The Lets Read Podcast - 82: Episode 073 | Winter & Middle of Nowhere Stories | 27 True Scary Horror Stories

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Welcome to the seventy-third episode of The Lets Read Podcast! This podcast includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about New Years Eve, Tinder Meetups & Imposters... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ♫ Background Music: Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFvrqVSJE8E PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead  Update Description

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get a pro at Tread Experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TredExperts.ca Hey, are you looking for a true crime podcast to binge?

Check out True Crime Obsessed, where we recap the true crime documentaries everyone's talking about. We've been one of the top true crime podcasts for almost nine years. And we have over 400 episodes for you to check out right now. We cover the cases everyone is talking about, and we also highlight the cases that have been underreported, overlooked, or forgotten. With over 30,000 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, if you've never checked out True Crime Obsessed, now's the time to give us a try.

Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you get your podcasts. this is something scary that happened to me on new year's eve of 2013 that night i accompanied a few friends to a restaurant club downtown for a New Year's party. I'd been feeling a little under the weather all day but met them at the club regardless. Around 15 till midnight I couldn't kid myself any longer and let them all know I was heading home. The parking lot was very dark so I pulled a small flashlight I carried with me out of my pocket and used it to light my path. As I turned the corner of the building, I caught notice of a noise off to my left between two parked cars. When I reached the area, I shone my light onto the location of the noise and saw a man crouched over on the ground. I asked him if he needed help with something,

partly from my suspicion, and he said yes. He claimed he had dropped his keys and couldn't find them in the dark, and asked if I could shine my light over to where he was to help find them. Everything about the situation seemed legit, so I put my fears aside and began helping him. I crouched down next to him while we searched the area under the car. A few minutes passed and we were still unable to locate the keys. Switching places with the man I aimed the beam further up and under the next car.

Doing this caused me to lean down further than I had to at that point. This is when I felt a hard crack against the back of my head. I remember the feeling of my face hitting the pavement but that was all for a moment. I was probably only unconscious for a few seconds because I began waking up while I was being flipped over on my back. When my eyes opened I saw a guy I didn't recognize going through my pockets. He had just pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and handed it over to the other guy, the one I had been helping. Then I watched as he pulled my pocket knife out from my front right pocket and flicked it open. It had one of those assisted openings on it to make it flick open real fast like a switchblade.

He began waving it around in my face and asked me what my plans were for it. It wasn't a big knife or anything. The blade was maybe three inches long and I carried it to use as a daily tool like opening boxes at work and stuff like that. I never viewed it as a real weapon until that moment. It wasn't big but it was sharp enough to cut my throat. I couldn't say anything back to him. Even though now I was fully conscious, I was too afraid to do anything. He continued waving it around and laughing.

Fortunately for me, a group of men and women had just arrived and noticed what was going on. One of the men yelled out, what are you dudes doing to him? They must have been afraid of the number of people in the group and ran off down the street. A couple of the guys checked me out to make sure I was okay while the others called 911. The first responders arrived a few minutes later and I went to the ER in the meat wagon. I was happy to hear I only had a slight concussion and would be allowed to go home later that morning. A female in the group had been kind enough to go into the club and tell my friends what had occurred and they arrived soon after I did.

They cut me loose with nothing more than a headache a few hours later and I got a ride home with one of my friends. I spoke to the police briefly that night to give them a report but it wasn't until the following day when I got any information. My knife had been found across the parking lot from where I had been assaulted but I never got it back because it was evidence in an open investigation. They had also found my wallet down the street from the club, but nothing was in it. The iPhone I was carrying at the time never surfaced, but I had insurance on it and got another a few days later. I still have no idea where the flashlight went to. The two guys that assaulted me still haven't been found,

and I don't expect they ever will be. The incident had me pretty messed up for a few years but I eventually realized I was still alive and that was the most important thing. Despite this, I'll probably never be able to come to the assistance of another person I don't know without being very afraid. Just to be safe, I think I'll mind my own business from now on. Better safe than sorry, you know. At the time I experienced this, I was in the depths of addiction and severe depression. Just a few years before, I was in the depths of addiction and severe depression. Just a few years before, I was on the path to starting a family and a flourishing business. Then, like a slap from God, my fiancée, who was three months pregnant at the time,

had a miscarriage and lost her first child. I was naturally distraught, but she was beyond destroyed. It didn't take long before she informed me that the marriage was called off and she was leaving. I could have fought for her, but honestly, I had lost my motivation to continue in the relationship myself. Although I was already a bit of a partier prior to this, I dropped full bore into booze and drugs. All this wasn't coming from a desire to have a good time. I don't believe I wanted to live anymore, but I was too much of a coward to do it the quick way. I was living in a bad part of town, in an apartment complex riddled with crime.

It made scoring drugs convenient, but had I still been living my prior life there was no way I would have gotten near the place. The neighbors usually stayed to themselves and minded their own business. However I had just had a new neighbor move into the apartment above me and he was a real pain. He would play his music from 6 a.m to after midnight every day with a volume all the way up to 11. I had thought at first if I slept with earplugs I'd be okay, but I could still feel the bass rumbling through the bed. I did best I could to deal with it until we had a party on New Year's. The stereo didn't turn out to be the problem this night. It was his guess. Once the sun went down,

they started setting off fireworks and breaking beer bottles on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. I put up with this for as long as possible, but at 1am, this was all still going on. I'd finally had enough and went upstairs to talk to the resident. It took a few minutes to get him to answer the door, but when he finally did, I got attitude right off. All I asked of him was to tell his guest to stop setting off fireworks and breaking bottles, especially right in front of the apartment. And I was very kind while doing it. You'd think I called his mother a bad name, judging from his reaction. He started cussing at me, telling me to mind my own business.

After this, I was done being nice and repaid with my own cussing. Within a minute, he lunged for me and I defended myself by grabbing his throat. One of his friends jumped in between us and tried to break us apart. During the struggle, my neighbor pulled a gun from his pants and actually started firing at me. This caused his friend to push back even harder on him and our grips broke away from each other as a result. It took me a second to realize he was shooting but when I did, I ran down the stairs for the safety of my place. Not until I got into my apartment and locked the door behind me did I notice I'd been hit. One shot had hit me just under my right breast and another had grazed my right arm.

I stumbled to my kitchen and grabbed my phone to dial 911. Talking to the dispatcher was difficult because it had become very hard to breathe. The more blood I lost, the weaker I became, until I collapsed on the floor. I dropped the phone when I did, but didn't have the energy to pick it back up. As I laid there fighting for every breath, I realized I didn't really want to die. The fear I was feeling was a wake-up call. I vowed to God that if he let me live, I was going to make up for every minute I'd wasted feeling sorry for myself. The cops had to knock down the door to get to me. That's about all I remember for the remainder of that night. I discovered later that night my neighbor had fled after the

shooting, but the cops had caught up with him a couple of blocks away. The idiot tried to shoot it out with them and actually lost his life because of it it's the best result as far as i'm concerned i didn't have a trial to worry about and he didn't get to suck off the taxpayers for the next 50 years i lost consciousness soon after the paramedic started working on me and wouldn't wake up for several hours after that the graze to my arm was no big deal. However, the shot to my chest had collapsed my lung and almost caused me to bleed to death. It took the surgeons over an hour to stop all the bleeding,

and even then, I was still in critical condition for a few days. I was finally moved to a regular room on the 5th, and stayed there for four more days before I was released. The healing process was long and painful. Fortunately I was lucky enough to have parents that hadn't yet given up on me and I stayed with them during my recovery. Once my body was well on the way to healing, I had to work on my soul. I began going to NA and AA meetings as often as possible and worked hard to get past all the roadblocks that I had put in front of me. After a year or so of sobriety I began helping others

on a volunteer basis at first but eventually I began working at an inpatient rehab facility. During this journey I met a very wonderful lady. She's a nurse and we currently are in the process of planning our wedding that should take place this June. Although I still have a long road ahead of me if I want to become a better man, I thank God every day for giving me the chance to be here and I promise myself, him, and everyone that I will continue to work my hardest to fulfill the vow I made to him that night. One little phone call can change a life, but for Karen Forkner, three phone calls would change her life in ways she will never, ever forget. Two of the three were made within just a couple of hours of each other on the 1st of January 1993.

The first was from her mother, informing her that her older sister had gone missing after celebrating at a New Year's Eve party. The second was even worse news. The call came from her father, telling her a body had been found. Karen's sister Kimberly had been murdered. Over the next 18 years, Karen and the Forkner family had grieved, come to terms with their loss, and eventually put it behind. Until one fateful day, when the phone rang again. The story of Kimberly Dean Duncan's murder is as random as it is horrific. She was a young woman, just 30 years of age, and was married with two young children in Aloha, Northeast Portland. She and her husband had been invited to a New Year's party. However,

Duncan went alone because her husband had picked up a back injury and was immobilized with extreme pain. But as the night crawled into the wee hours of the following morning, Kimberly had failed to arrive long after she was due to arrive home. Naturally, her husband began to grow irritated. It wasn't unusual for her to be a little late home due to the drunken revelry, but after hours and hours of an unexplained absence, It wasn't unusual for her to be a little late home due to the drunken revelry, but after hours and hours of an unexplained absence, her husband went from irritable to downright worried. He grabbed his cell phone and began to call a few mutual friends who he knew would also be at the party. Eventually one answered, but his questions on his wife's

whereabouts were met with confusion. She'd left the party hours before, sober as a judge, in order to get home for the time she promised. Meanwhile, a stationary vehicle was spotted by a member of the public, parked in a neighborhood not too far from where Kim had been attending the New Year's Eve party. Initially, the person who spotted it guessed that the figure that lay motionless behind the steering wheel was just too drunk to drive and decided to sleep it off. But when the car was still there the following morning, they called the police. When the cops arrived, they discovered the slumped figure was dead. They had been shot once in the head at close range. Officers fished around the vehicle

for some form of ID when they found some. The name on the card was Kimberly Jean Duncan. After an impromptu autopsy, Karen Forkner learned that her recently deceased sister had traces of narcotics in her bloodstream. This led local police to theorize that she could have been involved with violent drug dealers. That fact left Karen highly conflicted given that Kim had dabbled with drugs in high school, even struggled with addiction at one point, but had recently been telling her family she was clean and sober. But despite her troubled past, Karen figured the best way to honor her sister and to keep her memory alive would be to figure out what happened to her and more importantly, who killed

her. But when she called the cold case homicide unit to find out where the case stood, she discovered they had absolutely nothing. They also had a caseload of 273 investigations with just three full-time detectives. Karen could do the math. They were hideously overloaded with work. Months later, Karen called again. Same status. She called again. Within the unit, she became known as a bit of a pest. On one call, she reached a detective newly assigned to cold cases. He told Karen to call whenever she wanted, and he'd keep her informed of any developments. This kind of personal touch meant a lot to her. Her sister had been a living, breathing person,

not an item that had been stolen or a piece of property that had been damaged. It was during one of these conversations with the new officer that she learned about a certain deck of playing cards. The unit sergeant had just come back from a national police convention where he'd learned that some police agencies were using the cards to solve cold case murders. Each card featured the victim's face, some details, and a number to call. The cards were distributed to jails and prisons with the hopes that an inmate might remember something. Forkner made it her mission to get her sister's case on one of the 52 cards. She called, and she pestered, and she called again.

When the first deck of cards was placed in Oregon's institutions, Duncan's case was featured on the Ten of Diamonds. Two years later, an inmate was playing cards in an Oregon penitentiary held the Ten of Diamonds in his hands. He read about the case and by pure coincidence, something about it sounded strangely familiar to him. If he could provide the authorities with pertinent information, it could be a bargaining chip on his case. Authorities agreed to work with him. On pretense, they moved the man to a hospital, had him wear an undercover wire, and listened as he called his old friend to come see him. In the hospital room, he got his friend to talk about the case. Days later, authorities made an arrest. That's when Karen Forkner received the third phone call. On the 15th of June 2010, Karen was driving

on the freeway when her cell phone rang. The cold case detective told her to get her family together and come right away. We walked into a room and everyone was standing and waiting for us, she said. The original detective who had worked the case was retired, but he was there. He had tears in his eyes. The family was told that at 8.20am that very morning, authorities had arrested Brad Richard Ballantine, 37, in connection with the murder. More than a year later, on Thursday, July 7th, Ballantine pled guilty. The family knew who, but not why. Before sentencing, Ballantine agreed to meet with the family in a jury room on the fifth floor

of the Multnomah County Courthouse. After all these years we had the chance to confront him, Forkner said. He said he'd seen my sister at the store when she was leaving after getting some cigarettes. She pulled something out of her pocket and some money fell to the ground. He wanted to rob her. Brad Ballantine wanted to get her out of sight, so he flirted with her and asked her to get in her car and follow him up the street. She was probably drunk, Forkner said. So she did.

Ballantine parked his car in front of hers. He came back to Duncan's car. He said she got mad, Forkner related. I think she must have realized something was wrong. He said she was disrespectful. He walked back to his car and got a gun. He came back and shot her. He fled with $68.

I'll tell you what I'll never forget, Forkner said. He told us she never saw it coming. Karen's father died a year later. Her mother is still alive. I wanted my parents to know what happened to their daughter, Karen had said. I wanted them to know the killer had been caught. She'd be proud of me, Forkner said, admitting she still thinks of her sister often. She would have been as tenacious as I was had it been the other way around. This was New Year's Eve of 1994.

I was a senior in high school and my friends and I would party hop from one to another every weekend. We were in a hurry to get to a certain keg party before all the beer ran out. We'd already been drinking for the last hour since we found a homeless guy to buy us a case of beer. This was the way we usually got our booze. It wasn't hard to find some street guy happy to get a free bottle for himself. The case was quickly running out and we were all eager to keep our buzzes going. It was about an hour before midnight and we were still a good two miles away from the party. My friend who was driving decided to take a shortcut through the downtown area of our city. Downtown was usually dead this time of the night and this night was no different. We were stopped at the red light a few

blocks away from another where a Mustang and a motorcycle were waiting for the light to change. Their light changed the same time as ours, and we could tell the Mustang and motorcycle were racing each other to the next light, which was about 100 yards away. They were running head to head at first, but the bike quickly pulled in front, and what I can only assume was showing off, the guy on the bike popped a wheelie, while continuing to pull ahead of the Mustang all the time. I can't say I was impressed by this whole clown show but we drove slowly and hung back watching it all unfold. The bike was about three car lengths ahead when he lowered back to two wheels and lost control soon after, swerving to the left and into the path of the Mustang.

