Money Crimes with Nicole Lapin - Reddit's Spookiest Paranormal Crime Stories

Episode Date: October 21, 2026

A radio turns on by itself. A voice screams a warning. A shadow crawls toward your bed. Coincidence, or something more?Alexis Linkletter and Sabrina Deana-Roga celebrate Halloween with four of Reddit's spookiest paranormal crime stories. A young man wakes at 3 A.M. to a shadowy figure crawling toward his bed, then learns the next morning that gas had been leaking through the house all night. A woman shopping for Christmas lights comes face to face with the ghost of one of Ed Gein's victims in the same hardware store where she was killed. A woman recalls a message that screamed inside her head when she was eight years old, one that may have been tied to a real missing-child case. And in a listener submission from our subreddit, two cousins believe a lost loved one stepped in just seconds before two masked men reached their car. Alexis and Sabrina hear each other's stories for the first time as they weigh the chills, the skeptical explanations, and whether coincidence can really explain it all.Content Warning: This episode discusses child homicide, gun violence, suicide, and an attempted home invasion. If these are sensitive topics for you, please proceed with care.For more, follow Crimes Of Reddit wherever you listen to podcasts: https://pod.link/1838511303If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Scams, Money, & Murder to never miss a case! To hear episodes ad-free, subscribe to Crime House+. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Scams, Money, & Murder is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Crime House 24/7, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Murder True Crime Stories, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosX: @crimehousemediaYouTube: @crimehousestudios

Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Conner's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod. That was when I saw this long, lanky shadow peeking in through the doorway of my room. It had long black finger-like tendrils protruding from black limbs as thin as a twig. I stared at it. And though it didn't have any discernible eyes, I could tell it was staring at me. And it dropped to the floor on its hands and knees and began crawling towards my bed. If you're loving Crimes of Reddit, please follow, rate and review us wherever you listen. It helps us build this community and we love hearing from you.

To get early access and ad-free listening, subscribe to the Crimehouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts. You can also catch us on YouTube where we include visuals that bring every case to life, including costumes today. Hello. Welcome back to Crimes of Reddit. In the spooky season. It's here. It's among us. It's within our very own bones.

And if you're watching the video, you might notice that it's transformed us. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't either. We are your co-hosts. I'm Alex, whoa. I'm Alexis. That is incredible. You should have just kept going and really frees people out.

I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga or something else. I'm Alexis Linkletter. Or am I a fruit bat? Who knows? Or am I? Nosephraught, too. Actually, we are dressing costumes. you're listening to this episode, you might want to go check out the YouTube video because we

dressed up for today's episode because if you haven't been able to tell already, we are doing Halloween spooky related stories. And we actually did a costume reveal to one another. We didn't tell each other what we were dressing up as. And we filmed a whole reveal, which we will show you right now or let you listen to. All right. Three, two, one. It's no spirat too. Oh, I should have guessed the hands. Oh my God, you look so good. You look.

I would not have recognized you as a brunette. Like if you were on the street, like, yeah, you're not a brunette. No. You're a blonde. You are not bald, but you are. I am bald. You look gorgeous.

I love it. I'm ready to go out. One thing about me, I love, actually two things about me. I love Halloween and I love a bald cap. Yeah, when it was Sabrina's birth. they recently, she's like, everyone has to wear a bald cap. And I was like, no, I can't do that. You have a good head for a bald cap. Most people do not. I don't think I do. I just enjoy, I like the fact that I don't feel like myself when I'm wearing this attire.

Clearly, I thought I was you. What do you? Honestly, I feel like Nosephiratu. But then I hear my voice and I'm like, well, that doesn't line up. That doesn't work. But I guess the original Nosephirat too is silent movie. So I will not talk the rest of it. I'm just kidding. But like, you really go all out and I really commend you for that. Don't look too closely. But like that's what cool pretty girls do and it's working. Thanks. Well, I like yours is very clever. Thank you. Fruit bat. Yeah. So today we're doing a little like spin, a spooky spin on the theme. Yeah. We're celebrating my favorite holiday, Halloween. And again, since Halloween is around the corner, we went digging for the spookiest most. paranormal crimes that we could find on Reddit. And even though we look different today, it's the same in that we don't know each other's

stories. So we're going to be reacting in real time. In real time. And today we even have a story that was submitted by one of our listeners on our subreddit. Actually, I think it was a story also from a Two Girls One Ghost listener because on a campfire story of stories of Two Girls One Ghost, she was telling us about the story. And I was like, oh my gosh, you have to submit it to our crimes of Reddit. it and she was like, I did. I love that.

And I think that's the one you have. Anywho, get ready. What sound does a bat make? How do you do echolocation? I'm doing it right now. Can you bat? All the bats come blocking. So before we get into this first story, we do want to give a content warning.

There are mentions of child homicide, gun violence, suicide, and a home invasion attempt. So please watch with care. This is a story that was submitted on the subreddit ghost stories. It is called, I think an entity tried to kill my family. And so if this was not made clear, the spin that we have is like these are paranormal adjacent crimes that have a lot of true crime aspects, but a paranormal spin. Ghosts. Goals, goblins. Nospherattos.

Vampires. Could you imagine me haunting you? Like if I was the ghost in your closet? You know, you look scary, but I feel like I could take you. Okay, rude. But also you probably told you could. Yeah, I could. I have grown up in a haunted house.

