The Lets Read Podcast - 203: UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES | 31 True Scary Stories | EP 191
Episode Date: September 5, 2023This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Psycho Dates & Unsolved Mysteries... HA...VE 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel,
wherever you go, you can get it from Tread Experts. Conquer rugged terrain with on-road comfort.
Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture
AT52 tires. Find a Kumo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations.
From tires to auto repair, we're always there at tread experts.ca slash locations.
Mom, mom, did you see my race? Of course I did, darling. Look, you did your best. You tried. The thing is, it's not about winning. It's about taking part. Next year, you might do better. But I did win, Mom.
You did?
When it's sunny, make sure you can still see.
At Specsavers, get two pairs of glasses from $149,
and one can be prescription sunglasses.
Hey, the sun won't wait.
Visit Specsavers.ca for details.
Conditions apply. Bye-bye. On the evening of October 5th of 2018,
26-year-old Terrence Woods Jr. was working as a TV production assistant
on the first season of the Discovery Channel documentary series,
Gold Rush, Dave Turin's Lost Mine.
He was part of a 12-man team from London-based production company Raw TV
who followed host Dave Turin as he explored abandoned mine shafts in the western United States.
Given that most of these derelict mines were located in hilly or mountainous regions,
some of Gold Rush's filming locations
provided incredible views of the surrounding areas. And Terrence took a great deal of pleasure
in sharing such incredible vistas with his friends via his Instagram account.
One picture depicted a fir forest under ceiling of steel gray clouds with a babbling brook flowing
through it. Captioned simply, Idaho, the photograph looked
like the kind of scene that Bob Ross would paint. Yet as the evening unfolded, the events that
transpired were proved to be anything but relaxing. On the contrary, something truly haunting was
about to unfold. As the shoot wrapped up in an area known as Oro Grande, Terrence told some of his
fellow crew members that he needed to take a leak and would be back in a few minutes.
But just moments later, associate producer Simon G found Terrence's walkie-talkie simply lying in
the dirt. Simon wasn't necessarily alarmed by this right away and assumed that Terrence had
merely dropped it while looking for a place to pee.
But then when he followed in the direction that Terrence had apparently walked off in, he spotted something deeply disturbing.
It was Terrence, running down a steep slope at a speed which Simon later described as being faster than he had ever seen anyone run before. Seconds later, Simon watched Terrence disappear into a thicket of greenery,
then he quickly raised the alarm among his co-workers.
Terrence's colleagues tore after him at similarly high speeds but were unable to catch sight of him,
and just as concerning was the fact that many of the team had suffered cuts and scrapes from the wild and inhospitable forest. If they'd been torn up in such a way while traveling at fairly measured
speeds, I could only imagine the kind of injuries that Terrence had suffered. Yet the one prevailing
question wasn't so much where Terrence had run off to, it was what had caused him to become so
frightened. Terrence's fellow crew members reported him
missing to the Idaho County Sheriff's Office at exactly 6.41pm, but due to the darkness that was
quickly blanketing the area, the cops didn't begin their search for him until the following morning.
His co-workers were incensed by the lack of action, but the County Sheriff assured them
that it was unlikely that Terrence
had gotten far during the night. The rough terrain meant any progress he was likely to make would be
slowed considerably, and on top of that, they were going to compensate for lost time by throwing
everything they had into the search for him. At first light on October 6th, search teams
consisting of foot patrols, ATV riders, and sniffer dog teams were joined by helicopters equipped with heat-sensitive cameras,
each spiraling out in concentric rings that cast a wide net over the Oro Grande region.
It seemed impossible for Terrence to avoid such an intensive search, yet somehow, not a single trace of him was found. And just six days into the operation,
the search was called off after the county sheriff declared that
there was no way that Terrence could be in the same area he disappeared from.
For all intent and purpose,
Terrence Woods Jr. had dropped off the face of the earth,
never to be seen again.
Those that knew him found the story of his disappearance to be completely
mystifying. The original Idaho County Sheriff's Office report stated that Terrence was right in
the middle of a mental health crisis at the time he vanished, yet his family and friends stated
that they had talked to him extensively in the weeks prior, and aside from missing home a little,
he seemed perfectly normal.
His family then tried to contact various members of the production crew,
as well as Oro Grande locals, but found only one that was willing to talk to them.
While well-meaning, this local was of very little help and said that it was impossible to determine what kind of mental state Terrence was in
during the brief time they'd interacted with him.
It got to the point where Terrence's parents, Valerie and Terrence Sr.,
believed that Raw TV was actually trying to cover up the truth of their son's disappearance.
Each asserted that Terrence was a responsible, intelligent young man who wouldn't just run away
unless he'd been completely terrified by something. On the other hand, Raw TV denied
hiding or obscuring any detail of Terrence's mindset or behavior, with the company's spokesman
saying that there is nothing to support such allegations and that Terrence had not been
intimidated or mistreated by any of the Oro Grande locals or his co-workers. However,
they did state that Terrence's conduct on that set had not been up to
his usual standards and that he often seemed distracted during his work. When pressed on the
matter, Raw TV's CEO Jolie Feather described Woods' disappearance as heartbreaking, adding that the
whole company was praying that their friend and co-worker would be safely recovered. She was also quick to note that the Idaho County Sheriff's Office had commended Raw TV for their complete cooperation,
as well as their ongoing support for the investigation.
During his youth, Terrence had spent five years in the English capital of London,
firstly as a student at the American International University, then working on shows like The Voice
UK. He had made many friends during his time in England, and when word of his disappearance
reached them, they were nothing short of devastated. One former colleague described him as
the most pure-hearted person she'd ever met, that Terrence was calm and gentle,
and that she began screaming and crying when she received the bad news. It just didn't make sense, she later said. You know if somebody's going through something,
or they're a stressful person, or whatever, you're like, okay cool the person took off
because of mental health, or whatever it might be. For Terrence to run off, it's very bad.
Disturbingly, this ex-colleague also added that there was something of a toxic work culture at Raw TV,
something she herself experienced during her time there,
and that on several occasions, she was made to feel quite uncomfortable with what she referred to as
somewhat boyish working environment.
Raw TV was quick to deny these claims,
saying they did the utmost to make their employees feel welcome and comfortable,
and their former employees' claims were not reflective of the company's policies.
Another former colleague of Terrence's, Rochelle Newman,
said that a full investigation should be conducted to discover exactly what caused him to become so frightened.
We need a timeline of events from when Terrence arrived in Idaho until they said he disappeared.
We need a full investigation into the crew, she said.
If it was me who was filming and traveling for work, I would want the same to be done.
Rochelle suggested that such an investigation should be entirely civilian-led
and urged the Idaho County Sheriff's Office to offer their full support and cooperation.
This led to the establishment of an Instagram account entitled
at FindTerrenceWoods, which quickly gained upwards of a thousand followers,
all of whom yearned for clarity regarding what happened on the night he went missing.
We kept getting conflicting information, said Terrence's mother.
One minute the police department are saying the case is closed and the next they're saying it's still active. This confusion seems to have stemmed
from a law enforcement press release which stated that Terrence's case is open but not active,
and very little comfort seems to have been taken in the idea that the sheriff's department would
follow up on any new information, and that there is no specific amount of time a missing person case remains active, it remains open as long as the person is missing.
Given the complete lack of new information pertaining to Terrence's disappearance,
a number of theories have emerged regarding what might have happened, or what he might
have seen that caused him to become so terrified.
The most prevalent seems to involve accusations of racism among the
crew, as well as among the local or agrande citizenry. Many of Terrence's nearest and dearest
have noted that he was the only African-American member of the production crew, and that someone
might have taken a distinct disliking to his presence either on the team or in the area in
general. It's been suggested that someone took advantage of the fact that Terrence went off to use the bathroom
and attempted to ambush or lynch him during the brief window that he was away from the crew.
Some believe the fact that his radio was found abandoned is evidence that
whoever grabbed him made sure to disarm him of any ability to effectively call for assistance.
But if this is the case,
why didn't Terrence call for help at any point, even if he was free to do so?
It makes sense that whoever grabbed him might cover his mouth, robbing Terrence of his chance
to scream for help. But if that was the case, at some point he managed to break free and make
a run for it, so why not scream for help then?
Again, it's possible there's an explanation for this, albeit a very disturbing one,
that the whole production crew wanted Terrence dead, and had told him this either overtly or covertly. If that was the case, it makes sense that Terrence would simply just make a run for
it without stopping, looking back or calling for help.
But why wait for an actual attack to occur before getting out of there?
In so many words, some have accused the production company, especially associate producer Simon G,
of fabricating the story of Terrence running at full pelt in order to cover up that they killed him before dumping his body somewhere it could never be found. Yet the likelihood of the entire crew remaining tight-lipped about such an injustice is extremely
slim, and if that was the case, surely the extensive search using cadaver dogs would
have at least turned something up. Another arguably more plausible theory is that Terrence
had a run-in with some kind of predatory animal, one which stalked him, chased him, and killed him before dragging his dead body somewhere discreet in
order to consume it. This might explain why the search teams were unable to locate or recover
any of his remains during their intensive and extensive search of the area in which he went
missing. Perhaps the cadaver dog teams were simply unlucky in their search, or a stronger odor masked the scent and prevented the dogs from distinguishing the distinct stench of human remains.
But anyone who knows anything about a dog's mind-boggling powerful olfactory scents will tell you how extremely unlikely that is.
And so, we're faced with the possibility that Terrence either completely extricated himself from the area and managed to do so in almost pitch darkness,
or that something otherworldly occurred to ensure that neither he nor his remains would ever be found.
There are dozens of less plausible explanations which blame more supernatural hazards for Terrence's disappearance. And although the Shroud of
Mystery makes them more and more worthy of consideration, I don't believe it'll serve
his memory well to explore them when much more conventional police work might still yield
fruitful results. But still, ruminating on what could scare a man so badly that he'd go tearing
off through the woods, injuring himself horribly in the process,
is unsettling to say the least. Back home in Maryland, Terrence's father finds each new day just as difficult as the one which took his son away. I don't want to watch movies with someone
running through the woods because I think of my son, he told one media outlet. If I close my eyes, I see my son crying and yelling. Some nights I hear
my son saying, dad, dad. I walk around the house and look at his room. Terrence's parents still
display photographs of him on their dresser and one of his paintings hangs above their bedroom
closet. The Dodge Charger Hemi his parents bought for him still sits unused in the family driveway.
Every so often, Terrence Sr. runs the engine so that the battery won't run down,
hoping that one day Terrence will return to finally drive it. But as each day passes,
as each year rolls into the next, it seems less and less likely that Terrence Woods Jr.
will ever make it home. In the far west of Canada lies a body of water known as the Salish Sea.
Straddling the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington, the Salish Sea includes an intricate network of connecting channels and adjoining waterways,
connecting ports and cities such as Vancouver, Seattle, and Tacoma.
At first glance, the Salish Sea is a picture of marine serenity,
a haven for oceanic wildlife such as sea lions, humpback whales, and orcas. But looks can be
deceiving, and scratching the surface reveals a horrifying series of occurrences that stretch
back more than a hundred years and have some rather terrifying implications. In 1887, residents
of the newly incorporated city of Vancouver made a rather chilling discovery. They discovered a boot washed up on a
stretch of shoreline, and since leather was still an expensive and heavily coveted commodity at the
time, they attempted to retrieve it in hopes of recycling the material. However, upon picking up
the boot, the scavengers recoiled in horror when they found that it still contained the remnants of a human leg.
News of the incident became entrenched in local folklore and led to the discovery site being
named Leggin Boot Square. History repeated itself on July 30th of 1914, when natives from the village
of Kimsquit talked of finding a human leg encased in a high boot
near the mouth of the Salmon River. The Vancouver Sun reported that, to the best of their estimations,
it had belonged to a man who had drowned on the river the previous summer.
But how exactly it became detached from its owner remained a mystery.
The grim phenomenon either went unreported or subsided completely for almost a hundred years.
Until finally, in 2007, the discovery of dismembered feet made a sudden and rash re-emergence.
On August 20th of 2007, an American visitor to the Jedediah Island Marine Provincial Park
picked up a size 12 Adidas sneaker, one with a sock still embedded inside of
it. It had been lying on a stretch of shoreline and with curiosity having apparently gotten the
better of her, the girl picked it up, thumbed open the sock, then screamed as she was greeted with the
sight and stench of rotten flesh. Police were immediately called to the scene, with investigators determining that it was a man's right foot
which had become disarticulated due to being submerged in the waters of the Salish Sea.
The white and blue mesh running shoe was determined to have been produced in 2003
and distributed mainly in India,
while DNA analysis showed the remains belonged to a missing person
said to be suffering
from a deep depression. Just six days later, a second disarticulated foot was discovered by a
couple hiking on a nearby Gabriola Island. At first, it was suspected that it may have been
the left foot of the depressed missing person, yet when it was discovered that it was in fact
another right foot, this theory had to be ruled out. The sneaker itself was a size 12 Reebok that had been
produced in 2004 before primarily being sold in North America before being discontinued shortly
afterward. The fact that it was also a right foot and the sneaker had been produced around the same
time as the first led investigators to speculate that there might have been some kind of serial killer at work, one whose modus operandi was to toss the
severed right feet of their victims into the sea as a means of taunting the authorities and haunting
those that found them. No additional detached feet were discovered until February of 2008,
when a right foot and a size 11 Nike were
recovered from Valdez Island. The remains were identified as belonging to a 21-year-old man who
had been reported missing around four years earlier, but local law enforcement was quick
to declare that his death was not considered suspicious and that he had died as a result of
either misadventure or taking his own life.
The man's right foot was later discovered on Westham Island by two hikers on June 16th.
May 22nd, 2008 saw the first female foot being found on Kirkland Island.
