MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Monsters Among Us Vol. IV

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Today’s podcast will feature 3 stories that will make you wonder how many monsters you may have encountered in your life. The audio from all three stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#3 -- "Mercy Road" -- A sinister secret hides in a nightly news report (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKeWsdjvnGc)#2 -- "The Woman in a Wrinkled Dress" -- A security guard searches for a dangerous criminal at the Canadian border (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miq7GLDrgVg&t=1s)#1 -- "Striking a Discord" -- The line between fantasy and reality is blurred for a group of online gamers (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcWArGuE1Os)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's podcast will feature three stories that will make you wonder how many monsters you may have encountered in your life. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Mercy Road, and it's about, a sinister secret that is hiding inside of a nightly news report.

The second story you'll hear is called The Woman in a Rinkled Dress, and it's about a Border Patrol officer who searches for a dangerous criminal at the Canadian border. And the third and final story you'll hear is called striking a discord, and it's about how the line between fantasy and reality is blurred for a group of online gamers. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right.

right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please adjust the Amazon Music Follow buttons power seats inside of their car to a very uncomfortable position and then rip out the fuse. Okay, let's get into our first story called Mercy Road. On the evening of December 29, 1986, a California Highway Patrol officer named Craig Pire drove his cruiser down Interstate 15 in San Diego, California. With him was an NBC News reporter in the backseat, and there was a camera. man in the passenger seat. They were filming a segment about highway travel safety that was set to air on the evening news later that night. Officer Pire was following his typical patrol route,

but after a few minutes, they passed by a sign that said Mercy Road, it was an exit, and at that point, Officer Pire turned to the news team, pointed at Mercy Road, and said, that's where they found the body. So a little more than 36 hours earlier at around 4 a.m. the previous morning, a 20-year-old college student named Kara Not, had been found strangled to death in a creek right near the Mercy Road exit. Kara had been on her way home from her boyfriend's house when, for whatever reason, you know, maybe car troubles or maybe she was trying to help someone, but she wound up in that cul-de-sac, and then while she was there, she clearly encountered someone dangerous who took her life. And so this was actually why the California Highway Patrol and NBC News were collaborating

on this news segment, because Kara's killer was still not caught. And so the idea behind the segment was basically to tell drivers along this highway like how to stay safe while they were out there, especially if for whatever reason they had to stop somewhere along the highway, like what to do in that situation. And so as Officer Pire passed by the Mercy Road exit and continued down Interstate 15, he turned to the news crew and as they filmed, he began talking about the basics of highway travel safety. Specifically, he said, look, one of the most hazardous things that can happen to you beyond an accident on the highway is if you have some sort of car trouble, that forces you to stop on the highway.

Because once you stop, there's an inclination for a lot of people to want to leave their vehicle. But that's a very dangerous thing to do. Officer Pyer also warned people not to get into a stranger's car because there was a running theory at this point that perhaps Kara had gotten into her killer's car. As this particular segment was filmed, Officer Pire was looking ahead

and he noticed there was a car pulled over on the shoulder of the highway with its hazards on, so he turned to the news crew and basically said, look, here's a chance for us to actually show the people in real time what to do in case your car breaks down on the highway. So he pulled his cruiser over right behind this stalled car, he got out, and then gestured for the news crew to come with him. Officer Pire walked over to the passenger side door of this car and through the open window, he asked the driver to get out and talk to him. The driver did, and as the camera rolled, Officer Pire asked him to explain,

you know, what's going on here, what happened to your car. The driver said he had run a gas and then gotten stranded on the side of the road. And then he had left his car and walked to a gas station to get a gas can, came all the way back, he put the gas into his car, but his car still wouldn't start. Now, at this point, Officer Pyer is realizing that this driver is doing basically exactly what he shouldn't be doing according to the safety tips Officer Pire had given. And so on camera, he basically says to this guy, do you understand how dangerous it is to have left your car like that and walked alone on this highway? You know, do you understand what a hazard that is? And the driver just kind of looked at him and shrugged like, yeah, I guess so.

