The Lets Read Podcast - 164: THEY STALKED MY HOME FOR DAYS | 28 True Scary Stories | EP 152

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about South Korea, Oklahoma, and Home Invaders... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 On June 12th, 1977, approximately 130 young Girl Scouts from all over the Tulsa area gathered at the Girl Scouts headquarters in Tulsa. The group boarded buses destined for an annual week-long trip to Camp Scott. The camp is located near the Oklahoma town of Locust Grove, about 50 miles from Tulsa. The Girl Scouts had operated Camp Scott since 1928.

The camp sat on 410 thick wooded acres. The Scouts were separated into small groups by age, then each assigned their own areas across the camp. Each of these areas were named after Native American tribes. Tent number 7 in the Kiowak camp was located at the end of the Horseshoe Figuration, furthest from the counselor's tent but closest to the bathrooms. Because of the thick woods, seeing the tents next to you was very difficult. Staying in tent 7 was 10-year-old Doris Denise Milner, a native of Tulsa. This visit would be her first to Camp Scott. Denise had shown a reluctance to going on the trip, so first-time counselor, 15-year-old Michelle Hoffman, took her under her wing, doing all she could to ease Denise's fears. Upon reaching the camp around 4pm,

Denise met her tentmates, Lori Farmer, age 8, and Michelle Goose, age 9. The girls seemed to hit it off right away. In total, there were 27 girls in the Kiowa area. After a talk about the rules and a sing-along that evening, the campers headed off to their tents. The counselor, Michelle, checked iners headed off to their tents. The counselor, Michelle, checked in on Denise before she turned in. All seemed well with the inhabitants of tent

7. One final check was made by another counselor around 10.30. Throughout that night, a different counselor was awakened multiple times to deal with noisy girls in tent 1 and 4. Set counselors passed tents 6 and 7 and observed nothing unusual about either one. By 8 a.m. on Monday, June 13th, news would be breaking all over the Tulsa area of the murders of three Girl Scouts at Camp Scott. As the story unfolded, more details would be released. Apparently three girls had been violated and beaten to death.

Parents began flooding the Girl Scout headquarters, demanding to know what had happened. The entire nightmare had its source in what a counselor would discover around 6am. She had been on her way to the bathhouse when she found a little girl lying on top of her sleeping bag near the base of a tent. Fearing there had been an accident, she assembled the other counselors to do a head count. After a search of tent 7, a large amount of blood was discovered, but the girls assigned to it were gone, along with their sleeping bags. The main counselor drove to the camp director's office to get her and the camp nurse. When they returned, the trail to the bathhouse was

walked again. Two other girls were discovered in their sleeping bags. They, along with a girl from earlier, were all dead. All three victims were from tent 7. They had been found just 150 feet from their tent. Lori and Michelle were the ones found lying side by side in their sleeping bags. Denise was found lying on top of hers, her hands been bound behind her back with duct tape. It was almost 7.30 before law enforcement arrived. The bodies were transferred to the county coroner. Autopsies determined Lori and Michelle had been beaten to death, while Denise, although she too had been beaten, died due to ligature strangulation.

The time of death was between 2am and 5am. Reports still conflicted as to if the girls had actually been the victims of indecent assault or not. Denise and Michelle had cords tied around their bodies in what looked to be double half-hitched knots. The cords were wrapped around their bodies and tied to their wrists. At the time, crime scene investigators determined the attack originated inside the girls' tent. Their assailant, or assailants, were thought to have entered through the back, striking Lori and Michelle on their heads. On June 14th, the floor of tent 7 was flown to the crime lab, and technicians discovered there was blood all over the floor that looked to have been wiped

up using towels and mattress covers. Two different prints were found in the blood and outside the tent, further strengthening the belief that there were multiple attackers involved. In addition to the shoe prints, a flashlight, duct tape, and a piece of cord were entered as possible evidence. While the investigators did their work, other law enforcement joined with volunteers and brought in tracking dogs from Pennsylvania. For nine days, the search continued, turning up next to nothing, and the investigation dragged on. On day 10, this would all change. Mays County District Attorney Sid Wise held a press conference in which he named a suspect in the homicides, Jean Leroy Hart. A 33-year-old native of Locust Grove had escaped from the Mays County jail

four years prior and was still on the loose. Hart had been convicted of kidnapping and assaulting two pregnant women and four counts of first-degree burglary. He still had 305 years left on his 309-year sentence. Evidence from the search seemed to show Hart had been staying in a cave just three miles from Camp Scott. Regardless of his violent history, Hart had many supporters. Many of them felt he was being targeted since he was a Native American and had embarrassed the sheriff by escaping his jail not once, but twice. Hart would eventually be apprehended ten months later on April 6th, 1978. Acting on a tip, officers found him hiding out in a shack owned by Sam Pigeon, a Native American medicine man.

His trial would begin in March of 1979 in the Mays County Courthouse in Pryor, Oklahoma. The Mays County DA Sid Wise had withdrawn from the case after receiving some heat or shopping around for a book about the Girl Scout murders. The state's case was not a strong one. It relied only on hair and fluid samples found on the bodies. The state's theory was that Hart had entered the back of tent 7, striking both Lori and Michelle about their heads, then bound and gagged Denise and took her from the tent to where he strangled her.

Then he removed the other two victims from the tent to where they were ultimately found. Despite this theory, the state was forced to admit that they had no real proof connecting Hart to the scene. The defense, however, insisted that Jean Leroy Hart was a scapegoat, even insinuating the evidence found in the cave was planted. They had another man they claimed was the killer. William A. Stevens had been convicted of violently assaulting women and was serving time in a Kansas prison at the time of Hart's trial. Two witnesses testified at Hart's trial that Stevens had shown up at their door the day of the murders. He had scratches all over his arms and what looked like blood on his shoes.

They also said the red flashlight found at the scene was Stevens. Stevens denied their story, claiming he was at work in Seminole, Oklahoma at the time of the murders. His story was backed up by his employer's paycheck and time card. Hart's trial lasted only 10 days without him taking the stand. Six and a half hours after the case was handed to the jury, they had a verdict. Not guilty. One of the jurors would later state that within five minutes of entering the deliberation room, all 12 had voted not guilty. They felt there was just too many loose ends and that the prosecution hadn't proven its case. Denise, Michelle, and Lori's families were devastated by the verdict. Hart, however, would not be a free man,

as he still had to serve 300 years from his previous sentencing. Two years after his acquittal, Hart was dead. He'd had a heart attack while lifting weights in the yard. His funeral would be held in Locust Grove with over a thousand mourners in attendance. Still looking for someone in which to give the blame, in 1984 the Milner and Farmer families filed a civil suit against the Magic Empire Council of Girl Scouts organization. They claimed negligence because the camp lacked proper security among other factors. At the trial there was testimony from former campers and counselors as to some strange occurrences that happened prior to June 12th, 1977.

Prior to the murders, counselors were at Camp Scott for training. One of them reported her belongings had been gone through. Donuts she had in a box had been stolen out of her tent. The donut box contained a note that said, We plan on killing three little girls. The counselor took the note to the camp director who thought it was a prank. Another counselor in training reported hearing noises behind the staff housing unit. The camp dog, Sally, started barking and growling. Unfortunately for the families,

the jury voted 9-3 in favor of the organization and the verdict was upheld two years later by the state appeals court. In 1989, DNA testing was conducted on some of the evidence. Of the five aspects tested, three of them matched body fluids taken from Jean Leroy Hart. Only one in 7,700 Native Americans would match. These results deemed the matches inconclusive. In 2017, fundraising efforts were underway for more conclusive DNA testing. Over $30,000 had been raised so far. Carl Myers, a convicted murderer, is another suspect who had been looked at. A former prisoner came forward to say Carl had confessed.

Myers died in 2013 of natural causes. He was in prison after being convicted of murdering Cindy Marzano of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The farmers organized the Oklahoma chapter of parents of murdered children. Richard Goose focused on victims' rights advocacy in the 1980s. He helped to push the passing of the Crime Victim Witness Bill of Rights. He was later appointed to the Crime Victim Compensation Board by Oklahoma's then governor. The Girl Scout Murders is still an open case. To be continued... Mildred Ann Newland Reynolds was still a relative newlywed on March 13th, 1956. Her and Richard D. Reynolds, a schoolteacher and basketball coach, had just married the year before and purchased a farmhouse on a rural road near Avard, Oklahoma, a mile southwest of Alva. Mildred was a senior at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva,

Oklahoma, majoring in chemistry. At the time, the Reynolds were hosting Mildred Ann's nephew, Jerry Huckabee. He too was attending NWOSU. Ann and Jerry would ride back and forth to school together except for Tuesdays when he had a botany lab. March the 13th just happened to be a Tuesday. After eating lunch with Jerry until about 12.30 p.m., picking up dry cleaning and purchasing brake fluid, Anne started for home. When she was just two miles from Hopeton, Oklahoma, for some unexplainable reason, she veered into the wrong lane and stopped. According to Highway Patrolman G.R. Brown's report, her car tracks appeared to show that she put her car into reverse and began zigzagging backwards. After eventually stopping, she put the car in drive and raced across the road into a ditch, hitting a tree. It looked as if she repeated this maneuver, this time hitting a fence. Putting the car in reverse yet again, she started backing along the bank of the road in a straight line for 250 feet before finally stopping in the middle.

This is the point where it was believed the car caught fire. From there, the car drifted forward 14 feet where it rested until found. A bit after 1pm, a local farmer, Leroy Lancaster, noticed some smoke but didn't investigate because several folks in the area had been burning thistles. At 1.45, Loren Goucher, another area farmer, was driving down the road with his family when he noticed the burning vehicle, a Chevy Tudor sedan. Goucher approached the car but realized the occupant was beyond help. He returned to his car and rushed into Hopeton to call Sheriff Ed Doctor. As authorities began working the scene, they quickly noticed how odd it was.

First of all, Ann was found laying across the front seat on her back with her head in the passenger seat, while her feet were positioned near the steering wheel. Stranger still, her arms were crossed over her chest like she had been placed there. One of Anne's shoes was found partially burned at the front of the left rear fender of the car and the other near the fence. The shoes were bloody, but since her blood had been completely consumed in the fire, it was impossible to make a comparison. Deputy Vernon Hackney located four scorched buttons 56 feet from the site where the fire initially began. Anne's coat was found 90% burned on the left side of the car. Two metal bases from 12-gauge shotgun shells were found inside the car.

However, it was difficult to say for sure if they had been fired or not. What the police had first thought was a solid lead quickly faded away when three 9mm casings found near the tire tracks turned out to be unrelated to the case. After the collecting of the evidence was over, it came time to move the body. Anne had been burned so badly that she had been rendered unrecognizable. The case report indicated the left tibia was the only long bone still attached to her body, and one of her legs had burned off at the knee. Deputy Sheriff Das Gurley took casts of the tire tracks,

but the OSBI identified all of them to be from Ann's car. Investigators did not believe another car had crossed her tire tracks. However, Kenny Cole, former ALVA chief of police, disagreed. According to the case notes, no footprints were found leading to the fields or to the side of the road. Since authorities never closed off the scene, it does seem strange that no other tracks or footprints were ever discovered. Cole still regrets not stepping in and suggesting that a cordon be set up. People were walking all over the roads, fields, and pastures just trying to be helpful in finding evidence, Cole said.

If there was any physical evidence out there, it got destroyed. The Newland family posted a reward for $250 for information about Anne's death. The sheriff received plenty of tips, but none proved to pan out. At a dead end, they looked to the medical examiner for clues. He noticed carbonized material on the air passages of the lungs, indicating she was alive for at least part of the fire. There were no signs of assault, but the body was so damaged it would have been hard to actually determine. The official cause of death was the fire, but why didn't she get out to avoid the flames? The only conclusion was that she had been incapacitated, but no one could say why. The coroner added that he saw no evidence of bullet wounds or fractures produced prior to the fire.

Skull fractures were present, but he believed them to be a result of the intense heat. After the radiologist examined the x-rays of Anne's skull, he concluded one fracture at the back of the skull was caused antemortem. He said the fracture could have been accidental or foul play. Detectives then turned to the car to learn more about the nature of Anne's death. No major problems were discovered with the car. The fire was thought to have started at the back, near the left rear wheel. The cause was never ascertained, however. Because the windshield had melted, the fire was

thought to have reached at least 1,700 degrees. A fire of this magnitude would have required an accelerant. Investigators attempted to replicate the conditions. After setting a gasoline fire which only peaked at 1,400 degrees, they tried a quart of break fluid which Anne had bought prior to leaving town. Within two minutes, an explosion occurred and the temperature reached 1725 degrees Fahrenheit, leaving no doubt what made the heat so intense. It was still impossible to determine if the fire had been started with the fluid or caught fire after the inferno began. After the initial findings were in, a coroner's jury of six was assembled to judge whether Anne's death should be investigated further as a murder or if it was just a tragic accident. It was decided more investigation would be required to determine the

cause, but they did lean heavily in favor of homicide. The investigators did just that and began to focus on suspects. Jerry and Dee, Ann's husband, both had solid alibis. Also questioned were 300 NWSU students who were not in class at the time of the fire. In interviews conducted, some of the questions suggested Ann had been meeting a Bue the day she died. No one questioned ever suggested that was a possibility. In fact, many said the opposite. Of her past boyfriends, none ever alluded to her as being fast. Everyone who knew the couple said they appeared to be completely in love. Strangely, the OSBI later changed their classification of the case to an accident.

