The Lets Read Podcast - 100: Episode 089 | Deep Woods & Stalker Stories | 20 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

Welcome to the eighty-ninth episode of The Lets Read Podcast! This podcast includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about the Deep Woods, Texas & Stalkers... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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Until May 31st, save up to $ always there, helping you with Toyo tires you can trust. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Like Toyo's open country family of tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca The scariest story I've ever heard was told to me by my grandfather. He was a soldier during the Second World War, enlisting on the day he turned 18 on March 3rd, 1944. The timing meant he missed the D-Day landings, as well as all the horrors associated with it, but he arrived on the Western Front just in time to take part in something arguably much worse,

the invasion of the German homeland. Looking back, with the kind of 2020 vision that hindsight gives you, it seems obvious that Germany was destined to lose the war, squeezed under the combined weights of the Allied and Soviet armed forces. But in the moment, during the day-to-day fighting in the fields and forests of northern Europe, the future seemed anything but certain. In fact, Germany was still convinced it could win the war. Using atomic bomb technology, stubborn defensive tactics, or a combination of the two, the Germans were far from convinced that their fight was over. And it was into this new phase of the war that my grandfather found himself

in during a nightmarish push into the German heartland that would prove just as terrifying as anything that had preceded it, if not more so. On the 2nd of October 1944, the Battle of Aachen began. The city had been incorporated into the Siegfried Line, the main defensive network on Germany's western border, and the Allies hoped to capture it quickly before advancing into the industrialized Ruhr Basin to land the knockout blow to German manufacturing capabilities. However, a few miles south of the city lay a place known as Hürtgenwald, or Hürtgen Forest. It was here that over 80,000 German soldiers were based, and the US Army task force sent into the woods intended to pin them down and prevent them from reinforcing

the city of Aachen. It's there that my grandfather's story occurs, so without further ado, this is what happened to him. He and his platoon had been tasked with a routine patrol through the woods, probing for the German defensive line which they would call in artillery and air support. It has been a quiet morning, but that calm was shattered when a distant rifle shot sent one of the splatoon mates crashing into the dirt. The soldiers tried to find what little cover they could, but it took a few minutes before they could work out just which angle the shots were coming from. And in that time, three or four other Americans fell to that German sniper's bullets. A few men tried to

tactically withdraw under covering fire from their fellow soldiers, but the sniper picked them off before they could get away. Before long, the entire platoon was pinned down by the sniper, completely unable to move without being shot down where they stood. But as horrendous as that sounds, that's not the part that stuck with them, it's what came next. The platoon's radio man had been the one shot during the initial ambush and had bled to death pretty quickly, lying lifeless in a slight clearing among the trees. Anytime any of the soldiers tried to pull the man's radio unit to safety, the sniper would let off a shot,

ensuring they kept their distance. One brave soul actually managed to get a hand on the radio, but through obscene skill or just plain luck, the sniper managed to put a bullet through the upper section of the palm, basically blowing out his finger ligaments and rendering his hand useless. To their absolute horror, there was no way for any of them to call in artillery or air support. Effectively, more than 20 men were completely at the mercy of one German sniper. My grandfather told me that on numerous occasions a soldier might shift a little in place, maybe peek up to see if they could spot the sniper's firing position, and each time the man would fall dead or scream out in pain as the bullet whizzed through the trees and found its mark, and each time the sniper fired and cut down another American in cold blood, he would laugh.

He laughed so loud it would echo through the trees around them. My grandfather said that was the sound that he could never, ever forget. Hearing the joy in the German sniper's laugh, the raw, violent delight he felt when his bullet struck home, sometimes he would shout something, a phrase my grandfather couldn't understand but had translated later on. Mehr weinende Kinder. More crying children. That sniper had my grandfather's platoon pinned down for about six full hours, but to him it felt like days. They had to just lie there, perfectly still as the dead, open eyes of their fallen comrades stared at them, looks of shock and horror on their lifeless faces. At one point, this sniper, unable to spy any living targets

through his high-powered scope, began to fire upon the dead in an attempt to break the platoon psychologically. My grandfather told me the entire platoon winced in disgust and terror as a bullet smashed into a dead man's skull. He had bled out leaning up against a tree and was evidently still well within the sniper's sights. Of all the wounds and injuries my grandfather saw during the war, he told me head wounds were always the worst. Once the structural integrity of the human skull is compromised, be it by bullet or shrapnel, or from the blunt force of a rifle butt, a person's face changes shape. The first bullet that hit the dead man's skull practically split it in two, right down the middle. But nothing I can write will outdo

the exact horrific manner in which my grandfather described it. I'd known that guy for months. I could recognize him in the dark, just from his gait. But now, I didn't recognize him at all. His eyes way too far apart. He looked inhuman. But the sniper didn't stop there. He laughed and laughed and laughed as he sent two bullets, then three, then four sailing into the dead man's skull, pulverizing it until it was just a mess of broken bone and leaking brain matter. Eyeballs still connected by the optical nerve dangled from shattered eye sockets. I can't even imagine how traumatic that must have been for a kid who was barely 18 years old. I mean, he was still a kid. A child. I think back to when I was 18, I could barely handle seeing a paper cut, let alone seeing someone's entire head explode.

His platoon had to wait until nightfall to escape. They did so as barks of, Feiglinge, Feiglinge, echoed through the trees. Cowards, cowards, the German sniper called them, in between volleys of that perverted, manic laughter. My grandpa said that he still expected to be shot as they ran back the way they came, trying not to have head-on collisions with tree trunks as they did. One man was so terrified he actually did run straight into a tree, broke his nose, but just got up and kept running. Grandpa died last year so I consider this a little tribute to a great man

who went through terrible times. Rest in peace, Grandpa. My name is Amber and I live here in Asheville, North Carolina with my dog Captain. Captain is the love of my life. He's an Alaskan Klee Kai Husky with a mostly black coat but with streaks of white fur around his legs and face, not to mention little rings of dark fur around his pale blue eyes that make him look like the Hamburglar. I rescued him from a shelter when he was just a puppy, right after my fiancé moved out to Hong Kong for work. He helped me through the initial loneliness on nights when I just couldn't handle getting into an empty bed

for the 50th time. And in the years that followed, when my husband decided he would be better off starting a family with a Chinese woman he met through his job, Captain helped me through the heartbreak. Captain is a big guy, a subwoofer. While other dogs need walks, Captain needs hikes which is why every weekend for the past few years I would drive him out to Nantahala National Forest, one of the few places he could really be. Dogs just aren't meant to be cooped up indoors. They need to run, they need to explore, they need a place like Nantahala. And coincidentally, so did I. It was a place I could really lose myself. A place to escape the pressures of a high pressure high paying job.

The woods were a place of sanctuary to me but that all changed one chilly October day when I came to realize that there is a good reason why human beings have walled themselves off in towns and cities. Because the wilderness it seems is not our friend. Captain was always his happiest in the woods. For such a majestic animal he has an uncanny ability to act goofy and the woods brought that out of him in spades. He'd be so lost in the feeling of pure freedom, his blue eyes all wide with his tongue lolling out one side of his mouth riding the waves of zoomies that inevitably had me laughing at how dorky he acted. So you can imagine how quickly I noticed a change in his behavior. How he went from such a loud, boisterous dog to a quivering, whiny wreck that barely ventured a few feet away from me at

any one time. And all the time I'd been taking Captain out to Nantahala, I'd never seen him act in such a way, and when I laid a hand on his neck to give him a stroke, I discovered he was actually trembling in fear. My first thought was that a mountain lion could have been in the area, but a previous encounter with what I'd figured was a predator's scent trail had caused Captain to bark incessantly and become overly aggressive. Now that was back in the fall of last year, and that the previous summer the Nantahala had seen a sharp increase in black bear activity, with homeowners being encouraged to be much more careful surrounding issues of food disposal. It was entirely possible that Captain had sniffed out a mama bear and cubs, in which case he was right to be cautious.

But he wasn't just cautious, he was outright terrified. I had no idea what to make of such a situation but one thing was clear, Captain wanted out and consequently so did I. There was only one big problem with such a plan. We'd already spent like two hours hiking into the woods. Getting out would be not quick or easy. With every step, the tension grew, Captain looking behind me with wild, terrified eyes, darting ahead before doubling back to whine at me. Each footstep seemed a little quicker than the last, my utter paranoia growing to fever pitch as I continually looked behind me and continually saw nothing. But something was behind us, Captain knew it,

and I could feel it. At one point he bounded back to my side and froze, staring off into the dense forest as he sniffed at the air before him. I thought the worst was over, but I was horribly, horribly wrong. With a yelp so loud it hurt my ears, he burst off through the trees ahead, howling barks, punctuating his canine gallop. That's when I heard it, a rustling in the trees behind me, and with a terror so rampant I can still feel it to this day, I heard something behind me breathing and it was huge. I just ran, following the sound of captain's barks crashing through the dense trees as dry branches tore at the bare skin of my face. There are many times in my life where

I'd been uncomfortable, anxious or scared. This experience dwarfed them all. No emotion can compare to that of knowing you're being hunted by something. Something you cannot reason or bargain with. Something that will crunch your bones into meal and not feel a freaking thing. I ran harder and longer than I ever have in my life, so intensely that when I finally had to stop to draw breath, I found myself dry retching against a tree trunk, out of exhaustion, out of fear, out of pure biological imperative making me as light and mobile as possible. But there could be no respite, Captain's furious sparks made that abundantly clear, we had to keep moving. It was that or be eaten alive.

With tears in my eyes, I carried on running, hurtling through the forest, the thicket so dense I was running half blind, which was made painfully obvious when I caught my foot on a fallen tree trunk and was sent flying into the dirt. The impact knocked the wind out of me with an ugly grunt, and as I rolled onto my back, struggling for breath, I saw Captain appear at my side. He had been my hero so many times before and wasn't about to fail me now. His barks were wild, full of rage, his sharp teeth exposed as he poured the raw force of his being into the woods behind us. It was terrifying, awe-inspiring to behold and in that moment I thanked God that he was on my side.

But not even Captain could maintain the display for when the unseen thing hunting us seemed to roar back through the trees, Captain was silenced. He rushed over to me, taking the collar of my waterproof coat between his teeth and trying to drag me along the forest floor. But I was renewed by terror, my biological imperative, by the raw need to survive. In an instant, I was back on my feet, running, panting, scrambling for life. I remember there being a moment when I was terrified that Captain might leave me, how the fear might prove too much for him to handle. There was so much of a forest for him to escape into but he never once failed to double back and find me. Even when he was out of sight he made sure to continue barking furiously so I'd know exactly where to run to.

That was until I burst through a set of particularly thick bushes to find Captain stood stationary at a riverbank. It wasn't all that wide or all that deep, but it was enough of an obstacle to halt his progress. You see, Captain hated water. I don't know if it was something that happened to him as a puppy before we adopted him from the shelter, but Captain has always hated it. Pools, rivers, lakes, you couldn't get them to go within six feet of them, which is why seeing that river in our way terrified me on a whole new level. Out of pure instinct, I just jumped across.

Like I said, it wasn't particularly wide, but the exhaustion of running for so long meant I only barely made the jump. I turned, knowing that Captain wouldn't even attempt to jump without encouragement or direction. My voice was trembling as I spoke. Come on, boy. Jump to mama. Please, boy. Please. Jump to mama. It was horrendous, watching his eyes so full of confusion, saying without words, why are you making me do this? I watched him pacing up and down the bank as the thing hunting us grew closer and closer. In the end, I was begging him, pleading with him, promising steak dinners for an entire year if he would only get himself across that river. For a moment, he froze, sizing up the gap before sprinting off back among the trees. Again, that terrified

feeling gripped me. He couldn't do it. He was so terrified of the water that, in a moment of pure panic, he fled back in the direction of the thing chasing us. It felt like an eternity, standing there on the riverbank, praying that he'd reappear, somehow convincing myself that he wouldn't. Only, he did. In one glorious moment, he burst from the foliage, hurtling towards the river's edge at breakneck speed. As he reached the bank, his legs unfurled like springs, sending him sailing through the air, high above the river. It's funny the little details you remember from a traumatic event, and even one of the things that sticks with me are Captain's eyes as he jumped that river.

They were huge, these massive pale blue circles that seemed to shine out from the rings of black fur around them. Almost like he couldn't quite believe what he was doing, and quite frankly, neither could I. I mean it when I say he was like an action hero in some hyperbolic 80s movie, the bravery he displayed is something I feel I can only aspire to. Even his landing was dramatic, he barely made it across and was scrambling up the dirt embankment when I leapt towards him, grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up onto solid ground. When we were up, he took off again with renewed speed, seemingly more terrified of the water than would have been stalking us. I'd had tears in my eyes before, but at that moment I broke down completely, calling after him with staggered breathing.

Good boy, Captain. Good boy. I continued to run, feeling my thighs burn and my feet ache from what felt like miles upon miles. I was so short of breath, so exhausted, I thought I might just pass out at any moment. When I say I could literally hear my own heart beating in my throat, I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. I am not an unfit person either. I dance a lot, take a spin class, I have stamina. But running an almost constant sprint for the better part of an hour made it feel like my heart was about to explode out of my chest. By the time I reached the peak of yet another gentle incline, my legs gave out from under me. I remember seeing silvery white patches

appearing in my vision, and no matter how hard I drew breath, I just couldn't seem to get enough oxygen. When I saw something moving in front of me, something that definitely wasn't Captain, I thought that was it. I thought I'd pass out and never wake up again, having been torn apart by whatever wild animal was chasing us. I woke up in the back seat of a four-seater pickup truck. As soon as I found the strength to sit up, I heard a voice outside the stationary vehicle shout, Hey, she's awake! Suddenly the door opened and a person I'd never seen before in my life was offering me a plastic bottle of water and asking if I was okay.

