The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S11E03

Episode Date: June 17, 2018

It's episode 03 of Season 11. On this week's show we have four tales about furtive families and menacing mysteries. "A Eulogy for My Uncle"‡ written by Jimmy Juliano and performed by Jeff Clement & Armen Taylor & Addison Peacock. (Story starts around 00:01:50) "I’m Shutting Down My True Crime Podcast"† written by Allison Slater and performed by Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts around 00:31:00) "Warning Cry"† written by J.D. Buffington and performed by Atticus Jackson & Nikolle Doolin & Dan Zappulla & Addison Peacock. (Story starts around 01:21:15) "My Childhood Home"¤ written by Kerry H. and performed by Jesse Cornett. (Story starts around 01:49:50) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Jimmy Juliano   Click here to learn more about J.D. Buffington   Click here to learn more about Kerry H.   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "A Eulogy for My Uncle" illustration courtesy of Mark Pelham Audio program ©2018 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This audio program presents horror, which is frightening and disturbing. You left us into your mind at your own risk. As the sunlight fades to darkness, the frightful tales creep into your mind. It's time to give you to because tonight there will be... Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On the show this week, we have four tales about furtive families and menacing mysteries.

I hope everyone enjoyed our seventh anniversary bonus episode last week. I want to publicly thank everyone for all the happy birthday messages and kind words of support. They mean a lot to all of us. And since episode three has three hours of horror storytelling ahead of us, we'd better waste no time in getting our eighth year started. The tape is in the machine. The stories are ready, so let's press play. In our first tale, we meet a man tasked with the rather somber responsibility

of speaking at his uncle's funeral. But as we discover from author Jimmy Giuliano, the tale the man has to tell is a difficult one to share in public, especially because it describes the mysterious circumstances. which led to his uncle's death. Performing this tale are Jeff Clement, Armin Taylor, and Addison Peacock. So let's listen, as the man shares with us,

a eulogy for my uncle. The authorities found my uncle at the end of a rope. That much is certain. He hadn't shown up to work in two days, so his boss called my grandmother, who found my uncle John dead in his wife. one-bedroom apartment. His suicide note, which was written on a small piece of yellow loose leaf and was stained

with brown liquid, simply read, don't follow him. Everyone agreed it was my uncle's handwriting, except me. I thought it looked a little off. The letter F in particular, the top stroke looked too wavy, not by much, but just enough to notice. and I would know. I knew my uncle best. No one in my family knew what the note meant. The popular thought was that it was a warning for those who lived a life like my uncle, usually alone, often drunk, and ultimately hanging from a shower rod. But most people in my family didn't know my uncle the way I did. John told me things. He told me things. He told me. He told

no one else and I'm not exactly sure why I suppose it doesn't matter what matters is that I know the story behind the note enough to have an idea of what it truly meant might have written it but like most things with Uncle John the truth is a bit complicated I planned on laying it all out at John's funeral. I composed the eulogy and shoved it in the back pocket of my black dress pants. But when the time came, I never took it out. Reading it didn't feel right. Below is what I wanted to say, but couldn't. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest. There's two things you should know about John. The first, which all of you probably know, is that John was always looking for God.

He openly questioned everything. And while this made John not a very popular guest at Thanksgiving and Christmas, he stuck to his guns. He wasn't trying to make anyone upset. He was just always searching for truth. Even when John was alone, he was still searching. And I'll just say, say it. In case you didn't know, growing up, I wanted to be like John. I looked up to him.

He bought me my first bike, and he gave me advice on girls. Not the best advice, actually, was spectacularly bad, but he tried. But as I got older, it was John's passionate search for truth that I really admired. We disagreed on things, sure. I believe in order, in a plan for us all in a universe built on creation. I believe in God and John. Well, Uncle John did not. He wanted to, but he didn't. He had his reasons.

John saw disorder and chaos everywhere. He saw evil and things that no God would allow. and while John and I didn't see eye to eye, I respected his reasons and his fiery drive for truth. I think it's what I admired most about him. The second thing you should know about John might come as a surprise. John was haunted, not in the figurative sense, but in a very real, literal way. John confided in me that a young woman was appearing to him in the middle of the night. Actually, she was hardly a woman at all by this point.

She was a corpse. She'd appear at John's bedside, a fresh young corpse with a bloated body, blotchy brown skin, matted and long black hair, no eyeballs, and sopping wet. She'd always gargle the same thing with an utterly blank and expressionless face. Don't follow him. At first, John didn't know what to make of it. He thought she was the result of too many late nights at the local watering hole, too many trips to the gas station for another sixer.

John just wished she'd go away, and he even prayed for her to go away, even though he was convinced that praying was useless, the corpse always came back, and it was always with the same message. Don't follow him. It pains me to say that I didn't believe my uncle John. To me, his delusions were a symptom of his boozing,

his isolation, his general mindset. John had a lot of demons, but I always listened to him. And eventually I thought it didn't matter what I believed. What mattered was that John believed it. And belief was something that was lacking in his life. And this dead woman, this ghost filled John with purpose. There was truth to be found. he was determined to find out who this young woman was. If she was dead, then she would have once been alive, my uncle reasoned. Based on her appearance, she probably drowned in a lake or river. And then there were those words.

Don't follow him. John suspected some form of foul play. It was a gut feeling, he said. The words were too crippled. to foreboding. And most importantly, if this spirit was coming to John, she must have had a specific reason, some form of a connection to John.

John sifted through obituaries going back decades. He searched for any drownings in a 20-mile radius, and when he didn't find what he wanted, he expanded that radius to 50, 100, and 200 miles. He analyzed photographs, spent days in public libraries scouring micro-feach and chatted up members of historical societies from across the state. He called police departments, and he combed through records of missing persons. John even contacted parents of runaway teens from all across the country, but he found nothing. And a young woman kept coming back, water dripping on to John's lunatic.

aluminum floor and empty eye sockets oozing with algae and seaweed. Don't follow him. John told me all of this, and even when he was reeking of booze with eyes so bloodshot, I thought the white would never return. I told him that I believed him. It would have broken his heart if I told him what I really thought. I think it was because I didn't want to derail his journey to truth. But John's journey was ending.