They stated the reason for the actions of the car was that Anne had suffered a vertigo attack. Although she'd never been diagnosed with the condition, she had complained of similar symptoms to her doctor. He claimed he hadn't noticed any red flags while examining her in the past, but admitted he could have missed something. He said the roaring in her head could have been caused by an inner ear infection impairing her equilibrium. There is a problem with that assessment. Vertigo basically causes extreme dizziness, and it can feel like the earth is moving,

but it doesn't affect mental faculties. Unfortunately, the case is still considered unsolved. Despite his alibi, whispers about Dee having some involvement in his wife's death persisted. He would eventually move away and start a family. No matter what everyone else thought, the Newland family never believed Dee could hurt Anne. They showed their support by maintaining a close relationship with him. Dee would even help Anne's father harvest his wheat every summer. Family members alive today do all they can to keep Ann's memory alive. A few have even pursued

the case themselves, sadly with no further results. In a case so fraught with questions and dead ends, one more strange thing would occur on April 29th, 1986. A Lawton, Oklahoma mother was found burned to death in a crashed car on a lonely stretch of back road. This death too was filled to the brim with weird occurrences and clues, perhaps even more than the Ann Reynolds case. More than a few people have noticed eerie similarities between both women's deaths. To date, both cases remain open and authorities see no hope in them being solved without the public's help. If you do have information regarding either case, please don't refrain from contacting law enforcement. I'm sure their loved ones would appreciate it. This took place sometime around the end of 2004.

I was home alone with nothing to do. Our school was closed for a teacher's in-service. I was 14 so my parents didn't mind leaving me alone. That morning I'd slept till about 9 and had breakfast, something I rarely did. I did what little homework I had and watched TV until 2pm. Tired of soap operas, I began walking the house. My mom called to check on me at about 2.15 and we spoke for around 10 minutes. After that, I returned to my search.

I briefly considered raiding my folks' liquor cabinet, but getting drunk alone didn't sound very fun. As I rambled around the second floor, the door to the attic caught my attention. I'd been up there once or twice, but never paid much attention. Our house was one of those big Victorian-age farmhouses, the kind with a full-size attic. Before I was born, my grandmother had used it as her sewing room, but now it was just used for storage. My curiosity began getting the best of me, so I flipped on the light and climbed the stairs to the top. The room had a musty smell and was creepily dark, even with the overhead light and sun coming through the lace curtains. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.

I walked over to my gran's sewing desk and flipped through some of the papers sitting on it. Nothing interesting, just some tax records from the early 80s. I moved across the room and noticed a big wooden chest. It appeared to be very old. I was hoping some of my gran's dresses were inside. I'd seen photos of her when she was young and loved how she dressed. My mom mentioned that some of her clothes were still around somewhere, and I was hoping that I could try them on.

The hinge thing that held it closed was a bit stiff, but I eventually worked it free. Inside was a folded piece of cloth along with a big stack of books and papers. The piece of cloth got my attention. I grabbed as many books as possible and set them next to me. That was when I saw a photo album with writing on the cover. I lifted it from the chest and held it in the dim rays of sunlight peeking through the curtains. On an old and yellow strip of paper, taped to the cover, were the words, Hex House.

The words meant nothing to me, but sounded interesting. To get a better look, I took it over to the sewing table. I pulled the lamp chain and the dim, dusty room flooded with light. I sat down in Gran's old chair and opened the album. The first page had a newspaper article taped to it. Before reading it, I flipped through the other pages. The whole book was nothing but clippings. I returned to the beginning and began reading. One by one, I was drawn deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole. What I've written below is a brief account of a long-forgotten horror that took place in the waning years of World War II.

It is, in just a few words, the creepiest true story I've ever heard. It was 1944. The place is Tulsa, Oklahoma. Allied forces were poised to launch their historic assault on Hitler's fortress in Europe, and the truth surrounding the duplex on 10 East 21st Street would soon be known worldwide. Carolyn Smith was a widow living in one half of the beautiful home on the corner of 21st Street and South Main. She had recently applied to the Ration Board for seven ration books. Her requests for such a large number prompted an investigation. Perhaps asking for one of them to be in the name of her English bulldog Bon Bon tipped them off. Regardless, interviewing several neighbors gave police far more to be suspicious of.

Reports of bizarre growls and screams were made. Even stranger, the three inhabitants of the home were seen burying something behind the house at midnight. These stories gave authorities enough cause for a search warrant. During the search, they excavated the backyard and found two coffins. Each held the remains of a dog. One happened to be Bon Bon. Inside the home, a scene far more horrifying would be uncovered.

Smith's two roommates were discovered in the cold basement, filthy, barefoot, and hungry. The women's sleeping area was found nearby. The beds were made from crates and the women barely had any clothing to their names. What was found was dirty and thread bare. It was later confirmed by a repairman that at least one of the women had lived in this state for some time. Their living conditions were greatly different from their roommates. While the two women, Nell Willetta Horner, 30, and Virginia Evans, 31, stayed in the cold, dirty basement, Carolyn Smith lived in luxury upstairs. She not only owned enough makeup and perfume to stock a store, according to one report, she also owned 18 pairs of gloves, 26 hats, and over 200 pairs of shoes.

These are only a few examples. Considering many of her belongings were rationed at the time, it's unclear how she accumulated so much. Despite their deplorable living conditions, Horner and Evans had jobs outside the home, yet they returned every day to their filthy basement dungeon. For seven long years, the only other times they were allowed above stairs were to cook Carolyn's meals. On payday, they would turn over every cent they made to their cruel jailer, never once attempting an escape. When asked why, the two women claimed Smith had hypnotized and put a hex on them in addition to other forms of magical control. By concocting her own form of Christian belief, she had managed to convince the women that she was the only thing protecting them from eternal damnation. The pair also believed that they would be rewarded in heaven for following Smith's every whim.

The pair of women were not the only victims of Smith's nefarious acts. She convinced Virginia Evans' father that his daughter was gravely ill. He would send Smith over $17,000 throughout Virginia's time in the house, supposedly to pay for a nurse to help in her recovery. It's possible the list of victims is far longer. Both her husband and a maid had taken their lives under peculiar circumstances. In both instances, she benefited from large insurance policies she'd taken out on them. Scores more connected to Smith would meet convenient deaths and many too had insurance policies purchased on them by her. Even after all the terrible things Carolyn Smith had done, she would only be tried on charges of coercing Virginia and Willetta to testify falsely about a neighbor. Further federal charges would

be brought against her for the ration book fraud, but she would only serve a year in jail in connection to the coercion charges. After her release, the She-Sven-Gali, as she was known, would move from Oklahoma and disappear into history. The home at East 21st Street would become a morbid attraction around Tulsa until it was leveled in 1975 for a parking lot. Today, an apartment complex sits on the ground where the infamous house once stood. After I repacked the chest and made it back downstairs, I was so enthralled by the story, I had to do some research on the internet. No matter where I looked, any additional information said nothing about what happened to Virginia and Willetta afterwards. For all I knew, they could

have been the little old ladies down the road. This was an especially annoying aspect considering the media's more recent coverage focused on hauntings. They were so determined to make a spooky story around the hex house, tales of possessed cars were being pushed. The lack of compassion shown to the two female victims angers me. If anyone reading this can tell me what became of them, I'd appreciate it. I hate not knowing. Hopefully, they were able to recover from the awful experience and live normal lives. As I wrap up my story, a few important questions must be asked. What did Carolyn Smith go on to do after she disappeared? But perhaps the most bothersome and personal to me,

why did my gran have an album filled with clippings from the case? Is there something I should know? To be continued... based on it starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in production. So if you've not read Killers of the Flower Moon yet, or want to wait for the film, I suggest you stop here. For those of you who stuck around, I'll begin. This tale takes place in Oklahoma during the 1920s. It's thought that somewhere between 60 to perhaps over a thousand members of the Osage Nation and a few others died violent or suspicious deaths. The majority of these crimes occurred in or around Fairfax, Oklahoma. Few of these deaths

were ever investigated and those that were got little effort. The first noted here was that of 25-year-old Anna Brown. Her decomposing body was found in a remote ravine in Osage County. The case would quickly grow cold until Brown's cousin, Henry Rowan, was found shot in the head and partially frozen in his car in February of 1923. A month later, a bomb destroyed the home of Bill and Rita Smith in Fairfax. The explosion killed Rita and their servant girl, Nettie Brookshire, instantly. Bill Smith would pass a week later. At least 13 other full-blooded Osage men and women would perish between 1921 and 1923. Desperate for help, the tribal leaders of the Osage would request the assistance of the Bureau of Investigation in 1925.

Sheriff James Monroe Pyle, a local lawman, had been working with the tribal leaders. He supplied the arriving agents with evidence leading to a deadly conspiracy. The early 1920s was the height of the Osage oil boom. In 1923, the tribe earned more than $30 million in revenue. Under the Osage Allotment Act of 1906, all subsurface minerals within the Osage Reservation were owned by the tribe and held in trust by the federal government. Osage mineral lease revenue was paid to the tribe as a whole, allowing each allottee an equal share of the money. These head rights were hereditary and passed on to the allottee's heir upon their death.

However, one did not have to be Osage to inherit a headright. Here's where the story gets crazy. This is where William K. Hale enters. He encouraged his nephew Ernest Buckhart to marry a full-blooded Osage Alati, Molly Kyle. Molly's mother, Lizzie Q. Kyle, lived with the couple in Fairfax. Lizzie died in 1921, of what many suspected was poisoning. She possessed three full head rights, in addition to her own. She was also the mother of Anna Brown.

Brown had been shot to death in the early hours of May 22nd, 1921. Then Lizzie's nephew, Henry Rowan, was found murdered in his car. For some reason, William Hale had been named beneficiary of Rowan's $25,000 life insurance policy. Finally, on March 10th, 1923, Lizzie's daughter, Rita Smith, and her husband, William Smith, were blown up along with their servant in their home. With this string of misfortunes, Molly and Ernest would inherit a massive windfall. They too would have likely died had the Bureau of Investigation not been called in. Many others would lose their lives during this time, including a few well-known oil men, but for the sake of brevity I'll focus mainly on the Burkhart, Kyle, and Hale connection.

The Burl had placed some undercover officers around the area upon their arrival. The agents would discover the existence of an evil group led by William Hale. Hale was an affluent rancher with his hand in numerous other pies, including banking. He referred to himself as the King of the Osage Hills. Fortunately for the Osage nation, the king would eventually be dethroned. In January of 1926, now confident of their case, the Bureau began the arrest. Under interrogation, Ernest would tie a local farmer-slash-ranchhand John Ramsey to the Rowan murder. After confessing his part in the Smith murders, Ramsey would in turn claim Hale was the mastermind behind the crimes. He also implicated two other men, Asa Kirby and

Henry Grammer. By April of the same year, two additional men, Kelsey Morrison and Ernest's brother, Byron, would be charged in the murder of Anna Brown. Between June 1926 and November 1929, the defendants were tried in federal and state courts. In June 1926, Byron Burkhardt would plead guilty to the murder of William E. Smith and be sentenced to life at the state penitentiary at Macalester. He would turn state's witness and testify against Hale and Ramsey. These two men would be convicted for the murder of Henry Rowan and given life at the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. A petty criminal, Kelsey Morrison would admit to killing Anna Brown at the behest of Hale. He would already be serving time when he was given a life term. Byron Burkhart would also turn state witness

and avoid being tried for his part in the murders. Somehow, against the wishes of the Osage Nation, Hale, Ramsey, and Ernest would all eventually be paroled. Ernest would be given a full pardon by Oklahoma Governor Henry Bellman in 1965. In order to prevent anything like this occurring again, a federal law was passed in 1925 preventing non-Osages from inheriting head rights of tribal members with more than half Osage blood. What I've shared here barely scratches the surface. It's estimated that hundreds of Osage lost their lives between 1918 and 1931. The Hale-Burkhardt killings are just a sliver

of the terror experienced by the Osage during this time. I highly recommend you do more research into these crimes. Photos from the new Scorsese film adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon are beginning to trickle out, so it will probably be released in the next year. Regardless of how you learn more about the murders, you really should. Even I was unaware of them until recently and it's a real shame as the saying goes, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Let's make sure more people are made aware of this horrible

story to prevent anything like it ever happening again. Hi, I'm Jim Herold from the podcast Jim Herold's Campfire, and I've been doing that show since 2009, and this is one of my favorite stories, and Joel was so kind to let me submit it to the show. It's called The Roadhouse Saloon. We had a caller back, oh, at least 10 years ago, named T.I., and she's from Michigan, but she was visiting Wisconsin. And her and a friend went to a bar to see a band play. And they were musicians, so they were really into it and enjoyed it and actually stayed till the club closed. And that was two o'clock in the morning. They even stayed later talking to the band, talking about musician stuff. So they were headed back to the camp where they were visiting.

It was about an hour away. And this is Wisconsin in a very rural area with two lane roads, that sort of thing. And they were headed back to the camp. It was very dark. There really weren't any lights or anything. And T.I. tells her friend, Bob, I've got to go to the restroom. And he says, well, there's not many places here unless you want to, you know, find a tree or something. And she said, no, just drive fast.

So anyway, they proceeded on. And a little bit down the road, there was this bar. Now, you would think it would be closed, you know, about three o'clock in the morning, but it wasn't. It was open. And they said, well, that shouldn't be open, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth. Let's go in. So they went in and I think Bob went to the bar and T.I. went to answer the call of nature. And they sat down and everybody was kind of weird in the place.

