27 Wild, Shocking, And Unsolved True Crime Stories From People's Hometowns

"I am actually from the place where the home base was for the NXIVM sex cult. It's wild that all this stuff happened in my backyard."

We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about a wild, shocking, or unsolved crime that was committed in their hometowns. Here are their most chilling stories:

Warning: Graphic and disturbing content ahead including mentions of abuse.

1. The shocking DeFeo family murders in Amityville, Long Island, New York.

Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

"I live a few minutes away from the 'Amityville Horror House.' I pass by it frequently. That part of Amityville resides in the incorporated area and is very quiet.

While the haunting has proven to be a hoax, I feel it’s absolutely wild that one guy, Ronald DeFeo Jr., killed his whole family — mother, father, two brothers, and two sisters — the way that he did. No one knows to this day what the motive was for the murders, and DeFeo Jr. died in 2021. 

We will never know why it happened. The house itself has been changed on the outside as well as the street number, and it’s always on and off the market."

—reallityfades

2. The horrifying discovery of the Vernon County Jane Doe from Westby, Wisconsin.

WKBT TV / Via youtube.com

"This is my hometown area. A bunch of small communities, typical rural Wisconsin. Nothing much happens around here. But on May 4, 1984, a body was discovered outside Westby, Wisconsin. She was unable to be identified because her hands had been cut off. This case happened four months before I was born but has always intrigued me. Who was this woman? Why were her hands cut off? Likely to prevent identification but perhaps a more sinister motive. 

Theories are numerous, including one about it being a mob hit from Chicago. Her body has been exhumed at least once to gather DNA and pollen samples. The most recent update is that she may have been from Arizona or New Mexico based on the pollen samples. Of course, this brings up new questions. Why was she so far from home? Who was she with? Was she visiting someone in Wisconsin?"

—terilynn0909

3. The infamous NXIVM sex cult from Clifton Park, New York.

Amy Luke / Getty Images

"I am actually from the place where the home base was for the NXIVM sex cult. I know several people who had encounters with them. One person that lived in the area where they stayed saw Keith (Raniere) walking with women all the time outside. One of my co-workers was invited to one of their seminars — they left because they said it felt 'cult-y.' Another person worked where they held their big celebration for Keith's birthday and knows staff members that kept walking in on several of the members having sex in random parts of the facility. It's wild that all this stuff happened in my backyard."

—togetherinperis

4. The abductions, and eventual rescue, of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight in Cleveland, Ohio.

Bill Pugliano / Getty Images, Handout / Getty Images

"They were held captive for nearly 10 years by Ariel Castro. The POS died by suicide in his cell.

In the decade they were missing, friends, family, and neighbors never stopped looking; never gave up hope. On the west side of Cleveland, businesses were plastered with 'Missing' flyers and posters the entire time they were abducted. They were never forgotten.

On May 6, 2013, neighbors Charles Ramsey and Angel Cordero heard Amanda scream for help and kicked the door in, freeing her and her then-6-year-old daughter. Amanda called 911, and responding officers freed Michelle and Gina.

I was at a mall in a suburb, southwest of Cleveland city proper, when the news broke of their escape. It was such a surreal feeling, you could hear a pin drop when all of the adults knew what was happening before the tears started flowing. They were 'our' missing girls in NE Ohio."

—stephaniev23

5. The gruesome death of Addie Jewett at Eastwood Lake in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Sophie Jin / Getty Images/EyeEm

"My hometown is a small-ish college city in North Carolina, and my parents’ home is on a lake, which has an official name but that most folks call 'Grandma’s Lake.' I used to always bug my dad as to why, but he refused to tell me for years.

In 1944, an elderly woman (Jewett) went missing, leaving a substantial inheritance to her grandson, who was going to college in our town. She was eventually found in the lake with cinder blocks tied to her body. 

Her grandson was already under suspicion due to the inheritance, but when he took his car in to be serviced, the mechanic noticed a foul odor coming from the trunk, and investigation found blood and white hairs in the trunk — the grandson hadn’t noticed because he allegedly had no sense of smell! 

