The Lets Read Podcast - 214: I SHOULDN'T HAVE STAYED IN THIS HOSTEL | 17 True Scary Stories | EP 202

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about 4Chan, Hotels, & British Gangs...   HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS & Bonus Content!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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Find your pro at your local Tread Experts. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca I I grew up in a really rough area in Nottingham in the UK. The kind of place where there was a lot of drugs, a lot of gangs, and a lot of violence. People assume it was a dangerous place to grow up, and that's definitely true in some respects. But the drug addicts wandered out to more well-off areas to steal, and the gangs tended to keep their violence among themselves. The trouble was, if they were at war, you lived on their battlefield, and that meant suffering through all of the horrors that could bring. One incident that really sticks with me happened on Christmas Day when I was eight. My mom had saved up to buy me a pair of rollerblades and I remember

how happy I was when I unwrapped them and saw a brand new pair staring back at me. I couldn't wait to try them out, so I asked my mom if we could go out into the street outside so I could try them out. And like I've mentioned, I lived in a really rough area, but most of the serious violence normally happened on the other side of my estate, which was presumably where most of the gang activity was. But not this time. This was early on Christmas morning, so my mom still half asleep and in her nightie. It was me who rushed to the front door first, it was me who opened it, and it was me who saw the body first. At first I just thought it was someone sleeping on the tiny patch of grass we called a front garden. Heroin was a big thing in our community so it wasn't unusual to see

someone who'd nodded out in an odd place. Also, keeping in mind that it was still dark outside and the sun only comes up at about 7am in the winter here and this must have been no later than 6am. I couldn't see what their face looked like and I certainly would have been able to recognize any dark stains on their clothing. I told my mom that someone was sleeping in our garden and immediately she rushed out to check but then after walking over to the man and giving him a shake, she suddenly barked at me to go back inside the house. The next thing I know, I can see blue flashing lights outside, but thankfully, I hadn't quite worked out what was going on, so I got to enjoy my Christmas morning in relative

peace and happiness. The man on the front lawn, though, he wasn't so lucky. The poor man we'd found had been stabbed three times in the back, but because it happened very early on Christmas morning, there hadn't been anyone around to witness it. We just so happened to live right near a school, though, and I'm pretty sure the police used their security camera footage to determine that he'd been attacked about a half mile up the road. Then somehow, even while leaking like a bloody colander, the man had managed to walk all the way up our street and into our front garden before collapsing outside my house. I remember what a huge fuss there was that morning. Police everywhere, forensics men in white overall setting up a little white tent out our front yard.

It lasted for almost a week afterwards too. We weren't allowed to leave the house for a week in case we disturbed evidence. If we did go out, we had to sign in and out with a liaison officer at the end of the street. As an 8 year old, I couldn't quite comprehend what was happening and it took a while for my mom to finally tell me that someone had died in our front garden. It took even longer for her to admit that it was murder and not just some horrible accident. Eventually the police found the murder weapon in our neighbor's garden and the killer was identified from the fingerprints they lifted from it. I didn't hear all of this until years later but word on the

grave find was that he was a local gang leader and the victim had been one of his best friends who'd been having an affair with the guy's girlfriend behind his back. I heard they'd been arguing as they were on their way home from the corner shop and when the friend finally admitted it, the gang leader just stabbed him up, then ran off. The victim was in so much shock that he'd kept walking until he finally fell over. I never did find out their names, either the killer or the victim, but that Christmas will always stick with me. Okay, so this isn't my story exactly, but it's my mom's.

But it does involve me in a roundabout way, and mom's not getting a Reddit account anytime soon, so allow me to tell it instead. My mom grew up an animal lover and so her dream career was to be a vet. Sadly, she didn't get the grades to study veterinary science but she did have the grades to study dentistry and since that would result in a similarly well-paying career, she decided to go with that instead. She gets her degree, moves down to London, sets up a practice, meets my dad, then a few years later, boom, yours truly is born. My mom started off working mostly NHS stuff with a few higher paying private jobs in between. The NHS work was all your regular teeth pulling and whatnot, but the private stuff was generally cosmetic so it made them loads more money. And then, teeth whitening became a thing.

You could get your teeth bleached long before the trend set in, but what really sparked it off is that someone invented a much faster, much cheaper way of doing it. After that, everyone and their dog wanted to get their teeth whitened, and it made my mom a fat stack of cash. It also brought in a much more interesting group of patients, which tended to consist mostly of vain or eccentric people with way too much money. So, one day, my mom says this fella came into her surgery to get his teeth whitened, and right away, she knew that he was going to be trouble. He's rude to the dental nurses,

he's covered in drip, and he's generally acting like an arrogant prick as my mom's talking him through the whitening procedure. Then, once the job was done and dusted, and it came to settling up, the bloke starts giving it the old, don't you know who I am speech to try and get out of pain. Needless to say, my little old mom was not up to date on the names and faces of local gangsters, which is what he turned out to be, and when he realized that she wasn't going to budge, he tells her to f off and storms out of the surgery. Now, she doesn't get the police involved right away, but what she did do was phone the bloke up and leave a message on his answering machine, telling him he had a week to pay what he owed or she'd be getting the old bill involved. And that's when the threat started. The bloke calls her back at the surgery and starts telling

her that if a police car so much as drives past his house, he'd have her business firebombed. Mom still had no clue who she was actually dealing with, so she just reminds the bloke that he had a few more days to pay up or she'd be getting the police involved. The very next day, my mom is working on a patient up in her office when she heard a bang followed by a blood-curdling scream coming from down in the reception area. She excuses herself from the patient and legs it downstairs to find one of her dental nurses is in floods of tears with all the patients in the waiting area looking like they'd just seen a ghost. Turns out some bloke in a mask had walked into the surgery

with a hammer. He hadn't said a word, he just looked the nurse in the eye before smashing the hammer down on her desk, then he just walked out of the surgery again. Mum was obviously forced to get the police involved at that point, but she'd also realized what serious trouble she was in with this gangster on her case. If he was a psycho enough to threaten her staff with a freaking hammer, then he might well be psycho enough to burn her business to the ground. This is the same business she'd built from the ground up, after coming from a humble working class background. It was her pride and joy, and the idea of losing it must have been like a humble working class background. It was her pride and joy, and the idea of losing it must have been like a waking nightmare for her. The situation then gets even worse one night,

when my dad is home alone looking after me, who's still a baby at that point. Dad says that he just put me to bed when the phone started to ring. It was the gangster, who managed to get her home phone number somehow, and he threatens my dad, threatens me, which my parents found particularly frightening because how did he even know I existed? The gangster also claimed to know where we lived, which was obviously pretty horrifying, and it only added to how stressed my mom was. She said the next few days were some of the longest

of her life, just waiting for someone to show up and throw a molotov into the waiting room or something, but thankfully that never came to pass. Then one day, in walks this lovable, older, cockney gentleman who's been booked in for a routine checkup. Mum is up to her nose in stress and it must have been written all over her face because just before she starts the examination, the patient starts asking her what the matter was. up. Mum is up to her nose in stress and it must have been written all over her face because just before she starts the examination, the patient starts asking her what the matter was. I'm guessing it was the granddad energy this bloke was giving off but mum said she

basically just poured her heart out to the bloke about the trouble she was going through. The sweet old geezer listens intently, then during a lull in my mum's rant, he asks her the name of the bloke she was being threatened by. My mom then tells him the guy's name and after a bit more back and forth, they get on with the checkup. The old geezer is good as gold when it comes to paying, he's an absolute gentleman to all the nurses and on his way out, he says something that my mom thought was really nice and thoughtful. He told her something like, I'll keep you in my prayers, but between you and me,

I think your gangster might change his mind and do the right thing. Sweet and thoughtful, my mom thought, but highly unlikely. Then get this, a few days later, the police call her back regarding the gangster not paying her. She'd already reported it by that time, having brought it up when she talked to the police about the Hammer incident, but the return call came with some unexpected news. The gangster had told the police that he'd paid the bill. It couldn't have been him and the mask with the hammer because there wasn't a payment dispute, he just needed a few days to get the money together. Mom then gets her receptionist to check the company account,

but there are no payments under the gangster's name. But then the receptionist mentions a package that arrived that morning, a small brown envelope with a handwritten address on it. Just on a hunch, Mom, who's not at the surgery at this time, asks the receptionist to open up to see what's inside. And what do you know? There's eight crispy 50-pound notes in there, and a note which just said, sorry. My mom is then forced to call the police back with an apology for wasting their time because

she's just found the money she was owed. Obviously, that was the drama over, so she was quite chuffed to see the back of it, and she always just assumed the gangster's bark was bigger than his bite, and that he just backed down when the law got involved. But that wasn't the case. Years later, my parents were out for a very fancy anniversary dinner at a very fancy London restaurant they went to every year on that day. They finished their meal, paid up,

then walked outside in time to see this pair of brand new Range Rovers pulled up nearby. Two sets of massive bodyguard looking characters climb out of the car's front seats. Then, once they confirmed the coast was clear, they opened up the rear passenger doors. And who steps out in some crisp Savile Row looking suit, looking like a million quid? The sweet old geezer who'd been so nice when he visited my mom as a patient. He spots my mom as he gets closer and he gives her a wave before coming over to say hello. The evidently minted old geezer introduces my parents to his wife and they have a bit of a chit-chat before parting ways.

But just before they do, the bloke says to mom, Oh, by the way, I heard your trouble with that rude young man resolved itself. Told you he'd change his mind. My dad says he gave her a cheeky little wink, then joined his wife in entering the same restaurant. The penny didn't drop for my mom until dad asked her, do you have any idea who that is? She said no, just that it was an old patient of hers. Then with a stunned look on his face, my dad tells her that her polite old patient was none other than Bobby Cummins. For those of you that don't know, Bobby Cummins was one of the most

feared gangsters in the 1970s Britain. His signature weapon was a sawn-off shotgun, only Bobby used a very special kind of ammunition for it. He'd take a few shotgun shells, empty out the pellets or whatever they have inside them, then he'd fill them up with rock salt. Bobby would then shoot a person in a non-fatal area, meaning dozens of the jagged salt crystals would end up buried in their flesh, and honestly, I can't even imagine how painful that would be. He later decided to turn his life around, and by the time he ended up in my mom's dentist chair, he was well on his way to being awarded some fancy title by the queen for helping reform the prison system or something.

I bet he never fancied himself meeting the Queen back when he was robbing banks and breaking legs. The point is, my mom realized that the bloke who threatened to burn down his practice hadn't had a change of heart and decided to pay. He'd been threatened into paying by one of Britain's most notorious ex-gangsters, who evidently still had enough clout to get the bloke to back off. A total disaster, completely averted, all because of one chance meeting with some innocuous-looking old geezer. The whole thing has become almost like an interesting bit of family trivia now, a close call from the distant past, and everyone always takes joy in how wild the odds are that Bobby Cummins, of all people, would just march in and fix things.

But that's the thing that really scares me. I mean, what are the chances of that, in a city as big as London? If it wasn't for the very unlikely meeting between Bobby and my mom, my life might be different at best, and possibly non-existent at worst. Suzanne Jane Capper was born on September 1st of 1976 in the northern English city of Manchester. A younger Suzanne was described as a gentle and easily influenced girl, but due to the instability brought on her by her parents' divorce, her behavior began to deteriorate as she entered her teenage years. By age 14, Suzanne was regularly skipping school in favor of hanging out with her former babysitter, Jean Powell. Jean was a major player in a small gang of local criminals and sold amphetamines for her small terraced home in an area known as Moston. Suzanne's older sister, Michelle, was well aware of Jean Powell's illegal activities

and warned her sister that she was falling in with the bad crowd. But Suzanne ignored her and was apparently so swayed by Jean's outlaw lifestyle that she continued to associate with her. One might assume that Jean and her friends treated Suzanne well, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Suzanne was essentially a verbal punching bag for the small group of criminals and became the butt of many a cruel joke. When asked why Suzanne would want to surround herself with such company, her sister explained that it wasn't that she was scared of them, it's just that she would do anything for them.

She pampered their every whim. Over the course of the following two years, the group's treatment of Suzanne gradually worsened. She was treated with an increasing amount of contempt, and the group found ways to blame her for all manner of unconnected misfortunes. When a pink duffel coat went missing from Jean Powell's home, Suzanne was blamed. When one member of the gang contracted lice from somewhere, Suzanne was blamed. And when a man showed up at Jean's house under the impression that it was a brothel, the blame fell once again at Suzanne's feet. By December of 1992, the gang decided that Suzanne had to be punished.

So one Monday evening, they invited her over to Jean's house under the pretense of there being a house party. When Suzanne arrived, she was ambushed by two gang members named Glyn Powell and Anthony Dudson. Although they remained close, Glynn was Jean's soon-to-be ex-husband, while Anthony Dudson was the boyfriend of another member of the gang, Bernadette McNeely. At the behest of their respective partners, Glynn and Anthony held Suzanne down and shaved her head and eyebrows off. Suzanne wept and wailed as Glynn used a pair of doll clippers to basically rip the hair from her scalp, leaving blood trickling down her bare scalp by the time they were finished.

Suzanne was then forced to clean up the mess they had made before the next phase of her punishment commenced. When Suzanne returned from disposing of her freshly cut hair, Glynn Powell blindfolded her before the group took turns beating her. They delighted in Suzanne's inability to defend herself, cackling with laughter as the blows rained down. Before long, Suzanne was curled up in a ball, trying in vain to protect her battered skull. The gang then took the opportunity to beat her with a broomstick before whipping her with a belt, making sure to inflict as much pain as possible with the belt's metal buckle. When the gang was tired of beating her, Jean Powell locked Suzanne in an upstairs cupboard and left her there overnight with no food or water.

