The Lets Read Podcast - 267: HE WAS NOT WHO I THOUGHT HE WAS | 30 True Scary Stories | EP 255

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about bus stop encounters, Latin American stories & how one redditor survived a plane crash 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 & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by Betterhelp

Oh, excuse me. Why are you walking so close behind me? Well, you're a tall guy. You throw a decent shadow when I'm walking in it to keep out of this bright sun. It hurts my eyes. Okay, well you know what? Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149 and, oh you'll like this, one can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store? Mmm, not far. Come on. Let's hurry then! To my count! One, two, one, two, one, two... Visit specsavers.ca for details. You never know who you're talking to, really ever.

Because some of the best people you've ever met can be capable of absolutely the worst things you can ever imagine. I sat in front of one of the worst people in the world and I had no idea. He was perfectly nice to me and professional to the bone. I knew about his reputation, his research, and his published books. I thought that I was in great hands and for all intents and purposes, I was. And I'm ashamed to say that he helped me, but I didn't know what he did to others. So let's go back to the beginning to give you some context. Going to therapy or psychiatry wasn't as normalized as social media makes it seem nowadays. It definitely wasn't that

popular in my small Mexican town. However, there were several doctors that people respected, and some people would go to therapy to get help for some serious mental issues and depression was just kind of sadness to many people that were in my town. I signed up for sessions with a greatly recommended man. I was dealing with stuff that I really didn't talk about often and the world was very different just around 15 years ago. My husband had cheated on me and left me alone to raise a three-year-old, and although I had support from my family, I didn't see the

point in continuing really with anything. At my sister's insistence, I got help. The doctor, who I'll just call Dr. Sanchez from now on, was fantastic, and that's all I remember. He was kind, soft-spoken, and had great advice, including how I should always picture my son when I had any dark thoughts. I had to live for him, and that was true. I left his office feeling better all the time, which is why the situation was so conflicting and so terrifying, and why I definitely don't fully trust anyone I've ever met since then. One day I got a call from his practice telling me to find a new doctor because Dr. Sanchez wouldn't be available for a while. I told them that I could wait until he came back and

the woman on the phone told me not to wait because he wasn't going to come back. I asked her what she meant thinking the doctor was leaving the country or something and the woman told me that I was lucky, and just hung up the phone. I was so confused, and when I told my sister, she rushed to find someone else who could take my case. She didn't want me spiraling again. I found a woman and worked with her. But I wondered what happened to Dr. Sanchez for a couple of months and i missed him i still feel guilty about that because his real story was revealed a couple of days after i told my sister

that he was much better than my new doctor dr sanchez didn't leave the country he stopped practicing his therapy because something else happened he was in a secret relationship with a 19 year old university student the man was in his 70s and a 19-year-old university student. The man was in his 70s. And that alone should be scandalous, but it wouldn't be the first time an old man acted creepy, right? Well, he went far beyond sleeping with a young woman. Right around the time I was called to cancel all of my appointments with Dr. Sanchez, the police discovered the body of a young woman with serious blunt force wounds on her head. She had been dumped on the outskirts of town on a random empty piece of land with

overgrown weeds. Unfortunately, my country is known for having one of the highest rates of femicide in the world, but police investigated this case pretty thoroughly and uncovered the young woman's online blog. Let's call her Eliana. You see, Eliana kept a pretty thorough journal online detailing her affair with Dr. Sanchez. She was desperately in love with him, and they say that she wanted their relationship to be out in the open. Some speculated that there was more to it, like a fight over money or even blackmail because women are always blamed for the things that happen to them, and especially when they end up murdered, but we may never know that.

And after reading her blog, the police went to Dr. Sanchez's practice and found evidence indicating that he was directly involved in the crime. They went to his house and uncovered much more than the murderer of Eliana. And this is where it got much worse. Dr. Sanchez, as a doctor with access to drugs, used them on many of his female patients. Yeah, he drugged them and he did terrible things to them. But he would always take pictures before and after. The police found those photographs in his house and knew immediately that he was responsible for everything. It took two months from the moment Eliana's body was discovered to Dr. Sanchez's arrest, and everyone in my family knew that he had been my doctor.

They were all even more worried about me now, and the police wouldn't identify the women in the photos, of course, to maintain their privacy, but everyone thought that I was one of them, that I just didn't remember anything. And was that even possible? I could have been drugged and used that way without any recollection. But here's my truth. I don't think he ever did anything to me. I think he wanted way younger women, certainly not a mother with serious depression and a big family to support her. I was vulnerable because of my divorce but I wasn't the kind of vulnerable that he was looking for. I assured my family that nothing ever happened and they took it to heart, although my sister was obsessed with his case for a long

time. And after that I decided that I didn't want to trust someone outside my family with so much of myself. I quit all kinds of therapy and tried to live with my problems. I developed the mentality that you don't need to talk to others about your issues to overcome them and maybe that's wrong but that's how I managed to move on and raise my son. What happened to the doctor you might ask? Well he went to jail for a long time and suffered a heart attack I believe and was released a few years later actually due to his advanced age and failing health, and I guess he died shortly after. No one was more angry than my sister. I have moved on by now, but she hadn't, and she was so angry for me. She never believed that she didn't assault me, but well, that was her cross to bear i guess and that's my story i'm not saying

that every therapist that you meet is bad or that getting help is wrong and risky i guess my point is that even the most professional people with great reputations and amazing skills can be something else dr sanchez was the most vivid incarnation of the devil in disguise that I've ever met, and I hope still just the age of 20 years young, I got my first ever real job as a pub barback in an area of Nottingham called Trent Bridge. My living situation with my parents over in Lenton wasn't great. They were in the middle of a divorce and the house just had this sort of black cloud hanging over it all the time so the first chance I got I moved into a small bedsit on Bunbury Street which was much closer to the pub I worked at. It was a really crap time in my life to be honest but

moving into that bed sit was a massive highlight and a huge boost when I needed it the most. It wasn't much but it was mine and it was a huge weight off my shoulders to have somewhere I could retreat to, to get some mates over, have a few vodka and red bulls and just forget about all the stuff going on with my parents. The wallpaper was peeling and one of the windows was stuck but I didn't mind the little things much. What I did mind were the group of lads who used to hang around the bus stop on Bathley Street until all hours of the morning. I first noticed them a few days after I moved in. Because of where my bedsit was situated in this large two-story

building, which is apparently now a training center for Nottingham's bus drivers, one of my windows looked over Bathley Street where the bus stop was. I came home from work at about midnight and had just crept into my room, as quiet as a mouse, when I heard some raucous laughter coming from across the street. I looked out of my window and there they were, a group of young lads in their late teens and early twenties, taking shelter under the bus stop. I thought that they were just waiting for the last bus at first, but after a few hours came and went and they were still hanging around being loud at the time that I planned on going to bed, I realized that they were just using the

place as a kind of hangout spot, presumably to keep out of the rain. That night they weren't so bad, and moved on not long after I had gotten into bed, but on other nights they were just a downright nuisance. They'd be out there screaming and laughing until four or five o'clock in the morning during the summer, and it had to be absolutely dire weather out to ensure that they'd give it a miss. There was a brief break over Christmas, but as soon as it started to warm up again, they'd come back again, every night, without fail. The only times they ever moved on involuntarily was when someone called the police. I actually saw that happen once, but the ones that had anything naughty on them legged it, and while the others just mouthed off to the police while they emptied their pockets and then tossed their little blue stop and search papers on the floor.

After a while I think the police decided to just give up on it and whenever the lads were at the bus stop people tended to avoid it and just use an alternative. They were a right pain in the butt but aside from smoking the odd spliff in the bus stop and being obnoxious, I don't think that they were actually doing anything illegal so I don't think there was much the cops could do about it. Anyway, it goes from winter to spring and once it started warming up a bit, the lads started hanging around the bus stop again. This wasn't much of a problem before because my late shift pattern meant that I didn't get to bed until the same time they did, roughly speaking. But once I started taking days too, that all changed. The non-stop racket they made started to really mess with my sleep and it took earplugs and ambient music for me to be able to get any decent sleep. God, I wish I had your channel back then. On more than one occasion, I'd open my eyes to see blue lights flashing through the blinds,

and I'd take an unhealthy amount of satisfaction when I saw one or two of the noisemakers getting arrested for whatever it is that they had found in their pockets. But for some reason, that didn't deter them. I don't know what they were thinking, honestly. If that was me, I'd have found another spot where I couldn't get harassed by the police. I remember thinking that there must have been some reason they insisted on being there. Like maybe they'd been told to be there by someone who had a vested interest in knowing if the police were driving down Bathley Street. And considering what happened next, I think that might have been the case. Every so often, it wasn't a marked police car that rolled up on the lads at the bus stop, it was an unmarked one. So some normal looking

voxel corso would roll up next to them, some cop would jump out, and then they all try and sort of scamper about to do their usual gobbing off. So one night, I was up playing Grand Theft Auto, which had just come out that very week, when I happened to spot the lads at the bus stop while I was on the way back from a toilet break. I'd lingered for a second, giving them a very disapproving look, because I knew that they were going to be keeping me awake later on that night. But then as I was watching them, an unmarked car slowed down as it came up to them and stopped about 10 or 20 feet down. I was thinking, yep, here's the police again. But the police normally just jumped out and started chasing people down. Whoever this was, was happy to just idle a few meters down. The guys at the bus stop

obviously thought it was the police too. I think only one of them ran away and that must have been whoever had the ganja on them that night. But then instead of running, the rest stayed put and started shouting things at the idling car. I was well up for a bit of street theater so I stared out the window, grinning to myself, hoping that their swift dispersal was going to result in a nice quiet night for me. Then, the last thing I remember thinking, before the scene before me suddenly changed, was looking at the dark, unmarked car and thinking, hurry up and do something. And then they did. There was a flash, then a bang, and one of the lads at the bus stop just folded. I really do mean that he just folded. Like in the moment after the

bang, his head hit his knees before his body hit the floor. It was probably one of the single scariest things I'd ever seen in my life. The night that I learned that no matter how many Tarantino movies you watch or first-person shooters you play, there's nothing that can prepare you for seeing someone get shot with your own two eyes. Looking back, I think the gunshot must have severed the poor kid's spine above the waist and that accounted for the weird way in which he fell. I've since been told that if he'd been shot in the head, I'd have known it as chances are there had been very little left of it. The second I realized what I'd seen, I ducked down below the window and took cover behind the brick wall beneath. I know that must sound melodramatic as no one was shooting at me, but I did worry that there might have been a bit of wild return fire or something from the lads who were running away.

I'd never seen or experienced anything remotely like that before and I didn't know what else to do but instead of hearing any more gunshots all I heard was the sound of the dark hatchback burning rubber as it sped off into the night. The sound of the gunshot was as loud as a firework and seeing as this was the end of April With no reason to be shooting them off I'm almost certain other people in the neighborhood heard the loud bang And were just as concerned as I was

999 must have gotten a hundred calls from up and down Bathley Street And those that surrounded it But again, I just didn't know what else to do The only thing I really did know was that the poor lad needed help. He might have been a pain, but Jesus Christ, no one deserves to die in the street like that, all alone, with their friends having just run away from them. I obviously did a lot of talking to the police after that night, both on the phone, then in person, and then in person a third time when we went over my statement and I got asked more questions. The police appealed for more info, but as far as I know, no one was arrested or convicted for it. The general consensus was

that it was gang related, but I don't think the police ever mentioned that because if they did, who would come forward? It'd certainly have me in two minds about going to court if i knew witness intimidation was going to be a factor but it never came to that they never asked me and as far as i know the poor lad's murder has remained unsolved even all these years later i moved away from trent bridge about a year, basically as soon as I had the money and a nice enough flat came on the rental market. No one hung around the bus stop for the rest of that time either,, the way it folded, replayed in my head, and I'm living in Seattle. I worked in an office that allowed me to bring my dog to work, a 100-pound German Shepherd.

He's a big sweetheart, but looks quite scary to strangers. After work one day, I get on the bus home, which was around a 45-minute ride. I notice someone staring at me and didn't think much of it. While it's unsettling to be watched, I had my fair share of odd conversations on the bus and it wasn't out of the ordinary to encounter weird behavior. I honestly don't remember too much about his appearance but I do remember thinking that he looked fairly normal and didn't seem high or drunk. My bus stop was on a busy street in a bit sketchier part of town but it isn't frequently trafficked. When we reached the stop, my dog and I set off on the short trek home, only a few blocks away.

As I exited the bus, I noticed the man who had been watching me had exited too, and something was off about him. He seemed intent on keeping stride with me, trailing closely behind. I've heard advice somewhere in the past that you shouldn't go straight home if you're being followed. I'm sure that's situation specific and sometimes it's safer to be in your home but nothing had happened besides having my personal space invaded and didn't feel immediately unsafe so I opted not to lead this stranger straight to my door. I knew that my partner at the time wasn't at home so I decided my best plan was to weave

through my neighborhood for several blocks to try to lose him. I think a part of me was also wanting to be sure that I wasn't being followed at all, or if this person just happened to be walking in the same direction. After several blocks, it became clear that he was following me. I was weaving around erratically, and he was walking the same path. Neither of us spoke to one another and I was becoming more and more frustrated that anyone would follow a woman home. The streets were quiet and I couldn't see anybody around who I could signal to for help. I don't think I would have been so surprised this was happening if I was alone and without my dog. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind following

someone with a huge German Shepherd. I started walking faster when I rounded a corner and quickly ducked into a walkway hugging a duplex a block from my house. I was hoping the pathway would wrap around the house completely so I could get out of line of sight of this person, but was met with offense to my face and didn't have time to backtrack. I was ultimately cornered in this nook between a house, a fence, and a hedge. I crouched down with my dog and waited for the guy to pass us. I watched as the man strolled by the walkway, seemingly not noticing us at all. He didn't turn his head or even gaze in our direction. I decided that we'd stay there for a few minutes just to

make sure that he was gone. Of course, my dog was as calm as ever, just chilling on his side taking a nap. Super helpful. About three minutes went by, and just as I was thinking it was safe to head home, the man stepped in my line of sight again. He didn't make eye contact with me, just as he hadn't the first time he walked by. He was moving calmly and deliberately and slowly came to a stop as soon as he was right in front of me, just off the curb. He was about two yards away, facing me and not directly looking with just a sidewalk and a grassy strip between us. I watched him as he started to unload his pockets. He had a number of metal objects he was taking out and placing them in a line.

To this day I'm not sure what they were but I'm glad I didn't find out. At this point I called 911 and told them what was happening, that someone was following me and showing erratic behavior. The cops made it there quickly and as soon as they pulled up, the dispatcher advised me to get out of there. I high-tailed it out of my hiding spot and took a non-direct path home since my house was technically in line of sight of where I was crouched. I don't know what ended up happening with him, but fortunately never saw him again. I'm not sure if he was on drugs, mentally unstable, or both.

I don't know if he had malicious intent, but I do hope that he got the help he needed. I'm a transgender male and at the time I was 18 and passed fairly well. I was dating someone online on and off for like a year and a half and finally saved up enough to get a Greyhound bus pass to get from where I'm from to where she lives, and it was about 16 hours with a few bus switches. One of the bus stops was in Ohio. Cincinnati, to be exact. This is my first time being out of state ever and taking a bus ever, besides school buses, and I was alone. I'm a short guy, about 5'2". It was probably around 4-5am and I believe we were arriving in

Ohio. I sat down in a little cafe area until my next bus but then this dirty scrawny dude with a random license plate sits across from me. He made a little small talk and then literally asked me if he could pay me to do disgusting intimate things with him. I'm freaking out already, and it's at this point that I kind of freeze and look at the people next to me in hopes that they'll help. I obviously tell the guy no, and then he asks if he can sell me then. At this point, I get up and basically run as far into the crowd as I can and call my dad. The guy disappears disappears and I don't see him again. The messed up part is I finally get to the girl and she tells me her dad had a heart attack.

It ended up being a lie I guess and I had to go. But I had spent my money, besides for food and water and a taxi to get from the last bus stop to her city which wasn't cheap and then had to give her friend gas money to take me back to that bus stop. I didn't have enough for a room and my dad couldn't afford to wire me any to get a room for the night so I had to sit at the bus stop literally until 8pm for the next bus because it was a smaller town and part of it I had to sit outside because the bus station was closed. It was honestly one of the scariest and most terrible experiences of my life. I, a European woman, am currently staying in a South American capital. Being a foreigner, I guess I stand out a little, but I didn't feel threatened or in danger at all during the month that I spent there.

Until yesterday. I was waiting for the bus alone at around 3pm on a sunny day, no one else around. Then some guy appeared in the distance. I can't really say why, but he looked shady, probably because he looked like he was walking straight towards me even if the pavement was pretty wide. I pretended that I didn't see him and waited for him to pass, but he came to me and asked for money, maybe something else, but I didn't understand what he was saying. I answered very firmly that no, I didn't have anything to give him and stepped back

a little, keeping my hand up and trying to show that I was not disturbed. He kept coming closer to me, making me feel very uncomfortable, and started pointing his finger at my face, saying, I'll kill you. I will kill you. Repeatedly. Over and over. And that's when I started thinking that I might be in danger. Even if the guy didn't have any visible weapon, I had no idea what he was capable of, especially as he was extremely close to me and was still threatening to kill me. Still trying to calmly walk away from him so as not to show him I was panicking, I looked all around for someone who might help me, but the street was completely deserted.

And that's when I saw a bus coming. I waved at it and the doors were already open and I climbed in without looking back. The driver's assistant told me to hurry to get in. He had seen the scene from a distance and told me not to worry, that we just needed to get away from this crazy guy. And this all happened in the span of 30 seconds, but a lot could have gone wrong in such a short amount of time. I'm glad I remained relatively calm and I'll probably invest in a pepper spray for the future. I'm 25 and born and raised in Arizona. And this literally just happened to me so I decided to bring it here to all of you wonderful people this evening. I'm a huge stoner and don't drive. I decided to take a bus a few miles down to the dispensary. This was at about

8 30 p.m. I wanted to get a new indica cart, purple punch, it's my favorite by far. I got it, walked back towards the bus stop to get back home. As I walked closer to the bus bench I noticed a guy was sitting there. I didn't think much of it. I'm antisocial, so I always go into any social setting ready to be absolutely silent. However, I didn't get any chance this time because as I'm sitting down, he starts asking me something. But I had my headphones on and couldn't quite hear what he said, so I took my headphones off and asked, what was that? And he responds, did you want to get your hair cut whilst staring at me with very wide eyes not blinking if i were a betting man i'd say that he was on something i'm not here to judge anybody i

just understand addiction very well i definitely wasn't expecting that question and i just awkwardly said oh uh i'm all right i then noticed that he was wearing an Arizona Cardinals uniform and I just so happened to be an Arizona Cardinals fan. So since my entire socializing abilities revolve around sports, I decided to ask, hey, you a Cardinals fan? He then looks at me funny for a split second. No, I just got this a few months ago, he says. I then ask, Ah, so how long you been cutting hair? Without blinking, he answered,

Just picked it up a few months ago. Who taught you how to cut hair? I asked, even more sketched out at this point. His eyes shifted and then he says, I learned on my own. Come on, man, let me touch up the back a little bit. Mind you, he was consistently pushing to cut my hair throughout this entire conversation. I even told him,

yo, I don't have any cash with me right now. Indicating that, like, I couldn't even pay for the service even if I wanted to. But he just answered with, that's no problem problem I got my clippers in my bag come on so I just decided to be real with the guy listen I'm real sorry I just don't feel comfortable getting haircuts from people I don't know and like at night and stuff you feel me this dude never changed facial expressions this entire interaction. And he finally goes,

True that. And continues to glare into my soul. I decided in that moment that it was time to just get out of there. Luckily, this bus stop was right in front of our local Circle K, a gas station for those who don't know, so I just walked in there for a few minutes just to kill time because unfortunately that bus wasn't showing up for another 17 minutes. I didn't want to stay long because I didn't want the employees to think that I was stealing or

something. Granted I had a pretty good reason to go inside at the time, so I waited only about 6-7 minutes and literally as I'm walking out there I see the haircut guy walking in still staring directly into my soul luckily I walked past him and just noped out of there to another bus stop down the street the bus finally got there I saw the dude at the back of the bus but he didn't bother me anymore and I made sure to keep my eyes the complete opposite of his direction the entire time. I tend to overthink most social situations I'm in, even if they're extremely quick. But how would you have handled that situation? Would you have let that guy cut your hair? On the morning of February 26th, 1991, a ten-year-old Belgian girl named Nathalie Géasbrex was waiting

for the school bus at a stop in her home province of Vlaams-Brabant. She lived with her parents and younger brother, Anita, Eric, and little Bjorn, in the sleepy lower-middle-class neighborhood of Liefthal, and every morning she'd be dropped off at the bus stop before her mother drove her younger brother to kindergarten. The morning of February 26 was no different, and after clambering out of the back seat of her car, Natalie waved goodbye to her mother and young Bjorn and watched them drive away. As she did so, Anita shot one last look at her little girl via her rearview mirror. She was proud of her daughter, immeasurably so. It was displaying the kind of level-headedness and independence that foretold of a successful and prominent young woman. Yet little did Anita know,

that look would mark the final time she'd ever see little Natalie alive. Witnesses later stated that instead of remaining in place until the arrival of her bus, Natalie began walking in the direction of a nearby forest known as the Bulksy. As she reached the tree line, an unidentified man was said to have appeared. Natalie seemed unperturbed and followed the man through the trees. Another witness, this one being a close family friend, drove past the Boxy woods on their way to work, and as they did so, spotted a gray Toyota that was apparently suffering engine problems. The driver seemed to know what he was doing, so the family friend offered no assistance. But there in the back seat, smiling and waving,

was young Natalie. Seeing as the girls seemed to be in a positive frame of mind, the family friend didn't find the encounter suspicious. Only later did they realize just how significant it had been. A few hours later, around 10 a.m., Natalie's parents each received a telephone call at their respective places of work. Their daughter had failed to show up for school. Erik Geersbrecht then called his home phone, expecting his daughter to explain that she felt ill and had returned home rather than catch the bus. But upon receiving no answer, he drove home to search for her himself. Over the few hours that followed, the Geasbrek's family descended into a full-on panic as they enlisted the aid of friends, relatives, and neighbors to

scour the town of Lifdal for any sign of her. They also contacted the local police force, filed a missing person's report, and ensured that they too joined the search for the missing Natalie. On the second day of the search, police organized a huge search and rescue effort that combed the Boxy woodland, as well as the surrounding area. Volunteers canvassed the town with missing posters, while several national media outlets conducted interviews with Natalie's parents in order to raise awareness of their plight. But sadly, only a handful of people came forward with any pertinent information, meaning the mystery behind Natalie's disappearance became more and more perplexing as time went by.

Almost a year to the day since their daughter vanished, Natalie's parents had finally started to entertain the unthinkable, that their daughter was gone and was never coming back. The police had massively scaled down their search and had admitted that the chances of her safe return were slim to none. However, an organization known as Child Focus had recently taken interest in Natalie's case and worked to both keep the story in the public's consciousness and to find new leads and information regarding her possible whereabouts In coordination with French police, Child Focus announced a possible suspect in convicted kidnapper Christian van Geluven

The Dutch-born child killer had committed acts of evil in his native Holland, but also in France and Belgium. And despite a total lack of physical or circumstantial evidence, French police told Nathalie's parents that they were, and I quote, 99% certain that they'd apprehended their daughter's killer. Some thought it was only a matter of time before such physical evidence was uncovered, but as another year elapsed and Van Geluven was neither arrested nor charged, child focus began to consider alternative suspects.

One such suspect was named Marc Dutroux, and was responsible for the kidnap, violation, and murder of half a dozen young Belgian girls. However, de True didn't begin his cycle of killing until 1995, more than four years after she went missing. Some have argued that this is inconsequential and that de True may have taken a four-year break in between murders, as is sometimes the case with many fledgling serial killers. Yet others have argued that there are other suspects, many of whom were actively killing children at the time of Natalie's disappearance, who make for far more suitable suspects. One of these suspects is Michael Stocks, a Belgium truck driver imprisoned in Holland for the murder of three young children in 1991.

In 1992, one of Stock's former cellmates approached the authorities with a shocking claim. One night, during a deep heart-to-heart conversation, Stocks had apparently admitted to kidnapping a child from a bus stop one morning back in the early 90s. He made a point of detailing just how easy it was to convince the girl that he was a friend of her parents and that they'd asked him to give her a ride to school. Unbelievably, his car then broke down in full view of dozens of passing commuters, but no one had stopped to help out or ask questions and the kidnap had been successful. When first hearing it, the story seemed so implausible to Stock's cellmate that he hadn't bothered to report it. Jailhouse snitching is risky business,

and the cellmate certainly wasn't about to risk his neck over Stock's overtly boastful and no doubt exaggerated claims. But as the months went by, and Stock's old cellmate learned more and more about the disappearance of Natalie, he came to realize that every word of Stock's claims were true. After informing the authorities of what he knew, the police acted on the cellmate's claims and arrested Stock on suspicion of Natalie's abduction. Stock vehemently protested the accusation,

claiming that he had proof that he wasn't even in Belgium on the day that Natalie went missing. Just hours following his arrest, police recovered this evidence and it came in the form of the tachograph from the truck Stocks used for work. A tachograph is a device which keeps a record of a truck driver's journey and after analyzing its contents, the police determined that Stocks was in the French city of Metz on the date of Natalie's abduction. On paper, this was enough evidence to absolve Stocks of any guilt,

and he was eventually released without charge. Yet in practice, it suggested the monstrous premeditation of a man who'd long planned to prey on children. After all, it wouldn't be the first time a truck driver messed with or swapped around a tachograph in order to obscure some inconvenient truth from prying eyes, and in Stock's case, doing so would make him a very intelligent and very dangerous predator. It took almost another year, but during the spring of 1993, investigators found their smoking gun. Lo and behold, an intensive analysis of Stock's tachograph showed evidence of tampering.

