What was your Regional Murder Mystery growing up?

Posted by supergooduser@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 237 comments

Born in 78. The first serial killer case I can recall hearing about was Jeffrey Dahmer in 1991. The details were SO sensationalistic it was pure TV/Tabloid fodder. Before that I remember hearing about Ted Bundy's execution in 1989, they didn't go into gruesome detail but the guy definitely had an alarming body count and that stood out. That being said I grew up in Iowa and the Johnny Gosch case got ENDLESS play here. I was four when he disappeared, but it was SUPER talked about in school and amongst parents. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance\_of\_Johnny\_Gosch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Johnny_Gosch) Led me to believe everyone must have their own regional real life boogeyman urban mystery you grew up talking about in school. Excited to hear everyone's stories! :)

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StardustandDreams@reddit

Kendall Francois https://g.co/kgs/s2hR7P1 this happened in Poughkeepsie NY when I was in my late teens. The movie the Poughkeepsie Tapes is VERY VERY VERY loosely based on him. The movie literally has no truth to it though. Like not a lick.

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Kalel42@reddit

I grew up in Milwaukee so it was all Dahmer. My personal six degrees was that my best friend's mom's hairdresser lived near him.

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SinsOfThePast03@reddit

My older sister went to a couple Marquette parties her freshman year at UWM that were within visual distance of his apartment building . That's as close of a connection as I have .

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ScotterMcJohnsonator@reddit

A friend's mother worked with him at Ambrosia Chocolate for a while

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urine-monkey@reddit

My aunt was a clerical worker at Ambrosia. When she heard the story of him getting fired because his cigarettes fell into one of the vats, she realized that she's the one who filed the paperwork.

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ScotterMcJohnsonator@reddit

Wait what? I swear back then we all heard they found a FINGER in the chocolate. Am I making up lies to myself?? lol

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urine-monkey@reddit

A lot of misinformation was going around and still is. But I can confirm it was a pack of smokes, for which the entire vat had to be drained. I think I remember my aunt telling me there were only two vats... but either way, Ambrosia was not a huge factory. Having to drain the vat cost them a lot of money, which is why he was fired.

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ScotterMcJohnsonator@reddit

That does make a lot of sense, especially with the strict regulations! Some years later one of my friends dads did a glass job there (replacing a commercial window) and they gave him CASES of free chocolate, because it was wrapped in plastic, in a box, and then in another box…but that had dust on it from the open window 😂

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noonesaidityet@reddit

I found out just last year after reading a newer article about him that we lived like 10 blocks from him in West Allis. Not like next door or anything, but close enough to mention it on a Reddit post.

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urine-monkey@reddit

I saw the topic and said "Oh great.... THIS again!" Sure as hell, Dahmer was the first name mentioned. It never fails. For any true crime buffs here... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD stop mentioning Dahmer the moment we tell you where we're from. I'm not sure a person who lived in Milwaukee in the 1980s exists who didn't at least know someone who knew Dahmer, the cop that let him go, or one of his victims; and a lot of us are sick of talking about it. In fact, years ago the city bought a lot of properties related to Dahmer just to tear them down because everyone was sick of all the tour busses people were sending through the city.

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MissRockNerd@reddit

I remember watching Rita Isbell scream “I hate you Jeffrey!!” in court on the 5:00 news, the day it happened.

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WayneS1980@reddit

Grandma worked with one of the mom’s of one of the victims when his body was discovered and she was informed by the police.

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face-puncher@reddit

Altemio Sanchez, serial rapist and murderer in Buffalo, NY over the course of a couple of decades. He lived about a quarter of a mile from me. We knew him and his family, attended the same church, and I played little league baseball and attended the same high school as his kids. The day the news of his arrest broke (it was a huge local story), his photo was shown on TV, and I said to my wife “That looks like Al Sanchez.” Turns out he lived a double life.

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Kilashandra1996@reddit

Far south Texas / Rio Grande Valley, mid 1980s. Somebody was dumpster diving at the mall and found the body of a newborn baby in a shopping bag. Turned out to be a former friend who had hidden her high school pregnancy. She was busted because she left a credit card receipt in the bag...

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xaviersqueen@reddit

The first serial killer i remember coming across was reading about BTK finally being captured. But as far as regional, I grew up hearing about the disappearance of Laura Bible and Ashley Freeman

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gesis@reddit

Florida has no shortage of serial murder or mystery disappearances. I suppose the biggest *mystery* was the murder of Adam Walsh. More local to myself, I met Aileen Wournos at a BBQ when I was ~9.

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lemonheadlock@reddit

South FL here. Adam Walsh's case was also plain gruesome. Stranger danger and the threat of being kidnapped was scary enough. But then his decapitated head being found? That was horrific.

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ILikeBumblebees@reddit

I grew up about five miles away from where Adam Walsh was abducted. The crazy thing is that the plaza he was abducted from was directly across the street from the police headquarters.

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Khajiit_Has_Upvotes@reddit

That's crazy! My mom says she met Ted Bundy in Washington.

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All-Sorts@reddit

My family use to live in the same neighborhood as Ottis Toole and he and Henry Lee Lucas worked for my uncle.

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Responsible_Dog_420@reddit

In 1994, a Rabbi who lived in my neighborhood was having an affair and hired men to murder his wife. Ours was a very safe town and this was very shocking. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred\_Neulander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Neulander) Trick-o-treating by his house as a kid was very spooky but as an adult, I just feel terrible for the victim and the family.

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Savings-Market4000@reddit

April Marie Tinsley. So glad they caught that sicko

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CorkFado@reddit

Nightmare fuel. That guy remained free for entirely too long given how much evidence he left behind.

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CorkFado@reddit

Rhode Island here. We had Craig Price, who holds the record as being history’s youngest known serial killer.

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Maanzacorian@reddit

Holly Piirainen and then Molly Bish they appear to be connected, and both are unsolved. I believe the last real suspect died in 2003.

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CorkFado@reddit

Came here to mention Holly! She was exactly my age and lived a few towns over from where my cousins grew up so it made quite an impression when she was abducted.

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papercranium@reddit

[Amy Mihaljevic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Amy_Mihaljevic), for sure. Every kid in NE Ohio knew about her.

