Many deathbed confessions are bombshells that leave aftershocks to those who hear them. For some, these final words before passing on are so haunting that they’ve been documented for the internet to see. 

Some of those are part of this Reddit thread asking, “Which is the most haunting deathbed confession you know of?” A few of these are revelations of illegitimate children and second families. You may also read stories of murder admissions from decades back. 

Especially if you’re in the mood for something sad or shocking, this one’s for you.

#1

My grandmother confessed to me that I'm adopted.

What haunts me is that her dementia was so bad that she legitimately believed I didn't know. For context, I'm Korean, my sister's Mexican, and our parents are white. I spent the last few hours with her letting her act as if she were breaking it to me gently and promising I wouldn't be upset with my parents for not telling me (even though they had and it was kinda hard to miss).

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#2

My stepfather requested to see the two other families he had that nobody knew about on his deathbed. Boy was that fun.

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#3

When I was in hospital, the guy in the bed next to me just asked to stop taking his meds as he was ready to die. Last thing I heard him say was "There's no one waiting for me at home, so I'm going where they are."

Wasn't really a shocking confession, just a lonely and heartbreaking one.

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#4

Reading these is crazy. all my grandpa said on his death bed was "can someone turn off that smell" after i opened my breakfast burrito.

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#5

My grandpa whispered something cryptic right before he passed. He said, "The garden gnome... it was always him," and then just closed his eyes forever. It's been ten years, and I still get chills thinking about it. I mean, what garden gnome? Why him? I never even got to ask.

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#6

There was an ongoing land dispute in the family and my grandpa just before dying told me that the whole land is mine on his will. 8 years later i still haven’t tackled or talked about it yet.

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#7

My wife's grandmother called her husband over to her and said something along the lines of. " I've hated you for decades. You are a racist controlling bastard." She died a few minutes later. He went down to the cafeteria and got lunch.

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#8

In the 70s there was an unsolved murder of a teenage girl in my hometown and some beloved guy from the community allegedly confessed to the murder on his death bed. It's just spooky to think that even the nicest people may be monsters.

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#9

A friend told me that his mother's last words was that she never cared about him and was sorry she had him.

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#10

There was a couple where the wife got some mental illness where she wouldn't go outside the house. This went on for years. Eventually after counseling she made a little progress and agreed to go to the drugstore one night. She went in while her husband stayed in the car. While she was in the drugstore, someone walked in, shot her in the back of the head and walked out. She died immediatly and the shooter was never caught. 


For years everyone thought it was some insane paranormal thing, like she somehow knew that being out in public would lead to her death etc...  


Many decades later, the husband admitted on his deathbed that he had hired someone to kill her because he could not take her mental illness anymore.

Image credits: NewRoar

#11

One of my uncles confessed to having two other children with another woman. He thought he was going to die from COVID and I guess he felt he needed to come clean. He didn't die. That was back in 2020 and there's still a ridiculous amount of drama happening over potential inheritances and whatnot.


EDIT: Yes, it absolutely *is* hysterical he got a second chance to live after admitting to having a second family.


No, my uncle is not a bad person as far as I know. We never interacted much because his English is bad and my Mandarin is atrocious.

Image credits: Eurymedion

#12

My great-great uncle admitted on his deathbed that he wasn't actually related to our family, he'd spent the last 40 years in the US using one of our distant relatives citizenship papers since they looked close enough and in the 1920's that was really all you needed.

He didn't kill the real uncle or anything, the guy had just decided America wasn't for him and went home. This dude was like "Hey, since you aren't wanting to go back, can I have your papers?" and that was that.

Not haunting at all, but my family doesn't have very many death bed confessions, so it's still technically the most haunting.

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#13

My wife is a CNA in a nursing home. She had a resident who was formally a delivery (OB) nurse in the 70s and 80s.

When she was on her last few breaths, my wife was leaning in to her face to clean it, and she whispered in my wife's ear, "When I was a nurse, I switched babies around"

I'm not sure what's worse, knowing that one child may not be your child, or that this woman could have done it MANY times.

Image credits: odoyle321

#14

My grandfather revealed that my mother was not his only child. In the 1950s, when his longtime best friend was unable to impregnate his wife, my grandfather spent a week (A WEEK) in a remote cabin in the Ozarks having sex with this guy’s wife in order to give them a child. He said they had sex over 20 times. His friend even walked in on them once having sex on the kitchen counter after he drove down for the day to check on them - no phone at the cabin. Well, the week of sex worked and she got pregnant. The couple then moved out of state to start a new life as a family - to this day it is their only child and she’s not aware of her biological dad. The only communication my grandfather received from them afterward was a letter giving confirmation the child was born a healthy little girl. He never saw his friend again, but stated he often thought about that cabin in the woods.

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#15

Not really this but my mom was raised in KY where all the miners and coal operators were in conflict in the 1930s and on and she told about some older man who had worked for the coal company and had presumably done some bad stuff on their behalf. Car bombs, shootings, I don’t know. As he lay dying in the hospital years later the coal co. had someone sit in his room 24 hours to be sure he did not do any deathbed confessions. Creepy as hell I always thought.

