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Hey, before this episode begins, I just want to let everyone know that my film that I've been producing for the last two years, Gale Yellow Brick Road, is now streaming on Chilling. So if you weren't able to go see it in theaters a couple months ago, no worries. Click the link in the description to this video or just search Chilling in your app store and you can watch Gale Yellow Brick Road tonight at home. I really hope you enjoy. Please leave an honest rating and review on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Thanks again. Hey welcome back to the podcast. I really hope you enjoy this episode and if you'd like to hear more stories like these with a different background sound, please check the description to check out my other two podcasts. And if you want to get rid of all of the ads, you can subscribe for just $2.99 a month. Last thing I really appreciate you being here and I'd really love if you would follow the podcast and come back again soon. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoy. It was 2009. I'm in high school and I'm a male. I live in an island where most people live near the coast, but my childhood house is deep in the mountains. Imagine a house in the woods, but at the very top of the mountain. The house is surrounded by thick mist every night like in a bad horror movie, and the woods around it start less than 2ft from the outer walls of our house. Our closest neighbor is about a 15 minute drive and five minutes away there's an abandoned house, there's no street lights and there are all kinds of animals roaming the area. This is important to the story because even though you couldn't see a group of 10 people hiding 1 meter away from you in the woods, you could hear absolutely everything up to a couple kilometers away. If we saw car lights or heard a car approaching, my family and I would turn off the lights and hide. I don't know why. Shy, antisocial, whatever you want to call it. I think that's enough to set my story up, but I'll add a little bit more detail that might be important. My house is small, but our family car was a good one. I don't know much about cars, but my dad always says back that without a really good car we wouldn't be able to go up and down the mountain we lived in. Also, there's currently eight people living inside our house. This happened one night at about 11pm so I'm at the dining table enjoying some cereal while I watch some anime, having the time of my Life. The lights in the house were on, so nothing could be seen in the darkness outside. There's a window in front of me that faces the front of the house and the road. Something calls my attention, but I don't hear or see anything. Suddenly I think I slightly see a human silhouette outside, but it's not moving, so I just ignore it as some effect of the lights in the house or maybe my own reflection. More anime, More cereal. Then I think I see something moving at the other side of the window, and this time the silhouette is waving at me. I felt my heart jump out of my chest and I froze. There was a person outside waving at me. After maybe 10 seconds in which I just looked up with a spoon halfway to my mouth, he decides to call out, hello. I need help. My parents hear him and approach the window, which made me sure I wasn't looking at a ghost. The man outside starts telling a story about how his car was stolen and he needs help. My parents are surprised that nobody heard his footsteps, so they whisper their theories among themselves. For the mysterious guy story to be true, he had to have been mugged more than a mile away, gotten his car stolen, and then walked for half an hour in the dark through the woods, following the dim light of our house. My parents still decide to believe him, and they offer to call the police. Our visitor begs to say the stupidest thing he could have. Don't call the police. I don't have a gun. My parents stay silent for a while. The guy outside knows that he messed up, but proceeds to make his request. Can I please get a ride downtown? My dad nervously chuckles and gives him an excuse. He mentions the time, the fact that he felt the guy was lying and that he had already called the police. This is when my favorite part of the story begins. I stand up from the table, shaking. I go to a closet, and even though I can't see the guy's face, I know he's following my actions. I grab two machetes that are half my size and run to the other room. I was terrified, and looking back, I probably took away the only weapons my parents could have used to protect themselves in case of an altercation. I opened a door to the room where my siblings and I sleep, and they were watching some silly show. My sisters are loud and my younger brothers are 4 years old, 7 years old, and 9 years old, so their laughs are angelical by day and demonic by night. I signal at them to shut up and they do so, joining me and my parents in our fear. Their silence and then suddenly we hear the guy say, it's okay if you can't help me. I'll go to the next house. My dad replies, there's no next house. You should wait for the police here. I don't need the police. I'm good. This goes back and forth. The guy is now in good shape to walk an hour down the mountain to reach downtown. My dad offers a rusty metal tricycle from our porch so that he can go downtown as a joke. The guy accepts this offer and grabs the tricycle. I assume he just wanted to leave with something. This tricycle is 20 years old and it definitely doesn't work. And this guy definitely wouldn't be able to ride it even if it did. We hear the screeching of the tricycle for a couple seconds as the stranger struggled to be able to ride it and then stopped not too far away from the house. It seemed like he stopped and we didn't hear any footsteps that indicated the guy had left. After trying to identify if he was still in sight, to no avail, my dad calls the police. We wait in silence, looking at the road from the front windows. Fifteen minutes later, the police finally arrive, and as soon as the red and blue lights show up, they illuminate the entire road up to the abandoned house. The tricycle is sitting by itself on the road, not too far away. The police claim not seeing anyone on the road, so they just took a look at the woods with a flashlight and called it a night. The cops were clearly freaked out by the eerie look of our house and did not stay more than five minutes. Nothing else happened that night. I slept with two machetes under my bed, which I remember angered one of my sisters. We have no idea who this person was. No carjackings were reported the next day. And even though a lot of weird things happen around my house, we never saw this guy again. It's pretty obvious he was up to no good, but there were a few things that we could never understand. Where did he come from? Where did he go? If his story was true, he had the worst luck in the world. I think the situation was interesting because I think about his point of view and our horror night turns a bit comical. I mean, imagine this. You go rob a house. Turns out the people inside speak calmly. There's a scrawny, seemingly mute kid that tries to be sneaky in grabbing some huge machetes and then hides somewhere in the darkness of the house. Then you hear children's laughter coming from a room. And then absolute silence. I think we were lucky but probably out creeped this creep that night. I don't see any other reason for this guy to back out of his plans. The guy clearly had a gun and bad intentions, not to mention his ability to ninja walk through a forest where we even hear wild cats walking around. Also, no neighbors witnessed or heard anything. I am sure some other person would have told this story better but I gave it a shot. Obviously I hope I never see this guy again, even though I wouldn't know if I did because I never saw his face. This happened to me a couple of months ago now, but when it first happened, given how crazy it was, it took me a few weeks to collect myself enough to tell this story. It's relevant for me to tell you up front that I'm a military veteran and I have PTSD and anxiety as well as a pretty bad case of depression that I'm currently in my third year of. I have read that cbt Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can massively improve PTSD symptoms and in turn help to reduce anxiety. So I have been trying various techniques at home. The problem there is my wife and I live in a small two bedroom ground floor flat with an upstairs neighbor with absolutely no concept of other people. A jock douchebag type who's a personal trainer, but he trains at home too cause gains. You know the kind of guy whose only two topics of conversation are protein powder and steamed rice. I'm sure you can imagine the title with that being a constant issue. Meditation and quiet mindfulness are just not possible with the constant noise. My solution to this was to do my normal routine during the day but take advantage of my insomnia later on. At around 23:00 o'clock I would put on my coat and my shoes and as we live near the beach, I figured I could