How much do you ACTUALLY know about the people close to you? Recently, a redditor asked users “What is the most disturbing discovery you’ve made about someone you know?” Here are some of users’ best (and shocking) submissions.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
There’s some dude in my town that hangs out at different coffee shops all day. He goes from one to the other drinking coffee and talking to people. Everybody knows or has seen this guy. He’s definitely a little socially awkward.
So, I’m chatting with a friend one day and he tells me that this dude actually murdered someone and got off on some lesser charge about 10 years ago. I google the guys name and sure enough… his picture comes up. Everybody else just knows him as the friendly coffee shop guy.
HAWAII_FIVE_O
One day in my home town I heard a heroin addict robbed a dollar general with a fake gun and tried escaping on a bike. Later that night I found out it was a really good friend of mine. I had no idea.
ColdBeef
My ex boyfriend’s new girlfriend trapped him with a pregnancy. She told him she had a medical condition that made it impossible for her to get pregnant, but then she did…and by the time they “found out,” it was too late to abort and she wanted to keep it because it was a “miracle baby.” I’ve never known someone to pull that kind of long con before.
subjection-s
I worked with a woman for about a year, was friendly enough to go to lunch together occasionally. I left that job and a couple of years later I see that her and her husband were arrested for the murder of their 2 year old daughter. They didn’t seek any help for the kid, instead giving her repeated doses of tylenol with codeine. She ended up with gangrene, then sepsis and died. The grandmother found her a few days later. It still freaks me out that I saw no signs that she was capable of something like that.
happycreole
I went to stay with a friend of my mum’s, (a 70 year old German lady) who had just lost her husband. The first night I was there, I was snooping through the bedside cabinet in my room and found a 12 inch, bright pink dildo. I couldn’t look her in the eyes for years.
espoonandfork
Found after my parents’ divorce that my father frequented prostitutes during his business trips, and that he had a mistress in Japan. When my mom found out about the affair he tried to coerce her into giving him two months per year to go on his “business trips” to Japan to be with his mistress. When she refused he did it anyway for two years before my mom had enough and got into a huge fight where he physically assaulted her before storming out and filing for a divorce. She kept quiet about the affairs the whole time because she didn’t want to destroy her kids’ image of their father. She didn’t even tell us after the divorce and I only found out when I accidentally overheard a phone conversation a year later.
It was a huge shock because he was the image of a “perfect dad” and we all thought it was a perfect family. It was only after he left that we slowly began to realize how messed up everything was.
Jackaloup
A high school coach broke off a relationship with a student athlete and there was a fight about it that led to public suspicions. These suspicions led to another student athlete coming forward…then another. Then another. Then an alumni of the school. Then another.
It eventually turned out that this coach had for the past decade been using the school’s women’s athletics program as his own personal harem.
The school district paid some undisclosed amount(s) to make this go away while the coach quietly left town. I’d known the coach before this came out but didn’t find out until later what had happened.
firelock_ny
My friend and I (around 10 at the time) had this mutual friend we’ll call F. F had a sister named C. We would go over to F’s house because he has an awesome collection of Voltron stuff. We always noticed these empty jars on a shelf in F’s room but never questioned it.
One day we were in his bedroom and his sister came in and grabbed a jar. She opened it, quickly put it to her face and breathed really deep through her nose. Her eyes rolled back a bit and her eyelids did this weird fluttering thing. And then the room stunk.
Turns out they would fart in to jars, let them sit, and then smell them. They asked if we wanted to try (like everybody does it), but we said no. We stopped going over there soon after that.
10minutemisconduct
Freshman year of high school, best friend goes to another school so we only hang out on weekends. We both had a number of pen pals [early 90’s Prodigy/AOL days, emails were expensive, we’d trade home mailing addresses].
One weekend she admits to me she’s in love with this guy, we’re 14-15 at the time, he’s 25, AND IN PRISON!! He was going to be getting out in 3 years & they would live happily ever after.
She was sending him real photos of herself and her family, offered to send him MY PICTURE so he could HOOK ME UP with another inmate!!!! I was all, nope, I’m out. That was one of the last times I saw her.
sakeittome
I found out my roommate was lying to his parents. It kinda hit me all at once, but here’s how it went.
He’s enrolled in a computer science course, he’s also a Dota 2 addict. He goes to the dean and claims he’s suffering from depression and gets a prescription sometime after some counseling. Now that he’s on medication, he goes to the dean again and says he’s going to need to get his work done at a less than average rate to cope with his stress. As long as he keeps his prescription going, he’s essentially pardoned from being expelled for never going to school. Anyway, I asked him about how Dota life was treating him, pried a little into his personal life and found out his parents are worried sick about him, dumping all this money to make sure their son succeeds and he’s just in 24/7 Dota mode ordering pizza and maxing out credit cards, there’s legitimately nothing wrong with him.
discourge
I have a very good friend who I love dearly, and his brother used to hang out with us sometimes. I’m a stoner, as was his brother, so we used to go outside and smoke together pretty often when we’d all hang out. He was always a bit of a weirdo, but started getting progressively weirder (think like 10-20 Facebook posts a day, random rants, sentences that made no sense, etc.). But still, just thought he was a little strange.
