Radio Rental - Episode 24

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

On today’s tapes… >> Surrounded > Dating App

I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable.

Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Could've skipped it. Should've skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. What could make your listening experience even better? Your feedback helps us grow and deliver the content you care about most. It's super simple. Just fill out our quick survey.

You'll be part of determining what stories we tackle next. Plus, you could win a nice prize just for sharing your thoughts. Head over to tenderfoot.tv slash survey and let your voice be heard, and you'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon 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. Oh, hello there, dear listener. You're just in time. Malachi and I were just about to have ourselves a little seance. Let me just light this last candle here.

Oh, there we go. The mood is set. Kind of creepy in here with all the lights off, actually. Should have brought my childhood stuffy. Nevertheless, let's soldier on with the ritual. Okay, let's all close our eyes.

Spirits? Spirits? Can you hear me? Did you hear that? I think it's working already. Uh, uh, spirits! Are you there? It is I, three-time Golden Microphone Award nominee

and proprietor of Radio Rental Terry Carnation. Oh, I hear something. I definitely hear something. I can even smell something. Oh, yes, it's working. It's really working. Okay, now, let's ask a question. Wait a... Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute here.

Oh, damn it. Ugh. Sorry to get your hopes up, folks. It appears it was just Malachi's new self-cleaning litter box. That thing is top of the line. Though I'm not quite used to the very specific noises it makes yet.

It also explains the fragrance. Oh, technology. The future is here, folks, and it is cleaning up Cat Dookie. Well, while we wait for the scooping to stop, why don't I pop in a tape?

We'll try again after you've recovered from this next story. Okay, I'll stop now. Well, it was 2016. I believe it was August of 2016. Actually, no, I remember the exact date believe it was August of 2016. Actually, no, I remember the exact date. It was August 16th. I'll never forget that date. I had been in a pretty rocky relationship for about a year prior to that, and that ended. Continued to live with that person for nine months after that. So when I moved out in July of 2016, I moved into an apartment in an area called Schaumburg, Illinois. It's right outside Chicago.

I moved into this studio apartment and I was kind of desperate going through that kind of growing pains of I've been living with this person for the last year, haven't met anybody, just kind of looking for a companion of sorts. I was on a dating website. This was the first time I'd done the single dating app. Met this girl online. We were talking for a couple of days, I want to say like two, three days.

She was cute. Like I said, I was in a kind of a desperate state. I hadn't had any attention of a woman in a while. This woman was kind of quick to compliment and be flirty and friendly and everything. I just felt like, you know, hey, you know, maybe you want to meet up, you want to have a drink, you know, just kind of get together. There was just one thing that, regardless of how it went,

I mean, she lived in Milwaukee. From where I was in Chicago, I was on the west side of Chicago. That was probably a good hour away from where I was to Milwaukee. From where I was in Chicago, I was on the west side of Chicago. That was probably a good hour away from where I was to Milwaukee. So I went to go visit her one night. We arranged to meet up, go get a drink, yada yada. So she gives me this address to go to. You know, I get excited about it and I go and get all done up and everything, and I drive up to Milwaukee one night. Trying not to get too ahead of myself, trying not to be like, oh, what if this is wonderful, you know, because I had just come out of an engagement. I didn't even know this person, you know, I talked to her for a couple of days, and like I said, I didn't want to get ahead of

myself. So while I'm driving up there, I'm getting nervous, you know, kind of realizing I don't know where I'm going in Milwaukee. Not even so much like, I literally don't know where I'm going. I have a GPS going, but I don't know what area I'm going to in Milwaukee. This is all going to sound absurd because I was in a mindset of absolutely, sure, I'll pick you up. No problem. Let's get together. Let's have a good time. You know, no problem. She gave me an address to pick her up at. When I get there, I realize what kind of area I'm in. It's all boarded up windows. I could definitely tell there were a lot of tenements. It was a low socioeconomic status kind of place. I felt kind of uneasy. I felt nervous. I felt, of uneasy. I felt nervous.

I felt, for lack of a better phrase, sketched out by it. There was a part of me that was like, no, you keep going. This could be a good time. She seemed like a lot of fun on the internet. Like, you keep going. You know, you see this through.

