The Lets Read Podcast - 311: MY VILLAGE WAS CURSED | 13 TERRIFYING True Scary Stories / Rain Ambience | EP 297

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Native American Reservations & 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

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. I'm going to be able to be. My name's Coba. I'm a long-time listener, and I figured that I should finally just sit down and write out my story. I live with my family on the Yakama Indian Reservation here in Washington. I've lived here all my life, and the reality is a lot different than what you might read about or see on TV.

There's a lot of natural beauty here, and that's definitely true. Even having grown up with the cascades in the background any time you're outside, you'd think I might be used to it by now. But every time your eyes wander while you're driving and you're out hunting or fishing, there's almost one of those wow moments. Or the mountains catch the light in just the right way, or you come across a scene straight from a Hobbit movie. I love those, by the way. But beneath all that natural splendor, there's a lot of hardship and a lot of violence here on the res. especially when it comes to drugs and alcohol addiction. Drugs, particularly meth, have been a dark cloud hanging over this reservation for literally decades at this point.

It's everywhere, seeping into every corner of people's lives. I've known good people, people with families, jobs, everything a person could want, have their entire lives swallowed up by it. It's not just a drug here. It's more like a disease that's put down roots throughout the community, leaving almost no one. untouched. You see it in the empty tired eyes of the young kids whose parents have been affected by it. And you see it in the empty boarded up houses that were once home to generations of the same family. And you see it in the same crime rates that just keep on climbing without fail

year in and year out. As one old friend of mine put it, it takes normal regular life and it turns into some kind of survival situation. And in survival situations, you got your predators. And where there's predators, there's prey. All the robberies, break-ins, and burglaries are bad enough, but the violence is by far the worst. It's not just the physical fights that you hear about, but the whole atmosphere of fear and distrust that it breeds. I've seen how meth can change people, how they lose themselves to paranoia, aggression,

and eventually insanity, which leads me to a story that still sends shivers down my spine. Back when I was a kid, there was this school teacher who I'll just call Mrs. Elle. She was one of the good ones, the kind that fills you with the hope of the future. And she taught at the local school and had a way with the kids that made learning seem like fun and not a total drag. Her classroom was a sanctuary, a place where you could forget about all the bad things going on in the outside world. And Mrs. Elle lived in a small but cozy looking home near the edge of town, where the houses start to thin out and the wild begins to take over. She was known for her kindness, often baking cookies for the kids or helping out at the community events

and was loved by everyone, not just her students, but the whole community. But then one night, something truly tragic and terrible happened, but also something so twisted that it's still hard for me to wrap my head around, even all these years later. There was this guy, Nash, who everyone knew was deep and a mess. meth. He'd been in and out of trouble for years, but then one day he started acting even stranger than usual. And the word was that he thought people were out to get him, that it was being spied on or some nonsense like that. But others could see what was happening to him clear as

anything else. It was the meth, rotting his mind away, and not long after he seemed to lose it completely. One night, probably after a few days of binging on Crystal, Nash walked out of his house and when walking around the res all keyed up and psychotic. Everyone knew to lock their doors and to avoid all contact with him when he was acting like that, and usually speaking, he'd head straight back home once he started to come down and then stay indoors all night getting high. But what happened that night was beyond anyone's worst nightmare. In his meth-induced psychosis, Nash decided to break into the next house he came across, and the next house he came across belonged to our beloved, Mrs. Elle. The details are pretty gruesome, something most of us can't even stomach

talking about. He didn't just kill her. He ate parts of her body, driven by whatever twisted reality his meth-addled mind had constructed for him. Someone later said that he told the cops it was because he thought eating someone that pure would clean out his soul or something. I don't know how true that is, but it sure rings true and that alone is chilling enough. The next morning when Mrs. Elle didn't show up for school, people went over to check on her, and what they found was the scene from a horror movie. Nash was still there, in a state of confusion and terror, not even fully understanding what he'd done. I heard he attacked the folks who showed up, thinking that they were trying to sort of set him up for something.

They managed to hold him off until the cops showed up. Then Nash was taken away. But the damage was already done, and it couldn't be undone either. An innocent life had been snuffed out forever. And as you can probably imagine, news of Mrs. L's murder shook the entire reservation to its core. It wasn't just the murder itself, which got to people either. It was the realization of just how deep the drug problem had sunk. For weeks afterwards, there were meetings, talks, and vigils.

People were scared, angry, and desperate for change. They talked about rehab, about bringing in more resources, of how to protect our community from falling further into the abyss. But change is very slow here. The meth continues to flow, and it finds new victims every single day. In the aftermath, we've seen some changes. A new rehab center opened, funded by tribal grants and donations. We've learned to look after each other more to notice when someone's slipping

and offer a hand before they fall too deep. There are more patrols, more community watch groups, and there's talk about bringing in educational programs to teach the youth about the dangers of drugs. We've held ceremonies, traditional healing sessions, where elders speak of our ancestors' resilience, reminding us that we're not the first to face such darkness. Every time I walk past Mrs. Elle's old house, now boarded up and silent,

I'm reminded of what we lost and what we're fighting for. It's not just about stopping drug use, it's about reclaiming our community, our identity, and our future. The story of Mrs. Elle is a scar on our collective memory, but it's also a testament to our spirit and our commitment to let the darkness define us. Mrs. Elle's memory lives on, not because of how horrifying her death was,

but because of the light that she's shown into people's lives. Because here on the Yokama Reservation were more than our struggles, were a people with a rich history, a deep culture, and a fierce will to survive and thrive despite the shadows that try to consume us. Nash, on the other hand, left a very different legacy.

His story isn't just a cautionary tale. As a reminder of how drugs can strip away humanity, turn a person into a monster they never want it to be. In living here, you learn to be cautious. You keep your eyes open not just for your own safety, but for your neighbors. We're a tight-knit community, but the drugs are like a slow poison. But there's resilience, too. We gather, we talk.

We remember, and in our small ways, we try to rebuild what's been broken. We're trying to rebuild what's been broken. a while ago, 2015-ish, but I'll probably never forget it. I was around 21 at the time. I'm female and still fairly new to the city. I had just gotten out of a bad relationship, wasn't in the best place mentally, and didn't know many people in town besides my ex and his friends. I was on a dating slash hookup app looking for people to hang out with casually, maybe find a friends with benefits or something. I matched with a 25-year-old guy named Simon. We talk sporadically in the app for a few days, and he told me he was in a band and lived in the house with

his bandmates. He sent me their music, just an audio track on YouTube, with a heavily edited still image of four or five guys playing rock instruments, and one of them looked like him. The music was an odd mix of styles and not really my thing, but whatever. He seemed like a nice enough guy. After a few days, he stopped replying, and I figured that was that and moved on. Then, one day at work, I got a message from him apologizing for being busy and inviting me to a barbecue with his friends and bandmates in their yard. He had mentioned that their band manager provided the house to them to live in, given the lack of views on their YouTube video, and the fact that I had only seen one photo of him playing in the band, I figured he was probably exaggerating. I assumed it was more likely a bar manager friend gave them a discount on rent in exchange for being a house band or something, and I didn't think much of it beyond that. Normally, I wouldn't have agreed to go to a barbecue alone in a stranger's house, but I was really bored and figured that I might be able to overcome some social anxiety, maybe even make some female friends since he made it sound like a big party.

I looked up the neighborhood that he gave me, and it was a suburban area with lots of families. I figured being in a yard on a nice summer day wouldn't be overly risky because there would be plenty of neighbors outside. Plus, it was just a few train stops away from my workplace, and I was off in a few hours. I told him I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea since I didn't know him well, but I'd stop by for a bit as long as I didn't have to go inside the house. He assured me that was totally fine, which made me feel better. I even avoided drinking anything for the rest of my shift, so I wouldn't have to use the bathroom and risk going inside.

Since he had implied the event was already underway, I was anxious about just showing up. Plus, I knew finding a specific address from the backyard side would be kind of tricky, so I asked Simon if he could meet me at the train station since he said it was a quick walk. He agreed, and I let him know when I was leaving. work and what time my train would arrive at his station. Now red flag number one, when I got to the train station at around 5.30 p.m., I looked around but couldn't find him. I messaged him and he said he was running behind and told me to start walking toward the neighborhood. I was about

halfway across the massive train station parking lot when I finally spotted him wandering toward me. I recognized his clothes, bell bottoms, not common, especially for men at the time, and long hair. But up close, his face looked noticeably different from his photos. Maybe it was heavy-duty editing, or maybe he used pictures of his brother or something. I don't even know. But he looked older, not 25, more like 35. And this was the first real red flag, but I brushed it off. Maybe he was just self-conscious.

