Detectives, What are Some of the Creepiest Cases You Have Worked On?

Detectives, What are Some of the Creepiest Cases You Have Worked On?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Story one.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I've worked homicide in Pima County long enough to think
I've seen it all, but I still can't shake that
call from a couple years back. I live out in Veil,
about twenty minutes from Tucson, a quiet place with dry
winds and coyotes that sound like kids screaming in the
washes at night. You get used to it, but that
night it was dead quiet, and it's the silence I

(00:21):
remember the most. I wasn't even a detective then, just patrol.
I'd pulled a double because some rookie called out and
I was getting ready to wrap up when dispatch called
in a welfare check off Old Spanish Trail. They said
the neighbor finally got around a calling because the guy's
mailbox was stuffed and he hadn't seen him in a while.
Nobody really knew how long that was out there where

(00:43):
the neighbors are a quarter mile apart. It was around
ten pm when I rolled up, gravel crunching under the tires.
I cut the engine and everything went black except my
flashlight beam sweeping across the dirt yard. The place didn't
look abandoned, just tired paint peeling, but the windows were intact.
Shades pulled mailbox practically throwing up envelopes, some with pink

(01:06):
and yellow notices. I walked around back, smelled something sour
under the breeze, and saw flies thick on the glass
of the sliding door. I got that itch between my
shoulder blades. I only get when something's off, you know,
the one I knocked, called out nothing. My backup arrived
and we popped the lock. You ever smelled death that's
been sitting for months. It's like wet pennies and rotten meat,

(01:29):
but sweeter. Somehow it stuck in my nose and behind
my teeth, and I could taste it when I swallowed.
We stepped in slow clearing rooms, but the house was quiet,
really quiet. The guy was in the dining room, slumped
over on the floor with the old style phone cord
tangled around his arm, the chair tipped over behind him.
He was half melted into the carpet, skin dark and glossy,

(01:51):
closed still on him, but stuck to the floor. He
still looked like a man, but not really, more like
a deflated thing that used to be alive. I stood
there because I saw his hand still gripping the phone.
It was off the hook, resting in a puddle that
had dried up around it. My partner was gagging behind me,
but I couldn't take my eyes off that phone. It
was like he was trying to call for help but

(02:13):
never finished dialing. The place was tidy, That's what messed
with me.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
The most.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Two grocery bags on the kitchen floor canned stuff, some
bread that had turned to green dust. The counters were clean,
dishes done. Nothing was knocked over except that one chair,
like he'd just come home, put the groceries down, felt
his chest seise and grabbed the phone. I kept thinking
about how long it must have taken him to fall,
if he was conscious, how long he lay there waiting

(02:40):
for someone to find him. But the real thing that's
never left me, what still wakes me up sometimes, was
what we found in the basement. The pipes had burst,
probably during a freeze, and the floor was covered in
a couple of inches of stagnant water, black with mold
and dead flies floating on top. The air was heavy,
and my flashlight bounced off the water, showing shapes under

(03:02):
the surface. At first I thought it was debris, Then
I saw the cat or what was left of it.
It was bloated, first, slipping off, floating near the stairs,
and its mouth was open, like it had been meowing
when it died.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know why it broke me, but it did.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
I thought about how it probably stayed by him upstairs, waiting,
maybe trying to wake him, before it got hungry enough
to go looking for water. It found the basement, fell
in and couldn't get out. The corner later said the
man died of a massive heart attack. They figured he'd
been dead for nearly eight months before the neighbor noticed
the mailbox, eight months of him lying there season after season,

(03:38):
windows baking in the sun, flies hatching and dying again
and again around him. We cleared out after the corner arrived,
and the house felt different then, like whatever had been
hanging in the air left with the body. But before
I stepped out, I turned back and looked at the
phone on the floor. The dial tone was still droning
softly from it, like a faint whine echoing in the

(03:59):
empty house. I don't know why, but I picked it
up and hung it up. The sound cut off, and
the silence that replaced it was so complete it was
like the air got sucked out of the room. I
still think about that moment, about how he died trying
to call for help, Groceres still in the bag, the
cat waiting until it's starved, and no one noticing. That

(04:21):
house sat there, holding death inside it, while the world
just kept moving on outside. Bill's piling up, seasons, changing
birds nesting in the eaves, and him just lying there
waiting for someone to find him. Sometimes when I drive
past that road at night, I catch myself looking for
that house in the dark, even though it's long been
cleared out and sold to someone else. I wonder if

(04:43):
they ever hear the faint tone of a phone in
the dark, whining softly in the empty spaces at night,
reminding them of what that place held onto for so long.
That's the worst part about this job. It's not the
gore or the smell. It's the silence afterward, the empty
rooms were something terrible happened, and the feeling that the
air still remembers. I transferred out of patrol not long

(05:05):
after that, moved up to detective. I've worked homicides that
would turn your stomach, seen what people do to each
other for money, drugs, or nothing at all. But nothing
has ever creeped me out the way that cal did,
because it wasn't murder or evil or rage. It was
just a man dying alone, unnoticed, the world going on
without him, until the smell finally forced someone to care.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Story two.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
It started with a call that didn't sound all that
unusual at first. A woman living in an apartment building
near the outskirts of town had phoned in claiming she
was being watched by ghosts. Dispatch passed the information along
to me and my partner with a shrug. She's schizophrenic,
they'd said, Just do a wellness check and report back.
Wellness checks were routine enough most of the time, it

(05:52):
was just about reassuring someone helping them feel safe in
their home. But this one, it quickly became clear that
it wasn't going to be the ordinary a call. The
apartment complex was tucked away behind a stretch of old
industrial buildings and crumbling parking lots, the kind of place
you don't notice unless you're actively looking for it, and
next door an abandoned funeral home. It's once elegant facade

(06:15):
now peeling and covered in graffiti. It was the kind
of building kids dared each other to break into complete
with broken windows and overgrown weeds wrapping around the base,
like the hands of time pulling it under. We knocked
on the woman's door, and she answered almost immediately. She
was in her late forties, maybe early fifties, with messy
hair and tired eyes that darted around nervously. Her first words,

(06:39):
they're watching me. I can feel them. We stepped inside,
the air thick with the smell of stale cigarettes and
old coffee. She led us to her living room, her
hands shaking as she waved toward the window. They're in there,
she said, pointing at the funeral home next door. I
see them sometimes, shadows faces, They're keeping track of everything.

