Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Channel to day, we're diving into
Speaker 1: spine chilling real life encounters shared by Reddit users who
Speaker 1: crossed paths with serial killers before anyone knew who they
Speaker 1: really were. If you love true crime and mysterious encounters,
Speaker 1: don't forget to like subscribe and drop your own eerie
Speaker 1: story in the comments. A serial killer lived in the
Speaker 1: street behind my aunt's house. We kids went to a
Speaker 1: party next door to his house. We'd all seen the guy.
Speaker 1: Seemed like a harmless old man, a bit scary, but harmless.
Speaker 1: Then the police dug up his patio and found the
Speaker 1: bodies of two young women buried underneath. He'd also killed
Speaker 1: some women up north. That was an odd time. When
Speaker 1: my mom was sixteen, she was sleeping and woke up
Speaker 1: to someone trying to open her bedroom window. She ran
Speaker 1: to my grandma's room and told her someone was trying
Speaker 1: to break in. My grandma, being the crazy, awesome lady
Speaker 1: she is, grabs a bat, runs outside, confronts this guy
Speaker 1: and starts swinging. The guy runs off and they don't
Speaker 1: think too much of it. Sometime later, my grandma sees
Speaker 1: the guy on the news and it's Richard Ramirez. My
Speaker 1: mom told this story over and over when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. She easily could have been one of his victims.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful she wasn't, especially since she was pregnant
Speaker 1: with me at the time. So this is third hand,
Speaker 1: but an old boss went to the University of Utah
Speaker 1: and was in a sorority. One day, she was waiting
Speaker 1: for her date in front of her sorority house with
Speaker 1: a girlfriend who was also waiting for her date. Her
Speaker 1: girlfriend's date pulls up, but her girlfriend forgets something and
Speaker 1: runs back in the house. My former boss chatted with
Speaker 1: the man for a few minutes. She noted that he
Speaker 1: was polite and handsome. Her girlfriend comes out and they
Speaker 1: leave in his VW Beatle. My former boss gets picked
Speaker 1: up by her date a short while later, and she
Speaker 1: thinks nothing of it. The next day, she sees her
Speaker 1: girlfriend and asks how the date was. The girlfriend says
Speaker 1: that they started driving in her date's VW Beatle and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, she got a splitting headache. She
Speaker 1: thought it was really strange, but she felt nauseous. She
Speaker 1: apologized and asked him to take her home. He was
Speaker 1: a little upset, but he dropped her back off. They
Speaker 1: didn't go out again. Years pass and my former boss
Speaker 1: is watching the news one night and sees a familiar
Speaker 1: man on the screen. It was Ted Bundy, one of
Speaker 1: my tutors at university, seemed to have a very short temper.
Speaker 1: The first tutorial session was okay, but he spent five
Speaker 1: minutes telling us how important attending his tutorials was. Tutorials
Speaker 1: are kind of viewed as optional, as there to go
Speaker 1: over stuff covered in the lectures. Second tutorial, a few
Speaker 1: people didn't show up and he spent fifteen minutes ranting
Speaker 1: about their absence. In the third tutorial, even more people
Speaker 1: didn't turn up and he spent even longer ranting about it.
Speaker 1: After that, my friends and I decided it wasn't worth
Speaker 1: the hassle. Apparently he ranted about the absentees even more
Speaker 1: at the next tutorial, and I'm not sure if anyone
Speaker 1: managed to stick out the whole term of tutorials. He'd
Speaker 1: also help out in lab sessions and various other course
Speaker 1: related activities, but everyone found him slightly uncomfortable to deal with.
Speaker 1: After the exams, we had a bit of a party
Speaker 1: at time someone's house to celebrate. A casual invite was
Speaker 1: extended to the lecturers, tutors and assistants who'd been involved
Speaker 1: in getting us through the year. He turned up. None
Speaker 1: of the other teaching staff did, and, although not entirely welcome,
Speaker 1: hung around for a while. When things were winding down,
Speaker 1: I headed off, but when I spoke to the host
Speaker 1: of the party the next day, it turned out that
Speaker 1: mister angry Tutor had ended up crashing on the living
Speaker 1: room floor with a load of the others, except they'd
Speaker 1: all arranged in advanced to stay over, but it headed
Speaker 1: off about half six in the morning. We commented on
Speaker 1: how audit slash he was, but didn't give it much
Speaker 1: more thought until a few months later when he was
Speaker 1: arrested for a violent murder involving dismemberment. He turned out
Speaker 1: to have a history of violence and a lot of
Speaker 1: predatory and stalkerish behaviors. None of that he was a
Speaker 1: quiet man, kept himself to himself business. He had obvious
Speaker 1: anger issues and made people uncomfortable, and it didn't come
Speaker 1: as a complete surprise to find out how twisted he was.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, my friend and I would bit
Speaker 1: to the junior food store, convenient store to play Gallagher
Speaker 1: every chance we could. There was a weird guy that
Speaker 1: would come harass us, who was about two or three
Speaker 1: years older than us. We were eleven or twelve. My
Speaker 1: friend liked to get into fights, so he started calling
Speaker 1: him Chalie to fluster him. The dude had a huge
Speaker 1: knife in his boot every time we saw him, so
Speaker 1: I decided to just ignore him. That was pretty much
Speaker 1: how it went for the entire summer, and he'd even
Speaker 1: play Galagha with us occasionally. It turns out the guy
Speaker 1: was Frank Walls. My dad met Charles Manson in Yosemite.
Speaker 1: He says that's where a lot of runaways in the
Speaker 1: sixties went, so he was probably out there trying to
Speaker 1: find vulnerable people. Was walking around with a guitar, offered
Speaker 1: to sell. My dad and his buddy Weed also told
Speaker 1: them that he sold his soul to the devil, and
Speaker 1: that any man he pointed to right then and there
Speaker 1: could be dead in a second if my dad and
Speaker 1: his friend wanted them to be. They were a little
Speaker 1: freaked out and were quick to get out of Yosemite entirely.