The following day, the gang moved Suzanne from the upstairs cupboard to a bed in one of the home's back rooms. There, she was tied down and tortured for the next five days. It started with beatings and verbal abuse, but when Bernadette McNeely took over, the methods of torture became nightmarishly creative. Bernadette began burning Suzanne with lit cigarettes, pulling her teeth out with pliers, and would inject her with liquid amphetamine whenever she passed out from the pain. Anthony Dudson later told police that Bernie McNeely told Suzanne to open her mouth, then she started hitting Suzanne with the pliers. Then she got the pliers and started pulling one of her teeth out, but it just snapped and chipped.

Then she hit Suzanne a few more times, put the pliers on again and really, really pulled. She pulled Suzanne's head forward until there was a snap and then we could see that she had the tooth in the pliers. And she did it again and laughed the whole time. Bernadette also subjected Suzanne to intense sleep deprivation and would place headphones over her ears before blasting her with a song called Hi, I'm Chucky Wanna Play by 150 Volts. The song contained samples from the movie Child's Play and it was common knowledge that the movie had terrified Suzanne, so forcing her to listen to the song doubled up as a powerful psychological torture. Five days into her ordeal, Suzanne was lying in a mess of her own urine and feces, so the gang decided to untie and clean her before resuming her punishments.

Suzanne was forced into scalding hot bath water that contained a concentrated mix of boiling water, bleach, and disinfectant. The cocktail of chemicals burned her skin, patches of which were then scrubbed off with a harsh wire brush. Once Suzanne was dressed and tied to the bed again, the gang left a relative outsider to watch over the house. 18-year-old David Hill later claimed that he had no idea that Suzanne was being held captive, and once he heard strange groaning noises coming from the home's back room, he was horrified to find her tied to the bed. She asked me if I could help, but I told her I couldn't, David later told police.

I asked her who she was, she said her name was Suzanne. She asked me if I could untie her, I said I couldn't do anything. If I did, the gang would have battered me. I didn't know what to do. I was too shocked to do anything. When the gang discovered Suzanne's mother was about to officially report her missing, they decided they had to get rid of her. So a week after she was taken prisoner, the gang forced Suzanne into the trunk of a stolen white Fiat Panda, then drove out to a narrow lane on the outskirts of a place called Stockport. After being removed from the trunk, Suzanne was thrown into a patch of bramble bushes, and as the sharp thorns tore up her bruised and tendered flesh, Bernadette McNeely giggled as she poured petrol over her. Then, once Suzanne had

been set alight and her screams of agony filled the night air, the gang howled with laughter and sang a line from the Tramp song, Disco Inferno. Burn, baby, burn, they sang. Burn, baby, burn. Once the gang believed Suzanne was dead, they drove back to Jean Powell's home, stopping only to purchase alcohol in order to celebrate the horrifying misdeed. Yet the gang had made one hideous miscalculation. Suzanne wasn't dead. Somehow, the starving, bareheaded, half-burned girl managed to stagger over to a nearby road, and at approximately 6.10 a.m. on the morning of December 15th,

she was discovered by a commuter named Barry Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe was initially so terrified by Suzanne's sudden appearance that he almost drove his car off the road. But once he realized that he wasn't looking at a monster, but rather a 16-year-old burn victim, he rushed Suzanne to the nearest house in order to get her help. Both her hands were like ash, said the homeowner, Michael Koop. Her legs were just like raw meat and her feet appeared to be badly charred. I was struck by how polite the victim was. She was constantly thanking my wife for her assistance. Margaret Koop, Michael's wife, who tended to the dying Suzanne, told police, I instinctively went to put my arms around her but she pulled away because she could not bear to be touched. Her head was shaved and there were cuts to her head. Her face was almost featureless.

Her hands were red raw and black at the fingertips. Her legs were red from top to bottom. She couldn't bear anything near her legs. Suzanne was so dehydrated by that point. When the Koops offered her water, she drank six whole glasses, one after the other. The injuries to her hands were so severe that she didn't have the strength to hold the glass, and had to have it raised to her lips by a horrified Mrs. Koop. After being rushed to the hospital, Suzanne remained conscious long enough to name all six of her attackers, but sadly, she was so badly burned that she eventually slipped into a coma. The extent of Suzanne's injuries were such that when her parents arrived at the hospital during visitation hours, they were unable to recognize their own daughter. She was only properly identified by a partial fingerprint from her thumb, the only part of her hands not severely burned, and when it was confirmed that the little burned girl was indeed her daughter, Suzanne's mother fainted from the grief.

She remained by her daughter's bed until December 18th of 1992 when Suzanne finally passed away. Detective Inspector Peter Wall of Great Manchester Police was tasked with arresting those named by Suzanne prior to her passing. He later said that Jean Powell and Bernadette McNeely laughed and joked with each other during their arrest, a detail he found chilling once it became clear they were guilty. At first, all six suspects denied any involvement in Suzanne's murder, and some even expressed remorse at the news of her death. And slowly but surely, certain members of the gang began to crack under pressure,

and eventually, Anthony Dudson's father convinced him to tell the truth. Detective Inspector Wall later said that, as the story began to unfold, we just couldn't believe it. I kept asking myself how one human being could do this to another. Some officers were said to have wept as the extent of Suzanne's suffering was revealed, and as news of the grisly crime spread across the rest of Great Britain, dozens of bouquets were delivered to the hospital she died in. On December 23rd of 1992, all six of the gang appeared in court to be officially charged with kidnapping and attempted murder,

with their trial set for early January of 1993. Pathologist Dr. William Lawler testified that Suzanne had suffered between 75 and 80% burns and that her chances of survival would have been minimal even if she had been in such a weakened state. Dr. Lawler also testified that the exact cause of death had been catastrophic heat damage to Suzanne's internal organs, essentially meaning that she had been cooked alive. It is clear that this young girl must have suffered a great deal of pain and had no chance of survival, Dr. Lawler said. But she did fortunately survive long enough to give information which led to the people mentioned being charged with her death. Dr. Lawler then directly addressed Suzanne's mother and stepfather who were present in the courtroom saying,

I offer you, not just on my behalf but on behalf of the whole nation, my very deepest sympathy and condolences at this tragic happening to your young daughter. They were words that were repeated on every TV and radio news program in the nation, and as the trial came to a conclusion, the public demanded the harshest possible sentences should the gang be found guilty. On December 16th of 1993, the jury retired to consider their judgment, and after nine hours of intense discussion, they announced that a verdict had been reached. Before judgment was declared, the presiding judge addressed each of the defendants, telling them, each of you has been convicted on clear evidence of murder, which was as appalling a murder as it is possible to imagine.

24-year-old Bernadette McNeely was pronounced guilty of murder, conspiracy, and false imprisonment, and was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison. 26-year-old Jean Powell and her 29-year-old husband, Glenn, received identical sentences, reflecting their crucial role in Suzanne's murder. In light of his cooperation with investigating officers, 16-year-old Anthony Dutson received a lesser sentence, but given that he was intimately involved in trapping and torturing young Suzanne, he was still condemned to 18 years in prison. When the sentences were read out in court, two of the jurors wept with relief, and there was an outpouring of jubilation from Suzanne's loved ones, who were present in the public gallery.

Detective Inspector Wall was then asked by journalists if he believed Suzanne's killers were criminally insane. Psychological reports say that these are absolutely sane individuals, he told them. It's frightening that they are such ordinary people. There is nothing special about any of them. Maybe that's what makes this case so particularly terrifying. The people who imprisoned, tortured, and roasted Suzanne Capper alive were completely sane, and despite dabbling in petty crime and drug trafficking, were not known to be physically violent. It's something drove them to commit one of the most shocking criminal acts of 20th century Britain. Perhaps it was some kind of cruel group dynamic, a brutal pecking order with

Suzanne positioned at the very bottom. She was ridiculed, scapegoated, and otherwise dehumanized until her killers were able to laugh and sing as they burned her alive. The gang weren't insane, and despite committing an evil act, they weren't completely evil people. Yet something allowed them to torture a 16-year-old girl for the better part of a week, before murdering her in one of the worst ways imaginable. Perhaps there's some kind of primordial savagery in all of us, something our parents and teachers worked very hard to rid us of, and in some cases, a little piece of that savagery still remains. When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course, BetRivers is the place.

Over, under, money, lines, same game, parlays, it's all fine. We'll put a smile on your face. Bet on the sports you love with BetRivers Sportsbook. Take a chance. Must be 19 plus. Available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I used to be quite a chubby teenager and I used to get bullied something rotten for it at school. My older brother, on the other hand, was very athletic,

and used to train down at this boxing gym not far from where we grew up in Warrington. Around the time of my 14th birthday, I was sick to my back teeth of all the abuse that I was getting, most of which was centered around my weight, and after complaining to my brother about it, he suggested I join in him a few training sessions down at the boxing gym. I could lose weight and learn to defend myself all at the same time, and although it was tough going at first, it was one of the best decisions I'd ever made. I slimmed down, the bullying stopped, and I grew to love boxing so much that I kept training there long after I lost the weight.

The gym me and my brother trained at was owned by this massive former bare-knuckle boxer named Sean. Sean liked to project the image of a lovable rogue, one who'd turned over a new leaf after a wayward youth. He'd done a bit of debt collecting for some big-time gangsters, had been to prison for a few years, and he had a variety of gruesome looking scars all over him from what he claimed were various attempts to take his life. After getting out of prison, he'd seen the error of his ways and had decided to stay on the straight and narrow by opening a boxing gym. He was definitely still involved in criminality in some way, as all kinds of dodgy

looking people walked to and from his office without ever putting on a pair of gloves. But he was a good trainer and he kept the membership fees cheap so none of us really seemed to mind. In fact, some of the lads my age thought Sean's gangster past was quite glamorous and if I'm honest, I did a bit too. Getting taught to fight by someone who had been there and got the t-shirt made it feel like I was really getting my money's worth, and Sean was so encouraging and supportive that I thought he was the bee's knees. My older brother didn't seem to be much of a fan though and said he only used to train at Sean's gym because it was cheap. He couldn't wait until he had the money to train somewhere else and he was quick to warn me that Sean wasn't all he cracked up to be. My brother later told me that he kept me in the dark regarding most of Sean's more disturbing misdeeds.

Going to the boxing gym meant that I was physically fit, able to handle myself, and the social side of things really helped me come out of my shell. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin that for me by telling me a load of horror stories he didn't even know were really true or not. And because of that, it wasn't until I turned 17 that I actually told him the worst of what he'd heard. And by that point, I'd heard so much other stuff about Sean that my brother's stories actually sounded believable. Word on the street was that back in the day, Sean used to be a total psycho. People said he was so aggressive and casually violent that even the toughest underworld figures were scared of him, and given his

reputation, Sean excelled at debt collection. My brother told me a lot of the people Sean collected money from were just being extorted in some way, and that after they'd been given a good kicking, most of them paid up. But then this one bloke just didn't want to pay Sean his money and it got to be a huge problem for him. No matter what Sean and his crew did, the bloke just refused to give in and pay out. They battered him, kidnapped him, tortured him, but he still refused to give them any money and because the debtor was involved in a crime himself,

it's not like he'd just go to the police for help. After months of increasingly creative methods of intimidation, Sean and his crew arrived at a bit of an impasse, as you say. Any increase in the intensity of the violence and they risked killing the bloke, so they had to come up with something horrifically unconventional to get him to pay up, and Sean was apparently psycho enough to do things that other debt collectors wouldn't dream of doing. One night, Sean and his crew rolled up to the bloke's house, but they're not carrying weapons or torture devices like they had the last few times they visited him. That time, all they had with them was a video camera and a jar of

Vaseline. I honestly can't bring myself to go into detail about what Sean and his crew apparently did to the bloke, but let's just say they overpowered him, humiliated him, and got the whole thing on camera to use as blackmail material. A few days later, the guy they thought would never break stopped by a pub Sean was drinking in and handed him every penny he owed. It was thousands upon thousands of pounds too, all in cash, all in a neatly sealed brown envelope. That was that. Sean had his money and when word got around that Sean had managed to make this bloke crack, his reputation grew even more fiercer. But getting all that money and reputation came at a cost, and the debtors Sean and his crew had so horrifically humiliated ended up taking his own life a few

months later. As much as I've heard some skin-crawling rumors about the incident, I don't know exactly what was done to the bloke, but whatever it was, it was obviously just too much for him. And then knowing that there was a videotape of the abuse you just went through, I can imagine why the idea hanging over your head would drive you mad, but the fact that the bloke then topped himself was something I found incredibly disturbing. It made me think the rumors are true, and that Sean and his crew subjected the bloke to a fate worse than death. Plus, like I mentioned before, I had heard enough messed up stuff about Sean for the Vaseline story to be scarily believable. After hearing all of that, I understood why my brother wasn't so keen on Sean and why he didn't hang around the gym outside of training and sparring. A few weeks

later, when I didn't feel like training at Sean's gym anymore, I mentioned it to my brother. I somehow got it into my head that he'd be disappointed in me, that he'd see it as me quitting, but he was just relieved. The only reason he carried on training at Shaw's was just to keep an eye on me, so hearing that I wanted to train somewhere else was music to his ears. We ended up having to get the bus to this more expensive gym that was further away from us, but by that time, my brother could pay his own membership fees, so my parents weren't all that fussed about giving up a few extra quid a month. I was always worried I'd bump into Sean, and he'd ask me why I didn't go to his gym anymore.

I wasn't scared he'd hurt me or anything, but I knew I'd find it very hard to hide what I wasn't saying, if that makes sense. I thought he was the dog's bollocks. I proper looked up to him. But after hearing the Vaseline story, I realized he was actually the last person on earth I should be idolizing. The scariest thing about Sean was that he could act like a nice, normal person, but he clearly wasn't. He was a violent psychopath, and if I just so happened to owe him money, I know he'd have no problem doing something horrifying to me too. The End Born in September of 1931, Arthur Thompson was just seven years old when the flames of war engulfed the world for the second time in 25 years. A terrified young Arthur lived through the German air raids which struck Glasgow during March of 1941, and the terror he endured during the bombings are thought to have a profound effect on him.

