Radio Rental - Episode 22

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

On today's tapes... >> Rob Stiller > Valentine's Day > The Neighbor

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via phone, video, or message chat. Let the gratitude flow. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more and save 10% on your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com. Thank you for being part of our community. We can't wait to hear from you. on gift card plus a tenderfoot merch pack it only takes a few minutes and it makes a big difference thank you for being part of our community we can't wait to hear from you you no malik i know it's a jump to the left, then a step to the right, then put your hands on your hips.

Oh, come on, man, you can't just gyrate willy-nilly. Idiot. Oh, hello, hello, welcome. Welcome, oh, we are planning something very, very special here at Radio Rental today. We are planning to go viral. Well, basically we have no other option. Our modest little establishment here has run into some hard times again. I've even had to sell an entire shelf from one of my favorite directors, Lucio Fulci. Have you ever seen a lizard in a woman's skin?

How about Don't Torture a Duckling? I kept those two just in case. Obscure. in a woman's skin? How about don't torture a duckling? Ha ha ha. I kept those two just in case. Hmm. Obscure. Anyhoo, none of my attempts at promotion have worked thus far. I did everything I could think of. So, Malachi and I are starting a tick-tack.

Talk. Tick-talk. Talk. We are tick-talking now. We are tick talking now. We're starting to talk. Apparently this is the only way to bring in customers from the Generation Z, no matter how much they may terrify me. So we have been practicing our dance moves.

Back in the old day, promotion was so easy. You could just hand out a few flyers, staple some pamphlets to telephone poles. Now I have to learn all these coordinated dances to songs by people named Cookie Kawaii. Oh, I don't know, it's painful. My quads are sore, but I would do anything for my beloved radio rental. I know nothing is scarier or possibly more sensual than the visual of me dancing to Doja Cat or Lil Nas X. But enough of that. How about that next tape?

Let me plug it in. Here it is. So my story starts my sophomore year of high school. It was the fall of 1998. I went to a very small high school. There was about 150 kids total in the whole high school. It's an environment where everybody knows everybody else. The internet was really, you know, becoming more commonplace even in our small town. Like we had had the internet at home for about a year at that point. We had one computer at our house. It was in my bedroom actually. You know having the internet was

something that it kind of opens up a new world of possibilities to you. I'd play like online games. I was able to email people that lived in you know different parts of the country and I thought that was really exciting. My family is originally from Texas so I could email like my cousins and end up calling them on the phone, because long-distance calling was really expensive back then, so it was an easy way to keep in contact with everyone. It was really becoming more commonplace. Pretty much all of my friends had the internet at home as well, and we all had our own email addresses and could email each other back and forth. It was Spanish class my sophomore year. In that particular class, we had assigned seating.

We had groups that we were assigned to. It was like a small group of four people that you would practice your conversational skills with, so we would actually socialize as much as we learned. We would talk quite a bit in that small group, and so my group was me and two boys and one other girl. The other girl played on the soccer team with me. I didn't know either of the boys particularly well but I'd had classes with them before and so you know I was familiar with them. I got an email one

day from someone named Rob Stiller and I didn't know anybody by that name. I was kind of confused at that time. I didn't get a lot of spam or just random emails from people. You know, I was trying to think of people that I had come in contact with like over the years because we had moved to a few different cities before this point. And I was like, I don't remember anyone named Rob Stiller. Like I was like looking at old yearbooks and stuff and, you know, it wasn't a name that I'm pretty good with names. And I was like looking at old yearbooks and stuff and you know it wasn't a name that I'm pretty good with names and it was a name that like did not ring any bells for me. I was curious and I read the email and it said something along the lines of you need to stop ignoring me if you know what's good for you. I was just like I don't know who

this Rob Stiller guy is but that's not really a great way to get people to stop ignoring you by like being vaguely threatening. So I was just like, that's weird. I didn't think much more of it. I didn't respond to it. It didn't mention me by name. It was just very nonspecific and short. I honestly just thought it was a case of mistaken identity because my email address was like

my middle name and the year I was born. There's like a lot of different spelling variations, so I thought maybe he'd misspelled the email address and it's a very common domain name. I thought, yeah, it must be a mistake. I didn't think that someone was meaning to do something to me. I thought it was intended for someone else. A few days later, we were in Spanish class. The other girl in my group happened to be mentioning something about a weird email she had gotten, like an early version of spam, like just something innocuous. At that point, I just was like, hey, I got a weird email the other day too.

