The Lets Read Podcast - 280: THERE'S A MANIAC HIDING OUT IN THE WOODS | 23 True Scary Stories | EP 268

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about the dark web, deep woods & how one lucky person escaped a near death encounter during a hike 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

Thank you for watching! My name is Andrew, I'm 33 years old and I've been living in Idaho for the last three years. For transparency's sake, I didn't write up this account specifically as a submission for your channel, but after it popped into my recommended feed and I saw you taking submissions, I figured that I'd found the perfect home for the warning I'm about to give you and your viewers. Although I have no doubt that what you're about to read might frighten or disturb you, I can assure you that it's not by design. My only wish is that you and your subscribers take heed to what I'm about to say. You see, I think there's someone living off the grid up here in the Beaverhead Deer Lodge National Forest, and I know for a fact that this person is very, very dangerous. Part of the reason

I moved up to Boise from my native California, aside from all the financial reasons, is that there's a total of 10 national forests within driving distance of the city. I was a Boy Scout growing up. My dad and uncles used to take my cousins and me during summer vacations and I found a group of fellow college students to hike with when I was at UC Irvine. So when it came time to choosing a place to start a new life, Boise climbed my wish list pretty damn quickly once I realized that it combined urban amenities, a low cost of living, and the kind of natural beauty that made Southern California feel more like Manhattan than Malibu.

During that first year in Idaho, I spent a lot of time hiking Boise National Forest and the Snake River Conservation Area is right on our doorstep too. But then as time went by, I started to travel a little further afield with each trip, just to get a feel for all the different forests in the region. I drove over to Sawtooth one time, went up to Payette for a weekend, and went as far as Bitterroot Salmon Chalet and then eventually Beaverhead Deer Lodge. I made multiple trips to each of the previously mentioned parks. I mean, you don't truly get to know a place after just one or two hikes, but I only ever made one trip to Beaverhead and if I ever do get over my

fear of the place, you can bet your ass I'm staying the hell away from the hills between Maverick and Stewart Mountains. And if you value your life, so should you. Now, in the southern portion of Beaverhead Forest lies the valley between Maverick and Stewart Mountains. At its westernmost point, where two creeks meet, the valley is open and treeless. But then travel further east and the trails taper off into what I can only describe as a capillary system of narrow trails. It kind of reminded me of one of those old hedge mazes, like the kind from The Shining, just on a much bigger scale. All the trails look pretty much

identical, with wide open grass trails and pine-covered hills obscuring your view on either side. You can't really get lost these days, not if you're armed with the correct skills and equipment, but if there was ever a place I felt slightly disoriented by the lay of the land, it was there. You'd make a couple of turns, think that you were back on the main strip again, and then boom, the trail would narrow off and you'd find yourself at a dead end. I guess to a less experienced hiker, that might have been a cause for concern, but for me, it was almost nostalgic. I hadn't been even close to loss for coming up on 15 years by that point,

so for me, there was something almost thrilling about it. It's been years since I felt that same sense of adventure while out on a hike. I also enjoyed them but I'd long since lost that sense of childlike awe and wonder. So to have it back, that was really something. I kept on exploring for about an hour or so just wandering up and down the trails to try and familiarize myself with that part of the valley. Then, as I was moseying down this one particular stretch of trail, I began to smell something that smelled a lot like campfire smoke. For quite a while now, I've been in the habit of introducing myself to any fellow hikers and campers I might run into. Some might call that intrusive or even bothersome, but to me, those are big city ideas.

I understand where my critics are coming from, but at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the woods aren't the kind of place that you want to go unnoticed. Part of it is just being friendly, shooting the breeze with some kindly strangers, but there's a practical side of it too. I do a lot of solo hiking, and as much as I take all the necessary precautions, I'm still much more vulnerable than most. I like folks knowing I'm there and I like knowing just a little about who I'm sharing a trail or park with. That way if I detect even the slightest of bad vibes, I can make myself scarce before trouble so much as toots in the wind.

And so, I smell the campfire smoke and I suspect it's coming from up the hill to my right. I wander up the slope a little and then lo and behold the smell of smoke gets more and more intense the further I walk. And so off I went, following the smell like some human bloodhound until eventually the pines thinned out and I reached a kind of treeless shelf on the hillside. It was almost completely hidden from view and just as I was thinking, this is flat enough to build on, I realized someone already had. About 50 yards away, someone had built what looked like a small two-room cabin, complete with the beginnings of a little vegetable garden out front and a short-weave fence marking the property's boundary. My first thought upon

looking at it was, this can't be legal, because as much as many national parks and forests might encourage overnight campers, any kind of permanent dwelling is strictly prohibited. But at the same time, this person's dwelling was an impressive piece of work and it obviously wasn't constructed overnight. In which case, how had he managed to stay up there for so long without getting himself into trouble with the forest service? All this is going through my head and I'm just sort of staring at the little cabin in amazement when all of a sudden, the cabin's front door swings open and out steps a bald guy of around 40-50 years of age wearing a dirty wife beater and a pair of blue jeans. Now, his cabin had a pair of windows complete with what looked to be hinged shutters, but

he hadn't looked out of them before exiting his home, so the moment he sees me, I see this startled look come over his face and he does not look pleased to see me. I figured I'd obviously gave him a bit of a jump scare, so first thing I think to do is raise a hand and wave just to let him know that I didn't have any ill intentions. He doesn't return the wave, he just walks back into his little cabin, then emerges seconds later, armed with what appeared to be a bolt-action hunting rifle. I just want to make it clear that I did not step into this man's property, and the word property is quite purposely in quotation marks I'm writing here now. Neither was I bearing any kind of weapon or trekking pole with me when he saw me. All the guy saw was a four-eyed, overweight dork

with a floppy hat and a patchy beard, and his first move was to go grab his rifle. The second I saw it, I turned on the spot and started walking back down the hill towards the tree line, and then as I walked, I shouted back, Alright mister, I get the message! I'm leaving! Hindsight is always 20-20, I guess, and I guess I should have just ran as fast as I could. But in the moment, I figured running would be the loudest way to announce my guilt. Run off through the trees and he'd think that it was up to no good, maybe fire off a shot at me, and that'd be all she wrote. But if I walked, hands in the air and not going for my own weapon

and just trying to de-escalate, then maybe everything would just be fine. I was armed by the time, by the way. Nothing too big, just a handgun in case of bears and whatnot. But then the last thing I wanted to do was potentially start a gunfight in the middle of the woods. If I pulled out my weapon, that constituted a serious escalation, and the more this guy believed that he was in control, the less likely he was probably to shoot me. Or rather, that's what I mistakenly believed at the time. I remember giving him a second round of,

I'm going, okay? I don't want any trouble. And in reply, all I heard was, You stay right where you are. Have you seen those new Dune movies? There's a thing in it, something they call The Voice. It's like a magical power. You speak and people will obey whether they want to or not. And I'm telling you, it was like that guy had The Voice.

He spoke and suddenly my feet were in cement blocks. I wanted to keep walking. Hell, I just wanted to run the second I saw his rifle, but whatever kept him feeling in control and his fingers off the trigger felt like my best course of action in the moment. I also literally cannot overemphasize how little I wanted to shoot this guy and turn a relaxing afternoon's hike into one of the single darkest chapters of my entire life. So he tells me to stop, but I obviously want to face the guy as I'm talking to him so I start to turn around.

Big mistake. The guy raises his rifle, works the bolt to force around into the chamber and then points it at me so aggressively that I could practically feel it He was ready to fire by that point, like my life was in serious danger But all that was going through my head as I had my arms way up in the air was like, please don't pee your pants, please don't pee your pants I didn't. And before you all go thinking, ha ha, what a baby, I cannot overstate how fast your mind works in those sort of situations. I was so scared I felt like I could taste the air. My arms and legs felt like they were encased in concrete, and I was sweating in places I didn't know that you could sweat from.

So having all those irrational thoughts like that, not running when I had the chance, it all seems like part and parcel of all that raw, primal fear that I was feeling in the moment. Like I said, I started turning to face him, but he racked his rifle and then started yelling things like, did I tell you to move? Did I? Move another muscle and watch what happens. All I could think to say was all the same stuff I repeated already. Stuff about me wanting to leave, about how I just stumbled across his place and was nothing more than just curious. He looked me up and down for a second then asked me if I was from the government. I told him no, that I was just a hiker and in an attempt to reinforce that I wasn't some kind of fed, I told him no, that I was just a hiker and in an attempt to reinforce that I wasn't some

kind of fed, I told him I worked for a financial firm back in Boise, which was the truth. I told him the name of the place, my position, and then added that he could call them right then and there if he didn't believe me because the office was open on weekends. I only told him all that because he quite clearly had a problem with cops or rangers and probably just about anyone in a position of authority. That and once I got talking I found it unusually difficult to stop. I was still talking when he told me to shut up and then after a few seconds of what looked like thinking he asked me a question that had me once again questioning whether I was about to pee my pants or not. The guy lowered his rifle just a little, which was kind of reassuring but

not by much, and then he asked me, Do you believe in God? Make no mistake, I am not prejudiced against religious types. I had a very Baptist grandmother who volunteered with the church until just months before she passed, and she was just about as saintly of a person as it's possible to meet. In the other context, that question would have provoked anything except an honest answer, but in light of the rifle I had pointed at my stomach, I presume, it gave the question a hell of a lot of weight. On another day, I might have just spoken my mind and told him I consider myself something of an agnostic.

I feel like there's something going on in terms of creation and evolution, whatever you want to call it, I just don't think we can so easily put a label like God on it and imagine him up there as this big old friendly white guy with a beard of clouds and sunny demeanor. But then, having considered my position, I decided honesty almost certainly wasn't the best policy. So instead of the truth, I lied and I told him, sure, I believe in God. I thought that might have gotten me out of the woods, purely metaphorically of course, but then he asked me, Which God? My gut told me that saying anything apart from Protestant Christian would have probably been bad news for me,

and so I went with my instinct and told him that I was Baptist, just like my grandma. When I saw him give me this little nod of approval, I felt so relieved that my knees almost buckled. But unfortunately, the guy wasn't through with me just yet. Starting and stopping as he tried to find the right words, he began to explain how only two people in the world knew that he was up there and he couldn't tolerate a third. I think he must have seen the terror in my face because he went on to explain that he didn't actually want to shoot me. I guess he intended that to be reassuring but somehow it was not and that's the point where things turned back to why he'd asked me if I believed in God. He needed to know that I believed in something, so he could make me swear on my life that I wouldn't tell anyone I'd seen him.

Right away I told him, I swear to God I won't tell anyone I saw you. And I did it so promptly because I very naively believed that he might actually let me walk away. But just the words alone weren't good enough for him. Holding the rifle at his hip now, the guy points it at me just a little more directly and then tells me to get on my knees. All I remember is saying please, but all that did was make him raise the gun all the way up so he could aim down the sights at me. He then repeated himself and told me to get on my knees,

and from that moment, I was convinced that I was going to die, and I'm honestly not sure if I dropped to my knees deliberately, or simply because they just gave out altogether. I thought that any second I'd simply go from being wide awake and terrified to just darkness. He'd blow my brains out with a single shot of that rifle and it'd switch me off like a light, you know. I literally remember thinking to myself, at least it'll be quick. But then instead of pulling the trigger, he spoke again. The guy told me to swear again, to God I mean, that I'd never tell another living soul that I'd seen him or where he was living or what we talked about. So I did.

I put my hands together like I was praying, but I didn't dare close my eyes. Then I swore out loud that never in a million years would I ever tell another of God's creations about anything that had occurred that day. I don't think I said it quite like that, but you get the idea. When I was done, he just said, again, louder. And I did what I was told. Then once again, once I was finished, he starts yelling something like, swear on your family, tell them to strike you down dead if you breathe a word to anybody. I wasn't in a position to refuse him, and as much as I probably could have lunged for his rifle or something, I'm also not an idiot so I didn't even consider that an option at the time.

Instead, I just tried my best to ensure that he kept that sense of control because the moment he lost it, the chances of me getting switched off increased exponentially. I swore on my whole extended family that I'd never, ever speak of our encounter for as long as I lived. I told him, and God, and anything else listening for that matter that I would happily bury my loved ones if I broke my record and bond. And not just that, but I'd happily follow them to hell afterwards if I ever breathed the word of our encounter. I said just about anything and everything that came to mind, but once I really thought about my mom and dad and how devastated

they'd be to hear about my body being found up there in that hill, that's when I felt myself starting to well up. I guess that's what really satisfied him in the end, seeing me get sort of emotional like that, not just scared, but sad or broken. Only then did he lower the rifle, and only then did he let me find my feet and only then was I allowed to walk back down the hillside towards the trail. He yelled a reminder through the trees after me, reminding me of my promises, and so naturally, the first thing I did once I got some real cell phone signal was to report the entire goddamn thing in excruciating detail to the Beaverhead County Sheriff. Like I said, I'm not religious in the traditional sense and even if I was, I wouldn't have let that guy manipulate my faith in such a way.

This also isn't some made up story where I'm going to keep the guy secret or one in which I'm so scared that he'll come after me that I remain silent. I'm willing to admit that I was terrified at the time. I was shaking like a leaf as I walked down that hill, but by the time I got back to my car, I was just about angrier than I'd ever been in my entire life. The mood I was in when I was pacing back and forth calling 911, I could have ended that mother effer three times over, but again, that would not have been the right play to make. The grown up responsible thing to do would be to let the law enforcement handle it, and that's what I tried to do. The only trouble was, after about a week of haranguing the sheriff into dealing with our potential fugitive's contingent to force rangers of the situation, who in turn took the task off his hands after ensuring him they'd be in touch regarding

their search of the area. The day before I called the sheriff for a third time, the rangers had informed him that they'd been unable to locate any such cabin in the valley beneath Maverick Mountain. Naturally, I told the sheriff that was impossible, since I'd seen the cabin and its occupants with my own two eyes. I then went to the effort of providing him with, at least what I believe, are the exact coordinates denoting the cabin's location. 45 degrees, 28 minutes, 30.9 seconds north, and 113 degrees, 12 minutes, 41.1 seconds west.

After that, the rangers promised to send out a second search party, and although this one actually found the guy's cabin, the man himself was nowhere to be found and the structure appeared to have been unoccupied for quite some time. I was furious, to say the least. I have a lot of respect for people that choose to serve this country, no matter what form that service may take, but the ineptitude of the part of the authorities in allowing a dangerous fugitive to slip through their fingers is as staggering as it is frightening to me. I don't know for certain who I encountered up in

Beaverhead that day, but I'd think that 90% of you would agree that the man was most probably some kind of criminal, and that in all likelihood he was using that cabin and valley as cover to hide from law enforcement. That or he was just kind of a psychopathic doomsday prepper who took pleasure in terrorizing just some kindly stranger. And either way, the idea of a second encounter filled me with a dread so intense I'm not sure that I could put it into words. And that's why I haven't been back to Beaverhead since, and that if I did happen to visit those parts in the future, I'd stay the hell away from Maverick Mountain. Regardless of that sadistic old prick's motives, I guess he figured that I wasn't going to be true to my word because, as I said, when the rangers finally did make it out to

his cabin, the man who almost shot me was long gone. But that, in turn, takes me all the way back to the beginning of this email when I said it wasn't so much a campfire story, but rather a grave warning to anyone planning on hiking in southwestern Montana, north of Idaho. I think that guy is just still out there, living off the grid. In fact, I'm certain of it. My only concern is that the next person who stumbles across him won't be as fortunate as I was. And rather than just being asked, do you believe in God? I'm scared they'll be sent to meet him. I was 15 years old living in a medium-sized city in North Florida. About 60,000 people, but some areas were really spread out and rural. Don't think of it like NYC or anything, more like a lot of houses spread out over a huge area in condensed shopping centers.

I was a bit of a punk that my parents had a hard time controlling, so that meant I basically snuck out constantly and was always riding my bike around the city at all hours of the night with my friends, fighting and constantly causing trouble. For reference, I was probably 5'10", 150 pounds. My next door neighbors were my best friends. We'll call them Nick and Tim. Nick was younger than us and probably 5'5 and 140 pounds and Tim was 5'8 and easily 2'10. Nick and Tim were brothers over a year or so apart. On that night, Tim had texted me around 1am asking me to ride bikes with him and his brother to his girlfriend's house so he can get lucky. I remember being hesitant because how long the bike ride was. I just looked it up and it was 9.6 miles from my house to her street. So Tim begged and begged me

to go until I agreed. Our city had a curfew, meaning any police in the area that saw you and assumed that you were a minor would stop you and possibly issue a ticket and bring you home. That meant that we had to be careful about being seen by cars going by. Well, the bike ride to her house went by without any issues. We took our time, joked around, smoked a little pot, and genuinely just enjoyed the ride together. We ran out of what little pot we had on the way and finally got to his girlfriend's house.

