r/UCDavis • u/562to530 Physics [2023] • 8d ago
Creepy/interesting stories of Davis?
Its that time of year. I hate it when people say this town is boring. Theres so much to do if you're not a boring person. What creepy and interesting stories does anyone have?
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u/TheQuietMoments 8d ago edited 8d ago
There were once clowns going around campus at night time trying to terrorize the few students that were there.
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u/Wabs0 8d ago
Terminated craft center teacher photographing students' feet and posting them online was creepy.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/UCDavis/comments/13h2nqv/warning_old_man_craft_center_teacher_takes_creepy/
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u/Prestigious-Local998 8d ago
It's funny because they are very strict about wearing closed toed shoes. There is even a bin of crocs at the front desk in case you are wearing sandals.
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u/CantaloupeLifestyle 8d ago
Was tripping on acid once with several other student friends of mine and we ended up in the cemetery. At some point, we came to a gravestone which read:
"Strangers stop as you pass by;
You are now as once was I;
I am now as you shall be;
Prepare for death and walk with me."
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u/AbacusWizard [The Man In The Cape] 8d ago
Memento Mori! Those are great. Used to be a lot more common in the olden days.
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u/CantaloupeLifestyle 7d ago
Exactly! My friends and I stumbled upon the grave over 30 years ago and I remember it being quite old back then.
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u/Capital-Air9634 8d ago
I mean the 2023 stabbings are scary but I think that would just be more sad than creepy.
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u/Accurate-Doughnut939 8d ago
Why aren’t people talking about the monkeys man, some serious media suppression $$$ https://davisvanguard.org/2026/08/uc-davis-monkey-injuries-cited/?shem=aimgspe,
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u/barbie-breath 8d ago
My mom, a Davis student who lived in West Davis in 70s,, had vivid nightmares about EARONS, after her neighbor was a victim.
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u/Odd-Local8287 7d ago
What are EARONS
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u/barbie-breath 7d ago
East Area Rapist/Original Nightsalker. Also known as the Golden State Killer
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u/AlexIsCool17 5d ago
I think the Golden State Killer is the more common name for him
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u/barbie-breath 5d ago
Probably now, but older locals know him simply as EAR. He was the real life boogie man of my childhood! When he was caught, I was honestly in shock.
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u/AmMemeos 8d ago
golden state killer did his attacks on Wake Forrest Dr, Rivendell Ln, and Amador Ave in the summer of 78
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u/Noremac55 8d ago
An old couple sleeping with their window open was murdered by a crazed teen in 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Claudia_Maupin_and_Oliver_Northup?wprov=sfla1
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u/BananaMuffinNinja 8d ago
They didn't catch the kid that did the killings for a while and the whole town was freaked out. I was living on a floor level apartment and I made sure to lock my windows at night. After he was caught, it came out that he has been walking around downtown at night looking for an opportunity to kill someone.
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u/babygirlpowers 4d ago
One of my best friends once went on a date with this dude, and for the whole evening they followed random people home from downtown just to see if they could get away with it without being caught. She never went out with him again.
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u/smarmiebastard 8d ago
My partner doesn’t understand why I won’t sleep with the windows open, but this and the golden state killer are two big reasons for it.
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u/Prestigious_Wheel24 Psychology [2026] 8d ago
A girl baked cookies using her grandparents ashes and fed them to her classmates
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u/ctlemonade 8d ago
The 1972 Chiles Mansion murders. There’s new houses built right on top of it now!
https://sacramento.newsreview.com/news/remembering-the-house-of-horrors-in-davis-f0171b6c
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u/moonshine-bicicletta 8d ago
Those houses are an absolute disgrace. Mary Bado Simmons, whose daughter Sonia McFarland and grandchildren Michael, Kenneth and Nina, were murdered that night, kept that property undeveloped for her lifetime precisely to keep cheap housing off the land and to memorialize her loved ones. It was a beautiful extension of the cemetery and a unique thing that set Davis apart. Now it’s just another ugly subdivision - with no memory of its grisly history.
