September 17, 2024 • 53 mins
Full Audio Content from Your Scary Stories Episode 109. The following story was shared during this episode: Police Horror Story Parts 1-5. Your Scary Stories is a show where we share your true scary stories LIVE every Monday at 10:30pm EST. To learn more about the Show, or to submit your true scary story go to YourScaryStories.com Music- Author: Kevin MacLeod at - http://incompetech.com/ CarlB1961 Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/kzntf8/ive_been_a_smalltown_cop_for_twelve_years_theres/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=32626579&utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
All right, all right, all right, This is Jeff Townsend
and joining me as usual is Luke John Daily Programmer.
This is another episode of your Scary Stories. Luke John
Daily Programmer.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
How are you doing? Man? Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You just like to say, at first, I didn't know
it was really the golfer things. So now I feel
like a little silly, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I like it, personal favorite golfer to watch. When he's
doing it, it's he's entertaining. Ain't then is he playing
in like Saudi Arabia Nour? I haven't never noticed why
it's been up too recently?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Did they've been playing? They've been paying golfers big money
to go over there, and golf like big money. I
know they offer Tiger Woods like mega money and he
turned it down. But a lot of those guys are
taking it, Like wait, I would some of them? Well yeah,
I mean it's not like so a lot of people
look at it a lot of different ways, right, Like
how you're accepting money? Four Like what I mean people
(01:01):
you're accepting it from I guess, but you're also go
golf for a year and retire, provide for your everybody
and your family.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, it's a smart move. Yeah. Yeah, the PGA Tour.
They hate it, man, they hate it. But that's enough
golf talk. Maybe we'll talk more about golf when the
Masters happens in a few weeks. Yeah, we'll have a
golf special. Oh, a golf horse.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh, we got to find some golf scary stories on
this Master's time. Oh, that's a challenge accepted. For today's show,
We're going to do something a little bit different. We're
going to go back to what we did. Oh man.
We were just a couple episodes in and maybe an
episode three of this show. Very beginning of the year,
we recorded a episode where we read a long form
story about the stairs in the woods. So today we're
(01:45):
going to tag team this story, scary story that he has.
So this is actually from Carl B nineteen sixty one
or Carl B one nine sixty one. I great to
follow on Reddit. Make sure you check out his Patreon
and stuff like that. So as we approached this story,
as we read it, we're going to be reviewing it.
I guess you could say like we're going to read
it and then we are going to discuss it as if.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's a real event.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, right, So that is a fun way to do it.
This is an awesome story, man, and I know that
I got it over to you and you got to
read it through.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So yeah, I've read through a few times. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I'm excited to share the story with everybody. Are you
excited to very much?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, I think I'm first on the list to read. Yep,
So we'll go ahead and get it going. I've been
a small town cop for twelve years. There's one case
that still scares me. Being a cop in a small
town in Minnesota probably isn't the most exciting career there is.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But it's not bad either.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
It's actually a relatively peaceful and safe line of work
compared to being in law enforcement in one of the
big cities New York or LA, for example, where all
the action is is They would say, there's only around
ten thousand people in the town where I live. It's
way out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles
of open farmland, and the only real crime that ever
(03:01):
occurs as pretty minor stuff. The occasional rowdy rednecks getting
into fist fights, teenagers vandalizing, petty theft, the odd drunk
driver here and then a case of disorderly conduct here
and there a were breaking and entering, and then a
couple of times I've been to some more serious stuff
I've had to deal with, like domestic violence, assault and
(03:23):
then robbery. But that's not even that typical. It doesn't
really happen that often. Well, that's not entirely true. There
was one case that still haunts me. But I'm getting
ahead of myself. Like I was saying, I live in
a peaceful little town, boring. Some would even say the
kind of rule out of the way farming community. You've
probably driven through on the highway on your way to
(03:46):
somewhere more interesting, without even really thinking about it as
you passed it by. The kind of place where nothing
out of the ordinary ever happens, You've probably thought, and
for the most part, you'd be.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right thinking that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
But there's one case I can't get out of my mind.
One case is bill makes my blood run cold whenever
I think about it. One case I can't explain, no
matter how hard I'd try to rationalize it to myself.
What happened to the old Garrity woman seven years ago.
I had been a police officer for five years when
it happened in the early spring of twenty fourteen. There
were only five cops on the entire police force. Me,
(04:19):
my partner Jerry, Pete and Vance, who both worked a
night patrol, and the police chief, plus Karen, an older
woman who is a retired librarian and worked part time
as the dispatcher. The police department was located in the
town building. It consisted of two offices, one for the chief,
then an open work area for the rest of us.
There are three jail cells in the rear, and the
(04:41):
three of them were never all occupied at the same time.
It was an overcast, rainy afternoon in late March early April.
ME and Jerry were in our cruiser on a routine
patrol around town when Karen's voice came over the radio
telling us there was a possible ten eighty two in
progress at the Garrity House on Turner Road. We acknowledged,
(05:03):
then changed directions heading to the Garretty house. I wasn't
overly concerned about the call. I already had a pretty
good idea who made it. Aleene Garrity was an elderly
woman who was a widow who lived in a Rundown
farmhouse on the outskirts of town. She was probably around
sixty five or seventy years old and had lived a
lone since her husband had died of a stroke three
(05:24):
years before. They had two children, but both of them
lived out of town and never visited her. Since her
husband's death, she had developed something of a reputation of
being crazy. Okay, I guess that's not putting it so nice.
She was a shut in who rarely left her home
and had groceries delivered once a week. Basically a crazy
cat lady minus the cats. The reason she was considered
(05:45):
crazy was because she had become pretty blaky and paranoid
since being widowed, and had called the police department on
multiple occasions for everything from hearing intruders moving around in
her attic to see in UFOs and the cornfield. There
were probably at least a dozen other calls too. All
her calls turned out to be false alarms. Of course,
(06:07):
the robbers she claimed were hiding in her attic turned
out to be a pair of raccoons had slipped in
under the roof, and the UFOs were probably just jets
flying overhead from the National Guard base fifty miles west
me Jerry Pete and Vance had all visited her home
multiple times before during our respective shifts. We never got
(06:27):
frustrated with her or gave her a hard time about it,
and usually we would inspect her house and property to
calm her nerves. She'd relax, think us, we'd leave, and
the process would repeat itself in a couple of weeks
or maybe a couple months. Honestly, our infrequent trips to
her house were probably the only real highlight of what
was a rather dull and unexciting job. When we told
(06:51):
the chief about missus Garretty's latest emergency bigfoot was sneaking
around in her yard, or there was a giant and
a conda lurking in her basement, would just shake his
head sadly. When Vance and Pete were the ones who
had to deal with her, they'd tell us all about
the most recent ordeal. When me and Jerry saw them
at shift exchange, they'd usually smirk in a mean spirited way,
(07:14):
and Pete would twirl his finger next to his temple
before they left, symbolizing that she's crazy. Jerry and I
just felt sorry for the old woman. It couldn't have
been easy for her. A frail, nervous lonely woman living
all alone in that old, crumbling house with no friends
or close family. I suspect she might be getting senile,
or maybe entering the early stages of Alzheimer's or dementia.
(07:37):
We worried about her living out there by herself, almost
a mile from the nearest neighbor. If her health suddenly
turned bad or she had an accident, couldn't call for help, Well,
there wasn't really much.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
We could do about it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
A couple of times I looked at the numbers of
her daughter and son and tried calling them about possibly
placing her in an assistant living home or a mental
health facility. But the one time I actually managed to
reach her son, as I was explaining his mother's situation
to him, he interrupted me, telling me he was too
busy at the moment and would call me back, then
(08:10):
abruptly ended the call. He never did call me back.
From then on, they always happened to be unavailable and
never answered any of the voicemails I left them.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's such a sad like turn of events for someone
later in life too, you know, start to lose their
faculties and then you know their family isn't even around
to like help them or at least call them down.
And it's all up to these small town police that
she keeps calling to try to make something of it.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You know, first of all that the introduction is the
hardest read of the whole thing's the longest and hardest.
But just going back to the community and the area,
it really feels like like the place that we're from,
you know, this small town.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I think they even worked.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think he worded it as you'd be you'd like
pass by on your way to go somewhere more interesting. Yeah,
that sounds like a lot of the rural area that
you know, we live in. So I could kind of
relate to that. Yeah, obviously it's a little bit smaller
in this story, but I could kind of relate to
what he was saying.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Though, Yeah, I mean it kind of just actually, uh,
like you said, the towns that we lived in, so
the areas you know, there was only one cop in
one of the towns we lived in, you know, Yeah,
and so it was just, uh, you know, if you
lived in those areas, you know the feeling, you know,
the feeling of how these people react, you know, the
(09:40):
way that there usually is someone kind of by themselves that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Probably get in. You probably know everybody too, right, Like, yeah,
a small place, you know everybody, you know their story.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh yeah, you'll know most of the people in the
town if it's small enough. Like you know, we've been
in towns that were six hundred people and yeah, you
knew it was there for Yeah, So it seems like
this is that kind of place. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So there the old lady. Garretty keeps calling them, and
there's a couple of different patrols, right, there's him and Jerry.
Him and Jerry are the day shift, the pen advance
of the night shift, I believe, Yeah, And it kind
of sounds like they both approach this lady differently, like, yeah,
they on the day shift are a little bit more
kind of the night shift are a little bit more
(10:22):
I don't know mean joking about it, but it seems
like he really relates to this lady, like, not even
really relates to her, he really feels for her.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I guess that is what I'm saying. Yeah, he understands
that she's not all there and she can't help it,
and he just feels bad about it. So even tried
calling the family members.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What did you feel about how did you feel about
these family members? Not even like just blowing her off.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know, it's just really, like I said, it's a
sad state of affairs. Like you know, it's just like,
how could you let that happen? You know, you heavier
your mother by herself, and if that's going on, you
got to step up obviously, if.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You're just if you're just now too. She's widowed, her
husband passed away to say, three years ago at least,
so she's trying to manage and take care of herself,
take care of this old farmhouse, and they think possibly
developing dementia or some sorts. She frequently calls the cops
for false alarms. They're very used to it, even give
some examples of thought intruders are in her house. It
(11:21):
was raccoons in the attic, UFO Bigfoot. So it makes
you wonder is she calling She calling to get I
don't want to say attention, but you know it's probably.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Not intentional, but if your mind's starting to go, you're
by yourself, you might call just to have some sort
of interaction with her person. But beyond that, she probably
does think she see these things and she's scared because
she's by herself.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
A mile away from the closest neighbor.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So it's clear that you know, she just gets worried
and scared out there by herself, and she would needs
someone to be there for her.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Did a great job, I think set in the stage
here for the first part of the story. We know
kind of like that was a quick, good description of
the situation. Then of course you're going to jump back
into it with the events that fall him.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Jerry and me turned on to turn her road and
drove up to missus Garretty's house on the gray, rainy
late spring day, certain that the old woman was just
overreacting yet again something relatively minor, and her imagination was
playing tricks on her. She was waiting for us outside
on her porch when we pulled to a stop. I'll
(12:37):
never forget how she looked shocked me. She'd already been
a thin and frail woman the other times we've been
out there, but we hadn't seen her in probably a
couple months since her last false emergency. She had changed
drastically since then. Now she was gone, almost emaciated, her
(12:58):
cheeks hollow and dark rings under her bloodshot, sunken eyes,
her gray hair, was tangled and didn't look like it
had been washed in days, maybe weeks, and the dress
she was wearing was wrinkled and dirty. Her physical appearance
was alarming enough, but there was also something about the
way she was staring at both of us, with those dull,
(13:20):
dark eyes that seem to look at us, through us,
and passed us all at once reminded me of old
photos I've seen of American soldiers in Vietnam. The blank, expressionist,
shell shocked look of someone who had been through more
horror than any ordinary person should have to endure. Me
and Jerry exchange a shocked look that got out and
(13:43):
approached the old woman. What seems to be the trouble,
missus garrity, Jerry asked her, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
There's something in my house, she told us a flat,
toneless voice. She was shaking slightly on the verge of
total physical and mental exhaustion. The way she phrased it,
(14:05):
not someone, but something, made me raise my eyebrow. Well,
you just wait here and we'll go have a look
and make sure it's safe, I told her, trying not
to sound too patronizing. I looked to Jerry and nodded.
