The Lets Read Podcast - 143: THE MISSING 411 FILES | 14 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 131

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Las Vegas, Food Delivery & Missing 411... 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

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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. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The In February of 1978, 23-year-old Stephen Kubacki was enrolled in a small Christian university called Hope College, located in the city of Holland on Lake Michigan's southeastern shores. He was a studious but eccentric young history major who once co-wrote an op-ed for the campus newspaper about the inadequate collection of books in the university library, arguing that the school should install an electronic security system to safeguard against theft. Bob Namar graduated from Hope in the spring of 78,

and although he didn't know Steve personally, found that his reputation preceded him. Fellow students talked about Steve like he was some kind of free-spirited genius, and even though he was fairly conservative in his lifestyle, the fact that he lived off campus gave him the air of a rogue scholar. He was definitely a big Dungeons and Dragons guy, Namar said, but he owned it. It was cool. He wasn't the average nerd, that's for sure. Kubacki was also known to be an enthusiastic outdoorsman, who had previously climbed mountains while studying abroad in Europe. He's been cross-country skiing in the same area bordering Lake Michigan before.

The trip that weekend hadn't been particularly unusual, but his solo skiing trip, planned for February of 78, proved to be one that would change his life forever. Steve had planned to spend the weekend on a solo cross-country skiing trip, returning on Monday at the very latest. Fellow students say that when Monday rolled around, Steve's absence was only met with mild concern. Yet when the usually punctual and diligent student was a no-show for a second consecutive day, it quickly became obvious that something was terribly wrong. How he was first reported missing honestly depends on who is telling the story. But if a local news report from February 21st, 1978 is to be believed, snowmobilers in Saugatuck spotted a pair of cross-country skis and a backpack lying abandoned in the snow.

They immediately contacted authorities who launched an air and land search. A missing persons report was soon filed with the local police department who were able to coordinate their search to the area where Steve had supposedly started his trip. It was there that they found a 200-yard trail of footprints in the snow, the same size and track as the ski boots that Steve would have been wearing. But eerily, these same footprints led past the edge of Lake Michigan, ending abruptly in a way which led search and rescue personnel to conclude that Steve had somehow drowned under a thick layer of unbroken ice. Although it could never be fully proven, the official conclusion was that Steve was dead, and would only be a matter of time before the currents of Lake Michigan deposited his decomposing corpse somewhere on the shores of Lake Michigan. Steve's family was devastated and resigned themselves to waiting a long, long time for any answers to the many questions surrounding his disappearance, but they had no idea just how close or how shocking those answers would be.

Steve Kabaki had no idea he was even missing when he opened his eyes one Saturday night and found himself lying on a patch of grass in a place he wasn't familiar with. As he came to his senses, he realized he didn't recognize the clothes he was wearing, nor the backpack he was in possession of. Neither his original backpack nor his skis were anywhere to be seen and somehow he didn't remember where or how he'd lost them. Feeling extremely disoriented, Steve got up, approached a passing stranger and asked them where they were. ''Pittsfield,'' the stranger replied in confusion.

''Pittsfield?'' Steven replied, initially believing himself to be in the Ann Arbor suburb of the same name. How did I get all the way over to Ann Arbor? Ann Arbor? The stranger sounded even more confused now. Buddy, this isn't Michigan. This is Pittsfield, Massachusetts. See? The stranger then pointed to a nearby parked car, one clearly showing a Massachusetts license plate. Stephen was dumbfounded. He had only intended to ski around the countryside outside of Holland, Michigan. Instead, not only had he somehow ended up more than 700 miles east of his proposed route, but he had absolutely no recollection of how he'd gotten there. The situation was a horrifying one in its own, but when David passed a nearby newsstand

and set eyes on a newspaper, he almost passed out in shock. In the top corner of the page, the date read 5579. But that was impossible, because it meant that Stephen had just spent the past 15 months in some kind of waking coma, one in which he had somehow made an almost thousand-mile journey across the country. In a state of complete shock, Stephen managed to recall that he had an aunt in a place called Great Barrington, Massachusetts, which turned out to only be around 20 miles from Pittsfield itself. Since he had no money, he managed to hitchhike out to his aunt's place, who says she received the shock of her life when he saw him at the door. It was like seeing a ghost, she later said. Steve's emotional reunion with the family, who'd long thought him dead, became a national media sensation. At a hastily called

press conference, Steve told a gathering of reporters that, when he woke up in Pittsfield, he was wearing a different set of clothes from those he'd set out in the previous year. He also had a new backpack filled with maps and hitchhiking signs that suggested that he had traveled extensively during his year-long unconscious episode. He was somehow in possession of memorabilia from Sacramento, San Francisco, Reno, Chicago, and Utah. He also had $40 in cash, new glasses, sneakers, and a t-shirt from a marathon that had taken place in Wisconsin. I feel like I've done a lot of running, he said in the interview the week he reappeared. His memory right up until his disappearance remained intact. He said the last thing he remembered was feeling cold and scared of being lost in the frozen darkness. Steve told a reporter that he believed his blackout was caused by exhaustion and exposure and said he would see a medical doctor for a physical but, despite his parents' insistence, would not be seeing any kind of therapist or psychiatrist.

My father was going to sign over the house to me. "'I had three courses at school and no trouble,' he said. "'There was no trouble with girls. "'I had a job lined up with the Holland Sentinel newspaper. "'I was in a good place mentally, "'so I don't think that side of things has anything to do with it.'" Obviously, Steve didn't end up taking the job at the Sentinel, and his bachelor's degree was awarded absentia from Hope College when he was thought to have passed away. Although drowning was the most commonly accepted theory, some of the detectives who investigated his disappearance

had their doubts that Stephen was actually dead. At one point, detectives were so flummoxed that they sent Stephen's dental records to Chicago to see if Kabaki might be among the serial killer John Wayne Gacy's unidentified victims. These days, Stephen is alive and well, and is working as a psychologist in the Pacific Northwest. For decades, he had refused to speak about his disappearance with reporters, and any attempts to reach out to him are generally ignored right off the bat. Reporters have even reached out to his ex-wife, assuming that she might be able to shed some light on the mystery, but she too flat out refuses to reveal what she knows. Stephen's case is perhaps one of the most fascinating cases of a missing person showing up alive, and for a number of reasons, but

the lack of contemporary media coverage of the event is frankly baffling. Only in small shady corners of paranormally obsessed message boards has Stephen's case been anything close to fully explored. There, the most commonly accepted explanation ties into the fact that the site of Steve's disappearance was close to the southeastern boundary, the Lake Michigan Triangle, an area spanning from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, and south to Benton Harbor, where several other mysterious disappearances are said to have taken place. But it's not just people that have fallen victim to the Bermuda Triangle's lesser-known cousin, as the area has seen numerous unexplained air disasters, shipwrecks, and vanishings that date

back centuries. There are stories of ghost ships, ghost planes, heavily corroborated UFO sightings, and one particularly hair-raising tale about a competitive sailing crew that passed through what sounds like a vortex during a practice run on a calm early summer evening. After a sudden dramatic fall of fog and wind filling the main sail from two opposing directions, three wooden ships took on a life of their own and performed synchronized 360 degree turns with no one steering. But as much as some of these stories sound like something out of a cheap dime novel, and they might well be, Stephen's disappearance was well documented and is in no way

an elaborate hoax. It might well be that the man suffered some kind of head injury, which would explain his memory loss, but if that was the case, why did a subsequent medical examination find him to be in perfect health? A few years after the event, Stephen Kabaki told the media that he was attempting to retrace the steps that he took on the day of his solo skiing trip, hoping it might give him enough clues to piece together where he had been and what he had been doing during that gap in his memory. But even after this dark pilgrimage to the place that he had disappeared, Stephen didn't seem to find any new answers, and if he did, he definitely didn't talk to any journalists about it. Yet the question remains, has Stephen remained quiet about his disappearance because it's still a mystery to him, or has he since remembered something so

terrible that he can't possibly bring himself to talk about it? Little else would explain such a rigid wall of silence from his friends and relatives, but at the end of the day, it seems the enigma of Steve Kabaki's bizarre disappearance will forever remain an unsolved mystery. Established in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt, the Big South Trail is an 11-mile hiking route that winds through the rugged Comanche Peak wilderness into Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. Experienced hikers have described the Big South Trail as of average difficulty, but as one said, there are some areas where the ledges were only 24 inches wide. It can be really tough, and if you're not in shape, it'll take a lot out of you.

Known for its picturesque beauty, the trail is also something of a wildlife haven and is home to elk, bobcats, black bears, and mountain lions, just to name a few. While average temperatures on the trail range from highs in the upper 60s in the summer to frigid lows of 10 to 15 degrees in the winter, making it perfect for both sunny and snowy outdoor activities. The area's wild natural beauty is partly what motivated brothers Alan and Arlen Atadero to found the Pudre River Resort, a place for hikers and outdoorsmen of every variety to indulge in their hobby of choice. Alan mentioned that he and his brothers spent so much time there that they felt that they were becoming part of the landscape itself, so in the end, it just made

sense to move their families out there. Life at the resort was relatively carefree until the fall of 1999 when a Christian singles group was helping Alan prepare for winter in exchange for free lodging. On October 2nd, the Christian singles group decided that since his six-year-old daughter Jocelyn wanted to join them, Alan knew that there was no way that he could give her permission without her three-year-old brother Jared wanting to tag along. So, since he trusted the singles group, Alan gave them permission to take his kids with them on their hike at about 10 o'clock that morning. Excited to be on one of his first real outdoor adventures, Jared would keep on running ahead of the group, but no more than about 100 feet before his guardians in the singles group would call him back. At around 11.30, the group stopped to talk

to some fishermen that their little boy scout had run into while on point, and after a brief conversation, they continued on down the trail. By this time, the group had begun to separate or spread out as they walked. Some people faster and some slower, with at least one adult with Jared's sister and Jared who continuously ran ahead of everybody else. Shortly afterward, little Jared rounded a corner on the trail and disappeared from view. Technically, he was no further ahead than he usually was, so his guardians didn't worry too much. But when they too rounded the corner, there was no sign of him in the little beige coat he was wearing. One of the singles groups rushed ahead to try to find the boy, but he was nowhere to be

found. And as it turned out, that last image of young Jared turning the blind corner on the trail was the last time anyone would see him alive. Over the following few days a huge search and rescue operation was mounted, but not a single sign of Jared Atadero was found. In fact, it would take almost four years for any clues of his demise to be found, but these clues seemed to only raise many more questions than they answered. After searching for approximately an hour, a few members of the hiking group rush back to the Pudra River Resort to give Alan the bad news that his three-year-old son was lost in the woods. In a panic, Alan immediately drives out to meet the rest of the group,

helping them continue to search for another hour or so. It is during this time that some of the eleven person hiking party say that they heard some kind of high pitched scream, including Alan's six year old daughter, Jocelyn. I asked her what kind of scream it was, like somebody getting attacked or somebody playing with someone, Alan later said. She said it sounded like a playful scream, as if someone was going up to tag him. Since it seemed like Jared was within earshot, the group continued to search intensively for him, but no matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't locate their lost toddler.

So just before 4 o'clock that afternoon, Allen rushed back to the resort to call 911. Less than 30 minutes later, Larimer County Emergency Service Specialist Bill Nelson receives an emergency pager alert, informing them that a child had gone missing on the Big South Trail. In turn, Bill contacts his search and rescue manager who immediately musters multiple SAR teams to prepare for a large but delicate operation. Within two hours of the original 911 call being made, search and rescue personnel had boots on the ground at the lower Big South Trailhead, with a total of 65 people involved in the search for Jared. An hour and a half into their search, rescue personnel had scoured the majority of the trail

and still hadn't located Jared. As a result, the area of operations was vastly expanded, with reinforcements including Air Force helicopters due to arrive the following morning. At 7 a.m. on October 2nd of 1999, a Cheyenne-based UH-1N Huey helicopter made its first pass over the Big South Trail and remained the search and rescue team's eye in the sky until late in the morning. After returning to Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport to refuel, the helicopter arrived back in the search area at around 3.30 that afternoon. However, during its second patrol over the trail the helicopter struggled with the mountain conditions and stalled out

plummeting more than 100 feet before smashing through the pine canopy near the trailhead. Aboard the Huey were four USAF servicemen but also a representative of the Larimer County Search and Rescue Team named Mark Sheets. When it crashed, Mark was the only passenger who was not securely in a seat, as he was on the floor with the door open. He said that when he saw the rotors hit the top of the trees and pieces of helicopters sprayed into the forest, he rushed to close the door, but a severed tree limb found its way into the hold and struck the Air Force doctor on board squarely in the face, fracturing the doctor's eye socket and causing

blood to pour from an open wound. By some stroke of good luck, the Air Force crew was able to escape from the helicopter's wreckage, but Mark Sheets had been completely knocked out cold and was still trapped in the mass of crumbled metal that was still in danger of exploding. Nearby search and rescue members ran to the downed helicopter, smashed in a window and managed to pull the unconscious sheets out before he could come to any more harm. But he had still received a severe concussion and a 13-inch L-shaped gash that left his femur exposed. Mark had also suffered three broken vertebrae in his lower back and a broken shoulder, possibly from being pulled from the wreckage so violently. The helicopter crash most definitely set the search back a great deal, but thankfully,

all survived and the search efforts continued into their third day. Day three saw the arrival of specially trained police diving teams who explored the deep pools of the nearby Poudre River. Another helicopter was dispatched to aid the search, but encountered swirling winds that required full power to prevent crashing. This burned through the chopper's fuel supplies in no time, and it was soon forced to return to Fort Collins Air Force Base. Over the next three days, well-meaning but ill-equipped volunteers started hounding the Larimer County Sheriff's Office and Larimer County Search and Rescue to allow them to help. Three-year-old Jared had been missing for almost a week at that point,

and time was running out to find him safely. They approved, and soon the number of search and rescue personnel had swelled to over 200 and included a dozen dog teams, professional trackers, a dive team, and a search plane. But even with all those bodies and assets, the search and rescue operation was a complete and utter failure, as not a single usable clue to Jared's whereabouts are found. Consequently, officials are forced to notify the Atadero family that the search for Jared had been suspended. Larimer County Undersheriff Bill Nelson hastily convened a press conference. In it, he told the gathered journalists,

We worked for eight solid days to begin with, and that was 24 hours a day for eight days. We did some night searching. It was limited to a certain extent, but we did always have people out in the field to make noise, so if somebody was out there now, Jared would have heard it. He would have maybe responded. Jane Schmiewski, a member of the Larimer County Search and Rescue Canine Unit, said that the search was one of the most intense she'd ever taken part of. She'd never been involved in the search for a child before, and although it was to be expected, she was astounded at the level of media coverage.