walk to the beach now that there's pretty much no people around, walk on the sand and be mindful to the sounds of the ocean. Sounds nice, doesn't was the first two times. But you know what they say, the third time's the charm. The walk to the beach from my home isn't that far. Maybe a little over half a mile. But once I got there I would walk to the very end of the beach until you reached the cliffs where there is a World War II artillery gun turret which was another half mile ish. Sometimes I would walk the path up the cliff to the gun and stare out into the blackness of the midnight ocean, which was only broken by the occasional flash of light from the lighthouse. I would sit and listen to the Waves crashing against the cliffs. Sometimes I would close my eyes and just concentrate on nothing but that sound. I felt safe there, knowing I was alone. Just me and the ocean. Usually, before I turn tail and head home, I would walk down to a small row of benches. They are all marked with plaques in remembrance of someone who also came and enjoyed the view, although I imagine they came during the day. The benches are close to an old pub that was shut down years ago and I had heard the place used to get used as a dogging site or a brothel or something back in the day. So when I saw vehicle headlights coming towards the pub, I figured it was some young lads trying to catch potential doggers at it. I sat on the bench and waited for the car to pass me, but as it rounded a bend in the road further up, I was momentarily lit up by the headlights. The headlights of the vehicle went off immediately and the car went off road and out of sight for a moment. At this point I was fully alert and a bit cautious, so I dropped to one knee and ducked behind the bench I had been sitting on. The vehicle drove past me. It was only maybe 40ft from me and as the lighthouse illuminated the vehicle, I could now see it was an old beat up Land Rover kind of vehicle with crappy camo paint on the wings. At that moment, someone popped out of the top of the vehicle with a scoped rifle and a big torch. In that instant in my head I was back in Iraq and my senses felt razor sharp. I dropped onto my belt buckle and crawled into a patch of long grass adjacent to the benches. Then I got in position where I could see them, but they couldn't see me. The guy with the rifle shone his torch at the exact bench I had been sitting on. Then the others searching for me. He started looking all around him through the scope, looking for where I might have gone. My heart was pounding so hard I felt as if I could hear it. I held my sleeve over my mouth to muffle the sound of my breathing, but more importantly to try and hide the condensation of my breath. The vehicle started to move to get a better view of the benches, so I started slowly crawling towards the main road as not only is there a row of houses, but an old stone bus stop I could take hard cover in if they saw me and opened fire. After about five minutes of hiding in the long grass, it started to rain and they were still clearly looking for me, but were now about 150ft away. The guy with the rifle was scared, scanning around with his eye down the scope. So I waited until he was looking away for me to seize my moment and run for cover. I pushed my hands hard into the wet dirt to launch myself onto my feet. Then I sprinted towards the bus stop while throwing some zigs and zags in there just in case they had seen me. Luckily they hadn't and I was now far enough away that I could take out my phone and call the police. They were there with a riot van and a squad car in about 10 minutes, and as I was talking to the officers in the van, they spotted the gunner's vehicle and took off after them. The officers in the squad car stayed behind to talk to me. The rain was coming down in sheets by now. They asked me if I was absolutely sure it was a rifle and I told them Yes, I was 100%, no doubt in my mind at all. The officers both looked at each other and then one of them asked, and what exactly is your experience with firearms? I told them I was ex army and have seen my fair share of all kinds of firearms. They then asked me what I was doing there after midnight, which is a pretty fair question to be honest. I explained that quite ironically I was taking a mindfulness walk to ease my PTSD symptoms. They were satisfied with that explanation, if not somewhat amused, and told me that the armed response unit was en route. I asked if they needed me to stay behind and make a statement, but the officers told me not to bother waiting around because they most likely wouldn't need to take a statement beyond the call I made. And also it was pissing down with rain so I should get home and get dry. It was over, but I still felt super wired and my heart was still thumping hard in my chest. I started the walk home and when I was about halfway there a police helicopter buzzed overhead and settled over the area where I had been sitting on the benches with the searchlight going. It was right then it hit me like a shotgun to the chest. That happened. That was real and it was here. My head started swimming. My heart was pounding twice as hard now and my legs felt like jelly and my lungs felt glitchy. I couldn't breathe properly. I dropped to my knees, crying in the street in the pouring rain, the only light coming from a nearby street lamp with a flickering bulb. I was gasping for breath, thoughts flashing in my head, thinking that if I had stayed still, if I hadn't hunched behind the bench, if I had done any number of things differently, or hadn't, then I could have gurgled my last breath. Breath Alone in the dark, in the cold wet dirt. And my wife would be none the wiser. Till the following day. I have no idea if they were even there for me. And if they were, how could they know I would be there? I had been twice before. I suppose it's not like there's animals to hunt there beyond foxes. But why hunt foxes from a vehicle with a rifle and a torch at midnight? Anyway, I am not ashamed to say that that experience terrified me. I guess my army training helped me stay alert, to stay hidden. But I don't really know. I don't go walking at night anymore and I have the occasional nightmare about the whole thing. On December 17, 1938, 19 year old college graduate Margaret Martin left her home in Kingston, Pennsylvania to meet with an unknown man who offered her a potential secretarial job. When she failed to return, Martin's family reported her missing and began a search of the surrounding area. 44 days later her body was discovered in the wilderness around 20 miles away. There were few clues as to her killer's identity except the owner of a sawmill reported interrupting an unknown trespasser and police believe this is where the murder occurred. Witnesses came forward with a description of a man seen with Martin around the time of her disappearance, but no one has ever been arrested and charged in connection with her murder. At the beginning of December 1938, Margaret Martin graduated with honors from Wilkes Barre Business College, having attended classes to gain secretarial skills to find work as a stenographer. A former classmate, Betty Hopkins described her as a shy, studious, friendly girl who had many friends and she was well liked within the community of Kingston in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Her parents raised Margaret and her siblings as devout Catholics and her father, John Martin, was a coal mine foreman and member of the local Democratic committee. The Martins had four children of which 19 year old Margaret was the eldest and included 17 year old Mary, 15 year old Helen and 12 year old Jack. Margaret Martin was contacted the Saturday morning of December 17, 1938 by an unknown man who offered her a job. He explained he was setting up an insurance company and was in need of a qualified stenographer and had a suitable secretarial position available. He added that he had heard of her through the Wilkes bar Business College. Ms. Martin was gleefully anticipating her first job since graduating college and looking forward to earning some money before the Christmas holidays. So she agreed to meet with a man at Kingston Corners, located not far from the Martin family home. When she left the house that morning to keep her appointment with the mysterious Telephone caller Margaret promised her parents she would return home immediately. It would be the last time they saw her alive. When she failed to appear by the evening, her worried family and friends contacted the police and reported her missing. During the investigation into her disappearance, police and volunteers conducted a search of the surrounding area. Several witnesses came forward with information pertinent to the case. Martin was seen the day of her disappearance in conversation with an unknown man and then getting into what was described as a black sedan or brown Plymouth. The description given of the man was vague and he was believed to be a suave, neat, sandy haired young man, slightly overweight and between the ages of 25 and 30 years old. None of the witnesses were able to identify