I have lived there since I was six months old. I am now 19 years old. There are a million possible explanations for the various activities that go on in this house. First, the house is over 120 years old. It was built in 1898. There has also been at least one case of someone dying on the property. The person in question died by suicide in the garage on the property. Additionally, there was one woman who was born in the house and lived there until she was 93,

then went to an assisted living home where she died shortly after leaving the house. So we think it's possible she may have come back to our house after death because her entire life was spent in the house. Additionally, I am an antique collector. I have a number of old and creepy and some do. downright, shall we say, morbid artifacts. I have an authentic mask carved by the Napoli's of the Hindu goddess of death and destruction. I have an antique Russian doll that was owned by a young girl who got sick and then died in the 60s, and it has been said that the doll has paranormal energy attached to it. I have plenty of different masks from the Congo and Africa, which are authentic

and they were sold by a museum that had gone bankrupt. I have coins ranging in age from 100 to 3,000 years old from every continent that created metal coinage in their history. What a cool collection. So cool. I have a couple haunted dolls at home. Why? Because my podcast, Two Girls, One Ghost. Haunted dolls, where did you procure them?

Some people have given them to us, or I purchased two from eBay. And I've never had anything happen. I have no haunted items that you know of. I'm your haunted item. my haunted item for sure. You collected me. Yes. Okay. O.P. says, and perhaps most morbid of all, I have a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair. Whoa. And a fragment of wood of the gallows where the conspirators in his assassination were hung. Whoa. I have questions. The point is, there are a lot of things in my household which carry the potential to have a lot of spiritual energy. And we have had plenty of experiences with

different entities, which proves there is some sort of activity in this house. There's a picture included in this story. Ooh. None of the entities we have ever experienced have ever been or tried to be harmful. They have been somewhat threatening in nature before. Like one morning we woke up to find a knife stabbed into the floor of the kitchen. It was an exacto knife that was still in its case, but it had hit the ground with enough force that the case had shattered. So the knife's just like. That's really strange. Yeah. But there have never been any outright attempts to harm anyone or anything in this house until this event. So, what happened this night?

Happened in two separate parts, sort of. It's kind of difficult to explain, and there's no true way of knowing if what happened downstairs preceded what happened in my room, or if it happened after, or if it happened at the same time. But the point is, these two things happened, and I believe they were definitely linked no matter what order they happened in. It all started out, for me at least, when I woke up in my bedroom at around 3 a.m. I didn't look at my phone, so I don't know the exact time. I looked at my phone after all of it had happened. And at that time, it was 3.21 a.m.

So O.P. assumes they woke up at 3. What happened couldn't have taken more than 8 minutes. So I woke up, and I realized that my lights were out, which is strange. I have very bad paranoia when it comes to the dark, and as a result, I have to sleep with some sort of light on. And whenever I wake up and that light is out, which is very rare, but once in a while it's due to a storm because my part of town can lose power. But when it happens, I wake up and I freak out. So as soon as I came out of my tired stupor, I instantly began to toss and turn trying to fiddle with my light. Most of the time, the light has just gone out to a momentary loss of power, and so I just need to turn it back on.

But this time, I felt around for the light, and when I hit the button to turn it back on, nothing happened. So I grabbed my phone to give some light and saw that had been pulled out of the wall entirely. This has never happened before, and I found it extremely creepy. I tried to brush it off, I plugged the light back into the wall, and I tried to lay back down to go to sleep. But I couldn't. I think everybody has probably at some point in their life had that indescribable feeling of being watched. And I had that feeling. It was just so innate and obvious that I couldn't ignore it.

So I laid there on my bed with my eyes splitting open in chat for a minute or two before I flipped over. That was when I saw this long, lanky shadow peeking in through the doorway of my room. It had long black finger-like tendrils protruding from black limbs as thin as a twig. It was anthropomorphic in shape. I stared at it. And though it didn't have any discernible eyes, I could tell it was staring. at me. I couldn't look away. I was afraid of what it might do if I turned away from it. And it dropped to the floor on its hands and knees and began crawling towards my bed. It crawled around the foot of my

bed and around to the side where I could see its head again, but still, no face. My bed is placed against a wall on one side, and I pushed myself up against the wall as far away from where this thing is as possible. I closed my eyes and I started murmuring under my breath, telling it to go away. I didn't want to wake up or alarm my family, so I tried to stay quiet. And after I stayed huddled for like maybe two or three minutes, although it felt like an eternity, I opened my eyes and that thing that had been there was gone. Not a single trace of it. I straightened back out on my bed, utterly shaken by what I had seen. It was easily the most terrifying thing I had experienced in a long, long time. I tried to fall back

asleep, although I knew it was pointless. It took until 7 a.m. maybe for me to fall back asleep finally. And even then, it was probably only for an hour. And when I woke up, I went downstairs to find my mom already awake. She was already a morning person, so this is not out of the ordinary. But she had some news, which made what I had witnessed the night prior even more disturbing. She said, at some point during the night, the gas from our stovetop turned itself on. And so the entire night natural gas had been leaking out through our house, which I don't know

if that could pose a potential suffocation hazard, but I do know it's a massive hazard for explosions. She had opened all the windows and turned on some fans and air circulators to try and get the gas out and dissipate as much of it as possible, but she didn't want to wake me up. Even though she had been airing everything out, I could still smell that faint whiff of the natural gas hanging in the air, which very seriously could have wound up being deadly had there been a candle burning or had someone turned on a lighter at the very wrong moment. Luckily, that was not the case, but we wasted no time in cleansing our house. We put up a few crosses and let any malevolent presences know that they are not welcome. Thankfully, nothing dangerous or aggressive like that has

happened since, but it is still something that has terrified me for quite some time now. And then they put a photo to kind of back up other hauntings that they've experienced in their house. And as context, this is a photo that was taken in the back room of their house by a night vision camera long after everyone in the house had gone upstairs to bed. It's on an entirely different floor than where everyone sleeps. And the apparition is clear as day. So we have two things to dissect here. Do you see the human being? I see like two different things. What do you see? This is what I'm looking at, like right here. So I see a woman here, but I see a face here. Oh, where's the face?