Although the grandson denied the accusations, he was arrested and convicted of the murder. And while there’s no evidence he dismembered the body, it’s common for older kids to tell younger ones that he chopped her up and you can fish up body parts!"

—keltonh

6. The anonymous Circleville letter writer who terrorized the people of Circleville, Ohio.

NBC / Via youtube.com

From the late '70s up until the '90s, an unknown person began writing creepy letters to people throughout the town of Circleville. These letters contained things like information about affairs, threats, and other eerie personal details. 

"This all happened long before my birth, but the timeline and theories are fascinating. No charges have ever been made and the Pickaway County sheriff's office considers the case closed."

—lieslannas

7. The shocking case of Candy Montgomery — a woman accused of murdering her lover's wife (and friend) with an axe in Wylie, Texas.

WFAA / Via youtube.com

"I am from a suburban Dallas town about 15 minutes from where Candy Montgomery axed her lover’s wife to death in the '80s. Whenever we were driving down 75 through Dallas and passed the shady Como Motel, my mom would mention that’s where Candy and her neighbor conducted their affair. I was WAY too young to fully understand it at the time! Now that there are several streaming adaptations of the crime with Jessica Biel and another with Elizabeth Olsen, the story is much more real!"

—Anonymous

8. The unbelievable "Miss Irresistible" murders involving teenagers in Clear Lake City, Texas.

ABC News / Via youtube.com

"Christine Paolilla and her boyfriend, Christopher Snider, shot and killed four people, the same year she was voted 'Miss Irresistible' at my high school, Clear Lake High School. Paolilla had been bullied most of her life for having alopecia and was befriended and taken under the wing of two of her victims before winning the moniker.

On July 18, 2003, they went to Tiffany Rowell's home in Clear Lake, also at the home were Rachael Koloroutis, Marcus Precella, and Adelbert Sanchez. She and Snider planned to steal drugs that were kept at the house, but Snider reportedly got into an argument with Precella which led to the shootings. All four victims were shot multiple times. Rachael Koloroutis attempted to crawl to a phone to call 911 after she was shot, but Paolilla struck her in the head multiple times with the butt of a 38-caliber revolver, bashing in her skull. Koloroutis and Rowell were both shot in the crotch."

—gabbywhat

9. The case of Pazuzu Algarad, a man with satanist beliefs who killed two people in the suburbs of Winston Salem, North Carolina.

FOX8 WGHP / Via youtube.com

"The most Earth-shattering story I’ve ever heard about this area would be the Pazuzu Algarad case. A man began going by Pazuzu, after the demon of southeastern wind and lord of locusts, had multiple 'fiancés' and was found guilty of killing two men, both found in shallow graves in his backyard. 

One of the men had been held captive in his basement for days before his death. Pazuzu also boasted that he was a cannibal, but it was never confirmed if he actually ingested anyone. 

His house, which was deemed uninhabitable due to filth, was demolished in 2015. He died by suicide in prison before his case went to trial."

—Anonymous

10. The West Mesa murders — the killing of 11 women — in Albuquerque, New Mexico which remains unsolved.

KRQE / Via youtube.com

"In 2009, the bodies of 11 women were discovered buried in the desert. The first victim was located by the owner of a dog who dug up a femur while on a walk. All 11 victims have been identified and were reported missing between 2001 and 2005. They ranged in age from 15 to 32 and are believed to be linked to a sex trafficking ring that operates in the Southwest. One victim was pregnant. 

In 2006, a residential development began being built in the area, which probably deterred the so-called 'West Mesa Bone Collector' serial killer from continuing to use the site. 

Satellite imagery from 2003 to 2005 shows tire tracks and disturbed soil in the area. There are multiple suspects, but the lack of forensic evidence and witnesses means the case is still unsolved. The investigator in charge of the case, Ida Lopez, suspects there are at least 15 more victims — reported missing between 2001 and 2006 — buried in a mass grave that has not been located to date."

