Halloween is that special time of year when you can casually tell tales of murder, mayhem, and mind-flaying horror around the water cooler or dinner table without everybody assuming you're a psycho. Most spooky legends are merely gruesome fiction, designed to warn kids away from taking candy from strangers or humping in cars parked on secluded country roads ... Or at least, that's what we tell ourselves. As it turns out, a gut-twistingly large percentage of them have happened to real people. Real people like you. Just sayin'.
We've already shone a shaky flashlight on these terrifyingly true campfire tales eight times before, but there's so much factual horror out there that this year, we've managed to put together our longest (and disturbing-est) collection yet. For instance, did you hear the one about ...
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A Girl Is Silently Murdered In A Library (And No One Notices)
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The Legend:
Libraries, with their unnerving silence and many musty, forgotten corners, naturally attract whispered tall tales. Of course, most of these stories are about people sneaking off back to the periodicals section to Dewey each other's decimals with sensual abandon. But there are also darker legends. Who can forget the horrifying tale of the dead woman who supposedly stalked New York's Public Library back in the '80s?
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There's even a documentary about it.
Some spooky shit, right there. But reality is even spookier ...
The Truth:
Penn State student Betsy Aardsma was beautiful, bright, popular, and socially conscious. If she was a character in a horror flick, she'd definitely be the last survivor, but real life is more frightening and cruel than any movie. On November 28th, 1969, Betsy told people she was going to the university's library to research a paper, but what she got instead was a single, deadly stab wound to the chest. And while librarians tend to discourage cold-blooded murder in the stacks, most would have approved of how silently the crime was carried out: Despite numerous other students being only feet away from the crime scene, nobody heard any sound of a struggle.
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Thus narrowing down the suspects to a professional, a ghost, or a mime.
Betsy wasn't discovered until several minutes later, and initially, nobody realized what had happened to her, because her red dress camouflaged any blood stains. To this day, the circumstances surrounding Betsy's death remain a mystery. So beware, college students: The next time you're sent down to the stacks for a research paper, tedium and possibly stepping on a used condom aren't all you have to fear.
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Cause Of Death: Atomic Wedgie
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