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Mr. Ballen (10:38)

Our next story is called the Woman in a Wrinkled Dress. On a late winter afternoon in 1985, a Canadian border security guard stood at the border between New York State and Ontario, Canada. And as he looked out at the dozens of cars lined up at his checkpoint, he felt an enormous amount of responsibility. Because for him, working at border security was not just about checking people's passports. It was also about making sure dangerous criminals from the United States did not flee their country and enter Canada. And today, there was one particular dangerous criminal from the United States that this guard was on high alert for. A 30 year old man named Alex Mangel. A few days earlier, Alex Mangel had been stopped by a police officer near New York City. And during this traffic stop, Alex had somehow taken the police officer's gun and shot the officer in the head, killing them. And then Alex had fled and he was still on the run. And so now law enforcement was concerned that because New York was only six hours from the Canadian border that it was very possible that Alex might try to flee into Canada to escape persecution. And so U.S. and Canadian law enforcement and border security were on the lookout for Alex Mangle. And he was this 30 year old white man with thinning brown hair and a wispy mustache. And so all day long, that Canadian border security guard looked very closely at every person who came through his checkpoint to see if they were Alex Mengele. He would see a family on their way to visit relatives in Canada. He would see a couple on their honeymoon. He would see a man with a car full of camping supplies and a middle aged woman traveling alone and all these different people from all walks of life, but none of them looked anything like Alex Mengele. And so by the end of his shift, after checking dozens and dozens of cars and looking at every person, he felt certain that Alex Mengele had not slipped through his checkpoint. And so he clocked out and he Went home. A few days later, on March 2, a police officer was patrolling this parking lot right outside of a shopping mall in Ontario, Canada, which was located about an hour and a half away from the border. And during his patrol, at some point, he noticed there was this one car, a white Toyota, that had been loitering in the area for quite a while. And so he decided to drive over and see what was going on. And when he got there, he looked inside the vehicle and he saw someone sitting on the passenger seat. And he was a white man, probably in his 30s, with thinning brown hair and a wispy mustache. And this officer immediately recognized this guy as being the wanted criminal, Alex Mangle. And so the officer immediately called for backup. And then he parked his car, got out, and approached the white Toyota where this guy was sitting with his gun drawn. And as the officer approached the passenger side door, the man inside turned, noticed the officer, jumped into the driver's seat, fired up the car, and the Toyota sped out of the parking lot. And so the officer, he jumps back in his cruiser and he takes off after him. And before long, it was like the entirety of the police force in Toronto was a part of this high speed chase to catch this guy. And eventually they funneled the car into a dead end street, and the white Toyota crashed into a stop sign. And then the man inside with the mustache and the thinning brown hair pops out. And immediately everybody sees, yep, that's Alex Mangle. He didn't put up a fight at that point. He was taken into custody. However, despite how relieved law enforcement was to have this cop killer in custody, they realized they didn't understand something. How was it that Alex Mengele got past border security and got into Canada? Everybody was on high alert looking for him. What happened? And so police were baffled until they searched that white Toyota Alex had been driving. On the night that Alex shot and killed that police officer near New York City, he immediately fled to this wooded area and hid out overnight. And then the next day when he got up, he was walking around and he happened to pass by this commercial building. And as he was looking at it, he saw this middle aged woman, whose name was Beverly Capone, come out of the building and make her way towards her car. And she was all alone. And so Alex walked up to her and abducted her at gunpoint. And then he drove her to this cabin out in the woods that he knew would be totally isolated. No one was there. And once they got there, he murdered her. And then once she was dead, he stole her clothes and Put it on. And also cut off her face and her scalp and put those on as well. He was literally wearing her skin and hair. And he hopped in that white Toyota and he drove up to the Canadian border and amazingly, he got through the checkpoint into Canada without anybody noticing. It would turn out that Canadian border security guard who all day was checking for Alex Mengele, did actually see Alex Mengele. He just didn't recognize him because Alex Mengele was wearing Beverly Capone's face, hair and clothes. And so he thought he was just a middle aged woman traveling alone. And he let him on through. And so police would figure this whole thing out when they searched that white Toyota because they would find lying on the floorboard was Beverly's dress, scalp and face. Alex was deported back to the U.S. however, before he could stand trial, he attempted to escape a prison transport and in the process got shot to death by police. However, that was not the end of Alex's story. Following his death, officers continued to investigate him and also his property. And at some point during a search of his property, they would discover all these photos of unidentified women along with these maps where these very isolated places in New York and Pennsylvania were circled. And nobody knows what they mean. Now, police have not conclusively linked Alex to any other murders, but he does remain a suspect in several cases. And in fact, many investigators believe Alex was actually a serial killer. However, we'll probably never know how many people Alex actually killed because he took all of his secrets to the grave. The next and final story of today's episode is called Striking a discord. At 3:30pm on July 27, 