They were just kind of spaced out, just kind of smiling and looking at Bob and T.I. and so forth. But no matter. They started talking. Bob said, boy, I'm really glad we came here because I heard about this mural, this mural that exists. And it's right here on the wall of the Old West. And it was a full wall-sized picture of like an old saloon with cowboys and guys playing cards and what they called at the time dance hall girls. And Bob said he was really glad he'd heard about this but never got to see it. They started to look around and they noticed something interesting. Everyone in the mural was actually a representation of somebody who was

physically in the bar at that time. There was a woman who was a, quote, dance hall girl, as they used to say back in the day, and she was standing over there. There was another guy who was sitting at a table, and he was the bartender in the picture. There were also some gentlemen in the bar for real, in the real world, playing pool. But they were playing cards in the mural. And I got to thinking, well, that's kind of weird. Then they said, well, maybe just these are regulars, and this is kind of an homage to them that the artist did. So a little bit of time goes on and somebody puts on the song Let's Twist Again by Chubby Checker. And it's this big old Wurlitzer Bubbler style jukebox.

And a gentleman comes up to T.I. and asks her to dance. And he smiled real big, and T.I. said his teeth were absolutely rotten. Now, T.I. had a cane, and she held it up, and she said, I don't dance much. And she said she had, glad she had that excuse in that case to get out of that dance. A little time goes on. They're looking at the mural some more, Bob and T.I., and they notice something they didn't notice before. There's saloon double doors, like in the old Western movies, the doors that go into a saloon, in the picture. They notice that, but they didn't notice two misty columns. And as time went on, they would talk a little bit and look back, and over time, the misty columns seemed to develop a humanoid shape.

Two humanoid shapes. One was significantly taller than the other. Bob was significantly taller than T.I. Then they noticed that they tend to take on gender. One appeared to be a man man and one appeared to be a woman. And then it got more interesting. They looked back and the woman, misty figure, been more developed and had curly hair and a cane. And T.I. had curly hair in a cane. And cowboy boots, which T.I. also had. At that point, Bob and T.I. said, let's get out of here. As they got up to go out, the people were kind of

beckoning back and kind of motioning, come back, come back. They weren't saying anything, but they're motioning, come back. Bob and T.I. thought better of it, kept going, and when they closed the door, everything went pitch black. Pitch black. Absolutely pitch black. The whole place looked like it hadn't been opened at all. The neon signs that were on when they came in were totally off, and everything was dark. And, oh, by the way, when they came in, there were a bunch of cars in the driveway, in the parking lot. No cars there, except for theirs. So they obviously thought, that is weird. Let's get out of here. So Bob kind of leaves and peels out and gets out of there.

But T.I. is a much braver person than I am. She goes back a couple of days later with the, can't remember if it was a friend or a sister. And the place is still there. And they go in, I think it's about seven or eight o'clock at night. And there's a woman behind the bar. Mural is still on the wall, same mural, no Bob and T.I. in the doors, but the rest of everything's the same in terms of the mural. And they talk to the woman bartender and they say, you know, T.I. says, I was in here the other night, you know, and there's this big, good looking, strapping young bartender. And the woman says, well, I don't know where you

were at, but the only bartender here other than me is my elderly father. T.I. thought, boy, that's weird. Then she went over to look at the jukebox. But it was not a bubbler, authentic vinyl jukebox like from back in the day. No, it was for the time T.I. was in, which I believe was the 90s. It was a modern jukebox. Not a bubbler, not that kind of style. But a CD jukebox. And oh,ler, not that kind of style. But a CD jukebox. And oh, by the way, no chubby checker. No let's twist again.

Anywhere to be found on the jukebox. That TI decided to leave. And that was the end of that part of the story. But there's a little bit more. First of all, the place actually exists. And I know pre-pandemic, it was open. I tried getting in touch with the people who run it, but I never got a call back. So I know up until 2019, it was there.

I've got pictures from listeners and particularly an author that I trust who was inside and had pictures of the actual saloon. Pre-pandemic, I went up to Michigan and met TI and did a video, and that's on my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Jim Harreld, and I found her to be utterly believable. She retold the story of her video, and I believed her even more once I met her in person than I did when I heard her to be utterly believable. She retold the story of her video, and I believed her even more once I met her in person than I did when I heard her on the air. That is my favorite campfire story, and if you like those kind of stories, I hope you'll check out my podcast,

Jim Harreld's Campfire. You can find it on all the major podcast apps or at jimharreld.com. That's J-I-M-H-A-R-O-L-D.com. And I thank Joel for letting me come and share this story with you. Stay spooky. This happened back when I was 14, but even with my bad memory, I remember this years later. I honestly think that this memory will haunt me for the rest of my life. I would often go walking either alone or with my neighbor, Jem, but this specific night she didn't go out with me. I usually went walking at around 9 at night, but was impatient that night so I left about 15 minutes early.

It was summer in Texas, but I grabbed my black hoodie anyways. The reason for this was because I was a pretty small kid, even for my age, and I would walk with a knife in my sleeve in case of a problem. There was security in this area but they were pretty much useless and weren't fond of the kids anyways, so wearing black was to avoid them seeing me and to maybe help avoid being noticed by anyone else too. The area was heavily wooded and the roads had no streetlights. I had lived there my whole life though, so with the moonlight this wasn't really an issue. I could see things as much as I needed to. I walked to the park in the area and sat down on the swing set like I had a million times before.

The park was old and wasn't very well taken care of, so the swing set creaked, the wooden picnic tables were half rotted with the paint mostly peeled away, and the metal slide was covered in rust. There was the main road that ran in front of the park and a branch off road that ran along the side of the park with a thin line of trees between the side road and park. After a while, a favorite song of mine came on and I, of course, started singing to it, since singing was a big way I let out stress despite my stage fright. I had a tendency to not hold back when singing at this park since there was rarely people near it during the day, let alone at night. My blood ran cold though when I saw the shape of a person maybe 50 to 100 feet

in front of me on the main road. The main reason for the chill was the fear that this random person heard me sing. But then I got a deeper bad feeling. Something was just wrong about them. I noticed that the person was walking fast, really fast, almost at running speed. I figured he might have been running from something or after something, but when I looked around everywhere that I could possibly see from where I was, I saw nothing else but them. They soon passed by the park, not seeming to notice me, and after a few minutes of waiting to make sure that they were gone, I continued singing.

After a couple more songs, I decided that it was time to go home. I still had that bad feeling, that uneasy pit in my stomach that you get when you're being watched. I even thought that I saw something behind the tree line beside the side road and the swings, but I brushed that off as an animal or something. Deer were really common, so were dogs and things so it was probably me getting spooked by an animal again. But the feeling was eating away at me so I cut my usual 30 minute to an hour walk to about 10 minutes. So I got up and started to leave the park turning onto the main road to go home.

As I was leaving I saw a person walking towards the main road from the road that I ran right along the park. It looked like the same person as before. It was clearly a man. He must have been visiting a friend or something, right? Even if that was the case, I crossed the opposite side of the street so I wouldn't pass directly by him. He didn't look particularly dangerous or unusual, so sadly no weird creepy homeless looking man for this story. I just got a bad feeling from him, which is probably what makes him even more terrifying. He got to the intersection before me and stopped. I passed by and glanced at the man, taking in what details I could under the moonlight that came from between

the tree branches. He looked normal, he was probably an average height, wearing a pure white ball cap with no logos that cast a shadow over his face and a pure white polo type shirt. There wasn't a speck of dirt on the man. He looked well kept and it made the moonlight almost shine on him like he was some kind of ghost which just added to my uneasy feeling. He clearly wasn't out there to be exercising or anything like that. He watched me as I passed by and I tried to pretend that I didn't notice. I would occasionally look around as if though I was just looking at the woods so I could see the man out of my peripheral vision. I didn't want or need to see the man in detail, partly because I was scared of the possibility of seeing something

else too. Just because the man was much larger than me didn't mean that he wasn't probably armed as well. Once I was around 15 feet past the intersection, I did one of these glances and my stomach dropped as I saw him turn and start to follow me. Maybe he was just going for an extra long walk or something, right? He probably isn't following me, right? Then another thought popped in my mind and it sent my stomach to my feet. I'd been there for probably 10 minutes or so singing after he passed. What if he wasn't visiting anyone? What if he was the thing I saw just beyond the tree line?

That's kind of obvious now that that was almost definitely the case, but let's be fair. When do 14 year olds ever think through all the details of a situation completely during the situation? He was probably watching me the whole time. He could have snuck up and done god knows what at any time. I kept doing my glances and noticed that he was getting closer and closer. I gripped my knife tighter ready in case I had to use it. The chance of it going well wasn't the best but it was a better chance than not trying at all. But I wanted that to be a last ditch option. I tried to make sure it wasn't obvious that I was keeping tabs on him. I didn't want him getting anxious and having him decide to speed up whatever plan it was.

I was only halfway home and this was before I had surgery on my ankle so I was absolutely sure that he could catch me before I'd reach the house if I started running where I was so that wasn't an option whatsoever. I didn't have many current options though so the one I chose was to bide my time till an opportunity opened up. I kept walking at a rather quick but unpanicked pace, keeping tabs on the man as he inched closer and kept an eye out for opportunities. An opportunity came and it felt like it was sent from God himself. I saw headlights. A car was rolling towards me at a careful pace, like normal considering the animals I mentioned earlier. It was Jem's dad.

I recognized the shape of the lights and as the car got closer I became convinced it was him. I was never so relieved to see that tiny white car. I tried signaling him without letting the man know that I was, but he just passed by. He must have thought I was just saying hi. I glanced back again. Even though he didn't stop, he did exactly what I needed. He did slow down a bit as he passed. The man backed up a lot and crossed to the other side of the road. The headlights were on him and he couldn't see me at least for around 5 or 6 seconds, maybe a bit longer including readjusting to the dark. I walked faster, I didn't run, that

way my steps wouldn't be too loud, but I rounded the corner before he'd be able to readjust and get sight of me again. Once I could turn and no longer see him I rushed home and locked the door. I knew better than to leave it unlocked since after all I lived in the woods. Just because I couldn't see him anymore didn't mean that he wasn't nearby and didn't mean he couldn't see me. As stupid as this next part is, it's probably for the best that I did it. I texted Jem. I asked her to meet me outside right now because something happened and I needed to come over. She said okay and we both went outside and as soon as I saw her in the driveway, I sprinted to her house. I didn't want to be outside any longer than I had to be.

She kept panicking and asked what happened and what was wrong and once I caught my breath I told her everything. Right after I got done explaining her dad walked in the house. He looked at Jem, seeming worried then noticed me hiding behind her. He looked relieved and told her, I was about to tell you to ask her to come over here. I asked him if he saw the man following me and he said in the affirmative, he didn't really see his face but that it was looking like he was trying to make it look like he was on a phone when he wasn't holding anything. But that wasn't even close to the worst part. I think this was the first time I've seen

this man scared and I'm not sure if I've ever seen fear like this from him since. He told us the man wasn't alone. There was a gate at the front of where I live that needed a car to get in. Apparently there was another man outside the gate who looked similar to the first standing by a van. That meant they didn't live there, didn't want security knowing they were there, and wanted to get out quickly and quietly after they did whatever they were there for. Needless to say, I spent that night at Jem's that night, and I have no clue what would have happened had Jem's dad not driven by, or if I would have left at my normal time. I was 17 in the 11th grade.

I usually didn't accept random requests on my Instagram, especially if we had no mutuals. I took my page off private for a while and so anyone could follow me. This is when I got a notification that he started following me. The page had a normal following, not small enough to question whether it was a fake account or not. He had multiple pictures of himself with friends and family with captions and all. His comments were off for all of his posts which wasn't a red flag since I had mine off too. Immediately after following me he went through my profile and liked all of my pictures. He was a fit, good looking guy so I was flattered.

Not long after he DM'd me replying to a story of mine asking me if I was from such and such a city and that he was from there too. We immediately hit it off and DM non-stop for a while. It didn't feel forced and we never ran out of things to talk about. We eventually swapped phone numbers and started texting. He told me he was studying at a really good university which was in a city two hours away from where we both lived. Our talks escalated to day-to-day phone calls which lasted for hours. I sincerely started growing feelings for him and he made it clear he felt the same for me. We would talk about our deepest insecurities, our past, what we wanted our futures to look like,

etc. It had been about two months of talking and I was undeniably eager to meet up in person. He would tell me he was coming to visit home on the weekend, but would always come up with an excuse as to why he couldn't make it. He gave very convincing and detailed excuses, never vague so I didn't question it. I hadn't told any friends about him until my best friend and I had a sleepover. I ended up telling her about him, showed her his pictures and didn't leave out that we hadn't met yet.

Wanting to look out for me, she suggested I ask him to video chat to make sure he is who he says he is before meeting up. She told me she didn't want to freak me out but that she was sure that she had seen his pictures on Tumblr before. There's a tool on Google that can be used to locate social media accounts and articles where the pictures have been posted. While she was at that I called him and asked him if he was home and alone before asking him to video chat so he couldn't make up an excuse on the spot. He said he was home and alone but couldn't video chat because of his weak internet connection. My heart sank into my stomach.