(07:00):
I glanced at my partner, trying to mask my skepticism.
Do you think these are people, I asked carefully, No,
she snapped, her voice sharp and certain. They're not people.
They're spirits watching me, watching all of us. She gestured
wildly at a notepad on the table where she'd written
her observations, scribbled notes about seeing movement at odd hours,

(07:23):
hearing faint noises, and sensing that she wasn't alone. On
the surface, it looked like the ramblings of someone caught
in paranoia. But something about the way she described it,
I don't know. It felt too deliberate, too detailed. We
did a sweep of her apartment. Everything was in order,
aside from her pile of notes and a few newspapers
she'd used to black out the windows. But as we

(07:44):
stood there listening to her explain how she felt their
eyes on her, I couldn't help but glance out the
window at the darkened, yawning shell of the funeral home.
My partner spoke first, Let's take a look outside, he said,
his tone more amused than concerned. He clearly thought it
was all nonsense, but I wasn't as sure. Something about
the whole setup didn't sit right with me. We made

(08:06):
our way around the side of the apartment building, flashlights
cutting through the shadows. The funeral home loomed ahead, its
broken windows glinting faintly in the moonlight. The air felt
colder there, sharper, as if it carried something the wind
couldn't quite sweep away.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
And that's when we found it.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
There was a small side entrance to the funeral home,
partially boarded up. The boards had been pried loose, just
enough for someone to slip through inside the air was
stale and thick with decay, and the faint smell of
something metallic lingered. My partner went in first, and I
followed reluctantly. The place was a mess, broken furniture, debris

(08:43):
scattered across the floor, old mortuary equipment gathering dust in
the corners. It was exactly the kind of place you'd
expect to find graffiti and maybe even squatters. But it
was what we found upstairs that changed everything. In one
of the old offices, we found a desk covered in notebooks.
They weren't old or forgotten, they were recent. Their pages
filled with crude, handwritten logs. There were dates, times, and descriptions.

(09:08):
Women in Apartment three C leaves for work at eight
fifteen am, man in four A comes home at six
thirty pm, page after page chronicling the movements of the
residents in the apartment building next door. My partner's face shifted,
the humor draining from it. This isn't, he started trailing
off as he flipped through another notebook. The logs weren't

(09:29):
just detailed, they were obsessive. Whoever had written them had
clearly spent hours, maybe days, watching the building. There were
other things too, a pair of binoculars sitting on the
window sill facing the woman's apartment, wrappers from protein bars,
half a bottle of water, the kinds of things someone
would bring if they were camping out for long stretches
of time. The woman wasn't wrong about being watched. She'd

(09:53):
just been right in a way none of us expected.
We called it in, getting more officers and investigators on
the scene by the time we returned with a full team,
though the place was empty. Whoever had been there must
have seen us coming or realized they'd been found out.
They were gone, leaving only the notes and a few
scattered belongings behind.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
The woman wasn't wrong.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Someone something had been watching her, keeping track of her.
Of everyone why we never found out. The investigators never
uncovered who had been using the funeral home or what
their intentions were. My partner theorized they'd been planning some
kind of crime, but fled when they thought they'd been discovered.
To this day, I still think about those logs, about

(10:35):
the eerie accuracy of the descriptions, the way they mirrored
her paranoia almost perfectly, and about the fact that we
might never know what they were really planning story three.
Investigating insurance claims wasn't a glamorous job, but it certainly
had its moments of intrigue and occasionally moments of creeping dread.
One of those moments happened during an arson case I

(10:57):
worked on years ago in Birmingham, Alabama. Fire had taken
place in the historic Masonic Temple, a towering eight story
Renaissance revival building nestled in the historic Black business district downtown.
It wasn't just the fire itself that was unsettling, it
was what I found while combing through the charred remains.
Built in the nineteen twenties, the Masonic Temple was a

(11:18):
monument to an era when black entrepreneurs and professionals thrived
in the area. The massive marble lobby in its grand
second floor ballroom, had seen countless celebrations, fundraisers, and important
gatherings over the decades. The building also housed offices for
black owned businesses, from tailors to attorneys to the local
NAACP chapter. But as the decades passed and integration came,

(11:42):
the neighborhood experienced white flight businesses moved out or shuttered
all together, and the building began its slow decline into emptiness.
By the time I arrived, it was mostly abandoned, aside
from the still functioning Masons and apparently squatters who sparked
the fire. When I got the call to invest gate,
I didn't know much beyond the basics determine the cause

(12:03):
of the fire, assess the damage, and see how far
the destruction had spread. What I wasn't prepared for was
the eerie silence that hung over the building. The electricity
had been shut off by the fire department as a
safety precaution, leaving the interior cloaked in darkness. It was
up to me and my flashlight to navigate the sprawling structure.
The second floor, the grand ballroom, had miraculously escaped damage.

(12:27):
Walking into it felt like stepping back in time. The
intricate mill work, elegant decorps, and massive chandeliers were untouched,
waiting patiently for a party that would never come. I
took a moment to admire its grandeur before pressing on
to the third floor. The offices on the third floor
were mostly intact, still holding onto their mid century furniture,

(12:48):
some of which was in pristine condition. I came across
desks layered with dust, filing cabinets left frozen in time,
and the remnants of lives once busy with work and ambition.
But as I climbed high, something shifted. The building grew darker,
literally and figuratively. The fourth floor was the first to
make me hesitate. My flashlight barely cut through the gloom

(13:09):
as I moved down narrow hallways, sweeping the beam across
abandoned rooms. In one office, I found an old na
CP space, perfectly preserved as though someone had locked the
door and left decades ago. Papers and files lined the drawers,
untouched waiting. I lingered for a moment before venturing down
the hall, my nerves buzzing. That's when I saw it.

(13:32):
At the far end of the hallway, obscured by shadows,
was a large, looming structure. My flashlight barely illuminated it,
just enough to make out its shape. Slowly, cautiously, I
moved closer, my heart pounding with each step. Finally, the
light revealed it fully a coffin, an old Dracula style coffin,
standing upright at the end of the hall. I froze.

(13:54):
My brain scrambled to rationalize its presence. Why would a
coffin be here in the middle of an empty office.
I didn't dare touch it, didn't even want to get
close enough to examine it. I backed away, keeping my
eyes on it, and hurried to the stairwell. My heart
was racing, but I told myself it was just some
strange remnant of a time long past. I kept climbing

(14:16):
floor after floor, and with each level the building felt heavier.
The halls grew darker, the air colder, the sense of
unease more intense. And the coffins they weren't limited to
the fourth floor. I found more. Some were out in
the open, standing like monuments in the middle of offices.
Others were tucked into closets or wedged against doors, blocking

(14:37):
them from the inside. Every time I encountered one, I
felt that same rush of unease, that same instinct telling
me to keep moving. When I reached the top floor,
the mystery became clearer and creepier. The two remaining businesses
were revealed in faded signage, a coffin company and the
Order of the Eastern Star. The oes Lodge gave me

(14:57):
chills before I even entered its hallway. Something about it
felt wrong, like I wasn't supposed to be there. My
instincts screamed at me to leave, but I took a
few quick pictures of the space before bolting back to
the stairwell. By the time I reached the lobby, my
nerves were shot. The only area left to inspect was
the basement, a decision I didn't make lightly. But as

(15:18):
I descended the stairs, I found something unexpected. A fallout shelter,
hundreds of barrels of water, food, medical supplies, radiation detectors
and more aligned the space perfectly preserved. It was a
time capsule of a different era, tucked away in the
darkness beneath the building. When I left the Masonic Temple,

