Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Stranger in the Woods, Vanished Friends, and That Man at My Door Horror Tales Retold PART2 #5

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #truehorrorstories #creepyencounters #paranormalstories #nightmarefuel #vanishingmysteries  Part 2 of Stranger in the Woods, Vanished Friends, and That Man at My Door continues the chilling retelling of true horror experiences. From friends who mysteriously disappear to sinister figures lurking at doorways, these stories evoke suspense and fear. Each tale explores the unsettling feeling of being watched and the terrifying realization that real danger can strike unexpectedly. horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, truehorrorstories, creepyencounters, paranormalstories, nightmarefuel, vanishingmysteries, scaryencounters, chillingtales, unsettlingmoments, realnightmares, disturbingstories, stalkerstories, survivalstories, mysteriousoccurrences, truestoryhorror

Three massive guys knocked on my grandfather's front door one afternoon, demanding to know if he was the one who had broken into their van and stolen their stuff. Not without reason, Grandpa pointed them up the dirt road that led straight to Tanner's isolated home on the ridge. That's where the real trouble began. This part of the story was pieced together later by what the police told my grandfather. The three men marched up the trail, kicked in Tanner's front door, and boom, first guy through the doorway stepped right into a bear trap. Yep, a full-on metal-jawed beast of a trap, just sitting there in the dark like a horror movie set piece. The guy screamed, and that's when Tanner,

who had apparently been hiding in the bushes outside, ambushed the other two with a can of industrial bear mace. The two men dropped, screaming, rubbing at their faces, stumbling blindly through the hall. Tanner pushed them all the way into the back room of his house, where he had chains bolted to the wall, and tried to lock them up like animals. One of them, blinded and panicked, stumbled toward the back of the house, trying to escape. He ran straight into a barbed wire net that Tanner had set up by his rear exit the same way some people might string up Christmas lights. My grandfather, sitting down by his shed at the base of the hill, heard the yelling, then screaming, then gunshots. He knew instantly this wasn't some regular argument with a trespasser.

He called the cops immediately. When the police arrived, they found the house full of traps like something out of a twisted home alone movie. A swinging axe rigged to the ceiling, tripwires, more bare traps. One guy was chained to the wall with a knife stabbed clean through his hand. Another was tangled in the barbed wire net with four bullet wounds. He'd been left there to bleed out. Tanner? Gone. Vanished like smoke. When Grandpa asked about the third man, the cops told him only two had been found. Both survived, were taken to the hospital, and then arrested for outstanding warrants. The cops hinted that the van they'd been driving was probably filled with either stolen goods or drugs, maybe both, and that's what Tanner had

taken. As for Tanner, he was never seen again. But a A few years later, Grandpa heard a strange little story on the radio about a man found dead in a ditch down in Kentucky. The body matched Tanner's description. We always joked in the family about the bear-trap man, as in, what happened to him? Did he ever walk again? Soon after that, Grandpa packed up and moved to another state. He did visit the old house once years later and swore he saw someone up on the ridge, watching

him from the trees. He didn't stick around to find out who. Fast forward a few years, I was just a kid when we moved into this quiet little suburb in Ottawa, Ontario. The neighborhood was pretty typical. Cookie cutter houses. Clean driveways. Everyone mowed their lawn on Saturdays. But one neighbor didn't quite fit the mold.

She lived across the street from us. When my dad went over to introduce himself, she barely cracked. the door. Said almost nothing. Didn't give her name. Didn't even smile. She wasn't rude, just, strange. So we ended up calling her the crazy lady. Every time we played outside, I got the feeling someone was watching us. One day, I heard tapping, like knuckles on glass, and looked up. There she was, standing in her window, just staring at us. No smile, no No wave, no expression. Just watching.

Like we were some kind of zoo animals. It became a regular thing. Every time we were in the driveway or front yard, she'd be there at her window. Always the same expressionless stare. And if a ball ever rolled into her yard, she'd come out screaming for us to get off her property. We learned pretty quickly to steer clear. About five years later, she vanished. No warning.

No goodbye. Just gone. My family didn't miss her, but the weirdness didn't stop. A few weeks later, we were woken up by sirens outside. Fire trucks, paramedics, the whole works, all outside the crazy lady's house. My mom rushed out to see what was going on. The responders said they got an alert from a medical necklace signal, like the kind elderly people were in case they fall.

nobody had lived there for weeks. Eventually, a new family bought the place. We went over to welcome them to the neighborhood, and when we brought up the previous owner, they looked confused. They said they'd owned the house for years but had rented it to no one. Said it should have been empty. But there were two creepy details their son told us later that stuck with me. First, when they moved in, there was one single chair facing the front window in the living room, nothing else. Just that chair, as if someone had sat there every day, staring out the window. Second, in the basement, they found a small, locked room. Not just shut, locked from the inside. They never found a key, never opened it. For all I know, it's still locked to this day.

I sometimes wonder, was she ever really gone? Or was she down there, behind that door? Another strange memory, the Rodney King riots back in 1992. I was seven years old. My friends and I were stacking beer cans in the backyard of a house in L.A. when it started. Sirens, yelling, breaking glass. I didn't know it then, but those sharp popping sounds were gunshots. We were curious, not scared. We wandered to the edge of the fence and peered out.

The streets were chaos, fights breaking out, shops getting looted, people running. Whoever was babysitting us did a terrible job. We slipped out through a gap in the fence and walked down the block, drawn in by the madness like moths to a flame. One of my friends, older than the rest of us, spotted a broken window in a candy store and was tempted to go inside. He stood there staring through the jagged glass, unsure, while chaos swirled around us.

We got separated. I didn't know where I was. Didn't know how to get home. I ducked into an alley, just trying to hide and breathe. I saw cops slamming people onto car hoods, men lighting dumpsters on fire, and a woman who passed by, kissed my forehead, and told me, God bless you, child. Get home. Then it got darker. A man in a windbreaker reeking of gas and sweat spotted me and grabbed me by the collar. I was too stunned to react. He started dragging me toward the fire. I started kicking, screaming, panicking. I thought he was going to toss me into the flames. He clamped an arm around my neck and dragged me faster. Just as we reached the burning dumpster,

another man stepped in, bigger, stronger. He punched the guy, threw him against the wall, and shoved his face right up to the metal side of that flaming dumpster. I still remember the smell. Burnt meat. The guy screamed like an animal. I ran. Eventually, someone pulled me into a church and told me to sit down and wait. I stayed there until someone recognized me and brought me home.

I had scrapes, bruises. One friend was hospitalized after a TV got thrown out a window and exploded near him. He made it. We all made it. Barely. I sometimes wonder about that man in the windbreaker. Was he trying to hurt me? Was he just insane? And that bigger man, was he a hero or just someone who hated the other guy more? I don't know. But whenever I see fire, I hear that scream. Now let's jump to something more recent. Last year, I moved into a dirt cheap housing unit in Detroit. It was beat up, dark, and hadn't had a tenant in a while. I hadn't even been there two full days when it happened.

It was around 11 p.m. I was upstairs in the smaller bedroom, hanging up clothes. Most of the lights were out because I hadn't plugged in my lamps yet. That's when I heard the front door open. The door was old, swollen from humidity, and stuck unless you really forced it open. It wasn't locked, yeah, I know, bad idea, but I figured nobody would bother breaking into a house that looked like it was falling apart. I froze. Listened.

Heard someone walking through the living room. Then the sound of drawers being opened in the kitchen. My phone and laptop were sitting right on the counter. I stayed quiet, heart pounding. To be continued.