Two Hot Takes - 36: True Crime or Could've Been...

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

TW: if you don't regularly listen to true crime this one may not be for you. Talks about murder, rape, and graphic scenes. Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Justin!! This episode dives in to true crime stories and those that give off the vibe that they could have been... Justin goes from excited to stressed in this one. Let's see how y'all fare... As always your support is very appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes

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Love. Love. That's like our go-to podcast when we're doing our road trips. We're obsessed. Yes. So true crime is a huge niche. I feel like everyone listens to it and if you don't like you hear about it, I don't know. So with it finally being October and things getting a little spookier, I figured I'm going

to test my limits as a podcast host and try to dabble with true crime. Let's go. I'm terrified. Oh, I'm excited. It's a lot of pressure. No. I can't compare to Ashley. No, but it's just so fun, like let's go.

Okay. Okay. Well, let's do it. Hi guys, welcome to another episode of Two Hot Takes. I'm your host, Morgan. I'm Justin. Trigger warning today, guys. First stories coming at you fucking aggressively and.

Trigger warning. It mentions of murder, gore, rape. It is very graphic. And if you even skip that first story, there is going to be another true crime one that mentions, you know, a very brutal murder story. Just trigger warning today. It is very creepy, scary, dark, sexual assault, murder, rape. So if true crime and true crime type podcasts are not for you, highly recommend skipping

this episode. Okay. Okay. So today's episode, true crime or could have been. There are going to be stories that are like true, true crime. And then I have a couple more from the let's not meet subreddit that of course I got permission to use and they're like scary, like could have been. Perfect.

Okay. Up first. This is from the subreddit called unresolved mysteries and it was actually written five years ago. I'm just going to say this was all like in France and I'm going to 100% butcher the French pronunciation. So just putting that out there now. It'll be fun.

Yeah. The mysterious case of the tour, a visage grill a aka the pock marked killer, a serial killer from Paris who has been committing crime since 1986 and has yet to be neither caught or identified since. On the morning of fifth of May in 1986 in the 19th era on descent of Paris, 11 year old Cecile block was last seen leaving her home and heading off to school. She entered the elevator of her family's apartment located in one of the little streets of the 19th era, doesn't however, it turns out that she did not go to school.

Her mother Suzanne called home in the afternoon expecting Cecile to pick up the phone. However, no one did. And she then called the apartment security to look for Cecile around the apartment. The guards discovered her body at the third basement of the residence in a disused room without light usually served as storage for maintenance workers and employees of the residence. She was roughly hidden under a piece of old carpet lying on her stomach, feet facing the door. Her lower body was naked.

She was raped, stabbed in the left side of the chest and died having her neck strangled. Investigators found no usable fingerprints. The elevator descend only until the second basement. From there you have to take a back staircase to access the third basement. Of course you do. A seamen's dain was found on top of Cecile's thigh. However, a survey of the neighborhood can quickly establish that the murderer traced the entire apartment and set up a trap to catch the victim.

Jean-Pierre, Cecile's father noticed the day before that the access door to the third basement was kept open, blocked by a pack of cigarettes. Several residents, including Cecile and her half-brothers, parents, had previously met a man in the elevator. A composite sketch was established. He measures about 1.85 meters, athletic, between 25 and 30 years old, brown hair, and a face pocked mark, plagued by a skin disease. He was dressed in a jacket, sneakers and jeans, a little dusty as a backpacker.

He spoke French without an accent, behaved obsequiously, and was unusually polite in an abusive manner, passive-aggressive politeness even. This man would later continue his waves of crime, started by Cecile's murder. A psycho-criminalist named Michel Agrippard Del Moss said that his pockmarked skin could come from treatment with antipsychotics, sedatives, or toxic substances. She also said that to impress his victims, he had a police card, speaks police jargon, and is usually seen holding a walkie-talkie, and then threatening the victim with a handgun and handcuffs.

The assumption that pockmarked is or was an officer has been considered. He bears some similarity to the East Area rapist slash original night stalker, who too could have been a cop from the Sacramento area, and also Elaine Lamar, who too was a serial killer who was also a police officer. Since then, many in the gendarmerie, French police, have attributed several crimes to the pockmarked killer. On April 7th, 1986, a month before Cecile's death, an eight-year-old named Sarah A. was killed at the Place de Venetie.

She was also strangled on the neck. On the 29th of April 1987, at the Rue Saint-Croix de la Brentonnerie, a night mechanic named Gilles Poletti and a 21-year-old German female named Imgaard Mueller was tortured with cigarette burns raped and killed by the pockmarked killer. Gilles' corpse was lying naked on her stomach, on her bed in her room, feet and hands tied in the back, seemingly strangled. Imgaard was Gilles' babysitter, and she was found crucified, nude in a bunk bed, in another room with her throat cut.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Both of them had semen on their thighs. Imgaard, however, had an interesting case. She wrote down the list of her many lovers in her diary. They were questioned by investigators and exonerated, except one, Elijah LaRange, whose address

is a squat house, which was razed shortly after. It is unknown whether or not gendarmerie, which is the French police, questioned him as a suspect or followed up with Elijah. There are a couple other murders and rapes that are mentioned on this Reddit post. Similar circumstances, the way they were left, again, semen stains, basically highlighting the fact that they got a lot of DNA from these. The last one that they think was from the pockmarked killer was in April of 1994, in the early afternoon in Matry Morey, an 11-year-old named Imgaard G was riding a bicycle.

Then the killer approached her, presented himself as a policeman, and then proceeded to handcuff her and bring her to his car, and went downhill from there. This Reddit post is highlighting all these similar cases, and then they mention a series of other rape, sexual assaults, and murders. From the one guy. From this one suspected killer. They call him the pockmarked killer. Another post also calls him the hail, because his skin looked like it had hail damage, essentially.

There's an ongoing similarity between the pockmarked killer and the East Area rapist. Both were suffering from sexual urges, repressed by bodily reasons. Both possibly cops and had knowledge of police jargon and techniques, and both having raped and murdered their victims. It seemed that the pockmarked killer may or may not have some knowledge of Iran's, this other killer, just because of the similarities. Since 1995, the crimes of the pockmarked killer had stopped, and yet the brigade criminelli of the famous 36 Kwe De Orvez had yet to discover the true identity of where he is, and thus

he had yet to be found and captured. Sound familiar? However, the French police are still linking several unresolved murders between the late 80s to 2000s to the pockmarked killer. Though they have yet to confirm nor deny any links so far. Last year, the French police reopened the pockmarked case by order of Judge Nathalie Turquet, looking for clues for his identity. He is now rumored to be in his 50s and 60s, may have had his pockmarks gone, and may have

started a family. Wow. Yeah, so pretty extensive killings, pretty gruesome. These remind me to go back and put a trigger warning on this episode because holy shit. So basically this redditor mentions the unresolved podcast made me interested in unresolved two crimes and my knowledge of the French language and having lived in France has allowed me to discover this case that has never really been highlighted outside of France. And so they go in and basically write this great write up.

And then there's not too many good comments on that on this original post, so I don't think there's any really to mention. It's just kind of people commenting like just about the case and stuff like that. So they had not found this killer, like this post was originally five years ago, they had not found this killer up until September 30th and there was a new discovery. So this is a post from True Crime subreddit and it goes, 35 years hunt for Legrelle, French serial killer and rapist comes to an end after an ex cop commits suicide the day before he was summoned to give his DNA.

