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Top 5 Bingeable SCARY STORIES Close Calls... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: Today, we have a very special bonus episode for you guys.
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Speaker 1: It's a collection of five true scary stories about real
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Speaker 1: people who come face to face with.
0:09
Speaker 2: Real life monsters.
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Speaker 1: Now, these five fan favorites have all been completely re edited.
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Speaker 2: For today's episode, so even.
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Speaker 1: If you've seen or heard some of them before, this
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Speaker 1: is going to feel like a totally new viewing experience.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's five stories, if you're
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Speaker 1: a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in
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Speaker 1: story format, then you've come to the right place because
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Speaker 1: that's all we do, and we upload once a week.
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Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please secretly reverse
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Speaker 2: Also, please subscribe to.
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Speaker 1: miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into
0:49
Speaker 1: today's five stories. In nineteen seventy eight, sixteen year old
1:09
Speaker 1: Bridget Geiger was waiting outside her home in Ohio for
1:12
Speaker 1: a boy named Jeffrey to take her to prom. She
1:14
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly excited to go to prom with Jeffrey. He
1:18
Speaker 1: was known to be really nervous around girls, and so
1:21
Speaker 1: she figured it was going to be a pretty awkward date.
1:23
Speaker 1: But nobody else had asked her to go, and she
1:26
Speaker 1: really wanted to go to prom, so she said yes.
1:28
Speaker 1: When Jeffrey showed up, she was immediately disappointed. He was
1:31
Speaker 1: wearing this odd ensemble of vest and bow tie as
1:36
Speaker 1: opposed to the standard tuxedo that she was anticipating him wearing,
1:40
Speaker 1: and so now they weren't going to match. He was
1:42
Speaker 1: also so nervous that he was visibly shaking and couldn't
1:45
Speaker 1: pin her corsage to her dress, and so Bridget's mom
1:49
Speaker 1: had to come out and put the corsage on. After
1:51
Speaker 1: the corsage was on, Bridget's mom would take a couple
1:54
Speaker 1: of very awkward photos of them kind of stiffly standing
1:57
Speaker 1: in front of her house before they ultimately got in
1:59
Speaker 1: Jeff's car and headed for the prom. When they arrived,
2:01
Speaker 1: Bridget wanted to go on the dance floor to see
2:03
Speaker 1: her other friends to kind of lighten the mood because
2:06
Speaker 1: she was not having a good time.
2:07
Speaker 2: With Jeffrey so far. But she did stay with.
2:10
Speaker 1: Him, and it was clear that Jeffrey hated being at
2:13
Speaker 1: the prom. He hated being around this swarming group of teenagers.
2:17
Speaker 1: Bridget felt kind of bad and said, hey, Jeffrey, do
2:19
Speaker 1: you want to go sit down and just grab a bite.
2:21
Speaker 2: To eat over at the little food cart they have here.
2:23
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's very relieved and says, yes, I'd love to do that,
2:26
Speaker 1: and the pair leave the dance floor and walk over
2:28
Speaker 1: to the little food court area. As they're about to
2:30
Speaker 1: sit down, Jeffrey pulls the chair out for Bridget. She
2:33
Speaker 1: sits down, he kind of pushes her in like a gentleman,
2:36
Speaker 1: but then instead of sitting down with her, he just
2:38
Speaker 1: walks away without telling her where he's going. Bridget assumed
2:41
Speaker 1: he was just going to the bathroom, but after a
2:44
Speaker 1: really long amount of time had passed and it was
2:46
Speaker 1: clear he had not just gone to the bathroom, she
2:49
Speaker 1: got up to go look for him, and so she
2:51
Speaker 1: went on.
2:51
Speaker 2: The dance floor.
2:52
Speaker 1: She can't find him in the building, and so she
2:54
Speaker 1: goes outside to see if maybe his.
2:56
Speaker 2: Car's not there anymore, maybe he just left, and she
2:59
Speaker 2: sees his car still in the lot.
3:00
Speaker 1: When she turns around to go back into the prom,
3:03
Speaker 1: she sees Jeffrey sitting on a curb just eating McDonald's cheeseburgers,
3:08
Speaker 1: and she.
3:09
Speaker 2: Goes over to him and she's like, what are you
3:10
Speaker 2: doing out here?
3:11
Speaker 1: And so he told her that he just wanted to
3:12
Speaker 1: step outside and get a couple of cheeseburgers and then
3:15
Speaker 1: come back and he would sit with her while she ate,
3:17
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't let him back in, and so he
3:20
Speaker 1: just went and got more cheeseburgers and thought he would
3:22
Speaker 1: wait here until she came outside. And now that she
3:24
Speaker 1: was outside, she couldn't get back in either. So she
3:27
Speaker 1: just says, hey, I'd like to just go home. And
3:29
Speaker 1: so Jeffrey is mortified and he tells her, I'm so sorry.
3:32
Speaker 1: I wanted this to be a nice evening for you.
3:34
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it wasn't. He drives her home, he says goodbye,
3:37
Speaker 1: she walks into her house, he drives off, and that
3:40
Speaker 1: was that. Bridget only saw Jeffrey one more time after that.
3:43
Speaker 1: It was about a week after prom, and Jeffrey actually
3:46
Speaker 1: invited her to come over's house for what he was
3:49
Speaker 1: calling a house party. And Bridget's like, there's no way
3:52
Speaker 1: this kid's throwing a house party. He can barely stand
3:54
Speaker 1: to be around just me, let alone a crowd of people.
3:57
Speaker 1: But She was polite and said, sure, I'd love to
3:59
Speaker 1: come your house party. She gets there and there's no food,
4:02
Speaker 1: there's no music, There's like three people there, and as
4:05
Speaker 1: soon as she walks in, all Jeffrey wanted to do
4:07
Speaker 1: was have a seance and communicate with the devil. She
4:10
Speaker 1: was so immediately creeped out by Jeffrey's behavior that after
4:14
Speaker 1: only a couple of minutes, she just turned around and
4:16
Speaker 1: left his house party and did not see him again
4:19
Speaker 1: well until thirteen years later, when.
4:21
Speaker 2: She would read about him in the newspaper.
4:23
Speaker 1: Thirteen years later, on July twenty second, nineteen ninety one, Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
4:28
Speaker 1: police spot a man named Tracy Edwards running down the
4:32
Speaker 1: road in handcuffs. They run over to him and they
4:35
Speaker 1: say what's going on, and he says that a man
4:37
Speaker 1: was holding him hostage in his apartment, that he threatened
4:39
Speaker 1: to kill me. I was able to overpower him and escape,
4:42
Speaker 1: and here I am. The police go to this apartment
4:45
Speaker 1: that he apparently escaped from, and they knock on the door.
4:47
Speaker 1: The door opens and the police are confronted by this
4:50
Speaker 1: tall man who introduces himself as Jeffrey. He tells police
4:53
Speaker 1: this is all a big misunderstanding and that Tracy Edwards
4:56
Speaker 1: is a friend of his and I don't know what's
4:58
Speaker 1: gotten into him.
4:59
Speaker 2: And the pl at least were actually close to believing him.
5:01
Speaker 2: They would even say he was really convincing.
5:04
Speaker 1: But as they're talking to him, one of the officers
5:06
Speaker 1: kind of looks behind Jeffrey into his apartment and he
5:09
Speaker 1: sees on the coffee table what are clearly pictures of
5:11
Speaker 1: dismembered body parts, and so they arrest Jeffrey, and when
5:15
Speaker 1: his apartment was fully searched, a house of horrors is revealed.
5:19
Speaker 1: In addition to photos of body parts, the apartment itself
5:23
Speaker 1: was littered with human remains. There were several human heads
5:27
Speaker 1: in the freezer and the refrigerator, and in his bedroom
5:30
Speaker 1: was a fifty seven gallon drum containing more dead bodies
5:33
Speaker 1: that were decomposing in chemicals. There was also evidence that
5:37
Speaker 1: suggested Jeffrey was eating these people. Now, Jeffrey lived in
5:40
Speaker 1: a crowded apartment complex, and so other neighbors had complained
5:44
Speaker 1: about this awful smell coming from his room, but he
5:47
Speaker 1: had been able to explain it away and convince everybody
5:50
Speaker 1: that it was just some bad meat.
5:51
Speaker 2: However, the most horrifying.
5:53
Speaker 1: Revelation about how Jeffrey was able to conceal these horrible
5:57
Speaker 1: crimes he was committing in the middle of a city apartment.
6:00
Speaker 2: Would come a few days later.
6:01
Speaker 1: Apparently, two months before Tracy Edwards had run out of
6:05
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's apartment in handcuffs and flagged those officers down. Another
6:09
Speaker 1: boy had left the apartment in handcuffs and was running
6:12
Speaker 1: down the road and police stopped him.
6:14
Speaker 2: But the boy couldn't really speak.
6:16
Speaker 1: He wasn't able to articulate why he was there or
6:19
Speaker 1: what he was doing. And as police are talking to him,
6:21
Speaker 1: Jeffrey comes running up the road, flags the officers down
6:24
Speaker 1: and thanks them for finding his boyfriend. They had gotten
6:27
Speaker 1: into a lover's quarrel, and then everything was just fine, and.
6:30
Speaker 2: So the police shrug it off and say, no problem.
