The Lets Read Podcast - 142: AN EASTER BASKET OF SCARES | 23 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 130

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about TikTok, Easter, & a Psychotic Neighbor... 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

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. To be continued... Zachary Latham and his neighbors, the Durham family, did not get along. They lived opposite each other on the Thorn Hill Road in Vineland, New Jersey, a town of about 60,000 located 40 miles south of Philadelphia. After being forced to live with his grandparents at the age of 16, the Durhams initially found Zach to be a boisterous but

polite young man. But as the years went by, neither he nor the Durhams had a good word to say about one another, and ultimately, the mutual animosity came to a head because of Zach's erratic style of driving. William Durham, along with his wife Catherine, had accused their 18-year-old neighbor of reckless driving on more than one occasion, and what was intended to be a friendly word with the young man quickly soured into a confrontation. When first approached by Mr. and Mrs. Durham, instead of responding amicably to their concerns, Zach responded by pulling out his cell phone. He then spitefully accused Mrs. Durham of being a Karen and swore at an enraged Mr. Durham when he objected to his behavior. Any chance of a peaceful coexistence went straight out of the window when Zach told the couple

he'd be posting the video online. And post it he did, with the video going on to be viewed more than 3 million times by TikTok users around the world. What followed was an escalating feud that was later described as a powder keg. The confrontations between Zach and the Durham family were bad enough beforehand, but the publicity Zach had garnered meant that complete strangers were pouring gasoline on an already blazing fire. Hundreds of comments on the TikTok video of the argument between Zach and the Durhams urged him to cut her tires, egg her house, or the ominously vague, go after her. Apparently a few weeks after the recorded confrontation, Mr. and Ms. Durham were minding their own business and getting on with some housework

when Zach pulled up next to them in his car. Hey, hey Karen, he is reported to have cried out. We went viral Karen, I made you famous. The exposure had a terrible effect on the Durham's mental health and were even recognized around their New Jersey hometown much to their chagrin. They sought out an injunction against the video, but were told by the police that they could not sign a complaint against Mr. Latham since the courts were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Then, on May 4th of 2020, Mr. and Mrs. Durham returned home from some grocery shopping

to discover that Zach Latham had deliberately swerved his pickup truck at their son, who was out in the street riding his bicycle. Mr. Durham was furious. Humiliating him and his wife with online videos was one thing, but to threaten his son's safety was another thing entirely. He marched out of his house, got into his truck, and parked it right behind Zach's own vehicle, blocking him into his own driveway. And on that occasion, it was Zach's wife who was filming the exchange when he walked out of his home to confront Mr. Durham. Both were absolutely livid as they demanded to know what Zach was thinking when he nearly hit their boy. But Zach was in no mood to talk. He told the couple

that they had better back up because they were not going to like what's coming out, referring to something he had inside his house. When Mr. Durham got a little too close to Zach, he threw a punch. It missed, but it was enough to have the Durham's two teenage sons stepping in to try to defend their father. It was then that Zack grabbed a stun gun and knife from under the driver's seat of his truck, firing the taser at the two boys after swinging at them with the knife. Mr. Durham then grabbed Zack in a misguided attempt to disarm him, who was lithe and fast enough to shake the older man off before slashing his right arm with the knife. With Mr. Durham bleeding profusely from the knife wound,

Zach attempted to retreat into his garage, but the red mist had descended on his older neighbor, with Mr. Durham following him into the garage, cursing up a storm and promising to kill him. A courtroom later heard that a brief but violent melee then ensued, one in which Durham was repeatedly shocked with a taser. Zach's young wife begged him to drop the knife, but despite her pleading, Zach plunged the tip of the knife into an area just below Mr. Durham's armpit, a stab wound which punctured his lung and caused it to fill with blood. The 51-year-old correctional officer died that night, with Zach being arrested at his grandparents' home just hours later. During his trial for murder, the prosecution was particularly interested in why Zach's wife had been so quick to pull out her phone to record the confrontation. And throughout hours of questioning and evidence examination, it was determined that Zach and his

wife had frequently discussed the idea of recording another viral confrontation with the Durhams, one that would grow their already sizable TikTok following and the one that could make them some money. In a phrase, the court established that Zach had manufactured the confrontation so he could become TikTok famous. If Latham was in fear for his or Sarah's safety, they both would have retreated inside, called police and stayed there, the prosecuting attorney stated. They did not because their intent was to lure the Durham's there, attack them and record it for TikTok. But Zachary's defense attorney painted a very different picture of the night's events, insisting that it was in fact his client that was the victim in the situation, given that the Durham's had ventured onto his property to instigate violence.

A recording of his 911 call was played to the court, and this is what they heard. Yeah, I need the cops out here. There's blood all over the place. I just got assaulted and jumped. I got beat up really bad and I have blood all over me. They came with trucks, came on my property with guns and then when I fought them off they drove away. It was a strong argument but one that paled in comparison to the prosecution's own which was ironically fueled by Zach's own actions. Since his arrest, Zach wasted no opportunity to grow his TikTok following by talking about the incident in broadcast to his thousands of followers. In the videos, he professes his innocence and insists that the killing was nothing but self-defense, arguing that he was merely a young man defending the home of his grandparents from armed intruders.

But there was a distinctly darker side to the videos too, as Zach seemed content to whip up a frenzy of malcontent to direct at the Durham's and their friends. Zach's followers have been alleged to have harassed the Durham's directly, even going so far as to post their address in one video's comment section. Zach posted so frequently that, in the end, a superior court judge approved an order prohibiting him from making public remarks about the case, essentially silencing him before any trial can begin. This is most definitely something that's going to be used against Zach in his upcoming murder trial. The prosecution could well argue that his obsession with social media popularity pushed him to create more and more drama with a family that simply couldn't take his behavior any longer. Zach has documented his harassment of the Durhams. He filmed himself pushing a regularly suburban family to their limits and when they finally snapped, he had someone ready to film that too. It seems that Zach is a young man with a very

troubling upbringing, which included a juvenile criminal history and a penchant for violence. Whether or not you believe that Zach was just defending himself or that he manufactured the confrontation, he is most certainly used as notoriety to foster a larger TikTok following, and that is something that is going to reflect very badly on him during his trial. Some people will do anything to be famous, but whether or not Zack killed a father of two over something as fickle as fame is something only a jury can now decide. It's a scorching hot summer's day in Tampa, Florida. A high-definition camera records a spray of blood on the side of a car, slowly panning out to reveal the full extent of the gory scene. The car's door sports a small bullet hole, while the front seats, steering wheel, and two plastic bottles are splattered in even more blood,

this time a yellowy-orange color almost resembling bile. A man in a hazardous materials suit is then seen analyzing a spent bullet casing, recognizing it as a 9mm. It slowly becomes apparent that the video shows the aftermath of a drive-by shooting, one of many that take place in the United States every single day. And after being posted on the usually music-based video app TikTok, the video gained more than 6 million views, and it's not the only morbid medley that garnered such attention. This isn't TikTok anymore. Welcome to Murder Talk. Crime Scene TikTok, Crime Scene Cleanup TikTok, or simply Murder Talk are the nicknames for a collection of videos with over 200 million views that document real-life crime scenes in graphic detail.

The videos are mostly filmed at homicide scenes and depict cleaning teams scraping, steaming, and mopping away blood and other gory fluids. Some of the so-called Murder Talk accounts also showcase the house of hoarders. Residences complete with overflowing fridges stuffed with rotting food, as rats and cockroaches and maggots scurry and squirm among the filth. It's a disgustingly disturbing delight for those fascinated with the darker sides of life. Washington-based Harley is 26 years old and grew up watching true crime and hoarder-based reality shows on TV with her mom. But she's now moved on to TikTok, preferring the raw, unfiltered reality that crime scene cleanup videos have to offer. Harley says that while many of the true crime shows were extremely

graphic, there was still a lot that wasn't shown. Her morbid curiosity regarding what occurs after death had her to looking up online photos taken from famous crime scenes in the midst of exposing herself to sensitive content at a very young age. She's thankful that the TikTok content she watches now isn't overly fake or sensationalized and says it's nice to just watch the cleanup happen without a ton of TV edited drama. Dana, a 17-year-old from Ohio, also made a recent transition to TikTok after following a crime scene cleanup account on Instagram for a

couple of years. For her, the draw of the content is a mixture of fascination with the macabre and a genuine desire to learn about the practicalities of the crime scene cleanup profession. It's something I'm drawn to because of the morbidity of it, I guess, she confessed. I've always been really obsessed with the death and understanding what happens to us physically when we do pass, so it's interesting to see just what kind of mess gets left behind when people die traumatically. Yet despite Dana's clarity that crime scene cleanup wouldn't be the best paid career, she also refuses to write off working in the industry in the future, saying that it's a job she'd often seriously consider for herself. One of the more popular accounts of the murder talk scene is at Crime Scene Cleaning.

The account has more than 19 million views and 2.8 million followers, and it is they who created the drive-by video we previously touched on. Their signature has been to create a kind of crime scene cinematic universe, with their video starring kooky characters like Decomp Kyle and hoarding technician Fiona, whose speciality is inspecting overstuffed fridges. The At Crime Scene Cleaning account is run by a company named Spalding Decon, a trauma, biohazard, and crime scene cleaning company with a reach in reality that parallels their online success. With merchandise, online training

courses, and a chain of cleanup franchises that stretches the length of the United States, it seems TikTok is just another arm of its sprawling business empire. A Nashville-based spokesperson claims that the company started using TikTok to better engage in what they referred to as the culture. While YouTube's video and Instagram posts are still extremely engaging and important, TikTok was another avenue where they could get their message and purpose out to as wide an audience as possible. Many new business opportunities have come through TikTok, with the majority of inquiries coming in the form of younger people insisting that a parent or friend is in need of Spalding Decon services.

As well as attracting new business, Spalding Decon has attempted to emphasize the educational aspects of their posts, whether that's about the cleanup industry itself or specific conditions like hoarding. Not only that, but the company's CEO, Laura Spalding, also demonstrates this on TikTok by hosting regular Q&A sessions to answer all manner of fans' questions, some of which range from, how do I get into this line of work, to, is it true that when the body is decomposing it blows up? Social media has made us the household name for emergency cleanup services, Spalding says. We have brought humanity to the difficult job our techs perform every day. Although Spalding has faced controversy for some of the cheerful music used in their videos, it seems that at-crime scene cleaning are generally regarded as one

of the more respectful murder talk content creators. Its more graphic videos contain trigger warnings, it hosts giveaways for armed forces veterans, and it regularly reassures fans that its clients signed a medical release prior to being recorded. But unfortunately, not all creators have the same kind of ideals. If you start looking for more accounts, I would suggest looking at those run by a specific business, says Washington-based Harley. Otherwise you end up on compilation accounts that are just in it for shock value. Another player on the murder talk scene is an account known as Bioscene Recovery, run by James Monoth, a certified biohazard recovery supervisor

whose daughter encouraged him to upload to TikTok. He confessed to having no idea his profession could be so popular and is astounded that he's managed to clock a cool 43,000 followers. His most viral video depicts a bloodstained silhouette imprinted by a decomposing body and has attracted some negativity, but he says the majority of comments come from people seeking understanding after losing their loved ones in similar situations. When scrolling through Murder Talk, it's clear to see that one creator works a little differently from the others. An account called AtDeathScience has

almost half a million followers and almost 5 million likes, and is part of a network of social media accounts run by a man named Jeremy Siliberto. Unlike the other creators, the crime scenes in his videos are simulated. Jeremy typically creates scripted and designed hyper-realistic content, not unlike the many fictional crime shows that are adored by the public. And he seems to have found a novel approach to educate and have fun, whilst not being overly gruesome nor disrespectful to the topic of death itself. Silberto's plastic bones and fake crime scenes do nothing to dampen his grim aesthetic or his TikTok popularity.

He ends a discussion on the legalities of home burial with, let me know in the comments who you would want to bury in your backyard, injecting dark, absurdist humor without being inconsiderate. Despite Silberto's talking respectfully of the other creators and understands their reasoning, there can be no controversy about his personal motives. Not only does Silberto aim to educate people about forensics, he also started Hashtag Gen Z Forest, a movement that encourages young people to opt for more eco-friendly burial options. He believes that it is vital that we open up the conversation

about death, as well as taming our anxieties about it. Dana from Ohio thinks the popularity of murder talk speaks to generational changes in attitudes towards death. I definitely think my generation is more desensitized to things, she explains. When you go through a national tragedy, like one a year, and it's directly affecting your age group, the fear factors start to wear off and it's accepted as normal and expected. Everyone is kind of drawn to death. We seek it out. We ask for gritty details. She says she feels more comfortable watching crime scene cleanups on TikTok than other more algorithmic friendly content. I also follow plastic surgery accounts and those bother me more than the crime scene cleanups do,

she says. I would rather have someone looking at my blood on concrete than my entire semi-naked body with all my flaws pointed out on Instagram. It's objectively disturbing that some young Americans could be more comfortable observing the deaths of other people than showcasing themselves online. And it seems that TikTok, as well as other social media outlets, not only have the capacity to allow us a share in each other's lives, but also in each other's deaths as well. In June of 2020, a TikTok user with the username UGHenry decided that he and a few friends would use TikTok to record themselves going on an adventure. It was an adventure that was based around the popular adventure app, Randonautica. Upon opening the app, Randonautica asks you to share your location. Then it will ask you to choose which type of point you would like to generate, be it a void or an anomaly, before fetching coordinates using a random number generator.

The user can then open that location in Google Maps to begin their journey. Randonautica adventures were something of a meme at the time, and many other TikTok users were uploading videos of themselves using the app. Given that some journeys had ended with some rather creepy occurrences, Ug Henry decided to give Randonautica a try himself. And so Henry and his two friends spent their afternoon following a series of apparently randomly generated coordinates around their hometown of Seattle. The keyword they entered into Randonautica app was travel, so when the app pointed them in the direction of Alley Avenue Southwest, a street right next to the shoreline of Elliott

Bay, they figured the ocean was their final clue. But when they arrived at their destination, they found something disturbingly relevant lying on the rocks near the water. It was a suitcase, and in particular, a travel case. Like many people at the time, Henry and his friends were almost convinced that there was a kind of magic at work with Randonautica. Scores of other Randonauts found the endings to their journey to be far too fitting or poetic to be purely random or coincidental, and now Henry was one of them, and he had a potential viral video to go with it. But Henry's video was about to go viral for considerably more sinister reasons,

because as they approached the travel case, they began to smell something rotten in the air, and the situation was about to take a decidedly dark turn. At first, Henry and his friends simply laughed off the smell, thinking it either came from one of them or from something washed up further down the beach. They continued to film the bag with one of them prodding it a little before telling the others how heavy it seemed. One of the people in the video jokes about the contents being rotten groceries, hence the smell. But after another makes a quip about the contents being cash,

it's only a matter of time before one of the friends decides to open the case. But as soon as they do, the god-awful stench in the air becomes even more intense, so much so that the friends begin retching and gagging off camera. It was only when they saw the stuffed trash bags inside the case that they began to fear the worst, and after calling 911 and having some cops check out the travel case, the worst fears were confirmed. Inside the travel case were two dead bodies, one male, one female. Ug Henry wrote that he broke down the moment he got home after finding the suitcase. He added that his laughter in the video was his way of trying to get through the situation

and said he has since then been unable to sleep. The TikTok video of Henry's morbid discovery earned him more than 15 million views and fueled the speculation that the Randonautica app was somehow cursed. But outside of the paranormal speculation, a very real investigation was launched into how these two dead bodies came to end stuffed inside of a travel case. According to a post-mortem examination performed by the King County Medical Office based on the state of decomposition, 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and her 27-year-old boyfriend Austin Wenner were shot and killed on or around June 9th, just days before they were found. Police then set about questioning those closest to the couple, one of which was their landlord, 62-year-old Michael Dudley, who rented the top floor of his large home to them.