It became a real nationwide episode, she said. So, that put a lot of stress on us, and a lot of stress on the dogs. County Sheriff Justin Smith was just a lowly sergeant back in 1999 when Jared went missing. He said the helicopter crash was an extremely stressful event, which most definitely had a negative effect at a crucial period of the search, and that the intense media interest only exacerbated the situation. It's worth noting that this all took place right around the time that the grand jury of the Jean Benet Ramsey case was due to hand down indictments, so the concept of children coming to harm loomed large in the national zeitgeist. Naturally, the media flocked to sate the public's appetite for answers and at one point,

17 TV satellite trucks lined Colorado's Highway 14, and the area sw appetite for answers and at one point, 17 TV satellite trucks lined Colorado's Highway 14 and the area swarmed with reporters and camera crews sporting fur coats to protect them from the bitter Colorado cold. Meanwhile, police information hotlines were buzzing with calls, including a number of self-proclaimed psychics who claimed they knew where SAR operators could find the terrified but still living Jared. TV crews observed a Native American medicine man visiting the area who informed them he had arrived to perform a kind of ritual in which he would ask the mountain to return the boy to his parents. And in one particularly unusual but wholesome incident,

a barefoot man with a mule showed up on the trail and volunteered his services in the search effort. But as much as the gesture was a heartfelt one, dog teams and aircraft had failed to find any sign of Jared, so one more pair of eyes on the ground proved of little use. As much as it hurt them to do so, rescue volunteers were forced to call off their search entirely, and for years, the case of Little Jared's disappearance remained a complete and utter mystery. Cut to June of 2003, when hikers Rob Osborne and Gareth Watts were making their visit to the Big South Trail. We singled out the Poudre Canyon as an area we'd like to explore, Rob said,

so we decided on getting there via the Big South Trail. We'd heard how gorgeous a hike it was, how beautiful and wild the area around the river was, and since that's the whole reason Gary and I got into hiking, we figured we'd pay it a visit. While on their hike, Rob and Gareth wound up in a rock field and decided to hike up around 2,000 feet to reach its top. It's remarkable country up there, but it really was a scramble, Gareth later said. You're constantly watching your feet. Focus on the area in front of you so you don't end up twisting an ankle or something. He and Rob had hiked areas in the vicinity before and were obviously aware of the Jared Atadero mystery owing to the amount of media attention it received. And as experienced outdoorsmen, they had spent one or two occasions theorizing on the cause of the boy's disappearance.

We'd figured he'd been swept downstream, maybe taken by a mountain lion, Rob said. Obviously there was the possibility of something more sinister happening, but it's something we didn't really talk about. Having kids of our own, it just didn't bear thinking about. But since they were hiking the exact area that Jared had gone missing, the pair felt an eerie sense of dread and couldn't keep their minds off the mysterious and heartbreaking incident. But neither must have expected the discovery they were due to make that day.

Rob and Gareth usually stuck to popular hiking trails, mainly for safety purposes. But on that first visit to the Big South Trail, with the thought of Jared's disappearance in their minds, they took it upon themselves to wander off the trail. We didn't set out to find anything, Gareth added. We figured if a whole team of guys couldn't find anything, there was no way we could. But I guess there was an element of what if, you know. Then about an hour into the hike, we just walked right into it. I couldn't believe my eyes at first. But there they were, clear as day. Rob and Gareth had somehow stumbled across a set of child's clothes, more than 500 feet up the trail from where he was last seen.

That's when I saw the shoe, Gareth said. It was a kid's shoe, definitely, and it was pristine, like somebody had just took their foot right out of it, you know. Fresh, like you might look up and see a kid hopping around looking for their sneaker. But then, the two hiking buddies found another matching shoe, a brown fleece jacket and a pair of blue sweatpants that had been turned inside out. In their eyes, there was no way these clothes could be Jared Ataderos. The boy had been missing almost four years by that time, and it wasn't conceivable that they could be exposed to elements for all this time. It still looked brand new. But still, just in case, the two men took photographs of the clothes and called 911 at the next available opportunity. They complied

with the detective's request to email over the photographs they'd taken, which were then forwarded to Alan Atadero, who was living in Littleton at the time. The detective was stunned when he received a reply stating that the clothes did indeed belong to Jared. Within 24 hours, state authorities had assembled a team consisting of Larimer County Sheriff's Office members, Larimer County Search and Rescue officials, rangers from the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and volunteers from an organization known as NecroSearch. All were directed to meet at Big South Trailhead to start search for remains of Jared. Later, with Alan, Atadero,

and personnel from the local child protection network joining the search effort, they managed to recover the remains of the entire outfit that Jared was wearing on the day of his disappearance, which were scattered over a 25-foot area. While the cloth jacket had what appeared to be punctured marks and the pants were tattered, the nylon shoes had little weathering, leading investigators to conclude that some of the items were sheltered from the elements and some were exposed. It was the simplest explanation, but not necessarily the correct one. Then, at a sight about 180 feet north and 20 feet higher in elevation than the place the clothing was found, police made a chilling discovery.

It was a tiny piece of a human being's skull, wedged into a crevice and only barely visible with the naked eye. Nearby, on a log spanning the crevice where the skull fragment was found, police also found a human tooth. At 5pm that evening, Alan Atadero and other members of the search teams summoned the throngs of TV news reporters to the trailhead and announced what he and the team had found. It was most definitely a breakthrough in the case, but again, the discovery only seemed to generate more questions than it answered, and it wasn't long before people were forced to come up with their own explanations. Canadian outdoorsman Les Survivorman Shroud said that whatever is happening up on the Big South Trail is simply beyond human comprehension.

In a lot of these cases, search and rescue, or the volunteer searching people people have already gone over certain areas, not once, not twice, but even dozens of times, he said. And then the child is found there maybe a year, maybe a few years later. It makes no sense at all. I've been out in the woods for years now and I've seen all kinds of things, but still, I can't make sense of it all. Hiker Rob Osborne says there's a good chance the area where Jared's clothes were found was in search during the initial effort and that it was down to one simple thing. No way could a kid have climbed up to that spot on his own. No way. I mean, it was a struggle for Gary and I to get there. It was very rough terrain, so maybe the police should have searched

that area the first time around, but at the same time, I can't blame them for rolling it out. Police dog handler Jane Schmiewski's conclusion from the get-go was that Jared's disappearance was due to an animal encounter. I'm not sure officially what has really been released as a finality, but it pretty much points to an animal encounter. Nothing else explains how he could have been dragged up so high, unless of course it was a person that took Jared that morning. This was where SAR Specialist Bill Nelson's testimony gets a little frightening. If a big cat actually took him, which is what I believe happened, it would have taken him someplace and buried him, he said. With all the activity that was going on, we probably scared

it away, then it would have come back later to dig up its meal. That's why no one found nothing. The kid was underground the whole time. But then surely volunteers or police would have noticed some disturbed earth somewhere, and Jared's clothing must have showed some signs of animal attack. It's inconsistencies like those that make Alan Atadero think something else is to blame for his son's disappearance. I hear constantly about a mountain lion, he said, but when they tested Jared's clothes, there was no mountain lion hairs, no DNA, no blood, nothing on his clothes. If a mountain lion would have attacked him, they would have gone for the stomach area. His jacket would have been in threads. But his jacket was fine.

I've talked to wildlife experts about this, Alan said, quick to reassure those who will listen. Jared's jacket would not have survived a mountain lion attack. His shoes that were found up in the mountain, as told by investigators, do not look like they were in the wilderness for years. I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Alan also notes that the other thing interesting about the discovery of Jared's almost spotless shoes is that they would most definitely have been scuffed up if he had been dragged up the side of the mountain, a la Mountain Lion Attack. His pants were found in good condition with only minor damage from rodents and birds using threads for nesting

materials. A large predator would have had to tear through the small boy's clothing in order to feed, yet there's no signs that that was the case. One of the reports that Alan Atadero read says that the reason why that forensic examiners didn't find any DNA or blood on Jared's clothing is because either he or something removed his clothes before he was attacked. We can only imagine how horrified his father would have been reading that, how it was the very last thing he wanted to hear. The report goes on to say that because there were so many hikers coming up, the mountain lion that took Alan's son then absconded with his body 500 feet off the side of the cliff. Yet the question remains, if something took Jared's clothing off before he was attacked, why was it then found around 500 feet off the mountainside?

His pants were found inside out, a clear indication that they had been pulled off in a hurry and not by anything that had claws or teeth. And as we've said, it's little details like this that cause Alan and his family to believe that someone out there knows a little more about the case than they're comfortable sharing. Jared's disappearance has never been fully explained by either US law enforcement or their amateur counterparts, but it's important for mountain lion theorists to keep this in mind that, since 1915, there have been a grand total of 14 reported mountain lion attacks in the US and Canada that have resulted in fatality. The chances of being attacked by one are tremendously low, and even lower when you consider that Jared was part of a large group of hikers. These hikers were intensively questioned by the police, as it seemed natural that at least one of them would be held responsible for his

disappearance, but multiple homicide detectives said interviews with hiking group members showed no obvious red flags and that no evidence pointed toward their guilt. As a result of such speculation, theories seeking to explain such mysterious events have evolved from purely rational possibilities to bizarre, conspiracy-theory-like explanations such as cryptid attacks or alien abduction. But as much as people keep throwing ideas at the wall, nothing is sticking, and as more and more time goes by, it looks more and more likely that the disappearance of young Jared Atadero will forever remain a heartbreaking but terrifying mystery. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires?

I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that i've got a pro so who's that pro the pros at tread experts from tires to auto repair tread experts is always there helping you with toyo tires you can trust until may 31st save up to 100 in rebates on select toyo tires like toyo's open country family of tires find your pro at your local tread experts from tires to auto repair we're always there prob deep prob shron was a canadian student and army reservist from Toronto, Canada,

who moved to Australia in 2011 to pursue a degree in law at the prestigious Bond University on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Prabh was 25 when he made a trip home to Canada in April of 2013, visiting family and friends during Australia's Easter study break. He returned to Australia at the beginning of May to finish his studies, but first planned to hike Mount Kosciuszko in the Australian Blue Mountains. Before his Blue Mountain trip, Probst stayed with some friends for a few nights at their apartment in the coastal city of Sydney, and on the 13th of May, these same friends said they drove him over to Padstow train station with all of his camping gear, believing he was due to catch a train out

to the Blue Mountains. However, despite the fact that he wasn't due back for almost a week, Prob returned to Sydney the very next day and began to exhibit some very unusual behavior. First of all, he visited the Sydney branch of the Juicy Rent-A-Car company, hiring a van that he was due to return in Melbourne two days later, on the 15th of May. There's nothing unusual about this, of course, since Mount Kosciuszko was almost smack bang in the middle of the two cities, but Prob was already on his way to the Blue Mountains, so why in the world would he turn back to pick up a rental car? Later that day, Prob was spotted on security camera footage at a

convenience store in nearby Jindabyne, presumably picking up supplies for his journey ahead. But instead of contacting the friends that he had been staying with, or at least getting a hotel for an overnight stay, Prob is believed to have slept in the van that night. The following morning on Tuesday, the 14th of May, Prob drove his rented van out to the Charlotte Pass Ski Resort, but instead of using the guest parking, he used the staff parking lot. After that, he set out to walk the main range trail. I only bring up the use of the staff parking because I think it indicates that Prob was under some unusual amount of stress. In any other circumstance,

someone as intelligent and diligent as Prob might have been worried about the van being towed, since he was using restricted parking. But no, on that occasion it doesn't seem to have bothered him in the slightest, almost like he had more pressing opportunities. What's also extremely curious about this return to the mountain is that Prob didn't seem to be carrying any of the necessary survival items, as his map, compass, GPS system, tent, and cold weather clothing were left behind in the van. However, the lack of cell phone in the van and the fact that one of his food packages had been opened leads us to believe that he carried those with him onto the trailhead.

