"To This Day, No One Has Ever Been Held Accountable For Her Death." People Are Sharing Emotional Stories About What Happened To Their Childhood Best Friend
There's nothing like an amazing best friend or friend group to navigate life with. Some of my besties I've been best friends with since sixth grade, and some, only within the last six years. Regardless, time will never change the impact a great friend can and will have on your entire life.
So, when I shared stories of what happened to people's childhood best friend, I was shocked to receive so many additional stories from the BuzzFeed Community, I had to do it all over again. Now, I'm doing it for a third time because even more people than ever before want to share their stories. Here's what they had to say:
1."My best friend has been my best friend since forever! I'm a year and a half older than her (and six days younger than her big brother). Our moms were best friends in high school and beyond. Her grandma lived with her parents and ran an in-home daycare in the basement. Grandma gave my (single) mom a discount on childcare, so I spent every weekday at her house for about 10 years."
"We weren't in the same grade, but outside of school, we were inseparable. Sleepovers at each other's houses all the time. We vacationed with each other's families. Eventually, in our 20s, we got an apartment together. We lived together for a year before moving to different places. I'm 39 and she's 37, and we still hang out about once a month, and we text each other every couple weeks. We have girls day with our moms, too! She is my honorary sister, and I love her to pieces."
2."She spent half of junior year and most of senior year using me to convince everyone in school she wasn't hooking up with a teacher. She stopped talking to me right around graduation and went 'Facebook official' with her teacher boyfriend within four months of graduation. They've been married for, like, eight years now, so I guess that's good for them? It still doesn't change the fact that he actively pursued a minor and student while engaged to (an age-appropriate) woman."
3."My best friend from junior high school and I remained close through life. I fell into the dope hole, but after I got clean, he became my brother-in-law when I married his little sister; therefore, we see each other all the time. He was at my first wedding and my wedding to his sister. Can you believe that shit?"
4."My best friend through elementary school (her mom also watched me after school during the week) moved away when we were 10. We found each other 32 years later through social media. I invited her to Thanksgiving dinner the day before I was going to get married."
"That’s when I found out that my soon-to-be husband was actually her ex-husband. He still lived in a town that was 80 miles from where we grew up. Somehow, we grew up and married the same man. I always loved his ex-wife more than I loved him. That’s probably why I am now his other ex-wife. She no longer lives in the area, but we still keep in touch."
5."We met in high school, and I thought we were best friends. We remained friends for 20 years. She was the one who told me about my ex and one of our friends sleeping together. Twenty years later, I had a massive mental breakdown and was put in the hospital. While there, she fed my husband full of lies, created false emails and texts, and basically did so much damage that it nearly ended our marriage. It turns out it wasn't the first time."
"When she told me about my ex and our friend years before, it was only because they wouldn’t let her be a part of the relationship, so she told on them. Through the years, she had hit on and attempted to sleep with every guy I had dated (none of whom ever thought that telling me would make a difference) and trash-talked me to various people and friends, trying to alienate me from everyone. She even went so far as to tell my husband to pack up the kids and run to a different state because I was unstable and abusive to him. When I got out, I cut her completely off. We changed our phone numbers, deleted our social media accounts, and blocked her emails. We changed all our passwords and stopped talking to a lot of people to work on us. We are great now. She still pops up from time to time, trying to talk to our friends about us, and she has even tried to change the story so that SHE is the one in the hospital and I was the one trying to wreck her relationship. We live in a different country now and are back on social media. We are not afraid of her doing anything anymore, but I sincerely hope she got help and hasn’t done any of that to anyone else."
6."I had an amazing best friend whom I met on the first day of seventh grade, and we were joined at the hip! In high school, she kind of ditched me for a popular girl, yet I was still the one she called when she was in a jam. That behavior continued until our 30s, when one day I decided I was fed up and ghosted her."
"Cut to three years ago: I’m 52ish and received a letter in the mail from her! We picked up right where we left off; she lives 45 minutes from me, and I have forgiven all past transgressions as life is too short to hold grudges; instead, I just focus on the person she is today, which is warm, caring, and present."
7."One of my best friends I’ve known since preschool, and we became best friends in fifth grade. My other two best friends and I became friends in sixth grade. Since graduating high school, the four of us have consistently remained the closest of friends."
"One lives out of state, but three of us still live near our hometown, so we see her on holidays and sometimes for bonus visits! First kisses, first heartbreaks, puberty, achievements, marriages, kids, loss, health scares — we've been through it all with each other (we are going on 32), and I hope it stays that way. Shoutout to the girlz room. 💕"
8."I met my best friend in sixth grade, and we were inseparable through high school. My sophomore year, my family moved from California to Massachusetts, and we wrote reams of letters until my parents moved back to California. We drifted apart when we left for college — me to Chicago, her to the northeast. Her parents were wealthy, and when she got her inheritance at 25, she got her pilot’s license and became a pilot instructor. She died at 35 in a mid-air collision doing what she loved. I miss you, Jolene."
