The Lets Read Podcast - 308: THERE WERE BODIES IN THE CELLAR | 13 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 294

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Hotels & terrifying tales off of Reddit HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT? [e-mail] FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ♫ Music & Cover art: INEKT https://www.youtube.com/@inekt Today's episode is sponsored by: - Betterhelp - The Minds of Madness Podcast

It was a lot of I don't know. We're going to be able to be. My granddaddy was a Texas ranger back during the Great Depression. He passed when I was just a kid, so most of the stories about him I got for my dad. But some of them are some real doosies, and this is probably the one that sticks with me the most. As you can probably imagine, the Great Depression meant a lot of folks turned to crime to make ends meet. And those already raking in ill-gotten gains had to really kick things up a gear to maintain the kind of lifestyle they'd become accustomed to.

As a consequence, Cochran County became the bank robbery capital of West Texas, with banks and credit unions in Morton, Whiteface, and Bledsoe, getting hit on a daily basis sometimes. A lot of the folks who robbed the Bledso Credit Union tried skipping over the border into New Mexico, but the feds got wise to them whizzing off along the 125 and started posting officers over in Tantam where they could head him off and take him into custody. But then, not everyone tried burning rubber down the 125, and a lot more folks seemed to be getting away than my grandpappy and his fellow rangers would have liked. One time, Grand Happy trying to track this one bank robber across the state, and this son of a bitch shot a female clerk after she spooked him, so there's no shortage of tips coming in from folks who think they spotted either him or his getaway car.

One of these tips is from a guy who said he was 99% sure that he spotted the getaway car in the parking lot of some isolated motel called The Yellow Rose. Granddaddy drives out there to talk to the proprietors who turned out to be this nice old couple living on a kind of semi-retirement out there in the middle of nowhere. They said the place used to be fairly lively back before Wall Street crashed, but by 1932, it was nothing but a glorified retirement home for him. hardly anyone stopped by anymore and whenever they did the two old-timers didn't bother keeping any kind of record they just let folks pay their 50-cent rate pick up any room they like and then check out whenever they cared to grandpappy said that they were both sweet as pie and they answered all of his and his partner's questions and they let them both take a look around the place to the heart's content and they promised they'd be in touch if they remembered anything else But as far as they knew, Grand Pappy's suspect never stopped by, and if his getaway car was spotted in the motel's parking lot, the guy certainly didn't check in with them at the front desk.

Grand Pappy thanks him for their time, recommends they start making records just in case they have to stop by again, and then off he and his partner go to chase up other clues. But the trail goes cold, and before long they're forced to focus on other fugitives. A few months go by, and my grandpappy and his partner chasing up some other suspect and some completely unrelated bank robbery when the name of the Yellow Rose Motel pops up again. This time, it's a guest who claimed to just so happen to have spotted Grand Pappy's suspect walk into a room, carrying the exact same kind of bag used in a liquor store robbery. Again, it seems like they're hot on their suspect's tails,

but then they roll up to the yellow rose, and it was pretty much the same story as last time. No, they didn't have any records of the guy staying there, but they did vaguely remember who my grandpappy was talking about after he showed them both a photograph, and aside from that, there were no help. At that stage, Grand Pappy and his partner weren't exactly suspicious of the old couple, but they were getting a tad frustrated at how unhelpful they were being. They could be forgiven on account of their age and dispositions, but still, Grand Pappy felt like if it were any other motel, he'd have both his robbery suspects and cuffs. And so, a few more months go by, and then, yep, you guessed it.

The name the Yellow Rose Motel pops up in the witness reports of armed robbery suspect. Once again, Grand Pappy and his partner drive out there to talk to the owners, only this time they catch the man. in a lie. The witness said the suspect had seemed nervous and unwilling to leave their room. This meant the older man of the couple had to head out to the guy's room every time he had an issue and apparently he had many. The man admitted to having talked to the suspect but at first tried to act confused as to which guests the rangers were talking about. But then, when Grandpappy asked if he'd been in the guy's room, long enough to get a real good look at him, I mean, the guy lied and said no. Grand Pappy and his partner played a cool. They didn't immediately throw the guy up against

the wall and accuse him of lying. That wasn't their style. Instead, they made it look like they were taking the guy at his word and then went off trying to figure out how that nice old couple were connected to the suspects. And Grand Pappy's partner thought that it was fairly simple. The old couple were offering shelter to the robbers, so long as they gave them a cut of their take. Rent wasn't 50 cents for folks. Oh no. It was more like 50 hundred, which back then was a heck of a lot of money. And the only problem was Grand Pappy and his partner had to prove that this was happening and considering they'd already searched the place pretty thoroughly without anything being found, they knew that wasn't going to be easy. They had to wait months before they heard anything else

about the Yellow Rose, and when they did, Grand Pappy and his partner just about broke the speed limit rushing to get that scoop. The lead was some bandito, some other agency had already apprehended and locked up. He figured his partner had screwed him over on the job, and so he wanted to get even. He told my grandpappy that his partner had not only driven off without him leading to his arrest, but he stiffed him for half of the money too. And the plan was that if either of them got caught and one got away with the money, they were to make sure that the other's family was well looked after while they were in prison. The partner had failed to do this, so the prisoner was pissed.

He tells Grand Pappy all about their plan, which was to head to the place called the Yellow Rose, which helped criminals escape the law in exchange for a cut of the loot. Grand Pappy's partner is just about hooting and hollering like, I knew it, damn it, I knew it all long. But a crucial piece of the puzzle was still missing. Grand Pappy still had no idea how the old couple were helping their guests disappear, and neither did the prisoner, so there was no putting them in cuffs till they figured that out. They thought about it for weeks on end, with their assistant chief breathing down their necks and demanding results. And then in the end, Grand Pappy and his partner came up with a plan.

They were going to enlist the help of a third ranger, one the elderly couple hadn't met yet, and they were going to send him in undercover, as a potential bank robber-looking type guy to buy their services. They thought the idea was foolproof, especially after their fellow ranger got himself firmly into character. They were dealing with low-down, no good sons of bitches on a nearly daily basis, so imitating one was as easy as fallen off a log. And all they had to do was be patient, gain a little trust, and then they were on for a stakeout. So the first step was obviously to have their ranger buddy approach the couple while undercover, to see if they'd help him disappear.

He walks in, a couple of minutes go by, then out he comes with a bona fide verbal guarantee that if he shows up with a law on his tail, and he pays them a couple hundred dollars, they'll help him Van Muson down to Mexico, where the law will never find him. And after that, it was just a case of picking a date in time, playing a phony news bulletin over the radio so the couple really believed there had been a robbery, and having their ranger roll up on the yellow rose, tires screeching, and with a big old bag of money. money. On the day of the undercover job, my grandpa and his partner went up to a water tower about a half mile from the yellow rose, and they watched the whole thing unfold through

a pair of binoculars. Their man rolls up, doing close to a hundred, runs into the check-in office like a man possessed, and then starts yelling about how the cops are on his tail and he needs hiding. The older man helps hide his car in the garage around back. Then they show him where their secret hiding spot is for their wanted fugitives. Grand Pappy and his partner watching as they take their undercover Ranger Buddy out of sight, with the plan being that when the couple show them what they do with the fugitive, he pulls a gun and two pairs of cuffs and then arrest them both. Grand Pappy and his partner had no real idea how long that was going to take because how long is a piece of string, you know? But then 30 minutes go by, then an hour, then two hours,

and they get to wondering what the hell is going on. There were no wires or anything back then, not like all the sophisticated doodads they got today, so they had to just sit and wait, getting more and more nervous until they decided to head in there themselves to search the place top to bottom again. But then, they do go in, and they go in heavy.

They got rangers, local sheriff's deputies, even two federal agents that drove up from planes at short notice once they heard a Texas ranger had gone missing. But it was the sniffer dogs that they brought along that found their missing ranger. And unfortunately, it wasn't because they were trained to smell people. Those dogs were trained to smell blood, and boy, did they find a lot of it. Out back near the garage where the old-timer kept the fugitive's cars, there was an old rust bucket of a broken-down truck just sitting there.

The dogs were all over it, or more specifically, they were sniffing at the ground underneath it before pointing like they had been trained to. The rangers had the broken-down truck moved, then they take a look at the patch of dirt more closely until they find what they're looking for. It was a carpet, or a sort of rug, and they brushed dirt and rocks over it, so unless you actually walk on top of the thing, it was no way of known it was there. They pulled it back, and right there in front of them, was a big old iron hatch leading down into, what I suppose you call these days, a bunker.

And inside that bunker was what can only be described as a kill factory. They had a kill room with a drain and hose for spraying off all the blood. They had a processing room where they could deal with the bodies. But they weren't just disposing of them in ways that no one would ever find them. The complete opposite situation, really. They were embalming and preserving these bodies with a sort of special kind of varnish to stop the skin from rotting, kind of like a taxidermist would. Then when the bodies were all waxed and dressed and their hair was combed,

they'd pose the bodies in a little room like they were all hanging out together. Worse thing is, they weren't doing it because they got a sick thrill out of it, at least the old couple claim that wasn't the case. They were doing it because they felt bad for the people they killed. They only killed them to begin with because fugitives were bad folks, as they put it, and they never would have killed the Ranger if they'd have known that he was an officer of the law. But unfortunately, the Ranger left it a little too late to reveal his identity, and the old-timer hit him over the head with a hammer.