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#16

My uncle, who was the oldest, admitted he passed on going to University so my other uncle and mother could.

Only my father and me were told, and we keep it a secret still as we just don't want them to feel bad (he passed away a couple years ago, but it was very sudden and unpleasant).

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#17

Wasnt really shocking just sad. They were relieved to have an excuse to die. He said he should have killed himself when he was in high school and it would have saved him from "all of this"..

Hoping that was just the meds/pain brain talking. But not everyone has a happy life.

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#18

A family friend that I knew when I was a child confessed as he was dying that he had used an assumed identity of a dead friend for his entire adult life. He was a Jewish child in Germany and there was a program in the UK to accept 10k Jewish refugee children from Europe. He was slightly over the age to qualify, but a younger friend of his was murdered by the Nazis and he took the opportunity to steal the identity of this other boy. He escaped to the UK and eventually moved to North America, started a family and lived out his life. He never told anyone, including his wife who passed away long before he did, because he was afraid he would be deported back to Germany, even many decades later. As he was dying he finally told his children.

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#19

One of my aunts confessed to my mom that she slept with my dad and gave him herpes. We all knew but she didn't know we knew.

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#20

A woman confessed to her husband of almost 55 years that the 3 kids they have, out of those 2 are not from him.

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#21

I have heard hospice nurses hear deathbed confessions about murdering people all the time. Very sad and disturbing.

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#22

A girl I know had her grandma confess to poisoning her first husband because he had hit her. Fair enough.

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#23

Old ex gendarme in france, he was "le grêlé" notorious serial killer of the eighties. It was a few years ago.

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#24

Father thought he murdered a woman when he was teenage little s**t. 


I asked for name and he told me and I looked it up on smartphone and found out and was dead but she died in September 11th attack not when my father beat the s**t out of her in the 70s.


It was a weird sense of relief that he didn't directly murder someone but also acknowledge he was a woman abuser who thought he legitimately killed.


It was weird but the priest gave him last rights are I confirmed to him he didn't murder anybody.

Image credits: MaimedJester

#25

I have a friend "B" who served a church mission in Mexico, one of his prospects "Oscar" was interested but never committed to getting baptized. Shortly before B was to transfer to another area, Oscar was very sick and dyeing. While they were visiting him one last time they were encouraging him to be baptized so he could be saved (not trying to get preachy. It just pertains to the story). Oscar kept refusing, and they finally asked him why. He confessed to them how he was a hit man most of his life, and he killed a lot of people for money. When he got older, he retired to this small village, Mexico, to live in peace. The way B told me the story Oscar may have hinted he was also in hiding.

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#26

Was visiting my grandmother in hospice, and her roommate was an old man. My grandmother took a nap, and he and I got to talking. He told me about how he used to lynch black folks back in the day in Alabama. I left and brought it up to the nurse and she said something along the lines of "Oh, he says things like that all the time. It's the dementia". I reported it to the AL State Bureau of Investigation, but never heard anything about it.

Image credits: Guns_Donuts

#27

One of my great uncles, someone I barely knew. I could count on one hand how many times we actually crossed paths.

But on his deathbed, he asked for me. The only thing he said to me was that he was sorry.

I won’t pretend that his death hit me hard, but those words have stuck with me over the years. Why would he apologize to a 13-year-old who was practically a stranger? My mom says he was likely sorry for not being there for me, but I don’t know why he’d feel that way. No one ever expected him to make time for his great nephew. The few times we did meet, he was distant but kind, just like a stereotypical elderly man would be.

Maybe it’s not as dramatic as some other people’s stories, but even now, in my twenties, I still think about it sometimes.

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#28

An electrician I apprenticed for told me about the time he was pulling cable in an attic and found a revolver under the insulation.... with five loaded cylinders and one spent casing.
He called the cops, they were able to close a 40 year old cold case, but the perp was in a nursing home on O2 so they just let him run out the clock.

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#29

My school teacher told the class abpit the time his father in law was on his deathbed. He told the family to “check the walls”. Nobody knew what he meant until they did some renovations years later and found gold ingots in the walls.

Not really haunting, but still crazy.

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#30

Anders Aastad from Hemne, Norway:

On what he thought was his deathbed with smallpox he confessed to his wife that he had been having sex with their horse.

The wife contacted the local priest to give salvation to her husband.

Aastad recovered and the priest instead went to the local policeman with his confession. Aastad was sentenced to death and burned alive in 1723.

Edit: It was described as a “slow and dreadful execution” in the local newspaper.

Edit 2: the horse was also sentenced to being burned, but since it is very hard to make a horse stand still over a burning fire it was killed first and then burned.

Image credits: Ill_Solution5552

#31

Dad died when I was twelve. Grandpa died in my twenties. Nothing too crazy. My grandpa did however look up in the corner of the room and said my dad was there to get him. Passed away 40 minutes later in his sleep. Thank god for hospice, and F**k cancer.

