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3 Ruthless True Horror Stories That Will Shake You to Your Core · True Horror Stories

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Over the years, we've seen incidents in cases that logic
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and science can't explain. It was nothing new to us.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Stuff Lorrain and I were used to, but nothing could
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: have prepared us for the house.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: On Chase Street.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: When we first got to the smirl family's home in
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: West Pittson's, Pennsylvania, the summer sun felt heavy, but the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: house looked dark, like it swallowed the light. The porch
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: steps groaned like bones breaking, the paint was peeling, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the windows were covered in a greasy film. Even the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: grass around the house was dead, like the ground itself
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: was poisoned. Lorrain grabbed my arm so tight it hurt.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Her face turned white, and she whispered.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: It's everywhere here.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: The smell hit me next, rotten meat and burnt hair,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: but weirdly sweet, like old candy. Inside, the walls seemed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to move like they were breathing, and Janet Smirls stood
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in the hallway, their eyes hollow, hands shaking. Their four
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: girls hid behind them, too scared to speak. Upstairs, Jack's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: parents barely left their room.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: It gets worse when.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It's dark, Janet said, her voice cracking.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: It touches us.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Jack rolled up his sleeve to show bruises shaped like
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: long fingers. It grabbed my ankle and dragged me off
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the bed, he said.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Left these marks. Janet lifted her shirt.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Four deep cuts ran down her back, the skin black
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and wet.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: They won't heal, they just leak. The kids's stories were worse.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: The youngest, Heather, woke up screaming about a man with
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: no face who pinched their toes. Twins Mary and Laura
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: drew pictures of a shadow that licked the windows, leaving
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: greasy streaks. The oldest, Susan, said her closet door would
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: creak open it night, and she'd hear something scratching the floor,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: getting closer to her bed. At night, when we set
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: up cameras and tape recorders, Lorraine sat on the floor
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: holding her cross, her eyes closed, like she was listening
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: for something. Midnight came. The house got too quiet. Then
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a growl, not a dog, not a person, something deeper, meaner.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: The room turned freezing cold, Our breath turned to fog.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: The growl became a crash, wall shaking doors, slamming. Something
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: heavy ran down the hall towards us.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Dot dot dot.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Each step makes the floorboards crack above us. The ceiling
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: creaked like something was crawling up there, claws scratching the plaster,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: then a scream. Jack's mom we ran upstairs. Her door
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: shook like something was trying to break out. When it
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: flew open, the room stank like rotting meat. The old
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: woman pointed to the corner, shaking. There in the dark,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a shape form from the shadows, tall, black as oil,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: with glowing yellow eyes. The air around it twisted like
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: heat off a fire. Lorrain jumped in front of me
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: as it lunged. Then it broke apart into flies that
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: dropped dead on the floor.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: The next few days were hell.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Jack got thrown into a dresser by nothing, his ribs cracking.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Janet's hair got yanked so hard her neck snapped back,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: and she felt hot breath on her ear.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Growled mine.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: The kids' toys moved by themselves, dolls with melted faces
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: crawled up the stairs, and a rocking horse smashed itself
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to pieces. One night, the kitchen faucet turned on by itself,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: spewing black water that smelt like sewage. The thing got
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: stronger the rains saw it crawl on the ceiling like
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a spider, legs bending wrong.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Black mold spread on the.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Walls, making evil markings, upside down crosses.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Symbols like goat heads, mirrors.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Exploded glass shards, making patterns that hurt to look at.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: The walls leaked black slime that burned skin and made
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the kid's puke. One night, Lorraine told me what she
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: felt during her trance. It's not just bungos at, it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: hundreds trapped here, turning into something hungry. She shook, describing
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a pit full of screaming people, all stuck together, rotting.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: We called Father Dylan, an old priest who'd done exorcisms before.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: He walked in and froze. This place stinks of hell,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: he said. We started the exorcism at noon. The priest
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: shouted prayers, but the house fought back. Floorboards shot nails
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: up like spikes. The Bible caught fire, a chandelier fell,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: almost hitting him. He kept going, splashing holy water that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: hissed on the walls, then sidlights. For a second, we
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: thought we won. The laughs started low, like a sick joke.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: The walls bulged, shapes pressing against them, hands, faces all
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: trying to break through. Father Dylan's nose bled. It's not leaving,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: he yelled, then a cut opened on his cheek like
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a knife slashed him. That night, the thing went wild.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Jack woke up unable to move something crushing his chest.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Janet floated off her bed, her back bending until it
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: stepped before she dropped to the floor and the girls' room,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Heather's teddy bear exploded, spitting out maggots that crawled into
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: their ears. The whole time, a voice boomed, a mix
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of screams and growls.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Flesh to break, bones to drink.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: We ran at sunrise, the Smurls piling into our car