After what felt like an hour, Tim snuck around the back to go in and Nick and I just sat in an electrical box and talked. Maybe 30 minutes went by and Tim triumphantly snuck out of the house bragging about his time in there and says that we should head out. Annoyed at how long it took and nearly sober, we both agreed. The first mile of the ride went by smoothly, but things changed. We had just passed a decent-sized shopping center. It was closed, and we passed by a church. We rode by it slowly, in a really zero rush at all. After we passed it, it led to a long stretch of road with woods and canals on each side. The road name is Blank Parkway, two lanes on each side separated by palm

trees and landscaping in the middle. Sidewalks on both sides and on the right side another road connects to the parkway. We were riding on the right hand sidewalk. Off in the distance we saw a very tall older man wearing a yellow raincoat and a large backpack. He was walking back and forth in the sidewalk under a streetlight on the corner of the parkway and the side street. We all went silent as we got closer. I don't think he could have seen or heard us as there were no lights over us and there were sprinklers going off in the median. I remember hearing him dragging his feet across the ground and mumbling. He was dragging his feet almost like he was trying to brush away the concrete to find something underneath. The mumbling was incoherent and frantic.

Honestly, it made my heart sink and my stomach nod up. I couldn't understand anything he was saying and the only way to go to get home was to go by him. Nick said, yo, let's cross the street and get onto the other sidewalk, and Tim and I agreed. I remember this so distinctly. We crossed the landscaped median, and a jet of sprinkler water hit me directly in the face, and it got into my mouth and eyes. It smelled like sulfur, and it tasted horribly. On the other side, we could hear the mumbling and scraping of his feet clearer. I could now see more details about him. He was smoking a cigarette and was probably 6'5",

had a huge green backpack, was extremely skinny, had long gray hair and was wearing combat boots and blue ripped jeans and that he had a full white beard. He didn't seem to notice us until we were directly across from him. We had all our eyes looked in his direction when he suddenly stopped. He stops talking, scraping his feet, looked up from the ground, and let out this god-awful screech. It was like he tried to say a hundred words all at once. None of us knew what he was trying to say, and after the initial scream I could make out swearing asking us what we were doing and it startled us. We were now 25 yards away from him

and then he screams what the F are you looking at? I was a foolish teenager and I piped up to say something smart and Tim riding next to me grabbed on and he said don't say a word. So I didn't and in hindsight I'm so glad I didn't. And in hindsight, I'm so glad I didn't, as he kept screaming in our direction and we kept riding. And the further we rode, the fainter the screams got, and then it stopped. We crossed the street again to the other side and made it about a mile down the road, all of us on edge. We glanced over our shoulders constantly to make sure that he wasn't following us. We had talked briefly about it, how strange it was, but we were glad it was all over with, or so we thought.

Nick and Tim were riding in front of me when I thought I heard something behind me. I turned around and there he was, maybe an arm's length away, headed directly for me. The yellow raincoat hood was pulled over his head and buttoned. This guy was standing up on his mountain bike pedaling as hard as he could. We locked eyes and he started screaming. And I mean screaming. He screamed not in words, not any language, just a constant scream as loud as he could. I have the chills writing this even now, as a 25 year old grown man with a wife and a baby, if someone ever illustrated that image and I saw it, I would probably have a heart attack. I screamed he's right behind us and stood up pedaling as hard as I could, and I think we all did, and he was right behind us the whole time, still screaming. Every so often he would get right on top of us, yelling and trying to knock us off

of our bikes. I don't know how long we rode with him behind us, but it felt like an eternity. I think age played a factor because he must have gotten tired and just let us get a bit of head. Exhausted, we pulled into the neighborhood and started cutting through the yards trying to lose him. We jumped off of our bikes and all just decided if he's still chasing us, we were going to make our stand together and fight. It was like a hive mind decision, all too tired to keep running and it was our only option. We waited for him but he never came. I don't ever remember hearing him and I still can't recall when we lost him. I called my house phone waking both of my parents up in the process and told my

dad about the situation. He told me to get home and figure it out and I asked to talk to my mother and she yelled at me on the phone and refused to pick us up as I stood in the middle of the street hoping this crackhead didn't come and kill us all. I got home with Nick and Tim in tow who asked if they could crash in my room and of course I said yes. I think we all still have some weird feelings about that night and we really never spoke of it again after that. I don't know what he wanted, it was clearly on drugs, but it makes me wonder if he would have done something really bad to us if he caught us. I've been going on long distance hikes in one form or another for just about as long as I can remember. My dad was an army vet and his brother was always crazy into bow hunting, so most summers, myself, my father, my uncle and my cousins would all head out into the

woods south of Abbeville, South Carolina for a few days of hiking and camping. After he passed, I found that trips into the forest helped me feel closer to him, even if it was just a few hours of hiking on a Sunday afternoon. So at least once or twice a month, I'd gear up and then head out into the wilderness to burn off the stresses of everyday life. I was living down in Augusta when he died and although there was a nice patch of woods out near Audubon's Bluff, I found the areas between Stevens Creek and the Hamilton Branch State Park to be much more like the woods that I'd hiked through as a child. Also, for accuracy's sake, I'm referring to Stevens Creek up in South Carolina, not the neighborhood in North Augusta, just in case anyone is confused. You could walk for miles and miles and not see anyone but the occasional fisherman. And so, for about 90% of

the time, it was just you, the creek, and the trees, peaceful and serene. But then one time, after driving up from Augusto on a Sunday afternoon, I was about two miles into my hike along Stevens Creek when I saw an odd shape in the woods off to my left. As you can imagine, I was used to seeing nothing but trees and the odd squirrel on the side of the creek, so seeing this big, dark lump caught my attention almost right away. I stopped in my tracks, turned to give it a good look over, and saw that someone had constructed a kind of makeshift shelter out of old dead wood by stacking it at an angle against a tree. I actually thought it was pretty cool at first.

I mean, it had this slightly creepy, almost witchy vibe to it, but it was still kind of impressive to see that someone had been out there practicing survival skills or whatever. I carried on walking through the woods for another five or ten minutes, then up ahead I suddenly saw another one of those makeshift shelters. That one was a little bigger than the other, and someone had clearly put a lot more work into binding some of the larger pieces together so the whole thing didn't just collapse. I'd never seen anything like it on any of my previous hikes and although they looked a little creepy I wasn't worried about running into the person who constructed them. I mean maybe one of the fishermen I saw sometimes

brought their kids along the previous day and they'd made the two shelters as a way of keeping themselves occupied while dad tried to land a big one. But then, shortly after that thought crossed my mind, I spotted someone up ahead of me working on one of the same shelters I'd just been looking at. As I got a little closer, I realized the guy looked to be in his 50s or 60s, around the same age as my dad when he passed. He had thinning gray hair pulled back into a ponytail, he was overweight, and he wore an array of colorful hiking gear. As I approached, he saw me coming, so he stopped what he was doing for a moment, waved, and wished me a good afternoon. We talked for a little while about this and that, but

long story short, he said that his name was Ron, and that he was pretty much doing exactly what it looked like, practicing the construction of impromptu shelters. He was actually doing so with the idea of camping out there one night, just him, his shelter, and a canopy of stars above him. I joke that he might end up looking up at nothing but raindrops if he doesn't master his shelters before the fall, and then after we shared a few chuckles, I carried on with my hike. My usual routine was, once I'd reached the area near Hamilton Beach, I'd turn back on myself and then retrace my steps along the creek. I thought I might see Ron on the way back, but I didn't. He must have moved on by the time I got back to his shelters. I must have made two or three more trips to Stevens Creek that summer, and although I didn't see any more of Ron, I did see more of his handiwork.

Every time I went for a hike, there would be one or two more shelters, some larger than the others, but always more skillfully constructed. It sometimes felt like me and Ron were engaged in a sort of wordless conversation. Every time I went for a hike, I'd get to see how much he'd improved at his rather strange but wholesome new hobby. I always hoped that I'd bump into him again, if only to find out how his survival camping adventure had gone. And that's why, during one particular hike in early September, I didn't feel frightened when I got the feeling that someone else was in the woods with me.

I actually felt kind of excited. I recall walking through the woods, just parallel to the creek, and then quite literally hearing the snap of a stick behind me, which made me stop and turn my head. I figured it might be Ron, working away on a new shelter so I turned back and started walking off in the direction I'd heard the sound. I walked for about a minute or two when I realized that Ron was nowhere to be seen. I stopped dead in my tracks and started back up again. If it wasn't him that had made the twig snap, then something else clearly had and that something else might not be nearly so friendly. As I said, I backed up to my original path, then carried on walking along the creek via my usual route. I turned my head every

so often to take a look behind me just to make sure no mountain lions or bears were following, but other than that, I stayed on my route. I always carried some bear mace and a pistol with me, like I'm not one of those people who very naively believe that bear mace is enough to keep you safe. I mean, aside from the fact that the odor will actually attract all the bears you didn't mace directly, it's not always just the wildlife you're going to be afraid of. And so by the time I had reached the outskirts of Hamilton Branch, I was convinced that someone, or something, was stalking me through the woods. I'm not just saying that out of my misguided sense of paranoia either, nor had I managed to freak myself out by allowing my mind to play tricks on me. When a predatory animal is in

your vicinity, everything goes deathly quiet. Birds don't sing, insects don't chirp. It's like every living thing hushes themselves into silence while some hungry killer slips through their midst. Like you know in the movies when someone says, it's quiet, too quiet. That's exactly where it comes from. When everyone and everything is too scared to make a noise. So when I tell you that I knew something was following me that day, please don't think that I'm just some anxious person who can talk themselves into a tizzy. I know something was stalking me and I know it 100%.

I must have been about a half a mile from the Modoc trailhead when I stopped, took off my backpack and then rummaged through it for the Taurus 856 that I always carried with me. Being a 38 special and a cool 16 ounces unloaded, it packs just enough punch to theoretically put down a wild animal, while being light enough to not be a literal burden wherever I carried one. It always gave me this residual feeling of safety, but that was the first time I'd ever gotten it out of my pack with the expectation of potentially using it. Yet I wasn't fearful of actually having to pull the trigger. I was fearful of what I might have to aim it at, be it a bear, a mountain lion, or one of my fellow human beings. I loaded it with a speed loader that I kept with me, so within just seconds of reaching into my pack, I was locked and loaded and ready to defend myself. After that, I just stood there for a few moments, watching the woods and the trail, just waiting to see if whatever had been following me

was impatient enough to reveal itself. About a minute went by, then I found myself yelling off into the trees, Ron? Is that you? I guess that was nothing but wishful thinking on my part, just kind of hoping that Ron was, I don't know, maybe playing a trick on me or something. That would be creepy and inappropriate, but it sure as hell beat a wild animal or some other stranger stalking me through the woods. I stood in the same spot a little longer than, I don't know if I did this out of practicality or just to assuage my own nerves, but I called out something like, if there's anyone following me, you better stop now. I'm armed, and I know how to use this thing. So y' you better stop now. I'm armed.

And I know how to use this thing. So y'all better stop before someone gets shot. But nothing moved. Nothing stirred. But I could still feel eyes on me. At this point, I was faced with something of a conundrum. I could divert from my intended route, walk two miles into Modoc, and then walk in a big loop back on myself until I reached my car, which was parked down near

Clark's Hill. Or, I could save myself at least an hour's extra hike and walk back the way I came while remaining doubly vigilant and alert. Now, this was a Sunday, like I said, and back then, Sundays meant that I was on a pretty tight schedule. Not tight enough that I couldn't devote an entire hour for walking along the creek, but tight enough that I couldn't really afford to throw an extra 90 minutes to two hours onto my hike. Obviously, when it comes to personal and physical safety, an extra two hours is nothing. But I had my mace, I had my gun, and I had all my experience, the latter of which was telling me that, although there was a bad feeling in the air,

I was still safe enough to walk back along the creek side, so long as I kept my wits about me. And so off I went. About halfway along the route, I see this pair of fly fishermen setting up at the edge of the creek. I said hi as I walked past and then stopped and politely asked if they'd seen anyone else walking the trail as they'd hiked out to their spot. They told me yes. They had seen someone, but they were walking the opposite way, meaning that someone had 100% been behind me on the trail and had turned back at some point before I'd seen them. I asked what this person looked like, thinking that they might go on to describe Ron, but they didn't, and the person they ended up describing didn't sound like Ron at all. They also mentioned how after wishing the hiker a good afternoon, the fishermen didn't receive

any kind of reply. Apparently, this hiker returned nothing but an awkward mumble and then carried on their business. The two fishermen then started asking why I'd seem so concerned, so just I straight up told them that I was worried about someone following me. Not like an accident either, where they just so happened to be behind me on the trail. It was like someone was there and just didn't want to be seen. That's when the two fishermen shared these very nervous looks before telling me that the man that they'd seen was wearing camouflage but didn't have any kind of hunting weapon with him and wasn't wearing any kind of safety orange jacket or anything like that. This hadn't given any pause for concern for me at first. I mean, people are entitled to walk

through the woods wearing old army-ish shoes, but in the context of me thinking that I'd been followed, they obviously found the detail as chilling as I did. As a precaution, I told the two fishermen where I was headed and where my car was parked, and then wished them a very pleasant afternoon and headed off. But on the drive back to Augusta, I couldn't help but wonder if they'd really been as innocent as I first expected. I guess this kind of does constitute paranoia on my part, but the idea that it was one of the fishermen that had been stalking me, only to back off when I started acting tough, that was somehow even creepier than anything else.

Someone playing nice only to have sinister intentions, like someone out of a horror movie or whatever, it was enough to make my skin crawl and I decided there and then that I'd give Stevens Creek a very wide berth for a while, at least for a month or two so I could go back to see what progress Ron had made. Only that never happened and I don't plan on ever going back to Stevens Creek and the story of how that came to pass started with a phone call I received just a few weeks later. I just got home from work when I heard my phone ringing from inside my purse. I didn't recognize the number and assuming it was a sales call, I almost hit the red button to decline it. But then, I don't know, it was like something in my head just said, answer it. And when I did, I heard it was a deputy calling from the McCormick County Sheriff's Department up in South Carolina. My first thought was that I'd committed some kind

of traffic violation or something around Clarks Hill, which was usually where I parked my car whenever I went hiking around Stevens Creek, but the call was not about any kind of traffic violation. The call was about my friend Ron. The deputy didn't refer to Ron as Ron, not at first anyway. He simply asked if I'd ever encountered an individual building survival shelters up near Stevens Creek. This deputy had already spoken to the fishermen that I'd bumped into on the day that I'd been stalked, which was how they'd traced me to Clarks Hill via a security camera which watched the parking lot that I'd used. The fishermen must have mentioned that I was a regular hiker there, which ended up making me a potential witness for something I was yet to be informed of.

My first thoughts were that Ron had gotten hurt somehow, or maybe gone missing, so I was very forthright about my interaction with him. But then the deputy made some allusion to human remains being found out near the creek, and I felt my heart slowly sinking into my chest. I remember this feeling of absolute horror, thinking the same thing that had stalked me had gotten Ron instead. He must have been working away on one of his shelters, completely oblivious to the woods around them, and then bam, the most painful death you can imagine without a soul around to ever hear him die. I remember asking if it was an animal attack, if they found Ron, if he had any family. But there wasn't much the deputy was willing to tell me at that stage and to be honest, I'm still uncomfortably ignorant on what actually happened out there. That being said, this is

what I do know. There wasn't just one set of human remains found out there. There were two, and neither of them belonged to anyone called Ron. Then, seeing as the two bodies were found in one of the shelters out there by Stevens Creek, the person calling themselves Ron was in fact the case's number one suspect. On the insistence of the deputy, this prompted me to search my memory for any instance of Ron mentioning places or people or things, just about anything they could use to pin down his whereabouts. I had nothing. Our exchange had been brief and unexciting, so with regret I'd informed the deputy that I could no longer really assist them. And that was literally the last thing I had heard about the bodies that were found out near the creek. Every so often, in the years that have

passed, I've searched the web in the hopes of finding something, anything to help enlighten me on what exactly happened out there. But every time I've tried to practice the not-so-ancient art of Google-fu, as I've heard it referred to, I've come up short. I think I'm just fishing for details, pieces of information to fill in the blanks, but deep down, I think I understand what happened to me that day up by Stevens Creek. I think I narrowly avoided falling victim to someone terrible. Not a bear or a mountain lion. A man. And I think someone was walking the woods that day when I got that creepy feeling. Someone who ended up making victims out of two innocent people.

