The Lets Read Podcast - 117: Unsolved Mysteries & 911 Dispatcher Stories | 18 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 105

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Unsolved Mysteries, 911 Dispatchers, and Walmart... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead Update Description

On On April 18th, 1943, four young boys were playing in the forests of Hagley Wood near Witchbury Hill in Worcestershire, England. They were involved in an activity known as bird nesting, a popular pastime among the youth of the era, where boys would climb the trees in which birds had made their nests, stealing their eggs to amass a collection of uniquely blue and speckled specimens. At some point in their foray into the woods, the boys came across a particularly large witch elm, a favorite for birds to make their nests in. One of the young men, a boy named Robert Farmer, was by far the strongest climber among them, and so was he that scaled the trunk before shimmying among the branches in search of nests to poach. Once he had done so, he discovered that the tree's trunk was actually hollow and extended down many feet.

Curious, he peered into the hollow and was greeted by a sight that chilled him to the bone. It was a human skull, complete with human hair and teeth. Robert almost fell out of the tree when he realized what he was looking at, but he was left in a dire predicament indeed, for Hagley Wood was part of the Hagley estate and the land belonged to Lord Cobham, and the boys were trespassing on his property. If they told anyone what they'd seen, their parents would find out where they'd been, and that might well be way more trouble than what

it was worth. And so the boys quickly departed Hagleywood, pale-faced and shaken, running home to their parents before they began to wonder where they'd gotten to. But that night, one of the boys named Thomas Willett found himself visited by vivid and terrifying nightmares. In them, he saw visions of the woman trapped inside the witch elm, still alive and wailing as the tree grew up around her, holding her in place like some horrible wooden prison. She screamed for him to help, but as much as he tried to, he couldn't and when he tried to call for help, his voice caught in his throat and he was rendered silent. Thomas cried out as he awoke from his nightmare and when his parents arrived in his bedroom to see what had upset him so,

he confessed everything. He told them of Hagley Wood, of poaching bird eggs, but most importantly, he told them of the skeleton trapped inside the witch elm. First thing the next morning, Thomas' parents walked down to the local police station to tell them of their son's discovery. Constables ventured out to the witch elm the boys had described, checking the hollow trunk more thoroughly and found an almost complete skeleton concealed in it. They also found the woman's golden wedding band, as well as some fragments of clothing that were believed to belong to the deceased. The skull itself was seen as valuable evidence as, just as young Robert Farmer had seen,

it still had a fairly complete dental pattern as well as a few tufts of hair that had fallen away from the scalp. The responding constables then combed the area for additional clues as to who or why the woman's body had been interred inside the hollow and it was as a result of this search that they found the remains of a human hand hidden among the dirt and leaves not too far from the tree itself. It didn't take long for the police to determine that someone had severed the woman's hand before she had been tossed inside of the hollow trunk. A subsequent forensic examination quickly established that the woman had been buried inside the witch elm and had been dead for no longer than a year and a half, making the date of her murder around October of 1941.

The examining coroner also discovered a piece of taffeta in her mouth which suggested that asphyxiation may well have been the cause of the death. Taffeta is a crisp and smooth variety of woven fabric made from silk and polyester. It is considered to be a very high-end kind of fabric, suitable for use in ball gowns and wedding dresses, given that it holds its shape better than many other fabrics. So we can reasonably believe that whoever murdered the woman was either a dressmaker or wealthy enough to be able to afford such expensive fabrics. Also, based on the measurements of the witch Elm's trunk, the coroner deduced that she was almost certainly placed inside the

hollow when she had been freshly killed, as there was no way that she would have fit inside once rigor mortis had set in. Using the various items found alongside the body, police could make an accurate guess of what the woman might have looked like. However, with the Second World War being in full swing at the time of her death and discovery, there were lesions of civilians reported missing due to German bomb ratings, and records were far too vast for them to make a proper identification. Details were cross-referenced with hundreds of missing person reports, but nothing seemed to line up. Additionally, dentists from all over the United Kingdom were contacted in the hopes of identifying the pattern

of the woman's teeth, commonly known in dentistry circles as the bite. Yet still, none of their records matched the woman's distinctive tooth pattern and still her identity remained unknown. Interest and curiosity in the strange case was rife among the general population, who were disturbed as they were intrigued by the ominous details surrounding the woman's murder. Their demands for answers seemed to peak a year later in 1944, when graffiti appeared on the Hagley Obelisk, not far from where her body was discovered. It read, Who put Bella in the Witch Elm? But in the years that followed, no definitive answers would surface regarding the murder, but

this is unsurprising. The Human and Material Resources' entire British state was stretched to breaking point in its quest to defeat the evils of Nazism across mainland Europe, and so the question of mysterious murder was most definitely not a top priority of national or local police forces. And so, almost 80 years later, we are still forced to ask ourselves, who did put that woman's dead body in the witch-home of Hagley Wood? There are many prevailing theories as to why the body was placed there, and to whom it belonged to. One possibility is that the body was that of a Birmingham prostitute who was only reported missing in 1944, having apparently disappeared three years earlier. The report stated that her

name was Lubella, which leads us to the disturbing realization that whoever daubed the graffiti on the Hagley obelisk must have known of the victim's identity or that of the murderer long before she was ever properly identified. Another theory involves a patient of the Stafford Mental Hospital by the name of Jack Mossop. Mossop regularly complained to the hospital staff of reoccurring nightmares involving a woman staring out at him from a tree. Jack died long before the body was ever discovered, but ten years after his death, at a time when the witch elm story was well entrenched in the public's consciousness, his wife came forward with information that he had been involved. The woman, Unamasa, said her husband had once confessed

that he and a friend had been drinking in the Littleton Arms, a public house located in Hagley, when they had found themselves being hectored by a particularly drunk woman who demanded they buy her a drink. The men had ended up giving her a lift home in their motor car when she had thrown up all over the back seat, and to teach her a lesson, they had hauled her drunken body into the woods and thrown her into the hollow of a tree, hoping it would frighten her into seeing the error of her own ways. But unless they had outright murdered her or she had died of exposure while trapped inside the hollow trunk There are no reasons to believe the ravings of a madman who had later been interned into a mental hospital

And if that was indeed the truth of the matter, why had they severed her hand before doing so? However, there was another theory put forward in 1945 by an anthropologist and archaeologist from University College London, named Margaret Murray. Professor Murray's suggestion is perhaps by far the most disturbing of all the possible theories regarding Bella's disappearance and death, and involves something that was long thought to be eradicated by the British Isles. Witchcraft. Professor Murray stated that the fact that Bella's hand was severed makes the details of her murder consistent with an arcane ritual known as the Hand of Glory, which according to her, could well have been performed by a group of local gypsies. According to old European folklore, a lit candle made of the fat from one who had died an unnatural death, then placed in their own severed hand as if in a candlestick,

would serve as a powerful magical talisman. The hand of glory would render anyone to whom it was presented unable to move. This candle could be put out only with milk. The hair of the dead person was to be used as a wick, and the candle would give light only to whoever was holding it. Around the same time as her assertions surrounding the death and dismemberment of the mysterious Bella, Professor Murray linked the murder to the slaying of a man named Charles Walton, who was murdered in a similarly ritualistic fashion in a nearby area of Quinton. 75-year-old Charles Walton had been pruning hedges and undertaking other generally

gardening work on Valentine's Day of 1945, when he had been sent upon by a mysterious assailant. The murderer had been beaten by Dr. Walton over the head with his own walking stick, then cut his neck open with a slash hook and driven the prongs of Walton's own pitchfork into either side of his neck, pinning him to the ground. Mr. Walton's left hand had been severed, and despite many thorough searches of the area was never found. Detective Superintendent Robert Fabian of the Metropolitan Police was sent to investigate the grisly murder and wrote the following of his discoveries. I advise anybody who is tempted at any time to venture into black magic, witchcraft, shamanism, call it what you will,

to remember Charles Walton and to think of his death, which was clearly the ghastly climax of a pagan rite. There is no stronger argument for keeping as far away as possible from the villains with their swords, incense, and mumbo-jumbo. It is prudent on which your future peace of mind and even your life could depend. Fabian also claimed to have spoken to many Quinton residents who believed that Walton was a witch whose powers were feared by some villagers. It was claimed he would cast the evil eye and kept natterjack toads as pets, using them to blight the crops and livestock of local farmers.

Just one example cited by locals was the failure of the 1944 harvest. It was claimed that this alleged witchcraft led him to be murdered in a ritualistic manner which involved his blood soaking in the garden to replenish the soil's fertility and that his hand had been taken to perform a hand of glory ritual. Robert Fabian's investigation into the murder also led him to work with Detective Superintendent Alex Spooner, head of Warwickshire CID. It was Spooner who is said to have drawn Fabian's attention to a book entitled Folklore, Old Customs and Superstitions in Shakespearean Land, written by the Reverend James Harvey Bloom and published in 1929. The book included an apparently true story set in 1885 of how a young plowboy had been seen to

summon a ghostly black dog on several consecutive nights and how at one point the dog had been accompanied by a headless woman. Fabian was said to be disturbed beyond belief when he discovered that the name of this plow boy was none other than Charles Walton. Fabian was also in later years to suggest that he had been met with a wall of silence when he tried to get to the bottom of the murder, telling the press in 1945 that the natives of Upper and Lower Quinton and the surrounding district are of a secretive disposition and they do not take easily to strangers. Whether or not the two murders are actually connected is completely undecided, but the fact that two ritualistic murders were committed just

a few years apart and so close to each other, is something we absolutely cannot ignore. Since the 1970s, some have even suggested that Bella had been killed because of her involvement in a German spy ring, but each theory put forward had been subsequently disproved. The only one that has categorically not been ruled out is the one with occult connotations. The mysterious Bella may well have been murdered as part of an ancient pre-Christian ritual just as Charles Walton had been, but one thing may never be decided upon. It is just exactly who severed her hand before putting her still warm body in that witch elm of Hagley Wood. There is a place in western Norway, near to the city of Bergen, known as Isdalen or Ice Valley.

But the place has another name too, Dodsdalen or Death Valley. Death Valley earned its name from the huge number of steep sheer cliffs which in another age were known among the hardy Nordic populaces as Ette Stupa. These were places where elderly members of society, who were no longer capable of caring for themselves and thus considered a burden, could commit a kind of ritual, seneside. When it was decided it was their time, older folks would be assisted in climbing the peaks of the Ette Stupa where they would then throw themselves into the valley below for what was hoped to be a quick and painless death. But sometimes fear of the end would overwhelm them, and it was then that their accompaniment would give them the little push they needed to complete the ritual. It was here, in such a grim, foreboding landscape,

that a Norwegian father decided to take his two daughters hiking in November of 1970. The trio were hiking along the popular trails of Ulrichen, the highest of the seven mountains that surrounded the city of Bergen, on their way to the restaurant that sits on the mountain's highest peak. Whilst on their way up, one of the man's daughters smelled a burning smell coming from nearby, but they were not nearly high enough for the smell to be from the restaurant, and the trio soon found themselves in search of the source of the scent. One of the girls bounded over her eyes, and when she laid eyes on what was emanating such a horrid

and acrid smell, she screamed. There, lying among a collection of broken rock fragments at the base of a craggy mountain cliff, lay the body of a woman, laying face up on her back, charred beyond all recognition. The trio rushed back into town, hurrying to inform the local police force of what they had located. The two young girls, thoroughly traumatized by what they'd seen, went home to their mothers to recover while the father led police back to the place the woman's burned body lay. Soon an investigation was underway. Upon their inspection, the first thing the police noticed about the scene surrounding the woman's body were a number of items that seemed like they had been arranged in a very particular way. All had scorch marks on them, suggesting that they had been

exposed to the same fire that had charred the woman's corpse. These included a few pieces of jewelry, a wristwatch, a woolen jumper and scarf, a pair of rubber boots, some nylon stockings, a purse, a plastic passport cover, two plastic water bottles, an umbrella, an empty bottle of cheap liquor, a matchbox and some sleeping pills. Beneath the body was a fur that was found to have traces of gasoline on it. The police also noted that each of the items had been scrubbed of any personal identifiers. A few days later, two suitcases were found to have been abandoned at Bergen railway station.

When they were inspected, staff found what appeared to be a regular set of traveler's luggage. Inside were clothes, cosmetics, and a purse containing currency from a couple of different European countries. Only something was unusual about the items as all the brand labels and personal identifiers had been either removed or scratched off. Also among the items was a notepad that contained what appeared to be a coded message. When this was reported to the local police, they determined that both suitcases must have belonged to the burned woman. Yet there was still the question of who she was

or why someone would wish to travel with such anonymity. An autopsy conducted at the nearby Auckland University Hospital found the mysterious woman had died from a combination of two things. Firstly, analysis of her blood and stomach showed that she inhaled a fatal amount of carbon monoxide as well as having consumed around 60 sleeping pills, well over the safe dosage for barbiturates. However, her lungs were found to contain a considerable amount of soot, meaning she had been still alive when she was placed in whatever fire had scorched her beyond recognition. She also had bruises around her neck, indicating that she had struck or had been gripped extremely hard, possibly to drag or push her into the fire.

Since her identity was still unknown at that point, tissue samples were taken and her jaw was removed because of the uniquely patterned gold fillings that she had in her teeth. It was hoped that somewhere a dentist may have been able to recognize the work and thus piece together who she was. Since the Norwegian police were still not closer to discovering who the burned woman was, a national appeal was launched, urging members of the public to come forward if they had any information regarding the woman's movements or identity. Composite sketches, based on a forensic analysis of the woman's facial structure,

were swiftly circulated via national newspapers and TV stations. It was then that staff members of the Hotel Hordeheimen, a local Bergen hotel, came forward having recognized the woman from the sketches. According to them, they saw the woman on November 23rd, having just checked out of room 407. They told police that she was an attractive 30-40 year old, standing around 5'4", with dark brown hair and similarly colored eyes. She had claimed to be a traveling saleswoman, dealing in rare antiques and artifacts. They also noted that she appeared to be extremely nervous, keeping to her room and barely interacting with other guests or

hotel staff. One member of staff in particular mentioned that she was almost certain that the one time she had seen the woman interacting with another guest, she did so speaking in German. They also noted that she only ever paid for things in cash, and at one point asked to change rooms, giving a spurious explanation as to why she needed to do so. Around the same time as these first few pieces of information were coming out, Norwegian homicide detectives were also having a

breakthrough regarding the coded message in the woman's notepad. Cryptologists had come to the conclusion that the codes were a list of locations the woman had visited, along with the dates and times of her visits. Once these were cross-referenced with handwritten check and forms at various hotels, detectives were able to determine that the mystery woman had traveled extensively around Europe under a variety of fake names, using a series of forged documents, all the while claiming to be a Belgian citizen. Another set of hotel staff came forward not long after, but this time, they claimed that the woman was blonde and spoke Flemish during her one rare interaction with another guest. After months of investigation and a huge amount of resources poured into the inquiry,

all hope of identifying the woman was lost and the case seemed to be destined to remain unsolved. Despite strong evidence to the contrary, authorities were forced to conclude that the burned woman had ended her own life, since she had ingested a huge quantity of sleeping pills. And so, on February 5th, 1971, the mysterious burned woman was buried in an unmarked grave in Bergen's Molendl Cemetery. Only a handful of the Bergen police force were in attendance, and it appeared that all of her secrets would be buried with her. But since then, a number of theories and developments came to the fore, which may well shed more light on who exactly she was and why she had to die in such a violent, untimely manner. Naturally, due to the highly suspicious circumstances surrounding

the woman's death, it wasn't long before some people suspected a cover-up, instigated by the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service. Given that the incident occurred during the height of the Cold War, some believe that the woman was some kind of spy and indeed the nine fake passports found in her possession pointed to the involvement of a highly effective and professional organization. There is also the fact that the woman's murder could be linked to a number of other mysterious disturbances that had taken place in 1960s Norway. Each had taken place suspiciously close to a military base and had since been irrefutably linked into international espionage activities. In more recent times, declassified Norwegian national defense records have revealed that the woman's movements throughout Europe seem to mirror top-secret tests of the New Penguin Missile, a medium-ranged guided anti-ship missile

that was set to be the bane of the Soviet Navy should the Cold War suddenly turn hot. This has been supposedly backed up by the eyewitnesses' testimony of the Norwegian fisherman, who has since claimed that he recognized composite sketches of the woman, having seen her while observing military exercises around the Norwegian city of Stavanger. However, after 35 long years of half-truths and dead ends, a witness finally came forward with perhaps the most significant piece of information to date. A resident of the city of Bergen came forward in 2005 after seeing one of the composite sketches put together in the initial aftermath of the charred body's discovery.

He claimed that the drawing of the woman's face was uncannily similar to that of a woman that he had seen around five days before the scorched body was found. He had been hiking on another one of the mountains that surrounded Bergen called Floyen when he noticed a person in rather unusual attire. Instead of the standard warm and waterproof outdoor wear as is normally worn by hill hikers, he saw a woman dressed in light, casual clothing. According to the man's testimony, she seemed resigned, even melancholy, and for a moment seemed as if though she might say something to him, although she never did. It was then that the man noticed that the woman was being followed by two men wearing warm, heavy coats that had a distinctly foreign look to them.

When pushed as to what exactly he meant by this, the man claimed they had very dark hair and eyes and were engaged in an intense conversation that they immediately ceased once they detected his presence further up the trail. The man also claimed he had gone to the police once the national inquiry had been launched to report the encounter, but was visited by high-ranking Norwegian security officers who had told him to forget about what he'd seen. Obviously, the man's account gives a large amount of credence to the idea that there was some kind of cover-up over the Isdale woman's death, especially when coupled with the overwhelming evidence that she was in fact murdered and had not actually taken her own life. There are many unanswered questions regarding the Isdale woman and as the years go by, it seems less and less likely that we will ever have the answers to them.

