium cyanide after taking out a life insurance policy on his son; he was hoping to clear his debts with the payout. Nicknamed The Candyman and The Man Who Killed Halloween, he was executed on 31st March 1984 via lethal injection.
8 – On 31st October 2004, Leslie Mazzara, Adriane Insogna and Lauren Meanza finished handing out sweets to trick-or-treaters and went to bed around 11 p.m. Lauren woke up to screaming coming from upstairs; she panicked and ran out of the house leaving her friends behind. Adriane and Ledlie, who were just 26 years old, were stabbed to death. Eric Copple confessed to the murders but has never given a motive.
9 – In the early hours of Halloween 1981, Ronald Sisman and Elizabeth Platzman were in their apartment when they were savagely beaten and shot, execution style. The investigation took a strange turn when a prison informant told them that one of their fellow inmates had predicted the crime. The inmate was David Berkowitz, The Son of Sam killer. Berkowitz had told him that the cult he was involved in had planned to carry out a ritual slaying on Halloween in the area where it had happened. The murders are still unsolved.
10 – In 2011, 18-year-old Taylor Van Diest dressed as a zombie and met her friends; they wanted to go trick or treating on Halloween one last time before they were ‘too old’. She never met her friends and was soon found by a set of railroad tracks, clinging to life; sadly, the next day, she died. It was discovered that on the short walk to meet her friends, she had sent a message to her boyfriend saying she was being ‘creeped on’. Matthew Foerster was convicted for her murder; he had bludgeoned her, strangled her and left her for dead.
11 – In 2005, a street in Delaware had been decorated for Halloween; there was one standout decoration, a life-size body. Hanging from a tree, 15 feet in the air, it was visible to everyone passing by, and they all thought it was an excellent Halloween prop. Except it wasn’t. It was the corpse of a 42-year-old woman who had committed suicide, hanging herself from the tree.
12 – Wes Craven’s Scream spawned many sequels, parodies, and a TV series and, of course, introduced us to the now famous Ghostface mask, which was worn by the film’s killers and many trick-or-treaters since. On Halloween night, 2013, 19-year-old Anthony Seaberry was approached by someone wearing a Ghostface mask. Suddenly, the person shot Anthony and escaped into the night. The murderer has never been solved.
13 – It was Halloween morning, 1975, when the body of 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found; she had been beaten to death with a golf club. It took 25 years to convict Michael Skakel for the murder; he would have been 15 when the killing happened. Skakel was eventually released, and the conviction was vacated. There are many theories about who the killer is, but the case is still unsolved.
Sweet dreams and happy Halloween!
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