After that, Officer Pire called the man a tow truck. His car was towed and the man was on his way. And Officer Pire got back into the cruiser with the news crew, and they carried on. After that, Officer Pire and the news crew wrapped up filming, and then after he dropped them back off again, they told him what time to expect his segment to air on NBC that night. And sure enough, that evening, Officer Pire was in front of a TV as the broadcast started. And when Officer Pire was in front of a TV as the broadcast started. And when Officer Pyer's actual segment aired on TV, to him and to the California Highway Patrol, it went great. It was a minute and a half long. It sort of hit all the high points. It showed Officer Pire, you know, talking about how to be safe on the highway and talking to the stranded motorists.

You know, it kind of did exactly what they expected it to do. And when it was over, Officer Pire clicked off the TV and didn't think much about it. Because it was not a big deal. It was just a basic safety video. And for the vast majority of other people who watched this clip live on TV, it really didn't stand out to them. Again, it was just kind of a routine police safety video. But there were a few people when they watched this clip that noticed something, something very specific. And within an hour of this clip airing on TV, those few people were calling the police in droves to tell them, we know what happened to Kara not. And the police would follow up on these tips, and sure enough, just over two weeks later, they had gathered enough evidence that

they were able to arrest Karanaut's killer. It would turn out all the clues the police needed to solve the Karanaut murder case were right there in that one-and-a-half-minute-long video. Because what happened to Kara had almost happened to over two dozen other women in San Diego. And those young women were the ones who saw the news segment when it happened live, and they noticed this particular detail. that clearly telegraphed who Kara's killer was. They were the ones who called police. On the night of Kara's murder, December 27, 1986,

she pulled off Interstate 15 on the Mercy Road exit, and she came to a stop in that cul-de-sac. Now, we don't know exactly why she came to a stop in there, but either way, she was there, and that's where she encountered her killer. Now, the other two dozen women who encountered the same person, the killer, they were terrorized and kind of tortured and held hostage for a couple of hours, but eventually were let go, but Kara wasn't.

During her encounter at some point, the killer clubbed her over the head and then strangled her to death with a rope. Now, the killer at first had gotten away with this, until they were featured on that minute-and-a-half-long video. And some of those women who had survived their attack, they're watching the segment and suddenly their attacker is on TV. Now, they had previously reported their attack to police, but to this point nothing had been done. And now they're staring at for sure the person who attacked them, who's right on TV. And

critically, as part of this segment, they're hearing about how this other young woman had been attacked and killed on this highway. And they're thinking, oh, this person did that to me. I barely got away. I bet they killed this girl. And on top of that, as they're watching the news staring at their attacker, they can see there's a fresh cut over their eye. And so put that all together and they thought, boom, that's the person who killed Karanauts. And sure enough, the police would follow up on these tips, and they would confirm that the man in the video, with the cut over his eyebrow, was Kara's killer. And Kara's killer was none other than Officer Craig Pire. Officer Pire was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in

prison. Since being incarcerated, he has gone up for parole two separate times and been rejected both times. However, he is up for parole again in 2027. Hey listeners, big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts completely ad-free. No more waiting through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon music app for free or head to

Amazon.com slash balin. That's Amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-l-en. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. Our next story is called The Woman in a Wrinkled Dress. On a late winter afternoon in 1985, a Canadian border security guard stood at the border between New York State and Ontario, Canada. And as he looked out at the dozens of cars lined up at his checkpoint, he felt an enormous amount of responsibility. Because for him, working at border security was not just about checking people's passports. It was also about making sure dangerous criminals from the United States did not flee their country and enter Canada. And today, there was one

particular dangerous criminal from the United States that this guard was on high alert for, a 30-year-old man named Alex Mangle. A few days earlier, Alex Mangle had been stopped by a police officer near New York City. And during this traffic stop, Alex had somehow taken the police officer's gun and shot the officer in the head, killing them, and then Alex had fled, and he was still on the run. And so now, law enforcement was concerned that because New York was only six hours from the Canadian border, that it was very possible that Alex might try to flee into Canada to escape persecution. And so U.S. and Canadian law enforcement and border security were on the lookout for Alex Mangal, and he was this 30-year-old white man with thinning brown hair and a wispy

mustache. And so all day long, that Canadian border security guard looked very closely at every person who came through his checkpoint to see if they were Alex Mangle. He would see a family on their way to visit relatives in Canada. He would see a couple on their honeymoon. He would see a man with a car full of camping supplies and a middle-aged woman traveling alone and all these different people from all walks of life. But none of them looked anything like Alex Mengel. And so by the end of his shift, after checking dozens and dozens of cars and looking at every person, he felt certain that Alex Mengel had not slipped through his checkpoint. And so, it clocked out and he went home.

