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Transcript

Disturbing Stories from Small Towns · Stories from the Dark

0:23
Speaker 1: My dad recently passed away and he was a fascinating man.
0:27
Speaker 1: He had many, many stories that he told me, but
0:30
Speaker 1: There was one that I promised I would only share
0:32
Speaker 1: when he passed. He did want me to share it then, though,
0:35
Speaker 1: because he thought that it held an important message. And
0:39
Speaker 1: I'll leave you all to decide if you agree with
0:41
Speaker 1: it or not, or if you even support Dad's actions
0:44
Speaker 1: at all. He's my father, so I'm always going to
0:46
Speaker 1: have a biased perspective. And so Dad was 65 when
0:51
Speaker 1: he passed this year. I worked out the events of
0:53
Speaker 1: this story must have taken place in maybe the 70s,
0:56
Speaker 1: since Dad said that he was a senior in high
0:59
Speaker 1: school at the time. Dad grew up in a little town,
1:02
Speaker 1: the kind where you can't take a crap in a
1:04
Speaker 1: public outhouse without the rest of the folks knowing about
1:07
Speaker 1: it by sundown. Everyone knew most everyone else and thought
1:11
Speaker 1: they knew most everything about each other. And that's the
1:14
Speaker 1: problem with close-knit communities. You think you know your neighbors
1:17
Speaker 1: and then, bam, something pulls the rug right out from
1:21
Speaker 1: under you. In Dad's case, it was a man called
1:25
Speaker 1: Cornelius B. Cheesy. Now that wasn't his real name, of course.
1:30
Speaker 1: That was just the name that he'd give anyone if
1:32
Speaker 1: they asked. Cornelius was pretty much the town drunk, a
1:37
Speaker 1: local hobo, but he wasn't a nuisance or an unwanted figure. Today,
1:42
Speaker 1: folks would call him a free-spirited hermit or a forest
1:45
Speaker 1: dweller or maybe even a mountain man if he lived
1:48
Speaker 1: a little more up the mountain. Now, you could offer
1:51
Speaker 1: Cornelius a bed for the night or a roof to
1:54
Speaker 1: shelter for the rain, and he'd respectfully decline. He'd always
1:58
Speaker 1: find somewhere to sleep be it an old railroad car,
2:00
Speaker 1: a shack in the woods, or any number of places
2:03
Speaker 1: that folks didn't know about. He was one of those
2:06
Speaker 1: larger-than-life characters. Dad didn't describe him in detail because he
2:11
Speaker 1: said the memory of Cornelius B. Cheesy still makes him sick,
2:15
Speaker 1: but I have my own images of him in my head.
2:18
Speaker 1: You can have yours and see if it changes by
2:20
Speaker 1: the end of the story, though. Now, Cornelius was famous
2:23
Speaker 1: around town for obviously a variety of things. He carried
2:27
Speaker 1: around a tin cup like it was still the 1930s
2:30
Speaker 1: and would sit on the sidewalk in the sun, just
2:32
Speaker 1: reading an old paperback or a week-old newspaper. His cup
2:36
Speaker 1: would be beside him, along with a sign asking for
2:39
Speaker 1: kindness and charity in exchange for entertainment. If he dropped
2:43
Speaker 1: a coin, any coin, in his cup, then Cornelius B.
2:46
Speaker 1: Cheesy would stand up and dance a little jig accompanied
2:50
Speaker 1: by a harmonica. According to Dad, Cornelius could not play
2:54
Speaker 1: the harmonica properly, so he just danced to whatever various
2:57
Speaker 1: notes he accidentally produced with it. Now, if you tuck
3:01
Speaker 1: some paper money into his cup, then Cornelius would regale
3:04
Speaker 1: you with an a cappella version of a song, usually
3:07
Speaker 1: a hymn. In Dad's words, he was a devil with
3:11
Speaker 1: the voice of an angel, and so, very cleverly, Cornelius
3:15
Speaker 1: would get a donation of paper money rather than nickel
3:18
Speaker 1: and dime pocket change. Dad looked back on this with
3:22
Speaker 1: a kind of bitterness, describing it as just one of
3:24
Speaker 1: Cornelius' many deceptions. Now, while I don't think the act
3:28
Speaker 1: itself counts as a deception, I understand now why Dad
3:31
Speaker 1: felt that way. The reasons aren't pleasant, as you've probably
3:35
Speaker 1: guessed and will soon see. Cornelius would accept food, too,
3:39
Speaker 1: so if he didn't feel like funding his alcohol addiction,
3:42
Speaker 1: buying him a hot meal was always an option. Most often, though,
3:46
Speaker 1: folks would just simply tuck a few dollars into his
3:48
Speaker 1: cup and he'd belt out a tear-jerking rendition of Amazing Grace.
3:54
Speaker 1: And then later that evening, because the town was so small,
3:57
Speaker 1: you'd hear Cornelius staggering through the streets, bottle-wrapped in a
4:01
Speaker 1: paper bag, clutched in his hand, singing slightly ruder songs.
4:05
Speaker 1: Never anything bad enough that the town would consider him
4:08
Speaker 1: a nuisance, though. He was kind of a staple on
4:10
Speaker 1: the streets of Dad's hometown, and almost everyone loved having
4:14
Speaker 1: that old hobo around. But almost everyone... is not everyone.
4:21
Speaker 1: And so the story goes, one day Cornelius, in a
4:23
Speaker 1: rare moment of sobriety and piety, went to visit the
4:27
Speaker 1: local pastor and admitted that he'd like to give up alcohol.
4:32
Speaker 1: The pastor made an agreement with him. If he could
4:35
Speaker 1: cut down on the drinking with the goal of eventually
4:37
Speaker 1: getting sober, then the pastor would respond in kind by
4:41
Speaker 1: allowing Cornelius to take dinner with his family twice a week,
4:45
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Saturdays. and this would be based on faith
4:48
Speaker 1: and trust, the pastor said, and that it was up
4:50
Speaker 1: to Cornelius to keep his word in the eyes of God. Well,
4:55
Speaker 1: Cornelius kept his word for a few weeks. Nobody once
4:58
Speaker 1: saw him clutching a single bottle, nor heard him drunkenly
5:02
Speaker 1: lurching around town at night, and it was never reported
5:05
Speaker 1: to the pastor that Cornelius smelled of alcohol or appeared
5:08
Speaker 1: drunk in any way. He had apparently gone cold turkey
5:13
Speaker 1: and was doing pretty darn well with himself. In exchange,
5:16
Speaker 1: He got to enjoy some rich feasts with the pastor
5:19
Speaker 1: and his family, his wife, his 10-year-old son, and his
5:22
Speaker 1: 18-year-old daughter. Based on Dad's recollection, Cornelius B. Cheesy dined
5:28
Speaker 1: with the pastor and his family seven times before he
5:31
Speaker 1: temporarily disappeared. The first reason Dad knew this information was
5:35
Speaker 1: because at the time he was courting Enid, the pastor's daughter.
5:40
Speaker 1: For those wondering, Dad was a good Christian boy and
5:43
Speaker 1: the pastor deeply approved of their relationship back then. According
5:47
Speaker 1: to Dad, they kept everything chaste, and since they ultimately
5:51
Speaker 1: didn't stay together, they never sinned in the eyes of
5:53
Speaker 1: the Lord. Now, he saved himself for my mother on
5:56
Speaker 1: their wedding day, and he asked me if I ever
5:59
Speaker 1: shared the story that I make that clear to people.
6:02
Speaker 1: There is a reason that he wants you all to
6:03
Speaker 1: know how he tried to be a good person at
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Speaker 1: all times, and hopefully it will become clear. Now, on
6:10
Speaker 1: Saturday night, Cornelius B. Cheesy didn't show up to the
6:13
Speaker 1: pastor's house at 7 p.m. as he usually would. They waited,
6:17
Speaker 1: with the pastor claiming with certainty that Cornelius hadn't fallen
6:21
Speaker 1: off the wagon and would show up just slightly late.
