Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 16x12: I Think I met a Serial Killer

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Send your stories to [e-mail].    Stories in this episode: Creepy Neighbor Guys | Top-Flan-2224 (0:39)A Night at Brushy Mountain | Jade_Possum (9:06) Where Do You Live? | SixPathsKyle (17:17) The Intruder | Ashley (23:03) I Think I Met a Serial Killer | Top-Degree-7267 (27:55) Attempted Kindapping | okiedokes22 (33:09) I Always Had a Bad Feeling About Him | Southern__Cumfart (37:22) Pretty Sure I Met a Serial Killer in Tampa | CherryQueen (40:56) The Eagle Scout | samazinnn (44:13) Extended Patreon Content: Til Death Do Us Part | EssayKnocks in the Dark | NinaThe Time I Almost Let Strangers Into My Dorm | NekochanDog Park Creeper | Silent Night ShadeDue to periodic changes in ad placement, time stamps are estimates and are not always accurate. Want Bonus Weekly Stories? Hate Ads? Join our Patreon for only $5 a month for over 100 hours of bonus content, and it's all ad-free! Join the Discord:https://discord.gg/84WXQud4gEFollow:- Twitch - https://twitch.tv/crypticcounty- Website - https://letsnotmeetpodcast.com/- Patreon - https://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsnotmeetcast/Build credit fast and get your first month for just a dollar at getkikoff.com/MEET today. Thanks to Kikoff for sponsoring us! All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. The stories shared on this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. 

The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and check out our newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick.

Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show. Only at BetMGM. Access to the Price is right Fortune Pick is only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wage your Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you,

please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at G. Email.com. Enjoy the show. Two years ago, I moved to the UK to study at university.

I've always wanted to go there and get away from my parents as the situation at home was beginning to become too toxic for me. In my first year at university, I moved into student accommodation and met some really great people. It was a good year, but I hadn't met my boyfriend quite yet. I did eventually, and I'm still with him, but during this time, time in my life, I was just enjoying my time away from my family and discovering what independence truly meant since I was on my own for the first time. On the second year, I decided, with some

friends, to move into a house rented through student accommodations. Things felt a little different with this living arrangement since we were going to have our own house, and there weren't going to be so many noise restrictions. We had a lot in our small, shared flat, the first year. This seemed like it was going to be good for parties as well. Now I had a room on the ground floor, and my window faced a very small backyard in which I would go smoke every day. From the backyard, there was a very thin wooden door that led out to the side of the street,

where we would put our bins and discard anything else that we needed to get rid of. The door could only be closed and locked from the inside of the backyard, but since it was an old door, we had attached some strings to it to secure it a little more and keep it closed for good. We had neighbors on each side of the house, and we were surrounded by families and some other student accommodations. The neighbors on the right of us were five boys who looked way over the age of being university. They seemed strange, to say the least. I met one of them outside our house one day because of a police intervention.

One of them called the police since one of his flatmates attacked him. him and the others with a kitchen knife and burned their kitchen down. I heard some screaming, and I went outside with my flatmates, and I saw one of them covered in blood with cuts everywhere on his arm. He also had a wound on his head, which was probably inflicted by said kitchen knife. My flatmates and I don't know what to do, so we offered some help to clean up by giving him an old t-shirt to change out of his bloody clothes. We then saw the guy who hurt the flatmates being escorted by the police. He was put into a van and driven off to be arrested.

I don't know any more about that story since the police didn't really tell us anything. Anyway, the guy that we helped was quite weird. He said a lot of bullshit and kept trying to grab me and flirt with me. We also noticed, as we were helping him, that he was smoking quite a lot of weed, but we didn't care at the moment,

as we just wanted to make sure that he was okay. Then, after some time had passed, I would go to university and come back home and often see him in the street. I never said anything to him, but one day he came up to me in the street while I went to the corner shop, and he started talking to me weirdly.

I had a bad feeling about this, and I didn't feel comfortable with it right away, for some reason, so I just didn't respond to him. He then said, Oh, that's okay. I'll just wait in front of your house. We can talk then. Needless to say, I was creeped out, and I thought he was joking, so I bought my drink at the shop and then headed back to my street. But then as I turned onto the street where my house was, I saw him with his flatmates sitting on my doorstep and waiting for me.

I panicked and went to the next corner shop and called my only guy flatmate and asked him to open the door and tell the, the guys to get out of there. But of course, he wasn't home. Nobody was home. So I just waited until they left a whole hour later. Once they were gone, I sprinted back home and locked the front door. I should mention that my door had a glass panel on it. It was the kind where you were able to make out who was standing on the other side.