Encased in a blue and white New Balance sneaker,
it was thought to have washed down the Fraser River after its owner jumped from the Petullo Bridge in New Westminster in April 2004. Again, it was speculated that the cause of
death was them taking their own life, but the woman in question had no history of depression
or any other kind of mental health problems, and she had neglected to leave any kind of note prior
to her disappearance. The woman's left foot was found
floating in the Fraser River in November of the same year. A few months later, the right foot of
a man was found covered in seaweed by a camper on a beach near the town of Peist in Washington State.
The large black-topped size 11 athletic shoe was confirmed to contain human bones and flesh by the
Clallam County Sheriff's
Department, who also determined that the foot had been carried south from Canadian waters.
No more severed feet were found washed up on the banks of the Salish Sea for almost a whole year,
and some have speculated that this is perhaps the best evidence of a serial killer that currently
exists. The massive publicity that the finds generated
may have spooked them, causing them to delay any murders or dumping of body parts for a considerable
amount of time. It wasn't until October of 2009 that the next detached foot was found,
this time in Richmond, British Columbia. The remains were determined to have belonged to a man from Vancouver who
was reported missing in early 2008, but the circumstances surrounding his disappearance
remained an eerie mystery. The find once again captured the imagination of the public on both
sides of the international border, and arguably, this once again caused a potential serial killer to lay low for almost the exact same amount of time, just shy of a year.
In August of 2010, a small woman or child's foot was found in the shores of Whidbey Island down in Washington.
A detective from the Island County Sheriff's Office released a statement saying the foot would be tested for DNA.
But following these tests, there was no match found in any national database
that provided a clue to the person's identity.
The next foot, discovered on December 5th of 2010,
also belonged to a smaller woman or a child
and was found on the Tidal Flats near Tacoma, Washington.
The right foot was still inside a boys- style size 6 Ozark Trail hiking boot, and the fact that the feet of two separate children were found within just months of each other and in the same area once again fueled speculation of a serial killer.
A pattern was clearly forming, one that repeated itself once again where there was a lack of human feet discovered for almost another year.
It took until August 30th for another foot to show up, and this time it was discovered near False Creek up in British Columbia.
The sneaker in question was a man's white and blue size 9 running shoe and was found
floating next to the Plaza of Nations Marina.
Unlike many of the other severed feet, this one was still attached to
the lower leg bones and had been disarticulated naturally at the knee due to the water.
Some argued this was evidence that the whole phenomenon was simply a tragic but natural
occurrence, the consequence of the foolish and depressed getting into trouble near the shores
of the Salish Sea. But as we all know, it's fairly common for serial
killers to switch up their modus operandi in order to throw the cops off their scent.
And with heavy speculation blossoming over the origins of the dismembered feat,
it's possible that a potential killer might want to make things look as natural and
non-suspicious as possible. The next foot was found on November 4th of 2011
on the shores of British Columbia's Sossamat Lake.
A man's right foot was found inside a size 12 hiking boot
in a pool of fresh water by a group of campers
and in January of 2012,
it was identified as belonging to a local fisherman
who went missing in 1987.
Unbelievably, the Canadian police released a statement saying that the foot separated
naturally from the body and do not suspect foul play, even though it wasn't clear exactly
how the man had gone missing.
Just over a month later, near Seattle's Lake Union, a human leg bone and foot were found
wrapped in a black plastic bag under the Ship
Canal Bridge, and by January the following year, the Seattle Medical Examiner had not identified
the victim or determined their cause of death. At this point, it's almost like someone was trying
to draw attention to the idea that these were no mere accidents. Whoever had tossed the foot
into the Salish Sea had taken the time to remove
the person's shoe or boot before wrapping it in a plastic bag, almost like they had dithered between
not wanting to be caught, but then seeking the infamy of the public knowing there was a serial
killer on the loose. After this, between January of 2012 and January of 2019, eight more human feet, all belonging to different people,
have washed up in various places on the shores of the Salish Sea. And while many still chalk
the incidents up to a tragic accident and fatal misadventures, I'm very skeptical that such a
bizarre and frightening phenomenon can be explained away so easily. If you ask Gail Anderson, a leading entomologist
at British Columbia's Simon Fraser University, body parts such as hands, feet, or even a human
head can often detach as a result of water-submerged decomposition due to the relatively
weak cartilage-based attachment to the greater torso. Such extremities rarely float, but then add a mostly rubber foam
sneaker into the mix, or even decomposition-related gases, and you have something that could float for
miles before ending up washed ashore somewhere. That still doesn't quite explain how these people's
bodies got into the water, but it certainly might rule out the possibility of a serial killer
cutting off their feet and tossing them into the sea as a way of frightening law enforcement and
the media. However, ask certain members of law enforcement about the incidents and we get a
rather different answer. Both American and Canadian homicide detectives have spoken of
how frighteningly unusual it is to find only the feet of the deceased parties,
but no other body parts. Some have even mentioned that the office of finding two dismembered feet from the same corpse, and still not finding any other body parts washed up, has to be around a
million to one. Even one of the detectives assigned to one of the cases referred to it as
nothing short of an anomaly. Even more suspicious
is how close some of the feet have washed up in relation to one another, suggesting that some of
them really had been tossed into the water at a very particular location, with set currents taking
them in similar directions across the Salish Sea. Over the years, many strong but incomplete
arguments have been made which support the
idea that the Salish Sea feet are not the result of foul play. But I cannot help but notice a
certain pattern which seems to emerge throughout the discoveries. First of all, the vast majority
of the appendages discovered are right feet, with the left feet never being discovered. Secondly, from 2007 onward, the pattern
of feet found seemed to fluidly transition from male to female to two consecutive discoveries of
children's feet. It should also be noted that whenever the discoveries got too much attention,
the way in which the limbs appeared to become detached looked more and more natural. Yet when
interest in the cases
waned to its lowest point, it was made clear that there just had to be some kind of human
involvement in the discoveries. The reason behind the Salish Sea's severed feet may well turn out
to be some kind of bizarre but natural phenomenon. But between you and me, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if they turned out to be the handiwork of some sadistic, 1972, in Springfield Township, New Jersey,
16-year-old Jeanette DePalma decided to pay a visit to a friend of hers.
The end of the summer break was fast approaching and Jeanette wanted to make the most of it before
she had to return to school. So, after asking permission from her mother, she left her
home on Clearview Road and headed towards a nearby train station. Over at her friend's place,
her friend became concerned when Jeanette didn't arrive. But having assumed that Jeanette had
simply changed her mind about the visit, she didn't freak out or raise the alarm. However,
later that night, when Jeanette failed to return home from her outing,
her parents grew increasingly worried for their daughter's safety.
The following day, the De Palma family filed a missing persons report with the local Springfield
Police Department, and as the days went by, the search for the missing teenager grew ever more
intense. Then, on September 19th, just short of six weeks after
Jeanette first went missing, a man was walking his dog atop a cliff inside of Springfield's
Haldale Quarry. At one point, the dog ran off, just as unleashed dogs are likely to do,
and according to its owner, it seemed particularly interested in something concealed among a patch
of dense foliage.
As he began to run back to him, the owner noticed his dog was carrying something in its mouth.
He assumed it was a log of some kind, some pale, barkless tree limb that had been bleached by the sun over time. Yet as his dog came closer, the man realized what was clamped between the dog's jaws wasn't made of wood at all.
It was a hunk of decomposing flesh in the form of a severed human forearm.
He quickly contacted the police, who descended on the quarry in the hopes that they could rule out the possibility of the forearm having once belonged to Jeanette De Palma.
After all, this was Jersey in the 70s.
It wouldn't be the first dead body to be dumped in a quarry and it certainly wouldn't be the last. But after scouring the quarry and finding the body
that the forearm had belonged to, law enforcement was faced with the grim prospect of contacting
the De Palma family to inform them that their daughter had been murdered. Yet as if Jeanette's
abduction and murder wasn't frightening enough,
the police then had to deal with a considerably more horrifying aspect of the case,
and it involved the condition in which her body had been found.
According to eyewitnesses, Jeanette's corpse had been disposed of in a deeply unsettling fashion.
Whoever had killed her hadn't just dumped her body off of a cliffside known to
locals as the Devil's Teeth, but they had arranged a series of sticks and twigs around her body that
formed the distinct shape of a coffin. Not only that, but her killer had carved several small
wooden crosses out of twigs and sticks before placing them upside down around her lifeless head.
Some claim the shape of a pentagram had been carved out of the dirt underneath her
and that the remains of several mutilated animals had been placed on top of her body.
And while law enforcement denied that being the case, they were forced to admit that certain
parts of these eyewitness accounts were true.
The mysteries of the case deepened when the Union
County Coroner's Office reported that they could not identify the distinct cause of Jeanette's
death. Neither her dead body nor the clothing she wore at the time of her death showed any signs of
bone fractures, bullet holes, or stab wounds. What's more, no drug paraphernalia was found on or around the body,
and her remains tested negative for any kinds of narcotics.
In the end, when pressed for an estimate on her cause of death,
the coroner was forced to deduce that Jeanette had died from some kind of soft asphyxiation,
meaning that someone had softly placed a cloth or pillow over her face,
slowly preventing her from getting
enough oxygen. This was the only way someone would be able to kill her without leaving any
signs of their handiwork on the body. But it also raised the question of how someone was able to do
something like that without any resistance. If they'd rendered her unconscious through drugs
or violence, it would be relatively easy to detect. And if they'd forced
the fabric over her mouth and nose while she was still awake, there was a good chance she'd
have been able to scratch at her killer, which would leave skin samples under her nails.
The coroner reported that this wasn't the case, that Jeanette's nails were clean,
and that she couldn't have been restrained in any other way because there was no bruising around her wrists or elbows.
The only thing the coroner had noticed was that there seemed to be an unusually high amount of lead in Jeanette's digestive system at the time of her death,
but they were also quick to note that she didn't die of lead poisoning,
and that the substance could have come from drinking water or food, accumulating over time until there was enough to become detectable. Officially, Jeanette had died of asphyxiation,
but unofficially, her death remained a complete and utter mystery.
But it was a mystery that local law enforcement was determined to get to the bottom of.
Early on in their investigation, two homicide detectives received a tip regarding a local homeless man named Red,
who lived alone in a wooded area not far from the quarry.
The anonymous tipster alleged that Red had fled his woodland campsite not long after Jeanette had been declared missing,
and if even he wasn't the man responsible for her murder, he had certainly acted as if though he'd witnessed something he shouldn't have.
The Union County Prosecutor's Office issued a warrant for Red's arrest,
and after an intense period of questioning, it was determined he'd had nothing to do with Jeanette's death. However, both of the homicide detectives who'd questioned him believed he was
withholding information in some way. But even after threatening him with jail time on account
of perverting the course of
justice, Red still didn't want to give them the full explanation of why he'd fled his woodland
campsite. One of these detectives later said that when asked if he'd seen anyone acting suspicious
around the area known as the Devil's Teeth, Red had gone completely silent, in a way that suggested
that he was fearful of talking about what he'd seen that night. When asked if he'd been intimidated or threatened by those responsible
for Jeanette's murder, Red began visibly sweating, yet continued to keep his mouth shut no matter
how much the detectives tried to entice him to talk. It was the opinion of this particular
homicide detective that Red had been alerted to the goings-on inside the quarry that night,
and being a rather curious soul, he'd gone to investigate the eerie noises he'd heard.
Whoever was disposing Jeanette's body had then spotted him, pursued him,
then intimidated him into silence by threatening him with bodily harm should he ever speak of the things he'd witnessed that night.
However, without any other corroborating evidence to prove it, this line of investigation would be
completely fruitless, and there was no way to force Red to admit this to them without
violating his inalienable constitutional rights. With the Red angle essentially exhausted,
the detectives assigned to Jeanette's case continued to fish leads among
the DeBalma family, as well as the wider public. But due to a lack of solid information, along with
inconsistent stories told to the police by her family, friends, and peers, the case eventually
went cold. Just over two weeks after Jeanette's body was discovered, the Newark Star-Ledger and
the New York Daily News caught wind of the disturbing conditions in which her body had been disposed of, and started
running stories claiming that Jeanette had been murdered as part of some sacrificial occult ritual.
James Tate, the pastor of the De Palma Families Assembly of God's Church,
seemed to confirm his own personal beliefs in these rumors when he spoke of a local coven of
witches who operated inside nearby Wuchong Nature Reserve. He said that he had long been aware of
the group's existence and said it was only a matter of time before they acted on their ungodly creed
to take the lives of his congregation. Having a man of God talk so candidly about such a thing
sowed panic among the citizens of Union County who were still in a state of God talk so candidly about such a thing sowed panic among the citizens of Union County,
who were still in a state of emotional trauma as a result of the List family murders of the year before.
Two women and three children had been shot in cold blood at their home in nearby Westfield,
before the family patriarch suddenly went missing.
The murders weren't solved until the late 1980s,
when it was discovered that John List himself was responsible for killing his whole family.
But while the cause remained a mystery, numerous terrifying rumors circulated regarding the reasons behind the slayings, Satanism included.
As the years went by and the case grew colder and colder, it seemed to sink lower into the public's consciousness until it was almost as good as forgotten. But then, in the late 90s, a local publication known
as Weird New Jersey started receiving a series of anonymous letters relating to Jeanette's murder.
Weird New Jersey's chief editor and co-founder Mark Moran claimed to have opened his own personal
investigation into Jeanette's death
and wrote of discovering a number of inconsistencies and suspicious details
surrounding the police investigation. He asserted that upon contacting the Springfield Police
Department in regards to the old case files, one officer claimed that they had been lost
or destroyed over the years. This officer didn't know the circumstances in which the cases
had been lost, but promised to get back to Moran when he'd found out. Months went by,
and Moran had to once again contact the department in order to receive answers to his queries.
It was only then that he was told that the file had been lost due to flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
However, just weeks later, Moran said he spoke to another officer who told him that the De Palma murder case files were still in their possession,
that they had not been lost or damaged, and that the case remained open.