2019, a 22 year old college student named Nicole logged onto her gaming computer in her bedroom in North Carolina. Nicole had spent the morning and the early part of the afternoon studying, but now she could finally kick back and relax and play her favorite video game, an online multiplayer combat game called Perfect World, where people battled each other as characters inspired by Chinese mythology. Perfect World was a pretty niche game, so not a whole lot of people played it or even knew about it. But Nicole loved it. And she played it basically every day for the past few years, was totally hooked on it. And in playing it, she had met about a dozen other people from all over the world who also were obsessed with this game. And together they had formed a virtual community. And they used a messaging app called Discord to communicate with each other outside of the game. So on this particular day, after Nicole loaded up Perfect World, she also opened up her Discord chat and she saw already that Several of her friends were online and they were all talking on the general chat inside of their server. And so Nicole began perusing the messages and she saw the general theme of the messages being passed was about one of the other users on their server, somebody who went by the username menhas. So as far as everyone knew on this Discord server, menhausthey didn't know his real name was a college student and he was basically known to be a huge troll, which meant he said and did really offensive things, in particular on this Discord server just to get people's reactions. Because of his trolling behavior, he had actually been previously kicked out of the server and also kicked out of the game Perfect World. Like the game, they're all connected on this Discord server through. He had been booted from both of those platforms in the past. But in previous occasions when that happened, Menhaz would plead his case and say, he's not gonna do it anymore, he's gonna behave. And eventually the moderators would just let him back in. And so currently menhas was back on the Discord server and he was back to his trolling ways. But as Nicole scanned through the general chat and went back and actually saw what menhas had been saying that day, that basically had stirred up everybody else on the server to say, look, he's back to his trolling ways. When she went back and actually saw what menhas was saying, Nicole couldn't help but feel like today's trolling just felt different. Menhaus was talking about this apparently brilliant four step plan he had that was going to completely revolutionize his life and basically set him up for big success in his life going forward. However, this plan he was talking about, this four step plan, was not only totally outrageous, but just seemed impossible. Like what he was saying he was gonna do just didn't seem possible even by Menhaz's stand, like within his trolling standards. This was a bridge too far. This isn't even trolling. This is just weird what you're proposing. And so basically the chatter on the Discord server this day that Nicole was seeing was how nobody believed this four step plan was a real thing. Like this is just classic Menhas trolling. And Nicole too, she also did not believe this plan was serious. She did not think for a second Menhas was going to do this. And so she just kind of rolled her eyes, ignored, ignored. Menhas minimized the Discord server and just enjoyed playing the game Perfect World. And after a while, after, you know, a couple of battles that she won and a couple of battles that she lost in this game. She paused for a second and noticed there was a whole bunch of new notifications on their Discord server. And so because Nicole was already taking a break from the game, she opened up the Discord server to see what was going on. And right away she saw the main topic of discussion was once again menha's and his four step plan. But specifically menhas had just sent a picture through the Discord server that apparently represented completing step one of this four step plan. He basically said, look, I did it, I've done one, I'm onto step two now. And everybody's looking at this picture thinking, wait a minute, he's actually doing this. This can't be real. And Nicole, when she looked at this picture she too thought like, no way, this is not possible. He did not do this. And in fact our first thought was, okay, maybe this image was created by AI or something, or maybe he pulled this image off a website somewh and is pretending it's authentic, but it can't possibly be something he actually took a picture of. He couldn't have done this. And so pretty quickly, Nicole, despite seeing this image, she agreed with the consensus that menhas is still just trolling us. This picture is not proof that he's really doing this four step plan. And so Nicole went back to playing Perfect World and about an hour later she noticed there were all sorts of new notifications on her Discord server. And so once again she stopped her game, she opened up the Discord server and once again the entire chat was dominated about menhas because menhaus had sent a second picture apparently representing him completing the second step of his big four step plan. And once again everyone's saying there's no way he's trolling us. This can't be real. And Nicole, she looked at the image itself and she too thought, this has gotta be trolling. But now she wasn't just filled with pure disbelief. You know, she wasn't able to just completely discard what was happening here because part of her was thinking like, how is menhas getting these hyper specific images that really are tethered to this exact plan he's laid out? Like, how does he have these images? Where are they coming from? Now this was back in 2019 and certainly AI technology existed, but not the way it does now, where you know, the average user can literally in seconds create hyper specific images using AI in 2019 that really wasn't available to most people. And so really the only way menhas could potentially have these images, at least in Nicole's mind, was he had to have pulled them off some website somewhere and basically pretended they were images that he took. And so Nicole decided she was actually going to take the two images he had sent and reverse image search them to try to figure out where they came from, you know, find the website