On the nights of March 13th and 14th of 1941, thousands of Glasgow's residents were killed or wounded by German bombs, and in one area of the city, only 8 of 12,000 civilian homes remain undamaged on the morning of March 15th. The result was nothing short of apocalyptic for the people of Glasgow, and it was with the backdrop of utter destruction that a young Arthur grew into his teenage years. Post-war Britain was a hellish place to grow up. Food was still rationed, hundreds of thousands of buildings still lay in ruins, and devastating poverty was depressingly common. As a result, petty crime skyrocketed,

and loan sharking became a highly profitable endeavor for those with the capital and the muscle. Arthur Thompson was already a small-time crook by his mid-teens, but when he decided to venture into the loan-sharking racket, his wealth and power skyrocketed. This was mainly due to Arthur's ability to terrorize those who couldn't honor their debts, and if a debtor reneged on their deal, Arthur was subject to an impromptu crucifixion. After having his goons restrain a person, with their palms pushed flat against a wooden floor, Arthur would hammer nails into their

hands until they were completely pinned to the floor. While generally remaining a non-fatal form of punishment, the agony and fear spread by such terror tactics meant Arthur gained reputation as one of Glasgow's most feared gangsters. Yet power did not come without enemies, and as Arthur's infamy steadily increased, so did the assassination attempts. In 1966, he narrowly escaped a fiery demise when a bomb exploded under his car. Arthur somehow survived the blast with nothing but minor injuries. His mother-in-law, on the other hand, was killed instantly. Arthur was so enraged that, in spite of his wounds, he got into his car and went out looking for the perpetrators.

It wasn't long before Arthur spotted two men from a rival gang, both of whom he suspected of having a hand in the bombing. The guilt of Patrick Welsh and James Goldie was confirmed when both members of the Black Hill gang fled Arthur's attempt to conversate, and he was forced to pursue them in what amounted to a terrifying car chase. Both vehicles were a hair's breadth away from a catastrophic crash of numerous occasions, but at some point, Arthur was able to force the men's van off the road and into a lamppost. The impact was devastating, and both members of the Black Hill gang died in agony on their way to the hospital. Arthur was subsequently charged with two counts of murder, yet it came as no surprise to the police when they were forced to drop the case against him. The streets had been

packed on the day of the car chase, but not a single Glaswegian volunteered to testify in court. Such was the power that Arthur wielded in his community. It should also be noted that three years after the Black Hill gang's bomb attack, Arthur's wife, Rita, forced her way into the home of Patrick Welsh's widow and stabbed her in the chest. The victim only narrowly survived horrific injuries and Rita Thompson spent the next three years in prison for her crimes. But Rita's jail sentence did nothing to quell the coming blood feud, and even today, the descendants of both families live in anonymity to avoid a rekindling of the conflict. As Arthur grew older, even more attempts on his life forced

him to reconsider his position as a hardened criminal mastermind. He stepped away from illicit ventures and began to invest his earnings into legitimate businesses. By the early 90s, Arthur was earning up to £100,000 a week in clean, untouchable currency. Yet as Thompson's son had grown older, he began to follow in his father's criminal footsteps, and by 1991, he was one of Scotland's most prolific drug traffickers. Yet Arthur Jr. wasn't nearly as diplomatic as his wise old father had learned to be, and his rise to power ruffled the feathers of many a rival trafficker. On August 18th of 1991, Arthur Jr. walked out of his family's Proven-No-Home, only to be greeted by a torrent of gunfire. He was hit three times, twice in the chest and once in the head, and he passed away in the driveway of his childhood home before paramedics could save his

life. Bizarrely, Arthur Thompson had a problem cooperating with police, with his wife joining him for a number of extensive police interviews. Many of Arthur's past and present associates were aghast at the move, as it came from a man who believed death was a preferable alternative to snitching. Yet it wasn't long before the reason for his cooperation became clear and it demonstrated how Arthur commanded a terrifying level of power and influence. Just days after Arthur Jr.'s murder, the arrest of Paul Ferris stunned the Thompson family and their associates, as such a flagrant betrayal was a rare event indeed. But once he was in custody,

the reason for Arthur's cooperation became clear. He knew he might not be able to identify his son's killers alone, but with the vast resources the police had at their disposal, they might find the task much easier. Only when Ferris was officially charged with murder did Arthur strike, and on the day of his son's funeral, Glasgow police discovered a car containing two dead bodies parked on the route of Arthur Jr.'s funeral. The bodies belonged to two men named Robert Glover and Joe Hanlon,

two men who just so happened to be close friends with Paul Ferris. Whoever had killed the men had ensured their deaths had been agonizing, and both bodies showed extensive signs of prolonged and brutal torture. Paul Ferris went to trial for Arthur Jr.'s murder in 1992, but a lack of compelling evidence meant he was found not guilty and was therefore released. As you can imagine, Paul Ferris then vanished without a trace, but whether or not this was at the hands of the Thompson family is another question entirely. By early 1993, Arthur had lost two of his three children to gang violence and drug addiction, and when he passed away from a heart attack on March 13th, many said he died of a broken heart.

The 61-year-old's life had been tough from the very beginning, and from the deprivation of his youth, a vicious, cold-blooded monster emerged, one who wanted to make everyone else just as scared as was much younger at the time, 13 to 14, that kind of thing. I used to hang around with some really bad people. I was much younger at the time, 13 to 14, that kind of thing, so I didn't know any better than to look up to all the big lads on our block. They had flash cars, got loads of girls, and some of them even had a gun. And it was all from selling drugs and doing robberies. Me and my little group of mates used to do quick little jobs for them to earn a few quid and the big lads always treated us like grown-ups. I didn't realize it back then,

but they were basically grooming us to be junior members of the gang. And although we would have thought that was wicked back then, it was all just a trick to turn us into expendable little pawns. It was always the younger lads who ferried packages around, always the younger lads who ended up pulling the trigger or stabbing someone up, and it was by design too. That way, the big lads could completely disassociate themselves with any dealing or violence. We'd do the time, so they didn't have to. I didn't get that far though because my mom ended up moving us over to Brent which was well out of the way of my old ends. That was my way out, otherwise I'd have been trapped in that life and

I probably would have ended up like that guy I'm about to tell you about. Like I said, I was all in at first. I was making money, I had bare trees, all the kids in school thought I was a bad man, it was good times. But then I actually saw the reality of gang life, the actual end result of all that bravado and posturing, and it put the fear of God into me. I remember it was a Sunday in the summertime, really hot summer too and I was coming back from the shops on my bike with a few bits and bobs for my mom. I rode past this one alleyway and I see one of my boys, like, leaning against a wall with his back to me. I knew it was him because he always wore this Adidas jacket with the Rasta color stripes, so I stopped my bike and gave him a shout to see if he wanted to lift back to the block.

The way he kept leaning against the wall with his back to me, it made it look like he was holding something heavy around waist height. But then when I saw his face, and especially his eyes, I knew something was seriously wrong. He looked terrified, and his lips were all grey. Then when I rushed over to see what was wrong, I saw he had both hands clamped over his stomach. Because that weekend had been so hot my mate had just been

walking around in his jacket with no t-shirt on trying to impress the birds with his abs or whatever. But that only gave me a really good view of all the stab wounds around his stomach and how he was basically holding his own guts in with nothing but his hands. He just kept saying I need an ambulance or I'm going to die, over and over again But I didn't even say anything back to him I just ran back to my bike, bombed it back towards the block And started shouting at everyone to call an ambulance because Emmy had been stabbed I remember to this day how I could actually see some of his insides

Like a little bit of Emmy's guts were actually poking out through one of the holes in his stomach It was the most horrifying, disgusting thing I'd ever seen like a little bit of Emmy's guts were actually poking out through one of the holes in his stomach. It was the most horrifying, disgusting thing I'd ever seen, but weirdly, it wasn't what actually put me off the lifestyle. The aftermath was all anger and revenge. We wanted to hit back at whoever it hit us. You'd think I'd have tried to get out of there, there and then, but the feeling of unity honestly got me through the trauma of seeing Emmy all stabbed up like that.

What made me realize that I wasn't up for the consequences was seeing Emmy wearing a colostomy bag when he got out of the hospital. I didn't actually know what one was until I heard Emmy got one, and I didn't even know they existed or that getting stabbed could do that kind of damage to someone. I know that sounds quite naive, but I was 14 and stupid. I didn't know nothing about the world, so the idea of Emmy not being able to go to the toilet because his bowels were sliced up, that seemed like it was worse than losing your life. I know that's obviously a stupid thing to think, but I'm glad that it scared me so much. Otherwise, I might not have that come-to-Jesus moment, as they say, that so many young gangsters have had before, where you realize the only future you have is death or prison. When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course,

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. Whoever said sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me was a bloody liar. Because the pain I felt when I heard my wife of 15 years tell me, I don't love you anymore, was astronomical. It was a visceral, physical sensation, one I suppose some people might call heartache, and it was so terrible that I didn't eat or sleep until I finally turned to the bottle to facilitate both. I continued to drink all throughout the divorce and somewhere along the way, strong painkillers entered the mix. Less than a year later, I was living as a functioning alcoholic in a small apartment.

But the deeper I slipped into addiction, the less I was able to remain functioning. In the end, I got sacked from my job for being drunk on duty. I was served an eviction notice, I lost almost everything, and if it wasn't for a last minute placement in a hostel-based rehab wellness program, I'd have actually been flat out homeless. The hostel was located in this big red brick Victorian building maybe a mile or so outside the city center. Although it wasn't entirely free, the wellness program was subsidized by the city council, so it didn't cost too much per night. It was also run on a completely voluntary basis, meaning you could check out whenever you like, and the staff provided a variety of services and amenities to keep you from relapsing.

It seemed the only real downside was that I'd have to share a room with someone. Little did I know, it was the companionship that really got me through. I stayed in a large bedroom with two single beds and an en suite bathroom and when I arrived, I was paired with a guy named Andy. Like I said, I wasn't too happy to be sharing a room with a total stranger, and while I'm sure the hostel was just happy to pack their rooms out with paying guests, it was a buddy system by design. After hours, when the hostel was kept running by a skeleton crew, roommates could keep each other accountable and, like I also mentioned, that's what really got me sober. Andy's situation was almost identical to mine. His wife had an affair, she kept the house, he got addicted to crack and heroin, and lost almost everything. He said the only thing that

stopped him from just ending it all was the idea of his daughter growing up without a dad. So right when he hit rock bottom, he begged an old friend to help him get a place at a wellness center. It was a familiar story, and we initially bonded over our shared experiences and football chat. But then, by the time we were going through the worst of the withdrawals together, I was actually shocked at how much me and Andy had bonded. We could barely get out of bed, either from shakes and chills or just raw depression, and although all the staff and nurses that visited us were fantastic, it was mutual support and solidarity that really got us through.

But even after the worst of the physical symptoms withdrawal had subsided, this black cloud of soul-crushing depression remained over me, and in a moment of madness, I made a serious error of judgment. As I might have mentioned, our presence at the hostel was entirely voluntary, meaning we could just leave and visit some nearby shops if we felt well enough. Mentally speaking, I'd been feeling the worst I'd ever felt, so Andy suggested that he nip to the shop so he could pick us up something sugary. We weren't eating very well at the time, and quick hits of glucose were all that was keeping us fueled at one point. I took Andy up on the offer, gave him a few quid to get some

Mars bars, then he told me he'd be back in a few and walked out the door. I then got up, walked into the bathroom, threw one of my disposable razors down onto the floor and stomped on it until the blade came loose. I was going to step into a warm shower, then I was going to cut my wrists and let myself bleed out under the hot water to stop the blood from clotting. I just couldn't imagine being able to get back on top in life. I couldn't imagine being a normal person again. Whatever was going on in my brain is hard enough to even articulate. I think I was just going through a complete nervous breakdown.

I'd never considered taking my own life before and I haven't since. But in that bleakest of bleak moments, I just didn't want to be alive anymore. I know I dithered over it, I don't know how long for, but I know I spent a long time trying to gather the courage to go through with it. Then, when I'd finally convinced myself there was no other way out, right when I was about to run the blade along my forearm to open up every blood vessel I could, I heard Andy walk through the door to our room. I was faced with this now or never moment, but I realized I couldn't do it. Not if Andy was going to be the one to find me or have to deal with trying to save my life when I just didn't want him to.

There were no locks on the bathroom doors and when he didn't see me in the room, Andy poked his head into the bathroom to see if I was okay. He'd already saved my life by that point, just his presence stopped me from going through with it. But when he saw the broken razor and put two and two together, he restrained me until I dropped it. That was a messy one, probably the worst day of my life, but the point is that I genuinely believe that Andy saved my life that day. If I had been in a room on my own, I wouldn't be around to write this. I got a lot of counseling and therapy after that and a doctor stopped by with a prescription of some antidepressants but again, the biggest help was Andy. He was the one who told me that it was just a moment of madness, that I didn't have to be ashamed and that things were going to get better

for me. He talked me through the whole thing and for a long time I believed I owed him my life. Andy got out of the wellness program about six weeks before I did but we kept in touch and met up for a coffee when I got out. Rebuilding our lives obviously kept us both very busy so it's not like me and Andy met up often but we kept in touch daily and over time he became the best friend I had in the world. We rebuilt our lives in parallel, helping each other out every step of the way. Then right when I thought the pair of us were basically in the clear, I got a phone call from him late one evening asking if I could do him a favor. When I asked what this favor entailed, Andy's voice got all serious and he told me it was

something he couldn't go to anyone else with and something he couldn't talk about over the phone. I found that a bit ominous and I instantly understood that he'd broken the law in some way, but I never could have guessed how terrible things really were. I gave Andy my address, but he insisted on meeting me in the car park of a quicksave that was about 10 minutes walk from the flat I was staying in. Just a year previous, I'd never have met a mate in a dark car park after they'd told me in so many words that they'd done something terrible and against the law. I'd have just told them to be honest or to go to the police if it was really serious. But times change, and I'd change too. I don't know if you've ever felt like you owed someone your life before, but if you haven't, there's no other feeling quite

like it. The only thing I can remotely compare it to is the feeling you have for your mom or dad. You wouldn't exist without the person who saved your life. You owe them everything. So even if they ring you up and give you some really dodgy story about needing your help, you go running to help them. I spotted his car in the quicksave car park, walked over to it, and climbed in the passenger seat. Right away, I could sense how bad things were. When I asked Andy what was going on, he repeated all the stuff about not being able to turn to anyone else. He never came out and said that I owed him one. I don't even think that he really saw it that way, but I felt indebted enough to at least hear him out.