He didn't find any records of the young woman he was searching for. And slowly the girl's message became not about her danger, but about my uncles. She was no longer bearing the truth about her own fate, but John's. She'd gone from a cursed visage to some form. of a guardian angel. For a moment, there was a glimmer of God. And that's when John's life began to unravel. The liquor became harder and more frequent. He sequestered himself into his apartment for longer periods of time, convinced someone was out there trying to hurt him. John just didn't know when or where. All he knew was don't

Follow him was a message for his own well-being. He was driving himself mad with paranoia, always looking for the him. About a week before John died, he found him. John told me the whole story, Chapter 1st. There was a horrible blizzard, and my uncle was out in the middle of it. He was driving home late at night from a bar on a backcountry road. In John's words, he was only a little worse for where, and let you draw your own conclusions on what that meant.

The roads got bad in a hurry. John's car trudged forward, slipping and sliding its way towards home. Bad weather never deterred John's confidence, some might call aggressive driving. There was no one else on the road, save a pair of headlights behind John that eventually vanished. John wasn't sure when or where. About 10 miles from John's apartment, the car began to sputter.

He pulled off to the shoulder and the car died. John had no phone, no blanket, his driver's side window was stuck halfway down. Had been for six months. And John was too lazy to get it fixed. And the snow was piling up all around him. He considered going out on foot. It might have been his only chance to make it. But then, John spotted a figure in the distance.

It was slowly slogging through the blinding snowstorm, walking across a vast farmer's field, approaching John's car, a dot in the distance, slowly getting larger. John froze up. His reaction was sudden. and immediate. It was the man, the hymn that was coming for John.

My uncle knew, deep down to his core, he felt it. Don't follow him. John was being tested. The young woman with the bloated dead and wet body had come to him for a reason. The man plodied closer. His hands were shoved in his pocket. pockets in his face was obscured by the large hood of a navy parka jacket. John tensed up as the man approached the passenger door.

He wrapped three times on the car window, and John did nothing. The man wrapped again, wiped snow off the window with a gloved hand, and he peered inside. The man's face was soft, but with blazing, intense eyes. His cheeks were red with cold. My uncle absent-mindedly nodded, and the man pulled open the car door, plopped down inside, and he slammed the door shut. John told me, and I'll never forget this,

that the man's voice was deep, like it had come from some unseen and cavernous depth. John only nodded, but his internal voice was telling him, Don't follow him. There's a gas station about a mile up the road. I have an extra pair of gloves. We should get there before this gets impossible. John rubbed his hands together, made a fist with his right hand, and blew into it.

Snow swirled into the car from the half-open window. Again, John heard the voice inside his head. Don't follow him. I'm going to stay here where it's warm. The stranger grimaced. He stared at John fiercely. The man leaned in closer, and John knew he wasn't to be trusted. The stranger slipped his hand into his pocket, and he held it there.

John's breath vanished for a moment. He waited for the man to pull out a knife or a metal hook. But all he removed... was an extra pair of gloves. He handed them to my uncle. Sue yourself. I'll tell him you're here. Hopefully someone can make it through and find you.

The man left the car, pushed the door shut, and trudged ahead up the road. The snow rushed down faster and thicker. In less than 10 feet, the man was out of sight. Follow him. 20 minutes later, John's car miraculously started up. The snow on the road was at least five inches high and falling faster and heavier.

John inched ahead, careful not to spin out on the rarely traveled back road. He drove a few miles when he realized he hadn't passed a gas station. The stranger had lied. The dead woman was right. John had found his truth. A ditched car appeared on the side of the road. John slowed. The driver's side door was swung open, and there was no one inside.

Two sets of barely visible footprints in the snow traveled from the car up the road. John forged ahead, and a half mile past the car, he saw the body. He was lying face down on the shoulder of the road half covered with snow. Five minutes later, and the body would have been totally obscured. John stopped and rushed to the figure. He flipped it over, and he didn't even have to check his balls. The man was dead. The second set of footprints led away from the corpse into the snow-covered cornfields.

John pulled the man's body into his back seat, and he eventually made it back into town. He went straight to the hospital, and as the medical staff rushed the body inside on a gurney, my uncle John could not get over how peaceful the dead man looked. He was content. He was smiling. Curiosity bubbled inside my uncle again. John attended the frozen man's funeral. The message from the man's family was clear.

He had finally found God, and the man had gone to a better place. The frozen man's sister gave a tear-filled eulogy, and in it she told a story about how she'd been dreaming about her brother's death when it happened. Only in her dream her brother hadn't been called home by the Lord, that an angelic figure had been with him in the snowstorm when he died. he had walked beside him before easing her brother's soul into the great beyond. There was sadness for loss, but she was overjoyed that he'd finally found God, because he had always been searching.

When John told me this part of the story, his eyes dropped. A sense of absolute sadness and dread permeated. his tiny apartment. He looked at me, and he said, That dead woman tricked me. It was supposed to be me. That was the last time I saw, Uncle John. He emailed me the next day,

telling me that the corpse made another visit. She was still bloated, still soaked to the bone, and there was still hollowed horror where her eyes should be. But she didn't say anything this time. She only smiled, mischievously. And she didn't look so much like a lifeless corpse anymore, my uncle wrote. But fiendish and full of deception. I was out of town when I read the email.

I wrote my uncle that I would come and see him when I returned in a few days. By the time I got home, he was dead. You are probably wondering why I told you all this. Why here? Why now? I guess I just wanted all of you to know what Uncle John was really going through. Because he was a tortured soul. But I really think a blessed soul. Who among us is so concerned with truth and God that we consume ourselves?

trying to find it. I know Uncle John's last message was don't follow him. And I pray that none of us here today take our own lives like John did. But searching for truth and reflecting on the nature of our existence while we're still here, I think it's okay if we follow John's lead. Just a little bit. I didn't read any of that, not a word. Instead, I mumbled a few generic sentiments

about how John left us before his time. It was impersonal, and it could have been about anyone, really. Uncle John's funeral was four months ago. Had I written that eulogy this morning, it would have read a little differently. A few weeks ago, I had a late-night visitor, the bloated, dead woman.