And I think only by the grace of God did I avoid that very same fate. Recently, I was having trouble with kids knocking on my door and running away. I have severe PTSD, so this was causing me some issues at home. I got in touch with a police officer in the area who my mother knew. We met up at a coffee shop to discuss what I could do to feel safer. This was going fine until my mother brought up an old story about when her house was broken into. My memory of this is waking up on Christmas and only having one gift because everything else was taken. I was too young to really remember it but I'm 35 now and no one has spoken to me about it since childhood, so I always thought my version was correct, except it really wasn't.

What really happened was that my mother woke up in the night after hearing a noise. She knew that there were burglaries in the area because my uncle next door had his Christmas present stolen. She got up in the dark and went to my room to pick me up. I was around two years old and was wide awake standing up in my crib wide-eyed. My mother turned on the lights and I said something about a man. She started to panic since we were alone in the house and when she looked down she saw little patches of burnt carpet and spent matches. The intruder had come in through the downstairs, lit matches, and dropped them still burning while they walked around. She could follow the entire trail from the back of the house to my room.

Now back to the present, I was staring at my mother in the coffee shop, coffee halfway to my face, and she asked, What? I said I didn't recall this and remembered something else, and I quickly told her face and she asked, what? I said I didn't recall this and remembered something else and I quickly told her and she said, oh no, that was uncle. We nearly died in house fire. I had an existential crisis right there because I've been deathly afraid of fires all my life to the point of having night terrors as a little kid with no explanation, I think now I get it. The End Way back in May of 1995, a 29-year-old truck driver named Devin Eugene Williams was living in Americus, Kansas with his wife and three young children.

Having just moved into a brand new family home, Devin's wife would later say it was the happiest point in their marriage. But beneath the surface, something terrible festered and unfurled. Devin was described by friends as a patient and good-natured young man, but just weeks after beginning an exciting new chapter in his life, he disappeared without a trace. On Sunday, May 28th of 1995, a 48-foot, 10-ton, 18-wheeler semi-truck hurtled through Arizona's Tonto National Forest. The roar of its engine was so loud that two campers named Lynn and Jack Yarrington temporarily halted their hike to see what all the commotion was. They approached the nearest highway, then seconds later,

spotted a speeding 18-wheeler recklessly careening back and forth along a stretch of road it was most certainly not suited for, and all at breakneck speed so fast it sent a shiver down the Yarrington spines. Another group of hikers, this one traveling by car, suffered a hair-raisingly close call when the same 18-wheeler drove head-on at them following a chance encounter on the highway. The hikers were able to swerve out of the truck's path, and each avoided sudden and violent deaths, but later stated that the truck's mustachioed driver had remained disturbingly expressionless despite narrowly avoiding his own complete annihilation.

Later on that day, a group on their way to a picnic spotted the stationary truck which by that point had swerved off the road and become stuck in a field. After stopping their vehicle, one of the picnic group climbed out of their car and asked the truck driver if he needed any help. The driver's reply was as chilling as it was confusing. They made me do it, he said, as if answering a question that hadn't been asked. The Good Samaritan, a man named Charles Hall, reportedly asked the truck driver, who made you do what? To which the driver replied in a panicked voice, no, you can't help. No one can. I'll never get it out of there. I'm going to jail. When Charles heard the word jail being thrown around, he realized that he might have stumbled

across something deeply sinister. He agreed to leave the truck driver alone, but later contacted the local sheriff's department, speaking to a deputy Wells regarding the man's suspicious demeanor. Much like the campers, the deputy was confused as to why such a large vehicle would drive along unsuitable forest roads and went to investigate. Upon his arrival, he discovered the semi stuck in deep mud within a meadow not far from Forest Service Road 137 in the Buck Springs area. Once Deputy Wells looked inside the truck, he discovered the cargo within undisturbed and intact, 1,200 boxes of lettuce and strawberries with the refrigeration still running. The vehicle appeared completely abandoned and the cab had been firmly locked.

Deputy Wells checked his national crime computer and learned that there were no reports submitted for either a missing truck or a missing driver. He also later stated upon peering through the window of the truck's cab, he noted the interior was well kept and there was no indication that any foul play had taken place. Later that day, Lynn and Jack Yarrington were driving along Forest Service Road 321 when they came upon a man standing among some trees at the roadside. According to the Yarringtons, they stopped their car, only to see that the man was kneeling on the ground, staring at a tree, and appeared to be mumbling to himself. The couple said it was impossible to make out exactly what he was saying, and after Jack asked if the man needed any assistance, he replied simply, I've got to light the grill. Moments later, Jack watched as the stranger produced a $20 bill from his shirt pocket.

The stranger then picked up a rock, held the bill to the ground, then began striking it with a stone as if attempting to spark a flame. Deeply alarmed by what they were seeing, the Harringtons returned to their car, only to have the stranger scream unintelligibly before he hurled the rock in their direction. He then appeared to stumble into the Arrington's direction, prompting them to immediately flee the scene. Only later was the strange man confirmed to have been the truck driver, Devin Williams, and sadly, it marked the last time he was ever seen alive. When he failed to stick to his delivery schedule and confident in the belief that he'd never willingly abandon a shipment, Devin's co-workers reported him missing.

Investigators began to track Devin's movements leading up to his disappearance and learned he'd left his home on May 23rd, heading west on a route that he'd taken many times before. He successfully delivered his haul to California, reloaded his truck for his trip back to the Midwest, and then had a brief conversation with his boss, Tom Wilson. Wilson later stated that everything seemed fine and that Devin wasn't acting out of the ordinary. He was punctual, seemed lucid, and gave no indications that anything was wrong. A few nights later, on the evening of Saturday, May 27th, Devin arrived in Kingman, Arizona. He would call his boss for the second and final time, ensuring him that he'd make it to Kansas City on schedule, but added an eerie addendum when he complained of insomnia.

His boss reportedly asked if he'd be able to complete his journey, but Devin once again assured him that he'd be fine. Yet according to police reports, Devin never even made it out of Arizona. Arizona missing persons detective Bruce Cornish would later state that he and his team were completely flummoxed when it came to Devon's potential fate. He was neither a criminal nor a drug user and had no history of mental health problems prior to his disappearance, meaning easy explanations were hard to come by. This led many to theorize that Devon's disappearance was entirely voluntary, with some pointing to the fact that certain personal items

had been removed from the truck. Nevertheless, authorities mounted a large-scale search for the missing trucker, utilizing foot patrols, search dogs, off-road vehicles, and dozens of civilian volunteers. Search teams were told to look for scraps of clothing and even bone fragments, but despite days of searching, not a single trace of Devin Williams was ever found. This also made for a chilling anomaly, as up until that point the Scottsdale-based search and rescue team charged with recovering his remains had yet to come up short in the course of a long-term search. Devin's disappearance marked the first time that they'd failed to bring home a missing person,

either dead or alive, which, to many, was as eerie as it was perplexing. Two years later, on May 2nd of 1997, two hikers were tracing the bottom of Gila County's Mogollon Rim when they stumbled upon the remains of a human skull. Dental records would later confirm what many had first feared. The skull belonged to the missing trucker, Devin Williams. Although the skull had been damaged, a coroner determined that it was impossible to conclude

if this was the result of a deliberate, violent act or the result of scavengers consuming a corpse following an otherwise accidental death. Some suggested the erratic behavior Devin displayed was the result of a diabetic episode. Others argue sleep deprivation or mental illness were to blame. Some even purport that Devin was the victim of a slow form of carbon monoxide poisoning following a leak in his truck's cabin, but to date, no such theory has been irrefutably confirmed. Devon's wife, Mary Lou Williams, still longs for a day when explanations of her husband's

fate will be beyond dispute, but she also stated that with each passing year, the hope of seeing such a day slowly and painfully decreases. Mary Lou has said that back when her husband was listed as a missing person, the lack of conclusive answers caused her children terrible suffering. Yet the discovery of Devin's skull brought only a sliver of morbid closure to the family as many questions still remained. For example, what caused Devin to stray so far from his intended route? And if his state of mind was affected, what exactly caused such a catastrophic mental break? However, some suggest that Devin was well within his right mind when he swerved his truck off the road as, prior to his abandonment, he ensured the cab was locked. Unless Devin suffered some kind of rapid mental breakdown in the space of just two to three hours, then something frightened him so badly that he did things that most would consider

to be highly and unhealthily irrational. Some say fear can drive a man to madness, in which case, what was Devin Williams so deathly afraid of? And could it possibly explain why his broken skull was found just a few years later, less than a mile away from the spot where he disappeared? In December of 2010, Chinese citizen Jun Lin arrived in his new home of Montreal, Canada. The 31-year-old emigrated with the intention of studying computer engineering and told one immigration official, I wish to enjoy your language, your opportunities, and your fresh air. Eighteen months later, he was registered as an international student in the engineering and computer science faculty at the University of Montreal and supported himself by working as

a convenience store clerk. June had once been married, but after moving to Canada, was free to pursue homosexual relationships with other men. His sexuality had been a closely guarded secret back in his native China, and June had been enjoying his newfound freedom in the far more socially liberal Canada. June eventually found himself a boyfriend, but after almost a year of dating he received a phone call from his parents back home. They insisted that he find a girlfriend and settle down, and so believing that he had no future with his current boyfriend, June broke up with him. Yet, like many of us, June still had certain desires,

and so to satisfy them, he downloaded Grindr and began engaging in short-term affairs with like-minded strangers. One such stranger was a tall Caucasian 33-year-old with dirty blonde hair and a penetrating Slavic stare. His real name was Eric Clinton Kirk Newman, but on Grindr, he went by Luke Magnota. Luke was born in Ontario during the summer of 1982 as the first of Donald and Anna Newman's three children. His mom was something of a germaphobe and was obsessed with keeping both her home and her children completely spotless. When her children's pet rabbits left droppings in their home, Anna reportedly left them outside overnight. In the morning, the children discovered their

beloved bunnies were frozen to death. In 1994, Luca's father was diagnosed with severe paranoid schizophrenia. His parents' subsequent divorce meant a then 12-year-old Luca was forced to live with his grandmother, Phyllis Yorkin, in Lindsay, Ontario. Two years later, Luca was attending nearby I.E. Weldon Secondary School when he began to develop serious behavioral problems. His graduation status is unclear, but what we know for certain is that around his late teens, Luca received the news his mother and grandmother had always feared. Luca had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. As a result of the diagnosis, Luca began receiving a monthly disability allowance from the Canadian government, meaning he didn't necessarily have to work. But by the age of 21, young Luca had grown restless and began to pursue much more recreational forms of employment. He started out as a stripper, graduated to be an escort, and then later appeared in several pieces of adult entertainment.

Luca also appeared in a 2005 edition of Toronto's gay lifestyle publication, Fab Magazine, albeit under the pseudonym of Jimmy. But that same year, he had his first brush with the Canadian legal system. Luca, who was still publicly known as Eric at the time, was arrested on suspicion of credit card fraud, and at his trial it emerged that he'd done something deeply despicable. In 2006, Luca had applied for a series of credit cards in the name of a disabled woman he was acquainted with, and after tricking her into signing the relevant paperwork,

he racked up more than $10,000 in credit card debt in her name. It was also rumored that Luca had inappropriately touched the woman, although charges related to these allegations were later dropped due to lack of evidence. At his trial, Luca pled guilty and, in return for his honesty, had his nine-month prison sentence suspended in favor of 12 months probation. The judiciary was merciful, but the public was not. Although the courtroom heard that Lucas suffered significant psychiatric issues, the fact he so diabolically defrauded a vulnerable disabled woman proved a stain upon his character. The name Eric Newman was one that people now spat from their mouths. So instead, he would pick a new one, a more glamorous one. He would be Luca

Magnotta. Shortly after Luca changed his name, he decided to transition from adult entertainment to an even more morally corrosive and psychologically damaging form of media, reality TV. In 2007, Luca was a contestant in a show called Cover Guy. The premise was that 30 aspiring male models compete for $1,000 cash, a one-year membership to Good Life Fitness Club, and the fashion photo shoot that would feature on the front cover of About Magazine, a gay periodical. Luca was unsuccessful in his attempt, but like many former reality TV show contestants, he walked away with both a loyal following and a hunger for more attention. He underwent several cosmetic surgeries, then in February of 2008,

auditioned for the Slice Network television show Plastic Makes Perfect, a series which explored the world of plastic surgery and the artificial pursuit of beauty. During that same period, Luca attempted to engineer public opinion by using up to 70 different social media profiles, all of which were dressed up to appear as if real people were passionate supporters. One somewhat notorious example of this occurred earlier in 2007 when the Toronto Sun reached out to Luca following rumors that he was dating Carla Homolka. Homolka is a Canadian serial killer who took an active part in the murders of at least three children, including her own sister

between 1990 and 1992. Luca denied the rumors, calling them baseless, but during a later criminal investigation, Montreal police appeared to confirm that the pair had indeed been a couple at one time. However, when journalists questioned the veracity of the MPD's claims, a spokesperson for the department quickly retracted the statement and admitted they'd based their assertions on unfounded rumors posted on social media. It's impossible to confirm, but many suspect that these rumors were generated by none other than Luca himself, as part of a shrewd guerrilla marketing campaign. Yet there's disturbing evidence to suggest that Luca's choice of fake girlfriend was far from random.

Nina Arsenault, a Canadian writer and performance artist who Luca dated around that time, said he was obsessed with serial killers, but he seemed particularly fond of Carla Homolka on account of the murderous romance she shared with her husband, Paul Bernardo. She later claimed Luca saw Homolka as a kind of role model and was captivated by the concept of someone beautiful committing acts of pure evil. It wasn't until 2010 that Luca's pursuit of fame took a truly dark turn. That year, he uploaded a video to YouTube entitled, One Boy, Two Kittens, and in it, Luca records himself suffocating two small animals using a trash bag and a vacuum cleaner. He later uploaded a second video depicting the drowning of a cat in a bathtub full

of water, and then a third in which he feeds a live kitten to a hungry python. YouTube managed to delete the videos before they had a chance to truly go viral, but by then, the damage had already been done. Many urged law enforcement agencies to pursue the mysterious cat killer, but in the end, it was a private Facebook group which is credited with his initial identification, and after passing on their findings to the Montreal police in to be completely unaware that their cat killer was living right under their noses. While conversely, Luca appeared to be completely oblivious that anyone was looking for him. He maintained an active social life, continued to pursue fleeting fame where possible, but more importantly, he continued to assemble an online congregation of those who hungered for his new variety of speciality entertainment, cold-blooded murder. Part of maintaining an active social life obviously meant dating,

and one of the men Luca was seeing during the late spring of 2012 was our Chinese international student, Jun Lin. Jun and Luca had been dating for just a few months when suddenly, the student stopped showing up for work and classes. A trio of friends visited his apartment on May 27th and after becoming increasingly worried for June's safety, they contacted the police and reported him missing. One of the first things the police did was check the security cameras from June's apartment building, and this is how they discovered that the last known sighting of him was from the evening of May 24th, when he walked into his apartment with Luca Magnotta. A description of June was circulated among a vast array of Canadian police services,

but within just a few hours, an email arrived in the inbox of the case's lead detective. Urgent, the email's subject read, while the body warned the detective that what he was about to see would make for extremely difficult viewing. The email contained a link to a video uploaded to a website known as bestscore.com. Uploaded just days prior, on May 25th of 2012,

the 11-minute video was entitled One Lunatic, One Ice Pick, and its contents were nothing short of horrifying. It depicted a naked male tied to a bed frame being stabbed to death with a screwdriver and kitchen knife. The man's killer then copulates with the corpse of the deceased, cuts off large chunks of his flesh, and then feeds them to a waiting dog. Further investigation confirmed that up to 10 days before the murder, Luca had been advertising the video's release, and that hours following June's murder, his killer had purchased a round-trip

ticket from Montreal to Paris. At around 11 on May 29th of 2012, a package was delivered to the national headquarters of the Conservative Party of Canada. The courier who'd been instructed to deliver the package initially noticed a large red heart symbol that had been drawn on the box, but nothing untoward. Yet during the process of transporting the package to its intended recipient, the contents had been repeatedly disturbed. By the time the courier came to deliver the package, a sticky trail of gore had started to leak through the box's cardboard folds, prompting the building's security team to hastily summon law enforcement. It took hours for a forensics team to arrive at the scene, but when they did, a gloved officer cut open the box and they found a separate human foot inside,

along with a note saying that six body parts had been distributed throughout the city and that the perpetrator would kill again. Around the same time, a similarly blood-stained box was intercepted at a Canada post-processing facility in Montreal. It was addressed to the headquarters of Canada's Liberal Party and contained a hacked-off human hand. Later that day, the janitor of an apartment complex in Montreal's Snowdown district noticed that a suitcase had been discarded near a garbage pile in the alley behind his building.