So I see a woman's body there. Yeah. But I sort of like see in the like fog. Yeah. Like that's what I thought. It looks almost like, you know when a shutter speed and a camera is turned really slow. Yeah. It almost looks like the path of a face is like being traced and then it's like right there.

Ooh. I see two like ghost figures. The woman is so clear. The woman is crystal clear. Like that looks like a human woman walking around. But this looks like. like some sort of ghost to me. I see more than one thing.

Yeah. That's terrifying. Because that's like a photo of a woman. That's like a, like someone could recognize that if that was their mom. Yeah. What do you think about the entity potentially trying to like kill the family? So you tell me, like, have you heard about these tendril entities? Like, is that recognizable?

Yeah. I've never heard of, are they demons? There's so many different types of entities. Listen, here's what I will say. doing two-year-girls one-goose podcasts for nine years and the one thing I can confidently say is that I don't know anything about anything can they take whatever form they want he's I don't know I don't I don't know the rules I don't know the rules come I think you must know you think I know and I'm just not telling me I don't know like I wonder if you're a ghost can you be like if you can dream it you can do it type thing

listen I want that to be the case because I would be an amazing ghost I know like I'm I hope there's no rules and like all the rules that I want there to be because I would I would show up like this. Yeah, you'd have to. Yeah. Or Voldemort. Or Gallum. That's all different iterations of the same thing.

Yeah. A scary bald cap entity in your home. I don't know. I mean, it definitely sounds like this does align with a lot of stories where people wake up in the middle of night have a feeling that someone's watching them. Usually it's associated or brought along, brought on. with some version of sleep paralysis. And then, yeah, there are these, like, amorphous, like, smoky black, long, tendril-like entities.

But the whole, like, dropping to its hands and knees, does it have hands? Or is it just its appendages. Well, it's appendages. Hands in quotes. Well, we've talked about this. You believe in the paranormal. Mm-hmm. Do you think this was a paranormal experience?

Yeah. What's interesting, though, is, like, so we see this. entity in a human form on this night vision camera, I always wonder if it's like some push, pull, like battle between okay, safe, neutral entities and the dark ones. Because you see some of that depicted in like film, right? Where it's like there's bad demons, there's good spirits. Like, it sounds like something like that is going on, especially since O.P. talked about like harmless haunting up until that point. Yeah. And it's like maybe, maybe like a portal opened. and that dark one got in.

I agree. Then the others, like, maybe the other ones are good ones, and they're like, not tonight. Yeah. Tendril. Or Tendril just was really strong and came in guns of blaring. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do agree.

I feel like this house just has a lot of energy, and this is not the one that's hanging out all the time. No. So one comment people were bringing up a couple times in this post was maybe the gas leaked caused hallucinations and sleep disturbance, which, yes. That could be possible, but I feel like if the gas was leaking for that long, more people in the house would have had some type of disturbance. Or if you're like me and you want to say, hey, it's paranormal, did this evil entity do both things? Yeah, that's a great hypothesis. And also, if you're listening and you don't believe in ghosts, totally fine.

You can just enjoy this as a fun story. Okay, and then someone else commented, I almost wonder if something good unplugged your light. knowing that this thing was coming to push it over and possibly cause an explosion, which is super creepy. And then OP wrote, oh, damn, that's an interesting thought. It was a near indestructible LED light, so they don't think it was the case. But then someone else said, I wonder if this thing was trying to mess with the outlet somehow to cause some type of spark, which OP was also like, didn't consider that, perhaps. Scary. Yeah. What would you do in that situation? Die? Like, I don't know. that sounds honestly I've never been in a situation you've had sleep paralysis though I've seen yeah but that

wasn't danger that was like what I experienced was like warped and like a distorted and strange but like not it wasn't didn't feel in danger it was like a dreamlike state that I was in but I was definitely awake but like I've never been in a situation of like sheer terror where someone is in my doorway that I don't recognize or or something I see and then like every once in a while you miss a while you miss mistakenly see something out of the corner of your eye, but then you look and it's not what you thought. Yeah. I've never been like, whoop, yep, and it's coming, you know. I've never had, like, something that intense happened to me. So it's hard to say. I really don't know. Yeah, I don't think I've ever had that intense, but I've had quite a lot of paranormal experiences. Well, you, you will

it to yourself. It's self-fulfilling for you. Most of them happened before I ever had a podcast about the paranormal. And then the scariest thing that did happen in recent years was I for sure put one that followed you home from, was it Scotland? I went to Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, Scotland, and there's this tomb for Bloody McKenzie, and there's this like, kind of like Bloody Mary type of game that you can play, and you're supposed to whisper it into the tomb. And our tour guide was like, who wants to play a game? And stupidly, I'm there by myself. I raised my hand, and I was like, I do.