I awoke to the sound of water dripping onto the floor, and when I opened my eyes, she was standing next to my bed. She was exactly as John described, except he failed to mention the smell. I might have vomited if I weren't stricken with absolute. fear. Her expression was blank. No mischief, no deception. I would have read her eyes, but there was nothing there. Only the empty black eye sockets my uncle had stared through on too many nights to count. The woman leaned over my bed, turning her head to and fro,

very slowly and methodical, like she wanted me to get a good look at her. She leaned closer, and my sweaty fists clenched the bedsheets tighter. I awaited the woman's message, waiting for her to say words, the words that drove my uncle to the end of a noose. I pondered a future always on the lookout for the hymn

that would enter my life one day and the decision that would define my fate. But the corpse said nothing. All I heard was the plop, plop, plop of water trickling onto the floor. I pulled the covers over my head and I stayed that way until first light. In the morning, she was gone.

At least the bloated and very dead version of the woman was gone, but she appeared to me in another form. Her picture was splashed against the front page of my local newspaper, which I found staring up at me at the end of my driveway. Missing woman's body found, the headline read. In the photo, she was young and pretty, smiling and full of life. She was photographed wearing a red baseball cap and a light plaid shirt leaning on a boulder on some outdoor expedition. You can usually tell who someone is by their eyes. And while I didn't see the corpse's eyes, in a way, that's what clinched it for me. They look like the eyes the dead woman would have. It's hard to explain. It's like I just

knew. The woman's body had been dredged up the day before. She'd been missing for weeks, and after attending her funeral, I learned exactly why. Four months ago, the young woman, Helen, had been driving late at night with her friend. On the same stretch of road my uncle had been on. In the blizzard, Helen had been closely following the car ahead of driving faster and faster to stay in the fresh tire tracks and the quickly falling snow. Without a doubt, the other car was driven by my uncle. Helen's best friend was in the passenger seat. She begged for Helen to slow down, to pull off, to do anything else than follow this car.

In the words of Helen's best friend, follow him. She did. Helen lost control. The car spun out and hit a tree. And a passenger flew through the windshield. Helen's best friend died that night. And Helen blamed herself, sinking deeper and deeper into depression over the next few months. She eventually threw herself off a bridge.

Helen's mother laid bare all of these details. quoting direct passages of Helen's diary at the funeral. The truth was difficult to share, her mother said, but it was worth sharing. Maybe it could help others avoid the same fate or to properly seek the help they need. The distraught mother ended by holding up a page of Helen's diary. Don't follow him.

Was written every which way in a variety of styles and colors all over the page. Helen's best friends horrified and panicked words had haunted Helen to her death. I spoke with the grief-stricken mother after the service. I told her I was a friend of Helens, and I expressed my sincere condolences. I asked to see the diary, and the mother obliged. I took a close look at that one page, the one littered with Helen's best friend. And I asked to see the diary. final warning. It was what I suspected. I'd seen that letter F before,

on my uncle's suicide note. The top stroke was a little wavy, not by much, but just enough to notice. I've awaited Helen's return every night since she first appeared to me. Maybe she'd gargle out her dying friend's words this time, but Helen hasn't come

back. I don't think she will. I read that once a ghost's unfinished business is settled, they are able to fade away into the afterlife, or something like that. I'm not sure what I believe anymore. What I do know is that Helen had been following a drunk man through a snowstorm that night, and she shouldn't have. Now people are dead, and I'm the one left holding. the truth. But truth doesn't mean a whole lot to me anymore. I used to think I knew truth that I knew of God and his plan for this universe and all of us. But now, all I see is evil and disorder and chaos, the things my uncle saw. I see a world where a woman can die and somehow four months before that happens, her spirit can haunt the person she deems responsible.

This world that made so much sense is now in disarray. Right is wrong, real is fake, and things that were true are an absolute farce. If I gave my uncle's eulogy today, it would read very differently. I'd no longer say I wanted to be like him. I am him. I'm driving recklessly on a snowy road with knowledge of time-hopping ghosts and pre-hauntings leaching deeper into my brain.

I wish I didn't know these things. It's much rosier on the other side. I dream of having a friend. family one day. If not, maybe a niece or a nephew, and I don't want them to know these truths, to not know what I know. If anyone looked up to me and aspired to follow my path, hopefully someone would warn them. Don't follow. These days, the most popular podcasts, other than ours, are ones dealing with true crime. But in this tale from former podcaster, Alison Slater,

we learn of how her true crime podcast came to an end and why it's not likely to start up again anytime soon. Performing this tale is Jessica McAvoy. So pay attention to the details and you'll find out why she says, I'm shutting down my true crime podcast. I have an announcement. to make. I'm shutting down my true crime podcast. I didn't expect to be saying this, at least not for a number of

years. I haven't been doing it for long, and there's so much more that I wanted to cover. To those of you who've come to love my weekly explorations of unsolved criminal mysteries, I'm sorry. Sorry if I've disappointed you or let you down. I hope by the end of this, the reason for everything will be clear, and you'll understand. To the rest of you, you probably haven't heard of my show. That's okay. It's still tiny, but it's growing. Was growing. I'm going to have to get used to saying that. But I want everyone to know what's going on, even if you don't listen. so I'll start at the very beginning. My name is Allison Slater.