You know, I told the group, I was like, I got an email from somebody named Rob Stiller. Like, I don't know anybody named that. It was a weird email. I told them, you know, basically that I should stop ignoring him. And a week or two went by. I got another email from Rob Stiller. And I was very surprised to get another email. The tone of this one was a little bit different.

I know you've been talking about me. You need to stop. I just thought it was very strange. As I was looking at it, I happened to notice that the email address was different than the first email. That caught my attention, and I thought that was really weird. I was very confused. I was like, I don't know if he is just, like,

trying to get this other person's attention and they didn't respond to his first email. It didn't mention me my name. You know, I wasn't that concerned about it but I thought it was really weird. Like I don't know who Rob Stiller is still. I don't know why he keeps emailing me. I thought it was a complete mistake. I really didn't think that it was intended for me at all. The same pattern kept going on like a week or two go by. Then suddenly I would get another email from Rob Stiller.

The tone of the emails became more increasingly threatening. I do remember the last email very specifically. By this point, it was around spring break. So it was a lot later in the school year. It was all capital letters. He was going to come to my house and break out all my windows with a baseball bat. The last several lines of the email just said like stop like 50 times it was like stop stop stop stop stop. Seemed crazy. At that point I was

scared because it just seemed very threatening. I didn't know who this person was or what they were capable of. Maybe this isn't a mistake. Maybe either someone's trying to play a trick on me or somebody does want to cause me harm in some way. And so at that point, I told my parents about it. I hadn't told them about it before because I wasn't really that concerned about it. But at that point, I was. I remember it happening right before spring break,

and my sister and I were actually going to go visit our grandparents, and my parents were going to be staying at home. So that's part of the reason I ended up telling them, because I was like, well, I don't want someone to break in while you guys are here. I didn't really think it was a real possibility until that point. But yeah, something about that email just made me think it was more of a real concern. Obviously, he's not getting the hint that I'm not the right person. And now he's saying that he knows where I live and he's going to come to my house. Maybe this isn't a joke. I was beginning to think maybe it's not a mistake. Maybe this is meant for me.

The recurring theme of the messages was that you should stop talking about me. And I was like, I mean, honestly, the only people I'd ever talked to about it were those people in Spanish class. I was like, is somebody watching me? Like that, that was weird. But yeah, it just kept being like, you know, the threats were more kind of vague at first, kind of progressed to the point where they're saying that they know where I live and they're coming to my house. The internet's still a bit of an unknown. So I did mention it to the kids at school, and like I said, I told my parents about it. And that was the last time I ever heard from Rob Stiller. Time went on, and I kept kind of expecting to see another email,

but that was the last one that I got. It ended as suddenly as it had started. You know, I was just very puzzled about the whole situation and didn't quite understand what had happened. Several years go by. Graduated from high school, and I moved away to a different town to go to college. Kept in touch with some of the kids from high school. You know, as I was in college was sort of when Facebook was becoming more prevalent.

Started reconnecting with people. through Facebook and through Instant Messenger. One of the guys from the Spanish class, I'll call him George, we talked on Instant Messenger quite a bit like while I was in college. He was doing some sort of computer programming major so he seemed to be online like all the time and so we would just you know randomly chat here and there. I ended up meeting a guy at college and we got married and when we got engaged George offered to take our engagement photos which I thought was really nice because we were poor college kids and he was like a hobby photographer he had nice equipment and I'd seen his work so I thought that was a really nice offer of him. And so he came, drove to where we lived and took our pictures.