And by the time the cops got there to rescue him, the old-timer had just about drained all the blood out of his body before processing. They couldn't go burying the bodies on their property, at least not without drawing too much attention. And so, they did what, according to them, was the next best thing, created a kind of mausoleum where these bad men could hang out at a nice room with books a record player and a poker table i'm deadly serious too they bought all that stuff with the money they got from their bank robbers saw it as the least they could do considering they murdered all those men it wasn't just the three guys my grandpappy was looking for either they killed four more criminals

they figured had a bunch of ill-gotten money on their person and they'd been at it for years too It was a very big story around Cochran County at the time, but I guess it never took off around the county because there was no big trial to play out for the cameras. The older man had a heart attack in his prison cell, and it turned out his wife was dying of cancer anyways because she passed away in the night before they could even get her arraigned. Dad said Grandpappy never did get over sending his Ranger buddy in there first.

Always said it should have been him. And I guess that's why he drank so much, which is why he passed when I was just a kid. And so all in all, I guess that old couple played quite a significant role in my family's history. And it's a hell of a thing to consider. Even worse, when you remember, they considered themselves good people. My husband had remained close to his childhood friend who, I'll call John, well into adulthood. They had met in elementary school and became inseparable ever since.

When I was dating my husband and met John, I thought he was such a nice guy. He had a very docile nature and a wholesome character. Everyone felt comfortable around him. John was the type of person that could get along with anyone. He was trustworthy, dependable, and genuinely kind. I was happy that my husband was able to keep such a good friend in this day and age when true friendships are so hard to find. Both me and my husband are estranged from our families,

so we were lucky to have someone like John in our lives, and we considered him like family. John was a nerd, like us, so we had many of the same. interests. We would meet up every once in a while to grab something to eat, catch a movie or just hang out at the house playing retro board games and discussing technology. We all three had a love of computers, so my husband and John often shared with each other small programs that they could write. My husband and I built computers for a time and John would come by to give his opinion and advise us on our projects. I suppose the only curious thing about John at that point was that he

never really had a girlfriend. In all the years we knew him, he had always been single. He never even dated. I didn't understand why such a nice guy hadn't found someone yet. Our lives seemed to evolve and change, but John just sort of stayed where he had always been, living with his family and never became involved with anyone romantically. And for a while there, we started thinking that maybe he was gay and was simply scared to reveal it since he had a pretty traditional family who he was very close to. And though we wandered amongst ourselves, we never brought it up to him as it seemed kind of inappropriate. It would be like we were invading his privacy or meddling in his life, and we figured that he would eventually find someone when he was ready. John suddenly moved away

to a city that was three hours away. When he told us, we thought at first that he had decided to finally move on his own, but we were wrong. He had actually moved into a home that his older sister had bought for her retirement. Since she wasn't ready to retire just yet, she was letting him stay there for the time being, and that's when things began to change. John sort of fell off the map. He wouldn't call. He wouldn't visit nor ask us to come visit him. My husband and I figured it was because of the distance. Also, he was probably settling into his new place and getting accustomed to a new city. But time continued passing, and I could tell my husband, was really missing his friend. And I had to admit that I was too. We had such good times together

and it was so unlike John to disconnect like that. It was so difficult to get in contact with him on the phone and he wasn't very active on his social media either. And I started to worry about him. I also didn't want my husband to continue distancing himself from his best friend as it could become permanent. And so I made it my mission to reignite our friendship. I called John and arranged for us to go visit him. Surprisingly, he didn't. He didn't seemed to even acknowledge the fact that it had been about two years since we had last seen each other. When we arrived at his place, I was taken a little aback as I hadn't been expecting what I saw. The house was in a pretty secluded neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, actually, and I didn't

know how he could get used to it here, going from a big city and all. And also, I hate to say this, but the house seemed dirty and messy. And John told us that he had transferred his job to this new city, even though they offered him a promotion, he had declined it, and he didn't want to work the extra hours. I looked around and thought that this made sense, since it seemed like John didn't like leaving the house very much, and I chuckled to myself as I thought the house looked more like a bunker than a home. To my dismay, I saw that John had his own room, as if he was still a teenager. In fact, it was decorated as if that is exactly what he still was. It was a mess. It was a in there. Computers and computer equipment on the floor, wires everywhere, clothes thrown about

all over the place, and John said his sister came to stay every other weekend, so she had the main bedroom for herself. He expressed how he hated for his privacy to be interrupted when she stayed over, but what could he do? And I thought to myself that he could just get his own place, but I didn't say it out loud. We all decided to go to dinner and browse some of the stores in the area, and I couldn't help myself any longer and asked John why we had lost contact. It had become so difficult to get a hold of him lately, and he kind of just shrugged it off and said that he had been so busy with the move that he must have lost track of time. He didn't ever want to lose contact like that with us again, and he appeared genuine,

but something felt off to me. His answers were too short and generic as if there had been some sort of script or he'd practice somehow. My husband told him that he thought that he would have had his own place by now since he moved all the way out here, and John said that it was just financially easier this way. Again, another short and very generic reply. I asked him if he was seeing anyone, and he said that he wasn't in the position to really do that right now, as he really wanted to get his finances in order first. I thought that every reply he gave made sense and was perfectly reasonable, but I also knew that he was lying.

Rather, he was hiding. I just didn't know what it was. It was just this nagging feeling that I couldn't shake off, and John just didn't seem like the person that we had known once. My husband and I drove home, kind of confused, but glad that we had spent some time with our old friend, and it had been a long time coming. John certainly answered all the questions that we had been curious about.

We believe that now that we had resumed contact that we would see more of him, but that didn't happen. John continued to be distant. His social media continued to not be updated, but I did notice something strange. Since I have him as a friend, I could see whatever he did that was public. And I noticed that he was liking Nickelodeon programs

and would sometimes make comments on their posts. The comments would just mention how good a show's last episode was or how he couldn't wait to find out what happened next. And I found this kind of odd. his comments also seem to have been written by someone much younger and not a man in his late 30s who still watched kids programs at that age oh well i just chalked it up to john always having been sort of innocent i guess and besides some adults still watch cartoons right i suppose there isn't anything too weird then with an adult liking kids sitcoms and i didn't mention it to my husband

i'm not sure why i just felt like i was once again little nosy and baiting john's privacy somehow. After all, it's not like I had purposely searched for this information. Besides, what would be the point of even mentioning it? It's just TV shows. And over the next couple of years, John visited us one time. Once again, I had to make a monumental effort to get him to meet with us, even though he traveled our way often to visit his mother. And I got this uncanny feeling that John was avoiding us. Again, as if he was hiding, but hiding what? My husband had pretty much accepted the fact that his friendship had somehow grown apart, and things would never be as they were before. No point of continuing to force the situation, and I resigned myself

to that fact as well. It happens. I figured it happened more commonly with childhood friends, since people do tend to go in different directions in adulthood. Some more time passed, and my husband mentioned John to me. He told me that he had wondered what he'd been up to and how it seemed like no matter how hard he tried, he kept losing contact with him. I could tell my husband was annoyed and couldn't call John because he was upset. And I decided to just give him a call myself. I hoped he still had his same number and luckily he did. John informed me that he had recently moved back in with his mother.

She needed him to be closer to her due to her ailing health. And I told him it was good he was back because we were planning on visiting my father so we could swing by and see him as well. And for the first time, John actually sounded strained and evasive. It didn't sound like himself at all. He told me that he really hadn't been expecting to move back, so he was having trouble getting settled in. And for this reason, he said that he would not be able to meet with us this soon. We would have to meet the following month. And that struck me as strange since his mother's house was the house he grew up in.

He had his own bedroom there, so why would it be so difficult to settle in? I accepted his wishes, though, and told him that the following month, we would plan on hanging out for sure. nothing could have prepared me and my husband for what happened next though as the month we were supposed to meet approached my husband called me to come downstairs and look at the tv he then said to hurry and i thought he was just being dramatic since he sometimes did so to get me to go see what he was watching so i reluctantly went downstairs i immediately noticed that he was white as a sheet now he had my attention and i asked him what in the world was wrong now he told me to look at this as he holds the remote in his hand pointing it to the TV and I sat down

next to him and he starts playing a news segment that was showing a courtroom suddenly John is led in by a bailiff wearing an orange suit with his hands and feet shackled and I literally did a double take as I couldn't believe that it was the same person I thought my husband was joking and was playing a video showing John or a look-alike like John, but there was no denying it was truly him. His full name was right there on the screen. The newscaster said that yet another man, John, has just been arrested in connection with one of the largest child trafficking rings that has been dismantled in recent history. John was just one of the many individuals who had been caught when the police successfully

obtained their information from a website on the dark web that had been shut down for featuring and spreading C-SAM or child exploitation material. The investigation had been going on for a few years. Both of our mouths were wide open as we stared at the TV in disbelief. My husband told me that he had been searching for a local TV show when he came across this. He told me he just couldn't believe it. He must have watched it over 20 times before he called me downstairs to see for myself, and I was speechless.

Sometime later when the initial shock subsided, my husband went online to search more information and appears that John's mother's home and his sister's home had both been raided, and they found hundreds of child exploitation content on his computer. John must have been collecting them since his youth. There also had been a DNA match. There wasn't much more information than that, and I was thankful for it as neither of us wanted to know what exactly that meant. John is going to be going to prison for the next 30-plus years, and he'll be an old man by the time

he makes it to his first parole hearing and would have to wear an ankle monitor for the remaining years if he was ever to actually be released. And we saw that his sister removed his name from the house that she had bought. She also removed all mention of him from her social media. And for his family to have disowned him, the details of what John did must be truly horrific. and it's obvious his family has no doubt of his guilt. I feel so sorry for his poor mother. She was such a sweet lady.

