The Lets Read Podcast - 272: WAS MY FRIEND A SERIAL KILLER? | 19 True Scary Stories | EP 260

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about stalkers, Valentines day & how one redditor found out their friend was possibly a serial killer. 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

In In my late 20s, I moved from Germany to a small town in Texas with a population of 17,000. The location was almost a two-hour drive to the nearest bigger city. As an avid lifelong animal lover, I got involved with a local humane society and animal shelter. There I learned to my horror that all wildlife in need of help was being euthanized because there was nobody who would take on the rescue missions. Fast forward a year and thanks to the gracious support of the boy and girl scouts, I had a fully built rescue with enclosures, cages, and necessary facilities to obtain a wildlife rehabilitation permit

from the state after a thorough inspection. I also received help and donations from the local population, such as blankets, animal food, and crates. During one of those visits, I met Richard. He was a typical redneck, living way out in the country, relying mainly on hunting and growing his own food. When in town, he would drop off any extra food that he had left for my animals. Over the next few years, he often came around to lend a helping hand, cutting down trees, repairing things, and providing supplies. He was a good friend and he would talk for hours about personal issues. Richard was a rough guy and although he bragged and exaggerated, he was always respectful and polite to me. He never hit on me in any way. He was just a good

friend whom I knew I could call when I needed him and vice versa. Richard was a single father living with his parents who helped him raise his son, Rich, after the mother ran off chasing some drug habit. I met his son a few times and watched him grow up. When he was a teenager, they often came by after attending a gun show, shouldering rifles and bragging about their weapon collection. I felt very uncomfortable during those visits. You don't see many guns in Germany and ending up in Texas, that was a huge part of my culture shock. I still haven't gotten used to it after living in this country for more than 30 years. One day, Richard came by to drop off some bones for the dogs and we got talking. At that time, we knew each other for

about five years. That was when this creep factor came into play. He had consumed some shrooms and was weirdly high. He proceeded to tell me how he liked to go into the city and pick up black prostitutes, despite being white. He got into a horrible racist rant that appalled me, but he was so into the zone that he just kept on talking, describing how he had taken two of them home on two different occasions to his trailer, on his parents' property and then put them through terrible things, too terrible to repeat here. He then described how he took the life of each one, burned their bodies and scattered the remains for the animals.

After he left I was just stunned. After running it by my husband we decided it was just one of his made upup stories. There's no way that he did all that, and we convinced ourselves of that. We confronted him about it the next day when he was sober and he just laughed it off, confirming that he just made that up after watching a horror movie while on shrooms. Fast forward another five years, he met a woman and started a relationship. I met her, Tammy, a few times and took to her immediately. She was warm, outgoing, sweet and caring. They got married and we lost touch for another year.

I assumed that they were in their honeymoon phase and were just content with each other. Then one day, he messaged me, telling me Tammy was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, and my heart broke for them. So I messaged her, asked her how she was doing, and I was not prepared for what she told me next. Shortly after they got married, Richard showed his true colors. He began abusing her, controlling her, and eventually kept her confined to the trailer against her will. She didn't dare to call for help and tried to flee because he promised to end her if she did, and she didn't doubt it for a second. To top it all off, she said that Richard refused to pay

for her chemo and literally forbade her to go through with it. She said that she decided to do it anyway and was to go into the clinic the next day. I promised her that I would talk to Richard at that time and see what the problem was. The following morning, Richard messaged me stating that he just found his wife dead in bed. The cancer must have killed her, he said. There was no autopsy and she was cremated within 48 hours and that was that. I don't think I have to describe what was going through my mind. I didn't want to believe that he had a hand in his wife's death, but the red flags were undeniable. Yet I didn't see that there was anything I could have done. Call him on it and

risk having him turn on me. Talk to the police about it. After she'd been cremated, contact her parents and tell her what I suspected. I didn't believe any of it would have made a difference, or if it would just make it worse, so I did nothing. All I knew was that I did not want to be around him anymore. Thankfully, he never tried to contact me after that and I certainly didn't reach out to him either. Fast forward to December of 2021, a mutual friend messaged me with a link to a news article. Arith County Sheriff's Office Investigate Death of Father and Son Killed in Murder. A man in his 50s reportedly upset that his father had cut him off

out of his will, shot and killed his own son on December 14th and then turned the gun on himself. Erith County Sheriff Matt Coates said deputies were called to the scene at about 10.30 p.m. after the victim's grandfather discovered the bodies inside his home in Paldillo. Richard Calandrini Jr. had apparently been playing video games when his father walked into the room and shot him. Coates would not give an official statement about the murder, saying that the case is still under investigation. He said the killing had to do with money and the grandfather's will. Autopsies on both men are pending. My jaw dropped to my knees. It felt like I was in the wrong movie. I needed to find out more to be able to process this. So I contacted Richard's ex-wife, not the mother of his son, he was married once more between his

son's mother and Tammy, and she didn't even know yet. We talked for hours about his abuse and his grandiose narcissistic personality, his murder stories, how he had almost killed her, and how she got out in the last minute. My entire world fell apart. How could I have been friends with such a person for over twenty years and not caught on to it? It shook my ability to trust my fellow human being to the core. We decided that she was going to contact the sheriff and let him know about the prostitutes he allegedly murdered and our suspicion about Tammy's passing. Richard had told her about three murders, one more than he told me. Unfortunately, the sheriff shrugged it all off. There were no missing persons reports that would fit those alleged crimes during that time.

He said that right away without even looking it up. There's nothing that can be done or proven regarding his wife's death, and there's definitely not enough public interest to pursue it any further. And that was the end of it all, and I'm left with the big question of whether my friend of over 20 years was an actual serial killer. I'm a freelance photographer. No one fancy and my name really isn't known but I rather enjoy it. My work is usually on location, taking shots of a particular spot or area and this happened during an assignment in Bristol and if it matters I'm a man. I'm based in central London, and it was meant to be a quick run to Bristol and back. I headed down to Paddington Station, as one does, and took the train service. It's almost two hours to Bristol, which is perfect for a little nap unless you want

to take in the sights. I didn't that day, and I arrived at Bristol Temple Meads and set up my job. I must say that this gig should have alerted me to something wrong from the very start though. I was just supposed to take as many photographs of the historic city as possible. Usually I would get something a bit more specific, but when I tried to request more details, the client said that I could use my own taste to decide the best photos. I offered my packages and they purchased one of the priciest ones. Therefore, I set off from Temple Meads to the streets. Honestly,

it was one of the best assignments I had ever been given and I was chuffed with every bit of it, even snapping a brutalist gem near Bristol when it was a near delight. I kept walking, trying to decide if I should go to the common photo-worthy spots, but any client could probably purchase those photographs on stock image pages, so I went a little deeper, in the corners and alleys, not worrying about getting lost. I clocked the old, the fresh, and the rough bits of what the city had to offer. And hours later, I returned to the station to grab my train home, looking forward to the whole editing process, it's just, I had a little issue.

A bloke I had clocked during the day in Bristol had photobombed several of my shots. It didn't look evident but I hadn't stayed in one place. I'd been to too many different spots and I walked for hours and even took a cab to the furthest spot, and whoever it was, was seemingly following me. It was a shame because those photographs were really some of the best. Obviously other people appeared, I was taking shots on a random day, but this person looked straight at the camera, and for some reason I just couldn't remember him, as if he was only appearing thanks to my lens, and that was honestly bonkers of course. Regardless, I put those photos of him aside, choosing the ones where the few pedestrians were just going about their day.

I knocked them into shape and pinged them over to the client. I didn't hear from this person in several days, so I went about my other jobs which were mostly in London. So I was on the underground or the occasional black cab if it had been an accurate day. Around a week after I had delivered the Bristol images the client wrote back but his request was very bizarre. They wanted to know if those were all the pictures that I had taken. I was puzzled because I had delivered the package they'd purchased with the right amount of photographs. Still, I wrote back saying if there had been some sort of error. The answer was no. They just wanted to

know if they could have the rejects. I wouldn't normally do that. For one, my name is associated with these photos, so no photographer would want a technically bad shot making the rounds online, whether it's for a publication or someone's social media. Many would never even show their clients unedited photos. Usually, I would bin the ones that I didn't find worthy enough to edit. But I had kept some of this, particularly because of the stranger in some of them. I explained all to the client and they insisted. I told them that I would need to be paid extra for their photos as they would be outside the agreed package and I would have to

edit them. They accepted immediately and paid almost as soon as I sent the invoice, so I got to work and deliver them. Strangely, I didn't feel right about it. I told myself that that was the last time I was doing that sort of thing. The money was good, but you need to have some boundaries and rules as a professional. The coming week passed and I worked on a wedding. Not my cup of tea, but it was a favor for a friend. I edited some shots and you may have guessed that this stranger was in a few. But for the life of me, I just couldn't place his face at that event. And also, it wasn't in Bristol.

He had that same stare, straight into the lens, like he wanted to look into my soul. And it just gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I promptly sent it into the bin. I wasn't about to bother sending my friends these shots. I finished editing the wedding sets when an email from the Bristol gig client popped in. They wanted more shots from different angles and more particular places in the city. I prepared the details and this time I upped the price because I would have to use cabs to get to some areas and the entire payment came in quickly. And so off I went.

Paddington to Temple Meads and to all the places in Bristol. After a couple of hours, it was clear that it would be much better to stay the night at a hostel nearby than go back to London and return tomorrow. I had planned for that in my pricing so I looked for a good spot. There was a pub a few paces away which was perfect as I had a few pints, talked to the barman about obscure places that could produce some good shots and walked to the hostel later. It wasn't late at all though. People were still milling about but I felt like I had a shadow on my tail It was a feeling that had never happened before in all my years I looked back and no one in particular seemed to be focused on me but I quickened my pace I swear it was rather like having a laser pointing at me

I could almost feel the heat on the back of my left shoulder It was so strange I got to the hostel, turned back again at the door and nothing, but I felt it again as I stepped inside. I can't explain it more. As I lay in the questionable bed that night, I considered the plight of women. Most of my female mates have had experiences like that and they've told me, but I could only ever sympathize and really not empathize because I hadn't felt this odd anxiety before. The next day, I was determined to knock this out and go home and I remember leaving my bag on a bench while I photographed Bristol Harbourside. That was my last planned shot before popping back to the station. It's the only moment that I left

the bag alone so the envelope I discovered on the train ride back to London could only have been placed at that moment. There were Polaroid pictures of me inside, not just in Bristol, but at my other assignments. The wedding, at St. James Park, at the Underground, and walking into my flat building's front door. I was more fearful then. At this point I realized I had a stalker for sure and I didn't know how bad it would become but I breathed, closed my eyes on the train service and endured the panic for a while. Almost sprinting from the station to my flat I arrived and threw myself on the bed. I was sweating and horrified, unable to make sense of things. What did this guy want? I took the photos from my bag and went

through them quickly, understanding that the earliest ones were from my first trip to Bristol, meaning that's when things started. Immediately, I blamed the client. I had already been put off by the request for extra shots and these with which they'd handed out money for what they'd wanted Realistically, most people would haggle I pulled up the email app on my phone and quickly wrote, what do you want? If the client was confused, I could just say, oops, wrong recipient, my bad But I had a feeling that they wanted me to do that I got a notification almost right away.

Ah, you knew it was me. How touching. I screamed in my pillow because they didn't answer the question and I wrote again. Tell me what you want. I can give back all the money you paid before in exchange for you to stop following me. Please. I didn't want to. I had already spent a lot, but I'd hoped money would just get him off my case, and he wrote back, I don't want the money. I'll keep seeing you. I'll keep appearing in your shots. Our thing is just beginning. No more emailing. I blocked him and went to bed. The problem was is that he obviously had my address and began to email me from other accounts. I kept blocking and he kept going. Until one message. It doesn't matter if you ignore me. I will see you. I'll hire you again. We'll be in each other's photographs for as long as I'd want. It was disgusting. And what makes things worse is that I would start worrying about taking on any new clients.

Any gigs to Bristol were off the question then. I assumed that he lived there since that's where this started, but I had seen him in the wedding photos. I would have to limit a few things and cut back on some work, most of all I had to pay attention. I checked my statements. I could survive a couple of months without much work except for clients I already trusted. I made the unfortunate decision to shut down my website. My socials went on hiatus but he knew where I lived. Therefore, I called on my mate up in Scotland and stayed there for a few weeks. I didn't get any new emails. I took pictures just for fun and felt like I could finally breathe again. I went back home and got nothing for some time. I didn't know what that meant, but I hoped that maybe he'd given up. But sadly, that was not the case. He wrote again and was happy that I had returned.

He said he missed me, and I just didn't get it. Was he mental, or dangerous, or both? I went through my past photos, gathering all those where he appeared. They weren't helpful and that's why I couldn't place him at those jobs, and the authorities wouldn't be able to recognize him. I don't know if I had gone bonkers or if I had wanted to die, but I wrote back, let's meet at Paddington tomorrow. I want to see you. And his response was enthusiastic. He asked if we could take photos together and what we would do, and I played his game. I told him we could go somewhere nice. I asked if he lived in Bristol

and where but he cleverly ignored that question and told me that he wanted to see St. James Park together. I said that was brilliant. I loved it there but it was better if I greeted him at Paddington. See you tomorrow. I finished and waited. I couldn't sleep, trying to decide what I was going to do with this mental case. I wanted to call someone, but would he get spooked if I was accompanied? I didn't know if the authorities would take me seriously, and I fell asleep thinking about all my options and how I needed to end this once and for all. I was at Paddington at least half an hour before our agreed time. I was taking photographs of the train services and the people, not being overtly formal or anything.

I tried to act like some kind of tourist. I got a few selfies on my phone from different angles. His whole thing was to appear in my shots so I kept checking the photos as I took them, which I don't normally do to see if anything was amiss. I didn't see him until one selfie. He was far. And I turned it all over, looked around, took more photos, took more selfies. He wasn't in them. I didn't want to call him out. The station was heaving and I walked around. I almost wanted to put my photo on that rapid shot setting to see if I could capture something, but I thought that would look too mad.

My hope was to get something that I could give to the police along with the emails. They may not help, but I had to do something. He wasn't anywhere though. I finally stopped walking near one of the railways, looking through my phone for any new appearance. And then I felt it. That laser was on my back, but it was odder. It was closer. I knew it on some strange survival instinct. Therefore, I stood still, not moving an inch. I still felt it. I don't know what he was waiting

for. Perhaps standing still was even more bonkers than arranging this meeting, but I had one goal and one chance, maybe. Finally, I don't know if I heard a rustle of leather or if I got a whiff of cologne, but I did a fast swivel and started snapping photos. I reckon he wasn't expecting that. He covered his face after two shots, I believe, and started running off. And I screamed, where are you going? And I was hoping that you'd appear in my photographs. Other people started watching us. I must have looked like the stalker then.