They turned out great and I ended up inviting him to our wedding. And I think that's honestly the last time I ever saw him in person. I still would talk to him on instant messenger from time to time and through Facebook. You know, we just kind of check in with each other here and there, like, hey, what are you up to? You know, it was just one of those relationships. We weren't super close or anything, but we would just chat with each other sometimes.

Few more years went by. At that point, I was kind of coming to the realization that I'd gotten married probably too young and kind of made the wrong decision there. I was kind of considering getting a divorce and that wasn't looked upon highly in my family. I felt like I needed like an impartial observer to like talk to about that. I just talked to my old friend George and he was a great source of advice. He was a great impartial person that I could talk to because most of my friends at that time

were sort of like friends of us as a couple. So it was just good to have someone that was a little bit more removed from the situation just to get some advice from. And I felt like he gave me good advice. And yeah, it was really helpful. He hadn't really been in a serious relationship at that point.

So I was kind of explaining to him things about why I was considering getting a divorce. And I was like, you know, does this make sense? Is this something that we can work on, or is this something that you think would be like a deal breaker? It was really helpful, honestly. It really did help me sort of make the decision to ultimately get divorced later down the road.

By this time, I would say it was about 2008. I hadn't quite decided to file for a divorce just yet, but I was definitely moving in that direction. One day, I was talking to George on Instant Messenger. We were just chatting about random stuff that was going on in our lives. Out of nowhere, he says, hey, do you remember Rob Stiller?

And I was like, the creepy emails guy? Like, I hadn't thought about him in a really long time. But yeah, I definitely remembered him. He was like, well, I have something to confess to you. He said that he had sent all but the first Rob Stiller emails, which, looking back, kind of made sense because all the ones except that first one were from a different email address. Then he went on to explain that he had done it because he had a crush on me in high

school and he liked that I started talking to him more like when the first Rob Stiller email came around and so he had decided to send those other emails to get me to talk to him more. I didn't know what to say. I think I maybe told him, like, thank you for confessing that to me, but at the same time, I was just like, oh, that's really creepy.

I unfriended him on Facebook, and I pretty much cut off all contact with him after that. I don't think we ever talked again from that moment on. It took me a while definitely to wrap my head around what had just happened. Looking back at it and just how you know our relationship had kind of progressed over time to being from like a casual acquaintance from high school to he took my engagement pictures he came to my wedding and started talking about you know more personal things and became a little bit more like

emotionally close at that point and it was just weird to see that that was the same person who like caused me some sleepless nights in high school with some weird emails like it was just, very strange to think that like because I thought he was a nice guy. Looking back at it, I was like, well you know that's obviously not a very nice way to treat people to to just send them scary emails to get them to talk to you. You know if he had a crush on me like there's a lot of different ways that you can go about like showing that you're interested in someone besides, like, writing creepy emails to them that they'll talk to you about. But I thought George was someone who was, you know,

a good friend, and obviously not really. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha. Good old Rob Stiller. Rob Stiller. Reminds me of Ben Stiller. Sounds like something Ben Stiller would do. Oh, this is why, dear listeners, you can never trust friends. And that is why I, Terry Carnation,

keep my number of friends to a bare minimum. Don't trust friends, and above all, never trust stillers. And now a quick word from our sponsors. Do you like to get low interest rates? When you think of personal finances, do you think boring drudgery? Well then, do I have a credit card for you. It's called simply The Card. The Card is the world's first credit card that prioritizes Instagrammable experiences over money. It's sort of a social club first, financial institution second. The Card is accepted at exotic locations around the globe.

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For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right. And we're back. Next tape. I think it was February of 2016. It was right around Valentine's Day. It wasn't exactly on Valentine's Day, but it's a Saturday, and it's in Mobile, Alabama. It's where I grew up. And my girlfriend at the time, who's my now wife, it was our first Valentine's Day, and we wanted to do something fun. We had set our day up. I was going to go to the graphic design conference, and we're going to give each other our gifts. All of our friends like to Eno and hammock and stuff so I was like I'm gonna get her a hammock and you know that's gonna be fun we could do it with our friends whatever and so that's what I got her but she had

