10 Weird Things That Have Happened At Walmart

In the last few decades, Walmart has built quite a name for itself. It’s been growing at an outstanding rate, with new Walmarts opening up all over the country and abroad. As the business has grown, so has the number of weird occurrences at its various locations. While some of us simply see it as a place to buy whatever items we need, the store has also unintentionally acquired a reputation for attracting strange people and stranger events.

10 Walmart Wedding

People have very different ideas about what they want their wedding to be like. A lot of people decide to go the romantic route and get married where they first met. Usually that means getting married on a cruise, in a specific city, or at a restaurant where the couple had their first date. For a North Carolina couple, that location happened to be a Walmart.

Wayne Brandenburg was a Walmart customer who became interested in a cashier working at the store. Eventually he asked her out to a Chinese buffet. She agreed and they started dating. When they got engaged, they ultimately decided on Walmart as the ideal location for their wedding. The store agreed to let them get married there, and even the wedding cake was from the store’s bakery.

9 Milk Thief

In 2011, at a Walmart in Virginia, an 18-year-old male decided to walk (or rather crawl) into a Walmart and steal 26 gallons of milk. Apparently the staff didn’t notice him on all fours, carrying many gallons of milk and wearing a cow suit. The weirdest part is that, upon leaving the store, he started to casually hand out the milk to people passing by. All that stealing must have really worked up his appetite, since he was later found sans costume at a McDonald’s, where he was identified by the police.

8 Naked Shoplifting

Most of us have desperately needed socks at one point or another. Socks are easy to misplace and develop holes from constant use and washing. Verdon Lamont Taylor, a 32-year-old man in Philadelphia, was in that situation one day. He did what a lot of us would do and headed to a local Walmart in hopes of solving his sock dilemma. However, instead of walking in and purchasing the item on his list, he decided first to get naked in the parking lot, then steal his new socks. Police had to use a stun gun to neutralize him after he spat in an officer’s face and remained uncooperative.

7 Sex

The main appeal of Walmart is that you can find practically anything you’re looking for at a cheap price. Customers at a local Kansas store probably didn’t realize they would find a couple having sex inside the store in broad daylight, entirely for free. Justin Call and Tina Gianakon found themselves at Walmart one day and decided to steal a bottle of lubricant. After stealing the lubricant, they presumably thought it would be wise to test it before they left the store. The test eventually led the couple to full-on intercourse in front of the store’s many customers.

Of course, the police showed up and arrested them. The most surprising part of the story is that they were both completely sober.

6 Human Teeth

Shopping for a new wallet at Walmart sounds simple enough. Unfortunately for one shopper at a Massachusetts store, he bit off more than he could chew when he found 10 human teeth inside a brand-new wallet. He informed Walmart employees, who contacted the police. Officers were baffled, confirming that they were human teeth but unable to find out whose teeth they were or how they had got there.

5 Kidnapping Mix-Up

When you go to a supermarket or any kind of large retail chain, it’s filled with mothers and fathers with their children. Most people don’t think twice about seeing a parent with their offspring. At a Virginia Walmart, however, a customer was concerned about seeing three girls with their father. Normally, when someone is concerned in a situation like that, it’s because the parent is being physically or verbally abusive. In this case, the concerned customer didn’t see any signs of abuse or foul play—they simply believed that the children had been kidnapped since the man was white and the little girls were mixed-race.

The white father, Joseph, had gone to Walmart with his three daughters to cash a check. After he went home, Joseph and his wife Keana received a visit from a police officer. The police officer told them he was there to ensure that the children were theirs. Evidently the concerned customer had alerted Walmart security, who had then contacted the police. The officer asked one of the kids to verify that Joseph and Keana were her real parents.

According to Walmart, the customer was the one who decided to involve the police. The customer had told store employees that she didn’t think the man and his children “fit” together.”

4 Giving Birth

The movie Where the Heart Is stars Natalie Portman as a young woman who gives birth at a Walmart after the store has closed for the day. Over the years, there have been various stories of this happening in real life. Nevertheless, it’s surprising to find out how common it actually is.

In July 2013, a 16-year-old girl was at Walmart with her mother when she gave birth to a baby boy in the bathroom. When the baby was born it wasn’t breathing, so a Walmart employee successfully gave the baby CPR. The girl and her child were then taken to a hospital to be checked out. She claimed that she’d had no idea she was even pregnant until she went into labor.

3 Cooking Meth

When we think of Walmart, we don’t usually think of methamphetamine. And while Walmart isn’t exactly a hotbed of methamphetamine usage, it’s had more than its fair share of involvement with that particular narcotic.

A Walmart in Kentucky had to be evacuated after a man went into the bathroom with a backpack. The man was in the bathroom for long enough that employees became suspicious and checked up on him. When they found him, he was unconscious. The police arrived only to find that the backpack contained a mobile meth lab, and the man was arrested on multiple drug charges.

Another of the many famous meth cases at Walmart involves a woman in Missouri. Jennifer Vaughn-Culp was caught shoplifting at Walmart and kept in a holding area. When the police arrived they realized that in addition to theft, the woman was also cooking meth in a soda bottle in her purse. As in the previous case, the store had to be evacuated for several hours. Culp did not learn her lesson, nor was she very loyal to Walmart. A few weeks later she was arrested for the same thing outside a U-Gas station.

2 Semen Stalker

At a Walmart in Delaware, a 22-year-old man stalked a woman and threw semen at her. Frank J. Short Jr. decided to go to Walmart to “kill time” and noticed a woman whom he thought was attractive. He followed her around the store before walking past her and throwing semen on her legs and buttocks. The woman was mortified and at first assumed it was just spit. After examining the fluid, she realized it looked more like semen. The woman went to the store’s security and Short was arrested.

Short told the police that he had a cold and the fluid in question was just a result of him sneezing. Later he said it was saliva. However, the police were able to determine that it was, in fact, semen. The weirdest part is that this was not an isolated incident. Not only has Short done this before at Walmart, he’s also done it at Kmart. According to the police, he’s a loner and this is something that he does to women to whom he feels sexually attracted. Whatever happened to simply complimenting a woman and asking her out for coffee?

1 Murder

During the holidays a few years ago, customers at a South Carolina Walmart witnessed a heinous crime when a man stabbed his wife to death. Lilia Blandin was an employee at the bank located at the Walmart. She got into an intense altercation with her husband, who proceeded to stab her repeatedly. Several customers heard and saw the incident. The man was initially able to escape before being apprehended by the authorities. Unfortunately, Lilia Blandin succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

As if this story weren’t repulsive enough, Walmart decided to remain open after the incident. The police were able to make the crime scene inaccessible to the public, but shoppers were allowed to continue their browsing as if nothing had happened. Understandably, many of them were disgusted that the store hadn’t closed.

Sophia is an aspiring screenwriter currently living in New York City.