But what seems abundantly clear is that she didn't die of her own volition. More often than not, those that take their own lives leave a note of some description explaining why they did so or at least as a means to say their last goodbyes to those who are dear to them. It is invariably a solitary act, they do not carry spare clothes with them, they do not scrub their belongings of identifiers and they most certainly do not set themselves on fire whilst incapacitated. We can safely conclude that the Isdal woman was murdered in some way And what was becoming increasingly clear is that Someone or some collection of individuals

Has done everything in their power to bury the investigation As well as her true identity So about five years ago, I, a 26-year-old male, set out to travel the world. Being straight out of college had left me in debt, ever more desperate for any job I was overqualified for and generally depressed. I felt isolated and alone in my small town in Washington and found the only way to get out was to travel. My high school buddies suggested I look into wolfing, and volunteer is a way to travel cheap, and so I did. The way it works is quite simple. You work for around 25 hours a week on some farm for food

and housing. The draw is that since the community of cheap travelers is quite big, it's a great way to meet new people, get outside of your comfort zone, and just let yourself live and figure life out. Fast forward 8 months and I am a seasoned cow poop shoveler. I started out in Washington, Oregon, and went south to California. There I was able to save some money, I was paid under the table for some extra work and was now faced with the decision, where to go in the world? The excitement of being able to purchase a ticket to almost anywhere in the world got the best of me and on the advice of my dumb hippie volunteering partner, I chose it at random. I went to a randomizer website and clicked the country button.

Georgia. The country of Georgia. To say I didn't know anything about it was an understatement, but the fear of the unknown made it exciting and exotic somehow, and so I did it. I purchased a ticket and started browsing for a farm that could host me. There were few options and most were remote and hadn't even an internet connection. I messaged every single one because few ever responded and got a response from one farm on top of a mountain. The pictures showed a traditional Georgian stone house with a large garden out in the back,

a family with several cheerful children, grandparents having dinner, animals. It seemed warm and inviting. The description was written in good English and the requirements for work seemed reasonable. I was excited. After I flew into Blisi, the capital, I followed the directions that they have sent to locate the farm, which wasn't an easy task. Few in Georgia speak English. The roads are messed up since few have been maintained since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the country is generally poor.

It took me around 20 hours of Soviet buses and taxis, weird serpentine roads and paths to get to that desired blue pin on my map. It was a dirt path leading up a steep hill into a national park up in the north of the country. There was nothing for miles on end but trees in their silence. As I got up the hill I saw the house about half a mile away on an even steeper hill surrounded by the trees. From that viewpoint it seemed abandoned, overgrown, brown and dreary. As I walked past the gate, Geary, the apparent owner, approached me. He was a heavy, small, middle-aged guy with a big smile on his face. He shook my hand and in broken English started to show me around. He also smelled of booze. As he was showing me around, I noticed

that there wasn't anyone there but us. I asked about his wife and kids and he brushed that aside and said something to the extent, throw it away right now. By this point, I am creeped out. From browsing around, it was apparent that the farm was in deep decline. Apple trees and crops were dying. The roof of the small barn caved in, the house itself full of trash and smelling of mold. It was obvious that Giri was going through a rough patch but I wasn't going to turn around and just leave in the middle of nowhere without a plan having not slept for the past 36 hours. It was evening and after feeding me well and trying as best as he could to hold a conversation in English, Geary showed me to my room on the second floor and I

went to sleep. I almost immediately blacked out from the exhaustion and stress and would have slept for ten hours if I wasn't awoken by a strange noise in the middle of the night. I sounded like something metallic and heavy being dragged across the wooden floor. In that sleepy in-between state I listened to it for a few minutes thought nothing of it and went back to sleep once it stopped. In the morning Geary, now sober and grumpy, asked me to repair some of the windows and doors in the house as he himself planned to go and fetch some components in a nearby village. Again, I got this weird feeling creeping down my spine. Something wasn't right. He didn't maintain eye contact and was evasive.

There was no cell reception, no internet. Once he left, I checked around the house to get a general idea of the place and it became apparent that the place was hardly ever lived in, like one of those abandoned houses. There was broken furniture, newspapers and old photos on the floor, a shattered mirror. I took my phone and looked through the saved listing again. The photos didn't match on the floor, a shattered mirror. I took my phone and looked through the saved listing again. The photos didn't match neither the backyard, the garden, or the walls. Geary wasn't in any of them. It was a completely different house.

Now by this point, I am full-blown panicking. I pack my stuff and start to leave when I see a group of three men going up that first hill There aren't any other paths I can take so I go behind the house and rush down this hill into the forest After some time I stop and listen I hear them in the house, they're clearly looking for me Afraid of making any noise I remain still, hidden behind a bush I don't know how long I waited, but they were persistent. At some point I hear them leave, so I count until some large number and proceed back into the house and path,

and once I find it's all clear, I book it out of there. Never ran this fast again, and I'm still in the middle of nowhere. No traffic, no public transport. I reach the paved road and start walking in the general direction from where I remember coming. Hours go by and finally a car drives by and stops. Now in a horror movie this I left and I haven't heard from Geary since. I've yet to make sense of that experience. I have traveled since and volunteered too. Some people, once they hear this story, laugh and say that the guy was coming over with a couple of friends from the village to have a chat over a few beers. Some say he was bound to kidnap and kill me. But I trust my gut feeling.

Something was really not right. So I hope to God I never meet Geary and his friends again. Jonathan Luna was born on October 21st, 1965 in New York City, son to a Filipino father and an African-American mother, and spent his formative years in the Patterson Housing Project near Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx. John made his parents as proud as can be, not only being the first in his family to go to college, but receiving a first-class undergraduate degree in law from Fordham University. He later studied at the University of North Carolina School of Law,

where he was roommates with Reggie Shufford, who would later go on to be executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. During the 90s, Luna worked at Arnold and Porter in Washington, D.C., as well as the Federal Trade Commission, serving as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn borough of New York City before moving to Baltimore, Maryland to become an assistant United States attorney. Luna married obstetrician Angela Hopkins on August 29, 1993, and together they had two children. They were the modern nuclear family, leading joy-filled lives for many years.

That was until tragedy struck, a tragedy that would raise many questions in the years to come. While Jonathan was employed as an assistant United States attorney in Elkridge, Baltimore, his focus was on the highly noble task of convicting violent predators for their heinous crimes that they perpetrated. It was on the morning of the 4th of December 2003 that Jonathan left his home and headed to the office. The case he was involved with at the time revolved around two individuals who were suspected of dealing heroin out of their record label studios, known almost comically as Stash House Records. One of these men also happened to be facing a charge for homicide. Jonathan worked all day and late into

the evening on a plea deal that was about to be offered to one of the supposed drug dealers, finally calling one of his colleagues around 9 that night to inform them that he was only just about to head back home. Yet according to the office's time clock, Jonathan didn't actually leave until around 20 minutes to midnight, and although he required prescription glasses to drive, he left them behind at the office. Information taken from CCTV cameras and Luna's credit card records indicate that he drove to the state of Delaware at around 1 in the morning where he withdrew $200 from an ATM machine. He then drove through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, where his credit card was used once again to withdraw cash from a bank machine.

Luna's E-ZPass had been recorded as being used, but for some reason, after entering Delaware, he started to purchase toll tickets. The following morning, at around 5.30, an employee of Sensenegan Weaver, a well drilling company in Denver, Pennsylvania, spotted a vehicle parked up behind the main building. He saw that blood had been smeared over the door and front fender, as well as there being a puddle of blood on the back seat. There was blood-stained cash all around the vehicle's interior. The drilling worker quickly called the police and after a brief search of the area, Jonathan's dead body was found in a nearby creek. He had suffered more than 30 stab wounds and inflicted with his own penknife, having received knife wounds to his throat and genitals.

Yet the actual cause of death was drowning from having fallen into the creek itself. Due to the puddle of blood in the back seat of the vehicle, investigators deduced that Luna had sustained the majority of his wounds while seated there. Police also found unidentified fingerprints in the blood, including unidentified blood which indicated that not only was Luna not alone back there, but that he had actually fought back against his assailant before succumbing to his wounds. This is where the case gets weird. Very weird. At first, the death was ruled an obvious homicide. One in which whoever had attacked Jonathan had initially been repelled by the man's own knife, before wrestling it from him and using it to take his life.

However, an FBI agent ordered the pathologist in charge of the post-mortem to chance his verdict to him ending his own life, despite the fact that Luna had wounds to his back that he could not possibly have inflicted on himself. Then a series of bizarre rumors involving Luna began to circulate around the media, some which asserting that he was involved in the embezzlement of $36,000. A reporter from the Baltimore Sun received an anonymous tip that Luna was also terrified of being found that he had ended his own life, though the source would provide absolutely no evidence of this. But there was also ample evidence that Luna was building a strong case against a ring of

violent predators, some of which were employed at high levels of the federal government. It is possible that he was assassinated as a result of this very investigation, and why in the world would an FBI agent have such an obvious example of murder ruled as him ending his own life? We may never know just why such a good man was murdered in such a violent fashion, but what's clear is that no one has ever been convicted or even arrested for his involvement in that death. And given that there must have been ample forensic evidence, this makes for some very disturbing implications indeed. In 2004, in the sleepy Chicago suburb of Aurora, Illinois,

Amy Pitson would give birth to her firstborn son. After some deliberation, she and her husband, James, would name the boy Timothy. The first six years of the boy's life were happy and uneventful, and we have every reason to believe that he was loved and well looked after by his two young parents. He had an extensive collection of relatives that he visited regularly, who cared for the boy just as much as his own parents made breakfast for himself and his son, and then drove the boy to his kindergarten class over at Greenman Elementary School on West Galena Boulevard before he headed to work. But for some reason, a short while later, just after 8am, Amy Pitson arrived at the school, telling a member of the teaching staff that there was a family emergency and that

she needed to take Timothy out of the school for the day. Timothy's kindergarten teacher naturally obliged his mother, letting the young boy out of class to accompany her wherever she was headed, after wishing her the best with whatever emergency she was dealing with. However, instead of dealing with this apparent family emergency, Amy Pitson's whereabouts are unknown until around 10am that same morning, when she arrived at a vehicle repair shop in Aurora. A friendly employee of the shop then drove Pitson and her son over to the nearby Brookfield Zoo, where the pair then spent the remainder of the morning and the early afternoon relaxing and exploring the various animal exhibits that were on display there. At around 3pm, Amy and her son arrived back at the vehicle repair shop, collecting her car before driving over to the Key Lime Cove Resort in the small town of Gurney, over in Lake County, which is known for its large water park, as well as being a subsidiary of Six Flags.

After taking Timothy around the water park, Amy and her son spent the night at the resort, leaving early the next morning before driving over state lines to Wisconsin. Here they checked into the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells at around 10 a.m., both being recorded on CCTV cameras. But since then, neither hide nor hair of Timothy Pitson had been seen anywhere. For all intents and purposes, the young man had vanished into thin air. Around lunchtime the following day, on May 13th, Amy Pitson made a series of phone calls to some

of her relatives, including her brother-in-law and her mother. She assured them that they were not to worry, how she and Timothy were both safe and well and that neither of them were in any danger. These relatives would later confirm that Timothy was indeed present with his mother at the time of these calls since he could be heard in the background complaining that he was hungry. In the investigation that followed, cell phone records showed that the calls were made from an area close to Sterling in Vernon County, Wisconsin, and that the pair were apparently on the move again via Route 40. Yet contrary to what one might expect, Amy Pitson did not contact her husband, the one person you might assume that she would call to inform of her and her son's whereabouts. James had been frantic with worry ever since the evening of May 11th when he had returned home to find the house empty and had subsequently heard the news that his wife had taken Timothy out of school. On the evening of May 13th, Amy Pitson was recorded

on the security cameras of a Winnebago family dollar store. She was alone when she purchased a notebook, some stationery, and some envelopes. She was still all on her own when she was sighted in a branch of Sullivan's Food, also in Winnebago, Wisconsin, where she apparently visited the pharmacy counter before swiftly leaving. She was not spotted again until just past 11 that night, when she had apparently returned to Illinois, checking into a room, the Rockford Inn in the city of Rockford. The following day, in the early afternoon of May 14th, a member of the housekeeping staff at the inn visited the room that Amy Pitson was staying in

with the intention of cleaning the room. There was no Do Not Disturb sign present on the door handle and when the housekeeper knocked, there was no reply from inside the room. So against her better judgment, she unlocked the room and walked inside. There, to her absolute horror, she found Amy Pitson lying face up on sheets that were soaked with blood. Pitson had taken an overdose of powerful antihistamines before slashing her own wrists. She had also apparently left a note on a nearby dresser, stating that she was well and truly sorry for the mess that she had caused, but that Timothy would never be found.

However, the note was quick to reassure those that read it that Timothy was in fact safe, with people who would care for him, but that it would be pointless to look for him since his new guardians had hidden him away that would never give him up. After being called, police quickly arrived on the scene to shut off the hotel room for forensic examination. They located the knife that Amy Pitson had taken her own life with and, upon close inspection of her car, found traces of what appeared to be an alarming amount of her son's blood. Yet upon analysis, only Amy's blood was found to be on the knife found at the scene. To the relief of investigators, close relatives of the Pitsons

revealed that in the run-up to Timothy's disappearance, he had suffered a rather large nosebleed in the car and this is why so many trace particles could be found inside the vehicle. Amy Pitsons' cell phone was nowhere to be found at the scene of her death, but it was later found in a grassy verge on the edge of Route 78, evidently tossed out the window of her moving vehicle as she returned to Illinois. But analysis of her cell records shed no further light on what she had done nor why she had done it, and there were no clues regarding her son's whereabouts to be found. Furthermore, the analysis of Amy's vehicle revealed that at some point she had been parked in a grassy area. There were traces

of clay embedded in the vehicle's tires, which investigators surmised had come from a place with a stream or river nearby. Thus, it is highly possible that Amy had driven into a raw area, possibly off-road, in order to hand Timothy over to his new keepers. Pitson has since made it abundantly clear that he believes his son is still very much alive. In August of 2018, the since-cancelled law enforcement TV show Live PD showed their viewers some digitally generated age progression images showing what Timothy might look like at age 13. The guest on that episode of the show was Angeline Hartman of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who urged members of the public to come forward with

any and all information that may help police locate Timothy. But none of the calls that were made as a result came to anything at all. However, less than a year later, calls were made to police in northern Kentucky that brought a phenomenal amount of hope to those who wished for Timothy's return, but also revealed an unfathomable mystery and an unimaginable evil. On the 3rd of April 2019, citizens in the city of Newport called local police to inform them that a teenage boy was wandering in nearby streets, apparently in a daze, after having run across a bridge on the Ohio River. Police soon located the young man, who was shaken, distraught, and exhausted, and who required a great deal of consoling before he could even bring himself to speak.

Police asked the teenager for his name and his reply shook them to their core. Timothy, he stammered. Timothy Pitson. The boy was rushed to Louisville, Kentucky's largest city, where he was interviewed by detectives regarding his apparent disappearance eight years previously. He said he couldn't remember a thing, that the most he could recall was escaping a house in neighboring Ohio before running across the river bridge. But DNA tests would reveal something that was devastatingly disappointing to James Pitson, who was indescribably overjoyed at the sudden breakthrough in the case. The boy was not Timothy Pitson. The entire story was an intricate lie, fabricated by then 23-year-old Brian Michael Rennie. Rennie had

been released from Belmont Correctional Institution in Ohio just shy of a month prior to his terrible claims. He had served just 14 months on charges of burglary and vandalism, resulting from acts committed in Medina County. Sergeant Bill Rowley, a spokesman for Aurora Police, later released a statement saying that, Although we are disappointed that this turned out to be a hoax, we remain diligent in our search for Timothy, as our missing persons case remains unsolved. One cannot possibly imagine what would it possess Brian Michael Rennie to tell such a heinous and evil lie. It is possible that he had seen an episode of Live PD or somehow heard of Timothy's disappearance whilst incarcerated and wished to hit back at a world that he viewed with what must have been a remarkable degree of contempt. But either way, Timothy Pitson remains missing to this day and there have been no sightings of

the voice since the day he suddenly disappeared at the hands of his mother. However, no bodies have been found, not even a drop of blood that wasn't easily explainable. So, it is entirely possible that he is still out there, somewhere in the United States, just waiting to be found. On the 27th of January 1959, a group of nine Soviet hikers set off for the Ural mountain range in central Russia on a hiking trip that was to celebrate the 21st Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. Each was an experienced grade 2 hiker with ski tour experience and given that they were all enrolled at the Ural Polytechnic Institute, one of the Soviet Union's most distinguished centers of higher education, we can safely assume that they were a hardy, focused, and highly intelligent group.

But between the 1st and 2nd of February, a mysterious and tragic event resulted in the death of all nine hikers. Despite a recent investigation by the Russian government, whose spurious claims that it was a heroic event in which there was no panic at all, many still claim that there are deeper and more terrifying explanations for the deaths than a mere avalanche. And given the Russian government's penchant for Moskorova, the doctrine of denial and deception, there is good reason to disbelieve their claims. Before the hikers departed for the Urals, the group leader, Igor Dyatlov, had promised to notify the head of their hiking club as soon as they had returned to civilization.

They had planned to return by the 12th of February, but Dyatlov had been clear that no alarm should be raised if they happened to be a few days late. However, by the time the 20th of February had rolled around, there was still no word from the hiking group. Relatives began to demand that a search party be formed in order to confirm that their loved ones were indeed simply delayed and not in any danger. The Ural Polytechnic Institute rounded up as many volunteers as they could to form the first search party that would trace the supposed route of the Dyatlov group. But as time went on, they were quickly joined by military and law enforcement search parties as the operation became increasingly hazardous.