At first, he thought nothing of it, but after approaching the garbage bins, he detected a stomach-churning stench which seemed to be emanating from the suitcase. The police were called, and upon further inspection of the suitcase, officers discovered it had been stuffed with dismembered human remains. But that's not all that was inside. Whoever had taken the time to dismember their victim's body before stuffing it into that suitcase had been careful to include their clothes, their ID papers, and what appeared to be the two murder weapons. This is how the cops determined that their murder victim was none other than the missing

June Lin. And after analyzing the apartment building surveillance camera footage, police were able to confirm that Luca had been the one to dump the suitcase. Later that night, police searched the Decari Boulevard apartment Luca had been renting. Bloodstains were discovered on several pieces of furniture, including the refrigerator, the mattress, a table, and the apartment's bathtub. In the bathroom, Luca appeared to have written on the mirror, If you don't like what you see, don't look in the mirror. On June 5th of 2012, a package containing June's right foot was delivered to the Independent St. George School of Montreal,

while another package, this one containing his right hand, was delivered to False Creek Elementary School in Vancouver, British Columbia. Almost a month later on July 1st, his head was recovered at the edge of a small lake in Montreal's Anguignon Park after police received an anonymous tip. Later that day, police issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Luca and claimed that he was wanted on charges of first-degree murder, committing indignity to a dead body, mailing obscene material, and criminal harassment of Canadian politicians. By early June, the nationwide arrest warrant had become an international manhunt when Interpol issued a red notice for Luca. Luca was soon traced to France, where his cell phone signal was followed to a hotel in Benjule. French police rushed a court in the hotel off, but it appeared that Luca had already boarded a Eurolines bus bound for the German capital, Berlin. Thankfully, German police acted decisively and after learning of Luca's intended destination, they apprehended him at a Neukollin internet cafe. Witnesses said that Luca appeared to be reading an English-language news story about himself at the time of his arrest. On June 18th of 2012, Luca was flown aboard a Royal Canadian Air Force CC-150 to Mirabel International Airport, just north of Montreal.

Officials defended the use of a military transport plane, highlighting the safety concerns of using a commercial flight. There was also the issue of commercial aircraft potentially being diverted to another country, such as in the event of mechanical failure. Canadian authorities terrified Luca might end up in a country with no extradition treaty, fulfilled his wish of flying on his own private jet, albeit in a way that he might never have envisioned. Upon his arrival back home in Canada, Luca was placed into solitary confinement at the Riviere de Préry detention center. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that he was pleased that Luca had finally been apprehended, and congratulated the police forces on their good work in apprehending him.

But perhaps the words of opposition member of parliament Bob Ray were far more poignant. Ray pointed out that allowing the case to become a national media sensation was exactly what Luca wanted and the dedicating hours of airtime, screen time and dinner table talk to him would fulfill his twisted lifelong dream. Sadly, few heeded his words and not only was Luca named Canadian Newsmaker of the Year by the Canadian press, but he was later immortalized in the documentary film Don't F with Cats. Following a candlelit vigil through downtown Montreal, one which was attended by June Lynn's parents, the victim himself was cremated on July 11th of 2012. The previous month, Luca had appeared in court by video link to plead not guilty to all charges through his lawyer.

He later appeared in person at a high-security Montreal courtroom to request a trial by jury. At his preliminary hearing on March 11th of 2013, Luca's defense team requested the media and the public be barred entirely from the hearing. The request was declined the following day, prompting one of Luca's attorneys to resign. The following month, Luca was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, offering indignities to a human body, distributing obscene materials, and criminal harassment. He admitted to having committed the offenses in question, but pleaded not guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility, which is essentially an insanity defense.

The trial lasted ten weeks, and on the opening day, the presiding judge instructed jurors that Luca admits the acts or the conducts underlying the crime for which he is charged. Your task will be to determine whether he committed the five offenses with the required state of mind for each offense. Evidence presented to the court included a pair of scissors, two knives, a screwdriver, an oscillating saw, and a hammer, all of which were used to murder and dismember the victim. The Crown Prosecutor argued that the murder of Jun Lin was organized, premeditated, and that Luca was purposeful, mindful, ultra-organized, and ultimately responsible for his actions. Whereas Luca's defense team argued that he was in a psychotic state at the time of the crimes,

and therefore could not be held responsible for his actions. The court also heard that while determining if he was fit to stand trial, Luca told one psychiatrist that, on the night he murdered June Lynn, an abusive client named Manny had essentially forced him to do it. The confession vexed investigators for quite some time, as many had theorized that Luca received assistance in either dismembering the body or fleeing the country. Yet his claim was proven false in the most unusual of ways. After establishing that Luca's obsession with Sharon Stone's character in the movie Basic Instinct, police officers not only realized

why Luca had titled his snuff film One Lunatic, One Ice Pick, but also why he'd taken the time to paint his screwdriver silver before using it to murder June Lin. Luca had attempted to replicate the ice pick used in one of the movie's murder scenes, while Manny was simply a fabrication based on the antagonist's fiancée, Manny Vasquez. While to some, this might have been an obvious sign of madness, the prosecution argued that Luca's use of illegal drugs during his teenage years led to symptoms which merely mimicked schizophrenia. They also cited the diagnosis of Dr. Joel Paris of Montreal's General Hospital, who claimed Luca had nothing more than borderline

personality disorder, which would not disbar him from prosecution. In short, the prosecution was accusing Luca of pretending to be schizophrenic since his defense hinged on his diminished responsibility plea. Following a 12-week trial, which included almost 10 weeks of hearing testimony, the jury returned a verdict on their eighth day of deliberation. Luca was then given a mandatory life sentence and will only be eligible for parole after serving 25 years in prison. He was also sentenced to 19 years for other charges to be served concurrently, meaning he will likely accrue 30 years behind bars before having a shot at freedom. Bob Ray, who now works as Canada's permanent representative to the United Nations,

once urged us not to pay Luca the attention he craved, but it seems that in the end, a man who once wished upon a star became one in the most diabolical of circumstances. When I was 14, I decided to take ballroom dance classes. That was kind of normal for teenagers in my generation in my country. There you had to change partners each song, so every girl would dance with every boy. In my group that consisted mostly of teens between 14 to 17, there was a really tall, almost 2 meter, 21 year old guy named Phillip. We had a nice chat the times that we danced but he seemed weird and because I was young and naive and that's how I normally made friends,

I told him where I lived when he asked me. And so the stalking began. At the time I didn't realize that it was stalking. I just thought that he had too much time and that it was annoying. Philip would ride on his bike from his home, he lived on one town over, to my house and asked if I wanted to spend time outside with him and play. After doing that for a few times, I asked my parents to tell him that I'm not home when he would come over. Both my parents and I were very oblivious about his actions for a very, very long time. At one point in time, the stalking ended for a few weeks and Philip also didn't come to dance classes. At that time, I became part of a friend group of a boy that I'd fancied. For some months, he had a girlfriend but they split soon after and I became his girlfriend. Unfortunately, Philip was also friends with the best friend of my boyfriend,

so he was also part of that group. They told me Philip was in a mental hospital. In the span of his stalking, Philip was in a mental hospital multiple times and every time he was, I was glad because then I had some peace. When I was 16, my family and I had to move because our landlady had thrown us out. She wanted to live in the property herself. And so we moved one town over. We started living two streets apart from my now stalker. And every time Philip was out of the hospital, he would be at my house. It wasn't as often, but still.

At my father's birthday, he rang again. And because my family had guests, they told me to open the door, and there he was, looming over me like a dark, menacing shadow man. I told him to leave, and I tried to close the door, but he blocked it. So I was standing there, afraid, and I started begging him to leave. At one point I even ran inside to get my dad to send him away but my dad just said something like, he's your friend, it's your problem. So I went back to the door and I begged and pleaded that Philip please just leave. At one point he was kneeling and sitting in my doorway. After almost two hours he finally left and at that point it was obvious for me. Finally I had

realized what type of behavior this was. He was a stalker and he was absolutely fixated on me. I realized this took a long time but I was young and I was naive and the next day I sat down my parents and told them that I was afraid of Philip and my dad also apologized to me for putting me in that situation and not helping. The next time Philip came to my house, my dad was there and told him that I don't want any contact with him and so he left. After a few more incidents like that, he stopped showing up at my door and I thought that we had gotten rid of him. But every time I started to live happily starting to forget my fear of this guy, a letter, an email, or a gif would show up and

would send me back into my fears. And now at 20, I was out of school and to pass the year I had to wait to start my job. I worked in a grade school in a voluntary after school club for grade schoolers. After a month or two my mom woke me up in the morning and told me to get dressed because she had to call the cops. Apparently Philip was again every morning at our door asking for me. My parents didn't tell me so I wouldn't get scared. Finally, after the cops told Philip three times to leave, he ignored them and they arrested him. And he screamed and screamed my name that he was burning for me and that the cops heard him. My parents and I were standing in the kitchen listening to this. The situation was just so absurd and so much for me that I started just laughing hysterically in the moment.

It was a strange reaction, but I don't know. It was odd. We filed a report at the police for stalking and trespassing, but the officers said that they couldn't do anything because he hadn't hurt me physically. We tried to get a restraining order, but it didn't go through. A week later, Philip had sneaked into our garden, and like in a movie, he started throwing little rocks at my window. Throwing rocks at a girl's window is not romantic. It's creepy, especially if it's unwanted. An idiot me opened the window, but didn't see anything until it clicked, and I ran downstairs and told my father that Philip was in the garden, but Philip escaped. Now a week after that I was in the kitchen cooking when Philip rang the doorbell again, and because we have no way of

seeing who is at the door from our house, I opened it, and there he was again, telling me that he missed me, and saying that he had peeked through the blinds of the windows in the living room the past week to see if I was there. My parents were not home. If they had been, I would have ran, but like this, I had to swallow my fear and stand in the doorway listening to this psycho talk until my boyfriend, a now different boyfriend, showed up. I had sent him an SOS SMS and he was on his way. After my boyfriend arrived, he told Philip to leave, and thankfully he did. Philip mentioned in passing that he now also has a girlfriend. After that, I didn't see Philip again for a long time. A friend told me that

he was taken by men in white coats because he had believed that his mom was possessed by the devil. It wasn't until two years later when I got a letter from a court. I was declared a witness and told to attend in a case against Philip for assault. Apparently, after coming out of the mental hospital, he had a big fight with his girlfriend and hit her. Because she was scared, apparently she played dead, and Philip called an ambulance and the police finally had something against him. After the hearing, he was admitted again to a mental hospital and I finally got my restraining order and he was ordered to stay at least 30 meters away from our property. I was so glad. The restraining order also implied that

if he broke any of the requirements, he would go to jail. And so, after 8 long years of dealing with his crap, it was finally over. And 2 years ago I also moved out of my parents house. I'm posting this now because I believe that I'm starting to see him again. But it can't be. He doesn't know where I live and he also hasn't shown up at my parents house. But I believe that I've seen him when I leave the house. I'm not sure if this is PTSD symptoms, paranoia, anxiety, or what. I just need reassurance that it's not him again, and that I'm safe in my own home. I rescued a pit bull from a neglectful family. She was skin and bones when she came home and extremely submissive. After a week of love and affection and food, she was the most amazing dog I have ever met.

The softest, cuddliest baby who wouldn't even play fight with me unless she was under a blanket and didn't know that it was me. I needed to do a quick late night run to my local shop. There's a 40 minute round trip route on main roads with houses or a 15 minute round trip route through an alleyway that wraps around the back of a school field. This alleyway has no street lamps but I hadn't ever heard of anything bad happening so I didn't think anything of it. So I set out with my dog in tow and just before we reached the entrance she stood still as a rock. I gently tried to usher her to follow me, but she refused. When I took my headphones off, I realized that she was softly growling and that I could hear a group of male voices coming from the alleyway.

They soon came close enough to where I could see them, and I think there were around five or six of them. This was during COVID, so they were all wearing masks with their hoods up. My mom always told me that if I found myself in a situation like this to not act scared, being scared shows that you are an easy target. And with that in mind, I tugged firmly on my dog's lead to get her to follow me. She stuck to my side, literally pressing her body against my leg as I walked Yes, it was awkward Yes, I had to try very hard to walk normally

She was quietly growling the whole time The men had stopped and were standing slightly off the path to one side at this point They were talking quietly amongst themselves as we walked by I couldn't really hear much as my heartbeat was pounding in my ears and my gut was screaming at me. Once I knew that I was at a point where the darkness of the alley made me essentially invisible, I heard one of them raise their voice slightly and said, nah, that's a pit, in a way that sounded like he was disagreeing, coming after me. Now, they could have just been discussing the breed of my dog.

That is a likely scenario. But the gut feeling I had while walking past, and for the duration I walked through the alley, makes me believe otherwise. I think that these men were discussing possibly robbing me, or worse. And my soft baby, who was literally scared of her own reflection, deterred them due to her being an aggressive breed. It's safe to say that we walked the long way home. When I was 19, I worked nights at this terrible hotel chain in my hometown and it was generally pretty chill. You get your weirdos and creeps but I can handle my own and I got used to it pretty quickly. However, this guy was way worse than anything I had encountered up until that point. It was an average night. I spent checking in guests, doing laundry, stocking, etc. And there were two sets of doors at the entrance,

the inner ones being locked after night shift starts. This dude shows up at around 3am and brings me through the lobby phone set between the two doors. Immediately before I can even get my customer service face on, he starts frantically demanding I call medical transport, which I didn't really know what he was talking about but I try to help him the best I can asking questions. Eventually, I just let him in so I can get a better idea of how to help but when I do his whole tone immediately changes. He starts speaking in this monotone voice and has this kind of dead stare. I don't know how to describe it. I've never seen eyes so void of all emotions and not to mention he had no physical signs of injury at all. Obviously, I was freaked out, but tried my best to carry on normally asking him more questions.

After the first two questions, he just stops answering completely and continues staring. I keep repeating myself, and still, he's just staring. At this point, I'm kind of fed up with him, so I say, alright, I'm just going to call 911 to get you help. He then starts getting frantic again, going between begging me not to call and saying they won't let me go, and I can't go back there. I tell him that I'm really not sure how to help him if he won't let me call emergency services so he needs to leave.

He didn't even seem to need medical assistance in the first place. This guy goes right back to ignoring everything I say and is just staring blankly. Honestly, I should have just called the police right then but I was overwhelmed by him and getting police involved is always a last resort for me so I say, you can rest here for 20 minutes and try to find alternative transportation but then you gotta go. And I go into the back to watch him on the cameras. 20 minutes go by and I come out to tell him to leave, but he starts arguing, nonsensically. I go back into the back in just exasperation.

The cycle then repeats for like two more hours. Finally, I tell him I'm just calling the police, to which he replies, Well, if you're going to be like that, I'll just leave. At this point, stuff was just comical. I'm like, please do, I've wanted that the whole time. I was so done with him, so I basically am yelling at this point. He finally leaves, I did call the cops and I report him. And the freakiest part of that,

while telling my boyfriend at the time about this guy, he recognizes him from the description of his creepy stare and pulls up his mugshot with charges for assault on a woman and a bunch of other insane stuff. My then boyfriend worked at a homeless shelter for some years and had seen the guy from time to time. After that, I felt so lucky that he was just a weird creepy annoyance for me. Who knows what would have gone down in different, more aggressive circumstances. My childhood best friend Marie and I were around 11 or 12 years old at the time. Marie's family had their own campsite in a provincial park about two hours from our hometown and would spend the entire summer each year living in their camper out there. This particular summer, I was able to go and stay with them for a week and we were excited to spend our time adventuring around the forest.

