As The Raven Dreams Podcast - I WAS ALMOST KIDNAPPED | 5 True Creepy Reddit Encounter Stories (Vol. 39)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey there, friends, consider this to be your sensitive content warning. Some of these stories may be sensitive to some viewers and as such fewer discretion is advised. And as always, if you have a story you want to send my way, go ahead and do so. Information's down below. Thank you. So the quick backstory is that it is about 2013 to 2014, and I'm living in San Jose, California. I'm quite the smoker, and this was before recreational cannabis had passed. so I and my friend were downtown going to one of the cheaper places to get me a cannabis card.

Starting point is 00:00:47 Nothing was remarkable. The day was fine and completely unmemorable, aside from what happens next. Upon walking to my car with my friend from the clinic, a woman rushed to us and frantically begins pleading for help. She claims a small group of men tried to rob her for her purse, and she claimed that she had just escaped. but she's also fearful that they're looking for her. She begged for a ride, my friend implored me to help, and the woman was by herself in broad daylight.

Starting point is 00:01:19 She didn't seem to be a threat. Now, at the moment, I am caught by her little story, and with the sort of rush of the situation, I quickly give her the benefit of the doubt. I simply let her in my car and I decide to drive off. On the drive, my friend is making small talk with her. I then start to more actively assess the situation. This woman is suddenly calm as a cucumber and pleasantly engaging in small talk. Something seems off.

Starting point is 00:01:54 I bring up the notion of informing the police. After all, it is broad daylight. And if there's ever a chance to catch them, it would be right then. She is safe in my moving car, but no. She shrugs off the notion with a degree of passivity that is striking. There were no anxious words, not even understandable fears of police involvement, just this indifference to the question. It is clear that she would continue to ignore the topic in favor of more small talks, so I drop it.

Starting point is 00:02:28 She's in a good mood. She's far from withdrawn, and she's talking about all sorts of random stuff with a a smile. Like, the vibes of any common sociable person on a pleasant day. We decide then that we will drop her off at her home, and she'll reward me with some weed. I didn't really need it, but she said she had it on her already and wanted to reward me for the help, so she insists. I start remembering the moment that she ran to us.

Starting point is 00:03:02 She must not have been running for more than 15 seconds. because she never had to catch her breath in the slightest. I'm no fitness expert, but I have worked out my fair hours and taken some martial arts. And it doesn't take a doctor to know that when someone is in fear for their safety and running for their life, there is a heavy demand that gets put on the body. I may as well have just picked her up from a leisurely stroll. It is worth noting that she looked nearly middle-aged and not in the best of health. She didn't look in terrible health either, but someone who would definitely need to recover after a harrowing escape for her life.

Starting point is 00:03:43 Out of nowhere, she rolls down my window and lights up a cigarette. Now, I actually smoke cigarettes, too, but it is the most basic respect to ask before you light up in a car. I wasn't even smoking one myself in the car. I tell her that I did not give her permission to smoke in the car, and she says, Oh, it's okay. I'll ash out the window. Like, what the hell? I tell her clearly to put it out now. She then quietly and shamelessly refuses.

Starting point is 00:04:15 In my mind, I just say, screw it. Something is up with her, and I just want to get her to where she has to be and move on with my day. I'm listening to some random pop station on my car's radio. The woman now gleefully proclaims loudly. Oh, I love this song. She proceeds to awkwardly move up from the back seat right in between me and my friend, and tries to raise the volume. I move her hand away politely and tell her that the volume is loud enough.

Starting point is 00:04:46 She doesn't accept my volume and proceeds to attempt to wrestle me to raise the volume. This woman is far from anything resembling hysterical. I need to emphasize how calm she is, trying to wrestle the driver of a moving vehicle simply to listen to loud pop music. It's some odd stuff. I'm driving in the crap roads of downtown San Jose at this point still. The roads here are legit dangerous even to focus drivers. I move my hand away to see how far she will put it up,

Starting point is 00:05:19 and I assume she will stop at some point. She raises the volume to a ridiculously painful volume, and then sits back down. So I then cut the volume and take the damn face plate off the radio to throw it to the side, to tell her, no more music then. She then calmly continues small talk as if nothing happened. One question might be, of course, if she has some sort of psychiatric condition

Starting point is 00:05:46 affecting her abilities with social interaction. I truly doubt that highly. This woman was actually quite charismatic, and not in any way awkward. Despite the cigarette and radio behavior, up to this point in the story, she was actually remarkably pleasant to talk to. She was a social butterfly. She picked up on standard social cues without a doubt. Another question is, was she psychotic?

