Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Terrifying Encounters in North Carolina Near-Abductions, Stalkers, and Escapes PART4 #77

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #NCterrifyingencounters #nearabductions #stalkerhorrorstories #escapestories #truecrimestories  Part 4 escalates the North Carolina encounters, detailing increasingly dangerous near-abductions, relentless stalkers, and nerve-wracking escapes. These true stories illustrate the heightened tension and fear that come from real-life threats, showing the courage and resilience needed to survive when danger lurks too close to home.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, truehorrorstories, NCencounters, nearabductionstories, stalkerencounters, escapehorrorstories, creepyexperiences, unsettlingmoments, chillingencounters, survivalstories, terrifyingmoments, realhorrorstories, spookytales, nightmarestories, frighteningexperiences

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Discovering the face in a book. My mom thought she was done with him. After that terrifying episode in her college apartment, the one where a stranger just walked in like he owned the place, grabbed someone else's guitar, and bolted, she did what most people would do. She tried to push it out of her head. She told herself it was over that the world had moved.

moved on and so had he. For years, life stayed pretty normal. She went on with her schooling, graduated, built her career, eventually got married, and had me. But the thing about trauma is that it doesn't disappear. It just hides in the corners of your memory until something yanks it back into the light. That something came years later, when she was sitting on the couch with a blanket over her lap, flipping through a thick book about America's most notorious serial killers. She was always a little morbidly curious about true crime, though she'd never admit it too loudly. Some people binge sitcoms, my mom read about monsters in human skin. And then she turned the page. The man staring back at her from the photo wasn't just another mugshot. She knew that face.

She knew it instantly, like recognizing an old enemy in a crowd. Her stomach dropped. Her hands went cold. She slammed the book shut, then opened it again, almost like she couldn't trust her own eyes. But there was no mistake. The man in the picture, listed as Mike DeBarden, was the same man who had followed her in the car back in college. The same man who had cornered her on that footbridge and tried to yank her inside his vehicle. The same man who'd shown up in her apartment pretending he forgot his guitar.

Only this time, there was more information. This wasn't just some creep. He was a monster. A serial rapist. A murderer. A counterfeiter who traveled all over the country, leaving destruction and broken lives in his wake. Imagine realizing, decades later, that the stranger who once wrapped his fingers around your wrist had also killed other women just like you. Imagine realizing how close you'd

come to being one of his victims. That was the moment everything clicked for my mom. He wasn't just some random guy who'd gotten weirdly fixated on her. He was targeting her. She had slipped through his fingers by pure chance. Connecting the dots. When she told me this story, I couldn't let it go. I'm not the kind of person who hears something like that and shrugs it off. I needed proof. I needed details. So, I did what I do best, I dug.

The records lined up almost too well. Mike DeBarton, sometimes listed under slightly different spellings, had in fact been active in North Carolina during the exact years my mom was in college there. The victim profiles made my blood run cold. He prayed on women aged 18 or 19, just like my mom at that time. Young, independent, probably a little distracted with schoolwork, maybe walking alone at night after class. Perfect targets in his mind. And then the final piece, he died in 2011.

The official records put a neat little end date on a life that had left chaos behind it. But to me, it didn't feel neat at all. It felt like staring into a void that almost swallowed my family whole. Because here's the truth, if things had gone just a little differently, I wouldn't be here. If my mom had been too tired to fight back on that bridge, if her roommate hadn't screamed at the intruder in their living room, if luck hadn't been on her side just a few times, she could have been another nameless victim in a book. And I wouldn't exist.

That realization changes you. It makes your stomach twist. It makes you grateful, but also angry. Grateful that she lived. Angry that a man like that even existed in the first place. I sometimes ask myself why he let her go. Why didn't he finish what he started? The only explanation that makes sense is that it became too risky.

Maybe the police patrol near the gas station spooked him. Maybe he thought dragging her into his car would make it too easy for people to trace him. Whatever the reason, he calculated. He moved on. And someone else, a girl named Lorry Jensen, wasn't so lucky. She became one of his confirmed victims. That's the kind of thought that crawls into your head at night and refuses to leave. My own encounter on the road. For years, I carried my mom's story with me like a cautionary tale. A reminder that evil doesn't always look like the boogeyman. Sometimes it looks like a friendly guy offering you a ride.

Sometimes it looks like a neighbor. Sometimes it looks like nothing at all until it's too late. By 2005, I was an adult with my own life, my own job, and my own highway miles to rack up. I was driving from Maryland all the way down to Florida for a big business conference. I'd left my friend's place in Richmond at some ridiculous hour, I'm talking middle of the night, sky still black, nobody else on the road kind of time. Around 5 a.m., I pulled into a gas station in North Carolina. You know the vibe, fluorescent lights buzzing, the smell of coffee that had been burning for hours, maybe one guy inside the store half asleep behind the counter. I went through the routine, filled up the tank, emptied my own tank in the restroom, came back out, slipped into the driver's seat and turned the ignition.

That's when I heard it. A knock on the passenger side window. I jumped, heart in my throat. Outside was a woman, maybe in her 50s. Ordinary looking, not threatening at first glance. But instinct kicked in. I immediately hit the lock button on all my doors and cracked the window only an inch, just enough to hear her voice. She leaned closer and said she needed a ride.

Just a few exits back up I, 95, she claimed. Just a short favor. I told her no. I wasn't heading that way. She smiled, but it wasn't friendly. It was tight, forced. She insisted. Said it would only take a few minutes.

Said she was stranded. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was wrong. It wasn't what she was saying, it was how she was saying it. Too pushy. Too desperate. Not the kind of desperate that comes from being stranded, either. The kind that comes from wanting to corner someone.

I thought about getting back out of the car and running inside the store, but something told me not to. I didn't trust that I'd make it before she tried something. Finally, I held up my cell phone and told her flat out, if she didn't back off, I was calling the police. Her whole demeanor changed in an instant. The smile vanished. Her posture loosened.

She muttered an apology and walked away. My hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I couldn't drive yet. I just sat there, breathing hard, trying to pull myself together. And then it got worse. The cold stare. As I pulled out of the gas station a few minutes later, headlight swung across my mirror. Another car was leaving the lot.

No big deal, I thought, until the lights hit just right and I saw the driver. It was her. The same woman who'd been begging for a ride. Only now she was behind the wheel of a car, perfectly fine, no sign of being stranded at all. My blood ran cold. She merged on to the interstate, not northbound like she'd begged me to take her. No, she went south, the complete opposite direction. As I passed her on the highway, I glanced over.

She locked eyes with me, and I swear I'll never forget that stare. Cold. Empty. Like looking into the eyes of someone who didn't see me as a person at all, just a target that got away. Even now, years later, I still get chills remembering it. Lessons learned. After that night, I made myself some promises. I never get into my car without immediately locking the doors. I never cracked the windows for strangers, not for anyone except maybe

a cop, and even then, I keep my guard up. If anyone approaches my car, they get yelled at through the glass. My hands stay on the wheel, ready to hit the gas and get out of there. Because here's the truth, there's always a reason to be afraid. Not paranoid. Not panicked. But alert. Because predators count on you letting your guard down. My mom's story and my own taught me the same lesson in two different decades. Danger doesn't always wear a mask. Sometimes it smiles. Sometimes it asks politely. Sometimes it pretends to need help. And if you're not ready, if you're not careful, That's all it takes. The end.