It Came From the Plunge!

The Story of the Hayward Plunge murders that have haunted the establishment for many years

by Joshua Cook

The Hayward Plunge is a questionable swimming spot at best. Compared to other indoor facilities of its kind, it falls flat with a 4.4-star rating out of 5, based on 262 independent reviews of varying moods as of the writing of this article. It is currently closed for renovations that began a while back and should continue until Fall 2026, supposedly due to less-than-satisfactory reports from certain organizations recently. But its infamy wasn’t just earned by the establishment itself; a rumor has circulated since the mid-1900s that murders occurred after hours, which has repelled the more gullible outsiders and confused those who decided to look into it, including myself. But where did these rumors come from if they aren’t true, and why?

To answer this question, we must first look at an overview of the story. It is hard to find one since the story can vary based on who you ask, but the details that repeat the most are this: In the 60’s or 70’s, a coach returned after dark to the Hayward Plunge, where his team resided, led them outside, told them to wait as he left, eventually returned, and killed them either through blunt force trauma, stabbings, or drownings, depending on who you ask, and hid their bodies along the trails or in the running water behind the Plunge.

You were probably skeptical reading this, and for good reason, because the likelihood of this ever happening is quite small given the evidence presented so far regarding its legitimacy, and this is because there is none. Locals, including police, have taken it upon themselves to disprove this story, and the Hayward Area Historical Society has factually shown that there was never any reference to a murder at the Plunge in police records. If this rumor were true in the first place, somebody would’ve had to see and report the bodies. But then, why would anybody spread these rumors? The truth is, it was likely the result of information being twisted, contorted, and misremembered over the span of a number of decades.

I say this because of two scenarios that happened around the same time, both before these rumors originally emerged. One case was an unconfirmed murder perpetrated by a man named William J. Randall, a private, who killed a man for reasons unknown while showing him the features of the car after getting picked up by the man, becoming overwhelmed by fear of being caught and guilt from what he’d done, and then driving the car into a gully near the Plunge, which very easily could’ve been changed into the Plunge story repeated today.

Another potential origin includes a boy drowning on the 21st of June in 1945 for unknown reasons; his body was found 10 hours after death, meaning there were no witnesses to this (mostly since most lifeguard rules were still being made or enforced in the 40’s), and the illusive nature of this case likely fueled a conspiracy for murder, which eventually turned into the urban legend. It should be noted that this is still the only death confirmed with 100% certainty, even though the boy was never identified by name due to lesser forensic technologies in the mid-1940’s. Other accounts on social media describe another story of a girl drowning, but these are more modern rumors spread by the internet instead of word of mouth, making them both easier to fabricate and harder to connect to the Plunge murders since they emerged earlier. However, despite all of this, these rumors were the ones to spark changes within supervision policies.

Overall, the likelihood of the Plunge murders being true is unlikely. Not only is there no evidence to support them that isn’t refutable, but given the lack of technology around when these rumors emerged, it is a very realistic possibility that misinformation was being spread as details of the stories surrounding the Plunge were forgotten and made up. Ghoulish stories of this type are very present in less populated suburban areas, and with the uncertainty of the trail behind the Plunge and how the world was in the 1960’s, the story could’ve just been made up by teenagers looking to spook each other. It is very important to verify claims like this, especially when they’re as damaging to a reputation as these murder claims have been to the Plunge, even outside of the bay.