like a bigger present for me that was like gonna be a big surprise. She got the Airbnb booked for us for couples massage that we're going to go to. Got through my conference, probably about four o'clock. But right before that, she messaged me and she's like, they're moving it back to 930 so we ended up going to dinner right next to it. It is off the beaten path and just kind of redneck. And in the beginning of the neighborhood, there's houses, you know, it seems like a normal neighborhood. But the further back we went is it's about a mile or two back into this neighborhood. The less houses were there, the less light poles, and it just, it was already nine, like about 925, we started pulling up to this place. We sit there, and the house is not built into the woods, but it's at the end of the neighborhood, and there is maybe one or two lit houses at the end of the neighborhood and there is maybe one or two lit houses

at the end of the street. Everything else was either being worked on or wasn't there. The house wasn't lit up, had a fountain which was fine and it had vines all over it. Kind of cold outside, it's in February. It's just kind of creepy. And there's, you know, the only thing we hear is just the trickle of the water fountain that's there. And it was kind of a smaller house, but there were like one or two cars in the front of it that hadn't been moved for years. So it's 925. We're like, we might as well just go. Well, let's go up there and give it a college try. Let's, you know, why not?

So we walk up and the appointment's at 930. We probably get up there about 926, 927. And we knock on the door and we don't hear anything. Nobody's coming, nothing. And we sit there for a couple minutes. It almost seemed like nobody had, other than the fountain, it almost seemed like nobody had other than the fountain it almost seemed like nobody had lived there as we're standing there waiting for someone to finally come to the door one light came on then another light came on like a lamp kind of

ambient like just sparse light came on through the house as this person was walking to get us. And so the door opens, and it's a woman, I would say, probably in her mid to early 60s. And she had like a Hawaiian visor on. She had kind of like a robe thing on that was almost like a shawl or something. It was just weird. Like, what she had on her, it just was bizarre. But when she was immediately stern with us, and it was like 9.28, she was like,

why are you guys here early? I said 9.30. You guys should come at 9.30. Why are you guys here early? And we're like, ma'am, it's 9.28. It's, you know, it's pretty much time to come in. You know, we expected to come a little bit early, you know, and she brushed that off and let us inside and then proceeded to lock like four to five deadbolts

on this big door. She locks the door. When we first got up there, we're kind of apprehensive, you know, it's going to be weird. But the moment she locked all those deadbolts, we're like, we're pretty freaked out. And the house was almost pitch black. You couldn't see more than three feet in front of you, you know, at best. And she takes us down this like dungeon of a house that had like this corridor. And we went in and took a right into this room. She had this thunder soundtrack, this rolling thunder soundtrack that was just so creepy. It was loud. It was like ear piercing.

We could barely hear ourselves. You know, we don't really know where we're going. We had to almost shuffle our feet walking into there. That's how like dark it was. And then she proceeds to sit my girlfriend and I down into these massage chairs, quote unquote massage chairs. She put me into this chair that had like a motor and it just vibrated loudly and it was going back and forth and you had to put your feet on it and it just shook you and it was weird.

And then she put my wife into, it almost was like a reclined chair, but it reclined so far back, it was like a dentist chair where her feet were higher than her head. And it was kind of doing the same vibrating thing. It was so unnerving for my wife. And my wife and I look at each other and we're just like, this is terrifying. And the lady looks at us and she's like, okay, so we're going to get your smoothies ready. And my wife and I look at each other again and we're like, no, no, we're, we're fine. My stomach's upset. We don't, we don't want a smoothie. We're good right now. And the lady then proceeds to argue with us for like two or

three minutes asking, why don't you want the smoothies? They're really good. They're really nutritious. You really want them. And, you know, we just kept saying the same thing. We're just like, our stomachs are upset. We, you know, we don't want the smoothies, lady. We're sorry. You know, we are alarmed. We are on high alert now. Once it becomes clear that we're not going to have the smoothies, she looks around the corner of this room and just shouts in a condescending tone, they don't want the smoothies,

and then walks away. I thought that she was going to try and drug us. We're going to be captured in, like, some, like, the last house on the left kind of vibe. And at that point, my girlfriend and I are looking at each other and we're like, what the hell is going on? This is so creepy.