Yet when he asked to take a look at these files, Moran was denied the opportunity by an officer who promptly hung up on him.
The evasion did not deter Mark Moran from his investigation.
In fact, it did the opposite.
Moran describes how the inconsistencies in the information he received only spurred him on to discover the truth,
and he eventually ended up working with author Jesse P. Pollack to write the book Death on the Devil's Teeth,
the strange murder that shocked suburban New Jersey. In the course of their research,
Pollack and Moran uncovered more and more evidence pointing to a possible cover-up,
as well as a list of previously unknown suspects and connections to several other unsolved murders,
including those of Joan Kramer and Carol Ann Farino.
After interviewing several police officers who were involved with Jeanette's case at the time
of her death, Pollack and Moran discovered that several were unconvinced regarding the possible
narcotics connection. Heroin use was becoming increasingly popular at the time, with younger
users being particularly susceptible to overdosing. Some officers believe that despite there being no needle marks on her arms or drug paraphernalia
found at the scene, Jeanette had died of an overdose, and that by the time her body was found,
the coroner was simply unable to detect any of the drug in her system.
However, after several interviews with Jeanette's friends and family, Pollack and Moran heard
that she was not known to have used any recreational or prescription drugs, and that the coroner
had only officially chalked her death up to asphyxiation because he couldn't completely
rule it out.
A 2021 article from the New York Daily News mentions that an organization named Justice
for Jeanette De Palma is dedicated to
keeping her memory alive. The organizers are continuing to look for clues, even as the case
approaches the half-century mark, and have announced that local law enforcement are
still interested in finding out what happened to De Palma. But like so many other old cases,
the chances of the case being solved becomes less and less likely as the years
go by. And if there really is a coven of witches that is responsible for the occult sacrifice
of teenage girls, one has to wonder just how long it'll be before they strike again. One afternoon, back in January of 1968, a woman named Sondra Jackson was running a bath and heating up a bottle of milk for her five-month-old daughter, Kimberly.
Sondra and her daughter lived in a ground-floor apartment in a small northern English town called Norton.
And despite being a low-income single-parent family, they were happy.
On the evening in question, while Sandra was waiting for her daughter's bath water to cool,
she began heating up some milk in the kitchen while her daughter was in the apartment's backyard.
One has to understand that the layout of the apartment meant the kitchen was home to the
place's back door, meaning Sandra could keep a close eye on
her daughter while she prepared her bottle. Kimberly was sitting in her baby stroller,
one that was equipped with a series of wooden rattles that jangled whenever a breeze blew over
them. So to keep her daughter entertained as she went about her business, Sandra wrapped her infant
child up in a blanket, then placed her baby stroller outside in order to prevent restlessness and boredom. Sandra later said that in the course of her motherly duties,
she found herself in one of the apartment's front rooms and, suddenly, while looking out of the
room's front window, something caught her eye. She saw a teenage boy walking down the street outside,
wearing a dark-colored raincoat while pushing a white baby stroller. Sandra observed the boy with a kind of casual curiosity, noting that he seemed
to own the exact same model of baby stroller that she did, yet the thought quickly passed
as she finished her business in the front room before returning to the kitchen.
But the moment the backyard came into view, Sandra's heart began to race,
a wild panic setting in as she realized her own baby stroller was missing.
The boy hadn't been pushing a similar looking stroller at all. He'd been pushing her baby
stroller, the one containing her defenseless infant daughter. Sandra rushed to inform the
local police force that her daughter
had been kidnapped, and given that the suspected kidnapper was on foot, they rushed into action in
the hopes that they would be apprehended quickly. As law enforcement scoured the area, Sandra
remained at home, her terror rendering her almost incapacitated as a pair of elderly neighbors tried but failed to comfort her.
Meanwhile, a police officer on the hunt for little Kimberly's kidnapper discovered her stroller,
abandoned in a parking lot just a short distance away,
near a place known to the locals as Billingham Bottoms.
Billingham Bottoms was a popular fishing spot and consisted of a medium-sized fishing lake
along with several smaller ponds.
Given that the stroller was abandoned, the officer kept an eye out for a teenage boy
carrying a baby in his arms.
But as he walked, he spotted something which took his breath away.
Lying face down, fully clothed, in one of the area's smaller tadpole ponds, was baby Kimberly.
She was motionless, having drowned after being tossed into the water, presumably by her teenage
kidnapper.
Investigators determined that Sondra's backyard was connected to an adjacent alleyway, one
which would be publicly accessible as it lacked any kind of fence or a gate.
Yet despite being accessible, the backyard wasn't visible from the main street,
meaning Kimberly's kidnapper had to have walked down the back alley on a whim only to find a target of opportunity as he found himself in Sandra's backyard.
The suspect had been spotted by Sandra's neighbors as the boy pushed the stroller down the street
and was later described as being between 12 and 14 years old, standing between 4'6 and 4'11.
He had an average build and was said to have a friendly looking face with clear skin and dark, bushy hair.
He also wore a dark green hooded anorak with a white shirt underneath. One eyewitness mentioned spotting the
boy near the Billingham Bottoms pond where the deceased Kimberly was later found, and that he
was still pushing the stroller but that it was empty. This led police to believe that the boy
had kidnapped Kimberly before immediately pushing her stroller in the direction of the pond,
having always intended to end her life by drowning from the moment he laid eyes on her.
But with regards to motive, the police were mystified, and the only thing any of them
could agree on is that it was most likely an impulsive spur-of-the-moment killing
with the victim chosen completely at random. A composite image of the boy was produced by
collating eyewitness descriptions of him
and door-to-door inquiries were carried out in the hopes of finding him.
The police even accompanied a still grieving Sandra on a tour of 19 local schools
in the hopes she might be able to identify him as one of the pupils there.
But even after such an extensive examination of local children,
Sandra failed to identify any of them as her daughter's
kidnapper. Some officers began to consider the terrifying possibility that Sandra had actually
hired the boy to dispose of her daughter, as it seemed impossible that such an intensive
investigation could fail to yield any kind of result. And although it might seem unusual for
a mother to leave her child unattended
in a backyard, even in frigid January weather, many have attested to the fact that the late 60s
were a completely different time, a time when neighbors trusted each other and the wider
consciousness of the public was considerably more innocent. As for Sandra, the level of grief and
guilt she displayed, and the fact that she pushed for the case to be reopened on multiple occasions in the years that followed, convinced many of her innocence.
Knowing that I saw him take my baby away is killing me, she once told the media, and I have suffered for it all my life with depression.
For some, the idea that such a young person could commit such a heinous act was almost too horrible to consider.
Unless the boy suffered from some kind of learning difficulty,
someone in their early teens is more than old enough to know right from wrong.
But what if the boy's intentions hadn't quite been as malicious as many believed?
What if he'd simply decided to take her for a walk around Billingham Bottoms,
and during the course of showing her some of the tadpole ponds, he'd accidentally dropped her into
the water? Someone with diminished intelligence might easily panic if such an event occurred,
or they might not even realize the severity of their actions until it was too late.
However, this idea has been rolled out by the fact that Kimberly's kidnapper
had removed the wooden rattles from her stroller and was intelligent enough to realize that not
only would it make her stroller more recognizable, but they might also attract unwanted attention due
to the distinct noise they made. It's extremely unlikely that anyone with any serious learning
difficulties or benevolent intentions would think to do such a thing,
and this alone is evidence enough that Kimberly's murderer had evil in his heart that day.
Yet as the investigation failed to produce any serious evidence, it stalled, with the case eventually turning cold.
36 years later in 2004, a 57-year-old Sandra Jackson once again called for the investigation
into her daughter's kidnap to be reopened. His fingerprints should have been all over the pram,
she said in a newspaper article which revisited the details of the case.
I want to know if any were kept and if the case can be looked at again.
I was young at the time and so naive and didn't understand investigations, but things have come on so far since then. The person who did this
may have been arrested since for something and their records be on file, or the guilt they are
feeling could make them hand themselves in. As a way of raising awareness for the three
decade old crime, the newspapers sensationalized the crime by reframing the killer as an angry young victim of abuse who wanted to hurt someone even more
vulnerable than him as a way of getting back at the world. Sadly, the re-examining of the case
was fruitless, and to this day, Kimberly's murder remains unsolved. Even more tragic is the fact
that in the same year that Sandra appealed
for the case to be reopened, her 26-year-old son died of a drug overdose. Having struggled with
addiction all his life, Aaron Jackson had been clean for 18 months when he suddenly relapsed,
and his death added another layer of tragedy to Sandra's long life of suffering.
With every year that goes by,
Kimberly Jackson's kidnap and murder becomes less and less likely to be solved,
as her case becomes increasingly forgotten. But even more unlikely is the idea that her
killer would ever forget committing such an act of evil. If there's even a shred of humanity in
them, they'll be haunted by the memories of abducting and drowning a five
month old child. But then again, there's always the frightening possibility that they look back
on their youth, remember the monstrous act they committed with a sickening kind of fondness.
Maybe they look back on the day they got back at a world that they didn't understand,
or had so horribly mistreated them,
and they simply smile. Aaron Taylor grew up in Bend, Oregon, as the fifth child of a Mormon bishop.
Then, when Aaron was just 10 years old, his family relocated to the Phoenix Valley in Arizona.
He was an intelligent, well-behaved child, but one that fell in with a bad crowd during his high school years.
As a result, he began experimenting with drugs and alcohol, which resulted in a series of run-ins with local law enforcement.
Once Aaron reached high school and received a little more freedom, he began to act out.
He wanted his friends and other students to accept him, and he began pushing the boundaries,
diving into alcohol and drugs and getting into problems with the law.
During his mid-twenties, Aaron decided to make a positive change in his life,
and he attended Grand Canyon University in order to earn a graduate equivalency degree, or a GED.
Eddie just couldn't seem to keep himself out of trouble,
and ended up going to prison for seven years after being convicted of burglary.
After an early release, he refused any aid from his parents and ended up living on the streets.
They made numerous attempts to find him, but none were successful,
and tragically, they would never again see their troubled young son alive.
On Christmas night of 2007, Aaron was sitting outside a Subway sandwich store on the corner of Cactus Road and Paradise Village Parkway.
Despite his tough life, Aaron was known as a kind and gentle soul, but he was not without enemies. For quite a while at that point, three local youths have made it their mission to make Aaron's life as difficult
as possible. Employees of the nearby subway said that they personally witnessed the youths pouring
liquids on him, taping him to a bench, getting him extremely drunk, or even throwing him into a fountain.
Then, on Christmas night, while in a particularly cruel mood,
one of the youths was spotted flicking lit matches onto Aaron's beard.
At exactly 6.56pm, a call came in to the local police station.
The caller told the cops that there was a mannequin that was on fire,
but when the cops arrived, they discovered it was no mere plastic model that was ablaze.
It was Aaron.
The security guard from a local Circle K was trying in vain to smother the flames with his jacket, and although one officer attempted to resuscitate him,
Aaron was pronounced dead upon his arrival at a nearby hospital.
Aaron's friend, a maintenance man for nearby Paradise Valley Mall, was tasked with pressure washing the bench the next morning,
only to learn that the area he was pressure washing was the scene of his friend's death.
It was Christmas Day. Somebody should have brought him some turkey or something,
the maintenance man said in an interview.
Instead, somebody burned him alive.
To this day, Aaron's murder has never been solved, and despite the campaign of harassment he was subjected to,
no one seems to have any idea who his three tormentors were.
As a result, three people are still free to walk the streets,
having done something truly obscene to a vulnerable, troubled young man,
and having completely gotten away with it. For most of my young life, I grew up in a very safe area. It was one of those neighborhoods
where all the kids knew each other and often stayed out well after dark in the summers to
play flashlight tag or manhunt. Our biggest concern was calling our parents to let them
know that we would be sleeping over at a friend's house. I mention all of this so you can understand
how terrifying my mother's story was to a fairly sheltered 16-year-old me. My mother was and remains
to this day one of the strongest women I had ever known. She survived decades of mental, emotional,
and I suspect in her early years physical abuse from her sociopathic father. When he tried to prevent her from getting
away by refusing to help cover college expenses, she moved out anyway and paid every cent on her
own. When a drunk redneck tried to assault a friend of hers, she gave him a hard right hook
and dropped that pile of human garbage. And if people ever threaten her kids' safety, God help them, that woman makes Mama
Grizzlies look friendly. So, as you might imagine, I never thought anything could scare this woman.
But now I understand that even the bravest person can fear for their very survival when
monsters come out of the shadows. This takes place around the year 1985 in my home state of South Carolina. My parents had
only been married for about two years at the time, both very excited and determined to make something
of themselves. They didn't have a lot of money back then and were renting a tiny apartment until
they could save enough to buy a house. Mom hated that apartment, specifically the large window in
their bedroom that people from the street could easily see into.
They wanted to put up curtains, but there were no rods, and the landlord was a cheapskate who threatened to keep their deposit if they put even a dent into the wall.
It annoyed them that they could have no privacy in their own home, but they decided since it was a short-term lease to just ignore it.
It was a big mistake.
This open window would cause mom to have nightmares for years after.
And now let me tell you about how a murderer first targeted my mom as a potential victim.
Mom was an avid runner and a competitive cross-country athlete all through high school.
She would often go for
three or four mile long runs in the evenings to clear her mind after work. The area she was
running in is a bit rural, with few houses and little traffic on the roads. It's an area that
high schools like to use in the fall for track and country training. On the day she was out there,
it was early summer, so no students or other runners
were about. She liked the quiet and kind of mentally drifted for a bit. As an old brown
colored car with tinted windows came up behind her, she moved off the road to let them pass.
The car seemed to be going past her. The windows were even with her and then it slowed down.
The car stayed like this for
around 10 minutes, never speeding or slowing, only a few feet behind her. Mom realized that
this person had bad intentions and knew her life was in danger. Worried there was no one around
who could help, she had to make a quick decision. So she sprinted off in the field next to her,
thankfully finding a small
ditch lined with several thick bushes. She crawled into the largest one and laid flat on her stomach
to hide. The car had tried to follow but the curb had hindered the back wheels. The person tried
gunning it but the car would not go forward. They were able to reverse and get back onto the road.
