Arkansas: The Dog Boy

Why it's creepy: The name sounds kind of goofy, or actually even kind of like Goofy. But if you find yourself at 65 Mulberry Street, in the middle of the minuscule Arkansas town of Quitman, you won't laugh if you see the hulking outline of a 300-pound half man, half beast -- complete with glowing animal eyes -- glaring out of the windows. Walk quickly, as he has been known to chase people down his street, biting at their heels -- kind of like a dog, actually.

Where it came from: This is actually the rare urban legend where the story behind the story ends up being even creepier than the folklore. Gerald Bettis, the only son of the Bettis family of 65 Mulberry, was always a problem child. But not in the cute, Junior Healy way. Bettis would "collect" and torture animals (hence the "dog boy" moniker), before turning his sociopathic focus to his elderly parents, allegedly imprisoning them in their own home and potentially even murdering his father. Eventually, Bettis would be imprisoned for growing marijuana on his back porch and would die in a state penitentiary in 1988 of a drug overdose. -- WF
Source: www.thrillist.com