I didn't speak. I just took the water off of him and gulped like three quarters of it down in one long sweet chug. By the time I regained my senses, I was panicking. I couldn't see Captain anywhere. I looked at the stranger dressed in his hunting gear and tried to summon the strength to ask him where my dog was. Although the words just wouldn't come out, the look on my face must have told him all he needed to know. When he told me Captain was fine and he was just inside their hunting lodge getting a bite to eat, I just cried with relief. I was so overjoyed he was okay, but that's not what made me burst into tears. The hunter told me that, for a while, Captain wouldn't follow any of them out

of the truck, no matter how much meat they offered him. He just stayed at my side, yapping and whining, waiting for me to wake up. For a couple of hours I joined the hunters in their lodge, eating the hamburger they offered me slowly while I regained my strength. I told them exactly what had happened, how Captain had freaked out after we stumbled across what I assumed was a black bear, but black bears are relatively small, certainly not as big as grizzlies and certainly not as big as whatever had been chasing us through the woods. I raised the issue with them and asked them what they thought it might be. I thought they might have an answer being seasoned hunters but they didn't. There was this awkward silence as they exchanged looks before one of them spoke up

telling me they just didn't know. I asked if it was possible that a grizzly bear could make it this far down from the Rockies with one responding that was possible but that was a lie, an outright lie. Those hunters quite possibly saved my life and for that I will be eternally grateful but I know they lied to me. Grizzlies don't make it anywhere near North Carolina at any time of the year. I've done a fair amount of research into what was chasing that day, but I've been unable to come up with anything conclusive. The only thing I know for sure is that those hunters were hiding something and as long as they do, people will continue to go missing in that stretch of North Carolina woodland. Captain is lying next to my computer chair as I write this,

ever faithful, ever watching, and in my darkest moments, I wonder however I'm going to last without him. my new year's resolutions for 2020 was to lose the extra weight I had accumulated during my first pregnancy. Weight that had sat my confidence and left me feeling kind of dumpy. My husband always told me he didn't mind that he loved me no matter what but I minded. It might sound a little trad wife of me but I want to look my best for him just like he looks his best for me. But the problem is, I've never ever enjoyed that vibe that seems to hang in the air at co-ed gyms. Some places have members that seem to care only about hooking up or ogling each other, while some female-only gyms are so underfunded that they just aren't worth going to. So I took up hiking. I always figured the outdoors would be super good

for my mental health, and I'd gone for walks in the woods as part of fighting off the postnatal depression, which was very effective at doing so. I remember how excited I was, driving out to a sporting goods store to pick up a snug pair of hiking boots, along with a lot of colorful, waterproof gear, mostly in lilac, my favorite color. It felt like the start of something wonderful. I was already posting in our ultralight asking for advice on specialist hiking gear and I could not wait to report back on my progress. But my first serious solo hike in the woods was set to be anything but relaxing or uplifting and it left

me with a greater respect for nature's wrath than I ever thought was possible. My husband and I arranged for him to look after the baby while I drove out to Olympic National Forest for an afternoon of hiking. All went swimmingly for about an hour or two as I pushed myself up hills, feeling my thighs burning and trembling when they felt the relief of a downslope. It felt amazing, exhilarating, and truly uplifting, at least until I took a tumble. I think my boot caught a rock or something, hidden among the earth, but whatever happened, I found myself rolling around in the dirt beneath me, holding onto my ankle as I grimaced in pain. I found I could still put a little weight on it, so it couldn't have been worse than a strain, but it still hurt like the devil.

That's when the strangest, most adorable thing happened to me. A crow. A little, cawing, black-feathered guy flew down from a tree, landed on a tree stump nearby and began to flap his wings. He was doing little jumps, flapping all the while, calling his little head off like he was singing for a supper. He had saw me take a fall and was flying down to see if I was okay. I mean, that's what it seemed like because as soon as I said like, yeah, I'm fine, just scared myself is all, he quieted down and began eyeing me with each of the tiny black pebbles set in his skull. With my ankles still aching a little, I picked myself up, said goodbye to my new crow buddy, then began to limp back towards my car. What happened next seemed like the sweetest thing ever.

My new little crow buddy actually followed me. Yep, he followed me. So close too, just making sure I was okay as I was shuffling back to my car. He flew from tree to tree, always sticking close, calling every so often just to let me know he was still there to watch over me. It was honestly such a boost. The fall has really rocked my confidence, and to know that nature had its own way of being so kind, so compassionate, it really picked me up at a time

I absolutely needed it. However, it wasn't long until my ankle began to really swell up from the sprain and obviously with the swelling came an increased amount of pain. Now, I know this might sound crazy, but that intense pain and my inability to properly escape it, it brought back the memories of childbirth. And as I sat there on a fallen log, taking the weight off my ankle, I found myself bursting into tears. And just like something out of a Disney movie, down swooped my little crow friend, who began his same little song and dance of concern. It made my heart swell at the time, it really did. It really was like a Disney story or something, the crying princess and her little bird friend. But then, in what I thought was a beautiful moment,

I heard something that made my blood run cold. Something was moving through the trees about a hundred yards up the slope, something huge, something that drooled when it saw me sitting on that fallen log. It was a grizzly bear, fresh out of hibernation, and it was obviously starving. What I thought was my little crow friend began its song and dance again, only this time it was intensely more frenzied than it had been before. I thought it was a warning. I couldn't have been more wrong. The bear began a rapid descent down the slope towards me, panting as it hurtled through the trees. But I was ready for it. I had managed to pick up the most potent bear mace I could get my hands on, one of the things my new Reddit hiking buddies had insisted I purchased. I pulled it out, flipped off the safety catch, and sprayed a huge mist of bright yellow mace into the air in front of me.

I was terrified, convinced that it just wouldn't work for some reason, that the bear would just be too hungry, would take the pain and tear me limb from limb right there on the forest floor. But it worked. It actually worked. As soon as the grizzly hit that stinging yellow mist, it stopped dead in its tracks, blinked its eyes before it began to violently sneeze and retch as the mace began to take effect. I didn't bother to stick around and revel in the victory. I mean, who would? I just ran. Ran until my ankle felt like it was about to explode but thankfully, some small act of God's mercy led me right back to my car and somehow I actually made it home. I lived to be able to tell this tale. But when I did, I did a little research.

And what I thought was my little crow friend, what had seemed like a Disney-style friendship between beauty and beast, was anything but that. As it turns out, crows and bears have something of a special relationship. Often upon sighting a wounded or infirm animal, a crow will fly down from a tree and call like the devil, not out of any kind of concern, but in order to direct a large predator, often a bear, onto the wounded creature.

Once the bear had finished chowing down, the crow can eat the scraps. And that day in the woods could have very well ended with me being the scraps. We're better from our Tread Experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. Treadexperts.ca When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course,

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If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Every summer for the past few years, a group of friends and I have traveled from our homes in Liverpool in the UK to Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. Dumfries and Galloway is home to the largest continuous forest in the UK to Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. Dumfries and Galloway is home to the largest continuous forest in the whole of the United Kingdom, Galloway Forest Park. It's about as wild as it gets for the UK, with some parts of the woods being so dense and overgrown that it's clear no one has stepped foot in them for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. Our yearly visits brought us peace, clarity, and a respect for

nature, but last year's trip ended in one of the most horrifying and distressing incidents of my entire life. One that completely changed the way I see the world and the way I consider the human mind. Year in, year out, we'd take an overnight coach up across the border, then hike out to a place called Loch Eber. The loch is a private fishing lake supposedly reserved for members of a local fishing club who ensure that the waters are chock full of fish for them to catch, which makes it oh so easy for us to pull a quick in and out raid to catch enough of the small ruffle fish for our dinner. I'm serious, 45 minutes and we're golden, and take it from any fisherman, that is lightning speed for a half decent catch. But last year we decided we were tired of the same old digs and

set our gazes further afield. A map told us that there was a similarly deep lock about 30 miles east known as Lock D. We figured it would be a perfect fishing spot and we were right. Sure it wasn't as quick fire as the private members lake but it came with considerably less guilt. Everything was going perfect. That was until the second night when in the middle of a campfire drinking session one of my buddies jumped out of his seat and recoiled from the fire. Who was that? He asked, sort of calmly at first, nothing more than cautious confusion. Who's who?

Someone replies lazily. Someone moving through the trees back there. He was pointing into the trees directly behind my back. I actually gave a hoot of sarcastic laughter at first thinking he was just trying to scare us but the moment it became obvious that he wasn't messing around a jolt of fear went through me and I too leapt out of my seat spun around shone my torch into the darkness. You could feel the tension among us rising as we desperately looked around for who he might have been talking about. Torch beams darted across the trees, inspecting every trunk or thicket of bushes, but

there was nothing, no sign of the person my friend had seen. Hello? Someone called out, immediately shushed by the rest of us. No one wanted to give away our position, but at the same time, we needed to know if there was anyone out there, watching us. But again, nothing. Just silence. I think you've had a bit too much to drink, mate. I remember saying to the guy who supposedly seen a figure walking through the trees, I'm fine. I barely touched that Bell's I bought. I swear to God I saw someone just then. Like who?

Someone asked. Man? Woman? Young? Old? What? I... I don't know, he replied shakily. But they were really, really big. Only big thing around here is your bloody imagination, mate. Now go and get your head down, it's been a long day. And it had, thanks to the overnight coach. No one really sleeps on the journey up to Scotland.

I mean, they close their eyes, put some chill music through their earphones, but they never really sleep. So everyone ends up being pretty wrecked by the end of the first night. The next morning, we felt even worse. The first night after such a long journey is usually the one where we sleep like the dead, but not that night. None of us could quite relax, not with the possibility of having someone stalking us in the back of our minds. Thank god we were only planning to fish that day as we really were not in the mood for anything else given how bloody exhausted we were. After breakfast, we marched down to the lock with our fishing gear. It's a gorgeous area, a crisp blue lake ringed by hills. It's not unusual to get some really

nice sunny days up in Scotland too, especially during the summer, but that day the sky was this horrible grimy grey, like the sun had barely risen at all. I was tired, half soaked from the drizzle, barely even excited to be fishing for my dinner. I actually hoped for something exciting to happen, and for my sins, my wish came true. Look, one of us shouted. Over there, other side of the lock. Jesus, can you see that thing? It was the same lad that had seen someone or something walking through the trees. Where? We were terrified.

One sighting could have been his eyes playing tricks on him. Another couldn't possibly be a mistake. There! He said, pointing. Just on the other side. It came out of the trees for a moment, then disappeared. Please tell me you saw that. Just on the other side. It came out of the trees for a moment, then disappeared. Please tell me you saw that.

Mate, just calm down. It's probably just... I know what I saw. And we need to get out of these bloody woods right now. He said, grabbing up his fishing gear in a panic. I remember him rushing off back to the camp. One of the lads following him still trying to calm him down, but it was impossible. He was manic, scared half to death by whatever had briefly emerged from the woods on the other side of the lock. I asked the other boys if they had seen anything.

He shook their heads. None of us had any idea what he was talking about, but that didn't mean they weren't just as freaked out over his outburst. We were supposed to stay for seven full nights, but that second one was our last. We had managed to talk the lad who was panicking down, convince him to stay a few nights more at the very least. We'd come all this way and I wasn't about to let one of us just leave because they had a wee scare or something. But it didn't end there either. In the middle of the night, the lad that had been seeing something burst out of his tent, waking each of us before asking, Can you hear that?

There was silence. Dead silence. I mean, I strained my ears trying to hear what had him so spooked, but I heard nothing, just the rustling of a few sleeping bags as confused blokes sat up awake. He was scratching at his own ears, gritting his teeth, rocking back and forth in the dirt as the sound seemed to completely overwhelm him. That's the exact moment I realized, I think the same moment everyone else picked up on it too, but there was no noise, there was no monster, it was all in his head. He was experiencing a psychotic breakdown, and it was literally all in his head. I feel like what I'm about to read is a warning. I beg you. I implore you. Please do not go hiking in the woods around Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

I know those woods like the back of my hand. I was playing with my little brother among those trees when I was still in single digit ages. So trust me when I say that something has been changing out there and not for the better. I first noticed something was horribly wrong during a hike a few weeks back. In the early spring, birds migrate back from the warmer southern climates to their northern territories and mass thousands upon thousands of tiny songbirds occupy the trees around Mount Greylock during the month of March each singing a sweet chirpy song that is in reality a bell of war cry a call for challengers to step up and knock them off their perch. Yet as I trudged through the previous

winter's leaf litter, I couldn't hear a single thing. No birds, or any other animals for that matter, seemed to still call the forest home. This made me nervous for two reasons. One, animals have an uncanny ability to detect danger that are imperceptible to humans. Their sense of smell, hearing, and general atmospherics are far superior to our own. If the wildlife had fled the area in such a hurry or at least refused to return, that could mean something awful was about to happen. And two, areas of woodland turn exceptionally quiet when there is a large predator around. Wood pigeons will become deathly quiet and still, hoping a black bear or mountain line would just pass them by. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but either way it would be

hideously unsafe of me to wander around while one was prowling the area. So naturally I started making my way back towards my car when something real peculiar happened. I feel I should remind you at this point that I've been playing in the woods around Mount Greylock since I was like 7 or 8 years old. That's pretty far from where our family lived when I was a kid but thanks to our bikes we had a pretty large area to roam when it came to those long summer breaks. Point being I know those woods really well but some way somehow I managed to get lost. It first came to my attention that I managed to get myself turned around when I felt my head begin to throb with a dull ache. I stopped walking for a moment, rubbing my eyes and the bridge of my nose to try and massage away the headache,

but when I opened my eyes again and looked around, I felt a faint flash of panic running through me. I didn't recognize my surroundings, and I cannot understate how jarring that was for me, to be somewhere I'd been visiting all my life only for it to feel utterly foreign to me. I actually had to take a moment to take out my compass just to try and get a bearing of where I was headed, but to my surprise the compass needle kept slowly moving around, even when I got it to sit still on a supposed bearing, it slowly began creeping around again. Now this was much less of a problem than it might appear. Sure it was unnerving, but there are ways around a faulty compass.

Like for one, moss mostly grows on the north side of a tree, the side that gets the most sunlight. So that provides an easy way of determining which way was north. At least it usually would. Because as I inspected various tree trunks I realized the sun was hanging in the southern portion of the sky, that or the moss in this area grew mostly on the southern section of the tree trunks. I get that it's not entirely out of the question but that was yet another detail that just seemed to fry my brain. Nothing made sense and the less it did the more the feeling of pure panic began to bubble in my chest. But to panic in that situation, in any kind of situation, is to welcome defeat, degradation, and death. I kept myself calm, told myself there was a rational explanation for

everything that was occurring and walked off in the direction I was almost sure the nearest highway was it was then I came across something I'd never ever seen in those woods before something that seems so out of place that it was frankly terrifying. In all the years I'd spent roaming those woods with my brother as a kid, I'd never seen anything like the old run-down cabin that stood before me. And I mean it was old. As in, there was no way it could have been built any later than like 1979. So just how me and my brother had missed this place was utterly beyond me. The obvious thing to do was to knock on the cabin door, see if anybody was home and as much as I might find it humiliating, ask for directions. But as I walked closer and closer

towards the rustic front door, I felt the most unusual sensation. I put it down to general tiredness, maybe my blood sugar was low, I'm not entirely sure, but for whatever reason, each footstep that took me closer to the cabin seemed more and more difficult. By the time I was actually bringing a closed fist to knock on that old wooden door, it felt like something was physically repelling me from it, whispering directly into my brain, leave this place and never return, don't lookapidation behind it. Whatever bolts or locks that were on the door had long since worn away and the inside was just as run down and rotten as the outside was. It was evidently abandoned but there was a curious order to the furniture that led me to believe that every so often, the cabin did actually receive some visitors aside from me but something in the corner of the cabin drew my attention I then saw what it was

what I'm about to attempt to describe is quite frankly indescribable I know it was a wooden idol of some kind a small statuette set atop of a stone altar but, and I appreciate that this is intensely confusing to read, I could not make sense of what I was looking at. It was like my brain was completely incapable of computing the information my eyes were feeding it. And with that, my headache returned again, along with the kind of anxiety so crushing that I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. Don't ask me how I know, but that wooden idol, a mess of twigs and vines and moss, was a representation of pure, unfiltered evil, and I ran from it.

