Our school experiences may all be very different from each other, but there’s one thing we all share: memories of the “popular kids.” Whether they were our best friends or worst nightmares, the prom kings and queens of the school seemed like they had everything. In reality, that was only part of the story. From the triumphant to the tragic, here the moments that forever changed the lives of the popular kids.
1. Safe and Secure
The downfall of one of the popular kids at my school came when he was doing substances in the school bathroom and got caught by a female security guard on his way out. Instead of just accepting his punishment, he decided to put her in a chokehold. He then was shown how huge a mistake he made when that security guard turned out to be a trained gymnast. She easily saved herself and got him thrown in jail.
2. And Then There Were Two
At my school, three popular kids went swimming in a quarry. Only two came out. It sucks, because the one who died was popular for all the right reasons. He was a genuinely good dude. I was the weird kid, but his locker was right next to mine and he was always friendly every single day to every single person. I miss him.
3. When Patience Would Have Paid off
The most popular boy at my school constantly got made fun of by everyone because he wanted to wait to sleep with his new girlfriend (the popular girl) until they were married. Eventually, the taunting and peer pressure became too much for him to handle, so he caved in and did the deed. It was the worst mistake of his life. The result was a teen pregnancy.
4. America’s Least Funny Home Videos
This one kid at my high school was popular until he facetimed his girlfriend and she secretly screen recorded him putting a baseball bat inside his behind. Like, INSIDE his behind. She subsequently showed the video to all of our classmates, and it was hard for him to recover his "cool" reputation from that point on.
5. A Series of Unfortunate Events
Well, most of my classmates from high school turned out well enough, but there was one guy who ran into some serious trouble after graduation and whose life was taken completely off course. He was the "hot guy" of the class. Girls loved him because he was gorgeous, blah blah blah. You know the type I’m referring to.
Anyhow, he wound up having a kid at a very young age and then eventually came out as being gay. Apparently, he accidentally broadcasted that information to the wrong person. The consequences were absolutely devastating. After an old man aggressively came on to him, my former classmate proceeded to strangle him and discard his body in a ravine.
He was later caught. From what I understand, the old man had forcefully tried to assault him on a back road. Either way, my classmate is now doing time for it. I actually got along really well with the guy back in the day. It's unfortunate that this happened to him, especially considering that he has a daughter. It’s funny how life can change in such a short amount of time.
6. Nothing to Cheer About Here
Well, a super popular cheerleader girl at my high school ended up falling down stairs and injuring herself very badly. She broke her back and got completely paralyzed. She has needed to use a wheelchair ever since. Needless to say, her life was never the same again from that point on, though I heard she'd doing well now.
7. Nothing Cool About This
Blech, the cool kid from my school grew up and got caught trying to take the virginity of his lifelong best friend’s 11 year old daughter. He spent months grooming her via text messages before her mother finally saw a message from him with his intentions clearly spelled out. So the mom plotted an ingenious revenge.
She hogtied him the next time he came to her house, called the authorities with the proof, and broadcasted the whole thing on Facebook Live, including him fully admitting to his intentions. Believe it or not, the mom ended up getting briefly detained over the whole incident. Apparently, the local department “already had a file going on him” and felt that this “sort of thing doesn’t help the investigation.”
Fair enough, I guess, but it’s two years later and that jerk is still roaming free. He has daughters around the same age as the girl, too.
8. A Grim Diagnosis
In my school, the popular girl’s mom was diagnosed with dozens of brain tumors the beginning of our senior year, and died before Christmas. The girl went from stable, well-off, and beautiful to a complete wreck, then she disappeared completely off the map. We have no idea where she went or how she is doing today.
9. Car Trouble
The guy who had always been the popular kid back when I was in high school grew up and became a cop in our hometown. It could not have gone more tragically. Soon into it, he crashed his patrol car...and then faked a shooting to cover his responsibility for the crash. This spurred a county-wide manhunt for the nonexistent shooter.
After a few weeks, the truth eventually came out. My old classmate got caught, fired, was possibly going to be charged, and then committed suicide the following Thanksgiving.