They drove up the road and back
several times, most likely trying to see if they could spot mom. After five or six passes, they
gave up and drove off. Mom was so scared she barely remembered to breathe, shaking and crying,
waiting for this clearly malicious person to get out of the car. Thankfully, they never did.
After waiting 30 minutes and no sound of the car,
she ran back to her apartment. My dad was home at the time and shocked to see the state that
she was in. She told him what had happened and wondered if they should call the cops.
Dad promised her that he would take care of it and told her to take a long warm shower so
she could relax. After all, this was home and he would
never let anyone hurt her. Mom took that shower and was just starting to feel better when she
looks out their bedroom window. I think you can guess what she saw parked just outside.
It was the exact same car. Utterly terrified, she screamed and dad came running.
She pointed out towards the car and he lost it.
He bolted out of the apartment and ran towards the car,
shouting that he was going to kill them if they even thought about touching his wife.
Now just to let you know, my dad was about 5'10 and thin as a rail.
Friendly and always ready to give a helping hand, he was not an intimidating figure to most people.
But on that day, my dad showed
that animal that he would do whatever it took to protect his family. The car immediately backed up,
tires squealing as the man booked it. My parents later called the cops and told them everything.
Unfortunately, there was not much they could do, as there had been no physical attack.
All they could do was take a note and advise my mother to
not run alone for a while. Yeah, as if she was the problem. They begrudgingly accepted this and
moved to a new place shortly after, and no deposit was worth their lives. A few months passed and
reports of multiple young women going missing, followed by two murders brought closure to this story. Mom recognized the
car the murderer was driving. It was the same one that had stalked her. What really made her blood
run cold was the picture of his victims. All young, blonde, blue-eyed women who could have been
sisters. Who could have been her sisters. I've googled the victims and it's shocking how much they look like
her, down to the way they styled their hair. And according to the FBI profiler who went on to write
the book that inspired Mine Hunters, this man was one of the most vicious and sadistic killers he
ever dealt with, maybe the most evil killer in his career. After reading about the way that he
would torture the families and made those poor girls write a last will before murdering them, I'm inclined to
agree. So, Larry Jean Bell, I'm glad you're gone. I'm glad my parents found strength in each other
to make you run off like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. The world is a better
place without a monster like you in it.
I hope those poor girls and their families
found peace,
knowing you couldn't hurt anyone
again. I, a 28-year-old female, was in my first year as a physical therapist at a large hospital chain.
Though I was inside the hospital, I worked in a small outpatient clinic where
patients came to me for appointments and left.
As the newest therapist, I was given the late shift from 9 to 7.30 that catered to those who
needed therapy and also had to work during the day. We were usually pretty slow in the
evenings since most of our patients were retired seniors, so I was alone after 5.
Like any normal day, I had a new evaluation come in for shoulder pain. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.
He was a middle-aged man, good-looking, well-educated, and very polite.
I did the evaluation and decided to see him twice a week for six weeks.
I tried to assign him to my assistant but he refused to be treated by him stating that he
would only work with me. That was fine. He wanted later treatment times anyways and my assistant
went home before I did. Our first few weeks of treatments go by. He was so kind and charismatic.
I started to look forward to treating him as we shared a lot of the go by. He was so kind and charismatic. I started to look forward to treating
him as we shared a lot of the same interests. He even started waiting for me to lock up and
walking out to my car in the parking garage with me. I hated the parking garage especially when
it was dark so I welcomed him walking me to my car. At some point in our treatments though I
noticed a shift in him. Our light small talk started to turn more flirty.
From him anyways.
I was happily married and not flirting back, but as any woman knows,
some men can confuse our niceness with flirtation.
He started making advances and asking me out to drinks after therapy.
I politely declined and tried to circle back to talking about his
therapy. He seemed agitated and started to become less and less compliant with exercises.
He stopped talking as much as well and I could tell the mood had shifted.
This day I decided that it would be best not to walk with him to my car. I didn't tell him this
at first so he went out of the clinic and waited
by the elevator for me to lock up. I wasn't sure what to do and couldn't call my partner as they
were out of town on business. So I opened the door from the clinic to the hall where he was and told
him I had paperwork to catch up on and would see him at his next appointment. He looked at me with
such anger in his eyes and started walking
faster and faster back to the door I was at. Luckily I was able to close the door and flip
the lock before he made it to the door. He pushed the handle trying to get back in and realizing it
was locked stepped back. Of course this door is essentially a giant window and he could see me on
the other side freaking out but trying the best to conceal it.
He told me to let him inside and he could wait with me while I finished my notes.
I said thank you but I had a lot to do.
He insisted and I declined again.
He pushed once again on the door and when it didn't open quickly turned around angrily
and went back to
the elevator. I was shaking and terrified that he would come back so I went to the private offices
and locked that door as well. I grabbed a large dowel rod that wouldn't do much to him but made
me feel a little better to have. At this point I knew that I couldn't leave as he knows where I
park and what car I drive and could be waiting for me. I called security for the hospital and luckily one of the guards was doing his rounds
close by and said that he would walk me to my car. We head out to my car and I see my patient
parked a few spots down from me inside of his car. When he sees me and the guard walking towards my
car, he backs up and pulls away. I thank the guard and get in my car.
I drive a few loops before going home to make sure that I wasn't being followed.
Luckily I wasn't. The next day I go to my boss and tell her what happened.
She accuses me of being paranoid and says I need to continue to treat him.
I asked her about having another therapist stay late with me and she says that she would ask a few people but not to get my hopes up as nobody likes working the late shift.
I work my normal day dreading the next day knowing that is when I am scheduled to see
him again.
That evening I call my brother and ask him to come to the clinic when this patient was
supposed to be here and wait in the waiting room and thankfully he agrees. The next day,
it is time for this patient to come in and no one is there. This patient was always early to
his appointment so I was very surprised. 15 minutes turns to 30 and he's still not there.
I decided I waited long enough and I locked up and myself and my brother left.
The weekend comes and goes by. Monday I'm back at work.
I had no messages from this patient about the no-show and had no plans to reach out to him
despite that being protocol. Lunchtime rolls around and I decide to go to the hospital cafeteria to
eat. There are TVs scattered all around and I sit in front of one playing the local news.
I occasionally look up at it from my phone and one playing the local news. I occasionally look up
at it from my phone and one of the times I do I see a familiar face. My patient. He was in
handcuffs being walked out of his house. The sound wasn't on but I read his name being arrested under
suspicion of multiple murders. My jaw dropped to the floor. Now the TV had my full attention as three pictures
of young white blonde women popped up on the screen as his apparent victims. Young blonde
white women looking very similar to myself. It took me a while to fully grasp what I had just
seen. I went to my manager and told her what I had saw. Apparently not believing me,
she searched his name on Google and sure enough, there were multiple articles and news clips
talking about his arrest. She apologized to me for not listening when I expressed my concerns
and told me I could leave early if I needed. I stayed the rest of my shift but told her I
wouldn't work late anymore by myself. By next shift I had one
of the therapy aides assigned to stay with me until we closed. I ended up transferring to a
different part of the hospital that had better hours after a few months but I can't help but
wonder what would have happened if I had gone to get drinks with him or if I continued walking to
my car with him. I mean I was only going to see him for a couple of more weeks.
So what was his plan?
Was I his next target?
He is still awaiting trial, last I checked,
and hopefully will be convicted so he'll be locked far away from anyone else. A A few years back, I had this really creepy experience with an older co-worker of mine that still kind of shakes me to this day.
It happened at this place that I'd been working at for a couple of years at that point.
The place was a small factory of sorts with only less than a handful of employees, including myself. One day though,
my boss introduced us to this new older guy that he'd brought in to start working in the other,
newer side of the factory. You see, the factory where he worked had two different sides to it,
one side for beeswax and one side for wood production. My boss had brought him in because
they went to church together and the wood production on the other side had a religious significance.
The new older co-worker worked there with us for about one month before he approached me one day and introduced himself to me.
He seemed like a nice guy and even came back to give me a Hershey kiss not long after that, the chocolate. A couple of months later I got asked by our boss if I could go pick
up my new older co-worker, probably because his car was broken down or something. I agreed to it,
so my boss asked me if it was okay to give the co-worker my phone number so that we could
coordinate via text. I said it was fine and went on my way. I brought him back to the factory with
no problems.
Soon after that though I started to get random and sporadic texts from him late at night.
At first the texts were just about maybe hanging out soon while simultaneously apologizing to me because he knew that he was much older than I. But then the texts started to get pretty pervy and
they would be as long as a mini book, I swear to god. The texts were just
long misspelled random pervy compilations. I tried to just ignore the texts but that only made them
start coming more frequently. In the midst of all this one day, my roommates were scrounging for a
ride to a casino only a few miles from our house. I gave them a few dollars for a ride and they said that they'd
find their own ride back. So imagine my surprise when they returned only a couple of hours later
with their own ride alright. Their ride was my creepy co-worker. Not only was I creeped the hell
out that this pervy jerk now knew where I lived, but I also didn't know how he came to give my
roommates that ride. Was it just sheer
coincidence or something more? A few days after that, I went to find a friend in his apartment
that was located on our main street running through our small historic downtown area.
When I came downstairs from his apartment, as he was located on the second floor,
I made my usual turn, walking on the sidewalk in front of all
the main street shops. As I walked past one of the shops that was maybe two doors down from
my friend's apartment, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but it couldn't be
it. To my great dismay, it was him, my creepy older co-worker standing in the doorway of one of the shops and smiling creepily at me from under a black top hat.
A couple of weeks after that little incident I noticed him again as I left my friend's apartment.
He was just standing on the sidewalk with that same creepy grin plastered on his gaunt face.
Since I had already informed my friend after the last incident I simply texted him real quick to let him know the creep was back.
I got into my car and left after sending the text so I didn't find out until later that the creepy co-worker was gone by the time my friend got downstairs to the sidewalk.
At that point though, the texts were still coming even faster than before.
He was even threatening to come by my house if I didn't respond,
long provocative texts dictating what he'd like to have happen between us if he did just happen to show up at my house. When I would see him during the day at work though,
he would act as though everything were normal, giving no hint of his nighttime persona.
After seeing him yet again as I left my friend's apartment, I just so happened to overhear a couple of coworkers of mine standing around discussing how weird our new older coworker was.
Right then, I stepped in and joined the conversation, finally showing one of my other coworkers the text messages that the creep had been sending me.
I had been working with that particular coworker for a a few years but I didn't know him too well.
He was one of those people who came off kind of grumpy and distant.
Still, I told him and my other co-worker not to say anything.
They both nodded in agreement and went our separate ways to finish up for the day.
When I came into work the next day, my boss immediately called me into his office.
My boss told me that he had been informed of the
situation in the texts and he wanted to see my phone to read them. I told my boss that I didn't
really want to get anyone in trouble but he said that was besides the point and that my situation
needed to be addressed. My boss also stated that my older co-worker had no right or reason to be
texting me and talking to me that way the way he was talking to me.
The boss must have had a pretty good talk with him because all the crap stopped from the older coworker after that.
The other grumpy coworker of mine apologized to me for saying something to the boss, but I completely understood and I was actually pretty grateful to him for that.
I should have been the one to take the initiative to talk to the boss about it but I guess I was just too chicken. Fortunately though that situation seemed to work out for
all involved because life went on as usual and everyone involved acted as though nothing had
ever happened. Well, I can't really say that because that situation actually caused the
grumpy co-worker and I to talk more and we started dating. We were together for about three years
and then we got married. So I've been waiting to get this off my chest for a while now, and the reason I'm writing this post
tonight is due to an incident at my previous school a week or two ago. However, this incident
goes back a ways with a
girl in my class I knew and honestly forgot about until I heard about this. So, last year or so,
my family and I moved to a new town a little ways away from our old one. I attended my old school
for many years and really loved it. The story starts at this school in the summer before 7th
grade with me and my friend. It's also important to note that I lived right in front of my friend's house and next to this girl,
and this will be relevant later.
We were taking summer school classes and were specifically in a science one,
which is where I met this girl.
I'm going to call her Jen.
I realized that she was sitting in a corner by herself and never spoke at all during class.
Now, I am very introverted and struggle with social anxiety, so I never wrote her off for
being that way. In fact, I try to be nice to her because I've been there and done that.
Fast forward to fall and school started. In the first semester, I had study hall and choir with
her. She was still pretty quiet and never really talked much.
But one time a popular kid in my class decided to talk with her and mentioned her sister.
She started to go on and on about how she hated her in great detail and she called her things like fat, stupid and ugly and stuff like that. I thought it was pretty mean but I am a sibling
myself so I really didn't think much of it until the bell rang.
As everyone was walking out, I could hear her muttering to herself,
kill Leah, kill Leah, kill Leah, with a blank expression, Leah being her sister.
I guess I must have made a freaked out expression because she quickly went up to me and said,
oh, I wasn't serious, I'm just kidding. To which I just said, alright,
and went to choir. In the next semester, I had health class with her and coincidentally sat right behind her in the back. One day, we had a free day and were able to just play games and
stuff on our laptops. I was pretty engrossed playing Run, but was a little freaked out when
I looked up.
Jen was on a website with what looked to be stuff involving witchcraft or something of the sort.
The whole page was black and white text with odd images attached.
She never realized I saw this, but I still thought it was pretty weird,
so I ended up telling the teacher that I was concerned for her based on all of the recent events. I don't know if he ever did anything but I do know that she was called into the counselor's
office a few times which made me relieved because she was getting help. On the last day of school
though she had a personal laptop with her and she really abruptly went up to me and asked if I wanted
to look for ghosts in the school to which I said no. My friend group recognized this and
they mentioned they also noticed she did some weird things, which definitely should have been
a red flag. In the summer before 8th grade, Jen and her family had a for sale sign on their house.
