13x02: Meeting a Murderer on an Island

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:40] Not long ago, my partner and I were driving through reservation land at about 11 o'clock at night in the desert landscape of the Southwest of the United States. We were on a major highway, but as with so many highways in that area, it's not often

[00:00:56] used and a bit neglected. It's barely paved, and there's only one lane going in either direction. There weren't any lights out there, just reflectors embedded in the pavement. It wasn't and probably still isn't uncommon to be on this highway for about an hour or

[00:01:14] more without seeing another vehicle. I was in the passenger seat reading a book when suddenly my partner who was driving had to brake quickly and pull off to the side of the road. Did you see that? He asked. No, I replied. See what?

[00:01:30] That van, it went off the road, he exclaimed. I turned in my seat, but I couldn't make anything out on or off the road. It was just darkness all around. He grabbed a flashlight that was in the car and asked me to call 911.

[00:01:47] He's in a medical profession and a lapsed license EMT, and I've worked in emergency response, so this isn't an uncommon occurrence for us. Although not being able to see the accident was a first for me.

[00:02:02] I got on the phone with 911 immediately and I set about trying to find a mile marker using my phone as a flashlight, but eventually settled for giving them our approximate GPS coordinates. I had very little reception and my GPS was acting flighty in that area.

[00:02:19] The dispatcher asked me to cross the highway carefully and try to ascertain the status of the passengers since they had gone straight over a hill and were presumably in the canyon below.

[00:02:33] I stayed on the line as I trudged over the sand dunes on the opposite side of the highway. I was a bit nervous to be walking in this area in sandals as my partner and I had recently been discussing the rattlesnake population of the region and I couldn't

[00:02:48] see where I was going. I finally crested the large dune and I could see the outline of the accident site. On the road, the moonlight was blocked by the dunes, but on this side it was strangely bright.

[00:03:04] It took my brain a moment to make sense of what I was seeing. They had been lucky. The van had turned on its side and slid. The friction from the dunes had just barely prevented the entire thing from going over the edge into the massive canyon below.

[00:03:21] My partner called out to me and asked me to check on the woman in the van, which was when I saw that next to him, standing with a scarecrow like stiffness was a young man. He looked dazed and didn't seem to be answering many questions.

[00:03:37] I got the darkest feelings from that guy. I've never encountered a darkness like that. It was like there was a permanent shadowy aura radiating from him. I felt goosebumps crawling up my back. I was very uneasy knowing that we were anywhere near him.

[00:03:56] I made a point to keep visually checking up on him as my partner stood next to him. I proceeded to the site and as I approached the van, I called out to identify myself. I heard the voice of a woman inside.

[00:04:10] I walked around the windshield so that I would be able to see her. She was crouched in the passenger cabin, nearly in shock. I could tell that her feet were bleeding as she shifted back and forth in the broken glass of the driver's side window.

[00:04:25] She was a tall, willowy woman, thin and pale with dark hair. There was also a massive wolfhound in the vehicle panting. It appeared equally stunned. I saw that they had managed to pry the passenger side door open and the man must have

[00:04:42] climbed out through the top that way. The woman spoke with me for a time, calmly and with an urgency, but I couldn't identify her voice. I relayed the information to the dispatcher. Yes, there are two of them. No, they don't seem to be seriously injured.

[00:04:59] No, nobody has fallen asleep at the wheel. They were on their way to Texas to visit family. They're also living out of the van. What I remember most clearly is that I made a couple of attempts to convince the woman

[00:05:13] to either climb out of the roof or through the back to get away from the van just to be safe. But she politely refused each time. She said that she didn't want to leave the dog. There was something wrong about her demeanor.

[00:05:30] People react differently to stress and she seemed alert and competent. So I put it to the back of my mind. But I couldn't help but be so fixated on the strangeness with which she was handling the situation.

[00:05:44] Dispatch and I agreed that the paramedics could probably easily break the windshield free for them and there was no sign of fuel spillage, so it was fine for her to stay there until they arrived.

[00:05:57] Once I double checked that she was secure and wasn't going to try and go anywhere, I handed the phone off to my partner while I went out to the road to wave in the paramedics, who had accidentally passed the site and were now coming back towards us

[00:06:11] from further up on the highway. They were able to find us by locating our flashlight, largely thanks to the dispatcher. They pulled off a ways up from the site and I began to brief them when we all heard dispatch come over the radio.

