July 20, 2022 • 50 mins
Scott Johnson is the host of a show called "What Was That Like." His show features stories from ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. In today's featured episode, "Eric killed an intruder" we hear the story of a man who comes face-to-face with a home intruder and is forced to make a life-changing decision.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What Was That Like contains adult languageand content and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised.So I went through the living room,
I flipped on the light to theoutside deck, and all of a sudden,
I'm face to face to the glasswith a stranger. Welcome to What
(00:28):
Was That Like? I'm your host, Scott Johnson. This is a show
where we talk to regular people,people just like you or just like me,
who have found themselves in an extremelyunusual situation. We hear their stories
and get inside their head because weall want to know What was that Like?
(00:49):
More information about each episode at WhatWas That Like? Dot Com?
Here we go. What would youdo if you were asleep with your spouse
and it was the middle of thenight, and suddenly you heard loud noises
like someone banging on your door.What about when you got up and before
(01:15):
turning on any lights, you couldsee the figure of a man standing there
on the other side of your slidingglass doors. And when you turn on
the lights and you see him,and he sees you, and he explodes
with anger and starts trying to breakthrough the door. What would you do?
(01:38):
None of us wants to be putin a situation like that. But
that's what happened to Eric one night. He was trying to figure out what
to do. His wife, Jennifer, was on the phone trying to get
the police there as quickly as possible, and this enraged man was using all
his strength to get into their homeand then things took a big turn for
(02:00):
the Wars. Did you know thatyou can support this show for just a
dollar or two per month? Youcan do that at what was that like?
Dot com slash support? And nowI hope you enjoy my conversation with
Eric who was home the night thishappened. My wife and I were home,
(02:23):
My son was out. He hadleft for college about a month before,
so it's just the two of us. Can you describe the layout of
your house so we kind of knowhow everything is arranged as this happened.
Our bedroom. Our bedroom is onthe It's a one story house, so
we're kind of on the side offfrom the kitchen, and then in front
of the kitchen with a main livingroom area and then towards the street between
(02:49):
the living room on the street sideas a large screen in deck, so
it's like a raised deck and thatsliding glass doors to it, and so
we were sleeping on the side inthe master bedroom. How would you describe
the neighborhood. It's a middle classneighborhood, nothing too fancy, nothing to
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run down, just middle of theroad neighborhood, fairly quiet. We're on
a call to sack. Would yousay it's a it's a safe neighborhood usually,
yeah, generally. I mean there'sbeen a few bike thefts, but
nothing, nothing big, nothing tooworrisome. Yeah, I would always considered
it safe. Well, let's talkabout what happened that night. I know
(03:36):
it was really the middle of thenight. What time were you awakened?
It was an odd night even beforeall that started, because our dog,
our dog had a problem with hislegs, so he wasn't able to walk
the night before. So ironically mywife walked up at maybe three thirty or
four to take him outside, tocarry him outside, basically to go to
(03:57):
the bathroom and bring him back insideof the door. And I heard that
happen that I heard the cat barso all the animals were up, and
then I guess about four thirty aboutthat time is when I started hearing a
strange sound. I had just fallenback asleep, and I say, strange
sound. I don't even know ifI'm gonna try to reproduce it. But
it didn't even sound human. Idon't know if it was yelling or moaning
(04:19):
or a coyote in the background.I wasn't sure what it was. But
so it was about four or thirtythat I woke up. Was it one
of those things where you're not sureif you're really hearing it or if you
might have had it you put itin a dream. Yeah, it was
definitely. You hit it on thehead there. It wasn't sure if I
had heard something. I thought Iheard something. Let me just go do
(04:42):
the quick check, and then Iheard it some more after I got up.
I'm like, okay, it definitelyis something. So something's going on.
Can you just take us through exactlywhat happened. Yeah. I got
up from bed, put on myglasses, walked through the kitchen, and
I could see out from the kitchenall the lights were off. Inside.
From the kitchen, I could seeoutside on the deck through the living room.
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I could see a shape and itlooked like somebody was standing out there
in the dark on the deck,and I immediately thought Oh, it's my
brother in law. He lives twodoors down. He probably came to get
the dog. He walks our dogwith his dog and then leaves them out
here so they can play all day. I'm like, no, it doesn't
make sense. It's like four thirtyin the morning. He wouldn't be over
(05:26):
here. But then he's I seethe person walking, pacing back and forth
very quickly, like they were scaredor agitated, and I wasn't sure exactly
what was going on. And atthat point, I'm like, there's no
way it's him, and I flippedon the light. So I went through
the living room. I flipped onthe light to the outside deck, and
all of a sudden, I'm faceto face through the glass with a stranger,
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a man in his early twenties.He had no shirt on, and
he had a black eye. Helooked like he'd maybe even fighting, and
he immediately as soon as he sawme, he started getting super agitated and
making strange sounds. I didn't hearany any words. It was just moaning
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and screaming, and then he startedjust banging on the glass, looking at
my eyes were six inches apart ofthe glass, staring in my eyes banging
on the glass with his palms,and at that point I had thought back
at maybe the videos he'd seen inthe Internet of police trying to subdue a
someone on PCP or some crazy yeahdrug that was making the freak out,
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and that's that's immediately what I thoughtwas going on. He came on my
porch, he didn't know where hewas, and for some reason, now
he's trying to get in here.And he actually, strangely enough, he
had what looked like a pillow tapedto his arm. His forearm or his
hand was through the pillow cover.For some reason, his hands were still
(07:00):
exposed, so it was almost likehe was wearing it like a little shield
or something. It was. Itwas pretty odd. I say that because
that comes into the story later.But was it an actual pillow or just
a pillow case. It looked likea small pillow, like a throw pillow,
but that's all I could see atthat moment. It was just in
his eyes, and I started gettingvery nervous, but trying to calm him
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down. I'm talking to him throughthe glass. Hey, hey, relax,
relax, it's okay. Whatever you'reon or whatever happened, let's let's
relax. Meantime, I'm talking tomy wife. I think she had woken
up at that point. I'm kindof yelling through the house, Hey,
call the cops, get an issuehere. So she she took the dog
who was in our room and wentinto the back room, the back bedroom
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on the other side of the house, and she got on the phone with
nine. And the whole time he'sgetting more and more agitated, going back
and forth, back and forth,looking up at you know, we have
some things over the sliding glass doorfrom deck Ray. He's like looking at
them frantically, trying to understand what'sgoing on. It looks like and I
think, I think I've read somewherewhere your house was not the first one
(08:09):
that he came in contact with,and that other some of your neighbors had
also been had already called nine oneone about it. Is that right?
That's right, there was two otherhouses he are two side neighbors. So
the first house he went to,it was my brother in law's house.
He basically said, the same thinghappened. He came to the door,
started banging, banging, and slammingagainst the door to the point he thought
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the door was going to break.And that's a big, heavy wooden door,
not a sliding glass door. Andhe had a baseball bat ready inside
in case he broke through, andI he didn't. He didn't make it
through, And I guess he stayedthere for maybe a minute or so and
gave up when one what is theaddressed of the emergency and tend him to
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call him from I guess it's ahouse from apartment house. Ikat them exactly
what happened. Someone was just bangingon my front door, crazy, jelling.
I didn't need I couldn't be thisyelling. You even do you know
this question? I don't. Ididn't even. I just you see me
(09:22):
riding open the door or what's that? Did you see me? Weapons down?
Okay? Anybody appeared to be inan influence alcohol drugs. They were
yelling crazy crazily back here and bangingthem. Who's born? Now? Okay?
(09:45):
You seen me banging on somebody else'sdoor? He him some thing somewhere
else. Yeah, he must begoing build the door. You see that
closing description. I had did notsee him. Okay, he's yelling crazy.
What is he saying? It's justlike yelling, like yelling and springing.
(10:13):
Okay, figure out what that guys, that's true? Okay, well
I do have I do have thecall, and we've got the dept.
He's on the waister. Okay,if they say this calls back. Sorry,
can of the next neighbor's house bangingand slamming on the door, trying
to smash the door down, Andhe described the same way. His door
was rocking on the hinges like hethought it was going to break in,
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and he had a pistol that hewas ready to shoot the guy tell him,
please go away, I've got agun, Just go away. Stop
and he did. Nine one.What is the address of the urgency?
Okay? And something exactly what happened? Really, somebody's banging on our door
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non stop. You going out tohei. He won't stop. He's on
drugs. I don't have no ideawhat he's done. But he's saying even
don't stop on drugs. Do youhave no idea who he is? You
know? Okay? Wow, Okay, what is your first and last name?
(11:26):
Please bet her back on the line. If somebody's already coming with okay,
and would you have somebody already inthe area. I think he's just
kind of walking down the way.Keep your doors locked? Do you not
unlock your door? Okay? Wereyou able to see who the person was?
No, my boyfriend's very you know, he starts. Okay, it
(11:48):
is a man now, yeah,a man. Okay, don't open the
door, keep the door locked.So do you know if he has any
weapons? Did ye was him?You can't. Don't you see any strange
vehicles or any strange other people outside? Did you see anything else? You
(12:11):
can't see anything? You say,it's really really dark. Okay. Is
he still knocking? He just jobbut he can't before? Okay, no,
because we do I do, LikeI said, we do have another
call in the same street. SoI think he's going down the road and
just knocking on people's doors. Sohe may have seen the deputy. But
let me just go ahead and makesure. Okay. Um, yeah,
(12:37):
because you guys are at so wehave deputy who are out. Just stay
where you are though, because I'mnot sure if they're outside or not.