I thought those encounters would be the last, but I was wrong. One time I walked next to my
friend's house and she was painting my nails on the bench
outside. We saw Jen's dogs running around but more importantly we could hear screaming from
inside the house which honestly just sounded manic. By the tone I could tell that it was her
screaming at one of her parents. We both became wide eyed and didn't know what to do so I just
went home and sat on my porch. Again I heard her yelling
and doors slamming and that was my final encounter until now. About a year ago Jen friended me on
Facebook and I accepted it. We never really interacted but about a month ago I saw a string
of screenshots that she posted claiming that my old school did nothing but harassment and bullying.
I think I just added a sad emoji and went about my day,
and not really thinking anything of it. In the screenshots was a conversation between her and
a boy through email chat. They said there was something wrong with her and that she needed
help due to her profile pictures. She was strangely defensive and I honestly thought
maybe she just had an edgy anime profile picture or something. Anyway, a week ago my dad showed
me a news article about a school shooting threat at my old school. I was pretty upset when I heard
this, but became more concerned when he told me the details. He told me that the student had
pictures of dead and mutilated bodies as their profile picture. I remember my heart just sunk
when I connected the dots. She apparently
had also threatened to shoot up the school on her Snapchat story after being suspended for the
profile pictures. Out of curiosity, I recently logged into my old school's Gmail and searched
her email address. I was able to see that her picture was of a man in a tank top who
appeared to be drowning in water,
and I was horrified by this.
I searched for her Gmail after she had already been suspended,
so I couldn't really tell what was in the picture or maybe if it was a reference to some art thing.
Anyways, I haven't really heard much more than what I have wrote other than she is currently in police custody, but I just want to say that I
really hope that Jen gets the help that she needs. I don't know what she had been through or what her
home life is like or was like, but I do genuinely think she was struggling mentally. I have since
unfriended Jen and I hope to never have to hear from her or about her ever again. So, when I was in high school I worked at a Walmart.
There were a few in the town that I grew up in but this one was by far the biggest.
It was also generally the easiest to get to because several huge roads ran right by it.
Because of that, working as a cashier you saw
all sorts of people at all stages in their lives. Most people are nice enough, but every now and
then you'd get somebody that just made you wonder about them. I was working later than I normally
did one night because the weather channel was calling for snow late that night and the school
had been cancelled. Great, I don't mind, I could use the hours.
It was slow though because the normal pre-snowstorm rush had already been through and now people were
just holed up at some home waiting for the storm. I was on one of the express lane registers and
finally had a customer come up. He only had a few things but the first red flag was the way he put
them on the counter. Normally when you only have a few things you the first red flag was the way he put them on the counter.
Normally when you only have a few things you just set them up all at once, right?
He held them out to me individually and would make sure that his fingers touched mine when I took them from him.
After I rang his few things and bagged them I told him the total and he handed me the payment all in ones and change, which meant I had to count
it. So it takes a minute or two longer than a credit card transaction might have. In that time
he's trying to make conversation about how he was just at the club. With all the ones he'd had and
the amount of meth it looked like he consumed on a daily basis, I can imagine what club it was.
And all the girls had turned him down so now he was just going to have to go home all alone and eat a sandwich on his own.
I made some sort of sympathetic noise, finished counting and tried to give him his change and receipt.
He made no move to get them from me and instead kept on talking about how they'd taste so much better with someone else. Getting nervous, I made some sort of comment about me being underage because with the way
he was looking at me, I was pretty sure that he was referencing me.
Then he leaned across the register, ran his tongue across his nasty teeth and said,
Well honey, that don't matter unless someone tells.
For a second I stood there in shock, then set his stuff down on the belt, turned out my light and walked away to find a manager.
I was lucky to have the mama bear one on shift that night so I knew that she'd take my side when she found out what happened. I'm an older woman. I'm married and have one daughter who is 11. This happened to both of
us at separate times within a two-week span. First, my story. My husband and I don't share
a room because he snores like a chainsaw and I apparently move way too much in my sleep.
My daughter is autistic and suffers from serious anxiety and more often than not ends up crawling into bed with me. Yes, this is significant to the story. One night she wasn't able to even make it
to her room and crashed with me. I woke up after midnight to a knocking on my window.
My room is at the back of the house and my backyard is fenced
and the gate is blocked because of my two pooches. I thought at the time I was dreaming, but then
there was another knock on the window and I heard my daughter's voice outside my window.
Mommy, can you please open the door? I'm locked out. My sliding door doesn't lock. We block it using a metal safety rod. My daughter was sound asleep
right beside me. So whoever was outside was not my daughter. And I just chalked it up to a lucid
dream and went back to sleep. A week later I came home from my late shift. My daughter was sleeping
in her own bed thankfully. I settle in and fall asleep.
A few hours later, my daughter comes into my room and crawls into bed with me,
and I wake up and she says,
Mommy, why were you knocking on my window and wanting me to come outside?
I was wide awake immediately and sat up.
What do you mean, hon? I've been sleeping for a while. I heard you say, when you knocked on my window,
Hey, rabbit.
Shortened from bunny rabbit, the nickname she's had since birth.
Wanna come out and play?
So I came in here to see if you were outside.
I didn't tell her that I had heard a similar thing a week prior. Like I said,
not really scary but extremely weird especially since I'm the only one that calls her rabbit.
So it was suggested that I add to my post that I do live in a town with a very
large psychiatric facility as well as a maximum security prison. We don't have a bus station so
people who are released with no family join our
very large homeless population. This could have been the situation. It just seemed too coincidental
to be that way. I was on a plane once and noticed that although people were still boarding,
there was a large number of seats around me unoccupied.
The last people on though were all together and consisted of one large family traveling together.
There were four adults and about ten children, ranging from toddler age to high school young adult.
They had the usual look of a large group traveling with children, some of whom were shy and withdrawn, others who were running around and the adults looking frazzled, trying to keep everyone and everything together.
When they'd all been seated, there seemed to be some issue with the seating, as one member of their party was supposed to sit several rows back. The flight attendant apologized and said that it happens, that sometimes the computer will
shuffle sequential seating, etc. but assured them that there was seating available for
everyone.
The family sat down, minus one, and starting with the usual, that's a shame, wish they
could sit up here and talk.
Since it seemed that their party were surrounding me, I stopped the flight attendant and asked
if I could switch seats with another passenger.
This caught the attention of the large group, perhaps anticipating a complaint.
But the flight attendant told me no, they don't usually do that, and that everyone's been seated but asked if there was a problem with where I was sitting.
I explained to her that I had been traveling solo and didn't care where I sat and asked if I could give my seat to the member of the family who was absent, as my seat would have put them in the midst of their group.
The family overheard and was thanking me, as I retrieved my bag overhead and followed the flight attendant to the family member's seat.
She explained what was happening and I noticed that the family member, a young girl, maybe 12 years old, seemed in a hurry
to get back to her family and thanked me probably about three or four times. She practically ran up
the aisle and before I could sit down, the man who'd been sitting next to her was literally
staring with his mouth open and asked, what's the problem? No, that girl was sitting here first.
That was a weird red flag to me. But the flight
attendant explained to him what was happening and he immediately looked at me and said,
no, I don't want to sit next to him, where's the girl going? She explained to him that there was
no issue and nothing that she could do now. I think she was getting the same sort of creepy vibe.
Now, I want to assure everyone that I'm not in the
habit of judging people by their appearance, but this guy was the definition of red flags.
He was overweight and paunchy, half bald, with few strands combed over, thick glasses and just
no chin. He was a mouth breather and he kept his mouth open constantly, almost drooling on himself
and sucking it back in between heavy breath. If there were a textbook example of a creep, it would be him. As I was putting my bag
overhead, he started talking to himself, under his breath about how this was BS and just my luck,
wasn't bothering anybody and why did they move that girl. I wanted to say something to him but didn't. It wasn't long before
my neighbor got a call and was talking about an upcoming court appearance and I overheard
quote-unquote no victim's testimony and rarely show up and quote people wouldn't ask me to
babysit if I was like that. The only time I said almost anything to him was when he started blatantly watching
adult films, explicit ones, on his laptop with earphones in, grunting, sweating, wheezing,
and kept repeating just terrible language when a part was on that he evidently liked.
Then, took a blanket and covered his lap, his hands, fidgeting underneath it. As soon as I saw that
he intended on keeping them there, I pretended to reach for the call button. He jerked his hands
out and started muttering under his breath about me minding my own business. At some point, I got
up to see the restroom and when I returned, he was on the phone again and I caught something about... Oh, look at her, the butt on her.
No, the switch seats on me.
Got away.
And he shut up as he saw me approaching.
The creep went to sleep eventually and fortunately stayed asleep the rest of the flight.
When we were all de-boarding, a woman I presumed was the mother was standing with the girl and said,
Thank you again.
I shudder to think how he acted in the short time that she was next to him, or how he would
have had she remained there.
Shocking absolutely no one, including himself.
He was met at the gate by security and police and as he was being led away, he said, This isn't my laptop, by the way. I mentioned in the comments section of a video of yours that I had a story you might be interested
in. Well, here it is. It isn't a long one, but it's a good one. Well, if you count Absolutely
Terrifying as being a good story,
which considering your channel, I suppose you will. I once went on a date with a guy who seemed
really confident about himself. I'll admit I found that very attractive at first, and although he
kept himself relatively polite at first, he just had this really confident, dominant way about him that I just found so alluring.
And after a while, that confidence turned a little more aggressive, and he started to cross
the line to the point where I had to say, dude, chill, you're ruining the mood with that.
He apologized, which I accepted, and then we went on talking about this and that in a much more comfortable mood.
But after a while, that confidence turned into a little more aggressive. Right as we were about to go our separate ways, we're talking about having a second date and he says something about
me not forgetting about him. I jokingly said, I won't forget about you, which was kind of a
backhanded compliment referring to how aggressive he'd been with me.
And I didn't mean it in a really mean way.
And that's when he says something like, you know, to make sure you never forget about me.
I think I'd cut my initials into your thigh with a really sharp knife.
That way, you'd remember me anytime you took your pants off.
I was just stunned. I mean, I really didn't know what to say to that.
I let out this nervous laughter that I think he mistook for actually enjoying what he said.
I told him I'd contact him about a second date, then went home and blocked all of his contact
details to make sure that he couldn't message me again.
I keep thinking that one day, I'll see his name and picture in some online news article,
saying how he killed some girl that he was dating.
That's how it happened with that dating game killer, right?
He dated some of the girls he ended up murdering and said some pretty messed up stuff to them during their dates.
Giant red flags they didn't pay attention to until it was way too late.
I feel like it's just a matter of time until he does something like that,
and I wish there was a way of me reporting him to the dating app I met him on so they could ban his profile or whatever.
I'm scared that he'll do something, and I'll only have myself to blame because I didn't do something about it
when I had the chance. But what do I tell the police? That we had a bad date and he said some
weird stuff? That's not a crime as far as I know. But then, how long before he can't contain himself
and does some kind of irreversible damage to a girl? How long until I see that picture of him
on a news website as being the Tinder killer or
whatever? I feel like it really is just a matter of time and then I'll have to live with the guilt
for the rest of 2002 when I was on a family trip in Las Vegas.
My family and I, I was 11 at the time, went on a vacation to Las Vegas.
There were a bunch of us since we had family visiting from out of the country.
After hitting the swimming pool, my family wanted to go to another hotel to go shopping.
My grandma, note she had just immigrated from the Philippines a few years before and knew very limited English,
and I decided to go back up to our hotel room because she was tired and I wanted to change before meeting back up with the rest of our family later on for lunch.
We got into the elevator and as it was closing, an older gentleman, maybe in his early to mid-fifties, asked to hold the door. I remember my mom telling me not
to let any strangers know where our room was so before we got in, I pressed two more floors
and thank god I did. He got in and started making small talk. He looked at my shirt. I was wearing a
Beach Babe Contest tank top from Limited Too and said,
where's the Beach Babe Contest? I'd like to be the judge
and make sure you win. My grandma and I smiled at each other and laughed. Then he asked what room
we were staying in. I told him that we were visiting a family member's room. He then asked
if we were staying at the hotel and if he could escort us back to our room. I told him no. His face at some point turned cold
whereas before he appeared friendly. He began to insist that he walk us back to our room.
At that point I began panicking and just fell silent. My grandma stared at me and after what
felt like an eternity his smile came back and then said, come on, I'm just being nice, right grandma?
I remember my stomach sinking until finally the elevator opened and a couple walked in.
I don't know what in me told me to just trust them but I blurted out,
I don't know this man but he's forcing me to let him walk me to my hotel room and I'm kind of scared.
The man then laughed and told them that I was his
niece. I kept my composure as best I could but I just remember starting to cry and I couldn't stop
crying. My grandma was confused because she didn't really know what was going on having not spoken
the language. The couple told us to get off the elevator so that I could call my parents and they walked me and my grandma down to the hotel lobby to the reception desk.
I still get chills thinking about what may have happened that day. I'm still haunted by my old memories of an ex-boyfriend I dated for only a few months. We met online and lived an hour apart, but we clicked very fast and started seeing each other regularly.
Things were going great for about a month, and one day we stopped at my place so I could pack some clothes to go stay at his place for the weekend.
We walked into my bedroom, and as I started packing my belongings, I noticed him scanning around my room with his eyes.
After a few awkward moments of silence, he began to ask me some very specific and eerily detailed questions.
Do you ever move your pillow to the foot of your bed at night?
And pull your blinds all the way up so you can see the stars out of this window over here before you go to sleep?
I bet you use this lamp over here the most. It's the only one that I'd use.
I was frozen in shock. I just stood there, speechless, looking at him in disbelief.
