The Lets Read Podcast - 194: URBAN LEGEND ORIGINS | 22 True Scary Stories | EP 182

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Urban Legends, Motels, & Craigslist... 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 & Bonus Content!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The The End Whenever the subject of urban legends arises, there's a good chance that one particular tale will rear its ugly head. As the story goes, a pair of young friends pay a visit to a traveling carnival and decide to patronize its rather creepy-looking haunted house. At some point, the children see a mock-up of a human corpse, one that looks a little too real, and on closer inspection, they're horrified to discover that it's no mere model. What they've been looking at was an actual cadaver, but as they run screaming from

the attraction, not a soul believes them. The next day, some police officers hear rumors of the corpse in the haunted house, but when he arrives to investigate, the circus is long gone, along with the body in the haunted house. It makes for a good campfire tale, but never in a million years would someone believe such a far-fetched story. However, in reality, the story is true. There really was a human corpse being used as part of an attraction at a traveling carnival, and the corpse belonged to a man named Elmer McCurdy. Elmer McCurdy was born in the state of Maine on January 1st of 1880. He was the son of an unmarried 17-year-old named Sadie McCurdy, while the identity as father remains unknown. Rumor has it that Elmer's father was actually his mother's cousin,

but in order to save Sadie the embarrassment and shame of raising an inbred and illegitimate child, her brother George and his wife Helen adopted the younger Elmer and raised him as their own. When the truth of his birth became known to him, a highly disturbed Elmer became incredibly resentful and was said to become unruly and rebellious. By his teenage years, he had become a heavy drinker, a habit he continued until his dying day. A few years later, Elmer departed Maine and began drifting around the eastern United States. He briefly gained employment as a lead miner and plumber, but in the use of nitroglycerin for demolition purposes.

Following his discharge from the military, Elmer met up with an old army friend in Kansas, whereupon he engaged in a burglary spree. He was arrested on November 19th of 1910 with a variety of what police called criminal paraphernalia, including chisels, hacksaws, funnels for nitroglycerin, gunpowder, and money sacks. Yet he was later found not guilty after a judge deemed that the tools could well be intended for work purposes. Following his release, Elmer threw himself into the criminal lifestyle and began a career as a train and bank robber. Yet his career as an armed robber was short-lived and, barely a year into his illicit endeavors, he committed what would be his final robbery. On October 4th of 1911, Elmer and two accomplices planned to rob a Katy train near Ocasa, Oklahoma. They had heard that the train contained $400,000 in cash that was intended as royalty payment to

the Osage Nation. However, in a twist of ineptitude, McCurdy and the men mistakenly stopped a passenger train instead and made off with only $46, two bottles of whiskey, and the train conductor's watch. A newspaper article later called it one of the smallest robberies in history, and to drown his sorrows over the bungled job, Elmer resumed his heavy drinking. He didn't believe for a second that such a measly haul would draw the ire of local law enforcement, but he was wrong, and in the early morning hours of October 7th, a posse of three sheriffs tracked Elmer to the hay shed that he was hiding in using bloodhounds. In a newspaper

interview published shortly afterward, Sheriff Bob Fenton recalled, It began at just 7 o'clock. We were standing around waiting for him to come out when the first shot was fired at me. It missed, but he kept shooting at all of us for about an hour. We fired back every time we could. In the end, Elmer was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, and his body was taken to an undertaker in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where he embalmed the body with an arsenic-based preservative typically used in embalming in that era to preserve a body for a long period when no next of kin were known. He then shaved

the face, dressed the body in a suit, and stored it in the back of the funeral home. Many weeks passed and Elmer's body remained unclaimed, but the undertaker refused to bury or release the body until he was paid for his services. It was then that the undertaker refused to bury or release the body until he was paid for his services. It was then that the undertaker decided to exhibit Elmer's dead body in order to recoup his losses. He dressed the corpse in street clothes, placed a rifle in the hands, and stood it up in the corner of the funeral home. Charging just a nickel for the privilege, the undertaker allowed visitors to see what he called the bandit who wouldn't give up. As a result, Elmer's corpse became a popular attraction at the funeral home,

so much so that it drew the attention of a pair of traveling carnival promoters. Then, on October 6th of 1916, a man claiming to be Elmer McCurdy's long-lost brother contacted the Oklahoma sheriff, seeking permission to take the body to San Francisco for a proper burial. The following day, the man arrived at the undertaker's office with a series of forged legal documents, forcing the undertaker to release the body into their custody. In reality, the men were not relatives of Elmer's. They were James and Charles Patterson, owners of the Great Patterson Carnival Shows. The Pattersons then shipped the body to Kansas, where it was featured in their carnival shows as

the outlaw who would never be captured alive. Then in 1922, James Patterson sold his operation to a man named Louis Sonny. Sonny then featured Elmer's corpse in his traveling Museum of Crime, which featured wax replicas of famous outlaws such as Jesse James. In 1933, it was acquired by movie director Dwayne Esper to promote his exploitation film entitled Narcotic. The corpse was placed in the lobby of a movie theater with the caption, Dead Dope Fiend, with Esper claiming that he had personally killed the man after he had robbed a drugstore to support his habit. By the time Esper came into possession of Elmer's body, it had become so badly mummified that the skin had

become hard and shriveled, which Esper claimed was proof of his supposed drug abuse. Following the promotional run of Narcotic, Elmer's corpse was stored in a Los Angeles warehouse and eventually made a brief appearance in the 1967 film She-Freak. Then, the following year, the owner of the warehouse sold the body, along with a series of wax figures, for $10,000 to the owner of the Hollywood Wax Museum. This is how a genuine human corpse started to become mistaken for fake, and in an amusing but disturbing twist, it was returned to the museum following its rental by another waxwork exhibit, who claimed the body was not lifelike enough to be an exhibit. The Hollywood Wax Museum then sold the corpse to the owner of the Pike,

an amusement zone in Long Beach, California, and by 1976, Elmer's corpse was hanging in the Pike's Laugh in the Dark Funhouse exhibition. Following its display at the Long Beach Funhouse, December of 1976 saw the production crew of the television show The Six Million Dollar Man use the exhibit for an episode entitled Carnival of Spies. During the shoot, a prop man moved what was thought to be a wax mannequin that was hanging from a set of gallows. When the mannequin's arm broke off, a human bone and muscle tissue were visible underneath. The prop man was understandably horrified

and immediately contacted the police, who in turn transported Elmer's mummified corpse to the Los Angeles coroner's office. The next day, a coroner conducted an autopsy and determined that the body was that of a human male who had died of a gunshot wound to the chest. By this point, Elmer's body was completely petrified, covered in wax, and had been covered with layers of phosphorus paint. But there were enough distinguishing features on his body to confirm that it was indeed the long-deceased Elmer McCurdy. A few days later, the grim tale of McCurdy's post-mortal journey was heard all over the United States. Out of a combination of respect and compassion, several local funeral homes offered to buy McCurdy free of charge, but officials decided to wait to see if any living relatives would come forward to claim the body.

Lacking any living relatives, the chief medical examiner of the Los Angeles County was then convinced to transport the body back to Oklahoma for burial, and on April 22nd of 1977, Elmer was finally put to rest at the Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. The funeral was attended by almost 300 people, all of whom wished to pay their last respects to a man whose corpse had been so monstrously defiled. To ensure that Elmer's body would never again be moved from its final resting place, two feet of concrete was poured over the casket, meaning nothing short of an excavation crew would be able to remove and exploit his corpse ever again.

Learning of Elmer's story makes for a pretty horrifying revelation, especially when his tale is considered to be nothing more but urban legend, a campfire tale to be shared among scare-happy boy scouts. But this is what separates urban legends from straight-up fiction. Fictional stories are provably false and include made-up names, made-up places, and made-up events. Whereas urban legends seem to consistently be based on a grain of truth, no matter how small that grain of truth might be. So the next time someone dismisses the body in the haunted house as nothing but an urban legend, remind them of Elmer McCurdy and tell them that the truth is even more frightening than the fiction.

Because it wasn't a haunted house where the man's long dead corpse hung from a set of gallows. It was a funhouse, somewhere that no person's lifeless remains should ever be interred. Around the year 2003, there were a number of reported sightings of something very strange and very frightening wandering the woods near the town of Mals in western Switzerland. People spoke of a tall figure dressed in a dark boiler suit, complete with combat boots and a long flowing camouflage cape. But most unsettling of all, the figure seemed to be wearing a World War I era gas mask, the kind with a long trunk-like tube leading away from the mouthpiece. By the time the figure was given the nickname of the Ghost of Mals or Le Loyan, many had dismissed the sightings as mere hearsay, a kind of suburban legend manufactured by skittish hikers and bored teenagers. But as the years went on, it seemed that there were far more credibility to the

sightings than people first thought, and what had once been nothing but an urban legend grew more and more tangible by the day. Those who sighted Leiloyan often described being overcome with a sense of paralyzing dread or fear, with some even claiming it was an otherworldly entity that emanated some kind of supernatural force. The rumors of such a being seeped so deep into Maul's collective consciousness that some were too afraid to go outside at night, while many were too afraid to venture into the forest at all. Children would come running home to their parents, screaming in fright, claiming they had spotted Le Loyan staring at them through the trees. Britain's Daily Mail quoted one Swiss farmer as saying that families simply won't go into the forest anymore,

no one here finds the story funny. Maul's police force soon began regular patrols of the forest, searching for the ghostly figure in order to question him and discover his intentions. One municipal officer released a public statement which read, The situation is delicate because we basically have nothing against this person. But since he arouses these fears, we are going to hold a meeting to see if we can find a way of locating him and discouraging him from behaving as he does. Despite his horrifying appearance, those that encountered Leiloyan never described him as being aggressive or dangerous. Most sightings involved him simply walking through the trees, and sometimes even on well-traveled footpaths, as if he had nothing to hide.

Rarely did Leiloyan ever acknowledge those who sighted him, even if a glance or two was exchanged. Occasionally, he would simply stare at those who sighted him, but on one occasion, when a woman spotted him while picking flowers in a meadow, her presence seemed to startle Leilion, who then bounded back into the safety of the trees. The woman, a resident of malls by the name of Marianne de Clu, said although the man seemed harmless, the encounter was still very unsettling. Quote, it was a rainy Sunday. He had a cap, a dark cloak, and his gas mask, she said. What could possibly be going through his head? I don't know, but it was unforgettable and unpleasant. I hope I don't run into him again. Despite the compelling witness statements from

those that claim to have sighted Le Loyon, there was never any physical or photographic evidence of such an entity. The fact that some even claimed that the man left no footprints behind was even more incredulous, and this seemed to further cement the idea that Le Loyon was nothing more than a fiction. Yet in 2013, a Swiss hiker happened to be walking through the woods with his young son, when he happened to spot the ominous figure walking down a forest path. This time, he didn't have to rely on the belief of others for his story's legitimacy. He had a camera with him, and as Leiloyan walked away from him, back turned,

the man took a quick picture of the figure to prove what he had seen. The man offered to share the photograph with Swiss media outlets, and when contacted by one particular publication, he had this to say of the encounter. I came across him near the marshes. I approached about 10 meters away. He had a military cape, boots, and an army gas mask. An antique type, I believe. It measured more than 1.9 meters. He stared at me, then turned his back on me and went away quietly.

He, or she, by the way, was not aggressive. But if I had been alone, I would have apprehended him to tell him that it scares children Except that it was with mine who was scared and I had to reassure So I stayed cautious and just took a picture with my phone when he left You never know, maybe he's crazy The photograph would go on to be published in the Swiss-French news provider Les Matins and generated a huge amount of interest, especially from those who had once dismissed the sightings of Le Loyan as a mere urban legend. From then on, Le Loyan, who had been nothing more than just an obscure local phenomenon,

was thrust into the international limelight. What followed were legions of intrigued tourists, ghost hunters, and journalists, all wishing for their own encounter with Le Loyon. Some were armed with camera, others with actual weaponry, and their presence turned the normally sleepy rural area into a veritable circus of curiosity. Yet, around this same time, sightings of Leiloyan seemed to drop off altogether. One might expect such a saturation of forest walkers to at least dredge up a handful of encounters, yet Leiloyan seemed to have disappeared entirely. Some suggested that he had been killed after a run-in with a group of more fearful or aggressive hunters, while some

reiterated that he had never existed to begin with and the photograph of him was nothing more than an elaborate fake. But one day, as the hiker was walking down one of the many forest paths outside of malls, he found something that laid the issue to rest once and for all. The hiker found a neatly folded boiler suit and camouflage cape laying in the dirt at the edge of the trail, and sitting on top of them was a World War I era gas mask. But that's not all the hiker found. They also found a handwritten note, one which was entitled, The Death Certificate and Testament of the ghost of Mauls. The note explained that by publishing the photograph

the Le Matin was to blame for the death of someone the author described as a very harmless being. They went on to say that the hunt for Le Loyon had made it too risky for him to continue his wanders through the forest, which were described as a real therapy of happiness. For some reason, the note then refers to the works of author and philosopher Leopold von Sackermasack, a utopian thinker who espoused socialist and humanist ideals. Since the letter was worded in a similar manner to that of a note that someone who would be taking their own life would leave, some began to speculate that the La Loyon had taken his own life, although upon reading it, it's quite clear that the author was referring to the symbolic death of La Loyon, and not necessarily the death of the person behind

the gas mask. Despite the chain of compelling physical evidence coupled with the numerous sightings, the truth behind La Loyenne remains obscure to this day. There are some who insist that the whole thing was a complete fabrication, while others have more outlandish theories detailing how La Loyenne was some sort of interdimensional interloper. The most likely explanation seems to be that the man was little more than an eccentric hiker, one who gained a bizarre gratification by dressing in his post-apocalyptic pseudo-military costume. Yet the fact remains that nobody really knows for certain, and as time goes on, we are less and less likely to get any

legitimate, concrete answers. Down in Arkansas' Claiborne County, there are those that talk of who the locals call the Dog Boy. The Dog Boy is said to be a half-human, half-canine hybrid, the product of a bestial affair between man and his proverbial best friend. The dog boy lived in the woods outside of Little Rock, hunting birds and rabbits or any other kind of flesh that he could feast on. He was this huge, weird-looking dog thing, with long brown hair, creepy eyes, and great big arms and hands. One resident told the River Valley Ozark newspaper in 2007, I actually saw him this one time. He walked right out in front of me and glared at me, then ran off into the woods.

