October 11, 2025 • 75 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
Please join my family and followthis podcast on Spotify or
Apple. And if you want the ultimate
experience, you can get rid of all of the ads and be entered to
win all of my giveaways every month.
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every single giveaway automatically entered.
(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
ultimate episode 6 to 12 hours long Ultimate Scary Stories for
a rainy night. Subscriber exclusive.
And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. I am an aspiring actor and
(01:10):
filmmaker, and the film I'm working on is about liminal
spaces. For those who don't know,
liminal spaces are between what was and what is about to be a
space that seems very uncomfortable and fully devoid
of people, but it's actually very normal.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because I actively seek out
(01:33):
these spaces to get inspiration and possible filming locations.
One of these times I seeked out.One of these spaces ended up
being one of the scariest experiences of my life.
The space in question was a park.
Since I live out in the middle of nowhere, I have to drive
about 30 minutes to get there. The park closes at dusk, so I
(01:57):
typically park near the entranceand walk there.
Keep in mind this was around 11 PMI felt a very strong
atmospheric tension as I was walking there, but this is very
normal. Not only am I breaking the
rules, but the scariest aspect of these liminal spaces is the
tension in the atmosphere. I went around the gate and made
(02:20):
my way around to the park to setthe scene.
The parking lot is in a sidewaysL shape.
The short side leads to a big trail surrounded by a dense
forest, and the long side leads all the way to the park.
The rest of this park is just anempty field, typically not
illuminated by any lights, making it a really big void.
(02:44):
This part will be relevant later.
When I got to the park portion, I proceeded to look around for
good photo opportunities and places to put secret background
details. I'd guessed that this was around
10 minutes later, but I suddenlyfroze.
I felt like someone was watchingme.
(03:05):
This is in another aspect of these spaces that isn't
uncommon, but my gut was tellingme that something was very wrong
about this. My anxiety got worse when I
heard a noise coming from some unknown direction.
I panicked and I hid next to thebathrooms, facing the opposite
of the field. As I peeked behind the building,
(03:28):
I saw a few lights facing away from me.
They were aiming at the field, but they were moving a bit, as
if someone with shaky hands was holding a flashlight.
I felt as though alerting the people with the flashlights was
a death sentence. I tried sneaking my way back to
my car, but I noticed something strange.
(03:51):
The lights were still facing thefield, but they seemed as though
they were closer. I started speed walking to the
car, but I only realized a bit too late that I was not being
very quiet. While I was speed walking, I was
suddenly flashed by a bright light.
My adrenaline rushed, my heart sank, and I instantly began
(04:14):
sprinting, but so did the lights.
I heard footsteps running towardme, but I never heard any
voices. When I got to my car, I locked
the door and instantly tried driving away.
The thing is, when my car turnedon, the lights stopped and
stayed there. I never shined my lights in that
(04:37):
direction at all, simply becauseI wanted to get out of there.
As I drove off, I was trying to process what happened.
Even though I was there hoping to get inspiration for a horror
film, I never expected to have an experience like that while I
was out. I did get the inspiration I
needed, but I couldn't think straight.
(05:01):
I didn't care about the film at that point and was glad that I
managed to get out alive. I tried doing research the next
day, but I couldn't find any news related to anything like
that. I was baffled by this whole
situation and I still cannot wrap my head around it.
(05:21):
I have no idea who they were, why they were there, or what
they were going to do to me. The only thing I know is that
what happened back there will bean experience I will never
forget. I am a 27 year old male.
(05:47):
And I need. To get this off my chest,
everything you are about to hearis possibly one of the most
bizarre things to ever happen tome.
When I was younger, my mother used to live in a house in a
small town. The Old Town is known for its
history. On its coastline, castles and
other historical buildings are dotted around.
(06:09):
I loved it. Growing up in a location like
that was an absolute dream. The beautiful English
countryside. There were so many forests where
I would play with my cousins andyounger sister.
I've always been somewhat interested in the paranormal and
growing up where we did, of course it made for some great
(06:31):
urban legends and ghost stories.The house that we lived in was a
Victorian. I can't tell you the exact date,
but it was well over 100 years old.
It had three floors. There was something about the
top floor that I loved. Don't ask me why, I was just
drawn to it. On the top floor there were
(06:53):
three rooms, mine being the first.
A rather big room with beams on the ceiling and an odd window.
Sort of like a flower shape, I guess you could say, with bars
on the outside. The other two rooms my mother
didn't really like me going intountil I was older.
If you peeked through the keyhole of the last room, you
(07:15):
could distinctly see a servant'sbell in the corner.
This door was the only one with a padlock on it, preventing me
or anyone besides my mother fromentering.
There was a lot of cool but strange things in that house.
We found a lot of things too. Old coins, etcetera.
(07:35):
My mother used to work all the time and as a result of my
father not being around, my grandma would take on the
challenge of looking after me and my sister.
We were mostly pretty easygoing.We'd get back from school and
while my sister would get on with her homework, me, not being
the very academic kid, would go and play outside in the garden.
(07:56):
Me and my grandma are close and remain so to this day.
She's a Christian woman but is very open to the possibility of
the paranormal. I've shared with her recently
some of the experiences I had asa child.
I'm going to try to keep this short so I won't go into too
much detail. When I was a bit older, I
(08:18):
remember being out for lunch when I was up visiting my family
as I moved away from my hometown.
This was around 2:00 or so yearsago.
My mother went to the bathroom so it was only me and my grandma
left at the table. I can't remember what we have
been talking about, but the conversation shifted.
(08:38):
She started talking about the house, the one we grew up in.
She started talking about the cold energy she felt from it,
the negativity. She had never brought this up
before. She leaned in closer and said,
Do you? Remember what you.
Used to say to me no, I replied.I was confused at this point.
(09:04):
She leaned in ever so closely and dropped her voice to a
hushed whisper and said, do you remember when you would play in
the corner of the garden? Well one day I could see you
were talking to yourself so I laughed and came over and asked
who you were talking to. I was just sat there looking at
(09:26):
her confused for a few seconds before she said the line which
will haunt me forever. You looked up at me and smiled,
she said. She took a deep.
Breath and looked at me dead in the eyes.
Can you not see her grandma? It's the woman in black who
(09:47):
lives in the bottom of the garden.
I can't really remember a lot ofmy childhood.
Some bits are kind of blurry. I don't ever remember talking to
a woman in the bottom of the garden that no one else could
see. Fast forward to last week.
I've been having a hard time sleeping recently.
(10:09):
The other night I was up until about 5:00 AM before I drifted
off. Once I did, I had possibly the
worst nightmare I have ever had.She was there looking at me.
This woman, which draped in black, an old tattered cloth
(10:30):
covering her eyes, her mouth open, showing nothing but a
void. Something clicked and she was
behind me, right by my left shoulder.
Her bones cracked as I turned myhead ever so slowly.
She whispered in my ears. Remember Me?
(10:54):
I'm the woman in black from the bottom of the garden.
This experience took place nearly 15 years ago, back when
my parents were taking me to ourlocal daycare center.
(11:15):
I was six years old at the time and was a shy kid but loved to
play with strangers, especially if they wanted to play video
games with me. I didn't know everyone at the
daycare center because new kids would come and go all the time.
I did know a few of the kids as some of them I met in elementary
school. Josh and Nolan were two of my
(11:38):
best friends and I happened to meet them both during recess at
school. I only went to daycare after
school for around an hour or twodepending on the circumstances.
Both Josh and Nolan loved playing in the jungle gym and
playing hide and seek, both of which were not my Forte.
(11:58):
Whenever we would play hide and seek, it would usually take
place in the cemetery directly across from the daycare jungle
gym. The daycare jungle gym was not
very spacious and had virtually no trees or shrubs to hide
behind, thus making the cemeterythe only option if we were going
to have a proper hide and seek session.
(12:21):
One evening, both Josh and Nolanasked if I wanted to play
outside with them. I was playing my favorite Wii
game at the time and had just met a new friend.
We were playing Mario Kart together and I seemed to be
winning. I asked my new friend what his
name was and he seemed to look confused at the sight of me
(12:42):
asking. Both Josh and Nolan also seemed
perplexed as they just witnessedto this kid brush me off like I
didn't say anything. Nolan, out of curiosity, asked.
Hey, any chance you want to playhide and seek with us?
The kid sitting next to me put down the controller and turn to
(13:03):
me with the most blank, lifelessexpression I have ever seen on
another human being's face and said I'm only going to play if
my new friend wants to play too.Both Josh and Nolan turned to me
for approval and I shrugged. We set off to the exit door
(13:24):
which led to the jungle gym. We asked Misses Shaw, our
supervisor, if we could go out and play like we always do and
she agreed. Both me, the stranger, Josh and
Nolan waited and looked around for the next supervisor to
switch watch duty shifts and leave everyone unsupervised as
(13:44):
this was our only chance to hop the gate which led next door to
the nearly 15 acre graveyard. This graveyard was full of trees
and shrubs. As well as large tombstones that
were perfect for what we had in mind.
As soon as we ran far enough from the supervisor's view, we
all hid behind a large shrub. Josh, as usual, was the fastest
(14:08):
1 to place his finger on his nose and shout not it.