After that encounter, I tried to avoid the guy altogether. I succeeded for a while, but then, one day, as I was smoking in the backyard, I noticed that the wooden door, which was always closed, was open, and the strings that we put there to keep it closed had been cut. For whatever reason, I didn't think anything of this, and I just closed the door again and put a new string on it. I thought one of my flatmates took the bins out and probably just didn't retie the string or something like that. The weird neighbors would often scream, yell, and fight in their house, and it would wake my flatmates and me up in the middle of the night.

But I guess we got used to it after a while. I also started seeing my boyfriend, and one evening, he slept over like he usually did. But on this particular evening, my boyfriend, who usually never wakes up because of a noise, woke up in the middle of the night because of a bang, and then somebody whispering. I was sound asleep, so he very quietly woke me up.

Once I was awake, we both waited in the night, dark and listened out for any other noises. Then, suddenly, we heard the wooden door of our backyard. It shot open with a very loud bang. This was followed by some footsteps that came right up to my window. I always had my window open because it was very warm inside. We both froze, and then we heard the back door that leads to the backyard get shaken softly, as if whoever was outside was trying to get into our house. And then, they stopped. Luckily, we had the curtains on my window closed, so they couldn't see us.

But we were ready to get dressed, get the fuck out of the room, and then lock them in if they came in from the window. Then we heard my window move and open wider. We heard one of the neighbor guys saying something in a different language that we didn't understand, and we heard them trying to get inside again. My boyfriend and I shot up out of bed, grabbed my phone, put on some clothes, and then ran out of the room and out of the house. I then called my flatmates and I told them to lock themselves in their rooms, and then I called the police who luckily arrived in just five minutes. Their headquarters was just a couple of streets down from us. I don't remember anything that happened after the police came.

I think my boyfriend and I were in shock. They ended up catching the one guy right away, but the other fled and was later found a few streets up smoking weed. The police told us that they went inside their house and found a lot of meth and heroin. They also told us that they were carrying a massive kitchen knife with them. I was so confused as I had never done anything to offend them, and I had never done anything wrong to them either, so the idea of them breaking in to do God knows what with a kitchen knife,

has terrorized my boyfriend and me. The two guys ended up getting arrested, and one of them was put in prison for two years for carrying a weapon with the intention to harm. I never heard anything else from the police, but I moved back home a few months later as I was scared, and the whole situation tormented me for months.

I don't feel good not knowing what would have happened if my boyfriend hadn't woken up. I'm still coping with it, and I've been finding it really tough to get over. I always find myself asking the what-ifs. I very often wake up at the slightest sound, and I get horrible nightmares because of this whole ordeal, but hey, at least I'm still with my boyfriend, and since we experienced this together, we get to talk about it, and that helps a lot. Please stay safe. On a road trip, a friend and I decided to stop at Brushy Mountain State

Penitentiary and camp nearby. We knew the whole history of the place and how much. We knew the whole history of the place and had read about it on the way there. Another friend of mine came along with us, and she was very into this spiritual side of things and wanted to look for ghosts or spirits. That was mostly her interest, though, as my other friend and I were just curious about the prison itself.

In person, the place is imposing. It is a huge gray prison set hard against the mountain wall surrounded by thick Tennessee woods. The trees and hills fill alive. and then there's this massive block of concrete sitting among them. It's unnatural in its shape and weight. There were no tours or concerts that day, and the place was quiet, so we parked in a clear lot, and then we walked up toward the building.

When we reached the courtyard, we were surprised to find that the gate was open. There weren't any signs stopping us, so we went in and began looking around. There were two men in the courtyard throwing a ball for a large dog. We noticed them but didn't think much of it until the dog wandered over to us. When that happened, one of the men came over and started talking.

Instead of asking where we were from, he asked why we were there. He pressed to know if we were part of a tour. Once he knew that we weren't, he said he was contracted by the owner to do some work there and let us know that we weren't supposed to be there. Now, he didn't explain what he was doing

or why the gate was open. Once he knew we were just visitors, he became short and insistent, so we left the building respectfully without making a scene. As we continued walking around, my friend pointed out how odd it was that someone on official business

would be working with a dog loose in the courtyard, but we didn't linger on it. We were still more interested in the building. Not long after, a white crossover pulled into the parking lot and came right up on us. A woman was driving and she had her kid with her. She got out and immediately pushed us toward the exit. She said that her man had just informed her that he had spoken to us and she said that we were not allowed to be there.

My friend gave her a little pushback, but we still left. As we made our exit, the woman followed us and shut the parking lot gate behind us. Once outside the site, we checked the rules and confirmed that we were allowed to be there. This place isn't exactly off the beaten path, and people going there is fairly common. So that night, we went back. We parked in the outer lot and waited. While standing by the car, we saw a truck drive slowly along the length of the road, up toward the prison. We were in the dark and it didn't see us as it slowly continued back.