Okay, Okay, what was hesaying? Did you tell what he was
saying or what was he doing?Security number? Oh, he was yelling
a social security number. He's ahand drug. Okay, he's running.
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He is running, what direction oftravel is he going in? He's running
towards back, towards street. He'srunning towards back. Okay, okay,
let me go ahead and just lethim down. He's going across and he
probably he probably knocked on the neighbor'sdam. So he's running in the street.
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Could you tell what was what hisrace was, or any clothing description
or you could just see the setshadow moving. I think he's gotting.
I think he had a shirt overhis overhead and over his back or showed
but there if I had his shirtoff and it was put and calling onto
the okay, like a cape kindof like tighter underneck kind of thing,
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or just the shoulder was shoulder,that would it looked like Okay, it's
our streets really really don't okay,that's okay, Okay, See we do
have law enforcement on your street,okay, um I put I put your
address in. If you hear aknock on the door, a loud knock
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on the door, I want youto go ahead and look and make sure
that it is law enforcement before youopen the door, because they may come
to your location as well. Okay, okay, all right, thank you
and then he came to our housethird and so now your wife Jennifer is
on the phone with nine one oneas well. Yeah, she's describing it.
And I'm trying to calm the guydown, try and keep my voice
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low, try and look at hiseyes, give him the we're on audio
here. But I'm not that takeit easy, you know, with your
hands kind of motion. Calm down, calm down, And that just seemed
to make it making a worse SoI guess that that never works for anyone.
And he started smacking at the glassand I want to check that there.
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We've got one of those. Ithink it's called a burglar bar.
It's a little plastic flap that keepsIt's like a lock that flips down for
sliding glass doors, So you flipit up, you flip it up,
and then it's blocking the door fromsliding, and flip it down again slide
or We had that and the regularlatch, and I was checking that to
(15:16):
make sure that that was not thatit was that it was set. And
he saw me do that, andhe starts pawing through the glass like he's
able to flip it down through theglass, and he was just not thinking
straight. And at that point,he grabbed the handle of the door and
starts trying to pull it open,and I'm trying to hold it the other
direction pull it shut, and thedoors just yeah, We're struggling back and
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forth, and I'm glad it didn'tcome off the tracks and rip it off.
He was extremely strong from what itseemed, so I'm like, oh,
he's got to be on something that'sgiven this all this superhuman energy because
he wasn't making any human sounds.It just seemed almost like an animal that
was just trying to get in forsome reason. I hate, I hate
to say it that way. Youknow that he was an animal, but
(16:00):
that's just how kind of hell heis behaving, right, And that's what
drugs will do to people. Wellthat's what I thought. And he gave
up on that and then just startsbacking up and slamming himself against the glass
and like, Okay, this isgoing to break any second now, Jennifer,
just get ready to just get readyto close the door because he's going
to be in in a matter ofseconds. I know it's going to happen.
(16:22):
And that glass, damn it,that glass is strong. It's an
old door. But I have noconcern about that stuff breaking because the way
I saw him throwing himself at thisand it did not break. It was
a miracle. Yeah. And sometimeswhen someone's like that, that really on
mind altering drugs like that, theycan seem to have like superhuman strengths.
(16:47):
Yeah. So I was really gettingworried that I backed up toward the kitchen,
so I'm like one room away.Granted, he can just once that
door goes, he's just going tobe fifteen feet and right on top of
me. But then luckily he justgave up on the door. I guess
he figured he's not going to getin this way. I'm like, okay,
that's that's we're leaving. So hebacked up and he's trying to go
(17:11):
out the screen door, and there'stwo doors to the screen door to the
script to the deck, and thatother door had been latched with one of
those flipped latches and he couldn't figureit out, so he just kind of
pushed through the screen and just rippedout the screen and ran off. I'm
thinking to myself, oh man,that was quite a story. I'm glad
that's over. And it was notover. My wife had come forward a
(17:37):
little bit towards the kitchen. She'slike, I hear him on the side.
So he had left the screen deckand then just went around the side
up a little path, and thenhe starts banging on the glass window of
our bedroom, or of our masterbedroom, and then she went back.
I'm like, get back, getback. He starts smacking on that,
and then I hear a crash andthe glass broke. That was just a
(18:03):
thinner glass, not like the thickstuff you find a sliding glower, I
guess. And again he just usinghis bare hands, just smashing through.
You know, at that point,the fear was getting replaced with anger.
I'm like, I don't believe thisguy is just crashing in here. Make
this stop. This has got tobe a dream. There's no way this
is real. Shaking your head,trying to wake yourself up. I'm like,
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now this is real. So that'swhen it started to Dnomy. You
need a weapon because he's going tobe in here in a second. And
I'm in the kitchen then and lookedaround and the first thing I saw was,
you know, the knife, thebutcher block. So I just grabbed
the first one off the top,which happened to be the biggest, the
butcher knife, like a ten inchbutcher knife. And even though I'm getting
(18:52):
more and more hamped up with adrenalineand angry, I'm looking at this thing.
I think, what am I goingto do with this thing? I
have no ability to stab anybody.I can't even finish off a mouse,
and that's caught in a mousetrap.You know, I just don't have the
killer instinct. And I'm like,I'm kidding myself even holding this thing.
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But maybe if he sees it,or I took a swipe at him or
a little jab, he'll get themessage that back off. So at that
point I heard another crash because there'sa couple panes to the window, and
actually the way the windows set upworked out because he was as he was
trying to get through, and atthis point I ran into the bedroom yelling,
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get out here, get the fuckout here. I will kill you.
Get out of here. He juststarts coming through, but the pane
between the two glass panes there's likea little bar that he had to crawl
over, so he was trying tocrawl over that. In the meantime,
he had knocked the blinds down andthe screen we have like a metal screen
over there. He had knocked allthat away. I couldn't see anything other
(20:00):
than the shape, and I said, now, now's the time you got
to give him a little jab becausehe's coming in. He's halfway in the
window. So I just kind ofgave a lighthearted week jab and it hits
that pillow that he had on hisarm strapped on. I don't know if
he had entered intentionally thought let meuse this as a shield, but that's
(20:22):
how it acted. Like what dumblockthat I hit that thing so I could
kind of see where he was,and I went around beside it to give
him a little jab, and thenI just I want that hanger just turned
to pure fury, and I justfelt myself lose any inhibitions to kill or
(20:44):
do whatever I need to do tostop him. And I just as hard
as I could, just stab boomboom a couple of times. I guess
one, two, three times.I couldn't say like time was, time
was It's hard to recall how andall this took maybe a few seconds,
maybe thirty seconds, I don't know. I will say that I'm I'm glad.
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I didn't see it, and I'mglad that it was dark that I
didn't have to see the knife goinghim, But I felt it, and
it was kind of a disgusting feeling. When you feel a knife just get
buried to the hilt in a man'schest, it's a feeling that it stays
with you. And right when thathappened, it was like something snapped in
(21:29):
him and he said, oh,my chest, the first and only words
I ever heard from him. Likethat snapped him out of whatever state he
was in. That he went intolike a protective mode or whatever spell he
was under, you know, waskind of broken at that point, and
he backed off and screamed and ranaway. Nine on one. What is
(21:56):
the adders to the emergency? Tellme exactly what happened? Some dudes on
our porch yelling and creaking out,well goods outside yelling he fucking shut up
window? Do you know casting weaponheld just fucking broke the window? Wait
(22:27):
ah, yeah, okay, allright, these look like we have had
multiple calls from your neighbors about this. But he said that he just broke
the window. Yeah, what happened? Besides, how do you think I
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was? God, I don't knowhe's righting the window. Okay, take
a deeper from me. Okay,he already had that duties and already been
on the way for a little while. Should just stand on? Oh my
(23:21):
god, are you okay? Okay? Who and what's going on? I
know your husband, he's just watchinghis hands. Okay, this person,
could you tell where race they were? He was a light kid we say
(23:44):
kid hair, short songs, butapproximately how old or ely funny early funny
okay. Then meeting my heavy hairstin build really wearing a shirt or no
shirt? No short music jean shorts, heard your short? No, they
just looked like short, dark color, like color a dark color. Okay.
(24:12):
I say that he was yelling.Could you understand anything that he was
saying? No? Okay, yeah, I have three deputies on the way
out there. Okay, so juststay up the line with me until they
get out there. Did he runtowards her house? Towards we don't?
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He says, he doesn't know.Okay, looks like maybe pulling into your
neighborhood. Now, just let meknow you have eyes ont him. Okay,
okay, because my my mom livesdown the street and she's like really
terrified of the this okay, Andlooks like they made contact with him,
(25:00):
so they're bounds, yea. TheyI do believed that they found him,
um so I it looks like he'sat the end of the street. They
were able to catch him at theend of the street. Okay, she
said to Pop sat him. Itlooks good. Just a couple of houses
down from me. But I wonderif that was my brother. And only
(25:26):
four houses on the block, fivehouses on our street. So I do
know that they will come speak toyou, okay, okay. And I
went into the kitchen and like afool, I washed the knife off,
(25:52):
not washed off, just rinsed itoff in the kitchen sink, just out
of habit first, because I didn'twant the wife to see it. It
was it was kind and blood allthe way up to the hilt, you
know. It was just it wasa mess. And it's right as I
turned the water, I'm like,you dummy, you shouldn't have done that.
It's evidence, you know. Butso I just set it down by
the sink. Jennifer's crying on thephone with nine one still so so they
(26:15):
couldn't have shown up yet, No, no, no, no, This
whole thing had maybe two or threeminutes, five minutes maybe have passed.