6:24
Speaker 1: Enid told Dad that they prayed for Cornelius' soul and
6:28
Speaker 1: his sobriety, but after thirty or so minutes had passed,
6:32
Speaker 1: Enid's mother sternly announced that the food was going to
6:34
Speaker 1: get cold if they kept waiting on that man. They
6:38
Speaker 1: said grace and ate, and Cornelius never did show up
6:40
Speaker 1: that night. Enid told Dad that her father seemed genuinely
6:44
Speaker 1: sad about it and The assumption was immediately that Cornelius
6:48
Speaker 1: had gone back to his drinking ways and was honest
6:51
Speaker 1: enough to own up to it. At the time, the
6:54
Speaker 1: pastor didn't consider the possibility that something bad had happened
6:57
Speaker 1: to Cornelius Beach Easy. Sunday passed, then Monday, and on Tuesday,
7:04
Speaker 1: the pastor asked around in case anyone could confirm that
7:07
Speaker 1: they'd seen Cornelius drunk or maybe knew that he'd be
7:11
Speaker 1: showing up for dinner that night after all. However, it
7:14
Speaker 1: turned out that nobody had seen Cornelius at all, and
7:18
Speaker 1: a bunch of the townsfolk were becoming concerned. They'd assumed
7:22
Speaker 1: that maybe he'd finally accepted the pastor's open-door offer to
7:25
Speaker 1: sleep in their guest room, but it seemed as if
7:27
Speaker 1: he hadn't. It was the next day, a Wednesday, when
7:32
Speaker 1: some kids were playing in the nearby forest, where Cornelius
7:35
Speaker 1: was known to have a little bit of a shack. Now,
7:38
Speaker 1: Dad says that he was sitting outside the drugstore with
7:40
Speaker 1: Enid and a couple of their buddies, nursing these cokes,
7:43
Speaker 1: when these two little kids came running down Main Street
7:47
Speaker 1: shouting that there was a dead man in the woods
7:49
Speaker 1: who looked for all the world like Jesus. Well, it
7:54
Speaker 1: turned out the man wasn't dead, and he wasn't Jesus either.
7:58
Speaker 1: What the boys had seen was Cornelius, tied to a
8:01
Speaker 1: wooden cross that had been fastened to a tree. He
8:04
Speaker 1: was alive, but badly beaten. His face was swollen and battered,
8:09
Speaker 1: and the few teeth that he had left had been
8:11
Speaker 1: knocked out. He had multiple broken ribs and a fractured wrist,
8:15
Speaker 1: which may have been self-inflicted from struggling against the ropes.
8:20
Speaker 1: Along with various cuts, bruises, and cigarette burns, he also
8:23
Speaker 1: had an extremely nasty broken leg, apparently caused by a
8:27
Speaker 1: blow from a crowbar or some similar blunt object. And
8:32
Speaker 1: despite his injuries, he was still alive. And even though
8:36
Speaker 1: he'd seemingly been strung up in the woods for days,
8:39
Speaker 1: he was not dehydrated or malnourished. someone had been feeding
8:43
Speaker 1: him and giving him water in between dishing out their
8:46
Speaker 1: savage beatings. When Cornelius was finally able to speak from
8:50
Speaker 1: his hospital bed, he told the cops that he'd been
8:53
Speaker 1: jumped by a group of men from outside of town
8:56
Speaker 1: who beat him and hung him up on that cross
8:59
Speaker 1: and then robbed him and left. When the cops asked
9:02
Speaker 1: him who'd been providing him with food and drink every day,
9:05
Speaker 1: Cornelius simply told them, the Lord provides, and beyond that
9:10
Speaker 1: he wouldn't say anything else. It was men from out
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Speaker 1: of town on Friday night. They beat him, they robbed him,
9:16
Speaker 1: and they left. And that was his story and he
9:19
Speaker 1: was sticking to it, even when the doctors were able
9:22
Speaker 1: to discern that his broken leg had happened no earlier
9:25
Speaker 1: than the night before he was found. Cornelius just said
9:29
Speaker 1: that the doctor was mistaken. It all happened at once
9:32
Speaker 1: and would simply repeat that the Lord kept him alive
9:35
Speaker 1: until he was found. I almost dropped the beer I
9:38
Speaker 1: was holding when Dad said the next part. I was
9:43
Speaker 1: the one who hoisted him up onto that cross, son,
9:46
Speaker 1: and I was responsible for one of his black eyes.
9:50
Speaker 1: That's what he said, word for word, I'll never forget it,
9:54
Speaker 1: and yet I knew there had to be more to
9:55
Speaker 1: this story than my father admitting he used to be
9:58
Speaker 1: a violent criminal. There was no way the man who
10:01
Speaker 1: raised me would have done something like this for no
10:04
Speaker 1: good reason. And as he continued, things became very clear.
10:09
Speaker 1: A few days before Cornelius was strung up, Enid came
10:13
Speaker 1: up to my dad in tears. She said she couldn't
10:16
Speaker 1: handle it anymore, having to break bread with that awful man.
10:20
Speaker 1: She said that Cornelius deserved to be in the ground,
10:24
Speaker 1: and Dad was in total shock. Everyone loved the guy,
10:27
Speaker 1: why did she feel that way? And instead of answering,
10:31
Speaker 1: Enid led Dad by the hand to the local park,
10:33
Speaker 1: where two of her friends from high school, who also
10:36
Speaker 1: knew Dad, were sitting under a tree. Enid made Dad
10:40
Speaker 1: swear an oath before the Lord that he could be
10:42
Speaker 1: trusted with the secret they were about to tell him,
10:45
Speaker 1: and Dad of course swore secrecy. Dad didn't go into
10:49
Speaker 1: many details here, but he told me that unfortunately, Enid
10:53
Speaker 1: did because she wanted, no, needed him to believe her story.
10:59
Speaker 1: And in short though, all three girls had been abused
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Speaker 1: by Cornelius when they were little kids, at around six
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Speaker 1: or so years old. It only happened one each time,
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Speaker 1: but they knew that it happened to more than just them.
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Speaker 1: They said that for all they knew, Cornelius could still
11:17
Speaker 1: be at it. Dad did tell me one important detail here.
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Speaker 1: Enid told him that for all of them, before committing
11:25
Speaker 1: the acts he committed, Cornelius took a Polaroid photograph of
11:28
Speaker 1: himself with each girl. And the photos were designed to
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Speaker 1: appear innocent enough if anyone happened to discover them, but
11:35
Speaker 1: in reality, he took them as trophies before carrying out
11:39
Speaker 1: his despicable acts. Enid said that she had forgotten all
11:44
Speaker 1: about the photograph, but during one of the dinners at
11:46
Speaker 1: their house, Cornelius had managed to get her alone in
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Speaker 1: a hallway and pulled out a whole stack of Polaroids.
11:53
Speaker 1: She said it looked like there were at least ten.
11:56
Speaker 1: Cornelius held up the Polaroid of Enid and asked her
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Speaker 1: if she remembered the good times they had when she
12:02
Speaker 1: was a kid and suggested that she wasn't too old
12:05
Speaker 1: for him yet. Enid ran away terrified, but she was
12:09
Speaker 1: so ashamed and wouldn't even consider telling her father about it.
12:13
Speaker 1: When dad asked why, she said that there were lots
12:15
Speaker 1: of reasons. but one of the sickening things about the
12:18
Speaker 1: Polaroid was that she was smiling in the photo. She
12:21
Speaker 1: didn't know what was about to happen. She thought she
12:24
Speaker 1: was just playing with silly old Cornelius. She also made
12:28
Speaker 1: the solid argument that telling her father would involve telling
12:31
Speaker 1: the cops, and while the three of them might be
12:34
Speaker 1: able to muster the courage to see these things through,
12:36
Speaker 1: it would ultimately be their word against Cornelius's. And if
12:40
Speaker 1: the police found the Polaroids, all the other kids he'd
12:43
Speaker 1: abused could be forced to talk about what had happened
12:46
Speaker 1: whether they wanted to or not. Enid and the others
12:50
Speaker 1: said that she didn't feel comfortable outing numerous abuse victims,
12:55
Speaker 1: but wondered if Dad had any ideas that would allow
12:57
Speaker 1: them to punish Cornelius without the law being involved. And
13:02
Speaker 1: so the crucifixion of Cornelius B. Cheesy was conceived. Dad
13:07
Speaker 1: managed to persuade Enid that they would need to tell
13:10
Speaker 1: two of their other male buddies and he wouldn't be
13:12
Speaker 1: able to do this alone. She agreed and, in my opinion,
13:16
Speaker 1: bravely said that she'd be the one to tell them,
13:19
Speaker 1: along with Dad. That way the other girls didn't have
13:22
Speaker 1: to get dragged into it at all. Turns out the
13:25
Speaker 1: two buddies of Dad were real, real stand-up guys because
13:29
Speaker 1: they didn't even make Enid finish telling them her story
13:32
Speaker 1: before they agreed to help. And so on that Friday night,
13:35
Speaker 1: Dad and his two buddies lured Cornelius into the woods,
13:39
Speaker 1: beat him, tied him to the cross, and then searched
13:42
Speaker 1: him for those Polaroids. Dad found them tucked into the
13:46
Speaker 1: exact pocket Enid said they would be in and told
13:49
Speaker 1: Cornelius that he'd be holding onto them in case he
13:52
Speaker 1: ever felt like talking to the cops about who'd given
13:54
Speaker 1: him a beating. Cornelius spluttered and begged and promised that
13:59
Speaker 1: he was a changed man, that he wouldn't tell but
14:02
Speaker 1: to please let him down. Instead, they left. and Dad
14:07
Speaker 1: spent the next few days consoling Enid while his two
14:09
Speaker 1: buddies took turns to visit Cornelius in the woods to
14:12
Speaker 1: ensure that he was kept alive with food and water.