On the night of their killing, neighbors reportedly heard a man yelling, Please don't do this. Just let me leave, before gunshots were fired. During his questioning, many of Michael's answers seemed inconsistent or cagey, and was overly nervous during the conversation when he apparently had no reason to be so. It was just enough for the police to focus their suspicions on him, and they quickly obtained a search warrant for the house that both Michael and the murdered couple called home. During their search, law enforcement discovered bullet holes in one of the walls, blood in the couple's bedroom, and a fresh coat of paint on a random part of a banister. When the police confronted him regarding their findings, Michael claimed that he'd heard Jessica had somehow managed to cut herself and denied the bullet holes even being there.

He was promptly arrested, then taken to a holding cell to await further questioning. There has been plenty of media speculation as to why exactly Michael Dudley would shoot the young couple, but one source has suggested that the straw that broke the camel's back was their inability to make rent payments. Outside of that, there are plenty of skeletons in Michael's closet that suggest deep-rooted violent proclivities. One media outlet discovered a history of inter-familial relations and carnal abuse when they came across an assault restraining order filed against Michael by his own daughter in June of 2018. Some court documents are said to have read, My father indecently assaulted me for nine years, from age 10 until age 18, forcing me to share a bed with him from age 10 while he'd play adult movies on the TV.

I don't feel safe in my home or leaving my home to work. His daughter also added that Michael had a very disturbing habit, a ritual in which he would take out his pistol and threaten to use it on her. Gina Jeschka, Jessica's aunt, said she was close with her niece before she died. Gina told the media that her knowledge of Michael Dudley more or less lines up with the allegations made by his daughter. ''Sometimes he would break their car so they couldn't leave,'' she said. ''He put trackers

on people's cars. Anytime he ever got in a dispute with anybody, he would tell them to leave but try to lock them in the house. But most horrifying of all, according to Gina, Michael had another disturbing tendency. Cruelty towards animals that couldn't protect themselves. He killed the dog in front of them and left the carcass outside for three days to scare them, Gina continued. They had nowhere to go, that's why they stayed there. He beat this dog to death with a hammer because it got one of his chickens. He just left it out there for the other dogs to look at and sniff. He's a freaking psycho. She also said the loss of her niece, a mother of four,

and her niece's longtime boyfriend has all but destroyed their families. I don't want them to be remembered in any violent way. I want them to be remembered for their humanity and their kindness. I want to believe they didn't suffer. Michael himself has been taken into custody, but evidence suggests that someone might well go unpunished for their involvement in Jess and Austin's murders. During the post-mortem of their dismembered bodies, the coroner observed that the slices and hacks around their joints were disorganized and appeared to be done in different manners with various devices. The police spokesperson also mentioned that after dismembering his victims,

Michael had apparently set about dispersing their bodies in multiple bags throughout various bodies of water, and given the time frame and placement of the bags, it is unlikely that Michael did this alone. This means that there could well be someone just walking around Seattle, a free individual, who helped cut up and dispose of two innocent young people, a loving couple who could possibly have been executed over nothing more than a late rent payment. After his arrest, Michael's bail was set to $3 million, with the judge citing his willingness to commit horrific acts of violence. The process of dismemberment would have taken a lot of time and effort and his willingness to

take these extreme steps demonstrates the threat he poses to the community, charging documents read. It appears that Michael is indeed guilty of Jess and Austin's murder, and it's more than likely that he'll go to prison for a very long time. But it was TikTok that made them famous. Millions of people all over the world learned of such barbaric acts because of a simple video messaging app. Big tech companies like Facebook or Twitter might like to think that every so often social media brings a little light into our lives. Yet it seems that every so often, apps like TikTok can bring a little darkness into our lives too. The video-based social media app TikTok seems to be mostly used for musically-based creativity in all forms.

But recently, the creators of the app have been forced to face the fact that some people are using their creation for considerably more sinister forms of melodious exchange. TikTok is apparently being used to fuel gang violence with sickening scorecards of murders and stabbings between rivals. Online music videos boast of horrific stabbings and shootings carried out by gang members and the music is that of a new style of rap known only as drill. Experts in gang culture accuse the social media tech giant, which has 4 million young users in the UK alone, of helping stoke up tensions and luring in youngsters with the bloody scorecards. Thuggish lyrics and slick drill rap videos have been linked to an explosion of murders across the UK's inner cities. Yet TikTok is doing nothing to try and stop the violence.

Gang violence among British youths has been widely condemned by police and celebrities alike, and huge amounts of government cash has been poured into trying to curb violence. But the very same drill artists who boast of such horrendous acts of violence are promoted by social media apps, as well as British media institutions such as BBC Radio 1, whose hip-hop DJ actually shares drill music videos on his YouTube channel. Profiles of drill rappers are called an OJ profile or on-job profile, used to describe a successful or active gang member. Many host videos that apparently list attacks carried out by some of the genre's biggest stars. They allege assaults on police, as well as stabbings and shootings that left rival gang members paralyzed, with several claiming that a gang member had killed an op, a word which is slang for opponent.

British politicians and anti-gang campaigners alike have begged for an end to social media sites hosting contents which could inflame violent tensions among inner-city youth, but the cycle of violence appears to be unstoppable. Dr. Simon Harding of the National Center for Gang Research at University of West London said that previously, to be part of a gang, it used to be that you would have to actually live on an estate and associate with a group of gang members. Now, with social media, you can hook up with a gang, be recruited by a gang, be groomed by a gang, all virtually without ever living anywhere near the same estate.

The sentiment was shared by Jen Locke, founder of Lives Instead of Knives England, who also commented that platforms such as TikTok are glamorizing and glorifying brutal crimes. They're encouraging attacks on rival gangs and stoking up tensions. TikTok caters for a younger audience and it means they are easily exposed to it. A recent survey found that almost half of British children aged 8 to 15 were regularly using the TikTok app, despite it having an official minimum user age of 13 and many of the violent TikTok profiles have thousands upon thousands of followers. In which case, children in single-digit ages are able to access lists of stabbings, murders, and other violent acts allegedly carried out by gang members. It is unclear who exactly creates or posts the videos or if any of the profiles are truly affiliated with gangs themselves,

but one drill music video has been watched an astonishing 225,000 times. Among them is a profile for rapper CB. His real name is Lakan Akinsoji and is a young man currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for donning a clown mask and brandishing a sawed-off shotgun at police during a car chase. Last year, 20-year-old Aakan Soji and three others appeared in drill videos bragging about killing rivals in East London. Other profiles tell of the activities of the N-Gang based in Northolt, northwest London. One of their members, Abdullahi Tarabi, 19, was stabbed to death in front of horrified families after being chased through a West London estate. The rival 10-11 gang recorded a rap video with the BBC's DJ Westwood in which they appear to boast that,

Westwood says he does not condone violence or promote violent music, but many have questioned his commitment to such a stance given his actions. 39-year-old grieving mother, Sharon Kendall, issued a desperate plea to social media giants, begging them to stop fueling this bloodshed. Sharon's son, 18-year-old Jason Isaacs, was tragically stabbed to death by drill rapper Joel Amati, who boasted about his violent lifestyle and raps online before he was jailed for more than 20 years. Although Amati did not use TikTok, they are among social media companies criticized by Sharon for allowing violent criminals to goad rivals online. At a meeting

of the Knives Down Gloves Up campaign, which promotes boxing and martial arts as a way out of crime, Sharon wondered aloud what it would take for big tech companies to actually do something about the violent content on their platforms. How is it okay that mothers have to see videos online of people gloating about their children being murdered? My son's killer is in prison and he's still getting views for raps that he's posted online. More must be done by social media to stop the sharing of violent videos. Former undercover police officer Neil Woods said gangsters and so-called roadmen were using social media to build reputation and intimidate their rivals. Neil's company, Law Enforcement Action Partnership UK, released a statement saying, the most successful gangsters are the ones who have the best ability to intimidate.

The posts on TikTok suggest it has started to rival YouTube as a prime outlet for gangs. Another politician said that the continued failure of social media companies to police themselves highlights why it's important for the government to introduce the long-awaited online harms bill, adding that videos that glorify violence are clearly unacceptable. A TikTok spokeswoman said that keeping people safe on TikTok is a top priority for the company. In line with our community guidelines, we take swift action to remove dangerous or abusive content, and the account in question has been permanently banned from our platform. Dr. Simon Harding of the National Center for Gang Research said that the TikTok videos

are a new terrifying dimension of gang violence being played out on a new platform. These boys are no strangers to bigging up their reputation, he said. That's very much what they do on social media platforms, but I have never before seen what appears to amount to an online resume of violence. Normally there are one or two guys in their bedrooms with guns and drugs laid out on the bed, or they are grouped up giving a drill performance, but I have never before seen a formative profile or CV in this way, which is very alarming. Part of the drill genre is that it seems to be designed to

provoke, and it's clear that these videos can lead to revenge attacks quite quickly. People can find quite swift and very violent retribution. TikTok seems to be a new platform for these people, but they're using the same violent words and languages. If some of these things are genuine, and you have to be very careful because there is an awful lot of bragging, it raises serious questions. It also seems like a stupid thing to do because bragging about these crimes could make them a target for revenge attacks. It's like the whole gang domain has largely switched online, with one of the world's oldest professions being updated for the digital age. But what's really frightening is some of the most powerful tech companies, with some of the most abundant resources in the business world,

have little to no interest in stemming some of the most horrific acts of violence that young people can perpetrate on one another. They simply sit on top of the world, watching with indifference, as they allow young men to use their platform to gloat over the blood on their hands and it's not going to stop not anytime soon. For as long as technology advances man's lesser angels

advance with it. A seriously bizarre and terrifying phenomenon had TikTok users all over the English-speaking world freaking out last month when the app's translation feature began to make some deeply frightening errors. By some bizarre happenstance, a user discovered that if you write a comment with RIRRI in it, something rather unexpected occurred. The comment itself could be any variation in those letters, but the presence of R-I-R-I-R-I or RiRiRi would cause the translation service to perform a distinctly different function. A young woman with the username WoNelly shared the disturbing news

with her fellow TikTokers in early January, and since then, her video has been viewed almost 9 million times. Naturally, many who watched the video decided to try the phenomenon out for themselves with the occasionally horrifying result. This is the scariest thing I've ever seen on TikTok, Nelly told her followers. If you comment RiRiRi, it says something really cryptic, some really scary stuff. Why is no one talking about this? It's so scary. For those that don't know, it was possible for everyone who watched her video to instantly test out the veracity of her claims in the comments box below her post. Then if they held their thumbs down on the comments, a little window popped up asking if they wished to have their comments translated. Hundreds wrote out their

own variation of the gibberish phrase, then shared the translations, along with their shock and horror at what they said. This is the second most important part, one translation read, the cry for help. It's a dream. Another said, crying? That's a lot of fun. It's alright, it's a cry for help. Suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering. While another user complained that the frightening translation didn't seem random at all, and apparently been a little too much for her. Pain, pain, tears and pain. All I can do is cry. I had to leave and it hurts, her translation said, and given that she had recently lost a grandparent to cancer, she found the message's relevance to be truly haunting. Most users who worked through the comments section, translating the vast array of comments

on their own, were understandably and justifiably creeped out at what they were seeing. The basic translation error was one thing, but getting such elaborately disturbing and sometimes prophetic messages was something else entirely. Some users said their messages verged on being poetic, while others professed their deep fear and confusion. Oh my god, I'm translating people's comments and I'm actually spooked. One user wrote after allegedly translating one message into, help, help, suffering, crying in a nightmare. Another user then added in, does anyone else feel like the owners of TikTok are being held captive? No? Okay. User WoNelly went on to share some of the scarier translations in a follow-up video that had many TikTok users glued to their

phones in fearful curiosity. This is the second most important part of the history of the world. It's alright. Was one of the worst comments she read, which sounds a little too on the nose considering the wildfires, wars, and worldwide viral panic of the previous year. Are you joking me? Like all of them are scary but this one? Nelly said. That makes too much sense. I hate it. I hate it so much. While some were fixated on their fears that TikTok had somehow been cursed or the messages were ominous prophecies, there may actually be a completely rational explanation for the whole thing. Many TikTok users noticed that the app seemed to be translating the RiRiRi messages to Maori, an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by

the Maori people who are the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. It translates to Maori, Xhosa, or Shona. If you translate enough, it repeats, one person commented, because RiRi all relate to expressions of anger in Maori. It was a language spoken in Maori, someone else commented. RiRi refers to expression with anger, wrath, and annoyance, so I'm guessing it says something random pending on what you put. That theory might sound like it makes sense, but how does it account for the wildly different phrases people got back when they translated their Riri message? We can say it was merely a glitch and

certainly stranger things have happened on the internet, but perhaps there was something else at work with the haunting translations, something deep in the coding, a ghost in the machine you might say. Maybe we've been talking to computers for so long that they finally decided to talk back. Only what they have to say is far more disturbing than we could have possibly imagined. Last year, hype over that TikTok app was at its peak, so I foolishly decided to see what the big deal was. Don't get me wrong, some of the surface stuff was pretty cool. All the little dance routines and lip sync videos kept me entertained for a while.

But I think I went a little too deep down the rabbit hole because I found just about the creepiest trash I'd ever come across. I'm not even sure how I found this guy. I mean like I said, I was just tapping and scrolling going further and further down my TikTok rabbit hole but somehow I ended up watching a video of this guy with glasses and a handlebar mustache saying stuff like, good morning, my queen's above 18. So as you can imagine, right away I'm all like, what in God's name is this mess? I scroll through his TikToks a little before coming across another video from this guy, The King, where he greased people with queens above 18. First of all, who says stuff like that?