Starting point is 00:06:14 Funnily enough, I have a psychotic condition myself. Bipolar one with psychosis. Psychosis is some real stuff, and it is an extremely disassociative experience. And when you are truly psychotic, it is incredibly difficult to hide entirely. This woman demonstrated that she had the general grasp of reality, typical of someone absent of clinical psychosis. And the obvious other question was if she was on drugs. I actually have known heavy drug abusers, meth, heroin, alcohol, etc. Two people close to me were unable to battle their addictions to the point that it tragically took their lives.

Starting point is 00:06:57 I've done my best to express how strikingly normal she expressed herself. She exhibited no identifiable signs of an intoxicated person. The cigarette thing in the radio madness came across as extremely inconsiderate person, but a sober and even sociable one at that. And do trust me, I've grown far too familiar with what those signs of intoxication are at this point in life. We then approach where she say her home is. She says it's in an apartment complex on the street that we are trying. driving down.

Starting point is 00:07:34 I'm feeling glad that I can drop her and rid myself of the feeling of creepiness lingering in me. The next part is where I have my biggest questions. Instead of just waiting on that street, she adamantly requests that we pull in to the shady little motel right next to the apartment complex. At this point, I'm wondering why she's requesting the motel when there is clearly room on the street,

Starting point is 00:08:01 but I feel I can get her at it. out of the car if I surrender that much. So, I pull in. The lot is small and the spaces are all full, as much as I can tell. There's no place to park. And as I drive down the lot, I see a group of men standing in a circle and talking to each other by a huge, nice truck. They're all well-dressed, not too formal, but certainly professional. One of them turns around to make eye contact with me as I just.

Starting point is 00:08:32 drive past. He stares me down the entire time that I drive past the group. The only way to make an exit at that point is to flip a U-turn at a spacious corner in the lot. After flipping it, I drive back to where I was entering and the truck is gone, and all the men are no longer there either. I didn't take long at all to spin my car around. In fact, I made a deliberate effort to flip around quickly. They literally all up and vanished within the span of like one to two minutes at the absolute most. They had to book it out of there with urgency to have vanished like that.

Starting point is 00:09:13 And there were too many men for just the one truck. There were seven to ten people in that original group. Then, the woman said to park in the spot that the truck had just been at previously. She told me her weed was in her room and that she would go in and get it. This was actually different from her original story. She was clear about having the weed already on her before this point. At this point, I'm just trying to get her out and to leave myself, so I tell her it was fine. I insist that I don't need any compensation that she is free to just go into her home.

Starting point is 00:09:50 She insists a few more times, and I politely tell her it's fine over and over again. She gets more frustrated trying to get me to park in that damn spot, and eventually she raises to a more aggressive tone and says, You're stupid, and I reply, No, I just try to be nice. That was the last thing she said as she walked out of the car. She left the cigarette butt in the car too. Truthfully, I don't know for sure if she had any sinister plans for me and my friend.

Starting point is 00:10:24 My mind tells me the men may have. have tried to rob me of my car had I parked. But I can't say for certain, maybe I am paranoid. All I know is that she behaved in a manner that felt rather unsettling to me. I felt I was quite respectful. My friend agreed that it was an uncomfortable situation and that I did the right thing. Others have told me it was a very questionable situation as well. A few years ago, I was traveling around in South America with one of my best

Starting point is 00:11:05 friends and his group of friends. It was the last day before going back to our country. My friend and I arrived in Gayaquil the night before and wanted to visit the city before taking the plane in the evening. Because we had so little time, we did not have lunch and just went straight to the airport after our city adventure. We arrived at the airport a bit early and got back with the whole group. I had met them during the trip, but being quite shy, I was not very close with any of them.