14:16
Speaker 1: It hadn't been part of the plan to dish out
14:17
Speaker 1: further beatings. He was just meant to spend some time
14:20
Speaker 1: on that cross, like Christ, to contemplate what he'd done.
14:25
Speaker 1: But I guess Dad's buddies were too sickened by the
14:27
Speaker 1: predator to leave him completely untouched. Dad says at one
14:31
Speaker 1: point they talked about outright killing him and burying him
14:34
Speaker 1: in the woods. But Enid begged them not to do that.
14:38
Speaker 1: She said that the Lord would understand and forgive this punishment.
14:41
Speaker 1: But if they took a life, then they were committing
14:43
Speaker 1: a cardinal sin. And more pragmatically, she also pointed out
14:47
Speaker 1: that now they had the Polaroids and they could just
14:50
Speaker 1: use her Polaroid as evidence that Cornelius was a predator
14:53
Speaker 1: and would help their defense if they were caught for
14:56
Speaker 1: beating on the guy. If they outright killed him, claiming
14:59
Speaker 1: he abused kids 12 years ago, may not be enough
15:02
Speaker 1: to avoid jail time. Dad agreed to almost all of this. However,
15:07
Speaker 1: he said that he didn't want Enid to live with
15:10
Speaker 1: knowing that the Polaroid of her still existed, and that
15:12
Speaker 1: he and his buddies would take their chances. And so
15:15
Speaker 1: that night, they burned all the photographs. This is the
15:19
Speaker 1: part that Dad was unsure about until the day he died.
15:22
Speaker 1: Did he do the right thing in destroying the evidence
15:24
Speaker 1: of Cornelius' abuse? Maybe if it had been actual evidence,
15:28
Speaker 1: but the photos didn't really prove anything definitively. and I
15:32
Speaker 1: think it's impossible to make a proper judgment call here regardless.
15:36
Speaker 1: And so Cornelius was eventually found like they knew he
15:39
Speaker 1: would be, and he kept his mouth shut like they
15:42
Speaker 1: suspected he would. Dad says he was prepared for a
15:45
Speaker 1: lengthy investigation into the beating of the town's beloved goofball hobo, though.
15:50
Speaker 1: He expected the cops to pull out all the stops
15:53
Speaker 1: to try and find out who really gave him the smackdown,
15:56
Speaker 1: even if Cornelius wouldn't talk at first. However... Dad, Enid,
16:01
Speaker 1: and their buddies were all surprised when, after just a
16:03
Speaker 1: few days, the chief of police announced that the investigation
16:07
Speaker 1: was closed. Men from out of town had been the
16:10
Speaker 1: ones to hurt Cornelius and then moved on, and so
16:13
Speaker 1: there was nothing for anyone to worry about. They also
16:16
Speaker 1: announced that Cornelius himself had left town, so nobody had
16:20
Speaker 1: anything to worry about there either. And this caused a
16:22
Speaker 1: lot of people to scratch their heads wondering what he
16:25
Speaker 1: meant by that. But there were some people, like Dad
16:28
Speaker 1: and Enid, who knew. And dad thought he knew exactly
16:32
Speaker 1: why the chief of police claimed to see Cornelius leaving town.
16:36
Speaker 1: You see, the chief had a daughter a year younger
16:38
Speaker 1: than Enid and dad. They never looked at the Polaroids.
16:42
Speaker 1: They just burned them out of respect for the victims
16:44
Speaker 1: so they couldn't be sure. But the police chief's daughter
16:48
Speaker 1: stood up on the stage next to him outside the
16:50
Speaker 1: town hall when he told everyone about Cornelius. And she
16:53
Speaker 1: most definitely gave dad and Enid a look of gratitude.
16:57
Speaker 1: Then later that day, The chief of police made a
16:59
Speaker 1: point of shaking Dad's hand and wishing him good luck
17:02
Speaker 1: with the rest of school and life in general. Dad
17:06
Speaker 1: thinks that Cornelius' beating led to the chief's daughter telling
17:10
Speaker 1: her dad what the hobo had done to her, as
17:12
Speaker 1: well as others, and that's why the chief was only
17:15
Speaker 1: too happy to close the case and see Cornelius leave town.
17:20
Speaker 1: Or at least, Dad assumes he left town after a
17:23
Speaker 1: warning from the chief. But on the other hand, The
17:26
Speaker 1: original punishment was dished out by three teenagers who were
17:29
Speaker 1: disgusted by what they learned about Cornelius, but knew that
17:33
Speaker 1: they could get in trouble with the law. Who knows
17:36
Speaker 1: what the chief of police might do when he'd just
17:38
Speaker 1: learned that his own daughter had been a victim of
17:40
Speaker 1: that awful man. I asked dad if he regretted what
17:43
Speaker 1: he did, and he said not at all. He said
17:46
Speaker 1: his only regret was not knowing for sure if Cornelius B. Cheesy,
17:50
Speaker 1: the wolf in sheep's clothing, had just been run out
17:53
Speaker 1: of town or... Or if people older and wiser than
17:56
Speaker 1: him had made the decision that Cornelius shouldn't be allowed
17:59
Speaker 1: to endanger anyone ever again. Because he said, as he's
18:03
Speaker 1: gotten older, he's grown to believe that predators like Cornelius
18:08
Speaker 1: should do more than just suffer a beating. I grew
18:35
Speaker 1: up in a small town where basically nothing ever happened.
18:39
Speaker 1: The biggest events I can remember were from my first
18:41
Speaker 1: ten years on this earth and they were very minimal.
18:45
Speaker 1: There was a car accident where one of the elementary
18:47
Speaker 1: school teachers hit a concrete post and then one time
18:51
Speaker 1: there was a small fire when in the early hours
18:53
Speaker 1: of the morning someone tossed a cigarette butt carelessly close
18:56
Speaker 1: to the delivery of that day's newspapers outside of the
18:59
Speaker 1: corner store. The volunteer fire brigade were there within minutes
19:03
Speaker 1: and extinguished the fire before it even damaged the store.
19:06
Speaker 1: And people talked about this for six months. That's how mundane, slow,
19:11
Speaker 1: and small my town was. Now, when you were a
19:15
Speaker 1: kid growing up in my town, you had one goal,
19:18
Speaker 1: and it was to leave. And by the time I
19:20
Speaker 1: started middle school, it was probably the early 80s, and
19:23
Speaker 1: I kept myself entertained with all the cool movies, TV shows,
19:26
Speaker 1: and music that the early 80s brought. To me and
19:29
Speaker 1: my friends, our little town was lame. We just wanted
19:32
Speaker 1: to move to the big city, get famous, and do
19:35
Speaker 1: the exciting things we saw on TV. We kind of
19:38
Speaker 1: looked down on people who had lived their entire lives
19:41
Speaker 1: there and couldn't understand why anyone would want such a boring, slow,
19:44
Speaker 1: and simple life. Obviously, we were total fools looking back.
19:50
Speaker 1: I did leave that town for college as soon as
19:52
Speaker 1: I turned 18, and I never moved back. I visited
19:55
Speaker 1: my parents, of course, until they eventually retired to Florida,
19:58
Speaker 1: but I threw myself headlong into life. And none of
20:02
Speaker 1: that is particularly important, but all I'll say is, if
20:06
Speaker 1: you grow up in a slow, sleepy town... Don't throw
20:08
Speaker 1: yourself into high-stress, high-ranking jobs no matter how good the
20:12
Speaker 1: money is, not unless you know it's really for you.
20:17
Speaker 1: A big part of me regrets the fact that I
20:18
Speaker 1: didn't stick around, but when I was 12, there was
20:21
Speaker 1: one event that shook the town and, to this day,
20:24
Speaker 1: serves as a reminder that I don't totally regret moving
20:27
Speaker 1: to the city, no matter how filthy, annoying, or polluted
20:31
Speaker 1: it can get. One day, late at night, a big
20:34
Speaker 1: old sinkhole suddenly opened up on Main Street. Nobody was hurt, thankfully.