I'm 22. I have a degree in molecular chemistry, and four years ago, I packed up all my belongings and moved from rural Arizona to Pennsylvania. Putting all my childhood belongings in storage? I'm a huge nostalgia nerd. I began renting a tiny apartment in the city

and found a job waiting tables that has nothing what I'm a huge nostalgia nerd. to do with my degree. I'm a totally normal, unremarkable young woman, except for one thing. I run, ran, a true crime podcast called Frozen Cases. The brief was, unsolved mysteries and disappearances so cold, they're almost frozen. I wanted to set myself apart from all the other true crime podcasts out there by really digging and finding cases that almost nobody else was covering. For the first few episodes, this was great. I trailed forums and obscure blogs looking for cases that nobody else was paying attention to. Sometimes this was because there wasn't much to say about

them, but I'm pretty good at spinning things out and looking in the gaps. My podcast was starting to get noticed. Okay, it was getting noticed by about 40 devout listeners. I won't pretend I was bringing in big numbers. But I set up a Facebook group, now deleted, and the 40 or so of us who were really into the show became something of a happy, albeit a little macabre, family. I didn't know anything about these people. From the things they said, I got the impression that some of had missing or murdered people in their own lives, hence their interest in the subject. Others were clearly like me, fascinated by the injustices of this world, and the nightmarish reality of a loved one disappearing or being killed with no closure ever being found.

I've never had that kind of tragedy in my life, and I won't pretend to know what it'd feel like, but I can imagine it'd be unspeakably terrible. Honestly, all I wanted to do with this podcast was help people. There are a lot of folks that think that us true crime aficionados are ghoulish rubberneckers. And I get that. I do. But being on the other side, I've seen the difference these things can make to people, too. I guess that's why when six or so episodes in, I found myself running short on cases,

I asked my small fan base to help trawl the net for really obscure crimes and email me with their findings. For the first week, I heard nothing. I even had to postpone the show, as I just didn't have anything I felt fit the podcast's ethos. The second week, I got a few emails from some of my community's regulars. One of the cases fit the bill, but another much larger true crime podcast had covered it,

and I didn't want to be accused of coattail writing. The second one was The Black Dahlia. I mean, come on. The third email showed promise. I'd never heard the names mentioned before. Why not do an episode on the horrific murders of Caroline Butcher, Mark Kramer, and Annalise Booth? The email came from a guy called Samuel Duma. I recognized him from the Frozen Cases Facebook group.

and, in fact, I'd accepted his friend request a few weeks prior. Sam was a typical college-aged guy, his profile filled with photos of him out partying, posts about the latest video games, just the usual bullshit. He had a girlfriend, Naya Amarillo, who was also a member of the Frozen Cases fandom, and a very active one at that.

The pair of them had stuck in my mind for being around my age, seemingly cool people I thought I'd enjoy hanging out with, and, uh, both really hot. Yeah, anyway. Okay, I admit it. I was kind of eager to impress Sam and Naya, so I immediately and gratefully decided to look into Sam's suggestions. I sent him an email thanking him and asking him if he could recommend any resources on the cases, but decided that with the deadline for the next episode looming, I'd see what I could dig up myself.

First up was Caroline Butcher. I had a system of research to gauge suitability for the show, so I input her name into Google. I scrolled through pages of Facebook profiles, LinkedIn profiles, bios of professors and doctors and librarians, the usual. Six pages in and not a single number,

mention of a murdered Caroline Butcher. This was good. It was what I'd been hoping for. It meant that the case had little press coverage, and her name wasn't wrapped up in a true crime SEO. It meant her case was obscure. Googling Caroline Butcher Murder gave me what I was looking for, albeit four pages in.

A small local news story from Dallas, which allowed me to trace related stories, find other search terms, and eventually piece the story together. It was an interesting one, and no mistake. Caroline Butcher was a 20-year-old woman attending college in Dallas, Texas, in 1998. She'd grown up in a small town nearby and moved into shared dorms when it came time for further education. Her mother, Laura Butcher, said that Caroline was a smart, happy girl who showed no sense. signs of depression or mental illness.

Caroline's father had died when she was very young. Caroline was majoring in microbiology. Her degree was a grueling one, filled with exams and assignments, and as such, she had little time to socialize and let her hair down. On the rare occasions she did, however, friends said she was bubbly and outgoing, the life of the party. Caroline had a regular boyfriend, Robert, although the pair had recently split up at the time of the incident. On Friday, May 22, 1998, Caroline and some girlfriends went out on the town to let their hair down

and unwind after a grueling week. Caroline was in high spirits after her course coordinator had signed off on her dissertation plan, something that she believed would get her name in scientific journals. No trace of this plan was found anywhere in her belongings, giving police one possible motive for what happened. At around 10 p.m., Caroline Butcher and three of her friends left McDonough's sports bar and headed a few blocks towards lifestyles, a club that was popular with the college kids. On the way, Caroline asked her friends if they could stop in at a nearby 7-Eleven. She reportedly wanted to buy tampons and cigarettes.

By now, the four females had been joined by Tom Hines, another college friend. Tom and two of the women waited outside to smoke, while Caroline and her other friend Dawn went into the 7-Eleven. It was an overcast yet humid night, and Dawn was surprised at the lack of people in the 7-Eleven. According to her testimony, she and Caroline were the only customers, alongside a bored-looking clerk, who Dawn recalls Caroline whispering about, saying he was, rough and ready, hot. Dawn, thirsty from the stifling air and an evening of booze, browsed the cold drinks aisle while Caroline disappeared into the back to get her supplies.

It was the last time Dawn would see Caroline Butcher. After waiting five minutes for her friend, Don proceeded to the back of the store to hurry her up. There was no sign of Caroline. Dawn searched the store, and then shrugging, she paid for her Pepsi, assuming Caroline had decided against buying anything and exited to join their other friends. Outside, the two other females and Tom were loitering around. Caroline wasn't there.

Dawn asked if they'd seen her, and they said no. According to her friends, it was extremely, unlikely that Caroline had left the store, but not impossible. They searched around a bit, and no trace of Caroline could be found. They asked the store clerk if he'd seen her leave, and he said no, claiming he wouldn't have missed out on watching her go. When Dawn requested he checked the CCTV tapes to see if Caroline had exited, the store clerk complied. When asked later why he honored a customer's request for such a thing, the store clerk said he was always happy to help a pretty girl in need.

