August 26, 2025 • 21 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is a convoluted story, so bear with me as
I try to relay everything I can recall about what
led me to the conclusion that my ex housemate could
have potentially been a serial killer or a serial killer
in the making. It was the summer of twenty fifteen
when I moved in, and at first appearances, my housemate,
landlord Mike, was somewhat normal, if not a bit socially
(00:28):
awkward or dysfunctional. When I was signing the papers, he
was adamant that I should never go into the basement,
which I thought was odd, but I really needed a
place to stay, and well, people have their little quirks,
so I just chucked it up to that at the time.
As I got to know Mike and our cohabitation continued,
(00:49):
I learned more about the depths of his dysfunction. Firstly,
that he used math. Now I don't automatically judge people
based on vices, but I was surprised of the extent
of his youth. He was probably the first person I
ever knew that used math and bounced a full time
job and enjoyed a decent amount of success. The reason
(01:10):
this is so important to the story is that when
he would be around the house drinking and using math.
He would start to run off at the mouth. He
would often joke that if I smolled a lie coming
from the basement, not to think anything of it. I
think it was probably the third time he said it
that I asked why he keep saying that, and he said,
I used chemicals to clean up after the bodies, with
(01:33):
a wily grin on his face. I tried to chalk
it up to a bad sense of humor, but it
didn't sit right with me. He was also very particular
that I let him know my comings and goings and
my work schedule. I remember him being shocked and uncomfortable
one day when I ended up taking off of work
because he didn't realize that I was home. I remember
(01:55):
that day because there was a lot of clanging and
what sounded like muffled shouting coming from the base. His
car was in the driveway, but he was not in
the main house or his bedroom. Other days, he would
play very loud music that bumped through the whole house.
Sometimes he would even play NPR talk radio at these volumes.
In retrospect, I think he may have been trying to
(02:17):
make sounds. He would make remarks about sex workers, saying
you could do whatever you want. You could choke them,
beat them to death, and nobody cares. I took exception
to this. I told him that I thought that was
messed up. But when he would get tweaking, he would
always come back around to alluding to some kind of violence,
(02:39):
talking about how he was a normal white guy who
owned a house and had a good career, so the
police would never suspect him. At this point, I started
to think that he's gone too far to simply be joking.
I was in a weird position because money was ted
at the time and my options were few. I tried
to convince myself that even if he wasn't miss he's
(03:00):
probably just engaged in an outward fantasy. I knew that
he would pay for sex workers on occasion, but again
did not judge that activity I face value, but it
started becoming concerning. Then. At one point, when I was
doing laundry, I caught whiffs of decomposition. The house we
were in was in southeast Portland. It was relatively new,
(03:24):
and having growing up in upstate New York, I know
that animals can be trapped in the walls and die,
but This was in the garage and there were no
animals scurrying in the walls. This was strange and telling
to me. I considered carefully what to do and decided
I wanted to confront him about the smell. I decided
(03:45):
to poise the question in somewhat of a suggestive way
by expanding on his jokes. I told him that he
needs to do a better job cleaning up the bodies
because I smelled decomposition from the garage. I will never
forget his reaction. His eyes widened. He shot me a
sharp glare somewhere between fear and anger. He stumbled over
(04:07):
his words and eventually responded, what really. I said, yes, really,
and there was a few seconds of awkwardness before he
said thanks for letting me know, and promptly went into
his bedroom and set the door. A few days after this,
he went into the upper cross space in the garage
while I was again doing laundry. He called out for me,
(04:29):
trying to convince me to come up into the crawl space.
My body locked up and my instincts were screaming at
me that if went up there, I would not be
coming back. I gave an excuse that I can't remember now,
packed up my laundry, threw it in my room, and left.
He spent a lot of time in that padlocked basement
without a doorknob. The only way in was through the backyard.
(04:55):
I wish I would have gone down there in retrospect
to either confirm or dismiss the suspicion once and for all.
For the last couple of months that I lived there,
I was privy to more graphic comments about women, sex
workers and talks about sexual violence, and he was using
more and more. He wants show me a video he made.