We drew our pistols and stepped past miss Garrety cautiously.
Entering the house, we did a routine sweep of the
(14:25):
first flour our guns were leveled head then we headed upstairs. Oh,
it took about five minutes to check out the house.
We had done it so many times before. We had
to lay out down pat and there was no sign
of any intruders or evidence would break in. And entering,
I saw plenty of other things that disturbed me deeply.
For one thing, the place was a total mess. The
(14:47):
house was already pretty decrepit. Missus Garretty had still taken
pride at how clean she kept it. It had always
been spicking spin on our earlier visits. Now dirty dish
were stacked so high in the kitchen sink, the counters
were dirty, and the trash and dirty laundry littered the floors.
(15:08):
I also noticed that missus Garrity pillow and blankets were
lying rumbled on the couch in the living room. The
surface of the coffee table in front of it was
cluttered with half drunk cups of coffee, open containers of food,
a bible, and a rosary. It looked like she's been
eating and sleeping in the living room for some time.
(15:29):
We went upstairs. Sure enough, the bed and Missus Garretty's
room was bare, and the room itself looked like it
had been vacant for quite a while. There was also
something in a living room that really alarmed me. Leaning
in one corner was an old double barreled shotgun that
probably belonged to her late husband. Jerry picked it up,
broke it open and found two spent shells in the chamber,
(15:52):
took one out and stepped it. They told me the
gun had been fired very recently. We also discovered something
else bizarre. All of the mirrors and Missus Garretty's house
had been shattered, and every closet door had been boarded shut.
That one the front hall on the first floor, had
a huge hole blasted in the center of smaller holes
pitting the splintered wood around it. He didn't need to
(16:16):
be shruck Holms to deduce that Missus Gearritty had fired
her shotgun into that door. But why what the fuck
had happened here? Jerry shot me a perplexed, questioning look.
I shrugged, cooled us, and in equally bewildered, finished with
our inspection of the house. We put away our pistols
and turned around to go back outside. Missus Garretty was
(16:38):
standing in the room behind us, staring at us with
that unnerving blank expression. Both of us almost jumped a
foot in the air, startled. Neither of us had heard
her enter. Jerry regained his composure and flash her a fake,
reassuring smile. We don't see any sign of a Missus
Garretty must have slipped out the back you're saying. She
(17:01):
didn't relax or peer relieved like she had the countless
other times we had as humored her. Her face seemed
to twitch and some new look dawned in her eyes.
Took me a moment to identify it. It was a
look of pure hopeless doom mixed with utter terror. No,
she said, and that same odd, listless, flat voice. I'm
(17:25):
not safe. It's still here. It's hiding, that's why you
couldn't find it, and after you leave, it'll come back
for me. Then she began to quiver. She started to
cry with total despair, breaking down into hysterical sobs that
racked her whole body. Jerry and me looked at each
other concerned. We went to the old woman and comfort
(17:47):
her as best as we could, guiding her over to
the couch, sending her down with us on either side,
coaxing her gently back to a state of calm.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
The story progresses here and they arrive on the scene.
I guess is what you would say, Yes, and things
are a little bit different than they typically are.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, I would say so. Seems like clearly she's in
a quite a bit more disarray than normal, Like like
physically they can see it on her. Yeah, she hasn't.
She doesn't look like she's been eating well. She looks tired,
she definitely looks scared, and beyond that, she's not taking
care of herself. She's not cleaning her hair or her dress,
(18:30):
she's not cleaning her home. Everything about this definitely seems
like not the usual case.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And she said something okay with the creepy part, and
I have to go find them exactly where it is.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
But she used the word it yh. Yeah, she says
something in it, and so like she's not referring to
this as a person, and she's not even really referring
to you give to the sense of she's not talking
about an animal either. She's not talking about a raccoon.
This definitely seems like something else, and the fact that
she actually is doing some strange things in this house,
(19:05):
like all her mirrors are smashed, and her closet tours
are all boarded shut.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And she hasn't slept in her room for quite some time.
All the pillows and blankets are on the couch.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They said, yeah, on the couch, and that's where she's
also got like some amounts of food and coffee around
on the coffee table there.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So coffee would make you think maybe that she's afraid
to sleep. Sounds like she's not in her room. Yeah,
afraid to sleep. So I think the next part that
is what's crazy. They find the shotgun, a couple spent
shellcasings in it, and Jerry actually smells it. You could
tell that the weapons recently been fired.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah. Then they see the hole blasted in the closet tour,
So we know at this.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Point in time she at least thinks something is in
that house and she's gone I don't want to say
gone crazy in the meanway, but she it has a
very extreme reaction to this situation. By firing a gun
off in your house.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The best circumstance is this seems like you have someone
who's losing their mind fully and it is, you know,
just destroying everything around them. It's a very touchy situation
to be in because now they got to you know,
find out what's going on and then try to take
care of her, but they can't really at this point,
(20:25):
you know, she's possibly danger or someone. Yeah, they did
a really good job dealing with her that I feel like, Yeah,
they're being a crazy thing to walk into and I
feel like these guys that a really good job of
handling it. Definitely so far. Yeah, for sure, But you
can't be easy.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You walk into that situation where this house has just
just been destroyed basically, and you're reacting to it. Well,
not only that, you go there every week, every couple weeks,
every couple of months, and there's just so much worse
this time. So to your point, it's got to be
very concerning. But the first thing they got to do
is get her calm down.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, definitely, and then maybe get some answers.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yep, which is what we'll get into that a little
bit more right now at the next part. After she
had herself back under control, we asked her to explain
what had happened. She was quiet for a few moments,
gathering her thoughts. Then she began to speak. As we
listened to her story, my body temperature seemed to gradually drop,
and I felt chills take over me. Several times I
(21:25):
made eye contact with Jerry, and his expression was a
mirror of my own disbelief and fear. It started about
a month ago, she began. That's when I first heard
the scratching and my closet door, A soft, slow, steady scratching.
This seemed to come from inside her bedroom closet at night.
(21:45):
At first, she had assumed it was probably a mouse
or something like another small animal, except the scratching seemed
to come from too high of a height to be
the working of a mouse or an animal. Whenever she
opened the closet door allways after the scratching had stopped,
there had been nothing there. Several times she had started
(22:06):
to open the closet door as the scratching was in
progress to get to the bottom of it once and
for all, but each time she grasped the doorknob, and
she was overwhelmed with unease and fear, and she was
not able to do it. The scratching sounded too deliberate,
too gentle, deceptionally harmless, as if something was trying to
(22:26):
lure her into opening that closet door. To be safe,
she had started locking her closet door at night. Over
the next several days, the scratching had gotten louder and
more intense, as if something was trying to tunnel its
way through the wood. One day, she opened the closet
door and found claw marks on the other side, claw
marks that were six feet off the ground, claw marks
(22:47):
that looked like they had been made by fingernails. The
horror had really started for Miscarty about a week after
she had first heard the scratching sounds. One night, she
had awoken to a voice softly calling her nae, a
voice that seemed to be coming from the locked closet door.
She was bewildered, even more so because she recognized this voice.
(23:10):
It belonged to Bill, her dead husband. Bill's voice had
pleaded for her to open the closet door, telling her
that God had sent him down to take her up
to heaven where they could be together again and young
like they used to be forever. At this point, Jerry
had looked at me, wide eyed from the other side
of the couch. Then what happened? I asked her gently.
(23:33):
I thought I was dreaming, Miss Garretty said, I thought
it had been a dream. Poor Bill had been gone
for three years, and since I was having a dream,
I didn't see a harm in doing what he was
asking me to do. I got out of bed and
went to the closet. I reached for the lock, but
then I stopped something. Something didn't seem right. It was
(23:55):
Bill's voice, and it seemed perfectly normal, but somehow it
was wrong too. The way he was talking, it wasn't
like how Bill used to talk. It was like a
stranger was using Bill's voice trying to trick me into
opening the closet door. That doesn't make much sense, does it.
Actually nothing she was telling us made sense, but we
(24:18):
just asked her to continue telling her story. Bill or
whoever or whatever was using his voice had continued to
beg her to unlock the closet door, which she had
refused to unlock the closet door. The voice had changed,
becoming harsh and angry. It was very angry and demanding
that she opened the door when she had still refused.
It began to shout at her, using profanity and making
(24:39):
obscene threats. Thanks, Bill would never do things Bill would
have never said when he was alive. Before beginning to
pound violently on the door, the voice had begun to change.
No longer sounding like her late husband's, it became deeper
and disordered, until it didn't sound human at all. In terror,
she had fled her room and spent the night on
(24:59):
the couch downstairs. Eventually the pounding and the threats had stopped.
Miss Garrety Jerry politely interrupted her at this point, why
didn't you call us at the police station when this happened?
She was silent for a moment, then a small bitter
smile formed on her lips. I thought you'd think I
was imagining it, she told us. I know people in
(25:22):
town think I'm the crazy old lady, and I've had
you out here so many times before for things that
turned out to be nothing. I thought maybe it was
all in my head and I didn't want to bother
you about it.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Well, this story really goes from zero to sixty like that?
Isn't that business has just picked up? I guess you
could say so. So freaking definitely thinks she is experiencing
something completely crazy. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So we get a little bit more, We get a
little bit more information about this closet now, right, like
talked about how the closet doors were boarded up, so
now we know that it all began in her bedroom
closet door where she started hearing scratching sounds.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, that's really.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Crazy gentle though, right, like, not like violently scratching, just
like almost like you're just trying to get somebody's attention.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, that's what it seems like, almost like you know,
just a light scratching a track someone through the door.