10. Flash Photography
There was a guy on our middle school’s football team who was very popular in school. That is, until he decided to ruin his life in the grossest way possible. He sent naked and disturbing photos of himself to a girl, the entire football team, and a good portion of people in my grade. He got detained during class one day shortly after that incident.
11. Follow the Money
I'm not sure I would call this guy the popular kid at my old school per se, but in some circles he certainly was. He was a bit of an arrogant jerk in my opinion, but he had money and liked to spread it around. His dad was a wealth manager at a local bank. Lots of everyone’s friends, family, and community members were clients of his.
A few years after high school ended, the news came out that his dad had embezzled millions of dollars. Their family’s entire wealth had been stolen from my classmates’ friends and relatives. This rocked the kid hard. Ever since his dad went to prison, he changed his name and became a completely different person.
I saw him one time after that, and barely recognized him. His personality and even his posture was totally different than the way I had always remembered it. I felt really bad for him, so I ended up having a really good and long talk with him that day. I can only imagine what he has gone through over the last few years since this took place.
12. He Met His Match
One kid at my school became popular only because he liked to start fights with everyone. So, most people wanted to be "friends" with him just to avoid becoming a victim. One day, he tried that routine on the wrong kid. He got beat up badly in front of everyone, to the point where he started crying. Honestly, I think it was a win for him in the long run because it gave him a pretty good wake up call.
13. Highway to Heck
At my old high school, the moment that the popular kid’s life suddenly fell apart forever was when he hit and killed a state trooper on the freeway while the trooper was out of his car trying to remove debris from the road. No matter who you are, there is no easy way to get over the feelings of guilt that come with a thing like that.
14. Unsolved Mysteries
The popular kid from my high school ended up behind bars as an adult. He was initially caught for drunk driving. But then officers found out the whole heartbreaking story. At the time he got caught, he'd just slain a classmate’s entire family. Also, his older brother vanished and has never been seen since that same time.
Officers found his truck with all of his clothes folded neatly, shoes and all, on his seat. His cell phone and the entire inside of the truck had been wiped down. There were a few footprints nearby, but nothing else. This was 10 years ago, and the mystery of why and how it happened has still never been solved. The whole thing is very strange.
To make matters even scarier, a skull was found in the nearby forest about three years after the incident. Also guys, this popular kid had been a bodybuilder since we were very young. He was one scary dude. I guess being a popular kid when you’re still in high school does not mean that you’ll actually have a good life as an adult. His brother was a nice guy; I hope he’s resting in peace wherever he is and that justice will eventually be done.
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15. An Unexpected Tragedy
One of the most popular girls in my high school had a sudden and unexpected blood clot that killed her in her sleep one night in the middle of the school year. To this day, nobody understands what caused it and it completely and utterly shocked everyone at our school. It just goes to show that anything can happen to anyone at any time…
16. The Consequences of Living on the Edge
At our old school, we had this cliff that was really dangerous. To keep kids away from it, the genius locals spread around the rumor that it was haunted. Naturally, this made the cool kids want to go and hang out there pretty much all the time. One time, a group of those supposedly cool kids (four in total) went over there, and no one really knows exactly what happened.
All we know is that only three of them came back. The other kid allegedly jumped to his death, though the details of how and why did not quite pan out in any clear way between the group’s various stories. Each one had a totally different version of what happened. The three survivors became depressed and eventually spiraled out of control.
One died from an overdose two years later, one was in a car accident, and one committed suicide. It was like they were actually cursed.
17. Another Point of View
My stepmom was a jerk in high school. She always loved to tell us about how she was the popular kid back then. Then, when we went to her high school reunion, she started talking to a girl she used to make fun of as if they were good friends. The girl's response was perfect. She just said, "You made my life a nightmare in high school. Why on Earth would I want to talk to you?"
My stepmom never bragged about her high school popularity again after that…
18. Survivor’s Guilt
At my school, the popular kid’s life fell apart when he lost control of his car while he and his best friend were driving to Taco Bell late at night. He came out of it with a fractured collarbone, and his friend passed on the spot. He was really close with his friend’s parents and vice versa. He made a few posts on Facebook about how he was an idiot and how sorry he was.
The late friend’s sister and parents made it very clear that they didn’t blame him for what happened. It was winter, there was black ice all around, and he was 100% sober. Before this incident, he had been a stereotypical popular dude, but in the wholesome way. He eventually dropped out of school and became addicted to painkillers. So sad.