(05:17):
He was a graphic designer and an artist as well.
It featured heavy bondage themes, with distorted audio of women
screaming and the strange leering figure in a plague doctor costume.
It was one of those situations where any one of
these things alone would be innocuous, but as they all accumulated,
(05:37):
it became suspicious to me. It was in October twenty
sixteen that I left there, taking off as I really
wanted to get out of the house in the worst way.
I didn't give notice that I was leaving. My last
night there, he was drinking and tweaking again, starting on
the same conversation, loosely describing murder and sexual violence in
(06:00):
a tone of some sort of edgy joke. I told
him that he'd be caught eventually, not even holding back
my suspicions anymore. He reiterated that he'd be the last
person that the police would suspect and asserted that they
wouldn't catch him. He said it was in a very
serious and concise way, dropping the pretense he had been
(06:22):
using before I left the next morning. This haunted me
for months, then a year, then a year and a half.
I felt as though I hadn't done anything. The guilt
was eating away at me. So I called Portland Crime
Stoppers and put in an anonymous tip describing what I
had described here. When I did, the operator started going
(06:46):
back and forth, putting me in hold because this call
had piqued the interest of the police sergeant who was
assigned to the call center, so they were asking me
detailed questions about his vehicle, his house, the methods he described, etc.
It seemed like they took interest. I gave them as
much information as I could remember and left it at that,
(07:07):
feeling just a little better that I had at least
tried to do something about it. Fast forward to recent times.
I told my mother about all this, and she became interested,
asking what house this was, and she ended up pulling
it up on Google Maps. She put it in the
street view and noticed that there is a large enclosed
trailer in the driveway that wasn't there when I was.
(07:30):
I could only theorize why it might have been there,
but can't put together the practical reason for it were
why he would be using it unless he was moving
or using it to hold things to discard. Admittedly that
is pure conjecture, but I couldn't help. But wonder. I
doubt that I'll ever get closure or have my suspicions validated,
(07:51):
unless he does finally get caught and arrested and I
read about it. I have grown up poor and been
around the low life a lot. I have interacted with
many sketchy and unsavory people in my life, but none
of them have ever made the impression that Mike had
made on me. Make of it as you will, but
I hope I never meet him again. This is a
(08:20):
weird experience that happened to me today. I'm a nineteen
year old female. I was driving to my school today
and got behind this tan BMW to make a right turn.
We both turned and I went to the other lane
and went past him because I was just going faster,
and I think they beeped at me, which I was
(08:40):
confused because I didn't do anything to him. I have
to go past one stop light before I get to
the one I need. I saw in my review mirror
that he had his right turn signal on. I didn't
see if they had made the turn because of bus
got in front of me and I was focused on that.
I went to make a left turn and was sitting
(09:02):
in the left turn lane when the driver pulled up
next to me. Mind you, he's in the lane where
traffic is ongoing and busy. He starts beeping at me
and points at me with his finger to follow him
into the parking lot. It's kind of hard to explain,
but he makes a right into a parking lot that's
next to the traffic. I didn't follow him and made
(09:26):
a gesture with my hands saying, oh, well, I could
see him sitting there watching me. Well, I waited to
make a left turn. I stopped looking at him and
was just waiting for the bus in front of me
to turn left. So I could get out of there
and go to school. The driver was a mail forty
to fifty and I don't think he followed me further,
(09:48):
but it would have been hard to tell because there's
a lot of people behind me going into school at
the time. I thought maybe he was going to call
the police and say I hit him and didn't pull over,
or he was upset at me for passing him, but
I wasn't tailgating him or anything like that. I was
(10:14):
just sitting in my car for a long time at
the gas station before getting out to pump my gas.