The driver of the Mustang had no chance of stopping in time and collided with and rolled over the bike and its rider. If I had to guess, I'd say the car was going around 85 miles an hour at the moment of the crash. My friends slammed on the brakes in time for us to watch the rider being spit out from the rear of the car. The motorcycle had somehow flipped over the hood of the car and buried itself in the windshield. Both drivers were more than likely killed instantly. The Mustang quickly lost speed and slowly rolled to a stop against the left hand curb. No one in the car said a word. We were so shocked and all we could do was watch the scene, waiting and hoping someone would move, but nothing happened.

After sitting in silence for several minutes, I quietly leaned forward in my seat and told my friend to take me home. He didn't speak or face me. He simply put the car into gear and made a right turn. What happened after I was dropped off, I don't know. I can say for myself, witnessing that caused a large shift in the way I lived my life from then on. Some people may ask why we didn't try to render aid to those two men. They do have a good argument, but I can only say that I, personally, was far too freaked out

to help anyone. Because of this, I wanted to be anywhere other than there with those two people. When my friends and I spoke about the incident a few days later, it never entered the conversation. It was all just a given in our minds that they were both dead. According to the news the following day our assumptions were correct. Both men had died instantly. The driver of the Mustang, a 19 year old kid, was almost beheaded by the impact of the motorcycle. That night marked the end of my careless drinking and partying. After we returned to school I began focusing on my school work and impending graduation. A couple of the other guys carried on as usual and their lives ended in varying levels of disappointment and loss. Focusing on my future paid off greatly and

that was only because of how I altered the way I was living my life and my priorities. In spite of the tragedy that occurred that night, it showed me in clear detail how living your life in such a reckless way could end so badly. Continuing on the path I was on, I feel, really would have meant those young men lost their lives for nothing, and that is truly the tragedy. A close friend of mine was the victim of a horrible crime a few New Year's Eve's ago. Normally she would go out with me and some of her other friends to welcome in the new year but that year she accepted an invitation to another party from one of the girls she worked with.

I was a little concerned when she told me about this because she had a tendency to drink too much and lose control. She told me not to worry about her since she would be accompanied by her new boyfriend. This assertion didn't make me feel any better. There was always something about the dude that made me uneasy but I kept my concerns about him to myself. I think to make me feel better she promised to call me when she made it home from the party and I happily agreed. My other two friends joined me at the home of another friend who held yearly New Year's parties. It turned out to be a well-planned and fun event, as it usually was, but I found myself unable to fully enjoy it, because my other friend's welfare was always lingering in the back of my mind.

I was continually checking my watch throughout the night, waiting anxiously for a call. Around 2 a.m. when I got in my door, I expected her call night, waiting anxiously for a call. Around 2am when I got in my door, I expected her call to arrive at any moment. After I grabbed a small bottle of Gatorade, my personal favorite hangover preventative, I curled up on the couch and prepared myself. Around 4.15, that morning, I was awakened by my phone. I was still on the couch where I parked a few hours before and must have dozed off waiting. Drowsily I answered the phone by lightly scolding her for waiting so long to contact me. However the voice that greeted me on the phone was not my friend's. Instead I was told that my friend had been dropped off at the ER for what turned out to be alcohol poisoning.

I quickly thanked the lady for contacting me and ran out the door for my car. When I arrived, the nurses and doctors were still working on her. One of them took me aside. That was when I learned just how she had arrived at the hospital. From what the staff could tell, she had been driven there and dumped out in front of the ER's automatic doors. One of them noticed the doors opening and closing over and over, and when they went to see what was wrong, they found her unconscious body laid there on the ground. My mind was overflowing with questions and curses but she wasn't finished giving me the bad news.

A member of the team working on her found a pair of what she assumed to be her own panties in the front pocket of her skirt. The underwear were ripped and torn like they had been yanked from her body. Since she was now very suspicious that my friend had been assaulted, she examined her closer and found bruising and blood in her private area. The police were notified, and they used a kit to investigate further. During the procedure, male fluids were discovered. For a moment, I was about to ask her why she was telling me this. Surely there was privacy laws in place, but then I remember that I was listed as her next of kin.

All the blood members of her family had died in the Balkans War of the 1990s. As if she could read my thoughts, she said that she wouldn't normally tell another person a patient's private information but under the circumstances it seemed necessary. I was confused by the word circumstances and asked what she meant. She then told me that my friend's condition was very serious and she might not live. The words may not live gutted me and I collapsed to the floor and began bawling my eyes out. The nurse helped me up and led me into a private area so I could get myself together. The time eventually came when there was nothing more the staff could do for her and she remained

in a coma for several days. When the time came for her to pass, I was with her and it didn't appear she suffered. By this time I had come to the conclusion that her death was probably for the better. I don't think she would have been able to deal with the conclusion that her death was probably for the better. I don't think she would have been able to deal with the news of her assault. Things had a way of eating at her that I don't think it would have on anyone else I knew. It likely went back to her childhood in Bosnia and I think some things happened that she didn't talk about and led to her issues with alcohol. Although I'd come to terms with her death, I still wanted some answers. I tracked down her so-called boyfriend, the a-hole that went with

her to the party. He acted as if though her death was no big deal, which made me even angrier. I did all I could do to control myself while I spoke to him. When it came to the question of why he left her at the party, he said, she was acting kind of like a hoe. This was the last straw and I slapped him as hard as I could. The look of shock on his face made me chuckle, but after that I was asked to leave by his boss. My next goal was to track down the guy or the guys that assaulted her. I had tried to get in contact with the police to get some information as to if they were pursuing the investigation but I continually got the runaround. One officer even told me that any

charges were unlikely because of her death. Whether they were going to do anything or not, I was determined to track down that person. Three years have passed since her death and I'm still no closer to finding him. I've talked to several party attendees and come up with very little. However, as long as I'm physically able, I'm going to continue my search. As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't be a real friend if I didn't. It's not common that a story begins with a police officer robbing a gas station at knife point, but not all stories are created equal. And so a tragic chain of events led the former police officer boyfriend of Nicola Dixon to stick up a patrol station cashier with a bladed weapon more than three years after she was murdered. James Winfield had been seeing the murdered schoolgirl for most of 1996, but the couple broke up just before she was killed on New Year's Eve. What became clear over the following years was that her death had a terrible traumatizing effect

on him. When he was convicted of robbery in 1999, the court heard how he threatened a terrified assistant with wearing a balaclava mask and brandishing a jagged-edged knife because he was depressed by her death. James Winfield pled guilty to robbery and was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years. At Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Lawrence Marshall said there was absolutely no doubt that the effect that Nicholas' death had on Winfield had been an overwhelming factor in his motives for committing the violent robbery. He told him, Ex-grammar school pupil Winfield was considered a star pupil at school and represented his county at rugby and swimming. Judge Marcell said that at the time of the offense,

Winfield was in a highly vulnerable state and was undergoing psychiatric counseling. Chris Millington, Winfield's defense attorney, told the court that Winfield and Nicola started dating early in 1996, but by the end of the year, he had ended the relationship, yet the pair had remained close friends. The defense attorney also said that Winfield was not 17-year-old Nicola's boyfriend at the time of her murder in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church in Sutton Coldfield on New Year's Eve 1996, but he said the killing had a profound effect on Winfield, particularly as it happened only a few hundred yards from where he was at the time. He was utterly devastated by it. Although he had broken off their relationship by that time, he still felt a sense of responsibility for Nicola. Winfield was later interviewed four times by murder squad detectives and this too had caused him great stress. He was always protective of Nicola and the idea that he was an actual suspect in her murder was psychologically devastating to

him. He was later eliminated from inquiries following the results of DNA tests, but by this time he had fallen into acute depression and had started to drink heavily in an attempt to escape the feelings of shame and guilt. In June 1998, Winfield resigned from the police force and got a job as an assistant manager in a pub, something that may well have contributed to his alcoholism. At the time of the gas station robbery, Winfield was suffering mental illness and was desperate to repay a debt to his mother. Prosecutor Stephen Bailey said Winfield lunged at the young cashier when he tried to press a panic button. He grabbed just over a hundred pounds from a till and ran off but was found by police a short time later hiding in bushes nearby. The cashier was shocked but otherwise unhurt.

The man who ended up being charged with the murder of Nicola Dixon was actually the best friend of one of Nicola's former boyfriends who has still been living in Australia until just before Nicola's murder. Colin Waite was arrested shortly after returning to the UK. Both James Winfield and Colin Waite were understood to have been questioned regarding the murder shortly after it had taken place. Waite later left Britain for Australia but returned to the UK not long after, where it is understood there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. This may explain why police, who have been repeatedly questioned over their inability to solve the high-profile murder, have always been confident that they would ultimately charge someone with Nicola's murder. Now a DNA breakthrough is believed to have provided

fresh evidence in the case which sparked one of the biggest manhunts in the history of West Midlands Police. Nicola, an art and photography student, had been walking alone to a party when she was attacked. Her naked and bruised corpse had been found on the church grounds the following morning. An inquest heard that the A-level pupil had been assaulted but had died from severe head injuries. Detectives have since recorded almost 3,000 statements and have taken DNA samples from more than 9,000 men. But despite the huge police operation, which has involved hundreds of officers and detectives, as well as a £20,000 reward being posted, No one was charged until long after the murder. Waite was arrested by detectives from West Midlands Police. He was later questioned at Blockswich Police Station where a police source said he was arrested sometime earlier on an

unrelated matter and a DNA swab was taken. It was checked against samples taken from Nicola Dixon's murder scene. At what is believed to be Waite's family's home in Highgate, Birmingham, a Jamaican woman refused to discuss the arrest last night and threatened to call police to a reporter. Go away, I have nothing to say, she is reported to have said. Neighbors said they knew very little about the Waite family. One stated that a couple in their 60s live in the house and they have a number of grown-up children. We say hello whenever we see each other, but apart from that, I don't know a lot about them. Detective Superintendent Matt Sowers said the arrest was a result of an intelligence breakthrough from forensic processes. On the night she died, Nicola, who studied at Fairfax School in Sutton, Coldfield, had set out to walk half a mile from a hospital social club to meet

friends at a pub party. Her killer struck as she took a shortcut down an alleyway near the church, and she never arrived at the pub. She had stayed at home in Corn Crake Close, Sutton Coldfield, over the festive period to take her driving test on New Year's Eve while the rest of her family traveled to visit relatives in Northumberland. The test was cancelled because of snow. Close to the anniversary of the murder last year, her father Andy said police had strong DNA evidence that could eventually catch her murderer. He added, if the killer commits another crime, then he will end up behind bars. West Midlands police had also disclosed that they monitored the national DNA database for

comparisons between samples from the murder scene. Nicola Dixon's father, a 51-year-old civil engineer, had said, my wife Rita and I are always hopeful that one day this man will be caught. We feel that someone, somewhere, must know something about the murderer, at least have a suspicion about a particular person. Even after all this time, it is not too late. Last night, the couple, who had been kept closely informed of the latest developments said they would not be commenting on the arrest wait a vehicle examiner for a credit company and a father of four from highgate birmingham denied the murder claiming he spent the night with his girlfriend and brother in birmingham After the verdict, he was handed a life sentence.

He protested his innocence, and his brother, after shouting abuse at the jury, attacked photographers with a walking stick. It seems Waite was born into a violent family, and in the end, it was his violent nature that would consume his life, as well as Nicholas. If you've ever wondered what happens to the bullets when some idiot shoots a gun straight up into the air, I can tell you.

They kill people. I met up with a group of friends at a small field on the edge of town my junior year in high school. Since we were still too young to drink, this was how we usually celebrated the holiday. We were planning on setting off some fireworks at midnight but couldn't do it in town because of some law forbidding it. A few of us had some leftover from the 4th of July, bottle rockets, sparklers, roman candles, that kind of stuff. I'd arrived at the field around the same time as the others which was about 1130. Someone had brought a little fold-out table and we all sat down and picked through the bag of fireworks. We divided them

equally among each other and we sat around and talked until it was time to set them off. It was a beautiful and unseasonably warm night. There was very little light pollution because we were up on a hill and looking down on the town. When the time came, we counted down to midnight and fired off our Roman candles together in a line. Off in the distance you could hear and see other people setting off their fireworks. Some lasted for several minutes before burning out. After 15 or so minutes some of us were getting low on what we had and a few had already run out and were sitting back at the table talking. I remember I was standing off in the distance where we were shooting the

fireworks, BSing with another guy, Tyler, and out of nowhere he dropped to the ground. He was known to be somewhat of a joker, so I just laughed and told him to get up. I said it one more time, but he still didn't move. Since I don't handle that kind of behavior well, I got mad and started yelling at him. I was seconds away from kicking him until I noticed he wasn't breathing. When I ran up to him, I saw something wet looking on his head. I touched and rubbed it between my fingers before I realized what it probably was. I flicked on my lighter and could see that it was obviously blood.

Trying not to panic, I took a deep breath and called 911. I knew one of my friends had taken a CPR course, so I yelled at her to come help. My other friends initially thought Tyler and I were trying to prank them, just as I had, but when I started cussing at them, which I almost never do, they knew something was seriously wrong. While I talked to the dispatcher, Katie, the girl who knew CPR, worked to get Tyler breathing. The ambulance had little trouble finding us but eventually after 20 minutes they did. When they arrived, he still wasn't breathing. The paramedics continued working on him during the ride to the hospital, but he never regained a pulse. The doctors declared him dead just after 1am.

Now, with his death, the questions about how he died were being asked. It wasn't until we got to the ER that we discovered he had been shot. This freaked me out because I knew I didn't shoot him and no one else present could have. The cops didn't appear to believe us until they spoke to the doctor and were told the wound was very likely due to a stray bullet. They still continued questioning us to make sure our stories lined up, but once they were satisfied, we weren't hiding anything. They told us how it probably occurred. In certain communities, people fire their guns into the air to celebrate, similar to the way you see cowboys do in movies. This is done most often on the 4th of July or New Year's. What they don't take into account is that

the bullet has to come down somewhere. They were almost positive at that point, that was what happened to Tyler. I wasn't aware anything like that happened these days. Then again, I don't know much about guns. How someone could do something so reckless makes me distrust gun owners even more. Some of those fireworks we'd been hearing were probably people shooting guns in the air. The officers were painfully honest in telling us that the odds of ever finding the person who fired that specific bullet were very low. Hearing this just made me sadder. As the months, then years, passed and no arrest was made, I had to accept that the officers were right. Fifteen years have passed since Tyler's death and every holiday I hear more and more

stories about people losing their lives in the same manner. Something so preventable shouldn't continue to go on. Every time I meet a gun owner I tell them this story and remind them that every bullet they shoot hits something. Just because they don't see it or hear it hit does not mean it never lands. If you know someone who celebrates in this way, share this with them and remind them what goes up must come down. You may save a person's life doing so. I'm a 23 year old female currently living in the Midwest. For the sake of the story we'll say my name is Paula. It was my grandmother's name.