I'm not in the least bit ashamed to admit that I ran like a scared child from that cabin, and into the night. The night. You read that right. When I walked into that cabin, it was still daylight. I couldn't have been there for more than a couple of minutes at least, and that's what it felt like. Only when I burst through the wooden door it was pitch black outside. I ran until I found the highway, ran until I found my car, and I drove like a madman until I was completely back at home. I haven't been able to bring myself to talk about what happened to me that day until now. I tried to tell a hunting buddy of mine once, but the words just wouldn't seem to come out. But please, heed my warning, and don't go hiking in the woods around Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Mount Fuji is one of the highest volcanoes in all of Asia, and happens to be one of the most sacred sites in all of Japan. The mountain is a cultural icon, and on a clear day, those busying themselves with work or home life in the capital of Tokyo are able to see the mountain's exceptionally symmetrical snow-capped peaks in the far distance. Mount Fuji is a regular fixture in art and photographs, being one of the most common scenes depicted on Japanese postcards, thousands of which are sent all around the world from Japan each year. But on the northwestern side of Mount Fuji, set onto 30 square kilometers of hardened lava, lies a forest known as Akigahara. The Akigahara forest, sometimes known as the Sea of Trees, can be extremely dense in places, with the porous lava rock red of the forest having properties which make it adept at absorbing sound waves. This can give visitors a sense of absolute solitude, making it a popular destination for other less

savory activities such as hiking or camping. You see, the Akigahara has a historical reputation in Japan for being home of the Yurai, a name given to the ghosts of the dead in Japanese mythology. This is down to a number of reasons, but the most prevalent is the fact that the Akigahara is known quite bluntly as a forest in which people take their lives. Every year, scores of Japanese men and women signs at the head of some trails urging visitors to think of their families and to contact prevention hotlines. In 2003 alone, over 100 bodies were located in the Ak have attempted to end their lives in the forest, with just over 50 of them having completed the morb more creative methods have been observed by the annual body searches conducted by police, volunteers, and journalists. It is also morbidly interesting to note that the rate in which this happens in Japan increases during the month of March, being the end of the fiscal year for Japanese businesses and traders. So much so that in recent

years, local officials have had a huge effort to stop publicizing the numbers and figures in an attempt to curb the Akigahara's popularity as a destination for this kind of act. The site's popularity has often been attributed to Saeko Matsumoto's 1961 novel Naminoto, known in English as The Tower of Waves. The novel is the story of a Japanese couple who, on discovering that fate has rendered it impossible for them to be together happy, take a trip into the deep woods near Mount Fuji, wherein they end their lives together. It is still considered one of the most romantic novels ever published on the Japanese market, but the blame for the deaths in the Akigahara cannot be placed squarely at the feet of Mr. Matsumoto.

For there is another book, written by the author Wataru Tsurumi, that details the hardness of living in Japanese society. It is known as Kanzan Jisatsu Manyuraru, or the Complete Manual of Ending Your Life. First published on July 4th, 1993, the book went on to sell more than 1 million copies in the Japanese domestic literature market alone. In the postscript, Tsurumi says, To think that at the worst crucial moment one can escape from the pain by ending their own life one can live for the moment easier so by distributing this book i want to make this stifling society an easier place to live in this is the aim of this book and i never intend to encourage readers to end their own life although the book is quite clearly an instruction manual the author explains his philosophy throughout and opposition to the social pressure to live strong.

He details every method, rating different aspects of each technique such as painfulness, gruesomeness of the body, probability of failure, and cost in event of failure. The fact that one can easily identify the least painful and easiest method of such is and was extremely controversial at the time of failure. The fact that one can easily identify the least painful and easiest method of such is and was extremely controversial at the time of publication. However, the history of ending your own life in Akigahara predates both novels' publication and the place has long been associated with death. For example, there is a practice in Japan known as ubatsute, which literally translates to abandoning an old woman, whereby an infirm or elderly relative was carried to a mountain or some other remote desolate place and left there to die. Despite being an ancient or archaic practice, abandoning of the elderly was practiced in Japan well into the 19th century, long after other cultures had abandoned it in favor of the elongation of life, palliative care, or general comfort and respect for the elderly. It is this that primarily led Akigahara to be thought of as haunted by the yurai of those left to die there. However, despite local authorities' efforts to curtail interest

in the forest, fairly recent events have brought public attention back towards it in a huge way. All thanks to a YouTuber by the name of Logan Paul. The Ohio native faced a huge online backlash over a YouTube video he posted during a visit to Japan, one of which showed the body of apparently a victim of someone who took their own life. The vlog style posts entailed Logan with his friends heading into the forest to film the so-called haunted woods. There they came across a man's body. It is clear that they were incredibly shocked by what they saw before them, with a couple of screenshots of Logan's expression being the mainstay of video thumbnails. But outrage was widespread when Paul and his accompaniment began to apparently make jokes, making light of an incredibly dark situation and inviting a torrent of criticism upon them.

The identity of the deceased man is not known, and Paul's production team had taken the time to blur out the man's facial features. Online comments have called the Japan video, which garnered millions of views on YouTube before it was taken down, disrespectful and disgusting. Paul's channels were removed from YouTube's Google Preferred program, where brands sell ads on the platform's top 5% of content creators. YouTube also said it had put on hold original projects with a US vlogger. On average, every year in Japan, more than 25,000 people take their own lives. That's 70 every single day, the vast majority being men. The grim self-immolation of a 71-year-old man aboard a Japanese bullet train in 2014 once again rammed the issue back into the

headlines as he tipped the liquid over himself he is reported to have shooed away other passengers telling them it was dangerous what drove a quiet elderly man to douse himself with fuel and set fire to it in a packed carriage on a speeding train, why do people choose life over death? They're questions that may well go unanswered for as long as there are human beings to ask them. And as long as there are, the Akigahara forest will still have those little colored ribbons for those souls not quite lost to find their way back. Around 11.45 on the night of February 22nd, 1946, 22-year-old Jimmy Hollis was parked on a secluded lover's lane with his girlfriend, 19-year-old Mary Jean Larry. About 10 minutes later, a man wearing a cloth mask resembling a pillowcase with the eyes

cut out appeared at the driver's side door and flashed a flashlight in the window. Hollis thought this may be a prank and told the man he had the wrong person. The masked man responded by saying, I don't want to kill you fella, so do what I say. Hollis and Larry were then ordered out of the car and Hollis was told to take off your effing britches. He did and was struck on the head twice with the butt of a pistol. Believing this to be a robbery, Larry opened Hollis' wallet to prove he had no money. She was then struck with a blunt object and ordered to stand. Once on her feet, the man told her to run up the road. She headed toward the main road and spotted

another parked car and approached it. However, as she drew closer, she could see it was empty. Larry returned on her path but was intercepted by the man and struck on the head for a second time, knocking her to the ground. The attacker took this opportunity to have his way with her with the barrel of his weapon. Fortunately for Larry, the man seemed to have been scared away by the headlights of a passing car before he could achieve this. After he fled, she pulled herself to her feet and ran to the first house she saw. As Larry's terrible episode was unfolding, Hollis had managed to pull himself back to his feet. Covered in blood and with a fractured skull, he stumbled onto nearby Richmond Road and flagged down a car. The driver pulled over but, horrified by his appearance, refused to let Hollis

in. He did, however, promise to call an ambulance at his nearest opportunity. This proved unnecessary, however, as the emergency services had already arrived because of an alert by Larry. Both victims were taken to Texarkana Hospital. Larry would come away, at least physically, the better off of the two, only needing eight stitches. Hollis, however, would lay in the intensive care ward in a coma for several days. Once recovered, the victims would give two very differing descriptions of their attacker. While Larry claimed because of his speech that he was a black man, Hollis disagreed and said he believed the man to be white but couldn't be sure because of being blinded by the flashlight. These and other factors made the police suspicious of the victim's accounts.

They would form a theory that the couple knew their attacker and was covering for him. Hollis was quoted as telling the Bowie County Sheriff, William Presley, that that man is dangerous and he's a potential murderer. The next one he gets will be killed. Evidently, he thought he'd killed me that night. I know he was crazy. The crazy thing is, he said, I know his mind was warped. Hollis had no idea how prophetic his words would prove to be. What no one knew at the time, Hollis and Larry were very lucky to be alive. They would turn out to be the first two victims in a spree of attacks that would leave the residents of Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas frozen in fear for the next ten weeks

and wondering who the man responsible for them was for far longer. A little over a month later, on March 24th, a peaceful Sunday morning would be shattered by the discovery of the bodies of 29-year-old Richard Griffin and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Polly Ann Morin, Griffin's 1941 Oldsmobile. A passing motorist had reported the car as suspicious a couple of hours prior. When officers arrived, they discovered Griffin slumped over between the front seats with his pants around his ankles, pockets turned out, and two bullet holes in the back of his head. Polly was in the back seat with two shots, also to the back of his head. Polly was in the backseat with two shots, also to the back of her

head. By the time Sheriff Presley and Arkansas State Trooper Max Tackett arrived, the scene had been compromised by the large crowd that had formed. No efforts had been made to seal the scene. About 20 feet from the car, a large bloodstain was discovered. This led the officers to believe Polly was shot outside the car and placed in it after she died. Also, a spent cartridge from a.32 caliber weapon, possibly a Colt, was found wrapped in a blanket in the car. Any other possible clues were likely lost to the previous night's rain and the failure of responding officers to close the scene. With these first murders would come all sorts of rumors such as Polly being indecently assaulted. However, no records indicate

this to have occurred. Investigations were launched on both sides of the border. On March 30th, a $500 reward would be posted. This would sadly lead to over 100 false leads and yield no useful information. In a matter of just a few weeks, police would find themselves with another set of murders on their hands, this time a pair of mere children. Betty Jo Booker, age 15, had been playing her saxophone with her band, the Rhythmers, at the VFW club. Around 1.30am, her 16-year-old friend Paul Martin arrived to pick her up. This was the last time the two were seen alive. Later that morning at around 6.30am, Martin was discovered lying dead by the roadside near Spring Park Lake. He had been shot four

times, once through the nose and once through the left rib from behind, a third through the right hand, and the last went through the back of the neck. Poor Betty Jo would not be found until 11.30 that morning. She was two miles away from Paul's Ford Coupe and just one mile away from where Martin had been discovered earlier that morning. The young woman was mercifully still closed including her overcoat which was fully buttoned. Her wounds were one gunshot to the chest and a second to the face. The scene was sealed from the moment Sheriff Presley, who was the responding officer, arrived. He discovered a date book nearby and quickly pocketed it. Martin's Ford was found about a mile and a half from his body just outside the park with the keys still in the ignition.

As with the first set of murders, there were little clues to be uncovered. Beside the date book, Presley found a set of man's tracks alongside another, smaller set but was unable to follow them. From the angle of the gunshots and Betty's body, the police surmised that the killer was right-handed, but no motive or suspects could be produced because of this. When the bullets from the teenagers were compared with those of the first two murders, they were indeed ruled to be from the same.32 caliber handgun. The local rumor mill was working overtime. Authorities were getting calls any time a person even heard a noise and the atmosphere was growing tenser by the day. The Booker Martin murders would be the first time the killer would get his sensational

name. In the April 16th edition of the Texarkana Daily News, a heading read, Phantom Killer Eludes Officers as Investigation of Slayings, Daily News, a heading read, Phantom Killer Eludes Officers as Investigation of Slayings, Pressed, was published. The Gazette would get into the action the following day by printing, Phantom Slayer, still at large as probe continues. Although other names would be used in papers throughout the country, the Phantom became the most common. The reward fund had been raised to $1,700 and within days, six Texas Rangers, led by the famous Captain Manuel Trezazas Lone Wolf Gonzalez, arrived in town to assist in the case. With the Rangers, the Texas DPS sent technical experts and a lab from Austin. Things would become so blown out of proportion

that Gonzalez would have to call a press conference on the 18th to quash many of the rumors circulating around the case. He would say at one point that all the hearsay being spread by people and the press were a hindrance to the investigation and harmful to innocent persons. The weeks following the second set of murders were relatively quiet. This didn't mean tensions were not through the roof. Some in the community had begun to connect the cases together and since the first attack had occurred three weeks to the day before the second, many expected a third attack would be coming in the same time frame. This caused tensions to heighten as May the 4th approached. Although these citizens

were only a day off in their prediction, the Phantom would prove to everyone in the area he was far from predictable. On the evening of Friday, May 3rd, sometime before 9pm, the killer would strike at one last couple. This time, however, the Phantom would give the citizens of Arkansas a taste of the same medicine that he had been sharing with their neighbors across the state line. On this night, farmer and welder Virgil Starks, 37, had sat down in his armchair to enjoy his favorite radio show. He and his wife, Katie, age 36, lived in a modest ranch-style house on a 500-acre farm almost 10 miles northeast of Texarkana. While Virgil relaxed in his armchair in the sitting room, Katie was lying in bed in her nightgown. She said that she had heard noise in the backyard and yelled out to Virgil to turn down the radio.

Seconds later, Katie would hear the sound of breaking glass. Thinking perhaps her husband had dropped something, she went to see what had happened. Upon entering the living room, Virgil stood up and then slumped back down into his chair. Seeing blood, she ran up to examine him and upon lifting his head, she realized he was dead. She ran to call the police but after cranking the old wall telephone a couple of times, she was shot twice in the face from the same window Virgil had been shot from. The bullets, while one went through her right cheek and out between her left ear and the other, breaking her jaw and splintering several teeth. They did not render her incapable of helping herself. Although at first she would drop to her knees,

she soon regained her footing and ran for a pistol that was kept in the bedroom. Meanwhile, the shooter ran to the back of the house. Katie, unable to locate the gun, returned to the kitchen just in time to see her assailant climbing through the couple's kitchen window. Horribly injured and afraid, she changed directions and fled through several rooms and out of the house, leaving a trail of blood and teeth in her wake. After first seeking help at her sister and brother-in-law's home across the street but getting no answer, Katie ran the 50 yards to the neighbor A.V. Pratter's home. Pratter would bring her inside. He then retrieved his rifle from his home and returned outside.