20:39
Speaker 1: In a town with no real nightlife, a few people
20:42
Speaker 1: wander around after dark, and fortunately, the sinkhole didn't cause
20:46
Speaker 1: any serious property damage. Most of the damage was limited
20:50
Speaker 1: to part of the road, along with the village square,
20:53
Speaker 1: which was literally a square of grass around 50 feet
20:56
Speaker 1: by 50 feet. The sinkhole was deep, though, and to
21:00
Speaker 1: a 12-year-old, kind of scary to look into, which I
21:03
Speaker 1: did once on the day after it first appeared. and
21:06
Speaker 1: then my mom yelled at me like nothing else for
21:09
Speaker 1: endangering myself so stupidly by standing near the edge, which
21:13
Speaker 1: could have crumbled at any time, to be honest. I
21:16
Speaker 1: was kind of like gazing into the abyss. I'm not
21:19
Speaker 1: going to give any pretentious spiel about how the abyss
21:21
Speaker 1: gazed back, but the spikes of rebar, broken pipes, and
21:25
Speaker 1: water pooled at the bottom of the hole, giving me
21:28
Speaker 1: nightmares for some reason. And my buddy swore that he
21:31
Speaker 1: saw a bone sticking out of the dirt about ten
21:34
Speaker 1: feet down, but He was probably lying. That's not to
21:38
Speaker 1: say the sinkhole didn't lead to casualties, though. You see,
21:41
Speaker 1: it's not something as basic as a sinkhole that leaves
21:43
Speaker 1: me with a slightly bitter feeling towards my old hometown.
21:47
Speaker 1: It's the fact that the sinkhole took one life, and
21:50
Speaker 1: although it's never been proven, we all believe it was
21:53
Speaker 1: used to take another. The company in charge of fixing
21:57
Speaker 1: up the sinkhole wasn't exactly the most professional outfit. They
22:00
Speaker 1: got the contract from Town Hall presumably in part because
22:03
Speaker 1: they were the only construction company in town, and back
22:07
Speaker 1: then I had no idea about things like cronyism and
22:10
Speaker 1: corner-cutting corruption. I later found out that this construction company
22:14
Speaker 1: was pretty notorious for doing shoddy work, and it was
22:18
Speaker 1: their connections that allowed them to keep getting contracts, but
22:21
Speaker 1: more on that later. I won't name the company, in
22:24
Speaker 1: case they're somehow still in operation and manage to sue
22:27
Speaker 1: the pants off of me. but I'll just call them
22:29
Speaker 1: Company X. But Company X sure took their sweet time
22:33
Speaker 1: about filling the sinkhole back in and repairing the surface
22:36
Speaker 1: of the road. In fact, two weeks after the hole
22:39
Speaker 1: had opened, the only progress they'd made was placing a
22:43
Speaker 1: few pointless hazard barriers and cones around the sinkholes. Not
22:47
Speaker 1: that anyone would be dumb enough to go right up
22:49
Speaker 1: to it, you'd think. Except for me and the other kids,
22:52
Speaker 1: until we were basically told that we'd definitely die if
22:55
Speaker 1: we went near it. But enter two guys who I'll
22:58
Speaker 1: just call Bob and Pete, and Bob and Pete were
23:01
Speaker 1: sort of notorious in town for being dodgy characters, I guess.
23:06
Speaker 1: You could get pirate videotapes from them, and Dad would
23:09
Speaker 1: sometimes come home with a crappy VHS tape that he'd
23:11
Speaker 1: gotten from Pete and Bob of a movie that was
23:14
Speaker 1: still actually playing in theaters. And if you were around
23:17
Speaker 1: for the VHS era, you'll remember how awful the quality
23:20
Speaker 1: of pirate tapes were. But we still bragged at school
23:23
Speaker 1: whenever Dad did a bunch of business with the duo.
23:27
Speaker 1: Years later, I found out that you could actually get
23:29
Speaker 1: a bit more than some movies from them, too. Nothing hard,
23:33
Speaker 1: but apparently they were the go-to guys for weed, cheap smokes,
23:37
Speaker 1: and all sorts of counterfeit stuff. It was all harmless,
23:40
Speaker 1: but the point was that they were basically the closest
23:43
Speaker 1: thing that our town had to the Sopranos. And Bob
23:47
Speaker 1: and Pete were an odd duo, though. They were the
23:50
Speaker 1: absolute best of friends, but they were nothing alike. Pete
23:53
Speaker 1: was beloved by everyone. the type to always wear a
23:57
Speaker 1: friendly smile, toss a quarter to a random kid's way,
24:00
Speaker 1: or help an old lady with her groceries. Now, he
24:03
Speaker 1: might have been a crook, but he was our crook,
24:05
Speaker 1: and we loved him and his stupid ways. Now, Bob,
24:09
Speaker 1: on the other hand, acted like he couldn't stand anybody.
24:12
Speaker 1: Most of the time, the only person he ever genuinely
24:15
Speaker 1: was nice to was Pete. He'd scowl and swear at
24:18
Speaker 1: us kids if we got too close, unless he was
24:20
Speaker 1: with Pete and or drunk, and he'd be walking around
24:23
Speaker 1: with a very silent grimace. Thankfully, Bob was almost always
24:28
Speaker 1: with Pete or drunk, so he at least didn't cause
24:30
Speaker 1: any problems. And we all knew to avoid Bob, though,
24:33
Speaker 1: especially if he was by himself. And meanwhile, if you
24:36
Speaker 1: caught Pete on a good day, just a hello might
24:39
Speaker 1: net you enough to buy a soda or the promise
24:41
Speaker 1: of the latest movie when it came in. One night,
24:45
Speaker 1: Pete and Bob were on their usual bender and went
24:47
Speaker 1: walking down Main Street, drunk and singing. Witnesses report hearing
24:52
Speaker 1: the singing and then suddenly silence. and then a thud
24:56
Speaker 1: and running feet. And the story went that, drunk and oblivious,
25:00
Speaker 1: Pete and Bob had walked straight towards that sinkhole. Bob
25:04
Speaker 1: had avoided it by a fraction, but Pete hadn't been
25:07
Speaker 1: so lucky. He'd caught his foot on the edge and
25:10
Speaker 1: tumbled in. There were all sorts of rumors, but the
25:13
Speaker 1: prevailing one was that Pete suffered a broken neck and
25:16
Speaker 1: died instantly, and this turned out to be the truth.
25:20
Speaker 1: It wasn't the only rumor, though. Word started to spread
25:23
Speaker 1: that Bob had taken over an hour to get help
25:26
Speaker 1: after Pete fell, and being 12 at the time, I
25:28
Speaker 1: only had schoolyard gossip really to go on. Word was
25:32
Speaker 1: that Bob claimed that he'd been so drunk and scared
25:35
Speaker 1: by what had happened that he was convinced the ground
25:37
Speaker 1: had eaten Pete, and it was only after he sobered
25:40
Speaker 1: up a little and remembered the sinkhole that he thought
25:42
Speaker 1: to get help. And the whole town was in mourning
25:45
Speaker 1: for Pete, and whispering behind their hands about Bob. I
25:50
Speaker 1: overheard my dad and mom talking one evening, and it
25:53
Speaker 1: seems like Bob really did wait an hour before calling
25:55
Speaker 1: for help. Naturally, people didn't believe his claim of being
25:59
Speaker 1: so drunk that he thought Pete had been eaten by
26:01
Speaker 1: the darkness and forgotten about the sinkhole that had dominated
26:05
Speaker 1: the town for about two weeks at that point. And
26:07
Speaker 1: so obviously, in such a small town, everyone was saying
26:11
Speaker 1: one thing to each other, and that was that Bob
26:15
Speaker 1: killed Pete. This rumor was made much, much worse when
26:20
Speaker 1: it somehow got revealed that Bob owed Pete a whole
26:23
Speaker 1: lot of money. Like, a lot of money, which he
26:27
Speaker 1: would have had to have paid back, but it was
26:29
Speaker 1: Bob's word against the Towns, and there was no evidence
26:32
Speaker 1: that he'd push Pete into that sinkhole. The police chief
26:35
Speaker 1: himself hauled Bob in for interviews just about every other
26:38
Speaker 1: day after the debt was discovered, but he was always
26:41
Speaker 1: released in the end. One time... Myself and my friends
26:45
Speaker 1: were walking home from school and we saw a police
26:48
Speaker 1: officer car stop in the road and a cop literally
26:51
Speaker 1: threw Bob onto the sidewalk. Another time I saw him
26:55
Speaker 1: with a black eye and a busted lip. I stared
26:57
Speaker 1: a bit too long and Bob just snarled at me
27:00
Speaker 1: and muttered a curse that I won't repeat here. Now
27:03
Speaker 1: obviously because Pete had died in that sinkhole, it became
27:06
Speaker 1: a crime scene for a while so company X couldn't
27:09
Speaker 1: fill it in even if they wanted to. And during
27:12
Speaker 1: those days, the sinkhole was still the talk of the town,
27:14
Speaker 1: but for very different reasons, obviously. And it was a
27:17
Speaker 1: horrible reminder of the death of her beloved Pete. Bob
27:21
Speaker 1: was a horrible reminder of the same thing, but at
27:23
Speaker 1: least he had the sense to keep out of sight. Then,
27:27
Speaker 1: one day, the police work was apparently finished in the sinkhole.