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: with nothing but their clothes, but the darkness followed. In
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: their new apartment, sinks spat black goo. Family photos burst
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: into flames. Heather's reflection in the mirror moved on its own,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: mouthing words that made her stop talking for weeks. One night,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Jack's dad woke up to find his pillows soaked in blood,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: though he had no wounds. The TV would turn on
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: by itself, showing static with glowing eyes in the center.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: It took three years of prayers, charms, and sleepless nights
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: for the hauntings to fade. The Smurls moved again and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: changed their phone numbers, but they still jumped at every noise.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: The house on Chase Street is still there, new owners
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: painted a yellow, but no one lived there long. Neighbors
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: hear things, kids laughing, then screaming, a low grass in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the dark saying more. Sometimes at midnight, the street lights
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: flicker out, and the house seems to grow taller, leaning
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: over the sidewalk like it's watching. Not all hauntings can
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: be cleansed, not all demons can be cast out.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Some just wait in the dark, getting hungrier.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies and eighties, the smurl family experienced
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: one of the most violent hauntings ever documented. After moving
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: into their home, they were tormented by a demonic entity.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: The activity included foul odours and dark shadows creeping along
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the walls, loud bagging and growling sounds at night, family
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: members being levitated and scratched, a dark, shadowy figure dragging
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: one family member across the bed. The Smurls sought help
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: from Ed and Lorraine Warren, who confirmed demonic activity. Exorcisms
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: were performed, but the family eventually moved to escape the horror.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: I never thought.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Ghosts existed, or curses or any of the spooky tales
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: told at bedtime to keep children out of abandoned houses.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: But all that.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Changed when I became an employee at the Kansas State
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: History Museum. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: At first. I was just a night security guard, the
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: new guy. The work was easy.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Patrol the halls, keep an eye out for anyone who
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: tried to steal any of the artifacts, and don't fall asleep.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: But there was one exhibit that creepd me out, even
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in the daylight, the Bender family exhibit. It was the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: old senior guard, Hank, who had told me the tale.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: He was a gruff old fellow, a lifer in the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: museum trade, and he had that kind of voice that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: made each tales sound a thousand times more terrible than
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: You ever hear of the bloody Benders, he asked one evening,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: leaning on his flashlight.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I nodded my head.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Well. Back in the eighteen seventies, father, mother, son, daughter
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: ran an inn out in the middle of nowhere. Travelers
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: would stop by for a meal, maybe a night's rest,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: but they never left. The Benders had a trick a
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: curtain in their cabin that separated the dining.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Area from the back.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: When they had a guest sit with his back to it.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: One of the men would strike his skull with a hammer,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: and the women would cut his throat. They them tossed
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: the body in a pit in the back. No one
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: had any idea how many they murdered before people began
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: suspecting something.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: A gulp, and they got caught. Hank laughed, shaking his head.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Nope, they disappeared before the law arrived, knocking. Some claim
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: they ran. Others claimed the townspeople killed him and silenced it.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: But their cabin they torched it to the ground, claimed
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: the ground was cursed.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: A giggled uneasily. So why does the museum have anything
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: from it? Hank's face turned black.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: A few of the artifacts were recovered, some tools, some furnishings,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: and that mirror he.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Gestured across the room, an old, broken mirror on the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: wall had a darkened, aged surface.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: People say they see faces in it, shadows sometimes people hear.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Screams at night.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Late.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I brushed him off, ah museum legends, all places like
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: these have him.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: He only smirked, have a good night, kit.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't pay much attention to it until I was
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: by myself. The museum was still too still. Each step creaked,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Each little groan made me shiver. I made my rounds,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: passing by glass cases of rusty tools and bloodied knives.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: The mirror was the worst.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Each time I walked by, I could have sworn something
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was just out of sight.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Waiting. At two am, the first sound was heard, a scream.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: I was immobile.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: My radio spat static to life, hissing before it cut off.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The sound returned low, panicked, as if a person were
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: wedged in between the walls. Hello, My voice trembled barely,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: no reply, just emptiness. And then footsteps, bare, bare feet
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: on the museum floor. I spun around, nothing but the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: atmosphere clung, heavy and thick and crushing. The cold hit
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: like ice, my breath missing in the shadows the mirror
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I spun around. My face was there, but something was off.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: My breath caught. There was someone standing behind me, a woman.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Her face was white, eyes empty, blood trickling from a
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: cut across her throat. She stretched out, fingers quivering, her
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: lips moving as if she was attempting to say something.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Then she attacked. I stumbled backward, heart pounding, But when