But it seems the gear he had on him is of little import, considering that he never returned from his hike, and the truth being Prob's fate has remained a mystery ever since. Police managed to speak to a handful of other hikers who were also present on the main range trail that morning. They reported that the day had started off with some pleasant and sunny weather and no significant change was expected. All in all, a perfect day for hiking. However, by about noon the temperature on the trail had dropped significantly, and a raging blizzard had hit the area at lightning speed. The blizzard dumped a massive 30 centimeters of snow onto the ground in places and reduced visibility so much that at times,

it was only possible to see a couple of feet in front of you. Over the 15th and 16th of May, the Juicy Rental Company attempted to contact Probst several times to tell them that he was overdue in returning the van, but obviously the calls weren't answered. On the 18th, the caretaker at Charlotte Pass became concerned after the van had been there for four days with no evidence of any activity in the fresh snow. When he looked closer, he found that the van only had a one-day entry pass dated the 14th of May. This was obviously a huge red flag, so the caretaker contacted Juicy, who informed him that they had been unable to contact the individual who had rented the van. Suspecting someone might well be in danger, the caretaker immediately called the police to report

what he had found. Later that same day, police tried to get in contact with rental car company's head office over in neighboring New Zealand, yet due to the difference in time zones, all they got was an answering machine. The next day, with the situation becoming critical, police managed to establish that Prob was missing and moved to notify his family back in Canada. A small-scale search then commenced, with two National Parks and Wildlife Service rangers scouring the general area in which Prob had gone missing. Police also attempted to triangulate the signal from his cell phone, but due to the phone being off the Vodafone grid for over three days, they found they were unable to do so.

Then on May 20th, a full-blown state emergency service search began, with two helicopters and around 50 search and rescue personnel on foot, ski, and ski-do. Two days later, a report came in that two National Parks and Wildlife Service employees, who were performing maintenance work on a mountain survival shelter heard what they believed to be an adult male's voice crying out for assistance. Deducing that the cries were coming from an area north of the shelter, rangers attempted to track down whoever was calling out, but almost as soon as they set off, the cries ceased and the rangers failed to make any

meaningful contact. A low-flying helicopter then patrolled over the area, hoping to see what the rangers had been unable to, but still, nothing was found. Later on, a man skiing in an area known as Little Austria reported that he too had heard a voice coming from the same direction and around the same time. Yet despite the corroboration, solid intelligence was no substitute for an actual physical find. A full 11 days after Prob had gone missing, the police requested that Vodafone set up two portable repeater stations, one at the trailhead of the main range track at Charlotte Pass, where Prob had parked his car, and one near the peak of Mount Kosciuszko. Five days later, on May 30th, Vodafone provided information to police that the pings from Prob's mobile phone plotted a course where he was walking quickly, following the main range track anticlockwise, and then left the track towards Mount Townsend, before losing contact with his phone somewhere on the northwest side of Mount Townsend. Private investigators hired by the

Schrand family were convinced that they were closing in on Prob's position and urged the family not to give up. But following advice from a doctor specializing in survivability, it was believed that considering Prob had not attempted to contact anyone, he would have most likely perished after 14 days at the very latest, considering the climate and the terrain. After hearing this, police drastically scaled the search efforts back, although they too advised the Prob family not to give up hope until the worst news had been confirmed. And so began a privately funded search in which the Prob family offered $100,000 as a reward for any information which led to Prob

being recovered. They also offered members of the public a $250 daily rate to pay for aiding in the Blue Mountain search effort. This prompted all kinds of people to show up, some after the money, some because it was the right thing to do. The latter included a group of Canadian soldiers who promised to do everything they could to bring a brother soldier home. By July, the Australian winter began to roll in, bringing in heavy snows which hampered the last desperate search efforts. Eventually, after spending over $200,000 in private investigators, the Schron family were forced to call off the search, and in September 2013, the financial reward for fining Prob, dead or alive, was finally withdrawn.

Another two small police searches were conducted toward the end of 2013, and the start of 2014 as the summer allowed for better searching as the snow melted. But despite the last-ditch effort, not a trace of Prob was found. Two years later, in June of 2015, Prob was officially declared dead following a coroner's inquest into his disappearance. This coroner determined that Prob had died from exposure on the day he set out, after being caught ill-prepared by a blizzard somewhere on the northwest face of Mount Townsend. Despite no trace of Prob having ever been found, his family believes miracles do happen,

and that he will one day be found alive. But such misplaced hope only adds a sense of heartbreak to the terrifying prospect that a well-trained, perfectly healthy young man has most probably lost his life due to one of Mother Nature's wild mood swings. And if she can eat a man like Prav alive, the rest of us simply wouldn't stand a chance. In June of 1969, six-year-old Dennis Martin accompanied his family on a camping trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a mountain range rising along the Tennessee-North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. The name Great Smoky Mountains comes from the natural fog that often hangs over the range, appearing as large smoke plumes from a distance. Interestingly, this fog is caused by chemicals emitted from the local flora, chemicals that have a high vapor pressure and easily form vapors at normal temperature and pressures. Yet even having heard the scientific explanation behind the phenomenon, seeing all

that fog clinging to the hilltops is a very eerie sight indeed. Hailing from nearby Knoxville, Tennessee, the Martin family had a long-running tradition of celebrating Father's Day by taking camping trips to the Great Smoky Mountains. In 1969 would mark young Dennis' first trip into the woods in the company of his father, older brother, and grandpa. The group drove out to Cades Cove, an isolated valley located in the Tennessee section of the park, then hiked out towards Russell Field, where they set up camping and began preparing for their first night under the stars. The following morning, they set off for a place known as Spencefield, a picturesque highland meadow and popular camping

spot which was bisected by the rolling hills and jagged mountain peaks of the Appalachian Trail. When the group arrived at Spencefield, Dennis and his older brother set off to explore the campsite and reportedly talked to many of the other campers who had pitched their tents nearby. This is how they got talking to a ragtag group made up of other camper's children who made fast friends with the Martin boys. Dennis' father was pleased to see his son getting along so well with the other kids, and having his sons occupied meant the adults could get on with the important task of assembling their four-man tent. Once the task was completed, Dennis was still playing with the group of other kids,

and his father says he watched as the group gleefully took up hiding positions from which to playfully ambush a group of approaching adults. When the grown-ups entered the kids' make-believe kill zone, they all jumped out, growling and roaring like wild animals as they set upon their laughing parents. All but one. All but little Dennis. His father watched with growing concern as the seconds ticked by and Dennis had yet to emerge from his hiding spot. Eventually he couldn't bear it anymore and after rising from his camping chair, Dennis' father marched off the spot where he had last seen his six-year-old son and began calling out his name. But what

started out as stern, fatherly commands soon degenerated into terrified pleas, and as he continued to call out in desperation, the other families began to realize that something was terribly wrong. Once Dennis' grandpa knew he was missing, he set the group into action, sending one group two miles up the Appalachian Trail with his missing, he set the group into action, sending one group two miles up the Appalachian Trail with his son, while he led another group back towards the Cades Cove Ranger Station, arriving there around 8.30pm that night. Thus began an extensive, well-publicized search and rescue operation, in which National Park Service personnel was supplemented by National Guard soldiers, and even a unit of Green Berets.

At the peak of the search operation, more than 1,400 people were operating in the few square miles around Spencefield, but not a single one found anything that could lead them to the missing boy. However, in the aftermath of the operation, the search efforts drew a great deal of criticism from search and rescue experts far and wide who said the large number of personnel involved potentially obscuring tracks and ground that was already difficult to track over due to heavy rain. Shockingly, a shoe print belonging to that of a child was actually found at one point, but the track was dismissed as belonging to one of the Boy Scouts that was helping with the search. Later, however, investigators kicked themselves when they found that the tracks were determined to have come from a child who was missing one shoe, which disappeared on the banks of a stream. Some suggesting it was possible that the tracks belonged to Martin, and this theory was supported when a discarded child-sized shoe and sock were found just three days later. Although search and rescue personnel continued

their search for more than two weeks, scouring the hillsides night and day in continual shifts, no further clues to Martin's whereabouts were ever found. The Martin family was so understandably desperate for answers that they offered a $5,000 reward for any information that would reunite them with their beloved Dennis. This got the attention of a handful of so-called psychics, who some might argue sought to exploit the Martin family's grief and maybe cashing in if they guessed the right area of the Smokies to search. Surprisingly, none of these psychics ever proved to be of any help. Many years later in 1985, a man who had apparently been illegally

collecting American ginseng in the park claimed to have come across the skeletal remains of a child while exploring the woods. The man said he should have reported the find, but was terrified of being prosecuted for his prohibited herbal hobby. Not only that, but he was also unable to point investigators in the direction of the site he'd found the bones in the first place. There have been many theories that have attempted to explain what happened to young Dennis Martin that day. Most detectives, both amateur and professional, believe that Dennis became disoriented whilst looking for a hiding place, maybe even forgetting his way back to camp when he emerged from it. Either way, Dennis then strayed further from the camp and could easily have fallen down

one of the many steep slopes and ravines that dotted the area surrounding Spencefield. However, Dennis was wearing a bright red t-shirt when he went missing, not something that would be easy for search and rescue teams to miss. Dennis would have to be completely covered in foliage to remain undetected with that color of shirt, and despite it being feasible due to his small size, the likelihood of that is extremely low. Others are quick to remind us of the presence of black bears in the area, as well as copperhead vipers and feral pigs, all of which would have posed a considerable threat to six-year-old Martin. Park Rangers told investigating police that an underweight bear had been caught in a boar trap in the Spencefield area just two weeks earlier.

Although the bear was released safely, the incident suggested that it may have been struggling to find enough food, prompting the turn to a less familiar source of food. Yet however tragic and brutal the aforementioned theories are, Dennis' father believes something considerably more sinister. Based on the eyewitness account of one Harold Key, who says he heard a loud scream on the very same afternoon that Dennis disappeared. Dennis' dad firmly believed that his son was kidnapped by an opportunistic predator. Shortly after he heard the scream, Harold Key claimed to have seen a disheveled bearded man with wild unkempt hair fleeing through the woods in an apparent bid to remain undetected by the nearby campers. Harold's family went on to explain that they saw a flash of red on the figure's shoulders, which some believe was actually Dennis himself,

slung over the shoulder of this mysterious figure as they carried him away. Harold later speculated that the man may have been a moonshiner, explaining his reluctance to be seen. Despite the report, FBI investigators ultimately dismissed it, saying that as much as Harold meant well, his account was frankly unreliable as his timeline of events were off. But one retired park ranger lamented the failure to properly follow up either the footprints or the sighting of the rough-looking man Arguing that as the location of the sighting was downhill from where Dennis disappeared, it was possible to cover that distance in the time frame,

even carrying a child, but that the individual in question would have some impressive strength, stealth, and endurance. So if this is the case, who is this hairy mystery man? This bearded vagrant who is apparently capable of such an impressive physical feat, even if it was in the context of the despicable abduction of a child. Given the lack of investigation into his sighting or his tracks, it seems we might never know. But even if we did get to the bottom of the mystery of a man living in the Appalachian Mountains with a penchant for kidnapping children, I don't think the answers would bring us any solace. Maybe the closure would be worth it, especially for the family, but

nightmares can be a high price to pay, and wondering what happened to young Dennis Martin can give even the most hardened true crime reader some very sleepless nights. My big passion in life is bowling. I know that's a super nerdy passion to have in life, but I don't care. It makes me happy. I've been super into the Simpsons since I was a kid. Homer made bowling sound really cool. It is what it is. I actually bowl competitively too, mostly in local tournaments here in Sacramento, but most of the regional finals

are held in Las Vegas of all places. So despite the fact that I'm not much of a drinker or a gambler, I find myself driving out to Vegas more often than I'd ever expected. So on our way to 94 regionals, me and a friend of mine are about 100 miles south of Vegas, on Interstate 15 near Halloran Springs Road. We picked up a rental car from Enterprise for the drive out there and just an hour or so short of the finish line, the transmission went out on it. Luckily, I was able to coast down the off-ramp a little before I was able to pull over near this old truck stop. The place was a mess. Just a few dirty gas pumps and a dusty old sign that said gas and food. I'm surprised the payphone there even worked at all. I call up the Enterprise

customer service line to see if they could get anyone out to fix the car but the news wasn't good. Apparently we were smack bang in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't a roadside assistance company they worked with within like a hundred miles of us. It might take hours and hours for them to get a mechanic out to us but they did have a pretty sweet proposition for us. Find someone to fix or tow us and they'd reimburse us if we kept the receipts. That seemed fair enough to us, so we ask inside the truck stop if there are any mechanics he can call for us. He launches into this whole thing about how there's a mechanic but he won't drive out, so he'd call his buddy who owned a tow truck to come get us so he could take us to the mechanic. It all sounded sketchy, but what can I say? I was desperate. If I missed out on a good night's

sleep, I'd be screwed at the tournament, so anything that actually got us into Vegas on time seemed worth a try. Shortly after, a truck rolls into the truck stop that looked like something out of a Mad Max movie. A rust bucket that looked like it might fall apart at any time. The guy who stepped out of it looked like he hadn't showered in a week. He waddles up to us, easily 240 pounds of grease and dust, and tells us he actually knows of an enterprise mechanic up near McCarran. And he'd take us there. For 400 bucks. Can you believe that? 400?