The CCTV footage cut off just after Caroline and Dawn walked into the 7-Eleven. It resumed at the point at which Dawn could be seen exiting. During the five-minute interim, the three cameras in the store had all malfunctioned consecutively. According to subsequent police reports, there was no evidence of tamper, on the security cameras, and a genuine hardware fault was to blame. Concerned about her friend and adamant that it was unlike Caroline to just disappear, Don and the others called the police. The police took it far more seriously than you see on TV and began investigating immediately.

Calls were placed to Caroline's cell phone, but the device was off. Something Dawn stated was not the case shortly before they'd entered the same. store, as Caroline had received a call from her ex-boyfriend, Robert. There were three things that were ascertained very early on in the investigation. One, both Dawn and the store clerk were within each other's line of sight during the time Caroline is believed to have gone missing. Two, there was a door leading from the store to an employee's room, but this was locked with a key code.

Inside the employee's room, the cops did find some sort of. strange scorch marks on one wall, which appeared to be recent, but these were eventually dismissed as not pertaining to the investigation. And three, nobody else had been in the store at the time of Caroline's disappearance, or at least nobody who'd entered through the front door. There were a number of twists and turns to the investigation. Suspicion fell on Dawn, the store clerk, Caroline's other friends, her ex-boyfriend Robert. and even her college educational coordinator. It seemed like really a very fascinating unsolved disappearance.

I was surprised that more true crime podcasts and productions hadn't picked up on it, and as you can imagine, I was absolutely thrilled to have a chance to be the first person to spotlight this bizarre and unusual case. I almost stopped there, almost wrote up a piece on Caroline Butcher, thanked Samuel and Naya profusely, and had my next episode ready to go on May 20th, two weeks since the last episode. But it was Tuesday the 15th, and I had plenty of time. Plus, something in Samuel's email had given me pause. He'd suggested I do an episode on these three people. I always cover one single case per episode. Of course, it was entirely possible that Samuel had meant one episode each, but I couldn't help but wonder.

And so I googled Mark Kramer. Mark Kramer's disappearance was even stranger than Caroline Butchers. Mark Kramer was 24 at the time of his disappearance. He'd just finished up a postgraduate degree in marine biology and had landed himself a job at the Marine Science Center in a job that, according to his long-term boyfriend, Isaac Trask, was a dream come true. Kramer had everything ahead of him, the post-grad job of a lifetime, a loving fiancé, and a doctorate underway. He came from an extremely wealthy family, and the Kramer elders were said to shower their children with love, support, and a generous share of their riches.

Indeed, when Kramer had recently moved to Oregon along with Trask, the family had bought him a sizable country home for he and his lover as a gift. If it seemed like outwardly Kramer had everything going for him, the same could be said inwardly, according to Trask and the Kramer family. Mark was extremely happy, driven and enthusiastic, and almost preternaturally healthy. It was a running joke between Isaac Trask and Mark Kramer, that Mark hadn't had a day's sickness since they first met in middle school when the pair were 12. Mark's health will become relevant shortly. Mark was due to start at his new job in early June, but the pair had been living in Oregon for a couple months by this point.

Trask had found himself a part-time job working nights as a bartender, later joking that he didn't like the idea of being a kept man. Even though Mark's family fortune meant that neither of the pair really had to work. Trask was on shift at the bar when he received a voicemail from Mark. He would later claim that this was the first indication he had that something was wrong. It was a busy night. The bar offered cheap drinks to women between 9 and 10 on the third Tuesday night of every month as a ladies' night promotion.

As such, Trask was a night. wasn't able to check his phone until after 1 a.m. When he did, he saw he'd received seven missed calls from Mark. Knowing Mark rarely called while he was at work, Trask placed a call to his home phone, but received no answer. Before he could call Mark Sell, he got an alert to say he had a voicemail. Deciding to listen to it first in case he'd misread the situation, Trask dialed through. Mark was on the other end. His voice sounded sluggish and strange. He complained of a blinding headache,

describing it as if something is tugging on the back of my brain. He also claimed to have pins and needles in his hands and feet. And although the voicemail became muffled towards the end, Trask was sure his lover said something about his blood burning. Trask tried and failed to reach Mark on his cell phone. Due to the general busyness of the bar, Trask's boss wouldn't let him leave his shift early, and so it was at 2 in the morning that an incredibly worried Trask made the drive back to the home he shared with Mark Kramer. Upon entering the house, Trask was relieved, if somewhat puzzled, to find Mark happily watching television.

Mark claimed to have no memory of leaving the voicemail, and when Trask came to play it back to him, he discovered it had apparently been deleted. The seven missed calls were still present in his call log, however, and Mark did confirm he made those calls, but claimed he'd been intending to ask Trask to pick up some milk on the way home. When Trask went into the kitchen later, he discovered an almost full bottle of milk in the fridge,

that Mark had bought earlier that morning. For whatever reason, Trask decided not to press his boyfriend on the issue of the milk. But when he mentioned the contents of the voicemail, he claimed Mark shrugged and said that he did have a bit of a headache, I guess. Nothing serious, though. The next incident occurred just after midday on Wednesday. Trask entered their kitchen to find Mark slumped against the sink, head and hands. He was moaning and complaining of sharp, unusual pains in his head. Un settled,

Trask encouraged Mark to retire to bed, something with which the other man complied. Mark slept until nearly midnight, after which time he rose and found Trask playing Xbox in the living room. Mark claimed that he felt much better and wanted to go for a walk to the nearby 24-hour grocery store to pick up some milk. Trask reminded Mark that they had milk, but he was insistent. He wanted a walk and some fresh air. Since he was deep in a call-of-duty session with his friends, Trask almost let Mark go alone, but at the last minute, something in Mark's demeanor encouraged him otherwise, and Trask accompanied Mark on his midnight jaunt. Nothing much of note happened, Although Trask claimed that Mark was walking slow and sluggish,

and when they arrived at the grocery store, bought a liter of full cream milk, something Mark had previously expressed his dislike of for many years. When the pair arrived home, Mark began to drink the milk, first from a pint glass and then straight from the bottle. He began to complain to Trask about microbes in the milk, becoming increasingly agitated and eventually switching microbes for fishes. Finally, in a rage that Trask stated, came from nowhere, Mark hurled the bottle of milk against the floor and then collapsed in the puddle of liquid, screaming in what Trask assumed was pain.

