The Lets Read Podcast - 155: WORST FIELD TRIP EVER | 21 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 143

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Uber, Field Trips, & Private Investigators... 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: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The I've been a private investigator for 11 years now, and in that time, I've worked some absolute doozies. Most of my work involves cheating spouses and although that brings in a lion's share of the cash, it can get very depressing. One woman hired me three times and each time her husband was having an affair with the same woman after swearing that he'd stop. The fourth time she tried to hire me, I refused, told her to stop doing that to herself and to move on with her life. But every so often I get a case that actually makes me feel like I'm part of the force again, for all the good and bad that comes with it. And this one I'm about to tell you involves the apparent taking of one's life of a promising young man whose parents just couldn't accept

the version of the truth they'd been given. As the story went, this kid had everything going for him. He was looking at attending an Ivy League school, he played all-state lacrosse, he was an experienced rock climber, he had a bunch of loyal friends, and he had a girlfriend who, by all accounts, he loved dearly. But one night, he and this girlfriend had a vicious argument at a party. Their friends disagreed on exactly what it was, but in the heat of the moment, they broke up. From what I can gather, a lot of alcohol was involved that night which only exacerbated emotions that were already running high. The kid walks downtown to the huge Catholic cathedral,

one which had a skeleton of scaffolding outside it, as one of the facades was being renovated. Here, he was apparently so overcome with grief that he climbs to the very top of the scaffold and throws himself to his death. This might sound callous, but it wouldn't be anything I hadn't seen a hundred times before. Someone taking their own life is now the biggest killer of men under 30 and you usually talk to friends and family who say things like he was battling with depression, he tried once before, stuff that just confirms the prognosis. But in this case, not a single soul I spoke to ever mentioned anything about the kid being like

that or being in that type of headspace. In fact, more of them brought up an apparent love triangle involving the kid, his ex-girlfriend, and a rival of his than mentioned any history of depression or self-harm. And it's then that I find the investigations really heat up. Both the kid and his rival are both sighted at the same party on the night of his death. The kid and his ex-girlfriend have their argument just after midnight and the kid is seen leaving the party at around 1am. Coincidentally, several witnesses confirm that the rival is nowhere to be seen after the 1am mark. I track down this rival, sell him some story about a car thief being active in the area on the night in question and how it's my job to roll him out as the thief. I lie to him because I want to see if he has an

alibi for his whereabouts after 1am and I don't want to spook him by mentioning what my actual theory was, that the kid was murdered by this rival, possibly out of anger, possibly out of jealousy. And what do you know? This rival kid's alibi is weaker than 50 cent beer, and I'm 90% certain that he's lying to me in some capacity. But how do you say that to family? Oh, by the way, I know you're upset about the death of your child, but good news, it might have actually been a murder. Well, the answer is you don't. You keep all that stuff to yourself until you can present a full and conclusive case for it. I immediately get to work researching the relationship between the kid, the rival, and all their mutual friends. What I tend to find is that people are willing to tell me things that they're not willing to

tell regular police officers, but they're still not entirely forthcoming. This is where social media comes in. If some intelligence agency genius was tasked with inventing something by which a country's population would voluntarily give away intimate details about themselves, they would have invented Facebook. You honestly used to be able to just bring up Facebook, whether or not you even had an account, then explore people's profiles. You could know where they'd been, who with, who they knew, who their family is, but not anymore. Emphasis on privacy measures means that private eyes like me have to think a little more outside the box when it comes to gathering information on social media. As it turns out, you don't need to hack an account to create

a fake catfish profile to get a person to accept your friend request, although that works 9 out of 10 times, especially with men. All you need to do is get all buddy-buddy with one of the Facebook administrators, and no one makes you friends faster than good ol' Benjamin Franklin. Now, I'm not about to give up my sources here. I know for a fact that not only would the person be fired, but Facebook would sue them into the ground for breach of contract. But since I pay handsomely to view my subjects' profiles, I can get considerably more info than my competitors and in a marketplace as cutthroat as this one, that can make the world of difference. So I drive over to my

contact's place, hop onto his computer, and start browsing. That's how I find out that my case had a very unusual hobby, one that was shared by a number of his friends too. They were what's known as urban free climbers, and just in case you're wondering, that's exactly what it sounds like. A group will pick out something tall, climbable, but very intimidating, and they'll climb it, but not without a visual record of their achievements. Only urban freeclimbing isn't exactly legal, and posting videos of yourself committing serial trespass and arguably criminal damage in some cases definitely isn't smart. So, slowly but surely, I start unearthing private Facebook groups and encrypted combos, all which detail the kid's

penchant for climbing great heights with absolutely nothing in the way of safety equipment. From what I could tell, he and his friends were pretty good at it too, but I also discovered something about the cathedral that pretty much closed the case. The scaffold this kid would have used took him all the way up to the roof of the basilica, and fortunately, the cathedral allowed me access to the stairwells which led to the roof. I say the roof, but it turned out to be nothing more than an 18th century sandstone maintenance hatch. If I wanted to get actual photographic evidence of the area the kid had climbed up to, I'd have to do a little climbing of my own.

It wasn't all that hard. Being up so high was absolutely terrifying and I made the mistake of ignoring the old advice of don't look down. But the ledge I was on was maybe 10 feet wide. All I had to do was circle around a little and I'd be able to see where the kid climbed to. That's when I see these patches of copper cladding. Copper cladding that would have been extremely slippery if they happened to be damp. All I had to do was cross-reference that little detail with multiple witness statements saying it had rained on the night of the party, and I had my case. Closing cases like that are always emotional affairs. It's nice to be able to give the family the good news. It just hurts when the good news is, oh your son's death was

just an accident, not him taking his own life, so he's still gone. He just died drunk, not miserable. To me, it was conclusive. He tried to climb away his romantic frustrations, not considering that some of his grips would be wet and slippery. Heartbreaking, yes, but nothing darker than a tragic accident. When I told the family of my findings, they acted like I'd announced he was alive again or something. His mother was so, so happy to hear it hadn't been what she thought it was. I guess that was all the closure she was ever hoping to get, and knowing I helped to give her that put a bit of a lump in my throat as I was saying goodbye. There's just one aspect of this case that doesn't sit well with me.

From what I could gather, the whole idea that the Irvin Clymer kid had taken his own life as a result of the breakup, it seemed to have been started by one or two of his friends' circle just to put his ex-girlfriend down. They had absolutely no evidence of it. They simply sought to blame her for his death, to scapegoat her as the catalyst when her involvement was purely coincidental. These rumors became concrete, even made their way into police reports and as a result, she suffered from a crippling guilt-based depression. I'm not sure if she ever made it to college, but I know the kid's death and the backlash that followed meant her SATs were essentially sabotaged. That's what scared me the most about this particular case. More than the possibility of murder. More than climbing onto the exterior of that cathedral's dome.

It's how willing people are to victimize each other. To turn each other into what amounts to human sacrifices. Someone has to take the blame. Blood for blood. To me, we're still just frightened pilgrims, hanging witches in 17th century Salem. And that scares me more than anything. The End On a breezy February morning in the Florida Everglades back in 2005, a local power company worker was driving by the empty lots of an unbuilt cul-de-sac when he spotted something which took his breath away. Facedown in a clump of weeds just off the side of the road

was the bruised and battered body of a blonde Caucasian female in her early 20s. When this power company employee made the 911 call that alerted the authorities to the body, he told them he hadn't checked for any vital signs as he was almost sure the girl was dead. But upon the arrival of EMTs, they made a shocking discovery. Despite being beaten to within an inch of her life, carnally violated, and then left as a snack for the gators, the girl was found to be still alive. She was rushed to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami with severe head trauma and a number of broken bones, including those of her orbital socket. When she awoke, she was terrified and confused, but irrefutably lucky to be alive. Doctors then asked her if she had any memory of the events that preceded her arrival at the ER, and this is when they discovered that the girl was in fact a Ukrainian immigrant,

one with an apparently patchy grasp of English. However, the girl did know one particular English word very well, and it's certainly not one you'd expect someone to say after almost losing their life. Lawyer, the girl kept saying. Give me a lawyer. Right away, the girl's unusual request marked hers out as a very unusual case. Miami police discovered that she had been living at the Airport Regency Hotel for the previous few months after receiving a nasty injury during her job working on a cruise ship. The company that owned the ship was nice enough to pay for the hotel room she'd been staying, and it's the same fourth floor hotel room in which the vicious assault was said to have commenced. Through a translator, police heard the woman describe her attackers as two or three white men who spoke with accents, but when asked what kind of accents,

she said she wasn't sure. However, she did remember one of the men pushing a pillow into her face before forcing her to drink something which had a very strong taste to it. It could have been alcohol, she said, but it was clear there could have been anything mixed into the concoction that was clearly meant to incapacitate her. What came next was like something out of a nightmare, she said. She had fractured, puzzle-piece memories of being carried out of the hotel, thrown into the backseat of a car, and then made to beg for her life as her captors took turns inflicting some of the obscenest acts imaginable upon her. When they were done, they simply dragged her out of the car and tossed her into the same patch of weed she was found in

just a few miles down the road from her hotel. It was a horrific story, but it gave the cops absolutely nothing to go on in terms of suspects or evidence. The only hope had been in the DNA recovered from under the girl's fingernails, scraps of skin she raked off whilst trying to defend herself. Samples were sent off to a lab, but no matches came back. Yet soon after, it became clear why the girl had been so quick to request a lawyer. This lawyer was so quick to file a negligence lawsuit against the Regency Hotel Group that the whole thing almost seemed oddly pre-planned. There was no denying that the girl's wounds were real.

There was no doubt she'd suffered a harrowing and sadistic attack. But could it be part of some larger, sinisterly sophisticated scam? She was a clear and obvious victim, but was she also some kind of puppet? Miami-Dade detectives did the best they could with the scant evidence available, and predictably, they came up with very little. The hotel had almost 200 rooms, and so many people came and went that it would have taken months working full time to run checks on every one of them, something that would have stretched a police department, especially one in a high crime area like Miami-Dade, to its very limits. After just shy of two months on the job, the detective

handling the case was forced to throw in the towel, so the case was automatically transferred to a civil court. If the woman's case was successful, the hotel chain would be forced to pay out tens of millions of dollars, a move they were naturally adverse to. So, in response, the company hired a private detective to get to the bottom of what really happened that night and whether or not it was connected to wider events. Enter Ken Brennan. To some, Ken seemed like a character from a bad Hollywood cop movie that had just up and walked out of the screen. Having spent the majority of his career in his native Long Island as a DEA agent, Ken's move down to Florida to work as a private investigator

had him fully embracing the Magnum PI stereotype. With his deep tan, weightlifter's physique, and shock of white-gray hair, Ken finished off the look with flamboyant open-neck shirts and garish gold chains. And the man's attitude proved that as much as you can take a person out of Long Island, you can never take the Long Island out of a person. By all accounts, Ken is a loud, brash, and straight-talking New Yorker, but he's also one of the warmest, friendliest people you'll

ever likely to meet. It's obvious how passionate he is about his work, and it all stems from his love of his fellow man. He was bona fide hardcore with a heart of gold and he always found out the truth. Besides, this was a job that genuinely interested him. This was Ken's secret. He only ever took jobs that lit a fire in him. That way, he never failed to deliver on the facts. The only question was if this was a tragic but isolated attack, or if the girl was the puppet of some kind of Eastern European crime syndicate. After touching base with the Miami-Dade Police Department, Ken began to understand why they were having such difficulty with the case.

The victim's statement had actually been revised a number of times, which muddied the investigative waters even further. First off, she'd mentioned that her attackers may have had Hispanic accents, but later rectified that to saying they spoke with Romanian accents. She also mentioned there being three men at first, but then later said there may have only been two. However, when pushed by detectives, she admitted it was entirely possible that there may have only been one attacker. Naturally, that kind of statement made for a difficult investigation, yet there was one big hope for Ken and the police department. The hotel's security system.

Being part of a wealthy, multinational hotel corporation meant the Airport Regency Hotel had a highly advanced security system. Being part of a wealthy, multinational hotel corporation meant the Airport Regency Hotel had a highly advanced security system. The property was fenced and the back gates were locked and monitored. There were only a few points of entry and exit and during the night, the back door was locked and could be opened only remotely. On top of that, the premises was covered by two patrolling security guards and a legion of high-definition security cameras. And with every hotel guest and staff member having their own unique digital keycard, it would be possible to track the coming and goings of every person who checked in.

The only issue was the amount of work it would take, but it was a task that Ken Brennan was just about crazy enough to undertake. Ken knew that the victim had arrived at her hotel room at 3.14am on the night of the attack, using her keycard to enter her room. At some point over the next three hours, some kind of violent incident took place which ended with her lying in the weeds by that Everglades cul-de-sac. But bizarrely, there was absolutely no evidence of the attack on any of the hotel's legion of cameras. Ken approached the hotel and inquired about the condition of their surveillance equipment, but found everything to be in working order.

What's more, they were some of the most high-tech pieces of CCTV equipment he'd ever laid eyes on, so the problem certainly wasn't with the system. It was then that Ken was forced to consider the possibility that the victim had actually climbed out of her window somehow, possibly as a way to escape her pursuer. Or that maybe her captors had somehow lowered her unconscious body to the ground below. But this seemed like far too elaborate and dangerous a plan considering her room was on the fourth floor. The only other logical explanation was that the woman had worn some kind of disguise to exit the hotel undetected. So, willing to exhaust every possible explanation, Ken began studying the security footage for anyone with similar dimensions to the victim. Again, no luck. It was proving to be one of the most confounding mysteries of his entire career,

and in the end, the solution would be just as disturbing. Of all the people present at the hotel around 3.41am, Ken began to pay attention to one particular individual. He was at least 6'4", and had to weigh a minimum of 300 and change, despite it being almost 4 in the morning, the man was wearing large dark sunglasses. The man carries a rather large case of luggage to an elevator, where he and a victim seem to exchange a few words before they both travel to the fourth floor. Less than two hours later, at around 5.30am, the same large man reappears in the hotel lobby, still dragging that same large piece of luggage behind him. He exits the hotel, returning shortly before dawn without the piece of luggage, where he

then reappears to retire for the night. This raised an important question. Why would a man haul his luggage out of an airport hotel in the wee small hours of the morning if he wasn't checking out, only to return to his room without it? Ken watched the man's movements over and over again, trying to be mindful of every little thing that the man did on his way in and out of the hotel. A sly turn of the head, a display of nervous body language, Ken knew just about anything could put him on the trail of the truth. And then, it hit him. As the man steps off of the hotel's elevator, the wheels of his

luggage became briefly caught. It's barely even noticeable, but it's there. The guy had to give the luggage quite a forceful pull for it to come unstuck. The victim didn't walk out of the hotel in disguise. She didn't climb out of the hotel room's window. The victim left the airport regency, crammed, into the largest man's luggage. There was simply no other explanation for it. The horrifying realization hit Ken like a bullet between the eyes, but there was something else that scared him too. In his many years in the DEA, Ken had noticed a consistency in the behavior of men who'd been caught in a violent crime. They're hysterical, shaking, panicking. They stick out like a sore thumb on CCTV cameras. Here was this guy, cool as a cucumber, like he'd done the exact same thing a hundred times before, and he was good at it too. It was most definitely not the first time this perp had done something like this.