(15:38):
I couldn't shake the feeling that I had disturbed something,
something that didn't want to be disturbed. The building was
more than just a relic of history. It was a
place where time had frozen, holding on to secrets and
shadows that didn't belong to me. That investigation stuck with
me long after the paperwork was done. The fire may
have brought me there, but it was the silence and

(16:00):
the strangeness of the temple itself that lingered. Some places
carry a weight that doesn't fade and the Masonic Temple.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
In Birmingham is one of them. Story four.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
I'm a detective out of Allegheny County, just east of Pittsburgh,
and I've seen enough messed up scenes to last three lifetimes.
But there was one job back in twenty seventeen that
still makes me sweat when I think about it. And
I don't even tell the story often because people don't
believe it, and I get it because I wouldn't either.
It was a Tuesday, late afternoon, raining, steady but not heavy,

(16:32):
just enough to keep the road slick. I was living
alone in a basement apartment off Braddock Avenue and I
was on call that week, which meant no sleep in
cold coffee whenever the phone rang. My partner Ray called
me up, said we had a situation on Eighth Street
and abandoned duplex. Neighbors complained about screaming a couple nights
in a row, and someone thought they saw a light

(16:53):
moving around in the basement. I didn't want to go
to be honest, the address was tied to a crew
we'd been watching guys who moved level stuff, some stolen guns,
some pills, but nothing too heavy. Still, we needed to
check it. Out, so I grabbed my rain jacket and
met Ray out front. The place was quiet when we
pulled up, except for the rain hitting the gutters and

(17:13):
the wind knocking a plastic bag down the sidewalk. It
was one of those houses you see in these dying neighborhoods,
windows covered in plywood, the porch sagging like it wanted
to give up. There was a foresail sign half ripped
out of the ground. Nothing felt right about it, and
I could tell Ray felt the same, because he was
doing that thing where he tapped the butt of his
flashlight on his leg over and over. Ready, he said, yeah,

(17:37):
let's do it. We didn't expect to find much, maybe
a squatter, maybe some kid trying to scare his friends.
But as soon as we got up to the door,
we both smelled it. You can't mistake that smell once
you've smelled it, A thick wet rot that sticks to
your clothes and your hair. I pulled my shirt over
my nose and Ray used the butt of his flashlight
to push the door open. We stepped in, flashlights, cutting

(17:59):
across empty beer cans, a stained mattress on the floor,
graffiti on the walls. It felt like the air was heavy,
like something didn't want us there. And I told myself
it was just the mold, just the garbage, just my
own damn nerves. Check the basement, Ray asked. I didn't answer.
I just pointed my light at the basement door, which

(18:20):
was shut tight with a padlock, a thick chain wrapped
around it. There were scratches all over the door, deep
and deliberate, like someone had tried to claw their way out.
Ray went quiet, and we just stood there for a
second listening. I swear to god, I heard something move
on the other side of that door, a dragging sound,
soft and slow, like something wet was pulling itself across

(18:42):
the concrete floor. Ray looked at me, waiting for me
to say it, so I did. We're cutting it. We
got the bolt cutters from the car, and I'll never
forget how loud the chain sounded when it dropped to
the ground, how it echoed in the empty house. We
pushed the door open, and the smell that hit us
was worse than anything I'd smelled before. Ray gagged turned

(19:03):
his head, but I forced myself to look down the stairs.
The basement was dark, our lights barely reaching the bottom
but what we could see was water, maybe ankle deep,
black and rippling. Even though there was no draft, no movement,
nothing that should have made it move. There were shapes
in the water, bags maybe or blankets, floating and shifting.

(19:24):
We stood there, and then something under that water moved,
pushing the floating bags aside, and we both stepped back.
It was big, whatever it was, and it made the sound,
this low, bubbling groan that came from everywhere and nowhere.
I pointed my light, trying to catch a clear look,
and the beam caught something pale, human colored, floating, face down,

(19:45):
hair drifting like seaweed. Ray whispered, Jesus Christ. That's when
it moved. The body, or what I thought was a body,
lifted its head. It wasn't a body. It was something else,
something pale and raw, a person with no skin, its
eyes black and sunk into its skull, its mouth hanging

(20:05):
open like it was trying to scream but couldn't. It
started crawling, dragging itself through the water toward the stairs,
its arms making that wet slapping sound. I heard myself
say back up, but my feet wouldn't move, and Ray
grabbed my arm, pulling me and the thing was already
halfway up the stairs, leaving streaks of black water on
the steps. It opened its mouth wider, and this sound

(20:28):
came out, a rattling, hollow screech that made my teeth hurt.
Ray pulled me harder, and I snapped out of it.
We ran out of that house, out into the rain,
and didn't stop until we were back at the cars,
breathing hard, soaking, wet, shaking. We called it in, told
dispatch there was a body in the basement, told them
to send the coroner, animal control whoever. We didn't know

(20:51):
what else to say. When backup arrived, we went back in,
guns drawn this time, but the basement was empty, no water,
no body, just a damp concrete floor and the stink
of rod. The scratches were still on the stairs, dark
and fresh, but whatever we saw was gone, like it
had never been there.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
The corner didn't find a body.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
They found bones, old brittle scattered in the corners, like
something had been picking at them. We bagged them up,
took them in, but there was no id, no way
to know who they were. We asked around, but nobody
in the neighborhood knew anything, or if they did, they
weren't saying. Ray and I didn't talk much about what
we saw. We wrote it up as a recovery of

(21:33):
remains in a known drug property, noted the scratches, noted
the smell, but left out the part about what we
saw crawl up those stairs. You can't put that in
a report. Nobody would believe it, and honestly, I barely
believe it myself.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Story five.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
I don't think I'll ever forget that apartment, or the
way the steam clung to my skin as we stood
there trying not to gag. I'm Marcus, by the way.
I lived just outside Cleveland, been a detective here for
nearly a decade. Most days are dull paperwork and chasing
down stolen cars. But sometimes you walk into a place
that shifts something inside you permanently. This was one of

(22:09):
those days. It was a Tuesday morning, cold as hell,
when dispatch told me to meet patrol at a welfare check.
The neighbor had complained about a steady drip coming through
her ceiling and the smell was getting to her. She
thought the tenant upstairs was dead. That's the kind of
call you get used to old people die alone. The
heat's on you get decomposition. It's sad, but you learn

(22:31):
to handle it. I pulled up to a brown brick complex,
walked up the salt scattered stairs, and nodded to the
uniform at the door.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
He was pale.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
What's the story, I asked, water's been leaking for two days.
He said, no answer. Landlord's here. They forced the door open,
and that's when the heat hit me first, like walking
into a sauna that smelled like rotting meat. I've smelled
death before, but it's the wet smell that gets you
thick and sweet, clinging to your nostrils. The living room