27:31
Speaker 1: And then in the middle of the night, in an
27:32
Speaker 1: event that once again nobody ever claimed to see, only here,
27:37
Speaker 1: Company X filled in the entire sinkhole with concrete. The
27:42
Speaker 1: next part I again learned by overhearing mom and dad
27:45
Speaker 1: that evening. Apparently Bob's wife had been at the police
27:49
Speaker 1: station all day yelling at anyone who'd listen and waving
27:52
Speaker 1: a note around. Honestly, I was shocked to even find
27:55
Speaker 1: out that Bob had a wife. I'd never seen her
27:58
Speaker 1: before because why would I have ever gone to Bob's
28:00
Speaker 1: trailer just outside town? Now anyways, it kind of went
28:04
Speaker 1: down like this. Allegedly, on the same night that Company
28:07
Speaker 1: X finally filled in the sinkhole, Bob decided to leave
28:11
Speaker 1: his wife and run off with a mystery woman that
28:14
Speaker 1: he'd been having an affair with. Bob's wife insisted that
28:17
Speaker 1: he'd never do this and he'd been killed. She said
28:21
Speaker 1: it was obvious what had happened and that her beloved
28:23
Speaker 1: Bob lay at the bottom of that sinkhole, covered in
28:26
Speaker 1: tons of concrete. There was no evidence to suggest this, though,
28:31
Speaker 1: other than her word. But there was evidence to back
28:34
Speaker 1: up the fact that Bob really had run off. The
28:37
Speaker 1: handwriting on the note determined to be a match for Bob's, unquestionably.
28:41
Speaker 1: A suitcase and a bunch of his clothes had disappeared
28:44
Speaker 1: and his car was gone and a few people swore
28:46
Speaker 1: that they'd seen Bob outside of town with a younger
28:49
Speaker 1: woman in the past couple of weeks who they were
28:51
Speaker 1: all able to describe. And so that was that. The
28:55
Speaker 1: police chief closed the case real quick and the mayor
28:58
Speaker 1: even gave some public speech about community spirit and that
29:01
Speaker 1: Pete's death had been a tragic accident and Bob had
29:04
Speaker 1: left on his own free will. It was only when
29:07
Speaker 1: I turned 18 and graduated from high school during the
29:10
Speaker 1: summer before I moved away to college that I found
29:13
Speaker 1: out a little twist in this tale. I was seeing
29:15
Speaker 1: this girl in a kind of casual friends with benefits
29:18
Speaker 1: way and we spent most of that summer partying together
29:21
Speaker 1: in the bedroom, usually with substances involved. On one of
29:25
Speaker 1: those nights she made a stoned remark about someone or
29:29
Speaker 1: something being buried like Bob. I asked her what she
29:33
Speaker 1: meant by that and she said that her dad had
29:35
Speaker 1: worked for Company X at the time of the sinkhole incident.
29:39
Speaker 1: Apparently the foreman, who as we know had done various
29:42
Speaker 1: shady dealings with the town over the years, was Pete's cousin.
29:46
Speaker 1: This foreman likely had a bunch of evidence of various
29:49
Speaker 1: things that would get certain people, like the police of
29:51
Speaker 1: chief or mayor for example, in a lot of trouble.
29:56
Speaker 1: I pretended to be a bit more drunk and stoned
29:58
Speaker 1: than I was and tried to push the girl for
30:00
Speaker 1: more information. Now, she either didn't know or wouldn't say
30:04
Speaker 1: much more, but she did say this. Her dad had
30:07
Speaker 1: been working the sinkhole job and he came home that
30:10
Speaker 1: morning pretty shaken and nervous. And she also claimed that
30:13
Speaker 1: her dad's boss parked a car in their garage for
30:16
Speaker 1: a couple of days before taking it away somewhere. Then
30:20
Speaker 1: she clammed up and kept changing the subject if I
30:23
Speaker 1: asked or made a point to try and distract me
30:25
Speaker 1: in ways that were, you know, as distracting as possible.
30:30
Speaker 1: So I don't know for sure, and I wish I did.
30:33
Speaker 1: Me and my parents, who are still going strong in
30:36
Speaker 1: Florida for the time being, have this theory which I
30:39
Speaker 1: think everyone who lived in town at the time had.
30:43
Speaker 1: Bob was somehow forced to write his goodbye note. Maybe
30:46
Speaker 1: they promised him they wouldn't hurt him if he left
30:48
Speaker 1: town and then double-crossed him. Hell, maybe he really did
30:52
Speaker 1: just get chased out of town But we're all pretty
30:55
Speaker 1: certain that somewhere at the bottom of a large lake
30:58
Speaker 1: near our old hometown, Bob's car is rusting away. And
31:03
Speaker 1: we believe that buried in a soundless tomb under tons
31:06
Speaker 1: of concrete, blacktop, and grass, lies mean, scowling Bob with
31:11
Speaker 1: those responsible, protected by anyone who held Pete in their hearts.
31:17
Speaker 1: Did Bob deserve it? Did he kill Pete? That part
31:21
Speaker 1: I actually find hard to believe. As much of an
31:24
Speaker 1: a-hole as Bob was, he'd seem to be the one
31:27
Speaker 1: person he genuinely cared about, and I just don't think
31:30
Speaker 1: that a long-running debt would have been enough for him
31:32
Speaker 1: to end that friendship fatally. But I was just a kid.
31:37
Speaker 1: What do I know? I miss small-town life a lot sometime,
31:40
Speaker 1: and as soon as I can retire, I think I'll
31:42
Speaker 1: find a nice, quiet place to settle down with my wife.
31:46
Speaker 1: But the small-town mindset has always soured for me when
31:48
Speaker 1: I remember that it was a tight-knit community that allowed
31:52
Speaker 1: for the possible death of an innocent albeit miserable, man.
32:21
Speaker 1: So I live in the kind of tiny town where
32:23
Speaker 1: everyone knows everyone, Not exaggerating here, honestly. If a stranger
32:28
Speaker 1: does more than pass through, like stopping off at the
32:31
Speaker 1: pub or something like that, then it'll be the gossip
32:34
Speaker 1: of the evening. Small town life definitely isn't for everyone.
32:38
Speaker 1: I grew up here, then went off to college, but
32:41
Speaker 1: I moved back home afterwards when an opening for secretary
32:44
Speaker 1: opened up at the local GP. The doctor in our
32:47
Speaker 1: town is nearly 80 years old now, and I thought
32:49
Speaker 1: I'd put my medical training to use. Most kids leave
32:53
Speaker 1: the town once they turn 18 and just never look back,
32:56
Speaker 1: or they never leave. There's a handful of kids here
32:59
Speaker 1: at the moment, a few teenagers, and then a smattering
33:02
Speaker 1: of kids of every age. Not enough to warrant a
33:05
Speaker 1: secondary school, so there's the small primary school, and then
33:08
Speaker 1: when a kid turns 11, they have to travel about
33:11
Speaker 1: 40 minutes to the nearest secondary. And then beyond that,
33:14
Speaker 1: there's about 60 other people living there. Now, it really
33:18
Speaker 1: is an everyone-knows-everyone kind of place. so it's also the
33:22
Speaker 1: kind of place where crime is really, really low. Usually
33:26
Speaker 1: it's a bit of drunk driving, and one time an
33:29
Speaker 1: area of the town had a tiny drug problem. After
33:32
Speaker 1: the drug issue on that particular street, a couple younger
33:35
Speaker 1: families moved out, and at the time of my story,
33:37
Speaker 1: it was populated pretty much by old-timers. Setting up the
33:41
Speaker 1: population in this way was important because you need to
33:44
Speaker 1: understand just how safe I felt walking through the town
33:47
Speaker 1: park after work, even in the dark of winter. It
33:50
Speaker 1: was the one isolated, semi-hidden area of the town with
33:54
Speaker 1: a patch of trees that you'd walk through to get
33:56
Speaker 1: from one side of the park to the other. It
33:59
Speaker 1: took up quite a large area of the center of
34:01
Speaker 1: town and was kind of our pride and joy. We'd
34:04
Speaker 1: host various events there in the summer and the tiny
34:07
Speaker 1: town council would make sure that it always had the
34:09
Speaker 1: budget to be kept tidy. But most importantly, because everyone
34:13
Speaker 1: knew everyone, nobody thought anything of it if they had
34:16
Speaker 1: to take a shortcut home through the park at night.
34:19
Speaker 1: If there had been a stranger lurking around town that day,
34:22
Speaker 1: then I would have known, especially working in a doctor's office.
34:26
Speaker 1: I might have avoided the park in that case. But
34:29
Speaker 1: it was just another day, and I worked late tidying
34:31
Speaker 1: up the office, and before I knew it, it was
34:34
Speaker 1: 8pm on a chilly October night, and so it was
34:37
Speaker 1: dark as heck outside already. Now the doc lived in
34:40
Speaker 1: the flat above his tiny GP practice, so I wished
34:44
Speaker 1: him goodnight and headed home myself. If I'd decided to
34:48
Speaker 1: circle the park to stay on the streets, which wasn't
34:50
Speaker 1: exactly busy in the first place, it would have added
34:53
Speaker 1: like 20 minutes to my journey. And it had been
34:56
Speaker 1: a fairly balmy day when I left for work, so
34:59
Speaker 1: I was only wearing a hoodie over my uniform, which
35:01
Speaker 1: in and of itself was a shirt, skirt, and some tights.
35:06
Speaker 1: And so I really did think nothing of heading across
35:08
Speaker 1: the park. I didn't stick to any of the paths either,
35:12
Speaker 1: which had sporadic lights because that would have taken even
35:15
Speaker 1: longer to get home, and instead... I had a tried-and-true
35:19
Speaker 1: shortcut that I'd take pretty much every day to avoid
35:21
Speaker 1: having to spend money on petrol and a car in
35:24
Speaker 1: general for now. I was cutting across said grass, listening
35:29
Speaker 1: to music from my knock-off AirPods, my purse bouncing against
35:33
Speaker 1: my hip as I walked, I remembered. I didn't hear
35:36
Speaker 1: the footsteps running across the grass behind me as I
35:38
Speaker 1: casually strolled through the trees, not a care in the world. Suddenly,
35:43
Speaker 1: I felt a hand roughly grab my shoulder and tug
35:46
Speaker 1: at my purse. My first instinct was to scream and
35:49
Speaker 1: fight back, which is exactly what I did. I turned
35:54
Speaker 1: to hit my attacker and saw a tall, weirdly bulky,
35:58
Speaker 1: hoodie-wearing guy with a black balaclava thing pulled up so
36:02
Speaker 1: you could only see his eyes. I could see that
36:05
Speaker 1: he was holding a box cutter dangerously close to my stomach.
36:08
Speaker 1: He muttered something at me in a deep, muffled voice
36:11
Speaker 1: that didn't actually sound real, something like, give up your goods,
36:15
Speaker 1: and called me something terrible. Now of course, I thought
36:19
Speaker 1: that he meant something more sinister than a bag snatch,
36:22
Speaker 1: so I suddenly just started shaking and crying. I don't
36:26
Speaker 1: know if he even meant to cut me, but this
36:28
Speaker 1: startled the mugger as he grabbed my purse again and
36:31
Speaker 1: pushed me away onto the ground. Finally, he sprinted away
36:34
Speaker 1: as fast as he could, almost like I'd scared him
36:37
Speaker 1: by being scared. And I just sat there for a minute,
36:41
Speaker 1: totally stunned, relieved as heck that it hadn't been worse,
36:44
Speaker 1: but also incredulous that I'd been the victim of a
36:47
Speaker 1: bag snatching in my stupid little town of all places.
36:51
Speaker 1: And it was only when I felt a stinging pain
36:53
Speaker 1: in my left side that I realized that things were
36:56
Speaker 1: a bit more serious. It turns out, as the mugger
37:00
Speaker 1: shoved me away, his box cutter nicked my side, slicing
37:04
Speaker 1: into the soft flesh just above my hip. And the
37:07
Speaker 1: next step was a blur of running home in tears
37:10
Speaker 1: and bursting in on my poor mum, covered in blood.
37:13
Speaker 1: She immediately rushed me to the hospital. My wound was
37:17
Speaker 1: so superficial that I didn't even need stitches, just patching up.
37:22
Speaker 1: I'd just managed to cause it to bleed a lot
37:24
Speaker 1: by running home immediately and smearing the blood around on
37:27
Speaker 1: my hoodie as I sort of overreacted to the stabbing,
37:30
Speaker 1: I suppose. It was now a knife crime, an armed
37:33
Speaker 1: assault instead of a simple mugging. A first snatch would
37:37
Speaker 1: have been shocking enough in my little village, but you
37:40
Speaker 1: know how gossip gets around. After about a week, you'd
37:43
Speaker 1: think that I'd been stabbed through the heart and survived
37:45
Speaker 1: a serial killer, the way some people were talking about it.
37:49
Speaker 1: I'd always visit this one cafe for lunch, and the
37:52
Speaker 1: owner there was a large, loudmouthed lady, a friend of
37:55
Speaker 1: my mom's. I didn't really like the cafe owner very much.
38:00
Speaker 1: She was the town's biggest gossip, and a malicious one
38:03
Speaker 1: at that. Despite being my mom's friend, I'm sure that
38:06
Speaker 1: she was the one who spread a certain false rumor
38:08
Speaker 1: about me while I was away. She did it to everyone,
38:11
Speaker 1: and so you had to learn not to take it
38:13
Speaker 1: too personally. Now, though, I was kind of like a celebrity.
38:18
Speaker 1: Every single time I went in, she'd announce that I
38:20
Speaker 1: was the girl who survived the knife crime. And then
38:24
Speaker 1: I'd get various people that I'd known all my life
38:27
Speaker 1: asking how it felt, if my life flashed before my eyes,
38:30
Speaker 1: if I had a near-death experience, etc., etc. And I
38:34
Speaker 1: kept trying to explain to them that it wasn't much
38:37
Speaker 1: worse than a paper cut. but this was big, exciting
38:40
Speaker 1: news for these people. And I think it was the
38:42
Speaker 1: cafe owner who first started the speculation that that mugger
38:45
Speaker 1: was someone from the village too. I hadn't even considered
38:49
Speaker 1: this at first. I assumed that someone had been passing
38:52
Speaker 1: through at night and decided to rob me in the park,
38:54
Speaker 1: but the more I thought about that, the less sense
38:57
Speaker 1: it made. Why would a stranger passing through town be
39:00
Speaker 1: on foot or lurking in the park at all? And
39:04
Speaker 1: it started to seem likely that the mugger was someone
39:06
Speaker 1: from town... when the second girl got robbed, and at
39:10
Speaker 1: that point it was all but confirmed. We had a
39:13
Speaker 1: repeat offender living among us. The second victim was younger
39:17
Speaker 1: than me, 18, attending sixth form at the aforementioned senior
39:22
Speaker 1: school in a nearby city. It was Christmas break for her,
39:25
Speaker 1: and she was cutting through the park to see her boyfriend,
39:28
Speaker 1: despite the warnings after what happened to me. This time
39:31
Speaker 1: she didn't get stabbed, but the rest was the same.
39:35
Speaker 1: The guy snuck up behind her, grabbed her purse, waved
39:38
Speaker 1: a box cutter in her direction, shoved her down, and
39:40
Speaker 1: then ran away. Me and girl one were friends on
39:44
Speaker 1: Facebook because she was one of the handful of kids
39:46
Speaker 1: that I and we stayed in touch as she'd grown up,
39:51
Speaker 1: because why not? Now, we met up for coffee and chatted,
39:55
Speaker 1: which is how I discovered our experiences were basically the same.
39:59
Speaker 1: Girl 1 agreed with me, the mugger seemed weirdly nervous
40:02
Speaker 1: and unsure of himself, and sounded like he was putting
40:05
Speaker 1: on some fake voice. She described it as sounding like
40:09
Speaker 1: some of those creepypasta guys, and she was totally right.
40:13
Speaker 1: She's the reason I actually found this channel, because I
40:15
Speaker 1: wanted to see what she meant by creepypasta voice. And
40:19
Speaker 1: then I stuck around because Joel doesn't do a silly
40:22
Speaker 1: growly voice and eventually got the courage to send in
40:24
Speaker 1: my story. And kind of funny how that all connected.
40:28
Speaker 1: And she was right though. The mugger sounded like some
40:30
Speaker 1: of those other guys on YouTube who are clearly in
40:33
Speaker 1: their 20s and 120 pounds but sound like a werewolf
40:37
Speaker 1: navy seal. And after the second mugging is when things
40:41
Speaker 1: started getting a bit nasty in town. Like I said,
40:44
Speaker 1: there were less than 100 people living here, and when
40:47
Speaker 1: you excluded the elderly, the little kids, and anyone who
40:50
Speaker 1: clearly didn't fit the build of the attacker, you were
40:53
Speaker 1: left with about 25 suspects. One thing that Girl 1
40:57
Speaker 1: and I had decided together and told the local cops
41:00
Speaker 1: was that we thought the mugger was wearing multiple layers
41:02
Speaker 1: of clothing to disguise his frame. Now, that would explain
41:07
Speaker 1: why he looked weirdly bulky with his lumpy and odd proportions.
41:11
Speaker 1: I had no idea if this was helpful information or
41:13
Speaker 1: something muggers always did. It turns out that it'd be
41:17
Speaker 1: integral to the case, but we just didn't know it yet.
41:21
Speaker 1: The mugging seemed to be an excuse for the cafe
41:23
Speaker 1: owner and her husband to cast suspicion on anyone in
41:26
Speaker 1: town they didn't seem to like. The window cleaner had
41:29
Speaker 1: been acting shifty. Why was the local corner store closed
41:32
Speaker 1: until 10 a.m. one day? So-and-so was drinking a lot
41:36
Speaker 1: these days. Maybe he'd gotten the courage to turn to crime.
41:39
Speaker 1: That kind of crap. and more than one fistfight erupted
41:43
Speaker 1: over the gossip, usually in the town's a single pub
41:45
Speaker 1: where everyone was forced to drink together, whether they liked
41:48
Speaker 1: each other or not. Now, one amusing note, the cafe
41:52
Speaker 1: owner seemed to be very proud of the fact that
41:54
Speaker 1: it couldn't be her husband committing the muggings because of
41:57
Speaker 1: his gammy leg. Now... He walked with a pronounced limp
42:02
Speaker 1: and used a cane after an injury from his army days,
42:05
Speaker 1: but you'd think that it made him some kind of
42:07
Speaker 1: hero just by the fact that he wasn't robbing women
42:10
Speaker 1: at knife point. Now, Girl One, who I talked to
42:14
Speaker 1: a lot on Facebook during those days, went to sixth
42:16
Speaker 1: form with the cafe owner's son, and they were two
42:20
Speaker 1: of the four A-level aged kids living in town. She
42:23
Speaker 1: said that he seemed more depressed than usual. He'd always
42:26
Speaker 1: been a quiet, bookish, shy boy, according to Girl One.
42:30
Speaker 1: But now he seemed genuinely depressed and insular and had
42:34
Speaker 1: mentioned to her a few times how he couldn't wait
42:36
Speaker 1: to leave for university because his mom was driving him mad.
42:41
Speaker 1: The next mugging happened in February and mixed up the
42:44
Speaker 1: criminal's M.O. This time it was a man who got robbed.
42:48
Speaker 1: The cafe owner's husband, in fact. Apparently his wife was
42:52
Speaker 1: making him patrol the park at night to try and
42:55
Speaker 1: catch the mugger himself for some vigilante nonsense. Now, this
42:59
Speaker 1: time the mugger committed blatant assault. He went straight for
43:03
Speaker 1: diner owner husband's bad leg with a kick that wasn't
43:06
Speaker 1: too brutal, but bad enough to knock his feet out
43:08
Speaker 1: from under him and send him to the ground in pain.
43:12
Speaker 1: And then the mugger held the box cutter to the
43:14
Speaker 1: guy's throat, demanding his wallet and ran off. They didn't
43:19
Speaker 1: reveal this at the time, but mugging three is what
43:22
Speaker 1: gave the cops the most important clue to solving the situation.
43:27
Speaker 1: There was one final mugging, just before Easter. But before
43:31
Speaker 1: that came weeks of intense, uncomfortable tension and accusations. The
43:35
Speaker 1: cafe owner had taken her husband's muggings very personally and
43:39
Speaker 1: was now making all three crimes about her, claiming that
43:42
Speaker 1: her family were being targeted. Now, I'm not related to
43:45
Speaker 1: her in any way, and girl one thinks that she
43:47
Speaker 1: might be related in some distant manner, but essentially regarded
43:51
Speaker 1: her as another townsperson. But still... The cafe owner was
43:55
Speaker 1: reveling in it, and her cafe had become the absolute
43:58
Speaker 1: hub of the town, even more than the King and
44:01
Speaker 1: Pheasant bar. Now, she must have been doing more business
44:05
Speaker 1: during that period than she'd done since I'd moved back home,
44:08
Speaker 1: and I would have almost suspected her as the mugger
44:11
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for the fact that she was, how
44:13
Speaker 1: do I put this tactfully, quite a large woman and
44:16
Speaker 1: a heavy chain smoker. She probably couldn't run away with
44:20
Speaker 1: someone's valuables without having an asthma attack. Now, the attack
44:24
Speaker 1: just before Easter was totally different than the rest. It
44:27
Speaker 1: got dark much later, and so I guess pickings were
44:30
Speaker 1: slim anyways. But it also didn't take place in the park.
44:34
Speaker 1: There was a place up just outside of town beneath
44:36
Speaker 1: an overpass where a few teenage stoners hung out, and
44:40
Speaker 1: this time, the victim was a 16-year-old boy who'd been
44:43
Speaker 1: abandoned by his buddies who had the munchies and was
44:46
Speaker 1: just chilling in a deck chair in a weed-induced haze.
44:49
Speaker 1: Girl 1 knew this kid too, so she was able
44:52
Speaker 1: to give me the goss. Apparently, this weed kid said
44:55
Speaker 1: the mugger was actually pretty chill. And even though he
44:58
Speaker 1: threatened him at knife point and stole a bunch of money,
45:01
Speaker 1: he was a bro because he let weed kid keep
45:03
Speaker 1: a joint that he tried to give the mugger as
45:05
Speaker 1: part of the loot. Apparently, the weed kid said that
45:08
Speaker 1: he thought he knew the mugger, but he was so
45:10
Speaker 1: high that the cops couldn't get a reliable description from him.
45:14
Speaker 1: And he seemed to find the whole thing very funny, though,
45:16
Speaker 1: in the moment and ended up being nicknamed RoboCop for
45:20
Speaker 1: being bros with the mugger. and also because his mugging
45:23
Speaker 1: was the crime that led the cops to actually catch
45:26
Speaker 1: the culprit. And so here's how it all went down.
45:30
Speaker 1: One day, I was at work as usual, sitting behind
45:33
Speaker 1: my desk, when I saw the handful of patients all
45:36
Speaker 1: rush to the window of the doctor's surgery and then
45:38
Speaker 1: amble outside. Even one old lady who menaced before had
45:42
Speaker 1: been insistent that she see the doctor immediately or she
45:45
Speaker 1: drop dead. And when I saw what they were goffing at,
45:49
Speaker 1: my jaw dropped. The town's entire police force, which was
45:53
Speaker 1: like three people plus about six other cops, were all
45:57
Speaker 1: storming the cafe. It was pretty clear that they weren't
46:00
Speaker 1: there for pastries or coffee. And at that moment my
46:03
Speaker 1: phone buzzed and I checked it and that's how I
46:06
Speaker 1: knew the identity of the mugger before the majority of
46:08
Speaker 1: the town knew. It was a Facebook message from Girl 1.
46:13
Speaker 1: The mugger had sent her a WhatsApp message apologizing and
46:16
Speaker 1: saying that he was pretty sure the cops had sussed
46:18
Speaker 1: him out and were coming for him any minute. She'd
46:22
Speaker 1: screenshotted the WhatsApp message itself, and I was halfway through
46:25
Speaker 1: reading it when I looked up to see the cops
46:28
Speaker 1: come marching out of the cafe with the cafe owner's
46:31
Speaker 1: depressed 17-year-old son in handcuffs. He was pale, a thin
46:38
Speaker 1: kid who'd always been shy and quite friendly, and Girl
46:41
Speaker 1: One had told me that she thought that he had
46:42
Speaker 1: a crush on her when we discussed him at one point.
46:46
Speaker 1: Now here's a basic breakdown of how the cops worked
46:48
Speaker 1: out the identity of their man, or in this case, boy.