19. Mother’s Day
This girl at my old high school was extremely popular and had a perfect life until she got pregnant at the age of 17. She had to drop out of school. But that wasn't even the worst part. During the pregnancy, the father cheated on her with her "best friend." 10 years later, I ran into her and discovered that she now has a great job and is the proud single mom of a happy daughter.
20. Becoming an Orphan
At my school, the popular kid was an only child, and his dad had passed when he was two years old. He was really happy-go-lucky, and was popular because he was outgoing, supportive, warm, and kind to everybody without fail. Although he was friends with the kind of kids who were mean to people, he was the first person to tell them to knock that garbage off if he ever saw it.
When we were all 16, his mother, who was one of the nicest ladies I had ever met in our small town, was crushed by a semi-trailer that drifted into her lane. He was never the same after that. He dropped out of school, he stopped talking to anybody, and he refused to let anyone visit him. I have no idea what became of him. Sorry, Jay. I hope your life has gotten better since then.
21. Vengeance Is Theirs
The popular kid at my old high school also happened to be a pretty vicious person towards a lot of the other kids in our classes. After several years of torment, the kids that he picked on finally decided they had taken enough grief and wanted to get their revenge against him, no matter the cost. So, they teamed up and beat him up. But they took it way, way too far.
They pummelled him with as much force as they could collectively muster. The guy later passed from his injuries.
22. Turning the Tables
The popular kid at my school’s life changed when I made him cry. He had been being mean to me at school every single day for nearly three years. He mainly fought me about the two things that I had no control over, specifically my family’s poverty and my physical appearance. I badly needed braces, but my family could not afford them.
Anyway, after several years of this kind of daily torment, I finally decided that I’d had enough. I had somehow discovered that the kid was adopted, so I decided to use that information against him. I told him, in front of all our classmates, that his real parents probably wanted no part in his life because they could tell that he was going to grow up to be nothing but a piece of garbage.
I got in big trouble for making that comment, but it was completely worth it just to be able to see him cry for once. He left me alone after that.
SundayMorningTrisha
23. Arrive Alive
The popular kid at my old school once went out drinking on a Saturday night with a friend of his. He drove home and slammed his car into a brick wall at 40 miles per hour, if I remember the details correctly. His friend in the passenger seat barely survived. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the driver. He immediately passed on impact.
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24. Leaving Everyone Grieving
At my school, we lost four students violently in one year, including two popular sisters who were stabbed by their stepdad. A bunch of the staff actually quit after that. Even they just couldn’t handle the painful environment anymore. Pretty much no one in our senior class made it in life. 1999 was a really tough year for our school.I am doing okay these days, despite a rough life. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for the classmates of mine that I did keep up with. Ongoing trauma is so much harder to process when literally everyone around you is grieving, too. And no one got to pause long enough between tragedies to ever fully heal from any of them.
We did our best. 1999 was a messed up year for so many people and I don’t know why. I think about that Offspring song “Kids Aren’t Alright” a lot.
25. Teaching Him a Real Lesson
I know a big, popular high school mean kid who thought it would be funny to punch this male teacher in the back of the head when he was walking by in front of him. He picked the WRONG teacher. The teacher instinctively reacted and punched the guy back. The student went down hard. He got suspended and nothing else happened to him or the teacher. But this isn't the end of the story.
About eight years later, the student came back to the high school and asked to speak with that teacher. He actually THANKED the teacher for what happened that day. The guy said to the teacher that his punch completely changed the course of his life. He had been running with a rough crowd and thought he was big and bad.
He had thought nothing of beating people up. But after the incident and getting punched by the teacher, he realized that he underestimated how quickly things can change when you go up against the wrong guy. He completely changed how he approached the world, got out of trouble, got a good job, and was about to get married. And he credits that incident with changing the course of his life: punching the wrong person.
26. Ratting Him out
In the fifth grade, our terrible teacher at the time told the entire class that the reason the popular kid acted out was because he didn’t get enough attention at home. She did this in front of the entire class, and he left the room sobbing. My entire perspective of him changed that day, and his behavior completely changed, too. We all already knew that the teacher was a terrible person, but that moment just solidified it in all of our minds.