then immediately I was like, why did I do that? And then I verbatim said the, like, it's basically mocking and beckoning bloody McKenzie to haunt you. It's like, come and get me. But the whole time I was saying it in my head, I was yelling, I was like, I'm joking, I don't mean it, don't come. And I got sleep paralysis that night and a terrifying entity tried to, I don't know, move my legs. It did something very strange. You'd restless leg syndrome. No, wait, literally I felt like ankles, or I felt like hands grabbed my ankles and started

pulling my legs apart and I could not move my body. What did it want? I think it was trying to terrify me. It was truly trying to instill fear. And it did. It did just that, but it was my fault. You know, we all need to leave and learn. You need to be humbled every once in a while. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That's our first story. There are true crime cases that feel like everyone is talking about them. They're in your feed, your group chats. There are the cases that come up the second. the conversation turns to true crime. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Immemous Crimes, and now every Saturday I'm bringing you a new kind of episode called Headline.

Each week, I'm digging into the case dominating the conversation, starting with Micah Miller, whose death became the subject of Netflix's death of a pastor's wife. You'll get the full story, always with the victim at the center. Follow America's Most Invenous Crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and listen to Headline every Saturday. Subscribe to Crimehouse Studios for a new headline episode every Saturday. I mean, I like that these are paranormal stories and not stories of like suffering. That's true. That had a happy ending.

Like, O'K is okay. That's true. Yeah, I will take a ghost or a demon any day over human predators. Now, our second story, are we ready? Mm-hmm. So our second story is tied to a killer that you might be familiar with. Oh. In fact, I think most people will at least have some name recognition tied to the antagonist.

But you may have seen the Ryan Murphy show. Ed Gein? That's the one. Or the Lizzie Borden one? No, it's the Gein. Ed Gein starring Charlie Hunnam. He did a phenomenal job. I like how you did a hair flip for Charlie Hunnam.

You're like, in case he's watching. Now your hair's on your wing. Look away, Charlie. Okay. So this was posted for. five years ago in The Ghost Story's Reddit. And this one is short, but it's definitely chilling and definitely worth unpacking. Okay.

So Opie says this. Most people here are probably aware of the story of Ed Gein. For those that aren't, he was a small town handyman who confessed to murdering two women in addition to stealing numerous bodies from their graves. That's not really what he's known for. No. He's not most known for the murders, although those were horrific. he was most known for what he would do with body parts.

The lampshades. Nipple belts, the furniture. He made things. He made like bowls out of skulls. He did really weird stuff. He was grave robbing because he had a fascination with body parts. And he was deeply mentally ill. Yes.

Yes. Anyways, O.P. continues. So one of the women he murdered was the owner of the local hardware, which she shot and killed her. That building still stands today. Now, it's worth mentioning these murders occurred in the 50s. So they're quite old. Now, O.P. says their story happened 20 years ago from five years ago. So this is an old story. And the context there is that this building has had a lot of iterations, has changed quite a lot since the original hardware store where this murder occurred. Okay. So O.P continues. I live in that same town, and it was just a little bit of. It was just a lot. It was

just before Thanksgiving when this happened. I had already started decorating my place for Christmas, and I needed to replace some of the lights. So I just made a quick trip to the hardware store for a couple of boxes. I knew the building was rumored to be haunted by the murdered woman. But I never... I know. Because she was murdered there.

In the building. Yeah. But Opie says, I never put much stock in that. So they go to the store. I was in the back area where they kept the Christmas decorations. and was about to grab the lights when I heard someone nearby saying something about antifreeze. So? I turned my head.

Oh, that's chilling. I turned my head and saw a woman walking by, and the woman had a massive gunshot wound in her head. Didn't Ed Gein ask for antifreeze? Like, didn't he come in with that as his cover story? Yeah. She then suddenly disappeared. So O.P. says I just stood there in shock for a good minute. When I finally made my way to the front of the store to pay for the lights,

the guy behind the counter took one look at my face and simply said, you saw her, didn't you? Yeah. Whoa. Now, like you said, I mean, the victim who was murdered in the hardware store, her name was Bernie's warden. And yes, Gine purchased a gallon of antifreeze from Warden's hardware store when he murdered her, and he actually kept the receipt.

And the receipt was written in the victim's handwriting and later found at the scene and it actually led to his arrest. His arrest and how they figured out it was him. Now, some more context on Gein for those who just don't know. I'm pretty sure episode one of crimes of that Corinne and I covered was Ed Gein. So in this audio feed, if you want to go back and listen to that episode. I love that. It was very thorough. So some more context about Gein.

He confessed to killing another woman who owned the local tavern, and her name was Mary Hogan. And he did that in 1954. And many believe that he also murdered his older brother. When he was arrested, he was deemed insane initially. And he remained in a mental hospital until his death in 1984, though he did eventually stand trial for one of the murders 10 years after he was arrested. And a lot of film and movies and books were sort of based on Gein, including Psycho, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the Silence of the Lambs. Because Silence of the Lambs specifically, I feel like they made like skin lamps in that movie.