The hail because of the skin as seen by victims was the nickname given in the late 1980s to a serial killer and rapist who killed at least four people, including an 11 year old girl in horrific conditions and raped six others. Little evidence was found at the time, except that he lured victims with a police card that was believed to be fake at the time. In fact, it was true, Francois Verov, a 59 year old man, former French police and then police officer in motorcycle brigades committed suicide on Wednesday, the day before he was summoned for DNA sampling and investigating judge had taken over the case and asked for

DNA of 780 French police stationed in the region at the time. The killer left a letter of confession in which he explained that he had not committed any crimes since 1987, but the investigation only attributed facts to him until 1994, which suggests that there are still many details to be found despite his death. They finally got the guy because of the fact that they basically were gerrymandering everyone to give their DNA. Top comment on this one too that's really crazy is someone went through his suicide note and in his suicide note, according to sources cited by Le Parisien, the retired officer

said he was, quote, not well in life at the time of the killings. Really? Talk about an understatement and I wonder at what he considered, quote, well in life after he had committed such horrific crimes and how he rationalized his life as a policeman after killing innocent women and girls, getting well in life. I would think would be evidenced by either turning yourself in or putting a bullet in your own head so as not to further torture the family's friends, communities of your victims.

Yeah, they're now coming out with all of this DNA too, so this was such a recent discovery and so many of these murders were similar in France around this time, so it'll be interesting to see how many they can actually connect with DNA now that they know it's him. Because the DNA too, according to a couple of the other Reddit posts, which I'll link and you guys can get into on your own, but I guess some of the DNA wasn't even complete. They had partial fragments or something, so it was really, really hard to pinpoint some of these. It was just crazy how long it takes, so even for them to narrow down the fact that it was

a former police officer and then to think about, okay, now we need all the DNA from all these people. Yeah, I mean, I just think it's crazy when people like this can stay under the radar for that long and continue just doing what they're doing for that many years. Even despite DNA, but just for a case like that to take some judge coming out and saying, we're going to reopen this. I need DNA from all these motherfuckers and then obviously it comes out, but just like, I don't know, I feel like these people obviously don't have any emotion because they don't

really care. They're just doing, they're just like... They're just not right. I mean, there's so many arguments for why people kill and why serial killers do what they do, like childhood trauma, mental illness, abuse. There's so many reasons, but yeah, this guy, he wasn't right in life. What the fuck? Yeah, right.

Really? Yeah, it's just insane. I think it's crazy that it took 35 years to finally come to the conclusion like, oh, let's have these police officers that were police at the time 35 years ago, how many of them have died? How many of them would they have missed? Luckily, this guy was still alive. Well, it's like, why did it take so many years to get to that conclusion of just it being

an ex-police officer? Exactly. Well, and he had a police card. He would show people and that's how he would get these people to comply. Maybe all of them were not successful because then, otherwise, how does that information come out? Exactly. I think a couple of them were not successful.

Just like that's one thing about the legal system, especially here in the US that really irks me is that some of these people that are getting exonerated now have been imprisoned for 30 years on the fact that there was a witness, blah, blah, blah and DNA now is coming out and it's like the DNA didn't match. It's like, ugh, but then you have these cases where DNA is finally solving these crimes, but like... I don't know. I think that's one of the biggest nightmares you could have in life.

I know. Being falsely, I think that's everyone's biggest, one of their biggest fears is being imprisoned for a crime you didn't commit. Yeah. Oh, it's fucking terrifying, but yeah, glad this is finally resolved. Hopefully some of these families now have some closure, but... Well, I'm glad it had an end. I feel like so many of the true crime things you hear are like, well, and no one's ever

found him and he's still out there and you're just kind of like, okay, I got this invested and now there's just nothing. There was another one that was actually on this true crime subreddit and it was a guy who went missing for 10 years and he just vanished one day. They had no idea where he went and so the grocery store that he worked at was rearranging and replacing some of the refrigerators and they moved all of the refrigerators away from the wall and found his body hidden back there. They suspect no foul play.

It was just the fact that he had gone up there for some reason and fell behind the refrigerators and died. No one heard it. Oh my God. It's like that thing we watched on Netflix. Wow. One. The hotel in L.A.

Yeah, which, no, that was not, that Holly Lam was 100% murdered. She did not get it. Oh yeah, no, I know, but it just reminds me of that where it's like, oh, how did you get that? Okay. Yeah, the body went undiscovered for so long. Yeah. I don't know.

These things always just feel like, you just, you struggle to believe that these things are real and that they actually happened in the world. Well, and you think about like, if this was, you know, with the guy who fell behind the fridge, how many unsolved mysteries are like missing people are like, literally in plain sight in front of you, which brings me to my next true crime story. Okay. Hi, Jan from Toyota speaking. Jan, I heard it's a good time to buy a Toyota.

Sure is. From now until April 4th, you can shop all your favorites like Corolla, RAV4, Sequoia and more. Imagine yourself in a new tundra where you stopped by the home improvement store and finally built that tree house you promised your daughter, Sarah, when did you hop on the call? Hi, dad. Mom said you were taking too long on the phone.

Toyota, let's go places. See your participating Toyota dealer for details, dealer inventory may vary. On June 18th, 2003, five months after his disappearance, 40 year old Larry Groves remains were found in the crawl space of his Lakeville, Indiana home. After ruling out the prime suspect in Larry's murder in 2006, his case has gone cold. On January 12th, 2003, 40 year old Larry Groves arrived home to his small Lakeville, Indiana bungalow around 9 p.m. He lived alone, but shared the residence with his two beloved dogs.

Larry placed a call to his friend, Sandy Smith, who lived in Bloxy, Mississippi, around 11 p.m. According to Sandy, they chatted as normal for about 10 minutes. Suddenly, Sandy heard someone, quote, banging loudly on Larry's door. She said she heard a man's voice angrily demanding to be let inside. Larry assured her it was no big deal and told her who it was knocking at the door. His name has never been publicly released. Larry told Sandy he would call her back in 20 minutes, but never called her back.

On January 28th, Wanda Groves, Larry's mother, reported her son missing after learning he hadn't been attending to his antique business and hadn't been seen by any of his friends, neighbors, or other family members. Police went to his house, but found no sign of Larry or his two dogs. No. Yeah. Larry's case quickly went cold, and on Memorial Day weekend, his mom decided to do some investigating of her own.

Wanda entered her son's house to find it in immaculate order. Must go Wanda. Nothing seemed to be out of place or taken, but there was no sign of Larry. Wanda sat at her son's desk and began hunting for any clue as to where he might be, but found nothing. In April, Larry's sister, Pam Spence, and police also entered Larry's house to search for clues. After spending several hours at the residence and turning up empty-handed, they left.

On June 18th, Larry's next-door neighbor, Dick Sholol, began noticing an abnormal amount of blackbirds perched atop the fence that separated his yard from Larry's. He assumed it was due to the large amount of peaches that had fallen into his yard from an overgrown peach tree in Larry's yard. Dick decided to cut the excess branches that were growing over his fence. While trimming the tree, he saw something strange on the backside of Larry's house. Dick said it looked as though Larry's windows and siding had been painted black. Dick approached the house only to realize it wasn't paint, but thousands of flies covering

the interior of the windows and outside siding of the house. Dick called a man named Dural Bennett, who was the father of a man named Tom Bennett. Dural had given Tom the home to live in. Tom was Larry's long-time companion, a.k.a. whoever was writing this as missing the point they're probably gay. Long-time companion. Larry and Tom had been living in the house together since Larry was 17. In 2001, Tom passed away from a sudden heart attack.

The house was given back to Tom's father, Dural. Dural kept the deed to the house, but told Larry he was welcome to live there for as long as he wanted. Okay, so Dural's the dad, Tom's the son, Tom, Larry's partners, Tom died, Larry stayed. Larry's now missing. And now he's like, yo, your house is filled with flies. Yeah. Dural arrived at Larry's house, and Dick showed him the massive amounts of flies that had

gathered. He agreed that they should go inside to investigate. Once inside, they immediately noticed a foul smell in the air. They searched the house and found nothing out of the ordinary. They entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to find a few pounds of meat that had gone bad. They initially blamed the smell on the rancid meat, but after smelling the inside of the fridge, they concluded the meat wasn't the culprit.