Then when I got back into my car, this girl
I had seen earlier when I first got to the
gas station came and knocked on my window and asked
me for five dollars for gas. I was like, yeah,
for sure. So we go in and I pay for
our gas, and she was like, yeah, gas is just
(10:36):
so expensive. And I agreed with her, and I was like,
I totally get it. She said, it's so hard because
there's someone pushing the gas pedal for me and throwing
me into the car and pushing my foot on the pedal,
not those exact words in that order, but basically that,
and it confused me so bad. I was like what
(11:00):
It made me freak out and I didn't know what
to do. We walked back. Her car was full of
stuff and there was no one in there but her,
but I was still freaked out, both for her and
for me. She asked for my social media and I
was kind of weirded out, so I said I don't
have any, and then she asked for my number, so
(11:21):
I just gave it to her. She asked if I
wanted to hang out, and I was like, no, I'm sorry,
but yeah. I left and drove around for a while
before going to my actual destination. No idea what to
think about this encounter, not sure what was happening, but
I left feeling very nervous for her and for myself.
(11:51):
On Super Bowl Sunday two thousand and four, my mom
and dad went to a bar to watch the game,
and they got a family friend to babysit me. She
he was sixteen at the time. She was told under
no circumstances she was allowed to leave the house, what
time they would be home, and all that good stuff.
Of course, being sixteen, she didn't listen and took me
(12:13):
to her friend's house to watch the game. I'm not
sure how far away he lived from us, but it
couldn't have been that far. As we walked I was
in my stroller. We left pretty soon after the game
because my parents wouldn't be too far behind us, but
my babysitter forgot to buckle me in as she was
in such a hurry. However, on our way home, we
(12:35):
were walking down the street when a car started getting
slower and pulling up towards us. The passenger door flew
open and a man grabbed me. My babysitter, obviously freaking out,
thought so quickly and remembered she was an incredibly skilled
boxer and beat the fuck out of him. I guess
he realized I wasn't worth getting beaten up by a
(12:56):
sixteen year old girl, so they took their losses and
the car sped away. We sprinted home. My parents obviously
were incredibly angry at her for taking me out, and
she never got to babysit me again. We did call
the police, but they never found out who did it.
So there's a grown man roaming the streets of Chicago
(13:16):
who got beat up by a sixteen year old girl.
That's enough justice. I fear fun fact, this is my
first memory. So stranger who gave me a terrifying start
to remembering things. Let's not meet so earlier today. I
(13:38):
was walking my dog when the car pulled up next
to me and asked if I had ID When I
asked why, he said that he needed to buy a
phone and a phone plan. I couldn't hear that well.
When I was trying to get out of the convo,
I told him that my idea wasn't on me. He
then asked if he could use my phone number. I
told him no, and he drove away. Maybe two minutes later,
(14:02):
another car pulled up and asked me for my Instagram.
The cars looked pretty similar, and I'm pretty sure they
worked together. I'm not sure what they were trying to do,
but I quickly went back to my apartment. I know
this isn't super creepy, but I guess I just wanted
to share it in case someone else knows what their
intentions could have been. Not to mention I'm a young
(14:23):
lady who's walking alone. This happened when I was about
twelve or thirteen. For important context, I lived in an
apartment complex that was two sets of rows, each with
four apartments. I lived in the apartment closest to the
(14:44):
street of one row and had two cousins that lived
in the apartment at the very end of the row
in the back. I would hang out with them just
about daily. We were into soccer at the time, and
we would walk to a park about four or five
streets away along with some of the the neighborhood kids
and play soccer there. Now I say neighborhood kids, but
(15:05):
it's about a big group of about fifteen kids in total,
and the ages ranged from about ten years old all
the way up to seventeen. One of my two cousins
was the seventeen year old, which is why my parents
allowed me to go out without their supervision. So on
this day, like usual, we made our way down to
the park. Some of us would walk, some of us
(15:28):
would ride scooters or skateboards. I had my bike that day.
