The Lets Read Podcast - 184: HE MOPPED UP HER BLOOD | 24 True Scary Stories | EP 172

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Crazy Janitors, Dating, & Close Calls... 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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So who's that pro the pros at tread experts from tires to auto repair. Tread experts is always there helping you with Kumo tires. You can trust until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca To be continued... On the night of February 29th, 2008, the Caffey family were fast asleep at their home in the small town of Alba in northeastern Texas. The family of five consisted of 41-year-old Terry Caffey, his 37-year-old wife Penny, and their three children, 8-year-old Tyler, 13-year-old Matthew, and 16-year-old Aaron.

They bonded over their love of music and their love of Jesus, and often played in a family band at Sunday services with Tyler on guitar, Matthew on harmonica, and Penny on piano. Erin fronted the group and wowed audiences all over the Southwest with her sweet, angelic voice and cherubic appearance. All her young life, she was a picture of innocence, her parents' blonde-haired, blue-eyed pride and joy. But just after her 16th birthday, Erin met a person that would not only have a catastrophic effect on her life, but also the lives of her beloved family members. But the devastation they wrought also raised a very serious question. Was Erin really as innocent as she seemed? Or was there something darker, deep inside of her that drove her to become complicit in an act of pure evil? Shortly after Erin entered her 16th year, she announced that she'd found herself a boyfriend.

But when she brought him around to meet her parents, he wasn't quite what they were expecting. Not only was Charlie Wilkinson three years older than Aaron, but both Terry and Penny picked up some decidedly bad vibes from him. His intentions for their daughter seemed less than pure and his checkered past left much to be desired. Early on, I had reservations about the young man, Terry later said. There were just things about him that didn't sit right with me. I talked to young people about the young man, Terry later said. There were just things about him that didn't sit right with me. I talked to young people about the dangers of running with the wrong crowd, and Charlie ticked all the boxes of someone I didn't want dating my daughter. The Caffey parents were then faced with

two options. Intervene directly and essentially force Aaron to break up with Charlie, or simply keep a watchful eye out and allow their daughter to make her own mistakes. The former would no doubt cultivate a deep, festering resentment for them, while the latter would foster boundless trust when Aaron realized that they were right. They opted for the latter. As the weeks went by, the Caffees continued to hope their daughter's errant relationship would simply fizzle out on its own. We've been dealing with Aaron, with the rebellion going on and keeping an eye on everything, Terry explained. Yet little did he know, tragedy was about to strike. On February 21st, 2008, Terry popped over to visit his elderly father, Clarence, who lived alone on the other side of town. But when he knocked on the front door, Clarence didn't answer. His car was in the driveway, so he must have been home.

But when Terry went around to the back door and entered his father's home, he was greeted by a heartbreaking sight. Clarence was laying dead on the kitchen floor, having suffered a massive heart attack. What followed was an extremely tough week for the Caffey family, yet it seemed the worst was yet to come. A few days after we buried my dad, we found out some things through Charlie's MySpace page," Terry stated. After we saw those things, references to drinking and other highly inappropriate activity, we pulled Erin aside and told her that we didn't raise her like that, and that he was not good for her. Erin didn't take the intervention well, but no one could have guessed what she'd do next. Two days after the intervention, on the night of February 29th, Charlie Wilkinson pulled up outside the Caffey family's home, accompanied by 20-year-old Charles Allen Wade and Charlie's 18-year-old girlfriend, Bobbie Gail Johnson.

Wilkinson pulled out his cell phone and sent a short message to Erin Caffey. Moments later, Erin crept out of the house in her pajamas before climbing into her boyfriend's vehicle. After that, Wilkinson and Charles Wade walked up to the house, entering through the front door which Erin had left ajar. Terry Caffey said that around two o'clock in the morning, he was awoken by a strange noise in the hallway outside his bedroom. At first he thought it was simply one of his children making a midnight trip to the bathroom, but when he heard two adult males whispering to each other, he realized that something was horribly wrong.

The next night knew, Terry later said, they burst into our bedroom and opened fire, shooting me several times. And not only did they come in shooting, they also came in with a samurai sword. After they shot Penny, they shot me three more times, in the back and once in the back of the leg. All in all, I think I had been shot eleven times.

I couldn't feel the right side of my body and nothing would come out of my mouth. I felt like I'd been shot in the face. Then one of them took the sword and stabbed Penny in the neck, nearly decapitating her. Just minutes into the attack, Terry Caffey had lost a dangerous amount of blood. But as he drifted in and out of consciousness, his only thought were of his two boys, who were no doubt terrified in their third floor bedrooms. I began to panic, Terry told journalists in the aftermath of the slaughter.

I was trying to get up and I heard Matthew begin to cry out. He said, no Charlie, no. Why are you doing this? When I heard his name mentioned by Matthew, I knew who was in my house and why he was there. Then I heard the gunfire. I tried to get up again, but the blood rushed into my head and I collapsed. I was later told Matthew had been shot, whereas they took turns stabbing Tyler, who was hiding in a closet. When the attackers were done massacring the family, they went about setting fire to the Caffey's family's home. The next time I woke up, the house was on fire, Kathy said. I knew I wasn't able to get upstairs because the flames were just pushing me back into the bedroom, so I crawled

onto the bed and found Penny. She was already gone. I finally managed to crawl out of our bedroom window and then drag myself away from the house. Terry was so weak from the loss of blood that it took him almost two hours to crawl just 300 yards in his neighbor's house to get help. When he reached Tommy Gaston's house, Gaston immediately called 911. Moments into the call, the operator asked Gaston where Terry was bleeding from and according to the call transcripts, Gaston replied with, where isn't he bleeding from? It's a miracle he's here at all. When paramedics arrived at the Gaston house, they rushed Terry to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler and admitted him to the critical care unit for immediate treatment. Meanwhile, based on a

statement Terry gave on his hospital bed, the police set out tracking down Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Wade. They were found hiding out with Aaron inside a trailer that belonged to Wade's older brother. At first, Aaron was not considered a suspect as police believed she was a kidnap victim, but during questioning, Charles Wade made a shocking admission. He told homicide detectives that he had been promised a payment of just over $2,000 for his part in the murders, and the person that had sworn to pay him was none other than Aaron Caffey. Charlie Wilkinson's story was the same, but in his case, he could provide evidence of the promise in the form of text message exchanges between himself and Erin. Erin was arrested while on the way to visit her father in the hospital and along with her fellow defendants, she was charged with three counts of capital murder. Terry Caffey was nothing short of stunned at the revelation.

After burying my family, I went back to stay with my sister for a while and was reduced to living on her couch, and everything I owned was in the cardboard box, Terry said. Just a few weeks prior to that, I had a beautiful home, acreage, and a beautiful family. It was all gone. Understandably, Terry Caffey sank deep into a grief-stricken depression and even considered taking his own life. I planned on taking my own life.

I decided that when I got well enough to travel, I was going to go back to my property and I was just going to end it. So when that day came, I went back there and stood on the ashes and began to cry to God. I said, God, I don't understand why you took my family. Why did you do this? I just didn't understand. No sooner than I said that, Terry continued. I looked down and saw this scrap piece of paper from a book that was all burned around its edges. I picked it up and it read, I couldn't understand why you would take my family and leave me behind the struggle along without them. I may never totally understand that part of it, but I do know that you are sovereign. You are in control.

When I read those words, I was like, wow. It literally brought me to my knees. The page was from a book titled Blind Sight, a novel about a man who loses his wife and two children in a car accident and must learn to come to grips with the tragedy. It was written by Jim Pence, who's now a good family friend, said Terry. He was my kid's karate instructor and he had written several books. He hadn't read this particular one. He had given it to my wife about two or three years before the murders.

That crumpled page described exactly where I was at that moment. It was then that I realized that God had put all this together that I realized that God had put all this together and I knew that I had been spared for a reason. All Terry needed by that point was one final peace or closure and according to him, before he could move on with his life, he had to forgive those who took the lives of his family. His shocking twist of the tale, Terry intervened on behalf of Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Wade and asked a Texan judge to rule out the possibility of either receiving the death penalty. I wanted them to have a chance to find remorse and hopefully be sorry for what they had

done. I wanted them to have a chance for repentance. Terry wrote in his letter to the judge. The process took several months but eventually a plea deal was reached, a condition of which was that both Wilkinson and Wade had to explain their actions in a face-to-face meeting with Terry Caffey. The only little bit of remorse I got was from Charlie, Caffey said. He kept looking down and cried a little bit. It was pretty tough for him. He told his lawyer later that it was the toughest thing he had ever had to do. I was glad to know that he was suffering in that way, but I don't think he deserves to die. The real test came when Terry confronted his own daughter on her role in the murders.

I asked her about it and she started crying. He said, she told me, I have nothing to hide from you. I'll tell you anything you want. Erin told her father that she knew of the plot in advance, but thought that they were only going to intimidate her parents into giving her up. In reality, the others forced her to wait in the car while they killed her family. She told me that Charlie had tried to pin it on her, saying she was the mastermind and he was just going along with it because she was brainwashed by him. Terry stated, But I don't believe that's true.

I know my daughter, and that's not her. Terry has admitted that his decision to forgive his daughter and the others has brought a lot of criticism, but he says he doesn't let it bother him. People ask me how I could forgive my daughter, and how I can forgive those who murdered my family, but I'm not trying to justify anything. This is my daughter, and I know what's best for us. In October 2008, Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Wade were each sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Then, just three months later, and despite her father's objections, Erin Caffey pled guilty to murder. She was given two consecutive life sentences, plus 25 years for conspiracy to murder According to court documents, she won't be eligible for parole until she's in her mid-50s

Terry Caffey has since remarried and is now a stepfather to two children He has since resigned from his job with a medical supply company and now focuses on his motivational speaking engagements. He also authored a book entitled Terror by Night, which details the murders of his family as well as the reclamation of his sanity. He co-authored the book with Jim Pence, author of Blind Sight, the book which saved his life. Nowadays, Terry visits churches and public schools to talk about all he has endured in an effort to reach to others in a positive way. I get emails and letters just about every day from all over the country,

from people who are hurting and suffering. He said in a 2010 interview, people who are going through maybe similar things or maybe things just totally completely opposite of what I've gone through but yet I've been able to help. I try to use my tragedy in a positive way to reach others, he added. I want people to know that no matter how dark things get, no matter how impossible they seem, there's always a way back. There's always a road to redemption. My name is Alexandra, I'm 24 and I'm from Manchester in the UK. I'm sure everyone, male, female and everyone in between will agree that one of the single worst parts about dating is that you never really know who you're dealing with until you really know them. Guys who you thought were complete knobheads turn out to be really sweet and caring when you

get to know them, like they're coding their idealism in a moody shell to avoid being ridiculed or risking getting hurt. That sounds very amateur psychologist of me, I know, but it's just the way I see it. However, taking a chance on those kind of guys is, well, just that, taking a massive chance. I've read a guy wrong once and ended up on a date where he just kept trying to pour shots down my throat so I'd be drunk enough to, well, you know. And after that, I decided to play it a little bit safer and go for the nicer, more gentle, manly guys. They might be a little bit boring or prudish sometimes, but at least they put effort into their dates and you can have a nice time with them. But like I said, sometimes the nice guys

turn out to be not so nice. Now spoilers, but I'm in the middle of getting a restraining order against the guy I'm about to tell you about, and he's already been to court over the incident in this story, so for legal reasons I'm not going to name him because it might actually affect the court's decision if they ever came to hear about this. I know the guy trawls the internet for any mention of me or him or this event and as much as I can make my social private and block his own, I can't exactly make some big YouTube channels private can I? And I honestly don't know how much he knows about my favorite corners of the internet so I can't take a chance on it. I know it sounds unbelievably

stupid but this could actually be used against me in court, which is why I gave you my middle name and not my actual first. The justice system in this country is so stupid that it could literally be seen as a provocation, and his solicitors could maybe even get the whole restraining order thrown out of court. But how that's even possible with his conviction for breaking and entering and brandishing a deadly weapon, I have no bloody idea. Because that's what he did. After I decided that, as nice as he was, we just weren't meshing, he decided to scare the life out of me. But then the worst thing, he actually missed me being home and ended up basically traumatizing my flatmate. I had absolutely no suspicion that he'd ever do anything like that either. Like when I called him after two months of dating to tell him, I'm not sure

this is going to work. All he really asked in objection was, don't you think you're being a bit hasty? And is there anything I can do or say to change your mind? Obviously the answer to both questions was no, that I'd made my decision and it needed to be respected. After that he didn't say anything else really, he just kept saying okay, over and over, until I finally ended the call. No one takes that kind of news well, I know that, but he took it better than some guys I've broken things off with. So like I said, there was absolutely no clue that he'd ever do anything so drastic as to break his way into my flat. But as I also said, that's not all he did. I remember being on my way home from work and texting my flatmate to ask if she had anything in mind for tea.