He could smell our desperation and he hit us with a $400 fee. But what choice did I have? If I wanted to be in any sort of shape to bowl properly, I'd need a decent 8 hours so I accepted the guy's offer and tell him I'll get him his cash when we reach the Enterprise place. In retrospect, I most definitely made the wrong decision. I was just so excited about the tournament, like I really believed I had a fighting chance that year and in my blind desperation I'd have done anything to get us there on time. But getting in that guy's truck was probably the worst thing we could have done and at the time I couldn't climb into it fast enough.

We were on the road for just over an hour, although if you've told me we were actually on the road for three hours, I'd have actually believed you. Almost every single second was agony and it was all down to the tow truck's driver's conversation topic of choice. According to him, he'd been driving a tow truck for like 200 years or whatever, and that means he'd been to his fair share of traffic accidents. In the entire way to McCarran, he proceeds to tell us about every single crash he'd had to work, in detail. Each time we reach a part of the road there had been a wreck that he'd attended, he gives us a horrifically graphic description of each one.

I just thought all the severed heads, charred bodies, and amputated limbs was kind of gross, and none of what he said really got to me. That was until we hit one section of road that reminded him of a particularly nasty wreck. In this one, a drunk driver doing a buck ten down the highway veers over a few lanes and smashes into a lone woman driving the opposite way. The tow truck driver says he slammed into the side of her like a runway steam train. Just absolutely obliterated this poor woman's car. Only the thing is, the woman was pregnant too, and as the driver put it, the impact just burst her open. It's at that point that I have to politely stop the guy, telling him I thought he was oversharing, as they say. Now I was pretty

young at the time, much younger than I am now, and because this guy was old enough to be my dad, he felt entitled to talk to me like he was too. So, he starts lecturing me on the consequences of ignoring road safety, how I couldn't shy away from the realities of the modern world, all this other nonsense too. I agree, I actually did agree, but surely he could spare us the details. There's an awkward silence in the truck for a few miles, then to my absolute shock, the truck driver starts telling us about the traffic accidents again. I couldn't believe my ears. I had specifically told this guy not to talk about those freaking accidents anymore,

and there he was, once again telling us all this stuff that was enough to turn your stomach. And when he started giving us some graphic account about how a bus full of kids on a field trip managed to smash into a jackknife truck before bursting into flames and how there were little burning critters just running all over the highway, I should have lost my temper. I told him as such in no uncertain terms and myself and my friend most definitely did not want to hear about burning children and could he kindly shut up. What followed was another awkward silence and instead of just continuing the drive, the fat guy pulls us over to the side of the road and turns off his engine.

He then launches into a tirade about how we're lucky he's helping us, how we'd be screwed if it wasn't for him and we were lucky he was only charging us $400. At that point I was foolish enough to mention something about walking the rest of the way and the driver just burst out laughing. He tapped at a grimy old temperature gauge on his dash and I immediately got the message. But he still yammered on some tirade about how we'd die of heatstroke by mile 30 if we attempted the rest of the journey on foot. Knowing he was right hit me like a ton of bricks and all I could do was nod along and apologize, softly begging him not to kick us out of the truck. We were stuck with him. He knew it, and we knew it too.

Knowing he held all the cards, knowing he had all the power had made me sick to my stomach, and since he knew well that he was fully in control, he carried on his little highway death tour speech all the way to McCarran. Only that time, something was different about the way he talked. He was disturbingly passionate about the whole thing, to the point where I actually thought he was getting off when telling us all this nightmarish stuff about broken, dead bodies either lying in car wrecks or lifeless at the side of the road. The more we seemed to wince, the more uncomfortable we were, the more engaged and animated he seemed to wince, the more uncomfortable we were, the more engaged and animated he seemed to get. It was honestly one of the most unnerving and disturbing hours of my life and it would have

been better if we'd abandoned our Vegas trip altogether. Like we got to a mechanic who fixed the car and we managed to get to our hotel in time to get some decent sleep. Only sleep wouldn't come when I laid my head into the pillow. All I could think about was all those dead people, burning kids, all the pain and loss and suffering that the stretch of highway had seen over the years. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep at all. That meant my performance at the bowling tournament was well and truly dire and my team was eliminated in just the second round. We ended up driving home from Vegas exhausted, defeated, but most importantly seriously disturbed and you can bet I prayed for the transmission to hold until we got back to California because

there was no way I was going to sit in a truck with that creepy old driver again. We were lucky he kept his greasy hands off of us and next time we might not be so lucky. I don't even know how to start this. Part of me wants to say something like, this story sounds unbelievable, but it's true. But I honestly don't know if it's believable or not, since I've never told it to anybody. Even the version of events I give my wife is complete nonsense but it keeps her from asking too many questions and I think if she knew the truth she honestly might leave me and that's

why I want to maintain anonymity. Most people don't even know I've been to Vegas. I'm definitely not the partying type, never have been, and these days, I never even think about gambling or card games or anything like that, let alone talk about them. So, there's no way that anyone would guess that the single most significant moment in my life so far occurred on the outskirts of the gambling capital of the world. But it did. It all starts with the bachelor party. It was for my brother-in-law, a nice enough guy who didn't want to get up to anything too extreme which suited me well enough. But like I said, I'm just not the partying type, nor am I one of those social butterflies that I keep hearing about. So after a while I got pretty tired of drinking, then completely tapped out when one of the guys suggested going to a strip club. After I leave them, I'm walking back to my hotel room and

to get there I have to walk across the entire casino floor. This is a clever little trick the casinos pull to try to tempt you to gamble. And I bet I'm not the only sucker who fell for it, but as I'm walking through, I get the urge to play poker for some reason. I never played it before. I only had this vague idea that it looked cool from watching it on TV, so I decided to try it out. I can't even really explain what happened over the next few hours. First, I'm shyly explaining that I barely knew the rules of Texas Hold'em and the next thing I know, I'm picking them up and within the hour, I'd actually won a couple of games due to combinations of beginner's luck and raw intuition. I was hooked. By 11 o'clock that night, I was up $6,000 in poker winnings.

The casino kept offering me free food and cocktails to keep me at the tables, and I naively obliged them. I didn't get drunk, but I'm almost certain I cleared the mound of butterfly shrimp and diet cokes. But I was drunk on my newfound penchant for poker and that inebriation caused me to make a very stupid decision. I won't bore you with the details, but not only did I end up losing the six grand I'd made, I ended up owing the casino a lot more. I can't even bring myself to type out the actual amount, so let's just skip all that in favor of the implications. Basically, with no mortgage payments, me and my wife were looking at losing the house. I had screwed up, real bad, and I just remember feeling numb as I packed up my belongings and abandoned the bachelor party completely.

It was quite a long drive back to the place I lived at the time, one that I started pretty early in the morning too, just as the sun was rising. I drive out of town, the roads are mostly empty, and I've just passed that little place, Sloan, when I see something in the distance at the side of the road. As I get closer, I realize it's a man in a suit, one that looked like he was drunkenly stumbling along the side of the highway, trying to thumb a lift. There was absolutely no way I was about to stop for a hitchhiker, but right as I'm about to pass him, this quick flash of red on white catches my eye and I realize the guy is actually

hurt. I slam on the brakes, back up a little on the edge of the highway, and then jump out of the car with my cell phone to call 911. This guy collapses pretty much as soon as I get to him. I'm not sure how he managed to get hurt so bad, but the wound was real deep, so he'd either been stabbed with a big old knife or just straight up shot. I start asking him what his name is, just dumb stuff like that to keep him from passing out while I call 911. But he just starts gasping, things in a language that I didn't understand. It wasn't Spanish either, like it sounded European but I just couldn't put my

finger on it. Being around someone who was dying like that was truly traumatic. I actually saw the fear of death in that guy's eyes. It didn't matter at all what he was saying because that look needed no translation. He was begging me to save his life, but there wasn't a thing I could do other than call 911. Now at some point between me trying to put pressure on this guy's stomach wound, trying to listen out for his name, and trying to talk to the 911 dispatcher, I see the guy was carrying a canvas bag. A canvas bag that was just lying there next to him. As I'm talking to the dispatcher, I lean over and open the thing up, thinking maybe there was some first aid supplies in there, maybe even just some water to make this guy more comfortable. When I see what's in there, I just go completely silent.

Inside the bag is roll after roll of hundred dollar bills, more cash than I'd ever seen in my life. Last thing I remember was hearing the dispatcher saying, Sir? Are you still there, sir? Before I hung up the phone. What followed was the most shameful act of my life. I just got up, grabbed the bag of money and started walking back to my car. The guy reaches out with a bloody hand and grabs my right sneaker. The first thought in my head wasn't, I should stop what I'm doing and actually help this guy. It was more like, well, I'll have to burn this shoe when I get back. I ignored what I assumed were pleas for help in whatever language it was,

pulled my sneaker free from his grip and continued on towards my car. Just typing that out, I have no idea I could ever be so cold No clue whatsoever regarding what a monster I could actually be All it took was a serious financial problem And I was ready to rob a dying man just before driving off And driving away almost certainly condemned him to death I drove non-stop too Didn't stop for a single second until I was home where I could dispose

of the bloody sneaker and stash the money somewhere my wife would never find it. I took a shower, told her I had left early because I wasn't feeling well, sent the same lie via text to my brother-in-law and tried to just get on with my life. But it turned out not to be so easy as just pretending the whole thing didn't happen. It was on my mind for the next 18 months, almost constantly. At first it was the anxiety of thinking the cops would track me down, having found some of my DNA or shoe print at the scene. But no one from law enforcement ever called, and although I checked a whole bunch, I didn't see anything about the guy's death in the media so that fear kind of subsided. I also worried about the bills being marked but

that turned out not to be the case either. But then came the fear that the money somehow belonged to some kind of cartel or gang like I kept thinking about that no country for old men movie and it put the fear of God into me. I must have gone through those rolls of hundreds like a thousand times, looking for tracking devices or bugs or whatever, but again, didn't find any and no one ever visited the house. All the money is gone now, either funneled into investments or just used as petty cash. There's nothing physically connecting me to what happened out there in the desert anymore and only now do I feel like I can actually talk about it,

even if it is without giving away too many details about myself. I know people are just going to call me a thief or a coward or say that the money didn't even exist in the first place. I know what I am. I'm a monster for stealing that guy's money and letting him die, but I am most definitely not a liar. I just want to end with a little reassurance though. That money haunted me for as long as I had it. I had a full head of brown hair when I found that guy at the side of the road. Now, I'm receding badly and I have little flecks of grey around my temples. But I realized something. I wouldn't take it back. I'd steal that money all

over again if it gave me the chance. The monster that allowed me to steal it in the first place is still just right there inside me, just waiting to wake up again. And that's to Vegas for the weekend. You'd be surprised how many kid-friendly things there were to do in Sin City. I mean, they had to have something to entertain the ankle biters while dad gambled away all his money at the craps tables. My dad wasn't some degenerate gambler, but he did enjoy a little blackjack between our visits to Red Rock Canyons. So, mom would take us to the Disney store shopping for clothes while dad blew off some steam. We used to have a whole bunch of Vegas traditions too. One of them was stopping off at this little place called Prima Donna Resort in a place called Prim, right on the state line. We'd take a bathroom break, grab a bite to eat, and dad would get some last minute gambling done in the casino there.

So it's 1997, I'm 12 years old and we just finished eating in one of the restaurants at the prima donna. Dad is upstairs gambling and my sister wasn't feeling well so mom's attention was taken up with her. I was bored out of my mind and I knew the vacation was coming to an end so I guess I was just feeling restless. I got up from the table and wandered off into the resort. Almost immediately my attention is grabbed by the fact that the resort had its very own arcade. I don't know how many of you remember the golden age of video game arcades but those places were like paradise for a kid like me. And as a grown up, one of my real ambitions is to own a working time crisis machine. But at the time, I could see these two older kids

screwing around among the machines, not even playing anything, just like playing hide and seek or something. So I remember being way too intimidated to go look at the games. This one kid had like a plain shirt on and baggy shorts but for some reason he had loafers on instead of sneakers and I remember that getting my attention and thinking that it was kind of weird. Anyway, instead of exploring the arcade like I wanted to, I ended up looking around for a bathroom to take a leak. I remember seeing a little girl walk into one bathroom and thinking, oh oh okay that's the girls and looking for the other door but then the loafer's kid walks into the same bathroom just

after the little girl and I was like what? I had to do a double take on the door signs to make sure I was going into the boys room but I quickly realized that loafer's kid did actually go into the girl's bathroom instead of the boys'. After I pee, I head back to my mom and try to tell her that someone's broken the cardinal rule of going into the wrong bathroom, but she's way too occupied with my feverish little sister to really listen to me. I mean, I don't blame her. I used to tell all sorts of tall tales when I was younger and I guess she just didn't take me seriously. A few minutes later I see Loafer's kid in the parking lot, lifting his shirt up while talking to some girls. I don't know if it was him showing off or whatever, I never figured that out because the next thing there's

all this screaming in the lobby. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, nor did I have time to work out what happened because a short while later my dad appears, having heard the screaming and we ended up starting the drive back to San Diego a little earlier than expected. The next couple of days were incredibly weird. At one point I caught my mom crying while watching the news. I asked her what was wrong but all she did was switch the TV off really quickly and hug me. I was so confused and worried that I ended up crying too while we swapped I love you's. I knew something bad had happened back at the prima donna and I knew it was affecting my parents. I just didn't quite know what that thing was and I didn't find out till years later either. But when I did, I'm glad my parents kept me in the dark about it

because it's one of the most messed up things I'd ever read about. And knowing it all happened just a few feet away from me is something I struggled to deal with. You see, the Loafer's kid's name was Jeremy Strohmeyer. He was the 18-year-old adopted son of this rich family from Long Beach who had also spent Labor Day in Vegas. I'm talking baller money too. Like this kid's adopted parents were so rich that they bought him flying lessons and an actual plane.