But second, the guy was obsessed with the idea of his queens being above 18. Like anyone who talks about it, that much is definitely a little sus. But then the video goes on showing him asking all of his queens to do something called the king challenge, which turned out to be nothing more than getting girls to wear a white t-shirt and having them pour water down the front of their shirts. I'm not kidding, that's all the king challenge involved. It was just the creepy way he tried to sound almost fatherly about it too. Like I swear to god at one point he even said like, try to make it fun, make a little game out of it my queens. Just everything about this guy screamed absolute creep and I was barely surprised when I saw that

he'd replied to a comment asking, why have you been talking to my 16 year old girlfriend or something like that. So as you can tell, TikTok is on thin ice already. I'm already kind of jaded with social media in general purely for the number of creeps that use it and that's on top of the fact that social media is super bad for your mental health. Like I don't want anything on my phone that makes me feel terrible or creeps me out. Then, I'm not kidding, like 5 minutes later, I'm scrolling through some of the less popular dance TikToks when I come across the video that made me go, I'm out. It starts off with this old dude like crouched down propping his phone against something to record himself. So at first, all you see is this dude's wrinkles. Then as the guy steps away from the phone, you see his bare foot with jeans on.

Then there's nothing on his upper half, but what I'm guessing was one half of an extra small girl's bathing suit, like the tube top kind. He then starts doing these creepy hand dances while growling completely inaudible words underneath his breath, all in what looked a lot like the basement of a serial killer. All I could think was that his little dance routine might be the last thing I see before he bashes my skull in or something, and this cold shiver just runs right through me. I get that apps like TikTok make people happy and bring people together and all that good stuff, I honestly get that. But to me, social media has always been this glimpse into how petty,

immature, and downright frightening human beings can sometimes be. So yeah, TikTok, it's gonna be a no from me, dawg. How far would you go to find a missing family member? Is there anything you wouldn't do, or anywhere you wouldn't go in order to recover a loved one? For many of us, the answer will be a resounding no. We'd do anything for the people close to us. And that's exactly how Sarah Turney felt regarding the disappearance of her older sister, Alyssa, in the year 2001. Over the years, Sarah tried almost every means at her disposal in her quest for answers. She started Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to spreading awareness of Alyssa's absence.

She started a blog called Justice for Alyssa, which kept track of the ongoing investigations. She reached out to multiple media outlets, both regional and national, actually managing to bag an appearance on Dateline NBC. She started her own podcast, appeared as a guest on other people's, and even attended CrimeCon, the weekend-long event for true crime fans, as well as those desperate for leads. She left no stone unturned in her search for justice but unfortunately she had no luck in the search for her missing sister. Then in Sarah's desperation she turned to TikTok. Sarah later said that she started a TikTok account because she wanted to

reach a young audience that hadn't heard about Alyssa's case before. She made sure her video posts included as little of her own speculation and theory as possible, making sure to present only the facts to her new audience. However, she did make it clear that one particular line of inquiry had been almost completely neglected. Her father, Michael Turney, who adopted Alyssa after her mother had died, had never been considered a serious suspect. After announcing she created a TikTok page dedicated to spreading awareness about Alyssa, she also included a word or two about the people who'd had less than positive things to say about it. She made very clear that no matter what anyone said about TikTok or any

other medium, if it helped her get closer to answers surrounding Alyssa's disappearance, it would all be worth it. It was all part of her doing the right thing and fighting for justice. To her astonishment, Sarah quickly gained over a million followers on the video app, with each new video post giving her more and more of an audience. In one particular video, Sarah gives a full and frank account of the day her older sister disappeared. At the time, both girls were living with her father, Michael, since their mother, Barbara, had died of cancer. It was her last day of junior year at Paradise Valley High School in Phoenix, Arizona. Sarah, who was 12 years old at the time, says she found

her sister's usually neat, tidy bedroom looking like it had been struck by a bomb. It was a total mess. The only sign of Alyssa was her Nokia cell phone that was left on the dresser, along with a note saying she'd gone to California to try to make it on her own. In another video, she talked about why exactly she had such a strong hunch that her father was to blame. And needless to say, Michael Turney was much more of a dark personality than he liked to let on. Because seven years after Alyssa first went missing, Phoenix Police Department made a rather worrying discovery of Michael's home whilst on a completely separate investigation. A stash of 26 homemade pipe bombs, three incendiary devices, and two silencers. After he had such volatile equipment confiscated, Michael allowed himself to be

interviewed by ABC News. During the interview, he told journalists that he had been planning to take his own life in order to bring attention to Alyssa's case, but added that the bombs found in his home had actually been planted there by police officers attempting to frame him for his daughter's disappearance, which he denied having anything to do with. They have no proof whatsoever of anything other than rumors, innuendos, and lies. There's only two people that can confirm whether I did it, and one is me, and the other is Alyssa. Alyssa's not here, and I'm sitting here, and all I can say until hell freezes over, I didn't do a thing to my daughter. In March of 2010, Michael pleaded guilty to possession of the unregistered pipe bombs,

and was sentenced to seven years in prison for owning the explosives and all the silencers. Since April of last year, Sarah has been uploading TikToks about her father's alleged role in Alyssa's disappearance. In one particular video that has accrued over 13 million views, she shared home VHS footage from March 29th, 1997, four years before Alyssa went missing. In another TikTok, Sarah plays what she claims is a recorded conversation she had with her father a few months after he got out of prison in 2017. The meeting took place at a Starbucks and lasted for over an hour. I felt a lot of different emotions afterwards, Sarah says. I was sad that he still refused to give me any answers. I was hoping that putting those statements on TikTok would prompt the police to finally bring him to a grand jury for questioning. In February of 2019, the case was formally submitted to the county attorney's office requesting homicide charges to be made against Michael,

but there was no telling if it would actually be taken seriously or not. It would take another six months for the attorney to make a decision. Until then, all anyone could do was wait. Then, to the shock of almost everyone involved in the case, Michael Turney was indicted on charges of murdering his own daughter. Maricopa County Attorney Alistair Adele did not elaborate on what exact evidence led to Mr. Turney's arrest, but did confirm that the indictment was issued by a grand jury. She also credited Sarah Turney and her TikToks with having helped solve the case.

Sarah Turney, your perseverance and commitment to finding justice for your sister Alyssa is a testament to the love of a sister, and because of that love, Alyssa's light has never gone out, and she lives on in the stories and photos you've shared with the community, Adele said. This passion you have, you have demonstrated to her during your journey, is something that will keep Alyssa's memory alive, forever. Sarah had said she will continue to make TikTok videos about Alyssa's case until her killer is brought to justice and whether or not that killer is her own father remains to be seen. Every evening after work, she scans all of her social media accounts on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, plus her blog to see whether anyone has come forward with new information or

tips. Then she sits down with the thousands of documents she's acquired that relate to Alyssa's case. I read through approximately 3,000 pages of case documents that were released to the public by the police and gone through a few hundred hours of home footage, video, and interviews that I've conducted with Alyssa's friends and family, she says. And no, I won't ever stop. Sarah and Alyssa's story is truly inspirational. A search for justice fueled by the love between two sisters is a reminder that those close to us will never stop fighting in our corner, even after we're long gone. But it's also a reminder that sometimes,

is that those close to us can also be the ones 1144, the dead body of a young man was discovered in Thorpewood, just outside the city of Norwich in the southeast of England. As the story goes, the poor boy's corpse lay there undisturbed throughout the Easter weekend. After he was discovered, a handful of local townsfolk ventured out to bury him at the same spot he was found, but not before the boy was identified as a 12-year-old boy named William, son of two nearby villagers. Despite there being very little in the way of clues to identify the boy's killer, his parents evidently had their mind made up concerned who was to blame.

They were extremely vocal in their wrongly held belief that it was actually a group of local Jewish people that were responsible for their son's death. Given that William was employed as an apprentice tanner, he had occasionally been in contact with some Jewish members of the community, but his family had become enraged at the idea of him working alongside people of a different religion or background. William's family were local Anglo-Saxons, several of whom were married priests following local tradition, and they subsequently demanded that he immediately cease his business dealing with the Jews. And as bizarre as it sounds, the entire belief that local Jewish people were to blame seems to be based solely on a nightmare which William's aunt

had. In this nightmare, the aunt said the Jews had attacked her on a quiet road before tearing one of her legs off to take home for supper. Denizens of Norwich confronted the Jewish community as a result, demanding that the local theological courts subject a select few of what was known as a trial by ordeal. This was an archaic judicial practice in which the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by subjecting them to a dangerous and painful experience. It was a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on his behalf, or abstain so that the guilty person died during the ordeal, or at least suffered greatly. An example would be that the accused would walk a certain distance or number of paces while holding a red

hot piece of iron. When the trial was over, if there was no wound to be found or it began to heal properly, the person was obviously innocent. However, if the burn was particularly bad or if the wound festered, the person was deemed guilty and then put to death. Yet all credit is due to the local sheriff, who refused to prosecute anyone based on something as frivolous as a dream, and was quick to remind the local townsfolk that, since the accused were Jewish, that the local Christian courts had no authority over them. Yet such vicious rumors, exacerbated by a prevailing and insidious anti-Semitism, meant that the local Jewish

community had to take refuge in the Lord's Castle for fear of their neighbor's reprisals. Six years later, in 1150, a priest named Thomas of Monmouth arrived in Norwich and became obsessed with the story of William's murder. He took it upon himself to act as a kind of amateur detective, scouring the area for clues and interviewing witnesses who claimed to have witnessed the boy's grisly fate. One particular witness swore that he had seen William being taken into the home of a prominent member of the Jewish community. Then, while spying on the family through a hole in the wall, the witness claimed that the boy's kidnappers had taken part in a gruesome, torturous reenactment of Christ's crucifixion, using William as a kind of mock Jesus, cruelly taunting the boy as they nailed him to a wooden cross.

The dubious eyewitness also claimed that once William had succumbed to his wounds, that the Jews had unceremoniously dumped his body in some nearby woodland. Having gathered multiple, supposedly truthful accounts, Thomas wrote the following, Having shaved his head, they stabbed it with countless thorn points and made the blood come horribly from the wounds they made. Some of those present had judged him to be fixed to a cross and mockery of the Lord's passion. Given the obvious dubiousness of such an accusation, yet the willingness of the locals to believe it, historians have speculated that the event marked the beginning of a far-reaching

and long-lasting conspiracy known as blood libel. Blood libels typically claim that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos, which they eat during Passover, although this element was allegedly absent in the earliest cases, which claimed that then-contemporary Jews re-enacted the crucifixion. The accusations often assert that the blood of the children of Christians is especially coveted, and historically, blood libel claims have been made in order to account for the otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victims of human sacrifice have become venerated as Christian martyrs, and one of these is none other than our very own William of Norwich, the apprentice tanner.

But what would possess a man of the church to traffic in such vicious lies? Well firstly, there's a good chance that Thomas of Monmouth adopted the anti-Semitism of his new neighbors in order to ingratiate himself It's also clear that Thomas would have had a lot to gain if the boy's death could be venerated as martyrdom As it would make Norwich a destination for England's many religious pilgrims With the First Crusade having occurred only 40 years prior, and the Second Crusade only a few years from the beginning, religious pilgrims were most definitely in vogue at the time. Wealthy pilgrims would swell the coffers of Norwich Cathedral and increase the prestige of those that served there,

which obviously included Thomas. Over the course of the next twenty years or so, Thomas of Monmouth would write The Life and Passion of St. William, the Martyr of Norwich, an extremely dubious work that was essentially a compilation of lies and baseless accusations. One of these accusations consisted of Thomas' claims that the local sheriff was bribed by the Jews to protect them. Thomas repeatedly invokes God as a source of protection for the people against the corrupt Norman sheriffs, claiming that the sheriff who protected the Jews was subsequently punished with internal bleeding.

Thomas also wrote that he spoke to a formerly Jewish convert to Christianity named Theobald of Cambridge, who apparently told Thomas that there was a written prophecy which stated that the Jews would regain control of Israel if they sacrificed a Christian child each year. Every year, according to Theobald, Jewish leaders met in Narbonne to decide who would be asked to perform the sacrifice. In 1144, the Jews of Norwich were assigned the task. Yet despite the book being so full of outright lies and conspiracy theories, what's interesting to note is that the book does actually contain enough information for us to draw our own more accurate conclusions as to what actually happened to him. For example, Thomas of Monmouth seems to have completely ignored the fact

that William was last seen in the company of a man claiming to be the archbishop's cook. This mysterious man personally went to William's mother to ask her permission to employ the young man. This man was never found, and this important detail of the potential suspect was simply weaved into the narrative of anti-Semitism that festered in Thomas' writing. Could this have been William's killer, or was there some other individual or group that was to blame? Despite the fact that the life and passion of St. William the Martyr of Norwich seems to assert that the young man was crucified, it details a catalogue of wounds that make it clear that there was no way William was actually crucified. You see, when it was found, parts of William's corpse were burned and blistered, suggesting that he had been tortured by someone pouring boiling water on him.

What's more, a small spiny comb known as a teasel had been forced into his mouth, an act not unlike one a modern day serial killer might commit. William's body showed many other signs of being tortured, including a thorn having been found embedded in his scalp. It's not clear whether or not that was actually the case, since the observation appears to have been made a long while after he was killed. But it's certain that this would have conjured images of Christ's crown of thorns, only further fueling the idea that William's murder was somehow prompted by religious bigotry. Yet there would have been plenty of time and motivation to fabricate, fake, or add such a detail post-mortem, making it impossible to determine the whole truth.

Point being, for a person that was supposedly crucified, William's corpse showed very little sign of that actually being the case. Aside from the obvious suspect, that of his newfound employer, there is another considerably more horrifying theory that centers around another group of suspects, that of Thomas' own family. We've already covered the fact that Thomas' family was furious at the prospect of him working with the local Jewish community. Could another meeting with them have pushed them over the edge? The idea of William's death being accidental has been flirted with by a handful of historians, and this includes the theory that his murder was simply a punishment beating that went too far.

By that line of thinking, his parents then dumped the body in the woods, then waited for it to be discovered so they could scapegoat the Jewish community. If they were indeed the killers, the plan worked perfectly, as there was absolutely no suspicion of them being the culprits at the time. At least, if Thomas of Monmouth's work is to be believed. What makes William of Norwich's murder as terrifying as it is fascinating is that not only does the murder of one young boy reveal so much about the attitudes and culture of 12th century England, it also shows us just how ignorant and evil people can be. It shows us how quick we are to harass and scapegoat our fellow man, how we blame them for our own shortcomings.

