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The truth comes out—sometimes, through people’s last breaths. Deathbed confessions have long fascinated both psychologists and the public, offering glimpses into guilt, fear, and the pursuit of closure.

However, while these last-minute revelations might bring solace to those who want to take less baggage to the afterlife, they can also deeply agitate the ones left behind.

A few days ago on r/AskReddit, a user named Youreanouch said, “What is the most disturbing deathbed confession you’ve ever heard?” and the thread quickly spiraled, drawing 11,000 upvotes and more than 2,700 comments, many haunting, and some unforgettable.

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#1

My wife, a geriatrician, told me this story. She had a patient who was considered just the loveliest by all those who knew her and all of her children. Now her children and their families are also successful individuals here in Melbourne, Australia. Lawyer, doctor, university Dean etc. A group of very neatly presented people if you know what I mean.

As the matriarch’s dementia worsened she began having extremely violent hallucinations and began sharing unfiltered tales of great violence. The family was very confused but after she died, the oldest son explained to his siblings that mum was actually “taken” as a young teen in East London by a g**g leader and was forced into being his “wife” for many years. Throughout this ordeal, the woman actually studied and learned how to be a gangster and eventually found herself influential enough to stage a coup against him, take all of his money, and end his g**g. She then escaped to Australia with the money to start over and managed to lead and nurture a life of privilege for herself and for generations to come.

I admire this woman greatly.

#2

I work as an er nurse, and a couple months ago there was a massive crash on the highway with around 20 cars. It was apparently a mystery who caused it but because so many people were hurt people and people didn’t know who’s fault it was they didn’t know who’s insurance was going to pay for everything. Because the treatments were super expensive for many of the patients most insurances would only partially cover the bills. There was one older man who was in the car with his wife and his wife died on impact. In his last moments he told me to put the blame on him, to tell everyone he confessed to causing the crash. He did it because his insurance was top tier and he knew it would help people. Not very disturbing but I think it’s pretty interesting.

The tricky part with these stories is that when you hear someone admitting guilt, there’s a chance the act might not have even happened.

Working on children’s fabricated memories, cognitive psychologist Elizabeth Loftus gave a group of volunteers the rudimentary outlines of a childhood experience: getting lost in a mall and being rescued by a kindly adult.

She told the subjects, falsely, that the scenario was real and had taken place when they were young. (Loftus asked their parents for biographical details that she could “plant” in each case.) Then she debriefed the subjects twice, with the interviews separated by a week or two.

By the second interview, six of the twenty-four test subjects had internalized the story, weaving in sensory and emotional details of their own. Loftus and other researchers have since used similar techniques to create false memories of near-drownings, animal attacks, and encounters with Bugs Bunny at Disneyland (impossible, since Bugs is a Warner Bro).

#3

When I was 10 or 11, my grandfather passed away from cirrhosis of the liver (he was a happy, functioning alcoholic). I was in his hospital room alone with him the day he passed, scared because of how different he looked from the man I’d always known (he’d lost like half his body weight, and looked skeletal).

He held my hand, and told me that his father (my great grandfather) k**led 4 men in their beds with an icepick because they’d “r***d a colored girl” and the law wouldn’t do anything about it. He went into gory detail that bordered on t*****e p**n. I still have mental scars 35 years later.

I didn’t understand all of that at the time, and it wasn’t until years later telling my mom about it that she confirmed and explained it in a more gentle detail. Apparently, my great grandfather and his brother may have also been professional (or maybe serial) k**lers, and supposedly k**led upwards of 25 K*K members across Alabama, Georgia, and Northern Florida.

#4

Context: my mom was the last person I really had in my close family.

Sort of a deathbed confession.

My mom, after she died, left me her will – and a letter.

In that letter, she told me I was adopted.

After I’d asked repeatedly over the years if I were adopted. Functionally everybody that knew my parents – knew.

That f****d me up pretty good, not gonna lie.

So if you, my dear redditors – have adopted a child.

Please tell them before you die – and don’t lie to them.
Because that was an immensely s****y way to find out. .

#5

My grandma told my sister and I that our Uncle (her oldest) was not actually our grandpa’s son.

She was r***d by her brother in law’s brother and met my grandfather soon after. He didn’t care that my uncle wasn’t his, he raised him just like he was his own.

She asked us to never tell anyone. We never have.

A decade ago, forensic psychologists Julia Shaw, of the University of Bedfordshire, and Stephen Porter, of the University of British Columbia, went even further.

They tested a method for implanting false memories, not of getting lost in childhood but of committing a crime in adolescence.