Two new years ago I came very close to being a victim of assault. I had been invited to a party that was being held by a friend of my older brother. Since it was a last minute thing and I couldn't find a date to go with me, I was reluctant to go, but after a lot of nagging from the same brother I agreed. My only condition was that he accompany me instead. I made it clear that I did not go to places where alcohol was being served without a male escort. This was because of things I had witnessed in college happen to a few of my female friends. I didn't tell him this, but I think he caught on.

Obviously, I didn't want it to be a date. I simply felt more comfortable having a male to watch my back. He finally agreed and picked me up the following week at around 8.30pm. There were a couple of people I knew at the party, so I stayed with them as much as I could. Only one of them was a girl though and her conversational skills beyond shoes and reality TV weren't very strong. Before we arrived I made my brother promise to stay within sight of me so I could wave him down if I wanted to leave or I needed him. After whining for a few minutes he promised and we headed inside. The place that they were having the party in had an open bar so by 10 30 many of the attendees were trashed.

At one of my trips to the bar I had to put up with some slobbering pervert hitting on me and several of my trips people repeatedly kept bumping into me. This was more than likely when I had something dropped in my drink. The rest of the night seemed pretty much a blur for me. I do remember laying on a couch in another room, but the rest of what happened had to be told to me the following day. It seems that at some point prior to midnight I disappeared and my brother had to come told to me the following day. It seems that at some point prior to midnight, I disappeared, and my brother had to come looking for me. He said that he asked several people if they had seen where I went, but no one except the girl I had been trying to talk with knew.

She said when she spoke to me last, I was belligerently drunk and told her to f off then stumbled out the room. My brother knew I never got out of control like that so something must have been wrong. After searching a closet in the adjoining ballroom he tried the little waiting area opposite the ballroom and found me unconscious on the couch. The scary part was that he arrived just in time to catch a guy attempting to remove my underpants. The sleazebag had my skirt hiked up and was grabbing from my panties when my brother pulled him off me. Being the protective big brother he'd always been, he proceeded to beat the guy up so bad that he lost a few teeth. Once he was done with him, he threw me

over his shoulder and carried me to the car. It wasn't until the following afternoon that I could stay awake. Despite this, I was barely able to do so and felt like I had been hit by a truck. My brother's freaked out behavior told me without saying anything that something really bad had happened the night before and when he told me what it was, I was unable to speak. From that day on, I swore off going to parties or anywhere alcohol was being served. I tried my best to move past it but I realized after another unrelated incident, which I won't mention, I needed counseling. I have a way to go before I'll be able to be intimate with anyone and I have no intention in rushing my recovery. Probably the only man I still trust is my brother.

A week still doesn't go by that I don't thank him for saving me. No doubt, some people will wonder why my brother didn't take me to the hospital. What he's told me was that at the time he wasn't sure if I'd been drugged or was just very intoxicated. He also knew that the police would be contacted and since he had just beat my assailant almost to death, and I'm not being dramatic, he was afraid he may be charged with something. He was willing to wager that the guy wasn't going to go to the cops. After all, what was he going to say?

Since we never heard from the police, I guess he was right. Now that my brother had seen what some guys will do to get what they want, he's much more understanding of my earlier fears than those of his female friends. He's become the unelected sheriff and protector of all the girls and since he whipped that dude so badly, no more incidents such as mine have occurred anywhere he is in attendance. I couldn't be more proud of him or love him anymore. On the night of New Year's Eve 2002, Rachel Moran, a resident of the British East Coast city of Hull, was headed to a party. Like many of her peers, she intended to see out the year in style.

She put on her best skirt, carefully applied her makeup, before heading on foot to the nearby celebrations at her mother's house where her friends and family had festivities in full swing. She saw on the new year with friends, counting the seconds until the change of year like so many others up and down the country. A few hours later, after hours of alcohol and dancing, Rachel decided to head home, but this was the final night of her short life. She would never be seen alive again. A court would later hear that Rachel was stabbed 20 times in the head and neck before her lifeless body was crammed for weeks into a tiny cupboard inside her killer's flat. The 21-year-old aspiring singer was lured to the flat of a man named Michael Little in the early hours of New Year's Day, then brutally attacked from behind, Hall Crown Court was told. The evidence obtained by various forensic pathologists showed that

Michael Little had performed intimate acts with her, but disturbingly enough, it was impossible to say whether this occurred before or after she died. It is alleged he then wrapped the body in a thin bedroom curtain before concealing it in the small locked cupboard. Little, 23 of Nashcourt Hall had pleaded not guilty to the murder of the striking six-foot-tall blonde in the opening hours of January 2003, a crime that sparked a massive police hunt and united the city in grief when the broken body was finally found. The search for Rachel began after she failed to return to the home she shared with boyfriend Mark Shepard following a New Year's Eve party at her mother's home in nearby Hall Road.

Rachel Moran left the family home to walk back to her own apartment at around 1.40 a.m. on New Year's Day. Prosecutor Jeffrey Marson, QC, told the court that Rachel hugged her mother, Wanda, and told her she would call her as soon as she arrived home. Wanda Moran would not see her daughter alive again. By tragic coincidence Michael Little was making his way home along the same route as Rachel. Sometime after about 2.20am he lured Rachel into his flat. Shortly after they arrived he attacked her with a large knife. In a brutal attack her killer stabbed her from behind at least 20 times to the head, back, chest, and neck. He used such force that on occasions the knife went right through her body. At some stage the defendant had intercourse with

Rachel. It is not possible to say whether that took place before or after the attack. Mr. Marson said that after Michael Little wrapped her body in the curtain and concealed it in the cupboard outside the door to his flat, he set about cleaning up the vast majority of blood using bleach and paper towels. Over the course of the next week or so, Michael Little apparently attempted to separate himself from the evidence of his crimes, disposing of various items of Rachel's personal property by throwing them into a nearby drain. Yet, as Humberside police continued to investigate Rachel's disappearance, highly trained police divers found personal items such as trainers, a handbag, passport, bra, thong, and diary in the

drain. The passport was one heck of a find, and Little had made a serious mistake in disposing of it in the same manner as the other items. It clued police as to exactly who the items belonged to. As a result, they decided to search the nearby groups of houses near to Rachel's Saxcourt home, and Michael Little's nearby flat just happened to be in the designated search area. When police investigators arrived at his home, they began intensively searching his first floor flat, but unfortunately found nothing in their initial attempts. They then asked for a key to the cupboard located near to his front door, a reasonable request, but one that raised extreme suspicion when he repeatedly claimed that

he had no key to the cupboard after having accidentally misplaced it. Police were determined to search it thoroughly and eventually resorted to brute strength to tear the door from its hinges. Police on the scene would later say that they smelled a kind of rotten meat odor coming from the cupboard and after moving various boxes found her decomposing body hidden inside. It is thought that she had been stuffed inside the tiny cramped space for almost a month. Prosecutor Jeffrey Marson QC told a court that Michael Little said that the body in the cupboard was her. Martin then quoted Little's statement to the police soon after they uncovered the evidence. I need to get off my chest. I wanted to tell somebody for so long.

Michael Little is thought to have said, I can't be normal. I must be evil. A normal person would not do that. The courtroom was shown CCTV footage of Rachel walking to her parents' home on New Year's Eve and also of her walking home in the early hours of New Year's Day. She was heading home after speaking to her boyfriend who was at a party on a nearby council estate. CCTV footage showed her in a leather jacket, dress, and white trainers walking past a local convenience store. The same camera picked up Michael Little walking in exactly the same direction and route as Rachel about a minute prior to the unfortunate victim. But a CCTV camera near Rachel's home showed

that by a few minutes later, Little was walking around 40 seconds behind Rachel. This was overwhelming evidence that he had followed her, maybe even stalked her for a little while before choosing his moment. Michael Little later claimed to the investigating officers that Rachel had ran up to him and asked in a friendly manner if she could walk with him because it would make her feel safer. He then invited her to his flat just a few hundred yards from her home where they had a drink. He is alleged to have told police that they then argued and he backhanded her. He then claimed that she had slashed his arm with a small knife and that what followed had been acts of self-defense on his part.

Michael Little had been drinking with friends at the Good Fellowship Inn on New Year's Eve before attending a party, leaving to return home at around 1 a.m. The 16-stone defendant had drunk several pints of beer, Alka-Pops, and even a quadruple vodka. Faint bloodstains were found in the hallway of Little's home and zigzag patterns found by the front door matched Rachel's trainers. Little refused to answer police questions in interview. Prosecutor Jeffrey Marson QC said,

it is clear the defendant was responsible for Rachel's death and that he's guilty of murder. Michael Little showed no emotion as a jury at Hall Crown Court found him guilty of the murder of Rachel Moran in the early hours of New Year's Day. If ever there was a murderer deserving of life imprisonment, it is Michael Little. little. It was around noon on New Year's Eve 2014 when the staff of the Future Inns Hotel in the Welsh city of Cardiff discovered a body in room 203. The duvet had been pulled over her head, an ottoman had been pulled from its normal position, and bloodstained bedding and towels had been hidden out of sight in the bathroom It was the body of Nadine Aburas The horror of the situation quickly became evident as police were called and the investigation to find Nadine's killer quickly became an international manhunt.

Almost two years later, American businessman Sammy Almari was jailed for 17 years for murdering Nadine, whom he called his ex-girlfriend. The New York City resident was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 17 years after admitting murder on the second day of his trial at Cardiff Crown Court. The court heard that shortly after committing the murder, Al-Mahri left the crime scene at the Future Inns Hotel in the early hours of the morning and made his way to Heathrow Airport, before purchasing a seat on the next flight to Qatar in a bid to escape justice. The police operation that followed was one of the most complex faced by South Wales police in its entire history.

But despite Al-Mahri being thousands of miles away, they were to track him down to the East African nation of Tanzania, before bringing him back to Wales to face the consequences of his barbaric actions. During the manhunt, investigating officer and chief negotiator, Detective Chief Investigator Gareth Morgan, conducted a number of conversations with Al-Mahri as he attempted to remain one step ahead of the authorities. Sami Al-Mahri met his victim Nadine Al-Burrus on the online dating site muslimmatch.com way back in 2012. The couple

quickly developed a long-distance relationship through phone calls and Skype, with Al-Mahri making multiple trips to Nadine's home city of Cardiff during 2013. Nadine visited him in New York the following summer, with the tryst apparently continuing despite the strain of the long distance. However, something happened in New York City, something that has never fully come to light. But what we do know is that Nadine later told New York State Police that Al-Mahri had assaulted her previously. After she returned to the UK, he continued to send her threatening text messages and emails, with one particularly disturbing message reading,

I've been calling you a lot. I will never ever stop now or give up. I will harm you. Sammy Almari then flew over to the UK to visit Nadine around the holiday period in 2014, apparently in some attempt at reconciliation. We will never know if Almari's intentions were pure, but whatever the case, we know he was told to leave the country following a heated argument with Nadine's brother. However, instead of getting the train back to London and hopping on the next plane from Heathrow to New York, as Nadine and her family expected him to, Al-Mahri booked himself into the Future Inns Hotel in Cardiff Bay. He then

proceeded to call Nadine and ask her to come to the hotel, telling her he had left his passport and phone at her house and that he needed them to return so he could leave the country. Likely keen to get Al-Mahri out of her hair, Nadine obliged and set off from the family home, arriving at the hotel close to 9.10pm. CCTV in the hotel lobby shows that Nadine immediately went to Al-Mahri's room, number 203. At around 10pm that night, Nadine and Al-Mahari left the hotel and went by taxi to the Lilo Grillhouse, named after the Disney character, on City Road, Cardiff. Restaurant staff later claimed that the couple's body language was not good,

and they were described as shouting and arguing. One of the staff members was later reported to have said that something wasn't right. They stayed at the restaurant for just less than an hour and lobby CCTV has them arriving back at the future inns just after 11pm. That was the last time Nadine was seen alive. At around midnight, Amari left the room to head to the nearby Gros Benor casino and returned shortly before 1am. A few hours later, Almarie left the Futures Inn Motel for good. Before leaving, he approached the bar manager, Peter Morris, and asked directions to the nearest highway that would take him to the airport. He said that he had left a Do Not Disturb

sign on the door because his sister was still sleeping. At 12.20pm on New Year's Eve, the duty manager entered room 203 and discovered Nadine's body. Hotel staff then called the police who arrived and began their investigation. Detective Chief Inspector Morgan, who led the operation, told the news media, At 12.30pm, we received a report of a female found deceased in a room of the Future Inns, and you can imagine, it wasn't clear what we were dealing with, but it became quite evident that it was a homicide. We did some inquiries and found out the room was booked by Sammy Almari, and after doing some research, we found a previous incident regarding him.

There had been a bit of a link here. He had paid with his card and found out he didn't reside in the UK and Fastcheck told us he was up in the air on a flight to Qatar. It was very fast moving. Al-Mahri had murdered a girl in Cardiff and the next afternoon he's in Qatar and on his way to Tanzania. It's unbelievable that can happen. Investigating police then found handwritten letters in hotel room 203, which were addressed to Al-Mahri and signed with the name Nadine. But these were later determined to be penned by Al-Mahri due to the letter's use of the American system of writing dates, as opposed to the regular British format. DCI Morgan added that

there was a legal framework we have to deal with for an international arrest. We have to show the Crown Prosecution Service and Interpol that you have the evidence for a case to allow a red notice to be put in place to give legality to the country of jurisdiction to arrest him. We knew that wasn't going to happen in just three hours. We had to gather intelligence about what he was doing and where he was. While police were still trying to figure out a way to bring Amari in, things took an unexpected turn when the killer contacted the hotel from the deceased Nadine's phone and, surprisingly, actually asked to speak to the police himself. According to DCI Morgan,

Amari took Nadine's phone and laptop with him. He phoned the hotel and told them they needed to look in room 203 because he was worried about his friend. He spoke to a detective and was asking if she was okay. The call became weird and a negotiator, me, was deployed. Almarie lied and lied and said he tried to help her end her own life and he didn't know she was dead. It was quite bizarre. He was concerned about her being buried. The negotiation was to secure a safe arrest and stop him from causing harm to another person. It was clear he was lying about his location. He was telling me he was in Havana, Cuba, that he would hand himself in to the authorities, but he was intoxicated and

in a room with a woman. He said he was going to do the same to her as what he did to Nadine. It was high risk and we weren't in control. We knew he was in Tanzania, but locating him with precision was difficult. The seemingly distraught Omari told police he was planning to end his own life because he couldn't bear to live without Nadine. He went on to say that when they got back to the hotel room, he was stunned when Nadine had asked him to hurt her. He went on to say that when they got back to the hotel room, he was stunned when Nadine had asked him to end her own life. Almarie told police she said that she'd been waiting for the right moment to go to the Saints. I strangled her. I strangled her for more than five minutes. I was so scared. He later asserted to interviewing police that Nadine had tried to strangle herself, but when he left for the airport, she was definitely still breathing.