where he's pulling them from. Because clearly these pictures are not authentic. There's no way Menhas actually took these photos. But when Nicole reverse image searched both images, nothing came up. Now, Nicole thought, okay, that does seem to suggest these are authentic pictures he really did take, which maybe means he's actually doing this plan, even though that seemed totally preposterous. Or she thought maybe, you know, these images have been pulled from such an obscure website somewhere that I don't have access to, you know, finding them in a reverse image search, that maybe that's what it is. And so at this point, Nicole told herself, you know what, there's gotta be a reasonable explanation for this. But I'll tell you this, it can't be that menhas is actually following through on this plan. It's not possible. And so, once again, she minimized the Discord server and got back into the game. But pretty quickly, Nicole just stopped playing the game because her mind was totally fixated on whatever was going on with menhas. And so she opened up the Discord server again and she saw still everybody in the chat was talking about menhas and these two pictures he had sent. And basically the server was divided. About half the members believed this really was just Minha's trolling. And the other half was starting to think that, hey, guys, this might be real. He might actually be carrying out this four step plan. Those pictures might be real. And if that's the case, we have a huge problem because this plan, if he actually carries it out, is so completely illegal. He can't do this. This is not okay. And so the faction of members on the Discord server that was starting to sense that this four step plan of Menhaz's might actually be real began to talk internally. And they said, look like, we can't just sit here and do nothing. If Menhas is actually doing this, we have to stop him. This is not okay. And so, in fact, one of these members actually contacted their local police and told them, hey, there's this guy on my Discord server. You know, his username is menhas. I don't have his actual name, but he's doing something that could be very bad and you need to look into it. And so the dispatcher said, okay, well, you know, where does menhas live? And the person who had called was like, well, I don't actually know. In fact, I really don't know much about him other than the fact that he goes by Menhaz and he sent these crazy pictures that could be real or not, I don't know. And so eventually the dispatcher just said, look, like, I get it that you're concerned, but we have nothing to go on here. And remember, this is the Internet. People make stuff up all the time. And so pretty quickly after that, the police officer just hung up. And that was that.

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Mr. Ballen (27:19)

So at this point, Nicole and the other members of the Discord server who were starting to suspect that what menhas was doing could be real. They felt really alone. I mean, the local police was not taking this seriously, which did make sense. I mean, they had nothing to go on. But as a result, it was like nobody was doing anything about what menhas was claiming. And Nicole and the other members, who again, were beginning to sense this could be real, they felt terrible about just sitting here doing nothing. And so Nicole and a few other members of the Discord server decided to team up digitally and actually investigate Menhas themself. Try to figure out, like, who this guy is and really what's he up to. And so Nicole and this new investigative group started by combing through all the chat logs in their Discord server to see if Menhas at any point had either intentionally or unintentionally dropped hints about his real name and his location. And eventually they came across a message where Menhaz actually said his real first name was menhas. That wasn't just his username, that was his real name. And that was great because menhas was a pretty unique name. And so Nicole and the group thought, okay, well, if we find where in the world that name is somewhat common, maybe that will give us a rough idea of idea of where to look for Menhaz in the world. They also knew that Menhas was a college student, or at least he claimed to be. Now, he never actually said where he went to college, but he would often, in the Discord server, tell people when he was gonna be on the server and when he was going to be off the server, like for classes and for studying and that kind of thing. He would say, okay, hey, I'll be on at 6pm tonight, or I'll be off at 9. I'll be back on at 8. He would give these specific times, and he would always use Eastern Standard Time when he did that. And so a natural assumption that Nicole and her group made was, okay, very likely Menhas lives in the Eastern time zone. And that time zone included the entire east coast of the United States, Eastern and Central Canada, and also some countries in south and Central America. But while that was helpful, it still created too broad of an area in the world for this group to realistically look. For Menhaus, it was nearly impossible to actually figure out where he was, but they now had a sense of where he could be. And they thought, okay, well, why don't we ask somebody else in the Discord server if they can try to track menhas's IP address? An IP address can be used to find the approximate geographical location of a computer. And sure enough, someone in the server said they could do that. And within a few minutes, they had tracked Menhas's computer to Toronto, Canada. However, right at the same time they were figuring this out, Menhaz sent a third picture across the Discord server. A picture that showcased him completing step three of this four step plan. Allegedly. And for Nicole and many other members of this Discord server, this third picture really represented a big shift because now it was getting terrifying. Because look, it seems pretty likely at this point that menhas is actually doing this. This is real. How could he possibly have these hyper specific photos that are perfectly synced with this four step plan he had come up with? This feels real. And so Nicole, she actually asked the person who had traced his IP address to Toronto. She said, hey, should we call the Toronto police and tell them what's going on here? You know, maybe