Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Dark Secrets at Summer Camps True Stories of Death, Mystery, and Unsolved Crimes PART1 #67

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #summercamphorror #unsolvedmysteries #truecrimestories #darksecrets #campterror  Part 1 uncovers chilling true stories from summer camps, where death, mystery, and unsolved crimes haunt the quiet woods. These accounts reveal the hidden dangers behind campfires and cabins, showing that what should be a safe haven for fun and friendship can become a scene of fear, suspense, and dark secrets that linger long after the summer ends.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, summercamphorrorstories, truecrimestories, darkcampmysteries, unsolvedcases, campdeathstories, chillingencounters, creepyexperiences, scarycampstories, mysteriousevents, unsettlingmoments, nightmarestories, realhorrorstories, spookytales, terrifyingexperiences

There's so much rugby on Sports Exter from Sky. They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter Sports Extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place.

Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampact with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Collini, did you know if your age between 25 and 65?

Well, you can get a free HPV cervical check. It's one of the best ways to protect yourself from cervical cancer. And you know what? I actually checked only recently when mine was due and no exaggeration. It took me less than five minutes. You go online to hsec.com. But in your PPS number, check in the date of birth. And then they tell you when your next appointment is due.

Oh my God. I know. And you can check you're on the register on the website so you can phone [phone]. If your test is due today, you can book it today are hsccccc. i.e. 4 slash cervical check. Camp Linux, the summer that changed everything. My name's Ethan, and back in the summer of 2021, I was 15 years old.

At that age, you're caught in this weird limbo, too old to be treated like a little kid but still too young for adults to take you seriously. That summer, though, I wasn't just another teenager killing time until school started again. Nope. I was at Camp Linux in Beckett, Massachusetts, and as one of the oldest campers there, I somehow ended up being more like a junior counselor than a regular attendee. I'd been going to this camp since 2018, so by that point, I knew the layout better than half the staff. Every tree, every trail, every rickety cabin,

I'd spend enough summers there to know where you could sneak out without getting caught, where the counselors secretly hid their snacks, and which cabins had the creakiest floorboards. If you'd ask me then, I'd have said it was my second home. At least, it felt like it, until everything went sideways. Now, I need to pause here and make something clear, this story is real. I swear on everything I have that it happened exactly as I'm about to tell it. You could probably even dig up articles online about the incident. So, if some parts sound wild or unbelievable, just remember, I was there.

I saw it with my own eyes. And honestly, I wish I hadn't. Anyway, my parents had sent me to camp that year partly to get me out of Boston and partly to give themselves a break. I think they figured I needed a reset after all the chaos of the pandemic lockdowns. They wanted me roasting marshmallows under the stars instead of rotting in front of a screen in my bedroom. And I wasn't complaining. After a year of online classes, masks, and endless arguments about what, normal, even meant anymore, the idea of being in the middle of the New England wood sounded like a dream.

Except dreams have this way of turning into nightmares when you least expect it. Rope Burn Night If you've never been to a summer camp, let me explain one of the traditions at Camp Linux. It was called Rope Burn Night. It was basically the Olympics of Camp Fire building. The rules were simple. Each team had to build a fire big enough to burn through a rope tied between two poles. First team to snap the rope with their flames won bragging rights for the rest of camp, and a pizza.

Trust me, Camp pizza was basically gourmet compared to the mystery meatloaf they usually fed us, so the stakes felt enormous. That summer, I was on the blue team with two other campers, and Riley. Our counsellor, Jake, was the kind of guy who could hype you up for literally anything. He'd clap his hands, grin like he was about to announce a WWE match, and yell stuff like, Let's Be Legendary Tonight. Even if we were just collecting sticks, he made it sound like a heroic mission. So, when Rope Burn Knight rolled around, the three of us grabbed our flashlights and headed for the woods to gather firewood. This was nothing new,

We'd done it dozens of times. Normally, we'd wander in, grab the driest sticks we could find, and head back out. Easy. But that night, man, that night was different. The forest shift. If you've ever spent a lot of time outdoors,

you know what I mean when I say the woods can change. One second it's all crickets, rustling leaves, and the occasional hoot of an owl. The next second, it's like the entire forest holds its breath. The silence is so thick it presses on your eardrums. And you know something isn't right. That's exactly what happened as we trudged about 50 yards in. I noticed the stillness first.