Before heading over, we talked about it. We could have driven in, but if we went straight in and got run out again, that would probably be it. But if we walked over on foot and up the hill, we could look around and still come back the way we came. So we climbed the grassy hill beside the road, staying in the shadows and out of the parking lot lights. A bright light swept up into the sky from the prison in intervals. We figured it was just part of the place, a spotlight left running for effect. As we moved along the hill, we heard what sounded like a dirt bike somewhere beyond the lot. The noise bounced off the hills and then cut out.

Not long after that we heard screaming. It was distant, but fearful, so we stopped and listened. and then it happened again. We whispered to each other trying to decide if it was someone else there or if it was someone on a tour. As we stood there, we noticed something in the dark near us.

It was a wild pig. We hadn't seen it at first, and then it shifted and started towards us. My friend then grabbed the other two of us without hesitation and pulled us back. He had seen wild pigs before, and since he did this, we were able to break away quickly and run for the car. At that point, we assumed there had to be other people at the prison.

The light sweeping across the sky and the sound of the dirt bike made it seem active, like there was something going on, so we drove back in openly like we were supposed to be there. As we passed the road, we saw the same truck parked off to the side. The kid in the back was screwing with a flight. flashlight pointing it up into the sky. The man behind the truck was running a chainsaw. The woman that we saw earlier was nearby in her white crossover watching the road. She pulled out quickly and blocked us.

She rolled her window down and immediately threatened to call the police. My friend told her that we had checked the hours. She said that she knew the owner but would not give us their name or a phone number. So we left again. And once we were back on the road, we called the police ourselves. and explained what was going on. They said we were allowed to be there, but advised us not to return that night

since it seemed like something unsafe was going on. We never found out what those people were doing, but it all added up to something strange, and that was what stayed with us. It's tax season and everybody's thinking about money right now, so here's one worth thinking about. If your credit is under 600, getting it over that threshold could save you $2,000

bucks the next time you finance a car. That's basically a whole tax refund still in your pocket. And that's exactly why I like kickoff. It's a credit builder that actually makes sense. Plans start at just five bucks a month. No hidden fees, no interest, no credit check to sign up. You make small one-time monthly payments, the credit bureaus see good behavior, and your credit gross. It's as simple as that. And they even have a rent reporting feature. So the rent you're already paying can start working toward building your credit as well. What I really like is how straightforward it is. Set up auto pay, sign up in minutes from your phone, and you're done. And it works. Users who started credit with under 600 grew an average of 86 points just by paying on time.

They have over a million users, and it's the number one credit builder on the App Store. There's a reason for that. Start building credit with Kickoff today and get your first month for as little as $1. That's 80% off the normal price when you go to getkickoff.com slash meet today. That's kickoff without the C. Get K-I-K-O-F-F.com slash meet. Must sign up via kickoff.com slash meet to activate offer. Offer applies to new kickoff customers first month only, subject to approval. Offer subject to change, new car finance savings based on a 2025 Chevrolet Silverado MSRP with $10,000 down payment and five-year financing for subprime borrowers

versus those over 600 nationwide APR average for new cars. Actual savings and finance factors may vary. Source Experian, April 2025, average first year credit score impact of plus 86 points between August 2024 and August 2025 for kickoff credit account users who started with a score below 600, who had paid on time and had no delinquencies or collections added to their credit profile during the period. Late payments may negatively impact your credit score. Individual results may vary. When I was in third grade, I lived in the rough part of a rough city. During the day when I didn't have school, I would still play outside, like any normal kid. I made friends with literally every

single kid in my neighborhood. One of the kids I made friends with lived diagonally across from my house. I would go to his house often because he lived in the attic, which I thought was so cool at the time, especially since he had a mini pole table. This kid was a couple of years older than me, and I met him when I was going door to door, offering to most of the most of the same. people's lawns for gash. Anyway, one night I went over to his house for a few hours. When it got late and dark, his parents told me that I had to go home. That night, my friend decided to walk home with me, which wasn't a long walk at all, since, as I said, my house was diagonally across the street. You could see my house from this. As my friend was walking me home, we were crossing

the street, and we saw this man dressed in dark clothing. This guy had a black hoodie on, with the hood pulled up over his head. As soon as I saw him, he was already walking straight toward us. He approached us in the middle of the street and asked, Hey, kids, what are your names? I instantly got a creepy feeling from this guy and I didn't want to talk to him. But before I could speak, my friend introduced himself and even told the guy what my name was, since I wasn't say anything.

The guy then asked something like, What do you guys do for fun? My friend replied, We like to play pool on my mini pool table. This guy never shared any details about himself, by the way. Not even his name. He just asked us those two questions and dismissed us very quickly.