they can go find him and stop him before he completes this plan. I mean, he's apparently completed three steps. There's only one step left. We have to stop him here. But the person who had tracked his IP address to Toronto said, look, what are the police going to do? There's 6 million people that live in Toronto and all we have is that maybe his computer is in Toronto and maybe these pictures are real. And also, by the way, it's pretty easy to mask your IP address. You can use something called a VPN or virtual private network, that when you track someone's IP address that has one of those working, it will make it seem like their address is, for example, in Toronto or Chicago or New York or Dallas or anywhere in the world, when in reality their computer is somewhere totally different. And so the police are not gonna launch a manhunt based on an IP address. It's not 100% accurate. And so basically, Nicole realized that even though they saw they are on the precipice potentially of menhas committing some horrible crime and they can't do anything about it. Cause they don't really have any information about menhas. And so at this point, everybody on the Discord server was basically begging menhas to come clean. Tell us these photos are fake, tell us this plan of yours is really just you trolling. But menhas didn't do that. He doubled down and said, oh no, these are all real. And in fact, I'm going to complete step four of this plan and complete the whole process in 30 minutes. And after that, all Nicole and the other members of the Discord server could do was just try to convince Menhaus not to do this. Don't follow through with this, don't complete the plan. You gotta stop, it's not worth it. But Menhas refused and said, I'm doing this no matter what. And sure enough, 30 minutes later, Menhas would send one final picture. The fourth picture showcasing that his four step plan was now complete. At this point, someone from the Discord server did call the Toronto police. The following day at about 3.30pm, police officers arrived outside of Menhaz's home, which it would turn out was located in a small town just north of Toronto. The IP address had been correct by this point. It had now been about 24 hours since Menhas had sent the very first picture of his four step plan. Police knocked on the front door, having no idea what to expect here. They had seen the images Menhas had sent on the Discord server. But at this point, until they went inside, they had no idea if they were dealing with a terrible crime or a terrible joke. When the door opened, Menhas himself was standing in the doorway. He had a totally neutral, very calm expression on his face. He was very gracious. He welcomed the police inside and when they stepped inside they asked him, you know what's going on here? And all Menhaz said was, you'll see. So the police walked further into the home and eventually made their way upstairs. And when they got up there, they just froze. Because it would turn out Menhas was not trolling. Those pictures were not fake. He really had carried out that four step plan. It would turn out. For the past four years, Menhas had been living a double life to his friends and family. He was a college student studying engineering and he was on a path to great success when in reality he dropped out of college in his first year and just pretended to go to school every day. When in reality he would just go to a local mall and hang out there. And then in the evenings when school was over and he would come back home, he would just immerse himself in video games, specifically that Perfect World game. That's what he did. He just went to the mall and played video games and lied to his friends and family. But July 27, 2019, the day Menhas put his four step plan into action, was literally the last day he could maintain this ruse. Because the next day, July 28, 2019, was the day Menhaz was scheduled to graduate from his college. And so his friends and family were all expecting to be there and to see this amazing ceremony. And so to deal with the fact that his real life and his fake life were about to collide, Menhaz came up with his four step plan. And he literally told the members of the Discord server about his big plan. But nobody believed him. Cause he was always trolling people. It just seemed like, oh, this is made up. Another one of Menhaus's lies. But he was not lying. It was all true. Those pictures that he sent across were absolutely authentic. He took those pictures and they did represent completing each step in the plan. The first picture was of his mother, the second picture was of his grandmother, the third picture was of his sister, and the fourth picture was of his father. And in each picture those people were dead because Menhaus had spent the day methodically killing his entire family. To prevent them finding out about his lie. He hit them over the head with a crowbar and then slit their throats and took a picture of posted it to Discord. By the time someone from Discord finally got in touch with the Toronto police, it was too late. Menhas had obliterated his entire family. Menhas ultimately pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years a quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our headline of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan. Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio and Cole Locasio Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more Bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Bolland podcast as well. Well as Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, bedtime stories, wartime Stories, Run Fool Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo and a Twist of History. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. Hey prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music Download the Amazon Music app today and before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey hey listeners. Big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts. Completely ad free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads. Because, let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve wracking part of true crime. To start your ad free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to Amazon.com ballin that's Amazon.com B A L L E N Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.