The culture of anti-Semitism in England was so strong at the time that it completely derailed any proper investigation of a young boy's brutal Easter weekend murder and allowed a cold-blooded killer to escape justice. It all started with a mountain biking session back in early March of 2010. Where I live in the UK, mountain biking season generally kicks off whenever the frost finally thaws out. Harder, colder ground tends to mean more traction, but it brings a host of other problems, one of which is getting some pretty horrific injuries if you're unlucky enough to bail. Get injured in spring and there's a chance you'll miss out on some pretty dope summer excursions so it's best to play it safe and wait for weather to soften a little before you attempt any of the gnarlier trails. So cut to March of 2010, it had been one of the coldest winters in living memory, and neither myself nor my best

friend turned flatmate had been out biking in months. By the time spring hits, we're so desperate to get out there again that we're just about sweating bullets and pretty much as soon as the temperature hits double digits again, we're planning on our first proper ride of the year. Then before you know it, we're loading our gear and some lunch into the boot of his car and driving about 15 miles out of town to this massive forest that has the best mountain biking trails in the northeast. Everything went fine for the first few hours and it felt incredible to be back biking again. But then something happened that changed my friend forever, to the point where my memory of it, of who he was, seems little more than a ghost now. I'd rather not give his real name out so

we'll just call him Andy. Andy was coming down this massive slope when his front wheel must have hit something that it just couldn't handle. I've never seen anyone come off like that before, like it just flipped his bike and landed him almost squarely on his head. I felt the impact just watching it, like he'd smashed his helmet so badly that the plastic was all cracked up on the top and for a good few minutes he was knocked out cold. I think that was one of the most traumatic and terrifying days of my life, trying to direct an ambulance crew onto our position when I barely had an idea where exactly we were almost drove me to tears. I thought my best friend

in the world was going to die because I was too bloody scared and stupid to be able to think properly. Just thank god that they're trained for that kind of thing as not every medical emergency happens somewhere with a postcode and within about 45 minutes of me calling 999, Andy was on a stretcher and being carried to a waiting ambulance. Oh, but let me tell you, that 45 minutes felt like hours at the time. In the immediate aftermath, people described Andy's recovery as a miracle but that's the last word I'd use in retrospect. Too many connotations and reminders of the horror yet to come. In short, Andy should have broken his neck. In failing that, he should have at least had enough head trauma to put him

into a vegetative state. Somehow, whether by luck or the quality of his helmet, he dodged the worst effects, but the doctors still told us to monitor his behavior over the following months and to inform them of anything unusual. The first sign that something was off was how Andy explained his survival. While the rest of us were marveling at the quality of the helmet, how tough Andy was, or how lucky, he'd already made up his mind that the thing that saved him was God. So Andy, who never in a day of his life had been remotely pious in any way, had suddenly decided to take up religion. And not just casually, either. He'd once mentioned something about his grandpa being in the Church of England But for some reason Andy opted for hardcore Catholicism

Like he stopped staying up late on Saturday nights with me Citing his need to attend morning mass He cut out meat on Fridays He even had a go at me at one point for saying Jesus Christ this is good curry Saying if I was going to take the Lord's name in vain like that, to at least not do it around him. I wouldn't take that from anyone else honestly, but Andy had walked away from a crash that really should have killed him. If religion was his way of dealing with the trauma or whatever, then so be it. But Andy's behavior went from being righteous,

if a little bit annoying, to full on bizarre after a while. He insisted on making up for missed time during Lent by completely abstaining from food or water during daylight hours. When I told him he could just give up chocolate or something, he seemed to take it really personally, like I was doubting he could actually fast like that for a prolonged period. And with that in mind, he set out to prove us all wrong. By the end of week one, he actually looked pretty good. He was leaner, seemed a bit more alert, and was actually fun to be around at mealtimes because he got so bloody excited about food.

But by the end of week two, he looked awful. He actually started pushing himself to see how long he could go without eating or drinking anything, But by the end of week two, he looked awful. He'd actually started pushing himself to see how long he could go without eating or drinking anything. And as you can imagine, that was starting to take a serious toll on his physical and mental health. I know this is bad of me, but for a while I just left him to it and so did everyone else. I don't think a single person reported his behavior to any of his doctors, mainly because people assumed it was his way of processing the accident. I only really started to worry by week three when he stopped coming out of his bedroom almost completely. He looked like boiled poo by then and you could see his ribcage whenever he raised his arms above his head. I tried to confront Andy about it and he actually seemed weirdly self-aware.

He told me he knew he was taking things a bit far. But it was only a few more days until Easter and then everything would be back to normal again. We could smash a Nando on the Sunday or something. Maybe even get a bike ride in if the weather was good enough. It was a weight off my mind. He seemed lucid again and I honestly couldn't wait until that Sunday so I could finally have my friend back. So cut to Sunday, the 4th of April, 2010. I'd been on the Jäger the previous night with a few work friends so I was absolutely hanging out of my butt when I woke up around lunchtime and the only thought that got me out of bed was the idea of having a massive hangover

munch with Andy who had promised to be eating properly by then. I get up, have a cup of tea, then notice that the flat seems really quiet. I call out Andy's name but got no reply and I remember thinking he probably rushed out to eat his own body weight and burger meat since his fast was finally over. I shrugged it off, thinking like good for him or something then walked back towards my room with coffee in hand. Only right as I'm walking back past Andy's room, I hear like a thumping noise coming from inside his room, one that was followed up with some kind of growl. I stop dead in my tracks, look towards his door and call out his name again. Only this time I actually know there's someone in his room and I just want to find out why he won't reply.

I knock on his door, calling his name for the third time in about as many minutes but still he won't reply. I knock on his door, calling his name for the third time in about as many minutes, but still he won't answer. Something in my gut just told me to open the door and check on him. If it turned out he was getting steamy with Madame Palm and her five lovely daughters, it'd be a wee bit embarrassing, but at least I'd know that he was okay. But as it turns out, he most decidedly was not okay. When I opened the door, the room was barely lit, with the curtains drawn and the only light coming from a few candles that Andy had placed around the room. I knew he'd been in the process of getting rid of all of his unneeded possessions, but it wasn't until then that I really realized how seriously he'd taken the whole minimalism thing. I had an idea that a devotion to God would be anything but creepy, but that's exactly what Andy's room looked like.

Sparse, gloomy, with enough pages of scripture taped to the walls to really give you that authentic, I'm losing my freaking mind in here look. But the thing that had me running from the room to call Andy his second ambulance in the space of a month was that he was doing this weird thing with his left hand. Andy had somehow managed to get his hand on a large 10 inch long piece of metal, then sharpened off one end into a point. He was then using the sharp end of the metal bolt to puncture the flesh of his palm and he appeared to be in the process of trying to shove the entire thing into or through his hand. I only caught a brief glimpse of the wound but it almost knocked me sick and I still remember the drip, drip, drip

sound of the blood dripping off his desk because I bailed out of the room in the direction of my phone. It probably took me longer than it should have to work out what he was doing. It was stigmata, self-inflicted stigmata anyways. Andy's attempt to replicate the wounds that Jesus received during his crucifixion. What came next was messy to say the least. Because of the whole self-harm element of the 999 call, it was the police that showed up first to make sure he was fit to go to the hospital. What started out as a police request to have a chat with him ended in the police basically dragging Andy to the ambulance, having been deemed a danger to himself and others. To this day, I don't think Andy would have actually hurt me or anyone else for that matter.

It was incredibly distressing to watch, but having him taken away for what ended up being a full psychiatric evaluation was probably the best thing for him. Andy lives in a group home now, and he's never forgiven me for calling emergency service that day, so we don't really talk anymore. I get updates from his family every now and then, and I've heard he's actually been doing pretty well these days. He's on a shed load of medication, but he doesn't fixate as badly on things and he doesn't have that manic impulsiveness about him anymore. It's just so crazy to me that a head injury can have such a bizarre and terrifying effect on someone's thought processes. Like Andy isn't even really Andy anymore, not since the accident. He's Andy in name only. And the person inside, the person that wears Dutch ship sailing 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile unexpectedly sighted land. Admiral Jakob Rokhavin pulled out his telescope,

scanning the island for signs of habitation, and was astounded by what he saw. The coastline was lined with multitudes of huge, jet-black statues, large heads featuring broad noses, jutting chins, and deep-set slits for eyes rest on standing or squatting torsos. Expressions on the stoned faces are solemn, as if the statues are watching over the land or waiting for something. There exists in the midst of the great ocean, in a region where nobody goes, a mysterious and isolated island,

wrote the French seafarer and artist Pierre Loti. The island is planted with monstrous great statues, the work of I don't know what race, today degenerate or vanished, its great remains an enigma. Given the date of the discovery, Rojovin named the island Pash Eiland, meaning Easter Island in the Dutch language of the 18th century, but the current Polynesian's name of the island is Rapa Nui. Most scholars accept that these so-called Easter Island statues, or moai, were carved by the descendants of Polynesian voyagers who first settled the island during

the beginning of the 13th century. A grand total of 887 of the mysterious carved figures have been discovered, ranging in height from 4 to 33 feet, with their discovery having baffled scientists for hundreds of years. It's well established that the Moai are carved from stone called tuff, an easily workable compacted volcanic ash, and that primitive stone tools were used to create the faces and designs of the statues. It's also commonly accepted that most of the figures were carved in a quarry located in an extinct volcano on the northeastern part of the island. Yet without animals to pull heavy loads or wheels to move stone or wooden platforms, how did the people of Easter Island transport the giant carvings, some of which weigh more than 80 tons, to their resting place in some cases more than 11 miles from the quarry. It's a question that captured the public's imagination, and one with some pretty unnerving implications. Some theorists have proposed the islanders dragged the statues across the island using long lengths of hemp woven rope,

while others believe that they were rolled on the trunk of fallen palm trees. Back in 2012, a team of archaeologists and anthropologists from the University of Hawaii and the California State University conducted an experiment in which they walked a five-ton replica moai on a dirt road in Hawaii using only ropes and manpower. People holding ropes attached to the forehead of the fox moai stood on opposite sides of the road and rocked the statue forward and back, inching it down the path. A third group of movers positioned behind the moai used a rope to keep the statue leaning a bit forward without falling. But given the logistical planning, as well as the engineering

skill required for such a feat to be performed, it's not certain if this is the method used by our ancient ancestors. Others offer a completely different explanation. Surituki introduces himself as a descendant of the island's first king, Hatu Matua, who brought the original settlers from an island named Hiva. He claimed his grandmother was the island's last queen. The experts can say whatever they want, Suri says, but we know the truth. The statues walked, with the help of a chief or priest who had mana or supernatural power. According to Rapa Nui religious beliefs, a spiritual force animated the Moai. Surprisingly, Tuki's proclamation may actually be the answer scientists have been searching for all

these years. Ancient alien prominent Erich von Donnachan even speculates that the Moai were built and erected by extraterrestrials. But supernatural theories aside, the island of Rapa Nui most definitely signs that those who worshipped the statues were stricken with some kind of sudden insanity. Some scholars have speculated that when the islanders ran out of resources, they threw their idols down and started killing each other. Archaeologists point to a layer of subsoil with many obsidian spear points as a sign of sudden warfare, and have studied the bones of some 600 individuals from the island, finding numerous signs of trauma, such as blows to the face and head. Islanders say that there was probably

cannibalism, as well as carnage, and seem to think no less of their ancestors because of it. But whether or not this is some kind of premeditated extra-tribal warfare or influenced by the malevolent spirits that use the Moai statues as a kind of spiritual anchor is impossible to determine. What happened to the people of Rapa Nui, as well as the origin of their humanoid monoliths, is yet another unsolved mystery confined to the pages of history. In the year 2001, movie theaters across the country were terrified by the demonic evil of the antagonists and Jeepers Creepers. The movie is the story of a brother-sister duo whose road trip is turned into a living nightmare by an immortal creature who hungers for their body parts. It's certainly a fantastical tale, but you may be surprised to learn that one of the movie's most terrifying scenes is actually very much based on reality. More than a decade prior to the release of the film, a woman named Marilyn Depew

was reported missing on Easter Sunday of 1990. Marilyn's neighbors strongly suspected that her husband Dennis was responsible for the disappearance, as it was common knowledge around the neighborhood that the Depews had something of a rocky marriage. Many gossiped that Dennis had violently snapped when Marilyn finally professed a desire to end what had been a miserable marriage. The reality wasn't far off. After severely beating her in front of their three children, Dennis DePue lied to them, telling them that he was going to take their mother to the hospital. Instead, Dennis drove the dazed and bloodied Marilyn out into the woods and shot her in the back of the head

Since he was on some pretty isolated Michigan back roads while he was dumping his wife's body Dennis DePue assumed that he would be undisturbed It was rare to find any vehicle at all driving down that stretch of road But as fortune would have it, a married couple by the name of Ray and Marie Thornton were headed Dennis' way. They slowed as they saw an abandoned schoolhouse at the roadside, just in time to catch a glimpse of Dennis Depew, holding a horribly familiar shape wrapped in a bloody off-white sheet. Horrified by what they'd seen, the couple raced down the dirt road only to find that a man who had evidently killed once before was now pursuing them at breakneck speed.

The ensuing car chase between Dennis and the Thornton couple will seem eerily familiar to anyone who has watched Jeepers Creepers since this confrontation is essentially reenacted during the first portion of the movie. Even the build-up to the horrifying discovery is almost identical as, much like the movie's protagonist, the Thorntons also happen to be playing the license plate game. Although director Victor Salva never cited the Depew murder as inspiration, it's rather hard to imagine that he wasn't influenced by it in some way. After failing to catch up with the Thorntons, Dennis Pugh then hid the truck he'd used to chase them, and for a good long while, there was no concrete leads on who killed the woman whose body was found behind that old abandoned church. Then one night, many

months later, Dennis sat down to watch an episode of Unsolved Mysteries to find that the focus of that night's feature sounded strangely familiar. The show's narrator detailed a murder that had taken place in rural Michigan, and it also featured the testimony of a young married couple who had been chased down a stretch of highway after having witnessed the disposal of a corpse. The realization hit Dennis like a ton of bricks. They were talking about him and his wife, and by that point he was officially the case's primary suspect. He panicked, jumped into his new truck, and fled to the safety of a hideout in Texas, where he lived for 11 months under an assumed name. But after Hank Queen was discovered to be none other than Dennis Depew, and members of the public contacted

law enforcement. It was Dennis' turn to be chased down a lonely stretch of highway, but this time, it was the police that were in hot pursuit. The lengthy chase ended in the state of Mississippi, where Dennis got out of his vehicle, put a pistol to his temple, and pulled the trigger. The footage from the episode of Unsolved Mysteries, the one that sent Dennis into a blind panic, can be found online, and it's fascinating to notice the obvious similarities between the movie and the real world events. Yet something about the inclusion of an ancient demonic evil seems to take the sting out of the depicted events. We can watch a movie like Jeepers Creepers,

then sleep soundly in our beds, safe in the apparent knowledge that it was only a movie. But the fact is, it isn't just a movie. For a good chunk of the film, the events are an exact recreation of a real-life event that almost ended in the brutal murders of a young Michigan couple by an unrepentant, bloodthirsty monster. A man who poses a much more tangible threat than any make-believe movie monster. For most Christians, Easter generally falls on a date in late March or early April. But for the Orthodox branch of the Christian church, Easter can be as late as early May. So on May 1st, 2016, when members of the New York Fire Department responded to a four-alarm fire at Broadway and West 25th Street, it was

Orthodox Easter, which makes it all the more significant that the building on fire was the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava. The structure was built in the 1850s by local Episcopalians and christened the Trinity Chapel. But in the 1930s, the church was bought up by the Serbian Orthodox Church before being swiftly renamed. It's a building of such historic significance that it was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It took firefighters nearly two hours to stem the blaze, but by that time, the ornate interior of the building had been completely devastated. Priceless hand-carved oak icons were completely scorched, and the fire had destroyed the church's beautiful stained glass windows. Following an investigation into theched and the fire had destroyed the church's beautiful stained glass

windows. Following an investigation into the cause of the fire, the New York Police Department released a public statement saying that the cause of the fire was down to poor fire safety. Analysis of the scene showed that the blaze had started because of an improperly extinguished candle left unattended following the Easter service. The fire was a huge blow to New York's Orthodox Christian community, and a piece of the city's history had been burned from existence. But what's so disconcerting about the incident is that it was no isolated occurrence, because on the very same day, in the Sydney suburb of Rockdale, Australia, the Macedonian Orthodox Church of the Resurrection was completely torched in a freak fire.