A few days later, on March 2nd, a police officer was patrolling this parking lot right outside of a shopping mall in Ontario, Canada, which was located about an hour and a half away from the border. And during his patrol, at some point, he noticed there was this one. car, a white Toyota that had been loitering in the area for quite a while. And so he decided to drive over and see what was going on. And when he got there, he looked inside the vehicle and he saw someone sitting on the passenger seat. And he was a white man, probably in his 30s, with thinning brown hair and a wispy mustache. And this officer immediately recognized

this guy as being the wanted criminal Alex Mangle. And so the officer immediately called for back up, and then he parked his car, got out, and approached the white Toyota where this guy was sitting with his gun drawn. And as the officer approached the passenger side door, the man inside turned, noticed the officer, jumped into the driver's seat, fired up the car, and the Toyota sped out of the parking lot. And so the officer, he jumps back in his cruiser and he takes off after him, and before long, it was like the entirety of the police force in Toronto was a part of this high-speed chase to catch the guy. And eventually, they funneled the car into a dead-end street, and the white Toyota crashed into a stop sign, and then the man inside with the

mustache and the thinning brown hair pops out, and immediately everybody sees, yep, that's Alex Mengel. He didn't put up a fight at that point. He was taken into custody. However, despite how relieved law enforcement was to have this cop killer in custody, they realized they didn't understand something. How was it that Alex Mengel got past border security and got into Canada? Everybody was on high alert looking for him. What happened? And so police were baffled until they searched that white Toyota Alex had been driving. On the night that Alex shot and killed that police officer near New York City, he immediately fled to this wooded area and hid out overnight. And then the next day, when he got up, he was walking around and he happened to pass by this commercial

building. And as he was looking at it, he saw this middle-aged woman, whose name was Beverly Capone, come out of the building and make her way towards her car. And she was all alone. And so Alex walked up to her and abducted her at gunpoint, and then he drove her to this cabin out in the woods that he knew would be totally isolated. No one was there. And once they got there, he murdered her. And then once she was dead, he stole her clothes and put it on, and also cut off her face and her scalp and put those on as well.

He was literally wearing her skin and hair. And he hopped in that white Toyota, and he drove up to the Canadian border, and amazingly, he got through the checkpoint into Canada. without anybody noticing. It would turn out that Canadian border security guard who all day was checking for Alex Mengel did actually see Alex Mengel. He just didn't recognize him because Alex Mengel was wearing Beverly Capone's face, hair, and clothes.

And so he thought he was just a middle-aged woman traveling alone, and he led him on through. And so police would figure this whole thing out when they searched that white Toyota because they would find lying on the floorboard was Beverly's drastic. S, scalp, and face. Alex was deported back to the U.S. However, before he could stand trial, he attempted to escape a prison transport and in the process got shot to death by police.

However, that was not the end of Alex's story. Following his death, officers continued to investigate him and also his property, and at some point, during a search of his property, they would discover all these photos of unidentified women, along with these maps, where these very isolated places in New York and Pennsylvania, were circled, and nobody knows what they mean. Now, police have not conclusively linked Alex

to any other murders, but he does remain a suspect in several cases, and in fact, many investigators believe Alex was actually a serial killer. However, we'll probably never know how many people Alex actually killed because he took all of his secrets to the grave. The next and final story of today's episode is called Striking a Discord. At 3.30 p.m. on July 27, 2019, a 22-year-old college student named Nicole, logged onto her gaming computer in her bedroom in North Carolina. Nicole had spent the morning and the early part of the afternoon studying, but now she could finally kick back and relax and play her favorite video game, an online multiplayer combat game called

Perfect World, where people battled each other as characters inspired by Chinese mythology. Perfect World was a pretty niche game, so not a whole lot of people played it or even knew about it, but Nicole loved it, and she played it basically every day for the past few years, was totally hooked on it, and in playing it, she had met about a dozen other people from all over the world who also were obsessed with this game. And together, they had formed a virtual community, and they used a messaging app called Discord to communicate with each other outside of the game. So on this particular day, after Nicole loaded up Perfect World, she also opened up her Discord chat, and she saw already that several of her friends were online, and they were all

talking on the general chat inside of their server. And so Nicole began perusing the messages, and she saw the general theme of the messages being passed was about one of the other users on their server, somebody who went by the username Menhaz. So as far as everyone knew on this Discord server, Menhaz, they didn't know his real name, was a college student, and he was basically known to be a huge troll, which meant he said and did really offensive things in particular on this Discord server just to get people's reactions.

