The Lets Read Podcast - 159: I TOOK A WRONG TURN! | 20 True Scary Stories | EP 147

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Crazy Roommates, Finding Bodies & Inbred Mountain Folk... 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 Update Description

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Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca I'm sorry. In the late summer of 2013, I landed a position as a trainee at the best motorcycle paint shop in all of North Carolina. Ever since I was around 10 years old, I was obsessed with that show, American Choppers. My older brother was into the mechanical side of things, but to me, the coolest part of the whole process was the paint shop. Turning these already awesome machines into something that looked like straight up fantasy. I was living with my parents in Martinsville, Virginia when I found out that Gleamer's Motorcycle Painting in Charlotte, North Carolina

was advertising what was basically an intern position. For a couple of bucks an hour, I'll help keep the place clean and run smoothly while learning the tricks of the trade in the process. Then, after about a year when I was all trained up, I'd be offered a full-time and fully paid position. I called the guy and practically begged him for the job, told him I'd work harder and smarter than anyone else, twice as hard even. I was dropping the names of renowned bike painters who I thought the best manufacturers were,

anything I thought might impress the guy. In the end, he only had one question for me. Harleys or sports bikes? I told him Harleys. He told me, you're hired. Two weeks later, I make my first drive to Charlotte at 6.30 in the morning. Most I'd ever driven before that was to and from Martinsville Taco Bell and there I was making this two hour trip at the crack of dawn.

Luckily the trip down there went pretty smooth and apart from the bathroom break that I took around mile 60, it was a straight shot to Charlotte down the I-85 south. But that first day really took it out of me. It wasn't some Marine Corps boot camp or nothing But the owner and veteran painters definitely wanted to see what I was made of The point is, I was dead tired by the time I had to drive back So as you can probably guess, the journey home wasn't nearly as smooth as the drive out there When I started seeing signs of Moxville, North Carolina I realized I must have made a wrong

turn back around Salisbury. No big deal, I could just readjust with maybe only a half hour extra on my journey, and besides that, I was looking to stop somewhere to pick up some food, as there's no way I could wait for the plate my mom had promised to save for me. I get to a place called Clemens, and I start seeing signs for the highway. There was a Cracker Barrel, a Krispy Kreme, a Biscuitville. Oh man, it was like junk food heaven down there. So I pull off, get a fried pork chop biscuit then start it up my journey again. Only by this point, I'm hopelessly lost. My phone is out of battery and I'm so tired I can't even read the roadmap that I'm forced to be using now sitting on my passenger seat without fear of causing an accident.

So, on account of good old southern hospitality, I decided to stop to ask someone for directions. But of all the houses to pull up outside, I pulled up outside 2947 Nob Hill Drive, and little do I know, I'm about to have a brush with death where Satan himself has his finger on the trigger. Y'all think I'm exaggerating with that, right? Ain't no such thing as the devil. But in North Carolina, the devil was just as real as I am surely breathing, and his name was Pazuzu. First thing I noticed about this house is that there were these two punk girls sat outside on the front lawn. They were both real cute, sitting there, smoking cigarettes, so I figured, who better to ask? I could start a little conversation, maybe drop that I painted motorcycles for a living, see if I could get a phone number or two. Turns out neither girl was actually from Clemens. They'd come all the way down from Ohio to hang out for a while.

That struck me as kind of weird, driving like 7 or 8 hours just to hang out, but still, I just carried on asking if anyone could point me in the direction of the highway. One of the girls said I was welcome to come inside the house, as there had to be at least one person in there who knew, even if they had to find Pazuzu. Pazuzu. I'd never heard that word in my life before that day, and honestly it sounded more like something you'd call a cat than a person. And I don't really pay it no mind as I follow them across the lawn and up the front door of the house.

The second thing that strikes me is all the creepy looking decorations on the front door. It was like a Halloween skull in there, weird quotes from movies or books, and a bumper sticker that said, Evil will triumph. books, and a bumper sticker that said, Evil Will Triumph. It looked like the front door to Hell's Frat House, like a total punk rock crash pad, and at first, let me tell you, I was about it. I mean, I was a little taken aback by the historical German memorabilia if you get my drift on the ceiling as I walked inside, but there was all kinds of nonsense that was all over the walls. All sorts of weird symbols. Stuff in crazy writing that sort of looked Arabic I guess you could say. And look at it this way. I knew whoever had drawn it just wanted to be shocking or edgy. It's not like they were a house full of Nazis or whatever. Cause that's what I mean

about the crash pad thing. The place was filthy and it stunk to high heaven, but as long as I could just get directions and then get out of there, I didn't pay the stink no mind, so I carried on through the house. This place was just a sensory overload, because not only does it reek and the decoration is practically schizophrenic, but I can barely hear myself think over the black metal they had blasting. As I walk into the TV room, there's a bunch more people hanging out, smoking and drinking, pentagrams everywhere, all kind of messed up pictures on the wall. One was this

really nice framed picture of what looked like a body at a crime scene. Another thing I noticed was a big tank with red lights, like an empty fish tank and the thing has like a bunch of huge tarantulas in it. That was actually kind of dope now that you mention it. But that's about as good as it got, because the next thing I know, as I'm following these two girls deeper and deeper into the house, the bad smell goes from dude you need to clean up To Did something die in here? The two girls then lead me into the kitchen And through another room with yet another animal habitat in it

Only this time Instead of spiders The tank was full of snakes I say full There were maybe only four or five in there of varying sizes But dude I ain't never seen anyone keep no steak as a freaking pet. Where I'm from, that'd be considered downright satanic, and definitely weird. But not only does this house have a tank full of them,

but some random dude is sitting on a table with one of them right there in front of him. The girls start talking to this guy, and when he turns, I can see he's in a not-so-fit state to be talking to anyone. His pupils were like little holes in the snow, like this guy was as high as a freaking kite. They called him by a name that I won't even try and repeat here, obviously a nickname, but the thing was just a combo of practically every top tier curse word you can think of. But this guy was just out of it. And since he was one of the locals that could have helped me, we had to look elsewhere. But just before we left

the room, I peered around the guy to see what he had in front of him. Now I can recognize heroin and all the works when I see them. Needle, spoon, all that stuff. But this guy had a little knife there, a small brass cup and I realized the snake isn't moving. It's not moving because he doesn't have a head and the contents of his arteries had been drained into this little brass cup. This guy was doing heroin while drinking snake blood. And that's about the time I realized this wasn't just some party house. Much creepier stuff entirely was going on in there. So right as I'm shouting, I think I'm just gonna try my luck on the road, over the music, the two girls are like, nah, we'll get your directions, but we're gonna have to go see Pazuzu.

I respond, who's Pazuzu? And in response, one of the girls just laughs. Not like in a, that's a dumb question kind of way, but more like, oh, you're not gonna like it when you find out kind of way. So instantly, I have this nod of apprehension in my gut that's telling me to run away from that house and never, ever look back. But another factor at work was pure curiosity. I'd never seen anything like that house in my entire life. It was surreal in the extreme, the kind of place you'd never believe existed until you actually were in it. Put it this way, you'd think the idea of a corridor would be to allow free movement around a building, but no. In this house, the corridors were like the collective trash can. Me and the

girls were literally clambering over freaking broken furniture, old fast food bags, all kinds of nonsense, just to make it to one of the house's bedrooms. One of the doors, I think it led to the bathroom, was literally covered in writing that started off like, if you're reading this, this warning is for you. It went on to say all this stuff about wasting your life, being stuck with an empty life somewhere reading graffiti on a bathroom door, instead of doing anything more fulfilling. I was half lost in it when one of the girls was like, Hey kid, you want your directions or no? And since I wanted nothing more than to be out of there by that point,

I was almost gagging from the smell. I wasted no time in following. As it turned out, the room this Pazuzu character was in was only accessible by passing the entrance to the basement. As I'm scrambling over some of the hallway debris right next to the basement entrance, this wave of rotten stench just overwhelms my nostrils, and I find myself actually retching from it. And not like a quiet little gag that I can at least attempt to hide, I'm talking like a loud, puke, screaming kind of deal. The girls just burst out laughing, telling me to man the F up cause it's only cat litter or something. Let me assure you,

I knew that wasn't just litter. It smelled like their cat had died rather than just taken a poop. I'm still retching as I step into what had to be the filthiest room in the house, which was honestly something of an achievement at that point. But unlike the other rooms where a kind of chaotic untidiness was the general theme, the filth in this room seemed to be cultivated. Most of the floor space was free, but I swear to God the carpet was so dirty and crusty that it was almost like walking on gravel. That, and there was this patch of black mold on

the ceiling that was the worst I've ever seen, even all these years later. It was unreal, and I'm just drinking this all in as I manage to get my retching in control, just in time to lay my eyes on one of the scariest individuals I've ever encountered. This guy had shoulder-length dreads sticking out of what I was pretty sure was a turban, and coupled with all the Arabic writing everywhere, I figured this guy was of some Muslim heritage or something. I didn't know many Muslims with face tattoos though, and I'm pretty sure anybody involved with that culture with the word Satan tattooed on their forearm would probably catch a stink eye or two for that.

But as my mama said, the fastest way to offend a host is to talk politics or religion, so I decided to keep any questions to myself. Besides, the only one I was interested in was how to get to the North Carolina-Virginia state line. Right as I was about to ask, one of the girls spoke up for me. Pazuzu, this guy has a question for you. The dude they called Pazuzu had these slow, kind of lazy movements, and as he looked at me behind his shades, I didn't need to see his eyes to know that he too was high as a kite. sit was all he said uh i'm good i remember saying back to him because it's dirty uh no i'm just my back's been hollering at me is all clearly it was a lie that i said but my desire not to

offend the guy was suddenly waning. But uh, I mean it smells like someone died out there dude, maybe you should, I don't know, clean up a little. This prompted yet more laughter from Pazuzu, the girls lounging around the room as well as the pair I'd followed. But the joke is completely lost on me, like I'm a kid who just said the dumbest thing ever but doesn't realize it yet. Oh, that, right, the Pazuzu guy said. Don't pay it no mind, there are just the bodies in the basement. More laughter now, the girls are laughing like it's the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Then the Pazuzu guy spoke again. You know how cleanliness is next to godliness, right?

Well, filth is the path to demonhood. All this rot. All this rot All this decay Right then he takes this big sniff of air like it was pure air freshener he was smelling All this filth It gives me power That's when he takes his shades off And I swear to God, the scariest thing about this guy was his eyes. Even in the low light, I could see that they were pale, like a blue-gray kind of color. I just remember how dead they looked, like they were that color because all the life had been drained out of them or something. And even though he was smiling at me, his eyes had this sad look to them.

The longer I stood there, listening to that guy talking all this nonsense, I started getting the impression that I'm not actually safe there. Like yeah, it was a crazy looking place, but the most dangerous party houses tend to get is the risk of being puked on or something. So I thought. I mean, I've been to party houses before, but I'd never gotten this overwhelming impression that my life was in danger. And not just from picking up a disease from all the gross stuff around the house. Uh, actually, dude, I was hoping I could get some directions back to the highway. My phone died and I... He cut me off with, you should stay. I think we can use you for something. Use me? Use me? Hearing those words made me freeze up for a moment The girls around us started nodding and agreeing and stuff

And by this point I can actually feel the adrenaline kicking in And that's because I just noticed the.22 rimfire that was leaning on the back of the couch him and his girls were sitting on Nah, I'm good, I got work in the morning I'm already backing up while I'm saying this. In fact, it's getting pretty late as it is. I should probably get going. Thanks anyway, though, and cool house. When I turned, I half expected to see one of the girls blocking the doorway like it was some horror movie or something. But thank God it was clear. So I mount the trash pile in the corridor and start heading

back towards the front door. Don't you want directions kid? Even over the blaring music I could hear one of the girls coming after me. Not chasing or anything, just following. But good God, that was creepy enough as it was. She follows me all the way back to my car and as I climbed in the passenger seat, I could see that a bunch of people had come out onto the steps to watch me leave. And let me tell you, they did not look happy to see me go. It took me longer than it should, but eventually I find my way back to the highway and I make it home late but in one piece. The first thing I do is tell my mom and dad about

the absolute insanity I stumbled into on the way home. They'd been pretty worried anyway and to hear about all the weird devil stuff going on freaked them out. They told me to never go to that little town again, adding they'd give me some extra money for one of those in-car cell phone chargers that fits in the cigarette lighter if it ever came to it. I told a few other people about the house over the months that followed, but I'm pretty sure most people thought that I was just making up stuff. And I get it, it's the kind of thing you gotta see if you're ever gonna believe it. So as crazy as it is, it was all totally forgotten about by around Thanksgiving time.

Then, I think just over a year after the whole thing happened, I'm living in an apartment down in Charlotte, working full time as a painter at the shop. I finish work, get home, and start eating my dinner in front of the TV. The news comes on, starts talking about some murder or something, and that's when I hear a word that never in a million years did I ever think I'd hear again. Pazuzu. The moment the news lady said it, my head comes up like a deer hearing a twig snap. And when I looked at the TV, I almost spit out the mouthful of short ribs I was chewing on. It was the dreadlock guy with the tattooed face I'd seen the year before. The one I was pretty sure wasn't kidding when he said he had a body in his basement.

There had been a body in the basement. Only it wasn't some raccoon that had gotten trapped in a crawlspace or something. They'd locked a kid in their basement, starved him, shot him in the head, then covered his body with cat litter and bleach to minimize the smell. Then they showed one of the other people that had been arrested for the murder, and if it wasn't one of the girls with him that appeared on the screen. Some blonde girl with no eyebrows who helped him kill the guy according to the news report. By the time I was able to snap out of the pure shock of seeing all this, I grabbed my phone, called up a buddy of mine, one who'd rolled his eyes at my story and was like, turn on channel 9, like right now.

