Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Stranger in the Woods, Vanished Friends, and That Man at My Door Horror Tales Retold PART1 #4

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #truehorrorstories #creepyencounters #paranormalstories #nightmarefuel #vanishingmysteries  Part 1 of Stranger in the Woods, Vanished Friends, and That Man at My Door dives into chilling real-life horror stories. From mysterious strangers lurking in the forest to friends who inexplicably vanish, and unsettling encounters with unknown men at one’s doorstep, these tales keep readers on edge. Each story explores fear, suspense, and the unnerving reality that danger can appear when you least expect it.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, truehorrorstories, creepyencounters, paranormalstories, nightmarefuel, vanishingmysteries, scaryencounters, chillingtales, unsettlingmoments, realnightmares, disturbingstories, stalkerstories, survivalstories, mysteriousoccurrences, truestoryhorror

My clearest memory from the late 90s isn't anything you'd expect. It's not the music, not the fashion, not even the rise of the internet, it's the whole Clinton Lewinsky scandal. But not for the scandal itself. Nah. What stuck with me most was how obsessed everyone around me became with it. It felt like the news wouldn't shut up about it, like every channel had a giant magnifying glass pointed straight at the White House.

I was just a kid then, maybe ten or eleven, and all I really wanted to do was watch cartoons in peace, Rocco's modern life, specifically. But instead, I got the non-stop drone of news anchors and political experts yelling over each other about impeachment and moral failures. We lived in Maryland back then, not too far from D.C., and my dad worked for the Department of Defense. He knew a guy who knew a guy who claimed to be close to Clinton, which meant my parents acted like they were insiders too. They'd talk like they knew what was really going down behind closed doors. Clinton getting removed would have apparently set off some political domino effect at my dad's job,

like his boss would have gotten promoted or fired or something. It all sounded super adult and complicated, and frankly, I couldn't care less. I just wanted control of the remote. At one point, they had ten or so people over, loud voices echoing through the house while the TV played more breaking news about stained dresses and denials. Meanwhile, I was sulking upstairs, annoyed that I wasn't allowed to pull the old black and white TV from the closet. Apparently, they couldn't get it to work right anyway, but it still felt unfair.

So there I was, sprawled across my bed with a cassette tape playing in my Walkman, trying to tune out the boring chaos downstairs. And that's when I saw him. I just happened to glance out the window, pure boredom, honestly, and I caught sight of a tall man creeping through our backyard. He moved fast, almost like he was deliberately avoiding the lit-up patches from the windows. He was bald, way taller than my dad, and definitely not someone I recognized. At first, I figured maybe he was just a guest stepping outside for air or a smoke. But he didn't linger. He was heading toward the doghouse. Now, here's the thing. Our dog, Jim,

had died just a few weeks earlier, and I wasn't over it. That doghouse still felt sacred, and seeing some random dude mess with it pissed me off. The guy threw something into it, something about the size of a VHS tape, and that was the last straw for me. I stomped out of my room, down the hallway, and leaned over the railing to shout at my parents. I must have sounded like a brat, but I didn't care. I wanted that man out of our yard. My mom yelled back, something like, what man, and then everything went dead quiet. The news was still playing on the TV, but all the adult voices had gone silent. Then boom, my dad sprinted up the stairs, grabbed me, and rushed back down without another word. Next thing I knew, we were all across the street at the

neighbor's house, watching the blinking lights of police cars and the arrival of a literal bomb squad. Yeah, bomb squad. I didn't really understand what was going on. I mean, I got that it was serious, but my main reaction was just being irritated that we had to leave. The police eventually asked me to describe the man I saw. All I could say was that he looked like Captain Picard from Star Trek, which wasn't super helpful. I've never been good at descriptions.

We were allowed back into the house later that night, and things sort of returned to normal, at least on the surface. But my parents never told me what that package was. They didn't say if it was an actual bomb or just some kind of threat. Whatever it was, it was serious enough to get law enforcement moving fast. The police came back a few times and showed me pictures of possible suspects, but I never saw the man again. Years passed.

My dad died of blood poisoning in 2005. My mom passed from natural causes in 2007. Both of them took whatever knowledge they had about that night with them. I ended up moving to Vermont. Lost touch with most of the people my parents knew, and honestly, I don't even remember many of their names now. But that night stuck with me, and when I tell the story at parties, it always gets the room quiet. Now here's where the creepy factor goes up another notch. A few decades back, my grandfather had a neighbor who was straight out of a survivalist fever dream.

The guy lived on a ridge overlooking my grandpa's house in central Missouri. Nobody knew much about him, but the locals called him Tanner. He was this hardcore conspiracy theorist who lived completely off-grid. No electronics, no utilities, no law. He didn't recognize the authority of the police and made it clear to everyone that they should stay the hell away from his land. Tanner was what people now call a sovereign citizen. He brewed his own booze, hunted his own meat, and grew his own crops.

He had a shed full of guns and traps, and no one, not even the cops, wanted to mess with him unless they absolutely had to. My grandpa lost track of how many times the sheriff's department drove past his house to climb the ridge and tried a reason with the guy. One time, there was even a full-blown standoff. Tanner barricaded himself in, and the cops had to rip his front door off with a chain tied to a pickup truck. He'd get locked up for a few weeks here and there, disorderly conduct, trekked.

trespassing, resisting arrest, but he always came back. Always. The police warned my grandpa and his family to stay away from Tanner's property. If anything happened, call them. Don't go investigating. Don't confront him. Just stay safe. Tanner set traps in his lawn. Like actual bare traps. He had shackles and chains bolted to the walls of his back room. It was the kind of thing you see in a horror movie, not real life. My grandpa only had one face-to-face run in with him, but it was memorable. One winter, my grandpa was smoking a cigarette on his back porch when he heard a gunshot way too close for comfort. A hawk, some kind of short-tailed one, fell from the sky, slammed against the railing, and landed on the lawn. It was still alive, thrashing around, wings flapping

weekly. My grandpa looked up toward the ridge, and there was Tanner, yelling, don't touch him. He's mine. Grandpa shouted back that he'd call the cops if Tanner stepped foot on his property. Then he went inside, locked the door, and didn't come back out until the next day. But the rail kicker came a few months later, in the spring. This rust-colored panel van broke down in front of my grandpa's house. The driver, some stranger, pulled over into the dirt path that led up to Tanner's place, not even realizing it wasn't a regular road. The van just sat there for a few hours. Then, bam, someone pounded on my grandpa's front door.

He opened it and found three huge men standing there, demanding to know if he'd broken into their van and stolen their stuff. And that, well, that's a whole other story. To be continued.