Then, he asked us a third question. Where do you guys live? When he asked this, I started getting scared. I knew I was not supposed to be talking to strangers in the first place, but I guess my friend, who was older than me, hadn't been informed of stranger danger because he literally replied, Oh, I live right there, and he pointed right at his house. Then the guy looked at me and asked,

How about you? Where do you live? Since I was scared, and this whole interaction didn't feel right to me, I pointed to a completely different house and said, I live there. This was when I realized my friend was the most naive kid on the block because he said,

What? Dude, no, that's not where you live. Your house is right there. And then he pointed right at my actual house. I instantly panicked because my friend just showed this creepy, strange adult exactly where I lived. My friend didn't pick up on the fact that I was lying on purpose.

I panicked and then yelled No, that's not where I live You've never been to my house So you don't know where I live I live right there And I pointed to the house I initially pointed to My friend and I proceeded to argue

For a few seconds about which house was mine until the stranger insisted It's okay, you can tell me where you live I continued to point at the house That I had been pointing at the whole time and said That's where I live, I swear my friend has never been to my house before. The guy then asked,

Are you sure? I replied, Yes, but if you try to break in there, my dad will shoot you because he has guns. He will kill you. I was now yelling at the guy at this point, and I was visibly shaken up since this man was scaring me, and I was angry at my friend.

Also, I was lying about the whole gun thing. My dad didn't even live with us. I was just trying to scare this guy off, or intimidate him. As I was yelling, the guy said that he had to go, which was a relief. So then I ran over to my house in tears.

Once I was inside, I ran to my mom and I told her that some guy was going to rob our house since my friend told him where we lived. I was fully convinced of this, but I'm not sure if she even considered what I was saying. I actually had a hard time falling asleep for the next few nights because all I could think about

was this man breaking into our house and robbing us. I even stopped hanging out with that kid. I think I heard his feelings since I yelled at him before I ran to my house that night. I also called him names since I was upset about him telling that sketchy guy what my name was and where I lived. But then, maybe a month later,

my family moved out of this house. A little bit after we moved, my mom told me that the friend I had stopped hanging out with had gone missing, and his parents thought that he may have run away from home. After being told this, I obviously didn't think that he could have been kidnapped, so I thought that he might have ran away as well. I don't know if he was ever found, but I hope he was.

As I look back on this, I can't help but wonder if that sketchy guy did have something to do with it. At the time, I didn't know why, but the situation scared me so badly. Now, as an adult, I realized that my intuition was at work, and I was right to feel scared. Always trust your gut. I'm 17, so I obviously still live with my parents. I live in an area and in a building where crime doesn't typically occur. This happened eight months ago, and as a result, I get terrified whenever I hear the slightest sound at night.

I have a dog, a Yorkshire terrier. These dogs are known to be small, but they can be pretty loud, and my dog is literally the definition of an ankle biter. Despite her size, she's pretty big and she weighs around 17 pounds. She also has a habit of drinking a ton of water at night, and then she wakes us up since she needs to go pee outside. We have a patio, as we are on the first floor, and our patio is relatively spacious.

It's surrounded by a huge wall, and there's a sharp black fence at the top to deter anyone from climbing over. But as I said, my area isn't even known for crying, or anything like that. On this particular night, I wasn't completely asleep, but I had my eyes closed, so I could hear everything, and I was still aware of everything that was going on.

Since the apartment was small and had only one bedroom, my only option was to share a bedroom with my parents, and I'm grateful that I was on this night, and that I still do, because I don't think I would be able to sleep alone now after what happened, since it has left me genuinely terrified. I heard my mom wake up groggy,

and she was pissed off because my dog started licking her. Usually when my dog licks any of us, it's because she's telling us she needs to go outside. So my mom stood up and opened the patio door to let the dog out. Right then, our dog started barking ferociously and whimpering. My mom was curious about what this could be,

so she went to check. And that was when I heard, a blood-curdling scream. This scream came from my mom, and when I say blood-curdling, I mean like a horror movie scream. I bolted up right as my mom came running inside screaming. Wake up! Wake up!

There's someone on the patio. The moment I heard that, my blood ran cold. I'm very thankful that my dad wasn't completely asleep. He got up right away, and so did I. He walked out of the bedroom, and I followed him. I was scared, but my first instinct was to still protect my family.

This was incredibly naive of me as I am just 17 years old, and I am a girl. I can't even do 10 push-ups. Anyway, I grabbed a knife from our kitchen, and I went outside with my dad. I stepped outside and I saw this guy standing in our garden with garden scissors. My dad yelled, You have to get the fuck out of here or I'll call the police. The guy then turned around, dropped the scissors, and started begging my dad not to kill him. Then the guy jumped over the sharp black fence, but he didn't leave.

