‘Why Don’t You Die?’: A Story With A Terrifying Ending
Today’s story takes place in one of the most scary places in the world: Australia. Specifically, if takes place in Perth, which we’re just going to assume is even scarier than the rest of the country. All that isolation and people running to Bali all the time can’t possibly be healthy.
In 2019, someone walking past a suburban house heard a man yell, “Why don’t you die?” Also in the house were sounds of a small child, screaming. This passerby had stumbled upon a scene of child abuse at the very least, and an active murder scene at worst.
They called the police, by dialing 000, the Australian equivalent of 911. (000 is a lot easier to dial than 911, and it has an interesting history. The number suited Australia’s geography, because the phone system back in the '60s used the initial zeroes to connect remote places to a central hub.)
Don't Miss
Police entered the home and discovered the father attempting to kill ... a spider. He’d just been trying to kill a spider, and the toddler had been screaming not as a victim of the father but as a potential victim of the spider. Yeah, afraid this is another of our Halloween trick-or-treat articles where you get a trick instead of a treat. That's the last one, we promise.
Still, that is a scary ending to this story. Spiders are scary. Australian spiders doubly so. The man had a “serious” fear of spiders, enough for the police to note it in their report, which makes him a true hero for acting.
The police initially posted that report to Twitter, because it was a lot more fun to share an incident like that than most stuff that police encounter/do. They then immediately deleted the tweet, because cops are not supposed to tweet images of police reports. Afterward, they refused to answer media enquiries about what had happened. Sounds like the spider got to them.
This fact came from the One Cracked Fact newsletter. Want more like this, straight from your email inbox, without any ads or popups? Join here:
Get the best of Cracked sent directly to your inbox!
Sign up for the Cracked Newsletter
For some spider stories that aren’t a complete waste of your time, check out:
Spiders Can Put A Hole In You The Size Of A Gunshot
Jumping Spiders Raving It Up (Then Boning Mid-Air)
Follow Ryan Menezes on Twitter for more stuff no one should see.
Top image: David Dixon
