6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming

By:
STKER W

We're fascinated by stories of people leading double lives, because it's always fun to discover that people you know and respect have a completely different side of their personalities that you never imagined and can now use to make fun of them.

However, for every "Bruce Wayne is secretly Batman" and "Greg Brady is secretly Johnny Bravo," there are a dozen "Aspiring congressman spends his free time pretending to be a vampire" -- people who have gone so far afield with their double lives that their everyday persona is little more than an alibi. People like ...

A Congressional Hopeful Spends His Weekends LARPing As A Vampire

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Comedy Central

Jake Rush seems the perfect congressional candidate: an attorney, a sheriff's deputy, and a forthright Christian family man. But what his constituents don't know is that conservative straight shooter Jake Rush ... *ADAM SANDLER RECORD SCRATCH* is a cocaine vampire.

The Absurd Double Life:

Jake Rush loved roleplaying and was a part of something called the Mind's Eye Society. It's almost exactly what it sounds like: a club for adults to play elaborate games of make-believe. And when Jake wasn't studying the Constitution and kissing babies, he was spending his evenings as Chazz Darling, an imaginary undead rapist and nose-candy enthusiast.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Gawker
"Hiss! Which is my true mask?! Hissss!!!"



Jake also roleplayed as Lord Staas Van Der Winst and Archbishop Ketterling, characters that wouldn't sound out of place in a Final Fantasy game, but stick out somewhat in the context of the life of an adult politician. "Sure," you may be saying, "but did he write stunningly rapey comments online as one of his characters?" The answer is: Of course.

Jake's wonderfully imaginative allegedly in-character comments include such lines as: "At first I thought you were just stupid and I wanted to stick my d**k in your mouth to shut you up while I snorted a line off my new machete that was blessed by Rui," and, "... or you're going to end up naked and sore, tied to the floor of a van marked 'Free Candy.'"

FLORIDA VOTEE ALCLAY 2 ake *USH EFFECTIV LE FOR CONC bawC & O ALLAF RUsH ake
atr.org
"With a 'Vote Rush' sticker on the bumper."



As you can imagine, this was all good news for his political opponents. When you're a politician looking for dirt on your rivals and you stumble upon Chazz Darling, Cocaine Dracula of Discord, you pretty much get to take the rest of the election off. Chazz Darling is the Holy Grail of uncovered dirt, and Jake's opponents absolutely used it against him. Jake was defeated by a man named Yoho, who to our knowledge was not any kind of gnoll or werewolf.

Rush tried to stand by his LARPing hobby, asserting that he never tried to hide it, but only after he failed in his attempts to hide it. And to be fair, there's nothing inherently wrong with LARPing, but it turns out people aren't too thrilled about the prospect of electing a representative who fantasizes about turning into a vampire and dismembering women in vans. And he seemed supremely annoyed and embarrassed when Stephen Colbert interviewed him as a vampire lord, because apparently centuries of erotic undeath has not helped Chazz Darling develop a sense of humor about his condition.

RT REP
Comedy Central
No one has been able to explain why he always politely declines when offered garlic bread, however.



A Middle-Aged Dean And Minister Is Secretly A Drug-Dealing Enforcer

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Boston Globe

Reverend Shaun Harrison was a pillar of the community. In addition to being a minister, Harrison was a high school dean and an anti-violence activist, which is ironic, considering he spent his nights and weekends working as an enforcer for drug dealers.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Wendy Maeda/Boston Globe
"I hide in plain sight, the same as you, Mr. White."



The Absurd Double Life:

People began to grow suspicious of Harrison when he had a bad day at school and shoved a student. The district was preparing to fire him over the incident, but forgot all about it mere hours later when a video surfaced of Harrison shooting one of his students in the back of the fucking head. It was a gang-related execution Harrison had performed during his other job as a Latin Kings drug trafficker.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Aram Boghosian/Boston Globe
He didn't quite understand how the "now this doesn't seem so bad by comparison" strategy works.



Luckily, Harrison is as bad at executions as he is at preventing crime in his community. The student, who was actually working for Harrison as a dealer, survived, and Harrison was promptly arrested. Shortly after Harrison's arrest, a team of Latin Kings cleaners were apprehended trying to remove guns and drugs from his apartment, because apparently the whole gang just kept all their stuff there like it was a Jack Rabbit Self Storage unit.

So how did he get away with it for so long? Well, it turns out being an anti-violence activist and minister is a good cover when you spend so much time associating with known gang members and drug dealers. When Harrison was put under police surveillance for suspected drug dealing, nothing he did seemed suspicious. Until the whole "shooting his student in the head" video. That was pretty suspicious.

