Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Dangerous Choices, Haunting Encounters, and the Chilling Lessons They Left Behind PART1 #36

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #dangerouschoices #hauntingencounters #chillinglessons #darktales #truehorror  Part 1 begins with dangerous choices that spiral into fear, unsettling encounters that linger like shadows, and chilling lessons carved into memory. These stories expose how one wrong decision can awaken horrors beyond imagination, leaving behind scars that never fade.horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, dangerouschoices, hauntingencounters, chillinglessons, darktales, paranormalfear, creepyencounters, survivalhorror, truehorrorstories, nightterrors, supernaturalstories, mysterythriller, realhorrorstories, spinechilling, eerieencounters

Back in the early 1990s, I was in my late teens, that awkward age when you think you're invincible, the whole world is against you, and you've got something to prove, even if that, something, is completely stupid. Looking back, there's no delicate way to say it, I was trouble. Not the detention after school, kind of trouble, but the kind of kid you'd cross the street to avoid. My friends and I weren't just mischievous, we were jerks. Straight up little monsters with cigarettes hanging from our lips and bad ideas pouring out of our brains.

We'd throw rocks at stray cats like it was some kind of sport, curl them at passing cars, too. We'd shove younger kids around just to hear them cry, steal bikes we didn't need, and take them on joyrides until we got bored, dumping them in some ditch or overgrown gully in the woods. My parents tried to straighten me out, but nothing stuck. They grounded me, yelled at me, took away things I liked. But deep down, I think they were tired. Most of the time, they just wanted me out of the house so they could breathe without worrying about what fresh disaster I'd bring. I cursed at them, cursed at my teachers, mouthed off to cops. I didn't care about anyone's feelings unless those feelings were mine. Then came the night that should have ruined my life. We were hanging out on the back porch of my buddy's play. We were hanging out on the back porch of my

buddy's place, chain-smoking, spitting, making dumb jokes, and pretending we were gangsters. His dad was inside, watching TV, and eventually headed off to bed. That's when my friend got this look in his eye, disappeared into the garage, and came back holding something that made my heart skip, an old-fashioned handgun. It looked heavy in his hand, the kind of weapon you see in black and white movies where the detective wears a trench coat. I grabbed it without hesitation, feeling the cold metal, pointing it around without a second thought. He told me his dad had bought it off the street just a week ago. Then he confirmed the part that made my brain light up like a slot machine, it was loaded. I wish I could tell you my first thought was, that's dangerous, put it away.

But no. My first thought was, we should rob someone. There was no plan, no specific thing we wanted to steal. Just that reckless, empty-headed teenage hunger for chaos. I shoved the gun into my waistband, and the two of us walked to the end of the cul-de-sac. There lived this old woman, alone, frail, the kind of person you'd expect to find baking cookies for church sales, not fending off idiots with pistols. She seemed like an easy mark. We slipped around to the back porch, quiet but giggling under our breath. The door was locked, but I was heavier than I looked.

I leaned into it, jiggled the knob, and in less than a minute, it gave way. The smell hit me first, that mix of old furniture, mothballs, and something sweet, like hard candy left in a dish too long. It was the smell of a lifetime spent inside the same walls. And that's when my friend's nerve snapped. I changed my mind, he whispered, eyes wide. Then he bolted, sneakers slapping the pavement as he ran home without looking back. Me. I stepped inside, through the kitchen, into the living room. There she was, asleep on the couch,

TV on low. The blue glow lit her wrinkled face. I raised the gun and pointed it at her head. But she didn't wake up. I don't know what I expected, maybe her eyes to fly open in terror, maybe a gasp, maybe a scream. Instead, she just breathed slowly, lost in some dream. I felt weirdly cheated. So I walked behind the couch. I leaned close. The barrel of the gun was less than an inch from her skull. And then, a whisper inside my mind, you can kill her. Do it. It wasn't my voice, but it was in me. My heart thudded. I didn't want to kill her, not really. But in that moment, with a loaded gun in my hand, it suddenly felt like the obvious next step. I didn't didn't pause. My finger squeezed the trigger, click. Nothing. The safety was on. And that's when

the weight of what I just tried to do slammed into me. My stomach dropped, my hands shook so bad I could barely keep hold of the gun. I lowered it, turned, and started walking. Through the kitchen, to the back door. Then I stopped. Something made me glance back. Her eyes were open. She was a looking straight at me. Tears welled in her eyes, her face frozen in pure terror. And just like that, I was crying too. I ran home, shoved the gun into my parents' hands, and told them I'd almost done something horrible. They called the cops. I confessed to breaking in, but I left out the part about pulling the trigger. I didn't mention my friend either. I still got juvenile detention for breaking and entering, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

I swore I'd never touch a gun again. And I didn't, until years later, when a different kind of weapon almost destroyed me. By the late 90s, I'd moved to Las Vegas and developed a cocaine habit that would make Hollywood drug lord's blush. My life was a loop, snort, party, crash, wake up, steal a car, sell it, spend some on food, blow the rest on Coke, repeat. One July night, Jonzing for my next hit, I spotted a panel van parked alone outside a filthy motel. No windows in the back. I popped the lock and slid in like it was nothing.

My gut told me to check the rear before driving off, but my head was already on my next fix. I hotwired it and took off. Drove about an hour into the desert to meet my buyer. That's when I finally decided to see what was in the back. The doors were padlocked from the outside, first red flag. I smashed it open with a crowbar. The second I did, I heard a sound I'll never forget, a high-pitched wailing, muffled but urgent. I shined my flashlight inside.

Four kids. Two boys, two girls. Hispanic, terrified. Their wrists were tied, gags in their mouths, lying on dirty cushions. The smell of sweat and urine hit me. My whole body went cold. I'd just stolen a van from someone a lot worse than me, a kidnapper, a trafficker. Whoever they were, they'd be desperate to get it back. And when they realized I'd seen the kids, I'd be dead before the sun came up.

I didn't call my contact, I knew he'd either kill the kids or kill me for screwing this up. Instead, I untied their hands, took out their gags, told them in broken Spanish and English that I wasn't going to hurt them. I left their ankles tied for the moment. If they bolted into the desert, they'd be buzzard food before morning. I drove them back toward civilization, my mind racing. First service station I saw, I pulled in. Bought water and snacks with the last cash I had.

Opened the back, handed them in, shut it again. Then I walked across the lot to a payphone, called the police anonymously, told them where to find the van. I walked to the next station down the road, had a buddy pick me up, and left the state that week. Went to Texas to stay with my brother. That was the start of me getting clean. Months later, I saw on the news that the kids had been returned to their families in Mexico. I'll never know who took them or why, but I know that if I hadn't stolen that van, things might have ended much worse for them. and for me. But life has a way of throwing more than one test at you. Because before Vegas, before Texas, before that night with the kids, I'd already been through hell in my own backyard.

I grew up in a low-income apartment building in Baltimore with my grandmother. The place was a war zone. Drug dealers on every floor, the kind of guys who'd kill you for looking at them wrong. Some apartments were drug labs, some were stash spots, some were distribution hubs. Every hallway smelled like a mix of cooking chemicals, weed, and fear. It was the kind of place where the elevator didn't work half the time, and when it did, you weren't sure if you'd make it to your floor without getting robbed. My grandmother was too old and frail to move us anywhere else. We were trapped in that concrete box with the wolves.

And that is where the next part of my story begins. To be continued.