—Anonymous

11. The case of Marybeth Tinning, whose nine children died suspiciously under her care in Schenectady, New York.

Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

"Lived in Schenectady, across the street from the house where a woman named Marybeth Tinning allegedly murdered eight of her children (she was convicted for the murder of one). She poisoned them one by one over a span of several years and later convinced everyone they died of SIDS, including her husband. Read the Wikipedia entry at your own peril; it is truly one of the saddest things you will ever read."

—bbomb2112

12. The unfathomable case of Charles Stuart who murdered his family in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ira Wyman / Sygma via Getty Images

"Our neighbors were the Stuarts — as in Chuck and Carol. Chuck put a plan together to kill Carol who was very pregnant with their first child, a son they were going to name Christopher. He shot her and himself on their way home from a birthing class in January 1989 and then blamed it on a Black man. This caused the city of Boston to come under scrutiny for their super racist practices of stop and search — like, they stopped and searched random Black men for MONTHS. Finally, they arrested a guy who was a bad dude, but certainly not guilty of murder. Had Chuck's brother (who was conned into helping him) not gone to the police with Carol's wedding ring to prove the truth, the accused man would have been executed. Once the jig was up, Chuck jumped from the Tobin Bridge, and his body was recovered a few hours later."

—samanthah4d80e78de

13. The violent unsolved murder of Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor, also known as "Tent Girl," in Georgetown, Kentucky.

LEX18 / Via youtube.com

"In May of 1968, the naked and badly decomposed body of a woman was found in the woods in Georgetown, Kentucky. She died of a massive blow to the head and was wrapped in a tent. 

Unable to identify her, officials named her 'Tent Girl,' and she would be known as such for the next 30 years. She was buried in the Georgetown Cemetery, and her headstone bore that name. 

The son-in-law of the man who found her became obsessed with identifying her and spent close to 30 years trying to figure it out. Looking through websites, he came across a missing woman from 1967 in the next town over. Investigators ended up exhuming her body, and the DNA was a match. 

Her name was Bobbie Ann Taylor. Though no one was ever arrested for her murder, everyone suspected her husband, who was an impulsive, violent carnival worker that used tents exactly like the one she was in when she was found. He died before they could ever file charges."

—srd0129

14. The disappearance of Sofia Juarez in Kennewick, Washington, a case that had a recent lead on TikTok that sadly turned up cold.

KING 5 Seattle / Via youtube.com

"In 2003, a 4-year-old little girl named Sofia Juarez went missing not far from where my aunt lived. It was all over the news, our teachers talked about it at school, and it was pretty terrifying that no leads ever panned out. A few years ago, there was a TikTok that went viral, and the girl in the video said that she thought she might actually be Sofia... but she wasn't. The case has never been solved."

—kelsey33

15. The brutal murder of the Haines family by their son's friend in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

WGALTV / Via youtube.com

In 2007, Alec Kreider, who was 16 years old at the time, brutally murdered his classmate and friend Kevin Haines as well as Haines's parents, Thomas and Lisa. It was a month before Kreider was finally tracked down, arrested, and confessed to the killings. Kreider died by suicide before a re-sentencing hearing was scheduled.

"Before the suspect was found, everyone got alarms installed in their homes and were very watchful of their children. Turns out, while my mom was paranoid at home, my sister was sitting in class at school with the killer. "

—Anonymous

16. The DC sniper attacks, a series of coordinated shootings in the Washington, DC metro area that killed 17 people.

Getty Images

"My parents and I emigrated to the DMV area (DC, Maryland, Virginia) in late 2001 when I was 7, so everything was very new to us, and we barely spoke English. 

In early 2002, random shootings started erupting all over the DMV area. A handful of them were within a 10-minute radius of where we were staying. The killers; named the DC Snipers, were attacking people that were doing everyday things like pumping gas, taking in the groceries, and even mowing their lawns.

But no one knew how they were doing it. At this time, we did not have a car and had to walk 10 minutes to the nearest bus stop. My parents reminisce about how scared they were to even go to the grocery store. 

I remember my elementary school being on lockdown countless times while I was so confused. This was not the American dream we dreamt of."