Jeremy hadn't gone into the girl's bathroom on a whim that afternoon either. He did so because he was following a seven-year-old girl named Cherise Iverson. I read that he managed to talk her into trapping herself in the bathroom by telling her it was the only place she'd be safe from him after he'd chased her around the arcade for a while. Then when she walked in, he followed her. Then when he was inside, Loafer's kid drags the girl into a stall and puts his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. I don't even want to get into what happened after that. But when it was over, this 18-year-old man, because that's what he was legally,

takes this 7-year-old girl and snaps her neck. Not just that, but he makes this half-hearted attempt to conceal her body by folding her in half and stuffing her in the toilet. From what I understand, at that point I saw him lifting up his shirt to the girls in the parking lot. He'd literally just murdered a child. Yet there he was, flirting with girls just moments later. And that's what I find the most horrifying about it. This guy was able to act like nothing had happened. It was pretty much an open and shut case too. Jeremy admitted to killing the little girl because she could identify him as having touched her.

As the whole story unfolded, the public discovered his history of serious mental illness. In his police interviews, he even used slurs to describe the little girl he'd murdered. And that part blew my mind. Like how can you take a child's life and then just casually call her stuff like that? How effing crazy have you got to be? I particularly remember reading about how Jeremy didn't have any trouble getting girls and how he was actually quite popular. Only some of the girls he dated were contacted by the media who managed to get these creepy quotes about how he used to make them dress up like little girls. I know he was facing the death penalty for a while until he took a plea deal or something.

Turns out Jeremy wasn't afraid to kill, but he was afraid to die. And at his trial, I read how the judge told him that what he'd done was one of the worst crimes the judge had ever presided over and how they'd make sure he would rot in prison. I think there was one weird silver lining to the whole thing. Something about how couples adopting kids had a right to see the medical history of their parents. The state talked about how that would make things better for adoptive parents, but I don't really see how you can predict which kids are going to turn out to be killers. I mean, Jeremy certainly didn't look like one, not in his baggy shorts and his loafers.

He just looked like a beach bum, not someone who was capable of killing a kid. It's the fact that I maybe could have stopped it too, if I'd have kicked up enough of a fuss or followed Jeremy into the bathroom to say something. But who knows, maybe if I'd gone into the girls' bathroom that afternoon, Jeremy would have killed me too. For a couple of years afterwards, I wondered why our bathroom breaks at the prima donna stopped being one of our biggest traditions. Mom and dad would just tell me we didn't have time to stop there anymore, but now I know why they wanted to avoid the place like a plague. Like I don't believe in ghosts or anything,

but I think I believe that a place can be haunted by the things that happened there. And I know that the prima donna was haunted by what happened on Labor Day weekend of 1997. They even had to change their name because of all the media attention. They have to be haunted, because I know I certainly am. Al Bramlett was born on his family's small farm near Jonesboro, Arkansas on February 18th, 1917. After serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Bramlett moved to Los Angeles and became a bartender, later serving as a business agent for a bartender's local union. But shortly afterward, Bramlett heard that there was ample

opportunity for a man with his skills in the gambler's haven of Las Vegas. So in 1946, he picked up sticks and moved east to Vegas where he quickly joined the Culinary Workers Union. And much like in Los Angeles with the Bartenders Union, Bramlett showed intelligence and diligence when conducting union affairs, and in 1954 he became its secretary treasurer. Under Bramlett's centralized leadership, the membership of the Culinary Workers Union swelled from just 1,500 to over 22,000. This is largely a credit to Bramlett's passion for worker organization, a passion which sometimes led him to implement some rather aggressive measures. For example, in his late 50s, he attempted to convince the owner of the Alpine Village restaurant to allow his workers to join his union.

But when the owner refused, Bramlett had paid up union members' picket the restaurant. Al told the owners that the picket would last as long as he forbade his employees' unionization, and so it did for almost 20 years, until the owners finally capitulated. He was also known for organizing and coordinating some extremely effective worker strikes. Whenever his union members' bosses were getting a little too exploitative, Bramlett would call a strike and between the years of 1967 and 1976, Bramlett organized three major strike actions that were so effective that they caused 12 of the 15 major hotel casinos to close their doors.

But as you can imagine, being the head of such an influential Vegas union forced Bramlett into some pretty unsavory encounters with some pretty unsavory people. At one point, the parent union of the local 226 sent a man named Tony Spolatro over from Chicago to talk to Bramlett regarding the introduction of a dental plan. Bramlett sat the man down, listened to what he had to say, and immediately recognized the scheme as being masterminded by the mob. Bramlett flat out refused the man's offer, then told him where to go. As a result, the parent company tried to wrestle control of the union's health and welfare funds away from Bramlett, who had to file legal action to stop what was undoubtedly a

shrewd attempt at infiltration from the mafia. Bramlett then got another visit from Tony Spolatro, but this time, Tony wasn't in the mood to talk. Instead, he beat Al Bramlett so hard that he had to be taken to the hospital afterwards. So, when we learn that Bramlett was later kidnapped from McCarran International Airport, it's not out of the question to assume some degree of mafia involvement. But the truth is far more shocking and terrifying. Remember Bramlett had his union members picket the Alpine Village restaurant for almost 20 years? It wasn't the constant protests that made the owners change their mind about unionizing. It was the fact that in December of 1975, two bombs exploded on the

roof of the restaurant, causing extensive damage but no casualties. Then, just a month later, a second bomb exploded at another non-union restaurant named David's Place. Unsurprisingly, the owners allowed their employees to unionize not long after, and for a while, almost every other food service outlet in Vegas followed suit. That was until 1977 when two restaurants opened up that refused to follow the trend. They were more than aware of the risks involved in running a non-union establishment in a place like Las Vegas, and maybe that's what helped them spot the two abandoned cars in their parking lots, the ones that had been left alone for a suspiciously long time, the ones that turned out to have unexploded bombs in their trunks. A month after, two hikers

were making their way through the desert near Potosi Mountain when they saw something lying near their trail. It was the body of Al Bramlett, and he had been shot six times with a.22 caliber handgun, with two of the entry wounds being around each of his ears. Police quickly suspected a mafia execution and took the ear shooting to mean that the mob had Al killed because he wouldn't listen. Yet when the cops managed to pick up the father and son bomb making team that were responsible for the two unexploded devices, they were astonished to hear that not only were they not mafia affiliated, but it was them that had killed Al Bramlett. But even more shocking was that Al was apparently killed because he had ordered the

bombings of the non-union restaurants. The father-son bomb makers, Gramby and Tom Hanley, told police that Bramlett had instructed them to place bombs at certain locations, unaware that the destruction they wrought stemmed from nothing more than labor disputes. Bramlett had apparently paid them $10,000 for every bombing, but when their devices in the parking lots of the village pub and the starboard tack failed to explode, Bramlett refused to pay them for their work. After a period of argument and bargaining, the Hanleys simply decided that they would use violence and intimidation to get their payment and hatched the plan for the kidnapping. At first, Bramlett still refused to pay the pair, citing shoddy work, but when he realized his life

was on the line, he ordered $10,000 to be sent to Binion's Horseshoe Casino. However, the money was never picked up. This could have been because of a miscommunication, but more likely because Gramby Hanley had already murdered Bramlett in a rage. Once he realized what he'd done, the pair decided to try to escape with their freedom intact rather than pursue the money they were owed. Each received a life sentence for their involvement in the killing and the father, Gramby, ended up passing away in a federal prison. Al's story might seem like just another form of the golden age of mafia-controlled Las Vegas, but it has a very pertinent and rather terrifying moral. It seems when a person believes they're doing the right thing, when they believe they have justice and morality on their side, it often leads to some grotesque displays of fury and violence.

In his pursuit of workers' rights and independence from organized crime, Al Bramlett saw fit to commence a wave of terrifying bombings to further his goals. But as they say, if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And the terror he felt in his final moments out in the desert must have mirrored the terror he inflicted on those he bombed. The terror of a man who had started out trying to make the world a better place, only to end with a bullet in his head. I'm a blackjack dealer at one of the swankier casino hotels out here in Las Vegas. I moved out here from rural Massachusetts in 2017, and as much as I love that Vegas lifestyle, people out here are crazy. And at some point during your life in the city of sin,

you're going to see some stuff you're never going to forget. And the thing that stands out by far in my mind is what I saw last Thanksgiving in the suburb of Henderson that I call home. Now it's my day off, so I'm taking it easy and running some errands, but since I work nights, most of these errands take place around midnight. Vegas really caters to its shift workers, so you can get most things done even in the middle of the night. So I'm about halfway done with my chores when I stop off at a convenience store near my house to grab a coffee and some smokes. I'm at the coffee machine plugging my order into the touch screen when I hear some commotion from behind me. I turn around to see the most legitimately frightening thing I'd ever seen in my life. There's a guy standing at the counter

of the convenience store pointing a gun at the clerk. Only the guy with the gun had an actual skull tattooed on his face. He had a cross in the middle of his forehead but the rest of his face was inked like a skull with shading below his eyes and on his cheeks and teeth tattooed over his lips. What is it about that kind of facial tattooing that just screams I'm done with society? Like an armed robbery is scary enough without the guy being obviously insane. He sees me staring at him, turns and points the gun at me, then the next thing I know I'm just scrambling behind a display shelf for cover and I'm lucky he didn't pursue. I'm just crouched down listening to this guy demanding that the clerk empty their register or he's going to open fire.

And the whole time I'm just working out where the nearest exit is. I can either make a rush for the back fire escape or sneak around to the front, but if I'm caught, I'm probably going to get shot. So I start creeping towards the edge of the aisle, back to where the coffee machine has stood, hoping I can make a break for the fire escape if the shooting starts. It's weird the little details you remember about a moment like that. Side note, in my rush to get my coffee, I ended up using a medium cup after plugging in an order for a large iced latte. And as I'm kneeling there, fearing for my life, all I can hear is this drip, drip, drip of coffee next to me from my overflowing cup. Those sounds are just burned into my mind.

The skull-faced guy barking orders, the noise of my heartbeat in my ears and this drip drip drip of coffee. I reach the end of the aisle and start peeking out to see if the robber had his back turned, which he does not. If I tried to make a run for it right then, I wouldn't be typing this right now. But just before I pull back into cover I can see someone else peeking out from an aisle near the store's entrance. It's this big Samoan guy with tattoos, just slowly edging out just like I was. At first I think they're going to make a run for it, so I figured I could use the distraction they made to bolt out the fire escape. But when they rear up and start to make a move, instead of just heading out the front

entrance, they actually rush towards the skull-faced guy. I can't even imagine having that kind of bravery. That guy had every opportunity to escape that night, but instead, he chose to try to save everyone unlucky enough to be in the store when Skull-Faced walked in with his loaded gun. Skull-ullface had absolutely no idea what's coming and the Samoan dude grabs his gun and starts wrestling with this dude. In an instant, other people in the store are rushing Skullface, trying to tackle him and get him pinned. Right then, the gun goes off. The Samoan guy just collapses onto the floor And the other few guys who rushed Skull Face just soiled their pants before trying to flee By the time Skull Face had turned around and was firing randomly through the shelves of the people that had attacked him

I was just face down on the floor trying to get as low as I possibly could When the shooting stopped I heard someone rushing out of the store and screech off an engine. Then all was quiet. The silence only lasted a couple of seconds at the most though because then all I could hear was this horrible groaning from the people that had been hit by the random gunshots. Someone then called the all clear, saying the shooter was gone, and slowly we all began to emerge from where we were hiding. People were like, my leg, my arm, I've been shot, help me call 911. Then I heard screaming from

outside where a passerby had suddenly seen the Samoan guy just bleeding out on the floor near the counter. Everyone who could was pulling out their cell phones and calling 911 And before long, the street outside was just this blinding mess of blue flashing lights People were being hauled into ambulances, getting questioned by cops All the while I'm just in this bubble of adrenaline, unable to quite process all the stuff I'd just seen I remember making a really big deal out of the Samoan guy though, telling the cops how brave he was, how he'd been shot trying to wrestle the gun out of the skull face guy's hands. And I later found out that he was actually a Pacific Islander named

Kevin Mendiola. Guy's a hero in my book, and I hope his mom and dad know what an incredible person they raised. I didn't ever think I'd see anything like that in my life, like an actual act of heroism, or maybe I just hoped I wouldn't because it always involves something so violent or sad. But I saw one that night, an act of selfless courage from a person who probably saved all of our lives that night. Because the skull faced man was actually in the middle of a rampage that ended up crossing state lines and that night I'm pretty sure he killed a bunch of other people. Afterwards I read that he and his messed up girlfriend had

been randomly shooting at cars on the highway and I'm pretty sure they're being charged with some insane offenses or something now since the cops found a whole bunch of other weapons in their car when they caught them. Go ahead and google Christopher McDonald and Vegas and you'll see the scumbag for yourself. He looks kind of pathetic in his mug shots, just some dumb criminal who made some really terrible body art decisions. But let me tell you, that night in the convenience store, it was a monster. An actual storybook monster come to life and I sincerely hope I never have to run into anyone like that ever again. But if I do, I just hope that there's someone else like