These days, most believe the stories of the dog boy to be pure legend, yet little do they know, he is based on a very real person. The dog boy's stories seem to center around a place known as the Garrett House, a stately residence constructed in the town of Quitman during the 1890s. In the early 50s, the property came into the ownership of Floyd and Aline Bettis, a couple in their mid-30s who, for many years, have been trying unsuccessfully to have children. Rumor has it that in the time before Aline first fell pregnant, the couple stopped going to church, and strange lights could be seen emanating from the Garrett house after nightfall.

This may well be playful exaggeration, but what we know for certain is that in 1954, the Bettis' first son was born, a boy they named Gerald. Even before he learned to walk and talk, the townsfolk observed that Gerald was a difficult child. His parents were good people, but Gerald was a brat, vicious, and cruel, one local historian said. This historian also claimed that Gerald developed some very unusual and very disturbing habits early on in life, including collecting dead cats and dogs. It's this, not a furry pharaoh appearance, that led to him being nicknamed Dog Boy. He would catch stray animals and torture them. We would hear them howl, stated Quitman native Mary Nell Hollibird.

Another resident, Nelda Kennedy, backed up Hollibird's claims. I'd almost forgotten about these cats and dogs he had, but he even added on to the house so he could keep more of them inside, they said. As a result of their son's malicious behavior, Gerald's parents became extremely fearful of him, and as the boy grew older, he wielded a terrifying amount of control over them. By the time he was a teenager, locals say Gerald towered over his elderly parents at a gargantuan 6'4", while weighing in at close to 300 pounds. He kept his parents virtually imprisoned in the upstairs part of that house, Mary Holabird said. He'd feed them, but only when he decided it was time for them to eat. There are multiple reports of Gerald violently assaulting his elderly father, and one such article pulled from the

Arkansas Democrat Gazette archives states that Gerald actually threw his father from an upstairs window at one point during his teens. The article goes on to state that Floyd Bettis only survived because he hung onto a window ledge until a local law enforcement showed up to rescue him. Nelda Kennedy was reported to have said, I was afraid of Gerald. If you had ever seen his eyes, they seemed to glow at night. One time he came over and got onto us because we had trimmed a magnolia tree that overlapped into his backyard, and when they started cleaning that house up, one of his uncles came to my house to borrow a gun because he was afraid that Gerald would get riled up. According to the Haberspring Sun Times, Floyd Bettis went on to pass away at home in 1981,

after a short illness saw his health deteriorate rapidly. Yet, there are some who insist that Floyd was murdered by his own son, and that he was pushed down the staircase and died from a broken neck. In the early 80s, Gerald's mother, Aline Bettis, took a nasty fall and suffered a broken hip. This required a trip to the hospital, the same hospital where Mary Hollibird was employed as a nurse. She would later claim to have witnessed Gerald's horrific treatment of his mother, stating that, He was slapping her around and telling her,

I'm gonna have you arrested if you tell anyone what I did. Oliver filed a complaint with the local police and not long after this incident, Aline was placed into Adult Protective Services and removed from Gerald's company permanently. Sometime later, Gerald built a sunroom on the back of the house and started a cottage industry selling marijuana to local youths. Once local law enforcement caught wind of this, they arrested him, and Gerald was sent to prison after being convicted of distributing illegal substances. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette archives confirmed that a 34-year-old Gerald Floyd Bettis died in prison during May of 1988, with the cause of death listed as a drug overdose. But it seems Gerald would never truly die, as his terrible story birthed a brand new one,

the chilling legend of the Dog Boy. When Aileen Bettis passed away in 1995, Mary Hollibird's niece inherited the house. Hollibird has cared for Aline during her twilight years and her kind treatment had led to her family being written into the dying woman's will. Shortly after Aline's death, there was an estate sale at the house with numerous possessions and antiques being sold for discount prices to cover the cost of Aline's funeral. But as you can imagine, this required digging through the mess that Gerald had left behind in order to sort the valuables from the trash. Hollibird's niece, Reba Carter, claims that in the process of cleaning the house up, they found numerous stashes of small animal bones all over. And if this is true, it proves once and for all the Arkansas Dog Boy was responsible for

murdering hundreds of small defenseless animals over the years. So while the legend of the half human Dog Boy might be completely fictitious, the stories arose from a very real and very frightening evil. Many legends surround the life and death of infamous outlaw George Big Nose Parrot. Some say he was a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, while others say he rode with Frank and Jesse James. However, Old West historians generally agree that Parrott was more of a run-of-the-mill horse thief and highwayman. Although his gang enjoyed a successful run of stagecoach and train robberies during the late 1870s, the idea that he was part of a larger and more notorious outfit are little more than rumors. There is another supposed urban legend surrounding George Parrott, and a considerably more gruesome

one at that. Some say that upon being captured and lynched by an angry mob of Wyoming citizens, George's skin and bones were fashioned into collector's items, then sold to the highest bidder. Given their outlandish nature, many dismiss these rumors as completely false. If he didn't ride with the James gang, there's no way something so hideous occurred following his death. However, it may equally surprise and appal you to discover that these reports were no mere rumors.

They're completely factual. George became a highly wanted man in 1878 after he and his gang murdered two lawmen after a botched train robbery. The officers traced the outlaws to their camp at a place called Rattlesnake Canyon, but they were soon spotted by a gang lookout. The robbers stamped out the campfire and hid in a bush. Then, when the two lawmen walked into their camp, they were subjected to a fatal ambush. One was immediately shot in the head while the other was shot in the back as he tried to flee.

Upon learning of the ambush, the local sheriff put out a $10,000 bounty for the gang, which was later doubled to $20,000, dead or alive. The following year, George and his gang carried out a daring daylight robbery against a cash convoy containing a U.S. Army payroll comprising 15 soldiers and two officers. As the convoy approached a shallow river crossing, the gang donned masks and stationed themselves at a turn in the trail. They then proceeded to ambush and capture the lead element of soldiers, then captured the rear element of the soldiers which was guarding the cash wagon. Depending on who you asked at the time, the gang stole between $3,000 and $14,000. And due to the audacious and scandalous nature of the raid, the federal government threw

everything they had at the effort to find and arrest the gang. Yet it wasn't the efforts of federal authorities that ended up with the men being brought to justice. It was one of the gang's loose tongues that landed them in trouble. A member of the gang named Dutch Charlie got himself extremely drunk in Montana's Miles City and began mouthing off about the raid of the U.S. Army payroll wagon, as well as the fact that he had participated in the murders of two Wyoming lawmen. Dutch was completely unaware of the huge bounty on his head, and when someone overheard him giving away information to identify himself, they rushed to local law enforcement in an effort to claim

some of the money. All four members of the gang were arrested in one fell swoop, and George Parrott was returned to Wyoming to face justice. Following his trial on April 2nd of 1881, George was sentenced to hang for his crimes, but attempted to escape from the Rollins Town jail after managing to break free of his shackles. George then hid in a washroom until the jailer walked inside. Then using his own detached shackles as a makeshift weapon, George struck the jailer over the head and fractured his skull. However, the jailer not only maintained consciousness, but he managed to put up one heck of a fight and called out to his wife for assistance.

Grabbing a pistol, the jailer's wife managed to talk Parrot back into his cell under pain of death. It's believed she told him that hanging would be a quicker death than getting gut shot, and that the husband and wife jailer team would ensure he died a slow and painful death unless he complies. News of the escape attempt spread through the town, and the incensed citizenry began making their way to the jail, enraged at the near-mortal wounding of one of their own. While the jailer lay in a nearby hospital, recovering from his grievous wounds, masked men with pistols burst into the jail and dragged Parrott from his cell.

But these men were no rescue party. They were a lynch mob, and in front of more than 200 of the townsfolk, they strung George Parrott up from a telegraph pole and watched as he strangled to death. Following George's grim demise, two doctors named Thomas Maggie and John Eugene Osborne took possession of his body, claiming they wished to study the outlaw's brain for clues to his criminality. The top section of Parrott's skull was crudely sawn off and the cap was presented to Maggie's 16-year-old medical assistant, Lillian Heath. Heath became the first female doctor in Wyoming and is said to have used the cap as an ashtray, a pen holder, and a doorstop. The doctors also removed the skin from George's thighs and chest before sending it to a tannery in Denver, Colorado, where it was made into a pair of shoes and a medical bag. These were then kept by John Osborne, who wore the shoes to his inaugural ball after being elected as the first Democratic governor of the state of Wyoming.

Parrott's dismembered body was then stored in a whiskey barrel filled with a salt solution for about a year, while the mad doctors continued their gruesome experiments on him. Only a year after his death, he was buried in the yard behind Dr. McGee's office. During the years that followed, the desecration of George's body was slowly forgotten, until May 11th of 1950, when construction workers unearthed a whiskey barrel filled with bones while working on the Rollins National Bank. Inside the barrel was a skull with the top sawn off, as well as the shoes said to have been made from George's thigh flesh. The then octogenarian Dr. Lillian Heath was then contacted, and in her shame, she had her human skull ashtray sent to Rollins for a proper burial.

Some found the idea that it was part of George's skull to be a rather dubious claim, but it was found to fit the skull in the barrel perfectly, and DNA testing later confirmed the remains were those of George Parrott. These days, the shoes made from George's skin are on permanent display at the Carbon County Museum in Rollins, together with a lower section of the outlaw's skull. The shackles he escaped from during the time in the Rollins jail, as well as the skull ashtray, are on show at the Union Pacific Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, but the medicine bag made from his skin has never been found. The claim that a Democrat politician wore the shoes to his inaugural ball is just one of the reasons that George's story has taken on the status of an urban legend.

Few people wish to believe that a man of such high status did something so utterly savage as to wear a garment made from human remains. It's clear that he regretted the move, which is why he had them stored in the whiskey barrel before burying, but the fact remains that actually happened. So next time someone tells you that human skin shoes or skull ashtrays are nothing but an urban legend, tell them to visit the Carbon County Museum in Rawlins, Wyoming, so they can see the evidence with their own two eyes. To be continued... We've all heard the urban legend about the poisoned Halloween candy, right? Well, some of us might also have heard of how those rumors are based on the very real murder of Timothy O'Brien at the hands of his own father. Ronald McBride deliberately poisoned 8-year-old Timothy with a cyanide-laced pixie stick in order to claim life insurance money to pay off a $100,000 debt. Ronald also gave poison candy to his daughter and three other children in an attempt to make it look like they'd collected

it while trick-or-treating. But thankfully, neither his daughter nor the other children ingested it. He was eventually convicted of capital murder during June of 1975, and after being sentenced to death, he was executed by lethal injection in March of 1984. But what about people giving out illegal drugs to trick-or-treaters on Halloween night? Surely that's nothing more than a horrifying but very fictional story. After all, what kind of drug addict just gives away their prized narcotic to an unsuspecting child. Well, I hate to break it to you, friends, but it's true. On Sunday, October 29th of 2017, a community trick-or-treating event was held in Cushenna, Wisconsin. The safety-conscious event involved parents accompanying their children on

a trick-or-treating session during daylight hours and was said to give parents peace of mind regarding their children's security and whereabouts. Yet it seems one of the properties they visited that afternoon was occupied by someone with less than innocent intentions. After accompanying his toddler to the event, one father arrived back home and began sorting through the candy his child had been given. It was then that he saw a small plastic baggie with a yellow powder inside of it. Police Chief Mark Wachow later told the press that the father was going through the candy and he finds a really small clear plastic packet about the size of a quarter. We thought

it looked like Pop Rocks candy in that little baggie but the crystalline powder tested positive for methamphetamine. Chief Wachow said that he immediately alerted families to dispose of the candy collected from the event, fearing there may be more crystal meth bags surreptitiously dropped in other trick-or-treaters' buckets. I think people are pretty upset, he continued, but that's what we want. We want people to get upset and come forward and give us information. We're already getting tips. As you can imagine, the incident terrified the local community, and teachers at the local Kishina Primary School barred students from bringing any of their candy to class.