Instead, he just paced back and forth, acting completely disoriented. My dog was still barking loudly at the guy, so my parents sent our dog and me to our bedroom and locked us inside so that we would be safe. I contemplated calling the police, but my parents told me not to. so I didn't, since I figured my parents knew what was best. They stayed outside, and I eventually fell asleep and gave up on waiting for them to come back. The next morning when I woke up, I asked my mom what was wrong. She said that the guy who broke into our patio was looking for his girlfriend,

who lived in our building on the second floor. He was planning to climb up our patio to get to her balcony and into her apartment. She said she didn't want to call the police because, she knew who he was, but she found it weird because the guy kept saying that he jumped over the fence to protect us because he had seen someone else

break into our apartment. When my mom relayed this story to me, I was confused, but I didn't question it. Right after I got home from school that afternoon, my mom told me that she saw the guy roaming around again, and he approached her and apologized. He said that he was sorry for scaring us, and he said that he was high as a kind of,

height, and that's why he was acting that way. Now, I still don't know what to make of this situation, but that guy traumatized me. I don't know what his real intentions were, or what he really planned to do. As for my dog, I'm grateful that she's still here to protect us, because without her, I don't know what would have happened. I was a teen runaway heading back home to Washington from Montana. This happened and the end of February in 1997. I had two male companions, who were also teen runaways with me. We had stopped at courts, flats,

campground, and rest stop in Montana for a break from our drive, and it was snowing heavily as we left the rest stop. I could barely see the road to I-90 when I saw a man carrying a little boy hitchhiking. My first thought was that he was a reckless parent, endangering his child, and that poor kid shouldn't be in this blizzard. It never occurred to me to wonder where his car was located. I picked them up so that the boy wouldn't freeze,

and when I did, the man never offered any information about where he came from or where he was going. The man also didn't realize when I picked him up that I had two teen boys with me in the back of the van, and he became unnerved and started speaking in this maniacal fashion about buying a boat in Arizona. You know where you can get a good boat? Arizona. Do you know why? There's no ocean out there. They sell them cheap, he mused. I was relieved when he turned to the boys in the back of the Plymouth Voyager and began talking to them so that I could tune him out and concentrate on driving. The man had curly brown brown hair with the devil's lock in the front and a scar on his upper lip and chin. The boy he had with him appeared to be between two and four years old.

He was wearing a blue coat, red warm-up pants with a blue offset seam, and light-colored boots that resembled construction boots. The boy would not look at any of us, and he didn't turn to the man for comfort either. He just looked down at the floor and didn't move from the man's lap. I felt bad for him and I figured he must have been so scared of us. They weren't with us very long, and the man asked to be let out at a gas station in Superior Montana, and that was the end of our interaction.

In 2017, I began taking an interest in true crime. This made me reflect on the terrible risks 14-year-old me took by hitchhiking and picking up hitchhikers. I reflected on a few disturbing rides I had, but the one that stuck out to me the most was that hitchhiker with the boy. On a whim, I googled serial killers, I-90, missing children. I remembered that the man looked like one of my hometown attorneys, since he had very distinctive eyes.

I honestly didn't believe I was likely to find any offenders in my search until I did. My heart dropped when I saw the picture of an offender. with a devil's luck, complete with a scar on his lip and chin. My heart dropped even more when I found a video that he posted online, since I was able to confirm his maniacal voice. The style and tone matched exactly those of the boat guy from all those years ago. The worst part was that there was a little boy who went missing in the same region. I connected with the boy's aunt, and she connected.

me with the FBI because I had provided accurate details that the family hadn't made public. This guy's name was Joseph Duncan III. If you've ever researched Duncan, you know that he was one of the worst human beings ever. He had a court date on the same day that I picked him up, coincidentally on his birthday, and there was no record of him showing up for that court date. There was a warrant issued for his arrest in 1997 for missing a court date, and by April, he ended up in California, where he took the life of another young victim. I wrote him a letter, and he wrote back and insisted that he was not the man I picked up, but remarked that I was brave for picking up a hitchhiker. The letter was one of the most bizarre things I ever received in the mail. While I was looking into the timeline of Duncan,

I reached out to the two teenagers who were with me at the time. They both said that it could have been him based on the photos they referred to, but they both said that they couldn't be 100% sure. They also said the creepiest part during their interaction with him was when he turned around and said, You're not buying any of this bullshit I'm saying, are you? He then asked to be let out at the next town. This happened when I was about,

eight years old. I lived in a condo with my mom, my twin, and my brother. Our condo was about a 15-minute walk from the school that all three of us went to. To get to the school, we had to walk through a rather large fenced-in soccer field with a small playground. There was a fairly busy road right next to the field with the set of traffic lights, and beyond that, there were a few residential roads that we had traverse as well. The area wasn't high traffic per se, but there was always somebody walking on the street or at least a few cars passing by on the bigger road. My siblings and I had come down with chicken pox. I was able to get over mine quicker, but this meant I had to return to school sooner, while they stayed home another day.