He sounds all irritated like I just woke him up from a nap or something. Then I hear TV noises in the background. Then he just goes, oh my sweet mother Mary. Y'all can look this guy up if you want. He had a Christian name when he was younger, but he was going by Pazuzu Algarad by the time he was arrested for murder. Ended up hanging himself in a prison cell I heard. It was a pretty messed up story. But knowing what he meant by, you should stay, we could use you, that's what really haunts me about the whole thing. All I cared about was getting

out of there and saving my own self. I didn't stop to think that other people might be in danger. It just seemed like he was crying out for attention. What with all those face tattoos and stuff but to think he was actually capable of murder. Sometimes I find myself just counting my blessings, and thanking God I didn't end up in that basement, covered in cat litter and bleach. To be continued... I've been taking part in long-distance hikes and rambles ever since I was about 22. And if there's one thing I've learned, it's never, ever ask a man for directions. Or rather, only ever ask a bloke when there's no women to ask. You see, if you ask a woman for directions and she doesn't know the answer, she'll just say, Sorry love, can't help you, best of luck.

And she moves on. However, ask a bloke the exact same question, and they find it completely impossible to just admit they don't know. So rather than just holding their hands up and apologizing, a bloke would rather send you on some ridiculous detour. They couldn't give a toss if they get you lost, as long as they looked like they knew what they were talking about. And this is how we ended up wandering onto a country estate in the middle of nowhere where one of the most terrifying and shocking events of my life would occur. We were all up in Scotland at the time, six of us on a hiking trip that would span the length of Hadrian's Wall. We tried to stock up on food and water at little villages we came across along the day, but

by day five, we were down on our end of rations, and we were definitely craving a bit of fresh meat. So, me and this guy Barry decided that we'll just use the rest of our daylight wisely, and make a run into the nearest town or village so we can pick up a few choice items. We collected a few quid of everyone, packed a day sack, then headed off to grab supplies. We think we're headed pretty much in the right direction, but when a tractor appeared on the little country lane ahead, we decided to flag it down to ask directions. The farmer was a nice enough fellow, even informing us that he had a shortcut for us that would save us maybe an hour or two of walking.

Jackpot, we're thinking. We might even be back for a quick bacon supper before we all headed off to bed. So, we listen carefully as the bloke tells us to cut through a wooded area about a mile down the road. If we stay on the paths, we'll come out into a wee village with a farm shop that stayed open until fairly late in the evening. Farm shop. If ever there was a word to make me salivate, it's that. I'm not sure if they have them over in the states, but over here, farm shops are a mainstay of any rural area. It's there you find the very best of a farmer's produce. The kind of things that even the most high-end supermarkets would blush over. Pork and apple sausages.

Fresh fillets of corn-fed chicken. Some of them even brew their own wines or beers. And I'd be lying if I said that that last thing wasn't the biggest motivating factor of all. But anyway. So we follow this guy's directions to the letter, but we still end up so hopelessly lost that I was honestly wondering if we'd had some kind of brain fart along the way. We must have walked for 20 minutes through this wooded area, always sticking to the path, but when we came out of it, there was not a single man-made building to be seen anywhere,

let alone an entire village. Me and Barry are looking at each other like, what have we gotten ourselves into here? But since there was another patch of woodland off in the distance, we figured he must have meant walk through that bit too. No big drama, so we head off towards this next set of trees. About five minutes in, we start losing the path in front of us to the woods. It's clearly there, but it's just overgrown to the extent that we might as well have been walking through solid woodland. Suddenly, I just hear Barry hiss in a low but urgent tone. Dad, look. In front of us, trotting through the woodland, seemingly totally unaware of our presence,

is a deer. Now, we were real city kids, like inner-city concrete jungle through and through. I'm the kind of guy who'll stop to look at a police horse in the middle of a Saturday night, just stood there waxing lyrical like, the magnificence, the grace, the wild unbridled spirit. All the while it takes a massive dump onto a pile of empty takeaway boxes. So, needless to say, seeing that deer was like we'd wandered into the middle of a David Attenborough documentary. I'm not even joking, it was truly an amazing sight. Very majestic. We were stood there still as statues just properly in awe of this thing before it suddenly notices us and freezes in turn. Like most daft city kids my

age, the first thing I think of is to go for my phone because, obviously, photos or it didn't happen. I'm pretty sure Barry's doing the same thing as the deer suddenly takes a few curious steps towards us, sniffing the air as if it was wondering what we were. Now it's even closer. Now it's as if it's saying, go on, take a picture. I'll even strike a pose for you. Vogue, vogue, vogue. Then right, as I get a grip of my phone in my oversized hiking pants pocket. The deer's head explodes. At least I can only theorize that it did. Because the only real sense I got was when I saw a split second of the deer's head disintegrating before all these hot wet droplets of something splattered all over my face. Obviously in my shock my first move is to wipe my hands with my face,

which is when I notice that not everything that's just hit my face is liquid. I bring my hands away from my face, open my eyes, and all I can see is smeared blood and chunks of what I later discovered were probably bone fragments. I look over at Barry, who doesn't have nearly as much gore on him as me, and almost at the same time, each of us let out a bellowing scream. All of a sudden, we hear something else moving through the trees just off from where we're stood. We were about ready to leg it by that point, but before either of us could call it, some bloke in a barber jacket and a flat cap emerges from the trees, locks eyes with us, and says in the poshest voice I've ever

heard, gentlemen, I'm so terribly sorry. I didn't have the foggiest idea either of you were there. Let me offer my sincerest apologies for giving you such a ghastly fright. Dear, dear, what an awful mess I've made of you. Then, another bloke appears, slightly older with a beard but similarly dressed. This time, he's got about the thickest Scottish accent I've ever heard, a broke barrel shotgun under his arm, and he starts having a go at us like,

Bear bums, you can't just saunter on the private land like that. You're lucky I didn't shoot you. The posh bloke is like, no now, Frasier, that's quite enough of that, and then continues to apologize to us. Turns out, we wandered right onto this bloke's land, who just so happened to be the lord of such and such a place, like a proper old landed gentry type who still was hunting on his land. He was nice enough to give us a lift up to his manor, the details of which would probably make a whole other story on its own. He let us wash all the blood and brains on us in one of his ridiculously opulent bathrooms. Marble fixtures, huge fancy mirrors,

the lot. I had never been anywhere so posh, and there I was trying to make sure I didn't leave any deer brains on this fella's gold-plated bathroom features. It was honestly an insane experience. When we were done, the older Scottish bloke gave us a lift into town in his Land Rover, paid for our supplies on his boss's card, and drove us back towards where we were done, the older Scottish bloke gave us a lift into town in his Land Rover, paid for our supplies on his boss's card, and drove us back towards where we were camped out for the night. When our hiking companion saw us jumping up out of the top of the line four by four, the first question was, Who is that?

Barry's response summed up the entire incident. Oh him? Just the bloke that nearly shot us. Nice enough fella, though. Bought us some bacon. Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that pro? The pros at Tread Experts.

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we're always there. TreadExperts.ca Everyone's got a pro. Need tires? I've got a pro. Car making a weird sound? I've got a pro. So who's that pro? The pros at TreadExperts.

From tires to auto repair, TreadExperts is always there. Helping you with Toyo tires you can trust. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Like Toyo's open country family of tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca I grew up in South London, the only daughter of two doctors from Northwest Pakistan.

For those of you that don't know, the federally administered tribal area is one of the wildest, most lawless places in all of Asia, and probably all the world too. The reason being is that it borders war-torn Afghanistan. Fighters, weapons, opium, and amphetamines all flow freely over the border that no government has been able to properly secure. Meaning that Northwest Pak is where a lot of Taliban fighters hide out when they're not fighting NATO on the Afghan side of the border. Northwest Pakistan is also where my entire extended family are from. And in November 2017, we were invited to a wedding in their tribal village of Ghanam Shah. My older brother had then backed to Pakistan when he was about 5 or 6, but the wedding would be my first time ever. I was a bit anxious about the long flight, but definitely really excited to meet my extended

family for the first time. I'd spoken to my aunts and uncles on the phone and stuff and I never met them in the flesh. And even for a 21st century girl like myself, I understood the importance of family, even if they were on the opposite side of the world. So we landed in Islamabad where my dad rented a minivan for the 5 hour drive to Ghanam Shah. The company we got the van from offered to assign us a driver who knew the local area, but my dad being the man he was, he insisted he doesn't even need a sat-nav to get us to his home village. What kind of Karlani would I be if I couldn't find the village of my birth?

My mom knew better than to argue with him when his ego was in play, so we all just shut up and piled into the minivan. The roads weren't all that bad for the first hour or so. With Islamabad being the capital of Pakistan, you'd expect them to pour money into infrastructure in their immediate vicinity. But the closer and closer we got to Ghanam Shah, the more the minibus lurched and rocked on those horribly neglected dirt roads. Then, at around hour 3 we came to a fork in the road and my dad is clearly hesitating. He'd never admit in a million years but he clearly has no idea which way to go and the maps app on his phone is clearly not giving him good enough answers. In the end, he just made a decision and committed to it. After half an hour later, this big compound

comes into view and I ask my mom if this is the place. She says no, then says something to my dad who responds with, bloody hell woman, I'll get out and ask directions then. So we continue down this dirt path towards the big mud brick walls of the compound. About halfway up, there's a little shack off of the road and one that didn't look occupied until I see a younger man burst from the opening, hurtling towards our truck in what looked like an attempt to cut us off before he reached the gates of this compound. I'm like, Mom, does that man have a gun? She looks, and all of a sudden starts shouting, Ahmad! Ahmad! Stop the bloody car! Yelling at my dad.

Then all I hear is bang, bang, bang as the man started shooting at her car. I knew people could be unfriendly to strangers in the FATA but this was worse than anything I'd expected. My dad turns us around and speeds back the way we came. Thankfully the gunman didn't shoot at us anymore. A short time later we do actually find our family's compound. We settle in, meet and greet everyone, then all the women get to work making a big family-sized meal for the evening. Then get this, the same bloke that had been shooting at us shows up at the compound, only this time he had an apology for us. You see, he was guarding the house of a man who controlled like a quarter of all the opium fields in Nangarhar province over the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government were always coming after him,

so much so that he'd had someone plant a landmine on the track to his house. The guy hadn't been shooting at us. He'd been firing warning shots once he realized we weren't special forces or whatever since he didn't want to see us blow up. It was one heck of a way to kick off the trip and I was terrified that something even worse might happen over the course of the wedding. But alhamdulillah, nothing else happened and we all made it back home safe and sound. But I'll tell you what, I've never felt so lucky to be born in a place where war is a distant memory for most people because I honestly couldn't imagine all that, bullets, bombs or drugs, being part of my daily life. In the early hours of Sunday, September 17th of 1995, 25-year-old Timothy Stone was driving his young family back from a cookout in their native city of Los Angeles. Also in the car were his 26-year-old partner, Robin Coon, her 5-year-old son Christopher, and her 3-year-old daughter Stephanie, and their 2-year-old daughter Stephanie and their two-year-old brother Joseph.

Timothy wasn't all that familiar with the Cypress Park neighborhood they were driving through and given that it was almost two o'clock in the morning, he hardly had the best view of his immediate surroundings. And what was worse, many of the streetlights seemed to have been shot out. At a fork in the road, Timothy turned onto the 2000 block of Isabel Street, a dark, narrow, dead-end alley that was covered in gang-related graffiti, including one piece that read, Avenida de los Asesinos, The Street of Killers.

Timothy had taken a wrong turn, one that would take him and his young family into one of the most dangerous places in the whole of California, the territory of a street gang known as El Avenidas. Notorious as LA's most violent Latino gangster sets, the Avenues, as they're better known as, have a long history of involvement with the Mexican Mafia. Respect, loyalty, and secrecy are the cornerstones of their savage belief system, while any challenge to their authority, both real or perceived,

is met with swift and brutal displays of ferocity. So, when up to 20 members of La Havre saw an unknown vehicle headed through the heart of their well-defined territory. They saw it as both a direct threat and a direct challenge to their reign. The Avenue Gang are also infamous for their participation in anti-black hate crimes against innocent African-American inhabitants of their neighborhoods. Their violence grew so prolific and hateful at one point that some called their actions a campaign of ethnic cleansing directed at honest, hard-working members of the black community here in Los Angeles. However, when gang members surrounded the vehicle, it would be abundantly clear that Timothy and his family were no rival gangsters or undercover cops. Not only did they appear to be a straight-laced Caucasian couple,

but the inclusion of multiple children in the car precluded the possibility of it being some kind of law enforcement operation. Timothy and Robin must have been absolutely terrified as the first of several trash cans smashed into their vehicle. This seems to have been the gang member's way of telling Timothy to back off, and he swiftly began to make a rather erratic U-turn. Only, rather than simply letting the family leave, others threw large steel trash cans in front of their wheels, slowing them long enough for a group of gangsters to completely surround the terrified family. Both Timothy and Robin begged for the men to let them go, but they refused until they received a satisfactory answer to the questions of why the couple was in their barrio or neighborhood.

Timothy simply apologized over and over again, but it was no good. One of the gang members produced a pistol, aimed it at Timothy's face, and threatened to pull the trigger. In a complete panic, Timothy simply put his foot down, plowing into the human roadblock in the hopes that they could make a sudden escape. More than one of the gang was wielding a firearm by that point, and when the front end of Timothy's car smashed into them, they emptied their weapons into the windshield, sending round after round ripping through both flesh and upholstery alike. One bullet struck three-year-old Stephanie in the head as she lay in her mother's arms.

Her two-year-old brother Joseph was hit in the left foot, and a bullet grazed the flesh of Timothy's back. The family rushed to the hospital, hoping that the lives of their young children could be saved. Joseph made nothing short of a full recovery but young Stephanie was unable to be revived passing away just a few hours later, her broken hearted parents just a few feet away behind a closed door when her time of death was called. The murder sparked widespread anger and outrage with former President Clinton summing up the national spirit by saying, A family took one wrong turn, and because they were in the wrong place, gang members felt that they had the right to shoot at them and take their lives and kill an innocent child.