The possibility of being catfished was not far-fetched anymore. I quickly downloaded WhatsApp because I remember him telling me he spoke to his parents on it. Before doing that, my friend showed me the results of what she found, which devastated me to my core. The man in the pictures was a French model and singer. We found the exact pictures of that POS used on his catfish profile and actual verified Instagram account. My devastation turned into anger, then turned into absolute disgust and revulsion when I saw his profile picture on WhatsApp. He was evidently much older than he claimed he was, probably in his 30s, a complete different race than what he portrayed

to be, lied about being a university student, etc. P.S. I have no preference to what comes to race or nationality, but he literally lied to me in detail about being part Italian and part Colombian, even made up an excuse as to why he didn't speak Italian or Spanish when he claimed he frequently visited back home. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I started to sob uncontrollably and confronted him on WhatsApp. He went on to explain how he came across my profile and wanted desperately to get to know me. He said I knew I wouldn't be interested in who he actually is and wouldn't be attracted to him so instead he used his fake account which he was already using and

active on prior to come across my profile. He said he came close to coming clean multiple times but was afraid of how I would react. He said even though his persona was fake, everything else was genuine. It turned out that he was a 31 year old mechanic and living with his parents. He even confessed to driving to my neighborhood, finding my high school and following me around as I went about my day. I blocked him off whatsapp then he quickly started texting my number begging me not to block that too and to give him a chance to explain things face to face. I went on to block him on everything, feeling absolutely heartbroken and betrayed while

doing so. I spent months of my life daydreaming and fantasizing about how it would be like when we finally met in person and where it would go from there, grew genuine feelings for him and even considered applying for the same university he was supposedly studying at. I got overt eventually but I've definitely grown to be very paranoid and distrusting when it comes to meeting people online. I am happily married now, but I wonder what would have happened if he and I met in person, and the consequences I would have faced for being so naive and oblivious. So So back when I was growing up, I had a bunch of unsavory stuff happen to me and ended up being placed in a foster home.

Well, technically it was basically a holding cell for kids to live until they found a real home. Because I was a hurt and untrusting kid at that point, I cycled through my fair share of families. I stayed with an obese single man who I don't remember much about, but I do remember very bad vibes while staying at his house. My case manager must have thought so too because I went to another family shortly after. This is when I met the family, more specifically the SOB that this story is about. This would be my last home and I didn't live there long at all so things have gotten foggy over the years but I was probably between 8 and 10 years old. It was a full house, 6 of us in total. My foster mother and father, 2 brothers and a sister. The only person I did not like straight out of the gate was my sister. You know that feeling where you just know someone wants you off the earth? For me, it feels especially raw when it seems unjustified.

Like I know I was technically a foreign invader, a cancer cell in their home, but guess what? I was a mouthy brat too and gave her the attitude right back. So it goes without saying, she and I never got along. My brothers on the other hand, I love them. We did everything together. They made me feel completely a part of the family, which is what made what they did to me so confusing. So far the only slightly unusual thing about this family was that they had an intercom system in their house. Mostly our mother would use it to tell us to sleep after hours. A few months go by and summer rolls around.

They had been pumping me up about a swimming pool in the backyard for a while. The only thing was, because I didn't have a lot of normalcy, I didn't even remotely know how to swim and was terrified of open water. On the day it happened, my brothers and I were all by the pool. They also had a slide they used for the pool. It went straight into the deep end. Looking back, that entire afternoon looked so set up, like the family planned this or something, I swear. They kept pressuring me to try the slide and that they would save me if I couldn't swim to the sides. I really wanted to be like them,

free to do things without worrying about consequences and I really believed they wouldn't let me down. We were family, right? Okay, great. So I slide down into the pool. Seconds later, I start to drown. I don't know which way is up and I'm fighting for air, for something to grab, anything. Well, it seems like it went on for way too long and suddenly my adoptive father has me barely above the water,

holding me up with one hand. If at gunpoint I had to describe his face I'd say it was a demonic mix of lust and contempt. It was really blurry and happened fast, but faces like that are hard to forget. I could let you drown right now, boy. That's what he said to me. Those exact words. I don't quite recall what he referred to me as before that point, but I know it wasn't boy. I was crying and gasping for air and he just held me there, holding me inches above the water. For what, I still don't get why. This was one of three or four times in my life that I truly believed that I was going to die. Could be worse, I guess. But anyways, eventually he walked over

to the edge of the pool and let me go. Right then I was so terrified of him. I didn't know what to do. I just laid there and didn't want to be near anyone in that house. I remember one of the strangest things about that experience was the aftermath. We went to a Mexican restaurant that night and though they all acted like nothing happened, I was confused, angry and scared. Maybe it was insignificant to them, maybe it was not an abnormal thing to them, or he did it to teach me a lesson or something.

Anyways, forget that, and forget that family. Soon after I updated my case manager on all that mess and I was out of that house within days if I recall correctly. All you people with both parents, try to make things right with them if they aren't. Always appreciate your family because I don't have any. And to be ahead and do that. When I was about six years old in kindergarten or first grade, we lived across the street from my school. I mean, right across the street. From our front room window, the school property was the majority of what could be seen. I went to the school until my second grade year when the school was shut down by the district. Most kids were I went to this school until my second grade year when the school was shut down by the district. Most kids were shipped off to whatever school happened to be closest to them and the abandoned property became a community center of sorts for the town of less than 200 or

so people. I won't drop the name of the town but I will say that it's somewhere in rural Illinois, that the estimated 200 person figure was in 1989, and that there are considerably fewer people now as most of the population has either moved away or died, and several of the houses have burned down. Today the town is even more dried up than it was during my kindergarten years, and the last time I visited, it looked as though nature was beginning the process of reclaiming it. I say all this because it's important that you understand how small this town was and is. People just didn't randomly show up there. Strangers would be immediately recognized.

There was nowhere for them to hide because the town really only had three streets. All but the end of one of them led out of town, and the end of the lone street that didn't offer an escape route led to a dead end with an ancient old cemetery. Another escape route, and a matter of speaking, I suppose. This town had nothing but a post office, a couple of abandoned buildings that I'm fairly certain used to be general stores back in the distant, distant past, and a payphone. Today the post office is shut down and the payphone is gone, so keep all this in mind when I say that a stranger or a creep would have been noticed immediately. It's surprising then that I was almost abducted by a stranger in that town. From directly in front of the school actually I think I was abducted. That's the weird thing.

When I left school that day, the man standing in front of his vehicle, he greeted me by name. That's what makes us even stranger. The man knew my name. He told me that my mom had sent him to pick me up for whatever reason or another, though the memory of what he actually said is a bit hazy. It amounts to, your mom isn't home, she sent me to pick you up and take you to where she is, get in and we'll go for a ride. You know, the usual creeper thing. And guess what? I did. There are certain details I don't remember from this point. Why didn't I just look across the street to see if my mom's car was sitting in our driveway? Maybe I did. Where did we go? I don't know. What happened? I don't

know. I have the briefest of memories of me sitting in the passenger seat of his vehicle, saying something as we drove out of town. Can't remember what he said. Can't remember what he looked like. Can't remember why my next memory is of us back in my driveway in the house across from the school. There's a large chunk of my memory gone. I don't know if there's something that I've locked out for the last 33 years. Maybe he took me somewhere and did something to me that creeps do to young and trusting little boys and I just locked it up inside. I hope not. I hope he was some aspiring kidnapper with a conscience who just couldn't accept the enormity of the heinous sin he was about to commit and took me back home. That nothing bad happened to me, that my lack

of memory is due to more than the entire sequence of events being so uneventful that my developing little brain felt no need to keep it in storage. I've often wondered if there's some way, like through some form of therapeutic hypnosis they show in movies and on TV, to unlock those memories. Or if that's even a real thing. Or if it is, if I even want to venture down that rabbit hole and discover what really happened. Maybe some things should just remain buried. I'm sure you've heard the expression, don't ask questions you don't want the answers to. Yeah, I feel that applies here.

And maybe someone will tell me it was just a vivid dream that a young child had and remembered incorrectly as an actual memory. This is not the case. A few years back I actually asked my mom about it. Do you remember when that strange man took me from school and brought me back? Oh yes. Apparently I told her what happened because she told me about how she went over to the school and raised a bunch of chaos over it. And that's all I have to prove even to myself that it ever even happened. Up until then I had wondered if I had imagined the whole thing. This is unfortunately no longer something I can even attempt to convince myself

is true. Who was this man? Why did he take me? Why did he bring me back? What happened that day? I'm a big fan of horror. I love a novel or a movie about monsters. I'm an avid fan of Stephen King and Creepypasta, but it isn't Pennywise the dancing clown or Slenderman that keep me up at night sometimes. No, it's the real monster who almost grabbed me up when I was six years old, and then lost his appetite. This happened a little while back when I was 15. I'd just discovered the rebellious act of sneaking out. This was probably my fourth or fifth time doing it. And this one night I decided to go and meet up with my boyfriend.

At the time we weren't together, but we liked each other. And you know how that goes. When you're with someone you like, you tend not to really pay attention to what's going on around you. The night starts out fine and we're having a good time. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about because we had gotten pretty high, but I do remember what happened. We'd met up and gone to this elementary school that had a decent sized field with some hills and trees towards the end. It's important for me to explain this in order for you to understand how things went down. From where we were sitting, we had a clear view of the school as well as the school's basketball court. The school was illuminated from the side lights so we could

easily see if anyone walked by, but it wasn't necessarily easy for people to see us. To our left was a little pavement path that led into a townhouse complex. So we are sitting there at the edge of the field looking at stars and talking about random stuff when we start to hear the crunch of gravel coming from the school. Because we're high and paranoid we immediately turn our attention to the illuminated basketball court. We watch as this guy walks by with his bike and doesn't seem to notice us. After he passes we almost instantly forget about it and resume talking, laughing and just being a bit loud. Perhaps ten minutes later we hear that same crunch of gravel so we go silent and look towards the school. Once again, it's the bike guy but this time once he reaches the basketball court, he doesn't keep walking. Instead, he stops at the edge of the field we're sitting on and just stares out at it for maybe a minute or so,

kind of like he was looking for us. We are a little creeped out at this point, so we start packing our things to leave. Then this dude begins walking towards us. Once he stepped out into the field, it became much more difficult to see him as the light from the school only lit up so much. We take this as our cue to leave, and the only way to leave without being extremely visible is to take the path into the townhouses,

so that's what we do. We try our best to keep quiet and walk through the pitch black path that leads to the townhouse complex. Keep in mind that we are not sober, so we're extra freaked out. I check behind us constantly and, for some reason, could not shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. We finally reach the end of the pitch black path

and make it into the decently lit townhouse complex. We ease up a little bit and begin trying to find our way to the main entrance and exit because that's the closest way out besides the way that we came in. We are walking through the complex and start talking once more. Finally we turn to the corner to leave and just as we're about to leave we see the same freaking guy with his bike right at the entrance. We stop for maybe two seconds and this guy drops his bike and darts right at us insanely fast. I mutter out an expletive and my boyfriend and I begin sprinting as fast as we can away from the guy. We turn random corners and go down little back alleyways, not once checking behind ourselves. I don't know

when or where we lost him, but when we became tired and took a stop behind some bushes, we both noticed that there was no man in sight. We stay in that same position for about 20 minutes trying to calm down. At this point we've both pretty much sobered up so we decide to try and leave again. We begin walking through the complex once more and when we make our way back to the main entrance, we both see that bike guy's bike is now gone. We're both unsettled by this because now we know he's no longer in the townhouse complex. We have no clue where this guy is or if he's just going to randomly appear again. Lucky for us, we both made it home safe that night, but I'll never forget the feeling of my heart sinking when I saw the bike guy blocking our way out. By far one of the creepiest things

I've ever experienced. To be continued... Two nights ago I was awoken by my dog between 11 and 3 am at most. He kept near me when I finally got up and made a low aggressive growl facing out of my room but kept close to me. He's never done this before. I've worked with canines for years. They gave me a gut feeling and then I heard it. Someone talking. In my dad's yard no more than 20 feet by the sound. Low mumbling or bad whispering. I was blaring Return of the King. Yes, the extended version. I need to add that I have childlike hearing, from my age, for context.

If you speak in one floor home with two doors closed at a whisper, I can make out the words. He went quiet when I opened a drawer too loud to grab my.38 special, chambered around and noticed a shadow passing by a light outside the blurred window. Home was clear, all doors locked. Nothing odd, but my dog peeled out. I held my flashlight in one hand, went his way and called him to the other side. He was gone, I guess they knew I was home and ran on foot. I went around but thought, okay, I'm good. Well, Florida continues to be Florida. Night three.

My dog does this again in the same frame, waking me up, and at this rate I just got the 12 gauge. My dog was acting far more protective and gave me the dog body language for major threat, need the pack, can't handle alone. I froze for a moment. Two people now? This is not good. They must intend to violently take whatever they could be after. It was one new guy and guy one from yesterday. I can't risk getting a look. At this rate they mean business and had to be armed to scope out a place with a ring camera, 60 pounds of muscle dog, and my grown self with a lifetime of handling weaponry.

In the yard around 2.30am for a second night, they knew I and my dog were home but clearly had a goal. This time, voices were behind the home. My dog then pulled a freaking Leroy Jenkins. It gave one of the most aggressive loud barks I'd ever heard of any dog do and ran to the home. My dog then pulled a freaking Leroy Jenkins. He gave one of the most aggressive loud barks I'd ever heard of any dog do and ran to the wall. I ran to his side, getting him hyped up, yelling, mess him up, they're dead men. Now things are clicking for me. This was planned and professional. I checked every inch of the property with a shotgun. My dog was worked up and spooked, but calming to be with.

I'm buying a mistake for this one and a good one. I went inside. I literally kept that gun on me and chambered and in reach of my bed and I barely slept. Day 4. I did a bit of looking around for misplaced or slightly moved objects or scratched up locks. Yep, one trash can by the gate was rotated 180 degrees, with the handle facing me and not the wall as it had always been placed.