Followed by Nolan and then me. The strange kid, again with the
same lifeless expression on his face, just stared at me and
stayed as still as a mouse. It was almost like he was trying
to hide from something because as far as I could tell, he
(14:30):
wasn't even breathing. I had to check up on him at this
point as he was creeping my friends out.
Hey, are you feeling OK? Look, we don't have to play in
the graveyard today if you don'twant to.
I think it's kind of creepy too.He then turned to Nolan and
stared directly in his eyes and said.
(14:52):
My name is William, but my dad calls me Will for short.
Nolan looked just as perplexed as I did as we asked him this
question nearly 10 minutes prior.
I had to break the awkwardness of the moment and told everyone
I was going to be the seeker. I was trying to help my new
(15:12):
friend but at the same time don't know if he was even
interested in playing the game anymore as he didn't speak or
say anything for quite some time.
I started counting down from 20 and just as I did, both Josh and
Nolan ran across the cemetery atthe speed of light to find the
best hiding spot. William just stood there staring
(15:35):
at me with the same lifeless expression as before, but this
time he almost looked angry. It was subtle but I could see
his eye twitching back and forth, almost like he has a big
secret to tell me but can't and for some reason is internalizing
(15:55):
the frustration. I then tell him to go hide as
I'm already at 10 seconds and ifhe doesn't hurry he won't have
time to find a hiding spot. He does a quick 180 and runs in
the opposite direction back to the daycare playground.
I take it as a sign that he doesn't want to play anymore and
is going to tell on us. I quickly run around the
(16:18):
cemetery frantically thinking this kid is going to get us in
trouble and scream Josh and Nolan's names.
They come out of their hiding spots to see if everything is OK
and I tell them what is happening.
Nolan out of nowhere bursts intoa rage and goes about how this
kid is going to ruin this game for everyone as now they will be
(16:39):
keeping an eye on the cemetery for once.
We quickly hurry back to the playground and to our amazement,
there are no teachers searching the area for us.
In fact, William is nowhere to be seen as we thought we would
catch him in the act. We quickly hop over the gate and
run inside to locate William. I tell Josh to look upstairs as
(17:04):
we left our backpacks up there beside the video games.
Nolan and I checked the downstairs area where all the
playhouses and other large toys are kept.
We never ended up finding William that night, and as the
night drew to a conclusion, we had to at least ask Misses Shaw,
our favorite supervisor, where William went.
(17:27):
I ask, Hey Misses Shaw, have youseen William around by chance?
She asked. Who, honey?
I then told her about the strange boy who was with us
right before we left to go out and play around an hour earlier.
She told us that he did sort of look strange and that she had
(17:48):
never seen that boy the daycare center before.
A cold chill ran down the back of my spine as I stood there
perplexed and a little scared. Both me, Josh, and Nolan
discussed this further and concluded that Will was probably
just new here and this was just his first day.
(18:09):
After my mom took me home and I told her about Will, I asked her
if she would call the daycare center to track him down and see
if he was supposed to be there in the 1st place.
She agreed after hearing my disturbing hide and seek
experience and called the daycare center.
They told her there was no William in their books.
(18:30):
She asked if he was a new attendee and that if they made a
mistake. They told her there was no
mistake and that if some kid found his way into the daycare
center without their approval tocontact them again and they will
call the police. I never saw William again.
(18:56):
Let me begin by saying I have always been skeptical of the
paranormal. I always believed there's a
logical explanation behind any strange occurrences.
I normally don't talk about ghosts, or even think about them
really, until my youngest daughter was born.
She is quite the intelligent child, very perceptive and
(19:20):
mature for her age. I have five children and I can
tell that she is a little different.
At 18 months old, Bella began telling me about seeing ghosts.
I wasn't sure where she had evenlearned the word ghost, but I
assumed she picked it up from her older brothers and sisters.
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I knew she had a very active imagination and didn't pay it
much attention. Incident number one, I am laying
Bella down with me for her bedtime routine.
A book after her bath. As I'm reading, she puts her
finger to my lips, looks me in the eyes and says really
(20:04):
quietly. Then her eyes dart to the corner
of the bedroom ceiling. She points to the corner and
whispers. I reassured her that there was
nothing to be scared of and continued reading.
Her eyes kept darting to the ceiling and tracking side to
side. I asked her if the ghost was
(20:25):
still there. She nodded yes.
Being raised by a God fearing mother, I knew you could cast
out spirits in the name of the father.
I said a prayer and I politely but firmly told the ghost to
leave our house and not come back.
Bella calmed down. She seemed satisfied with this
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and we continued our story and Ihonestly forgot about it.
Incident 2 Nap time We are laying in my room settling down
for a nap. My daughter is about 20 months
old at this time. Suddenly she sits up in bed,
snatches her sippy cup of milk to the side, and looking over
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the edge of the bed, she shouts no.
I asked her what was wrong. She said the little boy with
black hair is trying to take my cup.
Then she suddenly jerks her arm again and says, mom, that little
boy hit me. I looked over the edge of the
(21:31):
bed, secretly hoping I wouldn't see anything.
Nothing there. Once again I told the spirit to
leave our home and to never return.
Bella was silent for a few minutes before asking me.
Mom, why is that little boy crying?
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I said. Is he crying?
Where is he? She said he was sitting in the
closet crying. I was a little freaked out, but
I didn't want her to pick up on it so we ended up leaving the
room and watching a movie on thecouch instead.
She mentioned the little boy with black hair several times
(22:12):
through the next months. She said he lives in the attic
and that sometimes he watched her at night when she was in her
bed. I didn't tell anyone about these
stories, including my husband. Once Grandma mentioned that some
weird things that happened whileshe was there during the day,
the bathroom door opened and closed by itself and she heard
(22:34):
what sounded like child's footsteps running down the hall.
She chopped it up to it being anold house and I never mentioned
anything about Bella's encounters.
Incident three. I was lying in bed waiting for
my oldest daughter, Gabby to come home from a date.
She's 17 and her curfew is midnight on the weekends.
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Everyone else in the house is sleeping.
My door was slightly ajar by just a few inches and the
hallway light was illuminating outside the door.
I see a hand begin to push the door open, then pause and
disappear. I hear footsteps towards my
(23:17):
oldest daughter's room. Her room is beside mine, and at
the end of the hallway there isn't another room besides hers.
I thought Gabby must have figured I was sleeping and
decided to not come in my room, so I called out to her.
No answer. I listened again.
(23:40):
It was quiet. I got up and walked towards
Gabby's room. I opened the door.
The room was dark and empty. She wasn't home yet.
I began racking my brain about what I saw.
There was no one else awake besides me and I know I saw a
(24:01):
hand at my door. I walked around checking all the
kids all soundly asleep in theirbeds.
I checked all the windows and doors locked.
I looked on my Life 360 app to see where Gabby was.
She was still 15 minutes away. I don't know how to explain the
(24:23):
hand that I saw. That brings us to the final and
most recent incident. My youngest daughter, now almost
three, stays at our home with her grandma while her dad and I
work and the other kids are at school.
One day, Grandma called my husband frantically saying
someone was in the house and sheand Bella were waiting outside
(24:47):
in the car. He rushed home to check it out.
When he got there the house was empty and all the windows and
doors were locked except the front door where she had run out
with the baby earlier. He checked the security cameras
and didn't see anyone. He did see Bella start flailing
in her chair and then run screaming to the front door,
(25:10):
beating on it to get out. Grandma explained what happened
and I got chills down my spine. She said Bella was sitting in
the living room eating chicken Nuggets, watching Sophia the 1st
and playing with some dolls. Grandma stepped out onto the
front porch to smoke a cigarette.
(25:31):
Maybe 2 minutes of being outsideand she heard Bella let out a
series of blood curdling screams.
Then Bella starts frantically beating on the front door to get
out, calling for her grandma to help her.
She told her there was a lady with crazy eyes, crazy hair, and
crazy fingers that bit her on the leg over and over.
(25:54):
She exclaimed that Grandma had to come fast and help her.
As a three-year old, crazy was avery strong adjective in Bella's
world. Grandma, seeing the sheer terror
on her face, grabbed Bella and ran out the door.
I don't know how to explain thisat the risk of looking like a
(26:16):
crazy person myself. I asked a minister to come bless
the house. I will send an update if
anything further happens or if Ido find a logical explanation.
After all, before I start this story off, this was about a year
(26:39):
ago and though I do have some thoughts that this was sleep
paralysis, I am leaning more towards the idea of it just
being a nightmare. What makes me think that it
could have been sleep paralysis was the fact that I heard my
brother go to the bathroom and when I woke up he was coming out
of the bathroom. But I could have just heard the
bathroom door closed in my sleepand my mind included it in my
(27:02):
nightmare since it is a common occurrence.
During the time of which this occurred, I was asleep in my
room and my door a little less than halfway open.
I felt awake and I was asleep onmy left side.
To give you a quick layout of myroom as it is relevant to the
story, my bed was centered against the wall while my door
(27:25):
is in front of my bed all the way to the right of the front
wall. To the left of my bed, I have a
mirror which allows me to see mydoor even if I'm facing away
from it. As I had my eyes closed, I heard
my brother walk into the bathroom and shut the door,
making the area outside of my room dark since the only source
(27:46):
of light that was illuminating the hallway was closed off.
