The Lets Read Podcast - 251: THE FBI FOUND A MURDER BUNKER | 18 True Scary Stories | EP 239

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about dark family secrets, notorious FBI cases & creepy convention encounters HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsRead ♫ Music & Audio Mix: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by IQbar, BetterHelp and Minds Of Madness

Discover the exciting action of 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. Make instant deposits or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Ben MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Checking off your to-do list? Here's an easy one from Pennzoil. Get up to a $30 MasterCard prepaid virtual card with the purchase of 10 liters of Pennzoil Ultra Platinum at Canadian Tire. Maximizing engine protection and getting a reward for it? That's two checks on your list. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Offer ends 8-31-25. Valid at participating locations only.

Valid email address required. Terms apply. See pennzoil.ca slash offer for details. MasterCard is a trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated. On the morning of October 23, 1998, 52-year-old Dr. Barnett A. Slepian returned home from his local synagogue following a memorial service for his late father. Born in April of 1946, Dr. Slepian was the son of two first-generation Soviet immigrants who started a family in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He first graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in zoology, then dedicated himself to the study of medicine at Mexico's Autonomous University of Guadalajara.

After finishing medical school, Dr. Slepian settled in upstate New York and opened up a large private OBGYN practice in the city of Buffalo. The practice offered a wide range of full-service care, from pap smears and infertility treatments to prenatal and delivery care. Dr. Slepian proved very popular with his patients, who spoke of his warmth, sincerity, and skillfulness in his work. But among other circles, Slepian wasn't just unpopular, he skillfulness in his work. But among other circles,

Slepian wasn't just unpopular, he was downright despised. As a result of his work providing abortions, Dr. Slepian was targeted by some of the most vicious anti-abortion activists in the country. Protesters from all over the United States descended on Dr. Slepian's practice. Some picketed silently, others were far more vocal. Pig, Murderer, and Monster were just some of the abusive names directed at Dr. Slepian, but the man himself tried to keep politics, religion, and medicine separate and focused on providing care to the women and girls who needed it. He brushed off the protests with his signature dry sense of humor and often soothed the fears of nurses and other employees by bringing baskets full of fruit or baked goods

into his practice. He was tremendously collegial to me personally, said one of his co-workers, dropping everything and rushing to help me during my first week when a patient worried me. Moreover, rather than criticizing me for interrupting his day, he complimented me on my concern. It's not clear if Dr. Slepian was attending his late father's funeral or rather a special Hebrew commemoration service known as Yartzite that takes place on the anniversary of a loved one's death. But either way, the service had taken place quite early in the morning with the doctor returning home at around 10 a.m. Dr. Slepian walked into his kitchen and began heating up a pan of soup as part of a late breakfast.

Then, as he worked a wooden spoon around the base of the pan, the small glass window in front of him shattered, and a sudden force hit him squarely on one side of his collarbone. After Dr. Slepian fell backwards, collapsing into a crumpled heap on his kitchen floor, there's a chance that he was only conscious for a matter of seconds before he passed away. The bullet that tore through his throat not only burst several major blood vessels, but it also shattered his spine, leaving him completely without feeling from the neck down. A painless death might have made for a small mercy, but it was completely overshadowed by the fact that Dr. Slepian's young son, who was sitting at the kitchen table just feet away, was forced to watch his father's death. It was only minutes later that the boy's mother became aware of the situation and she rushed to dial 911.

But by then, it was too late and a man who'd spent his morning grieving the loss of his father had been tragically sent to join him. Make no mistake, said New York's Governor George Pataki, this is an act of terrorism, a cold-blooded assassination. It is beyond a tragedy and Dr. Slepian will be missed. Down in D.C., U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno promised the federal government would do whatever it takes to track down and prosecute whoever is responsible for this murder. Attorney General Reno also stated that she and her colleagues were actively investigating the possibility that Dr. Slepian was murdered because of his work providing family planning

services. The federal government will continue its vigilant defense of constitutionally protected rights to provide and to obtain reproduction health service. In the weeks before Dr. Slepian's murder, he'd been visited by members of the FBI, who'd warned him of a chilling, credible threat to his life. In previous years, four other abortion doctors had been the victims of lone sniper attacks, some in northern New York and others in far eastern Canada. But despite being warned that he too might become a target, Dr. Slepian refused to be intimidated. Given that his murder matched the criminal characteristics of the preceding four attacks, police very quickly assumed Dr. Slepian's murder to be the work of radical anti-abortion activists,

and in particular, those under the sway of Minister Philip Flip Benham. While those on either side of the abortion debate have traditionally called for peaceful and productive dialogue, Benham has publicly eschewed pacifism in all of its forms. For anyone to take it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner is nothing but sheer evil, said Karen Pryor, who formerly ran for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the ticket of the anti-abortion right to life party. Benham called her attitude pitiful. Unless abortion is outlawed in this country, Benham once said, we are in store for more bloodshed in the streets, the likes of which

will sicken even the sturdiest among us. The FBI reportedly approached Minister Benham in the aftermath of Dr. Slepian's murder, but were told they were barking up the wrong tree. Slepian has been a killer for a long time, Benham supposedly said, but I can't support outright murder and I'm sad to learn of his death. In fact, Benham hadn't heard rumors of snipers or assassins in any of his evangelical circles, but what had reached his ear is that a certain website seemed to have learned of Dr. Slepian's death before any other, a website belonging to a group known as the Lambs of Christ. According to Flip Benham, within less than an hour of Dr. Slepian's murder,

a chilling update was posted on the Lambs of Christ webpage. It was a simple black and white JPEG, depicting Dr. Slepian's name, but with a line drawn through it. Alternatively known as Victim Souls of the Unborn Child Child, the organization was founded by Norma Westland in 1988 and went on to become recognized as one of the most aggressively militant anti-abortion activist groups in the world. In 1992, Time magazine described the Lambs of Christ as the most zealous and aggressive of the pro-life organizations and detailed the tactics they used in the hopes of shutting down every abortion clinic in the United States. Activists would often attempt to blockade family planning clinics,

chain or glue themselves to doors or equipment to disrupt the clinic's operations. At one point, Westland encouraged his followers to apply quick-drying concrete to their hands or feet, disregarding the horrifically painful chemical burns they'd suffered during the process. The longer it takes to cut us free, he said, the longer those killing machines are off. The FBI began investigating the entire Lambs of Christ membership role, establishing alibis for each and every one of them, at least all except one. Not a single person has seen 44-year-old James Charles Copps since Thursday, October 22nd, and when federal agents

knocked at his house in St. Albans, Vermont, no one was home. Somehow, Kopp was the only member of the Lambs of Christ to slip through their fingers. To better understand the man who would quickly become their prime suspect, FBI agents began digging into his professional and criminal histories. Kopp had once been a professional musician, playing his trade up and down the California coast. But around the same time he mysteriously disappeared, Kopp had been working in construction while renting a room in a rural farmhouse. There are a lot of indication of some level of involvement,

and certainly enough to believe that he has information about this Leppian murder, said a senior federal official. But at this point, we do not have evidence that ties him to the shooting. If we did, we'd charge him. However, that wasn't strictly true. Not only did the police have plenty of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that Kopp owned a high-caliber hunting rifle, but it was missing from his residence during an FBI search. The owner of the farmhouse where he rented a room said Kopp would often hunt with it and would also use a powerful telescopic scope to aid his accuracy. And what's more, FBI agents recovered evidence that Kopp had been authoring a number of extremist pamphlets on behalf of a group called the Army of God. The pamphlets included instructions on how to build improvised explosive devices,

as well as other methods of disrupting or destroying family planning clinics. One particularly disturbing section of the pamphlets detailed how operatives should amputate the thumbs of abortion doctors under the assumption that they'd no longer be able to do their jobs. Each pamphlet acknowledged someone named Atomic Dog as being integral to their creation, so the FBI set about investigating this person's identity. Back in 1988, Kopp had once spent a brief spell in an Atlanta jail cell after he and several other radical anti-abortionists were arrested for harassment and assault. Cop's fellow inmates at the time included Oregon homemaker Shelly Shannon, who was later convicted of shooting a doctor in Wichita, Kansas.

However, the person he associated with the most during his brief incarceration was a man named John Arena. Arena was based in New York State and, along with a conviction of throwing butyric acid in the faces of clinic workers, was also said to have compiled a large list of East Coast doctors involved in performing abortions. The FBI checked Atlanta's extensive prisoner database and quickly located Kopp's file. There, under aliases, was the nickname Atomic Dog. The FBI soon discovered that Kopp had not only been jailed in Atlanta, but also up in his current home of Vermont. He had been arrested back in 1990, along with another anti-abortion activist named loretta mara the pair were said to have continued communication following the brief two-month jail sentence with cop paying several visits to loretta's home in the new york borough of brooklyn yet it wasn't until they realized who loretta's husband was

that the true significance of the friendship sank in you see loretta's husband was none other than Dennis Malvasi. Dennis grew up in East New York during the early 1960s and shared a small apartment with his mother, stepfather, and 11 brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, sometime around the age of 10 to 12, his mother sent him to live in an orphanage upstate. The time at the orphanage was rough on young Dennis, so much so that the U.S. Army seemed like a preferable alternative. At just 17, he convinced a stranger to fake his father's signature on a parental consent form for recruitment and was shipped off to Vietnam. Incredibly, Dennis enjoyed soldiering so much that he volunteered for a second tour. However, much like many of his fellow veterans, he found adjusting to life back home to be just as tough as life in a war zone.

Dennis found his rhythm by becoming an actor, possessing a clear and observable talent. Yet sometime back in 1975, Dennis was stopped and frisked by an NYPD officer while waiting on a subway platform, and a.25 caliber pistol was found in his pocket. Dennis received a two-year sentence behind bars and grew incredibly bitter over the experience. He had served his country, and all he had on him was a small caliber firearm, whereas draft dodgers had their jail time cancelled by governors trying to win votes. The letters he wrote to his family from prison heavily referenced his time in Vietnam, and through reading them, it became clear that Dennis saw his jail time as just another part of his war. After he got out, Dennis was no longer interested in acting. Instead, he became something of a recluse and became a licensed

pyrotechnics expert. He said the explosions reminded him of Vietnam, and although he was certainly one of the stranger individuals on his crew, he was good at his job, and so the boss kept him around. It was around this time that Dennis started spending time with a group of Catholic traditionalists known as Our Lady of the Roses. The group shared a disdain for the modern Catholic Church, or what they referred to as Vatican II, and how it seemed to tolerate sinfulness of contemporary society. But in their minds, the biggest sin of all, the most offensive affront to God Almighty, was abortion. Dennis had heard his fellow Vietnam vets being called baby killers,

while the same people who spat on them applauded abortion doctors as brave and righteous. To him, the hypocrisy was sickening, and combined with the bitterness that he felt over his incarceration, Dennis became more and more radicalized. On December 10th of 1985, a small pipe bomb exploded inside a bathroom at the Manhattan Women's Medical Center. Eleven months later, a much larger pipe bomb blew a hole through the wall of the Eastern Women's Center. Two more bombings rocked the city of New York over the weeks that followed until finally, on December 14th, the NYPD bomb squad defused a huge dynamite-based device in the 2nd Avenue headquarters of Planned Parenthood. Had it gone off, it would have leveled the entire building. The manner in which the bombs were constructed bore the hallmarks of a highly motivated professional.

There were military-grade blasting caps, laser-accurate timers, reliable batteries, and one more thing, a Catholic medal of Saint Benedict, the patron saint of students. Dennis spent the first few weeks of 1987 hiding from the police. He joked about how inept they seemed and how he could most likely make it to Mexico before they even knew he was out of the city. However, an unexpected intervention cut the manhunt short. The Archbishop of New York, Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor himself, appeared on a nightly news broadcast and pleaded with the bomber to turn himself in.

The next day, Dennis walked right into the New York headquarters of the ATF and turned himself in. It's hard to turn down the Cardinal, he reportedly said. After pleading guilty at his trial, and considering that he had never actually hurt anyone, Dennis was sentenced to just seven years in prison. His defense attorney told the judge that Dennis had made sure that his bombs detonated at a business hours to ensure destruction of property but no loss of life. After Dennis got out of prison for a second time, he continued with what he now saw as his life's work. Within just a few years, he met the woman who would become his wife, Loretta Mara. Once the FBI had connected

the dots between James Charles Kopp, Loretta Mara, and her husband Dennis Malvasi, they paid the couple a visit at their Brooklyn residence. It quickly emerged that Mara and Malvasi had provided shelter to Kopp in the aftermath of Dr. Slepian's murder, and that they had also given him cash to get to Mexico. Both were said to be delighted that the FBI had been too late in figuring out their plan, as Kopp had undoubtedly crossed the border days or even weeks earlier. The FBI rushed to coordinate a search with the Mexican authorities, and in the coming weeks, FBI advisors would work with dozens of Mexican federales in tracking Kopp's movements.

They believed that he was bedded down with a group of fringe Catholics who shared the same violently anti-abortion stance as he did. However, in reality, Kopp was already on the other side of the Atlantic. Sometime during the opening months of 1999, Kopp landed at a small regional airport in the Republic of Ireland. He presented the immigration clerk with a false passport stamped with a temporary work visa. The clerk approved the entry permit and welcomed him into the country, having absolutely no idea who he had just met. At first, Cop worked menial jobs to afford food and rent, but he soon found better wages as a temporary typist at the City of Dublin Skin and Cancer Hospital. Colleagues later recalled how he adorned his desk with religious statuettes and claiming to be visiting Ireland as an ancestral

pilgrimage due to his Irish background. However, Cobb had no Irish heritage. It was all just part of his ruse. Just as it says in the Bible, what is done in the dark will always come to light. An FBI informant finally discovered how a cop had fled to Ireland. Mara and Malvasi had initially been released without charge, but after the FBI placed an informant close to them, it was only a matter of time before they let slip. Yet perhaps the most curious thing is that despite FBI agents being dispatched to Ireland under the strictest secrecy, they arrived to find that Copp had already fled the country. Copp had apparently departed Ireland on March 12th, 2001, after spending two whole years in the country completely undetected. Irish anti-abortionist

groups later insisted that they had nothing to do with it, and if they had known Copp was hiding amongst them, they would have reported him immediately. The question remains, how did Copp know that he had been sniffed out? Only high-ranking members of the Irish police and government would have been aware of the FBI's arrival, and although the exact date of their arrival is unknown, Kopp certainly seems to have been one step ahead of them. Either Kopp had some kind of sixth sense, or someone tipped him off. Kopp then spent just two weeks on the run in northern France, when he was arrested, found with not one, but two fraudulent Irish passports. The arrest came after a detailed

search of Mara Malvasi's computers uncovered an ingenious system of communication. Kopp was sending messages to the couple via the draft section of a Yahoo email account the trio shared. Kopp would type up a message, save it in the drafts, and then Mara or Malvasi could log on, read the draft, and then delete it before writing their own. Without any actual emails being sent, there was no traffic to monitor. This is partially why Kopp remained undetected in Ireland for so long. Yet once the system was compromised, and the FBI could read every single exchange, Kopp was tracked down by French police. On March 29th of 2001, Kopp was

arrested while trying to withdraw money from a small rural post office. He was said to be extremely gaunt and emaciated at the time of his apprehension. His evasion of justice had undoubtedly taken a heavy toll on him and he made no attempts to resist his detention or his eventual extradition. On March 11th, 2003, Kopp waived his rights to a jury trial, knowing there wasn't a jury in the land who would find him innocent of Dr. Slepian's cold-blooded murder. He told the presiding judge that he had never meant to kill the doctor, and only intended to wound him enough to, as he put it, put him out of action. However, the excuse didn't hold up with Judge Michael D'Amico,

who noted that Kopp's terminology gave away his mindset that he was a combatant on an ever-shifting moral battlefield. But what appears righteous to you, D'Amico said, is immoral to someone else. With that statement, Kopp was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 25 years to life imprisonment. Kopp eventually appealed the sentence. In June of 2007, he chose to act as his own legal counsel when he claimed Slepian's death was a full-bore 100% tragedy, but not murder. Murder means shooting them in the head, blowing up a car, riddling their body with bullets like they do in movies. That's how you kill someone. What became clear throughout the course of the appeal was that, despite almost a decade having elapsed since he took a man's life,

James Charles Kopp still believed that shooting a man at the base of his throat did not constitute attempted murder. It was this kind of intellectual dishonesty that proved fatal to his chances of a successful appeal. Judge Richard Arcara later told him, You served as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. You decided that you know better than any law. On that note, he upheld Copp's life sentence, dismissing every point of appeal that he'd raised. The subject of abortion is an extremely controversial topic, both in the United States and the wider world. Some wish to see the reinstatement of Roe vs. Wade, while others have celebrated its recent repeal. But no matter where we stand as individuals on this or any other controversial subject,

violence is not the answer, nor will it ever be the answer. Because there's no changing one from Pennzoil. Get up to a $30 MasterCard prepaid virtual card with the purchase of 10 liters of Pennzoil Ultra Platinum at Canadian Tire. Maximizing engine protection and getting a reward for it? That's two checks on your list. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Offer ends 8-31-25. Valid at participating locations only. Valid email address required. Terms apply. See Pennzoil.ca slash ends 831.25. Valid at participating locations only. Valid email address required.

Terms apply. See penswell.ca slash offer for details. MasterCard is a trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated. On the morning of June 2nd, 1985, San Francisco police officer Daniel Wright received a rather unusual call regarding a potential shoplifter. The vast majority of shoplifting calls came from pharmacies and grocery stores. However, this one came from a lumberyard in the southern portion of the city. Upon his arrival, Officer Wright was approached by two men, the lumberyard's owner and a large Caucasian man with a long black beard. The store's owner explained that the bearded man's Asian-American companion had attempted

to steal a bench vise. The bearded man then profusely apologized on behalf of his Asian friend and explained that he'd pay for the stolen bench vise in full. According to the store's owner, the Asian man had placed the stolen bench vise in the trunk of a nearby Honda Prelude before running off. The bearded man claimed that he'd borrowed the vehicle from a friend, but since the car had already been used in the commission of a crime, Officer Wright was entitled to search it. This made the bearded man slightly nervous, but he did not object. In the Honda's trunk, Officer Wright found a black drawstring bag containing a loaded.22 revolver, along with what appeared to be a homemade silencer. Since silencers are illegal in the state of California, when confronted with it,

the bearded man insisted it belonged to the vehicle's owner, a man named Lonnie Bond. Officer Wright then detailed the bearded man and put him in cuffs before heading back to his vehicle. There, he checked both the Honda's license plate number and the.22 serial number. The vehicle did indeed belong to a Lonnie Bond, but the revolver was registered to a 26-year-old resident of San Diego named Robin S. Stapley. Officer Wright then got out of his car, walked back over to the bearded man, who by this point was leaning against the Honda, and asked him to produce some ID. The bearded man then produced the ID of Robin S. Stapley. The only problem was, the bearded man

and the man on the ID didn't look anything alike. Officer Wright immediately placed the man under arrest, read him his rights, and drove his prisoner to the South City Police Station. In one of the station's interrogating rooms, Officer Wright raised a point of inquiry with the bearded man. He wanted to know why the Honda's license plate was registered to a Lonnie Bond, but the car itself appeared to be owned by a man named Paul Cosner. Cosner had been reported missing to the FSPD more than nine months prior and had not resurfaced since. So naturally, Officer Wright was very interested to know how the bearded man had come into possession of his car. As the officer spoke, the bearded man grew visibly pale

and then made it clear that he wouldn't be answering any more questions instead he requested a pen and a piece of paper assuming his prisoner was about to write a confession officer Wright fulfilled the man's request however upon receiving the writing implements the bearded man appeared to write a brief note to his wife when officer Wright told the bearded man that he could have the note delivered for him he appeared to write a brief note to his wife. When Officer Wright told the bearded man that he could have the note delivered for him, he appeared to ignore the statement entirely. My friend's name is Charlie Chita Nya, he said. Officer Wright began to make a note of what the bearded man said and asked him to repeat the suspect's unfamiliar sounding surname. Again,

the bearded man seemed to ignore him and continued with what he had to say. My name isn't really Rob Stapley either, he said. It's Leonard Lake, and I'm wanted by the FBI. At that, Officer Wright looked up, stunned into silence by the admission. But as he got out of his chair, intent on informing his superiors, Leonard Lake spoke up again. I didn't think a lousy bench vice would bring me to this, Lake said, a quiver of fear in his voice. The quiver set Officer Wright's nerves on edge, and he turned around just in time to see Leonard Lake placing a small white pill on his tongue. As Officer Wright ran out in the hallway, the sound of, he just swallowed something echoed throughout the station. As half a dozen other officers rushed

into the interview room, there was Lake, his eyes rolling into their sockets, foam dripping from his lips, gripped by agonizing spasms as he convulsed on the carpeted floor. Leonard Lake was rushed to the hospital, and although the doctors managed to save his life, the cyanide he'd ingested was wreaking havoc on his central nervous system. It was later determined that Lake had taped two cyanide capsules to the underside of his shirt lapel, but the question remained, what had Lake done that was so terrible

that he'd rather suffer death than face justice? Within just a few hours, the seized Honda Prelude that Lake appeared to have been driving was discovered to have bloodstains on the front passenger seat, along with a small bullet hole near the sun visor. The vehicle's owner, 39-year-old Paul Cosner, disappeared on November 2nd, 1984, after telling his girlfriend that he was meeting with a weird-looking guy regarding the purchase of a car. What's more, the man whose ID card Lake was in possession of, Robin S. Stapley, was also a missing person, having vanished in April of 1983. The personal effects of several other missing people were also recovered from the Honda. Additionally, the police recovered a Pacific Gas and Electric bill in the name of

Clara Lynn Balash. Clara was none other than Leonard Lake's ex-wife. On June 3rd, 1985, two San Francisco missing person detectives, Tom Eisenman and Irene Brunn, stopped by her home in Bruna to ask her a few questions. It turned out that the energy bill wasn't for Claire's permanent residence. Instead, it was related to a remote cabin her father owned near San Andreas in Calaveras County. She hadn't visited the cabin in years, and neither had her father, but her ex-husband was there frequently. She just didn't know why. The next day, Clara accompanied the two detectives to the cabin and granted them permission to conduct a search. The first thing the detectives

noticed as they walked into the cabin's main sitting area was a huge spray of dried reddish-brown substance on the ceiling. There was also a large painting of a forest vista scene covering one wall, a painting which had what looked like a single bullet hole puncturing the canvas. One of the cabin's two bedrooms contained a filthy-looking king-sized bed that had electrical cords tied to each of its posts. Above it hung a 250 watt floodlight that had been fastened to the ceiling. Back in the sitting room, Detective Brunn noticed something curious about a set of blank cassette tapes. The serial numbers on each and every one of them had been scratched off with something small and sharp. As the two detectives departed the property, they noticed a large incinerator in

what passed for the cabin's backyard. Just feet away was a large iron trap door that appeared to lead down into some kind of bunker. Clara Balazs claimed that she didn't have access to the bunker, but she did know someone who did, her ex-husband's former business partner, Charles Ng. There was just one problem. Clara had driven Charles to San Francisco airport after he had suddenly and vehemently requested she do so. Suddenly, things started to make more sense for Clara Lynn, and she realized both her husband and his partner Charles had done something terrible. She agreed to be interviewed the following day and after arriving at the station in a state of visible distress, she told the two detectives everything she knew.

Claire had first met Leonard at a renaissance fair in Marin County and they married after dating for just a short while. To her knowledge, Leonard had only two friends in the entire world. One, a 5'8", 400 pound Swede by the name of Charles Gunner, was the best man at their wedding. The other was a migrant from Hong Kong named Charles Ng. According to Clara, Charles had simply appeared one day and announced that Leonard had given him permission to move into their family home. The news came as something of a surprise to Clara, and as you can imagine, she wasn't best pleased with her husband. But Leonard assured her Charles would be staying for a few days, as they were partnered on some kind of business venture. Both men had served in the U.S. Marine Corps and struck up an instant friendship as a result. A few days soon turned

into a few weeks, and a few weeks became five long months before Charles finally departed. Clara was glad to see him depart, but just a few days later, Charles returned in the dead of night before Leonard helped him unload some crates into a shed in the backyard. The next morning, an FBI SWAT team raided the property at the break of dawn, dragging Charles and Leonard out of their beds before carting them off to the nearest federal holding facility. They were charged with the theft of $30,000 worth of military equipment from a U.S. military base in Hawaii. Leonard's 400-pound friend paid his bail, but Charles was still technically a serving member of the Marine Corps.

As a result, he ended up doing 18 months in Leavenworth after a dishonorable discharge. Leonard hid out in the mountains until the pair could be reunited, and upon Charles' release, they moved into his father-in-law's cabin out in Calaveras County. Despite being owned by her family, Clara claimed to have no idea what Leonard and Charles had been up to at the cabin and became angry when one of the detectives appeared to imply that she did. She immediately denied further access to the cabin and told the detectives not to contact her again, but it was too late. The FBI had all it needed to secure an immediate, all-encompassing search warrant.

In coordination with the San Francisco Police Department, the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department organized a search team of 17 men. On the morning of June 4, 1985, the search began in earnest. An initial examination of the area surrounding the locked, reinforced bunker revealed a cleared area 10 feet in diameter that showed traces of lye and contained articles of clothing. Fearing they discovered some kind of mass grave, the search team sectioned off the area until forensic specialists could arrive, then set about completing other tasks. One of these tasks included walking over to neighboring properties to talk to the people who live there. One such home seemed empty, but after contacting the owner, he was told that it was impossible. Beau Carter, the homeowner, explained it was a rental property and a young family should have been living there.

Granted, he hadn't heard from them in a while and they were late on their rent, but the landlord hadn't heard any bad news. The sheriff's deputies then asked the landlord for the names of the tenants. Brenda O'Connor, he replied, and her partner's name is Lonnie Bond. The following day, the police task force cracked open the underground bunker and carefully ventured inside. The main room was a 20 foot by 12 foot workshop, complete with a wide variety of hand tools and power saws hanging on one of the walls. Many of these tools appeared to be

streaked with blood, and sitting on a table was a broken bench vise. Upon inspection of a second, smaller room, the police soon discovered a large concealed chamber hidden behind a door disguised as a plywood rack. Inside was another double bed, and carved into the wooden headboard was the words Operation Miranda. It was later discovered that this was a reference to the novel The Collector by John Fowles, a copy of which happened to be sitting on a nightstand beside the double bed. The story tells of a malevolent butterfly collector who kidnaps a young woman before locking her in his cellar. The book does not have a happy ending. The captive girl plans an escape but dies of an

unexpected illness before she's able. Her captor lovingly buries her in his garden and then plans the kidnap of another victim. A room seemingly connected to a small holding cell contained a variety of old military gear. There were uniforms, boots, and a vast array of Vietnam-era firearms, including M16 and M14 assault rifles, Mossberg shotguns, and M60 light machine guns. On the wall facing the holding cell was a small soundproofed window complete with a Vietnam-era night vision scope. It was obviously intended to use in observing captives during low-light conditions, and having their captors aware of their every action undoubtedly terrified those imprisoned there. The small observation and equipment room

was also covered in a variety of candid photographs, each depicting a young woman in a state of undress. It was quite clear that each of these photographs had been taken inside or within close proximity to the bunker, and the looks on each of the girls' faces were ones of abject terror. Some of the photographs depicted subjects standing in front of a backdrop depicting numerous cartoon figures The significance of this wouldn't be realized until later in the investigation When a detective was tasked with tracking down the girls in the pictures He carried copies of the less obscene photos with him during the investigation

And often showed people he interviewed, hoping that they might recognize them At one point, the detective showed one of the photographers to a man, only to detect an immediate flash of recognition in his eyes. To the detectives' frustration, the man didn't recognize the girl, but he did recognize the cartoon backdrop. The witness used to work at South City Juvenile Hall and had seen that exact same wallpaper on a nearly daily basis throughout their employment. Law enforcement then analyzed the institution's employee records,

expecting to find either Leonard Lake or Charles Ng's name buried away somewhere. They found neither, but they did spot another name they recognized, Clara Lynn Ballish, Leonard Lake's ex-wife. On the second day of searching Lake's cabin, a small notebook was found concealed in one of the bedrooms. A forensic analyst carefully examined the notebook using gloves and a pair of tweezers, being careful not to smudge any fingerprints or dislodge any hair fibers. It was a journal written in a style and pattern identical to Leonard Lake's, and as the investigators began to read, his jaw just about hit the floor. Almost every page of

the small paperback notebook was filled with what amounted to half confession and half manifesto, making for utterly terrifying reading. Leonard was terrified of nuclear war and believed that an apocalyptic exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was imminent. This is why the cabin first drew his interest, as a remote concealed place of residence would be the perfect place to construct a survival bunker. Leonard also seemed to have pondered the question of repopulation in the event of a nuclear apocalypse and planned to turn the Calaveras County bunker, along with many across the country, into what amounted to baby factories. The only thing he was missing is what Leonard referred to as breeding stock. The following day, investigators found yet another concealed holding cell in the underground bunker.

The tiny room contained just a narrow bed, a chemical toilet, an air freshener, and a water container, with small holes drilled into the wall to provide just enough ventilation to keep a prisoner alive. Just hours into the third day of the search, the forensics team received an unexpected visitor in the form of none other than Leonard Lake's mother. Gloria Eberling informed the ranking officer on the scene that she hadn't heard from her son in quite some time and was deeply concerned about his well-being. Sheriff Ballard was then compelled to deliver the news that Leonard Lake had passed away, a result of the cyanide that he had ingested on the day of his arrest. Gloria took the news terribly and had to be escorted from the site. For Ballard, it was just another point of tension in a case that was

rapidly becoming a complete nightmare. What had started as a shoplifting call had somehow transformed into multiple kidnappings, violations, and murders, with one of their suspects dead by taking their own life, and another being an ex-marine with family all over the world. On the fourth day of the search, literally hundreds of personal items belonging to dozens of different people were recovered from a large trench that had been dug near the bunker. However, it wasn't until the early hours of the following morning that the first bodies were discovered.

The skeletal remains of two people were carefully removed from the soil and reassembled at a makeshift coroner's station. But the process was slow and during this time, the police made another chilling discovery. In the early afternoon, a sealed five-gallon bucket was extracted from the earth. Police found it contained various personal items from people they could only assume were victims, along with two VHS tapes labeled M. Ladies, Kathy slash Brenda. While the other personal items were sorted according to their owners, the VHS tapes were taken to the local sheriff's department for viewing. However, the tape's content shook the deputies to their core. One tape showed a young woman identified only as Brenda,

chained to a chair and begging for information about the health of her infant child. Lake was then heard telling her, your baby is sound asleep, like a rock. The second victim shown on the tape was 19-year-old Brenda O'Connor, Leonard's missing neighbor who had been living in a nearby home. Based on what was said in the video, deputies deduced that Lonnie Bond and their young son, Lonnie Jr., had been murdered before the recording was made. When the search concluded, the team had uncovered the remains of seven men, three women, and two infant children, along with 45 pounds of unidentified bone fragments. In total, the police suspected that up to 25 bodies were buried around the cabin and the accompanying bunker. It was a veritable charnel house,

a place where two incredibly sadistic serial murderers had been operating with complete impunity for almost two and a half years. While Sheriff Ballard and his team worked around the clock to recover the victims' remains, the FBI took over the search for the missing Charles Zung. Charles was born in the British territory of Hong Kong on Christmas Eve of 1961. He grew up as the son of a wealthy businessman, in the lap of luxury with every opportunity he could ever ask for. However, Charles developed something of a rebellious streak. He was expelled from several schools throughout his teenage years. To straighten him out, Charles' father sent him to an extremely strict, upper-class boarding school in the English county of Yorkshire. Charles' paternal uncle was

one of the school's science teachers, and it was hoped that being taken under his wing would improve his behavior. Instead, Charles only got worse. He appeared to develop a severe case of kleptomania, stealing incessantly from the school, his fellow pupils, and a department store in the nearest town. In the end, the school that was supposed pupils, and a department store in the nearest town. In the end, the school that was supposed to reform him was forced to exclude him on the grounds that he was simply not capable of reforming himself. Charles returned to Hong Kong and spent the next few years making trouble for his parents. When they threatened to cut him off entirely, he obtained a student visa to study in the United States, but dropped out

of Belmont, California's Notre Dame College after just one semester in late 1977. In late 1979, Charles enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, lying about his place of birth and claiming to be a native of Bloomfield, Indiana. Never one to talk themselves out of a potential recruit, the Marines accepted his application. For the first time in his life, Charles must have felt like he belonged somewhere. The Marines provided him with a discipline that had eluded him all of his life, and he excelled in almost all of his duties. By 1981, Charles had been promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal, but a steady slip in discipline led to a return to old habits. Just months after he was promoted, Charles stole crates upon crates full of rifles and hand grenades intent on selling them to organized crime groups.

Within days of being caught, Charles managed to escape military custody and then made his way to California, where he eventually met Leonard Lake. At the age of 19, Lake left a privileged but somewhat unstable home and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He trained as a radar operator and was soon deployed to combat during Vietnam. However, the stresses of counterinsurgency warfare had a devastating effect on Lake's psyche, and he eventually received treatment for exhibiting incipient psychotic reactions. Following his psychiatric treatment, he was once again deemed fit for combat, but his second tour of duty was cut short after a matter of months on the grounds that Lake was suffering from unspecified medical problems. After receiving the Vietnam Service Medal, a Vietnam Campaign Medal, and two other medals for good conduct, Lake was discharged on medical grounds and settled in San Jose, California.

He briefly attended San Jose State University, but dropped out at around the same time he started mental health treatment at the Oakland Veterans Administration Hospital. A few years later, the fateful Renaissance Fair meeting occurred, where Leonard would meet his future wife, Clara Lynn, while running a stall in which he disguised a goat as a unicorn. They married in 1981 and then moved to Mendocino County in Northern California. It was here that Lake became obsessed with survivalism and the outcome of a global nuclear conflict. Following the discovery of the bunker

and after boarding an American Airlines flight to Chicago, Charles Noong checked into the Chateau Hotel under the name Mike Kimodo. After four days, he moved to Detroit, then crossed the border to Canada in the dead of night. He eluded a continental manhunt for 34 days, but, much like the California lumberyard, his penchant for petty theft proved as undoing. On Saturday, July 6th, 1985, two security guards working at a grocery store in Calgary noticed an Asian man trying to steal several food items. When confronted, the man pulled out a small pistol and threatened to kill them if they didn't back off. Instead of complying, the two security officers tackled him. During the altercation,

one officer was shot through the hand. The assailant was later charged at the Calgary Metropolitan Police Station with robbery, attempted robbery, possession of a firearm, and attempted murder. However, when news of his arrest reached the United States and it became clear that the man was Charles Nguyen, there was little celebration. U.S. authorities were aware that, due to a 1976 extradition treaty with the United States, Canada would refuse to extradite any prisoner charged with a capital crime that carried the death penalty. While diplomats tried to secure his extradition, two San Francisco detectives interviewed Nguyen in his Calgary jail cell. Charles claimed that Leonard Lake was the mastermind behind most of the bunker murders, but confessed to assisting in the dismemberment and disposal of Paul Cosner's body.

As Nguyen faced a four-and-a-half-year sentence for armed robbery in Canada, the U.S. justice system began the lengthy extradition process. It took nearly six years, but on September 26, 1991, the Canadian government handed him over to American authorities. Hours after his release in Canada, Charles was incarcerated in California's Folsom Prison. However, with his knowledge of American criminal law, he managed to delay his trial for another seven years. Finally, in October 1998, Charles Cheetah Neung's trial began. Over the subsequent months, the jury was presented with evidence detailing how Leonard and

Charles selected, kidnapped, and imprisoned their victims at a cabin. There, the victims were abused, tortured, and killed. The jury were shown sections of the VHS tapes which depicted the abuse and torture of Kathy Allen and Brenda O'Connor. The prosecutor attempted to also show them extracts from Leonard's journal, which documented his fears of the coming apocalypse and his desire to repopulate the earth. But the presiding judge refused, arguing Lake's personal opinions bore no relevancy to the case. Charles' defense attorney argued that he was an unwilling accomplice and only cooperated with Leonard out of fear for his life. The jury saw through the defense, and at the conclusion of his trial in February of 1999, they found Charles guilty on 11 counts of murder. Charles was subsequently sentenced to death, with the presiding judge immediately rejecting a motion to reduce the sentence to life imprisonment instead.

Many have suggested that on their own, Charles and Leonard were nothing but discontented loners, but together, they formed what psychologists might call a gestalt. Essentially, they egged each other on, enabling and cultivating each other's darker tendencies, until finally, they crossed a psychological red line that allowed them to kidnap, violate, and murder without remorse. Many have argued that this red line came in the form of Donald Lake, Leonard's younger brother. The 32-year-old suffered severe mental problems as the result of a train accident when he was just a child. He was described as a mild-mannered, gentle young man, but became the subject of Leonard's increasing ire as he entered his early thirties. Leonard once described him as a leech, and in a roundabout way, told Clara Lynn Ballish that

he didn't deserve to live. Shortly afterwards, Leonard stopped by his mother's house, claiming that he could find him work as a house sitter in San Francisco. Donald was never seen again. It's quite clear that Leonard was able to justify Donald's murder through a twisted perception of ownership of him, a logic he no doubt applied to his other victims. After all, if someone can delude themselves into believing their actions are saving humanity, it's frightening to consider the atrocities they can commit. Checking off your to-do list? Here's an easy one from Pennzoil. Get up to a $30 MasterCard prepaid virtual card with the purchase of 10 liters of Pennzoil Ultra Platinum at Canadian Tire. Maximizing engine protection and getting a reward for it?

That's two checks on your list. Pennzoil. Long may we drive. Offer ends 8-31-25. Valid at participating locations only. Valid email address required. Terms apply. See pennzoil.ca slash offer for details. MasterCard is a trademark of MasterCard International Incorporated. Born on November 6th of 1955, Alton Coleman was born in a small, low-income town around 30 miles north of Chicago, Illinois. He had a rough childhood, with a penchant for wetting himself resulting in the cruel schoolyard nickname of Pissy. The humiliation caused Alton to become a quiet, reserved child who preferred solitude to the company of others.

Yet it wasn't just the severe bullying that led Alton to lead a lonesome existence. He knew he was different, even as a young child, said a close family friend. Then as he grew up, he got interested in some insidious things. By the time Alton was a teenager, he was known to local police as something of a troublemaker, due to his habit of smashing his neighbor's windows at the Waukegan housing project he called home. As Alton grew older, his penchant for criminality continued, but unlike many of his law-breaking

peers, Alton had a knack for beating the system. He was good at conning jurors, said Waukegan Police Lieutenant Mark Hanson. He was smooth as silk, could tell a good story in court. He knew how to make himself look like a decent person. He was conniving like that, a real career criminal. Yet Alton didn't keep himself out of prison by just fooling juries. He was adept in all manners of witness intimidation too. Bizarrely, many of the people Alton assaulted and robbed over the years were convinced that he was a practitioner of ancient voodoo magic. Yet it also seems that at some point people Alton assaulted and robbed over the years were convinced that he was a practitioner of ancient voodoo magic. Yet it also seems that at some point, Alton stopped just talking about curses and vengeful spirits, and began to legitimately believe in them.

By 1983, Alton's use of drugs and alcohol had caused a stark deterioration in his mental health. Exacerbated by a feverish belief in the power of voodoo, Alton began to display symptoms of several serious psychiatric conditions, terrorizing his family, friends, and neighbors. At one point, Alton's sister reported him to the police after he savagely beat and attempted to violate his own eight-year-old niece. Three weeks later, she dropped the charges, stating that there had been a misunderstanding, but the state continued the prosecution on account of how severe the charges were. However, with the victim unable to take the stand and the star witness refusing to testify, the state had no choice but to halt their prosecution, but not

before the presiding judge decided to offer his professional opinion. I think the woman as she stands here today is terrified of this man, he said, and implied that she was somehow covering for Alton when he referred to her version of events completely implausible. It marked the fifth time Alton had been the number one suspect in an assault case, yet once again, he managed to dodge a conviction. Finally, in early 1983, Alton discovered he was wanted in connection with the violation and murder of a girl from the Chicago suburbs, and he went on the run. It's more than likely Alton knew that he'd be convicted, and since murder in Illinois still carried the death penalty back then,

he knew he wasn't long for this world. What resulted was one of the most hideous and violent crime sprees in all of US history and it begins with a young woman named Deborah Brown. Deborah had no history of criminality prior to meeting Alton and was engaged to another man before he convinced her to call off the engagement. There's no doubt that she was madly in love with him, but there's also no doubt that Alton subjected Debra to horrendous physical and emotional abuse. She was one of 11 children, the daughter of an abusive alcoholic father and a heroin addict mother who suffered serious head trauma when she was an infant. As a result, Deborah was slightly slower than her other siblings and her struggles would result in

vicious beatings at the hands of Alton Coleman. Being a known associate of his, Deborah was questioned by police in connection with Alton's whereabouts on June 1st of 1984. She denied all knowledge of his location, then immediately reported back to him. Then on June 5th, they vanished from the city of Chicago. Using fraudulent identification, the couple rented a small apartment in Gary, Indiana, and for the next two weeks, they attempted to lie low. But then, on June 18th, 7-year-old Tamika Turks and her 9-year-old aunt went missing while on a routine trip to a nearby convenience store. The older girl was found alive but in critical condition just a few hours later, but little Tamika remained missing. The following morning, the 7-year-old's lifeless corpse was found in an area of woodland just outside of Gary.

Someone had quite literally stomped her to death. When the nine-year-old awoke in the hospital, she gave a harrowing account of what had occurred. After being abducted at knife point by an older male and female, the nine-year-old had been forced to watch as they held her young niece down and repeatedly jumped on her chest and stomach. The damage fractured ribs and punctured vital organs, leaving the young girl with no chance of survival. The couple then proceeded to brutally beat and torture the older girl, but for some reason chose to leave her alive. She now suffers extreme trauma as a result of the incident and is said to endure debilitating

flashbacks. She will get to screaming and crying like someone is hitting her on the back of the head, said Mary Hillard, the child's mother, while Tamika's mother was forced to leave Indiana altogether to escape such painful memories. Just a few hours after Tamika Turk's body was found, 25-year-old Donna Williams was reported missing by her parents. Two days later, another woman was taken hostage on the outskirts of Detroit by a couple matching Alton and Debra's description. The only reason she escaped with her life was because she bluffed the pair into thinking she'd crashed the car at high speeds, killing them all in the process. Alton and Deborah went on to rob several other people before finally fleeing Detroit, triggering an interstate manhunt of epic proportions. Yet the couple proved

extremely difficult to track. Not only did they make a habit of befriending good Samaritans, who'd often conceal them from the long arm of the law, but they'd sometimes confuse law enforcement by carjacking someone and quickly abandoning the stolen car, almost as if though they knew it would throw the cops off their scent. By the time Donna Williams' body was found in an abandoned house near Wayne State University, Alton and Deborah had reached Toledo, Ohio. From there, the couple veered southward towards Cincinnati, murdering a woman named Marlene Waters in the basement of her own home. Her husband was later found badly beaten but alive

in another apparent bid to leave one victim alive but traumatized by the death of their loved one, whose murder they were no doubt forced to witness. Marlene Waters' car was found abandoned just a few days later in a cornfield just outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Alton and Deborah had abandoned it there to give law enforcement the impression that they were hiding out in Lexington, but in reality, they veered off to nearby Williamsburg to continue their crime spree. On Monday, July 16th of 1984, a political science professor named Olin Carmichael was making his way back to his hotel room after a long day of lectures and seminars. Olin wasn't local to the area and had been staying in a hotel room during his temporary tenure at Baptist College in the Kentucky Mountains. He drove into the hotel's parking lot, shut off his

engine, and got out and locked the door. But then the moment he turned around from doing so, he saw two guns pointed in his face. They told me, we want your money and all of it. Is your life worth more than your money? Olin later said. He knew better than to talk back and proceeded to hand over his wallet, his car keys, as well as any spare change that he had. But just when Olin thought that the robbers were done with him, they popped the trunk of his car and then told him to get in. Alton and Deborah drove the terrified professor into Lexington, Kentucky and stopped in a secluded area to shake him down. Who loves you enough to get some paper though? He was asked.

Olin replied that his wife might be able to get some money together so Alton forced him to call her from a payphone. He was ordered to tell her that he had a gambling debt and was going to be killed if he didn't bring every penny that she could muster to a phone booth in downtown Richmond, Kentucky. Alton said they'd call again once they were on location, but for some reason, they abandoned the car on the I-75 with Olin still in the trunk. He had no idea why they didn't stick around to collect the money,

which Olin's wife was only too willing to hand over. The move was yet another distraction, and the bodies of two victims were discovered back in Ohio. Alton and Debra progressed to Indianapolis, where they murdered 75-year-old Eugene Scott before stealing his car. After a 53-day rampage, Alton and Debra made their way back to Wikigan area on July 20th. This seems like an incredibly bizarre move given how notorious they were by that period, but for some reason, they chose to stroll around a local park before watching a pickup basketball game. They were recognized within minutes of sitting down at the bleachers,

and under the guise of slipping away to buy a soda, one of their fellow attendees rushed to call the cops. Within a half hour, the entirety of Mason Park was crawling with police officers. Yet when they revealed themselves and rushed in to make the arrest, Alton barely flinched. You got the wrong man, officer, he told one of the cops as he calmly cooperated. Deborah Brown kept quiet, identifying herself only as Dennis Johnson when asked to do so. Each seemed to think that they'd be able to talk their way out of being arrested, but when a loaded pistol and lockknife were found in their possession, their detention was assured.

When news of the arrest hit the headlines, the entire Midwest breathed a deep collective sigh of relief. Those who'd witnessed the arrest had often appeared exhausted and underweight compared to his wanted poster, and police even speculated that the brazen attempt to watch a ball game was their own way of giving themselves up. After all, this was a couple who seemed to have mastered the arts of diversion, distraction, and evasion, and as one police officer put it, it was like they'd just run out of steam. Upon their arrival at the nearest police station, Alden and Debra were questioned separately, but each invoked their right to remain silent. Yet after each were transferred to a federal holding facility, and the severity of their situation hit home, Debra Brown agreed to talk.

Over the course of an in-depth two-hour interview, Deborah gave a full and frank account of their violent crime spree, but despite cooperating with authorities, the severity of her crimes were too severe to warrant life imprisonment. She was eventually sentenced to die for the murders she'd committed and was confined to the all-female death row of Indiana's state prison system. Alton shared the same fate and was executed by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility on April 26th of 2002, at the age of 46 years old. He spent his last days appealing his death sentence, but despite one such appeal making it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,

he received no clemency. Relatives of the couple's victims were able to watch the death sentence being carried out via secured television link, but no recording was made of the event. For his last meal, Alton ordered a filet mignon with sautéed mushrooms, fried chicken breasts, cornbread, biscuits and brown gravy, french fries, broccoli with cheese, salad with french dressing, onion rings, collard greens, sweet potato pie with whipped cream, butter pecan ice cream, and a cherry coke. The observation room overlooking the execution chamber in Lucasville holds just 12 people, with a concertina door separating the convict's witnesses from those representing the victims. Alton Coleman invited a spiritual advisor along with his legal

team, meaning the small observation room was even more crowded than usual. At 10am, Alton walked into the death chamber wearing a non-denominational prayer shawl with crosses and stars of David over his prison blues. After lying calmly on the execution gurney, he appeared to say something to the observers, but thanks to the chamber's thick glass, they couldn't hear him. He remained still as the guards fastened restraints on him and then attached the lines that would contain the three chemicals to a cannula that had already been fixed to his arm. A prison official asked if he had any final words, but Alton simply shook his head before the execution process began.

Although just three chemicals are used to execute a prisoner, one to induce unconsciousness, another to stop breathing, and a third to stop the heart. A total of eight syringes operate automatically once the button is pushed. It often takes two or three very long minutes for all the syringes to empty, and as the drugs began flowing, Alton began reciting the 23rd Psalm. By the time he reached, he leadeth me beside the still waters. The sodium pentothal began to take effect, and he lost consciousness. Finally, he was pronounced dead at exactly 10.30 a.m. It was the end to a deeply painful chapter in the lives of his victims' families,

many of whom faced a long and heart-wrenching journey back to normalcy. The grandmother of seven-year-old Tamika Turk said survivors would never know peace. We'll never be the same, she said, because what they took from us, they cannot give back. Born on March 13th of 1945, Christopher Bernard Wilder was raised in the Australian city of Sydney. He was the eldest child of an American naval officer and an Australian mother, and although very little is known about Chris's formative years, one incident stands out among others. At one point during his early childhood, Chris almost drowned in some kind of swimming accident and required mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. His parents were elated that he survived such a close call, but Chris was never quite the same afterwards. He became highly withdrawn, worryingly antisocial, and viciously violent.

His parents hoped that he'd grow out of such behavior, but instead, it grew worse. As Chris entered his late teens, he was hanging out with some very bad people, and in January of 1963, he was arrested in connection with the assault of a 13-year-old girl. It was discovered that Chris had essentially kept watch for two older men, who were the assault's primary perpetrators. So due to his age, he escaped with nothing but probation. Chris would later claim that the Australian government forced him to undergo electroshock therapy as part of his probation, but no such records of this therapy exist. By the age of 23, Chris appeared to have gotten his life in order.

He was engaged to be married, he was working a steady job, and he had plenty of prospects in life. Yet just a week after his wedding, his wife of just seven days filed for a divorce. It's unclear why she chose to do so, but some suspect she discovered something Chris had hidden from her during their relationship, something which terrified her utterly. Her departure signaled a marked decline in Chris's mental health and as a result, his criminality began to re-emerge. The following year, in November of 1969, Chris somehow managed to obtain nude photographs of a 19-year-old student nurse. It's possible that this was the first time Chris employed what would come to be a tried and tested technique, one that involved winning a girl's trust by claiming to be a modeling agent. Then, once he had the pictures, he made a clumsy attempt to blackmail the girl and was reported to the police.

At first, the girl seemed keen to press charges against Chris, but for some reason, she changed her mind just a few weeks later. Again, it's not clear why she chose to back away, but it's more than likely that witness intimidation played a key factor. Chris had dodged justice, but his reputation was in tatters. Many of those close to him had long suspected him of harboring dark proclivities, and the swirl of media attention all but confirmed it. In the end, Chris simply decided to pack up his things, move someplace else, and start all over again. Then the following year, he did just that.

During the summer of 1969, Chris arrived in Boynton Beach, Florida to a completely fresh start. He bought a large beachfront property around 25 miles south of Palm Beach, Florida, and entered the local real estate business to roaring success. Within just a few years, Chris presided over a small real estate empire and became a very wealthy man as a result. He regularly vacationed to Hawaii or the Bahamas and indulged in a rather expensive interest in photography, which involved converting one of his home's bedrooms into a large, state-of-the-art darkroom. But while wholesome on the surface, Chris's new hobby was far from innocent, and rather than use it to express himself creatively, he used it to document his heinous crimes. For four years, Chris stuck to roughly the same approach.

He'd walk around with a smaller handheld camera, then approach an attractive girl while claiming to be a modeling scout. He'd take a few snaps of her, tell her how pretty she was, then asked if she wanted to stop by his home to shoot a free portfolio. A depressing number of young women were too naive to refuse him, and as a result, many fell victim to his predatory ploy. Once back at Chris' house, the girls were usually intimidated into posing for more and more risque pictures, until finally, he chose a moment to strike. Despite several convictions for assault, Chris never received any jail time for the offenses.

We can't speculate on why that is, but we know that following one such incident in 1977, Chris was forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Incredibly, the psychologist claimed Chris was unsafe, except in a structured environment, and made a note of his dangerously misogynistic attitudes and opinions. Chris continued to harass and violate young women throughout the late 70s and early 80s, including two 15-year-old girls during a visit to his native Australia. Two other girls later identified Chris as the man who had abducted and violated them in Boynton Beach, Florida during the summer of 1983. The fact he continued to avoid any real justice despite two decades of sickening assaults

is nothing short of maddening, and in one case, the continued delays to one of his court dates allowed Chris to keep on offending. But it wasn't until early 1984 that Chris' lust turned to bloodlust, and what started many years before as a despicable deviancy became nothing short of a maelstrom of bloodshed. On February 26th of 1984, 20-year-old Rosario Teresa Gonzalez disappeared from her job as a pharmaceutical spokesmodel at the Miami Grand Prix. She was last spotted departing the track between noon and 1 p.m. with a Caucasian man in his 30s. The Oldsmobile Cutlass was found a few days later parked near DuPont Plaza, and when police dusted for prints, they discovered someone had wiped every surface clean of fingerprints. Then on March 5th, Chris's ex-girlfriend, a 23-year-old Miss Florida finalist named Beth Kenyon, vanished without a trace. She had recently turned down Chris's marriage proposal on the grounds that there was too large of an age gap. Much like Rosario Gonzalez, her car was found abandoned a few days later,

and it was discovered that both women had participated in the Miss Florida contest. On March 18th, Chris lured 21-year-old Teresa Ann Ferguson away from the Merritt Square Mall. It's not clear how or why she was murdered, but her body was found just a few days later in the Canaveral Groves. Next to be targeted was 19-year-old FSU student Linda Grover. She was abducted from the Governor's Square Mall in Tallahassee, Florida, then driven across state lines to Bainbridge, Georgia on March 20th. Chris had initially approached Linda by using his old modeling scalp ploy, but after declining the offer, Linda was beaten, restrained, then confined to the trunk of Chris's car. When they arrived at the Glen Oak Motel in Bainbridge, Chris used superglue and a blow dryer to bind her arms and legs together.

Then once she was immobile, he wove copper wire around her feet and toes, then passed an electric current through them to induce mind-shattering pain. There's no doubt that Linda would have suffered the same fate as the other girls, if not for a valiant and unexpected escape attempt. At one point, Linda felt a surge of adrenaline when Chris turned his back on her, and she somehow managed to throw herself into the motel bathroom before locking the door. Chris was infuriated and promised to kill her once he broke his way into the bathroom. Linda raised all hell to prevent that from happening, kicking the bathroom walls and screaming until her vocal cords hurt. The gambit paid off, and when Chris realized his potential victim was directing undue

attention upon him, he fled the motel after stealing several of Linda's belongings. Knowing he could no longer operate on the southern east coast, Chris drove down to Texas on March 21st. The same day, he spotted 23-year-old mother and nursing student Terry Walden. Once again, Chris tried to entice her into a free modeling shoot, but after he was turned down, he vowed to punish her for the refusal. Two days later, he kidnapped her, violated her, and then stabbed her to death, with her body being found dumped in a canal on March 26th. The day before Terry's body was found, Chris had abducted a 21-year-old woman named Suzanne Logan from the Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City. He then drove her almost 200 miles north to Newton, Kansas, where they checked into the Interstate 35 Inn.

Chris seems to have secured Suzanne's compliance by telling her that, if she cooperated, her life would be spared. Chris delighted in the deception and seized on the opportunity to take her life as they approached Junction City. It was a newly developed way of ensuring maximum fear and confusion in his victims, as without that intense terror, murder didn't thrill Chris in the way that it had the first few times he took a life. After fleeing Kansas, Chris arrived in Grand Junction, Colorado. He met 18-year-old Cheryl Lynn Bonaventura on March 29th, and the pair had dinner together in Silverton, with waitstaff overhearing that they were headed to Vegas for a short vacation. The following day, the couple were spotted at the Four Corners Monument, a tourist attraction which marks where the states of Arizona, Colorado,

New Mexico, and Utah meet. Chris and Cheryl then booked a motel room in Page, Arizona before moving on to Utah in the Kanab River. It was here that Chris decided to break the news that he intended to kill Cheryl, and again, it's safe to say that he prolonged the process for maximum psychological effect. Cheryl's body was found on May 3rd, but by that time, Chris had moved on to Vegas alone. On April 1st, Chris picked up 17-year-old Michelle Korgman from a modeling competition at Vegas' Meadows Mall. Some believe that after placing poorly in the competition, Michelle was a ripe target for Chris' modeling scout ploy.

Her body wasn't found until May 11th, when the stench of death was detected at a Southern California rest stop, but it's believed the same grim pattern unfolded. Chris showered the girl with compliments, won her trust, then delighted the intent of using her as bait to lure other young women into traps. He drove Tina back east through Arizona, Missouri, and Illinois, and it was around this time that Chris was placed on the FBI's most wanted list. On April 10th, Chris and Tina arrived in Merrillville, Indiana, where he put his sinister plan into action. It worked after Tina lured 16-year-old Donette Wilt into Chris' car. He locked the doors, drove off at high speeds, then incredibly, directed Tina to take the wheel. She continued driving all the way to New York State before Chris finally ordered her to pull over to the side of the road.

He then dragged Donnett from the back of the car and into a secluded wooded area near Pan Yan. She was beaten, violated and stabbed twice in the chest before being abandoned. However, after driving just a few miles down the road, Chris had a sudden moment of doubt. He became convinced that Donnett had survived the attack, so he doubled back to make sure she was dead. He walked into the woods, counting his paces to make sure he was in the right spot, but Donnett Wilt was nowhere to be found. Chris walked back and forth convinced that he was in the wrong spot, but he soon realized his suspicions had been correct.

The stab wounds Donnett had suffered had narrowly missed her vital organs, and incredibly, she managed to drag herself to the nearby highway before flagging down assistance. Surgeons at the soldiers' and sailors' hospitals saved the young girl's life, and she was able to inform police that Chris was headed for the Canadian border. Meanwhile, in an attempt to escape the country, Chris took 33-year-old Beth Dodge hostage at the Eastview Mall in Victor, and had Tina follow the pair in their hostages' Pontiac Firebird. After just a short drive, Chris walked Beth to a gravel pit at gunpoint,

and shot her in the back of the head, execution style. After turning north, Chris showed a bizarre turn of heart and let Tina go near Boston Logan Airport after giving her enough cash to buy a plane ticket to LA. It seems fairly obvious why Chris chose to spare Tina, given how integral she'd been during the two previous abductions, but it still stands as a stark change of character from a man whose assurance of safety always led to betrayal. Many have suspected that Tina developed a kind of Stockholm Syndrome while in Chris's company, which might have manifested in a warped kind of support and affection. Chris might have genuinely believed that Tina was on his side,

and it appears this broke through his psychopathic desire to kill, as evidence in her eventual release. Upon returning to her family, Tina spent many years in therapy trying to undo the psychological damage inflicted during her ordeal. Finally, on April 13th, Chris stopped at Vicks Getty service station in Colebrook, New Hampshire. He parked his car, walked inside, grabbed a soda, and then asked the clerk directions to the Canadian border while he paid. But then, on the way back to his car, Chris spotted two New Hampshire state troopers

approaching him from across the parking lot. He tried to stay as cool as possible, walking calmly back to his vehicle as the two Troopers began asking him to stop. Chris opened his driver's side door, back still facing the two Troopers, and grabbed a.357 Colt Python from under the seat. However, Trooper Leo Jellison anticipated the move, rushing forward and wrapping a bear hug around Chris in an attempt to prevent him from arming himself. The two men spun around and since Chris still had the revolver in his grip, Trooper Wayne Fortier felt his life was in imminent danger and Fortier fired two shots. The first smashed its way through Wilder's chest, punched out of his back, and embedded itself into Trooper Jellison's torso.

The second shot impacted Chris's armpit and passed all the way through his chest cavity before exiting the opposite side. His heart, lungs, and dozens of major blood vessels were pulverized, and he died at the scene just minutes later. Trooper Jellison, on the other hand, survived the incident and went to make a hero's return to the New Hampshire State Troopers. His quick thinking had potentially saved the lives of himself, his colleagues, and dozens of other innocent people. When the news of Chris Wilder's apprehension and death hit the airwaves, the sense of other innocent people. When the news of Chris Wilder's apprehension and death hit the airwaves, the sense of relief among both law enforcement and civilian communities was palpable. Chris had already killed or attacked eight young women during his six-week spree,

and while the police speculated that he'd killed countless more, some incredibly disturbing details began to emerge regarding his character. When police searched the car Chris had been driving at the time of his death, they found a copy of John Fowle's novel called The Collector. It provided a harrowing insight into the mind of a dangerously demented person and made it all the more satisfying that he was no longer walking the earth. Following Chris' cremation back in Florida, he left behind an estate worth more than $7 million. It was decided this fortune should be evenly distributed among the families of his victims, and in June of 1986, each family received a check worth more than half

a million dollars. But no amount of money can bring back a loved one snatched away by the hand of evil. Before I get to the point of this, I figured that it wouldn't help if I gave some background to my life. Currently, I'm an 18-year-old male living in Missouri. Ever since my father left when I was five, I've been very aware of my role in our family. Despite my young age, I knew what being man of the house meant. I did all I could to protect my mother and sister from the outside world, no matter the consequences. Even though I knew a bad beating was coming my way, I stood up to a much older kid when he called my sisters some profane names. I may not have known what that meant exactly at the time, but my sister's tears told me that it was a bad name, and it ultimately cost me a tooth, but every kid in our town learned just how determined I was after that fight.

It was by no means the last beating that I would receive at the hands of another kid for defending my family. I rarely won fights, but I'll never be sorry that I protected them. I'd do it all again tomorrow if I had to, even if it cost my life. Fighting wasn't the only aspect of keeping my family safe. Probably the worst event of my life was when my sister was killed in a hit and run. She was only 16 when it happened and her death almost destroyed our mom. Despite barely being 13 myself, I stepped forward to take some of the weight off of her shoulders. When it became clear that we didn't have enough money to give my sister a decent funeral, I sold everything I owned except

my clothes. I only kept my clothes because I didn't think anyone would want threadbare hand-me-downs from Goodwill. In the end, it wasn't enough. Fortunately, my dad's family were kind enough to pay, and regardless, I still gave the money to my mom to help with bills. I only wish that I could have given her more, but nobody would hire me because of my age. I say this all simply to show how important family has always been in my life, and maybe now you understand why a secret from the past has left me so confused and needing help. When I was given the assignment early in the semester, I had no idea what I was about to expose. Because of my grades for my junior year, I had no idea what I was about to expose.

Because of my grades for my junior year, I was placed in AP Biology for my senior year. In truth, the assignment to trace our family trees didn't really have much to do with genetics. I think the teacher really wanted us to see just how complex the human family really is. I looked forward to learning about my family's past, but felt resistance almost from the beginning. When I first mentioned the assignment, my mom quickly changed the subject. I didn't think anything of it then, but every mention of it after that was treated the same way or just completely ignored. I wasn't sure what lay behind her reaction, but it was clear that she had something to hide. And just my luck, I came across a distant cousin on a genealogy site and she was able to give me

most of what I needed. All I was lacking was a small amount that only my mom could provide. As my deadline grew closer, I became more nervous and begged her to help. She continued coming up with excuses and stalled until I mentioned the cousin. This sort of sick look spread across her face and she asked me to just sit down I never could have guessed what I was about to hear though Until the 1990s my family had been relatively normal Mom's side had arrived in the United States in the mid 1800s They arrived from Sweden like thousands others, and purchased a small piece of land to farm. My grandparents met after World War II and started a family. When one of my uncles

passed, my mom and her twin brother were the only remaining children. Everything was normal until my mom was about 13. Around then, her father began visiting her bedroom late at night. That's as far as I'll go with that. She kept this quiet for a little while in hopes that it would stop, but after a year passed and it continued, she confessed it to her mother. Rather than get angry at her husband, my grandmother called my mom a liar and even slapped her. She kept it to herself after that. The bedroom visits would carry on until someone noticed and ended it. That person would be my uncle, my mom's twin brother. He had

been unaware of all of this until he happened to see his dad coming out of mom's room one night. He ignored it at the time, thinking that it was nothing, but when he confronted his sister, she broke down and confessed everything. Naturally, he was disgusted and angry about what he just heard and asked his father if it was true. Instead of denying it outright, his dad told him to mind his own business. This just made him more furious. In a matter of moments, everything changed forever. Mom's brother left the room he and his father had been speaking in and took a shotgun from his closet. He returned to find his father sitting on the couch watching television. The boy calmly and quietly walked up behind his father

and shot him in the back of the head. That clearly was all it took. One up-close blast from the powerful weapon and it was all over. As you can imagine, the home flew into chaos. My uncle put up no resistance as the police took him away, and this would be the last time mom would ever see her twin. What should have ended there just got worse. My grandmother constantly cursed my mom, blaming her for her husband's death. The abuse got so bad that mom finally ran away from home with my dad and got married. You already know how that ended. I was left speechless after hearing this. I had no idea what to say. Her story had answered so

many questions, yet so many more were created at the same time. I had already wondered why mom's side of the family never came around. I just assumed that they were all dead. Mom never once mentioned them and if anybody from that side of the family came up in conversation, mom would just ignore it. Dad must have known considering that he never brought them up. I realize now how odd that is. My friends would ask about that part of the family, and I couldn't do any more than just shrug. When you're young, stuff like that doesn't matter. Now it's the only thing that does. Since the day she told me, we haven't said much to each other. I can't speak for mom, but I have no clue what I would say if we did. There's so many thoughts and questions swirling

around my head I can't think of anything else. Although I have nothing but sympathy for my mom and the horror she was forced to experience, I'm left wondering how many other things I've been lied to about. A small part of me hates her for keeping it from me but that's just my selfish side coming through. Despite my paper being just days away from being due, I could care less about it. I don't even care whether I graduate or not at this point. Obviously, I'm keeping things anonymous here from sending this in, but maybe somebody out there can help me. But as things stand, I can't imagine how. I never realized how important my grandmother was to me until she was gone. Our family lived in a different state and I didn't get to see her as much as I would have liked.