He ended the conversation with the chilling statement, I am ending my life today. I'm sorry to the family. In another call to DCI Morgan, Sammy Almari said he was going to hand himself in to the American Embassy in Puerto Rico, which he claimed was his next destination. He later said he was lying and wasn't going to hand himself in, inquiring if the British penal system included the death penalty, which it does not. He told D.C.I. Morgan, I want the death penalty because I want to die. I have a gun with nine bullets and I can shoot myself. I didn't mean to kill her and I love her, you know, but she asked me to help her die. This is the last phone call police received from Al-Mahri. The conversations were certainly strange,

DCI Morgan later explained. He would go from being quite calm to irate. He was unstable for sure, but I would put that down to intoxication. I sensed he was under the influence of drink. The key was to control the evidence gathered in the UK. We looked at that and focused on the processes here. We had evidence of him coming over to the UK. He had a dispute with Nadine's brother and he dropped his mobile phone which we were able to find and examine. He was huge on the internet so we gathered lots of intelligence about the background of the relationship and his possessive, jealous, coercive and threatening behavior and answer phone messages which were highly threatening. We had his movements and conversations. All the

evidence towards the murder was developing really well. We were to get that international arrest warrant in place, but the time of year didn't help with people being on leave and having to deal with the different time frames. We had to make sure we had the resourcefulness and resilience to keep South Wales Police business as usual and to manage the investigation, especially for the hotel, and to go about our job sensitively and professionally as possible. On the 2nd of January 2015, Al-Mahri began contacting Nadine's friends and family, as well as posting on the wall of her Facebook account.

Al-Mahri also sent a text message to Nadine's mother, one of which stated, I know how you feel. Let her go. I love her too. It's your effing son. He later texted her, I promised you Nadine my life. I see her soon. I can't live with this anymore. I love her. Detective Chief Inspector Morgan exclaimed how these texts complicated their investigation. This caused serious upsets to people and managing that was really difficult. It was very difficult because we couldn't control what was going on over there but he was continuing to use her phone and we were able to identify he was in Tanzania. We went to the media who were a great help and we issued a press appeal. They went

global and had a lot of airtime in Tanzania which put pressure on Al-Mahri and we started to get information. What we did was send a couple of South Wales police officers out to Tanzania. They did a sterling job. There was a lot of international pride involved. Despite their best efforts, the international police search for Almarie was proving unfruthful and Nadine's family were told they could be facing a long wait for justice. But on January 19th, 2015, Almarie was suddenly located in the town of Iringa, where he had family and was detained. Less than three weeks after his escape from the UK, Al-Mahri's period of running from the law was finally over. But there was still an incredibly long way to go with Al-Mahri's extradition back to the UK,

not taking place until the 23rd of March, almost two months later. Detective Chief Inspector Morgan was one of the officers dispatched to East Africa to bring Almarie back to the UK and place him under arrest for Nadine's murder. He said, When we met, he was a charming and intelligent person. He was quite manipulative. He was smartly dressed and very confident when we eventually met him and I described him as a Walter Mitty character. He was well turned out when we met him and that's the perception he wanted to give to Nadine and the family, someone who was a successful businessman. But I don't think that was the case. He didn't really comprehend what was going to happen.

I don't know whether he thought someone was going to buy him out, but he was very chatty, friendly, and confident. Until we got to the hetero, where he was booked into custody and charged with murder, and then we saw a real difference in him. After a series of preliminary hearings at Cardiff Crown Court, in which Al-Mahri shockingly pled not guilty to a murder he had all but admitted to, a trial date was set for the 19th of October 2016 and was due to last a number of weeks. But after the first day of the trial when the case was opened and piles of evidence laid out, Al-Mahri changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced on November 3rd. Nadine's mother, Andrea Aboras' heartbreaking victim impact statement was read to the court.

By taking Nadine, the defendant has taken the glue that made this family. We allowed him to come into our family and instead he took from us my child. Life will never, ever be the same. No sentence that could be given to this man could compare to the sentence he has given us. He has destroyed us. After the sentencing, she read a statement outside the court thanking the police and Crown Prosecution Service

for their hard work in prosecuting Amari. She added, It is unimaginable for us as a family to understand the heinous crime that has been committed. We will continue to remember Nadine and the joy that she brought us, but our lives will never be the same. Hey, are you looking for a true crime podcast to binge? Check out True Crime Obsessed, where we recap the true crime documentaries everyone's talking about. We've been one of the top true crime podcasts for almost nine years.

And we have over 400 episodes for you to check out right now. We cover the cases everyone is talking about, and we also highlight the cases that have been underreported, overlooked, or forgotten. With over 30,000 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, if you've never checked out True Crime Obsessed, now's the time to give us a try. Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you get your podcasts. This just happened tonight, so this is fresh and I'm freaked out and honestly livid. I'm 23 female and met Jason, 29 year old male from an app online last September. We clicked immediately and from then on went out together about once a week, sometimes twice. We spent the past year going on dates, to nice restaurants garden walks spending the night etc

we established that we had feelings for each other about two months and everything though we had our rocky moments and i didn't fully trust him at one point i wanted to date but he claimed he was too busy with work which subsequently caused us to separate for a while once we eventually came back together i told him I didn't want to be exclusive, but we could still hang out as I enjoyed his company. Now, there was always some sneaking suspicion that there was another partner in his life because he always paid in cash wherever we went and was very secretive about his private life. I had voiced these thoughts to him but honestly didn't care

too much because after he told me he wasn't interested in dating me I also started seeing another partner and was using protection with both of them. Meanwhile he didn't want to date me but raged whenever he thought that there was another man around my life. He has exhibited some concerning and possessive behaviors but I let them slide for the most part because I was still doing whatever I wanted. Fast forward to tonight, November 19th, 2019, 14 months after we met. We went to a really nice restaurant downtown after work and I asked if he wanted to take the subway back to my place since we had a few drinks. We stopped by his car to grab his bag and off we went to the station. When we got to the station he said he forgot his

card in his car and I figured it was no biggie and swiped for him. I said he didn't need to pay me back because it was like two bucks but he insisted that he would Venmo me. When we got to my apartment I told him he was welcome to take a shower and he went to the bathroom. I was messing around on my phone and I saw CS had sent me $2 for the train. This was weird to me because his initials are JN so I clicked on his Venmo friends list. He only had around 20 Venmo friends so I picked a random person and looked them up on Facebook. I went down their friends list and would you look at that, a picture of Jason and his brother. Only issue is the name was Chase Smith.

The photo did look a little different because he was about 50-60 pounds heavier in the photograph and is currently very fit but I was 90% sure it was him. Just to confirm, I googled his name and the area around which he lives and I got a hit on white pages. It said that he was related to Velma and Shaggy Smith. Obviously, I changed the names for anonymity and I remembered him telling me that his siblings were named Velma and Shaggy. So it turned out I don't even know the name of the guy I've been boinking for over a year. He got out of the shower and sat down on my bed. I was quiet and looked at his face asking, is your real name Chase Smith? This guy looked me dead in the eye and said, no. You guys, I lost it. Like I made the leave Brittany alone guy look cool, calm, and collected. Started crying and telling him to get

out of my house. He approached me and I told him not to touch me, but he grabbed my wrist and insisted that we talk about it. I told him again to get out of my house and to never contact me again. He refused to leave for a while but eventually did. Afterward I looked a little deeper and found out he is a criminal record though I can't see exactly what for. From his past behavior I'm honestly a little worried for my safety because I immediately blocked him on everything and I know for a fact he's gonna go insane when he realizes he can't contact me. Everything has been a lie. When you think you know someone it turns out they're probably crazy.

Admittedly it's a little bit funny because WTF, but also, I'm getting some you vibes and I'm not ready to die yet, you know? So, it'd be cool if Chase Smith never came around again. No update. My sister has continued to sleuth. Turns out today he slightly changed the spelling of his last name on Facebook, probably to deter others he'd been messing with from finding his profile. He doesn't know how I found him and doesn't realize that the spelling of his last name was relevant in the process. The dude is an actual psycho who's probably doing this to multiple women. I'm honestly more afraid for them than myself because

they clearly don't know what's going on if he's taking any steps further to hide himself. I wish I knew who they were so I could reach out and warn them. So this happened to me last semester. I'm a college student and I've had only positive experiences except for this encounter I had throughout the entirety of last semester. I'm a psychology major and between taking AP classes in high school and taking a few extra classes over the summer, I'm ahead of my class. Last semester I registered for a neuroscience course which was a bit more advanced and all the kids in the class were either juniors or seniors about to graduate.

I was a freshman at the time. On the first day of class I made my way to the classroom and the professor was late. There was a big crowd of people outside and I simply asked a boy if he was waiting for the same class. He said yes. He introduced himself to me as Braxton and that was that. The professor came and class was good. At the end of class he asked me for my number just in case we had to discuss homework assignments and whatnot and I thought he would be a cool connection to have. I was wrong. I saw him twice a week for an hour and a half. Not even two weeks after I met him, only seeing him in class, he stated he felt a connection to me and that I was the most beautiful and fascinating girl that he'd ever met. I ignored the connection part of it and thanked

him for his compliment. That was that. The week after he mentioned this he had texted me asking me out of nowhere if I had anxiety. I hesitantly said yes yet kept it very broad. I told him that large crowds of people are my biggest trigger but I managed just fine. He made it a point to tell me that if I ever needed to escape, he knew a few spots that were vacant and deserted. I told him I was fine and he seemed to drop it. The week after, we said our goodbyes and I started walking to my next class. Usually we say goodbye and I don't see him until class two days later. He turned around quickly and started walking next to me. I told him that I was fine and that he could go to his own class. He said,

No, no, it's fine. I want to walk you to math. I know people scare you. I stopped dead in my tracks and asked him how he knew I had math class after our neuroscience class. He told me not to worry about it. As much as I was weirded out, I ignored it. Keep in mind, I had never once told him my schedule or really any specifics about myself. He dropped me off and I felt relief thinking that was that. I brushed it off as him just trying to be a gentleman. An hour and a half later, he was waiting for me right outside the room and then said,

Let's get you to English. I lied and told him that my English class had been cancelled and alarms had gone off in my head because this kid apparently knew my schedule and where my classes were located and at what times. Although I again ignored it because I didn't want to be rude to him and I took it as him just trying to be nice so I forgot about it. After that incident everything seemed normal until it wasn't. As I stated earlier I have pretty bad anxiety and to this day in particular I was having a pretty off day. Class started and I grew more and more anxious and had to step out, so I did.

I went to the bathroom and calmed myself down and returned quietly only to notice that Braxton was not in his seat. Then came back soon after and took a seat right behind me and immediately whispered in my ear, Don't you ever leave without my permission again. Do you understand me? I just nodded and apologized so he would stop and then he returned back to normal. One of his few obsessions with me was that something would happen to me and that he had to protect me at all costs. If I wasn't okay, he would flip out and do anything in his power to return me to an okay state. It was odd. There were a few instances in which it got really freaky. One of these instances was the day he noticed my medical bracelet for hypoglycemia. As soon as he noticed it, he started interrogating me about why I had it,

what it was, if I take medications, when was my last episode, etc. He then proceeded to grab my hand to try and snap a picture of my parents' phone numbers on the back. I told him it wasn't his business and if he really needed that information one day he would have it on my wrist. He got upset but dropped it. That Friday he had called me from his job, he worked at a hospital doing office type work I guess, and said, Hey, I have you on speaker and I'm with one of my colleagues, I need you to explain your condition, why it happens and give me a list of medications you take, what's your severest episode? I told him it was completely out of line and hung up on him and he blew up my phone telling me how important it was to get help and how important it was for him to know everything about it. I ignored him. Next time I saw him he acted normal and even apologized for his actions.

We moved on and until the next thing happened. I twisted my ankle pretty badly on campus and I had been crying and it was pretty obvious I was in pain and stressed. As soon as he had seen me he completely flipped out asking who did this to me, if I was okay, if I needed medications and then demanded he was going to take me to my university's clinic. He told me I wasn't allowed to call my mother and that only he would deal with this. I told him that he didn't control me and I ended up calling my mom, obviously, or she told me to go to the clinic and she would pick me up there. I told Braxton that we could just get an escort by campus police, the clinic

was a few blocks away, and he immediately shut that down and got extremely upset. No, we're absolutely not going with the police. I'm going to get an Uber, but we're not going with the police. Do not even think about telling the police. This was extremely alarming to me because why did he want to stay away from the police so badly? He ended up calling an Uber and we got to the clinic. He insisted being right by my side the entire time and wanted me to hold his hand. He kept trying to rub my back and touch me. I told him to stop and that I didn't want him touching me and

for him to just leave. He insisted on staying and there really was not much I could do so I dealt with it until my mother came to get me. I was extremely tense and there really was not much I could do so I dealt with it until my mother came to get me. I was extremely tense and kept my hands to myself and just sat still. After I left he followed up with multiple texts asking if I was okay and if I could keep him updated. I ignored all of his messages. Towards the end of the semester a mutual friend we had in that class messaged me asking if Braxton had ever made me feel uncomfortable.

I told her the truth and the multiple instances that I immediately got bad vibes from him and that I progressively felt worse being near him. Not even five minutes later, I sent the message to her. Braxton starts blowing up my phone, calling, texting, leaving voicemails. He kept threatening me, saying that he was going to find me and as soon as he finds me that it was over for me. He said that I had ruined his life and that he hated me and that I was a horrible person and he said when he sees me next he was going to show me what I deserved and that I had no idea what was coming for me. His voicemails were so full of rage. His voice was so shaky because of how angry he was and he was yelling his heart out

in one voicemail and in the next, sobbing about why I didn't love him back and how I could betray him like this. I obviously didn't go to school that day and his hundreds of voicemails and texts alternated between rage and apologies and every emotion in between. It was terrifying. The only reason I didn't block this guy or tell anyone about him was because I was terrified he would do something to me. He would remind me that if I was scared of him now, he would give me a reason to be scared later, either if I went to the police or tried distancing myself more. He found every single one of my study spots. I am a commuter,

so I would study and stay at many different coffee shops, and if I wasn't at the ones I usually stayed at, he would message me saying that he would find me if I didn't tell him where I was. He told me if I ever went to the police that he would give me a reason to go to the police, things like that. He also shared with me that he would fantasize about me, how badly he wanted me. He said he loved the way I smelled and even wanted pieces of my hair to keep at home. It was awful. At the very end of the semester I completely stopped talking to him and he seemed to have gotten the hint. I moved seats in class and he didn't seem to bother me after I made it evident that

I wanted nothing to do with him. On the last week of the semester he started to take pictures of me from across campus and send them to me for multiple numbers. He would say things like, You are just gorgeous today. I love you so much. I wish you love me back. You'll pay for this, your betrayal to me and humankind.

