Who's up for a terrifying vacation? For this list, we’ll be looking at small towns in the United States that harbored disturbing secrets or histories.
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00:00 - Happy Halloween and welcome to Salem!
00:03 (laughing)
00:05 - Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:07 And today we're examining small towns in the United States
00:10 that harbored disturbing secrets or histories.
00:13 - It was 70% black and brown.
00:16 Prisoners, all white guards.
00:18 What could go wrong?
00:20 - Obviously, these aren't entirely secrets anymore,
00:23 but it regardless shouldn't be the kind of thing
00:25 to be on a brochure.
00:26 Sherman, Connecticut.
00:29 Bob Gordon was a seemingly innocuous 71-year-old man
00:33 living in this Western Connecticut town.
00:35 And then in 2016, state troopers arrested him.
00:39 - His girlfriend of more than 20 years was stunned.
00:42 - I said, "What?
00:44 "Are you sure they have the wrong person?"
00:46 - Turns out, Gordon was actually one Robert Stachowicz,
00:50 who'd been on the lam for a whopping 48 years
00:53 after escaping prison down in Georgia.
00:56 - One day I left, it was kind of simple as that.
00:58 Somebody gave me a ride to the Atlanta airport.
01:01 I got on a plane, flew home.
01:03 - Stachowicz had still roughly 15 years left
01:06 on his sentence at the time,
01:07 having been incarcerated for being the getaway driver
01:10 in a burglary.
01:11 - It was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.
01:13 - Both Connecticut and Georgia dropped their charges
01:16 and extradition requests due to Stachowicz's ill health.
01:20 And he died just seven months after being discovered.
01:24 Liberty Township and Independence Township,
01:27 New Jersey.
01:28 - We are on a road that's supposed to be
01:30 one of the most haunted roads in all of New Jersey.
01:34 - Folks in these New Jersey townships
01:36 know to beware of Shades of Death Road.
01:39 Yes, that's the real name of the road,
01:41 which has inspired some fanciful legends
01:44 and some that are all too real.
01:46 - The reason why this road is named Shades of Death
01:49 is somewhat of a mystery.
01:50 Allegedly, it was the site of highwaymen
01:52 who would hide in the woods and rob people.
01:54 Also, there was a series of murders that happened here.
01:57 Even before there were cars to drive on the road,
01:59 it's said it was cursed by insects who nested nearby
02:03 and annually spiked mortality rates with malaria.
02:06 Then in the '20s and '30s, the road saw three murders,
02:10 one of which saw a woman decapitate her husband
02:13 and bury the head and body on opposite sides of the road.
02:17 Then there's the wildcat attacks
02:19 that were known to take place there.
02:21 Sand Branch, Texas.
02:23 A place once home to hundreds, only has dozens now.
02:27 - Sand Branch is actually an unincorporated community
02:31 in Dallas County, Texas.
02:33 Yet despite being so close to a major US city,
02:36 this town is completely without
02:37 one of life's most everyday amenities, running water.
02:41 But wait, it gets worse.
02:43 Sand Branch literally exists
02:45 next to a wastewater treatment facility,
02:48 yet can't get access
02:49 because it has absolutely no infrastructure
02:52 to convey the water.
02:53 But wait, it gets worse.
02:55 This incredibly poor community
02:57 of mostly African-American residents
02:59 has to rely on directly transportable water,
03:02 much of which they acquire through donations.
03:05 The Texas Water Development Board approved $450,000
03:10 for the town's water and wastewater projects
03:12 in August 2020.
03:14 But the money is a trickle of what the town needs
03:17 to fully fund running water and sewage.
03:20 It would seem that some officials
03:22 would rather look the other way
03:23 when it comes to the people of Sand Branch.
03:26 - We would just like to see running water.
03:28 We would like to have a quality of life
03:30 that makes sense to any American,
03:33 any Dallas County citizen,
03:35 any citizen in any city around here.
03:39 - Freetown, Massachusetts.
03:41 In 1978, Mary Lou Arruda was a teen cheerleader
03:45 before she went missing while cycling.
03:47 Her body was found nine weeks later
03:49 and a man named James Cater
03:51 was eventually arrested on suspicion of murder.
03:54 Cater had already been incarcerated
03:56 for an attempted murder 10 years earlier
03:59 of a very similar variety.
04:01 Cater continued to acknowledge his guilt
04:03 in the previous crime,
04:04 but maintained his innocence regarding Arruda.
04:07 Through circumstantial yet damning evidence,
04:10 Cater was eventually convicted after many retrials.
04:14 However, the area would still be plagued
04:16 by unsolved murders in the late '80s
04:18 at the work of the new Bedford Highway Killer.
04:21 - Investigators who worked on this case
04:23 say with little physical evidence and no video,
04:27 the best chance of solving this case
04:28 will likely come down to a tip.
04:30 - Skidmore, Missouri.
04:32 Ken McElroy was none too popular
04:34 in the farming community of Skidmore, Missouri.
04:37 McElroy was indicted 21 times,
04:39 but escaped conviction all but once.
04:42 And he was accused of pretty much
04:43 everything you can think of.
04:45 - Ken McElroy terrorized the town of Skidmore, Missouri
04:48 for more than 10 years.
04:49 The locals called him Bad Dog.
04:51 - In 1981, shortly after townsfolk had a meeting
04:55 about how to handle McElroy,
04:57 the man was shot twice in broad daylight.