On the big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, she would fly in and stay with us. This was our only time to really sit and discuss things. She was the only person in my family who knew its history and where we came from. I did all I could during these visits to get the whole story, but something always got in the way, and when she passed away in 2015, I thought that that was the end. So many people would be forgotten, but I was sure dad's mom wouldn't be one of them. I'd heard and recorded countless stories of her upbringing and thought that I knew everything there was to know about

her. And that was until 2021, and a terrible storm came along that left us all stuck inside with nothing to do. One cold winter night, I would hear something about my grandmother that she had never told me. This would not only be a massive shock, but would change the way that I viewed her forever. So this story happened in February of 2021. A massive freeze struck Texas and left most of the state stuck inside without power. I fled from my apartment to my parents' house soon after the power cuts began, and they had purchased 50 acres outside town when I was 12 and built a house on it. My dad had a few heaters set up around the house, connected to a generator, and these kept us warm and allowed us to avoid the burst pipes problem a lot of others

were having. Although powerful, the generator wasn't strong enough to run anything else like TVs or computers at the same time. We had plenty of work to do during the day, but the evenings were very boring. By the second night, everyone was sick of board games. It was the third evening in which Dad would tell us a story very few of us were even aware of. We spent that third day much like the others. After the animals were fed, Dave drove around to his neighbors and checked on them. He assisted where he could. When he returned, we laid down more sand and gravel on the walkways. It was nearly dark when we finished. After a relaxing dinner lit by oil lamps and candles, we discussed the entertainment for the evening. My mom wasn't interested in

blackjack, so she just curled up with a book while dad and I played. An hour or so passed before we grew sick of the cards and decided to tell some scary stories instead. And this soon devolved into tales of my parents' childhoods and all the trouble they got into. I made a comment about my dad's mom being mad and that's when he mentioned her not having any room to talk. This got my attention. I pushed him on this and he tried to change the subject. My curiosity had been aroused and I wasn't about to just let this go. I pushed him a bit more and he seemed to finally cave.

So the following is more or less what he recalled, although not word for word, I'm sure you'll get the gist of what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure the year was 1968. Mom was born and raised in a small town, Indiana. Her dad was a preacher and farmed a plot of a few hundred acres that he'd inherited. From what I'd heard, he was a hard man to love. His literal interpretation of Bible scriptures led to sometimes pretty severe punishment. Mom said it was a constant man to love. His literal interpretation of Bible scriptures led to sometimes pretty severe punishment. Mom said it was a constant struggle for approval. Despite this, she loved her father with all of her heart and did all he demanded. That was until

she met Daryl Mitchell. She was 16 when she saw him at the drugstore, and it was all downhill after that. Daryl was about 20 and no stranger to the law. He was what everyone used to call a hoodlum. He didn't know Mom, but something drew him to her. The second he introduced himself, Mom couldn't think of anything else. They were soon head over heels in love, and there was no way that it could end well after that. It wouldn't be long before the news of their romance got back to Mom's folks and to say that they were horrified is a giant understatement. Daryl's criminal history was common knowledge around town and most of those who knew Mom personally were shocked at her choice of boyfriends. In hindsight, it wasn't anything new.

Thousands of young girls lose their hearts to bad boys every year. Her parents' reaction was no surprise either. Mom was ordered to end the relationship and never see Daryl again. It was a heartbreaking decision, but at her core, mom was an obedient daughter and did as her daddy demanded. After a short, tear-soaked phone call, the whirlwind romance appeared to be all but over, but what no one knew at the time, one or both participants had no intention of letting it end so easily. To those watching from the outside, the relationship looked like it was over. However, behind the scenes, Mom and Daryl were still seeing each other secretly. A crazy and stupid plan was being hatched that would assure that the pair could be together forever

without unwanted intrusion from the grown-ups around them. And when the time was right, the couple set the scheme into motion. Mom left for school as usual, but Daryl picked her up a few blocks from home. They hit the road from there, confident that they would be halfway across the country before anyone even noticed mom was missing. The plan may have worked had mom not been a good student. When she didn't arrive for her first two classes, the school called home to ask if she was sick. Her mother called her dad immediately and the search began. After a substantial amount of pressure was put on her friends,

one of them broke down and told the police about their pair's plan to escape, and a statewide alert was put out for them, but they had already passed into Illinois. Although their destination was unknown, the authorities had a strong suspicion Mom and Daryl were heading up to Canada. Once alerts were sent out to the states along their path, all anyone could do was wait. The following day, the cops in Indiana got a call from Illinois and the news wasn't good. Earlier that morning, a highway patrolman caught sight of Darrell's car and attempted to pull them over. Darrell offered no resistance at first, but opened fire on the patrolman as he approached the vehicle. Unfortunately, the patrolman was killed, and the couple fled the scene. Less than an hour later, several more patrolmen caught up with the car and a chase began,

and the chase went a few miles before Darrell crashed into a ditch. At that point, he tried to shoot it out with the police, but was actually killed in the firefight. Mom was only a bit scratched up from the crash and had a grazing wound on her forehead, but was uninjured otherwise. After a quick examination at the hospital, she was arrested and taken into custody, and what was supposed to be a romantic escape had just become her worst nightmare. The man that she loved was now dead, and she was facing the death penalty for killing a cop. Luckily for her, society still viewed females as powerless against these men, and she did the smart thing and swore that she had been taken against her will.

There was a small group who knew the truth, but they stayed silent. And in the end, mom was let off with a short term of probation and allowed to return home. As it is in small towns, tongues were constantly wagging about her, but she toughed it out long enough to finish high school. Not long after graduation, she found a job in Dallas and moved there. And with a new city, she was able to start a new life. Nobody knew her history and that's the way she liked it. Eventually, she met my dad and they were married.

I have no idea when he found out about her little adventure, but I know he was aware of it. He didn't seem to care though. But then again, I have my suspicions that dad had a history of his own as well. I didn't personally find out about this until I was already in my twenties. It came as quite a shock at first, but that faded pretty quickly. I can't recall any of us ever discussing it again. It's a strange story when you know my mom, but we all have a past. And that's where he left it. I was dumbstruck, and my grandmother had never done as much as use a curse word in my presence, and now I was finding out that she played a part in a murder. Dad was right though. We all have a history, a past, and

his mom's just happened to be way more extreme than most. That's probably the strangest part about all of this. I'd always had this view of my grandmother as this cookie-cutter, stereotypical, old, nice woman. That's not a bad thing to be, to be honest. It's just kind of boring, but now that I know about Daryl, my perception had completely changed. I see their love as both terrifying and romantic. I doubt she ever imagined things would turn out the way they did. She probably thought that she could change him. That he'd get away to Canada and just live happily ever after.

That fantasy was destroyed in a hail of bullets. Losing someone she loved so much had to have been difficult. She could have just given up then and there, but she didn't. And instead, she picked herself up and started over somewhere else. That mistake could have destroyed her whole future, but she didn't let it. And for that, I'll always respect her so much more. I was 12 when I met my best friend. Now for privacy and legal reasons, we'll just call him Kyle. This year was 2006 and my dad was transferred to a new city for his job. I met Kyle on my first day of school.

I was sitting in the office while my mom spoke to the principal and Kyle had just gotten into a fight and been sent to the office to be punished. He still had blood running out of his nose I remember. We began talking and before I knew it, I had made my first friend. Our houses were only about a mile apart and I'd ride my bike over to his place all the time. From my perspective, his home life was awesome. Both of his parents were professors at the university and had a very liberal stance on parenting. Kyle and his brother were left to raise themselves for the most part and we took advantage of it. My best memories of my childhood took place at Kyle's house.

I would have spent all my time there but I'm not sure Kyle would have the same opinion. No matter how free he may have appeared, his life was closer to a prison in one major aspect. Not long after I met him, I noticed Kyle showed up at school with black eyes and bruises all over him. I assumed that these were caused from frequent fights or something. I know that's what the teachers thought because they said as much. However, I would soon come to realize that this wasn't the case the better I got to know him. Maybe the second time I was at his house, I witnessed his brother push him down and laugh. This was just the first of many times I'd see him being abused by his older sibling.

I'm well aware that brothers and sisters fight sometimes, but this wasn't that though. Casey, Kyle's older brother, would often just attack him out of nowhere with no provocation. It was sad to see, but what was even worse was how his parents reacted to it. Every time he asked them for help, they just blew him off. He was told that boys will be boys and was sent on his way. There were so many times someone could have stopped this, but nobody seemed to care enough. I'm not a psychologist, but I think the abuse from his brothers was what drove him to get into fights at school. I can only assume that it was an attempt to regain some amount of power that had been robbed from him at home. He would usually pick the biggest kid that he could find. Whether he won or lost, I never saw him walk away without a smile. It was like he had some

split personality, and this side just came out to fight. A few minutes would pass, and his normal quiet and kind side re-emerged to take over again. I witnessed him get into probably ten fights. Each one he cursed and mocked his opponent into a raging fury, but not once in all the years I've known him did he ever raise his voice to me. Had I not seen this side of him, I wouldn't believe it even existed. To this day, I've never met another person like him. He'll always be like family to me, but deep down, I'll always be terrified of that beast that lurked just below the surface, ready to strike seemingly at any moment. As the years went by, a lot of things changed, but Kyle's home situation stayed the same.

The abuse continued to escalate until Kyle ended up in the hospital a few times, and each time his brother would ease up, but like an abusive spouse, something set him off and he'd lose control again. Just in time, some ray of hope appeared the year when we turned 15. Casey had graduated the year previously and left for college, and Kyle was finally free, and his attitude began to show it. The fight stopped almost completely, and he was smiling a lot more. His grades even started to improve so much that he made the honor roll for the first time in his life. As we headed into the Christmas break, life couldn't have been better. And then, all of a sudden, it all fell apart. On the 27th of December,

I got a phone call from Kyle I'll never forget. The day prior, Casey had come home after drinking and fell down the stairs, and at present, he was in a coma. The doctors weren't sure if he would even wake up, and if he did, he'd probably have severe brain damage for the rest of his life. And despite the long history of abuse, Kyle was shattered over the event. And against all odds, Casey did survive, but the doctor's prognosis proved correct. The fall had done severe neurological damage, he was left confined to a wheelchair and unable to communicate. He remains dependent on others for everything to this day, and Kyle changed too. Although he managed to get on with his life, a cloud seemed to hover over him from then on. I would slowly see less and less of him until I graduated and

moved away to attend college as well. Other than the occasional phone call, we had very little contact with one another for the next few years. I would eventually get a degree and move again for work, and by this time, Kyle and I had lost contact completely, but I had no idea how to reach him. And it wouldn't be until I was 25 years old and starting my own family that he would make a brief reappearance before disappearing again, but this time, forever. One year during Christmas, my wife and I took our newborn daughter to meet her grandparents for the first time. We were all sitting around the table catching up when the phone rang. My mom answered and told the caller to hold on for a moment. Kyle wanted to talk and she asked if I wanted to speak to him.

I did and of course, took the phone into the other room. We made small talk for a few moments before he invited me out to get some drinks. I agreed and we met up at a bar downtown. We spent an hour there before we left for his house, grabbing a 12 pack on the way. It was just like the old days, hanging out in that giant house, just the two of us. His parents had given him the old place when they divorced and Casey had been put in a rest home long ago. We just so happened to be sitting on that same staircase that Casey plunged down when Kyle made a terrible confession. We were both pretty drunk when he said it, but the effect was no less shocking.

The subject of Casey's accident came up when he confessed. Come on man, you don't have to play that game. You know I pushed him. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and I choked on the beer that I was drinking. I paused and waited for him to say that he was joking, but he never did. I didn't want to admit it, but I knew he was drinking. I paused and waited for him to say that he was joking but he never did. I didn't want to admit it but I knew he was serious. I tried to laugh it off but he doubled down and went so far as to explain his reasons. He made it clear that it hadn't been premeditated. It just happened in the heat of the moment and once Casey moved away he was able to relax for the first time in his life.

But then he visited for Christmas and all that pain came rushing back. He did his best to avoid him while he was there but Casey sought him out and Kyle fought back for the first time in his life. They were at the top of the stairs and Kyle tried to push him away. Unfortunately for Casey, he was drunk. He lost his balance and fell. As usual, nobody was around to witness it. Kyle was scared and kept the truth to himself. Some people may have been suspicious at the time, but they never said anything, and I for one was not among them. I never suspected Kyle for a second. I had no clue what to say after this and the conversation kind of just moved on to other subjects. Nonetheless, his confession floated around in my head for the rest of the night.

I headed home around 3am and slept late the next day. For most of the afternoon I assumed that I dreamed the whole thing up but then Kyle sent me a text that proved that I hadn't. The text said, I didn't mean to put you in this position. I'm sorry and understand if you don't want to hang out anymore. Do I have something to worry about? It took me the rest of the day to decide what I was going to do. Even though I don't think Kyle meant to hurt his brother, a young man's life was ruined forever that night. I wouldn't wish that kind of hell on anyone. And shortly before going to bed that night. I wouldn't wish that kind of hell on anyone. And shortly before going to bed that night, I wrote him a text message that would be our last point of contact forever.

It said, You don't have anything to worry about for me, man. That said, I think it would be best if we didn't talk again. You need to get help with your anger issues before you kill someone. I hope you understand. You'll always be my brother. I kept my word and told no one about our conversation for the last four years, but now that I've been informed of Kyle's passing,

I suppose it's time everyone knows the truth. I didn't ask how or why. It doesn't matter anyway. I just wish that I could have gotten to say goodbye one more time. I'll begin this by stating that I'm a 37-year-old male who owns his own business in the southern United States. My fiancé and I were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in our church. She and I have been together for about two years and recently decided to get married. Our relationship was great from the beginning and I look forward to growing old with her, an idea that would have been unthinkable just five years ago.

After a failed marriage in my early twenties I never intended to ever get married again but as the saying goes, never say never. I've been honest with her about almost everything during that period of my life. She knows my drinking problem was the main reason for the marriage's failure, but that's as far as I went. I haven't had a drop of alcohol in over 12 years and hopefully never will. Liquor came very close to ruining my life forever. And this brings me to the reason for sending this in. As I said, I've been honest about almost everything in my past. There is however one major incident that I haven't told her about. I'm afraid when I do it will undo everything we've built together and I guess I'm just looking for advice from your audience. I'm very open about my alcoholism. It was part of my life and I see no reason to hide

it. I've worked very hard and continue to work daily to ensure that I never return to my past behavior. It was a normal part of my life for a long time and very nearly killed me. I was 15 when I started sneaking that occasional drink from my parents' liquor cabinet. The forbidden nature of it gave me an indescribable rush. My parents were too absorbed in their own lives to really notice what was happening, and I would eventually befriend an older man who would buy me my own bottles that I hid in my room. This was the point at which I truly became an alcoholic. I quickly learned to pace myself, but I was a drunk nonetheless, carrying a bottle of OJ and vodka everywhere I went.

It took many years before any problems began to show themselves, and I was 20 when I had my first car accident. This would be why my parents first learned about my drinking. Fortunately, it was just a single car wreck and no one was injured, and since I had no record, I was just given probation and sent on my way. A smart person would have counted themselves lucky and stopped drinking, or at least stopped driving while drunk. I'm not that person. Less than a year later, I crashed into a parked car near my house. The judge was less understanding this time. He not only extended my probation to ten years, but he also ordered me to get one of those breathalyzer things that connected to my ignition, and now my car wouldn't even start until I blew sober. Being the drunk bum that I was, I got around this by driving my now wife's car instead.

I managed to make it over three years before I had my last, and worst, wreck. This would be the one that changed everything and the reason I'm writing this today. You see, at the time, I was 24 and working for a friend's business. On this night, I had been partying with some buddies at one of their houses, and he was reluctant to let me drive home, but by now, I was good at hiding how drunk I was, and I convinced him that I was okay. I didn't exactly have the smartest friends back then, and the truth is, I was trashed. All I remember is entering onto the highway.

Everything after that is a blur, but according to the police report, I passed out at the wheel and crashed into another driver head on. I wouldn't be as fortunate as I had been in the past. The other driver was a 22 year old mother and her 19 month old child was in the car with her. Neither would survive the wreck while I got away relatively unscathed. Of course I was too drunk to know what was going on and it wasn't until the next morning when I sobered up that I realized I was now a double murderer. If I could have taken my own life at that moment, I would have. Sitting in that jail cell, I promised God that I'd never take another drink again, and I've held that until today.

The justice system was done giving me another chance. When the prosecutor offered me nine years, I took it. I knew it was more than fair. I could have easily been sentenced to double that if I went to trial, and what followed was six years of the best and worst years of my life. I was lucky enough to have access to the last few remaining rehab programs that existed in the prison system. I spent every available moment trying to better myself, and it ultimately paid off. Don't get me wrong though, quitting drinking cold turkey was far from easy.

There were moments that I came close to dying and I would have deserved it. I took a few beatings and my wife divorced me. Still, I didn't give up. I did all I could to stay out of trouble during my term inside and I was granted early release after serving six years. The remainder of my sentence was spent on parole, which I completed three years later. My life since then had been a constant struggle, but one I fully embrace. Every day above the ground is a gift, I think. Please excuse this long-winded type-out, but there is a point to all of this, I think. Please excuse this long-winded typo, but there is a point to all of this, I promise.

