We place certain expectations on our visits to the Disney theme parks. We’ve all seen the glamorized promotional material: children running slow-motion to meet Mickey underneath Cinderella’s Castle, the delighted faces of parkgoers hurtling around a corner on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the sparkle in a parent’s eye as they take in the fireworks with their child.
For the most part, the parks live up to their well-earned reputation. Guests aren’t wrong to assume that they’ll be kept in relative comfort, happiness, and safety while they roam through Fantasyland or World Showcase or Pandora: The World of Avatar. After all, the parks aren’t just known for their top-shelf attractions, entertainment, and eateries; they also pride themselves on exceptional customer service. Cast members regularly go above and beyond to make sure that every aspect of the parks runs as smoothly and pleasantly as it can under their control.
But, for all the fantasy Disney works so hard to engineer and maintain, it’s as much a part of the real world as any other place—and once in a while, that means things are bound to go haywire. Crimes, tragic accidents, even deaths have and will continue to occur at the Disney Parks. Disney itself isn’t immune to people looking for ways to exploit the system or wreak a little havoc, and even the most well-intentioned guest or conscientious cast member isn’t capable of preventing mishaps in every situation.
Over the last six decades or so, guests and employees alike have seen some crazy crimes go down at the Happiest Place(s) on Earth, from bomb threats to accidental firearm misfires to robberies gone wrong. Here are some of the weirdest ones we’ve heard…
The very first robbery in Disneyland was faked.
Image: Ashley Varela
Disneyland lived up to its pristine, family-friendly reputation for the first five years following Opening Day, but in the summer of 1960, its first real threat materialized when a 25-year-old cashier claimed he had been forced to hand over $10,000 to an armed robber.
A regular employee at the park’s Red Wagon Inn, he was transporting the cash to a local bank to make a deposit. The robbery allegedly happened one night as he walked through the usual crowd of park guests.
“Someone walked up behind me,” he told the papers, “stuck something in my back and told me to do as I was told and I wouldn’t get hurt.”
Something about his story didn’t sit quite right with local law enforcement—maybe the idea that a guest would be brazen enough to wield a firearm in the middle of a crowd, or maybe some smaller inconsistency with his report—and two days later, he took and failed a lie detector test. The man soon confessed his crime and led police to a women’s clubroom in the restaurant, where the missing $9,600 was found and returned safe and sound.
Disney narrowly avoided a dangerous explosion when a bomb was found in Frontierland.
Image: Ken Lund, Flickr (license)
Plenty of guests have tried, seldom successfully, to extort Disney in the past, but few have caused as much mayhem as the anonymous telephone caller who tipped the company off to a bomb that had been planted in a Magic Kingdom utility shed. The caller got in touch with the local sheriff’s office in Orlando and demanded a $90,000 payment in order to prevent the device from detonating.
Deputies had just two hours to find the bomb. The caller claimed that multiple devices had been staged around the property, but only one was found—at least, that’s all Disney would admit to the public. Even one bomb was still enough to raise significant alarm, however, and those who eventually located the neon gas-filled cylinders near Frontierland’s (now-defunct) Davy Crockett Explorer Canoes said they would have caused “considerable damage” had they exploded in a more populated area of the park.
While the news story caused understandable alarm from anxious guests, Disney refused to shut down the park in the days that followed, apparently unconcerned that similar incidents might be planned. Even more strange, one of the sheriffs said, was the fact that the caller (or any of their fellow cronies) failed to materialize to claim their payout.
A woman accidentally shot her 12-year-old sister after dropping her purse in a crowd.
Image: HarshLight, Flickr (license)
While they may seem over-the-top to the typical parkgoer, today’s security measures have evolved in response to some pretty gruesome events in the parks’ past. Visitors have been subject to shootings, stabbings, and assaults within both Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort, both of the intentional and unintentional variety.
One particularly tragic case fell into the latter category in 1984. Twelve-year-old Diane and her 20-year-old sister, Nancy, were enjoying a serene summer day at Disneyland when an unfortunate accident landed the child in the local hospital.
The two were exiting “it’s a small world” in Fantasyland, the third attraction they’d picked as part of an early birthday trip for Diane. As Nancy reached to maneuver her five-year-old sister, Crystal, out of the way of the crowd, her purse slipped off of her shoulder and fell to the pavement—inadvertently causing the double-barreled, .38-caliber derringer pistol inside to discharge upon impact. The bullet initially struck Diane in the thigh and tore five or six holes in her lower intestines before lodging in her abdomen. Thankfully for all involved, the girl survived the incident and received immediate treatment for her wounds.
Per the Los Angeles Times, Nancy was subsequently placed under investigation for carrying a concealed weapon; something, she said, she only had with her for self-defense and wished she never carried with her to the park in the first place. As for Diane, she told the Times she still had hopes of seeing ‘all of Disneyland’ on her next trip.
A thief foiled his own robbery attempt after running into a tree.
Image: CL Photographs, Flickr (license)
According to former Walt Disney World detective John Ford, crimes weren’t always as flawlessly executed as they might have been planned. Within the first decade of Walt Disney World’s grand opening, the Magic Kingdom-area Contemporary Resort had already been hit several times: one employee donned a tuxedo, fashioned a hood out of a pillowcase, and tried to rob the accounting department before getting caught in the marshes around the property; another employee was charged with lifting $1,000 worth of company computers; a third thief jumped from the 12th-floor balcony in a tragic suicide, the first the resort had seen in its brief history.
Not all apprehensions ended so badly. In the 1970s, the Contemporary played host to the most iconic dining spot on property: a hybrid restaurant/nightclub called Top of the World. Dinner was often supplemented by a musical performance, Sundays brought out the all-you-can-eat brunch crowds, and the swanky lounge décor couched gourmet dining experiences that included roast duck, prime rib, an extensive salad selection, and monorail-themed cocktails.
Top of the World attracted the after-6 p.m. crowd, adults looking for a break from the nonstop pace of theme park vacations… and their fair share of would-be robbers. Per Ford, one of the most unsuccessful attempts involved a gentleman who made for the cash register with a toy gun. Not only did he not succeed in emptying the restaurant’s reserves, but he was in such a hurry to flee security that he soon ran into a tree and knocked himself out.
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Have you seen any crimes committed at the Disney Parks? What’s the wildest story you’ve heard about the parks’ storied and eventful history?