Many wondered how such a horrifically senseless killing could occur in the first place. And as journalists descended on Cypress Park, the public began to learn of the pure horror endured by the neighborhood's residents on a daily basis. Not only were innocent people losing their lives in the crossfire of rampant gang warfare, but the hideous initiation rites of the gang's new members often involved them gunning down civilians in order to prove their loyalty. Cypress Park was a place where a run to the corner store for a carton of milk could mean losing your life, and for no reason other than you were randomly selected for death. Many Americans couldn't believe this was happening in the same country as them, but for others, it was the reality that greeted them every time they

walked out into the street. Stephanie Kuhn was laid to rest a week later. A dozen Los Angeles police officers served as honor guard, with four generations of the Kuhn family filling the small stone church of the recessional in Glendale, where cousin Michael Fanning referred to Stephanie as God's little angel. At the time of the service, the search for her killers was almost drawing to a close. They had profiles on all of the gang members local to that particular area of Cypress Park. All they needed to do was find the trigger men. Not long after, 28-year-old Anthony Gabriel Rodriguez, 22-year-old Manuel Rosales Jr., and 18-year-old Hugo David Gomez were arrested and charged with the attack on a terrified young family that was simply unfortunate enough to have made a wrong turn on a dark night. At the end of their trial on August 1st, 1997, a judge sentenced all three to 54 years to life in state prison, to be served in separate penitentiaries on opposite sides of California.

The American people breathed a collective sigh of relief as the news that Stephanie's killers had been brought to justice. Yet since then, the nation has struggled with the violent gang activity that plagues most of its major metropolitan areas With St. Louis and Baltimore boasting a murder rate almost double that of other cities Surely it's only a matter of time before another innocent family, both local and non-local Are unlucky enough to make a wrong turn that ends in their brutal, merciless execution. Our tread experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo tread experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there.

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From tires to auto repair, Tread Experts is always there. Helping you with Toyo tires you can trust. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Like Toyo's open country family of tires. Find your pro at your local tread experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca In April of 2011, British tourists James Coopes Cooper and James Jam Cazares were enjoying a

transatlantic vacation in the sunny state of Florida. 25-year-old Coopes and 24-year-old Jam had first met at the University of Sheffield in 2005, when both were fresh-faced first-year students. According to friends, they'd struck up an almost instant friendship upon meeting, one which would continue throughout their student years and well into their mid-twenties. The pair had apparently traveled together before, and as anyone who's been on vacation with a close friend before will tell you, if you don't end up murdering the person by the end of the trip, it's evidently a friendship that'll last a lifetime. And that's exactly what kind of friendship Koops and Jam had.

Like most of the nights they spent in Florida, Jam and Koops wowed away the midnight hours by drinking beers, munching down the exquisite seafood of Sarasota, and generally being typically British in a place that defines the United States in so many different ways. The night of April 15th was no different, and as the late night ticked over into the early morning, Jam and Koops decided they better call it a night. They thanked the staff of whatever bar they were in, then proceeded to walk back in the direction of their hotel. But in reality, navigating their way through the dark Sarasota streets proved much easier said than done, and it wasn't long before Jam and Coops

were stumbling along alleys and avenues that they didn't recognize. Not that it was a problem for either of them. Witnesses say that they were laughing and joking as they walked, spirits high due to the fine weather and strong alcohol. How could they know that their night was about to plunge from a giddy high to a terrifying low? How could they know that their night was about to plunge from a giddy high to a terrifying low? How could they possibly know that wandering into the Newtown neighborhood of Sarasota will be the single worst mistake of their lives. As Jam and Coops continued to stumble through the muggy Florida night, they heard a voice from behind calling out to them. It was a 16-year-old boy named Sean Tyson,

who had apparently heard the two men's accents and had been following out of simple curiosity at first. But Tyson's intentions had quickly shifted from a harmless curiosity to those of an opportunistic predator. He wasn't quite sure where the men were from, but he recognized that they were both very, very drunk. Despite just being 16 years old, Sean was an experienced stick-up artist, and often carried a.22 revolver for the explicit purpose of relieving the unwary of their valuables. Some of his neighbors even said

he was fond of firing off rounds into the air as a way of both celebrating and intimidating. Upon seeing the young man, it's entirely possible that the drunk and jolly Coop and James would have thought they'd simply made a new friend, a new traveling companion, and someone that could possibly point them in the direction of their motel. But Sean Tyson didn't want any new friends. He wanted their money, and he wasn't shy about letting them know it. At first, the two Brits thought he was asking for money, and they were more than willing to lend him some. They were flat broke from their night of drinking, and they did have a few dollars in change to hand over. But that wasn't enough for Sean.

He wanted large bills, he wanted their phones and wallets, and he wanted them handed over fast. It's only then that he produced the handgun, something that let the two friends know that he wasn't messing around. It had the exact reaction he intended it to have. In the UK, it's not straight up impossible to own a firearm, but the government and police make it so expensive and bureaucratically irritating that most people who begin the process give up trying to obtain one. So, generally speaking, when a non-military, non-law enforcement British person sees a firearm, it can provoke a deep reaction of awe, surprise, or even fear. And when Jam and Coop saw the revolver in Sean's hand, any potential fight that might have been in them evaporated entirely. Again, Sean determined that the now terrified friends hand over their cash, but there was a problem. It seems that both men had swapped a large amount of British currency for US dollars at the very start of their trip.

This would serve as their budget and ensure they didn't overspend. Any other money in their possession was back in their hotel room, the same hotel they were struggling to find in their drunken state. Jam and Coops must have been absolutely terrified as they tried to explain this to young Sean, offering up their phones and other valuables in substitute. Sean took them without so much as a second thought, but didn't believe for a second that the two were strapped for cash. To them, they were tourists, walking dollar signs who were just holding out on him. To the two British tourists, the interaction was surreal in the extreme.

They were on holiday, according to the parlance, on break from their dreary lives back in the UK. They weren't wrapped up in the subtleties of US gun laws, nor were they aware of the risk it would incur. All they had to do was show their prospective robber that they had no money. After that, all they had to do was extract themselves from the volatile situation. Walk away. Just walk away. It's what we're told to do when conflict arises. But what do you do when that conflict chooses to follow? Because that's exactly what Sean did on that humid Florida night. He followed Jam and Coops, revolver in hand, demanding they turn over their non-existent cash. We can only imagine how

terrified the two of them must have been, faced with the kind of threat that would be almost alien to them, a nightmare that had become a tangible reality. The point at which Sean Tyson lost his patience with the men is unclear, but we can be quite clear that he had been following Jam and Coops for quite some time before he finally decided to act. According to his line of thinking, they were lying to him, trying to punk him. Taurus were made of money, and the two in front of him just needed proper motivation to hand over their cash. Since you don't have any money, Tyson said, approaching Koops from the rear, I got something for you. Tyson thrust the barrel of the.22 revolver into Koops from the rear. I got something for you.

Tyson thrust the barrel of the.22 revolver into Koops' side and pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through his liver, kidneys, and intestines, a kind of horrendous penetrative pain that the young Brit had never felt before in his life. Koops' knees buckled almost as soon as the trigger had been pulled, a grunt of pain escaping him as he hit the concrete. For Jam, the terrifying reality of the situation hit him like a ton of bricks. This complete stranger, this young man that seemed no older than a teenager, he just mortally wounded Jam's best friend in the world. All he could think to do was beg for his life, collapsing to his knees beside his wounded friend whilst looking up at their attacker

Please mate, we're just on holiday, he's believed to have said We're drunk, we don't have any money, just please don't kill us, please Tears formed in the young man's eyes as his friend writhed in pain on the concrete. At this point, Sean Tyson must have expected the pair of friends to give up whatever money they had stashed away. Only, they didn't. The unhurt of the two simply begged for his life. Only then did it really occur to Sean that they had been telling the truth the entire time. We can only assume that to an experienced stick-up kid like Sean, this was nothing short of an embarrassment. His instincts had been entirely

wrong. He wasn't going to make any worthwhile cash out of it, and what's worse, he had an attempted murder beef coupled with a witness who had seen his face, heard his voice. He even knew which neighborhood police could find him in. There was only one way the encounter could end, and that was with Sean being the only person that walked away from it. And so, with his victim still begging for his life, Sean Tyson raised the revolver, aimed it at Jam's head, and pulled the trigger. He emptied his remaining four shots into the chests of each man, finishing them off. Then, soundtracked by a chorus of barking dogs, Sean Taylor picked up the shell casings that were lying on the tarmac, but he wasn't quite done yet. Sean proceeded to

pull off the two men's bloodstained t-shirts as well as pull their trousers down to their knees. It's not clear why he did this. Some believe it was a way of humiliating the two Brits in death. Others seem to think it was a last-ditch effort to locate any hidden cash either of the men were in possession of. But what's self-evident is that when the cops finally arrived on scene, the street looked more like the site of an execution than a robbery gone wrong. In the hours following the shooting, Sean gave the shell casings and the murder weapon

to a close friend of his, instructing him to bury both in his backyard. However, instead of following the instructions, Jermaine Bain then sold the revolver for $50. This would prove to be their undoing as police traced the gun back to him and also the shell casings. When the cops threatened to charge him with murder, Jermaine rolled on his buddy, telling the cops that Sean had been the one to kill the two British tourists. Sean, who was tried as an adult at Sarasota County Court despite having been just 16 at the time of the murders, was given two life sentences without the eligibility of parole.

Before sentence was passed, two of the British pair's friends read out impact statements to the court. For every painful detail of their deaths I have endured, for each disturbing photo I have been exposed to, I am still glad I have this opportunity to look into your eyes and try to explain the pain that you have caused. Joe Hallett, a friend of the pair's, explained, Every night you go to sleep, every morning you wake up, I want you to think of my friends who you murdered. They will haunt you. We're going all the way back to the fall and winter of 1976 for this one. I know, I'm old. And granted it's an old story, I promise you it's a good one.

And in the summer of 76, my stupid self decided to move out to California. It was a well-meaning venture, I assure you, but a failed one in every conceivable aspect. I'd moved back to Arkansas less than a year after I moved out there, in a place like home, I suppose. But it also might have had something to do with a roommate I had when I was living in Sacramento. I was kind of a late comer to the hippie movement, too young for the summer of love or the Vietnam protests, but seeing what the war did to my old man was just awful. I was young, real young when he came back. But I remember how different he was. Just like a little piece of him was lost over there somehow. So, it wasn't until the mid-70s that I got a wild hair up my butt to move out to San Francisco.

My old man said he'd give me $100 in bus money if I stayed in high school long enough to graduate. So, I did. And that same summer I headed out to San Fran on a Greyhound bus. Only I didn't quite make it. I stopped to see a guy I used to go to camp with in Sacramento and, well, just sort of stayed there. His parents offered me their spare room until I had enough money to carry on to Frisco, but living there made me feel like a bum. So after squirreling away my first two paychecks I decided to move into a shared apartment with two strangers. I meet up with a landlord at the house in question. We do a little walk around and he shows me where I'll be staying.

The place was really nice. Three separate bedrooms, two bathrooms, then all the ground floor facilities you could imagine. Kitchen, laundry room, TV room, garage, and the rent was enticingly low considering it was such a nice place. Both guys who lived there were out at work at the time so I didn't get to meet any of them in advance and obviously I wasn't permitted to nosy around in either of their bedrooms, so I really didn't get a sense of their personalities. But boy, was that about to change fast. A week later, I moved into the free room and met the two guys I'd be living with. One guy was named Richard, and the other guy was named Brad. Richard seemed kinda weird and untidy, but he seemed to mostly keep to himself

while Brad was much more friendly and outgoing. The thing was, Brad was moving out at some point over the following two weeks and he wanted to give me the skinny on Richard before he left. Basically he asked me how badly I needed the room. I told him real bad. It was either there or be homeless for the foreseeable future. And that's when he tells me that Richard can be cool when he wants to be, but he's definitely a few cards short of a full deck.

I asked him what he means by that and he just replies, you'll see, just keep your eye out for other apartments. The B generally has some good listings. At first I just figured I'd waded into some slightly bitter roommate rivalry or politics, and I wanted nothing to do with it. I wasn't about to take sides after having been there for a grand total of five minutes, so I decided to play it diplomatically. But Brad was right. Richard was really weird. And not even weird in a fun, hippie way. He wasn't just waving his freak flag high, man. He was the freak flag, all on his own.

First time I noticed was when I walked into the kitchen and Richard was sat at the table, reading a newspaper while holding an orange on top of his head. I asked him what he was doing and he replied something like, absorbing vitamin C. I laughed, thinking he was just being silly but when I turned to look at him, deadpan. The guy was deadly serious. I start explaining that's not how nutrition works and he responds by telling me not to lecture him on what goes on in his body. How it was his body and he knew best about it. Naturally I'm just like, okay dude, whatever you say. Being as non-confrontational as possible but the second I saw Brad, I conceded that he was right. Richard was crazy. Just how crazy,

I had no idea. But I was sure about to find out. Richard's behavior remained curiously strange until the time that Brad moved out. It wasn't anything too scary, just stuff that made you roll your eyes or shake your head. Like at one point we're eating dinner in front of the TV and Richard kinda sits up, stares into space for a moment, checks his own pulse then says, My heart just stopped beating. Brad seemed to have learned his lesson how to deal with such insane behavior because he falsely expresses some mild concern before suggesting Richard go take a nap. Which he then does. Like some hypochondriac child, he finished his dinner then goes to take a nap to alleviate his, what, his dead heart? I have no idea. Like I said, it wasn't scary, just kind of annoying.

All the scary stuff came after Brad moved out. In fact, I think Brad was the only thing keeping a lid on Richard's behavior, because the same day Brad leaves is the same day Richard took a turn for the worse. So, like I've mentioned, I was working part-time in Sacramento, working five-hour shifts, four days a week over at a nearby grocery store. One day I get back from my shift and Richard is standing over the bathroom sink, looking into a piece of broken mirror he'd propped up against the counter and he's shaving all his hair off with a straight razor. New haircut, buddy? I remember asking him. No, it's my skull. I think it's fractured.