He fired into the air to alert any nearby residents of his need for aid. Neighbor Elmer Taylor would answer the call. Pratter asked Taylor to bring his car around and they drove Mrs. Starks to Michael Meager Memorial Hospital. Arkansas State Officers Max Tackett and Charlie Boyd would be the first to respond to the call. Upon arrival, the officers roped off the scene. However, the commotion stirred up by 30 or more members of law enforcement going in and out all night would render their efforts largely useless. The sheer amount of blood left behind by Mrs. Starks made it hard for the officers to keep the area clean. Miller County Sheriff W.E. Davis, who would take control

of the investigation, called in officers from around the area, including the FBI, Sheriff Presley, Captain Gonzalez and his group of Texas Rangers, and many others. Police would find money in the home, along with cash and jewelry, putting the theory of robbery to rest. Three clues would be found at the scene. A red metal flashlight was discovered in the bush by the window, and two.22 caliber bullets were retrieved from the walls of the house. The third muddy footprints lifted from the yard and welding shop were less solid because of the poor state of the ground. Bloody footprints were also found in the home but it could never be proven if they belonged to the killer or the large number of officers moving through the scene. Although the

caliber used at the Stark's farm was.22, Sheriff Davis stated, it is possible that the killer is one and the same man. Several men found in the vicinity would be picked up for questioning but soon released. The next morning, bloodhounds were brought in by the Arkansas State Police. Two trails were found that led to the highway before the scent was lost. The flashlight was sent to the FBI lab in DC but was found to be free of any prints. Scores more officers were brought in that weekend to patrol and protect residents. Texarkana Gazette would continue to stir up fear by printing a headline on Sunday, May 5th that read, Maniac Hunted and Murders. On the night of Virgil's death, the reward was $7,025 and would soon be combined with another

reward making it equal up to $10,000. That Monday, Virgil Stark's funeral was held. The following day, Katie was ruled well enough by doctors to be questioned but was unable to provide any new information. A detailed description of the flashlight along with a color picture would be sent to the Gazette. On the morning of Wednesday, May 29th, this would be printed. Included with this was an appeal that said, Have you seen this two-cell flashlight? You may be the one to aid in solving the phantom slayings. Another appeal from Sheriff Presley and Chief of Police Jack N. Runnels was printed a few weeks earlier, May 11th, asking for any information on missing persons on the nights of the murders.

The rumor mill remained running around the clock. Word that the killer had been caught began to spread. Once again, the authorities had to go to the press to shut the stories down. Sheriff Presley denied the killer had been apprehended and implored people to be more considerate of their fellow citizens. A lot of innocent folks were being accused of being the Phantom. No talk from the sheriff was going to make the people in the area any less jittery. As the weeks passed, the citizens held their collective breath awaiting the next attack, but nothing would come, and over time, they would all return to their normal lives they had before the Phantom arrived. The Rangers would quietly leave town throughout October until only the local law enforcement members were left.

With no new attacks to investigate, they were now able to focus on suspects. Among those dismissed early on was Ralph Bauman, a war veteran living in Los Angeles who had attempted to sell his story to a newspaper of his Texarkana murder spree. When they didn't go in for the story, he took it straight to the police telling them that he lived for danger, how he'd previously been in a coma, and how he was running from something, maybe murder. If it turned out that he hadn't committed the crimes, he hoped instead that he could settle down working as a stuntman in Hollywood. A black man in his 30s also briefly a suspect. After he failed a polygraph test, officers decided to have him hypnotized. The man was taken to Travis Elliott, a psychiatrist and hypnotist. Elliott talked to the man in a

private session for a while. Sheriff Presley asked Elliott if the man could be hypnotized. Yes, but you have the wrong man. He has no criminal tendencies, replied Elliot. It was later determined that he failed the polygraph because he was having an affair with a married woman. His tracks had been found in the area because it was the location the pair had used for their illicit tris. In spite of the nine people that had made false confessions to Tackett, the police working the case did have a few real suspects. Their prime target was UL Sweeney. The path to Sweeney was a twisted one. Arkansas State Police Officer Tackett made a link he

thought may be worth checking out. On each night of the murders, a car had been stolen and a previously stolen car had been found abandoned. On the night of Friday, June 28th, he found a car that had been reported stolen in a parking lot and decided to stake it out and wait to see who would come to pick it up. To his surprise, the car was approached by a young 21-year-old girl named Peggy Sweeney. She was taken into custody and said that her new husband, UL, was in Atlanta, Texas, selling another stolen car. Tackett tracked down UL to the Arkansas Motor Coach bus station on Front Street. When UL spotted Tackett, he fled out the back of the station but was cornered. As Tackett approached him, he told the officer not to shoot, to which Tackett replied, I'm not going to shoot you for your car theft.

Mister, don't play games with me. You want me for more than stealing cars, came Sweeney's reply. Sweeney would not stop with the incriminating comments, however. When UL was in the police car he asked Chief Deputy Tillman Johnson, Mr. Johnson what do you think they'll do to me for this? Will they give me the chair? Johnson responded with you won't get much maybe five or ten years. They don't give you the electric chair for stealing cars. Sweeney then said, Mr. Johnson, you got me for more than stealing cars.

Despite all his comments, UL would not confess to being the phantom under questioning. Peggy was being held meanwhile for the murders of Paul Martin and Betty Jo Booker. She would say nothing for almost a month before making a statement, then two more over the next two days. All three of the statements would have contradicting information and although she claimed UL was indeed the Phantom, by law in 1946, Peggy could not be forced to testify against her husband. Even with some circumstantial evidence in Peggy's statements, she was deemed an unreliable witness and the case against the two collapsed. Ewell would not be charged with the assaults or murders but instead convicted on Texas' habitual offender law and given life in prison. The various entities involved in the case hoped that they would eventually be able to connect him to at least one of the cases, but this never panned out and Sweeney eventually appealed his conviction and was released in 1973.

The only other suspects most historians consider possibly being the Phantom was Henry Booker Tennyson, an 18-year-old University of Arkansas freshman. On November 5th, 1948, the body of Tennyson was found in his room. The young man had used cyanide of mercury to end his own life. On a nearby desk, the police found two notes. One was a poem that included clues to the location of the combination of his lockbox. A note was also found inside a fountain pen marked BB. Poison was found on the cap.

The note inside the pen contained further clues to the combination of the lockbox. Not in the mood for playing games, the police forced the lockbox open. Inside was a viewmaster with several rolls of film of Mexico and a stack of papers. Under the stack of papers was a note confessing to the Texarkana killings However, more papers would be discovered that would contradict Tennyson's confession James Freeman, a 16-year-old friend of Tennyson from Texarkana came forward and said he and Henry had been together on the nights of Virgil Stark's death Tennyson's brothers claimed the confession

and him ending his life were fantastic things, induced by reading too many comic books. In addition, they both stated that he did not know guns and didn't care for weapons hunting or shooting. None of the guns that Tennyson would have had access to matched the bullets used in Phantom's murders. Furthermore, Craig, a brother, said that he hadn't taught Tennyson how to drive a car until the summer of 47. None of the fingerprints or bullets could be tracked back to Tennyson. While there are a few less probable suspects like an escaped German POW and an unidentified man in Atoka, Oklahoma, I'll leave it up to the listeners to search them out on their own. To this day, while many people out there have their own theories and ideas about what

happened in Texarkana all those years ago, the fact is the phantom killer was never caught and likely never will be. There is much more information regarding the case available but for the sake of brevity I only included the most basic of facts. If this story interested any of you I encourage them to seek out every bit of information you can find on the slayings. A lot of the things you'll come across derive from the same sources. However if you look hard enough you can discover some additional information. I've not yet read any books about the subject of the phantom murders, but the most recent and well-acclaimed was The Phantom Killer, Unlocking the Mysteries of the Texarkana Serial Murders by James Presley, November 15th, 2014. Presley is not only from Texarkana, he also happened to be the nephew

of Bowie County Sheriff William Presley. I thank y'all for your time and I hope I was able to give everyone listening something a little less viral to think about. Don't you worry about me. I promise y'all will hear from me again. And remember, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, but without a good pair of shoes, you won't get more than a mile or two. Before I start, be aware names have been changed to protect the innocent and to ensure the accused receives a fair trial. No matter how great we men think our lives will turn out, some unseen force can always come along and derail us, sometimes permanently from our course. Whether we achieve the nuclear family with the 2.5 children or end up living with our parents,

a single childless incel at 45, no one can predict their future. Perhaps the best way for me to illustrate my point is to tell you the story of Darren Sellers, my former best friend. No matter if we would have grown up in Dallas or the little hick town we were doomed to reside in, Darren would have been a special kid. Doctor, lawyer, pro football player, he could have excelled at any profession he put his mind to. Since childhood, he was always that kid that did better than his peers at everything. I know he was speaking at an abnormally early age and reading by four. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he came out of his mother's womb potty trained. I think you get the idea. He was a very special kid that should have become someone great.

Except he didn't. By high school, he was already beginning to show some alarming traits. A pastime that he and I always enjoyed, collecting and cataloging skulls and antlers from dead animals, would eventually evolve into killing and skinning neighborhood pets for him. While I found this aspect of the hobby to be a strange tangent to take, it wasn't odd enough to affect our relationship. The way he would treat his girlfriends, however, would.

Growing up in a very small town, we'd known almost every girl since kindergarten. Some had been close friends. Either way, because of his popularity, he had his pick of them. Regardless of who she was, if Darren decided to date her, he would always end up treating her badly. A committed relationship meant nothing to him. A lot of really kind girls would get their hearts broken because of him but to be honest, they would be the lucky ones. Sarah, a very smart and cute girl was with Darren on and off for several years. She would break up with him after he hit her but go back after he apologized. A week didn't go by that I wouldn't have to give him a chewing out for

his behavior but it made no difference. It was like his body had been taken over by the soul of a stranger and the guy I'd grown up with was fading into the background. None of this would hurt his standing at the school. He graduated first in our class and received a full ride to Texas A&M. I was no slouch myself, coming in at 6 out of the class of 100 but for me I'd have to get scholarships if I wanted to go to college. After deciding on UT and Austin, Darren and I went our separate ways. We wouldn't see each other for almost two years and when we finally did get together to catch up, things had changed drastically. I hadn't returned home my entire first year. Money was far more important to me and little still existed to draw me back when I wasn't working. Darren and I spoke maybe a handful of times. Never during any of those conversations did

he mention problems at A&M. However, during a phone call with my folks just before Christmas break, my sophomore year, my mom said that Darren had dropped out of college and returned home a month prior. I'd already made plans to visit for a week during the holiday. Now, I had a lot of questions to ask. We met up my first night in town and drove to Dallas to visit a club or two. I decided not to deluge Darren with a bunch of questions, he would probably fill me in when he was ready. While sitting at the first club, he finally opened up about his time at College Station.

Things had been going well for a while, until he started smoking more and attending class less. The anonymity among all those strangers made it hard to make friends. The few people he did meet would lead him down a dark path. He said by the start of year two he knew his days were numbered so he dropped out to save the school the trouble of kicking him out. This is a much different person than the one I'd left just a year and a half prior. I'd never known Darren to embrace failure. Other than the goatee and long hair he appeared to be the same, but now he just didn't seem to care about what happened to him. Going from a full scholarship at A&M to delivering pizzas would have destroyed the old Darren, but now he acted like he loved his new life. While driving to our next stop, he suggested we pick up a girl and have some fun with her. I laughed at first, thinking he meant maybe buying some sort of lady of the night or something.

I said, yeah right, I'll save my money, thank you. I'd misinterpreted his meaning. He said he meant that we should grab a girl from the street and take turns with her. The suggestion shocked me. I looked over his face, trying to find a sign that he was joking but couldn't. For a few minutes, nothing was said between us. I still couldn't believe what he'd said. Then an odd idea struck me out of nowhere. Have you done this kind of thing before? He hesitated at first but eventually admitted he and his friends had done it a few times back in

College Station. As if it would make things less serious, he stressed that they never hurt the girls or anything. Once they had their fun, they drop her off and go on their way. The outright disgust I felt at that moment very nearly overwhelmed me, but I held myself together. Maybe next time I visit. I had no intention of taking part in anything like that my words were simply meant to diffuse any hostile feelings he may have been harboring at that second all I could think of was getting away from him I faked feeling sick and suggested we head home he didn't seem like he was mad about it. I dodged his calls for the rest of the week and returned to Austin that Friday. We would speak one more time at the end

of the school year. He was wondering if I would be coming home for the summer but I told him I wasn't sure when I'd be back because of work. I wasn't lying. If I wanted to pay for school I had to work almost every day to do it. He sounded a little bummed out hearing this and for a minute I felt bad for him. However, it wasn't long until I remembered our trip to Dallas. If I'm being honest, I had actually decided our friendship was over that night. Something that had always been lurking under the surface of his personality had been freed while he was at A&M. And now, he couldn't put it back in its cage. The second he joined the others in their fun and games,

he ceased to be the friend I knew forever. Not long after that last call, my mom sent me an email containing a newspaper story. Although it didn't mention the name of the attacker, my mother told me later that it was Darren. I guess after he realized I wasn't coming back anytime soon, he went hunting by himself and got caught. Perhaps the most tragic part of that story is that the woman lost her life. Without the backup of his college friends, he lacked the power to control his victim and took things further than he ever needed to before, at least as far as we know Because of the seriousness of the charges he's been in the Collin County Jail for the past few years and has no hope of bail Barring any mistakes made by the police the case appears to be open and shut That means he'll be inside for 30 years at a minimum Barring any mistakes made by the police, the case appears to be open and shut. That means he'll be inside for 30 years at a minimum.