27. Good Riddance?
Back when I was in the eighth grade, there was a really popular kid in my school who was the head of the football team. He was also a huge aggressor, and would beat "nerds" up for no reason at least twice a week. One day, he got wasted and jumped off a bridge as a prank. But he had forgotten one crucial, tragic thing.
I'm not sure how he didn't know that the lake he jumped into was riddled with underwater trees, as you can see the branches during the daytime. He probably wasn't paying attention. Either way, I don't think his body was ever found. Our school held a huge memorial service for him, and I do feel bad for him despite his actions.
28. Future Planning
I actually ran into one of the super popular kids from my old high school at a local bar when I came home from college. She would never give me the time of day in high school and I for sure thought she didn’t even know I existed, but she approached me at the bar, super drunk, and said “Hey, didn’t I go to high school with you?”
She then proceeded to tell me all about how she wishes she had been nicer to more people in high school, because her life had fallen apart immediately after graduation when she realized she had no idea what she was going to do with her life. It honestly feels good to know that she’s thought about how badly she treated people back then.
29. Seeking Forgiveness
I never saw him again after high school, but a popular guy who had always bullied me once told a mutual friend of ours to pass along apologies for the way he had treated me. He had come down with cancer and was desperately trying to cope with it by making amends for all the mistakes he had made in life. He died sometime later, though I wish I could have bought him lunch or a drink before he did. It takes a big person to make that kind of apology.
30. A Tragic Fate
At our school, the popular kid’s dad died. It was really awful. Before that, he was popular, but also smart, motivated, a great athlete, and actually a great guy and person; or, at least as much of a great person as you can be when you're not even 15 years old yet. Then, his dad died right before he was going to have a football game.
He had a heart attack in the shower before they were going to head over to the field. From there, everything unraveled. He became angry, as you could expect. But he just spiralled deeper and deeper and never seemed to come out of it. We didn't see him at all for a while. When I did catch up with him later in high school, he'd been so into substances that his brain literally seemed fried.
31. Game Over
The stud quarterback from my high school, who was about two years ahead of me, has been addicted to painkillers ever since graduation. I was not aware of this having been a problem for him while we were in high school, but I heard he definitely had the nasty pain pill habit by the time he was in college. He may also have transitioned to harder stuff from there.
32. Crashing Down
At our high school, the popular kid got hit by a car. In an instant, she went from aggressor to paraplegic. She was a pretty cruel witch towards her peers, so I have nothing good to say about her. Nevertheless, that is a pretty rough end and we could all tell that she was never the same again after that. It completely ruined her.
33. There’s a Lot of Pain
The captain of my old high school’s football team was the most popular kid in school, but underwent a major surgery during his senior year. I was 13 years old at the time, and playing on the middle school team. His younger brother and I were very close friends, so I was around the guy a lot all the time and I had always looked up to him like an older brother.
He would often drive me to early football practices, and was a great guy all-around as far as I could tell. He was very smart, dated a very pretty cheerleader, and did not appear to have a single mean bone in his entire body. He really had it all. As a 13-year-old, he was my greatest hero and idol without a question. After his surgery, everything changed.
he tragically got hooked on painkiller medications. He then went from painkillers to hard and dangerous substances, as so many victims of this crisis unfortunately do. He was subsequently detained multiple times throughout his adult life for various charges. This vicious cycle went on for years and years. It only got worse, too.
I would always ask my friend from middle school how his big brother was doing every time that I spoke to him. Sadly, the responses he gave never got better. He passed away last year. If you or anyone you know is struggling with an addiction to anything at all, please ask for help from someone. Believe me, it will be worth it. I miss my hero.
34. Hush Money
Rumor went around at my school that the popular kid’s parents paid a hefty amount to get a family to ignore their daughter’s allegations against him and keep him on the football team. Sadly, as scandalous as it was, it never ended up on the news. I'm not 100% sure of the truth behind the rumors. Nevertheless, there's a whole lot of people who seem convinced that it happened, and the guy’s reputation has never been the same since then.