Starting point is 00:11:40 We got through the gate into the small space where our flight gate was. Here's a mental map of the airport section. This section was cut off from the other part of the airport with lock gates. After going through the bag inspection area, you would arrive in the duty-free. After walking past that, you would arrive in the main section of the airport. report where all the gates were. There were three or four restaurants slash shops on the left side, and around gate six on the right. On this day, there were only three to four gates open.

Starting point is 00:12:17 My flight was the last flight departing from this section for the day. With two hours ahead of us, my friend and I decided to go look for a place to eat. I had three bags with me, a hat box, a bagpack, and a fanny pack. I left the first two with the group telling them to look after them. Because we were such a big group, there was a pile of other bags around them from other members that had left them there. We went, and we ate. Our gate opened, and travelers were starting to line up,

Starting point is 00:12:50 and we went back to the group to get our bags. I got my hat box, but my backpack had disappeared. People were slowly going through the gate, and I started panicking. The group separated. With my friend, we were running up to every place. I went asking if they had seen the little blue backpack, but no one had seen it. The minutes were flying by and the closing time of the gate came closer and closer. Finally, an airport security guy came to help us.

Starting point is 00:13:25 However, with my small Spanish vocabulary, it was hard to get my point across. A stewardess came to my help, informing me at the same time that the flight was closing soon and I had to decide. Either stay here to maybe find my backpack or get on to the flight. I have to say that I started crying a bit. In this backpack, I had my sketchbook that I had drawn in during the whole travel, a teddy bear that was precious to my heart, my phone, and my tablet. losing those objects? It was a hard pill to swallow, and the weariness of the trip did not help. Fortunately, I had kept my boarding pass and my passport in my pouch.

Starting point is 00:14:12 We went on the flight. I was angry at myself in the group to not have paid attention to it. The flight attendant was touched by my little story and took great care of me. I got seated next to a friendly man, and even if my emotions were all over the place, He calmed me down and I slowly started to relax. I was in the back of the plane in economy. And even if it was a 10-plus-hour flight, the seat was cramped. To best tolerate it, I removed my shoes and walked around the airplane.

Starting point is 00:14:47 I like feeling the floor under my socks. As I left my seat, I saw my back neighbor. He looked like a grumpy old man. When I walked past him, I could smell alcohol emanating from him, and the floor was humid from a possible spilled drink. He was that kind of flight neighbor that you hate in silence. I got back into my seat, and I put a movie on. He started getting agitated and slamming his little table into the back of my seat.

Starting point is 00:15:18 He must have struggled closing it. And the hours flew by. I was happy getting back home with my... my backpack still on my mind. I was more annoyed by losing all those precious photos and drawings that I had made than by losing my items. The probability of seeing them again was so low and weirdly, I was at peace with it. The Steeler was gone. The airplane was approaching our destination, windows shade up, seatbelt on, and the plane was landing.

Starting point is 00:15:53 Once on the ground, one of the nice stewardesses came to me. She quietly asked me to stay behind for a few moments after everyone had left. The rush came back. What was happening? I was even more stressed as I had another flight just after to catch. I stayed behind and, slowly but surely, I became the only passenger still on the flight. The stewardess came back and all smiles asked me to follow her. She grabs a white plastic bag on a seat, and she gives it to me.

Starting point is 00:16:25 I opened it. my sketchbook and all the other trinkets were in it. I could not believe it. However, my electronics were still missing, and even more surprisingly, my precious teddy bear. She looked at me and told me that I was quite lucky, but I still had to wait a bit more. I saw commotion at the front of the flight. Some policemen had entered the plane, and were talking. One of them asked me to give him my phone and tablet pincode.

Starting point is 00:16:54 I wrote them down and gave it to him. He walked to the front of the aircraft, and he then asked me to describe the tablet. There is a very visible sticker on the back of it, which I described to him. I watched him pick up my tablet and flipped it. I was gobsmacked. I could not believe it.

Starting point is 00:17:15 Do you want to see who stole your stuff? asked the policeman. I nodded. Are you sure? inquired the flight attendant. I was sure. I was very curious who could have stolen my belongings. The police let me through the first-class section, and there I was, face-to-face with the crumpy old man.