In fact, he might just be the key to solving hundreds of horrific cold cases all over the state of Florida. Ken tracked the large man to a nearby restaurant following the attack, and it's here that a CCTV camera is close enough to catch a word on the back of his t-shirt. Verrado, it said. Ken hammered the word into Google, discovering that Verrado was the name of a new outboard engine manufactured by Mercury Marine, the boat engine manufacturer. There had been a big boat show in Miami during early February, the same time of the attack. These shirts had only been given to employees of the boat show's

food court, which was run by a company called Centerplate. Brennan called the head of human resources for Centerplate, who told him that the company had indeed booked rooms for its employees at the regency, but that it had hired more than 200 different temporary employees for the boat show, some of which had come from as far away as Louisiana. Ken asked if any of the employees had been particularly large, and if they'd worn large dark sunglasses. The HR manager told him, yes, there had been someone fitting that description, and that the company had initially hired the man to work at Zephyr Field, home of the minor league baseball team, the New Orleans Zephyrs. It was then that Ken got his biggest breakthrough yet.

The HR manager dug up the employee's file, telling Ken that the large man's name was Mike Jones. With the name, Ken could find out exactly when and where the attacker was staying. Michael Lee Jones had checked in on Valentine's Day just seven days prior to the attack and he had checked out on the 22nd of February, one day after he was seen rolling his suitcase to the car. It became clear that Michael had the perfect M.O. for a serial carnal attacker. His food service job had kept him moving from city to city, all expenses paid, and his method of attack and concealment was horrifyingly effective. Michael no longer worked for Centerplate, but that didn't deter Ken from his hunt. He called every single one of Centerplate's competitors, assuming that Michael

had remained in the catering industry. Time after time, he came up short. He'd wait on hold for 20 minutes at a time, only for some HR manager to tell him that no one by the name of Michael Lee Jones worked for their company. Eventually, Ken found himself talking to the COO of a company named Ovations. When asked if there was a 300 pound African American by the name of Michael Lee Jones working for the company, there was no hesitation in the COO's response, get a subpoena. Every other person had been more than willing to help and had taken the time to do so. But here was this guy telling him to go kick rocks, without so much as skipping a beat. It was then that Ken knew he had the right company,

and his response to the COO? Go get a subpoena? Okay, I will. Within the hour, Ovation's company fax machine roared into life and belched out the relevant paperwork headed with the seal of the Miami-Dade Police Department. The response came back just as fast. Michael Lee Jones was living in Fredericks, Maryland. It was time to swoop in for the kill. Upon being confronted by the police, Mike Jones was more than cooperative. He firmly protested the accusation and welcomed the opportunity to provide a DNA sample which could conclusively prove his innocence. He admitted to sleeping with a German woman whilst down in Miami, but assured both police

and Ken Brennan that the encounter had been entirely consensual. Obviously, everyone involved was sure of the man's innocence. After all, who in their right mind provides a DNA sample voluntarily when they know they're guilty? Yet all would become clear in due course. All they had to do was wait for the sample to be tested. A few months later, Ken Brennan got a call from the Miami-Dade Police Department. The DNA had come back a match, not just in the case of the Ukrainian woman, but on three other cases of similar assault. Two of these victims had been in New Orleans. One of them had gone looking for a cab back to her hotel after a night of drinking, when a very large man with glasses pulled his car over to the curb and offered her a ride. He drove her to an empty lot on the outskirts of the city and began the life-changing, traumatizing attack.

The victim later said that she bit his palm so hard that she had bits of his skin in her teeth afterwards. When he was finished, he drove off, leaving her on the lot. According to Ken, this is this guy's thing. He got a job that sends him all over the country. He's slick, nonchalant. He's too cool, too calm. He's probably done this a hundred times, if not more. Michael Lee Jones is serving what amounts to a life sentence at the Fremont Correctional Facility in Colorado for a series of assaults committed in the Centennial State. Given that he is presently approaching his 50th birthday and his first parole hearing isn't until 2032, it's strongly believed that Michael will die in prison,

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ZocDoc.com slash read. You'll have to excuse me if I'm a little sparse on the details here, as the findings of this particular case pose a very real threat to my life. You see, after 10 years of working for the police department, I decided to go private. Better pay, better hours, and considerably less dangerous. Or so I thought, anyway. Because being a PI got me involved in a case where there was much, much more going on than the police reports would lead you to believe and the course of the investigation changed my life forever. A teenage girl is working the closing shift in a shoe store located in a large strip mall. The only two people left on site at closing time are her and the store's security guard. The security guard attested that he witnessed her locking

every door except one, the front door, and he only left as she was moments away from shuttering up and locking it. The camera showed that she never emerged to either shutter or lock the door. The security guard grabs a bite to eat from a fast food joint located in the same strip mall, but on his way out of the lot in his car, he notices the lights are still on in the shoe store. He parks up, walks back to check on her, then finds the girl lying in a pool of blood in the store stock room. He calls 911, EMTs and the cops show up, then not long after, the girl's parents show up too. They were so worried about her being late home from work that they drove over to see if everything was okay. Needless to say, it wasn't. I can't even imagine how painful

that must have been, the moment they turned the corner only to see blue and red flashing lights. It's every parent's worst nightmare, and it couldn't have happened to nicer people. And I should know, because I was in touch with those poor folks almost every day for the better part of a year. The girl was just about to go off to college too. Everyone was so excited. So, for some evil monster to rob them of that joy is just unforgivable. Despite not being anywhere near the store at the time of the girl's death,

the security guard was questioned numerous times by local police, but there was absolutely no real evidence connecting him to the crime. That didn't stop the cops from trying to build a case against the guy though, and they tried all kinds of verbal and procedural traps to try to get this guy to slip up and incriminate himself. Which brings me to my first interesting observation. Because the strip mall served several rural communities for a very large tri-county area, and some idiot had the idea to build it right where all three intersect. What's more, it's so large that it literally straddles the boundaries of all three counties,

which should have made the girl's murder something of a jurisdictional nightmare. From experience, homicide detectives would throttle their own mothers and voluntarily take on a tough case like that. But here steps up one county sheriff who starts waxing lyrical on how, by golly, I will not let such a senseless murder go unpunished. This will be the very definition of swift justice. The public applauded such selfless, courageous, and righteous policing, and the other departments were only too happy to let their neighboring counterparts take a bite of that convoluted sandwich. It was assumed that this sheriff had a guy he liked for the murder, otherwise, why would you take it? Only he didn't

get it solved. In fact, it got thrown onto the cold case pile less than a year afterwards and it didn't make sense to me why the department would be happy to take the hit like that. So I started digging. Six months after the girl's murder, the vast amount of publicity surrounding the case had died down somewhat. There had been numerous appeals for information, sizable crowdfunding awards were offered, and the family had even set up an anonymous free phone number. But as time went by, the tips dried up, and the investigation in general began to flounder. People just kind of moved on. That's when the cassette tape arrived. One morning, the girl's dad goes out to his mailbox to find a small package in there.

Instead is one of those old analog cassette tapes and the label just says, play me. Dad takes the tape inside, puts it into his stereo and presses play. Driving up on the scene of your own daughter's murder must have been hard enough on him, but I can't imagine the grief, the rage, the utter despair he must have felt upon listening to that tape. It was a recording made by a man who claimed to be his daughter's murderer, and it's one of the single most disturbing pieces of audio I've ever heard in all my years in law enforcement or private investigation. I won't go into details for my sake and yours, but let's just say the general theme was how good it felt to take her life, how good it felt knowing he was going to get away with it,

how the father had the presence of mind to just stop the tape and call the cops without smashing the stereo into bits, I don't know, but he knew the best chance of catching that guy was to get the tape to the cops in one piece. Only trouble was, of all the messed up things the guy said on the tape, it was all centered around info that had already been released to the public. That and the tape had apparently been mailed from the complete opposite side of the state, which conflicted with the cop's idea that the murderer was local, as they must have been casing the place to catch the shoe store employee alone. As a result, the sheriff called the tape out as a hoax, nothing more than a disgustingly cruel prank by some kid

with too much time on their hands. He actually went on local TV to call the guy out personally, telling him that if he really was the killer, he'd give them some shred of info that wasn't already out there in the public sphere. Sure enough, no more tapes were mailed, so to them it was conclusive. The tape was a hoax and was to be discounted as evidence. Another half a year went by and by that time, the investigation had completely ground to a halt. As a result, it was tossed on the cold cases pile and it looked like the girl's parents were unlikely to get the justice they deserved. And that's where I step onto the stage. I was hired by the girl's family to look into the murder, essentially picking up on the

investigation where the local sheriffs had left off. I warned them that it wouldn't be an easy job, and that if I hadn't found anything three months into the job, they were to take me off retainer. I got bills to pay like the rest of you and I just don't want to milk grieving families to do it, you know. My first move was to get in touch with the small town sheriff's department who were in charge of the initial investigation. Thankfully, they were only too happy to intermediate with a PI, especially one with prior law enforcement experience, and they promised me full access to the case file and all corresponding evidence. They were still as keen to crack the case as ever,

it was just budgeting restrictions which kept them from keeping a man on it full time. The way they explained it, if I were to find anything that'd give them good reason to reopen the case, I'd be something of a local hero. But for people who talked a big game about wanting to solve the case, they certainly weren't falling over themselves to actually help me. First, it was the slow responses. I'd have to wait days to hear back from them. Everything moved at a snail's pace. Then there was getting access to the evidence archives. Everybody had to ask everybody else if they'd seen the key And getting the right permission forms for a civilian was almost impossible

There was only so much I'm just snowed under right now or Sorry, I thought someone saw to that for you I could take before I started to get a little suspicious, you know But in the end, to their credit They granted me access to the evidence and most importantly, that cassette tape that had been sent to the father. I was repeatedly warned that it was nothing more than a red herring, that all I was going to do

was give myself the heebie-jeebies by listening to it. And while the latter was certainly true, the tape itself had proved to be anything but irrelevant. Let me just preface by saying that the recording itself was just as disturbing, if not more so, than I first imagined it would be. Whoever had made the recording had gone to some length to disguise their voice, so it was impossible to tell exactly how old they might be. But something about the vocabulary of the person was highly reminiscent of my college-aged nephew. From what I could gather, the cops had focused almost exclusively

on the security guard and a handful of people who just so happened to have been in the parking lot at the time the store closed. Almost none of the girl's friends or peers had been questioned in relation to her death, and considering that the majority of murder victims are killed by someone they know, that just didn't add up for me. On top of that, what the cops said about the caller not providing much detail, that proved not to strictly be the case. They were extremely detailed regarding what they'd done to the body, as well as the position it was left in. Both details matched up to the police reports, and as far as I know, no police department in America releases the explicitly gory details of any individual murder. Leaks happen, sure, but still, it's what I call a bug bite detail.

The more I scratched at it, the more inflamed it got, until there was just no ignoring it anymore. The tape had much more significance than people had been led to believe and the cops had lied about it. The only question was, why? After that little revelation, I focused a great deal of my time into investigating the cassette tape and its origins. The cops knew where it had been sent from and that was a large college town in the next state over. I totally get why they might consider it was probably a hoax, based on the fact that only around 10% of the high school graduates end up going to that

particular college, but to rule it out entirely seemed like pure ignorance to me. But again, another piece seemed to fall into place when I talked to the victim's parents and discovered that the victim was due to attend that exact same college. That's the point where I was convinced the killer was someone that was known to the victim. There were already indicators, such as the fact that there was no sign of a struggle at the scene of the crime, but by that point it seemed concrete. Next came the hard part, comparing a tri-county list of all the high school graduates of the victim's age group that had gotten a place at this particular college. It involved calling around seven different high schools to convince seven different principals to share some fairly

intimate information with a total stranger, and let me assure you, that was no small feat. I was looking at a week or two's worth of waiting before I got all that info together. So in the meantime, I thought I'd get in touch with the county sheriff who had been in charge of the investigation to see which of the victims' peer group they'd done interviews with. By that time, me and the sheriff had been in touch every couple of days for maybe three to four months. I'd gone so far as to say we had a good professional relationship, so much so that I even had his home phone number. So, I give him a call at home one Saturday morning.

The call gets answered, but instead of the sheriff, I hear a different, weirdly familiar voice on the other end. It was a young man's voice, late teens or early twenties. From his name and age I figured it was the sheriff's eldest son so I asked him to put his dad on the phone. We talked briefly about the handful of the victim's friends that were interviewed and the sheriff assured me he'd have the transcripts released. Business was concluded and we hung up. I drive over to the department HQ the next day to pick up the interview transcripts only to find there's literally nothing of note in them. All they seemed to have asked was how are you holding up and the same phrase cropped up in all the three statements. They were shocked and confused by their close friend's sudden and brutal murder. None of the obviously important questions

seemed to have been asked, like if the victim had made anyone mad in the days or weeks prior, if she'd had any kind of stalker, or if she was romantically involved with anyone. Those are all the first questions I'd been asking, and the sheriff himself had completely neglected to ask them during interviews he himself had conducted. Either that's the most flagrant case of police negligence I'd ever personally encountered, or something extremely worrying was going on. About a week after, I had my complete list of all the kids in the Tri-County area, and with it, I'm convinced that one of the 13 names I got was our victim's killer. It just didn't make any sense why the sheriff and his deputies would

neglect such a line of inquiry, no matter how improbable it seemed. But then, I saw a name on that list that was instantly familiar to me, and it was the name of the sheriff's eldest son, the very same kid who had answered the phone to me that Saturday morning. It was then I understood why his voice had seemed so familiar. It wasn't because I'd heard it in passing, maybe in the background of one of our many phone calls. It was because it was the voice on the cassette tape. Then all of a sudden everything fell into place. This small country sheriff's department wasn't incompetent. Quite the opposite actually.