We get to the park and we start playing. About
halfway through our game, my parents drive by and call
out to me from the car. They told me that
they're going to the store and to wait for the
park for them. Okay, no big deal, I figure they
must just want to go somewhere else. Afterwards, and it's
(15:50):
easier to pick me up in front of the park
than for me to wait back at the house. Of course,
this doesn't make too much sense because it's only a
four street distance by the time. To my twelve year
old mind, it was perfectly logical. We keep playing for
about another hour. Then, as we get closer to sunset,
more and more kids start making their way back to
(16:11):
their houses. My cousin wanted to leave. They asked me
if I was ready to go. I said that my
parents told me to wait for them here, So they
left and I stayed behind. Eventually it was just me,
no big deal. I was familiar with the neighborhood and
have my bike and the energy of a twelve year old,
(16:31):
so I started riding my bike up and down the street,
just killing time. At this point, it hasn't occurred to
me that even if my parents wanted me to wait
at the park, they wouldn't have wanted me to wait
past sunset. Eventually, I get impatient and hungry, but not
wanting to be grounded for disobeying my parents, I kept waiting,
(16:52):
and except instead of waiting at the park, I crossed
the street and was waiting there After a few minutes,
the car drove up and stopped next to me. Nothing
scary yet. There was a stop sign, so I don't
really pay too much mind, except when it drove away.
I realized the car looked weird. It was old and boxy,
like an eighties car. But what stood out was that
(17:16):
it looks spray painted gray. It was definitely not real
car paint or done by a professional. I don't know
if someone who stole a car would be that dumb
draw them that much attention to it, or if the
look was intentional, but you could tell that it was
just spray painted all over. Anyway, drove away and I
kept waiting annoyed. Now, then the car comes back from
(17:40):
the other side of the street. I noticed it because
it's hard to ignore at this point, but by survival
instincts are still not kicking in. Maybe they were just
lost or wanting to turn around without doing the U
turn since the park was a big square, going around
it and coming back is easy enough to do. A
(18:01):
few minutes go by, they drive up again and again
stop at the stop sign. This time, I'm starting to
get nervous, so I look over at the car. Two
men are inside, very scruffy looking, unkempt beards, hair, dirty faces,
stains on their shirts. They look at me, they both
(18:21):
smile at the same time. They look at each other,
smile even bigger and the creepiest smile I've ever seen
someone do to this day. Then drove away. Their smiles
creeped me out so much that I was now on
high alert. In particular, I was watching the other side
of the park, where they would have to come from
if they went around again like they did the first time.
(18:45):
Sure enough, they did. This also means that they were
now on the same side of the street as me,
So as soon as I saw the car now, I
jumped on my bike rode as fast as I humanly could.
I could hear one of them yelling something, but honestly,
I don't know what was. I was too busy writing
for my life. I could hear the car catching up,
(19:05):
but I was too scared to even turn around. I
somehow made it to my street ran into the building,
but I didn't want them to see where I lived,
since my apartment would have been the one visible from
the street, So I went to the back behind my
cousin's apartment and hid there. My reasoning was if they
followed me inside the building, they would see me knocking
(19:26):
on the door and get me before anyone answered, if
it wasn't obvious. This was before cell phones. I waited
for what felt like a few hours, but it was
probably only twenty minutes or so before I had enough
courage to make the short walk down the row of
apartments to mine and tried the door. It was unlocked,
so I went inside and my parents were there, sitting
(19:48):
on the couch watching TV. They asked me how our
game was completely nonchalant, and I asked them why they
hadn't come picked me up. They both looked confused. They
asked me why they would tell me to wait there
instead of home when it's only four streets different and
I had my bike. Once I said it, it made
(20:10):
more sense, But to this day I swear that they
told me to wait there for them. They explained that
when they drove up, they told me that they were
going to leave the door locked for me in case
I got home before they did. I guess, in my
excitement for the game, I must have completely misheard them.
I simply went to my room after that, never telling
(20:30):
them about it, because as a dumb kid. I knew
if I said something, they wouldn't let me go play
soccer anymore, and that was clearly more important than my
physical well being. I never saw those guys or the
car again. I look back on it now, and it
doesn't matter how fast I pedaled on my bike. They
were in a car. They should have and could have
(20:51):
caught up to me if they wanted to. So I
don't know what their intentions were, if they were just
having to laugh at my expense, if they were trying
to scare me, or if they actually have something darker
in mind. But I do think back to that day
now and get chills every time I realize how much
different my life would be right now if they had
caught up to me. So, to the creepy men in
(21:12):
the spray painted car, let's not meet again,
This is a convoluted story, so bear with me as
I try to relay everything I can recall about what
led me to the conclusion that my ex housemate could
have potentially been a serial killer or a serial killer
in the making. It was the summer of twenty fifteen
when I moved in, and at first appearances, my housemate,
landlord Mike, was somewhat normal, if not a bit socially
(00:28):
awkward or dysfunctional. When I was signing the papers, he
was adamant that I should never go into the basement,
which I thought was odd, but I really needed a
place to stay, and well, people have their little quirks,
so I just chucked it up to that at the time.
