The Lets Read Podcast - 190: BLOOD SPILL IN AISLE FOUR! | 24 True Scary Stories | EP 178

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

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

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🎵 🎵 So, to preface, I would like to state that this story is probably going to read like the plot of a campy 1980s horror movie and is going to be very long. However, this entire story is true. If not for being five miles from cell reception and the way the story ends, there would be a police report for verification. I'll be changing names, locations, and some details in order to protect the privacy of the innocent. A buddy of mine and I try to camp twice a month now that I have a vehicle that can be trusted to get me to some of the more remote areas of our state. We planned a camping trip for the past weekend, from February 18th, 2021 to February 20th, 2021.

We chose a fairly remote location we had been to the previous weekend. The previous weekend, we were the only people we'd seen within one mile of our camp spot. Friday night, we got there and set up. This story takes place Saturday night. It's about 9pm so the sun is long gone and the moon hasn't quite risen yet. It's pitch black out, other than what our fire lights up. Suddenly, we hear a man screaming. We listen intently, silently sharing an anxious look. At first we were hoping it was someone drunk and having a little too much fun,

but it quickly becomes obvious this isn't fun party screaming. It isn't even like he's hurt, it sounds like full of despair, anger, and anguish. I'm going to take a moment to remind you that this is at 9pm, pitch black outside, in the middle of nowhere woods five miles from the nearest cell phone signal. We hadn't seen anyone in hours. The screaming continues for what felt like hours, but was probably around five solid minutes. We had no idea what to make of it and started feeling extremely paranoid. We gathered up anything remotely close to a weapon and tried to come up with explanations of the screaming while keeping our eyes on the forest around us. After about 15 tense minutes of fear-induced paranoia, I nearly fell out of my seat as I watched a flashlight and lantern slowly enter our camp.

I greeted the stranger with a basic, How's it going? before he was even lit up by the fire. He responded quickly but flatly by asking if we could do him a favor. That depends on the favor, my buddy and I said in unison, obviously tense, holding our weapons close to us. The stranger proceeded to ask if he could hang out for a second by the fire. Given there's two of us and one of him, plus our myriad of weapons gathered from around camp to within our arm's reach, we decided to agree and let him hang out. After a short second of awkward silence, I ask him what's going on.

He proceeds to tell me and my buddy that he was camping down the trail with his buddy and that his friend had snapped and tried to kill him. Wait, what? I said before the thought even finished processing in my head. Is that the screaming we heard earlier? The man slowly nods, staring blankly into the fire and begins his story. We were just hanging out, man. We came up earlier today and my buddy just freaked out. We started screaming and screaming and just wouldn't stop. And then, he attacked me.

He lunged at me and I told him just to back off and chill, you know? Well, he kept coming after me and it started getting pretty violent fast and I'm pretty sure he was going to kill me, so I grabbed my car keys, the lights and ran. I don't know what to do, man. He chased me when I ran, and I don't know what to do.

We don't have firearms or anything, but we do have a hatchet. My buddy and I look at each other for a second, completely astonished, and then something horrible dawned on me. Wait, he chased you? Like he's on his way here, right now? The man just slowly nods in reply and right on cue, like some terrible horror movie come to life, we hear screaming maybe 30 to 40 feet from our camp, down on the main trail. I just want your balance, Gary. I just want your balance. Gary. Gary. Where are you? Where? Gary. I'd never in my life heard a man scream like this. I've never heard anything like it in my life. It was a brutal, guttural scream that was shrill to the ears yet deep in pitch.

The sound of someone gone completely mad. And the way he said the stranger's name would switch erratically from long and sing-songy to short, guttural punches of sound. We killed our lights, became silent and listened. By some miracle, the madman didn't notice our camp and continued walking down the trail, screaming the whole way. We ended up chatting with who we'll call Gary for hours, listening to the screaming getting further and further. Come to find out, they had taken 4.5 to 5 grams of magic mushrooms each and his buddy, who we'll call Ty, was a co-worker of

his and was fine for about three and a half hours, then just suddenly snapped. It seems as if though Ty thought he could kill Gary and steal his good trip. We hear the screams get further and further for over two hours. By this time it's 11pm, the moon is starting to come out and it's below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Ty had no jacket or flashlight according to Gary. My buddy and I are way too drunk to drive out of camp to get cell service as it was snowy and icy and required 2 to three miles of highway driving after getting off the trail. Gary was still lightly feeling the effects of weed and mushrooms so he couldn't drive either. We had to make the decision to let the guy wander,

hope he'd sobered up and could find his way back. And he did. Oh, he did, right into our camp. We hear yelling after about an hour of no screams, maybe 30 to 50 feet from our camp again. Hey, help! Please help, I'm lost! And we can tell the man's walking from the woods into our camp. We tell Gary to hide, just in case, and greet the man with me carrying my 12 gauge shotgun and my.40 pistol holstered. My buddy was carrying his AK-47 style rifle and his two 9mm Glocks holstered and with our flashlights on our brightest settings in his face. He was maybe 6'3", 300 pounds. We talked to him, decided he was calm enough to walk with, and walked him back to his camp. He seemed really remorseful.

Said he blacked out and didn't remember anything, and had a falling out with his buddy. We escorted him back to his camp down the trail, returned and told Gary that Ty seemed cool, and if anything else happened to scream and come running, we would come out and help him out. It ended up being a happy ending. We made friends with Gary and I got his phone number to make sure the next day that he got into town safely, back to his wife and kid and were actually planning a camping trip with him soon. But Ty, who wandered screaming like a deranged maniac into the forest, potentially wielding a hatchet, to murder your friend to steal his good trip,

or whatever it is your psychosis-filled mind was thinking, foryear-old female, was 20 at the time. I moved in with my uncle in San Antonio, Texas with the agreement that I didn't have to pay rent as long as I helped him out with chores and my cousins. I got a job at a super known coffee chain downtown close to the touristy part of the area. We had a lot of regulars and a lot of homeless coming in and out. I felt relatively safe though because I got to know the people there and it was almost always a lot of foot traffic. I used to even take walks after work in the area especially since I was super close to the river walk. Skipped to a couple of months into the job and I was friends with everyone I worked with.

We were all super close and on this particular day was one of my co-workers last day. There was about three guys who had been in there almost all morning. They hadn't bought anything and were just hanging out which was not unusual for my location. On my break I decided to walk down to a nearby drugstore so I can get a farewell card and maybe a small gift for said co-worker. I walked out and put my earphones in and before I could press play I hear the door open behind me and footsteps following behind. Whoever it was caught up to me and started walking beside me matching my pace exactly. I turned to look and it was one of the guys that had been there all morning. He was a bit taller than me and reminded me a lot of Lakeith Stanfield. He tried to ask for my number and I kindly told him no. He persisted and I, with a short temper, told him

to screw off. He stopped and stared at me in surprise as I don't look like someone who speaks up or is ever rude. He stood there as I walked away and by the time I went back, they were gone. I proceeded to tell my co-workers about the encounter and we just kind of laughed it off. I thought that would be the end of it and I was wrong. Every shift after that he would already be there just hanging out or would walk in mid-shift. Sometimes with somebody else and sometimes by himself. I assumed he was just another homeless person because how else was he able to just be around? My shifts were sporadic. Some days I opened, some days I closed, and some days I worked mid, but it didn't matter. He was always there. At that point I started feeling paranoid. I would always catch

him staring in my direction. He never ordered anything, never talked to me and luckily wouldn't follow me. He would just sit there watching me. I started mentioning it to my co-workers and they started noticing it too. One of my team leaders would help me out by sending me to wash dishes in the back or organize the cooler. My co-workers would also try and place themselves to try and block me from his view. I started feeling uncomfortable at work now. Sometimes when I closed, a co-worker would walk me to my car before heading home themselves, or if I didn't close, they would walk me to my car and turn around and head back to work. Then one day of him just staring, I was working the register that day, he walked up and ordered a water. I asked for his name for his

order. I now had his first name just in case. He took his water and sat down. I had mentioned him before to my manager but because he hadn't really done, we wouldn't do anything besides note it in the manager book. The next day I worked with my manager. It was him, two other co-workers and me. I told them I had to go to the bathroom real quick. There were two bathrooms right next to each other but sort of hidden from the coffee bar and register and they weren't gender specific. I walked around the bar to the lobby area. I had to pass his table and walk down the lobby to get to the bathrooms.

I noticed him get up before going inside the bathroom. I sat down to do my business when someone rattled the doorknob. I shouted out that it was occupied but whoever it was kept rattling the door until I finished. When I opened the door, no one was there and walking back I noticed him adjusting back into his chair. I was super freaked out and told my boss. He couldn't tell him anything because we had no proof that it was him. Later that shift he got up and picked up a coffee from the pickup area. My boss assumed he had ordered it and let him take it. I told him it wasn't and that it wasn't even his name.

My boss used this as an opportunity to tell him if he does something like that again, he can't come back. The man apologized and actually stuck to the rules every day after that. He went back to just watching me. Cut to Valentine's Day. One of my team leaders and I would be scheduled to work certain Thursdays after close to deep clean the store and we would stay until 1am. This was one of those Thursdays. We were almost done and I had to clean the bathrooms as one of the last chores. I finished and as I walked out of the bathroom I see him peeking in with both his hands pressed to the windows, eyes wide just staring at me with this super intense look.

I froze for a second just staring back. I notice on one of his palms that is pressed to the window a purple foam heart. He doesn't move at all. I freak out and step back into the bathroom. I start shouting, Hannah, Hannah, he's here, he's back, and she barely hears me through the music that we were blasting. Hannah was the team lead who would help me hide from him, so she knew the huge fear I had towards him. She walked towards the bathroom shouting, what are you saying, what's going on? And as soon as she gets close, she sees him. I tell her again, he's here,

he's watching me. She started shouting through the window. You need to leave. If you don't leave we're calling the police. I step out a little to see if he'll leave and he's ignoring her and his eyes were just fixated in my direction. I step back into the bathroom and my lead continues to shout at him to leave and threatens him with the police. About five minutes passes and he realizes that I'm not stepping out until he leaves so he does. The next day my lead and I told our manager that I wanted to file a police report and he tells me no to wait until he talks to his boss. He shows up again that day but I was only there to talk to my manager and

leave right after. When I got home a friend convinced me to just call the cops. I text my boss that I don't care what he or his boss says, that I'm scared and I'm going to file that police report. I dial 911 and tell them a summarized version and they tell me that they're going to send someone to where I live to take the official report. The two officers were incredibly nice and supportive. I told them my whole story and how my boss didn't feel the need to get cops involved since I wasn't harmed. The officers told me that I should have called right away and defend me saying that they can get him for harassment. I thank them and they tell me that if he shows up to dial 911 so they can take him in for trespassing and harassing.

I think that day my manager banned him and warned him because he never showed up to the coffee shop again. A few months later when I was comfortable again with downtown I went out with some friends to walk around. We were close to where I worked and as we round a corner, I see him and so I ducked into a little corner store and my friends follow. I told them I saw him and they kept an eye out. Once he was out of view we left the store and that was the last time that I saw him. For context, I'm in school still and work for my family member on certain weekends at a local

college selling concessions at the stadium. It's about once to twice a month and the stadium is off towards the edge of town. It's Friday night. I just had gotten out of school and had to go straight to work. I get to work, work for four hours, half ship tonight and my boss, who is also my aunt, tells me we need more spoons for tomorrow's event. We sell ice cream and these events have like 5,000 plus people at them. I say okay, I'll go grab them on my way home. The only store open with heavy duty spoons is all the way on the other side of town and I still wanted to go meet up with some of my friends and mess around. I decide to take the faster but more sketchy way around the outskirts of town. I live in a

weather bipolar state. It snowed last night but I figured the roads would be fine enough even if they weren't plowed. I take off to the store and the first five minutes go by and nothing's wrong. I haven't seen a single car or any buildings the entire time. But keep in mind it's approaching 9pm and I'm on the outskirts of town and no one really takes this way in case they really have to. All of a sudden I see something out of the corner of my eye and it appears to be a man, roughly 5'8 I'd say, wearing shorts, a t-shirt and a backwards hat.

