excuse me ma'am i don't want to bother
you but i'm hurt and uh needing some
help
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we're
counting down our picks for the top 10
real stories that inspired american
horror story
half man half bull
what what happened to the rest of your
mask
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for this list we'll be looking at
various real-life stories that inspired
or were referenced in the tv show
american horror story
for the purposes of this list only real
historical stories and figures will be
included
so mythological figures like papa legba
will not be included despite their
appearance on the show
to us the greatest killers of our time
number 10 the axeman of new orleans at
will
i could slay thousands of your best
citizens for i am in close
relationship with the angel of death
in season 3 danny houston played the axe
man a ruthless
serial killer jazz enthusiast scary and
absurd as it might sound
he was not the work of fiction the axe
man of new orleans murdered half a dozen
people between the summer of 1918
and the fall of 1919. the axeman
didn't carry around his own tools he
simply
would chisel his way in usually through
a back door
find whatever was handy and go to work
while the murders are very real the show
took many liberties with the character
given that the actual culprit
was never caught though its legitimacy
has been called into question
a letter supposedly written by the
axeman was published march 13th
1919 promising to spare anyone in the
presence of a jazz band that night
in fear the citizens went to dance halls
or hired bands that evening
oh you don't know me but there's nothing
i don't know about you
number nine the roanoke colony
while there were probably no forest
spirits or angry ghosts there was indeed
a real colony on roanoke that
mysteriously
up and vanished the roanoke colony was
founded by sir walter rally and was
meant to be the first permanent english
settlement in the new world
the colony was established in 1585 but
when john white returned to the island
in 1590
there wasn't a soul there and the
buildings had been taken down white
found the word croatoan carved in a
fence post
a possible clue that the colony had
moved to nearby croatoan island
a search couldn't be conducted at that
time however and the fates of the colony
remain
unknown number eight marie laveau
you think it's so easy stroll in here
and expect we gonna
fix this truce oh the hell with the
truce another popular coven character is
angela bassett's marie laveau
a revered figure in the practice of
voodoo and like the axeman of new
orleans
she is based on a historic figure who
lived in new orleans in this case during
the 19th century
not much is known about the real marie
laveau what we do know is that she
worked as a liquor importer
hairdresser and matchmaker she also
became known as the voodoo queen of new
orleans
through her work in voodoo and many
successful runaway slaves
credited leveaux for their escape
however little is known about this
aspect of her life
leaving the real marie laveau a
tantalizing mystery
i'm over 300 years old
everyone i'd have never met and followed
after the grim reaper
number seven barney and betty hill
in the second season of the show kit and
alma walker a loving interracial couple
are enjoying a night of sex and
delicious roast when they're seemingly
abducted by aliens
and while it's not a direct adaptation
of the real events
this storyline bears a striking
similarity to the story of betty and
barney hill
like kit and alma betty and barney were
an interracial couple who claimed to
have been abducted by aliens in a rural
area in the early 1960s
their story gained substantial media
attention and it became the first
widely known instance of a supposed
alien abduction
number six the richard speck massacre
don't get smart in the show's second
episode
home invasion two students named maria
and gladys are attacked by a home
intruder
after dragging gladys upstairs the
assailant forces maria to don a nurse's
uniform
ties her up and stabs her in the back as
show creator ryan murphy explains
this scene was somewhat based on the
richard speck killings speck broke
into a townhouse serving as a nursing
student dormitory on the night of july
13th 1966
and murdered its eight occupants speck
was sentenced to life in prison and died
of a heart attack after serving 25 years
put it on number five john wayne gacy
who are you twisty is undoubtedly one of
the show's most grotesque and popular
villains
he wears a terrifying mask that hides
his disfigured jaw commits horrible acts
of violence
and he's a clown it doesn't get much
worse than that
twisty strongly believes that it's his
life's work to be a clown
and to entertain children despite being
a kidnapper and a serial killer
who the hell is this wait you you didn't
hire him and while it's not a direct
translation
twisty bears a strong resemblance to
real-life serial killer john wayne gacy
casey kidnapped and murdered over 30
teenage boys in the mid-1970s
but he also loved to entertain children
with his clown alter ego
pogo the clown
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number four h.h holmes dearest
james march is one of american horror
story's most deliciously vile characters
he's a serial killer who constructed an
elaborate hotel and used it to murder
and dispose of its occupants
however the story gets even scarier when
you realize that he was based on a real
person
h.h holmes was a 19th century serial
killer who constructed a mixed-use
building
including a hotel near the 1893 world's
fair colombian exposition
like james march holmes would murder
tenants and clients in the building
using various devices scattered
throughout the elaborate building and
send their corpses to the basement via
secret shoots
where he would either burn or dissolve
their bodies in acid
who is he
just a hobo number three delphine la
llorie
it's because of my love for your plain
faces
that you can still draw a breath like a
lot of characters in the show's third
season kathy bates psychotic racist
slave killing character delphine lalorie
was inspired by a real woman
while she was more commonly known as
madame blanc lalaurie was a prominent
socialite who was married three times
to a royal officer a banker and a
physician she and her third husband
kept slaves in their mansion and there
were widespread rumors that the slaves
were cruelly mistreated
after a fire broke out in their homes
bystanders found seven horribly
disfigured slaves
suspended by their necks in the slave
quarters mobs of angry people
subsequently destroyed the lalory
residence
forcing delphine to flee to new orleans
and you
ring leader of the feeble-minded
you've earned a special prison number
two the cecil hotel
welcome to devil's night at the hotel
cortez john
season five's hotel cortez not only took
inspiration from h.h holmes murder
castle
but also the infamous cecil hotel in los
angeles
creator ryan murphy told a tca panel
that the season was greatly inspired by
the story of elisa lam
lam was staying at la's cecil hotel when
she began
acting erratically and mysteriously
ended up in the hotel's water supply
cistern lamb's story isn't the only
weird thing to happen at the cecil
the hotel quickly earned a reputation as
a site for prostitution drug deals
suicide and murders and serial killers
richard ramirez and jack unterweger
reportedly stayed at the cecil while
conducting their murders
i have a standing reservation of course
mr ramirez well my pleasure to welcome
you to the hotel cortez
before we unveil our top pick here are a
few honorable mentions
well well well tomorrow night's the big
night hey daisy
yes the sister's getting married and i'm
thrilled to death
i was having the most beautiful dream
why did you wake me
because i was trapped inside that dream
and for me it was a nightmare
if you're a good girl when i get the
powers i'm going to buy a big hat for
the long
beautiful feather on it
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amen amen
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number one the black dahlia
dr karen i presume in the first season
an aspiring actress by the name of
elizabeth short
arrives at dr curran's doorstep for
dental work however short is
subsequently raped
inadvertently killed and bisected curran
then disposes of her mutilated corpse
in lemert park where it's discovered by
betty bursinger
and as grotesque as the situation is
elizabeth short was a real
aspiring actress whose bisected corpse
was in fact found
in limert park by one betty bersinger in
1947.
short would become known as the black
dahlia most likely named after the 1946
movie
the blue dahlia and her murder remains
unsolved
i don't want to crush your carnation
it's not a carnation silly it's
dahlia do you agree with our picks check
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