He just described everything I did the night before and it was the only time I ever rolled
up my blinds at night and laid at the
opposite end of my bed to look up at the stars in the sky. I told nobody about that, so how the hell
did he know? The only thing I could do next was to laugh it off and ask him how he knew, but
he just kind of shrugged it off and changed the subject. I couldn't stop thinking about it the
whole weekend though, wondering if he had been watching me. I hid't stop thinking about it the whole weekend though,
wondering if he had been watching me. I hid my paranoia as best I could until I got home.
But I then did a deep sweep of my entire bedroom looking for any sign of hidden cameras.
I found nothing. I didn't have any laptops, computers, TV or security cameras in my bedroom that he could have hacked to spy on me
with. I did have my mobile phone in the room, but it was laying flat on my nightstand that night.
If he was physically stalking me, it would have been difficult for him to see into my bedroom as
my room was pretty high up. He would have had to watch further away from the forest,
and even if that was the case, there were some large trees in my backyard
that would have blocked his view. It just didn't make any sense, and it still doesn't make sense
to me. I tried to pass this off as coincidence, but when I stepped back and looked at the whole
picture, there was something not right about him. I vividly recall the first time I ever spoke to
him on the phone before we met,
and we had so much in common.
Almost too much in common.
From books we were reading to very specific interests, hobbies, and habits.
I thought I met my soulmate.
Nobody has ever made me feel so alive.
He swept me off my feet, only to drop me from what I thought was heaven.
He became a different person seemingly overnight. He was a narcissist and I watched his mask fall off. We had texted on and
off for a few years after, but I've since gone to no contact. I will probably never know the
hows and whys, but I continue to wonder and look over my shoulder. When my boyfriend and I, a 24-year-old female, lived with his grandparents a few months ago,
my boyfriend worked early morning hours.
He would leave the house at around 4 a.m.
and one winter morning, while it was still pitch black out,
my boyfriend kissed me goodbye and I
went back to bed. A few minutes later I heard continuous knocking at the front door. Immediately
I assumed it was him forgetting something and being half asleep, I ran up the stairs from my
room to open the door but as soon as I reached for it, his grandma called out to me from upstairs and said, don't open the door,
that's not him. I froze and was too afraid to even peek through the front door window to see
who it actually was. His grandma looked outside and said it was a man that had no jacket on.
He then left our doorway and went on his way through the streets.
My grandma told me she knew immediately that it wasn't my boyfriend because if it actually were
him, he would have opened the door with his house key. He would not wake us this early in the
morning. Not long after, a cop car cruised down our street with a light on, as if though it were
searching for someone. I was so terrified that I decided to sleep upstairs in the living room. Later on in
the day, our grandma spoke to our neighbors and found out that he was also pounding on everyone's
door on the same block. One of the neighbors a couple of houses down is a huskier, taller guy and
he said that he talked to the stranger through the door, asking what he wants.
The man said someone's looking for him, they want to shoot him and
that he needs to hide from them. I am more on the petite side and at the time I was about 19.
I can't imagine what could have happened had I opened the door for him
or if my boyfriend's grandma wasn't there. I was around 12 years old when this happened.
I lived in a duplex that my parents owned and one day I was outside in the front yard playing with my dogs.
The house was located in a neighborhood that's right by a busy main road so during the daily rush hour the area got pretty busy.
Thank god for this because as I was busy with my dogs I noticed a black car in front of
my house that kept inching forward a little and backing up a little.
I noticed the driver leering at me in a creepy way and got a really bad feeling so I ran
up the stairs to where I live with my parents.
I told my mom about what had happened and I have no idea what was going through her
mind at the time cause she didn't seem all that concerned.
A few minutes later, she went to the grocery store that was a block away and after griping about that to her, I went walking to the store.
The duplex is across the street from a bank and next to the bank on the other side of the wall by the drive-up tellers
was an alley that also led to the store.
I decided to take the bank route because I felt
safer. As I was walking by the ATM, thankfully there was a line of people waiting to use it.
Who do I see but the same creepy guy in his car parked at the bank in front of the ATM.
I kept my eyes on him as I walked past his car and he was leaning forward with his hands on the wheel, ogling me and licking
his lips. I got the F out of there as quickly as I could and ran the rest of the way to the store.
As I was walking out of the exit while leaving the store I saw my brother waiting for me outside.
He told me to get in and drove me home. He had been listening to what I told our mom about the
guy outside the house and reamed her out for making me walk to the store alone knowing that this guy was lurking around
the neighborhood. To this day I still get chills knowing how close I came to potentially being
kidnapped by that weird pervert who licked his lips and it makes me sick to even think about it
to be honest. This is another story that happened on my rural country road about six months ago.
I posted the first story that happened in high school as well but thought both stories were too long to include in one post.
I should have made the title, Being a Good Samaritan Put Me and My 3-Year-Old Daughter in Danger. There was no almost to it.
But anyway, I'm a single mom of a 3-year-old little girl. I'm so blessed that I have the
most amazing parents who live about 20 minutes away from me who keep her when I need them to.
I live in the city next to their rural area and you have to go down a curvy wooded rural road to get to their house out in the country.
My little girl had spent the night with them the night before and I headed out to their house the next day around lunch time to eat with them and bring her back to our house.
It was a pretty day, sunny, a lot of bikers out though so I was on high alert driving there as anyone speeding and not paying attention
could easily hit a biker which is a big fear of mine. I got there fine, ate lunch with them and
was headed back to my house driving on the rural road which I know like the back of my hand and
typically speed on knowing when to slow down and take certain curves. My little girl requested that
I put on her favorite songs in the car so I was kind of
watching her sing as she sat in the car seat in the back of the car through my rear view mirror.
As we drove back home, I caught a glimpse of something blue up ahead of me just on the edge
of the woods near the road. I was going fast enough that the image didn't quite set in as I
approached then passed it. But right after passing it, my brain finally processed that
it was a blue older car. It was flipped upside down and was rammed into a tree.
The road was empty with only one house near and there weren't any ambulances or cars near so
at first I was like, what the hell? Truly, the wreck didn't look like it had just happened,
but I knew something was wrong
in my gut. I pulled my phone out and called 911 as I kept driving, not fully processing that
this had just happened. This is 911, what's your emergency? Hey, um, I'm driving down and I just
noticed a blue car flipped upside down and looks like they ran into a tree.
There wasn't anyone visible near the car,
and no other cars around them.
I'm not sure if I was the first person in the scene or what.
What's your exact location?
Is there a house close to the wreck?
Try to find the nearest address.
I'm sending an ambulance out now.
Was anyone visibly hurt or present at the scene?
No, I didn't see anyone when I passed, but I'm not sure. I didn't get a super good look. I'm about two minutes down the road past the car now.
Let me turn around and go back. I got my three-year-old little girl in the car with me,
just letting you know. I don't necessarily want her to see anything traumatizing, but
I'll do what I need to do if I find anyone. The car looks super bad.
It's okay. Don't get out of the car, keep your doors locked, just see if you can find the nearest
address and I will stay on the phone with you the whole time. I turned around on the nearest
driveway to me and drove back, speeding with my heart beating fast as I now realized someone
clearly might be severely hurt and I just passed them by not thinking I was the first to arrive on the scene.
I was scared but in action mode,
ready to deal with what I was potentially about to see inside the vehicle.
When I got to the house I thought was closest to the wreck,
the conversation picked back up with the operator.
Okay, I think I'm almost to the car.
I see a mailbox coming from the right here, hang on. Okay, I think I'm almost to the car. I see a mailbox coming from the right here. Hang on.
Okay, this is the house a little less than a mile from the car. I'm headed for there, going towards.
I see the car right here coming up to my left across from the sandpit looking area. It's a blue
older four-door car. Okay, great. An ambulance was dispatched. It won't be long before they get
there. Do you see anyone else in or near the vehicle? Oh my god, wait, yes. I see a man,
around 25 to 30, standing in the middle of the road. I pull up next to the man with my doors
locked, roll down my window with the phone still near my ear and 911 speaking to me.
I immediately say, oh my god, are you okay? Is that your car?
The guy is slurring his words a little, clearly very injured but still standing and not in critical condition.
He just says, yeah, I'm fine.
That's when I notice a large wound on the side of his head
with blood all over it. I say, oh my god, you're bleeding. You aren't okay. I'm on the phone with
911 right now. They're sending an ambulance. Don't move. I hear the 911 operator ask me if
he was okay or if he was hurt in my ear. I say no, he isn't.
He's bleeding from the head.
But he's standing in the road.
I see the guy's face go from concerned about getting help to fully panicked and flat and he says,
Is that 911 on the phone?
Hang up.
I need you to drive me up the road right now.
Hang up the phone.
The operator hears him say this and she says,
Is your daughter in the vehicle with you?
I say,
Yes, I can't drive this man anywhere.
I'm not letting him in my car, especially with my little girl in here.
Meanwhile, my daughter is silent in the back seat, just taking everything in.
And that's when I look down and notice the man isn't wearing shoes.
He's standing with bare feet, and there's a large wet stain on his blue jeans, which I immediately realize is urine. I can smell alcohol on him, and he isn't even standing
that close to me. I work in the medical field and I deal with traumatic brain injury patients often,
so I immediately wondered if maybe he had some kind of brain damage from the impact and began telling the operator, oh no, he isn't okay,
I think he's hurt pretty bad. I look at the man staying as calm and matter of fact as I can and
I tell him, I'm so sorry but I can't drive you anywhere, my little girl's in the back seat,
I don't feel comfortable doing that. And I didn't
see anyone in the vehicle when I passed, so I already called 911. I think you need to let them
come. I can't let you in my car, but I'll park over here and make sure you're okay until they
get here, alright? The man is visibly panicking, and now he seems livid. He starts yelling,
tell them not to come. He's telling me to hang up the
phone. My heart literally stopped beating. I began slowly and gently pressing the gas,
rolling past him to indicate that I'm leaving. The 911 operator in my ear says,
pretend to tell me not to come. Pretend to hang up with me, but keep on the line. So that's exactly what I do.
Hey, uh, I think he's okay.
He says he doesn't need any medical help.
He says he lives really close, so actually, just don't send the ambulances out.
I'm really sorry for the miscommunication.
Okay.
Alright, thanks so much.
And I pretend to hang up.
I set my phone down in the passenger seat and tell him that I was going to go now,
but that I had hoped that he was going to be okay.
That's when I noticed his pocket bulging with something silver peeking out.
I knew right then, this man was armed and I had to get the hell out of there.
I smiled and said I was sorry I couldn't help and quickly rolled up my
window and sped off, turning around further down the road and passing him again at 65-70 mph on a
45 mph road. I started crying hysterically and I pick up the phone to tell the 911 operator what
had just happened. She said, it's okay, you did the right thing. You played it cool and appeased him, we got the address and the ambulance is less than five minutes away.
As she asked me for my name and identifying information, I see and hear sirens further up ahead.
Thank God for that 911 operator coaching me through the situation.
I still don't know what happened to the man, but I do know that he was clearly intoxicated, dangerous, and fully panicked, which is a scary combination that will make
people do things without thinking clearly in an instant. My little girl asked,
Mommy, was that man hurt? I saw a boo-boo on his head. I just said,
Yeah, he's okay. He got a boo-boo. I think he was playing and bumped into a tree.
A nurse is going to give him a band-aid.
I'm sure I'm glad we could help him.
She was satisfied and smiled,
continuing to listen to the music and sing when I turned the radio back on.
A terrifying and creepy encounter, to say the least. So this happened in 2011, so the exact dialogue may have escaped my memory a bit, but the
situation is something I'll never forget.
Also, AIM was still pretty active during this time and so was video chatting.
Think tiny chat, and this is important for later. I was on an
online dating site, I won't say which because I'll be dragged mercilessly in the comments,
and was talking to this guy. I was 31 at the time and he was 28. We talked for about 6 weeks before
I gave him my phone number and we took it offline to calling and texting for another couple of weeks.
Two months after our initial chat, we were texting and he told me that he was out having a few beers at a bar near my house.
He asked what I was doing and asked if I wanted to come out, but I had a very long day at work and didn't feel like going to a bar.
I'm also not a big drinker.
I invited him over to my place, I know, I know, after he finished the bar and he accepted.
I figured that I would be okay since I do keep firearms for protection and know how to defend myself if needed.
I also have a webcam.
I took a shower so I wouldn't smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.
The air went out at work.
Put on some makeup and got dressed to wait.
He then called and said that he was outside of my house.
I clicked record on my computer webcam program and turned off my monitor and went to let him in.
It's around 10pm and he comes in and we go back to my bedroom because my living room was being remodeled.
We're sitting on the bed chatting for about an hour, talking about everything under the sun.
The conversation flowed,
he was very handsome and so easy to be comfortable with. We got on the subject of firearms and I
showed him mine. About 15 minutes later he asked for some water so I go to the kitchen and got him
a bottle. When I came back, he said that he got a phone call and had to leave. After he left,
I looked on my nightstand where I put the firearm
down after showing him and noticed that it was gone. I looked everywhere for it, thinking I had
put it down somewhere. No, not there. I then played back the recording from my webcam program
and sure enough, it shows him grabbing it and putting it in his hoodie.
I was terrified at that point.
He knew where I lived, he had my firearm and he left his phone on my bed.
Right then his phone rings and I answer it.
Come to find out, he's married.
His wife was calling him wondering where he was.
I told her everything, including the fact that he stole my firearm and I had video evidence and was calling the police on him.
Next thing I know, he's banging on my door, my firearm is in his hand, asking me for his phone,
and the conversation went like this. I need my phone, give me my phone. Not opening the door,
but yelling through the window, take the clip out of my F. Give me my phone. Not opening the door, but yelling through the window.
Take the clip out of my F.A., empty the chamber, throw the clip into the bushes,
the one in the chamber across the road, and put it on the ground.
No, give me my phone.
I'm on the phone with your wife at the moment, and I have you on video stealing from me.
I put his wife on speaker.
She let out a whole bunch of expletives. And him,
with a shocked Pikachu face, he runs and gets in his car and then comes back.
