September 27, 2025 • 49 mins
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Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!
Welcome to another episode of the Nighttime Scary Tales Podcast, where we explore the dark side of storytelling. Tonight, prepare for spine-chilling tales featuring original horror stories, eerie supernatural encounters, and real-life crime that reveals the darker aspects of human nature. Each story is designed to keep you on the edge of your seat long after it ends. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your most chilling moments by leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. More haunting stories are coming, so keep your lights on and your doors locked. Sweet dreams… if you can find them!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone, Before the video begins, I just wanted to
make you aware of a go fund me linked down
below for some dear friends of mine who are one
of many lives completely upended by Hurricane Helene. These friends
had their home flooded last year during Hurricane Adahlia and
were displaced for nearly a year while they wrangled with insurance, FEMA,
(00:22):
and contractors to just now a year later get their
lives back to normal, only to a few weeks after
have their entire home destroyed again by five feet of
flooding within the space of twelve hours. Now, with all
that being said, don't feel obligated to donate. I'm just
hoping that we as a community can give them enough
(00:43):
leeway financially as they go through the recovery process and
decide how to approach this incredibly uncertain time in their lives.
Thank you. On Halloween night back in nineteen seventy eight,
(01:12):
I was just ten years old and I was getting
ready to go trick or treating with my buddies from
fifth grade. I remember being really excited because the year before,
my friends and I had gotten to run up and
down the streets in total freedom, knocking on houses wherever
we could. Now, it sounds crazy to think that we
were allowed to go out at night at that age,
almost totally unsupervised, But since we were going from door
(01:36):
to door and being constantly greeted by adults giving us candy,
I guess folks figured that it was just safe as
could be, and it really was. We had the night
to ourselves, running around like crazy and seeing all our
elementary school friends and their costumes. Then at one point
there was this big old candy swap going on where
(01:56):
kids would swap their pixie sticks for dumb dums and
their Tootsie rolls for peanut butter cups, like some big
old candy stock exchange. It was magical, one of those
childhood memories you carry with you for the rest of
your life. And most importantly, nothing very untoward happened, and
so as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited to
(02:17):
do the whole thing again next year, and then incredibly
disappointed when I found out it wasn't happening the first year.
So back in seventy seven, I remember my parents saying
something like just make sure you're back before dark and
don't go too far. But then the next year in
seventy eight. My mom seemed way over involved right from
(02:39):
the get go. She wanted to know who I'm going
out with, where they live, what their parents' names were,
and if I know their phone numbers and all of that.
She asked me a million questions to the point where
it got very annoying. And then when I told her
that I was heading out to meet my friends, she
broke some very bad news. I wouldn't be leaving on
(03:00):
my own, and I wouldn't be trick or treating with
my fifth grade buddies. I'd be waiting for our neighbor,
missus Anderson, to stop by with a bunch of random
neighborhood kids, and she was going to walk us up
and down the block for like half an hour before
dropping us off back home. And believe me when I
say I was devastated. I kept asking why what it changed,
(03:25):
and why I couldn't go out with my friends, But
all my mom would tell me was that if I
didn't want to go with Missus Anderson, then I wasn't
going trick or treating at all. I don't know if
every kid's mom waited until the last goddamn moment to
ruin their Halloween, but mine did, and I was on
the verge of full blown tears before I finally gave in.
(03:46):
I was either going to suck it up or miss
out on the big bag of candy in time with
my friends, so obviously I chose the candy. I remember
finishing off my cowboy costume in a real stinker of
a mood. Then when Missus Anne Person showed up to
collect me off, I went. It was me, Missus Anderson,
and three other random kids from the neighborhood, one of
(04:08):
which was missus Anderson's kid, Billy, And at first I
was still in a very terrible mood because I wasn't
with my friends. We were under strict supervision and Missus
Anderson said that we could only walk in a short
loop up and down the street. All the other kids
were in chaperone groups like that too, so it wasn't
like it was just us, and although it wasn't as
(04:29):
lame as I thought it was going to be, it
still sucked compared to the chaos of the previous year.
So we're maybe twenty minutes into the adult mandated trick
or treating, and the adults have this thing organized so
badly that there's congestion. Toward the end of the route,
we're literally queuing at this one house in front of
not one, but two other groups of trick or treaters,
(04:52):
and as Missus Anderson and the lady in front start
talking to each other, her son sort of sidles up
to me, points off into the distance and says, that
kid's giving me the creeps. I look to see what
he's pointing at, and off in the distance there's a
kid standing near the edge of the park where the
(05:12):
old jungle gym was. He was close enough for us
to see that he was wearing a mask, but he's
not with any kind of group, and so we say, hey,
what gives eh? Kid gets to walk around on his own?
Why not us. Looking back on it, it was kind
of cold of us to just drop him like that,
but we were kids. We didn't know any better. We
(05:34):
saw a perceived injustice and we called it out. Even
chimps and monkeys go crazy when they think something's unfair. Anyway,
we start yelling about this kid out there alone, and
Missus Anderson sees him too, so she starts saying something like, hey,
come back here, rate this instant young man. You've to
stay with your group. The kid just kind of stands
(05:55):
there for a minute, not responding, and then Missus Anderson
yells at him again and he starts walking over to
the groups of kids. Missus Anderson then says, which group
were you with, and then starts asking all around to
the adult something like was this kid with you? But
none of the adults seemed to recognize his mask, so
(06:16):
each just sort of shook their heads when confused in
the chaos, I remember looking at the kid and thinking
how I was ninety nine percent sure that I hadn't
seen him around that night. I've been checking out everyone
else's costumes and whatnot, and I didn't remember this kid's
green goblin mask anywhere. Also, it wasn't a green goblin
mask like the villain from Spider Man. It was just
(06:38):
sort of a goblin that happened to be green. Maybe
that inspired Spider Man. I don't know now. Anyways, I'm
looking at the kid's mask, thinking I don't remember seeing
him around, But at the same time, something about him
was just oddly familiar to me. I don't know if
it was his shoes or his clothes or the way
he carried himself, but I'm pretty sure that I knew
(06:59):
that kid from school. It turns out that I was
one hundred percent right on that one, but we'll get
back to that later. So Missus Anderson is calling around
towards all the other grown ups, asking if they're missing
a kid. But I'm still watching the kid and trying
to figure out why he seems so familiar. So Anderson
isn't watching him, but I am, and that meant that
(07:22):
I was still watching him when he slips away from
Missus Anderson walks right up to a kid in the
group behind us that had just joined the line, and
then pulls out a knife out of that candy bag
that he had with them and just starts stabbing. Things
were calm one minute and chaos the next, And all
(07:42):
I remember is running back to my house because I
was only a block away. My dad came to the door,
and as I ran inside, he ran outside because he
could hear fifty kids all screaming and running with adults
trying to corral them. I mean, it must look like
a freaking disaster movie or something, because so some kids
got blood on him. Some of the adults had blood
(08:03):
on him too, Just wild stuff for him. To run
out into with no context whatsoever, and I spent the
rest of the night in my bedroom scared out of
my mind, with my mom making sure that I wasn't
freaking out too hard. And the rest of this I
got for my dad. So it's kind of secondhand info.
I obviously saw the first stabbing happen up close, and
(08:24):
in my head I was thinking way more kids got hurt,
maybe got killed too, But by some sheer miracle, no
one died, and only one kid and one grown up
had to be taken to the hospital. And the grown
up only got hurt because they cut their hand on
the knife while grabbing it off of the kid in
the goblin mask who was doing the stabbing. It seems
(08:45):
like we kind of dodged a bullet right, that it
could have been way worse. Well, it was way worse,
and even now no one really knows any of what
that kid says is true or not. It's became an
enduring arth legend in the town that I grew up in, though,
And so the way it happened was that the kids
started stabbing, and then some grown up with brass balls
(09:08):
ran up and immediately subdued the kid before he could
hurt anyone else. The kid who got hurt received only
defensive wounds, as in cuts to their hand wrists from
trying to defend themselves, you know. But then the cuts
were only minor, and it was like the kid was
only trying to scare her, not really hurt her, but
(09:28):
it just got out of control. That kind of fell
in line with the kid's story. But like with that
other thing about recognizing him, I'll get to that later.
And so this courageous grown up pins the kid down,
grabs the knife off him, cutting themselves in the process,
and like some Christopher Nolan version of Scooby Doo, they
(09:50):
pulled the mask off the kid to reveal who the
mysterious villain truly is, only to discover that it was
a kid named Leroy. Leroy wasn't this kid's real name, obviously,
but I don't think it's my place to be spreading
him or his family name around the internet over something
he did when he was twelve or however old he was.
(10:12):
But he sures how it look like a Leroy, so
I guess that's what I'll call him. Anyway. This Leroy
kid came from a very bad family. Mom was on drugs,
didn't take care of him properly, and dad was never around.
It's a real sad story and not LeRoy's fault at all,
but he ended up with a reputation as being like
the school stinky kid. But then, almost totally unbeknownst to
(10:36):
us kids, LeRoy's appearance at the Tricker treating events surprised everyone,
and not just because he pulled out a knife, but
because by that point, Leroy had been an official missing
person for almost two months, so at the start of
the school year, Leroy didn't show up to school. The
school's principal then reached out to the county sheriff, who
(10:58):
drove out to LeRoy's family trailer to talk to his
mom or her boyfriend, and both were high out of
their minds thought Leroy was at school and raised all hell.
When the sheriff and his boys took them away in
cuffs for child neglect, they had no idea Leroy was missing,
but word has it that his mom bowed her eyes
out down at the department, and I guess whenever she
(11:20):
sobered up, it hit her what a terrible mom she was,
and at first everyone blamed her and her no good
boyfriend for LeRoy's disappearance. By the end of September, the
sheriff had to scale back the search for him. The
weather was getting colder, the nights were getting darker, and
was looking more and more like it was a search
for LeRoy's body rather than a search to find him alive.