No bugs, no frogs, no sound at all. Just our boots crunching through the underbrush. Riley, who was a little ahead of us, suddenly froze. He sniffed the air, wrinkled his nose, and asked, Hey, do you guys smell that? At first, I didn't notice. Then it hit me like a punch in the face. That sharp, unmistakable stench.

If you've ever been near Roadkill on a hot day, you know the smell. Except this wasn't just that. It was stronger. Thicker. Wrong. Jake, trying to keep it together, pinched his nose and said, probably just a dead animal. That was the logical explanation, right? Foxes, raccoons, deer, stuff dies in the woods all the time.

But the knot in my stomach said otherwise. The discovery My flashlight beam caught on something at the base of an oak tree. There's so much rope me on sports extra from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the

URC, the Challenge Cup and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only.

Standup pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Collini, did you know if your age between 20? and 65, well, you can get a free HPV cervical check. It's one of the best ways to protect yourself from cervical cancer. And you know what? I actually checked only recently when mine was due and no exaggeration. It took me less than five minutes. You go online to hse.com.

Put in your PPS number, check in the date of birth. And then they tell you when your next appointment is due. Oh my gosh. That's unreal. And you can check you on the register on the website so you can phone [phone]. If your test is due today, you can book it today are hsccccc. First, I thought it was just a weirdly shaped log.

But then my brain pieced it together, a slumped figure, half hidden by ferns. Guys, I whispered, my throat suddenly dry. Sam and Riley swung their flashlights in the direction I was pointing. That's when we saw it. Not a deer. Not a raccoon. A man. His body was curled awkwardly against the trunk, like he just sat down and never got back up.

His clothes were ripped and dirty. His skin had that grayish, bloated look, already starting to melt away. The smell slammed into us at full force then. Riley gagged and stumbled back, hand over his mouth. Sam's flashlight shook in his grip like he was trying to will it to turn off. Jake swore under his breath and stepped in front of us, as if shielding us from something we couldn't unsee would somehow undo it. Stay back, he snapped, his voice sharper than I'd ever heard. He fumbled for his walkie-talkie, his hands shaking, and radioed the head counselor.

This is Jake. We, we found a body in the woods. Send help. Now. He turned back to us. You three head back to camp. And don't say a word to anyone else. We don't want panic.

So, like obedient campers, we turned around and walked. Or maybe stumbled. Honestly, my legs felt like they were moving through quicksand. Processing the shock. Back at the mess hall, the three of us sat at one of the long wooden tables. Nobody else knew what had happened, so the room buzzed with normal camp chatter. But for us, it was like being on another planet. Sam leaned in, his voice a shaky whisper.

Was that real? Like, was that actually real? Riley just stared at his hands, pale and silent, like he'd only just realized how fragile being alive was. Me? My brain kept replaying the way the guys had lulled to the side, mouth slightly open, like a zombie taking a nap. I'd seen horror movies before, sure. But nothing prepares you for the real thing. Later that night, the police came. They taped off the section of the woods where we'd been and started their investigation. Rope Burn Night was obviously cancelled, though nobody told the younger kids why.

The staff tried to act normal the next day, we played capture the flag, eight S. Morays by the lake, but it wasn't the same. Once you've stumbled across death like that, even the happiest camp tradition feels tainted. And that, was only the beginning. The day after. The morning after we found the body, Camp tried to pretend like nothing happened. Breakfast in the mess hall was the same watery scrambled egg. and toast with way too much butter.