As I got to know Mike and our cohabitation continued,
(00:49):
I learned more about the depths of his dysfunction. Firstly,
that he used math. Now I don't automatically judge people
based on vices, but I was surprised of the extent
of his youth. He was probably the first person I
ever knew that used math and bounced a full time
job and enjoyed a decent amount of success. The reason
(01:10):
this is so important to the story is that when
he would be around the house drinking and using math.
He would start to run off at the mouth. He
would often joke that if I smolled a lie coming
from the basement, not to think anything of it. I
think it was probably the third time he said it
that I asked why he keep saying that, and he said,
I used chemicals to clean up after the bodies, with
(01:33):
a wily grin on his face. I tried to chalk
it up to a bad sense of humor, but it
didn't sit right with me. He was also very particular
that I let him know my comings and goings and
my work schedule. I remember him being shocked and uncomfortable
one day when I ended up taking off of work
because he didn't realize that I was home. I remember
(01:55):
that day because there was a lot of clanging and
what sounded like muffled shouting coming from the base. His
car was in the driveway, but he was not in
the main house or his bedroom. Other days, he would
play very loud music that bumped through the whole house.
Sometimes he would even play NPR talk radio at these volumes.
In retrospect, I think he may have been trying to
(02:17):
make sounds. He would make remarks about sex workers, saying
you could do whatever you want. You could choke them,
beat them to death, and nobody cares. I took exception
to this. I told him that I thought that was
messed up. But when he would get tweaking, he would
always come back around to alluding to some kind of violence,
(02:39):
talking about how he was a normal white guy who
owned a house and had a good career, so the
police would never suspect him. At this point, I started
to think that he's gone too far to simply be joking.
I was in a weird position because money was ted
at the time and my options were few. I tried
to convince myself that even if he wasn't miss he's
(03:00):
probably just engaged in an outward fantasy. I knew that
he would pay for sex workers on occasion, but again
did not judge that activity I face value, but it
started becoming concerning. Then. At one point, when I was
doing laundry, I caught whiffs of decomposition. The house we
were in was in southeast Portland. It was relatively new,
(03:24):
and having growing up in upstate New York, I know
that animals can be trapped in the walls and die,
but This was in the garage and there were no
animals scurrying in the walls. This was strange and telling
to me. I considered carefully what to do and decided
I wanted to confront him about the smell. I decided
(03:45):
to poise the question in somewhat of a suggestive way
by expanding on his jokes. I told him that he
needs to do a better job cleaning up the bodies
because I smelled decomposition from the garage. I will never
forget his reaction. His eyes widened. He shot me a
sharp glare somewhere between fear and anger. He stumbled over
(04:07):
his words and eventually responded, what really. I said, yes, really,
and there was a few seconds of awkwardness before he
said thanks for letting me know, and promptly went into
his bedroom and set the door. A few days after this,
he went into the upper cross space in the garage
while I was again doing laundry. He called out for me,
(04:29):
trying to convince me to come up into the crawl space.
My body locked up and my instincts were screaming at
me that if went up there, I would not be
coming back. I gave an excuse that I can't remember now,
packed up my laundry, threw it in my room, and left.
He spent a lot of time in that padlocked basement
without a doorknob. The only way in was through the backyard.
(04:55):
I wish I would have gone down there in retrospect
to either confirm or dismiss the suspicion once and for all.
For the last couple of months that I lived there,
I was privy to more graphic comments about women, sex
workers and talks about sexual violence, and he was using
more and more. He wants show me a video he made.