(11:45):
And that was doubly so by the time Halloween rolled around,
cause how the hell was a twelve year old kid
going to survive being homeless for the better part of
two months. Everyone was real shocked to hear how Leroy
had just showed up out of nowhere. But what shocked
them even more was the story he told the cops
when they finally got around to interviewing him, Because when
(12:07):
they asked him why he'd showed up with a knife
and tried to stab somebody, he told them the devil
made me do it. And I'm guessing the cops figure
that it was just an excuse at first, you know,
kind of like that I don't like Monday's Killer Girl,
that it was blatantly just an attempt to disguise her
total psychopathy. But when they asked more questions on who
(12:28):
this devil was and how he met him, it became
increasingly obvious that Leroy had been kidnapped and held by
not one, but several different people. According to Leroy, he
was playing outside one day when a man approached him,
claiming to be a friend of his father's. The guy
asked if he wanted to meet him, and of course
Leroy says yes, but he also said how he was
(12:51):
uncomfortable just wandering off with a stranger. The guy says,
no problem, let me go get your dad, and then
returns a half hour later, driving a van and telling
Leroy that his dad is in the back and Little
Leroy then approaches the back of the van, looks inside,
and then before he even realizes it's empty, the guy
shoved him into the back, closed and locked the door,
(13:14):
and then drove off with him screaming to be let out.
Leroy said the guy drove him somewhere, someplace he'd never
seen before and had no idea how to get back to.
He said he was forced into a windowless room with
nothing but a mattress and a bucket, and then kept
there for so long and tortured so horribly that he
lost track of time. He said he got so thirsty
(13:37):
and hungry that it hurt, but when he begged for water,
the man who took him gave him water that tasted bad,
and after that he felt weird, like he was tired
but different, and had dark spots in his memory. The
cops asked why Leroy had told them that the devil
made him do it, and he replied that although he
(13:58):
didn't know if the man was the devil, for shiture,
that's what he called himself, He said. The only time
they really talked was when the devil took him out
of the room one day to meet his helpers. Leroy
said that he drank some of the bad tasting water
a while before, but was still feeling woozy when the
devil took him out of his room and over towards
a circular dining table. Sat around it were five or
(14:21):
six men in cloth hoods, but the man who called
himself the devil was wearing a larger wooden mask that
had carved horns sprouting from the top. The man calling
himself the devil then introduced the men as his helpers
and told Leroy that he was to obey them just
like he obeyed him, and that's when Leroy said that
(14:42):
they gave him the mask and told him what they
had given him was very important. They made him wear it,
never letting him take it off all the way, not
even when he ate and drank. Then, after what we
know was almost two months in captivity, the man calling
himself the Devil told Leroy that the only way to
get the mask off was to make a human sacrifice.
(15:06):
Leroy said that by that time he was ready to
do just about anything for a shot at freedom. So
he did exactly as the Devil and his helpers asked
him and attacked the tricker treating groups that I was
a part of, he said. One of Satan's helpers then
walked him across the park to where our groups were
trick or treating, gave him the bag with the knife
in it, and then told him to do as he'd
(15:28):
been told. Leroy said that the moment he killed a kid,
any kid, the Devil would then transport him back in
time to his mom's trailer, and that it'd be like
he'd never been taken at all. And that was all
it took to get him close enough for us to
see him. And when Missus Anderson called him over, I
guess he saw his chance right there. I don't know
(15:51):
exactly what happened to old Leroy after that, as in,
I don't know exactly where he is now or exactly
how the legal process went after he was taken into custody,
But I do know his mom and her boyfriend got
into trouble for a child in endangerment and all of that,
and then Leroy himself got taken to some kind of
psych hospital slash kitty prison. I guess the doctor's there
(16:14):
said there was a whole bunch of things wrong with him,
but he wasn't insane or delusional, and some of the
marks on his body were consistent with the methods of
torture that he'd described to the cops. But the thing
that really messed with people and had this taking on
urban legend status even after all these years, is the
fact that the cops never recovered the mask. You see,
(16:36):
after Leroy was taken down and the cops showed up,
someone had already taken the mask off of him. I
guess I said a Scooby Doo moment earlier, but it
wasn't really like that. They always used to wait until
everything was over and done with before taking off the
bad guy's mask, right, Well, this was real life. So
almost the second that they had Leroy pin down, someone
(16:57):
whips that thing off of him right there, and then
to see who it is, because why wouldn't you. But
then by the time the cops got a crime scene
set up and went looking for LeRoy's green goblin mask
that he was supposedly wearing, no one could find that anywhere.
The cops started asking folks in the neighborhood to make
sure that there isn't a kid who had picked up
the mask by accident. But then when no one comes forward,
(17:21):
they start going door to door in the neighborhood to
make damn sure that there hasn't been a mistake. After all,
Leroy said all his captors touched the mask at some point,
sometimes with their bare hands, so the cops wanted to
maybe check it for finger prints or something like that,
and in fact, I think it was probably their only
connection between Leroy and his supposed kidnappers. But no matter
(17:45):
what they did, they couldn't recover the mask. And to
some it stands to reason that the person who took
it did not want it to fall into the CoP's hands,
which means that there's a whole bunch of people who
think that, right as all the chaos was on folding
after Leroy stabbed a kid, someone who looks so normal
that there's not a single witness to report them just
(18:07):
sort of walks up, picks up the mask, and then
walked off into the darkness, maybe appearing as another parent.
And since no one was ever arrested or convicted of
LeRoy's kidnapping, those same folks who think it's all some
conspiracy hiding in plain sight, they believe his kidnappers are
still out there and that maybe they've been doing stuff
(18:29):
like that for longer than we can imagine. Now, we
know Leroy was kidnapped, and we know he tried to
stab a kid, But as for everything else, I guess
a judge might just call it hearsay. But me personally,
I don't know what to believe because from where I'm standing,
which stranger things have happened and are still happening right now.
(18:51):
I just know that what Leroy told the cops and
the fact his mask was never found somehow scares the
living hell up me. The single most frightening, confusing, and
(19:12):
traumatizing thing that's ever happened to me happened on Halloween
night of nineteen ninety nine, my mates and I had
just started year seven, which in America is equivalent to
sixth grade, starting at eleven and finishing at twelve. Starting
secondary school was exciting, but it also meant that we
were quickly reaching the point where it was no longer
(19:33):
acceptable to go trick or treating. I don't know what
it's like in America, but around here, if a load
of kids walk up your drive dress like minions, of
course you're going to give them a mini Mars bar
or seven. But if a bunch of surly looking almost teenagers,
complete with pimples and mini stashes, start banging on someone's
(19:53):
door demanding chocolate under threat of vandalism, they'd be lucky
to leave with broken teeth, let alone rotten ones. Now
with that in mind, we knew it was the case
of one last blowout, then jacket in for good in
hopes of transitioning to Halloween costume parties with beers and
ciggies and most importantly girls. But before all that, we
(20:17):
could have one more night of wholesome costume fun and
ensure a sweets haul that'll last us till Christmas if
we rationed it properly, And so in March of nineteen
ninety nine, you might remember, the Matrix came out. I
don't need to explain what the Matrix is, so I won't,
and nor will I have to explain why a bunch
(20:37):
of eleven year old boys thought it was the best
thing since sliced bread. So when it came to Halloween costumes,
we decided to just be the Matrix, and not one
of us either, but all of us. But then, because
we didn't all have the making of a Matrix costume,
two of us just wore school uniforms, black ties, and
(20:57):
sunglasses at night, by the way, blind as bats. And
then two of us wore leather jackets and sunglasses, myself included,
while the fifth lad, whose sister was into all that
goth music, was the only one who did the full monty.
We look stupid like two members of the village people
in their security guards. But then the fifth lad, Jamie,
(21:19):
he actually looked the bee's knees now that I look
back on it. He had the long leather trench coat
extra long since he borrowed it from his older sister.
He had the little sunglasses like the ones Morpheus actually wears,
and he had his hair all slick back with hair
gel too, with some army boots, black jeans, and a
black T shirt on to complete the look. He actually
(21:42):
looked fantastic, to be honest, but he also stood out
like a sore thumb walking around neighborhoods where kids were
dressed as Woody or a buzz from toy story. And
so we start knocking on these houses and we either
get pensioners asking what the bloody hell are you lot
dressed as, or young blokes laughing when they instantly recognized
(22:02):
what we were supposed to be. It was a really
good laugh, actually, and we made our way up and
down the streets near where we lived until eventually we
ran out of houses to knock at. It was only
about half seven by that time, and none of us
had to be back inside until ten at the earliest,
so we still had ages to kill and very little
to do. But then Jamie had an idea. Instead of
(22:27):
just going home, we could walk down a road a
bit and cross over the dual carriageway and then knock
at some houses in the neighborhood across from us. We
all agreed that was a good idea because who wouldn't
want more many chocolate bars. There was just one small problem.
We'd have to pass the home Wood estate. Homewood is
(22:49):
probably one of the roughest areas of Bradford. That's not
to say that the vast majority of people who live
there aren't friendly and welcoming, because ninety nine percent of
the time you can walk and drive around the area
and not get even an ounce of trouble. It's just
never been the safest place to be after dark, especially
not for a group of eleven year old's dressed like
(23:09):
debt collectors on their way to a rave. But then
we had ourselves a little plan. Instead of walking down
one of the larger roads past the estate, we'd walk
through the alley near the train tracks, which would minimize
our exposure to the estate while passing it to get
to the other neighborhood. Now, sorry for the logistical briefing there,
but I'm just giving you an idea of why we
(23:31):
thought it was a good plan to go walking down
an alleyway after dark while dressed like a German industrial band.
We thought that we wouldn't run into any of the
bad lads who lived on the estate. But little did
we know they were hanging out in the one place
we didn't want to bump into them. So about halfway
down the alleyway there's a blind ninety degree turn. Then
(23:54):
you can't really see much at the end of the
alley either. We thought that gave us cover, and it did,
but it also meant that we couldn't see what was
around either bend. We round the first one and there's
no one there, so we think brilliant or in the
free and clear. But then we round the second corner
and we run into half a dozen of the very
(24:15):
people we hoped not to run into. I didn't know
all the lad's names, but I do remember three of them.
The main two were the Hand twins. Francis and Anthony
Hand were both boxers and had the reputations to match.