It also discovered that Stocks had forged several pieces of paperwork pertaining to his proposed routes, meaning that he'd been told to go one route but had instead chosen to go another. As soon as this new evidence came to light, Stocks was re-arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder, and after the investigation shifted its focus to a series of unexplained stops he appeared to have made, he finally cracked. However, Stocks didn't offer a confession due to how frighteningly specific the detectives' assertions were. He confessed because of how frighteningly vague they were. To say that the Dutch detectives were shocked when Stocks finally admitted to the murder would be something of an understatement.

Some sources claim that during his second period of detention, the total number of interviews Stocks was subjected to hovers around the hundred mark, but there's no doubt that time and time again, he staunchly denied all the accusations aimed at him. Then suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, he gave up. He admitted to murdering a young girl back in 1991, but she hadn't been Belgian, and her name wasn't Natalie. She'd been Dutch, and her name had been Jessica. Over the next few hours, police listened to how Stocks had lured a girl away from a swimming pool in the northern Dutch village of Svaag. And unlike Natalie, whose body hadn't been found, 11-year-old Jessica Leven had been discovered just a few days later near a neighboring village.

Stokes also confessed to the violation and murder of two German boys, 13-year-old Marco Weisser and 10-year-old Salim Thatil, both from the city of Wiesbaden. Dutch police suggested that Natalie had also been one of Stokes' victims, but he denied it. This killing spree that started in July of 1991, not February, and despite having already been caught lying about his whereabouts, he insisted he wasn't in Leefthal on the day of Natalie's abduction. Many detectives were quite confident that this was a lie and that in all likelihood, Michael Stocks was responsible for Natalie's disappearance. Yet regardless,

they had to play the hand they'd been dealt and instead of expending additional time and resources pushing for a fourth murder conviction, they bet on the three that they already had and sent Stocks to prison for 20 years. Eight years into his sentence in September of 2001, Stocks was taking part in a prison-run occupational therapy program. For some reason, the work he was doing involved the use of turpentine and fluorescent lights, and somehow, Stocks suffered an accident that resulted in him setting himself on fire. He received third-degree burns over 60% of his body body and despite being transferred to a specialist burns unit in nearby Bivarvakt, he passed away on September 25th, 2001. Jessica Lavin's parents were said to have openly celebrated the news and hung some kind of flag in one of the windows of their home.

Many said Stock's death was the result of an assassination attempt, others said it was he took his own life, but all agreed that it was justice and that Stock's had gotten a little taste of what awaited him below. In a 2011 interview with Natalie's brother, he admitted that the tragedy had forever changed the once close-knit family. He explained that it wasn't so much that Natalie was gone, it was that they didn't know where. Closure, he said, would be a blessing. The unanswered questions felt like a curse. Natalie's brother went on to add that her father sometimes visits the bus stop she went missing from, in the forlorn hope that sheer will alone might force a revelation. But to date, Natalie's fate remains a mystery, and the monster who took her might still be free to walk among us. On the morning of February 10th, 2009, 14-year-old David Fortin asked his mother for a ride to school.

David and his family lived in the small city of Alma near Lake St. John in Quebec, Canada. The region is known for its frigid winters and the morning of February 10th was no different. Yet despite the freezing outdoor temperatures, David's mother had a busy morning ahead of her, so she politely declined her son's request then carried on with her routine david didn't seem overly dejected he simply put on his red winter jacket exited his home and then plotted his way to the bus stop down the street no more than 15 minutes later david's school bus arrived at the bus stop near his home and at least half a dozen children piled onto the large yellow vehicle. But David wasn't one of them. Around six hours later, David's mother was in the process of

reporting him missing to the local police force when a detective asked if she'd noticed him exhibiting any recent unusual behavior. She had. That morning at around 4 a.m David had climbed into her bed just like he had when he was a small child and had gently demanded that they cuddle then at breakfast David had barely touched his food something which was highly unusual given his famously large appetite his mother also informed police that David had been subject to a relentless bullying campaign in recent months, and that he'd mentioned something about being targeted for violence on the evening before his disappearance. Slowly but surely, David's mother started to realize that her son's mysterious disappearance wasn't as mysterious as she first thought. Following a public appeal for information regarding David's whereabouts, local law enforcement

received several reported sightings. One person stated they'd spotted him walking through a town called Medabeshuan, while another claimed that they saw him in Lac-Bouchet, headed towards the more rural areas north of Trois-Rivards. Both witnesses described a teenage boy in a red jacket, among other features that convinced David's mother that the sightings were genuine. Yet she hadn't the slightest idea what David might be doing in that area other than making a juvenile attempt to run away from home. Five days later, a truck driver contacted police after learning of David's disappearance and claimed that he'd given him a ride on the day he supposedly vanished. He picked David up on a quiet country road near Berthiaville, a small town about four hours drive away from his hometown of Alma. This meant that

David had already hitchhiked with another driver as there's no way that he'd be able to make it almost a hundred miles on foot in just a few short hours. The truck driver then way that he'd be able to make it almost 100 miles on foot in just a few short hours. The truck driver then claimed that he dropped the boy off at a small Catholic shrine at the roadside. Such shrines are fairly common in rural Quebec, whose roots can be traced back to their deeply Catholic French forefathers, and many a Canadian truck driver will stop off to light a candle, then pray for a safe journey ahead. The truck driver, who gave young David a ride, was no different, and he assured the boy that since the shrine made for a great spot to hitch a ride, he'd be back on the road again in no time. He wasn't wrong. Just seconds after the driver had lit his candle and placed it next to the shrine, he spotted a blue four-doored subcompact pull-up next

to David before its driver invited him inside. This same truck driver was later subject to an extensive polygraph test to ensure that his statement was accurate. He proved truthful at every stage and the truck driver, who was once considered one of the case's major people of interest, was eliminated as a possible suspect. In an attempt to locate David before he came to any harm, police conducted extensive searches all over the region, as well as initiating a poster campaign designed to raise awareness of David's disappearance. The publicity campaign generated thousands of possible tips, but like in many similar cases, very few of these tips were even remotely useful, and those deemed feasible turned out to be dead ends. Police then organized a team of specialists dredging divers to comb the bottom of the Petit Deschars River, which snakes through the town of Alma. The effort was bolstered by the services of hundreds of local, national, and international volunteers who descended on the town to search the surrounding

area and distribute missing flyers. The Canadian youth organization then offered a $10,000 reward, but when the offer failed to generate a single usable lead, prospects began to darken. The most commonly agreed upon theory was that after running away from home due to fear of bullying, David had hitched a ride with the wrong person. But just how bad was the situation at school? Even as young as six years old, David had problems settling down at school. He was diagnosed with ADHD, and the drug Ritalin seemed to help in the short term, but by the time David started elementary school, he'd developed a severe speech impediment. He was teased mercilessly, to the point where his teachers would end his school days early so he could make his way home

without having to run the gauntlet of other children. Children have always been cruel, but it seemed that in David's case, a particular toxic social culture left him at the bottom of an exceptionally brutal pecking order. A year prior to his disappearance, when he was 13, David had been cycling home from school when a gang of children chased him into a dead end then stole his bike. But the torment didn't end there. The group then dragged poor David to a nearby creek, one that was filthy with pond scum and mosquito spawn, and pushed him in. A distraught David, reeking with creek water, then made his way to the home of a much older cousin,

Maxime, who offered him a shower, gave him a change of clothes, and called the police. Maxime was probably as concerned as he was furious, but like many of us, he might have assumed that David has simply been unfortunate in his run-in with the schoolyard bullies. But as he'd come to learn, that simply wasn't the case. Before David had even finished showering off, a group of around 20 middle school-aged youths had gathered outside Maxime's house. They called out for David to come outside and face them, and only dispersed when they saw a police car driving down the street. Only then did they see Maxime realize just how dire the

situation really was. By the end of 8th grade, David's education was severely suffering, and he was placed in a class for children with minor learning difficulties. This meant that the bullying only intensified, and even some of the kids that had been civil with him during the previous years began to join in on the torment, something which David no doubt found particularly hurtful. By December of 2008, David had taken to going on long walks after dinner, something which Maxime found particularly concerning. He too had been bullied during his youth and he too had taken long walks in order to clear his head, but only ever when he was feeling truly, truly terrible. Maxime warned David's mother, who begged his school's vice- to do something about the bullying. The vice principal promised to take action, but when classes recommenced following the holiday season, it appeared his promises had been forgotten. On January 28th of 2009, David's mother called Maxime in a blind panic.

It was almost dinner time and David hadn't returned from school. Maxime jumped into his truck and drove out into the darkness to find his cousin. David was later found on one of Alma's main thoroughfares, L'Avenu de Ponte, and was so cold that after climbing into the passenger seat of Maxime's truck, he was unable to speak in complete sentences until he'd adequately warmed up. I'm really at the end of my rope,id reportedly said i can't take it anymore for the next two days david was kept home from school and sought an exemption until the bullying problem could be resolved yet local authorities

responded by reminding her that david was legally obligated to attend school until he was at least 16, and that she'd face legal repercussions if she failed to ensure that was the case. And so, on February 2nd of 2009, just shy of a week before he disappeared, David Fortin was forced to return to school. In Canada, there is a well-known French-language TV show called The True Negotiator. Its host is Claude Poirier, a former hostage negotiator turned crime reporter, and much like English-language shows such as PBS's Frontline, it delves into high-profile world events, as well as public interest criminal justice cases. During September of 2011, an episode of the show featured David's disappearance

and presented some previously unshared details with its audience. Poirier claimed that following his own personal appeal for information, he received a call from a member of the public. This person claimed that they had first-hand knowledge that David was being, and I quote, helped by an anonymous stranger. They also claimed that they had first-hand knowledge that David was being, and I quote, helped by an anonymous stranger. They also claimed that David was, quote, ready to come home, but only under the condition that those helping him are not charged.

If they were charged in connection with his disappearance, the caller claimed that they had the ability to make David take his own life. Before ending the call, the anonymous tipster claimed that David's disappearance was partially due to his family's strict adherence to some kind of strict religious sect, which in some passages were implied to be the Jehovah's Witnesses. But when asked if this was the case, David's mother denied being part of any religious organization. She added that whatever was being done to help David was nothing his own family couldn't oversee, and begged the anonymous caller to feed them more information.

Sadly, the caller failed to get in touch again and some began to doubt the veracity of their claims, but who could blame a terrified mother for doing all she possibly could to bring her poor boy home? She has since made several pleas to the general public, none of which have been answered in a way that advances the investigation, and to this day, David's ultimate fate remains a perplexing and deeply unsettling mystery. I'm going to tell you guys a story, but I want to clear something up first. Cannibals have existed throughout history, and I would dare to say that almost every country has its own serial killer or cannibal story. Almost everyone in the world knows about Dahmer, especially with the Netflix stuff. But where I'm from, there's also a cannibal who, honestly,

became so famous that he even has a song. And can you imagine that? A song for a killer. Well, it shouldn't surprise you because some of the best Latin American songs in history have the saddest, most terrible stories. It's part of folklore in many ways, and I guess that's how we used to tell tales. But I honestly don't know why we're obsessed with these people, so I'm not going to share his name. You can google him and you'd be surprised that in his pictures, he looks exactly like that famous American cult leader slash murderer. Maybe that's a coincidence, but sometimes I don't think it is. This happened over two decades ago. I come from a city in a state far from the capital of my country. It's almost a border state with two other countries, but I'll remain vague.

You can try to figure it out later. I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, and my friends and I would ride bikes outside, play soccer, which we call football, play baseball, hide and seek, and everything. Almost from dawn till nightfall during summer breaks, we would do this. I was the youngest of six boys. I was also the smallest in height so I was the scapegoat for everything. But I would try to rise to the challenges of my bigger friends and I almost always did. And this wasn't one of those times.

Now I forgot to mention that we lived in a very poor area. Our homes were made out of exposed cord bricks and one panel zinc roofing. But compared to some others, we were basically rich. And as stupid, daring little boys, we liked to bike to some of the worst off areas where you could barely call those homes shacks. There was one man who just seemed pretty off. We didn't see him often, but we steered clear when he was spotted. His home sat on a little hill on the outskirts of our neighborhood. Well, the neighborhood was big, but as a little kid, we considered some areas ours and others were considered outside. One day, one of my buddies had this idea to get as close as possible to that man's shack. I'll call my friend Raul,

but that's not his real name. He was just the oldest and de facto leader of our little gang. Raul came up with that, telling us that it would test our bravery as men. We all pretended to be in for this little quest, but I knew others were pretty scared. I didn't want to be left out in case nothing happened, so we biked. It was the middle of the day, so I kept thinking that things shouldn't be that scary. But as I pedaled, I knew it was wrong. I would never call myself a smart kid, but I think that I was street smart, as they say, or I knew how to listen to my instincts. We got close to the areas with the ugliest shacks, and I stopped my bike. I told the guys that we shouldn't do this. We should go back and do something else to test our bravery.

And I even remember what I suggested, which was ride our bikes down a crazy hill as fast as we could, anything to distract them. I saw two friends, Juancho and Carlos, nodding at the idea. But Raul started laughing, mocking me, and he says, You scared? You little baby? Why don't you go cry? And then he started making chicken sounds and moving his arms like wings. Now I was angry and ashamed but I thought this idea was just stupid. And for once I saw that our moms were right as they had warned us not to bother anyone in this part to bike somewhere else. The area itself didn't seem that dangerous though. It was mostly abandoned, had old stuff lying around and there were no roads, just dirt. But actually, talking or going into someone's makeshift home just didn't seem smart.