Dural decided to check one final place. Having owned the house, he knew there was a secret trap door that led to a small crawl space underneath of where Larry's desk now sat. No. That's so creepy. The two men slid the desk back, lifted the large area rug, and opened the trap door. Inside they found the badly decomposed body of Larry. They immediately called the police.

Larry's electricity had been shut off for months before, and his body had decomposed so severely in the summer heat, a cause of death couldn't be determined. However, investigators did find evidence Larry had bravely fought his killer. Red was found on Larry's clothing that didn't belong to him. Hair not belonging to Larry was also found on his clothes and in the crawl space. After talking to Larry's family and to Sandy Smith, police learned the identity of the man who was at Larry's door that evening. According to Larry's family, the man had been selling antiques from Larry's store without

permission while he was missing to other antique dealers in Michigan. Police believed they had their prime suspect. This brought the man in for questioning. According to investigators, he remained calm throughout the interview and denied any involvement in Larry's death. He voluntarily submitted DNA for comparison, then ended the interview by asking to talk to his attorney. The case took a major blow in 2006 when an FBI crime lab concluded DNA gathered at the

crime scene did not match the DNA police had gathered from the suspect. Once again, Larry's case went cold and has remained that way since. I was right. Very, very eerie about the fact that his mom was sitting right on top of his body when she was going through his desk. It was right there. Well, and then she was on the phone. Yeah.

No, his friend Sandy was on the phone when a person showed up. I thought it was our girl Wanda. No, it was Sandy. But the fact that the killer is obviously very familiar with the house. Very familiar. What did people knew about that crawl space? I don't know. I know like if you have a trap door in your house or something and you have close friends,

you'd be like, oh, check this out, but not to a crawl space. It's not like it's a bookshelf opening to a secret room, but I don't know. It's the other, isn't it the other guy? Is the other guy? Where's the other guy? Well, one. They used to live there. Tom.

Yeah. He died from a heart attack. So he's out of the picture. The Dural, the dad knew, but I don't think Dural would have hurt Larry. I just don't understand. I feel like maybe the guy, the antique guy, had someone helping him. But again, how do you know about the crawl space? It wasn't like Larry was showing people because there was a big area rug and his desk on top

of it. So for that person to know and then be able to move all of that by himself, pick up a big body and get it into that crawl space. I feel like this person probably had help. Yeah. And I want to know why they're showing up all pissed. Yeah. Like what motivates that?

I don't know. I don't know what can possibly motivate you to kill somebody, but... Self-defense. That's my only reason. Yeah. But then, I don't know, it's so creepy, especially to be the person on the phone and then know like... The last person to talk to him.

It's weird to me too that it took so long to report him missing. I think it's 16 days. So the phone call that Larry had with his friend Sandy was January 12th and his mom finally reported him missing on January 28th. What was Sandy doing? That's 16 days. She was like, oh, must have forgot. Yeah.

I don't know. It's really weird because I'm sure like, I don't know, I don't know. And what's it have to do with the antiques? So Larry owned an antique store. Right. But like that's, there's no way that store, I don't know, is a motive. Maybe. Honestly, like people kill for lesser reasons.

Like if this guy who literally, Larry was missing and he was selling antiques out of his store to other stores in Michigan without his permission, clearly because he was fucking gone. So it's like this man could have gotten an argument about that with Larry and like didn't want his livelihood affected. So they were fighting about it and things went bad. Like a fight could have turned into then murder. Well that's just because whoever did it is fucking nuts.

So top comment on this one. Wow. I tried to Google this and there's very little out there. Very interesting case. Thanks for the write up. I hope they succeed in bringing the killer to justice. I can't imagine what the motive would be. Score and lover maybe.

And they go, oh, he goes, thanks for reading. I could only find a few articles about the case in the newspaper archives. And they basically all said the same thing that just worded it differently. And I was very surprised at the lack of and inaccuracy of the info on the Indiana State police cold case site. A score and a lover definitely could be a possibility. Maybe someone the family didn't know about, therefore never mentioned the name to investigators. Yeah, not a lot out there on this one.

It's just still amazing to me that people, whether it's a serial killer or just a one off getaway and just, I don't know, it just seems like that just doesn't happen, but it does. Yeah. I think one of the other ones that I read that really stuck out with me is this man. It's another one on true crime. And it's a case about how a dentist in Ireland got away with the murder of his wife and his lover's husband for 20 years.

So this guy was having an affair with a woman at his church and they concocted a plan to kill her husband and his wife. And they framed their murders to look like the two of them had a suicide pact because they found out they were cheating and they put them in a car and toxic fumed them. And they got away with it. I think if you have multiple people working with you, it's easier to corroborate the stories. And make it look like something else, but still, still, you just 20 years and he would've got away with it.

He confessed. Oh, wow. They closed the case completely. It wasn't open. It wasn't a cold case. They closed it. Just kind of live with it then. Yeah.

And I can post a link to that one on the YouTube description and maybe I'll cover it in like a future episode, but I just thought that was crazy. And his new wife, so the guy totally remarried and everything too, like him and the lady that he killed for didn't even work out. They stopped seeing each other shortly after the murders. So they're both living with it. Yeah. They're the people that know.

Yeah. And so this guy, the dentist, got remarried and his new wife, he confessed to his new wife and she held the secret for 10 years. She didn't even come forward. She's crazy too. I guess crazy attracts crazy though. When you want to get divorced, when you constantly be thinking like, oh, I better not piss off my husband in case he kills me too.

I wouldn't even be thinking about divorce. I'd be like, holy fuck, I need to, how did I end up, but how did I get myself in this one? I know. You'd be afraid for your own life. Insane. Regardless of a divorce. Insane.

You get divorced. You're still going to be looking over your shoulder. I don't get it. I don't get it at all. Like I would have immediately ran to the cops. But even still, you're just like, no. Creeped up. Yeah.

Things obviously that I hope to never experience because I just don't, I don't know. No. You're like in a movie. I'm not going to kill you. It's okay. Well, I'm not really worried about that. You paused for quite some time there. No.

It's just like to end up in a situation where, I don't know, like out of complete, not your own doing. You just end up in some crazy horrible thing. So bad. This week's episode is brought to you guys by Oak Essentials and ButcherBox. I have super sensitive skin and it's a little irritated right now from wearing a hospital mask from working today, but my skin has never been clear. I have been including Oak Essentials ritual oil into my skincare routine lately and my

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Log on to ButcherBox.com slash THT to claim your deal. So that was the true crime. We're moving on to the potentially could have been. Like I think these stories, if they developed further, would you be hearing them as a true crime story instead of what they are? So this one is from Let's Not Meet. Again, got permission. Hi, Jan from Toyota speaking.

Jan, I heard it's a good time to buy a Toyota. Sure is. From now until April 4th, you can shop all your favorites like Corolla, RAV4, Sequoia, and more. Imagine yourself in a new tundra where- You stopped by the home improvement store and finally built that tree house you promised your daughter. Sarah?

When did you hop on the call? Hi, Dad. Mom said you were taking too long on the phone. Toyota. Go places. See your participating Toyota dealer for details. Dealer inventory may vary. It's titled Crazy Beauty Queen Stalker.

This is a long story as it's been over five years in the making. I've actually posted this story before, but there are some really good internet sluice here on Reddit and they were able to figure out ex-Beauty Queen's identity and mine too. I don't really care if I give up my identity, but didn't want it to be on my actual account so I deleted it a while back. The catalyst for me to repost it today on a throwaway is that it's cathartic. Last week, yet another court date for ex-Beauty Queen Stalker came and went. We'd been expecting things to proceed with her entering a plea of guilty or not guilty,

but no such look. All we got was another vague reason as to why she's not ready and a new court date issued, months from now. There have been many court dates since she has been arrested. It's been over 18 months since she's been arrested for her continued stalking and harassment and she still wants to drag things on to seemingly try and stay relevant in our lives. To recap, my husband dated a beauty queen title holder of a well-known pageant before me.