They'd been in trouble with the police, mainly because they
loved to fight, but they were partial to just about
any kind of crime you can imagine, so robbing a
(24:38):
few costumed kids of their suites was really nothing to them,
especially since we were considered fair game, and by that
I mean of a certain age and male, so not
too shameful to rob and possibly slap around some kids
like us for a bit, and so the second we
round the corner, there's obviously this massive uh oh moment
for us, but the hand To and company just burst
(25:01):
out laughing. They obviously knew what we were dressed, as
every one of a certain age did, because the matrix
was bloody massive at the time, but they weren't exactly
the type to go giving us compliments on how much
effort we put into our various costumes. Instead, they saw
fit to try and humiliate us. They were laughing their
heads off, shouting stuff like the these dickheads think they're
(25:24):
in the bloody matrix, and we tried our best to
just ignore them, which was stupid really, because when lads
like that sense any kind of weakness, you're well and
truly buggered. And so despite trying to just walk around them,
they were in no mood to simply let us pass.
It started when they noticed our bags of sweets, at
(25:44):
which point one of the hand twins started saying something like, look, boys,
they brought us all their sweets, and they started trying
to grab one of our lads bags of sweets, saying
something like you're too old to be dressed up like
that and too fat to be eating those sweets, which,
to be fair, he probably was. But just because we
couldn't fight back didn't mean we were about to just
(26:06):
let ourselves be bullied. So one of them trying to
rob our matess bag of sweets, but our mate saying, no,
get off me, you wanker. He's not throwing punches or anything.
But the confrontation was exactly what the hand Twins and
company were looking for. So as soon as there's a
bit of r G bargie, the hands and friends spread
out along the streets so we couldn't pass at all.
(26:29):
We didn't all shout run or anything, but there was
this very recognizable moment where we all just kind of
looked at each other, thinking we're in trouble here. Then
when the first one of us turned around and ran
back down the alley, the rest of us followed, but
so did the hand Twins, who with their boys behind them,
when chasing us Like the clappers of hell. We ran
(26:50):
like lads possessed, and since we were running down a
blind entry, there was only one way we could all run.
But then once we rounded the corner and sprinted to
the end of the ar alleyway, there was no plan
on where we were all running too. Two of the
lads ran left, probably with the intention of running backwards
towards our neighborhood, but the other three of us ran right.
(27:11):
This was definitely not a good idea, as we'd have
to walk back the way we came if we wanted
to get home, but in the moment, all we were
thinking was run, run, run, So I just acted on
instinct and ran right with my two mates. After the turn,
we were faced with quite a long straight road with
a wall on one side and trees on the other.
(27:32):
I happened to notice that to our right, where the
trees were, there was a little gap in a chain
link fence, and on instinct, I just ran for it.
I didn't really know what was on the other side.
It all looked abandoned and overgrown, but I thought in
that case it'd be a good place to hide. I
thought my mates would follow me, because being the faster runner,
(27:53):
I'd managed to overtake them by the time that I'd
spotted the chain link fence. I thought they'd see me
spotting a hiding place and would be right on my tail.
But the hand Twins and company were much closer than
I first thought if they'd have done the same as
me and run for the fence, they'd have been slowed
down trying to force their way through the gap, and
(28:13):
the hand Twins gang would have caught up with them.
But then, being at the front, I didn't know that.
So after bursting through the fence and looking over my shoulder,
my first thoughts were this weird mix of oh no,
I'm alone and oh thank God, because it didn't look
like anyone was following me through the metal gates of
whatever abandoned clota was on. I saw my mates running past,
(28:36):
then what looked like all of the hand Twins crew,
so there was this wash of relief that passed over me.
I didn't stop running, though, I was still scared out
of my wits and wanted to find a hiding place.
So that's what I did, and it basically involved sitting
in a bush that had a view of the front
entrance so I could be hidden whilst being aware of
my surroundings. If this had happened a few years later,
(29:00):
we'd have all had mobiles to call each other on,
but it was nineteen ninety nine, and I know people
had mobiles back then, but not five working class eleven
year olds from Bradford, and so instead of being able
to do some information gathering, I had no choice but
to sit there in my leather jacket with my bag
of sweets and just wait until I thought the coast
(29:21):
was suitably clear. I'm not sure how long I waited,
but it felt like a long time. Then, just as
I started thinking, yeah, I might be safe to run home,
I saw someone walking on the other side of the
metal gate, toward where the gap in the fence was.
Obviously I froze in place, not being able to see
who it was, just knowing someone was there and that
(29:42):
it might have been one of the lads chasing us.
But then I remember thinking, if it was one of
the lads chasing us, then why are they walking. They
seemed to be walking quite calmly too, not even a
brisk walk or jog to suggest that they had any
urgency around them whatsoever, to think it's okay, this is
probably just some dog walker. Then, just as I was
(30:05):
about to climb out of the bush i'd secreted myself in,
I heard something that turned my blood to ice. It
was the sound of the chain link fence rattling. Someone
was forcing their way in. I couldn't see who it
was straight away, there were a few trees blocking my
view of that portion of the fence, but I think
(30:26):
I knew deep down that it must have been one
of that hand crew, because I didn't even have to
see them to know that. I had to get back
into the bush, crouch down, and pray that no one
found me. I then watched as a lad called Fernsy
stepped out from behind the trees. I didn't know him personally,
I just knew him by that nickname, Fernsy. He didn't
(30:47):
know me either, and although we'd seen each other around town,
we'd never spoken a word in exchange. He had no
reason to hate me, no reason to want to kick
the shit out of me and rob my sweets. But
that didn't stop him from chasing me, and for some reason,
that scared me even more than the prospect of getting
the crap beaten out of me. But even scarier was
(31:08):
seeing him start to actively and methodically hunt for me.
I didn't think anyone had seen me dart through the
chain link fence, otherwise surely they'd have immediately chased me.
But as it turns out, someone had seen me, and
they were in no rush to come back. I didn't
know home would all that well, you see, and they
(31:30):
knew something I didn't. Phernsy didn't say anything. As he
stocked closer and closer to the bush I was in,
he couldn't see me, but by the time he got
within a few feet, he bolted it and ran as
fast as I could out the back of the bush.
I ran and ran, thinking there'd be some kind of
way out ahead of me, but there wasn't. There was
(31:52):
only this big brick wall at the back of whatever
a bandon plot I was on, and the only chance
I had of scaling it was to climb a tree
that was off to my right, then hop over the
wall after darting along one of its branches. And so
I ran. And when I got there, I dropped my
bag of sweets and started to climb, but it wasn't
fast enough. I was just about to scramble up a
(32:15):
low branch i'd managed to grab onto when I just
felt this pair of hands take hold of my leg.
Phernsy pulled me down so hard that I graised my
hands on the branch and was dragged out of my grip,
and as I fell, I landed so awkwardly that I
felt the shooting pain go through my ankle before I
collapsed to the floor. I don't know if I genuinely
(32:37):
thought that me being hurt would deter Phrensy from beating
me up or if that was just pure wishful thinking
on my part, but it didn't make a blind bit
of difference. I kept saying to him stuff like please
don't stop. I think I think I broke my ankle,
but it was like he wasn't listening at all. He
just started kicking me over and over again, aiming for
(32:59):
my head but sometimes getting my chest and shoulder and
my arm which I was using to cover my head.
He just kept kicking me and kicking me until in
the end I made one final attempt to beg him
to stop, which unfortunately meant that he had a nice
little window to land a full force kick right my face.
(33:22):
I don't think I was knocked out, but I was
definitely stunned. The pain that shot through my nose and
mouth was like nothing I'd ever felt before, and all
I could do was lie there, holding my face and
head while groaning for him to stop. I don't think
I could get any worse. I mean I was scared
that he might kill me or something, mostly by accidents.
In one of those, it was only a prank that
(33:44):
turns deadly. But aside from that, I really didn't think
I had much else to worry about. But then Phernsy
started trying to pull my pants down, and that's how
I know I wasn't knocked out, because I felt it,
and when I did, I started to scream in a
way I didn't know I was capable of. I actually
(34:07):
didn't know what he was planning at the time. I
was too young and naive to think boys were in
any danger of that. I just thought that he wanted
to humiliate me even further by making me walk back
home in the nude, and with that in mind, it
was my turn to attack him, although to be fair,
my attempt was laughably ineffective. However, what throwing punches and
(34:31):
kicking out at him did do was insure that I
bought myself just enough time for the hand twins to
show up. At first, this was terrifying to me, as
it looked like Phernsy now had back up to finish
whatever humiliation he was planning, But in some weird twist
of fate, it was those hand twins who saved me
from what was about to happen. They started laughing at Phernsy,
(34:56):
not with him, but at him and all because he'd
got my hants half way down and just in case
I haven't made it clear already, I'm a boy, not
a girl. And they were asking him what he was planning,
like sort of making fun of him, calling him gay
and stuff like that, and they got him to stop immediately,
but then instead of trying to strip me, he started
(35:17):
kicking the crap out of me again. The hand twins
were like, whoa, what are you doing? Because they could
see what the state I was already in, and they
just wanted to scare us in rob us of our sweets,
not bloody kill us. One of the brothers I think
his name was Frances, then started slapping Fernsy around, saying
how he hated bullies, which is ironic because that's the
(35:38):
exact thing they were doing to us. It seemed like
they didn't let me leave with my sweets, but they
did let me pull my pants up and leave, which,
to be honest, was all I really wanted to do. Anyway,
I never told anyone what Fernsy tried to do. And
if you're probably wondering why I haven't used many names,
is because I still want a little bit of anonymity
(35:58):
in all of this. As for Phernsie, I don't think
that matters any more because he's no longer with us.
Seven years after that incident, Phernsy was stabbed to death
on a quiet street after a car with four lads
hit him at fifty miles an hour. People just thought
it was some kind of gang beef, but the way
they killed him makes me think it was something a
(36:20):
bit more personal, and that perhaps I wasn't the only
one that Phernsie had tried to do something terrible till
My name is Martin and I've been listening to your
YouTube videos since the summer, and since Halloween is coming up,
(36:42):
I thought now would be as good a time as
ever to share something personal with you. I say personal,
but it didn't strictly happen to me. It happened to
my dad. But as you can imagine, having something terrible
happen to my dad was something I took extremely personally.
I grew up in high Wickham, a town of less
than one hundred thousand people that sits on the northwestern
(37:04):
edges of London. I feel like I got the best
of both worlds growing up because London is only about
half an hour away by train, but high Wickham is
surrounded by countryside and parks, so it's not nearly as
fast pace as life in the capitol. London has quite
a lot of crime relatively speaking anyways, whereas high Wickham
(37:25):
is the kind of place where if there's even so
much as a burglary, the whole town is shocked. That
kind of thing makes me feel lucky to have been
brought up there because the violence and apathy of the
big city hasn't yet permeated their way into the country.
Then back in twenty eighteen, something happened on Halloween night
(37:45):
that made everyone think those days of innocent tranquility were over.
Just like everywhere else in the UK, kids in high
Wickham are exposed to a lot of American culture via
movies and TV programs, so when it comes to late October,
they wouldn't dress up, have a Halloween party and go
trick or treating. I say the thing about American culture
(38:06):
because my parents were always fond of telling me that
when they were kids, there was no such thing as
trick or treating, and every one looked forward to Bonfire
Night instead, which is only a few days later on.
Remember remember the fifth of November anyway, So come Halloween
night there are quite a few trick or treats roaming
the dark, rainy streets of high Wickhambe, terrorizing pensioners with
(38:30):
demands for harebell. But I only got a brief glimpse
of them because I was headed to a Halloween get
together over at a friend's house. It was a week night,
a Wednesday, if I remember correctly, so although I couldn't
stay out too late, I was seventeen at the time
and had sixth form in the morning, I was excited
to sneak a few beers in my mate's back garden.
(38:52):
His parents were really chill like that as long as
we didn't take the piss and get too loud, then
we were fine to have a few cants. I got
there at about five, after i'd arrived home from school
and change, while my mate's parents said that we'd all
have to make our way home by eleven. But then
after a few hours of light drinking and hanging out,
(39:13):
my mate's mom came out into the back garden to
tell me that my mom had just been on the phone.
I asked if everything was okay, and my mate's mom
said they had to go home right away. I asked why,
and my MAT's mom said that she didn't know, only
that my own mother had called her, asking to make
sure that I was on my way home. Immediately, I
(39:35):
remember one of my mates being like, uh, oh, what
have you gone and done now? And the implication being
that it was in trouble. Somehow I was actually convinced
that was the case myself and I as I walked
back home, I was racking my brain trying to figure
out exactly what I'd done to warrant having my evening
interrupted like that. I arrived back home just about ready
(39:58):
to face the music, but unlocking the door and walking inside,
things didn't go anywhere near how I expected them to. Usually,
speaking if I was in trouble, the first thing that
I'd hear when walking through the doors andrew me, and
your mum would like a word with you. And that
was generally the sign that I was about to get
a bollocking, and it was usually my dad who delivered
(40:19):
that stern opening address. But that night, on Halloween night
back in two thousand eighteen. It was my mum who
had called me into the front room, and she didn't
sound angry at all. She sounded terrified. It feels weird
looking back on it now, because at the time I
just knew something had happened to my dad. He should
(40:40):
have been home when I got back at around ten
p m. But he wasn't. And then the fact that
my mum seemed so upset over something, I just picked
up on it right away, before she could even say
anything else. I walked into the front room and us
where's Dad and she just replied, Dad's in the hospital.
(41:01):
Then she told me to sit down. I asked, is
he going to die? And my mom said no, but
that something had happened. That meant that he probably is
going to be scarred for life. I was extremely relieved
to hear that he wasn't going to die, and I
had this weird feeling that whatever came next would be fine.
And I know that sounds weird, maybe a little bit callous,
(41:24):
but it was like, no matter what my mom said next,
at least he's not dead. It might be some life
changing injury, but at least I'm not going to lose him.
That kind of emotional whiplash definitely helped me put things
into perspective, but what happened to my dad was absolutely
atrocious and something I find chillingly disturbing even nearly six
(41:46):
years later. While I was at my maid's house chilling
in his back garden quite literally. With it being October,
my mom and Dad had been receiving a steady stream
of trick or treats. The majority of them came between
about six and seven, Then as it got closer to
eight o'clock, the knocks on the door were getting fewer
and further. Between about quarter to eight, Mum and Dad
(42:09):
got one last knock at the door. Mum said that
she remembered telling my dad how they were almost out
of sweets to hand out and how next year he
should buy more. Dad gets up, walks to the door,
then opens it up, but instead of seeing a group
of kids in fancy dress calling out trick or treat,
there's just one grown up standing there with some kind
(42:29):
of white ghost mask on. My Dad takes one look
at this bloke and says something like you're having a laugh,
aren't you, mate, And the bloke doesn't say anything in response. Instead,
he started to unscrew a bottle of what my dad
said looked like pink lucas eade. My dad said he
sort of knew that it must have been some kind
(42:50):
of prank, and he had a feeling the bloke was
about to try and give him a Luca's Aide shower,
so when he launched the liquid at my dad, he
darted behind our doors, so that the liquid landed and
hid him on the face and on the part of
his foot that wasn't covered by a slipper. The guy
with a bottle then legged it really fast away, and
(43:11):
my dad said that he thought it was weird to
not hear any kind of laughter or anything like that.
And this is also in the age of smartphones, so
my dad also expected to maybe see someone filming the
whole thing from the street, but there was no one there.
Some rando had literally walked up our drive all alone,
thrown lucaste onto my dad, and then she ran off.
(43:32):
But that confusion only lasted a few short seconds from
my father, because just moments after that pink liqu had
touched his skin it started to burn. Mum said that
she just heard my dad suddenly yelping like he was
in loads of pain, and when she ran out to
see what was happening, a patch of skin on the
side of his face was blistering and bleeding. Neither of
(43:53):
them had any idea what was going on until the
ambulance was on their way, at which point my dad
started realizing that whatever was in that lad's bottle was
not lucas aide and that it was some kind of
corrosive acid. Mum said that he was shouting at her
to grab some baking sod or bleach because he thought
that he could neutralize the chemical reaction. But Mum was
(44:14):
on the phone to the ambulance when that happened, and
when she asked the lady on the phone if that's
what she should do, the woman gave her clear instructions
not to try and neutralize it or it might make
things worse. They still didn't know what kind of substance
the guy had thrown on to my dad, so until
they did they were to just wait until medical professionals
(44:34):
had arrived before they started treatment. Dad was in agony
by the time they arrived, but he still had enough
about him to tell my mom to wait at home
so I wouldn't arrive back to an empty house and
then potentially see something on the news. We were allowed
to visit him the next day before he went into
surgery for a skin graft, and seeing my dad like
(44:56):
that was really hard on both me and my mom.
He was full of strong painkillers, so despite his injuries,
he seemed to be feeling quite perky, and the irony
wasn't lost on us that it was him telling us
to stop worrying and that everything would be fine instead
of us providing him with any comfort. His skin graft
(45:17):
operation went really well, and from where the burn was
on his face, he can't really tell he's even scarred
unless you look really carefully in the right light. But
that was only one part of the puzzle solved. The
other part was why the effing hell he'd been targeted
in the first place. It kills me to even have
to type it out, but the police never caught who
(45:38):
threw acid at my dad, but I think that it
might have something to do with another acid attack that
had happened just the previous year. Don't sue me if
I get this bit wrong, because it's all from memory,
but at one hundred percent happened, and there's news articles
about it out there and if you're interested, you can
read more about it. But to my memory, this is
(45:58):
what happened. Some guy drove up from London to square
up against a local guy, I think from a beef
that started on social media, I guess. But londoner then
tracked the local lad down to a park and was
carrying a bottle of acid when he confronted him. Now
this is the part that really sends me. The local
lad suspecting that there was acid in the bottle, basically
(46:21):
Karate kicked the bottle out of his hand as soon
as he unscrewed the cap, but then the acid went
flying into a woman sitting on a bench near by,
and when she realized what was happening, she was rushed
to the hospital. My dad was okay, He got his
skin grafted, spent about a week in hospital recovering, and
then got sent home. This poor woman, on the other hand,
(46:44):
ended up getting a skin infection which then killed her.
That could have been my dad. It could have very
easily have been my dad under the exact same circumstances.
I don't know how the poor woman ended up with
a skin infection, but she did. It seems like just
the luck of the draw. Almost she lost her life
(47:04):
because some absolute scrot decided to use acid as a
weapon one day. She was rushed to hospital, operated on
all the same stuff as my father, but she lost
her life and he didn't. And just writing that out
makes me feel so lucky that I could cry. The
woman who died was a mother of three. Her kids
must have been absolutely beyond heartbroken, plus horrified that it
(47:28):
was bloody acid and a subsequent infection that had killed
their mum. Why didn't that happen to me? Why them
and not us? I'm not saying I think my dad
should have died or anything. No one should have to
go before their time like that, especially non in such
a horrible way. But the thing that really plays on
my mind these days is just that, Why them and
(47:50):
not us? Another reason I was inspired to write this
is the fact that another acid attack happened in London
just the other day. I heard it was two schoolgirls
got it thrown on them, most likely by a boy
that had been rejected after asking one of them out.
I support calls for tougher sentences for acid attackers, but
it also makes me think, like, how many more times
(48:13):
is it going to happen, and in my darker moments,
I don't think it'll ever stop. I have this sick
feeling that acid attacks are just part of our life now,
that if you piss someone off big enough, they won't
just beat you up or one a fight or anything
else like that, They'll just buy some asset off the
Internet and throw it in your face. Because with something
(48:35):
like that, if you live the rest of your life
with horrible scarring, you're considered one of the lucky ones.
Because the unlucky ones, like that poor woman sitting on
the bench that day, don't get to walk away with
their lives intact. So rest in peace to her and
to my dad. I love you and I'm glad you're
still here. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification
(49:01):
bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release
new videos every Monday and Thursday at nine pm E
s T. And there are super fun live streams every
Sunday and Wednesday night. If you've got a story, be
sure to submit them to my email at Let's Read
Submissions at gmail dot com and maybe even hear your
story featured on the next video. And if you want
(49:23):
to support me, even more. Grab early access to all
future narrations and bonus content over on Patreon, or click
that big join button to hear about the extra perks
from members of the channel, and check out the Let's
Free podcast where you can hear all of these stories
and big compilations. Look at it anywhere you listen to podcasts.
All links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends,
(49:46):
and remember Phrensy started trying to pull my pants dot
what What
Hey everyone, Before the video begins, I just wanted to
make you aware of a go fund me linked down
below for some dear friends of mine who are one
of many lives completely upended by Hurricane Helene. These friends
had their home flooded last year during Hurricane Adahlia and
were displaced for nearly a year while they wrangled with insurance, FEMA,
(00:22):
and contractors to just now a year later get their
lives back to normal, only to a few weeks after
have their entire home destroyed again by five feet of
flooding within the space of twelve hours. Now, with all
that being said, don't feel obligated to donate. I'm just
hoping that we as a community can give them enough
(00:43):
leeway financially as they go through the recovery process and
decide how to approach this incredibly uncertain time in their lives.
Thank you. On Halloween night back in nineteen seventy eight,
(01:12):
I was just ten years old and I was getting
ready to go trick or treating with my buddies from
fifth grade. I remember being really excited because the year before,
my friends and I had gotten to run up and
down the streets in total freedom, knocking on houses wherever
we could. Now, it sounds crazy to think that we
were allowed to go out at night at that age,
almost totally unsupervised, But since we were going from door
(01:36):
to door and being constantly greeted by adults giving us candy,
I guess folks figured that it was just safe as
could be, and it really was. We had the night
to ourselves, running around like crazy and seeing all our
elementary school friends and their costumes. Then at one point
there was this big old candy swap going on where
(01:56):
kids would swap their pixie sticks for dumb dums and
their Tootsie rolls for peanut butter cups, like some big
old candy stock exchange. It was magical, one of those
childhood memories you carry with you for the rest of
your life. And most importantly, nothing very untoward happened, and
so as you can imagine, I was incredibly excited to
(02:17):
do the whole thing again next year, and then incredibly
disappointed when I found out it wasn't happening the first year.
So back in seventy seven, I remember my parents saying
something like just make sure you're back before dark and
don't go too far. But then the next year in
seventy eight. My mom seemed way over involved right from
(02:39):
the get go. She wanted to know who I'm going
out with, where they live, what their parents' names were,
and if I know their phone numbers and all of that.
She asked me a million questions to the point where
it got very annoying. And then when I told her
that I was heading out to meet my friends, she
broke some very bad news. I wouldn't be leaving on
(03:00):
my own, and I wouldn't be trick or treating with
my fifth grade buddies. I'd be waiting for our neighbor,
missus Anderson, to stop by with a bunch of random
neighborhood kids, and she was going to walk us up
and down the block for like half an hour before
dropping us off back home. And believe me when I
say I was devastated. I kept asking why what it changed,
(03:25):
and why I couldn't go out with my friends, But
all my mom would tell me was that if I
didn't want to go with Missus Anderson, then I wasn't
going trick or treating at all. I don't know if
every kid's mom waited until the last goddamn moment to
ruin their Halloween, but mine did, and I was on
the verge of full blown tears before I finally gave in.
(03:46):
I was either going to suck it up or miss
out on the big bag of candy in time with
my friends, so obviously I chose the candy. I remember
finishing off my cowboy costume in a real stinker of
a mood. Then when Missus Anne Person showed up to
collect me off, I went. It was me, Missus Anderson,
and three other random kids from the neighborhood, one of
(04:08):
which was missus Anderson's kid, Billy, And at first I
was still in a very terrible mood because I wasn't
with my friends. We were under strict supervision and Missus
Anderson said that we could only walk in a short
loop up and down the street. All the other kids
were in chaperone groups like that too, so it wasn't
like it was just us, and although it wasn't as
(04:29):
lame as I thought it was going to be, it
still sucked compared to the chaos of the previous year.
So we're maybe twenty minutes into the adult mandated trick
or treating, and the adults have this thing organized so
badly that there's congestion. Toward the end of the route,
we're literally queuing at this one house in front of
not one, but two other groups of trick or treaters,
(04:52):
and as Missus Anderson and the lady in front start
talking to each other, her son sort of sidles up
to me, points off into the distance and says, that
kid's giving me the creeps. I look to see what
he's pointing at, and off in the distance there's a
kid standing near the edge of the park where the
(05:12):
old jungle gym was. He was close enough for us
to see that he was wearing a mask, but he's
not with any kind of group, and so we say, hey,
what gives eh? Kid gets to walk around on his own?
Why not us. Looking back on it, it was kind
of cold of us to just drop him like that,
but we were kids. We didn't know any better. We
(05:34):
saw a perceived injustice and we called it out. Even
chimps and monkeys go crazy when they think something's unfair. Anyway,
we start yelling about this kid out there alone, and
Missus Anderson sees him too, so she starts saying something like, hey,
come back here, rate this instant young man. You've to
stay with your group. The kid just kind of stands
(05:55):
there for a minute, not responding, and then Missus Anderson
yells at him again and he starts walking over to
the groups of kids. Missus Anderson then says, which group
were you with, and then starts asking all around to
the adult something like was this kid with you? But
none of the adults seemed to recognize his mask, so
(06:16):
each just sort of shook their heads when confused in
the chaos, I remember looking at the kid and thinking
how I was ninety nine percent sure that I hadn't
seen him around that night. I've been checking out everyone
else's costumes and whatnot, and I didn't remember this kid's
green goblin mask anywhere. Also, it wasn't a green goblin
mask like the villain from Spider Man. It was just
(06:38):
sort of a goblin that happened to be green. Maybe
that inspired Spider Man. I don't know now. Anyways, I'm
looking at the kid's mask, thinking I don't remember seeing
him around, But at the same time, something about him
was just oddly familiar to me. I don't know if
it was his shoes or his clothes or the way
he carried himself, but I'm pretty sure that I knew
(06:59):
that kid from school. It turns out that I was
one hundred percent right on that one, but we'll get
back to that later. So Missus Anderson is calling around
towards all the other grown ups, asking if they're missing
a kid. But I'm still watching the kid and trying
to figure out why he seems so familiar. So Anderson
isn't watching him, but I am, and that meant that
(07:22):
I was still watching him when he slips away from
Missus Anderson walks right up to a kid in the
group behind us that had just joined the line, and
then pulls out a knife out of that candy bag
that he had with them and just starts stabbing. Things
were calm one minute and chaos the next, And all
(07:42):
I remember is running back to my house because I
was only a block away. My dad came to the door,
and as I ran inside, he ran outside because he
could hear fifty kids all screaming and running with adults
trying to corral them. I mean, it must look like
a freaking disaster movie or something, because so some kids
got blood on him. Some of the adults had blood
(08:03):
on him too, Just wild stuff for him. To run
out into with no context whatsoever, and I spent the
rest of the night in my bedroom scared out of
my mind, with my mom making sure that I wasn't
freaking out too hard. And the rest of this I
got for my dad. So it's kind of secondhand info.
I obviously saw the first stabbing happen up close, and
(08:24):
in my head I was thinking way more kids got hurt,
maybe got killed too, But by some sheer miracle, no
one died, and only one kid and one grown up
had to be taken to the hospital. And the grown
up only got hurt because they cut their hand on
the knife while grabbing it off of the kid in
the goblin mask who was doing the stabbing. It seems
(08:45):
like we kind of dodged a bullet right, that it
could have been way worse. Well, it was way worse,
and even now no one really knows any of what
that kid says is true or not. It's became an
enduring arth legend in the town that I grew up in, though,
And so the way it happened was that the kids
started stabbing, and then some grown up with brass balls
(09:08):
ran up and immediately subdued the kid before he could
hurt anyone else. The kid who got hurt received only
defensive wounds, as in cuts to their hand wrists from
trying to defend themselves, you know. But then the cuts
were only minor, and it was like the kid was
only trying to scare her, not really hurt her, but
(09:28):
it just got out of control. That kind of fell
in line with the kid's story. But like with that
other thing about recognizing him, I'll get to that later.
And so this courageous grown up pins the kid down,
grabs the knife off him, cutting themselves in the process,
and like some Christopher Nolan version of Scooby Doo, they
(09:50):
pulled the mask off the kid to reveal who the
mysterious villain truly is, only to discover that it was
a kid named Leroy. Leroy wasn't this kid's real name, obviously,
but I don't think it's my place to be spreading
him or his family name around the internet over something
he did when he was twelve or however old he was.
(10:12):
But he sures how it look like a Leroy, so
I guess that's what I'll call him. Anyway. This Leroy
kid came from a very bad family. Mom was on drugs,
didn't take care of him properly, and dad was never around.
It's a real sad story and not LeRoy's fault at all,
but he ended up with a reputation as being like
the school stinky kid. But then, almost totally unbeknownst to
(10:36):
us kids, LeRoy's appearance at the Tricker treating events surprised everyone,
and not just because he pulled out a knife, but
because by that point, Leroy had been an official missing
person for almost two months, so at the start of
the school year, Leroy didn't show up to school. The
school's principal then reached out to the county sheriff, who
(10:58):
drove out to LeRoy's family trailer to talk to his
mom or her boyfriend, and both were high out of
their minds thought Leroy was at school and raised all hell.
When the sheriff and his boys took them away in
cuffs for child neglect, they had no idea Leroy was missing,
but word has it that his mom bowed her eyes
out down at the department, and I guess whenever she
(11:20):
sobered up, it hit her what a terrible mom she was,
and at first everyone blamed her and her no good
boyfriend for LeRoy's disappearance. By the end of September, the
sheriff had to scale back the search for him. The
weather was getting colder, the nights were getting darker, and
was looking more and more like it was a search
for LeRoy's body rather than a search to find him alive.
(11:45):
And that was doubly so by the time Halloween rolled around,
cause how the hell was a twelve year old kid
going to survive being homeless for the better part of
two months. Everyone was real shocked to hear how Leroy
had just showed up out of nowhere. But what shocked
them even more was the story he told the cops
when they finally got around to interviewing him, Because when
(12:07):
they asked him why he'd showed up with a knife
and tried to stab somebody, he told them the devil
made me do it. And I'm guessing the cops figure
that it was just an excuse at first, you know,
kind of like that I don't like Monday's Killer Girl,
that it was blatantly just an attempt to disguise her
total psychopathy. But when they asked more questions on who
(12:28):
this devil was and how he met him, it became
increasingly obvious that Leroy had been kidnapped and held by
not one, but several different people. According to Leroy, he
was playing outside one day when a man approached him,
claiming to be a friend of his father's. The guy
asked if he wanted to meet him, and of course
Leroy says yes, but he also said how he was
(12:51):
uncomfortable just wandering off with a stranger. The guy says,
no problem, let me go get your dad, and then
returns a half hour later, driving a van and telling
Leroy that his dad is in the back and Little
Leroy then approaches the back of the van, looks inside,
and then before he even realizes it's empty, the guy
shoved him into the back, closed and locked the door,
(13:14):
and then drove off with him screaming to be let out.
Leroy said the guy drove him somewhere, someplace he'd never
seen before and had no idea how to get back to.
He said he was forced into a windowless room with
nothing but a mattress and a bucket, and then kept
there for so long and tortured so horribly that he
lost track of time. He said he got so thirsty
(13:37):
and hungry that it hurt, but when he begged for water,
the man who took him gave him water that tasted bad,
and after that he felt weird, like he was tired
but different, and had dark spots in his memory. The
cops asked why Leroy had told them that the devil
made him do it, and he replied that although he
(13:58):
didn't know if the man was the devil, for shiture,
that's what he called himself, He said. The only time
they really talked was when the devil took him out
of the room one day to meet his helpers. Leroy
said that he drank some of the bad tasting water
a while before, but was still feeling woozy when the
devil took him out of his room and over towards
a circular dining table. Sat around it were five or
(14:21):
six men in cloth hoods, but the man who called
himself the devil was wearing a larger wooden mask that
had carved horns sprouting from the top. The man calling
himself the devil then introduced the men as his helpers
and told Leroy that he was to obey them just
like he obeyed him, and that's when Leroy said that
(14:42):
they gave him the mask and told him what they
had given him was very important. They made him wear it,
never letting him take it off all the way, not
even when he ate and drank. Then, after what we
know was almost two months in captivity, the man calling
himself the Devil told Leroy that the only way to
get the mask off was to make a human sacrifice.
(15:06):
Leroy said that by that time he was ready to
do just about anything for a shot at freedom. So
he did exactly as the Devil and his helpers asked
him and attacked the tricker treating groups that I was
a part of, he said. One of Satan's helpers then
walked him across the park to where our groups were
trick or treating, gave him the bag with the knife
in it, and then told him to do as he'd
(15:28):
been told. Leroy said that the moment he killed a kid,
any kid, the Devil would then transport him back in
time to his mom's trailer, and that it'd be like
he'd never been taken at all. And that was all
it took to get him close enough for us to
see him. And when Missus Anderson called him over, I
guess he saw his chance right there. I don't know
(15:51):
exactly what happened to old Leroy after that, as in,
I don't know exactly where he is now or exactly
how the legal process went after he was taken into custody,
But I do know his mom and her boyfriend got
into trouble for a child in endangerment and all of that,
and then Leroy himself got taken to some kind of
psych hospital slash kitty prison. I guess the doctor's there
(16:14):
said there was a whole bunch of things wrong with him,
but he wasn't insane or delusional, and some of the
marks on his body were consistent with the methods of
torture that he'd described to the cops. But the thing
that really messed with people and had this taking on
urban legend status even after all these years, is the
fact that the cops never recovered the mask. You see,
(16:36):
after Leroy was taken down and the cops showed up,
someone had already taken the mask off of him. I
guess I said a Scooby Doo moment earlier, but it
wasn't really like that. They always used to wait until
everything was over and done with before taking off the
bad guy's mask, right, Well, this was real life. So
almost the second that they had Leroy pin down, someone
(16:57):
whips that thing off of him right there, and then
to see who it is, because why wouldn't you. But
then by the time the cops got a crime scene
set up and went looking for LeRoy's green goblin mask
that he was supposedly wearing, no one could find that anywhere.
The cops started asking folks in the neighborhood to make
sure that there isn't a kid who had picked up
the mask by accident. But then when no one comes forward,
(17:21):
they start going door to door in the neighborhood to
make damn sure that there hasn't been a mistake. After all,
Leroy said all his captors touched the mask at some point,
sometimes with their bare hands, so the cops wanted to
maybe check it for finger prints or something like that,
and in fact, I think it was probably their only
connection between Leroy and his supposed kidnappers. But no matter
(17:45):
what they did, they couldn't recover the mask. And to
some it stands to reason that the person who took
it did not want it to fall into the CoP's hands,
which means that there's a whole bunch of people who
think that, right as all the chaos was on folding
after Leroy stabbed a kid, someone who looks so normal
that there's not a single witness to report them just
(18:07):
sort of walks up, picks up the mask, and then
walked off into the darkness, maybe appearing as another parent.
And since no one was ever arrested or convicted of
LeRoy's kidnapping, those same folks who think it's all some
conspiracy hiding in plain sight, they believe his kidnappers are
still out there and that maybe they've been doing stuff
(18:29):
like that for longer than we can imagine. Now, we
know Leroy was kidnapped, and we know he tried to
stab a kid, But as for everything else, I guess
a judge might just call it hearsay. But me personally,
I don't know what to believe because from where I'm standing,
which stranger things have happened and are still happening right now.
(18:51):
I just know that what Leroy told the cops and
the fact his mask was never found somehow scares the
living hell up me. The single most frightening, confusing, and
(19:12):
traumatizing thing that's ever happened to me happened on Halloween
night of nineteen ninety nine, my mates and I had
just started year seven, which in America is equivalent to
sixth grade, starting at eleven and finishing at twelve. Starting
secondary school was exciting, but it also meant that we
were quickly reaching the point where it was no longer
(19:33):
acceptable to go trick or treating. I don't know what
it's like in America, but around here, if a load
of kids walk up your drive dress like minions, of
course you're going to give them a mini Mars bar
or seven. But if a bunch of surly looking almost teenagers,
complete with pimples and mini stashes, start banging on someone's
(19:53):
door demanding chocolate under threat of vandalism, they'd be lucky
to leave with broken teeth, let alone rotten ones. Now
with that in mind, we knew it was the case
of one last blowout, then jacket in for good in
hopes of transitioning to Halloween costume parties with beers and
ciggies and most importantly girls. But before all that, we
(20:17):
could have one more night of wholesome costume fun and
ensure a sweets haul that'll last us till Christmas if
we rationed it properly, And so in March of nineteen
ninety nine, you might remember, the Matrix came out. I
don't need to explain what the Matrix is, so I won't,
and nor will I have to explain why a bunch
(20:37):
of eleven year old boys thought it was the best
thing since sliced bread. So when it came to Halloween costumes,
we decided to just be the Matrix, and not one
of us either, but all of us. But then, because
we didn't all have the making of a Matrix costume,
two of us just wore school uniforms, black ties, and
(20:57):
sunglasses at night, by the way, blind as bats. And
then two of us wore leather jackets and sunglasses, myself included,
while the fifth lad, whose sister was into all that
goth music, was the only one who did the full monty.
We look stupid like two members of the village people
in their security guards. But then the fifth lad, Jamie,
(21:19):
he actually looked the bee's knees now that I look
back on it. He had the long leather trench coat
extra long since he borrowed it from his older sister.
He had the little sunglasses like the ones Morpheus actually wears,
and he had his hair all slick back with hair
gel too, with some army boots, black jeans, and a
black T shirt on to complete the look. He actually
(21:42):
looked fantastic, to be honest, but he also stood out
like a sore thumb walking around neighborhoods where kids were
dressed as Woody or a buzz from toy story. And
so we start knocking on these houses and we either
get pensioners asking what the bloody hell are you lot
dressed as, or young blokes laughing when they instantly recognized
(22:02):
what we were supposed to be. It was a really
good laugh, actually, and we made our way up and
down the streets near where we lived until eventually we
ran out of houses to knock at. It was only
about half seven by that time, and none of us
had to be back inside until ten at the earliest,
so we still had ages to kill and very little
to do. But then Jamie had an idea. Instead of
(22:27):
just going home, we could walk down a road a
bit and cross over the dual carriageway and then knock
at some houses in the neighborhood across from us. We
all agreed that was a good idea because who wouldn't
want more many chocolate bars. There was just one small problem.
We'd have to pass the home Wood estate. Homewood is
(22:49):
probably one of the roughest areas of Bradford. That's not
to say that the vast majority of people who live
there aren't friendly and welcoming, because ninety nine percent of
the time you can walk and drive around the area
and not get even an ounce of trouble. It's just
never been the safest place to be after dark, especially
not for a group of eleven year old's dressed like
(23:09):
debt collectors on their way to a rave. But then
we had ourselves a little plan. Instead of walking down
one of the larger roads past the estate, we'd walk
through the alley near the train tracks, which would minimize
our exposure to the estate while passing it to get
to the other neighborhood. Now, sorry for the logistical briefing there,
but I'm just giving you an idea of why we
(23:31):
thought it was a good plan to go walking down
an alleyway after dark while dressed like a German industrial band.
We thought that we wouldn't run into any of the
bad lads who lived on the estate. But little did
we know they were hanging out in the one place
we didn't want to bump into them. So about halfway
down the alleyway there's a blind ninety degree turn. Then
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you can't really see much at the end of the
alley either. We thought that gave us cover, and it did,
but it also meant that we couldn't see what was
around either bend. We round the first one and there's
no one there, so we think brilliant or in the
free and clear. But then we round the second corner
and we run into half a dozen of the very
(24:15):
people we hoped not to run into. I didn't know
all the lad's names, but I do remember three of them.
The main two were the Hand twins. Francis and Anthony
Hand were both boxers and had the reputations to match.