Counselors went around with their usual forced smiles, trying to pump us up for the day like this was just another Tuesday in Paradise. But I could tell. Everyone who had been there last night, Jake, me, Sam, Riley, we all had that look. That hollow, half-awake look like when you've pulled an all-nighter and your brain hasn't caught up yet. Jake didn't sit with us like he usually did. He was busy talking to the head counsellor, his face tight, his voice low. The cops had stayed most of the night, and though the younger kids hadn't been told,

rumors were already spreading like wildfire. Campers are worse than Twitter when it comes to gossip. Some kids were whispering about a bear attack. Others swore someone had seen a mountain lion. And then, of course, there were the ones saying it was a ghost. I kept my mouth shut. Jake had told us not to talk, and honestly, I didn't even want to. The images were still too fresh.

Capture the flag, but different. Normally, Capture the Flag was the highlight of the week. Imagine 50 kids running through the woods like maniacs, screaming, tripping over roots, and laughing so hard their sides hurt. That was camp magic. But this time, It felt different. When the councillors divided us into teams and we set off into the woods,

all I could think about was how close we were to that part of the forest. There's so much rugby on Sports Extra from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time, we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European Rugby all in the same place.

Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jampack with rugby. Ew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for €15 a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Collini, did you know if your age between 25 and 65?

Well, you can get a free HPV cervical check. It's one of the best ways to protect yourself from cervical cancer. And you know what? I actually checked only recently when mine was due and no exaggeration. It took me less than five minutes. You go online to hse.e. Forward slash cervical check.

Put in your PPS number. Check in the date of birth. And then they tell you when your next appointment it's you. Oh my God. It's real. And you can check you're on the register on the website so you can phone [phone]. If your test is due today, you can book it today are hccc.i.e. 4.slash cervical check. On the many days of Christmas the Guinness Storehouse brings to the visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions

and finish your visit with Brett taken views of Dublin City from the home. of Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories and the gravity bar. My goodness is Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts. Be Drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.com. The taped off section. The spot where the man's body had been. I noticed other kids glancing nervously at the trees too. None of us wanted to admit it, but the woods weren't fun anymore. They weren't safe. They were haunted. They were haunted. not by ghosts, but by what we had seen, by what we knew. At one point, I saw Riley just standing there, mid-game, staring off into the trees.

He didn't even notice someone from the other team tagging him out. Later, when I asked him about it, he just muttered, thought I saw something. He never explained what. Late night conversations. That night, the three of us, me, Sam, and Riley, sat outside our cabin long after lights out. The air was cool, and the sky was so clear you could see every star. Normally, I loved nights like that.

But now, the silence felt heavier. Sam finally broke it. So, who do you think he was? Riley shook his head. Homeless guy maybe. Someone who got lost. I thought about it. But Beckett isn't exactly Boston.

It's not like people just wander out here and die. Maybe he was camping, Sam suggested weekly. Without gear. Without a tent. I countered. His clothes were ripped. That didn't look like camping. We fell silent again.

None of us wanted to say what we were all secretly thinking. What if it wasn't an accident? Jake's warning. The next day, Jake pulled us aside during free time. He looked more serious than I'd ever seen him. Usually, he was all smiles and jokes. But not then. Listen, he said, lowering his voice,

the cops asked me questions about what we saw. They might want to talk to you guys too. Just, stick to the facts, okay. Don't speculate. Don't add details you aren't sure about. We nodded, though my stomach twisted. Why was he being so specific? And one more thing, Jake added. Stay out of the woods for now. I know you think you're tough, but just, don't. Not until this is over. That wasn't like Jake at all. He usually encouraged us to explore, to push limits. For him to suddenly be strict.