We always got really excited, still do about our Friday night dinners, as we always scrolled through Uber Eats to find something we fancied. It was a bit of a ritual, something we always look forward to, so I thought it was really weird that she didn't text back right away. But then as I was on the tram, 5 minutes went by, then 10, then 15, and she not only hadn't texted back, she hadn't even read the message. I didn't exactly freak out though, I mean, it wasn't out of the question that she wasn't busy or something, so I decided I'd just wait until I got home before talking to her about it face to face. But then when I got home, and I tried to put my key in the lock, it didn't slide in, it actually opened up the door. Then the next thing I noticed, the thing that really had my blood running cold,

was the big black spray painted graffiti on the off-white wallpaper of our hallway. You did this, it said. And even then, because of how seemingly well the guy had taken me calling time on things, I didn't draw the connection until I found my flatmate locked in her room, crying her eyes out on the phone with the police. I had to wait until she was off the phone, until she told me what the guy had looked like, for me to realize actually what had happened and who'd done it.

My flatmate said that she'd had a knock on the door, looked through the peephole, and saw a guy standing outside in the hall wearing a COVID mask. Now, back in the summer of 2021, it was totally normal to see people wearing masks. Not everyone, but definitely a lot more than you see these days, now that the government has ditched all the regulations and stuff. In fact, I think it'll be a long bloody time before anyone sees anyone in a surgical mask and thinks, why are they obscuring the lower two-thirds of their face? But anyway, she sees the guy in the mask, doesn't think anything of it, and opens the door to see what he wants. Now, the guy had

already been in our flat, but not when my flatmate was around, as I'd asked her to vacate for a few hours and you can probably guess why that is. He asked her, is Alexandra here? And she replies no. And I suppose that must have really thrown a spanner into the works of his plan. He wanted me to be there. He needed me to be there so he would... God knows what he was planning. But that didn't stop him from forcing his way in and completely trashing the place.

My flatmate said after he forced his way in, he pinned her up against the wall by her throat and kept demanding to know, where's Alex? Where's Alex? She must have known I was on my way home from work or at least I was about to clock out, but she didn't say a word. To be fair, she said she was too scared to say anything at all, but I still put that very much into the she had my back column and I love her for it. When he realized that she wasn't going to say anything, the guy proceeded to basically smash up the entire flat,

before doing his little spray paint job to make sure that I knew who did it. When he stomped off into the TV and kitchenette room, my flatmate ran into her bedroom and locked the doors, and that's pretty much where she stayed for the next 45 minutes or so, until I got home and she heard me walking around. I honestly couldn't believe the amount of damage he'd done. It was catastrophic. My flatmate said as much as it felt like he was there forever, it must have only been a couple of minutes of banging and crashing before it all went quiet again. But in that time, he'd managed to smash almost everything. The telly, all our dishes and glasses, the framed pictures on the walls, the windows. He'd even tried to smash the glass window door thing on our washing machine, although that was so thick that he'd only managed to crack and splinter it.

There were holes in the walls, in the kitchenette's cabinet doors, little ones where he'd obviously used a hammer or something to do the smashing. I can only imagine what he'd done to me if I was actually home, and I think it's a bit of a miracle that he didn't hurt my flatmate. I think he actually tried, as she said he'd tried to open the locked door and banged on it when it didn't open. We think he could hear her talking to the 999 operator and that's what prompted him to make a run for it, but it's truly chilling to think she was just a meter or two away from a complete psychopath with a hammer or a mallet or whatever it was and he was blatantly

intent on hurting someone. It took a few days for him to actually get arrested since a friend of his played at being his alibi until the police pressured him into telling the truth. I think all it took was, if this goes to court, you'll be found guilty of perjury, then you'll get a criminal record and that's the end of your career. And after that, he fessed up that the guy I'd been dating hadn't been with him on that Friday night. After that, given how the description of him and the history lined up, he was arrested on suspicion of breaking and entering, as well as brandishing a deadly weapon, and I

think making threats to kill too. It went to court, but because he pled guilty and had no prior criminal history, he basically claimed diminished responsibility due to the stress of COVID. Turned out both his grandparents had passed away in a care home, and he only got a two-year suspended sentence. His solicitors painted the whole thing as a lover's tiff, and the judge ate it up because I admitted that we'd been dating for a few months. To me, my flatmate, and both our families, it was a complete miscarriage of justice. Someone like that, who we know would

have inflicted horrific injuries on us, possibly even killed us. They belong in prison, for a long, long time. We were in a state of shock, but above all, we were scared. We knew if he tried anything, he'd go straight to prison for a maximum of 10 years, depending on how bad the offense was. But that wasn't enough for us, not for me, and not for my flatmate, and not for our families. So, that's why I'm going for a restraining order. If it goes through the courts and gets instated, if he comes within 50 feet of me, then that's that. He's breaking the law and he'll go to prison. So that's what I'm resting all my hopes on.

It's much less hassle than us packing up and moving flats and I feel like that would be giving into the fear that he wanted to inflict on us. Instead, I'm hoping the solicitor's fees we paid to get the restraining order before a judge will be worth it. Because if it doesn't work, if it hits us that we're still just as vulnerable as we were before, I just don't know what I'll do. We'll be right back. Bro, Tread Experts. Conquer rugged terrain with on-road comfort. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find a Kumo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca.

Discover the exciting action of Bed MGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer FedExpress.ca Major Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I came across your channel and I think it's really cool that you give people a chance to share their traumas with a wide audience. I believe that a problem shared is a problem halved and getting to unburden ourselves by sharing our stories both validates our suffering and alleviates some of the stress of having them locked inside our heads. My story isn't like a lot of the others on your channel, where the person suffers because something happened to them. In fact, I feel rather awkward sending this to you because

I'm not suffering because something happened to me. Rather, I'm suffering because something didn't happen to me. Allow me to explain. In 2009, my husband of just two years passed away after being involved in a car accident. A group of drunken teenage boys had stolen a car one night and lost control of it while speeding around a blind corner. They crashed into a waist-high wall right at the same time my husband happened to be walking home from the pub. He'd been out with a few work friends, getting a few pints in to celebrate the weekend and he just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when those boys lost control

of the car. They say he died instantly, that the impact broke his body almost in half, and I think that was the only real consolation I got, knowing he didn't suffer after those boys smashed into him. I won't bore you with the details of my grieving process, but I will say that it was long. It was a very hard road. I didn't even consider dating until the summer of 2015, and even then, it was a very slow and cautious re-emergence into the dating world. Into, really, the world at all. I'm not exactly the nightclub type and I found speed dating to be, well, too fast-paced. My friends offered to set me up with their more successful single friends,

but I found that not having a hand in the selection made me really anxious and I'd much rather choose my own dates instead of having them match made for me. That's when I really found my rhythm with online dating and specifically the website Plenty of Fish. I thought the name was a bit inappropriate at first. After all, I hadn't gone through some sitcom-style breakup involving rom-coms and tubs of ice cream. I'd lost the love of my life. But being able to actually vet my dates myself while getting to know them at a comfortable distance, that really suited me. I talked to a number of different guys during the summer and autumn of 2015, but one of them was a guy named Carl, who told me he owned

his own law firm. Carl was from a place called Chessent, just north of London, but he said he was living closer to Tottenham as his firm was based nearer the city center. He seemed intelligent and charming and, although he was definitely a little bit quirky, he was one of the more interesting guys I talked to during my time on Plenty of Fish. He certainly seemed to know how to treat a woman on a first date too, and mentioned that he wanted to take me to a place called Theobald's Park Hotel out in Hartfordshire. I looked the place up online and my god was it posh. It's an old red brick mansion looking thing set into the middle of the countryside. It has a big green lawn out in the front lined on one side with daffodils. I mean, it really was one of the most incredible looking places I'd ever laid eyes on, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking

forward to being taken there by a bloke who had a few quid to blow on some gourmet food and drink. But as I said, I wasn't the meet him on Monday, date him on Friday kind of girl, so despite the beginning of our conversation being in about September of 2015, we got to November and I still don't think that I was actually ready to meet Carl. Shortly after that, he stopped replying to my messages and I figured he just moved on to a girl whose time frame was more hair than tortoise, I suppose. I was a bit gutted, as like I said, he seemed really interesting and definitely seemed like he was financially capable of starting a family. But in reality, his sudden disappearance from my inbox was probably one of the best things to happen to me in years.

I honestly thought that was the last I'd ever hear of or about Carl, and for a month or so, I forgot all about him as I carried on my merry dating way. On Christmas Day of 2015, I heard something rather chilling on the news. A woman's body had been found on the grounds of the Theobalds Park Hotel out in Hertfordshire. The very place Carl had promised to take me on the date that didn't happen, and the police suspected foul play was to blame. I think I'd have had more time to think about it if I wasn't driving up to my mom's for Christmas dinner, as not long after I heard the news, I was far too busy catching up with family to think about something so terribly grim. It did rattle around my mind for the better part of an hour though, as I considered how

rotten it was that something so horrid should happen in such a beautiful place. That was pretty much where my thoughts started and ended though, and aside from feeling sorry for whoever had been unfortunate enough to find the poor woman's body, I didn't really think anything else of it. The next thing I remember I was tapping a link on my phone for the Guardian's website that read Man Charged Over Christmas Eve Hotel Death When the page loaded up I almost dropped my phone in horror The phone had released the name of the person they'd arrested on suspicion of murder

And to my infinite shock and eventual disgust The name of the man was Carl Langdell, the very same Carl I'd been talking to on Plenty of Fish. There was no picture of the suspect attached to the news article, but it was the same name, the same age, and the mention of the hotel tied the whole thing together in a big jet black bow. The victim was a woman named Katie Locke, who taught history and politics at Cardinal Pole Catholic School in East London. It sounds really horrible in retrospect, but I was absolutely riveted by the news. I mean, that could have been me, couldn't it? I was gearing up to go on a date with someone

at the very same place he ended up murdering someone, or at least he was accused of murdering someone, because obviously I'd have to wait until all the facts were out before I could actually know what had happened. The following is pretty much everything I learned from the time of his arrest to his eventual sentencing and the inquest into Katie Locke's death that followed his imprisonment. Carl had told me, and Katie as it turned out, that he owned his own law firm. I know now that this was a lie. He initially told police that he was a perfectly normal person, and Katie's death was a tragic case of a bedroom asphyxiation game gone wrong.

In reality, he was someone who harbored hideous fantasies related to intimate relations with the deceased. Carl had not been working to set up the law firm. Instead, he had spent the majority of 2014 and 2015 battling a very severe and very dark mental illness. After assaulting his own brother, attacking his girlfriend's sister, and then threatening to kill a mental health worker, he had been detained under the Mental Health Act in March of 2015, and it was during this period of detention that he described himself to a psychiatrist as a monster before confessing his dark fantasies to her. Somehow, even after this confession, he was released from custody in the autumn of 2015, but as I've already mentioned, this is around the same time that

he messaged me on Plenty of Fish. He lied to mental health professionals, faking a recovery and telling them that he was no longer fantasizing about relations with the dead. All the while, he had set up his Plenty of Fish profile and was in the process of turning those fantasies into a reality, and in a sick twist of fate, I was almost a part of them. At Carl's murder trial during the summer of 2016, I read that he'd actually changed course and pled guilty to Katie's murder. A judge then sentenced him to 26 years in prison and, once again, I thought that was the last I'd ever hear about him.

But, once again, I was wrong. Early last year, I heard that Carl had actually taken his own life in a prison up in Yorkshire. And, as you can probably imagine, I wasn't in the least bit upset to hear he'd done so. To be frank with you, I know for a fact that there's people who deserve to have long and happy lives that had them cut short for no good reason, my husband and Katie Locke among them. So to have a self-described monster take himself out of the world before his due date, well, that's no loss to anyone, is it?