And for the sake of women everywhere, let's hope he never gets out. This happened to me during my yearly campout at Lake Texoma in North Texas. The lake itself was built during the Second World War using mainly German POW labor. It sits astride the Texas-Oklahoma border and covers roughly 89,000 acres and sees about 6 million visitors on an average year. It's, to my knowledge, still one of the biggest reservoirs in the country and my favorite place to spend my birthday. Every year, the week before or after spring break, I load my camping supplies into my car and make the 30-mile drive. My usual place to set up is Eisenhower State Park, located on the Texas side of the border and just happens to be named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the famous World War II general

and president who was born nearby. Sorry, Kansas. The cool thing about the park is that for a small fee, I can take my pick of spots that offer running water and electrical connections. Although I normally camp in a relatively traditional manner, having access to power nearby can be convenient. Perhaps the best part of camping so early in the season, the temperatures are still reasonable. You could go out as little as two months later and already be nearing 90 plus degrees during the hottest part of the day. This also means there are far fewer other campers in the park. I've been visiting the lake since before I can remember. As a matter of fact,

one of my first memories is of me bawling my head off and holding my bloody foot. My dad sped our boat to shore in order for me to get the medical care I required after stepping on a broken bottle. We all wore shoes in the water after that. In all my years of going out there, I had never heard anything about wild packs of dogs roaming the area. While groups of wild pigs have been an ever-growing problem in our state, wild dogs not so much. Or maybe that's just my ignorance showing and it's a bigger deal than I'm aware of. Whether it is or not, I wasn't expecting what happened my second night. I believe that evening, no one else was within a mile of my camp. It was just starting to get dark and I walked a few feet down to the water.

Often times I'll sit on the shore and watch boats cross the lake with a cup of coffee and enjoy the calming sounds of the waves licking lightly at the shore. It hadn't gotten completely dark yet but the shapes I noticed approaching me were unidentifiable. As they grew closer I could make out the shape of two dogs walking slowly down the shore. I figured they belonged to another camper and called out to let them know I was there. As the seconds passed, no answer came, and the dogs continued to get closer. While I'm not, nor have ever I been afraid of dogs, I do practice common sense measures with those I'm not familiar with. When they were within ten yards of me, I saw three more dogs, all of differing sizes, come down the cliff at an angle from me and join the other two on the bank. My caution was beginning to shift into fear. Odds are that if a group of dogs form a pack without the moderating influence of a human, they become feral and can be a serious danger to any person they come in contact with.

I was that person on this night and things would only prove to get worse as it went on. Running away would just engage their prey drive, and I'd be run down and mauled for sure. With no other choice, I stood still as they approached me. The two larger dogs I had seen first began to smell me. I didn't move or pet them as they did so. While the leaders sniffed, the other three began to surround me and walk slowly toward me. Even if I had never been scared of dogs before, this freaked me out. During this whole interaction, I did my best not to indicate that I was scared.

But the nearer the other three came, the more nervous I grew. Things would come to a head when I felt one of them bump me on the back of my head. I did the worst thing I could have and jerked away. This was all the pack needed to begin attacking me. Each of the leaders had grabbed me, one on the hand and the other had a mouthful of my leg. The rest had ganged up and took a firm

grip on my right leg. This wasn't some rough play either. I could tell that they were trying to pull me down to the ground. I quickly lost my balance and dropped to one knee but fortunately for me, I had a makeshift walking stick in my right hand and used it to break my fall. One of the leaders used this as an opportunity to go for my face. However, I foresaw something like this and jabbed at it with a stick before it reached me. This gave me the time I needed to return myself to standing. With a firmer stance, I started jabbing at the others. A few let go and backed off only to renew their attack seconds later. Rage and frustration began to take

over and I started swinging wildly at them. Here and there I'd hear a scream come from the darkness until finally the assault ceased. I stood my ground and waited for it to begin again but the pounding of my heart was all I could hear. To be safe, I walked slowly back up the hill to my camp, watching the whole time for any movement in the darkness. When I reached it, I turned up my lamps and searched for wounds. My left hand was bloody, but after washing it, I could see it wasn't as bad as I had feared. The bad bites were to the back and sides of my calves. The best I could do was clean and wrap them until help could get to me. The gates didn't close until 10pm that day so the ambulance was able to scoop me up and get me to a hospital rather quickly. I spent the rest of the evening getting treated.

Among the procedures was my first set of rabies shots. I was overjoyed to learn the procedure is far less extreme than it was when I was a kid. Although you still have to get the vaccine over several appointments, science has made major strides at least in this area. The following morning I called a friend to pick me up and take me back out to break my camp. I made sure to notify the office about the attack but I don't know if anything was ever done. I watched the evening news and checked the paper for two weeks. Nothing about the dog packs or my attack was ever mentioned.

For all I know, the decision was made to handle the problem quietly and avoid any hits to the coming tourist season. The last few times I have camped there since the attack, I haven't encountered any feral dogs, so perhaps that's what was done. My run in with the dogs motivated me to finally get my license to carry a handgun. I've been wanting to do it since the law was passed but could never justify it to myself. In addition to carrying while out and about in public concealed to prevent any problems with the general population, I'm legally allowed to bring my pistol along with me when I go camping. Since I believe self-protection is a right, I probably would have had it with me whether it was legal or not, but thankfully I don't have to take that chance.

My goal by sharing this is not to create fear among others who love staying in the outdoors. I simply want to remind people that even in places we feel comfortable, the unexpected can happen. So if you're ever visiting Texas, I highly recommend Lake Texoma and the attractions around it. Just be sure to wear your life jacket when you're on the water. Don't drink too much and keep your eyes out for the creatures who share the land with you. Whether they're rattlesnakes or feral dogs, one misstep or loss of concentration could really ruin your day. Not a month before my grandpa passed, he sat me down and told me a story about his childhood in texas to my knowledge very little has been said concerning this time in his life perhaps that's

why what i was about to hear shocked me so deeply somewhere in the wide expanse of the forest between the louis Louisiana line and Paris, I dare not be any more specific than this. My family had a small bit of land, roughly 150 acres. This was a lot more than most, but with generation after generation staying on the land, room got scarce quick. My people had been about the area since Texas was still its own country and life back in those days was no place for the meek. Squabbles were handled between neighbors and the law often came at the end of a gun.

My daddy had me out and hunting for food as soon as I could shoot. This was depression times and folks did whatever they could to make ends meet. My mother had an older brother who'd already been in and out of the penitentiary twice for making liquor. When my schooling or chores didn't see me busy, I'd make a little money watching over the still. The local law dogs generally turned a blind eye to folks' personal enterprises and sometimes engaged in the practice themselves. Government revenue agents were the real thorn in our side. Their meddlesome ways could derail a man's income for an entire season

and this was in a time legitimate jobs were thin on the ground. As I said, during the winter months I'd make a bit watching over my uncles still, stuck off in the far corner of the property. Revenue agents always being a burden on us, I was to keep a keen eye out for them and dissuade any other folk of a curious disposition from walking up on the manufacturing. Being a pretty young man at the time, near on 12 years old, I could pretend I was merely hunting and draw no attention if the agent spotted me. Both barrels from my shotgun notified those working the still of any undesired folks approaching, and I was to walk away none the

wiser of their fate. Nobody wanted a child like myself with such a bright mind and promising future to end up in the penitentiary. All the precautions and forewarnings would be for naught, however. One cold and foggy morning, I was loafing about the still with my uncle and two of his friends, a pair of brothers from around Clarksville. We were caught unawares by a pair of agents. The fog had concealed their approach until it was too late. They perhaps would have reacted in a less rash manner had they the time to prepare for their arrival, but under the circumstances, their sense of self-preservation took over. My uncle has said more than once that

he had no intention of going back to the penitentiary, and when the agents told us to show our hands, he opened fire instead. The roar of his shotgun scared the Jesus out of me. I dropped to the ground and buried my face as far as I could into the leaves. It was over in seconds. When I dared raise my head, the agents were both dead and the younger of the Clarksville boys was minutes from the same. The older brother did his best to make his siblings' last moments as comfortable as possible. My uncle was already dragging the agent's body off to bury them. This was all going on around me but I couldn't form a clear thought or word. It was

probably half an hour before I could stand. I walked over to where my uncle was digging and he threw me a shovel. Nothing was said for the next hour. The ground was darn near freezing and made the task even longer and arduous. We got the holes dug and rolled the agents into them About that time the older brother joined us He began digging another hole nearby and my uncle joined him Leaving me to fill in the revenuer's graves The younger boy was retrieved by the two of them Carefully laid in and covered him

I don't believe a single word was spoken the rest of the day. My uncle simply looked over at the remaining brother, nodded his head goodbye. We all went our separate ways. Nothing else regarding that morning was ever spoken of. Until today, of course. The events of that foggy morning would turn out to be a dark omen on our lives to come. Word around us that remaining Clarksville boy wandered the country, riding trains until World War II broke out. It's said he went up into Canada and joined the army, supposedly died around Dunkirk.

As for my mama's brother, he kept making liquor until 1937 when he was shot in an argument over a woman and died. I guess you could say I came out lucky as compared to the others. Mama made sure I kept focused on my schooling. I got my diploma the year America joined the war and was one of the first in the country to join up. For some crazy reason the Lord watched out for me. Despite three years of combat, constantly being shot at by Japanese snipers, I didn't get as much as a hangnail. After the government cut me loose I used that GI Bill and enrolled at Stephen F. Austin and stayed around to teach after I finished. That's where I met your granny and you know the rest

after that. We moved up here to Fayettsville so I could teach. I'm telling you this now, after all these years, because I know I ain't got much time left. I don't want to go to my maker with this secret on my conscience. The fact is, boy, I've been walking around every day since then, expecting to meet some grisly ending because of what I was a part of. It was a big part of what I was a part of. It was a big part of why I went to war. The weight of being complicit in two murders is a heavy thing to carry through life. Whether I was the one who pulled the trigger don't much matter. I chose not to tell anyone. It makes me just as guilty whether it's in the eyes of the law or the Lord's. For the sake of your soul, be a good man and live a good life.

If you do that, your end will be a peaceful one. God bless you and thank you for allowing an old, scared man to get some small bit of peace. The Christmas holiday should be a happy time for the year for family that celebrates it. One of giving and sharing. Unfortunately, the season of 1974 would be a terrifying and confusing one for three Fort Worth families and everyone that has followed. A reminder of loss. On the morning of December 23rd, 1974, three girls left their homes for a shopping trip at the Seminary South Shopping Center in South Fort Worth. Rachel Arnold Trillica, 17, picked up her friend Renee Wilson, 14, at her

home. Julianne Mosley, who was only nine, asked the girls to let her tag along. They agreed, but only if Julie's mother gave permission. Julie called her mother at work, and only after a lot of whining, as her mother says, she allowed the young girl to join the others. Renee had a Christmas party that night, so the girls planned to be home by 4pm to allow her to prepare for it. The trio's first stop was the Fort Worth Army Navy store to pick up some items on layaway. Only then did they head for the Seminary South shopping center, parking Rachel's vehicle on the upper level near Sears. Several people in the mall remember seeing the girls. One woman even told a store clerk she

recalled Renee's sweet honesty t-shirt. Another claimed the girls had been spotted in a security patrol car. It is known the girls had to have made it back to the car at some point because their purchases were found inside of it. When the girls did not return home, the families became concerned and traveled to the shopping center to search for them they would camp out there all night waiting for the girls return with no results in the coming years more than one person would come forward with stories of seeing one or all of the girls being pushed into a van or pickup truck regardless of what people claim to have witnessed the police still had no more

clues to the three girls final destination course, law enforcement would propose the time-worn runaway theory, but the parents shot this down quickly. A letter would arrive the next morning, however, that would lead police to believe that they were right. It was addressed to Rachel's husband, Tommy. The two had been married for around six months at the time of the disappearance. The envelope would hold some strange forms of speech though. Rather than the familiar Tommy that Rachel always called him, it had the formal Thomas A. Trilica. Rachel's name was just scrawled

across the top with no return address. Far more strange, her name appeared to be initially misspelled, as the L in her name was written as a lowercase e, but then it had been gone over again to form the correct spelling. There was no city name on the postmark, only a blurred postal service number, 76083. The three, oddly, look to be backwards. The possibility of it being an unfinished 8 or the last two digits of the stamp being handwritten have been considered making it a 38. If they were indeed a 38, the letter would have been stamped in Eliasville, a town near Throckmorton, Texas. However, if they were actually 88, it could have been sent from Weatherford. The letter itself was on a piece of paper too large for the envelope and written in a childlike scrawl saying, I know I'm going to catch it, but we just had to get away.

We're going to Houston. See you in about a week. The car is in Sears parking lot. Love, Rachel. Rachel's mother, Fran Langston, never believed the letter came from her daughter. In the 70s and 80s, the letter was examined by multiple experts, including those from the FBI, but each time the results came back inconclusive. Just after the disappearance, the families walked creek beds and back roads looking for their missing children. The police chased a hundred empty leads. By the spring of 1975, the families had become frustrated by the police investigation.

They would hire flamboyant private investigator John Swaim. In early 1975, one young man claiming to be an acquaintance of Rachel's stepped forward and said that he saw them in the record department of a store inside the mall just before they disappeared. The man claimed that another person appeared to be with the girls. In April of that year, Swaim would join with a hundred volunteers in Port Lavica to search under bridges and through swamps after he received an anonymous tip that the girls had been killed and dumped there. Nothing would become of this or any of the other tips Swain would get and by 1979 the detective would be dead of a drug overdose. With his death the case would be rendered basically closed for the time being.

Throughout the ensuing decades the remains of more than a few people would be uncovered but none would turn out to be those of the three girls. The story would get a new lease on life when the case was reopened and assigned to homicide detective Tom Bocher in 2001. The detective believes the girls left the mall with someone they trusted and more than one individual may have been involved. Sadly, like so many other times, nothing new would be discovered by this new investigation. Nevertheless, people still take time out of their lives today to comb the woods, swamps, and long-forgotten trails for any bit, no matter how small it may be, that could help solve this mystery.