Progressively did get a little bit more, like she said,
it was almost like they're trying to tunnel through the door.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, she opened the door and actually saw the claw
marks that were like six feet off the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's raasy.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Which is pretty tall for a person even though, but
nevertheless that that rules out an animal.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, definitely, And it just seems so creepy. And then
then the voice though that that's when of the creep
factor really cranks up.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Before that though, before we get into that, though, several
times she went up to the door and she was
going to open it, why that scratching was happening would
you be able to do that, like eventually, right you'd
be like, I'm sick of this shit.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I got to open this door. Yeah, you know. It's
one of those things that, like, there are times where
it happens to almost everyone where you're just like, if
I turn around right now, there's going to be someone
behind me, right, that kind of feeling, Yeah, you just
and so you decide not to turn around sometimes just
(27:18):
because it's like I can't do it. I can't turn
around and see this thing behind me, Or it's like, yeah,
the corner of your eye, you see something that might
be there, and so you don't look at it directly
because you don't want it to know that you're looking
at it. And I get that. I think that's the
feeling that she got when she's gone up to this door.
It's like everything seems like you need to confront it,
(27:40):
But at the same time, it's like, do you really
want to open that door? Do you really want to
look at the corner of your eye? Do you really
want to turn around? Those are things that a lot
of people deal with a lot of times, and you
never know what it is. She's really trying to ignore it.
It seems like like if I ignore it, maybe it'll
go away, right yeah, or maybe it's just like in
(28:04):
your head, it's not really there.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So then you talked about it. The voice is she
started hearing voices, her husband's voice asking her to come
to the closet door to open it, basically like we'll
go to heaven together and be together forever. But the
way he was speaking it may have sounded like her
husband as far as like the voice itself, but the
way it was actually talking, he wasn't phrasing or saying
(28:28):
things like her husband would her late dead husband.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Right, Yeah, And that actually makes a lot of sense
because you know someone they have a specific way of
talking that goes beyond their voice pattern and everything. Yeah,
you know, the cadence of which they talk. So it
makes sense that things would seem right at first, but
then it's it's like, well they would have a light
a little bit more, a pause there, or something like that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, she's ignoring it. This thing's getting pissed off
about it. It gets to the point where its voice
no longer sounds like Bill's her dead husbands. The way
I read it, when I was reading it, I was thinking,
like demonic sounding.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, definitely seems like it. It says nor sounds human like,
and it also has like it's been saying some really
terrible things to her, Yeah, which you know is terrifying.
Well it less terrified, I thank's ever. Yeah, I this
sounds this is a crazy story. But again, though, she
moves downstairs and they asked the million dollar questions, why
(29:28):
didn't you call us? Right?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And you could tell that she's still contemplating if this
is like real or not.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Almost.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
First of all, she doesn't want to bother them. She
knows everybody thinks she's a crazy lady. But she's starting
to think herself, waitter, am I going crazy?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right? And that's kind of like why she maybe didn't
open the door, because it's like, is she going to
have to admit that she's crazy when she opens that door?
There's nothing there? Or is it? There is something there?
And you definitely don't want to open that door.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Him and his fellow officer definitely thinks she's completely lost
her mind at this point though.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Definitely, Yeah, But they're also there being very courteous about
they're very very professional. They're trying to, you know, still
settle her down and get to the bottom of what
led up to when she finally did call, She seems
just relief that they're there, you know. Yeah, and you
can imagine that, you know, anyone wants to see someone
(30:22):
after a while, So yeah, it makes sense that she
would be very really regardless of what was happening. But
the fact that something might be happening. Yea, ifite I
want to see someone else, yeah for sure. Well man,
we'll let you pick it back up all right. Things
had escavated pretty quickly from there. The pounding and threats
(30:43):
had continued every night. She had been too scared to
sleep in her bedroom and had started sleeping in the
living room couch. Then one night the pounding had begun,
not just on her bedroom closet, but all the closet
doors in the house, all at the same time, like
there were people and all of them trying to get
all at once. She told us it was the same
(31:05):
voice in every closet, that same horrible voice. In fear,
she nailed all the closet doors shut to keep the thing,
whatever it was, from coming out to get her. Then,
about two weeks ago, something even more terrifying had happened.
She had been in her bathroom and was washing her
hands in a sink when she looked up into the
(31:26):
medicine cabinet mirror. She paused, what'd you see, Jerry asked her.
I saw it, she said, in a choked whimper. I
saw its face instead of my own. He was wearing
a black robe with a hood, and its face. His
face was just a grinning skull, a skull with horns.
His eyes were red, the eyes of the devil himself.
(31:49):
I don't mean I saw it standing behind me in
the mirror. It was in the mirror itself. I felt
a shiver crawl up my spine. It reached out of
the mirror. It didn't have hands, it was like claws,
and it tried to grab me in horror. She had
thrown a bottle of lotion at the mirror, shattering blasts, then,
(32:10):
to be safe, had done the same to all the
other mirrors in the house. How could you stay in
this house with all this has happened to you, asked her.
She shrugged sadly. I don't have anywhere else to go,
and no one will take me in. The nights were awful.
It was always better during the days. At least then
I could get some sleep. It always stopped by morning
(32:31):
and never happened during the day, she suddenly shuddered. Until
three days ago. Then it started happening all the time,
day and night. I was safe no matter what time
it was. It all come to a head late this morning.
Pounding had gradually gotten more violent and forceful, until all
(32:51):
the closet doors were rattling in their frames. Scared, he
knew that you went boards nailed over them. It's only
a matter of time till that thing broke through. In desperation,
she gained praying and reading from the Bible, which had
only caused the entity in the closet to laugh at
her mockingly. Finally, she had gotten out Bill's shotgun and
(33:12):
fired it through the closet door. For a minute or so,
there wasn't a sound. She told us, I sort of
think it was finally over. Then I saw those red
eyes burning in the dark in the hole the shotgun
had made. It. Chuckled and said one word to me. Well,
what to say? I asked her? Tonight she said, began
(33:34):
to tremble. She lowered her head and her hands and
began to sob again. Jerry and I were silent for
some time, trying to absorb what she had just told us.
We looked at each other, deeply troubled by her story.
Either of us actually believed it, of course, but it was
obvious the poor woman was deeply disturbed. If she was
having some kind of nervous breakdown, maybe her afraid grip
(33:57):
on reality had finally snapped. Maybe it was old age
was taking this toll on her mind. One thing was clear.
It wasn't safe for her to be alone anymore, especially
not here. It was not healthy for her. Hell, for
all we knew, maybe her paranoid delusions were her results
of some dangerous form a mold that had formed in
the house. Jerry and I excused ourselves for a moment,
(34:21):
then stepped outside and talking privately, we both agreed she
needed help, she needed to be institutionalized, but for now
it was best she stay somewhere else. Went back in
and told missus Garrett she was coming with us. She
was going to spend the night in a hotel room
in town, and tomorrow, Jerry added, we were going to
find a priest who had come exercise this free evil
(34:43):
spirit they had been bothering her, getting rid of it
once and for all she broke down again, this time
crying and relief and hugged me and my partner, thankingness
over and over again. Well, she's finally getting the help
that she needs. Sounds like, Yeah, it sounds like they're
really trying to get her, like cancel sort of institution.
They're going to try to hold her someplace overnight. That's
(35:07):
what it seems like to me that they're not really
believing this story. But her story is terrifying, and if
it's you are remotely true, this is a nightmare scenario.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, it sounds like this is actually later in the day,
all this is transpiring. All this is happening, and like
you said, get her to a hotel and excuse me,
get her to a motel until the next day when
they can get her help wherever that may be. It
was a previous section that you read when he said,
what the fuck happened here?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
You really start.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
To like put all the puzzle pieces together as far
as how crazy of a state this house is in.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, the disarray and like all these boards up dworse,
Like that's something that would be crazy to walk into.
She looks in the mirror. She sees a I don't
know how to describing a monster. Yeah, it looks like a
skeletal monster of some sort and reaching out to her
from the mirror, not so much that's behind her. She
(36:08):
describes it as being within the mirror.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
We've all seen that in a movie or had that fear,
like we're gonna look in the mirror and like something
else is like not even behind you, but it's like
they're in the mirror, you know. Yeah, And so she
breaks the mirror that she goes around and she destroys
all the other mirrors in the house.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, she breaks them all that day. And so like
there's all these broken mirrors, there's glass something around obviously,
and so, like I said, he has definitely starting to
see like, ah, this is we got ourselves a problem here.
It's very much she is in you know, she could
be endangering herself. She needs to be taken care of.
(36:45):
And it's a really scary moment if there was nothing
supernatural going on, because this old woman who you've been
like kind of taking care of sort of by going
and visiting her during her calls and you know, just
like calming down every time, and then you see her
in this state. It's a scary moment for you, right,
because you gotta be like thinking, how are we going
(37:07):
to take care of her? Now? You know, we got
to something's gonna happen. Just that alone, you can you
can imagine there their way. They excelled in this moment,
but away she's feeling with all that she's claiming to see.
That's that's the craziest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, So what began is clawing at the closet door
is now pounding in every closet door throughout the house.
She's actually concerned that the pounding is so hard it's
going to break through the boards. She began praying and
reading the Bible. I guess this made this entity is
we're going to call it laugh. It was mocking her.
(37:45):
Finally she got the shotgun and fired it through the
closet door. This entity was mocking her.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yes, so after it started making Funever, she shot at
it and then saw those eyes with in the darkness.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So like she walked up to the door, she was
seeing these eyes in there through the holes.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I'm going sure how close she got, but she definitely
kind of a period. So through the shotgun holes she
could see these red eyes. Yeah, yes, that's absolutely terrifying. Wow.
And then it said tonight. It said tonight, so.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
They relieve her of this tress and said we're going
to get you help. They have a sidebar conversation. Hey,
she she's no longer able to take care of herself.
This is that she's a huge risk to herself. This
situation is a bad situation. They're going to remove her
from the situation. And like we when we just started
this discussion right here, they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Get her help. Man, you still feel so sorry for
being all alone? You know? Oh yeah, definitely, I'll jump
back in here, all righty.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We drove her to a cheap motel in town and
checked her in. Her mental state already seemed to have improved,
and that short amount of time being away from that house.