Suddenly, from my mirror, I saw a tall, lengthy woman walk up to
my doorway. She looked drenched and her skin
was a grayish color. Since it was dark, I couldn't
make out too many details, but all I know is that I was
(28:08):
terrified out of my mind. I tried moving, but of course I
couldn't. I couldn't even make out the
smallest noise. All I could do was hope that my
brother would walk out of the bathroom and this dream or sleep
paralysis episode would end. I squeezed my eyes shut, not
wanting to see the thing for much longer.
(28:31):
This was when I didn't have carpet in my room, so the sound
of her dropping to the ground was even more audible than it
normally would have been. It almost sounded like someone
dropped a huge piece of meat on a hard floor, with the exception
of the sound of her bones cracking when she did so.
My breathing became rapid as I heard her crawl on all fours
(28:52):
toward my side of the bed, almost inhumanly fast.
I kept my eyes shut, fearing that if I opened them it would
take long to get over the horrifying face that I would
see. All I heard for those few
seconds was breathing and my heart beating in my ears.
This was in a whisper tone. Open your eyes.
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Out of nowhere I was snapped awake and let out a small scream
as I thought the woman was stillin the room.
But she wasn't. There was no one by my bed.
The bathroom door opened and my brother peeked into my room,
confused. I didn't have to say a word and
he just switched on the light for me and went back to his
(29:39):
room. But I stayed up for a few hours
after that, being too scared to go back to sleep, terrified I
would see that same woman and hear that same voice.
Open your eyes. Randall Smith was raised an only
(30:05):
child in the small town of Harrisburg, Virginia.
The townsfolk remembered his mother as a nice lady who kept
to herself, earning a living in a laundry room at the Guiles
Memorial Hospital. But for some reason, for the
first few years of his life, Randall's mother chose to dress
him in girls clothing. We can only speculate as to the
(30:26):
effect this had on the young man, but what we do know is that
his school classmates would later describe him as something
of a loner as well as a habitualliar.
He often told tall tales of money he didn't have or of
spurious sounding adventures he had been on.
This led to his peers calling him LR, an acronym standing for
(30:51):
Lying Randall. During his youth, Randall would
often go walking the AppalachianTrail alone, finding solace in
the rolling hills and deep primordial forests.
After high school, Randall earned a living doing odd jobs
around Virginia. Some might have fretted at the
instability, but Randall relished it as it gave him the
(31:14):
freedom to ramble where he liked.
And just like in his youth, he would spend the majority of his
spare time wandering the Appalachian Trail, sometimes
disappearing for days at a time.The trail stretches for just
over 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine and attracts thousands of
hikers every single year, most of which see the trail as a kind
(31:36):
of rite of passage for serious hill walkers.
Most use the trail as a means ofescaping their busy work a day
lives, taking comfort in the peace and serenity of nature.
But at times the trails are anything but serene, and there
have been a number of hideously violent crimes committed in the
area. Perhaps the most infamous being
(31:59):
the 2008 abduction and murder ofMeredith Emerson by a
psychopathic drifter named Michael Hilton, which took place
in a region known as Blood Mountain.
During the spring of 1981, 227 year old social workers from
Maine by the names of Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford
(32:20):
decided to hike through Appalachia to raise money for a
mental illness charity. On their travels, they had made
friends with another hiker on the trail, but had to part ways.
Shortly afterward, however, theyhad agreed to meet up near
Parisburg, Randall Smith's hometown, to catch up and grab a
bite to eat together. But when Susan and Robert failed
(32:42):
to show up to the meeting, theirhiker friend became concerned
and contacted the police to report them missing.
Deputy Sheriff Tom Lawson gathered up a handful of other
deputies and then went up onto the trail to begin the search.
On the way, they spoke to a number of other hikers, asking
each if they had seen anyone fitting the missing couples
(33:04):
descriptions. Most said no, but one group said
yes, reporting that they had seen a man and a woman talking
with a rather strange looking individual who seemed to be
acting in a bizarre manner. Near the Wapiti shelter, a small
log structure that had been constructed so that weary hikers
could rest a while before continuing down the trail.
(33:27):
The deputies headed straight forthe shelter, finally reaching it
on May 30th of 1981. By that time, it had been 11
days since the last sightings ofthe missing hikers and unless
they were experienced in bushcraft, the chance of them
reappearing unharmed or rapidly dwindling.
(33:47):
While searching the small woodenstructure, one of the deputies
noticed what appeared to be a blood stain on one of the
floorboards. The men then fanned out,
searching the area intensively until they came across a small
clearing that contained a pile of leaves, one that looked like
an attempt to cover something up.
(34:07):
They kicked away the leaves, revealing a cloth sleeping bag
that had a large, heavy mass inside of it.
When they cut it open, they discovered it was the corpse of
Susan Ramsey, the female half ofthe charity hiking couple.
A day later, with the help of a sniffer dog, the body of Robert
(34:27):
Mountford was found buried near a tree stump, also wrapped in
his sleeping bag. Robert had a single bullet wound
to his head, fired from a 22 caliber weapon, while Susan had
been stabbed several times before being bludgeoned to
death. Their bodies then dragged from
the Wapiti shelter to the spots they were buried.
(34:49):
Nearby, deputies found Susan's camera.
They had hoped that the film might contain clues to who had
murdered them, but found it had been pulled out and stolen.
However, Susan's backpack was also found, a backpack which
contained A paperback book that was taken for fingerprint
analysis. Most of the prints obviously
(35:11):
belonged to Susan, but one set belongs to someone else
entirely. Investigators initially believed
they belonged to Robert Mountford, but were shocked to
find that they did in fact belong to none other than lying
Randall Smith. The sheriff's deputies
immediately travelled to Randall's home.
(35:32):
He was not around, but the deputies had a search warrant
and smashed their way into his place to make some seriously
disturbing discoveries. Not only did they find bloody
clothes and some items which evidently belonged to the
murdered hikers, they also founda great deal of X-rated
materials and most disturbingly,some hospital instruments that
(35:54):
had been apparently been fashioned into makeshift X-rated
toys. Deputies also found a
handwritten note stating that hehad been kidnapped and was going
to be executed, but analysis showed this had been written in
Randall's own handwriting and was no doubt merely an attempt
to throw the police off his scent.
(36:14):
The race was on to find him before he could hurt anyone
else. Days passed.
The police had no luck in locating Randall Smith.
All of his usual haunts reportedthat he had not been seen in
days, with Rangers and police scouring the Virginia section of
the Appalachian Trail with absolutely nothing to show for
(36:35):
it. The effort was exhausting and
Deputy Sheriff Tom Lawson found himself needing a break.
So we took his family on a briefvacation down to Myrtle Beach in
South Carolina. But in some bizarre twist of
fate, Deputy Lawson ended up getting a call from the
department back home saying there had been an arrest in
(36:56):
South Carolina of a man that wasstrongly suspected to be
involved in the hikers murders and arrest in Myrtle Beach of
all places. Deputy Lawson hurried to check
the suspect out. When he arrived, he was told
that the arrested man claimed tohave amnesia and could not
remember his name or how he had ended up in Myrtle Beach, but
(37:19):
that he was covered in insect bites in a way that was
consistent with someone having hiked the Appalachian trails
days on end. Insect bites that had been
scratched so much that they werein danger of becoming infected.
In order to get the man to reveal his identity, the
deputies hatched a cunning scheme.
They told the man that they could not get him the medical
(37:41):
assistance he required without amedical consent form that he was
required to sign. When given the form, the man
scratched out a name onto the paper.
Randall Lee Smith, he wrote. The police had found their man.
Randall Smith was just 27 years old when he was extradited back
(38:03):
to Virginia on charges of first degree murder.
At first it seemed as if Randallwould get the death penalty if
convicted, but in a strange turnof events, he accepted a plea
bargain that resulted in him getting a 30 year sentence
instead of being executed. One of the victims fathers was
an Episcopalian minister who accepted the use of the plea
(38:25):
bargain and was generally against the idea of Randall
being executed. It was also thought that the
plea bargain was the better option seeing as there was a
complete lack of motive in the killing, with prosecutors
believing this would weaken their argument in the event of a
trial. The resulting reduced sentence
caused outrage among the local community and fury among hikers
(38:47):
nationwide. Out of a 30 year sentence,
Randall Smith only ended up serving 15 and was released in
1996 after reportedly being a model inmate who never caused
any problems in prison. He walked out of prison a self
confessed murderer, but a free man and returned to Parisburg as
(39:09):
a pariah. Randall lived with his mother
until her death in the year 2000.
After she passed, he became moreand more of a recluse, although
just like in days gone by, he spent much of his free time up
in the Appalachian Trails and onmore than one occasion was
spotted chatting with hikers whowere no doubt completely unaware
(39:31):
of who they were talking to. But even if they did know
Randall Smith the murderer by his image, they may not have
recognized him by now. By that time, he was 54, no
longer the portly young man who had been convicted of killing
Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford.
He was skinny, pale and walked with a slight limp, and his time
(39:53):
in prison had hardened what had once been boyish, smirking
features. Then, in March of 2008, Randall
seemed to give up on life entirely.
He took all the pictures down from the walls of his mother's
home, packed a few belongings, then walked off into the woods.