And there were several documentaries created about them as well. Damn, I can't believe, I feel so sad that her spirit is still there. I know. How do you relinquish a spirit from those shackles? Again, I don't have all the answers. Because there's also different types of hauntings. There's the residual hauntings where someone, maybe it's just like a stain, an energetic stain. And it's like her last moments after such a traumatic, or when a traumatic thing happened

that like it just is on a repeat. It's like an imprint. Yeah. She might not fully be there. Her spirit might be gone, but it's sort of stuck in an astral plane. Yeah. Which is what I hope it is because I would hate to think that someone who is a victim of such a horrible crime is stuck reliving. those moments. Locked in that moment. Yeah. I also do believe, and I think this happens with like human

beings as well, that parts of us or energy pieces of us do chip off when something like really traumatic happens or even like something really, really good happens. Like I think back to a moment in the house that I grew up in where something like traumatic happened to me, sometimes I wonder if the people who live there now ever experienced hauntings in that like one room in the basement where it happened. Probably. I feel like you can definitely keep energy stays in houses. I mean, it's why people sage rooms. Yes. Like, this is all rooted in tradition and history and people really believing that, probably because it's true. Yeah. Agreed. There are a couple of comments we should go through. Okay. So one poster said, I thought the store was closed. Hasn't it been closed for years.

At any rate, it might be time for you guys to seek a shaman or medium to help her. and any other victims were not at rest. The OP responded and said the store remained open under different names and under different owners until it finally closed down for good about seven or eight years ago. Now it's vacant, which is even creepier. And another user said, I drove through Plainfield some years ago with the buddy of mine, stopped at a local bar restaurant. As soon as we walked in, everyone looked at us and it took forever for us to get served. The town gives me the creeps. Yeah, I've never been there, so I don't know.

No, but the O.P said that's pretty much. much plainfields in a nutshell. Yeah, which is sad also that that history has like made such an imprint on what the town is still to this day. And interesting, one of the users also had the same theory as you. One posted, the only thing I'm curious about is the ghost of the woman in the hardware store is she, if she is a residual haunting or playing over and over, if she ever has been known to interact with the living. It's a good question, especially because the guy at the front of the store knew instantly you saw her, didn't you? Me, in implying that he has had multiple encounters with her.

Yeah. And that she seems to be doing the same thing. Probably the same dress, pacing around, all that stuff. Oh, yeah. That's chilling. But the O.P. says she's a residual haunting. The last person she'd interacted with was Gien himself. How often do people see her?

O.P. says it's at least once or twice a month, but now that the building's vacant, I guess nobody sees her. But if she's residual, that's okay. because it's not like it's an act of haunting who's then lonely. I was going to ask, and I literally have a, I wrote this question in, what happens when a ghost is haunting a structure? And then what if the structure knocks down or is demolished or is never like entered again? Like does the ghost just keep haunting?

No one? Or is it goes back to the question? If it's perceived. Like, is it like a tree falls in the woods? Did anyone hear it? Like, did it make a sound? Well, I think this goes to, like, we had this conversation when you were on Two Girls and Ghost of there are so many things that the human eye cannot perceive. Like, cats and animals see colors on a different spectrum than we do.

They hear sounds that we, and frequencies that we literally cannot hear. So if us humans are not perceiving them, I imagine the pets are still. Yeah. But I don't know what happens to them. Because there's stories where spirits can travel. Then there's also stories where spirits are like stuck in one place that I, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Great mysteries of the world.

One day we'll have answers. And if we don't, in this lifetime, don't worry, I'll haunt everyone in the future. And I will make it even more confusing. All right. Are you ready for the next one? Yeah. Did you know the most feared pirate in the Atlantic? The man who terrorized an entire ocean for years may never have actually killed anyone,

or that the real golden age of pirates was the most democratic workplace in the Western world. I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum, and history is my thing. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact. Every week, we take the most unbelievable true things in history and tell you the whole story behind them. Carter sets the scene? Connor brings the facts, the deep cuts, and the genuine belief that this is the most interesting subject in the world. It is, this is the history lesson you actually wished you had in high school. New episodes every Wednesday.

Follow What the Fact on Apple Podcast. Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, music, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod. The government gets a bad reputation, but did you know that the roads under your feet, the forecast on your phone, the letter in your mailbox, that's all government too. I'm Professor Lindsay Cormack, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Government That Doesn't Suck, alongside Professor Greg Jackson, who you may know from the hit podcast, History That Doesn't Suck. Each episode, we dig into the surprising story of an American institution. From the origins of the internet to the National Park Service to the GI Bill and so much more.

You'll hear the stories behind them, plus a conversation with an expert who knows it inside and out. This is the real history of how we built the country under your feet, and you'll never look at any of it the same way again. Listen to and follow, government that doesn't suck, available now wherever you get your podcasts. I was excited for this story because it has both a true crime and a paranormal aspect. And it is called, did a ghost help me solve a murder, or is it all a coincidence? This was posted on the paranormal subreddit 10 months ago. Ooh, recent. Yes, but I do think this story happened back in the 90s.