She smiled and told her she couldn't wait to finally
get a night, a decent night of sleep, without having
to worry about that thing banging on the doors. I
think mostly she was just glad she wouldn't have to
be afraid anymore the entity she was convinced was lurking
(39:13):
in her house. We both smiled at her and said goodbye,
getting in the cruiser and driving away. Our smiles faded
as soon as we pulled away from the motel. We
both drove in grim silence. We both liked old miss Garrity,
in spite of all the time she had made herself
a nuisance to the police department with her bogus calls
(39:33):
and her ratic behavior. We were sorry her mental estate
had deteriorated to such a point where she could no
longer look after herself. We told the Chief her story
when we got back. He sighed sadly and nodded, agreeing
that she had to be committed somewhere. Tomorrow, him and
me were going to drive out there personally visit her
(39:54):
son and daughter and explain to them what was going on,
and as they still refused to do what needed to
be done, the Chief would see to it himself that
Miss Garretty would get the help that she needed. But
we never got the chance. The last time we ever
saw Miss Garritty was when Jerry and I left her
at the motel around four in the morning. The next morning,
(40:14):
I was awakened by an urgent phone call from the
Chief telling me to get over to the motel as
soon as possible. He wouldn't say why over the phone,
but I already had a hunch had something to do
with Missus Garretty. I felt an awful sense of dread
as I got dressed. I wondered if maybe she had
taken her own life in the motel room after we
had left her. When I arrived outside the motel, my
(40:36):
fears were confirmed when I saw crime scene tape blocking
the door to miss Garretty's room. The Chief, along with Jerry,
Pete and Vance, were gathered outside, along with a couple
cops from the state police and a pair of detectives
from the city. The Chief greeted me with a grave expression.
As I approached him, he told me Missus Garretty was gone.
(40:56):
At first, I thought he meant she was dead. Then,
seeing the solemn look in his eyes, he clarified himself
she was literally gone. I looked at him, confused. I
saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before,
something that caused a ripple of fear in my heart.
The Chief was scared. He told me he didn't know
what to make of it himself. People in the neighboring
(41:19):
rooms had heard blood curling, screams and sounds of violence
coming from Missus Garrett's room around two in the morning,
then nothing silence. They had called the police department. Pete
and Vance had been the first to arrive, since they
were on the night shift. They had pounded on the door,
but there had been no response. They had to force
(41:40):
the door open. When they saw what was inside. They
called the chief himself. What did they find? I asked,
maybe you ought to come see for yourself, he told me,
Leading to the doorway and under the crime scene tape.
He explained to me that they had found no sign
of forced entry, and that the door and windows of
the motel room had had all still been locked from
(42:01):
the inside. When Pete Advance showed up, I took a
look around, feeling a shiver run through my body. There
was fresh blood splattered around the room, on the walls,
the floor, the bed, even the ceiling. The blood stained
bed sheets had been ripped away from the mattress, as
if somebody had desperately tried holding onto them as they
were pulled off of the bed. There were ten very
(42:24):
thin trails of blood on the carpet leading away from
the bed, ten thin trails of blood that had been
made by ten terrified fingers clawing as if they were
being dragged away I followed the bloody finger marks across
the floor, away from the bed to where they led
where they ended at the closet. I looked at them.
(42:44):
Then I looked at the chief. He looked back at me,
his face hard and impassive, but I could see fear
in his eyes. I approached the closet. The door was
standing open. I stood there looking in for some time.
The closet was empty, completely empty. There wasn't even blood
on the floor. They never found Missus Garrity.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Such a nightmarysh looking scene like that's been described here.
It's just changed so much from when we just had
that recap. It was a positive thing. They were going
to get her help. They were going to talk to
her family the next day, and if the family wasn't
gonna help, they were still going to make sure she
got help. Basically, yeah, and everything.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Seemed I don't want to say good, because I think
they were really sad about the situation. But for missus
Garritty herself, it seemed like she was going.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
To get help. It was like a bitter sweet thing, right.
They didn't want to have to do it, but if
they were willing to do it, because that's what she needed.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah, that's not an easy thing to do to, like,
this person can no longer live at their house take
care of themselves. It's a pretty sad thing when you
really think about it. But she's relieved though. They like
we said last time they leave her at the motel room,
it seems to be. Everything seem to be okay. She
seems to be looking up, they said, instantly, her aura her,
(44:06):
She just seemed to be in a way better place.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, and then this nightmarish outcome.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
He's a wolcome by a phone call at night saying
he needs to get to the motel as soon as possible.
He thinks the worst. Right, she's dead, she's taken her life.
Something the terrible has happened to her. Can you imagine
that drive over there.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah, I was thinking about that. That would be like
a very dark and like a terrible time in your
own head driving over there to this because you're like, yeah,
you just saw this person. You're trying to get her help.
And then it's like either she either she died of
you know, a parent suicide, or she could have been
(44:48):
natural causes. You know, she could have had a heart attack.
But to think that you just saw her not that long.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Ago, and that drive over there, you're wondering what happened
the whole time he gets there, he sees he sees
a lot of people there. He sees all his fellow
co workers. There's only a few of them, I guess
for the local police department, but he also sees state
police and a detective from a nearby, bigger city. So
you pull up, you see that.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
You think, oh shit, yeah, definitely seems like something else
happened or or you know, it's a little bit more involved,
but you wouldn't expect that. You would definitely never expect that.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Then he's told that they heard blood curling, screaming, and
like what sounded like an altercation, like a violent fight,
like something crazy was happening in her room. The neighboring
motel rooms heard. Then it went completely silent.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
What I find interesting is it even mentions it specifically
that when Pete and Dvance, the night shift guys, show up,
the door is locked. Yeah, the doors and windows were
all locked, so they force themselves in. Yeah, they break
in to get in there and see what was going on.
And that the you know, the scene of all that
(45:58):
blood on everything every where, and then the where her
finger nails have been dragging across the floor trying to
stop herself from being dragged away. All that blood there too.
Horrific scene.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
So let's talk about the doors and the windows real quick.
So you definitely can't go out a window then lock
it behind you, that I'm aware of. You know, No,
I don't know if these hotel room doors are like
either a lot of the ones I've been to you
they lock on their own. You have a key card.
This sounds like an old motel though, actually have that
like dead bowl on the inside, So it makes you wonder,
(46:33):
like could you truly leave and lock it? But this
is an old room, you think, so it's got to
be confusing.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Nevertheless, Well, also the question of whether or not it
had one of those you know, they usually have the
dead bolt, but they also have like the half block too.
Yeah was that locked as well? I don't know, uh,
but yeah, so like maybe the door code relocked. If
it's an older one, like you said, it has a
key and actual key, they don't relock, So that's a
(47:00):
good question. This is a very small town, so I
can't imagine they have the most up to date doors.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
This is where it gets weird. Like you said, the
bed sheets have been ripped off the bed, and the
blood and all that actually does not lead to the door,
indicating that she was dragged outside and taken away. Uh,
there's actually like finger marks on off of this bed
that lead clear across the floor to the closet, not
(47:28):
the door like her window, like she was forced out
to leave to the closet, and then then upon getting
into the closet nothing, they stopped there.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and that is like, you know, you you look
at that, You're like, the body is gonna be in
the closet, right, Yeah, but we quickly find out that
that's not the case, and that was basically everything even
more terrified in my opinion. Yeah, but she's been so
afraid of these damn closets the whole time. Man, the
holes eye. You have some short thing that supposed to
(48:00):
be in this closet that's been threatening her for weeks.
Now that it's gotten worse and worse to the point
that she actually shot at the closet door at her
house try to stop it. And then it told her tonight.
They told her tonight, and this is that night, this
happens in that room and you see what appears to
the evis of her being dragged to the closet. You
(48:23):
always hear of these things that like something demonic haunts
somebody or something. It's not just where they live, it's
like attached to them. That seems to be the case
for missus Garretty here it does seem to be. Yeah.
Of course she was never found again yet, and there
was no blood or anything in that closet.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
She's dragged in the closet then just vanished. Yeah, she's
so afraid of those closets too the whole time, And
that's gonna be what godters thought she got away from it. Yeah,
imagine being there, people next door hearing that.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
That would be a very terrifying night. Now all you
can do is call the police and I go back
to that town again. Yeah, a small tower, nothing hardly happens.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Do you think this sticks with the people that were
involved forever?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Oh? Yeah, this would be something that they'll never get over,
something that will affect them for the rest of their
lives and will probably affect people who weren't necessarily there,
but who hear about later. She's still missing. We don't
know if she's dead. We could presume I guess.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah, it's crazy how this progressed over time, and you
really think about it. It's just a lady living on
her house alone, and all this has just happened. I
can't imagine how terrifying it was.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
It's dely. It goes like I said, it goes from
zero sixty like that. It's like, craziest thing you'll ever hear.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Absolutely, this guy actually years later posted yet another story,
so we will go back to that. He had something
else crazy he happened. So this is saying, craziest thing
that's happened. How long did he say? He say, twelve years?
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Ten years? How long did he be in this cop?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Twelve years? He'd in a cop in this town for
twelve years. And this is really the case that haunts him,
that sticks sticks out to him. The rest of stuff
is pretty typical, pretty normal. This is not normal though, man, No,
it's definitely not. Prehaps the opposite. Years later he has
something else too, and we'll share that one day.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I'm excited about that. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
This is a story that leaves it on the ultimate cliffhanger.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yeah, yeah, it does. Uh terrible terrible cliffhanger and the
one that yeah, it'll take whoever, it'll be solved.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, we appreciate you listening to this story with us.
Let us know what you think. We trying to do
change things up a little bit where we every once
in a while we'll share some long like long form
stuff together. Then other times we're just kind of like
we're just sharing like our own stories that we found
or whatever we're sent, like just kind of they're all
they're not always related. You do a pretty good job
(50:52):
about relating to them. I always don't, but you never
know like what stories we're gonna share. But this is
like a long form one, and the Stairs in the
Woods one did really well, So let us know what
you think.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Do you like this?
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Do you like the other style on more? And yeah,
we're trying to just really kind of dial in on
what the viewers listeners prefer.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
So it's a very good story, great story.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Let us know what you think. Reach out to us.
Go to your Scary stories dot com. There you can
find links to all of our social media. You could
submit your stories there. You can watch the show on YouTube,
my YouTube Jeff Townsend Media podcast Father. You can also
listen to your scary stories and audio form wherever you
listen to podcasts. So we absolutely encourage you to join
(51:35):
the live stream Mondays at ten thirty pm. Ish ish Yeah,
I'm gonna get a tattoo that says ish on it.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
That'd be great. That's become my saying. Yeah, but yeah,
we do.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I think the live experience is definitely the way to go.
But yeah, if you ever have a free Monday evening,
jump on with us, comment along and join the experience.
I don't know how else to word it, man.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, it's a perfect way. It's an experience.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
What closing words of inspiration do you have before I
hit my catchphrase that we're done.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I feel like people need a river to take care
of their their loved ones. You know, this woman, her
kids kind of we weren't there for when they probably
should have been. So you know, I'll always take care
of your loved ones. You got to live with that forever,
you know, yeah, absolutely, And you know they probably were
very sad and were torn up over afterwards. But you know,
(52:26):
it just makes it you have to make sure you
take the time to see people and to talk to
people because you never know what's going to happen next Yeah,
I agree. Man.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
We appreciate you watching or listen to this. We hope
you keep checking out our content. This is your scary stories.