I threw your gun in the ditch. At this point, I make him empty his pockets, take his pants off,
take his hoodie off, and show me that he doesn't have my F.A. on him. All the while,
his wife is on the phone. I go outside and get in his car, in the driver's seat and tell him to
take me to where he threw my F.A. He proceeds to tell me that I don't know how hard it is for him,
being a felon, not being allowed to own a firearm ever because of a mistake he made. And that mistake? It was domestic violence
involving a firearm. We get up the road. He tells me the firearm is there in the ditch.
Then I realize the situation I'm in. I can get out of the car and go get it,
leaving him to do whatever to me he chooses. He was 6'4", over 220 pounds, and me 5'3", 135 at the time. But I could make him go get it,
taking a chance of him seriously hurting me. I took that chance, since I was on his phone with
his wife and my phone with 911. He retrieves my firearm, brings it back to the car, and I drive
back to my house and wait for the police. I get out of the car and he gets in the driver's seat. I'm still on the phone with the police.
I walk around the back of his car to get his license plate number and he puts his car in
reverse, hits me, and takes off. They found him later that evening. He still had the clip
and the one in the chamber in his pocket, so now he's enjoying time in prison. This happened about 7 years ago and I'm still mentally recovering.
I was at a warehouse party that is used as an underground venue.
I had a couple of drinks and was chatting with a few people when I see a friend of mine. We'll call him John. John and I have been friends since middle school. I'm in
my 30s now and our friendship only deepened after we graduated high school. We have had
many one-on-one hangouts, dinner, drinks at a bar, etc. and nothing's ever been weird or awkward
between us. We would discuss the typical topics of family, hobbies, politics,
etc. and John has always been a bit of a loner but maintained a few close relationships and
I always chalked it up to him being a bit shy. Overall, I perceived him as a good person and
one of the few male friends that I could trust. We engaged in conversation and everything was
going completely as usual. Then he randomly mentioned that he was jealous of me.
This took me aback as at the time nothing was particularly great about my life.
Low wage job, no serious significant other, kind of a terrible car, etc.
I began questioning him about why he would be jealous of me and several times he tried to change the subject.
I kept pressing him.
He sounded depressed and I thought that he needed to open up. He goes on to say that he's jealous of the way that I
interact with people, how naturally it comes to me, how I always have a positive energy about me
and how I genuinely care about things. I tell him, well, there must be something you care about.
He proceeds to tell me that he doesn't care about anything or anyone and just never has.
That all of his friendships are based around similar hobbies,
but he genuinely doesn't love or care about a single person that he has ever known.
I was very disturbed at this point as I could tell that he was completely sincere.
I asked,
What about Carlos?
Carlos is a mutual friend and the person I thought to be
John's closest friend. He replied, even Carlos. I kept asking him different questions like,
not even your mom or sister? And he would respond, no, I don't care about them. I don't hate them,
but I don't love them. Never have. This conversation carries on for a
good 30 minutes or so. He describes his thought process about a myriad of things in life since
he was a child, basically devoid of feeling and knowing that he was different from others.
John and I have taken psychedelics many times, not together, so I asked him,
what do you experience when you trip? He replied,
visual hallucinations, but mentally all the trips are the same, but dark. I don't have euphoric love
or other blissful feelings that some people describe. I got dark fantasies, man. He goes
on to say that he is a proclivity for violence and that it's the only thing that he thinks about that makes him feel anything at all.
Then he tells me that he's killed somebody.
At this point the room is spinning around me.
I'm utterly terrified and had been for a while and was completely screaming inside in panic.
I didn't feel threatened by him, but I could tell
that he was being completely sincere. I've known him since we were kids. He was calm.
My eyes were darting around the room when they weren't met with his, looking for any sort of
exit alibi. He starts in on the details of the murder. He shot a man in the head,
a stranger who was unsuspecting. He didn't go into much murder. He shot a man in the head, a stranger who was
unsuspecting. He didn't go into much detail. He was apologizing to me profusely between every
detail he did tell, saying that he deeply regrets telling me all of this about himself,
that I'm a beautiful person, and he can't believe I'm the one he confessed to.
He mentions many times that I'm the only person he had ever told any of this to. He mentions many times that I'm the only person he had ever told any of this to. He also
tells me that he doesn't regret it. He then says that he must take his own life now that he has
admitted this to me, because all he wants to do is kill people, particularly strangers. He said
that if he doesn't take his own life, that he'll kill again. We discuss therapy and other options but ultimately he says that
he's gonna take his own life and now I know why. I don't talk him out of it. I don't tell him no.
I tell him I'm there for him but that I think he should do it.
Judge me if you want but it seemed like the only answer in this horrifying moment.
This entire conversation had lasted about two and a half hours.
At the end, he swears to me secretly and tells me that I've been a good friend and gives me his last goodbyes.
Now, I'm sure you're wondering, did he go through with it?
No, he didn't.
I ended up confiding in a few mutual friends basically
stating stay away from John. I didn't go to the police as John told me I was the only person he
had confided in, but one of my friends who I confided in did go to the police. I don't think
anything came of it. John reached out to me several months later telling me that he desperately wanted
to kill again. The desire was so strong that he wishes that he would just off himself and that would go away.
I just blocked him on everything after that.
I ran into him at another party about a year later and we exchanged greetings like nothing weird had ever happened between us.
But I dread running into him again. I've been really into this sub lately and it's inspired me to share a few of my unnerving stories.
This happened ages ago when I was 21.
I was a manager for a big box store but in a town that was an hour drive from me.
I lived in a small town and the store was in another small town, both about 12,000 people each.
But in order to promote to a manager, I had to transfer which meant doing this drive daily.
I had hoped that it would be temporary because I dreaded driving this every day, especially late at night because of deer.
This was also before cell phones were really the norm. I did have one, but it was one of these ancient bag style phones and
I had just got it a week or two before. With these phones you had to plug them into your car lighter
in order to have them work and they had a cord attached to a handset. Anyway, one night I was
driving home and it was really late,
about 1am. The drive is pretty desolate with houses sporadically throughout mixed with
sections of wooded area. About 20 minutes before my town is a random casino in the middle of BFE.
I had just passed this casino and a truck pulled out behind me. I didn't think anything of it but
it was noticeable pretty quickly that they had been drinking because of their erratic driving. Because of this I figured
that I just put as much room between us as possible. Also to note as I was going past them
they had their headlights on of course and could have easily seen that I was a young girl by myself.
So the truck comes up behind me at a pretty fast rate of speed and goes past me.
As they are next to me they swerve a little towards me and I just think that they are much
more drunk than I thought and slowed down so they could easily pass. As soon as they got in front of
me though they started to slow down, way down. It got to the point that we were going 20 miles per
hour in a 55 mile per hour zone and still slowing down, like they were trying to stop me.
Every time they would get to around 5 miles per hour I would swerve to the opposite lane and give it some gas like it was going to pass which would then make them temporarily speed up.
I could also see a lot better in the truck at this point.
It was an extended cab truck with what appeared to be five or six guys in it. This was during hunting season so it wasn't out of the norm to see a group
of guys acting ridiculous and drunk this time of year. So they were trying to stop me and I didn't
want to necessarily pass given what had just happened but at a certain point I had to. So I
go and try and pass the truck but it blocks me from doing so by getting
in the middle of both lanes. I try this a couple of times with the same result. Then finally I try
to floor it and pass the truck but it tries to run me off the road. I immediately get back behind
him and am freaking out at this point. I had tried calling 911 but there was a huge area with no
coverage yet and I couldn't
get through. After what seemed like forever I finally get through to them and they send me
someone out immediately. As I'm on the phone with them I see car lights in my rear view and I'm
filled with panic because I know this car will inevitably try to pass given we are only going
about 30 at this point. And sure enough the car comes up behind us and goes to pass.
And sure enough, the truck actually runs them off the road and into the ditch.
I'm telling the 911 dispatcher this and I'm in full-blown panic mode.
We're getting close to town now though and I can see the first stoplight.
I wasn't sure what the truck was going
to do because our one lane splits into two and there was a gas station up ahead. And right as
we approach the first light, I see an officer come in the opposite direction and starts flashing
them over and over while telling the dispatcher that I see the officer. The officer makes a u-turn
and gets in between me and the truck. He flicks the lights on them to pull them over and they pull into a gas station at the
main intersection of our town.
I follow into the gas station to assist the police in whatever statement they may need
and want to make sure these idiots are actually arrested.
That didn't end up being a problem because they refused a breathalyzer so they were taken
to the hospital where a blood alcohol level was obtained. I really wanted to know more but the officer didn't elaborate.
I kind of wish that I could have called up and followed up on it. They never called me or
anything to do anything in court so I'm guessing they didn't need me but it also means that they
got away with only getting a DUI. I didn't realize this wasn't okay until way later, much too late to
have done anything about it. All I know is the officer said that they were all three sheets to
the wind. God only knows what their intent was, but I was terrified to find out. And thank God
for that bagged cell phone. It honestly, probably saved my life. Almost ten years ago, the city I lived in was hit by a really bad hurricane,
and my neighbor was almost completely flooded.
It was so bad the city council just didn't have enough people on hand to deal with it all,
so they basically asked for volunteers to come forward to help deal with all the damage and misplaced people that lived in public housing.
I was one of those volunteers, and my job was to assess homes for damage,
make a list of them, and then pass the list on to the relevant departments
so they could organize repair teams to go out and fix the people's homes. One such home belonged to an older man who ran the local convenience store.
The store made up the front section of the unit while the rear parts contained their TV room,
kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The tiled floor of the store part had survived pretty well and
they'd be able to claim on their insurance for all the stock they'd lost, but their actual living spaces were a different story. I made a list of
all the ruined carpets, the electrical fittings that had been shorted, all kinds of things like
that. We surveyed everything but this one room, then when we got to it, we found it was locked.
One of the maintenance guys said that he'd be able to just take the door handle off so we could get inside,
and that it didn't matter if he damaged it because it was more than likely to just get replaced.
So the guy goes out to his van, gets his toolbox, and comes back to dismantle the lock.
Then when we open the door, we see a room that's almost completely lined with newspaper clippings.
You could barely read anything below the waterline, as what wasn't lying on the floor all mulched up had become too shriveled and warped to read.
But all the stuff we could read was seriously disturbing, and detailed all the various unsolved attacks on women that occurred in the city, going back to at least the late 80s. Some were from newspapers up and down the east coast too,
and detailed attacks that had occurred in other cities, but that all had the same kind of MO
about them. Girl is walking through the city late at night, and a guy comes up to ask her
a question or something to get her to lower her guard. Then he attacks.
Being the super cynical person that I am,
I immediately think there are all trophies of attacks this guy has committed himself.
So my first thought is to call the cops.
I really did think that I'd uncovered evidence of some serial attacker
who'd gone many years without being caught,
and I was so interested to know
if I was right that I insisted I get the number of one of the cops so I could get updates on how
their investigation was going. About a week later, I give one of the cops a call to see how it's
going and if they'd arrested the guy on the suspicion of anything. The cop told me that he
too had believed that something really creepy was going on, but when they contacted the guy and asked him if they could have a little chat about the newspaper clippings,
he'd been more than willing to talk to them about it.
Turns out, one of the girls in the newspaper clippings was his sister,
and then since the guy had never been caught, he'd been doing his own little investigation into the attacker and his identity.
I felt bad enough knowing that
I'd gotten completely the wrong idea about the guy, but what the cop told me next made me feel
even worse. Not over anything I'd done or the inconvenience I caused the guy,
more like pure sympathy for him, because years of his work had been almost completely destroyed.
There'd been all these soaking wet folders in the desk drawers,
all mulched up and rotten from the flooding.
They weren't more creepy newspaper trophies that I initially suspected.
They were years of this guy's own personal investigative notes,
completely destroyed by the flood.
I heard that there were interview notes,
copies of crime scene photos the
guy had Xeroxed, all kinds of stuff like that. It had taken him years to put it all together,
and the flooding had destroyed it all in the space of a night. The cops said that the guy
was visibly holding back tears when he'd given him the news about how much damage the flooding
had done. He knew his carpets were going to be ruined, but he didn't
expect the waters to reach the height of his desk drawer so that his files would be destroyed.
He said he was so, so close to getting enough info together so that the cops would be able to
catch the guy who attacked his sister. How the net was closing in closer and closer that he was just
months away from presenting his list of potential suspects to the cops in Philly and Newark.
He could still remember a lot of the names,
but the details linking their previous crimes to the unsolved ones had all gone up in smoke,
or, more accurately, had sunk down in the water.
That whole incident is honestly one of the saddest of my life.
Knowing all that guy's hard work went down the pan.
But it's also
incredibly creepy to know that someone who'd committed enough attacks on women to fill an
entire room with newspaper clipping might still be walking the streets. Now a little context. I'm a 19-year-old female and moved back into my mother's house late last
year. I have a neighbor who's 50ish or 60ish year old male who I've caught watching me almost every
day for the past few months now, maybe since January or February. The way our houses are laid
out is a little confusing. My backyard ends on the side of his house and yard, so the back of my house is pointed to the side of his.
My room's windows faces the back on the ground level, so I have a direct view of the side of his property.
I hope that makes sense.
What he'll do is stand outside when he smokes, and the whole time his body will be facing my direction. When I first started noticing it, I shrugged it off as him just looking at the sky or mountains
behind my house, or maybe he was zoning out.
But after a while, I noticed that he didn't try to look in any other direction when I'm
in my room.
Soon, it was just about every day I could count on seeing him outside looking in my
window or yard.
I was getting sick of it.
I started by hiding when I could see him, then shutting the blinds on him and opening
them up after he left and staring back at him and even flipping him off.
He knew I had noticed.
Now he would scurry away behind the corner of his house when I protested.
At this point he knows I've seen him multiple times and don't like him.