It was the 26th of February when one of the search parties finally located the first sign of the Dyatlov group. On the eastern shoulder of the Hyolatsyako mountain, the group's damaged and abandoned tent was found. Known as the Hyolatsyako in the indigenous Manzi language, the name means dead mountain, a heavily ominous moniker given the fate of the Dyatlov group. The scene confounded the search party. Not only had the tent apparently been cut open from the inside, but almost all of the group's belongings were left behind, including their shoes. So we can safely assume that the Russian government's claim that there was no panic involved in the incident is a complete fallacy. Would a calm, well-organized

group cut their only shelter to shreds and flee into deep snow in merely their socks or bare feet? No, absolutely not. Leading away from the tent were nine sets of footprints, one for each member of the Dyatlov group. The frigid temperatures and deep snow meant that the trail was easily followed to the edge of some nearby woods just less than a mile away. Here the search party found signs that the group had attempted to make a small campfire to keep warm. But not far from the fire, under a large Siberian pine, the search party found the first two corpses of the missing hikers. Only they were not just shoeless, they were wearing nothing but their underwear. The branches of the tree they were lying under were broken up to five meters high, meaning that one of their number had

attempted to climb it to either look for something or to try and escape someone or something. In the area between the pines and where the group were camped, the search party found three additional corpses, including that of the group's leader, Igor Dyatlov. These corpses were lying prone, as if they had been crawling back towards the area where their tent was pitched. The remaining four bodies of the Dyatlov group were found months later, under four meters of snow in a ravine less than a hundred meters from the pine tree with broken branches. Curiously, one of their number was wearing trousers that had signs of being burned, either as kindling for the campfire that they had tried to make or for some other inexplicable reason.

As a result of their relatives' demands, the Soviet justice system opened up a thorough legal investigation immediately after the first five corpses were found. Despite one of the hikers having a small crack in his skull, the medical examiner concluded that this was not a fatal wound and that each of the first five discovered had died of hypothermia. It was speculated that the medical examiners would come to similar conclusions regarding the remaining four bodies, but upon their discovery and analysis, the narrative shifted to something altogether more terrifying. Of the four bodies found in the forest ravine, three had injuries that medical examiners deemed to be fatal. One had suffered major skull damage,

while another two had devastating chest fractures incurred by forces similar to that of a car crash. What's more, none of the bodies had any external wounds that are commonly associated with bone fractures, almost as if each of them had been subjected to an incredibly high level of pressure, such as from a large explosion. All four bodies had also suffered soft tissue damage, such as missing tongues, gouged out eyes, and sliced off lips. Some were even missing fragments of skull bone or had their eyebrows cut off by something razor sharp. A forensic expert concluded that these soft tissue injuries were due to the fact that the bodies had been found in a stream at the bottom of a forest ravine, but as you can imagine, this has been disputed by many. were due to the fact that the bodies had been found in a stream at the bottom of a forest ravine,

but as you can imagine, this has been disputed by many. Not to mention the bizarre idea that the four people would have chosen to take shelter in a stream, which they would have known would only exacerbate effects of hypothermia. In the initial aftermath of the investigation, there was wild speculation that the group had been attacked by the local indigenous Manzi people. The Manzi people are reindeer herders that have inhabited the Ural Mountains for thousands of years and are said to be very defensive of their sacred lands, having a long memory of the Russian incursions into their lands which resulted in the persecution of their people. A handful of Manzi tribesmen were rounded up and interrogated by

Russian law enforcement officials, and to this day the tribe attests that they were flat out accused of attacking and murdered the group for encroaching upon their lands. But eventually, the accusations were dropped, as there were no signs of an obvious hand-to-hand struggle around any of the bodies. These are two points of issue that have been the cause of much curiosity over the years, neither of which have ever been properly explained. The first is that of all the information released to the general public. Before the investigations were confined to top-secret archives, there was not a shred of information regarding the condition of any of the hikers' internal organs. The only details released were of the injuries to the outside of their bodies and their bones,

not to the interior organs. If this is the case, what did the Soviets have to hide regarding their injuries? The second interesting piece of information is the fact that a high amount of radiation was found in one of the hikers' clothing. Despite the fact that this is mentioned a number of times in the subsequent investigative report, the Russian government has consistently stayed silent on it, refusing to comment or investigate why this was the case. One of the only accounts relating to this facet of the case comes from a man named Yuri Kunsevich, who later became the head of

the Dyatlov Foundation, whose goal is to discover the truth behind the incident, and he attended five of the hikers' funerals. He recalled that their skin had a deep brown tan. In addition to this, the remains of one of the hikers were exhumed in April of 2018 after the requests of journalists from a Russian newspaper. The body's DNA was analyzed and the results were a complete and utter shock to those involved. They revealed that the DNA bore absolutely no resemblance to any of the hikers' living relatives, so much so that the journalists speculated that another person had assumed the

identity. Another source worth consulting regarding the Dyatlov incident is a book published in 1990 called The Price of State Secrets is Nine Lives. Published during a time when the Soviet Union was essentially falling apart and that many of the country's old secrets were coming to light. The work focused on the idea that a secret Soviet weapon experiment was to blame for the deaths of the hikers. This would certainly explain the high amount of radiation that could be found on one of the dead hikers' clothing. There were many individuals who had previously remained silent regarding their involvement in the incident who came forward with new and startling information.

One of them was an ex-police officer who led the official inquest back in 1959 who admitted that the investigated team had absolutely no rational explanation for the incident. He also stated, after, his team reported that they had seen flying spheres. He then received direct orders from high-ranking regional officials to retract the claim and forget what he'd seen that night. The flying spheres point is also backed up by another group of hikers who were hiking

around 30 miles south of the Kiole Tsyoko mountain on the night of the incident. They reported that they had seen strange orange spheres in the sky to the north of the night in question. Similarly strange spherical shapes had been witnessed in the nearby town of Ivdel during February and March of 1959 by a variety of other witnesses, including the official Soviet Meteorology Service, as well as the Soviet military. Naturally, both were told not to report on what they'd seen by high-ranking members of the political apparatus, and only came forward in the 90s when it was safe to do so. As was previously stated, the Russian government's official explanation for the incidents is an avalanche, but there is a great deal of evidence that

contradicts this theory. One such piece of evidence is the fact that the location of the incident did not show any signs of an avalanche having ever taken place. An avalanche would have most certainly left very distinct patterns in the area, not to mention how it would have spread debris around. The bodies found within the first month of the event were covered with a very shallow layer of snow. If there actually was an avalanche of sufficient strength to sweep away the second party, these bodies would have been swept away as well. This would have caused much more grievous injuries in the process and would have also caused severe damage in the nearby tree line. What's more, an analysis of the terrain and slope showed that even if there could have been an avalanche, its path would have actually avoided the hikers' campsite.

Since 1959, there have been over 100 expeditions to the region and not a single one of them ever reported conditions that might create an avalanche. A study of the region and not a single one of them ever reported conditions that might create an avalanche. A study of the area using modern terrain-focused geographical techniques showed that the location made it extremely unlikely for an avalanche to be able to occur. The only dangerous conditions were observed in April and May when the snowfallers of winter were melting. During February when the incident occurred, there were no such conditions. Given the information available to us, we can safely conclude that the official explanation does not simply add up. Not only is it highly unlikely that an avalanche ever occurred, but there are far too many strange and terrifying pieces of information that have come to light for us to believe anything other than whatever happened that night would be far too horrifying for the general public to comprehend.

The first set of bodies were not at all difficult to find, and it seems obvious that given the close proximity of the final four bodies to the original campsite, they would have been found eventually, especially when the snow begins to thaw towards the late spring and summer. So why exactly did the Soviet military insist on getting involved in the search? The answer is obvious. They knew well what was going on around Kolechokol and were simply there to keep their secrets from ever coming out. It's just a huge shame, as was referenced in the title of the Anatoly Guchkin book, published in 1990, that the price of the Soviet secrets were worth human lives.

So this happened when I was much younger. I want to say freshman in high school, probably like 2008. There used to be this road near where I lived in California called Croke Road. It was barely a road. No one traveled on it and it was surrounded by small patches of forest and some abandoned barns and houses. I would typically go there with my friends to skateboard and hang out. This one night I was hanging out with two of my friends, Lucas and Dorian, and someone wanted to go to Croke Road to hang out since it was a creepy night.

It might sound lame, but we loved exploring like a bunch of 5th graders and weren't really into smoking or anything, so what else was there to do? I asked my 20 year old brother James if he could drive us down into one of the nature reserves by the road. This specific reserve was larger than the others and had a network of gravel paths leading through it. Basically we're looking for unexplored territory to hike. Soon one particular path we're traveling down had become so narrow James Ford Explorer couldn't pass through it, so we got out and walked for a while, chatting and just having fun. We walked through the woods for a half an hour until it had gotten relatively dark out and the sun was gone, at which point we

turned around to head back to the car. It's now I should mention that despite being near a lot of sub-developments, this patch of forest was huge. I'd say about a thousand acres and rarely visited since it was easy to get lost in, especially at night. It was a challenge getting the car turned around but James managed it and we're off down the road. Dorian proposed we turn down a different path we had passed by earlier since we had about another 40 minutes until our parents wanted us back and we agreed. Down this path was a tiny pond Dorian wanted to check out to take pictures of since he hadn't got the opportunity to visit it at night. It was slow going since this road was even worse than the main one we were traveling on that turned off of Croke Road. Minutes later, we got into a slight argument. Dorian was convinced

James had taken a wrong turn since we should have arrived at the pond by now, while James claims that he had been driving straight the whole time. It was dark after all. Eventually we came to a fork in the road that none of us were familiar with. None of us knew which way to go, so we ended up guessing and going left, hoping that both directions would ultimately lead back to the main path. None of us were scared or anything, in fact we were actually excited and intrigued, driving through seemingly the middle of nowhere at night. It was at this point we rounded a small bend in the road and the headlights fell upon a surreal sight. There were four figures

emerging from the forest and crossing the road, wearing what looked to be long cloaks with hoods up and holding flashlights. One guy at the back of the group was dragging a large duffel bag, a human-sized duffel bag. We all froze and stopped mid-conversation, and as soon as our high beams landed on the four figures, they froze as well. James pulled to the left and went around them. Driving past them felt like an eternity because we couldn't have been going over five miles per hour due to the terrible condition of the road. Sitting in the passenger seat, I could see them inches beyond my window and they were indeed wearing black robes and holding flashlights. I didn't get a

good look at the bag but judging by the way the guy was holding it, something heavy was inside. None of us said a word until the road straightened out and we were far past these guys at which point James just muttered, what was that? We continued down the road in silence until I heard Lucas say, Oh my god, and repeat himself in a louder, panicked voice. He said, They're coming back. I twisted around in my chair to see Lucas pointing out the back window. I could barely see anything, but about a hundred yards away we saw the beams of four flashlights shaking erratically.

The guys were without a doubt running after us. After all of us screamed at James to floor it, he sped down the road. The car was bouncing and shaking uncontrollably as we flew over berms and potholes. I kept my eyes on the flashlight beams until we rounded another bend in the road and they were out of sight. Thankfully, the main path did manage to take us back to the main path. James gunned it down the path until we popped off by Croke Road and got out of there. The weirdest thing about it was, there couldn't have been a vehicle anywhere near those guys for 50 miles in either direction. We would have seen one if there had been. We had explored most of the area before and there wasn't anywhere to pull off the road and park.

We didn't say anything more until we were back at my place. We walked about it for a bit and then my friends went home and James and I went to bed. I didn't know if we should call the cops or not but James, who I guess would be the adult in the situation, seemed reluctant so I dropped it. I never told my parents until just before writing this and they kind of scolded me for not telling them and that we should have contacted the authorities just to report suspicious people in the preserve. I still wish I knew how they got there, where they were going, and what was in the bag. Wendell was a panhandler near my college. I always gave him my change when I had extra. Usually I keep a hard rule not to give money to individuals because

I give it to known local charities instead where I can be sure the money is going to be to a specific cause. This one panhandler though, he always sang opera music, quite beautifully all things considered. Even though it was clear he was begging for money due to poverty and homelessness, not busking for tips, I always thought it was admirable that he was trying for money due to poverty and homelessness, not busking for tips, I always thought it was admirable that he was trying to perform a service in exchange for money, and I don't like carrying coins, so I gave what I could. It wasn't much, barely a dollar each time. I could occasionally strike up conversation with Wendell even if I didn't have any money for him. He liked to make students laugh with funny impressions or jokes. He was a

bit older. I'm an undergrad. He was probably 40s to 50s. So we'd mostly make quick chats about the news or the weather or whatever. Nothing too deep. Sometimes he'd randomly share something so intimate I'd feel obligated to reciprocate with something at least superficially personal. He'd blurt out that he almost went to college on a baseball scholarship, but drugs ruined everything. I'd be like, oh wow, sorry to hear that. I play volleyball. Not for scholarship, though. See you around. Once Wendell called me over while I was walking with a professor or my advisor,

and I didn't want to be rude, so I went over just to say a quick hello and introduce my advisor and I didn't want to be rude so I went over just to say a quick hello and introduce my advisor. When we walked away my advisor was pretty clearly horrified and asked why Wendell knew my name. I explained our little friendship. He said the homeless in this city weren't like the homeless in my smaller town back home. I figured he was being elitist and I think he could tell I hadn't taken him seriously because after we dropped the subject just before I left, he reiterated that I shouldn't forge friendships with the homeless population in the city or even give them money because the chronically homeless, the ones on the streets enough that you could get to know them, tended to have criminal or addictive histories. I was surprised because my advisor is usually pretty progressive and compassionate,

so I appealed to him with, Wendell's a victim of post-capitalist society, and all the other things I had learned in his very own classes, but he wasn't having any of it. I was basically saying however Wendell became chronically homeless, now he was and I should act accordingly. So my professor strongly implored me not to continue even talking to Wendell at all. I kind of shook my head thinking, okay boomer, and if anything felt fortified by the warning. Like it was a confirmation that I was a radical doing the right thing, leading a new path, breaking down barriers, bettering society. I got closer to Wendell and shared more about my life with him. But the very next time I talked to Wendell, he was really irritable and distant and I wasn't sure why. Until he said,

So your boyfriend, you two live together or what? And I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, What boyfriend? And he responds, The guy I met from yesterday you were walking down the street with. And I laughed, explaining it wasn't my boyfriend, it was just my academic advisor. Then all of a sudden he wasn't irritable anymore. He was as chatty as he'd ever been.

I probably should have taken that as a red flag, but I didn't think about Wendell much at all then. I only saw him once or twice a week and only for a few minutes. It was around then that Wendell started bringing me gifts. I'd pass him and he'd have a flower for me or a metal machine piece. I never refused because I figured it was a means of preserving his dignity when accepting money, like with his opera singing. One of my roommates did remark on the flower once and when I explained it, she said it was weird. I thought she was also being elitist and that I was enlightened, bridging the class divide, and superior to her neoliberal paranoia. I mean, come on, it was just a flower.

My advisor clocked all of this and brought it up with me again a while later, saying he was worried I was being manipulated. I tried to tell him about Wendell's opera singing and impressions and how he even almost went to college but then I remembered the reason he lost his baseball scholarship and I stopped short. Looking at it through that lens kind of made me reconsider the whole thing. I thought about what my professor had said. Sparing the details we did talk for like half an hour and I finally connected the dots that Wendell did have a history of drug use and he did sometimes mention how a previous girlfriend, overreacting to something he'd done, had derailed his life besides the drugs. So I decided maybe I should think about distancing myself a little. But very shortly after, the pandemic hit and classes went virtual, so to save on rent, I went home to my parents' house. Still in that state, but not near campus at all. About three weeks into being home, I was watching a friend's Insta story when I heard Wendell singing opera in the background and I thought,

Ah, I forgot about him. I hope he's doing alright. And that was that. I kept watching different stories. Later that night, something about the story kind of stuck in my gut. It had popped in my mind a few times subconsciously and I'd ignored it, but it kept coming back so I decided to go and watch it again. That's when I realized my friend's video wasn't from our college town. It was from my much smaller hometown, which is nowhere near my college. That freaked me out a little, but I figured everyone moved when the pandemic hit. My town isn't that small, it isn't that far from the college. It was probably coincidence. I really wanted to mention it to

my parents, but they had always warned me against talking to homeless people. Besides, like, can I buy you a meal? So, I felt too embarrassed to explain the situation to them, especially since it was probably a coincidence and I would sound so conceited if I were like, he definitely followed me because aren't I just so great that he's probably obsessed with me? We have a type 1 diabetic in the family, so we took quarantining very seriously. I figured, I'll never see him anyways. I'm not going out anytime soon.

It doesn't matter where he is. And nothing happened. Well, one thing. A girl from my high school who also ended up in my college called me and in summary said This is going to sound really weird but I feel like I should say something. I was downtown and a beggar asked me about you, like specifically you. He knew you were on club volleyball. He knew your major. I didn't tell him anything but I just thought you should know. I was pretty alarmed at first

because how would he know I knew this girl? But once we talked I learned that she had been wearing a sweatshirt from our college so I thought about it and decided he probably saw that sweatshirt, figured she might know me from college since we were both from this town and was just trying to find out how I was doing. I thought it was sweet. Also a little weird, but he was a little weird. That was part of his charm. I thanked her but told her not to worry about it. Besides, I wasn't in town much longer anyways. I decided to go live back near campus. It was impossible to get my coursework done with my whole family around all day, so I went back to campus a while later.

Didn't think about Wendell at all, until I saw him back on the same corner just a week after I returned to campus. Okay, even though I knew at the time that something was wrong, I stopped giving him money, stopped talking to him, but I was so humiliated by how high and mighty I had been insisting that nothing was wrong and everyone else was paranoid and elitist that I decided not to tell anyone what I had noticed. I was already barely leaving my apartment, never going on campus, and his usual spot was right by campus. I felt bad about potentially hurting his feelings and reading

too far into the situation, but I figured he'd get the message and better safe than sorry. After finals, I decided to visit my brother, in a different state. His roommate had moved, leaving an extra bed, so I drove up to his place to celebrate the end of the year and get away from it all About the ninth day in, I was woken up way earlier than usual When my brother isn't working or in school, he sleeps until about noon To the sound of my brother talking at the door I got up to see what was going on because we weren't seeing anyone We stayed totally quarantined, His state was being hit hard.