In the years since I've left prison, I've continued to attend AA meetings regularly and sponsors several other alcoholics. I've also become a member of a local church, which is where I was introduced to my now-fiancé. And this brings us to my problem. At some point in the course of telling her about my life, I punked out and didn't tell her about the woman and infant that I killed. I'd already become emotionally invested in the relationship and was afraid that this would just scare her off. And now that we were planning to get married, I'm unsure what to do. Is it too late? Should I confess and pray that she doesn't walk out, or do I hope she never finds out and just keep my mouth shut?

My conscience is pushing me to be honest, but I'm afraid it will destroy everything. I love her so much, and hiding this from her has been agonizing. And this is where I am asking for guidance from strangers, people without any personal connection to either of us. So please, what should I do? There's no real way of sugarcoating it. I'm convinced my dad was murdered. I know it's a bold claim to make, but I've arrived at this conclusion only after a lot of hours of discussion and study, and this is the only way things really make sense.

I've got a lot to cover, but I'll be as brief as possible. To start, my parents were high school sweethearts. When dad was accepted to Penn State, mom followed him, and upon graduation, they were married, and dad took a job down in Florida. I would appear just a year later and my sister the next year, and I really can't complain about my childhood. I had a just a year later and my sister the next year and I really can't complain about my childhood. I had a lot of kids around me to play with and two parents who loved me. You'd have to ask my sister her opinion but from my point of view we had it a lot better than most of our friends. Life was going great until mom got cancer. She went through chemo and the cancer actually did go into remission, only to come back a few years later. This time she wasn't so lucky. Just before my graduation,

she passed away at the age of 42. After the funeral, everyone picked themselves up and moved on the best they could. My sister and I soon moved away to college and left dad at home with his thoughts. He was having a hard time until a friend suggested that he join a grief support group. The group turned out to be just what he needed. What we weren't expecting was that he'd fall in love there. Another member of the group, Laura, had lost her husband in a car accident. Her and dad found comfort in one another and began dating. Less than a year

later, dad called to tell me he and Laura were getting married. Despite being a little shocked, I gave them my blessing, as did my sister. The wedding was beautiful and seeing dad able to smile again did a lot to lift me out of a hole of my own. It looked as if though everyone had made peace with mom's death and were now able to focus on the future without her. Both my sister and I found our own long-term partners and were on the path of starting our own families as well. About four years went by in which I got married and my sister had her first child with her boyfriend. Life was improving for everyone except for dad. You see, unknown to us, something was going on. No one knew, but Laura. Soon after the wedding, dad and Laura bought this big new house on the

lake. It was an amazing place, but very expensive. Dad had to increase his hours at work to pay for it. Without dad around to help her with the small chores, Laura began asking the neighbor over. He was a single 35-year-old millionaire with plenty of time on his hands. Dad was well aware of the arrangement and just happy Laura had the help that she needed. A man like me would have been concerned about the possibilities, but dad trusted Laura completely. This was his mistake. He took off early one day and came home to find Laura cuddled up with a neighbor on the patio. The cowardly neighbor took off and left Laura alone to answer dad's questions,

and this is when the truth came out. When pressed on the matter, Laura admitted she and the neighbor had been having an affair since soon after they moved into the house, and dad was obviously crushed by this news. But even worse, the tramp tried to blame dad for the affair. She said that she had become lonely without him around, and the neighbor gave her the attention that she needed. Ultimately, her scheme didn't work as planned and dad moved out. An arrangement would be made where she would be allowed to live in the lake house until the divorce was final, at which point it would be sold. Laura pretended

that this didn't bother her, but as the time grew closer, she tried to lure dad back into her clutches. On one occasion, she managed to get dad over for a meal at which point she got him drunk and seduced him into bed. For a short period of time it looked like he'd changed his mind. Fortunately, me and my sister were able to bring him back to reality and he regained his senses. She wasn't done there though. She even contacted some of us and asked us to change her dad's mind. We quickly shot her down. It was just a month until the hearing when a terrible accident would occur though, or so we thought. I was headed out the door one morning when a nightmare came to life. My phone rang and my sister was on the other side. Through the storm of tears and sobs I

learned that my father was dead. Our uncle had found his body in his townhouse. It appeared that he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was hard to believe, but the cops were certain. I thought back to a discussion that we had a few weeks before. In hindsight, his demeanor was very downcast. He talked about how much of a failure he felt and how he wished that it could all just be over. At the time, I assumed that he meant that he was eager for the divorce to be over, but in light of his actions, I was left to rethink that.

I told the police about this talk, and I think it may have been my words that motivated them to rule that he had taken his own life. The way it happened made little difference at the end of the day. My dad was dead, and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I was being eaten alive with grief. Losing both of my parents so close together was overwhelming. It was only when Laura began acting weird that I started to question the official record. Dad had been dead for more than a month before Laura called me. Considering his death, the divorce proceedings had ceased. She was still living in the lake house and was legally considered dad's widow now.

I'd forgotten all about her to be honest. She had not been to the funeral or contacted anyone in the family. It was like she didn't exist. When I pressed her on her absence, she said that she assumed none of the family wanted her there. And while that's true, I can't imagine any wife who wouldn't at least show up briefly to bid her husband goodbye. And from there I was forced to endure a 20 minute speech on how she was given no choice but to grieve the loss all alone. I asked about the neighbor, but she pretended not to hear me. And by now I'd long grown sick

of listening and just said goodbye. And now I no longer had any excuse to speak to her and try to put her out of my mind. Unfortunately, something she said has stuck with me and I really can't get past it. In the process of our phone call, Laura seemed to insist that Dad talked about taking his life often. I'd been raised by the man and I never once heard him bring up that subject. We talked about death of course, especially when mom died, but I always got the impression that he looked down on it. I'd only accepted the police's verdict because of that final conversation. Although he never actually said the word, it made sense to me at the time. Her repeating this supposed fact rubbed me the wrong way though.

No one had ever questioned the cause of death. Why was she pushing it so hard? If she was trying to prevent any suspicion she was doing a terrible job, then this would be the spark that set the fire in my head. From that point I made it my goal to either remove any bit of doubt that I had or prove Laura had murdered him. The next year would lead me down the path of Laura's dark life, and I now have everything I need to reopen this investigation if not prove her guilt outright, and this is just some of what I found. So let's start with Laura's early days. She'd grown up without a father and was raised by an alcoholic mother. The mother did her best to land herself a rich husband to take care of her and her young daughter, and this never

panned out. Fresh out of high school, Laura took a job dancing at an adult club. Like many before her, she had taken the job to pay her way through college. Also like many others, the fast-moving lifestyle of drink and drugs took its toll and she flunked out. And now she had no choice but to make the best of her new life. By all accounts, she had taken up the baton from her mother and dated many wealthy men but had similar results. And that was until she met the man who became her first husband. He swooped in and saved her from her life of debauchery. All was well in paradise for a while, but when her husband lost his life in a car accident,

she was left widowed and lonely. There were a few who questioned the timing, however. Their friends knew that he had been talking divorce and she was well aware of it. The timing of his death left many suspicious. And despite the concerns of a few, the police had no reason to question the cause of death. It was rolled in accident and Laura moved on to another man almost overnight. After she spent all of her husband's money on one night stands and partying, she went on the hunt for a new sugar daddy. And that's how she met my dad. He was making good money at the time, but obviously had the potential to make more. He was lonely, and she knew it. Dad moved her

in soon after they met and began buying her all kinds of expensive presents. He had already started taking extra work by the time I heard about the wedding. He said he was doing it to pay for the wedding, but when they went to buy the lake house, it was clear what was going on. I was understandably concerned that he may have been stretching himself too thin, but it was so nice to see him happy that I just couldn't really push back on this. My suspicions were cemented when I discovered Laura had moved the neighbor in just a few months prior to dad's death. This made zero sense in light of the arrangement her and her dad had made. If she knew the house was just months away from being put up for sale,

why would she move her lover in? Wouldn't it make more sense to move in with him? His house is far from a dump. She had to have known that the sale was never going to happen. And with dad dead, she would get everything from his estate, including the house, and get to keep her lover. The problem would be proving all of this though. And that's what I'm working on at the present. I have a private detective chasing down and confirming all of these leads. And if he comes to the same conclusion that I have, my sister and I are going to the police and demand that they reopen the case. I realize what I've

presented to all of you here is really circumstantial, but I can assure you that there is much more information, and much of it very damning. I choose not to include it here for the sake of brevity and to ensure Laura is kept guessing if she just so happens to listen to the channel. I promise I wouldn't even have gone to the lengths that I have if I wasn't confident in my suspicions. The detectives have notified me that this investigation is winding down and things don't look good for Laura. I will admit that I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but my dad deserves justice. Once I've taken the file to the police and they let me know their decision, I will post and try to give you guys an update.

Just pray the law sees the truth and this murdering witch gets the punishment she deserves. Only last week I was contacted by a friend that I haven't seen in 20 years. Her and I had been neighbors and best friends until something crazy happened and we lost contact. And the following will be my best possible retelling of the incident that separated us, so please be patient. I was only 10 at the time, and anyone older who may know more is no longer around for me to even ask. But anyhow, I grew up in a very poor area in small-town Missouri. The house we rented was barely better than a shack. The entire area was just above trailer park level if you get my meaning and both my parents worked at least two jobs and I was left alone with no one to really talk to. And that's why I was so excited when Julie and her family finally moved in next door. I walked around outside until she

noticed me and asked if she wanted to be my friend. She agreed and we began spending all of our time together. It didn't take long before I noticed something odd was happening though. Julie's parents were very nice but had a very strange way about them. Even my parents brought it up when they met them and to start, they were very religious. While that wasn't out of the ordinary for our area, they spent more time studying the Bible than anyone I'd ever encountered. Not only was a large part of Julie's education about religion, but she was also required to take part in the family Bible study every evening at home.

Julie's education was also odd to me. Unlike the other kids I knew, she was homeschooled by her mother. This was probably the strangest to me, as I'd never known that you could do it before I met her. Once she explained it to me, I took a liking to it and tried to convince my mom to teach me. She explained that we couldn't afford for her to stay home, but I was young and didn't understand. And I remained jealous for a long time, but after the truth was discovered and Julie went away, it didn't seem so neat anymore. I was just a couple of weeks away from my 11th birthday when Julie was taken away. Early on a Friday morning, I think, I was awakened for

school and noticed some blue and red lights flashing through my curtains. I looked out and saw a bunch of police cars next door at Julie's. When I asked my parents what was happening, they just told me not to worry about it. After breakfast, I was dropped off at school like normal, but I couldn't concentrate. All I could think about was Julie. And without any information, my young mind went wild with possibilities, many of them very awful. I was far too excited to wait for the bus. Instead, I ran the mile or so home. I went straight to Julie's and I pounded on the door for at least five minutes but I never got an answer. And this just made me more nervous.

By the time my mom had made it home, I was throwing up and crying. It took her almost half an hour to calm me down. Although I didn't understand everything she told me, I was throwing up and crying. It took her almost half an hour to calm me down. Although I didn't understand everything she told me, I knew that I'd never see my friend again. Once I was calm enough to listen, my mother sat me down and told me what had happened. Most of what I know was now pieced together after the fact, but I'm pretty sure mom already had the basics by that afternoon. She had returned home after dropping me off at school. She found an officer and asked what was happening. The officer asked her to wait for him to come back.

A moment later, an FBI agent approached her and asked if she could answer some questions about the family. She agreed and they walked next door to our house to do the interview. After a few basic questions, the agent told mom the story. Julie had been abducted from a Walmart store in Oklahoma when she was just four. He and the agency had been searching for her since it happened, but her abductors were always a step ahead. He didn't say how they'd finally track them down but I assumed they made a mistake and that was all they needed to find this couple. And by the time school had ended, Julie was long gone. More of the story got back to us over the next few years.

My dad came across a newspaper article from Julie's hometown that included many of the details that we were not yet aware of. It began by telling how Julie had been abducted from the store when her mother wasn't paying attention. Then it went on to discuss the search and six-year investigation to find her. Possibly the most interesting part of the article covered the motives behind the abduction. The male of the couple discussed how they had lost a daughter around Julie's age in a hit and run the year prior. His wife became so inconsolable that he feared that she would take her life. In a very misguided attempt at preventing that, he noticed a little girl all by herself on a Walmart toy aisle and took her. Since then, he and his wife had raised Julie as their own, doing their best to ensure that she felt loved and always wanted.

They both admitted they knew it was wrong but claimed that they'd allowed their grief to drive them to make a poor decision. As I said at the start, it's been 20 years since Julie returned to her family. I never expected to see or hear from her again. That's why I was so shocked and pleased when I got her message. We're currently trying to find an open space in both of our schedules so we can meet and catch up. I haven't looked forward to something like this since my son was born. If she's interested in sharing her life in the intervening years, I'll be sure to share it with you. And I can't imagine it's a boring tale to tell. I'd like to wrap this up with a very appropriate message for all you parents out there. It's really more of a reminder,

I guess. Always keep your children in sight. I know little ones are good at disappearing in the blink of an eye, but evil often lurks around every corner. It only takes a short lapse in concentration for your world to change forever. About 20 minutes from my hometown is a large resort that has just about anything you can think of. It gets most of its use because the resort is probably the largest casino within a 60-mile radius. But it is so much more than just a casino. It has a spa, dozens of suites for weddings and honeymoons, and a massive hall for concerts and shows. I even saw an episode of WWE Smackdown there when I was about 12 years old. The resort truly has everything. Back in 2019, I was surprised to see that the resort would be hosting this video game convention.

They had recently just built a brand new convention center and I was pretty excited to check it out by attending a gaming convention. I've always been an avid gamer and I never thought that I would be able to attend a convention so close to home. Tickets were pricey, but my friend's dad was the manager at the resort resort so I was able to get two tickets for a super cheap price. When it came time for the convention, my friend bailed and nobody else could go so I ended up attending the convention all by myself. I was bummed out at first but once I got there and saw everything going on, I was instantly in a better mood. All the major systems were on display, and new game trailers were being announced. But honestly, since this wasn't one of the major gaming conventions, there wasn't anything super newsworthy going on. It was mostly just gaming memorabilia and mega fans sharing

their love for games. While I was walking around, meeting people, most notably Charles Andre Martinet, the man who voices Mario in the video game, I met another guy named Chuck. He was also alone and we kind of seemed to click right away. At first he didn't seem like he belonged. He was wearing a suit and had his hair greased back. Everyone else was wearing t-shirts, jeans, or cosplaying, but not this guy Chuck. At first I thought he worked at the resort, or maybe was some sort of gaming executive, but it turns out he was just a gamer like me. I told myself that you can't always judge a book by its cover. We spent hours talking. We ended up hitting up all the booths at the convention and even saw one of the guest speakers. At around 11,

we decided to grab some food. Since the casino was 24 hours, they also had a few food options that served food all night long. We grabbed a burger and some fries and then hit up the bar inside the casino. I'm not sure if it was because of the convention, but the atmosphere in the bar was really great. After a few drinks, I was starting to feel it a little bit and told Chuck that I was going to call it a night. We exchanged numbers and I told him that we would definitely hang out again soon and I really meant it. Prior to the convention coming to town, I had the foresight to book a room in the resort. I didn't want to drive home late and I thought maybe I would go to the casino after the convention.

I knew myself well and I knew if I went to the casino, I would probably drink. So I made my way to the room and started getting myself ready for bed. I was actually exhausted, and at this point of the night, it was probably closing in on about three in the morning. I was so tired that I didn't even turn on the TV or pull out my phone to listen to music or anything. I just got into bed and closed my eyes. I started to drift in and out of consciousness and I thought that I could hear something coming from the corner of the room where the door was. I slowly got out of bed and I could see the outline

of two feet from underneath the door. I kept all my lights off in the room so I could see the light illuminating from underneath the door. While I was staring at the feet of the obvious figure behind my door, my mind started to race. The first thing, and really the only thing that came to my mind, was that it was someone from the bar who was drunk and was clearly the wrong door or the wrong room. While I was staring at the door, I noticed that whoever was outside the door started to jostle the doorknob. It wasn't just a jiggle either. This person was aggressively trying to open the door. I was admittedly freaked out at this point and I slowly approached the door so I could look through the lookout of the door.

I couldn't believe my eyes. It was him. It was Chuck, standing right outside my room. He kept looking back and forth, kind of mumbling to himself, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. He was still wearing that suit, but he was wearing a baseball cap now for some reason. I was trying to be quiet and contemplate what to do without bringing attention to myself. This was clearly sketchy and I had no idea what was happening and then it hit me. I never told Chuck that I was staying at the hotel, let alone what room that I was staying in.