I think this is an appropriate time to end my story and maybe this shouldn't have come from Katie's family or perhaps some of the other people that Carl actually hurt or threatened to hurt before he was sent to prison. But the fact that I came so close to a horrifying death, and the fact that it really could have been my body being found on the grounds of the Theobalds Park Hotel, that's something I find truly haunting. To be continued... This is a weird one, so strap yourself in. I have a friend who has a really gross, or rather really interesting job depending on how you look at it. She works for Tinder, you know, the dating app. And pretty much all day every day, she reviews profile pictures that other users have reported for whatever reason. Some of these can be for pretty basic rule-breaking stuff, you know, offensive things, gestures, suspected catfishes, that kind of thing. But then every so often she gets something that's actually really disturbing. And this one time, she said it was so bad that it wasn't just a case of removing the picture

or banning the person's profile, she actually had to contact the police. As you can imagine, there are a lot of pictures of guys' stuff on Tinder, and maybe that would surprise you, the sheer number of dudes, both gifted and not so gifted, who want to just show themselves off. Or maybe it wouldn't. Either way, she sees an awful lot of those, and she's got pretty hardened to it over time, no pun intended. But then there's the stuff that actually still gets to her. The offensive memes for clothing, yes, the clothing that you might see. Violence towards animals. Some guys don't just hold the fish in their picture. And then there's the violence towards actual people. Yeah, some people upload pictures of bodies to try and be all edgy.

Some upload pictures of bloodied, knocked out people with captions like, I KO'd this idiot. Tinder truly does get a cross section of society on it and, as we all know, a portion of society is made up of total lunatics. But then, like I said before, there are some pictures that makes her literally wish she was just looking at some wrinkly middle-aged old dude's twig and berries. She says she works with this system that looks a lot like an old-school email account. Little emails pop up in your inbox detailing the user, the reason for reporting, and the actual picture in question. She's clicking through all the pictures one day,

removing some, banning others, when she comes across one that actually made her jump. She said the picture was of a guy kneeling by what looked like an unconscious girl and had this big grin on his face. The caption, obviously one of those written using Snapchat, said something like, this is what happened to the last gold digger who was only after my cash. She said the girl seemed unconscious, but she honestly couldn't tell as her face was so badly beaten that her eyes were literally swollen shut. Her lips were split, blood was leaking down her neck and chin, it even looked like she had blood coming out of her ears. She said that, coupled with a horrifically violent image, the guy's big, wide, satisfied smile was one of the most disturbing, bone-chilling things she'd ever seen. She brought up the guy's profile and it

used I Hate Gold Diggers as his name. All the other pictures were of the same guy, showing off fancy cars and fancy apartments and stuff. Obviously quite a well-off guy, but also a total psycho. His bio was just this long rant about how all of these women deserve to be on the streets, and all this other stuff with zero punctuation or proper grammar, like a pure stream of consciousness, pure hatred towards women. All women by the sounds of it too, not just girls that were just after his money, if he even really had any. My friend said she saw some pretty messed up stuff on the regular, but nothing that's ever actually shook her as much as that picture did. She got out her phone and basically broke company policy

by taking high def close ups of all this guy's profile pictures. After that, she went straight to her head of department to ask permission to pass on the guy's profile to the police. Usually they just ban the person's account and move on, but she said there's all kinds of metadata you can get from a picture like that, especially when a copy is actually uploaded to an app and it's not just a screenshot or a photo of a photo, if that makes any sense. I always thought it was kind of funny that she had to look at wieners all day and she basically has to be the tinder police for a living. But then after she told me that story, along with the other legit messed up stuff she sees, I don't think it's so funny anymore. My name is Ciro, and although I live and work in New York City these days,

I was born and lived in Milan, Italy until my middle 20s. I work in tech, and although I'm quite experienced and knowledgeable nowadays, I was the polar opposite when I started out. All I had was a computer, a very padded resume and a big fake it till you make it attitude. In the early 2000s, that's how I started working for one of the biggest internet companies in the world at the time, Yahoo. Not many people know this or remember this, but back when it was still a big provider, Yahoo ran an online dating website, one of the first of its kind. But unlike a lot of the free app-based dating services that are around today, you actually had

to pay to use Yahoo Dating, kind of like a subscription. The only trouble was, and I know this is from the few pieces of analytics I ever saw, the service was almost exclusively men using it and very few women. That meant that most guys would buy a month's subscription then simply cancel it when they realized that they hadn't talked to any women the whole time. And that's where my job came into things you see i was tasked with creating fake profiles of very beautiful women it would suddenly get in contact with a guy when his subscription was due to end i'd lead them along enough to get them to renew their subscription and then when they did so i'd basically just ghost on them, as people say these days. I was incentivized to do this, as I could show my bosses every user I was talking to that renewed their subscription

and I would get monthly bonuses. I know that sounds incredibly unethical of me, and admittedly it was, but I was young and dumb and I really needed the money. As I said, I lived in New York today and I was having to save up money for English lessons, plane tickets, apartment deposits, all the things I would need to move to another country. Because as much as I love Italy, as much as I still visit sometimes, and it will always be my true home, the wages are very bad, you need to bribe to get a promotion, and job opportunities are terrible. Yes, I felt terrible sometimes tricking these guys into giving Yahoo their money when they had basically no chance of getting a date, but I told myself just a few more months and I'll quit, and that way I was able to keep on going. The final straw was this one guy who I should never

have tried to trick. Unlike a lot of other users, this guy actually knew about computers way more than I did. I should have never messed with him, but like I said, I needed to make money so badly that I basically crossed the line from hustling to just being plain greedy. I tricked the guy into renewing his subscription twice and it was only because I was so good at making fake profiles. I remember hearing the English phrase, the devil is in the detail. And it's true. Although in my case, it was emphasis on devil for what I was doing. I'd give these fake women favorite songs, favorite poems, little flaws they tried to hide through things like,

I can be a real neat freak, sorry if that bothers you, and it made them all the more human. I got really good at the job after a while, but I was just a good liar. I wasn't good or knowledgeable about computers. But the guy I was dealing with, he knew so much more. After the first time I tricked him into renewing his subscription, he was furious. I know that because I made another profile a few months later to trick him into renewing yet again. He didn't have any idea that the profile I used was fake, he was just angry and upset that the girl he liked had abandoned him. So he basically poured out all his frustrations to me or rather to the fake girl I had created. I kept the conversation ticking over until I was notified that he had renewed a subscription and after that I deleted the profile and set about making a new one. I can't imagine how upset and

angry he must have been again but I wasn't really thinking of anyone but myself. Then at the end of the next month, what do you know, his subscription was about to run out again. So for a third time I make a fake profile of the exact kind of girl I knew he liked and set about tricking him for the third and as I told myself, the final time. But it didn't quite go down that way. In fact, I ended up in America way quicker than I thought. After I made the profile, I sent him a message only to almost immediately get one back that said something like this. And I'm telling you, it made me so scared I thought I was about to throw up. Hello, Chiro. Yes, I know your name. And that's not all I know.

I know where you are, how much you get paid, and I know you don't have long left to live. You really messed with the wrong person here. You see, I gave those girls the benefit of the doubt at first, but then I started thinking it was suspicious. So I did a little digging. And that's how I found out all the messages you sent me were coming from the same computer. I'm good with computers, much better than you. And I learned so I could make money for my brother. I'm an earner for the Angdang Gita, a very valued one too. I make them lots of money by skimming online transactions so I'm worth a lot of money to them. I told them I would work for a week for free if they just did me one small favor. And that one small favor is killing you for revenge.

You've humiliated me twice now but I swear on Mother Mary that you will not humiliate a single other person. You will suffer greatly before you die. They have sworn that to me, and by the time you read this, they'll be on their way to you. You can try to run or hide, but we all know about you, Chiro. In the end, we will find you. They used the term bacchie abracci, meaning hugs and kisses, the same thing I always signed my messages off with to show he really had figured me out. So, like I said, that's how I ended up in America earlier than I expected.

I lived terribly for a year because I blew all my savings on two things. One, I paid an Italian man to lie to immigration that I was his cousin and could stay with him. And two, I paid a lawyer to represent me to say that I was being targeted by the Andrangheta, which is what they call the mafia down in Calabria where the computer guy was apparently from. And since this is basically true it was easy to prove I just needed someone who knew the law to work in my favor. And that, my reading friend, is how I came to be an American citizen. I stayed here long enough, worked hard enough and paid enough taxes to be welcomed into the bosom of America. And although life isn't exactly paradise here all the time,

I'm still glad I made the leap across the Atlantic. Because if not, I might not even be alive to write something like this. And I know that those who came to take revenge for their worker would have made me want to die before the end. For a brief time in 2009, I worked for my dad's janitorial service. I had the misfortune of graduating college and entering the workforce at a very bad time. The economy was in the toilet and no one was hiring. When my dad offered me the job, I was reluctant. I hadn't spent six years in college to clean up after people, but as time passed with no prospects, I accepted.

I acted as a janitor for churches, office buildings, and several other places. Anywhere that needed someone to clean, I was sent there. I was only there around nine months. Not much happened except for one nerve wracking incident with a disgruntled ex-employee. The person in question was an older man named Dewey. He'd been working for dad on and off for many years. I had met him while still in high school. He was always very friendly and knew more than his share of dirty jokes. Every time I'd run into him at the office or around town, he'd tell me a new one. He would occasionally find a better paying job and work at it until he was laid off or left. Then he'd come back cap in hand to dad

for his old job back. Dad would always rehire him, maybe out of loyalty or perhaps he just felt sorry for the old guy. The last time Dewey left and returned was about two years prior to me joining the company. Once or twice a week, he and I would go out together on jobs. He was a dependable and hard worker. According to Dad, he'd been that way from the beginning. Unfortunately, about my third month there, the Dewey I'd always known began to change. His usual happy-go-lucky attitude slowly faded away. The dirty jokes ceased. Worst of all, I began to believe that he was drinking on the job. I kept my feelings to myself until I could talk to him.

One Friday, he and I went out to a bar after work. I bought the first round and grabbed us a pool table. As we played, I slowly inched towards my questions. I didn't mention the drinking, just brought up his recent darkening mood. He dodged the question and talked about other things. I continued to press while attempting not to make him mad. A few more beers, he began to open up. His troubles were largely marital and just a bit about his daughter. His wife, who had stayed by his side for 35 years, had been discussing divorce.

She said she had lost respect for him. Being the wife of a janitor was an embarrassment to her. They never had enough money. He tried to make his case. After all, it wasn't his fault he always got laid off. He was constantly on the search for better jobs, but they never lasted. His argument had apparently fell upon deaf ears. What made things even worse was his daughter. She was constantly asking to borrow money from her parents.

He eventually stopped giving her any but his wife would go behind his back and give it to her anyway. This caused the couple to fight and was likely a big reason for talk of divorce. This was the point at which I asked about drinking on the clock. He didn't deny it but insisted it wouldn't happen anymore. I took him at his word and we spent the remainder of the night having a good time. I decided to pick up the tab for both of us. I wish I could say things improved from there on but they didn't. The drinking soon restarted and dad eventually caught on to it. He and Dewey had a private talk.

I didn't ask either man what was said and dad hadn't fired him. I hoped the problem wouldn't work itself out. I guess I was too young to really grasp where the situation was headed. Nothing changed. If at all, it just grew worse. Dewey began sneaking drinks while we were out on a job. Someday he'd be hammered by lunch, then he began missing work altogether. I covered him for as long as possible, but dad would ultimately find out, and he'd had enough. Despite the 25 year friendship between the two, he called Dewey and left a message on his phone telling him he was fired. I figured I wouldn't see him again, maybe around town, and the weeks slowly drug by though.

On my off time I was sending out resumes and harassing former classmates on their job prospects. I had a real fear that I would be stuck mopping floors and cleaning toilets for the rest of my life. I was over $65,000 in debt from student loans and college was starting to look like a giant waste of time. While I was busy feeling sorry for myself, things were going much worse for another person. Payday arrived. After work, I was sitting in the office talking to dad when Dewey showed up to get his payback. He was visibly intoxicated, stumbling around as he came in.

He dropped down in the chair next to me and started chewing out Dad for firing him. His words were slurred and the smell of booze was overpowering. Had he been any other person, I'm sure Dad would have thrown him out, but he wasn't. He was a friend. I could see the sadness in my dad's eyes as he tried to reason with the old man. The situation soon grew into something unexpected, and dad said something like, Dewey, just go home to Linda and get a good night's sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow.

Dewey went quiet and pulled a revolver from his jacket pocket. I was instantly frozen in fear. I looked across at Dad. He bore a very serious expression, and no one spoke. The tension was thick and heavy, and Dewey finally slurred out something like, That heartless wench left me the day you fired me. There's nothing to go home to. I got nothing left.