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ZanySnail@reddit

This scared us. Grew up in Avon Lake and often shopped at the plaza in Bay where she was abducted. Later on, her brother was my camp counselor (random tidbit)

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JuliusSeizuresalad@reddit

The night stalker was local when I was a kid, and he hit a house about a few Miles from where I was

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djhyland@reddit

Jacob Wetterling's abduction in 1989 was the big mystery in my area. Born in 1978, he was only a year older than me, so it really hit home. Though he was abducted on the other side of the local TV's broadcast range, I remember the adults freaking out about our safety even some 100 miles away. I can look back and see this as one of the big turning points from letting kids wander unsupervised to helicopter parenting, at least in my area. The case was unsolved for \~ 20 years. A decade or so back his abductor confessed as part of a plea deal for a different crime. Turns out he murdered Jacob the same day he abducted him, but up until his confession Jacob's parents left the porch light on for him every night in case he ever came home. Even today, thinking about it is heartbreaking.

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Crusty-Watch3587@reddit

If you haven’t listened to season 1 of the “In The Dark” podcast, it is outstanding.

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Northern_Lights_2@reddit

It is an extremely well done podcast. The other seasons are worth a listen too.

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ApprehensiveAnswer5@reddit

I agree. One of the best journalistic pods out there.

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MsBlondeViking@reddit

Jacob’s story will always haunt me. It wasn’t even just the adults freaking out in my area. It scared all us kids too. Many of us were no longer comfortable running around all over with no adults. My husband was terrified of ALL strangers for most his childhood because of it.

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djhyland@reddit

Yeah, we kids were shaken by it too. I don't think that I changed my wandering-around habits but I definitely became more suspicious of adults I didn't know. My friends and classmates all talked and speculated about it, too. it's one thing when an adult disappears, but for someone so close to our age to do the same really made us think "that could have been me!".

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ApprehensiveAnswer5@reddit

I don’t recall any real murder mysteries for Dallas when I was a kid/younger. Not anything major like a lot of these being mentioned. Darlie Routier in Rowlett, Candy Montgomery in Wylie. Stonegate Murders in Ft Worth. Lots of JFK and Bonnie and Clyde lore, even decades later. Trinity River Massacre in the 70s. Branch Dravidians down in Waco. Probably the one crime that has stuck with me to this day, and I was already a young adult by then, is the murder of James Byrd in Jasper in the late 90s. I still get a knot in my stomach thinking about how terrible that was for him, just how…inhuman to be treated that way.

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scarlettslegacy@reddit

Claremont serial killer

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Genericname187329465@reddit

I can't remember a murder mystery near my hometown, but I do remember a summer in the early 90's when there were posters plastered all over of a missing kid who was my age. The unsettling part was that he was basically my doppelganger, to the extent that i had people point to the picture and make a comment about how I could be him. I don't know if they ever found him.

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pedestal_of_infamy@reddit

Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and the Brown's Chicken Massacre were the 90s Chicago Suburbs trifecta.

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Khajiit_Has_Upvotes@reddit

Serial killer in Spokane, WA. [Robert Yates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lee_Yates). I grew up in North Idaho. Violent crime and homicide have always been well below the national average. idk about Spokane, especially these days, but I remember the news coverage and Mark Fuhrman (yes *that* Mark Fuhrman) wrote a book about it lol. But a serial killer in Spokane was pretty big news. The one that really bothered me more happened when I was an adult, when [Joseph Duncan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Edward_Duncan) did what he did in Wolf Lodge and Lolo.

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0nSecondThought@reddit

Sara Anne Wood https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sara_Anne_Wood She disappeared while riding her bike. It took 3 years for them to make an arrest and her remains were never found.

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NoPlastic8458@reddit

This was terrifying as a kid. I am the same age as her. It was all over the news here. Her and Heidi Allen were the two biggest ones I remember growing up.

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FrenchAGD82@reddit

The West Memphis 3.

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Equivalent_Public_41@reddit

We had a local hermit that was on the most wanted list that murdered three people and maimed countless others. His name was Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. When he was captured, he was held at the local city/county jail here. I found out because I had to visit the court over a traffic ticket while he was there. There were national news vans everywhere.

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pix3lf4ct@reddit

The Parkway Killer was big in my part of Virginia, I remember it on the news all the time as a kid. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Parkway_murders](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_Parkway_murders) They solved it only recently and it turned out that the guy lived near my grandparents and was in high school with my dad!

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tgbarbie@reddit

Joel Rifkin went to my high school and lived in my town. He talked about murdering his Spanish teacher and she was my Spanish teacher! And Amy Fisher was the next town over. Yay Long Island in the 90s!

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Graffin80@reddit

The one that Elaine dated?

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sahurley@reddit

"He's not the murderer."

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Graffin80@reddit

Definitely should of changed his name to "OJ" Rifkin

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sahurley@reddit

Remy. With the beret and everything.

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actualelainebenes@reddit

Ned’s a guy who buys irregular underwear, NEXT!!!

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actualelainebenes@reddit

That aged like milk 😆😆😆

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tgbarbie@reddit

Haha yes. Such a New York story.

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windmillninja@reddit

Harvey Epstein. Because everyone deserves a second chance.

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actualelainebenes@reddit

Long Islander here, came to mention this! No connection to Joel Rifkin but my family is from Massapequa and would see Joey Buttafuoco around town all the time 😆

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Graffin80@reddit

Honestly I was born early 80s never heard of this guy until I saw the Seinfeld episode probably on reruns

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Dean_Proffitt@reddit

Holly Piirainen was a 10 year old who went missing while at her grandparents’ house in Sturbridge MA with her younger brother (5). They went to go see some puppies at a house in the neighborhood. The little boy went back to the grandparents’ alone and said she got in a truck. Her body was found months later. My mom and a friend’s mom had taken us to a garden in Sturbridge the day she went missing. I was also only a year younger than her. These reasons always make the case stick out. 7 years later Molly Bish went missing in Warren MA while she at a local pond working as a lifeguard. 3 years later her remains were found. She was a year older than me as well. Holly and Molly rhyming made their cases stand out. Molly wrote a letter to Holly’s parents before Holly’s body was found (she was also 10). Many people believe their murders could be related. Neither case has been solved.

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LameSaucePanda@reddit

JonBenet Ramsey. Now I live in the neighboring town to the Watts. I remember the BFF posting on the mom group and in Nextdoor when Shanann was missing.

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ShutYourDumbUglyFace@reddit

I was in middle school, in Florida, with a Bundy flute when Ted Bundy was executed. That was fun. Middle school kids aren't cruel at all.

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Mel_Ran220@reddit

East coast of Canada ( New Brunswick) we had Allen Léger , I remember as a kid it was all over the news , believe that was in 89 ?

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Holiday-Tradition343@reddit

Allan Legere! Oh man. I grew up in Woodstock and we were locking our doors here too.

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Shpadoinkall@reddit

I grew up in Newark, DE and the Grossberg baby incident happened across the street from the neighborhood I lived in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Grossberg_and_Brian_Peterson#

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urine-monkey@reddit

I got a double whammy.... not only was I raised in Milwaukee, but I was born in Manitowoc. Home of Steven Avery, the subject of the Making A Murderer documentary on Netflix. I'm not gonna say who because I don't want to doxx myself, but a relative of mine is featured pretty prominently in the doc. It's also a sore issues because I knew a woman who worked in the County Clerks office up there. Manitowoc isn't exactly a bustling metropolis, so they don't have many employees. All the armchair detectives flooding them with record requests ruined their lives for a few months.

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esomers80@reddit

Well, born 1-1-80, and in the pnw, I of course remember the green river killer being all over the local news in the mid 80s...

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PurplePenguinCat@reddit

I don't know how widespread the media coverage was, but I lived in the next town over from the "Thrill Killers" pizza murders in Sussex County, NJ (1997). Two guys called several pizzerias for delivery. One restaurant sent two employees out, and they were shot in cold blood. I think the disturbing part was that the killers planned on killing whomever came with the delivery. They stated that they just wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone. I know several TV police shows have since used this story as a plot line.

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PersianCatLover419@reddit

I am not sure, there are so many in Philadelphia and the metro area.

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the805chickenlady@reddit

I grew up in the 80s about an hour and a half away from Los Angeles so the Nightstalker was big news in my area.

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Gradlush@reddit

Danny Rolling was out local serial murderer in Gainesville, FL in 1990 when he killed 5 women over 4 days. He also killed 3 others in Louisiana and attempted to kill his father. Convicted in 1994 and executed in 2006. His spree killing inspired the making of the film *Scream*, also.

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scifithighs@reddit

Up here in Canada, we had [Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bernardo), which was pretty icky.

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auramaelstrom@reddit

They found my dad's female coworker's wallet in the Bernardo house. they assume he had been stalking her. I still remember being stuck in traffic when they closed the highway because they were looking for his beige car.

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alien-1001@reddit

Ugh. That happened in my area. I remember when Kristen French went missing and at one point they were looking for a cream coloured Camaro and that's what my dad drove. One of the victims, Leslie, was our paper girl and I was good friends with her little brother. Such a devastating point in time.

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dofrogsbite@reddit

Clifford Olsen. They found a body nailed to a tree in my hometown.

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deowolf@reddit

Yeah, I think that was our Buffalo one, too.

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OkBiscotti1140@reddit

Oh god. I grew up right across the border and primarily watched cfto and cbc on the rabbit ears because they came in the most clear. I’m genuinely shocked more people have never heard of them. They are monsters. And then on my side we had Altemio Sanchez, the bike path killer. He was active in my neighborhood and I actually crossed paths with him while doing work at the plant he worked at. I still remember the interaction. It was terrifying.

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scifithighs@reddit

Holy crow!! I knew who the Bike Path Killer was, too; the 70s and 80s were just Serial Killer Heaven, huh?

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Hugby@reddit

Yes, grew up in a city not far from St. Catharines. I was in grade 8 when it started, we got self-defence courses for the girls and their moms at the school. Lots of talk about him/the car/what to do. I was about 13. My friends dad was on the Green Ribbon task force! Family friends went to the school that one of the victims went to - so it was just top of mind/front of every convo for a long time. Such an impressionable age to take that in.

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clumsystarfish_@reddit

This is what I came here to say. Bernardo was also the Scarborough rapist for a long time prior to the murders.

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johnvalley86@reddit

Growing up in Kansas it was all about BTK

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Allaplgy@reddit

Richard Allen Davis/Polly Klaas

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Thatonegirl_79@reddit

Same here. I was friends with a relative of hers. So sad.

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kkpossible@reddit

Yes, this was terrifying. I was the same age as Polly, and didn’t live that far (relatively) from where it happened. Taken from her mom’s house during a sleepover- so scary and helpless feeling at the time.

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loglady17@reddit

My folks have a VHS of some movie they tapped off the tv and one of the commercial breaks is about an update in the Polly Klaas case.

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Allaplgy@reddit

Yeah, had every kid in the Bay staring at their windows at night for a while.

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randyfox@reddit

Yeah, that was a big one. Also Christina Marie Williams a couple years later in 1998.

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Allaplgy@reddit

I forgot about that one. Seems like Polly has a much bigger media presence.

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randyfox@reddit

If I had to guess, it was probably due to the difference between Polly Klaas happening in Petaluma and the media market in the Bay Area and Christina Williams happening in Seaside and it being covered more by the news around Monterey. I think I remember it more because I spent a lot of time in Gilroy then and we got channel 8 and radio stations from around Monterey Bay.

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Stompedyourhousewith@reddit

The 1991 Austin yogurt shop killings are an unsolved quadruple homicide which took place at an I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas, United States on Friday, December 6, 1991. The victims were four teenage girls: 13-year-old Amy Ayers, 17-year-old Eliza Thomas, 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison, and Jennifer's 15-year-old sister Sarah. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Austin_yogurt_shop_killings

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ChickenBossChiefsFan@reddit

I grew up in Northwest Arkansas, so regional true crime wise the first case I remember being big news was Morgan Nick.

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brandi_theratgirl@reddit

Okay, so I wasn't aware of it growing up, but the Golden State killer was arrested around the corner from my dad, who bought my great grandparents' old house. He thinks this is the guy that harassed my great grandparents, presumably after he moved in with his parents and laid low. His crimes also started in a town not far from where I lived.

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GrandPipe4@reddit

Ours was Jeffrey Dahmer, also, because he grew up and committed has first murder one town over.

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KrissyPooh76@reddit

I grew up in a town called Carpentersville IL. It's a NW suburb of Chicago. In the mid-late 80's a very young attorney was shot and killed with a shotgun. Tomothy McNamee I believe. Cops thought it was a "sniper" that waited for him across the street and shot him as he walked from his office to his car.

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animatroniczombie@reddit

Green River Killer

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Over_Ad_688@reddit

From Hawaii, the mass shooting at the Xerox building was big news when I was younger. Then years later, they filmed the cave scenes for Lost in that exact same building. It was a frequent topic of discussion back home while the show was on.