Speaker 1: My dad says that they drove for a while and
Speaker 1: saw Charles at a stop sign, and it made no
Speaker 1: sense that he could have gotten there that fast. But
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely convinced that my dad was and just
Speaker 1: super bag tah. I will not reveal too much information
Speaker 1: due to the sensitive nature of this topic. I am
Speaker 1: a US citizen who lived and studied abroad in Egypt
Speaker 1: during the late two thousands. I attended a large international
Speaker 1: school there. Many of the local Egyptian students were quite
Speaker 1: wealthy and came from very affluent families. There were several
Speaker 1: similar schools around Cairo, and it wasn't uncommon for large
Speaker 1: numbers of students to go out for nights on the
Speaker 1: town together, mixing and mingling with students from other schools.
Speaker 1: One evening, I found myself downtown at a fancy restaurant
Speaker 1: with a very large group of strangers. There must have
Speaker 1: been at least thirty of us crowded around a long
Speaker 1: row of tables. For whatever reason, the topic of bodybuilding
Speaker 1: eventually came up. I was quite scrawny at the time,
Speaker 1: still am to some extent, and asked if anyone had
Speaker 1: some tips for working out at Egyptian gyms. The guy
Speaker 1: seated across from me said that he would go get
Speaker 1: his friend, who was a devout bodybuilder. Met the guy
Speaker 1: and we shook hands. He seemed nice enough, if not
Speaker 1: a bit dense, talked a lot like soul Vester stallone,
Speaker 1: fancy smartphone, nice clothes, fresh haircut a bro if you will,
Speaker 1: gave me a few tips, and went on his way.
Speaker 1: I remembered his face and name, but not much else.
Speaker 1: The next time I saw him was several years later
Speaker 1: in international newspapers. I recognized not only his face and name,
Speaker 1: but also that most of the articles mentioned his passion
Speaker 1: for bodybuilding. His style had changed completely. That man had
Speaker 1: become one of the most brutal and feared terrorists working
Speaker 1: with ISIS, having personally tortured and beheaded hundreds of individuals,
Speaker 1: later posting the pictures online and bragging about it. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: it is believed that he eventually blew himself up after
Speaker 1: leaving a goodbye letter to his family. I was stunned.
Speaker 1: The guy seemed perfectly normal when I had met him,
Speaker 1: which makes it even more chilling. How did he end
Speaker 1: up the way he did? I'll never know. My high
Speaker 1: school girlfriend's dad ended up being a murderer, but not
Speaker 1: a serial killer. His persona was basically cool dad. He'd
Speaker 1: let my friends and me hang out at their house,
Speaker 1: didn't bat an eye that I stayed there when he
Speaker 1: and her mom went out of town, made drinks for us,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But he also had a heart, sometimes sleazy
Speaker 1: and definitely risk seeking edge. His wife ran a daycare,
Speaker 1: and he kept between ten and fifteen loaded firearms in
Speaker 1: the house, and at one point, when he'd had a
Speaker 1: few drinks too many, he asked me how his daughter
Speaker 1: was with a knowing smirk. Five or so years later,
Speaker 1: her mom had divorced him for being abusive, and he'd
Speaker 1: remarried someone much younger and had a daughter with her.
Speaker 1: He made the news for unloading a clip into his
Speaker 1: new wife, reloading and then unloading the second clip as well.
Speaker 1: He then put their infant child in the car, drove
Speaker 1: to the nearest airport, left the infant at the curb,
Speaker 1: and hopped the first flight he could to Europe. He
Speaker 1: was eventually extradited back, and I think is now serving
Speaker 1: a life sentence, but only after the district attorney agreed
Speaker 1: to drop the death penalty. Looking back, the only really
Speaker 1: spooky moment was when her mom caught us in bed together.
Speaker 1: They were home and we were decent, but she was
Speaker 1: really frantic about getting me into the guest room before
Speaker 1: he found us and freaked out. Something about the way
Speaker 1: she used that phrase suggested it would be a lot
Speaker 1: worse than just yelling. The dissonance of her reaction and
Speaker 1: the questions about his daughter and my sex life was
Speaker 1: what stuck with me, like he was asking a question
Speaker 1: to justify a rage. One late summer night in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, my girlfriend called me crying. She ran
Speaker 1: to the supermarket and had someone following her for a
Speaker 1: few minutes on her winding trip home around the Lsu Lakes.
Speaker 1: She was house sitting for her aunt in a large
Speaker 1: home and got to the point where she did a
Speaker 1: lap around the lake and her follower was still there.
Speaker 1: My roommate and I jumped into his car and raced over.
Speaker 1: She described the vehicle as a white pickup truck, and
Speaker 1: when we got there, parked on the street one house
Speaker 1: away from her aunt's home, was the vehicle. She was
Speaker 1: still crying and recounted being followed the elaborate path, et cetera.
Speaker 1: I looked and there was a man sitting in the vehicle.
Speaker 1: My roommate snuck up in the bushes to back me up,
Speaker 1: and I walked about twenty five feet from the vehicle,
Speaker 1: standing up on the curb and shouted something I can
Speaker 1: help you with and they cranked up, turned on headlights
Speaker 1: and drove off, giving me a brief glance. He didn't
Speaker 1: see him in person, but did see him again the
Speaker 1: following year when he was arrested for a series of
Speaker 1: murders in the Greater Baton Rouge area. And his name
Speaker 1: was Derek Todd Lee. I worked with a guy who
Speaker 1: is a sadistic sociopath and absolutely going to be a
Speaker 1: serial killer one day. Over the past two years, he's
Speaker 1: been escalating his violence against women, assaults, rapes, breaking into
Speaker 1: their houses to assault them, fraud emptying their bank accounts,
Speaker 1: and pathological line to everyone. He'll put on the charm
Speaker 1: to attract a girlfriend and then systemically increase his abuse
Speaker 1: until they have a breakdown, usually working two to three
Speaker 1: targets at a time, some online while others are in person.