I was running after them and he wouldn't stop. Weren't we supposed to take photos together, I asked. I did notice that he had a Polaroid-type camera hanging around his neck, but it was one of those new ones, not the vintage, original-looking ones. I finally let go as we exited Paddington, and I grabbed my phone to check and saw his face clear as day in two images, and I thought that was enough, and so I went to the police to file a complaint. Sadly, as expected, there wasn't

much I could do, but I felt better about it and went home. I waited for an email or something, I even checked myself and my bag in case this guy had sneaked something inside, and there was nothing. And a while passed, and I put my website back up and slowly took up clients. I made a policy to request contact information with full names for new people. And nothing odd has happened since. I did move out to a new flat a few months later but for other reasons no one else photobombed my photographs or acted like a ghost to get some attention. But that bloke remains in my thoughts as I still don't get why I was targeted. I wonder if he was another

photographer or an old acquaintance with a fixation. I would not have thought of any of this being possible, but I just discovered something through a photo on a random post from an account I don't even follow, where two people in the background have me questioning everything about what went down almost a decade ago. But I can't tell you what happened unless we go back to when I thought everything was perfect in my life. Let's start by picking fake names here, as I usually will have to do to remain anonymous. Now, I'll call my family the Johnsons. That's generic enough, and I'll call my husband George and my daughter Lucy. And you can think of me as Linda.

After years of living in a two-bedroom apartment, we bought a little house only 15 minutes outside the city. But we kept our city jobs, choosing to commute. Suddenly, we were the perfect American family. We had a yard, and perhaps my daughter could finally get that big dog she has always asked for. And the commute wasn't great, but it was amazing to sleep in that house for the first time and not hear anything except for an owl hooting or something. The day after our move, we were even greeted by the neighbors. They were friendly. One brought a pie, and I cringed a little, only after our move, we were even greeted by the neighbors. They were friendly. One brought a pie, and I cringed a little, only after they left,

but only because I had seen too many horror movies and true crime docuseries. Something just felt kind of suspicious about it all. It was too perfect, you know. So the first thing I did after we settled into a new routine was get my daughter that big dog. It was a rescue and became get my daughter that big dog. It was a rescue and became part of our family pretty quickly. He barely ever barked and was happy at home. I've always felt animals can sense things that we don't, so I trusted everything was fine after a few weeks of this sort of perfection. I even had a little barbecue party to invite the

neighbors over and that dog was fine with all of them, and we'll call him Rover. So I let the panic and paranoia go and we got used to living in this area. I made friends with some people and discovered many had kids my daughter's age and although I was a working mom I got involved in some school activities. I didn't have time to become a room mother or anything like that, but I was much more present. One weekend, my mother-in-law came to visit. We'll call her Sheila. She's nice enough, not too judgy, and my husband loved her, but she lived on the other side of the country. She hated the city, but once she saw our new house, she made a promise to visit more often. Money was never really an issue for her. We lived modestly because my

husband insisted on being independent, but his widowed mom was pretty loaded. During another weekend with Sheila, I was in the kitchen making all of us sandwiches for lunch when she pulled my arm roughly to the front side of the window. She asked who that was and pointed to the neighbor's house that sat on the other side of the street. I said that was our neighbor, David. I estimated David was around 20 years older than my husband and I. My mother-in-law went a little quiet and I asked what was wrong. She said David was watching our house a little too closely.

I laughed a little because, no way. David wasn't the most social guy, but he really didn't give off any weird vibes either. And Rover liked him too. I told her that and Sheila rolled her eyes, saying I can't always trust the dog's reaction. Well, I knew that. I wasn't stupid, but I didn't get any bad feelings, so I just patted her shoulder and went back to the sandwiches. We went for a walk through the neighborhood a few hours later, partly to walk Rover and partly so Sheila could see other houses and the place in general. She said it was almost exactly like her neighborhood and was pleased that Lucy could finally get the childhood experience that she really needed. And I was happy at that moment. You don't often get that

lucky with in-laws. Lucy walked a little further away from Rover, and suddenly, Sheila grabbed my arm. She told me someone was following us. I looked around and saw David walking on the other side of the street. I told her he was just going on a stroll like the rest of us. Other neighbors were walking their pets too. It was almost sort of a Norman Rockwell image if you've seen those. But my mother-in-law was shaking her head. She said no. That's what she thought too but he had been walking next to us since we went out. I told her fine.

Let's just go back home and she nodded, holding my arm closer and pushing me to catch up with Lucy and Rover. When we were just a few paces near the house, she said, see, he's walking back now that we're walking back. I looked at David, who was just staring intently at the concrete and considered it. We had been in the neighborhood a while now and I hadn't noticed anything, and I was the queen of paranoia at first. I told Sheila that I would keep an eye out too, and thank you for informing me. I think she was glad that I took it pretty seriously at that moment, and we went inside and forgot about it for the night. In the following days, Sheila decided to extend her visit. It wasn't a bad thing, although I would have preferred that she left as always. Sometimes you're just not in the mood for company anymore.

But Sheila cooked and spent that time with Lucy after school and George and I worked, so I just let it go. It was better for Lucy to have someone at home. I was worried that she would ask to move in but I didn't want to start anything. I got home from work one night and Sheila had something on the stove that smelled really good. But she saw me and shut the gas off, pulling me outside and saying, I have to talk to you. I asked what was going on this time and she said David had come around and been lurking. I asked her what she meant and she said the neighbor had gone through our mailbox, got on the porch, and even tried to see through the window. Rover then started barking and he went away, and I asked her why she hadn't opened the door and

questioned what he was doing. She looked at me like I had asked her to drop her panties off in the middle of the mall. I can't do that, she said. I was alone. Who knows what he was up to? I could only sigh and calm her down. We went back inside, George got home, and we ate. That night I told my husband all about this David situation. He trusted his mother and got worried and we talked about getting cameras. But honestly, he and I would be considered experts in procrastination when it comes to things like that so we never actually got them. I wish we had. It would have saved a lot of trouble for us. Anyway, Sheila left a few weeks later and I promised myself to pay attention to David. One evening he was watering his plants as

I got home. A few minutes later I heard George's car and looked through the window. David was at his mailbox. He waved at George who waved back and that was that. But I noticed something else. I asked George if he had misplaced our photo from our first beach vacation with Lucy. She was a baby in it. I'd framed it and kept it in our living room since our photo from our first beach vacation with Lucy. She was a baby in it. I'd framed it and kept it in our living room since we moved from our apartment, and he hadn't. I asked Lucy, who looked at me pretty quizzically like preteens do and shook her head, but it was gone. I combed through the house and found nothing. So I caved and called Sheila to ask if she had moved it. She jumped to accusations immediately. David must have gone inside your house. He took advantage of me being gone,

she said. I really shouldn't have called her. I knew what would happen in the coming days, and Sheila booked a flight and told us that she would be staying here for a while. And I really hated that. She was just assuming our neighbor was behind it, and we had nothing against David to warrant something like this, but George thought that it was a good idea so that Lucy didn't have to be alone when we might have a potential stalker or something. And I couldn't argue against that logic. And so, I had to live with my mother-in-law. No matter how much you love your in-laws, you don't really want to live with them permanently. Every day I had to come home to a full report on what David was doing. Sheila wanted to find out more about him because although David attended block parties and all

that, he wasn't the most forthcoming. So So we didn't know much about him except that he lived alone. Not everyone has to be a people person, but Sheila wouldn't let up. I asked around and most neighbors didn't know much either. Except one. A woman in her late 60s who lived a few streets away. Now if you think this lady was a typical grandma, you'd be wrong. I'll call her Claudine. She didn't look a day older than 45 and was the life of the party everywhere she went. She drank like a fish but could hold her liquor and you would never see her drunk even after

downing a whole bottle of wine. But after drinking, she got talkative and I approached her at a Halloween event. She was the only person there without children, which is why she had already helped herself to the wine. But I talked about myself and asked her about life. She was a big career woman and a world traveler. We had the former in common, I guess. After around two hours, I asked about David, trying to be kind of sneaky about it. She didn't notice anything wrong and dove right into what she knew. Apparently, David had lost his wife and daughter many years ago. He wasn't as old as her, but this had happened way before my daughter was born. Claudine said that since their

death, David stayed a good neighbor and would help others in a second, but he wasn't the vibrant or talkative person others knew him to be. He was the life of the party once, she told me, and I nodded as she explained more, and then we were distracted by the party and other people. I went home and talked to my husband, telling him that I really didn't think David was doing anything wrong. We couldn't just suspect someone of stalking or worse when they were just a lonely old person. And George agreed with me. And for a reason, I asked him not to tell his mother anything.

I just didn't want her to know what I had found out. Unfortunately, as I was pulling into the driveway after work the next day, I saw Sheila yelling at David. She stood at the edge of the front yard while David was on the edge of his. I get out of the car and heard her shouting, never come near my son and his family again. What's going on? I asked her, and Sheila turned to me, her face red and the veins on her neck about to pop, and she says, I can't believe you didn't tell me about what you heard about him. Everything makes sense. He's trying to get a new family.

Yours. What? I asked again, because it was just so ridiculous. But she insisted, accusing David of lurking again. My neighbor had the most confused look in the world and I just pulled my mother-in-law into the house. I gave her a very stern talking to and said that I wouldn't tolerate such crazy behavior when we were doing so well in our new neighborhood. Sheila tried to protest and I just shut her down. I scolded my husband later for telling her what we discussed but he said that his mother needed to know. I was too tired after a long day at work to keep

fighting him on this and the weekend was coming. Lucy had a play at school on Saturday evening and other parents who lived nearby would attend. I warned him that if he and Sheila wanted to come, she needed to maintain her composure. Saturday arrived and I got there early just to check if the room mothers needed more help and I chatted with them. Sheila had behaved herself as far as I knew since I scolded her so I saved them both seats. They didn't come. My daughter didn't have a huge part but George wasn't the kind of dad who missed things though and Sheila was a good grandmother and I was honestly stumped in that moment. I didn't know what to tell Lucy when the

play was over and neither of them were there to congratulate her. So I said goodbye to people after taking a bunch of pictures and we left. I apologized to my daughter on the drive and she shrugged. She did that a lot when she was reaching her teens but I knew she was disappointed at least. I was seething on the inside though. If this absence had anything to do with my mother-in-law's crazy obsession with this David guy, I was going to blow the roof off. I just didn't know that our entire lives would change when I got home. Mom, the front door is open, Lucy said as I parked. What? I looked and she was right.

And that wasn't normal for us. So I told her to stay in the car for a few minutes. I stepped in my house slowly and it was chaos. My coffee table was upside down. My grandmother's old lamp was broken on the floor. Some of the pictures on my wall were lopsided and others were on the floor too. I went further in, calling for George and Sheila, and no one answered. I felt my hand trembling as I grabbed my phone and dialed my husband's number.

They kept dialing as I walked deeper into my house and suddenly I heard it. His ringtone. I busted open our bedroom door and saw a huge disaster but George's phone was sitting on the nightstand on his side of the bed. I called Sheila and heard her ringtone coming from the guest room we had turned into her room. I dialed 911 after that. I didn't know if it was too early to call them but my pristine house was a mess and my husband and mother-in-law were gone. The police arrived and inspected things and that's when I remembered Rover. He was gone too. I told them what I could while keeping my arms around Lucy who was crying into my stomach. Answering

the cops questions was tough, but one was particularly difficult. The officer said, had your mother-in-law or husband fought with anyone lately? And that's the first time I really, really suspected David. After weeks of Sheila's comments, I thought that maybe I should have listened, so I told him that my mother-in-law was convinced the neighbor was a stalker. I had to tell them what I had heard from Claudine and what Sheila had theorized. But I emphasized that I wasn't too sure. I didn't want to get him in trouble for absolutely no reason. And speaking of neighbors, some had gathered, including some of the moms who had seen me at the play. But David wasn't around. One cop went to his door and returned quickly, saying no

one was home. That really made things worse, because in my heart, I told myself I should have been more careful. The cops left, promising to start an investigation and asked me to call them if I found anything new. But I couldn't stay in my house, putting my daughter at risk, so we packed some things and just went to a hotel. Claudine called me the next morning and asked what happened. And as I mentioned, she lives a few blocks away, so she wouldn't have seen the flashing police lights. I told her, along with my suspicions, and surprisingly, she said David would never have anything to do with that, and she was sure of it. And I told her he wasn't

home either, and she said he slept at her house. No one knew that they were together. The age gap was hard for some people to digest, she said, and I was stunned. I never imagined it. But it made sense, and looking back, we were near Claudine's house when David was walking alongside us while we walked Rover and Sheila made some of her first accusations. But he turned back when he did. That was some time ago. I asked Claudine, and she said their thing had only been going on for a few months and so the timeline fit. So what could have possibly happened to my husband and my mother-in-law if David wasn't the issue? I didn't find out. Ever. At all. After a few days at the hotel,

I returned home with Lucy. David even talked to me, offering his help if the cops were searching or something. And I thanked him. The police talked to him too, and I think they cleared him of any suspicions quickly. They did conduct searches with trained dogs and all of that stuff later. They searched Sheila's out-of-state house and it was perfect, but no one had been around for a while. No CCTVs had captured anything, no security cameras, they had no clue, nothing. Until they found a rescued dog dead on a farm two hours away,

and his tag had my dog's name. They wouldn't have paid attention to that if my husband and mother-in-law's disappearance wasn't so strange. One of the original officers told me that I had to prepare myself and my daughter because it was a very likely thing that George and his mother were no longer alive. It wasn't easy, but I realized my strength then. I stayed strong for my kid, pushing us to go back to our somewhat regular lives while the police did their job. And time went on, and the strange normal became our very real normal.

And the case went cold. No bodies. Once again, nothing. And years passed on, and Lucy entered her teens. She was having a rough time in high school, so I just couldn't wait any longer. We had to leave. We moved hours away to a much sunnier area surrounded by beaches, and I watched Lucy thrive. Myself as well. As hard as it is to confess, getting away was the only right thing for us to do. And more years went by, and Lucy graduated high school and went to college. She's about to graduate from pre-law, and I'm very proud of her. So I was planning a pretty big trip abroad.

And remember what I said before about the post on a random account that I don't follow? The one that changed our lives? You know how your phone now just knows things? Like you're thinking of buying a new bathing suit and suddenly you get ads for swimwear? I know there's some kind of computery explanation here, but that's not the point. This is about the picture that made me question everything. It's been a long time, but I'd know him anywhere. George stood in the background of that photo. And I know people have lookalikes, but Sheila was with him.