He told me he needed help shifting something. And at first, I misinterpreted that as him saying that he needed to sell something. Something that was probably drugs. Andy hadn't just been an alcoholic, you see. He'd been into all sorts of stuff before he decided to go into rehab, so my guess was that this favor was somehow connected to all of that. But then, when I asked him what we were shifting, he just told me it was in the boot of his car, and that afterwards, he'd need help cleaning the boot out. And that's when this cold, sick feeling spread through my stomach

and I asked Andy to tell me exactly what was in his boot. He stayed quiet for a second, but he was visibly trembling when I followed up by asking him if there were drugs in his boot. I just shook his head and that's when I knew. I just knew it from the way he was acting. There was a body in his boot, a dead body, and when I asked him if that was the case, if he was actually asking me to help him dispose of human remains, he just nodded. I remember exactly how I felt that night, sitting in the passenger seat of his old rover, realizing that my best mate in the world was asking me to risk everything for him.

I could feel my heart thumping in my chest as this cold sweat started to soak in my armpits, and I'm ashamed to say that just for a second, I actually considered helping him, at least until I asked who it was. It took a while to answer me, and I could see him struggling to hold back the tears, but eventually he managed to squeeze out the words, the wife, and the fella I found her with. Two dead bodies. Not one, but two. I remember cupping my hands over my mouth at that, I mean, I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. But all the while there was this voice in my head telling me that I owed him my life and that I should help him no matter the cost. But then, helping Andy cover up two murders wouldn't really be helping him.

The guilt would eat him alive. The police might eventually catch him and in that case, I'd go to prison too for helping him dispose of two bodies. I'd like to be able to tell you that my mind was made up by my morals and that as much as I loved Andy as a friend, I couldn't bring myself to cover up such a hideous misdeed. But it wasn't that. It was nothing but pure, selfish fear. I did the right thing for the wrong reasons, and I told him I couldn't help him. Andy then asked if I was going to go to the police, and from the heart, I told him I didn't know. I'll never forget how cold he suddenly sounded when he realized I might

turn on him, and what he told me in that dark car sends absolute chills through me, even all these years later. You know I can't let you out now, don't you? Andy was a person I'd grown to feel 100% safe around. So, for that feeling to suddenly shift until I felt like he might be about to kill me, it had me so scared that I was shaking in my seat. I asked him if he was going to hurt me and he told me, I don't want to, but I will if you make me.

I spent the next few minutes pleading my case, or more accurately, pleading for my life. I told him the same thing I've mentioned previously, that he was bound to get caught since a woman's addict ex-husband is always bound to draw suspicion. It's just a matter of time, and he couldn't run forever. The best thing to do would be to turn himself in, and to let me go to the police so I didn't get any time either when the truth finally came out. I think the thing that actually convinced him, the thing that saved my life, was when I was mentioning not calling the police until I got back to my flat. That was at least a 10-15 minute head start for

him to think about what he was going to do. Somehow, he agreed, and after I pleaded with him one more time to do the right thing, he told me to get out of his car. And the walk back to my flat was the longest ten minutes of my life. The whole way I had this horrible fear that Andy was going to change his mind, turn around in his car, and run me over at high speed after mounting the curb. That or he'd be waiting for me in the driveway of my building, ready to ambush me with the same thing he killed his wife with. I know this might sound mental, but I remember thinking how if he really did drive back and run me over, he'd be justified.

I owed him my life, and I just turned my back on him when he needed me the most. Not only that, but I was going to actively betray him by informing the police about what he'd told me. Don't get me wrong, part of me was angry that he got me involved in the first place, but truth be told, a lot of what I was feeling on that walk was guilt. Rotten, festering guilt. I got back to the flat, picked up the phone, and called the police. I told them everything Andy had told me. They promised to send someone over as soon as possible, and then I sat down on the only piece of furniture I had in the living room and just cried.

I never could have imagined how doing the right thing could have hurt so much, but life is full of surprises that way. Just like I never would have imagined plotting to take my own life after the love of my life disappeared on me. But then, that's why Andy had to go to prison. It hurt something awful to let my ex-wife go, but I had to. I had no other choice. The right thing to do was to let her find happiness, even if that was in the arms of another man. Andy had robbed his wife of the chance of that. I don't blame him for descending into a rage when he saw another man making himself comfortable in the place he'd called home for

so many years. But it didn't warrant a death sentence. It wasn't fair. And that's what I told myself as I sat there waiting for the officers to arrive. Over a few cups of tea, I told them everything I knew. And after they left, I tried to go on as best I could with my life I didn't hear back from any police officers And for a few weeks, I expected to wake up in the middle of the night To see Andy standing over me with a knife or something And if he did, I'd understand why Those few weeks were the closest I'd ever come to falling off the wagon, but

I kept it together, and enough time passed for it to fall to the back of my mind. I didn't stop thinking about Andy, though. They popped in my head at least once a day, and I'd wonder where he was and how he was doing. Sometimes I imagined him in prison, other times I imagined him on the run, and sometimes I imagined him in the worst places. And I wondered how I'd go about finding him if he ended up dead or in prison. We have a system here in the UK called Find a Prisoner, and a few years ago, I used it to reach out to Andy to find out if he was in prison. I found out that he was in Wakefield Prison, so I reached out to him. He'd been there for me at my lowest, so the least I could do was return the favor,

even if I had helped put him there in the first place. It took a while to receive a reply, but eventually I heard back from him. I still have that letter tucked away somewhere safe, still with the tear stains on it when I read the part where he wrote I forgive you Australia's Byron Bay is one of the most popular tourist destinations on Earth, with approximately 2 million yearly visitors reveling in the small coastal town's sun, sand, and surf. During the summer months, it's believed that the number of tourists in Byron outnumbers the town's permanent residents, and the vast majority of these visitors are a very particular kind of traveler,

backpackers. The backpackers who visit Byron Bay each summer tend to be between the ages of 18 to 25 and share an interest in experimentation, spirituality, and recreation. As a result, Byron has garnered a reputation as being something of a hippie hub, a place which attracts as many yogis as it does party animals. And it's this reputation which attracted an 18-year-old Belgian man by the name of Theo Hayes. By late May of 2019, Theo had spent the better part of a year traveling around Australia following the suspension of his engineering studies. He spent a great deal of time in the company of his cousin, Lisa Hayes, who had played a huge role in convincing a reluctant Theo to give traveling a try. Lisa later said that unlike many of his peers who had flocked to Byron for the town's party scene, Theo was content to remain sober and lucid during his time there.

He was responsible and mature, wise beyond his years, and he made a point of calling his parents every few days to reassure them that everything was fine. Theo arrived in Byron Bay on Wednesday, May 29th of 2019, with his plan being to spend a few days in town before traveling back to his home in Belgium via Melbourne and Sydney. Upon his arrival, Theo checked into the Wake Up Hostel, located about 20 minutes walk outside of the town center. The Wake Up is one of the most upmarket of Byron Bay's hostels, offering complimentary transport and single-person accommodation, and it definitely constitutes one of Byron's most tranquil places to stay. But still, there came a point when Theo decided to celebrate his travels in a typical teenage fashion. On the evening of May 31st, Theo joined a handful of his fellow wake-up guests in visiting a liquor store located in Byron's Northern Hotel.

The hotel's security camera footage captured Theo and his friends purchasing a bottle of rose wine at approximately 7.45pm. They seemed to be acting perfectly normal during the transaction, and then once they had obtained their alcohol, Theo and his friend caught the shuttle back up to wake up. There, they shared the wine with some of the other guests in the hostel's common area, before deciding to head over to a popular backpacker bar named Cheeky Monkeys. It's quite clear that Theo was under the influence of alcohol by that point, as a visit to a bar like Cheeky Monkeys was extremely out of character for him. Cheeky Monkeys had a reputation of being the rowdiest place in Byron Bay,

and this is probably down to the fact that it didn't close its doors until the early hours of the morning. After midnight, Cheeky Monkey's patrons tended to be so intoxicated that violent incidents are a nightly occurrence, and at one point, the bar was ranked as one of the most violent in the whole of Australia. It seems odd that Theo would seem content to visit such a place, even if he had been drinking, but his behavior inside the bar itself was even more out of character. According to the people he was drinking with that night, Theo had only consumed one glass of wine back at the wake-up, and it was only his second drink at Cheeky Monkey's when his behavior took a distinctly perturbing turn.

By 11pm, Theo seemed to go from relatively sober to highly intoxicated in less than half an hour, and the last his new friends saw of him was when he was being escorted off the premises by the bar's security staff. A handful of Theo's party members went to check on him, but after he assured them that he wasn't too drunk to get back to their hostel, they simply wished him goodnight and carried on drinking. I'll believe that Theo was capable of making it back to the hostel, even if it was a little wobbly on his feet. In reality, this was the last time anyone would see him alive. Instead of heading straight back to the hostel,

Theo took something of a detour. We know that Theo had headed down to Kingsley and Johnson Street, both viable routes back to the hostel, but from there, he appears to have gotten turned around. According to his phone records, we know that Theo messaged several members of his family and friends via WhatsApp, and that he used Google Maps on a number of occasions in an attempt to navigate back to his hostel. Yet instead of following the suggested route, Theo walked from Kingsley Street onto Tennyson Street in the direction of Byron's Bay's Youth Activity Center. This is the complete opposite direction to the wake-up hostel,

so either Theo was too drunk to comprehend the directions he was being given, or he had some other reason entirely for his impromptu detour. It's this second idea we're forced to seriously consider as, after arriving at the youth activity center, Theo began walking very quickly towards a street known as Milne Track. According to his phone's metadata, the speed at which he walked away from the activity center was almost twice as fast as his regular walking speed. This could well be down to his frustration at getting himself lost, with Theo wishing to make up for the lost time by increasing his walking speed. However, there's always a chance that Theo increased his walking speed because he felt like he was in danger.

Instead of sticking to the poorly lit streets, Theo walked about halfway down Milne Track, then turned off into some dense, dark woodland. Despite the almost impenetrable foliage, Theo maintained his rapid walking speed as he made his way through the brush. Jagged branches and biting thorns must have cut his arms and legs to ribbons, yet still he made an effort to move as quickly as possible. Theo might have been intoxicated, but he clearly believed that suffering a few cuts and grazes was preferable to whatever was pursuing him. After emerging from the other side of the brush,

Theo found himself on a stretch of beach near a place known as Tallow Beach, and this is where the trail runs cold. The last time his phone connected to the Cape Byron cell tower was 1.42pm the following day. After that, it appears to have been turned off. Theo didn't return to the hostel. He didn't board the Greyhound bus. He didn't catch his flight back to Belgium. Then after a few days of silence, Theo's mother contacted the Australian authorities to file a missing persons report. Knowing they had already lost around 72 hours of valuable search time, the Australian police rushed into action. A team of around 50 officers combed the

area around Byron Bay, with airborne search units accompanying ground teams equipped with drones and cadaver dogs. Theo's parents, Laurent and Vinciane, flew over to Australia to assist in the search effort, and the couple made multiple appeals to the Australian public to keep their eyes open for any sign of their boy. When I left Belgium, I promised Theo's little brother I would bring his brother home, Theo's father said. Please help me keep my promise to him. As the search for Theo progressed into the summer months, Theo's parents petitioned the Australian government to continue their search for their missing son.