I go up and I stop at the address that she had given me. I go up and knock on the door. And this older gentleman opens the door and I ask him, you know, like, hey, does so-and-so live here? I'm here to pick her up. He goes, no, nobody by that name lives here. I'm thinking at first, maybe I put in the wrong address. When I text her to say, hey, I'm at the address that you gave me. You're not here.

Am I at the right place? You know, did you give me the right address? She goes, oh yeah, yeah, I did, definitely. I'm down the street. I'm coming up to meet you right now. So she comes and walks up to my car, gets in the car and instantly is kind of giggling, seeming nervous. And I call her out on it, say, like, you seem really nervous, you know, what's going on here? You know, like, why, why do you, everything okay? She goes, oh, yeah, no, I'm just excited to meet you. She was kind of looking at me suspiciously to a degree, giggling, looking around as if there was something

she was paying attention to, but was trying to pass it off as anxiety about being with me. So we drive off. She takes me to this bar. It's maybe like four or five blocks away. As soon as we get out of the car and into the bar, I realize, again, not just the boarded up windows and everything like that and the apartments or the houses with the smashed

out glass and stuff like that, but I realized what kind of area I was in. I was in what I think you could probably give the equivalent of like an Englewood in Chicago. It's a really rough area. And so I was just anxious to get out of there. I was getting weird looks from people walking in with this girl. It just felt uneasy, felt nervous, felt like I didn't belong. As we're at the bar, actually, she gets a quote-unquote text message from one of her quote-unquote friends. She said, oh, my friend just texted me. I got to go meet up with him.

Something's going on, and we have to go. It was very abrupt. We walked in 30 seconds later she said this, okay that's fine let's go I feel uncomfortable let's call it a night. We'll do this another time perhaps. So we get back in the car and we drive back well she has me go a different way. She has me drive not the way that we came on these normal city streets. She has me kind of drive on side streets. We're definitely more out of the way than the way that we originally come. We come down this one place. I have no idea where we are. We pull down this alleyway. I'm thinking, please tell me we're almost there. I pull into this parking spot, but as I'm sitting there, I turn the car off. I had a 2015 Honda Civic at the time, so it was still one of

those newer cars where if you don't take the key out, it doesn't unlock the door. All of a sudden, I turn the car off, and then I notice that there are two figures that come out on either side of my car. I couldn't tell what it was, who it was, what was going on, but all of a sudden I start feeling my door being pulled on. Somebody trying to get in. I look at this woman who's in my car and I go, what's going on over there on the other side of the car?

All she did was look up and go, well, who's this? Nonchalantly surprised. Well, it turns out there are these two guys who are both holding shotguns. The guy on my passenger side is just pointing a shotgun at the car. I can see the barrel of it. He's got just pointing a shotgun at the car. I can see the barrel of it. He's got it, like, right up against the glass. Then the guy who's on my side is still continuing to try and open the door. He's giving commands to me to open the door, open the door.

Obviously, I don't listen. So I start the car right up, and all of a sudden, bam! The butt of the gun goes right through my window. Three seconds later, I've got the muzzle of a shotgun two inches from my face. Glass everywhere, big gaping hole in the window. I'm about to get shot in the face with a shotgun. All of those three seconds that all kind of blurred together to the point of, I hear this bang of the butt of the gun coming through my window, and then I see a shotgun. I'm thinking I already got shot because of the noise and the cacophony and everything like that.

I had no idea what was going on, and it wasn't until I felt myself putting the car into reverse because I had started it back up that I actually realized, shit, I'm still alive. So I pulled the car into reverse. I don't want to go so far as to say I was trying to hit the guys, but if I did, I wouldn't have been upset given the situation. These guys started bashing on the front and back of my car, trying to deploy my airbags to stall the car.

I thought maybe I was being shot at because it was only maybe a block away and I knew I saw these guys chasing after me. So I'm thinking maybe they blew out my back window. Now there's probably a good six-inch dip when you go from alleyway to street back to alleyway. I'm doing probably 35-40 miles an hour down this alleyway trying to get away while these guys are actually chasing after me. My car is bottoming out. Every time I come out of the alleyway, my suspension just starts giving out, hitting the road,

and then going back up into the alleyway where my car is bottoming out on the alleyway curb. After about five, six blocks, my car dies out. Not only was it bleeding profusely from the undercarriage, but my airbags had deployed. My car was totaled. It ultimately stalls out at the end of an alleyway as I'm crossing over this last street.