(23:00):
was normal, TV on static, playing couch with a blanket
thrown over it. The smell was stronger down the hall.
We followed it careful with our steps and found the
bathroom door closed. You could see steam puffing from underneath,
like the room was breathing. I pulled my glove tighter,
opened the door, and the cloud of heat and stench

(23:20):
rolled out, hitting us in the face so hard. The
rookie behind me gagged immediately. I've seen suicides, overdoses, gunshots,
I've never seen this. The guy was in the tub,
water still running, scalding hot steam rising off the surface.
His head was slumped forward, chinned to chest, arms floating.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
His skin.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
God, his skin looked like wet paper sliding off in sheets,
exposing this pink red mush beneath. The water was the
color of weak tea, swirled with floating pieces of skin.
We couldn't even turn off the water at first. The
faucet was too hot to touch, and the steam made
it feel like the whole room was alive, breathing around us.
The Lord was behind us, mumbling prayers while the rookie

(24:03):
kept swallowing hard, trying not to throw up. It didn't
look like murder. No bruises, no cuts, no blood on
the floor. The guy's clothes were in a pile by
the door, and there was an empty whiskey bottle on
the sink. Looked like he came home drunk and decided
to take a hot bath. But the knob for the
cold water was broken off. Only the hot water was running,

(24:23):
blasting into that tub NonStop. And there was a note
on the counter, But it wasn't a suicide note. It
was a shopping list, some frozen meals and a six pack,
nothing about wanting to die. We had to wait for
the corner to come, and that weight was the worst part.
We stood in that hallway, door propped open, steam billowing out,
the smell seeping into our clothes and skin. I watched

(24:45):
the water drip down, the guy's bloated arm, skin peeling
off in long ribbons, dropping into the tea colored water.
You could hear it like a quiet PLoP every time
another piece let go. Marcus, the rookie, said, voice shaking,
why didn't he get out? And that's what I've asked
myself one hundred times since. Why didn't he get out?
The water must have been scalding. Your body would try

(25:07):
to get out, even drunk, even passed out. You'd flinch,
you'd move something. But this guy sat there cooking. The
Corners team came suited up, and I warned them the
skin was coming off easily. They didn't believe me until
they tried to lift him, and a whole layer slid
right off, leaving them standing there holding what looked like
a pale empty suit. The worst sound was the water

(25:30):
sloshing as they moved him, skin ribbons floating around the tub,
draining out pieces of him. We bagged what we could,
but the smell stayed on me for days. I could
taste it in the back of my throat. I threw
out the clothes I wore that day. The kicker I
had to call his next of kin, a sister in Pittsburgh.
She hadn't heard from him in months. She just kept saying,

(25:52):
are you sure it's him? Are you sure? Over and
over until I finally said yes, ma'am, because I didn't
know what else to say. For weeks, I found myself
staring at the tub in my own place, testing the
water temperature before getting in, checking the cold knob three
or four times. I couldn't stop thinking about how easy
it would be for something so simple, so stupid, to

(26:14):
end you like that, boiling alive in your own bathroom,
nobody even realizing until you started dripping through the ceiling below.
I've worked bigger cases since, more violent ones, but nothing
has ever stuck with me like that scene. The heat,
the smell, the steam, and that body slumped forward as
if he'd just knotted off the water, quietly turning him

(26:36):
into soup. It was the most horrifying thing I've seen,
not because it was a murder or a monster or
a ghost, but because it was just him alone, unnoticed,
slowly cooking while the world outside kept moving, nobody caring
until the stink got too strong. Story six. The nineteen
nineties were an interesting time for technology. Back then, memory

(26:58):
wasn't something you just popped into a cart and bought
without blinking at the price. Ramsticks, those little pieces of
hardware that powered everything in a computer were absurdly expensive,
running about fifty to seventy five dollars per megabyte. People
think storage is precious now, but back then, every single
megabyte mattered, which is why the theft I ended up

(27:18):
involved in still baffles me to this day.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I wasn't a detective.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
I was the tech guy they called when they didn't
understand something about computers or needed help piecing things together
in an investigation. My job wasn't glamorous, but it let
me get my hands on cases that most people never
even knew about. This one, though, This one was strange.
I got the call from a friend in law enforcement
one afternoon. They needed someone with a decent understanding of

(27:43):
computer systems for a weird case involving a local universities lab.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Weird in what way? I asked?

Speaker 2 (27:50):
He sighed and said, you'll see that was all the
introduction I got before I showed up at the scene.
The computer lab wasn't anything fancy, just a long room
filled with bulk desktop computers, all humming away under the
glare of fluorescent lights. It smelled faintly of stale coffee
and dusty books, the kind of environment you'd expect to
find in the corner of a university library. Nothing seemed

(28:12):
to miss at first glance, but when the lead officer
walked me through what had happened, I started to see
why they called me in. Apparently, someone had broken into
the lab over the course of several months months and
systematically tampered with the machines. The thief hadn't stolen monitors
or keyboards or anything big and obvious. No, they'd opened
up each computer one by one and swapped out its ramsticks.

(28:36):
For those unfamiliar, RAM is the short term memory that
computers rely on to function, and back then it was
incredibly valuable. Each machine originally had four four megabyte ramsticks
installed top of the line for that era, but whoever
had done this replaced them with cheaper, lower capacity, one
megabyte sticks.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Here's the kicker. No one noticed.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
You'd think of performing drop in a computer lab full
of students would raise a red flag right, but between
the gradual decline in speed and the general tolerance of
tech glitches back then, it flew under the radar. People
just chalked up slower computers to buggy programs or outdated hardware.
The theft went unnoticed until a routine maintenance check months
later revealed the swap. The window for the crime was

(29:20):
bafflingly broad. The university determined the tampering must have taken
place sometime between September first and January tenth, a span.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Of over four months.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
No one had reported anything unusual during that time, and
the lab wasn't equipped with door key card systems or cameras. Security,
as it turned out, relied heavily on faith. The most
unsettling detail was how methodical the thief had been. Opening
up computers isn't a fast process, even less so in
the nineties. It's not just popping a lid. Its screws, clips, cables,

(29:53):
and careful maneuvering. To do this to a dozen machines
without leaving any visible damage or arousing suspicion. That took patience, precision,
and familiarity with the systems. As I examined the computers,
looking for any sign of fingerprints or leftover tools, something
occurred to me. This wasn't about greed. Ramsticks were valuable, sure,

(30:14):
but there were easier ways to make money if someone
wanted to steal. No, this felt meticulous, like the person
who did it was more interested in the act itself
than the payout. We started digging deeper into who might
have had access to the lab, students, faculty, maintenance staff.
It was a wide net to cast, especially with no
suspects and no physical evidence. The lack of cameras meant

(30:36):
we had no fases to match with the timeline. Even
the act of breaking into the lab itself was a mystery.
The doors were usually locked after hours, but there were
no signs of forced entry. Whoever it was, either had
a key or had figured out a way to bypass
the lock entirely. The scariest part was how anonymous it
all felt. Technology leaves traces, IP addresses, keystrokes, access logs,