She didn't know I stabbed him,and I said, well, tell tell
the cops that I stabbed the guy, so he's he's been injured. And
she started to cry and relay thatto him. She was fairly composed as
(26:37):
far as I can tell, butI didn't want her to see the bloody
knife, so that's why I rinsedit off and then immediately regretted it.
But then I set it down,went up toward the screen door. I
didn't see any sign of him,so I turned all the opposite outdoor lights
on. I just wanted to seeif he was still there, but there
was no sign of him, andI could see there we have like a
little a little fence around the artwire fence, like a three foot dog
(27:03):
fence. Basically you could see wherehe had just run right through it and
knocked the thing down trying to getaway. So at that point I went
outside drowned. There was no signof him, and I guess a couple
of minutes later, we saw acop car up the street. I didn't.
I went back inside, locked thedoor again just in case, and
we saw the cop lights, andat that point Jennifer came back and gave
(27:30):
her hug, and I think shewas off the phone by the cops by
that point. They hung up.They said, you know, somebody's on
the way. I don't remember ifshe was still on the phone or not,
but you know, just pure adrenalinestill. And then a few minutes
later, Yeah, we saw theflashlight of a deputy coming up to the
house and I at that point Isaw it was him. So I unlocked
(27:52):
the door and came outside and westarted looking around and on the side of
the house from the bedroom window,I could see the blood trail and he
had just he had left a traildown the sidewalk. We have a little
path down the driveway out in thestreet. You can just see the drops,
and in some places it was prettythick, I guess, because we
had a little fenced gate that hehad gone through and that was all covered
(28:18):
in blood. And of course it'sstill it's still dark too. Yeah,
at that point it's maybe five inthe morning, I guess, but the
sun was starting to creek creep up, and we have a lot of the
lights on outside, the outdoor lights. But uh, yeah, at that
point the attacked basically said, hey, just come out here and wait.
You guys are okay. You know, we caught the guy up the street,
(28:41):
maybe two houses, two or threehouses a way at the top of
the at the end of the street. They had caught him and found him.
Um, just wait here, don'tdon't touch anything because it's a crime
scene now. So I got aglass of water and just waited for the
actual the attacked that inspectors to comedown, so that you know, the
(29:03):
cop just waited for us, waitedwith us until they arrived. Did you
wait outside with them? Yeah?I went and I just went inside to
get dressed because the whole time Iwas in a pair of underwear. That
was That was all I wear thewhole time, was a pair of underwear.
I'm like, I'm I'm a littlechilly. Let me throwing some shorts
and a shirt. And I knowthis this happened in Florida, but even
(29:25):
in Florida at night, it canget a little bit cool. Yeah,
especially if you're if you don't haveany clothes on outside. Well, the
adrenaline still was keeping me pretty warmtoo. I got cold. I got
cold. Later as things calmed down, I got really cold, but I
didn't want to greet the inspector andmy underwear, so that was the only
reason I went back inside. Iwas just get dressed. News reports after
this identified the man as Chase Richardson, and he's he was twenty three years
(29:49):
old and he had just escaped earlierthat night from a group home called the
Savannah Group Home. Do you knowanything about that place? Yeah, it's
it's actually behind our house there thethree houses on our block. Here on
the other side, there's a chainlink fence. On the other side of
(30:11):
the chain link fence is that home, And there's a you know, folks
with mental disabilities stay there, andI'm not sure the number, but there's
there's several people to stay there andtheir caregivers stay there twenty four to seven
and live live there with them.And I understand that he had a history
of mental disabilities as well as acriminal record of burglary and prowling. Had
(30:37):
you ever had any experience or interactionwith anyone from that home prior to this,
Well, well, I just learnedsomething about the criminal record. I
didn't know that. I guess hedid better research than I did on him.
I knew that he had the mentalillness. But you know, it
turned out at the time I thoughthe had been on some kind of drugs.
And when I when I learned thathe was basically mentally hill, I
(31:00):
felt I felt a lot worse,like, oh man, I could I
have done something different? But yeah, to go back to your question,
we had never really had a problemwith the place before there. Sometimes you
hear screaming or swearing from over therewhere somebody's having a bad day or their
meds aren't right, and then theywould bring the person inside because they try
(31:23):
to let them people be outside,but quite often you would hear a lot
of screaming and yelling. Sometimes youhear that just from neighbors without even having
a group home nearby. That's true, that's true, but not like an
argument, more like somebody just freakingout, kind of screaming. But that
was about it. But yeah,I did not know that he had a
(31:44):
record at that point. How ordid you talk to the police there about
the legal consequences for you or howwhat was your concern? Well, still
still at that point, we werewaiting for the inspect to come, and
then the deputy was waiting with us. Hurd On his walkie report and he
(32:07):
relaated us, yeah, he's dead. And at that point I'm like I
just sunk and basically dry heaved intothe bushes. You know, he just
joined a club you never wanted tojoin, you killing someone. And so
then the inspector arrived, came downand just asked me to basically go through
(32:28):
everything I told you, and we'rewaiting out there on the on the porch
and has me signed some paperwork justagreeing to a search of the area,
like essentially just a warrant to photographthe premises because it was a crime scene.
They want to see if I hadweapons or whatever. The deal was,
take all the pictures that they neededand dust for fingerprints. I'm like,
(32:51):
fine, that's fine. And atthat point I started really getting cold
because the adrenaline had worn off.So I threw on a little jacket and
at that point it was becoming acircus, a police activity up the street.
There must have been twenty or twentyfive cars just all over. Everything
was taped off where he had beenfound, you know, the little evidence
(33:15):
markers were out what the bud was. And he asked my wife and I
and the neighbors to come in forquestioning. So like, sure, okay,
we went out there. I guessthey didn't have any other vehicle,
so we got the ride in theback of the squad car, which was
surreal and watching the sunrise with yourwife in the back of a squad car.
(33:39):
Very cramped back there, but wegot in there and basically everybody had
to go to a separate room.I guess, just to keep everyone's stories
straight. They don't want just likeon TV. They don't want you to
be conversing with each other and justkeep you right out of gas. So
I sat down and I just startedfeeling just dread, you know, just
(34:04):
all on top of everything that hadalready happened. I just kept seeing it
happened over and over and over andover again. And then I'm like,
well, what if what if becausehe didn't have his feet inside the house,
is it not legal to fight someoneoff? You know, he wasn't
armed with These kinds of things gothrough your head. I'm like, what
if there's a really zealous prosecutor thatjust it's out for blood for some reason.
(34:28):
He wasn't on drugs. He wasjust a poor, mentally handicapped man,
you know. I don't know ifany of those are even rational thoughts,
but that's what was just going throughmy mind. And then I felt
so bad for the guy. Eventhough I was so mad and scared at
the time, as soon as hewas gone, I just started feeling terrible
for him. I think they're allrational thoughts, especially for you. I
(34:52):
mean, you'd never been put ina situation like this before and you don't
have any idea what's going to happen. Did you consider having an attorney present
during that questioning? I had thoughtabout it, whether I'm like, you
know what I feel in my heart, I didn't do anything wrong, and
(35:12):
the detective on the scene and theneighbors and my wife and everybody that morning
had said, you did what youhad to do. You did what you
had to do, so I just, you know, maybe from a legal
standpoint, somebody would say, no, you should always have a lawyer,
but I didn't feel I had anythingto hide. It was self defense.
But now I didn't, I didn'tget a lawyer, and they came in
(35:35):
with the recorder, read me myrights, I guess, which I don't
know if they have to do that, but they did, and so they
just went through and just I relayedthe whole thing to them. That point,
they asked for DNA and they're takingthe fingerprints and they need a piece
of each one of your fingernails,which I didn't know they did, and
(35:58):
then took all my clothes. Theyhad asked someone to come pick me up
later to bring me a set ofclothes, because I guess in a homicide
investigation they take all of your clothing. I guess to check for DNA or
blood or whatever, which I kindof objected to since I was in my
underwear the entire time. But Iguess pro sidure's procedure, and that the
(36:20):
inspector was. He was kind throughout, you know, he said, this
is very procedural. Might seem strangethat we're having to do all these things
and just kind of lay it outfor you, you know, as a
standard practice. We want to makesure we do everything by the book.
But I'll tell you they didn't evencome to speak to me the first time
for at least three and a halfhours, maybe four hours. I was
(36:44):
sitting there by myself in that room, and that's when the thoughts just start
rattling through your brain and just startreliving that over and over again. I
guess they came to me last becausethere are so many other witnesses to talk
to, and it was just thetwo detectives. So they interviewed both the
neighbors, They interviewed my wife.They interviewed the caretaker from the group home,
(37:10):
So I guess what had happened.I learned later that the man had
chased had been in a fight atthe home. He locked himself in his
room when they came in to checkon him, he had snuck out the
window. He's basically broken out ofthe group home through the window, and
so that at that point, Ithink the caretaker was already looking for him,
(37:30):
and that's where they found him.The caretaker found him staggering up the
street, and I kind of felt, you know, how bad that caretaker
must have felt to see one ofhis charges covered in blood collapse at his
car. So I felt bad forthat guy too. Been yet basically sitting
(37:51):
in that police station for hours andhours by yourself, I just started having
a panic attack, and I couldn'tbelieve it. You know, it's when
you were just shaking your head overand over trying to wake yourself up,
and it's not working. It's prettyamazing that, you know, the night
before you went to bed, everythingwas normal and routine, and yet now
(38:13):
here you were at the police station. It's isn't amazing how quickly life can
change. Yeah, you're in adifferent world all of a sudden. Yeah.