They released a statement via their Facebook page stating that the KPS will be providing cookies, popcorn, and plenty of candy for our students to ensure it is safe for them. Chief Wachow admitted that drugs had infested the Kishina community for years, with heroin and crystal methamphetamine being the main culprits. Yet Halloween of 2017 marked the first time that any had made their way into Halloween candy. We're seeing such a big increase of people outside the reservation from Milwaukee and the Chicago area bringing lethal drugs in here, he said. We've been targeting them pretty good and kicking some people off the reservation when we catch them, but we've never seen anything like this before. Whoever handed out crystal meth to children that night has yet to

be apprehended, but despite the Kishina police efforts to do so, it's highly unlikely that the perpetrator will ever be properly identified. After all, the children and their parents visited hundreds of different homes that afternoon and, frankly, the meth could have been for many of them. Someone in the Kishina community wanted a child to ingest one of the most highly addictive and highly toxic narcotics known to man, and although it's not clear why they want that to happen, their motives must be evil beyond all reasoning. The End For years now, there have been a number of rumors and urban legends concerning some very shady medical practices by the U.S. federal government. Some of the most vocal proponents of such theories suggest that the government is in the business of procuring aborted fetuses,

which are then shipped to various research facilities for experimentation. Such terrifying theories sound like the stuff of grimdark science fiction, and those who suggest they might be true are often censored or mercilessly ridiculed. But horrifyingly, there was a time in US history where deceased children were indeed used for experimentation, and the name given to these experiments was Project Sunshine. According to a 1994 article from the Washington Post, federal researchers conducted radiation tests on stillborn babies in Chicago during the 1950s, and these experiments were just one small facet of a wider program of human experimentation during the Cold War. Project Sunshine was a large-scale study conducted by the newly formed Atomic Energy Commission to determine the long-term effects of nuclear fallout on humans,

and was conducted in the aftermath of the post-World War II nuclear tests that took place in the deserts of Nevada. According to the documents released by the Department of Energy, scientists cremated more than 40 newly deceased infants and measured the amounts of radioactivity in the remains. The documents also state that it's unlikely that the parents were notified of this, or even if permission was obtained for the use of their children in the experiments. The release of the long classified documents detailing the Chicago Bay Project caused widespread outrage during the Clinton administration and raised some serious questions regarding

the ethical standards of Cold War research projects. Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary was so appalled by the radiation experiments that she lodged a formal complaint with President Clinton, who in turn appointed an interagency committee to determine whether the victims should be compensated. Although a handful of Project Sunshine's research results were published in the mid-1950s, most of the files were contained in secret government documents that were only declassified in 1994. It was discovered that the project was led by a man by the name of Willard Libby, a University of Chicago scientist and senior Atomic Energy Commission official who had since passed away. According to Steve Galson, a Department of Energy Radiation specialist,

scientists gathered data on the babies to determine how much fallout humans could bear and that the experiment was quote unquote also useful in deciding what the health effects were of the nuclear weapons tests being conducted at the time the declassified documents stated that researchers used babies because they provided the best measure of the amount of radiation in the body that was due to nuclear fallout, rather than from other sources, such as ingesting irradiated food. According to the documents, all of the babies used were stillborn in the early to mid-50s, and none of them died as a result of radiation treatments. Steve Galston acknowledged that some key aspects of the study remain unknown or were

deliberately obscured, with one such detail being the method used to obtain what were chillingly referred to as samples. Other information excluded from the documents includes how much the parents of the deceased infants knew about the experiments and what happened to the remains after the tests were completed. Shockingly, once the news of Project Sunshine had broken, a retired Los Alamos researcher defended the tests in a widely publicized interview. There was probably no other way for science to obtain this kind of information at the time, Don Patterson said. The use of rats or other animals would not obtain the same results. This was a case of children who were no longer beneficial to the population being able to

provide information that was enormously important for the rest of the world's children. Aside from the stillborn babies, Project Sunshine researchers measured the levels of radioactive particles left in cheese, milk, and animal bones as a result of the Nevada nuclear tests, and discovered that the residual effect of the fallout did not present a threat to human health. Yet as horrifying as the experiments may be, Project Sunshine was not the only extremely unethical experiment performed during the early phases of the Cold War. In 1950, the U.S. Navy conducted Operation Seaspray, a simulated biological attack over the city of San Francisco using the bacteria Serratia marcescens. Although the bacteria was considered harmless at the time, numerous citizens contracted

a pneumonia-like illness, and at least one person died as a result. In 1981, when the relevant documents were declassified and made public, the family of the person who tragically lost their life sued the government for gross negligence, but shockingly, a federal judge ruled in favor of the government, and the family were denied compensation. In 1952, a member of the Sloan-Kennering Institute injected live cancer cells into prisoners of the Ohio State Penitentiary. Over 300 healthy females were injected with the cells without being properly informed of the potential health effects, even though doctors knew very well that the introduction of such cells might cause cancer in those experimented on then in may of 1955 u.s military scientists conducted what was known as operation big buzz which involved

air dropping over 300 000 mosquitoes over parts of the u.s state of georgia the goal of the experiment was to determine if enough mosquitoes could survive being deployed from the air in order to feed on the humans below. If the experiment was successful, it would prove that such mosquitoes could be deliberately infected with a variety of deadly diseases, which they would then pass on to the people who they fed from. Without the supporting data, it would be difficult to believe such experiments actually took place, especially with the strenuous denials of the then-presiding governments. But as time passes, and the documentation of such experiments continues to be released, we're given an insight into just how little the federal government wants to value the lives of its citizens. It's enough to make you wonder what else will be revealed over the next hundred years or so,

and just how many of us are being experimented on right now, without our knowledge or our consent. The Alice Killings. Based on a Japanese urban legend, The Alice Killings details a series of unsolved murders which took place from 1999 to 2005. Each victim supposedly had a playing card placed next to their body, with each card having the name Alice written on it. Despite the creepypasta itself being so detailed, a quick Google search reveals that none of the murders actually took place. There are no records of any of the victims, nor are there any legitimate news articles which mention the name of the supposed killer. Yet the fictitious urban legend might well be based on a very real murderer.

Only the killing didn't take place in Japan. They took place in Spain. On February 5th of 2003, 18-year-old Juan Francisco Ledesma was waiting for a bus at an isolated bus station on the outskirts of a place called Barajas. It's believed that he heard footsteps behind him but chose not to turn around. This proved to be a fatal mistake as the man approaching him was carrying a pistol in his hand. The stranger then placed the barrel of the gun to the back of Juan's head and told him to kneel. It's possible that the stranger also announced that he was armed, as it appeared that Juan was so terrified that he opted not to resist and to comply with his attacker. He may have believed that what was occurring was nothing more than a routine robbery,

but the stranger intended to take nothing but his victim's life. In an instant, the stranger pulled the trigger, sending a bullet tearing through Juan's skull, exiting his right eye and killing him instantly. The stranger then did something truly chilling. He took out an Ace of Cups tarot card from his pocket and placed it near the dead man's body. It became the man's calling card, quite literally, and there was a sick irony to the card being placed next to Juan's body. In tarot reading, the Ace of Cups means joy and inner peace from friends and family, but it of Cups means joy and inner peace from friends and family, but it also suggests that the killer found inner peace from taking the lives of others,

something which terrified the police officers who made this connection. The Ace of Cups was also found next to the body of Juan Carlos Martin Astacio, the next victim of the mysterious gunman who was killed with a shot to the back of the head, and the same modus operandi was used on the gunman's next three victims, with only slight variations on the tarot cards placed next to the bodies. It seemed there would be no end to the shooter's killing spree, as at the time, the Spanish police were wholly unequipped to deal with a serial murderer who seemed to have no apparent motive other than his enjoyment of killing. But then, inexplicably, the killer simply

handed himself in to the police, and his name was Alfredo Galán. Born on April 5th of 1978 in the Spanish mining town of Puertollano, Alfredo Galán was said to be a shy, introverted child. At the age of 20, with very little in the way of career prospects, Alfredo enlisted in the Spanish army as an officer in the Parachute Brigade. He participated in two peacekeeping missions in a war-torn Bosnia and was commended for his service there, yet after his unit returned to Spain, he began to display some rather serious behavioral problems. Following his arrest for car theft, Alfredo was sent to a Madrid psychiatric

hospital, where he was diagnosed with anxiety and neurosis. He was prescribed a medication which was highly incompatible with alcohol, but Alfredo refused to give up drinking, and the combination of the two had an extremely adverse effect on his mental health. After being discharged from the military in 2003, Alfredo began working at the Barajas airport as a security guard, but his rapidly deteriorating mental health resulted in him being fired following numerous clashes with his superiors. What followed was a period of unemployment, one which seemed to push Alfredo over the edge of sanity and into the realms of murderous bloodlust. At his trial, it was revealed that Alfredo didn't exactly order his victims to

kneel before he executed. He asked them to. I always asked them to and said please, he told the prosecutor. Politeness is the most important thing in life. He also told the court that he regretted not being able to kill anyone during his time in the military and the murders were a way for him to know what it felt like to take a life. When he was asked if it brought him the peace and satisfaction that the Ace of Cups suggested, Alfredo said no, and that it only made him feel indifferent, or in his words, I felt nothing. After a lengthy trial, the then 26-year-old murderer of the card, as he had become known, was sentenced to 142 years in prison for six charges of murder and three charges of

attempted murder. It marked the end of the killing spree of a man who can only be adequately described with one word, evil. And there is no doubt, with Alfredo in prison, the world is a considerably better and more peaceful place. Given that the Alice killings was written after Alfredo had gone to prison, there's a chance that his actions inspired the infamous creepypasta. But even if it didn't, we can no longer say that there were never any murders with picture cards left at the crime scenes. Because although Alfredo didn't write the word Alice on the cards, he certainly wrote his own little chapter of serial killer history. There is a certain urban legend which haunts medical schools all over the world. One which details how a medical student prepares to work on a cadaver during a gross anatomy laboratory only to discover that the

one assigned to him for dissection is a relative of his. For many it is their worst fear and impersonal practice suddenly made deeply personal by the sudden appearance of a friend or loved one. According to the legend, the relative who turns up as a cult cadaver on the dissection table is most frequently a parent, one who had recently disappeared or who hadn't been seen by the student for years because of a divorce. It seems like another one of those truly nightmarish scenarios that are too perfectly horrifying to be true. But in actual fact, there are documented cases of it actually occurring. According to Dr. Clarence E. McDaniel Jr., during early 1982, a medical student at the University of Alabama School of Medicine attended a medical dissection class which featured nine different cadavers. As the presiding

professor removed the clean white sheets from each of the corpses, the student witnessed something horrifying. Lying on one of the dissection tables, cold as a stone, was the student's great-aunt. The student informed the professor that one of her relatives was a subject of their class, and the proceedings were immediately suspended, only to be resumed when the state anatomical board provided the university with a substitute cadaver. Ironically, the student later claimed that she and her great aunt had once discussed the merits of donating one's body to medical science. She just never expected it would be her that would be the one to dissect it. Considering the close proximity of the family members, I suppose it was only a matter of time before a much-told urban legend finally became a reality. But there are still many who say that such a thing is an impossibility, that numerous

checks are performed to ensure that no medical student is faced with the prospect of butchering one of their deceased loved ones. But even if such checks are in place, they only had to fail once before such a morbid fabrication became a concrete reality for one unfortunate student. Back when I was about 4 or 5 years old, me and my mom went over to stay with my grandparents for the weekend. My dad left before I was even born, so it's always just being me and my mom, and my grandparents were always a huge part of my life growing up. We'd go over on a Friday night, then I'd stay till late on a Sunday, mainly so my mom could have a social life or work the long weekend shifts at her job.

So this one dark Sunday evening around the holidays, I remember getting carried out to the car, like half asleep already, and then I don't even remember driving off because I must have been out like a light the moment I got strapped into the car seat. But then the next thing I remember, I feel the cold on my face, and I can hear my mom crying and begging someone not to hurt her because she had me in the car. I remember looking outside and seeing what I honestly thought was a monster at the time but what I later learned was a man in a bunny mask. If you've ever seen that slasher movie You're Next, it was kind of like the mask in that movie, not some flimsy plastic thing. It was super detailed and really creepy looking.

The guy's partner had basically stood in the middle of the road with his car at the side like he crashed it or something. Then when mom pulled over to help, he puts on a ski mask, his partner appears with a bunny mask on, and then proceeds to rob us before doing something unspeakable to my mom. And it almost killed her. And I mean that both literally and metaphorically. She spent almost two weeks in the hospital and I ended up living with my grandparents for almost a whole year because she was in and out of various institutions because it messed her up so bad. I hardly got away scot free either as I had nightmares about a bunny monster chasing my mom for literally years afterward, with that image being burned into my retina. But like with most things, time is the greatest healer and as I hit double digit ages,

things eventually got better and we started to live something of a normal life again. Cut to me being 24, still living with my mom but looking for an apartment to move into because I got a decent paying job with my college degree. The place came unfurnished so I was looking for cheap furniture and decor for the place and one of the first places I started looking was Craigslist. In the for sale section I started seeing some pretty sweet looking items for sale at bargain bin prices. So I contacted one of the sellers and discovered that it was some guy's granddaughter selling off a bunch of his stuff to pay for a care home. The girl seemed

really nice and she even promised me some kind of discount if I bought a bunch of stuff in bulk, which suited me because I needed the stuff fast and I needed a bunch of stuff in bulk, which suited me because I needed the stuff fast and I needed a lot of it. We arranged for me to go over to her grandpa's place to check some of the stuff out before I handed over the cash for them. So this one Saturday afternoon, I drove over to the house to start haggling. She introduced herself, was really sweet, but when I saw her grandpa, I realized why they needed the money for a care home. He was in a really, really bad way. Like, I don't know exactly what was wrong with him because I didn't exactly ask any questions about his condition, but if he put a gun to my head, I'd have to say MS or something bad like that.