She had already lost two sons and now she lost a third. My husband and I removed John from our contact list and any trace of him from our social media as well. We severed all ties. We decided to not even contact his family and we will not be visiting him in prison either, though we have so many unanswered questions. this event broke my husband somehow he has become very paranoid and distrustful of other people and he's refused to make any new friends i can understand him though it's life-changing when you realize that you never truly know anyone regardless of how close you are to them not really anyway

the sweet humble guy that had slept in our home and shared so many great times with us had been an illusion a very good magic trick it's as if he hadn't ever existed except in our own minds. John had been hiding something after all, and he had been hiding that he was really a monster. This is an ad by BetterHelp. Share your thoughts about your own experiences, searching for wellness or mental health content online.

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at BetterHelp.com slash read. That's BetterHelp, h-elp.com slash read. to visit my adopted aunt Linda. She's my adopted aunt because, well, I didn't have much family growing up, and since she was decades years older than me and treated me like family, I just started calling her my aunt one day and it kind of stuck. We first met when we were living in Clearwater, but she developed respiratory problems as she got older and moved to live with an old friend of hers in the drier climates near Albuquerque.

We had a sort of tradition of having a fancy day from time to be. a time where we'd really treat ourselves, go shopping, then go eat somewhere incredibly fancy is like a sort of big morale booster. And when we first met, I wasn't doing so great. I was young and fresh out of a relationship and part of being my shoulder to cry on was taking our very first fancy day, which fast became a tradition. And so to save enough money as possible on that trip, so I could spend as much money as I wanted while I was in Albuquerque, I started looking for cheaper hotels and motels outside of Shreveport city limits, which is where I usually spent the night after around 12 to 13 hours of driving. I found what I thought was a cute little

guest house called the Hotel Deville. And at 20 bucks a night, it was considerably cheaper than most of the other options in downtown Shreveport, and it looked considerably nicer too. I called in advance to make sure that they were okay with late check-ins, and I mean late late too, because I sometimes didn't make it to Shreveport until late at night or very early in the morning. But then, once they confirmed that they could handle that, I booked a room and was excited to see what the place was like in person. If it was as nice as it looked, then I'd probably be a returning guest around two or three times a year. But as it turned out, I'll never be going back to the Hotel DeVille for as long as I live. and so like I said I didn't get to Shreveport until late at night but just as they said I'd be able to I checked in with the late-night desk clerk and was given my room key

the place seemed really nice but when I asked how many guests they had checked in the desk clerk said that I had the place to myself I thought that was kind of odd because nice hotels like that are very rarely empty but having the place to myself felt kind of luxurious or maybe more like, peaceful. And so instead of over-analyzing this situation, I just went to my room and got ready to take a shower. I didn't unpack right away. I just grabbed what I needed for my shower, which included a toothbrush I hadn't taken out of the wrapper yet. I unwrapped it, opened up the little mini trash can to throw the wrapper away, but noticed that there was no trash bag in there. You know, like the little white kind that goes in the smaller cans like that.

I thought about heading back to the check-end. desk to ask the night clerk for one. But then I remember that I had a little one of my own from CVS that I picked up my travel toiletries in, so I decided to use that one instead. I opened up the trash can and found it was one of those where you have to sort of slide out the plastic liner before putting a new trash bag in, so that's what I did. But then, I slid out the little black liner. I saw someone had scratched a single word into the plastic. Trafico. Now, from having told this story so many times now, some of you are probably going to be yelling at your phones or computers or TVs or whatever, something like, how could you not know what that means?

Well, although I don't speak Spanish, I kind of do know what that means. It's just that what you're probably thinking right now didn't occur to me at the time at all. I was so tired from driving for so long that I honestly just thought, what a weird place to. to tag something like that. Like of all the places to scratch your name or probably a nickname by the looks of things, why do it there, where most likely only the hotel's housekeeping would see it? I shrugged it off, put the trash can back together with a bag in it and then threw away the wrapping and box for my new toothbrush and toothpaste. I then took a shower, walked back into my room, tiled off, and then started looking around

for where the room's hair dryer was kept. and since from experience that's usually the deepest drawer or cabinet in the desk or bedside table that's where i went first i checked the little cabinet in the bedside table first and bingo there was the hair dryer but after i took it out i saw that there was a little piece of paper underneath it my first thought was something like this better not be a piece of paper that says not working or all that because i was very much looking forward to actually drying my hair it's kind of relaxing and soothing. But when I took it out and unfolded it, I saw that all it said was, help me. And the second I laid my eyes on those words, my heart kind of skipped a beat.

I checked the back of the paper, but there was nothing. That's all it said. Help me. I looked around the room again, my eyes darting to every corner as this sudden feeling that something was badly wrong took hold of me. I was irrationally terrified that. I was irrationally terrified that someone was in the room with me, but it was just me, alone with this creepy silence in the air. I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't sure if just a note was enough to call the cops over, so I took it down to the front desk to ask the clerk what he thought we should do about this. And the guy was still there, sitting at the desk, reading a magazine, and looking like he'd rather be at home in bed. I explained the situation, told him maybe someone had been scared or in fear for

their life in that room that I was in. But after realizing all I had was a handwritten note, he just sort of dismissed the thing as sort of a little prank. I asked him how he could be so sure that it was nothing to be alarmed over, and he responded by asking if there was anything broken, or any blood, or anything like that. There wasn't. There was only the note, and then when I made that clear, he said what I'd been thinking. But it wasn't enough to call the cops over, so unless I wanted to check out or move rooms, that wasn't much else that he could do for me. I walked back to my room and just sort of sat there for maybe 10 to 15 minutes and then repacked my stuff and actually checked out.

I literally felt like I was about to be the star of my own horror movie. I've listened to enough of your podcasts to know what happens next. Like I was about to get the dumb female supporting actress whose sheer ignorance and naivety gets her chopped to pieces in the opening 10 minutes. I'm not saying the clerk was in on it, and it was some kind of murder hotel like that H.H. Holmes freak that DiCaprio is set to play in that new movie. I just grabbed my bag and hurried out to my car and then drove until I found a quiet spot by the side of the road, away from any buildings, just trees and darkness. And I parked and locked the doors, and ironically, I felt way safer out there in my small car than that sort of eerie hotel room. I know I could have drove back into Shreveport to maybe find someplace there, but I was just so tired

and couldn't face the disappointment of going through the whole ordeal just to pay a bunch for a crappy hotel room. I tried to sleep, but even with how exhausted I was, it took me way longer than it should have. I couldn't stop thinking about that note, and I settled on the thought of sort of, I really hoped it was a prank. because the idea of thinking someone had left that note there, genuinely, and I found it out way too late, it just made me sick to my stomach. With the attitude the clerk took of just, oh well, it was probably just a prank. It's no wonder you hear all these horror stories about women getting kidnapped and trafficked in those kind of places.

Oh yeah, and back to that trafico thing. So when things finally went down on what that word really meant, I actually called the hotel to tell them how I thought both the note and scratched trafico word might be connected. It wasn't the same clerk that was on duty to the night that I checked in, but I told them what room number I was staying in and where exactly the word had been scratched. And the nice lady told me to wait a minute while she went to check the room and then came back a minute or so later to tell me that I must be mistaken. I said, no, I think you're mistaken, ma'am,

and then told her a second time exactly where the scratched word was. She told me that she had the exact trash can I was talking about on the desk in front of her. It hadn't even been emptied yet, and still had my toothbrush wrapper in it. She pulled out the plastic insert I was talking about, but according to her, there was nothing on it. And that's when I realized. Either she was lying to me, or the clerk on duty that night had swapped it out as soon as I'd walked out of the building. and whichever it was, I wasn't getting anywhere with that lady, so I just thanked her for her time and hung up. I just kept on driving towards Albuquerque. I told my Aunt Linda all about it when I

finally got to her, and she took all that confusion and fear away with five little words. You did the right thing. Even if it was just some dumb prank, I did the right thing in alerting the clerk and then getting out of there when I didn't feel safe anymore. And then for all I knew, the person who wrote that note did so a long time before I found it, in which case their situation could have quite easily resolved itself. Linda helped me rationalize it, squared away in my head, and then after that I started to feel a little better. And I'm not saying I'm haunted by what happened,

because like I said, I don't know for certain what I found that night. But even today I still wonder if I came across something very, very dark, and I only just touched the surface of what's going on. at that hotel. I was almost killed. I was almost killed by my ex-boyfriend. I'll be changing the name. I was almost killed by my ex-boyfriend. I'll be changing the name. to protect myself. Now, I'll start with a quick back story. At the time of the attack, I was 19, almost 20.

My ex, Gavin, was 27, and we had a big chow-chow and a cat. The dog was his and the cat was mine. We lived in a three-bedroom house. A few months before, we had allowed a friend to stay with us, Lacey, and it didn't end well, as she was just sort of taking advantage of us. The week leading up to the attack, Gavin had just gotten back from his family. his work trip, which I believe was about three to four weeks away from home. And the week that he was back, he was completely out of it, unable to complete a thought. I'd ask or tell him something

in less than five minutes later he'd completely forget or just not have heard me, just off in some other world almost. And one day, I was very frustrated with all of this, and I'd ask for help with chores or for him to take the garbage out, only to be ignored. One day, he said that if it continued, he wanted me to slap him. Now, we had gone out for dinner with his mom two days prior to this attack, and she was obviously very worried about him, as there was clearly something wrong. And at the time, the only mental disorder that he had or was aware of was OCD, though I am now even more convinced that it's not what he had by any means. In the day of the attack, we had just gotten back from grabbing some takeout, and we're sitting on the couch in the

living room. I had been painting my nails while he was playing Mario Kart, and he looked over at me and said, Lacey put a curse on my family. I was dealing with my own really poor mental health at the time, so I wasn't really in a space where I could be focusing on his. I have BPD, and I wasn't sure what to do. So I suggested that he hop in a cold shower, as it had helped him earlier in the week to reset a bit. He walked into the bathroom, muttering to himself, and it just felt so off. Now, I don't know how to describe it. I just didn't feel safe. And I walked over and asked if I could call his mom for a bit, maybe invite her over for supper, kind of beating around the bush that I wanted her to come help him. He looked at me and just started yelling that all he needed

was me. I walked out and started toward the living room as I was calling his mom. He came out of the bathroom naked and started yelling at Ollie, the dog, to discipline me and attack me. Mind you, he was trained as my guard dog. And at this point, I believe his mom had answered the phone and heard what was happening. He started calling me Lacey and saying that I needed to pay for what I did. I immediately ran into the bedroom with my phone and his mom was still in the line. He kicked down the door, smashed my head into our mirrored closet doors and threw my phone to the ground. He was screaming that he was going to kill me.