I get out of the car, and I'm screaming my head off. I'm trying to get anybody's attention that I can. Help, help my head off. I'm trying to get anybody's attention that I can. Help, help. You know, I'm trying to get anything I can find. The woman that's with me, who's still in the car, is calm as can be. Relax, calm down, calm down. She really was more concerned about the smoke in her face than anything else when the airbags went off. These nice folks came out. They were out their window saying, you know, honey, honey, we're going to call the police, you know, relax.

They call the police. I call the police. The woman that's with me doesn't call the police. That particular night, August 16, 2016, Trump was actually in town in Milwaukee that night. So he was taking up a lot of resources. Took 45 minutes for a police cruiser after being told that my car was totaled by two guys with shotguns in the middle of this neighborhood.

It took them that long to get out there. So the police finally show up. They pull me off to the side, and they pull the woman off on the other side. They separate us, getting our stories. They come to me, and they go, dude, what are you doing here? Are you here for drugs? Are you here for prostitution? Like, what are you doing up here?

Because I'm this, you know, nice, clean cut. You know, I was an accounting assistant. I was in graduate school. I didn't look like I belonged in this area. And that's what I had in my dating profile. I tell the police all this. I show them my dating profile. I say, look, I met this woman online. I have no idea what you're talking about, about drugs and prostitution. I came up here to meet a woman because I'd been down and out and I just wanted to get back up on the horse. After I told them this three or four times, they're like, we actually believe you, but we think you were set up.

The police theorized that this woman or this group of people found somebody online who sounded like they had some money. So this woman continued to pursue me over those few days. I tried to show them her dating profile. Well, it had already been deleted. It had already been wiped out from Plenty of Fish's profiles. From what we could tell, it wasn't there anymore. So they told me, yeah, we think you got set up. This happens a lot, actually. The cops ultimately told me that I would need to wait in that area by myself for a detective in order to file a police report. So I'd have to wait for about an hour because Trump was in town

and all the resources were over in downtown Milwaukee looking after him. I said, hell no. I'm getting in a car with you and I'm going to a police station. I will deal with it on the back end. So they took me to the police station. One of my best friends, Ellie, he came to pick me up. He and my friend Shannon and I drove back to Chicago blasting music, just laughing our asses off about how crazy the whole night was. I didn't really realize what was going on and what had happened until I was in the car with my friends on the way home. I didn't process all of it. I didn't really know what was going on.

All I know is when I was sitting at the police station, that's when the adrenaline kind of started wearing off and I was shaking and freaked out and I had no idea what was going on, but I started having this kind of calm come over me. I was just with two good friends at the end of it and I was like, I'm alive. I just had a shotgun in my face.

I just got chased down an alleyway by two guys with said shotguns. I got set up on an online date, and I made it out alive. How'd you like it? Thrilling, right? Now, speaking of thrilling, it's time for ads. Mattresses, mail supplements, financial apps. Who knows what you'll get? But whatever it is, your life is about to be drastically improved.

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Come, come, circle back around. We're going to try and access the outer realm of the spirit world once again. I've dusted off the old Ouija board. This one without the bloodstains. Maybe this time we'll have a bit more luck. All right. Hands in. You too, Malachi.

Paws in. Okay, here we go. Spirits. Spirits of the spirit world. This is a renowned radio personality and screenwriter of The Haunting of Emily's Hair, Terry Carnation. What is the secret to a long and meaningful life

filled with fame and fortune? Look, the spirits are talking. T. The first letter is a T. Okay. Okay. U. That's a U. T-U. Tell us more, almighty spirits. T-U-N? T-U-N.

The third letter is an N. Perhaps they'll tell us about some ancient tunnel with some mystical properties or a... I don't know, a tune, maybe, that improves mood. Maybe they're advising us to put our money in tungsten. Always a good investment. Okay, here we go. Another letter.

Another letter. A. T-U-N-A. And that's... And... And that's it. That's it? Tuna?