While I was leaning against the wall, I heard a loud bang. I looked through the hole and now Chuck was shoulder checking this door, looking both ways after each thud into the door. Finally, he just appeared to give up, and when I looked through the hole again, he was gone. Well, at least out of sight in the small view. I called the front desk and alerted them of what was going on, and they took the liberty of calling the police. While I was waiting for the cops, I noticed a note had been slipped underneath my door.

I never heard it, so I had no idea when the note had actually come through, and all that was written on it was, Pleasure to have met you. Too bad the door was locked. And it was signed with just the letter C. I told the police everything, and even gave them the number that Chuck gave me but I guess the number wasn't his. The hotel checked the cameras and they clearly had footage of a man in a suit on my floor going back and forth knocking on my door but that was about it. They weren't able to see where he went. Given the time stamp of the security footage he appeared to leave the note under the door while I was on the phone with the desk. They saw him leaving the hotel on camera at around 4.30 in the morning and that was the last anyone had ever seen of this Chuck. I haven't returned to

that resort or convention center since that night in 2019 and for obvious reasons, I never want to go back. To this day, I still wonder about that Chuck and I wonder if he's out there causing trouble for other people. I cringe when I think about what he could have possibly wanted that night, and I'm just so thankful that I lock my doors. The ones we consider friends can just as easily be monsters. This short story happened to me about 10 years ago and whenever I stop and think about it, I'm reminded just how messed up people are in this life. About an hour from my house was going to be this Mortal Kombat convention based on the video game in case you don't know what Mortal Kombat is.

I'm a massive fan of the franchise and during this period of my life I was playing a ton of games. Even though I was excited about the convention, what I was most excited about was that they were going to have a Mortal Kombat gaming tournament. I don't have a lot of skills, but one thing I am good at is Mortal Kombat. I begged my girlfriend for a while, and she finally agreed to go with me, a decision that she still regrets to this day. And the day finally came, and we arrived early so I could sign some form about the game tournament. I had to register early to participate, but I still needed to fill out some stuff upon arrival. After I met the spokesperson, my girlfriend and I checked into

our hotel, which was across the street from the convention center. The hotel was probably the only thing I wasn't crazy about. It was old and dark and it just didn't feel clean. The price wasn't great, but I figured that was because of the close proximity to the event. When we were checking in and walking to the room, we saw less than friendly characters walking around. We started to feel more comfortable when we arrived on our floor and saw a bunch of people around our age, all wearing Mortal Kombat t-shirts and hats. As sketchy as this place was, at least we were in it together with all these other fans. We rested for a little while and then made our way to the convention which was awesome.

We spent a few hours checking out art and meeting some actual voice actors and game developers. At 7pm, the tournament was about to start and I had a blast. I won a few rounds, but then got eliminated in one of the final rounds, but I wasn't even upset because it was just so much fun, and I ended up making some friends that I'm still close with today. The one bad thing that happened at the convention, though, was that while I was on the stage going one-on-one with an opponent, my girlfriend was just sitting in the crowd watching, basically being a good sport. The bad thing was she ended up getting approached by some guy cosplaying as the character Cabal. If you don't know the character, you should

look him up. It's one of the stranger and creepier characters, and he wears this mask that has tubes and stuff coming out of it. She was initially nice and told the guy that his costume was cool, even though she didn't mean it and just wanted the interaction to actually end. Unfortunately, the guy wouldn't leave her alone. After I was eliminated, I made my way back down and saw the guy basically following my girlfriend. Not being one for confrontation, I just put my arm around my girl, kissed her on the head, and asked if she wanted to grab some food. The guy got the hint, which I was hoping would happen, and he started to wander away, kind of humming to himself, which was really weird in the moment.

The rest of the night was fun, and we sort of just hung out for a while. After the convention, the few friends that I had made decided to go out for a drink with us and we ended up staying at the bar until 2am. When we got back from the bar, I laid right down since I was really exhausted but my girlfriend was now pretty wide awake. After going to the bar, she was energized and claimed that she was hungry. I told her the food options were slim but I remember seeing a vending machine down the hall past the elevators. I gave my girlfriend some cash and told her to grab a bunch of snacks. She left the room and returned a minute later and she was as white as a ghost. She said she was looking at the options in the machine and she said a very quiet voice could be heard from behind the machine that just said, hey, good to see you again. She told me that she

didn't interact and she just turned around and walked back down the dark hallway back to our room. I'm a horrible boyfriend because I actually didn't believe her at all. She's a naturally jumpy person so I thought that she was probably just hearing things due to how much she had drank. I told her that I would walk down there and grab some snacks and prove that nobody was down there. I didn't have her shirt on since I was laying in bed already, so she had taken off her zip-up sweatshirt and I put that on as I walked down to the vending machine. I'm not going to lie, just the dark atmosphere of the hallway and vending machine nook was a little off-putting. I put a dollar

into the machine, but before I could put more money in, I heard the voice. In an aggressive whisper, they said, hey, don't leave this time. Before I could react, a hand actually came from behind the machine and grabbed my arm. I jump back and they let go. Standing in the shadows of the dark room was a guy wearing a long coat with the sleeves cut off. He had long and straight black hair and I exclaimed some sort of profanity towards him and while he stared at me he says,

I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else. I'm just waiting here for a friend. Well, I was able to put the pieces together. He was waiting for my girlfriend. I didn't say anything, and I just turned around and briskly ran to my room. I looked back one more time, and he was just standing at the end of the hallway, and the image of his horrifying demeanor was still burned into my brain. When I got back to the room, I called the police who must have been right outside the building because they were there in what seemed like seconds. They actually caught the guy and

escorted him out of the hotel, not in handcuffs though. They did put him in the back of a squad car but like I said, it didn't appear like he was being detained or anything. It was a long couple of hours after that. Between answering questions, talking to staff, and just overall trying to calm down, we didn't sleep at all. We decided to check out early and chalk up the rest of the stay as a loss. While my girlfriend was gathering everything in the room, I finally made my way to the vending machine to grab those snacks and curiosity caused me to look behind the machine. And lying on the floor was a small mask with tubes coming out of it. It was the cabal mask, the same mask of the man from the convention the night prior. Somehow this person from the convention stalked us back to our room and whatever his intentions were, I'm sure they

weren't good. I didn't tell my girlfriend about the mask since I figured that she had gone through enough. I don't know what happened to that cabal impersonator. I just hope that we never cross paths again. To be continued... Back in 2016, I believe, Dragon Ball Super was coming to America with the English dub, and as a lifelong Dragon Ball fan, I was thrilled. Leading up to its release, the cast and crew of the American version were touring all over the United States. I got tickets to one of the anime conventions they were going to be appearing at, and I was so pumped to meet the voices behind many of my childhood heroes. The convention itself was an anime convention and it had a countless number of things to do,

but Dragon Ball was definitely the main focus of the event, at least it felt that way to me. The lines to meet the cast were super long and the rooms where they were speaking and answering questions were filled to the brim. As ridiculous as it may sound, it was like being at a rock concert. The people were screaming and yelling with excitement, myself included. Being that my friends don't like anime and never got into Dragon Ball growing up, I attended the convention all by myself. I didn't mind being alone at the convention. So many like-minded people were in attendance that I would have rather just been there alone in general. If my non-anime friends were there, I would have felt the need to babysit them instead of just letting loose and being myself. At some point in the afternoon,

I met a girl. And I was instantly head over heels for her, believe it or not. Not only was she a super Dragon Ball fan like me, but she was dressed like one of the characters from the show, Bulma. If anybody out there is a fan of Dragon Ball, I'm sure you'll know the outfit I'm about to describe. Back in the early days of Dragon Ball Z, Bulma goes to the planet Namek, and she's wearing all these black leggings and this yellow coat. This woman at the convention had her exact outfit on and blue hair and all that. She told me her name was Jessie and we hit it off. We spent the remainder of the convention together and I actually have a picture of her, me and Sean Schemmel who was the voice character of Goku in the English dub of the show. Around 9pm, she asked me if I wanted to go back to her house which she said was only about 20 minutes from the venue.

It took very little convincing to get me to go with her. I was planning on just driving home anyway, so to me, this was an awesome way to continue my already amazing night. We got to her house, and I hate to say this, but I felt a little uncomfortable. She did not live in a nice neighborhood at all. All the houses looked beat up and almost falling apart and many of the houses on the street were boarded up and condemned. I was happy that I drove my own car and followed her because the more I looked at the houses, the more I was ready to drive home that evening in case the night didn't go well. We parked in front of this big brick house that was mostly concealed in the darkness. I parked in the street in front of the house as she pulled into the driveway and waved for me to follow her to the back door, which I did.

We walked inside the back door of the house and I just remember being shocked that anybody could actually live there. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. I think at this point I was just blinded by my infatuation with this new girl, Jessie, and I didn't see any of those red flags around me. Before I could even open my mouth to say anything, she spoke up first and said that she needed to use the bathroom quickly and that she would be right out. I thought it was weird that she didn't bring me into the living room or offer me a seat or anything. I was just standing in this small room and there was trash everywhere. In this brief moment alone, I was finally starting to come to my senses

and I was becoming aware that something was not right. While my alarm bells went off just a little bit too late, I felt some strike to the back of my head and I fell to the ground. I tried to immediately jump back up but before I could get to my feet, some guy with some hooded sweatshirt kicked me back down to the ground and demanded that I give him my wallet. I handed it over with no struggle on my end. My life was far more important than anything in that wallet and that large man shouted to Jesse that he had the wallet and she ran out from the other room, now just wearing a normal shirt with black leggings. They ran out of the house and I heard

their car drive away. I still just remained on the ground for a little while, an absolute shock of what had just happened. I eventually ran to my car and called the police as I drove away. And thankfully these idiots didn't rob my phone or my car keys. I was able to give the police a detailed description of Jessie, the picture of us from the convention, and I remember the color and make and model of her car. It didn't take long but the police were able to track them down and thank god they both were detained. I realized how lucky I am because this could have ended much worse than it did but it doesn't change the fact that it was still one of the scariest moments of my life. When I was laying on that ground and the

man was kicking me, I'd never been so scared. This was the last convention of any kind that I'd ever gone to and after this nightmare of an evening, I'll probably never attend another one ever again. To be continued... but to me, this is one of the most unnerving things that has ever happened to me. When I think about the implications of what happened, I still can't believe people are this horrible. As I said before, my friends and I really like Pokemon. The cards were cool, but we were fans of the games, and we loved to play them competitively. At the time, the games Sun and Moon had just come out, and they were being heavily promoted at gaming and Nintendo conferences across the country. A gaming event was coming to our hometown and the new Sun and Moon games were going to be heavily featured, as well as a rumored competitive battle tournament was in the works, and we couldn't miss this event.

Let's fast forward a few months, we got our tickets and were excited about the event. We learned later that you need to qualify somehow for the tournament, which we didn't, so we were upset about that, but still excited about the experience nonetheless. At the very least, we could be spectators for the tournament, which sounded awesome to us. We weren't sports guys, so this was kind of like the Super Bowl for us. We spent the entire day taking pictures, talking to other pokey fans, and watching battles in the main convention hall. Around four in the afternoon, I was confronted by a taller man who looked like an official of the event somehow. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt and had a

laminated badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck. In a very confident and professional tone, he says to me, Hey there, friend. I can't help but notice you and your friends look like super fans. Is that correct? Of course, I answered with an energetic response. Being at these types of events with other people who share your interests, you're always pumped up and energetic. And he laughed and we made some small talk for a little while. One thing led to another and then the man said, well, the reason I approached you today is for an unbelievable offer. I work for Nintendo and we're planning on unveiling a new battle mechanic in the next Pokemon game. I need some folks to test the mechanics. Would your friends be interested? I didn't even respond to the man.

I just bowed my head and shook his hand. I was so excited I couldn't even think of the words to say. One of my friends who was standing there started to jump up and down like he won the lottery, and the man just laughed and said, okay, okay, you guys have to keep this quiet though, since, obviously, we haven't even announced the new game yet. Meet me and my team at this location tonight at 8pm and we'll go to testing. Remember, you can't say anything. And my secretary will have you fill out some non-disclosure agreements when you arrive at the location, alright? The man handed me a handwritten note with an address written on it, and the paper was signed with a name that was pretty much illegible. Before anybody out there starts judging us, remember we were young and

naive and the atmosphere of the event had us thinking about what we wanted instead of what was clearly logical. When he was talking about non-disclosure agreements, to me, that made him sound legitimate. I was about to realize just how stupid and idiotic me and my friends truly were. We stayed at the event for a few more hours and then made our way to the address the man gave us. We pulled into the slot next to a big abandoned looking building. There was an old furniture store sign above the door of the building which told us that this building used to be some sort of furniture warehouse that clearly was not in business anymore. We stayed in the car for a minute because the situation was clearly kind of weird. We justified

the weirdness by convincing ourselves that they needed a secure location to test the sensitive material, and the guy gave us no reason not to trust him other than the fact that he didn't give us a name or a business card but we wouldn't think about that little variable until later. Also, there were about six cars in the parking lot so we figured that people were definitely inside and it didn't take a lot of convincing ourselves that this was a legit opportunity and we would regret it if we passed it up. So against all our better

judgment, we got out of the car and slowly made our way to the door. It was locked, so we knocked rather hard but no answer. We looked through the glass on the door and it just looked like a dark and abandoned warehouse. One of my friends said that we should just leave but we pretty much just ignored him because we all wanted this to really be real. While we were standing out front trying to figure out what to do, we heard a grinding sound. We looked at the side of the building and an overhead door was opening, the type meant for trailers to unload. A very skinny and frail looking woman came out and told us to come on over so we could get started. We all felt a little hesitation towards this woman just because her appearance didn't look like someone who would be in a professional setting. Her hair seemed to be

greasy and messed up, her clothes seemed to be tattered and covered in holes, but most notably, she was swaying back and forth as she was trying to summon us over. I just happened to look through the window on the door one last time before we started walking over, and I saw two people crouch next to the overhead door. I didn't see them when we originally looked into the window, but after the door was open, the streetlight was shining in, and it was clear to see at that point. I didn't say anything, and I just suddenly alerted my friends that we needed to leave. One of my friends said to the woman,

one second we forgot something in the car. We all started to move back toward the parking lot and the woman was saying something but it was incoherent whatever she was trying to say. When we were just about to the car, we could hear multiple footsteps behind us now, and as we entered the vehicle, we saw two people with the woman, and they were coming directly towards our car. We just started it up and peeled out of there, and we just drove for hours. Thankfully, it didn't seem that they followed us, but we weren't so sure, and that's why we drove nearly all night, just in case. We did call the police and report this entire event, but the warehouse was empty by the time they arrived,

and at that point, they couldn't do anything since these people didn't physically harm us, I guess. I have no idea what these people wanted from us, and it used to keep me up at night thinking about it. Be careful meeting people out there and don't be afraid to ask them serious questions because sometimes things really are too good to be true. This might go without saying, but in order to protect the privacy of me and my family, I'm going to refrain from using any real names or locations in the story just in case. Last year, my town hosted a Comic Con event, and my wife and I decided to go since we had talked about it for years. We found a babysitter for our two small children and we decided to just enjoy the night. Just to clear one thing up, this wasn't San Diego Comic Con. This was a much smaller event

since the city I live in is much smaller than San Diego, obviously. And me and my wife decided to dress up as characters from the Marvel movies. I know a lot of people these days are annoyed with the franchise, but it's something my wife and I bond over, so it will always have a special place in my heart. I was dressed up as Captain America and my wife was dressed up as Gamora, a character from Guardians of the Galaxy. Since my wife designs costumes for a living, our outfits were top notch. Her Gamora costume was so good that some people actually thought that she was Zoe Saldana, the actress who plays Gamora in the films. The event was having a costume contest for everyone

cosplaying, so we decided to enter. I thought one of us was going to win for sure, until I saw dozens of incredible costumes. During the competition, we spent a lot of time hanging out with fellow contestants and actually met another couple who were also wearing costumes from the Marvel movies. And in no time at all, I was being my dorky self and making everyone laugh. My wife ended up finishing second in the competition to one of the most ridiculous and amazing Sephiroth costumes I had ever seen. Even though we all lost, we had fun and the four of us continued to hang out for the majority of the evening. As the night progressed, I noticed that the man was starting to act kind

of weird. He kept leaning over and telling my wife something in her ear and every time she would tense up and just say, I know. I mentioned it once to my wife who told me it was just my imagination and that I needed to stop worrying so much. Since I tend to worry a lot, I agreed and went back to trying to have a good time. When my wife mentioned to them that we were thinking about leaving soon, they both got upset and insisted that we hang out for a while longer, but my wife told them that we had two small children at home and that we needed to get ready to leave. I remember getting visibly annoyed with the man because he kept saying that the kids will be fine for a little while longer, let's all grab a drink.