Speaker 1: He managed to pull off a catfish marriage and when
Speaker 1: the poor girl showed up, he beat her, threw out
Speaker 1: her family heirlooms, sold her stuff on eBay, took her
Speaker 1: car keys, emptied her bank accounts, and maxed out her
Speaker 1: credit card slash line of credit, told her one day
Speaker 1: she didn't live there anymore and if she came back
Speaker 1: from work that night, he'd have her arrested as a trespasser,
Speaker 1: and then fucking did it. He had already started seeing
Speaker 1: his next girlfriend when she first arrived to move in.
Speaker 1: She had to move to the other side of the
Speaker 1: country after three months. He would go on to rape
Speaker 1: another girl who reported it, and he then stalked and
Speaker 1: threatened her until she had a breakdown, eventually breaking into
Speaker 1: her house to assault her again. Although he is facing
Speaker 1: charges for the breeches and b and E, nothing has
Speaker 1: stopped him at all. He's moving on to new victims,
Speaker 1: now convinced the upcoming trial is all a plot by
Speaker 1: police because they are jealous of him and he's innocent.
Speaker 1: His kids are right fucked up too. CPS must have
Speaker 1: a dozen files on him and somewhere they get to
Speaker 1: stay in that house. He's terrible at his job, but
Speaker 1: this is the military, so he knows if he does
Speaker 1: just the minimum, he won't get booted, at least not
Speaker 1: until the trials are done with. Eventually, Yes, he will
Speaker 1: go down for what he does, but I can't stand
Speaker 1: that it won't be until there are many more victims
Speaker 1: and one of them winds up murdered. I have no
Speaker 1: doubt it is his goal to kill someone. My neighbor
Speaker 1: was a serial rapist. Apparently he used to lure women
Speaker 1: over for modeling shoots through Craigslist. He was also the
Speaker 1: DJ at my local watering hole. I got pretty tuned
Speaker 1: up one night and decided I wanted to hear Casey's
Speaker 1: last ride. He responded, that's not really the type of
Speaker 1: music we play here, so I called him a shitty DJ.
Speaker 1: I was super embarrassed by my behavior. Later that week,
Speaker 1: he got arrested, and I was left with a strange
Speaker 1: sense of justification for my drunken antics. There was also
Speaker 1: a shitload of child porn upskirt videos he would take
Speaker 1: at the bar, and a jail cell in his basement.
Speaker 1: Not me, but my mother. Back in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: my mom worked for the City of Pensacola, Florida. During
Speaker 1: the graveyard shift, she worked with the computers that did
Speaker 1: the utility billing and finances. One computer which handled the
Speaker 1: utilities was in the main city hall building. But the
Speaker 1: finance computer was in the finance office, which was in
Speaker 1: a separate building across the parking lot. She would have
Speaker 1: to cross the parking lot frequently to go from one
Speaker 1: computer to another. As networking as we know it now
Speaker 1: was just a pipe dream in those days, nobody parked
Speaker 1: in the rear parking lot at night. She parked in
Speaker 1: the front lot. One particular night, there was a VW
Speaker 1: beetle part in the lot that she didn't recognize. She
Speaker 1: saw the driver of the car sitting behind the wheel.
Speaker 1: He appeared to be asleep, so she thought nothing of
Speaker 1: it and headed on to the finance building. She came
Speaker 1: out of the building an hour later and he was
Speaker 1: still there. However, he noticed her as she was coming
Speaker 1: out of the finance building. He got out of the
Speaker 1: car and walked towards her. She noticed he had a
Speaker 1: cast on his arm, like he'd been injured. He was
Speaker 1: also limping. He called out to her and asked, can
Speaker 1: you come help me with something. For a minute, she
Speaker 1: had that feeling of dread. Her defenses went up. She
Speaker 1: said she had to clock back in, but would come
Speaker 1: right back out. She quickly went up the stairs to
Speaker 1: City Hall, unlocked the door and got inside just as
Speaker 1: he had approached the bottom of the stairs. She locked
Speaker 1: the door back. When she looked out the window in
Speaker 1: the door back at him, something seemed off about him.
Speaker 1: He had this sinister glare on his face. He seemed
Speaker 1: to catch himself and reset his facial muscles into a
Speaker 1: more relaxed state and gave a big, friendly smile. He
Speaker 1: just waved at her and said, take your time. I'll wait.
Speaker 1: She got to a phone called the Sheriff's office and
Speaker 1: reported a suspicious person outside of the city Hall building
Speaker 1: in the back parking lot. She asked if they could
Speaker 1: escort her to the other building and make him leave.
Speaker 1: They obliged, and within a few minutes a deputy arrived
Speaker 1: at the front door. They went out the back, and
Speaker 1: when the guy saw my mom coming out with the
Speaker 1: sheriff's deputy, he hauled us out of there. The next day,
Speaker 1: that same VW was pulled over at a nearby popular
Speaker 1: restaurant known for their pancakes, local place, not ihop, for
Speaker 1: running a stop sign. And that's how my mom was
Speaker 1: one of only two women who got away from Ted Bundy.
Speaker 1: I really didn't understand what was happening until a couple
Speaker 1: of years later, I got a bit older and understood
Speaker 1: what kidnapping and murder really are, which is when I
Speaker 1: remembered an incident that happened with my cousin and me.
Speaker 1: We were really young at the time. My cousin was
Speaker 1: a bit older than I was, and I believe she
Speaker 1: is the reason I am still alive today. God knows
Speaker 1: what may have happened back then. We were in a
Speaker 1: small mall in our neighborhood. It was right across the
Speaker 1: street from the building we lived in. The mall had
Speaker 1: more than one entrance, and the back entrance was right
Speaker 1: across from a school. My cousin and I were in
Speaker 1: the play area where we usually go most of the
Speaker 1: time in the mall, when a very old man came
Speaker 1: to us and asked us if we saw his kid.
Speaker 1: Being oblivious to the entire situation, we went walking around
Speaker 1: the mall with him trying to find his kid. We
Speaker 1: got close to the back entrance of the mall and
Speaker 1: he asked us if we thought his child went out
Speaker 1: from here. We said maybe, so we got out and
Speaker 1: started looking for him. As soon as we got out
Speaker 1: of the mall, the school was right in front of us.