They broke up long before we met. She was a statuesque blonde, very tall, a knockout in her day, in my opinion. This is somewhat important to the story I guess, but while she was a dazzling pageant winner on the outside, on the inside, oh boy. She could be charming and beautiful if she needed you, but mostly she treated people around her terribly, including my husband, and he eventually broke it off with her. But she never went away. She would continue to call and email repeatedly, even after my husband and I met.

If anything, her calls increased. She would call over and over again, day and night, even after my husband, then boyfriend, blocked her number. She would ask for money and threatened to go to the police claiming he abused her if he didn't give it to her. He obviously did not give her money. This made her very upset. The threats increased and became more malicious, but when that didn't work, she would switch

tactics and try and sweetly ask him for help with certain projects she was trying to get off the ground. At this point, she now needed to generate an income, with the promise that, quote, if he did just this one last thing for her, she would go away. He did not reply, so she would go back to being malicious, any tactic for attention, or for what she really wanted, money. My husband was terrified because of course, while he never did anything to her, it would be her word over his and he was tired of ruining his reputation and career.

We unfortunately ended up at an event she also attended. She had been waiting for us to arrive and had placed herself near the entrance of the event. As we walked in, she stood across the room, looking me up and down, laughing and whispering into the ear of her date, making a point to try and make me uncomfortable. But that was okay. She was easily ignored until she ambushed me as I came out of the bathroom. She had clearly been waiting for a moment I was alone.

She towered over me. She is very tall. I had no intention of having it out with her, and as I hurriedly walked to find my husband, she kept pace beside me, hunched over, so she was at my eye level. I'm 5'5". Her head turned towards me. She was like a caricature of herself as she ambled beside me, smiling maniacally. Maniacally.

I didn't know that was a word. Where is your man? She hissed in her heavy accent. Her eyes were black. She looked like a Tim Burton movie. Oh my God. Hunched over and with that crazy demonic smile. Watch your back pug.

She added grinning. She liked to call me names like pug because I own pugs and I guess she thought it was an insult. Well, I didn't know then was while I was in the bathroom, she had walked over to my husband and had thrown her arm around him while he was mid-conversation with someone and introduced herself to the man he was talking to as if she and my husband were together. My husband unwrapped himself from her clutches and told her to beat it. She then beelined and waited for me to come out of the bathroom.

We stopped going to the parties. Yeah. Yeah. The last time we ran into her was at a funeral for a mutual friend. She followed me around at the wake. As my husband, boyfriend at the time, was talking to the man's widow, I was talking to a friend and his wife. She walked right up and stood with us, joining us mid-conversation as if she were a part

of the group. It was unnerving, but also just bizarre. It was a funeral and I did not want a scene. I silently picked my wine glass off the bar and walked away, leaving her with the couple I'd been speaking to and her staring at me with a smirk on her face. All in all, annoying but manageable. She would call my husband over and over day and night, even though he had long blocked the number.

She would drive by. I found my car keyed one night after I left it outside, but obviously I couldn't prove it's her. But enough was enough. My husband had a lawyer send a cease and desist. After the first, she called him from a private number. He answered and she said, hi, it's me in a sing song voice. Literally the way OP typed it, I envision it being like that.

In a sing song voice, they were best of friends and he hadn't just sent her a lawyer's letter ordering her to stay away from him and his family. He said nothing and hung up. Another cease and desist was sent, then a third. Nothing would make her go away. She did not actually think my husband was capable of not wanting to be with her because you know, her beauty eventually though, she got pissed that he was not giving in. So she decided to take this rage to the internet.

I knew that she was absolutely checking out my social media, but I don't really use it that much. So I didn't care. However, she created a fake Twitter account and tweeted husband's name is a fraud and tagged his colleagues, friends, investors, family members, every single person she could think of to try and ruin his reputation and career on New Year's Eve. She posted on my Instagram account. At exactly 12 o'clock 1 a.m., happy New Year's, Skrud.

Social media settings all went to private. We went to the police armed with the emails threatened to give her money or she would go to the police. She was charged with two counts of harassment and her straining order was put into place. To our shock, the next day after her arrest, our phones were buzzing. The story had made to the front page news, clearly a slow news day. Her day in court came right before COVID. We arrived at the courthouse and sat down.

She walked in. We were shocked by her appearance. Actually shocked as an understatement. She was unrecognizable from her former self. Gone was the statuesque dazzling blonde. She had apparently shaved her head and was wearing a short, ratty brown wig. She had gained about 80 pounds give or take and was now sort of hunched with her height and new girth.

She looked like a linebacker. To add to her new look, she wore a bulky brown men's overcoat and a scarf tied over her wig like a babushka. My immediate thought was, quote, her outside now matches her inside, but it was her eyes that I noticed the most. About a year earlier, we had shown a photo of her to our kids so that if she ever approached them, they knew to run. Oh my God, no.

At the time, my son who was young commented that she had mean eyes from the mouth of babes. Maybe it was that she had changed so much physically overall, but her dark eyes had narrowed into deep black slits. As she scanned the courtroom and saw us in court, she would turn around every so often to look bad at us in glare. She would then whisper in her lawyer's ear and laugh as if she were having a grand time. She had a pair of big, round, cheap sunglasses that she would put on and take off intermittently. When she addressed the judge, she put them on and he asked her to remove them.

We thought she was putting on a brave face and treating it all like a joke, but we were about to find out that getting arrested wouldn't slow her down. Her straining order didn't seem to faze her at all. If anything, it angered her more. From then on, every day and night, she would post from multiple fake social media accounts posting photos of myself, of my husband. She would put my husband's photos with the caption, pedophile, or other terrible names that included racist and transphobic comments and captions.

To give you a slight idea, she posted altered pictures of my husband photoshopped to look like he was wearing heavy makeup and referring to him as a pre-op transgender. She posted altered and unflattering photos of myself. She called me old, ugly. Those are the G rated ones. Listen, I'm no beauty queen myself. The name calling, while obsessive and gross, wasn't what bothered me most, although I'm not going to lie.

Seeing hundreds of photos of myself of her fake Twitter account calling me ugly and obsessively pointing out every single perceived flaw did succeed in getting me down at the times. Why did I keep looking? Because I was getting a glimpse in her unraveling, unravelled mind. Just in case it was a clue of what she was capable of or thinking of doing next. Because it wasn't her insulting post that phased me. What bothered me most were the sinister captions. Keep an eye on your kids, I'd be watching.

Or why don't you plant some flowers in your front yard? Or be good to your kids because you never know what could happen. How was your Uber Eats order? She would post pictures of me with an arrow directed to my head, which I perceived to be a gun to my head. She posted pictures of my husband's workplace, which she was not allowed to be within two blocks of, in accordance to the restraining order. But the police said this could just be a picture she took from the internet, sigh.

She posted Agatha Christie quotes like, every killer is usually someone you know well. Or, your end is near. Her Twitter profile banner picture was taken from a movie poster and said, stalker, like she was in on the joke. We called the police again, but they asked and there wasn't anything they could do since she didn't explicitly tag us. I took screenshots of everything. Many of her posts were nonsensical, but most were photos posted of us on this fake account,

all altered with derogatory or ominous captions, but we couldn't get her shut down. I became anxious anytime my kids were outside shooting hoops in the driveway. My elderly mother wouldn't take the baby out in the stroller, she was too scared. It affected all of our lives. Life became dramatic. Ex-Beauty Queen would taunt us with, catch me if you can. She posted close-ups of her dog's genitals or a piece of her dog's shit with my name beside it.

The implication obvious. It bothered me. She now had a dog since I didn't think someone like her was capable of caring for anything living. Then the calls started back up. This time to our home line, yes, we still have a home line, LOL, bitch, and then hung up. Karma will get you.