They modeled their work on Loftus’s, sending questionnaires to each of their participants’ parents to gather background information. (Any past run-ins with the law would eliminate a student from the experiment.)

Then, Shaw and Porter divided the students into two groups and told each a different kind of false story. One group was prompted to remember an emotional event, such as getting attacked by a dog. The other was prompted to remember a crime—an a*****t, for example—that led to an encounter with the police. (At no time during the experiments were the participants allowed to communicate with their parents.)

#6

My Grandmother confessed to me that her oldest brother was the product of i****t. My Great grandmother had him when she was 14. To be clear her dad, my great great grandfather r***d her.

I was 17 when she told me this and I said I wouldn’t have been able to raise that baby.

She said, “She had no choice”.

And d**n if that didn’t scare the ever livin s**t outta me in 1997.

#7

I watched a video and this super old granny in Alaska talked about how she l**led her a*****e husband in Tennessee or wherever. So she thought about it for months, was abused during and before that, then she asked him to fix something up high in the barn, hid some rakes under hay, and straight up pushed the ladder and made him fall on the rakes, k**ling him.

So she calls the police (I think it was like 1940-1950’s times) and they investigate it and find he fell on accident, she moves to Alaska and lives a loooonnnngg fulfilling and happy life.

#8

A nurse once shared that an old man confessed to sabotaging his brother’s parachute during WWII because they were in love with the same woman. His brother died, and the woman married someone else anyway. He said he lived with the guilt every single day.

What Shaw and Porter found was astonishing. “We thought we’d have something like a thirty-percent success rate, and we ended up having over seventy,” Shaw told Douglas Starr. “We only had a handful of people who didn’t believe us.”

After three debriefing sessions, seventy-six percent of the students claimed to remember the false emotional event; nearly the same amount—seventy percent—remembered the fictional crime.

So if you hear a hard-to-believe confession, fact-check it. There might not be a reason to.

#9

When my country was suffering a civil war, one little girl (around 6 years old) who lived near my grandmother got bit by a dog with rabies.

They could not vaccinate her and the girl started to show symptoms. As the disease is deadly in this stage, the doctor and the family decided that the most humane solution was to mercy k**l her.

My grandmother, who was a teenager then, still remembered that the whole family was crying while walking down the street to the doctors office. The father was holding the little and she was trying to eat bread but could not swallow it and had a little bit of foam in the corners of her mouth. She was haunted by the little girls story for her whole life.

#10

Not quite a confession, but near the end of my mom’s life, she asked, “where are my boys?” My twin and and I thought she meant “girls,” so we told her we were there.

After she died, the day before the funeral we got a call from a PI asking if they could speak to my mom. I told them she had just passed away and the PI shared that they represented a client looking for their biological mother. I was seriously thinking it was someone that somehow heard my mom had passed and was trying to get money. At the time I was grieving so it seemed that plausible.

I decided to hear her out and she was absolutely describing my mother and parts of her life that no scammer would have known. Come to find out, our mother had two boys from two different men prior to marrying our father. One of the men was from her hometown, the other was from Japan. So much of her life before our dad was an enigma suddenly. Both her sisters had Alzheimer’s so no information was ever shared with us.

#11

Before my grandma passed, she acknowledged that in 1949 at the age of 17, and a senior in high school, she became pregnant with my mom. Obviously not married to my grandpa… until 4 months later. I told her that we all could do the math, already knew her secret, and loved her anyway.

#12

That old white lady admitting she’d lied as a teen about a black boy assaulting her. The boy was k**led and he was innocent.

88963416:

Emmett Tills entire story is horrible. I’ve seen the pictures of him, I don’t know how anyone could do that to another person. The people that were involved (somewhat excluded the other black people forced to be there, but not much) are evil and despicable people.
Edit: just a warning because I mentioned the picture. Don’t look at them.

#13

Had a 80 year old something patient tell me when his wife was dying, she admitted to having multiple affairs through out their long a*s ~60year marriage. She went as far to say she never loved him and his only son wasn’t his. I was transporting him to ED, he likely only had months left to live, wanted to share with me. Still think about this often.

#14

My patient told me to tell her daughter she was right the whole time, so when she came in, I did. The patient had just passed. The daughter stared at me and became upset and yelled that I was lying so I just stood quiet and left the room.

Apparently the lady wasn’t her biological mom and she had kidnapped her. The daughter did a 23 and me and found out about some relatives and the mom never admitted it. I wish I could’ve found out more.

#15

Ours is a bit roundabout.