Their persistence led to the discovery of a grey puma hat in the brush near Tallow Beach during July of 2020, one identical to the one Theo was wearing at the time he disappeared. While it would be entirely reasonable to assume that Theo lost his hat due to his advanced state of intoxication, it seemed more than likely that it was knocked off by a branch as he ran through the dark patch of brush. If there was no urgency or threat to the situation, it stands to reason that a person would have stopped walking to at least try to look for their hat. But Theo didn't, and this is one of the strongest indicators that he wasn't just drunk that night, he was being pursued. Yet without any solid eyewitness statements, there was no way for police to conclusively prove that Theo was being chased by anyone, and frustratingly,

they turned to other explanations for his disappearance. The general consensus among law enforcement was that either misadventure or him taking his own life were to blame for Theo's death. In their eyes, there was only one feasible explanation for his disappearance. His body had been carried away by the tides after he'd fallen off some cliffs near a local lighthouse. When his parents insisted that Theo had everything to live for and that he had no history of mental health problems, the Australian police simply fell back on the idea that the fall was the result of severe intoxication. They seemed to completely ignore the speed at which Theo had been moving as well as the idea that his movements were designed to be evasive. If Theo was being

pursued by someone with ill intentions, this might explain why his body had never been found, as it had been disposed of somewhere that it was guaranteed not to wash up on the shore again. But who could Theo have offended so badly that they'd wish to see him dead? It turns out that one of the only reasons Theo's drinking buddies believed him to be highly intoxicated was the fact that he was escorted out of Cheeky Monkeys. Drinkers who have reached their limit are often escorted out of bars by its security staff, and such occurrences were commonplace at a place like Cheeky Monkeys. But the fact remains that Theo only had two or three drinks by the time he was ejected from the premises,

and Theo's drinking buddies didn't actually witness the events that led to Theo's ejection. Maybe Theo had angered another patron that night, either through spilling a drink or flirting with the wrong girl. If this was the case, and the security staff intervened before a confrontation could occur, perhaps the offended party followed Theo out of the bar before chasing Theo through the brush. Perhaps this person then engaged Theo in a physical confrontation, one that ended in his untimely death. And if this confrontation occurred near to the cliffs opposite Byron's lighthouse, all it would take to dispose of Theo's body would be to toss it off the cliff. Such an event would mark a violent, needless end to Theo's life, one with terrifying implications for solo travelers worldwide. But even so, there is a far more chilling theory to explain Theo's

disappearance, one which hasn't been properly explored by Australian law enforcement. We've already established that Theo only had two or three drinks before he was escorted out of the bar, and while his low tolerance for alcohol might explain his heavy intoxication, there is another possible explanation for his state of inebriation. Theo's drink may have been spiked. While the identity of the person who spiked Theo's drink might well remain a mystery, their motivations are certainly up for speculation. The only reason anyone spikes a person's drink with a dissociative narcotic is to make them non-combative and easier to control, and the effects of such a drug might explain Theo's inability to follow the directions

given to him by Google Maps. The dosage might have been enough to slow him mentally, but it evidently wasn't enough to slow him physically, not at first anyway. Perhaps Theo had the energy and composure to make it through the thick patch of brush and out onto Tallow Beach, but after that, maybe the drug started to take full effect, rendering him incapacitated in the same spot his cell phone's metadata trail ran cold. There remains a possibility that Theo's body was never found, not because it was washed away into the Pacific Ocean, but because he's still alive. Theo didn't take his life that night, nor was he murdered by some angry drunken patron of the bar he'd been drinking in.

Theo disappeared because Theo was kidnapped by someone working with a human trafficking ring. When Theo went missing, he joined a list of 2,600 long-term missing people who've disappeared in Australia. Six of these disappearances occurred within just a few kilometers of Byron Bay, and none of these people have disappeared in Australia. Six of these disappearances occurred within just a few kilometers of Byron Bay, and none of these people have ever been found. 54-year-old Ellen Wilson went missing on September 11th of 2015 and was last seen at her Byron Bay hotel before departing in her silver Subaru station wagon. The following morning, Ellen arranged to meet a friend in Bellina, and when she failed to show up, her friend reported her missing. Ellen Wilson was never heard from again. 31-year-old mother of two, Bronwyn Winfield, was last seen at her home

in Lenox Head, a small coastal town just south of Byron Bay. She was reported missing 11 days after she disappeared on May 27th of 1993. In the absence of her dead body, the examining coroner recommended that a known person be charged with her murder, but sadly, law enforcement simply did not have enough evidence to charge this person of interest. Years later, in 2009, police reopened the investigation into her disappearance and offered a $100,000 reward to anyone with pertinent information, but her disappearance remains unsolved. Margaret Ryan and Jeffrey Neville disappeared from the town of Molambimby in 1986 and 1993 respectively. And just like the other cases, their bodies were never found, and they were never heard from again.

23-year-old Rodney Bradridge also disappeared from Molambimby, but somehow the Australian police have neglected to draw parallels between his 1997 disappearance and those of the other victims whose bodies have never been found. Those who have gone missing around Byron Bay, and particularly those who vanished near Molenbimby, might well have fallen victim to the same perpetrator, someone who potentially could be linked to a national or international human trafficking ring. Granted, that is pure speculation on my part, but there is clearly something deeply unsettling occurring in the area of Byron Bay in Molumbimby. If these people were being murdered, why has there never been any forensic evidence of violence? And if their deaths were natural

or accidental, why hasn't a single body ever been recovered? These people are simply vanishing from the face of the earth and have been doing so for the better part of 20 years. But without any solid leads or evidence, the Australian police are basically powerless to do anything about it. It's possible that there's an entirely reasonable and innocent explanation for these people's disappearances. And while each remains intensely tragic, that foul play might simply not be to blame. However, if my darkest suspicions are correct, then Byron Bay and its surrounding area have been the same hunting grounds of some very dangerous people for almost two decades now, and until there's some kind of break in the case, these people are free to continue kidnapping with near impunity. So, as the world comes out of lockdown and the travel industry begins to boom once again,

be very careful if you decide to go backpacking anywhere, because some of those who visit Byron Bay never see their homes ever again. When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course, Bear Rivers is the place. We'll be 19 plus. Available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. During the summer of 2020, a 27-year-old Frenchman named Yann Bourdon defied pandemic-era travel restrictions to embark on the trip of a lifetime. According to friends and family, Jan was a highly sociable young man with a hunger for knowledge and travel. He had studied history at the prestigious Parisian Sorbonne University. At first, Jan made his way from his home city in Paris to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Then, after a few weeks of exploring the cobblestone streets of the medieval old town,

Jan turned his gaze southward. He traveled via bus and train through Hungary, Croatia, and Bulgaria, taking his time to soak up each region's distinct culture and history before moving on. After more than a year of traveling, Jan ended up in the fabled Turkish capital of Istanbul. Then, following a week or so of wandering the city's ancient but vibrant bazaars, Jan set his sights on Egypt and traveled by plane to a popular tourist town known as Sharm el-Sheikh on July 25th of 2021. Ian kept himself extremely busy during his time in Egypt and regularly kept his friends and family updated on the things he got up to.

He sent them a panoramic photograph taken at the summit of Mount Sinai, followed by pictures of the spiritual oasis at St. Catherine's Monastery and spoke of how warm and welcoming the local Egyptians could be. One such email was sent on July 28th of 2021 and detailed the hospitality of a man Jan described as an off-duty police officer. It's not clear how he and Jan met, but this police officer promised Jan a ride to the Egyptian capital, Cairo, if Jan could meet him in the port city of Suez.

If his email is to be believed, Jan and the police officer met for dinner on the evenings of July 28th, then traveled with him to Cairo the following day, and he eventually informed his sister of his safe arrival in an email dated August 4th. Jan talked of the excitement he felt at having visited Cairo's ancient Coptic quarter, then mentioned how he was staying in a small hostel along with a number of other travelers and that he'd be in touch with them soon. In his quest to travel off the beaten path, Jan often found himself in areas with poor internet and cell phone reception. So when a few weeks went by and Jan's family had yet to hear from him, they didn't immediately worry for his safety.

Yet when his mother's birthday rolled around and Jan failed to make any kind of contact, his family began to suspect that something was wrong. Jan always made a point of calling family and friends on their birthdays or during the holidays, so his failure to do so that September was completely out of character. Come November, Jan's family still hadn't heard from him, so they contacted the French Foreign Ministry to officially report him missing. The French Foreign Ministry then contacted Egyptian authorities via their Cairo embassy, but were confused by the claims of Egyptian officials who claimed that Jan had never stepped foot onto their country's soil.

This obviously perplexed his family, who were in possession of several photographs of Jan posing next to famous Egyptian landmarks. To claim Jan was no longer in Egypt would be one thing, but for Egyptian authorities to deny that he'd ever been there was extremely disconcerting. French police then set about analyzing Jan's financial records in order to paint a picture of his movements, and it was through this method of investigation that they noticed something curious. Four days after his final correspondence, Jan's bank card had been used in an ATM near the Sadat subway station in Cairo's Tahrir Square. Whoever used it did so on four separate occasions and had

completely emptied Jan's bank account in the process. Suspecting that some kind of robbery may have occurred, French police then attempted to trace Jan's movements using security camera footage. Their first point of inquiry was the Cairo hostel Jan had claimed to be staying at. But when police contacted the owners, they claimed that no one under the name of Jan Bourdon had checked in with them over the previous few months. French police then asked the hostel to provide them with their reception area's security camera footage from the date Jan arrived in Cairo, but worryingly, the hostel claimed to have misplaced the footage from this particular day.

To the horror of both investigators and Jan's family, it seemed that a genuine conspiracy was afoot, as efforts had clearly been made by the Egyptian authorities to slow or frustrate their investigation. For almost an entire year, the French government petitioned the Egyptians on behalf of the Bourdon family, demanding they share any information on Jan's well-being and whereabouts. When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi visited Paris for a diplomatic meeting in July 2022, Jan's family protested his arrival, holding placards which read, Where is Jan Burdun, President Sisi? The family also enlisted the help of the Swiss-based non-profit organization Committee for Justice, who agreed that the Egyptian state was somehow involved in Jan's disappearance. The organization then submitted a complaint to the United Nations Bureau of Involuntary Disappearances, who in turn pressured Egypt to conduct a full and transparent

investigation. Then, during July of 2022, journalists from the Italian newspaper La Stampa reached out to the Bordun family to inform them that Jan's disappearance was eerily similar to that of 28-year-old Giulio Regini. Giulio was an Italian student who vanished from the streets of Cairo back in 2016. Right around the time his family reported him missing, his mutilated corpse was found dumped in a ditch alongside the Cairo-Alexandria highway, and an independent investigation showed that his killers might have been Egyptian security officials. Naturally, this caused the Bourdon family a great deal of concern, who still hoped to bring Jan home on his feet and not in a box. But over time,

they too were forced to accept the possibility that their worst fears had come true. Although it was increasingly clear that they were preparing for the worst, the Bourdon family continued their campaign into August of 2022. Then suddenly, in the early hours of August 9th, Jan's mother received a phone call from what appeared to be an Egyptian number. When she answered the call and heard the voice on the other end, she felt a wave of relief so overwhelming that it made her knees buckle. It was Jan. He was alive, and he was coming home. Jan disembarked from an Egyptian air flight that landed in Paris the following day, and was greeted by scores of friends and family wishing to celebrate his safe return.

Yet despite being visibly happy at the reunion, those close to Jan noticed that his mood seemed unusually subdued for someone who had escaped some kind of shady off-the-books imprisonment. Dozens of French media outlets rushed to secure an interview with their newly released compatriot, yet despite offering ever increasing amounts of money, Yann has flat out refused to speak publicly about his ordeal. At first, some interpreted Yann's silence as a litigative tactic, one which would precede some kind of legal action against a private Egyptian enterprise or even the Egyptian government itself. However, over the last few months,

Jan's lack of media outreach has proven to be very out of character for someone with a legitimate grievance. It's not unusual for an aggravated party to announce their intention to take someone to court, even when their defendant is a large multinational corporation or foreign government. So, in this case, the question remains, why has Jan remained so tight lipped regarding his disappearance? Perhaps the biggest clue to why Jan had stayed so quiet pertains to the kidnapping and murder of the Italian student, Giulio Regini. Following Giulio's disappearance on January 25th of 2016 and the discovery of his body just a few days later, Italian authorities

launched a thorough investigation into his death. Just months later, it was announced that the Italians had singled out five Egyptian nationals they suspected of being involved in Giulio's detention, torture, and murder. All five were members of Egypt's National Security Agency. It should also be noted that Julio was researching alternatives to the long-standing domination of Egypt's economy by the state and the military, an endeavor which could have been misinterpreted as inciting some kind of rebellion. If this was indeed the case, and the Egyptians confused Julio with some kind of spy, then it stands to reason that their NSA would want to ascertain his purpose in their country. Yet instead of a long and harsh interrogation, the NSA subjected Julio to a truly nightmarish torture session and thus placed him

in a horrifying predicament. Protest his innocence and face more torture or lodge a false confession to stop the agony and face the repercussions of international espionage Considering the condition his corpse was found in it's more than likely that Giulio refused to make a false confession and was subsequently tortured to death Perhaps under the advice of his new police officer friend Jan was placed in a hostel whose management was in league with Egyptian authorities. This placed Jan in a position to be swiftly snatched up by security agents

once they decided to question him and would explain why the establishment suddenly misplaced the CCTV footage which would have proven he was there. Then, in order to avoid the same mistakes of Giulio Regini's detention and eventual death, perhaps Egyptian security officials pursued a different tactic in order to coax a confession from the subject. Perhaps a less physical form of torture was used, in favor of a considerably more psychological one, one so horrific that it ensured Jan's media silence.

What if an elaborate blackmail scheme was put into place, with Jan's interrogators recording themselves doing something to him during his detention, something they threatened to release online if he ever spoke of his ordeal? Or perhaps while digging through Jan's personal history, Egyptian security officials discovered one of his deepest, darkest secrets. That would certainly explain why someone with such a pronounced grievance would opt to remain silent among a veritable media firestorm. There's always a chance that the explanation is far simpler, and that Egyptian officials promised Jan that his loved ones would suddenly befall a variety of accidents

if he ever talked to the media. If Jan was indeed detained for the better part of a year, and was subject to regular interrogations, there's no doubt that his captors would have extracted detailed information regarding his family, friends, and personal life. If this was the case, and Jan genuinely feared for their safety, it would certainly explain his reluctance to give extensive media interviews. Despite the amount of research I put into Jan's vanishing and reappearance, all of my theories amount to nothing more than speculation. The only people who know what happened to Jan over the last year are the man himself, and the Egyptian officials who have been so obviously duplicitous

in their explanations. We can only hope that in the near future, Jan finally decides to reveal what happened to him during his period of detention, and that the French government provides adequate protections against any potential reprisal. Until then, all we can do is wait and wonder, while hoping that Jan's story can serve as a warning to those who wonder where they may not be welcome. Just over six years ago, me and my husband found a wonderful little rental home out in the suburbs that was what I can only describe as suspiciously cheap. We went for viewing and the interior was incredible and we left wanting to move in even more.