Calmly, Dad expressed his regrets, but explained his reasoning. This whole time, I'm staring at the gun and praying it doesn't go off. A strangely lucid conversation began between the two old friends. For several minutes, it was as if they were having a normal talk about life and the weather. My eyes stayed glued on the gun. Then just like that, Dewey put the pistol back into his pocket. Dad smiled and slid Dewey's pay envelope across to him. The two men shook hands and Dewey stumbled out of the office. I was astounded. Knowing I'd missed

something, I asked Dad what he'd said. I clearly hadn't heard a single word after the gun came out. I didn't say much. I told him if he came back on Monday sober we could discuss him getting his job back. Maybe even a raise. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. A man had pulled a gun on him and he wanted to give him a raise. I demanded we call the cops but dad refused outright. That old man doesn't have a mean bone in his body. I could see the hurt in his eyes

He was downhearted and looking for someone to talk to I should have been a friend to him from the start instead of a boss He needed me to listen and I let him down Today was a reminder to always be there for your friends Don't go home now with a pocket full of money and pass out. It's probably the first time he's smiled in weeks. I definitely had my doubts, but I deferred to Dad. Sure enough, that Monday at 8am, Dewey arrived sober as a judge.

He and Dad talked in the office for over an hour. They came out, both had big smiles on their faces. Dewey approached me and apologized for his behavior. He extended his hand and we shook on it. I accepted the apology but inside I remained bitter about the event and stayed so for several years after. I kept my distance for my remaining time there and only talked to him when necessary. On my last day, I would finally learn that Dad had made Dewey an equal partner in the company. No matter his shortcomings, Dewey had been a loyal employee. In Dad's mind,

he'd earned it, and this would give him the financial comfort he'd been seeking for so long. Maybe even patch up his marriage with Linda. Dad had correctly assumed that I had no interest in taking over the business. With his plan, they would continue after he was gone. I would be free to change my mind or sell our family stake to Dewey. In the overall scheme of things, it was the best decision, despite my lingering ill feelings towards Dewey In the years since, Dewey and dad have managed to double the size of the business Now, the past couple years have been a minor setback, but they have weathered it far better than some As things stand out, I still have no plans to take over for dad

My son, like me, has shown no interest in the company. Dad insists the choice to be mine. I don't especially need the money. My relationship with Dewey has bounced back in the intervening years, and I have considered just handing my share over to his grandson. He's taken over most of Dewey's responsibilities due to his declining health. The boy is a hard worker like his grandfather and I think my dad's legacy couldn't be left in better hands. We'll be right back. Conquer rugged terrain with on-road comfort. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard

when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find a Kumo TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there, treadexperts.ca. It was 2016. I was 27 with a great paying job. I had just moved into an awesome apartment downtown with my fiancé. Life was good and getting better by the day. In December of that year, I got the best news of my life. My girl was expecting our first

child. That's when the reality of my situation really hit me. I was soon to be a father and had nothing set aside. Everyone was telling me kids are expensive and I took this to heart, maybe a tad too much. At first, I worked overtime only occasionally but as the due date drew ever closer I accepted any shift I could get. I doubt I had a day off for six whole months. Honestly I was dead on my feet but the money I made in that time certainly came in handy later. Despite being a big reason why I was working so hard, my fiance hated it.

She began to have problems in her second trimester and was forced to quit her job. Much of her time was spent alone. Naturally, she was bored. Streaming old movies and TV shows apparently can only keep you occupied for so long. If I paid closer attention, I may have seen it coming. Unbeknownst to me, a sympathetic stranger would attempt to take my place. This stranger was a janitor in our apartment building. I think he could sense the hole that had been created and stepped in to fill it. According to Caitlin, my wife, it began innocently enough. She had run into him at the mailboxes. He came off as a nice employee eager to help. The subject of her health difficulties came up and he kindly offered to take the trash out for

her when I wasn't around. She took him up on the offer and soon he was coming to the apartment three or four times a week. Caitlin would invite him in for coffee on occasion. The two would talk about mundane things. He became a friend and confidant. She promises that was as far as things would go for her and I believe her. It wasn't the same for the janitor, from what it seems. As they became more comfortable around one another, the janitor began making backhanded comments about me. He thought I was neglecting my duties as a man and soon to be father. These comments were always presented in a joking manner but

Caitlin said it seemed like my absence bothered him a lot. When he did this, she would stand up for me and he would change the subject. As her due date grew closer, the young man began to get more and more irritable. He would snap at her anytime my name was brought up and then laugh it off as always. This was beginning to annoy her so she began to distance herself from him. She stopped inviting him for coffee or calling on him for help. The boy didn't take this well though. He began acting very jealous. Caitlin got the idea that he may have had a crush on her and it made her even less willing to call on him. Everything came to a head about four weeks before her due date. I was not around as usual.

She had ignored the mail and trash for as long as possible. Early one morning, she stepped out with three trash bags in hand. Before she made it to the stairs, the young janitor appeared out of nowhere and berated her for avoiding him. Caitlin said his eyes were terrifying. He blocked the door to the apartment, and in her haste to get away, she ran for the stairs. The bags were swinging around and caused her to trip and fall down the first flight of stairs. This is when the contractions began, and blood stained her dress. Panicked, she yelled for help. To his credit, the young janitor used his cell phone to call 911. Ambulances showed up and rushed Caitlin to the hospital.

I got a call at around 10.30am notifying me of the accident. I told my boss and hurried to be by her side. The doctors were still unsure if there had been any damage to the baby. I kept a stiff upper lip but inside I was a complete emotional wreck. Losing any child has to be a nightmare but being so close to delivery made it all the worse. Things were touch and go for a couple of hours and around 1, Caitlin finally got out of surgery and we got the good news. Both mother and son were okay. I was very relieved, not to mention overjoyed. And in spite of a freak accident I had a healthy son.

A tad premature but he and his mother were safe. I still hadn't heard about the janitor at this point. The truth wouldn't come out for almost a week. The day came for them to be released. I could tell that she was hiding something. This made me annoyed and pushy. She told me to sit down and she explained everything that had been going on over the last several months. I was furious by the end, but not of the boy as much as myself. I'd become more worried about the future at the cost of my present. There wasn't a single thing that kid said that wasn't true. There was no excuse for my neglect. I've been taking Caitlin for granted and it caused this. Although I do assume much of the blame that little a-hole

wasn't going to get off scot-free. Crush or not, berating a pregnant woman is and always will be unacceptable. Caitlin is not a shrinking violet. For her to be that scared, he had to have been very aggressive. Once we got settled back in at home, her and I went to the apartment manager and discussed what had happened with him. I was reluctant for the boy to be fired, but the manager and us decided it would be for the best. I can't tell you whatever came of the young janitor. I hope he's got a handle of his anger though. We stayed at that building for a couple of more years until I found our current home. And that's where it ends.

I finally got off my butt and married Caitlin a couple of weeks later. Life has been really good since. My focus on work has changed. I enjoy time with my family far more than money. If there's any lesson you could learn from this story, I'd say that would be it. About two years ago I answered an ad for janitors at one of our city's elementary schools. In light of what's been going on for the past two years, the school board was desperate to fill these positions as soon as possible. This meant a few bad apples were allowed to get through

that otherwise wouldn't have. I'm obviously not referring to myself, I'm still too young to have caused any real problems for society. Now on the other hand, a few of my fellow cleaners proved not to be as innocent. Most were weeded out before they could do anything wrong, but one guy managed to get through. In defense of the school board, Carl, as I'll call him here, had no arrests on his record. They had no legal way of knowing what he had done before he was 18, and details of that crime would only leak out after his arrest. I came onto the job a few months after Carl. There were five of us in all. Two of the older

guys worked nights so we rarely saw them. The rest of us worked during school hours and got along pretty well. Carl was the joker of the bunch. He'd been an oil field worker throughout his twenties, but as this past couple years have worsened, a lot of guys were laid off. He quickly tired of unemployment and took the job with the school. Myself and a guy that we can call Rick were barely out of high school. Carl had endless stories of the crazy personalities he'd worked with in the fields. They made the shift go by a lot faster. I'll admit we didn't get much work done, but those things don't matter much when you're young.

Carl had one strange habit though. He always seemed to be hanging around the school on his off time. More than once I noticed him sitting near the playground watching the kids play. Many of the area children used the school playground when the school was out. It wasn't odd to see parents sitting on the benches while their kids played, but Carl didn't have a kid as far as I knew. I let it go a few times, but eventually I had to say something. In a very non-threatening way I confronted him about it. It turned out that Carl's girlfriend had a son. I guess he'd never mentioned him because he wasn't the kid's father.

While his girlfriend worked, Carl was responsible for the boy. The boy liked to play and thus they habituated the place where kids do that kind of thing. It was obvious and I felt stupid and for inferring anything dirty. Carl was cool about it and didn't let it affect our friendship. After that I would see him and the boy several times a week. In hindsight it was the perfect cover. On one or two occasions he even brought the girlfriend along. When the whole story came out I felt completely duped. Not only had I been naive, I now find it hard to trust anyone. As 2022 grew closer my state began to reopen. Talks of layoffs were beginning to trickle out. We all did what we could to prevent this from happening and it's worked for the most part. Despite this, I could tell Carl was concerned.

I did my best to assure him but he just called me a naive kid. It became more and more distant. The joking stopped and I saw him less and less outside of work. This was about the time everything went downhill. Just after Thanksgiving we returned to work and we were one man short. Carl hadn't been seen for the last several days and no one had any idea where he was. I hoped he was just off on a bender somewhere and would show up eventually. I didn't say anything to management and they didn't seem to notice his absence. Rick and I clocked him in and out for as long as we dare. After about a week, the principal called us into the office for a meeting. I assumed we were about to get a royal butt

chewing, possibly even fired. This is when we first heard the news. Carl would not be returning to work. The day after Thanksgiving, he had been arrested trying to abduct a young girl from the playground. I had a hard time believing it, in spite of my earlier suspicions. He never said anything sleazy and I can't recall him ever ogling the kids. I wondered had I paid more attention if I could have stopped him but after more information was released I realized he was already too far gone. Carl had been caught before he could do anything horrible to the girl. We all figured that this was some new disgusting thing that he had picked up.

Perhaps with a lot of counseling he might even get past it I thought. Initially we had hoped for him. Things would change around a month later when his past actions caught up with him. Someone inside the police leaked his juvenile record, and at this point any support he'd had dried up, and according to these records, Carl had been arrested at 16 for having unlawful contact with a younger female neighbor. For some reason, these charges were just dropped. The why was not recorded, but some believe the girl had been pressured to recant her statement. Rick and I now act as if he never existed, and I truly wish he hadn't. There's not much more I can include. It's only been a few months and no

word regarding his trial or a plea have come to light. His girlfriend must have found out about his past and booted him out in September. That may have been the excuse he needed to lash out at some harmless child just plain. In the coming months and years we may find out about other incidents he thought he'd gotten away with, but I pray that there's no more victims. If there truly is justice in the world, he'll never be able to harm another child again and he'll never have another restful night in his life. To most, my father was nothing more than a humble janitor, but to me, he'll always be a hero. Despite me only being three at the time of his death, I still remember him vaguely. To a tiny child, he was like a giant. I'd like to think had he known what awaited him that morning, he would have gone anyway. Mom says he was that kind of person, always thinking of others above himself.

As a teenager I didn't yet understand his sacrifice, it's taken having children myself to really understand. I would have loved to have him there to walk me down the aisle, but had he not done what he did, many children such as myself may have lost their lives. That was something he would have never wanted. The morning I speak of was April 17th, 2003. According to mom, nothing was different that day. We were supposed to be spending the Easter weekend with Dad's parents in the country. It would have been my first real egg hunt.

Dad was cleaning a restroom at the middle school when he discovered a lone boy sitting in an open stall. Dad's presence caught him off guard and he began yelling at Dad to leave. Laying at the boy's feet was a backpack containing a shotgun and two handguns. I can't imagine how scared dad was in that moment. He was the only person standing between this sick young man and an unknown number of senseless deaths. He wasn't going anywhere. I'm sorry if what I write from here sounds a little scattered. We only have the word of the boy. Most of this information comes from his statements made after his arrest. I refuse to say or write his name. I may have forgiven him, but it doesn't mean I'll give him the attention he craves.

According to him, Dad didn't look scared. His coolness was actually unsettling. The boy was understandably nervous and briefly considered abandoning his plan right there. Unfortunately, the bell ending first period went off. This had been his signal to start shooting. He decided he was going on with it anyway. Killing my father would be as good a start as any. Before he could put the plan into action though a small group of boys rushed into the restroom. They saw the boy holding the gun and fled. His plan had been derailed before it could begin. The boys would surely alert staff. The police would arrive in a matter of minutes.

This made him furious. A rest without a body count wouldn't make a blip in the media, and dad tried to distract him. He asked the boy his name. He was reluctant but gradually opened up. The pair eased into a discussion of why he was doing what he was doing. The answers were the usual. My parents don't pay attention to me and I've been bullied. I don't begin to pretend to know how hard that kid's life was, but

killing people couldn't have been the answer, obviously. The boy acknowledged that dad was trying to stall for time, but now that he had an adult who listened, he couldn't stop talking. The police announced their arrival. Time for a peaceful solution was growing short. Dad must have felt desperate. He begged the young man to put his gun down and surrender. I think dad thought that he was planning on ending his life. The kid quickly corrected him of this. The fame that came with being a shooter was nothing to a dead man. Perhaps this was the moment dad knew that he wasn't leaving that restroom alive. One dead janitor was going to have to do.

The boy assured him it wasn't personal and then gunned him down in the next breath. The gunshots drew the police into the room. They found the boy unarmed with his hands up. They quickly subdued him and took him into custody. All that could be done was done but my father passed away in the ambulance. I was five before I understood my father was never coming back and Easter became a very important holiday after that. The boy had been strangely prescient about the media's handling of the incident. Although this was still a time before shootings

had become sadly commonplace, very little was reported. According to my family, it was handled more as an accident than anything else. No plaques were put up in remembrance. Dad's noble act wasn't even mentioned during the police news conference. It was the best way to avoid giving the shooter attention, but it caused my dad's sacrifice to be almost completely ignored. Most of the kids my age have never heard of my dad, let alone what almost occurred at the school. You'd think something like that would be more commonplace. Our town isn't exactly a big one, no more special than any other small southern one I suppose it could have been purposely forgotten

school shootings don't make for good tourism and at the end of the day I don't really care who knows I know my family knows as long as we remember his bravery will live on forever and that is the textbook definition of a hero. In order to avoid debt, I lived at home and worked several jobs while attending my first two years of college. On weekends, I worked the counter at a convenience store.

Five nights during the week I cleaned a small office building downtown. I'll be discussing one specific event I experienced at the office building. I don't recall the exact day. When you attend school full time and work seven nights a week, they all seem to kind of run together. I did well just to keep everything as straight as I did. I will concede without the help of my folks I wouldn't have made it anywhere on time. I bought them a house recently just to show them my appreciation. And that day, looking back, I had a short nap before setting off at around 10pm. My hours were relatively open. As long as I completed my work by 5am, I could come and go as

I wanted. I've been cleaning at this specific office for almost 8 months. This was summertime. The sun had only been down about an hour. The heat from the pavement radiated like a giant hot plate. The pace of school during the summer was more relaxed. I arrived at the building refreshed and wide-eyed. The parking lot was empty but for a few cars near the far end. They weren't doing anything crazy and I wasn't security guard so I put it out of my mind. My evening would be routine. I hopped from cube to cube, office to office, emptying trash. A few more small tasks then led into the final act of vacuuming. This always took the longest.

The vacuum itself made a simple task take twice as long and just as hard. I hinted at replacing it more than once, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. Therefore, for the next hour or so, I focused on my job, unaware of the goings-on outside. Once my final task was complete, I put the equipment away and headed for the dumpster with two massive bags. No sooner had I thrown in the first, I heard a female shouting. It sounded as if it was coming from the front lot. I paused to listen. I disposed of the other bag and made my way to my car. I hadn't made it around the building before the shouting began again. I quickened my pace towards the sound.

As I turned the corner, I caught sight of the same cars I'd seen hours before. Now alongside the cars, I also saw a group of men stumbling around and laughing. I got a bit closer to see a female laying on the ground between two of the cars, I also saw a group of men stumbling around and laughing. I got a bit closer to see a female laying on the ground between two of the cars, holding her face. One of the men was looming over the girl, hurtling insults and curses at her. His friend stood around laughing. A second girl stumbled from the dark and kneeled to assist the victim. I stopped about 20 feet away and yelled at the men to leave the women alone. They appeared to have been no more than maybe 18 years old but were drunk and possibly

stoned out of their freaking minds. The young man who'd assaulted the girl stared at me with glassy inquisitive eyes for a moment. Huh? He said. I repeated my statement. His companions now joined in. They all told me to F off and mind my own business. That was something I couldn't do. I drew closer. I was outnumbered. But I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I allowed a female to be assaulted right in front of me. I did my best not to show fear. I was a little scared but had the small hope that they were too drunk to put up much of a fight. There was a brief moment of tense silence. We all just stared at one another. Suddenly and probably out of spite, the assailant kicked the second girl. Not hard but because of

her drunkenness she fell over, hitting her head against one of the cars. The other men doubled over in laughter. This made me furious. Without thinking, I rushed the kid and tackled him to the ground. I got in several good hits before his friends attacked me. Now, I was laying on my back and helpless, and things were beginning to get bad. One of the boys soccer kicked me in the head. I curled up into a ball. I now realized that I had been wrong about their ability to fight. Even a drunk kid can kick you hard enough to break things.

I was close to blacking out when I heard a short blast from a siren. The kicking stopped instantly, but I didn't dare move. It seemed like a lifetime passed before I heard the voices of two older men scolding the boys. It was the police, and I found out later they just happened to be driving by when they witnessed three kids kicking somebody on the ground. Within 15 minutes, two ambulances and three more patrol cars were on scene. The boys were questioned and taken into custody, and foolishly, even after sobering up, the girls refused to press charges. And I was not so kind, though. I spent the night in the hospital nursing a concussion and two broken ribs, among other lesser injuries. Coughing and sneezing

remained a nightmare for weeks. Only one of the boys was above 18, the initial assailant. I hope this meant that he'd go to jail. Unfortunately, his family was very wealthy and got him a hot shot lawyer, I guess. They initially attempted to plead self-defense but the judge dismissed that out of hand. And to my utter disgust, without the girl's charges, that little idiot got off with a slap on the wrist, as did his partners in crime. More than one person suggested that I sue the families for damages. I did consult with a few attorneys and they recommend that I let it go. A starving student had no chance against the kind of heavy hitters these dirtbags had. Not to mention, it would leave me open to a countersuit. I took their advice and here I am.

After a few days off, I returned to classes and work. Every one of those miserable days until I healed have stuck with me. Eleven years have passed and now I'm a full-fledged lawyer myself. I currently worked under the district attorney here and I have a very long memory. You can bet if I ever get the chance to stick it to one of those little losers, I'm going to take it. For their own good they better keep their noses clean. I'm currently attending a small college in Texas. The school itself is good enough. It's the locals I'm creeped out by.

They're so different than people I grew up with. It's not just their accents and bad attitude. It's the absence of hope that confounds me. You can see it in their children. They spend hours at IHOP. They drink coffee and discuss trivialities. I'm sure some have the potential to become something. Strangely, less than 60 miles south, one of Texas' largest cities exists. According to people at the local historical society, this place used to be well known as a hub of academics. Still, somehow this little city stuck in time robbed them of their future. I'm sure that most of them sense the tension between us at the college and them I certainly see a subtle hostility in their eyes

In spite of this, I've never had a negative experience during a one-on-one interaction Yet I always got terrible vibes from one specific young man I only know this kid as Anthony He looked to be around 17, maybe 19 at the oldest. He has these restless blue eyes that can stare right through you. I saw him the first time at the college. He was some kind of janitor or housekeeping staff. They are in charge of keeping the classes and common spaces clean as far as I can tell. I began to see him more and more. Every time my friends

and I would go to IHOP to eat and study, he would be there with some other creepy guy. I'd be talking to one of the other students and get the strangest feeling. The hairs would stand up on my neck like they are now, and when I'd look up, Anthony's crazy eyes would be fixed on me. Even the other students noticed it. Although creepy, I tried my best to ignore him. This cycle would continue for a long while. I was seeing Anthony more than some of my friends. It got so bad I stopped going to IHOP. If I couldn't avoid him at school, at least I could avoid him there. I foolishly assumed this would

solve my problem, but it only made things worse. I had stayed away for about a week when my roommate told me that he began to ask about me. Word was getting around that he may have a crush on me. A few of the girls thought it was cute. I did not. The idea of him anywhere near me makes my skin crawl. I thought and decided to ask a male friend to talk to him for me. My friend told him in no possible way was I interested in doing anything with him. He returned to say that Anthony had been evasive at first but got very angry when pressed on the matter. It didn't look like he was going to get the hint. Then, out of the blue, he disappeared. I thought he had quit his job, but some other students swore that they had seen him. It was looking as if the talk had worked after all. My focus shifted back on the school work

and after speaking to some people I even returned to IHOP. Anthony was nowhere to be seen. Life was good. I was so happy that I went to a party at a friend's house just off of campus. I had more to drink than I should have, but I suppose it was a celebration of sorts. A group of us stumbled back to the dorms at around 1am. Everything was quiet. I said goodnight to my friends and slipped quietly into my room as not to wake up my roommate. I wavled over to my bed and plonked down. I hadn't bothered to remove my shoes or jacket. Just as I began to drift off, a male voice said hello. I thought I was so drunk that I was hearing things.

I closed my eyes and, just like before, a man spoke. Pretending I'm not here won't change the fact that I was hearing things. I closed my eyes and just like before, a man spoke. Pretending I'm not here won't change the fact that I am. I jumped up and scanned around the room. My roommate wasn't there. She must have been staying with her girlfriend and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Suddenly I caught sight of a figure sitting in the corner. I leaped for the light switch. When my eyes adjusted, I saw Anthony sitting calmly in my chair, smiling. I screamed for help.

Anthony jumped from the chair and ran towards me. He tried to get me to stop, but I had no plan to do such a thing. I continued screaming until he panicked and ran. He bumped into another female student as he exited. The girl had almost slapped me to get me to stop. More people joined us and I explained what had happened. Pretty soon campus security arrived and they contacted the city cops. Nothing will make you sober faster than fear. It was almost dawn before

I was able to get to bed, although I didn't sleep very well. The next afternoon I filed for a restraining order with the city court. I heard Anthony had been fired that morning and barred from the campus, and that was two weeks ago today. Everything has quieted down and I hope this will be the end of my troubles. Spring break is coming up and I'm really looking forward to it. Still, a lingering question rests firmly in the back of my mind. It makes itself known in those quiet little moments. Is this really the end? Or does he have something far worse planned for me just waiting to make his move?

That may be the most terrifying thing of all. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, We'll be right back. Receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find a Kumo TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca I'm an American female who just recently celebrated my 26th birthday. What used to be a happy day has been overshadowed by something that happened on the day I turned 13. I was in middle school at the time. A few of us lived on the edge of town in a little working class neighborhood.

Meanwhile, most of the other kids came from upper class homes. The poor kids suffered a lot of bullying. We tried to stick together and protect each other as well as we could. I was especially close with a girl named Sarah. I'm not sure when we first met. She was always there for as long as I can remember. We were near as sisters without being blood relatives. One of us would spend the night at the other's house at least once a month. Her mom had died in a car wreck when she was four and this left her with just her dad. He was a really kind guy and I still retain a lot of warm feelings towards him. It became like a second

father to me after my parents' divorce. Divorce happened when I was 11. I was left to live with my mom while my dad moved north to work. This was when my mom got a job as a paralegal. Just by chance, Sarah's dad was a janitor in the building that held the lawyer's office where my mother worked. The building was in walking distance of the middle school. I would walk to the office every day after school and hang out until mom got off. Sometimes Sarah would come with me. We'd talk to her dad and then walk down the street to the library.

She was with me on my 13th birthday when something awful occurred for both of us. Earlier that day, my geography class had a little party for me. I got a few small gifts and a bunch of cards One of my teachers brought a little cake for me and my friends I even remember I wished for my parents to get back together before I blew out the candles The fact that it was a Friday made it even better After school, Sarah and I walked to the office It was already okay for her to come home with us and spend the night. My mom had a party planned with some of our friends at our house that night.

We ran into Sarah's dad on the way to the elevator and he said he had a surprise for me. I hurried upstairs to check in with mom. I dropped off my bag and rode the elevator back down to the lobby. Standing nearby was Sarah and her father. He was holding a cupcake with a burning candle on top of it. That moment remains as one of the fondest memories I've had up to this time. They yelled surprise in unison. Once again, I hoped for my folks to be reunited and blew out the candle.