the license plate of the car. There were numerous theories on what might have happened to Ms. Martin, with some believing she had been kidnapped. The absence of a ransom note seemed to indicate that it was more likely she was either the victim of a sexual sex maniac or had fallen victim to white slaver traitors. The search failed to find any trace of her and the publicity surrounding the disappearance was hampered because the local newspapers were on strike. On December 21, 1938, several days after she vanished, the body of Margaret Martin was discovered in the Wyoming County Woodlands around 25 miles from her home. 19 year old Anthony Rozykowski was out trapping muskrats in the forested area when he made the grim discovery. As he places snares under a footbridge, he noticed a large burlap sack that had been partially submerged in two feet of shallow water in Keillersburg Creek, which was eight miles from Tunkanock. When he went to investigate further, he noticed the bag had been stitched with twine and one of the knots had slipped, flipped open, revealing a human arm. When he peeked inside, he saw the naked body of a young woman and immediately notified the police. It was soon identified as the body of Margaret Martin and it was determined she had been dead for at least 24 hours. Tracks along the tiny Keillersburg Creek were blotted out by snow and state troopers searched the immediate area looking for clues. The coroner concluded from the bruises to her neck that the cause of death was strangulation, but she suffered many other wounds. Her family was notified and John Martin said of his daughter, our little girl fought for herself and died. The pure girl she was, while her mother said she is with God today. Lieutenant Charles S. Cook headed a detail of the state police investigation into the murder and asserted the killer was apparently someone familiar with the Wyoming Woodlands who had driven a car to roughly 75 yards from the bridge, then carried the body to the spot where it was found. He reiterated this fact by saying someone familiar with the territory placed the body in the creek and it might not have been found for several years if the young man setting traps had not passed through the lonely section. Because of the remote location of the discovery and how the body was found, Lieutenant Cook was convinced that the murder took place somewhere else. The owner of a Forkeston sawmill, James Kedd, reported finding a trespasser on his property and fired a warning shot in the intruder's direction, apparently scaring the man off. This incident occurred the day before Martin's body was discovered, and the sawmill was 12 miles from Keillersburg Creek. Police theorized the trespasser was the killer who murdered Martin inside the sawmill and then attempted to dismember her body and destroy it in the mill's firebox. Ashes were recovered from the sawmill boiler, and police were confident there would contain particles of clothing worn by Ms. Martin, along with metal fragments believed to be a dress ornament. However, these were analyzed by a Wilkes Barr chemistry and found to contain only waste material. Major William Clark, the 3rd Squadron commander who headed the state police investigation, concluded that the sawmill theory had been almost eliminated, but more inquiries would be made. The only clues left with the body were the two burlap bags in which the body was found, a length of sash cord that had bound the body, and a gentleman's silk scarf which had no identifying marks. On Dec. 22, the Scranton Tribune predicted that the killer would be captured within the following 24 hours. The funeral of Margaret Martin was held on December 24th at St Ignatius Church in Kingston, and hundreds of people were in attendance. Several plain clothed officers were also present, working on the belief they might spot someone acting suspiciously. Four days later, on December 28th, Pennsylvania State Senator Leo C. Mundy declared that he would introduce a bill at the next state legislature which would make sex crimes punishable by execution. It would also include the registration of all sex offenders and the requirement of all physicians, social and welfare workers to report anyone who exhibited such tendencies. Senator Mundy was prompted to introduce this bill as a direct result of Margaret Martin's brutal murder. The Deputy Commissioner of the State Police, Colonel Cecil M. Wilhelm, predicted that the mystery of her death would someday be solved. The investigation explored many other avenues, including a suspicious vehicle seen parked at the mountain cabin on the night of the murder, which might have belonged to the killer, but was soon ruled out when the owner gave police a satisfactory explanation for his movements. In the area further leads also led nowhere. A reported incident where a bundle of clothing thrown from a car near Orwigsburg was suspected to be the killer disposing of Martin's clothes but proved to be unrelated. Officers attempts to check a statement that a witness attributed to a kid Kingston man who allegedly said I'm going to make a date with that Martin girl or break my neck in the attempt proved fruitless. By early 1939, most leads in the case either fizzled out or resulted in a dead end for detectives. The manhunt for the killer would continue and by February 1939 many suspects were investigated and discounted. Two men who attempted to attack a 16 year old girl from Hanover Township in Luzerne county were questioned and cleared. Many locals have their theories on who the killer might be, such as a mortician from Wyoming County, a local assistant pastor, a businessman's son who left the area soon after the murder, a local teenager who had a crush on the victim, and a teacher at the Wilkes Barre Business College who held an infatuation with Martin. The case was the most baffling mystery the local and state police had ever encountered. In June 1939, the Luzerne County District Attorney's office announced there would be no request to Luzerne county commissioners to offer a reward for the capture of the killer. However, it was disclosed that new clues had surfaced in the case which might soon lead to the arrest of one of two suspects. He did not specify what those clues were, nor whether an arrest was imminent. Despite this promising development, nothing further was revealed and no arrests were made. In September 1942, 21 year old Orban Taylor of New York City confessed to Scranton police that he was responsible for the death of Margaret Martin. Taylor was formerly a resident of Wilkes Police Bar and told investigators that he visited the area while serving in the US Army. Despite his admission of guilt, Taylor was unable to reveal to detectives how he disposed of the victim's clothing which had never been found. After more than 10 hours of questioning, the young man repudiated his confession. New York Detective Captain George W. Donaldson, who was leading the investigation, explained that the military authorities at Fort Fort J. Joined the investigation being conducted by the state motor police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation because Taylor had been dishonorably discharged from the Army. Although he denied murdering Ms. Martin, he did confess to other crimes, including several robberies, a stabbing in New York and of defrauding several hotels in Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey and Elizabeth, New Jersey. Subsequently, he was not charged with murder. In the decades after her murder. The circumstances of Margaret Martin's death are still unexplained and her killer has never been brought to justice. Many of those who worked the case came to believe the man responsible must have been a local because of his knowledge of the area, while others suspect it might have been the work of a serial killer. Despite the advancement of forensic science techniques, the case remains unsolved. I work at a spa here in my hometown and I had recently left work one night two months ago. When I had left that morning, I realized I was low on gas, but because I was in a hurry to get to work on time, I figured I would just get some after my shift instead. So I am driving on my way to get gas and I remembered that a gas station was recently built near my neighborhood. Literally right next to the turn into my neighborhood entrance. I was happy because it was on my traveling route home and that meant not having to spend extra time driving. I have never been to this gas station. Like I said earlier, it's a new gas station and I usually swing by the Wawa, that's kind of close to my work because of how cheap their gas is compared to other gas stations. However, it's difficult to get to because you have to cross traffic and wait forever at this one light. So that's why when I remembered there was a gas station near my neighborhood, I was happy and I went there instead. When I pulled into the place, I was looking towards their gas pumps, trying to decide which one I was going to pull up to. While driving by the entrance to the gas station, I could see out of my peripheral a man was walking out of the gas station. He looked up at my car and because I don't have any tint on my windows, I am pretty sure he saw me. Whatever, no big deal I thought. I pulled up to a pump and I could hear this man who was now walking towards the pump and towards a car that was parked on the exact opposite side of the gas pump I decided to park and use. He was yelling out and looking in the direction of the car on the other side of me. So I just ignored it and was getting my purse and keys together, getting ready to get out and walk into the gas station to pay for whatever reason. I looked over and saw that the car was packed full of guys. Not little punk teenage kids, but like men in their late 20s, maybe early 30s. One in every seat it looked like. I am not going to lie, it kind of freaked me out because at the same time I looked over and they were looking at me through the windows of their car. I have pepper spray on my keychain, so I dug around in my purse for it and held it in my hand as I got out of the car to walk inside. The pumps thankfully aren't really far away, however, they are more off to the side, so unless you're standing at the door of the gas station, it's kind of hard to see over there from inside the place. I got out of my car and began to walk. Not even a few steps in, I heard them start their car up and I was relieved because I figured they were leaving and all would be well. However, that didn't seem to be the deal because instead of leaving, they turned their car around and got directly behind me. Literally their car was on my heels. If they had pressed the gas pedal, they would have ran over me and flattened me like a pancake. I instantly went on red alert mode and realized I was almost to the entrance and I was definitely within eyesight now if anyone was inside, but by the looks of the parking lot, there wasn't. My nerves got the best of me and even though I had pepper spray, I ended up doing the weird little awkward jog fast walk inside the store, desperate to put some space between us. When I got inside, I instantly went into the girls bathroom, hoping that maybe I could wait them out or that maybe they wouldn't even bother to come inside and would just leave. Instead, I stayed in there for maybe three to five minutes. When I decided to finally leave the bathroom and pay for my gas, I realized that there were people inside the gas station. Now with a quick glance, none of the faces looked like the ones I saw in the car. So I walked up to the register to take my place in line, just wanting to finally be home. After a few minutes I'm almost to the register. I am second in line to be exact, and I'm looking around at all of the items on the counter and in doing so I notice a guy standing behind the line off to the side against the wall. He just happened to put his head down like he was looking at the floor at the same moment I noticed him. So I couldn't see his face to know for sure if it was one of the guys from the car. I looked back at the register and realize it's my turn to check out. I walk up and pay for my gas and in the process of putting my debit card back in my wallet, I see that guy who was against the wall begin to walk to the door. But he's doing it really dramatic, almost like he's trying to time it out just right so that he can be next to me while I'm walking out the door. At the thought of this and realizing I was holding up the line by not moving, I did some quick thinking and began to walk towards the door. And like I thought, this guy hurries up and starts walking faster and I recognize him as being the exact guy who had walked out of the gas station when I was pulling in. So I instantly stop walking and just step to the side out of the way of the entrance to the door, hoping that I was pulling a quick one on him. I started making a scene of putting my wallet into my purse and rummaging around in it, acting like I was trying to find something, just trying to kill enough time to where he would be forced to walk ahead of me instead of behind me. This guy however, was a quick thinker too, I guess, because when he did walk past me and got to the doors of the entrance, he stopped and held them open and stared directly at me and smiled. This smile gave me chills instantly trying to think of what to do. I look at him and for some stupid, stupid reasons smile back and he smiles even wider. I instantly hate myself for being that dumb girl who doesn't just flick guys off or curse at them or something whenever they think they are dealing with a creep. So I'm staring at him, realizing I have to make a move at some point, and I look past him and realize the car full of guys is now parked right in front of the store. Lights on, car running, and with one of the back seats doors wide open. By now I'm freaking out internally and even though this feels like hours, it's actually all going down in the matter of minutes. I looked behind me towards the register, hoping someone would be paying and leaving. Thankfully, that exact thing happened right then. A man started walking towards the door and when he walked by me, I walked with him and made sure to get on the side that was opposite of the man standing at the doors holding them open. The second I got outside, I made a quick right because I saw that there were more cars parked on that side and ran between them towards my car. I hurried and unlocked my car and got inside and locked the doors and waited. I just had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy. I was right. The car of guys had reversed and was heading towards my gas pump. I am still the only one there actually getting gas, remind you. So I instantly hit the lock for car doors again just to make sure they are good and locked. The car slows down as it's driving past me and gets a little in front of me and just stops. I am frozen with fear at this point. I think about calling someone, but I don't really care for dealing with the police due to my history with them and I knew my friends couldn't do anything to help me but panic with me, which probably wouldn't have helped. I decided I was just going to sit inside my car and wait them out. I would have died in that car from lack of oxygen before I got out or left. I didn't want to leave because I had already prepaid for my gas and I didn't want them following me either. Finally, after about 10 to 15 minutes, they finally drove off, windows rolled down, calling me all kinds of provocative names. I I sat in my car for another 10 minutes just to be safe before getting out and hurrying to pump my gas. When I got home, I called a friend who lives in my neighborhood also. I told them what happened and that if they go to that gas station at night to be careful. She replied back saying how she's heard from other people in the neighborhood that for whatever reason a lot of sketchy people seem to hang around there at night. Sometimes even even when the gas station is closed for the night, you can drive by there and see a group of guys hanging around the gas pumps for whatever sketchy reason to the car full of creepy men. Whatever your intentions were, I don't wish to know. I did go back to the gas station a few days later one morning to speak to the owner. I explained the situation, gave them the best description I could of the man I saw inside the store and the make of the car and color. I haven't been back though to see if it's happened to anyone else or if they caught them. I honestly probably never will. I will gladly spend an extra five minutes driving to Wawa for gas before I go back there, especially if it's at night. So we me, my father and my brother moved into my house around six years ago. Cute house on the outside, but you could tell the inside was old and had its problems. Windows would shake when you slammed the front door, which you had to do. There was no heat, old carpets, doors hanging on by threads. Most people would pass the house up because of how poor the conditions were, but because my dad doesn't even lock his doors, safety was of little importance to him. Yeah, I know. Perfect setup to this story. A quarter of the backyard was actually a little motorcycle Shop. The house used to be owned by the Hells angels in the 80s and you could tell that the shop housed planted weed and was the spot to sell drugs. I knew that many people probably knew of this house. It has rich history. I can't exactly pinpoint the first event, but I know that my quarter of the house freaked me out the most. Basically, when you're in the kitchen, you open a sliding door to a laundry room. Adjacent to that is a small room and then a bathroom. I want you to think long and hard about that same setup. Hidden section of the house with the small room, immediate bathroom and laundry room. Gives me chills. Anyway, this was my quarter. Every night that I slept there, I was terrified. My room has two windows with no blinds. And every night I felt eyes watching me sleep. I am a natural hot body, so in the summer my window is always open. One day, me and my brother were hanging out in my room after dark. And as clear as day, we heard someone burp outside my room. We both looked at each other like, did you just hear that? And we both did. When I went to go look outside the window, I couldn't hear anything. If you're thinking of neighbors, don't waste your time. They live too far away to hear something like that. So, so loud. Outside of my window, there is actually a crawl space under the house. Picture a little trap door and if you pull off the piece of wood, you can easily shimmy under the house. Right outside my window. Night after night, I would hear footsteps outside or small branches breaking with weight, though I never checked because my fear left me paralyzed. I would tell my dad and he would say, I'm just hearing ghosts or figments of my imagination. It was annoying. But it's my dad, so I know exactly how he is and I should have known what to expect. I am really good with energy. I always have been. I can read a room even if my head was in my ass. Many times we would come home and as soon as I opened the front door, I felt different energy. You only know what I mean if you know what I mean. Someone had been in the house and I could feel it. They waltzed through here with no care of mind and slipped out the back of God knows where. I would bellow out, hello, is anyone here? But no one would answer. I would run to every corner of the house and check for strangers, but never found one. I live in Canada. Everyone blazes here. I used to go outside to do it, but it just became unsafe. Before that happened, I would go smoke in the bike shop. I had a bong and bud and a lighter. One night I thought I would go to bed, but leave the bong and bud in the shed. Because why take it out if I'm just coming back tomorrow? The next day I came back to my weed gone and my bong used you. You could tell as there was new resin on the bowl. This was my first confirmation that I wasn't actually going crazy and that everything I had been hearing or feeling was real. I grabbed my stuff and ran in the house. I never smoked outside again. Some days I would have to go to the shed to grab something of mine. And some days I would look into the black abyss that was the shed and shudder as my bones turned ice cold. Cold. Whoever was in the shed at the time had horrible, horrible energy. Just looking into the shed made me feel sick and lightheaded. You couldn't pay me money to go inside. During those moments, any item I've ever had that I cherished, I have lost here. I have never lost so many things before, but I often joke around that this house has a mouth and it's all always eating everything of importance. My dad thinks it's funny, but I know the truth. One night I got really drunk and dropped my diamond bracelet in my backyard in the snow. The next morning, I realized it was gone. I was devastated, but knew it could only be outside. We waited for the snow to melt, but when we went outside to look for it, it was gone. I. I never found that bracelet. Just like I have never found many of the other things I have lost here. Some days we will come home and the front door will be open. Some days we will come home and the back door will be open. Some days I will come home and look for something I set down and will either never find it or find it in a different room. One day I was standing in front of my front door, but I was facing the road, just observing. All of a sudden, I notice a man tinkering with the RV parked in our driveway. He doesn't notice me yet. I watch him pick at the aluminum exterior as if he were trying to rip the outside wall apart. He finally sees me and hides behind the rv. I call out, hey, hey. But he disappears into the laneway. I told my dad some guy was to tinkering with the outside of the rv. And he basically tells me, what you gonna do? I don't know. I'm pretty numb to this situation. I have been begging my dad to start locking his doors, get cameras, or even just listen to What I'm trying to tell him. I have been gathering evidence and documenting situations for six years. You think the man would listen to me, let me know if I'm just dumb or if he is an airhead and I have been right all along, Please let me know because this situation has made me a little insane in the membrane. One day I come to my father crying. I tell him I saw shadows of a man pacing outside my window last night. Near the window with the trapdoor and crawlspace below it. He says, what do you want me to do about it? I said, I don't know anything. Just check the crawlspace. He shines a flashlight around there. Keep in mind the crawl space loops around the house. So there could be someone around the loop and in the opposite side of the house and my dad would never know because he never actually looked, just glanced. He puts the trapdoor back on and secures it, telling me, you'll be fine, nothing will happen to you, and we go on with our day. Sometime later, obviously, after I have forgotten about it, I was in the backyard. Something caught my eye, so I looked near the crawlspace and lo and behold, the trapdoor was ripped off and something shiny lay on the ground inside. I took a closer look and believe it or not, dozens of tiny squares of burnt tin foil lay on the ground. I have hung out with enough people to know exactly what that means. Now I know someone is smoking hard drugs directly below my window. I tell my dad and show him and he tells me, oh, it could be anything. Of course. One day I was also standing outside my house and a black Subaru Forester pulls up and calls me to the car by name. They have a softball in their hands and asks me if I want the ball. They are trying to get me to grab it. I watch enough true crime to know they likely want to pull me into their vehicle. I stay where I am and they speed off down the road and turn up the road adjacent to mine. They start doing loops. I tell my family about it and my brother mentions he saw the same car go by earlier, twice, and that he noticed it because the back window was completely covered with duct tape. This went on for about a month. Cops were called, but they couldn't do anything because no crime was committed. Weeks go by and my dad started to seem mad at me, but I could never pinpoint why. I guess he thought with me always talking about someone being here that we don't know of. He assumed I was crazy and was actually doing drugs to become like that. I ask him why on earth he would think that? And he starts to lead me to the shed. He takes me to the very back corner of it and what do you know? There's a cracked straight tube glass pipe on the table. I can't believe that after everything that's happened my dad would assume I am smoking crystal in the shed rather than the obvious person or persons I have been noticing around here. Did I mention that my dad and brother hear sounds coming from the crawlspace face all the time every night? Guess what they chalk it up to be? No really guess. Raccoons and pipes. What would you do after six years of noticing someone squatting at your house and six years of being told that you're crazy and nothing is actually happening, you start to get numb to new situations and also start to actually believe that you are crazy. I know I'm not. But still, I just don't know what to do anymore. Glenn Stewart Godwin was imprisoned in 1982 for the brutal murder of a former friend and attempted an escape. Transferred to Folsom Prison, Godwin planned another escape with help from the outside. Once free, he fled to Mexico where he was again arrested. While in prison, he murdered another inmate and escaped again. In 1996, the FBI added Godwin to the 10 Most Wanted list, only removing him in 2016. His escape from Folsom Prison in 1987 could be considered the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shawshank Redemption. Godwin was living in Palm Springs, California during the late 1970s with his roommate Frank Soto Jr. And had worked in several professions such as being a mechanic, construction worker and a self employed tool salesman. He had never had any criminal convictions nor was he even known to the police until the autumn of 1980. Godwin was known to be very popular with women and was considered vain by his friends. He, together with Soto, planned to rob a former friend of them known as Kim Robert Lavallee. They believed Lavallee would have a significant amount of money on him because he was a drug dealer. They lured Lavallee to the condominium they shared under the pretense of buying drugs from him. When he arrived, they attacked him, with Soto restraining him while Godwin punched and kicked him. They attempted to strangle him and when that didn't work, Godwin grabbed a butcher's knife and stabbed him 26 times. The two men then loaded Lavalley's body into his truck and drove into the Eagle Mountains. Godwin tried to blow up the remains by strapping homemade explosives to the body which consisted of fuel oil, nitrogen fertilizer, and dynamite in an attempt to disguise the murder. The explosions damaged the truck, but did not sufficiently disguise the knife wounds to lavallee's body. On August 3, 1980, the truck was discovered with the human remains inside, seemingly abandoned in the desert of Riverside County. The police investigation found that Lavallee was last seen with Godwin and Soto at their residence. And during the autopsy, the pathologist found the knife wounds, which he attributed to a serrated edge knife. Both Godwin and Soto were brought in for questioning. Under intense police questioning, they were linked to the murder. Godwin was charged with first degree murder. At the trial in 1982, Soto testified against Godwin for a reduced sentence, calling him the most dangerous man I have ever met. And the prosecution was able to prove that Godwin had been the driving force behind the robbery and murder. Soto was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was incarcerated at Soledad Prison, where he began a correspondence with Shelly Rose. She started to visit him and they began a relationship. However, in 1983, he was handed a sentence of 26 years to life imprisonment. Despite this, they married in 1985, and several years later he was transferred to Duell Vocational Institute in California, where he struck up a friendship with another inmate, Lawrence Carlick. Godwin attempted to escape in 1987, and because of this, he was transferred to Folsom Prison, a maximum security facility. While at Folsom, Godwin plotted his escape and paid a fellow inmate to tamper with his security designation, which helped him to get assigned to work in another part of the prison. This area was an older section of the prison with looser oversight from the guards. He also requested help from his wife, Shelly, and his former cellmate at Duell, Lawrence Carlick. They smuggled a hacksaw into the prison, and on June 5, 1987, he used it to cut a hole through the fence wire and jumped into a storm drain. This drain was 750ft long and emptied into the American river, reminiscent of Andy Dufresne's escape. The fictional character in the Shawshank Redemption, Godwyn, crawled through the pitch black drain to freedom. His wife and Karlic had cut the iron bars on the storm drain exit and painted smiley faces on rocks to help with his escape. They also arranged for an inflatable raft to be left at the drain exit, which Godwin used to float across the American River. When the prison authorities realized Godwin was missing, he was already miles away. Police believed either Shelly, Godwin, Lawrence Carlick, or both had aided his escape, and a warrant was issued for Carlick's arrest. In June 1987, Carlick was apprehended in Hesperia, California and convicted for aiding Godwin's escape. Shelly Godwin was also considered a suspect in her husband's escape. An arrest warrant was issued issued for her in January 1988. She was eventually arrested in Dallas, Texas on February 7, 1990. However, she had recently divorced Godwin and remarried, telling investigators she didn't know where her ex husband was. It was strongly believed that Godwin had escaped to Mexico and was now participating in the illegal drug trade. He was eventually arrested in 1991 and in Puerto Vallarta and was convicted for drug trafficking. He had been running drugs in Guadalajara and was sentenced to seven years and six months in Puente Grande prison. American authorities began the extradition process. However, Godwin murdered a Mexican drug trafficker while in prison which delayed the proceedings. He then escaped again on September 26, 1991. It was believed that his escape was aided by members of a Mexican drug cartel after he murdered one of their rivals. After this, nothing more was heard about Godwin, whom American authorities believe had continued his involvement in the illegal drug trade in South America. He has used several aliases including Dennis H. McWilliams and Miguel Carrera. Police believe that he has also had plastic surgery to alter and keep his looks because of his well known extreme vanity. On December 7, 1996, Godwin was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list with a reward of up to $20,000 which was later raised to $100,000 for information leading to his capture. He is considered to be armed and extracted, extremely dangerous and an obvious flight risk. After 20 years, Godwin was removed from the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list on May 19, 2016 with the agency declaring we think the payoff from the publicity has diminished over time. I'm a 20 year old male. To remain clear I'll have to introduce you to several important elements. My hometown is a small city where the street lighting is very bad so at best you'll get a creepy yellow lighting from a street lamp and at worst no lighting at all. My parents house is a 10 minute walk away from my girlfriend's house so I walk between the two on a regular basis. There are two ways to get to my girlfriend's house on foot the long way, 15 minutes through large streets with decent lighting and a short way through a park which obviously has no street lamps. You can guess which one I used to take and understand why I'm quite stressed when crossing this park, especially because it is known to host regular drug deals. Above the park, there is a hospital which is the only place where the lighting is a bit reassuring. When someone tells me that I should stop walking through this area, I always joke that if anything goes wrong, I won't be far from the hospital. I should have kept my mouth shut. One night last summer, I had spent the evening at my girlfriend's house and decided to walk back home. Her parents were asleep, mine too, and I didn't have a car to drive. Arrived back then, it was around 3am so there's usually not a living soul wandering in town at this hour. I walk out of my girlfriend's house, I cross the street and I suddenly realize that I forgot my backpack at her place. I couldn't knock because I would have woken up her family, so I started to call her. While doing so, I turn around and I see someone walking towards me. Lucky for me, I recognized the man. We were in the same high school and had a friend in common. He was like me, the nerd type and had always been pretty awkward in his social relations. I knew he lived on my girlfriend's street, so I wasn't too worried. I still noticed several strange things when watching him from afar though. First, he was walking away from his house, so he had left it just after I had left my girlfriend's house. Second, he was watching me. Third, he was walking strangely. It was an almost robotic pace, but he was trying to seem like he was walking casually. So here I was trying to call my girlfriend and seeing this guy coming closer and closer until he finally crossed the street and came towards me. I started talking on the phone even though my girlfriend wasn't answering and I decided to ignore him. We knew each other, sure, but I hadn't told talked to him since high school and 3am didn't seem like the appropriate time to chat. He passed to my left and seemed as if he hadn't seen me at all. His eyes were now focused on something behind me and his pace remained the same. I turned back and saw him walking along the street for 50 meters. I kept on talking to the phone. My girlfriend was, as I found out later, asleep and I saw him suddenly turning on the right and entering an alleyway. And that is when I froze because I know this area by heart and I knew pretty well that there is absolutely nothing in this dead end. It is only an exit for some construction vehicles and is never used for anything else. I started wondering what this guy could do in such an alleyway at 3am and I suddenly realized something he was waiting for me. I had seen him a few times in the neighborhood. He. He knew where my girlfriend lived and he could see me walking home quite a few times. I had to find another way to come home, but this street was the one leading to either the park or the lighted boulevard the long way to my house. So I decided to wait, still pretending to talk to my girlfriend. After something like three minutes or so of me talking pretty loudly, he walked out of the alleyway and came back towards me in the same robotic pace. He passed next to me once more and same as before, acted like I wasn't there. As soon as he passed me, I started to walk towards my home while keeping a normal pace. I passed the alleyway where he had hidden and checked once more. There was nothing there but a dark street, which wasn't reassuring. Once I passed the alleyway, I looked back to spot him. He wasn't there. I stopped for a second, thinking he could have turned around somewhere. And that is when I saw him again. He had crossed the street, turned around, and was now walking in the same direction I was heading to, but was hidden at times by trees and parked cars. I decided to keep walking, but looked back quite often to make sure he was still there. I finally arrived at the intersection leading to either the lighted boulevard or the dark park. And there, you guessed it, I entered the park. I couldn't explain why, but I must have thought I could run and hide behind a tree if need be. I looked back and the guy had crossed the street again and followed me inside the park. He was 20 meters behind me, but he started to walk faster, mimicking my pace. I started to think about confronting him. I'm neither tall nor muscular, but neither is he, so I could fight him and win. I quickly abandoned the idea as he could have a weapon that I was unaware of. I decided to make sure that he was following me. It might sound stupid, but I was still thinking that all of this could be a coincidence. On my right was the hospital parking lot, which led to the hospital itself, located above the park. I walked out of the path straight towards the parking lot above. So basically cutting through the grass. I turned around and saw him taking the same turn at the exact same same spot I had just left. I arrived on the parking lot and kept walking towards the hospital. The side of the hospital that faces the park is the back. So I was basically crossing loading areas, following the road towards the entrance of the hospital. He was still behind me at the same distance, looking at me. I was approaching the final Turn to reach the entrance. There are two ways. One is the road which we were on and the other one is a small set of stairs which allowed me to arrive much faster. I sped along the stairs, arrived in front of the hospital and suddenly decided not to come inside. Instead, I spotted a small set of bushes that separated the road from the stairs and got behind them to see him from afar. After a few seconds, he emerged from the road and walked towards the hospital entrance. He stopped there and started to look around for a me. He walked across the parking lot, went close to the entrance to look inside while I stayed still. He kept the same robotic pace the entire time. After a few minutes, he started walking back towards the park. I waited a bit and rose up again. I still couldn't picture the reason why he would do this and looked back towards the park. He was still walking with the same pace while I was watching him from atop the stairs. Stairs. I kept my eyes on him for as long as I could and I felt relieved as I saw him approaching the turn that would lead him back into the park and out of my sight. Suddenly, his head turned towards me. He stopped and stayed still. He was watching me and I couldn't move. I cannot say how long this lasted, but something clicked in my brain and I started running the other way without turning back. There is another road that leads to the hospital. Coming from my home and circling the park, I walked back home following this road, watching only the trees hiding the park. I finally arrived back home in one piece. The following day I called my friend from high school who knew that creepy guy pretty well. He told me that they hadn't seen each other since then and that that was the last time he had heard about him. The guy had been diagnosed with psychotic issues. I still walk back home at night, but I stay on alert at all times and nothing has happened since. This happened to a friend of mine who lived in the same neighborhood as me. When we were about eight or nine years old. My friend E and her family lived just a few houses down the street from mine. We lived in a neighborhood where almost everyone knew each other. The biggest worry we ever had was that some outsider would come into the neighborhood and cause trouble. Some people left their homes unlocked because we felt that safe. There was an incredibly nice family that lived directly across the street from E's house. A mom, a dad, a 16 year old son and their other mentally challenged son who was about 22 years old. I'll call him Tim. Tim was always home because he wasn't employed due to his disability. But his parents were working full time and his brother had school all day every day. He would be outside waving and smiling at anyone who drove or walked by. Big smiles, showing all his team teeth and sometimes giggling just out of pure excitement and happiness of interacting with other people. Since he spent most of his time alone, he was not creepy at all. One day E was sick and didn't go to school. Even though she was about 8 or 9 years old, e was allowed to stay home sick by herself. Plus her mom was going to be home around 2 anyways since she only worked part time and the neighborhood was safe. E locked all the doors except the one that led into the garage. They used this as their front door because it was easier in those cookie cutter homes to just open the garage, pull in, get out of the car, close the garage and walk into their house through the unlocked door that led from the inside of the garage to the inside of their home. This is obviously not the safest way to protect your home from intruders, but we literally all did this. The worst part is they had an outside cat and kept the garage door cracked just enough for him to get inside for his food or shelter if he needed to. So E is asleep feeling sick with a fever. All the doors and windows are locked except the door leading to the cracked garage door. Tim was bound to know that she was home alone since he was outside the front of his house all the time. E wakes up to pounding on the front door. Startled, she walks downstairs and looks through the peephole. It's Tim. She cracks the door and he says something along the lines of how he notices everything and would guard her home since she is home alone. She says thanks but there was no need to and to have a nice day and that it was beautiful weather. He looked pissed. He got angry and said, you think I can't do it because I'm dumb, but you watch and see cause me ain't dumb. She said sorry and didn't mean it like that. But she had to rest now. She dozed off and woke up to a noise downstairs in the kitchen. The room the door from the garage led into. She hadn't heard the garage door open, but she was sick so she figured she was deep in sleep and just hadn't noticed. Completely disorientated from the time she looked over at the alarm clock, it was 10:20, way too early for her mom to be home. At that moment she heard noises again downstairs. She didn't call out. She had been sleeping in her parents bedroom and ran into their bathroom, slamming the door loudly. Then she remembered their bathroom door had no lock on it. The noise she made slamming the door alerted the intruder to where in the house she was at and big footsteps started coming upstairs. She moved quickly and quietly to her parents closet which was on the other side of the big room. She closed the doors and hid behind some clothes, all the time thinking how someone would have gotten inside. She remembered that the garage door was cracked for the cat slightly, but not close enough for a thin person to slip underneath. Tim walks into the bedroom. Tim is tall and thin. She can see him through the slatted closet doors. She sees him holding a knife and did everything she could to not scream. He quickly went to the master bathroom where she was just moments before. These cookie cutter houses only had about three floor plan layouts so it wasn't hard for him to find. He looked inside the bathroom and didn't see her. Then started making loud throaty noises like someone would do if they were frustrated and angry while pacing the entire house. She stayed in the closet for hours even after she heard him exit through the front door. She stayed until her mom got home. She was crying hysterically and told her mom what happened. Had she not been so upset and had one of their kitchen knives had not been left by the front door, her mom might have blamed it on being delirious from a high fever because nobody would expect Tim to do that. The police were called and official report was filed. I am not sure if he had any charges pressed against him because after she told me the story once, she refused to talk about it again. I overheard her parents a few times talking about the situation to my parents but never heard what the consequences were. E was so traumatized. She went to therapy afterwards for several years and still wouldn't talk to anyone about it because she didn't want to remember or relive the experience. We even moved to an apartment together years and years later for college purposes. She never talked about Tim. It was like he never existed and I never asked. I noticed she always locked the door that led to the patio and balcony even though we were on the seventh level. And always locked her bedroom door onto which she added an additional lock. And when she locked all these doors and the windows, she always checked three times every single time. I often wonder if there was more to the story than what E told me. We were kids after all and sometimes kids don't know how to explain things they don't understand. It is terrifying to think about what his intentions were and if he perhaps did find E and something else happened as horrifying as the experience must have been for her. It made a huge statement in the neighborhood for everyone to be more careful. I will always make sure everything is locked. I moved to a mid to small Midwest American town with my boyfriend and two doggies last June for my doctoral internship year. It was an adjustment after living in a southern beach town as well as a major city before that. Our living space is one of the factors that has made the move a positive experience. We are on one side of a twinplex, a two story home with a dividing wall that sits on two acres with some tree areas around it. Our landlord is a retired man in his 60s kinda and gets stuff done quick. There's a badass single mom and her kids, a huge Akita and a firearm on the other side of the twinplex. The kids are ages 17, 13 and 8 years old. The family is wonderful. This story isn't about them though, it's about the man next door. I got a weird vibe from him the first time I met him. Not a knee jerk reaction or anything, just a sort of question mark hovering above his head like drawing a blank in lieu of overt negative interactions. My boyfriend and I have been your typical level of neighborhood friendly. We we give the wave here and there and have no active grudge against him. Although my boyfriend doesn't have the same instinct about the man, he trusts mine. It's nothing I can point to, which as we all know means nothing. I am thrown off by this man. It doesn't keep me up at night and it's not something I ruminate on, but it's idling in the back of my mind every time I take the dogs in our large backyard in view of the his home. I have been thinking back to the very few interactions I've had with this man, which I can count on one hand. The first interaction we ever had was due to a dog fight in fall 2019. A big male dog with no collar showed up on our property and approached my big dog. The dog wasn't displaying threatening posture, he was only curious. Unfortunately, my usually mushy gush snuggle bean boxer mix got attacked badly a few years ago by another dog and he's got little doggy trauma now. Anytime he sees a male dog his size or larger he gets hyper vigilant. He misinterprets any wrong move as ready to attack and attacks first. Think along the lines of a ready at any moment PTSD response in a slow soldier on the fight side of the fight or flight Freeze Appease Reaction so Big Dog didn't take kindly to this unidentified dog fella. He responded like you would expect and went after him. I saw two men standing about 50 yards away near the house in the yard next door. I assumed the uncollared dog belonged to one of them and called out for them to help break it up and retrieve their dog. The two men ran over and broke it up. Meanwhile, I'm standing there hitting the dogs with my dog's leash trying to stop them, vicious snarls and all, which I am 100% sure was as dumb looking as it was ineffective. The other dog ran off for your peace of mind. By the way, that Little Sweetie is just fine. He escaped unscathed, aside from puncture wounds on his neck that requires no veterinary action. So there I was sobbing, thanking both of the men for breaking it up. It turned out it wasn't their dog after all. The neighbor said he had seen the dog around before and believes that he tends to get out and he thinks he knows where the dog lives. They were kind and reassured me that my dog was in the right in protective mode and the other dog running up on the property was easy, easily interpreted as a threat to him. The conversation was without incident. I thanked them and brought Big Dog back inside. Another interaction we had was a few months later when the neighbor was in his yard an appropriate distance away and I was taking out Big Dog and Small Dog. Small Dog is a perma puppy sized beagle trouble with a capital T but disgustingly sweet and cute. Big Dog is well trained and can be off leash in appropriate areas no problem. My neighbor said hello and made conversation about how he's never sure if he's able to pet my dog because he always barks at him from our window. I assured him Big Dog is extremely friendly, not to worry. I also made an irritating mental note that the neighbor inquired about Big Dog's threat level and I told him he's zero threat. I don't know about you, but my automatic reaction is to calm situations, make others comfortable, etc. And I have got a very high tolerance for odd behaviors. Overlooking odd behaviors is detrimental in these kinds of situations. I think it was normal conversation to ask if your neighbor's dog is friendly, right? A learning moment for next time I guess. Aside from this, there was one time when we briefly spoke about how deer come through our backyards and he puts out food for them and other critters and a few feeders. I see him in his backyard sometimes Doing what I assume is normal yard stuff and critter feeding. I don't remember any other instances distinctly. This brings us to today. All morning and afternoon I have been working on a scrapbook project for my friend's 30th birthday that overlooks the back deck, large backyard and the trees. My hot glue and I are minding our own business when all of a sudden big dog starts growling and small dogs started barking. Regular barks are usually squirrel or chipmunk alerts, but growls are for threats. I looked up and followed their gaze. There in the trees on the border of our backyard was my neighbor. He was barefoot and dressed in khaki shorts and a black shirt. He was fussing around near the ground in the middle of the tree line area that separates our expanses of unfenced yards. I figured he was refilling one of the feeders for the animals or something, but I kept watching because of the back of my head question mark on this guy. Then he moved. He was already floating, flirting with the property line where he was initially standing. He walked further several paces into our property in fuller view of our back deck and sliding door. I watched silently because I'm an anxious gal. I do double check my alert reactions to make sure I'm keeping my thought process relatively rational. For anyone who hasn't experienced anxiety, it's like having a jumpier needle than your average bear. I watched like this for a few seconds until he stopped moving. He halted on a patch of land a few paces beyond the property line. Obscured by pine tree branches. All I could see was hips down. His knees were pointed at my window. While our yards are unfenced, there's an unspoken boundary. Neighbors don't cross here. It's a sloppy looking star shape. There is a house at each point and and the expansive backyards are meld converging into the center lawn. He had no business being in our area of the yard. There is nothing else to look at. It's our twinplex and it's our side of the home. Which begs the questions exactly what the hell are you doing, sir? Get your knees out of my trees. The best excuse I can come up with is that he was wistfully surveying his home and yard with a proud pride of a man who mows it himself. But that's a long shot. Doing anything resembling looking at his own home or yard would have required him to rotate his body more than 70 degrees to his left. I stood up in the middle of the room and approached the window so that he could see me looking out directly at him, keeping him in my peripheral. I glanced around briefly to find my phone so I could take his picture, which I'm happy happy for him to see me doing in broad daylight. I couldn't find it though, so I just watched. My body was stable, but I noticed my bones started shaking a little. I think I was having that behind the scenes brain acknowledgement that there was no other explanation for him to have been postured like that facing toward me. After about 30 seconds he casually walked back over to his side of the property and made what looked to me like a half assed attempt to look like he was just picking a few things off of the ground like you would do to clear a few pieces of litter. He paused in his yard still obscured by the trees. From the hips down he was stationary. I walked to our bedroom to get a closer view out of our partially drawn blinds. In the five seconds it took to walk from the main room to our bedroom, he disappeared. I immediately called my boyfriend at work, let him know what's up. Even he agreed it was weird and he's the polar opposite of dramatic versus understated. I walked out on my back deck in what would have been full view if he had still been outside and knocked on my neighbor's sliding glass door overlooking the deck. I told her what I noticed and we agreed it was weird. She asked if big or small dog reacted negatively to the neighbor and I said no. She agreed it was weird and we're both on the lookout now. We both went outside and blatantly stood where he was standing to get a look at the view. It was a clear shot to our window. I noticed it was dark inside my home so even though I was standing in plain sight and staring at him, he likely wouldn't have seen it. I texted my landlord next and he doesn't know the man at all. My landlord's mother in law lived in this space before us and she hadn't mentioned anything. He was quick and responsive and encouraged me to call our sheriff's office. I touched base with my boyfriend again too. I asked him about Big Dog's reaction to the neighbor just to be sure and that's when I found out I was wrong. Apparently my boyfriend noticed Big Dog growls at this neighbor hair up every time he sees him. No one else, only him. As far as I'm concerned. Three strikes you're out baby. My weird feeling. My dog repeatedly growling and knees in my trees. I have my eyeballs trained straight on you. Don't try it again.