My brother was talking nicely to someone outside through a crack in the door, but when he turned, he looked royally angry at me. He turned back outside and said, Hold on here. Closed the door and despite the other guys protesting, but I couldn't hear what he was saying exactly. My brother immediately got in my face and whisper yelling said,

Mom and dad are going to kill you. I had no idea what he was talking about, but my first thought was the cops had come to arrest me for something. It was the only logical thought I could generate first thing in the morning. The only thing I could imagine being arrested for was my fake ID, which I only even used to get into concerts and obviously none lately, so I was really in shock. But my brother was still going, as best I can remember, because I was panicked at this point. He was saying, and I'm gonna kill you. This is so not cool,

you didn't even ask. I wouldn't even have said yes anyways, but you didn't even think to ask? I realized that didn't align with being arrested, so finally I was like, what are you talking about? And he said, you're dating a 40 year old guy, older, 45 maybe, of all the people out there, I mean, Jesus, dad's gonna kill you, and then have a heart attack and die, which will kill mom, and you invited him to my house while we're supposed to be socially distanced? You two can go to a hotel because he isn't coming in here. I wasn't a dick to him, but out of respect for you. But if he doesn't leave now, that's gonna change. So I had no idea what he was talking about. None. I hadn't connected any of the pieces yet. Because you gotta remember, Wendell was such a small part of my life until this point.

I almost never saw him or thought about him. My whole world had been turned upside down by a pandemic in the preceding few months. He was background noise. Faint background noise. Compared to all the other stuff I had going on. So I just said the first thing that came to my mind. Dude, I don't know why you're getting so mad at me. I don't even have a boyfriend. I don't know what you're talking

about. Someone's got the wrong house, obviously. My brother looked like he was ready to rip my face off. He said, we're adults. Come on. Don't lie to me. I'm not mom and dad. I can't deal with this if you're going to lie to my face. I said I wasn't lying, and I think he could tell from my expression and tone that I was genuinely serious. So now he was as confused and irritated as I was, and he was like... He didn't just vaguely say he was here for his girlfriend. He used your name, he rattled off a ton of very exact info. I think he said you... Uh...

Yeah, he said you guys had a fight and he was here to work things out? Now I've been looking for a boyfriend for a long time, so I was half thinking, Huh, maybe dreams do come true. Might as well see who it is. But I was also starting to feel a bit sick. In the pit of my stomach because it would be one thing if this happened on campus or back home. But I had changed states. My brother moved to this state for school and I don't know anyone here but him and his friends. So I finally did the

obvious thing and looked through the peephole. I almost didn't recognize him at first because he had showered, shaved, and changed into clean clothes for the first time since I've known him. But I kid you not, it was Wendell standing at my brother's doorstep, hundreds of miles from his original corner. I was so scared I couldn't speak. My heart was pounding like I was slipping under deep water with my legs tied. I just backed away from the door and sat down on the couch and tried to collect myself. My brother thought this was my affirming that there really was some secret older boyfriend who had just made himself known, so it took a minute for him to cut off his ranting and

his dramatic, what will grandma think stuff. Finally, he realized I was tearing up and he sat down, calmed down and apologized and said we'd figured it out and I whispered, still out of breath, you know, you don't understand. He followed me here. My brother still didn't get it. What? He didn't want him to come here? What was your fight about? He asked, still thinking the guy was my boyfriend. I managed to repress my panic enough to explain the broad strokes to him, but I don't think he fully grasped how creepy it was in the moment because he was like, kidding me, that's hilarious, I'll take care of this. He went to the door and called from behind

it. Yo, just checked, she's not here, must have packed out this morning. You should do the same. I'm taking this social distancing real serious. And he winked at me. That's when, as my brother says when he tells this story, it got real. Wendell said, you're lying. I heard her in there. Tell her I'm sorry. I don't know why she's been avoiding me, but I got cleaned up for her, and I'll take her anywhere she wants to go. Tell her that. Tell her. And don't lie. I'll know if you lie. That rubbed my brother the wrong way, and he said back, bro, you're not taking her anywhere. Now get off my deck before we have a problem. And Wendell sounded like he was walking away, but instead, he was going over to the window. When I saw him staring, he looked different than I'd ever seen him before,

even than a few seconds earlier when I glanced through the peephole. His clothes were clean, but they didn't fit or match. Eyes bugged out of his head, white stuff caked on the corners of his mouth I hadn't noticed at first. Shaking, kind of disconnected from reality. He started banging on the windows, shouting things like, That's my girlfriend. You can't keep her in there. You... Let her out. Let her out. I'm coming for you, baby. I'm coming. I couldn't tell if it was meant as a threat or a reassurance. I was so scared. I was too scared to run or even move. I think my brother was almost as surprised by the sudden outburst. He was rolling up his

sleeves like he was prepared to go out there and I was trying to make my voice work to beg him not to. But I was so anxious, scared, embarrassed, and sad that I had missed all the signs leading up to this, all the opportunities to prevent it, that our friendship was never the wholesome thing I thought it was. Though of course that's something I had already begun to grapple with before this day and had so many thoughts swirling in my head, fear being chief among them. All I could do was scream, not just words, just outright scream, and cover my ears to drown the whole situation out. Before my brother could charge out the door, he's an athletic guy, but I don't think he's ever actually been in a physical fight, Wendell punched through the window.

Nothing actually happened when he punched though, and there was an eerie moment of silence where nobody moved. I think I even stopped screaming. But when he pulled his hand back, everything went to chaos. A fair amount of blood started spurting out when he pulled his hand back through the glass. The things he was shouting started to make even less sense. Along the lines of, Look what you did to me. This is a test. I told you I couldn't be stopped.

And the look in his eyes got even more distant. I think the sight of the blood, which has always made my brother really screamish, made him realize this was real, and he finally yelled, God, call 911, would ya? While I leaned over against the door, which Wendell was now repeatedly running into, even though he was nowhere close to breaking it down. I don't even remember making the call, but apparently I did, because within ten minutes the police arrested Wendell without resistance.

He kept trying to tell them his girlfriend was trapped in the house and he'd come all this way to save her. My poor brother was even momentarily handcuffed and had to explain that he hadn't taken me hostage Probably one of the most haunting memories of the whole event is As they carted Wendell away for a rest He started singing Opera music To be continued... literally my life and I considered my online friends very real and I loved them. Except I lied to them practically the entire time. I was pretending to be a girl but not for the fun of it but to target single teenage boys online for in-game currencies, gear and whatever helped

me progress through the game. Anyone who was an avid MMO gamer knows exactly what I'm talking about. Those amazing outfits you have to buy for real money. Those materials you had to buy with real money to progress through the game comfortably and be able to go up against the best of the best. I was addicted. I wanted all of it. Except I couldn't get all of it. I couldn't buy it. My parents wouldn't agree, nor did I have a part-time job as a teenager. I devised a plan from the age of 13-14 that I would pretend to be a teenage girl and get into seemingly realistic online relationships with teenage boys and try to coax them into sending me things. I used the names and pictures of teen

girls I found on their personal profiles on places like Flickr and Photobucket. Usually when the boys decide to go snoop because he thinks I'm lying, he would find them and start believing it's really me. They were already too desperate. I even voice chatted with them. My voice was high pitched even as a boy going through puberty. It was the perfect formula to trick them into liking and gifting me. I was desperate for all these in-game things and wasn't thinking straight. I never realized how much these people could get affected. On my first MMO, I tricked a boy into sending me an outfit by pretending to be his girlfriend.

This boy seemed madly in love with me and since this was my first time trying this out, I genuinely felt bad for him and wanted to tell him I lied to him. He was pretty similar to me in all aspects. He wasn't well off either. He didn't work. He had a bad home life but my idiotic self decided it would be okay for him to gift me. It won't hurt, right? I thought. This huge identity scam I created escalated from there. I tricked so many other boys, teens and possibly even adult men pretending to be teens. It was horrible and I hated myself. But I couldn't stop.

I needed all these gifts in these games. This is where the story starts. When I was 16, the last guy I ever talked to was a 23-year-old Russian guy who we'll call Mark. I met Mark on a very popular shooting MMO. We hung out all the time and had many mutual friends on that game. We voice chatted with a group of people multiple times on Skype while playing. I never once decided to scam him because he was a free player, meaning he never spent money on games. He also seemed like a genuinely nice dude. But when he asked me out, I tried to take on what I considered the biggest challenge in the scam.

Will I be able to get a free player to spend in-game currency for me? Because I was always so well liked online and many people knew who I was and generally I was a very nice girl. My ego was soaring. I knew I could do it. I accepted to date him online despite him knowing I was a 16-year-old girl as a 23-year-old man. In the beginning, he was pretty normal. He was always trying to be sweet and romantic. We played together all the time.

He did all the lovey-dovey kisses and hugs texts. We even cybered a little bit. I, being the piece of crap I used to be, played along. It was all going well. Too well. However, I noticed after a week or two that something was not right with him. He seemed very obsessive. He seemed manipulative. He always talked a ton of trash about my other friends from the game to make me unfriend them. He would always tell me that they talk trash behind my back. He would call them terrible names like skanks and many other horrible names. He would even send proof which

I later found out was photoshopped from in-game text chats which disappears so you can't ask said friend to send proof she didn't say what she said. He absolutely despised any guy I ever talked to when we were playing in the public match together And I stupidly went along with it I didn't want him not to trust me so I can get what I wanted Then the perfect moment came for me to make Mark send me gifts I had to This new outfit the game introduced was too bomb to pass up

I started off by telling him the new game update was pretty cool and we talked about it for a good while. He suggested we both get the outfit but I told him I had no money and I totally would buy it for both of us if I could. He suggested that he steals money from his mother, a single hardworking woman taking care of two kids. For a second, my mind told me to let it happen. This was when I immediately snapped out of it. I felt horrible. I wanted out. I couldn't believe what I was doing.

Was I really about to tell Mark to go steal money from his mother who was struggling to pay bills? I couldn't let it happen. I decided to log off immediately and shut the laptop to rethink what I've done all these years. How many of these guys weren't in well-off families, but were probably using or stealing their parents' money? I couldn't stop pondering about this all day. The next day I logged back into Skype at night and was immediately slammed with walls and walls of texts from Mark

asking me where I went, why I wasn't answering, why I'm all these terrible names, who went to talk to other guys that I know and many similar things you hear nice guys say to girls that give them a chance then flake on them for being weird. I was sick to my stomach. I hated myself and I hated Mark. I tried to play it off and say my electricity cut off the entire day and he didn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. I immediately told him I wanted to break up with him. Things took a turn for the worse. He voice called me and I picked up. He was hysterically crying and shouting at me. I tried to remain calm and tell him I didn't want

to play games anymore. I told him I was getting more and more depressed than I am already and felt my addiction to games wasn't helping me and that I should get out and see the world more, which was all true outside of my fake persona. He started shouting at me some more, calling me all kinds of names. This 23-year-old Russian man was threatening what he perceived to be a 16-year-old girl. Everything he said started to get worse. He started talking about how I ruined his life. He told me he'll end his life if I ever left him, which I thought could possibly happen because he was a cutter. I started crying and told him not to. He got into unheeded arguments and I could hear him throw stuff around and break stuff.

I was still crying when I told him I had to go because my parents want me to do something. He told me not to leave or he would end his own life right there and then. He turned on his camera and put a razor to his wrist. I saw all the old cuts on his arm. I was in fear. He couldn't see me but I was stuck there watching a man threatening to cut his wrist live on cam all because of me. All because I decided to trick him into buying me gifts. All because of my fake identity and fake relationship. I threw up in the garbage bin in my room. I quickly told him I had to go. I immediately quit Skype and closed my laptop.

I cried in my room the entire day, realizing karma finally got me and this is what I get for scamming people. I was a mess and suddenly I passed out, asleep on my bed. I didn't know how or when it happened, but it did. The next day, I was unusually calm. The day went by normally. I sat in front of my laptop, but didn't open it. I tried to think of a rational solution to all of this. I didn't want someone to end their life because of me. There was no rational solution to any of it.

I had to just say goodbye to him and block him forever and whatever happens, happens. I opened Skype and was immediately slammed by walls of text again. This time I didn't read anything but saw that he sent some photos. He sent me pictures of his arm bleeding from a cut that he'd made last night after ditching him. He sent me pics of him crying. I was immediately sick again, but took a deep breath and went in as calm as I possibly can. When he came online, I told him I'm breaking up with him. Mark again told me he was going to end his own life if I ever dared to leave him.

I calmly told him if he was going to do it, then why didn't he? He didn't answer, clearly shocked by the question. He continued to threaten me again. I told him I didn't care, and that he's being too hard on himself. I told him he can find another girlfriend. He still continued to threaten me, and I was fed up. I tried to reason with him, even was on the verge of revealing I was a 16-year-old boy all along, but decided it wasn't the best thing to do.

I regretfully told him to go do it so no other woman has to go through what he did to me and then blocked him and deleted him. Deleted my Skype and never logged back on. I did see him online a few times on the game I played. He tried to contact me but I ignored him. He deleted me off his friends list in-game and we never chatted again. I stopped pretending to be a girl and told all my friends I was a boy all along and apologized profusely. The girls felt betrayed because they really trusted me. Most of the boys that I let on felt betrayed because they liked me, but none of them made

a big deal out of it in the end. I realized how much of a jerk I was at the end for even coming up with this plan, but I came to terms that I wasn't as much of a jerk as a 23-year-old man who threatened to end his own life on cam in front of a 16-year-old girl for trying to break off an abusive relationship. To be continued... I heard the cracking of the wooden steps. I pause my TV show. I listen. I hear it some more. Then I hear a long pause. Nothing. Then I hear my doorknob jiggling.

I freak out. I know it's not the woman downstairs because she's gone for the night. I went straight to the door. I have one of those doors where it's half glass window. Because I live in a tiny town and my upstairs staircase is covered so technically no one can see inside unless they are standing right at the door. And even at that, all they can see is part of my doorway into the bedroom and my hallway, nothing more. So I had the light on that door inside. The outside light was off. So when I went to the door I couldn't see out. I couldn't see who was there. When I

showed myself the door, obviously the doorknob stopped jiggling, because I made my presence known, and they could obviously fully see me because my lights were on. I shut the inside lights off real quick as an attempt to see who was out there, but it took my eyes too long to adjust. As I shut the lights off I simultaneously hit the second lock on my door, and that's when the person on the other side of the door starts banging on it. I couldn't see who it was, and quite honestly, once the banging started, I bolted, and so did they. So I tried to look out my windows to catch a glimpse of who it could be, but I couldn't see anything. The exit of the staircase is too close to the house for me to have a full view of from the second floor, which is a shame. So I called the cops and I thought a

report and all was good in the world. I equipped my home with wasp spray hidden in every corner. I did develop major anxiety over it though, like major anxiety. I had never been afraid to live alone before this, but I have worked through it for the most part and have gotten better since this was last year. I even got a camera that I have at my door that streams to an app on my phone. In the last couple of months, I have been having issues though. I park in the little lot across the street. The little lot belongs to the church I live next to, however, I am allowed to park there. I keep finding the sides of my license plates completely bent outwards at a 90

degree angle every morning. I know because I put them back in place every day so the plates are flat because you can't drive around with your plates like that, and pretty much every day of the week I go outside to find my plates bent back. I know it's not the wind, and I know it doesn't happen while I'm driving because I check. My dad however convinced me that it could be the car wash. I get my car washed at least once a week or twice, and it's the kind where you just pay a machine and sit in your car, so I pushed it off maybe. And then I came home to find three things on a little shelf I keep outside my door. Two small crystal bowls and a little flower pot with a golden retriever on it.

At first I thought, oh, my sister or grandma probably just left it for me. I texted them about it and they both said that they didn't leave anything. They both live on my block, so I thought that it would be probable for them to just do that but both of them said it wasn't them. Then my next thought would be that it's my mom. See anytime my mom gets stuff for me she leaves it on her front sunroom which she calls her porch. So she will always text me a pic of what she got me and say it's here on the porch get it when you stop by next. In the year and a half I've lived in this apartment, she has never left something on my porch. Also, my camera was dead, so I texted her about it and she didn't answer, which is like her,

if it doesn't pertain to her, she doesn't answer. Also, I'm slightly confused about the golden retriever planter because everyone knows that I'm a cat person and that's what everyone who knows me gets me. Not tonight. At 1.19am I was in my bedroom texting my sister when I heard banging on my door. The lady who lives downstairs is gone for the night again. This exact same thing happened a year ago too. A Saturday night after 1am. all the lights in my apartment were on, so they knew I was home. If they wanted to break in, they could have. If they wanted my valuables, they have 60 hours out of the week every week this last year to do so. No, whoever is messing with me just wants to mess with me, and I didn't know what to do. My phone was on the other side of the apartment and I couldn't get to it without going

past the door so I told my sister through text message on my laptop and she called the cops for me. They arrived and I knew because I saw them searching the property with their flashlights and I met them at the door. I found a report and I got out of there and now I'm sleeping at my sister's house for the night. But this is seriously freaking me out. Someone is messing with me in a very serious way. They know I'm home. They know I'm up. They know the woman who lives downstairs is gone. They know the camera isn't charged. Coincidentally, these things keep happening when my camera isn't charged, which takes hours to do so and I'm so paranoid of leaving something charged while I'm asleep or not home. I don't

even have any enemies in this area. I don't really know anyone in this town except for my co-worker or two and my landlord and my family, whom is new to the area as well. I don't have any ex-boyfriends trying to scare me. I haven't fought with anyone who's trying to get revenge on me. But I should mention that about 9 or 10 years ago I did have a bit of a stalker situation. A 55 year old man who lived adjacent to my job. He came in every day for a year. We never spoke directly or had a conversation. He would leave me notes in my car.

The first one he left was a five page letter speaking about our compatibility with one another. He mentioned things in the letter I would speak about with our customers in regards to our compatibility. He even mentioned that he believes that he could please me. Something along the lines of how I'm a special person and he has what it takes and it's the kind of special that most people don't have what it takes. He would leave me crystal antique hearts on my car. Anyways, I got a restraining order on him. He was no longer allowed to enter my job.