(05:17):
He was a graphic designer and an artist as well.
It featured heavy bondage themes, with distorted audio of women
screaming and the strange leering figure in a plague doctor costume.
It was one of those situations where any one of
these things alone would be innocuous, but as they all accumulated,
(05:37):
it became suspicious to me. It was in October twenty
sixteen that I left there, taking off as I really
wanted to get out of the house in the worst way.
I didn't give notice that I was leaving. My last
night there, he was drinking and tweaking again, starting on
the same conversation, loosely describing murder and sexual violence in
(06:00):
a tone of some sort of edgy joke. I told
him that he'd be caught eventually, not even holding back
my suspicions anymore. He reiterated that he'd be the last
person that the police would suspect and asserted that they
wouldn't catch him. He said it was in a very
serious and concise way, dropping the pretense he had been
(06:22):
using before I left the next morning. This haunted me
for months, then a year, then a year and a half.
I felt as though I hadn't done anything. The guilt
was eating away at me. So I called Portland Crime
Stoppers and put in an anonymous tip describing what I
had described here. When I did, the operator started going
(06:46):
back and forth, putting me in hold because this call
had piqued the interest of the police sergeant who was
assigned to the call center, so they were asking me
detailed questions about his vehicle, his house, the methods he described, etc.
It seemed like they took interest. I gave them as
much information as I could remember and left it at that,
(07:07):
feeling just a little better that I had at least
tried to do something about it. Fast forward to recent times.
I told my mother about all this, and she became interested,
asking what house this was, and she ended up pulling
it up on Google Maps. She put it in the
street view and noticed that there is a large enclosed
trailer in the driveway that wasn't there when I was.
(07:30):
I could only theorize why it might have been there,
but can't put together the practical reason for it were
why he would be using it unless he was moving
or using it to hold things to discard. Admittedly that
is pure conjecture, but I couldn't help. But wonder. I
doubt that I'll ever get closure or have my suspicions validated,
(07:51):
unless he does finally get caught and arrested and I
read about it. I have grown up poor and been
around the low life a lot. I have interacted with
many sketchy and unsavory people in my life, but none
of them have ever made the impression that Mike had
made on me. Make of it as you will, but
I hope I never meet him again. This is a
(08:20):
weird experience that happened to me today. I'm a nineteen
year old female. I was driving to my school today
and got behind this tan BMW to make a right turn.
We both turned and I went to the other lane
and went past him because I was just going faster,
and I think they beeped at me, which I was
(08:40):
confused because I didn't do anything to him. I have
to go past one stop light before I get to
the one I need. I saw in my review mirror
that he had his right turn signal on. I didn't
see if they had made the turn because of bus
got in front of me and I was focused on that.
I went to make a left turn and was sitting
(09:02):
in the left turn lane when the driver pulled up
next to me. Mind you, he's in the lane where
traffic is ongoing and busy. He starts beeping at me
and points at me with his finger to follow him
into the parking lot. It's kind of hard to explain,
but he makes a right into a parking lot that's
next to the traffic. I didn't follow him and made
(09:26):
a gesture with my hands saying, oh, well, I could
see him sitting there watching me. Well, I waited to
make a left turn. I stopped looking at him and
was just waiting for the bus in front of me
to turn left. So I could get out of there
and go to school. The driver was a mail forty
to fifty and I don't think he followed me further,
(09:48):
but it would have been hard to tell because there's
a lot of people behind me going into school at
the time. I thought maybe he was going to call
the police and say I hit him and didn't pull over,
or he was upset at me for passing him, but
I wasn't tailgating him or anything like that. I was
(10:14):
just sitting in my car for a long time at
the gas station before getting out to pump my gas.