They successfully covered up a murder that had been committed by their sheriff's own kid. This put me in a very precarious situation, and to me, there was only one member of the department that I thought I could really genuinely trust. So, foolishly, I called them, and asked them if there was any possibility of the sheriff's son being considered as a suspect in the shoe store employee's murder. Naturally, she just responds with something along the lines of, I'm sorry, you think we should consider, name redacted, as a suspect in a murder case? You know that sheriff, redacted, is a kid, right? He's on a... Redacted. Scholarship over at... Redacted. If there's any truth to this, we're looking at a huge scandal here.

Are you sure you're willing to make a case for this? And I was. I really was. And I don't believe for a second that my friend in the department was in on it. I believed them when they said that they wanted to help me take the case to the FBI, but I guess I was foolish for thinking that word wouldn't get out somehow. Because a few days after, I get a call from an unknown number. It was the sheriff, and he wanted to talk, in person. Here's the part where I have to let you all down. If this was a movie, I'd have gone to the meeting, maybe strapped a wire to myself or coordinated with super sleek FBI agents to entrap the bad guy and bring him down. But I think we all know that going to meet that sheriff alone, having uncovered what I had, that would have amounted to me taking my own life essentially. As far as I could tell, this was a conspiracy that ran deeper than I ever could have anticipated,

and I'm not ashamed to say that I was scared for my life. The sheriff might well have used a burner phone to arrange the meeting, thus removing himself from the freak murder that would no doubt befall me upon arrival. I appreciate that might sound paranoid, but you should have heard the way this guy talked to me. Like I said already, we'd been buddy-buddy for months by that point, but the way he spoke to me was like I was Judas Iscariot himself. The same night I skipped the meeting, he called again, politely and cryptically reminding me that we both knew a great deal about each other's families and that it would be a sure shame

if anything happened to either of them. I don't think I need to spell out what that meant. Within six months, I had moved my wife and kid out to the other side of the country, dissolved my company that I'd been running at the time, and set up an entirely new one to throw off any pursuers. It was tough re-establishing myself in a brand new place, especially where none of the cops knew me as one of their own. But I really didn't have much choice, did I? And please don't suggest I could have arranged a bunch of evidence packages to be mailed off in the event of my untimely demise. Like I said, life just isn't like the movies, in so many different ways. And that's the bottom line. The shoe store victim's parents will

never find out what happened to their daughter, and if that's the price I have to pay to keep my kids safe, to keep my wife safe, as cowardly as it is, I'm more than willing to pay it. To be continued... the unspeakable crimes they've committed secondhand. But what about the victims? What about those fortunate few that made it out alive to tell their tale? Look no further than Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. It's an anthology podcast hosted by me, Andrew Tate, that chronicles the first-person encounters of those that survived a brush with the most dangerous monsters of all. Join me every Sunday night to hear listener submitted stories like The Fingers Under the Door, The Hotel Basement, and The Laughing in the Woods.

True tales guaranteed to keep you in suspense. You can catch Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts today. The scariest case I ever took on was when a woman in her 40s gives me a ring. Tells me she reckons her husband is having it away with a bit on the side. Those kind of jobs are my bread and butter. So off I pop following this bloke around trying to catch him out with his bit of crumpet while the wife's at home bathing the kids or something. About a week goes by and no matter how much I follow this bloke around, he never seems to do anything too dodgy or go anywhere remotely naughty. I'm actually getting a bit frustrated when one afternoon after he finished work, he starts driving out in the

middle of bloody nowhere. I think I've got him, don't I? His one bit of unusual behavior, traveling out of town, it's gotta be it. Only he doesn't go to some bloody travel lodge or anything, he goes right out to the beach, and to this little boathouse hidden amongst some sand dunes. I'm thinking, what kind of bloke meets his bit of skirt in a place like this? But either way, I grab my camera and start sneaking down towards the shack to get a picture or two of the action. I'm right up on the door, edging it open, getting ready to snap a shot of this fellow's pale, hairy bottom going up and down like the clappers when I feel something cold and metallic pushing into the back of my head. You the police? If I'd have said yeah, there's no doubt in my mind now that my brains would be splattered all over the inside of that boathouse

Because what felt like a piece of pipe was actually a single barrel 12 gauge, proper old farmer's blunderbuss it was No I'm not, I'm a private eye, it misses things just shagging about There was silence for a moment, then he pokes me in the back of the head with a barrel, so hard it hurts, and says, get in that shack. I go in, and see there's all these black plastic packages in the hall of a small rowing boat. Drugs, had to be. Only reason he'd be willing to kill a copper. That big boy money, so to speak. This fella held me at gunpoint, made me strip, went through all of my stuff making sure I was who I said I was. He was only satisfied when he saw my business card. He asked me again why I'm

following him and I tell him honestly, Mrs. reckons you're shagging about. Good God, my voice was quaking like you wouldn't believe, thinking you're going to get slotted like that. It really puts things into perspective. For the first time, he takes the gun off me, laughing to himself, then says, here's what's going to happen. You're going to take five grand off me, go back to my Mrs., and tell her I'm not having an affair. Tell her I take long walks on the beach. Tell her I go on bird watching. Just don't tell her the truth. You got it? He kept one of my business cards to let me know he was deadly serious. Any messing about and there's blokes I work with that'll come and find ya And again, I know he was deadly serious

Needless to say, getting paid twice for one job was great stuff But thinking I was about to get my head blown off by a secret drug dealer in a beachside boating hut Can't say I'd recommend it, to be honest. When I was about nine years old, a female, my family used to live in a remote area on the outskirts of town. Considering the location of the suburb, that area was surrounded by warehouses and such. At the time, my family did not have a phone in the house and neither did our neighbors. There were no cell phones back then, or they were a luxury and not everyone could afford one. This took place in the end of the 90s. So if I needed to call my mom while she was at work, I had to either go to my dad's work or

a company next to his which was closer to make a phone call. My dad's work was a relatively short walk from our house, probably about 30 minutes or less. My dad was working at a huge unloading dock for metallurgical and natural resources shipments. In order to get to my dad's work, I had to walk past another adjacent company just like the one where my dad was working. I will call that Docks 2. My dad's work as well as Docks 2 had a sort of watchtower. It is just a cabin mounted at the top of a tall platform and you need to go up a decent amount of stairs to get to the top. There was always a guard inside overseeing the whole yard from the top during the day and night to make sure no one is in danger and there's no break-ins. The phones were located only on-site watchtowers at the time.

Docks 2 were much closer to our house about a 10 minutes walk. Now one day, as I've done many times before, I went to the docks 2 to make a call. I climbed the stairs, knocked on the door, and was welcomed in by a guard I used to see quite often and knew well. However, that day he wasn't alone. There was a new guy, 28 at the time, and he was there. Apparently he was a new employee hired to work shifts. He was this very tanned white guy always wearing military style outfits. I was just an average looking child, exactly my age. My hair was very blonde which made my cheeks always appear rosy red and give me even more childish appearance. When the new guy saw me that day, he wouldn't take his eyes off me.

As soon as I was about to finish my call with my mom, it's just one room so everyone can hear my conversation with her. The new guy went outside to smoke. When I came out, he smiled at me and asked me what my name is and whether I came there often to make calls. I don't remember what I said, but I felt very shy because he was just staring deeply into my eyes. I'll just call him The Creep. Fast forward and I came to that tower again to make a call. And there he was again, but that time he was alone. I spoke to my mom and as I was about to leave, he asked if I wanted any tea, to which I refused. He then proceeded to ask how my school was going and things like that. He offered to help me with my homework, however I told him I've got it all sorted. Harmless, but strange to say the least.

On a side note, I just wanted to say that what gave me shivers when I was near him is that whenever he looked at me, he looked drunk, which was very unsettling. Mind you, he wasn't actually drunk, but his eyes would get so hazy and his face would flush red. Sometime later, I saw him again. That time, I was walking to my dad's work with my friend and he was doing some digging in the docks too. When he saw me through the metal fence that was separating us, he just leaned against his shovel and just stared at me. He didn't say hi or anything like that. After those encounters, for quite some time, I took alternative routes to see my dad or play with puppies at my dad's work or make calls to my mom because he really creeped me out. However, one day I had to call my mom urgently. My dad's work phone didn't work so I had to go to the docks to tower hoping I won't see him.

The creep was there and oh boy he was so happy I came. He was complaining how I don't come anymore to see him. As I was making the call he grabbed another chair and sat right next to me very close. It took a while for the call because my mom was busy with something and someone went to get her whilst I was on the line. It felt like hours waiting and the creep was just sitting next to me, looking at me and still smiling. When the mom finally got to the phone, he got up and went to make some tea and brought some biscuits. When I was done talking, he insisted I have some tea with him. I didn't, and he just kept on trying to strike a conversation. But this time, the tone of the conversation was different.

He asked me how old exactly I was and I told him 12 or 13. I have no idea why I lied that I was older than I was, since I was 9. He told me his age and although I knew he was much older, I felt really weirded out that he wanted to talk to me so badly or had any interest in being my friend. My alarms did go off every time I was around him but I guess I didn't really feel overly in danger. He then proceeded to tell me that I was beautiful and asked me whether I had a boyfriend. He asked me if I have already dated boys and what type of boys I liked. I was so

uncomfortable and so eager to leave at that point, but he would just keep dragging me into those weird conversations. I could tell he was drinking that day. When I began moving towards the door, he followed me. Eventually we were both outside, however, in order to get down from the tower you need to walk this narrow path towards the stairs. He stood blocking it so I couldn't leave. He got very close to me and I freaked out. The only escape tactic I could come up with as a child was to pretend that I'm seeing someone from the top of the tower. So I began waving my hand at the road down the bottom and towards houses in the distance pretending I see someone I know and saying, oh look, that's my uncle, he's waving at me. The creep looked in that direction but either didn't care or could tell that I was lying. I kept on telling him that my uncle who waved back

is a big angry man and that if I won't come down this instant and go home, we both are going to be in trouble. He didn't budge. He got even closer and eventually pressed me against the railing. He kept on asking me weird questions whilst I was terrified to move because I didn't want to move my body against his, if that makes any sense, so I just froze. He asked me if I would come on a date with him and that he's looking for a girlfriend. And at that particular moment someone was coming up the stairs to the tower so he let me go but asked me to come back. I have not told anyone about this encounter at that stage because I was afraid that my parents would get angry. I also felt very

embarrassed and thought that people would judge me for what happened. Sometime later I was home and it was around 9pm. I know the time because it was my bedtime. Suddenly a car came into our driveway. I came to see who it was through the front room window and I could see it was the creep but this time with other guys, blasting music in his car and shouting my name. I have no idea how he knew where I lived, he must have followed me one day. My dad was outraged. He asked me who these people were but before I could even answer he rushed outside. Apparently the creep asked for me to go out with him and his friends. My dad obviously refused saying that I'm a child

and too young to hang out with them or go out at this time of night and that if he sees any one of them ever again, he'll beat the living daylights out of them. So, they took off. I was so upset with my dad that he had called me a child in front of them. So stupid looking back. I think because we lived so far away from everything I was really keen to make friends as there were no kids around as such. For a while after that, I hadn't seen the creep or heard of him. A significant time later, I was walking to my dad's work again and I've completely forgotten about that guy. He was working in the docks too with his friends, maybe those that came with him that night in the car or maybe these were just his co-workers. I got scared when I saw him and

even thought he shouted hi and I pretended not to know him. He said something to his friends and I remember so clearly how one of his friends exclaimed loudly, her? I guess he had told them about me or his interest in me but no one had expected me to be a child. I looked at the guy that exclaimed. He was staring at me in utter disbelief. He must have been 20 to 25, I think, and the creep was saying something to him. His friends screamed to him, have you lost your mind? Clearly the creep didn't see me as a child like everyone else did. Fast forward again, maybe half a year later. One day I'm home alone in the evening waiting for my parents to come home from work. We lived in a very safe community so sometimes I'd be home

by myself for a little bit after school till my parents got home. I was playing a game whereby I was a singer. I had this sort of makeshift stage created in the living room and I was performing in front of the chairs, pretending the chairs were filled with a live audience. It was pitch black outside. At some point during my performance, I see someone staring at me through the living room window. That person must have been crouching down as only the top of their face could be seen from the bottom. As soon as that person realized I saw them, they ran away. I was so embarrassed that someone saw me performing and scared and shocked at the same time that I was literally glued to the floor. I don't know whether that was him. Our dog didn't react at all, maybe because music was playing very

loud. I was scared to go outside the house to check but peered through the window. However, no one was there. That person had to climb over a wooden fence to get to our living room window. I told my parents about it. I've also asked my friend whether it was him who had came around but he said it wasn't him. I don't know if my friend felt shy to admit he was watching me or whether it actually was that creep. But to finish up the story, one day I went to the docks too with my dad as my dad needed something from there for work. I saw the old guard that I knew well and asked about that creep and was told that he doesn't work there anymore. I honestly

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going on. I had a job at a restaurant in the city which was about a 30 minute car ride and an hour and a half train ride. The train was a couple of blocks away from my place since my dad was always too lazy or hung over to drive me, and that was my main form of transportation. I went to work at around 3pm and would usually get home at around 12 or 1am. This was my schedule four days a week aside from having school. I would see a lot of familiar faces on the train because of this, but we never really made conversation with each other. Until one night when I got out of work late because some idiots wanted to sit in the restaurant past closing. You know those people. And thanks to them I missed my train. The next one wasn't

scheduled to arrive for another hour so having nowhere to go and no money left for Lyft or Uber I sat there waiting. No one was around me so when this older man showed up, kind of staggering a bit, I assumed he was another drunken hobo in the city trying to catch a train to sleep in. Something about his face gave me deja vu but I shrugged it off, thinking maybe I've just seen him on the train here and there. He made his way over to me, much to my discomfort, and started up a conversation. He wasn't slurring, but the way he was looking down at me gave me goosebumps. He asked me why I was out there so late, all by myself. I had to reply as to not anger him.

I mean, we were alone and he was close enough to me to pull out a knife or something. I had no idea. Anyway, I told him I was waiting for the train and he asked which one. Now, the train was color-coded with a strip at the top to indicate whether it goes north, south, east, or west areas, and I took blue, but I lied and said I took green. He looked at the schedule above the benches and saw that the green train was coming in 15 minutes, so he said that he'd keep me company. For those extremely long 15 minutes, he asked me how long I had been working at so-and-so restaurant, and this made my blood run cold as ice. I never told him where I worked. I just looked at him and very timidly answered, for a year. And he laughed, and he responds, wow, it's already been a whole year, huh?