Well, better get down to the hospital, dicky boy. I hear those can be quite serious. I'd pretty much adopted Brad's approach wholesale by that point, kindly acknowledge and then disengage. But Richard responds by telling me that not only is his skull fractured, but that he can feel the plates moving around under his skin. Now, I'm no doctor, but I was 99% sure that that was impossible. And when I took a look at his request, there was no bruising, no blood, nothing. He's just having another one of his hypochondriac health scares. One time we're having dinner and Richard dropped me a compliment on my sausage gravy. It was like a double compliment since it was my mom's secret recipe too. Turns out Brad was right. Richard could be nice when he wanted to be. But then he

somehow managed to ruin the moment by saying something like, yeah, you're a real good cook, much better than my mom. She used to try and poison me. Again, like the thing with the orange, I thought he was cracking a joke, so I laughed. But just like the thing with the orange, he simply stares at me, totally straight-faced, and I realized that it wasn't a joke. Only this time he's actually kind of offended that I didn't take him seriously and that's the first time I saw Richard's mean side come out. He just stared at me, holding his knife and fork so hard his fists were shaking and for a moment I was actually scared he was just going to lunge at me from across the table. Instead, he picks up his plate, clears it, then marches off up to his room. A few hours later, he apologized for being so rude.

I forgave him and thus the cycle began anew. He'd act perfectly normal, then some weird outbursts would have me reconsidering Brad's suggestion on keeping an eye out for a new apartment. But until I could get more hours at the Safeway, that just wasn't an option for me. If you remember, I moved into the apartment during the fall, and Rich's behavior had been, at worst, amusingly bizarre for the majority of my stay. But the closer and closer we got to Christmas, the more he seemed to be slipping further and further into some downward spiral. And it had turned out to be one he'd never fully recover from. And it was definitely one that was made entirely worse by our use of recreational drugs. Like I said, late blooming hippie here, so when Richard suggested we get our hands on some pot and LSD, I just thought, groovy, you know?

I didn't stop to consider that might be a terrible idea given his psychological issues. I actually kind of thought drugs might help him, but good him a little perspective, but using drugs just sparked some sort of fire in him. He didn't just use them recreationally like me and my buddies had back in Little Rock. He used them habitually. He tripped every night for a week until I literally had to hide the little eyedropper of acid I'd bought for us. And when he finally came out of it, he was all kinds of messed up. The day after he sobered up, I heard him coming down for breakfast. And when he walks into the kitchen area and I look up, I see he's as naked as the day he was born. Obviously, I'm like, screaming, Richard, put on some clothes for

Christ's sake. He just responds with, why? Grabs some cereal, pours himself a bowl, then just sits down to eat. I was just getting progressively insanely more uncomfortable, and I couldn't bring myself to eat in front of a naked man like that, so I just got up and walked out. Huge mistake. Because I didn't properly address the whole nudity thing, he took that as him having a free pass. So, with an infuriatingly ever-increasing frequency, I'd have my roommates stumbling around the house, totally nude, while taking pulls on a bottle of Jack Daniels. Now most people I've told this story to, they have said that they'd have been gone the moment the nudity thing started. But what can I say? It was the 70s. I was something of a freak myself. And if I couldn't

handle one little weirdo in Sacramento, how was I going to stomach rubbing shoulders with hardcore Frisco hippies once I made it out there? Nope. Instead, the final straw was coming home, to find him making cocktails. So like I said, I walk into the house one day and I hear the blender in the kitchen whirring. I wait for the break in the whirring to call out to him as I walk into the TV room. He had to walk that way to get to the kitchen, asking him what he's making. He just replies, cocktails, in this dull flat tone that let me know that he was wasted. But when I enter the kitchen I get this strong odor of whiskey, along with something else. Following whatever he'd been doing, Richard had evidently made this

very out of character attempt to clean up after himself, but he hadn't been completely thorough as on the plain white countertop I could still make out what looked like streaks of some thick red liquid. I walk over, run my finger over a patch of it, rubbing it together between my fingers before feeling that it has a distinctly sticky texture to it. Richard? I said. Is this blood? No, he replied. Suddenly I get this sudden urge to lift up the lid of the trash can, but at the same time, I'm also filled with dread.

Whatever, or whoever that blood belonged to, there'd surely be remnants of it in the trash. In fact, upon seeing a small, bloody fingerprint on the trash can's lid, I'm sure that's where I'd find the remains. Then of course, I opened the trash to see a bloody paper bag with what was clearly a stripy raccoon tail sticking out of it. During the mother of all arguments that followed, when I asked him what in God's name he was doing, he tried to palm me off with an excuse I've never, ever forgotten. He briefly stops the blender from whirring and says, it's going to stop my heart from shrinking. Then carries on grinding up this ready brown mess of soda, ice, and what I could only assume was raccoon meat. This crazy monster thought he had some rare medical condition where his heart was basically wasting away and the cure was to blend the organ meats of trapped animals with Jack Daniels and Coca-Cola

of all things. Like I said, that was the final straw and by that time another guy was living there with us too. We discussed giving Richard a kind of ultimatum, either shape up or ship out, but considering he'd reached the butchering animals and eating them raw stage of his madness, we agreed the best thing was for us to just get out of there. I called my old camp buddy that night and begged my way back into his parents' spare room. I carried on working at the Safeway for a time, got some more hours and since I wasn't paying rent in my buddy's parents' place, getting some bus money and a security deposit was much easier. I didn't hear no more of Richard and when I finally left San Francisco in January of 77, I never looked back. Cut to just over two years later, I think about March of 1979. I'm living back with my parents in Little Rock and I've cleaned up my act and I'm working at another grocery store with my mindset on applying to colleges. Sometimes I used to get up real early and head down to the

grocery store at around 6.30am to help the owner prep for opening hours and a real small part of that was unpacking and arranging newspapers near the smaller front counter. I used to kind of take my time with this particular job on occasion, sipping my coffee, flicking through the sports section, all the way from the prying eyes of the owner who was counting cash or whatever in his office. One morning, I catch a headline in what I think was the National Enquirer, saying something like, Cannibal Killer's Trial Date Set. Obviously, that's not the sort of headline you read every day, so I start reading the article to get more details. And guess whose name I see, just a few lines down. Yep, my insane, crazy old roommate, Richard Chase. There's even a little picture of him in the margin, and clear as day, it's him.

Same guy I lived with for the better part of five months. This is all from memory, so you'd have to ask Google for all the details, but here's what I remember. After I left the home I shared with Richard, his condition worsened and worsened over the course of the year, until finally in the winter of 77, he commits his first murder by randomly shooting a guy in the street. A few weeks later, he tries a home invasion, only the family isn't home so he can't hurt anyone. So he decides to wait. But when they do get home, he gets the heebie-jeebies, turns tail and runs. The family then arrives home to find that Richard had broken into their baby's nursery before going to the bathroom on the kid's clothes. He was absolutely sick in the head.

A short time later, he tries another home invasion, and this time, he kills a pregnant woman. But here's the really messed up part. Before sleeping with her corpse, I read he put dog feces in the poor girl's mouth too. It makes you wonder what goes through a man's head to do something as absolutely insane as that. I followed the case for a while after and I was happy when I heard he got the death penalty for the things he did. He ended up taking his own life before they could get him to the gas chamber though. Figured he wanted to go out on his own terms. Only thing that messes with me is that some people say he wasn't crazy. That he knew what he was doing when he killed those women and did those awful things to them.

I'm not saying he didn't deserve to die. That's not what I'm saying at all. Heck, I'd even kick the chair out from under that guy in a hot minute if he gave me the chance. But the only thing that's crazy is saying that he ain't. You understand me? I live with that man. I ate with him. I tripped with him.

I know Richard Chase. And the cheese slid off that boy's crackers a long time before he started killing. He was crazy as a dog in a hubcap factory the whole time I knew him, and although what he did was a tragedy, I wasn't entirely surprised by it. I feel lucky to have gotten out when I did. Hang around for another year and it might have been me getting shot dead at the side of the road. But the thing that really sticks with me isn't the survivor guilt, or whatever people want to call it. It's wondering

how evil like that even comes into this world. I used to live with the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. Hector was this 6 foot Afro-Latino dude from New Jersey who had two distinct modes of being. Either he was a tornado of anger, or he was manically laughing at something. Rarely was there any in between. When you caught him in his laughing mood, he was tolerable at best. But catch him in one of his angry moods, and he was totally unbearable. He was a roadie for some post-hardcore band that toured up and down the east coast a bunch, which was one of the few good things about being his roommate. The fact that he spent weeks away at a time from the apartment,

but still paid rent. But whenever he was home, well, here's an example. It's July in East Harlem. I have the windows open, Latin brass band music is flowing through the afternoon air from some other open window, and I'm sipping southern peach lemonade like life is good. Out of nowhere, Hector bursts into the apartment, covered in brick dust like, I need bricks, bro. You got bricks? I just started driving Uber while trying to get my stand-up career up and running, so no, I didn't have any bricks. And even if I did, I wouldn't have been sharing them with Hector. And suddenly he's like, there's bricks on the roof. And as he runs out of the apartment and towards the stairwell of the building, I hear these kids shouting from outside the window.

Then I look out to see this group of kids, like 11-year-old kids all shouting stuff in Spanish at our building. They see me, start flipping me off and whatnot before they suddenly scatter in all directions. Then bam, a brick lands right in the spot where they were before they scattered. See, that's the type of guy Hector was. He could go out for a pack of rips and find himself in a brick fight with a bunch of Puerto Rican kids on the way back. Never in my life have I ever had a fight with a preteen, let alone one involving projectiles. But around Hector, that stuff was like a daily occurrence.

So come that October, Hector is headed out on some big Halloween tour with one of his bands and he tells me he won't be back till the second week of November. That meant I'd have to cover half of the rent until then, something I'd have to borrow money to do. This causes a big fight and for the first time since I moved in, I thought Hector might actually hit me. And being the kind of guy that he was, I knew for a fact that if it came to violence, he wouldn't just stop at one punch. So when the time came for him to go on tour, the mood in the apartment isn't just at its low point, I'm legit scared for my physical safety. He leaves, I'm looking for a new apartment and

life is not so good anymore. So a few nights later, the night before Halloween actually, I'm sitting in the little kitchen area, eating arepas and looking for other apartments. Someone buzzes the apartment so I go to see who it is. This is back when we had intercoms but they sucked and barely worked half the time so when I hear see who it is. This is back when we had intercoms but they sucked and barely worked half the time so when I hear some guy with an accent says something like, I need an apartment number 3 but the buzzer's not working. I just buzz the guy in without a second thought. New York is a city built on takeout, delivery and street food so I'm hardly going to be all suspicious over a delivery driver.

But I should have been and I almost paid with my life for it. Those guys busted our front door open like it was nothing, just smashed the lock right through with a sledgehammer. I actually thought it was the cops at first because they just piled in, guns drawn, shouting get on the floor, get down. But then the way that they were talking to each other once guns drawn, shouting get on the floor, get down. But then the way they were talking to each other once I was lying face down on the linoleum, that clued me into the fact that they were just stick-up guys. But what were they doing in my apartment? My first thought was, Jesus Christ, Hector, whose toes do you step on now?

But before I can wonder anymore, one of the guys starts asking me, where is it? Where is it? I'm like, where's what? But that just makes them mad. I get this flurry of kicks that have me balled up in the fetal position, then they ask me again. I can't tell them anything else, so I just say, I don't know what you're talking about, there's $20 in my wallet, that's all I got on me. The offer of $20 just offended them, and I get more kicks before they start tossing the apartment like they're looking for something. And when I say tossing, I really do mean trashing. They're deliberately breaking stuff, pulling drawers all the way out and then throwing them at other stuff. It was just

destruction in every sense of the word and it was around then that I got a look at a couple of the guys. They're all messed up or have stuff over their faces. They're wearing all black, gloves and works. They were professional stick-up guys, probably robbed drug dealers for a living. But Hector wasn't dealing. I mean, I think I'd have noticed at some point. I saw a lot of broken guitars and amplifiers around the apartment, but not too many piles of coke or money. Then right as I'm about to think it, one of the guys comes out with it. You sure this is the right place, man? I don't know. Homie told me it keeps it behind the bathtub sometimes,

but these people only got a shower in there. I feel this wave of relief washing over me. They got the wrong place, so they're gonna just walk out, right? Maybe take my phone so I can't call the cops. So, like I said, I told them my phone was on the table, next to my food and that I wouldn't call the cops if they just left. Cuck move maybe, but it's amazing how zen you get about material possessions when you see a Glock in someone's hand. The stick up guys kinda pause and look at each other. Then right as I think they're about to just leave, one of them says, I think he's seen my face man, when we were breaking in. He's gotta go. One of them has the gun, and the guy who wants me dead starts reaching to take

it off the guy who has it, but the guy who has it doesn't want to give it up. That was my cue to soil myself and start begging for my life. It wasn't my proudest moment, and peeing my pants was by no means metaphorical, but it is what it is looking back. They're arguing over shooting me. I'm begging for my life. It's just chaos and them shouting in there, and I'm amazed no one had called the cops already.

But then boom. The front entrance of the apartment building slammed shut and I could hear a very familiar voice coming up the stairs. I'm not even going to type out what Hector was saying. I'd be cancelled and deleted from the internet within seconds after posting, but let's just say someone had cancelled their tour three days in and he was livid about it. going on calling them every name under the sun, ranting and raving as he pounded his way up the stairs and in the apartment, both me and the stick-up guys are about frozen in anticipation. Then right as Hector is about to come into the apartment he says something like, hey, I got your money you whiny little baby. What the f-

The guy with the gun aims it at Hector as he walks in, looking around at the pure destruction that greeted him. Who are you people? He screamed. Who are you? The guy with the gun screamed back. Hector is just gone by this point, foaming at the mouth, looking like he's got one of his eyeballs about

to pop when he comes back. I live here! Then, I swear to god, I watch as Hector basically turns into a drunk, slightly overweight Jason Bourne. He swings his backpack off his shoulder and just launches it at the shooter. He knocks the guy slightly off balance, messes up his aim, but by the time he can like rearrange himself, Hector like football tackles this guy onto the carpet and just starts wailing on him. The two other guys then jump in and I'm thinking, oh Jesus God, someone's about to get shot. When out of nowhere, Hector comes up and is just windmailing punches at both guys, holding his own until he goes down again. Then almost immediately,

both guys start backing up, hands in the air, and there's Hector, holding the gun he'd almost just been shot with, telling both the guys to back up. His face is bleeding, he's totally gassed, but there he is,

having just won a freaking fistfight with three guys, one of them armed. He then sits on the KO'd shooter's back, tells the other guys to get out of his apartment and tells me to dial 911. And only when the cops show up to arrest the guy he'd managed to detain did he realize he'd been stabbed in the shoulder. That night, as he got stitched up at the hospital, I sifted through all the broken and non-broken stuff, swept up all the broken glass and ceramics, and generally tried to put the apartment back in order.