Because of his trolling behavior, he had actually been previously kicked out of the server and also kicked out of the game, Perfect World, like the game they're all connected on this Discord server through, he had been booted from both of those platforms in the past, But in previous occasions when that happened, Menhaz would plead his case and say he's not going to do it anymore, he's going to behave, and eventually the moderators would just let him back in. And so currently, Menhaz was back on the Discord server and he was back to his trolling ways. But as Nicole scanned through the general chat and went back and actually saw what Menhaz had been saying that day that basically had stirred up everybody else on the server to say, look, he's back to his trolling ways, when she went back and actually saw what Menhaz was saying,

Nicole couldn't help but feel like today's trolling just felt different. Menhaz was talking about this apparently brilliant four-step plan he had that was going to completely revolutionize his life and basically set him up for big success in his life going forward. However, this plan he was talking about, this four-step plan, was not only totally outrageous, but just seemed impossible. Like what he was saying he was going to do just didn't seem possible even by Menhaz's standards.

Like, within his trolling standards, this was a bridge too far. This isn't even trolling. This is just weird what you're proposing. And so, basically, the chatter on the Discord server this day that Nicole was seeing was how nobody believed this four-step plan was a real thing. Like, this is just classic Menhaz trolling. And Nicole, too, she also did not believe this plan was serious. She did not think for a second Menhaz was going to do this.

And so she just kind of rolled her eyes, ignored Menhaz, minimized the Discord server, and just enjoyed playing the game. world. And after a while, after, you know, a couple of battles that she won and a couple of battles that she lost in this game, she paused for a second and noticed there was a whole bunch of new notifications on their Discord server. And so because Nicole was already taking a break from the game, she opened up the Discord server to see what was going on. And right away she saw, the main topic of discussion was once again Menhaz and his four-step plan, but specifically, Menhaz had just sent a picture through the Discord server that apparently represented

completing step one of this four-step plan. He basically said, look, I did it. I've done one. I'm on to step two now. And everybody's looking at this picture thinking, wait a minute, he's actually doing this? This can't be real. And Nicole, when she looked at this picture,

she too thought, like, no way, this is not possible. He did not do this. And in fact, our first thought was, okay, maybe this image was, you know, created by AI or something, or, you know, maybe he pulled this image off a website somewhere and is pretending it's authentic, but it can't possibly be something. something he actually took a picture of. He couldn't have done this. And so pretty quickly,

Nicole, despite seeing this image, she agreed with the consensus that Menhaz is still just trolling us. This picture is not proof that he's really doing this four-step plan. And so Nicole went back to playing Perfect World, and about an hour later, she noticed there were all sorts of new notifications on her Discord server. And so once again, she stopped her game, she opened up the Discord server, and once again, the entire chat was dominated about Menhaz, because Menhaz had sent a second picture, apparently representing him completing the second step of his big four-step plan. And once again, everyone's saying there's no way he's trolling us, this can't be real. And Nicole, she looked at the image itself, and she too thought this has got to be trolling.

But now, she wasn't just filled with pure disbelief. You know, she wasn't able to just completely discard what was happening here, because part of her was thinking, like, how is Menhaz getting these hyper-specific images that really are tethered to this exact, plan he's laid out. Like, how does he have these images? Where are they coming from? Now, this was back in 2019, and certainly AI technology existed, but not the way it does now, where, you know, the average user can literally, in seconds, create hyper-specific images using AI. In 2019, that really wasn't available to most people. And so really, the only way Menhaz could potentially have these images, at least in Nicole's mind, was he had to have pulled them off some website somewhere and basically

pretended they were images that he took. And so Nicole decided she was actually going to take the two images he had sent and reverse image search them to try to figure out where they came from. You know, find the website, where he's pulling them from. Because clearly, these pictures are not authentic. There's no way Menhaz actually took these photos. But when Nicole reverse image searched, both images, nothing came up. Now, Nicole thought, okay, that does seem to suggest these are authentic pictures he really

did take, which maybe means he's actually doing this plan. even though that seemed totally preposterous. Or she thought maybe, you know, these images have been pulled from such an obscure website somewhere that I don't have access to, you know, finding them in a reverse image search. That maybe that's what it is. And so at this point, Nicole told herself,

you know what, there's got to be a reasonable explanation for this, but I'll tell you this, it can't be that Menhans is actually following through on this plan. It's not possible. And so once again, she minimized the Discord server and got back into the game. But pretty quickly, Nicole just started play in the game because her mind was totally fixated on whatever was going on with Menhoss.