A few crushed dead twigs as I went back. The head chair was turned to move to the right. A clearly odd thing is that table is set symmetrically so it's glaringly obviously out of place if you live there. The ring camera system and my neighbors so far show nothing but I knew these guys had to have known that my dad was gone. They knew his son lives there, that the dog would eat them and is huge, that I had a gun and I even announced that it was armed. Yet they came back with backup. Then the dude came back up, moved stuff I didn't know till my maritime buddy told me to check if such and such a rock was out of place. It's a way to gauge the person's awareness and presence I guess. Whatever their goal was, I don't care. I just want them to know if they come back again,

I'll be strapped to the gills. To be continued... happened when I was a junior in high school. I was a friendly and curious person. One month into the fall semester we got a new transfer student. He looked nervous. Seated behind me was Joe. I of course introduced myself to him, trying to ease the tension. I showed him what we'd learned so far. I helped him look over his class schedule. We had two classes and lunch period together. Naturally we got to know each other and become friends. He's a quiet kid but talked a lot around me. I assumed he's just comfortable around me. I made it clear that we were just friends.

He agreed and we started hanging out with my friends. Now fast forward to spring break, I told Joe I'm going out of town with my family. He seems disappointed that we can't spend the break together, but he was understandable. I ran into Joe in a restaurant. I didn't tell him where I was going, so I thought, wow, what a coincidence. He said he was visiting family in the same town. Now in my senior year, Joe and I hung out at least once a week, then turned into two, then into three. I noticed we were spending too much time together.

I wanted to make time for my other friends too, and that's when things started to change. I ran into Joe, or should I say I saw him in the corner of my eye when I spent time with someone else or by myself. He becomes obsessive and clingy. The first two to three times I didn't think much of it. It all becomes clear when I questioned him and he accidentally said he followed me because he wanted to make sure that I was safe. I felt betrayed and creeped out. He apologized and asked for forgiveness. I told him I didn't want to be friends anymore and he got angry and stormed off.

He didn't come to school for the next two to three days. My friends told me he harassed them for snitching on him. He came back to school. We pretended we didn't know each other. On my walk home, I hear Joe calling my name in a low and unfamiliar tone, but he was nowhere to be seen. I didn't know why, but my gut told me to run as fast as I can. I kept running until I got home. I made sure every door and window was

locked. I'm convinced that I was being paranoid at this point. Then my phone screen lights up. Joe repeatedly called me. Then I hear Joe calling my name again. He's in front of my house, now banging on the door. I called my dad and tell him what had happened. I pleaded to Joe to stop banging on the door. Everything went completely silent after five minutes which felt like an eternity. The last word I heard from him was, you always be my best friend. This issue was brought up to the school and Joe never showed up again. Four years have passed. Just a few days ago I got a friend request on two of my social medias. It was Joe. I blocked him and changed all my social media names to something else.

I don't live in that same town, nor in the same country. I'm now on the other side of the world. I can't help but feel like a scared 18 year old me again. I'm not the friendly person I once was. I've become cautious around new and other people. So this happened about four years ago. My dad works nights, so I'm home alone until about 2.30am most days. We live in a pretty quiet area where people usually keep to themselves. One night at about 1 in the morning there was a knock at the door and when I checked our peephole there was a young woman with a car parked near the curb in front of my house. I answered and she looked really young, maybe only 15 or 16, or just looked very youthful I suppose. In short, she looked just barely old enough to be even driving.

It was confusing to me. She told me that she was having car trouble and asked if I could come check it out and possibly give her car a jump. At this time I didn't drive, have a car of my own, or know very much about cars so I was of little help but offered to call someone if she needed AAA or a tow service. She declined but kept insisting that I check out the lights on her dashboard to see if it was normal. At this point I just didn't want to be outside with a stranger so I politely informed her that I'd be of little help because I had zero knowledge

of cars. I went back inside but kept looking through the peephole. She opened the back door, got into the back seat and the car drove off. It instantly made my stomach drop and had me extremely freaked out. I was kind of distraught thinking about what the real reason was to approach my house. Who was driving? Just the entire thing left me confused and frightened. I spent the next few days a little on edge because I was afraid they may return knowing that someone is there or that I was alone. I also think of that girl and who she was.

I wish I had a video doorbell at the time so I could find out if she was a victim of some sort. I don't know. It just still bothers me a lot. And it's incredibly eerie. To be continued... changed my mind. The story began at 6.30pm. I had finished eating and decided to go on a run, as usual. I always use the same path, cross the street, run for about a kilometer and pass the gate that goes into the woods. Something important to note is that the trail I use in the forest is separated about halfway through, one path is paved and the other isn't. I usually go into the unpaved path first and then turn into the paved one after about 3 kilometers. Nothing ever really goes wrong.

I meet some rare people walking their dogs but other than that I'm pretty alone. At least, I thought I was. I've been running for a while now when I heard a notification coming from my phone. An airdrop notification. Since I didn't want to make it look like I was worried, I kept running for a couple of minutes and then stopped to change the music, so to speak. I dreadfully opened the airdrop. Who was sending me stuff? I'm pretty sure that I was alone. I clicked on the drop and my heart sunk. It was a snapchat picture of me running with the caption, you look so good. I didn't turn around. Instead I kept running like nothing happened until I

reached a certain point. You see the forest is surrounded by a fence to stop children from coming in unsupervised and I didn't like that rule when I was little so my friends and I cut a hole in it. When I was aligned with that hole, I quickly turned and buried myself into the forest aiming for my escape. I could hear ruffling behind me and I still didn't turn back. When I finally reached the hole I jumped through it and absolutely booked it to the fire station that was a couple streets down. The last things I could hear when leaving the forest was an angry huff and metal meeting metal. I don't know who it was or what they wanted from me, but I never ran in that forest again. To be continued... When I was nine years old, I idolized Carl Lewis and subsequently had a very short haircut like

his. My family was vacationing in San Diego and we were beach hopping to swim everywhere we could. We were at Boomer Beach, just south of La Jolla Cove. It was called Boomer Beach, in my head anyway, because the waves crashed right on shore and had a lot of energy. As of today, you can no longer swim there. They've dropped large boulders to slow erosion. If you were brave enough to get in, you were undoubtedly pummeled. My sister and I were messing around in the waves when I got seriously tossed. A set of rough waves smashed me under and I hit the bottom.

As I tried to come up, another wave smashed me again. I couldn't catch my breath and was panicked. Suddenly a strong pair of arms grabbed my shoulders and lifted me out of the water. It was a young male, no idea how old as everyone seems old when you're nine. I thought at the time he was in his mid-twenties. I was so grateful I sucked in a huge breath of air and looked at him where he promptly said, oh, it's a girl, and dropped me back in the ocean and turned back to make his way to shore. I managed to get back to shore because of him and the fact that the wave had passed, but still, he regretted saving my life because I didn't have a wiener? It still creeps me out thinking about what this guy was and has since been doing in the world. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, the rural South Korean city of Hwaseong was terrorized by a merciless and predatory serial killer.

Between September of 1986 and April of 1991, a total of 15 women and girls were found bound, gagged, violated, and in most cases, strangled to death with an item of their own clothing, usually their socks, underwear, or pantyhose. The murders prompted the largest criminal investigation in South Korean history, with over 20 million man-hours spent poring over witness statements, analyzing crime scenes, and interviewing over 21,000 suspected culprits. The nightmare began on September 15th of 1986, when a 71-year-old woman named Li Wan Im disappeared while returning home from visiting her daughter. Four days later, her family's worst fears were confirmed when her body was found dumped on some nearby farmland. Just over a month later, 25-year-old Park Yoon-suk vanished after a bus ride back from Songtan. Her body was found just two days later, naked and strangled, floating in a local canal. The murders continued month after month for years. Always the same type of victim, always murdered in the same way. It was quite

clear that Hwasong had a dangerous and determined serial killer on their hands. The only trouble was, how would they go about catching him? The Hwasong murders are notorious all over South Korea for being the country's first modern serial killer, especially in the sense that a particular modus operandi was applied to all known victims. However, the investigation was so intense and far-reaching that, after just a month's worth of police work, the list of suspects had grown to include a mind-boggling 21,000 different people. On top of that, a whopping 40,000 people had their fingerprints taken, but the true list of suspects could potentially be narrowed down to the few hundred that actually had DNA samples taken from them. Even shorter is the list who had hair samples taken, which is down to a mere 180 different people.

Given that the murders had occurred all within a four-mile radius of downtown Hwasong, hundreds of pairs of police officers and volunteers were positioned within just a hundred meters of one another. Their job was to patrol the surrounding area, keeping an eye out for anyone suspicious. But the killer simply worked out where a police presence thinned out, and attacked there instead. It seemed that not only were the police unable to prevent the killer from striking again, but the killer himself was unable to resist the urge to hunt and to kill. The first big breakthrough came in September of 1988, when police were able to commission a composite sketch of the suspect, one based on the witness statements of a bus driver and his conductor. He was wiry, a shorter man, aged between 24 and 28 years old, with a sharp nose and short cropped hair. Some victims also described him as having soft hands, which suggested he had a mostly sedentary occupation, possibly as an office or textile

worker. This description was corroborated with existing carnal assault reports, and the conclusion was chilling. Their suspect had been engaged in venal, predatory activity for almost a decade prior to killing for the first time, and it became apparent that South Korean police were dealing with one of the most fiendish and prolific criminals in the country's short history. It also appeared that the killer had a bizarre fixation which influenced not only his choice of victims, but also the timing of his attacks. It was noted that the killer's victims had been women wearing red clothing, and that they had been targeted on rainy days. This led some female police officers to set traps for him,

walking alone in the greater Hwasong area on rainy days while wearing items of red clothing. Yet it seemed the killer was wise to their ruse and avoided them altogether. The next major breakthrough came on July 27th of 1989, when analysis of a single hair found at one of the crime scenes led to the arrest of a 22-year-old male by the name of Yoon Sung-Yao. Yet it was later revealed that this murder was totally unrelated to the others, and as positive as it was that police had caught themselves a murderer, the red-clothing-obsessed serial killer was still on the loose, and the attempts to link all previous murders to their

one suspect had arguably set the investigation back by years. Not only that, but it was later alleged that South Korean police had brutally beaten and tortured Yoon in their attempts to get a confession out of him. This meant that much of the evidence gained from his interrogations was completely inadmissible, and this caused a huge scandal with the South Korean police force. So much so that in December of 2019, police arrested eight of the original investigators, charging them with falsifying documents, illegal detention, and physically abusing Yoon when he was in custody. It also became apparent that at least four possible suspects actually went so far as to take their own lives as a result of alleged police harassment. So, to say the police mishandled the case would be a grotesque understatement indeed. On the night of September 26th, 1989, while the police were still investigating the Hwasong

serial killer, a home invasion occurred in the city of Suwon, just 13 miles from Hwasong. The homeowner happened to be awake and confronted the armed burglar before calling the police. The man was arrested, identifying himself as Lee Chun-jae when questioned, and after a short trial in February of 1990, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Lee Chun-jae ended up being released after just six months, after an appeal hearing in which he claimed to have been the one who was attacked, and he'd simply run into the residence to seek shelter. Yet during those six months, something interesting happened. There was not a single new murder that could be attributed to the Hwasong serial killer. In just a few months after Lee

Chun-jae's release, a 14-year-old girl was murdered whilst walking home from school on a rainy day, with investigators quick to note that she was carrying a red backpack. The killer was right under the noses of hundreds of homicide detectives working on the case, yet they failed to make any connections between Lee's imprisonment and the murderer's apparent hiatus. Li Chun-Jie remained quiet for a number of years, minimizing his murderous activities in the face of increasing police pressure. Yet in December of 1993, Li Chun-Jie's wife filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She was appalled by his prison sentence and noticed how he'd become

increasingly withdrawn over the years that preceded his conviction. Little did she know, her husband had been the very same murderous psychopath that had been terrorizing the Hwasong area, and leaving him would only cause the cauldron of evil inside of him to violently boil over. On January 13th of the following year, Li Chun-Jie contacted his 18-year-old sister-in-law, explaining that his soon-to-be ex-wife had forgotten a handful of her belongings. When his sister-in-law turned up to collect them, Li Chun-Jie dragged her inside, brutally violated her, then strangled the life from her. Then, in a sick display of false compassion, he approached his heartbroken father-in-law to offer his help in the search. It's truly horrifying to think that, despite his words,

Li Chun-Jie was only there to soak up the family's suffering, to revel in the destruction and anguish he had wrought. Yet in the days that followed, police noted that on multiple occasions, Lee Chun Jae seemed to suggest that his sister-in-law had been abducted and murdered. This was before investigators had any inkling whatsoever of her fate, so the fact that he was so adamant on her abduction was highly suspicious. Lee Chun Jae was also heard to ask, how many years in prison do you serve for violating someone and murder? And it didn't take long until the police investigation was focused solely on

him. Eventually, on January 18th of 1994, Lee Chun Jae was arrested as the prime suspect in his sister-in-law's murder, and although he initially denied all involvement, he was convicted and sentenced to death in May of the same year. Again, upon his imprisonment, the Hwasong serial killer apparently ceased to operate, but it would take 25 more years for them to connect the dots and realize that Lee Chun-Jae was the monster that they had been looking for all along. On September 18th of 2019, South Korean police official announced that Lee Chun-jae was most likely the Hwasong serial killer. This was based on a DNA match taken from the underwear of one of the victims, and other evidence linked him to almost all of the others.

All the police needed to do was coax a confession out of him, and given that he was already detained at Busan prison for the murder of his sister-in-law, investigators had direct, round-the-clock access to the man. It then just took over two weeks, but in early October, Lee Chun-jae confessed to killing 14 women and girls over a six-year period. He also confessed to almost 30 carnal assaults, along with almost 100nal assaults, along with almost 100 attempted assaults that matched up with a number of unsolved reports.