The others were kind of laughing at Raul's mocking, but I told him that he was so brave, he could just go alone. He didn't show any fear and said that he would definitely do it, but he threatened me with the worst thing you could hear as a little kid, and he suggested that they throw me out of the group. They were my friends, my neighbors, and obviously I didn't want that. So I struggled, I really did, but in the end, something told me to just go home. I snapped at Raul, told him he was an idiot and that I would tattle on him to all of our moms. I got on my bike and rode back to where we came from but I heard Raul yelling that he would beat me up if I said anything.

In the end I didn't have to tell anyone. I just went home and watched TV with my grandma. I didn't know the story would turn infamous. Not my story, obviously, but the man's story. A few days later, there was a commotion among the adults, including my mother, but they wouldn't say anything in the house. I hadn't gone out because I was actually afraid that Raul's threats were true. I didn't want to face the fact that I now had no friends in the neighborhood anymore, but my grandmother started asking me why I hadn't been out when that was all I ever wanted to do before. So to avoid the questions, I went out and biked around alone

for a while until Raul and the rest of the guys flagged me down. They said, dude, where have you been? You missed everything. And I was elated, thinking that they had forgotten about not being my friend since I wasn't brave. But Raul's threats were long gone from their mind. And then, they told me why the adults were all in a tizzy. Raul and Carlos had been the first to try to approach the shack, but they didn't get far enough. They saw what looked like hands and feet on the dirt nearby. Obviously, their talk of bravery left their souls at that moment and they ran, told the others, and they all biked back to safety. But they told some of the older kids,

I don't remember their age, maybe between 16 and 18, but they were around the neighborhood too. We saw them as way older, like college kids, but I still don't know why. Anyway, the older guys noticed the same thing and called the local cops. The cops had no idea what to do, but they investigated further, finding bodies. Eventually, they went into the little hut of the mysterious man and found more, including jars of decaying meat that they suspected was human. At first, I didn't believe my friends, but they took me to see the area from a faraway vantage point, and saw tons of people there and there was yellow tape up that we had only ever seen on TV before. It was the truth.

But the man we knew wasn't there. I believe the cops talked to several people in town asking for him and they scoured reports of missing people. There was a park in our neighborhood, a small one that was used often, but it could be dangerous at night. Danger at night was almost a regular thing, so it was kind of normal when people reported several loved ones missing. I know it's harsh, but it's true in my country. But since they didn't know who the bodies belonged to and where the man was located,

they turned to those records, finally solving several missing person cases. And then, on a hot summer day, they arrested the man. I didn't see it, I just saw the news report and by then, everyone in my house was so worried that they didn't care if I watched the news with them. I heard through gossip and tales over the years that the people eater from my town killed around 10 men, all between the ages of 30 and 40. His M.O. was to hit them on the head with a rock and then take the bodies to his shack to cook them with firewood. From my friends I heard that he even gave the food to some of his poor neighbors who were so grateful for it because they didn't know any better and were starving. I always thought that that was a lie from Raul until I was older and could actually read the reports myself. And the worst part of the story is that this wasn't the first time that the people eater had been caught. It turns out, he had been taken into custody years earlier for cannibalism.

It was just one victim then, but he was taken to some sort of psychiatric institution and diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors insisted that he didn't pose a danger to society and he was actually eventually released. When he was now arrested again, he couldn't just be thrown in prison normally because of his sickness, so instead of facing the consequences, he was being treated. And he got famous real quick after that, like I said earlier. And for months, that was all my friends and I could talk about. Raul would say that we had almost been victims ourselves because we had all seen him walking while biking or at that park. But I believe the people-eaters stayed away from women and children purposefully,

and I must have read that somewhere. And so no, I wasn't in danger at all, but it's hard to think about living in the same area as a cannibal slash serial killer. I didn't personally know the people he murdered, but I saw some of the grieving families who had looked for their loved ones for a while. Our moms didn't calm down for quite a while after that. They watched us more closely and we were supposed to return home before nightfall. That died down eventually as people forget and move on, but I'm glad that I never met them, not even for a passing wave or a smile which I gave to strangers pretty often. I'm also glad that I didn't see those bones myself.

I laughed when the guys recounted how scared they were, but I wouldn't have wanted to see all of that trauma. This happened when I was in my early 20s. I was working in a retail store in a mall, but there wasn't enough hours, so I asked if there was anything else I could do, and my boss told me that the location at the other mall needed more people so I could go there on my weekend. I needed to take the bus route that was a bit longer but I didn't have to make any transfers so I got up early and caught the earliest one I could. The bus ride was fairly normal. I got to see parts of my city that I hadn't seen before. I did notice that the bus eventually went into a

more dingy neighborhood. There was more trash everywhere, abandoned buildings, houses, and cars, etc. I noticed it, but I felt like I was safely on the bus and my destination was in a nice neighborhood. At some point, an elder lady got on the bus and I noticed that no one was getting up to offer her a seat seat so I gave her mine and went to go hold the pole next to the side door of the bus and continued on my way. While riding, I remember looking at a guy next to me and asking if he knew about how much longer it would take to get to my stop but before he answered, someone hit the buzzer to get off. The doors next to me opened and then I felt hands on my free arm grabbing me and pulling me. I on reflex immediately clenched up because I generally don't like any physical contact with strangers outside of a greeting or a handshake.

And I really think that reflex saved my life because it took my brain a few seconds to register that someone was trying to pull me off the bus. A tall man in a white tank top, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes had come out of the back of the bus, grabbed my arm, and tried to drag me off the bus. He had pulled me down to the second step before I even understood what was going on, and I was just barely still hanging on the pole. The arm he was grabbing had my purse on it and I actually tried to shake my purse down to him so he'd let go but he had no interest in the purse. I had just about started calling for help when I felt someone grab my waist and pull me back up towards the bus. The man trying to pull me down must have realized that he couldn't get me without this dragging out longer than he expected, so he finally gave up and ran off.

And that was it. The guy ran off, the door shut, and I vaguely remember hearing the man who saved me say something along the lines of, you'd die in that neighborhood. And I had apparently gone into some kind of shock because I only remember saying, oh. I don't even remember thanking him. I didn't say anything to the driver. I didn't contact the police like I should have. I don't even remember my shift at that other location. I don't remember the ride home. It was just like I was numb. It was when I was at home and had completely showered and gotten ready for bed in my nightgown that I sat at the edge of my bed and thought, did I almost get kidnapped? I did almost get kidnapped. I had a lot of regrets about this. I regret not contacting the police in case that guy goes after another woman.

At least women would be aware that he was out there. I regret not thanking and keeping in contact with that nice person who saved me. I actually posted an article on my local Craigslist in hopes of him somehow hearing it and knowing how grateful I am. I'm writing this story as a warning. It's the same warning almost all of us have received at some point in our lives, but I can't stress how important it is to listen to it. When your mom tells you to take your phone, do it. When she asks you to send a message once you're safely where you were going, do it. You never know what could happen.

When I was little, I lived in a large neighborhood, or you could call it a slum, with little modest houses all stuck together or above each other. People got really close in those areas because you could hear everything. My best friend Valeria and her family were the best people, hardworking and kind to everyone. Although most people in our area didn't have much, you never walked out of her house hungry. I visited her often because things at my house were not so good, but that's a story for another day. One night we were in her room, just talking, laughing at a show on the tiny TV that she had in her room, and I remember it fondly because that TV screen was around the same size as my phone screen now. Of course, the rest of it was huge and the image on

the screen was terrible, but it worked for us then. It was getting late, so I told her I should leave. Valeria asked me to stay the night, but I couldn't. I had to finish some homework, I don't even remember, so we went out into the living room. Her mom was already in her nightgown and she told me to stay the night. I told her it was fine because I didn't live that far away. My little house was just around the corner. Her mom told Valeria to go with me and I tried to protest but Valeria insisted too so off we went. We walked, chatting lively on the way and something about a boy she liked I remember her saying and I remember it too well. My house came into view, all I had to do was cross the

street diagonally, climb a few stairs and go inside. I told her to head back and thanked her for letting me spend the day at her house. Valeria said that I should come the following night too because our TV show was on again, and I agreed obviously and waved goodbye. When I reached the other side, Valeria was still in that corner, waving. I climbed the stairs and finally saw her turning to go back home, and that was the last time that I ever saw her. A few hours after that, Valeria's mom came to the house, banging on the door to wake us all up. It wasn't safe for her because of my uncle, but she still came, begging me to tell her if Valeria had stayed here.

I was still mostly asleep, but I managed to tell her what had happened. Valeria had already turned to go back home, I was sure of it, but my friend didn't go home. Obviously, we were all worried, and my uncle, for once, didn't act like a jerk. My mom asked me several questions about my last conversation with Valeria and I told her about the boy we were talking about. Valeria's mom ran off to that boy's house, but no one had seen her there either. We scoured our street, waking everyone up in the middle of the night, and no one had any idea. People knew Valeria, as I said, we all knew each other, but my best friend, my neighbor, was gone.

And for the longest time I blamed myself, especially when two cops asked me questions the next day. But I didn't have any information and after a while, they stopped investigating. I didn't get closure. No one did because no one knows what happened. But my mom used her last few pesos to buy me a cheap phone and demanded I have it on me always. She then started dating a good man who later became my stepfather so we finally left my uncle's house. The last image I had of that place as I left was Valeria's mom, sitting on her porch, waiting. There's nothing better than a party on the Caribbean islands. Music and good drinks for everyone. But I would often tell people that the best memories you ever get

happen when the dancing dies down and only a few people remain. And that's when the good stuff happens, telling stories or gossiping. In our neighborhood, Chucho knew everyone and you only needed to give him a few drinks to get him talking. So, he was already buzzed during a weekend party and started telling us the latest gossip from his side of the neighborhood. His story took place a few months before. Everyone involved tried to keep it quiet and everyone else wanted to respect them. I had heard some rumors but Chucho knew a lot more details and that night at the party we were all eager to hear them. A couple we all somewhat recognized, Fernando and Lorena, live with

Fernando's mother, Doña Clementina, in a house near Chucho's place. Everyone knew that the old woman hated everyone but her son. Even her daughters didn't speak to her anymore. And that's pretty funny considering Fernando was a loser who never had a job while her daughters became doctors and lawyers and married successful people. Everyone in town knew Fernando married Lorena under odd circumstances and from then on, she had supported their household. They only got a little extra thanks to Doña Clementina's pension, but still, Lorena was the breadwinner. You should know that it doesn't look good when a woman supports a man in our culture. Latin America is mostly still stuck

in the dark ages in terms of all that progress, but in this case, I think we were all justified in judging Fernando. And there's something else we believe in, not messing with other people's problems. We might love gossip, but no one wants to get in the middle of such a mess. Anyway, Chucho told us that everything started on a night when the power went out. It's not uncommon, but this outage was long and dragged on for what felt like days. Chucho said Lorena got home from work early because the company had let the employees go home since no one could work without electricity. It was dark when she arrived, and Chucho said Doña Clementina was waiting for her, using a silly cryptic voice. We groaned and chuckled at his dramatics, but the truth is that we shouldn't have been laughing.

Doña Clementina took one of her old pans, those vintage ones that last forever and are heavier than anything you can get in a store now. When Lorena closed the gate, her mother-in-law smashed her head with the pan as many times as it took for Lorena to die. We had heard those rumors but didn't know how true they were. After all, no electricity meant no one saw anything and no cameras recorded it. Someone asked Chucho why Doña Clementina did that. Someone else in our gathering repeated that we all knew because she was crazy and hated everyone. But Chucho told us that that wasn't it. Doña Clementina had smashed her daughter-in-law's head because Fernando had gotten tired of her.

He went to his mommy like a little boy, complained about his wife of four years who was a saint in my opinion, to put up with them both and said that he wanted her gone. But if she left, she would take everything, perhaps more, meaning the money they had lived on for four years. So Doña Clementina planned to kill her so they could have her savings. Chucho said that Fernando took her body and dumped it somewhere far away, and nothing happened for a while until Lorena's family couldn't contact her. Lorena's mom and sister went to seek answers at Doña Clementina's house, but the old woman had made a huge scene calling Lorena all sorts of terrible names and saying that she

ran off with another man. She even threw garbage at the woman until her son came out. Fernando confirmed his mother's story, but Lorena's family wasn't convinced. Someone else at the party knew why. My friend Amelia said that Lorena's family had tried to get her to leave Fernando and his horrible mother for years, but she wouldn't because she was just so in love. Amelia said she was stupid. That's what she was. But it was true. That was the flaw in their story. If Lorena had finally wanted to leave Fernando, she would have gone to her family first and told them everything

and then run off with her supposed new man. Her family would have thrown a party if that happened. So they knew that these people were lying. And a few days later they returned but brought Lorena's male cousin along, big burly guys who played baseball and they were in luck because Fernanda was alone. The little rat couldn't do anything without his mommy holding his hand so they burst into the house, discovering that all of Lorena's belongings were left behind. They called the police. I didn't see the commotion because I was at work and the same was true for most people at that gathering, so only Chucho knew everything.