Maybe he smoked a lot and never wore sunscreen. Maybe he just hadn't taken new pictures in a while. And besides, I was mostly there to make friends, so I told him. myself not to judge. Oh, and he was already very drunk, but a lot of my ex's friends were heavy drinkers, so that didn't seem strange. He was hosting a barbecue with friends after all. The second red flag came shortly after when we arrived at the front door. I reminded him that I wasn't comfortable going inside the house, but he assured me that we just had to walk through to get to the backyard. Okay, fine. It wasn't the kind of neighborhood where you could just walk around the

house to get to the backyard. We would have had to backtrack to the main road to go down the alley directly to the backyard, and I figured he just forgot what I said about not wanting to go inside and didn't want to cause a bunch of trouble, so I just sort of went with it. We got into the house, and he immediately closed the door and locked the deadbolt and knob behind me. I didn't think that was too weird, since nobody was hanging out inside, and a lot of people were just in the habit of locking the door when they come in, but it did still give me the hebi-jeebies for some reason. Then Simon told me that he'd really like to give me a tour of the house. I politely declined and reminded him that I was just there for the barbecue, and he said that he

and his bandmates had worked really hard to get the house and was really proud of it. At that point, I was getting really skeptical because usually when guys would tell me things that seemed a bit far-fetched, they'd let the truth slip by the time they got me in their house. But still, I convinced myself that I was being unreasonable. I was already in a stupid house anyways, and he insisted to be quick. Not the wisest choice again, I know. But I was pretty good at explaining away red flags, so at this point Simon still mostly had a dopey stoner art guy kind of vibe as far as I was concerned. He didn't really seem like a threat, just an insecure oddball who sucks at communicating and fibs a bit. Not unlike my ex, who was definitely

emotionally and verbally abusive, but it never escalated past that. I figured it worse, he'd get handsy and I'd get called a prude for not sleeping with him. I didn't have a lot of self-worth at that time, obviously, so once again, I just went with it. The tour started pretty uneventfully, other than the decor in the common area was obviously chosen by a middle-aged Martha Stewart's enthusiast and not a bunch of guys in a band or their fake band manager. I didn't know if this should make me feel better or worse. On one hand, he was clearly lying, but on the other, it made me think it was probably just someone's mom's house, and she was out of town and didn't want to tell me that he lived at a friend's parents' home and didn't actually have a paying job. Again, total red

flag, but I could rationalize it at the time. The bedroom's doors were all closed, bathroom was unremarkable, and he then showed me the kitchen and I finally saw through the window that there was nobody in the backyard. There weren't even barbecue supplies around. No burgers thawing on the counter, no cocktail supplies lying around, nothing. I asked him where everyone was and why he lied about the barbecue, and he told me that his bandmates were still on tour, and they were just running behind due to van trouble, but they should be back any minute so we could start the party. I asked him why he wasn't on tour with them, if he's in the band. I don't even remember what his answer was to that because it didn't make any sense. And at this point, I'm out of mental gymnastics

to convince myself that this guy isn't just completely full of crap. And I'm really freaked out. It took me long enough. I'm smarter now. Don't worry. I started trying to figure out a way to get out of this situation, though. I hope that once he was done with the tour, we could go outside, even just for a minute. And I'd just leave. I've been in some sketchy situations in the past, but luckily, nothing so bad that they tried very hard to physically stop me when I walked away in a semi-public place. I just wasn't comfortable doing it inside the house. I knew this guy was full of crap, but I had no idea how much worse it would get. I instinctively pretended to believe his nonsense. He offered me a beer, and I said, no thanks, because I had to work in the morning.

He said okay and cracked one open for himself. He then wanted to take the tour downstairs. and I could see from the top of the stairs that the basement was the dark and creepy kind, with really small windows, so right there, thankfully I refused. I asked if we could go back outside, and he said after the tour. I tried to argue about going into the basement and told him I had a spider phobia, didn't like basements, etc. All lies, but anything to keep him from realizing that he was what I was afraid of. He started to get agitated about my reluctance,

so I figured it would be better to just let them show me the damn basement and then hopefully we could go outside because I really didn't know what else to do. And the basement was fairly unremarkable, couch, TV, elliptical, until I noticed something else that gave me chills. The house was probably built in the 1990s or late 80s at the absolute earliest, but I saw a door that looked just like the heavy foam-lined door to the cold storage room in my grandma. house, the kind that only opens from the outside. It was just a smaller version of the big metal doors on commercial walk-in fridges, and it looked really out of place in this house. I absolutely

would not go anywhere near that door. He opened it and told me it was their soundproof music studio. I looked inside from a few meters away, and it did look soundproof. It was about the size of a bedroom, and I could see a few guitars and amps in it. Mattress. topers on the walls, no drum kit or recording equipment that I could see, though, and he insisted that I go inside to get a better look. He was standing outside the door motioning for me to go inside. And my God, the alarm bells were really going off now. At this point, I realized that I could actually die here if I wasn't careful. I turned around and ran up the stairs. He closed the door and followed me, asking what was wrong, acting like I was being unreasonable for not wanting to

see his soundproof music studio. And that's when I realized this was way sketchier of a situation than any of my ex's nonsense, and I was freaked out. At that point, my main objective was getting out of this house. The front and back doors were both closed and locks, so I tried to run. He'd be able to get me before I could get the locks open. The bathroom didn't have a window. The house had a convoluted floor plan that I wasn't familiar with, and it was much bigger

than I was. He was the tall lanky type, someone who could run fast even if they were out of shape and smoked a pack a day. I pretended that I was okay with hanging out in the hopes that he'd chill out a bit, and we made small talk for a few minutes. He cracked another beer, and thankfully he calmed down, and I desperately mentioned, yet again, that it was beautiful outside and suggested that we go sit in the yard while we waited. He said no and started to get agitated that I wanted to leave already. I told him that I could stay, but I'd really like to smoke a cigarette. He told me that we could smoke inside and pointed to a cereal bowl full of cigarette butts. God damn it.

We sat down at the table and lit some cigarettes, and as he was smoking, he started rolling a joint, which he promptly lit as soon as his sig was done. He offered me some, and I said no thanks. He insisted, so I took the smallest puff I could. I'm a pretty seasoned weed smoker, but I pretended to cough, excessively and told him that I was a novice, that that was more than enough for me. And for a liar himself, he thankfully wasn't very good at picking up on the lies of others. And after we smoked, he asked if I'd like to watch a movie until his bandmates got back.

I told him that I was really looking forward to spending the day outside and suggested that we go for a walk or visit the park, ideas he did not like or appreciate. At this point, I was just trying to keep as much distance as possible between us. But he stayed close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath. He grabbed me by the waist, and I backed away. I asked about the barbecue food to try and change the subject, to make him think that I still believed what he was telling me. He started to get angry again and sternly reiterated that his bandmate should be home any minute.

My anxiety was absolutely through the roof. I tried to calm him down again with very generic small talk. And now I don't know how I got so lucky, but the next thing that happened might have saved me. Simon went to the fridge to get another beer and pulled out an empty box. At this point, he was getting even more pissed off than before, so I went out on a limb and suggested that we go get more beer for the party, because I was out of ideas.

I was terrified that suggesting, once again, that we leave the house would enrage him even more, but I had to try. And thankfully, though, his eyes lit up with a possibility that it might actually be down to drink with him, and he agreed. As we were walking to the liquor store, I still didn't really have a plan because I was no longer comfortable just walking away from this menace and this weirdly desolate suburb. But I was extremely relieved to be out of that house. When we got to the store, I told him that I didn't need to go inside if he was just grabbing beer, and he insisted that I had to go in.

At that point, I was so stressed and frazzled that I just went with him and hoped that a good opportunity to leave would arise. Inside, he asked what kind of beer I wanted, and I reminded him that I had to work tomorrow and didn't want to drink too much. And he demanded to know what kind of beer I wanted, so I just named the first one that came to mine. We went to pay, and the cashier was kind of an A-hole, so I didn't ask for help. I probably should have, but I panicked. I regretted it, but I also remembered the times my ex told people that I was crazy, so they wouldn't take me seriously. And this liquor store guy definitely seemed like he'd fall for that. I had one last idea before I took my chances running.

There was a drugstore across from the liquor store. I told Simon that I had to buy a toothbrush, something that vaguely implied that I might stay over. And he eagerly agreed, but tried to follow me inside. I told him that you can't bring beer into a drug store. I have no idea if that's true. I doubt it's a law, but this drunk douchebag believed it and agreed to wait outside. And now my naive self thought, maybe I could just wander around. long enough and he'd get the hint or leave. But no. Half an hour later, he was still standing there

staring through the window. I ended up hovering near the tills, waiting for a big group of friendly-looking people, and when they left, I followed the mountain and immediately told Simon to leave me alone and go home. I said it firmly, and loudly enough to imply that I would make a scene if need be. Simon looked at the people getting into the car, who were now pausing and staring at us, and then he just turned around and left. Bizarly anticlimactic, thank God, and I ran to the train station and never heard from him again. When he got home, his app profile had either blocked me or been deleted. Years later, I wish I had reported him. It bothers me to wonder if he tried it again, but made sure that the fridge was stocked first.

I'm writing from the Navajo Nation Reservation, the place I've lived all my young life. I wanted to share a horrifying experience that began during what was supposed to be a peaceful walk with my old mut, Mahi. We often take this one particular route, pacing through the red rock landscapes under the shadows of beutes and mesas that have stood guard over the land for centuries. They really are beautiful. But on this particular day, we came across a river that had turned murky, unlike really anything I'd ever seen before. The water, which once mirrored the sky, was now sort of a shade of green, with an oily sheen that made me feel almost nauseous, just looking at it. Ma'i, who was curious as always, ran down to the edge of the water and started to drink from it.

I managed to pull him away just for a few seconds, but the damage was already done. And over the next few days, his behavior changed dramatically. Mahi, who was once the friendliest dog ever, began to act very strangely. He started pacing, snarling at shadows, and even snapped at me when I tried to calm him down. His eyes were wild with this sort of rage and confusion, and it was hard to tell which at any one time. Feeling overwhelmed and out of my depth, I called my friend Niz. He's an ecological expert with a Ph.D. Niz has done a lot of work on the impact of industrial pollution on indigenous lands.

He's the kind of guy who can walk into a forest and tell you the story of its health just by listening to the birds and observing the flora. And he spent years advocating for environment. justice for Native American communities, making him pretty much the perfect person to call in this type of crisis. Niz arrived with a very calm demeanor, bringing along his mobile equipment to analyze the immediate environment. And when we returned to that river, it was even more alarming in daylight, covered in this very oily film that seemed like it was suffocating the life out of the water. Niz took some samples, and he got to work. Back at my place, his equipment revealed alarming levels of chemicals that shouldn't have been there.

He explained that the chemicals could cause neurological damage, which would explain Mali's altered behavior. That night, despite all of our efforts to keep Mali calm and secure, he passed away in his sleep. And the chemicals in the water had done their damage, leading to a very peaceful end on what had become a terrifying nightmare. And losing Mali was a very terrible wake-up call, not just for me, but for our entire community.

It was then that I began speaking with more people, some of which mentioned seeing suspicious activities at night near the water source. Niz and I decided to investigate. We hid near the river, and sure enough, just before midnight, a truck would come by, quiet as can be, men in these dark clothes unloading barrels, and then they began pouring substances directly into the river. Niz, with observation skills, noted down every little detail, furious at the blatant environmental crimes that were obviously happening right up close to us.