Psychologists noted that Lee displayed psychopathic tendencies by being unable to empathize with the victim's pain and suffering, and continuously showing off his crimes. One particularly remarkable aspect of this case is that before it was even solved, it became the basis for a popular South Korean movie directed by Bong Joon-ho, the same guy who directed the Academy Award winning black comedy, Parasite. Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung stars Detective Park and Detective Seo, respectively, two of the detectives trying to solve the crime, and the film ends with Detective Park looking straight at the camera, trying to spot the killer amongst the audience by using a special eye contact method. Obviously, it implied that the killer was still out there, maybe even watching the film among

the audience in question, and audiences were terrified by such a realistic prospect. Fortunately for them, Lee Chun-Jae was in prison for the murder of his sister-in-law, meaning moviegoers were safe from his predatory advances. But it definitely speaks to the morbid fascination society has with serial killers, how a horrifying series of murders can so fascinate us that we'll seek to glamorize and serialize it it before the killer is even caught. To be continued... days are made public holidays so that citizens get a chance to go out and vote. March 26th of 1991 was a holiday for that exact reason, and given that schools are closed on national holidays, a group of young South Korean school boys were out making the most of their day off of school.

The five boys were from Daoza District of Daegu, and attended the same elementary school, and although they varied in age from 9 years old to 13, they were all the very best of friends. They were 13-year-old Yoo Cha Won, 12-year-old Jo Ho Yeon, 11-year-old Kim Yong Yoo, 10-year-old Park Chan In, and 9-year-old Kim Jong Thik. On that particular day, the boys decided to spend the day searching for salamander eggs in the streams of Mount Wuriong on the western outskirts of Daegu. A sixth child, ten-year-old Kim Tae-yong, left the group to go home and eat, having missed breakfast that morning. But the next day, the boy discovered that his parents seemed particularly interested in

where he'd last seen his friends. The boy was honest and mentioned that they'd been hunting eggs at a certain section of stream, but the answer didn't seem to satisfy, and as much as his parents were trying to protect him from it, it slowly became apparent that something had happened to his friends, something very bad indeed. In fact, none of his five friends had returned home that day and their disappearance sparked a case that would haunt the South Korean national consciousness

for years. The story made national headlines, entire news programs were dedicated to sharing information surrounding the boys' disappearance, and South Korean President Roh Tae-woo sent over 300,000 police and military troops to search for the boys. They searched reservoirs, irrigation waterways, bus terminals, and stations nationwide. The fact that the boys were looking for salamander eggs was soon disregarded, as rumor and conjecture replaced salamanders with frogs. Soon the boys were looking for frog eggs. Therefore, in the national consciousness, they became the Frog Boys. Many of the Frog Boys' parents even quit their jobs to search for their children full-time, with the area they disappeared, Mount Wurrung, being intensively searched more than 500 times. A series of companies and civic groups made monetary donations totaling 42 million won,

or $35,000, as a reward to those who found the boys. But in the years that followed, no one was ever able to lay claim to the reward. With a total lack of evidence or clues regarding the boys' whereabouts, Korean media outlets began to make grim speculations as regarding the boys' whereabouts, Korean media outlets began to make grim speculations as to the boys' fate. Some journalists at Korea's Joon-Ang Daily News made incredibly spurious and irresponsible claims that the boys had been kidnapped by a mentally ill person, despite the fact that there was absolutely nothing to back this claim up. Police would receive hundreds of tips over the years that

followed, but none would yield any significant results. The only truly intriguing tip was from a man who claimed to be responsible for the crime. This sick individual claimed to have abducted the children and was keeping them barely alive as prisoners in some unknown location. He chillingly declared that they were alive, but not well. Not much else is known about the fraudulent tipster, but he too was ruled out of the investigation as it became clear that he was only interested in conning the police and the boy's parents out of the 42 million won reward. It took 11 years for any developments in the case, but eventually, in September of 2002,

a man searching for acorns in Mount Waryong came across a horrifying sight. In an anonymous phone call to emergency services, the man reported that he'd stumbled across the bodies of five dead and decaying children. When police showed up to close off the crime scene, it was confirmed shortly after that the bodies belonged to those five missing schoolboys that had gone missing all those years ago. At first, investigators speculated that the boys had gotten lost before dying of hypothermia during the night, but the boys' parents completely rejected the idea, claiming their boys knew the area well enough to find their way home under any circumstances. They demanded a full inquiry into their sons' deaths, with particular focus on why some of the boys' clothes seemed to have been tied into knots. What's more, the boys were just a few

minutes walk from a village they knew well, so to their parents, it was clear that some kind of foul play was at work. Lo and behold, forensic experts later found the skulls of three of the boys had been fractured by blunt force trauma, possibly inflicted by a small metal tool. This led homicide detectives to conclude that they had been murdered by someone who, according to them, had flown into a rage. But what could have the boys done to incur such wrath? Multiple theories have cropped up over the years, some more plausible than others. One of the more likely explanations is that the boys were killed by older bullies,

who upon realizing just what they'd done, fled the area and never spoke of it again. There was also a military firing range just a mile or so away from where the bodies were found, suggesting they could have possibly been hit by a stray round. However, given that the day they vanished was a national holiday, it seems unlikely that any kind of formal shooting practice would have taken place that day. Other more terrifying theories include the idea that the boys had been killed by a group of local lepers, who then extracted their livers under the assumption that consuming them would cure or otherwise alleviate the symptoms of their crippling disease. We can speculate all we want, but the fact remains that the cause of death remains a complete mystery,

making the case of the murdered frog boys one of the most notorious cold cases in South Korean history. We can only hope that sometime soon, developments in forensic and other investigative technologies reaches a point where we can finally deliver justice to the monster who killed those boys, then covered it up. I'm a DJ here in South Korea, and because English is not my first language, please excuse me if there are any mistakes here. Twenty years ago I was driving home from a late night wedding gig. It was around 4.30 am and I was driving south on our equivalent of an interstate highway, when at one point the retaining walls on each side of the highway grew very narrow due to the road snaking through mountain passes and other tunnel-like places.

It's not like a particularly dangerous place to drive, but the blind bends definitely made me a little nervous as I slowed down to traverse them. Good job I did too because suddenly out of nowhere a young woman jumped out in front of my car and I was forced to slam on the brakes hard. I swear I almost gave myself whiplash but I managed to stop in time and I was so angry that I got out of my car to shout at her what was she even thinking that she was doing? She looked up at me, didn't say a word in reply, then actually ran to the passenger side door and climbed into my car. It was then that I realized that she was evidently running from someone or something, so I freaked out for a second and as many minutes then jumped back into my car and drove off. I kept asking her,

are you okay? Who's chasing you? But she only ever replied with, I'm sorry, I just need to call my mom. I just need to call my mom. She looked to be in her late teens with dyed blonde hair and dirty clothes that made it look like she'd tripped a few times while escaping an attacker. I told her it was okay, that I'd drive her somewhere so she could call her parents, but I couldn't get a straight answer out of her because she was panicking and crying. We'd both seen the figure in my rearview mirror as we drove away. It caused her to scream out which made me speed up. I thought she might calm down a little so she could tell me what was going on. But she was terrified and just kept saying I need to call mom whenever she calmed down enough to talk. I know what you're thinking.

Why didn't she just use a cell phone? Well, this was a time when not everyone in South Korea could afford cell phones. They were in the market, sure, but to buy even a terrible one would require at least middle class salaries, so I had to wait until I saw a 24-hour gas station to find anywhere the girl could use the phone. I asked her if she needed any change to use the pay phones, but she just looked up at me and said the same thing, I just need to call mom. I think that's when I realized that something wasn't right. It was literally the only thing she said to me for the entire ride and when we stopped, she just got out and ran into the grocery store. It was very evident that she was terrified of whoever had been following her and it was also evident that

they were too scared to talk about it so, trying to be a good citizen, I called the police and told them everything. I kept the car running and kept watching the girl as she used the pay phone. The police dispatcher told me it would be around 10 minutes before the police arrived and I was worried she'd freak out if she found out I called them. So that was what was occupying my mind as I watched the girl put the phone down before she appeared to start walking back towards my car. Suddenly she stopped and she turned back towards the gas station as if she'd heard something around the corner of it, which was completely dark and not covered by any lights. I watched as she walked closer and closer towards it, almost like someone

was calling her name into the darkness, then, out of nowhere, I saw a man leap out of the darkness, grab her, then drag her back into it. I immediately put my foot down, zooming around to where she'd been grabbed so I could illuminate the darkness with my headlights. It was a matter of seconds, and I thought I'd see some predator trying to drag her behind a dumpster or something, but there was no one there. No one there at all. It actually took my breath away for a moment. There didn't seem to be anywhere for two people to disappear. Just a chain link fence and

the rear of the gas station. So where had they gone? Before I got a chance to look any further, the police showed up, so I ran over to their car and frantically told them what I'd just seen. We searched the area completely. They even checked in the back room of the gas station but there was no one fitting the description of the girl or the attacker. The police thanked me for filing the report but told me that there was no longer any reason for me to be there. It was about 5.30 in the morning by that time and adrenaline was starting to wear off so I did as I was told and went home to sleep. Naturally it wasn't the most peaceful sleep of my life and my first thoughts when I awoke

were that that poor girl had been dragged into the shadows and I never learned of her fate. Nothing was in the news about it and when I contacted the police about it they just told me it was under investigation. But the thing that I find really scary about the whole thing is how there was a man chasing her when she got into my car on the highway and we must have driven at at least 5 or 6 miles away from the scene. It couldn't have been the same guy who grabbed her and there's no way of anyone knowing where we were headed. So how was someone able to find her at the gas station? Was it something to do with the phone call she made? I have so many unanswered questions about this event in my life, and

sometimes I feel like it haunts me. I find myself scared of total strangers whose names I didn't even know, and as much as I hope she's okay somewhere, and what happened was part of some horrible but brief chapter in her life, I have the worst feeling that she's not okay at all. I don't want to give away too much about myself here, because I guess I could still be court-martialed for talking about this. But honestly, people need to know about stuff like this, especially in light of some of the more recent information that's been released by the government. So I work avionics on F-22s for the US Air Force, and as you can imagine, most of the work is either done outside

or in some big hangar, sometimes pretty late at night too. This one time, I was stationed out in South Korea. It's the middle of the night and we're in the middle of work when we got told to go walk back into the hangar. Not unusual of course, so we comply without a word. But then, someone orders the hangar doors closed, which raised a few eyebrows. And then, we get told to face the rear portion of the hangar and not look behind us. Anyone who's been in the military will tell you that that's not the kind of order you receive every day. But still, we just do as we're told. But then, not only do all the lights in the hangar get switched off,

but the fact that it was dark behind us too meant that basically every light in the entire base had been turned off as well. So, there I am, standing there in total darkness thinking, what in God's name is going on here? When I start hearing this rumbling sound in the distance, it gets louder and louder, and I realize it's a low-flying aircraft, maybe two or three of them, and they fly super low, super loud right over the top of us. A few minutes later, it's all quiet again, and the lights come on, and we're just told to get back to it.

We obviously did a buttload of speculating over what it might be, and the general consensus seemed to be that it was some new top-secret spy plane that was being tested out, because their engines sounded slightly different to anything we'd heard before. That seemed like the most rational explanation anyways. I mean, it's not like our officers knew any more than we did, or if they did, they certainly did a good job of hiding it. So anyway, a few years go by, I'm posted somewhere else, but doing basically the same job, when I start seeing stuff on the New York Times website about Lieutenant Commander Alex Diedrich. Diedrich said that back in 2004, she and her copilot were tasked with checking out some

weird radar signatures that the USS Nimitz was picking up off the coast of Southern California. They first noticed this weird churning in the water before seeing what she described as a smooth, white oblong object resembling a large tic-tac breath mint flying at high speed over the water. This is all in a report that went before Congress. Diederik isn't some crazy person. In fact, you get to be incredibly psychologically stable to get to be a fighter pilot to begin with. There's all this talk of normalizing UFO sightings and stuff now and it's right there out in the open and no one is talking about it.

It just makes me think that we were way too quick to label what happened some super advanced spy plane or whatever and at the risk of being labeled a nut I think the government knows way more about these tic-tac incidents than they're letting on. I think we might well be on the cusp of acknowledging that we're routinely visited by extraterrestrials, but whether or not they have good or bad intentions, I suppose only time will tell. I was an army brat, and I grew up pretty much all over the world on various bases in Germany, South Korea, Japan and obviously back here in America too. I have some pretty crazy stories from my childhood but only one or two that are like horror movie level scary.

So this is back in 1992, I'm about 10 years old and we'd just gotten off a plane in Pyeongtaek's airbase in South Korea. As we're walking through one of the arrival buildings, everyone's attention is drawn to what looked like a service lift because a bunch of guys are cutting a hole in it with a giant saw. The whole area is cordoned off, people are freaking out, and it dawns on me that someone's actually trapped in the lift. Obviously we didn't stand around gawking, but we found out later that a pretty horrifying thing had happened.