She had, you know, the fear in her eyes. And I was, I was scared. We were both shaking, you know? And in that, in that moment, I was like, screw this. We're getting out of here. I saw how she locked the doors. I'm going to unlock those doors. I'm going to get out of here. And she's nodding. She's like, yes, let's do this. And so I decide to get up and I'm like, I help her up out of her chair and I had to lift her out of there. And we start walking out and we're shuffling to get out of there. And that's when the lady just reappears. And she's like, what are you doing? What, what are you doing? Like, why are you leaving? Like what's going on? You're leaving.

We're just like, you know, as polite as possible. You know, I'm kind of like unlocking the doors. I'm like, man, we're just not feeling good. We just, we, we've just got to, we just don't feel good. We just got to go home. We apologize. And that's when she's like, why don't you want to stay? Why aren't you going to, why aren't you going to stay? And like, she was very irritated.

And I'm like, we just need to go. I'm very sorry. And she argues with us for another like two three minutes on trying to get us to stay there and ma'am no I'm sorry so she's like okay they're leaving behind the door talking to somebody that we didn't see the house is pitch black there's nobody there it was it was they're leaving I I'm like, who are you talking to? Like, who is this person that you keep talking to behind there? Or group of people, whether you like it or not, we're getting out of here.

We're leaving. And then she's like, before you leave, let me show you the pictures from the wedding we had earlier today. And so she proceeds to like file through this book that had pictures from like maybe the late 80s to the early 90s. And she's like, so this is the wedding. It was people like kind of in a, like almost like a ceremony kind of thing, but it was also people like swimming in a pool.

And it was summer of like 1987. The pictures have like dust all over them and it was very old sepia print pictures that were just like pictures of like not what was behind that house it wasn't the same yard we were in it wasn't the creepy fountain that we walked into it was almost like it was like at a resort somewhere. It was just bizarre. And as she's like trying to show, show us these pictures, she's like, you guys need to come and stay here and come, come back again and come stay here. I'm unlocking the locks to this door and I'm just like, okay, okay, thank you. And we, we closed the door and we hightail it out of there to the car and get into the car and just

kind of peel out of there. We called our parents. We called, you know, our best friends, all on the ride home. We were spooked. It was very weird. And so we ended up, obviously, my girlfriend, wife now, was furious because we spent money on this. It was supposed to be a great Valentine's Day present. So she thankfully got her money back from Groupon. You know, we were like, this is not a reputable business. We don't even know what this is. We ended up looking up on Yahoo, like the reviews of the place. And there were like two and both of them had very similar stories. The woman

apparently made this couple that came there for a couple's massage, like a strip naked in front of her. And then she like rubbed oil all over them and then they got in a hot tub together with the woman there and it was really weird and apparently there was a room with like clowns and pictures all over it and vines and then they also left abruptly from that as well and they're like this is creepy this we don't't go here. We left a very similar review on that place. Just the most uncomfortable scenario I've ever been in. She seemed almost in a weird way normal, other than the fact that she was talking to somebody

and she was getting aggressive with us. I like to rationalize it and I like to think that it was just a poor woman that was either senile, even though she wasn't that old, but maybe something had been going on with her. And in a way I kind of feel bad for her, but I think because of that, I know that you can just find yourself in weird situations at any time.

There can just be weirdos anywhere. But it kind of solidified my wife and I's relationship. I think it was like after something so creepy and weird like that happened. Pretty sure that's the first night that we said we loved each other. Because we were like, this is just the weirdest thing that has ever happened. Crime Writers On is the podcast where authors and journalists talk about the latest true crime series, documentaries and podcasts. Talk about what's on the charts and find those up and coming podcasts you'll be talking about. It's like a fun and smart book club discussing what

makes good storytelling and teaching how to become a critical listener. Or not. And stick around for the Crime Writers Thumbs Up Thumbs Down Reviews. It's the original True Crime Review Podcast. Crime Writers On, wherever you get your podcasts. Like probably right

here. Well, I don't know about you, but that sounded kind of romantic to me. I would have left a positive Yelp review. Anyway, back to the tapes. Oh, which one will it be this time? When I was maybe nine or ten, a young couple moved in to the house almost directly behind our house, so our properties would kind of nudge up against each other. They had a newborn baby.