He couldn't move from his wheelchair, he had an oxygen tank, he barely even reacted to his granddaughter introducing me, and he generally looked like he didn't have too many years left. I checked out the main three items on my list, a closet, a desk, and a dinner table, and me and the granddaughter agreed on a price for them. I obviously had to arrange a U-Haul to go pick them up and all that stuff, but I figured I could arrange for the following weekend once we'd confirmed the purchases. Once that was done, me and the granddaughter had some coffee together and she explained that almost everything in the house was for sale. Apparently her grandpa had been something of a wild child in his youth, had been in and out of jail, and although he'd led a much more regular existence after his final stint in jail, he hadn't got a lot saved up for a rainy day. It was a real sad story, and the girl went on to explain that everything they'd piled into the garage was for sale too, and if I wanted to buy a few more things from them, maybe stuff they

wouldn't be able to sell easily, knick knacks or whatever so I could decorate my apartment while the money went to what I considered at the time to be a worthy cause. We finish up the coffee, the girl goes to help her grandpa out with something and I head out to the garage to check out all the stuff that they piled in there. And boy do I mean piled. There was a literal mountain of what they considered garbage in there, but some of the stuff I figured I could find a home for. I'm talking stuff like old cookie jars, books, weird little ornaments, all kinds of different things. I start digging through the pile of stuff, placing some of the items I'd considered buying to one side when suddenly I spotted

something that had me frozen in place. What had obviously been bright white was now dirty gray brown and all the paint in the eyes and in the mouth was old and peeling, but slowly and surely I recognized what it was. It was something I'd seen in probably hundreds of nightmares I had as a kid, something that had traumatized me and my mom for years and years and years. It was a bunny mask, of the exact same design as the one worn by the guy who'd almost taken my mom from me. I remember looking at it for a few seconds, then kind of stumbling back away from the trash pile in complete disbelief. I told myself that there's no way it was the exact same one. I mean it looked like a mass produced Easter Bunny mask or something, definitely the same

kind worn by that criminal, just not the exact same one. But then I started to piece it together, how grandpa had been in and out of prison, and it all started to make a horrible kind of sense. I tried to pull myself together, and I think I did a good enough job of it to just bundle up what I'd pulled out from the trash pile before carrying it into the house to talk. I put on my fakest smile, paid for the stuff, and tried to make it sound as natural and innocently curious as possible when I asked the girl what her grandpa had gone to jail for. She was kind of taken aback and didn't know exactly, she just knew that he didn't talk much about it and neither

did her mom. So she figured whatever it was, it must have been something he was pretty ashamed of. I then asked if I could go into the room with the guy to thank him personally, insisting when the girl said he might not be able to really hear me, and if he did, he probably wouldn't respond in any way. I said it was okay, still maintaining my composure as I insisted on going into his room to thank him. The girl must have thought I was pretty weird by that point, sweet maybe, but definitely kind of strange, yet still she let me go into her grandpa's room to thank him. I really did try my absolute best to maintain my composure, but by the time I got to the guy's bedroom door, my hand was shaking when I grabbed the handle to open it. When I walked in,

there he was, sitting in his wheelchair, not even looking to see who walked into the room. His granddaughter had positioned him in front of a TV, but he wasn't really watching it. It looked like he was just kind of staring into space. I sat down on the bed near him, just kind of arranging my thoughts at first, and as I asked him my first question, I started to wonder what in God's name was I thinking. I asked him something like, Where were you living around in December of 1987? It didn't even get so much as a nod from him.

He just kept this empty stare fixed on the wall in front of him. I actually wanted to just get up and leave, wondering if my questions would just end up confusing or upsetting a sick old man. But there was some part of me that just wouldn't let me leave without asking him the other questions. The scared little girl in me that wanted answers, who just didn't want to be scared anymore. I was hoping he'd say something, say anything to me about that mask I found in the garage. But as it turned out, I didn't need his words to know he could hear me. Then before I could even think to stop, I asked him,

Did you rob a woman with a kid in her car back around Christmas time of that year? Nothing moved, but his eyes, which pitched up from the spot he was looking at as he began to stare at something else. But this time, it wasn't like he was just staring into oblivion. It was like he was thinking, remembering. I told him that his granddaughter had told me he'd been in and out of jail and, although he hadn't told me exactly what for, that I thought I knew what one of the sentences was for. He stayed quiet, but his jaw began to gently tremble, almost like he was trying to say something, but couldn't. What I said next was

basically a lie. I didn't know it 100%, but when I told him, I know it was you. His reaction confirmed it in my head. I know he was hardly capable of effectively communicating, but anyone else would have at least been indignant about the whole thing, maybe looked angry or confused. But even in his condition, he looked filled with regret. I saw tears welling up in his eyes as the frustration of not being able to talk began to overwhelm him. At least, that's what I figured his reaction was. I don't know if he wanted to tell me to go kick rocks or if he was sorry or what, but I didn't care for anything he had to say at that point. I just had one more thing to say to him before I got up and walked out. You almost ruined my life.

You don't deserve to be in that chair. He actually let out a kind of whimper as I stood up and walked out. And when the guy's granddaughter stopped me to say thank you, I disguised the emotion I was feeling by telling her that myself and her grandpa had shared quite an emotional exchange of gratitude, and that I was sorry if I agitated him. I guess she thought it was kind of sweet, and I honestly hope she never finds out the truth, but after getting back into my car I only made it about two blocks before I pulled over and just started bawling. I was filled with doubt, like the thing that got me crying was the idea that I might have just seriously distressed a sick old man. But this other voice in my head just kept saying, that was him. I know it was him. It had to be him. When I regained my composure I drove over to my mom's place to tell her about it

and we both cried together when she said she also thought it was the same guy. I asked her if anyone was caught for what happened to us and she said yes, that they were sent to jail as a result and she had to appear in court to testify. That was part of the whole reason I was staying with my grandparents during that period. The whole court appearance thing just weighed so heavily on her mental health I actually had no idea anyone was caught for it up until that moment I was always under the impression that no one had been arrested And I grew up knowing better than to bring it up with my mom I mean, I still wouldn't have ever really spoken to her about it if it wasn't for that

chance encounter and part of me wondered if she'd even really believe me. It was only when I described what the guy looked like that it actually clicked for her, as at first she just refused to believe it. It seemed like the perfect karma for the guy, like too perfect an end to his story and I don't believe endings like that happen very often in life. In the months that followed it felt like a great weight had been lifted from our shoulders. Nothing could ever change the past or undo the trauma we both experienced. But knowing the guy was suffering in such a way was almost like proof that there was a god. I know that might sound a little unhinged, but I can't really think of another way to phrase it. I guess I still don't quite believe in happy

endings, and I still think the world is a cold, cruel place, but I know from experience that there is such a thing as divine justice. When 21-year-old Heather Snively discovered she was pregnant, she was over the moon. She and her fiancé Christopher had been trying for a baby for quite some time, and once she was expecting, she relocated from her native West Virginia to her fiancé's home state of Oregon so they could raise the child there. June of 2009 marked Heather's eight-month of pregnancy with a baby boy she planned to name Jonathan, and based on written communication between Heather and her grandparents, it's quite clear that she was content, excited, and optimistic for the future. Like many expectant mothers, she planned intensively for the journey ahead,

working to secure everything her baby might need in the months prior to its arrival. A friend had informed her that a great place to purchase cheap, second-hand baby clothes was the classified advertisements website Craigslist, and during an initial search for baby clothes, she found there were rich pickings. Heather believed that Craigslist, and during an initial search for baby clothes, she found there were rich pickings. Heather believed that Craigslist was nothing short of a miracle solution to her prenatal predicament, when in reality, her visit to the site would spark off a chain of events leading to one of the most horrific criminal incidents in American history. During one of Heather's Craigslist browsing sessions, she happened

across another user by the name of Karina Roberts. Karina was also in the market for baby clothes and in the course of their conversations, the two women found that they were faced with a very similar issue. It seems that some of the baby clothes each of them had purchased simply weren't to their liking, but neither had the time nor the energy to put the clothes up for sale again. It's then that they agreed on a simple yet effective solution to their problem. They would arrange a meet-up in order to peruse each other's collections, then would exchange items they took a liking to. On the day of the proposed meet-up, Heather drove over to Karina's home in Oregon's Washington County.

It's safe to assume that she was excited to meet another expectant mother, as although she was excited for the birth of her first child, there's no doubt that the stress was mounting as her due date approached. She was also a fresh arrival in Oregon, so there's little doubt that the prospect of a new and supportive friend was one that Heather found deeply appealing. However, Karina would prove to be anything but a friend to her, and in fact, Heather's meeting with her would amount to the greatest mistake of her young life. At first, Karina warmly welcomed Heather into her home, and a neighbor recalled spotting the two women laughing and smiling as they greeted each other in Karina's driveway. However, once Heather was inside the house, Karina's demeanor changed dramatically, and although it's not clear exactly how the incident began, the attack that Heather was subjected to was brutal in the extreme. Out of nowhere,

Karina attacked Heather with a collapsible baton, smashing her around 30-40 times over the head until she collapsed to the ground. Forensic analysis later showed that Heather had multiple bite marks on different parts of her body, showing that at some point during the attack, Karina had dropped to the ground with her before savagely sinking her teeth into the poor woman's flesh. Yet as far as an indication of Karina's mindset, the bite marks are just the tip of the iceberg. For Karina was no kindly stranger or potential friend to Heather. She was a dangerously unhinged maniac, and she was obsessed with babies and childbirth. Once Karina was confident that she had snuffed out Heather's life, she calmly walked into the kitchen and retrieved a razor blade which she had stolen from her boyfriend's shaving kit. She then returned to Heather's body, knelt down next to her lifeless form, and began to carefully cut into the deceased woman's stomach.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Karina Roberts performed a makeshift cesarean section, cutting Heather open before ripping her unborn son from her womb. After stuffing Heather's corpse into a crawlspace beneath the house, Karina contacted her boyfriend's place of work and frantically declared that he needed to come home immediately. Beyond Shubin, Karina's boyfriend, was all too familiar with his girlfriend's unhealthy obsession with having children, but to him, it was down to a tragic incident two years prior in which Karina had given birth to a stillborn child. Naturally, he was elated when Karina announced that she was pregnant with twins in November of

2008 and had watched as she began carefully planning for the arrival of the children. She watched dozens of YouTube videos which provided tips and hints on a smooth birthing process, and Jan even bought her the knitting supplies she needed to begin making baby clothes. She took prenatal vitamins, claimed she attended ultrasound appointments, and even took part in several midwifing classes in the event that she was forced to give birth at home. There was only one problem. Karina wasn't pregnant. She had faked the whole thing. Eight months after her lies began, she had everything she needed to begin her journey as a new mother.

Everything. Except a child. Leon was informed that Karina had an emergency at around 2.30 in the afternoon, and when he arrived home, he found his girlfriend lying in their bathtub, naked from the waist down, holding the lifeless infant in her hands. Jan did all he could to save the baby's life, even attempting CPR on the tiny, bloody fetus. But it was no good. The child had passed, and still under his veil of ignorance, Jan wept for the loss the baby he believed was his. The next thing he did was contact local paramedics, and on their arrival,

they were heavily alarmed by the amount of blood around the house. Believing Karina had suffered a life-threatening amount of blood loss, the paramedics rushed her and the lifeless child to the nearby Providence St. Vincent Medical Center. Since the reason of the child's passing was unknown, local police were called in simply as a matter of protocol. There were no official accusations at that stage and the summoning of law enforcement is standard procedure in such cases, despite it being extremely distressing for all involved. At the time of their arrival, Karina was under heavy sedation, so it was Jan who informed them that, to his knowledge, Karina had been pregnant with twins. This meant that somewhere back at his home there was a second supposedly stillborn child in the residence that needed to be retrieved. Upon learning of the grim possibility of there being a second deceased child back at Jan's residence,

two officers drove over to his home to conduct a search. Shortly after they departed, Karina's sedation wore off, and a team of doctors attempted to examine her. But to their alarm, they were met with a stark refusal. Karina became extremely distressed, claiming she'd sue the hospital if the medical staff so much as put a hand on her. It took a while to talk her into it, but eventually, doctors were finally able to conduct the necessary examinations on the groggy but devastated Karina. Only instead of discovering the usual signs of internal trauma, the doctors determined that Karina hadn't given

birth at all. The doctors then informed Jan of this rather unexpected and alarming fact, and as you can imagine, he was as confused as he was horrified. When he told the doctors that he wished to speak to Karina alone for a few moments, they were only happy to oblige him, and when Jan confronted her, she made a chilling confession. I did a horrible thing, she began, and over the next few minutes, she told Jan the whole horrifying story of how she'd murdered the pregnant Heather

before slicing the baby from her womb. Meanwhile, back at the scene of the murder, police officers were searching high and low for signs of the second deceased infant. Suddenly, their radios burst into life, and it was then that they received the order to search the crawlspace beneath the house for the body of a formerly pregnant woman. We can only imagine how harrowing the discovery was for the officers in question, putting two and two together, realizing what Karina had done. There was never a second child, only one that had been ripped from its mother's lifeless body. When the officers returned to the hospital,

they immediately arrested Karina Roberts on suspicion of the murder of Heather Snively. It might surprise some of you to hear that Karina was not charged with the murder of Heather's unborn son. But according to Oregon state law, a human being is defined as a person who has been born and was alive at the time of the criminal act. It was impossible to prove that baby John was alive in the moments after he was alive at the time of the criminal act. It was impossible to prove that baby John was alive in the moments after he was ripped from the womb, therefore, the state refused to pursue any additional murder charges against Karina. Chillingly, in the course of their investigation, police discovered that Karina had made attempts to contact several other pregnant women via Craigslist, as well as via several other forms of social media.

She had made arrangements with three of them, but her other two potential victims had failed to show up. Heather was the third, and for her trust, she paid with her life. At her first court hearing in August of 2009, Karina sobbed as the accusations were read out. Initially, she staunchly denied having murdered Heather, but the following year, when it became clear that the prosecutors were seeking the death penalty, she came clean and pled guilty to one count of aggravated murder. Her frank admission meant that there was no trial, and a judge subsequently sentenced her to life in prison without parole.

Karina's defense attorneys had attempted to secure an eventual parole, but the state's prosecutor rightly argued that a person capable of murdering a pregnant woman had no place in free society. To be continued... In April 2010, a man named Jim Sanders uploaded a post to Craigslist advertising the sale of a small diamond ring. Jim lived in the small city of Edgewood in Washington State, along with his wife, Charlene, and their two sons, aged 14 and 10. Shortly after the advertisement was posted, Jim was contacted by a person claiming to be interested in purchasing the ring. Jim then invited them over to his home so they could view the ring in person before negotiating on a price. Then, on the evening of April 28th, a male and a

female arrived at the Sanders' home, the same people that had called ahead to arrange the meeting. Charlene Sanders recalls them being affable, even a cute couple, who thought that the ring would make the perfect Mother's Day gift. After agreeing on a price, Jim Sanders asked how the couple would like to pay him, and only then did it become evident that they had no intention of doing so. The male half of the couple pulled out a firearm, catching Jim completely off guard and leaving him no choice but to hand over the ring. As Jim did so, the female half of the couple rushed to the back door of the Sanders' home, opening it to allow entry to two other criminal

accomplices. The entire family was then corralled into the home's TV room, where the robbers made them kneel before binding their hands behind their backs. After the family were secured, the robbers demanded that Jim and Charlene reveal the location of additional valuables. I had a gun to the back of my head with a countdown, three, two, and I'm just screaming and my kids are standing there, Charlene Sanders later said. I'm saying, please God, don't let them kill me. Don't let them kill my kids. Then they'd just rip my home apart. The robbers knew that the longer they stayed in the Sanders house, the more they stood a chance of being apprehended by law enforcement. So, with this in mind, they positively ransacked

the house in search of anything worth stealing. One of the robbers remained in the living room, acting as crowd control, but it seems he was far more forceful and intimidating than was required. His threats to execute both Jim and Charlene were so convincing that their two sons became inconsolable with fear. They began wailing at the top of their lungs, so loud that the robbers became concerned that the neighbors might hear their cries. The robber responsible for controlling the family began to threaten the two boys with beatings unless they remained quiet, but this only increased their agitation and their sobs grew even louder than before. Their disobedience incensed the robber, who became increasingly agitated at the refusal to stop crying. And he made good on his promise to beat the children mercilessly. Their parents were forced to watch a living nightmare

unfold before their eyes. Charlene Sanders reacted by offering up her own wedding ring to keep her children from being beaten. That night was horrific, Charlene said. When they ripped my wedding ring off my finger, we just kept saying, just take what you want, just take what you want, don't kill us. Jim Sanders, on the other hand, had a very different reaction to the sight of his two sons being beaten. It seems Jim was initially rather pragmatic about the idea of his home being invaded and ransacked, as he knew that if he just kept his mouth shut and played for survival, the robbers would depart just as quickly as they arrived.

Material possessions could be replaced, damage to their home could be repaired. Gunshot wounds, however, are not so easily mended. Yet when the robbers began beating his children, when they began hurting what was most precious in the world to him, he was overcome by a burning, all-consuming rage. It's incredibly hard to break free from a tightly secured zip tie, especially when they're binding a person's wrist behind their back. But somehow, Jim Sanders was so utterly filled with fury that he managed to snap the thick plastic of the zip tie with nothing but pure brute force. In any other circumstances, Jim would have known better than to rush a man with a loaded pistol trained on him,

but by that point, the red mist had well and truly descended. Jim found his feet, leaned forward, and charged his son's attacker, screaming as he ran. In the movies, the hero might dodge a few of his assailant's bullets before tackling him to the ground. He'd then rip the pistol from their hands before turning it on them, using it to defend the family he'd worked so hard to raise. But life isn't a movie, and Jim Sanders wasn't anywhere fast enough to outmaneuver the robber. The gunman stepped back, aimed, and put three bullets into Jim's body before he even got within six feet of him. For Charlene Sanders, it was the single worst moment of her entire life.

I just kept saying, honey, please stay with me, stay with me, stay with us. Don't go, don't go. And he was just barely gasping for air, she said. My husband was a hero. He told his boys he would always protect his family and he died protecting his family. When they killed him the way they did, I couldn't believe it. But I was also in awe that the three of us were alive and I was praising God for that. Charlene might be able to talk of the subjects with a degree of magnanimity today, but at the time, she was beyond traumatized, and the men responsible for her husband's death weren't exactly faring any better. The murderer's accomplices were nothing short of horrified at what had occurred, and

understood that by that point, the situation was far beyond their control. A non-violent home invasion might soon become lost in a stack of incomplete cases, but a straight-up murder, the police would track them incessantly for such a crime. In the end, the robbers fled the bloody crime scene with cell phones, a laptop computer, jewelry, and an assortment of other valuables, and knowing the kind of heat which was about to come down on them, they drove south, all the way through Oregon until they reached California's northern border. A number of homicide detectives were assigned to the case, and it wasn't long before they discovered the robbers had made a single, fatal mistake. They had communicated with Jim Sanders

using an email account tied to one of their real names. The suspects were then featured on the America's Most Wanted television show and were named as Claben, Bernard, Joshua Reese, Kiyoshi Higashi, and Amanda Knight, four heroin addicts who were foolish enough to take the front license plate off the car they used to escape Washington. Then, shortly after approaching the city of San Francisco, they were subjected to a traffic stop and quickly arrested. In court, the suspects wept as they were charged with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of robbery, two counts of assault, and one count of burglary. Each of them entered pleas of not guilty and the raw horror and outrage they expressed left many believing it was a case of mistaken identity.

But piece by piece, prosecutors tied the story together, proving beyond all doubt that the three men and one woman were responsible for Jim Sanders' murder. Finally, Charlene Sanders herself appeared in court, telling the judge and jury that there was no doubt in her mind that the four suspects were the people who invaded her home and killed her husband. Charlene's testimony meant that in 2011, all four were convicted on all charges, which each of them received sentences of between 71 and 124 years in prison. When confined to prison, one of the suspects, Kiyoshi Higashi, told a reporter that he deeply regretted Jim's murder, and that he prayed for their family on a nightly basis because no one deserved that. But when reached out for comment, Pierce County Prosecutor Mark

Lindquist was quoted as saying, Talk to Charlene Sanders about who it was that came into her house that night. It wasn't somebody sheepish. It was someone willing to hurt, and maybe even kill innocent children. Someone who had no problem taking their father's life before their very eyes. Let me tell you the story of how I developed social anxiety disorder. I used to work night shifts, so I sleep during the daytime and a few years ago I woke up to some pretty terrible news. I had a bunch of missed calls and unread text messages from my landlord. They were telling me to call them as soon as possible. I called my landlord and he tells me that there's a leak in the apartment downstairs, one that they figured was coming from my apartment.

As a result, they'd shut off the water to my apartment while I was asleep. That meant no shower, no coffee. I couldn't even flush my own toilet. The only consolation was that I'd found a plumber to find and fix the leak, and he'd reimburse me the money if I kept a receipt or invoice. Now, it's already around 3 in the afternoon when I learned the news about the water being shut off, which was obviously coming up to the end of most people's working days. I knew of a few emergency plumbers who might be able to deal with the problem at short notice, but all of them seemed to be too busy to take the job. I ended up calling around to a few friends to see if I could stay at their place until the problem was dealt with and luckily one of my girlfriends was more than willing to take me in. But she also threw me a kind of Hail Mary suggestion as to where I could find someone who wasn't a pro but knew enough about plumbing to be able to come over and help.

Craigslist. I didn't think it'd be much help, I mean I figured most people would just use it to sell stuff and organize seedy hookups or whatever, but then again, I hadn't actually visited the site all that much, and to my surprise there was a section of the services part of the site that was called Household. Then what do you know? The third post down said something like, 37 year old handyman looking for work, with the post saying how he knew a little about everything and would take jobs at short notice at really low prices. It seemed way too good to be true and I suppose that's because it was. I give the guy a call on the number he'd included in his post and explain the situation to him. Honestly, I expected that he'd give me the sorry, too busy line that all the others had. He'd think they'd at least arrange a time to

take the job. But no, he seemed only too happy to drive out to me that evening to see if he could shut off the leaky pipe then go turn my water back on. I was literally like all my prayers had been answered. I mean, the guy even said it himself that it sounded like a relatively simple job and he was amazed another plumber hadn't come out already to just open up the floorboards, close off the pipe, then turn the water back on. I knew absolutely nothing about it so when he said opening up the floorboards or whatever and how that was a simple process I just totally ate it up. About an hour or so after I'd made the first phone call the guy shows up to my apartment and tells me he's outside. I realized that I totally forgot to tell him which apartment I was in, so I let him

know and I buzz him in. The guy then shows up at my door looking totally legit and I show him into the bathroom, which was where the landlord thought the leak was coming from. I then went back to my TV room and carried on preparing my very late breakfast. Remember, I worked night shifts at the time. A few minutes later, the guy, who called himself Tony, calls me into the bathroom and says something like, does this look right to you? I then walk towards the bathroom, stick my head around the door to take a peek, and that's the last thing I remember. The next thing I know, there's a bright light in front of me, and I groggily realize that it's coming from the little

pen flashlight of an EMT checking if I'm responsive or not. I start panicking, asking what's going on and they tell me to keep still while they get a stretcher up to my apartment. They put me on it, wheel me out into the hallway outside and there's the friend who'd agreed to let me stay at her place. She's in tears, asking the EMT if I'm going to be okay, and I remember just relaxing and sinking into the stretcher when I heard them say yes. I just felt like I wanted to sleep for days, but when I told the EMTs that I was feeling tired and could I just nap while they were driving me to the hospital, they kept telling me to stay awake, to do anything I could to stay awake. In the end, they kept asking me these dumb small talk style questions to just keep me talking.

Then at the hospital, I'm pretty sure they gave me something to keep me from drifting off because apparently falling asleep with a head injury can actually be fatal. And not long after, the cops showed up to take a statement about the plumber guy for me. They'd gone through my place and found a bunch of valuables missing. Obvious stuff too, like the TV being gone from the mount on the wall, all my jewelry gone, with my bedroom completely ransacked. Only then did I actually put two and two together and realize what had happened. That wasn't a plumber at all. He hadn't even touched anything in my bathroom. He just used the whole handyman thing as a front to rob people.

One of the cops told me that I was the fourth person to get robbed by the same handyman guy that month, only because he uses different phone numbers and never told anyone much about himself. They hadn't been able to track him down. As far as I know, they never caught the guy. He just pulled a few robberies, then quit when the public got a warning about hiring anonymous handymen on the internet. Maybe he's still out there, robbing people, doing his thing, switching it up and not getting caught. I hope those other people he'd robbed and beat got over what happened to him. But I didn't. Like I said, I developed a serious anxiety disorder after the attack and it hit me in a way I just didn't expect. Bad things happen to good people sometimes, I know that, and I took

a lot of comfort in knowing that the cops were at least closing the net around the guy. But then after I got out of the hospital, it must have been like two or three days before I realized I hadn't even left the house. I got nervous getting food from the delivery guys that dropped it off at my apartment building, but I figured that feeling would just go away after a while. Only, it didn't. I got this tight feeling in my chest, this itchy feeling all over me, whenever anyone I didn't know walked outside my apartment or outside in the hallway. I still sometimes find myself running to the peephole with the gun I bought, staring through

the little glass circle and just waiting to see the face of the guy who robbed me on the other side. I know I'm never going to see it either, but I still find myself doing it. I got a nasty little scar on my jawline from where the guy hit me, and even the EMTs said I must have had a steel skeleton or something because it's a miracle my jaw wasn't broken. But I guess I got a lot of scars that people can't see, along with a wound that I'm not sure will ever properly heal. So, way back when the PS3 first came out, I really, really wanted one. I mean, I wanted one bad. The main reason was because I wanted to play Call of Duty 3, which is still my favorite game series ever. But since my idiot self was slow on pre-ordering one, I was SOL when it came to the actual release date. I remember watching eBay like a hawk, scouring Craigslist every day, and

day after day went by and I didn't have any luck at all. But then boom, I see this one post on Craigslist that said a guy was selling his brand new PlayStation 3, Call of Duty 3 included, and he's selling both of them for like 400 bucks, at least 100 below asking price. Only thing was, he needed to sell it ASAP, and he needed someone to drive over to him to pick it up. Person that could pay his asking price and pick up ASAP got the package. Somehow, I got lucky, real lucky, and a lot of folks were messaging him for it and sounded like they were going to rob him. I was older than most of the wannabe buyers. I could text him a picture of the cash and I could drive over to the Walmart parking lot that night to be able to pick it up. And I felt like a kid at Christmas. Granted that most kids don't drive to Santa to pay him $400 to get their presents, but still, I was majorly excited

to pick it up. Only trouble was, the guy was working late that night, so I'd have to drive over to the Walmart parking lot at like 2 in the morning so I could pick it up. I know what you're thinking. Walmart parking lot at 2am, something bad was always going to happen. And yeah, I'd be lying if I said it hadn't passed my mind when I was thinking about the whole thing. I think I made myself clear at the beginning though. I wanted that stupid World War 2 game and the amount I wanted it outweighed whatever good sense I had. So that's how I ended up in the Walmart parking lot in South Hanover, way, way after dark. Like I said,

there was always a chance something bad was going to happen, I just figured it'd be from the other end of the law. I'm just sitting there, lacking, when I heard someone tapping on the glass in my driver's side window and I saw the gun. I thought I was getting carjacked or something. They got me out of the car at gunpoint but then when I saw the badge on the dude in plain clothes belt I honestly breathed a sigh of relief at first. I knew my reason for being there sounded sketchy. Picking up a playstation 3 at 2 in the morning would have sounded really sus if I was a cop. But then when they pulled the 400 in cash out of my wallet and said that they were confiscating it as suspected earnings for drugs, I started to get real angry.

I told them to search my car for drugs or guns or whatever they were looking for. If they didn't find anything, they had no right to take my money. One of the cops smirks when I said that though, screaming up in my face and threatening to smack me. His partner had to calm him down like he was legitimately worried that he was about to punch me. The angry cop walks back to their unmarked car and the other cop writes up a ticket for the cash they took. And while he does that, he apologizes for his partner and promises if I bring some pay stubs to the precinct, I'll get all my money back, no problems. I'm angry. I'm probably going to miss out on the PlayStation, but I figured the guys are just doing their jobs, and getting it taken by them was much better than getting straight up robbed and carjacked by dudes that wouldn't have been so reluctant to beat me down. Because I figured I could still get my hands on the playstation, I drove over to the precinct

first thing in the morning with some pay stubs, which I figured would prove the money was mine. I get there, hand in my ticket, and some cop walks out with an evidence bag with my money in it. Only right as she puts it down in front of me, I tell her there must be some kind of mistake. I tell her the cops pulled me out of my car and took exactly 400 in front of me, I tell her there must be some kind of mistake. I tell her the cops pulled me out of my car and took exactly 400 bucks off of me, but in the bag, there was no more than 100. She then shows me the ticket and in the little box that listed confiscated items, it says 100 instead of 400. Right then, it was my turn to freak out. Like I couldn't believe that they do me like that. I started demanding complaint forms, numbers to call, all of that.