At this point, my skin was itching out of anxiety and as soon as the green train came, I knew I had no choice but to take it. I said goodbye to him and thanked him for the chat, hoping that would be the end of it. No. He suddenly told me that he took the green train too, so he followed me on and sat in a seat behind me. My mind was racing about whether he was going to try to do something to me like chloroform or hurt me in some other way, but we rode the train in silence. I was trying to figure out how I was going to lose him. There weren't many other people riding the train at that hour. Our car was empty, unfortunately. As the ride went on in menacing silence, I could feel him staring down the back of my neck. I waited until we got to a

stop where there was another person and I was until we got to a stop where there was another person and I was so relieved to see a woman sitting there. She wasn't boarding so I immediately got off the train and the man followed me as expected. I took a seat on the bench next to hers, close enough for her to see and hear everything going on, hoping she would catch on. The man notified that I was sniffling, allergies and being out in the cold and asked if I was sick. I told him no, but he insisted on giving me these weird pills that he had that were supposedly cold medicine. I declined in a louder voice. Uh, sorry, don't accept pills from strangers. This prompted the lady to look at us and I made eye contact

with her and she knew now. Now this went on until a blue train came and the lady got up giving me a look that told me to get on with her. So without explanation I did. She waved me over to sit next to her and when the man tried to follow she said, no, you go sit over there and made him sit a couple of seats across from us. He chose the one where he could face us and stared at me the entire time. I was shaking and about to burst into tears. The woman leaned over and whispered to me that she had a pistol and I felt safer with her there. We whispered back and forth about what happened. I told her where I lived and how I was worried he would follow me home. She told me a friend of hers would be boarding the train soon, and when he did, she told me his

name was Ray. Ray was filled in about everything and agreed to escort me home. She promised me that I could trust him. The two of them waited with me until I got to my stop. The man, still watching me, started to smile wildly, resembling the Sheshire cat. He shouted, This is your place, right? To which I didn't respond and just gave the woman a hug and thanked her. Ray and I hurriedly hopped off the train and as I looked back, I saw that the woman had pulled out her pistol and told the man to sit back down, even blocking the exit with

her body. I finally let myself cry in relief. Ray walked me home and tried to calm me down by telling me about his job and his family. After watching me get inside the gates of my apartment safely, I thanked him profusely for his help. It chills me to think about how that night would have turned out if I hadn't met up with that woman and her friend. I feel extremely lucky to this day. I never saw that man again and eventually stopped thinking about him but in the back of my head,

that creepy aroused smile of his was burned into my mind and I couldn't help but wonder just what else he knew about me. I remember times in which I focused so heavily upon wounded relationships with others, ruminating over the negative interactions that we had. But it's very difficult to train your mind to approach relationships with others in a problem-solving mode. And there really is no better feeling than learning to find your own solutions to your issues. And that's why a therapist with BetterHelp can help you become a better problem solver and make it much more clear how to mend those relationships with yourself and manifest it outward. And my experiences with BetterHelp have been a blessing. They've been encouraging and insightful.

Their strategies to reduce my stressors were just what I needed. And I truly do feel blessed to have been paired with them and felt at ease with their empathetic approach to therapy. So, if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, accessible, affordable, and entirely online. Get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey and switch therapists at any time. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash read today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp.com slash read. It all started with a normal day at work. I worked at a small grocery store at the time and my duties consisted of gathering shopping carts in the parking lot and bagging groceries. Normal minimum wage stuff. It was rainy that morning and of course I was assigned to carts all day. About two hours into my shift I saw a man rushing to get his groceries into the car. It was pouring. I ran over to him and started helping him with his bag. Oh, it's pouring, I said. Mind if I help you get out of the rain? Yes, thank you so much. As he was closing his trunk, he looked at me with a very surprised look on his face. He lowered his eyebrows, looked me up and down, and smirked. Are you a new hire? No, I've been here a couple of months. Oh, you're very pretty, he said in a very sensual tone.

Thank you. Um, have a good day. I shut it down. I was not interested. And as I was walking back to the store to hide until he left, I could feel him watching me while I walked away. Nevertheless, I continued to work, not really thinking about it. After my lunch, I was at the register bagging groceries and I noticed that same man from earlier walk in. I pretended I didn't see him and just kept bagging.

He came up to the register and got a single chocolate bar. I didn't give him a bag. He stands towering over me and says, aren't you going to bag my item? Oh, sorry, I didn't know you wanted a bag for one thing. I put his chocolate bar in a bag and told him to have a good day. When are you off work, sweetheart? Ah, man, I'm not comfortable giving that information out. He returned with, that's okay. You've been here, what, five hours? You probably get off around six or seven, right? He smiled, winked at me, and walked away. Disgusted, I went to my manager and told her what happened. She told me not to work that lot anymore and to ask someone to walk me to my car. So by the end of my shift, I made a male co-worker walk me to my truck and we scanned the parking lot, looking for this man's car.

I didn't see him, so my co-worker went back inside and I started my truck. I called my mom to tell her about what happened and once she answered I left the parking lot. Literally the second I turned onto the road I saw his car pull onto the road behind me. I told my mom I thought he was going to follow me and she just told me to drive around a bit to try and lose him. I drove around for about 20 minutes just going in circles around my town. I hit a red light and he pulled up next to me and started yelling something to me out his open window. I of course pretended he wasn't there but I could still hear what he was saying. You would bear some good kids for me. You'd make a

great slave for me, little lady. He then started being very explicit about what he was going to do to me if he caught me. I told my mom I was going to call 911, and if I wasn't home in an hour, then call the police. While I was trying to dial 911, the man speeds ahead of my truck and starts brake-checking me. Frantic, I wait for the closest intersection and turn up the block. My phone fell under my seat while I was turning so I decided to go to the nearest open establishment and run in and hide and have someone else call 911. The closest open business I could find was a convenience store at a gas station. I pull in, park, and run for my life into the store. I tell the clerk

what's happening and she takes me to the break room and locks me in there. While processing that I might have survived this ordeal, I hear the doors of the storefront start violently rattling, and before I knew it, the clerk was locking herself in the break room too. She was on the phone with the police and they were on their way. We were silent, cowering in a dark room, and I found myself feeling guilty for wrapping another woman into our worst fear. My thoughts were racing through what I had said to him. Did I lead him on?

No, I just told him to have a good day. Has he been following me for longer than tonight? How did he know what car I drive? Are the police going to get here in time? Are we going to die? Finally, the small room is illuminated with red and blue lights from the crack under the door. We hear a voice over the intercom tell us it's safe to come out. Shaking, the clerk takes out her keys and opens the door. We walk out and give our statements. After the police leave, I turn to my unexpected savior and profusely thank her.

We cry, hug, and she walks me to my car. The next night I went back and brought her some food and an Amazon gift card. I have been in a near fatal car accident, ten feet away from a mountain line in the wild, and I am a survivor of assault. I can tell you, reader, with total honesty, I thought that was the end of my line. This happened many years ago. I was eight or so at the time and every day I would walk home from my elementary school. My house was a few miles down the road so my mother thought it would be safe enough for me to walk by myself. It was a few months into the school year when it started happening. A beat up looking Toyota would slow down enough for a couple of white guys that looked like

they were in their mid to late 20s to follow me and yell insults. I was chubby back then, so they would call me fat and much more hurtful things. I'll always remember the driver. He looked to be the oldest of the bunch with greasy blonde hair hanging down and partially covering his pimple-scarred face. They would follow me until I reached the gas station that was halfway along my journey home. Then they would speed off laughing loudly. For the first couple of weeks I didn't tell anyone, thinking that they would get tired of it, and they didn't.

A full month passed before I told my mother about it. She of course was rightly concerned about me and asked me how long I had been going on for. When I told her a month, she grew even more concerned. Her being a single mom, she couldn't pick me up from school because she was at work all day, so her solution was to send my older brother to meet me halfway, thinking this would deter them. It didn't. Another four months went by with them continuing to follow me and throw insults, and suddenly, it stopped. A whole month went by without them driving by and we thought everything was safe again. But we were wrong. Out of the blue I saw

the old beat up Toyota heading down the road towards me. Only the driver was in the car this time. He slowed down the car, flung open the passenger door and proceeded to yell for me to get into the car. I was so scared I couldn't even speak. I just shook my head no and tried to walk faster. He continued to follow me, demanding that I get into his car. I'll never forget the look on his face as he yelled at me. It was so full of rage. We finally got to the gas station that I made a break for it. I ran inside the gas station and up to the gas station attendant. I told him what was happening and he let me hide behind the counter.

The driver pulled into the gas station, hopped out of the car and came in. He demanded that the gas station attendant tell him where I was, claiming I was his daughter and I jumped out of his car. The gas station attendant glanced down at me and I shook my head wildly, mouthing that I didn't know this man. The gas station attendant said he didn't know what he was talking about and that he had to leave the store immediately. The driver began to yell wildly and started walking around the store looking for me. The gas station attendant said that he was going to call the police if the man didn't leave. The man turned to him and said something I'll never forget.

I'll get her. One way or another. The driver stormed out of the gas station and left. I sat there on the floor crying for what felt like hours. The gas station attendant called the police and had them come over. When the police arrived, the attendant told them what had happened. A police officer knelt down beside me and asked me my side of the story. I told the officer everything. How him and a couple of others had been following me for months. How they would follow me and insult me. How they suddenly stopped. And how he had tried to get me into his car.

I don't remember much afterwards other than them calling my mother and her meeting at our house. They took my mother's statement and they left. After that, my mother changed her work hours in order to come get me every day. For years, I lived in fear that that man with the greasy hair and pimple-scarred face would eventually get to me. My dad and I live together in our own multi-family home in Germany. My dad has a serious lung condition. His lungs produce and trap an excessive amount of mucus. The trapped amount is huge and keeps his lungs from working correctly. It's pretty normal that he has to be picked up by an ambulance every two to three weeks because he can't breathe anymore. Last week it was that time of the month. He

couldn't breathe. I called an ambulance and he was brought to the closest hospital. Pretty normal for me because this happened at least ten times in the last 6 months. So I went to bed after he got picked up on a Tuesday. I went to work the next morning and got a text from him that he has to stay for at least 2 more days, so approximately till Friday. Wednesday evening I get home from work and played as much Rogue Company when someone suddenly rang the doorbell. That's unusual because we never have unannounced visitors. I walked to the door and was about to press the door buzzer to open the main door when I heard, I believe, more than one voice directly in front of my door, so that someone just got past the main door, which was weird. I asked in German, hello who is it? There was silence for three

seconds. Then a person who sounds like my father but at the same time doesn't sound like my father answers, Micah, it's me, I forgot my keys, open the door. I thought, okay, in that case. Wait a minute, my dad never calls me Micah, only Mickey. And there was the sarcastic tone in that voice. I didn't trust the situation and I called my father on his phone. If the person in the front of my door was my father, his phone should ring, right? It didn't. My father answered and as I suspected he was still

in the hospital. Meanwhile, the two persons on the other side of the door heard my phone call and started kicking my door. Let me in, Micah. It's your daddy. Let me in. Thank God the door was reinforced. After I threatened them with calling the police and having a huge knife in my hand, they left. I heard their footsteps running down the staircase. I rushed to a window facing the street to check if I can see a car or a license plate, but they were gone, just a few footsteps in the distance. They never came back, and what's weird is that they knew my name and that my father wasn't home despite his car standing in the driveway. Stuff was hitting the fan when a buddy of mine actually reported something similar.

We called the police, but an investigation is currently in progress. To be continued... storage place and roughly two years ago we noticed they had an auction sign out front. We decided to check it out so we walked over hoping to find something interesting. If you haven't watched Storage Wars, the way these work is the auctioneer opens the unit and you're not allowed to enter or touch anything. You only have a window of about 15 seconds to look around and decide if you want to bid. This unit was 4x4 and my brother and I noticed a group of 5 fishing poles amongst other boxes and bags. We had been talking about buying a few poles and this seemed like a good chance, so we yelled out a low bid and won. Per the auction rules, we had until the end of the day to empty out the unit. Being small, this was a two garbage can job, so we got a can and started sorting. It started out promising with finding a nice

microscope and a few tools, etc. standard storage stuff. I pulled out a plastic garbage bag and opened it to find another tied shut garbage bag, which I opened to find another tied shut garbage bag. And since nothing terrifying is ever kept in triple tied bags, I opened it to find the dried mummified remains of a very old and very dry cat. My brother and I just stopped and stared at each other and since neither of us needed a dried out cat at the moment, we weren't sure how to handle this specific piece of storage unit treasure. We did what we always do when faced with something like this out of context. We just laughed uncomfortably until we looked back into the unit and noticed two more tied up garbage bags.

At the end of the day, we found three total bags with parts of or entire cats. We also aren't doctors, but we're pretty sure there are at least some dog parts in there as well. Granted, saying it was a storage unit full of dead cats would be a bit of an exaggeration, but considering that a storage unit generally has no dead cats, I think a small unit with three or four could be considered full. As if multiple bags of dead cats wasn't bad enough, the creepiest part about the whole thing was finding his or her creepy drawings of cats in a used pink cat food and water bowl. I spoke with the manager of the storage facility and explained my findings and

asked who owned that unit. Obviously, they couldn't give me the name, but when I asked if they were perhaps a vet, the owner laughed and said, definitely not. He also said that helps explain why the person's other abandoned unit that had gone up for auction prior had been full of empty plastic cat carriers. It's hard for me to write this out because it has only been a year since it stopped. It started in 2014 and it happened in my home country of Sweden when I went to an art school for a summer course as a form of daily activity. The people at this art school were some of the worst people I'd ever met and that included me because I was kind of trash back then too. I was 21 years old and had little experience in the real world. I had gone two extra years of

schooling because of switching majors and taking an extra year on my second choice so I was literally on my first year of independence. I also had a light form of autism and didn't receive schooling until I was 12 which made me a bit more slowly developed mentally during high school. I'm all caught up now but basically I was a 21 yearold with very little life experience. The people I met at the art school were not, let's say, the highest of achievers. They were some of the meanest and most terrible people I'd ever met. They treated each other and me awful and as well as the teachers, but I was quite the little turd too.