Her face was clear as day, even if they were behind some model in a bathing suit. And I checked the account. It was a brand for swimwear, of course, and they had several models in different pieces, but on the same street. I tried to search from them in other photos, but there was nothing, meaning that they must have walked by while the brand was doing their photo session or something. And so my husband and mother-in-law, who had disappeared from our lives almost 10 years ago, who were considered dead, were suddenly perfectly fine on the streets of some European country known for art and good food. Maybe I'm going crazy. Maybe it's just been too long. But what happened? Why did they leave?

Was it planned? Did they kill my dog? I wish I knew and I'm not sure home, so no way I had internet either. At the time, everyone I knew went to cybers, places with a bunch of PCs where you would pay by the hour to use their computers. In this shop, some computers were even outside. The owner would put them out to get more customers because his rented space was small, but I normally played inside. I think they're known as cyber cafes in other countries. Back then, I remember everyone played a game called Counter-Strike, and I started doing it too. As the only girl, I obviously attracted a lot of attention, especially because I actually

got pretty good at the game. I played alone at first, got laughed at a lot too. Che, las pibas can't play this game, heard often but after some time everyone wanted me on their team the cyber i frequented was almost directly behind my house in an argentine city that's now famous for being the hometown of the best soccer player in the world the cafe sat right in the corner and the cyber was a little up the street. It was a hole in the wall if I'm being honest. A place for pibis, really. Only a few adults would show up to print documents and other stuff, and that's how we started. This guy started showing up.

I didn't notice him at first because all I wanted was to play with the pibis. The boys my age, I mean. I had become one of them in a sense, although they still goaded me, but it was playful though, just fun between friends of a similar age. But one day, I had to leave earlier because my parents were having a special dinner with my sister, Fiorella, who was about to graduate school. She had great grades. I stepped out of the shop and this guy had just wrapped up whatever he was doing on one of the computers outside. At first I thought it was just a coincidence but then I noted that he

stood up at the same time that I stepped out. I said goodbye to the owner who was enjoying a smoke and started walking home. I felt him beside me and he started talking immediately. He asked for my name. I just replied because I didn't suspect him of anything. He told me his. It was Alejo. He asked about my age and how I got good at playing that game for boys, and I just rolled my eyes. But I just said that I come here often, started playing, and got pretty good. I had rounded the corner cafe and was close to my house.

Now, he probably knew where I lived already, it wasn't exactly a secret. I walked to the cyber and everywhere else, but I still didn't want him to follow me too closely. I told him that it was nice to meet him, but I had an important dinner with my cousin and his football buddies at my house, and I told him bye, really emphasizing the word and waving. He took the hint, and I sighed and walked faster to my house. That was only the first hurdle, though. The next afternoon, he was right outside in the same spot that I had left him the evening before, just waiting for me.

I got a little spooked then, but okay, this could have been a coincidence too, right? Well, I just continued walking. But he started to talk to me again. He told me about himself, saying that he was 22. He had studied to be an electrician and had a job. He said that he could buy me gifts and take me to the cinema. I wasn't interested, and I told him that straight up. I said that I'm 14. A 22-year-old should do that

with someone their own age and he said no. He said he didn't like the girls his age because they were shallow and only cared about money. He had seen me at the cyber, playing and laughing with the guys. I was so mature in his eyes and the prettiest girl in town, he said. Whatever. I didn't want anything from him, and I repeated that and arrived at the cyber. I'm glad he didn't follow inside or bother me anymore, but he stayed outside while I played. About an hour after I arrived, I was killed in the game and I peeked outside for a quick second, and he was gone, so I just called it quits early and went home. I didn't like that. Playing Counter-Strike was my favorite thing to do that summer.

Even the boys were disappointed I left, but I didn't want to say anything to them. The guy made me uncomfortable, but he hadn't really done anything. The next day, I went a little earlier than usual. He wasn't nearby and I remembered smiling like, yes, thank God he got the message and hoped that he would just leave me alone. I went and played with the strangers online until the rest of the boys got there. But then he arrived. And this time, he went in and sat on the computer next to mine. He clicked on stuff, but I wasn't paying attention. Fortunately, we were loud and used headphones during our playtime, so I could just pretend that I didn't hear him. He asked me why

I left earlier the previous day, and I didn't answer. He asked why I hadn't waited for him to walk me. He started saying that streets were pretty dangerous for girls like me to be around alone. Yes, I know this. They're unsafe because of people like you. I wanted to yell that, and I remember clicking the mouse a little too roughly picturing killing him in the game. He continued talking even when I wouldn't answer, and he started making me promises like I would never have to work if I was with him, that I would get presents because he had a job. I noted that he was speaking so low that the rest of the boys couldn't hear him. My skin was crawling but I was pretending not to hear anything. After a long while he got up, went outside and talked to the

owner. Finally I couldn't hear him. So I had left earlier the previous day because he was gone for a second but this time he was still there, so I stayed. I wanted to leave at my usual hour, but he was still there, and I waited, just keeping on playing. The boys were finally done, and I left with them. He didn't follow. I was talking to one of the boys, Santi, the entire time. They walked by my house. I said goodbye and went in.

And I got scolded by my mom for being out way later than I'd said I would and hanging out with the boys. And I just took it from her because I knew that that was going to happen. But Fiorella noticed something. I normally cried when I got scolded. I didn't this time because I knew that I did the right thing to wait and come home later with the other boys. She came in my room while my mom was still angrily washing the dishes and asked me why I stayed late. She asked me what happened. Was I dating one of those boys? I finally told someone about the guy.

I made it clear that I didn't want anything to do with him and she got almost angrier than my mom. But my sister was a different kind of angry. She always turned more serious. She's mostly goofy, a laid back person, but when she got angry, she was cold as ice. She told me that I needed to tell more adults and sooner. She was proud of me for not letting that guy convince me with the gifts or whatever he was offering, but I needed to make sure that I kept away from him as much as possible. Even a simple smile could make things worse. Then, she told me a story about her friend, Agostina, who started receiving a ton of compliments from her teacher.

She was 12 at the time. Her teacher was 25, and he would compliment her often. Unlike me, who was not interested in dating an older man like that, Augustina was flattered by this attention. She always got the best grades for doing barely anything. One smile was all it took for her teacher to give less homework or do things for her. Fio said that Augustina's big mistake was that she thought that she was in control of this male counterpart. She was not. He gave her favors, yes, and soon enough, gifts were brought into the equation and he bought her everything Augustina wanted. Remember those old Nokia phones?

They were like a brick and crazy heavy, but back then, they were new and fancy. The teacher got Augustina one of those. Phil rolled her eyes and said that Augustina acted like a queen then. Not everyone had those phones. Not kids, anyway. And Augustina was my sister's friend, so this happened almost six years before my stalker issues. He texted her often. Sweet messages at first, and you can probably guess how that played out. The messages got more explicit.

No camera phones existed then, luckily. And soon, the text messages turned different. The teacher wanted Augustina to come to a party and bring one of her friends for a double date. Theo said that Augustina invited her, but Theo had had the same little boyfriend since she was like five. No way. So Augustina asked someone else. They went to the party, and Fio didn't know what happened, but Augustina and the other friend never spoke again. She kept seeing the teacher though. Their parents found out soon enough, and the entire school did too, and that teacher was fired and Augustina acted like she was being torn from her Romeo. Last year, Augustina got pregnant, dropped out of school, and ran away from home. Theo said

that they didn't know much about her because she's with her former teacher, and Augustina isn't allowed to really have friends. And that's how she explained to me the concept of grooming, which we didn't really have a word for and I only learned the popular name for it from the internet in the last few years. But I understood the essence of it. Fia said that men who go for little girls want one thing aside from you know what. And that's control. So she told me that I had to either stop going to that cyber or start telling others about what was going on. I said it wasn't fair that I had to give up something that I loved because some creep decided to target me. And Fio said that I was right, so she started walking with

me and picking me up on some days. She saw him that first day and he seemed to squirrel away. And that night I thought that i saw him out of the corner of my eye while walking back but i wasn't sure as feel was still with me but she couldn't be by my side always neither of us wanted to tell our parents because they would limit both of us from going out so feo convinced mom that it was better for me to walk home with my friends than to do it alone. And mom saw a reason for once. And that's how I got closer to my Counter-Strike buddies, particularly Santi. I walked home with him and another boy, Beto, most nights. Santi was my age and Beto was 13. The creep only appeared once, but I think he noticed that my sister wasn't around anymore.

He was waiting for the boys to stop taking me home. Sucks for him because Sante became my very first boyfriend. Beto was his best friend and we all became inseparable. We had spent the beginning of that summer only playing that game, but we suddenly wanted to do more. We went to the movies and bowling. Beto's brother was a skater. He wanted to go pro, so we went to a few of his competitions. And the summer passed without another appearance from that cyber creep. We still played games, but it had gone from an everyday thing to maybe twice a week. He must have forgotten about me or just couldn't track me, I guess. School started again, and my mom told me to sign up for a sport so I just picked volleyball.

It was fun. We had our coach Andreas who was tough but we all had to get better before the inter-school competitions began. And that's when he appeared again. I don't know how but he was right outside my school when we finished practice one day. Volleyball was an extracurricular activity right at the same institution. I got angry and knew people were still around me, so I finally went up to him and told him, right there, to stop. I said, this isn't funny. I don't want to date you. Find a girl your own age and leave me alone. If you follow me again, I will tell my parents and go to the police. He laughed and said that he hadn't done anything to me.

I called him a creep and said that only losers would go after younger girls. He got angry and almost grabbed my arm, but I was quicker. He started laughing again, but it was a very strange sound. It honestly didn't sound normal. He said I was acting like a brat now that I had a boyfriend. I laughed back, but I was just pretending to be brave. I said, yeah, I got a boyfriend, and if Santi finds out about you, he's going to be angry. I was done talking to him and walked away to catch my Bondi, and I remember his words as I got on. Your boyfriend won't be there long, but I will. I won't stop, and I always get what I want. I couldn't take that anymore. Others heard him, and he was still not ashamed or anything.

I thought he was afraid of being seen, but it looked like he wasn't at all. Then why back off the other times? Did he get bolder? Why now? I still didn't know what to do, but I didn't tell my mom or Theo, and I tried to forget it because, in a way, he was right. No one was going to do anything because the guy was just there. He technically didn't touch me because I pulled away, and he hadn't harmed me either. I didn't think repeating his words would carry enough weight for the police to even listen. And he was right about another thing. Santi wasn't there long. I went to his school to surprise him on a day that I didn't have volleyball practice,

but he was holding hands with another girl. I remember making a scene, I mean I was 14, and his girlfriend just laughed at me and others joined her. So I just walked back alone. I had to calm down before getting home, so I sat at a park. Well, it wasn't exactly a park, but it was like a little plaza a few blocks away from my house with some benches and trees. After about 20 minutes, I swear I got a spidey sense because I saw him coming from like a mile away. I just reacted and ran off. I heard him calling my name too, and I cursed myself for telling him my name at the beginning of the summer.

But I kept running and slowed down only after reaching the cafe on the corner. He was gone or had fallen back or hidden away. I went home and all thoughts of Santi disappeared. I had bigger issues than a stupid 14 year old boy. The next day I went to volleyball and he was outside. I just knew that this time wasn't going to be as easy to get rid of him as last time and that I couldn't just outrun him home. I was too far and needed to use the bondi which wouldn't arrive for a while. I turned back and my volleyball friends saw me pacing around the school's fence. What's going on they asked and I just told them. That man has been stalking me. He's been doing it

for months. I told him I didn't want anything with him but he just kept appearing and I think he's only going to get worse. They said that we'll go home with you. I really didn't want to. I wanted to be brave and not put anyone else in danger. We were all little girls, but I just said yes. We started walking, and once we were away from the school, he made his move. Hey, I'll take her home, he said, as if though he had any authority. One of the girls screamed, no, are you crazy? Get out of here. The others said somewhat the same and he actually pushed one of them. I yelled and there was a scuffle with those two girls trying to pull him off of me. Stop, stop, stop, I kept screaming. One of the girls fell on her butt and it sounded

pretty painful. He pushed the other away and grabbed my hair. I remember seeing his eyes as he spat in my face with the worst breath I'd ever smelled. He said, You've tried my patience enough and you're coming with me now. He grabbed my arm and a vice that almost twisted my skin and pulled. I was using all my weight to stay back, but my shoes couldn't find any traction on the smooth cement. But a volleyball suddenly hit his head, and I saw how it tilted and heard the echo of the contact. He let go, grabbing one side of his head to rub the pain while I

scrambled away. It was Andreas, the coach. He shouted at him, asking him if he's nuts, touching little girls, saying that he already called the police, screaming for him to go away, go, go. When the creep wouldn't move, Andreas used the other volleyball that he was carrying and threw it at him, and this time, it went right for his nose. The creep screamed, and I saw blood coming out of his nose. All the girls were now behind the coach, Andreas. He begins to shout, you want another? Get out of here. I don't ever want to see you come back. And finally, that creep ran off. I then went on to tell him everything that happened and it turns out that he hadn't actually called the cops but then he did

other staff at the school got involved because they were worried about other girls they got his picture from the cctv and i finally had to tell my parents and they were so angry but theo calmed them down people in the neighborhood were told about him and the cyber owner knew his full name. Now, I won't say it here, but once the cops had his name, it was over. He must have fled the area because he didn't come back and they didn't catch him from what we heard. But Fia and her boyfriend agreed to take me to and from school when I needed to for the rest of the year. My mom did it when they couldn't and I got closer to my volleyball friends so the moms decided to start a carpool. But luckily I never saw that creep again and I wasn't physically harmed, just a little shaken from being accosted by the stalker.