Speaker 1: Which had school buses parked outside. The old man said repeatedly,
Speaker 1: I think I hear something behind the bus. Come with me. Luckily,
Speaker 1: my cousin was very afraid and refused to go and
Speaker 1: insisted we go back to the mall. After that incident happened,
Speaker 1: I didn't think of it at all until an old
Speaker 1: man was arrested for kidnapping children. The second I saw
Speaker 1: his picture, I remembered it all like it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: A little late, but my mother and her ex husband
Speaker 1: met John Wayne Gacy, apparently, my mother's ex husband before
Speaker 1: my father, was a very shady character. He was on
Speaker 1: his way to becoming a junkie and was a big
Speaker 1: time dealer. But Mom says that she isn't one hundred
Speaker 1: percent that this story was concerning drugs. I digress Mom's
Speaker 1: ex husband is an all around criminal and told Mom
Speaker 1: that they were going to go collect on a debt.
Speaker 1: They get to his house and no shit. He has
Speaker 1: the basement blocked off in his concrete mix and construction
Speaker 1: shit everywhere. They go into his office where he sits
Speaker 1: behind his desk the whole time. Mom says he is
Speaker 1: very stereotypically trying to stall her ex who was increasingly
Speaker 1: growing impatient with the situation. Then John gets a phone
Speaker 1: call and without hesitation, answers it and kind of starts
Speaker 1: blowing off my mom and her ex. I should add
Speaker 1: Mom's X was a super dangerous individual who was a
Speaker 1: bouncer and bona fidees kicker, so from the jump, Mom
Speaker 1: is worried that he is just going to beat the
Speaker 1: fuck out of this guy. So Gasey is on the
Speaker 1: phone looking away, and mom z X slowly walks up
Speaker 1: and dramatically takes the phone out of Gacy's hand and
Speaker 1: slams it on the receiver and says something cool but
Speaker 1: I can't remember, along the lines of give me the
Speaker 1: money now, motherfucker. Gacy is startled at first, but then
Speaker 1: gets this really weird look on his face like he
Speaker 1: was trying to look crazy, tilts his head down while
Speaker 1: looking at ex husband, then, without saying anything, quickly grabs
Speaker 1: a check book from a drawer and writes a check.
Speaker 1: They leave without incident and seen, she says. After they left,
Speaker 1: they were talking about how the guy gave them the creeps,
Speaker 1: how they could tell he was dangerous even though he
Speaker 1: didn't look or act like it. This didn't happen to me,
Speaker 1: but it actually happened to my father during the seventies,
Speaker 1: I believe, when he was in his late teens or
Speaker 1: early twenties. He was walking home from work late at
Speaker 1: night in the middle of winter in Chicago. A car
Speaker 1: pulled up alongside him and with a very distinctive voice said, Hey,
Speaker 1: do you need a ride somewhere? My dad replied no
Speaker 1: and kept walking. He walked a few more steps, and
Speaker 1: the car pulled up next to him again, and the
Speaker 1: man inside said, are you sure you don't need a ride?
Speaker 1: It's really cold out. I don't mind dropping you off somewhere.
Speaker 1: My dad replied once again, no, but thank you anyway.
Speaker 1: The car drove off, and my dad didn't think much
Speaker 1: of it until a few months later when he was
Speaker 1: watching the news and heard that very distinctive voice once again.
Speaker 1: The man who offered him a ride was John Wayne Gacy,
Speaker 1: one of the most notorious brutal serial killers of all time,
Speaker 1: killing and sexually assaulting around thirty three young men in
Speaker 1: the seventies. When my dad heard on the news that
Speaker 1: they had caught the killer and that it was indeed
Speaker 1: the man who offered him a ride that one night,
Speaker 1: he couldn't believe it. He had literally looked in the
Speaker 1: face of death. I and my mom lived in Park City,
Speaker 1: Kansas through the nineties. B t K. Dennis Rader was
Speaker 1: a compliance officer for the city. Basically wrote citations for
Speaker 1: property compliance and handled animal control. He came to our
Speaker 1: house to write us up for not having our front
Speaker 1: lawn mode to city requirements. Of course, that was on me.
Speaker 1: My chores included keeping the grass mode. Looking back, it
Speaker 1: definitely seems odd as the front yard grass wasn't super
Speaker 1: out of control or anything. At the time, it just
Speaker 1: seemed like a guy who was serious about his job.
Speaker 1: I know when he worked as a security installation professional
Speaker 1: that he used those opera or tunities to scout for
Speaker 1: potential victims. Not sure he used his position as compliance
Speaker 1: officer to do the same sort of scouting, but my
Speaker 1: guess is that he did. His last victim was in
Speaker 1: Park City in ninety one, though his visit to us
Speaker 1: was after that. Didn't think anything of it until he
Speaker 1: was arrested, and my mom and I eventually realized that
Speaker 1: he had come to our house when I was about
Speaker 1: twelve in the nineties. A nice chap that lived in
Speaker 1: our neighborhood would sometimes hang out with us teenagers. He
Speaker 1: was about fifty at the time and worked for a
Speaker 1: local paper writing on social events. He usually would tell
Speaker 1: us histories from the dictatorship era here in Brazil and
Speaker 1: some from his early life on the stage. I guess
Speaker 1: he was not a serial, but simply a killer. A
Speaker 1: few years later we discovered that he had been prosecuted
Speaker 1: for the murder of his first wife. Sometime during the
Speaker 1: seventies slash eighties. He requested a divorce and she denied it.
Speaker 1: A few months later, they agreed to try to sort
Speaker 1: things out by going on a romantic trip to a
Speaker 1: desert beach well. He strangled and buried her, thinking no
Speaker 1: one was watching them. The fact is that alone fishermen
Speaker 1: saw the whole thing, but as far as I remember,
Speaker 1: was either too afraid or distant to help. Sometime afterwards,
Speaker 1: the fisherman was able to dig her out, but she
Speaker 1: was already dead. The autopsy found a few pounds of
Speaker 1: beach sand in her lungs, meaning she was buried alive.