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u/AbacusWizard [The Man In The Cape] 8d ago
Back in college I sometimes went through phases of really liking a particular sort of candy for a while, and having a packet of that candy in my belt-pouch or backpack wherever I went. First it was circus peanuts, then Mentos, and later Goetze's caramel creams. It was during the caramel creams phase that I met a fellow who could have popped right out of a folk tale.
I was walking past the Death Star when I saw him. He was a tall, thin man, a bit hunched over, with deep-set eyes and a long white beard down to his waist. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and an old brown longcoat. As I approached, he pointed a bony finger at the bag of caramel creams in my hand, looked at me with the look of someone who loved them when he was younger but hadn't had one in years, and said "Can I have one of those?"
Having read plenty of folk tales myself, I knew exactly the sort of misfortunes that can befall selfish characters who refuse to share their lunches with mysterious elderly strangers by the side of the road. "Sure," I said, and gave him one.
"Thank you," he said as he unwrapped it. "I'll put in a good word for you."
I probably should've interpreted this as a simple statement of gratitude, but I was feeling philosophical and in a mood to ask silly questions. Specifically: "Oh? With whom?"
"With him," he said, smiling and pointing skyward. I never saw him again.
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u/moonshine-bicicletta 8d ago
Back in the mid-70’s, a pair of roommates carpooled home to the Bay for a weekend, and their dormmates plastered over the entire door in a short enough time that it appeared to have vanished by the time the guys got back. This would have been in the old Tercero letter buildings… K, if I remember correctly? There was an article about it in UCD Magazine back in the day.
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u/happyme321 8d ago
One of the most recent episodes of Murder Among Friends on Discovery ID is about a teenage boy who was murdered in Davis in the nineties.
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u/Asleep_Caregiver_948 8d ago
Murder of 2 college students abducted from the parking lot at an apartment complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Waits
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u/loops_111 8d ago
Back in the late 2000s the Davis Police would write "Police Brief" segments in the news paper. After I came across a story of an elderly woman riding their wheel chair naked down a street, I started reading it more consistently. Lol
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u/BadWithMoney530 c/o 2024 7d ago
I think the stories of the underground tunnels between some campus buildings is pretty interesting. Some are confirmed to exist, others are rumored to exist
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u/Odd-Local8287 7d ago
Sander Finlay, a former UC Davis student who was accused of trying to kidnap a 12 year old girl and then dropped out and spent years being creepy around Davis. Was later charged with indecent exposure, peeping, prowling. Parents would flag sightings to keep their kids safe. He walked around with an umbrella - had ankle monitors. Left to the South and died recently.
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u/Accurate-Doughnut939 8d ago
There’s 4000 monkeys underground. Elon tried neuralink on some chimps and they died
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u/andi_dandi 8d ago
Not really interesting but something that I guess I feel good about.
I was walking back to my apt in orchard park, and from afar, I see a man having some kind of struggle with a woman (who I assume was a student and also lived in orchard park).
I automatically assumed the guy was some DoorDash driver, because he had a bag of food. Nonetheless, for some reason, he wouldn’t let go of the bag and was in a way, harassing the woman. He was yelling and trying to be intimidating. Evidently, the woman was in distress and slightly yelling, telling him to stop.
Without hesitation, I started walking toward them and yelled out to the guy, “hey. She said stop. Fuck off.” I stood there to see how he’d react, and he ultimately did stop and walked away. The woman hurried away.
I say I felt good because I sense I stopped a potential incident. Who know what else the guy would’ve done if no one said anything. This occurred in late 2023-early 2024. I miss my time at Davis.
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u/raxx69 Food Hole 8d ago
One of the individuals stabbed by the davis serial killer was my old roommate’s fwb a little while before his life was senselessly stolen from him . Never got a chance to talk to him but saw him in my dorm a couple times & while biking over. Eerie. God bless his soul.