The blaze was an extremely volatile one, and five of the firefighters who attempted to save the 19th century structure were hospitalized due to falling masonry. Only the brick doorframe and stone sections of the outer walls survived, and police were completely baffled as to how the fire was started. But that wasn't the only Orthodox church in Australia to catch fire during that day. Just hours later, firefighters in East Melbourne responded to a call at the 115-year-old church, the Holy Annunciation of Our Lady, one of the oldest Greek Orthodox places of worship in the entire country. The fire department acted quickly and diligently, putting out the fire in just 30 minutes, and as a result there was relatively minor damage.

But over the several months that followed the fire, investigators were unable to determine its cause. The conventional media had been pretty quiet about the fires and police have been reluctant to speculate on any links between them. But that hasn't stopped members of the Orthodox Church in both Australia and America demanding that the causes and potential connections be properly investigated. The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church even personally got in touch with the FBI, suggesting that some kind of conspiracy was afoot. It's entirely possible that three Orthodox churches simply had electrical issues or unattended candles that led to destructive fires, and that no one is really to blame. But what are the odds of all these fires occurring within 24 hours of each other on one of the church's holiest days? And if the fires actually were deliberate arson attacks, then we're left with some pretty scary implications.

Who would target the Orthodox Church of all things, and why would fire be the weapon of choice? What kind of unholy, shadowy organization could operate completely undetected in three cities across two continents? Hopefully the whole thing is just a horrible coincidence, a bizarre string of events that bear no greater significance, because the alternative might well be too terrifying to comprehend. To say that James Rupert's upbringing was rough would be quite the understatement. Born on April 12th of 1934, his mother Charity had told him from a very early age that she would have preferred having a daughter as her second child, giving him the distinct impression that he was unwanted. Leonard, his father, treated him no better. The family was frequently terrorized by a man whose lack of patience gave way to a violent temper,

and he showed his two children very little affection. Yet neither would be given the chance to reconcile as Leonard died in 1947 when James was just 12 years old. After his father's death, James' older brother Leonard Jr. became the family patriarch, and to his younger brother's horror, Jr. mimicked his late father's cruel and mocking behavior, often taunting James for being, as he put it, a weakling. By the time he was a young adult, James' awful home life meant that he already had one failed attempt at taking his own life under his belt. He stood at a meager 5'5", weighed just 135 pounds, and was described as a modest, bookish, and helpful young man who was unremarkable and quiet. As a result for his shy demeanor, James never once got into any trouble

with the law and lived most of his life as a law-abiding citizen. But by 1975, the fraternal love James felt towards his brother was wearing thin, and the envy he felt over Leonard Jr.'s successful career and loving family was beginning to boil over. James had dropped out of college after only two years and by the time 1975 came around, he was unemployed, unmarried, and was still living at home with his mother. On the other hand, Leonard Jr. had earned himself a degree in electrical engineering, owned his own home in Fairfield, Ohio and had eight children. But what's more, the woman that Junior had married was none other than James' own ex-girlfriend, Alma. At first, James simply took this in stride, but then again, Junior was fond of reminding him of it, how she had been right not

to marry a weakling such as he. On top of that, James' relationship with his mother didn't seem to have improved over the years. Charity was sick and tired of James' apparent inability to hold a steady job and blasted him for having to self-medicate with alcohol, telling him he was unable to pay the rent, then she'd kick him out onto the street just like any other tenant. Obviously, living through such an unbearable situation took a terrible toll on James' mental health, and by the mid-70s he found himself battling a deep and unshakable depression as he got closer and closer to the breaking point. He seemed deeply vexed and even mentioned how troubled he was to a 28-year-old waitress named Wanda Bishop.

The mother of five would later state how, during one of her shifts at the 19th Hole Cocktail Lounge, James had told her of his growing frustrations with his mother's demands on him, of his impending eviction, and how he desperately needed to solve both problems. James stayed at the bar until it closed at 2.30am on Easter Sunday. But by that time, he didn't need to do any more thinking. He had decided on a permanent solution to his woes. Around noon on Easter Sunday of 1975, Leonard Jr. packed his wife and eight children into his car and drove over to their grandparents' house. When they arrived, James was still upstairs in his bedroom, sleeping off a hangover after his long night of drinking, and was only roused by the sounds of children hunting Easter eggs on the front lawn.

He groggily put on some pants and a bathrobe and went downstairs to greet his family for what would turn out to be the final time. It was just before 4pm when James walked into the family kitchen. His mother was preparing dinner with the aid of both Leonard Jr. and his wife Alma while the children played in the TV room. Leonard detected his brother's presence before he'd even turned to look at him and made some derisive comment about having slept all afternoon. But when Leonard finally did set eyes on his brother, what he saw made him freeze up in horror. Leonard stood there, eyes bloodshot, hair a mess, pointing a loaded.357 Magnum at his terrified brother. It was the last thing he would ever see. With the barrel aimed squarely at his

brother's face, James pulled the revolver's trigger, sending a chunk of lead smashing into Leonard's skull at supersonic speed. His head just about exploded, sending a spray of carbon soup all over his nearby wife. She tried to scream, but James shot her in the head before the sound could ever escape her throat. Her mother simply watched. Immobilized with fears, James then turned the gun on her, too. Alarmed at the loud noises coming from the kitchen, three of James' nephews and nieces came running to the kitchen to see what was going on. The hellish scene that greeted 11-year-old David, 9-year-old Teresa, and 13-year-old Carol was enough to send them into a frenzy of terrified screams. Screams which James didn't

hesitate in silencing with shots from his.357. James then walked into the TV room where the execution style of killing devolved into something considerably more frenzied and fear-soaked. One child was shot in the chest, but the remaining children were shot as many as three times each, evidence that they had attempted to flee as James emptied his chambers, reloaded, then continued firing on his own young family members. Within five minutes of James waking up and walking downstairs, his entire immediate family was dead by his own hand. He then called the police to tell them what he'd done, sat down on the couch, and simply waited for the authorities to arrive.

The shocking brutality of the killings rocked the small town in which they occurred. Many who were familiar with James Rupert thought him to be incapable of such violent acts and didn't even know that he owned a gun. People were stunned to hear of the hateful tensions that simmered underneath the surface, as by all accounts, the Rupert family were considered a perfectly pleasant and well-adjusted bunch. The very same day he was arrested, James was charged with 11 counts of aggravated homicide. Yet in sharp contrast to his initial cooperation, he refused to participate in any kind of interview. One of the few things James actually

said to the arresting officers was that he intended to plead insanity and would escape any kind of punishment since no jury in the land would find him guilty of murder once they'd heard his story. But the only story that grabbed anyone's attention was the horrific level of violence at the crime scene. County Prosecutor John Holcomb stated that there was so much blood on the first floor of Rupert's home that it was dripping through the floorboards and into the basement. Just over a year later, the house was opened to the public and all of its contents were auctioned off. It was then cleaned, recarpeted, and rented to a family new to the area whose members were unaware of the murders that had taken place there. Other families had moved in and out and the house was frequently occupied but some complained that there were still bloodstains in the wooden floorboard of the TV room. One family even vacated the house entirely, claiming that they were hearing voices and other explained noises.

At his trial, a jury found James Rupert guilty on all 11 counts of murder and sentenced him to 11 consecutive life sentences. Just as he'd promised, James appealed on the grounds that he was insane and in 1982, defense attorney Hugh D. Holbrook personally funded the hiring of expert psychiatrists and psychologists from all over the country in a bid to prove his client was unfit to stand trial. But thankfully, a judge saw through the act, James was ruled sane, and the life sentences upheld. Rupert remains incarcerated in the Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio, and has since been denied parole by the prison board. James' next hearing is set for February of 2025, when he will be 90 years old. By that point, James Rupert will have spent more of his life inside a cell than outside of one,

and it's doubtful that a 90-year-old man will be able to properly enjoy his final years of freedom. But then again, maybe that's a small measure of justice, since the man stole the life, love, and liberty of eight of his young relatives. James only narrowly avoided the death penalty for his crimes, so maybe it's only right that he die in prison, where child killers like him most definitely belong. For decades now, those huddled around their campfires on dark Virginia nights have shared a tale that has made their companions' blood run cold. It is the story of an escaped insane asylum patient, a man committed for the cold-blooded murder of his own family on Easter Sunday. Following his incarceration, he became obsessed with Easter-themed motifs, eggs, crucifixes, and most importantly, rabbits. Because following his freak escape from the psychiatric hospital he was interred at, our family killer escaped into the woods around

Colchester Overpass near Clifton, Virginia, where he found his only stable resource of food was rabbit meat. Over time, the escaped mental patient collected the skins of the rabbits he'd killed, somehow stitching them together in something that resembled a huge gore-stained rabbit costume. Anyone unlucky enough to stray into his patch of woods found themselves subjected to the terrifying ordeal of being chased through the trees by an axe-wielding, fursuited psychopath that soon came to be known as the Bunnyman. But despite the fact that the Bunnyman sounds like nothing but bone-chilling urban legend, the terrifying reality is there's much more truth to the story than we'd like to admit. Clifton wasn't always

the vibrant suburban sprawl that it is now. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was a small and humble farming community centered around the town's only railway station. But as Clifton grew and its population swelled, the residents became unhappy that they were so close to a state insane asylum. The solution was simple. The local government passed a measure to shut the asylum down, with the inmates being temporarily housed in the newly built Lorton Prison. However, during transport, one inmate managed to wrestle free from prison guards and escape into some nearby woodland. This prisoner's name was Douglas Griffin.

It's a matter of record that a man by that name was convicted of murdering his own parents with an axe on Easter morning when he was just 12 years old. At his hearing, young Douglas seemed manic and deranged, completely absorbed by the Easter imagery present in his home on the day he killed his own mother and father. A judge spared no time in committing him to an asylum and that's where he lived, for 20 long years, right up until the day of his escape. Federal marshals, local law enforcement, and a handful of volunteers

searched the woods near the site of Griffin's escape for months on end, using sniffer dogs, professional trackers, and even mounted patrols. But the only traces they found of him were the mutilated corpses of several half-eaten rabbits. By October of that year, Douglas Griffin was assumed dead, with law enforcement refusing to believe that he could have survived out in the woods for that long. But after three teenagers went missing, the search for them brought police officers right back to the very same area they'd been hunting Douglas Griffin in. Then one night, bloodhounds looking for the kids led officers to a small bridge with a rail line at the top and a road

running under the bridge. Hanging from the bridge were the missing teens, disemboweled like the rabbits in the woods. The teens had apparently been walking home and had stumbled across Griffin hiding under the bridge. Moments after making the gruesome discovery, police officers heard a maniacal laughter coming from above them, looking up to see a man in a rabbit's fur mask waving an axe above his head. Police then claimed that Griffin was hit by an oncoming train, although whether or not that's true or just an excuse for their failure to capture him, it's impossible to discern. But that didn't stop local newspapers from pumping out stories detailing the grisly deeds of the Bunnyman of Clifton. As far as I can tell, the Bunnyman legend appears to have started in the 1970s, but has its roots in unrelated real-life events.

On the night of October 8th, 1970, Air Force Cadet Robert Bennett and his fiancée were driving near Colchester Bridge when Robert spotted something in the middle of the road that had him slamming on his brakes to avoid hitting it. It was a man, and what appeared to be a full body grey suit, one that was completely with, as Robert put it, something that looked a lot like bunny ears. The couple simply stared at the figure, dumbstruck until they noticed the large hatchet in his hand, at which point they drove off again at high speed. Though neither Robert nor his fiancée were hurt,

they were shaken by the incident and couldn't provide a lot of details. But with his pale outfit and ear-like head covering, Benetton police initially speculated that the man was a member of the KKK. The mysterious figure was quickly dubbed the Bunny Man by local newspapers, and it wasn't long before there was a second sighting. Less than two weeks later, a construction site security guard making his rounds at a new housing development caught the Bunny Man using an axe to smash the roof supports of new houses being built. After the newspaper ran the story, the Bunny Man called the local authorities saying that

he was against the spread of new housing divisions into his woods. Based on his voice and eyewitness accounts, police determined the Bunny Man was a local teen upset with the new housing development. He told police that he would meet them at the Colchester Bridge on Halloween, but never showed and was never seen again. The events were reported in newspapers around the country, and teens from all over Virginia started to make their way to Colchester Bridge to look for the Bunny Man. Over 50 Bunny Man sightings were reported everywhere from Maryland to Washington, D.C., though not a single sighting could be corroborated. The supernatural elements of the Bunny Man story only came when locals connected the Bunny Man news reports to an unsolved murder of a local girl that happened in 1918. 14-year-old Eva Roy was found beaten to death and hung near Colchester Bridge, and the prime suspect was an escaped mental patient who

broke out of Lorton Prison, though he was eventually proved innocent of the crime. As years passed and the legend spread, teens near the bridge would go on bunny man hunts in the woods, especially near Halloween. It seems horrifying that such a ridiculous sounding story can have so many elements of truth to it. It just makes you wonder, how many other stories, myths, or legends that were so quick to dismiss as false are actually based on terrifying, real-life events. It was 2011 and I was fresh out of the Navy. I had decided to move back home to the family farm with my folks in Michigan until I could get established on my own. However, this was right after the market crash of 2008 and it took longer than anticipated to get back on my feet so I ended up living with them for a while longer than originally planned. And my mother had grown accustomed to having me around to help

with mowing the lawn, raking leaves and shoveling snow so she specifically asked me to stay and help and so I agreed. Unfortunately the farmhouse my parents, and had been in the family for generations, burned down, and so they moved into town and were renting. They found a nice house for a reasonable amount and signed a lease. I initially moved with them, but now that there was no more farm to take care of, I started looking for a new place to live. My mother again insisted on me staying with them, and after discussing it with my significant other, it was decided that I would stay with the folks in order to save up money for the future. After living in the same house for a few years, we found out that the owner had mortgaged the house to heaven and back and it was being foreclosed on.

