Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Tragic Manchester Pub Shooting Sparks Mourning, Questions, and Calls for Change #28

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #tragedy #manchester #pubshooting #communitymourning #callsforchange  The night the Manchester pub was shattered by gunfire left scars deeper than the wounds visible. This story explores the tragic events, the victims’ stories, and the overwhelming grief that followed. It also delves into the community’s demands for answers and systemic change to prevent future violence. A somber reflection on loss, resilience, and the urgent need for reform in the face of senseless tragedy.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, tragedy, manchesterpubshooting, communitygrief, gunviolence, callsforchange, socialissues, realtragedy, heartbreak, violenceprevention, publicsafety, mourningsociety, victimsstory, urbantragedy, urgentreform

It started like any other chaotic Friday night in a rough part of Manchester. Pints were flowing, music blared from jukeboxes, and locals were crowding the pubs like they always do after a long week of work. But no one could have predicted that this particular night at the King's arms would explode into a blood-soaked tragedy that would go down in British history as one of its deadliest modern shootings. Not since the horrors of Raoul Mote or the nightmare of Dunblane had the UK seen anything quite like this. According to eyewitnesses, things started off with the usual rowdy pub banter. Then, as often happens when beer and bravado mix, the situation escalated. Some drunk bloke started picking on this young guy named William Perry. William, just 19, worked at a nearby gym and had a noticeable disability.

One leg was way shorter than the other. He got around with crutches or sometimes a wheelchair. Medical folks call it congenital extreme and isomelia, a rare condition most people have never even heard of. Apparently, only about one in 750,000 people in the UK are born with it. Anyway, the teasing got cruel fast. You know how some drunk people can be. They started calling him names, making jokes about his leg, just being downright vile. That's when Carl Craven, a 43-year-old roofer, apparently.

stepped in. Witnesses say he wasn't even friends with William, just some bloke who'd had enough of the bullying. Carl told them to knock it off. That's when things turned. Some loudmouth called Carl a woman. Yes, seriously. That stupid insult was the spark. No one knew at the time what kind of darkness Carl had buried deep inside. But something snapped. No one really knows how or where he got it, Carl suddenly whipped out what cops later said was an illegal semi-automatic handgun. Inside a British pub. Madness. He opened fire.

Panic erupted. People screamed, ducked, ran for the exits. But Carl wasn't done. He kept shooting, not just inside the pub but outside too. He chased down people who were running for their lives and fired at them, cold and mechanical, like he was possessed. By the end of it, 14 people had been shot. Eight were hit inside the pub, and six more just outside. When the gunfire finally stopped and the blood settled, seven people were dead.

Another seven were injured, five of them fighting for their lives in critical condition. The shooter, Carl Craven, was later found dead near the Pure Gym on Hindley Road. He'd turned the gun on himself. Police said he died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds to both the handshought. head and torso. The scene must have been brutal. Greater Manchester police quickly launched a full-scale investigation. Chief Superintendent Francis Yates gave a statement saying it was a major incident and clarified that they believed Carl acted alone. No accomplices. No second shooter. Just Carl and his demons. In the aftermath, people scrambled to make sense of it all.

social media lit up with speculation. Some tried to connect the dots between Carl and William Perry. But as far as anyone knows, they didn't even know each other. William, by all accounts, is a quiet, good-natured kid who works the front desk at a small gym over in Stockport. He's got a twin brother named Brett, who was born with a different rare condition called cimbricydactyl. Brett's got one hand smaller than the other, with some fingers webbed or missing. Life's thrown a lot at that family. Meanwhile, friends of Carl Craven were stunned.

One woman, Mary Hill, spoke to a reporter and said the whole thing made no sense. She'd seen Carl just a few days earlier and said he was, in good spirits, even excited because he'd just gotten approved for car financing. He seemed all right, she said. I can't for the life of me figure out where he got a bloody gun. It's all just surreal. I don't even think he knew that Perry lad. Theory started swirling, as they always do.

Conspiracy nuts and online trolls began spinning wild stories, some even claiming Carl was a Muslim extremist waging jihad. Totally baseless, of course. But that didn't stop certain corners of the Internet from fanning the flames. Home Secretary Bob Langdon quickly stepped in to squash the rumors. He told the BBC he was confident this wasn't a terror attack. And he warned that anyone deliberately spreading lies to stir up hate or civil unrest would face consequences. The last thing the country needed was more chaos.

The shooting has left a community shattered and a country in shock. The King's arms is now cordoned off with police tape, a place where laughter and bad karaoke once filled the air, now stained with trauma and bullet holes. locals. Locals have been leaving flowers, candles, handwritten notes. One read, to those who never made it home. William Perry is recovering. Miraculously, he wasn't physically injured in the attack, though sources say he's deeply shaken and under care. His twin Brett posted a photo of them together on Instagram with the caption, We Got Each Other. Always. In the days that followed, investigators dug deeper into Carl Craven's past. What they found painted a complicated

picture. No criminal record. No known ties to gangs or radical groups. A quiet guy who kept mostly to himself. A roofer by trade, reliable at work, never caused much fuss. But dig a little deeper and some cracks start to show. He'd been through a messy divorce two years ago. Lost custody of his kids. Had a drinking problem that came and went. A few mates mentioned he'd seemed more withdrawn lately, more on edge. But no one expected this. Psychologists have long warned about the danger of suppressed rage, of how ordinary people can sometimes explode under the right, or wrong, pressure. Carl might have been carrying around a volcano of resentment, bitterness, maybe even guilt. Who knows what he saw in that moment when he watched William get mocked?

Maybe he saw a younger version of himself. Maybe he just couldn't take it anymore. Still, that doesn't explain everything. Nothing ever fully does. Gun violence is rare in the UK. When it happens, it shakes the national psyche. We like to think of ourselves as safe from that kind of madness. But every so often, reality reminds us otherwise.

The fact that Carl even had a semi-auto weapon raises huge. huge questions. Where did he get it? Who sold it to him? Was it smuggled? Stolen. Police are chasing those leads hard. Politicians have already begun arguing about gun laws, about mental health services, about pub security. The usual chorus after a tragedy. But what most people want is just to understand why. Why did Carl do it? Why that pub? Why those people? Some say he was a hero gone rogue, stepping in to defend a disabled kid from bullies, only to lose control completely. Others say he was just a ticking time bomb. Most agree on one thing, he was a man with pain that no one truly saw until it was far too late.

The funerals began one by one. Families gathered to bury their loved ones, some of them just in their twenties. The grief is raw. It will be for a long time. And William? He's trying to heal. Physically he's fine, but mentally. That's a whole other journey. Being the unwitting spark in a massacre would mess anyone up.

His brother, his parents, his friends, they're circling around him like a shield. But it's a long road. As for the king's arms, no one knows if it'll reopen. It may forever be remembered not as a neighborhood hangout, but as the sight of unspeakable violence. Carl Craven's story ended in horror, but it began as just another bloke trying to get through life. Somewhere along the way, he lost himself. We may never know the full truth. But the lives he took, and the ones forever altered, will never be forgotten. The community is holding a candlelight vigil this weekend.

Locals are encouraged to bring flowers, photos, stories, anything to help process the pain. And maybe, just maybe, in the face of all this horror, something good can grow. Maybe more people will speak up when they see cruelty. Maybe someone else like Carl will find help before it's too late. Maybe we'll remember the names of the victims more than the name of the killer. Time will tell. But tonight, Manchester mourns. And somewhere out there, in the quiet, William Perry and his twin brother are holding each other,

just trying to make sense of it all. The end.