Then when I got back into my car, this girl
I had seen earlier when I first got to the
gas station came and knocked on my window and asked
me for five dollars for gas. I was like, yeah,
for sure. So we go in and I pay for
our gas, and she was like, yeah, gas is just
(10:36):
so expensive. And I agreed with her, and I was like,
I totally get it. She said, it's so hard because
there's someone pushing the gas pedal for me and throwing
me into the car and pushing my foot on the pedal,
not those exact words in that order, but basically that,
and it confused me so bad. I was like what
(11:00):
It made me freak out and I didn't know what
to do. We walked back. Her car was full of
stuff and there was no one in there but her,
but I was still freaked out, both for her and
for me. She asked for my social media and I
was kind of weirded out, so I said I don't
have any, and then she asked for my number, so
(11:21):
I just gave it to her. She asked if I
wanted to hang out, and I was like, no, I'm sorry,
but yeah. I left and drove around for a while
before going to my actual destination. No idea what to
think about this encounter, not sure what was happening, but
I left feeling very nervous for her and for myself.
(11:51):
On Super Bowl Sunday two thousand and four, my mom
and dad went to a bar to watch the game,
and they got a family friend to babysit me. She
he was sixteen at the time. She was told under
no circumstances she was allowed to leave the house, what
time they would be home, and all that good stuff.
Of course, being sixteen, she didn't listen and took me
(12:13):
to her friend's house to watch the game. I'm not
sure how far away he lived from us, but it
couldn't have been that far. As we walked I was
in my stroller. We left pretty soon after the game
because my parents wouldn't be too far behind us, but
my babysitter forgot to buckle me in as she was
in such a hurry. However, on our way home, we
(12:35):
were walking down the street when a car started getting
slower and pulling up towards us. The passenger door flew
open and a man grabbed me. My babysitter, obviously freaking out,
thought so quickly and remembered she was an incredibly skilled
boxer and beat the fuck out of him. I guess
he realized I wasn't worth getting beaten up by a
(12:56):
sixteen year old girl, so they took their losses and
the car sped away. We sprinted home. My parents obviously
were incredibly angry at her for taking me out, and
she never got to babysit me again. We did call
the police, but they never found out who did it.
So there's a grown man roaming the streets of Chicago
(13:16):
who got beat up by a sixteen year old girl.
That's enough justice. I fear fun fact, this is my
first memory. So stranger who gave me a terrifying start
to remembering things. Let's not meet so earlier today. I
(13:38):
was walking my dog when the car pulled up next
to me and asked if I had ID When I
asked why, he said that he needed to buy a
phone and a phone plan. I couldn't hear that well.
When I was trying to get out of the convo,
I told him that my idea wasn't on me. He
then asked if he could use my phone number. I
told him no, and he drove away. Maybe two minutes later,
(14:02):
another car pulled up and asked me for my Instagram.
The cars looked pretty similar, and I'm pretty sure they
worked together. I'm not sure what they were trying to do,
but I quickly went back to my apartment. I know
this isn't super creepy, but I guess I just wanted
to share it in case someone else knows what their
intentions could have been. Not to mention I'm a young
(14:23):
lady who's walking alone. This happened when I was about
twelve or thirteen. For important context, I lived in an
apartment complex that was two sets of rows, each with
four apartments. I lived in the apartment closest to the
(14:44):
street of one row and had two cousins that lived
in the apartment at the very end of the row
in the back. I would hang out with them just
about daily. We were into soccer at the time, and
we would walk to a park about four or five
streets away along with some of the the neighborhood kids
and play soccer there. Now I say neighborhood kids, but
(15:05):
it's about a big group of about fifteen kids in total,
and the ages ranged from about ten years old all
the way up to seventeen. One of my two cousins
was the seventeen year old, which is why my parents
allowed me to go out without their supervision. So on
this day, like usual, we made our way down to
the park. Some of us would walk, some of us
(15:28):
would ride scooters or skateboards. I had my bike that day.