Rusty Arnold, Rachel's brother who was just 11 at the time she went missing, would meet Dan James, a private investigator around 1995. James has been following the case since 1975 on his own time. He has even posted $25,000 of his own money for any clues that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the disappearance. James has never been hired by any of the families or received any compensation for his work. A handful of supposedly credible witnesses have been found, one in 1998. That story claims Rachel was abducted and the person involved in it still has her to this day. It's said that he allows her to visit Fort Worth every year at Christmas. Rusty and James seem to believe this story, but neither man will

come out and say what they think has happened to the two other girls. Even as recently as 2018, two cars could be dragged from Ben Brooks Lake because it was thought that they may have a connection to the case. But this too would lead nowhere. Until somebody inside the case comes out and states names and locations, all types of rumors and theories will be thrown out. Only the individuals involved in the disappearance of the trio really know their fate and until they come forward with their story, we shall all remain in the dark. Nicholas Patrick Barclay was born on December 31st, 1980. The San Antonio native was the youngest of three children and by the age of 13 Had acquired quite the reputation for being a bad seed

The young man had been violent and verbally abusive towards his mother, Beverly, multiple times On such occasions, police would have to be called to calm him down The problem didn't stop at home, however Nicholas would often skip school and when he did attend, trouble followed him, going even as far as threatening one of his teachers. The 13-year-old also had a criminal record. Incidents such as stealing a pair of shoes and breaking into a convenience store were among his crimes. Because of his past, it was no surprise the people around him didn't take what happened very seriously at first. On June 13th, 1994, Nicholas' mother gave him $5 to go and play basketball with some friends

down at the park. A little later, he called home to get a ride from his mother but because Beverly worked nights and slept during the day, Nicholas' brother refused to wake her. The boy wouldn't be heard from again after that. He'd run away before and return in a day or two, so no one was really concerned. At least at first. Even when the cops did get involved, they were confident that he had been found quickly. How far could a git get on five dollars anyway, right? The only problem was he wasn't found and as the weeks passed, any hopes of finding him alive were dwindling. Beverly believed her son may have taken a ride home from a stranger. Then on the night of September 25th, 1994, just three months after his disappearance, something strange would happen. Nicholas' older brother Jason called into

the police to report someone breaking into the family's garage. The perpetrator was gone by the time the cops arrived, however, the older brother would swear the person committing the break-in was Nicholas. After a search of the surrounding neighborhood, no sign of him was found. This led the police and the young man's mother to believe he had made up the story, but no one could understand why. If Nicholas was truly there that night, it would have been the last documented sighting of him. The Barclay family would have to carry on with their lives. All the time harboring the hope Nicholas would return on his own or be found by law enforcement, but as time had passed, it looked less and less likely that they'd ever see their loved one again.

Three years would pass before anything new would be heard concerning Nicholas' disappearance, and would come from a very unexpected place. San Antonio police received a phone call from a man working in a youth shelter in Linares, Spain in October of 1997. A young man had been found huddling in a phone booth and brought into the shelter. The man from the shelter believed him to be Nicholas Barclay. The young man claimed to have escaped from a child trafficking ring where he had been abused since he went missing. Despite being relatively healthy, the young man had no memory of his past life, unable to contain her joy. Nicholas's half-sister, Carrie Gibson, hopped on a plane and headed for Spain. The boy wouldn't leave his room at first, afraid he wouldn't be recognized. His fears would

soon be put to rest, however, although the young man before her didn't quite resemble the boy she remembered. She chalked this up to the passage of time and confirmed he was indeed Nicholas. Now finally being reunited the pair sat looking through family photo albums Carrie had brought with her. All the time attempting to shake some memory loose in her traumatized brother's mind. Gradually, bit by bit, the young man's memories appeared to be coming back to him, but he remained quiet, likely because of all the abuse he was believed to have experienced. After taking a test identifying family members from pictures, he passed after making only one mistake and was decided by authorities to be the real Nicholas Barclay. He was cleared to return home. He and Carrie hopped on a plane,

eager to be reunited with the rest of their thankful and relieved family. Although Carrie and Beverly were overjoyed to have him back again, there were others in the family very suspicious of the young man. The fact that Nicholas had blonde hair and blue eyes before his abduction and came back with dark brown hair and eyes was the source of much distrust. Not to mention the fact that he now spoke with a French accent. He had a reason for all of this, of course. The individuals who had abducted him had chemically dyed his hair and eyes to make him unrecognizable. The accent was just a side effect of spending so much time living in Europe. The women wanted to believe this so much, they easily accepted his explanation. However, for the rest, the questions were not going away that easily. His mother was eager to

help him take back his former life. She enrolled him in school and after a while, Nicholas seemed to become more comfortable at home. The media, never willing to let a good story go by, continued to badger the family for an interview. They would eventually relent, picking hard copy to tell their story in February of 98. Charlie Parker, a private investigator working for the show, would notice something off about Nicholas's ears. They were different. Since ears are like fingerprints and never change throughout a person's life, this anomaly was an important one. Parker would compare pictures of Nicholas taken when he was younger to ones of the newly returned

Nicholas and came to the conclusion the two boys were not the same person. This was just the opportunity the rest of the family had been waiting for. A long struggle would break out in the courts between Nicholas, those who believed the story, and those who did not. The court would finally order fingerprints and DNA tests be taken. The results of those tests would be nothing anyone could have expected. It turned out that the shy young man who had been found in Spain was not Nicolas Barclay. Instead, his name was Frédéric Bourdin, a French-born 23-year-old. Bourdin was a serial impersonator thought to have taken the identities of up to 500 people.

He had gotten Nicholas' information from a missing child center. Nicholas Barclay was the first of three missing children whose identities would be taken by Borden. He said that he had spread the story of lies about the human trafficking ring, getting as much media attention as he could to make Nicholas more real and to make people love him even more to know what had happened. Now that the family knew the truth, did they throw Borden forcibly from their lives? No. As a matter of fact, they attempted to keep him. This odd reaction caused the police to begin to look at the family with an eye of suspicion. They felt this had to mean the family had something to hide.

Jason's phone call to the police in September of 1994 took on a whole new angle. According to him, it's not uncommon in murder cases for a call to be made to convince people that someone is alive. Before he could be questioned, Nicholas's older brother died from a possibly intentional drug overdose. With his death, the case has gone cold although private investigators still work it today. Jason appears to be the prime suspect but since he's dead, we may never know what happened to Nicholas Barclay. Borden spent six years in prison for his crime. Upon his release, he returned to Europe and continued with his grifting for a while but would eventually marry and start a family in 2007. He is convinced that Nicholas Barclay was murdered. Borden himself

called the police to report as much, once claiming Beverly had even admitted to it. However, nothing would materialize in light of Jason's death. There's an amazing documentary available on YouTube right now called The Imposter. It should do a great job of filling in any gaps I've left. I feel Nicholas's disappearance tends to get lost in the strangeness of what happened with Frederic Bourdin, so I'm including a description of the real Nicholas and what he was wearing the day he went missing. For the sake of all those who hold him dear, let's hope he returns to them alive and well. Nicholas, whose nickname was Nicky, is a Caucasian male with light brown hair and blue eyes. He has tattoos of the letters J on his left shoulder, T on his left

hand between his thumb and forefinger, and the letters L and N on his outer left ankle. He also had a gap between his front teeth. He has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Nicholas was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, purple pants, and black sneakers. He was seen carrying a pink backpack. Way back in 1970, Robert L. Tex Roberts was an aging and eccentric millionaire living with his slightly older female companion, Jessie Forsyth. On the night of August 15th, 1970, the couple would disappear from Roberts' Dallas mansion and never be seen again. That evening, Roberts, 85, summoned his friend and bodyguard, Al Bergeron, to the home, on a matter of utmost importance.

When Bergeron arrived, he would discover the usually locked front door ajar and no one home. Although it was not out of the ordinary for Roberts to leave the house suddenly, it was almost unheard of for 89-year-old infirmed Forsyth to go with him. After waiting several hours for Roberts to return, Bergeron called the police. Two days later, Bergeron received a phone call from a friend with news of a special delivery letter from Tex. The letter stated that attorney Leon C. Horton would be managing his affairs during his absence. Horton filed deeds to virtually all of Robert's real property, including the mansion on Spring Valley Road at the Dallas County Courthouse.

It was then all sold to a management company owned by Horton. Next, Horton tried to cash Robert's ample holdings of stocks and bonds. Even with the power of attorney, no Dallas bank would negotiate the transactions. However, one in Amarillo would, and Horton would then convert the securities into cash and deposit it into his commercial accounts. Horton then withdrew the funds and sent them supposedly to Tex, according to a prearranged plan. Bergeron, who was a major beneficiary in Robert's will, didn't know whether to believe Horton's assurances that Tex was getting the

money. He asked to speak to him personally, but Horton denied this, claiming he was protecting his client's request for secrecy. Months would go by until, in January of 1971, Bergeron received a Christmas card from Tex that was mailed from the small Louisiana town of Homer near the Arkansas border. Other of Robert's friends would also get similar cards in the mail. All of these cards would have typewritten addresses. This little nugget of information would motivate Bergeron to go back and examine Tex's signature on the card, one he knew well. After taking a closer look, he would decide it didn't quite look right. Bergeron would now begin to investigate in earnest. He would uncover another person who sold property to Horton, an elderly woman who disappeared in 1969. After consulting a

handwritten expert, he would take his findings to attorneys Paul Chitwood, who had also done legal work for Roberts in the past. The attorney would examine Bergeron's findings and ultimately determine a court of inquiry was necessary. From the start, the inquiry was a mess. Horton was supposedly assaulted in the courthouse parking garage and his briefcase which held the power of attorney was stolen. Nevertheless, using existing copies, the handwritten expert testified that Robert's signatures on the documents were not genuine in his opinion. This would lead to the indictments of Horton and notary artist Odell Reed, who claimed to have witnessed Robert's signatures. A grand jury in Randall County would

also indict Horton for converting common stock to his own benefit. He'd been convicted of theft by false pretext and given a sentence of 10 years in prison. Later on, he would be convicted on four counts of forgery in Dallas. Artist Odell Reed, the notary, would vanish for over two years after being released on $15,000 bond. When he finally surfaced, the Dallas' DA office mysteriously lost interest in the case and agreed to a probated sentence. Other than Horton himself, Odell Reed may be the only person who knows the fate of Jesse Forsyth and Tex Roberts. A couple of years ago, my girlfriends and I decided to do something wild. We all had summer jobs and it was one of the few times over the summer that we were all going to

have an entire weekend hangout. Our schedules were a little hectic so we knew that we had to take the opportunity and do something fun. After seriously struggling to figure out something exciting to do we settled on camping. I remember being so excited as I walked through Walmart with my best friends to get a tent for all of us to share. We bought a bunch of junk food and managed to steal a bottle of vodka for my dad to bring with us. We went to a pretty typical campground where people could bring their Winnebago or set up a tent space if they wanted. We figured that it would be safer to do that than to go out into the woods and randomly find a spot.

None of us had ever gone camping before so it just seemed like the logical thing to do. Well we got there Friday night after everyone was off of work. By the way, there were four of us. We got our tent set up around four in the afternoon. After that, we just started goofing around and whatnot. The campground itself was pretty deserted. For some reason, there just didn't seem to be too many people around and it was a big place too. You could probably spend half an hour walking around the entire area. We saw at least two families that were in campers. They were kind of a ways off though. You know how it is. People kind of space themselves out naturally. We go to the campground to get away from people and not see them, right?

Everything had been going pretty well. We started making s'mores by the fire that we had set up and just enjoyed ourselves. It was getting dark and it was really comfortable. Until a really strange looking man started warming himself up with our fire. We had all been sitting together on one side of the fire and he just awkwardly made himself comfortable on the other side. I didn't want to be rude, but I feel really uncomfortable by the way this guy just came over to us. He didn't say a word either, just sat there rubbing his hands. I asked him if he needed anything, and he just said no. And then he stood there in silence. My friends and I, who had been laughing and being loud just a minute ago, were all quiet now, waiting to see what this guy was going to do. He didn't look like he was dressed for camping in

the first place. He was wearing khakis and a dress shirt. It was tucked in and everything. It was like he just left the office and decided to come here and sit in front of our fire without saying a word. After a few minutes of silence one of my friends told him that he had to go. She told him that this was our fire and he was making this uncomfortable. He tried playing it off like he was dumb or confused. I didn't buy it and neither did my friends. He walked away without a fight though and we just left it at that. The rest of the night went on without incident which I was happy about and we had totally forgotten about the vodka that we had brought that night and it was probably a good thing too. None of us slept very well.

Again it was the first time any of us had actually gone camping and the noise of wildlife and what not was very distracting. When we woke up the next morning we noticed that the campground had become even more desolate than it had been the day before. There was only one family that had been in sight of our campsite and they must have left now because we didn't see their Winnebago anymore. We didn't really take too much of an issue with it though. At a loss for what to do during the daylight we decided on walking the hiking trail. It was only four or five miles long and was beginner friendly. None of us were expert hikers or anything so it just seemed like a good fit. We started walking

on the hiking trail and we saw that strange guy again. I remember one of my friends pointing it out and said that he looked like he was doing something strange when we got a little bit closer we noticed that he was sitting on a rock trying to solve a Rubik's cube pretty strange guy suffice to say we walked by him and as we were passing him he looked up at us and immediately started to speak now he didn't look at us at all until we were right in front of him. I thought that was weird in and of itself but then he asked if he could join us to finish the rest of the trip. My friends and I were all at a complete loss of words as what to say. It may have antagonized him if we told him no, so I stepped in and told him that he could

walk the rest of the way with us. I felt one of my friends elbow me when I did, which I'm not sure if he noticed or not. So there we were, walking along the hiking path with a complete stranger holding a Rubik's cube and dressed in business casual. Same clothes by the way. The first thing that I wanted to do was to get him talking. Who was this guy? What was he doing here? I tried getting him talking for a few minutes but he never gave any kind of significant reply. I would ask him what he was doing here and

he would say walking. I would ask him what he does for a living and he would say something generic like sales. He only ever gave one word replies and didn't say anything to us the entire way, only spoke when spoken to. This completely ruined the social dynamic. Me and my friends were all extremely uncomfortable and we really didn't say much ourselves the rest of the way. We made it back to the campsite and when we did, he just kind of wandered off. He didn't even say a word. No goodbye or anything. He just left. That was weird enough. We decided to move our campsite down to another part of the campground, a little bit closer to other people. Normal people people just in case. Once we got the fire going one of our friends remembered that we had brought vodka with us. She got the bottle out of

my bag and said that she needed it after a day like that. I asked her if she thought it was a good idea to be drinking at some random campsite with this weirdo wandering around and she looked at me and said, all the more reason. I shrugged my shoulders and said that I couldn't argue with that logic. I know what you're expecting that we all got drunk and had some kind of horrible incident with that weird guy and this might shock you but we didn't. Not that night at least. If I'm going to be completely honest with you, we didn't really do anything too crazy. We drank a little bit too much vodka, got sleepy and went to sleep in our tent.

But this is where things got weird. I woke up and saw him staring at me. He was inside our tent while we had been sleeping. I was the first one to wake up and as you might imagine I screamed at the top of my lungs. My friends all woke up in a panic and the tent came crashing down on us. There were a couple of minutes of disorganized chaos and random yelling but after we put the dumpster fire out I got fed up. What do you want with us? I yelled at him. You're in our tent watching us sleep. Are you a pervert or something? He just stood there for a minute. He said no and walked away.