Kevin Mendiola around. Someone brave enough not to just shut down when death is staring them in the morning at an isolated Las Vegas intersection on the 22nd of February 2017. On any other night, the only people that might be around would be a handful of homeless folks, trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible in their beds of concrete and gravel. But on this night, they have company. The intersection is often visited by representatives of homeless outreach programs, but the person joining them tonight isn't interested in helping them. He is there for one reason alone. To kill. The homeless residents of Las Vegas are particularly vulnerable since Nevada is one of four western states along with California, Hawaii, and Oregon in which over

half the homeless population do not reside in shelters or temporary housing. Instead, they live on the streets or in vehicles, parks, tunnels, and other places unfit for human habitation. Two homeless men have already been murdered at this same location, surrounded by freeways and far from the neon lights of the Vegas Strip. Both were bludgeoned to death with a blunt object, and the perpetrator has once again returned to hunt. A hooded figure is pacing back and forth in front of a pile of blankets, blankets that have the distinct shape of a sleeping person beneath them. In the hooded figure's hand is a claw hammer, four pounds of molded steel designed to bash and tear through timber and brick. The figure raises the hammer above his head and affixes his gaze to where he believes his sleeping victim's head is. Then, with both hands gripping the hammer's rubber

handle, he brings the blunt side of the steel head down, hard. But the sounds that echo through the chilly Nevada night is not the one he has become accustomed to hearing. It is not the crack of a broken skull, but rather something else. What's more, there is no darkening of the blanket around the victim's head from blood being soaked up by fabric. 30-year-old Shane Schindler has gone out that night to take the life of a homeless person, but instead, he ended up using his hammer on nothing more than a plastic mannequin. As his confusion begins to register, Schindler is blinded by the beams of flashlights that seemingly come out of nowhere. Hidden police officers reveal themselves, pointing their weapons at him and demanding he drop the hammer. Schindler does as he's told,

tossing the prospective murder weapon aside before lying face down drop the hammer. Schindler does as he's told, tossing the prospective murder weapon aside before lying face down in the dirt. As officers restrain him and the handcuffs click around his wrists, Schindler realizes that he has fallen for a rather ingenious sting operation. The operation was masterminded by a Las Vegas police captain, Andrew Walsh. As they say every time a homeless person is murdered, the sidewalk or a soft patch of dirt is no place for a human being to take their last breath. We took those crimes very personally. They're the lost faces of our community, he told a gathering of journalists after Schindler had been arrested. At a press conference, Walsh explained that he had instructed his officers to

place a series of human decoys on the ground in the area the homeless killings had been taking place. The bizarre tactic came after having absolutely no luck in the investigation. They had no witnesses, no motive, nothing to point them in the direction of the murderer. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Once the decoys were placed, police officers used a mix of hidden cameras and plainclothes detectives to keep an eye on the bait. And it was one of these plainclothes detective units that watched as Shane Schindler attacked their plastic mannequin. He was immediately arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, a charge which would buy detectives the time they

needed to make a murder charge stick. But Schindler's defense attorney claimed that the concealed weapon charge was entirely trumped up. He asserted that carrying a hammer in a bag was not a crime, otherwise every construction worker and carpenter in the country would be arrested for the exact same thing. But luckily, the police managed to keep him in jail, with the judge having agreed that the damage done to the mannequin was enough to confirm that Schindler intended to kill someone that night. Then, all it took was linking Schindler and the hammer attack to the other two homeless bludgeonings that occurred in the weeks before It was practically an open and shut case

And Schindler took the advice of his defense attorney Taking the attempted murder plea deal offered to him by state prosecutors If he chose to fight the charges, he could well end up being sentenced to death And so, a Nevada judge sentenced Schindler to eight years for attempted murder, although it is worth noting that this is simply to buy time for Vegas police to put together an airtight murder charge against him so that the homeless population of Las Vegas can hope to taste a measure of justice. Little is known about the two other men that Shane Schindler is believed to have murdered,

but we do know that one of them was a 46-year-old man named Daniel Adape. Daniel had only been living on the streets for around four months in January of 2017, and he still kept in touch with his family, whom he called every few weeks so he could catch up with them. But one day, the call simply stopped. Daniel had become Shane Schindler's first victim. At the very same intersection at which he was arrested, a 40-year-old homeless woman named Stacey Carney told journalists that the murders had rocked her impoverished, tight-knit community. She mentioned how they were terrified, shocked to the core by something that sounded more like a horror movie than a reality for them. But all of the interviewed homeless were deeply

thankful to the Vegas cops who organized the mannequin sting, with Stacey herself saying, I think it's really cool how they set up that dummy to catch him. Though the Las Vegas homeless murders were extreme in their ghastliness, violent acts directed against homeless people are not entirely uncommon. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, there were 27 murders in the Vegas homeless community in 2015 alone. The NCH also documented a total of over 1,500 acts of violence against homeless people between 1999 and 2015, mostly committed by men in their teens and early 20s. Some believe that those sorts of crimes are linked to disrespectful and demeaning portrayals of homeless people on TV and in movies. Viral videos such as bumfights, in which homeless men are paid to brawl, are often cited as main examples. It seems homeless people are not just attacked because of bias or bigotry,

but simply because they're vulnerable, because those who kill them believe they won't be missed. And perhaps that's the most terrifying thing about these homeless killings. They're viewed as less than human, fit for nothing more but extermination by those that opt to target them. And given how vulnerable some of us are to homelessness, especially in light of the recent pandemic, it's horrifying to consider just how many people with a roof over their head are just a few misfortunate incidents away from also being stripped of their humanity. Although that separates us from poor souls like Daniel Adape, all that keeps us from being the one lying on the sidewalk with our brains leaking out of our skulls is a little bad luck. To be continued... I worked at this pizza place that was basically in the middle of nowhere. It was located in a strip mall at the side of a highway in a pretty rural area and

there were just people dotted around the surrounded area that the store never quite went out of business. But since we hardly made any money, we operated a skeleton crew at all hours and especially late at night. Sometimes it would just be two people in the store, me and one other guy. One would make the pies, the other would drive them out to the customers. It wasn't always a perfect system, but we managed. Without a doubt, the best time to work was Wednesday or Thursday nights, simply because of how quiet it was. You worked a Wednesday or Thursday late shift and basically got paid to sit around on your butt and talk trash with your co-worker. You'd maybe get one or two calls, nothing stressful and that was that. But this one night, we get a call almost bang on 11pm, a half hour before closing.

Any other time, we might actually be kinda angry, but it was just way too out of the ordinary for us to even be mad. Like I think it was legit the first time we'd ever gotten a call that late. Now at the time my co-worker is out in his car having a quick smoke before we start our clean down so I'm all on my own when I hear the phone. Part of me was like just don't answer it dude. But honestly curiosity got the best of me. Most of the families in the county work their farms so they go to bed pretty early in the evening so who was calling so late? When I pick up I don't recognize the voice on the end. Given the nature of the job I pretty much know everyone who calls along with exactly what they're going to order.

But still it's not entirely unusual that we get someone new calling. But what was really unusual was how this guy's order differed from most others, not to mention how he was acting in general. So right off the bat, I can tell there's something not quite right with the guy. His voice was super raspy, like he lived in a whiskey still and smoked marbles for breakfast. And I know it's about to be a weird call when the first thing he asks for is a hamburger. I'm like, sir, this is a pizza place. I can redo our menu if you like. Which was no problem, we only had like 6 different pizzas with a couple of sides. The guy says it's fine, all he wants is hamburger meat. I'm assuming he

meant on a pizza since we did actually do a cheeseburger pizza at the time so I asked some clarification. But no, this guy doesn't want a pizza he just wants hamburger meat raw hamburger meat I don't even know if I'm allowed to sell raw hamburger meat like I know you can eat raw hamburger meat like I'm pretty sure that's what steak tartare is but I figured there had to be some kind of food hygiene law against it I asked my coworker, who was way too blazed to give me a solid answer, so I give the guy an honest answer and tell him I'm not even sure I'm allowed to sell him raw hamburger. The guy started begging and pleading so hard that I was actually speechless for a moment. He sounded like he was fiending for it, so bad that it was actually kind of creepy.

I'm even less sure about the whole thing by that point, but after the guy on the phone offers a handsome tip, I make an executive decision and decided to go ahead with the sale. People do dumb stuff for money, right? Well, I suppose this is my thing. I throw what I consider to be $10 retail worth of hamburger meat into a plastic carton, plug this guy's address into my navigation system, then began the drive out to his house. I'd been making deliveries in that area of Lawrence County for about 18 months at that time. I'm not saying I knew the place like the back of my hand,

but I'd certainly never seen this guy's house before. I didn't even know that old place was there. It was some old farmhouse at the end of a long dirt road and it looked like it was falling apart. It would have made a great haunted house and all I could think as my headlights suddenly lit the whole place up was that it was like the start of a horror movie or something. I was the poor dumb pizza boy, doomed to die in the film's intro that introduced whatever crazed killer or monstrous creature that was the movie's main feature. I park up, walk up the old rickety porch and since there was no sign of a doorbell, I just knock on this guy's door. When he answers, he actually looks pretty normal. Like he'd expect some decrepit old witch to answer the door to a house like that.

Not a guy in a sweater vest who looked like the dad of all dads. As I'm handing over the bag of hamburger meat, I can't resist asking him why he'd ordered raw hamburger and not an actual menu item. I figured he's going to grill it at home or whatever, so I frame my question as such. But the guy just smiles, shakes his head, and tells me he's going to eat it raw. I must have completely failed to hide the look of disgusted confusion on my face, because the guy then launches into this big speech about the benefits of eating raw meat. I mean, he talked a lot of science terms that I didn't understand, but he seemed to know what he was talking about, and it actually weirdly put me

at ease for a second as he fished around his wallet for a tip. He hands me $11 in crumpled ones, and as I count them, I'm like, thanks man, that's really generous. But then I look up, just in time to see the guy crack the lid on the plastic container of meat, bring it up to his nose, and take a long, deep sniff of what was inside. The way he acted wasn't like this wholesome, smells yummy kind of happy. It seemed straight up perverse. I'm just watching, trying not to freak out as the smell of the meat seems to legit turn him on. After he huffs it, he shudders, eyes rolling in their sockets before he gets this glazed look in them and all I'm thinking is, this is my cue to leave. I awkwardly thank the

guy, just happy to get off of his property, only right as I go to turn around and walk back off the porch, I see something moving in the dimly lit hallway over the dude's shoulder. Poking out at about waist height from behind a door frame was this big pair of terrified eyes looking back at me from sunken sockets. It was a kid. I don't even know what compelled me to ask, but whatever it was, it was so strong that it overrode any desire I had to flee while I still had the legs to carry me. I remember saying something like, that your kid, huh? Instead of giving me this big smile or waxing lyrical about what a proud dad they were, something that would have suited his wholesome sweater vest dad look. He suddenly looks furious. He spins around on the spot. The kid looks terrified and disappears from view then when he turns back, he just stares at me,

this deep moody stare that sent a shiver down my spine. And once again, I get that overwhelming this is my cue to leave feeling. I thank the guy, backing off the porch in a way where I never quite turned my back on him. He doesn't say a word in response, just keeps that angry look on his face, like I'd done something to offend him or seen something I shouldn't have. It took 20 minutes to drive back to the pizza place. 20 long minutes I had to replay the interaction in my head over and over again. I called 911 as soon as I got back, like I had no idea what was going on back there but it couldn't have been good. No kid should be that scared of their dad,

if that guy even was that kid's dad at all. My logic was that I could call 911, find out I just came out at a bad time and took the dudes actions out of context and maybe feel a little embarrassed. Or find out that something horrible was happening in that house, feel horrendous guilt that I failed to stop it, and then be haunted for the rest of my life. Though what I wasn't expecting was that there was actually a third option, one that turned out to be worse than the first two. So, I call the cops, they go to check it out.

Then the deputy gets back in touch to reassure me that he'd been over to the guy's house, had a good look around, and then found that there was nothing wrong. I figured that once a cop had told me that, I'd feel fine. Kind of stupid for assuming stuff, but generally fine. But I didn't. I found myself just not believing the guy. Like he couldn't have seen the same stuff that I had and just walked away being like, yeah, it's all good in that house. I didn't do another delivery to that house for the rest of the time I worked there, and I certainly wasn't complaining about not having to make any more weird deliveries, but even today, I find myself wondering what the deal was with that guy and his kid, and whether or not I should have done more to investigate.

Because the thing that haunts me the most is that there might be some kind of kid out there going through the most horrifying ordeal of their young lives thinking like, why didn't that man help me? Why didn't that man help me? The creation of apps like Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates marked the dawn of a new age in food delivery services. Ten years ago, pink-eyed teenagers everywhere envisioned a day when they could get McDonald's delivered to their smoky apartment doors. Yet now, what was nothing more than a munchies-induced fantasy has become a concrete reality, creating new means of employment as well as satisfying appetites all over the country. For one of these newly employed delivery drivers,

Sonia King, a DoorDash driver's account gave her the ability to plan her work around her busy home life. She could log on during a public holiday, Cinco de Mayo for example, and watch the cash roll in as she delivered tacos, burritos and enchiladas all over the city of Atlanta, Georgia. But little did Sonia know that the first job of the day would be her last and would involve a brush with death that left her shaken and traumatized. The 31-year-old mother of four was making routine delivery at the time of the incident and hadn't previously encountered any kind of trouble while she was on the job. But on that particular occasion, she got out of her car, grabbed the food delivery from her passenger seat, only to find herself face to face with a man by the name of Rick Painter.