In the next day, we presented these findings to the tribal council. Niz explained the scientific implications of that contamination, and the council was hesitant at first, perhaps not wanting to believe the extent of the intrusion on their land. But the strange behaviors of local animals, not just Mahi, were obvious proof enough that something was very wrong. The council then called the EPA, and soon government officials were all over the land. And they confirmed what we feared. Toxic waste from some corporation had been dumped into the river thinking no one would notice. The waste contained chemicals that could

alter behavior, cause aggression, and lead to long-term health issues for the community. And the news spread pretty quickly, igniting a fire of outrage and action. The company faced fines in lawsuits and were forced to clean up the contamination. However, the process was very long, and in the meantime, we had to find alternative water sources relying on deliveries and rainwater collection. And the community started healing, setting up systems to continuously monitor our water. Niz came by more often, not just to help,

but to educate our people on environmental stewardship, turning his expertise into community empowerment. And he taught us how to use traditional knowledge alongside modern science to protect our land. And we established a committee for environmental safety, to watch over our natural resources it wasn't just about water it was about rights our land and the preservation of our way of life and we learn to be vigilant and to question things and to look out for things and to protect it now when I look at that river it's clear again thanks to our fight

and we fought for this for our peace and we'll keep fighting because we now understand more than ever the importance of vigilance and I'll never forget my pup a reminder of what we lost and why we must continue that battle. Every day as I walk by where Maui used to sleep, I think about our responsibility to the land and each other. We can't let this happen again. We need to educate the young ones about our heritage and our duty to protect it.

It's not just about surviving. It's about living well with respect and dignity on our terms and not anyone else's. I'm a 19-year-old female living in the Pacific Northwest. A couple of months ago I was looking for extra work because my hours at my regular job were terrible. I'm quiet, anxious, and don't have any friends, so, of course, I turned to Craigs. list. I knew the site could be sketchy, but I was desperate for side gigs and hadn't had any luck as someone with no skills and not willing to do only fans. One ad caught my attention. It

offered $50 for someone to take photos of a property using either a camera or something above an iPhone 12. I have an iPhone 14, promising that it would only take an hour or two. I emailed the poster and soon got a text back. And the man said that I seemed like the perfect fit and the invited me over that same day. What's funny is I actually made a post on R-slash-2 afraid to ask, asking if it was a dumb idea and everyone told me to take a person with me. I didn't and deleted that post shortly after. The house was about 20 minutes outside of town, surrounded by dense forest. It was small and run down, but nothing really raised alarms. And the man who greeted me looked like he was maybe in his mid-50s, unremarkable. He invited me inside, and the

house was completely empty. No furniture, just dust and dirt. I asked where to start taking photos, but he kept dodging the question, making small talk and asking personal questions about me instead. My anxiety was building, so I kept the small talk going, but then he began staring at me intensely. I dropped my phone at one point when we eventually started taking photos throughout the house, and when he picked it up, he held on to it a little too long before giving it back. Unprompted while taking photos of the master bedroom, he brushed my face with his hand and complimented my skin. I knew it was stupid coming here, but at that point, my blood truly ran cold, and I was done making excuses in my head. I made a quick excuse to leave something about my mom, but when I turned toward the door, he grabbed my arm.

I still have the picture that I took after the ordeal of the bruises on my forearm, and it felt like it was going to get snapped in half. I had brought a small knife for self-defense, a gift from my paranoid mom who would have never let me come here if she had known. And without thinking, I pulled it out and stabbed him in the arm. It was released with the push of a small button, and he let go, swinging at my arm with a knife but I already was running out of the house. I got into my car and drove until I reached a gas station and my heart was calm. I called the police and explained everything.

They did take it seriously. came in to make a report and answer some questions. They searched that property in the surrounding forest, but didn't find him. And the house had turned out to be abandoned. And in the basement, they found a pack of zip ties. A report was made, but I know he's still out there. I call sometimes for updates, but it's never anything of substance. I've never told anyone about this other than the police, not even my mom.

And I know typing this, I sound pretty unbothered, but that was the first time anything like that has ever happened to me and I have trouble leaving my house most days. I decided to type this out here as maybe a way of getting it off my chest since it plagues my thoughts constantly. Having recently made the decision to write a memoir, I've developed a profound interest in the art of storytelling. And this interest led me to your YouTube channel, and after discovering that you accept viewer submissions, I decided to send over a chapter for your perusal. It concerns events which took place on the Aqua Sasne Mohawk Reservation in upstate New York, back in 1981 when I was still an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

I graduated from Quantico in late 1980, and since all my family is based in Queens, my first choice of posting was always going to be the Bureau's Manhattan Field Office. Once we got the good news, my then-girlfriend, now ex-wife, and I were delighted at not having to move across the country and began my tenure following the holiday period. Since I was fresh out of training, I hadn't been given a field assignment yet, and was stuck shadowing more experienced agents until the assistant director was confident that I could do my job. New agents undergo what's called the field training program, which, as I already mentioned, involves shadowing and learning from much more experienced agents.

But with it typically lasting several months, I didn't expect to be given my own assignment until the summer or early fall. yet as it transpired the assistant director had other plans one morning he called me into his office and asked how i was finding things thus far and becoming an fbi agent had been my primary ambition since i first saw the taking of pelham one two three back when i was in middle school and so to be there in person it really was a dream come true and when i told him that he just nodded and sort of thought a little then that's the very last question that I could possibly expect him to. Do you think you're ready for an assignment? And the question prompted a wave of emotion.

I felt honored, flattered, and, if I'm honest, a little apprehensive. But above all, I was ecstatic at the prospect of receiving an assignment so early on in my career. I knew it could make or break me, and you can bet that I was feeling the pressure of that. But I was young and foolish enough to believe that I could get a problem. handle any task I was given. So, in response to the assistant director's question, I told him yes, and got my briefing there and then. The assistant director told me that he'd been reading my personnel file and had noticed the Mohawk ancestry on my mother's side. He asked me how familiar I was with Mohawk history, and after I told him that I was somewhat knowledgeable on the subject,

he asked how much I knew about the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation up in Franklin County. I'd heard of it, but having grown up on the opposite side of the state and having no family there to speak of, I had to be honest and say that I'd never visited and didn't know much about the place. When I assured him that I could be up to speed in no time, he replied that he had no doubt that that was true. That wasn't why I'd been chosen for the assignment that he had in mind. The issue wasn't knowledge, it was trust. As you might already be aware, there's a lot of complexity to the issue of law enforcement on reservations. State police officers have no authority on the reservations whatsoever, meaning the job of enforcing the law comes down to tribal police forces.

But every so often, when tribal police come across something a little too big for them to handle, they call in the FBI. In the case of the St. Regis Reservation, or as it's denizens call it, Aquasasasne, they hadn't contacted the FBI for more than 10 years, and the last time they did, it hadn't ended well. The assistant director told me that, back in the late 60s, the FBI had been unable to solve a missing person's case involving a 17-year-old girl named Harper Tarbell, and the fiasco had left a very bad taste in the mouths of the Mohawk.

Investigating agents concluded that Harper was a runaway, but the inhabitants of the reservation, tribal police force included, were very vocal in their belief that the girl had been abducted. They accused the FBI of not investigating the case properly, but according to the file, the geography of the St. Regis Reservation made the agent's task an extremely difficult one. You see, the St. Regis section of the reservation is in the United States, but the vast majority of the Aquasasne Mohawk territory is on the other side of the border, in Canada.

That means the Canadian side of the reservation has a different police force than our side, and at least in the 60s, they made very little effort to share information, conduct joint patrols, or secure the integrity of the international border. It's probably the last part which most frustrated the two FBI agents, as it was the unofficial policy of all parties that the border remain, open to anyone who called themselves a resident of the greater Aquasasasnay territory. But this meant that the agents had no idea whether their missing girl had run north or south. And given how often native girls with rough home lives run away from their families,

it became the Bureau's official position that Harper Tarbell was a runaway and that there was no evidence of foul play. In response, tribal police offered the agents a very sarcastic thank you, and then invited them to leave the reservation at their earliest possible convenience. Once I was beginning to understand the difficulties of my potential assignment, the assistant director asked if I was sure that I wanted to take it. Before I had a chance to answer, he reassured me that I get all the help that I could possibly ask for when it came to the office's resources and personnel.

But to use the man's own words, you're the face of this thing, no one else. To make a good impression with the locals, they wanted to send a mohawk, and that mohawk was me. That way, when I told people that I was there because I cared, and I wasn't just there for a paycheck, it would come off as much more sincere, and it needed to come off sincere because this was a very important and very sensitive case. It was a daunting prospect, and I don't feel nearly so confident once the precariousness of the situation became clear, but it still presented a golden opportunity to get a step up on the career ladder and very early on too. And so I took it.

It was about a six-hour drive from Manhattan to a place called Hogan'sburg, the largest town in the reservation, at least on the American side, and the location of tribal police HQ. When I arrived, I met with the chief of police at a diner across the precinct called the Bears Den. They did an amazing stake hash, which was much appreciated after that long journey, and as we ate, the chief gave me a brief introduction to the reservation and his people. He really talked the place up, and while it isn't unusual for someone to love where they're from, the chief said his praise had a purpose. He was telling me that, so when I opened up that file and read what had happened there, I'd remember that there were good, hardworking, level-headed people on that reservation that means. merely wanted to get to the bottom of a very grisly crime. Again, this was a somewhat daunting introduction, but he was absolutely right to warn me.

Because when I got back to the $3 a night motel that I was staying in and read what was in that file, it made my blood run cold. Less than a week before my arrival, one of the reservations many farmers woke up before dawn and walked out into his fields to begin his morning work. Then, as he's feeding some of his animals, he sees a figure walking up his pathway in the early morning. It's a young girl, 11 years old to be exact, and as she's getting closer, the farmer realizes that from head to toe, she was covered in blood.