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PotentialPlum4945@reddit

A guy in my hometown made a whole documentary about our regional murder mystery. The Dolly Madison murders. https://youtu.be/fVtJGmr24lk?si=UW1SYZ2TRim1R4eM It’s a good reminder of why I got the hell out of western Kansas.

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YodaEarsIHave@reddit

In 1994, Clay Shrout killed his entire family and held his class hostage at Ryle High School. This was about 15 minutes from where I grew up and even closer to where I live now.

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Rivster79@reddit

Grew up in LA so we had a flavor of the month

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MoonlitBlossoms@reddit

I grew up the the Bay Area, so Polly Klaas is the first thing that comes to mind, but I’d leave the Bay Area and move closer to Yosemite, so I remember being really scared around the time of the Cary Stayner/Yosemite murders that was way too close to home. [Cary Stayner](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cary_Stayner)

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Welldunn23@reddit

The Girl Scout murders. Three little girls were murdered at camp. ABC/Hulu aired a special on it in the last few years.

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Additional-Local8721@reddit

The killing fields. The a good documentary about it on Netflix. It's a few miles from my house and the area I still live. Also, the Seabrook murder mansion. There's no documentary about it but you can Google it. Sadly, the mansion was torn down decades ago and is now condos. I often wonder if the people who live there know the history about it.

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phillysleuther@reddit

The Frankford Slasher (Philadelphia, PA) murdered my neighbor Christmas, 1986. I was 8. I’ve been obsessed with that case for 39 years. Also partially because we had two other serial killers (for a total of 3) active in Philly at the time.

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esocharis@reddit

We moved here a few years after [this happened.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Gene_Simmons) Still a very hot topic of discussion even then, kind of surprising it isn't more well known.

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Visual_Owl_2348@reddit

Charles Stewart

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Rebel9788@reddit

Iowa, so Jodi Huisentruit. They still haven’t found her.

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Prinessbeca@reddit

I'm from Omaha. So Jodi, Johnny Gosch, and a missing 17 year old from Omaha, Jason Jokolski.

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cloudshaper@reddit

The [Green River Killer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway).

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moxvoxfox@reddit

Same. I grew up just up the street from the ravine where Becky Marrero’s remains were found in 2010. My parents told me there was no way there were dead bodies down there, which obviously makes sense to say to a little kid with nightmares. But, it turns out I was right. She was there the whole time I lived nearby and had been since 1982.

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vivaciousvirgo84@reddit

Gary Heidnik. Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs was partially based on him.

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TacoDangerously@reddit

Menedez Borthers

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Expert-Lavishness802@reddit

I remembered the Menendez bros that killed their parents but I think the Dahmer case was the first one I remembered that really got huge coverage, it was so unbelievable that someone would do that

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ebzees@reddit

This is the first case I remember and it terrified me to think kids would murder their parents. I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t want boys because “they can murder you” 🫣

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TriStarSwampWitch@reddit

My dad was working in Milwaukee when Dahmer got caught. The news hadn't gotten down to us in Illinois when he found out, so my mom was really confused when she had a message from my dad on the machine that said, "Hey. It's me. Just wanted to let you guys know I'm not dead in some guy's freezer. All right, talk soon, love you."

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ebzees@reddit

The West Memphis Three case. Being from Little Rock and having family in Memphis. We drove that interstate and passed the crime scene all the time. Such a tragedy.

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JablesMagicBoom@reddit

In 85' two hunters stopped at a bar on their way to meet a friend in another town. They never made it to see the friend and were declared missing. In 03' it was discovered that they had gotten into a fight with two brothers, where the brothers beat them to death with baseball bats. Their bodies were put in a wood chipper and then fed to pigs. They got finally got caught because they kept bragging about it and finally someone came forward as a witness.

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RolandMT32@reddit

I was around for Dahmer too. But how regional are you talking about? I live in northwest Oregon, and I saw in the news when they reported about Kyron Horman disappearing in June 2010. Although not officially judged a murder, as the case hasn't been solved, Kyron Horman is still missing after all these years, and I worry he might have been killed.

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MashedPotatoesDick@reddit

L.A. County in the early '80s with Richard Ramirez. Scary shit as a kid.

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disdain7@reddit

In Missouri near St. Louis we had Shawn Hornbeck. He was a kid who vanished when he was 11. The story was that a guy in a truck hit him when he was riding his bike, picked him up, and left with him. Every school in every town seemed to have a story about how he was kidnapped, killed, and where/how the body was stashed. It got pretty elaborate too. The parents were/weren’t in on it, it was junkies, you name it. What ended up happening was he really was kidnapped by the guy in the truck. He then was forced to live with him for the next four years. The only reason this was found out was because the guy went out and kidnapped another younger boy. Evidently Shawn had become too old and….yeah it’s a disturbing thought process to go through.

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pterrible_ptarmigan@reddit

Scott Kleeschlute, Angie Housman, Cassidy Senter as well!

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fireWitsch@reddit

The Michael Franke murder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Francke?wprov=sfti1#Murder

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onions-make-me-cry@reddit

Before my time, but the Bay Area had the Zodiac Killer and then when I was in junior high, Polly Klaas.

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Papacreole@reddit

Melissa Brennan. Considered an unsolved homicide but no body has ever been found For those unfamiliar she was a five year old girl that disappeared in 1989 from a Christmas party at an apartment complex in Lorton VA (DC suburb). I lot of true crime shows over the years have discussed the case. I lived in the area and was 12 at the time.

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jj4leafclova@reddit

That was a big deal. I was 9 and that was 3 miles away from where I live. Another one in 1989 in Fairfax County was 10 year old Rosie Gordon. Body was found but case remains unsolved.

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Papacreole@reddit

Damn. I forgot about that one. Still unsolved. I was just looking at FCPD cold case website. And that’s in a nice part of the county (I grew up in the shitty part near Huntington Metro). Since they found her body I wonder if they have any DNA evidence left to do a genealogy dna search. Where I live now in a different state they just solved one of those cases from the 70s and busted this creep that was super old. Judge let him out on bail and he killed himself before it could go to trial

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Gian_Luck_Pickerd@reddit

I remember that one. I was 7 at the time

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flipnitch@reddit

Jacob Wetterling https://www.jacobwetterlingfilm.com

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Electronic-Ride-564@reddit

Same. I honestly thought they'd never solve it.