Eventually, Mark finally calmed down enough for Trask to ascertain that his head was the source of the pain again. Extremely concerned due to Mark's previous marvelous health, Trask attempted to persuade his fiancé to go to the hospital. However, Trask said Mark became threatening, as if he wanted to do me harm, and insisted he'd sleep it off. He then made his way to the living room, and promptly passed out on the couch. By this time, it was 1.30 on the morning of May 22nd. Mark awoke 10 hours later, visibly trembling and weeping with pain. He concurred with Trask that a hospital visit was needed, and the pair loaded into Mark's station wagon, which Trask drove to the hospital.

During this time, Trask observed that Mark was, uncoordinated, barely able to walk in a straight line. Upon arriving at the emergency room, Mark was no longer able to walk. walk at all, and orderlies had to retrieve a wheelchair. Mark was immediately rushed off for a brain scan, leaving Trask to wait in the lobby. Two hours and many nervous cigarettes later, a nurse came and led Trask up the elevator and into a private room. Mark lay in the bed, and Trask was relieved to find him, in good spirits, smiling and laughing like the old Mark. A doctor showed up in to the pair. Nothing unusual had been found on Mark's brain scan. No tumors or swelling, no sign of any trauma. However, he did ask Mark if he had recently eaten any seafood, and Mark jokingly replied

that despite, or maybe because of, being a marine biologist, he loathed the taste of fish and hadn't eaten seafood in years. Trask never did find out why the doctor asked this question. Unable to shed any light on his condition, the hospital staff requested that Mark stay in overnight for observation and further tests. Mark readily agreed to this, and Trask would later go on to say that he believed this was due to the fact Mark was shaken up about his ill health.

Trask and Mark spent the next four hours together in the hospital, with Mark even feeling well enough to walk down to the hospital restaurant for a dinner of mac and cheese. Upon returning to the room, the two men played blackjack with a deck of cards Trask had found on the ward. By now it was 8 p.m., and visiting hours were almost over. Mark told Trask that he was considering discharging himself because he felt just dandy, and neither of us really went to sleep alone tonight. Before he had a chance to either admonish or agree, Trask heard a loud commotion from out on the ward, raised voices, a man and a woman, and then the distinct sound of a palm hitting flesh,

followed by loud female sobs. Trask rushed into the corridor. A few rooms down, outside one of the general wards, he saw a man tugging on a woman's sleeve. She wore a hospital gown, while. the man wore a letterman jacket and jeans. It was clear that the woman, who looked to be late teens or early 20s, was a patient, and the man, around the same age, was trying to forcefully get her to leave the hospital. Trask looked around for a nurse or security guard, but to his surprise, nobody had come running to the commotion. By now, the man was tugging on the girl's arm so

hard her hospital gown ripped, and she was screaming at him to let her go. Trask jogged over, yelling for the guy to stop. He noticed that the woman had a cannula needle in the back of her hand and an angry red handprint on her cheek. Even as Trask approached within grabbing distance of the pair, the guy began manhandling the woman. Trask would later state that he had no suspicion the fight was staged, as the woman's heart. The woman's heart was staged. As, the woman's hospital gown was being pulled this way and that, showing off her buttocks and genitals, and she kept grabbing at herself, seemingly in distress that I could see this as well as over the assault. Trask reached out to pull the man away from the girl, but the pair both ducked back

simultaneously, standing side by side, looking at Trask with no sign of their previous conflict. The two then embraced and began passionately making out, the woman grinding up against the guy and teasing her nightgown up seductively. Momentarily disarmed, Trask stared open-mouthed, before shouting, a few choice words at a pair of very screwed up people. The man and woman extricated themselves from one another, joined hands, gave Trask a small bow, and then turned and fled from the ward in the direction of the stairs and elevator. At no point did any hospital staff show up. It's worth mentioning that nobody working at the hospital that night claimed they heard the scuffle.

Even the nurses who, if Trask's recollection was correct, had been just around the corner at the nurse's station. Nor was there any record or memory of a patient matching the description Trask gave, of the woman, or any witnesses who saw them at any point. Because of this, Trask would later become the prime suspect in Mark Kramer's disappearance. Trask walked back into Mark's room, shaking his head and laughing incredulously, ready to tell his boyfriend about those weird-ass straits being added again. However, the smile died on his lips when he saw that Mark's bed was empty, the covers neatly made. Initially unconcerned, Trask assumed his lover had left either to use

the bathroom or have more tests, although he was surprised that he hadn't noticed him leave, being only a few doors down from the room during the bizarre incident. Wandering to the bathrooms, Trask found them unoccupied and began to peer into various rooms and wards, looking for Mark. During his search, he realized that Mark could not have left the ward during the scuffle, as the only exit was the one through which the couple had fled. After ten minutes of searching and no sign of Mark, Trask flagged down a nurse to ask if she knew of his fiancé's whereabouts. She did not. Neither did any of the other nurses on duty.