So yeah, we finished, Wefinished with him, signed all the
paperwork that was needed. I wentdownstairs and I saw my wife, gave
(38:35):
her hug, went downstairs. Myfolks were there and they took us home,
gave us a ride, offered mesomething to eat, and I had
just had no appetite at that point. It was it was afternoon we had
been there. It's probably two orthree in the afternoon. I'm not sure
what time it was. So itwas almost twelve hours nearly since it had
(38:55):
happened, and it was just amedia circus outside, you know, just
a lot of the cops cars hadhad left, but there had been mere
place with news vans and all that. I'm like, I don't want to
talk to anybody. I don't wantmy whole name to be in the paper,
no comment. And you know,my family was great. They really
(39:16):
helped out so much. I wentinside and just had a cup of Tea
took his annex and just sat ina recliner and just relaxed, and they
helped clean everything up, clean upthe broken glass, all the blood they
got, all the blood out.I guess hydrogen peroxide does a good job,
(39:39):
and it all came out. Iwas I was glad because I didn't
want to have that reminder everywhere andat the window fixed that day, and
it almost looked like nothing had happened, with the exception that the blinds were
broken down, so we needed toget new blinds. But if you looked
at it, you wouldn't know thatanything had happened that day. Did this
(40:00):
happen on a weekday or a weekend? I think it was a Monday morning,
so I assume you probably took sometime off work. Yeah. When
I was waiting for the inspector camedown, I just texted my manager hate
the very basics. We had abreak in. I can't make it in
(40:21):
today. Yeah. She was great, She's like fine, and then when
she heard the fuller story, she'syou know, she and the management there
were supportive. Anytime you need whatever, you need, take some days off,
whatever, it's it's no problem.And it was it was a few
days before I went back to work, but no more than two days off.
(40:43):
I guess I just tried to clearmy head. But even on that
first day back, I don't thinkI stayed past lunch. I just heart
just wasn't in it and I couldn'tconcentrate. You know, did your co
workers all know what had happened?No? I think only a couple of
people. I wasn't like telling everybodythis just because yet. Yeah, and
(41:05):
even if they saw it in thenews, they wouldn't know necessarily that it
was you. Right, It's notlike a story that I just want to
tell over and over again to alot of people. You know, do
you still live in the same house? Yeah? Yeah, we're still here.
We like here a lot. It'sa nice house. I've spent many
years fixing it up, so I'mtoo stubborn to leave at this point.
(41:30):
Too much work has been put intoit. Not only that, but statistically,
what's the chances of something like thathappening twice at the same house?
Right, That's true. I kindof felt like I had won a bad
lottery. But now I was kindof spared from anything like that ever happening
again, because you know it'd bepretty crazy. But each day, you
(41:51):
know, the first day, obviouslyI was just stunned. I was just
in shock. And the next dayI saw my therapist, spoke with him
for a while. It was helpful, but I was still in physical shock.
And I talked to a counselor fromthe Sheriff's department that contacted me.
I guess she was a victim's advocate, and she had kind of described a
(42:16):
lot of the symptoms that I toldher I was having. She's like,
this is perfectly normal. You know, you're basically gone through shock. And
you know, I don't know ifyou want to call it PTSD because it
had just happened, but you know, I was getting like flu like symptoms
and couldn't sleep and didn't want toeat, and the racing thoughts and keeps
picturing it happened over and over again. She's like, no, that's normal,
(42:38):
And sure enough, that started toebb away. But what's funny is
every time I kept picturing it happenedin my mind over and over again,
I'd get queasy, but I wouldsee the knife coming out of me instead.
And I was always picturing it fromhis perspective. For some reason seeing
(42:59):
me stab out and strangely enough,and I don't know if people will believe
it, I literally felt an actualache in my chest where he got hit.
I could feel a physical pain,not like I'd been stabbed, but
it was aching, which I thoughtwas very strange. I don't know if
there's some kind of, you know, weird psychic connection or something. I'm
(43:20):
not really into that kind of thing, but I tell you, I really
felt that. It sounds like it'syou have maybe in your personality, you
have a natural or an extraordinary senseof empathy. Would you say that's true?
I think so. I think that'strue. And my wife and I,
(43:43):
she prays a lot. I reallydon't, but she thinks of of
Chase Off, and we would talkabout him and try to imagine what his
life was like and try to notmake his death meaningless in some way kind
of keep him him remembered. Youknow, I know there's a lot of
(44:05):
emotional um, a variety of emotionsthat go with us. But do you
feel, or have you ever feltguilt for what happened on and Off?
And I know I do the samething a second time, and I'd tell
anybody else probably do the same thing. But that's it's kind of hard to
talk yourself out of that, thatthat guilt is just it's just going to
(44:29):
happen. I don't, I don't. I don't think I did the wrong
thing. Um, I think Ithink I did the right thing. But
that's something you have to live with, you know. Yeah. Strangely,
like a few days after that,and I had seen my counselor again,
I started to go into almost likea happy, manic state where I felt,
(44:50):
Oh, this is a new leaseon life. You've been given another
chance. You could have died,Now do something good somehow. And I
had that that an energy which unfortunatelykind of wore off. You know,
you feel like you're You're going tobecome this wonderful person and I'm going to
volunteer and do all these things,or then you just kind of become yourself
(45:13):
again. But I am at leastglad that it didn't make me a worse
person. I was worried that,oh, I'm going to become very paranoid
and fill the house with guns andcameras and just be the person staring out
from behind, you know, theshades and suspicious of all his neighbors.
That didn't change in me at all. I'm not fearful to walk around at
(45:36):
night with taking the dog for awalk. I don't feel any extra fear
in any situations like that, Soat least at least things didn't get worse
for me. What is your opinionabout having a gun for self defense?
Well, I mean, in thatcase, for it have even made any
difference, probably would have had tohave it to sitting out, owed it
(46:00):
and ready right there. Things happenedso fast and I didn't need it,
And I guess statistically more likely tokill yourself or a loved one or someone
by mistake, But I don't Idon't think anybody shouldn't be able to defend
themselves. I'm not going to comeout as an anti gun in the house
(46:21):
stance, but I still haven't gottenone, so I don't know if I
will or not. Well, ifyou haven't gotten one, now it's i'd
probably probably not going to happen afterthis. That's the Yeah, that's that's
the task. I guess they didtake all They did take all my knives,
so he had to get new knives. Okay, obviously he wasn't very
(46:42):
communicative, But do you have anyidea what his intentions were if he actually
got in the house, I haveno idea what he was after. But
at the time, all I couldsee was he wanted in badly, and
he was very violent, and Ithought he was going to kill us.
So why he did that, Iwish I knew, But you know,
(47:06):
you can't. You can't know what'sgoing on someone's in someone's mind. He'd
already been denied entry in two otherhouses, so maybe that's what kind of
got him amped up even a littlemore and more determined to get into yours.
Maybe maybe I've kind of developed atrick whenever I like a mental trick
that whenever I start reliving it becauseI get kind of queasy at some horror
(47:30):
movies. You don't like the sideside of a knife too much. I
mean, I like scary movies wellenough, but sometimes I get a little
queasy, and then I picture myselfwith a knife, and that happening when
it starts to replay through my mind. I just pictured it off to the
side and my peripheral vision and Ijust see it, just let it play
out here and what I call theatertwo. So it's just like I've turned
(47:52):
it into a movie, so Ican just pretend that it didn't really happen.
It's just over here playing as aas a movie, so I don't
suppress it, but just kind ofremember it as a movie that you saw.
That's interesting. Is that a techniquethat you came up with or did
your therapist give you that. Icame up with it just after a few
(48:14):
days and I told him about that, and he's like, oh, that's
yeah, that's an unknown technique.I guess. I'm like, well,
okay, I guess it works.Because even when I I saw the you
know, the movie Parasite. Idon't know if I won't give out spoilers,
but there's a scene where there's astabbing and the knife and the butcher
(48:35):
block look exactly like mine. Assoon as I saw that, I'm like,
oh, I started to get thatfeeling. And I just said to
myself, theater two and I canjust kind of dismiss the fear of that
happening again. But you just haveto be on top of it so it
doesn't start rolling around in your headover and over and over again. So
it's it's helped me got to beaware. Yeah, is there any part
(48:58):
of the story that we haven't covered, or anything that I haven't asked you.
I would just say, I hope. I don't want to cast any
bad light on people with mental illness. I think he had schizophrenia, and
I know it's it's a serious subject, and I don't want to make people
fearful of people with those conditions.Yeah, I guess in that case,
(49:22):
I don't know what else could havebeen done. I just I hope my
wife had said he was in abad place and now he's not. Maybe
you've you've, in a in astrange way, helped him because he seemed
like he did not want to bein the world, or he was having
a very hard time in it.So that's one kind of cold solace I
(49:45):
can give myself that maybe in someway that was meant to be. It
was meant to be that he wouldbe put out of his out of his
pain. Thanks for sharing the story, Okay, Scott, thank you very
much. Hey, is that abizarre story or what? I hope that's
(50:07):
what you've come to expect here onthis podcast. It's what I do,
it's what I enjoy doing. Iget a lot of people pitching me their
stories and Unfortunately, I have toreject most of them, and I do
that for you. You are mylistener. I don't ever want you to
see a new episode show up onyour phone and have you say, yeah,
that one sounds kind of boring.What I do want you to say
(50:30):
when you see a new episode isoh wow, I definitely have to hear
that story. That means I've donemy job.