My mom had to stay with them, so I had to walk to school alone. This probably wasn't the safest thing for an eight-year-old to do, but my mother wasn't the best at prioritizing. In any case, I made it to school by myself just fine, but making it home was a different story. I've always had a strong gut intuition, and this was the primary incident that led me to always trust that gut feeling. As I neared the home stretch by the traffic lights, I got this strange feeling. I continued across the crosswalk, keeping my head up since I felt like I was being watched. As I walked on the sidewalk, I noticed a tall, skinny man across the street. He had long blonde hair and he was wearing a jean jacket and jeans.

He looked right at me while he walked in the opposite direction. My stomach dropped as I saw him, so I quickly looked forward. I also took a look around to see if there were any other people. I only saw one woman walking a dog on my side, but she was going in the opposite direction, and I saw one car that was waiting at the stoplight. At the time, I remember thinking that the guy was seriously creepy. It made me feel queasy, but I continued walking, and then I got this overwhelming urge to glance behind me. When I did, my heart stopped. The creepy man was staring right at me and he was quickly jaywalking across the street.

I then immediately picked up my pace. I heard heavy footsteps behind me, so I instinctively started to jog. Then those footsteps began to jog as well. I was freaking out, so I broke out in a full-on run. And then, so did he. I was convinced I was about to die. I knew I had to get over the fence to go through the soccer field. I scaled that fence so quickly,

I can barely remember even doing it. I didn't look behind me. I guess I must have done this pretty quickly, since after I did, I could sense that he was no longer chasing me. I didn't slow down, though. I still ran all the way home as fast as I could. I didn't slow down at all,

even though my lungs were burning. I just remember bursting into tears when I got through the front door, and my mom asked what happened. Of course, there was a little bit of course, there wasn't much she could do besides call the police and report it. Since then, I've always kept my eyes peeled and stayed aware of my surroundings, and I've always trusted my gut.

It has saved me countless times since, so everyone always trust your gut. If you feel like something is wrong, it probably is. That day, I knew in my heart and soul that the creepy guy wanted me. He wanted to take me, and I knew that for certain. I still do. So to the creepy man, let's not meet. Growing up, I was definitely a counterculture kid.

I got into goofball stuff early on in life and started experimenting with weed at the age of 13. That led me into some pretty odd circles as a young teen, so it wasn't that odd when a guy hanging around was a bit older than the rest of my friend group. For example, when my friends and I were around 16 or 17, it wasn't weird, us to be hanging around guys that were 20 or 21. Some of the older guys were really cool. We would smoke weed, sip beers, and listen to our favorite punk rock records. They were pretty chill guys, but there were always some older dudes who made me feel uneasy.

It would always be the ones who would boast about their sexual escapades, the crimes that they've committed, or other things like that. I found it odd that a 20-something-year-old would go out of their way to seek validation. from teenagers, but I didn't feel like it was my place to call anyone on it. I thought there was no need to stir up shit. I liked minding my own business. It was easy to stay out of the way of people that I didn't like. I was never that kind of person who wanted to be the center of attention anyway. Then there was Preston.

Preston was one of those dudes who reminded me of the kid in your neighborhood, who was always loud and obnoxious. The kind of kid you wouldn't let play with your thoughts. things because you knew he was going to somehow find a way to break or damage them. For some reason, Preston took a liking to me, and being the passive, usually non-confrontational person I was, I didn't protest when he was around. After all, he definitely had my back, which oddly gave me some comfort, knowing that this older, quote-unquote, tough guy, would vouch for me. Plus, he was well-known and well-liked among our circles. After a while, I started noticing

things about him that didn't add up. He would always have these stories and things that he did and things that were going on in his life, and they just didn't seem to add up in my head. I eventually fell out of touch with Preston because my bullshit meter was beeping a little too hard for my liking, and something always seemed off about him. It was a feeling I could never shake. About 10 years later, he contacted me via Instagram. which was a little strange because I don't use my real name on there and my account is private. Anyway, we caught up a bit and he was telling me about how he had been working and finance and living in a different state and whatnot.

He never wanted me to invest in anything, not yet anyway, but I felt like a line of bullshit to extract money from me was coming. But that day never did. Instead, I got a call from my brother who told me that Preston, had been arrested, he was living with an elderly woman in a different state, they had some kind of argument, and he beat her to death. This guy bullshitted his way through life, and anything he ever required was from manipulating people, so it seems that this old lady suffered the ultimate casualty from that. He killed that poor woman, and I was right about him all along. So yeah,

trust your gut. I was living in Tampa, Florida in 2018, right when there was an announcement about there being an active serial killer in the area. The news reported that the guy had been caught a few weeks later, but to this day, my gut tells me they got the wrong guy. Here's my story. It was April 20th, 2018, so you know what I was doing, and I was doing a lot of it. But keep in mind, at this point in my life, I had been consistently. smoking weed for seven years, so it wasn't really affecting me the same way. My boyfriend and I decided that I would start the night off with my friends, since his friends

didn't smoke, and mine did. I was also about to move to a different state, so it was going to be the last time I was going to see my friends for a while. So after hanging out with them for a bit, I was going to take an Uber at around 10 or 11 p.m. to get to my boyfriend's friend's house. The night was highly normal up to this point. So I ordered an Uber when it was time, and the Uber driver dropped off my other friends at their houses along the way. Once it was just me, being the person I am, I struck up a conversation with the driver for the remaining 30 minutes of the ride. I asked, How are you doing? Have you been seeing a lot of people tonight? After we got through some small talk, he asked where I was going, and I started to explain. He asked why I, I asked why I was,

I wasn't partying with my boyfriend, and I then naively confided in him and said that I wasn't sure if our relationship was going to make the move that I was about to go through, since I didn't think he loved me anymore. Then he asked me if my mom knew where I was, and he asked if anyone else knew where I was.

He also asked when my friends, whom we had just dropped off, were expecting me to be home, then asked if I lived with them. Thankfully, I caught on to the fact that these were weird questions for him to be asking someone who was traveling alone, so I lied. I said that my mom was expecting me to call her as soon as he dropped me off, and I said that I was getting a bunch of texts in a group chat from everyone asking me to tell them that I arrived at my destination safely. Once we arrived, of course, like the fucking horror movie night this was already feeling like,

my boyfriend's friend's house was in the woods on the edge of Tampa. Well, we finally saw my boyfriend's friend's house, and there was a little bonfire about 300 feet away, so the driver stopped and said that he was going to drop me off. I then ran out of that car as quickly as possible and high-tailed it right out of there as soon as I closed the door. I always thought that this was a strange encounter, but I didn't think about it again until I saw the news

when they announced that they caught the guy. The guy who was caught wasn't my driver. But my gut is rarely wrong about these things. I work at a big-name retail company in the United States. I've been at my store for going on nine years now, so as you can imagine, I have a good amount of friends who work in the building with me. This story happened three years ago before I became a manager,

but I was still decently far into my career in the building. During the holiday season, we hire a lot of seasonal team members. Most of them end up staying on the team permanently, but some of them end up leaving after the season. Among the new faces in the building was a younger guy named Matt. For his age, Matt had an amazing work ethic, going so far as to ski into work during a bad snowstorm rather than call out. I was told he was an Eagle Scout

and a member of the Honor Society throughout school. Matt was a weird kid and a loner type, but he seemed to take to me pretty quickly. The department I worked in was towards the back of the store, and he was a backroom team member, so we saw a lot of each other. We chatted about things like video games and comics, mostly passing the time.

Have you played such and such yet? It's amazing, you know, that type of thing. Before long, he was adopting my break schedules, mostly to bum cigarettes. Matt ended up staying after the season ended, so I had a pretty consistent smoke break buddy. One morning in January, he asked me if I knew someone named Jack. He went to the high school I graduated from, but both Matt and Jack were considerably younger than me. I told Matt that I didn't know Jack. Oh, okay, he said.

I was just asking because a friend asked me to deal with him. I'm kind of a protector in my circle and he's been messing with her. I just brushed this off, and I remember feeling mostly surprised to learn that he had friends outside of his work bubble. The next day, Matt came to me again, asking about Jack. He said, I figured out where he lives, but there are so many cars in his driveway. I'm not sure which one is his.

I need to be sure he's home. Or if I do something to one of the cars, I just got to make sure it's his car. This really sketched me out, but being a semi-sane person, I assumed he was going to pull a childish prank. Still, I lied and said, Be careful in that area. My dad lives there, and there's been a lot of vandalism. Most homeowners have surveillance cameras out front.

He didn't seem phased by my statement, and he then switched the conversation topic to the then-new Zelda game. About a month or so passed without any new inquiries or comments about Jack or his mission, so I was relieved. But then one day, I showed up to work, as usual. Then at around 9.45, I took my smoke break.

Matt usually worked later, so my first break was generally a solo one. That day I didn't realize he had covered someone's shift, so I was surprised when he followed me out and asked for a cigarette. I gave him one and then sat down to enjoy my break. So I finally got that kid, he said. The way that he said it sent chills down my spine. Oh, okay, I replied. I beat Zelda last night.

It's a good game. You should get it. I was trying to quickly change the subject, but I could tell that this was not going to happen. Do you know what Risen is? he asked. I admitted that I didn't, and I shook my head. I wish I could say I still don't know what it was, but unfortunately I was then informed. For those of you who don't know, from what I was told, ricin is a particularly deadly poison with no scent or taste that when ingested can be lethal within three days. You're not a breaking bad fan, I guess, he asked.