That was when I knew it was time to leave the campsite. We packed up and left just like that. Driving with a hangover was the worst thing ever but I was willing to do it to get away from that freak. I don't know if he had any bad intentions with us. He may have just been really weird or mentally handicapped. All I know is that it generally freaked me out and it made me really regret ever going camping. Me and my friends all agreed to never do that again. I gave the tent to my dad and he turned it into a house for his pet pig. There was this one time that I was definitely the scary person in someone else's life. Although I really didn't mean to be and it all happened like this.

It was the release of a new movie a couple of months ago. I was super excited to go because the reviews were fantastic and I was a big fan of the series. I made the mistake of going with my girlfriend at the time, Tiffany. We had since broken up. The relationship just wasn't meant to last. She was a pretty horrible girlfriend in all honesty. I know I have my share of problems but I only have one real flaw. I have a really bad temper and I can really lose my cool if I am antagonized enough. I know this enough about myself and I actively work towards improving and being a better

person. Made a lot of progress the last few years too. But without giving you an entire history of how I've dealt with it, my real strategy is to just walk away from whatever the situation is. If I identify something that makes me mad, I just leave and come back to it if I have to. I know it sounds really simple but actually doing it is tougher than you think. Tiffany was someone who got a kick out of making people mad and she didn't care if she made me fly off the handle. Obviously I never hit her or anything but she just irritated me to the point where I scream at her at the top of my lungs. That only happened one time and shockingly enough it didn't stop her from

continuing to troll me. Yeah, we definitely are not soulmates. We went to see this movie together. She didn't really care too much about the series and was only going because I was. I offered to drive, pay for tickets and snacks and was extremely nice to her the entire night. Despite my kindness, she didn't return the favor. About 30 minutes into the movie, she did something that still makes me angry to think about. She verbally started complaining about how stupid the movie was. I told her in advance not to do this. I hushed her two or three times. So in response, she pulled out her phone and googled how the movie ended and then told me the people in our immediate vicinity had heard her say it and all gave her a look

it has to be one of the worst things i've ever seen someone do i mean why in the moment i honestly snapped i really went out of my way to do everything i could to make this night enjoyable for us i even bought her flowers on the way to pick her up from her house. She didn't thank me for those either and now she did this. I remember just feeling the rage inside my chest. It was so powerful. Absolute frustration. I just wanted to enjoy a good night with my girlfriend at a movie I was really excited about seeing. But no. I managed to contain myself and I just walked out of the theater. I didn't say a word. I just went back to my car and her, being the lovely girl she is, just stayed in the theater. I sat in my car for a few minutes just ruminating in the rage.

Honestly, that was the moment that I knew this relationship had to end. I remember gripping the steering wheel with all my strength and twisting it. It was the only thing I could do to try to get some of the anger out. I didn't want to smash anything or hurt someone. Well, after enough time went by, someone noticed that I was in this car. It was an older man and his wife. They looked like they were in their late 40s or early 50s. He didn't have any hair and hers was somewhat grey. I thought it was a little weird how they

just stood outside of my car and looked at me in complete and utter shock. All I could manage to do was look back at them and give them a nasty look. I wasn't thinking in the moment and these people were just being rude and I responded the only way I knew how, with more anger. I reached my hand down to honk the horn at them in the hope that they would just leave me alone. I was already having a bad night. I don't know why random old people had to annoy me now too. When my hand pressed down on the horn, I noticed something that startled me. It felt different than it normally does. I looked down to see that there was some kind of sticker on it. I started to look around and realized that I was in a different car. I immediately felt extremely embarrassed about the whole thing.

These old people must have been trying to get back to the car when they saw me inside of it. I got out of their car and tried explaining the situation to them. I told them that my girlfriend and I had a fight and I went back to my car to cool down when I must have just stepped into theirs. Thankfully they were really chill about it. They told me not to worry about it and to make sure that I get in my car next time. I told them that I would be more careful in the future and told them to have a good night. In all reality, I bet those people were scared out of their mind. I'm a pretty large male and I was in a really angry mood. If they had tried to open the door, I may very well have just reacted by attacking them. This is one of

those wake up call kind of incidents for me because I almost put myself in a position where I could unintentionally have hurt innocent people. I went back into the movie theater and sat somewhere away from my girlfriend. I didn't want to see her again and I honestly wanted to watch the rest of that movie. When it ended she texted me asking me where I was, and I just replied, Duck you, and blocked her. And if you're wondering, yes, my phone auto-corrected to Duck. I blocked her number and didn't plan on ever contacting her again.

She never reached out in any other way, shape, or form either. We were still friends on Facebook for another two weeks and she didn't even bother to message me and ask what happened. She just didn't care. I had the worst landlord ever last year. I was your very typical small town college graduate. I got a degree in marketing and came to the realization that if I didn't move to a large city, that I was going to end up working at Walmart. I didn't really have anything tying me to my area so it was pretty easy for me to up and move. I decided on Boston because I like the cold.

Being from a small town, I didn't really have a lot of experience with the rights of tenants or getting an apartment or anything like that. I tried following tutorials that people had written online to the best of my ability, but this was a very new experience to me and very stressful. I had the hardest time finding an apartment. You don't realize how competitive it is to get an apartment in a major city like that until you actually do it. Most places literally want my resume, and as unimpressive as it was, I had a really hard time. I eventually found a decent apartment for rent through Facebook Marketplace. It was far from ideal, but I could afford it and it was livable.

Honestly, those were my only two criteria. I made the mistake of not doing any research on the owner, the building, or any previous tenants. That turned out to be a serious mistake later on down the road. I remember meeting the owner in person. He gave me serious creeper vibes, like the creepiest looking person I'd ever seen. I try not to be judgmental, so I didn't hold it against him. It was just the way that he looked at me that made me extremely uneasy. He had a lazy eye, old wrinkled skin, his teeth looked like something out of a horror movie. Not sharp or carnivorous or anything, but like the worst dental hygiene you've ever seen in your life.

He showed me around the apartment and gave me the keys. I figured that I wouldn't have to be interacting with him too much. I had an automatic rent payment thing that came out of my bank account, so it was whatever. Unless there was some kind of issue that I had, I wouldn't have to speak with him. About a week went by of what must have been the strangest move in my entire life. Now I've lived a couple of places throughout my years but living here seriously set me on edge. Things in my apartment would be missing, a lot. I'd hear noises I couldn't explain, loud ones. I tried to chalk it up to the stress of moving and getting used to living in a city,

but it didn't explain everything. I had another really negative experience in that apartment. Not sure how long I'd been living there, but there was just one night when I had this horrible sleep paralysis. I remember it was the night after my first day at a new job in the city. I was really tired because my sleep schedule at a new job in the city. I was really tired because my sleep schedule had been a little out of whack. I came straight home and just went to bed. I must have woken up at about 2 in the morning, but I couldn't move. All I could see out of the corner of my eye was a tall, thin, pale monster for lack of a better term. It just stood over my dresser. It seemed

to be rummaging through my stuff. That was the first time I'd ever had sleep paralysis. It was horrifying. You can't understand the fear until you live it yourself. Be thankful if you've never experienced it, and that night was something of a tipping point. I was completely over this apartment, city and new life. Between the small unexplained things that went on with my stuff and this sleep paralysis incident, I knew that something had to change. Another couple of days went by and I started researching on ways I could maybe find another apartment or do something. All I knew was that something had to change. I remember going to bed really late this one night. I had been staying up to find new apartments. I went to bed and fell asleep just fine but something very unexpected happened. I woke up.

I found myself lying in my bed watching a figure rummage through my stuff. I only saw it out of the corner of my eyes, so I couldn't really be sure. I instinctively turned my entire head to look. It was standing exactly where that monster had been. Now, it was really dark, and I couldn't see anything too clearly. But the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I could move my body, and this was not sleep paralysis. Someone was in my house and rummaging through my stuff right in front of me. That made it so much more terrifying. Where they stood, their back was turned to me and

didn't notice that I was awake. I laid there for what felt like forever. I didn't know what to do. Could I just pretend to be asleep the entire time and hope that this person doesn't hurt me? Or should I get up and try to attack them? But then I ran the risk of being knifed or shot. I felt my heart beating in my chest. I had no weapons anywhere around me.

The second that I got up, he was going to know it. Another minute or so went by. The stress was eating me alive. I didn't even make a conscious decision, but I heard myself yell, Who are you? I did my best to sound as intimidating as possible. Whoever it was tried to make a run for it, and I decided to chase them. I got out of my bed, saw them in the living room.

I leaped on top of this person, pinned them to the floor, and just started beating the life out of them. After two or three good punches, I heard a voice I recognized. Please, stop. You're going to kill me. It was my landlord. I screamed at him, asking what he was doing in my apartment, going through my stuff. He looked totally surprised. I guess he expected me not to wake up. He tried feeding me some phony story about thinking that I was away and that he was checking for mice. I may not have known a lot about my rights as a tenant, but I understood that he was not allowed to enter my apartment without telling me, especially while I was

sleeping. I threatened to press charges if he didn't let me move out. He gave me my safety deposit back and I moved out two days later. We had originally signed a contract for a year but given the circumstances he could have faced serious charges for what he'd done. I was happy to be out. One of the first things I did after moving was tell people about the incident online. I wanted anyone who was thinking about moving into this apartment to know about what had happened, that my stuff had been misplaced or missing throughout my time living there and I had to move after seeing my landlord in my apartment going through my stuff

right in front of me as I was asleep. I have kept my job and decided to stay in Boston. I've been really happy now that I have a good landlord and looking back I should have just listened to my first instinct on that guy. If somebody gives you a weird feeling there's normally a good reason for it. I was really naive when I was younger. I put myself into a lot of dangerous situations and never even considered the consequences. One of those instances was when I started hanging out with some older kids. I was in high school. I'm a blonde female and I lived a party.

I felt really cool by hanging out with college kids. All my high school friends thought that I was in fact the coolest person ever. Washing their eyes light up when I told them about college parties was honestly the best thing ever even if it was a little conceited but those college parties had some serious riffs. Looking back there were some seriously sketchy figures that went to these parties. I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, but I know that there were some hardcore, illicit substances available every single time. Thankfully, I had the sense to avoid any stuff like that.

There was one of these parties that changed my life, forever. I remember it being a Friday, and I got the usual text message invite to one of those wild parties. The parties always went down at one guy's house. His name was Jake and he was old enough to live on his own. I don't know what kind of family background he had but he was a senior in college and owned his house. He was a bit of a rich snob and for some reason he couldn't get enough of these parties. Another weird thing about him was that he had a strange liking of me, almost like he pretended he was my dad but a little perverse. There were a couple of times that he would hold me in front of the whole group, like literally lift me up and hold my entire body

like I was a child. It made me really uncomfortable, but I didn't want to make a scene, especially because he was kind of like the leader of the group. As you might imagine, most of the people that ended up at these parties were friends of his. No one that wasn't his direct friend was allowed in. He was very much opposed to letting in strangers or friends of friends because he was anxious about all the illegal stuff we were doing at these parties. And looking back, there was probably quite a bit of stuff that I didn't actually know about. I was the kid in the whole group after all. Anyway, back to this Friday night, I remember there being more people than usual. It was normally not more than 20 or so people and this night was

chaotic. I'm not sure the exact number but there had to have been at least 50 people at one point. There were groups of people that came and went which was also a little unusual. I remember this night particularly well up until a certain point. I ended up taking some LSD to try it out. I had only ever smoked some green before and everyone was feeling a little adventurous tonight including myself. I had a really bad trip and I realized that this stuff was not for me. I don't really remember too much from that night after that if I'm going to be completely honest with you. But the scary part isn't so much what happened that night. It happens when I wake up. I live in a nice smaller city right outside of Nashville. And do you want to guess where I

woke up? Detroit, Michigan. I just remembered opening my eyes to see the most run down house I've ever seen in my life. No idea where I was at first. There were other people around the house too, but most of them were unconscious. By the looks of it, they were pretty rough. Mostly girls, but a few men. I had been laying down on a couch that looked really ripped up and torn. I looked around for any familiar face, but saw none. I was here alone. I tried looking around to see if I had any belongings in the vicinity but I didn't. I was just awkwardly here by myself and no explanation to how I got here. I ran down the street and started crying. I didn't really know what else I could even do. Keep in mind I was a high school kid at this point, literally 16 years

old. I've never heard of anything like this happening to anyone before, and the last thing I ever expected to happen was to be in some random house surrounded by hopeless attics in a city I've never even been to before. The only saving grace for me was the fact that it was sunlight outside. If it had been nighttime, I really don't know what I would have done. I definitely wouldn't have been able to handle the situation. I built up the nerve to leave. When I did, I could have sworn I saw Jack's car outside the house. I felt absolutely horrible, so I'm not 100% sure, but I guess it would have made sense for him to be there.

I think he may have been the one to drive me here but I don't know why. I also don't know why he left me alone like this. Maybe he didn't expect me to wake up. I started walking. I remember walking for a long time. It must have been two hours at the very least. I don't know what I was expecting to happen but I just knew that the further away from that house I got't know what I was expecting to happen, but I just knew that the further away from that house I got, the better off I was going to be. Where exactly I was going to go and what exactly I was going to do, I really didn't know for sure. There was one point while I was walking down the street that some guy pulled off to the side of the road and asked me how much I

charge. I told him I was going to call the cops and thankfully that got rid of him. As scared as I was, I was still able to think on my feet. Luckily enough, I went the rest of the way without any other incidents. I eventually found a police station and I told them everything. That's when I found out that I was in Detroit and not Nashville. They asked me a lot of questions and they called my mom and told me that I was here. She drove all the way from Nashville to Detroit just to get me and bring me home. She didn't even ask any questions because she could tell how traumatic it had been. I don't exactly know what happened to that guy, Jake. I didn't see him around after that whole incident. I think that he was involved somehow. Like, he sold me to someone or something. Or maybe he was the one that brought me all the way out there in the first place. That was pretty much the end of

my party, life, and friendships with any of those college kids. I was livid. Here I was, the youngest of the group, literally drugged and kidnapped and brought halfway across the country at a party that I went to. None of them even cared enough to check up on me throughout the party or make sure I got home safely. And here's the worst part, none of them even called the police after I was gone. For all I know, the rest of them were in on the whole thing. If I had been sold into some kind of trafficking circle, that would have been the end of me. No one would have even known where to look. I don't really know what happened or why it happened the way it did.

