Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - The Nightmare in Carmel Valley A Family’s Dream Home Turns Into a Living Hell PART3 #39

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #carmelvalleynightmare #hauntedhomes #familyhorrorstories #paranormalterror #livinghell  The Nightmare in Carmel Valley – Part 3 concludes the chilling saga of a family whose dream home became a living nightmare. This final part reveals the most terrifying encounters, the psychological toll, and the shocking events that turned their once-perfect home into a place of fear, despair, and true horror.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, carmelvalleyhorrorstories, hauntedhomeexperiences, familynightmares, paranormaltrueevents, chillingtruestories, eerieencounters, livinghellstories, darkfamilytales, unexplainedhorrorstories, terrifyingrealstories, nightmareathome, fearandparanoia, unsettlingtruestories, hauntedhousefear

Horror. The nightmare behind the white picket fence. This whole crazy story really kicks off with something as ordinary as opening the mailbox. That's it. Just a letter sitting there waiting to flip an entire family's life upside down. And trust me, by the time this roller coaster ends, you'll be questioning whether you ever really know the people who smile and wave in your neighborhood. So, picture this. Janice Ruther, a 37-year-old microbiologist working at a children's hospital, and her husband, Jerry Rise, 40 years old, an ex-competitive swimmer turned special education teacher for kids with autism. Good people, normal people, the type of couple who had worked their butts off for years,

saving every spare dollar, skipping vacations, taking extra shifts, all for one big dream, buying their forever home. They finally found it in 2011, a Spanish-style single-story house in Carmel Valley, San Diego. Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big backyard, a pool, and this vibe that screamed, Raise your kids here and never leave. It was a little above budget, okay, maybe a lot above,

but they stretched for it, talked to the bank, and somehow made it happen. Against all odds, out of multiple offers, they got the house. Jerry would later say he could hardly believe it. It felt like winning the lottery. And for a while, life was sweet. They moved in, met the neighbors, and realized the community was young and fresh. Most houses were only about a decade old. Everyone looked out for each other, kids played safely in the streets, and it honestly felt like one of those cheesy TV commercials for suburban bliss. Exactly the kind of place you'd think nothing bad could ever happen. But then came the letter.

One month after moving in, Janice opened the mailbox and found an envelope addressed to them. Inside was a polite, almost overly polite letter. A stranger was offering to buy their house. Not just buy it, pay them $100,000 more than what they had just paid. Like, who does that? Who dropped six figures over-asking on a house that's already been sold and occupied? At first, Janice and Jerry laughed it off. They thought it had to be a scam, some weird prank. They tucked the letter away in a drawer and forgot about it. But that little piece of paper, it was going to come back with a vengeance later on.

Weeks passed, and then strange things started happening. Strangers showed up at their front door, claiming they had seen an open house list, online. Others wandered into the yard, peeking through the windows like they were checking out a property for sale. At one point, a whole crowd gathered outside, confused as to why there weren't signs or balloons or a realtor waiting to greet them. Jerry jumped online searching, and there it was. Their home listed on Zillow. Photos, descriptions, the whole nine yards, basically the exact same listing from when they bought it. Only, the seller wasn't them. The profile was a fake, no picture, no real name, just some random person pretending to sell their home. They reported it,

of course, flagged the listings, saved screenshots, but they didn't call the police. At that point, it seemed like nothing more than a bizarre online scam. Annoying, sure, creepy, definitely, but dangerous? They didn't think so. That was a. their first mistake. Months later, the situation escalated into something darker. Packages started showing up at their door, stuff they hadn't ordered, sketchy things. Then came the emails, the fake social media accounts, the sense that someone out there was messing with them on a personal level. And then, one day, Janice opened the mailbox again. This time, instead of a polite letter, she found a court summons.

A man she had never met was accusing her of sexual harassment. She was floored. Like, what? Her? A children's hospital microbiologist who barely had time for anything besides work and family? Turns out, someone had created fake online profiles using her name, her photos, her address, basically her entire identity, and used them to harass a man. and this guy, believing it was real, went ahead and filed an official complaint against her.

That's when Janice's brain clicked back to that first letter, the one offering a ridiculous amount of money for their house. She pulled it out of the drawer where she'd kept it and stared at the name signed at the bottom. Kathy J. Roe. And suddenly, things started making sense. Janice remembered seeing Kathy around town, like at the Super Bowl. market and the mall, even though according to Kathy's Facebook, Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast.