Okay. Quick warning, this really happened and does involve the death of a young girl, so content warning. And they also write that they're not putting any names in this story, and they asked anyone in the comments to not try to find the name. the name in case people from the case or connected to the case are still alive. So they wrote, I'll be vague on the details. But this is a story I've kept since I was eight and I kind of need some sort of closure. As I mentioned, I was eight years old when this happened. It was the late 90s. My mom and I went to the grocery store and while there we found these missing person pliers for a girl my age. When I saw it, I wanted to take it home because the girl

had curly hair and I wanted to try and draw it. Also, little me figured if I saw her, her at school or something, I would recognize her. I took the fire back to my home, which had a concrete porch. And as context, there was definitely already something very wrong with our house. I often felt paranoid or I saw shadowy figures staring at the end of the hallway. I once got a bad scratch on my back despite sleeping in a bed surrounded by stuffed animals. And there were dead baby birds around the house all the time. That is, dead birds is always bad. Yes. The concrete porch was also very odd, since it was like a huge brick of painted concrete and was the only of its kind that I ever saw. My mom also tells me that I was always terrified of that house, and though I vividly

remember the many reasons why, it always struck me as odd that I was the only one affected. And I had a younger sister as well who never seemed impacted by it. On this day, I went to my room and I laid on my stomach on my floor with colored pencils, a blank piece of paper, and that flyer of the missing girl. Not five minutes in the same. into drawing, I was overcome with that sort of fear you get when someone is yelling at you. And with that, I felt a presence behind me. And in my mind, there was this persistent shouting. But again, in my head, this voice was saying, she's not missing. She's with her mom. She's not missing. She's with her mom. Tell someone. Tell them she's not missing. She's with her mom.

Again, there's no actual noise out loud, but it was ringing in my mind so clearly and I felt so scared that I was paralyzed and couldn't move. Eventually, I finished the picture and that yelling voice in my head died down. But the phrase was so insistent and I knew it wouldn't go away until I told someone. So I rushed out of my room and down the hallway to my mom. I showed her the picture and then I told her, Hey, Mom, I don't think that this girl is missing. I think she's with her mom.

My mom tried to reassure me that she was probably fine, but I looked out the dark window and suddenly became very very, aware of how our city was surrounded by deep woods. I tried to tell myself that if the girl really is with her mom, that surely she'd be fine. But then I kept thinking about the woods and my heart had this cold sinking feeling. Which is so sad for an eight-year-old to be devastating. This is like heavy for a kid. Yeah. Years had passed. We moved out of the house and then less than a year later, that house mysteriously caught fire. According to my research, it was renovated only to mysteriously burned down a second time. A new house was placed on that land, but whenever I'm visiting my hometown,

I can find it again because it still has that concrete porch. It had been about 10 years later, and I was watching Forensic Files Reruns, and there was an episode about my hometown and an eight-year-old girl that went missing while waiting for the school bus. Her father called the police and described what she was wearing almost too accurately. One of the officers warned the dad that the officer knew it was him and that he'd find out eventually, which this scared the dad enough to drive into the woods, stay there for a few hours, then drive even deeper into the woods before going home. The cop secretly placed a tracker on the dad's car, and the police went to the two points of interest and found the body of his daughter. It had been dug up from the first spot and then

buried deeper at the second. Turns out the little girl was never missing to begin with and had been with the dad. And just to clarify, this is a different case than the flyer that O.P. had seen with his mom, but it sounds so similar. The episode had the girl's uncle there to give his point of view, so her mother's brother. He expressed how he knew the girl's dad was no good and how scared his sister was of him before she, too, had gone missing some years before, but was never found. An interesting thing that was stated in the episode, though, is that the girl's dad was a construction worker for residential homes, again, in O.P.'s hometown, and his specific job

was in concrete. Weird. Despite my experiences, I do still hold a very fair level of skepticism. So here are a few important notes. My mom confirmed that this house that I lived in was very run down and contained black mold, which can cause psychosis and hallucinations among other health dangers. So even though I do find it odd that I was the only one of four apparently affected by these paranormal experiences, I very well could have been hallucinating during our time there.

I also am known for having a very overactive imagination. I also remember in the winter, the windows would freeze inside because of how poorly insulated the home was. And there was faulty wiring that could have certainly explained the reason or the house burning down, at least the first time. The mold could also maybe explain the birds. Does it? I don't know. Is it like ingesting it? I don't know.

Still, all of these instances have very valid explanations. But as a young, bright-eyed eight-year-old, I could never imagine a parent to ever harm the own child. This message I heard happened on the day she went missing, and the message was so clear in my head, and I have never before or since had such an urge like I did that night. It really felt like furious, insistent, distraught screaming, except with no actual sound. So, what do you think, Reddit? Could there have been a ghost of a mother begging me to tell my own mother where to find her daughter or I don't know is it completely separate and are there skeletal remains under the concrete of that house that I lived in or was everything just a mix of coincidences and psychosis

caused by a house that was most certainly not up to code maybe all all the above it's a hard one it's really hard to know yeah it's a very very sad story it's so sad and there are plenty of stories of psychics and mediums working with police to like try to solve cases and not to say that every time it's successful or that every person who does that is legit. But this does seem like just a child, an innocent child who's like tapping into something. Yeah. And so someone in the comments wrote, no one knows why certain things happen to certain people. Personally, I think some people are just more intuitive or sensitive than others. This can change throughout your life, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. But throughout my life, I've realized that proximity

bears a strong role in such things as well as association. O.P. wrote, So do you think that I might have actually experienced something? I think my biggest struggle has been wondering if this might be a solid example of paranormal activity or if I'm overlooking some obvious explanation of sort. And the reply from the commenter was, yes, children are always more susceptible to the paranormal,

in my honest opinion. Yeah, I buy that. Yeah. Fascinating. Right. So I don't know. I don't know, what's your take, ghost expert? It very much could have been a message.

It could have been some spirit coming in to communicate. I'd be curious. I would have a lot of questions to ask, like, what did the voice sound like? Did it sound, was it female? Was it male? Did it sound like a little kid? Was it the spirit of the child being like, I'm not missing? Maybe all spirits do it, but we don't know because they're not perceived.