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flipnitch@reddit

I was surprised they were still pursuing leads when it was announced. Glad they brought the guy to justice, mad it didn’t happen sooner, sad for the victims of the scumbag.

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Electronic-Ride-564@reddit

Can't believe all those years I was just cruising by where Jacob was on 23 too. Makes a person wonder what else is right under our noses.

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Northern_Lights_2@reddit

Jacob was mine as well. He was just a few months older than I was and we lived nearby. It changed our childhood after that.

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sanedragon@reddit

Yep this is mine too. Such a sad story but I'm glad his family finally got closure.

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MsBlondeViking@reddit

This is mine too. My friends and I helped raise money for his family when in grade school. I will never forget his story.

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flipnitch@reddit

Happened when I was 7…It was a burst bubble moment for me for sure, it totally changed my view of the world and caused me to become as hyper vigilant as a child can be

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MsBlondeViking@reddit

I think this was true for so many of us, how it changed our views. Definitely made kid me more aware of everything. Have you read Patty’s book? I own it, but have yet to read it. I’m scared it’ll trigger my PTSD.

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flipnitch@reddit

I’ve not. I spent so much time as a kid imagining myself in the scenario as described by the survivors and imagining all the horrible scenarios he may have been subjected to…and I couldn’t stop it all from playing through my head again when the guy was finally caught and the details came out…I’m not sure I’d be able to

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TruckFudeau22@reddit

I’m all growed up but there is a murder mystery in my area going on right now. The murder of Officer John O’Keefe of the Boston PD. His girlfriend Karen Read was tried for his murder last spring and it ended in a hung jury. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is retrying her next month. Her defense is raising a very interesting 3rd party culprit defense. See r/justiceforkarenread for details.

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CallidoraBlack@reddit

I don't know who did it, I just hope they lock up the right person for the crime.

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xu2002@reddit

I feel bad for the John O'Keefe family. The whole investigation was messed up. The Karen Read part completely overshadows his death.

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Bubbly_Positive_339@reddit

Night stalker. LA. Scared the shit out of me. The closest murder was about 9 miles from my house.

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flat-moon_theory@reddit

Jeffrey Lundgrens cult and the murders they committed. [the Kirtland cult killings](https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/lake-county/january-2025-35-years-since-kirtland-cult-killings/95-e8d3128f-2d32-4afe-b378-98fd0021f515)

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OskarBlues@reddit

Not necessarily a serial killer, but in Austin (and San Antonio where I grew up) we had the yogurt shop murders. Four teenage girls were killed one night in a frozen yogurt shop. And in the last few years we’ve had a bunch of drunks end up dead in Town Lake, leading to theories that we have a serial killer targeting partiers on Rainey street.

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Affectionate_Big8239@reddit

Did you ever see the movie At Close Range? That one. The one guy broke out of jail when I was in high school and we were all scared he’d try to come through town.

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Octowuss1@reddit

BTK

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thegholahayt@reddit

Rader is such a lil bitch. "Boo hoo I can't get hard unless I'm murdering people and strangling myself." Fucking dweeb wanted to be the Zodiac so bad.

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concours_kawi10@reddit

My grandparents were members of a church in the same synod btk was a member of. Haven area. Kinda messy for the synod, I had heard.

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Notredamus1@reddit

I have family in Sacramento, and we used to go visit them a lot when I was a kid. I was a small kid at the time when they had arrested Dorothy Puente. My parents were fascinated by the case. When we were in town, they drove us over to see the house where the murders had occurred. But that case was a big deal to my family at the time. It was interesting seeing the Netflix documentary a while back.

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

My office isn’t too far from the house. It’s unnerving to look at it.

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thepatientwaiting@reddit

I listened to an old ep of My Favorite Murder where she was covered. Apparently the new owners of the house "leaned into it" and it's kind of like a museum now? Sounds creepy and gross.

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thegholahayt@reddit

There's an episode on her in Worst Roommate Ever.

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

They have mannequins on the porch. The yard has been paved over for years.

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thepatientwaiting@reddit

Yes they mentioned the mannequins!! I would be so afraid to find something in that house years later. I can't imagine doing a renovation and finding bones. 😭

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HeyYouTurd@reddit

Unfortunately poor lil Caylee Anthony. We do not say her mother’s name here.

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Fun_Winner_376@reddit

The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. That one made us all start closing and locking our windows.

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Pharmacy_Duck@reddit

In the UK, we didn't have such an apparent preponderance of serial killers as you guys seem to have had, but we did have the Babes in the Woods murders over the back of Brighton, which is about 15-20 miles away from where I lived (and still live). The two victims were the same age as me. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes\_in\_the\_Wood\_murders\_(Brighton)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babes_in_the_Wood_murders_(Brighton))

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MikeRoykosGhost@reddit

John Wayne Gacy. I still believe he was part of a larger group but became the fall guy cause the bodies were on his property.

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bentripin@reddit

[BTK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader), My Mom was friends with the first Family Killed, she stayed the night at their house the weekend before they were murdered.. she never told any of us the story until after BTK had been captured, seems like it messed her up pretty bad.

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GrumpyOldHistoricist@reddit

‘79. Northern Chicago burbs. Laurie Dann wasn’t a serial killer and wasn’t in my town, but we got sent home from school early (mandatory parent pick up; no busses or walking home) the day she went on her rampage and her legacy loomed large. John Wayne Gacy was arrested right before I was born, but he was definitely in the local consciousness as something of a bogeyman or folk monster. Dahmer was close enough to local that he was all over the news and most of us knew people in Milwaukee and had been there multiple times.

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Stupor_Fly@reddit

Not far from Des Moines, grew up in Omaha. We had John Joubert hunting paper boys. You couldn't go anywhere without someone's mom or dad watching you. Before that we were pretty much free range kids

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Peja1611@reddit

Having just moved to Ocala FL, the Gainesville Student Murders. My dad witnessed Rolling being arrested after his high speed chase after knocking off the Winn Dixie on HWY 200. (Seriously, that place was robbed like every week for some reason) Those murders large over Gainesville for a long time. I had Dr Maples as my professor. He was the forensic anthropologist who testified about the knife wounds on the bones.

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Mapper9@reddit

Mostly, as a young kid, I remember all the kidnapping and disappearances of young kids, kids my age. Jaycee Dugard, kids like that. Polly Klaas lived one town over, in my aunts town, and that scared the absolute crap out of me.

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garygnu@reddit

Not so much a "mystery" but psychopathic mom Diane Downs, who shot her three children. One died, one was paralyzed, and one was severely injured. She later escaped prison and was totally coming to get *me* specifically, but fortunately was caught.

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Mapper9@reddit

She was in prison in Salem Oregon, and when she escaped prison, she hid out a coworkers cousin’s house (in Salem, where I lived in the 2010s). Coworker didn’t know until cousin was arrested for aiding a fugitive. Even that, decades later, makes me feel too close to someone as creepy as her.

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Thorbertthesniveler@reddit

Clifford Olsen - The Beast of BC. He was active when I was super young. My cousin lived just up the street from him at one point. Glad he is dead

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After_Match_5165@reddit

My dad grew up in BC and he said that even though he was a pacifist he could have pulled the switch on Olsen given the chance and not lost a wink of sleep.

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sundayfunday78@reddit

I remember my mom being very vigilant about my and my sisters location at all times when we were out, even in our front yard. But I didn’t quite understand until I was a bit older (‘78). His name still gives me goosebumps.

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Thorbertthesniveler@reddit

Apparently while visiting my aunt I decided I had enough. So toddler me decided to hit the road for home. I was found a few blocks away. Giving out the grey hairs all my life!

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MadameLeota604@reddit

He followed my grandma home from work once, she was so spooked she drove to a police station and he took off. It was only later, when he was caught she realized it was him.

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SophieintheKnife@reddit

I just wrote this as well. My parents were terrified that he was going to strike one of us. The police think he broke into one of our neighbour's places

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upnytonc@reddit

Arthur Shawcross. He was the killer, not the victim(s).

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30secondstofarts@reddit

NE Ohio, the 1989 murder of [Amy Mihaljevik](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Amy_Mihaljevic) is still unsolved to this day.

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Hello_Hangnail@reddit

The Route 40 serial killer Brian Pennell and the Beltway Snipers were the only ones in my area we were aware of

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kh8188@reddit

It was only a mystery for a short time, but this was my friend's aunt. [News story about his parole](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/newyork/news/matthew-solomon-paroled-lisa-solomon-newlywed-murder-long-island-1987/) We also had Amy Fisher, but thankfully, she didn't manage to kill Mary Jo.

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Beckiwithani@reddit

Suburban Cleveland, [Amy Mihaljevic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Amy_Mihaljevic). They searched and searched for evidence. Found a bed sheet a few years ago. Everyone was hoping it would offer an answer and closure, but didn't.

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West-Revolution8752@reddit

Pedo / murder case: [https://www.brusselstimes.com/181344/the-dutroux-case-and-how-it-changed-belgium](https://www.brusselstimes.com/181344/the-dutroux-case-and-how-it-changed-belgium) As you can see in the title, it really changed the country. I remember being a bit afraid to get kidnapped.

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kh8188@reddit

I commented above, I was an exhange student to Belgium in 1998-1999 and lived in Marcinelle, not far from his house. Everyone was always talking about this case.

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m-nd-x@reddit

Hardly a mystery, but the [Dutroux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Dutroux) case was probably the most impactful.

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kh8188@reddit

I was an exchange student from 1998-1999. The home I spent the majority of that year in was in Marcinelle, not far from his house. I remember it being such a sensational story for the whole Charleroi area, that I was told about it several times that year.

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concours_kawi10@reddit

Either the then-current Larry Lane Morgan murder of Anna emry, l Betty Lou frieberg (she was freed, after the court hearing), or the historical Gayno Smith mass murders.

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WayneS1980@reddit

Not necessarily a mystery but the murder of model Linda Sobek by Charles Rathbun. At that time Torrance was still a small’ish city and was never in the news. So it was a pretty big deal at the time.

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ThreeCraftPee@reddit

The Browns Chicken murders in Chicagoland in 93 for sure. It happened in the suburbs but was a very big story for years as it went unsolved. Basically some dudes robbed a Browns Chicken, tied up the 7 employees, and executed each one of them. Was real fucked up. Finally like 10 ish years ago or so they caught the killers.

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Ag1980ag@reddit

Then much, much later we had (and still have), the Lane Bryant killings. A still unidentified killer forced six women into a back room in a suburban Lane Bryant store. He assaulted one before shooting each woman execution-style. Five died but a sixth survived.

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kyarilora@reddit

Grew up in upstate NY - not a mystery but I remember hearing about Waneta Hoyt when she got caught.

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WheresThaGravy@reddit

Steven Avery

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jessek@reddit

We had this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Hettrick_murder_case The shitty cops and DA railroaded some poor guy who spent like 10 years in prison before being exonerated. Crazy part is the main suspect now is this local dentist who killed himself after it was discovered he was videotaping his teenage daughter and her friends. I didn’t know his daughter but some women friends of mine did and they said they were probably on some of the tapes.

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Crusty-Watch3587@reddit

April Tinsley, Ft. Wayne Indiana in 1988.

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epidemicsaints@reddit

I live right on the path of the I-70 Strangler that just got more or less solved. Herb Baumeister. He owned a chain of thrift stores in the area and human remains have been found on his property after his death. He is believed to be who murdered a dozen men and boys left along I-70 in the 80's and 90's. Carrie Culberson from Blanchester, OH dominated local news in the mid 90's and there were missing billboards for her, She has also been featured on Unsolved Mysteries. Niqui McCown went missing in Richmond, IN and has never been found. Cops got into all this drama with the small Latino community using them as a scapegoat and it caused Niqui's family to speak out against the police in their defense. A whole mess. She has also been on Unsolved Mysteries. There are two others but I would dox myself. Literally too close to home.

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Crusty-Watch3587@reddit

just watched the documentary on Hulu about Herb Baumeister. strange dude, to say the least. I grew up in Indiana (granted, not in or around Indy but not that far) and don’t recall ever seeing or hearing about him or what he did in the news.

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epidemicsaints@reddit

Same, even with it being local I didn't even know about it until a few years ago.

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LilyBitLumpy@reddit

I grew up in a small town in northern IL, very quiet, virtually crime free but there was a murder in 1988 that was of course a huge deal. A 17 year old’s ex-boyfriend attacked her and her family while they slept, killing her parents brutally. I don’t recall it actually happening, I was only 5, but my parents had also grown up there and knew everyone so I do have memories of them bringing up when they had seen extended family members at the grocery store and things like that. I’m sure it is what made me aware that something like this was even possible. It was even on Unsolved Mysteries (again, a huge deal!) and the murderer was on the run for three years until he was eventually found hiding out in Salt Lake City using a different name. https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Raymond_and_Ruth_Ann_Ritter

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garden__gate@reddit

Boston: not so much a mystery, but the Charles Stuart case was crazy. White man who killed his pregnant wife in their car in a Black neighborhood and said a Black man did it. The police then hauled tons of young Black men in for questioning before it became clear Charles did it. He wound up jumping off a bridge to avoid justice.