On the very last day, I had gotten on my commuter bus and when I was seated and on my way home, I got a text from him with a video of me getting on my bus and he had said, see you soon darling. I was paranoid for weeks afterwards. Luckily nothing ever happened since then. He never texted me anymore and I hadn't seen him at all after last semester. He deleted all of his social medias and hopefully he moved away or graduated and honestly I hope he is far, far away. About seven years ago, I was 20 years old going to college and trying to make a little extra money. I picked up a job working in Flint, Michigan as a live-in caregiver for a 98 year old woman named Lillian who had Alzheimer's. Honestly, I wasn't trained the way I should have

been to properly care for her. I did a lot of research and tried my best to learn everything I could to make the situation as comfortable as possible for her. Needless to say though, I did get frustrated sometimes. One of those times was a hot summer night, probably around 2am when I awoke to Lillian screaming from her bedroom. I ran to find her sitting in her laundry basket. After helping her up I noticed that she had wet herself. I took her to the bathroom to get her cleaned up. She told me that she thought the laundry basket was the toilet and after she sat down in it she couldn't get out. I felt so sorry for her.

I tried my best to reassure her that it would be okay. I told her that I would clean everything up, run her laundry again and stay up the rest of the night just in case she needed anything. Once Lillian fell back asleep I threw her laundry in and decided I had time to sneak out for a quick cigarette. Yes I'm one of those nasty horrible smokers. I decided to sit in my car to use the air conditioning to stay cool and call my best friend to see if she was still up so I could vent a little. Also I just wanted to talk to someone as it was late at night and I was alone in my car. Being female we're wired to be as it was late at night and I was alone in my car. Being female we're wired to be nervous about being alone at night unfortunately.

I hadn't been on the phone for more than two minutes when I got a weird feeling. Something was telling me to look over my left shoulder. When I did I saw a younger guy, maybe late teens, early twenties walking down the sidewalk in my direction with a sweatshirt on. His hood was up. Now remember, this is the middle of summer, so immediately I felt as though something was off. But who am I to say this guy isn't cold? One of my flaws is being too afraid to hurt people's feelings, even when the situation calls for it. I knew in that moment that I needed to lock my doors, but I didn't want this guy to hear the sound of my doors locking and feel like I thought he was a criminal just for walking down the sidewalk.

My body is screaming warning signs at me. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. It felt hard to breathe. I knew my friend was still talking but I couldn't really hear a word she said. I was afraid to turn my head to see where he was. I was frozen. Suddenly my friend's voice became clear to me. She was yelling at me. Hey, why aren't you answering me? What's going on? I turned my head to the right just in time to see him reaching for my passenger door handle. Without even having to think, I somehow managed to reach up with my left hand and hit the

lock button for the doors just as he started pulling at the handle. His right hand was in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He seemed to have been holding onto something with his other hand and he was pulling at my handle with such force that the entire car was jerking back and forth. I didn't move. I didn't scream. I just watched him. I remember his eyes staring into mine. He looked angry. Just as I start to think, this is it. He's going to get in somehow. He's going to hurt or end my life. He suddenly stops. He stood there for a quick second and then turned and ran away. In that moment, I burst into tears. I was scared, angry, and confused. What just happened?

What was he trying to do? Steal my car? Is he going to come back? Lastly, even though I was happy about it, why did he suddenly stop and run away like that? I called 911. The dispatcher asked me if there was any way for me to leave the area. I wanted to, but then I realized. Lillian. I needed to get back in that house but I was terrified to step foot out of my car. I took a few deep breaths and decided I didn't have time to think about it. I needed to make sure she was okay. I got back in the house and immediately went to her room.

She was sound asleep. I felt a huge sense of relief. I took a walk through the house and checked all the doors and windows to make sure we were safe. Everything was secure. I sat on the couch in the living room in the dark and waited for the cops to come. For those of you who don't know much about Flint, this type of call is not their top priority. It took them four hours to respond. At that point, obviously, there is nothing they can do. He was long gone. I still think about that night more often than I would like to admit. The what-ifs are the hardest part. All I know is, I hope to never be in a situation like that again. I take you to a town called Shepperton, Middlesex.

A nothing sort of little town, maybe even a village. I'm not sure, I was six when I was living there so wasn't really interested in finding out what qualifies as a town or village. My mom had left my horrible dad a couple of years previously. She finally gathered the strength to leave him after her best friend said that if she didn't, he would end up ending his life. This is a story for another time, but I digress. So we were living in a little two-bedroom council flat on the top floor. It was a lovely little flat. My room was huge. We had two balconies, one from the kitchen out the front and one from the

living room out the back. My mom has never been lucky in life and has had to work so hard to support us as my horrible dad didn't give us any financial support whatsoever. She and I were two peas in a pod. We used to have pig out picnics sometimes. We would bring a duvet into the living room, sit on it and stuff our faces with all the stuff that is bad for you. Honestly I love those nights. You get kids raving about going to a theme park or having a lavish day out but honestly I would never have traded those times for anything. My mom started seeing someone called David. He was an average build, dark hair, dark eyes. I always felt creeped out by him but never let on as this was mom's boyfriend and he made her happy. The more he was around the more creeped out he made me. Maybe it was the way he looked at me or

the way he spoke. I can't quite put my finger on it, there was just something off about him. He started asking me to kiss him goodnight and goodbye. New level of uncomfortableness, I'll be honest. If I'd refuse, he would grab me and kiss me anyway. He wouldn't stop even if I started to cry. He would only do this when mom wasn't around. He used to watch me when mom had to go to work in the evening. She did many jobs, but DJ'd quite often, meaning lots of late nights. One particular night when David was looking after me, mom put me to bed before she left and I fell asleep soon after. I was woken up by David at some point, I couldn't tell the time so I'm not sure when. It was late and dark. He dragged me into the front room and made me watch some film with him. I'm not sure what the film was called,

I can still remember it to this day. A scene from the film where someone was sitting on a bed, tapping their feet together, saying Tommyknockers. This film was really scary, and he forced me to watch it. I couldn't sleep for weeks. He told mom I must have watched it in the landing without him knowing. Enter having bad dreams and the need for a nightlight. A few weeks later I was so scared one night I didn't want mom to leave my side

so she took me into her bed and stayed with me until I fell asleep. The next thing I remember is being woken up by my mom crying, shaking me in a panic. Joe, we need to go now, she said. In a dazed state and not sure if I was dreaming, asked what I should wear. I could then hear David shouting and smashing up the living room. A few more seconds went by and my mom had dressed me and we were running out of the flat. She said, come on as fast as you can and don't look back. I kept asking what was going on. She said don't worry, we just need to go. I kept looking ahead and running with my mom towards the main high street part of Shepperton. I was getting tired and all of a sudden my mom grabbed me and

threw me behind a garden wall. We crouched down and she had her arms around me. I asked again what was going on. She said to shush and he needed to be quiet. She whispered that David had gone mad and we needed to stay away from him. So we stayed there, crouched and hiding. Eventually I saw David run past us. I literally couldn't breathe. I saw a large kitchen knife in his hand and he was wearing a black jacket. He was shouting our names and saying that he was going to end our lives. His voice acted as some kind of sonar and we heard him getting further away. My mom peeked and checked if the coast was clear. She then said to me again we need to run back to our flat as fast as we can and not look back. I trusted my mom so off we went. We ran as fast as our legs could carry us. David has eventually spotted us

and gave chase. I don't think I took a breath, it was all such a blur. We eventually managed to run to our flat. Mom bolted the door shut. She jammed stuff against the front door. He started banging and shouting to let him in. Mom was shaking. He cut the phone lines. There were no mobiles about then. So she made a fort by the front door. He eventually gave up and went away from view. We slept by the front door all night so we could be alerted if he tried to get in. Luckily we lived on the top floor so there was no other way around. I still don't know the full story, we don't talk about it. I haven't seen him again since that night.

I don't know what he would have done if he caught up with us. I don't want to know. And I for sure don't want to meet him again. When I was at university, I was heavily involved in one of the musical theater societies. They would put on one big show a year and one small one, and in my my first year I managed to bag the lead role in the largest show of the year. I was a bit nervous because this was my first major role in anything ever but I was told that it wasn't a big deal and that most people wouldn't pay half as much attention as I thought they would. I wish that had been the case. We had a run of slightly over a week and a fairly large

performance space, about 300 seats. Opening night came and went and everything was going well until the next day. My university had a kind of love letter page on Facebook. It's usually a few genuine confessions but mostly just jokes. On it someone had written something along the lines of, to the girl who played my character's name last night, you were very cute. I wish your costume was just a bit shorter though. A few people who knew me had tagged me in it. I was kind of uncomfortable by the second half of the comment but I pretty much brushed it off as a friend playing a prank on me. We did the second show and there's a part where I have to point out someone in the audience. There was a guy sitting in the second row who I chose for that night. That same evening there was another post on the confession page, this time using my real name. Annie, thanks for pointing me out tonight. You made me blush.

It was signed with the name of my character's love interest. Again, I wasn't sure if I felt flattered or not, so I just decided to ignore it. The third day of shows was uneventful, but on our fourth day, I saw the same guy in the audience. It made me a bit uncomfortable that he'd come to see it for the third time so I ignored him even though he was near the front of the audience again meaning he'd have to be one of the first people to arrive. Then our promotional twitter started getting posts from an account run by a person who was obviously the same guy based on the profile pic, asking if we did stage door and if he could catch the cast after the show. At that point everybody knew and agreed he was being a bit creepy and one of my friends, Jordan, who happened to be playing my love interest, offered to walk

me home after the shows. This seemed okay for a day or two until curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check this guy's twitter which was private. His tumblr was linked in his description however and that wasn't. Jeez, I'm so glad I did because they were incredibly creepy. There was a whole bunch of stuff he'd reblogged about unrequited love and some posts that were definitely about me. Stuff like, I'm her biggest fan and she doesn't even know I exist in the notes. I don't quite remember everything because it was a while ago but he seemed to be under some kind of delusion that I was my character and that he was the love interest. It was really weird and I was super creeped out. It all came to a peak during one of our last shows. Basically we have two entrances on stage

but there's a bit where I have to come in from the back of the audience meaning I basically have to go around the entire theater from backstage and I have to leave the building for a bit. I have a scene to spare so I was going around when I catch someone walking behind me. I turned around and the very same guy is there. He asked me if he can take a picture with me, that he was supposed to catch the show but he was late so he waited for me to come out. I tell him that I have to go on stage soon but that's nice of him even though I didn't think that at all. I started to leave and he calls after me yelling at me as if I'm my character. He straight up said some lines that Jordan's

character does and said to wait until after the show where he'll rescue me from the fake love interest. This definitely set off alarm bells so I just back into the building and tell my stage manager as soon as possible. They must have alerted all on campus security guards because he was gone after the show. I haven't seen him since, I've graduated since and I think he got scared off. Still, I'm very upset that he ruined what should have been a fun show week, and I'm slightly worried about him I don't know if the delusion was an act or he genuinely believed it and if it was the latter I hope he got help So I'm trans, female to male, and not in a safe place to transition yet. I try to dress as masculine as possible and have off days due to my anxiety, fear of people, and depression where I just throw on whatever and try to avoid the world.

I don't do dresses or skirts, show off my body, nor do anything with my hair. I don't wear makeup or dress up to draw attention to myself. I do have a very soft face and I'm overweight and obviously look exhausted due to a lack of sleep. I'm also very short. This happened on a very off day for me but adulting happens and I had to go to the bank. I had no one to come with me and I couldn't take my ESA to the bank because of the weather and because they don't have the same rights as a service dog. I had taken my prescription to calm me down a little before leaving, but it only helped so much. There was an older bald guy at the bank. I thought nothing of him and was my own little

ball of anxiety. He looked middle eastern because of his features and tan and was dressed in a nice suit. As I was waiting for the tellers to let me into the main building he nicely pointed out the newly installed button to be let in and I thanked him thinking that was that. I went about my business, deposited my check and was feeling alright. Didn't see anyone outside and I stepped out into the ATM hallway for a quick withdrawal. And I turned around and he was right behind me, waiting by the main exit. I could have taken the side exit or gone back in but I thought I was being silly. Nope.

The business guy says, Hey, my name is Brian. What's your name? I'm A. Thanks for your help earlier. Bear in mind, this conversation was in French, and I have a stutter that grew worse and worse over the space of this conversation. I also tend to be visibly frightened when approached. You're welcome. You're very beautiful. Can I have your number? No, thank you. I don't like to speak on the phone. I have anxiety. Come on, just give me your number. I'm sorry, I don't want to. I have an anxiety disorder. That's okay. Just give me your number.

This was getting too much for me. I moved to the door and he kept pressuring me to give him my number. No matter how much I apologized or tried to get out of it, he kept talking to me. Eventually I gave it to him out of pure panic to get away, but by some stroke of luck he misheard me because of my stutter. He read it back to me, asked me to repeat the number and I went with it. He finally bid me a good day and left, reassuring me that he'd phone me at 6. At this point I thought I was home free. I didn't live far from the bank and walked up a one-way street into an alley off the main street to try and avoid him. There were huge planters blocking traffic going up so I thought I was safe. Just as I stepped out I heard a car rumbling through and a large white van with tinted windows sped through. On the opposite side of the alley was another one-way street leading in the opposite direction.

The van nearly collided with a car going the right way up. I had been waiting for that car to pass to get into a pedestrian-only laneway across the street, so I quickly jumped back on the sidewalk. The van honked, turned around, and pulled up in front of me, blocking my way. The tinted windows rolled down, and there was Brian. Hey, get in the car, I'll drive you home. It had begun to drizzle, but I was two and a half blocks from home and visibly scared of him. No thanks, I don't have far to go.

Come on, just get in. This went on and on until he seemed to grow tired of it. He left after reassuring me again that he'd call me. I was wary and took the sidewalks this time, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a white car at the end of the block. I figured that he was just trying to get out of this little burrow and kept walking, but it didn't make sense. I had been walking slowly, and he should have been out of the borough by then.