The messages aren't perceived. Like maybe every victim of violent crime like sends out. Yeah. Maybe their energy radiates. And it's like you just don't hear unless you're capable of perceiving it. Like in this case. Which must be so frustrating if you're a spirit. I know. They might even know.

It might be just like something echoes through the universe when such wrongdoing and pain energy exists. There is this one infamous case. It's a true crime case. It is formerly known as the Greenbrier. ghost and her name is Zona He's her shoe and she was murdered back in back in the day, early days of America. And it's the one time in history that a ghost's testimony was used in trial to convict her killer. But had she not, she like visited her mom night after night after her death. And because of it, her mom like begged people in town to look at her body again. And they

They exhumed her body and re-examined it and proved that she was actually murdered by her husband, who otherwise would have gotten away with it. That's crazy. Yeah. I'm going to look into that. It's a cool case. I love that. Our next story is from our subreddit, R-slash Crimes of Pod. You guys are giving us the good stories.

And the one we're talking about today is one of those. So it was posted very recently. Okay. O.P.'s username is flower underscore princess underscore 101. I love. I also think this was when we specifically asked for stories about Halloween and paranormal. That's right. Okay, shall I commence? Please. My cousin Miranda and I lived with our grandmom after college because honestly, the alternative was moving back in with our parents. We both have a pretty serious case of eldest daughter syndrome. Me too. So going home meant slipping right back into that role, along with all the responsibility, anxiety, and childhood baggage that comes with it.

Grandmom's house felt like freedom. Ooh. About a year before this happened, grandmom had lost her longtime partner, Ray. He died in a fireworks accident on the 4th of July. That's so sad. Right in the front yard. Devastating, I can't even imagine. It was awful for our family.

Jeez. But also for the whole neighborhood because he was one of those people everyone knew and loved. So sad. Hooray. So sometime around May of 2015, one of my cousins' aunts had a blue moon party. Do you know what those are? So like a once in a blue moon party? Yeah, but it aligns with the blue moon. Yeah. Do you do that? I probably do witchy things on those days. On Long Island, it was a thing. My family used to have them too. I don't know why. Jersey, no, they didn't do those? No. We had mischief night. That's fun. So sometimes time around May of 2015, one of my cousin's aunts had a blue moon party. It happened to be during

an actual blue moon. So we spent the night drinking blue moon. I love that. Wow. During meta. Yeah. Under the night's sky and having a great time. I'm going to go to one of these parties. Yeah. I'll host one. Yes. Next time. Eventually it got late and we decided to head home. Her aunt lived at the top of a pretty steep hill. So we'd use the emergency break when we parked the car. When we went to leave, the damn thing got stuck. We tried everything, and eventually the car alarm started going off at 1 a.m. In a quiet residential neighborhood. Her uncle came out and helped us get it unstuck, which delayed us even more.

At the time, it was just annoying. Looking back, that part really bothers me. By the time we got back to grandmoms, it was ridiculously late. And full disclosure, we were stoner kids. Grandmom had five dogs who would go absolutely insane if you even looked at the doorknob wrong, so we decided to smoke one last time in the car before going inside. We turned the car off, took the keys out, rolled up the windows, and smoked. When we finished, we just sat there talking.

We were best friends. We'd had a long night, and we were still a little wired from the party in the whole car alarm situation. Then the radio turned on. By itself. The car was completely off. The keys weren't even in the ignition, and neither of us had touched anything. We both jumped and started looking around trying to figure out what the hell was happening. Then I looked in the rear view mirror.

There were two people walking toward our car. Both were wearing ski masks, and both were carrying crow bars. Oh my gosh. They were coming straight toward us. I remember being strangely calm. I looked at Miranda and said, Start the car right now. There are two people with masks behind us.

She started the car and the headlights came on. The two men froze. They clearly had no idea we were sitting inside. There were only a few feet away. And I genuinely believe they were seconds from smashing the windows. Instead, they turned around and ran down the street. We sat there in complete shock before calling the non-emergency police line in making a report.

Good on you. have called the emergency line. Yeah, for sure. Here's the part I still can't explain. If that radio hadn't turned itself on, I don't think I would have looked in the rearview mirror. We would have just kept sitting there talking, completely unaware that anyone was behind us until they were already at the windows. I know there's probably a perfectly normal explanation for a car radio turning itself on. Is there? When the car's off? That's what I'm saying, is there? I don't think so. I'm sure someone could explain the electrical mechanics of it, but Miranda and I both believe with 100% certainty that Ray was looking out

for us that night. Because remember, he passed away in the front yard. The emergency break delayed us, and then the radio made me look up. Somehow those two completely bizarre things put us in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. I don't know what happened that night. I just know that if the radio hadn't turned on, the story could have ended very differently. Well, yeah, because at first I was like, why were they delayed? Like, why would you want them to be in that position? But then maybe it, it prevented so much other worse stuff from happening or someone else from, like, actually being harmed or hurt. Yeah. I mean, there's this burnt toast theory that people talk about where sometimes things like that happen to save you. And it's someone, maybe a spirit saving you from

something they know is going to, they know it's going to happen. Like, I always think about Seth Marlin. Yes. And I hate actually. actually talking about this story because why was he? I know. You know, why? There are a lot of people, though, same situation on that day who had bad feelings. If you don't know, if you don't know 9-11, Seth McFarlane was supposed to be on one of those flights that hit one of the towers, and he missed it by 10 minutes. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. It's an interesting way to like look at something optimistically, something bad happens, like something unfortunate, like a misflight or you forgot your passport. Try to think of it like that. You never know. I've had this

conversation quite a lot because, I mean, not to get too in the weeds here or too woo-woo, but it does bring up the question of like destiny and fate and is our future predetermined. And I like to think, no, like I like to think that we have free will and choice. But then there are certain things that happen that make you wonder or question what is predetermined. And then it brings up the secondary conversation of why are some people given these messages or these signs or these delays that do end up saving them and other people don't have those. Yeah, I'm not sure I believe in like faded scenarios.