And until next time, keep being you and keep being great.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Jeff Townsend Media says you good night. And the question
is do I stay here? Will you be back? Oh
you go coming back? Will you be back? Are you
coming back?
All right, all right, all right, This is Jeff Townsend
and joining me as usual is Luke John Daily Programmer.
This is another episode of your Scary Stories. Luke John
Daily Programmer.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
How are you doing? Man? Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You just like to say, at first, I didn't know
it was really the golfer things. So now I feel
like a little silly, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I like it, personal favorite golfer to watch. When he's
doing it, it's he's entertaining. Ain't then is he playing
in like Saudi Arabia Nour? I haven't never noticed why
it's been up too recently?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Did they've been playing? They've been paying golfers big money
to go over there, and golf like big money. I
know they offer Tiger Woods like mega money and he
turned it down. But a lot of those guys are
taking it, Like wait, I would some of them? Well yeah,
I mean it's not like so a lot of people
look at it a lot of different ways, right, Like
how you're accepting money? Four Like what I mean people
(01:01):
you're accepting it from I guess, but you're also go
golf for a year and retire, provide for your everybody
and your family.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, it's a smart move. Yeah. Yeah, the PGA Tour.
They hate it, man, they hate it. But that's enough
golf talk. Maybe we'll talk more about golf when the
Masters happens in a few weeks. Yeah, we'll have a
golf special. Oh, a golf horse.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh, we got to find some golf scary stories on
this Master's time. Oh, that's a challenge accepted. For today's show,
We're going to do something a little bit different. We're
going to go back to what we did. Oh man.
We were just a couple episodes in and maybe an
episode three of this show. Very beginning of the year,
we recorded a episode where we read a long form
story about the stairs in the woods. So today we're
(01:45):
going to tag team this story, scary story that he has.
So this is actually from Carl B nineteen sixty one
or Carl B one nine sixty one. I great to
follow on Reddit. Make sure you check out his Patreon
and stuff like that. So as we approached this story,
as we read it, we're going to be reviewing it.
I guess you could say like we're going to read
it and then we are going to discuss it as if.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
It's a real event.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, right, So that is a fun way to do it.
This is an awesome story, man, and I know that
I got it over to you and you got to
read it through.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So yeah, I've read through a few times. It's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I'm excited to share the story with everybody. Are you
excited to very much?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
So?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, I think I'm first on the list to read. Yep,
So we'll go ahead and get it going. I've been
a small town cop for twelve years. There's one case
that still scares me. Being a cop in a small
town in Minnesota probably isn't the most exciting career there is.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
But it's not bad either.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
It's actually a relatively peaceful and safe line of work
compared to being in law enforcement in one of the
big cities New York or LA, for example, where all
the action is is They would say, there's only around
ten thousand people in the town where I live. It's
way out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles
of open farmland, and the only real crime that ever
(03:01):
occurs as pretty minor stuff. The occasional rowdy rednecks getting
into fist fights, teenagers vandalizing, petty theft, the odd drunk
driver here and then a case of disorderly conduct here
and there a were breaking and entering, and then a
couple of times I've been to some more serious stuff
I've had to deal with, like domestic violence, assault and
(03:23):
then robbery. But that's not even that typical. It doesn't
really happen that often. Well, that's not entirely true. There
was one case that still haunts me. But I'm getting
ahead of myself. Like I was saying, I live in
a peaceful little town, boring. Some would even say the
kind of rule out of the way farming community. You've
probably driven through on the highway on your way to
(03:46):
somewhere more interesting, without even really thinking about it as
you passed it by. The kind of place where nothing
out of the ordinary ever happens, You've probably thought, and
for the most part, you'd be.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Right thinking that.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
But there's one case I can't get out of my mind.
One case is bill makes my blood run cold whenever
I think about it. One case I can't explain, no
matter how hard I'd try to rationalize it to myself.
What happened to the old Garrity woman seven years ago.
I had been a police officer for five years when
it happened in the early spring of twenty fourteen. There
were only five cops on the entire police force. Me,
(04:19):
my partner Jerry, Pete and Vance, who both worked a
night patrol, and the police chief, plus Karen, an older
woman who is a retired librarian and worked part time
as the dispatcher. The police department was located in the
town building. It consisted of two offices, one for the chief,
then an open work area for the rest of us.
There are three jail cells in the rear, and the
(04:41):
three of them were never all occupied at the same time.
It was an overcast, rainy afternoon in late March early April.
ME and Jerry were in our cruiser on a routine
patrol around town when Karen's voice came over the radio
telling us there was a possible ten eighty two in
progress at the Garrity House on Turner Road. We acknowledged,
(05:03):
then changed directions heading to the Garretty house. I wasn't
overly concerned about the call. I already had a pretty
good idea who made it. Aleene Garrity was an elderly
woman who was a widow who lived in a Rundown
farmhouse on the outskirts of town. She was probably around
sixty five or seventy years old and had lived a
lone since her husband had died of a stroke three
(05:24):
years before. They had two children, but both of them
lived out of town and never visited her. Since her
husband's death, she had developed something of a reputation of
being crazy. Okay, I guess that's not putting it so nice.
She was a shut in who rarely left her home
and had groceries delivered once a week. Basically a crazy
cat lady minus the cats. The reason she was considered
(05:45):
crazy was because she had become pretty blaky and paranoid
since being widowed, and had called the police department on
multiple occasions for everything from hearing intruders moving around in
her attic to see in UFOs and the cornfield. There
were probably at least a dozen other calls too. All
her calls turned out to be false alarms. Of course,
(06:07):
the robbers she claimed were hiding in her attic turned
out to be a pair of raccoons had slipped in
under the roof, and the UFOs were probably just jets
flying overhead from the National Guard base fifty miles west
me Jerry Pete and Vance had all visited her home
multiple times before during our respective shifts. We never got
(06:27):
frustrated with her or gave her a hard time about it,
and usually we would inspect her house and property to
calm her nerves. She'd relax, think us, we'd leave, and
the process would repeat itself in a couple of weeks
or maybe a couple months. Honestly, our infrequent trips to
her house were probably the only real highlight of what
was a rather dull and unexciting job. When we told
(06:51):
the chief about missus Garretty's latest emergency bigfoot was sneaking
around in her yard, or there was a giant and
a conda lurking in her basement, would just shake his
head sadly. When Vance and Pete were the ones who
had to deal with her, they'd tell us all about
the most recent ordeal. When me and Jerry saw them
at shift exchange, they'd usually smirk in a mean spirited way,
(07:14):
and Pete would twirl his finger next to his temple
before they left, symbolizing that she's crazy. Jerry and I
just felt sorry for the old woman. It couldn't have
been easy for her. A frail, nervous lonely woman living
all alone in that old, crumbling house with no friends
or close family. I suspect she might be getting senile,
or maybe entering the early stages of Alzheimer's or dementia.
(07:37):
We worried about her living out there by herself, almost
a mile from the nearest neighbor. If her health suddenly
turned bad or she had an accident, couldn't call for help, Well,
there wasn't really much.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
We could do about it.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
A couple of times I looked at the numbers of
her daughter and son and tried calling them about possibly
placing her in an assistant living home or a mental
health facility. But the one time I actually managed to
reach her son, as I was explaining his mother's situation
to him, he interrupted me, telling me he was too
busy at the moment and would call me back, then
(08:10):
abruptly ended the call. He never did call me back.
From then on, they always happened to be unavailable and
never answered any of the voicemails I left them.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's such a sad like turn of events for someone
later in life too, you know, start to lose their
faculties and then you know their family isn't even around
to like help them or at least call them down.
And it's all up to these small town police that
she keeps calling to try to make something of it.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You know, first of all that the introduction is the
hardest read of the whole thing's the longest and hardest.
But just going back to the community and the area,
it really feels like like the place that we're from,
you know, this small town.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I think they even worked.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
I think he worded it as you'd be you'd like
pass by on your way to go somewhere more interesting. Yeah,
that sounds like a lot of the rural area that
you know, we live in. So I could kind of
relate to that. Yeah, obviously it's a little bit smaller
in this story, but I could kind of relate to
what he was saying.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Though, Yeah, I mean it kind of just actually, uh,
like you said, the towns that we lived in, so
the areas you know, there was only one cop in
one of the towns we lived in, you know, Yeah,
and so it was just, uh, you know, if you
lived in those areas, you know the feeling, you know,
the feeling of how these people react, you know, the
(09:40):
way that there usually is someone kind of by themselves that.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Probably get in. You probably know everybody too, right, Like, yeah,
a small place, you know everybody, you know their story.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh yeah, you'll know most of the people in the
town if it's small enough. Like you know, we've been
in towns that were six hundred people and yeah, you
knew it was there for Yeah, So it seems like
this is that kind of place. Uh.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
So there the old lady. Garretty keeps calling them, and
there's a couple of different patrols, right, there's him and Jerry.
Him and Jerry are the day shift, the pen advance
of the night shift, I believe, Yeah, And it kind
of sounds like they both approach this lady differently, like, yeah,
they on the day shift are a little bit more
kind of the night shift are a little bit more
(10:22):
I don't know mean joking about it, but it seems
like he really relates to this lady, like, not even
really relates to her, he really feels for her.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I guess that is what I'm saying. Yeah, he understands
that she's not all there and she can't help it,
and he just feels bad about it. So even tried
calling the family members.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
What did you feel about how did you feel about
these family members? Not even like just blowing her off.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know, it's just really, like I said, it's a
sad state of affairs. Like you know, it's just like,
how could you let that happen? You know, you heavier
your mother by herself, and if that's going on, you
got to step up obviously, if.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
You're just if you're just now too. She's widowed, her
husband passed away to say, three years ago at least,
so she's trying to manage and take care of herself,
take care of this old farmhouse, and they think possibly
developing dementia or some sorts. She frequently calls the cops
for false alarms. They're very used to it, even give
some examples of thought intruders are in her house. It
(11:21):
was raccoons in the attic, UFO Bigfoot. So it makes
you wonder is she calling She calling to get I
don't want to say attention, but you know it's probably.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Not intentional, but if your mind's starting to go, you're
by yourself, you might call just to have some sort
of interaction with her person. But beyond that, she probably
does think she see these things and she's scared because
she's by herself.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
A mile away from the closest neighbor.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So it's clear that you know, she just gets worried
and scared out there by herself, and she would needs
someone to be there for her.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Did a great job, I think set in the stage
here for the first part of the story. We know
kind of like that was a quick, good description of
the situation. Then of course you're going to jump back
into it with the events that fall him.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Jerry and me turned on to turn her road and
drove up to missus Garretty's house on the gray, rainy
late spring day, certain that the old woman was just
overreacting yet again something relatively minor, and her imagination was
playing tricks on her. She was waiting for us outside
on her porch when we pulled to a stop. I'll
(12:37):
never forget how she looked shocked me. She'd already been
a thin and frail woman the other times we've been
out there, but we hadn't seen her in probably a
couple months since her last false emergency. She had changed
drastically since then. Now she was gone, almost emaciated, her
(12:58):
cheeks hollow and dark rings under her bloodshot, sunken eyes,
her gray hair, was tangled and didn't look like it
had been washed in days, maybe weeks, and the dress
she was wearing was wrinkled and dirty. Her physical appearance
was alarming enough, but there was also something about the
way she was staring at both of us, with those dull,
(13:20):
dark eyes that seem to look at us, through us,
and passed us all at once reminded me of old
photos I've seen of American soldiers in Vietnam. The blank, expressionist,
shell shocked look of someone who had been through more
horror than any ordinary person should have to endure. Me
and Jerry exchange a shocked look that got out and
(13:43):
approached the old woman. What seems to be the trouble,
missus garrity, Jerry asked her, trying to keep his voice nonchalant.