A High School Teacher Calls In Sick To Wrestle For WWE

STRIKE
WWE

Matthew Kaye was a popular social studies teacher at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens, New York. Unfortunately, at the end of 2004, he started missing work. It seemed he was constantly being pulled away by medical emergencies. What the school didn't know is that those emergencies were more of the "lumberjack match" variety than the "debilitating medical condition" variety.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
WWE
"You let Dr. Jones take off time for grave-robbing whenever he wants, but I bail for one wrestling match and I'm the bad guy?"



The Absurd Double Life:

Kaye was moonlighting as "Matt Striker," a pro wrestler who finished his opponents with the Lung Blower, a move that looks like a kangaroo trying to save someone from choking to death in a Bennigan's. What makes this wrestler's story truly insane, though, is that no one at his school noticed. Kaye ditched work to fly to Japan for matches and appeared on TV without a mask, and his in-ring character was a goddamn teacher. Kaye would call in sick from his school-teaching job and have a match against Kurt Angle on SmackDown as a school-teaching wrestler. Prince Adam and Clark Kent worked harder on their secret identities than Matthew Kaye did.

STRIKER W
WWE
"I teach social studies; my character teaches sociology. Totally different."



It took months for school officials to realize Striker and Kaye were the same person, and by that point he had skipped work 11 times to wrestle. Teachers in his district are allowed 10 per year, and only three of them can be used for personal, non-medical reasons. In Kaye's defense, Kurt Angle trying to tear your ankle off should be considered a medical emergency.

Kaye resigned when he was threatened with disciplinary action, which is the teacher equivalent of tapping out to an ankle lock. Since then he's gone on to a successful career as a wrestling commentator, though his bosses probably worry he's secretly skipping work to go teach history.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming

A Cop Murders His Friend, Is Placed In Charge Of The Investigation To Catch Himself

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Wiki Commons

In 1951, the quaint Swedish town of Saxtorp was in the midst of being terrorized by an ax murderer. When the case picked up national attention, all of Sweden turned to Tore Hedin, a respected Saxtorp police officer. He was put in charge of the investigation and would hold helpful press conferences to update the nation on his progress. It must have been difficult for him to keep a straight face during those press conferences, because Hedin was secretly the ax murderer.

N
via Murderpedia
"If you have any questions, just ... ax."



The Absurd Double Life:

As far as history knows, Hedin's criminal activity started in 1943, when he stole some oats from a brewery and then burned down the entire building to cover his tracks. For the next eight years, Hedin kept the same M.O. -- he would commit fairly petty crimes (like oat burglary) and then burn down entire buildings to hide the evidence. Hedin got the sweet, sweet taste of murder on the very night a rally was being held in his honor. He didn't attend the rally, because he was busy robbing and murdering his good friend John Nilsson. Tore covered it up with his usual raging fire, and the concerned townsfolk soon put him in charge of finding the culprit. Unfortunately, to the town's dismay, Tore couldn't seem to figure out who this monster was.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
via Murderpedia
"Maybe if we burned the police station down?"



Hedin was finally fired after his girlfriend dumped him and he kidnapped her and threatened her life. Left with nothing but free time, Hedin went full maniac on his town, killing his parents, his ex-girlfriend, and five people in a local retirement home before running into the wilderness and drowning himself in a lake. He even left a note confessing his crimes, so, technically, he did solve the mystery.

A Famously Terrible Hockey Player Moonlights As A Famously Excellent Bank Robber

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Attila Ambrus

At first glance, Attila Ambrus' life reads like an inspirational movie. He fled Communist Romania by hanging from the underside of a freight train, became the janitor for Hungary's national hockey team, and tried out for goalie despite having virtually no hockey experience. Ambrus was so terrible at the tryout that the other players broke his nose for fun. Still, he refused to leave or admit defeat and was awarded a spot on the team out of sheer respect and/or pity.

And, despite being considered the worst goalie in the history of professional hockey (an opposing team scored 23 goals on him in one game), he was curiously also celebrated as the hardest worker in the league. Of course, now we realize that at least part of the reason that Ambrus was so terrible might have been because he was busy robbing dozens of banks as the infamous Whiskey Robber.

The Absurd Double Life:

The Whiskey Robber pulled off 29 heists in Hungary in 1993, robbing banks, post offices, and travel agencies, and leaving female tellers compliments and flowers as he made off with sacks full of whatever Hungarians use for money. He became a kind of anti-hero, as Hungary was in a chaotic post-Communist state at the time, and a polite bank robber was the perfect anti-establishment figure.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Blikk.hu
We're not sure what dates this more: post-Communism or travel agencies being a lucrative mark.