Being of advanced age, the farmer said it quite literally almost scared him to death. He thought it was a spirit come to take him to the other place, and he was shaking in his boots right up until she asked him, and plain but very accented English, to help her. And the farmer rushes back inside to his house and calls 911, then by the time he runs back outside, the girl's lying in the dirt, drifting in and out of consciousness. And the last thing she says before she passes out for a whole 12 hours

is that she came from the river, meaning she walked just over three miles, soaked to the bone and freezing cold before collapsing in our farmer's pathway. The paramedics rushed to the young girl's aid and then drove her straight to the medical clinic there in Hogan'sburg for life-saving treatment, and then once they got her there, they realized all that blood wasn't even hers. Apart from a few abrasions here and there, there was barely a scratch on her. Then after hearing that the girl mentioned the river, the tribal police enlisted the help of the

reservation's paramedics in scouring the banks of the nearby St. Regis River, particularly the section nearest to our farmer's humble patch of dirt. And it didn't take long for them to find out where all that blood had come from. Out there on the riverbank, hanging in the trees were the mutilated bodies of five men. All had been disinbowed, their entrails hanging. four or five feet to the ground from where they've been impaled on broken branches or nestled grotesquely among the beams. Once the tribal police had gone about analyzing the crime scene and transporting the victim's bodies for secure storage, the chief of police stopped into the medical center to talk to that girl. She was awake, and the chief tried his best to pry any information

he could from her, but she was no condition to discuss her ordeal, and she only made it through four or five questions before she suffered a complete nervous breakdown. She said her name was Sarah, that she was 11 years old and she was from Quebec City. But when the chief asked her what had happened down by the river, she started to lock up. And then with tears welling up in her eyes, she told the chief, it was something in the river. Something in the river killed them. And after that, she was inconsolable and was in no fit state.

to be interviewed again for another couple of days. Before then, the tribal police got a preliminary analysis back from the Franklin County Coroner's Office, and the results were interesting, to say the least. Each of the bodies had been heavily mutilated, so much so that the exact causes of death were impossible to determine. In each of their mouths, the coroner found a small amount of what was later determined to be ceremonial pipe tobacco. Pipe tobacco is used by many First Nations people for spiritual, cultural, and ceremonial purposes. It's used in prayer, where the smoke from pipe carries prayers to the spiritual realm, and it's also used at various coming-of-age ceremonies, or even weddings and funerals.

But pipe tobacco serves another purpose, that of purification and spiritual restoration. And the significance of its presence in the victim's mouths wasn't immediately obvious, But as one of the tribal police officers told me, it was most likely there to banish the victim's restless spirits and prevent them from clinging to the land. Obviously, at that stage, the tribal police knew they had something big on their hands, but whether or not the case could be handled internally hinged on what the little girl from Quebec had to say once she was finally able to talk. They had her staying in the medical center in Hogan'sburg, and although she hadn't said much in the meantime, Her condition spoke quite a bit. Some of the tribal police officers had this idea that maybe the whole thing was some kind of camping trip gone wrong. That maybe a group of old friends had been out canoeing on the river, and that one of them had snapped.

When they got the news that the girl was showing signs of malnourishment, that kind of played into the officer's theory. The group were canoeing in the river, they got lost, ran out of food, and then snap. One of the group flies off the handle attacks everyone, then Little Sarah somehow escapes in the ensuing chaos. But once the girl was ready to talk again, she turned that whole theory on its head. The moment the chief of tribal police heard Little Sarah was talking again, he rushed over to the medical center with one of his officers to take her statement.

But upon their arrival, they were shocked to hear that the men that she was with were not her family or friends of her family or anything like that at all. At some point over the previous few weeks, she wasn't exactly sure when. Sarah had been snatched off the street in Quebec City. The men that she was with had abducted her and were in the process of transporting her someplace when the thing came out of the river and saved her.

The chief pressed her as much as possible in what exactly came out of the river, but Sarah didn't know. she'd been blindfolded and placed into some kind of large sack prior to the first leg of the journey but had been removed from the bag and placed into some kind of boat and the boat had been driven for some undetermined period of time then it stopped and she was guided into the shallows but as soon as her feet touched the water the men escorting her became alarmed began yelling and then gunfire began to erupt just a few feet from her she said that there was a lot of gunfire so much it almost sounded like one solid wall of noise hitting her ears, making her death.

The men who had abducted her tried to kill the thing that attacked them, screaming, cursing and yelling as it tore them apart, and in the chaos as it unfolded, she pulled off her blindfold and escaped into the darkness of the early morning. Sarah said that she had no idea where she was or where she was headed, but as dawn started to creep onto the horizon, she saw an old farmhouse and began walking towards it. And once word got out, that's about the time folks started talking about the spirit of the river. Many native cultures have a myth surrounding river gods or river spirits, but for the most part these spirits are passive and unconcerned by the affairs of man.

However, once news of the girl's kidnap made its way around the reservation, it became clear that many believed that the spirit of the river had felt young Sarah's pain and had decided to do something about. it. This is especially true after two aspects of the case were leaked by an unidentified member of the tribal police. Firstly, the news that ceremonial tobacco had been found in the mouths of the victims only strengthened people's belief that something supernatural was at play. But it was the second detail that really creeped out the reservation's residence. By that point, around a dozen tribal police officers had observed the scene of the crime, as had several members of emergency

medical services. All of them confirmed that covering the riverbank near the location of those bodies were a ton of dead riverfish. There were brown trout, walleyes, muskies, panfish, all lying there like some lifeless carpet made of shimmering scales. And just like with the ceremonial tobacco, their presence only seemed to reinforce the idea that the the kidnappers were killed by the spirit of the river. But to me, the explanation seemed much more simpler. You see, my father was a Vietnam veteran, and although he hadn't talked much about what he did during the war, there was something that he once told me that I never forgot.

He said the Viet Cong were master ambushers and never attacked a patrol when they expected to be attacked. They waited until what my dad called moments of transition, when his platoon, was least prepared, and that's when they attacked. For example, the VC would choose to hit my dad's unit during helicopter departures, during century changes in the middle of the night, or perhaps their favorite, during river crossings. Whoever ambushed Sarah's abductors did so during a moment of transition, and had done so with such effectiveness that all five victims never stood a chance. I put this theory to the chief of police, who, to an extent, agreed with my

analysis of the crime scene. There was just one problem. During the preliminary examination of the bodies, the Franklin County coroner saw no sign of entry or exit wounds on any of the bodies, meaning if they had been ambushed, it wasn't with any kind of firearm. There were, however, plenty of indications that the men had been killed using a sharp or bladed instrument. But if that was the case, how had a group of men armed with nothing but knives managed to best a group of fire, firearm-toating people smugglers. And the chief also mentioned that the reservation had a kind of small-town mentality to it. Even though it was spread over a wide area and included multiple small towns and villages,

everyone knew everyone else's business. Tribal police had also issued an appeal for information and, with a level of trust between the force and their people being so high, the fact that no one came forward was very concerning. They never had the problem before. Someone always came through with a tip or some information, especially if it was for the good of the reservation. Outsiders were pretty focused to exploit the place's legal loopholes, but the reservation's denizens were just as focused to keep that from happening. So the fact that no one came forward seemed to be proof that no one knew anything, which again, for a place like a reservation, was deeply troubling.

And it was around here that the tribal police hit their investigative brick wall, so to speak, and after some debate, they contacted the FBI's New York field office and requested assistance. By the time I arrived, the abducted Canadian girl had been returned to her parents in Quebec City, for what I can only assume was a very happy reunion. I had dinner with the chief of tribal police, took the case file back to my motel room, then the next morning. I drove over to the precinct to talk with the chief and his officers. The first thing I did, in an attempt to reestablish trust between the Bureau and the Tribal Police,

was ask them where and how we could assist them in their investigation. I wasn't there to take over and shove them aside, like you see in almost every other police drama on television. I was there to supercharge whatever they were doing with the Bureau's deep pockets and fancy equipment. They seemed appreciative, albeit a little skeptical of the hell. help that I had to offer them, but they were not without requests. First off, the coroner over in Franklin County was so understaffed that they couldn't give the tribe a definitive date for the completion of all five autopsies.

Given they needed the results to advance the investigation, the first thing I could do was help expedite the autopsies. The second thing I could do was get some FBI forensics guys to look over the crime scene again, and as all they'd be able to do thus far was look it over with the naked eye. Don't get me wrong. They'd done a real good job with what little they had, but they needed divers for the river, and they needed someone to figure out who the hell their victims actually were,

which would involve setting up a direct line of communication with the police up in Quebec and Ontario. It was a lot of work, but I had the backing of the Bureau, and within days, I was able to deliver the first result. After a phone call back to H.Q, two forensic pathologists from the New York field office drove up to the coroner's office in Malone. The folks there were only too happy to let them do their jobs for them, and it meant that we had our autopsy results by late afternoon that same day. Preliminary examinations hadn't found a single, verifiable, gunshot wound on any of the bodies,

but the autopsy results showed that they were riddled with them. One body had almost 30 cavitations running through his torso alone, meaning almost 30 bullets had punched through his chest and stomach before exiting through the flesh of his back. The sheer volume and devastation of this gunfire suggested that either the smugglers had been attacked by a large group of lightly armed men or by a much smaller group armed with high-powered machine guns. To the tribal police, both explanations proved hard to swallow. They couldn't believe a large group of armed men had been running around the reservation without word getting back to them. And when it came to heavy machine guns, no one on the reservation had that kind of firepower. Then, when the forensic analysis of the scene came in, it only sort of deepened the mystery. And so, remember all those dead fish that had creeped everyone out so much?