My dad passed away last year, and a month later, one of his cousins did. But, before she did, she informed my mom that my paternal grandfather had a secret second family. She was the last person who knew and felt that SOMEONE should know.

Turns out dad knew, and intended to take it to the grave. He’d been told HIS mom, when she was on her deathbed and swore him to secrecy.

The cousin only knew, because in the 50’s, Grandaddy made a stop to drop off some cash with said other family, on the way home from my aunt’s funeral and said cousin was in the car.

My mom and I managed to piece things together and track down this other, previously unknown, branch of the family. We’ve established contact and they were surprised as we were. Good folks, turns out my half cousin is a fairly successful gospel singer.

Not exactly dark, but it’s my new exhibit A when I explain to people that Southern families are built on secrets and lies.

#16

A few years ago, my mum knew a woman who was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Before she passed away, she made a shocking confession to her husband. She told him that all three of their sons were not his biological children. Their real father was actually her own father.

The boys were around 10, 8, and 7 years old at the time. After she died, the husband had DNA tests done, which confirmed that he was not the biological father. The tests also showed that the boys’ biological father was indeed their maternal grandfather.

The woman’s father, who was in his seventies, was arrested and later sent to prison, where he eventually died. Despite learning the truth, the husband decided to raise the boys as his own. He said he had noticed early on that there was something different about them. For example, they didn’t seem to feel pain the way other children did. At the time, he didn’t think much of it, but looking back, it stood out more clearly.

#17

My grandfather looked at me when I was 16 and apologized for the sexual a*****t he committed against my mother when she was a child. Still f***s with me to this day that he did that and thought I’d be the person to forgive him.

#18

Not really a confession, but supposedly, my great grandmother’s second husband was a piece of s**t. Like kid-diddling, money-grubbing type POS.

And my dad and my aunt always told me when that man passed, he didn’t go peacefully. He kept seeing things on the ceiling, crawling on his legs, and was screaming, “Get ‘em off me! Get ‘em off me! Don’t let them take me!”

That story always creeped me out as a kid.

#19

It’s nowhere near the level of what some of these are, but growing up my mother and grandmother had always been very estranged. They had an arms-length relationship and the only times we visited were generally a disaster, but to her credit my mom tried and wanted me to have a grandmother and the memories that came with it. She tried her best, but something was very off.

Small details trickled out over the years but they were vague. When it was time for my grandmother to die, I remember on her deathbed, I visited- my mother did not – and my grandmother told me right before she passed, “tell your mother I always really loved her, despite everything.” That was a strange thing for her to say, because why would that have been something she needed to say?

I didn’t tell my mom right away, because after my grandmother died she was oddly emotionless and I felt like it was not something my mom needed to hear just then.

A few years later, the truth came out when we were talking over the phone. My mom told me that when she was 5, my grandmother tried to run her over with a car because she found out her affair partner was [taking advantage of] my mother. She wanted to get rid of her. It didn’t work because a neighbour saw and intervened, so my mom ended up getting sent overseas to her father’s mother’s home to be safe while that got dealt with and my grandparents got divorced.

Times being what they were, however, when my mom returned her mother got custody of her. It ended up with my mother running away, being homeless, getting pregnant very young by a much older man, a secret sister I never knew about, and I was pretty floored. When she told me, I figured that it made a little more sense why my grandmother had said that, so I shared that with my mother finally. She just said, “well she had a strange way of showing it” and that was that.

#20

Oh man, I finally have a story…

I worked as an MRI tech aide in college and my job was simply to bring people to and from their hospital room for an MRI.

One day, I was asked to get this nice elderly (big) Italian man. He was a big human, think 6’4″ 260. I would have placed him in his early 70s. And he sadly had early onset dementia.

We had short but nice chats on the way to and from the MRI. On the way back to his room, he told me how he was the guy called when his buddies needed to take care of business. I believe my naive response was something along the lines of ‘oh, what kind of business were your buddies in? ‘

” All kinds, but they would call him when they needed to take of a guy.” So that’s when it hit me what he was saying. I chuckled to myself, attributed it to the dementia as we got back to his room. When we got back to his room, his 3 kids and spouses (ranging 40 to 50ish) were all there waiting on him. You could tell they were saddened by the condition of their father, but nevertheless were kind and smiled at me as I began getting him hooked back up to his O2 and heart monitors.

One of his daughters asked how he’s been. The gentleman said he was feeling OK and he had just gotten back from getting an MRI with me. It was that moment that he said to his family (very nonchalantly)…

‘Yeah, I was just telling this young man how I used to take care of business back in the day…”

It was at that moment, all 6 faces turned somber in unison, and turned and looked at me… In unison.