Starting point is 00:17:35 He had rage-filled little eyes. He looked at me as if I were the one who stole his bag. He was surrounded by two tall officers. An airport manager next to me handed me my phone and asked me to put the code in. It unlocked. I looked at the manager and he glanced at the Steeler. You see, it's not yours, he said. The old man stared at me.

Starting point is 00:18:01 His face was tensed with anger. He was wearing a white shirt and light brown pants. His stature was frail and any other time I would have probably smiled nicely at him. It was weird to see him destroy his chance to travel for a small backpack. But I couldn't stay any longer. I got my stuff and one of the stories. stewardesses came with me to accompany me to my next flight. While we were fast walking, she told me what had happened.

Starting point is 00:18:30 During the flight, the old man was drinking so much that the hostess had forbidden him to take any more drinks. He was also flirting with them and making lewd comments which disturbed them. At some point, the video's surveillance of the theft was sent to the aircraft, and they recognized the old man. Just before landing, he went through my bag and the toilet. it before getting caught at the end of the flight. I arrived safely back home with this eerie encounter to tell. What will always terrify me is to think that he was just behind me the whole flight. And being the last passenger to enter in tears, I'm pretty sure he knew that I was his victim.

Starting point is 00:19:12 But was he thinking during the ten hours at less than a meter from me? I know I'm incredibly lucky to have retrieved my items, and I am thankful. to the aircraft team. Okay. Not totally sure it's related, but while watching a documentary about Israel Keys, I recalled something that I forgot all about. I want to say it was around July 2005 in South Carolina.

Starting point is 00:19:48 I was 15 years old and on vacation with the family at Dirty Myrtle. A little background, I was a typical moody teenager who needed their iPod to deal with life. when we arrived, it was late at night. I vaguely remember us pulling up and my dad running into the lobby to check us in. Once he did that, we headed to the parking garage. My dad had made a comment about how our room was on the, I think, third floor, and there was a catwalk type thing that connected both the parking garage and the hotel.

Starting point is 00:20:24 So, late at night, dad, stepmom, baby sister, around three or so, myself and a new baby brother on the elevator headed for the catwalk. I think that's what it was called. Even though my iPod was my precious, I managed to leave it in the SUV. While walking across the catwalk, our room was the first one on the right. We go in, get comfortable, and we turn in for the night. The next morning, we're all waking up, relaxing, and discussing our plans, The beach for a few hours, Broadway at the beach, and where we would be having dinner that evening.

Starting point is 00:21:07 I noticed that my iPod wasn't in my things. I really wanted it and would have to walk back across the catwalk to get it. It was like 9 a.m. Back then, I always woke up around 9, so I can almost guarantee that. And my dad was just waking up. My stepmom had her hands full with the babies. I was a little scared to make that trip all alone. My mom was a criminal justice major,

Starting point is 00:21:35 and I had recently started reading some of her books about serial killers. Also, my mom had me worried that I would be kidnapped from a very young age. Anyway, my dad wouldn't walk with me. I asked. He said, You can walk over there and get it, can't you? Feeling a little silly for being so worried about a short distance to the car park, I said, yeah, sure, just give me the keys.

Starting point is 00:22:03 Thinking back, I feel so careless. I had a two-piece bikini on without a cover and flip-flops. My dumb ass was clearly not thinking. I had a concern yet took zero precautions. So, to the best of my knowledge, I had to walk out of the room across the catwalk, get on the elevator, go up or down the floor or two. of this I'm not sure, but an elevator ride was for sure.

Starting point is 00:22:33 Okay, I took the route and made my way to our SUV. I opened the car door, grabbed my iPod, and was headed back to the elevator. As I'm waiting, a man approaches me as the door opens. I instantly got a weird feeling. Thinking back, the guy had a blue-gene-type material hat, sunglasses, short brown hair, A T-shirt, blue-gene shorts, tennis shoes. Once on the elevator, I could feel my heart racing as he asked me, Are you on vacation?

Starting point is 00:23:07 Yes, I replied. Also, the man had pushed a button other than the button that I had. It felt like an eternity waiting for the elevator door to open. I could see the man's reflection on the door, and it looked like he was staring me down. I could also feel his gaze. I started to pray for the love of God to get me off of this elevator and back to my room safely. Once the door opens, I darted out, walking as fast as I could without fully sprinting.