That scared me more than the warning itself. Rumors grow. Of course, kids didn't stay out of the woods. You tell a bunch of teenagers not to do something, and it's the first thing they're going to try. Within a day, people were daring each other to sneak near the police tape. By then, the rumor, had evolved. Some said the man had been murdered. Others said his face had been clawed off by something. A few swore they'd seen cops loading a second body onto a stretcher, though I doubted

that. Still, the uncertainty nodded at me. Who was he? How had he ended up there? And why, out of all the groups of kids, had we been the ones to find him? The Police Interview Sure enough, two officers showed up at camp to talk to me, Sam and Riley. They pulled us into the office cabin one by one. When it was my turn, the officer, tall, with a mustache that made him look like he stepped out of an old cop show, sat across from me with a notepad. All right, Ethan, he said, voice calm. Just tell me what you saw in your own words. I repeated everything, the smell.

the silence, the flashlight beam catching the figure, Jake calling it in. My hands shook a little as I talked, but I tried to keep it together. The officer scribbled notes and asked, Did you touch the body? No, sir. Did you notice anything unusual? Objects nearby. Signs of struggle. I shook my head. Just, him. His clothes were torn up. That's all. He nodded, thanked me, and sent me out. That was it. No dramatic moment, no big reveal. Just a kid giving testimony he didn't want to give. The change in atmosphere. After the interviews, things shifted at camp. Counselors were stricter. Night activities got shortened. We weren't allowed to wander off.

alone anymore. At first, kids complained. But then something else happened. Even the ones who hadn't seen the body started acting differently. Nervous. Jumpy. Like the unease was spreading, seeping into the cracks of camp life. I'd hear footsteps outside our cabin at night and wonder if it was just counselors making rounds,

or something else. Every snapping twig made my pulse race. It was like the woods themselves had turned hostile, and no amount of capture the flag or esmores could change that. My breaking point One night, I woke up drenched in sweat from a nightmare. In it, the man we'd found wasn't slumped against the tree anymore. He was standing. His head tilted at that same unnatural angle, but his eyes were open.

And he was walking toward me. I sat up, heart pounding, and for a split second, I thought I saw a shadow move across the cabin window. I didn't sleep the rest of the night. Looking back It's been four years now since that summer. I've never gone back to Camp Lennox. I can't. Every time I think about it, the smell comes back, sharp and sour, lodged in my brain like a scar you can't scrub out.

Do I miss camp? Yeah. The lake, the games, even the lousy cafeteria food. But after what happened, it's like that place got rewritten in my memory. The joy got buried under something darker. And like my dad always says, life isn't a fairy tale. Happy endings aren't guaranteed. That summer proved it.

The investigation. The cops stayed around for a couple of days after we found the body. Every morning, we'd see their cars parked near the main road that cut through the camp entrance. Uniforms came and went, sometimes with flashlights, sometimes with note pads. They talked to the staff, and sometimes they'd pull aside a camper who claimed to know something. But you know what was strange? They never gave us answers. Once.

Whenever someone asked, the counsellors would say, it's under investigation, let's focus on camp. Classic adult move, avoid the question, act like everything's fine, and hope the kids forget. But none of us forgot. How could we? At night, when the staff thought we were asleep, I could hear whispers through the thin cabin walls. Sam and Riley would ask me the same questions over and over.

Do you think he was murdered? What if whoever did it is still out there? What if they saw us? I didn't know what to say. I wasn't some detective. I was just a 15-year-old kid who wanted to roast marshmallows and maybe sneak a look at the girl's cabin during free swim. Suddenly, I was living in a crime scene. The letter home

A week later, all the campers' parents got a letter. I remember Jake handing us the folded piece of paper and saying, Don't lose this. It's for your folks. When I got back to the cabin, I read mine before giving it to my mom. It said something like. An unfortunate incident occurred near campgrounds. Authorities have it under control. Camp activities are continuing safely.

Please do not be alarmed. It was the most vague, sugar-coated thing I'd ever seen. Like, don't be alarmed. Bro, we literally found a decomposing dude 50 yards from the cabins. How are we not supposed to be alarmed? I didn't say anything, though. The last thing I wanted was to be that kid who freaked out his parents and got dragged home early. The weeks that followed.