9."I moved to a new town in fifth grade and immediately bonded with this other boy. We were inseparable through middle school; we were all in the honors classes together. Then, the week before ninth grade started, his dad took us hiking. He slipped on a wet rock and broke his arm. This made him ineligible for PE and got him put in shop class instead."
"There, he met a bunch of redneck party kids and fell in with them. He quickly became less interested in school and more interested in partying and general redneck activities. By junior year, we had no classes together and became just nodding acquaintances. I went on the college and career route, and last I heard, he had a job doing manual warehouse labor. It's wild how much one seemingly minor thing can change the trajectory of your whole life."
10."I had the same best friend from the time we were around 12 until around 25/26. Our birthdays were six days apart, and we were each there when each other's children were born. We talked literally every single day; there were no secrets between us. In our early 20s, we were both a bit self-destructive with some addictions that were super unhealthy. She had a partner who was emotionally abusive, cheated on her, and was addicted to even worse things."
"I was in a similar relationship and made the choice to leave. I got with an amazing man (who I’m still married to) and got help for my addictions and the emotional abuse I suffered from my ex. She refused to get help and was upset that I had changed so much. We stopped talking, and about five years later, I got a phone call that she was in a coma and had brain damage from many different factors. I visited her in the hospital, and I knew she was going to die. Her other friends, family, and partner had hope she would make it, but despite the years spent apart, I knew when I visited her that she was exhausted and wanted/needed to be free. She died on Mother’s Day a few years ago. Even though it was about five years before she died that we didn’t speak, I still miss her. There are a lot of times I want to text her, call her, or hug her. It’s difficult to live with the fact that she isn’t on this Earth anymore, but I know she is free and happy wherever she is."
11."I’m still friends with my best friend from middle school, 15 years later. After high school graduation, we lost touch after she became a born again Christian and joined a very cult-like church, where she met and married the man she had children with."
"We lost touch in 2016 after the birth of her first child, and in 2021, she reached back out to me to reconnect. I helped her recognize the signs of emotional and financial abuse that her husband was putting her through, and she eventually left him. She is currently with a partner who treats her with respect, is filing for divorce, and is fighting to get her kids away from him. I’m so proud of her. 💖"
12."My childhood friend disappeared just after the start of seventh grade. Two weeks later, her body was found in a pile of rotting trash at an illegal dump site. I had known her my entire childhood. To this day, no one has ever been held accountable for her death. It has haunted me for 35 years."
13."I met my best friend on August 15, 1983, at the bus stop on the first day at my new high school. Tina and I became inseparable, and we stayed in touch through the years. We’d had some good and bad times and fought like sisters sometimes. When my husband and I decided to leave Florida, she invited us to check out her town in Alabama, and we ultimately moved just 20 minutes away."
"Everything was great for the first year. We were thrilled to be back together again, until I realized that she is a very heavy drinker and gets belligerent when she’s drunk. She insulted me constantly and started using me as her punching bag when she’d invite us to go out. I began to refuse to join her on her drinking outings, and her passive-aggressive behavior became too much for my husband and me. When I confronted her, she became mean and nasty. For 40 years, we’d survived as friends until I moved close to her. I finally had to tell her not to contact me anymore. It’s been four years since the last time I saw her."
14."My best friend and I met when I was 8 years old. He remembered the first day I walked into class after moving from another state midway through the school year. We were best friends for 35 years. His parents were my second parents, and mine were his. On that note, I say 'were' because he died on December 21, 2023, of cancer."
"It was the most difficult thing ever to say goodbye to him the day before he passed away, but I am very grateful for that opportunity. I am very happy with the life we shared with each other as friends, almost brothers. He was always there for me, and I was there for him. I miss him a lot and will never forget the person I became because of him. There is a lot of truth in the saying that legends never die. He’ll never be forgotten for his gratitude and patience."
15."She’s married with kids. After high school, we were roommates and coworkers. We did everything together, and then my younger brother died suddenly. She didn’t 'know how to deal with me' and decided to break our lease and move out. My grief was too big to fight for the friendship, and I haven’t spoken to her since. She tried to stick me with all the final bills and turned most of our friend group against me. I don’t wish her any bad, but I do wish her a friend just like her. You know, the kind that ditches you at your lowest point."
And finally, here's someone who is actually living an experience that me and my best friends often dream about:
16."I still keep in contact with my childhood best friend every day. We live together and have been best friends for going on 30 years! We divorced our respective spouses and decided to move in together about a year ago LOL. Yeah, aside from immediate family, she’s been the only constant in my life."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Do you want to share your own story of what happened to your childhood best friend? Let me know in the comments or if you want to remain anonymous, you can fill out this form!