I think it's nice to think that there is. But like using again 9-11 horrible tragedy as an example, my mom was there the day before at the time that it happened at a meeting like super high up for this charity that she worked with. And it's like it could have. it could have been the day before. Right. But I don't believe she was saved.

I don't believe that happened for her. You know, like that would be such a arrogant, and my mom's watching. Love you, Mom. It would be so arrogant to think that, like, Seth McFarlane would have been, someone would have stepped in. Right. An entity would have stepped in to save him. Like, everyone's just as deserving. But even like this situation, or we've had stories on two girls when a ghost where someone's about to walk out the door and their kid.

who like doesn't usually throw tantrums, throws like the most insane tantrum, or yeah, the radio goes off, or their car doesn't start. And thank goodness all those things happened because had they been on that road, this horrible car accident like pile up happened. Yeah. At the time that they should have been there had they not been delayed. Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of questions. But I do feel like there is a lot of, I do believe in spirit intervention, but I have the question of like why why can some spirits intervene and others can't maybe they all try but it's only what works like i don't think everything say they are trying to intervene to save you not everything's going to work that's true you know it's like it's only as receptive as you want to be to it like say your

toast gets burnt you're not going to some people wouldn't make another piece of toast some people are just going anyway they're they're like i won't eat then like think about all the things like the opportunities you have to be late that like then you speed right like yeah yeah because then there's the other conversations where it's like are you ignoring all the signs yeah and i for sure have done that like i've asked my grandma for signs and then i'm like i don't know what the signs are and other people are like you idiot that's what else did you need yeah yeah i don't know i'm pretty ADD i'm probably missing all the signs like i don't think i've ever seen a sign no no no yeah but I really do believe in that story that Ray saved.

Not only them, but also saved other people. Well, and then you hear about, like, how traumatized neighborhood was because he was, like, that guy who helped everyone with, like, of course Ray saved them. Yeah. Like, that sounds like that kind of guy he is. Yeah. Oh, I hope your grandma's okay. I know.

What a sad way to lose someone. Well, that was fun. Oh, my God. I love that. A little, like, mix of true crime with the paranormal. Yeah. sometimes the ghosts were the culprits, sometimes the ghosts were saving people, and we had a lot of questions, which I don't know, maybe we'll never get answered until I really, when I die, want the answers to everything. Sure. But I'll keep them to myself. Why? Like, if that's the option, it's like you can learn all the secrets, but you can't tell anyone, I just want to know. You wouldn't want to, I mean, I'm dead. Like, who else? Who may I tell? Dead friends. Well, as long as they know, too. Would they? I'll find the right people. I'll find the ones who know. I'll be on the, I like to say I'll be on the, start the club. I'll be a part of the Grim Reaper team. Yes. Yeah, Grimming and reaping. I have a question. I feel like a question that's asked all the time is man or bear. What about human or ghost? What do you want?

Ghost? What do you prefer? Yeah, ghost, me too. But I'm curious. I like, I like a lot of humans, though. I, okay. But it's a crapshoot. So I think ghost is always safer than. I'll say insidious human. Insidious human. Or ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Yeah. Even insidious human versus insidious ghost, I think I would still pick insidious ghost. Yeah, because you're not going to deal with them all the time.

Right. Just when they feel like flaring up. And I think I would probably annoy them. Yeah, they'd leave. Yeah, they'd be like, oh my God, you're so annoying. You can't deal with you. Yeah. Yeah. So let us know what you would pick in the comments. And then also if you have stories that relate to you. this theme or are just any personal true crime experience that you've had, bad roommates, horrible,

like secrets that you've learned about people that are crime-related, please share these stories with us on our subreddit, which is Crimes of Pod. Hell yeah. And come back next week. And the week after that. Forever. And the week after that, for eternity. Thank you for joining us for Crimes of Reddit, a Crime House original.

Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at Crime House. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Crimes of Reddit. Wherever you get your podcast, your feedback truly makes the difference. We like to hear what you think. And if you find a Reddit story that you'd like us to cover, leave a comment and maybe we'll feature it in a future episode. We'll be back next Tuesday to poll at more Reddit threads. We will see you then.

Yes. See you soon. Bye threadheads. Bye. The police closed my sister's case in 2019. Last month, her killer commented on my post. On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves.

People post the things they never say out loud, anonymous, unfiltered, and completely real. And every Tuesday, on crimes of Reddit, we read them out loud. I'm Sabrina Deanna Roga from two girls, one ghost. And I'm Alexis Linkletter from the first degree. Each week, one of us brings the most unhinged true crime. stories the internet has to offer. And the other goes in completely blind. No prep, no spoilers, reacting in real time, same as you. And then we swap. And we pull every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view. It's dark. It's messy. And the scariest part is that these are real

stories, posted by real people. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What The Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What The Fact Pod.