My friend did have a huge butt bruise and we laughed about that later. And so, the moral of the story is that you need to tell adults, at least the ones that are close to you. That's what I've learned. I would have hated if it was my daughter that kept it from me. And my kids are young, but I will buy them simple phones when they're a little older, just so they can always call for help. And don't stay quiet, because more often than not, these things do escalate. They don't stop until they are stopped. Also, I would ask if you're in a position to help a friend or a student, do it. Because my volleyball mates, who were really friends at that time, stalled him long enough for Coach Andreas to show up, and I will forever, ever be grateful to him for that. On Valentine's Day of 1992, I was a 23-year-old wannabe musician living just outside of Redding,

California. I had a part-time job in an auto shop three days a week, one that I had to get up at 7am for, and that year, Valentine's just so happened to fall on a Friday, which meant that I had to work from 8 until 3. But I'd also promised my then-girlfriend that I'd treat her to some special Valentine's Day dinner, complete with gifts and trip to the movies. Meaning that I had around one and a half hours to get home, freshen up, pick up all my girlfriend's gifts, and then pick her up at work on time. I wasn't looking forward to doing all that rushing around. I was kicking myself for not being more prepared, and I remember driving to work hoping that I might be able to

clock out early or something. But then, when I show up at work, all the shutters are down and my boss' truck is nowhere to be seen. I figured that he was probably running a little late, which was way out of character for him, but I didn't immediately assume anything was wrong or anything like that. I just stayed put in my car, leaned back in the seat, and tried to catch a little extra shut-eye until I heard his truck roll into the lot. Next thing I know, I'm catching myself falling asleep, and when I open my eyes, it's almost 8.30am. I'd been sitting in that parking lot for almost 35 minutes, and my boss, who practically lived at the auto shop, just hadn't shown up for some reason. I had his home phone number written down

somewhere, but this was in a journal back at my apartment, so instead of just sitting there like an idiot, I drove back to my apartment and gave him a call on my home phone. There was no answer at his place, so I left a message on his machine, then basically kind of just sat there, not knowing what to do. On the one hand, if my boss was sick or was off doing something and hadn't planned to open the shop that day, then it was no big deal at all. In fact, it was a blessing, because I had time to go buy my girlfriend her gifts and whatnot. But then no one called me, and I felt like I'd have known if we were going to be closed that day because I wouldn't have been all stressed out about the time. So instead of doing just nothing, I decided to give one of my

co-workers a call just to make sure that we weren't opening like an hour later that morning or whatever. But then he says the same thing. He hadn't gotten any calls and as far as he knew, we were opening up at the regular time that morning. I'd then tell him about showing up to a shut shop and our boss not showing up even though I waited a while. I remember how there was a bit of a pause on the line as my co-worker thought it over for a few seconds and then he asked me, are you free to do something right now? I obviously didn't have anything else planned but then I also wanted to know what he was about to ask me, so I told him something like, maybe, it depends on what that something is. It turns out all he wanted to do was head over to our boss' house to see if he was okay, and since I figured that it'd take minimal time at best and was definitely the mature call, I agreed to head over there with him.

About 10-15 minutes later, he pulls up outside my parents' place, honks his horn, and I run out and jump in his passenger seat. My co-worker seems kinda tense, but other than that, we're still just two dudes on their way over to check on our boss. Cause like I said, not just showing up for work like that was way out of character for our boss. And the drive over to his place takes maybe 20 minutes, long enough for my coworker to get pretty worried I think. I was still kinda looking on the bright side at the time, thinking maybe we might get the day off or something and I suggested to my coworker that on the way over. He shot the idea right out of the sky though. Saying that the auto shop was our boss's life, how he only ever took Sundays off and how if he was sick, he would have 100% called us to let us know and probably run things ourselves. By the end of his little speech,

I felt like a total jerk for even thinking about a day off and was glad that I'd taken him up on the whole checking in on our boss thing. So, a few minutes later, we're turning off onto the road that our boss lives on, and although the houses aren't exactly huge, they're all nicely spaced out with privacy fences, big green hedges, and all that kind of stuff. We get to the house that belongs to our boss, and the moment we pull into the driveway, both me and my co-worker get this really bad feeling, because our boss's door is just wide open and his truck is nowhere to be seen. I remember we both sat there on our seats, not saying a word, just looking at that wide open door. It wasn't some big red flag or anything, but that level of worry definitely got ramped up just a little more.

Just not nearly as much as when my co-worker reaches over, opens up his glove box and pulls out a gun. I'd grown up around guns so seeing one didn't freak me out or anything. It was the implication in that moment that had me afraid. I think I knew why he pulled it out too but at the same time I asked him what the heck was going on. My co-worker told me to wait in the car which immediately had me thinking why the hell did you ask me to come along then? But then it hit me. He needed me there just in case anything happened to him. He left his keys in the ignition, told me to shift over to the driver's seat and that if he didn't come out in five minutes to drive off and get the cops. I think up until that point, I'd never known what

it meant to be truly terrified. I mean, I'd been afraid of all kinds of things, getting rejected by girls, getting picked up by the cops with some weed on me, or getting jumped on the way home from school. But I only think the word terror or terrified applies when there's a legitimate danger to human life. When my co-worker got out of his car and walked towards our boss's house, there was a chance that he might never walk out again and that was truly terrifying to me. It did occur to me that he could have been slightly overreacting, but by that point he was already out of the car. And maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.

My brain's way of doing a little psychological damage control. But either way, I watched him walk into the house, gun drawn, not knowing what the hell was about to happen. A few minutes later, my co-worker comes walking out of the house and he only makes it a few steps off the porch before he doubles over and starts puking. And that's when I knew at that moment that our boss was dead. Or at least that there had been some kind of dead body in there or something. Nobody just walks out of a house and throws up unless they've seen something truly messed up. And honestly, right then in that moment, I was really glad that he told me to sit in that car and not follow him into the house. The second he started to puke, I got out of the car and started asking what the hell was inside

and just like before, I think I already knew what he was going to say on some level, I just needed to hear it from him. He never said exactly what it was, he just told me our boss was dead and that we needed to hang around and wait for the cops because he just called them on his home phone. I remember standing there behind his driver's side door, probably with some dumb stupefied look on my face. I'd never been in a situation like that before, never even anything approaching something like that. It sort of didn't feel real either. Like it was real for my co-worker because he saw it.

But for me, I don't know. It's like I wanted to see what was in that house just to confirm it wasn't some elaborate prank or something. But then unless my co-worker had just delivered an Oscar winning acting performance. Unless the entire morning had been some elaborate setup, what was happening was real, and I sure as hell didn't want to see what had made my coworker empty his guts out. I didn't know what else to say, so I asked how our boss died. And my coworker was still wiping his mouth on his t-shirt and spitting out the last of his puke when he told me in a very nasally voice,

Murder. I repeated back to him, murder? Because I just could not believe what I was hearing at that moment. I thought maybe it had been some kind of accident, and unlike my coworker, I didn't immediately conclude that there was some kind of human threat involved. Hell, one of the first things that went through my head when my co-worker said our boss was dead was that he had taken his own life. He could have blown his own head off with a shotgun, which sure as hell would have made me puke if it had been me walking in on the aftermath. But when my co-worker said murder and nodded when I turned the word back on him in a question, that was the question of how did he know it was murder? I only asked one more question of my co-worker that morning

before the cop showed up. I mean, that was the one that I just asked. How could he be so sure that it was murder? The answer that came back is one that I'll remember for the rest of my life. He's taped to a chair. Not long after that, the cops did show up, by which point my co-worker had put his gun back in his glove compartment, and we both talked to the cops for a minute or two, then one of them went inside the house to look around. He came back out a minute or two later, not puking, but definitely shaken. We talked to the cops a little more, gave them our contact info, then after that, we were told that we were free to leave.

I remember wondering what was going to happen over the next few days, and when I asked my co-worker what we should do now, he told me, file for unemployment. I asked him if we should get lawyers or something, if the cops might think that we did it or something, and he told me that he didn't think that it'd be necessary. He was right about both. The cops only got in touch with us once more, and the auto shop took years to find a buyer so it could reopen, but to me, that was just small stuff. I could find another job, and I did, pretty easily actually, but we both still wanted to know what had happened to our boss, or more accurately, why it had happened. Which as it turned out, was bizarrely easy for the cops.

So remember, I said our boss' truck was missing when we showed up at his place. Well, it had been stolen by these two drug addicts who had the bright idea of doing a little home invasion on Valentine's Day Eve. They'd heard, very inaccurately, that our boss was loaded, and that he had a bunch of gold bars or something stashed away in his house. He didn't, and he tells them that, but they didn't believe him. So they taped him to his computer chair, took off his shoes and socks, and began torturing him to get him to fess up. Obviously, he didn't have anything stashed away,

and apparently he even offered to take them to an ATM so they would at least stop burning his feet with lighters and lit cigarettes. But no. ATM so they would at least stop burning his feet with lighters and lit cigarettes. But no. They want the non-existent gold bars or bonds or whatever the hell they were looking for, so they kept on working their way up his legs until they got to his junk. I heard someplace that they were still torturing the guy when his heart just gave up and gave out on them. But still, they didn't want to leave empty-handed. So these two animals then took the keys to his truck and drove around trying to sell the thing in Reading.

They didn't even drive to the next town over to throw the cops off their scent. And so a few hours after we spoke to the cops, some patrol unit was pulling over my boss's truck and arresting the two pieces of human trash who were in it. The female half of the couple later told the cops, some patrol unit was pulling over my boss' truck and arresting the two pieces of human trash who were in it. The female half of the couple later told the cops that the only reason they went looking for this big score like that was so she and her man could buy each other Valentine's Day gifts. To me, that's the only truly bizarre aspect of this whole thing. Once the people who killed him were arrested, they told the cops everything, down to the dumbest little details like that. I've heard that's like a thing with these meth heads, that they're prone to spill their guts to cops and stuff when other drug users can actually keep quiet and actually dodge charges.

I don't know how true it is, but it seemed to have applied in their case. But then I've also heard the cops will dangle detox drugs in front of meth and heroin addicts, telling them that their jailhouse withdrawals won't be so bad if they only give up a little info. The point is, all the details came out in the months that followed, and I remember seeing the news about the pair getting sentenced around the holidays of that same year. Both got life in prison, but if you ask me, they should have dug a hole under that goddamn prison and thrown those two animals in there with no food or water until they just shriveled up and died. Anything else in the face of what they did to my friend and my boss seems like a slap on the wrist. To be continued... long time now, partly as a way of improving my colloquial English, but I've only recently felt able to contribute. You see, I have my own scary story to share, one that details an event which

I saw with my own eyes. This story could have just as easily been written by my friend who acts as my story's deuteragonist, but it would be very insensitive of me to ask her to dredge up a terrible painful memory for the entertainment of others. So instead, and might I make it clear with her blessing, I will tell the story of my friend. My best friend since primary school is a girl that I'll call Gita for the sake of her anonymity. Gita and I lived right across the street from one another, but we didn't become friends until our fifth year of primary, then after that we were practically inseparable. We remained the best of friends all the way through secondary and higher secondary school, which is the equivalent of middle school and high school in the United States,

meaning I was privy to almost every detail of Gita's personal life and vice versa. And that's how I ended up being one of the only people who knew Gita had a secret boyfriend. So depending upon which strata of Indian society you occupy, attitudes to dating range from relatively lax to exceptionally strict. Even the most chilled out of Indian parents tend to be quite involved in their children's romantic lives, in a way that American teenagers simply would not tolerate. It's just a fact of life over here, something we learn to live with, but then living with it often involves keeping our dating lives a complete secret from our parents.

You can't approach our mothers or fathers for dating advice. Some of us can't even approach our siblings. We have no one to turn to but our closest of close friends, who often don't have much experience from which to offer advice, and that often leads to poor judgment and bad decision making when it comes to potential partners. So in the final year of higher secondary, Gita had been seeing this guy on and off but had never fully committed to doing the whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing. She knew that giving herself over to a romantic affair would be a distraction from her studies, so they kept things casual, with the exception of spending a lot more time together once the exam period had concluded. But then, when summer came around

and Gita actually started to spend time with this boy, she found that he wasn't nearly as charming and gentlemanly as he had been while they had just been texting and visiting in secret. They had both expected to see each other a lot more. But Gita's boyfriend expected a lot more too, things Gita wasn't quite ready for. He insisted, but she refused, and after having a particularly intense disagreement over it, Gita decided that she was done with him. She told him via text message, and he didn't take it well at all. Gita told me that she'd called her phone carrier to have his number blocked, but then he started calling and texting from his friend's phones.

He refused to leave her alone. He just couldn't do anything overtly because of how much trouble it would have caused between their two families. She confided this whole thing to me at the time, and I just remember feeling terribly sorry for her. She'd been so excited about this guy, and I'd be a liar if I'd said that I hadn't been the tiniest bit envious whenever she talked about him. So for him to turn out to be a total disappointment, then act like such a child when she tried to break it off, I just felt awful for her. This went on for a few weeks, with Gita's ex being a total pain in the neck for her, then one day, he simply gave up. He stopped trying to call her, he stopped

texting her, and when he ceased all forms of contact for a full three days, Gita and I started to believe that he'd finally moved on. Then one day, one of Gita's ex-friends came looking for her, to ask if she'd seen him over the past couple of days. She obviously hadn't, but her ex's friend looked very concerned, and asked if she could give him a call to see where he was. Gita actually considers it too before she realized it was probably little more than a trick. Her ex had co-opted his friends in more than one scheme, so why would this be any different? She didn't call him or text him. He wasn't her responsibility, and even if he had

run away and was off doing something stupid, it wasn't her problem. I know that sounds harsh, but emotional blackmail is a very under-discussed form of abuse, and it occurs between all kinds of people, not just couples, or former couples in this case. I said the same myself. Even if he is hiding away somewhere, drinking himself into a stupor and focusing on taking his own life, she can't intervene. Otherwise he'll learn that all he has to do to get her attention is go back to some self-destructive spiral and terrify everyone into compliance. I know that sounds very deep for two 17-year-olds in their first relationship, but it's as true for teenagers as it is for the elderly. Age isn't a factor. So after that visit from her ex's friends, Gita tried to carry on as normal, and resisted the

temptation to call her ex, even if it was just to tell him what a jerk he was being. Then one night, months later, just after two o'clock in the morning on the 15th of February, literally the day after Valentine's Day, myself and just about all my neighbors were woken up by shouting coming from outside in the street. I remember hearing it and at first thinking that it was just a drunk or something, but then when I lay my head back down I heard my friend's name. Geeta! They were calling out, over and over again. I'd like to say that I immediately knew who it was, but I think it was a mix of sleepiness and wishful thinking that had me hoping and wishing that it wasn't Gita's ex-boyfriend. But it was, and my heart sank when I came to that realization.