In fact, I feel like being around these people also made me worse. What started the stalking was an incident involving acrylic paint. It was going to be thrown away so some of us took some of the paint so it wouldn't go to waste and I finally took the remaining paint. Well, it's over, showed up. Her name was Anna and this is how she introduced herself. My art teacher was pushing these big tables on a trolley through the narrow passageway of the art hall, and Anna, dressed in expensive designer clothes, stood in her way. So my art teacher, not fearing anything, screams,

Move it! And Anna snaps towards her with this crazy look in her eyes and shouts, excuse me, do you know who I am? I'm a famous woman. My art teacher, not impressed, responds with, okay famous woman, move it. That was how we learned of Anna, the famous artist. She then proceeded to have all the terrible people in my class schmooze over her and treat her like a celebrity. But the real reason for being there was because of her paint. So the great hunt began. I was roped into it and my initial plan was to just give her back her paint so she could be off.

Except during the hunt I got these terrifying red flags. She kept sniffing the paint of other people to see if it was hers. Apparently she had poured some kind of oil into the paint so she could sniff her way to where they were. During the hunt she admitted that she had been put into treatment for the criminally insane because she had stalked a previous schoolmate that she thought had stolen paint from her. She even showed a CCTV video of her old schoolmate pulling a suitcase behind her saying that that's where she had the paint that she stole. I asked her how she had got this video that she said that her dad had connections with the local

government which had gotten the video from one of the local government's cameras which is illegal for a layman to get access to. During this time, she also admitted that she had been sending messages to a famous artist in Örebro because a voice from heaven told her to do it and that he was destined to help her with her career. Anna also thought that staring wide-eyed made her more attractive, like the kind of stare where you can't see any of the eyelids at all. So while she was saying all this, she had this crazy eyed look on her face. I was terrified of her and couldn't figure out a way of handing back the paint so she ended up threatening to

have the principal fired if she couldn't search every room for the paint. And when she did find all of her paint, she put it in one of the school's rooms and said that she would pick it up when she wanted to. She said that she would come every year during the art exhibit to check if her paint was still there and that she would sue the school if she found it missing. What a crazy person. An end of story, right? Oh, how I wish. About two years later, I enrolled in a one-year basic art program at the school. I had completely forgotten about this crazy person. At one point, we were cleaning out the

art rooms and her paint was brought up again, and would again be thrown away. Me, not remembering that crazy, famous artist, took a nice crimson bottle for myself while others took some of the not ruined color as open acrylics go bad after a while. Then as we all tried to continue with our lives the crazy lady one day returned and started sniffing all the color. I didn't recognize her at all and had forgotten how dangerously deranged she was. I'd even forgotten that I had gotten the crimson color from her paint. So when she started interrogating me for why the paint smelled like hers I didn't know what to say. She also smelled her paint at some other girl's table and was harassing her as well.

Thinking that this was all more fuss than it was worth I threw away the crimson paint. It had started to cut from age anyways. And that is when everything just went absolutely nuts and crazy-eyed Anna became my stalker. When she found out that I had thrown away the paint, she became convinced that I had re-enrolled at the art school specifically to steal her paint. She started convincing a bunch of gullible and, to be honest, low-achieving people that this was true and I started being harassed. It started with a physical attack. I was painting alone in the evening minding my own business with this huge brute ran into me, tackled me to the floor and hit and kicked me. While this was

happening, crazy eyed Anna was fake crying in the corner but I could see on the floor how she went from fake crying into gleefully smiling as I was being kicked and hit. Another girl she had recruited picked up and smashed my phone, breaking it. As the guy stormed off and the second girl followed, I stumbled onto my feet and asked Anna why she had done this and the answer she gave me made me realize what kind of person she was. So you will know that I can hurt you if I want. This was the answer she gave me. I later asked the brute of the person why he had attacked me and he said that he hated people who stole. This guy is training now to become an art teacher and I fear for those children.

I had bruised my ribs but were not allowed to go to the hospital because the principal didn't want to get involved and since my phone was broken I couldn't even call for an ambulance. So it took so long to get to the hospital that the outside signs of the abuse had healed. During this time crazy-eyed Anna started wearing a crimson jacket wherever she went. I asked her why she was wearing it and also said she looked pretty, thinking that talking nicely to her would start a friendly conversation to maybe smooth everything over. Well, Anna is not like normal people and does not think like normal people. Her response was that she wanted to think of every time I saw this color and said that she had seen it work in a movie.

She then added, I am more beautiful than you will ever be. Whenever she went, she had a horde of schmoozers around her, all thinking she was some kind of famous and fancy artist. But eventually she had to leave school and I thought I had peace. Except she one day suddenly showed up and gleefully presented me with the school's Russian exchange student. This student had been sitting at my table every day for weeks and I hadn't paid it any mind. Why would I? She was allowed to sit there but this is when the crazy eyed Anna dropped the bombshell that this exchange student was A, not a real exchange student and B, she had been putting her phone on the table each meal time while having it on speaker with Anna on the other end, silently listening in on my conversations. I remember when she first told

me this how I didn't believe it. I didn't believe and a part of me still had a hard time realizing the lengths this woman was going to and that they were real. But it was what she said next that terrified me the most. She said, I know about the secret messages behind your words. I know what you're up to. And I heard a voice from above that told me that it was my mission in life to keep an eye on you and to make sure you behave. The abuse at school escalated quickly after this. I was harassed and cornered in every classroom and chased around school and at the same time I got zero help. It escalated into a happening one late weekend night. I was sitting in the school's texture room when a guy suddenly burst in and started running towards me screaming,

what makes you think you can sit here? I did not go to the school. I jumped out of a window and started running towards my dorm and managed to call 112 in the meantime, the emergency number in Sweden. I managed to scream out that I needed help and where I was. I ran towards my dorm but another guy was waiting for me there so I ran towards the head building but a third guy was waiting there. They cornered me and I remembered how terrified I was. I thought I was going to die. But then there was a light of hope.

Blue and red lights from the road. And I was saved. I remember how happy I was to see that police officer. Everything would finally be over. And then... He walked up to the girl who orchestrated all of it. Malin. And he greeted her like a friend.

And I knew it. I knew at that moment that he wouldn't save me. I screamed for help and he ignored me. She told him that there was no issue here. He said he was looking forward to seeing her around town. Then he left. He left me. He just drove away.

The last thing I remember is the back lights of that police car driving away I wake up the next morning laying on the ground with a huge bump on the side of my head I don't know what happened Malin claims they never touched me and I just passed out When one of the guys grabbed me But I knew better I know the pain I felt and the huge bump on the side of my head I called 112 again and called for an ambulance.

And this time, because of the abuse, I had memory loss and couldn't quite tell the lady what the issue was, but I made a mistake. I told her that I had called 112 the day after and that a police officer just left me. And she got mad. Really, really mad. She told me that I was slandering her co-worker and to only call if I actually needed help and then she hung up. And I was alone again, with no one, not a single person on my side. I tried to make a police report against Anna and Malin but the officer had heard about me and deleted my report. It was during this time that I had enough and thought about ending my own life so I

was forcefully put in a mental health ward. And the stalking didn't stop. Crazy eyed Anna had a friend of hers be committed so she could come into the ward as a visitor in order to harass me. When I tried to go to art school again, she had people she had threatened join the same program so they could keep an eye on me. At home, she would have another guy she had threatened to park same program so they could keep an eye on me. At home, she would have another guy she had threatened to park outside my house a few times a week in order to scare me.

During this, she would also have things stolen from me. Things like shoes, gloves, and the like, and according to the people doing the stealing, this is because she had watched a movie where someone steals items and then puts them back to make someone go insane from the harassment. Crazy eyed Anna would call me a few times a year lying about being a data collector to get private information out of me, something that took a few years to even catch on to. Because she lived in a big city far away at the time she constantly forced others to do the stalking for her. Most of them had at one point given drugs to and then would get them to do what she wanted by threatening to report them to the police if they wouldn't. Others she just

bribed with money or charmed. I have gone for hour long bus rides where someone admits to being there for her sake. Most people are afraid of her because she won't leave them alone and she will do to them what she does for me if they don't say yes to her. One girl was roped into standing all dressed in red outside my supermarket. Another girl was also roped into sitting with her car outside my house for a few hours, a few days a week, all because of fear of this woman. I learned from a cousin of hers that she affords all of this because she won an art prize for half a million kroner at one point. That's why she thinks she's famous. I also learned that most of her biological family has cut contact with her because she has been doing this since she was a teenager.

And yet even with that information, no one would listen. When I tell people what she had done to me, people call me the crazy one. I have no history of delusions or of making up tall tales yet it was so much easier for people to just think I'm crazy. I have even been forcefully medicated at some points with psychosis medication that baffled doctors lamented over not working. Not even my family believes me, something that has forever barred how much trust I can put into the relationship between us. I asked her once why she was doing all of this and she said, to punish you. I asked her for how long I would need to be punished and she answered,

for as long as I want. At one point I even considered killing her. I'm the kind of person who catches flies alive in a cup and let them out the window. I have never harmed another human being. I have never been violent. Yet at one point I felt so desperate for freedom that I would take prison rather than being haunted by crazy-eyed Anna anymore. I was more afraid of her than imprisonment. And then it stopped. It just stopped. Still a year later I don't know why it stopped. Nothing in her history tells me that she would stop willingly so I'm convinced that either she had run out of people to threaten into doing her bidding or something has happened to her. It's possible that one of those people finally reported her and actually got taken seriously.

I'm not sure. Even so, I can't feel relief. Not yet. I'm still afraid it'll start again and I have given up all hope of being taken seriously by the police. I I work in food service, front of house, so in the early days of the pandemic, with restaurants closed, I was taking work wherever I could find it. An old friend clued me into a medical office that needed someone to come in and do a bit of light filing. I was able to go in at night to limit direct contact with people so I jumped at the opportunity right away. Ironically, the medical office job had been the safest gig I'd been offered thus far, COVID-wise. I wanted to avoid the bus if I could due to crowds so I decided to swing for a rideshare app. It's not all that expensive in my area and I

really didn't want a virus. I headed in at almost 3am because it was after the cleaning crew had left. I was kicking myself for being so cautious though because I was exhausted. I stumbled onto the block looking for my ride and to my tired self's great relief the car spotted me almost immediately and pulled up asking, Uber? While I cluelessly wandered up and down the street searching. The ride was taking a while but I'd only just moved here last year so I'm not familiar with all of the surrounding areas and thought nothing of it. I was pretty alert at first so I was trying to pass the time playing games on my phone and stuff. But the car didn't have a compatible phone charger and I wasn't sure the building would have one so I wanted to save my battery to be able to call a ride back. I shut my phone down into airplane mode and eventually drifted off from a combination of tiredness and boredom. I don't often take ride share so being alone with a strange driver often put me

on a bit of edge but this guy had a pretty boring car and a very standard look about him. He looked a little like my brother even. Young, clean camped, listening to jazz, nothing that screamed you need to micromanage this trip. When we arrived the driver tried to wake me up by calling me from the front, but I was in too deep of a sleep and couldn't fully distinguish it from a dream. Finally, he awkwardly jimmied my leg to wake me up and kept saying, ma'am, ma'am, we're here now. I was so embarrassed that I'd been that out of it, so I just gave a hurried thanks and booked it out of the car and into the building.

As I looked around, I began to realize nothing was what I had expected of an office park. I had seen a street view of the building when I first looked up the business and it appeared to be a strip mall plaza. The further I went, the more loudly alarm bells were ringing in my gut. The structure was semi-delapidated and it was pitch dark past the entryway. I expected some lights to be off in the night time but not to the whole building. I skidded across the concrete foundation comprising what was left of the lobby area, told myself they must just be renovating and followed signs for the stairs. After what felt like ages but what was likely just a few minutes, all I had passed was construction equipment, a couple locked

doors and some smashed windows. I was certain I was not going to find a medical office and figured maybe I had mixed up the address. I took out my phone to double check but once I got it out of airplane mode I could barely get a signal. I kept moving around the building, pacing, looking for a stronger signal. I eventually confirmed in my text that I had written down the correct address just by scrolling back which didn't require service. Since I had only been inside for a few minutes at most I figured I should try and get in

touch with the driver because if I entered the correct address then it was only fair he should continue my ride to the correct place and save me the added fees of calling a second trip considering this was all his mix up. The app was taking forever to load with my slow service but before I could get to a cloud of reception I heard a rustling sound in the lower level of the building. It was on the top floor and the only stairwell I was aware of was the one I had taken up. So, this would force me into the middle of the building. There was no way to exit the situation without encountering whoever was downstairs. In an abandoned building in the late hours of the night I figured the chances were high

that it was a tweaker and I had no desire to try slipping past a tweaker, especially when it was late enough that they were probably on something, jumpy and on edge. I tried to get a text out to a group of friends with my address and a request to call 911 to help get me from the property because I didn't feel safe walking in that neighborhood at night and didn't have enough reception to call a new ride, but the message wasn't sending. Reception was too weak. So I gave up on getting my phone going and started checking for another stairwell or even window with balconies or dumpsters that could be used to exit the second floor at a last resort in the event

whoever was downstairs came upstairs. I scrambled over to a door with a stairs sign on it, but the stairs were completely dilapidated and it was essentially just a straight drop down to the first floor. At that point, the worst case scenario began to unfold. I heard whoever was downstairs begin making their way up the stairs. I thought fast and figured based on my walk about the floor was basically a giant loop, so I would have to wait for whoever this was to come up the stairs, wait for them to come all the way up, and then sprint the opposite direction of wherever they were going to try to get down the stairs and out of the building in time to make it to the road without encountering them. I was not anticipating being chased or anything,

but didn't want to anger a druggie or have a homeless person who might be living there feel as though I'd trespass and become hostile towards me, or have any sort of interaction that could possibly occur at that hour in an abandoned industrial park. I held my breath for what felt like five minutes, but was likely closer to just thirty seconds and the person appeared at the top of the stairs. To my great relief, it was just the Uber driver. I figured he had come back for me realizing he had left me in the wrong spot, a place that could have worked out to be dangerous. So I came out from the beam I was hidden behind and started to wave him down. But then I processed. There was no way for him to

realize this had been the wrong address. My stomach lurched forward and my blood chilled to slush. I made eye contact with him very briefly and he was completely calm and composed but breathing pretty heavily and blocking the stairwell down. On a normal rational day as an outside observer I could think of a dozen innocent reasons he might have returned but in the moment, standing across from him, I just knew in my gut that this was someone with ill intent. I can't remember much from the ensuing few minutes. Operating solely on muscle memory and instinct I superman dove from the second stairwell's opening and just let myself fall down the drop. Thankfully, I don't think he'd seen where I'd gone at first, and thought that I was in too much pain to know it then. Plenty was bruised, but nothing was completely broken. I scrambled up and threw myself at anything that seemed like it could be the door.