And so she opened up the Discord server again, and she saw, still, everybody in the chat was talking about Menhaz and these two pictures he had sent. And basically, the server was divided. About half the members believed this really was just Minhas trolling, and the other half was starting to think that, hey guys, this might be real. He might actually be carrying out this four-step plan. Those pictures might be real. And if that's the case, we have a huge problem. Because this This plan, if he actually carries it out, is so completely illegal. He can't do this. This is not okay.

And so the faction of members on the Discord server that was starting to sense that this four-step plan of Menhaz's might actually be real, began to talk internally, and they said, look, like, we can't just sit here and do nothing if Menhaz is actually doing this. We have to stop him. This is not okay. And so, in fact, one of these members actually contacted their local police and told them, hey, there's this guy on my Discord server. You know, his username is Menhaz.

I don't have his actual name. But he's doing something that could be very bad and you need to look into it. And so the dispatcher said, okay, well, you know, where does Menhaz live? And the person who had called was like, well, I don't actually know. In fact, I really don't know much about him other than the fact that he goes by Menhaz. And he sent these crazy pictures that could be real or not. I don't know. And so eventually, the dispatcher just said, look, like, I get it that you're concerned, but

But we have nothing to go on here. And remember, this is the internet. People make stuff up all the time. And so pretty quickly, after that, the police officer just hung up, and that was that. So at this point, Nicole and the other members of the Discord server who were starting to suspect that what Menhaz was doing could be real, they felt really alone. I mean, the local police was not taking this seriously, which did make sense. I mean, they had nothing to go on. But as a result, it was like nobody was doing anything about what Menhaz was claiming.

And Nicole and the other members who, again, were beginning to sense this could be real, they felt terrible about just sitting here doing nothing. And so, Nicole and a few other members of the Discord server decided to team up digitally and actually investigate Menhaz themselves, try to figure out who this guy is and really what's he up to. And so Nicole and this new investigative group started by combing through all the chat logs in their Discord server to see if Menhaz at any point had either intentionally or unintentionally dropped hints about his real name and his location. And eventually, they came across a message where Menhaz actually said his real first name

was Menhaz. That wasn't just his username. That was his real name. And that was great because Menhaz was a pretty unique name. And so Nicole and the group thought, okay, well, if we find where in the world, that name is somewhat common, maybe that will give us a rough idea of where to look for Menhaz in the world. They also knew that Menhaz was a college student, or at least he claimed to be.

Now, he never actually said where he went to college, but he would often, in the Discord server, tell people when he was going to be on the server and when he was going to be off the server, like for classes and for studying and that kind of thing, he would say, okay, hey, I'll be on at 6 p.m. tonight, I'll be off at 9, I'll be back on at 8. he would give these specific times, and he would always use Eastern standard time when he did that. And so a natural assumption that Nicole and her group made was okay, very likely Menhaz lives in the Eastern time zone. And that time zone included the entire east coast of the United States, eastern and central Canada, and also some countries in South and Central America. But while that was

helpful, it still created too broad of an area in the world for this group to realistically look for Menhaz. It was nearly impossible to actually figure out where he was. But they now had a sense of where he could be, and they thought, okay, well, why don't we ask somebody else in the Discord server if they can try to track Menhaz's IP address? An IP address can be used to find the approximate geographical location of a computer. And sure enough, someone in the server said they could do that, and within a few minutes, they had tracked Menhaz's computer to Toronto, Canada. However, right at the same time they were figuring this out, Menhaz sent a third picture across the Discord server, a picture that showcased him completing step three of this four-step plan, allegedly.