I scrambled out of the bedroom, trying to get to the front door and and as I was passing the kitchen, he got a hold of me. I wrapped his arms around my throat, again saying that he was going to kill me. I remember looking over to the table and seeing my cat, Sterling, all puffed up, and I had never seen him so scared. I was fighting to not go unconscious, and I couldn't breathe. I clawed at him, just trying to get his arms off my throat. I remember starting to see black specks in my vision and thinking,

am I going to die? What is he going to do with my body? Then he started asking me if I knew what it was like to have unspeakable things done to me. And this is the part where I'm not sure if he was actually out of his mind. I have been assaulted inappropriately before, and it had been a year that month, I guess, and I was very open about how that had been affecting me and open about telling him. He threw me to the ground and put his foot over my head as if to stomp on. it and this was the only time that I had seen his eyes throughout this attack and they were almost

lifeless his pupils were so dilated you could barely see the iris and he was yelling over and over again admit it lacy you know what you did admit it i just started apologizing doing and saying anything i could to make him happy and this seemed to work as i got the opportunity to scramble to my feet and race out the door and i just wish that i'd left the screen door open I ran from house to house and nothing but shorts in a sweater in February in one of the coldest provinces in Canada. I had gotten to maybe two to three houses before I heard Ollie screaming, and it's a sound I can never get out of my head. I just dropped to the ground, screaming and crying, Gaff and leave him alone, as I knew in that moment that he killed my dog. At this point, a bunch of the neighbors had heard me and came running to help.

An older couple called the police and brought me into their home, not knowing if they were putting their own lives at risk. My parents were living in a completely different province. Someone gave me their phone to call my mom, and she was out for supper with some friends, and I just told her, Gavin killed the dog, and tried to kill me. The police finally showed up after what seemed like hours, five or six cars, firearms, out and ready. They used a megaphone to tell him to come out with his hands up, and he walked out naked, covered in blood.

Once they had gotten him into the car, a police officer came to talk to me while the others searched the house, and shortly after, an officer came up and asked how many dogs we had, and I told him one and a cat. I asked if Ollie was still alive, and they told me that he was dead in the bathtub. Gavin had killed him in the living room and then brought him into the bathroom, filled up the tub, and put Ollie's body in it. I asked about the cat, and they said they couldn't find him yet. and I was sure that he had killed my sweet boy too.

Sterling was the only thing I could think about, and I went into a panic and was no longer able to give them any more information. I was in tunnel vision repeating, where's my cat, I want my cat, find my cat. The officers asked if there were any treats that they could use to coax him out and where his hiding spots usually were, and they ended up finding Sterling alive. But he was so scared in attacking the officers, they had blocked off the worst of the scene, so they had me go in to get him. There was still so much blood, and the smell of blood and feces was overpowering.

Sterling was in the bedroom on the bed, just crying. I scooped him up and asked the officers to find my vape, and as I was walking out of the house, Gavin's mom had just gotten out of her car. She asked me where Ollie was, and all I could say was, Gavin killed him. and she just dropped to the ground and started bawling. Two weeks later, Sterling and I were on a plane to my mom's. The court case took over two years, and I later found out Gavin had loaded our guns. And I never wanted to know how he killed Ollie,

but when going through the evidence, an officer mentioned a baseball bat, not knowing that I didn't want to know. He only got ten months of house arrests for all of this. And to this day, two years later, he still tries to contact me, blaming me for not getting him help earlier and i think the worst part is is that i do partly blame myself Have you ever stopped to wonder just how close you've come to danger without even realizing it? Every single day we encounter countless people, on the street, in the grocery store, at the gym, never truly knowing who they are or what they're capable of.

But what if one of those seemingly ordinary people was hiding a dark secret? What if they had done something unthinkable or were planning to? The Minds of Madness is a weekly true crime podcast that dives deep into the criminal psyche, covering the most shocking and disturbing cases you've ever heard of from all over the world. We're talking about ordinary people who do the most unthinkable things. Like a feral Goldilocks-style intruder who left a disgusting calling card before embarking on a reign of terror, leading to a nationwide manhunt or a seductive ex who used voodoo and manipulation to always get what she wanted.

The minds of madness examines the psychology of the perpetrators, trying to understand what makes them tick while interviewing experts, in forensic psychology and criminology, as well as survivors who fought for justice. Whether you're listening on your morning commute or during your evening jog, the minds of madness will completely immerse you in the world of true crime.

With gripping stories, insightful analysis, and unforgettable survivors' accounts, the Minds of Madness has everything you need to satisfy your darkest cravings. The Minds of Madness is available wherever you get your podcasts, or visit Minds of Madnesspodcast.com for more information. nestled along the banks of the Tadong River,

the North Korea capital of Pyongyang is perhaps one of the most unsettling and enigmatic places on earth. Befitting its moniker, the Hermit Kingdom grants entry to only a limited number of curious tourists each year, and those welcomed are subjected to incredibly strong. strict regulations. Visitors must always be accompanied by a guide and are only permitted to visit a handful of carefully selected and delicately curated locations. Then, as for their accommodation, visitors are usually checked into one of the only hotels in the entirety of North Korea that permits foreign guests, a stark beige monolith known as the Yang Gakdo International Hotel. meters wide and deep enough for the passage of large ships, the Taidong River is one of the

largest in North Korea and boasts a great number of larger and smaller islands. One of these islands, known as Yangak, is located almost smack-bang in the middle of Pyongyang, and is home to the eponymous International Hotel. Constructed in the late 80s on the island's far northern tip and opened in 1995, the 47-story Hotel essentially serves as a containment compound for North Korea's foreign visitors, and guests are only permitted to check in following a thoroughly extensive background check. Upon entering the Yangakdo Hotel, guests are greeted by high ceilings, marble floors, and dark leather seating, touches of rare opulence in a country like North Korea.

But plastering the lobby's walls are garish reminders of both time and place. Vast hand-painted murals depict heroic, larger-than-life figures engaged in key moments of North Korean history, such as the nation's founding, or their supposed victory in the Korean War. Others show scenes of joyful workers, farmers, or soldiers, all embodying the spirit of self-sufficiency and loyalty to the state. In each image, everyone is smiling, everyone is joyful. But they are mass which hide a terrifying but wholly unsubstantiated. speakable truth. Upstairs, rooms are decorated in very neutral shades of beige, cream, and light green.

The furniture is functional. The bathroom's Spartan, but clean, yet the hotel's more public spaces are anything but ordinary. At the top of the hotel sits a slowly revolving restaurant, offering diners a 360-degree view of Pyongyang while enjoying a blend of Korean and Western cuisine. while the hotel's casino attempts to add a touch of Vegas to proceedings with red carpets, gold fixtures, and the tinkle of slot machines for ambiance. The hotel's basement hosts a gift merchant, a one-stop shop for all your propaganda needs, where things like books, badges, and posters are available to purchase.

However, there is another area of the hotel that is strictly forbidden to its guests and have thus become a subject of deep curiosity to both visitors and a business. observers alike. The hotel's staff refer to it as the communication and rebroadcasting floor, but guests simply refer to the place as the fifth floor. Many believe the fifth floor serves a dual purpose within the hotel. The first is to monitor the movements and communications of the hotel's guests. The second is to ensure the compliance and loyalty of the hotel staff. Unlike the rest of the hotel, the fifth floor is said to be decorated in the style of a North Korean military installation, with endless grays and aggressive propaganda replacing the soft colors and

warm welcomes of the wider hotel. Yet the fact remains that no one actually knows for certain what occurs there. Seldom as North Korea permitted Western photographers onto the fifth floor, and their explanation of the floor's purpose has been vague at best. Many know better than to go snooping around restricted areas in a country's suffering of brutal dictatorship, but the same could not be said for one particular visitor to the Young Gakdo International, who, through either valor or vacuousness, decided to find out for himself. Born on December 12th of 1994, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Otto Frederick Wormbeer grew up to be an intelligent and gregarious young man. Upon graduating high school, he studied commerce and economics at the University of Virginia and spent a year at the