Sonia said that at first, Rick seemed like a perfectly normal guy. He had requested the food delivery be dropped off on a counter inside of his house, which was an unusual request, but one Sonia had no problem adhering to. Some disabled customers have special requests they make of delivery drivers who are often only too happy to accommodate them. Besides, the house looked perfectly well maintained and non-threatening, and as Sonia later put it, anyone would have gone inside. But when she entered the house, and it came to Rick giving her a tip, Sonia found that her customer was anything but normal. As Rick thanked Sonia for dropping the food off,

and pulled out a $5 bill from his wallet, he looked her up and said, Oh, by the way, I'm Jesus. Sonia was thrown off guard by this bizarre comment and it took a moment for it to register that it was what he actually said. But when the penny dropped that this apparently perfectly normal guy was comparing himself to a prophet, Sonia began to get nervous. She says Rick then shot her a look that gave away how horribly unhinged he was, a kind of predatory smile that sent shivers down her spine, and she knew it was time for her to leave. Only Rick wasn't about to let her leave, as he had other things in mind for her.

At this point, it's important to note that Sonia is a practicing Muslim and wears the full face covering more commonly known as a niqab. Whether or not it was the visual cue to set Rick off and made him allude to himself as Jesus, we can't possibly speculate, but the fact of the matter is that when Rick decided to attack the terrified Sonja, he chose to do so in the most disrespectful way possible. He pulled her niqab from her head, wrapped it around her throat, and began choking her with it. He then grabbed Sonja by the hair and tried to use his grip to apply even more force to her throat. He's grabbing me and trying to choke me with my own niqab. I kept telling the man I've got kids. In the midst of me fighting him, he's grabbing my head, Sonia later said. He thought he was Jesus, but Jesus wouldn't do

that to nobody. I was just rolling around and trying to pry off certain fingers, but he would not let my hair go, she continued. I stuck my finger in his eye, he would not let my hair go. It was definitely about to be a murder, and it was going to be me. As Sonia fought for her life, she found she was able to get a grip of her car keys, and began using them to jab them into Rick Painter's face over and over again. I didn't want to stab anybody, she insisted, but I had to do it because I kept seeing my kids flashing before my eyes and I kept seeing my husband and thinking, I gotta get out of this house so I can go home to my family. Time and time again the sharp ends of Sonia's car keys

ripped into Rick's flesh and his mugshot photo shows him with some seriously horrifying injuries, all inflicted by Sonia. They look incredibly painful and must have been agony to endure at the time of the attack but, disturbingly, Rick seemed to react in a completely different way to what we might expect. Instead of yelling or growling in pain as he was being repeatedly stabbed in the face, Rick began to make noises that turned Sonia's blood to ice. It sounded like he was enjoying it, like the pain was doing less than wholesome things for him. Rick let out a long, slow groan before mumbling, ah, this feels good. Somehow, Sonia managed to pry a couple of Rick's fingers free from her hair before slipping out from her niqab in a way that allowed her a window of escape.

She bolted back to her car, gunned the engine, and drove away from her unexpected brush with death as quickly as she could. It's almost a miracle that she was able to do so with nothing but cuts and bruises, and if her attacker had put a little more planning and precision into the ambush, there's only a slim chance Sonia would have walked out alive. Not long after the attack, Rick Painter was arrested by the Atlanta Police Department and his detention kicked off legal proceedings that ended in him being given a two-year prison sentence on charges of false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery. Sonia might have gotten some small measure of justice from the attack, but knowing Rick will be back on the streets in

just two years is something that terrifies her. I've become very distanced with a lot of people that I love now. I don't trust people. I expect the worst to happen, she said. The scary thing is, the harrowing experience that Sonia endured isn't all that rare, as attacks on food delivery drivers have been steadily rising over the past five years or so. Delivery drivers in London are finding that their distinctive Uber Eats branded bags and waterproofs are making them a target for robberies. In several violent instances, drivers were knocked off their bikes or mopeds, either by flying kicks or by being hit by a car, before a gang descends on them to relieve the injured party of their valuables.

The scale of the problem is hard to assess because police forces don't yet gather statistics on it and the companies themselves don't publish any. Sonia King personally thinks that DoorDash should do more to protect its 400,000 couriers, such as background checks to identify customers with criminal records. Rick Painter had been in and out of prison for other violent offenses, and Sonia says that if she'd known that, she wouldn't have been so quick to take the job. She also complains that after the attack, she wasn't able to speak to anyone from the San Francisco company, she could only email them, and that it was three days before anyone actually called to check on her. I almost died, and this is the way they treat me, she added. It was just disgusting. DoorDash says it sincerely regrets the handling of Sonia's case, that they take the safety of

their drivers extremely seriously and do not tolerate any form of harassment or inappropriate behavior. DoorDash added that it has now introduced a free occupational accident insurance policy for all of its U.S. drivers, but for some, the move is too little, too late. But despite all we do to ensure the safety and security of our fellow man, what we can't prevent is certain individuals' twisted desire to hunt and hurt perfectly innocent people. People who abuse the ever-growing service economy to prey on those desperate to make a living. People like that will always find a way to slip through the net, and the horrifying fact is that, no matter what we do, we'll never be completely safe, no matter where we are, or what

we're doing. The pandemic has been pretty hard on all of us, and we've all felt its effects in a variety of ways, but musicians have felt it more than most. I don't mean to throw myself a pity party or anything, I know there are older folks who are actually fearing for their lives, so I've counted my blessings plenty of times. But for most of my friends, the pandemic just meant working from home or taking a long paid vacation. For me, it meant work dried up entirely. As a professional musician, I've been playing music both solo and with bands for most of my adult life now. It's fun, but it can be really tough on occasion, and this pandemic has been the toughest time I've ever experienced. I had to do something, anything to pay the bills, so when the drummer in my band said that he was making some pretty decent money for working for

Postmates, it immediately sparked my interest. I think the real selling point was how it had benefited his health. Us musicians tend to be much more familiar with a bottle and a glass than an elliptical machine, so riding a bike and getting paid to do it seemed like a great way to get back into a fitness regimen. So dust off my young brother's old mountain bike, oil up the gears, get myself a postmate's driver's account, and I'm pretty much ready to go. I mean, it's kind of messed up that there were no background checks or anything, like I literally could have been anyone, but hey, I wasn't complaining at the time. I needed the money, I needed it bad, and there were much worse things than delivering acai bowls that I could be doing. But being a

delivery driver brought a whole host of new occupational hazards, and there was one particular incident in the summer of last year that I've thought about almost every single day since it happened. So I get this one job delivering Thai food over to a place in Brentwood. Just this little single story house that barely stood up from the rest. Postmates has us doing the whole contactless delivery thing by that point but I always used to hang around just to make sure whoever it was got their food. Sometimes you had some pretty elderly people ordering from us since some didn't have any other means of getting food without exposing themselves. It meant a lot to me to know that I was helping like that even if it was in such a small way. Anyway, the dude comes out to get his food and he's not nearly as old or infirm as I first

expected, but he does look tired. And not just like my neighbor's dog was barking last night kind of tired. He looked like he was over his own life, just a deep exhaustion set into his eyes. He thanked me through his mask and told me Postmates had been a godsend since his wife left. I could relate hard to that. My long-term girlfriend had left at the start of the pandemic too. She just couldn't handle the stress, couldn't be so far away from her parents during such a difficult time, so I knew what he was talking about. Like I said, he seemed sick and tired, but he didn't hint at actually being depressed or mad or anything like that. He just seemed to be doing that macho guy thing of internalizing all of his feelings and again, hard relate.

Like I said, I often stuck around to make sure people got their food and I'd also make a point of thanking people if they tipped big and boy, did tired guy tip big. Right as I'm about to ride off on my bike, I make a point of telling the guy how grateful I am that he was so generous with this tip. It's literally people like him that mean I don't have to pawn my guitars to pay the rent. He just kind of nods, then says, just don't make the same mistakes I did, kid. I wasn't a kid, I was 28, but the weight of experience in the guy's voice, I just took it on the chin. The very next day, I get another delivery up that way so I decide to cycle past the guy's house. I'm not 100% sure why, I guess I'm a creature of habit or something, but as I roll up, I can already see that something is horribly wrong. There's a cop car sitting in the guy's

driveway and his gate is blocked off with blue and white police tape. There's one cop sat in the driver's seat of the cruiser and he gets out to ask me why I'm gopping at a crime scene. I ask him what happened and he tells me to move along before turning his back on me. But then on the fly I say like, but officer, that's my uncle's place. And I drop the same name he'd used for his postmate's delivery. Soon as I say that, the cop stops dead in his tracks and turns around and sighs. That's when I know it wasn't just some home invasion or a car theft or something. That's when I knew it was darker than I could have imagined.

The cop says something like, Look, I'm sorry, but you're better hearing this from the next of kin. Besides, homicide doesn't have a full picture of what happened yet. Is he okay? Is my uncle okay? I ask. He was taken to the hospital but after that I'm not sure. I'm so sorry sir. I had to do my own research to find out what exactly actually happened and to me, it was way worse than home invasion or something. The older guy, the one who'd been so generous with his money and his advice, had a full

on mental breakdown the very same day that I brought him his food. From what I could gather, he'd been ranting and raving in his driveway and then when the cops showed up, he waved a gun in their faces and that's all she wrote. They shot him dead right there in his driveway. I don't know if he was trying to end his own life by cop or he actually had some kind of mental breakdown but if it all happened that same night I dropped his food off, then I basically fed this guy his last meal, the final thing that ever passed his lips. A couple of hours later, he was dead. I don't know why, but that messed with me something awful over the weeks that followed.

I kept thinking that maybe if I'd stuck around, maybe if I asked him more about his problems or his life in general, maybe it'd have given him the strength to carry on, at least for a little while. Or maybe it was always going to happen. Maybe he'd planned it or something and nothing I could have said would have made a difference. For the longest time, those were the kinds of thoughts that I just couldn't seem to shake. Like the guy was a ghost that just haunted me, no matter here in England, you can get your supermarket of choice to deliver your shopping or groceries directly to your home.

After you make your order, some hardworking, handsome, diligent driver person will load your food into a van, drive it out to you, and personally deliver them with a smile. And if you're lucky enough to live in Nottingham, then that handsome driver person might well be me. Since the whole pandemic thing started, the number of people using Asda's delivery services shot up. In the run-up to Christmas, I worked 8 days straight, from 7 in the morning to 8 in the evening with hardly any kind of break to keep me sane. It was exhausting, completely and utterly exhausting, and that's the insane level of fatigue I was feeling that takes the blame for the story I have for you today.

So, as I'm making quite a large delivery one night and the roads are pretty quiet, I see blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I give it a few seconds and the lights are still behind me so obviously I pull over to the side of the road to await further instructions. It's about then that I realize that it's not a normal looking police car. It's unmarked, just this plain looking Renault Clio and the guy that got out of the driver's side was wearing just regular civilian clothes. I lower my window to see the guy flashing a badge and an ID at me, but he's wearing a face mask for COVID so it's not like I can see who it

actually is anyway. But when the guy says drug squad and asks for my driver's license, I obviously comply. Undercover police are a thing after all and a city like Nottingham has a lot of drug crimes so I didn't think anything of the guy being in his own clothes. The guy runs a check on my ID then explains that a big drug gang has been using professional couriers to ferry product around and that he and his partner might need to search my rear storage. Obviously, I tell them I'll do anything I can to help, so I mask up, get out of the cab, and open up the rear storage of my van so the police can look around. As soon as the rear doors are open, I notice that the plainclothes officer who climbs into the back is being really rough with some of the produce. I don't say anything at first, I mean

I wouldn't dare start lecturing a policeman on how to do his job, especially when they were hot on the tail of some drug gang and seemed pretty agitated about it. His partner then asks me if he can search the cab in my van so I open it up for him and he too starts rummaging around the glove box and stuff, being just as rough and inconsiderate as the officer in the back. Again, I'm quite annoyed by this and I wander around the back of the van to see how things are getting on, only to find the officer searching back there is in the process of basically ransacking the contents. He's shoving things off shelves, tossing fragile items out the back door. It was outrageous behavior. I finally find

it in me to speak up and ask the officer in quite a loud but polite tone to please not be so rough with the produce. Shut your mouth, was always said in reply, without skipping a beat too. It was such a rude response that I was actually a little bit dumbstruck for a second. I'd dealt with some impatient police officers before, but this was something else entirely. I tell him there's no need for that kind of attitude, as I am being perfectly cooperative. But by that point, his colleague has joined me after searching the cab and decides to play the good side of this good cop bad cop routine. He apologizes for the inconvenience, assures me

of the importance of their work, and then says that he has to search me too, since I might be hiding something on me. By then I was already late for my scheduled delivery, so that ship had sailed, so I figured I might as well just be a good little citizen and continue to help the police as much as I could. So then right there, parked up on a dark deserted street, this masked up officer starts frisking my pants and jacket for anything I should have on me. It was just like a routine stop and search at first, nothing out of the ordinary, but then the bloke asks me to take off my jacket so he can search it more thoroughly. Bear in mind, it's absolutely freezing out so I'm not best pleased but I still comply. He pats it down a bit, tosses it to the side then tells me to take off my shoes. I shoot him this confused look and he starts telling me

how I could easily hide drugs or money inside my footwear. I'm coming to the end of my tether, but I do as I'm told and that's when it all goes downhill. The police officer has my shoes in my hands. He walks around the back of me and starts putting me in cuffs. He tries to assure me that I'm just being detained and I'll be uncuffed once the search is completed, but his explanation does nothing for my nerves. I feel trapped. I'm starting to panic and I'm starting to realize that something is horribly wrong with this whole encounter. I'm freezing.