Sarah pulled a small box from behind her back. I was genuinely shocked. I guess her dad had kept it with him all day waiting for this moment. A crowd from the lobby began to form. A smiling happy birthday was said here and there. It was the exact second in which I started to remove the paper. A pained grunt boomed out. I looked up in shock to see Sarah's dad doubling over. He was holding his right hand over his chest.

A few seconds later, a second grunt came from him, this one much more agonized. His body jerked and he collapsed motionless to the ground. Sarah screamed. I dropped the box and fell to my knees. Sarah did likewise. Her father remained still. A few of the onlookers kneeled down to check on him. One man told everyone to step back.

We did so and he started performing CPR. Sarah and I could only stand and watch. She was sobbing and I was frozen in disbelief. Tears poured in a seemingly endless stream down my face. The EMS arrived within a few minutes and took over from the stranger and Sarah went along with them to the hospital. I rushed to the office to tell my mom. She was almost as upset. I think she had a bit of a crush on him. Her boss allowed her to leave early and we drove to meet Sarah at the ER. By the time we'd arrived, it was all over. Sarah was a mess.

Her dad was determined dead on arrival at the hospital. The doctors assumed he'd had a major heart attack. This was determined to be correct later on. The whole scenario was too much for me. I kinda checked out for a while. It would be several months until I allowed myself to truly grieve. Sarah stayed with me and mom until a week after the funeral. Her mom's sister in Utah agreed to take her in.

She stayed there until she got married in 2015. Her husband seems to be a great guy. They're expecting their second child in May. We've kept in close contact with each other over the years. I haven't got to see her in person since the wedding. And now with the threat of everything here starting to dwindle down, I'm hoping I can fly out to see her soon. I never did open that present. I'm not sure why, it's never felt like the proper time, I guess.

Perhaps I'll save it for when Sarah and I see each other again. I can't think of a better way to celebrate her father's life. I've been through some scary experiences, but this is the worst thing I feel that I've ever gone through in my life. I used to be very naive, an innocent kind of person. I was the type of optimist who believed that there was a touch of goodness in every heart, a dangerous mindset to be in truly. I realize now that seeing the world through my rose-colored glasses put a big flashing red target on my back. Often when you think of scary stories involving creepy behavior and psychological abuse, you think of an occurrence from a stranger. In my case, it came from my mother-in-law. My husband's mother-in-law initially adored me, not for reasons other than thinking that I could be easily controlled. I was meek with a passive personality, so it made sense that I could come across like someone who

could be easily influenced. Looking back on it, I cringe at how creepy the situation really was. For the sake of the story, I'll call my mother-in-law by the name of Mrs. Psycho. At the beginning of my relationship with my husband, Mrs. Psycho and I were getting along great, or so I thought. She had taken me shopping, given me compliments about my hair and girly stuff like that. As the relationship with my partner grew more serious, she'd rant and rave to everyone in our neighborhood about how much she adored me and how I was like the daughter she never had. So, naturally I thought things were progressing positively. But certain things were just really off about Mrs. Psycho. I noticed little tidbits of her

behavior at parties and neighborhood social gatherings. She'd sulk in a corner and I'd chalk it up as her being socially awkward or anxious, but looking back at it now, I noticed that she was always whimpering about something negative going on in her life. How she fell off her bike and hurt her elbow while riding through a construction zone. How one neighbor complained about her parking in front of his house, losing her job because she didn't get along with a co-worker. The list went on and on. In every story, she portrayed herself as a victim of some unusual circumstances. One huge red flag that my mind didn't understand at the time was the story she was always telling

about her other son, my partner's brother. She'd say some really disturbing things about how he'd held her, my partner, and his dad hostage in their home and how he'd physically punched their father in the face. The way she described the story made it sound like my partner's brother was a bully to the whole family and my partner didn't seem to think it was quite as severe as she made it sound. Regardless, in all her wild stories and accusations about him, she always scolded her son in ways that I just can't imagine ever scolding my own child. What my husband and I didn't fully interpret at the time was the underlying problem,

which wasn't necessarily his brother, but the woman who had been the driving force for the insanity behind the behavior. Psychological abuse can trigger emotional responses in very unpredictable and disturbing ways. Mrs. Psycho's behavior became more evidently creepy after our engagement. She showed signs of unhealthy enmeshment. First she was angry that we didn't tell her immediately when we got engaged, then she was angry when we changed the wedding date without first asking for her permission She expressed a desire for my future husband and I to live in the upstairs of her house and pay her rent We told her that we can afford her own home and we want to start a family so that wouldn't work out The infuriation in her eyes was frightening

She would look normal one moment, then if you told her something she didn't want to hear, her eyes would turn black. The memory of her eyes still sends me with a frightening chill down my spine, and from there she became increasingly controlling. Mrs. Psycho and her husband, Mr. Psycho, would start showing up to our house every other day or so. I started counting how long that they could go without having to see us and that number came to three days. There was no privacy and I felt that I had to close the curtains over our windows every night. I just had that uneasy feeling, you know. I locked the bedroom door as a routine before bed just to be

on the extra safe side. Despite our relationship being pleasant in the beginning, I noticed that I was now feeling like I was treading on eggshells around Mrs. Psycho or rather landmines. It seemed like anything I said was offensive to her, no matter how innocent. I realized I couldn't talk to her like I used to be able to when me and her son were just dating. I remember when we'd be able to have nice, in-depth conversations, and I allowed myself to be vulnerable with her. I confided in her how I had a lot of social anxiety, and that her son came into my life during a time that I was suffering from crippling depression. I talked about how he'd brought a ray

of sunshine into my life, thinking that speaking kindly about her son would please her, but she just had this unfeeling, glazed look across her face. Hoping to mend my relationship with her, I decided to help her out one day with organizing her antiques. She had this hobby of going to auctions and buying and selling knickknacks, buttons, and stuff like that. She would get very proud of her collections of things that I sort of thought were junk, but to be polite, I told her I saw beauty in these things, hoping to get back on her good side. There were some creepy dolls in the mix, including this horrifying-looking vampire doll with piercing red eyes. She said that she'd had that doll for years and used to scare her sons with it when they were little kids.

She laughed at the memory, and the sound had an eerie, satanical vibe to it. As if this wasn't enough to freak me out, she then told me this story about how a female co-worker complained about her to the HR department at her company. To seek revenge on this woman, Mrs. Psycho wrote a letter that was meant for the co-worker's husband, telling him that she was cheating on him. To remain as anonymous as possible, she told me how she slipped on a pair of black gloves and drove the letter to a faraway location so that her address couldn't be traced. I remember feeling very uneasy about her story, wondering how she could get angry enough to

drive hours away just to cause emotional harm to another human being. There came a point after hearing this story when I didn't want to be left alone with my partner's mom anymore. My partner tried to talk to his parents about how I was feeling like I was on eggshells around them, but they flipped the narrative to say that they were the ones feeling on eggshells around them, but they flipped the narrative to say that they were the ones feeling on eggshells around me. During this time, I painstakingly realized that psychological torture exists in the form of extreme invalidation. Not having your feelings acknowledged can really drive a person crazy. It was then when I felt a little more clued into what may have happened to

Mrs. Psycho's other son. I can't be sure because I never met the guy, but I think he was driven mad by his mother's severe emotional neglect. Now, she was pulling the same tricks on me and my partner, gaslighting us into believing that we were just too sensitive. When my husband and I started figuring out that something was off, things got even creepier. His parents started showing up to our house to corner us into submission. What I mean by this is they'd tell us stories to make them seem like victims so that we would give in to demands on what they wanted at that time. If we denied their requests, they'd use psychological manipulation by telling us that we were uncaring or ungrateful. One demonstration of this manipulation was when I became pregnant. I explained that the smell of pizza made me

extremely sick, but this was ignored. When Mrs. Psycho insisted that we go to a pizza restaurant for her birthday, I was confused with why I felt that I couldn't say no. My husband was in the same predicament. Somehow I think we sensed that something bad would happen to us if we declined. This is also because Mrs. Psycho's husband and her sister had contacted us, telling us explicitly that we weren't allowed to say no to her dinner invitations anymore. They explained it like saying no hurts her feelings. But there was something else there that I can't quite explain. Something hidden beneath the surface that sounded almost threatening. I had no idea why, but I just didn't feel safe. Then, only two weeks after giving birth to our daughter, I had the creepiest

interaction of my life. Mrs. Psycho caught me alone while on my front porch. The weather was really nice, so I was rocking with my baby in one of her outdoor chairs. She came up to the doorstep and assumed a seat in a chair next to me. Then, in a quiet, ominous voice, she said to me, You have to share her, you know. Her black eyes flicked to the infant in my arms. I know what you might be thinking, but this wasn't said in a cute, excited new grandma kind of way. Her voice sounded cold and possessive with certain passive-aggressive intent behind the statement. I naturally clutched my arms around my daughter tighter, feeling a protective instinct take over me.

Mrs. Psycho had expressed to me before that she'd always wanted to have a daughter but was only ever able to have sons. Maybe I was being influenced by the postpartum hormones or just overall feeling paranoid but a disturbing thought occurred to me that she might want to get rid of me somehow to have my daughter to herself. I later told my husband about the bizarre interaction with his mom and how I couldn't keep up with the heavy psychological demands of his parents anymore. It was all taking a strange emotional toll on me, as well as a strain on our marriage, and I still couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Nevertheless, they were causing us a lot of stress, which was impacted on me all the more while I was trying to adapt to my new role as a mother. They even restricted me in bizarre ways, telling me I was not allowed to

refer to our daughter as my baby. I had previously posted on Facebook how excited and happy I was to be a new mom. I posted a side-by-side picture of me with my daughter with the caption, she has my eyes, which was meant to be lighthearted and innocent. My mother-in-law commented on the post with, my son had something to do with it too, dot dot dot, which not only put a damper on the mood but also felt very creepy. Like why did she have to mention something we already know? It was almost as if my happiness made her all the more enraged. I really felt like I was starting to go crazy. The stress was enough to make me physically sick.

At first, my husband hesitated when I told him about my concerns, stating the usual spiel that was natural for him to say, that they were his parents and he couldn't just drop contact with them. But something in his voice contained fear and it wouldn't take long before he would realize how messed up the situation actually was. The incident that drove him to the point of cutting off his parents happened when they cornered us in our own living room, demanding that we watch their unruly dog while they went on vacation for five days. My husband almost caved but stayed firm when he told them,

no, we can't, we got a two month old baby to look after. The murderous glare his mom then flashed at me was intense and enough to make me crawl out of my skin. You know that look that someone gives you before they're about to attack? It looked like something like that from the movies, very primal and hateful. I thought for sure that she was about to lunge at me and wring her hands around my neck, causing me death by strangulation. I was terrified. Mr. and Mrs. Psycho eventually left her house, but they were clearly angry that they weren't able to convince us to conform to their will. My husband and I had a dark, suspicious feeling that something bad was about to happen.

First, we received lengthy emails from Mrs. Psycho mostly insulting me. She said she thought that I was brainwashing her son and she went on to portray herself as a victim. She used the knowledge of my anxiety disorder to make an argument that I was mentally unstable and dangerous. She threatened to post about me on Facebook and make our life terrible if we didn't apologize for deviating from what she wanted. At the same time, she told me that I was dead to her and listed all the mistakes I've ever made in the past as well as criticizing my faults. I'd be lying if I said this didn't sting. My husband and I needed space to recover from the emotional wounds that she inflicted on us.

We remained silent, not wanting to engage with her any further. My husband and I were pretty scared as well as being hurt, spending most of our days cooped up in our bedroom, not knowing what to expect. But we stayed strong through the process of separating from the toxic relationship. Mrs. Psycho proceeded to make good on her threat, posting about me publicly on Facebook. She said I was insane. She even went a step further, saying that I had borderline personality disorder in all capital letters. This came out of completely nowhere. She knew that I had anxiety, but I never mentioned anything to her about being borderline,

because I wasn't diagnosed with that at all. And it didn't end there, though. An act of smear campaign against me ensued as Mr. and Mrs. Psycho actually went door to door to everyone's house in my community, posing as good citizens to warn everyone about their extremely dangerous, manipulative, five-foot-tall daughter-in-law. My neighbors didn't react the way that was expected, though. They were more wary of her than me. Instead of ruining my reputation, which was the desired effect, most people in my neighborhood were majorly creeped out by Mr. Psycho's efforts. They were equally creeped out by Mr. Psycho's willingness to go along with the whole thing.