God damn it, Malachi! Damn you! You know this was important to me, Malachi. Can you just let me have something for myself every once in a while? It always has to be about you, doesn't it? Ugh. Absolutely not. You know very well that Tuna Steak Night

is on Wednesday. Yes, I realize that Tuna Tuesday has a better ring to it, but it's too bad. Too bad, Malachi. Suck it. Well, listener, I guess I should feed this insatiable beast now before he ruins any more of my hopes and dreams.

Or my carpet. How about the next tape? Here you go. I was a sophomore in college. It was the fall semester, so probably around September. I was probably like 19. I was here in Indianapolis. I was attending Marion University.

Unfortunately, I was on all of the dating apps that I could be on. I tried to meet people, but attending a private Catholic school when you're not Catholic made it very difficult. I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts, mostly Crime Junkie, Small Town Murder, now Radio Rental. Crime Junkie actually had just done an episode on sex trafficking. And in that episode, they said, hey, it might be wise to make an if you go missing binder. In the binder, it includes all of my passwords to things, all of my accounts on social media, my bank account, my phone, anything anyone might need to be able to track me. And honestly, after I made that binder, that shaped everything. I set up plan A, B, and C with all of my friends if something were to happen. Multiple friends have my location at any time.

We never go out anywhere without somebody knowing where we're at. It was just like a normal afternoon. I was swiping on Tinder as lonely college students do. We ended up matching and we kind of just hit it off instantly. A lot of the conversations that we first had were just innocent flirting. Hey, how are you? I really liked this picture of you on your profile. You had such a nice smile in this one. I'm really interested to get to know who you are as a person.

He asked me a lot about how I got to Indy, what I was studying, if I had family in the area. Everything seemed very innocent. We started talking all day, every day for about a month before we actually hung out for the first time. He seemed like a really nice and caring guy. Anytime I was having a bad day, is there anything I can do? Is there anything that I can say to try to get your mind off things? Definitely very charming and always knew what to say when I needed to hear it. Given that I listened to a lot of true crime podcasts, I wanted to be super safe. So I asked him to come onto campus to meet me in a very public area. We met at the local Starbucks.

We both ordered coffee and we sat there and talked just about anything and everything, mostly how our days were going and what he was doing at work and what I was doing in terms of schooling. And we ended up talking for about two, two and a half hours. And then we ended up going back to my dorm on campus. While I was walking there, I was texting my friends, hey just so you know this is what's happening, just to keep them updated and make sure that everything was gonna be okay. We just turned on TV, sat there, kind of continued to get to know each other. He stayed for maybe like two or three more

hours after that and then he went home. Wow, he's the first guy that I've met off a dating app and he didn't try to push me to do anything, which is something that all of my friends have experienced. Maybe this is a good one. Maybe I finally found the one. We talked for a little bit after he left and then I ended up going to bed because I had 8 a.m.s in college. I was pretty confident that we were going to bed because I had 8 AMs in college. I was pretty confident that we were going to be together at least for a period of time. He ended up asking me out on an official date because coming to campus doesn't really count apparently.

Let's just go get some food. I'll pick you up. It'll be like a real thing. Okay, cool. So we solidified plans to go like 10 minutes away from campus to like a chain restaurant. I think it was Panda Express. As soon as we had the details finalized, I sent screenshots to my friends. I sent his name, his phone number, where we were going. And I ended up giving my best friend, my car keys. You're free during this time when we're going and I ended up giving my best friend my car keys. You're free during this time when we're going out on this date. If anything happens, I need you to track my location and make

sure I do not go missing. It wasn't overreacting. It was more like better to be safe than sorry. The day comes for him to pick me up. He gets to campus, he texts me that he's here, I go outside, I get in his car, and we are heading to the restaurant. It is typically like a 10-minute drive, but we hit literally every red light, and it ended up being more like 15 to 20 minutes.

We were maybe three minutes away from the restaurant. He gets a phone call. Oh, I'm sorry. This is my brother. I have to answer it. Yeah, sure. Whatever. Texting my friend, I'm like, hey, we're almost at the restaurant. Everything sounds like it should be fine. And as soon as I hit send, he started yelling at his brother and sped past the restaurant. He was yelling in another language that I have literally never heard. You could tell that he was very angry and whoever he was on the phone with was yelling loud enough that I could also hear. He almost looks like he's about to cry.