It was too dark to tell. I was disoriented from the fall and I wasn't in a calm enough mindset to think to use my phone's flashlight. Plus, in hindsight, some part of me probably knew it would call too much attention to my location. Just before I was able to reach the door, it flew open with a blinding light beaming straight into my eyes. My first thought, though not totally coherent, was, there's another one of these guys. Then I stumbled backwards, trying to find something to hide behind. Before I could, a voice called out. Alright, this is the police department. Everyone on your knees and get your hands in the air.

I didn't believe it was the police at first. I was in such a fight or flight mode and had already committed to flight that I continued looking for ways to get out. But he kept shining the flashlight right at me as I teetered around and yelled, Hey, I said on the ground right now. Hands out. Hands out where I can see them. He sounded so authoritative that I just automatically did exactly as he asked. He approached me and finally shined the light away from me. It took a second to get my night vision but once I did I could see he really was a police officer. I tried to explain what was happening but first he started asking me all these questions and that combined with what had just happened and my fear of the driver coming back all snowballed into my being unable to form a

single articulate sentence he was even asking easy questions too like can you tell me your name do you have any knives needles or anything that you could poke or cut me would you rather talk here or outside my total stunned babbling in response at first led him to believe that I was on something. He directed me out to his car and once I was safely out of the building, I was able to start getting my bearings just a little. I sat on the edge of the backseat of the squad car with the door open facing out while he stood across from me and asked the same questions again. The first thing I could think to ask was, did my friends call you? What did they tell you? And he explained no,

nobody called him and he was patrolling the area and noticed a car idling outside of this building that's known to be condemned and nobody's supposed to be inside And as he put it, when they are, they're usually up to no good. He was launching into a speech about how I'd gone to shoot up or meet a John that he had resources he could direct me to and this was not an ideal place to do either of those things and asking if I had somewhere safe to stay the night. But I was stuck on something else he'd said. Finally it all clicked. The car. I spilled my whole ride share story in a frantic word vomit. He looked around and the car wasn't there anymore. The officer guessed the guy had driven off while we were talking inside the building. He asked me all the details I remembered and I told him but there weren't many. I'd been

too tired when the ride started to track much but the officer realized I could pull up my Uber app and get all the information. There wasn't really enough reception there, even outdoors, so we sped down the road and once I had enough bars the app roared to life and I had four missed notifications from Uber. They said, hello, I've arrived and I don't see you, can you confirm the pickup address is correct? And I'm flashing my hazards and finally, unfortunately your driver had to cancel. At first I thought the driver was so cunning as to pick me up while sending these fake messages and cancelling so the GPS wouldn't track us, knowing I wouldn't notice

because I was asleep with my phone off and exonerating himself. But instead I checked the car details, checked again and it was definitely not the same driver. The person who'd driven me there had not been my Uber. The driver was somewhere else on the street when this guy pulled up to me. The policeman took my statement and said that they would keep an eye out for the guy but the best I could give them to go off of was basically a young looking Caucasian male with brown hair, sideburns, goatee and four door sedan, wearing a zip up sweatshirt, maybe had a hood, which is like one out of every four guys in the city. I feel so blessed to have survived this near miss. Suffice it to say,

I do not take rideshare services anymore. Quadruple check your license plate and driver name. You just truly never know. For context, I'm a 25-year-old woman who was 3 months pregnant. The two people involved in this incident are myself and my brother-in-law who is 19. For the sake of the story, I'll call him Jack. Now Jack is very street smart and on top of that, a brown belt in some martial art, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu I believe, so he definitely knows how to hold his own in any difficult situation. He is the outspoken younger child in his family as compared to my husband's softer demeanor. Being only two siblings, my husband and Jack are very close. Jack currently lives with my husband and myself.

I live in a small town in California and the three of us live in a small two-bedroom apartment. It isn't special or anything but considering how close the three of us are and all the fun we have, it's home. The downside is that while we have good neighbors and everything, the neighborhood isn't that great. A lot of gang-related crimes have taken place over the years and drug abuse is common on the streets. Now being pregnant, I had the usual weird cravings and on that particular night, I was dying for pickles. Naturally, we didn't have any at our place so the plan of action was to go and get them at 1am. There is a commercial area about a 25 minute walk from our apartment complex with a huge Walmart,

so that is our go-to for anything we needed. My husband was away on a business trip for the weekend so Jack was on my beck and call for everything. I told him about my craving and he got ready to leave right away. Not wanting to stay home at the time of night, I decided to go along with him. I figured the fresh air would be good for me and I felt like I could use a walk so off we went. It was a bit chilly that night and naturally I didn't realize it so I had to make do in a tank top and yoga pants. That is until Jack gave me his jacket. We had a really pleasant walk all the way to the store, talking about everything and nothing and enjoying the walk in general. We got to Walmart

at around 1.25 to 1.30am and spent around a half hour there. Since I frequently visit the store a lot, I'm friendly with a few of the employees working there, so I spent some time talking to them as well. I got my pickles and a few other groceries that needed restocking. I also got a few things off my maternity checklist in case I didn't forget to do so later. Jack got a few things that he needed and saying our goodbyes, we left. I'll admit, I'm very naive which I think is probably because of my sheltered upbringing. We were at the edge of the parking lot of the entire commercial area when we crossed a group of four greasy guys in their late twenties hanging around. I caught them staring but since I had just started showing I didn't make much of it.

There weren't many cars around either since it was very late at night. Jack and I started our journey back once again, cracking jokes and messing around with each other. He made a joke about naming my baby after him if I had a son. We were just goofing around, and little did I know how quickly that would change. Only a few minutes into our walk back home, Jack's demeanor suddenly changed. Now I've known Jack since he was 12, and I've always known him to be very laid back and carefree. His breathing became very erratic and he was laughing way too loud at anything I was saying and he was twirling around like he was dancing

every few seconds. I thought he was just messing around with me as I'm a dance instructor but something just wasn't right the way he was acting. He started laughing all of a sudden and said, I dare you to shuffle sideways across the road to the other sidewalk. I thought this was a very weird request but since I was in a good mood I thought why not and just went for it. Jack followed right next to me doing a weird little dance which didn't really make any sense. I started to giggle at him when we started walking again on the other side of the road this time. Any signs of discomfort he was showing earlier had all disappeared so I figured he only wanted to make our tedious walk home more entertaining.

Okay, now back to our side of the road. I looked at him weirdly and he had this wide grin on his face. Once again, I couldn't say no to him so we did the same thing back. We both were laughing like crazy and I was in an even better mood than earlier. This time however I noticed that same group of four guys walking about 30 yards behind us. I thought it was a bit strange but didn't think of it as being too strange. Maybe they were just going home too I thought. About 10 minutes had passed since we left Walmart and we had arrived near a residential area. No apartment buildings but typical Californian homes with large backyards, etc. This particular residential area was to our left and for our apartment,

we had to go straight for at least another two blocks. Now this is where it starts to get creepy and straight up terrifying. Instead of going straight like we were supposed to, Jack challenged me to a race. We turned left on the end of the block, run the length of houses and come back. This was very strange. He was adamant about it, but there was something different this time. He still had that weird laugh going on, but his eyes told a different story. He looked desperate, as if he really wanted me to say yes. I noticed those guys were still strolling behind us, which at that point were alarm bells in my head. I agreed to

race and he gave me a head start. I could see those guys staring at us out of the corner of my eye. They just stopped and were simply looking in our direction, making me feel very uneasy. Jack made a big show of counting down from three and we took off. Literally five seconds into our race, once we were out of sight, Jack put his hand over my mouth and dragged me to the house on our left and into the bushes. I was about to scold him for cheating when he hissed at me that we were being followed. The terrified look on his face was all I needed to see to know that he was right. I felt my heart sink down into my stomach. I could feel myself throwing up any second and I

had tears welling up. There was no time for any of that though because we heard voices almost instantly. Jack pushed me further under the bushes and he positioned himself right next to me, both of us pretty concealed by now. Sure enough, all four of them had turned left onto the street and they just stood there looking around. The streetlights were fairly dim so it was pretty dark. One of them said, I didn't know these knocked off hoes could run this fast. Another guy mentioned something about how he thought the kid was on to them. What he said next sent shivers up my spine. I got my knife here for her. She can't resist what I say with a knife on her throat.

We'll dump the kid somewhere. Don't worry about that, little mongrel. I could feel my throat closing up. It got difficult to breathe by the second but it wasn't over yet. Their sort of leader decided to look around for us. They split up and the two of them came in our direction. My heart came all the way into my throat as I literally froze. The fear of getting caught was like ice running through my veins. One of them came up and stood right next to where we were hiding and started smoking a cigarette.

The other three were nearby and they were going through the neighborhood looking for us. I was sure that the guy closest to us would find us as he was only a few steps away. Jack turned to look at me and I could see the fear in his face. He raised his finger to his mouth signaling to be extra quiet. The smoker guy was pacing around us slowly. Luckily it was dark so that played to our advantage. After what seemed like an eternity but was actually only 30 minutes, they regrouped in the middle. One of them made a call, telling someone to bring the car around. Another 5 minutes had gone by when the car finally arrived and the men, all looking angry, drove off.

It was too dark to clearly get to the number plate but I made a mental note of the model and color of the car. We waited for a while before getting out from the undergrowth and rushed ourselves off. I couldn't hold it any longer and I burst into tears. Jack too with glistening eyes hugged me but he didn't for long. He wanted to get home as quickly as possible before those men had any chance of coming back. We got our grocery bags, which were all muddy now, and made our way back home. I felt like they would pull up behind us at any second. Luckily though, we made it back without any further issues. I collapsed onto the couch the minute we entered and double checked the locks.

I was sobbing my eyes out and trying not to throw up. Jack was trying to keep it together but I felt like he would start crying any minute as well. I honestly felt so stupid and ashamed. Here I was, six years older than my brother-in-law who looks at me as the older sister he never had and he was the one consoling me. We stayed that way for a while and when he told me to get some rest it was almost 3am. I didn't have the mental capacity to do anything else so I just went to my room and passed out on the bed. I had a load of missed calls when I woke up from my husband.

Jack had called him and told him what had happened. He told me that he would be coming back that very day which I was very happy about. I also told Jack how grateful I was for him being with me. We have since tried to move on from the real life nightmare but I still feel like something is bothering me. My apartment is on the fourth floor and has a clear view of the road outside. Now I don't know if it's my mind playing tricks on me but I'm fairly certain I've seen those guys coming and hanging around the apartment complex at night. I've also seen them driving slowly around in what I'm sure is the same car I saw that night. I've never feared for my life or felt in any sort of danger the way I have these past few days.

We filed a police report, but we haven't heard anything so far. To be continued... Was there ever anyone in your town or neighborhood that your mom and dad warned you to stay away from? For a lot of people my age, there's almost always someone they were warned about during their childhood. For some, it's a neighbor or a certain person in town. And in some more sinister cases, it's a teacher, maybe even an uncle. But for me and the rest of the kids in our small Yorkshire town, it was John Cutter. Cutter, as we used to call him, was said to live in this old farmer's cottage a few miles out of town. We'd see him around town every so often, but he'd never talk to anyone, and that was a fixture in our town. Everybody rabbiting on to everyone else. A five minute journey to the shops for a pint of milk might well take half an hour depending on

who you met along the way. For that reason alone, going anywhere with my mom was a huge pain. She'd stop and talk to almost everyone we walked past. But not Cutter. Never ever Cutter. For years I really didn't think anything of it. But what I do remember is going into town one day to buy a football with my mom. As we were walking back down the high street I disobeyed my mom and started dribbling it back to the car. At some point I lost control of it and it ended up rolling down the high street and stopping just outside a pub. I ran to collect it and by that point it was sitting right at the feet of none other than John Cutter. Can I have my ball back please? Cutter just stared at me and then looked at the ball and then back at me not saying a word.

I remember thinking that he mustn't have heard me so I asked him again. Immediately after I feel my mom grab me by the arm and march me away. She drags me all the way back to the car park and starts telling me how I'm never ever to talk to that man ever again. I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, but here mom was telling me off worse than when I'd smashed the neighbor's window. The whole way home I cried my bloody eyes out, but the message was loud and clear. Stay away from John Cutter. Then, around my teenage years, right when I was getting into that whole rebellious, bugger-off mom-and-dad phase, I ended up seeing where Cutter actually lived. It was an absolute mess, but that got me thinking that the reason no one liked Cutter was because

he was just poor, a socially awkward and a bit scabby-looking fellow. I thought the same thing about the kid in school other children used to bully, I always felt just sorry for him. It wasn't his fault he had allergies and his nose was always runny and minging. And to me, the grown-ups in our town were doing exactly the same thing to Cutter. Not that I launched some campaign to change his image or anything, I just saw it as the oppressive conformist majority singling out and excluding someone who didn't live in the exact same way as them. Like I said, I didn't act on it. It just made me angry. So, in May of 1996, I'm 13 years old. I'm in my second year of secondary school and it's almost the start

of the summer holidays. I finish school on Friday afternoon and as I'm making the short walk home, I notice there's an unusual amount of people and cars out on the streets at a time when it was normally just us school kids. So I've already got this sense that something isn't quite right as I hop the back gate of my house and walk around to the kitchen. Stepping inside, I'm greeted by the sight of my mom sat at our kitchen table. She's on the phone with someone, a box of Kleenex with a few used tissues around, and it's evident that she's been crying. I asked if she's alright. She hangs up the phone, then tells me something terrible has happened.

Every year, once the weather turned nice, the local primary school would take its year sixes, that's fifth graders to you Americans, down to an old abbey not far from town. It's one of the oldest in the entire British Isles so it's a huge tourist trap and it's a big source of pride for the people around town. I'd taken part in the trip when I was that age too. Not most kids' idea of fun, but there were definitely worse school trips to go on. That Friday had been that year's year six turn to go down to the Abbey. About 50 10 and 11 year olds were bussed down there in the late morning, and one didn't come back. Her name was Jenny Campbell. She was 10 years old and the entire town went into a frenzy trying to find her. That's why the streets were so busy. Word had 10 years old and the entire town went into a frenzy trying to find her.