The ceremonial pipe tobacco in the victim's mouths were one thing. but how did we expect to explain all those dead fish lining the shore? Well, the mystery of all those dead fish was solved in tandem with the mystery of where the smuggler's boat had gotten to. It was at the bottom of the river, complete with a few sacks stuffed with bullet-punctured bags of Afghan heroin. All of those fish had been swimming around the boat, breathing an uncut heroin that had been leaching into the water, and then floating to the surface and tore the riverbank, dead as doornails. But what investigators couldn't understand was why there was a single 792-by-57 Mauser shell casing, a rare old-patterned bullet first introduced prior to World War I,

lying among a sea of 9mm and 0.45. The discovery of the heroin raised the question if the murders were committed by a rival group, or if the incident itself was some kind of drug deal gone wrong. This theory was reinforced when Ontario police reached out to confirm that multiple Canadian smuggling operations used the waterways of the Aqua Zasne territory to transport goods across the border to the United States, and then naturally, their direct competition sometimes led to confrontations. But there was something about the presence of the pipe tobacco in their mouths

that made me think that there was much more to it than that. some of the tribal police suggested it could have been placed there to throw investigators off the scent and make them focus on the local Mohawk rather than on the international smuggling outfits I could understand making an example of them by mutilating the bodies but why go to the trouble of procuring ceremonial tobacco and why bother to place it in such an exact spot as opposed to tossing a handful of it over the bodies once they'd been cut up and hung No, to me it was no decoy or distraction. It had been done with intent and forethought, meaning the killers were on the reservation.

Then when it came to the question of who might be motivated enough to do such a thing, I knew damn sure who I wanted to talk to first. Before I continue, I feel like this is the right time to explain something very important. In some people's vision of an ideal world, the FBI wouldn't investigate a case where in five smugglers of child captives were murdered, with their prisoner having escaped without a scratch. But there's a reason vigilante justice is illegal in this country. From the perspective of an investigator, we had no idea who these people were. Sure, a few of them could have been people smugglers, but all of them?

And what if that little girl, Sarah, from Quebec, wasn't the only child on board the boat that night? There could be bodies still unaccounted for, and vulnerable, trafficked individuals, could have been murdered along with their kidnappers in a case of mistaken identity. That's why we had to get to the bottom of what had happened and why we couldn't just say, oh well, scratch five scumbags, and then clock out early for cold beers and shrimp cocktails. The first and only person on my list of people to talk to was Wolf Tarbell,

the father of the missing Harper Tarbell, who disappeared 15 years prior. He was a disabled veteran of World War II, living alone off his army pension on a piece of untilled farmland his family had owned for generations at first after limping out of his home with the use of a cane

he refused to answer any of my questions and frankly I completely understood why but I told him not only had I brought news that vindicate his claims of his daughter's abduction but there was a chance that we could make the men that took her face justice for their crime and after that he warned formed up to me considerably and invited me into his home.

The first thing Mr. Tarbell did after I walked inside was show me a picture of his missing daughter. He told me that he thought of her every single day, and her memory was the only thing that got him out of bed every morning. He asked me if I'd ever lost somebody like that, and I said no. He said they hoped that I never had to know what it felt like. And then, and only then, did he agree to talk about the smugglers. As it went, Mr. Tarbell had conducted considerable research into the cross-border smuggling networks of the Aquasasasne. A series of competing factions smuggled cigarettes, drugs, firearms, and even people, back and forth across the border. And Mr. Tarbell was quite certain that it was one of these factions which abducted his daughter.

He obviously didn't have any concrete proof, and he had no idea where his daughter had been taken, or even if she was still alive. but if he knew it had to be one of those groups and he was only too willing to help me if it meant seeing them in handcuffs and I thanked him for everything he told me said I'd take his advice regarding better communication with the cops on the Canadian side of the border and then made my way to the Hoganburg police precinct

to tell the chief what I'd learned he didn't seem surprised Mr. Tarbeau had spent so much time fixated on the subject but he was surprised that he'd taken the time to talk to me The chief claimed Wolf Tarbell had once said that the next FBI man who stepped foot onto his property would be buried on it so the fact that I even made it off his land alive

was something of a miracle. Over the days that followed, myself and the officers of the tribal police tried to build a picture of the regional smuggling operation and we primarily achieved this after securing the cooperation of police departments up in Quebec and Ontario who explained it had been a problem on their side

for quite some time. The transnational nature of the territory meant that it had always been an issue. But from the early 70s onwards, cross-border narcotics and people smuggling had become a huge problem for communities on both sides of the U.S. Canadian border. And that made for one hell of a day's work, and by the end of it, we had two separate link charts on two separate cork boards, one for English-speaking groups and the other for the French-Canadian groups. Most seem to specialize in either drugs or firearms, rarely both, but the ones we were interested in were to the ones that transported people. But to our frustration, they were much,

much harder to pin down, because cases involving human trafficking were much less common. And like I said, that made for a tough day, so before I went to my motel room, I stopped by the Bear's Den diner for more of their steak hash. And it was quite. close to closing time, and I was the only person in there. But the owner seemed only too happy to make me his final customer of the evening. Once I'd finished eating, he brought me a cup of coffee on the house. He'd heard about what had happened down by the river and figured that I must be one of the out-of-town cops come to help solve the case. I told him, with powers of deduction like that, he should have been a detective, and after what I'm sure was a very polite return of

laughter, he asked how the investigation was going. I said it was going okay, permitting a few speed bumps, and that when all was said and done, it might make a real difference in terms of putting a dent in local crime. The diner's owner then said he doubted that very much on account of the incompetence of the local police force. And out of courtesy, I just asked him what he meant by that. And as I sip my free coffee, he explained that sometimes the local cops didn't respond to calls at all. One night, just a week prior or so, the owner of the diner had taken a bathroom trip in the middle of the night. He hadn't been keeping regular as he'd like to in his old age, so while it was a relief to have nature finally calling,

he remained atop the old porcelain throne for quite some time before he'd properly finished his business. But during that period, in dead silence of the winter night, he thought that he heard a loud burst of gunfire way off in the distance. and then another, and then another. He said he wasn't completely sure what he'd heard at the time. But the next day, when news of the murders swept the town, he called the tribal police to file a report on what he'd heard. The officer that he had spoken to said that he'd make a note of the call and then informed the chief at the first available opportunity,

but he never got a return call. When I asked the chief why I hadn't been informed of this, he said it was the first that he was hearing of it, that an officer Tyler Wynne had been manning the desk that day. Wynne, on the other hand, offered little more than a weak apology and said that he'd been tired following the extra early start that day. I didn't see it as too much of a setback or a missed opportunity or anything, but I did think that it was odd than an officer would neglect to record something of such significance.

The next few days were quite slow, with only minute progress here and there, thanks to calls from departments up in Canada, but then a sudden break in the case sent everyone scrambling. We got a call from an antique firearms dealer over in New Hampshire, who, having heard the press release we put out regarding the automatic weapons used in the Riverside murders, had reached out to the FBI to report an unusual sale. His antique dealership specialized in weaponry and equipment from World War II, and while he made a few bucks here and there from antique weapons sales, He made a lot of money selling what you might call historical ammunition or stuff they don't make anymore.

About three or four months before the murders, he gets a phone order for an entire case of 792 by 57 Mouser ammo and not blank rounds either, live ones. And if you remember, one of the showcasings found at the scene of the crime had been of this exact same rare caliber. The antiques dealer used to do a lot of business with reenactors, you know the kind. They dress up in old uniforms and then go running around a field pretending to shoot at each other and then pretending to die. They always needed a whole bunch of old-fashioned ammunition for their reenactments, so the guy made a lot of money off of it, and whenever he sold actual live rounds of 792 by 57, it was only ever a few boxes to target shooters, not whole cases.

Just a few days before the murders, when the guy came to pick the ammo up, he arrived in a car with New York plates, walked with a limp, and although he never said it out loud, our antiques dealer was for damn sure that the guy was a veteran. It was Wolf Tarbell. It had to be. As soon as I got off the phone with the antiques dealer, which was fairly late in the evening, I called the chief of police and then arranged for us to pay Mr. Tarbell a visit the following. morning. Since he was now considered a person of interest, I didn't want to tip him off that we were planning on stopping by. Yet little did I know. He wouldn't have been able to come to the phone anyway. When myself and the chief arrived at his home the next morning, Wolf Tarbell's front door was wide open, and when I called out for him, I didn't get a reply. The chief and I drew our sidearms

and then crept into Tarbell's house, not quite knowing what to expect, but knowing that it was going to be bad. Then, when we walked into the man's kitchen, we found him. I'd seen the crime photos from the river murders already, and what was left of Wolf Tarbell looked exactly like the remains in those photographs. He was all torn up, butchered almost beyond recognition. Someone had taken his head and then placed it horizontally on a kitchen counter. Tarbell's jaw was a little slack, and inside his mouth, I could see a clump of something dark and damp behind his front teeth. It was ceremonial pipe tobacco, the same kind that had been found in the mouths of the victims by the river. The chief called for backup using his patrol cars radio, and within the

hour, his officers had locked down the crime scene and forensics were en route. But as the first of the chief's officers arrived, we got word that Officer Wynne had failed to show up to work that day, which given the recent spike of murders was obviously very concerning. Tyler Wynne was the same slow but well-meaning officer who failed to log the call that one time. The chief said that he lived with his mother in a small home just outside of Hogan'sburg, but when the chief and I stopped by, he wasn't there either. As the chief asked his mother, who was a very warm and very cooperative older lady, where she thought that her son might be, I found my eyes starting to kind of wander around the room. Mrs. Wynne had hung framed pictures of her family

on just about every visible surface, including plenty of her police officer's son, Tyler. I got kind of a kick out of getting to see him grow up in fast motion, as the photos range from baby pictures to elementary school age to late high school and graduation. But there was one picture in particular that really caught my eye, and that's because I recognized both of the photos two subjects. It looked like it was taken during some kind of winter formal and showed a sophomore or junior year-age Tyler standing with a young lady who looked very, very familiar. At the next opportunity, I politely interrupted the chief and Mrs. Wend to ask who the girl in the photograph was, and a sad look came over her face before she told me, that's Harper Tarbell. Tyler was real sweet on her back in his high school days. The two dated, even went to a dance together.

He was heartbroken when she went missing. The chief and I were stunned, but him more so, because in almost ten years of working with Officer Wynne, he never once mentioned having dated the missing Tarbell girl. But that wasn't the only odd thing that the chief had noticed about Officer Wynne. On the night of the river murders, Wyn had radioed into HQ claiming that he'd followed a bunch of outsiders back to some kind of illegal alcohol still that they had set up on the edge of the reservation.