But this completely flummoxed me and my husband as we were determined to find out what the catch was. Eventually we found it and what kept the place so affordable was the fact that it was adjacent to a bail hostel. This meant that if we moved in, we'd be living opposite people who were fresh out of prison, and we'd be living that way for the foreseeable future. It wasn't like we were living next to an ex-con, someone we could get to know, someone who had already

been rehabilitated and had settled down after a wild youth. No. Our neighbors would be newly released on God knows what charges, and we just have to hope we didn't have any bad encounters with any of them. As it turned out, living opposite the Bale Hostel was almost completely uneventful. Granted, some of the people you saw coming and going from the place definitely looked a little suspicious, but the vast majority looked like perfectly normal people, and were probably just so glad to have their freedom that they didn't act up while staying there. So, the first floor of our house was about four foot off the ground, and our kitchen window gave me an almost perfect view of the Bale Hostel across the street.

This meant that every time I was washing up, cooking, baking, or doing laundry, the washing machine was in the kitchen, I'd have a pretty clear view of people coming to and from the bail hostel. I guess this just makes me sound incredibly nosy, but just knowing it was a bail hostel had me very interested in those coming and going, obviously. You could tell when a person was a parole officer or some other kind of official, as they were wearing a suit or an ID badge or something of that nature And I've already told you about the folks who were obvious drug addicts from the way they looked

But then every so often, you'd see someone walking out who looked way too normal to have been to prison Those are the ones I found myself studying a little more intently Just wondering what could have happened to lead them astray, along with what they had actually done to be locked up. For years we lived in almost complete tranquility. Then one day, that peace was shattered. This one day I was washing some dishes when another one of those very ordinary criminals came walking out of the Bale Hostel. He looked to be in his 40s, was slightly overweight, and had a ring of red hair crowning a balding head. He just looked like a regular dad type, and as I wondered if he'd

picked up one too many DUIs or had gotten involved in some kind of financial crime, a car pulled up next to the driveway of the Bale Hostel. Whoever was in the passenger seat must have done something to get the red-headed man's attention because he walked over to the passenger window and leaned down as if to better see who he was talking to. Then, in an instant, I saw a puff of smoke followed by a bang, and the man's face disappeared into a slurry of gore. I instinctively dropped down out of sight, and then grabbed my phone off the countertop before dialing 911. I wasn't scared of any more shooting, as I've heard the car's tires screech as it sped off, but I was so freaked out that I didn't want to emerge from the cover of the kitchen cabinets. All just instinct, I suppose.

So when I told the 911 operator what had happened, she put me through to the police dispatcher and when I told them what happened, the dispatcher asked me to stand up and take a look at the victim. I told him I'd rather not do that, but the dispatcher said they needed to know two things, if the victim was moving or breathing, or if they were armed. I told him that I didn't know if I could, but the dispatcher actually pleaded with me saying that the victim's life was at stake, and if I wanted to help, I'd do as they asked me. It seemed a little harsh at the time, but I guess they're paid to save lives, not to be nice, and it got me to do what they were asking, so I guess it worked. If I'd known what I was about to see, I'd never have

stood up and looked at all. The man wasn't moving, and thankfully, I didn't have a very good view of the bloody mess that used to be his face, but that's not what really traumatized me that day. I took cover the moment I saw it happen, so obviously I didn't see this, but whoever had blown his face off had taken the time to step out of the car, pull the guy's pants off, and cut something very prominent off of his lower half. As soon as that registered with me, I sank down beneath the sink unit again, then told the dispatcher that he wasn't moving. There was no gun and that respectfully, I wouldn't be looking at the man's body again.

Not long after, I heard the first sirens and within the hour, the whole street was filled with emergency service vehicles. Obviously, since I was the only witness to the man's murder, I spent an awful lot of time being interviewed by the police. But as much as I tried to be as helpful as I could, I'm not sure the case went anywhere. The only thing we learned about the dead man in the time after that was that he was a registered offender against children. But whether or not that had anything to do with his murder is anyone's guess. What I do know is what

I saw that day was the single most horrifying thing I'd ever seen in my life, and if it wasn't a single isolated incident, I think we'd have moved a long time ago. The scariest call I'd ever had as a cop was a medical call involving a three-year-old girl. My first department I worked for required all officers be first responder certified. Basic medical training, not enough to be an EMT or medic, but above first aid. We would normally respond to medical calls until the EMTs arrived just to secure the scene. This particular call came out as a three-year-old girl having a seizure. The location of the call was this battered woman's hostel we have here in town, with the closest vehicle access being the front entrance, and I had to go on foot to the actual room.

When I pulled up to the front, dispatch upgraded the call and informed the girl had just gone into cardiac arrest. I started running to the room, which was nowhere near the front of the hostel, and after finding it, the family was in complete hysterics. I saw the little girl on the ground in the place's communal kitchen, who was still seizing, however I could see that she was turning blue in the face. The mom grabbed me and started screaming to save her daughter. I hadn't performed CPR since the academy. I told the mom and everyone to go out into the hallway and for someone to run to the front to guide the EMTs when they arrived. Suddenly, it was now just me and the girl in the

room, and the gravity of the situation suddenly hit me. There was no way EMS would get there in time to help her. I paused for about 10 seconds and just tried to collect myself, or froze up. It's cliche, but those 10 seconds I felt were an absolute eternity. Somehow, I snapped out of it and began CPR And amazingly, with the first compression She suddenly let out a giant cough and started breathing again I've been a police officer for five years now Responded to countless fatal wrecks, shootings, stabbings, murder scenes, etc

But nothing was as scary as sitting there on the floor next to that girl, knowing if I didn't do something, she was gone. Diver Anon here. I'm back with some more stories from my colleagues around the world. Have you heard of the raptures of the deep? Few people have. 30 meters below the surface, water pressure alters the properties of gases within the human body. What was once harmless or vital begins to poison your mind. The deeper the depth, the deadlier the poison becomes. Symptoms can include impairment, euphoria, laughter, anxiety, hallucinations, hysteria, terror, and death. And yet, we still venture into these depths,

risking our lives and minds. Delving into a place where the barrier between the mind and reality becomes thin. Those of us who return can bring with us only memories of the world beneath the waves, and these are some of those memories. My first story of the night is not set in the depths of the ocean, but rather on the surface. This story was told to me by a captain of a ship I was on for research work. A good Aussie chap, he always had a good yarn or story to tell about life at sea. At the beginning of his career on the sea, he was the greenhorn on a commercial deep-sea fishing trawler. They mostly caught black cod, though a lot of other fish got caught in the net and discarded. He said that the deeper you laid

your nets, the stranger the things you'd pull to the surface would be. Beyond a certain depth, the fish became inedible, their flesh transforming into a pale, gelatinous substance after reaching the surface. One night in particular, there was this one crew that set their nets too deep. As the nets rose out of the water, dripping wet and filled with pale, wriggling flesh, it became apparent that something was wrong. The fish shouted as if they were screaming, and the noise was unbearable. Some of the crew ran below deck and the rest put in earplugs. After some debate, they opened up the net on the deck to examine the fish.

The captain swore that when he did, he saw fish with faces that shared features more common with mammals or humans. They were distorted, corpulent, distended, but definitely far from faces on a fish. And the noises they were making could only be chalked up to the sounds of screaming. Pale blobs of flesh with a drooping face, fleshy nose, and black eyes, wretchedly screaming in anger, pain, or fear. that were quickly thrown overboard and the crew fished in shallower waters from that point onward. The next story is one of my own. Those of you who have been in previous threads might recall me talking about this briefly. I was doing a mixed gas dive to the bottom which was 60 meters at this part of the lake. Mostly I was just looking for valuables or other odds and ends that had ended up at the part of the lake. Mostly I was just looking for valuables or other odds and

ends that had ended up at the bottom of the lake. When I was a kid I lost a tooth on a boat trip. I think that was when my fascination with the deep began. My mind fixated on the idea of my tooth sinking to the murky bottom and just lying there, lost to the depths forever. I enjoy finding those lost things and bringing them back to the surface. It's so rare that you can bring something tangible with you from the deep. On this particular day, I brought back with me something that was intangible, yet indefinitely more valuable than any treasure. I still had over half my cylinder and was enjoying skimming over the lake floor,

sifting through the sediment and whatever odds and ends had ended up there. Out of the blue, I had a powerful intuition that I was being watched. I turned around and saw a man standing there at the bottom of the water. He smiled at me broadly and waved his hand, and that's when I recognized him in a sort of stilted shock. I was face to face with my dead father, 60 meters below the surface. I know it wasn't actually him, but rather my subconscious creating this hallucination due to the pressure and lack of oxygen I was receiving. However, I was not aware of the malfunctioning oxygen tank. He pointed to my cylinder, directly at my oxygen regulator, and it slowly dawned on me what was happening. My equipment, which I had just thought was perfectly fine, was now malfunctioning, introducing a mixture of gases into my bloodstream that, at this depth, can result in raptures of the deep.

Or in other words, nitrogen narcosis, or the Martini effect. The effect is a reversible alteration in consciousness that occurs while diving at great depths, and is caused by the anesthetic effect of certain gases at high pressure. So at this point, I was aware of the fact that I was hallucinating. I should have started swimming back up immediately, but I just couldn't. I had left so much unsaid to my father, and he had died in a boating accident a few years before, and I haven't ever really gotten over it. He was just there one moment and gone the next.

I never said goodbye, and you have certain regrets when someone dies, things left unsaid. I always mull them over in my mind. I wish I'd said this. Why didn't I tell them that before they died? And I finally was given a chance to tell him those things, to have that goodbye. But I couldn't speak because of my rebreather in my mouth. I wanted to give him a hug, the kind he used to give me when I was little. There were so many things I wanted to tell him, but in that instant, I knew this was simply a mental illusion.

I simply looked at him and waved that goodbye that I was never able to give in the past. I swam back up to the surface, spent a few minutes at my safety stop and then surfaced. I know it wasn't real and it couldn't possibly be real. Besides, I don't even believe in ghosts. I know I didn't really see my father or my father's ghost down there. It was probably a manifestation of my subconscious desire or guilt or something. I'm not a psychologist, but I should have gotten one after that experience. Even still, knowing the effects of nitrogen narcosis, it's hard for me not to want to believe that it was real in some small way.

That my mind was more open in that state and he reached out. I'm not sure why. I guess it's just that it felt like he was there. It felt like him. It felt so much like him. And I miss him. This next story is also one of my own. It happened in Hawaii during one of my many diving vacations. It's a damn beautiful place with great weather and even greater views underwater. While I can appreciate the dark, murky atmosphere at the

bottom of a lake, there's definitely something enchanting about crystal clear water filled with colorful exotic fish. It's certainly much less frightening than any of my deep sea dives, especially the ones that involve me welding vital components for hours on end, with even the smallest mistake having potentially devastating consequences. That, however, does not mean that it was not dangerous. You are always in danger underwater whether you realize it or not. You don't live there. You don't belong there. And most importantly, in the water, you are no longer the world's apex predator. You are in a much, much bigger pond. Keep that in mind if you ever go diving yourself. It might just save your life. Even a small thing could kill you. In this case, for me, it was a moray eel.

Now, morays are known for being vicious, but most people don't know that they're also very intelligent. I like to call them sea demons due to their disturbing combination of cold intellect and raw aggression. If one bites you, the best way to get it to let go is to bash it until you cave its skull in. Otherwise, good luck getting it to let go. That in itself isn't unusual, but when it's paired with an uncanny intellect, it gets a little bit scary. This moray in particular was seemingly the king demon of all the sea demons. Not in size, because he was about average for an older moray. No, what placed him above all the others

was his absurd brutality. He tried to cut my oxygen lines. I felt something tug at them violently and I spun around to be face to face with this creature. I could just see how smug he was too, that stupid smug face. He knew what he was doing, and I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew. So, I pull out my knife that I keep for defense against sharks, and I show it to him. See, look, it's shiny. If I poke you with it, you die. It felt like he knew what the knife meant too, but he didn't seem worried. He backed off a little bit, and I kept an eye on him the whole way back to shore. I swear this thing performed what I can only describe as the moray equivalent of flipping me off while he finally swam away as I was nearing the shore. Moral of the story, morays are demons.

They know they're demons. Don't mess with demons. This is another story from Frank if you remember him from one of the earlier deep sea threads I posted in. And in case you weren't in those threads, Frank was my diving instructor, an absolute legend. He'd been around for a while and seen lots of strange events. He never told me exactly when or where this took place, but that's kind of irrelevant in any case. He was taking a group of new diver trainees out on a dive for their certification. Usually they start you out in shallow water. After a few dives, they take you out somewhere deeper. Frank goes out into the ocean a ways out to get used to the sensation of being underwater and

being unable to see the bottom. It's an important thing to get used to if you're a diver. There's lots of places where the shelf will become a sheer drop-off for potentially hundreds of meters straight down into nothing but abyss. If you're not used to it, just seeing it can induce panic and terror in certain people. The deep does that to certain people, and I would recommend not becoming a diver if you have some sort of phobia or fear of deep water. Facing your fears is great and all, but having a panic attack while you're 40 meters underwater is a bad idea. Frank said people who panic and were scared of deep open water was pretty common. Even I was pretty scared the first time I dove. But he says there's

been another reaction that he's seen. He's only seen it once, but he's heard of it from other diving instructors. The only way he could describe it is the call of the deep. They dropped into the water off the boat, and Frank could immediately tell something was off. The kid hung back from the group, staring down into the water. Frank tried to pull him back, but he shook off his arm and started swimming away, straight down. Frank waited a second, then started after him. He caught up at about 30 meters and grabbed his leg. The kid looked back at him and smiled, then pushed away and continued going straight down. Frank followed him for a bit and tried to stop him again, but the guy just kept going further and further down.