My friend and I were supposed to hang out one day with a group last January. He didn’t show up. Called him, no answer. Talked to him the next day. His brother killed his mom, stabbed his dad (he survived) and burned down their family home. He’s in jail waiting prosecution.
Still haunts me. My friend is really strong, has done a lot of therapy, he’s okay. His dad is a little worse off (they were married for 28 years!) but he is now doing a little bit better.
FelixFelicis23
When I was 12, during school lunch time I saw bunch of kids at the school gates shouting and pointing at something across the road. Went to check it out and it was a Mercedes Benz burnt to a crisp, it was still smoking. I knew whose car it was immediately. It belong to my soccer coach. I realised immediately who did it because the night before the police were at my house. My mum sent me to my room so had no idea why they were there.
Basically, I played on the same soccer team as the coach’s son. We played in the same position and I was a lot better than him, but naturally his dad always played him in the games whilst I was on the bench.
My dad had a heated argument with the coach about it but nothing changed. After that convo, there was this one time we had a match and my younger brother (8 at the time) went missing. My dad found him with the coach’s son and his friends hiding behind a shed laughing. They took my brother just to scare my dad a bit. Needless to say, that was the final straw for my dad who’s very paranoid and has a short fuse.
My Pops got 5 months in jail.
bosstrasized
I discovered that my neighbor was a dominatrix who regularly visited BDSM clubs. At the time I was still a young adult (20 or 21 I think) and was from a pretty sheltered family, so it really freaked me out at first. But after having a few somewhat awkward conversations with her I realized it wasn’t all that bad and how she described it wasn’t what I had imagined.
So horrified discovery turned into a positive and mind opening experience.
mightbefact
My sister got a call one day from a detective asking if she had an Apple computer. She said yes and they asked her some more weird questions. Finally getting to the point, they notified her that her computer had a virus that was implanted by a student at her school who worked in the tech department (Our college had a place where you could take your Mac and they’d fix it for you). Essentially the hack allowed for this guy to activate her camera and watch her, take photos, record, etc. So for months he did this to her and maybe 20+ more students. Turns out, it was my brother’s best friend. This kid was super polite, normal, kind of a nerd, but VERY smart. The weird thing is, my sister never took her computer to the tech department at our school..which means he hacked her computer when he was hanging out with my brother while she wasn’t looking. The dude didn’t even do jail time, got off easy and makes BIG money now. Also got married to a girl who was in their friend group. He’s not allowed within 100 ft of my sister or other women he assaulted and pretty sure he had to register as a sex offender. The sick thing is my brother and him are still friends which deeply hurts my sister. Can’t blame her.
LittleLady803
I found out that my dad was having an affair with my brothers wife, and that the little boy I thought was my nephew was actually my brother. I also found out that my mother (who worked as a waitress), had been fired from three jobs in five months for stealing money and drinking alcohol while on the job.
largemelons
I found out at 16 years old that, my dad, who was basically my hero and my all, had had another child with another woman when I was 5, then abandoned the kid to his mother and refused to get involved on his upbringing other than with money (that was by law removed from his account every month by a court order) all while still married to my mom, who by the way, forgave him for it, just to have him do it all over again, with another woman 10 years later, so basically when my parents finally divorced I found out that my father was a jerk that abandoned his children, and he, obviously, after the divorced was finalized from my mom, did it to me and refused to have any kind of contact with me ever again, despite me trying to have a relationship with him.
dutchess_md
When I was in my mid 30s a woman I went to high school with introduced me to my brother. My father had an affair with my friend’s sister-in-law and they had a child while my father was still married to my mother.
I confronted my father and found out he had several affairs and several children during them. One was a little girl that died when she was 4 years old. She and her mother were in a car accident and both died.
So in one day I lost respect for my father, gained a brother and lost a sister.
Coopersma
My brother’s wife (sister-in-law) had a long term affair with my Mother’s husband (step-father) for 5+ years before anyone found out. The collateral damage from their Shakespearean drama to my family, her family, and my step-family is gruesome. Family members that were best friends since high school and college no longer speak to each other. It’s all rather dark with the subsequent litigation in this small southern town. Why neither one of them thought/or cared about consequences (and most importantly a minor child) is a mystery. The depth of my sadness and black rage surprises me to this day. Their selfishness and sheer idiocy knows no bounds. People, if you are considering an affair, do the hard thing – the right thing – and end your present marriage or relationship before acting upon your desires. Also, it would be great if you avoid sleeping with anyone considered family. Save the rest of the innocents that have nothing to do with your illnesses.