The next block, same thing. He was still there, following me along a street going the same way. My block was the last one you can drive down before having to turn onto a main road, but the street I was on went one block further. I ignored my turn. A gut feeling told me to keep going. I called my brother at the end of the block, mostly hidden by a big tree. I watched my street and asked him if the white van was there.

As I was standing, his van slowly rolled into view at the intersection. If I had gone up my block, he would have seen me on the way back down the street. Somehow, he didn't notice me and I stood there quietly, making sure he wasn't making another round. He didn't and I made it home safe and sound, but very shaken up. Thankfully, I never received a call from him. Every year for eight years, a group of friends and I go on vacation at this old fort campground in the spring. It's an old fort base located on a small island about six miles long. There is a large family campground on the island as well as some larger group camping spots that are about one mile from the family sites. We stay at one of the big group camping spots so we don't bother the other families that are trying to sleep and just have a wholesome

vacation. There are some really cool old parts of the fort left scattered all over the island that you can visit including an old watchtower. It's busy during the summer but when we go it's pretty quiet. We've been vacationing there for a while and are very comfortable as well as familiar with the island. We hike it all day and sometimes at night. On this particular evening we had been drinking and some of us even took some acid. Now anyone who has taken acid knows it's not like what you see in the movies, it's a lot more calm. You feel incredible peace and safety, you're also braver. Now we have tripped on the island and night hiked before. This was pretty common for us to do this one time per vacation. It's always a blast, there are a bunch of trails and it's a very safe place.

I decided to trip so I pop my head on my tongue and watch the sun sink behind the dunes. About an hour later we are all gathered around the campfire and having a few beers when one of my friends suggests a night hike over to the tower. It is about a mile from our campsite and there are a few different paths you can take. Only four of us wanted to make the hike, myself, a 25 year old female at the time, and three guy friends. Since it's spring it's still chilly so I packed a blanket in my backpack just in case and layered on an old sweater and my thick black wool cloak. We started down the trail and I realized I forgot my smokes

so I tell my guy friends to head on and I would catch up. Now being in my stony trippy acid brain I get caught up joking around with some friends who stayed back at the camp and only notice after they mention the time. I laughed headed back to the trailhead. This is where the acid starts coming into play. The guys had the flashlights so my hike through the woods was dimly lit by the moon which was beautiful and not scary with acid brain. As I continued down one of the trails I hear some chatting and assume it's my friends. I'm in no real rush to catch up because I'm really enjoying the solitude of the hike and the darkness of the night felt so magical. I was humming, singing to myself and just taking it all in. The trail starts to straighten out and I see a few figures walking a good ways ahead of me as well as the shape of the

watchtower behind the trees. When the trail ends it opens up onto a small maintenance road and a parking lot for the gazebo facing the bay The tower sits on the opposite end, facing the ocean The figures keep moving towards the tower I decided to sit for a moment and roll a joint so I could share it with my buddies at the top of the tower As I pull everything I need out of my backpack, a few things like a lighter and water bottle fall out and hit the ground. I lower myself on my hands and knees to feel for them in the darkness. As I'm on my hands and knees feeling the ground, a brief but bright light shines on me.

I look up, with vision skewed by my hood and the darkness, all I see are the figures in front of me starting to run towards the tower. I gather my stuff quickly, stand up and swiftly follow them to the tower knowing I can just roll that J when I get to the top. I see their light cut off as they enter the darkness of the tower assuming they are going to try to scare me. I hear but cannot make out what they are saying. I think to myself that I must be tripping really hard because it doesn't even sound like they're speaking English. My eyes had adjusted very well to the darkness at this point and being familiar with the tower, I walked up the three tall flights of stone stairs to get to the entrance.

Being trippy, I was in a great mood, humming some Zappa tune and just really happy to exist. I walked through the tower, humming and working my way to the top. It's very dark, darker than it was outside because there were no windows on the bottom of the tower. I heard the guys ahead of me moving towards the top so I hurry along to the next room and try to catch up. I start calling out in a sing-song tone, I know it's you, thinking they'll realize the gig is up and that they can't scare me. I repeat myself a few times and keep moving to the top, humming all the while. Once I reach the top I see three figures huddled together not saying a word. I laugh at them and sit down in the center of the room and roll a J humming.

They don't move. I finally tell them that they aren't fooling anyone and that I can see them. Then all of a sudden they start speaking in a very shaky voice saying, It's not us. We don't know you. They take down the tower, running and screaming. Very puzzled, I stood up and shouted, where are you guys going? I was so confused and then it hit me. Those were definitely not my friends goofing around and I just scared the absolute life out of some family. I watched from the top of the tower as this family ran down the stairs across the lot and back the trail. They never slowed down or stopped screaming.

It must have been a nightmare for them. My friends showed up about five minutes later. They had apparently taken a wrong turn off the trail and got mixed up. I explained to them what had happened and we me yesterday not only as a PSA about the dangers of meeting people online, but also how important it is to listen to your gut in situations like this. I'm a 20 year old female, 5'3 and 120 pounds. Most people comment on how much younger I look than my age which may be worth mentioning. I on and off use tinder, usually just when I'm bored at night and want to kill time. I'm bi, mostly interested in girls, but I keep guys turned on in the tinder settings because there aren't many girls on the app in my

area. I match with a guy who we'll call Adam around the same age as me and after snapchatting for a few hours I decided I was comfortable enough to meet up with him and smoke although I should have realized how dumb of me it was to follow through with these plans. Since we both live with our parents Adam said he knew a good spot for us to smoke privately without having to worry about other people or police since smoking is not yet legal in my state. I was reluctant about meeting in a park to smoke with a stranger but I was really bored and hadn't smoked in a few months. Adam sent me the address to the park and I headed that way. He sent me a snap showing me that he was in his car at the park waiting on me.

He told me to come to the back of the park because we would be in a more secluded area so I drove my car down the skinny path to the back parking lot where I saw a blue van parked in the corner. I started doubting my decision once he messaged me saying, Hey, I'm in the blue van, come hop in. I kept looking at the van trying to make out any sign of a person in the driver's seat. To my surprise, not only did I see Adam in the front seat, but I saw another guy in the back of the van ducking his head. I immediately drove out of the park and blocked Adam on Snapchat and Tinder on the way out. A few minutes after pulling out and heading home,

I got a notification on Snapchat indicating a guy named David had added me through search. Not through contacts or quick add, he literally searched my username. I didn't add him back, but he was still able to message me. I opened the message message which read, You stupid wench. I guess it goes without saying that I blocked David as well. I'm not sure of the events that would have occurred had I entered the van and quite frankly, I don't want to know. The internet can bring amazing relationships and friendships, however, be aware that there are people out there who have only bad intentions with anyone willing to meet up with them.

My husband, Michael, and I are in our early thirties. We have two toddlers. The couple I will talk about I'll call Liz and her husband we'll call Clinger. Now let's dive into the story. I was scrolling through Facebook when I noticed a post on one of our local talk of the town groups. Liz posted saying that she wasn't from the area and wanted to know where everyone hangs out and says she wants to make friends. Me being my outgoing self I decided to comment saying I'll be your friend. I know I know it was a very stupid idea on my part and I let my overly trusting and friendly personality get the best of me. Liz and I started Facebook messaging and quickly realized we had a lot in common. Clinger and I

had mutual Facebook friends so that made me more inclined to meet up. I arranged for the four of us to get dinner and hang out. We had a good time and shared the same sense of humor. It turned into Liz and I hanging out weekly and Clinger inviting Mike to play pool every week. Mike was working a very demanding job that made it hard for him to have the time to hang out and when he did have the time he was too tired. Well this made Klinger turn a bit crazy. Klinger asked if Mike could go to a pool night and he said no because of work. Klinger completely freaked out. He started texting Mike saying that he was being a part-time friend and that he couldn't deal with having a friend that didn't give enough effort. He said that he was being a part-time friend and that he couldn't deal with having a

friend that didn't give enough effort. He said that Mike was leading him on as a friend. Naturally Mike and I thought, WTF? What is wrong with this guy? Mike started saying that Clinger was overreacting and that he has obligations like work and family time. He said that he doesn't have to be Clinger's friend and chill out. Mike ignored all messages from Clinger and we went about our days. Liz and I still hung out regularly, just us girls, and figured that Mike and Clinger didn't have to hang out with us. I thought, okay, problem solved. Wrong.

Clinger started messaging me saying that he doesn't understand why Mike wouldn't want to hang out with him and that he wasn't being nice. I tried explaining that he's got a lot going on and to chill out. This just made him angry and he lashed out by saying that Mike didn't give me enough me time and that everyone deserves that. He insisted that Mike take time for himself and have a guy's night weekly. I told Clinger that him and Mike don't have to be friends and it's not a big deal. You would think I would have cut Liz and Clinger out of my life right then but I thought that I could be friends with only Liz. I then started to notice that Liz was becoming too clingy and would get mad if I said I felt

like just hanging out at home instead of with her. She made me feel guilty for wanting to have time alone so my idiot self fell for it and thought that it would be wrong of me to leave her to be lonely as she didn't have anyone in the area. This in turn made me spend more money than we could afford as she always wanted to get drinks or food. Mike and I started arguing because Liz would twist things I said to her then Clinger would spit them out to Mike. I thought about ending our friendship but wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. This all changed when I got a text from Liz asking if Mike and I would want to come over and do Molly with them. I'm not into drugs except maybe smoking occasionally so I definitely wasn't about to go

over to their place to do Molly. I said that we wouldn't and I'm not into that anyways plus we didn't have a sitter. Liz had the audacity to say that I should bring our kids over with us and their kids could play with them. I told her absolutely not and she got mad that I said it was a bad idea. Meanwhile, Clinger is non-stop texting Mike saying that he's just some alcoholic and that he doesn't give it to me enough. Mike and I were totally taken aback as this came out of nowhere and I never complained about my intimacy to Liz or Clinger. In fact, I told Liz that I was pretty content with that. I did mention Mike drinking a lot at the time, but didn't go into further detail and it wasn't some big secret.

He had a drinking problem around this time, but that's a story for another time. Klinger then lectured Mike about him needing to quit drinking and that he's just a terrible father just like his dad. My husband has his share of issues sure but he's not just some terrible dad and has dramatically improved since this occurred. Klinger then said that our kids are annoying and ugly. He told Mike that our son shouldn't have a pacifier and how we are intentionally screwing up his teeth. Keep in mind that they were around 17 months and three years old with standard tantrums. Mike said that he was done with the conversation and that there was no reason for him to disrespect our family which obviously included a few choice words.

Mike said he doesn't care what he's into but that Klinger seems to be looking for a boyfriend not a friend and he's not into men. Klinger lost his mind and told Mike that he would break him in half. Mike blocked him on everything, then I texted Liz saying that our friendship was over due to her psycho husband. After we blocked them, we didn't hear from them again, but I was nervous for a good month that Clinger would show up at our house and try to do something. It didn't help knowing that Clinger regularly went to the dark web and hearing all the horror stories surrounding that. Also at the time they lived about 10 minutes away. Thankfully I knew beforehand that they would be moving to a city about 40 minutes away in the near future so I knew it would be unlikely that I would run into them. So long story short, I learned the hard way that when it comes to friends,

it's quality, not the quantity of friendships. We have a couple of good friends and their son, who is a good friend of mine, went to stay at a hotel near a ski center because we wanted to see some snow after a good two years of not seeing snow, because we live in Greece and it's pretty much extremely hot through the whole year. Now when we arrived we were told by our parents that me and my friend were going to stay at a hotel, because we live in Greece and it's pretty much extremely hot through the whole year. Now when we arrived we were told by our parents that me and my friend were going to stay at a hotel and our parents were all going to stay together in a house a few minutes from where the hotel was. This didn't seem to bother us as we felt more free and quiet. Also there was no other rooms for us left in the house with our parents. So everything was normal.

We checked in the hotel and received the keys for our room. The whole place was pretty small and it had three entrances. One being to the cafeteria which was a big door which was pretty much locked the whole time. And was only opened by the staff during the morning in order for people staying at the hotel to have breakfast there. There was another entrance which was the main entrance, and the doors were never locked, even at night. And lastly, there was a little back door, which was pretty much open the whole time

and had direct entrance to all the rooms that the guests stayed at. Moreover, I'll have to mention that you couldn't really lock the door of the room you stayed in because the doorknobs were messed up. So even if you had locked the door with a key, if you used enough force and you pushed the door you could still open it. We stayed in room number three which was on the first floor and was just one of the rooms in this really small hallway on the first floor. Now the first two nights sleeping there didn't exactly feel comfortable as of course we weren't sleeping in our houses so we had to kind of adapt but overall the hotel was pretty okay and we didn't really feel unsafe since there were other people sleeping there too and our parents house was only about five minutes

away. However during the third night I couldn't really sleep and about five in the morning I felt pretty uncomfortable as I had this gut feeling of having to protect my friend since I've known him for a really long time and I've always cared for him and kind of acted like a big brother to him. Therefore I took my phone and turned on the flashlight as I looked around the room and I didn't notice anything at first so I just went to the bathroom really quick and when I came out I noticed two things. The first is that my friend had also woken up and he was also kind of anxious and he told me that he couldn't sleep and the second is that there were some little mistletoe twigs spread around

in the room. Now I've noticed from the first day that the staff of the hotel had to hang mistletoe in the doorknobs of every room because it was Christmas. But I had never noticed her room being such a mess from the mistletoe before. Despite one time where I had forced the doorknob open because my friend was sleeping inside the room and I had left the keys inside so I couldn't get in normally. That kind of shook me at first but I tried to remain calm and I just turned on the lights and started to talk to my friend about why he was also feeling anxious and at unease. He told me that he just couldn't sleep and then he asked me something that creeps me out to this day. He asked me if I had stood up in the middle of the night and just looked down at him for a good five seconds before exiting the room for whatever reason so late. I didn't want to cause him any panic so I just said,

Are you sure you didn't see that in your sleep because I never did that and then proceeded to try to calm him down. Eventually I did get him to calm down and got back to sleep and I just put a chair close to the door and sat there on my phone till it became day and some light started showing through the curtains I never mentioned anything because I didn't want to cause anyone to panic because this could have just really been a very unfortunate combination of events also we were scheduled to leave that morning either way so I just held all this inside myself and didn't tell anyone but who knows what could have happened if when I opened my phone flashlight someone was actually there. I wrote here once before about a terrible experience in Chicago, but I think that moment

of fear in the big city was dethroned by an event that happened yesterday. I want to preface this by saying thankfully it was a misunderstanding and there was actually no danger, but this just shows how even if you think you'll never be involved in something like this, that you're immune. You're very wrong. known danger but this just shows how even if you think you'll never be involved in something like this that you're immune. You're very wrong. I used to think that way. That only happened yesterday so it's pretty fresh in my memory still. I was with my friend and her husband and we had just stepped into the mall after having our nails done. We had just exited the store we parked in front of and into the hallway. Immediately we see people looking very unsettled. There were even a few people that were

walking very hurriedly away and back to the exit. We stood there a little confused about what was happening. Although I didn't see it, my friend did. There were two people in a big fight. I'm talking like slamming the other down on the ground, WWE style. It seemed like we stood there confused for an hour but it was only a few seconds before we heard someone say gun. That's when people panicked. It was like a movie was playing out as I just stood there like, is this really happening? A woman rushed past me with a little girl in her arms, obviously wrapping her body around the child as if to protect her. Needless to say, we Usain Bolted out of there. It was loud, the yelling and the people stampeding around us. I was just waiting for bullets to be flying through the air at all of this.