He would occasionally stare at me through the cracks in his blinds and that was about it. Moved out of state and nothing ever happened of it, so that could be a possibility too. What do you think? This happened when I was around 4-5 years old and on an Easter Sunday. My family always gathers at my grandmother's house to celebrate holidays, birthdays, etc. So as we do every other holiday, my mother and I started our hour-long trip to her house. My mother prefers to live away from all the city commotion which explains the long drive. We were probably around 20 minutes away from our destination when my mom noticed that we were a little low on gas so we pulled into this old, almost rustic looking gas station with just

a handful of customers inside. It was red and white with a few festive decorations outside and lots of Easter stickers on the two large glass windows that were on the other side of the door. My mom, having taught me not to talk to strangers nor open the car doors for anyone but her, trusted me enough to leave me in the car alone as she went inside briefly to pay for gas. She told me that she would be right back before going into the gas station. It felt nice that day, so the windows in the car were down so we could feel the breeze while driving instead of the AC. While I was waiting on my mom, I remembered adjusting the colorful paper clippings in the Easter basket next to me, then looking out the backseat window. When I looked over, I saw a tall, older man, maybe around 30 or 40 years old, approaching my window. He crouched down slightly

and looked at me. Hi there, what's your name? I remember him saying. At this moment I remembered that I wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, so I told the man that, my mom says I shouldn't speak to strangers. He then replied with, well, we can be friends then. My name's Charlie, and now that you know, I guess I'm not a stranger, huh? He then replied with, well, we can be friends then. My name's Charlie. And now that you know, I guess I'm not a stranger, huh? At the time, I thought he was right. In my mind, I thought since a stranger is someone you don't know, this man wasn't a stranger anymore because I knew his name.

The man and I had a short conversation that I don't quite remember. All I remember is him telling me that I had a nice Easter basket. At this point I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach but being a child, of course I didn't know why. My mom then walked out of the gas station and noticed the man immediately and began approaching the car quickly, asking the man what he thinks he's doing. The man seems to panic and he pulls my door handle violently. He quickly realized that it was locked, thankfully, and proceeded to reach into my window and grab me by one of my wrists in an attempt to pull me out. This obviously scared me a lot, causing me to panic and pull against him on instinct. This caused him to let go and take off running.

My mom quickly ran to the car and I unlocked the doors. She grabbed me and pulled me into an almost painful bear hug, then inspected me closely repeatedly asking if I was okay. I ended up with a slight bruise and redness on my arm where he had grabbed me but other than that I was just shaken up. The reality of what had just happened set in at that moment and I remember just crying and holding on to my mom right after I said I was okay I don't remember anything after this point, but I recently asked my mom about it and she said that she called the police immediately after

To this day my mom still says that this was the most frightening moment of her life And claims that if she had gotten there any later and came back to an empty car, she wouldn't have been able to live with herself. On October 26th, 2014, a call came into a 911 dispatch center in the state of Florida. The call came from the 300 block of Southeast Walton Lakes Drive in the city of Fort Pierce. At first, the caller sounds practically timid and polite, informing the dispatcher that he is in need of the police, even calling her ma'am as he does so. The caller then calmly informs the dispatcher that a murder has been committed. He sounds resigned, not stating that he thinks that a murder has been committed, but that he knows it is a fact. By who, she asks, her tone still relatively calm.

By me, ma'am, he replies. Who did you murder? The dispatcher then asks, starting to sound disturbed by what she's hearing. The response is haunting. I murdered my wife. The caller goes on to admit that he murdered his wife at around 7 o'clock that same morning, telling the dispatcher that his name is Checkingson Sinclair. Listening to the 911 call, it's horrifyingly clear how cold and collected Checkingson is, his tone rivaling even the

most chilling portrayals of murderous psychopaths shown in Hollywood movies. He goes on to explain that his wife's body is still in the apartment they shared together, that he killed her with a gun, and that he shot her in the head in the couple's bedroom. Checkingson mentions that, after he shot his wife in the head that morning, he calmly laid the pistol he murdered her with on the couple's dining table. Alright, we got somebody coming out there to talk to you, the dispatcher then says, regaining some of her professionalism as she does so. But why did you do this? We got into an argument,

Checkingson says plainly, and she came at me with a knife. I mean, I had to defend myself, she was going to attack me with a knife. When asked what his wife's name was, Checkingson replies that she was named La Toisse Argret. La Toisse was 24 and 7 weeks pregnant with her 21-year-old husband's child when he shot her in the head. The couple had been married for just shy of 8 months, but Checkingson was quick to inform the dispatcher that they argued and fought with alarming frequency. When asked how

long the Fort Pierce Police Department will take to arrive at the apartment block, the dispatcher informs Checkingson that they will not be long at all and pleads with him not to be near the gun when they arrive. He replies that he simply wants them to come over as quickly as possible so they can deal with the situation and they will not be standing near the weapon when they arrive. He replies that he simply wants them to come over as quickly as possible so they can deal with the situation and they would not be standing near the weapon when they arrive. Upon their entry into the couple's apartment, police officers found Lutwassa's body exactly where her husband had said it was, on the floor of their bedroom, with a steak knife in her hand. At first it appeared to be a tragic but typical case of domestic violence that had unfortunately and horribly ended in murder by self-defense. But upon questioning the couple's neighbors,

law enforcement began to become deeply suspicious. One neighbor told officers that they had been woken up by a loud bang as early as 6 o'clock in the morning and had heard another one follow soon after. But they failed to act on what they had heard because they knew the couple fought frequently and had assumed it was one of the pair slamming an apartment door. Despite the fact that the gunshots seemed to have occurred around 6 that morning, Checkingson didn't end up calling 911 until 9, a whole three hours later. This only deepened the concerns of the investigating police that his story was didn't end up calling 911 until 9, a whole three hours later.

This only deepened the concerns of the investigating police that his story was not entirely factual. Forensics examiners then noticed that the blood splatters around the bedroom were not consistent with the story of self-defense that had been claimed by Checkingson. Not only that, but skull fragments were buried in the bedroom wall, well away from where the fatal shot had penetrated the floor of the apartment. That there was no doubt in their mind that Lutwassa's body had been moved after she had been shot and killed. They also recognized that the murdered woman's fingerprints were indeed on the knife, but not clear enough to confirm that she had gripped the handle at all. It seemed likely that not only had Checkingson moved her body after he had killed her,

but he had also placed the knife in her hand in an attempt to make it appear as if though she'd attacked him. When confronted with this evidence by homicide detectives, he admitted the truth. He admitted that he had wanted to kill his wife after he confronted her over a text message she received from a former boyfriend. He went on to confess how he had serious doubts that the child that Lutwasa was pregnant with was actually his, and that the couple argued so frequently because he was insecure and jealous, constantly suspecting his wife, as well as countless previous girlfriends, of being habitually unfaithful to him. Checkingson then officially changed his story regarding how the murder unfolded,

telling police that he and his wife had gotten into a verbal altercation early on the Sunday morning about a text message she received from another man. Lutwassa denied any infidelity, asserting that the seven-week-old baby inside of her did indeed belong to him and that he had nothing to be jealous of. But this did not calm Checkingson down. He took her cell phone, walked into the couple's bathroom, and violently threw it into the toilet, smashing the screen and inflicting a heavy amount of water damage to the phone's motherboard. Lutwassa then screamed at him, furious that he should essentially accuse her of lying to him. Checkingson, now apoplectic with rage that his wife was now raising her voice to him,

retrieved his pistol from the bedside drawer, aiming it at her head and pulled the trigger. Because he was shaking with anger, Checkingson's aim was poor. His first shot grazed his wife's skull, splitting off chunks of bone fragment that were later found by the forensic examiners. This first shot knocked her to the floor, stunning her. At this stage, she was absolutely no threat to anyone and presented absolutely no danger to her husband, horribly contradicting his initial story of self-defense. Then, as she lay face down on the bedroom floor of their small Fort Pierce apartment, Checkingson walked around the bed, fired another shot. He then proceeded to send a text message to a close friend, informing them that he wouldn't be able to participate in fantasy football that season, as well as text to his mother and brother telling them that he loved them.

This wasn't just a murder. This was an execution, Assistant State Attorney Brandon White had later said at the murder trial. There was a good chance that any sane or rational individual would have come to their senses after the first shot was fired. It was a shot to the head, one that fractured a woman's skull. But Checkingson Sinclair actually stopped a check if his wife was still alive and discovering that she was, fired another shot square into the back of her head, straight up execution

style. Under Florida law, because Sinclair was convicted of first degree murder in the death of his wife, the death of his unborn child also became a first degree murder. Because Sinclair pled guilty, the state did not seek the death penalty and spared his life, and so he sits in a Florida penitentiary to this very day, to wander of the life he might have led with his wife and child, had he not opted to pull the trigger on that fateful October morning. I work at a Walmart here in Duncan, Oklahoma. Duncan is a small city of about 23,000 people located 80 miles south of Oklahoma City,

and other than the farming and oil industries that employed most of the people here, there's not all that much to do in Duncan. It's honestly a pretty basic and boring place to live. Needless to say, I've always wanted to get out of here and last year added an awful, traumatizing memory to the already rock-bottom prospects, which has given me even more motivation to leave this place behind forever. So as for what happened, it all went down on a Monday morning back in November of 2019, as if Monday mornings weren't bad enough already. My shift was due to start at 9am sharp and I do that thing where you wake up all like,

wow, I feel surprisingly well rested. Roll over and realize you've not set an alarm the previous night and are way, way late for whatever it is you were supposed to get up for. Like I said, I was in due to work at 9 and I didn't wake up until like 9.10am. I immediately fly out of bed, shoot my boss a message saying that I was having a car problem and I'd be there as soon as possible. She was pretty cool about it, telling me not to worry and to let her know if I had any more issues getting to work. I was never, ever late before and I guess that bought me a little goodwill. Anyway, I grab a cold pop tart, run out to my car and set off on the half hour drive over to the Walmart. The day started terrible enough but I had absolutely

no idea how bad it was about to get. It was like 9.50 by the time I park my car, throw on my associate's vest and begin the walk across the parking lot. I get halfway across the parking lot when I hear something popping to the right of me. Something that at first just sounded like firecrackers to my half-awake brain. But then I hear the screams. These blood-curdling screams as people to the left and right of me start running in the same direction away from the popping sounds. My head spins around, zoning in on where the sounds are coming from and all I see is this one guy, arm extended with a pistol firmly in his grip. He was aiming it at the windshield of a parked red car, just unloading bullets into the windshield, over and over and over again. Not all that fast, just these slow, methodical pop, pop, pops as he takes aim and pulls the trigger.

My first thought was that it was some kind of mass shooting, given that it was only three months or so after that psycho racist guy shot up the Walmart down in Texas. So, as soon as I see him firing, I just throw myself behind another one of the parked cars, making myself small so I can kind of fit myself behind one of the tires. I know I should have just kept moving, but I figured the guy was about to head into the Walmart to continue shooting. In fact, now I really cast my mind back. I have no idea what I was thinking. I'd never been that scared in my entire life, like I don't even think I could put that kind of terror into words. My mind is just all over the place. I can hear my heart thumping in my chest. I mean the adrenaline hit was like nothing I'd ever felt before. Next thing I know I actually see the guy walk around the back of the red car like he walks

into a position where we can both see each other through the gaps in the car. I couldn't move, like I wanted to run but I just locked up, sat there with my knees in my chest just waiting for him to look up and lock eyes with me. I thought it was a dead man. I thought he was going to look up, see eyes with me. I thought it was a dead man. I thought he was going to look up, see me and just open up with that pistol. But he doesn't. He doesn't even look at me and I watch as he just sort of stands there for a moment, looking down at the ground and shaking his head like he's thinking, what have I done? I thought the look on his face was

just pure anger but then I realized he was crying, like his features were all screwed up with this ugly silent crying. Seeing someone in that kind of emotional wreck with a gun in their hand, dude, there's nothing I can imagine that's more terrifying than that. But why he had chosen to take it all out on the public in such a violent way I had absolutely no idea, no inkling whatsoever. He didn't shout anything, he was just wearing civilian clothes and they only fired a few shots before he stopped and just kind of broke down at the rear of the red car. I hope those were the only bullets that he would fire that day and that he just surrendered to the cops whose sirens I could hear getting louder and louder as they got closer, but he wasn't done shooting at that point. He had just one more bullet to fire and I watched, frozen in place as he stuck the barrel under his jaw

and one fluid motion pulled the trigger. Pink mist sprayed out of the top of his head as his knees buckled out from under him And he crashed to the tarmac in a crumpled heap And the blood Dear God, the amount of blood that just started pumping And I mean pumping out of his head In these thick, big spurts I puked up that cold pop-tart between my legs immediately

I just sat there Vomit between my legs until the cops showed up and asked me if I'd been shot. I told them no, not with words by the way, just with these pathetic shake of my head as they got me up and walked me over to a cruiser to take a statement. It took me a while to be able to speak and they just asked me yes, no questions until I could actually get words out to tell them what I'd actually seen in detail. After that they drove me back home and I took like a week off to recover. I just couldn't face going back there so soon after what I'd seen and management were okay with that once they were aware of what I'd been witness to. The craziest thing though is that the Walmart didn't even close. I heard there were school shutdowns in the area, as is the usual protocol when there's a shooting like that, but after the shooting had stopped, people just sort of went about their business. Like by the time I was

driven home by the cops, other than the police tape and the heavy law enforcement presence, you'd think nothing had happened there at all. It was just surreal to see, especially since, like I said before, it had only been like a few months since the mass shooting down in El Paso. It was all over the news that afternoon, but it was only the following morning that the details surrounding the motive and the people involved came out. The victims' names were Rebecca Varela and her boyfriend Aubrey Perkins. The pair had been apparently dating with Rebecca being a Duncan native while her boyfriend was from another city not too far away. They'd gone to the Walmart that morning to pick up a few things before spending the day together, and as far as I can tell, they were madly in love.

But it was not the wholesome little romance you might expect, because as it turns out, Rebecca was still married to a guy named Wobliadu Varela Jr., and as it seems, Wobliadu didn't share his wife's feelings that their marriage was over and that they could date other people. Because apparently he followed them to the Walmart that morning, waited until they left the store and gotten back into their car, then walked up and executed them both as they sat in the front seat. He was also apparently unwilling to face the consequences of his actions which is what led himself to end his own life in front of me that morning in a way that I don't think I'll ever really get out of my head. The one thing that

always kind of plays out in my mind though is how if I'd actually set that alarm on Sunday evening I wouldn't be in this situation. Like yeah, I'd have been in work and heard about the shooting and been all scared thinking he was going to walk inside and start unloading onto the people inside, but I'd never have seen him shoot his wife and her boyfriend, and I'd never have seen him end his own life in such a horrendously violent way. That's the scariest thing to me, like more messed up than all the blood or the gunshots or the look on the guy's face before he pulled the trigger on himself. How one little mistake can just change a person's life forever. One little screw up, like not setting an alarm, can mean they witness things, or have things happen to them that mean they have nightmares for months, therapy for nearly a year after the event, things that reverberate through their lives,

maybe even for the rest of their days. Life is weird like that I suppose. All this stuff that's just around the corner, dependent on the most seemingly insignificant little actions. Take a moment to consider that. You have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow or even in the next hour. What follows could be the best day ever or just as easily one of the worst days of your entire life. On the night of July 9th, 2010, a call came in to the Orange County Sheriff's Office originating from a recycling company in the city of Orlando, Florida. As calm as could be, the operator picked up the call and asked what the emergency was. I'm at Smurfit Stone, Orlando, which is on 7th Avenue, the caller said, sounding surprisingly calm considering the words that came next.

I just got my leg amputated by a baler. I need 911 emergency assistance immediately, please. A baler is a piece of machinery used to compress and cut raked products, such as hay or cotton, into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store. Industrial balers are also used in material recycling facilities, primarily for baling metal, plastic, or paper for transport. The caller had been working the night shift when the baling machine jammed. He unclogged it, but before he could get out, it started up again, and the compacting ram

began moving towards him. He managed to pull himself out of the way of the moving ram by lifting his body up but unfortunately his right boot was not up far enough and the ram caught his boot. You just had your leg amputated by a bailiff? The operator asked, a hint of tiresome disbelief creeping into her voice at having misheard the word. Ma'am, this is not a joke, came the reply. I'm... I'm gonna die. I'm gonna bleed to death. I'm afraid. Please help me. Okay, okay. The operator regains her seriousness. Tell me where you are again. The caller repeats that his location is Smurfit Stone, a recycling company location on the Orange Blossom Trail. Hold for the paramedics, she says, maintaining an incredible amount of professionalism considering what she's hearing from the young man on the other end of the line.

Ma'am, I'm gonna die if you don't please help me, he says. The young man is trying to remain calm, but the gravity of his situation is sinking in and his voice is beginning to quake with fear. As the local fire department is patched into the call, there follows a few agonizing moments as the young man with the amputated leg is forced to actually spell the name of the company he is employed by. It becomes increasingly clear that the emergency services cannot locate the address and time is running out. Are you there by yourself, sir? A man from the fire department asks, obviously about to prompt him to seek preliminary medical treatment in the hopes it might stem the bleeding. No, sir, I'm not alone, replies the young man. But no one's hearing me,

and I'm really losing blood, sir. I'm gonna die. And what business are you at? Smurfit Stone. Moffat Stone? The fire department dispatcher asks, sounding utterly confused. Smurfit, the young man snaps back. His life is on the line and this is the third or fourth time he's had to spell it out. S-M-U-R-F-I-T. Smurf it. Do you have anything to control the bleeding with? The dispatcher then asks. I have nothing, sir.

The young man's voice begins to shrink. Each second that passes is one that brings him closer to bleeding out. Hopelessness begins to saturate his tone. Okay, are you or your leg stuck in the machine? The operator knows that if this is the case, the constriction might be doing a good enough job of stemming the bleeding, but the reply is not good. I'm out, but my leg is down there.