35. An Innocent Man
There was a kid in my grade who was extremely popular until a girl in our class falsely claimed that he had assaulted her at a party. He had to spend a year in a juvenile detention center. That happened during our sophomore year. Then, during our senior year, she admitted that she had lied. It was too late to do anything about it, though.
By that point, the poor kid’s life had already been completely and permanently ruined by the saga. He went from a star athlete, literally one of the most naturally gifted young men I've ever seen, to a hopeless addict with a criminal record and a terrible reputation. The whole thing was really just extremely sad.
36. Get Your Head in the Game
At my old high school, we had a very popular 6-foot-tall football player who also happened to be a dealer and a general troublemaker. He got arrested just two weeks before he was supposed to be going off to college. His family was really poor, but he had received a full ride scholarship in spite of his obvious habits and his various other scummy extracurriculars.
Somehow, his record got swept under the rug in time for him to still be able to go, much like his high school GPA. Halfway through his first semester, he got shot in the gut during a deal that went wrong. He survived the attack and, last I heard, he got picked up by another college. I have no idea how he graduated high school, let alone how he got away with the rest of it.
37. He Named Names
A kid back at my old high school was a big jock and extremely popular with everyone until he got busted for a DUI. Instead of just taking the hit, he betrayed us all. The kid agreed to go around town and help officers bust the places that were selling booze to minors. Blip, all of a sudden, in one weekend none of us could use our fake IDs or get beer anymore.
After some time, the word got out about who had helped get the places busted. The guy was literally treated like a leper from that point on, all the way until graduation. We were probably too spiteful about that, but he sold us out to save himself.
38. A Story of Ups and Downs
The popular kid at my school was mean to me in elementary school, but when we got to middle school and high school, we ended up bonding and becoming pretty good friends. He transferred to another high school eventually and we grew more distant, but we still talked from time to time. Mostly about politics and current events.
We could not possibly have been more different in terms of our viewpoints, but I'll always feel a special connection to him as a friend. I give him credit for bringing me out of my shell in middle school and helping me build a social life. Sadly, his life all fell apart when he got into the nasty habit of using substances.
He passed away in September of last year. He was set to go to law school in November to become a family lawyer, which he told me all about last time we spoke. He was very excited about this, since we were both children of divorce. Rest in peace Nick, the whole town still misses you every single day. Especially me.
39. Parental Struggles
The popular kid at my school completely changed when his parents got divorced. He started acting out from that point on. Almost overnight, he went from a well-behaved kid with good grades to a juvenile delinquent who spent all his time on substances, hanging out in clubs, and failing his classes. It was a very sad thing to observe.
40. When It Rains, It Pours
This popular kid was one of the most well-liked people in my school. Literally everyone loved him. He even showed up to the funeral of some kid he never hung out with outside of school when the aforementioned kid passed. He had the perfect life back then and seemed to have everything going for him. Then, it all seemed to change as soon as high school ended.
His dad got really sick after his freshman year of college. After his dad was hospitalized for months, it turned out that he needed an extremely serious procedure to be done in order to save his life. The kid took the next semester off from school to care for his dad. This kid also lost one of his best friends to addiction. Life just started to kick this guy non-stop.
He’s still a great guy, but after experiencing so many serious things like that, it all takes a toll on a person. He’s a lot more quiet now than he ever used to be, even though he is still the same great guy at heart.
41. Not Even Once
At school, this popular kid had been a baseball player and had a scholarship to the University of Hawaii for that. He was a good looking kid. Then, one day, he apparently smoked an illegal substance that had been laced with harmful chemicals. It immediately fried his brain, and he was never quite the same again. Some real after-school special stuff, honestly.
I bumped into him a few years later when I was working the night shift at a suburban Bay Area 7-Eleven. He was the guy that would be standing out in front of the store at 2:00 in the morning talking to himself. It was extremely sad to witness. I later heard that he had fallen off of an overpass and died of his injuries.
42. In the Big House
The guy who was always the popular kid back when I was in high school ended up becoming a second grade teacher and assaulted a bunch of the little girls in his class. Now, he’s behind bars for an incredibly long time, and rightfully so. I think it’s safe to say that this was the thing that ruined his life, but he absolutely deserved it.