Me and the folks found yet another house and lived there until the owner decided he wanted to retire from being a landlord and so sold it off, meaning no renewed lease and therefore they had to find a new place to live again. We ended up stuck in a little house in a bad neighborhood which had no front porch light. I was again considering leaving for a more stable living condition but at this point my long-term girlfriend had become my fiance and I really needed to save up money for our future wedding and so I stayed. Several things happened around that little house on the bad street that eventually scared my parents into buying a new house. Some of these events were just the result of living in a bad neighborhood. For example, there was a house down the street that the cops raided a few times

in the year we lived on that street because they were running a brothel out of the house. A church on the street got broken into and robbed more than once. A house got burned down by an arsonist. A woman was dragged out of her home by the sheriff after the homeowner reported her for lack of rental payments. A guy across the street was being arrested almost weekly for domestic violence. Another up the street got raided a couple of times for selling drugs. Another had all of his windows covered up with confederate flags and liked following people down the street, preaching all sorts of terrible things that were incredibly offensive that I can't even repeat here.

Just a lot of super messed up stuff and if he wasn't already charming enough, the guy eventually got arrested after trying to sell his own home bruise, moonshine, and meth to a bunch of kids. All sorts of other crazy drama on that street. But none of those things are really what convinced my parents to buy a new place and move. The following are those events. Shortly after moving into the new place, my parents to buy a new place and move. The following are those events. Shortly after moving into the new place, my parents went out to spend time with friends one night and I was at home talking with my fiancée over Skype as she was in Ireland at the time. It was a warm summer's evening in early September and the little house had no air

conditioning so I had the front door open to let air in through the screen door and my bedroom door opened so I wasn't roasting alive. From where I was sitting at my PC in my bedroom, I had a straight shot view out my bedroom door to the front door. As my fiancé and I talked, I heard what sounded like the latch to the front screen door. I looked toward the door but saw nothing. Assuming it was the wind rattling the screen door, I continued my conversation. Then I heard it again and I watched the door for a moment to see if I could see the branches of the trees or the leaves blowing and swaying in the wind. There was no wind so when I heard the latch jiggling a third time, I got up and went to investigate. And as I walked outside, there was a man walking

off the side of the front porch and away from the house. I called after him, asking if there was something he needed, but he ignored me completely. As this was happening, my parents were arriving home and saw the man crossing our driveway at an angle that made it obvious that he had been on our porch, with me standing on the porch calling after him. He walked into the neighbor's house and disappeared from sight. My dad turned to me and asked, what's happening? What did that guy want? I proceeded to tell him how I had kept hearing the latch on the screen door and when I attempted to investigate, I found this guy on our porch and bailing as quickly as possible. And when I asked what he needed he just ignored me and ran off.

My dad then walked over to the neighbors to ask about this odd behavior. He wouldn't come to the door at first but when he finally did he claimed he was just looking to bump some cigarettes. My dad handed him a few then asked why he hadn't just knocked and if he needed cigarettes why had he run when asked what he wanted. I should note here that my dad had accidentally left an almost full pack on his porch chair and it hadn't been bothered. So naturally we didn't believe him and instead of answering my dad's questions he just ran off into the house somewhere. My dad then found himself talking to an older couple and found out through the old couple that they owned the house next door and that the weird

guy was their son who'd just gotten out of prison for theft related crimes. He got caught about six weeks later breaking into another neighbor's house. The homeowner called the cops and he was found to have violated his parole and was sent back to jail. But that's not the end of the story. Shortly after the man next door tried to sneak into the house while I was still there, we started having an issue where someone had tried to get into the back door. We come home from grocery shopping or something and the back gate would be open and the screen door in the back door would be swinging in the breeze. This went for a while until one day we came home, found the back gate open again, and when we went to close the back screen door, there were tool marks on the door jamb, like someone had tried jimmying the back door. We found a small pry bar in the tall grass next

to the back porch, and we realized that the only reason to leave it there was as if the culprit had dropped it while running away as quickly as possible. Say for example if he needed to beat a hasty retreat over the back fence as the residents pulled up. At this point my dad had had enough of the guy who had been next door, whoever was trying to get in through the back door, and he had some concerns about the creepy and likely crazy neo-nazi down the street, and so he decided some cameras would be useful and started to price things. He ended up getting some trail cams that could be plugged in to recharge,

were motion activated as trail cams usually are, and could be easily mounted. He put one facing toward the back door where the camera could see through the window in the back door, and he mounted the other where it could see out the front door. These cameras were about to prove that they were worth it. We'd been in the place a few months now and it was early March and we had a snow overnight. I awoke to find 4 inches of the driveway so I shoveled the snow out of the driveway real quick before heading off to work. My dad woke up about an hour later and also left for work leaving my mother home alone. According to her sometime during mid-morning she was surprised by a knock at the door and when she answered it there was a man there, stocky, around 5-7 with a goatee

offering snow removal services. My mother looked at the driveway and found it devoid of snow. When she looked back at the guy he looked like he was trying to peer around her into the house. She shut him down, telling him that she clearly didn't need snow removal and closed the door on his face. As she did, she heard him kick the screen door as if though he was attempting to put his foot in the door, as he insisted that he could do snow removal for just a nominal fee. She ignored him and he eventually wandered off. She told me and my dad about it later, but there just wasn't much to the story. Some idiot offered snow removal to people who don't need it.

Not exactly the Amityville horror, so we kind of just brushed it off. A few weeks later in early April, my parents went on a cruise for my mother's birthday, leaving me alone in the house. I had been in the house alone for a few days when some guy showed up at around 8.30pm, pitch black night outside, saying he was from the gas company that provided our gas company with natural gas and he needed to come in and see our gas bills to make sure we were not being overcharged. I was immediately wary of the man as he matched the description my mother had given me about the snow removal guy a month earlier and it was 8.30pm.

The gas company closed at 5. It was possible people would be doing overtime but for three and a half hours after closing, going door to door in the cold Michigan spring, it seemed unlikely. He was wearing an ID on a lanyard around his neck but he kept his hands over the actual ID and he flashed it at me so fast that I couldn't really see it. To be honest, what I did see looked like the back of a Topps baseball card with the player's stats. Then he actually tried to push past me into the house but I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back while telling him no at the same time. He insisted that he was just making sure we weren't being cheated and then pointed to the only other house in the street with no front porch light and said that they'd just come over there and that they managed to cut over

10% off their gas bills. I cut him off and told him that not only was it late but it did not go over my head that his best and only example of his work was the only other poorly lit house with no front porch light. I found it very suspicious that he actually expected me to just show him private financial information on the gas bill nor did I believe the gas company would have people out so late. I told him he needed to leave and he responded by trying to push past me again, again telling me it was fine and that he was just there to help. I pushed him back again, more aggressively this time and almost pushed him backward off the porch firmly telling him no I wasn't going to him anything, and that he needed to leave. I told him that it was not okay that he'd repeatedly tried to enter the house without permission, nor was it

fine that he repeatedly demanded to see private financial information. Then I looked him in the eyes and as confidently as possible told him that this intrusion felt more to me like he was casing the house for burglary, and I would be calling the cops immediately after closing the door. Then I warned him that I was former military and that I had a firearm and if I saw him around my house again that I absolutely would shoot him. Now I'm not a psycho, I had no real want to shoot anybody but I needed him to know that I had the means, capability and willingness to defend myself in the home if necessary. He slowly walked off the porch as I closed the door, capability, and willingness to defend myself in the home if necessary. He slowly walked off the porch as I closed the door and he started down the street. I watched him through the windows walk right past all the well-lit houses of my neighbors.

As he walked away, it occurred to me that there should be some sort of company vehicle. If he really was from the gas company as he claimed there should be some sort of service truck or company car with a logo or rental tags, so I went out onto the front porch and looked up and down the street to find no one. There was neither. However, as I looked back toward him, he was signaling at someone who came from behind some bushes on a side street near the house, literally less than 10 yards away. The guy was taller and skinnier than his friend, like sickly and frail skinny, but somehow he still had an aura of danger about him. The first guy made me feel slightly uneasy, but this guy made me feel chilled to the core,

and he wore an oversized hooded sweater that in the darkness completely hid his facial features, giving him the look like the Grim Reaper. He kept pointing at the house and his body language kept getting more and more forceful. I could tell he wanted to come back to the house for whatever reason but the first guy didn't and I couldn't help but wonder what their plan was that the accomplice wanted so much to complete. What would have happened if I had actually let this guy into the house? At this point I followed through with my promise and pulled out my cell phone and called the police non-emergency line and reported him. I was on the phone with the officer taking my statement when the fake gas guy and his friend turned and started pointing at the house.

That's when they realized that I was still watching them from the porch and the first guy began to run off down the street however his accomplice just stood and looked in my direction as I spoke to the officer. I don't know how I know this as I couldn't see his face with that giant hood up in the dark of night but I could tell that he was staring at me and as I watched him I realized I couldn't look away from him. I felt like I had just entered a battle of wills and if I looked away, it would end badly for me, so I just stood there and watched him with chills dancing up and down my spine. After what felt like a small eternity, but what had to have been only several seconds of the staring contest, he looked away slowly and nonchalantly

made his way down the street to catch up with the fake gas guy. I realized I'd only been holding my breath and let out a long sigh. The officer was asking me if I was still in the line and it occurred to me that I had just dropped off mid-conversation with the person on the other end. My knees felt weak and I needed to sit down so I went inside and locked the door. The police promised to send a patrolman around to take a look for anything suspicious, and told me to call back if they came back. I hung up the phone and loaded my rifle. I was alone, in a bad neighborhood, with a couple of random guys casing the house, one of which was clearly not right in the head.

I felt the rifle was appropriate, but I prayed I had scared the guys off so it wouldn't be necessary. I went to bed with the rifle on my desk ready to go just in case. I was woken up from a fitful sleep by my phone a couple of hours later. The patrolman had caught the guys pulling the same shtick at another house with no porch light down the street. The creepy one was hiding around the corner of the house when the patrol car pulled up. I had to go in the next day to confirm that they were the same people. While I never got a clear look at the accomplice's face, I was able to identify the person who knocked on my door. I read up on them in the paper a little while later. Apparently they were looking for victims to rob, or so they claimed. The accomplice apparently had several large knives

on him when he was arrested, hidden under his giant hoodie, leading police to believe that he, at least, had other plans than just burglary. When confronted with these questions, they took plea deals in exchange for confessions. The one with the knives got his parole revoked and found himself back in jail with an extra couple of years tacked onto his original sentence. The door knocker got 30 days in the county jail, 100 days community service, $1,000 fine and one year probation. When my parents got back from their cruise I told them what happened and my mother rushed over to the trail cams. She found early March and the pictures of the snow removal guy and they went to the day in question and found pictures of the gas company guy. They were the same guy.

Near as we can figure because my dad and I work long hours and we're typically gone most of the day. The only person I'd ever seen leaving and entering the house was my mother who was a tiny old lady and so they assumed that she'd lived alone. Then when he showed up late at night a couple of weeks later and instead of a lonely old lady there was a 6'3 military vet telling him no you're not coming in and it bungled up whatever they were planning. I'll tell you what though, there was something about the accomplice that scared me. Maybe it was because he was hiding in the bushes the whole time me and his friend were having our exchange, or the fact that he kept his face hidden by an oversized hood. But before he ever even noticed me standing there, I could feel the danger emanating off of him, like warning bells going off in my head,

and it felt like he just loathed my entire being and wanted me to suffer for simply existing. The way he stared at me from under the dark shadows of his hood was almost inhuman. I took some time off of work, used up some of my savings, and went to Europe to see my fiancé. I just needed to get away from that house for a while. While I was in Europe, my parents quickly bought up a house on the very edge of town, away from bad neighborhoods, and moved into it. When I got back from vacation, I asked them why they decided to buy all of a sudden, and they just told me that they never wanted to rent again, after that house. My name is Shen. I live in France.

It was 2017 when the story happened. We had my half-brother and I, 18 and 19 years old, living in France. Only the mother of my half-brother, she lives in Morocco. And so every year we spend a little time and stay there as he goes to see her. I had my license at the time, so we had the idea to go by car and go through Spain in order to visit a bit. We take the road from the French Riviera. Three days of driving we expect, including of course the two nights at the hotel. Everything is going well in Spain. It is time to take the boat from the port of Malaga to go to Morocco where we arrive in Tangier.

It is around 5.30 when we arrive at the hotel in Rabat, city in Morocco. We are settling in there, everything is fine, and this is where things start to get weird. In booking our room, the hostess was very helpful and professional. However, with my brother, we are starting to find it quite curious. What time exactly are you leaving tomorrow? Do you plan to take breaks on the road? Where exactly are you going? Where exactly is your car parked? She tells us to clean the car. We just make the remark between my brother and I without really dwelling on it. The hostess asks us which road we are planning to take to get to Maracac.

She suggested we take the road towards Casablanca and is very insistent there without giving us time to answer. She told us that it will allow us to see beautiful landscapes and unfortunately, we followed their advice. The day is breaking. The car has not been watched but in short, my brother and I are very tired. We slept until noon that day. We decided to visit Tangier a little before hitting the road. It's 10pm and after eating we decide to hit the road. I prefer driving at night, it makes me more comfortable in these conditions. Everything is going well. We listen to music, we take breaks on some kind of highway. Having dragged around a bit, it's getting late. We have three hours of road left before arriving. It's around a bit, it's getting late, we have three hours of

road left before arriving. It's around midnight and then we're back on the road. On the highway there are very high lampposts, some of which were not functional so there were many areas where it was quite dark. I decided to be extra vigilant, continuing and I saw a group, around 7 behind security guardrails. I saw them quite quickly but they were crouching as if they were trying to hide while watching the road. My brother at the time was asleep. I keep driving without really asking myself a question but I found it strange. I put myself in full headlights and the second I do, I see a man in the right lane. I had to go at 120-130 kmph on the center lane. I slowed down and reduced my speed to about 100 kmph.

The man in question must have been in his 40s and there he rushes to my car and throws a rock, a rather big stone, into my windshield. I crush the brake pedal in the incomprehension of what had just happened. Under the shock I stop by removing my belt and by reflex my eyes it directs towards the rear view mirror. I see a dozen people running towards my car. I could not see really well knowing that it was dark but I saw that they did not present with empty hands. They had sticks and picks and various weapons. And overtaken with fear I click my seatbelt and crush the accelerator pedal.