He's in the ditch, walking in the snow when it's 10 degrees out. My first thought is to pull over but I'm on the phone with my mom at the time and she warns me not to as some things have happened before in this town. For example, a couple years ago, a college girl was kidnapped and found dead rolled up in a rug in 2014. I considered stopping, but for some reason I tell myself not to. I wasn't really worried about anything. I'm a young dude driving a big pickup truck. Last type of person anyone would want to harm, right? I pass the man, going about 40 miles per hour. Like I said, the roads aren't the best. I drive not even 500 feet past him and immediately,

a car that I did not see at all before turns on and pulls out of a field entrance off the road and starts to follow me. At first, I thought I was just focused on the man in the ditch and didn't see a road and that's where they came from But I later found out that there was not a road there Now, again, I'm not super worried I've watched my fair share of crime movies and read plenty of stories on this sub and I didn't feel that it was a threat yet I start to approach the town again and have to take some turns to get where I'm going. I turn left, the car turns left. I turn right, car turns right. I go around a roundabout and skip my turn and go twice as no one else is there. The car follows. At this point I start to worry a little but maybe they just need to go to the store also. I then pull up to a stop sign, I wasn't on the best side of town either, may I add,

and I turn without my turn signal. The car continues to follow. Now, at this point, I should have went straight to the police station, but I still didn't think much of it. I'm two miles from the store, where plenty of people will be. I take a few more turns and the car continues to follow me. I completely blew a stop sign at a non-busy intersection and the car does a quick stop and go and catches up. At this point, I'm two turns till the store so I'm still not worried.

I turn into the store and the car turns also. The store also has a gas station, so I pull there first to act like I was getting gas. The car sits off to the side of the road, in between the gas station and store, and just sits there. I wait about 10 minutes and the car doesn't move. At this point, I start to get worried. I'm a young kid, alone, at night, near the bad side of town. I call my friends I'm supposed to meet up with later on and give them the license plate for worst case scenario, then take off to the store. I cross the street and the car comes straight behind me. I'm freaking out on the phone, not knowing if I should call the cops or not. I go and park as close as possible to the store and

the car parks three rows behind me and a couple down. It's getting late at this point and the store is closing soon. There's only a couple others in the lot. I turn my truck back on and go park on the complete opposite side of the lot, get out and I just bolt inside of the store. I'm not super overweight but I'm not skinny either. I'm about 6'1 and 200 pounds. Who would want anything to do with me? I get spoons and take my time in the store. I go to call my friends to walk back outside and my phone is dead. I look out the sliding doors and suddenly there's a white van next to my driver's side. Looks like no one's in it but

the back windows are covered and it appears to be running. This was a huge red flag. I run to customer service and explain everything but they think I'm some young kid messing around. At the time I didn't see the original following car but no way am I going outside with that van next to my truck. After waiting for what seemed like hours but was only 30 minutes, the van pulls forward and the original car appears from inside of the building. You can see from in the store Starbucks window, they talked and just both drove off. I waited another 10 minutes and dash outside. I speed to my friend's house and when I get there I park in his garage. My one buddy asked why there is a big orange mark on my tire and my heart sinks.

When I was inside, the follower car must have marked my tire. After inspecting the rest of my truck we find a small pipe dropped in the bed of my truck surrounded by snow. It was about 2 inches wide and I'd say about 18 inches long wrapped in duct tape. It was not mine. I was alone, no phone, scared in a part of town I'm not familiar with. I try to laugh it off but now that everyone's asleep I can't help but think what would have happened if I walked outside. I've always been sort of ego boosted on the fact that I'm a chubby fat dude that no one would want to mess with. But after tonight, I realize anyone can be targeted. To be continued... years ago. I was in my early 20s and was studying in Paris, France. I was going home from uni. I usually took a short bus ride and walked the rest of the way. That day, I felt slightly uncomfortable.

I could sense some guy was looking intensely at me. I was used to unpleasant, unsolicited gazes, but this time, his gaze felt beastly, I guess you could say. It's hard to explain why, but I felt like a prey being stalked. I decided to get off the bus a few stops early. I wanted to avoid him and didn't want him to see where I usually got off. Like I learn in the movies, I waited until someone else pressed the stop button and waited until the last moment to stand up and leave. I didn't notice him getting off the bus. Just as I was feeling the relief of having escaped an uncomfortable situation, I look over my shoulder and there he was, a few meters behind. I had the distressing feeling his eye had just looked away the moment I turned.

I walked into a shop, took my phone and pretended to be taking a call. When I couldn't see him anymore, I exited and made my way home as fast as I could. I kept looking back in the busy street. I zigzagged, crossed the street at every crossing. Finally, I believed that him getting off at the same stop as me was just a coincidence. When I reached my building, I looked back one last time, and there he was. His alarming gaze on me, and he was smirking. I ran up to my apartment, climbing the stairs four at a time. I reached the top floor,

squeezed through my door, locked it, and froze. My intercom was ringing. Don't ask me why I picked it up. I regretted it in the moment I did. I could hear the opposite flat intercom ringing as well. He had pressed all the buttons one by one, hoping someone would open. But now, he said my name. Gabriela? Oh god, I felt like a deer in the headlights, frozen. Open your door, please, said a pleading voice. I just want to talk to you. Somehow I couldn't move or speak. Come to the window, he added. Look at me, you'll see I'm not a bad guy.

Something clicked. He wanted to locate my apartment in the building. I was not going to make that mistake. I hung up, in shock. I waited by the door without moving for what seemed like hours. When I finally managed to calm myself, I called my long-distance boyfriend. Call the police, he said immediately. Why didn't I call the police? I don't know. Today it would be the first thing I would do. The fear of making a big deal out of something

not important, perhaps, is what was going through my mind at the time, and maybe I just felt confused. And what an idiot I was. I called my best friend instead. I didn't want to feel alone. I told her all about it, and after a while I felt better. I felt safe. We started laughing and suddenly the intercom rang again. Two hours had passed since I'd come home. I answered. Gabriela, said the voice. Open please. I still remember the chills I felt. He was still there. He was there all this time. I was silent, petrified. He was silent but I could sense his trepidation. Gabriela, let me in. I'm so thirsty, he said. Just give me a glass of water. This broke the tension and I hung up.

Curled up in a corner, literally in recovery position, I was terrified. I waited. I was scared to make a sound. I knew he couldn't hear me from the hall, but I was too scared to even breathe. The intercom rang again and again. I didn't answer this time. I crouched on the sofa and fell asleep from exhaustion. I heard the intercom ring one more time in the middle of the night. I woke up in the morning, afraid to leave my apartment. I called my dad who came to pick me up. There was no one in the hall but there was a note in my mailbox. It read, Gabriella, I'm a nice guy. You should have opened to me. We immediately went to the nearest police station. The police listened and of course told me that I

should not hesitate to call them next time. My dad called a locksmith to install digicode on the building door the same day and wrote a message to each of my neighbors asking not to open the door to anyone they didn't expect. He sat in the cafe in front of my building with two friends every evening for more than a week and I never saw the stalker again. After this little episode, I used a different route to and from university every day. I kept my phone tightly in my hand and looked back every few meters. Today I'm still very observant of my surroundings.

I never answer the door if I'm not expecting someone. And people, if you ever find yourself in any kind of uncomfortable situation, just call the police. Don't be an idiot like me. So about a year and a half ago I was 16. I had taken on a job of babysitting my aunt's dog in the Bronx whilst she was away on business. I don't exactly know the breed, but this dog was a powerhouse more than capable of taking someone down. Her name is Dolly. I had to introduce myself to her in my aunt's presence to ensure she knew who I was before showing up alone later. I was told to walk her about four times a day. She's very well trained, doesn't bark really, which is what makes this encounter even more

creepy. It was late, like 2 am and she adorably woke me up for a walk by digging her nose into my arm. When we began our walk it was really dark out, you wouldn't be able to see anyone's face from a few feet away it was that dark. The streets were empty but that's expected at 2 am. In this suburban kind of area in the Bronx, the sidewalks are very narrow. You can't walk down in twos. Dolly was slow because she liked

to smell literally every molecule on the sidewalk. Here's the creepy encounter though. There was a man who was walking down the same sidewalk as us, maybe about 10 feet behind. Dolly went off the sidewalk to where the grass was to sniff a tree. I knew with her that that could take years to be done with so I kind of signaled the man who was a lot closer now to go on by and I stepped off the narrow sidewalk onto the grass. And I was right. Dolly took forever sniffing this tree. Genuinely think it was about 10-15 minutes. I didn't have a problem with it taking long because I was listening to good music with airpods and watching her go around this tree

was an enjoyable sight. Then all of the sudden, Dolly begins barking ferociously at someone behind me. It startled the crap out of me because it was so abrupt and I hadn't even seen her bark like that ever. I quickly turned around to see what would make her do this and there was the same man. He hadn't gone any more forward in the direction he was coming in since I signaled him to pass. Still about five feet away, he wasn't on his phone. He was standing there just looking at me. Dolly was going crazy at him and he had little to no reaction. Now I got a closer look at him and he was very tall, taller than me and I'm 6'3". He was bald and his face was expressionless, although half of it was covered by the darkness of the night. I realized that the dude must have just stood there staring at me for 10-15 minutes as well.

He definitely wasn't trying to talk to me in that time because my music wasn't that loud. I would have heard him. And I don't think he was admiring the dog because even with her barking, his eyes were still zoned in on me. We had about a 10 second moment of staring each other in the face. Normally I would have asked him if he needed something, but I just had the worst feeling ever. He right away reminded me of the dancing tall smiley man creepypasta story which I think was the cause for my fear in that moment. I turned from him and felt safe with this ginormous dog. I took my airpods out of my ears so I could hear if he followed.

Dolly walked with me, but her eyes stayed on him the whole time. Instead of continuing down the same street, I crossed the block. As I started to do this, I kid you not, this man absolutely sprinted in the opposite direction he was originally heading in. The sound of his feet rapidly hitting the floor sent an uppercut to my guts. I quickly turned around and watched him do this. He ran as if his life depended on it. I watched him run till he turned the corner and out of view. I held Dolly's leash tight and hurried back to the house. I don't think he followed but Dolly kept looking back and growling. When we got back, I locked the door and made sure Dolly slept in bed with me. I'm the Duffy in any friend group I'm in.

I never worried about being hit on, disrespected, or kidnapped. I never had to worry about my own safety when going out as I was never the one anyone wanted to get to know or be around because I'm so plain and it's always me that has to be on the lookout for my friends, male and female alike. Now, I like to go to a local bar almost daily. I don't drink alcohol there, I just get a normal coke and wait for my ride home. It's my usual hangout spot after work so I just sit and chill and mind my own business. Well, a few weeks ago, I had just gotten off of work and was chilling at my usual spot and sipping on my drink while working on a new pendant that I was making. I started wire wrapping crystals into jewelry. I didn't think anyone would try to talk to me since I knew I basically blended into the walls,

even though the staff knew me and pay me slight attention and are nice to me. But this weird guy I'd never seen before came over and sat at my table across from me. I was surprised and looked up at him and struck up a small conversation that I can't even remember how I started but he started to ask me a few questions about myself that I thought were normal and all flowed together so I didn't think much of it. Again, I'm plain and didn't think anyone would want anything to do with me. I had drank three glasses of soda by then and had to use the bathroom so I grabbed my phone and purse and went to the bathroom. I may not have worried about

being abducted but I did worry about my identity, cash and contacts being taken. I went back a few minutes later and went back to working since none of my stuff had been touched. I called a waitress over and asked her for a new drink and she nodded as it had always been ingrained in me that you never leave your drink unattended and if you do, have it just remade or leave it to the bartender. As she was going to grab for my old drink, which only had a few sips taken from it, the guy got a bit huffy at me, saying that I was being wasteful for just ordering a new drink. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow in confusion. I asked him why it was his business if I did.

It was my money after all and the refills were free. He then said that I was making more work for the waitress for no reason. This annoyed me and I told him again that it was my business and that if he didn't like it, he could always leave. He then tried to wave the waitress off with letting her change my drink but I'd had enough of his nonsense and told him flat out, then you drink it, if you think it's such a waste. It seemed to have caught him off guard and he looked at me shocked then a bit angry before just leaving. I then looked at the drink and handed it to the waitress and told her that something didn't

feel right about the guy that I was talking to and if she could tell the bartender to keep an eye on him and dump out my drink and just bring me water from then on. I left for home after being picked up shortly after and found out the next day after work that he had been arrested for assault. I didn't find out till today exactly what happened. Apparently he had got into a fight with the bartender working that night. The bartender caught him putting something into a girl's drink when she wasn't looking and he stopped her from drinking it. The guy got angry and it started a whole thing. The cops were called and now apparently he's awaiting trial.

Apparently he was trying to see if he could get someone like me who always had her guard down for herself because my confidence was so low He thought I'd be an easy mark with just a little attention But when I didn't just drink my drink when I came back, he had to try it on another girl If he really was targeting me, I have to question his sanity and sobriety. I used to work a pretty boring secretary job here in Frankfurt. My boss, Jürgen, was a nice guy, never rude and never demanding, but working with him resulted in an incident which was probably the scariest and most disturbing of my entire life. One day, just after lunch break, Juergen walked out of his office and told me to cancel all of his meetings for the remainder of the day. I told him I would, but then asked out

of curiosity if there was any particular reason why. He told me he wasn't feeling very well and that he was going to try and focus himself as best he could so that the day wasn't a total waste I told him that he should probably just go home and rest but he shook his head at the idea and told me that if he really needed to He'd take a nap in his office chair considering it was a pretty swanky one After that I went ahead and cancelled or rearranged his appointments, then went along with my own work until just before the office closed for the evening. He'd been really quiet for the whole day, not even buzzing me for water or anything, so I figured I'd just go check on him before I clocked out and headed home.

I opened up the door of Juergen's office, only to find that it was dark inside. I figured that he'd decided to take that nap that he was talking about, so before switching on the light, I whispered his name a few times to try and wake him before I so suddenly switched on the light. There was no reply, and I suppose that he must have been sleeping deeply, so I took it upon myself to turn on the light. What I saw when the light came on has haunted me almost every night since. It was more horrifying than any scary movie I've seen or any ghost story I was ever told as a child. I've tried for years to get the image of it out of my head, with medicines and therapies and alcohol, but nothing has purged it from my mind. What I saw was a death mask, the last expression

of a man's face before he was taken to his grave. My boss was dead, stone dead, and his face told the story of all the pain and agony he suffered before the lights in his eyes went out forever. Jürgen had suffered a heart attack, a catastrophic one. His mouth was wide open and his eyes were rolled up so far in his head that his eyes appeared almost entirely bright white. There was a thick, almost grey foam caked around his lips and chin and seeping out from the gap under his large, oaken desk was what I can only assume was all the urine contained in his bladder when he passed away. I let out a scream that could have woken the dead. Then as I ran from his office into the hallway, I ended up tripping on my heels and falling flat on my face.

My colleagues had come running at the sound of my scream and I remember sobbing as they picked me up and asked me what was wrong. All I could do was point towards our manager's office, and when one of them walked inside, they emerged just as quick as they walked in while screaming, somebody call 112, which is the emergency line here in Germany. The medics arrived very quickly, as our office building was only maybe half a mile from the nearest hospital, but I could have told them

that Juergen would be declared dead on arrival. We later heard that he had been dead for hours, that he'd suffered his heart attack maybe only an hour after telling me that he wasn't feeling himself. That part haunted me too, knowing that I'd been working just meters away from a corpse and as he was dying, he'd been unable to call for help. We didn't even know that there was anything truly wrong until it was far too late to do anything about it and I imagine the horror he experienced knowing he was dying and that he too had no way of doing anything about it. When the memories return to me, as they often do, I am reminded that death is sometimes only hours away from some of us

How the only warning we get is the slight feeling of being unwell Then before you know it, you no longer exist Several years back I was cleaning out my house. I was renting a house for a year and this year was almost up. I wasn't going to be living there the next year so it was time for me to start cleaning out and moving my stuff to my next place. The house that I had at the time was fairly small but it was plenty of space for just me. I lived there by myself and I had just finished cleaning out the living room, other than some basic furniture, and I had moved on to clean the kitchen. There were quite a few cabinets, so many that I didn't use a good number of them. I was looking through some of the old ones I

didn't use to make sure that there was nothing I had in them. One of them I opened up and I saw something in the back corner. It looked like some type of shirt or rag. I grabbed it and saw that I didn't think it was mine, but when I moved it revealed a small white lever that I could barely see. The cabinet was in a corner sorted by the sink and halfway blocked by the stove. I thought it was just another pipe, but it just looked a little different to me. I got inside and had to crawl inside the cabinet which was pretty large. Once I got inside I saw that there was a small trap door to the side leading into the wall. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. You had to be completely inside in order to see the detail of it and

I decided to open the door which led to an extremely narrow hallway with a sort of crawl space. But when I got further inside, I was horrified. I saw that there was food, as well as several blankets as if someone had been living inside there. The good news, at least to me, is that whoever was in there was gone. I tried to make sense of it and figured out how long the person had been there and how I didn't know about it. I was gone from the house a lot with work and other stuff but I didn't know how it was possible for someone to live in there without me knowing. I continued cleaning until it got pretty late and the next day after work I continued.

I was still kind of in shock with finding a secret room in my house and decided to look at it once again. I opened the cabinet and went inside, then I pulled the lever open just like I had the previous day. By this time as soon as I opened it I saw movement and then saw a person for a split second. They slammed the door back shut on me and I immediately turned and ran all the way out of my house to my car and called the police. I was so scared that I started driving away as well. I told the police the whole situation and they came to my house a short time later to find that whoever had been there was now long gone. Luckily for me, I moved out the next week. I really don't know how long that person was

living in my secret room, but thankfully, it never gave me a problem. So this just happened to me. I'm a female, 28 years old, and I am sure I will not be able to sleep. My boyfriend is not answering the phone, and I just need to get this out. My company organized an event for the clients and the staff at a luxury hotel. Everyone partied and I got into my room about an hour ago. It's about 3.27am in the morning here. Like, I don't know, 15 minutes ago a guy just entered my room with a bottle of water.

It woke me up and I was super scared. He says someone called my room to order a bottle of sparkling water. It's a weird explanation, there's a mini bar and there is a corridor in the room before entering where I'm in the bed. So basically I'm half naked in my bed. He comes closer to me at the level of the table, apologizing for the inconvenience but he's still here. And I kid you not, he starts closer to me at the level of the table, apologizing for the inconvenience, but he's still here. And I kid you not, he starts talking to me, saying how he's going to be in trouble, etc. And how someone called and he's so sorry and the others got into the hotel super drunk and it must have been a mistake. I swear that he's just been standing super close to my bed for over five minutes, giving excuses and not leaving.

And I was so shocked that I was just saying, no, no, it's okay, I just got scared, really, no problem, just go. Well, he says he doesn't see me well, so he asks my name, twice. He says, oh, so I guess I'll wish you a good night then. And he kisses me on the cheek, like we French normally do, but once again, I'm half naked in my bed, dead scared, and he's in a suit all dressed. Literally, I don't even know what I could have done. He left after the longest minutes, saying how he was sorry and how he would appreciate that I don't tell anyone. And now the phone in the room just rang.

I don't know if I still should be scared. Was he just confused by the mistake? I'm super scared though. I cannot think right now and my heart is still racing. I just need to have some rational feedback after all of this. During the summer of 1977, New York City experienced the most intense heat waves of its long and fabled history. Temperatures peaked on July 21st at a blistering 104 degrees, and the sweltering temperatures became ingrained on the city's collective psyche. But for many, the heat isn't the only thing they remember about the summer of 77, because

that same year, the streets of the Big Apple were stalked by one of the most deranged and merciless killers the city has ever known. The murders this person committed were wrapped up in a parcel of mental illness, depravity, and devil worship. And the name he gave himself was one that would strike fear into the hearts of New Yorkers for a generation. That name was Son of Sam. A year earlier, in the early hours of July 29th, 18-year-old Donna Loria and her 19-year-old friend Jody Valenti were sitting in Valenti's Oldsmobile in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx. They had each spent the night at New Rochelle's Peach Trees, a popular disco venue in the area, and were engaged in a playful discussion regarding some boys they had spoken to that evening. It's believed that they were parked just outside

Donna's Pelham Bay home, and when the conversation was over, Donna opened up the passenger side door with the intention of climbing out of the car. Yet as she did so, she was suddenly startled when she spotted a man who appeared to be approaching the car at a rapid pace. According to Jody Valenti, Donna found the sudden intrusion to be very irritating and said aloud, now what is this? Those proved to be her final words and as almost as soon as she spoke, the strange man produced a pistol from a brown paper bag, aimed it with both hands and opened fire. The first bullet ripped through Donna's skull, killing her instantly, while the second struck Jody in her left thigh. Then just as suddenly as he had appeared, the gunman turned and disappeared.

Thankfully, Jody Valenti survived the gunshot wound, and later described her friend's killer to investigating homicide detectives. She told them that he was a white male in his early 30s who appeared to be around 5'8 and 200 pounds, with dark curly hair. Frighteningly, this description was echoed by Donna Loria's father, who told police that he had spotted a man sitting in a yellow compact car that was parked near to his home on the very same night his daughter was shot. The Laurier's neighbors also confirmed a similar looking vehicle had been cruising the neighborhood that night, as if the driver was searching for a particular person.

Three months later, 20-year-old Carl Donaro and his 18-year-old girlfriend Rosemary Keenan were sitting in the car in the Queen's neighborhood of Flushing when one of the windows suddenly exploded inward. As they sped away, the couple didn't even realize that someone had been shooting at them despite the fact that Carl was bleeding from a bullet wound to his head. He later said he believed it had been caused by flying glass and was stunned when he realized that if the bullet had traveled just a few inches to the left, his brains might have been blown out. Just a month after that, teenagers Donna DeMasi and Joanna Lamino were walking home from a midnight movie showing

when a man in military-style fatigues approached them. They later told police that he began to ask them directions in a high-pitched voice. It suddenly stopped talking as he produced a revolver and opened fire. Each girl was shot once before their attacker fled the scene and neighbors later said they witnessed a blonde man running away from the scene of the shooting with a revolver in his left hand. Miraculously, both girls survived the shooting, but Joanne Lamino was left paralyzed as a result of ballistic damage to her spine.

Two more shootings occurred in January and March of 1977, with each resulting in a single fatality and the string of attack had left the panic-stricken citizenry of New York City demanding answers. This resulting in a NYPD press conference being held on March 10th of 1977, where it was officially announced that the same.44 Bulldog revolver had been used in each of the shootings. To their infinite horror, New Yorkers learned that a serial killer was stalking the streets of their beloved city, but they had no idea the intensity of the terrifying sequence of events that were about to unfold. Just after 3am on April 17th, college-age couple Valentina Seriani and Alexander Isau were

sitting in their car on the Hutchinson River Parkway service road in the Bronx. They were just a few blocks away from the Loria Valenti shooting when four bullets ripped through the frame of the vehicle. Both were shot in the head and tragically, both would lose their lives as a result of the shooting. New Yorkers were horrified, but not nearly as horrified as they would be when they learned of the handwritten letter that was found near the victims' bodies. It was written mostly in black capitals and was addressed to the NYPD captain Joseph Borelli, and despite attempts to keep the letter's contents a secret, a number of excerpts were subsequently leaked to reporters. Some of it read as follows, and some listeners may find it to be extremely disturbing. I am the son of Sam, and I am a monster. Sam loves to drink blood.

Go out and kill, commands Father Sam. Behind our house some rest, mostly young, their blood drained, just bones now. I am on a different wavelength than everyone else, programmed to kill, and to stop me, you must kill me. I am the monster. I am Beelzebub. I love to hunt. I live for the hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game, tasty meat. Let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back. I'll be back. Bang, bang, bang. Yours in murder, Mr. Monster. Media outlets consulted scores of psychologists who noted that the killer seemed to gain a great deal of gratification from eluding law enforcement. Police then released a psychological profile of their suspect who was described as most probably

suffering from an intense form of paranoid schizophrenia, which in turn manifested itself in the belief that they were a victim of demonic possession. Just over a month after the handwritten letters were discovered next to the bodies of Alexander Esau and Valentina Sirianni, Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin received a handwritten letter from someone who claimed to be the son of Sam. On the envelope, neatly hand-printed in four precisely centered letters, were the words, Blood and Family, Darkness and Death, Absolute Depravity, 44. Some of the letter reads as follows. Hello from the gutters of NYC, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine, and blood. A low from the sewers of NYC, which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks.

A low from the cracks in the sidewalks of NYC, and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed in the dried blood of the dead that has settled into the cracks. The killer then addressed Jimmy Breslin himself with a line, JB, I'm just dropping you a line to let you know that I appreciate your interest in those recent and horrendous 44 killings, but you can forget about me if you like because I don't care for publicity. However, you must not forget Donna Lauria. She was a very sweet girl. But Sam's a thirsty lad. And he won't let me stop killing until he gets his fill of blood.

I am like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty. Hungry. Seldom stopping to rest. Anxious to please Sam. The letter's author signed it simply, Son of Sam, and underneath the sign-off was a series of several symbols. The author also included the moniker, The Wicked King Wicker,

which furthered law enforcement's belief that the killer held a fascination with the occult. As a result, the NYPD arranged a private screening of the 1973 occult horror movie, The Wicker Man, and encouraged its homicide detectives to attend. A week later, the New York Daily News published the letter and Jimmy Breslin personally urged the killer to surrender himself. The edition of the paper which included the latter article became the highest selling edition in the daily news history, with over a million copies being sold all over the tri-state area. What had once been a panic among New Yorkers turned into a frenzy, and some took certain steps in order to avoid becoming victims themselves. It was noted that all the shooting

victims to date had long, dark hair and in response, thousands of New York females cut their hair short and applied brightly colored dyes with some even purchasing blonde wigs in the hopes of avoiding the killer's attention. The demand was so great that there was a mass shortage of wigs in the city and businesses that were in possession of them ramped up the price to make a quick buck, much to the ire of the general public. June of 1977 saw Son of Sam return to his grisly work when Sal Lupo and his girlfriend Judy Placido were shot at close range in a nightclub parking lot just before three in the morning. Thankfully, both victims survived their wounds, but one of Son of Sam's next victims would not be so lucky. Just two days after the one-year anniversary

of the first shootings, Stacey Moskowitz and Robert Violante were sitting in the latter's car, parked under a streetlight near a city park in the neighborhood of Bath Beach. They were on the first date and romance was very much in the air, so much so that they were completely unaware of a man approaching the passenger side of the vehicle. The man fired four bullets into the car, striking both Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante in the head before fleeing the scene. Robert was blinded in his left eye as a result of the attack while sadly, Stacy passed away as a result of her injuries Moskowitz's passing marked the sixth son of Sam murder in just over a year and New York City had been driven half mad with fear and suspicion

But it was that same suspicion along with excellent police work that finally brought the son of Sam to justice Given that two murders had occurred in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx, parking was temporarily forbidden in an area of almost five square blocks, and any car that lingered too long was investigated and ticketed. This is how a 1974 door yellow Ford Galaxy came to the police's attention, and they noted with grim interest that it matched the description of the car that was in Donna Lauria's neighborhood on the night that she was

killed. When the police contacted New York's Department of Motor Vehicles, they discovered the vehicle was registered to a one Mr. David Berkowitz, who lived up in Yonkers. The next day, police investigated Berkowitz's car, which was parked on the street outside his apartment building. It was then that they spotted a revolver in the back seat, and after searching the car, they also found a duffel bag filled with ammunition, maps of the crime scenes, and a threatening letter addressed to Inspector Timothy Dowd of the Omega Task Force. After that, it was clear. Berkowitz was the son of Sam. All they needed was an arrest and a confession. But given how dangerously violent the son of Sam

was, police decided to wait for Berkowitz to leave the apartment rather than risk a violent encounter in the building's narrow hallway. They also needed to wait until a search warrant for the apartment could be properly obtained, as officers were terrified that their search might be challenged in court and that the infamous killer they'd longed search for would subsequently slip through their fingers. When Berkowitz exited the apartment building at about 10pm, a detective John Falatico approached the driver's side of his car and pointed his gun close to Berkowitz Temple, all while Detective Sergeant William Gardella pointed his gun from the passenger side. It's then that Berkowitz smiled, looked up at Detective Falatico

and said, well, you got me. Not that I've got you, Detective Faletico responded. Who have I got? You know, Berkowitz said, in what Faletico remembered as a sweet, almost childlike voice. No, I don't. Tell me, he replied. Berkowitz, still smiling, simply replied, My name is David Berkowitz, and I, simply replied, My name is David Berkowitz and I am the son of Sam. Upon searching Berkowitz's apartment, police officers discovered it was covered in satanic graffiti. They also found diaries that he had kept since he was 21 years old, in which Berkowitz had meticulously noted hundreds of arsons that he claimed to have set throughout New York City. Some sources speculate that this number might be over 1,400.

Just after 1 a.m. on the morning of August 11, 1977, Mayor Abraham Beam was visibly relieved as he announced to the media that the people of the city of New York can rest easy because of the fact that the police have captured a man whom they believe to be the son of Sam. All it took was 30 minutes of interrogation before Berkowitz confessed to the shootings and expressed an interest in pleading guilty. Berkowitz then made the outrageous and infamous claim that his neighbor's dog was one of the reasons that he killed, stating that the dog was possessed by an ancient demon and that it demanded the blood of pretty young girls. A few weeks after his arrest, Berkowitz sent a letter to the New York Post in which he repeated his original story of demonic possession. Yet toward the end of it, he made an extremely chilling claim.

There are other sons out there, he wrote. God help the world. Finally, on June 12th of 1978, David Richard Berkowitz was handed six consecutive life sentences to be served in Attica Correctional Facility, an upstate New York supermax prison. But that wasn't the end of Berkowitz's story, because as he'd made it clear, there are other sons out there. And once he was locked up, he was determined to prove that he wasn't the only killer that had stalked the streets of New York during that long, hot summer. In the year that followed his incarceration, Berkowitz mailed a book about witchcraft to a police department in North Dakota.

He had highlighted several of the book's passages and had written notes in the margins, including Arliss Perry, hunted, stalked, and slain, followed to California Stanford University. This was in reference to the murder of 19-year-old Arliss Perry, who had been killed at Stanford on October 12th of 1974. Even more horrifying was the fact that her corpse had been mutilated in the Stanford campus chapel, with Berkowitz claiming that not only was this a deliberate act of Satan worship, but that he had had personally communicated with Arliss' killer. Berkowitz went on to claim that he had killed at the behest of a satanic cult that he had joined in the spring of 1975 and stunned the general public when he claimed that he was only guilty of the murders of Donna Loria, Alexander Esau, and Valentina Sirianni He asserted that several other cult members were involved in every incident by planning the events

providing early surveillance of the victims, and acting as lookouts and drivers at the crime scene. Yet when asked to provide the names of his accomplices, he claimed that he wouldn't be able to without putting his family's lives at risk. At this point, Bergerwood seemed to make a very convincing assertion, and that was how some victims had only survived because a female cult member was unfamiliar with the powerful recoil of a.44 Bulldog. This negatively affected her accuracy, which in turn saved the lives of Carl DeNaro and Rose Mary Keenan. Despite the feasibility of such a claim, Berkowitz's assertions were dismissed by many of those close to the case, one of which was the recipient of one of his letters, Jimmy Breslin.

Breslin rejected his story of satanic cult accomplices, stating that when they talked to David Berkowitz that night, he recalled everything step by step by step. The guy has a thousand percent recall and that's it. He's the guy and there's nothing else to look at. Former FBI profiler John E. Douglas, who spent hours interviewing Berkowitz, also expressed his skepticism. He argued that David was an introverted loner, incapable of being involved in group activity. NYPD psychologist Dr. Harvey Schlossberg also stated that he believes the satanic cult claims are nothing but a fantasy concocted by Berkowitz to absolve himself of the crimes and lacks any serious credibility. In the decades that followed David Berkowitz's arrest and incarceration, the Son of Sam killings remain some of the most notorious serial murders in world history.

Not just for their brutality and insane motives, but for the fear they struck in the hearts of innocent New Yorkers all over the city. Berkowitz himself continues to express remorse on Christian websites, having taken up evangelical Christianity in an attempt to save his soul. But if there is anything resembling a just God that casts judgment on us when we die, then I have no doubt whatsoever that David Berkowitz is and dad down in Kentucky. I'd always been different, and it was something that myself and my parents had dad down in Kentucky. I'd always been different and it was something that myself and my parents had always been aware of. But around the age of 18, I realized why I felt

so different to the rest of the people in my small country town. Right around that time, most of my friends were chasing girls and hadn't given up on pretty much everything else except to pursue more hormonal inclinations. But me, I never had any interest in girls. I always felt more attracted to my male friends and for the longest time I thought it was just that something was wrong with me. But then, the more liberated society became and more people talked about queerness, the more I realized that they were actually talking about me. So instead of living a lie, I decided to face my truth and to share it with those close to me. So, in 1977, I decided to tell my mom, dad, and sister that I was gay.

It did not go well. We were a conservative Christian family who lives in the Bible Belt, and not only were my parents outraged that I dared succumb to such sinful desires, but they told me that as long as I wanted to live like that, that I wasn't welcome in their home. So, what choice did I have other than to pack up and move somewhere that would actually accept me for who I was? That was how I decided on New York City. It took me about a month or two to properly orient myself to the gay scene here, but in the end, I started hanging out at a few different places

that made me feel more and more at home. For a young gay man, New York City was like a paradise back then. Yeah, there were ignorant people, but there are ignorant people everywhere. But in NYC, most people just didn't care, were too busy to care about stuff like that, and I can't tell you how liberating it was. But over the years that followed me moving there, the paradise I'd found became more like a living hell. And to a lot of us, it was like there was some deadly phantom stalking me and my friends. A demon that stalked us, found us, and killed us. One by one. I remember it started with a friend of mine who was named Patsy.

Patsy's real name was Patrick and he felt much more comfortable using his drag name, Patsy, as it made him feel much more like herself, so to speak. Patsy used to join us for drinks at the Black Rabbit most Friday nights, and occasionally he'd show up in drag to sing in the karaoke shows. Those were some of the most amazing, hilarious nights of my life, and Patsy really knew how to work a crowd. But then this one Friday, Patsy didn't show up, and Patsy always showed up to Friday night drinks. We were all pretty concerned for him, but it made sense when somebody closer to him than we were mentioned that he wasn't feeling like himself lately. There was a pretty nasty cold going around at the time, so

we figured that he picked it up and was feeling under the weather. Then the next Friday, he didn't show up again for Friday night drinks, and he wasn't the only one. A few more of the guys closest to Patsy weren't showing up at their regular haunts, and nobody could get a hold of them to find out what was going on. We eventually found where Patsy lived after talking to a club manager who had given him a part-time job. He had an address from his old copy of his payroll. We didn't know exactly what was going on at that time and some of us actually thought that he might be depressed after a breakup

or something. That it was some kind of mental health crisis and that all Patsy needed was a little love and he'd be back to his usual self. We couldn't have been more wrong. By the time we went to visit Patsy at his apartment, it was about six weeks since he first dropped off. Me and a friend of mine went over to his place only to find a moving truck outside. We didn't think anything of it at first until we got up to Patsy's apartment and saw that the moving guys were in the process of emptying his apartment. His landlord was supervising the whole thing so we asked what was going on and if he knew where Patsy was.

That's when he tells us that Patsy's in the hospital and that he hadn't paid rent in like two months so he was moving all of his stuff into storage and would be sending Patsy the bill. All he knew was he was in the hospital and he didn't know which hospital so we set about calling up almost every hospital in the city just to find him. It took days, but eventually we found the place where Patsy was staying at. When we asked what was wrong with him, the nurse said that she couldn't tell us, but that we were free to visit during visiting hours so we could talk to him. We'd missed the allotted time slot for that day, so me and the friend that had helped me find Patsy

agreed to meet up at Beth Israel the next day so we could go visit Patsy. But I don't think that we could have ever been ready for what we saw. When we walked into the room we barely recognized the man we saw. Patsy was always a little plumper than most, probably because of his unapologetic love of pasta due to his Italian heritage. But the man we saw when we walked into that hospital room was little more than a skeleton. Patsy was wasting away in that hospital bed, and he was so weak that he could barely talk. We all just broke down crying without even really saying a word to each other, and I'll never forget how the tears pooled in Patsy's sunken eye sockets before they actually

started rolling down his cheeks. We went back almost every day for almost a week until one day we showed up and the nurse told us that we weren't permitted to visit with him anymore. We asked why. The nurse told us that Patsy had some kind of infectious disease and that it was too dangerous to sit with him unless we wore proper protective clothing. We insisted on it, that we didn't mind taking the risk, and we'd wear anything they'd asked us to in order to be able to visit him. They made us wear full gowns, gloves, a mask, a hairnet, like full surgeon's clothing just to be in the same room as him. Then one day, we went in to see Patsy, and we were told that he passed away in the night. There were lots of us in NYC at the time,

much like myself, who had moved there because we didn't have anyone else. We had no family, none that wanted to know us anyway, and it was exactly the same with Patsy. We found out that no one was coming to claim his body or organize a funeral or burial for him, so if we wanted to have any kind of memorial, it was down to us to do it. Of course, we knew it was the right thing to do and we knew Patsy had enough friends to pack out a church or a memorial hall or something. Only, that's how we found out how bad this whole thing was getting, when we organized a funeral and next to nobody showed up. It wasn't that he wasn't popular,

it was a combination of two things. The first was that more and more of us were coming down with whatever horrifying disease that had taken Patsy, and the second was that so little was known about it, that people honestly thought that they could just catch it from being in the same room as his dead body. And then there was all the prejudice and bigotry that surrounded what they called grids at the time. It stood for something like gay-related immunodeficiency syndrome or something, like they still thought it was specific just to gay people, and even regular non-bigoted people just ate that up since it was coming from the scientific community. Over the years that followed,

we were almost completely abandoned by everyone who had once supported us in our lifestyle choices. Me and the friend I was close to stopped dating completely since we were eventually told that it was spread through having intimacy. That was a weird relief to us because at least we knew how to avoid catching it by then, and as much as it was awful having to put our dating lives on hold, anything was better than dying in such a horrifying way. Things got better over the years and I personally took part in a lot of activism to be able to spread the truth about grids until it was finally reclassified with the name it's known as today, AIDS. That felt like a real victory, for people to know the truth about it and how even straight people could catch it if they weren't careful about drug use and safe contraception, all that kind of stuff.

Then it wasn't just something that only gay men could get. It wasn't God's punishment, as so many evil bigots had said. We were all in it together, all united in fighting such a terrifying and insidious disease. When the likes of Freddie Mercury died from AIDS, as well as Eazy-E from the NWA rap group, that's when things started to get much better for us. Those were sad, sad deaths and the gay community was devastated, especially for Freddie. But I remember being left with the impression that a lot of people didn't have to die and that if they'd only listened to us instead

of just dismissing our claims, then a lot more people would have been spared such horrible deaths. It's a time in my life that I'm still haunted by today. A time when it was like an invisible killer was stalking through our tight little community. So many of us had run away from getting hurt, beatings, and death. And it was like death had followed us. I don't know why that it got to be me that survived when so many of my adopted family didn't. I don't think I was doing anything different at the time and I suppose it just comes down to luck that I was sleeping with certain people and not others.

I still feel guilt, a lot of guilt, that people like Patsy, who used to light up the rooms that he was singing in, had to die, while I got to carry on living in the shadow of one of the most terrifying diseases the world has ever known. My name is Aaron, I'm from New Jersey, but I've been living in New York City for the

past 17 years and I think I have a story you might be interested in featuring in one of your videos. So I don't really want to drop this guy's name because I know for a fact that this was a major low point in his life. He definitely isn't a bad guy, just a guy who reached his breaking point one day and just kind of lost it. So that being said, I prefer to keep him anonymous, so I'm just going to call him Dave. Me and Dave were familiar with each other, but not particularly close. Enough that I might, you know, knock on his apartment to borrow a tool or a cup of sugar or whatever and we'd say hey to each other if we happened to catch each other on the stairs. So this one day when Dave

knocked on my door and he actually seemed kind of angry. And when he accused me of talking too loudly I just straight up was feeling confused. I hadn't been talking at all and the only noises were me cooking dinner while I listened to a podcast on my phone. So I told him that, even showed him inside and was like, is this the noise you were hearing? Obviously it wasn't as the walls that separate our apartments were pretty thick, something you pay a serious premium for in NYC. I knew darn well that it couldn't have been the podcast or my phone. No base to the thing at all, but I still showed him as a demonstration of good faith. He looks all confused too, thanks me, then walks back to his apartment after saying something about it probably being the people downstairs. A few days later, same thing happens,

only Dave is seriously angry, not just a little peeved. He then accuses me of talking way too loud and not only that, but talking about him behind his back. Saying all this shady stuff about him sounded like it was on the phone to another person too. Again, I told him no, that I hadn't been talking about him, and I thought that he was an okay dude and that even if I was talking about him it wouldn't be negative. He seems satisfied enough with this, but just as he heads off to his apartment, grumbling about terrible neighbors, I ask if I can come over to his apartment to see if I can hear where the talking is coming from. He says sure and I walk over, fully expecting to help him solve the mystery of the loud neighbors.

But then, when I walk into the TV room in his apartment, it's quiet as the grave. Like you could have seriously heard a mouse fart in there. I then asked him the dreaded question if he could still hear the people talking and he just turns and looks at me to say, you can't hear that? He then puts an ear right up to the wall connecting to my apartment, nods and says, I can still hear it coming from the wall. It has to be those downstairs neighbors. You know, I already told them one by one and they're still taking me for a complete idiot. As you can probably guess, I put my ear to the wall and heard absolutely nothing.

And that's about the point that I realized that something was going horribly wrong with Dave's mental health. I tried to suggest that to him in the most delicate way possible. In a way that would seem both respectful and concerned, but... but good god if he didn't just totally explode on me, saying you think I'm crazy, well f you buddy, get the f out of my apartment you gaslighting mother effer." I legitimately thought that he was about to knock my teeth out as I edged back towards the door. He was so angry that by the time I was out in the hallway

his eyes were bulging and there was froth literally coming from his mouth. I mean he looked like he was about to blow a gasket or something. After he slammed the door in my face I walked back to my apartment and started googling what to do if your neighbor is having a mental breakdown. Turns out you can get I guess a crisis team to come out to visit people if they're showing signs of hurting themselves or others. But that seemed like the nuclear option at that point. Like I didn't want to have the men in white coats show up for the guy, and that seemed like such an extreme solution to something that might pass within a day or two if he just had some time to relax or whatever. It took less than 48 hours for the whole thing to blow up.

And when it did, it was bad. It was the middle of the night when I woke up to the front door of my apartment getting pounded on and before I could even ask what was going on, I heard Dave's voice like, Open the door, you piece of trash. I told you what would happen if you talked about me again. Well, now you're dead. And he's screaming this. He hadn't told me anything. We literally hadn't spoken since the day he threw me out of this apartment. Whatever little interaction he'd had

had either been with someone else or it had occurred entirely inside his head. I remember rushing back to my laptop, bringing up that NYC Crisis Emergency Service website, and then feeling my stomach drop as I saw they only took calls between 8am and 8pm. I knew if I actually called the cops, it'd probably turn out really, really bad. If they showed up and Dave rushed them, he might end up getting shot. Even getting tased and beaten would be bad enough, and I'd feel terrible about that. But then as I looked over at my apartment door, hearing Dave screaming about how he was going to kill me while the door was literally shaking on its hinges, I realized I

didn't really have any other choice. I tried one time to reason with him, told him I called 911 and if he didn't stop hammering on my door like he was, but he literally screamed back at me, call them, it's you who they'll take away in cuffs you mother effer. And I swear to god his voice sounded different. He was so detached from reality by that point that he legitimately thought that he could get me arrested for something. So when I told him I was on the phone to 911 asking for any kind of mental health assistance, he went right back to his apartment and called them himself. I know that because about 15 minutes into the call,

the operator named him first and second name and told their dispatch center I'd just received a complaint against me, coming from a guy that sounded completely out of control. They sent the cops out that night, but Dave somehow managed to act normal enough for them to leave without arresting him for anything. They also knocked on my apartment too though, which is how I gave them the lowdown on everything that had been happening. He didn't get any serious help until later that day when the mental health team knocked over to talk to him about his behavior. I swear to God those people were a literal godsend and I have no idea how they did it,

but they managed to just convince him into coming with them to get checked into somewhere for a few days so he could get some medication. They left his apartment door open when they were talking to him and I was leaning my head out into the hallway to listen in on what was going on. I only have a faint idea of what was said but as they were leaving, Dave was in tears. I told him I was sorry for having to call the cops but that I needed to get him some help and he was just crying like a baby saying I know dude, I'm sorry too. I just shut my apartment door when they were gone and I'd be lying if I said I didn't shed a tear too. It was just an awful thing seeing someone all broken down like that. I didn't go visit him in the hospital and I didn't think it was my place

to do something like that. Besides, he had an ex-wife and a kid who still cared about him enough to go visit, as well as a few brothers and sisters who brought him food and other home comforts. I only found out what actually happened when he came back a month later and I went over to check on him to see if he was okay. Turns out he'd had a friend pass from cancer at home and he'd been one of the two people going over to make sure that he was as comfortable as possible. Guy couldn't afford the hospital bills as he had no savings or insurance so this 40-something dude just had to lie in bed at home,

wracked with pain until his body finally just gave up and died. Dave and this other caregiver had been there at the time and he said that he couldn't sleep for days afterwards. Not long after that he started hearing voices in the walls and well, the rest you guys know already. I suppose I want to make clear that this isn't just a scary thing that happened to me, there's kind of a lesson to it too. If you know of someone whose mental health appears to be suffering in some way, like seriously on a steep descent, then do not hesitate in contacting someone. I should have called that crisis team the moment it became clear

that Dave was hearing things that weren't really there, but I hesitated and that could have been a fatal mistake. Either Dave could have hurt himself or he could have hurt me or one of our neighbors and because I was one of the few people to notice what was going on, I think I'd have had to shoulder some of the blame for anything that occurred. I'd like to live in a world where we all take care of each other a little more and it's not just physical health that's important. Anyways, thanks for reading and I hope it wasn't too much of a bummer towards the end. I just wanted people to understand that Dave wasn't a bad guy at all. He'd just gone through a traumatic experience

that I honestly think would drive most people crazy. I just hope people can learn from this indirectly, so that if someone in their lives needs help, they can be the person that gets them the assistance they need before it's too late. Back when I first moved up to New York, the fumes from the traffic outside made my asthma come back with a vengeance. I ended up going to a doctor and he said that I didn't have to worry anymore because he had this top of the line asthma medication that would completely rid me of my symptoms. I was over the moon when he told me that as I was having a really rough time, like couldn't sleep and stuff because of it. So I got the prescription, hit up a local pharmacy for the pills, then got home and took like three of them immediately so I could finally

get some decent sleep. I take the pills, take a shower, grab a bite to eat and then I head to bed and read a book until my lungs untighten and I start to feel sleepy. I remember turning my lamp off before I settled down to go to sleep and the last thing I did was cuddle my cat and be like, finally, we can get some sleep, don't it? From memory, this would have been maybe 10.30 at night, so it was still relatively early, especially by Brooklyn standards. Then at maybe 1.30 in the morning, I woke up, still with nice clear lungs, but when I opened my eyes, I saw a short, dark shape standing in the middle of my bedroom. I immediately shot up out of bed, switched on the lamp on my bedside table and got ready to either kick whoever's butt or run screaming from the room. But when the light lit up the room, there was absolutely nothing

there. It looked like it could have been a kid. It was that short, but then it was also way too bulky to be a kid. It looked like a smaller version of a large, muscular grown man. Needless to say, I was seriously unsettled by what I saw, or what I thought I saw, and the whole thing basically ruined any chance I had at a decent night's sleep as I was absolutely terrified to see that thing again. I only really fell back asleep as I saw the dawn start to break outside and then about an hour later I had to be up for work. The next day, I was terrified, talking to my friends in a group chat but they just thought that it was hilarious, telling me that there's no such things as ghosts and whatnot and that I must have just imagined

the whole thing. When I saw on my grandma's grave that not a word of what I was saying was a lie, they just carried on making fun of me, telling me to get an exorcist and all this nonsense, that if I was going to make up a ghost story at least make it spooky. But I wasn't making anything up. I didn't believe in the supernatural or anything like that but what I experienced had me seriously questioning whether I'd been right to just assume it was all nonsense. Because what else explained what I saw and how quickly it disappeared? When they finally started to believe me one suggested I'd been experiencing some kind of sleep paralysis. They had a cousin that had gone through a literal nightmare of a time dealing with a condition that made it feel like there was some kind of demon in the room with them at night and they couldn't do a single thing to stop it because they couldn't move.

Only that didn't make sense because the moment I saw the shape of the thing, I jumped up and turned my light on to see if anything was there, which is right when the thing just seemed to completely disappear. That's when my buddy starts getting seriously concerned for me. I think he finally started to appreciate that I wasn't just making stuff up. After that, he actually starts trying to help me figure it all out and we'd go through a ton of different medical conditions and stuff before he finally asked me if I'm on drugs. He meant like actual illegal drugs or whatever, but that's when it hit me. I was on

a new medication for my asthma, and the medication was Singular. I grabbed the box, took out the little piece of paper on the inside, then started reading through the side effects. That's how I found out that in some cases, your first few doses can cause waking dreams around your sleeping hours, like brief hallucinations that are basically just dreams bleeding over into reality. It was such a relief knowing I wasn't going crazy, and even more of a relief knowing that nothing remotely supernatural was going on, because I can't even describe how terrifying of a concept that was to me. I'd grown up not believing in anything like that, that sudden

but false realization that spirits, demons, whatever you want to call them, were real. That's a feeling of terror that I don't think I'll ever forget. So just a little warning out there. Be careful with Singular because as much as it did a great job in ridding me of my asthma symptoms, I went right back to using my inhaler. No, it wasn't nearly as effective and I still had a lot of trouble sleeping for a while until I finally moved to a less air polluted city. But it was way, way better than suffering from hallucinations, especially scary ones in the middle of the night. So, I go to this comedy club in NYC called The Stand, and a few years back something happened

that was literally anything but funny. This one week, these two comedians had a roast battle, which is basically just two guys saying a bunch of mean but funny stuff about each other in front of the audience. Generally whoever makes the audience laugh the most wins a round, and then it's whoever has the most points out of five rounds is the winner. This one guy wins, by definitely a mile, and the other guy is joking about how he's going to get him back, stuff like that, how they should have a rematch the next week. The club actually books it and since it was such a good roast battle, pretty much the exact same audience and more show up for the show the following week.

The way the club is set up, there's no backstage or whatever so the comedians just sit at the bar in a little closed off area until they're ready to do their sets and then they literally have to walk through the crowd to get to the stage. So it looked like the guy who lost the roast battle hadn't showed up. And when this gets announced, everyone is groaning, disappointed that they weren't going to see the rematch. So instead, the winner gets invited up just to do a normal set. Then, as he's walking to the stage, some guy who had been sitting in the audience in a hoodie stands up real fast, pulls a gun from his pants, and just fires a shot at the guy who then hits the floor, hard.

People freaked out. They started running for the exits, screaming and crying. Some people tackle the shooter whilst others run to see if the comedian's okay. Then as I look around because I'm in the process of running myself, I see the comedian suddenly up on his feet and he just looks like, sorry, is the only way I can think to describe it. Then the shooter, the guy in the hoodie, has already pulled his hood down and it's the dude who lost the roast battle. Basically, they'd come up with an idea to fake a shooting to make it look like the loser wanted some serious revenge. Only I can't think of a dumber prank to pull in a packed comedy club like that.

I mean, it was like shouting fire in a crowded theater thing, you know. People could have actually died from people getting crushed and I think we're actually lucky that it didn't go down like that. The comedian had to rush onto the stage and get on the mic to say stuff like that it was a prank, people. Everyone calm down. It's just a prank. It's not a real gun. The guy had used a fake, but it was some kind of firecracker to make the noise and all that stuff. I mean, I'm not 100% sure how he did it, but it was convincing enough to scare the life out of almost everyone in the club. Both people were banned from performing there, and I think the fake shooter actually got a visit from the cops afterward

for inciting a panic or something of that nature. It wasn't funny at all, obviously. It was one of the scariest things I've ever been a part of. Hey Joel, found your channel a few weeks back and I have a story for you. I used to live in this apartment building in Queens, New York City and this one time some nice lady invited us to an apartment warming when she moved into our building. It was pretty cool. It was nice to meet some of the people in my building that I'd never spoken to in all the years I'd been there, and it was only a handful of people with some bottles of wine, so it wasn't too crazy. But then at one point, right when everyone is talking, we just hear the scream

that sounded like it came from down this lady's hallway near her bathroom. Me and this other guy went to investigate thinking someone from the party had gotten hurt or something, but then realized that not only were the bathroom and bedroom empty, but no one from the party was actually missing. We're just kind of like, so if it wasn't one of us, who screamed? It was way too loud and clear to have come from another apartment, but there was no one there when we went to look, which was instantly after we'd heard it. It totally killed the mood of the party and we all left not long after with the lady who'd just moved in being kind of scared to be alone. I would be too. She moved a little while after too and the apartment had stayed empty ever since.

I'm not saying that I live in a haunted apartment building or anything like that. I'm not a person who believes in the ghosts or ghoulies or anything but something bad definitely happened in that apartment that night. I just don't know what. what? My hometown is a little more than a bump in the road. There's a lot of places like it in the southwestern United States. Once thriving cities that can now hardly be called villages. All these little settlements usually have one or two all-in-one stores. Nothing more than bumped up gas station grocery convenience stores. In my town's case, there was only one, and my folks happened to own it.

I spent most of my time growing up in the place accompanying one or both parents as they worked. By twelve, I was working my summers off from school. I didn't like it, but it was the only way to get money, so I did it. I was lucky, in hindsight. No other kids I knew had the things I had. My story focuses on a terrifying incident I experienced in the summer before I left for college. I was 18 and excited to get away from home for a while. In the back of the store, we had a small kitchen area where we sold greasy crap like hamburgers and fries. There was a small group of older men who came in every morning for breakfast.

They'd sit at a small dining area tucked out of the way, eating, drinking coffee, and gossiping. I'd known most of them my whole life and left them to serve themselves while I watched the front. It was after 8am when this strange man came in. He looked very nervous and messy in general. The first time I saw him, he came in for only about 30 seconds. He looked around very briefly, walked up and down the aisle and then exited. He returned to his car and sat there alone. It looked like he was having an argument with himself. I assumed that he was leaving and went back to my other work. About a minute passed and I heard the chime on the door go off. I turned to see that it was the same crazy man. He glanced around for a second time but rather

than leave, he approached the counter. I asked him if he needed any help but got no answer. He glanced around the store again then looked at me and smiled. I started to ask him again but was interrupted. Quickly, he pulled a small kitchen knife from his pocket. I freaked out and screamed. I looked out at the gas pumps for help, but no one was there. The man ran forward and hopped over the counter. There was no space for me to escape.

This threw me into a total panic. I was wailing and unable to communicate. He grabbed me and ordered me to open the cash register. The situation was chaotic. I was too terrified to think clearly. This just made the crazy guy even more angry. He started slapping me, then showed me the knife. This calmed me down enough to push the no sale button and the register sprung open. He threw me down onto the floor and began scooping money from the drawer. I laid there watching as he did this, hoping that he had no more use for me. Suddenly a big shadow appeared over me and grabbed my assailant. The shadow and the crazy guy struggled briefly until the crazy guy disappeared behind the counter. The shadow followed quickly behind. Now I was more confused than scared. I got up to my knees and looked over the counter.

And to my amazement, two of the breakfast regulars were trading punches on the robber. In the confusion, I had forgotten completely about them. Being tucked away around the corner made them all but invisible to anyone in the store, including myself. Still a bit disoriented, I remained there watching the men beating up on the guy for at least a minute or two. I'd never seen someone take such a whipping in my life. Only later did I see that one of the men had been slashed by the crazy man. That probably accounted for the extra rough treatment.

It reached a point where I figured I better step in before they actually killed this dude. I just asked calmly and they stopped. The attacker laid motionless on the floor while he bled like a pig. I came around the corner and thanked them for their help. While I wrapped the man's wounds and the other gentleman called in to the sheriff, everyone told the sheriff their sides and the crazy guy got a free ride to the county jail. My two heroes were awarded with free breakfast for life by my parents. Speaking to my parents, I'm ashamed to say I waited a good four hours until I called them. They were naturally upset and gave me a few days off to recuperate.

Instead of talking to someone like I should have, I used the opportunity to just get drunk with my friends. I never really took the time to deal with this and this would come back to haunt me later in college but that's a whole different story for another day. Maybe I'll share that with y'all in the future. Thank you all for your time and please do stay safe. My My first job was at a Kroger's in my hometown. I worked as a sacker, or as the position was officially known, a courtesy clerk. The store was on the edge of a rather rough neighborhood. This brought with it a large share of conflict.

In my two years there, I witnessed countless shopliftings and fights. Around Thanksgiving, for example, I watched as two women assaulted one another over the last turkey in the case. While they were busy slapping and pulling at each other's hair, a heavyset man walked up behind them and took the bird for himself. When they realized that it was gone, both women sighed loudly, turned around, and just walked away. That one still makes me laugh. As for the shoplifting, we were explicitly ordered to not stop them. It was left up to the managers to handle.

This usually went off without any problems, although I did hear about a night manager being stabbed stopping a thief, but that was before I worked there, so I can't confirm its truth. I may make light of the crimes I witnessed during my time at the store but in hindsight I now realize just how close some of them came to going wrong. There was one argument that went from funny to scary real fast. I was 19 that year and a few months from quitting, although I didn't know that at the time. This took place on a normal summer afternoon. The store didn't have many customers.

I had just mopped up a small spill on the soda aisle. I was returning to the storefront and overheard a man yelling. Naturally, I wanted to see what was up. From a little hiding place the next aisle over over I could hear the man berating another for banging his cart into his. The man guilty of the banging was on his phone and that made the victim even angrier. This victim berated his foe until the man ended his call. Rather than looking scared, the banger appeared uninterested. He tried to apologize and carry on, but the victim clearly wanted a fight. A normal person doesn't ignore an apology or attempt to escalate a situation unless they want conflict.

The other guy just wasn't having it. He apologized again and tried to get away as soon as possible. He hadn't made it more than a few yards before the victim growled and charged him. The other guy had no clue what was about to happen. As he grew closer, the angry guy crouched down and tackled this guy. Both men slammed into a nearby end cap of cans and fell to the floor. The angry guy was clearly dazed from the crash. The other guy didn't look affected at all.

He looked just as cool as before. The angry guy's impairment gave him the opportunity to get away and he took it. He jumped back to his feet and started nonchalantly walking away. It took a moment for the angry guy to regain his wits. He obviously hadn't learned from his mistake. He was still just stupidly angry. He struggled to his feet and looked around in a panic. The other guy had made it about halfway down the aisle, roughly 30 yards. The angry guy pursued him, minus the growling, and his target must have known that he was coming this time. The angry guy got about three steps away when the other

guy spun around and kicked him in the nuts. As he was bent over, the other guy feel-gold kicked him in the head. This sent the angry guy flying back onto the hard linoleum, and the sound of the angry guy's head hitting the floor literally still gives me chills. This final strike put the angry guy out of action, and with that threat neutralized, I guess you could say the other guy turned back toward the doors and just walked away. Me and the small crowd who had assembled to watch this fight watched with disbelief as he walked out the front doors and just disappeared from sight. The angry guy wasn't so lucky. After the paramedics took him to the hospital, he was escorted by police and, I assume, arrested. Thankfully,

I never saw either guy again. To be continued... My daughter asked me if I wanted to share one or two personal experiences I've had as a police officer. She's a cop too and seems to think that they may go some way in humanizing us in the eyes of our detractors. I have my doubts, but it's important to her, so I agreed to do it. So you may understand my way of seeing things, I'll give you a bit of background before I retired. I grew up middle class in the Midwest of America. After a few years of college, I quit and joined the army. Soon after I enlisted, Iraq invaded Kuwait and we were sent to drive them out. I didn't see much combat, thank God. After my enlistment ended, I got out and enrolled in the police training program. I graduated that and

became a street cop. The majority of my career was spent on the streets until I retired a couple of years ago. These days, I earn my daily bread as a gunsmith, and that's about the lot of it. The story I'm telling today started not long after I got my first assignment. I answered a call at a supermarket. The female manager met me at the front doors and informed me that a man was bothering customers. I walked around the store until I came across a disheveled middle-aged man. He was talking to a pair of teenage girls. They were visibly distressed so I approached and told the girls that they could leave. Without blinking, the male turned to me and continued his conversation.

He wasn't aggressive or loud, but you could tell from his body language and behavior that he clearly had some sort of mental illness. I asked him some questions and he answered politely. I mentioned that some people had complained about him. His only reply was, okay. He apparently lived nearby with his sister. Unsure of what to do, I thought for a minute and suggested that he may want to return home in case she was looking for him. This tact seemed to have worked, as he said okay again and headed toward the front. I followed him alongside, continuing to make small talk. Everything was going well until he noticed

the manager standing nearby and unexpectedly blew up on her. I approached him and inquired what was wrong. He pointed at her and said she was a bad person, a mean person, he yelled. I suggested that he'd be happier if he left the store where she couldn't bother him, and he agreed. We stood out front and talked a few more minutes until he said that he had to leave. I said goodbye and watched him walk off until he disappeared behind a gas station. I re-entered the store and spoke to the manager one final time. I explained the situation and she looked to be relieved. And with all parties satisfied I headed back to my

cruiser to finish my shift and do a bit of write-ups. I assumed the problem had been resolved and put the call out of my mind. A few weeks went by and I got another call to the market. It was a near carbon copy of the first. On this occasion, I came across Barry, I forgot to mention his name earlier in the story, as he had a young man cornered near the pharmacy. I believed he was talking about Henry Kissinger when I walked up, it was really weird. The poor kid had no clue what he was talking about. As before I interjected so the kid could escape.

I took advantage of our prior meeting and again convinced Barry that he may be needed at home. He agreed and this time I figured I could just let him walk out unaccompanied and this was a rookie mistake. A minute had passed and I heard him yelling at somebody. I figured it was the manager and I was right. I stepped between them and Barry soon lost interest. No further talk was needed to get him to leave after that. I was beginning to wonder why he hated this woman so much when he was so friendly to complete strangers. I asked if he and her had any previous history but she couldn't remember ever seeing him until recently. And I'll never claim to know what's going on in the head of a crazy person.

Maybe he just hated her face, who knows. Over the next several months, Barry became a regular source of problems not only for the store but for me. At least twice a week I would get called about him. Not always from the store, but it was the store from where the friction occurred and made my job that much harder. I became so desperate to solve this problem I met with his sister. I'd hoped that between the two of us, we'd be able to find a solution. Unfortunately, she had a load of problems of her own. She was clearly battling some painful and degenerative disease. She was in no state to be dealing with her brother. I left their house feeling disappointed and honestly even more hopeless.

Not long after that visit, something changed in Barry. His aggressive attitude toward the manager escalated drastically. On one call to the store, I was met outside by the woman in question, and she was a mess. Barry had approached her out of nowhere and started cursing and even threatening to kill her. He'd already left the store before I arrived, so I didn't get to talk to him. This incident made me even more determined to solve the problem peacefully once and for all. Something told me bad things were ahead. After several meetings with his caseworker, we came to the consensus that Barry may need to be

institutionalized, at least temporarily. We were actually waiting for all the specifics to be resolved when he took his vendetta all the way to the end. If I recall right, it had been around a week since I'd had any Barry-related calls. The opportunity to experience new and varied crimes were a welcome change. I was nearing the end of my shift one night when I heard the all too familiar address come across the radio, but this time something was very different. There had been reports of gunshots from a few homeowners nearby, but there had also been a call from a female stating that she had been attacked outside the store and was forced to shoot the assailant. I took the call and hurried to the scene. When my backup and I arrived,

I could see the manager sitting on the curb alongside a male I didn't recognize. The manager was bawling her eyes out. The man appeared to be attempting to comfort her. A piece of fabric was wrapped around the man's forearm. It looked to be lightly stained with a red substance, probably blood. What I saw next made my heart sink. Illuminated in my headlights before me lay the body of a male, and that male was Barry. We exited our cruisers and began our work. According to the manager, she and her fellow employee had stayed over after the store closed to do the usual paperwork.

The gentleman was walking her to her car when Barry appeared from the bushes and began ranting at her as usual. Only this time, he was waving a knife around. The male employee tried to de-escalate the encounter only to get a slash across his arm for his trouble. And this is when the female manager drew her gun from her purse and fired on Barry six times. He had unfortunately passed before we arrived. In her statement, she said after he began threatening her, she bought a pistol and took a self-defense class. I really don't blame her. Barry's behavior was becoming very menacing near the end. It was a very sad situation

all around, but she'd done everything legally and there was no grounds to prosecute. She was clearly traumatized by taking a life as you would expect. The saddest part of this all was what we would discover later. Barry had apparently stopped taking his meds around the time I first encountered him. This was the most probable reason for his downhill slide. I did get to speak to his sister on one more occasion. She indicated that he would occasionally fixate on a single person and this person was usually a stranger in a position of power. In certain instances, he would stop taking his medication and this would be amplified. In the past, she had been able to get him to return to his pills and the trouble would stop.

Sadly this time she had been distracted with her own health battle and missed the signs. And I don't blame her either. The truth is no one should be saddled with the care of someone like Barry. In this case it truly does take a village. Out of all the things I saw and dealt with in my career, what occurred in those few months involving Barry have stuck with me ever since. The way in which I interacted with suspects, how I handled unknown situations, all of it grew out of how things played out in his case. His death made me a better cop, believe it or not. I realize that

may sound odd, but I assure you it's true. I was determined to avoid similar results in the future. The citizens I interacted with weren't always happy with my decisions, but it kept people safe and that's all that mattered to me at the end of the day. What I've written here is the bulk of what occurred in that case. There may be a few facts I chose to leave out, but the idea is still the same. When my little girl came to me with this idea, I was not only skeptical, but more than reticent to share personal aspects of my career. This story in particular doesn't portray me in a very professional light. I don't think most cops would like people to know just how clueless we all are at the start of our career. Initially, I planned on writing about another case but then realized this story was perfect for what my

daughter had envisioned. As for if I actually achieved what I set out to do, that's up to the readers to determine. I did my best, not being a professional writer and all, and I hope what I was trying to say came across clearly enough. I've definitely rattled on much longer than necessary, and although I have a lot more I'd like to include, I'll just end here. In the spring of 1994, my parents bought a modest three-bedroom house in a quiet working-class neighborhood. Along with my partner, my mother and me still live there, but are soon moving to another area.

Throughout my childhood, I watched a safe, family-oriented place slowly become a crime-ridden hole. I tried telling myself it wasn't that bad. I hoped things would change and I'd be proud of my home again. Then I became a victim of a crime and was forced to acknowledge it, and once and for all, I realized that things weren't going to get better. It occurred as I was leaving my job one evening. At the time, I was working at a supermarket not far from the house. I'd been employed at this specific store for over 12 years.

I had started at 16 as a bagger and worked my way up through the ranks. When I chose not to go to college, the company rewarded me with a promotion to head checker. I'd only just recently been promoted to the position of shift manager and had worked nine hours that day. Our household only had one usable car between the three of us. I worked close to home so I walked and left the car for my partner. On this evening, the sun was just starting to go down. I had turned the corner and just set foot on the sidewalk when I noticed a couple loitering up ahead of me. I didn't really pay them any mind and continued my walk.

As I got within a few feet of them, the female approached me and asked if I had a cigarette. I don't smoke, so I told her no. While she was doing this, the guy walked around to my right side and stood about three feet away. I attempted to continue on my way, but the woman stepped in front of me. She demanded I give her my purse. I was disgusted and told her to screw off. She grabbed for it but I pulled it away. I looked around for a path to escape. He stepped forward a few steps and she spoke under her breath. Don't get any ideas. He's got a gun. I could see his right hand stuck in the pocket of his jacket. He pushed it towards me. I did consider the possibility that it was just his finger, but I wasn't ready to take the chance.

Both were definitely addicts. They were skinny, dirty, his eyes were hollow and dead. If anyone was capable of murder, it was probably him. In light of the situation, I chose to let her take my purse. Something happened when she got closer. I got a better look at her face and I realized that I actually recognized her. She had grown up a few streets from me and was once a happy and nice girl. Her life had seemed normal until she became pregnant at 15 and was forced to quit school. I don't remember seeing her after that, and my face must have betrayed my thoughts. She stopped what she was doing and gave me a suspicious look, and my heart began pounding. I was afraid she could hear it and she gazed at me for a moment. What's your problem? Why are you looking at me like that? The male, who had been antsy the entire time, became annoyed at the girl and told her to hurry.

He was staring down the sidewalk when an older man was walking his dog in our direction. My mouth became dry and I reflexively swallowed. I could barely answer. If she knew I could identify her, I had the very real fear that I reflexively swallowed. I could barely answer. If she knew I could identify her, I had the very real fear that I'd be killed. I did my best actress performance and said that I was just scared. And just like that, she went back to normal and took my purse away from me. Now that they had what they wanted, they walked quickly across the street out of sight. And I must have been in shock. I stood in that spot a good 15 minutes trying to think of what to do. My phone had been in my purse,

911 wasn't an option at that point. In the end, I decided to just walk home. My mom was cooking dinner when I arrived. I wanted to say something, but I wasn't prepared for the drama that came with it. I waited until my partner arrived and I told them both over dinner. The reaction was what I expected. My mom freaked out and demanded that I call the cops. My partner is much more even tempered. I asked her what I should do and she agreed with my mom. I was doubtful that the cops could do anything.