Was the cut above the knee or below the knee? The dispatcher then asks, perhaps the second most crucial question that is asked that night. Below the knee, it was. It was under my ankle. The young man replies. In light of the grim situation, this is excellent news. If the severance was around the young man's thigh, it would have severed a femoral young man's thigh, it would have severed a femoral artery and it was likely he would have bled to death in mere minutes.

And how old are you, sir? I'm 20. Barely out of his teenage years, the young man has suffered life-threatening injuries but has the presence of mind to keep calm enough to follow the instructions that might have just saved his life. Do you have anything at all you could use to control the bleeding, even if you have to take your shirt off? The operator asks. I can wrap my jeans up around it, the young man replies. Good, you don't have to tie it up as tight as a tourniquet, but you need to apply pressure. You can do that, right? Right, comes the reply. But sir, I think I'm going to pass out. If I do, can you please do me a favor? Can you call my mother? I'm going to die, so please, please tell her I love her. We're coming, sir. The dispatcher responds, clearly affected by the man's dying plea.

You're not. You're not going to die. Everything's going to be alright, okay? We're coming as fa- The dispatcher's voice breaks off, trembling as he says his next words. We're coming as fast as we can, but I want you to control the bleeding with your hand, okay? Yes, sir. I'm controlling it, the young man replies, sounding weaker and weaker by the second. But how much blood do I have to lose before I die? The question is so sincere it's heart-wrenching. I... I don't know. Just hold that shirt. Just continue to hold that shirt on there. Ah, I'm gonna die, the young man states.

He sounds resigned to his fate now. No, you're not, sir, the operator asserts. My mother's gonna... The caller breaks off into a laugh like the operator's resolve has renewed his bravery. I'm not gonna die from this. My mother's going to kill me. Have you called her? We will, sir.

We will call her. Can I just ask if any other calls have come in from this location? The young man asks. I'm curious if any of my co-workers have called. I don't see any other calls. That's great. The young man replies with a sarcastic laugh. I love these guys.

There's a brief silence before the young man speaks again. Sir, what's your name? He asks. Yeah, I'm here. My name is Jeff. I love you, dude. The young man says. A few sniffles can be heard down the line as the young man begins to tear up.

We're coming as fast as we can, sir. Just keep talking to me and use your other hand to control that bleeding, okay? Jeff, can you please pray for me real quick? Can you pray with me? The young man asks. Go ahead, sir. Dear Lord Jesus, the young man begins,

I bring you all my sins I've ever committed, and I love you so much. Please don't let me die. But if I do, please let me go to the good place. I know I've done so much in my life, Lord, I've done so much, but please, Lord, I've done so much, but please, just let me be okay.

And if I'm not, please let me live in heaven with you. Please be with my mother too, keep her strong, because I know she's not going to be happy. God, please let me get through this. There was another brief silence, more sniffles coming from the other end. Sir, I can't hear any ambulance or anything. Desperation creeps into the young man's voice.

They're coming as fast as they can, sir. Are you sure you have the right address? You're down off of, um, you're off of Land Street Road, right? Yes, sir. The man sounds renewed again. Hope returns to his voice. Are they going to have painkillers for me? If you need it, they're going to give you whatever you need, okay?

I think I'm going to throw up. Am I going to die? The fear in the young man's voice is palpable. You're not going to die, sir. But you're feeling pretty faint, right? But that's why I want to keep you talking to me. How's the bleeding right now? It's pretty much stopped, but I don't know how much longer I can hold my hand there. That's okay. They're just around the corner from now. Just keep your hand on there,

even though the bleeding has stopped. Sir, I forgot about my dad, the young man says. My stepdad, he adopted me. Please tell him I love him too. What's your name, sir? Jeff, the dispatcher, asks, keeping the young man's mind elsewhere. John, the young man replies. John Maynard. M-A-Y-N-A-R-D. The next moment, the original sheriff's dispatcher interrupts to inform Jeff that the emergency responders are at the recycling plant but cannot find the young John Maynard anywhere. John reconfirms his exact position

then says something truly chilling. It's pretty gruesome in here, I'm not going to lie to you. I think I'm going to pass out. No, no you're not. You're going to be fine, John. Just keep talking to me. Jeff replies defiantly. His heart and soul are in this now. He's gotten to know this young man in the brief minutes of being on the line with him. The love he has for his mother, for the stepfather who took him in and cared for him as if he were his own. How brave he's been throughout this whole traumatic experience. They're coming for you, John. They're coming. You... you're my hero, John replies. What was that, sir?

I said, you're my hero. John is sounding increasingly faint, as if he really is on the verge of passing out. You're my hero, dude. Suddenly a panicked voice can be heard in the background of John's call. Oh... oh God. The words are garbled but somehow perfectly understandable. Do you hear somebody, John? I hear somebody in the background.

Jeff says, That's my co-worker Richie. He's my best friend. John replies, Richie is clearly stunned and horrified by what he's found, but he keeps together just long enough to rush to the oncoming emergency workers, guiding them into John's location to render him aid. I love everybody, John says, sounding weak, but full of hope.

It becomes clear throughout the next minute or so that two responding police officers have arrived, the closest unit in the area. John begins to talk to them as they provide him with some basic first aid and hands up the phone soon after, but his final words to the dispatch officer are some which would melt the hearts of even the hardest. I'm going to write you a letter and send you flowers, he says. Then the line goes dead. He survived the incident and kept his word that he could write to Jeff the dispatcher who helped save his life that night. It was the longest 16 minutes of my life, John Maynard wrote after his recovery. Later in the hospital, he had his leg amputated six inches below his knee

and has since learned to walk with a prosthetic. Very pleased with the job you did, keeping me alert and responsive, he wrote in his letter to him. John has stayed in contact with all of those that helped him that night including the responding police officers who found him. But he has refused to let the injury ruin his life and has even gotten married since July 9th, 2010, the night he sustained his life-changing injury. John now runs, rock climbs, and even set up a YouTube channel under the name Crew9T. It was initially described as a coping mechanism

to help him deal with such a traumatic event, but has since described it as growing into something much bigger. The channel was more from a small personal project into a way of providing help and guidance to recent amputees along with older amputees who still need help in their daily lives. The channel also functions as a teaching tool for anybody who is interested in learning more about amputees and their way of life. My accident has changed my outlook toward the world and I feel

that my goals and even my way of thinking have changed too, Maynard has stated in his videos. My goal now is to help encourage other amputees to continue on with their lives. Just because you lose a limb does not mean that you should lose your life. I want to show any amputee struggling with their situation that life does go on and it can be better than you could have ever imagined. So now that you've heard the harrowing story of the night he lost his leg, go visit John's YouTube channel and check out some of his videos. Wish him well, tell him how brave he was, and thank him for showing the fortitude to

not only survive that night, but coming out the other side as a stronger person who has had the presence of mind to build a community of survivors who might borrow just a little bit of his wonderful, endearing spirit. 9-1-1 Dispatcher some really, really weird calls like people calling 911 because a cop has pulled them over, calling because they saw two girls kiss on TV, or people calling up trying to get a sitting president impeached. Sounds unbelievable, right? But trust me when I say that those three examples aren't just pulled out of my butt. They're calls I've personally received while on the job. But perhaps the strangest call I've ever received was in my 14th year of the job when I was working down in Oregon. I used to live up in my home state of Washington, but when my wife had to move down there for her job, I put in a transfer and got

moved down to Portland pretty quickly. And this call happened when I was working down there. So I get a call on screen and answer it with the usual Oregon 911. The reply is something I thought I'd never hear in all my years working those desks. I'd like to order a pizza at 325 Rodeo Drive, the person on the other end of the line says. Not this person's real address and you'll see why in a minute. I was astounded. Either this person was extremely stupid, extremely drunk, or possibly a dangerous combination of both. Obviously I'm pretty annoyed but I try to keep cool, calmly asking the person if they just seriously called 911 to order a pizza.

My jaw drops when the person actually confirms that yes, they are legitimately calling the emergency services to order a pizza, going on to tell me which apartment they want it delivered to. My coworker has obviously overheard what I just said and a few were looking around at me, some shaking their head and laughing, a few others with stormy looks of outrage etched into their tired faces. This is the wrong number to call for a pizza, I said, loud enough to send a handful of my colleagues into fits of giggles. Things get pretty tense in the dispatch offices and honestly, laughter is something we use as a kind of survival tool. Otherwise, I'm not sure many of us would make it through the day, let alone an entire working week. No, no, no, you're not understanding.

I need pizza, she said. It was only then that I picked up on something in her voice. She definitely wasn't drunk or high and she sounded incredibly lucid. The hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up as I realized that the thing that I was detecting in her voice that day was not ignorance or selfishness. It was raw fear. Then I understood. You see, we get a lot of domestic violence calls and some come in some pretty unconventional formats. I wasn't entirely sure this was one of them so in a low voice I got to confirming. Is the other guy still there? I asked. Yep, I need a large pizza, she said. And I can't quite put into words here, but the way she said it was just full of relief, like she was so, so glad that I'd managed to pick up on what she was really saying.

I then asked her if she needed any medical assistance sent out to her apartment building. I couldn't hear any pain or discomfort in her voice. She was keeping amazingly calm considering she was in such a messy situation, but better to be safe than sorry, right? Her response was something I'll never forget, almost as comical as it was disturbing. No, with pepperoni. This woman could have been a spy or something in another life or an actress, her tone was just flawless. I asked her to hold the line for a moment,

to pretend the guy at the pizza place's pen had ran out or something, then immediately got in touch with local police officers. I told them it was a domestic violence call, but made it clear that they were to turn their sirens off before they got there, filled them in on the whole pizza order cover story thing, and obviously stated that the woman in question would be at risk if her abusive spouse or boyfriend caught on to the fact that she called 911. A lot of people seem to think being a dispatcher is just being a headset wearing desk jockey with a mouse and keyboard, but it's so much more than that. A lot of intuition is involved, as well as the ability to actually listen to someone,

not just what they're saying, but exactly how they're saying it. I don't mean to talk out of turn here, but some other dispatchers I know would just not have picked up on what was going on with that call. Not because her or I'm so smart but because they've straight up told me that they wouldn't have. That could have been anyone else in my office and that woman could be up the creek with no paddle so to speak. I asked around a bunch too that not a single other dispatcher had ever had a call like that where the whole pizza delivery thing was used as a cover for domestic violence. But without a doubt, using that kind of code to alert the authorities was 100% the right thing for her to do. And if you're reading this and you're wondering, or if you're ever in a similar

kind of situation, a kidnapping, a domestic violence situation, anything like that, just know that as long as you convey the seriousness of the situation, there is every chance that we will realize what the issue is. We know the general public isn't stupid, crazy, maybe, but not stupid. Even if it takes getting hung up at first and calling back, use the tone of your voice and someone will eventually get your gist and be able to send help. As a result of the woman's call, a man by the name of Simon Lopez was arrested and taken to Lucas County Jail on domestic violence charges as well as a few outstanding warrants. It turned out not to be the actual victim of domestic battery that made the call, it was the woman's daughter. So it was little wonder she was able to keep so calm. But man, what a blessing to her mother that the young woman was,

and I sincerely hope my kid grows up to be that smart. Apparently she used the kind of code she did in the hopes that the guy hitting her mom wouldn't run away before the cops actually got there to arrest him, and by God did it work. I should also add that it's possible to text 911 to summon police or medical assistance just in case you can't actually talk during an emergency. I live with my family here in Spokane, Washington. One Friday after school, my dad picks me and my little brother up and tells me we have him since I figured I could puppy dog eyes him into buying a few extra sweet treats for me to enjoy. That and the alternative was to walk home and since it looked like it was going to rain,

I know I'd chosen a better option. So we wander around Walmart for a little while, talking about how school is going and what our family plans were for the weekend. I get dad to agree to drive me over to a friend's house the next morning in exchange for a promise that I'll get all my homework done that evening. A small price to pay since there's no way I'd be able to get over there on my own since she lives on the other side of town. So we get checked out, wheel the stuff out to the car, load up into the trunk, and then get ready to leave. But while we're driving out of the parking lot, a woman just sort of appears from nowhere and stands in front of my dad's car. She's wearing a red and black snapback with red hair falling out from under it,

and a t-shirt that says love on it with the O stylized as a heart. Her clothes aren't dirty or anything but she looks seriously methed out. What few teeth were still in her mouth were all yellow and rotten and her eyes were just like faded like there was just nothing behind them. No thought or reason whatsoever. Then she just starts saying, this is my car. Pointing down at the hood like, how did you get in my car? At first my dad is fairly polite with her, but I can tell he's in no mood for messing around. He's all like, nah lady, this ain't your car. And sorry, this must be a mistake, can you please move out of the street, thank you.

And I can tell from the tone of his voice that he's about to get real mad with this lady, real fast. But she won't move. She just stands there blocking our car and says, this is my car, over and over again. That's when my dad turns to me in the back seat and asks if my phone has battery. I tell him yeah, and he tells me to start recording what's happening in case we need evidence to show the cops. My dad seems to give the lady one last chance to get out of the way, just loses his temper completely and starts barking at her like, get out of the way. The meth head in front of our car then starts acting like she's the victim in this situation,

saying stiff like, I just want to talk. I don't want violence, but I need to know how you got my car. Dad starts screaming at her again to get out of the way, and eventually she does, and we drive along thinking the whole thing is over and she was just some crazy drugged out meth head with delusions. But the situation doesn't end there. We get to a set of traffic lights further on down the road, and someone else then steps in front of the car. This time it's a guy wearing a dark jacket with short hair and a mustache, like each of those scumbags look like they could have been paid extras on Breaking Bad,

and he's putting on a similar act to the messed up lady who managed to catch up by this point. He's all like, can you get out? This is my car. And it's about that time I realized this was just a straight up attempt to carjack us. It wasn't like, hey this is my friend's car and nothing like that. This was obviously some messed up plan that they put together to coerce some naive stranger out of their car so they could just steal it. The guy in front then puts his hand in the inside of his jacket, like he's about to get a gun out or something, but still remains all calm like, just talk to me dude, this is my car, how did you get my car? Dad turns to my brother Max and tells him to call 911. Max is shaking like a leaf and

he does as he's told, getting his phone out and dialing 911 while my dad is still telling this guy in front of us to get out of the way. But it's not just me and Max that are scared at this point. I can hear it in my dad's voice too and that really really got to me. My dad is tough. Like to me he's the strongest man in the world and up until that point I'd never heard his voice go like that. It's something I don't think I'll ever forget. So as soon as Max has the 911 dispatcher on the line, dad takes the phone off of him and starts explaining the situation to the person on the other end. As he's doing this, some guy with a beard, sunglasses, and a blue hoodie then starts walking over to the driver's side. Dad tells Max to lock his door, but because he's on the phone and slightly panicking by this

point, he forgets to lock his own side. So this blue hoodie guy actually managed to open dad's door all calm and asks, what are you doing? This is her car. While he points over at the meth head lady, dad then replies all polite, this is not her car. Then tries to shut the door again. The guy flips, trying and flailing to pry open the door again before dad shuts it, screaming to get out of the car, get out of the car, while kicking the driver's side door. If they had just came up to try to carjack us, that would have been bad enough. But the mind games they were trying to play with us, that was what was really scary. Like they expect us to just be like, oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was a car that some meth head could afford, we'll just get out and be on our way. God,

it makes me so angry thinking about it now, but at the time, all I could do was burst into tears as I filmed the whole thing. Right then, some other meth head appears at the passenger's side where Max was sitting and starts banging on his side of the door too. Dad starts trying to drive around the gang that was now surrounding us and the dark jacket guy then jumps on the hood of the car while another starts smashing a bicycle into the passenger door. Dad then seizes the opportunity and drives off down the avenue with one of the meth heads still lying on the hood. He's driving fairly slowly, talking to the 911 dispatcher the whole time,

careful not to drive too fast in case the guy on the hood falls off and we accidentally run him over. But the next thing I know is there's this big roar of an engine to our right hand side and the guy in the blue hoodie is on a motorcycle, revving the engine and preparing to give chase. He's pulling up alongside us, every so often to shout slow down, slow down, let the guy off. And dad realizes he's talking about the guy lying on the hood. Dad slows down for like two seconds and the guy on the hood, who is obviously realizing what a stupid situation he's got himself into, rolls off the hood and runs over to the sidewalk to escape what could have amounted to a serious life-changing injury. Not that he didn't deserve

it, I just really didn't want to see my dad go to jail over something like that when it most definitely was not his fault that this psycho was crazy or desperate enough to try to carjack us in such a terrifying way. After that, the biker guy stopped following us and we got home safe without anyone actually getting hurt. I was still crying as we pulled up outside our house and even Max was really shaken up when he's normally so cool and nonchalant about everything. But I wasn't crying out of fear anymore, it was just pure relief and gratitude that dad had handled the situation so well. We all hugged it out when we got inside with mom all panicked and wanting to know why we were all upset.

I'll always remember dad was like, I'm your father, and I'll always protect you when I can. I don't think I've ever loved him as much as I did in that moment. I don't really want to go into details about the interactions we had with the cops afterward. They insisted it was all just a misunderstanding, but anyone who was there would know it was so much more sinister than that. Those dirty meth heads were trying anything they could to slow us down and get us out of our car so they could steal it, and the fact that no one was arrested for it is something else that fills me with such rage even today. But there is a kind of uplifting ending. Since dad posted the video online, a few people have reached out and offered to fix some of the damage

inflicted, which is nice, but it just reminds me like, if it really was your car, why would you damage it like that just to get a person out? We know what happened that day. It was no misunderstanding. It was just a stupid plan to rob us that only a bunch of messed up crankheads could have even dreamed of. And it failed. Just like they failed in their miserable lives and ended up on the street having to rob people. I have no idea of the things that went wrong for them to end up like that and maybe I shouldn't be so quick to judge them since I don't know what they've been through. But I do know one thing is for absolute certain. And that's that I have the best dad a girl could possibly wish for.