And for Nicole and many other members of this Discord server, this third picture really represented a big shift, because now it was getting terrifying. Because look, it seems pretty likely at this point that Menhaz is actually doing this. This is real. How could he possibly have these hyper-specific photos that are perfectly synced with this four-step plan he had come up with. This feels real. And so Nicole, she actually asked the person who had traced his IP address to Toronto, she said, hey, should we call the Toronto police and tell them what's going on here? You know, maybe they can go find him and stop him before he completes this plan. I mean, he's apparently completed three steps. There's only one step left. We have to stop him here. But the person who had tracked his

IP address to Toronto said, look, what are the police going to do? There's six million people that live in Toronto. And all we have is that maybe his computer is in Toronto and maybe these pictures are real. And also, by the way, it's pretty easy to mask your IP address. You can use something called a VPN or virtual private network that when you track someone's IP address that has one of those working, it will make it seem like their addresses, for example, in Toronto or Chicago or New York or Dallas, or anywhere in the world, when in reality their computer is somewhere totally different. And so the police are not going to launch a manhunt based on an IP address. It's not 100% accurate. And so basically, Nicole realized that even though they saw they are on

the precipice potentially of Menhaz committing some horrible crime and they can't do anything about it because they don't really have any information about Menhaz. And so at this point, everybody on the Discord server was basically begging Menhaz to come clean. Tell us these photos are fake. Tell us this plan of yours is really just you try. But Menhaz didn't do that. He doubled down and said, oh, no, these are all real. And in fact, I'm going to complete step four of this plan and complete the whole process in 30 minutes. And after that, all Nicole and the other members of the Discord server could do was just try to convince Menhaz not to do this.

Don't follow through with this. Don't complete the plan. You've got to stop. It's not worth it. But Menhaz refused and said, I'm doing this no matter what. And sure enough, 30 minutes later, Menhaz would send one final picture, the fourth picture, showcasing that his four-step plan was now complete. At this point, someone from the Discord server did call the Toronto police.

The following day, at about 3.30 p.m., police officers arrived outside of Menhaz's home, which it would turn out was located in a small town just north of Toronto. The IP address had been correct. By this point, it had now been about 24 hours since Menhaz had sent the very first picture of his four-step plan. Police knocked on the front door, having no idea what to expect here. They had seen the images Menhaz had sent on the Discord server, but at this point, until they went inside, they had no idea if they were dealing with a terrible crime or a terrible joke. When the door opened, Menhaz himself was standing in the doorway.

He had a totally neutral, very calm expression on his face. He was very gracious. He welcomed the police inside. And when they stepped inside, they asked him, you know, what's going on here? And all Menhaz said was, you'll see. So the police walked further into the home and eventually made their way upstairs. And when they got up there, they just froze. Because it would turn out, Menhaz was not trolling. Those pictures were not fake.

He really had carried out that four-step plan. It would turn out, for the past four years, Menhaz had been living a double life. To his friends and family, he was a college student, studying engineering, and he was on a path to great success, when in reality, he dropped out of college in his first year and just pretended to go to school every day, when in reality he would just go to a local mall and hang out there, and then in the evenings, when school was over and he would come back home, he would just immerse himself in video games, specifically that perfect world game. That's what he did.

He just went to the mall and played video games and lied to his friends and family. But July 27, 2019, the day Menhaz put his four-step plan into action, was literally the last day he could maintain this ruse, because the next day, July 28th, 2019, was the day Menhaz was scheduled to graduate from his college. And so his friends and family were all expecting to be there and to see this amazing ceremony. And so to deal with the fact that his real life and his fake life were about to collide, Menhaz came up with his four-step plan. And he literally told the members of the Discord server about his big plan, but nobody believed him because he was always trolling people. It just seemed like, oh, this is made up, another one of Menhaz's

lies, but he was not lying. It was all true. Those pictures that he sent across were absolutely authentic. He took those pictures, and they did represent completing each step in the plan. The first picture was of his mother, the second picture was of his grandmother, the third picture was of his sister and the fourth picture was of his father. And in each picture, those people were dead. Because Menhaz had spent the day methodically killing his entire family to prevent them finding out about his lie. He hit them over the head with a crowbar and then slit their throats and took a picture, posted it to Discord. By the time someone from Discord finally got in touch with the Toronto Police, it was too late. Menhaz had obliterated his entire family.

Menhaz ultimately pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Bollin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Bollin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, and Camille Callahan.

Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacassio and Cole Lacassio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production Coordination by Samantha Collins Production Support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner

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