On the last night that I was there, we decided that we wanted to hurry down to the ice cream shop by the lake before it closed. It was early evening at this point, still pretty bright out but beginning to lose light. The path we took was down a short slope right next to the main road with maybe ten feet of thick brush and trees in between. On the other side was the forest with more tall, thick brush. We were walking along, not seeing a single other person on the path in front or behind us. We hear a sudden rustling and snapping of branches, similar to the sound of maybe a deer moving through the woods. I wouldn't have thought of anything of it, but then, the sound of running footsteps follows. Marie glances back and suddenly grabs my arm, urging me under her breath not to look back.

At the time, the running stops, and I don't know why I didn't ignore her and get a look myself. I guess I could sense the very real fear in her voice and chose to listen. We both start to panic, getting that feeling like when you're running up the stairs after turning the basement light off. We pick up speed as much as we can without breaking into a sprint, knowing the ice cream shop is only a minute walk away at this point. The path soon breaks and we're in a parking lot. Suddenly Marie steers me hard to the left, heading towards the lake and the boat rental instead of continuing straight to the ice cream shop, and I go along with it,

silently understanding ice cream is no longer an interest right now. Marie is clearly panicking at this point. We're both looking around, but it seems whatever scared her is nowhere in sight at this point. Marie walks up to the boat rental and gets us a kayak, and we climb in and begin to paddle out into the middle of the lake. As we paddle, she tells me that there was a man behind us, and that the man had stopped running at us very abruptly upon making eye contact with her. He had been wearing a long black coat with a hood up despite it being in the middle of July, had a terrible smirk on his face, and she swore that as she stopped running, she saw him put something shiny away in his coat.

He appeared to have just emerged out of the bushes after we walked past, given the sounds that we heard right before he came running onto the path. We reach the center of the lake and stop paddling. I pull out my Nokia brick phone that my parents had, thank God, given me, just in case. I hand it to Marie and I tell her to call her parents to come pick us up. As the phone rings, I see her look out past me to the shore and just go completely pale, lifting a hand to point at what she's seeing. I turn, and there was the man, stalking his way around the path that circled the edge of the lake, staring out towards us. We sat in the middle of the lake and watched him do two full laps, never looking away from us, before finally disappearing.

It took a few tries to get a hold of her family. We were freaking out so bad the whole time as the sun got lower and lower. We did manage to have someone come with a truck, but by that time, we reached the shore and it was pretty dark outside. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't been able to call for a ride. Looking back, I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't been able to call for a ride. Looking back, I don't know why we just didn't go up to the ice cream shop and form an adult there and ask her parents to come get us then, but it worked out and we got back safe and we thankfully never saw that hooded man again. This happened about two years ago when I was 19. I'm a female and had just moved out of student accommodation into an actual flat with my friend group of six. The night we moved in, it was just me and one of the girls I'm close friends with, Lucy.

I had my boyfriend over at the time, Alec, and the other people who were moving in were moving in two weeks later as they were all on various holidays or visiting home, so it was just the three of us. Lucy was in her room and Alec and I were smoking a joint in bed watching kung fu movies. Tim and I start to notice a man around 300 pounds and six foot pacing outside our window and looking in occasionally. We're on a basement floor at this time but the windows are on ground level. Okay, that's weird but we'll just make sure that the windows are locked. 20 or so minutes pass and everything seems okay until Lucy runs into my room and says, babe, there's a man in the house. We left the doors unlocked by accident. Chills immediately run through my body.

And I'm like, what do you mean there's a man in the house? And Alec is frozen solid. Me and Lucy go into the hall and the huge man, who we saw looking into the windows, is in our hall and we ask, What are you doing here? And he pulls out his phone and shows us a text message from an unsaved number with our address written on it and something about people being inside. What in God's name? He tells us he's looking for his girlfriend and that she lives here and we're just like, no she does not. Please remove yourself from her home. He says okay and that he'll phone his girlfriend and he turns his phone to low volume and he's speaking to a

clearly another man on the phone who is clearly not his girlfriend. With more urgency this time we tell him to get out of our house and he says okay. He leaves. We lock the door and everyone is just shaking. He's still on the phone to this man outside and I can hear them speaking a language that we don't understand, but we can hear him getting angry. I tell Alec to please make that scary man go away, and he goes outside and tells him to shift away from our doorway as he's really scaring us. He says okay and his taxi is here.

He walks up a dead end street where no taxis go and again we're like what is going on? We tell our upstairs neighbors who we had met earlier that day about the whole ordeal. We call them Charlotte, Matt and Rob and they inform us that the same man had tried to come into their house, insisting his girlfriend live there. Charlotte already had a boyfriend who we knew of and had also met that day. Rob has more balls than all of us and threatened him with a knife the next time he came to their house and he never bothered them again. Over the next couple of weeks, the man would occasionally come back and look into our bedroom window. Alec was there most times, I'm so glad for that, and I have no doubt that he'd try the door again, but it was always locked

after that. I, a 21-year-old female, live with my grandparents in a large city on a busy road. I was just in bed when I heard the doorbell ring and I was about to answer it, but my grandpa got to the door before me, and I'm now so glad that he did. I couldn't see the front door from the hallway, but when he opened it, I heard a woman say, Hi, my name is Taylor, I think I know you. I didn't recognize that name and my grandpa didn't either, because he told her that he definitely didn't know her. He asked how he could help her and I heard him open the door wider and then her quick footsteps as she ran away. After she left I came out to ask my grandpa what had

happened and he told me about the interaction with a very puzzled look and I immediately recognized it as suspicious. We have a ring doorbell so we pulled up the video that it had taken. It showed a young woman covered in tattoos approaching our yard. As she walks up she whistles loudly to someone off camera. I watch as my grandpa opens the door and she says that she thinks she knows him. Now my grandpa is a retired police officer and tonight he happens to be wearing his t-shirt with the name of our city's police department. When he opens the door wider she notices his shirt because her eyes widen and

that's when she ran away. I watch as the video shows her holding up her arms, crossed in an X while she's running away, and a few seconds later, a man crawls out from behind my car, parked outside, and follows her. Then, the woman can be heard whistling again as they walk down the block. My grandpa called the non-emergency police line to report suspicious activity, and two officers arrived 15 minutes later to hear our statements and watch the video. They seemed to agree that these were probably two addicts working together, casing out the neighborhood to see which houses they could break into. Since there was no proof of a crime committed, the officers gave us an email to send the video to and left. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I, a 5'3, 100 pound,

21 year old young woman had been the one to answer the door instead of my grandpa, a 6'2, ex-military retired police officer. Thank god he sketched out that very creepy couple lurking around my neighborhood. I was about 12. Me and my mom had gone down to a town 45 minutes out to do some shopping with some of her friends. I had a corn snake at the time so I asked her if I could walk around a pet store one door down from the mini supermarket that she was shopping at and to compare the prices of frozen mice with our local seller. She said sure, just to come back as soon as I was done. The pet store had been there as long as I can remember. It had a very warehouse feel about it and was poorly lit by dim fluorescent lights too far above the floor.

Before checking out the mice, I just wanted to check out the rest of the store, being the curious 12-year-old that I was. As I was roaming the aisles, I noticed you. You were in every aisle I strolled down, bald, middle-aged, a bit tubby, wearing dark blue plumber overalls over a white shirt. It was summer and it was hot, I remembering why on earth you would come into a non-air-conditioned building like that. You carried a basket, but there was nothing in it. As you slowly stalked me down the aisles I noticed your basket wasn't getting any more full. I started walking faster, taking random turns down different aisles to see if I was just being paranoid but you were always 10 to 15 feet behind me. At some point I finally thought that I

lost you. I powered walked out of the pet store and as soon as I cleared the doors I sprinted down the street to the mini supermarket my mom was in. She hadn't even made it down the second aisle completely. I caught up with her, immediately stripped off my bright pink hoodie and slung it into the cart as well as ripped the hair tie out of my hair. I was smart for doing that because when I look back at the door, there you were, standing there, still carrying the basket from the pet store and scanning this store for any sight of a 12-year-old girl in a bright pink hoodie and ponytail. When we left, I saw you in your van as you drove away, a plain white van like something out of a

true crime documentary or horror film. And I think about you sometimes, and how if you'd caught me before I got to that supermarket on that quiet Wednesday afternoon, what horrors could have been waiting for me in the back of that van? When I was 18 and freshly broken up with my way older boyfriend, I basically went crazy with dating guys. At the time, I also dressed very goth, even going as far as to wear a real corset and trench coat, mostly just enjoying the attention. One particular afternoon, my friend and roommate at the time decided to eat at a local Japanese restaurant with both of us all dressed up. Our waiter was a mediocre skinny white guy who was clearly a little alternative but it was hard to really tell with the uniform. We joked about me leaving my phone number on the receipt or something so I hyped myself up and did so. And late that night he sent me a text message. We talked for a few days, never really

having a right time to meet up as I worked 40 minutes away from where I live. He mentioned the boots that he wore meant a lot to him and some other odd things that just seemed like edgy jokes. One really late night coming home I was texting and driving, as any 18 year old does, and we decided to meet up. My stupid self invited him over to my apartment where it was just me and the roommates who had been with me before. Our other two roommates were not home. At first it was fine because I was already drunk so I could just let him rant about whatever he wanted to. He went on about his life, going to jail, medical bills, his parents, etc. And eventually he asked me if I wanted to see his tattoos and I was like,

okay. He lifted up his shirt and not only could I see the handgun tucked in his waistband, but also his multiple badly covered up Nazi tattoos. One was even just slightly covered with a banana. I don't know what it was, but I simply decided the best way to deal with this situation was to appease him, so I went along with it casually. I don't remember exactly every detail because it was over two years ago and I was drunk, but he ended up pulling his gun out and putting it to my head, asking me if I was scared. I was immensely confused and tried to call his bluff, saying I wasn't, which got him to put it away for a while. When we went to hook up in my messy room, he pulled it on me again, saying he wanted to do it with it out. I got mad and tried to fight him off of me and get it away from my head. Of course, I wasn't as strong as him and he hit me in the arm with it, which that hurt because it was a nice one.

When I finally got him off me and he realized that I was angry, not scared, he started acting like a crackhead, saying I was crazy for not caring about him pulling a gun on me, and he ran off, jumping the fence of the apartment complex and not even taking his car that he had came in. In the morning, his car was gone and I had a large bruise from where he had hit me. While to me this has become a funny story, I now realize how bad it could have ended up. Leaving my friend's house, I accidentally backed into a brick mailbox. My bike rack hit the mailbox so my car was okay, but completely demolished the mailbox. No big deal, right?

That's why we have insurance, right? I went to the neighbor and told them what happened and gave them my insurance, phone number, and my name. All I got was his first name. And from the get-go, this dude was creepy. He kept hitting on me, trying to date me, specifically trying to, quote, feed me. I left on my drive to my mom's. I'm attending an out-of-state college and the parents are divorced. The guy I backed into, Robert, began to text me and call me. He was insistent that it was better for both of us to just pay out of pocket for the mailbox,

sending me links to companies that could fix it for $500 us to just pay out of pocket for the mailbox, sending me links to companies that could fix it for $500 and demanding I go on a date with him so I could give him the cash for the repair and he could feed me. I don't know what his deal was with the food and I declined everything but started to get annoyed by his constant texts and calls. Finally, after two days of it with responses only consisting of please contact my insurance, I sent him a text saying that he was harassing me. I blocked him, but he made a new number and threatened to report it as a hit and run to the police. I'm in law school, okay, and this was definitely not a hit and run. I blocked the second number,

and then he used a new number to ask me if I wanted him to send a screenshot or video of the accident to his insurance. I admit this made me angry and I called this number and dug my nails so hard into my thigh that I drew blood as he threatened reporting things asking me on a date and trying to entice me to just pay cash. I finally screamed, Do not contact me again, you inbred monster. My dad heard me and was upset that I had said that to someone that I was in an accident with and that I said that to the guy who thought that I was cute and just wanted to date, and I blocked that third number.

Next morning, super early, I got a text, basically saying that he finished the claim and I was awful for making it harder than it needed to be by going through insurance and not going on a date with him. He then included, you're so beautiful and ugly at the same time. Don't take risks. Stay on a good path. Goodbye. At this point I got scared and that was the fifth number I blocked. Then at midnight he texts me. You up? I know where you live. Don't try and screw me over on insurance. I'm reported as a hit and run. You should have just gone on a date with me. I took the phone to my dad, showed him the texts and filled them in. My dad, a pretty scary dude, then calls the guy and he answered.

Shoot, I knew you were into me. You want to come over, he says. My dad said that this was beyond harassment. This was his final warning to not contact me, that we didn't care how we reported it, etc. Robert began saying that I came on to him and offered him intimacy as payment and invited him to my house, none of which happened. Instantly blocked, police contacted, insurance notified, all of these things. The next day, I talk to insurance, protective order is filed, and I get another text telling me I shouldn't have involved police. Block 7th number, notify police, go to stay at my dad's because the dude doesn't have this address, and my dad is a very tall, scary dude who loves his second amendment.

So late last night, I'm watching Star Wars with my father and older brother, and the doorbell rings. My dad goes to see who it is and it's that Robert guy with a trash bag filled with things saying that I left these at his house. I call the police and my dad goes ballistic, all of the things. The police come, they arrest the guy, and the bag, you're probably asking yourself, is filled with lingerie, a knife, lip balm, and Dita Von Tess' fetish book. I just met with an attorney. And the plot twist to all of this? The guy doesn't own the house, is an illegal immigrant, and is married, and is now being deported. I feel awful he's being deported but I genuinely think that he

wanted to do terrible things to me or kill me. I go back to school in a few days and I'm so terrified that he or someone else will follow me. I ordered a board game on Amazon last week. It got delivered. I was just sitting on the couch when I get a board game on Amazon last week. It got delivered. I was just sitting on the couch when I get a phone call. The guy doesn't speak my language but I understand it's the delivery guy. I reply yes in the language that he was speaking to are you home. I start to run downstairs because my intercom isn't working while the guy screams on the phone with me to open the door. He starts kicking the building's front door,

which made me stop a little as I'm a girl and both my boyfriend and roommate were upstairs, but I would be going downstairs by myself. When I get there, he had dropped the package on my front step and was standing really far off. He looked distraught and his eyes were red. He asked if the package was for me and I nodded and I grabbed the package and closed the door ASAP. I'm terrified that he might come back since he knows where I live. I don't know why he was acting that way and I was as fast as I could be. I reported him to Amazon and they will investigate the situation and reach out to me again if they

need to. Thank you for the comments and I think it's good I reported him, and I just hope he doesn't remember where I live. To be continued... stay ever again. Now for some backstory, we were friends for about three months before we moved to separate states and continued our friendship virtually until now. It's been a healthy friendship with open communication. We have our disagreements but mostly always talked it out and moved on. They mostly revolve around her believing I don't open up enough and for me, she does things that are inconsiderate at times like be jealous of my long-term friends to their faces and have an odd attitude problem at times it's only been shown maybe three times she can also be a bit obsessive and get upset when i don't text her for more than

a day she's got loads of photos saved to her phone and remembers every little thing about me and has a list of my interests. I've seen it as endearing until now. The trip. Day one, the first day of the trip, it was great. She was bubbly and brought me a gift with a sweet note of appreciation. We went clubbing and headed to bed, separately for the night. And this is where things got weird. Remember we

slept separately while I woke up and she was in my bed. But not in my bed. She was sitting upright on top of the blankets next to me with her feet straight out and her back against the headboard while looking forward. I was startled and said, oh, instinctively, and she just looked at me. She never said that she was waiting for me to wake up or maybe she was uncomfortable on the couch. Nothing. And then she left my room. I have no clue how long that she was sitting there. Day two to three. In the morning, we walk the city where she seemed to be engaged and wanting to hold my hand while we were out and about. By midday, still day two, her attitude had shifted completely and she's near mute. She isn't conversing with me,

enjoying any activities, or even smiling anymore. At the bar, arcade, or even at home watching movies. You know how those driving games take a silly little photo of your profile pic on the leaderboard? I was blowing a kissy face in mine. I glanced at hers and even snapped a pic without her noticing. Her head was tilted forward, looking up at the camera. She was blank faced and you can mostly see the whites of her eyes. It was like the film poster of a horror film, like The Orphan from 2009. Anyways, for the rest of the trip she continued to not smile. She was cold to every service worker and she responded with one word answers otherwise and complained about any and everything. I asked her, are you okay? A couple of times and she replied, I'm fine, avoiding eye contact every time and the car rides were silent

and dinners were silent. On day four, the final day, I drove her to the airport at 3am. I asked if she enjoyed her visit and she said, it was okay, it was fine. I told her I enjoyed having her and she boarded her flight and left. I could not figure out what caused this 180 degree shift. I paid for everything, took her to all sorts of events that she wanted to go to and even took a day off, my first sick day ever, to take her to more. I felt myself overcompensating because I felt insecure of being a terrible host or something. I've had several friends stay with me and express to me that they've enjoyed themselves so much that they never wanted to leave, and I don't believe that I did anything wrong to ruin this trip. When she arrived home, she didn't contact me, but she posted photos and

videos of me captioned mine on her social media. I haven't brought this conversation up to her yet, and all of my family and friends believe that I narrowly avoided a Selena Yolanda lifetime film situation and that I was potentially with someone unstable. But what do you think? I got home from work at around 10.30pm today. I went to do my pretty typical after work routine. Check the mail, walk my dog and eat some dinner. I went to go check the mailbox and there was a car sitting idle in my neighbor's parking lot. I'd never seen this car here before. Headlights were on and a guy was sitting in the driver's seat.

