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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.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

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.

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#2

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

sexynerdettexx , cottonbro studio Report

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Wang Zhuang
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This post hit home with me. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll feel like that when it's my time to go

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Nicole Weymann
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2 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Same. I'm introvert-ish and not good at making new friends (meeting new people stresses me out), so whenever someone in these "How did you get so old" interviews says that contact with young people keeps them young I'm all "oh, well, this'll suck for me if I get that far"

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Tabitha
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Must be awful to outlive everyone you care about. He was ready to see them again.

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Angela C
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is why I hope I go first out of my siblings at least. I don't want to be the one left all alone. Maybe that's selfish but I think they'd do better without me than I would without them

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Nancy Robbins
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2 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's what's wrong with living a long life, all of your nearest and dearest have already passed and there's no one left to go home to.

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K K
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2 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't have any family - am an only child, both parents died, and both of them were only children as well. I'm so terrified of being alone in this sort of situation.

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#3

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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#4

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget A girl I know had her grandma confess to poisoning her first husband because he had hit her. Fair enough.

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#5

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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Heir of Durin
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So terrible to live in fear your entire life like this. Poor guy. 🙁

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#6

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That she would do that deliberately makes me want to kill her all over again.

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#7

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

ggouge , Kindel Media Report

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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Too bad she couldn't have found her freedom and some happiness earlier in life.

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#8

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget My stepfather requested to see the two other families he had that nobody knew about on his deathbed. Boy was that fun.

ppqppqppq , SHVETS production Report

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Tamra
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How do people have the time or energy for that business? TWO extra families? Jeez.

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#9

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

Barely_Legal01 , Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto Report

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#10

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

NewRoar , cottonbro studio Report

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Libstak
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

She still may have created a self fulfilling prophecy though. If she hadn't had the paranoia he would not have been able to "not take it any more". OR, it was a convenient excuse because he was looking for a way to kill her from day dot and her sub conscious knew it? Crazy to think about either way.

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#11

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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#12

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.

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#13

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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DaisyBee
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My godfather wasn’t biologically related to our family (most godparents in our family are relatives). He’s long passed now but I called him family (and still do) much more easily than I do my blood relatives. They suck. He was amazing.

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#14

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.

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#15

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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#16

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

NicoleExclaimed , Ali Karimiboroujeni Report

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DaisyBee
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ted Bundy worked as a suicide hotline operator. Was apparently very helpful & kind to those calling in during their darkest, scariest moments. He just so happened to also be a serial killer

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#17

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This will definitely be me. It’s like an intrinsic knowledge that this will happen to me if I don’t do it myself. I have no plans at the minute to do it myself though, because I’m just spiteful enough to want to see what b******t is next

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#18

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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#19

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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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#20

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

trailspice , Jeswin Thomas Report

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Svenne O'Lotta
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2 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I hope they charged him post mortem then, having the case officially closed can help families heal

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#21

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”.

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#22

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

Eurymedion , Lisa Fotios Report

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Libstak
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How awkward was that moment he woke up and was told "surprise, you're going live".?

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#23

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget A friend told me that his mother's last words was that she never cared about him and was sorry she had him.

beowulf_17 , Andrew Neel Report

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#24

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.

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#25

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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).

Hicalibre , Ron Lach Report

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DennyS (denzoren)
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This seems to be common in the older generation, older siblings leaving school to work so that the younger ones can.

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#26

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.

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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One good reason to take any deathbed confession with a pinch of salt. Even without dementia or drügs the dying mind can do funny things. We've all had bizarre and vivid dreams at some point, imagine having one of them and not realising when you wake up...

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#27

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget I have heard hospice nurses hear deathbed confessions about murdering people all the time. Very sad and disturbing.

Johndoefun , Cedric Fauntleroy Report

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#28

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

ACluelessMan , engin akyurt Report

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#29

30 People Reveal Deathbed Confessions They’ve Heard That They Can’t Forget 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.

kartikeysyo , Ákos Szabó Report

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Rinso The Red
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3 days ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'll try to break this down: Grandfather owned land, entire family was fighting over who should get what of that property. Grandfather gave it all to grandchild, who hasn't told rest of family.

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#30

"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.".

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