—Anonymous

17. The Brown's Chicken murders in Palatine, Illinois that were solved thanks to one of the killer's ex-girlfriends.

Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

"My hometown is Palatine, a northwest suburb of Chicago. Back in 1993, two people robbed and killed seven employees at the local Brown's Chicken including the owners and several kids who went to the local high school. They were found in the freezer. 

Nine years later, Anne Lockett, the ex-girlfriend of one of the perpetrators came forward and implicated her boyfriend at the time, James Degorski, and his friend, Juan Luna. The local police later found DNA evidence of Juan Luna on a piece of fried chicken, and he subsequently confessed although said he was coerced. I was 8 at the time, but I remember the entire town being terrified after this. It was like someone ripped the blindfold off the entire community."

—Anonymous

18. The mysterious and upsetting death of a young girl named Sara Keesling in Riverside, California that didn't get enough attention.

Musah Annak / Getty Images/EyeEm

"Not scandalous or wild but definitely unsolved. The death of my childhood friend Sara Keesling in Riverside, California in 1988. 

Two weeks after her mother reported her missing, a hiker found her body partially buried under a pile of rotting garbage at a dump site in a remote part of town.

Despite the fact that she had clearly been dumped there, her death was ruled undetermined. It was barely mentioned in our local paper. She was 12 years old. To this day, her case is unsolved, and the sheriff’s office doesn’t care anymore now than they did then. It’s been almost 35 years, and it still haunts me."

—Anonymous

19. The Lane Bryant shooting — an unsolved mass murder and armed robbery at the retailer's location in Tinley Park, Illinois.

ABC 7 Chicago / Via youtube.com

"Fifteen years ago, five women — four customers and the store manager — were shot and killed at the Lane Bryant store in a popular strip mall. A part-time employee was also shot, but survived. 

The whole area plus surrounding neighborhoods went into lockdown, but the suspects were never identified. That Lane Bryant is no longer there, but we locals still call the shopping center 'Murder Mall.'"

—Anonymous

20. The grim murder of Shannon Varley in the Tri-Cities area of Washington believed to have ties to an infamous serial killer.

Smodj / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Varley was 20 years old when she was found shot dead and floating in a pond in 1975. The case remains unsolved.

"My father was involved in the search for Shannon Varley, in the Tri-Cities, Washington. Some believed she was a victim of Ted Bundy."

—velvetalex1325

21. The tragic case of Hasib Bin Golamrabbi who murdered his parents in San Jose, California.

KPIX / Via youtube.com

"In Silicon Valley in 2016, a young man (Hasib Bin Golamrabbi) and his brother were arrested for killing their parents. It was later determined the younger brother, who was a high schooler, had no part in the killings.

Allegedly, he lied in wait, shot his parents, and wrote strange messages on the walls to throw off the police. He later went to an anime convention out of town. No one knows why he did it; it’s believed to be a mix of resentment and greed for life insurance money. 

Golamrabbi tried bribing the prosecutor, tried to throw his brother under the bus, and represented himself in a crash and burn trial. He was found guilty. 

I didn’t know him, but I had mutual friends from the local community college. People were shocked. The parents were reported to be kind, generous people. I feel so bad for the younger brother for having to pick up the pieces of this tragedy."

—Anonymous

22. The mysterious death of respected professor Dr. Hueytzen J. Wu in Kingsville, Texas.

Liero / Getty Images/iStockphoto

"I’m from Kingsville, Texas, and in 2020, Dr. Hueytzen J. Wu, a professor at Texas A&M Kingsville, went missing from campus and was found a week later dead on Boca Chica Beach (coincidentally where Space X is) almost three hours away. He died from complications of diabetes since he’d been away from his meds for some time, but there were so many strange things that led up to his 'accidental' death that led many of us at TAMUK (Texas A&M Kingsville) to suspect foul play.

He was a nice man, quiet and respectful. I met him a few times when I was a student at TAMUK. I know people who didn’t believe for a second he left willingly. He wasn’t a fan of the beach, he rarely went anywhere without backup medication, he’d never acted erratically before, and the last time he was seen, he was just doing his usual business around campus."