(31:00):
but this person managed.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
To move through the space like a ghost.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
They left no fingerprints, no footprints, no clues about who
they were or why they did it. For all we
knew they could have been one of the students sitting
in class next to the very machines they tampered with.
The investigation hit a wall fast. Without suspects, we had
no one to question. Without footage or clear evidence, we
couldn't pin down a motive. The stolen ramsticks never resurfaced,

(31:26):
and the replaced ones were generic enough that they could
have come from anywhere. The trail was cold before it
even started. We ended up filing the case as unsolved,
though the university beefed up its security after that. They
installed cameras and key card systems, too late to catch
the original thief, but enough to deter copycats. The lab
went back to business as usual, and the slow computers

(31:47):
were gradually upgraded, erasing the remnants of the crime altogether.
But I never stopped thinking about it, not just because
of how bizarre it was, but because of what it represented,
how easy it is for someone to slip through the crack,
to manipulate a system without leaving a trace. Whoever did
this wasn't just good at what they did. They were patient, deliberate,

(32:07):
and maybe even a little obsessive. Story seven. I remember
that night like it was yesterday, even though it was
over five years ago, I was on duty manning the
TAC radio in Broward County at around three am. The
humid Florida air did little to warm the deserted stretch
of highway where we eventually received the call. It wasn't
uncommon for our shifts to be quiet, but that night

(32:30):
something played on my nerves.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
From the very start.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
I was sitting in the sweltering pre dawn darkness when
the dispatch crackled over the radio. Unit twelve respond to
a multiple vehicle collision on I ninety five near Exit
thirty seven. Reports indicate an eighteen wheeler struck a box
truck as it was coming off the exit over The
message came through, cool and clinical, yet I could feel

(32:53):
my pulse begin to quicken. We'd heard about plenty of
accidents on that highway before, but the specifics had a
grim tone. Couldn't ignore. I activated my lights and sped
toward the scene. The highway was barren, The only sounds
the low rumble of my cruiser and the intermittent chirp
of the radio. As soon as I arrived, I knew
something wasn't quite right. The wreckage was far worse than

(33:14):
a run of the mill collision. An eighteen wheeler had
slammed into a box truck with such force that it
chopped the smaller vehicle in half. Flames were licking at
the twisted metal and shattered glass, and the roar of
the burning truck fractured the eerie silence. Officers, firefighters and
units from three different jurisdictions were already arriving. I parked
my cruiser alongside the chaotic scene, stepping out into the

(33:37):
acrid stench of burning rubber and spilling diesel, my flashlight
and badge in hand, I approached one of the on
scene officers who was coordinating the rescue efforts. What's the status,
I asked. The officer's face was grim. We've got three
people trapped inside that truck, sir. It nearly exploded when
the impact hit. They're in there, caught by the wreckage

(33:58):
and the fires closing in. I could see the fear
in his eyes, even as he tried to remain calm.
That's when the call came through on the radio, a
frantic plea from one of the units. Rescue personnel had
just reported a witness account a man had been seen
at the scene, a quiet figure who helped extricate the
victims from the burning vehicle. According to the witness statements,

(34:18):
the injured passengers were in dire need of help. One
of them described being dragged from the wreckage by a
man in plain clothes. They said he had pulled them
from the inferno, gently laying them on the side of
the road on a strip of asphalt that still sizzled
from the heat of the fire. The story was odd
enough to be almost unbelievable, but with the stakes so high,
every detail was crucial. As the chaos unfolded, units swarmed

(34:41):
the scene. Firefighters battled the blaze, ambulances loomed with their
sirens off, and police officers cordoned off the area. When
the time came to check on every person involved in
the accident, someone from the fire department, one of our
more veteran firefighters, noticed something peculiar. I remember watching him
as he grabbed the arm of the man who had

(35:02):
rescued the occupants. He was about to ask for identification,
maybe even a statement about how the rescue had happened.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
When the firefighter turned around.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
In that moment of split second recognition, the man just vanished.
I'll never forget the look on my colleague's face. His
eyes widened, and he muttered something under his breath about
not miffing with ghosts. A chill ran down my spine.
We even dispatched additional units to scour the area for
any sign of the rescuer, checking behind vehicles and along

(35:31):
the roadside, but it was as if the man had
never been there at all. No fingerprints, no footprints, nothing.
I rounded on another officer. Did anyone catch his description?
What did he look like? The officer replied he wasn't
wearing a uniform or anything, just plain clothes, and he
seemed calm. The survivors say he guided them to safety,

(35:52):
but when we tried to find him, he was gone.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
It's like he was just a spirit.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I found myself questioning everything I'd seen in my years
on the Broward. County had its share of bizarre cases,
but this defied logic. The notion that someone could appear,
help three people out of a burning vehicle, and literally
vanish into the night was something straight out of a
ghost story. I kept replaying the radio calls and the
frantic testimonies in my head. The more I thought about it,

(36:19):
the more I wondered if we had just encountered something
or someone that wasn't wholly of this world. At that moment,
the entire crash scene became even more surreal. I recalled
the expressions on the survivor's faces relief, confusion, and an
eerie calm, as if they were in a daze. When
later interrogated by our team, one of the survivors said

(36:40):
he didn't say a word. I just felt safe with
him there. He was there one minute and then he
was gone. His voice trembled, but he insisted it was
exactly as it happened. Throughout the day, while units processed
the scene and collected evidence from the twisted metal and
charred remains, I couldn't shake off the feeling that something
larger was at play. The incident was logged as a

(37:02):
vehicle fire with entrapment, a tragic accident that, by all accounts,
should have been solved quickly by standard procedures, But that
solitary phantom rescuer haunted my thoughts. I even went over
our recordings multiple times, listening to every dispatch, every word.
There was nothing to indicate any tampering or planted evidence.
The only anomaly was the disappearance of that mysterious man.

(37:26):
I spent the rest of the shift trying to piece
together the timeline in my mind. I interviewed officers and firefighters,
trying to see if any one of them might have
seen him again or had a better description, but every
conversation led back to the same chilling conclusion. He was
never seen again. After that moment. I remember one of
the senior detectives from a neighboring jurisdiction remarking dryly, that's

(37:48):
the weirdest thing I've ever seen on a collision scene.
It wasn't a compliment, but it summed up the mystery perfectly.
Back at headquarters, when I recounted the story to a
few colleagues, I expected reaction of shock or even horror. Instead,
many of them offered a nonchalant shrug, as if ghost
stories were common currency among detectives. One rookie even chuckled

(38:10):
and said maybe he was just a good Samaritan in disguise,
while another muttered, yeah, sure, like a guardian angel or
some crap. But deep down I knew what I had seen,
or at least what everyone present insisted they had seen.
That eerie figure had helped save lives, and then evaporated
into thin air, leaving nothing but questions and an inexplicable chill.