They'd been in trouble with the police, mainly because they
loved to fight, but they were partial to just about
any kind of crime you can imagine, so robbing a
(24:38):
few costumed kids of their suites was really nothing to them,
especially since we were considered fair game, and by that
I mean of a certain age and male, so not
too shameful to rob and possibly slap around some kids
like us for a bit, and so the second we
round the corner, there's obviously this massive uh oh moment
for us, but the hand To and company just burst
(25:01):
out laughing. They obviously knew what we were dressed, as
every one of a certain age did, because the matrix
was bloody massive at the time, but they weren't exactly
the type to go giving us compliments on how much
effort we put into our various costumes. Instead, they saw
fit to try and humiliate us. They were laughing their
heads off, shouting stuff like the these dickheads think they're
(25:24):
in the bloody matrix, and we tried our best to
just ignore them, which was stupid really, because when lads
like that sense any kind of weakness, you're well and
truly buggered. And so despite trying to just walk around them,
they were in no mood to simply let us pass.
It started when they noticed our bags of sweets, at
(25:44):
which point one of the hand twins started saying something like, look, boys,
they brought us all their sweets, and they started trying
to grab one of our lads bags of sweets, saying
something like you're too old to be dressed up like
that and too fat to be eating those sweets, which,
to be fair, he probably was. But just because we
couldn't fight back didn't mean we were about to just
(26:06):
let ourselves be bullied. So one of them trying to
rob our matess bag of sweets, but our mate saying, no,
get off me, you wanker. He's not throwing punches or anything.
But the confrontation was exactly what the hand Twins and
company were looking for. So as soon as there's a
bit of r G bargie, the hands and friends spread
out along the streets so we couldn't pass at all.
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We didn't all shout run or anything, but there was
this very recognizable moment where we all just kind of
looked at each other, thinking we're in trouble here. Then
when the first one of us turned around and ran
back down the alley, the rest of us followed, but
so did the hand Twins, who with their boys behind them,
when chasing us Like the clappers of hell. We ran
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like lads possessed, and since we were running down a
blind entry, there was only one way we could all run.
But then once we rounded the corner and sprinted to
the end of the ar alleyway, there was no plan
on where we were all running too. Two of the
lads ran left, probably with the intention of running backwards
towards our neighborhood, but the other three of us ran right.
(27:11):
This was definitely not a good idea, as we'd have
to walk back the way we came if we wanted
to get home, but in the moment, all we were
thinking was run, run, run, So I just acted on
instinct and ran right with my two mates. After the turn,
we were faced with quite a long straight road with
a wall on one side and trees on the other.
(27:32):
I happened to notice that to our right, where the
trees were, there was a little gap in a chain
link fence, and on instinct, I just ran for it.
I didn't really know what was on the other side.
It all looked abandoned and overgrown, but I thought in
that case it'd be a good place to hide. I
thought my mates would follow me, because being the faster runner,
(27:53):
I'd managed to overtake them by the time that I'd
spotted the chain link fence. I thought they'd see me
spotting a hiding place and would be right on my tail.
But the hand Twins and company were much closer than
I first thought if they'd have done the same as
me and run for the fence, they'd have been slowed
down trying to force their way through the gap, and
(28:13):
the hand Twins gang would have caught up with them.
But then, being at the front, I didn't know that.
So after bursting through the fence and looking over my shoulder,
my first thoughts were this weird mix of oh no,
I'm alone and oh thank God, because it didn't look
like anyone was following me through the metal gates of
whatever abandoned clota was on. I saw my mates running past,
(28:36):
then what looked like all of the hand Twins crew,
so there was this wash of relief that passed over me.
I didn't stop running, though, I was still scared out
of my wits and wanted to find a hiding place.
So that's what I did, and it basically involved sitting
in a bush that had a view of the front
entrance so I could be hidden whilst being aware of
my surroundings. If this had happened a few years later,
(29:00):
we'd have all had mobiles to call each other on,
but it was nineteen ninety nine, and I know people
had mobiles back then, but not five working class eleven
year olds from Bradford, and so instead of being able
to do some information gathering, I had no choice but
to sit there in my leather jacket with my bag
of sweets and just wait until I thought the coast
(29:21):
was suitably clear. I'm not sure how long I waited,
but it felt like a long time. Then, just as
I started thinking, yeah, I might be safe to run home,
I saw someone walking on the other side of the
metal gate, toward where the gap in the fence was.
Obviously I froze in place, not being able to see
who it was, just knowing someone was there and that
(29:42):
it might have been one of the lads chasing us.
But then I remember thinking, if it was one of
the lads chasing us, then why are they walking. They
seemed to be walking quite calmly too, not even a
brisk walk or jog to suggest that they had any
urgency around them whatsoever, to think it's okay, this is
probably just some dog walker. Then, just as I was
(30:05):
about to climb out of the bush i'd secreted myself in,
I heard something that turned my blood to ice. It
was the sound of the chain link fence rattling. Someone
was forcing their way in. I couldn't see who it
was straight away, there were a few trees blocking my
view of that portion of the fence, but I think
(30:26):
I knew deep down that it must have been one
of that hand crew, because I didn't even have to
see them to know that. I had to get back
into the bush, crouch down, and pray that no one
found me. I then watched as a lad called Fernsy
stepped out from behind the trees. I didn't know him personally,
I just knew him by that nickname, Fernsy. He didn't
(30:47):
know me either, and although we'd seen each other around town,
we'd never spoken a word in exchange. He had no
reason to hate me, no reason to want to kick
the shit out of me and rob my sweets. But
that didn't stop him from chasing me, and for some reason,
that scared me even more than the prospect of getting
the crap beaten out of me. But even scarier was
(31:08):
seeing him start to actively and methodically hunt for me.
I didn't think anyone had seen me dart through the
chain link fence, otherwise surely they'd have immediately chased me.
But as it turns out, someone had seen me, and
they were in no rush to come back. I didn't
know home would all that well, you see, and they
(31:30):
knew something I didn't. Phernsy didn't say anything. As he
stocked closer and closer to the bush I was in,
he couldn't see me, but by the time he got
within a few feet, he bolted it and ran as
fast as I could out the back of the bush.
I ran and ran, thinking there'd be some kind of
way out ahead of me, but there wasn't. There was
(31:52):
only this big brick wall at the back of whatever
a bandon plot I was on, and the only chance
I had of scaling it was to climb a tree
that was off to my right, then hop over the
wall after darting along one of its branches. And so
I ran. And when I got there, I dropped my
bag of sweets and started to climb, but it wasn't
fast enough. I was just about to scramble up a
(32:15):
low branch i'd managed to grab onto when I just
felt this pair of hands take hold of my leg.
Phernsy pulled me down so hard that I graised my
hands on the branch and was dragged out of my grip,
and as I fell, I landed so awkwardly that I
felt the shooting pain go through my ankle before I
collapsed to the floor. I don't know if I genuinely
(32:37):
thought that me being hurt would deter Phrensy from beating
me up or if that was just pure wishful thinking
on my part, but it didn't make a blind bit
of difference. I kept saying to him stuff like please
don't stop. I think I think I broke my ankle,
but it was like he wasn't listening at all. He
just started kicking me over and over again, aiming for
(32:59):
my head but sometimes getting my chest and shoulder and
my arm which I was using to cover my head.
He just kept kicking me and kicking me until in
the end I made one final attempt to beg him
to stop, which unfortunately meant that he had a nice
little window to land a full force kick right my face.
(33:22):
I don't think I was knocked out, but I was
definitely stunned. The pain that shot through my nose and
mouth was like nothing I'd ever felt before, and all
I could do was lie there, holding my face and
head while groaning for him to stop. I don't think
I could get any worse. I mean I was scared
that he might kill me or something, mostly by accidents.
In one of those, it was only a prank that
(33:44):
turns deadly. But aside from that, I really didn't think
I had much else to worry about. But then Phernsy
started trying to pull my pants down, and that's how
I know I wasn't knocked out, because I felt it,
and when I did, I started to scream in a
way I didn't know I was capable of. I actually
(34:07):
didn't know what he was planning at the time. I
was too young and naive to think boys were in
any danger of that. I just thought that he wanted
to humiliate me even further by making me walk back
home in the nude, and with that in mind, it
was my turn to attack him, although to be fair,
my attempt was laughably ineffective. However, what throwing punches and
(34:31):
kicking out at him did do was insure that I
bought myself just enough time for the hand twins to
show up. At first, this was terrifying to me, as
it looked like Phernsy now had back up to finish
whatever humiliation he was planning, But in some weird twist
of fate, it was those hand twins who saved me
from what was about to happen. They started laughing at Phernsy,
(34:56):
not with him, but at him and all because he'd
got my hants half way down and just in case
I haven't made it clear already, I'm a boy, not
a girl. And they were asking him what he was planning,
like sort of making fun of him, calling him gay
and stuff like that, and they got him to stop immediately,
but then instead of trying to strip me, he started
(35:17):
kicking the crap out of me again. The hand twins
were like, whoa, what are you doing? Because they could
see what the state I was already in, and they
just wanted to scare us in rob us of our sweets,
not bloody kill us. One of the brothers I think
his name was Frances, then started slapping Fernsy around, saying
how he hated bullies, which is ironic because that's the
(35:38):
exact thing they were doing to us. It seemed like
they didn't let me leave with my sweets, but they
did let me pull my pants up and leave, which,
to be honest, was all I really wanted to do. Anyway,
I never told anyone what Fernsy tried to do. And
if you're probably wondering why I haven't used many names,
is because I still want a little bit of anonymity
(35:58):
in all of this. As for Phernsie, I don't think
that matters any more because he's no longer with us.
Seven years after that incident, Phernsy was stabbed to death
on a quiet street after a car with four lads
hit him at fifty miles an hour. People just thought
it was some kind of gang beef, but the way
they killed him makes me think it was something a
(36:20):
bit more personal, and that perhaps I wasn't the only
one that Phernsie had tried to do something terrible till
My name is Martin and I've been listening to your
YouTube videos since the summer, and since Halloween is coming up,
(36:42):
I thought now would be as good a time as
ever to share something personal with you. I say personal,
but it didn't strictly happen to me. It happened to
my dad. But as you can imagine, having something terrible
happen to my dad was something I took extremely personally.