I shook my head again, but by then he was already rattling off about how to make it and explaining what it did. He said, it's lethal, odorless, and tasteless, and there isn't any kind of antidote either. I put it on a scratch and sniff card and walked over to his house last night. It was recently his birthday, so he shouldn't be surprised by it. Right away, a million thoughts rushed into my head. I come from a large, close family. If I had a card in my mailbox hand addressed with no return address on it, I know for a fact that one of my siblings or parents would have opened it,

as much as I wanted to believe that he was just trying to sound. like a badass, I couldn't bring myself to leave that to chance. I pretended I hadn't heard him, continued my Zelda talk, and then headed back inside. Once inside, I informed my direct superior about the conversation that took place, and I sat in the office to call the police. Two plain-clothes detectives then came in shortly after and questioned me pretty extensively. They agreed that it was more than likely not true, but they were glad. that I reported it regardless, and then they went on their way.

Matt worked through the rest of his shift and left with another backroom team member. Shortly after they left, the detectives returned. The card that was in the mailbox did have something on it, but they couldn't be sure what it was. It had to go to a lab for testing. They went to Matt's house and they talked to him.

He said that he put powder on the card to try and scare Jack, but that was it. The following week was a bit crazy. The lab results did come back, and they were positive for a particularly potent batch of ricin. Matt attempted to flee his home when a hazmat team knocked on his door.

He hid the remaining poison in a storm drain close by, where it was quickly found. Matt was arrested, and I planned on going back to my normal life, but this didn't end up being the case. News reporters and journalists flocked to my job, my home, and both of my parents' homes on a daily basis. I had to wear another girl's name badge so that they wouldn't know who I was. But they knew what I looked like, so it didn't matter. They would come back to my department, referring to me in third person, and try to pet my ego.

It didn't work, though. Plus, I was given very clear directions not to discuss the incident. Besides, I wanted to be done with the whole situation. Also, on top of all of this, my dickhead, now ex-boyfriend, kicked me out because of the reporters and the police. They were hounding me non-stop at my residence when I just wanted to go back to being normal. I met with the family of the would-be victim.

Jack's mother and father were very nice. Both of them thanked me, and they were crying when they met me. His mom had painted me an angel as a woman. thank you gift, and though I'm not religious, I've always held on to it. Jack's brother was a paraplegic with a seizure disorder. He couldn't take care of himself at all. Jack's sister, who was opening the mailbox as the police called the house, was a two-time cancer survivor, and Jack, the eldest, was at home at the time with his girlfriend. Turns out, the reason Matt tried to kill Jack was that he was dating an ex of his. That's the only reason why. I met Jack and his family a few times in

preparation for the trial. All of the trial prep was scheduled weeks in advance, and everything that we went over was fairly redundant until one day. I got a call very late from a woman I had never talked to before. She was with a victim's protection agency, and she needed to meet with me at the courthouse the following morning, so I called out from work and I made my way over there. In the room were Jack's family, the original district attorney, and detectives, as well as a new DA and a new set of detectives.

They then passed around a photocopy of a letter handwritten by Matt to another inmate who was due to be released soon. I can't remember exactly what was written, but there were very graphic disturbing plans for each of us. He was offering up a trust fund that may or may not have even existed

if the other inmate did things like kidnap our families and burn them on our lawns while we watched from inside our houses. The letter also asked the inmate to remove our tongues and eyelids and force us to drink bleach. There was a distinct plan

for every one of us, but as I said, I really don't remember. remember most of what was written. His trial seemed to go on forever, but it eventually ended, and he has since been sentenced and sent upstate. I don't think he's been charged for the second case yet, which was the threatening letter, but I'm not supposed to go to those trials, so I may never know what comes of that. Anyway, to the Eagle Scout, if and when you're ever free, let's not ever meet again.

Thanks for listening and stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended ad-free version of this week's episode. If you want to get access to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast, to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad-free versions of all of the episodes at a higher bit rate, plus bonus extensions at the ends of those episodes with stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again, that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast. Be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails, My True

paranormal podcast and the old-time radiocast at Crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts and follow me on Twitch at twitch.tv.tv.com. This week you have heard creepy neighbor guys by Top Flan 2224, a knight at Brushy Mountain by Jade Possum. A stranger approached me and my friend by Six Paths, Kyle, the intruder by Ashley. I might have met a serial killer by Top Degree 7267, attempted kidnapping by Oki-Dokes 22. I always had a bad feeling about him by Southern Comfort. I'm pretty sure I met a serial killer by Cherry Queen, and finally, the Eagle Scout, by Samazen.

All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any of their message boards online. If you have a story to share, send it to Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com. next week. Everybody, stay safe. It was 2007 when I met an elderly couple who for the purposes of sharing these events will be...