I speak to my brother at that moment while looking in the rear view. He doesn't answer. I turn my gaze to him and he's unconscious. His skull is wide open. Blood is flowing. The stone that had been launched is at his feet. Lost, I don't know what to do. I try to put my hand at the level of the impact that he had on the skull to reduce the blood flowing while driving.

I cry out his first name, but he doesn't respond and doesn't react. And it's late and there's nobody on the road. The cars that I see, they don't stop. I don't know where we are. Where is the hospital? What am I going to do? A man comes up to me. He looks at me. I wave to him that I need help and he stops. I speak in Arabic. I understand it but to speak I have to reflect on my words and in panic it's not possible but thankfully he speaks French. I explain the situation to him and he tells me that he'll come with me to my car and guide me to the hospital, that he just has to get his phone in his

car and that we'll come back to his car by taxi. The situation is strange. It was cold and why not just guide me from his car? With my brother in the hospital in mind as my only goal, I didn't think about it and accepted. He climbs in the back and I start to ride. He says apologetically for not introducing himself. His name is Saeed. And to take the first exit after about 10 kilometers. I introduce myself and turn by giving my first name.

I heard a beep come from within the car. It's the phone he went to pick up in his car except that it wasn't a phone but a walkie-talkie and all the questions start to multiply in my head. They speak Arabic and I kind of understand them. I'm Algerian and the Moroccans have the same language with a few words except that he doesn't know it. Saeed said to his interlocutor while speaking Arabic, it's not them, it's not them, it's not the right first name. The man asks him if he is sure and Saeed tells him that yes, she told us the first name Mark. The guy responds, he saw your face. Will we have to get rid of him anyway?

And gives him an address to follow. I'm frozen. I look at my brother who still isn't moving. I try to find a solution to get out of this situation and I try to keep calm. Saeed tells me not to take the planned exit but the next one he tells me will be easier. So I followed this instruction. If I had refused he surely would have suspected something and we exited the planned exit and two minutes passed. It was the two longest minutes of my life. I see a vehicle that appears to belong to or a captain police brigade.

It's necessary to let them know that I'm in danger but how do I say it? I decide to put myself at their level but Saeed says I mustn't do that and I'm trapped. I'm five meters away. I decide to make a single call of the headlight to attract their attention and they see the windshield totally broken so they stop me. Saeed raises the tone and I say to be careful and not to start over but it's too late. They signal me to stop and I stop. Saeed tells me it's not over and runs away from the car. They were gendarmes. I go to them in a panic and explain the situation as best I can in Arabic. They call an ambulance which arrives quickly.

My brother is brought to the hospital and he is immediately transferred to France to the military hospital in which he will be plunged into an artificial coma for three weeks. His skull had been broken on the right side above his eye. He lost sight of the right eye. Thankfully, today, everything is better, and he regained his sight little by little. Said has not been found, but the man who threw the stone, that weighed in at 6.4 kilograms, was found and identified. He is known for several beatings and an organized gang, and he is serving a 40-year sentence and the most shocking is yet to come. The woman who was the hostess was part of the coup but she disappeared.

The inspector explained their way of working to me. The hostess spots people passing by the hotel who she knows are foreigners. When she asks where their car is, it is to transmit the license plate so they can recognize the target, and that's why she insisted that we take the road to Casablanca. They rob people, get rid of them, and take their cars. However, I explained the conversation between Saeed and the man who threw the stone. When he told him, it's not them, it's not them, it's not the right name. The inspector told me that they were very lucky then, and that he could not explain the situation to me on that, but surely he knew the reasons. I decided to do some research on my own, and there has already been stories like this where families with infants were attacked and only the infants disappear. In the end, I think that they were wrong because when the hostess asked us what time we were going to leave,

I said that we were leaving around 5pm, but we only left the hotel at 5, we got on the road at 10pm. They had our license plate but not the people they expected, and the group of criminals were probably expecting other people than us. This happened a long time ago, over ten years back, and I hadn't thought about it much until a few similar posts jogged my memories so I thought I'd share it now. My boyfriend, now husband, and I had recently moved into our first place together, and we were still settling in after a month or two. It was a large suite in an older high-rise building that was attached to three other buildings in the same complex via an attached underground area which included a gym, some stores and a pub. Super weird but a lot of the tenants were long-timers and frequented the businesses down there since it was convenient. All buildings also shared on-site security located in the same weird underground lair. We had nothing to compare

it to, but looking back on it, the place was incredibly weird and there were some minor red flags before we even moved in. When we first met the building manager to view the place, we couldn't view the actual unit because the current tenant wouldn't allow the manager into the suite. She showed us the identical unit one floor down and assured us that the lock would be changed, all carpets would be replaced, and that the place would be painted so we didn't need to worry about any damage or anything. I would never move into a place unseen now but at the time we were young and dumb and just wanted to get out of our parents house so we agreed and arranged to move in. Luckily the place was really nice and in good shape when we moved in so that didn't end up being a problem. The suite itself was great but the other tenants on our floor were really odd. Most of them have lived there for years and didn't leave their

apartment much and weren't particularly friendly. The guy next door was around our age but played EDM 24 hours a day at full blast. How he slept I'll never know. So we often had security pounding on our door for misdirected noise complaints. Turned out that was about all security was there for as they came up a lot due to complaints from the units below us. I don't think it was ever lot due to complaints from the units below us. I don't think it was ever once due to us making noise, but who knows. The building managers were also super weird and always up in everyone's business. She patrolled the hallways daily and asked super personal questions, then acted offended if you didn't want to answer them. She was another one who'd lived there forever and was a bit of a drunk on building manager power or something.

In general, the vibe was just awkward there. We both worked jobs at the time that had us starting early in the morning and finishing up work in the early afternoon, and this day was no different. We were both home by 3pm and hanging out in the apartment watching TV. I watch and read a lot of scary stuff and am a bit paranoid, so I always made it a habit to lock both the deadbolt and security chain from the inside of the front door when we were both at home. This day was no exception. Eventually our late afternoon TV watching shifted into early evening intimacy and afterwards we both drifted off since we had woken up so early

for work that day. I was in and out of sleep, so the background noise of the apartment was slipping in and out of my consciousness. I could hear the TV every so often, and at one point I stirred awake because I could have sworn I heard the sound of the door unlocking. I glanced in the direction of the door once I opened my eyes but looked closely and didn't hear any further noises like knocking or anyone in the hallway. I figured I must have heard something on the television rather than the apartment and fell back asleep. We both woke up about an hour later and my boyfriend mentioned that he woke up at one

point because he could have sworn he heard someone trying to get into the apartment. This seemed way too weird to be a coincidence so we both got up to examine the door and see what the noise could have been. Someone had indeed unlocked the door. The deadbolt was unlocked, even though we both saw that it was locked that afternoon after I got home, and the door was propped open on the frame resting against the security chain which was still secured. This spooked us both since whoever it was obviously had a key, it didn't knock or announce their presence before trying to enter the unit. They also didn't try to cover up the fact that they had tried to come in, as it was super obvious that they had tried to gain access but couldn't.

That part bothered me the most because I wondered what would happen if they tried again and we weren't home, or maybe they had been inside already prior to that day. We never found out who it was, and to this day I have no idea if they tried to gain access at any other point. Nothing ever seemed out of place or removed, so it's impossible to know for sure. We lived there for almost two years afterwards and didn't have another experience like this one. Plenty of other weird and annoying ones, but none this creepy. The only people who should have had copies of the keys to our unit would be the building manager and possibly security

or maintenance workers, but any of those individuals should have announced their presence and notified us if they needed to come into our unit. They also had in the past, so no reason to think this situation would be any different. And no one knocked later that night or any other day that week or the next, which I would expect if one of the parties needed something from us or access to our unit. The only other theory I have is that maybe it was the weird former tenant who still had keys to the place if the manager was dishonest about changing the locks. Or maybe he made extra copies or something. No clue why he'd come back and that seems like the most far-fetched explanation but also the creepiest. I wish I knew, since it still bugs me that we never figured out this mystery before we moved.

Whoever it was, we were all lucky the security chain was secured that day, or that would have been a very awkward and nudity-filled home invasion. To be continued... think I was 14 at the time. My sister's 16 at the time and the toddler was our cousin. She was maybe two years old, maybe a bit older. So we headed out during the evening to have dinner and just after that we'll walk through the towns and maybe stop at a few bars for drinks. As we're walking through this town, a man who was, I'll say, badly dressed as a clown, approached my sister. Bear in mind, my sister is afraid of clowns, no matter how good or badly dressed they are. She was carrying our cousin on her hip, and the clown looked at our cousin and said hello to her, making her laugh as clowns do. My sister, on the other hand, just froze. I was standing by watching this happening, kind of laughing at the fact that my sister was soiling herself.

I was kind of a savage sister. And next thing without asking or anything, he takes my cousin from my sister. And then of course I thought, whoa, hey. I shouted at my parents and my aunt and uncle. My dad comes over and says, hey, what do you think you're doing with my niece? As he was trying to get her back out of his arms. But when he tried to get her, the clown would just turn away or push my dad back. The clown says, I thought you liked to take a photo.

Do you not want to take a photo? My aunt comes over but scared out of her mind thinking that clowns are trying to kidnap her daughter. We all just gather around the clown trying to pry my cousin from this clown's arms but every time he just kept pulling away or pushing back. Then the next thing my dad had enough he approached the clown and said, let go of my niece right now and grab him by the neck. In the end he put her, and my dad picks her up and hands her to his sister-in-law, and the guy just casually says, Okay, too bad, you don't want to take a photo, and hands my cousin a lollipop.

We just headed back to the hotel, kind of thought nothing of it, but the next day we saw him again as we were at a restaurant, and this time he took someone else's kid, like away from the parents, into some room. My dad had spotted him as he came out of the toilets and stopped him, thinking he grabbed my cousin again, but it was someone else. But he headed back to the table and ate his dinner, but then for a second he felt something wasn't right, so he went back to the clown's room. I didn't know what went down when he went back but he came back out holding this other kid's hand and asked her where her parents were assuming that they were in the same restaurant but they weren't. They were at some other place.

My dad took the kid back to her parents and said don't let that clown anywhere near your kids and told them what they tried to do with my cousin. My terrifying story happened when I was about 16. I'm now almost 21. I've stayed at home only by myself for two days. It wasn't something unusual or scary at all, but that night I'll remember for the rest of my life. About 11pm, I'd been on my phone talking with my friend when I heard a strange noise outside. It was like someone or something hitting the bin. I thought that maybe it was the neighbor's cat. I told my friend about that and she laughed

and said that maybe it was a ghost. We started joking about that. About an hour later we finished our conversation. I checked downstairs if all the doors are closed and decided to go to sleep. I brushed my teeth and turned off all the lights. When I was lying in bed I realized I left my phone downstairs and I had to bring it back. When I got down from the staircase I looked at the big windows in the living room and froze in fear. In the window I saw a black silhouette of a human just standing on the patio staring right into the house. I was so scared that I couldn't even move. After a while I sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed the phone and called my uncle.

He's a police officer and lives at the same streets and I was terrified that I only whispered to him, someone's standing on the patio. When my uncle arrived, the men on the patio saw a car and began to take off. My uncle hadn't managed to catch him. Then he came into my house and tried to calm me down because I've immediately burst into tears when I saw him. That night, my uncle stayed at my house and told my aunt to take care of me in their house. Just a few days later, when my parents came home, I got a call from my uncle who told me that just a day ago there was a man standing on the patio of his neighbor's house and the police

caught him. He said also that supposedly this man is insane because he kept saying, I can see you, and laugh the entire time. Well, after several years, I'm still thinking and his girlfriend suggested I get a date and we'd all go to some local hotpots, which are natural hot springs located deep in a nearby canyon not too far from where we lived in Utah. Supposedly, these hot pots were awesome, super quick and easy to get to, just a short hike from where you park your car off the main road running through the canyon. It must have been around 7pm that day when we parked the truck in Spanish Fork Canyon and set off on the trail that led to the natural hot springs, armed only with our swimming suits and towels. I don't know where my friend got his bad information, but it was definitely not a super

quick and easy hike to the hot pots. More like a difficult hike that took over an hour on a very narrow path where we had to walk single file the whole time, and occasionally over some treacherous spots where one bad step would send you cascading down the mountain. It seemed like it would never end and we'd never get to those hot springs but after wearing ourselves out and not being adequately prepared, we made it. The sun was setting as we finally reached the clearing where the natural pools were dug out from the ground. It was later than we expected but we figured it would be fun to soak in the hot water underneath the stars. We were so deep in the canyon at this point that the stars in the sky were brighter than any other time I've ever seen in my life. No light pollution at all. We had probably been there for

about 30 minutes and had the entire area to ourselves, just having a great time telling jokes and making each other laugh. The only light was from the stairs and the only sounds were from us. The quiet was almost eerie. Suddenly, we started to hear twigs snapping in the direction we came from. See, there was only one way in and out from the hot pots. That super narrow trail we hiked in on which ended at the pools. Soon, we could make out the outline of a figure in the dark. Someone with a flashlight coming down the which ended at the pools. Soon, we could make out the outline of a figure in the dark, someone with a flashlight coming down the trailhead to the pools we were swimming in. I was in a great mood up until this point and since this person's arrival had taken us all by

surprise, I yelled out to them once I was confident that they would be able to hear me, to try and break the ice from any awkwardness and also partly as a defense mechanism from the nervousness I was feeling all of a sudden. Hey! You here to join the party? Silence. The person keeps walking towards us and doesn't say a word. Immediately alarm bells are going off in my head. My gut is telling me that something is not right here.

I try to ignore how I'm feeling and make a joke to our group about the person being a weirdo for not answering, but now everyone else is on edge as well. As the person begins to get closer, we can start to make out a little more than what we had been able to see before. It's a man, above average size, dressed head to toe in black. This guy was wearing a hoodie and long pants in the middle of summer in Utah. Who does that? We notice he's also wearing a black backpack before he gets to the clearing and turns off his flashlight.

He continues walking towards us. Now there are half a dozen hotpots scattered around this clearing. There is no one else around except us. He has his pick of any of them to swim in, but no. He walks directly towards ours and sits down about 6 feet from where we were soaking. My friend has a lantern, so he hops to the side of the pool and grabs it and turns it on. Wait, what was this stranger just doing

before we turned the lantern on? Was he ruffling through his bag, looking for something? One of us says something to him, once again, no response. My friend temporarily turns off the lantern. I assume it's because the battery is low and he doesn't want to wear it out. But once the light is out, the stranger in black unzips his backpack again and starts frantically looking through it again. My friend immediately turns the lantern back on. The stranger quickly stops and zips the backpack back up, acting like nothing is happening. My friend notices the stranger appears to be Hispanic so he greets him in Spanish as he also is Hispanic. This clearly takes the stranger

off guard and he mumbles in response. My friend asks how he is doing, what he is up to tonight, did he come for a swim, at least that's what I assume from his tone. I don't speak Spanish so I don't know exactly what the stranger's responses were but they were very brief and not very friendly. After asking a few more questions to the guy, my friend turns to me and our date's in the pool and says very quietly but dead serious, we need to go now. Immediately we start getting out of the pool and drying off with our towels. The stranger asks my friend in a question in Spanish something like, where are you guys going so quickly? I surmise my friend is playing it off very calmly like it's no big deal.