They both had white-collar jobs, and I saw the wife from time to time, but if I saw the wife out in the yard, I normally would say something to my mom like, oh guess who I saw today, because we just wouldn't see her. This left a lot of time for the man to be at home with his newborn daughter, and I'd be out in my yard and this guy would be out there just pushing his daughter on the swing and kind of acting like any other suburban dad would. It was at an age where if an adult talked to me about sports, I'd feel really special because I was one of the older guys. You know, I felt like I was on SportsCenter or something.

So once this neighbor friend of ours showed an interest in sports, I'd be outside with friends playing wiffle ball, shooting hoops, and I'd talk to him about mutual sports interests. Because the neighborhood was small and you got to know people, I started to develop somewhat of a relationship with this guy. We started to notice some odd characteristics about him. For instance, you'd be in the middle of a conversation with him, and he would all of a sudden start staring off into space. It would last for maybe three to five seconds,

and you couldn't help but turn your shoulder and look at whatever he was gazing at. He'd kind of lose his train of thought and just start staring off into space. So I had an eighth-grade graduation party, and just start staring off into space. So I had an eighth grade graduation party, and this was two or three years after they moved in. And it was for all my relatives and then select friends. It's not that we wouldn't want neighbors to show up. In fact, some neighbors were there, but they were more of acquaintances to us,

the neighbors who lived behind us. Because our backyards were sort of bumped up next to each other, there was a little opening in the fence. So I remember being at my 8th grade graduation party and seeing my neighbor, his wife, and his young child walking through the opening in the fence and coming through our other neighbor's yard to get into our backyard where the party was taking place. The neighbor showed up with his wife and three-year-old uninvited. He took a seat. He sat down and didn't say anything to anyone. My dad was normally very warm to neighbors, so he went up, greeted the man and wife,

and offered him a drink. When he offered him a drink, my neighbor just looked right through my dad, almost as if he didn't see him. And I'll never forget how he stared right through him, almost as if my dad wasn't standing there. He was looking at my dad, but it's like he was alone or something. But this moment particularly was strange to me. There was such a long pause after my dad asked a simple question.

I had to think, oh, did he not hear him? But he was staring right at him, so he had to have heard him. We actually hadn't seen the wife in maybe six months, so it was quite a surprise to see our neighbor who we often didn't see. And then the man was with his young daughter, and they took a seat and helped themselves to some of the appetizers. Because I lived in a small neighborhood, the neighbors were very gossipy and were wondering why he was over there. But again, it was still somewhat early in their life on the block and we just thought maybe they wanted to be included. About a year after these neighbors moved in behind us, my brother came home from college and

we were never allowed to have a dog growing up. It was against the rules. But my brother brought home a dog. Both my parents were not happy, but within two or three weeks, my mom was totally okay with it and spoiling the dog with treats and all sorts of stuff. So as a new pet in the house, I was given the responsibility to walk the dog in the mornings. And occasionally I would run into this neighbor out in the neighborhood. A month later, I'm walking the dog in the mornings, and occasionally I would run into this neighbor out in the neighborhood. A month later, I'm walking the dog. We run into the neighbor again.

This time it's at night. I could barely even tell it was the neighbor, and the dog starts growling. It's not just some playful growl where a dog's trying to take a bone from you. The dog wanted to kill him. It sounded like the dog was ready to take a bone from you. The dog wanted to kill him. It sounded like the dog was ready to eat this man alive. My family was completely confused by it, but because

we had the dog on a leash, there was never any close calls. But I remember my mom and dad telling me, if you see this neighbor, walk the other way with the dog because we don't want the dog to bite him and then some sort of lawsuit be on our hands. About a month after my graduation party, I'm outside with my dog, walking her behind the garage to go to the bathroom. And the neighbor's out in his yard, I think he's doing yard work. And he comes over, and my dog just starts growling and barking and growling. And this growl was just completely vicious. And this is a growl we only heard a handful of times throughout her 14-year life. This time it's even more vicious than the last.