The lady just thought that I was sizing up the amount but I swear to god I had more money than that. Shows she gives me the number to call to register a complaint, which I do. I know, I know, cops taking bribes around Baltimore is probably only raising eyebrows with the most naive of you, but missing out on the PS3 wasn't the scary thing. The scary thing was coming home from work three days later and seeing a car I didn't recognize parked across the street. I didn't immediately assume anything bad, I just wondered who in the neighborhood got themselves a new set of wheels. That's when I see

him. The same plainclothes cop that wanted to tee off on me that night. The same cop who took my money. He just looks at me, dead in the eyes and smiles before driving off down the block. It was just like a warning or something. Just to tell me he knew I made the complaint. If criminals or gangsters do stuff, it shakes you up, sure, but it makes sense. Those johns are supposed to rob you, or shoot you, or whatever. But when it's the cops doing it, the same people who's supposed to protect you, who are you supposed to turn to? Born in Philadelphia on March 23rd of 1961, George Weber fell in love with talk radio from a very young age. He dreamed of working in the industry and for many years,

he lived his dream by working at the WABC 77 morning show. George would read out periodic news updates throughout the morning as well as joining in conversation with the hosts about those news stories. And those who tuned in became all too familiar with the sound of his voice. In April of 2008, George moved from WABC to the ABC radio network. And over the 11 months that followed his appointment, George focused on local interest stories that he personally investigated. To his co-workers, George lived a quiet and unassuming life, but after failing to show up for work on March 21st of 2009, it was discovered that George's private life was very different

from his public persona. Naturally, on the Saturday morning that George failed to show up for work, his co-workers became concerned with his absence. On the few days that George took off due to sickness, he always called ahead, so by mid-afternoon, when George had yet to contact them, his co-workers called 911 and asked the police to check on him. On Sunday, March 22nd, two patrol officers arrived at George's apartment at around 8.30 in the morning. At first, they noticed nothing out of the ordinary, but on closer inspection, they began to detect the sound of running water from somewhere in the apartment. That alone wouldn't normally be any cause for alarm,

but coupled with the fact that George failed to answer the door to the officers when the officers announced themselves, it made for a very ominous situation indeed. Around 15 to 20 minutes after they first arrived on scene, the patrol officers forced their way into George's apartment and once they'd done so, they discovered a truly horrifying sight. George Weber was lying naked on his bedroom floor, in a pool of his own blood. His arms and legs had been bound tight with rope, while his bloodied corpse had been mutilated by around 50 stab wounds to his neck, chest, and arms. The sound of running water was coming from the apartment's bathroom, and the blood around the

taps and sink suggested that George's killer had attempted to clean himself off before escaping during the night. During the examination of the crime scene, the attending officers found no signs of forced entry, leading them to believe that Weber had both known and trusted his attacker enough to welcome him into his home. With this in mind, homicide detectives began scouring George's computer and phone in the hopes of finding any evidence of grudges or arguments between the victim and his friends or neighbors. This is how they discovered a message exchanged between George and a 16-year-old high school student by the name of John Kataeus. The text message threads and call logs taken from George's phone suggest that of John Kataeus. The text message threads and call logs taken from George's phone suggested that he and Kataeus had arranged to meet on the night of Friday,

March 20th, and that the purpose of the meeting had been less than wholesome. They had met after George posted on Craigslist that he was seeking a night of passion with a younger man, and the timing of their exchanges suggested that Cateus had been one of the last people to see George alive. But after trying to bring him in for questioning, they discovered that the boy was less than willing to give himself up. Not only that, but a deep dive into Cateus' background brought up some very disturbing information. According to his social media profiles, John Cateas was a self-declared Satanist with a penchant for extreme sadism, and when the police reached out to the boy's family,

they confirmed that John was a deeply troubled young man. Cateas' father was appalled by the allegations and agreed to take part in a sting that would bring his son to justice. The father contacted Cateas and convinced him to return to his East Elmhurst home to collect $300. When Cateas returned to collect the money, he was promptly arrested. At his trial, Cateas was charged as an adult and, although he pled not guilty on a charge of second-degree murder, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. In the aftermath of his imprisonment, some true crime aficionados cited the Cateas case as an example of a lethal hate crime on homosexual men where the perpetrator exhibited some degree of homosexuality themselves.

To them, it was a crime of projected self-hatred. But to others, George Weber's murder was something considerably more disturbing. Some argued that Cateas had targeted a desperate older man, simply to secure access to his home. Then the guise of what we call a bedroom game, Cateas was able to bind his prospective victim before sacrificing him in the name of Satan. Others argued that rather than the murder being satanic, Cateas killed George when it became clear that he was a child abuser, and that Cateas' involvement with George was merely a sting to seek out and punish someone who was willing to sleep with an underage boy. It's almost impossible to establish any of these theories as fact, and all that Cateas' lawyer argued in court was the idea that George and his client had been involved in a long-term but violently unstable relationship.

Whether or not this is true, the judge and jury took no mercy on the 16-year-old, who was condemned to spend the rest of his youth in a federal correctional facility. Maybe one day John Cateas will properly explain why he killed George Weber But it's just as likely that the Weber family will forever be in the dark As to why their loved one had to die In the early 1980s, the city of Chicago was plagued by a nightmarish series of horrific serial murders. After being chosen at random, the victims were kidnapped, mutilated, often murdered, then dumped in various locations around the city. Only one solid motive was established following the apprehension of the perpetrators. Satanic worship.

What you're about to hear is extremely disturbing and is most certainly not for the faint of heart. This is the story of the Ripper Crew. On May 23rd of 1981, 28-year-old Linda Sutton was declared missing by deeply concerned relatives. Just ten days later, her mutilated corpse was found in the field in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park. Whoever had killed her had taken the time to slice off her left breast as a trophy of their grisly endeavor. The following year, during the early morning of May 15th of 1982, Lorraine Borowski was opening up her realtor's office

when she was snatched right off the street. Five months later, her body was found lying on top of a grave in a Claritin Hills cemetery, also with the left breast removed. Two weeks later, a woman by the name of Shwee Mack was abducted from Hanover Park, and when her body was found four months later, police were forced to accept that they had a serial killer on their hands when they found that the same gruesome amputation had been performed. Just a few weeks later, the killer struck again, dragging a young woman named Angel York into his van before he handcuffed her. Miraculously, Angel wasn't murdered, but suffered

horrific injuries when the killer slashed at her left breast with a knife before tossing her out of the moving van. Angel was in the hospital when she was interviewed by the Chicago police detectives who were assigned to the murders, and it was then that she told them something truly chilling. The killer wasn't just some lone maniac targeting vulnerable females, He was being assisted by up to three additional accomplices. Angel was able to provide detailed descriptions of each of the suspects, but while detectives were scouring the profiles of known criminals, they were able to kill again.

On August 28th of 1982, the body of Sondra Delaware was discovered on the bank of the Chicago River. She had been strangled and stabbed to death and just like the other victims, her left breast was amputated. This was followed by the discovery of 31-year-old Rose Davis' body on September 8th. She had suffered identical injuries to the other victims with the same signature amputation having been performed. There wasn't a break in the investigation until December 6th of 1982, when a woman named Beverly Washington was found lying unconscious by a railroad track. She had multiple stab wounds and her left breast had been cut off,

but somehow, she was still alive. Once she regained consciousness, she was able to give highly detailed descriptions not just of the suspects, but also of the vehicle they were using to abduct their victims. The van was traced to a man named David Goeckt, who was promptly arrested on suspicion of murder. Police believed they'd be able to collate sufficient evidence to convict him during his initial period of detention. Yet to their frustration, they fell short and were forced to release Gecht after just a few days. Following his release, detectives worked night and day in order to compile more evidence, and Gecht's undoing finally came in the form of a motel receipt. Police were able to track down the motel's owner, who gave a lengthy testimony detailing Gekt's stay at his establishment.

He had rented three adjoining rooms with two friends of his, holding a loud, raucous party late into the night. But that wasn't all, and the detectives were deeply unsettled to hear that the motel owner believed Gekt to be involved in some type of cult. After hearing that Goeckt was the main suspect in a murder case, the motel owner happily provided police with the names of his friends, those being Edward Spreitzer and two brothers named Andrew and Thomas Cocorellis. After the police picked up Thomas Cocorellis, they forced him to confess that he and the others had taken women back to Goeckt's motel room, how the man himself referred to the motel as a satanic chapel. It was there that they drove their kidnapped victims after snatching them from off the street, and although the motel owner had heard loud music coming from

the men's rooms, it was merely a way of drowning out the woman's screams as they were beaten, violated, and murdered and mutilated. Thomas Kokorelis claimed that David Goeckt was the one responsible for the breast amputation and that he used a garrotte wire to do so. After removing them from his deceased victims, Goeckt would slice off pieces of the amputated breast before eating them raw, telling the others it was a kind of satanic ritual that they should also partake of. Following this, he would inappropriately touch himself and finish onto the severed breasts before placing them in a sealed box. Thomas Kokorelis claimed to have personally

witnessed the contents of this box and claimed that there were no less than 15 severed breasts in it. He also claimed that Goethe would have his way with the dead bodies of his deceased victims. Goethe was clearly a maniac, but he was also highly intelligent and managed to conceal enough evidence that it was impossible to directly charge him with murder. Instead, he was charged with attempted murder, aggravated kidnapping, and deviant assaults for the attack of Beverly, Washington, and was convicted in 1983. Before sentencing him to 120 years in prison, Judge Francis J. Mahone told Geck, not even an animal would do these things, only a devil or a monster would. Next came the trials of Geck's three accomplices, starting with Edward Spreitzer in 1984.

Spreitzer admitted that on October 6th of 1982, the gang shot 28-year-old Rafael Torado and his friend Alberto Rosario at a phone booth in a random drive-by shooting. According to Spreitzer, he was driving Gek's van with Gekt in the passenger seat, when he was ordered to slow down. Gek then took two guns from a rear seat, told Spreitzer to stop the van, then opened fire on Torado and Rosario. Rosario survived being shot, but tragically, Torado succumbed to his wounds at the hospital in the hours that followed. In a bid to avoid the death penalty, Spreitzer pled guilty to the murders of four of the gang's victims, as well as on the lesser charges of attempted murder and aggravated kidnapping. During the sentencing phase, Spreitzer's attorney argued that he was a junior member of the

Ripper crew and was acting purely on the orders of David Gecht. She claimed Spreitzer was immature, impulsive, and simplistic, a man who would do almost anything to please his friend. The prosecution, on the other hand, called Spreitzer every woman's worst nightmare, and labeled his accomplices cowardly weasels who roamed in packs to prey on women. His attempt was successful, and the judicial system took mercy on him, sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole as opposed to the death penalty.

In 1985, it was Andrew Cocorales' turn to be convicted of murder, assault, and aggravated kidnapping. The prosecution once again sought a death sentence, yet during the sentencing phase, Cocorales' defense attorney took a similar approach as Spreitzer's, claiming that his client had been a follower, not an organizer. Once again, the tactic worked, and the jury spared Andrew's life after deliberating for just an hour and a half. Instead of receiving the death penalty, he too was sentenced to life in prison without parole. However, two years later, Andrew was tried for the death of Lorraine Borowski

and the details of her kidnapping, violation, and murder were too much for the court to hear. It was convincingly argued that Andrew had engaged in inappropriate actions with a dead body, and in light of this and many other perverse details, he was sentenced to death. On the day that he was due to be executed, Andrew declined the offer of a last meal, with his last words being, to the Borofsky family, I am truly sorry for your loss. I mean this sincerely. He then recited a verse from the Bible, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As a reward for his detailed confession, Thomas Cocorallis also managed to avoid the death penalty. At the time of his arrest, Thomas Cocorallis was a painter with no criminal record, meaning his trial judge took a degree of mercy on him that his accomplices did not receive. With an IQ of 75, he was described as having a

borderline range of intellect, and was said to be more motivated by fear than any kind of perverted desire. Thomas pled guilty to Borowski's murder, taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for a 70-year jail sentence. But following good behavior and a successful parole, he was released from prison on March 29th, 2019. As of June 30th, 2019, Thomas resides in Aurora, Illinois. In an interview with a local news station, Thomas begged the public to change the perception of him, stating,

Everybody thinks I'm a monster, but I'm not a monster. Despite his pleas, it's both perfectly reasonable and understandable to view Thomas Kokoralis as a profane and predatory monster. After all, he was a willing participant in some of the most heinous and horrific murders the city of Chicago has ever known. Thomas was well aware that David Goeckt was practicing cannibalism and inappropriate actions with dead bodies, all in the name of Satan. And he didn't do a thing to stop it. His moral grandstanding means nothing when he allowed dozens of innocent women to be subjected to some of the most despicable treatment imaginable. The legacy of the Ripper crew is the stuff of nightmares, something that none of us are sure to forget in a hurry, but unlike similar

cases, there is no comfort to be taken in knowing that the perpetrators are all behind bars or six feet under. And that's because a member of one of the world's most horrific snuff gangs is free to walk among us, having caused untold agony, having taken the lives of the innocent, and potentially, having tasted human flesh. In September of 1992, a music video company in Nashville, Tennessee, placed a listing in the classified section of a local newspaper advertising the sale of a $30,000 top-of-the-line computer system. The computer in question was an Apple Quadra 950 with 4GB hard drive and 30MB of RAM. At the time, it was most certainly worth the five-figure price tag, and there would most certainly be people willing to pay it. But it seems that in this case, there were people willing to kill for it too. On October 7th, a man who called himself Tom Johnson responded to the ad claiming he was a freelance computer programmer and database

consultant who was willing to make the advertisers an offer. The advertiser in question was 21-year-old Jeremy Rolfes, a videotape editor and student at Middle Tennessee State University, and a few days later, Jeremy met with Tom for a demonstration of the Quadra. To Jeremy's surprise, Tom ended up making an offer of $31,000, claiming he was desperate to secure such an advanced piece of hardware. He had just one request, that Jeremy deliver the computer to his office in Marietta, Georgia on October 24th. Marietta was 230 miles away, a drive that would take just shy of 4 hours, but considering Tom was offering $1,000 above the asking price, Jeremy agreed to the proposal.