6:32
Speaker 1: We'll even give you a ride back to your apartment,
6:34
Speaker 1: And so they drive the boy and Jeffrey back to
6:36
Speaker 1: Jeffrey's apartment.
6:37
Speaker 2: They watched them go inside and the police leave.
6:40
Speaker 1: But if the police had paid a little bit more attention,
6:42
Speaker 1: they would have seen there was a hole drilled in
6:44
Speaker 1: the back of his head by Jeffrey.
6:47
Speaker 2: He had been pouring.
6:48
Speaker 1: Acid into this kid's head to try to control him,
6:51
Speaker 1: and that was why this boy couldn't speak. And as
6:53
Speaker 1: soon as the police let them go back into the apartment,
6:56
Speaker 1: Jeffrey killed the boy. Because Jeffrey Bridgets a prom date
7:00
Speaker 1: turned out to be none other than infamous serial killer
7:04
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed seventeen people over a thirteen year period.
7:09
Speaker 1: Just days after this picture was taken of Jeffrey and Bridget,
7:12
Speaker 1: right before they headed off to prom together, Jeffrey would
7:15
Speaker 1: kill his first victim and start that thirteen year killing spree.
7:19
Speaker 1: Dahmer was ultimately given a life sentence, but was killed
7:23
Speaker 1: by another inmate in two thousand and four. Sixteen year
7:40
Speaker 1: old Misty Tasker was a typical American teenager living in
7:44
Speaker 1: Live Oak, Florida, which is a small rural town right
7:47
Speaker 1: in the middle of the state. One Saturday evening in January,
7:50
Speaker 1: she and her mother attended a church service. Afterwards, they
7:53
Speaker 1: hopped in her mother's truck and they got on the
7:55
Speaker 1: country highway and began making their way home. Their house
7:58
Speaker 1: was just twenty minutes down. This highway was a straight shot,
8:01
Speaker 1: and this highway was pretty desolate.
8:03
Speaker 2: There were no street lights.
8:04
Speaker 1: It was actually a dirt road despite being a highway,
8:07
Speaker 1: and it was just thick forest.
8:08
Speaker 2: On both sides of the road the entire way.
8:10
Speaker 1: There were no buildings or houses between the church and
8:14
Speaker 1: their neighborhood. Missy's mother was already a very anxious driver
8:17
Speaker 1: who would keep both hands on the wheel. She would
8:20
Speaker 1: sit up and kind of hunch over the wheel and
8:21
Speaker 1: keep her eyes intently focused.
8:23
Speaker 2: On the road.
8:24
Speaker 1: But at night, her driving anxiety would shoot through the
8:27
Speaker 1: roof because she had really bad eyesight, and so she
8:29
Speaker 1: would go to great lengths to not drive at night
8:32
Speaker 1: to avoid that high level of anxiety. But the church
8:35
Speaker 1: service they had just come from had run a little
8:37
Speaker 1: bit long, and so now Misty's mother is driving with
8:40
Speaker 1: the sun starting to set, and she's going as fast
8:42
Speaker 1: as she can to try to get home before it
8:44
Speaker 1: gets too dark. And so as they're bombing down this
8:46
Speaker 1: road at about fifty five miles an hour despite it
8:49
Speaker 1: being about a forty mile per hour zone, Misty, who's
8:52
Speaker 1: in the passenger seat, just happens to look over at
8:54
Speaker 1: her mother for no particular reason. And as she's looking
8:57
Speaker 1: at her, she notices out her mother's window it looks
8:59
Speaker 1: like there's a little girl sitting on the side of
9:02
Speaker 1: the road. What's a child doing out here in the
9:04
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere? She says to her mom, I think
9:06
Speaker 1: I just saw a little girl. And Missy's mother, who's
9:09
Speaker 1: high up on the wheels, she did not hear Missy
9:11
Speaker 1: the first time. She's just focused on driving and trying
9:13
Speaker 1: to get home, and so Misty says, again, I think
9:15
Speaker 1: I just saw a little girl.
9:16
Speaker 2: We need to go back. I don't know what she's doing,
9:18
Speaker 2: but I feel like we need to go.
9:19
Speaker 1: Back and make sure she's okay. And so Misty's mom
9:21
Speaker 1: looks over at her, and she's not prepared to.
9:23
Speaker 2: Turn the car around.
9:24
Speaker 1: That means staying out later, and it means she's going
9:26
Speaker 1: to be driving in even darker conditions.
9:28
Speaker 2: And so she's like, did you really see someone?
9:30
Speaker 1: Because we got to get home, and Missy's like, Mom,
9:32
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I saw a little girl.
9:33
Speaker 2: We have to go back.
9:35
Speaker 1: And so finally Missy's mother, she's very annoyed, but she
9:38
Speaker 1: stops the car. She does a three point turn, and
9:40
Speaker 1: she begins driving back up.
9:41
Speaker 2: The road where they came from towards this girl.
9:44
Speaker 1: Now they had only made it about a half mile
9:46
Speaker 1: from where Misty believed she had seen this girl, and
9:48
Speaker 1: so pretty quickly they slowed down because Missy said, I
9:51
Speaker 1: think she's in this area, and they both began scanning
9:54
Speaker 1: the right side of the road because that's where she's
9:56
Speaker 1: going to be. Now that they've turned around. Now it
9:58
Speaker 1: was starting to get very dark outside, but there was
10:00
Speaker 1: enough light and they had headlights. They were pretty confident
10:03
Speaker 1: they'd be able to spot this girl. And so as
10:05
Speaker 1: they're slow rolling down the road, they both see this
10:07
Speaker 1: girl a little ways up on the right hand side.
10:10
Speaker 2: Her back was to the road.
10:11
Speaker 1: She had her knees tucked up to her chest, and
10:13
Speaker 1: she was rocking back and forth. Missy's mother made a
10:16
Speaker 1: comment that it was a little bit surprising that this
10:18
Speaker 1: girl was out here.
10:19
Speaker 2: I mean, there's really nothing around here. There's no houses,
10:22
Speaker 2: there's no.
10:23
Speaker 1: Buildings, there's no trails to be walking in in this
10:26
Speaker 1: forest on either side, it was just kind of thick forest,
10:29
Speaker 1: and so she just thought it was very strange that
10:31
Speaker 1: this girl would even be out here, especially because there's
10:33
Speaker 1: not any traffic on this road. And so Missy's mother
10:35
Speaker 1: began slowly rolling up to her, and she told her
10:38
Speaker 1: daughter that instead of just stopping right away, let's just
10:41
Speaker 1: drive past her and get a look at her, and
10:43
Speaker 1: then we'll turn around and see if she needs any help.
10:45
Speaker 1: And so as they got right up next to her,
10:47
Speaker 1: they realized she was not a little girl. She was
10:49
Speaker 1: a young teenager, but she was not a young young child.
10:52
Speaker 1: And as they drove right past her, they would expect
10:55
Speaker 1: her to turn around and acknowledge the car creeping up
10:58
Speaker 1: on her, considering there's there's no other traffic in the area,
11:01
Speaker 1: and you're just some person sitting on the.
11:03
Speaker 2: Side of the road.
11:04
Speaker 1: You should definitely turn around and see what's behind you.
11:07
Speaker 1: But the girl did not acknowledge them. She just continued
11:10
Speaker 1: to have her knees up to her chest and rocked
11:11
Speaker 1: back and forth. And so Misty and her mother are
11:14
Speaker 1: a little bit freaked out by this. But if they
11:15
Speaker 1: drive past her about fifty meters, Missy's mother does a
11:18
Speaker 1: three point turn, and when they're looking back down the
11:21
Speaker 1: road where the girls should now be on their left
11:23
Speaker 1: hand side, they're oriented back towards their house. Now she
11:26
Speaker 1: wasn't there anymore, but there were no street lights. It
11:29
Speaker 1: was now almost completely pitch dark outside, and so all
11:32
Speaker 1: they had was the headlights, and so Misty told her mom,
11:35
Speaker 1: you know, drive up a little ways. Maybe the girl
11:37
Speaker 1: stood up and moved and we just can't see her
11:39
Speaker 1: because she's not in the headlights.
11:40
Speaker 2: And so Missy's mom.
11:41
Speaker 1: Began driving down the road and kind of turning slightly
11:44
Speaker 1: towards the left to shine the light more to the left,
11:46
Speaker 1: but there was no sign of this girl. For good measure,
11:49
Speaker 1: they turned right slightly to shine the lights more to
11:51
Speaker 1: the right hand.
11:51
Speaker 2: Side of the road, but there was no sign of
11:53
Speaker 2: this girl.
11:54
Speaker 1: And so Misty and her mother just slow rolled back
11:56
Speaker 1: down the road, kind of keeping their eye out.
11:58
Speaker 2: On both sides.
12:00
Speaker 1: But after traveling for several minutes, going about five ten
12:03
Speaker 1: miles an hour, and seeing no sign of this girl,
12:05
Speaker 1: they decided that well, she must have just gone back
12:08
Speaker 1: into the woods and gone back to wherever it was
12:10
Speaker 1: she came from. And so Misty's mom began picking up speed,
12:13
Speaker 1: and before long they had gone maybe two or three
12:15
Speaker 1: miles away from where they had seen this girl, and
12:18
Speaker 1: they were coming up to this four way intersection with
12:21
Speaker 1: stop signs all around, and as they were getting close,
12:24
Speaker 1: Missy's mother gasped because on the other side of the intersection,
12:28
Speaker 1: on the right hand side, was this girl sitting on
12:31
Speaker 1: the side.