Eventually Frank had to stop and let him go or risk dying himself. To this day, Frank says it's the most unnerving thing he's ever seen. What could possibly compel a man to just swim straight down to the ocean? What did he think awaited him down there? Was it all just a way to take his own life and purposely traumatize those around him? And the kid's body was never found. The parents sued Frank, but he was exonerated by the testimony of the other trainees who backed up his claims. Police chalked it up to the kid wanting to just take his own life, but I'm pretty sure there's a long list of better ways to do that than swim until you can't breathe.

And like I said, this isn't an isolated incident. No cause or motivation has ever been determined and the reason for why these people swim to their deaths remains a mystery. We'll be right back. Over, under, money, line Same game, Paul A's, it's all fine You'll put a smile on your face Bet on the sports you love with that River Sportsbook Take a chance! Must be 19 plus, available in Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConnexOntario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. I contemplated posting this to Reddit, but figured my story fits better here on 4chan. I'm 20 years old and I still live with my parents because I'm poor. Well, we're all poor, but me particularly. This means I have to travel with them because I don't have a vehicle. Recently, it was time to visit family in this really rural southern part of the world, this insane place that was called Tennessee. Now jokes aside, the place where my distant family lived was in this extremely backwoods area. I mean,

these people were not inbred, but the Wrong Turn series probably was inspired by a location like this. However, a family get-together means we have to hang out. They were decent people when you got to know them. After some chatting and small talk, I ended up in a group with three cousins and a friend from out of town. For anonymity's sake, let's call them Eddie, Garrett, Austin, and Trent. These are the names of the people I know and are related to, but not in the right configuration. I'm not great at making up names. Anyways, the four of us sneak off with a six-pack that my grandpa left out. He's a good man, but terribly unobservant. We find a clearing a few miles out,

maybe an hour to get there. Honestly, I don't know. Adrenaline kills my sense of time. And Garrett, the local cousin in these here parts, seems to be getting really nervous. He's older than me, but keeps whimpering every time we push forward. He carries an old rifle from the old days when they hunted for a living. Eddie and Austin are keeping him cool, telling him we'll be out here for only a little bit. We light up a small lamp and begin drinking and getting comfortable. We're all getting a little tipsy but not drunk. I have like half a can and call it quits because I still don't have a taste for alcohol that everyone in my family seems to have. Out of nowhere, Garrett suddenly says, we shouldn't be here.

And we're all like, well, obviously we stole beer from grandpa. No, man, we really shouldn't be here. We should leave. He kind of whimpers out. We debate, arguing, as I and the others are digging the atmosphere. We really shouldn't be here, guys. We have to leave. Garrett awkwardly yelps out and begins to pace around.

Austin laughs and Trent grunts. The lamp flickers as a bug bumps it. The atmosphere is pretty much instantly ruined, with these humongous bugs, cold wind, and a panicking, pacing adult. Garrett, now suddenly maximum frustrated, picks up Austin and basically stands him up like a good little soldier. We are leaving. Except this time, it doesn't feel like he's talking to us. He's not even looking at us. He's yelling this behind Trent. Trent and I are trying to figure out what

is happening and what we're supposed to be doing since it feels like we're about to reenact Hatsfields and the McCoys in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, Garrett picks up his gun and aims at Trent. Trent drops like a rock and Trent is still frozen, scared out of his mind and I'm wondering how I'm going to explain Garrett's delusion to the cops about all of this. We're leaving. Ain't we fellas? Trent slowly turns around out of curiosity, and I swear I've never seen a look as terrified as the one plastered on Trent's face. Austin sees Trent, looks to me, and I stare back, too terrified to see what's going on behind Trent. Trent suddenly sprints past Garrett, who keeps aiming his gun at whatever is back there. Austin, don't move until I tell you, but when I say it, I want y'all to run.

At this point, I'm too scared to even wrap my mind around what's happening. I just dumbly nod my head. I try to even wrap my mind around what's happening. I just dumbly nod my head. I try to sneak a peek when Garrett snaps at me. Do. Not. Move. Garrett quietly moves, picks up a lantern by hooking it with the muzzle and shakingly yells, We're leaving now. We don't want any trouble. We didn't mean anything by it. Something moves in the bushes.

The cold gets colder and I'm literally a second from soiling myself. Gareth stops breathing for a moment. Run. I'm not a fast man, but tonight, I could have matched pace with Usain Bolt. Austin is like five feet from me and I can hear him crying.

I'm crying too. I suddenly hear three gunshots, one every few seconds and then a scream, like a full-on earth-shattering sob. Honestly, as I'm typing this, I realize I'm actually tearing up. I promise this doesn't get all skinwalker slash goatman like every other story, but it does feel better to write it down than just bottle it up. Have you ever heard a grown man scream out and cry? All hints of manliness are gone as they sob uncontrollably.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to hear it, but it can be a rarity for some, if not most. I grew up in a very masculine household, so it took me years to finally hear what a grown man sounds like when he loses everything. In fact, it was my father that I heard sobbing back then. His mini-market was vandalized and robbed on the same day of his best friend's funeral. He just simply broke down. But anyways, Austin and I stopped to look at each other and we stopped running. We had cleared the trees and entered the meadows near a creek by the time we heard this. I turned around and eventually Garrett appeared behind us, limping and sniffling, with his rifle slung over his shoulder.

He doesn't say a word, but he has visible blood splatters across his clothes. Austin looked like he was going to make a comment, but Garrett just gives us this look, and we suddenly know to mind our business. I ask if we should continue running, but Garrett lets out a raspy, no, and then points down to his leg. He had been attacked. A gash was very visible on the back of his left calf muscle, and we still had some traveling to do before we got home. Suddenly, we hear another sob come out from where we had come from, but Garrett simply winced and continued to trek forward at his usual pace. Eventually we get home and Grandpa goes to give us this massive lecture before Garrett

simply just says, There were Andersons out there. I got one. They're kid. I need to go to the hospital. The room, which was full of screaming, angry family members, now was only full of silence. Allow me to fill you in on what it means when someone says there were Andersons out there. Early on I said that my distant family lives in the backwoods of Tennessee and how they themselves aren't inbred, but the location itself could be home to some.

Well, the Andersons are just that, inbred, but the location itself could be home to some. Well, the Andersons are just that, inbreds. Really follow through with keeping it in the family, as they say. There's been theories bouncing around them and their origins, going as far as saying that one of the great-grandfathers was a senator who assaulted his sister and got her pregnant, and she was then exiled out here to probably starve and die. Another theory states that they're into black magic, and that they're genetically malformed because of a deal their grandmother made with a swamp demon. People always conjure up weird theories, but at the end of the day, it's without a doubt a fact that they are all

products of generational inbreeding. Another thing about the Andersons is how dangerous they are. Not in a sneaky, master of puppets I pull your strings type of power, but how animalistic and savage they are towards everyone, including themselves. My grandpa once told us a story many years ago about how he witnessed one of the Anderson boys murdering a moose. He says it wasn't just out of survival instincts, but more carnal than anything. I don't know how true it is, but with everyone talking about them in hushed tones, you can't help but get scared yourself. The Anderson family was more like a gang than a family, and the thing about gangs, they're malevolently territorial. My family made

a deal with them who knows how many years ago that we'll never hunt on their land and they'll never hunt on ours. Tonight, we were apparently on their land. We had broken the truce. One final detail about the Andersons, their kids. Each generation of their kids has always been up to no good. No, saying no good should be reserved for meddlesome kids and little vandals. The Anderson family children are practically feral. They destroy everything in their grasp and have no problem biting apparently. There was even a rumor that one of the Anderson kids once snuck away off the property and ended up killing someone's chicken using their teeth. Again, could be chalked up to folklore, but I've seen these kids.

Completely ungroomed and nearly vile looking. Why CPS hasn't looked into them, I have no clue. Probably don't want to get shot at. Tonight, the Andersons had a kid with them. And to get to the point, the Anderson kid must have chomped or clawed, yes, clawed, at Garrett's leg. Without thinking, Garrett aimed his gun down and, well, made the kid stop, if you know what I mean. That unearthly sobbing could have either been Garrett hollering out or the Anderson family crying over the sudden loss of their child.

Garrett was rushed to the hospital and my parents and I quite literally demanded to leave. Not out of anger, but because of what happened tonight was going to brew up a storm between my family and the Andersons. We left literally on the spot. There was no need to get us involved in whatever mess was about to unfold. Garrett killed their child while on their property, and this practically meant war for them. We only visit them once in a blue moon, so perhaps it'll all be cleared up when I visit them for Christmas. Or perhaps there won't be anyone to visit anymore. I don't know. Le Bloop was an ultra-low frequency underwater sound recorded by NOAA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 1997.

It was unlike any other sounds ever recorded underwater due to its frequency and the fact that it was recorded by other sensors thousands of miles from its estimated source. It is consistent with other marine animal noises due to its rapidly changing frequency, but it would be an animal many times larger than the blue whale, the largest animal to ever exist. The consensus by most scientists is that it was caused by geological activity. Some chalk it up to being just an equipment malfunction like that declassified USN UFO video from 2020. Others rumor it to be a massive cracking of the ice shelf in Antarctica. But the biggest controversial theory is that this sound comes from the black carpet. Allegedly, the black

carpet is a bit of an urban legend amongst deep sea divers. I've heard about this a couple of times from co-workers and buddies. I don't remember the details of the full story right now to be honest, but I'll talk to my buddy sometime and see if he remembers and post him on here. But the basic gist that I can remember is that this thing is some sort of colony organism, like a giant moving coral. It's a giant black carpet of macrobiotic cells that crawls over the ocean floor, sifting through nutrients with millions of tiny feelers. Nobody has ever gotten a good estimate of the size other than it's big, and apparently it makes a noise similar to this bloop thing.

One guy apparently saw it swimming slash riding the currents as well, so it does more than just crawl on the ocean floor. I suppose you could call it a one-of-a-kind organism, but I'm not sure if that applies to colony organisms like this. You could essentially describe it as an ocean floor sized jellyfish. According to how the black carpet has been described to me, it shares many similarities to jellyfish. One story I heard had a diver getting stung by some sort of large feeler strand that apparently hangs off the top, similar to a jellyfish. There was this really old retired

diver I talked to who claimed to have seen it. He claimed to have seen an entire decomposing sperm whale being consumed by the carpet. I should really make a post compiling all the stories I've heard about this thing. Update. So I talked to my buddy and I'm going to start writing up some of the stories I've heard about the black carpet. And this is the first story I heard of it from some Finnish guy with a strong accent. He was doing a deep sea dive repairing some sort of cable, I assume it was probably fiber optic. As he told it, initially he thought he was in the wrong spot because he couldn't find the cable anywhere. He starts searching and eventually finds one end, just the one sheared clean through. He gets his dive buddy to stay with that end of the line while he goes looking for the other end, swimming in a straight line in the direction of

the other line. In his estimation, he swam about a half a mile before he found the other end of the line. He stressed to me that the entire half a mile middle section of the line was just completely gone. It was a huge deal and everyone thought it was the Russians, but this guy was sure that this carpet thing had done it. Said he had heard the noise it apparently makes even though he never saw it. This next story is from my buddy and he heard it from a guy who heard it from another guy who heard it from another guy, so take it with a heavy grain of salt. This guy is doing a dive, depth, or location, I mean, what he was doing never got specified. Just that he was really deep.

He starts hearing this odd noise that gets associated with the carpet a lot. The way he described it was similar to that video of the bloop. Ultra low pitch, sort of like a super creepy distorted whale song. As he gets closer, he hears this almost static crackling noise as well. The way he described it was like a million prawns getting cracked open at once, if that makes any difference. As he gets closer to the bottom, the noises are getting louder and louder. At this point he was thinking that he's hearing some sort of sonar from a submarine and that some idiot submarine crew is playing a joke on him. When he gets to the bottom, he shines his light around, trying to find whatever he's looking for.

And what he was seeing was that the seafloor had literally come to life and was, in his words, crawling past him. This is probably the best description of the carpet you're going to get according to this guy. The carpet is at least a mile long slash wide and made mostly of these strange black feelers that apparently make the strange popping noise that has been recorded. Most of the top is covered in various sand, rock, and debris with feelers poking through with a few long transparent stalks as he described them. They float upwards, some reaching possibly 20 feet long. Guy swam back up to the surface and claimed he had an equipment malfunction, came back down a couple of hours later and got there just in time to see the last of this thing

disappear. Apparently it stretched as far as the eye could see, which isn't that far when you're at the bottom of the ocean, but still. The next one is an old urban legend that's been floating around the diving community for years. Never heard a concrete source of it, so in my opinion, it probably never happened, especially since it involves a submarine crew, so I'm not sure how a diver would have heard about it, since as far as I know, submarine crews usually stay inside their ship. Anyway, here goes. Submarine is doing something, either war games or patrolling for enemy submarines. For whatever reason, they're not using active sonar because they want to avoid detection,

floating dead somewhere a couple of hundred meters off the seafloor. They're just sitting there, chilling and listening with their sensors trying to detect enemy submarines or whatever when they start hearing the noise. Their sensors can't make any sense of it and it's getting louder at an alarming rate. Starts out as something only the sensors can hear, but before long the entire crew is hearing this strange, distorted humming and singing that people always associate with the carpet. Captain thinks the only explanation is that it's some sort of new sonar jamming technology and orders the sonar crew to send out a ping to locate the source of the noise. This is the part of the story that stays the most consistent, I assume because it's the most memorable. The sonar operator shouts out,

new sonar contact bearing, sir, what's our depth? The captain replies, 500 meters or whatever depth the submarine is supposed to be at. The sonar operator replies, but sir, the sonar says the seafloor is 10 meters below us. The captain says that's nonsense, then walks over to the sonar station, checks the reading, then walks over to the helmsman and checks the depth. He checks the nautical charts for where they are and somehow, apparently, the ocean has gotten about 200 meters shallower. The captain orders another ping from the sonar to try and locate the source of the noise. Sonar operator speaks up again, concerned. Sir, the ocean is getting deeper again. The captain asks him to repeat himself. Ocean floor is once again at expected depth, sir. Captain takes a look for himself and sure enough,

they are no longer ten meters above the ocean floor. There is also a very, very large dot on the screen behind the submarine. Captain asks what the large contact is and the sonar operator simply states, equipment malfunction, sir. Captain pings again just out of curiosity. The equipment malfunction has maintained its shape and is continuing to move away from the submarine and apparently taking the strange noise with it. Again, this is basically an old wives tale amongst deep sea divers, so take it with a grain of salt. It's possible that a submarine detected the carpet or whatever on sonar and that's the origin of the story, but I highly doubt this actually happened, and it still makes for a cool story though.