Then on the agreed upon day, Jeremy awoke before dawn in order to make the delivery on time. His 22-year-old fiancée, Heather Ophelman, had agreed to accompany him on the journey, and after just under four hours of solid driving, they arrived at a motel called The Knight's Inn just off the Georgia section of the I-75. Tom had initially requested the computer be delivered to his office in a large industrial park, but at the last minute he had called Jeremy to change the location of the meeting to a small motel room. His reasons were that the directions to the industrial park may have been a tad too complex, and to save time and effort, they can meet in a more prominent location.

Jeremy was only too willing to agree to this as it would save him a few bucks in gas money. Yet, little did he know, the change of location meant he was walking into a trap. When Jeremy and Heather arrived at the motel room, the man calling himself Tom told them that his business partner would be arriving shortly to check over the equipment. In the meantime, Jeremy and Heather decided to grab some breakfast while they waited, returning about a half hour later to learn that Tom's business partner was on his way. Tom then suggested, to save time, they could load the Quandra into the trunk of his car to make for a more fluid exchange. It appears that both Jeremy and Heather

trusted their potential buyer, as they did so without question. What followed was around 20 more minutes of waiting, and when an exhausted Jeremy grew tired of hanging around, he asked if they could simply close the deal so he could begin the long drive back to Nashville. But to his horror, Tom produced a handgun from his waistband before telling the couple, I think we can close this deal right now. Tom kept the gun aimed at the pair while he ordered them to wrap themselves up in some of the motel room's spare bedsheets, assuring them that this was only necessary to ensure that they wouldn't pursue him upon his departure. Tom continued to reassure Jeremy and Heather, telling them that the

university would be able to claim an insurance check if they said that they had been robbed. The couple were understandably terrified, but Tom continued to reassure them, telling them everything would be fine if they neglected to resist. Yet as they lay there, wrapped up in the bedsheets, Tom produced a hammer, stood over Jeremy's body, and then struck him in the head with it. Jeremy later said he must have been knocked out for a few seconds because the next thing he knew, Tom was standing over a screaming Heather, subjecting her to the same brutal assault. When he tried to tell his fiancée stop screaming and he'll leave, Tom returned to Jeremy and began hitting him again. The couple were able to breathe a sigh of relief when Tom suddenly exited the motel room,

yet just minutes later, he returned and began wiping down various surfaces that he'd touched as a way of removing fingerprint evidence. Once this was done, he brutally attacked Jeremy and Heather with a hammer again, before finally leaving for good. At around 9.30am, a motel employee discovered a severely wounded Jeremy wandering around the parking lot, disoriented and bleeding. Both he and Heather were soon rushed to a nearby hospital, but sadly, Heather passed away as a result of catastrophic cranial damage just two hours later. Thankfully, Jeremy went on to make a full recovery and was released on October 27th but was suffering from vertigo, hearing loss, and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. Outraged at such a brazen and violent robbery, local police launched an immediate investigation, questioning witnesses and searching the motel room for evidence. They found that one of the few clues that Tom had left behind was the murder weapon. The hammer was still wrapped in plastic with an attached card identifying its weight and SKU

number, yet despite this, the police were unable to trace it to its place of purchase. Shortly afterwards, police learned of another curious incident that occurred just an hour or so before the attack. Around the same time that Jeremy and Heather were having breakfast, an unidentified woman had complained of a problem in the motel room which Tom had rented. Somehow, the police then came to believe that this woman was actually an accomplice of Tom's who attempted to sabotage the scheme when she learned that he intended to murder his victims. They hoped that this woman might come forward upon making a public appeal, but most probably out of fear of prosecution, she remained silent and anonymous during the remainder of the investigation. Police then announced that Tom had

been driving a black cherry or dark brown Dodge Dynasty with a red interior and Tennessee license plates. According to the surviving Jeremy Rolfes, the man had sandy brown hair, was in his late 20s or early 30s, was around 6 foot tall, and weighed 165 pounds. Jeremy also noted how disturbing it was that the man went from a thoughtful, introspective guy interested in computers to someone who was cold, calculating, and deliberate. The man was evidently a dangerous and manipulative psychopath, and how those that knew him may have been completely unaware of his true nature. Police also announced that there was a great deal of evidence that Tom had attempted to pull a similarly murderous scam just a week before Heather's murder, but for some unknown reason, he failed to show up for the proposed meeting. Two years later, police announced they finally had a potential suspect,

a 49-year-old owner of a Nashville computer company named Thomas E. Steeples. Investigators noted that Steeples shared a striking resemblance to the composite sketch of Tom based on Jeremy Rolfe's description. Steeple's was already in prison after being convicted of a chillingly similar double murder which had also taken place in a rented motel room. In April of 1994, Steeple's had lured another young couple by the names of Rob and Kelly Phillips, only this time, it was under the pretense of offering them a record deal. When they arrived, he ordered them to wrap themselves in bedsheets and then beat them to death with a hammer. Steeples was also convicted of the 1993 murder of one of his business partners, a Nashville bar owner named Ronald Bingham. He was also

suspected of several attacks on young women, with his own wife testifying that he had tried to assault a woman in their backyard after luring her onto his property. Yet unfortunately, just as the authorities were preparing to prosecute the imprisoned Steeples, he died of a heroin overdose in his cell. Some believe it was a deliberate attempt at taking his own life, as Steeples didn't appear to have developed any kind of drug habit whilst in prison. What's more, the amount of opiates in his system post-mortem was enough to send even the most hardened addict into cardiac arrest. What's more, the amount of opiates in his system post-mortem was enough to

send even the most hardened addict into cardiac arrest. And furthermore, Steeples had a slim chance of being paroled for his part in the Phillips murders, but with a conviction for Heather's killing, that chance would have been taken away. Maybe he thought it was better to just end his life than spend the rest of his days locked in a cage. In her honor, Jeremy and Heather's family later created the Heather Uffelman Memorial Scholarship at her alma mater, Middle Tennessee State University. Yet soon, even more tragedy would befall Steeples' victims. Jeremy Rolfe later joined the Peace Corps as a telecommunications advisor and was sent to South Africa to oversee building projects in the post-apartheid nation.

Yet on March 31st of 1997, he was suddenly killed in a traffic accident near Windburg by a driver who had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel. He was just 27 years old. It's as heart-wrenching as it is horrifying that a man who barely escaped being murdered by a bloodthirsty psychopath then lost his life in such a senseless manner, especially when his killer received no official punishment for his misdeeds. Because the fact remains, as much as it seems overwhelmingly likely that Tom Steeples was Heather's murderer, it was never confirmed with evidence in a court of law. This means that there's a slim chance that the man who killed

Heather Ophelman is still walking among us, and it may just be a matter of time before their desire to kill returns. It all started when I woke up to the sound of someone hammering on my apartment door. That was the first fright I got that night, heart pounding in my chest as I grabbed the bat I kept under my bed and headed towards the door. First thing I do is look through the peephole to make sure it's not anyone sketchy but I'm greeted by the sight of one of my neighbors. She looks terrified, she's covered in blood and I can see just through the peephole that her face is a mess. I open up the door. She runs inside and immediately says,

You gotta get me out of here. My boyfriend's trying to kill me. I start to ask her what happened. And she says something like, There's no time. Just please get me out of here. I swear to God, he'll kill you too for just helping me. That was what sent me into a straight up panic.

Because if a guy was willing to beat his girlfriend up that badly, Lord knows that he'd be willing to put me in the ground. I just grabbed my car keys, ran downstairs with the girl following close behind, jumped into my car, then took off into the night. I remember asking her if she had anywhere I could take her, like a friend's or a relative's or something. She said no and the best thing for us to do would be to drive to a motel so she could call the cops from there. So that's exactly what I did. I drove us to a motel and booked us a room. The clerk was obviously just as concerned as I was but

all it took was to explain that her boyfriend had tried to off her and they were like, jeez, make sure you guys call the cops at least. The girl, whose name I didn't know at that point, I just knew she was a neighbor, said that she'd go up to the room and call them then asked me to get her some ice from the ice machine so she could deal with the swelling on her face. When I got to the room, she said the cops would be there ASAP, took the ice, put it on her face, then just burst into tears. I tried my best to reassure her, telling her she was safe and stuff, then when she finally calmed down, I asked her what actually happened back at her apartment.

She told me her boyfriend was abusive and that she'd been planning on leaving for a while but that night was the night she'd finally got the courage to gather to announce it to him. She said he walked into their bedroom to find her packing a bag and not long after that everything went to chaos. She started helping herself to the little bottle of liquor from the minibar but not after promising she'd pay me back for them once everything had blown over. I had no reason to disbelieve her at the time. I mean, I felt like we had a kind of bond established already, but I abstained because I thought I'd be driving back to the apartment pretty soon. I asked her if she was good to

wait on her own while the cops drove out to her, but she asked me if I'd stay to keep her safe. She then made the point that if her boyfriend found the blood on my apartment door, she assured me that she'd left some on there while hammering on it, that he'd know she'd been there and he'd try to attack me or worse. I'll be honest, I thought it was a pretty good point at the time. I hadn't seen the blood myself but she was so covered in it that I believed her when she said that there was some on my door. Anyway about an hour goes by and the cops still haven't showed up and the motel rooms were arranged in a horseshoe shape so we'd have seen them rolling into the parking lot if they had. I asked her to call them back to see what was going on because obviously it was a really urgent

situation and I know that there was basically no way for the boyfriend in finding us but I was still really paranoid that he would somehow. That's when the inconsistency started because she gave me some lame duck of a reply like I'm sure they'll be here soon. If that was me I'd have called 911 again if they hadn't shown up within like 10 minutes. So what was she so calm about that she was just cool with waiting for them for like an hour at that point? I put it down to booze and at that point I was okay with waiting too. It wasn't like I had anywhere to be. I sure couldn't just go back to my apartment with that psycho supposedly just a few doors down.

But that's also about the same time that I started checking out the amount of blood on her nightshirt. She had like an oversized t-shirt and girl boxers on and like I said earlier, they were drenched with blood. But also with some blood splattered too, like little spots here and there. She had this cut over her eye and she had a nasty busted lip but it looked like way too much blood for just those small wounds. So I asked her if she had any other kind of injuries like an abdominal wound of some kind that might account for all the blood on her. She said no and that it was all from the busted lip in her eye and immediately I start smelling nonsense. I asked her again what exactly had happened back at the apartment

and she started getting weirdly defensive about what she told me. I was starting to think it wasn't quite the abusive spouse kind of story that she told me the first time around, but I had no inkling of what was really going on. That being said, I was getting tired of waiting for the coughs to show so I decided to call them back myself. All I had on me was my wallet, my phone and my car keys. The only three things I'd had time to stuff into the pockets of my shorts before fleeing the apartment.

But when I take my phone out to call the cops, she says something along the lines of, What are you doing? I state the obvious, I'm about to call the cops back and she's like, don't. I don't know if it was the way she was looking at me, the way she spoke or the way she sort of tensed up when I told her that I was about to do that, but the mood in the room just shifted completely. I asked her why not, then just went right back to dialing 911. But by the time the operator spoke down the line, I looked up and saw she had a knife in her hand. She just said, hang up, now.

So I did. I'd never had a knife pulled on me at that point, and I can't overstate how terrifying it was. It wasn't even just the knife either, it was the overwhelming creepy sensation of knowing that all wasn't what it seemed. I wasn't hiding from the threat, I was with the threat. I'll be honest here, I basically begged her not to hurt me, and to my relief she said she wouldn't as long as I drove her to the Canadian border. Given this was in Detroit, the border isn't all that far, but I didn't want to catch charges for aiding and abetting or whatever, so I knew I had to think of something to stop that from happening. It's not like I knew I

couldn't tell the cops that I'd been threatened or whatever, but I also knew that the longer I spent in this girl's company, the more chances I'd have of being stabbed. So, I tell the girl that I drive her to the border, but that I needed to get something to eat first. I play it like I wanted to stop somewhere on the way, knowing she'd reason me down to getting something delivered from a 24-hour joint. She also stated that she'd be the one going down to pick the food up, as she didn't want me having the chance to sound the alarm. That's where she messed up because she didn't seem to realize, to my infinite relief, that I could order from DoorDash and put something in the notes about needing the cops called to the motel. My whole plan hinged on there being a driver around that late at night but thank god

there was and I was even able to show her the order without bringing up the notes section that mentioned needing 911 call to the motel. And the cops played it perfectly too. They showed up without any lights and sirens on, didn't park in the lot, walked up to the motel room without being spotted from the window and just knocked on the door like they were a delivery driver. She walks over, opens up the door, then boom, they had a gun and a taser drawn on her before she even knew what was happening. She had the knife tucked into the back of her girl boxers, but the cops were wise to her drawing on them,

and she hit the floor hard after they hit her with the taser. Turned out they'd been looking for her because, get this, she was the abusive partner who'd stabbed her boyfriend almost to death before finding some poor schmuck, i.e. me, to drive her to the border. Dude almost bled to death in their apartment but managed to crawl to another neighbor's place to get help. You should've seen the amount of blood in the hallway when I got back to my apartment building and the whole place was crawling with cops in forensic gear. I thought I might be able to drive over to a friend's place to stay the night, you know, contaminating a crime scene or whatever, but they had this section of the corridor closed off so I could actually get into where I lived. The cops came to my apartment in