Gita's ex was about to cause a hell of a lot of trouble for Gita, himself, and both of their families, and all because he'd had too much to drink and decided he'd missed her. I know that might sound not all that terrible, just a little bit of teenage angst relationship drama that everyone would either be laughing or cringing about in a few years, but looking back on it, that actually would have been one of the best case scenarios, and I don't think I could have conceived of how terrible things were about to get. Gita, he kept screaming out, come to your window please, I need to talk to you. He didn't know Gita's bedroom was at the back of the house and when the window opened up,

it was her mother and father standing there, each looking absolutely livid. They started yelling at Gita's ex, telling him to go away and calling him some drunk. Everyone could see the bottle in his hand and it was a large green beer bottle too so there was no confusing it with anything else. I could see Gita's ex and I could kind of see the window her mother and father were standing at, but I had a much better view of the ex than Gita's house. So I didn't see Gita, but from the way her ex started to behave, I had to assume that she appeared in the window for a moment because her ex went from trying to get her attention to actually talking to her directly saying,

no wait, wait Gita, listen to me Gita, and just other such things. It was all just so embarrassing for him, for everyone involved, for everyone watching, but then his speech took a very drastic turn. Gita's ex said something like, always know that you did this, this is all your fault. And then he suddenly turned the beer bottle of what I thought was alcohol upside down over his head. I just remember thinking, oh no, please no. Hoping and praying it was just a way to get her attention. It was exactly that, I suppose. A way of getting her attention, but it was the last thing he would ever do.

I didn't see it in detail, but I saw him empty the bottle over himself. Then a second later, there was this sort of whoosh of flame that I'd heard from all the way across the street. And then there was screaming. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want to see, I didn't want to hear, I just jumped back into bed, covered myself over and stuffed my fingertips into my ears to try and block out all the sounds. Even though I only heard it for a few moments, hearing the sound of someone burning to death was the single worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

The hour that followed is a little bit of a blur. I remember my mother coming into my room, then my father drawing the curtains and telling us both to go into the back bedroom. I was crying, trying to tell my mother what had happened but not able to find the words. But I didn't have to because they knew they'd seen the human torch outside, writhing around in the street on fire. Gita's ex later passed from these self-inflicted injuries and everyone who heard the screams remained haunted by them for a very long time. Gita herself didn't recommence dating until she was in her mid-twenties and I don't blame her for taking so long to get back on her feet, so to speak. That boy had traumatized her, and he was haunting her.

Not in the traditional sense of wandering spirits with unfinished business, but in the truest sense. In the sense that she saw his burning body and heard his screams. Whenever she closed her eyes at night, and it stayed that way for many years. My name is Brian, I'm from Ohio, and I've finally gotten around to typing up a story I've been wanting to share with you for quite some time. During late 2021 and early 2022, I started dating the girl who would later become my fiancé. I think a major episode in our dating timeline was around Valentine's Day of 2022. We'd only been talking for around four months at that time, so it wasn't a huge occasion for us or anything, but it also constituted a great opportunity to romance her a little. We both had work on Monday, which was the 14th, and that didn't really leave much room for

wining and dining. So instead, we made plans to have dinner on the 12th, which was the 14th, and that didn't really leave much room for whining and dining. So instead, we made plans to have dinner on the 12th, which was a Saturday night, so we could actually make the most of the occasion. I didn't mention anything about Valentine's Day, although I'm sure the implication was clear. But what I also didn't mention was that I was planning on booking a table at an extremely high-end fine dining establishment. I then went out and bought a whole bunch of her favorite snacks, just about anything she'd mentioned enjoying during our text exchange. I figured a bunch of small, fairly low-key gifts like that would demonstrate that I was a good listener, which as much as that's kind of a dating cliche, is still super important in a relationship. Anyway, I make all the arrangements, under the pretense of our destination being a surprise,

and come the Saturday in question, she's under the impression that we were headed to this Italian place we'd been to once or twice before. Then, all of a sudden, I hit her with the old switcheroo, then take her to our actual destination, which was the fine dining place where I'd booked us a tasting menu. I'd never been to any place like that before, so I was actually super excited to try all the fancy food that was on the tasting menu. Even arriving at the restaurant and having the European waiting staff take our coats and escort us to our table, I could totally see why people pay for that kind of experience. It's not just all about the food, it's about the atmosphere and the service coming together to create truly special memories. And you can bet your bottom dollar that me and my future fiancé got a special memory of that night. It just wasn't the one we expected to have. So I think we're on our fourth course of 18, having a great time when the maitre d' seats another couple at the next table over.

They'd look to be doing the same thing as us, having their early valentine's dinner, only around 10-15 minutes after they sit down. The mood at their table became far from romantic though. It started with a few sort of rude comments. Things that made me and my future fiance look up at each other with this sort of awkward kind of expression. But as the minutes ticked on by, things started to get worse and worse. They kept the volume down at first, but things got pretty vicious, real quickly, to the point where one of the waiters came over to try and calm the situation down. It worked for like a minute, then the guy said something under his breath to the girl and she stormed out of the restaurant. By that point, pretty much everyone in the restaurant was either aware of the tension

in the room or was actively watching it unfold from their side eye. I'd seen plenty of public freakouts, just never anything in anywhere so fancy, so as much as I was kind of annoyed that they were ruining our experience, my future fiancé didn't seem all that disappointed. She wasn't strictly enjoying it, she just tried to look on the bright side and made me smile when she whispered, dinner and a show, you are treating me this evening. I think that's one of those moments that I knew that she was the one. When she knew how upset I'd be if I thought some total idiots had ruined our special evening and chose to brush it off like it was nothing. She was just as disappointed as I was. She just knew how much it would mean to me if she'd failed to show it. Anyway, after the girl stormed out of the restaurant, the guy stayed seated for a minute

or two and then followed his girl outside. We figured that was the end of the show, but no. A few minutes later, the couple walked back into the dining room by the maitre d' and then reseated. It was actually almost comical, seeing everyone in the dining room trying to contain their disappointment at seeing these weirdos return. But I remember just genuinely hoping they'd smooth over whatever they were fighting about. I was dating seriously for the first time in my life, like actively looking for someone to settle down with, so seeing the marital discord that I feared being played out right there in front of me, it gave me this totally different kind of negative feeling when they started

bickering for a second time. I honestly thought that's how the whole evening was going to go. This sort of toxic couple were going to poison the atmosphere completely, not having the good manners to argue elsewhere instead of in front of an entire dining room. But that's not what happened. All of a sudden, the girl gets up again, just like she did when she stormed out just a few minutes before. But then instead of just walking out of the restaurant, she stops, turns around, and takes off one of her high heels. The guy that she's with isn't looking at all, he's doing that thing of refusing to look back as she's walking away. Maybe out of pride or maybe because he was looking at the menu, I don't know. But either way, he's about the only person in the dining room who doesn't see his girlfriend or wife or whatever pulling off one of her high heels, then taking hold of it like some weapon.

By the time we all realized what she was planning, it was too late for anyone to do anything. The girl swung that shoe right at the guy's head, so the heel connected full force with his skull. And the sound that it made was nuts, way more muted and dulled than I had expected, not a crack or a crunch at all. And then, instead of collapsing onto the table in front of him or just falling limp out of his chair, the guy just goes rigid. He almost propelled himself out of his chair, sending all kinds of glasses flying off the table in the process. Then, when he hit the floor, he started shaking and convulsing like he was having some kind of seizure.

People started jumping into action, restraining the girl and rushing over to the guy, who by that point was bleeding all over the floor too, and my future fiancé was one of them. She was a registered nurse and she knew exactly what to do, or rather exactly what not to do when it came to the appropriate medical treatment. She told the waiters to drag the table away so nothing else could fall onto the guy, and she took my jacket to cushion his head. After that, she basically just stayed with the guy until he stopped having this seizure, and the EMTs arrived to take him to the hospital. I don't know what happened to the girl.

I didn't see her getting arrested or anything, and although people intervened to keep her from hitting the guy a second time, I don't think anyone tried to force her to stay. Probably because they were just scared that she'd hit them with the sharp end of that high-heeled shoe as well. And since the very horrifying effects were on display for all to see, I sort of understand why no one thought to just tackle her or whatever. It was scary, legitimately frightening to see both the sudden escalation of violence

and the effect that it had on the guy. It really drove the point home to me that real life violence is much, much different to the kind that we're used to seeing on movies or TV. On Valentine's Day back in 1982, an Arizona state trooper was walking along the side of Interstate Highway 40. He was searching for the remains of a blown out tire, which had been lost during a recent traffic accident that occurred near the Monte Carlo truck stop, around 11 miles away from Williams, Arizona. As the officer continued his search, he found himself approaching a cedar tree, having spotted something half buried in the soil beneath it. But it was not a blown out tire. Lying face down in the dirt was the lifeless body of an unidentified young woman. She had apparently been dragged around 25 feet from the nearby interstate,

and lying next to the corpse was a white sweater with red stripes, a white bra, and a white handkerchief. Larger sections of the girl's face and right ear as well as her hands and feet had been eaten away by animals, making fingerprint identification completely impossible. Coroners later determined that the girl had been dead for around two weeks before she was discovered, and that the cause of death was most likely suffocation or asphyxiation, as her hyoid bone had not been broken and there were no other significant indications of physical trauma. Since it was impossible to identify her, and in light of the date her corpse was discovered,

the authorities nicknamed the girl Valentine Sally instead of the usual Jane Doe. In an effort to identify their nameless victim, police officers canvassed the surrounding area in the hopes of garnering clues. One witness claimed to have given Valentine Sally a ride after spotting her hitchhiking around Chords Junction, which is around an hour's drive away from Flagstaff, Arizona. The witness claimed that the hitchhiker's journey had started in Phoenix Valley, and that she was employed as a dishwasher at a restaurant there. She also claimed to have a family in the state of New Jersey, and that she intended on traveling there due to trouble in her home life.

Her plan was to make it all the way to the Little America truck stop in Flagstaff, where she would hitch a ride further east with any truckers headed in that direction. Days later, a woman named Patty Wilkins contacted law enforcement, claiming that she'd spotted the Valentine Sally on February 4th, when she arrived at her family's truck stop in the company of a much older man. This truck stop, the Monte Carlo, was the same one Valentine Sally's body was found in the vicinity of just ten days later. Patty claimed to have found the situation deeply suspicious and approached the girl to ask if she needed any assistance. The girl refused and seemed more than happy to remain in the trucker's company, yet complained of a very severe toothache. Patty then applied some crushed up aspirin to the girl's tooth, a substance which was later found in the tooth

cavity of Valentine Sally. Patty Wilkins was then shown pictures of the clothes found at the scene of the crime, all matched those that the mystery hitchhiker had been wearing on the day that she visited the Monte Carlo. Three years later, Valentine Sally was falsely identified as Melody Eugenia Cutlip, who disappeared from Istachata, Florida in 1980. A forensic dentist compared the bite marks between the two women and announced that they'd found a match. The same dentist apparently reconstructed the faces of both Valentine Sally and Melody Cutlip before declaring a significant level of resemblance between the two girls. Melody's mother famously refused to believe the body belonged to her

daughter, and although many claimed this was the result of untamable grief, she was later vindicated when her daughter returned home during the summer of 1986. Along with their attempts to identify Valentine Sally, authorities worked tirelessly to identify the trucker she'd been spotted with just hours prior to her death. The man was described as being middle-aged, between the ages of 50 and 60 years old, and was thought to be sporting a two-toned leather vest with a checkered pattern, along with a black felt cowboy hat that had a peacock feather tucked into it. Based on a physical description given by Patty Wilkins, the police commissioned a series of composite sketches, many of which seem to resemble Royal Russell Long, a convicted kidnapper and suspected serial killer who was given two life sentences in 1985 for his involvement in the abduction of two teenage girls.

Sadly, Long has since passed away in prison, meaning if he was Valentine Sally's killer, he will never face justice for his unforgivable crimes. In 2005, the case of Valentine Sally was handed over to the Coconino County Cold Case Team, who vowed to continue the efforts of both identifying her and catching her killer. Then in 2018, when the Golden State Killer was positively identified due to extensive forensic testing, the Cold Case team saw an opportunity to finally uncover the truth of Valentine Sally's identity. They reached out to Barbara Venter, the genealogist who worked on the Golden State Killer case, to help build a profile based on Valentine Sally's DNA. The team then compared Sally's DNA to that of multiple individuals throughout the area and managed to track down one of her relatives. From there, they followed bloodlines down to one particular family living in Missouri and discovered that one of their number had disappeared around 1979. This girl

had a history of running away from home and had charges on her juvenile record that had never been expunged. Finally, on February 22nd of 2021, almost 40 years to the day since Sally's body was discovered, the Coconino Cold Case team held a very important press conference. They announced that after decades of tireless work, Valentine Sally had been officially identified as 17-year-old Carolyn Celeste Eaton of Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri. Apparently, the last time Carolyn and her family were together was on Christmas Day of 1981 when they discovered her in the company of two strange men. This led to a confrontation between Carolyn and her parents, and she responded by running away from home for the umpteenth time.

Her parents assumed that she'd return in the usual time frame, when she either ran out of money or realized her mistake. Little did they know, they'd never see their little girl ever again. In an interview following the long-awaited identification, Patty Wilkins stated that she was haunted by Carolyn's murder and felt like she was her last, best chance of salvation. I knew something was off, she told a journalist. I just knew it. Even when she told me she didn't need any help, I could sense something wasn't right. But I didn't do anything.