Now the last story for now, I'll see if I can dig up some later. This is from the old guy I talked about earlier. Nice guy, marine biologist who has done both deep sea welds and nature research studies with ROVs. Apparently the carpet ate one of his ROVs on an expedition. According to him, it happened late one night while the rest of the crew was sleeping. He was pulling an all-nighter studying the sea life around volcanic vents. He's moving the ROV from one vent area to the next when he sees what he described as churning sediments on the seafloor, a giant moving cloud of underwater dust essentially moving towards the ROV. He moves in closer and sees what he describes as Colosso Echinoderm crawling along the seafloor

with long dexterous filament probing the seafloor ahead of it. He maneuvers the ROV in for a closer look and uses the arm to prod one of the filaments. In the blink of an eye, he loses contact with the ROV. Apparently it happened so fast he loses contact with the ROV. Apparently, it happened so fast he didn't even see it happen. One second the thing was about 5 meters away from the vehicle, the next second it had swallowed the thing whole. His excuse for not having footage was that the footage was all recorded and stored on the ROV rather than being recorded on the operating station which seems suspicious to me. He was however very confident in himself, to the extent he claims that he is the discoverer of this

new species. He even gave it a name which I completely forgot because it was so stupid and boring. Giant Sea Carpet sounds way cooler anyway. I have trust issues towards the human race. Yes, I'm aware that not everyone is alike, but my fear is too crippling because of this experience. And here's my story. This happened back in the summer of 2006, approximately a year after Hurricane Katrina struck. New Orleans was still recovering with a lot of neighborhoods still being badly flooded and the houses needed to be torn

down and rebuilt. Most of them were too far gone. My group of friends and I were graduating high school and heading off to college in the fall. So, doing what high school kids do before they go off to college, we were constantly hanging out, drinking, and smoking. One of my friend's houses was in one of the badly flooded areas. The house itself was abandoned, but it still had electricity running to it. All the streetlights along the house were damaged and didn't work, plus his neighbors had left too. Us being us, this naturally became one of the spots that we could gather and act a fool. The upstairs had a large room where we brought keyboards and musical instruments where we would mess around. Anyway, one night we decided to gather at the house for a party. This night was

really dark and foggy. I mean the fog was thick and practically blanketed the neighborhood. Just adding an extra creepy factor. There were about nine or ten of us in total, four or so girls and the rest guys. We always entered all stealthily and kept quiet for the beginning just to make sure we were the only ones and no curious cops or whatever were scoping us out. We get inside, head upstairs, and begin drinking away and, well, do typical party stuff. Soon, the alcohol hits the bladder after a while and it's time to break the seal. I headed downstairs with a flashlight as most of the interior lights were damaged. I reach the bathroom to relieve myself and as I'm finishing up, I hear a muffled noise coming from the corner room of the ground floor.

Immediately I knew that it couldn't be my friends. I was right under the stairs and would have heard someone coming down them. Suddenly I hear another noise and I cut off the flashlight. I'm definitely not alone down here. I quietly peer around the corner and look into the kitchen and I can see trash littering the floor. Yeah, no surprise it's abandoned, but also, this trash seems new, as in, it was not brought in by the storm. Also, we didn't really mess around on the first floor and I'm now noticing that there's a bunch of stuff out of place, and something doesn't quite feel right. I often had a knife on me and after the incident in this story, I nearly always make sure I

carry one and so I brought it out. The downstairs bedroom has dirty mattresses with bent spoons on them, what looks like old dried blood smeared on the wall, brown and fetid. I distinctly hear footsteps this time nearing my location and I wheel around to my left side. In my line of direction, there's a dirty looking girl standing in the doorway who couldn't have been much older than me and we both scream. I draw my knife holding at arm's distance as she's saying, we don't want to hurt you, we

don't want to hurt you, over and over. My fight or flight reflex is kicking in hard and a guy emerges from the shadows. He was much shorter than I was but had wiry muscles and long dirty hair that obscured his face He had tattoos all over and was wearing these dirt covered black clothes You know how someone just isn't built for being genuinely wholesome and heart filled? Yeah, that was him He radiated evil I mean being in his presence literally made the hair on my body stand on end. He was just a scary looking dude. And of course, just to build up his

fear factor, he doesn't say anything when he sees me. Don't come any closer or I will stab you. I shout. The girl looks nervous. The dude does not. This appears to be his typical Tuesday evening, breaking into houses, doing drugs, and having people pull knives on him while radiating darkness. I back out of the room, keeping the knife pointed and I run upstairs. All my friends are high or drunk at this point, completely oblivious to the situation downstairs as they were jamming on the instruments. They didn't hear anything and I don't know, that makes it even more dreadful to think about. What if I got stabbed or killed or kidnapped? They would have been way too late to save me and I began trying to spit out what had just happened.

People downstairs, really creepy people who, we need to get out what had just happened. People downstairs. Really creepy people who... We need to get out of here. But the girls just start laughing. Glad to know that no one believes me in this detrimental situation. Nice try, dude. You're gonna have to try harder than that. Or are you just high and paranoid? Here, have another beer. It's all I get is responses.

I'm getting more and more frustrated until we hear footsteps coming up the stairs. The room goes silent. All of a sudden, the girl and the evil dude walk into the room and the girls with us begin to scream. See, I effing told you I wasn't lying, was what I immediately shouted out. Kind of funny looking back at that moment. But now we are stuck upstairs with these people, who are of course blocking the exit. There's nowhere to run, and the accompanying girl is repeating, Don't call the cops! We don't want to hurt you! while the scary dude says nothing. My friend who owned the house gets up and says, get out of my house, which leads to the scary dude pulling out a grimy scalpel from his pocket. You don't want to do that. That's it. It was the only thing he said during the entire encounter,

and yet it crippled me with fear. I had my knife extended at him and I tried to keep my composure, but I felt my hands tremble at his voice. The grimy girl starts pulling on the dude and says, come on, let's go. The guy glares at us for another ten seconds or so, but it feels like an eternity, and then he puts the scalpel in his pocket and walks downstairs without saying a word. We ran over to look out the window and see the duo disappear into the fog and once we all concluded that they were gone, we decided to head downstairs to investigate, where we found bent spoons, empty syringes, five grimy bear mattresses, nine millimeter bullets, canned food like Chef Boyardee and others, a lot of dirty panties and undergarments a

Map of New Orleans area with ten or so places circled in red several, Louisiana driver's licenses Definitely over ten of them dried bodily fluids on the walls presumably blood We didn't touch anything and my friend told his dad about the incident and called the cops. The cops said that some of the people in the driver's licenses have been missing since around the time of the storm. The dude we met that night was up to something, we'll never know what, and we never returned to that house, and

thankfully, it was destroyed and bulldozed sometime after that. I live in Colorado and like to spend my weekends in the mountains. Fly fishing, hiking, camping, etc. I'm in my early 20s so I guess I'm still young minded I suppose but I like to think I'm generally comfortable in the mountains and I've seen quite a bit of what this state has to offer. My older brother is like me, but even more experienced in the mountain wilderness. Yesterday, he and I decided to go fishing at a favorite hole of ours in the Holy Cross Wilderness. This area is fairly well-trafficked, especially now as the aspens are changing and lots of tourists come to see them. Bluebird skies, warmish weather, and he and I were just getting in the water when I first felt that something was off. It's late morning at this point. Most people

like to fish early in the morning, but this hole is blocked from the sun by a cliff face and the fish don't usually start biting until close to noon. Again, this is a favorite hole of ours because despite the area having lots of hikers and day trippers, this part of the creek we're on takes some know-how and effort to hike to. So we're about half a mile away from where we park and no one else is around. First thing I notice is very little wildlife ambience or background noise after we set up our rods and get in the water. As I'm wading in, I hear rocks above us on the cliff move and a couple fall into the water no more than 50 feet from us. That's odd, and I probably 15-20 times at this spot never have I witnessed the cliff fall apart as it appeared

to have done just then. Besides the sound of the creek we're standing in, it's deathly quiet, so the sound of the rocks falling and hitting the water made us both leap. My brother turns around and we both look at the cliff face. There's a ledge above us with trees and I had never given it any thought before but I realized then and there that it felt like someone could be up on that ledge hiding in the trees. My brother, I can tell, seemed to be contemplating things too. He literally turned to me a minute after the rock fell and said, okay, that was weird right? I told him yeah, and then I hesitantly told him, Hey, doesn't it seem kind of quiet out today?

Almost on cue, a rock lands in the water, and this time right between us. We were near this cliff face, sure, but we weren't close enough for a rock to just fall off and land between us. No, this rock had to have been propelled. We look up, and we saw them. A person, holding a rock in their hand, completely naked and covered in dirt, with long brown hair. And as we're looking at him, it looks like this man grinned before throwing the rock at us from above. It got close enough to hitting my brother and immediately we started yelling at him to stop as we quickly waded back to the other side of the

creek. My brother slipped and the person must have thrown another rock at him because I heard a big kerplunk and my brother is yelling bloody murder. I got to the bank and grabbed a rock in my hand and turned to throw back at the person on the cliff, but they're no longer there. Keeping my eyes on the cliff ledge, I offer my hand to my brother as he's now soaked and I pull him up onto the bank. He's seen red, ranting that he'll get his gun from the car and shoot the man and saying he could have been killed. Now we're both on the bank looking up, expecting rocks to come flying down, and sure enough, they do. By this time, we can't see who's throwing them, but these are golf-sized to football-sized rocks being tossed down one at a time. From memory, I count a total of seven rocks thrown at us after the initial rock slide. My brother throws a rock over the ledge but I tell

him we should move. We weave through the river willows, looking back over the foliage to keep an eye on the ledge and then we hear this howl or some sort of blood curdling scream from that direction. I don't see the guy again but it had to have been him making that noise. We both figure that it must have been some deranged homeless person or something but it's to have been him making that noise. We both figure that it must have been some deranged homeless person or something but it's not until I told my girlfriend when we got home last night that she told me about the feral people she hears about on TikTok. I guess homeless psychos are the same as these feral people, right? Or is there a distinct difference? Neither of us were hit by the rocks although my brother says the one that I didn't see land was so close it splashed him and caused him to fall in the water.

I should note we drove to the National Park Ranger office and filed a report under my brother's name. He was told he'd be given a call today or earlier this week with any follow up or questions they may need answered. Craziest thing I'd ever experienced while out in the mountains. We're both already saying we may never go back to that hole again, and I already told a couple of buddies of mine that I'll call Anna about a year ago. Anna was a close friend of mine who I'll call Anna about a year ago. Anna was a close friend of mine. We would spend large chunks of our everyday texting or hanging out. So when I suddenly had no contact with her or heard anything from her for three whole days, it made me worried to say the least.

She was not answering my calls and she was also absent from our classes. I ended up calling her mom and I asked her what happened to Anna. She got a little quiet before telling me that Anna was acting really strange these past few days. She said that ever since Anna came home from school last Tuesday, she would have these outbursts and would get mad for no reason. To the point that these outbursts resulted with Anna getting physically abusive, her mother said. It wasn't like a snowball effect, getting worse over time. Some of her outbursts would be heartbreaking sobbing episodes.

Other outbursts would be rage-induced fits. There was even one point that Anna stabbed her own brother with a kitchen knife, but her mom said it wasn't fatal and that she was ashamed to even admit it. I don't know if I believe that story though. Anna's mom has always been infamous for being a narcissistic liar and she herself was also known for being emotionally abusive. In fact, I thought that Anna might have finally had a traumatic experience and her brain just couldn't take it anymore. She would be caught mumbling something to herself that they couldn't understand, all while she wore this disturbingly blank look on her face. Another thing about neglectful parents is that they don't take their kids to get medical help because that might shine light on the fact

that they're bad parents. It wouldn't be until day three where Anna would begin randomly fainting with no recollection of what had happened prior. That's when they decided to consult a rather popular witch doctor in our area to find out what was happening. I thought of him as your typical palm reading scam artist, but according to the doctor, the reason why Anna was acting spontaneously different and strange is because of some necklace she found on her way home from school. The doctor claimed that the spirit of the owner was attached to it and was very angry, borderline dangerous. He said that the owner had died tragically in a road accident and now the spirit attached herself to Anna and was causing her violent behavior.

But what sparked the idea to be more possible is when Anna had another meltdown when the witch doctor tried to take the necklace away and she apparently was extremely difficult to restrain, even though there were like four people who had to hold her down. But in the end, the doctor got the necklace off and Anna got considerably better after it was taken from her. The witch doctor then buried the necklace after doing some rituals to quote-unquote help its owner cross to the other side. Anna and I are still close friends to this day, but she refuses to talk about that incident. I also asked about her brother, but she doesn't acknowledge that anything happened and just tries

to move on. Sometimes I do think that there was a ghost that possibly did take over Anna. Other times I worry that Anna didn't get the medical and mental treatment she truly deserved. To be continued... in standard time. 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.