He took only a few changes of clothes, some camping and
(40:14):
fishing gear, and Beau, his dog.For all intents and purposes to
the people of Perisburg, RandallSmith had dropped off the face
of the earth there one day, totally vanishing the next.
But to them, it was simply one less thing they had to worry
about, so barely a peep was raised.
(40:37):
A few months later, on May 6th, 2 fisherman named Scott Johnston
and Sean Farmer were catching trout up near their favorite
spot on a place called Brushy Mountain.
It was a beautiful summer's day,perfect for outdoor activities
and feeling a little closer to nature.
All was peaceful and serene whensuddenly they spotted something
(40:58):
coming through the trees toward them.
It was a middle-aged man with a slight stoop, one who warmly
waved before approaching their campsite.
The man introduced himself as Ricky Williams.
Scott and Sean followed the unwritten code of Appalachia by
inviting Ricky to sit and share a dinner of freshly caught fish.
(41:20):
Ricky happily obliged, explaining that he was starving,
that he had been in the woods for weeks by that point and
hadn't eaten substantially in days.
Scott and Sean could see this was no lie.
Ricky was pale and skinny, and the dog that accompanied him was
evidently equally hungry, with its ribs protruding from its
(41:41):
fur. The campsite the three men had
dinner at was only a mile and 1/2 from the Wapiti shelter, the
site of the hiker murders way back in 1981.
As they ate, Scott and Sean asked Ricky about his life.
Ricky replied that he was graduated top of his class from
Virginia Tech University and hadgone on to write highly advanced
(42:03):
scientific papers for NASA pertaining to complex new
methods of space. Flight.
He also claimed to be extremely wealthy, owning multiple homes
in Florida and South Carolina where he would spend his time
with his wife, who was a runner up in several Miss USA pageants.
Scott and Sean listened skeptically, recognizing that
(42:25):
the man's appearance in his talltales about a high flying career
were most likely a complete fabrication to them.
It was almost as if the man who sat before them was in a habit
of lying. It came easy to him, like it was
second nature. As the hours passed, the sun
began to dip below the horizon. Scott and Sean began to wonder
(42:48):
why their guest hadn't started to make a move back to his own
campsite, which was apparently afew miles further upriver.
One of them made a comment that he had better head back before
the inky black of night had truly descended.
Falling and injuring yourself onsuch a secluded stretch of the
trail could mean real trouble for even the fittest young man,
(43:09):
but death for an old timer. Ricky stayed for about 1/2 an
hour longer before finding his feet, thanking Scott and Sean
and beckoning his dog to follow.Come on Bo, for the man's name
was not, in fact, Ricky Williams.
The man's name was Randall Lee Smith, and just as he began to
(43:30):
walk away from the campsite of his generous fisherman hosts, he
pulled a 22 weapon from his pocket and pulled the trigger
four times. The first bullet struck Sean in
the temple. The second shot slammed into
Scott's neck. The men tried to run, but still
the shots came. The third tore into Sean's chest
(43:52):
cavity, while the fourth hit Scott in the rear of his neck.
Blood poured from wounds caused by red hot lead having ripped
through their bodies, but still the fisherman hurtled into the
woods for safety. Scott had managed to find cover
behind a tree as Sean reached his truck parked in the grass
just a few yards away. But as he climbed into the cab
(44:15):
of the vehicle and slammed the door behind, he saw the face of
Randall Smith through the windowto his left.
Randall raised his 22 weapon, pointed it at Sean's head, and
once again pulled the trigger, but no shot rang out.
The weapon hadn't fired. Randall Smith had run out of
(44:36):
bullets. As their potential murderer
began to reload the 22. Sean gunned the truck's engine
and put the pedal to the metal, screeching towards a nearby Rd.
with a bullet wound to his head.When he found the road, his
headlights illuminated a figure standing in the middle of it.
But it wasn't Randall Smith. It was his fishing buddy, Scott.
(44:59):
He had survived his wounds and had cut Sean off at the road in
order to escape. Sean threw open the passenger
door and Scott dived in, still holding on to the open wound to
his neck that leaked fresh bloodonto the upholstery.
But although they were in the process of escaping certain
death, their chances of survivalwere horrifyingly slim.
(45:20):
Scott was bleeding to death froma wound to the throat.
Sean had been shot in the head, the nearest hospital was over 30
miles away, and they were driving on an uneven dirt Rd. in
the middle of near total darkness, their headlights the
only thing to guide them in woods so deep they had no cell
phone reception whatsoever. And to top it all off, Scott had
(45:44):
left his truck behind with the keys in the ignition.
There was every chance that Randall Smith was following
them, having tasted blood, looking to finish them off.
It took just 5 minutes for Scottand Sean to find a house with
the lights on inside, but to them, those 5 minutes felt like
(46:04):
an eternity. As they pulled up outside it,
Scott leapt from the cab of the truck and began to hammer on the
front door, screaming for whoever was inside to call 911.
The home owner, a woman named Melissa Miller, initially
thought it might have been some kind of home invasion and was
reluctant to actually answer thedoor, but when she did, she
(46:26):
screamed for her 21 year old sonRandy to fetch some towels
before calling 91120. Minutes passed after the 1st 911
call and still no ambulance had arrived.
There was a pile of blood soakedtowels sitting in front of each
wounded man. When Scott asked to use the
Miller's family phone to call his mother and father, he
(46:48):
believed with all his heart thathe would never see them again.
But shortly afterward, an ambulance did arrive, and with
it came a police officer. The EMTs tried to stabilize both
men and ensure that neither would bleed to death in the
Miller family home. But it was impossible, and they
soon called for helicopter support to airlift both men to a
(47:10):
hospital for emergency surgery. Scott, still bleeding from his
neck wound, was loaded onto one of the medevac choppers, by that
point convinced that he was going to die.
He could think of no other reason for such drastic
measures. His fishing buddy Sean had been
shot in the head and chest, but it was he that was being
(47:31):
airlifted. If his wounds were more serious
than a straight up headshot, he knew his chances of survival
were bleak. As the helicopter took off, he
felt his mouth filling with blood and heard one of the EMTs
talking over the radio, saying she didn't think he was going to
make it. He felt himself slipping away
(47:52):
and said that at one point he thought he was already dead.
But as the helicopter landed in nearby Roanoke and a blast of
downdraft from the rotor blades hit him as he was unloaded, he
knew he was still alive. Thanks to the swift actions of
young Randy Miller, who had not only helped with fetching towels
but had also managed to get a hold of one of Randall Smith's
(48:14):
missing posters, the police knewwho the shooter was.
Later that night, a Virginia State trooper was driving along
the road about 8 miles away fromHarrisburg when he spotted
Scott's stolen Gray truck going in the opposite direction.
The trooper turned in the road, turning on his lights, and the
truck picked up speed dramatically in an attempt to
(48:36):
evade him. But in the frenzied effort to
escape justice, Randall Smith ran the truck off the road and
flipped it upside down. The trooper pulled up alongside
the overturned truck with his weapon drawn while Smith was
still strapped inside of it. The same 22 we tried to kill
Scott and Sean with. Lying on the ceiling of the
truck cab, just out of reach, the trooper caught a glimpse of
(49:01):
Randall's eyes with his flashlight and later described
them as the coldest he had ever seen.
In a chilling twist of fate, theunconscious murderer was then
taken to the very same hospital that Scott and Sean had been
airlifted to, and when he awoke,tried to claim the shootings
were in self-defense. When Randall was well enough to
(49:23):
be transported, he was taken to the medical wing of the New
River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin on May 9th, 2008.
Then a few days later, a jail officer went to give Randall his
dinner. But when the crazed killer
didn't retrieve his meal, the officer called his name once,
then twice, but there was no answer.
(49:44):
The officer rushed to unlock thecell door, finding Randall lying
unconscious on the floor in front of him.
Medical staff hurried to revive him, but their attempts were in
vain, and shortly afterward, Randall Lee Smith was pronounced
dead at the age of 54 years old.Forensic analysis showed there
were no obvious signs of foul play, no marks on his body
(50:08):
whatsoever, and in all likelihood Randall had simply
died of natural causes. So distraught at the prospect of
spending more time in prison, sodisappointed that his victims
had survived the attack and deprived him of the thrill of
killing, that he had simply given up on living.
His funeral service lasted just 30 minutes, and to avoid any
(50:30):
angry displays by the local townsfolk, the service was only
announced after he was buried. Randall was buried next to his
mother while his dog Beau, scratched in the dirt during the
graveside ceremony. You may be pleased to hear that
Beau has since been adopted and given a home with a loving,
caring family who feed and walk him regularly.
(50:52):
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Randall Lee Smith is
that it seems there were absolutely no motives to his
murders. Scott and Sean could well have
been the kindest people Randall had met in his entire life.
Two people who shared food and warmth with a total stranger,
owing him nothing but giving none the less.
(51:12):
In return, Randall tried to takeeverything from them in a sneak
attack that changed both men's lives forever.
It seems that Randall killed simply for the sake of killing,
because it made him feel powerful.
There was no rhyme or reason to his bloodlust, and not even
those who are kind and generous to him were safe.
(51:34):
Mankind has a long fabricated beasts, demons, and malevolent
spirits that have only ever beenconfined to the page or screen.
An attempt at creating a kind ofcontrollable fear.
A simulation 1 intended to distract us and comfort us
because the reality is much moreterrifying.
(51:55):
Real monsters walk among us, looking and sounding just like
our friends, neighbors and family.
But they are not driven by love and they are hungry.
(01:06:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:11:43):
Yeah. Yeah.
Hey, this is Dane and this is Scary Stories and Rain.
Please join my family and followthis podcast on Spotify or
Apple. And if you want the ultimate
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win all of my giveaways every month.
By subscribing for just 299 a month, all of the ads gone,
every single giveaway automatically entered.
(00:22):
And starting now, today, every Sunday, I'm going to release the
ultimate episode 6 to 12 hours long Ultimate Scary Stories for
a rainy night. Subscriber exclusive.
And as a reminder, we are now four months away from my first
movie release in theaters, Gale Yellow Brick Road, a dark and
terrifying reimagining of The Wizard of Oz.
(00:45):
If you want to check out the first trailer, click the link in
the description to this episode.And if you're not following my
other two podcasts, please go check them out, Scary Stories
and Fire and Scary Stories AfterDark.
The links are in the description.
Thank you so much for being hereand I really hope you enjoy this
episode. I am an aspiring actor and
(01:10):
filmmaker, and the film I'm working on is about liminal
spaces. For those who don't know,
liminal spaces are between what was and what is about to be a
space that seems very uncomfortable and fully devoid
of people, but it's actually very normal.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because I actively seek out
(01:33):
these spaces to get inspiration and possible filming locations.
One of these times I seeked out.One of these spaces ended up
being one of the scariest experiences of my life.
The space in question was a park.
Since I live out in the middle of nowhere, I have to drive
about 30 minutes to get there. The park closes at dusk, so I
(01:57):
typically park near the entranceand walk there.
Keep in mind this was around 11 PMI felt a very strong
atmospheric tension as I was walking there, but this is very
normal. Not only am I breaking the
rules, but the scariest aspect of these liminal spaces is the
tension in the atmosphere. I went around the gate and made
(02:20):
my way around to the park to setthe scene.
The parking lot is in a sidewaysL shape.
The short side leads to a big trail surrounded by a dense
forest, and the long side leads all the way to the park.
The rest of this park is just anempty field, typically not
illuminated by any lights, making it a really big void.
(02:44):
This part will be relevant later.
When I got to the park portion, I proceeded to look around for
good photo opportunities and places to put secret background
details. I'd guessed that this was around
10 minutes later, but I suddenlyfroze.
I felt like someone was watchingme.
(03:05):
This is in another aspect of these spaces that isn't
uncommon, but my gut was tellingme that something was very wrong
about this. My anxiety got worse when I
heard a noise coming from some unknown direction.
I panicked and I hid next to thebathrooms, facing the opposite
of the field. As I peeked behind the building,
(03:28):
I saw a few lights facing away from me.
They were aiming at the field, but they were moving a bit, as
if someone with shaky hands was holding a flashlight.
I felt as though alerting the people with the flashlights was
a death sentence. I tried sneaking my way back to
my car, but I noticed something strange.
(03:51):
The lights were still facing thefield, but they seemed as though
they were closer. I started speed walking to the
car, but I only realized a bit too late that I was not being
very quiet. While I was speed walking, I was
suddenly flashed by a bright light.
My adrenaline rushed, my heart sank, and I instantly began
(04:14):
sprinting, but so did the lights.
I heard footsteps running towardme, but I never heard any
voices. When I got to my car, I locked
the door and instantly tried driving away.
The thing is, when my car turnedon, the lights stopped and
stayed there. I never shined my lights in that
(04:37):
direction at all, simply becauseI wanted to get out of there.
As I drove off, I was trying to process what happened.
Even though I was there hoping to get inspiration for a horror
film, I never expected to have an experience like that while I
was out. I did get the inspiration I
needed, but I couldn't think straight.
(05:01):
I didn't care about the film at that point and was glad that I
managed to get out alive. I tried doing research the next
day, but I couldn't find any news related to anything like
that. I was baffled by this whole
situation and I still cannot wrap my head around it.
(05:21):
I have no idea who they were, why they were there, or what
they were going to do to me. The only thing I know is that
what happened back there will bean experience I will never
forget. I am a 27 year old male.
(05:47):
And I need. To get this off my chest,
everything you are about to hearis possibly one of the most
bizarre things to ever happen tome.
When I was younger, my mother used to live in a house in a
small town. The Old Town is known for its
history. On its coastline, castles and
other historical buildings are dotted around.
(06:09):
I loved it. Growing up in a location like
that was an absolute dream. The beautiful English
countryside. There were so many forests where
I would play with my cousins andyounger sister.
I've always been somewhat interested in the paranormal and
growing up where we did, of course it made for some great
(06:31):
urban legends and ghost stories.The house that we lived in was a
Victorian. I can't tell you the exact date,
but it was well over 100 years old.
It had three floors. There was something about the
top floor that I loved. Don't ask me why, I was just
drawn to it. On the top floor there were
(06:53):
three rooms, mine being the first.
A rather big room with beams on the ceiling and an odd window.
Sort of like a flower shape, I guess you could say, with bars
on the outside. The other two rooms my mother
didn't really like me going intountil I was older.
If you peeked through the keyhole of the last room, you
(07:15):
could distinctly see a servant'sbell in the corner.
This door was the only one with a padlock on it, preventing me
or anyone besides my mother fromentering.
There was a lot of cool but strange things in that house.
We found a lot of things too. Old coins, etcetera.
(07:35):
My mother used to work all the time and as a result of my
father not being around, my grandma would take on the
challenge of looking after me and my sister.
We were mostly pretty easygoing.We'd get back from school and
while my sister would get on with her homework, me, not being
the very academic kid, would go and play outside in the garden.
(07:56):
Me and my grandma are close and remain so to this day.
She's a Christian woman but is very open to the possibility of
the paranormal. I've shared with her recently
some of the experiences I had asa child.
I'm going to try to keep this short so I won't go into too
much detail. When I was a bit older, I
(08:18):
remember being out for lunch when I was up visiting my family
as I moved away from my hometown.
This was around 2:00 or so yearsago.
My mother went to the bathroom so it was only me and my grandma
left at the table. I can't remember what we have
been talking about, but the conversation shifted.
(08:38):
She started talking about the house, the one we grew up in.
She started talking about the cold energy she felt from it,
the negativity. She had never brought this up
before. She leaned in closer and said,
Do you? Remember what you.
Used to say to me no, I replied.I was confused at this point.
(09:04):
She leaned in ever so closely and dropped her voice to a
hushed whisper and said, do you remember when you would play in
the corner of the garden? Well one day I could see you
were talking to yourself so I laughed and came over and asked
who you were talking to. I was just sat there looking at
(09:26):
her confused for a few seconds before she said the line which
will haunt me forever. You looked up at me and smiled,
she said. She took a deep.
Breath and looked at me dead in the eyes.
Can you not see her grandma? It's the woman in black who
(09:47):
lives in the bottom of the garden.
I can't really remember a lot ofmy childhood.
Some bits are kind of blurry. I don't ever remember talking to
a woman in the bottom of the garden that no one else could
see. Fast forward to last week.
I've been having a hard time sleeping recently.
(10:09):
The other night I was up until about 5:00 AM before I drifted
off. Once I did, I had possibly the
worst nightmare I have ever had.She was there looking at me.
This woman, which draped in black, an old tattered cloth
(10:30):
covering her eyes, her mouth open, showing nothing but a
void. Something clicked and she was
behind me, right by my left shoulder.
Her bones cracked as I turned myhead ever so slowly.
She whispered in my ears. Remember Me?
(10:54):
I'm the woman in black from the bottom of the garden.
This experience took place nearly 15 years ago, back when
my parents were taking me to ourlocal daycare center.
(11:15):
I was six years old at the time and was a shy kid but loved to
play with strangers, especially if they wanted to play video
games with me. I didn't know everyone at the
daycare center because new kids would come and go all the time.
I did know a few of the kids as some of them I met in elementary
school. Josh and Nolan were two of my
(11:38):
best friends and I happened to meet them both during recess at
school. I only went to daycare after
school for around an hour or twodepending on the circumstances.
Both Josh and Nolan loved playing in the jungle gym and
playing hide and seek, both of which were not my Forte.
(11:58):
Whenever we would play hide and seek, it would usually take
place in the cemetery directly across from the daycare jungle
gym. The daycare jungle gym was not
very spacious and had virtually no trees or shrubs to hide
behind, thus making the cemeterythe only option if we were going
to have a proper hide and seek session.
(12:21):
One evening, both Josh and Nolanasked if I wanted to play
outside with them. I was playing my favorite Wii
game at the time and had just met a new friend.
We were playing Mario Kart together and I seemed to be
winning. I asked my new friend what his
name was and he seemed to look confused at the sight of me
(12:42):
asking. Both Josh and Nolan also seemed
perplexed as they just witnessedto this kid brush me off like I
didn't say anything. Nolan, out of curiosity, asked.
Hey, any chance you want to playhide and seek with us?
The kid sitting next to me put down the controller and turn to
(13:03):
me with the most blank, lifelessexpression I have ever seen on
another human being's face and said I'm only going to play if
my new friend wants to play too.Both Josh and Nolan turned to me
for approval and I shrugged. We set off to the exit door
(13:24):
which led to the jungle gym. We asked Misses Shaw, our
supervisor, if we could go out and play like we always do and
she agreed. Both me, the stranger, Josh and
Nolan waited and looked around for the next supervisor to
switch watch duty shifts and leave everyone unsupervised as
(13:44):
this was our only chance to hop the gate which led next door to
the nearly 15 acre graveyard. This graveyard was full of trees
and shrubs. As well as large tombstones that
were perfect for what we had in mind.
As soon as we ran far enough from the supervisor's view, we
all hid behind a large shrub. Josh, as usual, was the fastest
(14:08):
1 to place his finger on his nose and shout not it.
Followed by Nolan and then me. The strange kid, again with the
same lifeless expression on his face, just stared at me and
stayed as still as a mouse. It was almost like he was trying
to hide from something because as far as I could tell, he
(14:30):
wasn't even breathing. I had to check up on him at this
point as he was creeping my friends out.
Hey, are you feeling OK? Look, we don't have to play in
the graveyard today if you don'twant to.
I think it's kind of creepy too.He then turned to Nolan and
stared directly in his eyes and said.
(14:52):
My name is William, but my dad calls me Will for short.
Nolan looked just as perplexed as I did as we asked him this
question nearly 10 minutes prior.
I had to break the awkwardness of the moment and told everyone
I was going to be the seeker. I was trying to help my new
(15:12):
friend but at the same time don't know if he was even
interested in playing the game anymore as he didn't speak or
say anything for quite some time.
I started counting down from 20 and just as I did, both Josh and
Nolan ran across the cemetery atthe speed of light to find the
best hiding spot. William just stood there staring
(15:35):
at me with the same lifeless expression as before, but this
time he almost looked angry. It was subtle but I could see
his eye twitching back and forth, almost like he has a big
secret to tell me but can't and for some reason is internalizing
(15:55):
the frustration. I then tell him to go hide as
I'm already at 10 seconds and ifhe doesn't hurry he won't have
time to find a hiding spot. He does a quick 180 and runs in
the opposite direction back to the daycare playground.
I take it as a sign that he doesn't want to play anymore and
is going to tell on us. I quickly run around the
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cemetery frantically thinking this kid is going to get us in
trouble and scream Josh and Nolan's names.
They come out of their hiding spots to see if everything is OK
and I tell them what is happening.
Nolan out of nowhere bursts intoa rage and goes about how this
kid is going to ruin this game for everyone as now they will be
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keeping an eye on the cemetery for once.
We quickly hurry back to the playground and to our amazement,
there are no teachers searching the area for us.
In fact, William is nowhere to be seen as we thought we would
catch him in the act. We quickly hop over the gate and
run inside to locate William. I tell Josh to look upstairs as
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we left our backpacks up there beside the video games.
Nolan and I checked the downstairs area where all the
playhouses and other large toys are kept.
We never ended up finding William that night, and as the
night drew to a conclusion, we had to at least ask Misses Shaw,
our favorite supervisor, where William went.
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I ask, Hey Misses Shaw, have youseen William around by chance?
She asked. Who, honey?
I then told her about the strange boy who was with us
right before we left to go out and play around an hour earlier.
She told us that he did sort of look strange and that she had
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never seen that boy the daycare center before.
A cold chill ran down the back of my spine as I stood there
perplexed and a little scared. Both me, Josh, and Nolan
discussed this further and concluded that Will was probably
just new here and this was just his first day.
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After my mom took me home and I told her about Will, I asked her
if she would call the daycare center to track him down and see
if he was supposed to be there in the 1st place.
She agreed after hearing my disturbing hide and seek
experience and called the daycare center.
They told her there was no William in their books.
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She asked if he was a new attendee and that if they made a
mistake. They told her there was no
mistake and that if some kid found his way into the daycare
center without their approval tocontact them again and they will
call the police. I never saw William again.
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Let me begin by saying I have always been skeptical of the
paranormal. I always believed there's a
logical explanation behind any strange occurrences.
I normally don't talk about ghosts, or even think about them
really, until my youngest daughter was born.
She is quite the intelligent child, very perceptive and
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mature for her age. I have five children and I can
tell that she is a little different.
At 18 months old, Bella began telling me about seeing ghosts.
I wasn't sure where she had evenlearned the word ghost, but I
assumed she picked it up from her older brothers and sisters.
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I knew she had a very active imagination and didn't pay it
much attention. Incident number one, I am laying
Bella down with me for her bedtime routine.
A book after her bath. As I'm reading, she puts her
finger to my lips, looks me in the eyes and says really
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quietly. Then her eyes dart to the corner
of the bedroom ceiling. She points to the corner and
whispers. I reassured her that there was
nothing to be scared of and continued reading.
Her eyes kept darting to the ceiling and tracking side to
side. I asked her if the ghost was
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still there. She nodded yes.
Being raised by a God fearing mother, I knew you could cast
out spirits in the name of the father.
I said a prayer and I politely but firmly told the ghost to
leave our house and not come back.
Bella calmed down. She seemed satisfied with this
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and we continued our story and Ihonestly forgot about it.
Incident 2 Nap time We are laying in my room settling down
for a nap. My daughter is about 20 months
old at this time. Suddenly she sits up in bed,
snatches her sippy cup of milk to the side, and looking over
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the edge of the bed, she shouts no.
I asked her what was wrong. She said the little boy with
black hair is trying to take my cup.
Then she suddenly jerks her arm again and says, mom, that little
boy hit me. I looked over the edge of the
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bed, secretly hoping I wouldn't see anything.
Nothing there. Once again I told the spirit to
leave our home and to never return.
Bella was silent for a few minutes before asking me.
Mom, why is that little boy crying?
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I said. Is he crying?
Where is he? She said he was sitting in the
closet crying. I was a little freaked out, but
I didn't want her to pick up on it so we ended up leaving the
room and watching a movie on thecouch instead.
She mentioned the little boy with black hair several times
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through the next months. She said he lives in the attic
and that sometimes he watched her at night when she was in her
bed. I didn't tell anyone about these
stories, including my husband. Once Grandma mentioned that some
weird things that happened whileshe was there during the day,
the bathroom door opened and closed by itself and she heard
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what sounded like child's footsteps running down the hall.
She chopped it up to it being anold house and I never mentioned
anything about Bella's encounters.
Incident three. I was lying in bed waiting for
my oldest daughter, Gabby to come home from a date.
She's 17 and her curfew is midnight on the weekends.
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Everyone else in the house is sleeping.
My door was slightly ajar by just a few inches and the
hallway light was illuminating outside the door.
I see a hand begin to push the door open, then pause and
disappear. I hear footsteps towards my
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oldest daughter's room. Her room is beside mine, and at
the end of the hallway there isn't another room besides hers.
I thought Gabby must have figured I was sleeping and
decided to not come in my room, so I called out to her.
No answer. I listened again.
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It was quiet. I got up and walked towards
Gabby's room. I opened the door.
The room was dark and empty. She wasn't home yet.
I began racking my brain about what I saw.
There was no one else awake besides me and I know I saw a
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hand at my door. I walked around checking all the
kids all soundly asleep in theirbeds.
I checked all the windows and doors locked.
I looked on my Life 360 app to see where Gabby was.
She was still 15 minutes away. I don't know how to explain the
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hand that I saw. That brings us to the final and
most recent incident. My youngest daughter, now almost
three, stays at our home with her grandma while her dad and I
work and the other kids are at school.
One day, Grandma called my husband frantically saying
someone was in the house and sheand Bella were waiting outside
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in the car. He rushed home to check it out.
When he got there the house was empty and all the windows and
doors were locked except the front door where she had run out
with the baby earlier. He checked the security cameras
and didn't see anyone. He did see Bella start flailing
in her chair and then run screaming to the front door,
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beating on it to get out. Grandma explained what happened
and I got chills down my spine. She said Bella was sitting in
the living room eating chicken Nuggets, watching Sophia the 1st
and playing with some dolls. Grandma stepped out onto the
front porch to smoke a cigarette.
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Maybe 2 minutes of being outsideand she heard Bella let out a
series of blood curdling screams.
Then Bella starts frantically beating on the front door to get
out, calling for her grandma to help her.
She told her there was a lady with crazy eyes, crazy hair, and
crazy fingers that bit her on the leg over and over.
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She exclaimed that Grandma had to come fast and help her.
As a three-year old, crazy was avery strong adjective in Bella's
world. Grandma, seeing the sheer terror
on her face, grabbed Bella and ran out the door.
I don't know how to explain thisat the risk of looking like a
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crazy person myself. I asked a minister to come bless
the house. I will send an update if
anything further happens or if Ido find a logical explanation.
After all, before I start this story off, this was about a year
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ago and though I do have some thoughts that this was sleep
paralysis, I am leaning more towards the idea of it just
being a nightmare. What makes me think that it
could have been sleep paralysis was the fact that I heard my
brother go to the bathroom and when I woke up he was coming out
of the bathroom. But I could have just heard the
bathroom door closed in my sleepand my mind included it in my
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nightmare since it is a common occurrence.
During the time of which this occurred, I was asleep in my
room and my door a little less than halfway open.
I felt awake and I was asleep onmy left side.