My friend's husband had stopped at one point and I could just hear my friend screaming his name. I slowed down a bit so I didn't lose her but I also didn't want to be shot. I'm a little guilty about how my body just wanted to save itself but my brain was telling me to stop and wait for her. I slowed my running and called her name and thankfully both her and her husband were behind me again. We finally got back to the car, very out of breath since we hadn't ran like that since high school. We stood there by her vehicle for a while debating what we were going to do and settled on getting drinks at a restaurant across the mall parking lot so he could watch what

was going on since the police had just arrived by then. Suddenly my friend's husband looked at us all serious and said, go. And we get nervous all over again and we're like why? And he just keeps saying, go, go, go and starts ushering us up hurriedly away. We finally got an answer to why he was rushing us away and he said either someone dropped something or there was a gunshot. It didn't take long for people to figure out it was a miscommunication. We watched the police leave and the mall reopened just fine in the hour or so we were at the bar in the restaurant. Looking at news articles about the

event, the pop that my friend's husband had heard and apparently many others had heard and thought it was also a gunshot was someone's car rolling over a pop bottle that had burst and made a similar sound to a gun. All in all, thankfully nobody got hurt aside from those guys inside who were fighting like they were in a boxing ring. And we still don't know who or why someone said gun. I never really thought something like this would happen to me but obviously it can. You always just think you'll be safe. And just hear whatever happens on the news and say. Wow.

So glad I wasn't there. I'm from Latvia and lived in a very small town for 15 years until my mom moved to the UK. The town was so small that we only had three stores which were placed just a few meters away from each other. So rumors in there spread like forest fire and everyone knew all the dirt about anyone. Max always seemed to have this kind of reputation of being a kid with a bit of mental issues, plus his mother was hardcore alcoholic and father of course not present and instead ever-changing stepdads, one worse than the other. I kind of had sympathy with her because my mom had raised me and my twin brother while my dad was either laying drunk in some terrible apartment or when sober whining about how he feels like his heart will stop soon and he needs medication. I roll my eyes at the thought. Because my town was so small I went to primary school with all

my classmates and Max was already showing anti-social behavior, throwing tantrums, stealing from other kids, pushing, etc. He even ended up throwing big wooden dice at another boy which led him to have a crack right between his eyebrow. He still has a scar there. I've even seen it on Instagram. I don't remember the reason he got so mad though and somewhere around 12 we kind of became friends. As I also had label of weird kid too because till 15 I would do this weird thing where I would spin pens and pencils on the floor while daydreaming about my imaginary world for hours. My parents thought I had some form of autism because of that. It turns out it was a coping mechanism because I was a black sheep in my family and had problems connecting with my friends which

made me cling on to him hard. He secured his position as good friend by love bombing. Although this term is used for a relationship, I just couldn't find a better word to describe it. Basically, it's like the honeymoon phase before the true colors come out. Then manipulation began at first. Something small like, snatch some cigarettes from your granddad. Then it escalated to, if I would get a new toy or some sort of cool gift from my parents he would ask to play with it but then I wouldn't see it for days because he would pretend like he accidentally put it in his pocket and forgot to give it back. If I called him out he would bring

up the fact that his family is poor telling me stuff about how privileged I am and that people like me should starve for a week to know the true struggle. But the thing I hated the most was the it's just a joke. Whatever he would do, something that made me terrified like throwing lit matches at me while saying I'll burn you alive. It was some kind of hilarious joke or pulling me down when we had PE in a pool and if you ever were fortunate enough to experience drowning you know what a scary experience it is. Thank god the coach banned him from practice. He also was the first person who I came out to. In Latvia homophobia is pretty much normal and it's hard to find anyone who is LGBT supporter so it was a big deal for me. So he thought it's alright to try to

pressure me into giving him certain sensual favors. Now keep in mind at that age I had no concept of what any of that was. I legitimately thought that babies just kind of came out of nowhere. Although I had enough courage to say no. After that incident he would gaslight me into thinking that I made this all up whenever I would bring it up. Also he would get angry at me he would call me the Russian f-word. The frog incident was the last straw. We had the small forest in my town which was considered a tourist attraction. There was a shallow pit in the forest where people, mainly alcoholics and hobos, would throw all sorts of junk. We found an empty fish tank in a bottle with oil. He told me to hold the fish tank so I did.

Before I go further I just wanted to say that I'm deeply ashamed of my actions. He placed the toad into the tank and proceeded to fill the tank with oil. The gravity of the situation hit me hard at this moment. Seeing this poor creature trying to make its way to the top while miserably failing. The thick black liquid dripping through its eyes made me cringe as I imagined how it would feel like if I was the one inside the fish tank. I remember after that I couldn't eat any wet food for weeks as it would remind me of that frog. I also remember my mom comforting me because I was non-stop crying but not being

able to explain why because of how guilty I felt. After that I slowly was distracting myself from him and then I moved to England so he was pretty much a ghost of the past now. Although I still struggle mentally as I recently was diagnosed with BPD which might explain why I tolerated him for so long. At least I learned to cut toxic people after the first red flag. I know most of us believe in ghosts. The question is, have you seen one? For years I've watched ghost shows like Ghost Adventures, but I never thought I'd see one. I've always just explained away bumps in the night.

But here's two stories that, to me, still send shivers up my spine. Back in 2013, I had just turned 19, lived in a super small town in Alberta, Canada. That year, the river surrounding the town flooded. Homes were lost as well as lives in surrounding communities. I believe this is what made the energy in these homes stronger. At the time, I was living with my boyfriend's family in a very old home, estimated about 112 years old at the time. It was just a small, typical farmhouse,

moved into town from an unknown farm in Alberta. It was a two-bedroom, one-bath with a new add-on basement with two other bedrooms. Picture an old farmhouse, the original hardwood floors, white crown moldings, very tight hallways and small rooms. basement. It was always freezing and very very dark. Before I moved in his mom used to witness a dark figure standing outside the house just staring in through the windows at night. Whatever this thing was would bang on the doors and exterior walls. Now when anyone new would move in that figure would then come into the house too. New neighbors moved in next door and things started getting strange. Every day when everyone would get home from work things would be moved around and rummaged through but nothing would be taken so we assumed the neighbors were coming in the house. One day me and my boyfriend got home before anyone else and like normal things were moved around. So we cleansed

everything else and went downstairs to relax before bed. His family had three dogs at the time and you could hear them walking around upstairs. We finally get ready for bed and lay down. All of the sudden we hear someone run around upstairs. Not the dogs walking around but a person stomping. But none of the dogs were barking or getting upset. No one else was going to be home till about 11pm or later. We call his mom asking if she had gotten home and the answer was no. So my boyfriend jumps out of bed and grabs his shotgun thinking someone had broken into the house. He sweeps the house room to room and nothing. No one but the dogs and us were there. As soon as we get back we lay down after finding out no one was there. Whatever had walked through the house before runs out. One day I was staying at my boyfriend's

sister's house for the night. This home she owns is very haunted. Her daughters talk to a person named Ogie. Screaming and yelling, this thing is scarring them. Their motion-censored toys go off all the time and so on. Anyways, this night I was just falling asleep on the couch and out of the corner of my eye, something keeps moving in the kitchen next to the living room. All of a sudden in the middle of the night I wake up to a chill running down my spine. I go to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As I walk into the kitchen the overhead light flicks on and I turn to tell the kids it's late and time for bed. But instead I see a woman in a white dress. Her body was deformed. Her long dark hair was covering her face. Think the girl from The Grudge hair. Then, as soon as the light flicked on, it goes off and she's gone.

This house is built next to an old unmarked graveyard. All of the family has seen this woman walking through the house in the yard. All of the family has seen this woman walking through the house and the yard. I think it's evil as the kids are so scared of it and says she does mean things to them and lives on the ceiling. Needless to say those homes scare me and everyone who lives in them. Now are ghosts real? Well now I know, they are. This took place a few years ago in a little English town. Me and my friends had been out in the town. I think we may have been to see a movie or something. Either way we were walking back to my friend's house, a walk I had walked many times before when we got to this church. We were being rowdy and having a good time when all of a sudden we heard a gut-wrenching scream. At first we thought it was coming from

across the road where an abandoned building was. The screams continued and after a few seconds we realized that they were coming from behind us in the church. We thought that it could possibly be a few kids messing around but either way our curiosity got the better of us. We walked into the yard to try and pin down the location of the screams. It's safe to say at this point we were freaked. The screams honestly sounded like someone was dying. I got out my phone at this point and called the police. All the while the screams were continuing getting louder the closer we approached the church. The police were asking for our location, what we were hearing, trying to keep us calm. My friends were losing it. It was then that the lights of

the church illuminated the graveyard. We ducked to avoid the lights hiding behind headstones. Then just as suddenly as they came on they went off again. Then on, then off, then on and off once more. At that point we hightailed it out of there. We weren't sticking around to find out what was going on. The police called me back a few minutes later when we were further down the road. They said that they arrived at the church and looked around however they couldn't see or hear anything. I asked whether the lights were on or any of the doors were unlocked but they said that the entire property was fully sealed and no lights were on. To this day I have no idea what took place that night. In all honesty I had

forgotten about it until my friend had reminded me. We all kind of wrote it off as a weird experience but there was something about those screams that still, even to this very day, make me feel uneasy. This is a true story that really happened to me back in 2006 when I was living in Hobie Sound Beach, Florida, a rather small town in between some bigger beach towns. I had just driven back home to Oklahoma to visit and happened to talk to one of my best friends, Joe, and moving back to Florida with me. One night, Joe and I had decided we were going to head down to the beach, bring a couple of beers and some herb and chill out down by the ocean.

It was a nice night. As we pulled up I remember parking my car in the beachside parking lot. We were listening to Sublime and opening our first beers when I told Joe I was going to go walk down to the beach. I kicked off my sandals and walked down to the ocean. The ocean was flat, waves barely rolling up against my ankles. As I'm standing there gazing upon the open ocean, I hear Joe say something as he started walking down from the car towards me on the beach. Then what I can only describe as an ethereal blue lane of light illuminates me. The light creates a lane about 15 feet wide. The light illuminated the sand from the ocean to the top of the beach's sand dune. What struck me as odd was that it wasn't a broadcast light in a v-shape from the origin,

it was a parallel lane of light. It was illuminating the granules of sand in a way I've never seen light do before. As it lit me up I exclaimed to Joe, What is that? I began to search for the origin of the light. I didn't see nor hear anything in the sky above, so I focused my attention on the ocean. I could somehow sense that this light was coming from near offshore. I squinted to look for any stern lights, assuming maybe this was coming from a boat. This was a clear night, and in a clear night off the Florida coast, you can see a boat's light for miles off the coast into the horizon. I saw nothing. No boats, no shadow outlines along the horizon, nothing. Still, I could sense that

this light illuminating me was coming from a few hundred yards off the beach, albeit still unable to physically see the object. This analysis all happened within a matter of probably 20 to 30 seconds as the light illuminated me. The light then slowly dissipated off me. It then lit up Joe's lane for about 10 seconds, who had now descended the top of the beach and was almost closing in on me. Now he's freaking out. Then the light dissipates off him and illuminated the lane on the other side of me where there was nothing. The light then behaved in a wave I will never forget. It did a rapid shuffle off the three lanes in a random fashion. It straight up scanned us, is all I can describe it as. The next thing I know, a huge tidal wave is picking me up off the beach.

The wave had to have been 20 foot tall. It picked me up off the ground and threw me face first into the beach like a ragdoll. If you've ever skateboardeded I'm sure you've heard the term scorpion. Where you eat it face first and then your legs wrap up over your head from behind you. Worst case scenario kind of ordeal, that's what happened. Not so gnarly. As I got up I yelled for Joe. I heard him. He had been washed about 30 yards inland. I walked up to him and said, Dude, are you okay? What was that? He said in a quiver, I don't know, man. Just then I felt this really creepy, spooky sixth sense feeling come over me,

like we'd just seen a ghost. He'd felt it too. It was written all over both of our faces. I said, let's get out of here right now. So we jumped back into my car and hauled it back to the house. As we're sitting on the couch in the living room trying to recount what had just happened on the couch, we must have been talking very loud. My cousin who had been in bed sleeping comes out and says, guys, it's 4.30 in the effing morning. What are you guys out here yelling about? I gotta wake up for work in like an hour. He was so mad. Simultaneously, we both started blurting out what had to have seemed like absolutely insane retelling of what just happened. He didn't believe us, of course. He asked us if we had taken hard drugs or were drunk. had to have seemed like absolutely insane retelling of what just happened.

He didn't believe us of course. He asked us if we had taken hard drugs or were drunk. We weren't. We'd only both had one beer each. Then as he goes back to his room to go to sleep, I looked over to my friend Joe and said, Wait, 4.30? We went out there at like 11 and I've only been gone an hour.

We both looked at each other with frightened eyes. The next day I woke up and had a burn mark around my right eye socket from where the force of the impact on the beach had literally sandpapered what resembled road rash on my face. I've told myself many things over the years to try to make sense of it. Government helicopters, submarines, tidal wave warning systems, but deep in my gut I know that Joe and I will never forget, and coincidentally also never fully remember, the time we were possibly abducted by an unidentified submerged object. I was 20 years old back then, just a pup. I recuperated fast, but the older I got, closer to my 30s,

the worse and worse my back showed I wasn't alright. That tidal wave that scorpioned me up onto the beach really had messed me up. I have to use a back roller and a back massager daily to do physical rehab on myself for what feels like three to four completely blown vertebrae. It's literally a daily reminder that whatever happened out there on the beach that night in Florida really did happen. I'd like to start this by saying I am a skeptic. As a child, my father always gave my brother and I a choice to be whatever we wanted to be, thus giving me the option to think critically and look at the world for the most logically explainable standpoint. So, this is all just as confusing to me now as it was when I was witnessing it as a child or teenager. My parents weren't around very much when I was a kid.