That's why the streets were so busy. Word had gotten around fast and people were just headed down to the abbey in their droves to help in the search. When the sun started going down, my dad and uncle ended up going down too with torches and whistles. I went to bed hoping poor Jenny would be found. At least so everything could go back to normal. But by the next morning, things only got worse. Overnight, a volunteer rescue worker had found Jenny's coat in some woodland not too far from the abbey. Police were appealing for witnesses to come forward, scouring the area around the abbey with dogs. It was like a blue and yellow circus had come to town, honestly. Police cars of all different sizes were driving through town all day and a load of them were basically camped outside of Jenny's parents' house. But they didn't find her the next day, or the next, and after she'd been missing for a full week, I think people started to assume the

worst. Less and less police seemed to be hanging around town, and people were definitely talking about it much less. Not so much because they weren't thinking about it, but because the idea of little Jenny not coming back was just too much to bear. I understood it was a really serious thing, but being the daft 13 year old that I was, all I could give a toss about was the fact that I hadn't been allowed to play out for an entire week. Not long I know, but to a kid that seems like forever. So when my mom and dad finally relaxed enough to let me play out with my mates, we had an absolute fieldway with it. What followed was basically stand by me, but if it was set in 90s Yorkshire. Although I feel like I should assure you from the get-go that

there were no close calls with train bridges and no one found any dead bodies. For obvious reasons, my mom had forbidden us from going down to the Abbey, but tell a teenage boy he can't go somewhere, that's just basically planting a seed right there, and as soon as one of my mates suggested that we go look for Jenny, that was all it took for us to march on the abbey. For me, it was when a mate of mine said, what if we find her, just at the last minute and we save her from dying? We'd be heroes, boys, heroes. And you know what? He was right. I couldn't understand why people hadn't found her yet, how the police could just appear to stop looking when a little girl went missing So, off we went looking for Jenny Campbell and for our sins, we found her

Right when we reach the forest near the abbey I tell the boys to hold their horses for a minute while I run off for a wee After I'm done I hear two people walking through the trees Only from the opposite direction my mates are. Two thoughts go through my head. One, what horrible prank have they got planned since they're sneaking up behind me obviously while I'm half done? And two, how in God's name have they managed to sneak around and approach from a totally different direction? I do my pants up and turn around, already in the middle of saying, what kind of bloody wooftas are you, sneaking up on me while I'm having a...

But when I see who it is, I'm stunned into silence. It was Cutter, and he's holding the hand of a little girl who looked exactly like Jenny Campbell. John Cutter, the local pariah, the one people made nasty rumors about, he was about to be a hero. Cutter, you found her. It was the first and last thing I ever said to him. Not quite loud enough to alert my mates apparently, but loud enough for him to hear. He hadn't actually seen me until I spoke and when I did, he and Jenny stopped and turned to look at me. It was only then that I noticed how Jenny didn't seem very happy to be rescued. She looked exhausted, pale and terrified, with cuts and bruises all over her arms and legs. Maybe she was just too shaken up to feel

celebratory just yet. As she'd been out there for a week on her own, there's no telling what she'd had to do to survive. Then, Cutter spoke in a low voice, addressing me by name. I have no idea how he knew what my name was and I was stunned into silence for the rest of what he said and I'm guessing you'll see why. It was a long time ago, so this might not be exactly what he said, but it's the gist of it. You're Johnny, aren't you? He said. I just nodded. And you live on that cul-de-sac near Dodd's Farm, don't you?

Again, I just nodded, noticing that he was holding Jenny's wrist a little bit too tight. And your mom, she works in town, doesn't she? In that little charity shop, all alone in the daytime. I just nodded. I didn't really know what he was getting at, but it was certainly having its intended effect. You're going to tell everyone I found the girl? He told me. Because I did. Didn't I, Jenny? Jenny just flinched when Cutter said her name, and he had to repeat himself to get a response, which amounted to nothing more than a whimper. Jenny's been lost, you see. See the little thing wandered off on that school trip, and she'd been sleeping in the woods all on her own. All week.

Isn't that right, Jenny? Yeah, Jenny said. And the way her eyes fell made me think that wasn't quite the truth. So if you're gonna say anything else, little lad, Whose mom works all alone in that quiet little charity shop If you're gonna go tell him something different That'd be a lie, wouldn't it? And if you were to go tell him lies about me That'd make me very, very angry

Cutter continued to just stare me out Until I nodded my head and murmured in agreement Good boy No excuses This little girl would miss her mommy and daddy very much and I think she'd like to see them And with that, he walked off Leading Jenny by that unusually tight looking grip I wandered back to my mates who promptly asked me what had taken so long.

When I told them, I wasn't all that surprised that they didn't believe me, not first anyway. But when I gave them this attitude of you just wait and see, don't take my word for it, and they saw I wasn't lying. So, Cutter found Jenny Campbell? Who'd have guessed? One of my mates said. I guess he's gonna be the hero now then, isn't he? The three of them started going back and forth about how he deserved it after all.

If he'd been the one to actually find her. That definitely deserves some credit, didn't it? It took me a minute or two to actually find the. That definitely deserves some credit, didn't it? It took me a minute or two to actually find the words to say it, like you have to understand how conflicted I was. Shut up and let him take the credit, and I'd get the biggest I told you so moment over my family. Speak up, and I'd be defending someone genuinely evil. But I had to. What other choice did I have? I had this strong sense of morality.

I couldn't possibly back someone I thought was guilty of God knows what. Guys, I remember saying, I don't think Cutter found her. Well, who did? I think... There were a lot of words I could have used, a lot of ways I could have phrased it. I opted for the one that kept my delicate sensibilities intact. I think Cutter took Jenny Campbell. I then had to explain to them exactly what he'd said to me, but with added emphasis on the way he said it. I might have been young, but I wasn't stupid.

Something was wrong, but it wasn't like I was in a position to say anything. If he was psycho enough to take a little girl like that, he was psycho enough to hurt me or my mom to keep us quiet. But then again, if I didn't say anything, he might go on to hurt someone else. The census was clear, go to the police as soon as possible, tell them everything, and then get whatever protection me and my family might require. But I'm ashamed to say that when I got home, I just completely bottled it. I'd have to start the whole thing off by admitting to mom that I disobeyed her, and then I'd be following it up with accusing the bloke who rescued Jenny Campbell of being something I can't even say here. I got it into my head that it'd look like I was trying to make excuses for myself by making

what was the worst accusation possible. It wasn't looking good for me so I bottled it up inside. I just went upstairs, tried to take my mind off it and failed miserably in the attempt. On top of that I could barely sleep. I mean, could you if you were faced with that kind of dilemma? So that night, about one in the morning, I sneak out of bed and grab a cigarette from my little stash of them under my bed. I open up my window and sit, actually quite dangerous now that I think about it, right on the edge so my room doesn't end up smelling of smoke. Needless to say, the

nicotine didn't really help with the stress, but I was feeling moody and angsty, so it suited the aesthetic, I suppose. Then right as I'm smoking, someone walks underneath the streetlight just down the road, someone who looked creepily familiar. But I'm thinking, it can't be him. It really can't be him. But it was. It was Cutter, and he walked right past our driveway and looked right up at me as he did. I was only leaning out the window for like five minutes tops and I don't believe in coincidences, so I'd be willing to bet it wasn't the first time he'd walked by my house. I was so scared that I almost fell out of the window trying to clamber back inside before he saw me but it was no use.

He knew where I lived. I was relying on Jenny Campbell telling whatever truth there was to be told. But when word actually did get around that he was the hero that found her, I found it more and more difficult to speak up about what I'd seen, or rather, what I suspected had happened. They didn't exactly throw him a parade or anything, but there was a story about it in the local paper, and a mention on a regional nightly news channel. The hype came and went in about a week or two, and although Cutter didn't get any more social after the fact, people's attitudes around him definitely changed.

And that was it. For years. The story remained the same and neither me nor Jenny had anything else to say about it. At least until Cutter died and then it all came out. I could probably write a whole nother report about how the whole thing happened but let's just say it was ugly. Really bloody ugly. A lot of shouting and screaming. A lot of tears and a whole bunch of regret. A lot of people told me I should have done things that I'm not sure they'd have done, if they were in my position at least. That was probably the most frustrating part, trying to explain to my mom that I kept my mouth shut about it. For her. And I suppose that brings us to

the moral of what happened to me, or rather mainly to Jenny, and to the whole reason I wrote this up in the first place. It's always, always better to tell the truth and face the consequences of something than to keep your mouth shut. My dad explained it like a bank account. He put the truth in a box and hide it away. Only it will accrue interest for as long as it's hidden. Until one day you let that truth out. And it's bigger and badder and more hurtful than it ever could have been otherwise. His way of explaining it summed things up perfectly.

And if I could go back and do things different I would. I'd be much, much braver and just tell the truth, so that we'd all feel that some semblance of justice was done. To be continued... Worst field trip I ever went on was a day that would also turn out to be one of the worst in my entire life. I went to high school on the north shore of Staten Island. And around about that time of my junior year I started getting mad into CSI. Not just like, oh cool I like this TV show. I mean I wanted to be one of those guys. That show taught me that being a total nerd could be kind of cool.

Everyone I know that was into the show had this super glamorous idea of what being a forensic investigator entailed. And for the longest time, I really wanted a part of that. Which is why I jumped at the chance to join my high school's forensic science club. We didn't do anything all that cool at first, just played around with fingerprint powder and did some pretty fun but pretty basic chemistry experiments. But I didn't join for that. I joined because the teacher in charge of the club had promised a field trip to the country's coroner's office, which would include a tour of the morgue. I didn't even know they gave tours of morgues but I figured they have to run some kind of recruitment based PR right?

So on the day in question we all load onto one of the school buses and head off to the coroner's office. We'd been warned that we were going to be seeing some pretty graphic stuff and despite having already collected permission slips the teacher wanted to give us one more chance to back out while we still had the chance. We all just sat there all smug and, personally, wild horses couldn't have dragged me off that bus. But if we had any idea of what we'd be seeing in that morgue, if a glimpse into a crystal ball had shown us how that day was going to go down, not a single person would have remained on that bus, I guarantee it. Anyway, we get to the morgue and obviously we don't get to the good stuff right away. We go through the day-to-day routine of a mortuary worker, what it's like for those on the lowest

rung of the ladder. Then things get more complicated and we start getting to see some of the labs there, albeit through a toughened glass window, but I was still salivating over all their Gucci lab equipment. CSI made it look all high-tech for TV, but the real thing was somehow even more impressive despite not being quite as glamorous. After the lab stuff, we took a quick lunch break in tandem with the mortuary team. The afternoon promised to bring all the more macabre stuff that the more ghoulish of us had been looking forward to, and you could definitely feel a few ripples of excitement running through us as we ate our

pre-packed food. When we returned, the excitement was only ramped up when one of the staff gave us yet another warning concerning what we were about to see, because he was going to share some organ samples with us. From what I can remember, the way it works is this. Say you die in a pretty distinct way, like cancer attacks a specific organ. The medical examiner will sometimes remove this organ for preservation, so they can continue to study the cause of death long after a person has been laid to rest. What that means is that the coroner has a storage space with literally hundreds of organ samples in it. I mean, it is wall-to-wall organs in there, some of which are in a pretty gnarly condition and we were going to get a chance to look at every single one. At first, it was every bit as fascinating as I imagined it would be.

Sure, it was morbid, and once or twice I had to remind myself that everything in there had once belonged to a living, breathing person. It also made me think how fragile we are as people, how there's so much that can go wrong with our bodies. Honestly, it's kind of a miracle we can even get out of bed in the morning. Then, right as I'm musing all that over, the gentle hum of whispering among the students was suddenly broken by a distinct, oh my god. It wasn't like a scream or a horrified OMG, it was more like a disgusted surprise, which is why I initially thought someone had just found a particularly gruesome specimen. But it was worse than that. Much, much worse. Another person yelled in disgust,

only this time it really does sound horrified and instantly I'm on my way to the source. Two girls are standing in front of a shelf full of specimens, staring in horror at one in particular. I couldn't quite make out which one and the next thing I know, the girl who shouted this lets out the most blood-curdling scream and goes hurtling out of the room followed by her friend. Before I can get a chance, other kids are crowding the area trying to work out which specimen had the girls freaked out. Slowly they start to see it too and the group starts buzzing with exclamations and chatter until our teacher demanded to know what was going on. The group goes silent before turning to look at our teacher. Then as they slowly made space so the teacher

could see what they were looking at, one of the kids pointed to the offending jar. It was a brain. Just floating there in isopropyl or formalin or whatever they were using as a fluid preserve. It didn't look all that gross. Freaky, sure, but it didn't have any of the tumors or necrotic tissue that some of the others had. In fact, it actually looked relatively fresh compared to the others. But the issue wasn't so much the organ, but who it belonged to. See, the brain belonged to a kid who died in a car crash. The vehicle he was driving got plowed into an SUV coming the wrong way, and his little sister was in the car with him when it happened. She survived, thank God, but she had to watch her brother die, right in front of her eyes,

before rescue could arrive to pull her out of the wreckage. The medical examiner put the cause of death as blunt force impact wounds to the head, hence why his brain was of interest. But this kid wasn't just some random kid. This kid went to our high school. The girl who ran out had been a close friend of his, and the crash was only two months before the field trip. She was only just getting over his death, only just becoming able to get out and socialize again. The forensics field trip had been the first big thing she'd been excited about since her friend's death and then she shows up and finds his brain in a jar. It was like something out of a bad horror movie. I mean,

people were just messed up. The girl who screamed went completely AWOL with her friend. I think her mom went to find her after talking with the teacher because the bus left without either of them. Everyone else was in a sorry state too. Most of the girls were crying. Heck, even some of the guys were too, kinda. I can't blame him though. It was an incredible thing to see. Incredibly terrifying, really. But it was knowing you can just end up as a brain on a shelf. A labeled specimen. That's what got me. I didn't really know the guy, but I knew he deserved better. Obviously, the incident caused a huge stink and the kid's family said that they were even going to sue the county and school district. Rightfully so, if you ask me. But the trouble was, the guy was an organ donor. I mean,

good for him for being unselfish about it, but that legally meant that after he was dead, his organs basically became property of the state. And at first anyway, his family were told they weren't allowed to have their son's brain back. All they wanted to do was bury him again and they had to get an emergency order signed by the governor or somebody so they could get him in one piece again. I can't imagine how horrible that must have been. Not one funeral for your dead son, but two. The family weren't done litigating though. They wanted to get paid. I don't even think they really wanted the money either, or rather they didn't need it. I just think they wanted to bleed the state government for what they did. I mean, they didn't even tell his parents that they were going

to harvest his brain, let alone put it on display for high school kids to look at in less than 10 weeks after his death. It took them a while to get the case to court and I remember being happy for them that they might get a little justice. But then word swept around town that they didn't get a dime. Some judge said that the state were well within their right to cut that kid's brain out. Like I'm sure it wasn't phrased like that, but whoever had the balls to tell a kid's parents, so what if we butchered your boy, suck it up. There's a special place in the dark recesses of the afterlife for that guy. Oh boy. That court thing was only a few years back, and that's why it became the worst day of my life. Because it

wasn't just finding the jar or seeing people's reactions to it, it was the fallout. It was knowing that poor kid's parents were reliving the torture of losing their kid over and over again for like a decade straight. And that's the real nightmare here, not just finding a brain in a jar. And knowing that just makes the world seem a little bleaker to me. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a teacher. My mom says she never worried about sending me off for my first day of school. I was always a pretty sociable kid. But she was taken aback by how much I enjoyed it. Other kids were having a tough time of being away from their moms but all I would talk about was school, school, school.