Now yesterday was different. I was taking the screen out of my window so that my cats could come in and out as
they please. One has abandonment issues and won't go outside without someone close. So now seeing me
through my window was even easier. My younger brother was in the back working on our garden and
I was leaning out the window
chatting with him. I looked up and saw the guy, half hidden behind his house, facing right toward
me. My annoyance and anger had reached a breaking point. I yelled at him across both properties to
stop staring and he scurried away behind his little corner. My brother and I continued our conversation as it seemed he got the
hint. I was wrong. I kept an eye out for him and that corner. I saw him again, this time just the
top of his head and his eyes as he concealed his body behind his house and leaned as far as he
could. My blood ran cold. This guy, who I don't even know is like three times my age, is so desperate just to look
at me that he can't stop even after being yelled at. I yelled again and he hit again, not saying a
single word. I was trying to wrap up the conversation between me and my brother so I could shut my
window and hide. Once again, I see him, just his head and eyes, staring.
I screamed this time, then slammed my window.
He cowered off.
I wasn't planning on making this post until I saw him doing it again today.
My window was shut and he ran off before I could yell again.
I felt sick to my stomach.
He won't get the hint.
I don't know what to do.
I like keeping my blinds open during the day since
I keep cacti in my room that need light. Not to mention the lights in my room don't work so I
have to use sunlight anyway. I shouldn't have to change my routine because of some creep,
but I don't think I can report him to the police because he's staying on his property and I don't
know if I can legally record him if he's in his yard.
I want to knock on his door and tell his wife but my mom advised me against that.
I don't think me giving him a stern talk will do anything other than fuel whatever fantasies he might have of me.
And it could be dangerous too.
This situation is starting to affect my mental health.
I wake up in the middle of the night convinced someone is right outside looking at me.
I can't even change my clothes in my own room anymore because I feel like he's already caught a peek.
I don't think ignoring him is an option that I can continue.
Do you guys think that there's even a way I can help my situation? I got off of work at 11pm.
The sad part about this is I volunteered to work this shift.
If I had never offered, I would have never experienced this.
This particular apartment is on my college campus.
My campus is an open campus, which means anyone could enter at any time.
As a female I guess that's kind of unnerving.
However I always carried a pocket knife and pepper spray.
I had to park pretty far away from the apartment since most parking spots were filled.
I finally found a parking space but thank god I checked my surroundings before I got
out.
There was a fairly tall, grimy old man standing about 50 feet away
from me. This sent chills down my spine because he stood so still, like a mannequin. I could see
his bloodshot eyes, they were wide open. Now, I knew I wasn't getting out of the car, but what
the man yelled to me made my heart pound out of my chest.
Come here, pretty girl, he said with a slight creepy
grin on his face. I don't know why I did it, but I shot a bird at him, probably because I had a
feeling that he was a pervert or something. I put my car in reverse and backed out of the parking
spot, keeping my eyes on the man. My heart pounded even harder when he started speedwalking towards
me. He was about 10 feet away from my car when I finally put my car in drive and stomped on the gas
pedal. I literally drove to the other side of the apartments and panicked. I called my roommate
slash best friend and told her what had just happened. I asked her to wait for me at the door
and stay on the phone with me. I stayed in my car
for about 5 minutes to calm myself down. I've kept looking around to see if my guy followed me,
and he was nowhere to be seen. I didn't want to get out of my car, however I had to get in my
apartment somehow. I parked in the spot where my apartment wasn't too far away anymore. I decided
to book it towards my room. I had my
best friend on FaceTime the entire time I sprinted. I flew down two flights of stairs until finally I
got about a hundred feet away from my door. I saw my best friend waving at me. A feeling of relief
came over me, and only for a few seconds though. Now I don't know if you guys have seen the movie
Get Out, but just picture a grown man
sprinting towards you. That's what happened. The grimy old man hauled it towards me, but this time
he looked livid. It was like a scene straight out of a horror movie. I don't know how he found me,
I don't know what his problem was, but I could have broke the national record for the 40 meter dash.
I darted towards my door. Thankfully, I reached my apartment just in time,
and right when my best friend and I slammed the door, the man's fingers got caught in the crack.
I screamed and tried to shove the door open, but my best friend and I surprisingly shut him out.
This happened over a year ago. My best friend and I have never spoke on this, ever.
And I never saw that man again.
And I never volunteered to work another night shift.
And I never worked another night shift, period. And I never, ever shot a bird at anyone else, again. I'm a 19 year old female French student so please excuse my English.
And this event happened last week.
I was heading to my apartment after seeing a friend.
I took the tramway at 11.30pm because I didn't feel comfortable walking at night.
As soon as I sat, a man who was already sitting nearby came and sat in front of me.
I had a very strange feeling about it so I told my boyfriend
by chat. Then I stood up to get out of the tram but the man quickly got out after me.
He was weirdly following me, not walking behind me but next to me. I was getting very anxious,
knowing something was wrong so I continued to walk to the avenue that I live in. I crossed the road and he didn't so I thought it
was okay but a few seconds after he crossed the road too and was walking behind me. Then he passed
me and was walking in front of me so I thought that I was just getting paranoid and that he was
just walking his way too. But near my building he stopped walking in front of me and waited until I
caught up to him. He asked me if I
had a boyfriend and I answered, yeah sorry good evening, trying to be as polite as I can be.
He proceeded to leave in front of me so I was walking slower for him to be far away from me
and to make sure he didn't know that I was almost home. I turned into the little pathway heading to
the lobby of my building but I was still anxious about this man even though he continued to walk.
I thought I had put my keys in my pocket but they were in my bag.
I was shaking so much that I tried multiple times to grab them.
I managed to get them and I opened the magnetic door but thought of closing the door immediately after me in case the man wanted to follow me.
The door was closed, but the magnetic
system wasn't on yet, so the man was running to it and pushed it violently with horrific eyes
looking at me. The door was made of glass so I could see through. That's when I knew that I was
getting into real trouble, so without even thinking, I screamed as loud as I could, and I
think that honestly would saved my life.
Immediately, the man ran to me, pushed me hard on the ground and started to choke me as hard as he could.
I was too stunned because I wasn't prepared for such a violent assault.
While he was choking me, I couldn't scream at all, or even breathe.
And nobody was coming so I really thought that I was going to die,
looking into his bulging eyes staring directly into mine with pure hate. I'm a very small person so I wasn't able to do anything with my arms at all. I think it wasn't that long but it felt like an eternity and I lost
consciousness for a moment. When I opened my eyes again, he had just ran out and I saw the
caretaker's wife beside me. The caretaker was chasing after the man, but didn't manage to get to him.
He came back and called the police that caught the man within 10 minutes,
thanks to the description that we had.
I really don't know why he did that to me, because when he attacked me,
he didn't take anything further or rob me, which he could have easily done.
I can't understand that his only goal seemed to be
to kill me. I'll never be thankful enough to my hero who came to help me
and save my life because nobody else in the building called the police or even seemed to care. I'm a 27-year-old female. I'm married to my husband a 31 year old man, we have two children,
Isaac, an 8 year old from my first marriage and Tiana with my now husband is 5. I'm new to reddit
so I have no clue if this is even the right subreddit for my situation. I'm very distraught
right now because I've been seeing this woman almost everywhere I
go, and I have no idea if this is happening by coincidence, and I'm trying to be as calm as I
can while writing this. I'm also not great with English, but this whole situation started somewhere
around May of 2022, where me and Isaac were at the local park just doing our own thing.
My son was just playing with some other child at the monkey bars when I saw this woman approach me. She had red hair, pretty sure it
was natural and her face seemed tear stained. I became concerned as I thought she was crying.
I proceeded to ask her what was wrong, if she was alright, but she kept staring at my son.
The more she looked at him, the more she sobbed. Then all of a sudden
she sprints to him running screaming Michael. She kept calling him that and it freaked me out.
I mean she was running to my kid and calling him a different name. My son and the other child got
scared and I approached them before she did as I was faster than her.
I then screamed at her to get lost but she just stood there as I held my son and she seemed pretty enraged. She then muttered some things but I couldn't hear her as she had
stomped away. The other child's father and I talked for a bit and he seemed alarmed by what
had happened. He predicted that she was probably a grieving mother and that my son looked like the child she lost. I was still disturbed and took my son home. Since then,
I have been afraid to take any of my children to any public areas despite my husband's reassurance.
Skip to June 2nd, 2022. I get a call from my school stating that a woman, who was a new
volunteer for lunch duty,
kept mentioning that my son was her quote-unquote Mikey Bear and that she had been looking for him for years.
They told me that another volunteer who had been working with her reported this.
I was scared as hell and I acted immediately by signing my kids off for the day.
When I called the school the next day, I was informed she was no longer there, so I became pretty freaked out.
Skip to last week, July 13th, 2022. It was Tiana's fifth birthday, and we decided to host it at a park in my in-laws hometown. Everything went well, although I was paranoid.
It was somewhere between 9pm and when we began tidying up,
and as I looked at many of the oak trees behind us, I could have sworn that I saw her.
I screamed at the top of my lungs and started chasing after her, but she somehow got away.
Ever since then, I've not seen her, but I feel like this might not be the end of it. I'm a 27-year-old female who went backpacking alone over the recent long weekend, which was 10 out of 10 beautiful.
The second night I camped at a beautiful high elevation lake, which could also be accessed by a short one mile trail so
there were a few other campers and several people who were just day hiking and fishing.
It was late afternoon and I was sitting around my camp reading when a guy in his mid-twenties
walked by carrying a fishing pole and a small cooler. I didn't think much of it but five to
ten minutes later he doubled back and came and said hi.
I said hi and went back to reading but then without warning he then sat down on the stump next to me.
I was completely taken aback at this invasion of my space.
He started asking me questions that were really just statements but in a creepy amused tone like
So, you just reading?
And then looked behind me and noticed my tent and said, ah, you stay in the night here alone, huh? I didn't say anything in response to
this in particular, but it's obvious that I am. It's hard to explain, but his vibe was just
really off. I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't even really form words or tell him that
I was trying to be alone to get him to leave. I was honestly paralyzed. His eyes were so dead and
dark and just drilling into me. I just responded with like uh-huh or yup or something and just
tried to pretend that I was still reading. Without warning, he pulls out and cracks a beer and lights
a cigarette and just starts
blowing it at me. At this point I'm so uncomfortable and just not responding.
Soon another hiker wandered by and he strikes up a conversation with him and
I took the opportunity to grab my water filter and bladder and pretended to need to get water.
I went to the shore and filtered some water super slowly and saw him walk away to go sit
with the new guy which made me super relieved except that he kept looking in my direction.
I came back eventually and got inside my tent and for about 20 minutes everything was fine.
I had the rainfly pulled back and was watching the sunset and loosely organizing my things when
he popped out
from behind my tent and stood maybe one foot from my door looking down at me. He didn't say anything
but just started laughing really creepily and fakely again. I asked what and his response was
this is just uh really funny. I felt literally sick in my stomach and finally responded with something like,
I'm taking a nap now, so have a good night.
He laughed again, but luckily left.
Later I saw him wandering around the camp with no real purpose, still looking in my direction often.
I had no service, but I wrote down his last name, at least what was written on his cooler,
and where he said he was from while talking to the other hiker at my notes app just in case,
and slept with my pocket knife close.
I debated leaving camp that night, but ended up staying and just leaving super early in the morning in case he came back.
Normally while backpacking, I think the worst thing that could happen is that I might run into a bear or sprain an ankle,
and maybe this seemed not that bad as you're reading it, but this truly was the most unsettling experience I've ever had in the backcountry. I'm sure I'll be back out soon,
but hopefully somewhere far away from this dude. I'm a 21-year-old female, and roommate slash best friend, also 21, lived in a rental house.
I won't say our exact location, but it's in Texas and her and I are both practicing Wiccans.
We do rituals, meditations, and have weekly coven meetings.
I can't stress enough how much Wicca is not a bad religion.
Witchery is not really how
it's depicted in fiction. We don't pray to the devil, we don't sacrifice animals, and we certainly
don't harm anybody. Being a pagan in Texas is hard enough. Thankfully in our area it really isn't a
big deal as we're close to a college town, but as it is to everywhere else, we do have our bad people.
So we live close to an older couple.
We're not like right next door or anything, but close enough to see them if they're outside.
I was doing some meditation in my second story bedroom.
It's about 110 degrees here right now, so I was in a state of half-dress just to combat the heat.
Later in the day, the man that lives next door stopped at my car and said that he saw me quote-unquote naked and praying to the devil and that this was a nice
community and we weren't welcome if we were going to practice that evil stuff. I told him to get the
hell out of my driveway. As I was getting in the car, he said something along the lines of,
You keep playing near the dog's bowl. Don't be surprised when the dog bites you.
I just flipped him off and left. I'm not a mean person, but I have low tolerance for ignorance.
My roommate, who is a lot more introverted than I am, was confronted by the same guy's son,
who was a few years older than us
and said that his mom was feeling scared because their cat had recently died and that she assumed
that we were behind it. As two girls that have a cat ourselves, we were upset that anyone would
think that we were behind this. He also made mention that his dad had pointed out that he
had seen me meditating in my room. But she had very wisely
pointed out that he was the one looking through the window and that he wouldn't have actually
been able to see anything unless he made an honest and determined attempt to do so.
And this apparently angered him and he left. So we both woke up early this morning to run
some errands before the heat got too bad. When we left, we found that all of our plants had
been ripped
out of the ground and thrown around the yard. Our squirrel feeder and bat house were also damaged.
Also, our cat's outside bed had been cut up with what I'm assuming is a knife.
The biggest thing that bothered me was that a ceramic triple moon insignia that
we have hung up on the side of our house was thrown into the yard and broken.
Not only did we feel that our faith was attacked, but also our personal space.
We called the police and filed a report. We told them everything that had happened with the
neighbors and they said without more evidence that there was nothing they could do.
Shocker. And this has literally hit home for me. This isn't Salem. We're not here to hurt anyone. To be continued... 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.