Speaker 1: This guy never showed any signs of being a killer,
Speaker 1: and was actually quite funny at the time. Eventually he
Speaker 1: was arrested but some time later was moved to a
Speaker 1: prison hospital due to poor health and escaped after a
Speaker 1: few days. He passed away after a couple of years,
Speaker 1: and I am pretty sure he did not spend even
Speaker 1: a whole year in prison. What scares me our total
Speaker 1: inability to recognize him as a killer slash psycho, not
Speaker 1: even a hint. Apparently my family just draws killers to them.
Speaker 1: My aunt, when she was young, was in Florida on vacation.
Speaker 1: She was walking through a parking lot between a car
Speaker 1: and a van, and the van opened its door and
Speaker 1: snagged her. Some crazy things happened that I don't think
Speaker 1: need to be discussed, and somehow she ended up escaping.
Speaker 1: Turns out this guy was abducting a lot of women
Speaker 1: in the area, but my aunt was the first one
Speaker 1: who survived. She still suffers from PTSD from it. I've
Speaker 1: never asked what his name was or anything. I don't
Speaker 1: want to bring up bad memories. There was a guy
Speaker 1: who used to be known as a real hardass, ended
Speaker 1: up getting mad at his wife over something, took her
Speaker 1: to his pole barn, killed her, chopped her up, put
Speaker 1: her in a barrel, took her down by the river,
Speaker 1: and burned her. After he was done, he went to
Speaker 1: my grandpa's house on his three wheeler with his girlfriend
Speaker 1: to eat beans with my grams. When my grandpa was
Speaker 1: alive and he cooked beans, he would cook a huge
Speaker 1: cast iron pot full of them over a fire starting
Speaker 1: at about six a m. That morning. They were delicious
Speaker 1: and everyone would come over to have a couple of
Speaker 1: bowls of his amazing beans, so it wasn't uncommon for
Speaker 1: random people to show up. My grandpa said he acted
Speaker 1: completely normal and never mentioned anything about his wife. There
Speaker 1: is an episode of CSI based on this murder too.
Speaker 1: They cut open the tree to see how long ago
Speaker 1: a fire happened near the tree, or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: Not a serial killer, but worth mentioning. When I was young,
Speaker 1: my family doctor was Harold Shipman, who was the most
Speaker 1: prolific serial killer in UK history. I was too young
Speaker 1: to remember ever visiting him, but my parents always tell
Speaker 1: stories of how he came across as a nice guy
Speaker 1: and seemed a massive part of the community. He killed
Speaker 1: elderly women, which was part of the reason he wasn't
Speaker 1: caught for years, as the families didn't find it suspicious.
Speaker 1: He was eventually caught as he altered the will of
Speaker 1: one lady he murdered. Many people didn't believe it at
Speaker 1: the time, and some believed he was doing it as
Speaker 1: a form of euthanasia. He was a found guy, and
Speaker 1: it's believed that he killed two fifty plus people over
Speaker 1: his lifetime. Scary to think that I've been in the
Speaker 1: same room as that man. Not me, but my grandma,
Speaker 1: and she herself never met the man, but she grew
Speaker 1: up in the place in time that Peter Manuel was killing.
Speaker 1: Her parents knew the family, and a friend of her
Speaker 1: own family was even frequently threatened by Manuel. Interestingly, apparently
Speaker 1: everyone was very aware that Manuel was a serial killer.
Speaker 1: For the record, Manuel was eventually caught when he was
Speaker 1: found using money he had stolen from someone's home after
Speaker 1: gunning down all the inhabitants, including one ten year old boy.
Speaker 1: He had then stayed in their house for a week
Speaker 1: and even gave a ride to a police officer who
Speaker 1: was investigating one of Manuel's killings in the car of
Speaker 1: the people he had just killed. During a family get
Speaker 1: together some years back, my second cousins started talking about
Speaker 1: their fortieth high school reunion. They bust out the pictures
Speaker 1: that show themselves sitting next to this friendly looking guy.
Speaker 1: The area had been on edge again this week, with
Speaker 1: a serial killer's letters detailing some murders showing up at
Speaker 1: the cop shop. As it turns out, they graduated in
Speaker 1: the same class as Dennis Rader. The park official, who
Speaker 1: dubbed himself BTK. My cousin said he was a friendly
Speaker 1: and sociable man, a little awkward, but disarming. It was
Speaker 1: not long after the reunion that his arrest made national
Speaker 1: headlines for his thirty year killing spree. On another note,
Speaker 1: a quick Google search a few months back turned up
Speaker 1: that a childhood playmate is serving thirty five to life
Speaker 1: for gun, drug and burglary charges. This came as less
Speaker 1: of a surprise to me. I went to school with
Speaker 1: a kid who ended up becoming a serial killer. To preface,
Speaker 1: the kid's dad was the main drug and firearms dealer
Speaker 1: in our small town. Someone decided to break into the
Speaker 1: family's house, and the kid, Anthony, shot and killed the intruder.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the type of gun used anymore, just
Speaker 1: that it wasn't something you would find in the local
Speaker 1: gun store. Police get involved in deem it self defense well.
Speaker 1: A few months later, Anthony ended up murdering the town's
Speaker 1: local barber same weapon as before. He ends up fleeing
Speaker 1: the state. Last year, he was caught and arrested in Georgia.
Speaker 1: Police in Florida and Georgia are currently figuring out how
Speaker 1: many other murders there have been, but at the moment,
Speaker 1: there are five confirmed in the last six years. Now.
Speaker 1: This is a small town, so not only did I
Speaker 1: grow up with Anthony, my current boyfriend fought him back
Speaker 1: when we all were fifteen, and my best friend dated
Speaker 1: his dad when we were sixteen. I was very good
Speaker 1: friends in high school with a dim but popular football
Speaker 1: player LJ. He rode my bus and we had a
Speaker 1: couple of classes together. He asked me out and was
Speaker 1: super cool about it. When I said I wasn't into
Speaker 1: him like that, we stayed friends. He tried to teach
Speaker 1: me how to drive, and I messed up his mom's
Speaker 1: car wheel. He said he'd tell her he did it.