It got to the point where I asked my mom to buy me a little whiteboard so I could line up my stuffed animals and play at being a teacher. I was obsessed, so it was probably of little surprise to anyone that I ended up going to college and getting a degree in elementary education and child development. I was never under any illusions that it would be easy. Some people cite the long holidays when they say that teaching elementary is easy, but let me assure you, we earn those summers off. The emotional rigors of being what's basically a second family for hundreds of kids can really, really wear you down sometimes. It's rewarding in the extreme, but you see the very best and worst of humanity in these kids, and that can be tough. But all of those everyday

struggles paled in comparison with an incident that occurred on a field trip in 2007. One that almost had me giving up altogether on a career in education. So at the end of last semester, our principal announced that we'd be taking our 5th graders on a field trip to the city's planetarium. And since I was a 5th grade teacher, I'd be tasked with being a chaperone. On the bus out to the planetarium, I was sat in front of two 5th grade girls from another class. I ended up making some small talk with them when I noticed how one girl was wearing a particularly fancy bracelet. I complimented her on it and she told me that it was a gift from her dad and that it glowed in the dark. I told her it was awful nice of him to get her a gift like that and she agreed but followed up by saying,

I just wish I could visit him more. She didn't say it in a sad way, more like with a kind of childhood innocence, like the situation was perfectly normal that everyone's mommy and daddy lived apart. I quickly opted for a tactical subject change, focusing on how excited they were about the field trip and how it was basically going to be like being in a spaceship. I mean, I was genuinely excited about it too, so it wasn't like it was any emotional labor to act like it. We arrived at the planetarium, depart the bus, and slowly heard the kids through the facility. I'd visited the planetarium when I was a kid and it was pretty cool, but the museum that ran the thing had obviously made

a few upgrades since my visit. It looked incredible, and that was just the decor. The quality of the projection was something to behold, and I knew that when the lights were lowered, it would look even better. And boy, did it exceed my expectations. There was an audible gasp from all the kids when all the stars and planets began to appear on the planetarium's ceiling. It was truly hypnotic, but I did actually manage to tear my eyes away for a few seconds and that's when I caught sight of something glowing from across the large circular room. It was the 5th grade girl's glow in the dark bracelet moving back and forth in this arc shape, I'm guessing from where she was pointing at stuff. I carry on watching the presentation, listening to all the celestial factoids but every so often I keep looking back at the glowing

bracelet. It was just too cute not to, and sort of distracting I suppose. Then at one point I see a sliver of actual light appear on the other side of the room from where someone had entered the planetarium. No big deal, probably just a member of museum staff, right? I mean, they didn't interrupt the presentation so it's not like the entrance caused any suspicion. But then, I see the glow-in-the-dark bracelet rise up real fast. I mean in a way where you'd think the girl had jumped out of her seat or something. Then the bracelet basically floats around the walkway at the edge of the room before the door opens up again,

giving me just a glimpse of someone walking out with a girl in her arms. Instantly, I jump up, finding the nearest side of the teacher before whispering, someone just took one of the kids, into her ear. I can't just announce it, I'd send the kids into a hysteria but at the same time, if I'm not quick enough, this person is going to escape the museum with one of our students in their arms. I ran right out into the lobby, but there was no one carrying any kids so I started frantically asking people if they'd seen anything matching that description and again, nothing. I'm about ready to start hyperventilating by the time one of my colleagues joins me, assuring me they've already called the cops. We managed to get all the kids back to school safely without them getting wind of what had happened and when I finally got a few moments away from them in the teacher's lounge, I burst into tears. I felt useless. My one job was to protect my kids and I failed at it. And all because someone had been so brazen as just to

walk into the planetarium and take a kid from right under our noses. It made me feel sick to think about, wondering if she was okay, who'd be sick enough to do that. By the time I came to my interview with the cops, I was actually sick from how stressed I was. Most of their questions involved my brief sighting of the kidnapper as he exited the planetarium. But as it turned out, even if I had gotten a good look at him, it wouldn't have mattered. The guy had a ski mask on and he intimidated museum security using a pistol he'd concealed in his jacket. Even if I'd managed to catch him, it probably wouldn't have done any good. I wasn't the girl's teacher either so it wasn't like I could provide much of an insight in her

home life either. Police were actually about to leave when I thought about something I hadn't mentioned so far. Something almost insignificant. The cops already knew about the glow in the dark bracelet but I hadn't told them who'd given it to her. And right when I did, I had something of a lightbulb moment. The kidnapper was the kid's dad. I mean, I didn't know that for sure, but the cops seemed willing to entertain my suggestion because what if, what if, the father is sick of getting every other weekend custody and wants to like take his daughter away from the mom? What if he hears about a trip to the planetarium and knows that being in a dark room presents a great opportunity to take his kid away without anyone really noticing? He'd be able to take his kid back in the middle of the day, and our mom wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. The only trouble was how to identify his

daughter in a pitch black room full of kids. The solution was frighteningly simple. Give her a piece of glow-in-the-dark jewelry to wear and give it to her just a few days before so she's still enamored with it come the day of the field trip. I basically just thought out loud for a minute or two and when I finished, you should have seen the looks on those two cops' faces. I don't imagine it's very often that a simple witness statement yields such a lead but I'm guessing they were grateful for it. Then a few weeks later what do we all find out? The kidnapper was none other than the girl's divorced dad. I was dead on the money. As the story goes the cops got in touch with him again accusing him of being the kidnapper.

He stopped responding to their calls then took his daughter on the run through several different states. It's a pretty messed up story and the kid needed therapy for a while after. I'm just glad I got to be a part of bringing her home. It still knocked my confidence though and for the longest time, I couldn't shake this imposter syndrome, like feeling like I wasn't good enough to do my job. If I couldn't keep the kids safe, what was the point of me being there? All the quality education in the world isn't going to mean jack if you can't get your kids on the bus home safely at the end of every day. But as a good colleague of mine once said, I can't hold myself responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world,

and I need to accept that I'm not all powerful. All I can do is my best, and if I can get up in the morning and look myself in the mirror and not feel ashamed, I'm doing alright. And I've been doing alright ever since. Back when my daughter was just 11 years old, I got a call from one of her teachers while I was at work. It was the first time I'd ever gotten a call from them as my wife dealt with all the school stuff while I focused on my building firm. So when the teacher mentioned something about my daughter being on a school trip, I had to interrupt her to tell her I barely knew anything about it. I know this seems rude, but I was in the middle of dealing with a customer and time is money as they say. The teacher then tells me that my wife isn't answering her phone but that something very, very serious has happened. Like she'd already mentioned, my daughter had gone on a field trip

that morning with the rest of her year's group. She'd been accounted for in the morning, but following another roll call after their lunch break, she was nowhere to be found. Obviously, I'm already furiously anxious at that point, but I'm managing to keep it together right up until I ask where my daughter is lost. Nosley Safari Park, the teacher responded. I literally couldn't believe my ears, like I actually had to ask her again just to be sure of what she'd said. When she confirmed it, my legs turned to jelly.

Nosley Safari Park has all kinds of wild animals that can just wander right up to cars. If my daughter had somehow just gotten up out of her seat whilst inside the safari park, there's no telling what kind of danger she was in. It was honestly one of the worst days of my life. All I could think about was getting the call that they'd found her body and the closed casket funeral she'd have to receive. It'd be in the papers, no doubt. Every parent's worst nightmare, it'd say. A national scandal, they'd make the grieving process infinitely more painful. Obviously, I got in touch with my wife about it before her teachers managed to, actually, and she was every bit as distraught

as you can imagine. Of all the places for your kid to get lost, a place where lions are allowed to roam freely on some old country estate or something, the wife was in work at the time and was so upset that she was sent home. She called up our daughter's school just to make sure she wasn't there but there was no sign of her. Obviously they'd pretty much confirmed in our heads that she was gone and we'd be the next set of parents to be crying on the nightly news begging people to come forward. I was just numb with terror and even with all my workaholic tendencies I couldn't find my focus. So I decided to drive home and meet my wife at the house to make sure she wasn't too

hysterical. She really had taken it badly on the phone and I was almost as worried about her as I was my daughter. Then, as I'm driving home, I see my phone in the driver's seat next to me start lighting up and buzzing. This is before I had a car with a Bluetooth stereo and there was a police car like three cars behind so I didn't fancy getting pulled over in the middle of getting the worst news of my life. The wife kept calling too over and over again and I just had this horrible sinking feeling that she'd gotten the word that our worst fears had been realized. So again I keep it together focusing on getting home in one piece but then I pulled into our driveway and I see that the door to our house is slightly ajar. I don't know what it was about that little

indicator but it put the fear of God into me. Was my wife so upset she hadn't shut the door? Had the police just walked in after telling her our daughter was dead? It all sounds quite irrational I know but I was in a terrible state at the time and that's all I could put it down to. So instead of actually getting out the car and going inside to check on her, I called the wife from my driver's seat. I felt like a condemned man being walked the gallows as I waited for her to answer and when she did, she was floods of tears. I mean floods, and I knew the worst had come. I just needed to hear her say it. But instead, all she said was, she's here, she's at home, and thank God she's fine.

I practically fell out of the car seat and bolted into the house. There, in the living room, are my wife and my daughter, both with tear-stained cheeks. And I'll tell you what, I'd be lying if I said my eyes didn't get a bit leaky in the moments that followed. Now, I bet you're all wondering what exactly happened and how she ended up back at home, and not at school or at the safari park. So my daughter had just started secondary school here in the UK and the safari park trip was supposed to be something of a social occasion in which kids could get to know each other while setting a positive atmosphere for the year ahead. But as it turned out, after the morning registration my daughter and her friends had something of a falling out and right before they were due to get on the coach, someone said something very mean to her. So instead of following her friends onto the coach, our daughter just slipped away without

anyone noticing. She said she spent about half an hour or so in the library but was so upset that she decided to just walk home. Having known about the spare back door key we keep under a plant pot in the backyard, she was able to let herself into the house. Then right about the same time she's making herself beans on toast to cheer herself up, her teachers do their second head count of the day and that's when the whole saga kicked off. It was most definitely one of the worst experiences of my entire life. I know she was okay in the end, but I can't understate the terror you feel as a parent, knowing your child is either missing or in danger. I mean, it's completely irrational.

I'd like to think I'm quite a patient and understanding person. You have to be in the building trade. But the teacher told me my daughter was lost. I actually wanted to murder her. Back when I was still studying leisure and tourism in community college, the department was allocated an annual budget that was supposed to pay for three field trips throughout the course of the year. The idea was that it was just enough to pay for transport and lunch on a trip to the Liberty Bell or Eastern State Penitentiary or something like that. But our tutor had a better idea. Instead of three boring field trips, we'd splurge the money on just one really awesome one. And what better way of learning how to help others have fun than to have fun ourselves? So after some discussion, we decided on whitewater rafting.

The idea of paintballing had been thrown around, and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't my preferred option. But not all looked last like the idea of shooting each other for an afternoon, and the rafting also involved a high wire rope course and rappelling, so we compromised. The high wire course was kind of scary, but it was definitely a rush, and the rappelling was incredibly cool. We felt like navy seals edging down that big wooden wall. But then when it came to the rafting, the thing that I actually looked forward to the most, it didn't go exactly as planned. So the plan was we'd all be separated into four groups with five people per raft. Only one raft at a time could make it down the river safely so

there was like a little staging area near the river where we all waited. I was due to be on the third raft down and when the first group came back saying how dope it was, I was super stoked to get going. All in all, the run took maybe 15-20 minutes so after the second group set off, I kept checking my watch so I had an idea of when they'd be back. 20 minutes go by, nothing. 30 minutes go by, still no sign of them. Then just as I'm about to ask the instructor if something was wrong, he gets a call on his radio, bolts to his 4x4 and speeds off. The last two groups are left standing there like, okay? And this general feeling that something bad had happened just started rippling through the group.

Another 20 minutes or so goes by and by this time, we're convinced something had gone wrong and this general feeling that something bad had happened just started rippling through the group. Another twenty minutes or so goes by and by this time, we're convinced something had gone wrong with the second raft. The four wheelers return, apparently with the raft's occupants, but there are only four of them, and those that are there are crying or seem seriously shaken up. That's when we knew we were right, and that it wasn't just a case of the raft getting stuck on some rocks. Someone was hurt, and they were hurt bad. But just how hurt I couldn't have imagined. People kept asking if 911 had been called, if an ambulance had been called, where Sarah actually was, that was her name, and the whole time the instructor is saying, we're doing all we can, I'm just so sorry. So I kind of figured that she was hurt,

but that she'd be okay, you know. That, sure, it was scary, but it wasn't permanent, obviously. But it was. Sarah had fallen out of the raft and apparently just got face first into a rock or something. She knocked herself out stone cold and was laying face down in the water for a long, long time before anyone could pull her out. They tried CPR at the scene, tried to get the water out of her lungs, but it wasn't like the movies. She didn't cough the water up at the last minute. There were no tears of relief as the credits rolled.

Sarah didn't wake up. We all went to her funeral, but not everyone returned to the L&T class after that. Of the four other people that had been with her on the raft, three of them quit community college altogether. I don't really blame them either. I can't even really imagine how traumatic it was. Like they had to hang around for hours afterwards until the cops could come take statements from everyone and that amounted to sitting in a freezing cold wetsuit in the dark. For me, just seeing the old college building reminds me of Sarah,

so I can't imagine how it must stir things up in the people that watched her die. I suppose the only silver lining is that I definitely feel a lot more gratitude now for the things I have, knowing that life is such a fragile thing and how at almost any moment, it can be taken away. To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7pm EST. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit r slash let's read official 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.

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