ThrowawayEHW
In late 2015 I was trying to add a classmate to a mailing list, and got one letter wrong – it ended up with this guy named Tim, who at first responded politely that this was the wrong email to whomever I was trying to reach. Under his name, he had an automatic quote from a song from The Black Keys, which was my favorite band at the time, so when I replied back with the next line from the song, we quickly got talking. From there, we found we had a bunch of things in common, we liked the same music, the same books and movies, we both liked to write, we talked about philosophy and spirituality; we talked a lot. We developed a friendship of some kind, but I was too introverted to actually meet him in person even though we lived in the same city.
After a year of constant emails and talking, he sent me an abrupt email saying: “I’m leaving for the Maldives next week. Will be gone for a long time, need to time to think. Last chance to meet up? 🙂 Anywhere you’d like, but I have to tell you – that Motorpsycho vinyl I bought sounds insane on my record player. You have to hear this.” I strongly considered it this time, but turned him down last minute and wished him a relaxing holiday. Two weeks later I feel the need to write him and see how his vacation is going, when I find that his email has been deactivated. I check Facebook, and his profile is deleted. My first instinct was that something was wrong, that he might have been involved in a accident and possibly died – so I google his name to see if there’s an obituary somewhere. What I find instead, shocked me badly. Turns out, on the day of his “holiday”, he was indeed going away – to trial for torturing his girlfriend.
doggos_for_days
My little sister is 5 years younger than me. She had this best friend since she was in kindergarten and in 8th grade I realized she had been stealing from our family home for years. That was heartbreaking for my sister and our family because she was such a part of the family.
ImDead_Promise
When I was a kid and into my early teens, we noticed odd things outside our house. For example, sometimes when it snowed there would be foot tracks in our yard and leading to the windows. Another time my mother saw a man standing in front of our window at night, but couldn’t make out his face. There were times our doors were left cracked open and none of us could recall not closing it. We called the police but they said they couldn’t do anything about it. I felt like this was a little lazy on their part since we lived in a small town with very low crime. Couldn’t they dispatch a patrol officer to watch the house or hang around the area for a night or two?
A few years later, a “family man” from our church was found to have hidden a camera in a coffee shop. A woman spotted it, freaked out and told the manager. He overheard, ran to get the camera and dropped his phone which is how the police IDd him. He admitted to it and lots more. He said he’d been peeping on people since he was 9 years old. He had decades worth of camera surveillance in changing rooms, restrooms, etc. Hundreds of women were photographed or videoed and on his computer. He even videoed the restroom at our church. The worst was that he put cameras in his own home to watch his family members and guests. His daughter’s friends would regularly come over and change in their bathroom…
He said he was relieved to be caught and that he had a problem. He faced up to 30 years in prison, but I don’t know if he’s been sentenced yet. Oddly enough, I could only find a few articles online about the situation. Last I heard, his wife was staying with him because it was the Catholic thing to do. His kids are in their 20s and most have moved across the country.
My family was never identified or contacted about being photographed or videoed. I can’t say with 100% certainty that it was him peeping and screwing around our house at night, but good god, he lived two blocks away from us.
Showmeyourvocalfolds
When I was about 13 years old (23 now) I found out through my mom and aunt that my uncle (my dad’s older brother) had been having an affair with his stepdaughter for years. I guess the way they found out was when he called my Dad to basically vent and ask for help as he was desperate from his wife finding out and he wanted some advice or something. Anyway, my dad found out this whole situation came to light when the stepdaughter’s mom discovered an initial tattoo her that displayed my uncle’s initials. Stepdaughter I guess admitted situation to her mom and said they were “in love”.
About 11 years later, uncle and his wife are still married. They are still a “family” that does holidays together and what not with their kids (including stepdaughter) and will post pictures on Facebook of them all like nothing ever happened.
No one ever wanted to tell my grandparents for some reason, so occassionaly my uncle would come visit them from Alaska and I’d have to be around him knowing the truth all while my grandparents were oblivious.
SayHi2YaMotha4Me
About 13 or 14 years ago, I knew this guy who was a friend of an acquaintance. We were all part of the same group, at the time, and he came over with the acquaintance once in a while and BBQed or drank beer and watched movies. I didn’t really like either of them, but they were my roommates buddies, so I put up with it.
After my roommate moved out, they stoped coming by, and I forgot all about him. Then I see his face in the paper when he was arrested on suspicion for murder.
Apparently, it was over 600 bucks worth of weed, which, even at the time wasn’t that much, for the area I live in. Quarter pound at most. Blood was found in his truck that matched the victim.
I just remember thinking how strange it was that not that long ago, he had been sitting in my living room.
brewsntattoos
My neighbor is a nice guy for awhile and I found out that he killed a person while driving drunk, twice, one includes his own girlfriend. That girlfriends sister is his wife now, but they have very loud fights all the time. He literally drinks liters of beer every day and ever since he lived here, stuff of my garden went missing.
yahathro
(Source)