Barking, barking. I'm apologizing to the neighbor, saying, I'm sorry, I don't know why she does this. As the dog continued to bark, my neighbor came over and assured me that everything was okay and that it's okay that the dog's barking. Just keep leash training her until you have full control. I'll never forget those words. He said, just continue training her until you have full control.

Which at the time I guess meant just continue training your dog until you can control your dog from barking and growling. And then he asked my plans for the weekend. I told him I had a baseball game the next day and I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was leaving for a vacation with his wife and daughter the next morning. The dog continued to bark. Quickly, I ran back in the house and just ended the situation because something was wrong any time he was around and my dog was around.

I woke up the next morning ready for a baseball game, and my dad was in the kitchen just waiting around for me and he sat me down and he said he had some bad news. Looked at him, I asked him what was wrong and he said our neighbor's wife had died last night. And at that point I had not dealt with a ton of loss. I had lost a couple grandparents, but this wasn't someone I was close with, but just the thought of someone dying on my street completely shook me. And I said, how did she die? And my dad said he didn't know, that he heard she was electrocuted or some freak accident had happened and she passed away. I think it was the next

day, my mom asked me how the baseball game went. She wasn't at the game, and I said, I actually don't remember anything that happened. It was so shocking to me that a neighbor was dead. About a week after her death, they had a wake, and when our family showed up, we saw the wife's family on one side of the casket, and our neighbor was on the other side, alone, with no one standing with him. And I remember he was acting desperate, reaching out for my dad like he was a life raft. I just assumed this is how he was dealing with loss. When I got back to the car, my sister was upset, and eventually she revealed to my parents that

our neighbor had grabbed her arm at the wake and said, I'm a good guy, right? Lie for me. Tell the cops I was a good guy. Lie for me, will you? It left so many questions unanswered for me and my family. My sister was in her early 20s at the time, and she was completely creeped out by it. She didn't know this guy nearly as well as I did

because I was always out in the backyard playing sports or something, and I'd run into him, whereas she had been in college and high school and was off doing, you know, other stuff. Within that next week, even me as a 12-year-old was convinced that he was a murderer. I felt like I was watching Law & Order with my dad, but it was just in our backyard. Even me as a 12-year-old was convinced that he was a murderer. I felt like I was watching Law & Order with my dad,

but it was just in our backyard. For the next few weeks, after the wake, I would stare out my window, just watching the house, looking at the house. A neighbor of ours had a close family friend who worked for the local police, and we started to get some inside info that our neighbor was now wearing an ankle bracelet, that there was more to this story than what he had initially said. We had found out that the 911 call sounded rehearsed. It almost sounded like he was reading off of a piece of paper.

There were Google searches on his computer for the date rape drug, which I think is GHB. There were several other clues and pieces of info we found out that made this look like premeditated murder. Her teeth were knocked out and her head had been slammed against the counter. I heard that it was most likely asphyxiation. You know, what weren't they able to prove? Were there no scratches on him? I don't know. You know, he said she was standing in water and plugged in the toaster and that she was electrocuted.

There were bruises and missing teeth. It looked like a brutal murder from what we heard from that random family friend who worked for police. This man continued living in the house behind ours for several months as he awaited trial. When trial happened, the police didn't have enough evidence or weren't able to pin first-degree murder on this guy, so he was only guilty of second-degree murder when the trial was done. I remember our neighbors and people in the town and community were very upset that this guy might be able to walk free within 10 or 15 years. I wasn't scared.