I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreeker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes. No editing required. And with Spreker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you.

you and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Spreaker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part,

Spreaker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreaker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out Spreaker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R.com.

She didn't live anywhere nearby. She also remembered Halloween, when Kathy had shown up at her door with her daughter in a wheelchair to trick or treat, despite the fact that her own neighborhood was miles away. And then there were the times Kathy would slowly walk past their house, staring in, watching, not once, not twice, but regularly. By then, Janice and Jerry were convinced.

Kathy was their stalker. So they gathered everything, the letter, the screenshots, the Facebook page, their notes, and finally went to the police. What they didn't realize was that they were about to unravel the kind of nightmare you usually only see in documentaries. Because Kathy wasn't just some nosy neighbor or sore loser who missed out on buying the house. She had a past, a very dark one. Back in 2007, long before Janice and Jenry even knew her name,

Kathy had already dipped her toes into the world of cyber harassment. At the time, she had a decent life, a healthy husband, a steady job, and a daughter, Rachel, who had cerebral palsy. She was respected, responsible, even considered a good employee. But jealousy got the better of her. She had a co-worker she didn't like, and instead of dealing with it like a normal adult, she went nuclear. She created fake accounts under his name, sent threats, harassed people online,

caused chaos. It escalated until she got caught red-handed. The co-worker reported her, the company found out, and Kathy was fired. Public humiliation. A total disgrace. You'd think that would be a wake-up call, right? A chance to change, to get help, to focus on her family? Nope. She buried the shame, moved on, and when her daughter's needs outgrew their old house, she started house hunting again. That's when she found the Carmel Valley dream home. The exact one Janice and Jerry ended up buying before she could seal the deal. She tried to outbid them, even wrote that polite letter offering $100,000 more. But when they didn't respond, she took it personally. To Kathy,

their silence wasn't just a no. It was a slap in the face. A rejection, a humiliation. And from that wound, the stalking began. First, the fake Zillow listing, then the packages, then the catfishing profiles pretending to be Janice, messaging men, inviting them to her house with sick fantasies. Some of these posts even suggested Janice wanted to be assaulted in her own home. Horrifying doesn't even begin to cover it.

And the scariest part? Men actually responded. They emailed, they messaged, some even showed up at Janice's house. One guy tried to break in through a window. Another straight up rang the doorbell. Well, you can imagine. Kathy would later claim it was all just a joke, just harmless fun. But tell that to the family living in constant fear that one of those men might actually follow through. By October 2011, things had spiraled completely out of control. But finally, finally, the police got a break. Investigators traced the IP address of the fake accounts back to Kathy's home. They had her. When confronted, she denied everything, then she admitted it, then she backtracked again, classic manipulator.

But eventually, the evidence was overwhelming. In 2015, Kathy Rowe was sentenced to one year of house arrest, five years of probation, and ordered to stay away from Janice and Jerry's family for at least ten years. Jerry still shaken, told reporters, I think she's still dangerous. She knows how to manipulate, how to lie, and now she has even more reason to hate us. And he's right, because here's the thing. Kathy didn't vanish. After her sentencing ended, she popped up in interviews on shows like Dr. Phil, ABC News, documentaries, she painted herself as reformed as someone who had learned her lesson. But had she really? Hi, I'm Darren Marler. Host of the Weird Darkness podcast. I want to talk about the most important tool in my podcast belt. Spreaker

is the all-in-one platform that makes it easy to record, host, and distribute your show everywhere from Apple Podcasts to Spotify. But the real game changer for me was Spreaker's monetization. Spreaker offers dynamic ad insertion. That means you can automatically insert ads into your episodes, no editing required. And with Spreaker's programmatic ads, they'll bring the ads to you, and you get paid for every download. This turned my podcasting hobby into a full-time career. Sprinker also has a premium subscription model where your most dedicated listeners can pay for bonus

content or early access, adding another revenue stream to what you're already doing. And the best part, Sprinker grows with you. Whether you're just starting out or running a full-blown podcast network, Spreeker's powerful tools scale effortlessly as your show grows. So if you're ready to podcast like a pro and get paid while doing it, check out spreeker.com. That's S-P-R-E-A-K-E-R dot com. That's the question. That's what lingers.

Is Kathy truly rehabilitated? Or is she just waiting for another opening, another family, another obsession to fixate on? Maybe we'll never know. But if you take anything from this story, it's this. Sometimes the scariest monsters aren't strangers hiding in the shadows. Sometimes they're the neighbor who smiles politely as they walk their dog past your house. The end.