43. A Firsthand Account
This is an appropriate time for me to tell my own personal story. Back in high school, I was the popular kid whose life fell apart in seconds. I was a good student, athlete, and all the other typical things, but I also got into selling substances to my classmates. Then, one day, I walked into class a little bit late and immediately got detained in front of my entire AP history class.
I was escorted out of the school between class periods, so every single student was in the hallway and saw what was happening. I got permanently expelled from school, kicked out of my parents’ house, and started consistently getting in trouble with the law. As far as everyone who I had grown up around was concerned, I ended up behind bars.
In reality, my life just spiralled out of control for a little bit. Eventually, I joined the Marines, which definitely helped me for a while, but then I got badly injured and had to fight the Veterans’ Association for over 10 years in order to receive the benefits that I had been entitled to. It was a rough 15 years for me, but at least I managed to survive it all in one piece. Don’t ask me how.
Then, one day, I decided to try to learn coding, and I quickly realized that it was the most fulfilling thing I had ever done. I now write software for banks and live by the beach in Southern California. My life today is incredible, yet everyone I went to high school with probably still thinks I’m rotting in the clinker. Still, a happy ending.
44. The Call No One Ever Wants to Receive
When I was in the fifth grade, back in the 1960s, there was a very popular kid in our class named Lawrence. He was the best student in our class. He always finished math tests way before anyone else, and he was easily the best athlete in the entire school. Naturally, he was always picked first for whatever team sports we would be playing.
One day, during class, a lady from the principal's office came in, whispered something into our teacher’s ear, and then the two of them escorted Lawrence out into the hallway. A few minutes later, our teacher returned and told us the truth. Lawrence's father had been shot down in Vietnam. Lawrence never returned to our school after that day.
45. A Horrifying Vacation
My best friend, who was always a very popular guy back in high school, was slain by a man while he was on vacation in Thailand. The predator befriended my friend, and then offed both him and his mother. He also stole and used their credit cards after. The story still makes me tragically sad to think about to this day.
46. Candid Camera
I’m a high school teacher. The popular kid from one of the grades I taught had been the school’s football star for years. Then, he was caught on video yelling some racist remarks towards another rival school’s player while stopped at a traffic light. He did not realize that the rival guy was recording him. The video was later posted on Twitter.
You could clearly see that it was him. The Twitter world attacked. The guy soon went from star quarterback and team captain with several offers for D1 schools to absolutely nothing. I’m sure he’ll still eventually go to college or do something with his life, and hopefully he can learn from this mistake and change his outlook.
47. Losing Her Mind
When I was in junior high, this popular girl got badly injured in a car accident. She wasn't a paraplegic or anything like that, but she had severe brain damage and totally lost her mind. She suddenly had some huge cognitive deficits, no social skills, and was unable to complete elementary school work. Nevertheless, her parents insisted that she return to the same school and classes that she had gone to before the accident.
Back in seventh grade, I completely hated her guts. She was annoying, mean, and physically violent towards other kids. She is still like that in many ways now, even more than a decade later. But now, looking back, I can't even imagine the horror show that her life today must be. Imagine knowing all of your friends still, but having them basically abandon you and not really understanding why.
48. The Day the School Stood Still
I don't know that his life really fell apart, because it turns out his home life was terrible all along, but this story definitely shifted how people looked at the popular kid at my old school. And I went to a small school, so there weren't too many divisions between people. When you only have 40-something kids in a grade, "popular" is kind of relative...
Nevertheless, the kid's mom decided to leave her husband, the kid's stepdad. The stepdad, who was known to faculty and was considered a "good guy," stopped by the school one afternoon to deliver something to his stepson. Cool, cool. The secretary gave him a pass to drop it off at the stepson's class, rather than call him down to the office. But this "gift" was incredibly sinister.
The stepdad actually had a gun on him and had no idea where the stepson was during that period, so he was roaming the halls looking for him. Luckily, a friend of the stepson (who knew the truth about what a dangerous guy the stepdad was) happened to be in the office and alerted everyone. We all went on lockdown until the police arrived.
We were stuck for a couple of hours as they swept the school. Then, it came out that the kid had been mistreated for the entire time his mom had been married to the guy, and she was now only leaving him because he had started hitting her. It was a whole huge thing and, while everyone had pretty much always liked the kid, he suddenly just had everyone feeling sorry for him.