London School of Economics as part of an exchange program. It seems his visit to the United Kingdom sparked a deep wanderlust in Young Otto, and over the years that followed, he traveled to Cuba, Ecuador, and a host of other European countries. By the summer of 2015, Otto had turned to sites on East Asia, and after some searching, secured a free trip to Hong Kong via another study abroad program, set to commence in January the following year. But while researching his exciting new adventure, Otto came across a group known as Young Pioneer Tours. Run by two Western men and operating out of a Chinese city close to the North Korean border, Young Pioneer Tours advertised trips to destinations your mother would rather you

stay away from, including the isolated and insular nation of North Korea. The tour group claimed to operate in close conjunction with North Korean authorities, and that all visitors, including the United States citizens, could be guaranteed their safety if they obeyed the rather expansive list of rules and regulations. Otto became captivated with the idea of visiting the capital of the so-called Hermit Kingdom and told his father he wanted to experience the North Korean culture and people for himself. He checked a schedule, realized he could attend a five-day New Year's tour before departing for Hong Kong, then flew out to Beijing on December 29th 2015. Upon his arrival in Beijing, Otto met with other members of his North Korean

tour group, which to his surprise included 10 other U.S. citizens. Then, after presenting Chinese authorities with special permits, they boarded a flight to Pyongyang and touched down in the early hours of New Year's Eve. After disembarking the plane, the tour group was immediately separated from their fellow passengers. They were then driven directly to the Yang Gakdo International Hotel, where they checked in and were given some breakfast. After that, Otto and his fellow tourists were taken to Pyongyang's Kim Il-Song Square, which features galleries, museums, and a national library known as the Grand People's Study House. The square is cleverly designed to create an optical illusion, whereby the center of the square

stands lower than the nearby riverbank. This creates the impression that the 170-merex meter-high-jouche Tower, which stands on the opposite side of the Teodong River, is sprouting from the end of the square, when in reality its foundations lie much further away. Otto's North Korean guides were keen to showcase such architectural feats. Then, after a short stop at the Austrian-style coffee shop attached to the Korean Central History Museum, they returned to the Yangkdo Hotel. Following their evening meal, Otto and his fellow guests were invited to part take in alcoholic beverages at the hotel bar. They were also invited to enjoy the annual New Year's

Eve fireworks display, taking place at midnight over the waters of the Taigong River. But aside from that, they were not permitted to leave the hotel premises for any reason whatsoever. Scouser, Danny Grattan, a member of the tour group from Liverpool in the United Kingdom, told journalists that he, Otto and a handful of other tourists, spend the evening getting drunk in the hotel bar. They watched the fireworks around midnight, ordered a few more drinks from the rather terse North Korean bartender, and then retired to their rooms at around 1.30 in the morning. Danny Grattan remembered Otto being quite intoxicated, but otherwise in control of himself. What happened next suggests otherwise.

Otto was known to thoroughly research his prospective travel destinations, and he'd no doubt done a lot of prior reading to the Yang Gaktou Hotel. Since visitors are explicitly warned to stay away from the hotel's communication and rebroadcasting floor, many returned home with eerie stories regarding the mysterious fifth floor. Otto had almost certainly heard of such stories and likely harbored his own personal curiosities. He also no doubt observed how quiet the hotel was in the wee small hours of the morning. So whether out of bold inebriation or some other unknown inclination, and Otto crept out of his hotel room, walked down to the elevator,

and hit the bright red call button labeled five. When the elevator door opened in front of him, Otto Warm Beer found himself on the legendary fifth floor of the Yang Gakdo International Hotel. And all the stories were true. The color scheme was metallic. The hallways seemed endless, and the garish propaganda posters which lined the walls

were unlike any his guides had permitted him to see. One image showed a North Korean tank, crushing American and South Korean soldiers under its treads. Another depicted North Korean soldiers with bayonets, advancing on a scene where an American soldier threatens a mother and a child. The American is depicted in a grotesque, monstrous form as he lunges at the terrified mother, while the handsome and heroic North Koreans rush to save her. Other posters depicted the U.S. Capitol building, and the moments before being struck by a North Korea, nuclear warhead, the U.S. will be crushed first if they invade us, the caption read. Otto was no doubt exhilarated to have snuck onto the fifth floor, and after perusing the

hallways for a few minutes, he decided to head back to his room for the night, but not without grabbing himself a little souvenir in the form of a North Korean propaganda poster. It's unclear which poster he took, and frankly, no one is 100% certain if he even stole one. or not. But two days later, as Otto arrived at Pyongyang International Airport to await his flight back to China, he was arrested by North Korean officials. Danny Grattan, the Liverpoolian on the tour, later issued a statement to the Western press. No words were spoken, Gratton said. Two guards came over and simply tapped Otto on the shoulder and led him away. I just said kind of quite Nervously, well, that's the last we'll see of you.

There's a great irony in those words because that was the last physical time I saw Otto ever. He didn't resist. He didn't look scared. He sort of half smiled, then off they went. As the decidedly nervous tour group boarded their plane, Grattan hoped Otto would suddenly walk through the hatch, a relieved smile on his face. But the only other person who did was a North Korean police officer. auto warm beer is very sick he said and has been taken to the hospital a representative from young pioneer tours attempted to talk to the officer but was informed any further communications would have to be conducted via official channels

North Korean air traffic controlled and ordered the plane to depart, and having little choice in the matter, the pilot opted to obey their commands. Otto Warmbier had been left behind. In the days that followed, the country's state-run Korean Central News Agency announced that Otto had been detained for a hostile act against the state. They refused to provide any further details for weeks on end, but during this period, a young pioneer spokesperson told, Otto's parents, as well as the Reuters News Agency, that there had been an incident at the

Yang Gakdo Hotel. And to their knowledge, Otto had obeyed every rule and regulation put to him, but since their relationship with the North Koreans had suddenly soured, they were unwilling to provide any further information on his arrest or detention. Otto's parents had to wait a full six weeks before they got any answers, at which point they came from the lips of their own son. On February 29th of 2016, the North Koreans held a press conference in which Otto was paraded before their state media. Reading from a prepared statement, Otto confessed to the attempted theft of a propaganda poster from a restricted area of the second floor,

with the changing of the fifth to second floor being a way of deterring future thefts. The poster, which supposedly said, let's arm ourselves strongly with Kim Jong-il's patriotism, was intended to, it as a harmless souvenir. But in the eyes of the North Korean judiciary, its attempted theft represented a serious crime. Otto also went on to state that the attempted theft had been committed on behalf of a Methodist church in his hometown, as well as a secret fraternity at the University of Virginia known as Zee Society. However, both groups denied any association with Otto, with Time magazine later calling the accusations fancable and implausible. Many believe the confession to have been coerced in some way,

as not only did one observer remark that Otto was clearly under duress, but countless other former prisoners have detailed horrific torture sessions in which they were forced to issue false and damning statements against themselves. On March 16th, a U.S. envoy met with two North Korean officials to negotiate Otto's release. His attempts were unsuccessful, and just hours later, Otto was convicted in North Korea's Supreme Court on charges of subverting Article 60 of North Korea's criminal code. His trial, which lasted just one hour, included evidence such as CCTV footage, fingerprint evidence, witness testimony, and Otto's own coerced confession.

The CCTV footage showed a man, identified as warm beer by his North Korean guide, entering the staff-only area. This was followed by the release of a brief low-resolution video. time stamped at 157 a.m. showing a figure removing a poster from a wall and placing it on the floor. A hotel staff member told the court, when I got off work, it was nothing amiss. But when I returned, I thought someone had deliberately taken the slogan down, so I mobilized security to prevent damage to it and reported it to the authorities. In his confession, Otto claimed that he had abandoned the poster after discovering it was too large to carry away. I never, never should allow myself to be lured by the United States administration into committing a crime in this country, he said, and a statement quite clearly written by North Korean spin doctors.

I wish that the United States administration never manipulated people like myself and the future to commit crimes against foreign countries. I entirely beg you, the people in government of the DPRK, for your forgiveness. Please, I made the worst mistake of my life. His pleas fell on deaf ears. The court held that he had committed a crime and, I quote, pursuant to the United States government's hostile policy toward North Korea in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist. He was then sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in a North Korean prison camp.

Human Rights Watch labeled the hearing a kangaroo court while describing the sentence Otto was given as outrageous and shocking. And despite North Korea's case, claims to the contrary, U.S. State Department's spokesman, Mark Toner, stated it was clear that they had arrested an American citizen purely for political purposes. Otto's parents, Fred and Cindy, met with numerous Obama administration officials, including then-Secretary of State John Kerry, but North Korean diplomats proved prickly at best. It wasn't until June of 2017 that negotiations bore fruit.

When Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, announced that North Korea had released Otto following a full pardon for his crimes against the state. However, during a June 6th meeting with North Korean officials, a representative of the U.S. State Department was informed that Otto had contracted food-borne botulism shortly after his sentencing and had fallen into a coma after taking a sleeping pill. U.S. officials asked North Korea exactly how long Otto had been in a coma, and the answer they got was as shocking as it was horrifying. 15 months, they were told.

On June 13th, Otto arrived at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where medical staff tried to determine what caused his coma and if there were signs of recovery. Doctors soon determined that Otto was in a state of unresponsive wakefulness, more commonly known as a persistent vegetative state. He was able to breathe on his own and blink his eyes, but otherwise showed no signs of being aware of his environment. The medical director of the team, which transported Warmbier back to the United States, stated there was every indication that Otto had adequate medical care during his detention.

However, the release of two scans showed extensive damage to his brain, which doctors believed was consistent with a cardiopulmonary event that caused the brain to be deprived of oxygen. It wasn't exactly clear what had caused such oxygen deprivation. There was no evidence of botulism, nor was there any evidence of torture or abuse. and scans of Otto's neck and skull were normal outside of the already identified brain injuries. In fact, as one doctor phrased it, for somebody who had been bedridden for more than a year, his skin and body were in excellent condition. Otto's father held a press conference on June 15th but declined to answer questions pertaining to his son's injuries.

However, he did state that not only was he furious with the North Koreans, but he didn't believe a word they told him. There was no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition secret and to have denied him top-notch medical care for so long, he said. Sadly, following a week of discussion with expert medical officials, Otto's parents made the decision to have his feeding tube removed and he passed away at 2.20 p.m. on June 19th of 2017. He was just 22 years old. Otto's parents released a public statement. thanking the hospital staff for all their hard work while President Donald Trump at the time condemned the brutality of the North Korean regime. North Korea, on the other hand, claimed they were the situation's biggest victim,

accusing the United States of a smear campaign while stating their treatment of Otto was humanitarian. A spokesperson for the communist nation said, Although we had no reason at all to show mercy to such a criminal of the enemy state, We provided him with medical treatments and care with all sincerity on humanitarian basis until his return to the United States, considering that his health got worse. At the request of Wormbeer's family, no autopsy was performed and only an external examination was conducted. Medical examiners came up with a variety of theories for what caused Otto's oxygen starvation, including blood clots, pneumonia, sepsis, or kidney failure. They also said it was plausible that sleeping pills could have caused Warmbier to stop breathing if he had botulism and was paralyzed from it.