And then weird chant-like calls, as if she were reciting a spell. Sure enough, she posted photos of a pentagram and candles as some sort of altar and the caption ring ring. Finally, finally, the police asked us to come in and give video statements. We gave them a drive containing thousands of screenshots of posts she had made. They arrested her again and charged her with two more counts of criminal harassment. My husband was angry at this point, but as Mama Bear, I just wanted to get this over with.

She mentioned the kids frequently and ominously many times in her online rants, also calling them rude names, which I won't repeat here because these are the things that upset me most. The judge also issued a social media ban for her. By the time she was re-arrested for the second time, her fake Twitter account, which was literally mostly insights or references to my family, had 16,000 tweets in a three-month period. She has no followers, so they were just to herself.

The porn sites I had continuously being tagged on stopped. Things quieted down tremendously, but I still get follower requests that I believe are her. But at this point, we were all on edge. I kid you not, I felt weird walking into my kitchen at night to make a sandwich, feeling creeped out that she was outside watching, but nothing passed her. As nothing is more dangerous than a desperate woman who has nothing to lose, which, by the way, was one of the quotes she posted. Oh.

I don't know what is wrong with her. I believe from what I've researched, she is a malignant narcissist. Perhaps some other mental issues at play here, but I can say she was a terrible person long before she decided to try and make our lives miserable. Crazy beauty queen turned stalker. I would love nothing more than to never meet again, but if going to court helps you stay away from us forever, then bring it. As an aside, I wanted to mention that we heard from a reliable source that after my husband

broke up with her, she allegedly became known to police for other reasons. While my husband dodged a bullet regarding her threats to go to police saying he abused her, apparently other men have not been so lucky. Since I can't post pictures, I'll leave you with one of her posts. Something that may not make much sense, but to us, it was a statement to let us know she enjoys this drawn out court process. Many of her posts are in her native language, so this was translated. And so it goes, quote, violent women and the cruelest never answer questions.

They like to continue the misunderstanding indefinitely. So I seek to contact people only in order to torment them. My cruelty is my last attachment to the world. I don't know. Ooh. What in the fuck? Terrifying. That's it, right?

I can't keep going on this. This is almost more of a nightmare. This is like, I'm stressed. I'm stressed. I don't know. This is terrifying because of the fact that she's posting pictures of her outside of her house getting door dashed with an arrow over her head, like a target, like a gun. It's literally just every possible worst case scenario.

Like every possible thing she could do, she's doing. Just absolutely crazy. Can you imagine? Because you would. You would be in fear of everything every single day. You would not live a normal life. I'd be scared to go anywhere alone. I'd be scared.

I'm already scared to go outside in the dark by myself, but like I would truly be scared. But how about this direct? It's terrifying. I think this is something too that's really, really fucking hard about our modern times is the social media stalking. And that's something Alejandra really talked about because Alejandra went through that. Like most of her stalking was online and there's not a lot they can do about it. Like cops kind of refuse to step in.

It's like, oh, well, she could have got it off the internet. Like she wasn't really at your husband's work. It's tough too because when you're not directly the one receiving the shit, remove like the remove the fact of being scared and being emotionally attached to this. With by law, there technically is nothing going wrong, which is what the downfall I think is. But if there wasn't social media, this lady, this woman would still like she'd be leaving notes on the front doorstep or some crazy shit. But then there's more hard, like hard evidence, like notes on a doorstep.

You can actually like she had to have come to your doorstep to send a note there. Online stalking is so hard to trace. And it's also like, well, how do we even know it's her? It's kind of like a sluff off. Like it's like, well, we don't know it's her. She's not really doing anything. But yet this is almost scarier. No, she is single-handedly like ruining these people's lives.

When you start living in fear every single day, you're not living a good life. Like that's traumatic. No, this is, well, stress changes your DNA. Like it is proven that stress changes our DNA and makes us unhealthy. It causes so many health issues. I just can't imagine. Like I'm stressed just listening to it. I know.

And I'm trying to think about what it would be like to even be in this a little bit. And I just can't. I don't know. I don't know what I do because you almost can't even move away because then she's going to move with like there's no, what's the solution? And you want to live your life. You don't want to move away and be far from family because she can't. Right.

So what do you do? Oh, yeah. What can you do? Try to fight it the way they are. So top comment. No. I know. Top comment.

So I'm nosy and wanted to see who she was. So I Googled X beauty queen stalker and literally four different women have come up so far from pageants. What the hell is wrong with these people? That must have been absolute hell. Hopefully your family finds peace and that psycho goes to jail for what she's done to you and your family. Stay safe.

Opie and Opie replies back and goes, I doubt she'll go to jail, but we are hoping for some sort of punishment. She just doesn't seem to think the law applies to her. Our fear is that if the restraining order is lifted one day, she'll go right back to bothering us. It's taken a lot of time and effort to get her to stay away from us, but she's still bothering them. Well, you're going to live in fear literally the rest of your life.

Like honestly, truly, what can you do? It's terrifying. Terrifying. And what's crazy is too, you hear a lot of these stories and it doesn't even come from a relationship like this one. Sometimes people are like, oh, I met this person. Or they were... Random.

You randomly meet someone in life. And then all of a sudden it's like, they're sending you messages. They're doing this and it's like, oh, it's just bad luck. I don't know because you're never going to change these people. You just want to never meet these people somehow. Which is literally why the subreddit is called, let's not... Oh, fuck. You literally...

I'm going to point it though. Oh my God. I'm stressed. Okay. Well, this one's not going to help your anxiety anymore. I need some comments. There's no comments. I mean, there are, but...

There's just like, what can you say? Yeah. I see, as you kept reading it, I was just like... More and more blown away. Yeah. I was just, I just, I don't know. I don't know because yeah, you would be in fear that some crazy ass shit's going to go down forever. It's interesting because I think people in the comments did figure her out.

Because someone goes, if it makes you feel any better, she looks like a Russian mail ordered bride and she does have dark creepy dead eyes. That's not going to make anyone feel better. It's like, this is a threat that is present in your life that you can do nothing about. Yeah. And they're threatening your kids. They're threatening you. Like, come on.

They think, they think she's the Canadian beauty queen, which let's, let's Google her just so we can... Yes. Canadian beauty queen stalker. Those are my search terms. If you want to Google it for yourself, former Miss Universe. I mean, do you think she had this peak and then they can't handle the fact that that was then and now there's nothing to do because how do you end up?

This is her, oh, fucking ads. This is her at the time of her win. Beautiful. Like her, I don't think her eyes look that dead there. But I don't know. She doesn't look like a Miss Universe to me. Well, she just looks like some average soccer mom. What?

She was also an executive producer. Like, so she was going and doing stuff with her career. But what makes you so crazy? I mean, is there actually, is this truly mental health? Okay. She looked good when she was in Miss Universe. She's hot. Look at her.

Wide. How did you, like, this is the halo effect, like pretty people can't be evil. But like, I don't know. I think, I think a lot of it could be ego, but I think this is mental illness. Like true. This goes beyond just like being mad about an ex or being so like missing someone. Yeah. No, this is, this is mental illness.

Like it to me, she just sounds so unhinged. And the fact that her appearance is slipping now, like someone who goes to Miss Universe and is very diligent about their appearance, like her appearance has been her whole life. You don't get to that point unless it is like those, those are beauty pageants. She went off. That's a mental breakdown. And an 80 pound weight gain. Like that's one of the key signs in mental health, like in mental illness is like your

self care slips. You don't brush your hair. You don't brush your teeth, like all of that stuff. So for this drastic change, her shaving her head, like it is a true, this is mental illness to me. Well, it's just spiraled out of control. I mean, maybe the breakup and hit or her being like, really, you don't want me. Just everything. It sounds like spirals into some crazy shit.