I grew up in high Wickham, a town of less
than one hundred thousand people that sits on the northwestern
(37:04):
edges of London. I feel like I got the best
of both worlds growing up because London is only about
half an hour away by train, but high Wickham is
surrounded by countryside and parks, so it's not nearly as
fast pace as life in the capitol. London has quite
a lot of crime relatively speaking anyways, whereas high Wickham
(37:25):
is the kind of place where if there's even so
much as a burglary, the whole town is shocked. That
kind of thing makes me feel lucky to have been
brought up there because the violence and apathy of the
big city hasn't yet permeated their way into the country.
Then back in twenty eighteen, something happened on Halloween night
(37:45):
that made everyone think those days of innocent tranquility were over.
Just like everywhere else in the UK, kids in high
Wickham are exposed to a lot of American culture via
movies and TV programs, so when it comes to late October,
they wouldn't dress up, have a Halloween party and go
trick or treating. I say the thing about American culture
(38:06):
because my parents were always fond of telling me that
when they were kids, there was no such thing as
trick or treating, and every one looked forward to Bonfire
Night instead, which is only a few days later on.
Remember remember the fifth of November anyway, So come Halloween
night there are quite a few trick or treats roaming
the dark, rainy streets of high Wickhambe, terrorizing pensioners with
(38:30):
demands for harebell. But I only got a brief glimpse
of them because I was headed to a Halloween get
together over at a friend's house. It was a week night,
a Wednesday, if I remember correctly, so although I couldn't
stay out too late, I was seventeen at the time
and had sixth form in the morning, I was excited
to sneak a few beers in my mate's back garden.
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His parents were really chill like that as long as
we didn't take the piss and get too loud, then
we were fine to have a few cants. I got
there at about five, after i'd arrived home from school
and change, while my mate's parents said that we'd all
have to make our way home by eleven. But then
after a few hours of light drinking and hanging out,
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my mate's mom came out into the back garden to
tell me that my mom had just been on the phone.
I asked if everything was okay, and my mate's mom
said they had to go home right away. I asked why,
and my MAT's mom said that she didn't know, only
that my own mother had called her, asking to make
sure that I was on my way home. Immediately, I
(39:35):
remember one of my mates being like, uh, oh, what
have you gone and done now? And the implication being
that it was in trouble. Somehow I was actually convinced
that was the case myself and I as I walked
back home, I was racking my brain trying to figure
out exactly what I'd done to warrant having my evening
interrupted like that. I arrived back home just about ready
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to face the music, but unlocking the door and walking inside,
things didn't go anywhere near how I expected them to. Usually,
speaking if I was in trouble, the first thing that
I'd hear when walking through the doors andrew me, and
your mum would like a word with you. And that
was generally the sign that I was about to get
a bollocking, and it was usually my dad who delivered
(40:19):
that stern opening address. But that night, on Halloween night
back in two thousand eighteen. It was my mum who
had called me into the front room, and she didn't
sound angry at all. She sounded terrified. It feels weird
looking back on it now, because at the time I
just knew something had happened to my dad. He should
(40:40):
have been home when I got back at around ten
p m. But he wasn't. And then the fact that
my mum seemed so upset over something, I just picked
up on it right away, before she could even say
anything else. I walked into the front room and us
where's Dad and she just replied, Dad's in the hospital.
(41:01):
Then she told me to sit down. I asked, is
he going to die? And my mom said no, but
that something had happened. That meant that he probably is
going to be scarred for life. I was extremely relieved
to hear that he wasn't going to die, and I
had this weird feeling that whatever came next would be fine.
And I know that sounds weird, maybe a little bit callous,
(41:24):
but it was like, no matter what my mom said next,
at least he's not dead. It might be some life
changing injury, but at least I'm not going to lose him.
That kind of emotional whiplash definitely helped me put things
into perspective, but what happened to my dad was absolutely
atrocious and something I find chillingly disturbing even nearly six
(41:46):
years later. While I was at my maid's house chilling
in his back garden quite literally. With it being October,
my mom and Dad had been receiving a steady stream
of trick or treats. The majority of them came between
about six and seven, Then as it got closer to
eight o'clock, the knocks on the door were getting fewer
and further. Between about quarter to eight, Mum and Dad
(42:09):
got one last knock at the door. Mum said that
she remembered telling my dad how they were almost out
of sweets to hand out and how next year he
should buy more. Dad gets up, walks to the door,
then opens it up, but instead of seeing a group
of kids in fancy dress calling out trick or treat,
there's just one grown up standing there with some kind
(42:29):
of white ghost mask on. My Dad takes one look
at this bloke and says something like you're having a laugh,
aren't you, mate, And the bloke doesn't say anything in response. Instead,
he started to unscrew a bottle of what my dad
said looked like pink lucas eade. My dad said he
sort of knew that it must have been some kind
(42:50):
of prank, and he had a feeling the bloke was
about to try and give him a Luca's Aide shower,
so when he launched the liquid at my dad, he
darted behind our doors, so that the liquid landed and
hid him on the face and on the part of
his foot that wasn't covered by a slipper. The guy
with a bottle then legged it really fast away, and
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my dad said that he thought it was weird to
not hear any kind of laughter or anything like that.
And this is also in the age of smartphones, so
my dad also expected to maybe see someone filming the
whole thing from the street, but there was no one there.
Some rando had literally walked up our drive all alone,
thrown lucaste onto my dad, and then she ran off.
(43:32):
But that confusion only lasted a few short seconds from
my father, because just moments after that pink liqu had
touched his skin it started to burn. Mum said that
she just heard my dad suddenly yelping like he was
in loads of pain, and when she ran out to
see what was happening, a patch of skin on the
side of his face was blistering and bleeding. Neither of
(43:53):
them had any idea what was going on until the
ambulance was on their way, at which point my dad
started realizing that whatever was in that lad's bottle was
not lucas aide and that it was some kind of
corrosive acid. Mum said that he was shouting at her
to grab some baking sod or bleach because he thought
that he could neutralize the chemical reaction. But Mum was
(44:14):
on the phone to the ambulance when that happened, and
when she asked the lady on the phone if that's
what she should do, the woman gave her clear instructions
not to try and neutralize it or it might make
things worse. They still didn't know what kind of substance
the guy had thrown on to my dad, so until
they did they were to just wait until medical professionals
(44:34):
had arrived before they started treatment. Dad was in agony
by the time they arrived, but he still had enough
about him to tell my mom to wait at home
so I wouldn't arrive back to an empty house and
then potentially see something on the news. We were allowed
to visit him the next day before he went into
surgery for a skin graft, and seeing my dad like
(44:56):
that was really hard on both me and my mom.
He was full of strong painkillers, so despite his injuries,
he seemed to be feeling quite perky, and the irony
wasn't lost on us that it was him telling us
to stop worrying and that everything would be fine instead
of us providing him with any comfort. His skin graft
(45:17):
operation went really well, and from where the burn was
on his face, he can't really tell he's even scarred
unless you look really carefully in the right light. But
that was only one part of the puzzle solved. The
other part was why the effing hell he'd been targeted
in the first place. It kills me to even have
to type it out, but the police never caught who
(45:38):
threw acid at my dad, but I think that it
might have something to do with another acid attack that
had happened just the previous year. Don't sue me if
I get this bit wrong, because it's all from memory,
but at one hundred percent happened, and there's news articles
about it out there and if you're interested, you can
read more about it. But to my memory, this is
(45:58):
what happened. Some guy drove up from London to square
up against a local guy, I think from a beef
that started on social media, I guess. But londoner then
tracked the local lad down to a park and was
carrying a bottle of acid when he confronted him. Now
this is the part that really sends me. The local
lad suspecting that there was acid in the bottle, basically
(46:21):
Karate kicked the bottle out of his hand as soon
as he unscrewed the cap, but then the acid went
flying into a woman sitting on a bench near by,
and when she realized what was happening, she was rushed
to the hospital. My dad was okay, He got his
skin grafted, spent about a week in hospital recovering, and
then got sent home. This poor woman, on the other hand,
(46:44):
ended up getting a skin infection which then killed her.
That could have been my dad. It could have very
easily have been my dad under the exact same circumstances.
I don't know how the poor woman ended up with
a skin infection, but she did. It seems like just
the luck of the draw. Almost she lost her life
(47:04):
because some absolute scrot decided to use acid as a
weapon one day. She was rushed to hospital, operated on
all the same stuff as my father, but she lost
her life and he didn't. And just writing that out
makes me feel so lucky that I could cry. The
woman who died was a mother of three. Her kids
must have been absolutely beyond heartbroken, plus horrified that it
(47:28):
was bloody acid and a subsequent infection that had killed
their mum. Why didn't that happen to me? Why them
and not us? I'm not saying I think my dad
should have died or anything. No one should have to
go before their time like that, especially non in such
a horrible way. But the thing that really plays on
my mind these days is just that, Why them and
(47:50):
not us? Another reason I was inspired to write this
is the fact that another acid attack happened in London
just the other day. I heard it was two schoolgirls
got it thrown on them, most likely by a boy
that had been rejected after asking one of them out.
I support calls for tougher sentences for acid attackers, but
it also makes me think, like, how many more times
(48:13):
is it going to happen, and in my darker moments,
I don't think it'll ever stop. I have this sick
feeling that acid attacks are just part of our life now,
that if you piss someone off big enough, they won't
just beat you up or one a fight or anything
else like that, They'll just buy some asset off the
Internet and throw it in your face. Because with something
(48:35):
like that, if you live the rest of your life
with horrible scarring, you're considered one of the lucky ones.
Because the unlucky ones, like that poor woman sitting on
the bench that day, don't get to walk away with
their lives intact. So rest in peace to her and
to my dad. I love you and I'm glad you're
still here. Hey, friends, thanks for listening. Click that notification
(49:01):
bell to be alerted of all future narrations. I release
new videos every Monday and Thursday at nine pm E
s T. And there are super fun live streams every
Sunday and Wednesday night. If you've got a story, be
sure to submit them to my email at Let's Read
Submissions at gmail dot com and maybe even hear your
story featured on the next video. And if you want
(49:23):
to support me, even more. Grab early access to all
future narrations and bonus content over on Patreon, or click
that big join button to hear about the extra perks
from members of the channel, and check out the Let's
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and big compilations. Look at it anywhere you listen to podcasts.
All links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends,
(49:46):
and remember Phrensy started trying to pull my pants dot
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