University of Cincinnati doctors found no evidence of botulism, yet several experienced neurologists asserted that given the length of time before Otto's return to the United States, botulism could not be altogether ruled out. The U.S. coroner, who examined Warmbier's body after his death, said that Warmbier's body showed no obvious signs of torture. But the word obvious is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. Otto could have easily been subjected to advanced forms of water torture. In fact, some have theorized that being water-boarded too heavily

was the exact cause of Otto's oxygen starvation. Many who asserted that Otto had been tortured and direct contravention of the coroner's reports were ridiculed by those who failed to take such methods of torture into account. But in 2019, a Korean-American businessman detained at the same time as Otto claimed he'd seen a young Western man, almost fainting, and being dragged across a hallway by investigators with his head and face soaked with water. This sighting might have taken place just moments before Otto fell unconscious, never to wake up again. Otto's funeral was held on June 22nd of 2017 at his former school, Wyoming High. more than 2,500 people showed up to say goodbye.

He was then buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Glendale, Ohio, where students tied ribbons on every tree and pole along the funeral procession's three miles route, all the way from the high school to the nearby cemetery. A week later, the United States government announced that it would ban American tourists from visiting North Korea, with Warmbier's detention and death being cited as a contributing factor. In 2022, Otto's parents announced the creation of the Otto Warm Beer Scholarship Fund, with his first recipient being North Korean defector, Sanyang Li. Around the same time, Saryong Li gave a talk at TEDx UCLA, entitled,

Our Bubbles of Certainty, a perspective from my life in North Korea. It's a very poignant talk, and one highly recommended to those who wish to know more about the Orwellian horrors, of the Hermit Kingdom. Michael Kirby, Chairman of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea once wrote that Otto's fate has become a metaphor, a kind of symbol, of a big story about thousands of nameless statistics locked up and oppressed in North Korea. They are voiceless, but Otto Warmbears speaks of their suffering from his grave. This happened to me in Tempe, Arizona, not far from Mill Avenue where all the bars are at.

I was out bar hopping with a group of friends one weekend, having a good time, and I had gotten pretty wasted. I have this terrible habit of wandering off and getting lost when I drink, and this particular night I had managed to get myself in a very dumb situation. After wandering down streets for almost an hour, I started to realize that it was very lost, and to make things worse, my phone was out of battery. At some point I decided that I would just walk back to my friend's house, which I knew was somewhere north of an area that we were bar hopping. Now, I should mention that I am severely incompetent when it's not.

comes to directions and navigating in a city, so I didn't realize that I was a solid seven to eight miles away from my friend's place. As I was stumbling confidently along the empty roads at 2 a.m., a sedan suddenly pulls off the road in front of me, aggressively, almost blocking my path. Somewhat startled, I look towards the driver's side and see a rather large and mean-looking black gentlemen staring me down. In situations like this, most people have to be a very large, you know, one of two reactions. They either become scared and defensive or angry and aggressive. I, on the other hand, am an insane person and was just drunk enough to have no sense of the danger that I might be in. Now, I should mention that I am your typical, privileged, suburban white boy, not particularly threatening

or big. And I proceeded to wave at the guy saying, hey man, what's good? I'm not completely sure, but I think I was probably smiling, too. I specifically remember the face that he made. made. It was sort of confused and conflicted, as if I were asking him what year it was. He paused for a second and asked me something, but I couldn't understand what he said. And I responded back, huh? And he then asked me, where are you going? I told him I was trying to walk to my friend's place, but I have no idea where I am. After another pause, he told me to get in. Now, without thinking, I walk over to the passenger side and hopped in. Pretty dumb, right?

Well, at the time, it seemed like a good idea. And once I got in, I was able to get a better look at the guy. He was covered in tattoos and was wearing your typical thug attire. I also noticed his arm was all bandaged. Oh, and he had a pistol, clearly tucked into his shorts. And again, for some reason, none of this fazed me at the time. He asked me where my friend's place was, and I gave him directions. Now, I'm pretty sociable and talkative when I drink,

so I immediately started chatting with the guy casually. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but eventually he started telling me that he had just gotten out of the hospital after being treated for a gunshot wound on his arm, and his girl just broke up with him because of it. Apparently, she didn't like that he was in a gang and getting into gunfights. Go figure. He then told me that he was real pissed off about her and about getting shot, and he was driving around looking for someone to rob when he found me,

and that he has served time for robbery in the past. At that point, my drunken brain started to connect the dots, and I thought about the roughly $200 that I had in my wallet at that very moment. But instead of freaking out, I just said something like, damn, man, that's rough. He also told me that he really wanted to be a rapper, and he was trying to get his music career started. I tried to be supportive, telling him to just go for it. About 10 to 15 minutes later, we pulled up at my friend's place.

Now, this is when I should have just gotten out of the car, and told the armed man, thanks for the ride, but again, I'm an insane person and felt like I owed him one for taking me all the way there, so I asked if he wanted to come in and smoke some, and he said he was down. At this point, my friends had already been back for a while, and were all wondering what had happened to me. And as you might expect, they were awfully surprised when I showed up with a strange black guy who I now knew was a gang member who had debated robbing me at gunpoint. what the dude did next sort of sketched everyone out though my buddy lives in a house with a few other people his room is at the very end of the hallway and that's where they all were listening to music he also has a huge safe in his closet that is visible as soon as you walk in the room i didn't realize it but my new friend had brought his gun inside with him and shortly after entering the room after everyone said what's up he took his gun out of his waistband and put it down right on top of the safe and front of everyone.

It seemed like a really odd thing to do, but it was a lot better than what he could have done. I feel like it was a sort of show of respect, like he wanted to show that he wasn't going to use it. Luckily, I do have super chill friends, so they acted cool and we're about to roll up a blunt, so a few minutes later we all went back to smoke, leaving that gun in his room. The dude chilled with us for a while longer and actually seemed to get along with some of my friends who had a similar interest in music. He then picked up his gun off the safe and left without incident. Looking back, I realized that that could have gone much, much worse,

especially since my buddy had a lot of cash in that safe and could have easily robbed us at gunpoint at any time. And I like to think that although he was a criminal and a gang member, he was also just a guy going through a hard time and a little kindness and marijuana prevented that night from going, Very, very bad. Hi, let's read. I'll read, my name is Dinesh, and I was born in Sri Lanka. But I've been living and working in Mumbai, India for the last 20 years.

My daughter came across your YouTube channel around Halloween of last year, and at first, I wasn't sure if she should be watching such scary stories. But since she started watching, her colloquial English has improved a lot, and I'm happy to say that you're having something of a positive influence in her life. There's also another, albeit a little bit of an unusual reason, why I'm happy she's watching your channel, and that's the fact that you take viewer submissions. She's 14 years old now,

although we have a fairly good relationship, there have been times when we've gone through some strain. Now, for example, when she was 12, she got into a habit of slamming her bedroom door whenever she was angry with school or her friends or what have you. Every time she did, which wasn't very many times, I was absolutely livid, more furious than she had ever seen me before.

She felt victimized and I can understand. her brother has broken a window with his cricket ball before and I didn't get as angry as I did and I tried explaining that it was the sound that bothered me so much but she didn't understand and wouldn't accept my apology but she doesn't understand because there's something she doesn't know and it concerns something that happened to me just a few years before she was born something that resulted in me suffering from a very prolonged and very acute post-traumatic stress disorder For the life of me, I can't find it in myself to tell her what had happened to me, and so instead, I think I might ask you to do it for me.

I used to be employed as a floor supervisor at the Taj Mahal Hotel here in Mumbai, and I first got the job in early 2008 when I was still just the tender age of 24 years old. I was very proud of myself to attain such a lofty position at such a young age, because it came with a lot more prestige and pay due to the heightened responsibility. It could be very stressful at times, because my bosses could be very hard on me, but it meant that I could seriously consider starting a family as my salary and lodgings had made me a very eligible bachelor. Just under a year into working there, I thought, I could see myself working here for a long time.

But then one night, everything changed. It was around 9.30 p.m. when it started. The hotel was bustling with guests and staff, and we were all very busy, and it was business as usual. Then suddenly we heard what sounded like firecrackers coming from the lobby downstairs. But our confusion turned to pure terror when we realized it wasn't firecrackers. It was gunfire, and our terror only intensified as the sounds drew closer. I was in the lobby when I saw people running. Their faces painted with panic, and I remember the distinct smell of the sound of the same thing.

gunpowder drifting in the air. I remember ducking behind the reception desk. My heart was pounding at a mile a minute, and over the chaos, I could hear guests screaming as they tried to make sense of what was happening. These terrorists were members of a group who called themselves Lashkar-Aaibha, who are a Pakistani-based militant group, and after forcing their way through the main entrance of the hotel, they began firing indiscriminately. They had automatic weapons, and their bullets tore through marble and wood, and the destruction

from just a few bullets was horrifying. They tore that hotel apart. They were part of a group of ten attackers who arrived in Mumbai v.C. More almost like a commando operation than a terrorist one, and then instead of attacking military, police, or infrastructure, they were gunning only for the innocent, unarmed civilians. And from my hiding spot, I saw some of my colleagues on the ground, and I couldn't tell if they were just taking cover or if they were hurt. Then I saw one of the terrorists dressed in black with a backpack, firing at the chandeliers and laughing as the glass pieces shattered. And that's when I realized that they were crazy, maybe high on drugs or something too, because they were shooting at anything.