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CorgiMonsoon@reddit

Grew up in Cleveland in the 80s and 90s and the Cleveland Torso Murders from the 30s were still being talked about

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ButterscotchAware402@reddit

John Thomas Jamelske - an American serial rapist-kidnapper who, from 1988 to 2003, kidnapped a series of girls and women and held them captive in a concrete bunker beneath the yard of his home in DeWitt, a suburb of Syracuse, New York. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jamelske Sara Anne Wood - a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared on August 18, while riding her bicycle home from Church in Sauquoit, New York. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sara_Anne_Wood Carol Ryan - on September 1st, 1996, she was found sexually brutalized, beaten, tortured, and left to die near the Jamesville Reservoir in Central New York. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.syracuse.com/crime/2023/11/an-explosion-of-hate-killed-carol-ryan-and-no-one-knows-why-firecracker-ep-1.html%3foutputType=amp

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PrestigiousAvocado21@reddit

We had Kali Ann Poulton around that time too: https://13wham.com/amp/news/local/thursday-marks-25-years-since-kidnapping-of-kali-poulton

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Odd-Improvement-1980@reddit

I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The father of a girl I used to hang out with was the manager at the local bank. Some guy came in, robbed the place, and left town before anyone could find him. Later, it was discovered that the guy who robbed the bank was a serial killer. He would rob a bank then use the money to fund his escapades. After this particular bank robbery, he ended up in Vermont where he found a victim for his killing spree.

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tampapunklegend@reddit

Pasco county Florida, just a bit north of Tampa, a little girl by the name of Jennifer Odom mysteriously disappeared in the early 90s. They only just relatively recently found her killer with DNA, because the killer's son was also a nasty criminal, and his DNA matched closely enough that it lead to the father, whose DNA matched perfectly.

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Subsum44@reddit

Hugo Selenski His escape from county was a big thing too. Think a relative of his played field hockey in the Olympics too

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tommccabe@reddit

Born in 79, grew up in NJ outside of NYC. A core memory of mine involves the New York Zodiac Killer 90-94 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heriberto\_Seda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heriberto_Seda) He was attacking people throughout New York City (3 dead, at least 6 injured) and sending letters to the news with cryptic symbols and messages indicating he was picking victims based on their zodiac signs. For years, it wasn't clear whether this was the San Francisco Zodiac Killer coming out of silence or a copy cat. This case was frequently the top story on the local NYC news. One night they showed a map -- I can't remember if it was an actual letter he sent or if it was a graphic that they came up with for TV. The map highlighted the victim locations and then included other Zodiac symbols showing potential "hunting zones". One of those Zodiac symbols was roughly over my home town in New Jersey. That terrified me and the memory has stuck with me for all of these years.

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Relevant-Package-928@reddit

Billy Hull and the Tiki Palace. It's a really interesting story. https://www.messynessychic.com/2023/09/21/murder-at-the-tiki-palace-when-swinging-went-sour-in-the-70s/

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MadameLeota604@reddit

My childhood friend Bethany halligan disappeared on Lake Tahoe when she was 14, along with two other girls. They have never been found and I think of them all the time. I have a picture of Bethany and I on my dresser.

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VampireOnHoyt@reddit

I lived half an hour from Amber Hagerman, the namesake for the Amber Alert

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LilyBitLumpy@reddit

Yeesh of all these responses, this one gave me goose bumps

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Persephonesgame@reddit

The Butcher of Kansas City, Bob Berdella, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Berdella It was a thrill to be able to still go to the location where he’d had a stall in a flea market. Very interesting story

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Factsoverfictions222@reddit

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. Paul was also the Scarborough R@pist but we didn’t know it until he was caught.

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somainthewatersupply@reddit

I grew up a few miles outside of Gainesville FL while Danny Rollings was killing students at UF. It was a scary time.

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research002019@reddit

Yogurt Shop murders, Austin, TX. Still unsolved I believe.

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ShaneSupreme@reddit

Adam Walsh.

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RachelPalmer79@reddit

Sacramento. Dorothea Puente. I knew someone who worked at Lumberjack and she had to go testify at her trial about why this little old lady was buying pallets of lime. Also spoke with one of the retired detectives about how beautiful and lush the garden was and how tempting it was to eat the fruit.

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its_a_multipass@reddit

This one was personal, happened before I was born. A man named Robert Frederick Carr abducted my young uncle and his friend hitchhiking in North Miami Beach in 1972. Raped and then strangled them, burying them in Mississippi and Louisiana. Caught in 73 and convicted of rape in Connecticut, released and then caught in 76 raping a female, and then confessed to the murders. Served life and died in prison. Destroyed my grandparents and their kids, one being my mother. There's a book "Carr: Five years of Rape and Murder" by Edna Buchanan if you wish to delve deeper.

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Jonestown_Juice@reddit

The I-45 murders in Texas. A stretch of highway between Houston and Galveston were many women were abducted and killed since 1971. They called it "The Highway to Hell". [A guy finally confessed to the murders in 2001](https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Man-confesses-to-I-45-murders-9927565.php).

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Puzzleheaded_Tank338@reddit

Susan Smith

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emptybeetoo@reddit

I grew up in Iowa, and I can confirm Johnny Gosch was a huge deal for years. I’m surprised my parents let me deliver the morning newspaper after that. It’s extra sad that people have pranked his mother about his disappearance too.

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Papacreole@reddit

That one is haunting. I was born in Des Moines and lived in West Des Moines at the time which is where it occurred I believe. I was too young at the time to know anything

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ChrisChuck1@reddit

Patty Columbo, Elk Grove Village 1976,

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sahurley@reddit

I had a paper route in Wisconsin during the Dahmer trial. Even outside the Milwaukee area, it was front page news. It was pretty wild seeing those headlines 40 times a day with every copy I shoved into a tube.

