Whether it’s the most crowded cities or the sleepiest of suburbs, one needn’t look too far for what evil men can do. However, the often tranquil countryside or the most desolate of rural locales can also play host to some truly horrific events. From small towns to scenic farmlands, these rural true crime stories will keep you up at night. As always, given the subject matter, we’ll discuss some rather disturbing topics, so keep that in mind before diving in.
10. The Villisca Axe Murders
Terrifying true crime stories might be a fixture of modern media, but they’ve also been present since the early 1900s. Case in point is the tale of the Moore family, as well as two of their friends, who were slain one hot night in the summer of 1912.
The victims consisted of Josiah, Sarah, their four children, and two of their close friends, Ina Mae and Lena Gertrude Stillinger, who were visiting at the time of the murders. However, what should have been a peaceful evening soon turned into an unimaginable horror show. Following a pleasant night out at the local local Presbyterian Church, the whole group returned home and went to bed. Following their drift off to slumber, the still-unknown assailant entered their home and began their cruel work.
The next morning, several missed calls from Josiah’s clerk and the family’s absence during their usual morning rituals quickly set off warning signs for their neighbors. Eventually, the town marshall arrived on the scene, kicking down the door and eventually discovering everyone slaughtered in various rooms throughout the house. Amongst the mangled remains of the victims were a bloodied axe, a slab of bacon, as well as clothing covering any mirrors in the house.
9. The Keddie Murders
In the early 80s, the small town of Keddie, located in Northern California, was rocked by a crime nothing short of stomach-churning. The sight of the murders, a quaint cabin, was populated by the Sharp family who had only moved in the previous year. The family consisted of the mother Sue, a divorcee, and her children – John, Sheila, Tina, Rick, and Greg. However, the charming Keddie Resort where the family made their home would soon become their final resting place in April 1981.
On the evening of April 11, Shelia stayed at another nearby cabin, taking part in a sleepover with the Seabolt family. That night, a 14-year-old Sheila went to bed, comforted in the knowledge that her whole family was only a stone’s throw away. However, the next morning, upon returning to her family’s cabin for a change of clothes for church, she walked right into a waking nightmare. There, in the cabin’s living room, were the bodies of Sue, John, and Dana all bound with medical tape and electrical cords. Tina’s body was the only one unaccounted for, eventually discovered three years later roughly 100 miles from Keddie. To this day, despite some theorizing and several fruitless leads, the culprits behind the murders have yet to be identified.
8. The Ken and Barbie Killers
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, as far as outward appearances go, were as unthreatening and normal as possible. However, underneath their blonde hair and white bread demeanors, were two greatly disturbed minds who’d soon turn Toronto into their twisted playground.
Paul Bernardo was already well on his way to infamy before his marriage to Karla, having committed several sexual assaults in Scarborough, Ontario back in 1987. Bernardo’s sadism did appeal to one woman, Karla, who much like Paul, was far more unhinged than her appearance and upbringing would suggest. In a disturbing twist of fate, Karla was not only okay with Paul’s deranged sexual proclivities but encouraged and participated in them. In 1990, they carried out their most heinous crime when the duo drugged, beat, and sexually assaulted Tammy Homolka, Karla’s 15-year-old sister.
This streak of sexually charged cruelty and murder carried on until early 1993 when Karla left Paul following a beating with a flashlight. Eventually, DNA evidence was able to link Paul back to his crimes in Scarborough leading to his arrest and both of them being put on trial. These circumstances turned the once-sadistically star-crossed lovers against each other, with Karla seeking a plea bargain in return for her testimony against Paul.
7. The Lawson Family Murders
We now shift focus to the farmlands of Northern Carolina and the disturbing crimes of tobacco farmer Charlie Lawson. Unlike a few of the aforementioned crimes in this list, while we do have a culprit, the reasons for Charles’ actions are, to this day, still an enigma.
It was just a few days before Christmas, 1929, and Charlie Lawson had taken his entire family into town for some brand-new clothes and a family photo portrait. This included his wife Fannie and his seven children – Marie, Arthur, James, Maybell, Raymond, Carrie, and Mary Lou. However, in a horrific turn of events, it appears Charles made this day as pleasant as possible to offset the atrocity he was poised to commit. On Christmas Day, as the family was getting on with their day Charles went to work killing all of them one by one. In quick succession, Charles executed his family with a 12-gauge shotgun and blunt force trauma before eventually shooting himself in the nearby woods.
The only family member spared from the murders was Charles’ eldest son, Arthur, who’d been running an errand at the time. One theory behind Charles’ actions has been his covering up acts of sexual abuse he’d committed against Marie. However, these claims have never fully been substantiated with any actual evidence beyond familial gossip and hearsay.
6. The Rhoden Family Massacre
The crimes committed against the Rhoden family in 2016 were nothing short of a premeditated attack, carried out with an ample amount of malice. On the night of April 21 and into the early hours of April 22, eight members of the family were gunned down in their own homes. The victims included Christopher Rhoden Junior, Christopher Rhoden Senior, Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, Dana Lynn Rhoden, Gary Rhoden, Hanna May Rhoden, Hannah Hazel Gilley, and Kenneth Rhoden.
The first of the four separate crime scenes was discovered when Bobby Jo Manley, Dana’s sister, came over to feed the house’s pets. After calling 9-1-1, Manley went to the second home on the property where she found more bodies waiting for her. Shortly after, her brother, James Manley, came over to check on her and discovered the third crime scene with more of the family’s bullet-riddled bodies. Finally, later on in the day, another 9-1-1 call alerted police to the discovery of another victim in a private residence in Piketon, a nearby village.