I'd only lost a few dollars and an old phone. I was doubtful that the cops could do anything. I'd only lost a few dollars and an old phone. I was safe. And that was all that mattered to me. I wanted it to all be over, but I knew my mom wouldn't leave me alone until I did. They showed up about an hour later and took my statement. And that was the lot of it. Nothing has really come of it so far and probably won't. The robbery did change a few things though.

My partner started driving me back and forth to work until I could transfer to a store in a safer area. The three of us discussed everything and decided the area was no longer safe to live in. My mom and my partner Lisa began looking for new places. My job was to talk to my bosses about a transfer. They were sympathetic to my situation and happy to help. And within a few weeks, I was working at a new store across town in a nice neighborhood. As I write this, our little family is two months away from moving into our new apartment. I look forward to exploring our new home, but I'll always think back fondly on that old neighborhood and the way things used to be. The people involved have all been caught and sentenced, so I'm fairly confident I can tell this story now.

To start, I work as a rep for a local beer distributor. You've more than likely enjoyed one of our products once or twice. I've been at this job for almost six years and I like it. Most of my days are spent in the grocery stores and large convenience stores, making sure that they're all well stocked and our products are placed as prominently as our competitors. That's just what I was doing the morning that I got caught up in a robbery. I arrived at the store not long after 9am. That time of the morning was quiet and had few customers. This is your regular neighborhood supermarket with all the major departments such

as a florist, deli, and pharmacy. And the pharmacy is where the robbery occurred. It was located relatively close to the beer and wine section, maybe 25 yards apart. I don't believe that they had any customers at the time. I was checking stock and such when I heard a male voice coming from inside the pharmacy. You could tell that he was trying to be quiet, but something had caused him to raise his voice suddenly. His tone made me a little uneasy. I walked a short distance to a spot with a clear view of the counter. From my perspective, I could only see one man. He was holding a semi-automatic pistol in one hand and a large canvas bag in the other. He had some type

of N95 mask covering his face. I should have stepped away and found a safe spot to call 911, but I heard another man speaking out of my range of sight. I moved up a few feet as quietly as possible, and now I could see the whole scene. The second man was pushing and yelling at a pharmacist, sticking a pistol to his ribs. He wasn't screaming, yet I could hear every word clearly from my position. I was mystified at how no one in the store hadn't heard him too. The first man, the one holding the bag, was focused on any external threats. His eyes darted back and forth scanning the room. It's a miracle he never saw me. The stack of beer cases did little to conceal my body and I think he was too nervous to really see anything that wasn't right in front of him. When the second man had filled the first bag, he set it down and took

the other from the lookout, the first man. He ran over to his shelf and began sweeping all the bottles into the bag. He repeated this with two more shelves. Everyone working in the pharmacy was frozen in fear. They wouldn't even look the robbers in the face. A female was crouched down on the floor and just happened to be in the robber's path. He tripped over her as he ran toward the counter to make his escape. He got up furious and began beating the female over the head and back. She instinctively wrapped her arms over her head and curled into a ball. He did this four or five times before the gun

fell apart in his hand. He stared in disbelief at his hand. His partner slapped him across the arm and he snapped out of his daze. The pair grabbed their bags and fled from the store without anyone lifting a finger. The whole robbery lasted no more than three or four minutes max. I waited until I couldn't see them any longer before running to offer aid. The female employee was terrified beyond belief but looked otherwise unhurt. I'm sad to say my assessment at the time was way off the mark. She didn't have any visible wounds but the experience scarred her mind so badly that she was unable to return to work. The head pharmacist was already on the phone before I arrived. The employers were handling the situation very well considering

what they'd been through. I was shaking so badly my teeth were actually chattering. I believe now that there may have been a few in the store besides myself who were aware of what was happening but were just too scared to do anything. It was only after they saw me assisting that they felt it safe enough to approach. I don't blame them at all. After all, I hid and watched like a frightened child as the woman was pistol whipped repeatedly, and I have no room to criticize. Slowly, customers and store employees started trickling over to help. The police arrived and questioned everyone they could. I'd watched almost the whole thing but could give them very little. This was right in the middle of the pandemic. Everyone and his brother were wearing some form of mask. The

female employee who had been attacked was taken away in an ambulance and the rest just stood around unsure of what to do. I stayed around after the police left and helped the pharmacist close up the pharmacy for the remainder of the day. Once that was done, I moved on to the next store and worked the rest of my shift. I must have still been in shock to be honest. My boss was a bit surprised when I told him but thankful. There wasn't much as far as news until the start of 2022. The men involved in the robbery were caught during the execution of a similar robbery at a CVS. Both took pleas and are currently serving sentences in state prison. I have no idea if the criminals will change their ways nor does it really matter I suppose.

I'm sure I can speak for everyone in saying that it's a relief they've been caught and are off the streets. I'm handling things well myself but I wasn't one of those in the middle of the robbery. They are the ones I'm concerned about. Hopefully with time and counseling, they will all be able to reclaim the somewhat normal lifestyle again, and they deserve it. If you could, please pray for them. I guess to make things as simple as possible, I'll start the story directly following my breakup. I say breakup, but in truth, I was dumped. It was my first relationship and when it ended, I was deeply depressed.

I won't lie, thinking about taking my own life entered my mind several times a day. Had it not been for my fear of death and the constant support from Mike, I may have done it. Mike and I had been friends since kindergarten and his upbeat, positive attitude would prove to be a big help in that time after. I'd lost interest in hanging out and began spending all my time sleeping. No one even noticed my absence except for him. When I didn't answer my phone he came around to see me. Through his persistence I eventually allowed him in. We made small talk

in the beginning. Nothing was said about the relationship and this tactic helped me break down the wall I'd put up. I'm not sure if Mike had all this planned ahead of time, and I don't care. His way helped me move on, and for that, he gained my undying loyalty. At some point, Mike brought up a job opening at the grocery store where he worked. He encouraged me to apply for it, and I was hired, and this made my mom elated. I think she was worried about me and possibly colluded with Mike to get me out of the house. Well, like I said, I got hired and worked as much as I could. Not much really happened until my final year of high school. I didn't

have the grades or the desire to go on to college. Mike, on the other hand, was very smart. He had the pick of universities and finally chose Columbia. And time flew by. Before I realized it, Mike's final week in town arrived. He and I had been scheduled to work one final shift together. Then he'd be off across the country for the best part of four years. It was a normal shift in every way, except maybe we screwed around a bit more than usual. We raced each other with the carts once in a while but that day we went all out. An hour before the shift ended, he and I just happened to be out in the lot at the same time. We gave each other a nod which meant that it was time to race back to the doors.

Our carts were lined up roughly at the same place, just one aisle apart. We readied and on my signal, we began the race. And honestly, it was neck and neck. Both of us had a clear shot to the door. I was just ahead as we reached the end of the aisles. A space of roughly 20 yards stood between me and Glory in my mind, and the coast was clear. Until it wasn't. Out of nowhere, a truck sped into the lot and smashed into Mike's cart. The force of the collision threw him and the cart into the front

sidewalk. This almost happened to me, but I stopped just in time. When I watched in horrors, the driver hurried out the other side of the lot and just disappeared as fast as he'd arrived. People were already huddled around Mike. His body was slightly twisted and he was unconscious. I freaked out and started yelling for someone to call 911. I tried to grab and shake him but an older lady stopped me. Emergency services showed up incredibly quickly. Against my will I was forced to stay behind and talk to police. I hadn't gotten a plate number or anything so I was basically useless. As soon as the cops finished with me I raced to the hospital. I wasn't prepared for what I'd heard when I got there.

The thought of Mike dying hadn't entered my mind. Why would God let something so senseless happen? I guess God must have had something better to do that day. The docs thought that he likely died the second that he was hit. This was a small yet welcome comfort I guess in my mind. And too bad it did nothing to stop the guilt. And the guilt is the worst. No matter how long it's been, the guilt never really ever goes away. I've been beating myself up for over six years now. That's about all there's left really to discuss, too. The driver was never caught, but I never expected him to be, really, and that's how life has always worked out. Sometimes I wish, you know, we'd all be

vaporized in some big war and honestly things are looking like they may be like that soon. I'm really sorry if this just ended on such a bleak note but none of what happened in my life has made any sense. I have achieved nothing and it looks like that won't change anytime soon. I miss my friend horribly and pray there is an actual afterlife so I can see him again. If you're lucky to have someone in your life as great as I did, spend every moment as possible with them.

Tell them just how important they are to you. If Mike was here right now, that's what I'd do. Never forget, friendship is the greatest gift we've been given. Don't squander it. I had a scary close call about six years ago where I thought I'd witnessed a deadly car crash. It was just after 2am and I was returning from a friend's house. He'd had a small birthday party. He's a recovering addict so there wasn't any booze around and it was nice not to have to find a ride home for once. This all took place in January.

There had been a snowstorm a few days earlier and the roads were still slick in places. I wasn't worried, I'd grown up driving in that type of weather and there weren't many cars on the road that time of morning. I was about two miles from home when I passed a closed grocery store. The parking lot was empty except for an old VW station wagon. It caught my eye because my parents had one when I was a kid. I hadn't seen one in a long time and it made me smile. There were two guys sitting inside, parked. I almost pulled in to talk to them but figured that they didn't want to

be bothered. I carried on a ways then considered going back. I didn't have anything better to do and I really wanted to get a closer look at the car. I was in real danger of drowning in nostalgia. I pulled into a nearby cul-de-sac and turned around. When I got back to the store, the guys were doing donuts around the empty lot. The icy conditions made the car spin and slide. It looked like a lot of fun to be honest. I pulled into a parking lot and watched them from a safe distance. I could talk to them when they were done, I thought to myself.

And meanwhile, I sat back and enjoyed the show. The guys kept at it for about ten minutes, stopping briefly once to defog the windshield and just continued on. A moment then came where the driver sped across the lot and cut the wheel real hard. The tail of the car whipped around with such force that it threw the car into a roll. Before I could process what happened, the car had rolled over at least twice and came to a halt on the roof. I'll admit it took me a moment to react. You don't see that kind of nonsense every day.

I snapped myself out of it and ran to help, and I almost slipped on my butt, but when I reached them, I was relieved to see that both guys were moving and trying to get free of their seatbelts. The passenger did so first. He came around to the driver's side to help me. The belt was stuck so I had to cut it. He dropped onto his back and crawled out of his window. I must have sounded like an overprotective mother when I told him to be careful as he did so.

Once both guys were out I looked them over but they didn't appear to be hurt. I did some dumb stuff like ask them who the president was or something like that to see if they were oriented. They answered correctly, neither had as much as a scratch I guess. I wanted to call 911 but they refused. Both lacked medical insurance, not to mention the car's inspection was expired and they didn't want the heat from the cops for what they were doing. I understood and let it go. And now that the initial shock had passed, we were able to laugh about it. And things got funnier from there. The driver asked if I'd help them push the car back onto its wheels. I didn't think we could do it, but a few minutes of lifting and shifting and we actually did.

It reminded me of Halo. The car was relatively untouched. The paint was scratched along the side and roof but that was the worst of it. There was apparently a small dent on the roof but the driver easily popped it out with his fist. Now we crossed our fingers and hoped that the car would start. It took a few cranks but it did. The guys got back into the car and bid me a good night. I asked one more time if they felt okay and they said yes, and that was it. I shook their hands and they drove off out of the lot and down the road. It was a night I'll certainly never forget. I was amped up when I got home and it

took me a while to fall asleep. After that night I saw the VW around town every once in a while. Two years later I graduated and moved to a new city. I never saw those two guys again. If one or both of you happen to see this I beg you to be more careful in the future. Things could have gone much differently that night. I'm glad I was there to help, but there may not be someone around the next time. To be continued... I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video.

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