I got no shoes on. This police officer is leaning me back towards the van and I'm just on the verge of kicking off. Then right as I say something about getting their badge numbers to make a complaint, the officer escorting me back towards the van shoves me to the ground and says something like, Were you bollocks, mate? I couldn't believe what was happening. Or maybe it was just that I didn't want to believe what was happening.

Because as I get dragged back to my feet by an officer who has suddenly lost all airs of professionalism, it dawns on me that these two policemen aren't exactly who they say they are. And that's when the raw fear kicked in. Like I said, I'm handcuffed, freezing, and shoeless. Completely at these blokes' mercy, and to make matters worse, they start asking me questions that they're not liking the answers to. They start asking me where the money is and I don't realize what they're asking for at first. And as if they still thought I was some kind of drug courier or something to that effect I'm telling them that I don't know what they're talking about that it's all online these days and there's no cash in the van.

They responded by throwing me into the refrigerated rear storage unit, threatening to lock the doors behind them. Now most delivery drivers who have these kinds of cold storage have the means to unlock the door, should they ever get trapped inside. But I'm handcuffed and my jacket with the keys in it is just lying at the side of the road. If they'd shut the doors on me, I might not be around to tell this story. I beg them not to shut the doors, and I know how pathetic I must have sounded because they just responded by bursting out laughing at me, mimicking my pleading in a horrifying display of cruelty and viciousness. They responded by pulling me out of the unit,

me hitting the tarmac so hard I think I dislocated my shoulder, before absolutely kicking the life out of me as I was laying there groaning. It was hands down the most terrifying few minutes of my life, and now that I look back on it, I think that's exactly what they wanted. I mean why rob a bloody supermarket delivery truck? I'm not exactly an armored bank car, am I? They weren't stupid blokes either. The one I spoke to the most had this way about him, really made me think he was a legit policeman, you know? So why target me? Simple. Because they knew I could be easily intimidated. I was a soft target, one that they

could just toy with to get their rocks off. They could just pull over some bloke in a beamer, take all his cash, or maybe an electrical truck or something if they wanted to make some money. But me? I wasn't work. I was pleasure. They did what they did that evening because it was fun for them. And honestly, that's what scares me the most. On the night of the 27th of October, 2013, Tavisha Peris was working his final shift as a pizza delivery driver. The 25-year-old Sri Lankan migrant had moved to the UK to pursue a degree in IT, and had long been employed as a delivery driver to support himself as he studied. But since he graduated with distinction from the University of Sheffield,

Tavisha had quickly found himself a well-paid job in the IT sector. The generous pay package meant that it would be much easier to apply for permanent residence in the UK, which would open the door to eventually moving his family over too. His boss was sad to see the back of such a hardworking young man go, but also happy to see Tavisha moving onward and upward in his chosen career path. All he had to do was work one more shift, just one more night and he'd be starting off his new life as a white-collar professional. At around 10pm, Tavisha would have been making one of his final runs of the night as he drove out to Southie Crescent with a customer's order.

As he parked his car, unfastened his seatbelt and opened the driver's side door, Tavisha was greeted by the looming figure of 25-year-old Qasim Ahmed. Qasim wasn't the one who ordered the pizza, but still wanted something from the delivery driver, his mobile phone. Tavisha saw a flash of steel in the dim streetlights as his mugger pulled out a knife and threatened to stab him if he didn't hand over his phone. But Tavisha was brave. Too brave, perhaps. He had worked hard to be able to afford an expensive smartphone,

and he wasn't about to hand it over without a fight. There wasn't a fight that night. It was a slaughter. Without so much as an ounce of provocation, Kasim Ahmed plunged the knife into Tavish's chest, who fell back onto the pavement, gasping as he attempted to stem the bleeding. As he lay dying, Qasim's 18-year-old partner in crime, Shamraze Khan, rifled through Tavish's pockets to relieve him of his belongings. With just one stab wound, Davisha might have stood a chance of surviving the attack. But Kasim knew he had seen his face, and he knew the hardworking young migrant wouldn't just take the robbery lying down. The police would be called, a report would be filed, and repeated

offender Kasim would no doubt be headed back to prison. And in Kasim's mind, that just wasn't going to happen. He knelt down and began plunging the knife into Davisha's chest over and over again, stabbing the dying delivery driver a total of 14 times until he bled to death, right there on the cold Yorkshire pavement. The local community was appalled by the brutality of the murder, but also by the horrific and painfully tragic circumstances. Just one more night on the job, if Qasim Ahmed had waited just one more day to steal a phone or a wallet, Tavisha would still be alive. It's like some cruel cosmic joke, so utterly senseless that it almost sounds made up and many were moved by the story.

Given that Tavisha worked for Domino's in the UK, the company paid for his family to fly over so they could better organize his repatriation as well as working more closely with investigating police. Tavisha's older brother, Pramod, spoke to the media on his arrival in Britain saying, I'm heartbroken. My brother, Tavisha, was the center of our world. He gave us so many reasons to smile. He was kind and considerate and we were extremely proud of his achievements. We were so happy that he was doing so well in England and we never thought his life was in any danger. I can't believe he was taken away from us in this cruel and inhuman manner. Please, if anyone saw or heard anything that could help us

to catch these murderers, we beg that you step forward to help find my brother's killers. But it wasn't long before Tavisha's killers were found. As it turned out, Kasim Ahmed had stolen the cell phones of two young women at Knife Point just an hour before he murdered Tavisha, and he'd been stupid enough to do it in downtown Sheffield, a place that's practically covered in CCTV cameras. Police tracked him down as a part of their theft investigation only to find that Qasim was in the process of disposing of clothing that was soaked in blood of his victim. He was arrested and charged with murder and would go on to be sent to prison for a minimum of 24 years. But 24 years seems like far too lenient a sentence for someone willing to take the life of

another human being for nothing more than a mobile phone. And it seems like the only justice for a person responsible for such a cruel, cosmic joke, who fabricated a scenario that would horrify all who heard it, deserves to go to prison for much, much longer than just 24 years. So, I had this part-time job when I was in high school, working as a pizza delivery driver for a large pizza chain. I saw some pretty wild stuff on the job, but only one thing that actually seriously creeped me out. I'm making this routine delivery to some innocuous looking house, but when the guy answers the door, he just sort of grabs the pizza, thrusts a fistful of ones in my face then slams the door behind him. At first I'm just like, rude.

But then when I count the money, I find that not only has this guy not given me enough for his 20 inch meat lovers, but he's not even bothered to tip me. I'd been burned once or twice before when it came to my count and the difference ended up coming out of my wages so I was not about to let that nonsense happen a third time. or twice before when it came to my count and the difference ended up coming out of my wages so I was not about to let that nonsense happen a third time. I ended up banging on the guy's door for like a solid five minutes before he answered. Like I could see him moving around behind the frosted glass panel but totally ignoring my knocking. In the end, I lose my temper and say

something like, hey man, don't try and finesse me out of money. I don't want to have to call the cops, but I will. Boom. Those were the magic words. He comes right up to the front door and opens it up. Not all the way, maybe a third of the way open. This guy is saying sorry a whole lot. Like almost too much.

He's all pale, he's sweating, his hands are shaking as he passes me out of 20 just laying the sorry the whole time. I'm just thinking, what's this guy's problem? But then I catch a glimpse of something in the hallway behind the guy, and suddenly I've got a good idea what the guy's deal was. There's a dark red stain on the wooden floor, maybe the size of a manhole cover and next to it are what look like all kinds of different cleaning products. I take one quick look at that, then at the guy and he just slams the door in my face. I'm back in my car and speeding back to the pizza place faster than you can say F that and as soon as I get there I call the cops. As it turned out I had legit interrupted this guy cleaning up a murder and from what I heard the guy was having an affair

with a high school girl that was like 30 years his junior. She's over at his place while his wife is out of town, orders pizza at some point, then before it even arrives, the guy kills her because she's threatening to ruin his marriage or something. He had no clue that she'd ordered the pie, panics when I show up at the door, and that's how he got caught. Crazy story right? But for me, the craziest part isn't so much the whole murderous infidelity thing, it's that before she was murdered, this girl unwittingly kicked off a chain of events that would catch her own killer. I had to go to court a bunch of times too since I was basically the case's star witness and it was so freaky seeing that guy looking at me when I talked to the prosecutor.

He'd literally killed a girl with his own hands. And there he was, giving me death stares. Like I said, I've seen some wild stuff working pizza delivery, but only one thing that gave me nightmares. That guy's eyes. Two stories stand out in my mind. I should note that I work day shift. These happen in broad daylight. I was in some spooky old haunted house at night.

This stuff creeped me out in the middle of the day. So the first event goes down when I took a delivery to a nice big house in a peaceful suburban neighborhood. This middle-aged guy, had to be in his late 50s or 60s, answers the door and invites me in while he goes to grab his wallet. Any other time, I'd have opted to stay outside on the porch, but the house was seriously impressive looking from the outside that I wanted to check out what kind of interiors it had going on. So I follow him to his back porch but stop dead in my tracks when I notice the large TV screen that's playing some kind of hardcore adult movie. When he noticed I had stopped and that it was making me uncomfortable

he didn't bother to apologize or turn it off. In fact, he seemed to like the idea that he was basically forcing me to watch something so sleazy, and beckoned me to come out onto the porch to join him. Naturally, I declined, got the money, and left. The other thing happened at an extended stay hotel that had a real bad rep, mostly from fellow delivery drivers who ended up getting robbed or jumped. So I follow the delivery instructions and head around to a side door where I find I actually needed a code to get in. Luckily a guy sticks his head out of the window and says the pizza's for him,

adding that he'll be right down to pick it up. As I'm waiting for the guy to let me in, someone else comes along and lets me in so I ended up meeting the guy on the stairs. Now rather than exchanging money and leaving as you might expect, the guy tells me he doesn't have the money. Some other guy back in the room has it and asks me to come upstairs with him. With the first red flag tingling in the back of my head, I step into the elevator with him. The doors close and he says something to the effect of, hey, check this out, and begins to lift his shirt. Second and third red flags here. Under his shirt, he's been wrapped with bandages around his stomach. I'll save you the

graphic details, but it was obviously a bad wound, a stab wound if I had to guess. He proceeds to confirm that he was in fact stabbed the other night, and that it was on the news and that I might have seen it, and after a pause in the conversation that it hurts a lot. With the most awkward silence ever we step off the elevator, go to his room, and he pops inside before coming back to invite me inside. Now two thoughts go through my mind. Either this is the dumbest setup for a robbery I'd ever seen, or the couch guy is really really lazy. I eventually settle on the fact that if this were a robbery, the guy probably wouldn't have advertised this gaping stab wound, and I kind of wanted to meet the laziest man in the world.

So I step in the door, careful not to let freshly mixed stab wounds get my back. Inside, there's an older white-haired man on the couch and a young tweaked-out girl. The man hands the money to the girl and, naturally, it's a hundred-dollar bill and that's the only cash he has. So reluctantly, I make change for him out of my own money, conclude the transaction, and hastily retreat from what I can only assume was some kind of meth house. So, on the worst delivery shift I ever worked, it's snowing like crazy, and of course my hunk of junk car can't make it up the long residential street to the house at the very top of the hill. After several attempts, I had to face reality, so I got out to begin the walk about two or

three blocks of the snowy road. I get to the large, normal normal looking house and ring the bell. No answer but I hear a guy yelling at someone inside. Knock, ring, no answer. Still yelling but it's obvious he's yelling at someone on the phone. I can see that the door I'm at goes into a small mudroom with a door to the house inside. I decide to step into the mudroom and knock on the inner door. I know, not a good idea. This guy finally opens the door and is like, what do you want? I'm wearing a uniform and holding a pizza delivery. What do you think

I want, man? Now the guy was a middle-aged guy with a mustache and he has blood coming from a cut on his elbow, a cut on his lip and blood coming from his nose and his knuckles are torn up. Great. Dude just got into a fight and lost by the looks of things. I see inside and a half-empty bottle of Jack is chilling on the coffee table. I didn't order a pizza. It's probably Frank's. He says, then the guy just turns and goes back into the living room and sits down to take another swig of Jack. Uh, is Frank here? I ask. Yeah, he's upstairs. The guy points to a staircase just inside the door on the left. Okay, I think to myself.

I guess I'll go give the pizza to Frank since drunk fighter isn't going to do anything besides get more drunk. I took two, maybe three, it's been years since this happened, steps up the stairs and thought, screw this. I immediately backpedal, go to the front door in the mud room, and leave the house and walk back to my car. I didn't call Frank because at that point I was just so livid about getting stuck in the snow, walking uphill through the snow, waiting a while for this drunk idiot to answer the door and getting sketched out. I figured if Frank wanted his pizza, he would call back or come pick it up.

Frank never called to ask where his pizza was and that made me more sketched out about the whole situation. To be continued... 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. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data. Located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the bio.

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