12:31
Speaker 2: Of the road.
12:32
Speaker 1: She's got her back to the road, her knees are
12:34
Speaker 1: up and she's rocking back and forth. And so Misty's
12:36
Speaker 1: mother pulls up the stop sign and then just sits there,
12:39
Speaker 1: and both women are just stunned at what they're looking at.
12:42
Speaker 1: They had just seen.
12:43
Speaker 2: Her two three miles back down the road.
12:46
Speaker 1: It wasn't possible for her to get all the way
12:48
Speaker 1: up here, and so Misty's mother looks at her daughter
12:50
Speaker 1: and says, you know, do you think it's a different girl,
12:53
Speaker 1: And Missy's like, no, that's the same girl. And so
12:56
Speaker 1: they just sat there for a minute until Misty started
12:58
Speaker 1: to panic, and she said to her mom, don't stop.
13:02
Speaker 1: I got a bad feeling about this girl. I don't
13:04
Speaker 1: know what's going on, but you can't stop next to
13:07
Speaker 1: this girl. But Misty's mom, she was definitely weirded out
13:11
Speaker 1: by this situation, no doubt, but she didn't feel good
13:13
Speaker 1: about abandoning this girl in the middle of the night
13:16
Speaker 1: on the side of the highway, and so even though
13:18
Speaker 1: she felt a little bit hesitant herself, she told Misty,
13:20
Speaker 1: you know, we have to at least drive past her
13:23
Speaker 1: and ask if she's Okay, that's the least we can do.
13:25
Speaker 1: And Misty was not having it. She said, Mom, do
13:28
Speaker 1: not stop. I got a bad feeling about this. Don't
13:30
Speaker 1: stop near this girl. But Misty's mom let up off
13:33
Speaker 1: the break and began slow rolling past this intersection. And
13:36
Speaker 1: now at this point, Misty is just absolutely terrified, and
13:39
Speaker 1: so she takes her seatbelt off and she goes down
13:41
Speaker 1: into the footwell right in front of her seat, and
13:43
Speaker 1: she closes her eyes and covers her ears, and she
13:45
Speaker 1: just continues.
13:46
Speaker 2: To beg her mother to just please keep going, don't stop.
13:49
Speaker 1: But her mother just continues on until she stops right
13:52
Speaker 1: next to this girl who's still just sitting on the
13:55
Speaker 1: side of the road with her back to the road.
13:56
Speaker 1: She's got her knees up, she's rocking back and forth.
13:59
Speaker 1: She's not agnit, knowledging Misty or her mother. And so
14:01
Speaker 1: Misty's mother turns to her daughter and says, please roll
14:04
Speaker 1: down your window, and Misty refuses. She's still down in
14:07
Speaker 1: the footwell, still in the fetal position. She's crying, and
14:10
Speaker 1: she's still begging her mother to please just go home.
14:12
Speaker 1: And so Misty's mother, frustrated, reaches across the passenger seat
14:16
Speaker 1: and grabs the knob to roll down the window manuallying
14:19
Speaker 1: so she rolls the window down, and Misty, who's down
14:22
Speaker 1: in the footwell all she remembers, is sitting there covering
14:25
Speaker 1: up her ears, and she's crying, and she opens her
14:27
Speaker 1: eyes and she's looking up towards her mom, who's reaching
14:30
Speaker 1: over the seat, and her mom yells out to this girl,
14:33
Speaker 1: and Misty remembers looking at her mom, who suddenly recoils
14:37
Speaker 1: in horror and screams, and then they take off like crazy,
14:40
Speaker 1: flying down the road. Misty jumps out of the foot
14:43
Speaker 1: well and she's looking at her mom and she's like,
14:44
Speaker 1: what's happening?
14:45
Speaker 2: What just happened? What did you see?
14:46
Speaker 1: And her mom's got her hand over her mouth, and
14:48
Speaker 1: she's speeding down the road and she's crying now, and
14:50
Speaker 1: she's looking at Misty and she just doesn't have.
14:52
Speaker 2: The words to describe what she just saw. And so
14:55
Speaker 2: Misty's asking her mom, what did you see?
14:57
Speaker 1: What happened? And finally her mother just said she didn't
15:01
Speaker 1: have a face. She didn't have a face.
15:03
Speaker 2: It was hollow.
15:05
Speaker 1: There was nothing on her face when she looked at me.
15:07
Speaker 1: And so Misty screams and she's crying and her mom
15:10
Speaker 1: is crying, and they speed home. Their homes is a
15:12
Speaker 1: couple of minutes later, and they run inside, practically falling
15:15
Speaker 1: over each other to get in the house. And as
15:17
Speaker 1: soon as they get inside, Misty's mom calls nine one one,
15:20
Speaker 1: And she didn't even.
15:21
Speaker 2: Know how to describe what she just saw, but she
15:23
Speaker 2: knew it was too embarrassing.
15:24
Speaker 1: To try to describe it as some girl without a
15:27
Speaker 1: face sitting by the highway, and so she.
15:29
Speaker 2: Just told the police that they had seen a girl
15:31
Speaker 2: they think needs help.
15:32
Speaker 1: And so the police they went out and they searched
15:34
Speaker 1: the entire stretch of highway.
15:36
Speaker 2: They looked for.
15:37
Speaker 1: Any sign of anybody out there, but there wasn't. There
15:40
Speaker 1: was never any trace of that girl. In twenty eighteen,
15:58
Speaker 1: a twenty one year old, brand new police officer named
16:01
Speaker 1: Derek was dumped by his longtime girlfriend. This breakup caught
16:05
Speaker 1: him by surprise because he had actually just recently moved
16:08
Speaker 1: to Colorado in order to be closer to his girlfriend,
16:11
Speaker 1: so naturally he was devastated. After a few weeks of
16:14
Speaker 1: being so depressed and kind of just moping around and
16:17
Speaker 1: going through the motions in his life.
16:18
Speaker 2: At this point, one of.
16:19
Speaker 1: His very close friends suggested to him, like, hey, man, look,
16:22
Speaker 1: why don't you just make a profile on Tinder, the
16:25
Speaker 1: online dating service, and just put yourself out there again.
16:27
Speaker 1: You have no idea who's out there. Clearly your ex
16:30
Speaker 1: girlfriend was not the one. Derek had met his ex
16:33
Speaker 1: girlfriend in a bar, and every other girlfriend he had
16:36
Speaker 1: ever had he had met in person, so online dating
16:39
Speaker 1: was definitely not on his radar. But he was so
16:41
Speaker 1: lonely and sad he figured, you know what, I got
16:43
Speaker 1: nothing to lose, and so he made himself a tender profile.
16:46
Speaker 1: Derek quickly matched with a woman on Tinder named Leah
16:50
Speaker 1: that he said was way.
16:51
Speaker 2: Out of his league, but he wasn't complaining.
16:53
Speaker 1: They chatted for a couple of weeks and they got
16:55
Speaker 1: on great, and so they wanted to get together and
16:57
Speaker 1: actually meet each other in person, but leave well over
17:00
Speaker 1: an hour away from Derek's there wasn't a natural meeting place,
17:04
Speaker 1: and they're going back and forth about where they want
17:06
Speaker 1: to go, and finally Leah just says, hey, why don't
17:08
Speaker 1: you just come to my town. There's this great park
17:10
Speaker 1: that I go running in all the time, and they
17:12
Speaker 1: have this awesome field that's on a slope and you
17:14
Speaker 1: can lay on it and look up through the trees
17:16
Speaker 1: and you can see the stars, and so that would
17:18
Speaker 1: be a cool thing to do on our first date,
17:20
Speaker 1: go stargazing together. So the date night finally came, and
17:23
Speaker 1: Derek was really excited. He was nervous too, because even
17:25
Speaker 1: though they talked in the phones, this is the first
17:27
Speaker 1: time they're going to see each other. And so the
17:28
Speaker 1: plan was he was going to drive out to her
17:30
Speaker 1: town and actually pick her up from her work.
17:32
Speaker 2: She worked at a hair salon, and from there they
17:34
Speaker 2: would make their way over to this park. And so
17:36
Speaker 2: Derek pulls up to.
17:37
Speaker 1: The hair salon right as Leah's coming outside, and she's
17:39
Speaker 1: all excited.
17:40
Speaker 2: She's waving to him.
17:41
Speaker 1: She runs over and she gets in the car and
17:43
Speaker 1: they hug and kiss in the cheek and it's like
17:46
Speaker 1: they knew each other, but they didn't know each other
17:48
Speaker 1: because their entire relationship was online or via textinger or
17:51
Speaker 1: a phone call, and so it's like they had history
17:54
Speaker 1: but they didn't.
17:55
Speaker 2: But either way, Derek was really happy, and it seems
17:57
Speaker 2: like Leah was too.
17:58
Speaker 1: From the hair salon, it was a pretty short drive
18:00
Speaker 1: to this access road that was going to bring them
18:02
Speaker 1: into this park. And when Leah told him to make
18:04
Speaker 1: this turn, it didn't look like a very well marked
18:07
Speaker 1: trail or.
18:08
Speaker 2: Even a marked park.
18:09
Speaker 1: It looked like this kind of random access road that
18:11
Speaker 1: Derek would not have associated with a big public park.