To give you a quick layout of myroom as it is relevant to the
story, my bed was centered against the wall while my door
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is in front of my bed all the way to the right of the front
wall. To the left of my bed, I have a
mirror which allows me to see mydoor even if I'm facing away
from it. As I had my eyes closed, I heard
my brother walk into the bathroom and shut the door,
making the area outside of my room dark since the only source
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of light that was illuminating the hallway was closed off.
Suddenly, from my mirror, I saw a tall, lengthy woman walk up to
my doorway. She looked drenched and her skin
was a grayish color. Since it was dark, I couldn't
make out too many details, but all I know is that I was
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terrified out of my mind. I tried moving, but of course I
couldn't. I couldn't even make out the
smallest noise. All I could do was hope that my
brother would walk out of the bathroom and this dream or sleep
paralysis episode would end. I squeezed my eyes shut, not
wanting to see the thing for much longer.
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This was when I didn't have carpet in my room, so the sound
of her dropping to the ground was even more audible than it
normally would have been. It almost sounded like someone
dropped a huge piece of meat on a hard floor, with the exception
of the sound of her bones cracking when she did so.
My breathing became rapid as I heard her crawl on all fours
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toward my side of the bed, almost inhumanly fast.
I kept my eyes shut, fearing that if I opened them it would
take long to get over the horrifying face that I would
see. All I heard for those few
seconds was breathing and my heart beating in my ears.
This was in a whisper tone. Open your eyes.
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Out of nowhere I was snapped awake and let out a small scream
as I thought the woman was stillin the room.
But she wasn't. There was no one by my bed.
The bathroom door opened and my brother peeked into my room,
confused. I didn't have to say a word and
he just switched on the light for me and went back to his
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room. But I stayed up for a few hours
after that, being too scared to go back to sleep, terrified I
would see that same woman and hear that same voice.
Open your eyes. Randall Smith was raised an only
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child in the small town of Harrisburg, Virginia.
The townsfolk remembered his mother as a nice lady who kept
to herself, earning a living in a laundry room at the Guiles
Memorial Hospital. But for some reason, for the
first few years of his life, Randall's mother chose to dress
him in girls clothing. We can only speculate as to the
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effect this had on the young man, but what we do know is that
his school classmates would later describe him as something
of a loner as well as a habitualliar.
He often told tall tales of money he didn't have or of
spurious sounding adventures he had been on.
This led to his peers calling him LR, an acronym standing for
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Lying Randall. During his youth, Randall would
often go walking the AppalachianTrail alone, finding solace in
the rolling hills and deep primordial forests.
After high school, Randall earned a living doing odd jobs
around Virginia. Some might have fretted at the
instability, but Randall relished it as it gave him the
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freedom to ramble where he liked.
And just like in his youth, he would spend the majority of his
spare time wandering the Appalachian Trail, sometimes
disappearing for days at a time.The trail stretches for just
over 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine and attracts thousands of
hikers every single year, most of which see the trail as a kind
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of rite of passage for serious hill walkers.
Most use the trail as a means ofescaping their busy work a day
lives, taking comfort in the peace and serenity of nature.
But at times the trails are anything but serene, and there
have been a number of hideously violent crimes committed in the
area. Perhaps the most infamous being
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the 2008 abduction and murder ofMeredith Emerson by a
psychopathic drifter named Michael Hilton, which took place
in a region known as Blood Mountain.
During the spring of 1981, 227 year old social workers from
Maine by the names of Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford
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decided to hike through Appalachia to raise money for a
mental illness charity. On their travels, they had made
friends with another hiker on the trail, but had to part ways.
Shortly afterward, however, theyhad agreed to meet up near
Parisburg, Randall Smith's hometown, to catch up and grab a
bite to eat together. But when Susan and Robert failed
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to show up to the meeting, theirhiker friend became concerned
and contacted the police to report them missing.
Deputy Sheriff Tom Lawson gathered up a handful of other
deputies and then went up onto the trail to begin the search.
On the way, they spoke to a number of other hikers, asking
each if they had seen anyone fitting the missing couples
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descriptions. Most said no, but one group said
yes, reporting that they had seen a man and a woman talking
with a rather strange looking individual who seemed to be
acting in a bizarre manner. Near the Wapiti shelter, a small
log structure that had been constructed so that weary hikers
could rest a while before continuing down the trail.
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The deputies headed straight forthe shelter, finally reaching it
on May 30th of 1981. By that time, it had been 11
days since the last sightings ofthe missing hikers and unless
they were experienced in bushcraft, the chance of them
reappearing unharmed or rapidly dwindling.
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While searching the small woodenstructure, one of the deputies
noticed what appeared to be a blood stain on one of the
floorboards. The men then fanned out,
searching the area intensively until they came across a small
clearing that contained a pile of leaves, one that looked like
an attempt to cover something up.
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They kicked away the leaves, revealing a cloth sleeping bag
that had a large, heavy mass inside of it.
When they cut it open, they discovered it was the corpse of
Susan Ramsey, the female half ofthe charity hiking couple.
A day later, with the help of a sniffer dog, the body of Robert
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Mountford was found buried near a tree stump, also wrapped in
his sleeping bag. Robert had a single bullet wound
to his head, fired from a 22 caliber weapon, while Susan had
been stabbed several times before being bludgeoned to
death. Their bodies then dragged from
the Wapiti shelter to the spots they were buried.
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Nearby, deputies found Susan's camera.
They had hoped that the film might contain clues to who had
murdered them, but found it had been pulled out and stolen.
However, Susan's backpack was also found, a backpack which
contained A paperback book that was taken for fingerprint
analysis. Most of the prints obviously
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belonged to Susan, but one set belongs to someone else
entirely. Investigators initially believed
they belonged to Robert Mountford, but were shocked to
find that they did in fact belong to none other than lying
Randall Smith. The sheriff's deputies
immediately travelled to Randall's home.
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He was not around, but the deputies had a search warrant
and smashed their way into his place to make some seriously
disturbing discoveries. Not only did they find bloody
clothes and some items which evidently belonged to the
murdered hikers, they also founda great deal of X-rated
materials and most disturbingly,some hospital instruments that
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had been apparently been fashioned into makeshift X-rated
toys. Deputies also found a
handwritten note stating that hehad been kidnapped and was going
to be executed, but analysis showed this had been written in
Randall's own handwriting and was no doubt merely an attempt
to throw the police off his scent.
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The race was on to find him before he could hurt anyone
else. Days passed.
The police had no luck in locating Randall Smith.
All of his usual haunts reportedthat he had not been seen in
days, with Rangers and police scouring the Virginia section of
the Appalachian Trail with absolutely nothing to show for
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it. The effort was exhausting and
Deputy Sheriff Tom Lawson found himself needing a break.
So we took his family on a briefvacation down to Myrtle Beach in
South Carolina. But in some bizarre twist of
fate, Deputy Lawson ended up getting a call from the
department back home saying there had been an arrest in
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South Carolina of a man that wasstrongly suspected to be
involved in the hikers murders and arrest in Myrtle Beach of
all places. Deputy Lawson hurried to check
the suspect out. When he arrived, he was told
that the arrested man claimed tohave amnesia and could not
remember his name or how he had ended up in Myrtle Beach, but
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that he was covered in insect bites in a way that was
consistent with someone having hiked the Appalachian trails
days on end. Insect bites that had been
scratched so much that they werein danger of becoming infected.
In order to get the man to reveal his identity, the
deputies hatched a cunning scheme.
They told the man that they could not get him the medical
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assistance he required without amedical consent form that he was
required to sign. When given the form, the man
scratched out a name onto the paper.
Randall Lee Smith, he wrote. The police had found their man.
Randall Smith was just 27 years old when he was extradited back
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to Virginia on charges of first degree murder.
At first it seemed as if Randallwould get the death penalty if
convicted, but in a strange turnof events, he accepted a plea
bargain that resulted in him getting a 30 year sentence
instead of being executed. One of the victims fathers was
an Episcopalian minister who accepted the use of the plea
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bargain and was generally against the idea of Randall
being executed. It was also thought that the
plea bargain was the better option seeing as there was a
complete lack of motive in the killing, with prosecutors
believing this would weaken their argument in the event of a
trial. The resulting reduced sentence
caused outrage among the local community and fury among hikers
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nationwide. Out of a 30 year sentence,
Randall Smith only ended up serving 15 and was released in
1996 after reportedly being a model inmate who never caused
any problems in prison. He walked out of prison a self
confessed murderer, but a free man and returned to Parisburg as
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a pariah. Randall lived with his mother
until her death in the year 2000.
After she passed, he became moreand more of a recluse, although
just like in days gone by, he spent much of his free time up
in the Appalachian Trails and onmore than one occasion was
spotted chatting with hikers whowere no doubt completely unaware
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of who they were talking to. But even if they did know
Randall Smith the murderer by his image, they may not have
recognized him by now. By that time, he was 54, no
longer the portly young man who had been convicted of killing
Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford.
He was skinny, pale and walked with a slight limp, and his time
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in prison had hardened what had once been boyish, smirking
features. Then, in March of 2008, Randall
seemed to give up on life entirely.
He took all the pictures down from the walls of his mother's
home, packed a few belongings, then walked off into the woods.