He got back at around 1am, still drunk after the doctor told him, do not drink on these painkillers, and immediately started complaining about the break-in. I just carried on cleaning up, stopping only briefly to say something deeply heartfelt. Hector, dude, I just wanted to say I thank you. You might have saved my life today, dude, and I just wanted to say thank you. I felt my throat kind of tighten as I said it, very similar to the way it's doing now as I'm typing this remembering.

Hector looked up at me, with this look in his eyes that almost made it look like I'd gotten through to him, until he replied with, Whatever, you could have jumped in at any time. I didn't mind. I knew Hector well enough by that point to know he wasn't exactly in touch with his feelings But as he immediately sought to leave the room due to the uncomfortable amount of emotion in the air He turned and said Did you see the look on those guys' faces though?

That's hilarious dude And he just walked off to his bedroom Laughing that evil toddler laugh that makes my skin crawl, even today. You see, for just over a year I shared an apartment with the biggest idiot on the face of the earth. And I owe that idiot my life. Please New York, don't ever change. Discover the exciting action of BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz. Make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today.

Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Back when I was a sophomore in college, I had this weird, uber-shifty Armenian roommate called Tigran. He gave off the strongest serial killer vibes ever. He was a weird loner type, unhealthy obsession with all things lewd,

kept a knife collection for some reason, like I was considering asking for a dorm transfer almost as soon as I met the guy. But then I move in, a few months go by, and he just sort of keeps to himself. So in the end, it wasn't all that bad, and I didn't seek the transfer. Then one night, I just so happen to be watching the evening news when I catch a story about a series of attacks targeting girls on campus. Obviously, with it being so close to home, it piques my interest and I start paying attention. That's when they show a sketch artist drawings of the suspected attacker, and the guy they show on screen looks almost exactly like Tigran. Same dark hair and eyes, same sloping brow and wide features.

I mean, it was like a Snapchat filter sketch rendering of his face, almost identical. Immediately, I'm like, no way, he can't actually be the one. Because him being a serial killer was just a running joke, he couldn't actually have been one. But then again, he did stay late at the library most nights, and if he wasn't at the library, he was night jogging, as he put it. I'd never heard of anyone running in the dark before in my life, so as you can imagine, I get this horrible twinge of fear in my gut that Tigran is actually the one attacking these girls. Only, and I know this might sound dumb, but I didn't want to just pick up the phone and call 911 on the guy just because

he was a night owl who looked similar to his sketch. I mean, what if it turned out to be a totally different dude and I end up ruining Tigran's academic year by embroiling him in some kind of nightmare false accusation. So, I decided to wait it out. Keep a close eye on him and if he carried on with his sketchy nocturnal pursuits or if there was another attack. Then I'd call the campus cops' tip line and leave an anonymous message. About a week goes by. It's like coming up on 10pm and Tikran gets home late from wherever he's been. I casually drop a little question in there like, How's it been? Been busy? Where'd you just get back from?

Then right as he's about to answer I notice all these red marks up and down his arm. I feign a bathroom visit to get a little look at them and I can clearly see what look like scratches up and down his forearms. I'm in the bathroom like oh god, oh god he's got those scratches from a victim, classic defense wounds, and I bet I'll hear about it tomorrow on the news. Then when I'm casually like, oh whoa buddy, those scratches look nasty, how'd you get them? He replies that he just started taking MMA lessons. MMA lessons? Not jujitsu, or strike training, or BJJ, just a super vague excuse of MMA lessons. After that, I'm almost 100% convinced it's him attacking girls around campus.

Only I can't risk telling on him and him not catching any charges as I got it in my head that he'd like know it was me or something. So I hatched the dumbest plan ever to follow him at night and catch him in the act. I really did. That way, in my mind at least, I could potentially catch him red-handed, maybe stop it and tackle him, and basically sit on the guy until the cops showed up, having saved the day with zero repercussions from a psychopath serial killer roommate. Then maybe like two or three nights later, I hear Tigran grabbing his keys in preparation to leave. I say, Where you headed to, bud?

And he replies, Just going running. I'll be back late. I just shrug it off, barely looking up from playing Xbox, but when he shuts the door, I sprint into action, throwing on khakis, boots, up from playing Xbox, but when he shuts the door, I sprint into action, throwing on khakis, boots, hoodie, the works, before grabbing my phone for the purposes of gathering evidence. As soon as I see that Tigran, despite being dressed for athletics,

is actually just walking to wherever he's going, I'm convinced I'm about to maybe save a life, at least stop a girl from being hideously violated in a way she might never truly recover from. I mean, why else would that guy lie about jogging at night? It was kind of like a spy movie for a while in my mind me tailing Tigran, staying far enough away that he wouldn't suspect anything but also working my butt off to make sure I didn't just lose track of him. We ended up walking way off campus through a residential area and towards a large public park and as we get closer and closer to this big clump of bushes, Tigran takes something out of his

pocket and slides it over his head. A ski mask. I hadn't been all that scared until I saw that and something about seeing him slipping on the mask of his predatory alter ego. A ski mask. I hadn't been all that scared until I saw that, and something about seeing him slipping on the mask of his predatory alter ego. God, that about scared the living crap out of me. It was like the closest I'll ever come to seeing a legit werewolf transformation or something, actually witnessing a monster being born or however you want to phrase it. Then, with me slightly out of sight, I watched Tigran walk into the clump of bushes. It had to be his ambush spot of choice, right? The place he'd wait and watch for potential victims to come along before pouncing on them. It had to be enough.

I'd creep into the bushes, rip off his ski mask, all while recording a video so I can get definitive proof that it's him committing the acts. So, I start slowly creeping towards the bushes through the darkness when I decide what I'm doing is a really, really bad idea. If Tigran really is some violent attacker, maybe me cornering him in a bush isn't the smartest move. So I decide to call the cops before I make my move and that way I won't be waiting too long for them to show up when I finally do tackle him. So I call, tell them the situation and although the dispatcher tells me not to approach the suspect, I'm so nervous about the prospect of Tigran getting away and then forced to carry on living with him that I think,

screw it, I'm going to nail this guy. I wasn't about to let him get away once he saw flashing lights or something. Then right as I have that exact thought, I start hearing the sound of hushed voices and grunting coming from the bushes where Tigran was hiding. He had someone. Somehow in that time it had taken me to make the 911 call. I had to pull back a little so no one would spot my cell phone light or hear my voice. He had managed to drag someone into the bushes and he had already started an attack. At that, I launched into action, rushing towards the bushes and shouting something like, Hey, leave her alone. It's dark, but since I'm recording, my phone flashlight is lighting up everything I'm pointing at.

So, as I push my way into this little clearing, I see not one, but two guys scattered before turning to face me. My adrenaline goes into overdrive at that moment. I had no idea that I'd be outnumbered and that Tigran had been working as part of a team, so my first thought is like, oh god, I knew this was a bad idea. But still, both guys seem severely caught off guard, and as I start recording faces and reaching for Tigran's ski mask, the other, who wasn't wearing a mask, bolts out of the bushes and flees the scene. Tigran can't go anywhere though, his pants are by his ankles, and as he

reaches for them, I shoved him to the floor and told him to stay put. And that's about the time I start to notice the distinct lack of any female victim. I'm shining my light around and I'm on the verge of being like, hello, where's the victim? When the thought hits me like a ton of bricks. There was no female victim and there never was a victim at all. The only people who had been in that bush were Tigran and his male companion. He hadn't been going out to attack girls. He'd been going out for secret meetups with dudes he'd been meeting on Grindr. Who knows why the guy in the sketch looked so much like him. Maybe someone had spotted him on his way to or from one of his meetings, then passed his description on to the cops. Either way,

not only did they never find the guy who it was actually to blame, but Tigran obviously wasn't the one attacking these girls. I mean, he wasn't even into girls. I had to convince the dispatcher that the perpetrators I thought I had caught had gotten away, and which during that time Tigran did have time to separate himself from that situation, probably went back to the dorm. And without a victim, by the time police showed up, they chalked it up to me just being an overly concerned citizen. They took my muddied up statement and annoyedly told me to be safe and get on with my evening. I ended up apologizing profusely to Tigran, who actually thought I was just some homophobe at first.

But once I showed him the composite sketch and explained my hunch, he was willing to forgive me on the condition that I keep his secret. You see, Tigran wasn't just ethnically Armenian. He was actually born there, and since his family were hardcore religious, they wouldn't approve of his lifestyle at all, hence why he kept it under wraps. We were all square, but living with him was still pretty awkward, and it wasn't like we became the best of friends afterward. But still, definitely one of the scariest things I've experienced with a college roommate, and from now on, I lived off campus for a number of different reasons.

A. It was a lot cheaper than dorms. B. My apartment was just two blocks away from my part-time job. And C. Topper. What's a topper, I can probably hear you asking right now. But the question is not so much what topper is, but who topper is. Topper is purely a nickname a nickname by the way and if it wasn't for the fact that he was masquerading as a normal person somewhere with a cushy job in a young family i'd call him by his real name but i don't want to get him in trouble because whether or not his wife knows it topper used to have a pretty wild past half the reason I ended moving in with Topper was his psychonautical shenanigans, a fancy term we used to refer to as insatiable hunger for narcotics.

I was a poor senior with just enough cash to buy ramen and printer paper, whereas Topper had an actual job as a sound engineer. In a city like Seattle, you're never out of work if you can handle a mixer and detangle a web of cables. Topper could do both and what's more, he was just a great guy. He was crazy as a crack house rat, but still, he was just about as warm and generous a person as you would ever likely meet. Me and Topper smoked a lot, and I was way too nervous about taking acid or shrooms in what was still a brand new apartment for me. It took me a few months, but when the time came, I told him I was ready for my first LSD experience. I figured that would involve me,

him, maybe a third party in the form of a mutual friend of ours. But no, Topper decides to throw what he called a peyote party, where he and a bunch of his friends, me included, would all trip balls together. I was totally reluctant at first, as I heard you should be comfortable and familiar with your surroundings and your companions while doing hallucinogenic drugs. But on the night in question, Topper said we'd be spending a few hours talking, snacking, and generally getting comfortable with one another before we dose. That way,

if I had any second thoughts when the time came, I could sit it out and just wait for another occasion. There was zero pressure like that with Topper. If you dosed, he loved you. If you didn't, he loved you. Just don't eat all those cheese doodles and it's all good, you know. Like I said, peyote party commences and our tiny apartment is filled with either strangers or people I hardly know at all. But over the course of about two or three hours, I make some friends, have some cool conversation, soak up the compliments that followed, who made this guacamole? A good time was had by all. So when Topper taps a teaspoon against an empty wine glass and says in a silly French accent,

Ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served. Before unveiling a plate of acid-soaked blotting paper, I was like, screw it, I'm in. So I take my little piece of blotter paper, topper had made me my own special piece with only a half dose for the newbie, let it kind of dissolve into mush on my tongue, then I swallow it. And for like the first hour or so that followed I didn't feel a thing. Then like 90 minutes in, I think I ate too much hummus, I finally start to feel it. Or rather, feel it is not the right term. I started seeing these lines in my vision, little blurry lines that were hardly even detectable, but they are there plain as day. Not long after, things started to go very, very wrong. Despite having once been super comfortable with all these new people, once I got this who are these people and why are they here thought

in my head, things started falling apart and I was headed into one heck of a bad trip. After a while of trying to keep calm, I ended up running down the hall to our bathroom and puking up this disgusting mess of hummus and pita bread. But at the time, puking just made things worse. Like I was convinced that I was about to puke up my stomach, my heart, my lungs. But the more I tried not to puke, the more I puked. By the time I had this was a bad idea rattling around my head, it looked like there was no going back. Then, this is what happened following me locking myself in the bathroom. I hear a knock on the door and someone saying like, you gotta come out bud, can't stay in there forever. I know they're right so I unlock the door and I'm greeted by this woman in her 50s who starts asking me if I'm okay. I didn't remember talking to her when I was sober but the apartment was full of people coming and going so I didn't think anything more of it. She asked me like,

bad trip? To which I just nod. So she offers me her hand and she leads me into my bedroom. I remember going to turn the light on but she stopped me, I guess that would have been too much stimulation, and just rolls me in the bed before tucking me in. She fetches me a glass of water, tells me to drink as much as I can, and says something like, you have to be strong. This isn't going to last forever,

but you have to be strong, and you have that strength in you, so make me proud. She put on super soothing music on my iPod dock, and just left me there to ride out the bad trip. I remember not feeling as bad for a while after and then there's a big gap in my memory because the next thing I remember I was waking up and it was morning. I felt weird, really weird, like spaced out and ravenously hungry so I walked into our little kitchenette and stuffing Captain Crunch

into my face like it's the last box on earth. Most of the partygoers had gone. There was just two remainders lying comatose on our couch so I keep extra quiet until Topper stumbles into the room like, crazy night huh? Sorry about your bad trip. I respond, That's okay. That friend of yours, the older lady, she helped me feel tons better. He says, Who? So I start describing her, trying to remember what she was wearing. It's all coming back in patchy, fuzzy frames, so I'm just describing as I go.