Moreover, Mark's doctor was doing his rounds on the next ward over and wouldn't have come to take Mark. anywhere in that time. Returning to Mark's room, Trask noticed something alarming. The window was wide open. Suddenly fearing the worst, he rushed and looked down to the street below. But thankfully, there was no sign of Mark. At first, the police didn't take the disappearance seriously. It was only when the doctor laid out Mark's unexplained condition

and the fact that he could have relapsed that they put out in APB. And, of course, as is the case with all unsolved missing person stories, you know the rest. I couldn't find out all that much about the subsequent investigation. I did discover that Trask remained the prime suspect,

albeit one without any kind of logical motive. Like Caroline Butcher before him, Mark Kramer seemingly disappeared, off the face of the earth. No bank account activity, no cell phone use, although Mark never had his cell phone, and absolutely no communication. Sadly, Isaac Trask committed suicide in 2015 on the seventh anniversary of his fiance's disappearance. Apparently, the Kramer family ostracized him and blamed him for what happened to Mark, either as the culprit or as the catalyst for Mark running away. In his suicide note, Trask wrote that he'd never gotten over Mark's departure and could no

longer live without him. To the Kramer family, this was apparently an admission of guilt. To me, this was perfect podcast material. I don't mean that ghoulishly. I was just absolutely convinced at Isaac Trask's innocence, and hoped that my little show could possibly lead to renewed interest in the case, and maybe new information that would exonerate Trask posthumously. I had two very solid episodes worth of content, and I hadn't even Googled the third name yet. Deciding to keep going while I was on a roll, I inputted Annalise Booth into Google. Just the usual. profiles. One particularly striking girl on Facebook, who I was delighted to discover, was a member of my

fan page. She hadn't posted, but it likely meant she was a listener, and I wondered if she'd get a morbid kick out of an episode on her namesake. Of course, I had to find details on the case first. Inputting, Annalise Booth Murder got me nothing. I modified it to disappear. still nothing. I tried a variety of terms and scrolled through dozens of pages, but none of the results were anything like what I was after. Disappointed, but undeterred, I decided to put Miss Booth aside for the time being. I'd been so caught up in my research and some particularly stressful shifts at my day job that I'd barely noticed three days passing. Crap. And I'd been I'd entirely forgotten that I was going out of town that weekend for my cousin's wedding.

Double crap. I'd been planning to get the next episode wrapped up and scheduled for the 20th by Wednesday, and now I wasn't going to have time. I was leaving the next afternoon. Oh well, Fortnite hiatus it was. But with how good the next two episodes were going to be, I figured my tiny fan base would forgive me. heading to Facebook to fill them in and make my groveling apologies,

I noticed Naya, Samuel's girlfriend, was online. Samuel hadn't replied to my email requesting links yet, and given my lack of joy in finding details on Annalise Booth, I decided that this was as good an excuse as any to message Naya and get to know her. I sent her and I am. I'm doing episodes on those cases Sam told me about. Can't find info on Annalise Booth, though. You got a link?

Hi, by the way. And thanks for all the support so far. She didn't reply immediately, although the message got marked as read moments after I sent it. Telling myself she was looking for the link and not just ignoring me, I went and showered. When I returned, I was pleased to see she replied, but dismayed at the lack of links.

Glad we could help. Think these will really put your name on the map. I'll see if I can dig up anything more. Sam has link about Annalise Booth. We'll ask him to send. It's a doozy. Multiple episodes, though? Expected just the one.

I frowned. Naya knew how the podcast worked. One case? One episode. Was she saying the disappearances were connected? Now, I am a true crime writer. I hadn't overlooked the fact that Caroline Butcher and Mark Kramer disappeared exactly a decade apart to the day.

But that was the only connection between the two cases. The kind of thing people post about online while saying how creepy it is. In fact, nobody even had posted about the coincidence. The cases were so obscure and unrelated. There wasn't a single good, Google hit for Carolines and Mark's names together. Surely Naya and Sam didn't expect me to hedge my bets on an admittedly eerie coincidence. I should have mentioned it to Naya, but I didn't. Part of me was second-guessing myself and worrying I'd make myself look dumb in the eyes of these

cool, attractive people. Instead, I thanked her for the forthcoming info on Annalise Booth and posted my apology to the fan base, teasing the next few upcoming episodes as a peace offering. Then I began to Google for any connection I might have missed between the butcher and Kramer disappearances, secretly hoping that nothing cropped up which would force me to lower my episode count. Thankfully, nothing did. The next morning, I packed for my cousin's wedding. It was back in my hometown, in the middle of nowhere with limited cell reception and internet. and I'd promised my mom I'd go off the grid for the weekend, having a reputation in my family for being an unsociable nerd.

I checked my emails one last time, hoping for a reply from Sam, but there was nothing. As I shut down my computer, resigning myself to almost a week without technology, I noticed something that made me smile. In his original email, Sam had referred to the cases as, unsolved murders. What a pessimist. Deciding against driving, I left my car behind and took the train back home. The wedding was surprisingly fun. And to my further shock, I found myself extremely enjoying time with the family without worrying about emails or Facebook or tragic unsolved deaths. When I got home on Tuesday night, I collapsed straight into bed without even booting up my PC. I slept until midday.

On Wednesday, May 23rd, after coffee and a very long hot shower, I finally got online. I hadn't checked Facebook since my apology post, and I was a little nervous that my miniscule fan base would be mad at me, or worse, have abandoned me. Over a hundred Facebook notifications made my mouth go dry. Wanting to put it off as long as possible, I checked my emails instead. As the mails popped up one by one, I greedily clicked as I saw one from Sam. It had been sent that morning. Its contents were brief. Found you a link about Annalise Booth, plus a little extra about all of them. Naya says you're confused how they connect. This should explain. This was followed by two hyperlinks. I was surprised to notice that the first link was for the

website of our local paper. I clicked it. My heart didn't so much sink as pinball around my rib cage, pounding against my stomach, thunder between my lungs, then catapult down into my uterus like a burning cannonball. It was a local news story, and it was dated that day. I read it aloud in a trembling voice. Police are asking for witnesses in the disappearance of local girl Annalise Booth. Miss Booth, 21, vanished last night while on the town with friends. Authorities have stated that they have reason to suspect foul play and are particularly keen to speak to the driver of a brown 95 sedan, who Miss Booth is believed to have spoken to shortly before friends lost sight of her. If anyone has, I glanced towards the window where my own brown