I live alone and my boyfriend was over to drop me off at home after work and I went to unlock my apartment door for him because he wanted to pet my cat while I was out walking my dog. I take my dog to our usual potty spot which is a pretty sketchy area with very minimal lights and that's when the guy who was in the pickup truck got out and started to approach me in the dark. He pulled out his phone and asked me if I had seen the lady on his screen. He showed me a picture of a lady who I could barely make out as she took up maybe one sixth of his phone screen. He kept getting closer and closer as I kept telling him, no, I don't know who that is. He insisted that she lived in this apartment complex in unit 20. My apartment is nowhere near unit 20 it's on the other side of

the complex. I kept backing away from him and my dog could sense that there was something wrong with him and started to bark. She rarely barks until it's absolutely necessary. The more this guy talked the more he creeped me out. He said he needed to know her location to make sure that she's not a catfish, and he's not a bad guy because his kid is in the car waiting for him. At this point, I knew I had to get out of this situation, so I practically sprinted inside and went to go tell my boyfriend what had happened. I asked him to come out of the apartment with me to see if the car was still there and it was but the guy had gotten back into his truck but is still parked in my neighbor's spot while this was happening my neighbor had returned home and asked the truck to move out of his

parking spot which he did only to circle back five minutes later and park in the spot right next to my neighbor's car this spooked the hell out of me and I had ended up dialing the local non-emergency line for some peace of mind. My apartment has an extensive amount of security cameras due to the high crime rate in the area and I'm wondering if I should report this incident to the apartment complex. I don't know if this will gain any traction, but this has been on my mind ever since it happened. I'm a respiratory therapist that works at a local hospital. I was on my way to work, about less than a mile away from my occupation, when the car in front of me quickly merged into one of the emergency lanes,

as if something suddenly had just happened. Then he just sat there, no hazards going off, nothing to indicate that he planned on moving. I still had 20 minutes before I had to be at work, assuming this individual may be in distress or have car problems. I decided to be a good Samaritan. I parked on the shoulder of the road and turned on my hazards. We exchanged eye contact and I gestured a wave, rolled down my window and asked, Are you okay? He seemed to have either not heard me or ignored me, but he did seem to realize that I wanted to help him. He gets out of his car at this point.

Keep in mind, we are on an extremely busy road. I'm in my work scrubs, which tends to help people relax knowing that they're with a healthcare professional. However, this was different. When he got out of his vehicle, I assumed that he would have told me that he was in some type of pain or something that caused him to pull over so abruptly. He'd been driving fine the entire time I was behind him. So I casually get out of my vehicle and walk to the back end of his car. And this is when I officially start a conversation asking if he's

hurt, is something wrong? All the basics but the thing is his eyes were cold. He had this body language to him that almost made him seem a little unhinged or skittish. He'd not answered any of my questions so I tried once more asking, hey man we we're in the middle of a busy road, is there something wrong with your car or something going on with you? And he simply replied, no. I started to feel this sensation of discomfort like he wanted to do something to me but was restraining himself. I continued to play it off. He didn't seem drunk or high but he had those black beady eyes that I couldn't stop looking at. It was as if he was just a vessel to something dark. I try to continue the conversation. Why'd you stop, man? You don't want to get hit out here. He replies, I don't know. I don't know where to go.

I didn't know what he meant by this, so I questioned further by saying, do you know what city you're in right now? If you're lost, I can tell you where the nearest highway is, which was also less than a mile away. His reply was a little chilling. Anywhere but here. And I was now confused. He didn't know where he was, but felt this urge to get out of the area as quick as possible. So I asked, what direction are you wanting to go?

75 north will take you to Daytona, you take 75 south you'll head to Cincinnati. He asked, what would you do in my position? Now I have no idea what he meant by this and I simply replied, I don't know what kind of position you're in man, can you drive? The hospital I work for is within view, we don't have to go in, I just want to make sure that you don't get hit. He agrees to follow me but once I turned on my blinker to turn in the hospital he completely stopped following me, pulled a u-turn and sped off. Now I know this isn't the creepiest thing in the world, but you really have to try to understand just how foreign and strange this behavior was. Each time we engaged in conversation, it was as if he was contemplating telling me something, but ultimately remained silent. From the looks of it, he drove a red

Toyota, approximately a RAV4 hybrid maybe so i mean he didn't have a broken down car look like he was a substance abuser he just seemed incredibly nervous and his fast motion gestures and twitches of all his body language has left me puzzled and still gives me shudders when i think about how he moved, talked, lack of response, declining any help, not explaining a single reason as to why he just decided to park on the side of the road. A simple, oh I'm just lost, wouldn't even have been enough for me to feel better about the entire situation. He just seemed incredibly paranoid and hesitant. On top of it, the entire conversation led nowhere to his situation or why he was acting so strange. I just want to make sure that he didn't need help or get hit by a car. My youngest son is autistic and five years old.

It's very obvious that he's autistic, and he constantly stems with his hands, rocks back and forth and doesn't respond to communication. He's a gestalt language processor so he repeats catchphrases that only I can understand. For instance, he'll say, Saturday, I took him and my daughter who's 8 years old to the park. A man, probably in his mid to late 30s, was there with who he said was his niece. Her and my daughter hit it off, so he came over to talk to me. My son is in his own little world, but playing on the equipment from time to time. He hits himself in the head, so I try to constantly redirect him.

The man asks if my son is autistic and I say yes and he then asks when he was diagnosed. I told him at the age of two, almost three. He asks if he's in regular classes or special needs and I don't answer him right away because I'm starting to get uncomfortable. He can tell and responds with, I think my nephew is autistic and he's three. So I let my guard down a little, which was the wrong decision. I tell him he's in a special needs class and he asks what school because he wants to know options for his nephew. I hesitate and then tell him the four schools in the district that offer a special needs class, not specifying which school my son goes to. He then asks if my son runs off a lot and I just reply sometimes. He notices the

GPS tracker on my son's ankle and he asks while that tracks him and if he ever tries to take off. At this point I realize that this is not a conversation that I want to have. I tell him that I'm not comfortable talking to him about this anymore and he responds with, well I'm concerned about my nephew. I tell him not all autistic children are the same and he should get them evaluated. I call my daughter who is upset because she was having fun playing with the little girl and pick up my son and we go to the car. I'm watching him as we leave and he's just staring at us. My daughter asks why we had to go and I tell her that we had to go home and do some stuff around the house. She's very intuitive and asks, is it because of that girl's stepdad?

I ask her why she thinks he was her stepdad and she said that the little girl told her that he was her mom's boyfriend. I ask what else she said about him and she tells me the little girl said the man's name and that he likes to talk to girls like your mom and it makes my mom mad. I then ask if there was anything else and she tells me the girl said that she was glad that she met my daughter because she's an only child and doesn't get to play with other kids except at school. She also tells me the little girl asked her phone number and wanted to see her again soon. The man was lying to me. For what reason I don't know, I can only assume to make it seem like he was single or something. It could be more sinister than that, I have no idea.

I immediately call the police and tell them everything. They get my info and say that they're sending an officer to the park and by the time the officer got to the park a couple of hours later they were of course gone. I give the dispatcher a description, the man and little girl's first names and what I think that he was driving since it was just us there so I assume his vehicle was in the lot. They tell me that they will call if they need any more information. Lesson learned, I'm almost certain that he took advantage of my willingness to help another autistic person to try to get information about my son or about me. Update, the man has been found and arrested.

My brother shared my story with his friend who was a sheriff deputy in the county to the south of me. They had gotten similar reports about a man matching the same description. One report included him allegedly trying to lure a disabled toddler away from his mother at a trampoline park. They had video and his license plate at the time. My brother's friend sent me the guy's mugshot and asked if this was the man. It was. My brother's friend was investigating the trampoline park incident but since it was a different county, didn't know of my report until my brother shared it with him. I asked about the girl that was with him and he couldn't tell me anything other than she's

safe. They arrested him in a county almost two hours away from me. I found out his full name and looked up his charges. He had a warrant in the state to the north of me for so many things including stalking, violating a protective order and child endangerment. And now new charges due to the trampoline park incident. Since nothing technically illegal happened in my situation he won't have charges brought against him for that, but my story may be needed for this case. I'm not a lawyer or a law enforcement person, so I don't know specifics or how or why, but maybe to show a trend of his behavior, targeting disabled children. When I find out more, I'll update here.

Parents, trust your instincts. I know some comments think that I went too far for calling the police, but in this case, I am confident now that I did not. Who knows how many times he may have done this, but it just went unreported. In 2002, when I was 16, my parents went on vacation. While they were gone, I stayed at my older sister, Lisa's apartment, with her and my 8-year-old niece, Sarah. It was during fall break, so Sarah and I were out of school. Since it was only a two-bedroom apartment, Lisa let me sleep in Sarah's room, and Sarah slept in Lisa's room with her. On this particular morning, Sarah and I had both slept in. She was so excited that I was staying with them that she wanted to stay up all night watching Disney movies, and so we did.

Lisa had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I picked Sarah up and put her in Lisa's bed, and then I went to bed myself. The next morning, I woke up to a man's voice. Lisa's boyfriend, Gary, had a very recognizable deep voice, kind of like Vin Diesel. This voice wasn't Gary's voice at all. This voice was an older man and he sounded very agitated. I went into the living room to see who was here and I saw the man sitting on the love seat closest to the front door and Lisa was sitting in a chair adjacent to the love seat. He looked to be in his 60s and his shirt and jacket were nearly covered in blood splatter. She shot a fearful surprise glance at me as she forgot I was there.

The man stopped talking once he noticed Lisa had looked away from him. I made eye contact with him and he smiled and then he places the gun that he was holding onto the coffee table in front of him. I couldn't move. I didn't know what to do. My first thought was to get between him and Lisa somehow but I knew I had to stay where I was because he would have to get past me to get to the bedroom where Sarah was still sleeping. I searched the man's face trying to figure out who he was. He looked familiar but I couldn't place him. And he broke the silence. Hey, I didn't know anybody else was here.

I'm Eddie, Gary's stepdad. I faked a smile and gave a little weak wave. And he took out his cigarette and lit it. Lisa was still sitting on the sofa, seemingly bracing herself for whatever Eddie had planned. Eddie motioned for me to sit down on the bigger sofa across from him. I did as he said. He took out a bag of weed and some rolling papers and began to roll a joint. You smoke, youngster? He asked me, and Lisa spoke up. No, he doesn't. That's my baby brother. He's only 16. Eddie laughed, looked at Lisa, and then me, and said,

Damn, what the hell are y'all feeding these kids? That's a big one. Lisa laughed nervously. Eddie joined her, seemingly unaware of how uncomfortable we were. I got sidetracked. Let me finish telling you what this woman did, Lisa. Eddie went on to tell Lisa that he had just shot and killed a woman he knew because she stole $100 from him the previous night after he passed out drunk at home. He said that he knew it was her because he had pistol whipped Gary's mother and made her tell him who went through his wallet while he slept. He then told Lisa he regretted

not killing Gary's mother because he felt like she had set him up. He said he'd also shot the woman's husband but was unsure if he was dead. He laughed and said he knew for sure the woman was dead because her head exploded like a watermelon. And my stomach was in knots. I was sweating and I could no longer hide my fear. I heard Lisa's bedroom door open from where I sat and I saw Sarah walking across the hallway into the bathroom. Eddie looked in the direction of the hallway. Damn, Lisa. Who else is here?

Lisa spoke quickly. It's Sarah. Please, Eddie. You know I don't allow smoking around here. Can you go on the patio with that? Lisa's voice trembled. Eddie must have heard the fear in her voice because he replied, Girl, what are you scared of?

I ain't gonna do nothing to you. You're good people. I just wanted to come see you before I go. You know the police is probably looking for me by now. I just couldn't leave without seeing my favorite spades partner. Eddie smiled as he stood up and gathered his bag of weed, the joint, and the gun. I heard the toilet flush and then the sound of water running in the bathroom and I began to pray that Sarah wouldn't come out here before he left. Eddie must have read my thoughts because he said, don't worry young blood, I'm gonna get on out of here before that baby can see me like this.

Lisa and I both stood up as he walked to the door. Lisa opened the door for him and he walked out and we watched through the window as he got into his car and drove away. Lisa quickly grabbed the phone and called 911. Sarah came out of the bathroom and asked if the scary man was gone and Lisa said yes and hugged Sarah. She began to tell me that she never liked Eddie because he acted strange and looked scary. When she heard his voice on her way to the bathroom, she stayed in there because she didn't want to come out and see him. I was pacing back and forth trying to process what had just happened. Lisa explained that Eddie was a drug addict and an

alcoholic. Gary's mother had kicked him out because he would keep popping up at her house. She was already aware that Eddie had attacked Gary's mother because Gary had called to tell her, though they didn't know he'd killed anyone when he came to Lisa's house. Eddie was arrested shortly after our encounter and we had to talk to detectives. They told us the man he shot had died on the way to the hospital. It took years for me to forget the way he gleefully described killing that woman. He died in prison not long after he was finally convicted of the murders. In the late 90s, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said, The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow. Almost three decades later, the statement rings as loud as it does true. The World Wide Web has allowed both communication and commerce to flourish in ways that our

ancestors might have never thought possible, and the benefits have been innumerous. Yet the digital great leap forward has not been without its pitfalls. Some might say that despite being more connected than ever before, the western world has never been so divided. The deliberate engineering of algorithms has resulted in many of us being fed a daily stream of recreational outrage, while viral topics of debate encourage us to disagree over the pronunciation of a word, or the color of an evening gown. Yet this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. One could be forgiven for believing that the mass proliferation of the internet would result in a happier, more thoughtful global

society. But in some corners of the internet, quite the opposite is true. During the late spring of 2020, at the height of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, school closures across the United States forced millions of children to continue their education remotely. Some dealt with this sudden change remarkably well. Others did not. 17-year-old Matthew Von Antwerpen, who lived with his parents in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, began feeling increasingly lonely as the weeks dragged on. And like many teenagers, he sought a sense of community online. Yet despite having a veneer of compassion, the community he found did not have his best interests at heart. Any enjoyment or progress I make in life simply comes across as forced,