Again, he's like, Dude, I have no idea who you're talking about. There was no one at that party over the age of 28, so unless someone wandered in the department and just so happened to guess you were tripping in the bathroom. And that's when it hit me. There was no older lady. I had hallucinated the entire thing. I was so messed up that I invented a person to help me out, to tell me what I needed to hear. And as cool as that was, realizing it was one of the freakiest moments of my life. It seemed so real, too real. Like I saw those weird lines too, but I didn't get into my head that someone had redecorated the apartment.

So what was it about the woman that seemed so real? It took me a while but I worked it out. I totally made this woman up but she was talking with my mom's voice. That line about being strong, making her proud. She said those exact things to me when I broke my ankle on a skiing trip in 9th grade. I know this isn't the most traditional scary story. No ghosts or zombies or psycho killers with hooks for hands, but never in my life have I ever so vividly believed in something that just didn't exist. And it's actually kind of scary how powerful our brains are. Take a dose of one special chemical and boom.

Moving sound and picture show, right there in your head, using random pieces of information you thought you'd long since forgotten about. I haven't done anything like that since. The whole negative experience just put me off for life. I think that's the closest I'll ever get to like, seeing a ghost if that makes sense. I legitimately saw something that seemed so real but it was totally fake. And that's just about enough for one lifetime, if you kill me. I think he was only keen for me to move in so I could cover all the rent he was missing,

and after a while, petty arguments about cleanliness and money management turned rather vicious, and I was forced to find a new place to live. Once I found a place, I had to wait two weeks to move in and although this definitely wasn't the right move, I thought I'd have to leave it until the last minute to tell my stupid flatmate because screw you, that's why. And instead of waiting until the day before, I ended up dropping that little tidbit into an argument we had about a week before I was due to move out. He started playing the victim, telling me I was basically condemning him to being homeless, but if it wasn't for his silver spoon up the butt attitude to work, I might have had

a bit more sympathy for him. We both smoked and did so in the flat, so the morning after our argument I wake, roll over, and grab my smokes to light one up in bed before facing the day. Not my proudest habit. I hold my hands up but smoking in my room was better than facing him in the morning. I pop a ciggy between my lips, grab my lighter but the bloody flint on the disposable piece of crap is bust. I try time and time again but nope, it's buggered. So I roll out of bed, walk down the hall towards the kitchen, still trying hopelessly to get a light. Then suddenly, as I stroll into the kitchen, the absolute reek of gas hits me, and just under the humming of traffic outside, I can hear gas leaking out of the stovetop. That freaking psychopath had turned on all the gas in the

kitchen, knowing I'd have sparked up first thing, blowing the whole flat sky high. I rushed to turn them off, open all the windows in the flat, ran downstairs and called the fire brigade. My flatmate was interviewed under caution, but because they couldn't prove a bloody thing, the police had to let him walk. The landlord was much more understanding though and we basically made an agreement to cut him out of the lease while we arranged for locks to be changed. Apparently, he'd been looking to get rid of him for quite a while before the incident so I ended up staying put. The only worry was the ex-flatmate, but since he was under suspicion over

what he must have called an accident, I think he was too scared to follow up on it and try for any serious revenge. Still, mess with my head for quite a while after, thinking someone would be that vindictive over me just wanting to move out. Do your research on who you're going to be living with people. It might just save your life. For some relevant background info before I begin, when I was in year 8 I became friends with this guy called C from my friend group. We weren't really too close and eventually he moved to a different school. About a year later we regained contact and became really close. C lived a 10 minute walk from my house so I practically spent all my free time at his house. As we grew older we experimented

a lot with alcohol and drugs, which escalated to us drinking alcohol together pretty much every other day. Needless to say, because of this, I completely ruined the relationship I had with my parents, and we had a big trust barrier during this time. My parents absolutely despised C as they thought he was the reason behind me drinking so much at such a young age. During the last year of high school, I had just turned 16, I was struggling a lot with mental health and C was one of my only friends during this time. I also had a boyfriend that I started dating a month prior to when the story takes place. C was a pretty controlling and judgmental friend and expressed his hatred for my boyfriend when we started talking so I thought it was best to keep my relationship to myself. When lockdown got put

back into place at around Christmas of 2020, it didn't really stop me and C from hanging out. We were still practically inseparable and his parents had taken a liking towards me. C would steal money from his parents all the time to buy vodka and beer, and I'm not just talking about a few coins. I mean, he would literally steal 50 notes from his dad's wallet every week just to be able to afford alcohol. We would usually sit and drink near his road, but on this day we decided to go for a walk and sit on the bench outside a supermarket. It wasn't late, but it was already dark since it was January. We were just chilling for a while when this slightly older man approaches us and starts

a conversation. He introduced himself as Johnny. Me and C were pretty uncomfortable as we don't really like random people talking to us but we didn't want to be rude so we sat and listened to Johnny talk. He was complaining about his wife leaving him and taking the kids as he was a drug addict and even when he was talking to us it was clear that he was on something as he kept jittering. He kept the conversation going for about 10 minutes and then says that he's going into the supermarket to buy some food. Me and C say our goodbyes and we were pretty relieved for that to be over so we took the opportunity and left but unfortunately this wouldn't be the last time that we saw Johnny.

A few weeks later it was still locked down and I remember waking up and going to a few of my online lessons but overall felt pretty depressed. My parents were fuming with me because I had just gotten my school report and it really wasn't looking great for me. They said that I wasn't allowed to go out this day but I was upset and wasn't going to take no for an answer. My mom asked if I wanted to go food shopping with her to which I said yes. I waited in the car for my mom to do her shopping and texted C that I would go out and see him. He had already bought alcohol so I told him to save me some. When we got back I told my mom I wanted to go

see my boyfriend. This was a lie but as I mentioned before my parents despised C. My mom didn't really say much about it so I started walking away but didn't get very far as a few seconds later my dad comes out after me and tells me to get back in the house. I said no and that I was going out so he took my phone off of me and left. I had already told C that I was coming and knew where he lived so I figured I didn't really need my phone anyway. When I got to the street where we would drink C was already sitting there with a half empty bottle of vodka sitting next to him. He gave me a hug and we sat down and he asked me if I was okay.

I told him briefly about what happened but said I just wanted to forget about my day and have some fun. I finished the bottle of vodka C brought with him and he said that he wanted to go get some beers. We made our way to the corner shop which was about five minutes from where we were and got our beers. We were sitting on a small wall behind the shop when we saw Johnny walk past with another guy and stupidly we said hi to him. Me and C were pretty drunk at this point so when Johnny and his friend approached us we started a conversation. Johnny's friend introduced himself as Mark and asked for my age. I lied and said that I was 18, to which he replied, oh that means you're of age, meaning I can do this. As he leaned in and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. I was taken aback by this, but didn't say

anything as Johnny interrupted and asked me if I had any change on me. He said that he wanted to go buy weed and for some reason me and C thought that having weed would make our night better. Anyway, I only had about 20 coin on me so I handed it to Johnny. That's when Mark said that he had a friend that lives down the road from where we were who would give him some money and asked if I could go with him. I looked at C and he said that I should go and he will wait here with Johnny for us to come back. Foolishly I agreed to go with Mark. On the way there he asked what I was doing out and just said that I had a fight with my parents. Can't really remember what else we talked about but we didn't walk too far and soon we were at

Mark's friend's door. He knocked on it and a few seconds later, a woman answered and said her husband was in the shower so we should wait outside. We waited for about 15 minutes when his friend came out and sat down. He was talking to Mark about giving him the money and about how they always help each other out. It seemed like they were talking for hours when finally Mark said they were going back to the shop. His friends said that he would walk back with us and when we got there, C and Johnny were no longer at the wall we were sitting at. In my head I was panicking, thinking something had happened to C and told Mark that I needed to go look for him.

Mark asked me to stay and said that he would help me look for C. We approached the corner shop where me and C had bought alcohol and Mark's friend said that he was going in to buy some beers. He came out, handed me a beer and said that he was leaving. Him and Mark said their goodbyes and that's when Mark told me he lived a 20 minute bus ride from where we were and he had a free house. He was about 30 and there was no way that I was leaving with this guy back to his house. I politely said no and that I needed to go look for a friend. He kept insisting, saying that I could stay at his house and when he realized I wasn't going anywhere with him, he said that he could go talk to C. I had already started walking back to the roads C lived on hoping that he would be there

but didn't want Mark to know where he lived so I stopped at the end of this road. Mark asked where he lived and kept saying he wanted to go talk to C about me staying over. When I still wasn't budging, he began to pull my arm and try to get me to the bus stop. Thankfully, I saw my mom's car pull up and C was in the car screaming at me to get in. C had apparently called my mom as I had been gone for over an hour. We drove around for a few minutes, the whole time my mom was saying how disappointed she was with me and we dropped C off at home. She told me I was lucky that she came at just the right moment and the night could have ended much worse.

When I got home I felt overwhelmed with what had happened that day and on top of struggling with mental health for months I tried to end my own life. I ended up in the hospital for the rest of the night and police officers were questioning me about Mark and Johnny but said that they couldn't do anything about the situation since I had lied about my age. A few days later, I met up with C and he told me what happened when I was gone with Mark. Apparently, Johnny asked C to come with him to the supermarket while they waited. In the supermarket, Johnny kept insisting for C to buy him scratch cards and C agreed, although clearly being extremely uncomfortable.

The woman at the till selling the scratch cards noticed this and asked C to provide ID. C took his chance and mouthed, help, to the worker and she called over the security guards who tackled Johnny to the ground and told C to leave the store. C returned to the wall near the corner shop and when he realized I still wasn't there, he called my boyfriend who told him to call my mom so they can come look for me. It's been a few months since this happened but this day will always haunt me. I'm not friends with C anymore which is probably for the best but I'm grateful he called my mom that day because if he hadn't, I don't want to imagine what could have happened to me. When I was 18, I worked at my college's residence building at the front desk and

I think I almost got assaulted or murdered. You be the judge. During the summer, the building operated as a hotel, so two and a half floors were hotel rooms and half the third floor were student rooms. The whole building operated with a hotel swipe key system that was pretty outdated, and all the doors were powered by four AA batteries. If the batteries died, there was a decently lengthy process to replace them and reprogram the door. Our dark haired guy came to the front desk from inside the building while I was working an overnight shift at around 1 or 2am and he said he left his keycard in his room. I made him a new one and made my first error of the night. Hotel guests could have as many room keys remade as they wanted, hypothetically. Students, however, were supposed to be given a temporary

keycard and charged $2 to be returned when theirs is located. I gave him a new key for his room and asked if he was a student or a hotel guest, and he replied, student. At this point I should have checked our system to charge his account, but I was caught up doing administrative duties and for gore. I used to trust people way too easily at this job but quickly learned not to. Later on in the night, maybe at around 3 or 4am, he came to the desk again and said he couldn't get into his room. I asked if he just forgot his key again and he said no, the door wasn't working. I asked if the light was coming on when he swiped his card and he said no, The door wasn't working. I asked if the light was coming on when he swiped

his card and he said no, so I figured the batteries were dead. I told him I'd have to change the batteries and I went up to his room with him. He asked me for my name and I told him. He didn't tell me his. I opened the room door manually with a master key and told him I'd have to prop it open while I worked on the back panel to replace the batteries. He said, no it's okay, I'll close it. And closed and deadbolted, the door locked. Really freaking weird, but I try not to think about it. I had changed the batteries on plenty of other doors by this point and some students were iffy about having their doors propped open for their room to be on display for anyone walking by. He also had a really thick accent and I thought he might be an international student since we had a lot of students from other countries where English was not their first

language. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe it was also just a language barrier issue. At this point though, I really felt like something was wrong, but I tried to ignore it so I didn't freak him out. While I was trying to focus on fixing the door as quickly as possible, he kept trying to entice me to go further into the room, saying his bed was broken and he needed me to take a look at it, there was something underneath it that needed to be fixed, etc. He held out a little gold house key and said, I have a key, go get it, and threw it under the bed. He said that there was a leak under the fridge. He just kept trying to get me down on the ground, throwing random problems at me. Obviously, I told him no. I'd send maintenance up in the morning to take a look at it if anything

was broken. I had my back to him and he asked me if I could take off my glasses. I said no, I'd need them to see. His tone of voice changed and in the most steady, chilling manner he said, Ella, it's okay. You can take them off. And from behind me he reached around and tried to take off my glasses. I swatted his hand away and trying to remain composed said no thanks I need to keep them on. Even though he was creeping me out I didn't want to be rude to him. I didn't want to get in trouble

if he complained about me or risk upsetting him and having him yell at me. I got up to grab something from the door repair kit and undid the door deadbolt and opened it up in the process. He jumped toward the door to close it again and told me to keep it closed. I told him no. I had to open it to start reprogramming it from the front. While I held the door open with my foot and grabbed something from the door repair kit, he started playing with the little wispy hairs at the top of my forehead and trying to touch my shoulder. I swatted him away again and asked him not to touch me and focused on getting out of there. He once again tried getting me to follow him into the bedroom, saying the bed was broken, and I went as far as the door frame to see if I could spot any actual problem with his bed.

This is when I realized that he had nothing in his room. No dishes in the kitchen, no shower curtain in the bathroom, no sheets on the bed. Nothing. This wasn't his room. My brain once again went back to the international student theory thinking that he had just arrived today and hadn't gotten a chance to buy anything yet but in the pit of my stomach. I knew something was wrong. I fiddled around with the door for a few more seconds before announcing that it was fixed and quickly gathered the door kit and left. Before I had reached the elevator he came back out without his shoes on to follow me.