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I spun around, no one was there, just nothing. I ran,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: forget the job, forget everything. I bolted for the door,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: but it wouldn't open. The security system had sealed them
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: for the night. I grabbed my radio, but all I
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: got was static. Behind me, the artifacts clattered in their cases,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The tools rolled, the knives skidded across the glass. Then
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the whispering began, whispering at first, then shouting.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Dozens of voices, screaming, wailing, begging.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: The mirror broke.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: The blow knocked me to the ground, my palms scraping
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the frigid floor. The air grew rank, the reek of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: decaying flesh filling my nostrils. A form crept out of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the shadows, skull white jagged, its head hanging to one side,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: unnaturally black pits for eyes, its mouth stretching wide enough
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to cleave its face in two. A hammer held in
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: one bony fist. The walls began to bleed black. Viscous
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: liquid boozed out of the cracks, forming a puddle at
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: my feet. Something moved in the darkness. A twisted, deformed
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: figure with its limbs twisting in directions that shouldn't it
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: crawled towards me, speaking in voices that don't belong to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: this world. A woman's rotting hand burst forth from the floor,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: grasping at my ankle. Icy fingers closed around my skin,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: tugging me down. I screamed, thrashing about, but the hold
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: only grew stronger. More hands burst forth from the ground,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: bony fingers grasping at my skin, pulling me further into
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the depths.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: The overhead lighting flashed wildly.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: The wall shadows crept and distorted, becoming long, skinny figures
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: with empty eyes and twisted, grinning mouths.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: The laughter began, deep and rasping at.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: First, then swelling into a frenzy of shrinking, demented cackles.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: My reflection in the broken mirror started to stir. It smiled, advancing,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: its eyes brimming with black emptiness. It extended a hand,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: pushing a palm against the glass, and then passing through,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: as if the wall between worlds had disappeared. I struggled,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: fighting against the cold clutch of the hands. The last
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: thing I remember was seeing my own face looming over me,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: speaking words I couldn't hear. Then blackness consumed me. I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: awoke in the morning. The museum was fine, no shattered
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: mirror and no artifacts filled across the floor, just Hank
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: looming over me, shaking his head. Looks like you had
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: yourself a rough night. I sat up, my body throbbing.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: You didn't see anything. Hank just grinned, but his eyes
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: were different. Something told gives you believe the stories now.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: I left that day, never went back, but every so often,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, I still hear them,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the screams, and I know whatever is haunting that place,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: it's still waiting. The Bloody Benders were a family of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: serial killers who lured travelers to their Kansas cabin in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, murdered them, and buried their bodies in
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the yard. After the Benders vanished to escape justice, locals
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: reported horrifying paranormal.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Activity in the abandoned house.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Muffled screams and cries for help, apparitions of the victims
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: wandering the land, furniture moving on its own, and unseen
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: forces pushing visitors horses refusing to go near the property.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: The house was eventually burned down due to fear, but
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the land remains infamous for eerie encounters. I never thought
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: my past would come back to haunt me like this,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Not here, not now, not with his face grinning from
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: every headline, those dead fish eyes staring through the screen
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: as if they could still dissect me. It started like
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: any other monotonous day at work, if you could call
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: the suffocating heat of the bakery's ovens and the reek.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Of burnt sugar monotony.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The industrial fans groaned like dying animals, their blades slicing
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: through air thick with the cloying sweetness of caramelizing dough.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: My apron clung to me, damp with sweat and flour,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: as I loaded tray after tray into the oven's glowing jaws.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Timothy Bass drifted through the haze like smoke, always watching.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Never blinking.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: His boots squeaked against the linoleum, and a rhythm that
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: matched the pulse throbbing in my throat. It materialized behind
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the women, Always the women, His breath, a wet rasp
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: against their necks.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Says he reached for a muffin or adjusted the thermostat.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Once I caught him sniffing in the chair where Jeanine
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: had been sitting, his nostrils flaring like a hound's fingertips,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: digging into the vinyl until it crackled. When I froze,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: a tray trembling in my hands. He turned slowly, smiled.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: His teeth were too white, too straight, as if they'd
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: been filed to points something wrong, he asked, tilting his
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: head like a curious predator. The scar on his left cheek, thin, surgical,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a pale worm buried under stubble twitch As he spoke.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I shook my head, my tongue glued to the roof
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of my mouth. But I knew, I knew the way
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: prey knows. The shadows circling overhead isn't just a cloud.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until years later, scrolling through cold case files
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: at three am, while my husband snored oblivious beside me,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and I saw her name again. The screen's blue light
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: carved hollows into the dark, and there she was, Mandy,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: her senior photo, glowing like a ghost act Ne Washington,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. A girl so vibrantly alive she seemed