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Murdocs_Mistress@reddit

I remember news clips about the Green River Killer thru the 80's and even Bundy's execution, but like you the big one I remember best was Dahmer. When Waco happened several yrs later, we were full of bad jokes that involved the Branch Davidians and Dahmer (did you hear Dahmer escaped from prison? he was last seen heading to Waco with a steak knife and A1 sauce - there were more, but that's the only one I remembered the punchline to).

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xu2002@reddit

The Jeffry Lundgren cult and murders was a local story for me growing up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Lundgren?wprov=sfla1

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ItJustWontDo242@reddit

[The Lost Boys of Pickering](https://www.durhamregion.com/news/the-lost-boys-of-pickering-a-haunting-cold-case-remains-open-after-30-years/article_bd0ab683-9a7c-5a54-ab0c-7411291c613e.html) I was 10 when this happened, and one of the boys was the brother of a classmate of mine. The 30th anniversary of their disappearance just passed, and still to this day there are no solid answers. People say they just drowned and thats that, but when you delve deeper into the details of the case, there are so many unanswered questions and mystery surrounding it.

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Rough-Boot9086@reddit

Grew up in Southern California. Was terrified at 5 years old of The Night Stalker Richard Ramirez

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elliemff@reddit

I grew up in Rowlett, TX. It was basically a small town east of Dallas. Super boring place till June of 96 when two little boys were stabbed to death in their home while their mom slept right next to them. Suddenly our boring little town was all over the Dallas news stations and then national news after the mom of those boys was filmed throwing a birthday party for one of the boys at their graves. Maybe you saw it? Darlie Routier was already the lead suspect in her boys’ murders and seeing her all across the tvs spraying silly string on their headstones just added to the evidence. She was arrested soon after and her case is still heavily debated to this day.

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ShadowAnimus81@reddit

Oakland County Child Killer was still being talked about when I was growing up in Michigan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_County_Child_Killer

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Vegetable-Floor-5510@reddit

The Confession Killer fiasco. [Henry Lee Lucas](https://time.com/5745028/the-confession-killer-henry-lee-lucas-netflix/)

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mom_bombadill@reddit

Also ‘78, grew up in the Seattle area, and I remember all the local newscasts talking about the Green River Killer. In my imagination I pictured him like a green, slimy swamp monster crawling out of the Green River to grab people, I didn’t realize he was a real human

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Groundbreaking-Camel@reddit

[Blanche Taylor Moore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanche_Taylor_Moore) lived up the road from me and became the subject of several true crime books and movies. Her husbands/boyfriends kept mysteriously dying.

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sevalle13@reddit

Grew up in WA so the Green River Killer

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NachoNachoDan@reddit

New Jersey. Jimmy Hoffa.

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Dimplefrom-YA@reddit

Winter Hill murders. Whitey Bulger missing for decades.

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oakleafwellness@reddit

Ours wasn’t a serial killer as much as serial psychos or bank robbers. We actually had a few. Lee Harvey Oswald. Bonnie and Clyde. David Koresh.

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TwilightStranger@reddit

For me it was Richard "The Iceman" Kukliński. He was the leader of a burglary ring who would lure his victims with a great business deal, murder them and funnel their money. He operated a "store" right out of the city two towns over from where I grew up. He would freeze his victims to throw off forensics as to the actual time of death and dump the bodies on the road in the neighboring county towns along the Upper Saddle River Road, which can be quite secluded in some spots, especially the further north you go.

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chokerfromthe90s@reddit

There are quite a few, but this one was always interesting... They made a movie about it starring Ricky Schroder. Basically it's about small town corruption. Here's the full movie on yt: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeWGPwImf1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeWGPwImf1Q)

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mercuric_drake@reddit

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texarkana_Moonlight_Murders

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Ok-Sign5678@reddit

The West Memphis Three was the huge one for me. It was such a travesty all around.

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Muderous_Teapot548@reddit

I grew up in Texas, of course we heard about Dahmer. But, we had the Railway Killer who killing people along the railway in Mexico and the southern US. [Ángel Maturino Reséndiz - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81ngel_Maturino_Res%C3%A9ndiz)

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oldermuscles@reddit

The 1989 murder of Oregon prisons director Michael Francke on the steps of the Oregon State Hospital.

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someguyfromsk@reddit

The [David Milgaard](https://www.wrongfulconvictions.ca/cases/david-milgaard) wrongful conviction was the first legal case I remember hearing about when it was overturned. [Robert Pickton](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/robert-pickton-case) was the biggest serial murder case in Western Canada?

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WilliamMcCarty@reddit

There was the legend of Buzzy Sweeny, supposedly a kid from my high school in the 50's, they say he died at a party in the woods and and haunted those woods. The woods were by my grandfather's house and I never saw ole Buzzy. In a more grim story there was for sure a kid, not a friend of mine exactly, just a neighbor kid, year or two younger than me, who went missing for a week and was found dead on the beach in our neighborhood. To be more accurate, it was *me* who found his body so...yeah, this one definitely happened. They never did find who did it. I was...7 maybe so he would have been about 5, I'm guessing. Long time ago so those details are a bit lost to history.

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SophieintheKnife@reddit

Clifford Olsen, lower mainland BC in the 80s. Also the Green River Killer and the killer from the Highway of Tears featured prominently in my childhood. Adult years it was Pickton

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Joliet-Jake@reddit

We didn’t have a mystery that I can recall, but the Alday Family Murders was the big local one that I remember hearing about. My grandparents lived close to where it happened and my grandmother taught one of the victims, Mary Alday, in school. Four men, three of them escaped convicts from Maryland and a teenager who was brother to two of them broke into a random house on a farm in rural Georgia and were still there when two farmers came back. They killed them, then killed three more farmers that came to the house, and then waited around for one of the men’s wives to come home, and raped, abducted, and killed her too. The ringleader later was quoted from death row saying that not only did he not have any remorse, but that the surviving family should feel sorry for him since he was going to be executed and anyway, he’d made them all famous so they should appreciate that too.

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wvtarheel@reddit

My good friend's cousin, who I was also friends with, went missing. Nick Shinn. Ripley West Virginia. Look it up a few lesser known podcasts have done it. There were a ton of rumors about what happened and where his body ended up but it's never been solved. Broader though, in the area where I grew up, Amy Mihalavic was the big news story I remember. I think I was a little young to remember Johnny Gosch.

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TriStarSwampWitch@reddit

Paul Dennis Reid was a serial killer who targeted fast food workers, and he was doing his thing when I was a junior in high school (1997) and many of us were getting our first (often fast food) jobs.

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