Also, after what Lorena's family discovered, I think no one really wanted to talk about it. We discussed it then because we were drunk and it had been some time. The police took Fernando away and it didn't take long for him to confess everything, but that only happened because they couldn't locate Doña Clementina. If she had been with him, she would have commandeered everything, made a scene, tired the cops out, and acted worse than any internet Karen to get away. But again, the little rat was a coward through and through. Fernando told them what happened and where to find Lorena's body. That was far away so no one saw them but most people in our town went to the funeral. I couldn't go but I paid my respects

to Lorena's sister one day in passing. Chucho was wrapping up his tale and he dropped a bomb most of us didn't know. I had assumed that after Fernando's confession, the cops got Doña Clementina too, but Chucho told us that she hadn't come back. We were all shocked. Are you sure? Most people asked. And Chucho said that Doña Clementina had apparently gone to the market that morning right before Lorena's family arrived again, and she hadn't been seen since. The police searched the cameras and located her walking near a paint shop. That was it. The last anyone has ever seen of the old crazy nightmare mother-in-law. Amelia said that's why

you should never marry a man when his mother doesn't like you and we all agreed. There was a moment of solemnity in the group before someone else had another story. I don't know if there will ever be an update. Fernando is still in prison as far as I know and I just hope I never meet anyone like Doña Clementina. To be continued... I don't have many details even though it happened directly to my family, but I need to talk about it. And thanks to the internet, we all find out about things that happen in the US and scandals surrounding cops always center around racism and the violence that comes with it. But there are good stories too. It's hard to live in a country where you have to fear them more than actual thieves and thugs. I'm not downplaying what anyone else's countries have experienced,

but there's a greater pain that comes from knowing that you can't fight back in any way. When you're up against a cop here, you'll never win. No institutions will help you, no lawyer, not even going viral. They rarely face consequences for their actions and they know it, and they take advantage of it. We don't even have guns. And the career of a police officer tends to attract a certain kind of person. The kind that you don't want to be around or confront at all. And my family learned that the hard way, as cliche as that sounds. Around 4am on a random Saturday morning, my sister, Rosara, called me in a panic. My nephew, Pedro, had not arrived home. He was an adult, so it wasn't that strange.

He could be out with his friends or still partying because most clubs here were open until the morning. In fact, it was often safer to leave the club once the sun came out, but my sister insisted that Pedro had sent her a message at 1am telling her that he was leaving the club and coming back home. Now that was strange. I woke up my husband and we went to our house. We started calling people soon afterward and it was still too early but we were worried and needed answers immediately. No one knew anything, not even his close friends, but they promised to call if they heard anything. All we were left to do was wait, and it was torture, but we finally got a call at around 4pm that day, the worst call of all. Without any explanation,

Rosalba was summoned to the local morgue to identify a body. We were already in hysterics, praying it wasn't Pedro, but when we got there, my sister was taken to the side as some investigators talked to her. I don't know what was said, but they took her into another room later. I can't express enough the dread of the screams we heard from her. She was gone after leaving that room. Someone else came and had to explain what happened. Authorities had found Pedro, or what remained of him scattered on a major avenue of our town in Guayaquil. Pedro drove a motorcycle, so naturally our first instinct was that he was in an accident. My husband always said that he hated those things, but bikes are

more affordable than cars. Pedro was studying and working part-time in our country's version of Uber. He needed it, and we asked what happened and if the person who ran him over was facing the consequences. One investigator said that they were still looking for that driver. Fine. We had to be patient, we thought. But something was weird. Eventually, Rosara managed to tell us between sobs and wails that Pedro's body had been completely dismembered. All his limbs were torn and thrown off in various parts of the avenue, but she identified his face. We waited for a while as some paperwork was needed, and my husband handled that.

After hours, we took my sister back home where the rest of my family was waiting. But we told everyone to back off and I went with Rosara to her room. It was a mess before she fell asleep, exhausted. I came out and the family was sad, obviously. My husband had told them what we knew. But everyone was confused. Tio Julio said that being run over doesn't cause dismemberment though, not how it was described. I wasn't exactly keen on discussing how that happened. I wanted to break down too. My sister had lost her world. She was a single mother of an only child. We had all lost Pedro, but it was so much worse for her. I understood only later that grief was different for everyone. Tio Julio wanted to make sense of a situation that didn't

make any sense to us. We moved forward with the funeral, closed casket, obviously, and nothing. We heard nothing from the people handling the case. I went several times to the investigation bureau and found nothing. They had nothing for us. One cop told me to give up because it was a case of hit and run. And it was so unfair, especially when the circumstances were so strange. And months later they told us the case was closed and we couldn't believe it. Just like that. But it happens. It happens all the time in this country. Crimes go unsolved and no one pays or faces justice for our pain. But we had no other clue and for all we knew, it had been a hit and run. But my husband got home one day and said that Pedro's friend, Juan Carlos, talked to him

and they found out what happened. Don't ask me how. Pedro left the club that night with some girl. They liked each other and he offered to take her home. After leaving her at her door, someone ambushed him. Juan Carlos wasn't sure whether that person was an ex or someone else interested in the same girl. That person wasn't alone. No one will ever know what happened during that encounter or how much Pedro suffered, but that man was a cop.

He decided to kill my nephew just for being interested in that girl. We don't know if Pedro was alive when he was dismembered, but we know that these people wanted to be as cruel as possible by leaving his remains scattered on a major avenue. They were also not afraid of repercussions. As I said before, they didn't have to be. The case was closed, and we tried to open it again. We talked to a lawyer and a public defender. They told us we could try to fight for another investigation, but weren't hopeful about succeeding. And I'm ashamed to say that we got scared too. If that cop could so easily kill my nephew just for a girl, what would he do to anyone digging

deeper into this? We took some time to think about it. I was taking care of Rosara who was depressed and couldn't do anything by herself and she died in her sleep a year and a half after Pedro. It was very sudden. She was healthy but I think her body just kind of gave up and once she gone, I just didn't want to think about this anymore. But it pops into my head every once in a while. I feel guilty for being scared and for giving up on the case, but nothing would bring them back. And I know it's wrong, but I pray that the monster never knows peace in this life and the next. I went to my college classes as usual, like every other student does every day, and nothing remarkable happened. It was just a random weekday and I had no tests.

The teachers were teaching their lessons and I yawned all day from staying up way too late watching gamers online, and I wish something were different, that we didn't have to work so hard in school just to get a job later and work ourselves to death. I went home afterward, and I didn't feel like hanging out with my friends. But the next day, something was different. There was a commotion at the entrance of our faculty building with a woman yelling. At first, I thought it was a student protest or something like that. However, it was an older woman and I started listening. I quickly realized that she was talking about Andrea, a girl in one of my classes. Almost everyone on our campus knew her. Andrea was one of the prettiest girls you'd ever see, but she was also one of the smartest. I can't say I knew her well. I knew that she was a little

boastful about her grades, and she definitely knew that she was the prettiest. But she wasn't a mean person or anything like that. She just wasn't part of my circle, despite being classmates. I paid more attention to the screaming woman who said Andrea never returned home yesterday. This was her mom, trying to find answers. Her daughter wasn't at school today. I would skip classes every once in a while, but Andrea was not like that. Everyone was talking and some of our other classmates spotted me and asked what was happening. Did I know anything about her? I didn't, I told them. I had barely spoken to her a couple of times. No one knew what was happening but people started recording Andrea's mom. I moved along and went to my regular classes. I saw the video scrolling through social

media later and it already had a lot of comments. Nothing was useful enough though. The last time anyone saw her was exactly after we left our last class for the day, the one that I mentioned that I was bored with. Her family hadn't seen her since she left the house that morning. Most of us couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day although teachers continued their lessons. Some kids had not attended school at all but I assumed it was just a coincidence. Andrea's mother raised such a scene that many others started helping her. A search group was formed. I wanted to join but my mother called me and demanded that I come back home immediately. So I just skipped the rest of the day and went home. No one knew anything that night, but messages from our class chats appeared early the next morning.

Andrea had been found dead in the gardens of the school. Those gardens had several trees, big rocks, and some tall grass. She was apparently hidden behind the bushes. They called the authorities and the police started investigating what had happened. The police came to one of our classes and it was clear that they thought one of the boys had done it and of course no one said anything. Andrea's best friend said that she didn't have a boyfriend. Andrea's mom returned to the school begging us for any new details. I went to all my classes that day, but the desks were half empty. I was surprised later that night when news outlets broke the news saying that Andrea's murderers had been found. Another girl in our class did it. Gabriela. Someone else

had finally remembered that they saw Andrea leaving the last class, but she was talking to Gabriela and walking away with her. Surprisingly, I didn't remember seeing Gabriella after Andrea was reported missing. Again, I assumed that she had just skipped like I did at some point. When police went to question her, Gabriella confessed. And what she did plus the reason why is just so heartbreaking. But it's such a ridiculous reason. Gabriela told authorities that she had asked Andrea to walk with her, leading her to those ugly unkempt gardens. It's not a transited area at all, it's too far away. No one knows why Andrea followed her there. Once they were alone, Gabriela's friend, Marco, came out from behind a tree and grabbed Andrea. Gabriela took

out a knife and stabbed her several times until she died. They hid her body, but threw her phone and the knife nearby, too. After getting arrested and recounting how she did it, Gabriela confessed why. She was jealous of Andrea. She was jealous that she was the smartest and prettiest in our class. And that's it. No other reason. She didn't get into a fight with Andrea. No one stole anyone's boyfriend. Not that any of that is justifiable reasons, but still. Marco was also arrested, but people think that he was just some stupid puppet in the whole process. So two of my fellow medical students were murderers and one became a victim. I now have to text my mother several times a day and have my location turned on at all times. I would have complained about it before, but not now. you would think that being a doctor is a relatively safe career you're not a cop facing

criminals every day and you're not someone who could inspire feelings of revenge. Well, that's not really the case in many places. I've read stories of doctors and nurses getting threatened if they don't save someone's life. And these people have to operate on patients, sometimes with a gun to their heads, to save the criminal or criminal's family on their table. You can imagine what happens if the person dies during surgery. But that's not what happened to my friend's uncle, a renowned doctor with years of experience. It's a somewhat complicated story that obviously didn't happen to me.

I just heard it, so I'll try my best to explain. I'll call my friend's uncle, Dr. Gonzalez. He left his home on a Thursday night to travel to the coast of Cartagena, where a medical conference was taking place. Other colleagues went with him. Naturally, professionals at those types of conferences will always take advantage of going to the beach and having drinks, but Dr. Gonzalez wouldn't come back from that. They were at a bar close to the coast, having a good time, when a truck parked right in front. Several men got out and killed three doctors in a matter of seconds, including Dr. Gonzalez.

It was past midnight. Only one of his colleagues survived that day, but here's where things took a turn. Any criminal who kills and doesn't steal anything from the victim is immediately suspected of being a sicario. You may have heard that word before, whether you know Spanish or not. A sicario is a paid killer. We call the act sicariato. Some entities in my country also call it settling scores. But no one understood the motive or who would pay to kill some doctors at a conference. The killers didn't even talk to their victims. They didn't yell or threaten before executing most of them.

But as the investigation progressed, the detective realized something about Dr. Gonzalez. He looked exactly like the son of a local mobster. We don't exactly call them mobsters or mafia here, but that's what they are. At the time, the mobster's son had been accused of being involved in the murder of another major player in a rival crime organization. He was actually out on parole in the eyes of the people who wanted revenge. It was also said that he often visited the bar where Dr. Gonzalez and his colleagues were drinking. This sicariato was a mistake, and the press later said that the criminals didn't get much instruction.

A quick call was made and they just acted. But that's a problem. I don't want to sound like an expert on organized crime because I'm not, but anyone who's ever seen The Godfather knows they prefer to lay low. Some innocent casualties are inevitable, but the death of three doctors right during a big medical conference attracted the press. It also didn't help that one of Dr. Gonzalez's colleagues was related to a congressman, and that led to more theories where people thought that it was some sort of political killing, which happens more often than expected here. But that was quickly discarded a few days later.

The police had their list of suspects based on the description from nearby people and the nature of this cold-blooded murder, but they didn't have to search for long. Four men were found dead in two different cars in the local ghetto near the original murder scene. Once identified, the detectives managed to piece together the rest of the puzzle because two factions were involved in this mess. The only thing that remains unclear is which side gave the order to kill the Sicarius in this case. One side wasn't happy with the results as the original target is still very much alive and kicking. The others didn't like the press or knowing that one of their own was in danger. But I read somewhere that the police think that it was the Sicario's own side.