18:14
Speaker 2: But he doesn't know.
18:15
Speaker 1: The area, and so he turns and he starts heating
18:17
Speaker 1: down this road and the road went from Cement to
18:19
Speaker 1: Dirk pretty quickly, And this whole time he's thinking to himself, like,
18:23
Speaker 1: did I think a wrong turn?
18:24
Speaker 2: Does she know like where she's going?
18:26
Speaker 1: This does not feel like the way you drive into
18:29
Speaker 1: a big park, the way she was describing. Finally, they
18:31
Speaker 1: land back on Cement and they're actually on this road
18:34
Speaker 1: that's right up against this huge field, and so right
18:37
Speaker 1: away Derek stress is gone because now it's confirmed in
18:39
Speaker 1: his mind that.
18:40
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a weird way to get into this park.
18:42
Speaker 1: But here's this huge, amazing field and we're back on
18:44
Speaker 1: a real road and everything's good again.
18:46
Speaker 2: Derek asked, layout, you know, where should I park?
18:48
Speaker 1: Because they're on this really narrow road and there didn't
18:50
Speaker 1: appear to be a parking lot. There also didn't appear
18:53
Speaker 1: to be anybody else on this field or on this road.
18:56
Speaker 1: It's this huge, open, beautiful space, but it did not
18:58
Speaker 1: look well popped plated or like it was well traveled.
19:01
Speaker 1: But she said, just go right up there, there's a
19:03
Speaker 1: small lot you can pull into. And so Derek starts
19:06
Speaker 1: going up this road and he sees, maybe three hundred
19:08
Speaker 1: feet ahead of him are dim headlights of another car
19:11
Speaker 1: making their way down the road towards him. And now
19:14
Speaker 1: it was dark enough that he couldn't really make out
19:16
Speaker 1: what kind of vehicle it was, and so he didn't
19:18
Speaker 1: know if it was going to be some big truck
19:20
Speaker 1: or something like that. And so what he did is
19:22
Speaker 1: he just pulled over as far to the side of
19:23
Speaker 1: the road as he could to allow this vehicle to pass.
19:26
Speaker 1: Even though there was a fair amount of distance they
19:28
Speaker 1: would need to cover before they were passing him, he figured,
19:31
Speaker 1: just give them the right of the road. And so
19:33
Speaker 1: as they start moving forward, he can see that it's
19:35
Speaker 1: actually this big band and they're moving pretty slowly, and
19:38
Speaker 1: he's just kind of waiting for them to pass, and
19:39
Speaker 1: he's not thinking anything of this.
19:41
Speaker 2: He's thinking that this is just another person.
19:43
Speaker 1: At the park, and this ban instead of passing him,
19:46
Speaker 1: actually turns the last second and almost goes bumper to
19:49
Speaker 1: bumper with Derek's car. He doesn't crash into it, but
19:52
Speaker 1: he stops just in front of Derek's car.
19:55
Speaker 2: And so Derek is a cop, he's a brand new cop,
19:57
Speaker 2: and he's super aggressive, you know. He really believed Eves
20:00
Speaker 2: in his training. And so as soon as this guy
20:02
Speaker 2: stopped in front of.
20:03
Speaker 1: Him and blocked the path for him, red flags are
20:06
Speaker 1: going up for Derek and he knows something's wrong with
20:08
Speaker 1: this van, and instinctively he says, lea, stay here.
20:11
Speaker 2: He grabs this flashlight that he.
20:12
Speaker 1: Kept right in center console, and he jumped out of
20:15
Speaker 1: the car and went right to the driver's side door
20:17
Speaker 1: of this van to confront this guy.
20:19
Speaker 2: And when he got up to the driver's side door,
20:20
Speaker 2: it was.
20:20
Speaker 1: This really big guy who looked pretty startled to see
20:23
Speaker 1: Derek come charging up to him with a flashlight. And
20:26
Speaker 1: Derek's like, what are you doing, man, what do you blocking.
20:29
Speaker 2: Me in for?
20:29
Speaker 1: And the guy's like, oh, hey, sorry, I'm the caretaker
20:31
Speaker 1: here of this whole property, and we've had an issue
20:34
Speaker 1: with poachers in the area and I was concerned you
20:37
Speaker 1: guys were poachers. It doesn't look like you're poachers though,
20:39
Speaker 1: and derek'said, no, we're not poachers. We're going stargazing. I'm
20:41
Speaker 1: on my first daid here, and the Caretaker's like, I
20:44
Speaker 1: am so sorry. Please get back in your.
20:46
Speaker 2: Car or go and enjoy your night.
20:47
Speaker 1: And at that he backed up to a three point
20:49
Speaker 1: turn and drove right back up that road where he
20:51
Speaker 1: came from and disappeared down on the other side of
20:54
Speaker 1: the hill.
20:54
Speaker 2: Derek stood in front of.
20:55
Speaker 1: His car for a couple of minutes, making sure this
20:57
Speaker 1: guy was gone, and then he turned around and he
20:59
Speaker 1: got back in car, and he kind of joked with
21:01
Speaker 1: Leah means like, yeah, he thought we were poachers.
21:03
Speaker 2: I guess you will have poacher to him, and that's
21:05
Speaker 2: why he stopped us.
21:06
Speaker 1: But when he looked over at Leah to react to
21:08
Speaker 1: his hilarious joke.
21:10
Speaker 2: She wasn't paying attention to him. She was just furiously typing.
21:12
Speaker 1: Away on her phone, which Derek did think was a
21:15
Speaker 1: little bit odd. You'd think that she'd be more interested
21:17
Speaker 1: in this strange thing.
21:18
Speaker 2: That just happened. Some weird guy just blocked us in
21:21
Speaker 2: and I'm confronting him.
21:22
Speaker 1: You'd think she'd be interested in that. On some level,
21:24
Speaker 1: she might want to know what I said to the
21:26
Speaker 1: guy and what he said to me, But she didn't
21:28
Speaker 1: seem to care.
21:29
Speaker 2: She was just really.
21:29
Speaker 1: Invested in whoever she was typing on her phone. And
21:32
Speaker 1: so Derek thinks whatever and just throws the car back
21:34
Speaker 1: and drive and continues up the trail the way they were.
21:36
Speaker 2: Going before they were stopped.
21:38
Speaker 1: So Derek continues down the road just a little ways
21:40
Speaker 1: until he sees a little dirt lot that's butted up
21:43
Speaker 1: against this huge field they're going to be hanging out
21:45
Speaker 1: on for the night, and so he pulls into the lot,
21:47
Speaker 1: backs into his space, and he and Leah get out
21:49
Speaker 1: and they put a blanket out right next to the car,
21:52
Speaker 1: but on the grass on the hill, and they get
21:54
Speaker 1: their food out and their wine out, and they sit
21:56
Speaker 1: down and very quickly they start swapping stories and they're
22:00
Speaker 1: laughing and they're stargazing and they're having some wine and.
22:03
Speaker 2: Everything's really great.
22:04
Speaker 1: After about an hour, it's totally dark outside, and Derek
22:08
Speaker 1: is laying on the hill, facing back towards his car
22:10
Speaker 1: and towards the road they were on, and he notices
22:13
Speaker 1: to his left up at the top of the hill,
22:15
Speaker 1: so the same area where the van had come from
22:17
Speaker 1: originally and where it went back to after they spoke
22:20
Speaker 1: that one time. Derek is looking out there and he
22:22
Speaker 1: sees headlights and it's the van. And now the van
22:25
Speaker 1: is driving down the road, not leisurely like it was before,
22:28
Speaker 1: but they are flying down the hill. And before Derek
22:31
Speaker 1: or Leah have a chance to react to this van
22:34
Speaker 1: barreling down on them, it comes flying into the parking
22:37
Speaker 1: lot and practically hits his car and comes to a
22:39
Speaker 1: stop where it's boxed his car in, so even if
22:42
Speaker 1: he got in his car, he couldn't drive away. And
22:44
Speaker 1: so Derek jumps up, Lea jumps up, and the guy,
22:47
Speaker 1: the caretaker, the nice caretaker he talked to before he
22:50
Speaker 1: hops out of the driver's seat and he walks around
22:52
Speaker 1: the front of the van. He's got this pipe in
22:54
Speaker 1: his hand and he looks at Derek and he's like,
22:55
Speaker 1: give me your keys in your wallet. And again, Derek
22:58
Speaker 1: is this brand new cop. You know, he's twenty one
23:00
Speaker 1: years old. He's not about to let this guy push
23:02
Speaker 1: him around. And so he doesn't do anything at first.
23:04
Speaker 1: He doesn't know what he's gonna do, but he doesn't
23:06
Speaker 1: do anything at first. He just looks at this guy
23:08
Speaker 1: and he shows him that I'm not just gonna fall
23:10
Speaker 1: over because he told me to. But then Derek has
23:12
Speaker 1: given a huge curve ball when Leah, his date, stands
23:15
Speaker 1: up and runs over to the sky and stands next
23:18
Speaker 1: to him and turns around and looks at Derek and goes,
23:21
Speaker 1: come on, give us your keys and wallet. And Derek's like, great,
23:24
Speaker 1: I'm getting set up by my date because I've spent
23:26
Speaker 1: the past two hours with him.
23:27
Speaker 2: I was I had a connection with this girl.
23:29
Speaker 1: And so now Derek is just standing there doing nothing,
23:32
Speaker 1: not to be tough, but because he's in shock.
23:34
Speaker 2: He feels so betrayed by Leah and he just feels like,
23:37
Speaker 2: how could this have happened?
23:39
Speaker 1: And in that moment, Leo walks to the back of
23:41
Speaker 1: the man and she gets a metal pipe. She comes
23:44
Speaker 1: back around and she goes, Derek, give us your keys.
23:47
Speaker 2: And your wallet. We don't want to have to hurt you.
23:49
Speaker 2: And this is when Derek looks at them both and
23:51
Speaker 2: he goes no, And as soon as he said that,
23:54
Speaker 2: the big guy tackles him.
23:55
Speaker 1: He gets thrown to the ground, but Derek could handle
23:57
Speaker 1: himself and very quickly he was able to get up
24:00
Speaker 1: and he drew his concealed carry pistol, and he's aiming
24:02
Speaker 1: it at the big guy and then back at Leah,
24:04
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I'm a cop.
24:05
Speaker 2: Go ahead and put your hands up now.
24:06
Speaker 1: As soon as they saw the gun, they both dropped
24:08
Speaker 1: their pipes and put their hands up, And so as
24:10
Speaker 1: he's holding them both at gunpoint, he's looking over at
24:12
Speaker 1: Leah like, really, you did this to me?
24:14
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
24:15
Speaker 3: Right now?
24:16
Speaker 2: As he's doing that, he has to get his cell
24:18
Speaker 2: phone out of his pocket.
24:19
Speaker 1: Type in nine to one one and then called dispatch
24:22
Speaker 1: and had to say who he was, what his badge
24:24
Speaker 1: number was, what happened, and where he is and where
24:27
Speaker 1: he is was difficult to describe. And so as he's
24:30
Speaker 1: trying to explain these directions, and he's saying, yo, yep, go.
24:32
Speaker 2: Left at the light and then there's a gas station there.
24:35
Speaker 2: You're gonna go up this field. You're gonna see me.
24:37
Speaker 2: I got these two people at gunpoint.
24:38
Speaker 1: As he's doing that, Leah and the caretaker look at
24:41
Speaker 1: each other and they just turn around and bolt.
24:43
Speaker 2: They figure he's distracted, we can.
24:45
Speaker 1: At least get behind the van and run into the
24:47
Speaker 1: forest before he's gonna catch us. And so instinctively he
24:50
Speaker 1: takes off running after them, and he chases them for
24:52
Speaker 1: about thirty seconds into the tree line before he starts
24:55
Speaker 1: hearing gunshots and they weren't his Someone's shooting at him
24:57
Speaker 1: and he sees the muscle flash out in the middle
24:59
Speaker 1: of the floor and.
25:00
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I'm not doing this.
25:01
Speaker 1: He turns around, runs back to his vehicle, he starts
25:04
Speaker 1: it up, and he has to basically smash into the
25:06
Speaker 1: van back into the fence, over and over again like
25:08
Speaker 1: Austin Powers, like a twenty five point turn before he
25:11
Speaker 1: was barely able to grind his way.
25:12
Speaker 2: Out and peel out out of this park. And so
25:15
Speaker 2: Derek pulls into the nearest gas station.
25:17
Speaker 1: He calls up dispatch and he says, hey, I just
25:19
Speaker 1: called nine one one like five ten minutes ago, and
25:21
Speaker 1: I dropped the call because I was chasing somebody. Here's
25:24
Speaker 1: my name, here's my badge number. I'm now at this
25:26
Speaker 1: gas station. Can you send a couple of police officers
25:29
Speaker 1: over to my location now? And they said, yep, we'll
25:30
Speaker 1: send them to you. And so a police cruiser shows
25:33
Speaker 1: up with two officers inside that Derek recognized they were
25:35
Speaker 1: senior to him, and they got out and he explained
25:38
Speaker 1: again what happened, and they kind of gave him a
25:39
Speaker 1: hard time for getting catfish and it's very pro state,
25:42
Speaker 1: but at the same time they knew it could have
25:43
Speaker 1: gone really badly, and so they decide they're going to
25:46
Speaker 1: load up in the police cruiser together, all three of them,
25:48
Speaker 1: and drive back up to the park.
25:49
Speaker 2: And so they get up to the park and Derek
25:51
Speaker 2: points ahead and he goes, that's the van. It's still here.
25:53
Speaker 1: And so they drive up and they stop short of
25:55
Speaker 1: the van, and the two uniformed officers they turned to
25:57
Speaker 1: Derek and they're like, just staying here, we're gonna go
25:59
Speaker 1: check this. And so Derek sitting in the car watching
26:02
Speaker 1: these guys go up to the vehicle, you know, guns drawn.
26:04
Speaker 1: They're looking all around, they're clearing behind the vehicle, they're
26:07
Speaker 1: looking in the woodline.
26:08
Speaker 2: There's nobody there. And at some point he sees them
26:10
Speaker 2: put their pistols.
26:10
Speaker 1: Away and they go in the van. They're kind of
26:13
Speaker 1: shining with their flashlights all around. They're looking in the back,
26:15
Speaker 1: looking in the front. And then after a few minutes
26:18
Speaker 1: they walked back to the cruiser and as soon as
26:20
Speaker 1: they got in and Derek could tell there was just
26:22
Speaker 1: something off about how they were acting. When they were
26:24
Speaker 1: down at the gas station. They were kind of joking
26:26
Speaker 1: around with him. Now, whatever they had seen in the
26:28
Speaker 1: van was definitely not something they were going to joke about.
26:31
Speaker 1: And they turned to him and they're like, the back
26:33
Speaker 1: of the van, it was just knives and saws and
26:37
Speaker 1: pistols and rifles and lighter fluid and chains and handcuffs
26:41
Speaker 1: and duct tape.
26:43
Speaker 2: It was just awful and it looks like there might
26:45
Speaker 2: even be blood on the ground.
26:46
Speaker 1: The two officers immediately called in additional backup, and before
26:49
Speaker 1: long it was a full fledged circus around the span
26:52
Speaker 1: of a crime scene investigation unit and other police officers.
26:56
Speaker 1: Spotlights set up, and they went out looking in the
26:58
Speaker 1: woods for these people.
26:59
Speaker 2: But they never found the guy.
27:00
Speaker 1: They never found the girl, And Derek would tell the
27:03
Speaker 1: other investigators, Hey, she works at this hair salon, like
27:05
Speaker 1: right down the road.
27:06
Speaker 2: I picked her up there.
27:07
Speaker 1: And so they went over to the hair salon and
27:09
Speaker 1: they wound up talking to the people there.
27:10
Speaker 2: And they said, we've never heard of Leah.
27:12
Speaker 1: And when they showed them a picture of Leah, they
27:15
Speaker 1: were like, we've never seen her before, and so they
27:17
Speaker 1: came back and they told Derek, Look, she's a con artist,
27:19
Speaker 1: and this whole thing, your whole relationship with her has
27:22
Speaker 1: been her setting you up in some way, shape or
27:24
Speaker 1: form the entire thing.
27:25
Speaker 2: That's all it ever was.
27:27
Speaker 1: And so for Derek that was crushing, and he swore
27:29
Speaker 1: off Tender immediately. He did not want to do any
27:31
Speaker 1: more online dating. But what really haunts him more than
27:34
Speaker 1: just being taken advantage of is what would have happened
27:37
Speaker 1: if I wasn't concealed carrying? Would I have wound up
27:40
Speaker 1: in the back of that van? Simply put a goth
27:55
Speaker 1: as someone who finds beauty in things that most other
27:57
Speaker 1: people consider to be pretty dark. Most Americans tend to
28:01
Speaker 1: associate the term goth with the teenagers of the late
28:04
Speaker 1: nineties in early two thousands that wore all black and
28:07
Speaker 1: wore heavy black boots and would hang out in cemeteries,
28:11
Speaker 1: and while that representation of goth culture is of course limited,
28:15
Speaker 1: it is a good representation of the two protagonists in
28:19
Speaker 1: today's story, best friends Rachel and Molly. In the nineteen nineties,
28:23
Speaker 1: Rachel and Molly were full blown goths. They had black hair,
28:27
Speaker 1: black makeup, black clothes, They had the black heavy combat boots,
28:31
Speaker 1: and at one point they and their other goth friends
28:33
Speaker 1: started hanging out in a cemetery to be kind of
28:35
Speaker 1: ironic and funny, like look at us where goth we
28:38
Speaker 1: hang out in cemeteries, And then they actually enjoyed it
28:40
Speaker 1: and began hanging out in a cemetery like every weekend.
28:43
Speaker 1: One Friday night, Molly calls Rachel to go hang out
28:46
Speaker 1: in the cemetery, and as it happened, Rachel was just
28:48
Speaker 1: sitting at home and she was bored out of her mind,
28:51
Speaker 1: and so the call came at a perfect time, and
28:52
Speaker 1: so Rachel's like, yeah, I'd love to go. So she
28:54
Speaker 1: flies downstairs and she sits on a front step and
28:57
Speaker 1: she's waiting for Molly to show up. And eventually Molly's
29:00
Speaker 1: rolls down the street and Rachel immediately recognizes that.
29:03
Speaker 2: Molly is the only one in the car.
29:06
Speaker 1: And Rachel whenever she would go to the cemetery at
29:08
Speaker 1: night with Mollie, they were always there with a group
29:10
Speaker 1: of at least four people. Even though they liked hanging
29:13
Speaker 1: out in the cemetery, they did recognize that it was
29:16
Speaker 1: a little bit creepy at night to be out there
29:18
Speaker 1: and so they liked kind of rolling in a fairly
29:20
Speaker 1: big group. And so Rachel hops in the car and
29:23
Speaker 1: her first question of Mollie is where is everybody meeting
29:26
Speaker 1: us there? And Molly said, oh, no, everybody else is
29:29
Speaker 1: either working or they're kind of hung over from the
29:31
Speaker 1: party from last night. So it's just us too. I
29:33
Speaker 1: hope that's okay. And at the time Rachel actually in
29:36
Speaker 1: her head was like, no, I don't really want to
29:38
Speaker 1: do this anymore, but she was like, oh, yeah, that's fine.
29:41
Speaker 2: We'll just go just the two of us. It'll be fine.
29:43
Speaker 1: Molly takes off from Rachel's house and she makes the
29:45
Speaker 1: familiar kind of winding commute to the front gate of
29:48
Speaker 1: this enormous cemetery that sits right in the center of town.
29:52
Speaker 2: They drive underneath this massive.
29:54
Speaker 1: Wrought iron gate that looks very medieval, very foreboding. It
29:57
Speaker 1: looks like it's out of a cheesy horror movie, like
30:00
Speaker 1: cliche entrance to a cemetery. And so they go through
30:03
Speaker 1: there and they're on this road that stretches all the
30:05
Speaker 1: way down through the cemetery and basically splits it in two.
30:09
Speaker 2: On the left side.
30:10
Speaker 1: As you're driving in was an area closest to town,
30:13
Speaker 1: and also it butted up against a major public university.
30:17
Speaker 1: And then on this side of the cemetery you had
30:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of residential houses that butted up against the
30:22
Speaker 1: side of the cemetery. And where Molly and Rachel and
30:25
Speaker 1: their crew liked to go was on the right side,
30:27
Speaker 1: all the way back in the corner, because there was
30:29
Speaker 1: a section that was kind of situated between these two
30:32
Speaker 1: hills where not only were they obscured from the cemetery
30:36
Speaker 1: road and the main road once they were down in
30:38
Speaker 1: this little depression, there was also no houses that happened
30:41
Speaker 1: to look over that spot, so it was kind of
30:43
Speaker 1: like the hidden section of the cemetery.
30:46
Speaker 2: And there was also this big.
30:47
Speaker 1: Boulder that people sat on and a big tree you could.
30:50
Speaker 2: Lean up against. So that was their spot.
30:52
Speaker 1: So Molly drives in the gates, she heads down that
30:54
Speaker 1: road and she turns right onto a dead end road.
30:57
Speaker 1: She takes that down about a couple hundred meters till
30:59
Speaker 1: at dead and they park and then the girls get
31:02
Speaker 1: out of the car. They light up cigarettes, and they
31:04
Speaker 1: walk down this hill that's just beyond where this dead
31:07
Speaker 1: end comes to an end. And so they walk down
31:10
Speaker 1: this hill, and it brings them to this clearing where
31:12
Speaker 1: this big.
31:13
Speaker 2: Rock and tree is.
31:14
Speaker 1: Rachel hops up on the rock and she turns around
31:16
Speaker 1: so she's facing back up the hill. They just walk
31:19
Speaker 1: down and Mollie is right next to her on her right,
31:22
Speaker 1: leaning up against the tree, and for the next hour
31:24
Speaker 1: or so they just crush cigarettes and talked about their
31:27
Speaker 1: various boyfriend drama and life drama and whatever else they
31:30
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. After a while, the girls started
31:33
Speaker 1: to smell a bonfire, and from where they were sitting,
31:36
Speaker 1: they could see a hill in front of them, and
31:37
Speaker 1: there was actually another hill over here, and so their
31:40
Speaker 1: views pretty obscured out of this little valley they're in,
31:43
Speaker 1: so they can't see any fires anywhere, and so they
31:46
Speaker 1: assumed that what they're smelling was a fire coming from
31:49
Speaker 1: the other side of the cemetery because there's that huge
31:52
Speaker 1: university over there, and they knew sometimes the college kids
31:55
Speaker 1: would come on to the cemetery and they would light
31:57
Speaker 1: fires over there, and inevitably the police would get called
32:00
Speaker 1: and they would break up the fire because you're not
32:02
Speaker 1: allowed to have a fire on the cemetery, and whenever
32:05
Speaker 1: they did that, the police would actually make rounds around
32:07
Speaker 1: the entire cemetery, and historically, basically if you were there
32:11
Speaker 1: hanging out, they would tell you to leave. And so
32:12
Speaker 1: they think, Okay, this is probably a good time to leave,
32:15
Speaker 1: because probably in the next thirty minutes to an hour,
32:18
Speaker 1: the police are going to be here. They're gonna come
32:19
Speaker 1: over here see our car, and they're gonna ask what
32:22
Speaker 1: we're doing, and we're gonna have to leave. So let's
32:24
Speaker 1: just leave now. So Rachel hops off the rock and
32:26
Speaker 1: the two of them begin meandering their way back up
32:29
Speaker 1: the hill towards the car. When they get about halfway
32:31
Speaker 1: up the hill, they notice to the right something bright. Now,
32:35
Speaker 1: because they were higher up, they could actually see over
32:38
Speaker 1: the hill to their right, and what they were.
32:40
Speaker 2: Seeing was the top of a bonfire. So the girls
32:43
Speaker 2: take a couple.
32:43
Speaker 1: More steps up the hill to gains some elevation to
32:46
Speaker 1: hopefully be able to see better down into where this
32:49
Speaker 1: fire is.
32:50
Speaker 2: But even when they're up almost at the top of.
32:52
Speaker 1: The hill, that fire is too far down on the
32:55
Speaker 1: other side of that hill that they can't see any
32:57
Speaker 1: people and they can't really tell how big the fire.
33:00
Speaker 1: They're just basically seeing the top flickers of it. Even
33:02
Speaker 1: though they don't know anything about the people over there
33:04
Speaker 1: at the spire. What they do know is when they
33:07
Speaker 1: showed up, there was no fire over there, they would
33:09
Speaker 1: have recognized it. So whoever's over there had to have
33:12
Speaker 1: shown up and built the spire while Rachel and Molly
33:15
Speaker 1: were down at the rock and tree, which means there's
33:18
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance they didn't.
33:19
Speaker 2: See Rachel and Molly. This is a pretty private area.
33:23
Speaker 1: Their car was parked a little bit off to the
33:24
Speaker 1: side of the trail, and so Molly picks up on
33:27
Speaker 1: this and she says to Rachel, Hey, let's sneak back
33:29
Speaker 1: down and walk up their hill and look down and
33:32
Speaker 1: see who's here. I bet it's a bunch of college kids.
33:33
Speaker 1: It'll be funny to see what they're doing. But Rachel
33:36
Speaker 1: had a weird feeling about it. She's thinking to herself,
33:38
Speaker 1: if this is college kids, why would they have their
33:41
Speaker 1: bonfire this far away from campus. I mean, this is
33:44
Speaker 1: literally the farthest point away from the side of the
33:47
Speaker 1: cemetery that's close to their campus. If they're having a
33:50
Speaker 1: party over here, there's a good chance that anybody going
33:53
Speaker 1: to it is going to need to drive, and that
33:55
Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense.
33:56
Speaker 2: If you can just walk to the other side of
33:58
Speaker 2: the campus and have a bonfire over there.
34:00
Speaker 1: And so Rachel is logically deducing that this is probably
34:04
Speaker 1: not college kids, but who else is having a bonfire
34:08
Speaker 1: in the secret section of the cemetery in the middle
34:10
Speaker 1: of the night. And Rachel's thinking that now, if the
34:13
Speaker 1: police come here, they're definitely going to see us because
34:16
Speaker 1: we're so close to this bonfire, and so it's probably
34:19
Speaker 1: not a good idea to stick around much longer. But
34:21
Speaker 1: despite Rachel's hesitations, she is intrigued and she does want
34:24
Speaker 1: to see what's going on over there.
34:26
Speaker 2: So the two girls walk down the hill. They make
34:28
Speaker 2: it down to the rock and the tree.
34:30
Speaker 1: Then they turn left and they begin walking up to
34:32
Speaker 1: this other hill, the hill that's going to bring them
34:34
Speaker 1: up to this fire. And so they only get a
34:36
Speaker 1: few steps up this hill when they are suddenly hit
34:39
Speaker 1: with this disgusting, putrid smell that just encompasses them and
34:43
Speaker 1: it makes them gag.
34:44
Speaker 2: And they're covering their mouth and their nose, and Rachel exclaims,
34:48
Speaker 2: oh my god, what is that? And then as soon
34:50
Speaker 2: as she says it, she realizes she.
34:52
Speaker 1: Was really loud, and she's like and Molly's like, and
34:57
Speaker 1: they both freeze, wondering if the people on the other
34:59
Speaker 1: side of the hill have heard them, And after a
35:02
Speaker 1: little bit of silence, Mollie's like, you want to keep going,
35:07
Speaker 1: and Rachel's like, no, we got to go between the
35:10
Speaker 1: horrible smell that's obviously coming from this weird fire and
35:14
Speaker 1: the fact that Rachel basically just gave them away, and so, Praul,
35:17
Speaker 1: we know these people on the other side of this
35:19
Speaker 1: hill have hurt us, and now they're waiting for us
35:21
Speaker 1: to come over the edge, and it's gonna be really
35:23
Speaker 1: awkward if we suddenly crash their bonfire. Rachel, she's thinking
35:26
Speaker 1: about these things, and so she's like, let's go.
35:28
Speaker 2: We gotta go.
35:29
Speaker 1: Molly's disappointed, but she gets it, and the two girls
35:32
Speaker 1: turn around and begin walking back, and so they walk
35:35
Speaker 1: past the tree and the rock on their left. They
35:37
Speaker 1: turn right and they're about to walk up the hill
35:39
Speaker 1: that's going to bring them to their car, when Rachel
35:42
Speaker 1: just turns around to look at the hill towards the
35:45
Speaker 1: fire where they were headed before, and standing at the
35:47
Speaker 1: top of that hill is a man just looking down
35:50
Speaker 1: at them, and the fire is illuminating him from behind.
35:53
Speaker 1: And they can clearly tell it's a man standing there
35:55
Speaker 1: looking at them, and immediately the girls felt really uncomfortable.
35:59
Speaker 2: It was almost like they had just been caught spying.
36:01
Speaker 1: Even though they didn't actually get caught spying, it was
36:04
Speaker 1: what they were going to go do, and so they.
36:06
Speaker 2: Felt like they had almost been caught red handed.
36:09
Speaker 1: And so Molly and Rachel just turn and begin walking
36:11
Speaker 1: up the hill kind of with their heads down. They
36:13
Speaker 1: just felt kind of awkward, and so they move a
36:15
Speaker 1: few more steps up this hill and Rachel looks again
36:18
Speaker 1: at where this guy was standing and he's now gone,
36:20
Speaker 1: and Rachel's relieved, but then she realizes he's gone because
36:24
Speaker 1: he's walking power walking down the hill towards them, and
36:29
Speaker 1: Rachel gasps and she grabs Molly and pushes her and says,
36:32
Speaker 1: go go, go, go go, and they start running up
36:34
Speaker 1: the hill and Rachel looks around and now this guy
36:37
Speaker 1: is running towards them. He's down now at the rock
36:39
Speaker 1: and the tree. He's gaming on them. They sprint up
36:42
Speaker 1: over the top. They run to Molly's car, and Molly's
36:45
Speaker 1: fumbling with her keys to get the car open, and
36:47
Speaker 1: Rachel's yelling.
36:48
Speaker 2: Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Finally she gets it
36:50
Speaker 2: open and they both jump inside.
36:52
Speaker 1: Rachel locks the car doors, and as Mollie is turning
36:55
Speaker 1: the key over, Rachel's looking out the back and she's
36:57
Speaker 1: waiting to see this guy. And sure enough, as they
37:00
Speaker 1: she sees his head come up over the ridge line
37:03
Speaker 1: just enough that he can clearly see them leaving, and
37:05
Speaker 1: then he ducks back down and he disappears, and the
37:07
Speaker 1: two of them speed down the road. They make a
37:09
Speaker 1: left onto that main drive and they speed out of
37:11
Speaker 1: the cemetery. For the first few minutes of their drive,
37:14
Speaker 1: neither of them say anything. This was just a very
37:16
Speaker 1: traumatic experience, and it was also very confusing because they
37:20
Speaker 1: thought they were going over to spy on college kids
37:24
Speaker 1: having a bonfire, and then they're hit with that horrible smell,
37:27
Speaker 1: Like what was that horrible smell? And then they leave
37:30
Speaker 1: and there's this guy who did not look like he
37:33
Speaker 1: was a college kid. He looked like he was probably
37:34
Speaker 1: in his forties, and then he's chasing them.
37:38
Speaker 2: You know what was that? And when they did.
37:39
Speaker 1: Start talking about it, they couldn't really come to any
37:42
Speaker 1: sort of rational conclusion of what had just happened, and
37:44
Speaker 1: so they were both very spooked, and they decide let's
37:47
Speaker 1: just go home and talk.
37:49
Speaker 2: About this tomorrow.
37:50
Speaker 1: And so Molly drops Rachel off at her house and
37:52
Speaker 1: Molly goes home and both girls go to bed. The
37:54
Speaker 1: next morning, Rachel gets up and she heads down to
37:56
Speaker 1: the kitchen where her mom is already there having her
37:59
Speaker 1: morning coffee.
38:00
Speaker 2: And Rachel sits down, and you know, she's not a
38:02
Speaker 2: big talker.
38:02
Speaker 1: She's not about to start by saying, Hey, guess what
38:05
Speaker 1: happened to me last night at the cemetery. Instead, she
38:07
Speaker 1: just sits there and for a little bit, her mom
38:09
Speaker 1: just kind of rambles about work and what she's doing
38:12
Speaker 1: that day, and then all of a sudden, her mom
38:15
Speaker 1: it's like she has this epiphany and she goes Rachel, Rachel,
38:18
Speaker 1: did you hear what happened last night? And Rachel's like, no, what,
38:20
Speaker 1: And her mom's like someone I work with. I don't
38:23
Speaker 1: know her personally, but she works in the same building
38:25
Speaker 1: as me. She got kidnapped from the parking garage where
38:28
Speaker 1: I parked my car. I've seen her park her car
38:32
Speaker 1: in this lot and she got kidnapped. And Rachel's like,
38:34
Speaker 1: oh my god, really, like what happened to her? Did
38:37
Speaker 1: they find her, and her mom was like, yeah, but
38:39
Speaker 1: it was too late. The person who had kidnapped her
38:42
Speaker 1: had killed her and then tried to dispose of her
38:44
Speaker 1: body at the cemetery by burning her in a bonfire.
38:47
Speaker 1: Rachel suddenly felt sick because now she knew what was
38:50
Speaker 1: happening last night, and she knows what that smell was.
38:53
Speaker 1: Rachel immediately pours her heart out about everything that happened
38:57
Speaker 1: the night before, and her mom is totally horrified, but
39:00
Speaker 1: she's in particular horrified that they clearly had been there
39:05
Speaker 1: when the killer had arrived and set up shop and
39:07
Speaker 1: began burning this body. They were just literally fifty meters
39:11
Speaker 1: away the whole time. And so her mom tells her,
39:14
Speaker 1: you and Molly have to go to the police station
39:17
Speaker 1: and make a statement. They have not caught this person yet.
39:19
Speaker 1: You've seen this person.
39:20
Speaker 2: You got to tell them.
39:21
Speaker 1: And so Rachel calls Molly and breaks the news about
39:24
Speaker 1: what was actually happening the night before and who was
39:27
Speaker 1: actually chasing them to their car, and says, we have
39:30
Speaker 1: to go to the police station, and so they agreed.
39:32
Speaker 1: They go down to the police station and they tell
39:34
Speaker 1: them what happened, but they didn't get a great look
39:36
Speaker 1: at him, they could only say that he was maybe
39:38
Speaker 1: in his forties and maybe average height, and so the
39:41
Speaker 1: police wrote it all down, but they basically said, look,
39:43
Speaker 1: if you can think of more details, we would love
39:45
Speaker 1: to hear those, because this isn't really enough to go on.
39:47
Speaker 1: And so the girls go back home and they're thinking
39:49
Speaker 1: to themselves, did he see us? Does he know that
39:52
Speaker 1: we saw him? Do you think he knows that we
39:54
Speaker 1: know he's a killer now? And so they're freaking out.
39:57
Speaker 1: But luckily, within forty eight hours the police actually caught
40:00
Speaker 1: this guy because he was driving around in the murder
40:02
Speaker 1: victim's car and someone spot at him. They pulled him
40:05
Speaker 1: over and he confessed, and so he went to jail.
40:08
Speaker 1: Needless to say, Rachel and Molly thanked their lucky stars
40:10
Speaker 1: that when they started ascending that hill and they were
40:13
Speaker 1: hit with that smell that Rachel said, let's not go
40:17
Speaker 1: any farther, Let's leave, because had they continued and gone
40:21
Speaker 1: to the other side, they could have wound up in
40:23
Speaker 1: the bonfire too. The following stories all take place in
40:41
Speaker 1: the Twin Cities in Minnesota. On New Year's Eve, nineteen eighty,
40:44
Speaker 1: twenty year old Karen Potac was out at a bar
40:46
Speaker 1: with her friends celebrating, and at some point in the
40:49
Speaker 1: night she slipped out. She didn't want to stay any later,
40:51
Speaker 1: and she began walking home. Now she didn't have a
40:54
Speaker 1: jacket on, and it was very cold outside, and she's
40:56
Speaker 1: kind of stumbling through the streets and a man sees
40:59
Speaker 1: her and pulls over her and offers to give her
41:01
Speaker 1: a ride home. She's kind of intoxicated, and so she
41:03
Speaker 1: agrees to get in this car and they drive off.
41:06
Speaker 1: A couple hours later, around three am, the police received
41:09
Speaker 1: this phone.
41:10
Speaker 3: Call, Please emergency police on a pot map in the Handshope.
41:23
Speaker 4: What happened to? What's there? I don't know?