I'm not very curious about any of it either. All I know is that I'm just happy to be alive. I was probably in some serious danger and didn't even realize it at that party that night. This story happened to me a few months back. I'm a 19 year old girl and I'm currently a college student. I always needed a job to keep my head above water to afford college. I came from a lower middle class home and knew that it was going to be difficult getting through college. I lucked out and had a decent tuition with grants and scholarships but I still had to pay for cost

of living and everything else. I went to a pretty good college. The only problem was that it was really far away from my parents. Like we live on the east coast and I was going to school on the west coast kind of far. I had a job lined up before I moved. I searched for jobs in the area a lot. I ended up finding a local mom and pop shop that sympathized with my situation and guaranteed that I would have a job when I moved. It worked out for a good little while. They paid $18 an hour and it was a really fun work environment. It was a family owned business and everyone in the family was always really nice.

They really made me feel like part of the team. At the beginning of my second semester a big chain moved into the area. They basically stole all of the customers in the area and it wasn't long before I got laid off. I remember being really sad. Not just about losing my job but because this family owned business that's been in operation for 10 years that's now close to shutting down because someone opened a subway across the street. I struggled to find another job for a couple of weeks. I ended up applying to become an Uber Eats driver. The pay wasn't amazing, but I had the ability to work whenever I wanted.

That was nice. I had this one house on the outskirts of the city order food from McDonald's and went just like any other order up until I got to the house. It looked really run down and beaten up. I remember feeling a little uneasy as I pulled into the driveway. This wasn't the first time I had this feeling, so I just tried to brush it off. But normally people get out of their house to come and get their food, like they're waiting for it. It's not a surprise when I get there for those people.

But it was for this guy, because I had to actually go up and knock, which I really disliked. I remember walking up this driveway that was made of the worst concrete I'd ever seen. It looks like it was covered in dirt or something. I made my way up to the front door and rang the bell. I didn't hear any sound from the inside and assumed that it just didn't work. I then proceeded to knock. I waited a couple of seconds and then he came to the door. The guy was literally wearing a snuggie. I just kind of hoped that he had something on underneath it. I asked him how his night was going and he said fine. I handed him his food and turned around to leave. Wait, he said.

I turned around to see this guy in a snuggie walk up to me and hand me a $50 tip. Wow, that's a lot. Thanks so much, I eagerly exclaimed. He gave me a cheeky smile and told me to drive safe. I really wanted to believe that he was just being nice, a sort of wholesome guy My creep radar was definitely going off a little bit but I told myself I was just being judgmental Fast forward to the next night I'm working again, I see another person wanting the same meal from McDonald's Despite being a little off, the guy left a really nice tip

I thought this would be a good chance to make a little extra cash. I decided to take the order and started on my way. This time was a lot different though. When I went up to deliver the meal, he was ready for me, like he was excited to see me. He was dressed in a tuxedo and everything. I walked up to him and gave him his meal. He took it and said, thanks. Then he handed me a rose. A freaking rose. I was like, what the heck in my head? I was feeling really uncomfortable at this point and my creep radar was off the charts now. That's when he told me he wanted to show me something. He told me to just stand in his driveway. He pulled out a remote out of his pocket and pressed a button on it, and the garage door started to open.

When I got about halfway up, I noticed that there was an entire date room in this guy's garage. Like a fancy table, two chairs, flowers, and an ice sculpture. A freaking ice sculpture. It was honestly shocking. I knew exactly what his intentions were at this point. He asked me to have a seat and eat dinner with him. What are we going to eat? I asked. He looked me up and down and said,

I normally eat that entire meal by myself, but I can share it with you. Wow, a complete creep is trying to put the moves on me and all he offers me is some of his McDonald's, I thought to myself. I politely told him I have a boyfriend and that I was flattered. I turned my body to start going back to my car when he grabbed my arm. Really hard. That was when all my worst fears were confirmed. He started pulling me into his garage. I tried fighting as much as I could but he was a lot stronger than I was. I screamed at the top of my lungs but no one seemed to be around. That was when I did something that may have saved my life. I clenched my fist as tight as I could and punched him square in his nads with all my strength. It must have hurt really bad.

He screamed and let me go. He fell to the floor and continued yelling for a few seconds and this gave me my chance to try and escape. I ran back to my car and tried to leave. I was really panicked so it took me a second to find my keys and start the car. That was when he started running in my direction. He jumped onto the hood of my car. He pounded on the hood and screamed at me. I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. I'd make out a few words here and there, mostly dirty words about my body and what he was going to do to me, and I floored it. My first priority was getting away from this guy as fast as possible,

and he stayed on the hood for a lot longer than I would have thought. I had made two whole turns before he finally fell off. I kept driving for a really long time just to get as far away as I could. After driving for a safe distance I stopped at a red light. I cried and my body was shaking with fear. When the light turned green I pulled off to the side of the road and just cried. I cried for a long time. I called the police and told them what happened and they said they'd come and pick me up. They got there after 5 or so minutes and brought me to the station. They asked me a lot of questions. I told them everything I could. I later found out that he was released from jail 3 months ago for being inappropriate with a 13

year old girl and that guy was actually a level 3 offender. Looking back, I can't believe how close I had come to being a victim of some kind of horrible crime. He nearly had me in his garage. If I hadn't punched him, I almost certainly would have ended up with a lifetime worth of PTSD. Unfortunately, he fled his home and had been out and about somewhere while the police searched for him. A few months after the incident, the police informed me that he had ended his own life. They told me he started squatting in random apartments around the city for the time, and he tried kidnapping a girl a few weeks into doing this. Well, she called the cops and I guess he couldn't escape so he just offed himself. I'm honestly glad he's dead. He's the kind of person that spreads misery for no good reason.

I have no sympathy for that monster and I hope he continues to rot. I live in Argentina. Nowhere exciting or anywhere that you've heard of. It's a small town a couple of miles outside of Cordoba. You may have heard of Cordoba. It's one of the biggest cities in the country. My hometown is just far enough that we get many benefits of living close to a big city but not a lot of its problems. The only downside is that small town Argentina is very conservative and I'm gay. It's not as homophobic as other Latin American nations but once you get outside of the cities it becomes almost dangerous. I had a Grindr account. Most guys in my town don't actually use pictures of their faces. They don't want to get exposed to the homophobes in the town. So, only after talking to a guy for a while will you exchange selfies.

I met this one guy early on and we really hit it off. He was really nice, maybe the nicest seeming guy I'd ever met. We started talking in the afternoon and we'd exchange selfies by nighttime. We talked all night long. I'm not going to lie to you, I was head over heels for this guy. We made plans to meet later in the week. We were going to meet up at a coffee shop on a Thursday afternoon. It seemed normal enough. We both had the understanding that we were going to have to keep the relationship private and not have any public displays of affection. The coffee shop that we were going to meet at was the nicest one in our town. It had a second floor with a really nice balcony that had a wonderful view.

I got there maybe 20 minutes before we said we were going to meet. I kind of wanted to build up the nerve and get used to the environment. I was honestly really nervous. This was going to be the first the nerve and get used to the environment. I was honestly really nervous. This was going to be the first guy I'd ever had a relationship with. I ordered myself a small cup of water to drink as I waited on the balcony. I remember daydreaming a little bit as I sat there. I had a view of the entrance area so I could see whoever was going to come in. However, I received a text message. It was the guy I had been talking to and he told me that he was here. I looked down to see four guys walking together

and I immediately started to feel panicked. I replied to the text message telling him that I was in the bathroom. That was when I looked down and noticed that one of their phones had a notification. I had a sneaking suspicion that these guys had come here to attack me. There was an entrance off of the balcony onto one of the side streets. I was just about to go down it when I gave one last glance over at the four guys. I noticed that two of them had baseball bats. That was when I knew I had escaped a seriously violent incident. I left and quietly made my way home. It made me really anxious though because these guys now had

my full name and knew what I looked like. They probably even kept the picture of me and posted it online somewhere. I remember straight up freaking out all night. Not only was I extremely disappointed by not getting to date someone, but now I had to literally fear for my life. On some level, I knew that these guys might be guys that were just trying to pull a prank to be mean, but I wasn't sure if it was that or a violent group of people who literally wanted to end my life. For the rest of the week, they kept trying to contact me. I blocked him on Grindr, but then he texted me. I blocked his number, but then another one of them texted me claiming to be the guy's cousin. He kept asking why I stood him up at the coffee shop and

that he really wanted to get to know me. I knew it was all just a ploy. I remember one night after the incident. I was walking home after bringing my grandmother some things my mom had borrowed. It had been really late at night. I'm kind of a procrastinator. It had been a couple of weeks and I knew that if I didn't do it right then and there that night it wasn't going to get done. But as I was walking home I noticed a guy following me. He tried to play it off like he just happened to be walking in the same direction, but I got an extremely uncomfortable feeling from him. I tried looking at him a couple of times to see if I recognized him from the other

day, but I didn't even get a good look at the four guys at the coffee shop anyway. It was of no use. I just started to walk faster and faster, but the more I sped up, the more he sped up. At one point, we were basically jogging. I decided that I had enough of this and I was just going to stand my ground. I came to a dead stop and braced myself to fight. I stood there for a few seconds, waiting for him to run at me and tackle me or something, but he just went right by. He didn't even look at me or anything. I was extremely confused and then it dawned on me that maybe I was just being paranoid about everything. Maybe this guy wasn't following me after all. There were even a couple of times that I got anxious that I was being watched as

I was out in public. Again, they know what I look like, and I don't know who they've shown my picture to. I feel like I'm being watched, even to this day. Makes me extremely nervous and sad. One day I'm going to save up enough money and move somewhere I can live my life without fear of all this nonsense. The hard part isn't being attacked or ostracized from my local community. The hard part is the fear of waiting for some kind of attack. I'm in a constant state of terror about my own life, about who I am inside. It's a special kind of fear that so few people know, and it's also why so many of us just fake being straight. But yeah, that was the story about almost being brutally attacked by these homophobic stalkers who might still be hunting me down.

I moved out of my parents' house two weeks ago after graduating high school. I was really excited about the whole thing and couldn't wait to get out on my own. I had a decent part-time job at a grocery store, but I actually earned most of my money by narrating audiobooks online. I started doing that years ago and it basically turned into a full-time income. I still worked at the grocery store because I liked having a stable income. Better safe than sorry, I always said. One of the first things I did when I got my own apartment was get a dog. From the time I was a kid, I always considered myself a dog person.

I loved them. And despite begging my parents for years, we never got one. My mom claimed that she was allergic, but she never had any kind of a reaction whenever we saw one. It honestly built up a little bit of resentment over the years, but that's neither here nor there. The point was that I lived on my own and finally could have the best friend I ever wanted. Thankfully, I was a little bit more mature by the time I was picking one out. I know kids or even younger people in general tend to gravitate towards a certain kind of dog or pet, but I wanted to get a dog that would otherwise not have had a good opportunity to be adopted.

I went down to the local animal shelter and picked out a goofy mutt that only had one ear. He was a year old and if I hadn't adopted him they were going to put him down within a week. I knew I had made the right choice. I remember that first day bringing him to the apartment. He was really nice and playful even though I could tell he was a bit fearful. Things went just fine and he got comfortable within a few days. The scary part of the story comes the day I first started taking him out for walks. I thought I'd been playing with him enough in the house to not have to bring him out, but I read online that you should still take them for walks regardless of how much they play inside,

so that's exactly what I did. I remember taking him out and it was a little weird getting used to walking him around the city. I had a nice apartment in the downtown district so walking him was pretty cool. Now, it was pretty early in the morning. It was either before work or after work and I always like to do things as soon as I can so it was a no-brainer for me. As you might imagine, even a buzzing urban center is kind of desolate at 5 in the morning. There just weren't that many people out. I walked my dog, who I had named Cooper by this point.

I brought him to a park that was about 10 minutes away by foot. I figured that would give him an opportunity to run around and do what dogs do. No one was around, so I sat down at the bench, unleashed him and pulled out my phone to reply to a text message. All seemed to be going just fine until a strange man approached me. I don't know what direction he came from but when I looked up to see him he was walking straight toward me and this bench was off the normal path, kind of out of the way. He walked in my direction as he had an intention of sitting down beside me or something, like he was my friend. He was about 20 feet away when I noticed him and looked up from my phone. He had a striped hat on his head.

It was blue and orange and looked really strange. He had a sweatshirt and jeans. He could have been a runner, I figured. He stepped directly in front of me and made eye contact for at least five seconds before he actually said anything, and I was already on edge. One word came out of his mouth. Hello. I sat there for a second, not exactly sure what to do or how to respond. I was mentally building up the courage to say something back when he just turned around and started walking away. The entire time Cooper was staying as far away as possible looking at this guy, he seemed just as scared as I was. I had no idea what to make of the situation.

He didn't strike me as some addict or homeless guy or anything like that. The first thing that popped in my head was that he was some kind of lunatic. I couldn't know for sure. I got Cooper back on his leash and went back home. He didn't follow me or anything, at least as far as I could tell. A couple of days later I had a day off from work at the grocery store. I had a big audiobook project that I had been working on for a couple of weeks and it was getting close to the due date. So I had a big audiobook project that I had been working on for a couple of weeks and it was getting close to the due date, so I had one of my grinding days where I was going to do nothing but sit down and record and edit this audio. This is going to sound a little weird, but the way I do my recording is I turn my microphone on, narrate when I can, and every hour or so I will just get

up and walk around to move my body. I normally leave my microphone recording even when I'm not there. It's really simple to just edit out the empty noise afterwards. I remember getting the rest of this book narrated later that day. It was a particularly dry book, someone that wanted to be the next Tom Clancy but was doing a really bad job. That night, I sat down to edit some of the audio. I noticed something weird in the audio tracks though. During one of those times that I had gone outside, there was a noise in the audio. It was right in the middle of all the silence and I know that I didn't randomly come back to

my microphone, say one word and walk away. I got't randomly come back to my microphone, say one word, and walk away. I got really interested and started to listen to what that noise had been. To my complete and utter horror, it was someone saying, Hello. Exactly the way the man did in the park the other day. I started freaking out. If he said hello into my microphone while I was away, that means that he's in my apartment. I ran down the street with Cooper and called the police. I told them someone was in my apartment. They showed up and didn't find anyone inside.

I didn't know what to think. I couldn't imagine how this guy would have found me, got into my apartment during the 10 minutes that I was walking around the block, said hello into my mic, and left. It just didn't make any sense. I've been extremely alert about my surroundings ever since this happened. I don't know what this guy's intentions were or are, but if it was to make me an insanely paranoid individual then he succeeded. I haven't seen that same man around the city or had any other weird audio occurrences,

but it was still extremely unsettling nonetheless. To be continued... from the community and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the bio. Thanks so much, friends. And remember to tuck Alex in for a nun night.