What Was That Like contains adult languageand content and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised.So I went through the living room,
I flipped on the light to theoutside deck, and all of a sudden,
I'm face to face to the glasswith a stranger. Welcome to What
(00:28):
Was That Like? I'm your host, Scott Johnson. This is a show
where we talk to regular people,people just like you or just like me,
who have found themselves in an extremelyunusual situation. We hear their stories
and get inside their head because weall want to know What was that Like?
(00:49):
More information about each episode at WhatWas That Like? Dot Com?
Here we go. What would youdo if you were asleep with your spouse
and it was the middle of thenight, and suddenly you heard loud noises
like someone banging on your door.What about when you got up and before
(01:15):
turning on any lights, you couldsee the figure of a man standing there
on the other side of your slidingglass doors. And when you turn on
the lights and you see him,and he sees you, and he explodes
with anger and starts trying to breakthrough the door. What would you do?
(01:38):
None of us wants to be putin a situation like that. But
that's what happened to Eric one night. He was trying to figure out what
to do. His wife, Jennifer, was on the phone trying to get
the police there as quickly as possible, and this enraged man was using all
his strength to get into their homeand then things took a big turn for
(02:00):
the Wars. Did you know thatyou can support this show for just a
dollar or two per month? Youcan do that at what was that like?
Dot com slash support? And nowI hope you enjoy my conversation with
Eric who was home the night thishappened. My wife and I were home,
(02:23):
My son was out. He hadleft for college about a month before,
so it's just the two of us. Can you describe the layout of
your house so we kind of knowhow everything is arranged as this happened.
Our bedroom. Our bedroom is onthe It's a one story house, so
we're kind of on the side offfrom the kitchen, and then in front
of the kitchen with a main livingroom area and then towards the street between
(02:49):
the living room on the street sideas a large screen in deck, so
it's like a raised deck and thatsliding glass doors to it, and so
we were sleeping on the side inthe master bedroom. How would you describe
the neighborhood. It's a middle classneighborhood, nothing too fancy, nothing to
(03:12):
run down, just middle of theroad neighborhood, fairly quiet. We're on
a call to sack. Would yousay it's a it's a safe neighborhood usually,
yeah, generally. I mean there'sbeen a few bike thefts, but
nothing, nothing big, nothing tooworrisome. Yeah, I would always considered
it safe. Well, let's talkabout what happened that night. I know
(03:36):
it was really the middle of thenight. What time were you awakened?
It was an odd night even beforeall that started, because our dog,
our dog had a problem with hislegs, so he wasn't able to walk
the night before. So ironically mywife walked up at maybe three thirty or
four to take him outside, tocarry him outside, basically to go to
(03:57):
the bathroom and bring him back insideof the door. And I heard that
happen that I heard the cat barso all the animals were up, and
then I guess about four thirty aboutthat time is when I started hearing a
strange sound. I had just fallenback asleep, and I say, strange
sound. I don't even know ifI'm gonna try to reproduce it. But
it didn't even sound human. Idon't know if it was yelling or moaning
(04:19):
or a coyote in the background.I wasn't sure what it was. But
so it was about four or thirtythat I woke up. Was it one
of those things where you're not sureif you're really hearing it or if you
might have had it you put itin a dream. Yeah, it was
definitely. You hit it on thehead there. It wasn't sure if I
had heard something. I thought Iheard something. Let me just go do
(04:42):
the quick check, and then Iheard it some more after I got up.
I'm like, okay, it definitelyis something. So something's going on.
Can you just take us through exactlywhat happened. Yeah. I got
up from bed, put on myglasses, walked through the kitchen, and
I could see out from the kitchenall the lights were off. Inside.
From the kitchen, I could seeoutside on the deck through the living room.
(05:04):
I could see a shape and itlooked like somebody was standing out there
in the dark on the deck,and I immediately thought Oh, it's my
brother in law. He lives twodoors down. He probably came to get
the dog. He walks our dogwith his dog and then leaves them out
here so they can play all day. I'm like, no, it doesn't
make sense. It's like four thirtyin the morning. He wouldn't be over
(05:26):
here. But then he's I seethe person walking, pacing back and forth
very quickly, like they were scaredor agitated, and I wasn't sure exactly
what was going on. And atthat point, I'm like, there's no
way it's him, and I flippedon the light. So I went through
the living room. I flipped onthe light to the outside deck, and
all of a sudden, I'm faceto face through the glass with a stranger,
(05:50):
a man in his early twenties.He had no shirt on, and
he had a black eye. Helooked like he'd maybe even fighting, and
he immediately as soon as he sawme, he started getting super agitated and
making strange sounds. I didn't hearany any words. It was just moaning
(06:12):
and screaming, and then he startedjust banging on the glass, looking at
my eyes were six inches apart ofthe glass, staring in my eyes banging
on the glass with his palms,and at that point I had thought back
at maybe the videos he'd seen inthe Internet of police trying to subdue a
someone on PCP or some crazy yeahdrug that was making the freak out,
(06:38):
and that's that's immediately what I thoughtwas going on. He came on my
porch, he didn't know where hewas, and for some reason, now
he's trying to get in here.And he actually, strangely enough, he
had what looked like a pillow tapedto his arm. His forearm or his
hand was through the pillow cover.For some reason, his hands were still
(07:00):
exposed, so it was almost likehe was wearing it like a little shield
or something. It was. Itwas pretty odd. I say that because
that comes into the story later.But was it an actual pillow or just
a pillow case. It looked likea small pillow, like a throw pillow,
but that's all I could see atthat moment. It was just in
his eyes, and I started gettingvery nervous, but trying to calm him
(07:23):
down. I'm talking to him throughthe glass. Hey, hey, relax,
relax, it's okay. Whatever you'reon or whatever happened, let's let's
relax. Meantime, I'm talking tomy wife. I think she had woken
up at that point. I'm kindof yelling through the house, Hey,
call the cops, get an issuehere. So she she took the dog
who was in our room and wentinto the back room, the back bedroom
(07:46):
on the other side of the house, and she got on the phone with
nine. And the whole time he'sgetting more and more agitated, going back
and forth, back and forth,looking up at you know, we have
some things over the sliding glass doorfrom deck Ray. He's like looking at
them frantically, trying to understand what'sgoing on. It looks like and I
think, I think I've read somewherewhere your house was not the first one
(08:09):
that he came in contact with,and that other some of your neighbors had
also been had already called nine oneone about it. Is that right?
That's right, there was two otherhouses he are two side neighbors. So
the first house he went to,it was my brother in law's house.
He basically said, the same thinghappened. He came to the door,
started banging, banging, and slammingagainst the door to the point he thought
(08:33):
the door was going to break.And that's a big, heavy wooden door,
not a sliding glass door. Andhe had a baseball bat ready inside
in case he broke through, andI he didn't. He didn't make it
through, And I guess he stayedthere for maybe a minute or so and
gave up when one what is theaddressed of the emergency and tend him to
(08:54):
call him from I guess it's ahouse from apartment house. Ikat them exactly
what happened. Someone was just bangingon my front door, crazy, jelling.
I didn't need I couldn't be thisyelling. You even do you know
this question? I don't. Ididn't even. I just you see me
(09:22):
riding open the door or what's that? Did you see me? Weapons down?
Okay? Anybody appeared to be inan influence alcohol drugs. They were
yelling crazy crazily back here and bangingthem. Who's born? Now? Okay?
(09:45):
You seen me banging on somebody else'sdoor? He him some thing somewhere
else. Yeah, he must begoing build the door. You see that
closing description. I had did notsee him. Okay, he's yelling crazy.
What is he saying? It's justlike yelling, like yelling and springing.
(10:13):
Okay, figure out what that guys, that's true? Okay, well
I do have I do have thecall, and we've got the dept.
He's on the waister. Okay,if they say this calls back. Sorry,
can of the next neighbor's house bangingand slamming on the door, trying
to smash the door down, Andhe described the same way. His door
was rocking on the hinges like hethought it was going to break in,
(10:35):
and he had a pistol that hewas ready to shoot the guy tell him,
please go away, I've got agun, Just go away. Stop
and he did. Nine one.What is the address of the urgency?
Okay? And something exactly what happened? Really, somebody's banging on our door
(10:56):
non stop. You going out tohei. He won't stop. He's on
drugs. I don't have no ideawhat he's done. But he's saying even
don't stop on drugs. Do youhave no idea who he is? You
know? Okay? Wow, Okay, what is your first and last name?
(11:26):
Please bet her back on the line. If somebody's already coming with okay,
and would you have somebody already inthe area. I think he's just
kind of walking down the way.Keep your doors locked? Do you not
unlock your door? Okay? Wereyou able to see who the person was?
No, my boyfriend's very you know, he starts. Okay, it
(11:48):
is a man now, yeah,a man. Okay, don't open the
door, keep the door locked.So do you know if he has any
weapons? Did ye was him?You can't. Don't you see any strange
vehicles or any strange other people outside? Did you see anything else? You
(12:11):
can't see anything? You say,it's really really dark. Okay. Is
he still knocking? He just jobbut he can't before? Okay, no,
because we do I do, LikeI said, we do have another
call in the same street. SoI think he's going down the road and
just knocking on people's doors. Sohe may have seen the deputy. But
let me just go ahead and makesure. Okay. Um, yeah,
(12:37):
because you guys are at so wehave deputy who are out. Just stay
where you are though, because I'mnot sure if they're outside or not.
Okay, Okay, what was hesaying? Did you tell what he was
saying or what was he doing?Security number? Oh, he was yelling
a social security number. He's ahand drug. Okay, he's running.
(13:05):
He is running, what direction oftravel is he going in? He's running
towards back, towards street. He'srunning towards back. Okay, okay,
let me go ahead and just lethim down. He's going across and he
probably he probably knocked on the neighbor'sdam. So he's running in the street.
(13:28):
Could you tell what was what hisrace was, or any clothing description
or you could just see the setshadow moving. I think he's gotting.
I think he had a shirt overhis overhead and over his back or showed
but there if I had his shirtoff and it was put and calling onto
the okay, like a cape kindof like tighter underneck kind of thing,
(13:50):
or just the shoulder was shoulder,that would it looked like Okay, it's
our streets really really don't okay,that's okay, Okay, See we do
have law enforcement on your street,okay, um I put I put your
address in. If you hear aknock on the door, a loud knock
(14:11):
on the door, I want youto go ahead and look and make sure
that it is law enforcement before youopen the door, because they may come
to your location as well. Okay, okay, all right, thank you
and then he came to our housethird and so now your wife Jennifer is
on the phone with nine one oneas well. Yeah, she's describing it.
And I'm trying to calm the guydown, try and keep my voice
(14:35):
low, try and look at hiseyes, give him the we're on audio
here. But I'm not that takeit easy, you know, with your
hands kind of motion. Calm down, calm down, And that just seemed
to make it making a worse SoI guess that that never works for anyone.
And he started smacking at the glassand I want to check that there.
(14:56):
We've got one of those. Ithink it's called a burglar bar.
It's a little plastic flap that keepsIt's like a lock that flips down for
sliding glass doors, So you flipit up, you flip it up,
and then it's blocking the door fromsliding, and flip it down again slide
or We had that and the regularlatch, and I was checking that to
(15:16):
make sure that that was not thatit was that it was set. And
he saw me do that, andhe starts pawing through the glass like he's
able to flip it down through theglass, and he was just not thinking
straight. And at that point,he grabbed the handle of the door and
starts trying to pull it open,and I'm trying to hold it the other
direction pull it shut, and thedoors just yeah, We're struggling back and
(15:39):
forth, and I'm glad it didn'tcome off the tracks and rip it off.
He was extremely strong from what itseemed, so I'm like, oh,
he's got to be on something that'sgiven this all this superhuman energy because
he wasn't making any human sounds.It just seemed almost like an animal that
was just trying to get in forsome reason. I hate, I hate
to say it that way. Youknow that he was an animal, but
(16:00):
that's just how kind of hell heis behaving, right, And that's what
drugs will do to people. Wellthat's what I thought. And he gave
up on that and then just startsbacking up and slamming himself against the glass
and like, Okay, this isgoing to break any second now, Jennifer,
just get ready to just get readyto close the door because he's going
to be in in a matter ofseconds. I know it's going to happen.
(16:22):
And that glass, damn it,that glass is strong. It's an
old door. But I have noconcern about that stuff breaking because the way
I saw him throwing himself at thisand it did not break. It was
a miracle. Yeah. And sometimeswhen someone's like that, that really on
mind altering drugs like that, theycan seem to have like superhuman strengths.
(16:47):
Yeah. So I was really gettingworried that I backed up toward the kitchen,
so I'm like one room away.Granted, he can just once that
door goes, he's just going tobe fifteen feet and right on top of
me. But then luckily he justgave up on the door. I guess
he figured he's not going to getin this way. I'm like, okay,
that's that's we're leaving. So hebacked up and he's trying to go
(17:11):
out the screen door, and there'stwo doors to the screen door to the
script to the deck, and thatother door had been latched with one of
those flipped latches and he couldn't figureit out, so he just kind of
pushed through the screen and just rippedout the screen and ran off. I'm
thinking to myself, oh man,that was quite a story. I'm glad
that's over. And it was notover. My wife had come forward a
(17:37):
little bit towards the kitchen. She'slike, I hear him on the side.
So he had left the screen deckand then just went around the side
up a little path, and thenhe starts banging on the glass window of
our bedroom, or of our masterbedroom, and then she went back.
I'm like, get back, getback. He starts smacking on that,
and then I hear a crash andthe glass broke. That was just a
(18:03):
thinner glass, not like the thickstuff you find a sliding glower, I
guess. And again he just usinghis bare hands, just smashing through.
You know, at that point,the fear was getting replaced with anger.
I'm like, I don't believe thisguy is just crashing in here. Make
this stop. This has got tobe a dream. There's no way this
is real. Shaking your head,trying to wake yourself up. I'm like,
(18:26):
now this is real. So that'swhen it started to Dnomy. You
need a weapon because he's going tobe in here in a second. And
I'm in the kitchen then and lookedaround and the first thing I saw was,
you know, the knife, thebutcher block. So I just grabbed
the first one off the top,which happened to be the biggest, the
butcher knife, like a ten inchbutcher knife. And even though I'm getting
(18:52):
more and more hamped up with adrenalineand angry, I'm looking at this thing.
I think, what am I goingto do with this thing? I
have no ability to stab anybody.I can't even finish off a mouse,
and that's caught in a mousetrap.You know, I just don't have the
killer instinct. And I'm like,I'm kidding myself even holding this thing.
(19:14):
But maybe if he sees it,or I took a swipe at him or
a little jab, he'll get themessage that back off. So at that
point I heard another crash because there'sa couple panes to the window, and
actually the way the windows set upworked out because he was as he was
trying to get through, and atthis point I ran into the bedroom yelling,
(19:38):
get out here, get the fuckout here. I will kill you.
Get out of here. He juststarts coming through, but the pane
between the two glass panes there's likea little bar that he had to crawl
over, so he was trying tocrawl over that. In the meantime,
he had knocked the blinds down andthe screen we have like a metal screen
over there. He had knocked allthat away. I couldn't see anything other
(20:00):
than the shape, and I said, now, now's the time you got
to give him a little jab becausehe's coming in. He's halfway in the
window. So I just kind ofgave a lighthearted week jab and it hits
that pillow that he had on hisarm strapped on. I don't know if
he had entered intentionally thought let meuse this as a shield, but that's
(20:22):
how it acted. Like what dumblockthat I hit that thing so I could
kind of see where he was,and I went around beside it to give
him a little jab, and thenI just I want that hanger just turned
to pure fury, and I justfelt myself lose any inhibitions to kill or
(20:44):
do whatever I need to do tostop him. And I just as hard
as I could, just stab boomboom a couple of times. I guess
one, two, three times.I couldn't say like time was, time
was It's hard to recall how andall this took maybe a few seconds,
maybe thirty seconds, I don't know. I will say that I'm I'm glad.
(21:06):
I didn't see it, and I'mglad that it was dark that I
didn't have to see the knife goinghim, But I felt it, and
it was kind of a disgusting feeling. When you feel a knife just get
buried to the hilt in a man'schest, it's a feeling that it stays
with you. And right when thathappened, it was like something snapped in
(21:29):
him and he said, oh,my chest, the first and only words
I ever heard from him. Likethat snapped him out of whatever state he
was in. That he went intolike a protective mode or whatever spell he
was under, you know, waskind of broken at that point, and
he backed off and screamed and ranaway. Nine on one. What is
(21:56):
the adders to the emergency? Tellme exactly what happened? Some dudes on
our porch yelling and creaking out,well goods outside yelling he fucking shut up
window? Do you know casting weaponheld just fucking broke the window? Wait
(22:27):
ah, yeah, okay, allright, these look like we have had
multiple calls from your neighbors about this. But he said that he just broke
the window. Yeah, what happened? Besides, how do you think I
(22:52):
was? God, I don't knowhe's righting the window. Okay, take
a deeper from me. Okay,he already had that duties and already been
on the way for a little while. Should just stand on? Oh my
(23:21):
god, are you okay? Okay? Who and what's going on? I
know your husband, he's just watchinghis hands. Okay, this person,
could you tell where race they were? He was a light kid we say
(23:44):
kid hair, short songs, butapproximately how old or ely funny early funny
okay. Then meeting my heavy hairstin build really wearing a shirt or no
shirt? No short music jean shorts, heard your short? No, they
just looked like short, dark color, like color a dark color. Okay.
(24:12):
I say that he was yelling.Could you understand anything that he was
saying? No? Okay, yeah, I have three deputies on the way
out there. Okay, so juststay up the line with me until they
get out there. Did he runtowards her house? Towards we don't?
(24:36):
He says, he doesn't know.Okay, looks like maybe pulling into your
neighborhood. Now, just let meknow you have eyes ont him. Okay,
okay, because my my mom livesdown the street and she's like really
terrified of the this okay, Andlooks like they made contact with him,
(25:00):
so they're bounds, yea. TheyI do believed that they found him,
um so I it looks like he'sat the end of the street. They
were able to catch him at theend of the street. Okay, she
said to Pop sat him. Itlooks good. Just a couple of houses
down from me. But I wonderif that was my brother. And only
(25:26):
four houses on the block, fivehouses on our street. So I do
know that they will come speak toyou, okay, okay. And I
went into the kitchen and like afool, I washed the knife off,
(25:52):
not washed off, just rinsed itoff in the kitchen sink, just out
of habit first, because I didn'twant the wife to see it. It
was it was kind and blood allthe way up to the hilt, you
know. It was just it wasa mess. And it's right as I
turned the water, I'm like,you dummy, you shouldn't have done that.
It's evidence, you know. Butso I just set it down by
the sink. Jennifer's crying on thephone with nine one still so so they
(26:15):
couldn't have shown up yet, No, no, no, no, This
whole thing had maybe two or threeminutes, five minutes maybe have passed.