Speaker 1: He went a prom as a part of my group,
Speaker 1: and we had a cool time at the after party.
Speaker 1: Graduated together. He swapped seats with the guy next to
Speaker 1: me so we could be next to each other, not
Speaker 1: in a creepy way. We legit were buds, saw each
Speaker 1: other a couple of times on college breaks, but drifting
Speaker 1: apart from high school friends like that happens when you
Speaker 1: move away. Also, I should mention that I grew up
Speaker 1: in Charlottesville, Virginia, and there was a serial killer and
Speaker 1: also a serial rapist in the area growing up, the
Speaker 1: Highway twenty nine killer in the nineties, and I don't
Speaker 1: think they ever named the serial rapist that was hanging
Speaker 1: around you Va n I guess the early os but whatever.
Speaker 1: My point in saying that is that it was sort
Speaker 1: of a weird thing growing up there in that time
Speaker 1: because every so often a woman would go missing or
Speaker 1: was attacked. It was a strange part of being a
Speaker 1: local there hearing about a kidnapping and thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they never caught the twenty nine killer. Is it the
Speaker 1: same guy? So when Morgan Harrington disappeared near my grandma's
Speaker 1: house in two thousand and nine, everyone I knew locally
Speaker 1: was talking about it and thinking it was the twenty
Speaker 1: nine killer. Again, after a long period of quiet, never
Speaker 1: caught the guy. And then Hannah Graham went missing in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and it was like, Okay, we've got a
Speaker 1: new killer here. This is too close to town. So
Speaker 1: living in another city, I'm watching the news like crazy
Speaker 1: because it's so bizarre that my beautiful hometown is all
Speaker 1: over the news for some terrible, terrible happenings. It's scary.
Speaker 1: And they show video of the suspect caught on the
Speaker 1: security cam of the local pizza joint. Nothing. A few
Speaker 1: days later, they release a name for the suspect, Jesse Matthews,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, shit, that's familiar. Then it hits like
Speaker 1: a mack truck. Wait, what was Lj's real name? Fuck?
Speaker 1: I call my husband at work. We went to high
Speaker 1: school together, and I'm like, wasn't it Jesse Leroy? But
Speaker 1: he wanted to be called LJ and not JL because
Speaker 1: he liked how it sounded better. Look at the video
Speaker 1: and it's M. The police were chasing him and it's M.
Speaker 1: It broke my heart. At the time, I was super pregnant,
Speaker 1: and I kept thinking how weird it was that he's
Speaker 1: over and my life is just beginning. The evidence is
Speaker 1: overwhelming and looks like he for sure did it. I
Speaker 1: think about writing him. I won't. I can't connect the
Speaker 1: person who I knew and cared about the person he
Speaker 1: grew to be. When I see his mug shot on
Speaker 1: the news, my heart sinks. When I see the beautiful
Speaker 1: girls he destroyed. I can't understand how much pain he's
Speaker 1: caused and why, and how would I ever cope if
Speaker 1: something like that happened to my baby. It's awful, awful,
Speaker 1: and I constantly wonder if I missed something big or
Speaker 1: if his brain just went bad. A family friend was
Speaker 1: a twenty something and living in Seattle in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. She and a friend were walking home from
Speaker 1: a bar one night, and her friend had to run
Speaker 1: back to grab his wallet, so she was waiting for
Speaker 1: him on the sidewalk. She says, a man in an
Speaker 1: old white VW beetle pulled up and tried to get
Speaker 1: her to come in so he could give her a
Speaker 1: ride home. It was dark and she didn't get a
Speaker 1: good look at him, but she told me she had
Speaker 1: a bad gut feeling about it and refused. Her friend
Speaker 1: walked up and the guy in the car immediately spent away.
Speaker 1: Apparently that encounter stuck out in her mind, and years
Speaker 1: later she found out about Ted Bundy. Obviously, she can't
Speaker 1: prove it, but she strongly suspects that she would have
Speaker 1: been one of his earlier victims had she gotten in
Speaker 1: that car. Not a serial killer, but too weird not
Speaker 1: to tell. I worked at a private college as an
Speaker 1: admissions counselor the tuition I'm from Quebec, where it's practically free,
Speaker 1: is very high. But a lot of the time private
Speaker 1: post secondary is people's only chance of getting any type
Speaker 1: of diploma for various reasons. Anyway, it's right before Christmas
Speaker 1: and this young guy comes into my office asking about
Speaker 1: a bunch of different programs. He looked like a bit
Speaker 1: of a thug, but was really desperate to find a career.
Speaker 1: So usually these meetings last an hour because you try
Speaker 1: to get to know the person in front of you.
Speaker 1: He starts telling me he gets laid off from every
Speaker 1: job he ever has because of his record. He keeps
Speaker 1: bringing it up and eventually tells me he graduated high
Speaker 1: school in jail, et cetera. I'm really trying not to
Speaker 1: give off a judgy vibe because I'm getting that that's
Speaker 1: how he usually feels. I figure it's a drug charge
Speaker 1: or something dumb. Eventually he tells me he lives in
Speaker 1: a half way house and is on parole. My curiosity
Speaker 1: gets the better of me and I say, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but I have to ask what you were charged with.
Speaker 1: He says manslaughter, and he was under age at the time.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask for details. We finished the interview and
Speaker 1: he went home to think things over, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'll need to talk to the campus director. My co
Speaker 1: worker convinced me to look him up online. I thought
Speaker 1: for sure it was vehicular manslaughter, and did look him up. Ah. No,
Speaker 1: Not only did he and a group of guys murder someone,
Speaker 1: it was someone I knew, the only person I've ever
Speaker 1: known that was murdered. I knew the victim when he
Speaker 1: was a little kid. They were trying to intimidate him
Speaker 1: as they were both dealing drugs in the same area
Speaker 1: and allegedly high on crack. They ended up beating him
Speaker 1: so badly and left him in a field to die.