(38:32):
It was one of those cases that, while officially closed,
continues to echo in your mind. Every time I passed
by that stretch of highway on a quiet night, or
listened to Attack radio's morse of emergency calls, I feel
that same inexplicable shiver. And though the official paperwork is
complete and the files on that wreck have long since
gathered dust, the memory of that night, the sound of flames,

(38:56):
the screams of rescuers, and then that unexplainable disappearance, remains vivid.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Story eight.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
I remember that night like it was carved into my memory,
A night when even the relentless cold of Northern Canada
couldn't freeze the terror that followed. I was on night
shift in an isolated First Nations community up north, tasked
with investigating what initially seemed like a routine domestic violence complaint.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
It was the middle of winter, so cold that the
air itself felt like.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Shards of glass, and my partner and I were dispatched
on a tip off based on a neighbor's report of
a woman's scream. We had trudged through the biting wind,
our breath visible in the frigid air, driving slowly along
unmarked roads where houses were few and far between. On
many reservations, the homes weren't numbered properly, which made pinpointing
the exact location of challenge. Our radio crackled with static

(39:46):
as we tried to get more details from the caller,
but all we got was a terrified, halting description that
left much.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
To our imagination.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
All we knew was that there had been a scream,
and it seemed to come from somewhere along the line
of a scattered row of dilapidy homes. After several minutes
of aimless circling and strained discussions with our dispatcher, we
finally heard an ear splitting shriek that cut through the
otherwise eerie silence. It was so raw and desperate that
it froze us in our tracks. My partner's eyes met

(40:15):
mine for a split second, a mix of shock and
grim determination, and we headed straight toward the source. There,
on a frost bitten stretch of the community, stood a
single story, prefabricated home that looked like it had seen
better days. The wooden siding was faded with age, and
icicles clung like sinister ornaments to its eaves. The front
door hung slightly ajar, a precarious gap that suggested someone

(40:39):
or something had extricated itself from within. All the lights
were off, and any hint of life that might have
been there was cloaked in a darkness that matched the
winter night. We hurried up to the door. Police open up.
I barked through the gap, pushing my voice hard against
the wind. I knocked on the door repeatedly, and my
partner echoed my cries.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Again and again. We called out.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
There was no response, just that unsettling, oppressive silence on
the other side.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
The lack of any answer set us both on edge.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
If someone had truly been in distress, they'd have answered,
at least in a whisper. Fearing for whoever might be inside,
we slowly eased the door open wider. I grabbed my
flashlight and with the officer's practiced caution, I announced detectives here.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Open up into the opening. Still nothing.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Heart pounding, I exchanged a brief nod with my partner,
and together we stepped gingerly into the abandoned foyer. The
interior was a disorganized chaos, overturned trash bins, Scattered remnants
of old newspapers, and broken children's toys lay strewn across
a floor that was as far from immaculate as the
worst of crime scenes could be. The smell of damp

(41:47):
decay mingled with a faint hint of something metallic, perhaps
old blood or rust. Every step felt precarious, my eyes
constantly darting around, half expecting to see the unthinkable, a
body mangled in a obscured beneath heaps of garbage. I
couldn't shake the disquiet that maybe someone or something might
have been hidden away in that mess. Partner, be careful,

(42:09):
I cautioned, my voice low and steady as we advanced
further into the pitch black dwelling. Our only sources of
light were the harsh beams from our flashlights, which we
swept methodically over the cluttered space. I first swept the
beam to the left, where all I saw was more
garbage and debris. Every step revealed nothing but decay, the
collapsed remnants of a once lived in home. Then I

(42:31):
slowly panned my flashlight to the right. That's when I
saw something white catch the beams glare. I froze in
the distant gloom. About ten feet away, amid the debris
and discarded items, stood a small figure. I squinted, heart
pounding violently in my ears as I tried to make
sense of what I just seen. The figure was that
of a small girl, no older than ten, silhouetted against

(42:52):
the darkness. She was wearing a white sleeping gown, the
kind that looked like it belonged to another generation long
out of fashions, and our grandmothers were young. The fabric
was stained and worn, a snapshot of neglect and decay.
Time seemed to suspend as I stared at her. Her
head was slumped forward and her greasy, unkempt hair was
matted across her face, obscuring any features that might have

(43:15):
offered an explanation. For a moment, I thought of that
horror flick the ring and wondered if I'd just stepped
into one of those cursed settings. I expected to see
some electronic static or ominous background detail behind her, but
all I saw was a shadowy figure standing amid refuse
in the failing light of my flashlight. Ma'am hey, I

(43:37):
called out, my voice, echoing off the grimy walls.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
The sound startled me.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
The word ma'am seemed so out of place in the
context of what I was witnessing. I took a slow
step forward, trying to cover the distance between myself and
this eerie apparition. The girl didn't react at first. She
didn't move, nor did she speak. I could see her
body swaying, ever so slightly, as if caught in a
weak breeze that had no place indoors. I raised my voice, Hello,

(44:05):
are you okay? My tone was louder, now, carrying genuine
concern mixed with a tremor I couldn't hide. Suddenly, as
if roused by my approach, the girl jerked her head
up abruptly, her eyes that momentary spark of life, locked
onto mine, and then, without warning, she screamed. It was
a piercing, gut wrenching sound that seemed to come from

(44:26):
deep somewhere, a scream that was more than just a
child's cry. It was raw terror. I recoiled instinctively, the
sound reverberating in my ears, while my partner stood frozen
beside me, his face wan and unreadable. The scream filled
the small, cluttered room, making the very walls seem to
shake I could feel the chill of it, an icy

(44:47):
dread that seeped into my bones. After that agonizing moment,
the girl's head slumped again, and she resumed her static,
unnatural stance, as though the brief spark of recognition had
been stolen away.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
The scream itself. Did you see?

Speaker 2 (45:03):
My partner mumbled his words, barely a whisper, as if
afraid to break the oppressive silence that followed. I approached
her carefully, my flashlight beam wavering slightly as I tried
to focus on her face, hoping to see something, any
sign of who she was or what might have happened
to her. But even up close, her features remained shrouded
in shadows and grime. She neither moved nor spoke. The

(45:25):
horrifying glimpse of life in that dark room had already
been etched into my mind with indelible clarity. I cleared
my throat, forcing myself to speak again. Hey, it's okay,
we're here to help. I took another tentative step forward,
but the girl simply stood still. Her eyes then closed again,
offered no explanation, no understanding, merely avoid of silence that

(45:46):
deepened the mystery rather than alleviating it. Time slowed, and
in that dismal interior, every second stretched into an eternity
of unease. I was torn between my duty as a detective,
my need to insure the safety of someone who might
be in peril, and the gnawing terror that what I
was witnessing was beyond ordinary logic. With the stench of

(46:06):
neglect and decay hanging heavily around us, I felt a
deep instinctive urge to retreat. But I couldn't just leave
a screaming child, or whatever she might represent in such
dire straits. Partner should we, I started, but I didn't
finish the sentence. Her sudden, blood curdling scream had already
become more than enough to push any rational thought aside.