Perhaps in frustration because there weren't as many people as they hope gathered. rather than that lobby that evening. I managed to dial the emergency number, and I whispered our location in the situation to the dispatcher, begging them to send help as quickly as possible. And the next thing I did was the only thing I could think of to help prevent more losses of life. And I went back into the hotel's corridors

to help guests find a way through the staff corridors and away from the gunfire. You see, the terrorists were not just shooting randomly. they were systematically moving through the hotel, searching for foreigners. I could hear them shouting in Urdu, demanding to know where foreign guests were staying, particularly British and Americans, and they were looking for high-profile targets, tourists, and anyone who could be considered an enemy.

Myself and a handful of guests hid in one of the staff-only areas trying to stay silent, listening to the attackers moving through the hotel. We could hear their voices whenever they got close to our high. hiding place, and it made me tremble with fear every time they fired a shot. We began to smell smoke after a while, too, and realized that they had set fires because the smell of gasoline, or some type of accelerants, I'm not certain, was very pungent in some areas. They seemed to be moving from room to room on the lower floors, breaking into guest rooms in the restaurant areas and then setting the place on fire in the hopes the entire hotel might

burned down. I heard them in the wasabi by Morimoto. It's the upscale Japanese restaurant where they had taken hostages, forcing guests to the ground and shooting some if they moved or didn't comply. But anyone who had a Western passport on their person, they were executed without any questions. After a while, we started to hear explosions. These terrorists had brought hand grenades with them, and they were throwing them down corridors to flush out anyone hiding. I saw one explode near the kitchen area where some of my colleagues had taken refuge, and the blast was followed by screams and then silence. The terrorists then set up positions on the upper floors,

using the vantage point to shoot at anyone trying to escape, and then shooting at the police as they began their response. There were reports of them shooting from windows at people below or at any movements outside, and it seemed they intended to hold the hotel and use it as a stronghold so the killing could continue. At one point, this was perhaps the most chilling moment for me personally. The terrorists used the hotel's internal communication systems, or the PA, to taunt and threaten us.

They said all Hindus were allowed to leave the building, as long as they told the terrorists where any Western guests were hiding. And I must have shown some kind of silent reaction on my face or in my eyes, because one of the Western guests started to beg me in a sort of whisper, her, please don't leave us. I told her I would not, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart, not just because I would not be able to live with myself, but because I knew it was a lie. There was no way that they would miss the opportunity to shoot somebody like me, especially now that the police were outside shooting back. Leaving my hiding place meant certain death, so I stayed right where I was and prayed

for a quick ending. eventually the sounds of the Indian security forces engaging the terrorists reached us it was a mix of relief and terror knowing that while help was here the situation was far from over and so we just stayed low praying for it to end when the shooting had finally stopped we heard men speaking Hindi and English telling us to come out and that they were the police and the relief that we felt was monumental a feeling I will never forget the once Grand Taj was now a mess of bullet holes and blood and broken glass. I saw some colleagues that were injured, others I would never talk to again.

The aftermath was a blur of helping where I could, guiding days' guests to safety and basically anything I could to delay my own emotional reaction. That was my way of dealing with it, being selfless, completely forgetting myself, because when I remembered it all, when I allowed myself to process what had happened to me, It was just too devastating. And the days that followed were filled with grief. And every time I tried to sleep, the nightmares would have me reliving the whole situation all over again. And the hotel, like the wider city, has healed.

But the memory of that night has remained a constant in my life ever since. And the same is to be said for all those who have lived through those attacks. It was something I lived through, and I have talked about it with others, but I don't know how to tell my daughter. her why her father is the way he is. And so maybe after this she will understand why I got so angry when she slammed the door. It wasn't anger that she was seeing. It was fear, because that noise took me right back to the Taj on what I thought would be my last night on earth. Surprisingly, this is one of those stories I forgot about until a few days ago when I was talking to a school friend on call and I got reminded of this. She was pretty freaked when I told her.

You see, this happened when I was roughly maybe seven or eight, so some of the details. are a bit fuzzy, but I remember it pretty vividly. This may seem like unimportant context, but my family had just moved to America and were renting the top portion of your regular suburban house in a pretty safe cul-de-sac. I had friends. They were triplets, about three or four houses down. Not far at all. And every day I'd go hang out with them. And around nine or ten in the night, my older brother, around 11 or 12, I'd say, would make the two-minute walk and come and get me and walked me home since I was pretty young. One night he came to get me as usual.

The sun wasn't fully down, but it was getting pretty dark. We started down the walk as normal when he started casting glances over his shoulder. I didn't really notice until he shoved me hard away from the sidewalk and between two houses. Each house had a huge fence that separated their backyard, not ours though, and he made me crouch behind the fence. I remember being really scared, but more confused since I had no damn idea what the hell was going on. More specifically, he was a pretty big prankster. Once, he convinced me my older sister crashed her car into the ocean, so I didn't really believe him when he turned and said,

Walk behind the houses, I think someone's following us. Now, looking back now, he was probably trying to keep me calm. However, whatever calm was left in my tiny eight-year-old. body was gone the moment that I turned around and looked. The man had followed us behind the houses, and he was just by the edge of a few houses down near a different fence line. He had a black hoodie on, with a hood up, black sweatpants and white sneakers. I had pretty bad eyesight due to some health problems, but back then it was crystal clear, and I could see with horrifying clarity that his jaw was just hanging open. Like he was just standing there,

with his jaw hung open. It was horrifying. I think now that I'm older, maybe he had some kind of medical condition that affected his job, or maybe he did crack, I don't know. But back then, I could have sworn on God

that I was seeing some kind of demon. Now anyway, my brother, when he saw that I was looking and getting ready to freak out, he told me, just run. As fast as I can to our house. And we booked it. Neither of us looked back,

but we were so scared out of our minds. And like I said, we only rented the top portion of the house to the bottom, with a sliding door in the backyard, belonged to some other tenant. I don't remember if she was home or not, but I remember tugging that thing open and locking it as fast as I can. And when I looked up, he was there in the yard, a little away from the door, just staring at us with that jaw. me and my brother told my sister and my mother immediately my father was away for a work trip at the time but nothing came of it not until the day after we went to meet my dad at his warehouse which had a small living portion above it where we laced around until we was ready to head home with us around dusk he

came up and told us that we might have to wait since the police were there he walked us around to the back window of the small area to show us police officers all around the backyard area of the warehouses. There were a few in line, and a white van parked on the grass by the edge of the woods. Like I said, I was pretty young, so I don't remember many details of what actually happened, but I do remember my dad, who hadn't been told about the day prior, telling us that they found a man and a woman in the van. The man, he said, had his mouth hanging wide open.

He seemed really disturbed while telling me about the whole thing and wouldn't answer any more questions about the woman. Maybe she was dead. I have zero idea. I do know that they were arrested on trespassing charges. I don't know anything else, and I haven't asked about it. I doubt that he'd remember. It's been over a decade, and he's pushing 70,

but it freaks me out to this day. I still can't believe it happened, and I don't have any answers for it. I talked to my brother briefly about it in hopes that he remembered more than I do, but all I got was a long tirade about, about whatever medical condition the guy probably had for his mouth to be like that. He's an annoying medical student now. And sometimes I think maybe the guy didn't mean any harm and was just drugged out of his mind.

But this was in the world's safest neighborhood and doesn't explain why or how he showed up at my dad's workplace. This happened over 10 years ago, but I still think about how close I came to dying. I was already with my future husband when I met his cousin, and we had a lot in common. We both struggled with addiction and anorexia. We talked on the phone and met up to eat. eat and see a movie, but he kissed me in his car, so I decided it was best if we just stop talking. I told my future husband about the kiss, and he was understanding. I didn't tell him that his cousin got extremely upset over me turning him down. Some time passed, and we started

meeting up his friends. Since we were both starving ourselves, we always went to the same place, but after a couple of times I felt like it wasn't healthy for either of us to meet up. He asked me to meet up one last time and I stupidly said yes. We went to our place and during dinner he was talking about his apartment and job, how happy he could make me. I got uncomfortable and asked him to drive me home. It was really late and instead of driving me home, he drove me to the forest preserve, it was pitch black because all the lights were off and I immediately felt uneasy. We were alone in the parking lot and I had a horrible feeling at this point that something was going to happen. He parked and turned off his car and then looked at me and said that

we were meant for each other. I didn't want to upset him, so I just said that he knew that I was engaged and that we were just friends. He had a history of violence, so I was terrified at that point. He started getting really upset, and almost crying, he said that he loved me. Then he put his arm around my neck and held his arm down really hard on the right side of my neck. His arm was my neck and I've been looking straight ahead when suddenly I woke up to a police officer at his window. He was asking if I was okay, and I was really scared and confused, and I had some vomit on my shirt, and I'd wet my pants. He'd pressed down on my carotid artery for long enough that it actually knocked me out, and he was a wrestler back in high school. He was telling the

officer that we were fine, and that I was drunk. He got a ticket, but I was too afraid to say anything because if he was arrested, my now husband's family wouldn't have blamed me, but that's what I thought in the moment. I said it was fine, but that I wanted to go home now. I thought if I said it in front of the officer, he would drive me home because he took our names and he wouldn't risk trying something else. So he drove me home and didn't say anything. I don't know if he was trying to kill me or just got so upset that he went way overboard. Regardless, he almost did kill me, and it really messed me up. up. A person doesn't vomit and wet themselves after a neck compression unless they almost

died. And I told my now husband, but not right away, because I felt like it was partly my fault for meeting up with him. I only saw him a couple more times at the holidays, and then he stopped coming. But he didn't dare speak to me after what he did. If that officer hadn't shown up, I don't know if I'd be here still. This happened several years ago. While it may not be as scary as some of the stories here, it was definitely one of the most terrifying, bizarre encounters I've ever had. I'm 33 and I live in the rural Midwest.