Yeah. It sounds like post pageant life. Just, but there becomes, there becomes a point where, yes, you can be upset and act emotionally after a breakup or something similar. Yeah. There becomes a point where you start taking steps that you are, you're doing things on purpose now. You're purposely trying to push it to this extreme level.

You don't just end up doing this crazy shit. You're making these choices to physically go after people. No, it's, but again, like it's a mental illness. Like this is her fixation. She probably feels slighted. She has like, this is her point of perseverance. I guess. She's persevering on this family, this person.

Well, and it's working too to some level, to some degree, because they're definitely not living a normal life. No. But it just sucks because there's no way to combat that. No. Unfortunately. The harassment, harassment, whatever. Hopefully they get their date in court and it goes well.

Oh my God. I don't even know what to do. Why? Because that's just so nuts. I know, but like, they're safe. They have a restraining order so far. Like. They're not safe though.

That, that's not safety. They're not, I, yeah, I take that back. I would not feel, like I would feel the furthest thing from. And you think about just like us today, working, watching football, going to the grocery store. Every single move you make, you'd have to think twice about. Yeah. And you'd just be wondering, you'd be checking your socials.

Like, no. You wouldn't, I wouldn't even post on social media anymore. Like it would be so scary, like to be out and like posting at a restaurant you're at. It's just literal hell. Yeah. No. And these people don't deserve it. That's just.

No. That's the thing about stalkers. Like stalkers, while they might not be hurting you physically, like they're probably the most mentally debilitating form of harassment because your whole life, every single part of it is scary. Like, what if they're watching me? What if they're following me? What if they, this was their moment, like you're, yeah.

So just want to interrupt. We have been seeing some comments talking about victim blaming and just that we did it a lot in the next two stories. It was not our intention to victim blame at all. We were just trying to give general safety like advice and I think kind of talk about how we would react if we were in these situations, which is also unfair because we're not the ones in these situations, but we're just trying to rationalize what happened, I think in our heads. Well, it's hard to react without putting yourself in it and thinking like, what would my next thought

be? If I'm experiencing this, what would my next thought be? Yeah. And it's also hard to cast blame when they both are safe. So there's not much we can say like to criticize them. Like they made it out safe, unharmed. They, they did do the right things for their circumstances. I think we were just trying to give our takes like the podcast and I think, you know, after

this experience, maybe the let's not meet subreddit is not meant for two hot takes. I mean, I think, you know, these are stories that don't need takes, I guess it's kind of, I don't know, because you don't, you don't want to victim blame. I've mentioned it on another episode previously. I don't know, you know, where everyone is jumping in as far as their listening journey, but I actually was sexually assaulted walking down the street at night. I was with other people and there's nothing I could have done to change that situation for myself. And I think my takes that I do share on this podcast and the fact that I say I don't walk

alone at night, obviously not everyone can not do that, but that is my lived experience. And that is how I've coped with dealing with that. I've changed my habits and, you know, that's not like, that's not how we should live. Like we should be able to walk down the street safely at night. But unfortunately, that's just not a reality or I feel it's not a reality for me after what happened to me and me being assaulted. So I share what I do and say what I do on this podcast in part because of my experiences. That being said, you know, this has led to a good conversation between me and Justin too about

like what victim blaming looks like and how to avoid it. And so I think, you know, it created a good discussion and a learning, it was a learning experience. And there we go because yeah, victim blaming sucks. It's something I dealt with when I was assaulted. Just stay safe. I mean, we deal with such craziness and there are truly sick individuals out there that will violate people and will hurt people. And we're coming from a point of like, let's keep everyone safe. Do the best you can to keep yourself safe.

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No one helps more homeowners than Any Hour Services. I'm confident I would have become a missing person's case. I apologize in advance since I'm not a good writer, but I'll do my best to share my experience. To paint the picture, here's a description of myself at the time of the incident three years ago. 5'5 tall, 26 year old woman, medium length, beach blonde hair, curvy 175 pounds, wearing black, high waisted tights, and a pink crop top. Three years ago, I was walking home late at night from my friend's house.

It was dark and at the time I lived in a rough patch of the city. I've had many sketchy situations that I've gotten myself out of, so I guess I sort of felt invincible like nothing truly scary could happen to me. When I walk alone, I always stay alert and aware of my surroundings for my own safety, just in case. About halfway home and roughly 10 minutes to my apartment, I noticed a van started tailing me. I was used to this since in my city it's very common for a young woman in a rough area

to get propositioned for sex. It's embarrassing how desensitized I was to this. I did my usual and crossed the road so that I'd be walking besides the traffic, heading in the other direction. I wasn't scared, just annoyed. The van then turned down the side street, then back onto the road I was on and pulled up to me. At this point, I still wasn't scared. Again, this has happened so many times and it never mattered if I was wearing something that

showed more skin or if I was wearing a winter coat zipped from just below my chin, all the way to my ankles. That area is notorious for that type of activity. I decided to be firm and told the person sternly, quote, I'm not interested. I noticed there were two men in the van. They looked almost identical and may have been twins or brothers. Both men had a very, very dark complexion, dark eyes and short dark hair. The van didn't move.

I was super annoyed and crossed the road again to get away. At this point, I feared this would be enough for them to stop following me. They didn't. They kept circling back every time I crossed the road. I never had to put that much effort into getting a horny pervert to leave me alone. So this is when I started to feel unsafe. Wow, okay. Little late lady.

They zipped by me at the speed the traffic was flowing and I yelled for them to fuck off. I thought it finally worked. It had been three minutes and I hadn't seen the van. So I thought I was in the clear. Just in case, I pulled my phone out and was getting ready to call my sister that I lived with. Just then, the van pulled up to me very quickly and before I could even blink, one of the men jumped out of the van, opened the back door and approached me quickly in an aggressive manner as if he was about to scoop me up and throw me into the vehicle.

The traffic in that area is very inconsistent. It was dead and I imagine that is what they were waiting for. Just as the man was about to place his hands on me, I tilted my phone and said, quote, you are being filmed in my live video chat. I gave my friends your license plate number and the police have been notified. I was so scared, but I didn't let that show. I stayed as calm as I could. The man paused like he was considering if I was bluffing or telling the truth.

So I tilted the phone more as if to give the fake audience a better look at him. He then jumped into the van and they sped off. Wow. I have never been the same since that night. I'm afraid of walking alone now, even in the daytime. Stay safe out there. Two creeps in a van. Let's not ever meet.

I hope Karma finds you both soon. No way. Yeah. Okay. First of all, way too comfortable. I, the, mm. Like, oh, it happens all the time here.

I'm kind of used to it. It doesn't matter. Like, okay, whatever. Yeah. Second of all, fucking genius. Literally genius. Yeah. Oh, it's so tight.

You don't want it to come to that, but that was genius. That was the only thing she could have done. Yeah. How many times they turn around? I mean, it sounds like- You didn't call your sister on the first one? I would have called the cops after I switched the road. You wouldn't be walking home alone.

No. After I switched sides of the road twice and they kept doing the same to get close to me, I would have called 911. I would have called the police. I would have tried to get into a store. You would have called the first time. Yeah. But I'm like very scared about these situations.

Like, I had a man outside of my building. I was like trying to walk to a Pilates class down the street from my house. And I had this dude show up like an Alexis SUV, like well-dressed, well-maintained. And I was like, stopped outside of my building trying to get one of the scooters. And like my phone, the app wasn't working or something. And so it was taking me longer. So I was like standing there and he literally pulled up and he goes, wow, you're really beautiful.

Can I give you a ride? And I'm like, no, I'm good. Thanks. And he was so persistent. He's like, oh, come on, I'll give you a ride. Like, I just want to talk to you. You're so pretty. But I'm like, no, I'm good.