41:32
Speaker 1: How are you using this information from the caller? The
41:36
Speaker 1: police arrived in the back of that building and they
41:38
Speaker 1: find Karen Potak. She had been repeatedly bludgeoned over the
41:42
Speaker 1: head with a tire iron and then left her dead. Miraculously,
41:45
Speaker 1: she would survive, but because of her head injury, she
41:48
Speaker 1: forgot almost.
41:48
Speaker 2: Everything about that night, including the description.
41:51
Speaker 1: Of the guy who picked her up and who probably
41:54
Speaker 1: attacked her, and who probably was the.
41:56
Speaker 2: One who called police.
41:57
Speaker 1: So the police try to interview some people in the
41:59
Speaker 1: area around where she was found but it was a
42:01
Speaker 1: really deserted area and no one knew anything and there
42:04
Speaker 1: was no physical evidence left at the scene, so the
42:07
Speaker 1: case went cold. Then five months later, the police received
42:10
Speaker 1: another phone.
42:11
Speaker 3: Call and finally, I just take somebody with a nick
42:16
Speaker 3: a good stuff myself, I got.
42:20
Speaker 1: At this point, the police were not connecting this call
42:23
Speaker 1: with the call that immediately preceded finding Karen Potek, meaning
42:27
Speaker 1: they did.
42:27
Speaker 2: Not think that was the same person.
42:29
Speaker 1: And since in this call there were no instructions on
42:31
Speaker 1: where to find this person, they didn't really have anything
42:34
Speaker 1: to go on, so they took note of it, but
42:36
Speaker 1: ultimately kind.
42:36
Speaker 2: Of disregarded it.
42:37
Speaker 1: But just a few hours later, a group of teenagers
42:40
Speaker 1: were walking through the forest when they found a dead body.
42:42
Speaker 1: The body belonged to eighteen year old Kimberly Compton, who
42:46
Speaker 1: had literally just moved to Minnesota. She graduated high school
42:50
Speaker 1: and decided she wanted to start fresh in Minnesota. She
42:53
Speaker 1: hopped in a bus she goes to Minnesota. She gets
42:55
Speaker 1: off the bus, she goes into the first restaurant she.
42:58
Speaker 2: Sees, which is a diner. She sits down by herself.
43:00
Speaker 1: She's eating some food and a man approaches her and
43:03
Speaker 1: says hey, can I sit down with you?
43:04
Speaker 2: So she lets him sit down and he asks, you know,
43:06
Speaker 2: who are you? What are you doing here? And she says, oh,
43:08
Speaker 2: you know, I just moved here.
43:09
Speaker 1: And this guy offers to drive her around town and
43:12
Speaker 1: show her the sights and she's like great. Fifteen minutes later,
43:15
Speaker 1: he would kill her with an ice peck. At this point,
43:17
Speaker 1: police are beginning to suspect that this person who keeps
43:20
Speaker 1: calling them immediately before they're finding women that have.
43:23
Speaker 2: Been attacked might be the same person.
43:25
Speaker 1: And two days after Compton was killed, they get another
43:28
Speaker 1: call that confirms.
43:29
Speaker 4: This don't talk just toil. I sory what I did.
43:37
Speaker 4: I shouldn't, but I don't know why. I can't get
43:46
Speaker 4: I I can't. I can't think. If I locked up,
43:55
Speaker 4: I kill myself, I'd kill else.
44:02
Speaker 1: From this point forward, they referred to this caller as
44:04
Speaker 1: the weepy voiced killer, and even though they had his
44:07
Speaker 1: voice recorded, they didn't have any physical evidence because he
44:10
Speaker 1: didn't leave any of the scene with Compton either, so
44:12
Speaker 1: they didn't have much to go on. The police would
44:14
Speaker 1: go to the diner and they would talk to the
44:16
Speaker 1: staff that was there and they would give a general
44:18
Speaker 1: description of the weepy voice killer, but it wasn't enough
44:21
Speaker 1: to pinpoint a suspect, so once again, this case went cold.
44:24
Speaker 1: To six months later, the police received yet another call.
44:31
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, killer Compton.
44:53
Speaker 1: A day later, they find the body of forty year
44:55
Speaker 1: old Barbara Simon's floating in the Mississippi River, tucked up
44:58
Speaker 1: against some brush. The night before, Barbara had been out
45:01
Speaker 1: at a bar and she'd offered a cigarette to a
45:03
Speaker 1: man she had met before. They began flirting and kind
45:06
Speaker 1: of hit it off, and at one point they were
45:07
Speaker 1: going to leave together, and before they left, Barbara turns
45:10
Speaker 1: to one of the waitresses and kind of jokingly says, boy,
45:13
Speaker 1: I hope he's nice, because I'm leaving with him, And
45:15
Speaker 1: the waitress, for whatever reason, had a really bad feeling
45:18
Speaker 1: about it and made a point of getting a really
45:21
Speaker 1: good look at the man she was leaving with. And
45:23
Speaker 1: that man, of course, would turn out to be the
45:25
Speaker 1: Weepe Boys killer, and as soon as he and Barbara
45:28
Speaker 1: left the bar, he would stab her to death and
45:30
Speaker 1: throw her in the Mississippi River. After the police began
45:32
Speaker 1: investigating this, that came to the bar and they interviewed
45:35
Speaker 1: that waitress and she said, I got a really good
45:38
Speaker 1: look at this guy, and so the police show her
45:40
Speaker 1: one hundred different mugshots of previously convicted felons in the area,
45:44
Speaker 1: and she immediately identifies thirty eight year old Paul Stefani
45:47
Speaker 1: and says that's the guy. Paul had been convicted for
45:50
Speaker 1: aggravating assault and he also had a history of mental illness.
45:53
Speaker 1: Paul is immediately put under surveillance, but within twenty four hours,
45:56
Speaker 1: he manages to ditch his tail and goes straight into
45:59
Speaker 1: downtown Minneapolis, where he picks up nineteen year old street.
46:02
Speaker 2: Worker Denise Williams. Paul took her.
46:04
Speaker 1: Down a dark alleyway and she kind of sensed something
46:06
Speaker 1: was wrong, and so she grabbed a glass bottle that
46:09
Speaker 1: was sitting on the floor of the car, and when
46:11
Speaker 1: he went to attack her, she managed to hit him
46:12
Speaker 1: in the head and cut his face really, really badly,
46:16
Speaker 1: and she managed to protect herself enough that she could
46:18
Speaker 1: get out of the car and run away.
46:19
Speaker 2: And save her own life.
46:21
Speaker 1: And a neighbor saw her running out of the car
46:23
Speaker 1: and kind of saw the whole exchange didn't like how
46:25
Speaker 1: it looked, so they called nine one one. When police
46:27
Speaker 1: showed up, Paul was long gone. That same night, police
46:30
Speaker 1: get another call from the Weepy Voice Killer.
46:33
Speaker 2: This one's a little bit different. He's actually asking for
46:35
Speaker 2: help for himself.
46:37
Speaker 1: Where on fire? Oh?
46:40
Speaker 3: Fire one five five?
46:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, West, mascha, what's the problem?
46:46
Speaker 3: I'm all cut up?
46:47
Speaker 4: Meet up?
46:49
Speaker 2: What's your apartment number?
46:50
Speaker 3: I went, Oh, where are you?
46:53
Speaker 4: Blaiting from up the arm my hat.
46:57
Speaker 1: Now, by the time this call is being made, the
46:59
Speaker 1: audio recordings of his previous phone calls had been made public.
47:03
Speaker 2: They were aired on radio shows on TV.
47:05
Speaker 1: People had heard his voice and it's fairly distinctive, and
47:08
Speaker 1: the dispatcher recognized his voice and told police there's a
47:11
Speaker 1: chance the Weepy Voice Killer just called us. So an
47:14
Speaker 1: ambulance comes and picks up Paul Stefani and brings him
47:17
Speaker 1: to the hospital, and when he's sitting in his hospital bed,
47:19
Speaker 1: police walk.
47:20
Speaker 2: In and they apprehend him.
47:21
Speaker 1: He pled not guilty, and prosecutors did not actually have
47:24
Speaker 1: that much evidence connecting him to each of these attacks.
47:27
Speaker 1: They had these audio recordings, but that was about it,
47:30
Speaker 1: and so ultimately he got fifty eight years in prison,
47:33
Speaker 1: not a life sentence, but considering his age, it wound
47:36
Speaker 1: up functioning.
47:37
Speaker 2: Like a life sentence.
47:38
Speaker 1: Twelve years into that sentence, he was diagnosed with terminal
47:41
Speaker 1: cancer and was told he only had a year to live.
47:43
Speaker 1: And so it was at this point that he confessed
47:46
Speaker 1: to all of the attacks, including one they didn't know about.
47:49
Speaker 1: He murdered thirty three year old Kathleen Greening in her
47:51
Speaker 1: own home. He just didn't make a phone call to
47:53
Speaker 1: police afterwards. Paul would die shortly after his confessions. Thank
48:04
Speaker 1: you so much for watching. Let me know what you
48:06
Speaker 1: thought of today's episode in the comments, and remember, we
48:09
Speaker 1: have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now.
48:12
Speaker 1: But if you're looking for a recommendation for me of
48:15
Speaker 1: that one video that's worth your time, well it's this
48:18
Speaker 1: one right here, So give it a watch, all right,
48:21
Speaker 1: until next time, see y