I wasn't worried for my family. I was just sad for this young girl who now had to grow up without a mother with a father who is a murderer. Our neighbor was convicted of second degree murder and over the next month we talked about it. We were upset that he didn't get first degree, but eventually, you know, you stop talking about it. So we're 10, 15 years past the incident. I was on my honeymoon in Hawaii, in Maui, with my wife,

and we were out to dinner on one of our first nights there. We were drinking Mai Tais, having a good time, and we got back to the hotel room and both just looked at each other like, we gotta go to bed immediately. We were completely jet lagged in another time zone. So my head hits the pillow and I'm in my backyard. Obviously I'm dreaming and I'm in my backyard

looking at my neighbor's house near the swing set where he always pushed his daughter, but this time he's completely alone and he's just looking at our house. In my dreams, everyone's faces are always blurry and the silhouette of him in his winter hat that I remember him wearing was coming through clearly. I remember his face was blurred out, but it was clearly him, and it was his voice. I remember his voice saying my name over and over,

and that's the dream. I'm just looking at him as he says my name. I woke up in the morning in a cold sweat, and my heart was pumping. I was scared. I hadn't thought about this guy in a long time, and I just had a weird sense, like, why did I have to think about him on my honeymoon now? But the realization of me being in Hawaii was also quick to distract me. So I didn't tell my wife that morning at breakfast. We ended up having a great honeymoon and it's something I was able to kind of forget about while we were out there. But then when I got back home, I continued thinking about the dream and it made me say,

I wonder if my neighbor is still in prison. So I went online, I typed his name into Google, started doing some digging, and I found a service that you can pay for that will give you sensitive information on people. So when I typed in this guy's name, his address comes up, and the address is in Honolulu, Hawaii. And I immediately got goosebumps, and I called my wife over, and I told her exactly what happened. I said, I had a dream on our honeymoon about this guy who lived behind me growing up who murdered his wife, and he lives in Hawaii. I don't know why I had the dream. I started speculating that maybe I had seen him in the airport or seen him on the island and that it didn't click.

But then later that night my subconscious just had me see him my wife called it a coincidence and said that's just really strange but it just felt different and then it just turned into anger because i was able to see that he's running marathons in hawaii and maybe just enjoying life. And I don't know if he's sorry, but it totally bothers me. It was always nice watching him push his daughter on the swing. He seemed like a caring dad at the time. So for the dream then to almost be like I'm watching a memory, but the memory to be altered slightly in that his daughter was no longer there

in his life made it impactful to me. So when I had this dream and it led me to realize he's living in Hawaii free, I think it could have just been someone trying to remind me that this guy's out there. It's something I want to believe because I do like having explanations for things you know there's a lot of weird stuff that happens in life some things that are just unexplainable I want to know why I had the dream in the same exotic place that he's now living

but I just I don't know Welcome back. Well, I've got some good news to share. While you were savoring that tape, I got 10,000 views on my latest TickTick video. See, look, 10K. Oh, wait. Oh, that's not a K. That's just a little smudge of tikka masala I got on there.

Okay, that's better. Ten views. Well, ten, that's something. That's still ten potential new customers, hmm? Well, my friends, I'm sorry to say it again. This will be the last time we're together for a while. I know, I know, I'm sad too. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I hope to see you in here again soon. Stay spooky, my adoring fans. Remember, Terry loves you very much. As does Malachi. Oh. And rewind those tapes. Carnation out. Come here, Malachi.

Come over here. I'm going to teach you the floss. No, you don't need actual floss. Oops. Carnation out. Come here, Malachi. Come over here. I'm going to teach you the floss. No, you don't need actual floss. Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV. Executive producers, Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Hosted by Rainn Wilson as his character, Terry Carnation. Produced by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, and Meredith Stedman.

With additional production by Eric Quintana. Written by Meredith Stedman. Additional writing by Mark Laughlin. Sound design by Cooper Skinner. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Cover art by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at yourscarystory at gmail.com or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Radio Rental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry Carnation on social media. Just search at Terry Carnation. To hear more from Terry, listen to his podcast, Dark Air. Special thanks to Grace Royer and Oren Rosenbaum at UTI, the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Cadence 13. On behalf of the Radio Rental Store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. And don't forget to share our show with a friend of the genre. Thanks for listening. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos.

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