Clearly, this man doesn't have small children, or any children of his own, because at this point of the evening, I just wanted to get home. My wife, being the smooth-talking diplomat that she is, was able to communicate to these two that we had to leave and that it wasn't personal, and that we were having a really great time. And good thing for her because I probably would have handled their pushy behavior in a much more toxic way. Finally, we left and made our drive home. The weird and uncomfortable final minutes with these two didn't cast a bad shadow over the entire convention. We had an awesome time, had fun pictures and videos, and most importantly, we made some awesome memories together. We got home, paid the babysitter, put the kids to bed since they were still awake waiting for us,

and then we got into bed and decided to watch the first Avengers movie. Now side note, that movie was our first date, hence why we have a special place in our hearts for Marvel. We both fell asleep at some point during the movie. In the middle of the night, my wife woke me up claiming that she had heard someone knocking on the door. I thought for sure that was just her imagination, but I went and checked anyway. As I was walking to the front door with my wife, standing right behind me, someone knocked on the door again. Before looking to see who was outside, I looked at the time and saw that it was three in the morning, so right away I was completely freaked out. I approached the door

and shouted, who is it? A small pause and then a confident and upbeat voice could be heard from the other side saying, howdy again cap, you guys ready for that drink yet? We both looked at each other, and the voice was obvious. It was clearly our acquaintance from the convention. I opened the front door, but not the glass door, which was also locked. As soon as I opened the front door, he tried to grab the glass door, and thankfully it was locked, so we just took a step back and asked if we were ready to hang out. I was firm and angry and told them in so many words to get off our property and if I ever saw him again I would call the cops. They walked away smiling and basically just shaking their heads as if there was some crazy surprise that I had flipped out on them. We got back into bed and my wife thought that I should

have called the cops but I just didn't want to bother at that point. They left so I assumed my tone was enough to get the message across and I couldn't have been more wrong. I fell back asleep not long after the ordeal but my wife was wide awake. About an hour later she started to tap my shoulder claiming that she could hear something from outside the bedroom. Again, I got up and opened the door, expecting to see nothing, but instead, standing at the end of the hall was the couple from the convention. They were in my home, standing there, still wearing their Marvel superhero costumes. Instinctively, I pushed my wife back into

the room and shut the door, as I ran across the hall to close the door of my kid's bedroom. While that was happening, they were walking down the hall. Thankfully, my wife's phone was in the bedroom, so while I was holding my kid's bedroom door shut, my wife called the police. I could hear one of them trying to open the door to the room that I was in and the other one was trying to open the other bedroom door my wife was in. Thank God the cops showed up very quickly and neither one of them resisted at all. They were still smiling and laughing even while they were being detained. I'm not sure if these monsters were on some sort of drug or just outright evil. As you would expect, they both were charged and last I knew, they're still behind bars but that's something I can't 100% confirm.

The one thing that kills me though is that I have no idea why these two did what they did. They never said why they terrorized us or what their intentions were in the first place. The entire evening they seemed really great, and fun individuals for the most part. I don't know what clicked in their heads to make them snap like they did. I'm thankful our children were young enough that they don't seem to remember that night at all, and I hope to god nothing like this ever happens again. I'm sorry. My husband and I on paper look like two people that would never be together. He's got wild long hair, he's covered in tattoos, a long beard, and he plays guitar in a local rock band. I, on the other hand, am a nurse with no tattoos, no piercings, and I don't enjoy rock music at all.

But love is funny, and you can't help who you fall for and that defines our relationship perfectly. Every year a tattoo convention comes through our town and since we started dating he has been asking me to go and I have been able to get out of it every year but last year I couldn't find an excuse so I decided to finally go to the convention with him. Right away this place was completely not my scene. It was loud, and the people there were, let's just say, aggressive. He was in his glory, and he ended up seeing one of his oldest friends that he had lost touch with. Turns out this guy had become a tattoo artist in another state, and he just so happened to have a booth at the

convention. Long story short, he agreed to tattoo my husband for free, and my just so happened to have a booth at the convention. Long story short, he agreed to tattoo my husband for free and my husband was going to show off his tattoo later in the evening at the tattoo competition that they had held. Well, I wasn't going to just sit at this booth for four hours while my husband was getting tattooed, so I decided to walk around and just pretend like I belonged at this convention. I'm not going to lie, even though I had no idea what was going on, I ended up meeting some really cool people and seeing some awesome tattoos. The artists that I liked, I would take their card and put it in my bag so I could show my husband later how amazing some of the artists were. At some point during the night, I was starting to get hot, so I went outside to get some air. While I was sitting

on the stone wall outside, I noticed this woman running out of the tree line that was directly across from me and nervously jogging through the parking lot. I watched this woman because she looked freaked out and I was genuinely worried about her safety. A minute later she was gone and nobody ever came out of the forest after her so I assumed the woman was just partying extra hard if you know what I mean. After a few minutes I went back into the venue and checked on my husband who was about 50% done with his tattoo. I sat around for a while and then started to walk around again. As I walked around the convention I noticed a side door was open that led to a dark hallway. As I got closer, I saw the girl from outside and she was sitting on the ground in that back room. She looked borderline

unconscious, so I confronted her and when I got close, she jumped up and hit me with this large, blunt object that I'm pretty sure was actually a pipe. I fell to the ground and the woman got in my face and just screamed. I stayed down pretending like I was actually hurt. She ran out of the dark hall and ran into the convention center. I got up a few seconds later and started making my way back to my husband and his friend's booth. I was clenched over in pain but nobody noticed because they probably just figured I got tattooed or something. When I got back to the booth I finally started to freak out. I was able to keep my composure until that moment but once my husband saw the pain that I was in, the water work started.

They put the tattoo on hold and immediately notified the security that the venue had hired for the event and then the security notified the police. When they showed up, I told them all about the interaction with the woman and unfortunately, the description of the woman was nearly identical to every other woman that was at this event. Thankfully, the venue had some cameras and they were able to pull up the feed and find the woman relatively easily. It was haunting watching the footage. Clear as day on the security footage you could see the woman strike me in the head. In the same footage after she hit me, she ran to the parking lot. She appeared to try and open numerous car doors. She was walking down the line of parked cars and just kept pulling on the handles. She finally found the car with the door unlocked and she opened the door and was just sitting in the back seat.

She wasn't hiding or anything like that, she was just sitting in the back seat like a passenger of the vehicle. The police and security checked the live feed and sure enough, the woman was still sitting in the car. They ran out and detained the woman immediately and she seemed to put up very little struggle. When they were arresting her, they did find a knife in her back pocket and I'm just happy I never had to find out about the knife the hard way. It gave me chills thinking about it. What if she intended on using the knife for the owner of that vehicle? They notified the driver of that vehicle and more disturbingly, the owner had never seen the woman before, so she was indeed just trying to find an unlocked car. It was clear that this woman was not in the right state of mind.

I'm not sure what happened to her. I hope she got the help that she needs because I don't think she was an evil or malicious person, I just think that she had some demons that got the better of her that night. Thankfully, nobody besides me had gotten hurt that evening and if I didn't take that shot to the head, someone else may have been a lot more hurt than I was. I think my love for collecting cards stems back from my early childhood when my dad and I would open packs together. I remember specifically going around and grabbing Pokemon cards and Beanie Babies when I was a kid. Usually if I did good on the test or got a good report card, I could get a pack of cards or something that my dad and I could look at together.

Now fast forward about 20 years and I still collect cards and enjoy opening them with my friends and family. I learned pretty early on in collecting that I couldn't keep everything, so I sold off most of my collection and only keep items that I have space for or that have sentimental value. That pandemic surge sure makes me wish that I held onto some items longer. Anyway, I don't collect anything specifically, just items that catch my eye, ranging from horror cards like Jaws and Fright Flicks to Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! and even some football and basketball cards as well. For years, I belonged to forums, which then morphed into Facebook and Reddit pages, and on these sites, you meet people who share their collections, trade, and even sell cards. I made a few acquaintances and even a couple of friends

over the years through these different forms of media, but one experience always sticks out more than others, and that's when I met Roger. Roger was someone I met online who also had an interest in error cards, you know, if something is off-center or misprinted during the manufacturing process. We talked casually for what I would guesstimate was six to eight months until he sent me a message about a card convention. The message sticks out because I remember him saying, Hey, I saw that this collectible convention and card show wasn't too far from you. Are you considering going? I remember my immediate response was, How do you know this show is close to me?

Knowing that I don't discuss my city or state online. I don't remember the exact response that he gave, but I think he said something along the lines that he picked up from my socials and some of the pictures I posted. Either way, I said yeah, I was planning on going to the convention to look around and maybe even thin out my collection a little more with some sales or trades. He mentioned that he was also attending and that we should meet up IRL and get a drink or coffee and take a tour of the convention. I agreed and figured that there wouldn't be any harm in meeting someone that I had chatted with pretty regularly in a public setting. And the day came and I was waiting to meet up with Roger when I got a tap on the shoulder. Can I help you? I said softly. And they said, hey, it's me, Roger.

Now I responded pretty quick. Oh, sorry, I didn't recognize you. You look different than you do on your socials. And he responds, yeah, those were a long time ago. I remember quickly saying, well, it's good to finally meet you, while thinking to myself, this is a completely different person. The images on his social media pages looked nothing like he did in person, not even remotely close. Before I could even process my thoughts, Roger said, I want to introduce you to my friend Todd. I said, hey Todd, nice to meet you, and stuck out my hand. He ignored it and didn't say anything to me. He just said that he's just shy and a warm up. Already regretting my decision to meet up with someone that I didn't know that well from the internet, I said, well, should we go in and take a look around? Everyone agreed and we

headed in. In all honesty, it was an amazing show. There were so many cool collectibles and cards and I didn't end up getting anything that day because, like I said at the time, I was trying to thin out my collection rather than increase its size. As we approached different areas and booths, I became more comfortable being around Roger and Todd. Todd was rude to the sellers and Roger just seemed to go along with it. I ended up getting very quiet and even though I had seen a lot of cool things, I was trying to plan my escape. Roger had to run to the bathroom and I was alone with this Todd and said well I think I'm gonna head out when Roger gets back I got some stuff to take care of when I get home and for the first time that day Todd looked at me and spoke in this very firm

voice he says no you're not we made this trip all the way here and you're going to make it worthwhile for us. I asked him what that meant and just as I muttered that, Roger came back and said, Alright, what's next? I said I had to head home because I had a lot of stuff to do with my family and I told him it's been fun and it's been really nice to meet them. Roger's smile turned to a frown and he says, Well, if you want to be rude, take off. That's your choice. I ignored it and got up and just walked off at that point. Thinking the first thing I was going to do was block that Roger on any site or app that we had communicated on,

I came home and told my wife what had happened. She seemed disinterested and said something along the lines of, I told you, everyone online is creepy. I tried to put the events from that day out of my head but was still feeling a little bit uneasy or anxious. I decided to go to bed early at around 8.30 or so. I woke up to a loud bang at 1am. I couldn't tell what it was, but it sounded like a table or chair had been tipped over. I told my wife to go back to sleep and then I would see what it is. I looked around the house and couldn't find anything out of place. I went down to the basement and what I saw still gives me that sinking feeling in my stomach when I think about it. I saw Todd from earlier grabbing storage totes and carrying them up my storm doors.

If you don't know what those are, they're like the Wizard of Oz basement doors that lead to your backyard directly to your basement. I screamed, what the hell is going on? He dropped the totes and flew up the stairs. I quickly tried to follow, but by the time I got up, he had run through the fence that had been open and jumped into a black van that then sped off. I think it took a good 10-15 minutes of everything to sink in and for my adrenaline to lower before I went inside and told my wife and we called the police. I told the police

everything about Roger and Todd from my conversations over several months with Roger and meeting them that day. The police said that they most likely gained information on some items in my collection and scheduled the meetup to try and tail me or find out where the items were located. It made sense honestly and I don't have any other idea how Roger would have found out where I lived. And that's assuming Roger was actually involved which I told the police that he would have had to have been. Nothing ever came from the investigation though and unfortunately I didn't have enough info for the police to really do anything. Not much was taken and honestly I didn't really care. I was just glad

that my family and I were okay. I still open up cards every now and again with my wife, but if I do buy or sell, I do it through eBay or other selling sites like that, and I always make sure to use my P.O. box as an address. I haven't been to any convention or card shows since this incident, and if I'm being honest, I don't see myself doing so at any Live on the Xbox 360. We started playing Halo together after just randomly being on a team. That formed into a friendship, which eventually led to a romance that being on a team. That formed into a friendship which eventually led to a romance that led to a marriage. I know for a lot of people that is crazy and life isn't usually that fair but I'm really lucky that he was the man that I thought that he was and not

some serial killer or something. We actually had a Halo themed wedding and every year we travel to the city to attend a massive video game convention. It's to remind us of our love and how year we travel to the city to attend a massive video game convention. It's to remind us of our love and how far we've come. The conventions aren't just Xbox or Microsoft related, but having Halo present is definitely a plus for us. It's something we look forward to every year and it's something we will continue to do together for as long as we can. One time though, a few years ago, we almost stopped going to conventions altogether. The day started like every other convention he and I had ever gone to. Loads of fun,

buying souvenirs, attending live talks, and meeting awesome like-minded folks. During one of the talks, they set up microphones at the end of the aisles, and you could wait in line and ask questions to the speaker. My husband wanted to ask a question so he got in line while I waited in our seat. I was mostly just listening to the questions and enjoying myself when I noticed just about the worst thing I could possibly ever want to see. Sitting about 10 feet away from me in another row was my ex-boyfriend. He grossed me out and we broke up over 10 years ago for many different reasons. The cliff notes version is that he was an abusive and controlling

man. I tried to pretend like I didn't see him and started looking in the other direction, but when I glanced back, he was clearly staring at me. I could feel his eyes penetrating me and it was the most uncomfortable feeling I had ever felt. I was scared to get up and leave the convention hall because I thought that he might follow me. I also didn't want to say or do anything because I didn't want to bring unwanted attention to the situation. After all, he was just staring at me and not doing anything harmful, I guess. It took about 15 minutes for my husband to get to the front of the line, but when he finally did, I recorded his question,

and after his little interaction, he came back to his seat. He could tell something was off with me, but he didn't know what. I didn't want to tell him about my ex, because I thought it might make him uncomfortable. We eventually left the talk and started doing other activities at the convention. I noticed every few minutes that I could see my ex wandering somewhere near us and it was making me grow increasingly more uncomfortable. Finally my husband asked what was going on because it got to the point where I was giving him one word answers and I was more focused

on keeping an eye on my ex than I was on the actual conversation. I decided to tell my husband everything and point out where my ex was and basically told him just how horrible of a man he was and most likely still is since it seemed like he was now stalking me. I forget how amazing my husband is sometimes. I thought it would make him uncomfortable but instead he completely understood and asked if I wanted to leave. I didn't, but at the same time, I just wanted to get away from my ex, so we left. As we were walking to the car, my head felt like a bobblehead since I was looking all around trying to keep an eye on him, and that's when I realized that I hadn't seen him in over about 15 minutes, and I felt my first

wave of relief in the last few hours. We got in the car and started the somewhat long drive home. On the highway, there was a lot of traffic but once we got off, there was no traffic except for one car following us. Now ordinarily, this wouldn't be an issue, but the car following us was following very closely and they had their high beams on the entire time. We tried to remain calm, thinking it was just some coincidence, but he wouldn't pass us. If we sped up, so did he. I was convinced this tailgater was my ex, but my husband told me to not jump to conclusions and told me that it could have been anyone. We didn't want to head home and have this car follow us to our house so we decided to pull into the lot of a 24 hour gas station that was about a mile from our

home. As we turned in, they turned in as well. We parked and they stopped behind us, making impossible to back out of the spot if I wanted to. We were trying to look into the windows of the vehicle but the windows were too tinted and we couldn't make out the driver. I pulled out my phone and finally called the police, something I should have done a while ago. A minute or two later the vehicle drove off and thankfully drove in the opposite direction of our house. About ten minutes later the police arrived and we described the vehicle and told them about my ex. They didn't seem too concerned and basically told me that I couldn't accuse my ex without any proof and even though deep down I knew it was him.

That night I didn't sleep at all and I got three phone calls from a restricted number in the middle of the night. Every vehicle light that drove by our house that night made me grip the sheets in fear but luckily the lights always stayed moving. I know my ex doesn't know where I live, but it's an irrational fear of mine. I know this story is more creepy than scary, but just put yourself in our shoes. We were terrified for our life, and if it truly was my ex tailgating, well let's just say, I'm happy I'm able to write the story. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST.

If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash letsreadofficial, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends. And I'll see you again soon.