46:52
Speaker 1: All of the muggings happened during school holidays. Autumn half-term,
46:57
Speaker 1: Christmas break, spring half-term, and Easter holiday. The mugger went
47:02
Speaker 1: to disguise their frame. This likely meant that they were
47:05
Speaker 1: particularly thin or notably small. Most adult men are roughly
47:10
Speaker 1: the same build, so the mugger probably had something significant
47:13
Speaker 1: that he wanted to disguise. They'd already decided that the
47:16
Speaker 1: mugger was a local teen due to the school's holiday
47:18
Speaker 1: thing and various other details, and so they deduced that
47:22
Speaker 1: it was either a girl trying to hide her gender
47:24
Speaker 1: or a boy trying to hide the fact that he
47:26
Speaker 1: was thin. Same with the silly creepypasta voice that I
47:29
Speaker 1: described earlier. That had them suspecting a couple of teenage
47:33
Speaker 1: girls at one point, but cafe owner's son, who I'm
47:37
Speaker 1: just going to call the mugger from now on, also
47:39
Speaker 1: had a soft, fairly high voice. The mugger knew exactly
47:43
Speaker 1: where to hit cafe owner husband on the leg to
47:46
Speaker 1: disable him the most effectively, but also without causing any
47:50
Speaker 1: real damage or lasting pain. This suggested that the mugger
47:53
Speaker 1: was very familiar with the cafe owner's husband and possibly
47:56
Speaker 1: cared about him. And then it also made sense that
47:59
Speaker 1: the mugger knew girl one would be cutting across the
48:01
Speaker 1: woods and was maybe jealous because she was going to
48:04
Speaker 1: see her boyfriend. He'd also be familiar with the stoner
48:07
Speaker 1: spot and he was friends with the stoner kid's sister.
48:10
Speaker 1: one of the other four A-level teenagers in town, hence
48:13
Speaker 1: the complete lack of aggression. And the only one that
48:17
Speaker 1: didn't make sense to the cops was me. I'd been
48:20
Speaker 1: his first crime, and he'd clearly been preparing to mug me.
48:24
Speaker 1: And I was the only person who took that route
48:26
Speaker 1: at that time of night, and he was dressed for
48:28
Speaker 1: the crime. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. He knew where
48:32
Speaker 1: I'd be, he knew who I was, and he chose
48:35
Speaker 1: me as his first victim. I think this is why
48:37
Speaker 1: he was so horrified when he accidentally cut me and
48:40
Speaker 1: when I thought that he was going to violate me.
48:43
Speaker 1: Because while it didn't make sense to the cops as
48:45
Speaker 1: to why I'd been chosen as the first victim, I
48:48
Speaker 1: knew exactly why. You see, I used to babysit this
48:52
Speaker 1: kid too. And being honest, he was probably my favorite
48:56
Speaker 1: little guy to babysit. He knew it, and I knew it,
48:59
Speaker 1: and that's why he mugged me first. He picked his
49:02
Speaker 1: victims based on people he thought would forgive him, I think.
49:07
Speaker 1: And that's why the crimes were so mild, compared to
49:09
Speaker 1: how amplified they become in the town's consciousness thanks to
49:12
Speaker 1: the gossip. And that's why he never used his knife
49:15
Speaker 1: except for that one time which, again, I would testify
49:19
Speaker 1: to being an accident, if I ever had to. It
49:22
Speaker 1: turns out he didn't have a crush on Girl 1 either,
49:24
Speaker 1: but he did consider her a close friend and thought
49:27
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, who was maybe 25 at the time, treated
49:30
Speaker 1: her like crap. And so he chose her as a
49:33
Speaker 1: victim based on the fact that she was the closest
49:35
Speaker 1: thing to a best friend he had in the hope
49:38
Speaker 1: that he'd spare her at least one meet-up with her boyfriend.
49:42
Speaker 1: His own dad, that's an obvious one, and the stoner kid,
49:45
Speaker 1: who even knows. For all I know, stoner kid was
49:48
Speaker 1: in on it for the kudos. The reason for the
49:51
Speaker 1: crimes came out. The mugger was becoming more and more depressed,
49:55
Speaker 1: being stuck in the little village with his overbearing mom
49:58
Speaker 1: and disabled, brow-beaten father. He hated the way his mom
50:02
Speaker 1: treated his dad, and also how she treated him. and
50:05
Speaker 1: she'd sometimes call him a sissy or other offensive things,
50:09
Speaker 1: and the truth was that he indeed was questioning his sexuality.
50:13
Speaker 1: And I had no idea what sexuality he actually is,
50:16
Speaker 1: nor is it really my business, but the way his
50:18
Speaker 1: mom treated him was enough to send him into a
50:20
Speaker 1: deep depression. And she also controlled his finances since he
50:25
Speaker 1: was under 18, and so he hatched a plan to
50:27
Speaker 1: mug a few people who he thought would forgive him,
50:30
Speaker 1: and then save up enough money to run away from
50:33
Speaker 1: home over the summer until he could show up at
50:35
Speaker 1: a university and get his student loans. He was a
50:39
Speaker 1: very smart kid with a very dumb plan, especially because
50:43
Speaker 1: the grand total of the actual usable money he stole
50:45
Speaker 1: was probably less than 250 quid. He hadn't even taken
50:50
Speaker 1: any of our phones because he knew that that would
50:52
Speaker 1: be really inconvenient despite the fact that they could have
50:55
Speaker 1: netted him the most money. And it all ended up
50:58
Speaker 1: being really tragic, and the town let its anger be known, though.
51:01
Speaker 1: Not towards the mugger, though, but towards his mom, the
51:04
Speaker 1: cafe owner. Everyone started boycotting her store and gossiping about
51:08
Speaker 1: how she'd misdirected everyone for her son's crimes, and how
51:12
Speaker 1: she'd profited off of them despite being the one to
51:14
Speaker 1: force this poor, sweet, innocent boy into that lifestyle. Now,
51:19
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I totally agree with that. I think
51:21
Speaker 1: he's still culpable for his own actions, but his mother
51:24
Speaker 1: definitely deserves a buttload of judgment, if you ask me.
51:28
Speaker 1: People eventually got bored of boycotting the cafe because it
51:31
Speaker 1: was the only one in town, and things have gone
51:34
Speaker 1: mostly back to normal. Me, Girl One, and the stoner
51:37
Speaker 1: kid have all decided to drop the charges against the mugger,
51:40
Speaker 1: even though I had to really argue with the cops
51:42
Speaker 1: when it came to mine because of the whole knife-stabbing angle.
51:46
Speaker 1: It was easier because he was 17 still, though, and
51:49
Speaker 1: wouldn't be turning 18 until August of that year that
51:52
Speaker 1: he committed the third and fourth muggings. And it was
51:55
Speaker 1: only his own dad who almost didn't drop the charges.
51:58
Speaker 1: And for a while we thought that he was going
52:00
Speaker 1: to actually prosecute his own son. However, it turned out
52:03
Speaker 1: that he was just simply biding his time and One
52:06
Speaker 1: day he dropped the charges, but also his entire family
52:09
Speaker 1: and the town. He swung by the police station, revoked
52:13
Speaker 1: his statement about the mugging, and then just drove off
52:17
Speaker 1: into the sunset, I guess. And that kind of sucked
52:20
Speaker 1: because it meant the mugger was left alone with his mom,
52:22
Speaker 1: who now hated him, but apparently he was living with
52:25
Speaker 1: an aunt instead at that point. And as things stand now,
52:28
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's over or not. There's still
52:31
Speaker 1: the possibility of the legal system itself pursuing charges against
52:34
Speaker 1: this mugger, but Given that he was a kid and
52:36
Speaker 1: all of us had recanted our statements, it seems very unlikely.
52:41
Speaker 1: And as for now, he was allowed to attend uni
52:43
Speaker 1: as planned, and according to his Facebook posts, he seems
52:45
Speaker 1: to be doing well. Now, I've only spoken to him
52:49
Speaker 1: once because I don't think it would be healthy to
52:51
Speaker 1: strike up a friendship with the person who stabbed me,
52:54
Speaker 1: but I did allow him to apologize, and I did
52:57
Speaker 1: tell him I forgave him. I still work at the
53:00
Speaker 1: doctor's office, but I think I'm going to go to
53:02
Speaker 1: med school next September. What the mugger did was definitely wrong,
53:06
Speaker 1: but I can see all too easily how it happened
53:09
Speaker 1: to a teenager growing up in such a sleepy, gossipy
53:13
Speaker 1: town when his own mother was the town's biggest gossip,
53:16
Speaker 1: and it could have been a lot worse. The kid
53:18
Speaker 1: did achieve one thing that's made the whole town happy, though.
53:22
Speaker 1: His mother hasn't spread a single word of malicious tittle-tattle
53:26
Speaker 1: rumors about any of us ever since. Hey friends, thanks
53:54
Speaker 1: for listening. Click that notification bell to be alerted of
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Speaker 1: all future narrations. I release new videos every Monday and
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Speaker 1: All links in the description below. Thanks so much, friends.
54:44
Speaker 1: And remember, I Remove the curse of Ra.