It wasn’t until 2018 that the culprits, the Wagner family, were arrested and charged for the eight murders. One of the driving forces behind the killings was revealed to be a custody dispute over Hanna and Jake’s then two-year-old daughter.
5. The Grimes Sisters
The 1950s were a time of great technological progress for America, especially following the conclusion of World War II, with America seeing growth in employment and birth rates. However, that didn’t mean that there didn’t still exist an undercurrent of darkness and malevolence lurking in the shadows of American streets.
For example, on the night of December 28, 1956, Barbara and Patricia Grimes, two Chicagoian sisters, left their home for the last time. The two sisters had ventured to the cinema for the evening to take in a screening of the Elvis Presley movie Love Me Tender at the Brighton Theater. 89 minutes later, the two sisters saw the credits roll and exited the theatre to begin their journey home. They’d never make it back unfortunately as their departure from the theatre was the last time either of them would be seen alive.
Following a widespread search for the two sisters, their bodies were eventually found on January 22, 1957, just off a rural road in Burr Ridge, Illinois. To this day, no definitive culprit or explanation has been given regarding the Grimes sisters’ abductions and subsequent murders. While a few suspects were questioned and looked into, this sadly seems to be another true crime story that’ll go unsolved.
4. The Sodder Children Disappearance
Christmas Eve, is a time of celebration and excitement for the wonders of Christmas day, unless you’re the Sodder family that is. As the Sodder family went to bed on that very evening in 1945 with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, their home would soon be set ablaze!
Following a strange late-night call from a woman with a strange laugh, the family’s mother Jennie was later awakened by a commotion on their roof. Within moments a devastating fire broke out and quickly engulfed the entire house, sending the entire family into a justifiable panic. Jennie, her husband George, and four of their children – Marion, Sylvia, John, and George Jr – were able to escape the raging inferno. However, this left their five remaining children – Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty – still inside their burning home.
Despite some failed rescue efforts, the family was left to watch their home transform into a smoldering wreck, accepting the likely demise of their other children. However, when the fire department eventually began culling through the house’s remains, they found neither hide nor hair of their remains in the ashes. Long after the night’s tragic events, speculation ran rampant regarding what became of the five missing children and where they went.
3. The Gainesville Ripper
All discussions of illegal, illicit, and disturbing events will eventually lead to one or more stories set in the state of Florida. The “Florida Man” in this particular story is Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper, one of America’s most notorious serial killers.
In late August of 1990, Rolling made Gainesville his personal hunting ground as he would claim the lives of five college students. The victims were Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Manuel Taboada, and Tracy Paules, all having their lives snuffed out in the most horrific ways possible. Rolling’s disturbing deeds didn’t end with simply killing the girls, as he would go as far as to arrange their bodies in ritualistic and intentionally shocking ways. This included placing the head of Christa Hoyt on the shelf opposite her decapitating body that was left sitting on the edge of her bed.
The next month, Rolling was arrested on unrelated charges in Ocala, Florida, but would still end up confessing to his five murders in Gainesville. 16 years later, Rolling was finally sentenced to death and was executed by lethal injection on October 25, 2006, at Florida State Prison.
2. The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders
A crime this horrific is something that should’ve probably been left in the fictitious world of the Friday the 13th film franchise. Sadly, what occurred in Mayes County, Oklahoma, in June 1977 was far from fictional, it was quite real and aggressively disturbing.
When the young girl scouts of Camp Scott went to bed on June 12, none of them could’ve expected the horrors that would await them at daybreak. Early the next day, en route to the showers, a camp counselor discovered the first of what would soon be confirmed as three dead bodies. As the morning progressed, the bodies were identified as ten-year-old Denise Milner, 9-year-old Michele Guse, and 8-year-old Lori Farmer. In a stomach-churning revelation, it was later confirmed that the girls had all been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled. The neighboring community was horrified and Camp Scott was immediately closed off, with all remaining campers being sent home.
Following a long and highly publicized investigation, one suspect was arrested in connection to the case, though on unrelated charges, that being Gene Leroy Hart. Despite this, there was never enough substantial DNA evidence to confirm Hart as the definitive culprit fully. Given his death just two years after the murders, it’s doubtful we’ll ever get a definitive answer to who committed the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.
1. The Butcher of Plainfield
Much like many famous serial killers, Ed Gein was a product of his environment and his upbringing, specifically his aggressively religious mother Augusta. Known as a strange fellow even during his childhood, most people in Plainfield, Wisconsin only ever saw Ed as an awkward yet ultimately harmless guy. This assumption starkly contrasted the darkness that resided behind his withdrawn expressions, as Ed was nothing short of deranged.
Ed was obsessed with his mother, committing his life to taking care of her after she’d suffered a debilitating stroke and up until she died in 1945. Her death seemed to flip a switch in Ed who began a dual hobby of grave robbing and fashioning human remains into clothing. Following his murder of Bernice Worden, a local hardware store owner, police swarmed Ed’s home where they’d discovered, not only Bernice’s corpse in the barn but Ed’s handiwork as well. This included chairs made of human skin, faces, skulls, noses, and even a belt made of severed nipples.
Ed’s heinous crimes quickly made front-page news, terrifying the masses and even stoking more than a few people’s creativity. One can see the influence of Ed Gein in several horror classics, including Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs.