The Lets Read Podcast - 218: A VERY SCARY CHRISTMAS | 31 True Scary Stories | EP 206

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about CHRISTMAS... 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/LetsRead ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: INEKT https://www.instagram.com/_inekt/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS & Bonus Content!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

It's the Lexus Demonstrator event at Don Valley North Lexus. During May, Don Valley North Lexus has rates as low as 1.9%, with savings up to $9,000 on select remaining 2024 Demonstrator models, while supplies last. See DonValleyNorthLexus.com for details, or visit them at 7200 Victoria Park, just north of Steeles. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. at 7200 Victoria Park, just north of Steeles. At Don Valley North, Don Valley North for Lexus. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel,

wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Conquer rugged terrain with on-road comfort. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumho RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find a Kumho TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca On the evening of December 6th, 1959, Dr. Harold Perelson arrived home after a long day of work. Harold was one of the most successful surgeons in the greater Los Angeles area and had even conducted speaking tours of various Ivy League universities. He was an

exceptionally hard-working man, and this hard work had paid off in the form of an opulent Spanish colonial-style home in the neighborhood of Las Feliz. Harold's wife Lillian was hard at work decorating their home for the holidays, while their three children, 18-year-old Judy, 11-year-old Debbie, and 13-year-old Joseph, busied themselves with some homework before dinner. After a dinner so wholesome it could have been on the cover of a Christmas card, the children returned to the bedrooms to carry on their schoolwork while Lillian retired to the master bedroom to read. Harold also opted for the comfort of a good book,

and poured himself a drink before settling down in front of the fireplace to thumb through his copy of Dante's Divine Comedy. There he remained for the next few hours, long after his wife and children had gone to sleep, yet instead of steadily progressing from chapter to chapter, Harold was focused on one particular passage of the Divine Comedy. It was a line from Canto I, one which read, Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. It's not exactly clear why the line resonated with Harold so much, but as he retired to bed, he couldn't seem to shake the passage from his mind. For the next few hours, Harold Perelson laid in bed,

trapped somewhere between dreams and consciousness. Finally, after five in the morning, Harold quietly climbed out of bed, crept downstairs, then walked into the family kitchen. Careful to remain as quiet as possible, he retrieved a large, well-used, ball-peen hammer from a toolbox that he kept under the sink, then walked back upstairs and back into his bedroom. There, he silently stood over his sleeping wife, hammer tight in his grip, possibly contemplating the enormity of his intentions for a few moments before finally deciding to strike. And when he did, Harold raised the hammer right into the air, then ended Lillian's life with a single blow.

At least it's commonly believed that Lillian died instantly because she certainly didn't make enough noise to wake up her three sleeping children. Even so, to ensure that she was dead, Harold began to smash his wife's skull to pieces, inflicting blow after devastating blow with the flat steel of his hammer. After murdering his wife, Harold crept into his eldest daughter's room, intending to execute her in the exact same manner. Yet although she appeared to be asleep, Judy had been awakened by the sound of her father opening the door and was watching him from the corner of one eye as he quietly approached her bedside and raised the hammer. As Harold attempted to execute her, Judy was able to raise an arm, deflecting the initial blow and potentially saving her life. Then as her father attempted to finish her off, she began to scream so loud that it not only roused her siblings from their slumber,

but it also woke the neighbors on both sides of the Perelson's house. To silence her, Harold struck his eldest daughter several times about the head and face, but it was too late. He could already hear the sound of his youngest daughter emerging from her bedroom, seeking the source of the disturbance. Harold intercepted eleven-year-old Debbie before she could enter her sister's room, then guided her back to bed under the pretense that she simply had a nightmare. He'd assumed that he'd beaten Judy unconscious and that he'd be able to simply creep back in and finish her off once he'd dealt with young Debbie. However, reassuring his younger daughter had taken much

longer than he'd initially anticipated, and after walking back into Judy's room, Harold found it completely empty. Judy had escaped out of an open window, carefully sliding down a section of roof before jumping to the hard concrete below. Despite a nasty sprain, adrenaline propelled Judy to the door of a horrified neighbor, who was quick to respond after having already heard her screams. This neighbor then alerted emergency services and before long, the streets of Los Feliz were awash with the red and blue lights of ambulances and police cruisers. Eleven-year-old Debbie had not been fooled by her father's explanations,

and while he stormed about the house trying to locate her older sister, Debbie had gathered up her brother before the pair of them fled the property. Having realized his home was quickly being surrounded by police and that his children had all managed to escape, Harold prepared to defend himself with deadly force. As the teams of EMTs rushed the Perelson children to a nearby hospital, the cops closed in on their home and forced their way inside. They carefully advanced from room to room, calling out to Harold, terrified he was waiting to ambush them from some unseen vantage point. Yet after gaining access to the family bedroom, the police officers found Harold lying on the floor of his en suite bathroom having ingested a fatal dose of

prescription drugs. The crime scene alone told a grisly story of inexplicable and violent madness, yet the most important question remained unanswered. Why in the world had Harold done something so utterly horrifying? During the initial phase of the investigation, the police questioned the Perelson neighbors, but were told that the family were close-knit, loving, and showed no visible signs of discord. However, following a search of Judy's car, they found a letter which read, We are on the merry-go-round again. Same problems, same worries, only tenfold. My parents are in a bind financially. The letter also mentioned how Judy intended to find a part-time job in order to help contribute

to the family finances. Investigators began to theorize that Harold had simply snapped under the pressure of their dire financial situation and had decided that taking his loved one's lives was preferable to the misery of poverty and uncertainty. Yet the fact remained that Harold neglected to leave any kind of note, and with Judy stating that her father made no attempt to explain his actions, his motivations were likely to remain a chilling mystery. The only clue Harold ever gave was leaving his copy of The Divine Comedy open, with that same line highlighted.

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost. Once they were well enough, the three Perelson children were reunited, then sent out east to live with relatives. They have since dropped off the radar and it's commonly believed they've changed their names to avoid any association with their father's crimes. Many years later, once the media firestorm had died down, the Perelson's Los Feliz mansion was sold off at auction, with the proceeds going to settle the estate's debts and the remainder going to the children. Initially, the auctioneers were extremely skeptical that the home would sell

as they were legally obliged to inform potential buyers of the home's history. Yet to their surprise, one couple seemed very interested in purchasing the home. Julian and Emily Enriquez didn't seem in the least bit disturbed by the mansion's dark past, and their single, solitary bid secured the Perelson home at an extremely reasonable price. Yet instead of making the mansion their permanent residence, the new owners only visited the home on rare occasions. Neighbors said Julian and Emily would show up in the dead of night before carrying large trunks or pieces of furniture inside. They would never sleep there and appeared to use it for nothing but storage, but some in the neighborhood began to theorize that the couple's nightly activities

were much more sinister. After all, why would they be so interested in purchasing a home so many believed to be haunted? When Julian and Emily Enriquez passed away in 1994, ownership of the mansion passed to their son, Rudy. Neighbors had long since grown sick of how the mansion's rotting carcass dragged down nearby property values and hoped that Rudy would quickly renovate and sell the place. Yet after a few months it appeared that Rudy Enriquez was doing exactly the same thing as his parents, showing up in the dead of night, then dragging a variety of unusual looking items up the driveway and into the house. Rudy also appeared to have enlisted

the aid of a variety of unsavory looking people, although what exactly he needed their help with remained a mystery. One neighbor claimed that, after questioning a group of shady looking visitors to the home, the group claimed that they were ghost hunters, and camped in the mansion's backyard for several days while they conducted a series of paranormal surveys. The presence of the ghost hunters briefly reignited the media firestorms surrounding the Peralsan murders, and Rudy Enriquez was forced to publicly deny that he believed the house was haunted, yet he certainly seemed okay with granting access to those that did, which in turn was judged as being in very poor taste. To keep the old mansion rotting

and abandoned was one thing, but to use it to profit from a horrifying murder was beyond the pale. The move forced Rudy to admit the opposite was true and that it was him paying for Ghost Hunters' services, although frustratingly he refused to elaborate further. The presence of ghost hunters and the subsequent media interest seemed to solidify the home's reputation as being haunted by the spirits of Harold and Lillian Perelson. It became known as the Los Feliz Murder Mansion, a tourist attraction for the more macabre-minded visitors to LA. Many famous paranormal investigators have also visited the Murder Mansion,

with some boasting of discoveries and evidence either real or imagined, often in the form of hearing voices and whispers while roaming the outside of the house. One such investigator told the press that he felt the presence of extreme energy inside the home and that a number of so-called orbs had been photographed in the mansion's upstairs bedrooms. To the skeptics among us, the presence of so-called orbs is explained by a heavy amount of dust or other such debris in the air. Naturally, being such an old, derelict home, the Los Feliz mansion would have been a veritable dust trap. But there's just one problem with this explanation. In order for orbs to appear, dust needs to be thick in the air, and the only two things that can stir it up in such a way is strong exterior winds causing drafts

or the physical presence of something inside the house. The paranormal investigators have claimed that they photographed the exterior of the house before they paranormal investigators have claimed that they photographed the exterior of the house before they ever entered, and that orbs appeared in these photographs, meaning that either strong winds had stirred up dust in the home that day, or that someone, or something, had been moving around in the house shortly before their arrival. Whether you believe in such phenomenon or not, the reports certainly make for chilling listening, but it still seems redundant considering the abject horror of the original crime. Dr. Perelson's reasons for wanting to murder his wife and children remain a complete and utter mystery. It's easy to blame the family's

financial problems, but such a self-destructive behavior seems completely out of character for a man who so dearly cherished his hard-won success. As cryptic as it may be, I believe the best clue to Harold's mindset lies in his choice of literature during his final few hours. Dante's Divine Comedy tells the story of a single dead soul, which travels through hell and purgatory before eventually reaching heaven. The soul witnesses God's divine rewards for just souls, but they also witness the horrific punishments meted out to the hordes of mortal sinners who find themselves condemned to hell. Some have suggested that Dr. Perelson was seeking reassurance for his actions, reasoning if it was a sin to murder them,

if the goal was to save them from a life of misery. But there are others who purport that the passage from Canto I, the one which seemed to hold Harold captive, was in reference to his own sanity. Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward path had been lost. Harold hadn't lost his way in life. What he'd mourned that night was the loss of December 12th, 1996, 21-year-old Justin Gravett of Ontario, Canada handed his father a package.

42-year-old Wayne Gravett had worked at a beverage packing plant in the small town of Guelph for most of his life. He and his wife Diane had been high school sweethearts and had gotten married when they were just 17. Wayne hadn't been expecting anything in the mail, but given that the holiday season is sometimes one of pleasant surprises, he didn't think anything of opening it to see what was inside. After opening the small cardboard box, Wayne discovered a handwritten letter, along with a brand new flashlight. Wayne then took the flashlight out of an unaffiliated piece of wooden packaging, walked over to join his family on the living room sofa, then attempted to switch it on. In an instant, Wayne and his family were showered in white hot sparks as shrapnel ripped through flesh and upholstery alike. Wayne received the

bulk of the injuries and although he was stunned and terrified by the blast, young Justin rushed to call 911. The recording of this call is freely available online, but is extremely distressing to listen to. When asked what the nature of his emergency was, all Justin could do was wail that there was a bomb and my dad just blew up. First responders rushed to the Gravette residence to administer vital first aid, but sadly, it was far too late. Wayne had been killed almost instantly by the small but violent detonation. Forensic investigators observed that the package was wrapped in white and green wrapping paper. Inside was a box labeled Domaine D or Cabernet, which used to hold a bottle of red wine.

At the top of the box, a rectangular hole had been cut neatly off. Investigators suspected that this was to remove the barcode and UPC, which could be used to trace the wine to where it was purchased. Apart from the flashlight and the letter, several flyers were used to pack the wine box. Most of these flyers were widely circulated in southern Ontario. However, one stood out. A flyer advertising Copeland Lumber, a building center located at 700 Main Street, East Milton, which suggested the mailer might be local to the area. Two strands of hairs were recovered from the debris, but since neither had their roots attached, it was impossible to generate a DNA profile. Ontario Provincial Police soon enlisted the help of the FBI to generate a more complex mitochondrial DNA profile, but the process failed to generate any solid leads. The flashlight used to house the bomb was a Duracell brand floating lantern,

around 23 centimeters long and 15 centimeters tall. According to Justin, the flashlight might have been glued shut, as he was unable to open the flashlight when trying to get it to work. A small amount of explosive emulsion called superfrac was used in the bomb, a material more commonly associated with mineral mining. Superfrac can be easily bought from the manufacturer without a license, but investigators stated that it was more than likely to have been obtained via theft. The bomb was also packed with roofing nails to maximize its destructive effect, and was powered by a single-cell AA battery. The package's enclosed letter was a business

proposal written by a William J. French. In it, the letter's author states that he and a partner were planning on starting a new venture known as Acton Home Products in early 1997, and that he would like a quote from Gravette on some potential equipment repairs. The author also mentions that he and Gravette had worked together in the past and writes with a generally friendly tone. The letter mentions two names, that of Lisa and Joe. Lisa is commonly believed to be Lisa Irvin, while Joe was a man by the name of Giuseppe Zodich. Both had worked with Wayne at the beverage packing plant that he was employed at, with Lisa working as a secretary, while Giuseppe was employed as a delivery driver. Although once thought to be significant, their names are mentioned in a purely innocuous manner, referencing only their employment at the

packing plant. Despite addressing Wayne as if they had once done business, no one in the Gravette family knew who William J. French was. Much of the information in the letter had been completely made up and was believed to be designed to lull Wayne into a false sense of security so that he'd operate the torch and secure his own demise. One thing, however, was chillingly and abundantly clear. Whoever had written the letter was well aware of what would occur when Wayne switched on the torch, as the postscript of the letter read, Didn't realize you had moved. Had some trouble finding you.

Have a very Merry Christmas and may you never have to buy another flashlight. When it came to suspects, police were able to generate one particularly promising lead with alarming speed. After questioning the staff at the nearby Acton Post Office, police discovered that not one, but two different people had inquired as to the grevette's new address in November of 1996. Local law enforcement was able to produce a series of composite sketches based on eyewitness statements, but unfortunately, the sketches failed to generate any promising leads. Another person of interest in the investigation was a man named Ed Gallick. Ed was Wayne's boss down at the packing plant and trusted him so much that he would place Wayne in

charge whenever he was on vacation. Ed was also very close with Wayne's family and was known as Uncle Ed among the Gravette children. Yet such a close relationship belies a rocky past. Wayne's wife, Diane, had also been employed at the packing plant, at least up until Ed demanded that Wayne personally fire her for poor performance. On top of that, Ed had once accused Wayne of skimming cash from the business and had even alleged that Wayne used narcotics while on the clock. The contention eventually led to Ed's dismissal from the packing plant, yet he remained vocal in his assertions that Wayne was a thieving drug addict. He and Ed went from the best of friends to vicious enemies, and although Ed had never been formally linked to his old friend's murder, it's been suspected that Ed's estranged son may have intervened to avenge his father's perceived injustice. The fact that Wayne's

financial situation was going from strength to strength may have also angered Ed. At the time of his death, Wayne and Diane were preparing to establish a spring water bottling facility on a piece of land they'd purchased known as MoFat Farm. Wayne was mechanically gifted and he took care of the facility's machinery while Diane worked on the logistics. Once the plant opened, the venture could have potentially made the Gravettes multi-millionaires, so it's no coincidence that someone sought to snuff him out before he got it off the ground. It seems impossible that such a crime could ever go unsolved, especially considering the sheer amount of physical and circumstantial evidence.

Yet more than 25 years later, police are no closer to identifying Wayne's murderer than they were back in 1996. Whoever hated him so much that they construct an elaborate explosive device is probably still walking free, having taken the life of a loving family man and completely gotten away with it. Lacey Rocha was born on May 4th of 1975 and raised on her family's dairy farm in the small town of Escalon, California. She spent much of her childhood working on the family farm and particularly enjoyed gardening with her mother. Sadly, Lacey's parents divorced when she was still very young, and she ended up living with her mother in Modesto, while her father was granted weekend custody. She was an athletic teenager and earned a place on the

cheerleading teams in both middle school and high school before going on to study ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic State University. As a student, Lacey would often hang out at a place called Pacific Cafe, where one of her friends worked, and it's there that she met a man named Scott Peterson during the late spring of 1994. After swapping phone numbers, Scott and Lacey began talking and going out on dates together, which their first being a deep sea fishing trip on which Lacey became violently seasick. Despite the literally rocky start, the couple's relationship got increasingly serious and before long, they began to share aspirations of marriage and children. After he and Lacey moved in together,

Scott shelved his professional golf ambitions to focus on more attainable and reliable enjoyment, while Lacey worked part-time in order to contribute to the couple's finances. All seemed well with the couple and it seemed like only a matter of time before church bells rang. Yet in tandem with cultivating a wholesome monogamous existence, Scott Peterson was indulging in a number of secretive, extramarital affairs. With his infidelities concealed, Scott and Lacey got married in Avila Valley on August 9th of 1997. In the following year, the couple opened a sports bar called The Shack in San Luis Obispo. Business started slow, but the couple's persistence paid off and eventually they were able to sell the business for a tidy sum before returning to Modesto as very wealthy people. To maintain their finances, Lacey would take a job as a part-time substitute

teacher while Scott found a well-paying job at a newly founded branch of a European fertilizer company. Neighbors believed them to be a perfectly happy couple, and Lacey in particular was said to possess a very sunny disposition. She openly celebrated her first pregnancy in 2002 and was quick to announce that they would be welcoming a baby boy named Connor who was due in February of 2003. At some time in November 2002 when Lacey was seven months pregnant, Scott met a Fresno-based massage therapist named Amber Frey and the pair began conducting yet another extramarital affair. Then, less than a month after the affair commenced, a heavily pregnant Lacey seemed to vanish into thin air. To celebrate the Christmas holidays, she and Scott had spent a weekend together in Carmel, California.

Yet Lacey didn't appear to have returned with Scott when the vacation had concluded. The last people to talk to Lacey before she vanished were her sister Amy and her mother Sharon, who later constructed a timeline of events for police investigators, and this timeline is as follows. In the early evening of December 23rd, 2002, Lacey and Scott drove over to Amy's salon where Scott got a haircut. During his time at the salon, Scott really seemed to want people to know that he was playing golf that day because according to official reports, he told multiple people that he would be doing so that day, emphasizing it on a number of separate occasions. Sharon spoke to her daughter at around 8.30pm that evening, unaware of the fact that it was

the last time that she would ever speak to her. Scott then claimed that the last time he saw Lacey was in the morning of Christmas Eve, and that he hadn't thought anything of her absence when he returned. The only unusual thing he noticed was that their dog was missing, but after safely locating the errant hound, he decided to take a shower before simply waiting for his wife to return home. It was only around 5pm that evening that Scott reported his wife missing, but when the police arrived at his home to question him, they found that he was unusually calm for a man whose pregnant wife had just disappeared. Following a quick search, police officers found Lacey's purse and car keys hanging up in the

closet, a deeply worrying sign. But even more disturbing was the fact that, on the kitchen table, a phone book was opened to a page with a full-page ad for a defense lawyer. This could have been nothing but a coincidence, but it's fair to assume that the officers found such a detail to be deeply unsettling. In the days that followed, hundreds of volunteer search and rescue teams worked tirelessly to help find Lacey. Modesto police and firefighters focused their search around the area of Dry Creek, the place where the Petersons' dog was found. A $25,000 reward was offered, one that eventually ballooned to a quarter and then half a million dollars. But sadly, not even a sizable reward, a poster campaign,

and a candlelight vigil were able to generate any solid leads. It later emerged that while on the way to his missing wife's vigil, Scott called Amber Frey to spin an elaborate lie as to why he wouldn't be able to see her in the near future. According to him, he was on his way to France and was planning on spending New Year's Eve in Paris with a few close friends Scott even went as far as giving her a fake European phone number One he had engineered to reroute the call to his current cell phone number Amber later said that Scott had told her something to the effect of In my mind, we could be wonderful together for the rest of our lives

And he called again the following day with empty affections such as, I wish you were here. Yet unbeknownst to Scott, Amber had been closely following Lacey's disappearance and was furious after realizing the extent of his deceptions. So, partly out of duty and partly out of revenge, Amber had contacted local law enforcement before agreeing to cooperate in their investigation. A short time afterward, Amber taped a phone call with Scott, in which she confronted him regarding his wife's disappearance. According to her,

he tried to explain his actions by explaining that there are different kinds of loss, but he soon gave himself away by claiming that Lacey was alive and still living in Modesto. Lacey's parents and siblings had long since suspected Scott's involvement in their daughter's disappearance, but had prayed that their suspicion was misplaced. Such suspicions seemed based around the fact that Scott seemed alarmingly calm considering a situation, with one of Lacey's cousins telling the media, quote, I saw more reaction out of him when he burned the god darn chicken. Now, with concrete evidence of Scott's dishonesty recorded on tape, more and more people began to realize that all was not well beneath the surface of the Petersons' marriage. Scott realized that

in order to throw off the eye of suspicion, he would need to embark on an extensive public relations campaign. In early 2003, he organized a televised sit-down interview with TV host Diane Sawyer and spent the majority of it talking about how great his marriage was and how he was innocent of any involvement in Lacey's disappearance. He was only partially successful in turning around public opinion, and news of the interview was overshadowed shortly afterwards by a frighteningly grisly discovery. On April 13th of 2003, a pair of dog walkers were trudging through a marshy area of San Francisco Bay, just north of Berkeley, when their dogs began to bark at something lying in

the bushes. On closer inspection, the dog walkers recoiled in horror. What they had discovered was the surprisingly well-preserved body of a late-term male fetus, one with an attached umbilical cord that appeared to have been torn, not cut or clamped, as normal procedure would dictate. Naturally, the dog walkers reported their discovery to the local police, who in turn came to a frightening realization. The area the fetus had been found was the exact same place Scott claimed to have been fishing the day of Lacey's disappearance. Less than 24 hours later, another member of the public was walking through the same area when they stumbled across

the dead body of a recently pregnant woman. She was found washed up on the rocky shoreline of the bay, roughly a mile or so from where the fetus was found, and was wearing beige pants and a maternity bra. The body was decomposed to the point of being nearly unrecognizable, and the poor woman had been haphazardly dismembered before being dumped. A few days later, DNA analysis confirmed the body belonged to none other than Lacey Peterson and her unborn son, Connor. The discovery led to Scott Peterson's arrest on April 18th of 2003. At the time of his arrest, he claimed he was on his way to play golf, but his car was packed with luggage and his naturally dark brown hair had been dyed blonde. Police also found $15,000 cash and rolls of mixed bills, a tons

of camping and survival gear, four cell phones and two driver's licenses in two different names. Scott claimed that there was an innocent explanation for the contents of his vehicle, but he was clearly planning to go on the run, and if it wasn't for the swift intervention of California police officers, there's a chance that he might never have faced justice. Three days after his arrest, Scott Peterson was officially charged with two counts of murder with premeditation. His trial began in June the following year, and after many months of stomach-churning testimony, Scott was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Lacey

and second-degree murder for taking the life of his unborn child. He was said to have laughed at the verdicts that were read aloud before the court and promised to appeal to the conviction as soon as he was able. Judge Alfred DeLucci then handed him the death sentence and remarked that Lacey's murder was one of the most cruel, uncaring, heartless, and callous that he'd ever heard of. However, Scott managed to avoid execution. As in March of 2019, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, issued a moratorium for all 737 prisoners on the state's death row. This basically postpones all executions until the current governor's term is concluded,

meaning Scott will most likely end up dying in a prison hospital and not by lethal injection. Lacey and Connor Peterson's death led to the creation of a new law known as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Lacey and Connors Law. This act ensures that under federal law, any person who causes death or injury to an unborn child while in the commission of a crime upon a pregnant woman will be charged with a separate offense and thus have their sentence dramatically increased. Years later, in October of 2005, old coals were raked over when Scott tried to claim on Lacey's quarter-of-a-million-dollar life insurance policy. Such a brazen move drew the ire of many a critic, and the attempt was soon quashed by a superior court judge. Instead, the money was awarded to Lacey's mother, Sharon Rocha, who authored a book entitled For Lacey, A Mother's Story of Love,

Loss, and Justice. The book became a number one seller on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in 2006 and is perhaps one of the most comprehensive explorations of a mother's grief. Scott has never fully admitted to killing his wife, thus keeping his motives a mystery. Perhaps the best clue is the fact that he repeatedly referred to baby Connor as Lacey's child and not his own. This could be to absolve himself of the pain of having murdered his own unborn son, but it could also have been concrete fact. Perhaps Lacey had mirrored her husband's infidelities and admitted that Connor was not Scott's child. The revelation

could have driven Scott into a murderous rage, and rather than face the humiliation of being hoist by his own batard, he chose murder. But no matter how bad their marriage was behind closed doors, there's no way to excuse Scott's horrific course of action. He was already having multiple affairs and there was no reason why he couldn't just walk away from the marriage. And that's what makes it clear that it was an issue of control. If Scott couldn't control Lacey, then she didn't deserve to live. And that kind of logic makes people like Scott very, very dangerous. BetMGM Casino. Check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer or enjoy over 3,000 games to choose from like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz,

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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've been watching and listening to the stories you put out for just over a year and I want you to know how much they've helped me. Hearing first hand accounts from people who've suffered through tragic or terrifying life events is something I find deeply cathartic. Not because I enjoy hearing their pain, but because there's light at the end of the tunnel.

Revisiting a terrifying event by writing it down seemed impossible to me at one point. Like it was the bravest thing in the world, and I knew that a big part of therapizing myself would be to work up to doing just that. So now that I'm able, I feel duty-bound to continue the tradition and share my story with others. I'm hoping that writing this up will be like shoving my trauma into a burlap sack and sending it to you will be like tossing it off a metaphorical cliff. But at the bare minimum, this story can at least serve as a lesson for others. Last year, the upper management of the office that I worked at decided to throw a little Christmas party.

I've worked in the office environment for most of my life and office parties tended to be tepid at best and tiresome at worst. But this one seemed way, way different. Like tons of sectors, COVID had a big effect on the way we worked and although there was a huge novelty to working spreadsheets in a onesie while tossing treats at my cat, the lack of social interaction really got to me after a while. I'm a people person and I actually liked a lot of the folks that I worked with so when COVID dragged on to the winter of 2020 and it became obvious that there'd be no Christmas party that year, I was actually kind of upset. So last year when the subject of a Christmas party came up, the whole office got super excited. Stuff like that was the good part of getting back to normal, and if we had to suffer the bad parts like commuting and weekly meetings,

we were damn sure going to make use of the perks too. In the run-up to the night of the party, we organized a secret Santa list, ran a best Christmas sweater competition, all stuff that we found corny in years gone by that we approached with a fresh vigor. But that vigor applied to the party itself, which was planned to be held in the office on the evening of Thursday the 23rd, which was the last working day before the extended holiday weekend. We agreed that we'd all pull

a few bucks to buy beers and wine coolers, but there'd be no hard liquor present at the party. This is a standard operating procedure for pretty much all office parties, as beer brings the cheer, but whiskey makes them frisky, so generally speaking, everyone managed to behave themselves. But not last year. I don't know if it was all the stress and social isolation coming to the forefront, but it quickly became obvious that many of us would be bringing a little extra with us. For most of us, that little extra would come in a hip flask, but for others, it came in a considerably smaller package. So on the night of the party, folks are getting nicely warmed up, letting loose, and talking a little smaller package. So on the night of the party, folks are getting nicely warmed up,

letting loose, and talking a little more freely. Then, once the atmosphere was suitably festive, my closest office buddy gave me a little wink and ushered me away to one of the storage closets. Inside were a handful of the younger folks I worked with, all in the progress of loading up their drinks with a mix of hip flasks and miniature liquor bottles. The goal obviously being to get as drunk as possible, as quickly as possible. I too had a few mini bar sized bottles and right as I'm trying to unscrew the cap with my teeth, not the most ladylike thing I've ever done, I see a guy pull out a little baggie of white powder.

Now, I don't mess with hard drugs like that, but I'm also not a particularly judgmental person. But while I wasn't exactly about to snitch on them, I didn't really feel like hanging out while people took what turned out to be coke. So then, right as they start fixing to take it, I take my cue to leave after they told me that they'd only be a few minutes. I remember just kind of forgetting about them for a while. I swanned off with my vodka-laced wine cooler, drinking and dancing and laughing my butt off with folks that I've never normally socialized with. It felt great. Things were back to normal again and we could all just get on with our lives like the whole lockdown and almost getting laid off thing hadn't happened at all. And then, right as I'm getting seriously tipsy, Mariah Carey hit the airwaves. As many of you will know, the song All I Want For Christmas

Is You has the power to turn even the most buttoned down of Christmas gatherings into a full-blown festive commotion. It unleashes the inner diva of every housewife who's even had a whiff of alcohol, because it's just not Christmas without Mariah. Myself and my office BFF had discussed the song's magical properties on multiple occasions prior to the party, so the second it came on, I started rubbernecking to see where she was. She'd been one of the folks doing drugs in the storage closet, the same folks who told me that they'd be out in a minute. But way, way more than just a minute had passed, and not a single one of them was anywhere to be seen.

All I want for Christmas is you was still in that slow introductory phase, so the second it hit, I knew I had exactly 57 seconds to find my office BFF so we could be singing and dancing along with it right as the first verse kicked in. I'm frantically looking around, assuming that she was out of the storage closet, but when I couldn't see any of them, I decided that I better go check the closet. I remember rushing over to the closet, trying not to fall over my kitten heels, ready to drag her out whether she was done loading up or not so we could get to dancing. But then, right as I'm only a few feet away from the closet door, it opens up, and one of the younger guys basically falls out of the open door and collapses on the ground in front of me.

My first thought was actually something like, geez, what were you pre-gaming with, moonshine? But then the guy looks up at me, with this terrified look in his eyes, and slurs the words, I can't feel my legs. I immediately go into crisis mode, rushing to turn off the music so I can hear the 911 operator, with people slowly realizing that one of the younger team members who shall remain anonymous for reasons that will become obvious was suffering from some kind of medical emergency.

There were a few ripples of panic at first but in spite of being a little worse for wear our office manager quickly got to keeping everyone calm while a few others started administering first aid. I just kept myself focused on giving the right information and when the dispatcher asked me to go over to my co-worker to relay some basic information to her, I rushed back over just in time to see someone opening up the storage closet. Because of the angle that I was approaching, I didn't immediately see how the inside of the closet looked, but I did catch my co-workers' reaction as they opened the door up and looked inside.

In a split second, their expression went from concerned and curious to completely and utterly horrified, and I suddenly realized where my office BFF was. She was lying in the storage closet, along with the rest of the folks who'd been taking drugs, and each of them were either dead or dying. I know this might sound like a just-say-no-themed-after-school special at this point, but I promise you, that's not what this is. I experimented plenty in college, and I'm hardly a nun these days either. 99 times out of 100, my co-workers could have snuck off to do a little blow,

then return to enjoy their dumb office party with a little more pep in their step. I'm not condoning that either, but it is what it is. Only on that occasion, and totally unbeknownst to anyone, they didn't just do a little blow. Because for some godforsaken reason, their little bag of coke was laced with fentanyl.

I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain what fentanyl is. Everyone and their mama knows that a grain of it is enough to kill a dozen people, and we later found out that there was so much in their systems that they were probably dead before they even realized what was happening, and the guy who fell out of the closet hadn't actually done any, he just touched a little before collapsing and almost ODing. He was the only guy who survived, all thanks to two cops who had been in the area with some Narcan in their car, and for those that don't know, Narcan is basically this miracle drug that stops heroin overdoses,

and it comes in a little nasal spray. And if it wasn't for the cops being equipped and trained to use it, four people would have died that night, instead of just three. As you can probably guess, the whole thing just rocked our office, and the whole town too, really. We had to shut down while the cops investigated the whole thing, and some of us went to visit the survivors in the hospital and then at home. Some people just didn't return to work at all. It was beyond heartbreaking for everyone involved. I for one spent a lot of time with the family of my office BFF, grieving with them, supporting them

as best I could, and just trying to make sense of it all. I don't work at that office anymore and although the office I now work at is throwing a Christmas party, I know I won't be attending this year. I'll make up some excuse at the last minute, tell them that I'm feeling under the weather or something but those close to me will know why Christmas won't really be Christmas for me this year. It's not because there'll be no Mariah Carey. It'll be because there'll be no office best friend forever. May she, and the others who died that night, forever rest in peace. At the end of last November, me and my mom went to watch the Christmas light ceremony in the town center of where we live. It's something we've done every year since I was little, and although it's more mulled wine than hot cocoa these days, it's an event we still take a great amount of joy in.

But not last year. Last year something happened that will taint the light ceremony for a long time to come. And although with time I'm sure things will get back to normal, those that were there that night will always remember. The annual ceremonial switching on the town center's Christmas lights is quite a big deal and it isn't confined to just the event itself. And there's a Christmas market with all kinds of food stalls and a Santa's grotto for the kids. It's a great time and there's usually a celebrity guest brought in to do the job of pushing the big red button which turns the lights on. If we're a fan of whoever's brought in, me and my mom always camp out at the front so we can take pictures and stuff, but last year, it was just one of the people from Love Island, so we were content to take advantage of the lack of queue at the Moldwine kiosk before watching from the back of the crowd. Now, the light ceremony always takes

place in one of the two big town squares, so it's a big open space surrounded by larger streets and smaller streets. Me and my mom happened to be right near one of these poorly lit smaller streets where a group of kids were hanging around and generally causing mischief. They looked to be about 12 to 14 and seemed divided into two distinct groups, one all boys and one all girls. There was a lot of teasing and name-calling going back and forth, and once or twice someone in the crowd would turn around to shush them. This kept on going for a while, with the noise escalating and diminishing, and it honestly seemed like nothing but innocent fun. But then, after a particularly vicious-sounding

exchange, I felt like it was my turn to turn around to tell them to behave themselves. One of the girls was shining the light of her mobile phone right in his face and she was saying, you're on live, you're on live. So I'm assuming it was something to do with social media too. The boy was strongly objecting, saying, stop filming me, stop, over and over again and then suddenly he lashed out with a closed fist, knocking the girl backwards before he and his friends ran away. I wasn't the only one who saw it, so I didn't have to alert anyone as cries of oi come back here and that boy just hit that little girl started ringing out from the crowd. I rushed forward to see if the little girl was okay because she kept leaning up but then

falling back, so I assumed that she'd fallen funny and was just injured in some way. I couldn't see her face because of the furry hood that she had over her head, but when I did, I realized the boy hadn't just punched her. There was blood all over her neck and chin, both from a wound to her neck and from where she was coughing up blood. She wasn't leaning up because she was trying to get up, she was't leaning up because she was trying to get up. She was wrenching upwards because she was trying to clear her airway of blood. All I could do was try and stem the bleeding, clasping my gloved hands over the side of her neck while someone else called the ambulance.

But it was no good. She passed out before the paramedics arrived, and they were using shock paddles on the poor thing as they got her into the ambulance. It was so bad that almost no one had any hope that she would survive. And it came as no surprise when the bad news broke that she had been declared dead on arrival at the hospital. The aftermath was just absolutely heartbreaking. And although the police went hard in trying to catch the killer, knowing that they were kicking in doors to try and find a 12 or 13 year old was terribly horrifying. And to think that someone that young was capable of something so hideously violent, and that they were actually hiding out like a bloody fugitive, it was just a nightmare.

Anyone with a male child of that age who started acting funny thought that they might have been the ones harboring a wanted murderer. People got terribly paranoid and as I said, it was a terrible, terrible time for all involved. We later heard that a young man was arrested, then the story faded to the background for a while until he was sentenced during the summer. The 13-year-old boy got a minimum of 13 years in prison for murder, meaning he'd spend as many years in prison as he'd been alive by that time. The grim poetry of that really got to people, at least I know it got to me. It was morbidly poetic, and as much as people appreciated the long sentence for the justice it served,

it was all just so tragic because none of it ever needed to happen in the first place. This year, out of respect for that poor girl and her family, the city council had decided to hold the light ceremony in the second of our town's two squares. I don't know how mom is feeling about it, but I think I might skip this year's event because I know I won't be able to keep my mind off the tragic events of the previous year and the look in that little girl's eyes when she realized that she was going to die. The Christmas after my son turned four years old was the first he seemed to actually understand. He knew what Christmas was, as in he was familiar with all the other symbolism behind it, but it wasn't until four that he really started to get it. I remember the day that he came home from preschool to ask me if some guy called Santa

was really going to climb down our chimney to bring him presents. He didn't realize that we didn't have a chimney, so to keep up the pretense, I told him Santa had a magic key that let him climb through the windows of houses that didn't have chimneys. It was all the best I could come up with on the spot, but my son bought it, and seeing all this awe and wonder and excitement on his face made me happy in ways I didn't think possible. I didn't exactly have the best upbringing myself. Things like Christmases weren't exactly a priority, so it was really important to me that my son got to experience that magical spirit of Christmas. The closer it got to the day itself, the more and more excited my son got. He'd non-stop ask me questions about Santa, beg me to take him to meet him at the mall. He was just so caught up in the spirit of the season, it made me and his mom very happy indeed. We joked about how we dreaded the day

that we'd have to tell him that Santa wasn't real, and how we should let that childhood innocence endure for as long as possible. Little did we know, he'd lose that innocence way sooner than we figured, and in a way that was pretty terrifying, even for me. It was the night of Thursday, December 22nd, 2016. I remember that because the Thursday was our last day of work before the long holiday weekend, and we all busted our butts trying to get a dozen different orders shipped in time. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got home, and both me and my wife headed to bed early so we could get a head start on all the holiday-related chores in the morning. I pretty much passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow,

but then the next thing I know, I'm opening up my eyes to the sight of my son standing over me. The room's still dark, and he's asking me about Santa again. I had to roll over and ask him to repeat the question, hiding my irritation that he felt the need to come wake me up in the middle of the night, and that's when I heard him ask, does Santa ever come early sometimes? I told him no, that he only ever visited on the night of Christmas Eve, but then my son tells me that he thought that Santa was visiting our neighbors because he could see someone on the roof. Immediately, that sets alarm bells off for me, so I climb out of bed, throw on a robe to keep the nighttime chill at bay, and then head into my son's bedroom to see what he was talking about. The moment I walked into his room, I see exactly what he was talking about. The moment I walked into his room, I'd see exactly

what he was talking about. His bedroom window looked out over our backyard, which in turn led out onto our rear neighbor's backyard. All the homes in our neighborhood had a two-tier roof system, with a smaller roof leading right up to where one of the bedrooms were. And across the way, someone was quite clearly standing on the smaller roof of our neighbor's place, sticking out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of snow on the roof. They were very carefully making their way upwards towards one of the bedroom windows, a bedroom that I knew our neighbor's two little girls slept in. They moved in sometime after us, and I'd watch them re-wallpaper from beige to lilac before

putting up a bunch of boy band posters. I had never actually talked to the family, I just put two and two together so when it looked like the guy was slowly plopping his way up the gently sloping roof to their bedroom, I knew I had to do something. I ran back into my bedroom, told my wife to call the cops, then grabbed the Ruger 22 that I used to do something. I ran back into my bedroom, told my wife to call the cops, then grabbed the Ruger 22 that I used to hunt rabbits with from time to time out of the closet. As I took it out of its case and loaded her up, I told my wife exactly what was happening, along with where she needed to send the cops. After that, I threw on my boots and ran out into the backyard wearing nothing but a bathrobe and boots to confront the guy on the neighbor's roof.

First thing I did was call out to him, loud and aggressive, asking him what he thought he was doing. The guy froze as soon as I called out, turned a little to face me, then just turned back again to keep on going up the roof. I called out again. I told him the cops were on their way and that there was going to be trouble if he didn't get to explaining himself real quick. He didn't even turn back that time. He just kept on plopping up the roof towards the little girl's window. I figured a warning shot in the air might deter him, just to let him know that I was serious and to wake the neighbors to let them know something was happening. If I got cited for it later, so be it, but at the time, I didn't have the luxury of being able to fret about bylaws and

HOA regulations. So I aimed my.22 into the air and let off two rounds to try and keep his attention. He was crouching by the girl's bedroom window by this point, and after I fired off the two shots, he stopped and looked down at me for a few seconds with this wild, and after I fired off the two shots, he stopped and looked down at me for a few seconds with this wild, wide-eyed look on his face. That was the only thing that really slowed him, but although I told him the next two would be aimed at him, he just carried on what he was doing, and suddenly started wailing on the girl's window, trying to break the glass so he could unlock it. The moment he slammed his fist into the glass, you could hear the two girls inside beginning to scream, and I kept waiting for one of the

girl's parents to run into the bedroom to put a gun on the guy too. But he kept punching the glass, this thick, double glazing too, so it wasn't budging easily, and the girls kept screaming and screaming. I didn't want to have to shoot the guy. I kept waiting for the situation to just resolve itself somehow, but then the moment the girls' windows smashed, I heard their cries even louder, and I knew I had no choice. I didn't want to shoot the guy. In my mind, the guy was just going to surrender and stop what he was doing the moment that he saw me pointing a gun at him. And that's how it always happens in movies, right? The good guy says freeze, the bad guy puts his hands up and then the cops show up, take him to jail, then the good guy rides off into the sunset.

Only this guy didn't seem to care that he had a gun drawn on him. All he seemed to care about was smashing his way into those little girls' bedroom so he could do god knows what with them. He seemed like he knew he was going to get caught. He probably knew that he was going to get shot breaking into houses and estate with gun laws like ours, he just didn't seem to care. All that was important to him was getting to those girls, and that's what was really terrifying me about this whole thing, even all these years later. He was going to make me carry his water, as my grandpa used to say. He was going to put the burden of taking a life on me and for that. I'll always hate the guy. But thankfully, it didn't have to come to that. I was too focused on aiming down the sights to notice someone

entering the girl's bedroom, but I sure as heck noticed the two shots that rang out as the homeowner put two bullets into the guy trying to get into his little girl's room. The guy had stayed quiet the whole time, not a single peep as I called out or threatened to shoot him, but our neighbor's bullets hit him. He started squealing like a stuck pig, and I mean squealing. The noises he made that night made it sound like he wasn't even human, which in my estimation, he wasn't. Or at least, there's something lacking in him that made him less human than most. The bullet must have only caused a superficial wound because he just kept rolling back and

forth on the roof and screaming until the cops finally showed up. The officers were able to climb up to put the guy in cuffs and render a little first aid for his gunshot wound but they had to get the fire department out with a winch to get the guy off the roof without hurting him any more than he already was. The emergency vehicles were there till dawn and my son didn't sleep a wink until all the big trucks were gone from the neighborhood And if you think he asked a whole bunch of questions about Santa you should have seen how many questions he asked about that whole incident He still enjoyed Christmas that year as all of his presents were a great way of taking his mind off of what had just happened

He still didn't 100% understand what happened, he just knew that it was bad. My wife had managed to protect him from seeing the shooting, but he still heard the screams. To be honest, I think just about the whole neighborhood did. The guy must have been in quite a bit of pain to make the sounds that he did, but I can't say we didn't deserve it. My dad was really into having traditions on Christmas.

Only we didn't actually have any traditions of our own as a family at all, really. So my dad did what any dad would do. He looked up family traditions online and picked the first thing that came up. And that was cutting down a Christmas tree in the woods as a family. My mom hated the idea almost as much as I did, but we decided to go along with it to make him happy. Only thing was, we lived in a regular suburban city with a small backyard and no trees fit for Christmas. This meant that we'd have to drive into the mountains and hike until we found the perfect tree. Dad had it planned out. We would leave early Saturday morning, about three weeks

before Christmas, drive up into the mountains, find a place to park along a main road, then search for the perfect tree. Exciting, right? Wrong. The drive took longer than expected since the road up the mountains is also the road skiers and snowboarders take up to the resort. This means hours and hours of traffic until dad decided the main road was no longer suitable for our needs. So he pulled off onto a random dirt road that led up deeper and deeper into the woods until we found a place to park. At this point, my mom kept mentioning to my dad that we were probably on private property and that we should just leave and get a Christmas tree from a lot like everyone else did.

He was not having that though. He had us all get out of the car and locked it, leading the way into the very ominous looking forest in front of us. He just brushed off the private property thing altogether. It was already getting late and dark and all my mom and I wanted to do was go home. We would tell dad that we found a good tree but he always responded that it had to be perfect and that what we found just wasn't right. It felt like we were in there for hours before he found the tree he wanted. He cut it down with the axe that he'd been lugging around and then tied a rope to the trunk of the tree he wanted. He cut it down with the axe that he'd been lugging around and then tied a

rope to the trunk of the tree and told us all to pull. It was torture. The tree was heavy and we were already tired. Plus, pulling a full-sized tree through snow is way harder than you'd think. There was a steep part of the trail that made life even harder with this stupid tree dragging behind us. I kept thinking how that day couldn't get any worse. I must have jinxed myself or something because it got way worse, and very quickly. After the tree had gotten snagged on a bush and we were all bending down to get it free, we heard a loud boom and the sound of a bullet hitting the tree beside my father's head was like nothing I never would have been able to prepare myself for.

The bark exploded and we all jumped backwards. More bullets began flying around us, almost hitting me. My dad grabbed me and my mother by our coats and dragged us behind a nearby boulder and told us to stay still. My mom was clutching onto her stomach. I knew something was wrong. I looked at my dad and got his attention just long enough to tell him that mom needed help. He rushed to her side and asked her what was wrong. She removed her hand from her stomach and underneath was a pool of blood building up in her coat. My father's love for my mom, his wife, I'm sure is the only reason we all got out of there alive. He took his coat off and tore his shirt into a strip of fabric long enough to wrap around my mom's waist to cover the wound.

He lifted her coat and shirt and did his best to tie it around her without hurting her too much. My mom was calm, but you would see the fear in her eyes as she begged my dad to save her. He was crying, I was crying, it was a mess. The bullets stopped around 30 seconds every minute or so and this gave us enough time for my dad to carry my mom on his back as we ran for the next hiding place that would shield us from gunfire. We were still about a mile from the car and dad and I both thought mom wasn't going to make it. Cell service was horrible up in the mountain and I kept trying regardless. My dad kept yelling that we were humans, not deer, and to stop shooting, but it never did. The daylight

went away and we were left in total darkness, too scared to turn on a flashlight. We didn't want to disclose our location to whoever it was trying to kill us. The moon lit between the trees just enough for us to make out the pathway back. Every so often, I kid you not, another bullet would fly by. We'd hear it whizzing and we'd have to ask each other if we were okay since it was too dark to tell otherwise. All I wanted was to go home. I prayed and prayed to God to please let us get out of there. Mom had started losing consciousness, we assume from the blood loss. Dad was doing his best to watch over me and carry my mom to safety, but our hope was dwindling fast.

And finally we saw it. Not the road we'd come from, but the main road. That's when we realized the path we'd been taking wasn't our own. It was the person's who was out there with us. We looked around, paranoid that whoever it was was watching us, but the second we stepped out of the forest and stood along the road next to the cars, we felt safe. My dad flagged down a minivan driving by and thankfully they stopped. We piled in and they drove as quickly as they could to the nearest hospital up the mountain. They drove on the shoulder of the road when traffic got too bad. We made it there, and mom was taken back immediately. She went right into emergency surgery, and my dad and I were checked for injuries.

I made it out with minor scrapes and bruising, but my dad had actually been shot in the thigh and hadn't even realized it. The doctor said his body must have been running on so much adrenaline that it shielded him from any pain that he might have felt. My mom was really lucky. The surgeon said the bullet was only a centimeter from hitting multiple vital organs. She had still lost a lot of blood and was placed in a medically induced coma for a couple of weeks while her body healed. We told the police exactly what happened and even took them to the property where it had happened, but they found nothing. It was public land and there were no houses nearby for miles. The person who did that to us was doing it for fun. They told us it was highly possible whoever it was had actually followed us into the forest just to terrorize or kill us.

The question of why would never be answered. The police closed the investigation only a year later, stating that there were no leads whatsoever and the case apparently went cold, but I'm so grateful to have made it out alive. I just wish the man who'd done that to us would be brought to justice, and so much for making family traditions. Although now our family tradition is getting a Christmas tree from a lot, like normal families do. We'll be right back. 866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. What if one ingredient could do it all naturally? At ShopArgon.com, our 100% pure organic argan oil is more than skin care. It's massive wrinkle defense and also nourishes dry, damaged hair. It's relief for eczema and psoriasis.

It soothes diaper rash, fades scars, and even calms acne-prone skin. Cold-pressed in Morocco and bottled with care, it's packed with vitamin E and healing antioxidants your skin craves. One drop, just one, and your skin feels nourished, soft, and visibly renewed. The all-in-one organic beauty solution. No wonder they call it liquid gold. Visit shopargon.com to explore our collection and feel the difference. I never liked the cheap looking Santas who ring the bells asking for money.

It just always seemed a little too gimmicky to me. They could ask for donations out of costume. Doesn't it confuse kids anyways when they see five Santas across two city blocks? It was Christmas 2011 and it was also the first year that I'd be spending the holiday alone. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of five years and I didn't want to spend the money to fly to my hometown to spend the day with my family. So alone on Christmas was what it was. I planned to make a small chicken dinner for myself, but realized that I'd forgotten some ingredients. It was still a few days before Christmas, so I had time to go to the store before they closed for the holiday. It was around 10pm and I decided to just walk to the store quickly,

so I wouldn't have to go back out again until after Christmas. The walk to the store was uneventful, but of course the walk back wouldn't be so peaceful. After getting my groceries and exiting the store, I was met with a cheap Santa ringing a bell in my face and asking for donations for the local children's hospital. I had no cash or change on me and politely told him so, but he wouldn't take no for an answer though. He blocked the sidewalk and told me how it was for the kids and that I shouldn't be selfish on Christmas. I guess he thought I was lying about not having any physical money on me. When I mentioned that I only carried my credit card

on me, he pulled out his phone with one of those swipe attachments on it and told me I could donate that way. I'm sorry, but who is comfortable with swiping their card on a random man's phone claiming it's for donations? And that's exactly what I told him. He looked offended, but finally got out of my way. I was uncomfortable by then and just wanted to get home. I got to the end of the block and out of pure curiosity decided to look back. I had a feeling that he was staring at me, only he wasn't just staring at me. He had picked up his change bucket and was holding it in one hand as he stood in my direction, looking directly at me. The light changed and it was my turn to cross the street and I hurried

quickly through the intersection. I looked back after crossing and saw the Santa guy now walking in my direction. I felt my heart beating faster as I began to panic and wonder if he was going to follow me. My suspicions were confirmed when I watched him press the button to cross the street. He had a small smirk on his face when he realized that I knew what he was doing. He found the fact that I was scared amusing it seemed. I picked up the pace and walked quickly to the end of the next block until I had to wait to cross the street again. The horror truly set in as the Santa man got closer and closer.

And finally it was time to cross and this time I took zero shame in sprinting down the sidewalk. I took a second to look back and screamed a small scream when I realized that he was now running toward me as well. He was laughing when I screamed and all I wanted was to be locked away, safe in my apartment. Now, I'm not the most in shape person and I definitely wasn't back then either so all that running was making me completely out of breath and tired. I knew that there was no way I'd be able to run all the way back to my apartment building without him catching up to me and I really didn't want to know what he had planned for when he actually did catch up to me. So I decided to take a quick right into the diner on the corner of the street and wait for Santa Man to get bored and just go home.

I sat at a booth by the window and looked out to see if he was still following me. It seemed like five minutes or so passed and I didn't see him and I sighed thinking that it was finally over. I even laughed a little at the whole situation and how ridiculous it was. A Santa chasing me down the street must have looked pretty funny to somebody else. Except it wasn't over and my laughing ceased when I looked out the window again and there he was, staring at me from across the street. Changed seats so I was sitting more towards the middle of the diner, hopefully out of his view. I ordered some food and sat there for a couple of hours until the place was closing. They told me that I had to leave and walking out of

that place was truly terrifying. The Santa man was no longer standing across the street but that made it even scarier. How was I supposed to know if he was still waiting for me, lurking in the shadows somewhere? The second my feet hit the concrete of the sidewalk, I was back to sprinting. I hadn't even planned to keep running. It was like my body had a mind of its own to save itself. And thankfully it did, because I heard the sound of someone running behind me only seconds after I got going. I glanced back quickly, and there he was. Santa Man, chasing me yet again, only this time he was laughing like some psychopath. I finally made it back to my

apartment building and scanned my card to get me through the door. I shut it quickly behind me, and the relief of the Santa Man not being able to push the door open was truly satisfying. I walked slowly up the stairs, totally exhausted when I heard the door buzz open. Down the steps, I saw Santa man open the door, stop at the bottom of the stairs and say, someone's always expecting someone. He then lunged up the first steps and there continued the chase. I was already a few flights above him but he was quick. I got to my floor only around 10 seconds before him but was able to get in my apartment and lock the door behind me before he could get to me. He pounded on my door and told me that wouldn't have happened if I had just donated some money

to the children and that I was the awful person in this scenario. He kept saying, that'll teach you. You always donate now. And he was right. Ever since, I'll always donate to the donation sands every year. I never know if he's one of the men behind the mask, waiting for me to deny him only to chase me down yet again.

I won't risk it. Now, I did call the mask, waiting for me to deny him only to chase me down yet again. I won't risk it. Now I did call the police but they said without a description other than Santa, they couldn't really do anything about what had happened. I debated on moving, just leaving that area, but instead I made a point not to go out much anymore during Christmas. I never ever want to come across that Santa man ever again. I don't even know why I'm telling this story. Maybe out of boredom, or maybe it's some subconscious thing to get me to talk about what happened, but either way, here I am. Now, what I'm about to submit to you is what happened when I was only around 8 years old. I'm 14 now and I still look back on it as one of the most awful experiences of my life. So my dad isn't the greatest guy in the world, never has been, but what he did to me that night

is something I'll never forget. So, basically, my mom decided to divorce my dad for drug-related reasons, and I didn't understand much of it at all at my young age. So when the judge asked me who I wanted to live with, I said both of my parents. I didn't know about my dad's drug problems, so I didn't know the smarter thing to do would be to say that I wanted to live with my mom at the time. So they got shared custody, and every other weekend I went to my dad's place. It was gross and dirty but I had no choice. My mom was fighting the court's decision but for the meantime I had to go with him. I wasn't upset about the decision but I will admit that I enjoyed the time that I had with my mom way more. Unfortunately, one of my dad's weekends fell

on Christmas. My mom was furious when he wouldn't let her keep me for the holiday. She knew he didn't actually care about spending Christmas with me, he just didn't want my mom to have me either. My dad hadn't planned anything for the holiday and said that we'd just be spending the night in. I knew what this meant though. He'd go out drinking and I'd just be left there alone. Again. Typical night with dad. Well, that big day rolled around and it was spent watching TV with my dad while he smoked and downed some beers. All I kept thinking about was how much I wanted to be with my mom. Nine o'clock at night rolled around and dad got up and said that he was leaving and said that he'd be back by 2. I hated being alone, especially in his house.

People always came by and knocked on the door while he was away and it really scared me. I was just a kid and how could he do that to me? I did what I was used to doing and locked up the house and closed all the windows just in case. I sat in the living room with the lights on since I was scared of the dark and the TV going so I didn't feel so alone. Sleeping alone in a house when you're only 8 was really hard. Almost impossible actually. I'm not embarrassed to admit that in those moments all I really wanted was my mom. About an hour goes by without anything happening. It was unusual for no one to have at least come by in the night like usual, but it was Christmas, so maybe that night would be different.

Wrong. I had just started to fall asleep when I heard a knock on the front door, just behind the sofa that I was sitting on. After the knock came a loud voice saying, Jimmy, I know you're in there. I need my money, man. We gonna have a problem? Now the man's thick country accent is something I'll never forget.

I was too scared to say anything back, so I just sat there, as still and silent as I possibly could and waited for the man to leave. Only the man had no intention of leaving without his money that I guess my dad owed him. When he got no answer, he only knocked louder and harder. Boom, boom, boom. Get out of here, Jimmy. I don't want to break this door down, but I will if I have to. And this is where things started to get very real for me. I could hear the seriousness in his voice and it made my heart drop into my stomach. Again, the man got no answer and he kept his promise. I jumped as the sound of his boot hitting the front door filled the room. I knew I had to get out of that living room and hide as fast as I could. I ran into my dad's

bedroom and climbed into the small closet and hid myself under a pile of clothes on the floor. The whole time I could hear the man trying to get into the house. Now I say house, but it was actually a very old, very run down trailer in a trailer park full of the grossest people you would ever meet in your life. I heard the door burst open and the man stepped into the living room. His footsteps were loud, like he was a big man and I could feel the floor shake as he walked through the house. He kept repeating, I'mma find you, Jimmy.

I started crying by then. I couldn't help the small sobs that left my mouth. I guess the man heard it because he was at the closet door, throwing it open in no time. He snatched the clothes off of me and dragged me back into the living room by the arm. He sat me down on the sofa and asked what I was doing there and I stupidly admitted it was my dad's place and that I was staying with him for Christmas. The man just laughed and told me my dad owed him money and that he was going to use me to get it.

I was especially nervous with what he was going to do to me considering my dad wasn't going to be home for the next few hours. The man took out a knife and my crying continued as I begged him not to hurt me. He told me it would only hurt a little as he proceeded to make small cuts along my arms and legs, just enough to make me bleed into the pajamas I was wearing. It hurt, but my body seemed to go numb. He stopped once the cloth was wet enough with blood to be obvious. He said he wanted my dad to know that he was serious. Next, he grabbed a small plastic bin from the other room, emptied it, and told me to get inside. I did as I was told

and tucked myself into the bin as best I could before he closed the lip, trapping me in a position where I couldn't outstretch my arms or legs. I panicked, and panicked for what felt like hours. I was so sweaty that the bin was filled with condensation. I thought I was going to die in there. I kept crying for my mom to come save me, but it felt like no one ever would. Finally, after being in the bin for over an hour, my dad came home. Drunk, of course. That's when the man got up and put the point of his knife on the lid of the bin directly above my head. He threatened to end my life if my dad didn't

give him the money. Only thing is, my dad had no money. None. So he did something I never imagined he would stoop so low enough to do. He offered me his payment. Thankfully, the man didn't want me, and instead beat my father until he was unrecognizable and unconscious on the floor. The man left after ransacking the place, and he even left me in the bin. God must have been looking over me because my mom showed up with the police only 10 minutes after the man had left. I guess my dad's neighbors heard the noise and called the cops. The police had a file on my dad already and called my mom in case I was there. My mom opened the bin as she cried, hugging my little helpless body. My dad was taken to the hospital for his injuries that

surprisingly were not life-threatening. And it turns out my dad was selling drugs and he owed the man quite a bit of money. None of my physical injuries were serious, but the mental issues that arose from that night are still debilitating. My mom got full custody of me and I haven't seen my father since. The man who did that to me still hasn't been caught and my dad said he had no memory of who it was. He was charged with child neglect and endangerment and spent three years in prison. Christmas, it's a hard day to celebrate, but I tried for my mom. I'm just grateful to have a parent who cares as much as she does. She never gave up and if it weren't for her, I'm sure I would have died in that bin. Just less than a week after Christmas Day, in the year 1800,

the residents of the fledgling New York City made a shocking and grisly discovery. The body of 22-year-old Elma Sands was found at the bottom of a well, having been brutally beaten and strangled before being tossed into her watery grave. Local magistrates believe that she was still alive at the time when she was thrown down the well, and that she survived the fall before bleeding to death in its sodden bottom. But the question was, who could have committed such a shocking crime, especially at such a festive time of year? Elma was last seen alive on December 22nd of 1799, after telling her cousin that she planned to run away with her one true love, a carpenter by the name of Levi Weeks.

Elma and Levi lived together in a boarding house owned by a man named Elias Ring, with her one true love, a carpenter by the name of Levi Weeks. Elma and Levi lived together in a boarding house owned by a man named Elias Ring, who told police that although the couple were deeply in love, they had a habit of getting into vicious arguments with one another, especially whenever alcohol was involved. Not only that, but neighbors reported that Eli had started acting very strangely around the time of Elma's disappearance. With Levi's name being the only one on the police's list of suspects, he was promptly arrested and charged with his lover's murder, and the build-up to his trial was a grim circus of

public outrage. Following the discovery of Elma's body, Elias Ring used a loophole in the law to gain possession of her corpse. He then exhibited the body in his boarding house, incidentally in Elma's former lodgings, and charged the local citizenry a few cents each to view it. Ring himself was responsible for inciting visitors, regaling the public with inflated tales of Levi Week's cruelty and short temper. Local authorities allowed such a travesty, having no doubt that Levi was the guilty party, and the vast majority of the local denizens wished to see Levi hung. The prospect of a fair trial was so poor that future Vice President Aaron Burr felt compelled

to publish an article in a local newspaper, urging the public to keep their heads until the crime could properly be investigated. Burr would later aid Weeks even further by volunteering his services as an attorney, but was the accused's only high-profile support. Levi Weeks just so happened to be the brother of Ezra Weeks, one of the United States' most renowned and sought-after architects. This enabled Levi to be represented by the country's most successful lawyers at the time, including the aforementioned Aaron Burr, along with none other than Alexander Hamilton. It is rumored that both men owed Ezra Weeks sizable sums of money and they took the case as a way of paying him back. Aaron Burr also happened to own the well in which Elma Sands was found,

making him even more intimately connected to the case than initially believed. Levi Weeks' trial began on March 31st of 1800, with all of New York hanging on every word. The prosecution's first move was to bring in a number of doctors to testify that death could not have been her taking her own life. This was easily countered, however, as none of these physicians had actually been present during Elma's autopsy and only surveyed her body during Elias Ring's grim boarding house exhibit while it was in an advanced state of decomposition. Even worse, one of the doctors was proven to actually be a dentist and had lied to magistrates in the hopes of financial betterment.

The defense argued that not only was Ezra Weeks completely innocent of the crime, but they had actually identified the case's single strongest suspect, a man by the name of Richard Croucher. Croucher also happened to be a president of Elias Ring's boarding house just a few doors down from Elma and Levi's place. Croucher. Croucher also happened to be a president of Elias Ring's boarding house, just a few doors down from Elma and Levi's place. Initially, Croucher was brought in by the prosecution as a witness, and he did a fine job of stoking the jurors' opinions against Weeks with the tales of his frequent bouts of drunken rage. Yet the defense was able to trick Croucher into making a number of extremely damaging admissions.

The most damaging of these was when Alexander Hamilton was able to coax Croucher into admitting that he'd had a number of confrontations with Elma in the weeks before her death. They also used several of the prosecution's own witnesses to attest that Croucher had been instrumental in aggressively spreading rumors about Levi Weeks following Elma's disappearance. One witness stated that Croucher had been wandering into various stores and taverns, yelling about how Levi Weeks had killed his lover after uncovering evidence of her infidelity. After extensive questioning, it became apparent that Croucher himself was the source of almost all the rumors implicating Levi and Elma's death. But without a doubt, the trial peaked when Levi's superstar defense team was able to get one particular witness to

testify that none other than Richard Croucher himself had been spotted near the Manhattan well around the time that Elma was thought to have been murdered. In stark contrast to modern court proceedings, Levi's murder trial lasted little over 48 hours and the jury pronounced him not guilty after just five minutes of deliberation. Hamilton and Burr had been so successful in their efforts to defend Levi Weeks' name that a public who'd once despised him actually whooped and hollered when he was cleared of all charges. Yet despite walking out of the courthouse as a free man, Week's reputation was in tatters and he ended up moving down to Mississippi,

where he started a large family and ultimately passed away at the age of 43. In spite of plans to put him on trial for Elma's murder, Richard Croucher was able to escape justice. He sought asylum with the much-hated British, who allowed him passage to England and a chance to a new life. Yet it's not difficult to conclude that Croucher was a murderer, as his ultimate fate gives us a damned good idea of his involvement in Elma Sand's death. Richard met his end on a hangman's gallow, after he was convicted of strangling a young woman to death. A courtroom heard how Croucher had attacked the woman late at night, and after strangling the life from her, he picked

a chillingly familiar place to hide her body. He threw her down a well. Somehow, word of Croucher's execution reached New York City, and those familiar with the case toasted to delayed justice. But it was a cold comfort to Levi Weeks. Croucher's death couldn't bring back Elma, and from then on, the holiday always seemed just a little less jolly. The Codditch Hospital On February 9th of 1972, Janelle Matthews was born at the Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, to 13-year-old Terry Vieira. Since Terry was incapable of taking care of her daughter, Janelle was quickly adopted by Jim and Gloria Matthews, a married couple living in Greeley, Colorado. The Matthews were able to provide a good life for Janelle as Jim earned a generous salary working as the principal of Platt Valley Elementary School in Kersey, Colorado, and for a long time it seemed as though Janelle had escaped

a life of uncertainty for the safety and love of her adopted parents. But sadly, just before Christmas of 1984, tragedy would visit the Matthews family in a way that sparked national mourning and deep-running outrage. On the evening of December 20th, 1984, 12-year-old Janelle was performing in a holiday concert at Intrawest Bank of Denver as a member of Greeley's Franklin Middle School Choir. Neither of her adopted parents were present as her father was attending his biological daughter's basketball game while her mother had traveled out of state to visit her chronically ill father. At around 8.15pm, Janelle arrived home after catching a ride with a friend named Deanne Ross. Then, shortly after 8.30pm, Janelle answered a

phone call and took a message from her father. It's not clear who the caller was, but what is clear is that this marked the last time anyone spoke to young Janelle Matthews. Jim Matthews arrived home at around 9.30pm to find the family's garage door open, but instead of finding Janelle present, as he expected, Jim found the house empty. Janelle's shoes and coat were in their usual place, near a heater in the family room, but she was nowhere to be seen. Deeply concerned for his adopted daughter's well-being, Jim Matthews contacted the local police, and following their arrival just a short time later, they found a number of footprints in the snow outside the Matthews' home, indicating that someone had been watching Janelle through the house's windows. There were no signs of a struggle or a forced entry, and with snow on the ground,

Jim believed it was unlikely that she could have gotten far without shoes. However, after a preliminary search of the area, it was clear that Janelle had gone far further than mere foot travel would allow. For several weeks after her disappearance, law enforcement placed Janelle's birth mother, Terry Vieira Martinez, under surveillance, all without telling her that Janelle was missing. She was considered to be the single most probable suspect in her daughter's disappearance, yet the surveillance turned up nothing in the way of usable leads. Janelle's disappearance ended up attracting a great deal of interest from the public,

including many high-profile celebrities and politicians. President Ronald Reagan mentioned Janelle Matthews during a speech in March of 1985, and she was also mentioned in the House of Representatives congressional record in the month that followed. Yet sadly, despite the case receiving national attention, there was no progression until many, many years later when a team of construction workers made a horrifying discovery. On Tuesday, July 23rd of 2019, excavators installing a pipeline about 15 miles southeast of Janelle's home unearthed a child's corpse. A forensic expert listed the cause of death as gunshot wound to the head, while a DNA analysis confirmed what many had already suspected,

that the body belonged to the missing 12-year-old, Janelle Matthews. Just a few months later, Greeley Police Department announced that 69-year-old Stephen Dana Pankey, a former Greeley resident who twice ran for Idaho governor, was a person of interest in Janelle Matthews' murder. Pankey and his former wife lived about three miles from the Matthews' home, and he had been a youth pastor at the church the Matthews' family attended. Police in Twin Falls, Idaho then extensively searched Pankey's condo after he refused to talk to detectives from Colorado, and in October of 2020, he was officially indicted on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder, and Janelle's death. He was held without bail at the Ada County Jail in Boise until he was extradited to Colorado. Panky had previously told journalists that he didn't know Janelle or the Matthews family and had only heard about them following the disappearance. He also claimed that he and his wife were home on the night of Janelle's disappearance and that they were planning to leave

town the next day for a Christmas visit with family members in Big Bear Lake, California. Decades later, Panky provided investigators with documents concerning this trip which police said contained false statements and superfluous details. After interviewing Pankey's ex-wife, Angela Hicks, police discovered that they had started their trip on December 22nd, two days after Janelle's disappearance. She also said this trip was unexpected and that her husband had seemed bizarrely desperate to get out of Colorado for a while. Angela Hicks also mentioned that following the couple's return to Greeley on December 26th, her husband seemed to take an unusual interest in the disappearance. Her exact statement mentioned that, and on the ride back, Panky had been uncharacteristically glued to the radio,

searching for news of the girl's disappearance. Panky then began digging up the couple's garden before a car on their property suddenly caught fire and had to be disposed of at a salvage yard. Yet more evidence mounted when it was discovered that in the few months following Janelle's disappearance, Panky had attended a church service where a minister claimed that Janelle would be found safe. His ex-wife claimed to have heard Panky muttering a response accusing the minister of being a false prophet. Years later, in 2008, Panky's son was tragically murdered, and at his son's funeral, Angela Hicks reportedly heard Panky say,

I hope God didn't allow this to happen because of Janelle Matthews. Suddenly, when it was clear that the case would be brought to trial, Panky repeatedly claimed to acknowledge of the crime and asked for immunity in exchange for information. Panky also ended up giving an interview in which he claimed he was being framed by the police because of his sexuality, identifying himself as a celibate homosexual. His claims proved hollow, as on October 13th of 2020, Stephen Pankey was finally indicted on charges of murdering and kidnapping Janelle Matthews. He was found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Janelle by a Weld County jury on October 31st of 2022 and received a sentence

of 20 years to life in prison. His earliest possible release date is in 2042, at which point he will be 91 years old. But why release a man who spent so many years getting away with the murder of an innocent young child? Steven Pankey stalked, cornered, kidnapped, then killed Janelle, and seemed happy to basically taunt the police with stories of his apparent involvement. There's no doubt in my mind that the man gained a perverse amount of pleasure in deception, as well as in the recollection of his crimes, so to allow him to die in freedom is the ultimate insult to Janelle's memory. When you want to bet on sports, play it on a field or ice or course, BetRivers is the place.

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Visit shopargon.com to explore our collection and feel the difference. Tracy Ann Mertens met her future partner, Joey Cavanaugh, when the pair were just 16 years old. It was the definition of puppy love, and after many happy years together, they had two children, a boy and a girl named Kelly and Daniel. The family was happy at first, but by the time the children were in diapers, deep cracks had started to appear in Tracy and Joey's relationship. They began to bicker and argue, and when it emerged that Joey was a functioning heroin addict, who owed a great deal of money to some very bad people, their marriage was all but over. But for the sake of the children, they decided to stay together on the condition that Joey sought help for his addiction. By Christmas time of 1994, Tracy, Joey, and their two children had moved to a new house in Rockdale, Greater Manchester, partly because it was more affordable, and partly because the move away from their native Birmingham broke Joey's addiction network. On Thursday, December 22nd of 1994, Tracy traveled back to her old home

in the Neschels neighborhood of Birmingham. She planned to return to Rockdale that same day, but ended up staying overnight at her sister-in-law's place. The next day, she returned to the Cattell's Grove house at around 11.50am and had been in the house for no longer than 10-15 minutes when there was a loud knock at the front door. When Tracy answered the door, two masked men grabbed, blindfolded, and forced her into the back seat of a yellow Ford Escort. She was then driven out to a secluded churchyard, doused with petrol, and set on fire. The two men then left her to burn to death, yet in an awe-inspiring display of resilience, Tracy managed to crawl around 30 meters towards a main road, where she was found by a passerby who rushed to call emergency services.

Tracy's burns were nothing short of catastrophic. She suffered third-degree burns over more than 95% of her body, with the wound so thick that doctors had difficulty finding a blood vessel to start a drip, but she was still alive. Over the next 24 hours or so, Tracy fought against the pain to provide a full and detailed account of her ordeal. She described her attackers as being tall, Afro-Caribbean, and between the ages of 20 to 30 years old. She also noted that although the men spoke English with a Brummie accent, meaning that they were native to Birmingham, they also communicated in a foreign language that police later suspected to be Jamaican Patois. Tracy stated that after forcing their way into her home, the men demanded to know where Joey was

Then after telling them that he was all the way up in Manchester They bundled her into a yellow Ford Escort that had a stuffed animal attached to the rear right window Tracy's loved ones drew hope from her initial prognosis But sadly, in the early hours of Christmas Eve Tracy suddenly passed away from her injuries at the age of just 31 years old. When detectives searched the Cattell's Grove property that Tracy was abducted from, they found the word death daubed on one of the windows in red paint. Police also received an anonymous tip from someone heavily indebted to drug dealers, who was told that if he didn't settle his debt, he'd get what Tracy Mertens got. Homicide detectives spoke to thousands of people as part of their alive, but claimed it was impossible that it was related to his drug addiction, as he had settled most of his debts before moving up to Manchester.

In November of 1997, an inquest into Tracy's death determined that there was insufficient evidence to explain why she'd been murdered. The case is still open and the Cheshire police are offering a £30,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Tracy's killers. It's been almost 30 years since Tracy Mertens was burned alive in that churchyard and her death remains a horrifying mystery. We can only hope that she and her family can find some measure of peace after so much suffering. A few years ago, I went to visit an old friend for Christmas. Happenstance had it that we were both alone around the holidays, so instead of spending it alone like a couple of old spinsters, we decided to have a very drunk Christmas, just the two of us. So after a Christmas dinner of fried chicken and waffles, and a lot of wine, we both hit the hay

with plans to nurse our hangovers all day the next day. Being the good friend that she was, she let me take her big double bed while she took the smaller, lumpier single one in her spare bedroom. Then, in the middle of the night, I found myself waking up with the distinct feeling that there was someone in the room with me. I don't know if I'd heard the door creak or a footstep on the carpet, but I rolled over in bed, then sat up to look at the door. I was expecting to see my friend, and although I only caught a glimpse of the face in the doorway thanks to how dark it was, I saw enough to know that it definitely wasn't my friend. Out of pure instinct I cried out something like, who are you? I was startled but not frightened and I assumed that it was all just some kind of innocent mistake that some male stranger was

just lurking there in the dark hallway. But that was all just wishful thinking, I guess, and as the man burst into the room and attempted to restrain me, I began to scream. But then suddenly, as the man was pulling me out of bed and forcing me to the ground, he seemed to experience this sudden realization. He'd obviously assumed that since I was sleeping in my friend's bed, that I was her. And when the penny dropped, he started demanding to know where she was. I was in no fit to answer him though. All I did was scream and cry and beg him not to hurt me. And the next thing I remember was the room's light flicking on. I open my eyes to see my friend standing in the doorway, gun in her hand, and she's pointing it at the stranger while screaming, Get off of her, Todd! Get off of her now! A thousand different thoughts go rushing through my head, and I guess it was just more wishful thinking, but I figured if my friend actually knew this guy then things would be okay. I

know how dumb that sounds in retrospect, but I was exhausted, still kinda drunk and more terrified than I'd ever been in my whole life. All I wanted was for this living nightmare to end, but the reality was, we had quite a way to go first. The creep, his name was apparently Todd, started telling my friend that she didn't have the guts to shoot him, but she just kept saying, try me. Todd then told my friend that if she didn't put the gun down, he'd hurt me, which caused my friend to start screaming, don't you dare. And the whole time I was just frozen with fear. I'd never experienced anything so terrifying in my life. I couldn't see any way out of the situation that didn't get me hurt or killed in some way, either by Todd's hand or my friend's straight bullets.

I begged them both to resolve the situation, more blubbers and begs than anything coherent, at least up until Todd clamped a hand over my mouth and repeated his accusation. It was obvious that the pair had some kind of history, and that's what gave me the most hope that things would end peacefully. But then, almost out of nowhere, Todd let go of me, jumped up to his feet, and rushed my friend. I heard two deafening shots, and at first, I thought my friend had totally missed because Todd just fell into her and took her down in the hallway. It was only when she easily struggled out from under him and he started to groan that I realized she'd actually hit him. My ears were still ringing and I was still frozen with fear at that point.

It was all just too much for me. But when my friend barked at me to get up and follow her, I did just that, adrenaline and all. I had stepped over Todd's body to do so, and I thought that he was going to reach up and grab my ankle like it was some dumb horror movie or something, but that didn't happen. He just laid there groaning, begging us to call 911. My friend did so, but her priority was telling the cops that she was about to kill a man if he got up and started attacking her again. The EMTs showing up in a timely fashion was just pure luck on Todd's part, and he ended up surviving his injuries, and my

friend avoided both criminal and civil cases in the year or so that followed, but the story of how he came to be there, bleeding on her bedroom floor, is a long and convoluted one, and I'll try to keep it as condensed as possible, but here goes. My friend was a divorcee, and around 18 months before that Christmas night, she'd met this charming bachelor named Todd. Obviously, she didn't realize what a monster he was at the time, but as the months went on, their relationship got worse and worse. My friend says it was like a frog in a pot of boiling water. Dropping it at boiling point, the frog tries to jump right back out, but

lower the frog in when the water is tepid, then heat it up real slow so it barely notices, and by the time it's at boiling point, it's too late to do anything about it. The whole reason she was alone that Christmas was because she'd split up with Todd and was trying to move on. But Todd wasn't willing to, and the prospect of spending Christmas without the woman he'd once controlled was obviously too much for him. And that's how he ended up breaking in during the middle of the night, and by some miracle, it was me in her bed instead of her. Sure, what happened sucked really, really hard, and I wish it never had to happen, but like I said, it was kind of a Christmas miracle that I'd been there that night. If Todd had the chance to get the drop on her like that, if she hadn't been able to get to her gun, God knows what

kind of awful things would have happened that night. I guess that makes me sound like bait in a way, as that's basically what I was that night, but she had no way of knowing he'd actually try and hurt her like that. He was a psycho, and an aggressive one at that, but I guess sometimes you don't know if someone has the capacity to kill or not until it's far too late to do anything about it. Both of our situations have improved dramatically, but we still talk about it every day, and at some point in the future we plan to hold a joint Christmas together with all of our families in tow. Things are looking much brighter, but we'll never forget the night when, by some miracle of happenstance, we ended up saving each other's lives. Christmas Eve of 1998.

Me and my older brother were driving back from Washington Island to our hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. We were both working on a lavender farm up there at the time. Not the most well-paying or exciting of jobs, but work is work when you have as few options as we did. It was a five-hour drive on a good day, but around the holidays, with bad weather and worse traffic, you could expect to be trapped in your car for upwards of eight hours. In light of that, me and my brother always came to an agreement before we departed. One of us would drive, while the other would get so wasted in the back seat that they could sleep almost the whole way. Last time it had been my

turn to cozy up with a twelve pack of blue ribbon, so that time it was my turn to drive. We had a pretty good system laid out. You could always assuage the irritation of the long drive by looking forward to the time when you could be the one in the back seat, blackout drunk while butchering Bing Crosby lyrics and all that sort of thing. However, the one was a huge flaw. Pee stops. They'd start out sparingly, but at its peak, my brother would be demanding that I pull over almost every 30 minutes or so. We became intimately familiar with almost every gas station and truck stop along the whole of the 57, and it was during one of these routine P stops that our

story really begins. So we pull into a fairly small truck stop, head inside to use the bathroom and grab some road food, then we head back out towards the car. It was late afternoon, pretty damp out, just miserable Wisconsin winter weather. And then out of nowhere, some guy on a superbike just tears right past us, deafeningly close, which has my drunk brother whooping and hollering like he's watching the Indy 500 or something. He thought it was the best thing that he'd seen all day, and in all fairness, it was pretty awesome. Sure, the guy had been going a hundred miles an hour, but it was the holidays, on a fairly quiet stretch of highway, not the kind of thing you'd catch me doing, but different strokes, I guess. Anyways, we get back on the road and I swear to god we hadn't even gone five minutes when

I spotted something lying at the side of the road. It was just blocking the road enough that I would have had to slow down anyways and as I got closer, I realized what I was looking at. It was the bike that we'd just seen zooming past us, five minutes previous, and just on the other side of it was this long stain on the road. It started off all dark but the further it got the redder it got and right at the end of it was what used to be the biker. What remained of the guy didn't even have a shape anymore, he was all bloodied and broken and torn up, just this lump of something that used to be a person. Seeing that was the

single most heart-stoppingly horrifying moment of my whole life, and I can barely even explain what it did to me. It was like knowing people could end up looking like that made the world a little uglier, and the fact life could end so suddenly made it more frightening too. My brother, the idiot that he is, kept insisting that the biker might still be alive, and no matter how much I tried to stop him, he ended up shoving his way past me. He lumbered along the red streak up to where the body was, took one look at the guy, then ran over to the side of the road to puke up eight or nine cans worth of what he was drinking. By the time he'd gotten himself together,

I had already switched on my blinkers and thankfully, another car showed up pretty quickly. We stayed up while the other driver drove to the truck stop that we'd been at to call the cops and I think it was maybe only 45 minutes from the time we first saw the bike to when the first cop car showed up on scene. It definitely slowed us down some, but I couldn't just leave the guy there for someone else to find. One of my first thoughts after finding him had been wondering if he'd been rushing back to family rather than just

taking his bike out for a spin. No doubt he had family, or at least friends or something, and for them to get news like that so close to the holidays, I can't even imagine what they must have went through. The remainder of the drive was considerably less jolly and I worked hard to catch up with my brother's level of intoxication once we arrived at our parents' place. It definitely made me appreciate the gift of family a lot more that year. My dad brought it up while saying grace that it hit so hard I got a lump in my throat. To this day, I don't know what exactly happened to make that guy crash, but I do know that drive safe became something I tell people when parting ways.

I figure it just helps to remind people sometimes so they don't end up lying on the side of the road, barely looking human anymore. Okay, so I work at a maximum security psychiatric hospital. As you can probably imagine, these kinds of experiences come with the territory. To set the scene for you, the hospital I work at was built in the 50s as an asylum. The concrete walls are cold and sounds echo throughout it with relative ease. The pressure differentials between units in the main hall create a haunting howling sound as the air escapes through the cracks under the doors. We typically keep the lights out to encourage patients to sleep through the night,

and then there's me, walking the halls alone to check that everyone is still breathing. I've heard people laughing to themselves, whispering conversations to someone unseen by me. I've even ran to emergencies where other patients have snuck into another's room to beat them violently, having to pull a 300 plus pound man off another man he had tacked into sleep, all the while he was still stomping on his head. But the scariest things were when I was doing a round on Christmas Eve, and I came across one of our blind patients. You know how in movies you see people with hallucinations that cut their eyes out, looking for relief? No, I didn't find a pair of peepers freshly gouged out, if that's what you were thinking. However, this patient had in fact done exactly this

a number of years ago, and as a result, was completely blind. The worst part is, it didn't make the hallucinations go away. Now all he can see are the haunting visions that brought him into this place in the first place. So, this patient had been with us for some time and every night I walk by his room, he's in the same position, standing facing the wall with his back to the door. No matter how long I stand there, he doesn't move. This is nothing new though as I've seen a number of patients with catatonia before. They just stand or sit there with a blank or sometimes fearful expression and react to nothing. So the scary part for me was when I passed by his room, walking quietly so as not to wake any patients, and I peek into his room through the window. He's standing facing

the wall. Just before I'm about to continue on with my rounds, I see his head turn, like he heard a voice. He turns around with his empty eye sockets and looks at me. Allie? Is that you? I nearly soiled myself. I didn't even know this patient knew my name, let alone that he could tell somehow that it was me standing there. I probably should have reassured him that I was real, but in that moment, I was just too scared on a drilling rig in the middle of nowhere, and I had volunteered to stay on over drilling rig in the middle of nowhere, and I had volunteered to stay on over the holidays in exchange for the extra pay. At one point, the rig manager comes to me and tells me that I have to switch to nights to supervise the new guy and make sure all the assigned tasks are completed.

Apparently, he failed to complete almost all of his important duties the night before, so now I'm stuck on nights until he improved. I work with this kid and he seems good. A guy with a solid work ethic. I can't understand why he failed the previous night. We completed all the work inside and now it was time to go get a few things done outside. I tell him that we should get after changing that oil on the loader and he tells me that he can't work outside in the dark. I kind of laugh and say that we are definitely going to do that oil change.

And he says he's scared. I look at him and there's real fear in his eyes. I ask him why and he tells me. Now keep in mind the rig is in the middle of nowhere, hours to the closest small town out of the bush, and his story went like this. He had done everything asked of him inside and went and started working out of the buildings on the lease outside. He got hungry so he grabbed his lunch. He left an apple on the hood of the truck and walked away for a few minutes. When he came back, the apple was still in the hood of the truck,

but there was now a bite out of it. He looked on the ground and there were human shoe prints leading out of the trees to the truck and back into the trees. We're in the middle of nowhere and there is no way someone should be out there in the bush in that temperature at that time of night. So I start thinking, that means somebody was watching him from the darkness of the trees and took the time to mess with him. This person is either the funniest guy alive or a super strange bushman. Looking at where we were, the chances of him being the funniest guy ever were very slim. So now we have a strange man in the bush watching us. As a 6 foot 4, 260 pound rig hand, I'm weirded right out

by this story. It sent a shiver right up my spine when I realized how that must have gone down. We went and the footsteps were still there. We changed the oil, but we both had pipe wrenches as weapons in case we had a visitor, and it still creeps me out to this day. Back in the day, I was on a call for the burn unit on Christmas Day. Life Flight brought in a guy who tried to deep fry a frozen turkey, with the only safety precaution being that he did it on his back porch. All he managed to do was turn himself and his whole setup into one big fireball, and the only parts of his body that weren't burned were his butt cheeks, which were pressed against the ground after falling back during it. So, 98% TBSA full thickness burn. The guy looked completely charred,

and hair burn off and everything and there were patches where his clothes had completely melted into his skin. It sounds crazy, I'd never actually seen a burn that bad at the time and it actually looked kind of fake when I first saw the guy. He looked like an extra in a disaster movie or something and the only thing that made it real for me was the smell. He literally smelled like a mix of burned bacon and plastic, and the fact that he wasn't moving or making any noise just made him seem like even more of a prop. That all changed when he woke up screaming, but he still didn't sound human. I helped treat him for my whole shift and the only word I heard

him say was pain, pain, pain, until we pumped him full of drugs to knock him out again. At the risk of sounding dramatic, I've seen some horrific things in my time, but the sight, sound, and smell of that guy still haunt me way more than anything else. The misery, the agony, the horror of what he went through, all over something so completely moronic. We did everything we could to keep him alive, but it was clear from the get-go that his chances were in the single-digit percentage range. He passed just before dawn on December 26th. Amazing he lasted that long, really. It was mostly just heavy pain management towards the end,

then his organs finally gave out, and that was that. I really felt for his family, losing someone so horribly at what's supposed to be such a happy time of the year. I know if it was my father or husband or brother, Christmas just wouldn't be the same for a long time after, and I hope they've managed to find peace all this time later. Many, many years ago now, I was riding along with my dad, who was a trucker. It was Christmas break, and sometime while driving through the night, he shouts, oh no, over and over again. I was laying in the truck cabin bed playing on my PlayStation on the little TV, so I was really confused, hoping cabin bed playing on my playstation on the little tv so I was really

confused hoping we didn't hit anything my heart sank when he told me to put my shoes on and that we got to help then he told me to call 9-1-1 next thing my dad pulls over and I see it behind our tractor trailer a speeding car was going too fast and had rolled multiple times down a steep embankment we went to see if we could do anything while we waited for EMS to arrive and it was one of the worst things I'd ever seen in my life. It turned out to be a family of four, but you couldn't immediately tell how old they were or what they looked like. They were all just crumpled, bloody messes slumped upside down in all kinds of unnatural looking positions. Once ambulances came, we left.

They arrived pretty quickly and though I can't say for certain, I was pretty sure the whole family had passed. Kinda messed me up a bit, had never seen a body in that state or a dead body outside of a funeral. Even to this day, 20 plus years later, I still think about what I had seen, even after going into the medical field and witnessing worse. They could have been headed to visit family, looking forward to some wholesome reunion or something, and instead, they ended up all messed up at the side of the road,

here one second, and gone the next. Many Many years ago, when my now 28-year-old daughter was still an infant, myself, her, and our dog were at the apartment that we were living in at the time. It was Christmas Eve, my wife was at work at a nursing job, and she wasn't due home until the early hours of the morning. I was sitting on the couch watching TV, my daughter was asleep on a blanket on the floor, and the dog, a husky Akita hybrid, was about ten feet away laying in the doorway between our kitchen and the living room area. I was watching whatever it was that I was watching when, all of a sudden, Thor, our dog, starts with this low-level guttural

growling. I figured that he had heard someone in another apartment or walking by through the parking lot and didn't think much of it. He was very defensive like that, so it wasn't like it was too out of the ordinary. After a few seconds pass, I notice that it's getting louder, and I can see out of the corner of my eye that he's lifted his head up off of his paws, his ears are perked, and he's looking at the ceiling over where my daughter was laying. I look up, don't see anything at all, and tell him to knock it off. Right after I tell him to stop, he jumps up, starts circling my sleeping daughter, literally walking around her blanket that she's laying on, and growling more and more intensely,

even stopping once and outright snarling and snapping his teeth, all the while staring up at the ceiling. After about two or three minutes, and me having no clue what to do since I can't see anything, I did not want to reach for my daughter with him circling her like that, and he laid down next to my daughter, rested his head on her back, and stayed there for almost an hour, still intently staring up at the ceiling and occasionally growling. I make sure it was just some kind of false alarm. I went upstairs to knock on the door of the apartment above us. No one answered the door and I didn't hear so much as a peep from inside. As far as I could tell, the place was empty, but as we know by this point, Thor seemed

to think otherwise. To this day, I have no idea what was going on or what he saw or sensed, but it was extremely creepy to me. Thor had never acted like that before and he's never acted like that since. Part of me wants to know what was going on, if it was just a rat in the floorboards or something, and I just creep myself out for no reason. But then again, if there's any other less tangible explanation, I'd rather not know at all. We'll be right back. Under Moneyline, same game, Paul A's gets all fine. You'll put a smile on your face. Bet on the sports you love with BetRiver Sportsbook. Take a chance. Must be 19 plus, available in Ontario only.

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The all-in-one organic beauty solution. No wonder they call it liquid gold. Visit shopargon.com to explore our collection and feel the difference. Every year for Christmas, my family volunteers at the local homeless shelter, helping hand out food and keeping people comfortable around the holidays. It can be an especially hard time for them, and we try to make it as good of a time as we can. Only one year, when I was only 16 years old, things got a little weird and very creepy. I was finally old enough to not have to be supervised by one of my parents and I was excited. I loved helping out. My parents didn't have much time to volunteer throughout the week because of work, but I was off for winter break and decided volunteering a little

extra was a great way to spend my time. Now, a little bit about the homeless shelter that we volunteered at. All of the people who stayed there had to undergo voluntary background checks. No one with serious violent offenses were allowed to stay there or anything like that. This was to ensure the safety of our residents. Every now and then a few people with those types of offenses would slip through the cracks and we'd have a problem but it was always taken care of quickly. No one was ever seriously injured or anything like that in those instances. Well, about a week before Christmas, I was helping out in the kitchen when a man came in and asked for some food. He was one of the residents staying with us for a few days so he didn't know the rules

yet. I informed him that he wasn't allowed where the food was made and that dinner was served at 7. He didn't seem very pleased by that, but turned around and walked out when he saw that I wasn't alone. He was a big guy so I was relieved that he didn't cause a problem. If he wanted to, with his size, he could have done some real damage. Only at the time I had no idea that he had priors that involved violence, drugs, and a reputation for extreme anger issues. No one at the shelters tells the miners anything like that. Now the next day I came in and was setting up the Christmas tree in the main hall when the same man came up to me and asked if he could help. I told him he

could and he was great to have around to put ornaments on the higher parts of the tree. As I was placing some ornaments he leaned down and whispered in my ear, you think you can tell me what's up? I make the rules. You follow them. Got it, woman? I was grossed out to feel his breath on my ear and the side of my face and quickly made as much space between us as possible. I stopped what I was doing and went to my superior to tell her what happened. All she said was that she'd talk to him about it later.

Now later that day I asked her what had happened and she said he denied it and that because she couldn't prove it either way she'd allow him to stay. But I was furious. He was obviously not a good person, definitely not the kind of person we usually let stay here. But I was a volunteer and there was nothing I could do than avoid him. And so I did. Anytime I saw him I just steered clear and went about my business. Only he was actively seeking me out to harass me. The next few days he would follow me into a room, even exposing himself and laughing.

Finally on the fourth day I recorded him doing it and showed the woman who didn't believe me before. She was horrified and apologized over and over and begged me to stay on as a volunteer after I told her that I wouldn't be back. She did kick that guy out and I went home with zero intention of ever going back. I just hadn't expected him to follow me home that day or every day after. I still live with my parents and my dad has always been very pro second amendment if you know what I mean. We were getting ready to sit down for Christmas dinner when there was a knock on the door. My dad went up to the door and without opening it asked who it was. The person on the other side said that they were my boyfriend and that I had invited him over for dinner. My dad looked over

at me and realized that he was lying when he saw the look of utter confusion on my face. He looked through the peephole and silently motioned me over so I could look and see who it was. Immediately, goosebumps covered my body when I saw waiting on the other side of the door was the man who'd been harassing me at the homeless shelter. I mouthed to my dad, that's him. That's all it took for him to become stone cold serious. He walked to his bedroom, got his handgun from his safe. He came back into the living room and spoke through the door, telling the man to go away. The man said he wasn't leaving until I came outside or he'd be coming inside. My dad told him he wasn't coming inside and mouthed to my mother to call the

police. She dialed 911 and went into the bathroom to make the call. We were worried that if he heard us on the phone with the police that he'd escalate things further than he may have planned. The police were ten minutes out and we realized quickly that we didn't have that kind of time. The man began shoving and throwing his body against the front door to no avail. He was screaming to have me come outside but of course there was no way that was happening. After the door started to become weaker, my dad warned the man that he had a gun and he would use it if he gained entry into the house. This didn't deter the man at all, but it made me feel so much safer that my dad was there to protect me.

Eventually, the wooden door gave way and in came the man. He immediately made a beeline for me, seeing me and making eye contact, but before he could even take two steps, my dad fired at his leg and he was on the ground, writhing. Now my dad was merciful enough to let the man live, something I knew that he probably struggled to decide on when he saw a grown man heading for his 16-year-old daughter. In fact, he told me he considered killing him, but changed his mind a split second before shooting because he didn't feel it was right to take a man's life on Christmas. It sounds bizarre, I know, but he is the man he is and I can't change that. Thankfully, the police arrived only minutes later and he was taken into custody and driven to the hospital. After all this chaos finally settled down,

this man was eventually charged with attempted murder and harassment, and because of the third strike rule in the state, he was sentenced to life in prison. I was glad he was sentenced to life, not just because of what happened to me, but because of the things I knew he was capable of doing to other people. I'm glad no one ever has to experience violence from that man ever be cute and romantic? That's not the case. Now, whoever said having a mystery man leave you presents on your doorstep leading up to Christmas would be cute and romantic? That's not the case. It wasn't cute or romantic.

Instead, it was terrifying and trauma-inducing. And it all started on December 1st. Now for context, I'm a 20-year-old woman and I live on my own. I moved out of my abusive parents' home the second I turned 18 and I live on my own. I moved out of my abusive parents home the second I turned 18 and I haven't looked back. So seeing a gift with no mention of who it was from on my doorstep was pretty scary in and of itself. I got home after work at around 6pm and there it was, just waiting for me. It was a box wrapped neatly in Christmas wrapping paper with a big red bow on the top. On top was a sticky note that read,

To Emily, from your secret admirer. Now it wouldn't have freaked me out so much if it had been mailed to me, but there was no shipping label or postage or anything. That only made it obvious that whoever it was from knew me and knew where I lived and decided to drop it off themselves instead of sending it in the mail. I didn't like that and everyone who knew me also would know that I wouldn't like something like that left for me without letting me know first. I brought the package inside with every intention of just throwing it in the garbage but then I heard this strange noise. It sounded like a cat

meowing. Not a full grown cat though. You know how a kitten just sounds different? Well, it was definitely a kitten. I ripped open the paper as fast as I could and cut open the fully sealed box and inside, there he was. The cutest little kitten I'd ever seen. But all I could feel was anger and worry and confusion. Anger because who would do that to a poor innocent kitten and worry because I didn't know how long the kitten had been there or if it was healthy to begin with. Confused, I rushed it to the emergency vet and got all the help it needed. I was sent home with oral antibiotics to give him every night and that was it. I knew I'd be keeping him and on the car ride home, I settled on the name Boxie. I parked my car in the driveway and walked to my door.

I stopped in my tracks when I saw a piece of paper taped to the front door that read, I hope you like the kitten my love. Someday, he will be our kitten. Ew. That is totally creepy. I took a picture of the note and took it down and the first thing I did when I got inside was make sure all my doors and windows were locked. Thankfully they already were but I had to make sure. The next morning went by the same as always, only now I guess I had a kitten. I woke up an hour early to get some things from the store for Boxy, all the necessities, and then I was off to work. It was a fairly good day at work, I'd almost forgotten the previous day's events, but that wouldn't last long. I sighed when I

walked up my front steps and saw yet another present waiting for me. The sticky note this time said, get ready, there will be one every day till Christmas. Again, I took a picture before touching it and then brought it inside. I wasn't going to just throw it away in case another living creature was inside. Clearly this person was capable of anything. But no, no animal. Instead it was some lingerie with a note that read, I can't wait to see you in this. Ugh, gross. I took pictures of

the contents inside the box and shoved it into the back of one of my closets just in case I needed proof. Proof of what? I didn't know. But I watched a lot of true crime stuff and I couldn't be too sure. The next day rolled around, only this time I wasn't shocked to find a new present on my doorstep. I didn't like that someone was leaving these gifts for me but I also knew going to the police would probably end up doing nothing. What was I going to tell them? Help, someone's leaving me Christmas presents on my doorstep? They'd probably laugh me out of the building. And instead I thought I'd do some investigating of my own. I bought a ring doorbell. I was intent on finding out who this person was and why they were leaving me gifts. a ring doorbell. I was intent on finding out who this person was

and why they were leaving me gifts. The ring doorbell was installed the next morning before the third package arrived. Only what I caught on camera was a man dressed in all black wearing a mask to cover his face. He even waved at the camera, saying nothing. He set the package on the ground and left. When I got home, I took the package inside and opened it. This time, the present wasn't so innocent. It was a picture of me, sitting in my living room watching TV. It had obviously been taken outside the window, and it was framed. You could see his reflection in the window in the picture, and the fear that I felt seeing that was unlike anything I'd ever felt before. The note this time read,

Someday soon I'll be in the picture, sitting next to you, not watching you from outside. Alright, I realized that it was time to call the police. And I did, and they had a detective come by. They were worried about the possibility of me being stalked, but it was hard for them to do anything about it without knowing who this guy actually was. They told me to call them whenever I got a new package and to wait for an officer before I opened it. The next two weeks went by without a single gift or note, and I was relieved, thinking this nightmare was finally over. It was hopeful thinking though. December 18th and the next day I got a present left on my porch.

I called the sheriff's office and they had an officer over only 30 minutes later. He took pictures of everything and watched as I opened the box. Inside was only a note and it said, you got the police involved? Why? I'd never hurt you. Big mistake, Emily. The officer took it in as evidence and I was left home alone to be paranoid. I kept all my curtains shut from then on. I constantly felt like someone was watching me. The next day I got gifts every day, and this time it was just normal stuff, like a teddy bear, a sweater, a purse, things like that. Then Christmas rolled around, and I was faced with the most disturbing present of them all. I can't even call it a present because of how gross and insane it was. I called the officer over like I had many times before, only this time we realized that

there was a red substance leaking from inside the box. The officer asked me to open it on the porch instead of bringing it inside and he filmed it instead of taking pictures. The whole time I was praying it wasn't blood, but of course it was though. And inside the box was a severed piece of a man's body that no man would ever want to lose. I don't want to say exactly what it was, but you can assume. I screamed and I began to cry as the officer called for backup. The detective that came by called in an alert to all local hospitals to let them know if anyone came in with the type of injury they were looking for because that would have to be that guy. There was also a note in the box that said, it belonged to you anyways, only now it's yours. And just like they predicted, a man with a self-inflicted injury just like the one described to the hospital staff, came in begging for medical attention.

He was arrested and wheeled off for surgery, and when he woke up the next day he told the detectives that he never meant to scare me and that it was a gesture of his undying love. He was charged but was considered unfit for trial for reasons of insanity, obviously, I guess. But I guess he really didn't know what he was doing was wrong. He admitted that he had chosen me at random when he saw me walk out of my office building and just thought that I was pretty. It was by far the worst Christmas of my life.

But the best Christmas gift was knowing that he'd be put away in a mental institution for at least the next six years. He needed help, and it had to be done. Three days before Christmas, and I got my family nothing. I couldn't just not get anyone anything. I asked some of my friends to come with me, but they all had other plans. So it was now or never in my mind. The days started very normal. I got to the mall at around 10am when they opened and it was busier than I'd ever seen it. It makes you miss the basically deserted mall in the summer months. I went to a few stores and bought some cute stuff

from my mom and got a little hungry so I decided to stop at the food court. I got myself some cheap Chinese food and sat at the table by myself. Most of the tables were already full but I managed to find a place and that's when a man who looked about twice my age sat across from me. I looked at him confused and he seemed to catch on. He looked at me and just said, sorry there's no other place to sit. I was uncomfortable as any 18 year old girl would be sitting across from an older man alone. I started to grab my purse to get up and walk away but he stopped me and said I didn't have to leave. I asked him to take his hand off my bag and that I was going. I walked two steps away from the guy and felt goosebumps rise on the back of my neck

when he said, you don't want to do that Mallory. I turned around to look at him. I stared at his face, not knowing what to say. He motioned for me to sit back down and against my better judgment, I did. I asked how he knew my name and his response was calm and concise as he told me he knew everything about me. And it felt like time slowed down, like all the shoppers around us were suddenly going in slow motion. He smirked and began telling me personal things about myself. He knew my birthday, my parents' names, what I got for Christmas the year before, my pet's names, and he even knew the brand of birth control I was on. I wanted to vomit. I kept asking him who he was and how he knew all of this but he wouldn't tell

me. And we sat there for five minutes as I begged to know who he was and how he knew all of this but he wouldn't tell me. And we sat there for five minutes as I begged to know who he was and why he was doing this to me, but he wouldn't answer. His stares became more and more soul intruding with each passing second. And finally, I came back to my senses and quickly stood up to walk away. He yelled after me, You're going to regret this. For the rest of your life, if you knew what was good for you, you're going to regret this for the rest of your life. If you knew what was good for you, you'd turn around and come back. His voice faded the further I got away from him. I ran through the parking lot to my car, keys already in hand.

I ripped open the door as fast as I could and got in. Only when I put the keys in the ignition, it wouldn't start. It didn't even make that noise that cars make when they're trying to turn over. It just did nothing. And that was the final straw. I called my dad and told him everything. I wasn't going to be one of those girls in the movies that keeps it a secret and gets kidnapped in the end. That wasn't happening. My dad started freaking out and told me to lock the doors and wait in the car until we got there. He didn't want me walking back into the mall in case the guy was waiting to snatch me as I walked from my car into the

building. The doors were already locked though. I made sure of that the second I got in the car. He told me to call the police while I waited for him but I guess living in the big city does have its downsides. The dispatcher told me I wasn't a high priority and she didn't have an officer to send to me. The earliest they could have a unit there was over an hour. My dad lived 30 minutes away. Those 30 minutes would prove to be the most frightening of my life.

My dad lost service after I called him back. The second the call dropped, I started to panic. I was looking in every direction, out every window, praying the man from the mall wouldn't show up. But of course he did. I watched as he made his way out of the mall. He walked slowly toward my car. There was a smirk on his face. My nausea came back with a vengeance. I crawled into the back seat and sat in the middle to give myself a better 360 degree view outside the car. The man was standing just outside the door when he began telling me how he has loved me since I was, as he called it, just a girl. He saw me playing soccer at the park with my friends and said that he knew that he had to have me.

He also told me that he'd tried to take me many times before, but I was always with other people, never alone, and it was too risky. He said he liked me more when I was younger, but he still wanted me now. He wanted me no matter what. He said he was going to take me and that we'd run away together and we'd get married and even said that he couldn't wait to see me carry his children. I was bawling by this point. I just wanted this nightmare to be over. And then he pulls out a knife. I mentally laughed because I wondered what his plan was to do with the knife.

He couldn't get into the car. He wrapped his fist with some sort of cloth and began relentlessly punching the window, trying to break the glass. But thank god it wouldn't budge. He became increasingly frustrated every time he failed to break the window, but weirdly he never gave up. You could see the blood soaking the cloth, getting redder and redder every time after each blow. I was screaming, but no one seemed to care. There were actually people walking by,

seeing what was happening, and they did nothing, in broad daylight, and my faith in humanity was almost crushed that day. When he finally realized he wasn't going to be able to break the glass, he started just asking me to get out of the car. He kept just telling me that he loved me, and that he wouldn't hurt me and that I should just get out and live the life we were meant to live together. It was a nightmare. Of course, I wasn't going to open the door and leave with him. I wondered if he was actually delusional enough to think I would. The minutes went by slowly. I began to wonder if my dad was ever coming. If anyone was going to save me from that man who had clearly been stalking me for what seemed to be years. And my mind began to race. I started

thinking about what I would do if he was able to gain access into the car. My dad always told me that if I was ever in a public place and was threatened with a gun or a knife to go with someone, that you're more likely to live if you scream and run than if you get in the car with a gun or a knife to go with someone that you're more likely to live if you scream and run than if you get in the car with a person threatening your life. And so that was my plan. If he got into the car, I'd run and scream because my life depended on it. The man stopped talking and instead just walked around my car over and over again. I could tell what he was thinking, I just didn't know what about. Then he just started screaming and stabbing the sides of my car. He kept saying I ruined his life by forcing his obsession with me. That it was my fault that he spent multiple years of his life

planning a new life with me. And he kept screaming that I have to have you, I have to have you. I started to yell at him to just leave me alone, when suddenly, a man tackled him to the ground. I scooted to the side of the car and watched out of the window as my dad began to beat the life out of this man. Well, he wasn't actually dead, but from what I could tell, he was close to it. My father called the police, and I guess they considered the situation high priority then because the cop was there in less than five minutes. The man was arrested and like always, my father is a hero. The man was charged with attempted kidnapping, felony arrest, and stalking.

They even searched his apartment and found whole file cabinets dedicated to every aspect of my life. From my interests to medical records, and we still have no idea how he got those. He was sentenced to nine years in prison with the possibility of parole. I thought he deserved a longer sentence, but I suppose it is what it is. It's been four years since then and he's still locked away. The police failed me when I needed them most, but my dad, I know he's always there for me. And I'm eternally grateful for what he did for me that day. I was living in a small one-bedroom apartment at 19 years old. I worked at a realtor's office and made friends with a couple of my co-workers.

They invited me to come with them to their church since they were having a Christmas event that week before Christmas and said it was going to be fun so I should join them. This was in the 80s in Los Angeles so we had no cell phones or really anything like that at the time. I gave them my address and they told me when they'd be coming over and we left it at that. Now the day came for them to come over to pick me up and I got in their car and we headed to their church. The conversation was very normal, you know, stuff like favorite movies and the music we all liked and they were really into religious music which I thought was a little odd for a couple in their mid-20s but I but I tried not to judge, so I didn't comment on it. Now we got to their church, and the vibe just completely changed. The best word I can describe

the church as would be kind of culty. They were all very involved with the church. Pretty much every member volunteered their free time toward helping with the church in every aspect they possibly could. They all put a lot of money in their congregation. And throughout the service, a hat was passed around for donations, and when it got to me, I didn't see singles, fives, or even tens. It was mainly 20s and 50s and even $100 bills. It's not even like the building we were in was nice. It really wasn't.

It was dirty, and the furniture was very obviously old and falling apart. Everyone dressed nicely, but the one thing I thought the whole time was, why with all the money they got were they not renovating the place or investing in nicer furniture? It was all very sketchy. Everyone at the service introduced themselves to me, which wasn't terribly comfortable, but I put up with it. They seemed nice enough. They kept asking me questions like, so we'll be seeing you from now on right? Implying that I'd be coming back which I had already decided was absolutely not going to happen. I wanted out of that place the

second I stepped foot inside. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to offend anyone by what I'm saying. I am Christian myself, it's just these people were on a whole other level that I was not planning to go to with my faith. I've always been one who feels like your relationship with God is no one's business but your own, and these people were making me feel like they wanted to know everything about how I felt with my faith, and I just really didn't feel comfortable going into it. After the service had ended, I caught back up with my friends from work since I thought that we were all ready to go. Well, no. Apparently that wasn't going to be a possibility for hours. You see, my co-workers, like everyone else at the church,

volunteered their time as much as they could. And because they both had the day off, they were going to spend that day, the whole day, at the church. And because they were my ride and we were an hour from my apartment, I had to stay with them. We joined in on a Bible study session where the most radical, outlandish views were expressed and shared. I myself was cringing at 99% of what these people were saying. I had no idea people with those thoughts still even existed, let alone openly talked about them with 50 other people in the room. They kept asking me my thoughts and I kept declining to talk, saying that I was shy rather than just joined. If I was going to talk I had two choices. I could either tell the truth that I thought they were all insane

or I could pretend to agree. Neither seemed smart so I just kept my mouth shut completely. The whole second day was the most awkward encounter of my life but the night would be one of the scariest. Finally at around 7pm I was home. My apartment might have been small but wow was I glad to be back. Now let me explain the layout so you'll better understand what I'm about to tell you. My apartment had a small garage but it was not attached, meaning it was directly under my apartment but you couldn't access my apartment through the garage. I hope that makes sense. The stairs leading up toward my front door passed right by my bedroom window. So when you were going up the stairs, my bedroom window would be like shoulder height.

Okay, now that you have that in mind, I can tell you what happened. I was dropped off at around 7pm and I was tired, but not exhausted. I got into my pajamas and threw myself under a pile of pillows on the sofa in the tiny but cute living room I tried to make as cozy as possible. I turned on the TV and sat there peacefully for the next hour or so before I heard the sound of a car pull up outside the apartment. No big deal, a lot of people live there so I moved on and continued watching whatever show was on. I tried my best to put the thought out of my head but I realized that I never heard a door close. The walls of my apartment were really thin so I always heard my

neighbor's front doors close whenever they were coming or going. This time though there was no noise from a door shutting. Odd. I got up and slowly and quietly made my way into my bedroom. The lights in the apartment were all off and I was intent on keeping it that way. I peeked out the window and over the stairs and was confused when I saw my co-worker's car in the alleyway. They'd dropped me off over an hour before then and I watched them drive away. The weirdest part was they weren't even in the car. I closed the gap in the blinds that I'd made with my fingers and tiptoed back into the living room. I turned off the TV and sat there in the dark, listening and thinking of what they could possibly be doing back there. I heard the sound of their feet on the metal stairs as they made their way toward my doorstep. I was half expecting a knock but definitely not expecting what happened next.

My eyes went wide as I watched the doorknob jiggle as they tried opening the door from the outside. Lightly at first, but the jiggling became more forceful as they were obviously trying to get inside. Now I know you may be asking why I didn't just call the police on my landline, but to be completely honest, it didn't even come to my mind. I was 19 years old living on my own for the first time and I figured if I left it alone they would just go away. After they realized that they weren't going to get in through the front door they tried my bedroom window. I could hear them trying to push it. Luckily I have never been one of those people who doesn't lock their doors and windows. I'm really paranoid about that stuff

and that night it paid off. Once it was obvious that they weren't going to be able to get into my apartment on their own, they reverted to just knocking and calling out my name. They kept asking me to open the door, but I didn't say anything. I didn't want them knowing that I was even there. It took another hour of them sitting on my doorstep for them to finally get in their car and just drive off. The next day at work they just acted like nothing had happened. I didn't want to mention it because I didn't want them knowing that I was in my apartment when they were trying to get in and they never mentioned it. In fact they even had the audacity to ask me to come back to church with them.

I declined of course but they just wouldn't take no for an answer. They would come to my apartment and pick me up even when I had declined the invitation, and they even came by on Christmas day. Of all days you'd think they'd be at church. Thankfully, after a few times of me not answering the door over multiple weeks, they stopped coming by. I had no idea what their intentions were with me that night, but boy am I glad that I never had to find out. So this was the first time I was cooking Christmas dinner for the family. My mom usually did it, and if it wasn't her who cooked, my sister would take on the responsibility. But I really wanted to give it a try and host Christmas myself.

My mom didn't like the idea because I lived alone in a relatively small house that she wasn't sure would fit everyone, but I insisted. I spent days decorating the place and collecting recipes for the perfect dinner. I wanted my mom to be proud of me, for once. And ever since I moved far away from her, she thinks I ruined my life or something. The night before Christmas, I prepped the food and decided to cook a few things so they'd be ready the next day to just pop in the oven. I was putting the macaroni into the oven when I lost my footing and did what everyone is scared of doing. I fell face first into the oven when I lost my footing and did what everyone is scared of doing. I fell face first into the oven and screamed as my face sizzled against the metal rack. It took every bit of strength to pull myself out of there, but in the process, I burned the palms of my hands so badly

the skin that used to be there had completely come off. I was screaming and moaning from the pain, and then the worst thing that could have happened in that moment happened. The power went out. That may not seem like a big deal to most people but for someone who lives miles from the next house and has no cell service sometimes, it was a huge deal. I wanted to cry but I had to try my best to hold it together. I had two choices. I could go outside and try to drive through the deep snow and risk getting stuck, or I could wait for my family to find me. The more I thought about waiting, the more painful the burns got, and the more I realized waiting actually wasn't going to be an option. I wrapped my hands in the cleanest towels I could

find, and let me tell you, that was the most painful experience of my life. I applied some sterile gauze that I had over the wounds on my face and got clean clothes on before grabbing my jacket and keys and heading outside. I turned on the car and the hot air began to blast in my face, creating the most horrible burning sensation on the open skin still peeking through the bandages. I shut it off and rolled down the windows. The cold air was the only thing that gave me at least some relief. My car struggled to back up through the snow so I could turn around and begin the drive to the hospital 30 minutes away. I couldn't stomach the pain of placing my raw hands on the steering wheel so I used the tops of my thighs to steer as best I could. My body was running on pure adrenaline because even though the pain was extremely intense,

I also knew that that was not all the pain that I was supposed to be feeling after what happened. My car slid down the driveway as it tried its hardest to get through the snow, but there was no use. I slid off to the side of the road and that's where it would stay until someone could tow me out. I was stuck. I started screaming again. And not just from pain, but from pure desperation and frustration. I just needed help. I needed someone to help me.

Again, I couldn't wait in the car and I knew that there was a house about a quarter of a mile down the road, so I got out of the car and began to trudge through the snow as quickly as I could. I started to lose steam only feet from the door but fell close enough to it to knock. A little girl around 10 years old answered the door and instead of calling for her parents she just screamed and slammed the door in my face. I remember tears falling from my eyes as the hope of getting help dwindled. Thankfully, only about 30 seconds later, a man who I'm assuming was her father came to the door. He asked what was wrong, but before I could get any words out, my vision got blurry and I passed out. I guess it was all too much for my body to handle any longer. I woke up in the hospital,

confused and covered in bandages. My mom was sitting next to my hospital bed and didn't even notice that I had woken up. I tried to speak, but only a slight moan came from my lips. It was enough to get my mom's attention though. She called the nurses and then told me that I had been in a medically induced coma for three weeks and that the burns to my face, hands and arms and chest were so extensive, keeping me awake even with pain medication would effectively be torture. She told me the only reason I was alive was because I had decided not to wait. The doctors said I would have had a heart attack from all the stress the injuries put on my body

if I had decided to wait for my family to find me the next day, that is. He said I was one of the luckiest people he'd ever treated. The man whose doorstep I had stumbled on had immediately called the police. Only, he was amazing enough to know the ambulance would take a while to get all the way out there, so he picked me up, put me in his truck, and drove me to the nearest hospital himself. Not waiting contributed to saving my life, sure, but that man is the real hero. He saved my life, and I couldn't have been more grateful. He even came to visit me throughout the stay in the hospital.

I was in the hospital for five months, and the recovery process never got any easier. Being a burn victim comes with some very serious setbacks, but there was never a day I'm not happy to be alive. I'm just glad my family never had to tell anyone macaroni and cheese almost killed me. On a more serious note, be careful when you're putting something in the oven. If you're a clumsy person like me, maybe make sure there's someone around to help if you have that. Unfortunately for me, I don't see eye to eye with my family, so I moved about 18 hours away from my hometown. As for friends, well at the time of this story I didn't have any to speak of until I met Chet. He was an alright guy, your average everyday man. The reason why I say he was instead of he is, is because Chet and I

don't talk anymore. Sometimes people in your life can be just toxic and that was Chet for me. He was always getting me into weird and strange situations. Just for a little bit of backstory, I met Chet at my job. Nothing special, we both work at a local Target. Our friendship started out on a bit of an awkward note as Chet asked me out on a date. Unfortunately for Chet, I wasn't looking to date and I also don't like men. Chet took the news well and we honestly still hit it off as friends. The good parts of Chet were great.