He took only a few changes of clothes, some camping and
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fishing gear, and Beau, his dog.For all intents and purposes to
the people of Perisburg, RandallSmith had dropped off the face
of the earth there one day, totally vanishing the next.
But to them, it was simply one less thing they had to worry
about, so barely a peep was raised.
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A few months later, on May 6th, 2 fisherman named Scott Johnston
and Sean Farmer were catching trout up near their favorite
spot on a place called Brushy Mountain.
It was a beautiful summer's day,perfect for outdoor activities
and feeling a little closer to nature.
All was peaceful and serene whensuddenly they spotted something
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coming through the trees toward them.
It was a middle-aged man with a slight stoop, one who warmly
waved before approaching their campsite.
The man introduced himself as Ricky Williams.
Scott and Sean followed the unwritten code of Appalachia by
inviting Ricky to sit and share a dinner of freshly caught fish.
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Ricky happily obliged, explaining that he was starving,
that he had been in the woods for weeks by that point and
hadn't eaten substantially in days.
Scott and Sean could see this was no lie.
Ricky was pale and skinny, and the dog that accompanied him was
evidently equally hungry, with its ribs protruding from its
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fur. The campsite the three men had
dinner at was only a mile and 1/2 from the Wapiti shelter, the
site of the hiker murders way back in 1981.
As they ate, Scott and Sean asked Ricky about his life.
Ricky replied that he was graduated top of his class from
Virginia Tech University and hadgone on to write highly advanced
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scientific papers for NASA pertaining to complex new
methods of space. Flight.
He also claimed to be extremely wealthy, owning multiple homes
in Florida and South Carolina where he would spend his time
with his wife, who was a runner up in several Miss USA pageants.
Scott and Sean listened skeptically, recognizing that
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the man's appearance in his talltales about a high flying career
were most likely a complete fabrication to them.
It was almost as if the man who sat before them was in a habit
of lying. It came easy to him, like it was
second nature. As the hours passed, the sun
began to dip below the horizon. Scott and Sean began to wonder
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why their guest hadn't started to make a move back to his own
campsite, which was apparently afew miles further upriver.
One of them made a comment that he had better head back before
the inky black of night had truly descended.
Falling and injuring yourself onsuch a secluded stretch of the
trail could mean real trouble for even the fittest young man,
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but death for an old timer. Ricky stayed for about 1/2 an
hour longer before finding his feet, thanking Scott and Sean
and beckoning his dog to follow.Come on Bo, for the man's name
was not, in fact, Ricky Williams.
The man's name was Randall Lee Smith, and just as he began to
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walk away from the campsite of his generous fisherman hosts, he
pulled a 22 weapon from his pocket and pulled the trigger
four times. The first bullet struck Sean in
the temple. The second shot slammed into
Scott's neck. The men tried to run, but still
the shots came. The third tore into Sean's chest
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cavity, while the fourth hit Scott in the rear of his neck.
Blood poured from wounds caused by red hot lead having ripped
through their bodies, but still the fisherman hurtled into the
woods for safety. Scott had managed to find cover
behind a tree as Sean reached his truck parked in the grass
just a few yards away. But as he climbed into the cab
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of the vehicle and slammed the door behind, he saw the face of
Randall Smith through the windowto his left.
Randall raised his 22 weapon, pointed it at Sean's head, and
once again pulled the trigger, but no shot rang out.
The weapon hadn't fired. Randall Smith had run out of
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bullets. As their potential murderer
began to reload the 22. Sean gunned the truck's engine
and put the pedal to the metal, screeching towards a nearby Rd.
with a bullet wound to his head.When he found the road, his
headlights illuminated a figure standing in the middle of it.
But it wasn't Randall Smith. It was his fishing buddy, Scott.
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He had survived his wounds and had cut Sean off at the road in
order to escape. Sean threw open the passenger
door and Scott dived in, still holding on to the open wound to
his neck that leaked fresh bloodonto the upholstery.
But although they were in the process of escaping certain
death, their chances of survivalwere horrifyingly slim.
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Scott was bleeding to death froma wound to the throat.
Sean had been shot in the head, the nearest hospital was over 30
miles away, and they were driving on an uneven dirt Rd. in
the middle of near total darkness, their headlights the
only thing to guide them in woods so deep they had no cell
phone reception whatsoever. And to top it all off, Scott had
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left his truck behind with the keys in the ignition.
There was every chance that Randall Smith was following
them, having tasted blood, looking to finish them off.
It took just 5 minutes for Scottand Sean to find a house with
the lights on inside, but to them, those 5 minutes felt like
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an eternity. As they pulled up outside it,
Scott leapt from the cab of the truck and began to hammer on the
front door, screaming for whoever was inside to call 911.
The home owner, a woman named Melissa Miller, initially
thought it might have been some kind of home invasion and was
reluctant to actually answer thedoor, but when she did, she
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screamed for her 21 year old sonRandy to fetch some towels
before calling 91120. Minutes passed after the 1st 911
call and still no ambulance had arrived.
There was a pile of blood soakedtowels sitting in front of each
wounded man. When Scott asked to use the
Miller's family phone to call his mother and father, he
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believed with all his heart thathe would never see them again.
But shortly afterward, an ambulance did arrive, and with
it came a police officer. The EMTs tried to stabilize both
men and ensure that neither would bleed to death in the
Miller family home. But it was impossible, and they
soon called for helicopter support to airlift both men to a
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hospital for emergency surgery. Scott, still bleeding from his
neck wound, was loaded onto one of the medevac choppers, by that
point convinced that he was going to die.
He could think of no other reason for such drastic
measures. His fishing buddy Sean had been
shot in the head and chest, but it was he that was being
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airlifted. If his wounds were more serious
than a straight up headshot, he knew his chances of survival
were bleak. As the helicopter took off, he
felt his mouth filling with blood and heard one of the EMTs
talking over the radio, saying she didn't think he was going to
make it. He felt himself slipping away
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and said that at one point he thought he was already dead.
But as the helicopter landed in nearby Roanoke and a blast of
downdraft from the rotor blades hit him as he was unloaded, he
knew he was still alive. Thanks to the swift actions of
young Randy Miller, who had not only helped with fetching towels
but had also managed to get a hold of one of Randall Smith's
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missing posters, the police knewwho the shooter was.
Later that night, a Virginia State trooper was driving along
the road about 8 miles away fromHarrisburg when he spotted
Scott's stolen Gray truck going in the opposite direction.
The trooper turned in the road, turning on his lights, and the
truck picked up speed dramatically in an attempt to
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evade him. But in the frenzied effort to
escape justice, Randall Smith ran the truck off the road and
flipped it upside down. The trooper pulled up alongside
the overturned truck with his weapon drawn while Smith was
still strapped inside of it. The same 22 we tried to kill
Scott and Sean with. Lying on the ceiling of the
truck cab, just out of reach, the trooper caught a glimpse of
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Randall's eyes with his flashlight and later described
them as the coldest he had ever seen.
In a chilling twist of fate, theunconscious murderer was then
taken to the very same hospital that Scott and Sean had been
airlifted to, and when he awoke,tried to claim the shootings
were in self-defense. When Randall was well enough to
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be transported, he was taken to the medical wing of the New
River Valley Regional Jail in Dublin on May 9th, 2008.
Then a few days later, a jail officer went to give Randall his
dinner. But when the crazed killer
didn't retrieve his meal, the officer called his name once,
then twice, but there was no answer.
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The officer rushed to unlock thecell door, finding Randall lying
unconscious on the floor in front of him.
Medical staff hurried to revive him, but their attempts were in
vain, and shortly afterward, Randall Lee Smith was pronounced
dead at the age of 54 years old.Forensic analysis showed there
were no obvious signs of foul play, no marks on his body
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whatsoever, and in all likelihood Randall had simply
died of natural causes. So distraught at the prospect of
spending more time in prison, sodisappointed that his victims
had survived the attack and deprived him of the thrill of
killing, that he had simply given up on living.
His funeral service lasted just 30 minutes, and to avoid any
(50:30):
angry displays by the local townsfolk, the service was only
announced after he was buried. Randall was buried next to his
mother while his dog Beau, scratched in the dirt during the
graveside ceremony. You may be pleased to hear that
Beau has since been adopted and given a home with a loving,
caring family who feed and walk him regularly.
(50:52):
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Randall Lee Smith is
that it seems there were absolutely no motives to his
murders. Scott and Sean could well have
been the kindest people Randall had met in his entire life.
Two people who shared food and warmth with a total stranger,
owing him nothing but giving none the less.
(51:12):
In return, Randall tried to takeeverything from them in a sneak
attack that changed both men's lives forever.
It seems that Randall killed simply for the sake of killing,
because it made him feel powerful.
There was no rhyme or reason to his bloodlust, and not even
those who are kind and generous to him were safe.
(51:34):
Mankind has a long fabricated beasts, demons, and malevolent
spirits that have only ever beenconfined to the page or screen.
An attempt at creating a kind ofcontrollable fear.
A simulation 1 intended to distract us and comfort us
because the reality is much moreterrifying.
(51:55):
Real monsters walk among us, looking and sounding just like
our friends, neighbors and family.
But they are not driven by love and they are hungry.
(01:06:08):
Yeah. Yeah.
(01:11:43):
Yeah. Yeah.
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