My dad working day and night as an aerospace engineer at U of M and my mother simply wanted nothing to do with me. So my brother and I spent a lot of time with our grandfather, and the house we stayed at was a big Victorian-style house. My grandma had a thing for antiques, and so the house was decorated that way. During the strange times of living in that house, my grandparents were separated. My grandma was living in North Carolina for more than eight years, leaving my grandpa to take care of said big empty house.

I always loved staying there as a kid because I practically had no bedtime and I got to spend most of Friday through Sunday watching anime and eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. I was a pretty isolated kid and it was the perfect distraction for someone like me who didn't have friends to hang out with. That being said, the very first time I ever saw her was on one of these nights. Another thing I neglected to mention is that my room there is full of dolls. If I recall correctly, my grandma has over 300 Barbies, all still in their boxes, a small little bunch of porcelain dolls, and this antique chair that had a bunch of raggedy ants all sitting on it. It never really bothered me, but my brother won't set foot in that room. I guess I'm just not one of those people who's scared of dolls. In the past, I'd had issues with that chair full of raggedy ants,

particularly when I'd leave my room and come back and all of the dolls that I'd had issues with that chair full of raggedy ants particularly when I'd leave my room and come back and all of the dolls that I'd just stacked up nicely and by size from big to small were laying on the floor all of a sudden. I just assumed it was my grandma's cat using the chair to get up into the window and maybe she just knocked them all over in the process but it became more of an issue when it was happening even when I'd shoo the cat out, close my door and wake up to all the raggedy ants on the floor again. It was about two in the morning on either Friday or Saturday and I was starting to feel drowsy so I shot off Toonami and went into my room. It seemed like a typical weekend for 12 year old me

you know. I turned on my little nightlight, got into bed with a glass of water next to me, took off my glasses, then shut off the light. When I laid there, eyes shut, I could feel myself drifting off into sleep, listening to the silence of the house, only to be woken up by the sound of those dolls hitting the floor as they fell off the chair at the foot of my bed. I got this strange tingling sensation on the back of my neck but due to my stubbornness I kept reassuring myself that it was nothing. Maybe it was just one of the dolls being unbalanced and causing a dolly avalanche or whatever. I kept trying to sleep, focusing on the familiar noises of my surroundings in the dark.

The sound of the grandfather clock out in the hallway ticking, my grandpa snoring in the other room, the occasional popping sounds of the old house settling. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary yet. I had the strangest gut feeling ever. So I sat up to get a sip of water in hopes of calming myself. When I sat my glass back down on the nightstand I looked up from where I sat only to meet eyes with a small child sitting in the chair across from my bed. She smiled at me then looked back down at whatever she was doing. In my head I'm trying to rationalize this like, oh, maybe she's a friend of the family.

But no, that still wouldn't explain why she's sitting in my bedroom at 2am. So I had to be dreaming, right? I went to take off my glasses to rub my eyes, only to remember that I had already taken my glasses off and they were sitting on the nightstand. I could see this person perfectly even though everything else around her was blurry in the dim light of the nightlight. I rubbed my eyes almost frantically thinking I had officially gone crazy or something but when I looked back up to the chair she was gone. I got no sleep that night and finally passed out when the sun was

coming up and I didn't tell a single soul about it until I was about 16 and the topic of the paranormal came up at breakfast one day. My brother, grandma and I were all sat at the table chatting after eating and my grandma brought up that the house was haunted. She was very superstitious and my brother mentioned being in the kitchen was haunted. She's very superstitious. And my brother mentioned being in the kitchen a few months ago and seeing the little girl standing at the top of the stairs when he looked over from where he stood. I'll tell you, when he told me that, I nearly soiled myself because I'd been bottling what I saw up for years

and I immediately spilled the beans to him about it. Just the fact that we both saw the same girl during very different time periods freaks me out for some reason but the thing is things got worse after that. During my teens things got rough for my family. Things were not good at home. My mom was caught cheating on my dad. My brother left and no one knew where he went and I was in a very deep depression. My grandpa had finally made the decision to move down to North Carolina to be with my grandma and their house here in Michigan sat empty for years. If that house wasn't empty before... I'd start driving by then so I'd take my little beater car over to

their empty house and just sit in the formal living room on the ugly floral print couches in silence. I would go there as my escape place to cry about all the awful things going on in my life and I would cry to the cat that had been left behind that I'd been feeding and caring for. It's like the house would almost soak up my emotions and the only way I could describe it is like when you wring out a sponge into a bucket. My feelings being the soapy water trapped in the sponge and the house being the bucket. There was a day I'd gotten out of school and was upset so I drove to that house and went into the old room and cried. When I was all out of tears, I started going through all of my antique wardrobes and dressers

in search of my old ballet shoes or really any other memories stowed away from when I was a kid. When I opened one of the smaller drawers and found a medical bracelet from the 70s with the name on it. The name read Casey. My middle name is Casey. I got out my phone and immediately called my mom about it. At the time I wasn't really on speaking terms with my mother so it was a bit of a rough phone call but it was one that made me understand some things a little bit better. My mother had a little sister named Casey who died at a very young age. I guess when Casey was conceived, my grandmother had an IUD but got pregnant anyway. She decided to have the baby regardless of all the

health issues that the baby would have. Casey died before she turned three due to related health complications and during the autopsy, they found the IUD inside of her instead of my grandmother. Learning this information broke my heart and while I understand why no one wanted to talk about it it would have been nice to know that my middle name had that kind of significant meaning. After taking a bit to let all of this soak in I decided to go back up to my old room and look for more of Casey's things. The other thing I found was a picture of Casey. I sat on the floor looking at this photo for a long time. In the corner of my room was a full body mirror and I scooted closer to it and held the picture up. I thought I was the only

person in my family to have red hair and blue eyes. My parents, grandparents, and brother all have brown hair and brown eyes, but I realized just how much I look like Casey. I looked myself in the eyes and began to cry, feeling overwhelmed with this somber realization that the reason my mom resented me so much was because I looked like her dead sister. I held the photo and bracelet close to me and whispered, Casey, I'm so sorry. I wish we could have met. And when I closed my eyes, I felt this strange sensation on the top of my head that I can only describe as a kiss and then the house felt empty. Like actually empty this time in a way that I had never felt before, as if the weight was gone. I didn't go back there for a long time.

Things went back to normal, though my version of normal at the time was not normal at all, but those stories are for a different time. I spent more time at home putting up with my family until the next year. My grandparents started talking about selling their house in Michigan and just living in North Carolina instead. It was around fall of the next year that I finally went back to that house again. I don't recall exactly what I had gotten into a fight with my mom about that time, but I was angry enough to pack a backpack up and leave. When I walked into the foyer, I noticed a lot of things that had already been in disrepair before my grandparents left had now turned into full-on decay. The paint on the walls had begun chipping off like brittle eggshells and the house now smelled like mothballs and black mold as the

basement had begun to leak regularly. The cupboards had bugs and mice scurrying about them and some of the trees in the backyard had fallen dangerously close to the house. When I walked into my old room it was like nothing had changed from when I was a kid though. It was like a little time capsule of dolls, doilies and lace curtains. I could feel it though. She was gone. It was colder in there. I sat down my bag next to the bed and I remember taking off my shoes and just sitting.

Not really doing anything, just sitting in silence for a long time. The grandfather clock in the hallway had stopped since no one was here to wind it back up. I knew that I probably shouldn't sleep in this empty house but everything else going on in my life was kind of horrible and I thought that at least here I wouldn't have to face the wrath of my mother's abuse. The thing is I thought very wrong. It was a mistake sleeping there. If there was something I could change it would be this event because even now, seven years later, I'm still traumatized by what happened. I put some pajama pants on and turned on my nightlight which at that point was on its last leg.

I mean the thing flickered on and off if you even lightly brushed against it but I didn't care. I just wanted to feel that sense of nostalgia and belonging again. It was all I had to keep me going because I felt like I had literally no one. When I climbed into bed the sheets were musty and the metal bed frame creaked every time I moved but I managed to shut off the lights and go to sleep for a little bit. Then I woke up. I couldn't move. My body was numb and it was dark except for the small nightlight. I didn't know what sleep paralysis was before that so I had no idea what was happening I started to panic when I looked down at the end of the bed to see this black figure with its white eyes peeking at me from the end of the bed it was crouched in front of the bed hands rest on the

edge on either sides of my feet I couldn't make out the outline of its stick-like fingers against the white comforter. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. I was forced to watch as this sickly skinny creature slowly draped its long arms over my feet and grabbed them, pulling them ever so slightly. I began hyperventilating. Once it was on the bed, it crawled over to me, making these fast, jerky movements, its joints crackling and popping with every action. If it had a mouth, I couldn't see it, but as it creeped closer to my face, all I could hear was its raspy breathing accompanied with coughing and cackling on me. Its breath nearly made me vomit, but that's what shook me out of the sleep paralysis and I jerked awake only to be met with an empty

room, an empty house. Nothing was here but me. Needless to say I left and I haven't been back there since. I kind of hope they tear down that house. Like I said I'm a skeptic but even I have to admit that there's something really messed up about that house. Falling down, falling down, falling down. The incessant sound of my toddler came from the back seat as we made our way to the park. Cassie, keep it down back there. I can hardly hear myself think. My daughter Cassandra was really finding her voice lately and was no stranger to repeating random things loudly and as much as possible. Anyone familiar with the terrible twos and the years directly following will understand that struggle. It was hard to find my peace at times but my wife and I did our best

and always made things work. Our date nights are few and far between but when we finally got around to them they were always just what the doc ordered. It has been a while since our last one and I'm starting to think it's time to call up Cassie's grandpa before long for another. It was my wife's night to go see her friends and I was on babysitting duty. Nothing better than a trip to the park to wear out a kid with all that pent-up energy. This way she will run rampant for 30 minutes to an hour and be worn out by the time we're driving home. That of course leads to her falling asleep in her car seat and an easy transfer to the bed once we arrive. As you can tell I've kind of got this

thing down to a science. Cassie was very particular in which parks she liked to play at. Strange I know. Her favorite was the one downtown with the stone chairs that you could talk to each other in front of from really far away. Something to do with the concave shape of them and how they are positioned to bounce the sound around. There was plenty else to do there as well, but that part was always her favorite. We made it to the bridge heading into town and Cassie started to really wig out. She kept calling out, dad, daddy, help. I was afraid that something was terribly wrong with her so I pulled over just after the bridge into a nearby parking lot in front of a pizzeria. I unbuckled her as quickly as I could and pulled her to the front seat with me to examine her.

What's wrong, sweetie? Tell daddy what's wrong. Everything appeared to be fine with her besides the fact that she wouldn't stop crying. I just held on to her and let her cry it out. Kids can get like that sometimes, but I was just glad to find out that she wasn't hurt. It's gonna be alright, Cassie. We're gonna go to the park, and we can even stop to get some ice cream on the way if you want. I wasn't against a little bribing if it meant I could have some peace and quiet, not the best parenting technique but sometimes it was necessary for your sanity. That's when I heard it, a sound that would change my life

as well as the lives of so many others. A loud rumbling accompanied by the sounds of piercing screams. I turned toward the noise and saw the bridge crumbling, covered from front to back in rush hour traffic. There were a couple of people who had been walking that scrambled in a mad dash but were not able to make it to safety. Some of the drivers had thrown their doors open in hopes of the same but it all happened far too fast. Not one person from one end to the other was able to make it off the bridge before the total collapse. It was a day that nobody in the city would ever forget and all that kept running through my head were the words of my daughter as she sat in the car seat on her way to cross the bridge. Falling down, falling down, falling down. Cassie was no stranger to occurrences such as this one. When she was too young to speak a word she was already prone to these types of

incidents. While at first glance they might only seem a bit weird. Looking back now I fear that they were premonitions which we were unable to understand. Her grandmother and my mother passed away due to a heart attack. The doctor said that if she had gotten to a hospital it was more likely than not that she would have been able to pull through. The one thing that always stuck out to me about that day as far as Cassie was concerned, she had taken every block, every puzzle piece, and every toy that was shaped like a heart and placed it in the center of the room. That wasn't strange enough, she had placed every one of them on top of her favorite pictures of her and her Nana from one of their many zoo trips that they had taken together.

Much like this time with the bridge, Cassie had been completely inconsolable, although neither me nor my wife had the slightest clue what was wrong at the time. Another time that stands out was when we had brought Cassie to see the newest princess movie at the movie theaters. She had known very few words at this point but she could manage to speak a select few from time to time. We had to leave early from the movie, babies didn't tend to do well without for long periods of time without crying or being noisy in some type of fashion. When we walked past the last theater on our way out though Cassie began to say, fire, fire daddy, mommy, fire. It was winter time and we had been making fires at home every night so we assured her that

when we arrived at home we would be sure to make a fire for her in the fireplace. Once we arrived I threw a few logs on and worked my magic with the kindling, newspaper and some heavy blowing before grabbing the remote to turn on the nightly news. To the surprise of my wife and I the theater that we had just been at was on the news and the flames were crackling as a black cloud of smoke rose from the side of the building. Apparently the theater we had just been walking by when Cassie began to go on about the fire had sparked in the flames during the showing that was going on just moments after I could go on and

on about the different times like this that just seemed a bit too strange to be coincidence I really don't have the stomach for it now though you see I've been pacing the bedroom with my stomach in knots for the past hour trying to figure out what this could mean or what I should do. It was only yesterday now that the tragic events happened with the bridge. As heartbreaking and earth shattering as that was for me to witness it was something that my sweet daughter Cassandra said to me today that has me in such a frenzy. She looked at me and said, Please watch out for the scary man, Daddy. I don't think I'll be able to sleep a wink tonight.

God help me. I may never be able to sleep again. Hey friends, thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, rLetsReadOfficial, and give and receive feedback from the community and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And join my Discord to interact with me and other listeners directly. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon,

and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. And check out the Let's Read podcast, where you can hear all these stories in long compilation form and save huge on data, located anywhere you listen to podcasts. Links in the bio. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. 400 episodes for you to check out right now. We cover the cases everyone is talking about, and we also highlight the cases that have been underreported, overlooked, or forgotten. With over 30,000 five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, if you've never checked out True Crime Obsessed, now's the time to give us a try.

Find True Crime Obsessed wherever you get your podcasts.