Because he was still on the move, he only gave a rough idea of his location and direction. But then suddenly, he starts yelling about how they'd spotted their tail, and it opened fire on him, then he drops off his radio entirely. Every tribal officer on duty and even some that were off duty go roaring off towards Wynn's last known location. And when I asked where that was, the chief told me that, that it was just about as far away from the scene of the river murders as it was possible to be and still be inside the reservation.

The only trouble was, when they arrived in the area in question and started scouring it for any sign of wind and the trigger-happy bootleggers, they can't find hide nor hair of either party, and they only find wind much later on back at that station, claiming that he outran those gunmen and saved his own skin. The chief didn't tell me all that until we were back in his car, and we were on our way to the fishing shack Wynne's mother claimed that he liked to frequent. She claimed it's where she'd look if she was in charge of looking for him, and she was right. Inside of that rickety old fishing shack, the mutilated corpse of Officer Tyler Wynne was spread all over the wooden walls and floor, and I'm sure by this stage I don't have to tell you would have been stuffed into his mouth.

Also present inside the shack was a little plastic baggie containing all the 792 by 57 shell casings that were missing from the scene of the rivers, all except for one, of course. And the question of what they'd been fired from was answered following a thorough search of Wolf Tarbell's property. After being wounded during the battle of Bostonia, Wolf Tarbell returned home with more than just a Purple Heart. for some reason he was allowed to keep the rifle that he'd fought with upon his discharge and after registering it with the tribal police it took a prideful place above his mantle but what the army didn't know is that the old wounded wolf had brought home another weapon with him broken down into pieces and concealed among his belongings he reassembled it in his basement when he got home and that's where it stayed for more than 35 years an almost mint condition

German-made Machinen Gavir 2-15, more commonly known as the M.G.42. We had an idea of who had provided the weapon. We had an idea of who had pulled the trigger. We also had an idea of why our killer had pulled the trigger seeing as his childhood sweetheart had apparently been abducted by the same organization

the victims were members of. But what we couldn't work out, what I've never been able to work out. is who killed Wynne and Tarbell, and why? The only other detail of the case, the final detail before we hit such a great investigative brick wall that we were forced to abandon the investigation was this. Just a few days after we pulled that German machine gun out of Wolf's basement

and were recovering the missing ballistic evidence from Tyler Wynn's fishing shack, three tiny bodies washed up on the banks of the St. Regis River, about nine or ten miles downstream. Little Sarah hadn't been the only kidnapped child on the smugglers boat that night. There had been three more, two Canadian children and one American. All three had been riddled with those antique bullets bought by the late Wolf Tarbell. I figured that when they realized what they'd done, Tarbell and Win had to make it look like something it wasn't. But they couldn't have been working alone.

It's impossible that they were working alone, because if they were, then who the hell did the exact same brutal thing to them in order to ensure their eternal silence? I might be Mohawk on my mother's side, but I don't subscribe to beliefs that involve things I can't see or touch. I don't believe any kind of spirit was responsible for what had happened to those people, be it the smugglers, the child captives, or those who killed them. But I do believe that there's someone out there. Maybe they're still on the reservation, maybe not, who had a blind hatred or lust for revenge does something truly unforgivable.

And I'll live the rest of my life in regret that I couldn't bring them to justice. Maybe the story of why I couldn't bring them to justice could make for another chapter of my memoir, but I have no doubt that it'd make for a much sadder and much less unsettling kind of story than this one. In August of 203, I was in a trade school in Sumeroo County for graphic design. A sophomore name James noticed that I was in my junior year at a trade school in Sumeru County for graphic design. A sophomore named James noticed that I wasn't getting dropped off at our homeschool like he was. And one day he offered to drive me home. I didn't know this kid well.

I had spoken to him a few times, but we weren't friends. I told him that my mom prefers to meet people before letting me ride in a random person's car, especially a guy's. At the time, I was 18, so I also mentioned that if he got into a wreck, I would be legally responsible as the adult in the car. And after that, he didn't really bother me much. We still talked occasionally, and it was clear that he wasn't neurotypical. But things didn't get creepy until my senior year. We exchanged numbers because I sometimes helped him with homework that he didn't fully understand. And I also recommended some horror channels on YouTube, like Reddit stories, creepypasta readings,

or channels that cover disturbing videos such as Hannah the Horrible, Nick Crowley, and Nexpo. And within a month, he somehow found my home address, and I never told him where I lived, and he got dropped off way earlier than I did. The way our homeschool system worked was that all students on the west side of Fontaine heading into Salani went to one middle school in high school, while students from East Fontaine going into Laiu went to a different high school. I never told this kid where I live, not even a rough area, and at this point I started documenting everything, no matter how big or small.

Over the next few months, if I fell asleep on the bus, he would tap my headphones, snap them against my ears, kick my legs, shake me, or call my phone just to force me to talk to him. And in April, he asked me to prom, and I repeatedly told him that I was not interested. He tried to manipulate me into going, so I ended up lying insane that I had a family event that day. After that, I reported him to the principal for harassing and shaming people into going to prom. and he gave me the most insincere apology ever. It was clear that he had been forced to do it.

The next day, he called me and asked if my sister drove a red car or worked at the Sangonamia coffee house, and I quickly told him no and blocked his number. I then went to administration bringing up the fact that this kid had been calling me to ask if I had gone to Dollar General, if I was at work, or if I was at home. He also told me disturbing thoughts about wanting to kill his mom's boyfriend, describing how he wanted to smash his teeth in. He smack his phone against the bus window,

try to manipulate me into calling him while he was having a panic attack, and rant about how our math teacher needed to be gutted because she was overweight. He went on a misogynistic rant about how fat women are ugly and horrible vessels for producing babies, and she wasn't even overweight due to a poor diet. She had a medical condition that caused a build-up of estrogen. And the worst moment was when he lost his air pod. case and had a full-on meltdown. He aggressively stomped on his AirPods, foamed at the mouth, and threw a tantrum in pure rage. I reported everything to the principal and the school liaison.

And instead of listening, they yelled at me for an hour accusing me of being mean to a kid on the spectrum. I thought that he just played Overwatch. They even justified his actions by saying that my information, my mother's information, and my sister's information were all public anyway. At this point, I started having a panic attack and called my mom, and I was literally vomiting into the trash can in the conference room. My mom was pissed. She told me to call the sheriff's office as soon as I got home. The sheriff actually went to this kid's house and warned him to knock it off, or else I had

every right to file stalking and harassment charges. The 180 women's shelter later confirmed that what the principal and liaison did was disgusting and dangerous, and so far I haven't seen him. I still have his number blocked. Hopefully I never see that little idiot again. And to James, if by some chance you ever see this post, stay away from me and my sister. I hope your future commanding officer finds out about all of this. Oh, and that's right.

This guy wants to join the army. I am, was, as this was several years ago, a 35-year-old blonde, white, petite Italian-American with barely two-year-old twins. And now I may be biased, but my boy-slash-girl twins are exceptionally cute. Weirdly, though, they don't even look related. My son in particular got a lot of attention due to his strawberry blonde hair and giant blue eyes. So I head out to target with my Twinsies, parking slightly far from the main entrance because I like to be close to where you can return the carts, and there weren't a ton of carts in this row. As I'm getting out, another couple who parked near me and I exchange smiles.

Clearly their son is the same age as my kids. The dad is a bear of a man, huge with a beard for days and arms like tree trunks. And as I'm walking around Target, looking at all the things we don't need, I vaguely notice two couples who seem to be in a lot of the same areas as me. They aren't speaking English. And if I had to guess, I'd say probably Russian, but I couldn't really tell. Now, fast forward, I get in line behind one of the couples. My daughter is in the seat part of the cart, and my son is in the wide open part. And out of nowhere, the woman from the couple behind me is all up in my cart in personal space.

Meanwhile, the couple in front of me, after paying, doesn't move out of the way. Weird, move over, guys, what are you doing? And then, the woman behind me leans completely over my cart, placing herself between me and my son. And I have no idea what she's doing, still. It seems like her main objective is to block my eye line from him. I have my hands on my daughter, but I can't even see my son. She's a big lady, and she is way too close to my kids. She is leaning so far over my cart that her body is practically resting on both sides of it.

Again, I can't even see my child anymore, who up until two minutes ago was less than 10 inches away from me. I asked her to back up when she started inching closer, but she just responded in her native language. I gestured to show her what I meant, and I repeatedly asked her to please move, excuse me, etc. And it was obvious, though, was trying to get her away from my children. Even if you don't speak the same language, it's pretty damn clear what I was trying to imply. And she just blatantly ignores me. I'm trying to lean around her to grab my son and throw him onto the conveyor belt just to get him away from this couple. Seriously, what are they trying to do here?

And she refuses to move, and I can't get to my son. And this starts to go on for several minutes. We're not even checked out yet because I have items in my cart that I can't reach. I'm also blocked in on the other side by the other couple. who are standing completely on top of me. At this point, I am full on yelling at the woman to get the F away from my kid. Finally, I grab my cart and smash it as hard as I can into her, and she starts yelling at me,

and backs up just enough for me to grab my son, who is now hysterical. The 16-year-old cashier was useless, even though I was screaming at her to call security the entire time. Then the bear from earlier sees everything happening and rushes over with his family. He shoves the other couple away from me, and we ditch all my attempted purchases. He escorts me and my twins back to our cars safely, and he and his wife even follow me for a bit onto the highway, just to make sure that we weren't being followed.

So to the tourists at Target who attempted to, I don't even know what you were attempting, you raised all my mama bear red flags, and you're lucky I didn't smash my keys into your face because that was my next move coming at you. I stupidly decided to get gas at 11 p.m. one night because I hadn't made time before work. as I'm pulling up to the gas station there are a couple of cars at the pumps which make me feel somewhat relieved and safer going in but I was wrong I go inside to pay the clerk since I'm using cash and as I'm heading back to the pump to fill up most of the cars leave except for one truck parked two pumps away from me I get into my car to wait for the gas to fill and start scrolling on my phone suddenly I see this guy walking suspiciously around the front of my car and I glance up to see what he's doing.