There's something in my house, she told us a flat,
toneless voice. She was shaking slightly on the verge of
total physical and mental exhaustion. The way she phrased it,
(14:05):
not someone, but something, made me raise my eyebrow. Well,
you just wait here and we'll go have a look
and make sure it's safe, I told her, trying not
to sound too patronizing. I looked to Jerry and nodded.
We drew our pistols and stepped past miss Garrety cautiously.
Entering the house, we did a routine sweep of the
(14:25):
first flour our guns were leveled head then we headed upstairs. Oh,
it took about five minutes to check out the house.
We had done it so many times before. We had
to lay out down pat and there was no sign
of any intruders or evidence would break in. And entering,
I saw plenty of other things that disturbed me deeply.
For one thing, the place was a total mess. The
(14:47):
house was already pretty decrepit. Missus Garretty had still taken
pride at how clean she kept it. It had always
been spicking spin on our earlier visits. Now dirty dish
were stacked so high in the kitchen sink, the counters
were dirty, and the trash and dirty laundry littered the floors.
(15:08):
I also noticed that missus Garrity pillow and blankets were
lying rumbled on the couch in the living room. The
surface of the coffee table in front of it was
cluttered with half drunk cups of coffee, open containers of food,
a bible, and a rosary. It looked like she's been
eating and sleeping in the living room for some time.
(15:29):
We went upstairs. Sure enough, the bed and Missus Garretty's
room was bare, and the room itself looked like it
had been vacant for quite a while. There was also
something in a living room that really alarmed me. Leaning
in one corner was an old double barreled shotgun that
probably belonged to her late husband. Jerry picked it up,
broke it open and found two spent shells in the chamber,
(15:52):
took one out and stepped it. They told me the
gun had been fired very recently. We also discovered something
else bizarre. All of the mirrors and Missus Garretty's house
had been shattered, and every closet door had been boarded shut.
That one the front hall on the first floor, had
a huge hole blasted in the center of smaller holes
pitting the splintered wood around it. He didn't need to
(16:16):
be shruck Holms to deduce that Missus Gearritty had fired
her shotgun into that door. But why what the fuck
had happened here? Jerry shot me a perplexed, questioning look.
I shrugged, cooled us, and in equally bewildered, finished with
our inspection of the house. We put away our pistols
and turned around to go back outside. Missus Garretty was
(16:38):
standing in the room behind us, staring at us with
that unnerving blank expression. Both of us almost jumped a
foot in the air, startled. Neither of us had heard
her enter. Jerry regained his composure and flash her a fake,
reassuring smile. We don't see any sign of a Missus
Garretty must have slipped out the back you're saying. She
(17:01):
didn't relax or peer relieved like she had the countless
other times we had as humored her. Her face seemed
to twitch and some new look dawned in her eyes.
Took me a moment to identify it. It was a
look of pure hopeless doom mixed with utter terror. No,
she said, and that same odd, listless, flat voice. I'm
(17:25):
not safe. It's still here. It's hiding, that's why you
couldn't find it, and after you leave, it'll come back
for me. Then she began to quiver. She started to
cry with total despair, breaking down into hysterical sobs that
racked her whole body. Jerry and me looked at each
other concerned. We went to the old woman and comfort
(17:47):
her as best as we could, guiding her over to
the couch, sending her down with us on either side,
coaxing her gently back to a state of calm.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
The story progresses here and they arrive on the scene.
I guess is what you would say, Yes, and things
are a little bit different than they typically are.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, I would say so. Seems like clearly she's in
a quite a bit more disarray than normal, Like like
physically they can see it on her. Yeah, she hasn't.
She doesn't look like she's been eating well. She looks tired,
she definitely looks scared, and beyond that, she's not taking
care of herself. She's not cleaning her hair or her dress,
(18:30):
she's not cleaning her home. Everything about this definitely seems
like not the usual case.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And she said something okay with the creepy part, and
I have to go find them exactly where it is.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
But she used the word it yh. Yeah, she says
something in it, and so like she's not referring to
this as a person, and she's not even really referring
to you give to the sense of she's not talking
about an animal either. She's not talking about a raccoon.
This definitely seems like something else, and the fact that
she actually is doing some strange things in this house,
(19:05):
like all her mirrors are smashed, and her closet tours
are all boarded shut.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
And she hasn't slept in her room for quite some time.
All the pillows and blankets are on the couch.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They said, yeah, on the couch, and that's where she's
also got like some amounts of food and coffee around
on the coffee table there.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So coffee would make you think maybe that she's afraid
to sleep. Sounds like she's not in her room. Yeah,
afraid to sleep. So I think the next part that
is what's crazy. They find the shotgun, a couple spent
shellcasings in it, and Jerry actually smells it. You could
tell that the weapons recently been fired.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah. Then they see the hole blasted in the closet tour,
So we know at this.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Point in time she at least thinks something is in
that house and she's gone I don't want to say
gone crazy in the meanway, but she it has a
very extreme reaction to this situation. By firing a gun
off in your house.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
The best circumstance is this seems like you have someone
who's losing their mind fully and it is, you know,
just destroying everything around them. It's a very touchy situation
to be in because now they got to you know,
find out what's going on and then try to take
care of her, but they can't really at this point,
(20:25):
you know, she's possibly danger or someone. Yeah, they did
a really good job dealing with her that I feel like, Yeah,
they're being a crazy thing to walk into and I
feel like these guys that a really good job of
handling it. Definitely so far. Yeah, for sure, But you
can't be easy.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
You walk into that situation where this house has just
just been destroyed basically, and you're reacting to it. Well,
not only that, you go there every week, every couple weeks,
every couple of months, and there's just so much worse
this time. So to your point, it's got to be
very concerning. But the first thing they got to do
is get her calm down.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, definitely, and then maybe get some answers.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yep, which is what we'll get into that a little
bit more right now at the next part. After she
had herself back under control, we asked her to explain
what had happened. She was quiet for a few moments,
gathering her thoughts. Then she began to speak. As we
listened to her story, my body temperature seemed to gradually drop,
and I felt chills take over me. Several times I
(21:25):
made eye contact with Jerry, and his expression was a
mirror of my own disbelief and fear. It started about
a month ago, she began. That's when I first heard
the scratching and my closet door, A soft, slow, steady scratching.
This seemed to come from inside her bedroom closet at night.
(21:45):
At first, she had assumed it was probably a mouse
or something like another small animal, except the scratching seemed
to come from too high of a height to be
the working of a mouse or an animal. Whenever she
opened the closet door allways after the scratching had stopped,
there had been nothing there. Several times she had started
(22:06):
to open the closet door as the scratching was in
progress to get to the bottom of it once and
for all, but each time she grasped the doorknob, and
she was overwhelmed with unease and fear, and she was
not able to do it. The scratching sounded too deliberate,
too gentle, deceptionally harmless, as if something was trying to
(22:26):
lure her into opening that closet door. To be safe,
she had started locking her closet door at night. Over
the next several days, the scratching had gotten louder and
more intense, as if something was trying to tunnel its
way through the wood. One day, she opened the closet
door and found claw marks on the other side, claw
marks that were six feet off the ground, claw marks
(22:47):
that looked like they had been made by fingernails. The
horror had really started for Miscarty about a week after
she had first heard the scratching sounds. One night, she
had awoken to a voice softly calling her nae, a
voice that seemed to be coming from the locked closet door.
She was bewildered, even more so because she recognized this voice.
(23:10):
It belonged to Bill, her dead husband. Bill's voice had
pleaded for her to open the closet door, telling her
that God had sent him down to take her up
to heaven where they could be together again and young
like they used to be forever. At this point, Jerry
had looked at me, wide eyed from the other side
of the couch. Then what happened? I asked her gently.
(23:33):
I thought I was dreaming, Miss Garretty said, I thought
it had been a dream. Poor Bill had been gone
for three years, and since I was having a dream,
I didn't see a harm in doing what he was
asking me to do. I got out of bed and
went to the closet. I reached for the lock, but
then I stopped something. Something didn't seem right. It was
(23:55):
Bill's voice, and it seemed perfectly normal, but somehow it
was wrong too. The way he was talking, it wasn't
like how Bill used to talk. It was like a
stranger was using Bill's voice trying to trick me into
opening the closet door. That doesn't make much sense, does it.
Actually nothing she was telling us made sense, but we
(24:18):
just asked her to continue telling her story. Bill or
whoever or whatever was using his voice had continued to
beg her to unlock the closet door, which she had
refused to unlock the closet door. The voice had changed,
becoming harsh and angry. It was very angry and demanding
that she opened the door when she had still refused.
It began to shout at her, using profanity and making
(24:39):
obscene threats. Thanks, Bill would never do things Bill would
have never said when he was alive. Before beginning to
pound violently on the door, the voice had begun to change.
No longer sounding like her late husband's, it became deeper
and disordered, until it didn't sound human at all. In terror,
she had fled her room and spent the night on
(24:59):
the couch downstairs. Eventually the pounding and the threats had stopped.
Miss Garrety Jerry politely interrupted her at this point, why
didn't you call us at the police station when this happened?
She was silent for a moment, then a small bitter
smile formed on her lips. I thought you'd think I
was imagining it, she told us. I know people in
(25:22):
town think I'm the crazy old lady, and I've had
you out here so many times before for things that
turned out to be nothing. I thought maybe it was
all in my head and I didn't want to bother
you about it.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Well, this story really goes from zero to sixty like that?
Isn't that business has just picked up? I guess you
could say so. So freaking definitely thinks she is experiencing
something completely crazy. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So we get a little bit more, We get a
little bit more information about this closet now, right, like
talked about how the closet doors were boarded up, so
now we know that it all began in her bedroom
closet door where she started hearing scratching sounds.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, that's really.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Crazy gentle though, right, like, not like violently scratching, just
like almost like you're just trying to get somebody's attention.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, that's what it seems like, almost like you know,
just a light scratching a track someone through the door.