Teachers let him go back and redo assignments to boost his grades. People gave him stuff to "start over." He just kind of got really closed off and stopped joking around from that point on, and only hung out with like three people. He was now known as "the poor kid with a stepdad who was going to shoot up the school," and that's hard to get over.
49. Hitting the Gym
So, I went to high school in a somewhat rural area in Alabama. During my junior year, the county’s District Attorney was coming to give a speech about drunk driving or something like that. It’s been a few years, so I don't exactly remember all the details. Well, an hour before the assembly, everyone was called to the gym and told not to bring anything with us.
We get there, and there are dogs and police officers searching students as they walk into the room. Everyone was freaked out, but we had assumed they just moved the assembly from the auditorium to the gym and wanted to be careful because the speaker was a high profile public figure in the area. After he spoke, the principal told us that we couldn't leave the gym yet.
Everyone was confused, but we still didn't think too much into it. After an hour or so of waiting around, lunchtime had come and gone with no update. People were starting to get rowdy, so the principal told us we were going to be escorted to the nearby elementary, intermediate, and middle school campuses for lunch.
This is when we all started to panic and ask what was going on, but no one would give us a clear answer of any kind. Grade by grade, we were all escorted by at least a dozen police officers across the school parking lots to each of the other school buildings. All four school buildings were on the same property.
We were given 20 minutes to eat, then promptly escorted back to our own building. We were extremely confused. Another few hours had gone by and everyone remained on edge and concerned, but still no one would tell us what was going on. The principal had asked to see a handful of students privately, then left us there again.
We couldn't do anything but sit there this entire time. We couldn't leave the bleachers at all. If we had to use the bathroom at any point, we were escorted by a police officer. We were also told that we couldn't leave for the day, and no one was allowed onto the property. So, we couldn't even call our parents to have them pick us up and take us home.
Well, it eventually came time for school to be over, and they still wouldn't let us leave. At this point, students were getting mad and upset. People had jobs to get to and siblings to pick up. A few students tried to leave but were immediately returned to the bleachers by the police. One guy had to be escorted out and arrested because he tried to fight an officer for not letting him leave.
Finally, the principal told us what was going on. A student had apparently left an explosive threat in the girls’ bathroom, and there was a SWAT team and squad searching every inch of the school building. We could not leave the building until the threat had been cleared, and until the police found out who was behind it.
This immediately sent the whole gym completely silent, and everyone just sat that way for a few moments trying to take in what we had just been told. We were all terrified and just looking around at one another in shock. After about another hour, the principal called a student down and took her outside, where she was promptly detained. When we saw her, we gasped.
It was one of the "popular" girls, and everyone was completely shocked. But they let us go home just as this was happening, so we all knew it was her. The next morning, we found out why she did it. Apparently, she had disliked the District Attorney who was coming to speak to us because he handled one of her family's cases poorly.
So, she made a very poorly built explosive device out of clay and bullets and hid it in her backpack. She was planning to set it off during the assembly. She was banned from all Alabama public schools. From what I last heard, she is still behind bars and will be for a very long time. She instantly went from one of the most popular kids in school to completely out of our lives.
50. A Minor Problem
My school’s popular kid’s life fell apart, for sure. The reason was so scandalous. He had an affair with his best friend’s mom. The kid’s dad had died a few years before. They got caught and the mom got detained for sleeping with a minor, as the guy was only 17 years old at the time. The friend and her younger siblings had to go live with another family for a while.
51. Post-Secondary Disappearance
A little over 10 years ago, a popular kid from my school went missing, they've never found him. Apparently, he was at a party just before graduation, got into a fight with his girlfriend, and left to walk home. They've extensively checked all the nearby woods, dredged the rivers and lakes, it even caught the attention of some TV "psychic." They found his car, abandoned, but no other sign of him.
The creepiest part is how everyone in my hometown still talks about it; My psych teacher in high school used his disappearance as an example when we discussed dissociative fugue states; the town is still plastered in MISSING signs; every year they go out and search again. I always wonder if it was suicide, an accident, foul play, or if he just took off across the country.
Sources: Reddit, , ,