After all, they paid for a service. And these people don't like mistakes. In the middle of one of the busiest cities in Peru was a tiny bakery with the best bread you could ever buy. It wasn't popular or Instagram viral or anything like that, but I swear my family didn't like anything else. We needed to have dinner with that bread at my house and nothing else ever compared. Many families around the zone felt the same way, and sometimes you would even have to stand in line while waiting for the fresh batches to come out. You could easily get the same product someplace else, but there was something special about it. The owner, Mr. Salazar, was the sweetest old man, an immigrant whose family arrived during World War II. They set up that shop when he was a child, but he turned it into a staple of the community as an adult. He had a kind smile for everyone and would often give a little treat to kids, free of charge. So it always felt insane and confusing when so

many strange things and crime started happening at that bakery one particular year. The first one was a huge shock, and I think it gave way to everything that happened later. I wasn't there, but I heard from my mom as soon as I got home from work one day. A guy arrived like any other customer at the bakery and without much explanation, two other clients who had already purchased some bread, shot and killed him on the spot. It was later said the killers, who were cops, thought the guy was going to steal from the shop because he had reached into his pants, but the guy wasn't armed at all, he was just reaching for his wallet. Mr. Salazar was so sad after the event.

I talked to him and he said that the guy who had been killed was a good kid, starting college soon. He closed the bakery for around a week as a gesture to the family but couldn't afford to keep it that way for long. When he opened, Mr. Salazar added a special little memorial for the kid and life continued on. But something was happening in his bakery. Several guys broke in the middle of the night two months later. Mr. Salazar didn't keep cash in his store for safety, so the guys took his entire flour stock. Bags and bags of flour. Where would they sell it?

Mr. Salazar lost business for several days until his supplier could deliver all he had lost. Obviously, he lost a lot of money too, but the community was desperate for bread at that point, so I think everyone bought more to help him make up for his losses. While talking to my mother, we started speculating that another bakery or merchant had a problem with Mr. Salazar's store. Bakeries are common, so that didn't make any sense. My aunt said that someone had put a hex on it, which wasn't uncommon, but obviously not everyone believes in that kind of stuff. Around a month later, we learned that two National Guards came in

saying Mr. Salazar owed a lot of back taxes and didn't have some sort of permit for the bakery. They threatened him with a big citation and a fine unless he paid them directly, which Mr. Salazar had to or he would lose business again. Two weeks later, someone came in at gunpoint and took the POS card reader machine, which was insane because what was he going to do with that? I think the police actually caught that guy for once. And that's when my aunt started repeating the whole hex thing again. I started writing all of these incidents down at

the time to remember the dates. Two days later, a pipe that had run through the ceiling burst, ruining some of the plaster. Luckily, they shot off the main valve quickly to prevent any further damage, but people were worried for Mr. Salazar by then. And that's when my aunt brought a witch and they cleansed the area. You know, throw some oil around, did some chanting, burn some incense or something. Not my thing, but Mr. Salazar accepted it because these events had become too frequent. And for a while, it seemed to work. Six months went by without any incidents. Mr. Salazar said my aunt and her witch saved his business. But things started happening again. Do you remember the two National Guards I mentioned before?

Well, they came back. And this time on a tip that Mr. Salazar was hiding drugs among his flower bags. We all knew Mr. Salazar, nor anyone in his family would do something like that, but apparently, they found cocaine. I think they planted it, if it was ever real cocaine, which I still don't think it was. At the time, Mr. Salazar was threatened with jail, but he knew those guys wanted money again, and somehow those guys disappeared and the whole issue was resolved with them leaving. I think Mr. Salazar was tired of everything and ended up paying someone else to get rid of them once and for all, if you catch my drift. The next few events at the bakery were petty robberies that seemed to get much too common.

Mr. Salazar finally decided to keep a shotgun behind the counter, and that's not illegal in our country, but it's not so common either. Anyway, the shotgun was never really loaded, but those thieves didn't know that, and no one said anything. Our community banded together to protest for more police patrol because these crimes needed to stop. It wasn't just Mr. Salazar's store that was affected. People walking around were threatened with knives and to giving up their phones and money, and the situation became unbearable. Other stores in the area started experiencing the same things. After that, we kind of discarded the idea that someone wanted Mr. Salazar's store to shut down. The hardware store, the phone repair place, and even the ice cream

shop had become victims of petty crimes. If you look at the big picture, losing phones and wallets isn't that significant, but no one wants to visit a store and pay good money only to become a victim later. Still, Mr. Salazar persevered and the community tried their best to be more careful and work with cops to recognize the regular criminals. Some were arrested, some were killed during confrontations between their gangs and police forces. But there's one thing that happened that same year that I think broke my favorite bakery owner, and all the resilience that kept him going had just ended. We weren't a small town by any means. As I said, it was a busy city, but our area and zone knew

each other fairly well. we recognized faces and smiled and helped when we could one morning at 4 a.m mr salazar's master baker victor opened the shop as always mr salazar was never that far behind but victor arrived first to get things going he found a dead woman hanging from a large pipe next to the main oven. How did the woman get in there when Victor had secured things with the steel roll-up door that all the stores have? The woman had sneaked in that night at around 11pm and hid in the bathroom. Why did she pick Mr. Salazar's bakery? I think it was just the first place she found.

She left a message on a whiteboard where Victor would normally write down everything they needed to get done each day, and it said, I was locked up for 15 years, and I can't do this anymore. Mr. Salazar arrived just 20 minutes after Victor called the cops, and by the time I left my house, I went to get some coffee before work and the area was taped off. I thought, not again. But I got close and saw Mr. Salazar sitting in a chair, looking just tired. And I was worried, but I needed to leave for work. I was later told the woman had escaped from an apartment building where a man we had all seen had trapped and kept her for 15 years. No one knew. I didn't know him well, neither did anyone in my family, but some people were shocked when he was

arrested. I kept thinking, how could the neighbors not notice? Did she scream? Did she try to escape before? How can you keep a person locked up for so long and not be discovered? My mother couldn't understand why she took her own life after getting free. That one, well, I think she would never feel free, so this was the only way she could take control. But that's not really the point of this or why I'm really writing it. The police cleared the bakery after a week of investigation and Mr. Salazar opened it, but people didn't want to buy anything. Our little piece of the city was rocked in a very different way then. And only another week went by before another thing happened. Mr. Salazar had a stroke. He didn't die but his kids were done. They shut down the shop and put it up for sale. It's now an electronics shop. I walk by it every day and I miss everything about that bakery.

I miss my favorite bakery owner, Mr. Salazar. And he died a few years ago and I wish all of us could have done more to stop everything that piled on him that year. I want to thank you, sir, for the best bread ever. I was backpacking in the Balkans, southeastern Europe, and as I wanted my trip to last long but didn't have much money. I'm from Hungary and the salaries here are really low. I had to sacrifice comfort many times, such as staying in hostels, eating cheap food, and using questionable public transport. This was the reason I booked the midnight train in Greece from Thessaloniki to Athens. During my stay in Thessaloniki, I mainly stayed in the city center in the Bay Area, which looked nice, much like any other big European city.

However, the train station was in a different area. I had to check out from my hostel in the morning, so I spent the whole day exploring the city and the afternoon in the sketchy area where the train station was located. I did this so I could stay close to the station and not have to walk around in that area after 11pm. That part of the city looked a lot less appealing. It was full of garbage, graffiti, homeless people, and sketchy individuals. The train station wasn't much better. It had a semi-enclosed coffee shop inside, and I stayed there as long as I could, but it closed at 8pm. While I was sitting in that coffee shop and looking at my phone, I snapped my head around when I heard a loud noise. A man dressed as a

soldier rushed into the coffee shop and appeared to be searching for someone or something. The coffee shop was small with only five or six tables and I was the only other guest besides him. He saw me but didn't do anything. Instead, he went to the counter to order. He spoke loudly even though it was relatively quiet there. I found it weird but didn't think much of it especially because he was speaking in Greek which I didn't understand. The coffee shop closed at 8 p.m. so I packed up my bags and went outside. There were many strange people loitering around and they didn't seem like they were waiting for a train. I say this because I wanted to take a look at the tracks in advance so I would

know how to get to my train on time. While doing that, a train arrived at the station and almost all the people from the waiting room ran to the train, but they weren't getting on it or greeting anyone who got off. They were just walking up and down the platform until the train departed. Furthermore, they were all middle-aged men. There were no women or children among them. I returned to the waiting area and sat down on a bench. I was a bit nervous, so I plugged in my earphones and continued browsing on my phone. However, I wanted to be able to hear the sounds around me, so I wasn't listening to music or anything. I'm glad I didn't have my music on because not long after I sat down,

I heard someone say next to me, nice tattoo, is it from Up? I knew that they were talking to me because I have a tattoo from the movie Up on my forearm, so I pulled out my earphones and looked next to me. It was the soldier from before, and it was weird that he started talking to me in English automatically considering I had a small Hungarian flag on my backpack indicating that I wasn't Greek. I replied to his question and we started talking. At first the conversation was pretty normal. We discussed tattoos, movies, and then traveling. However, when I mentioned that I wanted to visit Macedonia on this trip, he became more political and heated, discussing Greek politics and the relationship between Greece and Macedonia very angrily.

Throughout the whole conversation, he acted a bit strange. I can't explain why, but there was something off about him. Initially, I felt relieved that I was next to a soldier in this very sketchy place, but after a, I started to question if he really was a soldier or just pretending to be one because he was acting creepy. He constantly checked his bag but only from the outside and it looked like there was a long object inside it which may have been a gun. But if he really was a military person, it might have been normal and I didn't know Greek laws regarding carrying weapons off duty. Carrying guns in the street is not normal in Europe. And he asked me if I was traveling alone and how long I planned to stay in Athens. I answered honestly, saying I was alone and didn't plan to stay in Athens for long because I intended to catch a ferry from

there. He then repeatedly asked if I'd like to stay at his place for free, but I declined each time. Then the speakers came on, announcing that the train to Athens would be arriving soon. So we got up and started heading to the tracks. He said he needed to retrieve his luggage from the storage area which was right next to the steps leading to the train tracks. He took out a big old heavy suitcase from there and it looked like he was struggling with its weight. Then he loudly slammed the metal door of the storage area for no apparent reason, drawing the attention of everyone around us. It was extremely loud and the entire station could hear it.

Afterward we started walking up the stairs but he suddenly said he needed to use the restroom and asked me to wait with his suitcase. He didn't even wait for my answer and quickly ran back to the waiting room. This was really odd. Why would he trust a stranger with his luggage and just leave it with me? I stood there for a few minutes contemplating whether I should just leave his suitcase there because I was afraid of missing my train. I even thought about the possibility of maybe something exploding inside the suitcase, which made me wonder why else he would leave his belongings with some random girl that he had just met, and the fact that he was acting very strange only heightened my unease. I waited for a few minutes and then he returned. He asked me once again if I wanted to stay at his place in Athens, but I declined, again.

We watched the train tracks and our train had just arrived. He insisted on sitting next to each other, but I didn't want to sit next to him, so I told him I had a seat reservation, which was true, and that I was really tired and would probably sleep through the night. He said he would ask the train employee if I could switch seats with the reservation. He left his luggage next to me once again and went to speak with the nearest employee. This time I didn't stay there. Instead I got on the train and searched for my seat. Fortunately there were many people so I blended in pretty easily. I took my seat and a few minutes later a normal looking man sat next to me.

Thankfully the soldier didn't come looking for me and I never saw him again, not even at the Athens train station where there were even more people. Now I know this story isn't too extreme but it still bothers me to this day wondering what his intentions were. Was he really a soldier and a nice guy, just a bit weird with some kind of mental illness? Or was he some crazy psychopath pretending to be a soldier to appear more trustworthy? The End This story takes place a few years ago when I, a 22-year-old male, was 17 to 18, and I was still with my ex-girlfriend. At the time, I was living with my parents in a little town of 300 people. It's literally the countryside with only three farms in this town surrounded by vast fields. We had a habit of taking walks in those fields along an old path that could accommodate only one car, truck, or tractor. And one afternoon around 5 or 6 p.m, we decided to have a picnic in a field near the road

where we could see the passing vehicles and they could see us. This field belonged to my neighbor, who was okay with us being there, and it was a few miles from my parents' house. We would smoke, drink, eat, listen to music, and everything was going well. However, at one point, a car parked in the middle of the road and a man got out of the car going into the bushes. Initially, I thought, okay, the guy's just picking nuts or something since it's the end of summer, but I kept a watchful eye on him. I continued talking to my girlfriend as I had been doing all afternoon until I looked back at him. To my surprise,

the guy was standing still behind his car, staring directly at us, not moving a muscle. I didn't say anything and turned back to my girlfriend. After about 30 seconds to a minute, I looked back again. This time, the guy had moved to the other side of his car, but he was still motionless, just staring at us. This bizarre behavior continued a couple more times with him shifting positions around his car. Chills ran down my spine and I started to feel that the situation was far from normal. Suddenly the man got back into his car and drove away. At that moment, I told my girlfriend to gather her things. We needed to leave.