Matthew told his new friends. I know it is all just a distraction to blow time until the end. But instead of coaching him through such a challenging period in his life, Matthew's new friends made a horrifying suggestion. A short time afterward, Matthew's parents arrived home to discover their teenager son lying motionless in his bedroom. He had followed the advice of his new online friends and taken his own life. Following their son's death, Matthew's parents commissioned an analysis of their son's internet history in the hopes that it would shed some light on his motivations. What they discovered was chilling. In the weeks before his death, Matthew had been a frequent visitor to a website named Sanctioned Suicide. Founded by two shadowy figures calling themselves Serge and Marquis, the website not only provides detailed instructions on how to successfully end

your own life, but it also hosts message boards and chat rooms in which users actually encourage each other to do so. Some seek out partners to assist in taking their own lives, and it's been speculated that certain users have aided in the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of separate individuals. Fellow members often derided therapy and other treatments, while encouraging one another to keep their intentions hidden from relatives and medical professionals. Those who choose to announce the day of their departure are often responded to with thumbs up or heart emojis, and are told they're brave, a legend, or in one case, a hero. It's believed that the website was founded following the forced closure of a Reddit forum

known as rslashedsanctionedsuicide. Mainstream social networks operate a zero-tolerance policy concerning content which encourages self-harm, and rightfully so. But in the words of John Perry Barlow, one of the founders of the Electric Frontier Foundation, the internet treats censorship as a malfunction and routes around it. Sanctioned suicide didn't disappear when Reddit chose to censor it, it simply migrated elsewhere. On the day the website opened to the public, one of its founders wrote that he hated to see the community disperse and disappear and assured users that we know how to keep the website safe. Between the years of 2018 and 2021,

more than 500 individual users posted so-called goodbye threads on the website, announcing that they were just hours from taking their own lives. After that, the accounts remained eerily inactive. Since the website's users' profiles are strictly anonymous, it's impossible to determine how many of those posts are genuine. But one source claimed to know of at least 45 individual users who live-streamed taking their own lives. Although the site is accessed by vulnerable people across the globe, the vast majority of users hail from English-speaking countries, although it should also be noted that a disproportionate contingent of Italian users also appear to frequent the site. The demographics are diverse, and the user

base's reasons for ending their own lives are as vast and varied as the users themselves, but almost all agree that the newest and most effective method involves a substance that some of us consume every single day. Sodium nitrate is a yellowish-white odorless powder, and it's so easily obtainable that you can order it directly to your home, next day delivery via Amazon.com. The substance is used as a preservative in meat and fish products, but it's also used in car maintenance, metal treatment, and in rare cases, as an antidote for cyanide poisoning. Chances are if you've eaten a deli sub or a bacon sandwich during the last few years, you've ingested a small amount of sodium nitrate. But consume too much and it can be life-threatening. If high levels of the substance make it into your bloodstream, it can reduce the ability of your red blood cells to move oxygen around the body,

resulting in a painful and terrifying condition known as methemoglobinemia. Prior to bouts of dizziness and confusion, sufferers become extremely short of breath before eventually losing consciousness altogether, and if they aren't provided medical assistance almost immediately, there's a good chance they'll pass away as a result of advanced hypoxia. A wealth of such information made sanctioned suicide shockingly popular, with more than 6 million unique visitors to the site each month. That's four times the traffic of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which receives only 1.5 million views per month. But unlike the NSPL, which draws a vast range of users from a variety of different

ages and backgrounds, the age range of those frequenting sanctioned suicide are generally between the ages of 15 to 24. Such was the case with Daniel Del Canto, a 17-year-old high school junior who first came across the website during the fall of 2019. Back in 2016, a then 14-year-old Daniel had started to struggle with depressive thoughts, and after confiding in his parents, a combination of therapy and antidepressants were applied to great effect. Over the next two years, Daniel's academic performance improved dramatically. He also poured his energy into learning how to play the drums, and within just a year of picking up the sticks,

he was participating in live performances with the high school jazz band. In his spare time, Daniel would often retreat to his bedroom to play video games, yet his parents observed that, more often than not, he would play online with a group of friends. This was far preferable to hours spent in isolation, which had no doubt contributed to the depression Daniel had experienced as a 14-year-old. Things seemed to be going great, but sometime in 2019, Daniel began to develop severe stomach pains and became increasingly housebound as the condition grew worse. Unable to socialize and wracked by a seemingly untreatable infirmity,

Daniel became almost entirely nocturnal, and spent hours upon hours browsing the darkest depths of the internet. It was during these marathon surfing sessions that Daniel came across the Sanctioned Suicide website, and after browsing some of its resource threads, he came across a post regarding sodium nitrite. One user told him the substance was by far the quickest and most painless method by which he could end his own life. Another even sent him a link to a website that he could purchase it from. Daniel found that he could purchase 500 grams of sodium nitrite from an online chemist for just $30.

Consuming just 2.6 grams constitutes a lethal dose. I thought that you were supposed to feel happy as you near the date of taking your own life, Daniel wrote in a thread of his own. Is there a part of me just desperately hanging on? Another user quickly reassured him that he was doing the right thing. Setting a date has always upset me, the anonymous user wrote. I just keep extending it, but I won't be able to forever. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Hang in there. The post history of this user, who referred to themselves only as Stan, suggested that he was divorced, estranged from his children, and severely depressed. He was also a passionate advocate for the use of

sodium nitrite, and would go on to become a minority celebrity on the website after penning a detailed guide on how to obtain and ingest it. In response to another user's hesitance to take their own lives, Stan wrote, Keep talking to us. You are not alone, and don't stray from the method. On October 3rd of 2019, Daniel posted a photograph depicting a bottle of sodium nitrite he'd purchased online. Later that night, he thanked the website's user base for, quote, all of the good wishes. Daniel also confessed to being a little scared, but vowed that he would not survive the night. The post drew 11 hug emojis, 4 likes, 3 heart emojis, and 2 cry-smile emojis.

A few hours later, at around 2.30am, Pamela Del Canto got out of bed and walked down to her son's room to check on him. The notorious night owl had been worryingly quiet that evening, and when she opened his door, his mother understood why. Daniel was lying in bed with a half-empty glass of water and sodium nitrite on his nightstand, and from the moment his mother laid eyes on him, she knew that he was dead. According to Sanction Suicide's official rules, assisting or encouraging people taking their own life is strictly forbidden, but in reality, the practice of users reassuring or even goading each other into taking their own lives is shockingly commonplace. One former user, who claimed to be a middle-aged British woman named Emma,

admitted to a deep feeling of shock when, for the first time, she came across one of the so-called goodbye threads, but that it was also scarily easy to normalize what she was seeing. It felt like you were wrapping yourself up in this blanket of all of this misery and darkness, said Miss Davis, who eventually found this site dangerous and quit. You sort of felt safe, but you weren't safe. In one post on the site, a woman with a bipolar disorder explained that she had already attempted to take her own life on two previous occasions, and she was terrified of the effect her own life on two previous occasions, and she was terrified of the effect her death might have on her two young sons.

Instead of encouraging her to rethink her decision for the sake of her children, one user told her, I'm sorry your sons got traumatized, but you know you need to take your own life. In another post, a young Australian man confessed to harboring these ideations after being diagnosed with a certain mental illness. Instead of offering support, his fellow users asked him to live stream it, and with one joking about enjoying a box of popcorn while they watched him die. A few weeks later, the Australian man posted a goodbye thread and then logged off, never to return again. Another user, a Romanian psychology student named Roberta Barbos, was studying at the University that she was looking for an older man to, and I quote, hold her hand throughout her taking her own life. Roberta and her long-term boyfriend had recently broken up, causing her to sink into a deep depression.

In her despair, she searched the web and came across this website. Sometimes loneliness hurts so much that I can barely hold myself together, she searched the web and came across this website. Sometimes loneliness hurts so much that I can barely hold myself together, she wrote. Within hours, one user posted the following in reply. I'm based in Glasgow, he said, and I've a hell of a lot of experience with hanging, and I'd be happy to aid you if you want. No pressure, no judgment, and we can do things at your own pace. The man offering his help was named Craig McKinley, and although Roberta met with him briefly at a local coffee shop, he was unable to assist her in taking her own life. And that's because he was arrested just weeks later for assaulting two women who, taking their own life, he'd promised

to assist with. McKinley was later jailed for a minimum of two years and three months following a conviction for reckless conduct and was also given a lifelong restriction order, preventing him from contacting unfamiliar women via the internet. Despite McKinley's arrest, Roberta remained committed to taking her own life and her post-history revealed an increasing interest in the uses of poisons as her method. Finally, in February of 2020, Roberta was found dead by a neighbor. The exact method isn't listed in any of the online news reports, but I doubt anyone would be surprised if the coroner discovered a fatal amount of sodium nitrite in Roberta's system. In December of 2019, just two months after Daniel DeCanto's death, a coroner in the UK called for a full government inquiry after learning of Sanction's suicide during the course of his work.

The German government opened an investigation around a similar time, government inquiry after learning of sanctioned suicide during the course of his work. The German government opened an investigation around a similar time, while Australia's e-safety commission had been looking into the site for months prior to both the German and British inquiries. By November of 2020, the website garnered even more infamy after it was revealed that the wife of British Member of Parliament Owen Patterson had taken her own life during the summer of lockdowns after stumbling across the site during a bout of depression. At the time of writing, Italy, Germany, and Australia have all passed legislation which prevents internet users within their borders from accessing the website. But as many will tell you, circumventing such

bans is as easy as downloading and installing one of the many VPN networks available on today's online marketplace. Google has already started to filter certain websites from search results, but after pressure from government ministers, one senior manager was forced to explain that it simply wasn't in their power to remove things from the internet. Efforts to combat this website in other ways have been equally unsuccessful. The United States has laws against assisting in a person taking their own life. But not only is it notoriously difficult to enforce, but many states have yet to expand such laws to include online activity. What's more, website operators cannot be held legally responsible for the activities of their users, as federal law shields them from any liability. Initially, the two founders of this website promised to resist any attempt to take the website down.

Serge and Marquis moved the servers from country to country, making them almost impossible to track and work tirelessly to scrub the internet of any trace of their identity. In particular, Marquis has repeatedly stated that the website complies with U.S. law and does not permit assisting in or encouraging people to take their own lives. On several different occasions, he's referred to the site as a pro-choice forum that supports members' decisions to live or die. At the end of the day, people are responsible for their own actions, Marquis wrote, and there's not much we can do about that. Marquis might have claimed that the website complies with U.S. law,

but just a quick visit to the site reveals a very different story. In a post dated February 1st of 2024, a user named Sourdough asked, If I were able to secure a large amount of oral opiates, would these be sufficient for an overdose, or would my body just throw them up if I took them all? Another user replies, yes, especially in combination with isotoninazine. If you don't have a tolerance, then inhaling one will kill, most certainly in combination with benzos and absolutely in combination with alcohol. But that's not all the user wrote in reply.

They went on to claim that putting the powder in enteric coated capsules will ensure that they pass the stomach and only burst deep in the lower intestine pleasure that is insanely intense. For me, it became exponential and overwhelmingly unbearable until I blacked out. I then woke up with EMS all over the place. They rescued me, but I don't want to talk about that part right now. Prepare to die in a supersonic pleasure wave. Just don't be dumb and get addicted. Firstly, the user's reply was so unintelligible that it required heavy editing to be read aloud. They also used the word isotazines instead of isotinazine, referring to a kind of heart medication instead of the synthetic opioid. They also typed the word insuffating, a misspelling of the word insufflate, which means to blow or breathe hard on or into.

This, as I'm sure many of you will know, is not the correct word to describe snorting or inhaling. This suggests that users are extremely careless, communicating poorly in a second language, or they're extremely young and are using such words in a confident but incorrect manner. Secondly, the claim that someone will experience waves of pleasure during an opiate overdose is patently false. Victims feel cold, shaky, drowsy, and nauseous. Ask someone who's survived a heroin dose and the word pleasure is probably the last word they'd use to describe it. This reply constitutes a direct attempt to deceive and manipulate a

vulnerable person in taking their own life, and either was written by a malevolent adult or a child that has next to no idea what they're talking about and might even be receiving a twisted thrill from encouraging others to take their own lives. In November of 2020, an international effort to take the site down was successful, at least temporarily so. We have been planning this for years, Marquis wrote in a post he uploaded to the site, and we are confident even if they coordinated all takedowns at the same time, which is very unlikely, we could be back online within 24 hours. Serge and Marquis then went a step further to ensure the site's security

and began cracking down on anyone sharing personal contact information. Apparently this was to keep their users safe, but in reality, the move did nothing but prevent outsiders from identifying vulnerable loved ones and prevent life-saving measures being implemented in time. If you're preparing your departure, please contact Ahmad so we can help with preparations, Serge wrote. He then went on to announce that accounts that had posted goodbye threads would be deleted after a set period. Serge explained that this was to protect privacy, but it can be argued that all this did was prevent the families of the

dead from getting any closure regarding the deaths of their loved ones. In other messages posted to the site, Serge gave users an insight into his own ideations. There's not so much to tell about myself except that I've never really found a reason to be here, he wrote. There is little that I find worthy in this life. Marquis also confessed to having entertained the possibility of taking his own life and explained that, quote, this community was made as a place where people can freely speak about their issues without having to worry about being saved or given empty platitudes. Marquis certainly paints a saintly picture of himself. He seems to view his maintenance of the site as giving a voice to the voiceless Yet this website has been operating in various forms for almost 10 years now

And neither man has taken their own life Perhaps a better clue to the motivations was revealed in 2019 When it was discovered that Serge also runs a website for so-called incels. While the term remains controversial, the portmanteau incel reportedly stands for involuntary celibates. Such people believe they're incapable of attracting members of the opposite sex, either due to their appearance or social standing. Yet instead of trying to better themselves, such people were said to lean into their incel status and embrace feelings of envy, resentment, and retribution. Much like the sanctioned suicide website, the so-called

incel community used to congregate in a subsection of Reddit known as a subreddit. But in 2017, the community was banned following the Aztec high school shooting, the perpetrator of which had an alpha male of group tattoo, which is heavily associated with incel philosophy in the so-called manosphere. It seems that in the aftermath of the r slash incel subreddit being banned, Serge seized the opportunity to once again create what he referred to as a home for outcasts, and railed against digital censorship in an impassioned first post to the website. But in an interview on the subject, Serge said much of the discussion surrounding incels was, in a quote, fuel for taking your own lives. Does Serge mean that in a truly negative sense, and intend his incels website to be a kind of refuge among a sea of contempt?

Or does it give an insight into an alternative and much more sinister motive, one involving the curation of online spaces in which negativity is currency. Marquis has since vehemently denied cultivating a space where children can be exposed to extremely damaging information and content. He explained that his websites require account users to tick a box confirming they are 18, but in the same breath said that he would never institute policies which require sharing physical forms of identification, such as passports or driver's licenses. Markey also pointed out that links to suicide hotlines as well as other mental health resources are available on the website. But again, he noted that users who only engaged in the recovery thread, the one place on the site that has a hint of positivity to it, will most likely receive a permanent ban on

suspension of attempting to talk others out of taking their own lives. Marquis later dismissed attempts to take his website down as, and I quote, the usual pro-life BS, and said that he'd be willing to defend his views and actions in a court of law. They'll never prevail with censorship, he wrote, and we will fight every one of their attempts to do so. If people want to change, if they want self-improvement, basically the whole web is for that. But if we're being honest, not everyone has a way out. Finally, in January of 2021, a senior vice president at a company known as Epic received a telephone call. The company sells domains to various websites and the phone call was from none other than Sharon Luft, the mother of the 17-year-old I mentioned earlier, Matthew Van Antwerpen. Sharon pleaded with the vice president, Robert Davis,

and asked him to permanently remove Sanctionsuicide.com from their servers. Davis then reached out to Serge and Marquis in the hopes that securing their cooperation might result in a mutual understanding. But following a lengthy conversation, David released the following statement. The site owners lack the empathy, compassion, or intent to appropriately utilize the platform for future good, he said, before announcing that the site's services would be terminated with immediate effect. Critics celebrated, but within just a few days, it was back. The website had simply changed its name to SanctionsSuicide.net, the same domain it's hosted on today. In the state of Missouri, police were contacted by a friend of a man who'd taken his own life using sodium nitrite.

After searching his cell phone for any clues to his motivation, the man discovered that his departed friend had been a frequent visitor to the sanctioned suicide website. Not only had his fellow users instructed him on where to buy the substance that ended his life, but they talked him through the process of ingesting it, as in when it was happening. Having reached the so-called goodbye thread before Serge or Marquis had a chance to delete it, the deceased man's friend was horrified to find that, as he lay dying, the site's users actually celebrated his untimely demise. Naturally, the furious friend of the deceased sought legal retribution, but the case proved impossible to prosecute. The detective who handled the Missouri case asserted that without any physical evidence

of somebody assisting them to take their own life, there's no chance of bringing the matter to trial. It's true that back in June of 2017, 23-year-old Michelle Carter was convicted of manslaughter in Massachusetts after urging her boyfriend to take his own life. But in the Missouri case, they had no way of uncovering the names or addresses of those involved. In 2011, a detective from St. Paul, Minnesota helped convict a man for assisting in the suicide of someone he had met online. I'm convinced that there are smart people out there wearing a badge that could handle this type of internet crime, said the now-retired William Hader. But as it stands, we're simply not equipped to deal with that kind of cybercrime. According to the Center of Disease Control, the age-adjusted suicide rate in the United States increased by 33% between the years 2000 and 2020.