(46:28):
The scream was genuine and paralyzing enough that it forced
an immediate decision.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
We had to get out now.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
I stepped back, abruptly, fumbling for my radio to call
for backup, while my partner flinched, as if even the
slightest movement might wake something far worse. Our flashlights bobbed
in the chaos as we retreated toward the door, the
sound of that tortured scream echoing in our minds long
after we crossed the threshold and closed the door behind us. Outside,

(46:55):
the unforgiving winter wind seemed to mock the brevity of
our encounter. The chill of that cold night could not
compete with the lingering shock of what we had seen,
A small girl draped in a filthy, outdated sleeping gown,
whose sudden outburst of terror shattered the silence of an
already haunted, desolate home. We didn't speak much on the
ride back to our patrol car. Words felt inadequate, nearly

(47:18):
sacrilegious to the inexplicable horror of that moment. Story nine.
I'm not the kind of guy who believes in haunted crap.
Let's just get that straight. I've been a detective in
Philly for over fifteen years, seen plenty of drug busts, shootings, suicides,
bad stuff, sure, but explainable. So I'm not exactly eager
to tell this, but it's the one call I still

(47:40):
think about at night, when the city's quiet and it's
like the dark is waiting to crawl inside. I was
living in a row house off Girard, single, didn't even
have a dog back then, working nights. Mostly it was
a Tuesday, mid July, humid enough to choke you, and
the air smelled like garbage and wet pavement. We got
a call around eleven. It came through as a wellness check.

(48:03):
Dispatch said a neighbor called in about screaming and something
about speaking in tongues. I rolled my eyes. Mental health calls.
Maybe a drug trip, maybe a domestic about to go bad.
You learn to keep your guard up, But I didn't
expect it to go sideways the way it did. The
address was an old, three story brick apartment building off
twenty ninth, bad lighting, stairs, that creaked, smells you don't

(48:24):
want to think about. I was with my partner, Diaz,
who was new then, still trying to act tough but jumpy.
We met the neighbor in the hallway, this older lady
in a floral robe, shaking and whispering. Something's wrong with him.
He's talking to someone that isn't there, ma'am, stay in
your apartment. We'll handle it. I told her, knocking on

(48:45):
three B, no answer. I knocked again, harder, Still nothing.
I glanced at Diaz, who was fidgeting, eyes darting down
the hallway like he expected something to crawl out of
the shadows. I felt it, too, that heavy air that
sometimes hangs before something bad happens. I called out, Philly,
p D were coming in and turned the knob. It

(49:06):
was unlocked. The apartment was small, smelled like stale takeout
and mildew. The lights were off except for the TV
static flickering in the corner, throwing white flashes around the
living room. I called out again, sir, you hear That's
when I saw him. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, barefoot,
wearing sweatpants and a dirty T shirt, maybe late forties, thin,

(49:28):
pale eyes, like he hadn't slept in a week. But
it wasn't his appearance that stopped me. It was the
sound coming out of his mouth. At first I thought
he was having a seizure because his jaw was twitching.
But then this low, rattling growl came out, layered, like
there were two voices fighting to speak. I swear on
my badge. It sounded like something was inside him using

(49:50):
his voice, but it wasn't him. Diaz whispered, what the
hell and took a step back. I kept my hand
near my holster, Sir, can you hear me? You need medical.
His head jerked and his eyes rolled, then snapped to me.
His pupils were blown wide and he smiled, but it
wasn't a human smile. They're here, he croaked, They're here

(50:10):
for you. That voice wasn't right. It was deeper than
it should have been, echoing in that tiny room, and
I could feel it in my chest, like base from
a subwoofer. He took one shaky step forward and the
temperature dropped. Or maybe it was just me, but I
felt cold sweat slide down my spine. Sir, stay where
you are, I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

(50:31):
He kept coming slow, almost puppet like, mouth twitching, whispering
in that two layered voice. You hear them too, don't you.
That's when the TV behind us went black, like it
died instantly, and the apartment fell silent. It was so
quiet I could hear Diaz breathing hard behind me. I
took another step back, handfully on my gun. Now stay back, sir.

(50:55):
Then he screamed. It wasn't a normal scream. It was
like every scream I'd ever layered into one, high pitched
and guttural at the same time, echoing against the bare walls.
I felt it hit me in the chest, and for
a second I couldn't move. He dropped to the floor, thrashing,
limbs hitting the tile, eyes rolled back, still screaming. I

(51:15):
saw Diaz freeze, whispering Jesus, Jesus under his breath. I
wanted to move, to help, to do anything, but the
scream kept going, stretching into something inhuman, and I felt
like if I touched him, it would swallow me too.
Then it stopped dead silence. His body went limp, face slack,

(51:36):
eyes staring straight up, mouth open. I thought he was dead.
I reached down, forcing myself to check his pulse, and
his eyes snapped to mine, clear, terrified, whispering help me.
Before I could answer, he jerked back violently, eyes going blank,
and let out a low hiss. Then without warning, he
stood up quick, too quick, and bolted past us into

(51:58):
the hallway. Diaz ye and ran after him, but the
man was fast, pounding down the stairs, bare feet slapping
on the concrete. By the time we got to the street,
he was gone. We checked alleys, corners, basements, nothing, We
never found him. We ran his name, Thomas Keller, unemployed,
history of depression, nothing else, His family said he was

(52:19):
a quiet guy, kept to himself, no drugs, no drinking.
He was reported missing, case stayed open for a few
months than cold, no sightings, no credit card activity, nothing
like he vanished into thin air. Sometimes I think about
that scream, how it felt like it was tearing something
out of the room.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
I think about how he looked at me, that one moment.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Of pure terror, like he knew something was in there
with him and it was taking over. I still don't
know what to call what happened that night. Was it
mental illness, drugs? We didn't catch something else. All I
know is that I've handled shootings, stabbings, overdoses, but nothing
has stuck with me like that call story ten. I

(52:59):
didn't see up for ghost stories when I joined Special
Investigations in Chicago, but sometimes you get handed a case
that makes you question everything you thought you knew about
the city. I've seen plenty of brutal crimes in Cheatown,
murders that leave bodies nearly unrecognizable, robberies that baffle even
the most seasoned detectives, but nothing prepared me for what

(53:19):
we later dubbed the wolf killings. It all started with
a series of grizzly, wolf like murders in neighborhoods that
most folks wouldn't expect to see anything remotely supernatural. Victims,
seemingly ordinary people with ties to various inner city communities,
were found savagely torn to pieces. At first, our division
thought it was a street gang embracing a wolf motif,

(53:42):
but the brutality and randomness of the killings defied any
simple explanation. When we started cross referencing the cases, a
peculiar pattern emerged. Every victim had some connection, however, slight
to an underground initiative known only as the Northwest Passage Project,
a program spearheaded by shadowy figure named mcfinn. I remember