“Ah, well, yes. What a great story. Well have a nice day everyone!” -> in the most cheerful voice I could muster…

Never mentioned a word. Don’t even remember the gentleman’s name. (Probably for the best).

#21

My wife’s grandmother only learned the name of her real father on her mom’s deathbed (gma was in her 70s at the time). The guy was a traveling salesman and fell for great-gma and they eloped and had his friend who he said was a pastor marry them. She got pregnant and when she told him he confessed his friend wasn’t a pastor and then he skipped town.

Gma’s dad put a made up name on the birth certificate because they never wanted anything to do with him and Gma would never tell anyone his name. The family would blame every bad health problem on the guy with no name. Finally, they got his name when she gave it up on her deathbed. Turns out he was using a fake name and my wife’s uncle then did a ton of work digging and some DNA testing to locate the guy’s family. They finally figured it out and reached out and connected when Gma was in her 90s. The other family had no idea he had had this double life. Gma met her half-niece or whatever that would be called and they became friends and have had a few get togethers since. Gma is amazing. Still sharp as a tack and tough at 103yrs old. Love that woman.

#22

We thought my granny was dying, the hospital has asked us all (my mum and my brother and sister) to come and say goodbye. We are going in one by one with my mum and one of the things that my granny keeps bringing up is that she’s sad for me as I’m “single and won’t be having any s*x.” Good to know where her priorities were when she was about to die

#23

Man on hospice for cancer. Summoned his kids a day or so before he died to confess that he k**led his wife (the mother of the children), who he reported missing 30 some years prior. The dude planned it all out perfectly. Wife had some kind of trip planned. Man k**ls wife, rents wood chipper, dismembers wife, puts her through the wood chipper into a decent size stream on their property. After he’s done, lights wood chipper on fire, lets it burn then turns it in to insurance a few days later. When wife fails to return home from trip he reports her missing.

Kids had absolutely no clue. Crime would have gone completely unsolved if he didn’t confess. I didn’t hear the confession, but was involved with some search warrants on the property after the kids reported it to state police.

#24

Ex g**g guy who used to be the enforcer for a well known g**g in our area. He was dying of cancer with a prognosis of less than 2 weeks. He confessed that he made a few people disappear and wanted their families to find some closer by telling them where he buried the bodies. The police got involved obviously. Interestingly, it didn’t make the news, I think he might have insisted on keeping it under the radar as it wouldn’t have reflected well on the g**g.

#25

One weekend, a demented patient kept repeatedly telling me about someone he and his friends beat up and assaulted after the war. I assumed it would have been around early 1950s. Apparently, they ‘took his wallet’ but what struck my attention was the undertone to it and the lack of panic in his voice. Usually dementia patients that think something is lost or stolen are very anxious; he wasn’t. He just kept saying he and his buddies ‘beat him up bad and took his wallet,’ and I’m 99.8% sure he was talking about a racial hate crime. The timing adds up and his details of the event were too clean. He was a respectful guy with a good family and wife and kids. A good, midwestern family man. Something happened with him and his friends one night and it wasn’t good. There was a regret to the story, but it really just seemed like he wanted to tell someone finally.

I’ve been a nurse 15 years. I worked a lock dementia unit at the start of my career. I did the week long dementia state certifications to become a trainer. I sadly know dementia well and I interact well with them. You just go to their world and live there with them.

This was different though. He kept repeating the same story all weekend and details didn’t change. That’s unusual for a dementia patient. It wasn’t a story or behavior he was known for telling over and over again either. I’m convinced that guy was reliving that night from 60 years ago and telling me something happened. It wasn’t a dementia false reality. I’ll never forget him. I still know what room he was in and everything about it. Only time I’ve been spooked and I’ve literally had 2000+ patients and called 100+ deaths. This was different.

#26

My ex’s grandmother told me that she hit someone with her car and kept driving thinking they were an animal, later finding out that one of her friends husband’s was walking home drunk after spending time with a buddy was hit by a car and it was most likely him. He recovered but was permanently messed up and had issues walking/pain for the rest of his life. No one believed me when I told them she said that.

#27

My great grandmother fostered 9 children and adopted 2, she tried for 7 years to conceive. My grandmother was her only biological child. This was in the ‘40s and ‘50s. She got fed up of trying with her husband, and got pregnant with the neighbor who had 3 daughters. The families were very close and spent holidays together. I guess the neighbor looked an awful lot like great grandfather. Nobody ever questioned it, her husband died years before, and she had Alzheimer’s, so we didn’t get much of an explanation. We like to think it was agreed upon and my great grandfather was aware, since it was before surrogacy and IVF. But we truly have no clue.