#32

My grandfather had pretty terrible dementia and he kept making deathbed confessions as he knew he didn’t have much time left. They were often about witnessing a murder and not telling anyone, but each time he confessed to us the details changed. It happened a couple of times a day over the course of his final week. We finally figured out that he would watch the local news and hear about these things happening then would think he had actually witnessed them.

#33

"My grandpa murmured, 'I hid a wealth... in the...' then he simply nodded off. Still wondering if he intended for the yard or if his sense of humor drove one last swing.".

#34

Used to work for a shady swimming pool builder, owned by a real tough New York character. When he was dying, they sent a priest for his last rights. Apparently he started confessing things. The priest then had a heart attack.

#35

My sister works in a skilled nursing facility and she had a retired cop tell her about the child rapist he and other officers beat to death after they arrested him. He told her they brought him in for questioning and he “wasn’t an issue anymore after that”.

#36

I’m not sure if this fits here because it wasn’t a confession although it is a bit haunting to me emotionally. Just before my grandfather passed he had lost a good percentage of his senses and speech was the one he had the most trouble with but he was still trying to communicate. Being the oldest granddaughter I was with him and tried communicating with him the most. What’s haunting is to this day I still don’t know 95% of what he was trying to say to me. The 5% I do remember was meaningful so I wish I could’ve understood the rest.

#37

My grandpa disowned my aunt just 24 hours short of kicking the bucket. He cried and you could see how bad it felt, but as he called it, a last act of justice he should have done many decades ago.

One of my aunts outed another one of my aunt as a lesbian in the 80s, gay aunt lost her job, lost her friends, was banned from many places and pratically had to move town to rebuild her life (it was a 40k people town back then and she moved to a larger urban center).

If that was not enough, she done a miriad of other evil deeds along the years. I've never seen my grandpa cry, but he wanted to do it himself, not trough a will, as his last deed as a parent.

The whole speech of a dying man delievering justice is something that haunts the whole family to this day, 10 years later.

It was heavy.

#38

Not mine

Mother ran a nursing home growing up. From ages 5-10 I spent every weekend with residents. Because I was a kid, residents often confessed stuff they thought I wouldn’t understand. Two stick out. One funny, one not.

Women was dying, maybe about 96. Even had her last burst of energy/life where she thought she was “better” (this is common). A Black delivery man came with some flowers. After he left she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I can’t believe I’m dying without having been with a colored man.”

Second one was while I was reading bible verses to a resident, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to drop that baby in the well.”.

#39

My great aunt was a spinster until late in life. She started a preschool in the 1930s in Beverly Hills, and upon retirement sold the property for a great amount of money. She met and married an older fellow, an elder in the Christian Science church. He became terminally ill but since he had no health insurance and didn’t believe in Medicare, my great aunt went out of pocket for his care. Drained her assets. Fine, her choice. On his deathbed he confessed to her that he had been sleeping with his church secretary for years. Hey, Uncle Herman: F**K YOU.

#40

My mother in law had a brother who was a medical doctor. He actually sent another sister, without her consent or her knowing what was gonna happen, to get a hysterectomy (uterus removal) when she was 18 because "she shouldn't be a mother". Everybody knew.

Fast forward 50 years my mother in law has cancer. Her brother came to visit her on her deathbed. He left went home and had a heart attack. And died. I'm 100% sure she told him to rot in hell for what he did to their sister.

#41

It was not me, but my former boss told me that when his father was on his deathbed, he told my boss that he had been unfaithful for the majority of his marriage. This came as a surprise to my boss. He asked my boss if he could keep that secret from his mom and sister, so they would preserve their memory of him as a loving husband/father. Not going to lie, felt kinda weird that he would share such a deep moment.

#42

My mother confessed to killing my father moments after he passed in the hospital. Couldn’t get proof but she said she put d***s in his drink.

#43

My grandfather on his deathbed leaned over, and with all his remaining energy told me that he was in fact the person that let the dogs out.

#44

This isn’t a confession per say, but my grandad killed himself by shooting himself in the head. But he actually lived for days after, completely out of it, barely moving and making indistinguishable noises. Near the end, my mom decided to play him Bruce Springsteen. He suddenly sat halfway up, grabbed my mom’s arm and look her in the eyes for a few seconds, and then fell back. We all think that was his last moment of real consciousness, and his way to say he saw sorry.

#45

My family is from the south and a bunch of generations ago owned slaves. One night the uncle killed both his brother and his wife and pinned it on the slave family. All of which were hanged. On his deathbed, he confessed to the murder.

#46

My MIL once told us that her husband murdered her mother. This was half a century ago. She couldn't prove it bc mil was old and senile and this was before lots of new forensics.

#47

For decades I was told my father's first wife killed herself.

A few days before he died, he told me he murdered her -- gunshot to the heart.

I still have the pistol.