Transcript
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Today we have two stories that are each about people who really craved attention or status, but instead of getting that, they got carnage. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do. And we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to get the follow button some brand new tires for their car, but don't tell them you're going to install monster truck tires. Okay, let's get into our first story called Stirring the Pot.
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On the Fear Thy Neighbor Podcast from id. We explore true stories told by the victims and their families and discover what can happen when even the most petty neighborhood disputes escalate to horrific heights and past the point of no return. Help.
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I knew something very dark was going on and something very bad was going to happen.
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What happens when the person you fear the most is living right next door?
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I never would have thought it would
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have ended that way.
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Listen to Fear Thy Neighbor wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Mr. Bolland podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states One afternoon in early September of 2004, 20 year old Derek Keeper sat at a desk in the new newspaper lab at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, furiously typing on one of the school's desktop computers. The lab that Derek was in was the hub of the university's school paper, the Daily Nebraskan. So there were some other students who were in the space that were talking or working at other computers, but Derek didn't notice any of them. He was completely locked in on what he was doing and writing as fast as he could because after he was done with the article that he was working on, he had a ton of other responsibilities that he needed to tackle. So so Derek was involved in a lot of stuff at school. He was in a fraternity, he was a senator in the student government, he was a research assistant for the library, and he was pursuing five different majors. And Derek took all of his various commitments very, very seriously. But the column he was currently writing was really the one he had the most fun with. So Derek was from a small city in Nebraska, and even though he'd always been, personally a very loud and opinionated person. He'd never had a real platform for talking about all the ideas and points of views that he had. And so this column really gave him the opportunity to finally, you know, actually present these big ideas to the students at school and he hoped would likely provoke lively discussions around campus about his ideas. After all, Derek loved a good debate, and so he would intentionally choose to write about really complex issues, and that would get his readers fired up, like the ongoing war in Iraq and the future of the Republican Party and all the things that were wrong with local politics. The tone he went for when he wrote and talked about these kind of, you know, contentious things was often very sarcastic, very blunt and provocative. I mean, he really thrived on creating discourse and getting people to passionately disagree with him, and they usually definitely did, to the point where some even would get very mad with him. A lot of times, the paper's readers would write furious letters or even send hate mail about what Derek had written. But Derek was really not bothered by that at all. In some ways, that was his aim, to get people all riled up. And he was sure that the article he was writing right now was going to be even more divisive than really anything else he had written. For Derek, though, really, for him, it was all about individual freedoms and encouraging people to say no to government overreach in their daily lives. I mean, that really was sort of his general stance on everything. That's really what inspired him to do any of this in the first place. In fact, this particular column that Derek was writing was about how he was advocating for abolishing a set of state and federal laws that were trying to control personal choice and the right to decide what was best for one's body. And he was against it. Now, to be clear, the stakes for this issue were life and death. I mean, literally. But Derek believed that the fundamental freedom of being an American was the right to make your own decisions, even if it meant risking your own personal safety. And so, as Derek sort of furiously typed away, you know, he was encouraging everyone, like senators and politicians, everybody, to have the same kind of intensity that he had about this issue, to be just fully bought in on this idea of, as Americans, we need individual freedom. And then finally, when he was all done typing, Derek sat back and proofread the whole thing. And when he got to the last line, he got chills. It said, quote, I just wish we could keep the government out of our pocketbooks and out of our personal decisions. Derek loved that line. And so he nodded. You know, satisfied with his work, he, he had nailed it. Then he emailed his draft to his editor with a big smile on his face. Derek's article went to print just a few days later, on September 17th. And like most of Derek's other articles, this one for sure got a lot of angry emails and letters from people who disagreed with what Derek had to say. But all the vitriol in these