#28

My maternal grandfather apparently confessed that he saw the ghost of his daughter (who had died a few years prior) the day before he had a major heart attack that took his life. It came to light that he had s**ually a**sed her as a child and my grandmother basically knew and did nothing to protect her kids. The revelation imploded my family but not until nearly twenty years after he died. Craaaaazy s**t.

#29

Found out that on my grandmother’s deathbed, she told a couple of my aunts that she cheated on my grandfather for years and the 3 youngest (out of 14 children) were not my grandfather’s kids. I’m 35 and just discovered this information 2 years ago and it messed with me for weeks.

#30

We would have figured it out eventually with the DNA stuff, but back when my grandpa died he had told someone that he had a whole other family before he met my grandma.

He was 23 when they met and he had 4 kids and a wife. My grandma was 19. They had 6 kids together, including my mom.

But yeah, we got a bunch new family.

#31

When my grandpa was close to passing away he told me how my grandma was mad at him for many years because soon after they married he made a pass at a battered woman from work that she let stay with them for some time to get on her feet.

I was appalled and never knew anything about it. I mean I get he was dying but he said it so nonchalantly and just said “I was thinking with my other head”. Like clearly!! Ugh totally understand why she resented him for that. That’s wrong on so many levels.

#32

My parents smoked and my mum really wants to quit but felt she couldn’t do it by herself to talked my dad into quitting too.

He stopped 43 years ago (he’s 80 this year)

She tried and tried lasting a few days here and a week or two there. She died 13 years later unrelated to smoking never quitting.

One of her last confessions to my dad was, “all those times I tried to quit and made it for days and weeks…….I never lasted a day”

30 years and I miss her still, not disturbing but makes me cry to remember this every time, including right now.

#33

My grandfather apparently told my mom that he thought he k**led his last wife (not my grandmother, but his wife after her). He had dementia at the time of confession. She died suddenly, but I didn’t know there was anything to it, but I then was told by my mom that he had held a knife to my grandmother more than once while they were together. He was a s****y person, but I didn’t know he was that s****y until he was gone.

#34

I worked with a patient with dementia for a few days in a hospital setting who was constantly rambling nonsense, but would occasionally say sexual things like “I love your [private parts].” I’m male so assumed he was either hallucinating or reliving something from his past (or maybe I just do have exquisite [private parts]?). One day after we were able to get him to eat something, he went to sleep for a while and when he woke up a few hours later he looked me straight in the eyes and clear as day said “I used to make love to my mother and i can’t wait to see her again.” He then went back to rambling before falling back to sleep, quickly deteriorating, and he passed before the end of my shift. I always wonder if it was a truth or nonsense but it has always stuck with me.

#35

I don’t think I’d call this a confession but it was just before he died. I volunteered at a hospice and there was a guy who had pretty severe dementia. Before he passed, he started reliving a moment from when he was drafted for Vietnam. He mistook me and another volunteer for his war buddies, and apparently they had m******d a man and his family when they got back.

From what he was saying, it wasn’t supposed to be the whole family but things spiraled and they wound up k**ling the man, his wife, and her parents. He was unnervingly calm, not panicked, just calculated. He didn’t acknowledge anything we were telling him either, he was stuck in that memory. He was in the middle of going over how to hide the bodies when he slipped back into his normal self and then refused to talk anymore about anything to anyone. He passed away shortly before dinner time the same day.

#36

Rumor is a priest at our local hospital confesses HIS sins to the dying, whispering in their ears before they pass away…horrible things he did to little indigenous children in the 60’s 70’s.

#37

Now I’m not sure if I’ve got this 100% right cos it’s third hand and sorry if it’s not exactly “disturbing” but one of my aunt’s friends suddenly got told she had 3 months to live. Loads of people were visiting her in hospital and of course, so did her best friend. Once they were alone, as she lay in her hospital bed, she asked her best friend to close the curtains. She asked her friend to sit down and said she had something to tell her. The friend was confused but listened closely. The lady in her bed proceeded to tell her best friend that she had an affair with her husband for over 30 years and that they were still seeing each other now. She begged for forgiveness and said she had to get that off her chest before she dies. The friend apparently didn’t say a word and left the room.

Moments later a doctor came in and told the lady in the bed that they’d mixed her papers up with another patient and that she’s got the all clear and free to go home!!!!

😳😲😱.

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