Progressively did get a little bit more, like she said,
it was almost like they're trying to tunnel through the door.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, she opened the door and actually saw the claw
marks that were like six feet off the ground.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah, that's raasy.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Which is pretty tall for a person even though, but
nevertheless that that rules out an animal.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah, definitely, And it just seems so creepy. And then
then the voice though that that's when of the creep
factor really cranks up.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Before that though, before we get into that, though, several
times she went up to the door and she was
going to open it, why that scratching was happening would
you be able to do that, like eventually, right you'd
be like, I'm sick of this shit.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I got to open this door. Yeah, you know. It's
one of those things that, like, there are times where
it happens to almost everyone where you're just like, if
I turn around right now, there's going to be someone
behind me, right, that kind of feeling, Yeah, you just
and so you decide not to turn around sometimes just
(27:18):
because it's like I can't do it. I can't turn
around and see this thing behind me, Or it's like, yeah,
the corner of your eye, you see something that might
be there, and so you don't look at it directly
because you don't want it to know that you're looking
at it. And I get that. I think that's the
feeling that she got when she's gone up to this door.
It's like everything seems like you need to confront it,
(27:40):
But at the same time, it's like, do you really
want to open that door? Do you really want to
look at the corner of your eye? Do you really
want to turn around? Those are things that a lot
of people deal with a lot of times, and you
never know what it is. She's really trying to ignore it.
It seems like like if I ignore it, maybe it'll
go away, right yeah, or maybe it's just like in
(28:04):
your head, it's not really there.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
So then you talked about it. The voice is she
started hearing voices, her husband's voice asking her to come
to the closet door to open it, basically like we'll
go to heaven together and be together forever. But the
way he was speaking it may have sounded like her
husband as far as like the voice itself, but the
way it was actually talking, he wasn't phrasing or saying
(28:28):
things like her husband would her late dead husband.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Right, Yeah, And that actually makes a lot of sense
because you know someone they have a specific way of
talking that goes beyond their voice pattern and everything. Yeah,
you know, the cadence of which they talk. So it
makes sense that things would seem right at first, but
then it's it's like, well they would have a light
a little bit more, a pause there, or something like that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
You know, she's ignoring it. This thing's getting pissed off
about it. It gets to the point where its voice
no longer sounds like Bill's her dead husbands. The way
I read it, when I was reading it, I was thinking,
like demonic sounding.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah, definitely seems like it. It says nor sounds human like,
and it also has like it's been saying some really
terrible things to her, Yeah, which you know is terrifying.
Well it less terrified, I thank's ever. Yeah, I this
sounds this is a crazy story. But again, though, she
moves downstairs and they asked the million dollar questions, why
(29:28):
didn't you call us? Right?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And you could tell that she's still contemplating if this
is like real or not.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Almost.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
First of all, she doesn't want to bother them. She
knows everybody thinks she's a crazy lady. But she's starting
to think herself, waitter, am I going crazy?
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right? And that's kind of like why she maybe didn't
open the door, because it's like, is she going to
have to admit that she's crazy when she opens that door?
There's nothing there? Or is it? There is something there?
And you definitely don't want to open that door.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Him and his fellow officer definitely thinks she's completely lost
her mind at this point though.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Definitely, Yeah, But they're also there being very courteous about
they're very very professional. They're trying to, you know, still
settle her down and get to the bottom of what
led up to when she finally did call, She seems
just relief that they're there, you know. Yeah, and you
can imagine that, you know, anyone wants to see someone
(30:22):
after a while, So yeah, it makes sense that she
would be very really regardless of what was happening. But
the fact that something might be happening. Yea, ifite I
want to see someone else, yeah for sure. Well man,
we'll let you pick it back up all right. Things
had escavated pretty quickly from there. The pounding and threats
(30:43):
had continued every night. She had been too scared to
sleep in her bedroom and had started sleeping in the
living room couch. Then one night the pounding had begun,
not just on her bedroom closet, but all the closet
doors in the house, all at the same time, like
there were people and all of them trying to get
all at once. She told us it was the same
(31:05):
voice in every closet, that same horrible voice. In fear,
she nailed all the closet doors shut to keep the thing,
whatever it was, from coming out to get her. Then,
about two weeks ago, something even more terrifying had happened.
She had been in her bathroom and was washing her
hands in a sink when she looked up into the
(31:26):
medicine cabinet mirror. She paused, what'd you see, Jerry asked her.
I saw it, she said, in a choked whimper. I
saw its face instead of my own. He was wearing
a black robe with a hood, and its face. His
face was just a grinning skull, a skull with horns.
His eyes were red, the eyes of the devil himself.
(31:49):
I don't mean I saw it standing behind me in
the mirror. It was in the mirror itself. I felt
a shiver crawl up my spine. It reached out of
the mirror. It didn't have hands, it was like claws,
and it tried to grab me in horror. She had
thrown a bottle of lotion at the mirror, shattering blasts, then,
(32:10):
to be safe, had done the same to all the
other mirrors in the house. How could you stay in
this house with all this has happened to you, asked her.
She shrugged sadly. I don't have anywhere else to go,
and no one will take me in. The nights were awful.
It was always better during the days. At least then
I could get some sleep. It always stopped by morning
(32:31):
and never happened during the day, she suddenly shuddered. Until
three days ago. Then it started happening all the time,
day and night. I was safe no matter what time
it was. It all come to a head late this morning.
Pounding had gradually gotten more violent and forceful, until all
(32:51):
the closet doors were rattling in their frames. Scared, he
knew that you went boards nailed over them. It's only
a matter of time till that thing broke through. In desperation,
she gained praying and reading from the Bible, which had
only caused the entity in the closet to laugh at
her mockingly. Finally, she had gotten out Bill's shotgun and
(33:12):
fired it through the closet door. For a minute or so,
there wasn't a sound. She told us, I sort of
think it was finally over. Then I saw those red
eyes burning in the dark in the hole the shotgun
had made. It. Chuckled and said one word to me. Well,
what to say? I asked her? Tonight she said, began
(33:34):
to tremble. She lowered her head and her hands and
began to sob again. Jerry and I were silent for
some time, trying to absorb what she had just told us.
We looked at each other, deeply troubled by her story.
Either of us actually believed it, of course, but it was
obvious the poor woman was deeply disturbed. If she was
having some kind of nervous breakdown, maybe her afraid grip
(33:57):
on reality had finally snapped. Maybe it was old age
was taking this toll on her mind. One thing was clear.
It wasn't safe for her to be alone anymore, especially
not here. It was not healthy for her. Hell, for
all we knew, maybe her paranoid delusions were her results
of some dangerous form a mold that had formed in
the house. Jerry and I excused ourselves for a moment,
(34:21):
then stepped outside and talking privately, we both agreed she
needed help, she needed to be institutionalized, but for now
it was best she stay somewhere else. Went back in
and told missus Garrett she was coming with us. She
was going to spend the night in a hotel room
in town, and tomorrow, Jerry added, we were going to
find a priest who had come exercise this free evil
(34:43):
spirit they had been bothering her, getting rid of it
once and for all she broke down again, this time
crying and relief and hugged me and my partner, thankingness
over and over again. Well, she's finally getting the help
that she needs. Sounds like, Yeah, it sounds like they're
really trying to get her, like cancel sort of institution.
They're going to try to hold her someplace overnight. That's
(35:07):
what it seems like to me that they're not really
believing this story. But her story is terrifying, and if
it's you are remotely true, this is a nightmare scenario.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, it sounds like this is actually later in the day,
all this is transpiring. All this is happening, and like
you said, get her to a hotel and excuse me,
get her to a motel until the next day when
they can get her help wherever that may be. It
was a previous section that you read when he said,
what the fuck happened here?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
You really start.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
To like put all the puzzle pieces together as far
as how crazy of a state this house is in.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, the disarray and like all these boards up dworse,
Like that's something that would be crazy to walk into.
She looks in the mirror. She sees a I don't
know how to describing a monster. Yeah, it looks like a
skeletal monster of some sort and reaching out to her
from the mirror, not so much that's behind her. She
(36:08):
describes it as being within the mirror.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
We've all seen that in a movie or had that fear,
like we're gonna look in the mirror and like something
else is like not even behind you, but it's like
they're in the mirror, you know. Yeah, And so she
breaks the mirror that she goes around and she destroys
all the other mirrors in the house.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, she breaks them all that day. And so like
there's all these broken mirrors, there's glass something around obviously,
and so, like I said, he has definitely starting to
see like, ah, this is we got ourselves a problem here.
It's very much she is in you know, she could
be endangering herself. She needs to be taken care of.
(36:45):
And it's a really scary moment if there was nothing
supernatural going on, because this old woman who you've been
like kind of taking care of sort of by going
and visiting her during her calls and you know, just
like calming down every time, and then you see her
in this state. It's a scary moment for you, right,
because you gotta be like thinking, how are we going
(37:07):
to take care of her? Now? You know, we got
to something's gonna happen. Just that alone, you can you
can imagine there their way. They excelled in this moment,
but away she's feeling with all that she's claiming to see.
That's that's the craziest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yeah, So what began is clawing at the closet door
is now pounding in every closet door throughout the house.
She's actually concerned that the pounding is so hard it's
going to break through the boards. She began praying and
reading the Bible. I guess this made this entity is
we're going to call it laugh. It was mocking her.
(37:45):
Finally she got the shotgun and fired it through the
closet door. This entity was mocking her.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yes, so after it started making Funever, she shot at
it and then saw those eyes with in the darkness.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So like she walked up to the door, she was
seeing these eyes in there through the holes.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
I'm going sure how close she got, but she definitely
kind of a period. So through the shotgun holes she
could see these red eyes. Yeah, yes, that's absolutely terrifying. Wow.
And then it said tonight. It said tonight, so.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
They relieve her of this tress and said we're going
to get you help. They have a sidebar conversation. Hey,
she she's no longer able to take care of herself.
This is that she's a huge risk to herself. This
situation is a bad situation. They're going to remove her
from the situation. And like we when we just started
this discussion right here, they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Get her help. Man, you still feel so sorry for
being all alone? You know? Oh yeah, definitely, I'll jump
back in here, all righty.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
We drove her to a cheap motel in town and
checked her in. Her mental state already seemed to have improved,
and that short amount of time being away from that house.
She smiled and told her she couldn't wait to finally
get a night, a decent night of sleep, without having
to worry about that thing banging on the doors. I
think mostly she was just glad she wouldn't have to
be afraid anymore the entity she was convinced was lurking
(39:13):
in her house. We both smiled at her and said goodbye,
getting in the cruiser and driving away. Our smiles faded
as soon as we pulled away from the motel. We
both drove in grim silence. We both liked old miss Garrity,
in spite of all the time she had made herself
a nuisance to the police department with her bogus calls
(39:33):
and her ratic behavior. We were sorry her mental estate
had deteriorated to such a point where she could no
longer look after herself. We told the Chief her story
when we got back. He sighed sadly and nodded, agreeing
that she had to be committed somewhere. Tomorrow, him and
me were going to drive out there personally visit her
(39:54):
son and daughter and explain to them what was going on,
and as they still refused to do what needed to
be done, the Chief would see to it himself that
Miss Garretty would get the help that she needed. But
we never got the chance. The last time we ever
saw Miss Garritty was when Jerry and I left her
at the motel around four in the morning. The next morning,
(40:14):
I was awakened by an urgent phone call from the
Chief telling me to get over to the motel as
soon as possible. He wouldn't say why over the phone,
but I already had a hunch had something to do
with Missus Garretty. I felt an awful sense of dread
as I got dressed. I wondered if maybe she had
taken her own life in the motel room after we
had left her. When I arrived outside the motel, my
(40:36):
fears were confirmed when I saw crime scene tape blocking
the door to miss Garretty's room. The Chief, along with Jerry,
Pete and Vance, were gathered outside, along with a couple
cops from the state police and a pair of detectives
from the city. The Chief greeted me with a grave expression.