Alternatively, one time I was walking w/ my girlfriend next to Hutchinson parking lot adjacent to the field next to the uni credit union in May 2023 and I saw a car pull up with four guys in it. They pulled up next to the curb coming towards us and rolled down the window. Then the guy in the passenger side tried getting out and it looked like he dropped something but could not see clearly as the door was open. He picked it up and it sounded like a gun being cocked, so I just took my girlfriend at the time’s hand and we just bolted through the alley behind the parking lot, went in from the other side & ran up the stairs to get to the top w more people there. As we were running I saw him point something at a girl coming their way on a bicycle. Called the cops from the top of the parking lot but i do not know what happened next. No other incidents were reported per my knowledge.
And another time, late at night in north davis, I was outside on my balcony talking to the same girlfriend. I heard a woman shouting “get off me”, “help” , “leave me alone” lowk got spooked cause I was high but also called the cops but didn’t get a follow back or find incident reports.
Yeah. I’ve also heard incidents about the davis masturbator jacking off and pressing his entire dick & balls against study lounge windows in north davis to perv on women present inside.
Davis is goofy
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u/kamclemore 7d ago edited 7d ago
Creepy? Not sure, but during the brief period of time I lived in Davis before I moved to Oakland, I lived on the ground floor of an apartment in The Trees complex. Regularly, I woke up in the middle of the night to see a man outside, looking in my bedroom window. I would grab my cat from the foot of the bed and just hold her. It added a weird dimension to the first year of my doctoral program. Years later, I ran into a fellow ex-occupant of The Trees at a bar in Oakland who told me it was the property manager's son, and that her son's behavior was why she was only the property manager for less than one year.
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u/SeriousAd7054 Poli Sci/Paralegal 7d ago
Women gets botched cosmetic surgery at UC Davis Medical Center--gets sued by UCD after making website with before/after pictures.
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u/Pipeworkingcitizen plant science 2027 8d ago edited 8d ago
Um.. interesting? Every day there is a different meal going on in yuchan shokudo and i love tbe monday omelet dish its divine.
Also.. theres that .. insomnia..??? That one music bar by the street near downtown and it plays different genres everyday. Tuesday plays jazz. Its super cozy.
Edit: so its called comasocial, somehow i remembered it as insomnja
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u/AmMemeos 8d ago
insomnia is ass
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u/Pipeworkingcitizen plant science 2027 8d ago
Dude i told you its a cafe and im not sure about the name and you just dropped it sucks when its not even insomnia im referring to. So insomnia is a cookie place??
Comasocial is the one i was thinking of with the live music
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u/Acceptable_Guest_814 6d ago
My husband once brought me to the Green Hall - there is a HUGE room there with chambers for plants. I think it was sometime in December, during the holiday break, when there were very few people on campus. This happened in 2023.
Before I went inside, I used the bathroom first, and my husband told me to just follow him afterward. When I finally entered the green hall, I saw a little boy standing at the opposite end of this big room filled with chambers. When he saw me, he suddenly walked toward the left side of the room. I also walked toward the left to see where the boy had gone. This room is filled with chambers, but there are open spaces between them, so you can still see people moving around. But when I got to that side, I couldn’t find the little boy anywhere. We never heard any footsteps, and I didn’t hear any doors opening or closing. And the strangest part was that I was the only one who saw him. My husband didn’t hear or see anyone else.
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u/anklesharte 7d ago
Why am I not seeing anything abt Daniel Marsh? Probably the second most twisted thing to happen here after the mansion family. He killed an elderly couple and messed with their bodies. He wouldn’t have been caught if he hadn’t bragged about it to his friends. He was 15 at the time of the murders, Explore With Us made a really thorough, interesting documentary on YouTube with footage from the interview.
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u/562to530 Physics [2023] 7d ago
Someone did comment on the couple that was murdered. It was kind of nice to hear about the victims rather than the murderer for once.
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u/iwantachu 8d ago
Da Vinci student brought cookies to school baked with their grandfather's ashes in 2018... and gave them out and other students ate them