And I love him with all my heart. To be continued... northwest of Denver. 911, what's the address of the emergency, the dispatcher asks in her usual calm and professional manner. 11-464. The caller breaks off and goes silent. She is panting, trying to keep her voice as low as possible. I need you to say the address, the dispatcher says, sounding half concerned, half frustrated. I can't understand you. 11-464 Hot Springs, the caller replies. Her words are followed by a strange series of clicks coming for her end of the line. Okay, the dispatcher asks. I'm going to need you to repeat the address just once more to make sure I have it right. But the caller doesn't repeat the address. Instead, she begins to cry out in a voice

that is flooded with terrified pleading. No, no, no, please no. A loud crack can then be heard from the caller's end of the line, followed by a deep thud, then another loud crack. The dispatcher keeps as calm as possible, asking if the woman on the other end is still there, but she does not speak again. Instead, the next voice to be heard on the line is that of a man. Hello? Okay, this is 911, the dispatcher says. What is going on? I just shot everybody, the man replies in a matter-of-fact tone. You just shot everybody?

The dispatcher sounds shocked and outraged. Yeah, the man confirms. Okay, what is your name? The dispatcher asks, a hint of fury in her voice. Pablo Sanchez comes to reply. How many people did you shoot? Uh, three. Pablo says, sounding almost impressed with his own ability to murder.

You shot... who people? Who did you shoot? The dispatcher is so taken aback she can barely get her words out. My ex-girlfriend, Pablo replies. She was cheating on me, with Roy. He talks as if everyone knows who Roy is. Okay. The dispatcher begins a flurry of typing, trying to dispatch the police officers to the address as quickly as physically possible. And uh, so, I'm going to shoot myself right now. Pablo says again with a disturbingly matter-of-fact tone. Pablo, I need you to stay on the phone with me, okay? Just wait until we get there, the dispatcher pleads.

There is a brief silence, more panic typing. Pablo? The dispatcher asks. Yeah? Just stay with me, okay? Do not shoot yourself. Okay. Pablo replies sounding as if though he might just be coming back from the brink.

Tell me exactly what happened. About six months ago I caught my girlfriend cheating on me. Pablo begins to explain. And I told Roy to stop talking to her, but he wouldn't. He pressed charges on me, kidnapping. I'm out on bond right now. Who else was there? The dispatcher asks.

Who else was there with you tonight? There are other two people. Do you know who they were? Oh, her sister and her sister's husband. Pablo replies, the realization hitting him as he begins to panic. Are you there by yourself? Asks the dispatcher, typing furiously as Pablo confirms he's there alone. But only now is Pablo alone and only because of his own violent actions.

Okay, what room are you in? She then asks, but he doesn't reply. Pablo. Then the same kind of dull crack that was heard before is heard once more. The local sheriff's department later confirmed that Daniel Pablo Sanchez shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, Beatriz Cintora Silva, who had been staying with her sister and brother-in-law at the home after she left Sanchez on Thanksgiving following a physical altercation. At about 4 a.m., Sanchez shot out the back door of the modular home, located in a neighborhood off of Colorado Highway 119, just east of Longmount.

He had been released the day before at around 10 p.m. from the Boulder County Jail, where he was booked on domestic violence-related charges stemming from an incident with Beatrice. She told police he physically assaulted her and kidnapped her after she met with him to discuss repayment of money she had loaned him. Beatrice and Thora Silva had been warned not to remain with her sister and brother-in-law since Sanchez knew where she was and that she turned down an offer of additional police protection. He said she was notified when he was released on bond. Six hours later, all four people were dead. To be continued... all customers that enter the store are wearing masks. The order came into effect on July 20th and all associates had to attend a mandatory training seminar, not only to educate them on

the reasoning behind the decision, but also had to deal with any customers who refused to comply with the steps put in place to control the spread. Management also understood that since there was a lot of pushback with regards to mask wearing, it would be a high pressure role, so a system was put in place whereby each shift would have a different associate working with the usual greeter whose job was to enforce the new regulation. The way they put it, if someone refused to wear a mask when entering the store, it was the relevant associate's job to quote, find a solution to the problem. Which from what I understood was just a polite way of saying, either wear a mask in the store or get lost. We were even authorized to give out free

masks to people to basically make it impossible to give us a I can't afford one excuse. So anyway, once the order was put in place, it only took a few days before it was my turn to man the front entrance. And I'll admit, I was kind of nervous about it as I had already heard a few horror stories from other associates who'd gotten into arguments with irate Karens who screamed about infringing their rights and all that other stuff. But for the first few hours everything was cool. Not a single person had a problem with putting a mask on and those that had either forgotten to bring one or hadn't gotten word of the enforcement had absolutely no problem taking one of the free ones that we were instructed to give out.

Then, just as I thought the whole thing was going to be much easier than first anticipated, I see this woman pushing a cart towards the front entrance who I could just tell was going to be a problem. If there's one thing working with the public had gotten me attuned to, it's that some people just give off a whole bunch of bad energy, and this woman was one of them. So, as you can guess, when I stop her and politely tell her that she needs to wear a mask to shop in our Walmart, she starts pushing back. After a few minutes of back and forth with her getting increasingly confrontational and combative, she tried to straight up barge past me with her shopping cart,

so unfortunately I had to call security to get her to leave. But before she does, she looks me dead in the eye and says, You're gonna be sorry for this young man. You just wait and see. I figured she was going to attempt to make a complaint to corporate, and totally did not expect what happened next. Because not long after the Karen leaves, this other dude comes marching up to the front entrance, only this guy is actually wearing a face covering. I didn't figure he was going to be a problem until it became obvious that he wasn't wearing a mask

to stop the spread. He was wearing a mask because he didn't want to be identified when he pulled a knife out of his back pocket and put it right up to my throat. He starts growling all this stuff, how, you think it's okay to treat women like that, huh? And how, punk's like you need to learn respect. Turns out it was Karen's husband, who she'd evidently unleashed on me because I'd disrespected her or whatever.

Dude, feeling the cold metal of that blade against my throat, I can't even tell you how scary that was for me. Everything just kind of slowed down while I waited for him to take it away. I mean, I didn't really think he was going to do anything, there were so many witnesses around and stuff, but Jesus, there is still that chance that he was crazy enough to actually do it, you know? He left long before the cops arrived to take statements and as far as I know, they never found the guy to arrest him. This whole pandemic thing has been hard on all the associates. I mean, it's been tough on everyone everyone but I feel like for some people it's driving them to the absolute breaking point. I'm just thankful that guy didn't have it in him to actually do anything or I might not be around to be writing this right now. Be good to each other people. Times are hard enough without us all getting all crazy on each other. My name is Teresa and I work as a 911 dispatcher here in

Michigan for eight long years. The job has its perks. The pay was pretty good, because $22 an hour was nothing to sniff at for someone like me, someone with absolutely nothing in the way of college prospects. It turned out that all I needed to apply was my high school diploma, a willingness to knuckle down and soak up the on-the-job training, and the will to listen to some of the most haunting, terrifying things that anyone could possibly hear. The first two came relatively easy, the last one not so much. But after a while, the mix of mundane, my neighbor's dog barked at me kind of nonsense and the adrenaline-soaked, lives-on-the-line kind of calls made for a weird dichotomy.

I mean, you never really wanted to hear that someone's home was being broken into by a man with a fire axe intent on murdering them. True story, by the way. Or that someone's kid had been electrocuted by sticking a fork into an electrical socket. Also a true story. But whenever someone called up in a panic and you geared up to save lives only to find out that they had seen some teenager graffiti in an alley somewhere, you just wanted to find that person and slap them before making them eat their cell phone. Just over 50% of all the calls were something we could actually act upon.

A medical emergency, a fire, some actual violent crime or something. The other 40% were just non-events. People of diminished capacity, or Karens as I suppose you call them these days, who'd never really contemplated just exactly what was their business and what wasn't. But the other 10%, maybe even less than that, were things that would keep me up at night if I didn't self-medicate with my preferred cocktail of double V's, three double vodkas, and two Valium. I honestly don't want to talk about most of those calls, the ones that made horror movies more like comedies, but there is one I keep in reserve for

whenever I get that what was your worst call ever question from the mentally deficient or morbidly curious, and this is how it went. So I get a call popping up on my screen one cloudy Saturday afternoon. I answer it with the same old 911 what is your emergency line that sometimes I thought would end up getting chiseled into my gravestone, only I don't hear a thing on the other end of the line. Now, we get way more accidental calls than you might expect. Even before they brought out smartphones, they had those newfangled emergency tap features. We used to get a fair amount of accidental 911 calls just from what is sophistically known as butt dialing. These are irritating at the best of times, not just because they take up much-needed

line space, but because sometimes people call 911 when they're in an emergency in which they're unable to speak. So naturally when we get these kinds of calls, we either have to call back to ensure an emergency isn't in process, or take the time to trace the call before sending out an officer or two to confirm that everything is fine. But anyway, there I am, parroting, hello, down the line, before letting out a sigh when I start to suspect that this is yet another butt-dialing event that is going to take up valuable time. Yet just as I'm about to hang up to initiate a callback and a possible trace, I hear this tiny little voice on the other end of the line. I couldn't quite tell if it was a little boy or a little girl, I hear this tiny little voice on the other end of the line.

I couldn't quite tell if it was a little boy or a little girl, but they were young, really young, no older than about four or five years old. Hello? they asked, in the cutest little voice I'd ever heard in all my time manning that desk. But they were scared, really scared, not quite crying but that kind of confused fear that you only hear in kids that small. Hello sweetie, I'm here, I said, instantly changing my matter-of-fact tone into one that was much more nurturing and friendly. Is everything okay? I need a 9-1-1, they replied. Well, you did a great calling 9-1- 911, sweetie. Good job. Are mommy or daddy there? Can you give them the phone for me? Daddy isn't here, but mommy is. Okay, sweetie, can you be a really good kid and put mommy on the phone for me? I asked, remaining as patient and calm as I

possibly could. There was every chance this was just some kid being silly, but something in their little voice made me think otherwise, and I was right. What they said next is something I heard over and over again for months after. Mommy's eye fell out. I paused, hoping I misheard her, praying I'd misheard her. What was that, sweetie? Mommy's eye fell out? Yeah, it fell out and she won't get up, she repeated. I slowly pieced together a mental image of what she was seeing in my head. When it came together, I felt sick, like physically nauseous. I was pretty sure I was listening to a child being traumatized in real time. Yes, I've had worse calls, more violent calls, calls where I've literally listened to a person lose their life on the line. But for some reason, hearing that kid describe what I

imagined to be her dead or dying mother, hearing that kid's innocence being burned away by whatever horrendous image she was seeing, that was all so much worse. Sweetie, do you know where it is you live at? I remember asking the kid. There was a slim chance they knew a street name or a neighborhood, but I commenced a call trace all the same. We needed the cops out there double time to get her away from whatever she was seeing. Yeah, she replied, I live at home. With being a home phone, the trace took seconds, and I kept them on the line while I directed the nearest active unit of cops onto her location. Sweetie, do you know what happened to mommy? I asked her. My number one concern at the time was that someone had actually

attacked their mom and whoever that was might still be in or around the home with the potential to hurt the kid. Mommy and daddy were shouting, they replied. Okay, okay, I need you to not look at mommy anymore. Can you do that for me, sweetie? Yeah. I want you to turn away from mommy and look at something else. Do you have a stuffy or anything else that you'd like to look at? I have Olaf, she replied, which I later learned was the snowman character from the movie Frozen. Okay, I want you to stay on the phone with me and look at Olaf.

I tried everything I could to keep them from looking at her mom, asking them to describe Olaf to me in as much detail as possible And asking question after question just to keep their little mind occupied I kept talking until I heard the cops were on the scene They had no problem getting into the apartment in question because apparently the door was left wide open The kid who turned out to be a little girl of just four years old, was taken to child services, where she is now on the verge of entering the adoption system. Hopefully she'll find a family that will care for her

and give her the happy, stable life that she so richly deserves. It turned out that the girl's father was never around, and that the man that had beaten her mother to death with a claw hammer was actually the woman's current boyfriend, who had a history of drug use and violence against women. After he had attacked and murdered her, apparently over a seemingly minor issue, he tried to flee out of the state in a misguided attempt to evade justice. But thanks to a busted taillight, he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop and acted too skittish that the traffic cop ended up detaining him while

he searched his car. Apparently the cop found the bloody claw hammer in the trunk of his car and arrested him there and then. Like I said before, this isn't the worst call I'd ever received during my time in the job. There are some that still give me nightmares years later, but this is the worst one that I'm still comfortable talking about, maybe just because it has a semblance of a happy ending, given that the little girl in question ended up getting adopted by a loving couple who just so happened to be looking to give a home to a kid just like her. To be continued... years on this earth and how it took place in a Walmart parking lot and how it's pretty much completely my fault it happened in the first place. I'm not going to give you my name or

wherever this happened and the reason for that will become pretty obvious as the story progresses. Okay, so this year has been absolutely disastrous in terms of dating for me. I broke up with my girlfriend in February, like right before Valentine's Day. It was mutual and it didn't suck as bad as you might think. Point being, it didn't take me all that long to get over her and within like two months, I was back on dating apps and looking for the next girl. Then in May, I hooked up with this girl who I thought might be like real wife material. She seemed absolutely perfect for me in every way and she absolutely bowled me over with date after date. Like the

second time we went out to a local park for a picnic I'd put together for us she brought me a rose. A single red rose wrapped up in brown paper and rough ropey string from her art supplies. The whole role reversal thing just blew me away and I held that thing like a trophy, not giving a good care what people thought of a guy getting all smitten because a girl had gotten him a rose. But long story short, it didn't work out with her. She was really intense, then uncaring, over the course of like a fortnight and then really messed with my head but I got over it and moved on. Only almost the exact same thing happened time and time again over the following months and the more it happened the harder I took it. I suppose it was just like emotional

exhaustion or something like I'm not one to get all depressed over a girl, especially not one I'm not actually with but like I said each time happened, I got more and more hopeless and eventually just lost my ability to be able to deal with it. This leads me to the end of last month. During a week, I had two dates lined up with two different girls. Let me be clear, I'm obviously not trying to show off here. Pretty much everything I've had with girls this year has face-planted in spectacular failing fashion. But if I say so myself, I'm not terrible looking and I know how to talk to girls.

So using the miracle, or the nightmare whichever you want to look at them as, that is dating apps, I managed to line up dates with the two girls I mentioned, one for a Tuesday and the other for the Saturday of the same week. So I'm at my job at a local convenience store of which I am usually the only clerk on duty whenever I'm working. I'm kind of bored so I message each of the girls just confirming that our respective dates are still scheduled. I didn't suspect their disinterest. I'm purely inquiring as I was vibing with each of them and everything seemed all good. Then within like an hour of each other, I got a message off of each of the girls basically saying, I'm just not feeling this. You're a nice guy, but I don't think we're a good fit. Those two messages coming in so fast just

sort of broke me. I felt like a straight up ogre. Just a mess of a person who no one would ever want. Like I went on dates with like seven different girls over the course of about three and a half months and not a single one, not a single one was into me. So I just snapped. I'm not in the least bit proud of this and I totally acknowledge that this is no way to deal with rejection but I can't change the fact that this is what I did. In full view of the CCTV camera the store had I just walked out from behind the register and over to the wine chiller, took out a random bottle, unscrewed the cap and drank as much as I could before I felt like puking up which turned out to be a lot. I held it down though. I mean, I had to if I wanted

to get out of my head, right? Then, still coughing and spluttering from filling my stomach with cheap terrible wine, I walk over to the liquor shelf and I'm basically just like, mine, with a bottle of wild turkey. I don't even like wild turkey, but that's just how terrible I felt. Any booze would do the job. Taste wasn't important. After that, while I was basically in some fugue state of almost nervous breakdown, I left the store at like one in the afternoon, bottle of turkey in hand, walked off into the afternoon sun to drink myself into oblivion. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes to that big old blue Walmart sign with the yellow flower or sunbeam thing next to it. It was dark out. I had no idea what time

it was and I had no idea how I'd gotten there. It takes me a minute or two to work out that I'm lying face down in the darkness outside another commercial lot that's all closed up while the Walmart is obviously open 24 hours. My head is spinning, there's puke all over the ground in front of me, and I remember feeling hungry. Like really, really hungry. My ears are ringing, I'm pretty sure my nose was blocked with puke or blood or something, and last but not least, I can feel the breeze on my bare butt. For some reason I'd seen it fit to either pull my pants down or take them off altogether, I couldn't remember which, or at least that's how I thought things had gone down, until I felt this tugging feeling near my knees. I crane my neck to look behind me and I see that

there is an actual drug addict slash alcoholic looking dude back there tugging my pants down while he's kneeling over my legs with his wiener out, getting ready to, well, you can guess what, I don't need to say it. And I'm sorry if there wasn't any kind of trigger warning on this, just writing the R word is just a bridge too far for me right now. So that's how I ended up fighting a homeless guy who was about to essentially have his way with me, rolling around the parking lot of a Walmart at like 2 in the morning with my pants down. I don't want to get into too much detail because I don't think I could honestly say what little I remember from the time without this post getting removed or whatever but it was a horror movie. A pure horror movie. Like I was fighting for my life and I mean that with every fiber of my being. I fought like an animal because I've never known a feat like that could even exist. Like I don't mean to sound melodramatic but that would have been a fate worse than death

for me. Death is nothingness in my mind, but if what he wanted to do with me had actually gone down, I'd actually have to live with it for the rest of my life, or rather, what little life I could bear to live with after something like that. Anyways, it took me a while of struggling, biting, throwing elbows and knees, but I left that guy on the concrete in a terrible, terrible state. Yet, I'm sure you agree that it's exactly what he deserved. That's what everyone who tries to do something like that deserves and that's truly what I believe. I don't know if he died from that

beating I gave him once I managed to get the upper hand. I certainly didn't see anything about it in the news the next few days, no mention of a body or anything like that. The fact of the matter is I'll never really know what happened to that homeless guy, only that I managed to escape something well and truly horrific. I should make it clear too that this is something I've never told my family or even my closest friends. I've thought about talking about it with them, a lot actually, but I just don't quite know how to start that kind of conversation. Same reason I've never sought actual professional therapy about it, I just can't see myself sitting down with something and actually discussing it. It all just seems so much easier to write this out on the internet, purely anonymous. Just getting it off my chest is giving me some degree of closure.