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: to burn through the pixelated image, wild all burned curls,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: freckles like scattered cinnamon eyes, the fierce green of summer
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: leaves before they rocked.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: A track star, a fighter, the kind of girl who'd.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Laughed as she outran the boys, her German shepherd duke,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: loping at her heels like a tawny shadow. Until November
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth, she had gone for a jog with her
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: German shepherd, a routine run, something she had done one
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: hundred times before. But on that fateful November day, she
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: didn't come home.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Her dog returned alone. It's fur damp, its eyes wild.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Something was wrong, something unholy had taken root in the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: small town, and its name had no face.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Not yet.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Three days later, two fishermen found Mandy the knooksac river
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: had peeled her to horror, its icy fingers probing every wound,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: every violation. Her skin was the color of a weak
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: old bruise, lips parted in a silent scream, hair tangled
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: with twigs and riverweed like a crown of thorns. They'd
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: pulled her onto the bank, and one of the men
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: vomited into the shallows. Bruises bloomed across her legs in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the shape of grasping hands. Crescent mooncuts scored her palms
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: from her own nails, the coroner would say, as she
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: claweded her attacker's face.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: But the worst was her.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Eyes, wide open, clouded, hungry, as if death hadn't stopped
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: her from searching for the monster who'd done this. The
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: town unraveled, porch lights burned through the night. Fathers cleaned
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: shotguns at kitchen tables, mother's checked closets. Before bed, Reverend
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Cole preached about the devil walking among them, his spit
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: flecking the pulpit as he snarled, look to your neighbors.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: For weeks, the only footprints in the autumn mud belonged
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to detectives and grieving parents. Then the snow came, burying leads,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: burying hope, burying Mandy in a polished casket too small
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: for her laughter. The case froze, buried, forgotten until twenty
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and seventeen, until detective Bohey on nicotine and caffeine and rage,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: thought it with a DNA test, until I sat in
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a two cold interrogation room, my breath fogging the two
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: way mirror, and whispered Timothy bats I told them everything. Now,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: he'd linger by the time cards, memorizing schedules, how he'd
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: hum sweet child of mine while scrubbing blood, chicken blood,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: he claimed from the meat slicer. Once after Mandy's face
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: flashed on the break room TV, he'd sighed pretty thing.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I bet she was wild up to the end.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: His tongue darted out blizzard quick, catching a drop of
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: coffee on his lip. The cops found the soda can
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: in his garbage, buried under a rat's nest of hustler men,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: magazines and frayed ropes. A Pepsi from nineteen eighty nine.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Its logo faded, dented, as if kicked in a rage.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: They told me the DNA was a statistical miracle. So
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: live on the rim, skin, cells and the grooves a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: map of guilt etched in double helixes. The trial was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: a circus of horrors. Timothy's lawyer painted Mandy as a
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: free spirited teen who'd explored the woods with a secret lover.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: The gallery erupted.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Mister Stavich lunged, howling until bailiffs dragged him out. Timothy
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: just smiled, fingers steepled, watching me from the bench. I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: felt those fingers on my throat, in my hair snap.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: When the prosecutor displayed the coke bottle, the one found
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: near Mandy's body, its glass smeared with Timothy's sweat.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: I gagged.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: The courtroom tilted for a heartbeat I was in those woods,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the air thick with a stench of crushed ferns and copper.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Her screams clocked in my lungs. The jury deliberated for
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: eight hours. When the foreman spat guilty, Timothy finally moved.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: He leaned toward me, cuffs clinking, and.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Mouthed your next. They gave him twenty seven years.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Twenty seven years for stealing, a lifetime for turning a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: river into a tomb. The judge called a closure. But
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: closure is a myth sold to the grieving. There's no
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: coffin heavy enough to crush the what IFFs. Now I
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: dream of her, not the Mandy and the photos, but
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the other Mandy, the one the river made. Her skin
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: sloths off in translucent ribbons, lips nibbled by crawdad's eye,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: sockets teeming with leeches. She runs, but her legs buckle
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: tend in, snapping like rotten rubber bands. The woods creak
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: and moan, branches knitting into a cage behind her footsteps, heavy, relentless,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a whistle, sweet child of mine, off key and ripping malice.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Don't help me, She gurgles, river water geysering from her throat.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Why didn't you help me?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I rake screaming, my sheets soaked in November rain. My
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: husband murmurs nightmare and rolls over. He doesn't understand. They
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: never do. In nineteen eighty nine, eighteen year old Mandy
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Stovich disappeared while jogging near her home and acme, Washington.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Her body was found in the Nooksack River three days later.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Despite an extensive investigation, the case when cold for nearly
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: thirty years. In twenty seventeen, detectives used forensic genealogy to
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: identify Timothy Bass, a former neighbor, as a suspect. DNA
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: recovered from Bass's discarded coke can matched evidence from the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: crime scene. He was arrested and convicted of murder, receiving
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: nearly twenty seven years in prison. The case was ground
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: phone breaking for its use of genetic genealogy in solving
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: decades old crimes