A cleaner had been using the service lift one night after a shift to go back to the departure area where he could stash his trolley, etc., when the lift breaks down between floors. No problem though, right? Because the emergency help button is there to save the day. I can honestly only imagine how horrified the guy must have been when he realized that no matter how many times he pushed the button, he wasn't getting any response. The thing was busted and since this is way before cell phones or anything, he realizes he's basically stuck in there until someone else comes along to use the service elevator. Only, he's in the middle of a night shift and no matter how loud

he screams or pounds on the door, no one seems to be able to hear him. Apparently he wasn't scheduled to be on shift until a whole 24 hours later, so no one thought to look for him. His coworkers just roll up and assume everything is okay, only realizing something's amiss when the service elevator doesn't work. But by that point, he's been trapped inside the elevator for more than 18 hours, and he's getting pretty desperate. He's drank water from his own mop bucket, bearing in mind it's the middle of summer and super hot everywhere, and he's been pounding on the doors but still no one seems to hear him. So his co-workers know the elevator is busted. They just don't know that he's trapped inside of it,

so there's no mad rush to get an engineer or a mechanic out to check on it. 48 hours pass, there's still no engineer to fix the elevator, and they still have no idea where their co-worker is. Some of them figured he'd gone into the city to spend his paycheck and hadn't managed to get back in time. But meanwhile, this cleaner had been trapped in the service elevator for two straight days. He's starving, he's sick from drinking mop bucket water, and he's had to use one corner of the elevator as a bathroom. Luckily, the engineer gets there, gets the elevator back to the ground,

and that's when they realize that a guy is trapped in there after hearing his weak cries begging for help. That's when all the craziness started because they couldn't get the doors open for whatever reason, so out came all the crazy circular saws and stuff. My dad says that he was taken to the hospital with dysentery or something, like he was in a real bad way by the time they got him out. He survived, but he never went back to his job at the airbase, all because one faulty elevator almost cost him his life. I think that's what freaks me out so much about that story. How it was some totally normal

everyday thing that almost killed this guy. Like I know he shouldn't have drunk the mop water but at the same time I totally get why someone might panic and do something irrational when faced with such a terrifying situation. I mean you're just feet away from other people but at the same time you might as well be a hundred miles away. But yeah, that's the story I tell people every time I choose to take like three or four flights of stairs instead of just hopping into the elevator. People think I'm crazy for taking the stairs, but it doesn't bother, you know, because I know they're crazy for just casually walking into what could easily become their giant steel coffin Way back in the 1980s when I was in the Navy, I was stationed out at Chinae in South Korea, which is this big old US naval base near the city of Busan.

One day we were way out at sea, performing what we'd call underway replenishments, alongside an aircraft carrier. Basically this is when two ships would sail side by side on the same course, very close together in rigged lines and hoses between the two ships to transfer fuel and other supplies. In choppy waters, it's as risky as you can imagine, but the whole thing means you can keep carriers and battleships in the fight against a numerically superior force. Cough, the Chinese Navy, cough. So, on this occasion, right as we're running the cables and fuel lines, this little fishing trawler registered to some Russian fishing

company comes trundling in between us. He's innocently like, hi guys, don't mind me, just doing some fishing. But every time he comes between us, we have to perform an emergency breakaway so as not to put him in danger. If it happened just once, you can chalk it up to an accident. But it kept happening. All morning. This guy was obviously trying to screw up our exercise and the fact that he had a Ruski flag on it, I mean, these guys aren't even trying to hide it anymore.

But say we legit halted, boarded, then arrested the guys, not only would we look like the jerks, but Putin could just say it was an accident, silly fishermen, but evil imperialist Americans bullying the little fishing boat. Now around noon, word came down that Brass was going to deal with the trawler, we just didn't know how they were planning on doing so. The two ships split off from one another, but then for some reason, the little Russian trawler starts trailing us like way too close for comfort too. You get civilian vessels doing some pretty dumb stuff

sometimes, mostly just to check out the big cool military ships, but this little Russian dude was acting really suspiciously. I figured the carrier captain would just warn them via radio. As it turns out, he decided on a solution that was considerably more intense. Out of nowhere, we just hear this roaring sound coming out of the clouds. Then four fighter jets, after burners firing, went supersonic over us in the trawler. I wasn't actually topside when the F-14s took off and even if I was, we were so far from the carrier that the planes would have just looked like little specks in the distance, barely even noticeable. So at first I had no clue if these planes were Russian, South Korean, or worse, North Korean or Chinese. I think they must have passed at less than a hundred feet above us

and believe me when I say the sound was like the very gates of hell opening. I've never heard anything like it before or since. I'm pretty sure none of us had. Those four sonic booms and quick succession, you felt each one in your chest, like it was legitimately sounding like the entire world was breaking into pieces. The carrier's captain didn't want to clue the fishing vessel into what he was doing, so he deployed with F-14s without telling anyone on our ship. I think this caused some contention between the two commanders following the exercise, but it was definitely exceptional circumstances. They definitely thought the Russian fishing vessel was spying on them, so to my knowledge, there was no disciplinary proceedings that followed.

For about 15 seconds, it was absolute mayhem. I knew one boot, who shall remain nameless, who literally wet his pants he was that scared. Then as soon as we realized it was our own F-14s, we all just fell on our butts with relief. The trawler on the other hand, there was no relief for them. They turned tail and sailed off at flank speed before our planes could hit them with more sonic booms. I saw some awesome display of power during my time in the navy, but that was the only time I found out what it might be like to be on the receiving end of some of our weapon systems. And let me tell you, it was just about one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I used to work as a liaison officer for Samsung, which meant I'd split my time between my home

city of San Francisco and the South Korean cities of Seoul and Suwon. And one thing I learned really quickly when I started visiting the country is just how much South Koreans like to drink. I read somewhere that every year South Koreans drink twice as much hard liquor than Russians. I don't know exactly how true that is but they're definitely making a good attempt at it, let me tell you. It makes for some fun nights out with co-workers, there's no denying that. Nothing quite forms a bond like stuffing your face with fried chicken and washing it down with tons of beer. But there's also the downside of South Korea drinking culture, and that's how alcoholism is rampant. On more than one occasion, there'd just be some drunk guy in the public getting his butt beat by cops

before they'd just throw his barely conscious body into the back of their car. But by far, the worst incident of public drunkenness was when I was on the way to work one morning. I get to the platform and on the other side, this guy is like fall down drunk. He's singing, cursing at commuters, laughing to himself, all the while the commuters are just standing there, pretending the whole thing just isn't happening. They hear two or more people growling, under their breath, which is a Korean word meaning literally addict, but other than that, everyone is just tactically ignoring the guy. Then he gets up, starts waddling around, and people are doing that incredibly big city thing of both pretending he doesn't exist,

while also moving out of his way. A sea of smartly dressed commuters parts, and this guy walks right up to the edge of the platform, shouts something unintelligible, to me anyway, then throws himself onto the tracks. Thankfully, several people on the platform reach out to him, trying to pull him back up. But every time the drunk man tried to stand up, he fell right down again. The people on the platform couldn't reach him. Then, my train actually arrives. Not on the side the guy was stuck obviously so I had little choice but to board

before watching this drama unfold through my window. Suddenly I hear this wave of screams as the commuters on the opposite platform started going ballistic. They were louder than I've ever heard anyone scream before and I swear the sound was like nightmares distilled. A hundred different people thinking they were all about to watch someone die. I could feel it in my chest and in my stomach. People were frantically pointing and just as I turned to see what they were pointing at, a train barreled into my field of view. The drunk man hadn't been pulled up yet and I realized there wasn't enough time left. The train was just traveling way, way too fast. One of the would-be rescuers

was leaning quite far over the ledge of the platform with his upper body directly in the path of the oncoming train. So from where I was sitting, not only was the drunk about to die, but one of the rescuers were too. It was like the one thing you wouldn't want to happen. They say that you never know how you're going to react to a situation until you actually experience it I wouldn't have thought I'd react the way that I did But it was almost as if my hands took on a life of their own They just shot up and covered my eyes I didn't want to see whatever carnage was about to take place

I didn't want those memories to exist in my head A few seconds after I heard the sounds of the other train screeching to a halt, I lowered my hands. Through the windows of the other train, I could see that the drunk man was now standing on the platform, totally unharmed. I don't think even I have the vocabulary to communicate the kind of relief that I felt. During those brief seconds when my eyes had been closed, the people had succeeded in pulling him to safety. Everybody lived, and it was nothing short of a miracle. This happened while living in my parents house house about 10 years ago and, for context, I grew up in Seoul, South Korea. My entire family, that's my brother, sister, and parents, were at a baseball game. Baseball was really popular here in South Korea. It was a night

game and, being baseball, I ran a little longer into the night. I couldn't go to the game because at the time I was still in high school with a part-time job as a lifeguard so I'd normally get off at around 9pm. The pool was super close to my parents so I could get home within minutes but still I decided to just stay home and chill instead of meeting my family at the game. Anyway, I finally get home and get a shower. I finish up and I'm getting out of the shower and walking into my room and I hear all this shuffling and running downstairs. So I yell, hello? Thinking it's my parents. I then yell, mom? Dad? But again, no one answers. Then I hear footsteps downstairs and the next thing I know,

I hear a garage opening up. You could just manually lift the door at the time because our garage door opener was broken. So I'm really confused for a second and it's not until I make sure none of their cars are in the driveway that I'm certain that no one is back home yet. In which case, who was just in my house? I threw on a bathrobe, grabbed my keys, then ran across the street to a neighbor's place. Then I got my neighbor and her son and we all walked through the house with a baseball bat because I was absolutely terrified that someone might have still been there. The neighbor ended up calling the cops and when we did another walk around we found that my dad had about 110,000 wands stolen. That's about a hundred dollars and

my mom's diamond rings and earrings were all stolen and there was a set of earrings lying in the bedroom floor with the jewelry box lid still slightly off which was by far the most terrifying because it meant I'd interrupted them during the crime. What happened was my parents' house was right in the middle of getting burglarized while I came home. I was in the house with the intruders for some time before they realized I was home and heard the shower running and me starting to yell for my parents which startled them and made them make a run for it. Hence the footsteps and shuffling I was hearing and the escape route was through the broken garage door which they must have scouted outside of our house for some time. The cops said that was the third break-in in our area within the past week and they have been on the lookout for suspicious people without tipping off the public. Probably one of the scariest things I've had happen to me though.

The moment I realized my parents weren't home and someone else was in the house with me was probably the worst fear I've ever had. It came with like a physical reaction. I legitimately recoiled when I realized that A. I wasn't alone and B. I was extremely vulnerable. I went traveling around Asia a few years ago, mostly Korea and Japan, and in Korea I did most of my traveling by train. That's how I ended up at Jugangano station in Daegu. While I was there I ended up seeing this memorial type thing and since I didn't have anywhere to be I thought I'd go over and check it out. What I learned and the things I saw ended up being some of the most nightmarish stuff I've ever heard. In February of 2003 this ex-taxi driver planned to take his own life. But the thing is, he wanted to do it in a

public place, to go out with a bang kind of thing. So he goes down into the subway with two big milk cartons of gas or whatever then tries to set himself on fire. Naturally, other passengers freak out and try to stop the guy, cause who wants to watch a guy burn to death on their morning work run. But then in a commotion, one of the cartons gets spilled, the guy drops his lighter, and the whole train car gets set on fire. Then, I'm not 100% sure how this happened, but the driver doesn't tell the passengers about the fire for whatever reason, so even though there's smoke and stuff, most of the passengers stay put. Then when the driver learns how bad the fire is, he just bails and takes the train's master key with him, which turned off all the electricity, but also ended up sealing

all of the passengers on the burning train. The smoke and fire killed almost 200 people, and I think the train company or the government tried to, like, cover the whole thing up afterward. It was a huge scandal, and I think the driver only narrowly avoided getting the death penalty for his actions. There's actually, like, a safety-themed theme park in Daegu as a result, and the whole thing is supposed to be a fun way of teaching people about basic health and safety stuff. But the memorial at Junggangun is seriously one of the most haunting things I've ever seen in my life. There's all this info about the tragedy in both Korean and English, and although the whole subway has been reconstructed after the fire, they preserved this big chunk of wall from the old station. It has a bunch of payphones on it, all burned up and melted from the heat. But the worst things are the messages that people wrote on the walls.

After the fire, the families of the victims went down to the burned out station to write messages to their dead relatives in chalk on the walls. I can't even imagine having to go through something like that. And the whole time I was on the subway from that point on, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every little light flicker or bump had me practically breaking out in a nervous sweat, and I was really grateful for Tokyo's tram and bus network which helped me do a little bit more sightseeing while on the move. Visiting South Korea was honestly one of the most incredible experiences of my life. And for anyone thinking about visiting, please don't let any of the regional tensions put you off. It really is a unique and incredible place. But I did meet one person who told me what I can only describe as a horror story.