The rest of camp limped along. We still had canoeing, arts and crafts, dodgeball, all the usual stuff. But there was this invisible cloud hanging over everything. Every time I walked by the mess hall, I caught kids huddled in corners, whispering theories. Some claimed the guy was a runaway. Others said he was part of some cult. A few swore he was a hiker who got lost during the pandemic and never made it out. Nobody knew the truth, and that was the worst part.

Humans hate not knowing. Our brains itch until we have a story that makes sense. And when adults don't give you the real one, kids will invent their own. Riley starts to change. Of the three of us, Riley took it the hardest. He wasn't the same after that night. He stopped joking around. He ate less.

Sometimes I'd catch him staring at the woods like he was expecting the trees to move. One night, I woke up and found him sitting on the cabin steps at 3 in the morning, just staring into the dark. When I asked what he was doing, he muttered, what if it wasn't random? I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to admit I'd been thinking the same thing. Closing campfire At the end of every summer, we had a big closing campfire. Usually, it was a celebration, songs, stories, laughter echoing across the lake. But that year, the fire felt smaller, quieter.

The counselors did their best to keep the tradition alive, but you could tell their hearts weren't in it. The shadows from the flames stretched across everyone's faces, and instead of joy, all I saw was tiredness. When it was my turn to share a memory, I just said, I liked swimming in the lake. Simple. Safe. I wasn't about to bring up the thing we'd all been avoiding. Going home. When my parents picked me up, I thought about telling them everything, the smell, the body, the interviews, the nightmares. But when my mom asked, so, how was camp? I just showed. I just showed. shrugged and said, fine. Because how do you explain something like that without sounding crazy? How do you describe the way the woods went silent, or the way death doesn't just

look like in the movies, it smells, it sticks to your clothes, it claws into your memory? I couldn't. So I didn't. For years later. Now, sitting here at 19, I still think about that summer or more than I'd like to admit. Sometimes it hits me when I least expect it, like walking past a dumpster on a hot day and catching a whiff that takes me straight back to that oak tree. I've googled the case dozens of times. Sometimes late at night, when I can't sleep, I type in things like Beckett, Massachusetts 21 body found woods or camp Linux investigation. You know what I find? Almost nothing. A couple of short articles, a police report that says foul play not suspected, and then silence. Like the whole thing was quietly

swept under the rug. That bothers me. Because I was there. I know what I saw. And something about it didn't feel accidental. The last conversation with Sam. A year after camp, I bumped into Sam at a coffee shop. We hadn't talked much since that summer. At first, First, we caught up about normal stuff, school, sports, the usual. But eventually, the conversation drifted. You still think about it, he asked, his voice low. All the time, I admitted. He nodded, eyes distant.

Sometimes I wonder if we weren't supposed to find him. Like, what if that's why the forest went quiet? Like it wanted us to see. That gave me chills. I laughed it off in the moment, but it stuck with me. Because deep down, I knew exactly what he meant. My theory. I'll never know for sure what happened.

But here's what I think, that man didn't just wander into the woods and die. His clothes were torn. His body was too deep in the forest for it to be some casual accident. Something, or someone, put him back. there. And the reason we never got answers, because maybe the truth was uglier than the police wanted to admit. Small towns don't like unsolved mysteries. They like neat endings. So maybe they decided not to dig too deep. The final lesson. People always say camp is where you grow up, where you learn independence, where you make lifelong friends.

And sure, that's true. But for me, Camp Linux taught me something else. It taught me that the world isn't always safe. That adults don't always tell the truth. That sometimes you stumble across darkness when you're just trying to collect firewood, and it changes you forever. Would I take it back if I could?

Honestly. I don't know. I hate the nightmares, the smell burned into my brain, the way I can't look at a forest the same way anymore. But at the same time, that summer forced me to see the world for what it really is, not some storybook, not some campfire tale with a happy ending. Like my dad always says, life isn't a fairy tale. And the summer of 2021 at Camp Linux. That was my proof. The end.