He tried to get back in to get his shoes and called out, Ella, the door isn't fixed. You need to come back. I went back and opened the door manually and told him if the door was broken I'd have to send up maintenance to fix it in the morning. I knew he was going to follow me to the elevator again so I closed the door behind me once he went inside and ran down the stairwell as fast as I could. When I got to the front desk I checked the computer and saw that the room he was in was supposed to be empty. It wasn't a student room or a hotel room. I locked myself in our back office and called campus security. He came down a few minutes later and went behind the desk. I yelled at him to get on the other side and wait, now that I knew that he wasn't

a resident. He tore the corner off a slip of paper I had sitting on the desk and drew a flower on it, then put it back on top of my papers. When security arrived, he ran back up to the empty room and tried convincing them he lived there so he wouldn't have to leave. He kept showing them his key, which had decided to work on the door again somehow. They escorted him back downstairs and came to ask me if he really did live there. I mean, obviously he didn't. That's why I called you guys crying and terrified. He kept interjecting to argue that he did live there. He couldn't even recall his room number when asked. Security asked him for his student card and he couldn't produce it so they told him he would have to leave if he couldn't prove that he lived there. While they were grabbing

his information I listened from the office and could immediately tell that he was lying. The phone number he gave was just a bunch of random numbers. The name he gave was prefixed by um as if he was trying to think of a name. When they asked him for his address he just said across the street. One security guard asked if he lived in the apartments across the street and he said yes but couldn't tell them what the building number was. He said his apartment number was 1200 but I moved into that building a few months later and apartment 1200 doesn't exist. When security asked what his purpose was to be sneaking into a room, he just kept up the ums and uhs saying he didn't know. They asked,

were you trying to see a friend? Did you know anybody who lives here? Were you here to hurt somebody? And he kept fidgeting and saying, I don't know, no reason, I'm just here. At one point he tried to tell them that he was my friend, at which point I poked my head out of the office to say that I literally had never seen him before that night. He left. We didn't call the police because he didn't actually do anything, but it was still very insane. Later on, it dawned on me how he figured out that room was vacant. One of the housekeepers had been using it as her personal break room. A few days later, a housekeeper came to the desk and told me that they found the door deadbolted open, the TV on, and a housekeeper inside watching TV. She must have forgotten to close the door when she left for the night and when the creep let himself into the building, he found it.

I never saw him again and to this day I have no clue what he was doing there. I haven't worked there since last winter and overnight shifts still give me the heebie-jeebies. I wanted to tell you guys about my mentally unstable neighbor, who I will be calling Kay to respect her privacy. Because I don't want to call her crazy or anything else that contributes to the stigmatization of severe mental illness, this story isn't going to be exaggerated to be more creepy or anything like that. It's just what happened. We had just moved into our new home, which we had recently built in a town in Texas. It started when my parents began finding small pills strewn about our backyard near the fences, just a few here and there. We googled the number on the pills and find most of them were antidepressants.

But I cannot remember the exact names as this was about a year or so ago, but I think there was at least one pill that Google said was an antipsychotic medication. We were pretty confused but mostly worried about our dog eating them before we could find them. This kept happening over a few weeks and then we found unopened water and Gatorade bottles thrown over our fence. The side of the house this was coming from had a somewhat empty lot next door. We had soon to be neighbors building their new house there. But it wasn't like the construction workers were throwing their trash over our fence. These bottles were unopened and full. For reference, Kay lives a few houses down from mine on the corner. Between our house and hers are two empty lots, the lot closest to us with a new house being built there.

After another week or so of this came the fights, or maybe incidents I should call them. Kay would routinely storm out of her house and go yell at the construction workers. I don't know what about, but apparently about nonsensical things. Sometimes she would yell from her yard. Sometimes she would walk onto the lot to yell. Several times she was seen yelling at no one, just standing in the lot or walking around the construction supplies and arguing to herself. By now, most of the people on our street knew of her and were kind of afraid of her.

Up to this point, I had never seen Kay. I attended university an hour away and was only home on the weekends. One weekend, my parents left me home alone in the middle of the day. I think they were at the gym or the grocery store. I'm an only child too. I had just gotten out of the shower and walked downstairs to hear yelling. I peeked outside the windows to see a middle-aged blonde lady arguing. I couldn't see who she was talking to, but I could hear another male voice. Now I had not met Kay yet, but I also hadn't met my new neighbors, but my parents had. So my first thought was that this was the new couple building next door, my new neighbors.

It seemed like they were arguing about the house. After a few minutes the blonde lady walks away and then a couple came out of the unfinished house and they get into their car parked on the street. I'm really confused at this point especially when the man walks over to my door and rings the doorbell. I'm very introverted so I opted not to answer the door. Kind of stupid I know. My parents weren't home anyways so it wouldn't have made a difference I thought. After a minute he walks back to his car and from the window I can see he is sitting there on the driver's side doing something. He comes back with a note that he leaves on my door and then he and his wife drive away. After I'm sure they're gone,

I get the note and read it. Apparently my neighbors were checking out the house when they saw Kay, the blonde lady, attempting to get into my backyard. They confronted her and that's what the yelling was about. In a rush, I sent a pic of the note to my mom and called my mother, etc. and she didn't seem that worried about it, but I knew that we always left the back door unlocked during the day. If she had gotten through our fence gates, she could have easily walked inside the house while I was home alone. After that, my stepdad got some new locks for the little gate doors at the front of our house. Things continued like this for a while, with Kay trying to get into our backyard,

throwing pills and water bottles over our fence. A couple of times she was rummaging around our front flower beds too. There was one instance which was really unnerving for my parents. We have a small alleyway that runs behind our house, connecting everyone's driveways. Another neighbor, who lives across the alleyway from us, contacted my parents to let them know that they had seen Kay looming around our back fence gate at around 3am that night. Not sure why those neighbors were awake at that time, but they said Kay was just standing there in the middle of the alleyway, staring at our back fence. Knowing we had someone essentially casing our house in the middle of the night Was really starting to freak us out The guy who built our house, who I called Jay

Somehow got in contact with someone who knew Kay's family pretty well Everyone was wanting answers to why Kay was acting like this And since Jay had built most of the houses in the area and was well connected People were asking him I think he was friends with the realtor who sold the house to Kay, but I'm not sure. Anyway, Jay was able to give us a lot of information about Kay. Apparently her family was rich and owned a very big corporation, like one of the biggest in the United States. I don't want to name it, again, for her own privacy.

And her family had essentially placed her in this house away from the rest of them. They didn't want to deal with her mental illness. But more importantly, two years ago her only son died of a drug overdose and she'd been unstable ever since. The reason why she wants to get into our backyard and keeps throwing stuff over the fence is because she believes her son is in there. Not sure if she thinks we're holding him hostage or his ghost is here or what, but that's why. She's been to several psychiatric hospitals throughout her life, and now she's stopped taking her medication because she's throwing it over our fence.

Things finally came to a head in January of 2020 when, during one of her usual arguments with the construction workers, she pulls out a BB gun She's already very aggressive, so the BB gun just made things 100 times worse I don't know if she just threatened to shoot them or actually did, but the cops were called regardless It took them a while to talk her down, with several police officers swarming the street with actual guns. I'm thankful that my parents have been filing police reports, so when they showed up, they knew about Kay's history of mental illness. I am both grateful and a little surprised that they handled the situation so well, because not a lot of police departments properly train their officers to deal with mentally ill patients,

especially ones experiencing psychosis like this. So anyway, after that incident, Kay was not seen for a long time. We hear she was in a psychiatric hospital for many months, after which she returned to our neighborhood. She's doing much better now. She no longer does any of the strange behaviors that she used to. Almost every day me and my parents see her walking her dog past her house. She's clearly sticking to her routine and I'm happy for her. I live in a small rural community in the eastern United States. It's a nice little town, and because of my work in the medical field, I've met some

interesting folks. I'm also familiar with law enforcement and emergency personnel. Small town life is not as dull and uneventful as people think, especially since everybody knows somebody who knows somebody. I have a lot of stories to share, but since this one just happened, I'll start here. Because it's still very recent and the investigation is ongoing, I have to be vague with some details, but I needed to tell someone. I'm single and live alone. Due to a stalker I've moved twice but that's another story for another time. However, it is relevant for this story for multiple reasons. The first reason being that I

have a dog for the sake of protection as well as have motion sensors and outdoor security cameras. The second reason being the location of my home which is literally down the street from the fire department. I can see it from my living room window right now, and a couple of blocks from the police station. However, next to the fire department is the road department which is basically a parking lot where they park their road equipment and empty garage trucks at night and on weekends. Oddly, it doesn't have a security camera. Small town life, I suppose.

My house sits on a hill with a good view of that side of the street. Due to the incline, the large trees in the front yard, and the half cornfield in the property next to me, most people in the street below wouldn't notice me in the backyard unless they were actively looking. However, I can see the street clearly. This incident happened Saturday evening. The county was holding its annual Independence Day spiel with a community barbecue, music, fireworks, etc. I didn't attend because it's just not my thing. Plus, I have a dog and the sound of fireworks could be traumatizing, as I'm sure many of you know. Before the big show, I took the dog out to relieve herself in the backyard.

There was still at least an hour of daylight, but the entire neighborhood was pretty quiet because most everyone was at the fairgrounds or various other holiday events. So when an unfamiliar large white pickup drove slowly down the street, I noticed. It must have turned around at the end of the street because I saw it again, moving in the opposite direction only about 20 seconds later. This time it turned into the parking lot of the road department. Now, people have been known to toss things into the empty garage trucks, usually at night to avoid getting caught because they don't want to or they're unable to make the trip to the landfill themselves. Usually it's things like furniture or broken equipment but I didn't see any of those things in the back of this truck.

The driver was a somewhat stocky guy of average height. He took three large black trash bags from the bed of his truck and tossed them one by one into the hopper of the garbage truck. Then he left. Now, I swear I'm not one of those meddling rear window types who always thinks activity is suspicious and that their neighbors are up to no good. But something about this didn't sit right with me. Normally, when I see people tossing their garbage into the trucks and leaving I don't bother reporting it because it's relatively harmless But this time, I had a gut feeling So I called the police

If anything, they could get the guy for illegally dumping trash from a barbecue or whatever While I'm on the phone with dispatch I put my dog inside to cut down on distractions while the officers investigate. A few minutes later an officer arrived and I crossed the street to meet him, gave him a description of the events and pointed out which of the trucks the man had tossed the bags. He found the bags, took photos, he put on gloves and told me to stay back. The bags were tied in a knot at the top and it took him a minute to untie one because of the gloves and how tight the knot was, but eventually he got it open, looked inside for a few seconds, then twisted it closed and took a few steps back.

Dear God, he hissed under his breath. What? It's a body. I felt sick. I could tell he felt sick too. I saw him grow pale. His hand was trembling when he held the radio. Even his voice was shaking as he gave the code to dispatch. The dispatcher sounded confused when she asked him to repeat it. Within ten minutes, the county sheriff was on the scene. Even he looked sick at the contents of the bag. The coroner arrived about ten minutes after that and the first officer walked me back to the house along with another one who arrived at the same time as the coroner. Though I showed the first cop via the app on my phone when I described the events initially, I now showed them the video on a larger screen.

The camera caught footage of the truck as it drove by both times, as well as pulling into the parking lot, though unfortunately not a clear view of the license plate or the man tossing the bags out of frame. We watched the footage over and over, pausing frames, the officers taking notes. Ultimately they requested this footage as well as a copy of the files from the past week to see if the truck had been in the area before. I've also been saving footage until the road department installs their own camera this week. Because this is still fresh, I don't know many more details. I know the body was in pieces, as they said, but I don't know the age of the victim, the gender, cause of death, any of that. Information has been released to the

public yet. I don't know if the coroner has ever been able to identify the body yet. A police cruiser has been parked at the fire department next door for constant surveillance in case the guy comes back. The guy who dumped the body was likely a local. How else would he know that he could dump there? He probably thought it'd get buried in other people's illegal trash accumulated over the holiday weekend and the sanitation crew wouldn't have bothered to investigate. When I think about how this guy lives in my community, it makes me physically ill. To think that he had clearly scouted the area for a dump site, that it may not have been the first time this had happened, that this could happen again. If I hadn't called it in, if I hadn't been in the backyard at the exact moment,

or if I had ignored that gut feeling, the victim would have never been found, may never find potential justice, their loved ones may never have closure. In fact, there's a possibility that it might just happen again to another poor soul, and I just hope that it's not me. When I was 19, I was looking for a room to rent in the city I was moving to for college. It was about an hour away from my family. I wasn't having much luck and my mom started helping me to look for a place. She found an ad on Craigslist for a room for $300 and a house, everything included. The homeowner was a man and he rented the additional rooms upstairs to other women while he lived in the finished basement. The ad stated he rarely ever saw the other roommates because he had a

kitchen and his own entrance downstairs and that he preferred women because he had issues with male roommates in the past partying and causing damage. We decided to take a look since it was the cheapest that we could find in the area. My mom and I went to the house to view it. Decent house, decent neighborhood. He opened the door and was very welcoming. He was middle aged and the kitchen and living room were furnished nicely and clean. My mom loves to talk and to get to know people so they were engaged in conversation while I stood there quietly and observed the place. He then said that he would show me my room. We head towards the staircase to go up, as I thought since he said on the phone my room was upstairs with the other roommates, but he opens another door and we follow. He takes us down to the basement and

opens the door to a very small room, no closet and no windows. He proceeds to say this is my room and I will be sharing the bathroom in the hallway with him and his bedroom did not have a door on it. I was definitely thinking absolutely not, this is weird but they were so deep in conversation that I couldn't interject. He then leads us to the upstairs and shows us the other rooms which the doors were open and said that they were currently rented. He then starts telling us elaborate stories about the other women. Not very nice stories, describing their drinking problems. My mom was listening intently but I took the time to investigate further. I looked in all three rooms and all the bathrooms. There was furniture but not a single item in there looked like it

belonged to a woman. No clothes or anything, only men's clothes in one of the closets. He had no problem with me creeping around his tenant's room without their permission. I then heard him tell my mom that he has some other stuff in their closets but they don't mind and I'm just like, why would a tenant pay you for you to use their space as storage? I was feeling really uncomfortable and kind of guided them back downstairs as they talked. My mom had mentioned when we arrived that her and my dad were going on vacation the next week but I couldn't go because I had to work. He brought it up again and said that I should come by next week and have dinner with him

and the roomies to see if we would all get along. I said sure and we left. As soon as we got in the car I told my mom that I would definitely not be living there and she was dumbfounded. I had to explain to her not only did he lie about the room I would be in but I was not supposed to be in the basement with him as well as share a bathroom with him and he didn't even have a door but also did she not even notice how no one else even lived there? She still didn't get it and thought that I was just being paranoid and thought he was nice and it was a cheap deal. I had to explain it to my stepdad and get him to tell her by no means would I be living there. I tried to report the post but by the time we got home that day he removed it. I don't know what he had planned on doing to me at

dinner, possibly abducting me and holding me hostage in that basement room that had no way to escape. I just hope that guy hits a tree with his car one day. Now as an update, some details have been coming back to me since I've been answering all your questions. This happened in 2011 so it's been quite a while. When he took us upstairs there was a wide landing that was surrounded by rooms. As soon as we go up there, he motions towards one of the rooms and started this long intricate story about the woman who lived in there and talking about her alcoholism and a crazy ex. He was very exaggerated in how he talked with a lot of gestures.