I guess after years of being beaten down with his wife's abuse, he was just an empty shell of a man, a flying monkey to the proverbial wicked witch. There are a few doctors and therapists in my neighborhood who couldn't officially diagnose her since she wasn't their patient, but they said off the record that they believed Mrs. Psycho may have been projecting, meaning that she was, in essence, confessing that she is potentially dangerous and volatile while pinning it on me. This along with some stories of Mrs. Psycho's interactions with other people in our neighborhood confirmed that something was disturbingly off with this lady. This information made the situation all the more unsettling when Mr. and Mrs. Psycho showed up to our house for what we suspected would

be a confrontation. My husband and I were watching Survivor in the living room with our baby when the doorbell rang. He crept to the front window to peer behind the curtain to see who it was. I could see fear on his face. It's my parents, he said, and my blood ran cold. I immediately ran with the baby upstairs, pausing only to tell him that it was his choice whether to answer the door or not since they're his parents, but that me and the baby would be hidden away.

As I made my way up the stairs my husband hovered by the front door, conflicted. He didn't know what to do. Meanwhile I could hear jostling at the front door like his parents were trying to force their way inside our house with a spare key. I thank God to this day that we had just changed the locks a few days before so they couldn't get in. I proceeded to run upstairs and close the bedroom door behind me, locking me and the baby inside. I held my daughter close, my heart thudding wildly against my chest. When there was a knock on the bedroom door, I reacted with a jolt.

I was scared out of my mind. My husband's voice on the other side calmed me down though. He told me that he didn't answer the door. He was trembling when I unlocked the door to let him in. His face was pale. He showed me a text message from his dad saying, anyone home? Followed by another text from his mother later saying, you're a coward, hiding behind your keyboard. I don't know what would have happened if my husband had chosen to answer the door but I shuddered to think about it. My husband and I both blocked them after, phone numbers, social media accounts, everything. They moved away to another state, thank god. We have since been in no contact with his parents for almost two years now and our daughter is growing in a loving environment free of that toxicity. Sadly, we had to block some of my husband's other family because they kept telling us that we should talk to my in-laws,

which by the way feels a lot like being told, please contact your abuser. For this reason, I sometimes feel like it would have almost been better to be physically abused than mentally abused because then there would be some form of visible evidence of the harm that they had inflicted. In the meantime, they have so far made no attempts to contact us with an apology or anything. Instead, they once reached out with a nasty, have a terrible anniversary, you two were the worst match for each other ever, which only further secured a decision to cut contact with them. I have since armed myself with knowledge so that I will be less naive about creepy behavior in the future. I've studied up on narcissism and the negative psychological impact that some people can have on others through gaslighting and invalidation.

I hope everyone listening out there may be aware that not all abuse is physical. To be continued... I have one client in a somewhat nicer neighborhood that I go to twice a week in the mornings. Like most people who use dog walkers, they use a lockbox. They decided to keep theirs behind a vase next to their apartment door. It was already a busy Monday for me and I was in a bit of a rush. I was hoping to get Maya, their Bernadette puppy, by 9.45am so I could stay on track for the day. After finding parking, which is usually terrible, I made my way up the apartment to their door. I wrapped my hand around the vase, intending to grab the lockbox. Nothing. Wasn't alarmed at first. Sometimes owners forget to put out lockboxes. Not super common, but it happens. I look around a bit more but have no luck, so I text the owner. I'll call her K for her privacy. Usually when I do text her,

I get no response since she's so busy, but I text her anyway asking her where the lockbox could possibly be since it's not in its usual spot. About five minutes pass without a response and I'm honestly getting a bit irritated. I already have a busy day driving all around the city and now I'm going to run behind. So I start knocking. There's a chance her husband might be home and sometimes he is. I knock about three separate times until I hear some shuffling upstairs. So someone is home. It takes a bit of time but I hear someone making their way down the stairs. It's taking a bit of time but someone is coming down. The door opens. It's not Kay, nor is it her husband. A man stands in front of me. He's only

wearing a white towel that's barely hanging off his hips. He's holding Maya in his arms and he looks extremely caught off guard. I'm confused and also caught off guard but not quite horrified. Maybe they were having a visitor stay with them or maybe someone was having an affair. Maybe that's why the lockbox was absent. Hey, I'm here to take Maya for a walk. He lets her run into the hallway and hands the leash and collar over, which are always on the staircase railing. I ask him to please give me the lockbox to keep outside since I need to get back inside, and he gives it to me. We head out for our walk, and I'm still a bit flabbergasted. Did I just walk in on an affair? Was he a visitor?

It wasn't too out of the ordinary. Sometimes clients forget to mention they have guests. Then during our walk, I get a message from my manager. Do you have Maya? And then she calls. I pick up. I let her know I have Maya and we're on our walk. She says she got a weird message from Kay, her owner. She had stated a man came by earlier saying he was the new dog owner and needed their lockbox code. I guess her husband gave him the code. We never set up a new walker. Ever. I then let her know about the man in the towel when I got to the apartment and how the lockbox was gone. Told her I wasn't sure if I had walked in on something or if he was a guest. Well, he wasn't a secret lover or a guest. He was not supposed to

be there. Police were called immediately. I was told to absolutely not go back into the home. I called Kay's husband as he was on his way back over. Kay was en route from work. Kay's husband tells me he feels so stupid for telling the man the code and believing him, but that he was in a rush out the door and didn't assume anything bad. I continued walking down the street, quite a busy major street, and then I spot a familiar man across the street. He runs across towards me, he's holding a beer in his hand. Hi doggie,, hi doggy, he goes. It was the same man from inside the apartment.

And then he ran back across the street. I immediately turned the other direction into one of the side streets and called Kay's husband. He was nearing the neighborhood and tells me he just saw the man matching the description. Once Kay and her husband arrived, we went upstairs to scope out the apartment expecting some items to be missing. Nothing. Everything perfectly in place, untouched. The only thing different was some dirty water in the shower that had been used. I was happy no one was hurt, nor was Maya. I was happy I wasn't hurt, but who was he? And how did he know they had a dog walker? We'll be right back. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires.

Find a Kumo TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there, treadexperts.ca. A few years back when I was 17 years old I went to a party. Everything was alright until the host started getting really intense and creepy. By that point it was around 3am and I was pretty drunk. I decided to call an Uber in order to avoid any advances from the insistent guy. The Uber shows up and I try to sober up when I get in. The driver starts making small talk with me and in the state I was in I failed to see some of the red flags.

He starts to ask me about the party that I was at and I told him about the creep and then he told me it was because I was short and cute. He then asked my age and sensing a weird vibe from him I told him I was a minor thinking that would deter any further advances but it turns out that was a horrible idea. He was driving pretty recklessly on the highway and I snapped out of my drunken stupor very quickly. He then asked me to go get drinks with him that same night and told me he really liked me. I quickly told him that I'd get grounded if I stayed out any later and that my mother was awake and waiting for me at home. Keep in mind I live in Mexico and the amount of people and

especially women that get murdered daily is ridiculously high. When we got to my home address I noticed the doors were locked and he kept on insisting on us going to get a drink even though by now it was almost 4am. I tried to act as nice as possible when I told him I couldn't that night. He then asked for my phone number and told me that we could go out the next day. So, not being the first time that some creep had asked me for my number, I gave him my number but changed the last digit so he couldn't actually contact me. But then he actually dialed the phone as I was getting out of the car. Of course my phone didn't ring and he started getting agitated and said I gave him the wrong

number. I played drunk and stupid and recited my number again but actually said it correctly in order for him to think he heard the last number wrong. He chuckled and said it was his bad and told me that we'd see each other the next day. I made my way into my house and immediately woke my mom up because I was terrified. She managed to calm me down and told me to go to sleep so I went into my bedroom and started putting my pajamas on when I heard my phone ringing. The Uber driver was trying to video call me and I lost my mind when I saw that was on my screen. I immediately denied the call and then noticed that he sent me about 15 messages asking what time he could come pick me up and why I wasn't replying.

Of course I blocked him right away and thought that would be the end of it. The next day I got a text from an unknown number and checked the picture and saw that would be the end of it. The next day I got a text from an unknown number and checked the picture and saw that it was the driver. He asked me why I blocked him and started spamming me. I immediately blocked him again on that number. Over the course of the next month I'd get messages from random phone numbers and it quickly became obvious that it was the same driver. I would always block him, but eventually reported him on the Uber app and changed my number. The only problem is, he knows where I live. I worked at a pretty well-known record store in Los Angeles in the mid-90s, and this one time, a guy walked in to apparently check

out some CDs. He's milling about, and we make eye contact a few times, then he came up to ask me about certain artists and albums. He started dropping little personal details, then asking me the same thing in turn. Stuff like where I lived in LA, how long I've lived here, if I was single, stuff like that. He then walks out without buying anything. He didn't even ask for my number. Might sound full of myself, but I figured that he would, and when he didn't, I was left thinking, why did he even come in, and why did he ask me all those weird questions? Anyway, about a week later, I was on my way home when my car broke down. It was incredibly hot outside, and I was cursing the whole way

when I had to walk several miles to get to a payphone, which just so happened to be outside the elementary school I went to. But that's neither here nor there. I called a cab and hung up the phone and after sitting a moment it started ringing. Weird but I figured it might be the cab company calling me back so I picked it up. Then I heard a person on the other end say, Bad luck about your car. Talk to me until your ride gets there. I remember recognizing the voice from somewhere and it definitely wasn't the person that I'd spoken to at the cab company because they had a certain accent and this guy was straight up American. So I ask like, uh,

who is this? And the person just laughed in reply and that's when it hit me who it was. It was the weirdly curious guy from the record store. It made absolutely no sense to me at the time, but thinking about it later, he had to have followed me from home, trailed me from the car, called the school or something to ask for the payphone number and then called it. This is at a time when cell phones weren't widely available and he didn't seem like some hotshot, so I legitimately have zero clue where he was calling from or how he knew the right time to call. It was quite a busy gas station down the street and maybe it had just been a coincidence that he'd spotted me from there or something but I remembered that at the time and

the more I tried to work it out, the more I started kind of freaking out. Obviously I just slammed down the phone and walked someplace else, but I did so with my head on a swivel the whole freaking time. I certainly count myself very lucky, not just because the guy seemed to back off after that little incident, but because a few months later, his picture was in the Times for being convicted on kidnapping charges. Seeing that was even scarier than the random payphone call because I realized that the kidnapping victim could have very easily been me. I decided to go hiking in Wekiva State Park.

It's a place that I'm extremely familiar with. The weather has been awful lately so I haven't been kayaking. My time in the state park has been spent kayaking and I was the only person out there because the weather wasn't that great. It was on the Orange Trail maybe two miles in when all of a sudden I had the feeling of being watched. I have a sixth sense for this. If I feel I'm being watched there's an 80% chance that I probably am.

I stopped and watched for a second. As I started back in, I suddenly saw quick-paced movement out in the brush, maybe 50 yards from where I was. Something was trying to avoid being seen. It was weird, but I continued on. As I continued down the trail, I continued to feel watched. All of a sudden, as I'm walking, I hear a maniacal laughing out in the brush, maybe 20 yards to my left. Now, I was the only person around.

I hadn't seen another person in the entire park, and this really unsettled me. I quickly moved on. I tried to pull it out of my mind, thinking I was just imagining things. Maybe two minutes later I hear the same maniacal laughter off to my left. This time it was a bit closer. I decided to pick up the pace substantially. Less than a minute later I hear the laughter right behind me. There's an enormous amount of rustling and noise coming from the brush. I realize whatever this was, was right behind me. And I ran. I didn't look back. I had put every ounce of energy into my escape. I ended up becoming too weak to run and I stopped for some rest. I didn't want to get bullrushed so I turned around facing the direction that I had been running from and took a knee. I was starting to calm down but I still didn't feel safe and I told myself I had to keep going.

As I struggled to my feet, I spotted something in the brush. A dark leather wrap. I unfolded it and found three extremely sharp knives, like butcher knives, the type of knife that you would use to stab someone, and they seemed fresh too. You could tell that they had been dropped there within the day. I allowed an audible yelp when I realized what was inside the sheath. Really manly, I know. All of a sudden, every ounce of fear came rushing back. My body was telling myself to be very, very afraid. I knew I had to keep moving, and I jumped back up and ran back to civilization.