the morning to take my statement down and to fill me in on what they thought had happened, that's how I found out exactly what the deal was. It was 100% the craziest, most frightening thing that's ever happened to me, ever, in my life. And just the fact that I was part of it seems completely surreal to me. But the thing that sticks with me is how easily I swallowed her nonsense story at first, how I thought I was helping someone I knew, someone I could trust, when in reality, one wrong move, and I might not actually be around to tell you this. Back when I was in college, I used to work nights at my uncle's motel just outside of Baton Rouge. It was a pretty sweet gig for the most part. I was already a total night owl during the summers,

so instead of staying home with my parents, getting on their nerves, and being bored stiff during the midnight hours, I got to watch movies, read comic books, order takeout, and get paid for the whole thing. I remember those times with a lot of nostalgia to be honest, but every so often I think about this one night where I happened across one of the creepiest things I'd ever seen. It might even be the creepiest thing I'd ever even heard of too, mainly because of what it might have entailed and how many unanswered questions it left me with. It started with a motel's fire alarm going off. The fire alarm automatically alerted the fire department so officially speaking,

all I had to do was make sure all the guests evacuated properly. But then unofficially, with it being my uncle's only form of livelihood and him being terrible at making his insurance payments, it was always an unwritten rule that whoever was on duty would have to try their darndest to put the fire out before the whole freaking place burned down. So, that's what I did. Once I saw smoke billowing out of one of the rooms, I ran up there with my fire extinguisher, kicked in the door, and was relieved when I saw that the fire was basically a small one in the center of the room. I just let rip on that thing with my extinguisher then within a couple of seconds the fire was out and I'd saved the day. Obviously I didn't pay much attention to what else was going

on in the room and the fact that there was no one in it didn't faze me because I figured they evacuated like everyone else. My uncle had already been alerted of the fire and he's been ringing the motel's phone like crazy and boy did I feel like a hero telling him that I basically saved his entire income by putting the fire out before it could spread. He then asked me to check on the actual damage before the fire department showed, which was still going to be a while, hence why he'd always asked me to be Johnny on the spot with an extinguisher if there was ever a fire. So, I do as I'm told, heading back up to the room while reassuring the parking lot's congregation of guests that everything's going to be fine, and then I put the fire out. Only when I get back to the room do I realize that the fire had been

set in one of the small metal trash cans that was in each person's room. Someone had obviously filled the thing with god knows what, placed it in the center of the room, then just set the thing on fire before bailing out of the room. Then right as I'm thinking, why would someone do that? I realized someone had arranged a bunch of stuff around the room. They were clothes, kid clothes, and interspersed among them were a bunch of what looked like kids' drawings. Then when I checked down what the drawings were of, I realized it wasn't just the fire department that should be on their way, it was the cops too.

The drawings were of kids in cages, or sad crying kids with big angry looking grownups towering over them. Then another was of what seemed to be one kid crying over a dead kid while the grown-up figures laughed. Seriously, they were so horrific that despite the heat and smoke still circulating in the room, I felt a little chill go down my spine. I immediately went to call the cops, then checked who was booked into the room and more importantly if any kids were booked in there too. There was just one guy's name in there, Cameron O'Dell.

So what was one lone guy doing with so many kids' clothes? The drawings were horrifying but it wasn't out of the question that an adult could have been responsible for them. The clothes though, that was a different story. Right after the fire department arrived and they were checking the room over to confirm it was safe for the other guests to head back to their rooms, I asked the group of guests in the parking lot if there was a Cameron O'Dell among them. No one spoke up or raised a hand and no one by the name or any other name booked another room after everything died down so I'm guessing whoever was calling themselves by that name had gotten out of there following the

fire. The cops showed up a short while after the fire department did and I showed them all the clothes and drawings I'd found along with the booking under the Odell name. Officially their investigation would involve looking for potential arson, but the cops told me that they'd be looking into the clothes and drawings too if they ever caught the guy who tried to set the room on fire, and that was pretty much the last I heard of it. For the first few weeks that followed, I kept asking my uncle if they'd caught the guy who'd set the room on fire. Each time the answer was the same, no.

I tried telling him about the kids' clothes and the pictures, but all he seemed to care about was that the damage to the room was minimal. Besides, I was his hero, having put the fire out and all, so whenever the subject came up it was all just backslaps and that's my boy kind of talk. It was really hard to get to any details. Like I said earlier, what I'm mostly left with here are unanswered questions and a lot of half-baked theories of what that guy was trying to do, but there's one in particular that really sits with me. If the guy had a bunch of kids locked

up somewhere, if it was him that was trafficking children and he was trying to dispose of the evidence or something, he definitely went about it in a really dumb way. But then, what if he was one of the kids that had been abused, and he was trying to draw attention to it some way? What if he tried to get people to listen to him time and time again? Obviously, there's a lot to unpack here with that one, and it brings up way more questions than it answers, but I really don't know what else to make of such a creepy situation. I just feel like there's some deep dark backstory to the whole thing, but for the time being, I don't know what that is. Maybe in the years to come, if the truth comes out, I'll find out just what a crucial incident the motel fire was. Or maybe not.

Maybe it'll just remain a mystery, just like so many other things in life. I apologize in advance for not being the best storyteller, but this is definitely a true story. It's also not my story as much as it is my mom's, who used to work at a motel in California back in the 80s. Anyways, one day a guy shows up to book a room, and I'm just going to refer to this guy as The Guest, since I don't actually know his name. My mom got a sign to clean his room on the daily, but as time went by, she noticed that he always had the Do Not Disturb sign up on his room. So even like a week into his stay, she noticed that he always had the do not disturb sign up on his room.

So even like a week into his stay, she never once had a chance to clean his room. This didn't bother the cleaning staff too much, because the way my mom tells it, the guy was always super nice and friendly whenever he passed reception or bumped into any of the cleaning staff, always apologizing and telling them that he'd just clean up after himself. So if it saved them some work, they weren't exactly going to complain about it. Anyways, there came a point where the guy wasn't seen for a few days, and the do not disturb sign wasn't on the door anymore, so everyone figured that he just checked out and they'd be able to clean the room again. So given that my mom had been assigned to the

room like a month before, I came down to her to head over to clean it. As she got to the floor and unlocked the door to the room, a disturbing smell hit her. She couldn't figure out what it was, but she continued to survey the room which, contrary to the guest's previous assurances, was disgustingly messy. Her words were that it looked like someone had thrown a party, even though everyone was pretty sure that no one else seemed to have ever gone into the room besides the guest. Anyways, my mom was still shocked by the smell so she tried to track it down. Then as she followed the smell, she could tell it was coming from the hotel room closet. When she opened the closet, there was nothing but a wet looking cardboard

box on the ground and my mom said the smell got way more intense so she could tell it was coming from there. She said she had a strong suspicion that the guests had been using it to go to the bathroom in, so the last thing she wanted to do was look inside it. Instead, she puts on some gloves and covers up her mouth and nose, then picks the thing up to throw it into the trash. That's when she felt how heavy it was, like way heavier than if there was just some feces inside it or something. It was only when one of the other cleaning ladies smelled the same smell that they straight up said, somebody call the cops. Apparently, a few years before, this same cleaning lady had found a dead

body in her room as someone had a heart attack with a do not disturb sign on the door and it took almost two weeks before they finally went to investigate. She said it was like the exact same kind of rotting smell, definitely not anything else from the human body so they called the cops so they could come take a look at it. The cops showed up, cut open the box with everyone watching. Then the officer just looked up to his partner with this numb expression saying, call the coroner, we'll get a 419. Someone had to explain to my mom that the number was police code for dead body. Only it wasn't like a whole body in there. That much was obvious because the box was too small. It turned out to be just a decapitated head. I don't really know many more details than that. This is almost 40 years ago now and I couldn't find any internet

archived stuff before I wrote this up. But my mom said that there was talk of the head belonging to a call girl who had gone missing a few weeks before. They gave all the guy's info to the cops, but apparently that didn't help. The credit card was stolen and the guy had used the name on that card. Imagine being that person whose credit card got stolen though. One day you think you've lost it or something and then the next, the cops show up accusing you of having murdered a girl. Mom stayed working at the motel for maybe like a year afterward and she only quit when she met my dad and moved into his place up in Vallejo. That story always kept me from ever wanting to work in a hotel or motel or anything like that

and no matter how desperate for money I get, I think I'd have to be very, very desperate to work anywhere you mightel that everyone said was haunted. I must have been there for maybe 6 or 7 months and I hadn't seen anything of the sort. Granted, I don't believe in any of that kind of stuff so it's not like I was out there with my spook-o-meter but one night I had a little run-in with someone that had me questioning my stance on the supernatural altogether. So at this particular motel, we had what was basically an on-site diner that was just across from the rooms and everything a single story. One afternoon, we were expecting two elderly sisters to check in for a few nights. These two sisters just so happened to be friends

of the owners and fairly regular guests who came to stay on the owner's dime maybe two or three times a year. Only I hadn't met them yet, so I had no idea what they looked like or anything. It was way past dark when they arrived, so while they're being greeted by the owner and their baggage is being unloaded by some of the other staff, I get the nod to head up to their room with a bottle of complimentary wine. So, I head to the bar in the on-site diner, grab a bottle of our best wine, two glasses and a tray, then head out of the back door of the diner and around to the back of the motel.

This is a pretty crucial part of the story as I'd been told the wine had to be a surprise. They'd never have accepted it otherwise and the owner wanted a little showmanship for his friends, or more accurately, to make it look like he'd bothered to put some effort into it prior to their arrival. Either way, it meant that I didn't see the old ladies arrive, otherwise this story basically would never have happened. There's basically no one else around, and right after I put the wine into the motel room, I head out intending on scurrying away from the room so that the ladies don't catch me having planted their little gift. Only the opposite way I was due to head, I noticed one of the hallway lights was flickering.

I swear to God it was seriously like something out of a horror movie because I turned to look and underneath the flickering light, wearing a long flowing dress, is a headless figure. At this point it's important to note something about this whole dumb story about the ghost haunting the motel. Legend has it that it was a hung woman whose body had gone undiscovered for so long that she'd rotted to the point where her neck basically tore apart from the rot and the strain. Therefore, it was a headless ghost that was haunting the motel. I know that's about the lamest ghost story you've ever heard of, right? But then imagine being me, seeing that headless figure standing under the flickering light, and you can imagine why my heart went from zero to sixty as I looked at something that I had absolutely zero explanation for.

I think I gasped so loud and so much that my lungs felt like they were about to burst And that caused the figure in front of me to turn around Okay, it wasn't a ghost, like I said There's no such thing as ghosts or spirits or anything of that nature But there is such a thing as osteoporosis Osteoporosis is a condition that severely weakens the bones of people who suffer with it. And in older folks, it can mean that they end up with some pretty painful hunching postures, or in this old lady's case, bones so weak that she could barely support her own head.

This meant that from behind, it basically looked like this poor old lady had no head at all. Anyway, she turns around, gives me this look as if she'd horribly been offended by my terrified gasp, and I'm forced to explain it away like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you, you startled me. She just frowns, points up at the light and says something snarky like, better get that fixed, young man, then waddles off along the corridor. I felt like a total idiot. I seriously thought that I was looking at the very same ghost whose existence I've been denying for months on end.

I can't even lie, it was one of the scariest and creepiest moments I think I've ever experienced. To be continued... Back when I was in college down in Florida, I used to work a part-time job at this pretty upscale motel. The motel had this pretty nice pool and this one time, after a series of pretty gnarly rainstorms, I was tasked with cleaning it. This was really out of the ordinary as we had an actual specialist that came in when the pool was that bad. But my manager said the guy was up to his eyeballs in jobs and wouldn't be able to come out for a few days. And since it was costing us guests, he told me that if I got it done, he'd let me go early and still pay me my full day wage. Absolutely no brainer, so I accepted. Then about a half hour into the job, this absolute perfect 10 knockout of a girl around my age comes to the pool in her string bikini and asked how long it'd be until the pool was swimmable. I shrugged and told her I didn't know, but it was taking a long time as it was and

I'd only scooped like a quarter of the debris out of it. But then, to my luck, she seems content to just chill by the pool in one of those sun loungers until I was finished. I got where she was coming from. It was really hot outside and as pervy as it sounds, I was glad to have some nice scenery to look at while I worked. After a while, she started making a little small talk and after about a half hour of back and forth with her, I pretty much managed to clear the entire shallow end of plant trash. She then asked if she'd be good to dip her legs into the shallows and I'm like sure. But then as she does, I notice a bunch of small dark things

swimming out of one of the filters and towards her legs. She hadn't seen them because she was too busy looking up at me, but I was seriously like, get your legs out of the pool, I straight up screamed it. She looks at me like I'm crazy, as I'd already okayed her putting her legs in to cool down, but when she looks down, she lets out this ear-splitting scream, then basically sprints back to her room in tears. If you'd never seen Florida water bugs, now's the time to google them, and more specifically,

to google how big they can get. Somehow I'd never seen those evil looking things until right then, and Jesus Christ, they're a sight you're likely not to forget anytime soon. Worst thing is, they actually do bite people, which is exactly how they got their nickname of toe biters. They're not dangerous, like they're not poisonous or anything, but they're just about the last thing you want to see swimming towards your legs while you're dipping them in the pool. I'm not great with bugs either, so I noped out of there and told my boss that as much as I appreciated the offer of the day off, I wouldn't be carrying on cleaning the

pool that day. He was literally like, ah, you're alright, they won't kill you if they bite you. And I straight up told him that I'd rather he fire me than make me clean the pool while those terrifying little things were swimming around in it. Thankfully, he relented and told me to close the pool off by putting the chairs around it like a little fort until the pool guy could come out and completely drain and filter the thing. Apparently, they're pretty easy to kill just by using vinegar or something, but the pool guy still uses protective gloves and stuff because, get this, the water bugs can fake being dead, then just pop back alive into tricking you into thinking you're safe. That's pure nightmare fuel to me. Florida was fun and I'm glad I got to experience living there while I was in college, but I sure don't miss all the tropical wildlife down there and seriously,

if I never have to look at another water bug for the rest of my freaking life, it'll still be too soon. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon,

and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon.