A (12:41)
Of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required Intro 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mint mobile.com have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton and time just stands still during the 70s, Alexandra did her own share of partying along with her other fellow coeds during her college days. She traced the outlines of the party scene and that of course led to her to make party acquaintances and associations a part of the 70s scene. And leftover free spiritedness from the 60s led to a lot of hitchhiking and relying on the kindness of strangers as well as your own ability to judge a character whenever you accepted a ride from them. Alexandra and her party acquaintance friend found themselves waiting for a bus at a city bus stop one day. They had been waiting for about 10 minutes when a young man pulled over and offered the two young coeds a ride instead of waiting. Even Alexandra, with her caution towards strangers, was tempted to accept his his offer. Her feet hurt from a particularly long day and week and she was tired. Her friend, however, readily accepted the ride, turning back to Alexandra to see if she was coming also. However, whilst not breaking eye contact with a seemingly kind stranger, Alexandra politely declined his offer. So Alexandra waved goodbye to her friend and waited for her bus as the man pulled pulled back into traffic, driving her friend away with him. Life went on as usual for Alexandra after she caught her bus and got on with the rest of her day, since she didn't really speak to that friend often. College exams and life in general occupied Alexandra's mind. Before she knew it, college was over for her and the years passed quickly. It wasn't until just recently that Alexandra saw her old college buddy appear on her TV screen. But to Alexandra's horror, she quickly realized that she was seeing her friend's college picture displayed along with Ed Kempfer's other murder victims. Alexandra was totally shocked upon realizing her friend's fate. She felt guilty that she didn't try to stop her friend from going with him but her friend had caught Frank free rides dozens of times and felt that she was a good enough judge of character. Not only that shocked Alexandra, though, but also the fact that she herself had looked into serial killer Ed Kemper's eyes. That fateful day. Between May of 1972 and April 1973, Ed Kemper committed several brutal murders. Most of his victims were college coeds. But what makes Ed's case different is the fact that at just 15 years old, the first two victims he claimed were his own grandparents. After that, he went on to take the lives of six innocent coeds. He ended his brutal killing spree when he murdered his own mother and her best friend. Ed's killing methods varied from shooting, stabbings and even strangulation. He liked to cruise around in his car and choose his co ed victims and then offer them a ride. The innocent young co EDS that accepted his act of kindness had no idea that that would be the last ride they would ever accept from a stranger. I'm sure that a lot of you hearing this out there understand that you always question what you could have done differently and order for that person to still be alive today. But to me at least, the truth behind deaths by murder may simply come down to a matter of wrong place, wrong time. For example, I have heard of a case of three women murdered out in Yosemite by Carrie Stayner several times and from different angles. In one account, I believe that it was said that Kerry actually originally intended intended to kill another woman he had been seeing and also her children. Apparently she wasn't home when he went to try and execute his deadly plan. So allegedly, as a result, he happened to have spotted the three female visitors of Yosemite on their way out of their hotel where Carrie Stayner worked as a maintenance man. If one of those three women would have just taken a few seconds longer to leave the hotel room, maybe they all would have waded back and Kerry never would have spotted them. It's just a theory, but to me that part of reality is truly terrifying. Please, everyone, stay safe. Keep your safe practices and most importantly, follow your gut instincts. This happened when I was about 28. I am almost 40 now. This occurrence comes into my brain from time to time. I try to pass it off like it wasn't a big deal or nothing substantial happened, but it's rarely been such successfully. There's a reason I still think about it over 10 years later. It started when my future wife and I were getting ready to have a nice night out. It was Christmas time. For some reason, I remember that because our town always changed the street lights on our little subdivisions to red and green. To be clear, it was only the rustic looking ones that dotted the entrance and exits to the subject. They didn't really provide real streetlights. We had actual taller streetlights that of course had to be outfitted with the city approved LED or whatever. It was pretty and a nice touch by the city and our hoa. I was fondly looking at one of the red and green streetlights from our two bedroom apartment. My fiance at the time and I had gotten this little place at a great time. Great recession, great prices. Fortunately we were both working and not doing poorly financially. Since we didn't have children yet, we didn't need much room. This kind of leads into the story. I don't remember the square footage, but it was on the second floor of a three floor walk up. It was probably in the range of 7 to 800 square feet. Nothing big. We had more than enough room. Two of us. That being said, we did not have a great amount of storage. To be truthful, we decided to use the smaller second bedroom as a storage room. We enjoyed a very generous master bedroom for both of us and put all of our extra stuff into the second bedroom. As mentioned earlier, we were getting ready to go out. I got home from work first. It was just getting into the evening. In this part of the world, that means it's already dark outside. As I entered the threshold to my home, I hung my coat up, tossed my keys into a dish that was striped black and white like a referee shirt, and walked toward the kitchen. Being that this place was so small, I passed by both bedrooms as I took a couple steps from the front door to the kitchen. The second bedroom, though the one we did not use use, was open. I might not have noticed it, but the light was on. We never kept the light on in that room. Overcome with a sudden feeling of panic, I froze shamefully. But thankfully that didn't last more than a couple of seconds. I cautiously opened the door. Nothing. One nice exhale later and I shut the light off and closed the door. Either she was putting storage items in the room and forgot to turn the light off, or the last time I was there, I forgot to turn the light off. Simple as that. Anyway, shut the light off, closed the door. Done. We went on to have a great fun night together. After having a few drinks, I brought up the light being left on in the extra bedroom. I think you're busted, I said. She looked at me with a buzzed look of inquiry when I came home today. The extra bedroom door was open and the light was on. I think I finally confirmed where you keep the presents, I said with a little playfulness in my voice. I haven't been in that room for weeks, she said with a smile on her face. And I keep the presents somewhere you'll never find them. She laughed. I had a brief moment of worry but quickly put it away from my mind when our next round of shots came from our server. It should have bothered me more now that she confirmed she had not left the door open. As I said, it is possible I went in that room and forgot to close it, but I really doubted that. Several hours later we stumbled back home singing, looking at the holiday lights and the decorations on our walk home. Thankfully, our favorite place to get some late night drinks was only a block away. As she opened the door for us, she threw her keys in the tray, kicked her shoes off, and skipped to the living room to throw herself on the couch. I laughed myself, enjoying the moment and honestly liking where the night was going until I walked by the extra bedroom. Obviously she didn't notice. The door was open maybe 2 to 3 inches and the light was on. Being in an inebriated state, the gravity of this situation did not fully hit me. From what I can remember, I stood by the door for longer than I probably should have. I heard my fiance call my name from the living room and it snapped me out of my haze. I quickly reached into the room, slapped the light off, and quietly closed the door. No reason to alert her to some kind of paranormal activity going on. Not tonight. After she went to work the next morning, I sat in the small kitchen trying to decide what was going on. Option 1 Demons Option 2 There was a very real possibility that someone was in our apartment. Maybe on several occasions. I decided to take a look around the bedroom. The door was still closed from last night, so that's a good sign. The room looked normal. Full of our extra junk, but normal. Until I made my way into the closet. Inside, beside more junk, was a handwritten note. Have fun last night. My fiance and I reported all of this and stayed with a friend until we could get all of our stuff out. I can't tell you how scary seeing that note was. When I was five years old, my stepdad took a job in a town an hour away from the home we were living in. After a few months of a long drive to and from work, my parents decided to start looking for a home closer to his new place of work. Unfortunately, this didn't pan out too well for them. The market at the time made it difficult to find anything, including rentals at a price they could afford. Around the same time, my stepdad's parents decided to sell their home. This was the house my stepdad grew up in, and in addition to being a well kept, decent sized home, there was a lot of sentimental value from my stepdad. When my parents expressed interest in working out a deal with my grandparents to purchase the home, my grandparents simply gave it to them at a price they could afford. And so began the creepiest chapter of my life. I had visited the home many times before, and while I never felt uneasy, there was certainly an energy to the home that I had not felt anywhere else in my short five years. Almost immediately after we moved in, whatever energy was in the house began forming its attachment. Most of the energy in the home seemed to emanate from one room. One of the upstairs bedrooms had a small door in the wall of the closet leading to an attic. And even as a small child, I was terrified of that room. And and that attic in particular. My first bedroom was across the hall from that room. It was one of the few peaceful places in the house that seemed as if no kind of negativity could touch it. Nearly every other space in the house carried with it a feeling of heaviness. The closer we were to the attic or basement, the heavier the air felt and the more our anxiety grew. Around two years after moving into the home, my younger sister was born and once she was old enough to have her own room, she moved into the room I once shared with my brother. I took the downstairs bedroom. I was around six or seven years old and excited to have my own space. I got to choose my own decorations and make it very homey prior to moving into the room room. It was a dream come true for my childhood self. But the first night I stayed there alone, the heaviness that plagued the majority of the house was more present than I had ever felt it. I have struggled with anxiety since a very young age, so I simply dismissed it as anxiety, as I would for many of the events that would take place later on. Thankfully, nothing truly scary ever happened in this room, aside from the feeling of heaviness and strange dreams. Eventually, my siblings took over the room with the attic and the closet. At first they were scared, and being the older sister, I offered to have a sleepover for the first few nights to help make them feel more comfortable. I had become accustomed to the strange energy in the house, and although it was certainly stronger in the room with the attic, I continued to chalk it up to my anxiety disorder. That was the first night that I saw the Shadow Man. The Shadow man would stand just outside the doorway. He was only visible from this room and did not appear every night. Still, I continued to believe it was anxiety. A few years later, my siblings and I were older and broke, braver and decided the attic would make a great clubhouse. We brought toys and decorations in and set up a cool space near the entrance. But even then, we were terrified of the rear of the attic where the light didn't reach and deemed the space off limits. None of us wanted to admit we were afraid and each of us claimed it was just too dark to see. But in reality, each of us had seen the Shadow man lurking. Not just standing still anymore, but moving, always watching darker than the surrounding darkness, seemingly trying to find a way to get closer to us. Over the years, every single one of us would hear our names called from different parts of the house, including my stepdad, who had never had any paranormal experiences in this home growing up and was an absolute skeptic when it came to anything paranormal. When we would come to where we thought our names were being called from, we would either be greeted with an empty room or those present were totally confused as to why we thought we were being called. Looking back, one of the creepiest things that sticks with me is the last couple of years in the home, during which my sister and I decided to explore the basement. We had what is called a Michigan basement, which in our case was more or less a pit that had been dug beneath the house with walls of dirt surrounding the space and a three foot crawl space on top of each wall. Since early childhood, we always had a notion that something interesting was buried within those walls. As kids, we always thought of secret treasure. But as we got older, the running joke became that maybe there was a body buried within the walls. Shortly before moving out, my sister and I decided to explore a bit and crawled around on top of the walls. We found nothing but a few antiques left behind, perhaps by my grandparents or previous owners. The scariest part of the whole story comes years later. My family grew again and we moved to a newer home on the opposite side of town. We had been there for over two years when the creepy old house came up in conversation. We were watching a show about ghost stories when they started talking about the Hat Man. I started laughing and said, man, if we were still in that old house, I would be terrified. I always used to think I saw something like that in the hallway upstairs. I laughed. But my demeanor quickly changed when I saw my mother's and siblings expressions. We started talking about weird things we experienced in that old house. And as it turns out, every single one of us saw the exact, exact same figure in the hallway down to every detail. Even worse, he could only be seen from the room that was attached to the attic. While we all routinely heard our names being called in that house and thought nothing of it, not a single one of us has ever experienced that since moving out. My mom even confessed that when she and my stepdad shared the attic room room, she awoke very early one morning to a sailor sitting on the edge of the bed who quickly disappeared after her initial fright. She never told anyone about the experience until that day. Later that night, we started digging into the history of the house and discovered that a neighbor whose backyard met with ours was doing some landscaping and discovered the grave of a sailor just steps away from their back door. Needless to say, we were pretty freaked out and didn't talk about it again for some time. Fast forward a few more years. I had gotten married, was expecting my first child, and my husband and I began looking for a home to buy. I hadn't thought much about the old house or its haunts. Months in years we toured a few homes. We hadn't yet found anything that really fit our needs. This was shortly before the housing market exploded, so there was no sense of urgency or desperation. We were only interested in finding the right space to grow a family. A few months in, I began having a repetitive dream about my old home. In my dream, we pursued purchased the home and a voice kept telling me to tear out the bathtub. We obliged and found an old doll hidden in a box in the wall. This doll talked to us and told us there was something buried in the land. This dream happened multiple times a week until I began to become obsessed with owning the house. Anytime I was in the area, I would drive by. The more I drove by the house, the more obsessed I became. The home wasn't even for sale yet. I was thinking of ways I could entice the current owners to sell it to us. I needed that house. It freaked me out because I am the opposite of materialistic. And while I had many good memories at that house, I hadn't even thought about it for years. Why was I so obsessed with it? Why was I constantly dreaming about it? I immediately began to remind myself of how terrified I was there as a child and forbade myself from going near it. I stopped thinking about it for a while. My daughter is now Four years old, she recently found out that my my parents current home is not the house I spent most of my life in. A few weeks ago she asked if she could see where I grew up. I hadn't thought about the house for some time so I agreed. We drove by and it looked more beautiful and appealing than I remembered. Despite there being no significant changes to the home. Now every time we visit my parents she asks to see it. Almost as if it's calling to her too. I have started having the dreams again and to this day if that home went up for sale, I can't promise I wouldn't buy it more than a few years ago. I'd say a good 10 years ago. My mother in law, we'll call her Bea for anonymity's sake. But Bea was living with me and my husband, her son for a short period due to her ongoing medical issues. At the time we just felt it would be better for her to be with us for a while. Now let me inform you that Bea was not your typical mother in law. She was a serious addict and had been in and out of prison my husband's entire life. But in her older age and health issues she had been in recovery for eight years strong. When she was using her doc she would get so geeked up and she would stay awake for four, five days at a time non stop. When she would get like that she would want to go and rouge old houses or abandoned houses, go through them and taking what she thought was anything of value. Well, one day I had just walked in my front door to find a note on my kitchen table with what looked like a printout of a Google Earth image search. The note was from B. It stated that she was just playing around on Google Earth, looking around in the area we were currently looking living and said she had found an abandoned house deep in the woods fairly close to our house. The house had no mailbox, no driveway, not even the remnants of a driveway, at least not that the printout showed. So I got on Google Earth app myself, located the abandoned house and nope, no driveway, no mailbox, not even a listed address. And the strangest part was the distance from the main road to the house would have been a good mile hike. There was no dirt road leading to the house, not even a foot trail. I'm not sure what possessed me, but I looked over at Bea and asked her, you wanna go find this house? Needless to say there was no hesitation on her part and my genuine curiosity had gotten the best of me. So fast forward a few days. And the following weekend we set out to locate this abandoned house. The road that we had to be on in order to come semi close to accessing the house was at the end of a residential suburban neighborhood. So we parked the car and started our hike through briars and poison oak and everything in between. It was a rough little hike, but about a good almost mile in. Then we both look up and lo and behold, right there in the middle of this dense forest was a clearing a little less than half a football field with a small, simple little house with a small stone wall off to the side. I was shocked, to say the least. I looked over at Bea and she had the expression of pure excitement all over her face. It didn't take her long to find a way into the house. And to start oohs and oz, I decided to remain outside. I don't know, something just told me I didn't need to go in that house. So as I'm standing outside this abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, I walk over towards the old stone well just off the left of the house. I reached the opening to the well and peered down. Not being able to see much, I stepped back and sat down on one of the big rocks right next to the well. I then, out of boredom, I guess, picked up a big stone and tossed it into the well, hearing the kerplunk as the stone tumbled down and hit the water at the bottom. So I stand up and I lean toward the well with the most horrific, rotting, putrid smell. Hits me like a ton of bricks. The smell was so bad, it felt like it burned the inside of my nose. And let me tell you, it's that smell that once you've smelled it, you will never forget it. I dug my little flashlight out of my pocket and pointed it down the dark well. When I was able to focus on what I was actually looking at, I fell backwards as if I was pushed by an unseen force, falling flat on my butt. But I'll never forget what I saw at the bottom of that well. Two elbows and the back of a head with long hair. That smell was the smell of a decaying human body. I don't think I've ever ran that fast in my life. I just took off, not even telling B I was leaving. I just started running and didn't stop until I reached the car. I sat in my car for about an hour, just trying to process what I had just found and waited on B. To figure out that I had already left. She finally made it back to the car with all the valuables she had found in hand. When she finally got in the passenger seat I was as white as a ghost and was in shock. She asked me what was wrong and I told her exactly what I found. Her jaw hit the floor and she too turned as white as I was. I wasn't sure what to do to be honest, so I simply drove to the closest door and called the non emergency 911 line and explained what I had just found and how I stumbled onto it. Needless to say, the investigator thought me and B were basically full of crap, but he got in his car and followed us to the end of the neighborhood neighborhood and explained that he would have to hike a good mile to find the abandoned house and the well where the body was. No more than 20 minutes later we see police cars and the coroner van pull up at the end of the neighborhood. Eventually they started to tape off the entire wooded area. As I'm just sitting in my car asking one of the many officers there if blood and I could leave. I look past the officer to see two people carrying out a black completely zipped up body bag and placing it into the back of the coroner's van. I shuddered at the thought of who that person was or what could have happened to them. A few months later I get a phone call from one of the detectives working on the body in the well case. She wanted to inform me that they were able to identify who the person in the well was. She was a 24 year old female who had been reported missing out of a small town called Between Georgia seven to eight months ago. Between Georgia was only an hour and a half drive without traffic from where her body was found. The craziest part is the multiple detectives on this camp case live and grew up in the area where the body was found their entire lives, most of them being in their mid to late 50s and not one of them have ever known about or heard about the abandoned house in the middle of the woods. This is my boyfriend's story, which he gave permission to share. It's about a very, very eerie encounter that nobody can really understand fully to this day. My boyfriend is an absolute skeptic, but he definitely does not claim to know what exactly happened either. For context. My boyfriend and I are from South Brazil. He was around 24 or 25 years old when this happened. He used to live in a big city and went out running almost every day. It was pretty much the same route and he used to go through an old cemetery near his home. The neighborhood around his House and the cemetery was pretty dangerous, especially at night. He used to live in a very old building, building kind of like the project for working class people who worked in factories built in the 50s. It's actually a Brazilian historical landmark and holds years of history. So on this day he went running and entered the cemetery. It was a hot summer evening, around 5pm the place would always close at 6. He was running by the back of the graveyard on a path surrounded by trees and headstones. There was a high hill between him and the entrance, which was high enough that he couldn't spot the entrance door or fence from where he was standing. Everything was fine and peaceful until he got to this spot on the far end of the cemetery. He says he remembers hearing footsteps over his music, but never seeing anyone behind or in front of him. That was until the sudden moment that a voice called for him loud enough for him to stop and take his earphones off. He looks around but sees nothing. Keeps running, going a bit slower. Then, as soon as he looks up the hill on his side, he sees a man there, staring and walking towards him. He was a very old man, probably late late 70s, looking extremely thin and pale. My boyfriend recalls very clearly that the old man was wearing a ragged old style mustard yellow shirt and khaki pants. The man was holding his ID in one hand and a very decrepit suitcase in another. My boyfriend stopped moving and noticed that the man had an insane amount of sand and dirt on him, even though there wasn't any sand around. The man still up on the hill got very close to my boyfriend and kept repeating the same thing over and over again. Hello, my name is Cicero and I'm trapped in here. My name is Cicero and I'm trapped. I can't leave. I'm trapped. My boyfriend says that in the moment he didn't feel threatened or scared, just a bit confused with the man's appearance and strange behavior. Cicero kept holding his ID in front of him, but the piece of paper was so dirty that my boyfriend couldn't read anything. When he finally understood what Cicero was saying, my boyfriend started pointing out the exit, which was straight over the hill to the opposite side or through the side part he was running on. The whole time he was saying this, Cicero kept looking at him intently, kind of half listening, still holding his ID card in front of him. Once my boyfriend stopped talking, Cicero began saying he was trapped here and that he couldn't leave this place. My boyfriend was getting annoyed and he simply thought at the time that this was a very confused old man and repeated the same explanation. He then resumed walking down the path again. Cicero kept repeating his words, but he then asked something else. His voice got very desperate at this point. He said, please help me. I want to leave, but I'm trapped. I don't know how. Please help me. It was then that my boyfriend started getting a little spooked. He glanced over again and Cicero was still standing on the hill above him. My boyfriend says that there was so much sand on the man that some was spilling on the ground near him. Cicero had big scared eyes, like he had seen so much and actually needed help. My boyfriend then stopped walking. There was absolutely no one around and it was getting darker. He decided to speak to Cicero from a distance, very calmly. My boyfriend explained over and over again how to access the exit and suggested that maybe Cicero could also try going through a metal fence that had lots of holes in it if he so preferred. After a moment of silence, Cicicero lowered his ID. My boyfriend thought that he would get angry or violent, but Cicero just smiled and said very peacefully, okay, thank you very much. Then Cicero turned around and left, walking the opposite side and disappearing down the hill. My boyfriend was scared by this point because he was thinking about his eerie surroundings, the strangeness of the man's demeanor, and also the fast approaching darkness. He remembers thinking that the weirdest thing about it, apart from all the sand and tattered clothes, was that it was incredibly easy to leave the cemetery. It wasn't a big or confusing place, and it had only one huge metal entrance. So my boyfriend ran pretty fast and left right before a guy closed up the doors with a padlock. He looked around to see if Cicero got out, but didn't see anyone. He then says that he got home and told his mom, who's a very religious woman. She was absolutely certain that Cicero was a spirit trapped in the place and the body was buried. Her theory is that the man had been there for years, since his clothes were old style and the place that they lived in had had a lot of violent deaths over the years. My boyfriend also recalls feeling incredible, incredibly creeped out. Over the next few weeks, he experienced sudden urges or sadness and despair out of nowhere, especially at night. He used to sleep with his windows open because of the heat, but started closing them after he heard more than once, some hushed male voices outside in the middle of the night. He never went back to that cemetery alone and took a long time to return. Nobody else he told this story to knew about Cicero or ever saw someone resembling him. Now, of course, we know this encounter could be explained as a confused person who needed help. But the way Cicero asked for help and the way his old clothes looked like they were fresh from the grave haunts my boyfriend to this day. I just hope Cicero found his way in the end. My uncle Andrew has this story from back when he was a commercial airline pilot. He wasn't piloting the plane this happened to, but he heard the story from a friend who used to fly private jets around West Africa. Apparently the gig paid well enough, but because of the safety regulations and some of the more turbulent politics around the region, the flying could get pretty hairy from time to time. A bunch of crazy stuff happened to him while he was over, but the thing that made him quit makes for quite the yarn. So apparently his friend is co piloting the private jet of some African ambassador, but the plane is basically falling apart. All the dials are faulty, the landing gear was on the fritz. Basically, you were taking your life in your hands whenever you piloted this aircraft. But since they were coming to the end of their contract, they didn't want to quit early and not get their bonus. So they worked with the ground crews to ensure the aircraft was fit for takeoff each time. Point being, my uncle's friend is seriously stressed out and the actual pilot had taken to drinking most nights just to keep his nerves together. But the straw that broke the camel's back was this one night flight into Nigeria. The turbulence had been very rough on this occasion and apparently the pilots are just about ready to throw in the towel. But the flight is almost over and they are both about to breathe a sigh of relief as they begin their descent into whatever airport they're flying into. The way my uncle tells it, his friend is focusing on the Runway, but the entire city is behind it. This massive metropolis of glittering lights. Then suddenly all the lights just disappear, like the city itself was just swallowed up by the earth. My uncle's friend and the pilot of the private jet just about crap their pants with their faulty equipment and complete lack of experience. Landing in that particular city, they are maybe only seconds away from smashing that plane into the Runway or maybe even a building if they tried to pull away too late. Then to make matters worse, the pilot just seemed to shut down. He has this full on mental breakdown and just freezes up in his seat. My uncle's buddy had to take control of the aircraft and basically just guess where all the Runway and the buildings were. He said it was the most stressful and terrifying flight of his life. How he was expecting the plane to just burst into flames. Any second as it collided with with something. He pushed the engine to its absolute limits too. Said the plane was shaking at the angle he was turning it at. Miraculously, they don't crash or stall and they make it back into the skies above the darkened city. And my uncle's buddy starts bawling out the pilots for freezing up like he did. But the guy was catatonic until they landed and didn't say a thing in response. After that, they went into a holding pattern until the power came back on and they could get in touch with air traffic control and get permission to land. I hate flying as it is, but imagining that kind of scenario is like a pucker factor of 10. Word was the pilot was so freaked out that he refused to take the return flight, bought a business class ticket back to the US and was never seen again. My uncle's friend had to wait until his clients could hire a new pilot before he could get out of Lagos or Nairobi or wherever it was. Somehow he managed to finish his contract without that plane falling apart on him or any more cities going dark. And he made it out of Africa with a buttload of bonus cash. But after that, he was much more selective of who his clients were. And I think now he just flies domestic and makes a steady salary that way. Crazy story though, right? Of all the times you don't want to get a power cut, landing a plane is definitely up there. On the 3rd of May 2007, 3 year old Madeleine McCann disappeared from her bed in a vacation apartment at a resort in the Algarve region of Portugal. More commonly known as Maddie in the media and to those close to her, she had been taken on vacation by her parents, Kate and Gary, along with her younger twin siblings. One night, the McCanns left their children to sleep in the ground floor apartments they were staying in while they ate at a nearby restaurant. Kate and Gary had assumed it would be safe to leave their children alone for the duration, since the aforementioned restaurant was just 180ft away, which would allow them to momentarily check on them from time to time. But when Kate went to check up on the children at around 10pm, she discovered that Maddie was missing. Over the next few weeks, Portuguese police managed to misinterpret some of the DNA evidence collected from the crime scene. This led to them suspecting that Maddie had died in some kind of tragic accident at the apartment with their parents, covering up their own involvement by faking a kidnapping. The McCanns were formally declared suspects in the case by Portuguese police in September 2007. But were essentially absolved of any suspicion In July of 2008, when Portugal's Attorney General archived the case on the grounds that there was too little evidence to take a case against them to trial. Britain's own Scotland Yard law enforcement agency then began its own investigation, Operation Grange. In mid-2011. After a fair amount of research, the senior investigating officer declared that he was treating the disappearance as a criminal act by a stranger, most likely a planned abduction or burglary that had turned violent when the perpetrators believed themselves discovered. In 2013, Scotland Yard released composite images of local men they wanted to talk to regarding Maddie's disappearance, including one man seen carrying a child toward the beach the same night she disappeared. Shortly after this, in light of new local suspects being identified, the Portuguese police reopened their inquiry into her disappear appearance. This caused Britain's Operation Grange to be scaled back in 2015 to allow Portuguese authorities more control over the investigation. But some of the detectives who worked on the case continued to pursue a small number of inquiries that they seemed worthy of following up. A prominent British newspaper described the disappearance as the most heavily reported missing person person case in modern history. And to this day, her whereabouts remain a complete mystery. Despite the fact that police in multiple countries were involved in trying to locate their daughter, the McCanns took it upon themselves to hire a company of private investigators to dig up information that might help regular police agencies in their search. The PI company known as Oakley International was based in Washington D.C. in the United States, and was initially awarded a six month contract worth then half a million dollars that was raised mostly by charitable donations made by members of the public. Oakley International began to interview potential witnesses, delve through security footage and trace clues all over Europe. But in 2008, the McCanns leveled a serious accusation at the firm's 56 year old Irish CEO, Kevin Halligin, which meant they reneged on the contract, handing over only half of what the firm was apparently owed. Haligen was said to be misusing resources meant solely for the purpose of finding Matty, allegedly using them to fund a lavish lifestyle of travel and leisure. Haligen fiercely denied the claims, but it appears the man was no stranger to fraud. In 2012, he was extradited to the US to face charges over an unrelated $1.3 million fraud to which he pleaded guilty. The following year, he was sentenced to 41 months in prison, but was deported from the United States soon after his court court appearance because of the time he had already spent behind bars, Halligen had escaped the possibility of a lengthy jail term in the US probably because he was wealthy enough to afford the best defense attorneys that money could buy. But because he had become central to the floundering and now apparently corrupt efforts to locate young Matty, he had angered a lot of people along the way and made himself many enemies, some of which vowed to seek revenge on a man that apparently used a little girl's abduction for his own financial gain. Which is why it is so suspicious that he died suddenly at his home in Guildford, Surrey, in January of 2018. Adrian Gatton, a TV director and investigative journalist who made a documentary with Halligra in 2014, confirmed his death to the press association, saying that he had not been in good health. There was blood around the house, probably caused by previous falls when he was either drunk or blacking out. He said his house was full of empty drink bottles. A lot of people wished him ill, but his death is almost certainly related to alcoholism. But following his death, a Surrey police spokesman said that we were called to an address in Cobat Hill Road, Normandy, following a report of a man in his 50s having been taken unwell, who subsequently died. The death is being treated as unexplained, and a file will be passed to the coroner's office in due course. Unexplained. Certainly not a word we might expect to hear following the death of a man who. Who, as Adrian Gatton had phrased it, was certainly related to alcoholism. The fact remains that when the police broke into Halligen's home, they found blood stains all over the house. There is, of course, the possibility that Halligan's corruptly wicked ways had finally caught up with him. That the people who were furious and vengeful regarding Matty's disappearance heard of his apparent crime, corruption, and then channeled their anger toward him. But Haligen always insisted that the media reports were a gross distortion of what actually happened. The print media in particular, took this line that really nothing was being done. I was living the high life on the proceeds of the McCann case, he once said. Trust me, I didn't so much as buy a new suit. The money, all of it is fully accountable. It's provable. It seems that Halligen was very keen on proving his innocence with regards to the Find Maddie fund that he was accused of misusing. Perhaps the alcoholism he was said to suffer from was a direct result of the ire he had occurred, was a manifestation of the pain that any innocent man would suffer under that kind of undue scrutiny. And maybe, just maybe, he believed that finding Maddy would vindicate him. Did Hallijan die a natural death. Did he even die? An explainable one due to his heavy drinking? No. Unexplained. That's how Surrey police described his death. There's every possibility that he was murdered. And if indeed he was, could it possibly be because he had gotten so close to the truth behind Matty's disappearance that someone somewhere felt that he must be silenced? The actual disappearance took place in Portugal. Halligen's death occurred in Surrey, England. And In June of 2020, a public prosecutor in Germany ordered an inquiry regarding a possible involvement of a 43 year old man believed to have been living in a borrowed VW camper van in the Algarve at the time of McCann's disappearance. The suspect's car, an expensive Jaguar XJR6, was registered to a new owner the day after McCann disappeared. These international connections suggest a coordinated network of child kidnappers, complete with a system of support and logistics that could prove deadly under the right circumstances. Yet regardless, it seems the case that we will never truly know how and why Madeline Macan was abducted, where she is now, or if she is alive or dead. But if we ever do uncover the truth, we might just lift the lid on a terrifyingly well organized conspiracy that has been responsible for the disposal disappearances of children all over Europe time and time again. And frankly, I'm not sure the general public is ready for that kind of information. Nor are they ready to find out just how far the tendrils of such an organization really run. Martha Jean Lambert was born on March 26th of 1973 to Howard and Margaret Lambert in St. Augustine Beach, Florida. Martha Jean was an extremely popular young lady among her peers and greatly enjoyed spending quality time with her many friends and family members. Those that knew her often described her as kind and shy, saying that she had a generally happy demeanor. But despite this, her home life was not great. Her father, Howard, was an abusive, raging alcoholic with a fierce and volatile temper, and her mother, Margaret, could often be heard arguing with him when he came home drunk from various bars around St. Augustine. As a result of this highly unsettling, unstable and distressing relationship between her parents, Martha and her two older brothers were often cared for in various foster homes, which had a highly negative impact on their academic performance. Yet in spite of such difficulties, Martha was known for being something of a tough cookie. And she didn't let it get her down too much, maintaining a positive attitude wherever she was. In 1985, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving was a day much like any other for young Martha. She spent the day attending her usual classes at school and then when it was over she went over to a friend's house to hang out until around 7:30 that evening when she began the short walk back to her parents trailer. Only that much is certain about what happened that evening. Afterwards things began to get very unclear, clear indeed and mainly due to conflicting accounts given by her very own family members. What we do know for definitely is that it wasn't until 3am on Thanksgiving Day that Martha was actually reported missing. Her family told the police that she was a 12 year old white girl with sandy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Standing at roughly 4ft and 5 inches tall and wearing weighing just shy of 70 pounds. She was also described as having birthmarks on both her upper left chest as well as on the front of her right thigh. Last her parents had seen of her she had been wearing a short sleeved summer dress. Given her age and inherent vulnerability, the cops started an intense search for Martha. As soon as the missing persons report came in. They initially focused their search around the area near the State Road 207, a stretch of four lane highway that ran through northeastern Florida. They also scoured areas around Carrie Lynn Road, the place that Martha and her family called home. Yet despite their efforts, not a single trace of Martha Jean could be found. And to the heartbreaking disappointment of her family, the trail soon ran cold. Strangely enough, from the very moment she realized her daughter was missing, Martha's mother insisted that her daughter had been kidnapped. This is a rather curious detail as it's a rather specific idea of her daughter's fate. Not that she had been murdered, gotten lost or ran away from what was undoubtedly a broken home, specifically kidnapped. Martha's mother told police that on the night in question that she wasn't at her friend's house until the mid evening and she was in fact attending a social gathering with her. She had apparently turned to her mother and in reference to visiting the friend's house said I'm going over to a friend's, I'll be back in five minutes. But Martha never returned. And by the time her mother had realized something was amiss it was far too late. She searched and she searched all night and into the wee small hours of the following morning. And by the time 3am rolled around, Martha's mother was worried half to death. Police questioned pretty much everyone in the surrounding area and found that some of Martha's neighbors had some very interesting information regarding some suspicious activity in the neighborhood. Shortly after Martha was seen walking west down Carrie Lynn Road. That evening a few members of the local community had Seen a suspicious green van in the area, One that was seen to drive in roughly the same direction as Martha A short while after she had left the social gathering. And what was most concerning Was that not a single person who had seen it Was able to recognize Recognized the van as belonging to anyone in the community, and nor had they been able to record a license plate number Conflicting with his mother's account. Martha's brother David told the police that he and his sister were having dinner together that night. During the time just before she disappeared, he mentioned that she had gotten up from the table and walked out of the house, Refusing to tell him where she was going before she climbed into the passenger seat of a black sedan. Yet police were forced to dismiss Martha's brother's claims in the face of other more consistent accounts, yet were continuously flummoxed as to why the boy had given them such a strange, fabricated version of events. Despite her mother's insistence that she had been kidnapped, Police originally assumed that Martha was a runaway Due to the violence and volatile situation between her parents. But it only took a small amount of speculation and investigation for them to conclude that there was most likely some degree of foul play involved in her disappearance that had most likely ended in her murder. However, not a single suspect has been named as her kidnapper, and there have never been any arrests regarding her disappearance. Essentially, Martha walked off that night from somewhere and basically vanished from the face of the earth. A few days after she had initially disappeared, A handful of police officers Scoured a wooded area behind the family's trailer for any sign of her, but again, nothing was found. Detectives also put a substantial amount of man hours into searching for Martha's remains Around the area where the Florida memorial college once stood. But again, nothing was found. It confounded them. All the places where it was thought that she may have either run off to or have been dumped Were completely devoid of clues. As a result, it was assumed that Martha's mother had been correct in her assertions and that Martha had indeed been kidnapped by someone who wasn't part of her extended family. Many missing persons agencies in the United States still classify Martha's case as a non family abduction to this day. Yet despite this, police say there is absolutely nothing to back this up, that there is no evidence of abduction. And the green van theory, the one that neighbors claim they saw, has never been substantiated. The one real discrepancy with the whole case Is the fact that Martha's older brother David, Seems to have lied about what happened that night As a Result, for a while, he actually became the closest thing the investigation ever had to a serious suspect, based on the fact that there were obvious lies being told and that his story seemed to change in its details on a few different occasions. As was previously mentioned, David claims that he saw Martha get into a black sedan that evening after they had dinner together. But he later changed his story to say that she had simply left to visit a local convenience store and then never returned home. Due to these inconsistencies, investigators suspected that although David might not have murdered her, there was definitely some information that he knew that he was not entirely forthcoming with. After all, he was only 14 years old at the time of the disappearance and may not have been capable of cold blooded murder. However, in the year 2000, when David was 29 years old, he approached local law enforcement with an outrageously shocking claim. He confessed to to killing his sister and told officers that he had disposed of her body in a mine located on Holmes Boulevard. Yet when the police searched the mine, there were no human remains to be found, nor any signs that anyone had been hurt or murdered there at all. Which meant that despite his apparently full and frank confession, there was simply not enough evidence to charge David with his sister's murder. But then again, in 2009, David tried to convince the cops that it was in fact him that had murdered his sister, but changed his story from the version he had given nine years previously. This time around, David claimed that he and Martha had been playing together on the grounds of the then derelict Florida Memorial College building, having left their parents trailer after a drunken argument had broken out over an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey. David said once that they were tired of playing, that they walked to a nearby convenience store to purchase refreshments. It was at this store that they began to argue over a twenty dollar bill that David had nabbed from his mother's purse. When the argument peaked, Martha slapped David across the face. David told the police that he had retaliated by shoving her, which caused her to fall backwards in an awkward fashion, smashing her head on a piece of metal as she fell. David panicked, called for help, but after seeing that no one was around, dragged his sister's body back to the grounds of the old college before burying her in a shallow grave. Once again, such a detailed confession warranted investigation, but just like the previous occasion, there was absolutely no evidence found to support it. But since the college buildings were demolished in the mid-90s and the grounds excavated, there is every chance that her body could have been lost among the debris. As it was being disposed of. However, when Martha's mother was asked if she believed that David had murdered her, she commanded completely rebuked the idea. Even in the face of such an apparently frank confession, David's mother insisted that David often told lies in order to get attention, and doubled down on her claims that some kind of outsider was responsible for Martha's disappearance. Whether or not it was a result of direct pressure from his mother, David ended up retracting these previous confessions, admitting that he had confessed completely fabricated the stories so that law enforcement would give up the search for Martha and declare the case closed. He went on to admit that he suffered from intense emotional and mental problems, and it was these that made him outright lie about his involvement in his sister's disappearance, now denying that he had anything to do with it. As of November 2020, almost 25 years to the day since she disappeared, Martha Jean Lambert's disappearance remains completely unsolved, and no human remains have ever been discovered. There are only really two main theories regarding her disappearance, which revolve around the idea of abduction or her brother accidentally killing her. But as previously stated, there is very little evidence to support either theory, and so logically, neither can be fully supported since there have been no arrests or charges. But that doesn't stop many from insisting that since David's confession is so detailed and believable that we cannot simply dismiss his stories, even though they seemed to shift in their details over time. Essentially, the one person whose story deviated may have just allowed a drip of information over time, unable to quite face the truth himself. Then, overcome with guilt, 15 years after the murder, he came forward to give a full and frank account of what happened that night. After he did so, David's mother, not wanting to lose two children to the same incident, may well have convinced him to retract his confession so that he wouldn't end up robbed rotting in prison. On top of that, the statute of limitations for manslaughter had expired by the time he made his first confession. Which raises the question, is that simply a coincidence, or was it a well timed attempt to both clear his conscience while avoiding any actual punishment for his actions? Either way, it is pure speculation. And the case may truly be that we will never, ever know what really happened to Martha Jean Lambert that Thanksgiving night. And it is a truly terrifying thought that a young girl can simply vanish from the face of the earth with no closure to her friends, family, or society as a whole.