Speaker 1: They only served a few years. That fucked me right up.
Speaker 1: That did a bit late and also not my personal experience,
Speaker 1: but my friend's mom. She was living in the Portland
Speaker 1: area of Oregon at the time and was in a
Speaker 1: rough patch during her life. She was hitch hiking and
Speaker 1: she said that a man pulled over and asked if
Speaker 1: she needed a ride. She hops in his car, and
Speaker 1: during the trip he starts asking very weird questions and
Speaker 1: just behaving oddly. After a while, she started to feel
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable and then asked if he could pull over
Speaker 1: and let her off. He then went ballistic and tried
Speaker 1: locking the door, but my friend's mom escaped and ran
Speaker 1: like hell. He didn't chase her, but instead drove off.
Speaker 1: A few years later, she saw his name and picture
Speaker 1: on the news. It turns out that she had narrowly
Speaker 1: escaped being killed by Ted Bundy. The guy lived in
Speaker 1: the apartment complex my mother managed and that we lived in.
Speaker 1: I was a teenager at the time, and he was
Speaker 1: the roommate of my friend's big sister. He was a
Speaker 1: very charismatic, handsome guy who was always hanging out at
Speaker 1: the pool. I would have been jealous of him because
Speaker 1: all the teenaged girls were always following him around, but
Speaker 1: he was too likable and cool to all of us kids,
Speaker 1: and I never heard of him actually doing anything inappropriate
Speaker 1: with the teen girls of the complex, though many of
Speaker 1: them probably really wanted him to. This was East Texas
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties, hardly anyone saw anything wrong with
Speaker 1: adults having sex with teenage girls, so this alone seemed
Speaker 1: kind of odd. One interesting detail is my nephew, who
Speaker 1: was about eleven at the time, came to visit us
Speaker 1: for a few days, met the guy and was so
Speaker 1: impressed with his hairstyle. They called it a modified mohawk,
Speaker 1: but it really was more of a flat top with
Speaker 1: the side shaved high. That he got one of his own.
Speaker 1: A few years later, long after he had moved away,
Speaker 1: FBI agents came to ask my mom questions about him.
Speaker 1: They had found clothes from his roommate, my friend's big
Speaker 1: sister wrapped around pieces of human bodies. He had stolen
Speaker 1: his roommate's clothes and for some reason always wrapped body
Speaker 1: parts in women's clothing. When I was a kid, around
Speaker 1: ten to eleven, my dad and I would go to
Speaker 1: livestock auctions on weekends. We always saw a lot of
Speaker 1: the same people, and I remember seeing this guy every
Speaker 1: single time. I remember him because he was just so gross.
Speaker 1: He had greasy looking hair that was balding on top,
Speaker 1: and it was thin and shoulder length, dirt stained clothes,
Speaker 1: and he sat in front of us all the time,
Speaker 1: and he had plumbers butt. Sometimes he would make small
Speaker 1: talk with my dad if he was near us in
Speaker 1: line to pay or to get coffee, and I don't
Speaker 1: remember any of the conversations, but I remember him just
Speaker 1: being a creepy guy. Anyways, fast forward a few years
Speaker 1: and we are watching the news and this guy's picture
Speaker 1: shows up. My mom turned the TV up and she
Speaker 1: was so baffled because she also recognized him. She went
Speaker 1: to school with him and was good friends with his sister.
Speaker 1: It was Robert Picton. For anyone who isn't familiar, he
Speaker 1: is from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada, and he is
Speaker 1: Canada's biggest serial killer. He admitted to killing forty nine
Speaker 1: sex workers and feeding the remains to his pigs. I
Speaker 1: hate to be this person, but I've never talked about this.
Speaker 1: Really not a serial killer, but a serial rapist. I
Speaker 1: completely blocked this memory out, I guess, but this made
Speaker 1: me remember I and my sister were targets of a
Speaker 1: serial rapist slash child molester when I was in elementary school. Luckily,
Speaker 1: my parents aren't morons, so the guy didn't have a chance.
Speaker 1: We went to church in our small town one thousand
Speaker 1: people one Sunday and this guy who seemed to have
Speaker 1: something similar to Down syndrome came up wanting to sit
Speaker 1: next to us. Even at that age, I knew something
Speaker 1: was up with the guy. I had been around people
Speaker 1: with various disabilities, so it wasn't that, but I refused
Speaker 1: to sit by him. He kept trying to talk to
Speaker 1: us during the service and asked my parents if he
Speaker 1: could spend the night. They told him, well, we will
Speaker 1: have to ask your parents just to shut him up.
Speaker 1: I guess my parents got a weird vibe too, from
Speaker 1: what I remember. They talked to the guy's mom and
Speaker 1: we left with no intention of the guy coming over.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, the guys in the paper or
Speaker 1: in the news, I can't remember. Apparently he went around
Speaker 1: to churches, targeting people with kids, acting like he had
Speaker 1: a mental disability to gain their trust so he could
Speaker 1: spend the night and molest the kids. I haven't thought
Speaker 1: about that in years, but I'm glad my parents saw
Speaker 1: the signs something was weird and Nope Down. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine what would have happened had my parents not seen
Speaker 1: some red flags. I've never brought up the subject to
Speaker 1: them to get their side of the story and don't
Speaker 1: really want to. Not a serial killer, but in a
Speaker 1: very small town with one small grocery store. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and two or so, so I and my girlfriend
Speaker 1: from high school went to the local grocery store to
Speaker 1: get a few snacks and went to her place to
Speaker 1: watch movies after that shift. The cashier she had gone
Speaker 1: to elementary school with him before. We both ended up
Speaker 1: in the Catholic private school where we met well. The
Speaker 1: cashier kid goes home and murders his parents with an axe.