He became so absurdly famous that the host of a hit Hungarian true crime show asked the Whiskey Robber to start robbing banks on Thursdays so that it would be easier to cover his upcoming heists. Ambrus obliged and started pillaging Budapest's hapless financial centers on Thursdays. For a Hungarian bank teller, being robbed by the Whiskey Robber was like being robbed by Woody Harrelson.

29-07-993151243) 29-07927R86. O1 99-0799 99-0799 1355 131 59-07-99 1355415 99-07-99 1355-15
Whiskeyrobber.com
"This just in: yet another brazen bank heist. Hostages report laughter and delight."



Years later, in 1999, Ambrus was finally caught, and when everyone learned that the Whiskey Robber was the terrible goalie on the Hungarian hockey team, Ambrus became a goddamn national hero. Commemorative Whiskey Robber T-shirts and mugs couldn't be produced fast enough, and the hockey team hung a Whiskey Robber flag from their stadium for years after.

Six months after his arrest, Ambrus broke out of prison by climbing out of a window with a freaking bed sheet. Despite the Hungarian police locking down the entire city of Budapest and launching the largest manhunt in Europe since the fall of Communism, Ambrus managed to elude them and continue robbing banks for months. At one point, he found himself cornered by the police and vaulted over a railing into the Danube River, where he outswam the authorities. It's like the entire country subconsciously agreed to reenact every episode of The Dukes Of Hazzard.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Origo.hu
"Better hope that Ambrus boy plays butterfly style, 'cause wings are the only way he's gettin' out of this."



Ambrus was eventually recaptured and put in the most secure prison conceivable, to protect both the banks and the hockey rinks of Hungary. He was released in 2012 and now makes pottery for a living. Or so he claims.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
hvg.hu
"The 17 banks within a mile of my pottery shop are purely coincidental."



A Professor Of French Literature Secretly Becomes Pol Pot

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
AP via The Telegraph

Saloth Sar was an admired French literature professor at Chamraon Vichea, a respected private college in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. He worked there from 1956 to 1963 before suddenly vanishing without a trace. Presumed dead, he was remembered by friends, family, and students as a kind and well-liked man who would be sorely missed. Right up until he reemerged as infamous genocidal madman Pol Pot. Then everyone sort of wished he'd stayed disappeared.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
CNN
Kind of like when the cool art teacher got divorced over the summer.



The Absurd Double Life:

Professor Saloth was the leader of Cambodia's underground Communist party, and spent every day after class actively plotting the Communist takeover of his country. After his government started cracking down on Communists, Saloth disappeared into the jungle and became a guerrilla leader for a group known as Khmer Rouge. He then changed his name to Pol Pot in preparation of his graduation to the upper echelon of history's greatest monsters.

The former professor began surrounding himself with layers of mystery and secrecy. He cut ties with everyone in his former life and actually used a stand-in to pose as the leader of his rebel group. Pol Pot's army stormed the capital in 1975, but his rule got pretty dark pretty fast. He immediately death-marched the entire population of Phnom Penh into the countryside, turned the national library into a literal pigsty (perhaps because of years of built-up resentment after working as a literature professor), and then executed about 2 million Cambodians, a full quarter of the country's population. That's right -- Professor Saloth went from teaching Cambodian students about The Three Musketeers to murdering one out of every four people in the country. And he had been so careful about concealing his identity that no one had any idea who was responsible.

6 People With WTF Secret Lives Absolutely Nobody Saw Coming
Romanian National Archives
Though making all jokes about liberal arts majors a capital crime should have been a clue.



Pol was especially concerned with killing all of Cambodia's academics, eventually getting to the Kafkaesque point of macabre wackiness that people were executed just for wearing glasses. He also threw his entire family in a concentration camp -- and they were completely unaware that their supposedly long-dead relative was actually the genocidal dictator of their corpse-strewn country.

So the lesson here is, if your teacher suddenly starts missing a lot of school, they're either wrestling the Undertaker on Monday Night Raw or plotting the extermination of half the country.

You know who else was doing some amazing moonlighting? Audrey Hepburn, who was a spy for the Allies in World War 2. And there was Billy Tipton, the famous jazz musician who was biologically a woman. See that and more in 11 Celebrities Who Were Secretly Total Badasses and The 6 Biggest Badasses Who Lived As The Opposite Sex.

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Check out Robert Evans' A Brief History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization, a celebration of the brave, drunken pioneers who built our civilization one seemingly bad decision at a time.

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