Very sad, very droopy eyed, but then his attention shifts back to the phone call and it's stern face, very angry, very mad, continued with the yelling and everything. So I texted my friend and I was like, hey, something's up. I need you to get in the car right now and just track my location. I don't even care if we end up at the restaurant. I want you to meet us here. He's just speeding down the road, ended up getting on a highway, which is way far away from our restaurant. And he just kept looking over at me. I can't really say anything. I'm trying to text my friend to be like, hey, this is where we're headed,

but I'm not from Indianapolis. I don't know roads. I don't really know what any of these landmarks are. Why are you going so fast? What are you talking about? Who are you talking to? Hopefully my friend will be here to save me. Hopefully I can get out of this car.

I don't think I can handle this man in a fight because he is definitely muscular and I am scrawny. I don't know how I'm going to protect myself, but I'm definitely going to try. When he finally ended the phone call, he like looked over at me, looked really sad and was like, I just can't do this to you. And then kept speeding away.

What do you mean? What's going on? How can I help? I need you to talk to me. He said, I just can't do this to you. What do you mean? I thought we were just going to dinner. Did you have something else planned? I really needed to know what was on the other end of that phone call for me to really understand what I got myself into. I was trying to identify where we were at because if we were to get in an accident,

my plan was to run. I was getting out of there. I don't think we were at a red light for more than maybe two or three seconds because he would turn onto another road or the light would turn green. I was definitely thinking like, if he stops, what is my next move? We are speeding down the road. It's probably like a 30 mile per hour. He's going at least 60.

I am texting my friend like, hey, we just turned on this road. I don't know where he's taking me. I don't know where we're going. We're not even close to the restaurant anymore. Where are you at? She was trying to send me updates. By the time I realized where we were, we had made it back to campus. He pulled up in this little circle drive. He looked at me. He said, I'm sorry. I just can't do this to you. And he unlocked the car and literally pushed me out. As soon as I was out of the car, he was already gone. Sped down and around the other building to where I couldn't even see the car.

What just happened? Like, did that just happen? Did I just imagine that? My first reaction was to text my friend and be like, I need you to come here now so we can talk about what just happened. This man seemed super calm, super level-headed. Honestly, didn't seem like he would even yell at anyone if anything had gone

wrong. I guess you can't really know somebody that well in a month. I wouldn't have ever expected him to act like that. When my friend got back to campus, I told her what happened and of course she was relieved to see me. I didn't know what was happening. You had to stop texting me. Like I wasn't sure. You know what? At least we're here. Let's just kind of talk about what happened.

So I explained the situation to her and she was like, you have to find him. You have to figure out what happened. I went to text him and it said, my message was undeliverable. I went to look him up on social media and nothing came up. I gave her the same information and she tried with the name that he gave me, the phone number he gave me, every piece of contact information that he gave me. I had her look up and nothing appeared.

All of his accounts just disappeared. It just left me with even more questions. Who is this man? Maybe I don't know anything about him. If he could easily flip like he did in the car and then not offer me any explanation as to what was happening, do I even know him? I definitely dodged a bullet. I don't know if it was because I was nice and tried to get to know him and was trying to be empathetic.

I don't know if he just felt really guilty about whatever he had planned. I have no idea what it was, but I definitely in my gut believe that I got myself out of a really bad situation. I actually deleted all of my dating apps for almost an entire year. I wouldn't meet anyone offline. I wouldn't even accept people on Facebook that I didn't know or Instagram followers. I made sure that the only people on my social media accounts were people that I knew.

It took me a really long time before I felt like I could actually trust strangers again. The most logical explanation, in my head at least, is that he had something planned and had a change of mind. For me, I don't know what else it would have been if it wasn't that situation. He could have just killed me. He could have met with whoever he was on the phone and that could have been the end of my life. Who knows? I'm never going to get those answers. 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, dear listener, that's our last tape for today.

I hope you savored it like the fine 1985 Beaujolais that it was And if not, well, there's always room for a second listen Along with a five-star rating Thank you very much Thank you once again for choosing to spend your time here at Radio Rental Until then, this is Terry Carnation And we'll see you next time for more spooky misadventures. Adieu! 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 Thank you. 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. I'm Nadine Bailey.

I've been a ghost tour guide for 20 years and have taken people into haunted places to uncover macabre tales and dark secrets. On my podcast, Haunted Canada, I share bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening right now. Then join me if you dare.