We watched basketball, played Xbox and talked about movies all the time. It was nice to have a friend. As I mentioned earlier, he was always getting me into weird situations. For example, he constantly set me up on these blind dates that I didn't ask for and they always went horrible. I tried to not be too hard on Chet because I figured that he was just trying to help. Then the weird situations got much worse. We'd go out drinking downtown, which was a decent sized city, nothing huge but big enough, especially for me since I came from an extremely small town.

Now, while out drinking, Chet would take me to these strange dive bars and then just leave me there. I can hold my own, but things always seem to go off the deep end when Chet would leave, mostly because the crowds at these places weren't huge fans of someone like me. Blue hair isn't something the crowds at these places really cared for. So now you're probably asking yourself, why the heck do I keep hanging out with Chet if he keeps putting me in these horrible situations where I have to find my way home? The simple answer is, I'm an idiot. I was lonely, I was young, and I like Chet's company

most of the time. After one very bad accident when I got jumped trying to walk home, which is its own horrifying story for another day, I confronted Chet. I told him that the friendship was over. As much as I valued him, I couldn't put myself into those situations anymore. He was upset and apologized repeatedly. I accepted the apology and we both moved on with our lives. We stayed friends on Facebook and Xbox and all that, but that was it. No more hanging out or texting. No more invites to strange dive bars or blind dates. About a week after this conversation, Chet got fired or quit. I wasn't sure what happened, and that event really bummed me out. As the holiday season approached fast, I realized just how alone I really was, and it made me sad. I had been in

my new town for about eight months, and I still had nobody to share the holidays with. That weakness was the catalyst that caused me to text Chet, a decision that deep down I knew I would regret. Chet texted me back right away and was thrilled to hear from me. To be honest with you, I was thrilled to hear from him. I wasn't ready to go out drinking or anything like that, I just wanted some company, so I asked him to go out shopping with me. I figured since I didn't have anybody to shop for, I was going to do some holiday shopping for myself. Chet seemed pumped and we met up that Saturday and started our shopping. We picked up right where we left our friendship, the good parts that is. It was as if no time had passed since we last hung out. We went to a bunch of stores and I bought myself a lot of awesome stuff. Before calling it a night, Chet asked if we could go to one more store. Not even remotely being concerned about Chet or my well-being, I said of course and asked where we were going. Chet looked at me and smiled and he said in a confident

voice you just wait you're gonna love this place i shrugged and said okay not for one second thinking of all the times this dude left me at random places like i said i'm an idiot probably close to 20 minutes or so of driving i I finally asked him where we were going, and he responded, now in a much different tone than before, and said, We're going somewhere great. I already told you. You're gonna love it. This was the magic moment where everything clicked for me. Now about 20 minutes too late, I remembered Chet's game, and how he always put me in these horrible situations. But this felt different. Chet felt cold and now this wholesome situation somehow felt sinister. Call it whatever you want, but I just knew something was wrong. The only person I knew in the area that I could

text was my boss, Michelle. We were not close or friends or anything like that, but at least she knew me. I texted her my location and my situation. I told her I was with Jet, who used to work at the store, and that I had a bad feeling in my stomach. I apologized for texting her and told her that I had nobody else to text. First off, hats off to Michelle for texting me back right away, but what Michelle said made me sick. She texted back and said in her message, Send me your exact location right now. You may be in danger. I'm coming to get you.

What did that mean? I thought to myself. I kept sending her my updated location as Chet just drove in silence. We finally arrived at a broken down looking barn in the middle of nowhere. Chet got out of the car and told me to get out. I told him I was going to stay put until my ride got there. Well, that development made Chet very angry. He started to kick the dirt and mud around the car and started shouting,

Your ride? What ride? I wasn't even doing anything wrong. Yeah, I'm not sure what he thought he was doing, but this was definitely wrong. He started shouting at me from the outside of the car, saying, just go in the barn. You'll love it. There's a market in there. Come on. I told him it wasn't going to happen, and that he needed to step away from the car. He just screamed and cursed for a while, literally was having a temper tantrum. After a few minutes he abruptly turned and ran into the barn. There was literally no other cars here.

I started to think this was my chance to run. He was in there for about a minute or so and that was when I decided to quietly leave the car and sprint as fast as I could down the main road until hopefully Michelle or somebody passed by. At this point she must have been anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes away. I'm not sure exactly how long I'd been running but it felt like a while. Thankfully I ran cross country in high school so I was able to run a great distance and with the adrenaline of the situation, I felt like the flash. Finally, I saw headlights in the distance. It had to be Michelle, I thought. I turned up my speed to meet this vehicle coming at me and that's when I noticed Chet running full speed behind me. This lunatic was chasing me down and I had no clue that he was even trailing me at that moment.

Thankfully the vehicle was Michelle. She pulls over and I got into the backseat quickly and within seconds Chet was at the vehicle screaming, hey that's my date, come back. I just kept yelling drive, drive, drive over and over again and once we made it back in town, Michelle took me back to her place. By the time we got there, I'd already had about 23 missed calls from Chet. Michelle told me that unfortunately, I should get the law involved. I'm the type of person who doesn't like dealing with cops or anything that requires that kind of work, but she was right. This wasn't just some random altercation. This was a potentially dangerous maniac. She told me that he did in fact get fired. It was for violently threatening a customer.

I guess the law was involved then, but there was no evidence at all to press charges. He was only fired because it was like his fifth customer complaint. After everything was said and done, I finally have a restraining order against Chet. Due to all our friendly text messages and nothing of note at the barn that they found, the cops had nothing to really charge him with. I was told I could pursue this further, but I just wanted to move on with my life. I will say, as horrible as this memory was, I did gain a real friend out of this situation in Michelle. I got to spend Christmas with her and her family that year, and I'm planning on attending this Christmas as well.

I never heard from Chet again after that night. He's not on Facebook anymore, and I have him blocked on everything else. I have no idea what Chet was planning, and the less I think about it, the better I am. Anybody out there who reads this, please don't be like me. Don't be an idiot. If you know someone is just not right, avoid them. There's always another cure for loneliness. idea of shopping around the holidays. Up until just a few years ago I loved it, but an unfortunate event made me change my mind instantly. I used to like to think of myself as a professional shopper, in the sense that I've always been up to date with the latest sales, where to get them, and when is the best time to strike. Shopping at one time in my life

was more than an obligation, and in fact was a hobby. Well, several years ago, my friend Carissa and I were planning our route. Like I said, I knew the best deals and when to strike, so I mapped out the best course for us to maximize our holiday shopping. The first mistake I made was shopping on a Saturday. The store we went to was filled to the brim with people. It looked like chaos inside the giant department store with people literally running around. Carissa doesn't do well with rowdy crowds like this so she was anxious as can be. I like to move fast in these situations but because of her anxiety I was moving a lot slower than I like to.

The one thing I needed to get more than anything else here at this store was a video game for my brother and I knew that this said game was going to be a hot commodity. I could have gone to a dozen other stores but this store was selling the game for $15 cheaper than everywhere else. Once Carissa finally started to calm down a bit, I made a dash for the electronics department, and to my surprise and joy, the game was still on the shelf. As I grabbed the game, another woman came over and tried to grab the game out of my hands. I pulled away with some force and yelled, hey, watch what you're doing. I turned and started to walk away, and the woman started to shout at me. That was my game. You took it from me.

I just waved her off and kept walking as I shook my head in disbelief. I clearly grabbed the game first. Once I got back to my cart, I started to speak with Carissa. When out of nowhere, the same crazy woman pushed me over my cart. She pushed me with my back turned, and I fell into the ground. I got to my feet and tried to process what was happening, and before I could even remotely contemplate what was happening, this woman grabbed my hair and started to pull it. I kicked her off of me and proceeded to lash out on her with a verbal lashing of some choice words that I won't put on here. But let this be a lesson to all. Violence of any kind does not pay off because

security not only escorted this deranged woman out of the store, but I also got kicked out of the store as well. They didn't care about my side or her side of the story. They didn't want to deal with any trouble so basically we just got thrown out with a threat of legal action if we remained on the property. So, after all of that, neither of us got the game, or any of the other items I had in my cart already. I cooled off after a while, and Carissa and I got all of our shopping done elsewhere. I even found the game I was looking for. It was a little more money, but I still got it nonetheless. I wish I could say that this is where my story ends though, but of course, this nightmare was only just the start for me. When we finished shopping, we decided to go get a drink at one of the bars located right

in the same plazas as the other stores we went shopping at. We both just ordered a cheap beer and were planning on only having one drink. One drink turned into two drinks, of course, because we had a lot to talk about. As we got ready to cash out, a man came and stood right behind our stools. I could tell Carissa was visibly uncomfortable. It's a bar and sometimes people are oblivious to their surroundings, so I didn't care too much. But to make her feel better, I said something to the man. Hey, I'm sorry, we're getting ready to leave in a minute. Do you think you could maybe back up a little so we can get out? The man said nothing and just stared at me.

Uh, can I help you, dude? The man took a step closer and still said nothing. He was inches from the stool now, so close that I wouldn't be able to move the stool out even if I wanted to. This was probably the longest, most awkward 20 seconds of my life with no talking and finally the man said in a slow and raspy voice, What's wrong with you? I was amazed at that question. I'm sure I made a face of disgust, which probably made him angrier, but at that moment, I had no idea who this guy was or what he wanted. Before I could ever say anything, the man spoke up again and said, that was my game. You took it, and now I don't have it.

I started to laugh. In my head, I figured I playing with fire but I was so annoyed at this point that I didn't care. Look dude, I got kicked out of the store too. Your girlfriend or whatever she is attacked me. She's lucky I don't press charges. Back up and let us leave. The man slowly backed away and we grabbed our stuff and left. We walked away from the bar and made our way to the door and I turned around just to make sure this guy wasn't following us. He was an ugly man. He was probably

only in his early 30s but looked horrible. He smelled like old dirty socks and had these nasty buck yellow teeth. When I turned around, he was still standing by that bar stool. As we got outside, I heard Carissa gasp and she clenched her mouth. What is it? I said nervously. Carissa didn't even need to respond. I saw why she gasped right away. The woman from the store was standing next to my car. She was holding a bat or some type of blunt object in her hand. I wasn't about to say anything this time because it seemed like my mouth kept getting me in trouble. I tried to go back inside the bar and the man was standing right on the other side of the glass door. I tried to remain as calm as possible, especially since Carissa was completely unglued at this point.

My logic was telling me that we were only in minor danger. It was still only around 8pm currently and there were a ton of people and witnesses all around. I grabbed Carissa's arm and said in a calm voice, just breathe and try to relax. I'm going to grab my phone and call the police. I slowly reached for my phone and the woman started to dash at me again just as she did inside the store. I like to call it a holiday miracle but the impossible happened next. A group of six people came outside the bar,

stepped in front of us and basically shielded us. I assumed that they were three couples as they must have witnessed everything that went down in the bar and outside. The one bigger guy from the group looked at the woman and said, you don't want to do this. Just walk away. The woman paused in her tracks. She looked like she was going to charge at us again, but she lowered her head and just ran away. Seconds after that, the man from inside the bar charged through the door and ran in the same direction as the woman. My thought was correct. The bigger guy who confronted the woman, his girlfriend was the one who quite honestly saved our life. She was outside the bar smoking a cigarette and she heard the guy and the woman talking about luring the two girls out and then taking care of business, whatever that means. The woman from the bar thought it sounded suspicious obviously so she told her boyfriend

about the conversation. Not five minutes after that, she said as when she saw the little man standing right behind us at the bar stools. At that moment, the girl, her boyfriend and the entire party watched the entire situation unfold and I'm so thankful that they did. There really are some good people out there. I understand that there is so much more I could have done in that situation. I didn't handle it correctly at all, and I guess that may just be a result of me being in my early twenties at the time, and honestly, I just didn't really want to extend this horrible interaction any longer. I did contact the location manager of the entire plaza to let them know about these two creeps but they really didn't seem to care too much

At least it didn't seem like they cared They said something along the lines of they get hundreds of complaints every day or something like that I have yet to visit that plaza since that horrible December night The only positive that came from that night is that I now have a wild story I can share with new friends this time of year, and I gained six new Facebook friends that I'm still in contact with today. I may be a negative person, but I hate the holidays. I hate the cold, I hate the snow, but more than anything, I hate the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, especially the holiday shopping season.

Maybe I'm just jaded from working in retail my entire adult life, but people are a special kind of rude during Christmas. Also, it's possible that I am just extra jaded right now because this story is very fresh and actually just happened a few days ago. So, full disclosure, I apologize in advance if anybody reading this loves Christmas or the holiday season. I don't mean to offend you, but if I didn't hate it before, I certainly do now. The last several years, I've done about 95% of my holiday shopping online, and that had been the greatest gift that anybody could ever ask for. Shopping for all my loved ones from the comfort of my living room is something that I cherish, probably more than the actual holiday. However, this year my friend Laura

moved back up north from Georgia and wanted to go to the mall. My hometown has a very large mall that is packed to the brim this time of year. I love Laura to death, but I don't agree on certain things. She loves people and crowds, and in case you haven't picked up on it yet, I hate crowds and people, and really everything of that sort. Back in high school, everyone used to call me The Grinch, a nickname that I sort of embraced. Sidebar, what's funny about that nickname is that my name is Cindy, so instead of calling me Cindy Lou Who, who is a character from The Grinch for anyone that doesn't know, they call me The Grinch. Just a funny coincidence, I think. Laura begged me to go

shopping with her at the mall and even though I knew I was going to hate it, I agreed to go with her because she was my best friend. And just as I thought, the mall was a circus. There were thousands of people rushing around doing holiday stuff. Laura was in her glory. Laura isn't an idiot though and she knew how much I hated all of this so she promised to buy me lunch after we finished our shopping. A sweet deal for me. After a few hours of just absolute torture,

we went to one of the many restaurants in the mall. This was by far the best part of the trip. Until we noticed one of the men working there. I assumed that he was a busboy or a dishwasher or something. He worked there for sure, but he wasn't a server. I kept asking Laura to make sure that I wasn't crazy and looked to see if this guy was staring directly at me. And I don't mean like looking at me, I mean like staring. Intensely staring.

At first she laughed it off, but once an hour or so went by and he was still staring at me, I was not pleased. I asked our server who the guy was and if he was weird or anything like that. She laughed and said, Oh, that's Dax. He's a sweet guy. He just divorced his wife a few months ago, so he's probably trying to tell you he's interested or something. Laura and the server laughed, but I didn't find it funny. It's one thing to steal a glance and check someone out,

but this was different somehow. He was staring at me like he was in shock that I was there. Like how a small child stares upon Santa for the first time. We paid our tab and moved on with our lives. I was done with them all and I was most assuredly done with Dax or whoever he was. That night, Laura was going to stay over at my house for old time's sake. We planned on drinking wine, wrapping presents in front of my fireplace, and watching some Christmas movies. At some point during the night, we noticed a car outside my living room window. We looked, and the bright halogen lights were on, but we couldn't see

the driver. I have parking on my street, so this wasn't too strange. It was just kind of annoying because the lights were pretty much shining right inside my house. The car remained there for a while though, but finally turned the lights off. We looked at the car again and there was no driver. So whoever was the driver parked the car for the evening and finally went to wherever their destination was. After the lights ordeal, we decided to watch Jim Carrey's The Grinch. We both passed out about halfway through the movie. I woke up a few hours later to Laura whispering my name and shaking me.

It was around 1.30am and Laura said that she thought she heard something in the kitchen a little while ago. I don't like being woken up so I said some dismissive comment and told her to go back to bed. I closed my eyes but I could feel Laura still standing over me. Annoyed I said, what Laura? There's literally nobody else here, it was probably the ice maker. She looked terrified and said, Cindy, there were footsteps. I heard someone in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure the footsteps went upstairs. She piqued my interest, but I was confident that in the neighborhood that I lived, I did not have an intruder. Still annoyed, I rolled up off the couch, sighed, and said,

Okay, let's have a look, shall we? She didn't want to, but she didn't want to be alone either. So, she followed me, even though she was clearly shaking in fear. In the kitchen, there appeared to be no signs of evidence of any types of break-ins or forced entry. I started to walk up the staircase and Laura begged me not to. I told her that I needed to so we could go back to bed in peace. Next to the back door was my old softball stuff from fall. I grabbed my bat and told her that we would be safe because I have a bat.

A decision that proved to be the best one I ever made. We got upstairs and stood in the narrow hallway. I turned on the light and said, Look, Laura, no monsters or intr- I stopped immediately in mid-sentence because I noticed two very alarming things. Number one, my closet in the hallway was ajar, something that I never let happen due to my OCD. I always make sure my doors are shut all the way. And number two, there was mud coming from my bedroom doorway leading to the closet. Laura, who was still standing on the landing that leads upstairs, whispered,

What is it, Cindy? I turned and looked back at her and mouthed the words, Call 911 now! While I was turned around looking at Laura, the closet door busted open and someone ran full speed at me and Laura. With zero hesitation, I turned and smashed the intruder in the face with my bat. And they fell to the ground instantly and began writhing in pain. I was now screaming to Laura to call 911 as I stood in a baseball stance ready to swing for the fences again.

And that's when I noticed who the intruder was. The guy. The creep from lunch. Dax. I wanted to hit him again, but I refrained from the urge. I was somehow in the moment cognizant of my actions. I didn't know if I could get in trouble if I actually seriously hurt this guy. Within minutes the police showed up and apprehended that guy, Dax, immediately and when they were bringing Dax out of my house he just kept whining and saying, I love you Cindy, how could you do this to me? After some back and forth with police and obviously I'm going to press charges, we found out that Dax had graduated with me and Laura. I had zero memory of this dude, but my graduating class had like 1200 kids or something, and I knew like 50 of them. Because this just happened, nothing of note has occurred yet. He was arrested, and he's still

being held at the jail. I have another meeting with my lawyer tomorrow to go over some things. I just really wanted to share this story with anybody that would listen. The image of Dax, clearly not his real name for legal reasons, bursting out of my closet is an image that has burned into my brain. I can't even go upstairs without shaking and being reminded of the night. I may have handled it like a champ, sure, but mentally, I'm scarred. If I didn't hate the holidays a ton before, I absolutely to pick up some extra shift as a security guard at my local mall. I'm a bigger guy and this job allows

me to on rare occasions to use a little bit of my muscle. For my main job I sit at a desk all day long from 8 to 5 so this part time gig is perfect for me. For the most part I walk around the mall in the afternoon and evening just trying to maintain as much order as you can around the holidays. My imposing stature is usually enough to keep people from getting too wild, but you know how it is this time of year. People get wild and crazy, and for the most part, I rarely have to kick people out or get the actual law involved, so for me, it's just easy money. However, one year my experience was different. It was so horrifying in the moment, and I'm not sure if I

can articulate just how scary it was but I will try to write my story to the best of my ability. With only a few weeks until Christmas I started my part-time work at the mall. Usually I go in on a Saturday around noon and I work till about 9 30 or 10 p.m. This specific Saturday though I got offered by my supervisor to work a much different shift. I was going to be going in at around 6pm and working overnight security. I loved the idea. The second half of my shift consisted of just walking around, doing all my checkpoints and listening to music or a podcast all night. When I arrived at 6pm, the night was much like any other holiday night. It was insanely

busy. People were everywhere, teenagers were causing issues, and parents were scrambling to finish their shopping for the year. The mall completely cleared out at around midnight, leaving the restaurants on the far side of the mall. I did all my checkpoints, and my night of podcasts was just beginning. Every hour or so I would have to make my rounds and just check a few things. At 3.30am I was passing a section of the mall and a door was open that should not have been opened. Most malls or department stores have these secret back rooms that essentially run through the backside of the mall. It's almost like a shortcut to get to different sections of the mall without having to deal with any of the foot traffic.

