The Lets Read Podcast - 185: LIKE THE WORLD WAS ENDING | 21 True Scary Stories | EP 173

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Pizza, Unsolved Mysteries, the End of the World... 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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and I'd get a job as a delivery driver to pay them back in installments. I remember my dad giving me this big speech and responsibility and work and all this other stuff, like I wasn't going to fulfill my end of the deal, but he didn't realize how easy it was going to be for me. I'd have happily driven around London on that thing day after day, so the idea of getting paid for it too. That was all I ever wanted at that age, and so the moped would literally be paying for itself. Finding a delivery job was easy enough. Well, it was more like two delivery jobs. One in the week, one on the weekends, but it was easy enough. Then, for about six months, I worked five days a week, seven hours a day, enough to make money for myself while being able to pay my parents back in the agreed-upon installments.

But little did I know, I wouldn't actually pay off what I owed, because I wouldn't be able to pay it off. And here's why. On Friday night, I was out in deliveries, driving as carefully as I normally did. One minute I was taking a turn down a residential street near Peckham, and the next thing I know, something slams into the back of my moped. I remember flying over the handlebars in slow motion, seeing the road getting closer and closer and just praying that the impact wouldn't either straight up kill me or break my neck. The impact was horrific, but I didn't directly land on my head. I think I must have done like a half flip in midair or something too because when I actually came to a stop on the road, the thing that hurt me the most was my right elbow.

Then, after that, I remember someone like dragging me off the road by my leg. I know now that you're not supposed to move someone after an accident like that, that moving them can actually do more damage than the accident itself, but in the moment, I thought it was just someone trying to help. It didn't half hurt, but if their intentions were pure, if someone was at least helping me, then that eased my mind a bit, even if it did make my arm hurt even more. I remember saying something like, please call 999, but my words were definitely being muffled by my helmet. That wasn't a huge problem though. I mean, someone will have called 999, even if it was the dozy bugger that smashed into the back of me. But then, and remember, all I can see is what I can see about my visor, I see that I'm being dragged past the pavement and into an alleyway at the side of the road,

and that's about the same time that I notice the three or four pairs of feet that seem to be following whoever has dragged me. And that's when I realize something is badly wrong, and that this is no ordinary road accident. Since I was lying on the concrete of the alleyway with my helmet on, I still couldn't see much, but what I could see was about five pairs of feet surrounding me. I remember saying something like, what's going on? Who are you? And that's when the first kick hit my side.

It didn't impact near my broken elbow, but the shock was enough to have it burning with pain, and any other question I had were drowned out by the screams of pain I let out. That's when I heard something like, You honestly think you can do us over, yeah? And another kick came from the other side, completely knocking the wind out of me. Then I heard another voice, one with a northern accent, say,

You stole six grand's worth of ecce's mate. You're lucky you're getting a chance to explain yourself. That time I started shouting like, I don't know what you're talking about. But again, my helmet was half muffling my words, and the sound of beeping horns from the street did the rest of the muffling. I tried to take my helmet off to at least show them that they had the wrong person. I hadn't so much as had a pint of lager at that point in my life, let alone taken, sold, or stolen any serious drugs. So I knew that getting my helmet off was the quickest way of me getting myself out of trouble. but my arm was in bits, man. And if you've ever tried taking a motorbike helmet off with just one hand before,

you'll know how impossible it is unless you get a really good angle on it. Then once again, the dragging started. Someone dragged me under my arms and started pulling me further up the alley. All I could do was keep on shouting that this was a mistake and you got the wrong person, but no one seemed to be listening, let alone be able to hear what I was saying. I stopped screaming for a second and actually tried to wrestle myself free, but it was a huge mistake for two reasons. The first being my arm hurt more than ever and the second being that it only provoked more kicks to come from all sides and that when I heard someone saying, did you bring

it? And someone else reply, yeah, two bottles. And I remember thinking, bottles? Bottles of what? And then wondering if they were already talking about getting some drinks in after they'd done whatever they were planning on doing with me. But it wasn't bottles of if they were already talking about getting some drinks in after they'd done whatever they were planning on doing with me. But it wasn't bottles of alcohol they were talking about, it was something else entirely. The really frustrating thing, now that I think back on it, is that at no point did they bother taking my helmet off for me. They were so confident that they got whatever thief they were looking for, who must have had a similar moped to me, that they just went for me without so much as a second thought. Then the moment came when I heard one of the blokes say, get him up.

I thought that might be followed by them finally taking my helmet off, but no. I remember them picking me up, like actually picking me up off the ground and I realized that they were trying to put me in a plastic wheelie bin. I think the adrenaline was really kicking in at that point because as I started to really kick and struggle, I found my arm wasn't hurting as much as it was before. I could still feel that it wasn't working properly and I could even feel the bones or whatever it is in my elbow, like, grinding together as the guys held me. I really didn't want to go in that wheelie bin. Absolutely no good could have come from getting put in it.

But as I struggled, they just held me tighter, with the rest of the blokes coming in to restrain my legs, while another punched me as hard as he could in the stomach. I went in easy then, having had the wind completely knocked out of me, and as much as I tried to launch myself out of it using my legs, two lads on either side of me held me down and kept me in the bin. I was completely helpless as I watched one guy take two clear plastic bottles out of his jacket and when they unscrewed the tops and started emptying the liquid into the bin around me, the smell came up into my helmet and let me know that it was very, very flammable.

I started going into overdrive at that point but then I felt a hand dart under my chin, squeezing my throat under the rim of my helmet, and the more I struggled, the harder it squeezed. I'd never been so scared in my entire life, even to this day. To face your own death like that, to know you're about to die, there's not a feeling in the world like it. But to know it's going to come from being roasted alive inside of a bloody plastic wheelie bin of all things. To know it's going to hurt, and hurt, and hurt until you finally can't hurt anymore and just switch off. I think that's probably the most terrified a person can ever physically get. I was just praying, please take the helmet off. Please take the helmet off. If they take the helmet off, I swear I'll go to church every Sunday until I die. I swear. But then, if they did, would they burn me anyway, knowing I'd end

up going to the police and dropping them in it? They'd covered all their faces, so there was a chance that they might let me go, knowing I wouldn't be able to identify them. There was a slim chance. A real slim chance, but this little voice in my head said, that's not going to happen. And the thought made me tear up and cry in a way I don't think I'd done since I was a freaking baby. And then finally, the moment of truth came. I heard the words, get his helmet off. And I felt this tugging sensation with one of them finally pulling the helmet from my head. I must have looked a right state, hair a mess, tears streaming down my face, blubbering, this is a mistake, you've got the wrong person, please don't kill me, you've made a mistake. But I'll never forget the pure feeling of relief washing over me when I saw the look in two of the

lad's eyes. They might have had their faces covered but I could see that look of bollocks, we've got the wrong kid. The rest didn't know it though and the worst thing, the guy with the matches didn't know it was a mistake either and he was about halfway to striking one of them up before I finally heard one of the wide-eyed guys say, it's not him. What came out next was this weird mix of terror and anger, and I actually threw myself into the words so hard that the wheelie bin ended up rocking when the two guys securing it stepped back with the same horrified look in their eyes, knowing they'd done all that for the wrong bloody person. I told you, I remember screaming, well more like screeching now that I think about it. I effing told you you got the wrong effing person, I never stole nothing, I never stole nothing.

After that, all the anger that was being focused on me seemed to switch to one of the lads who first looked horrified when the helmet came off. All the others were like, are you kidding me? You pointed us at the wrong freaking kid? The other guy was then like, I swear it was him. Same scooter, same helmet, same jacket, I swear it was him, oboe, I swear mate. And this oboe bloke, I guess. Obviously the one in charge. Then full on punch the other guy in the face, shouting like, keep my name out of your mouth while we work in blood. Then another guy, the one with the northern accent, started

saying, we need to get a wiggle on, boys. This is a bad crack, this is. Then the next thing, they're all legging it back up the alley before I hear screeching wheels and an engine revving. I couldn't actually climb out of the wheelie bin, what with my arm being in a state, but thankfully, I remember looking up to see a woman poking her head out of her back window saying, Police are on the way, love, don't worry. Everything's going to be alright. The police were followed by an ambulance, which took me to hospital and one of the nurses must have contacted my parents after taking my details down because about 10 o'clock, my mom and dad had turned up at St. Thomas' Hospital.

Mom was in bits and dad was absolutely raging once he'd heard the full story, how it wasn't just a car accident, that it was like some deliberate attack by drug dealers who'd gotten the wrong guy. He was the one that pushed me to tell the police everything, and I can't believe this now, looking back on it, but at first I didn't want to, because I was scared that they'd come back knowing I'd grassed them up. They had their own way of dealing with that, though, as when it came to the court date, the police could only get charges on the guy driving the car, or at least the one who admitted to having driven the car.

If I had to guess, I'd say that he was the one who wrongly ID'd me because if it was me, I'd have had that idiot take all the heat since he was the one who got it wrong. I'll never know for certain though, because like I said, they all had masks on and I could say the name Oboe to the police over and over again, but if the driver wouldn't admit he was there or in the car, there was no touching him. Anyway, as you can imagine, I didn't do much driving after that for a while. As it turns out, that fractured elbow takes quite a while to heal. The only silver lining was that my mom and dad agreed that I didn't have to pay off the rest of my loan and that they'd use the money I paid them to get my

moped repaired. Turned out, they were really proud of me for having stuck to my end of the bargain, and I'd paid off more than half what I owed them anyway, so all's well that ends well, I suppose. Back when I first moved away for college, my mom and dad bought me this beat up old Toyota Matrix so I could drive home whenever I wanted. I grew to hate the old piece of trash after a while, but it got me from point A to B and it helped me get a job as a delivery driver for a pizza place, so I'll always appreciate the gesture. But then one night when I was making a delivery something happened that meant that from that night on I never got into the driver's seat of it

ever again. So like I said I'm making deliveries one night and I'd just gotten back into my car after dropping off a bunch of pizzas at an apartment building when I suddenly realized I hadn't locked the passenger side door. And the only reason I realized I hadn't locked the door was because this guy opens up the door and climbs into my car. Then right as I'm about to tell the guy to get out, I see he has a gun. I'm too scared to even say anything and he just points it right in my face and says all out of breath, drive. As I'm pulling into the street, literally trembling in my seat, I see these two cops sprinting out of an alley in my rear view and that's when it hits me that they were probably chasing him and they probably had enough time to call in my license plate.

Turns out I was dead right about that because the next thing I know I see flashing lights in the rear view. I didn't even have to look over at the guy. I just see him raise the gun up, pointing it at me and he says, if you stop this car, I'll blow your head off. So I drove and drove and kept driving until we were out in the suburbs. The whole time the cops are tailing and they're not shouting like pull over or whatever through their bullhorns or whatever you call it and I figured it's because they know that the guy basically carjacked me and that there's a hostage situation going on. The whole time the guy's like, drive faster. And all I can say is, I can't. This thing's a piece of trash. If I put my foot down, the engine might freaking give out. So he's content to just

delay the inevitable for as long as he could. I don't know exactly how long we were driving because the little digital clock was busted. But after a while we started to see fields and stuff, then my gas light starts blinking, and I tell the guy that if we don't at least try and stop for gas, that we were eventually just going to come to a rolling stop. He tells me to stop at the next gas station we see, so that's exactly what I do, but not before the guy uses his phone to call 911, telling the operator exactly what's going on and to tell cops that if they come near the car while we're topping up our gas, he's going to kill the hostage, i.e. me. We eventually pull into this gas station in the middle of nowhere and I'm absolutely terrified but I ask him if he wants me to get out to top off the tank.

He looks around and sees it's one of those pumps that stays locked unless you pay first, so he says no, but he has to think of something out before he lets me get out of the car. The cops are keeping a safe distance while this is going on, as they obviously thought the guy was straight up ready to kill me. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that too. The whole time they're shouting over their mics like, let the hostage go, we can work something out, and no one has to die over this Malcolm. Just surrender and we'll get you help. He's stalling the whole time, pointing the gun to my head every so often to warn the cops off, and I swear that every time he did it I thought he was going to pull the trigger and just end it.

But looking back, if he did that, the cops would have just swarmed the car and shot him, or at least I think they would have anyway. Then there came a point where I could see that he was trying to work out how to get out of the mess he'd gotten himself into. He knew he couldn't get out of the car to get the clerk to unlock the pumps, as they'd ran for cover as soon as they saw that it was a dangerous situation and there was no way for him to get their attention. Then he seemed convinced that if I got out of the car, I'd run off to the cops like right away, which to be fair, was my number one escape plan at the time.

He asked me how far we'd go if we just took off with the gas I had in the tank and I told him about a mile or two, not far at all. And he lets out this real deep sigh like a balloon deflating or something which I suppose was exactly what was happening. He was all out of ideas. He knew this was the end of it and right then I realized that was the point that he was at his most dangerous. I was pretty much convinced that I was going to die by that point having gotten it into my head that the guy was going to die by that point, having gotten it into my head that the guy was going to just go out in a blaze of glory by shooting me and then unloading the rest of his ammo onto the cops. Then when I heard him say himself, screw it, and he did something to the gun, like cock it or take the safety off, I thought to myself, this is it. This is how my life ends. In a trashy car

with some loser maniac. I shut my eyes, felt my hands gripping the steering wheel so hard I could feel it shaking, and then bang. Only a second later, instead of feeling, well, nothing, I found I could open my eyes. But the first thing I saw when I opened them was a few specks of blood on the dash near the passenger's side. Then when I turned, I instantly started dry heaving, because the guy had obviously put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, because there was a ton of blood and chunks of brain matter all over the ceiling of my car. I opened up the door and was puking with my hands raised above my head while I heard the cops shouting, get down on the ground. I had to lie in my own puke, man. Just lie there while they ran over with their guns on me just in case I was somehow in on it. It sounds crazy but I really didn't mind. Knowing it was all over. That I was safe. Well, relatively anyway.

It was all gravy by that point. Like I don't even think I can really describe that kind of relief in actual words. I literally felt high off of it. You see and hear about people crying in the aftermath of stuff like that and I guess that's just how they deal with the emotion, but to me it kind of felt like I'd won something, like I'd beat the carjacker by surviving or whatever. Anyway, I better sign off before this starts sounding too abstract, but I can definitely say I wouldn't wish that kind of experience on anyone, ever. I'm a girl in my late 20s and I just want to tell all the other females out here, do not get a job as a delivery driver, ever. It puts you in some seriously dangerous positions and I learned that to my ultimate detriment.

And thing is, I kind of figured that out before I took a job as one and I just didn't think it could ever happen to me. I'd considered myself tough, street smart, and definitely not the kind of girl who exudes a sense of vulnerability. But that didn't help, and it didn't save me when it mattered most. So like I said, I knew working for DoorDash would pose its own set of unique problems, but as you can probably guess already, my financials were in such a dire state after my business went under that frankly, I didn't have much of a choice. It was either swallow my pride and don the red hoodie or risk having to move back in with my parents back in Connecticut. Don't get me wrong, I love my mom and dad, but I didn't move to New York just to

run back home with my tail between my legs when things got tough. It actually turned out to be an okay job at first. But then came an order on Friday, February 11th, taking a pizza from Prichesia in Williamsburg to a place on Eckford Street up in Greenpoint. I rode over, picked it up, rode up to Eckford then found the address. I messaged the guy saying I'm here because I couldn't tell which apartment he was in. He just gave a door number and then he came down to get it. The guy had to be 40 something, slick back hair, mustache and thick black rimmed glasses. Worst thing was he came down in a robe, stained vest, boxers, and gripper slippers.

He didn't seem dangerous, not at first, anyway. He was just a creep, because his literal first words to me were, oof, you're cute. Cute is the last word I'd use to describe myself, and the guy in the robe was the last person I'd ever take that kind of compliment from. So needless to say, the displeasure must have seriously registered in my face because the next thing he says is like, someone having a bad day, huh? The retort came to me in an instant. Not until I ran into you, but I kept myself from saying it. Nothing good would have come from insulting the guy, especially not when my tip was on the line, so I kept my mouth shut and, in a way, it paid off. You know, you should smile more.

That look doesn't suit you. He said, and as much as it made my blood boil, I still kept my mouth on lockdown. For a while, I was glad I did because as insane as it sounds, the guy took out two 20s from his wallet and was like, here, this will put a smile on your face and held both bills out to me. But when I went to grab them, not once, not twice, but three times, then on the third time he was all like, there's more where that came from if you want to come inside and enjoy some pizza with me. Only when I went to walk away did he laugh this awful obnoxious laugh before like, hey I'm kidding, come on, get your tip cutie. I almost balked at the comment but I did go back. I'm ashamed to say it but I needed

the money. You know, I still do even. And I still needed it on the Sunday the day before Valentine's Day when I saw that same job pop up on my DoorDash app. It was a pizza from Patrizia, same toppings too, heading to the exact same address. All I could think of was that $40 tip and how Valentine's Day would be a lot less embarrassing if I could actually split the restaurant bill with my boyfriend. He had insisted on being chivalrous about the whole thing and covering the bill himself, but I'm really not that kind of girl. I don't care who you are, I pay my way in the world. So I took the job and went through the motions again, to Patricia's, to the apartment, and to his door. Again, he's cracking jokes when he sees me, wishing me a happy

Valentine's Day and asking if I had anyone to spend it with. I told him yes, I did, and I'd appreciate it if he'd kept things strictly business. At least that time he'd bothered to put some shorts on and the lack of a robe gave him a distinctly less snobbish appearance. But I did notice one thing that I wasn't quite expecting. He was wearing boots. Like, combat boots. And they were actually tied. Again, I gave him his pizza only that time. It wasn't just two twenties that he took out from his wallet. It looked like four or five. Since you're not going to be spending Valentine's with me, I thought you might like to spend this on that special someone. He waved the bills back and forth as he spoke and it hit me right where it hurt the most,

the place that had been keeping me awake at night when the cycling didn't take it right out of me, my money troubles. I reached in to take the bills, this pathetic thank you leaving my lips before I even realized I said it. And that time he didn't swipe them away like I thought he might. But instead, he did something way, way worse. As my fingers touched the bills, his free hand snapped around my wrist and pulled me forward so hard I completely lost my footing. He was strong. Way, way stronger than he looked and just as I was about to find my feet again, he sent the toe of one of his boots crashing into my stomach. I'd never been kicked like that before.

Heck, I'd never been kicked like that before. Heck, I'd never been hit like that before. So hard you feel like your internal organs are turning into soup right there in your abdominal cavity. Then he started just dragging me, I guess, all along the corridor of the ground floor. I remember feeling this kind of weird hope that he'd have trouble carrying me up the stairs That it'd be too awkward and it'd give me a chance to escape But no, all hope of that was lost when I realized he lived on the ground floor right in the back of the building No wonder he didn't put his apartment number on his account He wanted to leave as small a digital footprint as possible So when it came time to come look for me, he'd to leave as small a digital footprint as possible.

So when it came time to come look for me, he'd have something of a head start. Now, obviously, things worked out okay for me or I wouldn't be here to actually write this. But back on that wooden floor, trying to catch my breath and stand up, it really didn't seem that way. I almost got away as we got to his front door, but I was wrenched by my arm free and tried scuttling back up the corridor. I felt fingers weaving in with my hair before his grips and my face smashing into the varnished wooden floorboards. Then as he pulled me back, I felt blood flowing down the back of my throat and down my lips. A lot of it too. My head was spinning and the weirdest thing, I was actually seeing stars, just like in the cartoons. All these little shiny dots dancing around the sides of my vision. I felt far away from my body,

real far away, and I thank god I came back to it before he went through with what he intended to do next. All it took was throwing me against his bed, not like on top of his bed, more like with my face resting on the mattress while my knees were on the floor. I knew it was coming next. I could practically smell it on him, and again, I thank God that he made one giant mistake. He reached around, tried to hook his forearm under my throat. He'd seen that I was a fighter or that at least I was trying to fight and he obviously didn't like that one bit. So in order to make me much more pliable, he tried to choke me out so he could do whatever he wanted. I just remember getting this flash of adrenaline when I realized what was happening and as he tried to slip his forearm under my chin, I sunk my teeth into his flesh and bit down hard.

I didn't have to scream. He did all the screaming for me. His first was like a yelp followed by a deep growl as he tried to fight through the pain. But as my teeth sank deeper and deeper into his skin and eventually his muscle, the yelp came back again, snowballing into an ear-splitting squeal as I felt the muscle crunch under my teeth and I do mean crunch. I once took a bite out of a raw chicken sandwich back in Connecticut, terrible food being just one of the reasons I moved, and whatever half-stoned line cook that made it must have taken out a cutlet too early, and when I bit into it,

I felt the raw chicken breast softly crunch as my teeth went into it. And let me tell you, it felt the exact same way biting into the raw flesh of that guy's arm. I remember feeling his muscle tearing as he tried to yank his arm away, or maybe I didn't feel it so much as hear it ripping around my teeth. Then, it's almost like I heard this little voice of internal monologue saying, let's go idiot, he's trying to get free. So I did just that. I opened up my jaw and suddenly his forearm was out of my mouth

and I couldn't feel any pressure on my back. And that was my window of escape. He was still staring at his forearm when I bolted past him but as I reached the door, I felt a hand grab onto my hair again. They wasn't enough to hold on to me though. Just a few strands and as I threw myself forward thinking not again, I felt the hair rip from my scalp. It's weird because back when I was a kid, my big sister tore a bunch of my hair out one time and it hurt really bad but that day I felt more rip out and I didn't even feel a freaking thing.

It's weird what a little adrenaline can do for you you know. Then I was out in the streets and because people heard the scream or saw the blood around my mouth they wanted to know what was going on. A girl and her boyfriend wanted to know if I was okay and all I could say was, call the cops, over and over again. And by some miracle, a patrol car actually showed up within 10 or 15 minutes and after I told the cops what happened, they got into the apartment building and presumably went to make an arrest. Then here's where the whole thing gets weird.

The guy wasn't in the apartment. He'd escaped out the rear exit once he'd realized his screaming in my mouth had caused a big commotion. But that's not the weird part. The weird part is there wasn't a single piece of ID in that entire place. No bank cards, no receipts, nothing like that. The DNA they lifted, from my chin no less, matched no one on national databases and the ID the guy had used to rent the apartment was traced back to a dead man in North Dakota

who'd apparently never even left his home state, let alone been all the way out to New York City. The cop who told me that was basically only telling me one thing, that there was nothing they could do. They probably weren't going to catch the guy, there was no tracing him anywhere, and I should basically just count my blessings that I managed to get away before he did anything permanent. As you can imagine, the investigation into him didn't go anywhere, but I'm definitely not the first woman whose abuser evaded justice in some way, so that I can weirdly come to terms with. The thing that really gets me is how this guy seemed to have covered his own butt from day one, using a false identity, ready to book at a moment's notice,

setting up a bank account with someone else's name and social security number. I think I was almost assaulted and maybe even murdered by a guy that's done stuff like that for his entire life. In which case, how many other girls or guys are out there that have suffered through the exact same thing? Or how many times has he burned down his entire identity just to start anew someplace else? How does a person like that manage it, over and over again building their entire existence around their predatory urges? Those are the questions that keep me up at night, but I do have a little piece of solace. Every time that guy looks at his right forearm,

every time he takes a shower or rolls up his sleeves or whatever, he sees a little gift I left him. A gift from the girl who made him burn down his whole world. A gift from the girl who got away. We'll be right back. June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find your pro at your local TreadExperts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get a pro at TreadExperts.

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. Let me tell you of how I came to be scared of dogs. I used to deliver pizzas for a living. Heck, I used to do a lot of things before my last delivery. Now I don't do much of anything at all and I live on

disability. Or rather, I try to live on the meager amount that the SSA allows me to have. I have flashbacks, I have nightmares, and sometimes just the sound of barking or yelping can trigger some severe anxiety attacks. All because of a freaking dog. So, like I was saying there, I used to deliver pizzas for a living here in Minnesota, often to the more rural areas too. I mean real rural areas, the kind of driving distance where the old 45 minutes or it's free kind of deal just couldn't apply. Nowadays it's a standard, but out here in the gopher state I think we sort of pioneered that old pop it back in a hot oven for 3 minutes thing just so we wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of complaints But anyway as I was saying real rural areas so I deliver to farmhouses big old places in the middle of nowhere with these real long driveways. This one time I roll up to the

gate to find its lock with this big old chain and padlock so there was no getting into the place without getting out of my car and hopping the fence. Obviously that was no problem at all, just the kind of thing you had to get used to out there in the sticks. So I clamber over and start walking up the pathway towards this place with my thermal bag slung over my shoulder. Then right as I get within about 50 feet of the front door, this dog appears out of nowhere, rushes up to me, and starts barking loud enough to wake the dead. I was pretty freaked out and backed off a few feet from it and luckily it just kept a distance at first while it carried on barking at me. I'm giving all the usual nice talk saying good doggy, good boy, I'm friendly, all that jazz.

When the owner of the house suddenly appears in the doorway and calls the thing off. They were real nice about the whole thing and apologized a whole bunch saying that they hoped I wasn't too spooked by the whole thing. I told her no, that defensive animals were a hazard of the job and that I certainly wouldn't hold it against them or the pooch, especially since it was only trying to protect its family. Secretly, I actually kind of loved it when stuff like that happened. Anything to earn myself a few extra bucks and tips, you know what I mean. Anyway, I get just that. A handsome little sorry bonus on top of my thank you for driving all the way out here tip. Then as I'm counting up the bills, I hear the dog start up again with its barking as I'm walking away.

I didn't really know dog breeds all that well well so at the time I had no idea what kind it was. It was only later that I found out it was a kind of bulldog slash pitbull crossbreed. Picture a huge pair of jaws on legs and you pretty much have it figured out. So like I said I'm counting the bills walking up the driveway and since I figured the grumpy old thing was all bark and no bite, I'm getting a little sassy on my way out. Shut up you old mutt. I tell him to buzz off, that kind of thing, but the further up the driveway I get, the louder and more savage this thing was barking.

I mean it sounded positively beside itself by the time I reached the old iron gate to the driveway and I was honestly real glad I could just drive away because the intensity of the barking really was starting to spook me by that point. But then I actually tried hopping the fence to get back to my car and suddenly the barking stopped. It was replaced by the sounds of paws rushing against grass and dirt and as I was climbing, I turned my head ever so slightly to see it coming at me out of the corner of my eye. That was followed by one of the most intense pains I've ever had to suffer through as the dog sunk its teeth into the back of my left calf.

I let out this rip roar of a scream, feeling all these pointy little bone daggers stabbing their way into my flesh. Then I made the mistake of thinking that if I tried to tug my leg up away from the dog I might let go. Jesus was I wrong, and the pain that gave me was just on another level. On top of that, because the dog felt me trying to pull away, it pulled back harder, and because it was literally pulling me by the meat of my leg, I had basically no choice but to let go of the fence and try to backtrack closer to the dog to stop the pain.

But the act of letting go of the fence and stepping off and back meant that I ended up totally collapsing to the ground, and that meant I was at the complete mercy of the dog. I suppose I should be thankful that it didn't end up really savaging me, like switching up from my leg to biting at my face or neck or anything like that. Instead, it just kept its jaws clamped on the meat of my calf like a vice grip. I just kept screaming and screaming and reaching around so I could hit the dog or poke at one of its eyes or something, literally anything to get it off of me. I'd never want to hurt an animal under any other

circumstances, I swear to God. But in that moment, I couldn't think of anything else to get it off of me. But then, if you picture it, because the thing was attached to the back of my leg and just wouldn't let go, there was no way for me to turn round enough to be able to reach its head. I realized in that moment, as I tried and failed to gouge its eyes or pull at its ears, that the only thing that was going to save me would be screaming at the top of my lungs for help. Ah, one quick point to address before I continue. A lot of people have asked me why I didn't just grab my cell phone out of my pocket to call 911 or whatever. That's because I'd left it in the cup holder, just like I always did.

All my drops tended to be pretty quick, even if they did come with the odd obstacle, and because this was way back when cell phones were pretty chunky, I found it was quicker to just pop out without bothering to ram my cell into my jeans pocket while the pizza got even colder. So that's why I didn't, and it ended up being a huge mistake, because if I'd bothered to inconvenience the customer a little, maybe I'd have gotten help faster than it arrived. As I was saying, all I could do was just scream and scream and hope the people in the house I just delivered to didn't have their TV turned up too loud. Thankfully they didn't and it was only after maybe a minute or two of me screaming that the

owners ran out to help me. I honestly thought it would be over by that point, that the nice lady would just be able to call her dog off and I'd have a few nasty scars at best. But she couldn't. She couldn't call it off, no matter how much she begged or pleaded that thing to get off me, it just wouldn't slacken its jaw one bit. I had no idea of this at the time, but the man of the house had seen what was going on from the front door and was already on the line with 911 by the time his wife even reached me. But she was also accompanied by her teenage son and it was his proposed solution that I think might have done even more damage to my leg than the dog. As the mom is shouting, Jiffy, yes,

its name was Jiffy, please leave him be Jiffy, please, please let the man go. The kid thought it was a good idea to just grab the dog around its body and try to yank the thing off of me. I think maybe he just thought it had a grip on my jeans or that it would just let go if he physically tried removing it. But even with me begging him not to pull on the dog, that's exactly what he did, and I literally felt muscle being torn from bone as he yanked it backwards. The mom was shouting no, no, no, Michael, stop, by that point as she could see the damage it was doing to my leg, which was just a hunk of chewed up meat by that time.

All I could do was scream and scream and scream some more, and by that point, all this involuntary religious stuff was coming out of my mouth. I never really believed in God. I've been sort of an atheist for as long as I've been able to hold a thought in my head, but in that moment it just came out of me. All this stuff. I didn't even know what was inside of me. Oh God. Please God help me. Holy Jesus. Please save me. Please God. Please hear me God. It feels almost embarrassing to say that to myself now, but it's the truth. Anyways, as I'm in the middle of practically speaking tongues, the man of the house ran out to meet us. I remember shouting at him to get a gun, get your gun, please get a gun, but he didn't

have one. Instead, he actually had an idea that would get his dog off of me without having to kill it. He basically put the thing in a headlock and choked it until it couldn't breathe anymore. Only then did it actually let go of me. As he dragged it away and held it tight in both arms, I looked back to see that the dog's entire face as well as the man's arms were completely covered in blood. Then I looked back to see what kind of condition my calf was in and because it was still covered with my jeans, I couldn't actually see how much damage had been done. It was just a mass of shredded denim and fresh blood,

and it still had some kind of shape to it, so like I said, I figured I just had some pretty nasty scarring after having my leg wrapped in bandages for a while. I'm no doctor. I had no idea how severe the damage was and by the time the EMT showed up, I'd lost so much blood that I wasn't really thinking properly. I thought everything was going to be okay, but I just had a bad accident or something that I'd be out of the hospital in a day or two. That turned out to be very far from the truth. I remember finally realizing how serious it was when the doctors told me that I would be going into surgery soon and that they'd try their best to save my leg. I remember thinking, what do you mean, save my leg?

But they meant exactly what they said. There was so much damage the dog had chewed my calf over and over to the point where in the end, the doctors wouldn't be able to save my leg. And that's the night that I had my left leg amputated just below the knee. May 3rd, 2004. The night my entire life changed forever. And that's where this story comes full circle, I suppose. I already told you how I live now. I can't work and I can't do much of anything anymore other

than watch TV and help look after my mom. That pizza delivery job was the only real job I ever had in my life. The only one I didn't feel that was given to me out of charity anyway. There's a lot more legal things that went into it and it's still kind of ongoing here and there. But the trauma still lasts. All because of one dog. I'm sorry. Back when I was 19, I was a pizza delivery guy for a small pizza place here in Medford, Massachusetts, and one night, I got a call that would turn out to be one of the scariest experiences of my life. I get handed the pizzas and the address, and when I drive over, I knock on the door and wait for someone to answer.

Then, when this dude answers the door he has this real shocked look on his face and he's kind of swaying back and forth. I thought he might have been high at first so I'm like uh you ordered a pizza right? He responds by just coughing up blood all over my work shirt. I backed off like oh god dude are you okay? And he obviously wasn't because he immediately fell forward like lunging at me and trying to grab onto me. I tried my best to catch him, dropping the pizzas in the process but he fell on me so heavy that all I could do was stop him from falling hard on his face. I kind of let him down gently to the ground and that's when I saw the thing in his back. I thought it was a knife at first and I knew better than to

try and pull it out so I just backed off a little, pulled out my phone and called 911. Then as I'm doing that I looked up to see this woman emerging from a back room of the house. The look on her face is something that chills me to think about even today. I found out later that she and her boyfriend, the guy with the knife in his back, had been having an argument, and when he'd gotten up to grab the pizza he'd ordered and told her she couldn't have any, she'd taken a wallpaper scraper of all things and plunged it so hard into his back that it punctured his lung. I don't know if she intended to come out and finish him off or whatever but seeing me on the phone and obviously talking to the dispatcher

must have made her come to her senses or whatever because she ran back into the back room and locked the door not coming out until the cops came to arrest her. That job was without a doubt the worst delivery I ever had to make and it was definitely the single most shockingly terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. Hailing from Surrey, in Canada's British Columbia, 31-year-old Blair Adams was employed as a foreman at a local construction company. All that knew him said that he was a cheerful, friendly, and fun-loving individual who was easy to talk to and easy to work with. But that only made the sudden change in his demeanor all the more noticeable and all the more frightening. Because

during the summer of 1996, almost everyone in his life noticed that Blair's behavior had taken a distinct turn for the worse. According to Blair's mother, the young man began exhibiting violent mood swings and suddenly seemed considerably more irritable and volatile during innocuous everyday situations. Something was obviously the matter, Sandra Adams later said. He hadn't been sleeping well. I asked him numerous times what was wrong and he said, I don't think I should tell you about it. To this day I don't know what it was. Blair's unusual behavior steadily mounted until Friday, July 5th of 1996, when things seemed to reach a severely concerning peak. Blair drove down to the local bank and withdrew his every

penny of his savings from his account. He also emptied the family's safety deposit box of more than 10,000 Canadian dollars in cash and jewelry before completely disappearing. Blair's family correctly assumed that he was planning on absconding with the money, but to where and to what end, they could only speculate. Two days after his initial disappearance, Blair mysteriously appeared at the US border, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his bag full of valuables. Blair might have expected an easy crossing as he had no formal criminal record at the time, yet he was shocked to find that he was denied entry by immigration officials. To them, it didn't matter if he had no history of criminality, because Blair fit the profile

of a narcotics trafficker. He was young, single, unemployed male, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and almost $20,000 in cash and valuables. And most importantly, the story was just not adding up. After being denied entry to the United States, Blair spent $1,600 on a round trip to Frankfurt in Germany, which was apparently the home of his long-distance girlfriend. They had met the year before when Blair had traveled to Germany to work for his stepfather's construction company and had been pining for each other ever since. She had not expected his visit, as for some reason Blair

hadn't informed her of his trip, but nevertheless, she was pleased to hear that he was coming to visit, and invited him to stay at her place. She would later state that she knew Blair to be gentle and kind with her, but was aware of a much darker, much more confrontational side to him too, one he seemed to display with his work colleagues. Back in Canada, Blair's mother, Sandra, had already reported her son missing, but found proving information was painfully difficult. As we've already heard, Blair's behavior had become increasingly erratic and paranoid, and this involved alienating and isolating his mother. He would evade questions, withhold information, or would simply refuse to discuss certain aspects of his life with her. She obviously had his cell phone number, but on the few occasions he did answer her calls in the time after his disappearance, he refused to tell her where he was going.

Yet Blair's mother was quick to point out that her son wasn't angry or abusive when talking to her. He sounded scared. This seemed to be corroborated when police contacted a friend of Blair's, the last person he spoke to in Canada before fleeing. This friend earnestly revealed that just before his departure, Blair had arrived at her apartment unannounced before tearfully revealing that someone was trying to kill him. The friend asked who his would-be assassin was and at first, Blair refused to say, but later admitted to being terrified of a group of former co-workers he'd met in Germany.

He also mentioned several times that he wished to move to the U.S. state of Tennessee, although he refrained from specifying why he'd had his sights set on the volunteer state. His obsession with Tennessee must have been what eventually motivated him to abandon his trip to Germany, as on the same day he was due to fly out, Blair once again attempted to enter the United States. Only this time, he was successful. He crossed over the border into Washington state, traveling directly to SeaTac International Airport where he promptly bought a one-way ticket to Washington D.C.

It should be noted that Blair was offered a cheaper return ticket for almost half the price, yet he insists on spending more on a one-way. I think this is a testament to how irrational Blair was acting at the time. He didn't have to take the return flight, so why waste the extra money? On the other hand,

this might be a sign that he actually wanted people to know where he was going, as well as his intentions once he'd arrived at his intended destination. A return ticket might suggest he intended to return at some point. A single would mean a solid trail to D.C. That being said, it might have just been a performative gesture, one that screamed, I'm not coming back. In any case, Blair arrived at Washington Dulles Airport early Wednesday morning. He then rented a Toyota from an airport rent-a-car desk before traveling more than 500 miles southwest to Knoxville, Tennessee. The first witness sightings of Blair were at

Knoxville gas station at around 5.30 in the afternoon. Blair was apparently complaining to the gas station attendant that his car wouldn't start and the attendant apparently responded by telling Blair he had the wrong car keys. Witnesses say this attendant helped Blair both out of the premises and his car, but the keys were nowhere to be found. This is around the same time that the attendant jokingly asked Blair if the keys had been in his pocket the whole time. It was meant to be nothing but a quip, a throwaway comment to lighten Blair's overly serious demeanor, but Blair reacted extremely oddly to it. The attendant later said that Blair almost violently denied he was in possession of the keys, but instead of getting the impression that Blair's intelligence had been insulted, the attendant stated that it seemed as if Blair was lying. Blair was lying. He certainly committed to the act as he later hitched a ride to a nearby motel

where his evening took a dramatic and horrifying turn. Taika Hartsfield, an employee of the motel, remembered Blair well. He seemed real paranoid, she later said. Almost like he was expecting someone to come in on him even though there wasn't anybody there. I don't know who, but he was waiting for somebody to walk in for him. Taika said Blair's behavior was merely skittish at first, but it didn't take long before he appeared very fearful indeed. In the space of just an hour, the motel's security cameras recorded Blair going in and out of the lobby five times

before he finally paid for a room. After receiving his room key, the lobby's camera recorded Blair sliding into his pocket, but instead of walking to his room, Blair walked right back out through the main entrance, never to return. His exit was at exactly 7.37pm, marking one of the last times Blair would be seen alive. The only other person to see him would be the person that killed him. Just over 20 hours after Blair walked out of the hotel lobby, his lifeless body was discovered in a parking lot about half a mile from the motel. He was nude from the waist down, his shoes had been taken off, and his socks were turned inside out. Someone had apparently torn Blair's shirt open

before scattering almost $4,000 in American, Canadian, and German currency all around his corpse. There was also a small sack that contained Blair's other valuables, gold and jewelry estimated to be worth $2,000 total. The Toyota car keys that Blair claimed to have been missing were also discovered, just 10 feet away from his body, proving he might well have been lying back at the gas station. Yet the fact that he had another set of car keys on his body from an entirely different rental company and car gives way to the theory that he really did think he'd lost the keys. According to Blair's autopsy report, he sustained a plethora of cuts, bruises, and abrasions. But the ultimate cause of death was determined to be a powerful blow to his abdomen,

which ruptured his stomach and caused serious internal bleeding. Law enforcement stated that the murder weapon was most likely to have been a club or crowbar, and that the defensive wounds on Blair's hands and forearms showed he'd attempted to defend himself from his killer. Yet the biggest clue was something Blair held in his hand. Clenched in his cold, dead fist was a long strand of someone's hair. This would prove the only forensic evidence found at the scene, a memento from the last person to see him alive. Although there is a history of mental illness in Blair's family, Blair himself had never been officially diagnosed with a condition of any kind.

Despite Blair struggling with substance abuse and addiction in the past, his family and friends claimed that he had been sober for two years prior to his death, and this was supported by the fact that there were no traces of narcotics in his bloodstream. The only person who reported any suspicious activity prior to Blair's death was a security guard from a nearby business, who claimed that he had heard a sudden female scream at around 3.30 a.m. The next thing we know, Blair's lying dead in a parking lot. Blair's family were completely bemused at his obsession with fleeing to Tennessee. Germany, sure, he had a romantic interest there. But Tennessee?

Blair had never been there before in his life, he didn't know a soul there, and he certainly had no interest in country music. So why Tennessee of all places? There were some who believed that Blair's life was genuinely in danger and that true or not, his life could be saved by someone or something down in Knoxville. However, whatever forces were hunting him down caught up with him, killed him, and then here we are. Yet perhaps an even more harrowing theory is that Blair had suffered from a complete and utter mental break. He could have been paranoid to the point of delusion, resulting in him attacking the person whose hair he clung to in death. Then either the hair's owner or a loved one could have attacked Blair,

hit him a little too hard, then bingo, he receives the wound that kills him. This is definitely the more logical of the two theories, and while I'm not ruling out a straight up murderous conspiracy here, I think we can all agree that an awful lot of Blair's behavior suggests some kind of degenerative brain disorder. Either he was so scared that he was making simple mistakes such as losing his car keys or spending money he didn't need to, or Blair had completely lost all reason and logic thanks to some kind of chemical imbalance in his brain. Theories aside, what we know for certain is that 22 years later,

Blair Adams' death remains an unsolved mystery. No one knows why he was in Tennessee, no one knows why he was acting so strangely, and most importantly, no one knows who killed him. It may be the case that the truth surrounding his death is as depressing as it is mundane. Just another young man with mental health problems that were diagnosed too late. But maybe, something much deeper and much darker is going on here. Maybe Blair found something he shouldn't have. Maybe Blair knew something so awful or sickening and it could have ruined someone's life. Someone rich. Someone powerful. Someone with a lot to lose. Someone who felt their life was threatened enough to have Blair's

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Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca On March 11th of 1877, Alfred Leonard Loewenstein was born into a wealthy German baking family in the Belgian capital of Brussels. himself a successful investment banker, so much so that at the outbreak of the First World War, he was able to offer the Belgian government $50 million in financial aid after the country's occupation by the neighboring Kaiserreich. Alfred's wealth was mostly derived from the early 20th century's budding electrical power industry, But he'd also made considerable gains in the artificial silk business. By the early 1920s, Alfred was worth the equivalent of almost $750 million, which made him the third wealthiest person on the planet. He was so well respected as a financier

that his advice was often sought by monarchs and ministers from all over the world, and the British government even made him a companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath. Yet despite his immense wealth, Alfred would gain infamy for an entirely different reason, and that particular story begins on the evening of July 4th, 1928, when he stepped onto an airplane over in London, England. Alfred was scheduled to fly from Croydon Airport to Brussels on his very own private plane, and just before 7pm, he and six others, including the pilot, took off into the skies above Britain. As the plane was crossing the English Channel, Alfred is said to have walked to the rear of

the aircraft in order to use the bathroom. But after some time had passed and Alfred had yet to reappear, one of his companions went to check on him. It's important to keep in mind that the plane's main cabin was separated from its bathroom by a rather heavy door. So when Alfred's companion went looking for him and opened this particular door, they not only found the bathroom empty, but they found the plane's rear exit hatch wide open. This was in the 1920s and back then, civilian aircraft didn't fly nearly as high as they do today. Therefore, this hatch could have been opened at will without anyone picking up on a major change in cabin pressure.

To all involved, it seemed as if Alfred had simply excused himself before walking out the rear hatch and throwing himself to his death in the frothing waters below. When rumors of Alfred's death reached London, corporations began panic-selling publicly traded shares and it caused a sharp decrease in their overall value. Alfred's body was discovered near Bologna not long after and was taken by a fishing boat to Calais, where his identity was confirmed by means of his wrist watch. At the request of his family, an autopsy was performed, but his brother-in-law made it clear that they did not suspect anyone of foul play. This autopsy revealed a partial fracture of Loewenstein's skull and

several broken bones, and it was concluded that he had been alive when he struck the water. He was then buried in a cemetery outside Ivera, in a tomb belonging to his wife's family, the Missons. However, in a rather sinister development, his name was never carved on the slab covering his casket. So, in effect, Alfred was buried in an unmarked grave, with no record of his death being kept outside of dusty ministerial filing cabinets. Then, around a week later, the accidents branch of the British Air Ministry concluded that it would have been impossible for someone to accidentally open the door and fall out. One of the ministry's employees had thrown himself against the aircraft's entry door,

which had opened around six inches. However, he was immediately thrown back into the aircraft when the slipstream violently slammed the door shut, proving an accident was impossible. If Alfred Loewenstein had fallen out of the aircraft, it was definitely a deliberate attempt to take his own life. Or was it? Over the years that followed Alfred's death, there had been many alternative theories put forward which attempted to explain what really happened that evening. The New York Times purported that, on the basis of comments made by acquaintances shortly before his disappearance, Alfred had been suffering from a kind of rapid mental decline. To them, it seemed entirely plausible that Alfred had absentmindedly opened the wrong door,

then stepped out into the open air, a thousand feet above the English Channel, believing it was the bathroom. Some have theorized that Alfred's businesses were on the verge of collapse and that his latest venture, International Holdings and Investments Limited, was little more than a cover for his attempt to save his dying empire. But others have suggested that the skull fracture present on the corpse was the result of foul play, with someone subduing Alfred before throwing him from the aircraft. One of the advocates for such a theory is William Norris, who wrote the 1987 book The Man Who Fell From the Sky, which is essentially a thesis describing a conspiracy within the Loewenstein family.

Norris suggested that Alfred had actually been thrown from the aircraft by his own pilot, Donald Drew, at the behest of his estranged wife, Madeline Loewenstein. We can quite easily speculate that this was nothing more than an attempt to gain control of the Loewenstein. We can quite easily speculate that this was nothing more than an attempt to gain control of the Loewenstein's family fortune, but it wouldn't shock me if there were more insidious motives at play. Other more outlandish theories are floating around, some of which involve Alfred being dispatched by a hitman hired by infamous American mobster Arnold Rothstein, after the former decided to dip his toe into the illegal opium market. But William Morris was quick to note that Alfred's son, Robert,

would later shoot one of the family's servants, claiming that there had been an attempt on his life. He would also go on to die in an aviation accident in 1941 while serving in the air transport auxiliary. Naturally, many have claimed that this was no accident and mark a concerted effort to eliminate the Loewenstein bloodline. But crime writers Robert and Carol Bridgestock have speculated that Alfred faked his own death in order to escape the fallout of his failing businesses. And considering the unmarked grave and the absence of Alfred's wife at his funeral, there seems to be a surprising amount of weight to such a theory.

The idea that the world's third richest man might procure a dead body, one similar in appearance to himself, in order to use it in a scheme motivated by greed, is not entirely the stuff of science fiction, is it? After almost a week of being tossed around the waters of the English Channel, identifying the body mightn't prove the easiest of tasks. You can speculate all we like regarding the grim nature of Alfred's fate, but at the end of the day, it remains an unsolved mystery. Any kind of formal investigation into the incident was eschewed by the family and jurisdictional squabbles between the British and French governments resulted in a complete lack of formal prosecution. So, accident or not, we may never find out who killed Alfred Loewenstein, or who had the definitive reason for wanting him dead. And in a bizarre twist of fate, it may have been Alfred's own wealth that was used to sweep the trail clear of his killer's tracks. The End On April 30th of 1930, a woman from a village near the South Korean city of Yeongcheong

wandered up into the nearby hills to gather wild herbs and vegetables. Yet as she walked among the lush rolling hills pulling up wild green onions and bulbs of wild garlic, she came across something as unexpected as it was horrifying. Lying in the dirt was the lifeless body of a teenage boy, one who had been beaten so badly that he was barely recognizable. At the time, Korea was under the occupation of the Imperial Japanese Military, and given that they were the region's only authority, it fell to them to investigate the murder. Not far from the boy's body, the Japanese Kempeitai officers discovered a small towel along with the wooden skeleton of an old-fashioned

carry frame. When the cause of death was discovered to be suffocation, the officers' first theory was that the towel had been the murder weapon. During the 48 hours that followed, the officers canvassed local villagers, asking them if they knew of anyone who'd gone missing recently. One villager told them of a young man named Park Chang-su, who'd vanished about a week before and whose description matched the age, height, and weight of the deceased. The Japanese officers then discovered that Park had been employed as a general assistant at a local inn and promptly went to question the owners. None of the inn's staff admitted any knowledge of Park's disappearance, yet conversations with its customers revealed a very different story. On the morning of April 26th, just three days before Park's body was found,

a customer had spotted Park Chang-soo being beaten by his employer and a fellow co-worker. These men, Ko Ok-dan and Cho Kai-joon, were apparently using short sticks to violently attack the young Park Chang-soo, who was trying and failing to both flee and defend himself. Acting on this newfound knowledge, the Japanese officers moved to apprehend both men, and just two days later, Ko Ok-dan admitted to murdering Park Chang-su,

with the officers recording the following admission. The innkeeper Ko was the second wife of a rich man named Han Bak Wan, who lived a village over. As Han's first wife was jealous and did not want Ko under the same roof, Ko was given allowance to set up an inn in Yongchun. Ko was in her early 20s at the time and supposedly she was popular with the men. When a man named Lee Ki-moon asked her to run away with him instead of declining him, she asked him for time to think. For whatever reason, Park told Han and Han reprimanded Ko. Furious, Ko conspired to kill Park. With Cho, they took Park to the mountains at night, beat him, and strangled him

with the towel. At face value, it seems like an open and shut case. Yet we have to keep in mind that the Japanese military police may well have employed some very unsavory methods to obtain their confession. The Japanese occupation of the 1930s and 40s were a brutal and bloody era for those who suffered under them. And although atrocities in China gained most of the spotlight, life for Koreans was just as harsh. It'd be pure speculation on my part to say the Japanese officers tortured Ko Ok-dan. But the fact that he later tried to recant his confession provides a compelling argument. Yet regardless of his guilt or innocence, Park's co-worker and employer were sentenced to 10 and 15 years respectively, doomed to serve out their time in some of the most horrific prison camps in modern history.

Meanwhile, Park Chang-soo's mother had apparently confirmed that the dead body was that of her son, and Japanese police had transferred possession of the corpse to his family. Park's parents grieved, and at his funeral, his siblings helped lower his corpse into his grave before saying a final teary goodbye. Almost six months went by, and although the pain had faded, the shadow of grief still lingered for the Park family. Then, on the morning of October 18th, Park's mother was in the middle of some housework when she heard a knock at the door. She hadn't been expecting anyone, so it was with a degree of puzzlement that she walked to the door and opened it. Yet when she saw who it was, standing there on the doorstep, she let out an ear-splitting scream.

It was her dead son, Park Chang-soo. He had returned. At first, Park's mother was so convinced of her son's death she believed the apparition of her son was nothing more than a spirit. But it was no ghost, no mere specter. Park Chang-su was actually alive. And while his story wasn't particularly remarkable, the vacuum of information caused by his absence has caused a frighteningly bizarre series of events. Obviously, the beating that Ko and Cho had given him that morning hadn't actually killed him, yet Park claimed that he was so ashamed of the incident that he'd simply packed up and moved to another village for three months. There he'd found employment as a laborer building new homes and had returned to his village with a

handsome amount of pay. It was fantastic news for the Park family, and they were far too pleased to see him to be mad about him disappearing. But a very big question remained. If Park Chang-su was alive, who was buried in the grave bearing his name? The revelation caused something of a local scandal, and the Japanese knew that they'd have to act if they were to maintain public order. Eventually, the Japanese military police essentially blamed Park's mother, insisting her false identification was to blame. On the other hand, Park's mother had been adamant that the dead body had belonged to her son, yet it is unlikely to have sought a confrontation with the military occupiers given the risks associated with such defense. Yet for the sake of argument,

is it possible that Park's mother could have failed to recognize him? Well, by the time the body that was believed to be Park Chang-soo was returned to his village, it had been almost a week after the death. A lack of refrigeration would have compromised the integrity of the corpse, and that's not even counting the fact that the victim's face had been beaten to a bloody pulp. Then there's the fact that the clothes the victim had been wearing were handed over to the Park family. Sure, they could have been similar to items owned by Chang-Soo, but the fact remains they weren't his clothes. Why the family didn't realize this is another question entirely, but this is just one unanswered question among dozens of more pertinent ones. What's worse,

these clothes were then disposed of, meaning that the one real clue to the body's true identity had been lost forever. Ko and Cho, Changsu's former colleagues, were eventually released following an appeal. Once again, both men insisted that they had been forced to confess under duress and that they were innocent of the crime. But unlike many murder investigations, the identity of the true killer was not the only mystery. The identity of the victim also remained unknown. Once again, an urgent general appeal was disseminated by the Japanese military, urging anyone with missing teenage relatives to come forward. Yet no one did. The Japanese were met with eerie silence from the surrounding population. Someone knew

something, but for some reason, they just weren't willing to come forward. It was then speculated that the boy was an orphan, and that someone, perhaps his only legal guardian, had been his killer. A variety of orphanages were contacted in the hopes that they might be able to shed some light on the situation, yet when it came to narrowing down suspects, the only thing investigators discovered was that they'd be better off looking for a needle in a haystack. During the opening phases of the Sino-Japanese War, official bookkeeping of any kind was lackluster to say the least, and it soon became painfully obvious that the Japanese officers were basically looking for a ghost. The victim

might have had no family to speak of, no guardian to account for him, he might not have even had a name to begin with. The most likely explanation for this case seems to be that in her grief, Park Chang-soo's mother simply misidentified an extremely mutilated body. If neither boy had any distinguishing marks and were of similar height and build, it's not out of the question that a misidentification occurred, especially if she was being pushed to do so by a tyrannical occupier who simply wished to wash their hands of the whole sordid incident. But then again, how often does a mother not recognize her child? Some say mother and child have an almost preternatural connection,

one that often defies conventional wisdom or commonly accepted science. What if the dead body she saw that day was her son, just another version of him? Like a shadow, an echo or reflection in the very fabric of time and space. Granted, this is starting to sound like an episode of The Twilight Zone, so I'll refrain from going down such a spurious rabbit hole. But the fact that a mother apparently failed to recognize her own son, that just doesn't sit right with me. And I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised to hear that something about this particular unsolved mystery isn't quite as it seems. In 2019, 64-year-old retired industrial mechanic Roger Ellis was enjoying a well-deserved rest in the East Canadian town of Bathurst, New Brunswick. Roger busied himself with home improvements and helped shoulder the child-rearing duties of his own grown-up children who had young families of their own. They also seemed a picture of health and made a point of

eating healthy and keeping himself fit. Yet one day, Roger suddenly collapses while complaining of chest pains. Fearing he was in the midst of a heart attack, his family rushed him to hospital and were naturally relieved to discover that what had occurred was no heart attack. But just days later, after being released from the hospital, Roger began suffering from violent seizures. During the weeks that followed, Roger seemed to become steadily more anxious and disoriented, often forgetting what he was doing or repeating things he'd already said. To his family's enduring horror, his health began to rapidly decline and his next stay in the hospital would last an agonizing three months. Roger was confined to a wheelchair for most of this time and due to having to be fed through a feeding tube, he lost 60 pounds in weight over the course of his stay. He was on death's door on a number of separate occasions and although doctors were

proficient enough to prevent his death, they were completely at a loss as to the cause of his condition. Epilepsy was quickly ruled out and it became evident a stroke wasn't to blame. Roger was negative for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, devoid of autoimmune disorders, and a full body scan revealed he was completely free of any cancers. This initial three-month stay snowballed into six months. Then six months became a year. After that, Roger was transferred to a permanent care home capable of providing the specialist care he required. To this day, Roger Ellis remains in that very same care home, but his loved ones believe his case is somehow connected to a series of other incidents

in which seemingly healthy people suddenly began suffering from a mysterious progressive neurological illness. These cases are mostly confined to a sparsely populated region of New Brunswick, and have doctors completely and utterly mystified. As you can imagine, such a phenomenon had triggered intense debate among the scientific community, with points of contention centering around artificial versus natural causes. Dr. Elir Marrero, the neurologist who first identified the affliction, stated that victims experienced unexplained pains, spasms, and disturbing behavioral changes. These symptoms would dissipate for a small percentage of sufferers, but the majority would later suffer frightening weight loss and cognitive decline. Patients were said to drool as their teeth chattered, with some even experiencing terrifying hallucinations. A total of 48 cases have been officially confirmed,

but after tracking these cases for more than a year, researchers speculate the total number of infected could be well in the hundreds by the end of 2021. For years, no clear solution lay in sight, and the breakout of the recent pandemic stifled what little progress had been made. Recently, the Health Minister of New Brunswick announced that no significant evidence that any known food, behavior, or environmental exposure could be responsible. Which in layman's terms, this simply means they still have no idea what's causing the bizarre and terrifying infections. They just know what's not causing it. On top of that, some have called the announcements source material into question. The document, presented to the Canadian Association of Neuropathologists, claims the eight deaths attributed to the cluster were misdiagnoses of known diseases

such as Alzheimer's and cancer, whereas scores of physicians and researchers from all over eastern Canada have asserted that no such misdiagnoses took place, and the infections they dealt with were unique variants of some new and terrifying ailment. Such criticism has caused a great deal of concern among the loved ones of those affected. To some of them, it seems like local officials are happy to just move on without a proper investigation, almost like they've got something to hide. On the other hand, Roger Ellis' son, Steve, is less conspiratorially minded.

It was just a display of how incompetent and disorganized the province had been. He said, adding that other families he'd spoken to were devastated by the government's response. As we've already mentioned, the pandemic definitely threw a biological spanner into the works of the investigation, but the reaction of provincial authorities ranges from woeful to suspiciously inept. For some reason, the government of New Brunswick turned down aid from the Canadian federal government. Then, when the feds attempted to assist the thinly stretched medical teams, officials forbid them access to the tissue samples taken from deceased patients. It was unbelievable, one whistleblower later said. Even a layperson understands that you're never going to find anything by just looking at the phenomenon itself.

You need to have a control group. It was just rookie epidemiology. Public knowledge of the phenomenon began in mid-2020, but only after a government memo was leaked to the press. Written and disseminated by the New Brunswick Public Health Agency, the memo implored physicians to be on the lookout for a disease with symptoms similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare fatal brain disease caused by malformed proteins known as prions. So, the fact that the local government was soon championing another study, one which suggested that eight of the victims had died from unrelated brain diseases, was very suspicious indeed. We've asked unequivocally for that study to be pulled and for an apology to be issued,

said the head of the non-profit advocacy group Bloodwatch. Every single scientist that our organization has ever worked with or reached out to is absolutely mortified. The report was also condemned by Canada's public health agency, which accused its author of improperly using private data. Over the past few months, experts have said it's increasingly likely that a neurotoxin found in blue-green algae blooms could help explain the varied symptoms. One study found extremely high concentrations of the toxin known as BMAA in lobsters recovered from the affected area, and given that the lobster trade is pretty much crucial to the

region's economy, this could indicate some kind of financially motivated cover-up. As previously stated, federal scientists have issued requests to test the brain tissue of eight people who have died as a result of the mysterious infection, but provincial officials have refused permission for such studies time and time again. This has the families of the victims all asking the same question. What possible reason might they have to reject such a helpful and harmless request? Not only that, but the provincial government has since sought to distance themselves from Dr. Elir Marrero, the neurologist who identified the infection. New Brunswick Health Minister told a press conference that the situation had escalated,

often without oversight, but completely omitted the fact that Dr. Marrero had worked closely with federal scientists when first identifying the cluster. For the most part, experts can only agree on one thing, that due to the volume, age range, and locations of those sufferings suggests a much more thorough investigation is required. These kinds of things are rarely just a random collection of sporadically occurring cases that have been artificially lumped together by an over-enthusiastic neurologist, said one scientist. So, for me personally, that excuse just doesn't wash. A committee of neurologists from across the

province then headed up a second investigation, but it seemed they neglected to include Dr. Marrero, even though all 48 patients included in the review were treated by him. They really seemed to be discrediting him without using his name, said Steve Ellis. Of all people, he has been the one that has been the most communicative during these last few months. His work ethic and his professionalism and empathy are just top-notch, so his exclusion is just unacceptable. Steve added that if it weren't for the leak of the CJD memo last year, the public would still be in the dark. It makes me sick to think that they're trying to

set this up to be nothing, he said. And you know what? At the end of the day, if it is nothing, then we still have to figure out how to help people because they're still suffering. Some have attempted to link the phenomenon to the spread of what is known as chronic wasting disease. If you've seen or heard anything about Canadian zombie deer over the past few years, this is the affliction you've been hearing about. It's been tearing its way through the elk and deer populations of two Canadian provinces and 24 U.S. states, with some agencies saying there's a significant chance of the disease jumping to humans. On its website, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported five confirmed infections of wildlife in Saskatchewan and Alberta between January and December of 2018. The CFIA also noted another case of CWD in Quebec from September of that year.

The disease belongs to a family of diseases called prion diseases, which included the human form of mad cow disease. It eats holes in the animal's brains, and no cures have been found for it so far. Symptoms of chronic wasting disease for animals include stumbling, lack of coordination, drooling, drooping ears, aggression, listlessness, drastic weight loss, excessive thirst or urination, and a lack of fear or caution. As of yet, there has been no official cases of chronic wasting disease in people, but studies have shown that CWD can pose a risk to non-human primates, such as monkeys, that either eat meat from CWD-infected animals or come in contact with their body fluids. Experimental studies have found that it would be inappropriate

to raise the concern that CWD may pose a risk to people and suggest that it's important to prevent human exposures to CWD. At present, CWD occurs in free-range deer and elk at relatively low rates. But according to the Center for Disease Control, in areas where the infection is heavily entrenched, localized infection rates could be higher than 25%. And in the case of one captive herd, the infection rate was a horrifying 75%. As of late 2021, the CDC strongly recommends that hunters test their kills for chronic wasting disease, especially if they're going to eat them. Hunters are also implored to research the areas in which the disease is known to be present, and to not shoot or handle meat from deer that either look strange or are acting out of character. If they do happen to see any deer that are staggering,

drooling, seem overly aggressive or are keen to approach them, they are to report the encounter to the Center for Disease Control immediately. Almost two years of the most recent pandemic, news of an outbreak of a zombie virus is the last thing anyone wants to hear. But thankfully, the jump from deer and elk to humans has yet to be officially confirmed. Thanks to the relative seclusion of the environment, it's likely that CWD will simply burn its way through the wildlife population, but the pattern of cases around New Brunswick is more than enough to worry the wider scientific community. If a disease like that reached pandemic-level virulence,

it could make coronavirus look like the sniffles. And suddenly, the prospect of a zombie apocalypse, albeit not quite the same one Romero had in mind, is suddenly and frighteningly realistic. We'll be right back. 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 at treadexperts.ca. Not many of us in the modern world will be familiar with the concept of cranial elongation, but body modification is something that's been practiced for thousands of years. And just as the ideas of tattoos or ear piercings are well known and widespread today,

ancient people all over the world were just as familiar with cranial elongation. Intentional cranial deformation actually predates written history and was a common practice among a number of widespread and varied cultures all throughout history. The earliest written record of cranial deformation comes from around 400 BCE and is believed to have been written by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who was immortalized with the Hippocratic oath of, first, do no harm. Hippocrates described a group known by the Greek name Macrocephaly, which literally translates to longheads, an African or possibly Indian tribe who were named for their practice of cranial modification. Despite their alarming appearance,

elongated skulls have a perfectly rational explanation to them, and despite attempts to do so, there are no grounds to ascribe supernatural explanations to them. Yet in the desert wastelands of southern Peru, there remains one particular set of elongated skulls that stand in stark contrast to the others, and they are known as the Paracas skulls. Named after the region in which they were found, the Paracas skulls were discovered in 1928 by Peruvian explorer Julio Tello. Julio stumbled across a huge labyrinthian

cemetery containing more than 300 elongated skulls, some of which were thought to be more than 3,000 years old. Most cases of skull elongation are the result of head flattening or head binding during infancy. This is when the skull is deliberately deformed by applying incremental force over a sustained period of time. At some time it's achieved by binding the head with cloth or, by some more brutal civilizations, using two planks of wood to achieve the elongated effect. This is where the Paracas skulls differ, because while cranial deformation may sculpt the shape of the skull, it can't alter the basic characteristics of a regular human skull. Some have suggested that the Paracas skulls are the result of what's known as cradle headboarding,

but others say that the position of the foramen magnum is towards the rear of the skull. According to them, normal foramen magnums would be closer to the jawline and would not be affected by the process of elongation. Archaeologists have written papers regarding the position of the foramen magnum in over a thousand elongated skulls, with one stating that, in the Paracas skulls, the position of the foramen magnum is completely different than a normal human being. It is also smaller, which lends itself to our theory that this is not cradle headboarding, this is genetic. On top of that, amateur researchers have described how some of the Piraca skulls have a very pronounced cheekbone, different eye sockets,

and no sagittal suture, which is a connective tissue joint between the two parietal bones of the skull. In the quest to find the truth behind the skulls, Juan Navarro, owner and director of the Paracas Archaeological Museum, allowed the taking of samples from three of the elongated skulls for DNA testing. The samples consisted of hair and bone powder, which were obtained by drilling deep into the foramen magnum to reduce the risk of contamination. The samples were then sent to labs in Canada and the United States for testing. And the geneticists were not told where the samples came from so as not to create any preconceived ideas. When the results came back, they allowed for some fascinating conclusions. One of the skulls was confirmed to be just over 2,000 years old, while the other was found to

be only 800 years old, meaning the practice had been sustained in the region for more than a thousand years. Yet that wasn't the only curious thing about the DNA results. As we previously stated, there isn't anything overtly supernatural about the skulls and naturally, the DNA came back as human. The three hair samples also showed a haplogroup of H2A, which is found most frequently in Eastern Europe and at a low frequency in Western Europe, and the bone powder tested positive for haplogroup T2b, which originates in what is now the region of Iraq and Syria. None of these haplogroups are native to indigenous South Americans, so how did they get there? The primary Native American haplogroups are A, C, and D, which are also found in darkest Siberia.

They are believed to have arrived in the Americas by mass migration across the Bering Strait sometime around 35,000 BC. Haplogroup B, on the other hand, is believed to have arrived from across the Pacific around 11,000 BC. If all this holds up, said historian Brian Forrester, the history of prehistoric American migration is far more complex than we originally thought. The results are also consistent with the fact that many of the Paracas skulls still contain traces of red hair, a color that is not natively found in South America, but originates in the Middle East in Europe. As far as we can tell, no expert can explain why some of the skulls still have hair that are red or even blonde, Forrester continued. The idea that this is from a time where bleaching has now been disproven by two separate paleotrichologists. For the ancient Paracas people, at least, they had blonde

to reddish hair that is 30% thinner than Native American hair. This is a significant genetic difference. So, if we can trace the DNA in the Paracas skulls all the way back to Eastern Europe, how exactly did they make it all the way to Peru in the first century AD? It's not out of the question that some ancient mariner took it upon himself to sail to the ends of the earth. So what if the Paracas skulls are evidence of just that? What if these brave pioneers somehow made it to Peru, married into the local population, even sired children? Children who would be honored by having their skulls elongated. What if they died believing that, because they were unable to return home,

their magnificent feat of ancient seafaring would be lost to history? Never knowing that one day, as a result of decoding the very building blocks we're made up of, their incredible journey will graduate from unsolved mystery to revered history. At around 7 p.m. on February 4, 1997, Arizona police officers discovered an abandoned blue two-door Honda Accord near East Monroe Street in the state capital of Phoenix. The interior was nothing short of a horror movie. Lying in one of the seats was the dead body of an African-American woman. Most of her teeth were missing, and she had extensive burns all over her body. The damage was so catastrophic that at first, police believed her to be anything between 20 and 50 years of age.

The car wasn't registered in her name, nor was it registered in the state of Arizona, and according to witnesses, the woman was a known transient who was sleeping in the car at the time of the fire. Naturally, the cause of death was assumed to be smoke inhalation, but the questions over the fire's origins persisted. Was it simply a horrible accident, perhaps after falling asleep with a lit cigarette? Or was there a more sinister explanation for the blaze? The latter seemed to be confirmed when an empty brown vinyl purse was found near the car. On it, written in dark blue ink, was the following message that read exactly as follows. Monique hates Allende's spirits from out of hell. Monique hates all Satan, God, males, children, and shall soon be allowed end evil.

What exactly the author meant by such a fractured and cryptic message is a complete mystery, but it seemed investigators had a name for their victim, Monique. Police hoped to find a friend or relative of Monique's, but an appeal for information went unanswered. The only witnesses who seemed to know of her did so in passing, adding that she'd simply showed up sometime prior while living in her car. She didn't seem to be involved in any illegal activity, nor had she aggravated any of the area's residents since commencing her stay. Monique's fingertips were too badly burned to be used for identification, and DNA taken didn't match any in the national database.

Another possible ID technique would be dental records, but this brings us back to the fact that she was missing her teeth. We can understand how her fingertips might be distorted as a result of burns, and a heavy methamphetamine addiction might account for missing teeth. But every single tooth? It might sound cynical of me, but I think there's a strong possibility that Monique's death was a professional job. A vehicle fire with all that gas, plastic, and rubber raising the core temperature of the flames, making an adequate ad hoc crematorium. And without the victim's teeth, identifying them is no small task. It might have been crude, but no one can deny the car fire's effectiveness. Despite an extensive investigation, Arizona authorities had no idea who the woman was, and the decision to bury her as a Jane Doe was definitely not taken lightly.

If it was someone's intention to mask the woman's identity, they definitely achieved their goal. And then there's the little detail of Monique's DNA not being in the national database. This could only realistically be the case if she'd never been in trouble with the law. Even some of those arrested for crimes that are eventually released over have DNA samples taken, so this leads me to believe that Monique lived well within the law. Some have suggested that Monique had some kind of mental breakdown, and that the message scrawled in her purse was a kind of note left by her, almost implying that she had done this to herself.

But unless this mental breakdown involved removing every single one of her own teeth, the most likely explanation again leans towards some kind of concerted attempt to conceal her identity post-mortem. But who could Monique have angered so much that they'd wish to dispose of her in such a clinical and sinister method. That little point might well remain a mystery. With no forensic evidence recovered, there's very little chance of her killer or their motivations ever being discovered. Although Monique's identity remains an unsolved mystery, her DNA was entered into CODIS database. That means that it's very possible that her identity might be discovered in the future, but as experts are saddened to admit, the chances of

that happening are very slim indeed. We can only hope that by some bizarre twist of fate, Monique might finally see some semblance of justice. I'm a court clerk. I work for my local courthouse. I work in the clerk of courts, the COC, both in the office and in court. Split about half and half time-wise. On Friday, the 4th of February 2022, I was in the office at my desk. I also will assist with customers who come into our office who have questions on certain types of filings. I am the backup coverage specifically for our records

window. In my state, we're considered public records. Anyone can come in and request copies from any case, unless it's juvenile, confidential, or sealed by the court. This is really important to the whole story. I was asked to cover the records desk from 4 to 4.30pm last Friday so our records clerk could leave a little early. No problem. I have no issues helping out where I can. Around 4.15 we had a frequent flyer, as we have so dubbed them, and this man comes in frequently to get copies out of his case. I should really note the way my office is set up, it's a bit important. We're set up kind of like the DMV.

You have to come into the main entrance of security, go down a long hallway and it opens up to a lobby. There are elevators straight ahead, the DA's office is to the left and COC is to the right. You have to open up a separate set of doors into our little lobby. There is a counter with windows and it's an L shape. If I can figure out how to attach a drawing I will. The records window is around the corner, tucked in the back. There are also three public terminals where any member of the public can use to research cases in my county. So back to the man, we'll just call him Joe. Joe has an open family case. He comes in probably once a week to get copies out of this family case, or I don't know what he's doing, it's really none of my business.

He came up to my window somewhere around 4.15 to 4.20, said he'd requested some documents. When documents are requested from the public terminals, they go to a queue, which I then go into and select them to print. I went into the queue, glanced at the documents and asked, did you have 11 pages? He said yes, so I selected and printed. I wrote him a little slip out with the number of copies and his total owed. I gave him the slip, directed him to go back to window 4-5 for cashiers for payment and would meet him up there. I went to grab the copies off the printer, which jammed, messed with that for a minute, counted the pages, and took them to the cashier.

I then went back to my counter to help the next person in line. The next customer was easy. Her records were prepaid and printed. After the second customer was after 2.25pm. My coworker, a work wife, we'll call her Lynn, asked me if I wanted to go thrifting for clothes at Plato's Closet after work and my answer was, of course, let's go. Right as we're discussing this, I'm in view of the records window but not at it. I saw that Joe had returned to my counter. I went up to the counter and asked how I could help him, and he stated, You must be new. I'm not new. I've been at my job for almost four years and in the legal field for almost ten. I replied, No, I'm not. How can I help you?

He then made a comment about a paperweight I was using. It was a gift from my niece, a painted rock from a three-year-old. That's a fancy paperweight you have there. Sir, can I, what can I do for you? You gave me the wrong case. No, sir, I printed off what was in the queue. So you don't need these four pages? I tossed the four pages and then adjusted the slip, seven pages total, and I sent him back to the cashier. At this point, it's 4.30, it's Friday, and we're closed. I left and headed to Plato's Closet. It took me about 15 minutes to drive over there. I sat in my car for a few minutes,

then went inside, and I beat Lynn there. I started browsing, and she came in a couple of minutes later, stating she got caught behind a train, so we started browsing and she came in a couple of minutes later stating she got caught behind a train so we started shopping and chatting of course. For some reason I looked at the door when it opened. There was Joe. Now I knew it was Joe because he wears that dumb sock monkey hat. I saw him and got Lynn's attention. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? So I pulled Lynn into an aisle and we ducked down. She's short, I'm tall and I wear heels a lot. I could watch his dumb hat around the store. He immediately went to the back of the store. It looked like he was rubbernecking the whole store. So he goes to the back of the store, grabs a pair of shoes, glances at them, and continues rubbernecking.

I continue to watch him, and as he moved, we moved opposite. We were legitimately hiding behind clothing racks. He moved around the perimeter of the store, continuing to search around, rubbernecking as we said, and looking for something or someone. So he leaves, and we freak out. We check the parking lot to make sure he's gone. We try and shake it off and chalk it up to just coincidence. And then I realized we were talking about it literally in front of him. And Lynn, she's not quiet. She gets scolded on a weekly basis for her loud carrying voice. I told the cashiers what happened. We ended up leaving like an hour later. The next day I felt so uneasy about it. I called my boss and told her what had happened and told her I was going to call the police. I called a non-emergency number and left

a message with dispatch. I got a call from an officer a few hours later and explained what happened. He said to get Joe's name. At this point I recognized him but didn't know Joe's name offhand. He told me he would call me back on Wednesday when he was back on duty. I got Joe's name and called the officer back on Monday and left a voicemail. Monday was fine. Tuesday I was out of the office, but Wednesday... Joe came back Wednesday. He came at 4.20 to file documents into his case. He took 20 minutes to file two affidavits and a motion. It should have been like a minute.

Two because he needed something notarized. He left and I had a bad feeling. I called the officer and told him what happened. The officer said he comes back Thursday to call and they would come down and talk to him. The police department is across the street from the courthouse. Thursday rolls around, no Joe, until 4.25. He beelined it for the computer in the corner and I messaged my boss. We had already put into place a safety plan. The sheriff's deputies who work security were notified. Three deputies followed him into the office. I called the PD. Two officers came down and they questioned him. He admitted to being at Plato's closet. He

was shopping for his two younger daughters who were 9 and 11. They don't fit in the clothes of Plato's yet. Plato's has a sister store, Once Upon a Child. Those kids don't really fit there either. So he had a receipt in his car for Once Upon a Child for 5.07pm that day. He denied hearing my conversation with Lynn, the whole going to Plato's after work. He stated he left my office at 4.15ish and took his children shopping for clothes. He didn't have his children with him at the courthouse or Plato's. He also asked the officer immediately and unprompted, did she call you? He also stated that he believed his

ex-wife was setting him up. So because my office is a public office and he has made arguably legitimate reasons to come into my office, there's nothing the officers could do. They issued him an oral warning and put him on standby. The kicker is, he could opt into his case electronically but made a big deal about not being able to opt in a few months ago. We told him if he's having issues, call the court support line and they would be able to remedy the situation. Instead, he chooses to come in and pay $125 per page instead of a one-time $20 fee, which apparently he also paid that.

If you weren't already freaked out, last year his roommate filed a restraining order against him, followed by his roommate's girlfriend alleging harassment. I won't go into details about the family case, let's just say it's more than messy. He is also filing extremely high-level types of documents representing himself. Now, a February 11th, 2022 update, I was in court all day. Come down to my desk at 4.05. He came in at 4.10pm. I left while I was still at the office. What am I supposed to do? The officers can't do anything else. I need another incident outside my office to file a restraining order. I've ordered home security, I've signed up for self-defense classes, and I'm purchasing mace and looking into handguns. I just don't know what how to begin this.

To be honest, I was only able to puzzle what happened a few months ago. I guess I'll start from where I believe is the beginning, but I can't assure you it was the first time I saw him. I'll keep the details pretty vague regarding where this happened as to not dox myself. I know I have pictures of my face on Reddit, but I don't feel comfortable sharing my name or the specific city I lived in at the time. Let's just say that it's in a European city, very central and very cosmopolitan. When I was about 15 years old, I was extremely interested in philosophy books. I didn't feel that I could talk to my friends about the subject without boring them. So when this man approached me on the street with a pamphlet about Plato's classes, I was pretty excited. He was about 28, maybe 30 years old, very tall and skinny, and kind of crazy

eyes. I remember I was kind of a smart aleck and thought that reading two of his most well-known books made me interesting, so we started debating, I guess you could say. It was a nice conversation and lasted about 10 minutes, but it it was getting late so I left it at that. He told me his name but I honestly can't remember. A couple of days after I found him on the same street at a totally different time. It was always very crowded so I wasn't especially spooked about it. I was getting out of the subway after classes. Mind you I took this route every day until I graduated high school. I didn't live on that street but that's where I got out of the subway after classes. Mind you, I took this route every day until I graduated high school. I didn't live on that street, but that's where I got out of the subway and then waited for the bus

that would get me home. I thought it was a cool coincidence that the philosophy guy was at the subway door. This time, he didn't have any pamphlets. He had a lollipop in his hand, and I know it sounds cliche, but it was so eerie to see a six foot guy just sucking his lollipop and looking straight at me. He said hi, I said hi back. He tried to get the conversation going but I could feel this weird energy in the air so I just decided to cut the conversation short. I'd see him once or twice a week and I just assumed he lived there and happened to be going for a walk at the same time as I was getting home. I honestly believe this weird guy, twice my age, just happened to find his way to me so many times. This is until I saw him in my neighborhood. I was having coffee

with a friend and she was telling me that she met this cool guy while playing volleyball on the beach, when the guy, I kid you not, just appeared out of nowhere. He approached my friend and they talked for a bit. Yes, he was the guy she was talking about. He seemed mildly surprised that we were friends, but didn't give him much thought, so I didn't either. When he left, I started feeling uneasy, but my friend thought that he was cool, so I didn't voice my concerns. There's this thing about teenage girls that makes them think they're very mature for their age, so we just assumed that he had befriended us separately and then found out we were friends.

At the time, none of us had social media apart from WhatsApp, so I still can't understand how he managed to insert himself into my friend group. Eventually, my friend left to study abroad and the subject kind of died out. I would see the dude now and then on that same street in my commute but we would only speak for a few minutes and that's it. This went on for about six months. Sometimes he would pretend he didn't know who I was but would still approach me saying that I looked familiar. Sometimes he would pretend he didn't know who I was but would still approach me saying that I looked familiar. Sometimes he would greet me very warmly. Looking back I guess he was dealing with some type of mental health problem.

Slowly he was getting bolder. One time he asked for my number and tried to hug me. I could feel that something was very wrong but at the same time I thought that I was being the weird one and he was just a nice dude. Still, I just gave him a fake number. This other time we went to a church on a school trip and he was waiting outside, talking to my peers. He played it cool, saying that he had seen my face somewhere but was not sure, as if I hadn't been seeing him almost every week for a year now. I was very stupid. I never thought about talking to my parents about this. After all, the guy wasn't violent. He wasn't mean. In my head, it was just a lonely man who

happened to have a strangely similar routine. I started to be scared though. I'd look behind my back when I was alone at night. I'd avoid dark streets. I was kind of paranoid but still I ignored my gut feeling and shoved it in the back of my mind. After all, as long as I gave him a few minutes of my day when he called out for me, everything would be fine. When I turned 17, I stopped seeing him. I think this went on for about a year. It was a relief, honestly. I could sense that what happened was bizarre, but I'd explain it to my friends like it was funny, like it was a joke. Eventually, I started attending college, so my everyday route changed.

I stayed in the same city, though. One day, I had to go through that same street again. I can't remember why. I just know that I was walking, minding my own business. It was maybe 9pm, and then I turned around the corner and there he was. He saw me, smiled, and said he was lost. Asked for directions, and I swear to God I felt primal fear at that moment. I felt I was dealing with a truly insane person, because we had crossed each other's paths for two straight years in this exact same place, and he was acting as if though he didn't know me or the intersection. Something about that

messed with my mind for a while. I just kept walking. I didn't look at him, didn't utter a single word. And then he lost his mind. For the first time, I saw what he really was. He tried to grab my arm and scream all these sorts of obscenities at me. He said that he had hoped my mom died of cancer. He said that he would kill me. I know I was not alone as there was still quite a lot of people outside, but no one seemed to say anything. He kept screaming his lungs out, and I just started running. I ran and I started crying, I couldn't control it. And that was the last time I ever saw him. Two years ago. He's long since stopped talking to my friend. No one knows who he is. I can't

remember a name to go to the police and file a report. It's like my mind tried to erase him. He was a stellar stalker though because I only understood that that's what he was years after the fact. And I'm just grateful. I'm a 21-year-old female and this story took place when I was around 11. I remember this day clearly because it was the first time I was ever allowed to walk to school and back by myself. Up until the age of 14, I lived in what we thought was a safe place in Chautauqua County, New York. Everyone knew everyone. If you thought you would get away with something, then be prepared to have your ear abused by the time you got home. There was this one day, though.

It was a cold winter day, and school unfortunately was still open, so all the neighborhood kids had to walk through knee-high inches of snow just to get to school. It took me longer to leave the house as I was used to walking with the older sister to school since she knew the routes better than me. I always used to make fun of her for being paranoid and taking a different route every day for school, but after that day, I learned that was what saved my life. As I was waiting by the door to leave, my mom came up to me and told me that I should ride with her to drop me off because my sister was too sick to go today. Being a brat, I made a big deal about walking by myself because I was almost 12 years old and all my friend's parents let them walk alone. She looked at me for a long time then told me to make sure I pay attention to cars. I got hit by a car and almost died when I was nine so

the worry that showed on her face was well warranted. I hurriedly nodded and headed out the door to go to school. My sister didn't like to dilly dally so she was always in a rush to get to school early but seeing as it was just me I thought it would be a good idea to take my time. I would play in the brown slush that was left on the side of the road and even make funny looking snowballs to see how far I can throw them. Halfway to school I noticed a white van following me behind. Being the playful child I was, if I had not been bending down to make another snowball I wouldn't have noticed it slowly creeping up the street. I told myself I was being stupid but continued more hurriedly to school. Once I got to school I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw the van a few feet behind me.

It wasn't until I was on school grounds that it drove away fast by me. I thought that that would be the end of it, but throughout the day, when I would stare out the window, the van would be there. I assumed that it never really left, just parked. Many adults would try to convince me years later that maybe it wasn't the same one, but I knew it was. This van had a bright yellow smile emoji sticker on it. I couldn't see who was in the van but through the tinted glass I knew they could see me. It was now the end of the day and I wasn't ready to go home. It was too late to call my mom because she was at work and my sister was homesick. I had to suck it up and start walking home. I tried to blend in with a group of kids but most of them were car riders and the others didn't live near me. Remembering what my sister told me,

I took another route home. I didn't memorize this route clearly but I decided anything was better than being spotted by that van. I made it to my main street but realized my mistake was too late. The route I took led back to the main street where I walked to school. In behind a row of cars was the white van with a smiley emoji sticker. I tried to stay calm and walk past in but once I heard the van door silently click open, I instantly ran. I could hear the rush of two pairs of heavy footfalls behind me. They were getting closer so I did what any normal kid would do. I cut corners. I cut into someone's backyard until I was directly in sight of my house and forced myself into the thick snow to make it to the door. My heart was racing not because I was running but because I could still hear them

behind me. I made it to the door and banged with all my might until someone came to the door. My sister looked confused but one look in my face and she pulled me inside and locked the doors. The van was still outside. Truthfully it stayed out there until my brother got home. Me and my sister don't talk about it but we both knew how close it was to me going missing. I hadn't thought about this incident in years but one of

my hometown friends showed me an article that came out in 2013. Apparently some men kidnapped and assaulted a girl my age. It wouldn't have scared me if it hadn't mentioned the white van. Whoever you are that attempted to kidnap me and do god knows what else, never again. We all make dumb decisions in life, but in this case, I was stupid. Very stupid. I arranged to meet a guy off Tinder but because of my heightened anxiety about driving I arranged for him to pick me up outside my place. I had been talking to him for a few weeks at least but that is not redeemable and I know that. The choice I made on this day could have ended me but thankfully I'm still around to tell the tale. The guy picked me up in his car and told me he planned to take us out for sushi. I love sushi so I thought great. He put in

the name of the restaurant into his GPS and we were off, making pleasant conversation on the way there. Until, until I started seeing woods when I looked out my window. I felt very confused. We were supposed to be going into town, not into the wilderness in the middle of nowhere. And fear hit me hard then. He said, I swear that GPS is taking me through here.

I didn't choose this path. Just please take me back to civilization. I said. My eyes were wide and I must have looked like a deer in headlights. His face was really apprehensive so he must have known that I was scared completely crazy. Oh my god, I thought to myself, I should have just conquered my anxiety about driving and met him somewhere public, or better yet, not met with this guy at all. What was I thinking? I'm going to get murdered here in these woods. I tried checking my phone to see if I could assist him with the GPS and that's when he said those spine-chilling words.

There's no signal out here. I remember just thinking to myself to try to look calm. Don't let him think you suspect he's onto something. But man did I feel terrified. The tips of my fingers were cold while I was simultaneously sweating. If he was going to kill me, part of me wanted him to get it over with so I wouldn't be left in anticipation. His forehead was perspiring. He kept saying, I swear I'm not doing this

I'm trying to get us back on route to the sushi place I said You know I don't care about sushi anymore Get us to a gas station Anywhere with people at this point And he responds I don't have a shovel Or a weapon or anything if that's what you're thinking

Which did little to calm my nerves. We finally reached the restaurant after what felt like an eternity. I'd never been so scared in my life. I didn't have much of an appetite and I was physically trembling when we arrived. But I figured he didn't kill me when he had the chance, so I guess it was safe now to continue with our date. I already planned on taking an Uber home because I didn't want to go through that experience again. I was shocked out of my mind when he then asked, did you want to go back to my place? I nearly choked on a piece of

sashimi. What? I didn't know where this was coming from and I didn't know how he could ask me something like this now on a first date when he literally saw me pale as a ghost just moments ago. You know, like, how long will you make me wait before we, uh, you know, get it on? A day? A week? A month? I stared at him, dumbfounded. I couldn't respond because I was utterly speechless in that moment. I can't wait a whole month. I'm telling you now.

He said. I didn't say anything and the rest of the date was just insanely awkward. I said goodbye as I took my Uber home and only seconds after my driver pulled out of the restaurant parking lot, he texted me to say that he doesn't think it'll work out with me because he needs a girl with a higher libido. I didn't argue. I just texted back a simple okay, ready to be done with this man. When the Uber driver drove me home, he didn't take me through the wilderness pathway of a potential murder site. He took me through the streets, other cars, lights, the sweetest scene to my immense relief. I couldn't help but wonder why my date had to take me through an hour

drive through the wilderness to get to the restaurant, but it only took the Uber driver 15 minutes to get me home from the same location. The whole thing was chilling. I don't know if my date planned on anything sinister or if it was an honest mistake, but I am glad I made it out alive. I learned a tough lesson that night, one that I should have already known but that I foolishly ignored for some reason. Don't let strangers from a dating app pick you up in their cars. I just moved into a small countryside town, into a house that was just beside a huge forest. It was a new neighborhood and didn't really have much houses on my street.

You could, without a doubt, walk hours into the woods and just keep going. Being young and stupid, I'd take my dog walking without having my parents with me or anything to protect me. I don't even remember having a cell phone at the time. Don't blame my parents, please. They were reassured by the fact that my dog was really big and people were easily frightened by him. Like, really easily. My dog was about seven, and this detail is important. I did that often. Nothing bad ever happened and I never met anyone out there. I loved it because I could really take my mind off of everything else that was happening in life.

The moving was rough on me and to make everything more fun, I was being bullied at school so of course I really needed that. There I was, casually walking on a track that is across the woods that is used if you have a motocross or a quad. A noise that I didn't take too much attention to at first was coming from behind me and it started to get louder. When I turn back I can see a person coming straight on me on his motorcycle. I'm a 13 year old girl who's scared of about everything that seemed out of the ordinary so I decided to get off the track as quickly as I can to hide. Unfortunately for me Henry is a large black dog and doesn't blend in well with the surrounding as everything was green and it was the middle of the day. I walked pretty fast but I can tell that the bike was closing in quickly and it was

pretty obvious that I was standing there. I started running and found a rock that was big enough to hide my dog and I behind. I heard the motocross come and go. It was impossible for the person to really see us. I waited, telling myself that I was being silly by being paranoid about them, and when I thought that I had waited long enough, I started walking again. I froze instantly when I heard the loud engine become suddenly very close to me. Without hesitation, I started to run like a madwoman, and when I was able to stop and hide, I finally did. My dog wasn't in the best of shape and I was feeling so bad for making him run that much, I could tell he was getting closer and closer to me. It wasn't a very dense forest so he could follow very easily and he was so much faster. I'm also a very clumsy person. I tripped on about

everything I can so I did meet this lovely branch that I fell on the ground pretty hard after tripping on it. But I think I was so full of adrenaline that I just got up and started running again. He was only meters from me so he could see me and he's clearly at this point chasing after me. There's no doubt in my mind that if he gets me something really bad could potentially happen. We were approaching a more dense part of the forest so the guy had no choice but to stop. It did give me advantage on him and I was able to get away. I was so glad when I saw a house. It was under construction so nobody lived in it.

I did find a hiding spot between its fence. Minutes later, I heard the bike show up and saw the person searching around for me. I could tell that he didn't see where I went to. I felt this huge sense of relief when he started to blaze off again, and I think I hid there for about 30-40 minutes without moving to make sure that he never looped back. I did find my way home and told my parents about it, but they thought that I was just being overly dramatic. In the end I never found out who this person was and I did hurt myself but nothing too seriously. I heard years later about certain people selling things and being grown in

that part of the woods and certain cameras around the woods as well. Maybe I came too close to seeing something I shouldn't have and they saw me on the cameras and were coming to apprehend me. When I was about 15 to 16, I was a real party animal, always the next town over at my friends' places. Most of the time I was able to stay at their place overnight and head home the next day, but there were a few occasions where I found myself walking home. This walk was roughly 2-3 hours. If it was a nice night, I didn't mind it at all. It gave me a chance to sober up before I got home. No, my parents didn't know that I was doing this. It was just me being a stupid teenager. At the time, there was a good 40 minute stretch that was pitch black with nothing

but fields and forests on either side of the road. It has since been developed into a shopping center and homes. Every now and then, a car would pull over asking if I needed a ride home. Most times, I would say no thank you and go on my way with no issue. Two times cabs had offered a ride home for a discounted price and they were both amazing people. They told me about their wives and kids and how I should be really careful walking alone at night. They dropped me off at my house and made sure I got in before driving away. One night walking home on that stretch of dark road minding my own business, a car pulled over in front of me. Not a big deal, this has happened before.

As I was about to walk past the passenger side, the window rolled down. A guy who seemed to be in his mid-thirties asked if I was alright. He was very clean, handsome, and his car looked brand new. He had a smile on his face and a weirdly friendly tone. Every hair on my body started to stand up. This seemingly normal guy was giving me one of the worst gut feelings I had ever gotten in my whole life. I backed up from the car as he spoke to me. Being polite, I told him I was alright and not too far away from home but thanked him for his concern. The smile never left his face but it was just wrong, like it was being forced. He insisted that he could drive me home then said,

there's some scary people in this world and laughed. By this point, my body is screaming that I need to get away from this person. I faked a smile, thanking him again, saying goodbye, goodnight. I started walking away, pulling out my phone, and pretended to call a friend. He sat in that spot for a little while before slowly creeping up beside me again, still giving me that weird smile. Are you sure I can't drive you home? I lied saying that I was just talking to my friend and that he was on his way, keeping my distance from the car. You can wait in the car with me, he said with a bit of an odd tone in his voice.

Yet again, I declined his offer. My skin was crawling and I'm sure you could hear the nerves in my voice. Yet again, I declined his offer. My skin was crawling and I'm sure you could hear the nerves in my voice. I continued with my fake phone call, loudly saying, Oh, you're a few minutes away? Great, you'll see me. The driver's face went completely blank. His smile had gone, not a single emotion in sight. He just looked forward and rolled up his window and started driving away. I waited till he was out of sight before running as far away from that road as I could. I made it home safe that night, although the rest of the walk I was completely on edge, constantly looking over my shoulder and holding my phone up to my ear like I was talking to someone.

Obviously, I can't ever really know what his intentions were but if my gut was anything to go off, I truly feel like if I got in that car I think about where I could have been right now had I not acted on a vibe I had today in a hobby lobby. I was at the store to indulge in the springtime sale. As I was browsing the entire store, I noticed that I kept seeing the same man wandering around. I thought that he was there with his wife until I realized he was there alone. I also noticed that he had a Bluetooth headset in his ear the entire time. Not necessarily suspicious in and of itself, but I really started to get a bad feeling when he followed me around the small floral section as I weaved through the aisles. He kept looking at

random flowers when I would look at him. I even saw him either quietly talking to himself or talking to someone on his bluetooth, most likely the latter. I circled through the store several times to make sure that he was genuinely following me and to wait for him to leave before I went to check out. After a while of not being able to see him around me, I went up to the front and got in line. He crept from around a corner and got into the line right behind me, still holding the two random flowers that he had picked up. The cashier rung up my items while I typed a note on my phone. I told her that I had an online coupon and showed her the note that said, The guy behind me has been following me throughout the store.

She said that she was going to get the manager to verify this coupon. The manager came up and read my note and said, with the other sale already applied, we might not be able to apply this coupon, but let's step aside and see what we can do. She took me past the register to get the details while the cashier rung up the man. I told her everything and I look back and the guy is telling the cashier that he forgot something that he wanted. He then goes back to the floral section to add another random stem to his items. He looks at me, talking to the manager and tells the cashier that he needs something else and leaves the register again to get another random item. It was at this point that I knew that he needs something else and leaves the register again to get another random item. It was at this point that I knew that he was stalling to wait for me.

The manager picks up on this too and calls up a male staff member to go out to the parking lot to make sure that the man got into his car and drove away. The guy paid for his four random flowers and left the store. The staff member came back in and verified that he drove away and offered to be in the parking lot until I safely drove away as well. He came out with me and pretended to grab carts until I had safely made it to my car and left. I'm so thankful to the staff that immediately jumped into discreet action to ensure my safety. Now, updates. February 23rd. I have a few updates to share. After posting and getting a lot of people advising me to contact police, I did. After I told them what happened, they told me that this guy was likely part of a human trafficking team and was what they call

the scout, who was sent to find a target and was on the phone coordinating a team to grab me in the parking lot or follow me home. They said that these types of operations have specifically been targeting craft stores in places like Target where women often go alone. They worked with Hobby Lobby and have security footage of his face and license plate. I don't know if they've identified him from this, but they've been great at keeping me updated. I also contacted Hobby Lobby Corporate and gave them the store number and the names of the employees that helped me. They weren't specific, but they said that they would make sure that the employees got the recognition they deserved. Thanks to everyone who offered support and helpful advice in the situation. I'm a 19 year old female when this happened.

I attended a church most of my life where the people there were more like family. My sister, who I was always very close to, was 18. There was a new guy that started coming. He was about 28. He was in the middle of getting his degree and looked like he had a good head on his shoulders, but something seemed off about him. It appeared that I was the only one who felt this way. I observed him running after a group of children and the pit of my stomach would just feel sick. He seemed to have an attention for my sister too. She was 18 but

always looked younger for her age. He would always have a sick smile on his face when talking with her. Again, nobody else seemed to notice but me. Another woman from the church commented to me that the guy seemed like a good catch and we should set them up on a date together. I opened up about my suspicious feelings to my mom and to a few others, but they would laugh it off as me being jealous. I would have nightmares about warnings that my sister needs to stay away from him. I would learn later that my sister went on a secret date with him, actually, and this guy insisted that they meet at her house.

He wanted her address, but she said no, that we'll just meet at a public place. Soon after, the pastor's wife mentioned to my mom after church that this guy had been to jail for inappropriate actions against a child. He was out on probation and trying to get his life together. My mom felt sick after that. She gave me a huge apology and now my feelings made sense. My sister was afraid of him now but didn't want to let on that she knew what he did. He wanted a second date but I was with her when she told him she was just too busy with college. He thankfully let her alone and soon left the church And I had heard very soon after that he was re-arrested For doing the same thing to a teenager I ended up leaving that church for good

Someone else could have been hurt because this was kept secret But they wanted to help rehab him somehow And I learned a valuable lesson That you always trust your instincts. Hey friends, thanks for listening. To be continued... to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data. Located anywhere you listen to podcasts.

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