Their website also states that in the year 2023 alone, more than 50,000 Americans took their own lives. That's more than those that die from traffic accidents each year, the highest figure since records began, and does not include the hundreds of physician-assisted deaths in the nine states where they are legal, but restricted to the terminally ill. Some have called it a crisis, others an epidemic, but the fact remains that the United States is facing a battle unlike any it's ever experienced before. And just as our ancestors once exchanged their plowshares for swords in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, perhaps it is our turn to become citizen soldiers, so we may strive to conquer the greatest adversary some of us have ever faced, ourselves. Warning, the following content may be very disturbing.

In November of 2020, a rather innocuous-looking gentleman walked into a North London police station and politely informed an officer that he wished to file a report. When asked for a brief description of the crime, the man told the officer he'd been assaulted, and then after a short wait, he was ushered into an interview room to give a statement. Established almost 200 years ago, London's Metropolitan Police endeavour to maintain law and order in one of the largest, wealthiest, and most storied cities on earth. And needless to say, it is no easy task. In just the past two decades, London has endured terror attacks, multi-million pound diamond heists, and fiery incidents of rioting which left many areas of the city scorched and scarred. And so, as you can imagine, its police officers have just about seen everything. But what that innocuous looking gentleman told police officers in that Tottenham

police station back in November of 2020 was perhaps the most singularly horrifying thing that either of them had ever heard. The victim explained that in September of 2019, he'd visited the home of a 46-year-old Norwegian man named Marius Gustafsson, who lived in a nearby apartment building. The pair began consuming narcotics together. Then, once inebriated, Gustafsson coerced his hapless houseguest into taking off his clothes before using a razor-sharp scalpel to slice open his scrotum. The victim then told the pair of horrified officers that instead of rushing to a hospital to receive treatment for the wound, the victim had simply returned home in the hopes that it would heal on its own.

Yet the shallow but excruciating scrotal schism did not heal on its own, and over time, it became painfully and perilously infected. The two officers were aghast as the victim described how, instead of visiting a hospital, he had returned to Gustafsson's apartment in December of 2019 for the purpose of having his testicles removed entirely. Gustafsson had invited an acquaintance to join them, a 57-year-old former surgical assistant named David Carruthers, who had apparently offered to help amputate the victim's genitals. But unbeknownst to the victim, Carruthers was not there to help. When asked what kind of anesthetic he would be given, the victim was informed that no such sedative would be administered. Anesthesiology was a very exact science, he was told, and given the wrong dosage,

he might never wake up again. The victim believed that this was an indicator that his companions had his best interests at heart, when in reality, they wanted him to experience as much pain as possible. After setting up one of their smartphones to videotape the proceedings, Gustafsson directed the victim to imbibe a vast quantity of alcohol in order to dull as much of the oncoming pain as possible. Having drank as much as he could stomach, the victim was tied down and restrained, yet no amount of alcohol would have been sufficient to stifle his screams in the moment a metal livestock clamp was applied to his testicles.

The victim explained that following the agonizing clamping, they expected the next painful sensation to be their amputation. But instead of removing the victim's gonads, Marius Gustafsson took a red-hot branding iron and burned the letters E and M onto the rear of his thigh. What have you done to me? the victim reportedly cried out. But instead of answering his question, Marius Gustafsson ordered the victim to declare their undying servitude to him and that the procedure would not continue unless he did so. Desperate to put an end to his intolerable suffering, the victim cried out in submission,

declaring Gustafsson to be his lifelong lord and master, but the man himself was far from satisfied. He forced the victim to repeatedly proclaim his subjugation until finally Gustafsson directed the waiting surgical assistant to begin his gruesome work. Enthralled by the stocky Scandinavian, Carruthers stepped forward with a sharpened scalpel. Then, on Gustafsson's command, he sliced deep into the victim's genitals. Yet in the process of removing the first of the victim's two testes, Carruthers seemed to reverse his intended course of action.

Instead of removing the victim's testicles, he forced them back into his open scrotum and then sewed the wound shut with several jagged stitches. Horrified, the victim demanded that the surgical assistant complete the procedure, but he was told that the operation had started to go wrong. It's unclear whether this is the truth or if Gustafsson had directed Carruthers to lie to their terrified victim, but what's certain is that the victim was soon ordered to leave Gustafsson's apartment and, for good reason, he obeyed. When asked why he'd returned to Gustafsson's apartment instead of seeking

medical attention, the victim explained that the Norwegian was both intensely charismatic and shrewdly manipulative. Having first met him while suffering from extreme depression, Gustafsson was said to have captivated the victim, much in the way a cult leader might enrapture a potential follower. Then, once the victim was safely under his spell, Gustafsson introduced him to the world of so-called body modification. The victim went on to meet with several of Gustafsson's inner circle, men who shared his sickening fascination with amateur surgeries. But above all, the men's interest seemed to focus on one particular procedure,

male castration. At first, the group of people he introduced me to was welcoming and pleasant, the victim said. But in hindsight, I can see how manipulative and coercive it truly was. Over the course of several months, Gustafsson and his followers convinced the victim that he'd be happier following the removal of his genitals. They focused on issues that I had with my gender identity, the victim told police. I was told castration would fix me, that it was a lifestyle choice, and that if my therapist asked, I was to say that it was my idea, no one else's. The victim was then said to have broken down into tears as he described his genitals as being mangled, how he desperately

needed the help of a trained urologist, and how he had been wrestling with the urge to murder Marius Gustafsson for quite some time. When asked why he hadn't contacted the police sooner, the victim explained that he had legitimate concerns for his own safety. He claimed Gustafsson's followers numbered in the tens of thousands, and that he ran some kind of online castration cult from the comfort of his Tottenham apartment. Shortly after the victim signed his statement, Metropolitan police officers paid Gustafsson a visit, and following a search of his apartment, they found a variety of deeply concerning paraphernalia. Several steel clamps known as elastrators, the kind traditionally used to gel livestock, were found at his property,

along with a variety of other suspicious items, including forceps, electrodes, catheters, and scalpels. Gustafsson was arrested, but upon being taken into custody, officers observed that he was missing one of his legs. Certain provisions are made for disabled prisoners, and the Tottenham police officers attempted to make him as comfortable as possible during his detention. But during a brief investigation into how Gustafsson lost his leg, officers discovered something horrifying. The vast majority of limb amputations in the UK are the result of car accidents, yet according to his medical history, Gustafsson's leg was amputated after he reported to the hospital with severe frostbite. Once all of the living tissue in his leg was dead, Gustafsson contacted emergency

services and was rushed to the Royal Free Hospital in neighboring Camden. It was there that his leg was swiftly amputated, after which he remained in the hospital, receiving round-the-clock care for a full two months. Following his discharge, Gustafsson was bound to a wheelchair and, since he was no longer able to work as frequently or as intensely as he'd like, he went on to claim almost £20,000 in disability checks between July of 2019 and October of 2021. Yet this wasn't the only act of self-mutilation that Gustafsson subjected himself to. Shortly after his arrest, Gustafsson was charged with five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of making an indecent photograph of a child. At first, Gustafsson denied all charges, but as the investigation into his nocturnal activities deepened,

police discovered a litany of gruesome criminality. On February 18th of 2017, Gustafsson contacted a 29-year-old male escort by the name of Damien Burns. Just a few months prior, the pair had met via an online dating app and, in the process of discussing one another's deepest, darkest fantasies, Gustafsson confessed a desire to castrate himself. But not only that, he wanted Burns to help him do it. Burns later said that he was initially hesitant to assist in the procedure. I have no issue with it, he told Gustafsson via a text message, but won't you lose a lot of blood and like nearly die? Gustafsson then explained that he had studied several safe methods of castration and had successfully performed the procedure on no

less than 26 different men. But now, it was his turn to become what he described as a Nolo, a word derived from the term genital nullification. To secure his assistance, Burns was offered the equivalent of 750 US dollars. However, it was later established that this merely constituted an initial payment, and Burns was promised a far larger amount of money in exchange for his participation. Gustafsson explained that he would be taping the entire castration process, and that the edited video would be uploaded onto a website he owned and operated. When Burns asked what the website was called, he was given a name that will forever live in infamy.

Unikmaker.com. The video that was later uploaded to the site is perhaps some of the most graphically disturbing footage you are ever likely to witness. Not only is the video intensely gruesome, but the distinctly erotic overtones, which stand in stark contrast to the reality of the situation, make the footage even more difficult to view. Following the completion of the grisly procedure, in which a red vegetable knife was used, Burns looks directly into the watching camera and says,

Well, that's one for the bucket list. Gustafsson then contacted emergency services, telling the operator, I tried to do some surgery and it is a little bit more than a circumcision. He was rushed to hospital and then referred to a psychiatric unit for assessment, where he told doctors that he'd been a willing participant in his own castration and that he was perfectly sane. Despite the reservations of NHS doctors, Gustafsson was released after just 72 hours, at which point he almost immediately reached out to Damien Burns. Burns, who confessed to having thrown up as he departed Gustafsson's apartment, was told that several additional castrations had been arranged before being invited back to assist as,

and I quote, a sexy kinky helper. Over the next two years, Burns was reportedly paid over $2,000 for participating in several other acts of wanton mutilation. But he wasn't Gustafsson's only maniacal minion. Following his arrest in November of 2020, police discovered that Gustafsson's only maniacal minion. Following his arrest in November of 2020, police discovered that Gustafsson had been communicating with a young man named Jacob Creamy Appleby. He and Gustafsson first met in September of 2018, when Jacob was just 17 years old and, after establishing both a mutual attraction as well as a twisted kind of paternal relationship, Gustafsson began to introduce young Jacob to the world of body mods. At one point, Gustafsson boasted that he kept the testicles of his willing victims in jars of preservative fluid, to which Jacob

responded, that's awesome. Then, after ensuring that Jacob would willingly participate in his fiendish schemes, Gustafsson invited him to aid in the process of amputating his own leg. In what is frankly a jaw-dropping exchange of text messages, Jacob seemed delighted at the prospect of aiding in the removal of his new friend's limb. He believed that witnessing such a process would be quote, amazing, and that he couldn't wait to see what Gustafsson would look like following the amputation of his leg. They began to discuss the safest possible methods by which Gustafsson could remove his own appendage without bleeding to death, and after months of discussion, they came up with a diabolically ingenious plan. On February 21st of 2019, a now 18-year-old Jacob Creamy Appleby traveled from

his home in the London suburb of Epsom to Marius Gustafsson's apartment in Tottenham. Gustafsson welcomed the young man inside, then ushered him into his kitchen, where Jacob observed that a large plastic trash can had been filled with a mixture of water and ice. Over the next eight hours, Gustafsson kept his legs submerged in the freezing liquid, with Jacob adding more and more ice to ensure the water remained frigid. Much like many of the other procedures he oversaw or took part in, Gustafsson made a video recording of the process. The footage begins fairly innocuously and has the air of a mid-2010s viral challenge video, but as the hours tick by,

the proceedings take a deeply sinister air. At one point, Jacob and Gustafsson share a chuckle as the former dumps vast quantities of ice into the trash can. At another, the pair celebrate when Gustafsson announces that he can no longer feel his leg. When the extent of Gustafsson's activities became evident, coordinated police raids throughout London, Scotland, and South Wales resulted in the arrest of no less than ten of his alleged accomplices. Gustafsson's apartment was searched extensively for a second time, and during an

in-depth search of his bedroom, police officers located his severed but preserved phallus in a cubbyhole behind a chest of drawers. Police also discovered child exploitation material on Gustafsson's laptop computer, as well as images of bestiality that he'd shared with several other men online. Others arrested on suspicion of producing videos for eunuchmaker.com included a 30-year-old Romanian man of Gretna in Scotland who is said to have been involved in two procedures. A 64-year-old retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemists was arrested at his home in Surrey on February 2nd of 2022. He admitted to taking part in a grand total of nine back alley castrations, as well as supplying Gustafsson with scalpels and suturing kits. It was also discovered that he kept genitalia in a clover butter box labeled Bolete Mushrooms. 61-year-old David Carruthers was involved in four incidents of complete castration, including the deliberately botched procedure that resulted in the group's undoing.

For 11 years, he held a position as domestic assistant in the Welsh National Health Service, but possessed no formal medical training. 39-year-old Janus Atkin had briefly studied veterinarian medicine and used what he'd learned in the removal of eight men's genitalias. A 61-year-old German man named Stefan Scharf was also arrested in connection with the castrations, as was David Carruthers' 32-year-old boyfriend, Ashley Williams. Damien Burns and Jacob Creamy Appleby were also arrested, with each giving a detailed description of how the Unikmaker website operated. Although Gustafsson would regularly reach out to potential victims via the so-called deep web, Unikmaker.com hid itself in plain sight on the easily accessed

surface web. The website had multi-tiered membership plans with basic premium and VIP options, the latter of which cost users upward of £100 per year. One of the VIP videos included footage of Gustafsson subjecting a 16-year-old boy to genital torture. Electrodes were attached to the boy's privates, and while administering low-voltage but highly painful shocks, Gustafsson made the boy declare his undying servitude to him. In another upload, Gustafsson encouraged a Swedish man to amputate different parts of himself in two FaceTime recordings filmed three days apart. In the first video, Gustafsson can be heard saying, you know what to do, encouraging the man as he hesitates for a

moment before eventually commencing the act of gory self-mutilation. In the second video, Gustafsson is seen sipping an alcoholic drink before telling the victim to fully castrate himself. When the man hesitates for a second time, Gustafsson seems to sense his fear and laughs. The man is repeatedly goaded into going through with the act, then, with a skin-crawling yelp of pain, he does so. Gustafsson then tells the man to place his severed appendages into a freezer and instructs him to contact emergency services in order to save his own life. In another castration video, Gustafsson can be heard saying that was a lot quicker than the last one, and such a nice cut. He then displays the removed

testicle to the camera, as thousands of his most loyal subscribers watched on via a live stream. Following this particular procedure, Gustafsson added the victim's severed appendages to a salad he prepared, case that the website operated in plain sight, not on the dark web, but accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it or had the inclination to seek it out. The footage contained on the website, Carberry continued, is extremely explicit, and users could pay to subscribe or buy individual videos. We also have evidence that the defendant made nearly £300,000 during the four-year plot from exactly 22,841 global subscribers. Gustafsson's defense lawyer told the court that the trigger for his client's descent into the macabre was enduring a bitter divorce back in 2016. The marriage kept him sable,

he said. When it came to an end, it sent him into a spiral, and he had a desire to be the architect of his own body. His modification led him to feelings of empowerment. It appears at face value to be something that's become an addiction for him. His defense lawyer also told the court that his client had been diagnosed with a rare psychological condition known as body identity integrity disorder, and it was this that accounted for his desire to have body parts removed. At his trial's conclusion, Gustafson admitted to committing five counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, possessing criminal property, and distributing two indecent videos of a child between January 2017 and January of 2020. Damien Burns, the escort who aided Gustafsson with his

own castration back in early 2017, was jailed for five years back in January of this year on a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Gustafsson's much younger boyfriend, a now 23-year-old Jacob Creamy Appleby, was jailed for three years and eight months, while 48-year-old Nathaniel Arnold, who was believed to have severed one of Gustafson's nipples back in 2019, was given a suspended prison sentence of just two years. These judgments were handed down from the bench on the 4th and 5th of this month, May 2024, but Marius Gustafson's sentence has just been read before the court on Thursday, May 9th, 2024. With the New York Post reporting,

castration club's alleged ringleader, who made testicle salad, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison. So, as of just this week, a British judge has condemned Gustafsson to what they believe is a fitting punishment for a masterful but malevolent manipulator of the lowest order. To be continued... be alerted of all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday and Thursday at 7pm EST, and there are Superfund livestreams every Sunday and Wednesday night. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, or over email, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even

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