At least, I didn't do enough. And I guess that's a regret that I'll just have to learn to live with. Patty added that Carolyn and the man she was spotted with appeared to be close, almost as if they'd been friends for a while. She also stated that she wouldn't be surprised if Carolyn's killer was someone her family were aware of and supposedly asked the reporter, If you ever find out who did it, tell me, so I can go stamp on their toes. Carolyn Eaton was eventually given a proper burial at Mountain View Cemetery just outside the town of Williams, Arizona. She lies under a very unusual looking headstone, one that stands in stark contrast with those around it. Instead of a dull gray slab of stone,

Carolyn's marker is a large, bright red heart, which depicts the names Valentine Sally, as well as Carolyn Eaton. This is to signify that no matter how long a person is missing for, no matter how long they're referred to by Jane Doe or any other morbid nickname, they will not stay that way forever. I'm a father of two. My daughter is seven this April, but I had my son when I was only 17. It was an accidental pregnancy and he knows that, but he also knows that when push came to shove, me and his mom decided to make it a proper go of it and we were married for nine and a half years before finally calling it a day. But then, even after the divorce, me and his mom worked our butts off for him, stayed on good terms, and I'm proud of

the young man that we raised together. Becoming a parent for the first time, especially at such a young age, it came with a whole host of thoughts and feelings. But the one that pertains to this story is fear. The prospect of being a 17-year-old dad was just beyond terrifying, but even when I accepted it and took to relishing the responsibility, that sense of dread never went away. There was always something to worry about, always something to be afraid of, be it disease, financial difficulty, or violent misfortune. I worried about what kind of dad I

was going to be, what kind of son I was going to raise, and about all the trials that we'd face along the way. My anxiety was just non-stop for a long, long time, and until one day, I kind of fell into the groove of it. One of the brutal truths about being a parent is that your kids are going to get hurt, and there's nothing you can do about it. They're going to fall off of swings, scrape their knees, burn themselves, cut themselves, bash their heads on things, and they do so in some astonishingly creative ways sometimes. But then, you also can't coddle or try and shield them from things like that,

because keeping them locked away in some gilded cage can be just as damaging in the long term, and so you learn to mitigate. You keep Bleach out of reach from their little hands, you buy them a helmet for when they're learning to ride a bike, you impose curfews, you buy them phones, you set boundaries and all that kind of stuff. Then what I found is that you mitigate correctly when they finally do run into the house, screaming and crying after fracturing their wrist or something, you don't feel as guilty. You did your job as a parent. You did everything you could outside of wrapping them up in bubble wrap. So all you have to do is then put on that colorful dinosaur

plaster, drive them to the hospital, and give them a cuddle and say, they're there. But it wasn't always like that. Sometimes, something would happen that reminded me of what a frightening and dangerous place the world truly is. During the summer holidays of 2002, my son stayed with me for three weeks in June and July while his mom went on holiday to Greece with her mates. We lived just around the corner from one another, which was really handy because it meant that my son could ride his bike over to his mate's houses. He was 11 and just about to start secondary school, so he was at an age where me and his mom were allowing him more and more responsibility. So he could pop around to his friends in the day as long as he was back in time for tea, which tended to be around half four to five o'clock. So one day, my son asked if he could ride his bike around to his pal's house to play PlayStation,

and I gave him permission, then got cracking with this DIY project that I had planned, which I knew was going to take a couple of hours and was probably a bit too dangerous to have my kid over when I was doing it. He went out at about noon, with his usual curfew at 5pm in place, but he returned unusually early just before three. I was in the back room, up on a ladder, so all I heard was our back door slamming before my son ran upstairs to his room. Call it a parent's intuition, but I knew something was wrong. My son would usually never just run up to his room like that without saying hello, and I'd never known him to return home from his friends early unless something was the matter. I called out to him, asking if he was okay, but there was no reply. So I got down off my ladder and walked upstairs to see what was bothering him. When I walked into his room, my son was sitting in a really odd position,

jammed into the little space between his bed and his window, almost like he was trying to hide from something. Like I said, I knew something was wrong, but I also knew it was best to approach the subject gently rather than directly. I started off with a bit of small talk, asking how his day is and that kind of thing. His replies were very just quick. Fine, good, okay. And then I asked him what exactly he'd been up to that afternoon. My son didn't say anything at first, he just sat there, facing away from me, and then he started to cry. I just sort of rushed forward, pulling his bed away so I could get to him, and I picked him up and hugged him as he cried. I knew that there was no getting him to talk while he was

in such a state, so I focused on calming him down, telling him that it was no getting him to talk while he was in such a state so I focused on calming him down, telling him that it was going to be okay and let him cry it out before he was ready to tell me what had happened. I asked him if he had a falling out with one of his friends and he shook his head. I then asked if one of his friends had hurt him in some way or if their parent had been shouting at one another and that's why he'd come home early. But again, my son shook his head as he wiped away his tears. I think I must have asked him half a dozen different things before I started to get genuinely curious. He still had all his fingers, toes, and teeth, so how bad could things actually be? But then, my son told me what had happened and as he spoke, I felt the color drain from my face. Since that day had been lovely and sunny, his friend's mom had told them to take their bikes out for a spin instead of staying cooped up in a dark bedroom playing PlayStation.

All good so far, but then he carries on. They rode their bikes down to a spot near this old fishing lake not too far from where we lived. It's a big place too with woods on either side of it making it the perfect place for two young lads to go off on some summer holiday adventure and apparently that's exactly what they were doing too. Just exploring the woods on one side of the lake and skimming stones and that kind of thing. And suddenly, a strange man came walking through the trees before approaching them. My son said that, at first, he and his friend just carried on playing, which, unsurprisingly, involved them being excessively loud.

The man seemed to just walk on by until they got rowdy again, at which point he turned and loudly shushed them. My son said he and his friend were quiet and then the man walked towards them explaining that they had to be quiet because they were in his favorite fishing spot and they were scaring away the fish by being noisy. My son didn't see any fishing rod in the man's hand nor did he see any camping stools or tackle boxes around but he'd also been raised to respect his elders so he took the man's hand, nor did he see any camping stools or tackle boxes around, but he'd also been raised to respect his elders, so he took the guy's word for it and he apologized for being noisy. He thought the man would just leave them alone, but he didn't. Instead, he asked if either of their parents were around. My son was honest and he told the man no, then started to explain that he and his friend had ridden all the

way down from our estate on their bikes but then the man started to shush him. He then insisted that they all talk in whispers, lest they scare away the fish and then he started asking the boys some other questions. I've come to the conclusion that I can't actually type out any of the things my son said, I simply can't bring myself to do it. But let's just say that the things that the stranger asked my boy were as explicit and inappropriate as they were perverted. I've already touched on it, but as he spoke, I literally felt the color draining from my face. I've never felt anything quite like it in my life and at the same time, I had to act as calm as possible for the sake of my son. I asked him what happened and he told me that he and his friend had become very uncomfortable and had walked off towards

their bikes after telling the man that they wanted to go home. He tried to get them to stay, offering them all sorts of things but they knew what he was asking them was wrong and it scared them. They got on their bikes and started to ride off. Then the thing that really scared my son is that the man had run after them as they took off in one final attempt to, I don't know, snatch them or worse. My son said that he and his friend screamed as they pedaled fast as their legs could carry them, and thankfully, the man was too out of shape to catch up with them. But that didn't mean that it didn't scare them half to death, and they each rode straight home

after making it back to the main road. I was properly dumbstruck for a while, I just didn't know what to say. But then one burning question popped into my head and then out of my mouth before it even had a chance to really register. I asked him if he had seen the man anywhere before, and he said, yes. I hadn't really considered the implications of either a yes or no answer, I just blurted out the question. But when my son said yes, that he had indeed seen the person before, I felt this wave of nervous nausea wash over me. I then asked where he'd seen this man before, but he said that he couldn't remember, only that his face seemed familiar and he thought that he recognized the jacket the man was wearing. When my son told me that this all happened less than an hour before, I asked him

to follow me downstairs into my car. He was reluctant and I'm not proud of it, but I snapped at him, and he was on the verge of tears again by the time we were driving down towards the area where the fishing lake was. We drove around for about an hour, and every few minutes I was asking my son, do you see him? Do you see him? But it was no good. My son didn't spot the man who'd approached him by the lake and I called the police the second we got back home. In hindsight, that's probably what I should have done to start with and I suppose I wasn't thinking properly when I drove out with my son to try and hunt him down. But I think at the time, my biggest fear was that the police weren't going

to take it seriously and that the best course of action would be to tackle the guy before he got another opportunity to hurt a child. So I called them, got told that a police officer would pop around to have a chat with me and my son, and then we waited three hours for her to turn up to talk to us. After she'd asked us a load of questions, I mentioned that my son thought that he had seen the guy before, and after my son confirmed it, the officer made a note of it and then told me that she'd be in touch. She was, a few days later, saying that she and her colleagues were almost certain that the man had driven into the area from somewhere else. I asked how they knew this and she said that after consulting with

colleagues from another regional police force, they'd shared several reports regarding a man matching almost the exact description my son had given me. And that was a little bit of reassurance, but not much. I mean, thank God that he wasn't a local fella, but if my son really did recognize him and he didn't just have one of those faces, then there was a chance that he'd be prowling the area for months. Unfortunately, there were no arrests or further developments, but the incident did spark something of a stranger danger frenzy among the locals where we lived. But then, it wasn't exactly unwarranted hysteria.

Someone had tried to do something unspeakable to my own flesh and blood, and I'm not sure if words could ever describe how furious and fearful that made me an equal measure. All the kids at my son's primary school got a talk from a policeman who came in to chat with them about stranger danger, and he and his secondary school classmates got a similar talk that September. There were no other incidents like the one my son and his secondary school classmates got a similar talk that September. There were no other incidents like the one my son and his friend went through, and I'd like to think that it was down to the atmosphere around town afterwards. If he was an area man, then he'd most certainly have heard everyone talking about it, even if he did live in the next town over.

It was big news, definitely regionally if not nationally, so I think maybe that scared the bloke off and kept him lying low, at least for a while and hopefully forever. Of all the frightening things I thought that I'd face as a parent, I did actually consider having my kid almost snatched or touched to be one of the worst possibilities. So to have it actually happen, it was as surreal as it was terrifying. I've never faced anything so mentally taxing in all my life, and I well and truly hope that I never have to go through anything similar ever again. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and I mean it when I say that I pray it doesn't happen to you, I was in a committed relationship. But then, long story short, we ended up getting divorced and I was thrust into the very unpleasant world of online dating. I tried a little OkCupid at one point and ended up meeting a really cute guy who was totally my type.

He had lots of tattoos, he worked out, and he was at least a foot taller than me. But he also loved John Carpenter films and a bunch of horror movies too, which is a huge, huge passion of mine. And we chatted on and off for a month or so, but we lived an hour apart, so we waited until we were super sure that we wanted to hook up, and then made arrangements for the most romantic day of the year, Valentine's Day. It wasn't anything too fancy, we just went to a bar to shoot some pool, but then the drunker he got, the more this totally different side of him started to emerge, and it was one that I didn't enjoy at all. At one point, he starts pulling my hair. I'm guessing in a way that he thought was sexy and that I'd enjoy.

Well, needless to say, it wasn't sexy, and I didn't enjoy it. And then two hours and two drinks in, and I was ready to just get the hell out of there. Then, when I asked him to give me a ride home, he tried to get me to do something that I really did not want to do. I fought my way out of it, basically threatening to scream bloody murder do something that I really did not want to do. I fought my way out of it, basically threatening to scream bloody murder and scramble to my car and drive home. I knew I was lucky that he let me go and I had no intention of ever seeing this weirdo again. But then the next day, I'm getting my stuff ready for work and realized that I'd lost my ID somewhere. I search my apartment. Nothing. I call the bar. Nothing.

Then it slowly dawns on me that the creep I was with the night before was the one that had my ID, either when it had accidentally fallen out of my purse during that struggle or when he'd deliberately taken it for whatever godforsaken reason. But then when I call him, he claims that he doesn't have it either. But he does have a lecture for me about how I'm a tease and that's why I'm single, because I just lead guys on. I just want my ID but he denies that he has it so screw it, I guess I'll just get another one. My lost ID shows up in my mailbox a week later in a plain envelope that had not been mailed The idea that he was outside my house without my knowledge really creeped me out It took me a good while to realize what had actually happened to be honest

I went home and didn't tell anybody until a few days later And then my friend was like, wait, so he tried to do what to you? I was like, yeah, I guess I to do what to you? I was like, yeah, I guess I dodged a cannonball as opposed to a bullet. And then the day after the date that I had to contact him about the ID, it was a time when the 35 bucks to replace it was actually a lot of money to me. So I called him and he was so absolutely in his opinion that I had wronged him somehow by not hooking up with him in a crappy dive bar parking lot and he said that I could have at least put out. I didn't do anything about it, I just never contacted him again. It's not like it hasn't happened before, just the more subtle versions. I never had anybody just try it. It was usually

the kissing that turns into pressure to do something more. I've never had anyone forcibly try to make me do stuff with them or try to take my clothing off. Just verbal and mental pressure. But anyway, I freely admit that I have terrible tastes in men and that's why I'm currently celibate. I can't trust myself and it took way too long to accept that, but I'm working fan from the Republic of Ireland, and I have a story submission for you. I feel like I should tell you early on that this isn't a conventional scary story, not by any stretch of the imagination,

but I also can safely say that it was the most terrifying experience of my entire life. It was slow and drawn out, like some extended waking nightmare, but it doesn't involve a midnight encounter with an axe-wielding maniac or visitations from some angry restless banshee. Instead, the threat that me and my young family faced was just as intangible as the latter, and if you ask me, potentially just as deadly as the former. In 2019, my long-term girlfriend and I welcomed our first child into the world. Conceiving had been difficult, as our first pregnancy had resulted in a miscarriage, and it took a while before we were ready to start trying again.

But finally, after a long and nerve-wracking process, we had our first baby girl. Obviously being a new parent is a tough job, but we each relished the challenge and for two years everything was just grand. But then came the night when I got a phone call at work and that call marked the beginning of the darkest, most debilitatingly horrifying period of my entire life. I used to work a lot of long night shifts. Still do, actually, so four nights a week I'd be off working 12-hour shifts while my girlfriend was at home with our daughter. My work's phone policy was fairly lax, as we were all trusted to set our own pace so long as we got to hit our quotas. So when I got the call from my girlfriend, I told the lads that I

was nipping off to take it and then off I went. As it turns out, our daughter had been feeling a bit poorly and had been up crying well after bedtime complaining of a tummy ache. My girlfriend said that she was a bit worried so just to be safe she was going to take the baby to accident and emergency to get her checked over. Obviously I was worried but since my girlfriend was sorting it all out I just got back to work and tried to keep my mind on the job. Over the next few hours my girlfriend kept texting me updates regarding how things were progressing. At first, things seemed to be going okay. She got to the hospital, waited her turn, and then a nurse gave our daughter a

checkup. I'm obviously hoping for the best, that maybe the nurse will just assign some antibiotics and then send my girlfriend and our daughter away again. But then, one hour after my girlfriend said our daughter was seen by their staff, she sends me an update saying the checkup is still going on and the nurse seemed to be acting a bit strange with her. I asked what she meant by that and she replied saying that when she'd asked them for updates on what they were doing, the nurse had told her, Oh, everything's grand, just be patient and we'll be with you shortly. And more and more time goes by and our daughter is still off in a cubicle with the nurses. My girlfriend is allowed to sit with her, but is asked to wait where she is while the nurse went off to talk to a doctor.

Basically, we worked out that something wasn't quite right, and then the last thing I heard from my girlfriend was that some people had asked to talk with her in a private room. After that, everything went quiet for about an hour. Now, by the time my girlfriend stopped texting me back, I'm quite obviously getting very worried. The ideal situation was a quick in and out visit, so being taken into a private room for a chat with doctors and nurses gives me the distinct impression that there was some very bad news on the way. And I was right.