She didn't know I stabbed him,and I said, well, tell tell
the cops that I stabbed the guy, so he's he's been injured. And
she started to cry and relay thatto him. She was fairly composed as
(26:37):
far as I can tell, butI didn't want her to see the bloody
knife, so that's why I rinsedit off and then immediately regretted it.
But then I set it down,went up toward the screen door. I
didn't see any sign of him,so I turned all the opposite outdoor lights
on. I just wanted to seeif he was still there, but there
was no sign of him, andI could see there we have like a
little a little fence around the artwire fence, like a three foot dog
(27:03):
fence. Basically you could see wherehe had just run right through it and
knocked the thing down trying to getaway. So at that point I went
outside drowned. There was no signof him, and I guess a couple
of minutes later, we saw acop car up the street. I didn't.
I went back inside, locked thedoor again just in case, and
we saw the cop lights, andat that point Jennifer came back and gave
(27:30):
her hug, and I think shewas off the phone by the cops by
that point. They hung up.They said, you know, somebody's on
the way. I don't remember ifshe was still on the phone or not,
but you know, just pure adrenalinestill. And then a few minutes
later, Yeah, we saw theflashlight of a deputy coming up to the
house and I at that point Isaw it was him. So I unlocked
(27:52):
the door and came outside and westarted looking around and on the side of
the house from the bedroom window,I could see the blood trail and he
had just he had left a traildown the sidewalk. We have a little
path down the driveway out in thestreet. You can just see the drops,
and in some places it was prettythick, I guess, because we
had a little fenced gate that hehad gone through and that was all covered
(28:18):
in blood. And of course it'sstill it's still dark too. Yeah,
at that point it's maybe five inthe morning, I guess, but the
sun was starting to creek creep up, and we have a lot of the
lights on outside, the outdoor lights. But uh, yeah, at that
point the attacked basically said, hey, just come out here and wait.
You guys are okay. You know, we caught the guy up the street,
(28:41):
maybe two houses, two or threehouses a way at the top of
the at the end of the street. They had caught him and found him.
Um, just wait here, don'tdon't touch anything because it's a crime
scene now. So I got aglass of water and just waited for the
actual the attacked that inspectors to comedown, so that you know, the
(29:03):
cop just waited for us, waitedwith us until they arrived. Did you
wait outside with them? Yeah?I went and I just went inside to
get dressed because the whole time Iwas in a pair of underwear. That
was That was all I wear thewhole time, was a pair of underwear.
I'm like, I'm I'm a littlechilly. Let me throwing some shorts
and a shirt. And I knowthis this happened in Florida, but even
(29:25):
in Florida at night, it canget a little bit cool. Yeah,
especially if you're if you don't haveany clothes on outside. Well, the
adrenaline still was keeping me pretty warmtoo. I got cold. I got
cold. Later as things calmed down, I got really cold, but I
didn't want to greet the inspector andmy underwear, so that was the only
reason I went back inside. Iwas just get dressed. News reports after
this identified the man as Chase Richardson, and he's he was twenty three years
(29:49):
old and he had just escaped earlierthat night from a group home called the
Savannah Group Home. Do you knowanything about that place? Yeah, it's
it's actually behind our house there thethree houses on our block. Here on
the other side, there's a chainlink fence. On the other side of
(30:11):
the chain link fence is that home, And there's a you know, folks
with mental disabilities stay there, andI'm not sure the number, but there's
there's several people to stay there andtheir caregivers stay there twenty four to seven
and live live there with them.And I understand that he had a history
of mental disabilities as well as acriminal record of burglary and prowling. Had
(30:37):
you ever had any experience or interactionwith anyone from that home prior to this,
Well, well, I just learnedsomething about the criminal record. I
didn't know that. I guess hedid better research than I did on him.
I knew that he had the mentalillness. But you know, it
turned out at the time I thoughthe had been on some kind of drugs.
And when I when I learned thathe was basically mentally hill, I
(31:00):
felt I felt a lot worse,like, oh man, I could I
have done something different? But yeah, to go back to your question,
we had never really had a problemwith the place before there. Sometimes you
hear screaming or swearing from over therewhere somebody's having a bad day or their
meds aren't right, and then theywould bring the person inside because they try
(31:23):
to let them people be outside,but quite often you would hear a lot
of screaming and yelling. Sometimes youhear that just from neighbors without even having
a group home nearby. That's true, that's true, but not like an
argument, more like somebody just freakingout, kind of screaming. But that
was about it. But yeah,I did not know that he had a
(31:44):
record at that point. How ordid you talk to the police there about
the legal consequences for you or howwhat was your concern? Well, still
still at that point, we werewaiting for the inspect to come, and
then the deputy was waiting with us. Hurd On his walkie report and he
(32:07):
relaated us, yeah, he's dead. And at that point I'm like I
just sunk and basically dry heaved intothe bushes. You know, he just
joined a club you never wanted tojoin, you killing someone. And so
then the inspector arrived, came downand just asked me to basically go through
(32:28):
everything I told you, and we'rewaiting out there on the on the porch
and has me signed some paperwork justagreeing to a search of the area,
like essentially just a warrant to photographthe premises because it was a crime scene.
They want to see if I hadweapons or whatever. The deal was,
take all the pictures that they neededand dust for fingerprints. I'm like,
(32:51):
fine, that's fine. And atthat point I started really getting cold
because the adrenaline had worn off.So I threw on a little jacket and
at that point it was becoming acircus, a police activity up the street.
There must have been twenty or twentyfive cars just all over. Everything
was taped off where he had beenfound, you know, the little evidence
(33:15):
markers were out what the bud was. And he asked my wife and I
and the neighbors to come in forquestioning. So like, sure, okay,
we went out there. I guessthey didn't have any other vehicle,
so we got the ride in theback of the squad car, which was
surreal and watching the sunrise with yourwife in the back of a squad car.
(33:39):
Very cramped back there, but wegot in there and basically everybody had
to go to a separate room.I guess, just to keep everyone's stories
straight. They don't want just likeon TV. They don't want you to
be conversing with each other and justkeep you right out of gas. So
I sat down and I just startedfeeling just dread, you know, just
(34:04):
all on top of everything that hadalready happened. I just kept seeing it
happened over and over and over andover again. And then I'm like,
well, what if what if becausehe didn't have his feet inside the house,
is it not legal to fight someoneoff? You know, he wasn't
armed with These kinds of things gothrough your head. I'm like, what
if there's a really zealous prosecutor thatjust it's out for blood for some reason.
(34:28):
He wasn't on drugs. He wasjust a poor, mentally handicapped man,
you know. I don't know ifany of those are even rational thoughts,
but that's what was just going throughmy mind. And then I felt
so bad for the guy. Eventhough I was so mad and scared at
the time, as soon as hewas gone, I just started feeling terrible
for him. I think they're allrational thoughts, especially for you. I
(34:52):
mean, you'd never been put ina situation like this before and you don't
have any idea what's going to happen. Did you consider having an attorney present
during that questioning? I had thoughtabout it, whether I'm like, you
know what I feel in my heart, I didn't do anything wrong, and
(35:12):
the detective on the scene and theneighbors and my wife and everybody that morning
had said, you did what youhad to do. You did what you
had to do, so I just, you know, maybe from a legal
standpoint, somebody would say, no, you should always have a lawyer,
but I didn't feel I had anythingto hide. It was self defense.
But now I didn't, I didn'tget a lawyer, and they came in
(35:35):
with the recorder, read me myrights, I guess, which I don't
know if they have to do that, but they did, and so they
just went through and just I relayedthe whole thing to them. That point,
they asked for DNA and they're takingthe fingerprints and they need a piece
of each one of your fingernails,which I didn't know they did, and
(35:58):
then took all my clothes. Theyhad asked someone to come pick me up
later to bring me a set ofclothes, because I guess in a homicide
investigation they take all of your clothing. I guess to check for DNA or
blood or whatever, which I kindof objected to since I was in my
underwear the entire time. But Iguess pro sidure's procedure, and that the
(36:20):
inspector was. He was kind throughout, you know, he said, this
is very procedural. Might seem strangethat we're having to do all these things
and just kind of lay it outfor you, you know, as a
standard practice. We want to makesure we do everything by the book.
But I'll tell you they didn't evencome to speak to me the first time
for at least three and a halfhours, maybe four hours. I was
(36:44):
sitting there by myself in that room, and that's when the thoughts just start
rattling through your brain and just startreliving that over and over again. I
guess they came to me last becausethere are so many other witnesses to talk
to, and it was just thetwo detectives. So they interviewed both the
neighbors, They interviewed my wife.They interviewed the caretaker from the group home,
(37:10):
So I guess what had happened.I learned later that the man had
chased had been in a fight atthe home. He locked himself in his
room when they came in to checkon him, he had snuck out the
window. He's basically broken out ofthe group home through the window, and
so that at that point, Ithink the caretaker was already looking for him,
(37:30):
and that's where they found him.The caretaker found him staggering up the
street, and I kind of felt, you know, how bad that caretaker
must have felt to see one ofhis charges covered in blood collapse at his
car. So I felt bad forthat guy too. Been yet basically sitting
(37:51):
in that police station for hours andhours by yourself, I just started having
a panic attack, and I couldn'tbelieve it. You know, it's when
you were just shaking your head overand over trying to wake yourself up,
and it's not working. It's prettyamazing that, you know, the night
before you went to bed, everythingwas normal and routine, and yet now
(38:13):
here you were at the police station. It's isn't amazing how quickly life can
change. Yeah, you're in adifferent world all of a sudden. Yeah.