Speaker 1: A couple of hours before he rang up our sodas
Speaker 1: and chips. My girlfriend chatted with him about having not
Speaker 1: seen him in a while and how it's going and
Speaker 1: all that, and that was it. No, it had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with her. It was him just being a psychopath.
Speaker 1: They never had a thing or anything, just a weird coincidence.
Speaker 1: We talked to him that day. He just went home
Speaker 1: and killed the dad first in the garage. The mother
Speaker 1: was lying in bed. She just got an axe to
Speaker 1: the skull and didn't likely even feel it. So I
Speaker 1: have never encountered one first hand, but my parents have
Speaker 1: come close to encountering one. According to them, way back
Speaker 1: in the late nineties. They were walking a black lab
Speaker 1: we used to have in an undeveloped woodsy area that's
Speaker 1: now gone and full of houses. They saw a guy's
Speaker 1: car park near by, still running. Making nothing of it,
Speaker 1: they continued their walk. The dog we had at the
Speaker 1: time kept trying to pull them in one direction. A
Speaker 1: few weeks later, they found out on the news that
Speaker 1: the bodies of three women had been uncovered in the
Speaker 1: area they were walking. Somewhat related. A few years after
Speaker 1: this event, I went trick or treating with the kids
Speaker 1: of some family friends. We were walking in the area
Speaker 1: of where this killer lived. One of the kids I
Speaker 1: was brought up that we were near this guy's house.
Speaker 1: Being young and stupid and at being Halloween, I was
Speaker 1: afraid to go there. Eventually we stopped at the house
Speaker 1: the killer used to live at, and I didn't find
Speaker 1: out about it until after the fact. When this guy
Speaker 1: was arrested. He had admitted to burying bodies in both
Speaker 1: his back yard and outside his bedroom window. The house
Speaker 1: has a different owner now, of course, but the whole
Speaker 1: thing creeps me out. For those curious, here is a
Speaker 1: link to the Wikipedia page of said killer. My granddad
Speaker 1: was in the mines rescue, so they had to live
Speaker 1: close to their center. One time, my dad was playing
Speaker 1: football with his brother down an alley near where they live.
Speaker 1: There was sort of an alley slash area covered in
Speaker 1: some way by a roof next to where they were playing,
Speaker 1: along with the backs of pubs and shops. So as
Speaker 1: they were playing, my dad kicked the ball a little
Speaker 1: too hard and it landed just outside this alleyway. The
Speaker 1: door leading into it was slightly open. He went to
Speaker 1: get the ball and out of curiosity, looked into the alley.
Speaker 1: He says he remembers it was dark in there, so
Speaker 1: he couldn't see anything, but got the distinct feeling of
Speaker 1: being looked back upon. He remembered a weird smell, but
Speaker 1: that could just be him making it up to fit,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So cut to around a week
Speaker 1: later and there's police tape everywhere around that alley. My
Speaker 1: dad asked my grandparents what was going on, and they
Speaker 1: told him that a serial killer slash rapist that the
Speaker 1: police had been looking for was found in that alley
Speaker 1: where my dad picked up that ball. We don't know
Speaker 1: about the smell, but that could have been anything. Still,
Speaker 1: a pretty creepy story. Though I was in elementary school
Speaker 1: at the time, I was playing on my scooter outside
Speaker 1: of where my sister was taking guitar lessons while my
Speaker 1: mom was at the park down the road with my
Speaker 1: little sister. Even though I was by myself, the area
Speaker 1: was safe and my mom wasn't far away if I
Speaker 1: needed her. I was waiting to cross a slightly busier
Speaker 1: road when this guy pulled up in his car beside me.
Speaker 1: He asked me if I wanted a ride. I knew
Speaker 1: about stranger danger and all that at the time and
Speaker 1: thought the dude was creepy, so I told him no.
Speaker 1: He asked me again. I said no again. He asked
Speaker 1: if I were sure. I was sure. Can't really remember
Speaker 1: what he said after that, but it went something along
Speaker 1: the lines of, oh, well, too bad if you get tired,
Speaker 1: and then he sped off because another car was coming
Speaker 1: up behind him. I was so shaken up after that
Speaker 1: that it took me a while to cross the street
Speaker 1: like I wanted. When I got back to my mom
Speaker 1: at the park, I told her what happened. I remember
Speaker 1: staying in the park with her and my little sister.
Speaker 1: The next time we went to my older sister's guitar lessons.
Speaker 1: Years later, this girl who went missing and was presumed
Speaker 1: dead is found alive. I see the mugshot of the
Speaker 1: man who was responsible for it, and holy shit, it's
Speaker 1: that guy or his doppelganger. But either way, fuck dude.
Speaker 1: I lived pretty close to where he was living at
Speaker 1: the time, less than an hour and in the same
Speaker 1: metro area, closer to him than where he kidnapped the
Speaker 1: girl from. Based on the details, you might be able
Speaker 1: to guess which case this was. It was all over
Speaker 1: the news. I've almost gotten killed by a serial killer
Speaker 1: in my city. He was the cousin of a high
Speaker 1: school friend that I had met when I saw that
Speaker 1: friend in my neighborhood. Initially, I and my friends thought
Speaker 1: he was just a crazy ass gangster, but it turned
Speaker 1: out to be way deeper than that. We all tried
Speaker 1: our best to avoid him because he was always talking
Speaker 1: about some form of crime and always about hurting somebody
Speaker 1: in some form or fashion. Don't know why, but he
Speaker 1: decided to fuck with me all the time, which led
Speaker 1: to extortion and him pulling a gun on me three times.
Speaker 1: The last straw was when he told me he'd kill
Speaker 1: my grandma and Mom. I told her and the police
Speaker 1: were called, but I was too scared to tell them
Speaker 1: where he lived, so I said I didn't know much
Speaker 1: about him. We moved soon after, and there was a
Speaker 1: big case in the city about two executions, which I
Speaker 1: didn't think much of until I googled the guy two
Speaker 1: years later and found out it was in He was
Speaker 1: related to other killings as well. When I told my
Speaker 1: mom that was the guy, she cried and damn near
Speaker 1: passed out.