95 sedan sat in the apartment complex parking lot. Somewhere, vaguely, I heard my cell phone ringing. Miss Annalise Booth stared smiling out at me. me from the news site. I knew her face. It was the same Annalise Booth I'd seen on Facebook, the one who was a member of my damn fan page. Pretty and smart, I remembered thinking, when I'd profile stalked her further and seen she was an astrophysics major. Incredibly pretty, I'd added, upon finding her Instagram and scrolling back through from months. Then I'd sent her a Facebook friend request. I'd wondered if she'd accepted it before. Before. A message popped up on the PC screen. It was from Naya. A little knowledge is a dangerous

thing. There were over 200 Facebook alerts now. I was pretty sure I knew why. But still, I didn't want to look. Instead, I clicked the other link Sam had sent me, already knowing its contents would be no less horrifying than whatever else faced me. The URL was just an IP address, and it took me to a live webcam stream. The camera was inside a storage unit.

I recognized it immediately. It was mine. The storage unit I rented, because my apartment was too damn small to hold all the things I'd brought from home, too crippled by nostalgia to get rid of any of it. And there, in amongst crates of books and my childhood stuffed toys, a body sat propped against one wall. I didn't have to look long to realize it was Annalise.

She was pale and frozen and blue, and the top of her skull had been cut away. Her brain would have been visible also if that hadn't been removed. I began to cry silently, bouncing my right leg up and down, faster and faster. The page changed. This time it was a static image, not a live feed. A picture of a dark, cobweb-filled cellar or basement. In one corner rested a corpse.

It was desiccated, decomposed, barely recognizable. And yet I knew it was Caroline Butcher. Like Annalise, the top of Caroline's skull had also been removed. The page changed again. This time, the picture had been taken inside some kind of earthen tunnel. Instead of sitting propped up like the others, the corpse here lay face down. Like Caroline, it was decomposed, although less so, maybe ten years less. This corpse, Mark Kramer, was also missing the top of his skull and his brain.

The page changed back to the live stream, and I watched in horror as Annalise's corpse sat motionless in my storage unit, blood glistening on her front. Flies were beginning to circle her. One of them landed on her cheek and crawled up her nostril. I reched. Another message from Naya popped up. This is what you've always wanted, isn't it? Your own murder mystery.

Only, oops, I think we've provided a solution this time. Shame, it's not the right one. I'm made to navigate to the message window. To say something, anything. I was weeping openly now, huge, racking sobs that hurt my chest and blinded me. In my panic, I misclicked and ended up on the Frozen Cases fan page. And there it was, my most recent status posted last week. Sorry, guys, no episode this week again.

Family thing, but I got three killer cases. coming up, the disappearances of Caroline Butcher, Mark Kramer, and Annalise Booth. You won't know about these. Trust me. And below that, dozens and dozens of comments, mostly from earlier that day. How? How did you know? What do you know?

What have you done? Always knew you were a freak. Let that poor girl go. I'm calling cops. In the distance, I heard a siren and wondered if it was for me. Another message popped up. A microbiologist, a marine biologist, and an astrophysicist walk into a bar. This time I clicked correctly. Why? Who are these people? Who are you? Why me? The message appeared instantly, as if she'd been waiting to send it. We are timeless, formless. What we do is of no concern to an insignificant insect like yourself.

We are the crawling, rising tendrils of chaos. But why you? Why you, Allison, dear? Because it's fucking funny. and because we can. On the other window, I saw a light flood my storage unit and watched as armed police came charging in. Like we said, unsolved murders.

And don't worry, they can only pin one on you. You're far too young for the others. It's going to be a mystery for the ages. I wanted to scream. I wanted to reply with all the fury and hatred I could muster. But the chat window went blank. The profile had disappeared. I didn't even bother checking Samuels or the emails.

I knew they'd be gone too. Instead, I sat back in my chair and waited for the knock at the door and tried to make sense of the truth behind everything. As I sit here now in a jail cell awaiting sentencing, I think I've worked it out. I can't solve this mystery. No one can. The machinations of those two are beyond human understanding. And I think that's partly the point.

A cruel and pointless series of events that serve some higher purpose I have no place understanding. and I'm caught up in it because, like Naya Amarillo said, they just can. We are play things, nothing more. And if I've learned anything in this, it's that life is sacred, not to be gawked at or theorized over or monetized. And yet at the same time, we should do all those things because nothing has meaning and all is chaos. at least to tiny human minds such as ours. The most complex unsolved mystery can't compete with the thing that's touched

and ruined my life. So I'm shutting down my true crime podcast. Not just because I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison. Not just because I'm the unwilling center of a mystery I had no say in. But because how can I proclaim anything to be true anymore when I know that we're just pieces in a game for which we'll never comprehend the rules? I'm being charged with the murder of Annalise Booth.

From my notes and the links found on my computer, the authorities suspect I became obsessed with the disappearances of Caroline Butcher and Mark Kramer and decided to continue the pattern. one disappearance every ten years. They keep asking me about them. Every day they ask. And they won't accept my answer about a young, attractive couple who I suspect are a lot older than they appear.

The papers call me insane. A ghoul. Driven insane by an obsession with true crime, pushed to create a mystery of my own. It's all lies, of course. I did none of this. Those who know me know the truth. I'm not a ghoul.

I'm not a killer. I just wanted to help people. I just wanted to draw attention to these tragedies and the hope that my little contribution could maybe lead to something important. I never wanted things to end like this. Or maybe I did. Maybe this is what I wanted all along.

My own murder mystery. Maybe I'm everything they say I am. Maybe I'm not the pawn, but the queen. After all, what's more likely? The impossible or the possible, the unsolved mystery or the neat conclusion, you can decide what the truth is. and either way, my name's sure to be remembered.

Maybe one day they'll make podcasts about me. Maybe you're listening to one right now. You've run out of tape. It's time to press eject and end the show. We thank you for letting us perform for you. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, Please visit the no sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season past program, over 60 hours of content for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening.

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