Starting point is 00:23:40 Now, remember, he had pushed a different button on the elevator, but as I'm walking on the catwalk, there he was, right behind me. I'm panicking. Back then we had cell phones, but it was nights and weekend minutes and all of the other. that stuff. So, I had left it in the room. As soon as I got to the end of the catwalk, I was right there at our door. I was banging and screaming. Dad, open up, hurry! And just as soon as my dad opens the door, the man steps off the catwalk and I'm looking right at him terrified. I jump into my dad's arms into the room. As this is happening, the man changed his face from looking at me to

Starting point is 00:24:25 all the sudden scanning the area as if he was lost, which was weird. My dad was asking me what was wrong. I told him, he went out and he saw the guy walking across the catwalk to the parking garage again. My dad tried to convince me that the guy was just lost, or that he had seen a pretty girl while trying to talk to me. I had a very different feeling. I felt scared. It took some time for my heart to stop racing,

Starting point is 00:24:55 for me to stop shaking and crying. It's been some time since this happened, but it was so scary that I'm able to remember most of what happened. I'm so glad nothing else happened, but it is so scary that something could have. Watching the Israel Keys documentary really freaked me out, thinking about his M.O. And how dark the world can really be.

Starting point is 00:25:20 Anyways, thanks for letting me unload this. I'm a long-time lurker on this. sub, but I never thought I would have a contribution to make. That changed about a year ago. Names have been changed for obvious reasons. In 2020, I was in the second year of graduate school. Even before the pandemic, many of the classes were online instead of in-person. Normally, this was not a problem, but since my parents lived in a rural area, I had to commute to use the school's internet for my schoolwork.

Starting point is 00:26:04 When COVID hit, all of my tests had to be taken online, and the literal three megabits per second that my parents got on their satellite internet connection would not be good enough to help me with my schoolwork. If my university were to lock down and send students home, I would have had to have withdrawn for the semester. Since this was not an option, I began searching for apartments in a smaller college town. After a short search, I was surprised to find an opening at a student complex three miles from campus. Not having any options.

Starting point is 00:26:44 I signed a lease and moved in the next week. Eventually, my predictions came true and the university locked down. I felt extremely lucky to have one of the few coveted spaces in town. Even as I walked into the office to get my keys, there were literally people crying on the steps. Did they know someone with COVID? Did they have a bad home life? I thought. I genuinely felt bad for them.

Starting point is 00:27:13 Whatever their situation. I thought I had dodged a bullet. Little did I know things were about to take a turn for the worse and fast. The apartment was very poor quality, but it was the cheapest rent in town. It was all my stipend could cover, so I was happy to have it. However, the lack of a security deposit and the ability to pay your rent up front meant that, unfortunately, desperate people started to move in. About five months into the lockdown, there seemed to be very few students left living there, and many of the remaining residents seemed to be in their 30s or later. I heard a lot of rumors about drug dealing going on in the complex, but I wrote a lot of the remaining residents, but I wrote,

Starting point is 00:28:03 I wrote it off because every college except BYU and Liberty has a large weed culture. Eventually, however, people started to find syringes in the landscaping, and the gravity of the situation became more obvious. Rumors continued to circulate, but I wrote them off. That was until one summer afternoon when I was riding home on my bike from Waterberger. My apartment was in one of the rear buildings of the complex, so I had to ride through the parking lot to get to my door. As I pulled through, I noticed four or five police vans parked in front of the building.

Starting point is 00:28:40 It looked like a massive drug bust, so I called my friend Mike over to take a look at the situation. He lived across from me, so it was a quick walk for him to come over. He watched the commotion from my balcony for an hour, speculating on what it could be. We both agreed that one of the dealers was, probably busted and was on his way to prison. That was until we saw men in dress shirts and ties walking out of the complex, wearing surgical gloves. We saw on the news the next day that the man living in the apartment was murdered in broad daylight

Starting point is 00:29:17 after walking out of his apartment. Supposedly, he was shot while exiting and died on the way to the hospital. We never found out why, and I don't think the police ever caught the police ever caught the person who did it. I don't know if they had a suspect. All I know is that I was glad I was out when all of this was going on. At the very least, I could have witnessed something that would have scarred me for life. I've since moved into another nicer complex in the city, and I don't have to worry about such