And I still couldn't get this fucking scooter app to work on my phone. You're right outside here? Yeah. Why don't you just come in? Oh, because you don't want to. I didn't want him to know where I lived. And so I had to get to my fucking Pilates class otherwise I was going to miss it. So I was finally at this point where I was like, I just need to get moving.

Like I just need to get moving. I need to like be out in an open area where like traffic can see me. And like we live on a really busy road. So like I didn't feel like I was like super, super fucked. But I was like, I just need to get away. So I gave up on the scooter and I just like started walking to Pilates. And I was like, I remember this. Yeah.

Well, like I told you that night. Yeah, I did, I did know you. I finally like did get a scooter like further down the road. And like, at least he wasn't following me. Like I was looking for his car, but he wasn't following me still. But it's like, But then on the way home from Pilates, are you like, I don't think I walked home though.

I think you picked me up. I think it was one of those nights where I was like, I'll walk to Pilates, but then you can you pick me up? So you picked me up. So I didn't walk all that. I didn't walk home. But it's just you never can be too safe, which it's just so interesting that she recognizes that this happens all the time to the point

where she's used to it. And this is just normal. That's weird. Oh, like, oh, just fuck off. Like, that's weird. I deal with this all the time. It doesn't matter how I'm dressed or what I'm doing. It's just, it happens.

Yeah. I just really unfortunate. I just can't imagine getting to a place where you're used to that and comfortable with that. No. And especially as a woman, like I, as like sad as it is, I think we as women, like think about getting kidnapped daily. Like even when I walk to my car, which is in a secured parking garage, every single time I walk through the lobby of my building, I'm scared that someone's going

to be in there and hurt me. I never am safe or I never feel safe walking to my car. No, like that's just something I live with daily. And so for her to like be so desensitized is like kind of alarming to me. But the live stream. Yeah. I think like the best thing you can do to like, I've been in another instance where I was on a subway.

I was on a light rail system with like two friends, one of which was a guy and we were going from like a hockey game back to my apartment in Minneapolis. And so we were on the light rail and these two men like were like eyeing us up. Like, and I was like, I kept like notice them noticing us. And they kept like looking at us and they were at like the total opposite end of the car. And they weren't getting off. And so they came up and we're just like standing. And again, like looking at us, looking at what we had on us.

And I was like, okay, this is getting too weird. And so I finally look at them and go, they had like these big two liter bottles of like pop, like soda. And I was like, oh, haha. Like what do you have in those pop bottles? Like must be booze, huh? And they like looked at me and they're like, like kind of taking a back that I was like talking to them.

And I was like, oh, haha. Like, yeah, drink up. Like must be a fun night. Just trying to make small topic. Any conversation I could. Yeah. And the minute I did that, they went and sat back down where they were in the far back of the car. That's so weird.

And like there's like, like one of the tips for like safety stuff is like, if you feel like someone's watching you, confront them. In a sense, like start talking to them. Disarm. Get information from them. Like make them know that you like recognize them. Like it's like, it's a, it's a trick to disengage them. And like because of the fact you noticed them and talked to them and potentially gained information,

you're that much better able to identify them. So it's like a turnoff for them to fuck with you. Right. Like they got my name, they know my voice. Cause you can't, you can't engage with someone and not have them engage back. If they're like that close to you. Yeah. I mean, it's not, my first thought isn't even the identifying them.

If something does happen, my first thought is it just establishes an actual human connection. Which then maybe emotionally or whatever makes them feel like, oh, okay. Like it's, I think it's the unknown. It's the impersonal, like the impersonal contact that makes, that fuels these things sometimes. I don't know how I'm trying to say this. Yeah. No, I think, I think when you think about like people that get sexually assaulted and it's like a totally random crime, I think it does have to do with the fact that's like,

and that's a thing as, you know, as a woman, you hear that like men don't look at women as humans a lot of times. And so in this situation, if like you can humanize yourself kind of like you're saying like, it's kind of the only, like if someone's going to attack you, they're going to attack you. Like if you're going to, if you're, you know, a woman walking down the street and a guy's going to come at you, like there's only so much you can do. So it's like, if you have any advantage or any, you know, sense of an advantage that you can gain back, like talk, make it known that you recognize them or like whatever.

Yeah, I got that. So like identify that human connection because as fucked, there's not a lot you can do in these situations except like self-defense, like highly recommend it. Like in the moment though, if you end up in that situation like she did, and it's definitely like, it's not a foolproof thing. No, it's not going to work a hundred percent of the time, but for her spur of the moment, just to, I think record, I think recording it too is like the best, the best thing you can do because so many people get deterred from crimes the minute they realize they're being recorded and like,

I'm recording you like, no, like I'm live streaming you. My friends are watching. Right. Like there's other people that know you. Exactly. Like recording as a video. Oh, they could steal your phone, break it, delete the video. Like, no, I'm live streaming you.

People are watching you right now. That was incredibly quick thinking. Yes. Well, and there's still the possibility that that doesn't work. Yeah. But based on the situation and how it ended up, that's probably one of the, that's probably one of the only options she actually had. True.

Okay. Officially the last story. My life 360 app saved me from an intruder. For some background, there's an app called life 360 where you can add your friends and family on. Essentially, you can all see each other, current and past locations. You can set alarms to be notified when someone comes home or leaves or arrives at work, etc. It's really good and I recommend it to everyone. You can never be too safe nowadays.

Two months ago, I was at home waiting for my boyfriend to get home. I got an alert at around 1800, letting me know that he has left work. It usually took him around 45 minutes to get home. I got up from the sofa and headed upstairs to run myself a bath. My bath was ready in about 10 minutes. I was doing other bits as I was waiting for it to cool. When I heard a thud downstairs and through the closed door, assumed that it was the front door. I shouted something along the lines of, I'm taking a bath.

Oh no. I heard him walking along our very creaky floorboards and assumed he was in the kitchen grabbing some dinner. It was about five minutes later when I picked up my phone to put on some music and realized I never got an alert on my phone from life 360 saying my boyfriend arrived home. So I went into the app to make sure I didn't mess about my settings by accident. I kid you not, my blood ran cold when I saw that my boyfriend had stopped at a petrol station and was still about half an hour away.

I could still hear the floorboards creak downstairs very, very lightly, as if someone was trying to tiptoe but was unable to. I had no idea what to do. I called my boyfriend. He didn't answer. And when I didn't hear his phone ring from downstairs, I freaked out even more, have horrible anxiety and could feel an attack coming on. I left the bathroom and walked into the bedroom as quietly as possible.

I shoved my desk chair under the knob as it didn't have a lock. I don't know why, but I didn't think to call the police then. I was so focused on getting out that all my other thoughts and senses just disappeared. I say this lightly now, but this was not the case in the moment. I proceeded to basically mission impossible it out of my bedroom. We had a shed under the window, large enough for me to safely get on top of it and then jump from it into the garden. The only issue was that I had to make my way down the garden alley,

where I could have to walk past the large window and door, where he would be able to see me very clearly. I was so, so scared. I kept taking peeks into the window and I couldn't see anyone. I felt more confident to run past and took one last peek and he was there, looking right at me, not even a foot away from the window. I couldn't even begin to explain the sheer fear and horror I felt, looking him right in the eyes.

He had such a cold, totally emotionless expression. I ran, didn't look back. I was so fucking terrified. I remember nearly tripping in my slippers and having to shake them off so I could run faster. There was a long road between us and our neighbors where I was running to. I did make it. Their lights were on and I started pounding on their window. I was let in and they called the police for me.

As I was inconsolable at that point, I kept telling them to please call my boyfriend as he was driving home too. When the police arrived, they found no one there. We didn't have cameras and neither did my neighbors. So we had no way of telling them when or how he entered and left. I later found out he came through the window. The noise I heard, which I assumed was the door, was actually the window that fell downward and shut loudly after I assumed the man came in.