I was born and raised in my hometown, and with the exception of a few months of living with my father on the East Coast, I've lived here my entire life. I've become pretty acquainted with the majority of the back roads in my area. One such road is an old highway that no longer has the traffic of days prior to the construction of the interstate that runs through the town. It's a long and winding road that offers gorgeous scenic views during the day and a quiet, escape. from the city at night. Along this road is a small lot with no more than 10 parking spaces, two picnic tables, and a single trash can. It's easy to miss due to the heavily wooded area surrounding it and the majority of the rest

of the drive to it. And due to its secluded nature, it had played host to a fair share of teenage debauchery. I myself spent many a Friday night smoking away with my friends there. Needless to say, there were a lot of good memories attached to this place. and over the years, it's become one of my favorite spots to venture to when I need peace or solidarity. One night, about five years ago, my girlfriend and I are going through a rough patch. We had a big fight due to having to work early in the morning and her deciding to have a party full of her loud and intoxicated friends, and things escalated and I stormed out of the house and

started driving towards my favorite spot. As soon as I was out of the city limits, I promptly cranked my angriest metal music and sped down the road, chain-smoking my menthols in an effort to calm down until I finally found the turn-off for the spot. I was happy to find no other cars in a lot, meaning that I wouldn't awkwardly stumble upon two lovers engaged in, you know, the act, and I immediately jumped into the car and sat down on one of the picnic tables, lit a cigarette, and stared at the stars. I sat there for several minutes until I decided to head back to the warmth of my car after hearing some rustling coming from the woods. Not wanting to become a chew toy for a coyote or an angry bobcat,

I hustled back to my car and blared my music again, quickly forgetting the sounds that I had just heard. I decided to have one more smoke and then make my way home. I smoked it halfway through when, out of nowhere, I heard pounding coming from the passenger side of my car. I looked over to see a large hand beating against the window. I turned down my music that was still blasting, and as I did, I can hear a very angry voice shouting, open the door, while yanking on the door handle.

Thankfully, my doors were locked, and after a few moments, the man disappeared from the passenger side, and then reappeared out of the driver's side window while screaming and cursing at me to open the door. He was now punching my window trying to get in. I was frozen, in a mix of confusion and fear, but eventually snapped out of it and threw the car in reverse. It was so dark that I didn't get a good look at the guy, except for a split second he was illuminated by my headlights. He had a black zip-up hoodie with the hood up, a dark gray t-shirt in a ball cap. He was a stocky guy and had to be well over six feet as he towered over my sonata.

The only distinguishing feature that I could make out was a very low. large, dark beard. And I noped out of there real quick. I floored across the parking lot and back towards the highway, and that's when I heard it. A loud bang that sounded like a gun. I slammed my foot on the pedal, took the first turn I could find, and once I was sure that no one was following me, I slowed down and realized that I was doing 90 on a gravel road. At the time, one of my best friends work for a nearby gas station, so I made my way to tell him the whole story. We looked over my car thoroughly and found a couple of dens on top of the car and what looked like a boot print on my passenger door. We talked it over and ultimately decided to not call the

police. It was a 20-minute drive to the location from the closest town. We were sure that the guy would most likely be gone by the time anyone got all the way out there. And yes, I realized that was probably ignorant of me in hindsight. I'm still baffled by this encounter. I don't know if this guy wanted to rob me, steal my car, or worse, but I'm glad that I made it home in one piece. When I was a freshman in high school, Alyssa was my role model. Alyssa was a senior. She was so gorgeous, confident, smart, effortlessly stylish, and always owning the room. Back then, I was too shy to talk to her. Seniors are already pretty intimidating to freshmen, but Alyssa was next-level intimidating because she was such a queen. I didn't expect

anyone to see me the way that I saw Alyssa, but I was pleasantly surprised in my senior year. And in my senior year, I started finding cute little notes in my locker. I wasn't expecting that at all, but I was really flattered. The first one said, you were beautiful in that dress on Friday. The handwriting was neat and simple with a cute little heart at the end. More notes kept coming in, always in fourth period, too, and I got a note every week or two. I know they came during fourth period because I checked my locker before and after every class and they were all very sweet and they said things like your smile lights up the hallway.

You shine brighter than any star. Your homecoming photos are straight out of a magazine cover, so stunning. There were more notes that I don't remember. They weren't romantic or flirty and they looked like things that I might have said to Alyssa if we'd ever spoken. I thought maybe they were from a shy underclass man. girl and I had my suspicions. I didn't tell anyone about the notes, though. I really didn't want my friends turning this into an investigation and embarrassing whoever was leaving them. And whoever was leaving these messages, I genuinely thought they meant well. Then in the second semester,

my schedule changed. My last class of the day was upstairs near my friend's locker. My friend's last class was near my locker, and we swapped lockers. I forgot all about the notes until my 18th birthday. In that morning, my friend hated me a note that she found in her, my old, locker, and it said, happy birthday, princess. At first, she thought the notes were meant for her, since any of those compliments could fit her too. But when she realized that the birthday didn't match up, she put two and two together. And come to think of it, I don't think any of the notes ever said my name. I admitted that the notes had been happening all year, and I explained that I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Then my friends launched their investigation that I had been

worried about. All the girls in our friend group became detectives trying to solve this little mystery. And one friend who didn't have a fourth period class stationed herself by the lockers to survey that area. And it worked. The notes weren't from a shy freshman or even from a boy. They were from a janitor. An older woman none of us knew. We all recognized. her, but I don't think any of us had ever talked to her. She'd been leaving these notes for several months, watching me closely enough to comment on my outfits, field hockey games, and even what I posted on Facebook. I saw her at the last field hockey game of the season. She sat quietly in the stands. That was the only time that I noticed her watching me, but I have no

idea how I didn't notice her watching me before. None of us brought this up to her, and She hadn't done anything technically wrong, but it all felt so unsettling in a way that's very hard to explain. I was a young guy in college driving back to campus from somewhere when I ran out of gas. It was getting dark, maybe 6 or 7 p.m. When I realized the gas had run out, I turned off the main street. And then with my car's remaining momentum, I glided until I stopped in front of some random house. I sat in the car, trying to think if there was anyone I knew with a car who had stayed on campus for winter break. no dice.

So then I resigned myself to the fact that I needed to walk to the nearest station, fill up the little gas can for my trunk and walk back. I grabbed the canister, and before I started walking, I leaned on the front of my car and looked up directions. And just then, a woman pulled into the driveway. She was also college to age and wearing some sort of server's outfit like she worked in fast food. I was parked right out front of her house when she noticed me. she approached a little hesitant to nastify needed help and i said honestly yeah i'd just run out of gas and according to my phone we were kind of a far walk from the chevron she looked at me like she had just seen a ghost though and at first i chalked it up to it getting late me being a guy and her trying to gauge if i was actually

screwing with her but it really struck me how afraid she suddenly looked i tried to assure her that i had the gas can and didn't need to go with her or anything that I could actually pay for it, and she took the can but refused any money. I waited there for a while. She came back, handed me the canister, and then just stood there for a second, and I could tell that she was deciding whether or not to say something. Then she just straight up asked, do you want to hear something weird? Of course, I said. And she says, today at work. I got this prank call, but it was a weird prank. call and all that it was just the guy on the other line kept asking me over and over have you ever run out of gas and after she told me we both just kind of chuckled not really knowing what to say

except thanks and take care and it genuinely gives me chills every time i think about it This happened about 10 years ago in an area between Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. My friend will just call him R, and I used to regularly go to Tacoma to sing karaoke at a bar there. And to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen the city of Tacoma during the city of Tacoma during the city. a day. Now anyways, it's about one or two in the morning, and we're heading back to Seattle, and we have to stop for gas. He pulls over at this station, and I'm buzzed and feeling good, so this creepy station doesn't even really register with me. As I'm sitting, messing with the radio, suddenly my door swings open. I only saw a flash of him because it was all blindingly quick,

but he was kind of medium height, dark-skinned, like too much tanning, that is, and had a blank stare and tattered clothing. I remember he had a black jacket too, like leather or something, but it was torn and holy. So here I am trying to pull the door closed, and I'm realizing this man is very strong, and he almost won the tug-of-war with me trying to slam the door closed, and if my adrenaline hadn't kicked in, I don't know. I do finally manage to get it closed after maybe only a few seconds and immediately start looking around for my friend, panicked, concerned and confused. R had already been yelling at the guy to get the F away from my car, and surprisingly, the man listens.

R isn't the most intimidating looking guy or anything, but maybe the guy didn't want to cause a scene. I don't recall there being anyone else outside the station with us that night, but R was being very loud and forceful. So, I'm watching the man walk away, and he's not looking back at us or making a sound that I can here, which is what made this entire thing more unusual. Arr gets back in the car and he's usually calm but deadpan, like when you see something terrible but you're too scared to move. I'd look to see where he's looking and he's looking at the creepy guy who's now facing us with that same

emotionless stare just watching us leave the pump and back towards the street. And my eyes are on him the entire time too. We book it out of there and that was the end of that. And to this day I don't stop at a gas station at night at all if I can help it, unless another car is there or it's on a busy street. friends, thanks for listening. Don't forget to hit that follow button to be alerted of our weekly episodes every Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST. And if you haven't already, check out Let's Read on YouTube, where you can catch all my new video releases every Monday and Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you in the next episode.

Thank you.