She thought I might be overreacting, attributing my paranoia to the weed that we had smoked, but she agreed to go with me. We returned to the road, going in the opposite direction from the way the guy had gone. The road formed a circle and every path led back to my house. Guess who turned around and started following us in his car? It was the same guy, still fixated on us while driving. He continued to tail us and the strange cat and mouse game repeated itself two more times. Finally, my girlfriend admitted that I was right. We noted down his license plate and tried to call my parents but no one answered. The last time the guy pulled up beside us I noticed something on his passenger seat,

although I couldn't make out what it was. However, at that moment my neighbor arrived in his truck. I flagged down my neighbor and quickly explained what had happened. He invited us into his truck and we headed back to my parents' home. My dad's a police officer so I shared the license plate information with him and he checked it. As it turned out, the car belonged to a grandmother and had been stolen. And that concludes this part of the story as a few weeks later, as usual, I went to catch my bus in the next town which was a 7 minute bike ride away. It was still dark

because it was early in the morning. When I left my parents home on my bike I noticed a car behind me and it was his car. I'm not sure how he knew I was there. Maybe it was just bad luck on my part but I'm 100% certain that it was this guy's car again. He followed me until I took a path that only bikes and pedestrians could use, inaccessible to cars. I turned off my bike's light and continued in complete darkness, making sure that I couldn't be seen by the sky. I continued using that path for the next two years and never encountered that car thief again. I'm sorry. In June of this year, I moved out of my parents' apartment as I finally got a steady job and longed for some sort of freedom. I looked for affordable apartments in my city and found one that's a two to three minute walk from my parents' apartment, and to me, it was perfect. I'd get to

live alone and my parents would still be nearby so I could visit them whenever I wanted or pop in to have some breakfast with them. The apartment itself is great. It's not really much to look at, but for a single male it's more than enough. My apartment has a long corridor connecting each room together from the sides with my front door at the start of the corridor. My bedroom is the second room on the left, but since the walls are pretty thin, you can literally hear people in the apartment complex talking, etc. from my bedroom and any room for that matter. Last week, I came home from the pub after meeting up with a few friends. It wasn't really late, around 10.15 or 10.30ish and I had the day off, so I took a shower and hopped into bed to watch Netflix.

It was probably around midnight when I heard a faint knock coming from the front door. I stopped the show that I was watching and listened for a minute or so, thinking that it was my mind playing tricks on me. I continued watching Netflix when, once again, I heard a two-motion knock on my door. I sat up from bed, went to the door and looked through the peephole. Sure enough, it was pitch black. I once again shrugged it off and went back to my room, but before I could even sit down properly, I heard a slightly louder knock-knock.

At this point, I thought it was my friends playing a prank on me, so I called my friend and asked if he was knocking on my door and if he was it wasn't amusing. He paused for a second and said dude I'm I'm at home I gotta be up at like 7 30. I believed him and hung up the phone. I was talking pretty loudly so whoever was knocking probably heard me and as soon as I hung up, I heard another knock. At this point I was pretty angry so I walked to the door, looked through the peephole and saw nothing again. I then unlocked the door, took a peek and closed the door and locked it. Me being angry and a bit intoxicated I decided to wait and catch whoever was knocking. So I spent a solid 10 minutes silently looking through the peephole before being a bit startled as

someone put their hand over the peephole and knocked again. I immediately started unlocking the door and ran out to the apartment hall. I heard someone booking it down the steps and heard him supposedly leaning against the wall as his jacket brushed it. So I ran a few steps down before realizing that whoever this was, was waiting behind the corner to get the jump on me. I hurried back inside and called the cops. They were there within a few minutes and scanned the building and street but couldn't find anyone. They told me that it could just be some kids pulling a prank and to never run after someone. They kept a patrol car around the entire night and the knocking ceased. It could have been some

dumb kids being dumb but the part that gave me the creeps was the fact that whoever it was ran down the stairs and stopped behind the corner. He didn't keep running. If it were some pranksters, I find it more likely that they would have just kept booking it. As I said, it's been a week and the knocking stopped. It kept me on edge for a few days because I just expected to be jumped by someone when walking into my apartment, but so far, nothing has come of it. It was early 2020 and I'd just gotten a new job in a small town near my area. While looking for a place to live, my sister offered to rent her house to me. She had bought the house two years prior, but she and her husband didn't really take to it,

and their commute to work was long, so they moved out and the house was uninhabited. Luckily for me, it was actually pretty close to my workplace, around a 40 minute drive, and my sister pretty much rented it to me for free. I just paid for the water and electricity and looked after the house. I was living there for a solid two or three months and had already gotten used to it. One night after coming back from work and parking my car, as I walked towards my door I noticed something odd. There was a cigarette butt on the curb near my house. I leaned down and picked it up, thinking that it might have been mine since I'm a smoker.

But after looking at the brand name I realized that it wasn't mine and threw it away. I didn't think much of it and just shrugged it off as some jerk throwing it at my curb. I went on with my night and nothing unusual happened. Two days later, I was once again walking to my house when I spotted a few more cigarette butts, this time near my porch. Needless to say, I was livid and thought that someone had sat on my porch and smoked. But since I didn't know who it was, there was nothing I could really do about it. I noticed that they were put out pretty recently, so whoever it was probably walked off as I was approaching. That night I was watching a movie on my laptop and it was pretty late, past 1am, so I was surprised when I heard a car passing by. It's a suburban laptop and it was pretty late, past 1am, so I was surprised when I heard

a car passing by. It's a suburban neighborhood and it was during all the crazy stuff years ago, so people rarely ventured out at night, but I didn't think much of it. Around a half an hour later, I was surprised when I heard chattering nearby. I listened intently, but I couldn't hear what they were talking about as their voices seemed almost muffled and quiet. By this point I was getting a bit unnerved so I stopped the movie and quietly got off my sofa and walked to the front door to make sure that it was locked. As I was approaching the door I froze mid-step as I heard the two approaching my porch and reducing their talking to a whisper.

I realized right away that whoever this was wanted to break in. I leaned against my front door and waited, expecting a loud bang against the door or the doorknob being shaken, but it was oddly quiet. I decided to walk over to my window to see if they had walked away or changed their minds. My windows have bars from the inside out that you have to unlock so that you can move the curtains or look out the window comfortably. I slowly unlocked the bar mechanism and lifted it up. I moved the curtains and was taken aback. Leaning against my window was a man. He was as startled as I was because he basically stuttered over his own steps as he jumped back. He tightened his hoodie to cover his face so all I could see were his big blue eyes looking at me. His friend realized what was going on right away and started to kick the door in. He kicked it a solid four or five times but the door wouldn't budge. All the while, I was staring at them,

frozen in fear and trying to comprehend the situation. I snapped out of it and slammed the bars over my window, locking them and running upstairs to the storage room where I pushed a table up against the door and called the cops. As I listened and expected the two to come inside any minute, I heard a loud crash and the bars from the windows being shaken aggressively. When they realized that they couldn't get in, one of them let out a long angry scream that probably woke up half the neighborhood. By the time the cops came, they were long gone. The police couldn't find out who it was but were more active in the neighborhood in the following weeks.

Regardless, I wasn't too keen on staying there so shortly after I moved out. My sister sold the house a few months later and as far as I know, nothing similar like that has happened in that area since. So this happened a long time ago, but I've never forgotten it as it was one of the strangest encounters me and my family have ever had one time as a child i went with my family to the grocery store it was our monthly trip to stock up on groceries so we were going to be there a while i was about 12 at the time so by the age that I had a good understanding of how to read people. We started in the produce aisle and suddenly a strange man caught my eye. He was standing awkwardly close to us, sort of fake browsing the vegetables. His body language seemed very off though. He was standing with his back to us, but something seemed strange about the way that he was positioned. As we slowly moved down

the aisle, he would slowly rotate so his back was always facing us. As we got a little closer, I could tell that he was wearing those see-behind glasses, those gimmick sunglasses that have hidden mirrors on the inside of the lenses so you can see behind yourself. He had a dirty gray zip-up jacket and long, dark, messy hair, and he had to be in his mid-forties. Our shopping went on and wherever we went I would see him standing there staring at me from across the store. He would keep his distance from us but he was always within eyesight no matter where we were in that store. About thirty minutes in my mom still hadn't noticed it, but he was starting to really creep me out. My mom didn't believe me at first when I told her. Eventually, we got to the refrigerator

aisles, and this is when it got really weird. Whatever aisle we were in, he would quickly pace past us occasionally, and at this point, he wasn't even trying to look like he was shopping. My mom and sis were starting to notice this too and also seemed concerned. At one point we were grabbing something off of one of the shelves and I could see him just standing on the opposite aisle, peeking through the shelves at us. His sunglasses were still on, but now his hood was up. We started to walk faster and do some random zigzags around the store to see if he was really following us and to try and lose him but he would keep up all in a very sneaky way at that. He would always be at the opposite end of the aisle but he kept up with us the entire

time. By this point my mom was concerned so we pushed the card up to the customer service area to talk to a manager about it and at that point we had lost him. We informed the manager and she was very helpful. She actually went to go find the guy and talk to him. We waited at the counter until she paced back to us with a confused look on her face. She walked up to my mom and told us, he said, you're his mom? By this point, my mom and sister were concerned. The manager rang us up and said that we should leave and then they will escort the strange man out. We walked up to the car staying close to our mother when we were met with a very horrible sight. The man just standing across the parking lot from our car with his head slightly tilted and this very creepy grin on his face. We floored it out of there, but we could still see him just standing there in that parking lot, watching us as we leave. I always thought that I would never have a story to share here until a few days ago.

Now I feel as though the only way I can find some relief is by sharing this with you. It was last Tuesday, the day before our store had its busiest day of the year, as we prepared thousands of meals and pies for people to pick up on Thanksgiving Eve. My boss and I spent most of my shift, which was supposed to be from 2pm to 8pm, prepping cranberry sauces, making boxes for pies, and ensuring everything was ready for our biggest day of the year. Because it was still Tuesday, we were still taking a few holiday orders every so often. When the phone rang, I had to run up to the hostess cashier stand to answer it. I had just finished speaking to an extremely rude lady telling her that we wouldn't be able to make a pie for her in time when I heard many guests along the booths near a big wall of windows gasp and start running from their seats. I looked out the

window and saw a small plane coming straight from my building. The engine appeared to be completely dead and it was silent. Dread filled my body as I didn't know what to do. The plane was headed straight for the windows and there were many people and children sitting near the window. All of a sudden, there was a loud crack, not even a boom, just a crack, and the floor shook hard. I stood back up from crouching behind the stand and peered out the window. The plane had crashed into a car, which then exploded. My boss immediately ordered everyone to evacuate while my co-worker and I grabbed the employee's purses and belongings. Walking out, I saw a man lying on the cold concrete engulfed in flames. His face was so badly disfigured that I couldn't even tell that he was once a person.

I can't even begin to describe the mix of emotions I felt while looking at him. Sadness, overwhelm and even guilt. The car that stopped the plane from crashing into my restaurant happened to be my boss's car which was completely burned up at that point. It terrifies me to think that I usually parked where the plane crashed but by some stroke of luck I had decided not to that day. I watched the news for days trying to get any information I could about the plane and the pilot. I'll leave his name out although it would be easy to find but he was 87 years old, flying in from Phoenix, Arizona to my hometown for Thanksgiving to see his family.

The small airport less than a mile from my work had its lights off at around 5.30pm and the man couldn't see the runway because it was dark. He was trying to circle around to head to a different airport nearby when he went down. This entire situation has been overwhelmingly traumatic for my restaurant and its workers. I can't even imagine how his family feels. It breaks my heart to know that he was only two months away from his birthday and had recently won an award for 50 years of safe travels. Since this happened, I've been back to work once. There's a huge spot of ash on the ground in front of my work where he crashed, as well as smoke on the building from the huge flames.

I know that with time, it'll wash away, but the pain and suffering of what happened will never fade. There will always be a small reminder that a man died in a horrific accident just a few feet away from my workplace. Back when I was 17, I lived alone in a small unit that was part of a divided house. At first, everything was completely normal. I never saw my neighbors, and there was certainly no aggression. After a few weeks of living there it began. Every night my neighbor would bang on the wall that adjoined our units. It was always between the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. and sometimes would last hours. As a 17-year-old girl living alone I was petrified.

I'm not sure what was louder, the banging or the sound of my heart thumping in my chest. I told my mother about it, but she didn't believe me. She would visit for a few nights at a time, and when she was there, the banging would stop. Until one night, it didn't. She heard it and made the decision to start banging back against the wall. The next day when I was at school, he approached my mom. I'm not sure what he said but later she told me that he threatened my life. Over the next few weeks I was couch surfing only going back to my unit to get the stuff that I needed and each time I was there the door had been broken in. A total of eight times. Before we managed to break the lease, he would break in, but he never stole anything.