Starting point is 00:29:52 things. This happened several years ago, back when I was still in elementary school, so excuse me if I get a few things wrong, as I'm almost 40 years old now. My mom had given me the usual curfew of when the streetlights come on, be home. I was at my friend's house who lived on the same street as me, but about a block up the road. I had to cross one street to get to their house. Their house was on the same side of the street as mine, except having to cross one intersection. It was getting dark, I knew I had roughly five minutes to make it home. Not a big deal.

Starting point is 00:30:40 I've done this walk several times a day. Every single day that I was home. On this day, my friend decided to walk me halfway home, which was to this intersection. Sitting there at the stop sign was an aqua green van. That's the color I remember. It was an odd mix of aqua blue and green. Obviously, it's normal for a vehicle to stop at a stop sign. It's even normal for a vehicle to stay stop.

Starting point is 00:31:08 for a few extra moments if they're trying to find their way around the area. What's not normal is for a strange vehicle to wait at a stop sign with no oncoming traffic. What's not normal is two men to wait for two little girls that they didn't know to get close to the van. A van with no back or side windows past the front. So, creepy van to start with. What's not normal is the passenger staring us down. What's not normal, seeing a gun in the driver's lap. Upon me spotting the gun, I whispered to my friend that they have a gun, and we need to turn around and run.

Starting point is 00:31:49 I told her that I was going to count to three. This way she had a chance to stay with me. This is winter in Michigan. There's snow and ice. It's very slippery. Needless to say that when we started running back to her house, she slipped and banged her knee really bad. This was close enough to her house that her cousin could hear me yelling for her to get up and run, which she couldn't do.

Starting point is 00:32:16 I had to pick her up and run with her in my arms. My cousin was playing in the ice with an ice pick when he came towards to see what all the commotion was about. Once the guy saw the cousin coming toward us, they sped out of there as fast as they could to make sure nobody got the license plate. I had to wait at my friend's house until all the cops came to escort me home. One would hope that was the hand of it, but nope. I saw that same damn van following our school bus a few days later. I came home to tell my mom,

Starting point is 00:32:48 so she started following our bus to the school with a shotgun just because of the attempted kidnapping. Then I started seeing the guys outside of the fence that surrounded the playground at my school in the wooded area. For some reason that I will never know, they really wanted me. They tried to coax me out of the playground and into the woods with them. This lasted for about two weeks before they finally just left.

Starting point is 00:33:27 So this was a collection of some creepy encounter stories, and hopefully as entertaining as they are, they can also be informational to some people. I do these stories with the intent of people looking at them and thinking, I hope I'm never in that situation, but if I am, hopefully I can use this story as educational material to figure out how to get out of the situation. If that makes any sense, I don't know, I say this so many times. It's true, I just don't know how to word it differently, you know?

Starting point is 00:33:58 I'm not good at wording things in different ways. Anyway, friends, I hope you guys enjoyed the video. If you did, please hit the thumbs up button, letting me know you enjoyed it. Also, leave me a comment, letting me know which story you liked the most, or just a comment in general, letting me know how your day's going. That'd be awesome. I'd love to see that. if you're a nube around these parts, consider hitting that subscribe button,

Starting point is 00:34:19 the button that makes you subscribed to the channel and makes me happy. That's my happy button, I guess. That sounded really wrong. I'm not going to talk anymore. Anyways, if you want to support the channel further, you can also hit the join button or go to patreon.com slash as the raven dreams, where for a dollar a month, you can get early access to my content. And more, depending on where you are in the tiers of Patreon.

Starting point is 00:34:41 Also, giveaway coming soon. I know I keep saying that. It's going to happen in October at some point. Got some exciting stuff to give away. So posters, merch, et cetera, stickers, et cetera. That's part of the... I'll talk to y'all later. You all have a great day.

Starting point is 00:34:58 Oh, geez. Sleep well.

As The Raven Dreams Podcast - I WAS ALMOST KIDNAPPED | 5 True Creepy Reddit Encounter Stories (Vol. 39)

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