04-08-2025
Dark And Terrible Facts I Learned This Week
Hello! I'm Crystal, and I write the That Got Dark newsletter, BuzzFeed's weekly roundup of all things creepy, macabre, and horrible AF. And if you looooove this kind of content, you should subscribe to get your weekly dopamine fix of the macabre delivered RIGHT to your inbox!
Here's what the newsletter is covering this week:
The extremely graphic story of Japan's 'Twitter Killer.'
In June 2025, a serial killer in Japan named Takahiro Shiraishi, known as the "Twitter Killer," was executed by hanging — Japan's first execution since 2022. Shiraishi had been convicted of murdering and dismembering nine people (eight of them women or teenage girls) in 2020.
Back in 2017, Shiraishi would use Twitter (now called X) to lure his victims to his apartment. He specifically targeted users who posted about having suicidal thoughts and would tell them that he could 'help them in their plans.' However, once his victims arrived, Shiraishi sexually assaulted, strangled, and then murdered them. He even dismembered their bodies.
Later, authorities would find cooler boxes containing human heads and bones 'with the flesh scraped off.' Shiraishi went on to plead guilty to murdering the victims, saying in court that he had 'killed them to satisfy his own sexual desires.'
The creepy experience one of our BuzzFeed Community members had in Monticello, Mississippi — a seemingly quiet southern town.
"Dated a girl from there, and aside from the inbreeding that went on, the whole town seemed 'too happy.' I can't describe it. False cheeriness, like the townspeople had something to hide. It felt very surreal. Years later, I learned it was near where they had the Valley of the Kings cult, where the leader and his son were sexually abusing minor-age members of the congregation."
The Valley of the Kings Church was a small religious group led by a man named David Earl King. He ran the group from a large compound with homes, a church, and a farm. King had total control over everything, and people who lived there — especially women and children — were often mistreated, with people describing it as cult-like.
In 2001, King and his adopted son were arrested and later convicted of sexually abusing a teenage boy, who attended their church and school, and other serious crimes. King died in prison in 2017, and the "church" no longer exists.
The (possible) existence of a medieval torture device called a breast ripper.
The breast ripper was supposedly used to punish women, especially those accused of things like cheating or having an abortion. It had sharp claws, sometimes heated, that would be clamped onto a woman's breast and then pulled or twisted — just as the name implies. Apparently, there were even versions that attached to a wall where the woman would be pulled away from it instead. Now, there's not a ton of proof that this device was really ever used, but if it was…yikes.
The violent and shocking murder of actor Sharon Tate (and her unborn child), along with four others on Aug. 9, 1969.
On the night of Aug. 8–9, 1969, Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, was killed by members of the Manson Family cult at her Los Angeles home. Under the direction of Charles Manson, four of his followers — Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian (who served as a lookout) — broke into Tate's home and killed her along with four others: Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent.
The murders were carried out in a frenzy of extreme violence, with the victims being either shot, stabbed (multiple times), or even bludgeoned to death. Tate, who was brutally stabbed and strangled to death, reportedly pleaded for the life of her unborn child before she died.
Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Watson (the three who actually committed the murders) were all sentenced to death. Atkins died in prison in 2009, Krenwinkel was recommended for parole in May 2025, and Watson will be eligible for a parole hearing in October 2026.
Patricia Krenwinkle (left) and Susan Atkins (right), with another Manson family member, Leslie Van Houten (in the middle).
Finally, the case of Bobby Joe Long, aka the "Classified Ad Rapist," who killed at least 10 women in Florida in the '80s.
Long was a serial rapist and murderer who terrorized Florida's Tampa Bay area in 1984, killing at least 10 women after previously assaulting dozens. He would target his victims after finding them through personal ads in Florida, thus being called the "Classified Ad Rapist." Long's crime spree ended when 17-year-old Lisa McVey, whom he abducted and later released, provided crucial information that led to his arrest. Convicted of multiple crimes, Long was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection in 2019.
His last meal: Roast beef, bacon, French fries, and soda.
That just about does it for the week in scariness! In the next issue, we're gonna talk alllllllll about missing people, even children. Until then, stay safe, keep the lights on, and I'll see you for another horrifying trip down the rabbit hole…
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