The next time I heard from my girlfriend, it was another call. The first time she called me that night, she sounded fairly worried, but that second time she sounded distraught. She told me that our daughter had a broken rib, which at first was actually a massive relief, ribs heal, whereas I'd been worried that she'd been diagnosed with some sort of terminal illness. I'd assumed my girlfriend was crying because she had been through a stressful situation, and she was, but it wasn't because of the broken rib. She was crying because she'd been visited by someone from social services. As soon as she said those two words, social services,

the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Obviously, I had no idea what they wanted at that stage, but I knew that if my girlfriend was crying over it, that it couldn't have been good. And it wasn't. Essentially, we were told that we were under suspicion of either accidentally or purposefully harming our two-year-old daughter, and that in light of that, a case would be opened up against us. I then asked if this social worker had taken our daughter away or if there were police on the way to arrest us or anything like that, but then amazingly, my girlfriend said no. Social services seemed happy enough to accuse us of breaking our kid's rib and then let us take her home with us

again, which made no sense to me whatsoever at the time and still doesn't. As I said earlier, I was in work when this was going on and by the time I got the news that we were under investigation, I was in no fit state to be working, so I clocked off and drove to the hospital to pick up my girlfriend. We were in a total state of shock, and this is about 3 in the morning so it was such a bombshell that neither of us slept once we got back home. We just stayed up, talking it over until we got the phone call from the social services lady we dealt with throughout the whole rest of the ordeal.

Later on that day, some people would come by to take our daughter away from us. She'd be put in foster care while the investigation continued and we were assured that she'd be perfectly well looked after, but we were also told that if we tried to interfere, we'd be arrested. We told her we understood, and then we ended the call and just cried in each other's arms while our daughter was asleep upstairs. It was the worst accusation imaginable. All we'd ever done was try to give our daughter the best life possible and we were being accused of doing something that might have killed her. Either because we were stupid, neglectful, or evil. We were so confused too because a baby's ribs are fairly flexible. They don't break easily from what

we read, meaning a great deal of force had to have been applied in order to cause that kind of fracture. This had us thinking that it hadn't been an accident. We hadn't dropped our daughter and we definitely hadn't hit her, so who had? And when? And that's the point when we were visited by these massive waves of paranoia. Even though we were basically considered suspects, we still had a right to know all of our child's medical info so we were able to find that out. At the time she was examined, our daughter had been suffering from a broken rib for around two weeks. This meant that it wasn't just me and my girlfriend that were considered suspects.

It was everyone who'd been around during the days surrounding this one particular date, and that group included our parents, some of our friends, and all kinds of people. And from the perspective of my girlfriend, I, and social services, was that one of us was to blame, and they'd assumed so until they could prove otherwise. During that time, I barely ate, I barely slept, and I had to take a load of time off of work due to the stress of the whole thing. My faith and trust in almost everything and everyone was completely destroyed, and it all came to a head during a supervised visit that I had with my daughter. Three people were allowed on the supervised visit, which usually ended up being me, my girlfriend, and my mom whenever she could make it. But then this one time, my girlfriend's mom insisted on being the third person and it almost ended

in disaster. We'd all taken the investigation badly, but my girlfriend's mom took it worse than most. She was a pain in the butt before it started, but ramped it up to 11 once our daughter was taken away. I didn't think her joining us was a good idea, and told my girlfriend as much before we left. But as I said, my girlfriend's mom insisted, meaning my girlfriend had no other choice unless we wanted to start an argument. The visits tended to be quite casual, and we were always so happy to see our daughter that

it was always great vibes in the observation room and the tears once we were out again. We play with her, discuss how she was doing with the social worker and generally just try to make the most of the visit that always remained supervised. But then, when my mother-in-law was there, the atmosphere was distinctly different. She wouldn't let me touch my daughter, which, fair enough, she hadn't seen her in a while. But then as she was cradling her, she started asking some very inappropriate questions. She started asking us who we thought had hurt the baby. We'd been warned by everyone, being social services, the police, and our solicitors, never to talk about the case or

anything related to it during the supervised visits. But at the blue, she asked us who we thought the guilty party was. I started giving her a look as if to say, shut your mouth. But she persisted and started speculating on who it might have been. She said she believed that since a woman would be incapable of doing such an awful thing to such a tiny baby, the guilty one had to be a man. Then, while looking me dead in the eye, she says, in these situations, it's usually the father. I didn't know what to do with myself. I just stood up, walked out of the observation room,

then started pacing around my car outside in an attempt to regain my composure. I don't think I've ever been so furious in my entire life, and looking back on it, it's nothing short of a miracle that I managed to keep my cool and remove myself from the situation instead of reacting to it. After all, that's clearly what she wanted. She'd either gotten it into her head that I was to blame and wanted to make sure social services knew it, or she saw the whole thing as an opportunity to make sure that I never saw my daughter again. She never liked me from the moment I met her, so it didn't surprise me that she'd think the worst of me. But to pull a stunt like that at a supervised visit was just another level of scummy, so bad that my ex had actually took my side over it and had quite a

large falling out with her mom after the visit. She was never allowed back, which was a huge relief, but to this day, I wouldn't urinate on her if she was on fire. The ordeal continues for a few months to the point that I'd almost completely resign myself to the idea of never seeing my daughter until she reached 18 and possibly even spending some time in prison. But then one day, almost completely out of the blue, I got a phone call from the same social worker that we'd been dealing with for months. She said that she'd been in touch with a specialist orthopedic surgeon who'd concluded that our daughter had an undiagnosed bone condition. This bone condition was extremely

rare and would resolve itself over time with the right diet and vitamin supplements, but it would also explain why an otherwise spongy rib bone would be brittle enough to snap under the kind of sustained pressure that would leave any other baby unharmed. I knew what this meant for us, but I asked her just to be sure and she confirmed it. They were dropping the case against us and we were free to come and pick up our daughter immediately. It was all over, just like that, and honestly, it took a while to hit me. I called my ex, told her everything, then I drove over to her place to pick her up. We drove all the way over to the foster

place where our daughter was, where in all fairness the social workers were extremely sorry for causing us so much distress. They gave us the same speech that they'd given us a thousand times, that they never assumed any guilt, and that safe is always better than sorry. But I was barely listening. All I was focused on was getting my daughter back home where she belonged. We had what amounted to an exit interview with a social worker only by telephone, but it was a surprisingly nice way to round the whole thing off. She once again explained why they'd done what they'd done, and then actually took the time to apologize, not just for causing us all that worry and stress, but for our daughter's

medical condition, which had obviously been completely unforeseen. I thanked her, forgave her, then that was the last time we spoke. My girlfriend and I are still together and we're actually planning on having another child, but for a while there, it seemed like the stress of the investigation would be the death of our relationship. I'm proud we survived the ordeal. It was tough, but we made it. And now that I think that, if we can survive something like that, my little family can survive just about anything that gets thrown at us. Let me tell you the story of my closest childhood friend. We were best buddies all throughout middle school and high school and ended up working together for a while.

And I was friends with his girlfriend of around five to six years. Then one day, she called me in a total panic. He packed all of her stuff, put it by their apartment door and told her that she had to be gone by the end of the week. She had no idea where the breakup had come from. He hadn't been acting strange or anything prior to the sudden decision and she wanted to know if he'd mentioned anything to me about it. I'd barely spoken to him in the days prior to his girlfriend calling me and I figured that he was just busy with work or something. But I promised that I'd call him to try and find out what was going on. So I called my buddy, and I expected him to sound, I don't know, depressed or down in some way, but he sounded fine.

I then asked him about the sudden breakup, and he just kind of sighed before talking me through his thought process. Long story short, he'd met a girl online, she wanted to come live with him and that was that. He knew his girl had a place to stay because she was still close with her parents who lived out in the suburbs, so he didn't feel guilty about giving her a few days to make arrangements. I know people break up and sometimes there's a lot at work behind the scenes that you don't see, but the whole thing struck me as super out of character, so I was still concerned despite him trying to reassure me that he hadn't gone crazy, he was just in love. When I met his new girlfriend, I could understand what he saw in her.

It wasn't that I personally found her attractive, she just is his type to a tee. I mean if you'd asked him to design his perfect girl, the end result would have been a lot like his new girlfriend. So as much as I thought the sudden breakup was still kind of heartless, I just tried to be happy for him and not ruin his new thing. But then very quickly it became obvious that their relationship was a volatile one. They fought like cats and dogs, but then made up again just as quickly. On multiple occasions, he told me that they were through, and I'd be his shoulder to cry on after she threw him out of his own apartment. But then a few days after he'd returned to end things,

I'd give him a call, and they'd be back together again. Things stayed that way for quite some time, with our relationship from hell teetering on the brink, and then finally I got a call from my buddy at like 2 in the morning, and he sounded real bad. He wasn't crying or anything, he was just real quiet when he asked if we could talk. I told him sure, assuming that he meant by a phone, but he was outside in his car in the parking lot in my building. I asked if he wanted to come up and he said he couldn't, but then asked if I'd go meet him downstairs so we could talk in the parking lot. Right away I'm thinking something weird is going on, because why meet on neutral

territory when we could just be warm in my living room or comfortable in his car. But still, I tell him sure, then head downstairs to talk. When I get outside, he looks like he's been crying, so I assume something had happened with his girlfriend. I kinda hoping that she's finally just up and left him, but I also knew to just let him tell me at his own speed. But then, when he finally found the words to tell me what he'd done, my jaw almost hit the floor. They'd had an argument, one that had gotten pretty heated before getting physical. She'd hit him, she spat on him, she scratched him, threw stuff at him, but the whole time he's just shoving her away, trying to keep her off of him, while yelling back and forth about whatever they were arguing about.

And suddenly, she walks off and he thinks it over, but then she walks back moments later with a knife in her hand. She got one good swipe at him and he showed me the wound too, this shallow slash on his stomach that he'd covered up with a few of those sticky bandages. But then he told me what happened next, or rather, he didn't tell me what happened, because he claimed he couldn't remember. He just knew that when he finally came round again, as he put it, he realized what was happening. His girlfriend was dead. I then figured out why he didn't want me to get in his car and it was the same reason he didn't want me to talk in my apartment. His girlfriend's body was in the trunk. He didn't know what else to do so he bundled it up into his trunk and decided to hand himself in at the nearest law enforcement precinct.

The reason he'd stopped by was because he wanted to say goodbye. I had no idea what else to do. I tried to hug him without hurting his stomach wound and I told him that I'd always be there for him and then wished him good luck. I know that's messed up. I know he just killed a girl but I honestly just couldn't bring myself to do anything else. I kind of wanted to just walk back inside because hearing that he'd just taken a life literally made me feel like I was about to have a panic attack. But in the end, I guess I fell back into habit and just tried to be his buddy one last time. He got life, and I visited him a few times, but every time there seems to be less and less of the guy I used to know,

and more and more of this other guy, who looks at me like there's a part of him that hates me. Maybe we're just not the same people anymore. Maybe our friendship has just played itself out like so many are prone to do. But sometimes, I imagine how things could have been. Couples dinners with our wives, taking our kids to peewee football together. But instead, he's rotting in a prison cell, getting when a man came in for an interview. He was polite enough but didn't say much, but something just felt off. While my boss interviewed him, I stocked shelves, listening to the man answer our standard questions. What's your availability? Have you ever been arrested? Things like that. When he left, the manager asked me what I thought.

There's something weird about him. I got really bad vibes. The boss kind of chuckled at me and said, we can't deny someone's employment because really bad vibes. The boss kind of chuckled at me and said, well, we can't deny someone's employment because of bad vibes. I took out my phone and googled the guy's name. He had been arrested a few months prior for threatening to shoot up a gas station after being accused of theft. He lied and said that he had never been arrested. Is that a good enough reason not to hire someone? It was, and it may have saved our lives. I remember September 2018, a beautiful clear day. The calmness broke by the sound of police cars flying down the road.

A student had been murdered in the middle of the day on a nearby golf course. She had passed a group of men who very shortly later found her things abandoned on the ground. Concerned, they called management and shortly after, she was found, stabbed to death, her body floating in a pond. Everyone was in shock. This was the second murder of a young student Iowa had had in just a few weeks. Was it a disgruntled fellow golfer? A jealous lover? No. The young woman had simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. She did not know her killer and he did not know her. It was a homeless man who was in the woods by the golf course, saw an opportunity, and took it. He had a fantasy about violating and killing a woman. The next day, the story

made headlines, and plastered on the front was the killer's face. My stomach turned when I saw him. He looked so familiar. I didn't recognize the name, but then again, I've never been good with names, but I remember stories. I googled his name. The same story about a man being arrested for threatening to shoot up a gas station came up and instantly I knew who he was. It was the same man I had convinced my boss not to hire. At the job, the majority of the shifts there was only one or two of us working. I would have been alone with this guy at so many points, so many slow hours with few customers, and so many blind spots, so many opportunities to be alone with him. It only took a few minutes for a murder to occur on a beautiful day on a golf course. So yes, trust your instincts. A few years ago, I met this guy on Tinder that I really liked and we eventually went on a few dates together.

We were talking for weeks and our first date was nice, but then our second date fell almost exactly on Valentine's Day. And if I'm being honest, I was pretty excited about it. I just had no idea how things were about to take a pretty drastic turn. During the time we were talking, there were a lot of little red flags. He would tell me he drank too much, but I was a lot younger and naive back then and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. We were in our early 20s, so I figured he just liked to party and it wasn't a problem. But what he didn't mention was the very specific effect that alcohol had on him. So on the night of our date, we were in a bar getting drinks and stuff and

he pulls out his phone very rudely I might say in the middle of a conversation. I asked him what was so important and he tells me something like, I'm trying to find us a way out of here. As you can imagine, I respond by saying, you're doing what? Thinking that it might have been like a joke or something. But no, he was deadly serious and started telling me how the security guys for the bar were and I'm using his words here, after him. So I'm like, okay, let's go back to my car so maybe we can just go somewhere else, naively believing that he genuinely had beef with one or two of them. My car was parked pretty far away. I was staying pretty sober at that point because we had gone to multiple locations that night,

so it took us a few minutes to walk there, but in that time, my date gets it into his head that multiple people are after him. I'm talking like random people on the street. Then once we're in a part of downtown that wasn't so busy, he started to think that I was out to get him too. I was trying to call his friend who was nearby to come get him, but he took my phone away from me because he thought I was calling the cops. Then when I demanded that he return it, he started physically threatening me. I got so, so scared because I thought, if he hurts me here and leaves me here, nobody's going to find me until morning, and it was really cold out. His friend eventually came and got him, and I left.