There were also some scratches on the top of the chair that I had put under the door knob, signaling he had tried to push it open but was unable to. There wasn't much of a case. I couldn't ID him as he was wearing a mask and a beanie and I don't know what color hair he had. Only that he was white, tall, slim, and a man. I only looked right at him for a mere second. If that, nothing was stolen either.

We have cameras and a security system now. Never making that mistake again. The fact that there was nothing missing, nothing was stolen. The dude was there to fuck her up. The dude was there to hurt her. I later have the chills. Yeah, this episode is fucked. This is making me just feel sick.

Yeah, it's a dark one. But it's kind of like, I feel like I just, I don't know. When you grow up in little Minnesota, sometimes you can get very comfortable with your situation of you didn't grow up with the security system, you didn't grow up with cameras. And I think cameras now are a lot easier to have. Yeah, definitely. But ever since I've lived away, I've always had some sort of security something.

And it really came into play when at our old house in North Hollywood, one day on the cameras, there's, I think me or Jake noticed that someone had walked up and they rang the doorbell and they sat on the front steps. And they kept sitting there and then they then looked like into certain windows and was kind of like casing the place. And so the only one in LA at the time was Austin's ex-girlfriend. So she went over to check and as she's at the house checking it up, this weird car pulls up and they walk up to her and start talking to her and asking her for directions.

Same people that we saw on the camera. Yeah. We thought after everything, we found out that it was a completely also random group that happened on the same day. Weird. They could have been connected though. Right, so we don't know. Yeah, it's too much of a coincidence.

Long story short. The neighborhood you lived in, people don't ask for directions there. No, we always had had cameras. That's why we knew this had happened. We had the Arlo cameras. Right after that, Jake flew back from our trip. From our trip early to go make sure the house was safe. Yeah.

And so that there was a presence there. And then when I actually got back, we had ADT all set up, security system in play. Yeah. And from then on, anytime any door would open, it would front door open. It beeps a bunch of times, it goes front door and you just know. Yeah, I love that system. And also like on the phone app, there's apps too where you can hit an emergency button. You don't have to call any, but you can just hit that there's an emergency.

Yeah. And so after that moment, you just feel so much more secure, so much safer. But we never had an issue ever there. So who knows if it was a fluke or whatever, but I 100%. I don't think it was. The foolproof way to always just know and have that peace of mind is to have some sort of system in place. Yeah. Well, I think this app, like the reason I picked this story too is because on the Stalker's episode,

or not Stalker's, but the last like scary stories episode, me and Alejandra talked about how we have find my friends. And I think this life 360, like the fact that you can set up notifications, like you can on the find my friends on the iPhones, but like it's not as good. And it's like, I think everyone should have this app with at least a couple close people that they trust with their location because it's invaluable. I think. Well, we did it as a safety measure.

Yeah. I just think it's something that I, I, I know like Minnesota is safer, but like I still worried about getting kidnapped in Minnesota. And I think this is like a male, like male privilege, maybe a little bit where it's like, you like might not have thought about that until really living out here in a bigger city. I just think I got used to not having a security system, not having cameras. And then having nothing really go wrong. But again, do you like on a day to day basis, do you worry about getting kidnapped?

Well, no, but when, I mean, there were times in Minnesota where I worried about certain things. Yeah. And there's times in LA after, even after that happened where you think twice about, oh, it'd probably be nice to know that when I'm gone for a week, no one's entered the front door, whereas before you wouldn't know. So of course, yes, I, You're worried about your safety, but it's not like, I feel like maybe, and maybe this is just me, maybe, you know, people can comment on the YouTube and let me know if you have this fear,

but like, I feel like a day to day basis for me, like I'm, I'm consistently worried about being kidnapped or like, harmed. Yeah, but these, that's why these, it's important to have these types of measures in place because it gives you that peace of mind. Exactly. Yeah, I can't, I can't stress enough, like, also like, I think it's kind of like, do I want a camera in my actual home, like watching myself, like, uh, but if it's just you and your family in your home, like,

have a camera in a common area, especially showing doors and stuff, like, if she would have had an app on her phone with like an Arlo system showing her living room, she could have seen that it wasn't her boyfriend. Can you imagine now, but can you imagine pulling that up and seeing that? See, but then also to- I would have immediately called 911 though. Yeah. Well, it seems like she was so far from her neighbor too, and you always think about, I mean, I think the thing you see in TV shows and movies is as soon as someone's call,

someone calls 911, it's like, boom, the person's there. Who are you talking to? What, and then- They're banging on the door. Yeah, and it's like, fuck, and you wonder how long it's going to take them to get there. Yeah. Versus, if you think you have a way out- Take it.

Get the fuck out. But this guy could have easily saw her, ran outside and grabbed her. Like, you don't know how fast he is. He could be fucking Tyler Lockett running down the street. So dial it and get out. Like, call 911, you have- she had her phone on her, like, do both, multi-task. 911, get out, fucking, like, do it all at once. Yay, it worked out for her.

God, can you imagine that? But it could have been bad. Don't hesitate to call 911, like, oh, I don't want to do it if it's a false alarm. Like, no, like- God, I feel like- Who fucking cares? Who fucking cares? Pass that window.

I mean, obviously, I don't know the layout, but I would try to, like, find a way out to the back. If you get close enough to a house and, like, duck under the window and you're, like, on the side of the house, you, like, you can't even be at the window looking down and see- I know, but your nightmare then is him peeking around the corner outside the house, like, I don't know, just- You wanted to, like, know where he is, yeah. Absolutely, a nightmare. Yeah.

Well, that is true crime or could have been. This was a dark episode. I think this is the hardest one I've ever been on. Yeah, this is dark, it's scary. And this is going to be the last true crimey, like, scary stories one for October. The rest that are coming are going to be totally paranormal. So, I didn't do that one with Justin because he's a non-believer and I- It needs to be with a believer.

Because I have a believer in ghosts. But everyone, invest in home security, fucking systems, download the Life360 app, or at the bare minimum, go on, find my iPhone and find my friends or whatever it is, and share your location with trusted people. Like, you cannot be too safe. I think all of these stories have showed us that. Well, and have that feature on your phone, too, where you click the home button a bunch of times.

I already taught them that. Okay, yeah. So, I found out I don't have an Android, so I didn't discuss it in that episode, but I mentioned in a previous episode that iPhone does have the power button five times, and it'll alert emergency services. One thing I do want to note about that, if you don't go into your settings and change the feature, if you hit the button five times, it creates a loud noise,

and that could be very alerting to individuals that are attacking you. I personally went into my settings and turned that noise off, so I hit five times and it's silent. So, I highly recommend, especially if you're a woman who doesn't want to notify your attackers, go and turn that setting off. But I do also want to mention that Android has a similar feature. I think on an Android, if you hit the power button three times or something like that, but Android has that feature as well.

So, set it up, make sure it's working on your phone. Well, and set up your emergency contacts, too. Set up your emergency contacts, set up a medical ID, go through that, and just make sure you're going to be as safe as possible. Little homework. Little homework for everyone, yeah. But I hope everyone out there is not too distressed. I think Justin's going to need a Xanax after this one.

Yeah, that was a rough one. But you guys, Justin is wearing one of the t-shirts that's going to be coming out with our merch in a couple of weeks. We got the samples. It's been a process. I've been going through multiple different companies trying to make sure we join partnered with the right one, and I finally found them. So, it's good shit, and we're very excited.

That being said, until next time, guys. Until next time, I guess. It's okay, babe. It's okay. Bye, guys. Bye. The thought of my sons growing up without me inspired me to quit smoking. I talked to my doctors, and then I threw away all my cigarettes,

ashtrays, and lighters. I started exercising instead of smoking. Staying away from alcohol when I was first quitting was key. I kept on trying, learned something each time. Do whatever it takes. No matter how many times it takes. We did it, so can you. For free and confidential help, call 1-800-QUIT-NOW or visit waytokwit.org.

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