So, I was staying in this apartment block that was basically a high-rise filing cabinet. The apartments are tiny and they're generally only rented by low-income families or used as Airbnbs by low-rent travelers such as myself. I'm headed out from this one place and there's a guy standing in the hallway smoking a cigarette who's asking me which just means are you American? I tell him yes and he seems shocked that I spoke okay Korean. I've been learning for years before I visited, but I didn't quite recognize his accent, so I asked him whereabouts in South Korea he was from. He just shakes his head and says, Bokan, which sort of just means northern place. Only he doesn't mean north of South Korea,

because Bokan is basically a nickname for North Korea. Obviously I'm like, oh my god, because I'd never met a North Korean before and I end up asking him how he'd come to be in South Korea. This was a big mistake. He goes on to tell me the most heart-wrenching story I'd ever heard, how some cop basically turned up at his family's house one day and told them some distant relative had been convicted of a crime against the government and because they were related, they were all headed to a prison camp. Then this truck full of soldiers pulls up, they all jump out with guns and they start rounding up the family. Apparently his mom just told him to run into the woods and never come home, so he did. After that, he said he didn't want to talk about it anymore, but

not before adding that his escape meant that his family were most certainly dead. Which, I get it man, I wouldn't want to talk about it either. It's just awful thinking you can be in Seoul and this incredibly vibrant, bustling place, and less than 30 miles away, there's a country where people are starving, where their lives are like something out of an actual nightmare. To be continued... market at night near my grandparents house in South Korea is without a doubt one of the creepiest places I've ever been to. For context I am Korean American so I've visited South Korea at least once a year since I was a kid. One time my grandparents needed something from the market so they asked my mom to go. Typically women don't go by themselves at night because sadly in rural areas women have been known to go missing from time to time. So my mom asked me to come with her since there would be safety in numbers. It was incredibly

creepy. There were only about three street lamps the whole way. The market itself and the nearby town took up an entire street and we had to go deeper into the market to get to the store we needed. There wasn't a single woman or kid, only grown men staring at us while we had to go deeper into the market to get to the store we needed. There wasn't a single woman or kid, only grown men staring at us while they had to drink or cigarette and all they did was stare at us, shaking their heads and saying mean things in Korean under their breath. The entire time I was only thinking about what my mother and I would do in case any of them decided to get fresh with us. We got to the store we needed to and got the thing, but the storekeeper looked at us really weird, as if he was judging us real

hard for being out after dark. Even after we left the store I could still see him looking at us like we were just scum or something. Eventually after we passed a group of men sitting on motorcycles, we see them all get up and start following us. At this point, my mom also started to panic and we both practically ran. More like speed walking, but my mom was going as fast as she could. We got on the main road where there were far more people and a lot more street light. The men stopped and went back to the motorcycles. I honestly can't tell you how scary

that was. The fact that I could have been murdered and my mom possibly assaulted before she was murdered. There's no mistake, those men were coming after us and ever since then, neither me or my mom or anyone from my family went to that market at night. As firefighters rushed to the scene, none of them had a clue what they were soon to discover. It was just after 5.30am on December 30th, 1999, when a 911 call brought them to the scene of a house fire in rural Welsh, Oklahoma. Inside the now burned out home, the charred remains of Kathy Freeman were found. She had been shot in the head. At first, law enforcement believed Kathy's husband, Danny Freeman, had killed his wife and fled with his daughter, Ashley, and her friend, Laura Bible, after starting the fire, despite the Freeman car still sitting in the driveway with the keys inside. Things changed on December 31st when Bible's parents,

Lorene and Jay, returned to the scene and found another set of remains in the rubble. The remains were ruled to be those of Danny. He too had been shot in the head. Authorities would search the scene a second time in hopes of finding the bodies of Ashley and Laura, but no one else was ever discovered. The night prior to the deadly fire, Ashley and Laura spent the evening together celebrating Freeman's 16th birthday. Not wanting to end the fun quite yet, Laura got permission to spend the night with Ashley. This would be the final time either girl would be heard from or seen again.

At some point in the wee hours of December the 30th, a nightmare would come to life. No one will ever know for sure what happened that terrible night, but Lorene Bible never gave up hope that her daughter and Ashley would be found alive one day. Over 15 years passed, and authorities kept the case alive. Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted would feature the case on their shows in 2000 and 2001. HLN even included the story in a four-part series titled Hell in the Heartland. It was released in July of 2020. The period between the Night of the Fire and now have not been without their moments of hope and disappointment.

In the decade just after Ashley and Laura went missing, two convicted killers would confess to their murders. Tommy Lynn Sells and Jeremy Jones would both do so just to recant afterwards. Jones claimed he had killed the Freemans as a way to pay off a drug debt and then took the girls with him to Kansas. Supposedly, he shot them and threw their bodies into an abandoned mine. Subsequent searches of the mine yielded nothing and Jones would ultimately admit that he made the story up to get better food and phone privileges. When the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries in 2001, rumors of local Craig County police involvement was mentioned. The Freemans had been feuding with the department over the shooting death of their son,

Shane, after he stole a car. Despite ruling the death justifiable, the family threatened to file a wrongful death suit against them. Danny's brother, Dwayne, went as far as to claim Danny had told him that deputies had been intimidating him just before his and his wife's death. Then, in April of 2018, almost 20 years later, justice would finally be served. Ronnie Dean Busick, 66, was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder. Two other suspects who had since died were also identified, Warren Philip Welsh II and David Pennington. The Washington Post wrote that at least a dozen witnesses had heard the three men bragging about assaulting and killing the two girls, going so far as taking photos at the time.

These witnesses also alleged they had killed the Freemans over drug money and held Ashley and Laura at Welsh's trailer for several days before ending their lives. One female witness who lived with Welsh provided a sworn affidavit that said the three accused disposed of the girl's body in a pit or mine shaft in Pitcher, Oklahoma. Law enforcement stated at the time they thought the remains had been buried in a cellar and then covered in concrete. After his arrest, Busick spoke with Laura Bible's mother, Lorene, and denied knowing the location of her daughter or Freeman. However, on July 15th, 2020, he would plead guilty to the first-degree murder of both young women, Ashley's mother and father, Danny and Kathy Freeman, and to the burning of their home. He would also go on to admit withholding information about Welsh and Pennington's

involvement in the crimes. His plea was part of a deal in which he would receive 15 years total, suspending the final five All of this was contingent upon his helping the authorities in attempts to find the girl's remains If his assistance led to the recovery before his sentencing hearing The term of sentence would be reduced to five years behind bars and five years suspended He would of course also get credit for the time that he had already served. This deal was likely a hard thing to swallow for the victim's remaining family, but they were looking forward to finally getting their girls home. It seemed as though Busick was going to hold up his end. Acting on information from him,

investigators searched and excavated a home in Pitcher, Oklahoma. Sadly though, nothing was found. Because of this, the judge gave Busick the full term of 15 years, requiring a full 10 years be spent in prison. Even after all the dead ends through the years, some in law enforcement are confident that it's only a matter of time before they'll find the victim's remains. Maybe prison will give Busick the opportunity to reflect on his despicable actions and he'll finally give the cops what they need to find Ashley and Laura. I'm not going to hold my breath though. Relying on a psychopathic mass murderer to have a change of heart is like expecting a lion to become a vegetarian. It's just not something they do. If you have any information, no matter how small,

call your local law enforcement. Perhaps one of you out there right now has what we need to give everyone affected by this horrible crime the peace they deserve. Let's bring Ashley and Laura home today. It's now a common part of modern American lingo. Some light-hearted video game developers even created a very controversial game series based solely on this one short phrase, going postal. It's a term that we are all well

aware of and may even use from time to time. But do you know where the phrase originated? If you were alive and paying attention in the 1980s and 90s, you may know it was a tempestuous time of economic and political struggle. It was also a period that gave birth to the mass shooting, at workplaces in particular. No other workplace seemed to play host to more of these than the post office. It was almost as if you couldn't turn the news back then without seeing another report of a postal worker shooting off his job site. Just in the 90s alone, six different post office related shootings occurred. Two even happened on the same day. We now know just how bad things were to get after the turn of the century, but these events still shock the public greatly no matter how numerous they seem

to be. These days this stuff is almost commonplace. I'm not here to argue the finer points of what causes these events to happen. Rather, my purpose is to share the story of how a senseless act of bloodshed on August 20th, 1986 gave birth to a common phrase many of us often use in jest. After hearing this, you may rethink using it. The seeds of destruction were sown just the day before. Although there is no real consensus as to Patrick Sherrill's work performance We do know his supervisors, Bill Bland and Richard Essard Jr. did reprimand him for something that day Sherrill was a relief carrier Which meant that he lacked the job stability many of his co-workers with regular routes and more seniority enjoyed.

This may have played on his mind and been a small part of what caused his break. Regardless of his supposed reasons, when he arrived at work the following day, he was determined to wreak vengeance on all those he felt had wronged him. In order to do this, Sherrill carried with him a Colt 1911, a Remington 1911, and a.22 caliber Ruger MK2 pistol. Shortly after 7am, he would claim his first victim, Supervisor Richard Esser Jr. Soon after killing Esser, Sherrill went into search of the other supervisor, Bill Bland. Fortunately for Bland, he had overslept and didn't arrive until the shooting had ended. Not finding Bland, he sought out co-worker Paul Michael Rockney and took his life.

This was just the beginning, however. For the next several minutes, Bland would calmly walk through the crowded post office sorting room, shooting and reloading until he was left with one last bullet. Finding himself with no other options, Sherrill would turn the gun on himself. Out of the hundred or so employees present that day, fourteen would die at the scene and another six required hospitalization. On May 29th, 1989, a time when the shootings were still very fresh on America's mind, a monument to those who lost their lives was erected outside the post office's south entrance.

The memorial includes the bronze statues of a man and woman standing atop a pillar in the center of a fountain, holding a ribbon of which the bow is attached at its base. Although it may sound complex, it is actually very tasteful. The Edmund community joined with the USPS to build the monument. The bronze statues were created by sculptor Richard Muno. Each year, and in particular the 25th and 30th anniversary of the murders, people gathered from all around the world to honor the memories of those who lost their lives on that horrific morning. Below, I've included the list of those who were killed or injured that morning. I've chosen to include the injured because

I feel that even if they didn't sacrifice their lives, the scars they carry, mental and physical, are just as important. Kenneth W. Morey, 49. Leroy Oren Phillips, 42. Jerry Ralph Pyle, 51. Paul Michael Rockne, 33. Thomas Wade Shader Jr., 31. Patty Jean Husband, 48. Betty Ann Jarrett, 34. Patty Lou Welsh, 27. William F. Miller, 30. The Injured. May they all rest in peace forever. The first body would be discovered in the summer of 1999.

Last seen in Lawton, the nude body of 28-year-old Jane Marie Chafton was found floating in Sandy Bear Creek. Her body had been in the water too long to yield any real evidence, but there was at least enough to determine it had been a homicide. Law enforcement had no solid suspect at the time. Chafton's profession resulted in a far larger suspect pool than usual. Like many of the escorts working the area along Cash Road, her drug habit put her in contact with a large number of unsavory characters. Just a few months later in October, another female went missing. Her friends and loved ones hoped that 25-year-old Cassandra Lee Ramsey had gotten clean and off the streets. Sadly, five months later, their hopes would be dashed when Cassandra's body was found discovered under a bridge in Jefferson County.

Her death, too, was ruled a homicide. To some in law enforcement, it was beginning to look like a serial killer was at work. In total, five escorts would be killed by the Lawton serial killer. The following are the names of his assumed victims. Jane Marie Chafton, 28. Cassandra Lee Ramsey, 25. The following are the names of his assumed victims. In addition to these five, some believe 17-year-old Tanya Marie Hook also fell prey to the murderer. She lived on Cache Road and disappeared in 2003. Her remains were found in a ditch five years later near the town of Cole. In each homicide, the women had been stripped and dumped in bodies of water.

Almost all had drugs in their systems. Once a consensus was reached among investigators, it was determined that the same person or persons had committed their string of crimes between 1999 and 2003. All of the women were from Lawton. The most recent to move there was Pamela Woodring, who had just arrived after a stint in prison. The rest had lived in the city for some time. The few witnesses the police were able to find suffered from credibility issues as they were criminals and addicts themselves. After the final murder in 2003, the case went cold. As serial murderers are known to do, detectives feared their perpetrator had moved on to another city and a whole new group of women

were about to lose their lives. Serial killers can be a notoriously hard group to track. Many of them, including this one, often pick people who are in desperate situations like drug addiction and selling their bodies. These same communities are largely ignored by society. If they do die or come up missing, unfortunately few people care. Despite this, authorities did have a few theories. John Robert Williams is a long-haul trucker who was arrested in 2004 for the murder of 20-year-old escort Nikki Hill in Mississippi. His girlfriend, Rachel Cumberland, was charged as his accomplice.

While in prison, Williams claimed to have killed upwards of 30 truck stop escorts over a span of two decades. Some of these poor women were from Oklahoma. In 2003, an escort out of Oklahoma City, Jennifer Hyman, was found dead under a bridge in the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi. Williams and Cumberland were charged in this case, but those charges were later dismissed due to lack of evidence. Despite the lack of evidence, Williams has been implicated in at least nine other murders, including some from Oklahoma. Many of those Oklahomans were escorts and their bodies were found in shockingly similar conditions as the victims in Lawton. Because of the proximity

of victims to the highway, Williams became known as the I-40 killer. Some speculate that Williams may have started his spree in Lawton because of the similarities. The timelines also match up. Having stopped in Lawton in 2003, just around the time the Oklahoma City and other murders began. Although Williams was only charged in a small number of these murders and only convicted in the Nicky Hill case, there is no reason to believe he and his accomplice aren't involved in scores more. Sadly to say, there's just no evidence available to prove it. Even with all that, the Lawton crimes could possibly have no connection to Williams whatsoever. It's possible they were committed by someone else, perhaps a local even.

Then again, the trucker angle may not be such a bad theory after all. The job offers plenty of opportunities to dump bodies en route. Not to mention, if most of the victims were escorts, many worked truck stops on a regular basis, giving a killer ready access to his prey. Whether the killer proves to be a trucker or a deranged local, six women lost their lives to a bloodthirsty killer. For the sake of the families, the rule of law, and of course, the women themselves, let's hope some new information comes forward. No matter their weaknesses, at the end of the day these women were human beings. Nobody should be murdered and tossed away like a piece of garbage.

They deserve just as much compassion as anybody else does, but even more, they deserve justice. Hey friends, thanks for listening. To be continued... 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. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. All links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And and remember yabba dabba doo