messages just proved to Derek that his article had clearly been a success. He had sparked outrage and got people talking about this issue. Derek even hoped that maybe some of the readers got angry enough to actually take action. That's what he wanted. He wanted his writing to genuinely inspire. The rest of Derek's semester was a total blur. He kept writing his weekly column on top of all of his other obligations and exams and everything else. And before he knew it, the semester was over and he was headed to his mother's house in Texas for Christmas break. A few weeks later, on January 4, 2005, at 3:00am, Derek rode in the backseat of a Ford Explorer SUV on his way back to school. After the break, he'd caught a ride from his mother's home in Texas with two of his fraternity brothers who were sitting up front. And Derek had spent the first part of this just awful 13 hour long drive doing what he did best, using his sarcasm to make his friends laugh. And he was also engaging them in really animated conversations. And so the first six to eight hours had sort of flown by, but now, you know, it's basically the middle of the night still, slash very early morning, and everybody had just gone quiet because they were all exhausted from this truly awful long, long drive. All any of them wanted to do at this point was just get back to campus and be done. And eventually, Derek and his friends were very close to campus. They were finally in Nebraska and they were driving down Interstate 80, which was a snowy, cold highway not far from the school. And Derek was really excited to start the new semester. He'd had a nice laid back holiday where he'd caught up on sleep and spent a lot of time just kind of hanging out and seeing his younger siblings. But Derek just was not the kind of person who liked slowing down for very long. And so he was quite eager to get back to his busy life on campus especially. He really wanted to get back to his column. He had had a lot of downtime and was able to, you know, brainstorm and come up with some good potential new topics for the column. But he really wasn't sure if any of those ideas were going to, you know, the very controversial article that he had published back in September, people were still talking about that one. And Derek was still thinking about it, too. In fact, his own words and advice to his readers were still ringing in his ears and guiding his everyday decisions. But for now, Derek just leaned his head up against the cold glass window of the car and waited for this long trip to finally be over. But suddenly, he felt the SUV lurch. And before he knew it was happening, he. He heard a deafening bang. And he heard his friends screaming. Just minutes later, a police officer was flying down Interstate 80 in his cruiser. Eventually, he spotted a group of ambulances parked on the side of the road. And he knew that's where he needed to go. So he pulled over to the side and stopped. And when he got out, he saw in a ditch just off the highway was an overturned suv. The officer immediately jumped out of his cruiser and rushed towards the vehicle. And when he got there, he found the scene was just absolutely chaotic. There were a team of paramedics who were at the window of the SUV, trying to assess the condition of the victims inside and to get them out. And when the officer kneeled down to look inside as well, he could clearly see two people inside the vehicle. Now, both of them seemed basically fine beyond, you know, obviously being in a wreck. I mean, they were banged up and clearly dazed, but their injuries didn't look immediately life threatening. So sort of relieved, the officer backed away to let the paramedics do their thing. But very quickly, the officer noticed that more paramedics were actually running past the SUV to something on the ground a few feet beyond it. And so the officer followed them to go see what it was they were running to. And when he saw what was on the ground, the officer just kind of stopped and knew instinctively that there was nothing anybody could do. I mean, there was a body of a young man on the ground who clearly was a third passenger of this suv, but their body was just mangled almost beyond recognition. It would turn out Derek had been right. His September 17, highly contentious column in the Daily Nebraskan would be his most controversial and famous piece ever. And actually, people are still talking about it today because his column was about how, you know, we all us Americans reserve the right to make our own choices about our bodies and personal safety. And Derek believed that there was a law that was actually directly infringing on that right, which was the law that was forcing people to wear a seatbelt. Derek despised this requirement. He thought seatbelts should be just a personal decision about safety. To him, it was not just about buckling up. It was about individual choice, about freedom. And on January 4, that SUV that Derek was riding in going back to school, well, the driver hit some ice on the road and lost control. The driver and the other passenger in the front were wearing seatbelts, but Derek, in keeping with his beliefs, was not. And so when the SUV crashed and flipped over, Derek alone was killed. As one reporter pointed out, Derek lived by his beliefs and he also dive by them. You ever discover something that just immediately becomes part of your daily routine that if you were to miss it, it would completely throw your day off? Well, that's how I am with Cachava. It is 100% a part of my morning routine. 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