We reported it and the police concluded that he was the person breaking in and was simply smoking in the corner of my living room. After about five weeks of fighting, we managed to break the lease and get my stuff out of there. I remained homeless for the rest of the year. He was never charged with anything and I still can't sleep alone. I have contemplated telling this forever because it sounds so not real, but I love this sub so much so I decided to share it here. When I was in high school, I worked at the local pizza hut and I was a closing server. So after closing down the salad bar and mopping, I got out of there pretty late. I had this ritual of texting my dad when I was almost done to let him know that I was almost home,

but mostly it was to test and see if him and my mom were awake or not. If they weren't, I would take the long way home on the old country roads. I lived on a dog breeding farm 20 minutes outside of town and I would smoke a joint or two and just kind of jam out. One particular night I decided to do this and I was riding along a back road about three-fourths of a minute from my house and this is a road that I knew very well. My bus took this road my whole childhood. One thing to note about my area is I live in the deep woods of East Texas, so most people who own property put their houses about one-fourth to a half of a mile back on their property and keep their exposed woods as basically a natural fence and defense. So while you see a lot of driveways and mailboxes, you can see almost no houses,

just woods with chunks taken out. As I'm driving, I come upon a toolbox, like the ones that sit in the back of work trucks smack dab in the middle of the tiny dirt road. I pull up to it and stop and open my door, stepping out but not away from my car as I take in my obstacle, I realize my headlights are not the only light in the road. There are headlights, small ones, coming up a driveway that was parallel with the toolbox. I sit back down in my car and close my door until only a crack is open, so that in a moment's notice I can just close it, go off into the grass, and get the heck out of there. A small riding lawnmower comes out from the trees, and riding it is a man in a full clown suit and mask with a shotgun laid across his lap. He turns and looks directly through my windscreen and into my eyes and brings the shotgun up to his lap. Now I'm a country boy through and through and

I can smell when I'm somewhere I'm not wanted so before he even got the butt of that thing to his shoulder my car was in drive and in the side ditch of the road. I got out of there, threw my joint out, went home, crawled into bed and never spoke about it again. I don't know what the guy was doing, seeing as this was probably 2018 to 19, transportation works in the area where I live. You see, where I live, public transportation is absolutely terrible. There's only one, not very reliable public bus that takes you in and out of the residential area, and it's quite a long walk to the bus stop. So the people in this residential area came up with a sort of cab system where you pay per seat.

Each of these cabs can accommodate up to four people and a little wonder a year ago they decided to identify these cabs with a sticker that has a number indicating that the car is part of the cab service. Additionally the drivers must have an ID with the cab service information. A couple of times men have tried to offer me a ride. I do my best to ignore them but sometimes it can be a little scary. The part of the residential area where I live is somewhat isolated so not many cars or people pass through there. I have to walk alone from my house to the cab line or bus stop. On one occasion, a couple of months ago, I was walking from my house to the stop wearing headphones, so I wasn't paying much attention. My first mistake. A car pulled over

next to me, and this wasn't all that strange because I've been using this cab service for a while, and many of the drivers know me. If they see me, they often pull over so I don't have to walk all the way to the stop. The driver said, Hey, are you going to the destination? I said yes and got inside the car without checking the windshield for the ID number, my second mistake. This is when alarms started going off in my head. First, the cars in the cab line tend to be older without AC, but this was a newer car and when I got in, he locked the doors and turned on the AC. At this point, I finally realized that

this wasn't one of the cabs, but a complete stranger. He began to ask me personal questions like my name and exactly where I lived. I responded very vaguely with my heart beating fast. I was starting to panic so I texted a friend my location and told him to call me as soon as possible. By this point we were close to the destination and the sky was not slowing down, about to pass the stop. Then the call came through and I started to talk to my friend as if he were my boyfriend saying, hey baby, I'm almost there, wait for me, we'll go together. My friend was really confused but when the man heard my conversation, he suddenly stopped the car saying, sorry I was so entertained talking to you that I almost passed the stop, maybe we could see each other again sometime. He unlocked the car and I bolted out without saying much. After that day I became more aware of my surroundings and tend to only get inside

the cabs at the stop unless I clearly see the car's ID. A couple of my friends said that I was overreacting but it still scared the heck out of me. Now fast forward to today, I was walking from my house to the stop, no headphones this time. When I was halfway there, a car started driving slowly next to me. I kept on walking and the older man driving it started talking to me. Are you Alicia's daughter? Do you live around here? I responded that I wasn't and continued walking. He insisted saying he was a neighbor and that he could give me a ride. I replied again that I wasn't interested and didn't want a ride. Mind you, my mom wasn't named Alicia and she's been dead for over a decade. My grandma, who people sometimes confuse for my mom, is also not named Alicia either.

He kept insisting and I began walking faster approaching the stop where there were more people. At this point the man became angry and started to yell at me saying that this was the last time he'd be nice to me and offer me a ride. Then he just sped off and left. Finally I reached the stop and got inside a cab that took me to my destination. When I got to work, I told my boss and she said, thank God you kept walking. You could have been kidnapped. Well, yeah, that was my morning. I live next to a dead end road. The road faces two other houses and all my

neighbors park their cars there. My friend didn't want to be rude to my family and block them in with her car so she parked on the right side of the street so it would be easier for her to drive out and go home. My neighbor has a trailer, the kind you hook onto the back of your car. My friend lives with her parents and she frequently switches the car she uses. We were in her dad's old beater Toyota Camry. I didn't get out of the car immediately because I wanted to talk for a little while before going inside. All of a sudden, my neighbor, whom I hadn't yet realized was my neighbor, pulled right up next to our car. He got out of the car and started walking towards us. I know we made the wrong decision when this happened, but we were afraid. It was after dark and we were both girls, while he is a heavyset bald white man, just to give you a description,

so my friend reversed and got out of there. Her intention was to drive somewhere and wait for 10 or more minutes before finally dropping me off because she didn't want me walking inside alone while he was still there. I agreed, so we turned onto the street to leave. And that's not what happened. What did happen was right after we turned, we saw another car. We initially thought it was just another car until we realized that it was the same guy in the truck. We proceeded to drive across town trying to lose him. He honked his horn, turned on the high beams at us, and drove aggressively behind us the whole time. My friend somehow managed to drive safely the entire time this was happening. She is incredibly skilled. We called the police soon after he started chasing

us. My friend started driving towards the police station while we were on the phone with the operator. We pulled into the parking lot of the police station and he even followed us in. We drove in circles around the parking lot about three or four times. He waited on the other side of the parking lot attempting to hit us with his car. And he continued this until an officer showed up and blocked him in. Then we both parked and started talking to the officer. Apparently because we were in an old beater car and we were parked behind his trailer, he was convinced that we were trying to steal stuff from him.

He was still screaming when he was parked and the officer was talking to him, and the officer told both of us that it was a misunderstanding and told us just to go home. We went back with my friend's mother to the police station to ask about having officers patrol the area for a while. I'm currently in my house, and this happened in the evening around 10pm. My neighbor got off with a warning, and he lives in the house right next door. I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight. I know I can't really do anything because he does live right there, and I'm afraid to press charges on the chance that he might get violent. I don't know if he actually thought we were going to steal from him,

if he's on drugs, or maybe he's just crazy. Or both. A couple of years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Yosemite. We stayed outside the park in El Portal. One evening, while we were driving back from the valley, I noticed the headlights caught what appeared to be somebody lying down on the side of the road, with both feet pointed towards the street. I told my husband that there was a person lying in the pitch black darkness on the side of the highway. He knows I love my true crime and he was absolutely certain that what I had seen were just trash bags. I was so certain that I just kept saying no. I saw a body. I know that was a person. We made our way back to the hotel and as we were about to park, my husband looked over at me and said, are you really sure about

this? Do you want to go back? I was desperate. Yes, I said. As we drove by again, I saw the feet. I had my husband turn the car back around and yelled at him to stop the car. He rolled down his window and said, are you okay? There was no answer. One more time, even louder. Suddenly, a woman dressed in all black sat up. She was wearing a nice down jacket, black pants, and had her purse and three water bottles. Her makeup was done nicely and she seemed very sweet. I could tell my husband was in absolute shock. I asked her where she was headed and she seemed very sweet. I could tell my husband was in absolute shock. I asked her where she was headed and she said that she was trying to get to the Chevron station up the road and her mom was going to meet her there to pick her up. This woman looked to be in her late 40s. I knew something

weird was going on because where we found her, the Chevron station was still another seven miles away. She said in her mind she thought it was only about a mile from her hotel and she could walk it. We offered her a ride and she climbed into the back seat, not before I grabbed a thick scarf to wrap around my neck and pepper spray. As we drove, we tried to ask her questions, just chit-chat. I asked why she was laying on the side of the road. She said that she had gotten tired of walking and just laid down, ready to give up. It was winter and she had no hat or gloves with her and I could tell that she was very fragile.

Once we arrived at the Chevron station, she thanked us, got out of the car and sat on a bench in front of the closed Chevron station store. We offered to stay with her until her mom arrived but she said she'd be fine. I reminded her that there was no cell reception in the area and triple checked that she didn't want us to wait with her. We drove back to our hotel and noticed that there were now two police cars in the parking lot. They had not been there the first time we arrived back from the valley that evening. I told my husband I knew that they had to be there for that woman. I calmly walked over to one of the cars and asked if they were looking for a missing woman. The officer told me that they were and asked if I'd seen her. I explained the situation and I really felt like something very bad had happened to her. He thanked us for picking her up and giving her a ride. He couldn't tell me what had happened,

but thought that her leaving and going somewhere else was a smart choice. I asked that he go check on her at the Chevron station just to make sure that she's okay and that her mom did finally arrive. I realized that whatever happened was at the same hotel we were staying at. That evening, I looked at the same hotel we were staying at. That evening I looked at the police log and found that a domestic violence dispute had broken out at the hotel. The woman had been beaten very badly and she was so terrified that she was willing to walk in the dark without a flashlight just to escape. It's my guess that after walking about half a mile from the hotel

she was in so much pain that she needed to lay down. I got the feeling like she thought that she might actually die there. She couldn't go back to the hotel because she had already escaped and gone to the front desk to call her mom. Her husband knew that she'd been there and would have come after her. The front office called the police for her while she escaped, and it was my understanding that the man who hurt her was her husband and was arrested. I always wondered about her and whether she went back to him. Did her mom pick her up? Is she safe? And now my husband listens when I say, there's a body on the side of the road. We were in the schoolyard just as school lets out and masses of kids and people are crowded outside.

My brother and I are making our way through. A large woman with blonde curly hair called my brother's name. Hey, Em. Em from summer camp. My brother had never been to summer camp. Come with me. Your mother told me to pick you up from school today. Impossible. We only lived a 15 to 20 minute walk from school, so we walked home after school and took the bus or were driven in the morning.

She goes to grab M's hand and instead M grabs mine and goes, Come on. And we booked it. Less than a couple hours later, another strange woman continually patrolled our street and kept trying to get my brother and I to come and pet her dog, Barney, at her car. The one time this happened a few times that my mother came home, she scouted her like a witch. It's odd to be almost kidnapped once, but possibly twice, and in a very small time frame. It's just weird. It happened today, about two hours ago.

I got a ride home from my university and as I sat in the car, the driver rested his elbow on the front passenger seat and kept moving it back. I felt extremely uneasy as he was getting ready to touch me. After about 10 seconds we stopped at a traffic signal. I told him that I needed to get off because I had forgotten something at my university and he replied, no, ask someone else to go get it for you. I insisted saying, I can't, I need to go get it myself from my professor. Then a homeless person approached the car and he aggressively told her to leave.

Another beggar came and instead, asking me to close the window, he aggressively started closing it himself, touching my knee. I told him to just drop me there and I could walk back to my university. He refused saying, I'll take a U-turn ahead and bring you back. And those were the longest three minutes of my life in that car. Throughout this time, his hand was in my lap. The sad part is that I called my mom to let her know that I'd be late and once I got home, she started blaming my clothes that I was wearing. When I asked how my dress was not appropriate, she blamed my long legs. A couple of days ago, someone broke into my house while I was asleep. I work the night shift, so sleeping during the day is something you learn to get used to. At around 6.30pm, I heard what I thought was a loud knocking sound

coming from outside. My dog went absolutely ballistic. For reference, I live on a farm out in the middle of nowhere with my closest neighbor half a mile away. I somewhat woke up, but didn't really think anything of it since my neighbors like to shoot their guns and this was during hunting season as i started falling back asleep my heart started fluttering weirdly like i knew something wasn't right and that's when i heard loud footsteps throughout the house the dogs were still barking but started to quiet down and that's when i really began to worry when i thought my dogs would protect me at a time like this, it was a fat chance. The footsteps stopped on the other side of the bedroom door and didn't move. I thought

that this was how I was going to die, and although I had a weapon in my room, I knew that I couldn't get to it without being heard. It felt like an eternity before the steps moved around and toward my brother's room. Rustling could be heard loudly throughout the house and things were being thrown around. I knew that they were in my brother's room. Some of his friends are in very seedy situations and I knew it had to be one of them. I heard the footsteps coming back to my door and the doorknob handle moved. I immediately turned my back towards the door and closed my eyes tightly with a hand

over my mouth to stop my screaming. The door opened but that's it. Then he left as a car drove down the road. I finally mustered up my courage and got out of bed. Everything in the house except my brother's room was undisturbed. I immediately called my brother and asked if any of his friends were coming over and he said not that he knew of and I told him what happened. He got off the phone with me to start calling around. I went back to bed and noticed that I still had my window cracked open from earlier and realized that I had my sheet off of me, wearing only a t-shirt to bed. If it was who I think it was, this wasn't a random event. One of my brother's friends has always had eyes for me and the fact that he saw me sleeping in

just a t-shirt makes me freak out. Whether or not he took something out of my brother's room or knew I was home alone, sleeping before having to work later that night, I don't know. I'll post an update when I hear from my brother. You move out to the country to get away from the activity of the city life and you let your guard down, and that's when something like this happens. Sometimes country life isn't so safe, after all. To be continued... Hey friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7pm EST. If you get a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video.

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