Again he turns to us as we're getting our things together and putting on our shoes, maybe not going as fast as we could. We don't have time, grab your stuff, we're going now. We don't ask questions, we grab our things and start practically running towards the trailhead as a group. As we look back we see the stranger in black getting his things together, getting up and starting to follow us. At this point there is no illusion of what is happening. This guy has bad intentions and is chasing after us on this narrow trail back to our vehicle.

We know we've got an hour or more ahead of us until we get back to the safety of our vehicle and we don't have anything to defend ourselves with at all. We're still wet. We got a head start on him which was a big help. I took the lantern and took the lead of the group. We got into single file and locked hands with each other knowing that we needed to keep moving as fast as we can but not too fast or we could literally fall to our deaths. The girls were behind me with my friend at the back who was giving us updates of where the stranger in black was and telling us to move faster. He picked up the biggest sharpest rock he could find and was prepared to defend us if he had to.

I'm sure you can imagine the emotions that were running through all of us at the time. The girls are sobbing, trying to keep pace with me up front. I'm yelling back to them, watch out for this, watch out for that, as we're making our way in the darkness as fast as we can. I'm telling myself to stay calm so I don't scare the girls any more than they already are, while also feeling an overwhelming sense of dread that I don't want to die so young as I was only 19. After what feels like an eternity, we finally see the main canyon road in our truck. We all run towards it as my friend unlocks it and we all get inside. And we're all in shock at this point and just start shaking uncontrollably. I tell my friend to start the car and start driving so we can get out

of there and just never come back. I ask my friend, the one who was speaking Spanish to the stranger, why did you tell us to get out of there so quickly? My friend answered that he purposely had been turning the lantern on and off because he noticed when he did, the stranger was searching in his bag for something and when it came back on, the stranger closed it up fast and acted like he hadn't just been looking for something. And that was when he tried speaking in Spanish to get a feel for what was going on with the guy. My friend said he was asking the stranger some questions in Spanish like, where are your friends? And the stranger answered, no friends, and other short answers to basic questions that gave my friend the absolute creeps. Once the stranger asked my friend something about the girls who

were with us, that was when he told us we needed to get out of there. Apparently he was able to see the stranger following us almost the entire way out of the trail, but dropped off towards the end when he couldn't keep pace with us. What was that stranger doing in the middle of a dark canyon by himself, dressed in all black? What did he have in his bag that he was trying to get to, that he didn't want us to see? What would have happened to us if he would have caught up to our group on the trail that night? night. I live in a rather rural area, the kind of place where you both know what to expect and don't know what to expect. People here tend to be latched onto the older way of thinking and living and I'm all for that. That being said, it is easy to assume that nothing much happens here, at least nothing that would really raise any red flags. The thing is, about five years ago,

something abnormal did happen. Five years ago I thought I was going to lose my life due to a case of wrong place, wrong time, in the parking lot of an all-you-can-eat buffet. I was in middle school at the time and having one of the worst school years yet. Luck didn't seem to be on my side, so of course this day wouldn't be any different. My family, my grandpa, mom and little sister had gone to church that morning and taken my friend and her younger sister as well. Once it was over my mom decided that we'd treat ourselves to an early lunch and headed over to a local all you can eat buffet. It was a humble place and the atmosphere of the farm around it

was peaceful. It lulled you into a sense of security. We were waiting in the lobby area, sitting on a bench, when two women came in. They both seemed to be in their forties. The taller woman was obviously the leader of the two and the shorter woman seemed to hang back, letting the other do the talking, chiming in here and there. The taller woman was gushing over how adorable my sister was to her. She was in elementary school at the time and kept saying how she looked like a princess. We thought she was just an overly expressive and nice woman and left it at that as we walked to our table to get settled in. Fast forward, we were eating dessert. I had gotten my usual, that being a mixed vanilla and chocolate ice cream topped off with oreo bits, caramel,

and two marshmallows covered in chocolate from the chocolate fountain. Yes, I know, I kind of went overboard, but whatever, I was a kid. I was about three-fourths of the way done with my dish when the two ladies suddenly appeared at our table. I immediately thought it was odd that they deliberately searched us out in there but kept eating. The lead woman got to talking about herself and revealed she was a church official. She claimed to work in a sort of crisis center at her church located in Delaware. She mainly worked with kids who were the victims of abuse. Her friend, I cannot remember exactly whether she actually told anything about herself but if she did, none of us can recall it.

They then told my mom and grandpa that they had a gift for my sister and I admit, I was kind of jealous upon hearing that. Of course, she was getting a gift. The woman pulled some letters out of her purse and showed them to my mom and sister. She told us that she was pen pals of a sort with Princess Kate. I later would learn from my mom that the letters were basically automatic replies, not actual letters from Kate herself. So nothing special, really. It's like the equivalent of getting the answering machine to a secretary in the mail. But nonetheless, my mom went along with it. Then, to my surprise, the woman said she had a gift for me. But unlike the gift from my sister which had been in her purse, she said mine was put in her car. Red flags immediately

went up in my head. There was no way I was going with this random lady alone out to her car. My mom to this day, I have no idea what she was thinking, told her that I could go so long as my grandpa went with me. My grandpa gave my mama, what are you talking about, why should she go with them, look and turn to me. I hesitated but we walked out with the two women. At this point, knowing the head woman was a church official, I figured she was going to give me a bible or something. My grandpa, he was in his late 50s at the time, seemed uneasy and stuck close to me. As we approached her car I saw that it was in fact not a car at all. It was a van. A white van. Cliche I know but it's the god honest truth.

We followed the two women over and the leader walked over to the passenger side. We were right behind her but had failed to notice the other woman lagging behind and placed herself between us and the exit between the van and the other car. The lead woman was in front of us, meaning we were boxed in, no way out. The leader unlocked her doors and pulled open the sliding door ducking inside. My grandpa seemed to tense up, his eyes darting around. He had noticed the other woman was blocking us off and was on edge. He had a bad feeling about this and was fully prepared to fight these women to save me if need be. Then, something I never would have dreamed of happened.

The woman, after rummaging around in her van, emerged wielding a sword. And not some fake prop sword that you get at Party City or something. A legit sword, glinting in the grey autumn light, its hilt adorned with details and jewels. I just about soiled my pants. I thought this was the end. I was going to die by the blade of some psychotic church official in the parking lot of a rural buffet. My grandpa's eyes went wide and I saw his hands clench into

fists and he prepared to knock this woman out. This seemed to go in slow motion, taking forever, but was only a few seconds. And then as my life flashed before my eyes, this woman asked us what her names were. The sword was still in her hand and she didn't swing it at us. I was terrified, thinking the woman was the kind of killer who likes to know her victim's names before doing the deed. I told her my name. She then performed a small ceremony reciting some religious statements and lowered the blade to touch both of my shoulders one at a time. She then brought it down to my head and raised it, bringing it in front of herself, straight into the air, and proclaimed me, sir, insert my name, a knight of God. She asked the same of my grandpa and after getting his name did the same for him. She told us that she hoped we liked

our gifts and still shell shocked we thanked her and my grandpa and I left the two women. We speed walked inside, found our table and proceeded to fill my mom in on what just happened. She didn't believe us at first but we soon convinced her. My grandpa and I both scolded her for making us go with those women. My grandpa was especially angry. If that woman had other intentions with that sword, we both would be dead. The women didn't come back over to us, and oddly enough, we didn't see them when leaving. We never saw those women again, and suffice to say, I'm glad. They weirded me out, and I just hoped they went back to Delaware

where they belonged. Maybe they could knight some other random strangers along the way. It's been half a decade now since the day my grandpa and I were proclaimed knights. My close friends sometimes refer to me as Sir, insert my name, which I find funny. I never let my mom live that down either, prodding her about it whenever I get the chance, all in good fun of course. It's also a fantastic story to tell people and get them interested in you, and no one I've met has been able to top me when we get to sharing. Now one last thing that has always lingered in the back of my mind,

something that still unsettles me to this day. About two weeks prior to this event, there had been some beheadings a few states over that made the news. It makes me wonder, could it have been those two ladies? Was I knighted by a murderer? I began moving into my new one bedroom apartment with my boyfriend the day after the old lease ended. My apartment was small in size and on the bottom floor. There was a window in the bedroom that faces the outside walkway and the front door to our apartment. I spent the whole day carrying boxes from my boyfriend's truck to the apartment. I noticed a dirty-looking man in a rusty beat-up red Toyota

staring at us while we moved each box. He looked about 40, had round glasses with a very thin frame. His hair was stringy and thinning at the top and looked as if though it had once been white but yellow due to lack of cleanliness. I wouldn't have given his gaze much thought except he had been sitting in his car for nearly two hours now. Not waiting for anyone it seemed, just staring at us, moving his head to keep his gaze as we moved from the truck to our building. I told my boyfriend and he just shrugged it off, telling me that maybe he was just a neighbor trying to see who moved in. We just ignored the man and finished unloading boxes before

settling in for the night. Fast forward to the next night. My boyfriend and I had unpacked most of the kitchen so we were having a late dinner and ended up drinking some wine. It was about 12.30am and we were just talking and hanging out when we heard a slight tap on the window. It was strange. It wasn't as if though someone were knocking on it but more like as if someone had accidentally hit it with an object of some sort. I peeked through the blinds to find nothing but darkness outside. Without giving it a second thought my boyfriend and I finished our dinner and wine, turned

out the lights and went to bed. We awoke at around 2 am to a soft knock on the door. My boyfriend, very tired and very irritated, got up from the bed to check the peephole to see who could possibly be trying to reach us at such an hour. He looked through the peephole to find a man standing outside the door, staring directly into the peephole. He sneakily made his way to our room, carefully trying not to make any sound so whoever it was outside couldn't hear movement within the apartment. He went up to me and shook my leg a little bit, whispering that there was some creepy

old man outside our door, just staring at it. I awoke immediately and slowly went to the window to see who it was. The blinds were raised only an inch or so, so I tried to identify the man using the small sliver of window that was exposed. I saw a hand tapping on the window, tapping as if he was patiently waiting for someone to open the door for him. I froze in fear and waited. We heard the man turn around and leave. My boyfriend checked the front door to confirm he wasn't outside our door anymore as I was terrified to even peek out the window. We were so bugged out that we didn't end up sleeping much for the rest of the night.

The next day we were really anxious and worried about the situation so we spoke with our front office and tried to explain what had happened. The front office basically said that maybe someone thought that they were at the right apartment building and that it was just a mistake or a misunderstanding. It wasn't that big of a deal and we needed to just not worry about it they made it seem. They said if it happened again to try to identify the person or talk to them to see what they wanted. Great advice right? Later that night we left the front porch light on to feel a little bit more safe. We locked all the doors and windows and cuddled in bed with the lights off while watching some TV show on low volume. Eventually, we drifted off to sleep. I woke around 2.20am to my boyfriend tapping on me, whispering, he's back. Wide-eyed with fear, I let out a small gasp. My boyfriend handed me a small pistol and said,

don't shoot unless you need to, and left the room. I was completely terrified, confused, and worried at this point and decided to try and see who this creep was. I once again looked through the small sliver of window that was showing but could only see their bottom half. I made my way to the front door where my boyfriend was, his face glued to the peephole. I asked if I could take a look and instantly I could make out who it was. I saw the yellow thinning hair and the glasses. It was the same man that was watching us move in a few days ago. I took a step back and began to silently freak out. We heard the man knock silently again on the door. He leaned in real close to the peephole, startling my boyfriend

and causing him to let out a small gasp. The man leaned back, turned around and immediately walked upstairs. We waited. We never saw him come back down We never heard movement in the upstairs apartment either Frightened, we went back to bed and didn't sleep until the sun came up As soon as the office opened, we went in to report the incident And one of the leasing managers looked distressed She went on to tell them that this was the fifth report on similar incidents Made by multiple tenants throughout the apartment complex She told us that they were looking into it to find out who this person was This was the fifth report on similar incidents made by multiple tenants throughout the apartment complex.

She told us that they were looking into it to find out who this person was. For about a week we heard nothing and no one came to the door during the dark hours of the night. We began to get back into our normal routine and paid no mind to the weirdness that we had experienced. About three weeks after the last incident we received a call from the front office. Apparently there was a disturbed tenant that lived in the complex that had always had really random and weird complaints about him. He was an older man, apparently had some issues in his past. They were calling to let us know that he was the one who had been randomly knocking on doors and sneaking around multiple buildings in the complex. They said that he had been evicted due to his behavior and that we wouldn't have to deal with it again. They apologized, then hung up, and that was that. We never heard weird noises in the night

or saw his car in the parking lot after that. We continued to live out the rest of our lease and eventually moved out to a nicer apartment complex across town. It always stuck with me. I always got skittish during the nights and would check the windows multiple times before bed. I think the strangest thing to me was that the building we lived in wasn't even remotely close to the one that he apparently resided in. He had watched us move in and decided that's who he wanted to creep on in the middle of the night. If there's one thing that I learned, it's to listen to what that gut feeling inside is telling you. Always be aware of your surroundings and be careful with who is paying attention when you are not. So this was when I was around 7. My younger sister was 4 and my older sister was 14.

I wasn't the brightest, but then again I was 7. I younger sister was 4 and my older sister was 14. I wasn't the brightest but then again I was 7. I live in the UK. We went to Tesco, this big shop, where their parents and me and my little sister got separated from our parents and older sister because we needed to go to the toilet. My older sister sort of came with us but didn't fully come all the way to the toilets. The toilets are near the entrance of the shop. It was quite big as well so it was easy to get lost. Anyway, me and my sister finished going to the toilet and whatnot and we came out and saw our sister wasn't there so we weren't really sure what to do. We were looking around to see where she was. This was all

whilst we were near the entrance. At the same time, some red-headed guy with wellies approached us and he told us that he'd help us. I can't fully remember how he knew we were looking for our sister because it was a while ago, but I remember him saying, I can take you to your sister, yeah? So he held our hands and started walking the opposite way where we were supposed to go inside the shop. I don't really remember what me and my little sister did, I think we just kept walking with him unfortunately. At around the same time our older sister saw us walking out and came up to us and said to the man, oh thanks for helping them but I can take them back to our parents. And she held her

hands and took us back. It was quite unusual, I guess, but that's what I remember. I did bring it up to my older sister a few months ago and she says she remembers it and the guy definitely was trying something shady. To be continued... 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, and give and receive feedback from the community, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. Check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data.

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