My mall was so big that there was a bank on the inside of this hall where they could cash the checks of the employees who worked at this mall. So needless to say, this door should have been shut and locked. I approached the open door and noticed some boxes knocked over. I'm a rational guy, but I have to be honest. I was scared not because I thought that there may be an rational guy, but I have to be honest. I was scared not because I thought that there may be an intruder, but because of something paranormal. I love listening to horror podcasts, so I was a little jumpy. I took off my headphones so I could listen to the desolate hallway. I could hear a noise that sounded like shuffling, but couldn't see anything,

and my heart was racing. I slowly made my way down the hall. It was about 30 feet to the wall, and then a right turn down another massively long hall. I made my way to the wall, and when I turned, I just about jumped out of my uniform. There was a person about 10 feet away from me, shuffling very slowly down the hall. He looked like he was almost ice skating on the ground. I shouted to the guy, hey, hey you, you can't be here. If you leave now, I won't call the police. The protocol was to call my supervisor or the police right away, but I just wanted to diffuse the situation myself. The man didn't respond to my shouting at all and just kept shuffling away from me. Hey, you hear me? Still no response.

I slowly approached the person and when I got close, I noticed that he was humming. I couldn't tell the tune that he was humming, but he was definitely humming under his breath. I got right on his side and tried to communicate with the man one last time. Alright buddy, you need to leave right now No response And even more horrifying He was wearing an old school clown mask Like a plastic clown mask that you buy for cheap, not a nice rubber mask So of course, now all I could think about was a killer clown

So I was extremely on edge And this was around the time when the clown stories were happening all over the place So of course, now all I could think about was a killer clown, so I was extremely on edge. And this was around the time when the clown stories were happening all over the place. Alright, I tried to warn you. I'm calling the police. The statement didn't bother the man at all. He just kept humming and shuffling along. I called my supervisor, who called the authorities himself and said that he was on his way in now and to just leave the guy alone in case he might be dangerous. He told me to just keep an eye on him and make sure that I don't lose him.

A few minutes later, the cops showed up with my supervisor and we all confronted the shuffling man, who at this point was almost to the end of the long hallway, which empties out to the other side of the mall. The cops did their thing and the man just kept moving. Finally, the cops grabbed him and arrested him, and that is when he finally stopped shuffling his feet. One of the cops removed his mask, and I kid you not, the man was wide-eyed and smiling. He legitimately looked like the Joker. The cops were trying to communicate with the guy, but he just kept saying in a low and methodical voice, I'm staying overnight. Hooray!

I'm staying overnight. Hooray! Over and over with that haunting smile. He just kept repeating it like some type of robot. The cops started to escort the man out of the mall and that's when I noticed the humming tune that he was singing was that phrase that I just heard him utter. I wish I had more of an update on this story for anybody reading this but unfortunately I don't know what happened to this shuffling mall clown. I mean he was technically breaking the law just by being inside the mall and being in a location he wasn't supposed to be, but calling the authorities is as far as I took it. I'm assuming this man was not right in the head, and I hope he got the help he needed.

Now every holiday season when I work my security job, I'm always on the lookout for this strange mall clown. It's been a handful of years now and I haven't seen him yet. Maybe this holiday, I'll hear really hate the Christmas shopping season. To them, it's more like a nuisance to shop for loved ones, as if they're only doing it out of some sort of requirement. Me, on the other hand, I love this time of year so much. So much, in fact, that I went and got a job at Kohl's part-time just to assist with all the holiday shopping, and I love retail and customer service, which I realize makes me sound actually insane, but I do love it. I only worked maybe 10 hours a week just as a cashier. They

really liked me there and constantly offered me more hours, but I didn't want to sacrifice my main job for slightly more than minimum wage. Like I said, this was just a part-time job because I love helping people during the holiday season. I was always so cheerful and bubbly to the customers. I tried to have my temperament come off as infectious as I tried to spread holiday cheer to every customer who came through my line. During my time as a cashier, I had every type of customer you can imagine. Great ones, bad ones, and everything in between. But one customer specifically I have to put in his own category.

He wasn't just bad, he was terrifying and traumatizing. My evening started like every other evening I worked. It was around 5pm and only a week until Christmas, so the people were getting crazy. Toward the end of my shift, the peculiar looking man came through my line. He was tall, like really tall. Now I'm only 5 foot 3 and this guy seemed to be way over a foot taller than me. He had a long brown beard that went down to his chest. His hair was very long and wild and went in every direction possible, but he was still rocking a bald patch right in the top center of his head. He was an average built guy,

and if I had to guess, I would say in his late 40s. His clothes were more shocking than his appearance, and he had a lime green coat that was zipped up to the top. Across the back of the coat was the phrase, Santa's helper. He was wearing aviator style glasses, but they had no lenses in them. It was just the frames. He had two front teeth, and that seemed like all of his teeth, at least that I could see. I don't know what you would call his pants. They were like pants that you'd see in an old American movie or play, like something George Washington would wear. And he had the high stocking to go with the pants. I know they have a name, but I can't remember what they're called. Sorry, I know that was a long and overly descriptive explanation, but I really want you to be able to visualize this

weirdo. When he finally got ready to cash out, he was literally buying one throw pillow that you'd put on a love seat or a small sofa. It was a pillow with Santa's face on it. A creepy Santa, not a cute cartoony one. I greeted the man and went through my entire cold speech at the register. When I was done speaking, the man just stared at me with his blank and almost expressionless eyes. After a moment of awkwardness, he finally said, You're perfect. You know that. Not the weirdest thing anybody has ever said to me, but coming from him, it was a bit alarming. I just smiled and said thank you.

I cashed him out quickly and gave him his receipt and said in my chipper voice, Have a nice day. And I smiled at the man. He didn't walk away for a few seconds and continued to stare at me. I finally just turned to the next customer, who forcibly threw all their stuff on the counter for me to cash out. All while this happened, the man barely broke his concentration on me and slowly started to walk away as he kept me in his sights the entire time. I finally decided to just ignore him and go on with my shift. Before long, it was so busy that I had forgotten about this strange man.

He wasn't in the store anymore and I have to say I did feel a strange sense of relief. I figured the guy was just a little strange and I didn't want to hold it against him. That night when I left, I had one of my co-workers walk me to my car just because I felt it in my bones that this guy was some type of loose cannon. Again, I felt relief when I got to my car and saw that I had no giant man waiting for me. But that night when I got home, I told my husband all about the man and how creepy and weird the interaction was. My husband laughed because he thought it was just funny and in that moment I kind of chuckled too. Before bed that night as my husband and I were getting ready, we heard a knock on the door. We both looked at each other in confusion and with a bit of fear. Who the heck is the person at the door, we thought.

My husband shouted, who is it? Instead of a verbal response, the person at the door responded with another knock, then followed that knock with three more knocks, all about a second apart. We approached the door together and looked out of the living room window where we could see who was at the door. I kid you not, it was the man from my line earlier. My husband looked at me and said, is that the guy you were telling me about? How does he know where you live? I couldn't even speak. I just stood there frozen. My husband approached the door and yelled from our side,

Hey listen, if you leave now I won't call the police. I was watching the man through the living room window during this interaction. After my husband said that, the man took his hand off the door and just stood in front of the door. I mean legitimately just standing in front of the door. It looked like his nose was touching the door from my vantage point. When the man didn't respond, my husband said, alright then, police it is. After he said that, the man started to bang on the door harder and harder. My husband stood there holding the door as he called the police, and even though I don't think this man could have broken through the locks, finally I yelled, What do you want? And the man stopped knocking again.

He turned to look at me through the living room window. Did you mean that? What you said earlier? I looked at the man and said, I have no idea what you're talking about. The man walked toward the window, now standing right in front of it. You told me to have a nice day. Did you mean it? I didn't answer him.

I probably should have because now he started to bang on the window and he yelled, Did you mean it? I didn't answer him. I probably should have because now he started to bang on the window and he yelled, Did you mean it? I just started to scream. My husband stood in front of me and basically stood on the other side of the window waiting for the police to show up. The man grabbed a rock from the front of the house. He threw it, using it to break the window. As the glass shattered, my husband ran at the man and kicked him as he tried to climb through the window. He fell back and as he got back up to approach the window, the cops were pulling up to the house. Two police officers ran

up to the man as he still tried to climb inside, even though the cops grabbed him and pulled him back. As the cops were trying to apprehend the man, he said again in a loud voice, did you mean it? The cops pulled him away and put him in the back of the squad car. My husband talked to the cops and I just sat there trying to process the insanity of the events that just happened. Clearly, the man was arrested and charged and as far as I know, he's still in custody as of currently. The scariest part of this entire story is the next morning when we went outside to assess all the damage. The Santa pillow was right outside the window and it had a note on it attached to the back of the pillow that said, Have a nice day. As the day of Christmas rapidly approaches, we all tend to wait until the last minute to do our holiday shopping. Sometimes it's a result of just waiting for the proper funds to come in,

but more times than not, it's because we just wait entirely too long. That's what I did last year around this time, and it taught me a lesson I'll never forget. It was about a week away until Christmas, and I had yet to buy anything for my boyfriend. He had an extremely stressful year, and I had every intention of spoiling him this year, but the time just slipped away. More than anything in the world, he wanted a PlayStation 5, and he jokingly said that's what he wanted. He didn't expect me to get that for him due to the steep price tag at the time and the near impossible availability of the merchandise, but like I said, this year I really wanted to do something special for him. So, I have to say, I'm not a gamer and I don't know anything about that world other than whatever I see him playing, so I didn't really understand just how

hard it would be to get my hands on a PlayStation 5. That week I went to every single store and called every store within 50 miles and nobody had a PS5. And that's what I get for waiting until the last second. I was determined to get my hands on the PlayStation no matter what though, so I did what everyone does and looked online for anybody selling a PS5 and I found dozens of hits and then almost threw up at how much people were asking for a video game system. I was in utter shock that people spent that much on video games, but like I said said I know nothing about

that world. I remember going to work that night and asking some of my co-workers who play video games if that was normal and they confirmed that if I desperately wanted a PS5 that I was going to have to spend way more money than the asking price. That night I narrowed down my search to the three cheapest prices. Two of the ads were well over an hour from my house, and the most expensive of the three were only about 20 minutes away. I decided to text the number and see if the machine was still available, and if it was, I was going to get it for him. The guy's name was Alan, and he wanted all inquiries to text him to the number he provided, which I did. We chatted for a bit, and he seemed like a pretty alright guy, other than the fact that he was hoarding and selling Playstations at a jacked up price.

We agreed on a time to meet up at 9pm that Monday. I was not crazy about that time, but he said he could only do nights because of his job. He seemed a little sketchy, like anything on the internet, but I needed that PlayStation, so I was going to make this happen no matter what. Monday night comes and I certainly wasn't going to meet this Alan fellow by myself. I called my friend Rita who agreed to come with me. Rita is a tough chick who I wouldn't mess with. In fact, I don't know very many human beings who would mess with Rita. Not only is Rita beautiful, but she's built like a goddess. She does professional weightlifting and she's way over six feet tall. So just on the off chance that this deal ended up being something horrible, Rita would be there to regulate. The drive out to

Alan's address was terrible. Of course, the snow started to come down hard when we were going to an area in the dark that we're unfamiliar with. A little over twenty minutes later we pulled up to the address provided by Alan. The house was a beat up looking shack. If not for the big red pickup truck outside I would say that this place is certainly abandoned. I texted Alan that I was outside and questioned if this was the correct address. He said it was and to just come right in. Rita said if I go inside that she'd have to beat me up just for being that dumb. So I asked if he could come outside, and he responded that he had broken his leg and he was not able to move, hence why all the lights were off. I looked at Rita and said, I have to at least check this out. He could be telling the

truth. Rita looked at me like I was insane, and I think I was a little nuts. Rita said, I have to at least check this out. He could be telling the truth. Rita looked at me like I was insane and I think I was a little nuts. Rita said, girl, this is clearly a setup. Get your man something else. It's not worth getting robbed or worse. I thought for a second, then looked at Rita and smiled and I said, well, that's why you're here, love, so I don't get robbed or worse. Just writing this, I feel sick about how horrible of a friend I am. I literally put myself and my best friend in danger for my own selfish needs. Anyway, Rita sighed and agreed to come to the door with me, but she insisted on leading the way. Right before we were about to get out of the car, Alan texted me again and said, are you coming or what? As we got out of the car and started to approach the beat up house, I was typing and sending a message just saying that we were

walking to the door now. Well, good thing I sent that text because right after I pushed send, we were walking by the red truck and I heard a buzz as we passed. Rita and I both looked at each other because that sounded like a phone vibrating right as Alan would have received my message. So the question to us was, why would he be in that truck? I received another message from Alan and this time the message said, I thought you were coming alone. I read the message out loud for Rita, who basically at this point was about to carry me back to the car. That message was my breaking point and I didn't like any of this, so I decided to just get in the car and leave. At that exact moment, the red truck turned on and peeled out of the driveway, nearly hitting Rita who drove out of the way. Rita was laying on the ground holding her arm in pain and the red truck turned around now heading back toward me

in the driveway. I ran over to Rita to try to help her. She was slow to get to her feet and when the driver of the truck was only a few feet away, he stopped and got out of the truck. It was a short man, but he looked like he was very muscularly built. He ran at me, grabbing my arm and tugged me toward the truck. I tried to fight him off, but he was incredibly strong for being that small. But thank God for Rita though. This one of a kind woman got up, ran at the guy, and shoulder checked him. He let go of me, got back in the truck, and just peeled off once again. We helped each other up, got in our car, and sped off in the opposite direction of his truck. We took every zigzag that we could to find our way home.

As we got back to Rita's house, we called the police and made an official statement. I gave the cop all the information I could, but of course, like all these scam artists, none of this information given by Alan was real. Neither Rita nor I got a good look at the license plate and honestly, through the darkness, the snow, and all the chaos, I couldn't even tell you for sure which brand of truck it even was. I thought it was a Chevy and Rita thought it was a Ford. All I know for sure is that Alan had a red pickup truck. The number was a burner phone or whatever those things are called and his profile was of course fake and deleted. The cops did everything they could and they tried to be more helpful but unfortunately we just didn't have very much information to go on. I owe everything I have to Rita for saving me that night.

I told my boyfriend this story after Christmas and he nearly lost his mind. Rita ended up breaking her arm when she dove out of the way and that made the injury even worse when she shoulder checked the guy. I felt so horrible. I even offered to help Rita pay her hospital bill but she refused to let me. I will never wait until the last minute to do my holiday shopping ever again, and if I can't find what I'm looking for at the store or online, then I'll find something else. To be continued... Every year I do my holiday shopping with my buddy Jason. It's just kind of like a holiday tradition for us at this point since we've been doing it since middle school and I'm now 31. The story I'm about to share with you happened last year and my skin still crawls thinking about the nightmare I endured last year.

Dealing with crowds and traffic is enough of a nightmare during the holidays but this story is much worse. Last year when Jason and I went shopping he asked if his friend TC could come. Obviously, this was cool with me as I didn't care if more people came. We were just shopping after all and I figured any friend of Jason would be a friend of mine. Also, TC seemed like a cool name too. I don't know why. We did our normal route that we usually hit every year. We started with the mall, then hit up the classic stores like Target and Walmart. For the most part, I get all my holiday shopping done the day Jason and I go every year.

The only person I had left to shop for was my little brother, who was a big tech kid. I asked if we could make one more stop to this local tech store in the city. It was a rough area outside of town, but this store was known throughout the state. We stopped at the store and I got my brother his gift. I felt good knowing my shopping experience was over for the year. When we got back to the car, TC spoke up and said in an excited voice, Yo, about three blocks that way is an abandoned building.

I helped shoot an independent film there. You guys have to check it out. Jason was apprehensive to say the least. We pointed out the fact that it would be trespassing and we would probably get into a lot of trouble if someone got caught. However, I was totally down to check it out. It was still broad daylight and this part of the city was basically in ruins at this point. I figured nobody was going to stop us and if anybody did see us, I really don't think that they would say anything. Jason agreed to check it out and even though I could tell that he was super uncomfortable with the situation. After the very short drive,

we approached the abandoned building. I think I'm just weird, but I love buildings like this. They have such character and history, and now they're just shells. There's an eerie beauty to these abandoned buildings. I imagine to myself that they're like modern day ancient tombs. The inside of the building was awesome too. TC was somewhat giving us a tour of what he remembered of the place, but he seemed almost as if he was winging it. There were some scary corridors that were pitch black. We had to use our cell phone flashlights to see. After traversing several flights of stairs and making our way through the maze-like building, I didn't really have an idea of where in the building we were. The building was falling apart it seemed as structures seemed to be knocked over all throughout the building.

Jason and I continued following TC down some halls and then we started to approach another dark corridor. We pulled out our phones again and that's when TC shouted, Check this out! He was a little in front of us and he stood there pointing to a room off the dark hallway. All three of us shined our lights in this dark room and it was spooky, I must admit that. There were symbols and all sorts of graffiti on the walls. I stepped into the room to take a closer look. I stood in about the center of the room, waving my hands slowly above my head so I could read all the writing and symbols on the ceiling. Jason and TC stood in the hallway, still shining their lights in the room where I was

standing. As I looked at the ceiling, I heard TC say, you guys hear that cracking noise? Well, I heard it a little too late. The floor in the room I was standing in completely collapsed. It hurt bad, but I knew nothing was broken, thankfully. I'm coughing and shouting up to Jason and TC, Guys, I dropped my phone when I fell, give me a hand. I'm still dazed when Jason and TC came over and shined their lights down into the pit that I fell into, and all I heard was Jason scream. I looked all around me, in the pit that I fell into and all I heard was Jason's scream. I looked all around me in the pit where I fell and there was millions of spiders crawling everywhere. I mean every inch of

this pit was filled with a wave of some type of creepy crawly spiders. It looked like the walls were breathing because of how many spiders were crawling all over the place. With the light shining down I saw my phone and it was already covered with spiders. They were crawling on my arms, hands, legs, everywhere. I started to freak out and shake myself and I could feel them falling off my head and hair. I screamed and panicked. I don't like spiders objectively speaking but this, this was an overkill. I was trapped in this pit and I couldn't get out. Not without their help. The ledge was way too high up to grab. As I was going crazy down in the pit I heard TC say, No way. No way. I'm out of here. I just kept screaming. I don't know if I was yelling for help or just yelling. And finally,

Jason came over to the pit and lowered a big pipe of some kind. I grabbed it and I used the wall to walk myself up out of the hole. Once I got back to the floor, Jason and I both ran until we got to a big open room that was illuminated by the sun outside. We both jumped and shook around, and I kid you not, dozens of spiders were falling out of me. I took about 90% of my clothes off and just ran around the room screaming as I brushed my hands through my hair and beard. I finally caught my breath and started to calm down a little bit. I refused to put my clothes back on, and thankfully Jason gave me his flannel to wear.

I even left my shoes behind. I walked out to my clothes back on and thankfully Jason gave me his flannel to wear. I even left my shoes behind. I walked out to my car barefoot and nothing but shorts that were under my sweatpants and Jason's flannel. TC was out by the car and when we approached, he just started laughing and said, That was crazy, man. You know what's even more crazy? This isn't even the building we shot that film in. It's that building over there. You want to check it out? I stared at him like he was speaking another language to me. I told him to shut up and get in the car. And that night I couldn't stop itching. I felt like I had spiders crawling on me for weeks. Even as I write this,

I have to keep stopping and just itching myself. And the worst part about this nightmare is that whatever kind of spiders these were, they were biting me. That night when I took a shower, I had little red marks all over my body from where the spiders were biting me. I have yet to talk to TC since the incident and I don't think Jason has talked to him either. Next time I go holiday shopping, I won't be taking any abandoned building tours. To be continued... Wednesday and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit r slash let's read official and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video.

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