04:59 Despite there being as many as 46 witnesses,
05:03 not a single suspect was identified.
05:05 - Nobody in the town would even give a name.
05:10 - It's been speculated that the witnesses
05:12 saw it as a public service
05:13 and thus protected the perpetrator's identity.
05:16 To this day, no one has been charged with McElroy's death.
05:20 - Horror and mayhem have visited that town
05:24 over and over and over again.
05:26 - Ashtabula, Ohio.
05:28 Back in 1876, there was a bridge spanning the Ashtabula River
05:33 in the namesake Ohio town.
05:35 But on the night of December 29th,
05:37 an unthinkable disaster struck.
05:40 - Rolling over miles of snow-covered track,
05:42 the Pacific Express Number 5 plowed through a raging blizzard.
05:46 - Trudging almost reluctantly towards its next stop,
05:49 Ashtabula, Ohio, where a bridge held dark secrets.
05:54 - As the Pacific Express passed over, the bridge collapsed.
05:58 Only the lead car made it to the other side.
06:00 The others plunged into the river below.
06:02 - The sound of the wreck could be heard half a mile away
06:06 as railcars flipped and tumbled
06:10 and landed on top of each other.
06:12 - Despite the water, a fire broke out
06:14 when the passenger train's oil lanterns
06:16 met the coal-fire heating stoves.
06:18 Many who survived the fall perished in the flames.
06:21 In total, 92 of the 160 aboard died that night.
06:26 - The people of Ashtabula buried
06:28 the still unidentified remains,
06:30 the unknown victims of what papers at the time called
06:34 the Ashtabula Horror.
06:35 - Attica, New York.
06:37 If there's one thing Attica, New York is known for,
06:40 it's the correctional facility of the same name.
06:42 - By all accounts, the maximum security prison
06:45 has housed some of the most notorious criminals in history,
06:49 such as David Berkowitz and Mark David Chapman.
06:52 But the environment there reportedly isn't much better.
06:55 - People still debate what really happened
06:57 inside the walls of the Attica Correctional Facility,
07:00 scene of the bloodiest inmate uprising in American history.
07:02 - In 1971, inmates took control of the compound
07:06 in an effort to negotiate better conditions.
07:09 The state eventually responded with force,
07:11 leading to the deaths of 43, including nine hostages.
07:15 Today, the word Attica has endured in popular culture
07:18 in reference to people seeking better treatment.
07:21 - Attica, Attica, Attica, Attica!
07:24 - Burke, Idaho.
07:27 Within just a few short years
07:29 after the town's founding in 1887,
07:32 Burke, Idaho was devastated by an avalanche
07:35 and a labor strike.
07:37 Tensions between miners and the owners got so bad
07:40 that a shootout occurred, inadvertently setting off dynamite
07:44 and exploding a mill, killing six in the process.
07:48 Martial law restored peace, but more misfortune was to come.
07:52 In 1889, disgruntled miners deliberately blew up a mill,
07:56 killing even more.
07:57 Couple that with two devastating fires,
08:00 a flood, and another avalanche,
08:02 and we can see why Burke is a ghost town today.
08:05 Centralia, Pennsylvania.
08:07 - It all began back in May, 1962,
08:10 when local officials unwittingly sparked
08:13 an underground fire,
08:14 a fire that would make the town uninhabitable.
08:18 - Speaking of fires and ghost towns,
08:21 Centralia, Pennsylvania has Burke beat by a long shot.
08:25 That's because the Centralia Mine Fire
08:27 has been burning since at least 1962.
08:30 Yeah, has been, as in is still burning.
08:34 - The large network of abandoned coal tunnels
08:36 supplied the fire with oxygen, fueling the blaze,
08:40 and the high-density coal lying beneath the town
08:43 made matters worse.
08:44 - It's been disputed exactly how the fire started,
08:47 but at some point, the abandoned underground coal mines
08:50 were exposed to flame.
08:51 After cleanup attempts failed
08:53 and the conditions above ground worsened,
08:56 residents were slowly forced to vacate.
08:58 - The government offered residents
09:00 a substantial cash sum to leave.
09:02 - At one point, Centralia had a population of over 2,700.
09:07 As of the 2020 census, it had five.
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09:26 Salem, Massachusetts.
09:28 In what is surely common knowledge today,
09:31 late 17th century Salem, Massachusetts
09:34 saw a level of mass hysteria heretofore unheard of,
09:37 whereby hundreds of people were accused of witchcraft.
09:41 - I am innocent to a witch.
09:43 I know not what a witch is.
09:45 - If you know not what a witch is,
09:47 how do you know you are not one?
09:49 - The motives for the claims are now known to be dubious,
09:53 but the populace was largely unable to detect falsehoods
09:56 due to fear and religious extremism.
09:59 Upwards of 25 people died, many of whom were executed
10:03 despite obviously not being actual witches.
10:06 - Increase Mather famously said
10:08 following the Salem Witch Trials,
10:10 "It were better that 10 suspected witches should escape
10:14 than one innocent person be condemned."
10:16 - Whether to embrace its witchy history or suppress it
10:19 remains a subject of debate in Salem to this day.
10:23 - Busy like Salem, witch.
10:25 Shows no signs of slowing down.
10:30 - Are there any other small town secrets you know about?
10:33 Let us know in the comments.
10:35 (crowd cheering)
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