—sweetpea95

23. The disappearance of a young woman named Dail Dinwiddie in Columbia, South Carolina, which still remains a mystery decades later.

CNN / Via youtube.com

"A young woman, Dail Dinwiddie, disappeared on September 24, 1992, in Columbia, South Carolina. She had been at a concert and got separated from her friends and was last seen walking toward a large intersection. She was last seen around 1:30 a.m. by a bouncer at a nearby bar. 

All this time and no answers. I hate it for her family and think about it often."

—dianalia

24. The dark stories surrounding the Valley of the Kings cult in Tylertown, Mississippi.

Tiago_fernandez / Getty Images/iStockphoto

"In my town (McComb, Mississippi) back in the early 2000s, there'd be these ladies walking up and down the main street dressed like they were straight out of Little House on the Prairie selling peanut brittle. Thought it was weird but harmless until one day, while I was working, this customer of mine started screaming at one of them to go away, no one was buying anything from them to support a pedophile.

Turns out they were members of Valley of the Kings, this 'Christian' cult based in nearby Tylertown, Mississippi. The leader and his son were in jail for sexually assaulting the young boys in the community, and these odd little women were made to sell peanut brittle to fund their commissary, or they got beat by the elders when they were picked up off the street."

—thesettledpirate

25. The kidnapping and murder of Amy Mihaljevic in Bay Village, Ohio that was featured on the TV show American's Most Wanted.

ABC 5 Cleveland / Via youtube.com

"When I was I was growing up in Westlake, Ohio, a little girl named Amy Milhaljevic was kidnapped and murdered in the next town over in Bay Village. Her murderer had contacted Amy over the phone asking her to help get her mother a present for getting a promotion at work. Amy’s murder was never solved. It rocked the suburbs of Cleveland for over 30 years."

—Anonymous

26. The tragic murder of Terry "Juju" Smith by his half brother in Menifee, California.

LA Times / Via youtube.com

"This happened in 2013, in Menifee, California, pretty much right in between LA and San Diego. Terry 'Juju' Smith Jr., 11, went missing, and our ENTIRE town, and neighboring towns, searched for him for three days. The last person to see him was his older half brother, Skylor.

Juju's parents had a decent-sized property, I think about enough for one horse, and it was combed by police, but on day three, a psychic went to the property to help and went straight to an area near a tree that she had seen in her vision. 

Though the area was combed before, they found his body partially buried there. The brother was arrested a few days after Juju went missing, and just over a year later, he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter in juvenile court, and was sentenced to 12 years, but got out when he turned 20."

—Anonymous

27. Finally, the unsolved missing person case of Nancy Begg-Shoup in Littleton, Colorado.

Kyle Allingham / Getty Images/iStockphoto

"We lived in a house on a cul-de-sac, and there are townhomes across the street from our cul-de-sac. When I was little, my mom had a friend named Nancy who lived in the townhomes with her two young kids (3 ½ and 2) and had served her abusive ex-husband, Steve, with divorce papers. 

I barely remember her, but she went missing in April 1990 and hasn't been seen since. She had gone on a date and left her kids with Steve. He claimed that she never showed up in the morning when she was supposed to pick up the kids. The guy she went on a date with was fully cooperative and ruled out as a suspect, but her ex-husband was very uncooperative. 

A neighbor saw Steve's car at Nancy's townhome, but Steve claimed he was never there the day she disappeared. A spot of blood was found on Nancy’s carpet, and her 3 ½-year-old told investigators that “daddy put mommy by a tree.” I think he moved her body or did something with her remains to make sure she would never be found. 

Steve later moved to Kansas, then Ohio. In Ohio, he remarried and told his second wife that Nancy died in a car accident. Eventually, Steve had to serve consecutive six-month sentences at a detention center for misdemeanor charges stemming from incidents with his second wife. Anyway, he is still free to live his life while Nancy remains 'missing.'"

—Anonymous

Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.

If you or anyone you know has information on a missing person case, call local law enforcement first. You can also contact the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 (THE-LOST) or visit the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System site for regional case assistance.