We get to the park and we start playing. About
halfway through our game, my parents drive by and call
out to me from the car. They told me that
they're going to the store and to wait for the
park for them. Okay, no big deal, I figure they
must just want to go somewhere else. Afterwards, and it's
(15:50):
easier to pick me up in front of the park
than for me to wait back at the house. Of course,
this doesn't make too much sense because it's only a
four street distance by the time. To my twelve year
old mind, it was perfectly logical. We keep playing for
about another hour. Then, as we get closer to sunset,
more and more kids start making their way back to
(16:11):
their houses. My cousin wanted to leave. They asked me
if I was ready to go. I said that my
parents told me to wait for them here, So they
left and I stayed behind. Eventually it was just me,
no big deal. I was familiar with the neighborhood and
have my bike and the energy of a twelve year old,
(16:31):
so I started riding my bike up and down the street,
just killing time. At this point, it hasn't occurred to
me that even if my parents wanted me to wait
at the park, they wouldn't have wanted me to wait
past sunset. Eventually, I get impatient and hungry, but not
wanting to be grounded for disobeying my parents, I kept waiting,
(16:52):
and except instead of waiting at the park, I crossed
the street and was waiting there After a few minutes,
the car drove up and stopped next to me. Nothing
scary yet. There was a stop sign, so I don't
really pay too much mind, except when it drove away.
I realized the car looked weird. It was old and boxy,
like an eighties car. But what stood out was that
(17:16):
it looks spray painted gray. It was definitely not real
car paint or done by a professional. I don't know
if someone who stole a car would be that dumb
draw them that much attention to it, or if the
look was intentional, but you could tell that it was
just spray painted all over. Anyway, drove away and I
kept waiting annoyed. Now, then the car comes back from
(17:40):
the other side of the street. I noticed it because
it's hard to ignore at this point, but by survival
instincts are still not kicking in. Maybe they were just
lost or wanting to turn around without doing the U
turn since the park was a big square, going around
it and coming back is easy enough to do. A
(18:01):
few minutes go by, they drive up again and again
stop at the stop sign. This time, I'm starting to
get nervous, so I look over at the car. Two
men are inside, very scruffy looking, unkempt beards, hair, dirty faces,
stains on their shirts. They look at me, they both
(18:21):
smile at the same time. They look at each other,
smile even bigger and the creepiest smile I've ever seen
someone do to this day. Then drove away. Their smiles
creeped me out so much that I was now on
high alert. In particular, I was watching the other side
of the park, where they would have to come from
if they went around again like they did the first time.
(18:45):
Sure enough, they did. This also means that they were
now on the same side of the street as me,
So as soon as I saw the car now, I
jumped on my bike rode as fast as I humanly could.
I could hear one of them yelling something, but honestly,
I don't know what was. I was too busy writing
for my life. I could hear the car catching up,
(19:05):
but I was too scared to even turn around. I
somehow made it to my street ran into the building,
but I didn't want them to see where I lived,
since my apartment would have been the one visible from
the street, So I went to the back behind my
cousin's apartment and hid there. My reasoning was if they
followed me inside the building, they would see me knocking
(19:26):
on the door and get me before anyone answered, if
it wasn't obvious. This was before cell phones. I waited
for what felt like a few hours, but it was
probably only twenty minutes or so before I had enough
courage to make the short walk down the row of
apartments to mine and tried the door. It was unlocked,
so I went inside and my parents were there, sitting
(19:48):
on the couch watching TV. They asked me how our
game was completely nonchalant, and I asked them why they
hadn't come picked me up. They both looked confused. They
asked me why they would tell me to wait there
instead of home when it's only four streets different and
I had my bike. Once I said it, it made
(20:10):
more sense, But to this day I swear that they
told me to wait there for them. They explained that
when they drove up, they told me that they were
going to leave the door locked for me in case
I got home before they did. I guess, in my
excitement for the game, I must have completely misheard them.
I simply went to my room after that, never telling
(20:30):
them about it, because as a dumb kid. I knew
if I said something, they wouldn't let me go play
soccer anymore, and that was clearly more important than my
physical well being. I never saw those guys or the
car again. I look back on it now, and it
doesn't matter how fast I pedaled on my bike. They
were in a car. They should have and could have
(20:51):
caught up to me if they wanted to. So I
don't know what their intentions were, if they were just
having to laugh at my expense, if they were trying
to scare me, or if they actually have something darker
in mind. But I do think back to that day
now and get chills every time I realize how much
different my life would be right now if they had
caught up to me. So, to the creepy men in
(21:12):
the spray painted car, let's not meet again,
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