As I approached him, he told me Missus Garretty was gone.
(40:56):
At first, I thought he meant she was dead. Then,
seeing the solemn look in his eyes, he clarified himself
she was literally gone. I looked at him, confused. I
saw something in his eyes that I had never seen before,
something that caused a ripple of fear in my heart.
The Chief was scared. He told me he didn't know
what to make of it himself. People in the neighboring
(41:19):
rooms had heard blood curling, screams and sounds of violence
coming from Missus Garrett's room around two in the morning,
then nothing silence. They had called the police department. Pete
and Vance had been the first to arrive, since they
were on the night shift. They had pounded on the door,
but there had been no response. They had to force
(41:40):
the door open. When they saw what was inside. They
called the chief himself. What did they find? I asked,
maybe you ought to come see for yourself, he told me,
Leading to the doorway and under the crime scene tape.
He explained to me that they had found no sign
of forced entry, and that the door and windows of
the motel room had had all still been locked from
(42:01):
the inside. When Pete Advance showed up, I took a
look around, feeling a shiver run through my body. There
was fresh blood splattered around the room, on the walls,
the floor, the bed, even the ceiling. The blood stained
bed sheets had been ripped away from the mattress, as
if somebody had desperately tried holding onto them as they
were pulled off of the bed. There were ten very
(42:24):
thin trails of blood on the carpet leading away from
the bed, ten thin trails of blood that had been
made by ten terrified fingers clawing as if they were
being dragged away I followed the bloody finger marks across
the floor, away from the bed to where they led
where they ended at the closet. I looked at them.
(42:44):
Then I looked at the chief. He looked back at me,
his face hard and impassive, but I could see fear
in his eyes. I approached the closet. The door was
standing open. I stood there looking in for some time.
The closet was empty, completely empty. There wasn't even blood
on the floor. They never found Missus Garrity.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Such a nightmarysh looking scene like that's been described here.
It's just changed so much from when we just had
that recap. It was a positive thing. They were going
to get her help. They were going to talk to
her family the next day, and if the family wasn't
gonna help, they were still going to make sure she
got help. Basically, yeah, and everything.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Seemed I don't want to say good, because I think
they were really sad about the situation. But for missus
Garritty herself, it seemed like she was going.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
To get help. It was like a bitter sweet thing, right.
They didn't want to have to do it, but if
they were willing to do it, because that's what she needed.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah, that's not an easy thing to do to, like,
this person can no longer live at their house take
care of themselves. It's a pretty sad thing when you
really think about it. But she's relieved though. They like
we said last time they leave her at the motel room,
it seems to be. Everything seem to be okay. She
seems to be looking up, they said, instantly, her aura her,
(44:06):
She just seemed to be in a way better place.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, and then this nightmarish outcome.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
He's a wolcome by a phone call at night saying
he needs to get to the motel as soon as possible.
He thinks the worst. Right, she's dead, she's taken her life.
Something the terrible has happened to her. Can you imagine
that drive over there.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah, I was thinking about that. That would be like
a very dark and like a terrible time in your
own head driving over there to this because you're like, yeah,
you just saw this person. You're trying to get her help.
And then it's like either she either she died of
you know, a parent suicide, or she could have been
(44:48):
natural causes. You know, she could have had a heart attack.
But to think that you just saw her not that long.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Ago, and that drive over there, you're wondering what happened
the whole time he gets there, he sees he sees
a lot of people there. He sees all his fellow
co workers. There's only a few of them, I guess
for the local police department, but he also sees state
police and a detective from a nearby, bigger city. So
you pull up, you see that.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
You think, oh shit, yeah, definitely seems like something else
happened or or you know, it's a little bit more involved,
but you wouldn't expect that. You would definitely never expect that.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Then he's told that they heard blood curling, screaming, and
like what sounded like an altercation, like a violent fight,
like something crazy was happening in her room. The neighboring
motel rooms heard. Then it went completely silent.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
What I find interesting is it even mentions it specifically
that when Pete and Dvance, the night shift guys, show up,
the door is locked. Yeah, the doors and windows were
all locked, so they force themselves in. Yeah, they break
in to get in there and see what was going on.
And that the you know, the scene of all that
(45:58):
blood on everything every where, and then the where her
finger nails have been dragging across the floor trying to
stop herself from being dragged away. All that blood there too.
Horrific scene.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
So let's talk about the doors and the windows real quick.
So you definitely can't go out a window then lock
it behind you, that I'm aware of. You know, No,
I don't know if these hotel room doors are like
either a lot of the ones I've been to you
they lock on their own. You have a key card.
This sounds like an old motel though, actually have that
like dead bowl on the inside, So it makes you wonder,
(46:33):
like could you truly leave and lock it? But this
is an old room, you think, so it's got to
be confusing.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Nevertheless, Well, also the question of whether or not it
had one of those you know, they usually have the
dead bolt, but they also have like the half block too.
Yeah was that locked as well? I don't know, uh,
but yeah, so like maybe the door code relocked. If
it's an older one, like you said, it has a
key and actual key, they don't relock, So that's a
(47:00):
good question. This is a very small town, so I
can't imagine they have the most up to date doors.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
This is where it gets weird. Like you said, the
bed sheets have been ripped off the bed, and the
blood and all that actually does not lead to the door,
indicating that she was dragged outside and taken away. Uh,
there's actually like finger marks on off of this bed
that lead clear across the floor to the closet, not
(47:28):
the door like her window, like she was forced out
to leave to the closet, and then then upon getting
into the closet nothing, they stopped there.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and that is like, you know, you you look
at that, You're like, the body is gonna be in
the closet, right, Yeah, but we quickly find out that
that's not the case, and that was basically everything even
more terrified in my opinion. Yeah, but she's been so
afraid of these damn closets the whole time. Man, the
holes eye. You have some short thing that supposed to
(48:00):
be in this closet that's been threatening her for weeks.
Now that it's gotten worse and worse to the point
that she actually shot at the closet door at her
house try to stop it. And then it told her tonight.
They told her tonight, and this is that night, this
happens in that room and you see what appears to
the evis of her being dragged to the closet. You
(48:23):
always hear of these things that like something demonic haunts
somebody or something. It's not just where they live, it's
like attached to them. That seems to be the case
for missus Garretty here it does seem to be. Yeah.
Of course she was never found again yet, and there
was no blood or anything in that closet.
Speaker 1 (48:42):
She's dragged in the closet then just vanished. Yeah, she's
so afraid of those closets too the whole time, And
that's gonna be what godters thought she got away from it. Yeah,
imagine being there, people next door hearing that.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
That would be a very terrifying night. Now all you
can do is call the police and I go back
to that town again. Yeah, a small tower, nothing hardly happens.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Do you think this sticks with the people that were
involved forever?
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Oh? Yeah, this would be something that they'll never get over,
something that will affect them for the rest of their
lives and will probably affect people who weren't necessarily there,
but who hear about later. She's still missing. We don't
know if she's dead. We could presume I guess.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Yeah, it's crazy how this progressed over time, and you
really think about it. It's just a lady living on
her house alone, and all this has just happened. I
can't imagine how terrifying it was.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
It's dely. It goes like I said, it goes from
zero sixty like that. It's like, craziest thing you'll ever hear.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Absolutely, this guy actually years later posted yet another story,
so we will go back to that. He had something
else crazy he happened. So this is saying, craziest thing
that's happened. How long did he say? He say, twelve years?
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Ten years? How long did he be in this cop?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Twelve years? He'd in a cop in this town for
twelve years. And this is really the case that haunts him,
that sticks sticks out to him. The rest of stuff
is pretty typical, pretty normal. This is not normal though, man, No,
it's definitely not. Prehaps the opposite. Years later he has
something else too, and we'll share that one day.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
I'm excited about that. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I can't wait.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
This is a story that leaves it on the ultimate cliffhanger.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yeah, yeah, it does. Uh terrible terrible cliffhanger and the
one that yeah, it'll take whoever, it'll be solved.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Well, we appreciate you listening to this story with us.
Let us know what you think. We trying to do
change things up a little bit where we every once
in a while we'll share some long like long form
stuff together. Then other times we're just kind of like
we're just sharing like our own stories that we found
or whatever we're sent, like just kind of they're all
they're not always related. You do a pretty good job
(50:52):
about relating to them. I always don't, but you never
know like what stories we're gonna share. But this is
like a long form one, and the Stairs in the
Woods one did really well, So let us know what
you think.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Do you like this?
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Do you like the other style on more? And yeah,
we're trying to just really kind of dial in on
what the viewers listeners prefer.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
So it's a very good story, great story.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Let us know what you think. Reach out to us.
Go to your Scary stories dot com. There you can
find links to all of our social media. You could
submit your stories there. You can watch the show on YouTube,
my YouTube Jeff Townsend Media podcast Father. You can also
listen to your scary stories and audio form wherever you
listen to podcasts. So we absolutely encourage you to join
(51:35):
the live stream Mondays at ten thirty pm. Ish ish Yeah,
I'm gonna get a tattoo that says ish on it.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
That'd be great. That's become my saying. Yeah, but yeah,
we do.
Speaker 1 (51:48):
I think the live experience is definitely the way to go.
But yeah, if you ever have a free Monday evening,
jump on with us, comment along and join the experience.
I don't know how else to word it, man.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, it's a perfect way. It's an experience.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
What closing words of inspiration do you have before I
hit my catchphrase that we're done.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
I feel like people need a river to take care
of their their loved ones. You know, this woman, her
kids kind of we weren't there for when they probably
should have been. So you know, I'll always take care
of your loved ones. You got to live with that forever,
you know, yeah, absolutely, And you know they probably were
very sad and were torn up over afterwards. But you know,
(52:26):
it just makes it you have to make sure you
take the time to see people and to talk to
people because you never know what's going to happen next Yeah,
I agree. Man.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
We appreciate you watching or listen to this. We hope
you keep checking out our content. This is your scary stories.
And until next time, keep being you and keep being great.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Jeff Townsend Media says you good night. And the question
is do I stay here? Will you be back? Oh
you go coming back? Will you be back? Are you
coming back?
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