So yeah, we finished, Wefinished with him, signed all the
paperwork that was needed. I wentdownstairs and I saw my wife, gave
(38:35):
her hug, went downstairs. Myfolks were there and they took us home,
gave us a ride, offered mesomething to eat, and I had
just had no appetite at that point. It was it was afternoon we had
been there. It's probably two orthree in the afternoon. I'm not sure
what time it was. So itwas almost twelve hours nearly since it had
(38:55):
happened, and it was just amedia circus outside, you know, just
a lot of the cops cars hadhad left, but there had been mere
place with news vans and all that. I'm like, I don't want to
talk to anybody. I don't wantmy whole name to be in the paper,
no comment. And you know,my family was great. They really
(39:16):
helped out so much. I wentinside and just had a cup of Tea
took his annex and just sat ina recliner and just relaxed, and they
helped clean everything up, clean upthe broken glass, all the blood they
got, all the blood out.I guess hydrogen peroxide does a good job,
(39:39):
and it all came out. Iwas I was glad because I didn't
want to have that reminder everywhere andat the window fixed that day, and
it almost looked like nothing had happened, with the exception that the blinds were
broken down, so we needed toget new blinds. But if you looked
at it, you wouldn't know thatanything had happened that day. Did this
(40:00):
happen on a weekday or a weekend? I think it was a Monday morning,
so I assume you probably took sometime off work. Yeah. When
I was waiting for the inspector camedown, I just texted my manager hate
the very basics. We had abreak in. I can't make it in
(40:21):
today. Yeah. She was great, She's like fine, and then when
she heard the fuller story, she'syou know, she and the management there
were supportive. Anytime you need whatever, you need, take some days off,
whatever, it's it's no problem.And it was it was a few
days before I went back to work, but no more than two days off.
(40:43):
I guess I just tried to clearmy head. But even on that
first day back, I don't thinkI stayed past lunch. I just heart
just wasn't in it and I couldn'tconcentrate. You know, did your co
workers all know what had happened?No? I think only a couple of
people. I wasn't like telling everybodythis just because yet. Yeah, and
(41:05):
even if they saw it in thenews, they wouldn't know necessarily that it
was you. Right, It's notlike a story that I just want to
tell over and over again to alot of people. You know, do
you still live in the same house? Yeah? Yeah, we're still here.
We like here a lot. It'sa nice house. I've spent many
years fixing it up, so I'mtoo stubborn to leave at this point.
(41:30):
Too much work has been put intoit. Not only that, but statistically,
what's the chances of something like thathappening twice at the same house?
Right, That's true. I kindof felt like I had won a bad
lottery. But now I was kindof spared from anything like that ever happening
again, because you know it'd bepretty crazy. But each day, you
(41:51):
know, the first day, obviouslyI was just stunned. I was just
in shock. And the next dayI saw my therapist, spoke with him
for a while. It was helpful, but I was still in physical shock.
And I talked to a counselor fromthe Sheriff's department that contacted me.
I guess she was a victim's advocate, and she had kind of described a
(42:16):
lot of the symptoms that I toldher I was having. She's like,
this is perfectly normal. You know, you're basically gone through shock. And
you know, I don't know ifyou want to call it PTSD because it
had just happened, but you know, I was getting like flu like symptoms
and couldn't sleep and didn't want toeat, and the racing thoughts and keeps
picturing it happened over and over again. She's like, no, that's normal,
(42:38):
And sure enough, that started toebb away. But what's funny is
every time I kept picturing it happenedin my mind over and over again,
I'd get queasy, but I wouldsee the knife coming out of me instead.
And I was always picturing it fromhis perspective. For some reason seeing
(42:59):
me stab out and strangely enough,and I don't know if people will believe
it, I literally felt an actualache in my chest where he got hit.
I could feel a physical pain,not like I'd been stabbed, but
it was aching, which I thoughtwas very strange. I don't know if
there's some kind of, you know, weird psychic connection or something. I'm
(43:20):
not really into that kind of thing, but I tell you, I really
felt that. It sounds like it'syou have maybe in your personality, you
have a natural or an extraordinary senseof empathy. Would you say that's true?
I think so. I think that'strue. And my wife and I,
(43:43):
she prays a lot. I reallydon't, but she thinks of of
Chase Off, and we would talkabout him and try to imagine what his
life was like and try to notmake his death meaningless in some way kind
of keep him him remembered. Youknow, I know there's a lot of
(44:05):
emotional um, a variety of emotionsthat go with us. But do you
feel, or have you ever feltguilt for what happened on and Off?
And I know I do the samething a second time, and I'd tell
anybody else probably do the same thing. But that's it's kind of hard to
talk yourself out of that, thatthat guilt is just it's just going to
(44:29):
happen. I don't, I don't. I don't think I did the wrong
thing. Um, I think Ithink I did the right thing. But
that's something you have to live with, you know. Yeah. Strangely,
like a few days after that,and I had seen my counselor again,
I started to go into almost likea happy, manic state where I felt,
(44:50):
Oh, this is a new leaseon life. You've been given another
chance. You could have died,Now do something good somehow. And I
had that that an energy which unfortunatelykind of wore off. You know,
you feel like you're You're going tobecome this wonderful person and I'm going to
volunteer and do all these things,or then you just kind of become yourself
(45:13):
again. But I am at leastglad that it didn't make me a worse
person. I was worried that,oh, I'm going to become very paranoid
and fill the house with guns andcameras and just be the person staring out
from behind, you know, theshades and suspicious of all his neighbors.
That didn't change in me at all. I'm not fearful to walk around at
(45:36):
night with taking the dog for awalk. I don't feel any extra fear
in any situations like that, Soat least at least things didn't get worse
for me. What is your opinionabout having a gun for self defense?
Well, I mean, in thatcase, for it have even made any
difference, probably would have had tohave it to sitting out, owed it
(46:00):
and ready right there. Things happenedso fast and I didn't need it,
And I guess statistically more likely tokill yourself or a loved one or someone
by mistake, But I don't Idon't think anybody shouldn't be able to defend
themselves. I'm not going to comeout as an anti gun in the house
(46:21):
stance, but I still haven't gottenone, so I don't know if I
will or not. Well, ifyou haven't gotten one, now it's i'd
probably probably not going to happen afterthis. That's the Yeah, that's that's
the task. I guess they didtake all They did take all my knives,
so he had to get new knives. Okay, obviously he wasn't very
(46:42):
communicative, But do you have anyidea what his intentions were if he actually
got in the house, I haveno idea what he was after. But
at the time, all I couldsee was he wanted in badly, and
he was very violent, and Ithought he was going to kill us.
So why he did that, Iwish I knew, But you know,
(47:06):
you can't. You can't know what'sgoing on someone's in someone's mind. He'd
already been denied entry in two otherhouses, so maybe that's what kind of
got him amped up even a littlemore and more determined to get into yours.
Maybe maybe I've kind of developed atrick whenever I like a mental trick
that whenever I start reliving it becauseI get kind of queasy at some horror
(47:30):
movies. You don't like the sideside of a knife too much. I
mean, I like scary movies wellenough, but sometimes I get a little
queasy, and then I picture myselfwith a knife, and that happening when
it starts to replay through my mind. I just pictured it off to the
side and my peripheral vision and Ijust see it, just let it play
out here and what I call theatertwo. So it's just like I've turned
(47:52):
it into a movie, so Ican just pretend that it didn't really happen.
It's just over here playing as aas a movie, so I don't
suppress it, but just kind ofremember it as a movie that you saw.
That's interesting. Is that a techniquethat you came up with or did
your therapist give you that. Icame up with it just after a few
(48:14):
days and I told him about that, and he's like, oh, that's
yeah, that's an unknown technique.I guess. I'm like, well,
okay, I guess it works.Because even when I I saw the you
know, the movie Parasite. Idon't know if I won't give out spoilers,
but there's a scene where there's astabbing and the knife and the butcher
(48:35):
block look exactly like mine. Assoon as I saw that, I'm like,
oh, I started to get thatfeeling. And I just said to
myself, theater two and I canjust kind of dismiss the fear of that
happening again. But you just haveto be on top of it so it
doesn't start rolling around in your headover and over and over again. So
it's it's helped me got to beaware. Yeah, is there any part
(48:58):
of the story that we haven't covered, or anything that I haven't asked you.
I would just say, I hope. I don't want to cast any
bad light on people with mental illness. I think he had schizophrenia, and
I know it's it's a serious subject, and I don't want to make people
fearful of people with those conditions.Yeah, I guess in that case,
(49:22):
I don't know what else could havebeen done. I just I hope my
wife had said he was in abad place and now he's not. Maybe
you've you've, in a in astrange way, helped him because he seemed
like he did not want to bein the world, or he was having
a very hard time in it.So that's one kind of cold solace I
(49:45):
can give myself that maybe in someway that was meant to be. It
was meant to be that he wouldbe put out of his out of his
pain. Thanks for sharing the story, Okay, Scott, thank you very
much. Hey, is that abizarre story or what? I hope that's
(50:07):
what you've come to expect here onthis podcast. It's what I do,
it's what I enjoy doing. Iget a lot of people pitching me their
stories and Unfortunately, I have toreject most of them, and I do
that for you. You are mylistener. I don't ever want you to
see a new episode show up onyour phone and have you say, yeah,
that one sounds kind of boring.What I do want you to say
(50:30):
when you see a new episode isoh wow, I definitely have to hear
that story. That means I've donemy job.
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