(54:02):
the day we finally decided to pay macfinn a visit.
We tracked him to a grim, nondescript building on the
far side of town, a building that looked like it
had been abandoned by time itself. I'd been working on
these cases for years, and I'd learned not to get
too comfortable with the gruesome details. But there was something
about this project, the name and the way it tied
these murders together, that set my skin on edge. My partner, Ramirez,

(54:25):
and I, along with a couple of other guys from
our unit, drove out to mc finn's place on a
drizzly afternoon that felt as cold as winter in far
northern Canada. We expected to find a hideout for some
low life cult or a place riddled with drugs and
stolen goods. Instead, what we found was beyond anything I
could have predicted. The building's exterior was unremarkable, a crumbling

(54:46):
brick facade with boarded up windows and a door that
creaked open under the slightest pressure. We flanked it, guns
drawn as we approached cautiously. I still recall the low
murmur of boots on cracked concrete as we entered, our
flashlights cutting weak beams through the musty dark. The air
inside was heavy, thick with the smell of decay and

(55:06):
something metallic I couldn't immediately place. Keep your eyes peeled,
Ramirez muttered as we crept into.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
A narrow hallway.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Our every step echoed in the silence until we came
upon the evidence that would make this case so unforgettable.
In one of the rooms, under a flickering fluorescent light,
we found the body of a young girl sprawled in
a shallow pool of coagulated blood. She was no older
than sixteen, maybe even a bit younger, and her lifeless
eyes stared blankly upward. What made it all the more

(55:36):
disturbing was the condition of her throat. It wasn't just cut,
it was completely torn out, a grizzly wound that exposed
her spine. I felt an immediate, bone deep revulsion, even
as my training told me to compartmentalize the horror and
get on with the investigation. Jesus, one of my colleagues, whispered.
I didn't answer. Instead, I took careful photos, trying to

(55:58):
capture every detail, knowing and these images would haunt me
long after the case was closed. As we combed through
the building, every room seemed to reveal more evidence of
a macabre obsession. In the upstairs corridor, we found ritualistic
markings on the walls, symbols and weird glyphs that none
of us could decipher. But it wasn't until we descended

(56:18):
into the basement that things got downright surreal. The basement
was a dark, cavernous space that reeked of damp earth
and rust. In the center of the room carved directly
into the concrete floor. Was a large circle inlaid with
a design that looked impossibly ancient. The circle was about
eight feet in diameter, a perfect ring of intricately braided gold,

(56:38):
bordered by mysterious symbols etched into the stone. There were
gems inlaid with silver and hints of design that looked
as if someone had painstakingly pried it from the very ground,
only to remold it into something else entirely. The strange
writing that punctuated the edges made my skin crawl. It
wasn't in any language I recognized. I turned to Ramirez,

(56:59):
who was standing a few feet away, his face lit
by the stark beam of his flashlight. You ever seen
anything like this, I asked quietly. He shook his head,
his voice low.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Never.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
It looks like something out of a nightmare. I don't
know whether it's meant to ward something in or keep
something out. At that moment, we decided to call in
our go to a cult specialist, a guy named Tucker,
who'd helped us decode a couple of cases in the
past that brushed against the paranormal. Tucker arrived later that day,
his wiry frame and intense eyes belying a mind steeped

(57:32):
in a cult lore. After examining the circle, his expression
shifted from curiosity to unease. This ring, Tucker said, slowly,
running a trembling finger over the carvings, It's not some
ordinary ritual mark. It's designed to keep something locked in,
specifically werewolves. He paused for effect, and I could see

(57:53):
our guys exchanging incredulous looks. I know it sounds insane,
but everything about this setup, this material, the craftsmanship, the
ancient script, it all points to techniques used in old
folklore to contain shape shifters. I stared at him, trying
to process his words. Were wolves in inner city Chicago.

(58:15):
It was ludicrous, right, and yet the evidence didn't lie
the pattern of the murders, the ferocity of the attacks,
and now this circle. It was all beginning to form
a mosaic that defied everyday explanation. Before I could ask
any more questions, Tucker continued, mcfinn's Northwest Passage project. It
might be an attempt to study or control something best

(58:37):
left unknown. Perhaps he's involved in experiments or rituals meant
to harness or contain predators of a kind we've only
heard of in legends. My mind raced with possibilities. Was
it a cult, a twisted scientific study, or had someone
somehow summoned relics of ancient myth to wreak havoc on
Chicago streets. Back at headquarters, as we compiled our reports

(58:59):
and handed over evidence to the forensic team, the case
took an even darker turn. Over the next few weeks,
more people showed up with deaths that bore the unmistakable
signature of wolf like violence, attacks that left victims savage,
their bodies torn apart in a manner that was more
animalistic than human. Several of the suspects we eventually arrested
were low lifes with no connection to clandestine organizations, but

(59:22):
the killings continued, and every time I looked at those
grisly photos, I couldn't help but wonder were those arrests
ever really the full story, or were we dealing with
something far older and far more insidious than a mere
gang war. There were nights I'd patrol the darker corridors
of Chicago and I'd catch my reflection in the grime
of some abandoned building and think of that circle in

(59:43):
the basement. The engraving meant to hold something in even
as we tied up more cases and lock down a
few individuals with tenuous ties to mcfinn's operation, I'd find
myself doubting whether we truly close the case. Because sometimes,
when the city sleeps and the wind howls like distant wolves,
I remember Tucker's words. I remember the savage tears in

(01:00:04):
a victim's flesh, the rituals scribbled on old walls in
that circle, a monstrous emblem of a fight waged between
ancient powers and modern man. One frigid December evening, after
another string of wolf murders in a run down part
of the city, I found myself in my office staring
at that photograph on my desk, a close up of
the Golden Ring with its cryptic inscriptions. I ran my

(01:00:27):
finger over the edge of the photo, as if trying
to feel the cold, hard stone beneath the image, and
I wondered if that circle was truly meant to keep
something at bay?

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Why had it failed?

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Had macfinn's project gone horribly wrong, or worse, was someone
unleashing what that circle was meant to contain. Every investigation
since then has been laden with those questions. There were
brief moments in the aftermath when I caught myself looking
over my shoulder, half expecting to see the glint of
a wolf's eyes in the darkened alley. I spoke about
it in hushed tones with Ramirez on our late night

(01:01:00):
drives home. He'd always say, maybe some things are just
better left alone, and I couldn't disagree. We eventually managed
to secure a few arrests low level affiliates who claimed
they'd been involved in vaguely defined rituals connected to the
Northwest Passage project. But deep down I knew the heart
of the mystery was still out there. The real force

(01:01:20):
behind those monstrous wolf esque killings had never been found
In a city as vast and unfathomable as Chicago, where
the ancient and the modern collide every day, it wasn't
hard to believe that some doors were never fully closed.