I'm not proud of stealing from my workplace, which I was obviously fired for. I'm not proud of beating that guy half to death, and I don't think it makes me sound like some kind of hardcore cool guy, and I certainly didn't feel like one at the time. I was scared to death. If anything, this should serve as a warning to people to deal with their problems in a way that isn't so destructive, and especially not to use drugs or alcohol as a way of self-medicating, because that stuff only ever has the capacity to make a situation infinitely worse. So this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I ended up carrying a taser around with me in my purse. We're going back like 10 years here, but my first real job outside of helping with my mom and dad's home business was in the local Walmart. I was 18, super young and naive, but I was very, very proud of the financial independence that job bought me. At least I was for the first few months or so until it turned into something of a nightmare for me. So as you can imagine, the Walmart team was pretty

large. So you could be like weeks into working there and still not know everyone's name. That and you're almost constantly meeting new people or completely new hires since the shift system gets moved around quite a lot. So I didn't meet this guy Craig until I was maybe six weeks into working there. He was about the same age as me, was a pretty nice guy but most importantly Craig had his own car which he drove to and from work almost every day. Then once in the break room we're talking about this and that's when I find out he just so happened to live in the same rough area as me. We happened to be on the same shift pattern at that time so he asked if I wanted to get a ride home with him that evening after work.

Of course I agreed as it'd be cheaper and easier and faster than having to ride the bus home. So for the next few weeks Craig used to pick me up before work and drive me home after. And for the whole time he was perfectly nice about the whole thing and never once did he do anything remotely creepy, either on the drives or at work. He was pretty much the model employee too from the looks of things. All the other associates liked him and the whole time I worked there, no one ever had a bad word to say about him. Only one night, after he drives me home and pulls up outside of my house, he asks me if we can talk about something. So I say sure and ask him what's on his mind. Craig then asks if I had a boyfriend and I immediately become uncomfortable. I've always been kind of shy about that sort of thing and

talking about romantic stuff directly just causes me to lock up and get really anxious. But I told him the truth that no I wasn't seeing anyone but I'm dreading where the conversation is headed because as much as I enjoyed his company and thought he was very generous for driving me around so much I just didn't like him like that. So then he asked me if I wanted to get coffee with him when we both had some time off. Again I said sure but stumbled around the words as I tried to make it as clear as possible that it would only be his friends, that it wouldn't be a date or anything like that. I honestly thought he would take it on the chin, like it was an awkward moment for us,

but I never expected him to react the way he did. He starts telling me how much he liked me, and how he knew I liked him too, otherwise I wouldn't be spending so much time with him. I just sat there listening to him ramble on. He was delusional, and that's putting it nicely. He obviously saw something between us that just didn't exist. I apologized, like genuinely apology, and told him I didn't want to hurt his feelings but that I just didn't see him as a romantic option for me. I told him I really appreciated the offer, that I was flattered,

but that he really was just barking up the wrong tree. Then he locked the car doors. I can't even really describe how horrible I felt in that moment, how I had totally misjudged what kind of guy he was. I tried to open up the passenger door, but obviously it wouldn't open, and in a voice that I know was just wracked with fear, I asked him to unlock the doors. He didn't say a word in response, he just gripped the steering wheel in anger for a minute or two as I kept asking him to unlock the door so I could get inside my house. I said I was sorry over and over again and begged him to just calm down and let me out. But he burst into some tirade about me wasting his time and taking advantage of him,

that I had led him on and how wrong that was for me to do. He said that I owed him and that's when he put his hand on my knee. I just froze. I didn't know what to do. I grew up something of an ugly duckling, and I honestly just didn't know how to deal with that kind of attention anyway, let alone when it was mixed with just complete and utter terror. But as his hand worked its way up my leg, I just kind of sprang into action. Maybe from the adrenaline,

maybe because I couldn't bear to go through what was about to happen next. I threw his hand off of me, got my phone out, and told him if he didn't let me go that I was going to call the cops. Then Craig actually tried to grab my phone out of my hand before I slapped him so hard that his teeth must have rattled in his head. But he wasn't quite ready to let me go just yet, not until he made it clear that no matter who I told about what happened that night, no one would believe me, that he would just deny and reflect everything until people thought that I was lying and manipulative. He told me I had already tricked him into giving me a ride home like every night and it wasn't just stretch for people to believe I was some crazy attention seeker either. And only then did he actually unlock the doors to his car to let me out.

If that sort of thing happened to me today, I'd have put that idiot on blast. But back then, like I said before, I was super young and super naive and I actually believed him when he said that no one would take my word for what had happened. I lasted like two more shifts at Walmart before I quit. That place was just poison to me after that. I got it into my head that Craig had told everyone what a terrible person I was. I know that sounds crazy, but that's honestly what I believed. I ended up working somewhere else part-time while I attended community college, then moved away from my hometown to pursue my degree.

But before I did, I bought a taser, which I still keep in my purse at all times. Because the next time I encounter a Craig who thinks they can treat women that way and get away with it, I promise you, they're going to get the literal shock of their life. I've been shopping at Walmart for pretty much my entire life. Like even when I was a kid, I'd go along with my single mom on trips down to the supercenter like once or twice a week. So as you can imagine, I've seen my fair share of weird and scary stuff go down there, from associates having straight up fistfights in the parking lot to people going to the bathroom in the aisles. But one single incident stands head and shoulders above the rest for me as the most terrifying thing that ever happened to me at a Walmart.

Like my mom before me, I too became a mother at quite a young age. It started as a stupid mistake at a college party where a broken condom turned into me having to consider terminating but I decided to keep the baby and it was the best decision I'd ever made. With my mom's child care and financial help I could still continue my studies and now I have a wonderful young son that I consider an absolute blessing. If I could go back and live my whole life again I wouldn't change a single thing. Then in 2016, something happened that rocked the small town I live in. A kid went missing from their elementary school.

Teachers saw the kid leaving hand in hand with a woman they recognized as not being the child's mother, but didn't report it, assuming the woman was a nanny or something. Missing posters went up all over town. Vigils were held. The mom made a tearful appearance on TV begging for anyone with information regarding her kid's whereabouts to please come forward, but no one did. A week later, the kid's body was found buried in a shallow grave over in some woodland just outside of town. The entire population went into mourning. It was absolutely horrendous and I consider just how easily it could have been my kid that just up and disappeared, only to turn up dead a short time later.

No arrests were made either. Local sheriffs urged us to report any suspicious behavior to them immediately. I remember they even listed little things that we should consider as suspicious, such as a guy shaving who normally maintained a beard, people parking their cars in garages who normally parked in the street. For all intents and purposes, the killer was still at large and the whole town was rife with paranoia. A few weeks later, I took my son down to the local Walmart with me to do some shopping. My mom wasn't always available to babysit and this was back when I couldn't always afford a sitter to look after him so

I had very little choice other than to take him down there with me. This was at a time when he was way too big for the baby seats they have in the shopping carts so I had to just keep him by my side as I wheeled the cart around to get the grocery shopping done. Now if there are any parents reading this, you'll know of the pure nightmare that is passing the toy section in a store when you have a young child with you. It's like herding cats. They just run off all wild and you pretty much have to just wait until their attention span dwindles before you can get them moving again. So I have to pretty much bargain with my son that if he's extra good and follows me around the store like a good boy, we'll go back to the toy section when we're all done and I'll buy him something. He smiles and agrees and we're back on our way again.

About 10 minutes later, after making sure he's been close behind the entire time, I turn around and find that my son is nowhere to be seen. I retrace my steps, calling his name, expecting him to just be around the corner in the previous aisle, having gotten distracted by some colorful label or something, but he's nowhere to be found. I then start wheeling down the center aisle, looking left and right in the hopes that I'd spot him somewhere somewhere but again, nothing. This is about the time I go into full on panic mode. I remember just how easily it had been for the person that abducted the murdered child to just take them by the hand and walk them to their doom.

I had images flashing in my mind of someone leading my son out of the store into the parking lot and into a waiting van where he would be driven off and subjected to God knows what before they ended his young life. I abandon my shopping cart and start basically running around the store asking if everyone had seen a little boy wearing a blue sweater, which is what he was wearing at the time, walking by himself or with another person. Each of them says no but each also knew why I was asking and given the recent events that were now haunting the town, the look of panic and fear in their eyes when I asked them if they'd seen my son, well that was enough to have me almost hysterical with panic. I was in floods of tears by the time I made it over to customer services.

I could barely calm myself down to tell them what the situation was, realizing that my inability to properly communicate what the problem was only meant that more valuable time was being wasted when I needed my son found alive and well as quickly as possible. I managed to take a few breaths in the end and get it out that I had lost my son somewhere in the aisles. God bless those folks behind the counter because they knew immediately what to do. Put an announcement over the loudspeakers in the store that if any associates saw a kid in a blue sweater that they were to escort them to customer service as soon as possible. Minutes went by and nothing happened and I was just convinced my kid

was gone for good. I can't even put into words how intense and painful that kind of feeling was. How I felt like a terrible mother and it was just going to be me crying on TV and having journalists banging on my door after countless hours of police interviews. And all that would come with being the parent of a missing child. But then, out of nowhere, I heard a voice cut through the mouth stream of panic in my head. Hey lady, is this your kid? I look up and there's this guy holding my son's hand, who is silently sobbing as he walks towards the customer service counter. I've never been so singularly and absolutely relieved in my entire life. Like I felt it wash over me in waves and I rushed over to my son and took him up in my entire life. Like I felt it wash over me in waves and I rushed over

to my son and took him up in my arms. We cried together for a few minutes and I was too happy to even get mad at him for wandering off which is apparently what he'd done. Wondered off to go looking for the toy section since he was bored which also happened to be the one place I'd failed to look in my abject panic. Then he'd panicked when he'd gone to try and find me again and gotten lost near the auto parts since we basically never went near that end of the store. I then wildly and profusely thanked the guy who'd found him for bringing him over to the customer service area, even trying to give him all the cash I had in my purse as a reward. Naturally, he refused to take it, saying it was the least he could do given the recent

incident, tragic events that had touched everyone in the worst way possible. I was just a wreck by that point, apologizing to pretty much everyone for making such a scene and being a bad mom, but the workers there were just amazing, even asking if the abandoned cart near the frozen food section was mine and if I wanted them to bag all the groceries up before helping me take them to my car. I honestly don't know what I would have done without their kindness that day and I cannot thank them enough for taking care of us. But yeah, that was without a doubt the scariest thing I've ever experienced in a Walmart and probably in my entire life too.

Just typing it all out is giving me the jitters just remembering what an absolutely terrifying experience it was, thinking I'd lost my son like that, especially given that there was an actual child predator on the loose at that time. I'm sorry if this got so long or rambly at points, I'm honestly not much of a writer I don't think. Just please, if you take away anything at all from this, it's that I'm begging you, keep an eye on your kids at all times. There are some truly evil people phone somewhere in the city. But when the operator answers, asking what the call's emergency is, it initially seemed like there was no one on the other end. But this is not a classic accidental case of butt-dialing 911 as the horrified dispatcher began to hear something hideously unnerving

coming from the other end of the line. Let us go, a female voice screams. Hello, is anyone there? The dispatcher asked frantically but still there was no direct reply. However, what she heard next made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. So you're going to kill us and put us in the trunk? I'm not going to put you in the trunk, a voice is heard to say. It's a gruff male voice full of malice. Then what about afterwards?

The female on the other end of the line is heard asking. There is no afterwards, comes the ominous reply. The dispatcher then heard the man mention something about going to prison forever, then some unspeakable things, along with another garbled piece of speech that seemed to reference some kind of murder weapon. The dispatcher acted fast. Since the call was coming from a cell phone, the dispatcher was able to make a note of the longitude and latitude that the call was being received from before passing the information along to their lieutenant. The coordinates showed it was coming from Pinewood Street

near Hoyt in the city of Detroit. But suddenly, the phone call cuts out and the dispatcher feared the worst Yet thankfully, just minutes later, another call came in from the same number With the same girl crying in the background Only this time, it came with a differing set of coordinates This happened over and over again A repeating cycle of calls and hang-ups Until police were able to fix the cell phone at a stationary location,

immediately sending units out to patrol nearby streets. I'm not trying to sneak out, the same girl screamed in the background of yet another call. Don't punch me please, I'm sorry, just please don't hit me again. The dispatcher who received the call worked frantically to relay as many details as was possible to nearby units, listening intently for anything that could end up saving the girl's life. But all he can hear is a girl screaming, over and over again, as if suffering through an ungodly amount of pain. Then suddenly,

Switch off the hazard lights! Switch off the hazard lights! The male on the other end of the line begins to roar. In a flash, the dispatcher relays the information to nearby police units, quickly telling them to look for a stationary vehicle with hazard lights flashing. Help us! Please help us! The girl begins to scream, seeming like she can actually see police officers from wherever she is. A wave of relief washes over to the dispatcher as the next thing he hears over his radio contact with the Detroit Police Department. Unlock the car, police officers, unlock the car, they scream. Show me your hands, don't move, do not move. Thank God you're here.

He was violating us, the girls are heard to sob. There is a brief scuffle as the kidnapper is put into cuffs, while the dispatcher listens the entire time. One of the girls had managed to call 911 while keeping her hidden cell phone in a pocket to hide the fact that she had attempted to contact emergency services. This has helped guide the police onto their location, possibly saving their lives. Alright, I think we got this under control and officers then heard to say, thanks dispatch. Then both the radios and the cell phone go quiet.

East Point and Detroit police took the suspect, a man by the name of Derek Smith, immediately into custody. Smith had apparently only just gotten out of prison just a few months before, after having served a prison sentence for assault The two women the police found kidnapped in his vehicle were actually sisters Who said that they had met Derek Smith that very same evening at a local nightclub And it was down to the quick thinking of one of them As well as the actions of the 911 dispatcher that received their call

That their torturous kidnap and assault was cut short before Smith had time to do any permanent injury. It's an ironic twist that today's seemingly intrusive surveillance technology is not always used for society's detriment, and the same technology that can be used to infringe on human rights can actually be used to preserve human life as well. In March of 2010, a California Sheriff's Department dispatcher named Monique Patino was to receive one of the most shocking and disturbing calls of her entire career. The call came early on a Tuesday morning. Monique answered the call in the same manner she'd done a thousand times before,

only to hear the terrified, fear-saturated voice of none other than a seven-year-old boy on the other end of the line. 911, what is your emergency? she asked calmly. As a mother, the response shook Monique to her core. Um, there's some guy. He's going to kill my mom and dad. Can you come? The little boy asked, his voice wavering into a terrified wail as the horrific realization hit him. Can you come really fast? And bring some cops, a lot of them. And bring soldiers too. Monique was the mother of two young children herself, and despite the fact that the child's terrified cries screamed through her head like nails on a chalkboard, she remained calm and

professional, immediately dispatching nearby units of police to the family's home. Listen to me, she said to the young boy. Take a breath. I already have the police coming. Where are you at in the house? Ah, inside the bathroom, the boy replied in between staggered, panicked breaths. Three men armed with small caliber weapons had managed to sneak into the family's house through an unlocked door in a home invasion intended to separate the family from their valuables. The family's six-year-old daughter had ran out to their car to grab her school lunchbox so her mother could fill it before she drove them to school.

But the assailants, in a green and grey two-door compact car, had been casing the house, and when they realized that the little girl could well have neglected to lock the door behind them, they swooped in to take advantage. But the seven-year-old boy named Carlos had acted fast. He grabbed the family house phone. Then his younger sister and rushed into the upstairs bathroom, locking the door behind him before he called 911 to seek emergency assistance. But as young Carlos was in the process of saving his family from the horrendous violent ordeal, one of the gunmen overheard him talking to the 911 operator and began to break down the door to the bathroom, slamming his boot into the thin wood over and over again. Just hearing them scream and cry for help, she later said,

I just felt their fear through the phone. The sound of the two young children's screams as the evil, callous criminal began to smash his way into their apparently protected space is frankly the stuff of nightmares. However, when the home invader finally broke his way into their apparently protected space is frankly the stuff of nightmares. However, when the home invader finally broke his way inside and saw the phone in the young boy's hand, he realized the situation, that little Carlos had the presence of mind to actually call the police instead of simply cowering in the family bathroom hoping to stay hidden. He panicked, calling out to his fellow criminals that the cops were probably only moments away from arriving on the scene. The trio then scarpered without taking a single valuable item from the family home or harming any of the family they had subjected to such

a terrifying experience. However, unfortunately for the family and for law enforcement, the quick reactions of the home invaders meant that they were never found or arrested for the crime and are horrifyingly enough still on the loose today. When a news conference was held to commemorate the young man's brave actions, seven-year-old Carlos told a large congregation of reporters that he had managed to remain calm during the harrowing ordeal because his mother used to make him practice dialing 911 in case of emergencies. At the press event, Carlos, who proudly sported a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department baseball cap, gave a huge hug to the 911 dispatcher who had handled his call.

Monique Patino went on to call the boy her little hero as she intermittently wiped away tears of joy from her cheeks. She told Carlos that he had been exceptionally brave for doing what he did, telling him she was very very proud of him for having saved his entire family from what had would undoubtedly been a prolonged and highly traumatic experience. I'm still astounded by his mindset, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sergeant Douglas Jensen was later heard to have said. To be able to think about getting his sister, grabbing his phone, locking himself in a bathroom and calling 911, it shows so much. He did a fantastic job, better than most adults, he added, and the whole episode offers a valuable lesson to parents everywhere. Teaching your kid how to dial 911 in case of an emergency is something that is not only prudent,

but might well save your life one day. As terrifying as it is to hear the 911 call of this incident, which is freely available on YouTube and on various California news websites, hearing just how brave that young Carlos is to act in the way that he did is frankly inspirational. But we should also keep in mind that the toll these kinds of calls take on the mental health of the nation's 911 dispatchers cannot be underestimated. So please, take a moment to be grateful for all that they do to keep ourselves and our families safe. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official

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