Reddit Users Share Stories About Meeting Potential Serial Killers, And It's Pure Horror

Have you ever run into a serial killer?

America is obsessed with crime and violence. It's simply a fact. That's why Netflix can drop a new true crime series, and people will immediately binge it.

This country also has many of the most famous serial killers in the world over the past several hundred years. Whether it's Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer or someone else, there are countless murder stories for people to read and discuss. However, how many people have actually gotten near a real murderer? The answer is probably more than you think, and judging from a new Reddit thread, potential serial killers are seemingly everywhere.

Reddit users are sharing experiences about potentially running into serial killers. The answers are absolutely insane and terrifying. (Credit: Getty Images)

Reddit users share experiences with serial killers.

As OutKick readers know, I enjoy going down Reddit rabbit holes. It's a great way to burn some time. I found an unreal one Monday titled, "People who are pretty sure they’ve encountered a serial killer, what happened?"

It includes exactly what it sounds like. Read some of the stories below, and good luck sleeping tonight. Also, make sure to send me your thoughts to David.Hookstead@outkick.com:

• I had an employee that worked for me doing minor maintenance repairs on construction equipment. One day it just took him way too long on a job and I was pissed. I pulled the GPS info and he was nowhere near where he was supposed to be. My admin and I both called him repeatedly with no response. Now I'm even more pissed because this wasn't the first time he took too long/didn't answer his company provided nextel radio. We start digging. Find out it has happened repeatedly. He gets back late and I waited for him, alone, in my office. I terminated him and he took it surprisingly well. Surprised me because I dealt with a ton of BS as a woman working in a male dominated field and company. Few years later, I'm working in a different location for the same company and some cops show up and want to know what I remember about him. I tell them I fired him, etc. They subpoena the GPS records from the company. Then they started finding the rest of the bodies. He pled down and pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. He was picking up prostitutes in the company work truck, killing them and dumping bodies in a rural part of the neighboring county.
• I was once sat in my car at the back of a country lane carpark eating pizza in the dark with a friend, no street lights and just woods surrounding. Finished up and turned on the headlights and all we could see was a man army crawling towards the car, was a few metres away. I have never turned the ignition so fast and sped off in my life, to make it scarier the guy just slowly got up and looked at us, didn’t try to chase or grab the car or anything.
• My grandmother had three husbands die of food poisoning "accidentally" - I don’t believe it for a second.
• This is a ‘definitely encountered a serial killer’ rather than ‘pretty sure’. I grew up in a small town in North Wales (UK). The local cinema had been closed for 15 years, but a guy from out of town had reopened it. As kids, this blew our minds, as it was a rural area, with very little to offer in terms of entertainment so it seemed unbelievable to us that we would actually have a cinema in town. On one visit to the cinema, I ended up needing to use the toilet during a film, so left the theatre, walked through the foyer and into the toilet. There was no toilet paper, so I went back into the foyer and spoke to the cinema owner to ask if he had any toilet paper. I was younger than ten at the time and very nervous about speaking to adults, but the owner was incredibly kind and friendly, gave me the toilet paper and we had a conversation about the film and how happy I was that we now had a cinema in the town. I used the toilet then went back into the theatre. A few weeks later the friendly cinema man was on the front page of every news paper. He was Peter Moore.
• My grandmother swears she met David Parker Ray, aka the Toybox killer. My grandfather was stationed in Fort Bliss so she took her 3 daughters camping in Elephant Bute State Park, the same place where he was a ranger. She said a ranger kept trying to get them to stay in his trailer instead of camping by the lake. Obviously they refused and went on a hike but when they came back their campsite was trashed so she packed them all up and drove home in the dark. When I got into true crime and was telling her how close he was to us she relayed the story, and when I showed her a photo she said that it was definitely him just aged a bit. Not his usual MO but this would have been in the mid-seventies and no one's exactly sure how long he killed for.
• Not me, but my uncle - his manager at the fast food place where he worked in high school invited him and another kid over to his place after work. My uncle and his friend declined, and were very glad they did years later when it became public what exactly his former manager, John Wayne Gacy, was doing to and with those kids he invited over.
• Not a serial killer, but he killed more than half of a whole family. Paid him to remove a problematic tree that I wasn't confident about cutting down without dropping it on my home. He convinced me to save the tree and just remove a few limbs that were dangers. He just seemed like a dude. A month later he murdered everyone in a house except a young girl whom he abducted. He stuffed the bodies of the mother / mother's friend / son into the hollow of a tree. When his home was later searched it was full of piles of leaves and wallpapered to look like trees, and the abducted girl was locked in the basement. (Ohio)
• My grandparents took me on a roadtrip and stopped in Shreveport to gamble. I sat on a bench and read for hours - sounds shitty but my attention span wasn't completely fried at that point and I was happy to read as long as anyone would let me. Another kid a couple of years younger was in the same situation but he was... not a reader. We start talking and eventually he starts telling me about the neighborhood animals he's tortured and killed. Cats, dogs, wild animals, he was an equal opportunity monster. Might have just been trying to impress a stranger, might currently have a crawlspace packed with bodies, who knows?
• Few years ago my mother took my son who was about 6 at the time to get Santa photos done. Few months later Toronto police arrested him. He had murdered several men. He ran a landscaping company and was hiding the bodies in the ground and planting potters of jobs he was doing. And also working as a mall Santa. Thing that’s messed up to me is, I’m aware of his actions. But. Somewhere, a family has a photo of their child on his lap completely unaware, full fledged serial killer on display.
• I’m definitely sure I have because my cousin is one. We were quite close (before it was revealed to me and the rest of our family that he is a monster) and our last ‘encounter’ was in September 2020, when he hugged and consoled me at my dad’s viewing (his death wasn’t related to the cousin). Roughly 6 weeks later he killed his final victim and was arrested two weeks after that. That’s when we all found out the truth about him.
• Not me but my grandmother, this was in Florida, she told me about how this man came up to her way back in the day saying he was injured and needed help. he was wearing a bright yellow shirt, not related but i remember her pointing that out. she told him that she was really sorry but she was in a rush to go because she was going to meet her sister to make plans for an upcoming family gathering they had planned so she couldn’t be of assistance and pointed him in the direction of the nearest doctors office. and just like that, she left. it was ted bundy. she said the look in his eye was the most sinister thing she’d ever seen and that she almost helped him, but decided against it last minute. my grandmother was an amazing woman, she was always helping people and saw the good in everyone. but she said he just had an evil look in his eye that she couldn’t ignore.
• My Mom once told us about a suspected run in she had with Clifford Olson. She was around 13 years old walking home from swim club and a man matching his description pulled up alongside her and tried to strike up a conversation. He would ask her where the post office was located and said he needed some help mailing a present. My Mom was smart enough to realize it was Labour Day and the post office was closed, she saw he had plates on his car from the US and had leather gloves on. When she finally worked up the courage to end the conversation and walk away the man started swearing at her telling her to get in the car and then he sped off. The dates and location all add up too, freaky shit.

Usually, I'd have something to add to these Reddit threads, but as far as I know, I've never been in the presence of a serial killer. I might get death threats from time to time, but no serial killers that I know of. Let's hope it stays that way. Let me know your thoughts at David.Hookstead@outkick.com, and have fun sleeping tonight!