Once I was safe, I was jittery all night from the anxiety having been in rocky relationships in the past. I told him about it the next morning and he didn't remember any of it so I broke things off shortly after because I just did not have the time or energy to be dealing with anything like that. I feel like if I'd have carried on dating him it'd only be a matter of time before he turned on me, physically I mean, and then it wouldn't be so easy to just walk away. Not that I wouldn't be able to, he just on me, physically I mean, and then it wouldn't be so easy to just walk away. Not that I wouldn't be able to, he just struck me as the kind of guy who wouldn't let me leave, and I have far too much self-respect to get stuck in a situation like that. Well, I've recently found this subreddit and decided that I'd share a story with you all. This happened back in 2019 to 2021'd share a story with you all.

This happened back in 2019 to 2021 and it still sticks with me today. I'm using fake names for myself and the man I'm talking about. Mary for myself and Dennis for him. When I was 13, I met someone on Discord. He was funny, smart, and exactly my type. He was also 16. I don't know my logic with that being okay at 13, but I was stupid and naive, and we became close friends. After about three months of knowing him, I told him that I had feelings for him. We then ended up dating. We lived across country from

each other, and we were basically just friends, but whatever. So as we were dating, he starts basically grooming me. As a kid who was always on the internet and was exposed to kick also, I was used to this behavior and thought it was fine. He had sent me some pretty inappropriate photos, gross messages, and pretty much I worshipped him. I wasn't allowed to talk to people on discord without him being there and strange stuff like that. He told me that he would take his own life if I ever left and how he was always on drugs because he was so sad. He also was incredibly racist and thought Nazi jokes were okay. I'm so mad at myself for not realizing that it wasn't okay back then. He ends up cheating on me with his ex and tossed me out of the door. He doesn't talk to me anymore and says that we shouldn't talk anymore because we aren't together.

And here's where it gets really bad. Note this happened over five years ago and I have a pretty spotty memory of this time. New accounts pop up in the server that we met on. It was a server of mutual friends and starts saying horrible things about me. Marries a fat whale, marries some pretty bad words and more things of the sort. The accounts have names like Jerry Touches Kids or Big Fat Whale etc. And I had gotten in trouble with the server owner because it was my fault that people were saying these things. Like I had told them to spam things about me or something.

The accounts also start messaging me to end myself, die, how I'm a whale, and all sorts of terrible other things. I ended up blocking every account and move on with my life. Great, it was over with, or so I thought it was. Fast forward a year to late summer of 2019 and everything starts up again. The messages, him telling people lies and rumors and direct threats. I was sent unsolicited images and death threats and slurs and that I should take my own life because no one cares. And at that time I had undiagnosed depression and anxiety and almost did actually do these things. I went to therapy and tried to get over it. In 2020, right when the quarantine happened, I got a boyfriend and I was super happy and came back out of my shell. He and I would play games on Discord together and I joined more servers. Around two months later, I got another message. Someone had messaged me

named Lily, I believe. It was a normal profile and we were in a server together so I didn't think anything of it. She then had messaged me how I was and I had never talked to her before so I was confused. She said that we had a long conversation about mental health the day before so she wanted to make sure that I was alright. I asked who she was and what she was talking about and she said something like, oh, you told me about this. You said that you take medicine for schizophrenia and must have missed a dose. Are you off your meds? I was extremely confused and scared because I had never talked to this person and certainly didn't have schizophrenia.

After about 10 minutes of this charade, I realized that it was Dennis. I blocked the account and didn't accept any new friend requests. The next day, I got hundreds of messages with the same contents that I had previously mentioned. The threats, the illicit images. I was so terrified that I asked my boyfriend for help, and he told me to make a new account and not friend any of the other mutual friends so he couldn't find me. I did, which costed an affiliated Twitch account that I'd spent years building. I changed all my accounts, deleted most, and made new ones. The messages found me again. I have no idea how

these new accounts weren't tied to me. I got fed up and had asked a mutual friend that I thought that I could trust some personal information about Dennis to go to the police and get a possible restraining order or something. I didn't totally know how the police handled these issues. Months go by and nothing, until the fall of 2021 in which Dennis messages me again calling me terrible names and how he'll always find me. How I'm so fat and dumb and no one loves me. I isolated myself and deleted more accounts. I never was able to go to the police because I had no information, like his full name or address. It's been two years and every day I worry if he lives near me, if he knows where I live or go to school. I recently found out that he had a website and made YouTube videos.

He's made YouTube videos referencing me in 2022. His copyright claim is something like Mary the Fat Whale Inc. I can't find it anymore, so I put the closest to what I remembered. And this was hell. I'm still worried every day that he'll find me, and I believe that he has a Reddit account and could potentially find this. I hope we don't meet again, Dennis, and I wish you the worst. Back when I was in my late teens and still painfully naive, I accepted an invitation to go on a Valentine's cinema date with a guy that I met on Tinder. He seemed really nice at first, but when we got to said cinema and the lights went down, he started trying to shove his hand right up my skirt. For almost the whole film he kept trying it on and I kept having to tell him no over and over again.

He wasn't forceful at all but he just kept doing it like a bloody child or something. After every no, he'd just wait a few minutes and then try it again. Like all I needed was a few minutes and I'd be all good on then and let him do it. It gave me the ick really badly, so when he drove me home, I was in no mood to see him again. I lived in halls at the time and he asked if he was okay to use the toilet before driving home. Then, for some reason, instead of just telling him no and to duck into a bush somewhere, I very stupidly said, sure, why not, and let him in to use my toilet. But then, once it came to getting him to leave, he wouldn't. I lied to him and said, look, I had a really nice time, but you have to go because I got uni in the morning. I didn't think anyone in their right mind would refuse to pick up on that kind of social clue. But then, turns out this guy barely had a brain at all,

let alone a good one. He just kept smiling and shaking his head, saying, no, I want to stay for a bit. I'll leave before you go to bed. Then when I told him I want to go to bed now, he started making all these terrible comments like, why can't I join you? At this point, my heart was pounding in my chest and I didn't know what to do. He said he had a really nice time and basically pushed me onto my bed and started kissing me. I pushed him away as nicely as possible and started calling out for help. That really, really shocked him. He must have thought that I didn't have it in me to make a scene like that and you could see how embarrassed he was. Thankfully,

that meant that he just walked out of the room and then the building as he didn't want to get caught after trying to force himself on me. He then left and I locked the door behind him. I didn't sleep that night and was terrified that he'd break in or something. Thankfully he didn't and the only time I ever heard from him again was the last text that he sent me, calling me a prude b-word who let him on for a free trip to the cinema. None of that really bothered me. I knew my intentions had been pure and that it was him that had tried to turn our date into a freaking fondle fest. What bothered me was that I had to live and study in a place where this guy lived. I didn't properly relax until I moved out of halls and into a student house for second year,

and for months, that psycho had known where I slept. So to finally live in the comfort of knowing that he had no idea where I was, that was a relief. My name is Anastasia and a few days ago, something happened that makes me sick. We moved to an east coast town about a year ago to be closer to family. So close in fact that my aunt, her wife, and my cousins are only a 10 minute walk from my house. Granted, we are very spaced out and borderline rural despite living about 15 minutes from the outskirts of a big city. I was walking my two little dachshunds back home from my aunt's house. My mom hates it when I'm alone the majority of the day so I spend time at their house and I was genuinely enjoying my time. It was cold but quiet and oddly beautiful. I got home, fed my pups and two birds and facetimed a friend. I was

talking with them and doing chores and was admittedly being loud and giggly when taking out the trash of the cans on the side of my house. I get back inside and lay down in bed still chatting when my bird starts calling at someone. Now anyone who has owned a parrot knows that they have distinct noises for certain moments. She has been in my family for 76 years and with me my whole life so I knew the sound was alarm or intrigue. I brushed it off as her seeing herself in the window reflection and go back to talking to my friend. I get up to get water and my back is to the sliding glass door, thankfully locked, and my friend has the wind knocked out

of him. I'm confused and I think he's hurt and he tells me, go back to your room now. I scoff but then I see it in my camera view. There is a man with his face and hands pressed up against the glass door. He's a middle-aged white guy in a grey pullover and dark pants, and a grin on his face. My friend, ever the best in panic situations, tells me, don't look at him, just go to your room. I was shaking so hard. I'm blubbering and decide to lock me and my dogs in my closet. My parrot is still going crazy.

English isn't my first language and it's bad when I'm shocked so I revert back to my native language which he doesn't know. Luckily my friend knows to take charge and he tells me that he'll be over in ten and he calls the police. I'm thinking that I can run to my mom's room and find the gun so if the guy comes into the house I can blow a quarter sized hole in his chest. I'm debating getting up when I hear tapping on my window. It's slow and intentionally creepy, and my stupid dog starts barking. I'm ready to accept my death at that point. I'm a teenage girl, home alone, and I'm about to die. Wait, my aunt should be about to leave for work right now and I shoot her a quick text. Emmy, there is a man at my window, please help me. The tapping has stopped and I think it's over when I realize something that makes

my heart drop into my stomach. I left the front door unlocked when I took out the trash. This keeps getting worse and I beg my friend to hurry. The tapping thankfully returns to my window and I can only close my eyes and hope that someone gets here fast. It feels like an eternity, crying to another teen who's breaking multiple traffic laws. Never before have I ever been grateful to hear another man's voice yelling outside my house at 1am. It was my god sent neighbor. Apparently his pregnant wife was having bad nausea and went outside on the deck and where it's situated you can see my whole backyard. She got a bad feeling after seeing the unfamiliar man approach the door and woke her husband to check it out and I thank god every day for her because I think she saved my life.

I let my neighbors into my house and my aunt comes about four minutes later, packing major heat, and my friend not long after. I go from home alone to an impromptu house party of concerned people. The police come like ten minutes later, like they didn't just take thirty minutes to arrive to the scene. What the freak, is this normal? On the brighter side, my bird wasn't too alerted by this encounter and went back to eating not five minutes later and my dogs were just happy to see people. My friend has been staying the nights with me since and I'm finding it hard to be home alone despite the fact that an arrest was made. And I'm so thankful that my neighbor had such good instincts and that my aunt

and friend were so quick on their feet because this could have turned out a lot worse. This happened seven and a half years ago, June 23rd, 2016, while I was cleaning out my house. I was renting a house for a year and the year was almost up. I wasn't going to be living there the next year so it was time for me to start cleaning out and moving my stuff to the next place. The house that I had at the time was fairly small but it was plenty of space for just me. I lived there by myself and I had just finished cleaning out the room. Other than some basic furniture, I had moved on to clean the kitchen. There were quite a few cabinets, so many that I didn't use a good number of them. I was looking through some of the ones that I didn't use to make sure that there was nothing

I had in them. One of them I opened up and I saw something in the back corner. It looked like some type of shirt or rag. I grabbed it and saw that I didn't think it was mine, but then I moved it and it revealed a small white lever that I could barely see. The cabinet was in the corner, sorted by the sink and halfway locked by the stove. I thought it was just another pipe, but it looked a little different to me. I got inside and had to crawl inside the cabinet, which was pretty large, and once I got inside, I saw that there was a small trap door to the side leading into the wall. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. You had to be completely inside in order to see the detail of it, and I decided to open the door which led to an extremely narrow hallway with a sort of

crawl space. But when I got further inside, I was horrified. I saw that there was food, as well as several blankets, as if someone had been living inside of there. The good news, at least for me, is that whoever was in there was gone. I tried to make sense of it and figured out how long the person had been there, and how I just didn't know about it. I was gone from the house a lot with work and other stuff, I just didn't know how it was possible for someone to live in there without me knowing. I continued cleaning until it got pretty late and the next day after work I continued. I was still kind of in shock with finding a secret room in

my house and decided to look at it once again. I opened the cabinet and went inside and pulled the lever open just like I had the previous day. But this time as I opened it I saw a movement and then I saw a person for a split second. They slammed the door back shut on me and I immediately turned and ran all the way out of my house to my car and called the police. I was so scared that I started driving away as well. I opened my phone, told the police the whole situation and they came to my house a short time later to find that whoever had been there was now gone. I was absolutely disgusted knowing that this random person had access to my house for who knows how long. It felt like some vivid nightmare that I needed to wake up from. When I opened my phone to call the

police, it showed that the date was June 23rd, 2016. I still remember this date, seven years later. It stayed with me like a scar. A scar that I don't know if I'll ever heal from. To provide some context, I used to work as a 911 dispatcher for a small city. Our responsibilities included dispatching for all law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services throughout the entire county. Within this county, there were multiple law enforcement agencies. I had been in this position for about three months when I met him. We'll call him Jake. Jake had just recently transferred from a larger department in California and had ended up at our department seemingly by chance. It didn't make much sense why he left California in the first place, but he always insisted it was time for him to move to a smaller and less dangerous apartment. Jake and I quickly became close and would chat almost

every day after my shift ended. Within a few months, it became apparent that we liked each other and our flirting evolved into something more serious. Fast forward a few months later and it turns out that he was engaging in inappropriate behavior with photos and videos of me while actively on duty. This, along with a few other things that he had concealed while on duty, led to the revocation of his license and his departure. During the process of his termination, his sergeant suggested that I obtain a protective order against him because he had previously made threatening statements towards me such as, you better be telling the truth, I'll find out on Tuesday if you're lying to me, etc. I began filling out the paperwork and was informed that I had a temporary protective order against him in the meantime, although I'm not certain if it was ever finalized. About two weeks after his termination, he called me to catch up.

The entire call seemed like a conversation between old friends. He asked about my job, whether I had a boyfriend, and gradually shifted to more personal questions such as when my shift ended and what kind of car I drove. Being 18 and naive, I treated him as I always had and answered his questions. Afterwards, I contacted his former department, as his sergeant had advised me to do so if he ever contacted me again. However, they quickly turned me away and didn't want to be involved, and with that, I decided to block Jake. Approximately a month later, I received a call from a new member, and it was Jake again.

Once more, he wanted to meet and catch up but this time he casually mentioned wanting to buy a new house in my neighborhood even though I had never told him where I lived let alone the specific neighborhood. During this call he became progressively more aggressive making statements like if I knew I was going to get fired, I should have just taken advantage of you. He half-heartedly joked about getting a hotel room just for me and then the call ended. A few days later, he FaceTimed me and again, he initially seemed like he simply wanted to catch up because he was sick. Midway through our seemingly normal conversation, he made it apparent that he had been engaging in inappropriate behavior during our call.

It's important to note that nothing suggestive was mentioned and our conversation at that point was about his new dog. I blocked him once, but he attempted to follow my social media accounts and now I've started to see him in my area, even though the last I knew he lived nearly 30 to 45 minutes in the opposite direction from me. Am I overreacting, or should I genuinely consider that he's stalking me? To be continued... 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. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon, and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read

podcast, where you can hear all of these stories in big compilations and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. you