My mom stood there listening to him. I don't know if it was sheer distraction or if she didn't want to be rude not listening but either way I don't recall her ever having a good look around those rooms. I went and looked. All the doors were open, had neatly made beds with dark wood bed frames, bureaus with mirrors and nightstands. There were sliding mirror closets and they were empty except for one had men's clothing hanging pushed against one corner. Nothing was on the nightstands other than a lamp and nothing on the bureaus. I went into the bathrooms and there was nothing on the vanity in them other than hand soap. I looked in the showers too but nothing

other than bar soap. The bedroom on the left had an empty suitcase laying open on the middle of the bed. This was one of the rooms with the empty closet. After seeing all this I came back onto the landing and started slowly heading down the stairs. They were still talking and absentmindedly followed me down to the living room, and that's when he mentioned dinner and we left shortly after. I think that's why my mom didn't notice a lot and didn't believe me at first. She didn't take more than a quick glance upstairs, and when we were in the basement, he was just as talkative. Now a commenter here who works with law enforcement pointed out that this was probably a trafficking situation. The bedroom in the basement is where

a victim is kept, drugged and abused until broken and then trafficked. I honestly think this was more plausible with the situation as well as my city is actually a hotspot for that. I'm so grateful we got out of there and I hope my experience could help someone one day notice the details and get out of the situation safely. Stay safe and blessed people. To be continued... in the summer, my mom decided it would be nice if I could get a head start on my necessary volunteering hours for high school. I've never volunteered before and was quite anxious as I thought I would have to run a stand or do an activity that required some sort of social interaction. I'm normally quite shy and being in unfamiliar environments with complete strangers puts me even more on edge. My mom thought it would be a good experience to

get me out of my comfort zone, but I couldn't bear to think about all the ways I would mess up interacting with people. After browsing the web, we found a local rodeo fair for me to volunteer at. I thought I would be hanging out with cute animals for the day, but boy how I was wrong. When we arrived, we were told that the event they needed volunteers for was cancelled the day before and they forgot to email my mom about it. The nice woman at the counter felt bad that we came all the way out for nothing so she offered that I could still help out around the fairgrounds for a few hours. My mother thought it would be great that I could still work and said that she would pick me up later.

My shift was going to be around three hours and the task I was assigned was sweeping the floors of an old storage house in the back. It was not ideal, but to me it was much better than running a kiosk or something. The supervisor just gave me a broom and left me alone in the storage house to clean. About an hour and a half into sweeping, a man came in from the back entrance. I assumed he was a staff member getting supplies, so I just put my head down and quietly swept. As he walked past me, he asked who I was. Oh, I'm just helping out. Karen told me to clean up this place. He looked at me for a couple of seconds before responding with,

and walking out the front door. He didn't get anything, which I thought was strange, but I thought maybe he was just checking on something. Minutes later, he walked back into the room with his own broom and dustpan in hand and started cleaning as well. My social anxiety kicked in as he began to make small talk with me. He asked me for my name and age and things like that. I lied when I said I was 15 but I don't think he believed me as I am much shorter for girls my age. His questions started to get increasingly more personal, asking things like if I had a boyfriend or liked anyone. Feeling uncomfortable, I dodged the questions with nervous laughter,

saying no and slowly started sweeping towards the exit. He followed me, trying to make it look discreet. As he got closer, I could tell he was way taller than I thought initially, definitely over six foot, and looked to be in his mid-forties, going bald, but he had a very robust frame. He swiftly approached me and touched my hair, saying, I love the blonde ones. Before I could sprint for the exit, he scooped me up under his arms and covered my mouth. I kicked and screamed, but it didn't seem to face him. I was barely 95 pounds at the time as he easily carried me through the back entrance to the lot behind. Out of pure luck, that day or some kind of angel over my shoulder there happened to be a couple of staff members who were near the back that heard

my screaming. They saw the man carrying me to his truck and rushed towards us, running and shouting at him to let me go. The man dropped me to the floor and rushed towards us, running and shouting at him to let me go. The man dropped me to the floor and drove away quickly before they could get his license plate. I was left on the ground in complete shock and shivering as tears were bawling out. The police were called and it became a huge scene. The fair had to close early and my parents were notified of what happened. My mom was furious that they had neglected me and left me alone without any supervision Apparently the man was not part of the staff He was just another stranger who was lurking around the fair until He somehow caught a glimpse of me inside the storehouse

I gave the police a description of the man in his vehicle But horrifyingly enough they never caught him. It bothers me to this day that he's still out there, doing God knows what. I hope he never found another person to take, as I'm sure he would not let them get away again. To be continued... This was back in 2002. Just for clarification, I am a female and I was 20. Just about to be 21 and was working full time and was at the end of my schooling for the pharmacy technician program. Before you can graduate from the program you need to complete what they call an externship. This is where you basically have on the job training in the field you need to complete what they call an externship. This is where you

basically have on-the-job training in the field you are going to school for. The school was called Eaton Technical Institute and they offered programs like medical billing, medical assistant, dental assistant, and pharmacy technician. As I was saying at the end you have to complete on-the-job training. So I was basically working two full-time jobs at this time. Due to that, I tried to have a life and socialize any way I could. So this sometimes involved going out late at night and driving around. I was living with my friend April and her boyfriend. She introduced me to this guy Brian and let me tell you, I was crushing hard on this dude. He had the hair, he played guitar, and he sang. I was swooning.

He didn't have a driver's license or a car or any training, so of course being a smitten idiot, I would let him drive. What would end up happening is that I would pick him up and then we would go driving anywhere and everywhere. This is possible because gas was like 89 cents a gallon. Nope, not lying, it was really that cheap, but that was like 20 years ago. Long time. We ended up going out and driving around so much that we developed a game called This Way That Way Shibby. Basically, whenever we came to an intersection to decide which way to go, we would say this way to go left, that way to go right, and Shibby was straight. Yes, we did get lost a couple of times and this was back in the stone age before we had cell phones with GPS. My phone was your basic phone with green screen with black

text. So, after playing our game of this way that way Shibby, we ended up at the end of Meridian here in Puyallup, Washington. Once you get to the end of this, you can either go left or right. If you were to go left, you're at the entrance for Mount Rainier National Park. If you go right, you were just heading down a long, dark and straight road through some super tall trees. Basically, we could only go right. After going down this road for a little while we decided to pull over and look at the stars. You can't get this kind of darkness in the city. The stars were drowned out by the artificial light. The sky was amazing out here.

So we pull over and my cousin is with us as well and I lie on the hood of the car and I'm loving the sky and taking it in. When Brian all of a sudden yells, Oh my god, get in the car, now, hurry, hurry. Now, Jess and I practically pee our pants and break a leg trying to get in the car as fast as we can, speed off once we're in, and we're just laughing, saying that was amazing, you guys should have seen your faces. Oh, F you, dude, that was messed up, I tell him.

He just says, yeah you know it was funny. It really wasn't. We're continuing down this road for a little while, and then it starts to curve to the left, and we see a streetlight. Now this road had zero streetlights until now, and literally no house. And under this streetlight there is an old school station wagon just chilling under it, just sitting there illuminated by the streetlight as if to say hey, come and look at me, which my cousin in one of her brightest moments suggests we turn around here since we're looking for somewhere to turn around anyway so she can check out the station wagon. Because we got closer we noticed that

there was a tarp hung all around the inside of the car. In the process of turning around we actually end up somewhat behind it as we pull up alongside it. We see that there is a bullet hole in the very back window. Upon noticing this my cousin has another brilliant idea and actually wants to get out and look at the car and see if there was a body or something in it. I am totally against this and say, let's just go, but she is stubborn and wants to see. So we park next to it and she gets out, tiptoeing up to the deathmobile and notices something red on the tarp inside. I'm in the car saying, come on Jess, let's just go. She tells me, just one sec, I want to see. And Brian again, Jess, come on, get in the car now.

And we're screaming at her at this point. She finally gets in and he takes off so fast that her feet literally are dragging outside the car. I'm like, dude, are you serious again? And he tells us that he is serious this time and that he actually saw the tarp move. And he swore he saw a face peek out and look at us. I really don't doubt that there was someone in there. It was so weird, so surreal. I wish I had a camera because this tarp was all around the inside of the car and then the bullet hole and the red substance. It was just adding up all to a freaky finale. I wish that we could have gone back to see if it was still there or to see in the daytime, but we didn't. I think that this was actually one of the last times we went out driving like that, to be honest. In 1999, I was seven years old, playing in the woods with my friend Charlotte.

We were standing at each end of a big log in the woods when I noticed movement in my peripherals. I tried focusing on my periphery to catch a detailed look. I see similar movement often when we're in the woods and it always disappears or more like scatters before I turn to look. My heart skipped a beat when I could make out a group of little people looking at me as well. I was frozen in the pose I was playing in and after a few seconds I realized Charlotte had stopped narrating out our play and was frozen in place as well, staring at me but focusing on them. I'm pretty sure they were dressed because it didn't look like they were all naked. I could tell they knew that we were aware of them and they disappeared as Charlotte moved her eyes.

We didn't talk about it until we were in her house. We weren't afraid, just confused on our walk home. We wrote out what we saw before talking about it to see if we saw the same thing. Unfortunately, both of our descriptions were so vague, but clothed less than a foot for sure. One thing we were positive of was to mind our business and to not go searching, which is what our instincts would have usually been. We thought we found a colony of little people in the woods, but the fact that our reaction was to quietly leave and not even talk about it until behind closed doors, and still not even talk about it out loud but write it, I don't remember being too frightened. In fact, we kind of just accepted it

and moved on with a new taste of what this world and universe is capable of. I watched The Indian in the Cupboard later in life, which reminded me of those little people, but I no longer saw them by then. Charlotte and I would talk about seeing things out of the corner of our eyes, but could never figure out what it was. Although Charlotte was different, her and her dad were huge hippies, tires swinging the kitchen, no TV, and her imagination was so wildly magnificent that it made my mind radiate. I always thought that maybe her narration of our play was so powerful and energetic that we could manifest and see the same thing. Little people were never playing any parts in either of our imaginations. In fact, when we both confirmed what each other saw,

we were kind of in awe that we'd never even dreamt of tiny people in this universe. This is the story of my mom and how she died. This may differ as it was only scary to me because I didn't know what happened. If you're a parent reading this and have any thoughts of taking your own life, seek professional help because my mom's death has messed me up for the rest of my life. For some context, my mom had been dealing with drug addiction for well over a decade at this point. Her and my dad had me in 2004 but shortly divorced about two years afterwards, so it was just us and the occasional boyfriend. I had a tendency to wander off and explore the neighborhood when she was passed out drunk, which ended up getting me grounded. Eventually it got so bad that she

eventually gave my grandma, her mom, joint custody of me. I was six years old at the time. It was January 7th, 2012 that things all took a turn for the worst. I had gone to visit her for that weekend. We were late because my grandma was finishing up work. The first red flag that something bad had happened was that her boyfriend answered the door. She was always the person to answer the door. He told us that she was napping and would soon be up. It was 3pm. 5pm rolled around and I ended up making the biggest mistake of my life.

I went into her room and there I saw her body. The gun was on her chest. I stupidly didn't question it because I didn't know what death was I left the room and continued waiting in the living room 6.45 rolled around and her boyfriend checked on her The next thing I saw was him bolting out of the room and running outside The police showed up 15 minutes later and so did my family I was questioned by the detective about how I saw her. I was taken out of the house to my family who were all crying.

I was told that she was dead. It set in that something bad had happened not long after and I ended up going into shock. I started living with my grandma full time. I saw therapy and just kind of accepted that she was dead. To tell a 7 year old that they would never see their mom again is probably the hardest thing you could do. So please, if you have children and are struggling mentally, think of how it could affect them because I'm now a stoner and can't have a stable romantic relationship because my mental state was destroyed so badly from this. You aren't alone. There will always be people who will listen to you. To be continued... when the sketchy looking male with the hoodie and jeans on started eyeing me down. Now as a 13 year old I didn't quite understand how it worked with respecting where your eyes are supposed to be but if someone stared me down I stared right back at them and this time it came

back to bite me. We stared at each other for probably a solid 10 seconds which felt like 10 minutes in my mind and when he still hadn't broken eye contact he said what you're looking at son keep your eyes off me I don't like when you look at me like that now me being the most ignorant naive polite 13 year old ever apologized for staring at him and he was still so mad that I chose to stare him down in the first place that he went on to proclaim to everyone around us that if I didn't stop looking at him, which I had already agreed to do, he was going to take a gun out and shoot me because he was armed. Now when everyone else heard this, they immediately started moving away from us and we knew we couldn't do anything and I genuinely thought that I had just

screwed myself by looking at some random dude on the street. In an incredible twist of fate, there happened to be a cop passing by on the other side of the road at the same instance. So my mom jumped into the road, there were no cars coming luckily, signaled to the cop and then he came over and searched the man and it turns out that he was just talking a big game and he was never actually armed. I always look back on that day and use it as a reminder to never mess with someone that I am not legitimately prepared to mess with in every single way if it comes to that. If life had taken one different turn, I could easily be dead right now.

My innocence and ignorance would be to blame. Hey friends, thanks for listening. To be continued... 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. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. you