Unfortunately, we make eye contact. He asked if I have any change for gas, and I shake my head. No, sorry. And he responds, Okay, that's cool. Hey, do you want me to remove your gas pump for you? And I quickly respond. I'm good, thanks.

At this point, my tank is full, and he knows it. And he acts fidgety and walks away behind my car. I'm trying not to glare back too obviously, but I suddenly am looking around trying to figure out where he is. I don't want to make it obvious how terrified I am. In my head, I'm thinking, how do I leave with him still around my car? He's out of sight now, and the lot is empty, and I'm waiting for another car to pull up. Five minutes pass and nothing.

My fighter flight response is just kicking my head in, and it's freezing outside, and I haven't started my car yet because the pump is still in. I have no idea where this guy went. Finally, I see him walking towards his truck, but instead of getting in, he's just sort of lingering around it. And the second his back has turned, I go for it. I remove the pump, and as soon as he notices, he quickly starts approaching me again. Oh, hey, you're really beautiful. He says, still walking toward me.

And I nod quickly, but suddenly, I put the gas cap back on, and then he says, I don't look like a serial killer, do I? with this crazed look in his eyes like yeah bro you actually do and at that point i bolted to my car and just sped off So this happened. So this happened just last week. I live alone in a small college town, although I'm not a student or a student or a faculty member. My apartment is in a duplex on a residential street just a few blocks from campus, which most of the students have left for their winter break. Things get very quiet

when they're not around. Late Wednesday night, I woke up to a disturbing sound outside. It was someone crying, but not in a normal way. This was more like delirious wailing. The person didn't sound grief-stricken or panicked, and there were no cries for help. Otherwise, I'd probably have gone outside cautiously to check things out. And this sounded more like someone doing an impression of a ghost, but being a little too convincing, a sort of woo-oo-oo-ah, over and over. Not a pleasant way to wake up, I'll be honest. I got up and looked out the window but didn't see anyone, and I couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. After a few minutes, the whaling grew distant and things got quiet. I went back to sleep, a little unsettled. Thursday night,

around and I went to bed as usual, wondering if I'd hear anything again. And sure enough, I was awakened a few hours later, but this time the sound was completely different. At first I wondered if there had been a heavy snowfall because I heard what sounded like the edge of a shovel scraping the sidewalk. It was very rhythmic. Two plotting footsteps followed by a long and drawn-out scraping. Thud, thud, thud, scrape, thud, thud, scrape. I got up and looked out the window where I saw no snow but a dense fog and a woman across the street. It took me a minute to tell if she was wearing some strange hat, but then I realized that the hat was her hair. It was long, down to her waist and completely filthy and matted, bunched up into a single mass that looked like a gigantic glistening hairball.

The woman was standing with her shoulders hunched forward and her arms crossed behind her back like a figure skater or a figure skater. dancer. And she was doing an unusual sort of dance, where she would take two heavy stops and then glide as if though she were on ice skates. But there was no ice. I couldn't tell how she was gliding so gracefully and effortlessly across the pavement. It was almost hypnotic to watch because she appeared to be elderly and frail. But she could spin, glide, and maintain balance on a level that would be hard for me to keep up with. And each time she would glide, I'd hear the scrape sound of her shoe against the pavement. There was no additional steps to the dance,

just the rhythmic, stop, stomp, glide, headed in one direction before twirling around and doing the same steps in the other. After a few minutes, she stopped and then stooped down like a runner at the starting line, dramatically leaning forward with her fingertips lightly touching the ground. She stayed that way for a good minute or two,

and it was a very unsettling thing to see in the shadows and fog. Then she slowly stood up, turned facing away from me, and got up on her very tiptoes with her long, skinny arms outstretched. Then she broke into a rapid tiptoeing motion that professional ballerinas do. In my mind, I heard that classic cartoon sound effect that plays when a character scampers away. Without a sound, she danced into the fog, and I haven't seen or heard anything from her since. This happened, this happened approximately 10 years ago, around 2015 to 2016. I was living with someone at the time who worked in opposite screens.

schedule as me. He worked graveyard shift and I worked during the day. So when I was getting up and getting ready to leave for work, he was just coming home. On the nights during the week, I obviously would be at home by myself. And one night during the week, I was feeling especially lonely and my favorite toy unfortunately broke and died. So I decided to drive downtown to the 24-hour adult store to buy another one. The town I live in is a mid-sized suburban town filled with mostly residential areas. The main downtown area was essentially one small area on the way to the freeway, and my apartment was ten minutes away. I pulled into the parking lot behind the adult store. The parking lot was dark and had multiple entries all around that led to the bars and restaurants as well as the

store. After parking my car, I walked towards the entrance of the store which was on the street, and to do so, I had to walk towards the driveway that I came into park, and upon walking to the entrance, I noticed a man standing by himself smoking a cigarette. It was 1 a.m. and not normal to just see only one person standing by themselves there, though I figured he was one of the patrons from one of the bars on the block taking a cigarette break. And as I walked passing him, he says, hi, to which I responded with a very quiet hi. But didn't make eye contact with him. And upon passing him, I had a better look at his appearance. He had a shaved head, wore a long white t-shirt with shorts hanging past his knees,

and he had a pair of sneakers accompanied with some tube socks that covered his shins. This is not unusual to see in my town, but I was more concerned that he was sitting by himself and instantly took an interest in me as I walked past him. After passing him and continuing to walk to the store, I saw out of the corner of my eye the man proceeding to follow behind me. When I say follow, I don't mean he coincidentally was walking behind me, me, he immediately followed right behind me as soon as I passed him making a point to maintain the

same walking speed. I did not know this man's intentions, but a man by himself that late at night is a recipe for trouble. And as I looked down the dark and empty street, I weighed out my options of where to go. Initially, I thought, keep walking so he doesn't know that you're going to the adult store. But since it was 1 a.m. and there was no one on the street, I thought that to be probably more dangerous. Then I thought, just go in one of the bars. But then I thought that that would give him an easier introduction to approach me. So then I realized my best bet was to continue into the store where I knew it was well lit and people could see me. I proceeded to shop for what I came there for, and the man entered the store behind me, but hung out at the front of the store so as not

to look like he was following me around. He wasn't even pretending his shop. He literally just sat at the front waiting. And as I was shopping, I heard the man make sort of a sound, to which I ignored. And he wasn't getting the message, and he continued to make this S sound as I continued to shop without noticing. And eventually I walked up to the cashier who was completely oblivious to what was going on, and I tried to whisper to the cashier, do you know what that man, or does he work here? The cashier asked me to repeat what I was saying. and asked again, but still spoke in a quiet voice. Not understanding my attempt to be discreet, the cashier responded,

I can't hear you say it again. At this point, I felt like my cover was blown. So on a more normal tone, I told the cashier the man in front followed me from outside and won't leave me alone. I explained my car was parked in the lot behind the store, and I didn't feel comfortable going to my car, and the cashier said okay. The cash wrap area was an enclosed,

square-shaped counter to maintain distance between the staff and the customers. The cashier walked to the front by where the man was and from behind the counter told the man to leave. He then came up and reassured me that he told the man to go away, though the man did not, in fact, go away. He continued to stay there. Given that I didn't want him to follow me to my car, I stayed in the store and pretended that I was still shopping, even though I had already found what I came for. I would occasionally glance to the front to see if the man was still there, and he was. And I kept going up to the cashier explaining that the man hadn't left, so he went back up to the front to talk to him.

I heard the cashier say, all right, enough already, leave the store. And while he was doing this, I went to the far back end of the store to remain out of sight. And by the time I circled back to the cashier, I noticed the man was no longer there. The cashier said that he repeatedly and more assertively told the man to leave. He said the man claimed that he didn't understand English. The cashier then pulled a baton that he kept under the counter for protection and held it over his head and asked the man, Do you understand this?

To which the man finally left the store. I made my purchase but was still worried about walking to my car, even though I was parked in one of the first spaces near the driveway entrance. The cashier pointed at a small TV behind him that had four angles of CCTV footage, and he assured me that the man was gone. and told me to come back into the store if I saw him again. He also said he would watch as I walked to my car. Even though I would have felt more comfortable if he had walked me to my car,

I understood that he was by himself and couldn't leave the store unattended with customers. And after making my purchase, I sped walk to my car, and I always have my keys ready when walking to my car, so I promptly pressed unlock on my car remote, got in, placed my bag of purchases on the passenger seats, and proceeded to start the car. Once my car turned on, I took off the emergency break, put the car in reverse, and while putting on my seatbelt, I looked in my side view mirror to back out. It was at this point that I saw

that same man in the mirror, full-on speedwalking right toward my driver-side door. You see, I was driving in a cord at the time, and that model automatically locks the doors when you take the car out of park. And as soon as I saw him, I hit the gas and violently pulled out of the parking space. pulled out so fast that it startled him, stopping him dead in his tracks, and he was now standing right next to my driver's side door as I continued to pull out. I gave him the most serious, dead stare I could because I know most predators feed off the fear of their victims. The stare must have worked. As soon as he saw me pulling out while staring at him, he turned his head back toward the driveway entrance and proceeded to walk back to where he had been standing. He had a look of

defeat on his face. My face, however, was a look of defeat. overcome with relief. I pulled out of the parking lot and took myself back home. And I felt a bit of shame for being out so late by myself and I did tell my boyfriend about the incident when he came home at 6 a.m. He also agreed that going out that late alone wasn't the smartest decision and I'm no longer with that person, but I still live in the same town, though I never leave my home for anything past 9 o'clock anymore. While the town I live in isn't the most dangerous, there are still enough crimes that occur here that it's also not considered the safest. 17, and I was 18.