I didn't grab the knives because I felt that it would add an immense amount of risk to an already dangerous situation. I had the feeling of being watched until I was a half mile from the trailhead. Something was out there. Something knew I was out there. I'm not afraid of anyone. People don't have the ability to freak me out. The fact that my body was telling me to be very very afraid and to keep moving just felt terrifying. It was a primal response that I just couldn't turn off. This happened around 2015 when I was working in a cute, fancy little boutique hotel. Six substantial rooms and often had big name stays.

I worked doing a bit of everything. Guest assistants, reception, service in the restaurant, drinks, whatever was needed really. One of the line cooks was from Eastern Europe, was in about his mid-forties and worked full time. He was always overly friendly with me to the point of making me feel uncomfortable, commenting on how I looked, staring too long, standing too close, touching me where opportunity arose. Just on the arms, back, and shoulder, but with a palm, nothing overly outrageous, but there was a creepy feel about it. To give you a picture, I'm 5'2 and a really small build. This guy was tall, probably 6'5 and had a broad strong build.

It looked like he worked out. English was his second language but he spoke it fluently. Often he would stand close to me or stand between me and the exit where opportunity presented and give me compliments, staring at my chest and saying, wow, you're good, guys must love you, you're so beautiful, I love your legs in the uniform, you should always wear a skirt with those legs, yada yada, etc, making me super queasy. was also a born-again Christian and loved to recite random scriptures to me because he knew I grew up Catholic and figured for some reason I would appreciate it I did let him know that I wasn't religious and he volunteered that he was only recently becoming a born-again Christian I asked him what made him turn to the Lord quote unquote

and I really wish I hadn't. His response? It doesn't matter what you had done in the past, no matter what. When you become born again, you get a clean slate and forgiveness. He had the creepiest smile when he said this and was staring at me with his head lowered, almost like that Kubrick stare if you know what I mean. It was full on weird. This guy had done some messed up stuff. I have zero evidence of this other than he just gave off those vibes. Anyways, I went on a holiday for a few weeks and on my first shift back, I'm setting up the restaurant for the evening dinner and he shows up to work his shift. He comes up behind me with his mouth and nose against the edge of my neck.

I could feel his warm, icky breath. He breathed me in, like smelled and inhaled me and said, Mmm, I've missed your smell. Vom, it was disgusting. I just gave a weird awkward smile and ushered away. I went down to the office to take a second to chill. My GM was in there at the time and he asked me what was up. I told him what happened but said it wasn't a big deal, that I was fine and just wanted a second to chill. He didn't take lightly to it, went to the kitchen and fired that idiot on the spot. He came back and told me that I'd have nothing more to worry about. And that was it. Never saw him again.

And I did kind of fear him trying to get back at me or some crazy stuff like that. And that was a really good shift that night. It felt great to see my boss stick up for me like that. Thank God for good bosses. I was off work after an 8 hour shift when I decided to go drive around the city. Now this is my little habit of mine when my day off is the next day, before I go home, I drive for basically 30 minutes around the city before I go home and basically just wasting some gas and exploring. As I was driving around the block, keep in mind the entire time this was unfolding, I was driving very slowly and about 100 meters away in front of me,

I noticed a guy jumping out of the second floor balcony of the apartment. And he seemed to be in a hurry too. I saw another guy exit his car from the passenger seat. Now my curiosity got the better of me and decided to stop at the side of the road, turn my car off and watch them from the distance. Now if my eyes didn't deceive me, I saw the guy who jumped off of the truck enter the driver's side of the car and started it. The other guy meanwhile lights up something

and it was only the glow of the flames when I saw that it was a Molotov. I watched as the man positioned himself perfectly for a couple of seconds and threw it to that room that he jumped out of. The place became engulfed in flames and as soon as it grew bigger, the two men decided to drive off as quickly as they could out of there and all of this happened in just a matter of minutes. Now strangely, I watched from a distance as the flames grew larger and larger, basically burning the rest of the building. I decided not to call the cops and simply left by going in a different direction, not to get caught in the crossfire of whatever this might turn out to be. It was the next two weeks that I got the full

context about the arson with the local news. Keep in mind I saw this entire ordeal unfold with my very own eyes and there was no mistaking it at all. It turned out that the two men behind this fire were arrested five days afterward due to the fact that the police managed to get a hold of probably the CCTV footage and a person also witnessed the incident and managed to identify them and spoke to police. Coincidentally, they managed to pull that driver over and he was actually arrested for possession of drugs and was later identified. The passenger meanwhile was arrested because he decided to vandalize a car not far from the apartment. The reason for the arson was apparently about a dispute between the tenant and the one guy.

The other man was just an accomplice and he asked to come along. Apparently, the tenant was out of town at the time when it happened and they decided to burn his place down. Unbeknownst to them, they actually burnt the entire apartment complex and thus creating more damage to them when they got arrested. To this day, I somewhat regretted not calling the police when I saw it happen. Maybe because I'm fearful this was something bigger and that me reporting it could possibly get me killed. But with some sheer luck that there was another guy watching this unfold from the other building, I'm just thankful everyone was safe and no one was hurt. For clarification, I'm a female and this story happened around 2015. I also went to school in a small southern town where news spreads very fast.

When this story happened, my friends and I were juniors in high school. We were kind of the nerdy outcasts at my school and we tended to plan get-togethers around holidays. Usually we would just play video games, order pizza, all that good stuff. We were planning our usual Halloween get-together for the year when gossip was spreading around about a huge Halloween party that was taking place just outside of town. My friends and I weren't interested, but a lot of girls at our school were. Guys from other high schools were inviting them and a lot of other teenage girls to the party. Me and a couple of my friends were invited too, but like I said, we just weren't interested. The party was said to have a ton of drugs and alcohol at it and my friends were pretty clean and sober. Though because

of how small and boring and religious our town was, a lot of teens were willing to get involved in a little bit of trouble, especially if it involved drugs and alcohol. After Halloween, we had police at our school asking us questions to specific students and even interrupting our classes to talk to people. Turns out it wasn't a harmless Halloween party hosted by some teenage boys. It was actually a party hosted by creepy old men who paid teenage boys to lure teenage girls to their house. They were found out because some girls tried to leave the party and were stopped by one of the men. A girl had brought her boyfriend and he stepped in to try and help her

The man got so furious by this he ended up beating the life out of the boyfriend to the point of unconsciousness A neighbor close by where the party was called the police and the men were swiftly arrested When police searched the house there were drugs, guns and voicemails talking about kidnapping and selling some of the girls at the party. They even found text messages where they were taking pictures of the girls at the party for approval of whoever they were talking to. The arrests and evidence found spread like wildfire in our town. People, especially parents, were terrified. I remember some kids at our school moved away after the incident. I graduated college recently and this story came up again at another Halloween get-together with

my friends. It's still terrifying to think what might have happened if the police weren't called. We've been going to a local pool for six plus weeks for swimming lessons. This was the last week and as soon as I had my son, he's 16 months old, dressed and ready to go, an old 70 year old plus lady walked in. She immediately, almost before turning the corner, said, How old is he? I love showing off my baby boy, but she was immediately creeping me out. She was standing less than 1.5 feet from my face and I couldn't back up as I was in a corner. She began asking in a monotone and low voice all kinds of questions about him and how old he was.

I answered vaguely and only gave as much info as I'd give any other stranger his name and age. She then asked me again when he was born and I said August. She then said, I'm born in February. My mom in October, my dad in July, my brother in December. She listed another brother and some grandkids as well, but I was now frozen as those are the exact same birth months as my family, down to the family member. She continued to ask the same questions and tell me the same info over

and over. At one point, looking at my son and then me and says in a dull but creepy voice, I'm sorry, I just want to take him and go. I don't respond to this. At this point I started to get my son's clothes wet because I'm in the bathing suit holding him freshly dressed so I'm getting a little antsy and also freaked out. She looks at me and says in her monotone voice, slightly annoyed, I'm bothering you, aren't I? I start to say, no, I just need to get dressed. She cuts me off and begins to ask me about my son's eye color. I start to say that they're blue and she again cuts me off and asks what color mine are. I then again start to say blue and

she reaches to my face and uses her fingers to open my eye. Then agrees they are blue and looks back at my son. She doesn't touch him thankfully but says, they are blue, just be happy they're not black and gives this weird monotone laugh. All in all she made me extremely uncomfortable. My son wasn't in danger and I'm the most passive person in the world. I wasn't sure what to make of her at the time so I remained as friendly as possible but stopped adding anything to the conversation after she rattled off her family's birthdays that are the exact same as my family's. And honestly, at this point, I don't know what to make of any of this. So I came across an ad on gumtree.au where you buy and sell stuff on this website in Australia where you can post anything from cars, jobs, and clothes. This ad stated that it was a pop-up nudist resort looking for staff,

and it was $1,500 a day. It would supposedly be strictly a non-sensual bartending gig. The first red flag was that they were at capacity for male staff, and only looking for female applicants. Naturally, I was curious. I mentioned to the guy asking about more information. He stated that it was strictly no touching and fully clothed and that he would be hosting interviews at a hotel in the city if I would be interested.

I asked for any additional information, i.e. a website or anything and he stated that they don't advertise as he's affiliated with that community and has no website as they value their client's privacy. Thankfully, I'm pretty switched on. It left a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach so I reported it to the local police station and will be emailing them screenshots of the conversation. Here's a few copy-paste of the most concerning parts. Me. Just wondering if the interview will take place in the lobby.

Is there a name of the company by any chance? Him. I don't, sorry. We have no websites as we don't advertise at all as I'm affiliated with many in the community. I'll provide my ID in the lobby for you so you know you're safe. That was on Monday, the 24th of January, 2022 at 12.23pm via Gumtree. Me? I'm very interested, but I'm quite unsure of the legitimacy due to the lack of advertising and no company name. Him? I never advertised and my clients value their privacy. It's all good, we can talk in the lobby first and then proceed from there if you're happy.

From then, I immediately called the local police station and sent in a form to the AFP, the Australian Federal Police, which is a trafficking site with details, as I truly am worried that this might just be a scam to kidnap and it's still bothering me. I'm sitting in my living room reading. My back window is slightly open. I heard a noise and thought it was my cat making high-pitched noise. She came in the room and sat with me. And then I heard the noise again, and I realized it wasn't her.

So I got up and walked to the open window. I listened closely and hear what sounded like a woman yelling. It's very difficult to tell where the noise is coming from because of the way the apartment complex is designed. I sit for a few minutes near the window and don't hear anything again. I go back to reading. About 45 minutes later, I hear the yelling again. I rush to my back window and clearly hear a woman say, I just want to go home.

At this point, I call the police. Long story short, they come, ask a few questions, sit in my apartment trying to listen and don't hear anything. After about 15 minutes, they leave and tell me to call if I hear anything else, and I've not heard anything else since then. What's really bothering me is the thought that someone has a woman trapped in their apartment. When he realized the police were here, he told her or forced her to stay quiet. If the police don't hear anything, they can't just enter a person's home. The fact that I couldn't tell where this sound was coming from makes it even worse.

I'm just worried that she's now being punished for bringing the cops to the house. I'm also a little worried that this person will figure out that I was the one who called. The police weren't exactly discreet in coming to my home, asking questions and looking out my back window. This happened last night after a night of a lot of drinks. Names are generic because why not, but me, a 30-year-old male, my friend John, and our friend Jane, a 28-year-old female, were drinking at our other friend's bar. It's a small place and not too popular, so our friend behind the bar was quick to refill our drinks as we finished them. After last call, we decided to get food for our drunk munchies. There obviously weren't too many options, but we ended up going to a breakfast cafe in the bad part of town. Everything was fine,

we paid and started walking out. On the way out the door, there was a shady looking guy only wearing an open hoodie, no shirt under under and baggy worn out jeans. He was leaning in a hallway for bathrooms by the exit and watched us leave, presumably noticeably drunk. As we were walking to the side of the building where our lift driver was picking us up, we noticed the sketchy looking fella following about 10-15 feet behind us. We picked up our pace and got in the car and locked the door before even greeting the driver. Quickly said our name so he knew we were his riders and asked him to pull away because of the bad feeling. As we pulled out of the lot I

turned to watch the sketch ball. I noticed that he had pulled a mask on, was wearing a single glove in his right hand, and I think he may have had a gun or a knife. The creep stood behind a bush, watching us leave. We called the restaurant to report it, probably should have phoned the police too, but didn't really know if, maybe, we were overreacting. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations

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