I'm a very short girl, only about 4.10, and I get anxious when someone even looks at me in a way that suggests they might not like me. So needless to say, I'm incredibly non-confrontational. My friend and I were out shopping. It was something we'd do maybe every few months just to bond since we didn't have much time to hang out due to college. And she's just like me, barely scraping 5'1 and very non-confrontational. That's probably why we became friends. On every shopping trip, we would find ourselves in Anne Summers. We're both overly endowed and struggled to find bras anywhere,

and Ann Summers always had great sales, so we grabbed the cheap bras while we could. This shopping trip wasn't any different. We brows shops until we got to Anne Summers, but that's when things took a bit of a turn. I'd barely stepped foot into the shop when a woman with some sort of Slavic accent stopped me, and her finger jammed into my chest. Spit the gum out. She demanded. Assuming that she was an employee, I gave a very sheepish, I'm really sorry, and ran out of the shop to spit the gum out and throw it away. When I went back in, I realized that this woman was not an employee. She was a customer who was

browsing and happened to be near the door when my friend and I entered the shop. It should have been obvious to me at the time. No salesperson would ever behave like that, not one that wanted to keep their job anyways. But I kept my head down when I walked past her, holding my breath in hopes that she wouldn't notice me again. And she didn't, and I thought I was in the clear. My friend and I browsed the shop trying to avoid the woman, but the shop wasn't very big, probably only 15 feet by 18 feet, so eventually I ended up at the sales stand by the door where she had been stood. I tried to keep my distance while browsing. I was looking at the price tags but realized that I didn't know what the discount was, so I leaned over slightly to check the discount sign. It's important that I note

that this woman had a push chair, which is a stroller for the Americans, and you'd think that she'd maybe had a child in this push chair, but no, it was full of plastic carrier bags. I didn't look too much at it, but I could tell that everything in there was double-bagged and tied shut. Whatever was in those bags, she wanted to protect. This sense of protection became very irrelevant because when I leaned over to look at the discount sign, I was leaning slightly closer to her push chair. It was still about three feet away from it, but apparently it was too close. The woman was on the other side of the chair, but the moment she saw me, she ran around to it where I was stood. She hits me in the face. It was somewhere between a slap and a punch,

and I couldn't quite tell because I was in shock. All I knew is that it hurt. Watch the personal space. She hissed. in my ear. And I apologized to her. This woman just hit me and I apologized to her. I regret it now, but at the time, I didn't want to provoke her any further, not that I knew what I did to provoke her in the first place. And in my shock, I turned around and ran to the back area, grabbing my friend's hand and pulling her with me. The back area was separated by a tiny wall that only stretched halfway across the shop since they stored the adult toys there and wanted to keep them out of sight of the general public. I stood there holding my friend's hand and shaking as I whispered,

She just hit me, to my friend, and we stood there for a good minute in silence, and my friend was positioned in a way that she could see the rest of the store while I hid behind the wall. She's gone, my friend told me, and it led out of breath that I didn't even know that I was holding. Can we stay here for a while? I asked my friend, worried that the woman would be outside waiting for me. The front of the store was open, but she could have easily, just been a couple of feet down the road and out of sight, waiting for me to leave. My friend agreed, and we slowly browsed the shop again. About five minutes later, we got to the counter to check out, and the girl working the counter looked outside and then back at us. That woman's been in here for 30 minutes.

I didn't know what to do. She told the two of us. What did she say to you? She told me to spit out my gum when we first came in, and then she hit me because I was too close to her. She hit you? The worker was wide-eyed. If I'd have known that, I would have called security. I'm so sorry.

I smiled and shrugged. It's fine. It wasn't really fine, but it wasn't the worker's fault. She didn't look much older than I did, and I wouldn't have known what to do in that situation either. And still shaken up, my friend and I made her way out of the store. I looked around but didn't see the woman. Can we just go home now? I asked my friend.

We hadn't finished browsing all the shops, but I was so paranoid that we bump into that insane woman again. She agreed and we got the bus home. And when I got home, my parents encouraged me to report the incident to the police. And I called the non-emergency line and their answer was basically, well, what do you expect us to do about it? And unless I went back to the Ann Summers and requested the security, security footage, which I wasn't sure if they actually had. They wouldn't do anything.

It's been just over three years, and now I'm sure that that woman was likely to have been homeless and or on drugs. It's the only explanation I can think of for the carrier bags and her protectiveness. It was either everything she owned or drugs, or maybe even both. This happened to me many years ago. I am 38 now and I believe this took place when I was 14 or 15. My family, consisting of myself, my mother, and my brother who was six years my junior, were in the process of moving down the road sometime in the near. future and had been fixing the new place up so it was move-in ready for us. We had enlisted some help

from some extended family, mainly my mother's cousin and her adult sons and their wives, to help paint our bedrooms. During one of these days of hard work, we collectively decided that we all wanted slurpees from a nearby 7-Eleven store. And for those that don't know, a slurpee is a frozen drink, usually soda flavors, dispense from a machine with a handle that you push down or pull up on. The cups come with a clear dome lid and a long straw with a spoon on the end. And maybe it's just me, but the spoon is pretty useless. The best part is, since you get to prepare it yourself, you can mix any of the dozen or so flavors yourself and in any order you'd like. So one of my older cousins and I decided to head out to get the drinks while the others

continue to work in the house. The drive there and the preparing of the frozen beverages were both uneventful within themselves, but what I do remember is walking back outside and hearing a woman screaming something like, help me, to my left. I turned my head only to witness a middle-aged man wrestling the keys away from an older woman. She was maybe in her 60s. I froze and just watched the scene play out in front of me. The man did manage to snatch the keys away from the lady and hopped inside her car, backing it up and taking off with it. The problem. The problem The problem was, the lady had somehow fallen and landed with her legs under the car, so when he backed up, he backed up over her. The police were called, of course, and my cousin and I stayed to give our statements, and I managed to memorize the license plate to the stolen car,

which came in handy when the lady was so in shock she couldn't remember it herself. I was always told growing up to get the plate number if there was ever an emergency involving a car, and so I did just that. I remember hearing later that the car was found about 30 miles or about 48 kilometers away from where it was stolen. I'm not sure what happened to the lady, the man, or the car, and since this was the early 2000s, I highly doubt that there would be any information online this long after. That 7-Eleven has since closed and become a few different businesses, the most current being a cell phone store, but anytime I venture past that place, so I always think back to that event that I witnessed many years ago.

Myself and my three best friends decided to go on vacation to Barcelona. The four of us, all girls, were 18 at the time and had just finished our freshman year of college. For context, we had planned this trip for several months, but being the lazy asses that we were, we took our time before booking our flights in Airbnb. We eventually started our search in May, and if you've ever been to Barcelona, you might know that's already pretty late if you want to find an affordable and well-located summer accommodation. We ended up scrolling through several websites for days as everything was way out of our budget. One of my friends finally found a very decent studio located near the Rambles, a very touristy neighborhood.

The condo was actually located on a narrow street perpendicular to the main Rambla. You had to walk about 500 meters or 0.3 miles to reach the sketchier end of the street where the flat was. It didn't really bother us since the building was pretty secure. You had to open the first front door, which led to the street, then you had to take the stairs to the second floor where there was a second door requiring another key. The second door led to three condos, so we had a third and final key to our personal flat. And this door had no outside handle, meaning that if we left without our keys, we'd be locked out. Additionally, the balcony door also had no outside handle.

You could only open it from the inside. This might seem like a lot of details, but it is important for what comes next. The day we checked in, we were pretty excited despite being utterly exhausted. We had been traveling for 15 hours at that point, so we decided to smoke a cigarette on the balcony. The balcony next-door ours belonged to our next-door neighbors, a group of Italian boys that we met at that very moment. They had been pretty loud throughout our stay, but we never thought too much of it. As for the layout of our condo, the front door led directly in the room. into the main room where two of my friends were sleeping. The bed was on the left, and at the end of the

room was the living room, which also functioned as a kitchen and a bedroom. The sofa was a foldable, where my third friend and I were sleeping. We were there for five nights. As the young woman that we were, our daily routine was pretty consistent. We would go clubbing every night, get home at around 4 a.m., pass out in our beds, and wake up at 11. We'd visit the city until 7 p.m. then get ready to repeat the cycle. Our first three nights were awesome. We had some male friends who were also staying in Barcelona, so we'd meet up with them and it was a lot of fun. But the fourth night was creepy. We got home at 4 a.m., messed around with each other for another hour and fell asleep by 5. Around 7.30, my friend, who was sleeping with me in the living room and suffers from sleep paralysis,

woke up feeling something tickling her ankle. She opened her eyes and saw something crouching at the end of the bed, his hand on her ankle, as if he were looking for something under the bed. At that moment, she was convinced that she was experiencing sleep paralysis again, but the fear made her sit up in bed and shout, what the F, which rarely happens with sleep paralysis, as obviously your muscles are usually numb. And her shouting woke me up, and I saw the guy. Standing at the end of the bed and still half asleep, I whispered, Edward? I think I had been dreaming about a friend of mine and confused this guy with him, and the guy got startled, suddenly stood up, stared at us, and then just tiptoed away, muttering,

oops, oops, oops. They walked past the other bed where my friends were still dead asleep and exited through the front door. My friend and I stayed up for a long time talking about what had just happened, and eventually we woke the other girls and told them the story, and we never figured out how this guy broke into our flat. He didn't steal anything, even though we had left our credit cards, IDs and phones, and cash openly displayed on that table. And the only thing was that we didn't lock the front door that night. But it was closed, meaning that normally no one should have been

able to open it since it has no handle, unless someone had a key. We chose not to talk to the police about it because we feared they'd blame us for not locking the door properly. We also didn't inform the landlord for the same reason, but also because we didn't want to ruin our last day there. We tried contacting our neighbors, those Italian guys, and went to their flat and knocked, but they never answered the door. Looking back, we definitely should have done something about it, and we shouldn't have stayed there for another minute. But we were too young, I guess. We could never figure out what that guy wanted or what he was looking for touching her ankle like that. None of it made any sense. Why would someone enter an apartment uninvited at 7.30 a.m. while the occupants

were asleep, just to look for something under the bed? Well, I guess we'll never know. Hey, 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. You know,