[00:06:27] Please be advised that the male passenger is AMS and considered dangerous. AMS stands for altered mental status, suggesting that someone isn't in their normal frame of mind for a variety of reasons. We all stopped in our tracks, the paramedics exchanged a glance and one went back to the

[00:06:46] ambulance for additional equipment. I was eager to get back to my partner to make sure that he had been safe and that he was I was eager to get back to my partner to make sure that he hadn't communicated that

[00:06:58] to dispatch out of concern for his safety, but when we arrived on site, my partner and the young man were still talking quietly. I went to my car to find some shoes for the woman and then the passengers were placed in different ambulances.

[00:07:14] Then the police arrived to take interviews all around. Just as we were about to leave, an officer taking our statements turned to us and said, It's real messed up. I guess she was driving and he wanted to kill them both, so he grabbed the wheel and overpowered her.

[00:07:32] It's lucky that either of them are alive. After a couple of hours, when we were back to driving, my partner proceeded to fill me in on the details that I had missed.

[00:07:42] When he first got to the scene, the woman was yelling that the man she was with had tried to kill her and not to leave her alone with him. The woman also said that if he got out of the vehicle, he needed to be restrained as

[00:07:56] he was a danger to himself and others. The man was very eager to be out of the vehicle so bewildered, my partner had helped the guy pry the door open. Once the man was out, he just clammed up and wouldn't do much more than nod or shake

[00:08:13] his head in response to questions. He kept thinking that the guy might take off into the desert but in the end, he waited for emergency services to get there. My partner said that the guy seemed agitated so he was doing his best to keep the guy engaged

[00:08:29] and distracted until help could arrive. It was chilling to realize that what we had thought was an accident was actually a murder suicide attempt. I really wanted to accompany the woman to the hospital but for unrelated reasons we could not.

[00:08:47] We went back that way during the day on our return trip a week later. We pulled over at the site and climbed over the dunes to see whether they had managed to tow the van over that sand and sure enough it was gone.

[00:09:01] What was unnerving though was the realization upon seeing the landscape during the day. If that man had chosen any other spot to grab the wheel for miles in either direction, they would have flown over the cliff and into the deep canyon below almost immediately.

[00:09:19] In the dark there was no way for them to tell but he happened to choose the only spot where it was possible for them to survive the accident. My partner told me that they had gone off the road right when they were nearly opposite

[00:09:33] our little sedan on the highway. If the guy had opted for a head-on collision instead of the off-the-cliff option, we would have been toast. This was a sobering revelation. I think about the woman that I met that night pretty often and of her wolfhound.

[00:09:52] I hope that they are in a much better place now. As for the guy who tried to kill them all, I certainly hope that he got himself killed and that we never have cause to meet him again.

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[00:11:27] That's G-R-A-M-M-A-R-L-Y dot com slash podcast. Easier said, done. This happened when my girlfriend and I took some time to do some backpacking and travel the world. We went to some incredible places and met interesting people, but our most interesting story is probably this one.

[00:12:03] My girlfriend and I went to many different countries, a lot of places that have reputations for being unsafe. She and I weren't too worried about that though, as we were both pretty good at reading people and staying out of trouble. We never had any major incidents.

[00:12:19] We were on a fairly tight budget at this point in our journey as we had recently been to Japan and we wanted to chill for a bit before picking up jobs in Vietnam. We decided to volunteer on an island in Southeast Asia.

[00:12:34] It was a bit of a luxury island full of resorts that we couldn't ordinarily afford to stay at, so it seemed like a good gig. I worked behind the bar at this resort and my girlfriend worked in the restaurant.

[00:12:47] In return, we got to sleep in the employee dorms on site and eat all of our meals for free. The manager told me that, since I'm Scottish and was working behind the bar, an English guy who lived on the island would likely come to see me.

[00:13:02] The manager said that this guy's name was Dog. It didn't take long for this to take place. I met Dog soon after the manager told me about him. He was a fairly old man in his late 50s, early 60s.

[00:13:17] When he came into the bar, he was quite tall and powerfully built. He was accompanied by a massive Rottweiler, which he quickly told me was also named Dog. As we spoke, we had a bit of a laugh. We were taking the piss out of each other.

[00:13:35] He was making fun of me for being Scottish and I was making fun of him for being English and going by the name Dog. I noticed that he was wearing tank tops that said Dog's Offshore Bar along with a picture of Dog, his Rottweiler.

[00:13:50] I then started to get to know more about Dog the man. He used to work in construction and offshore, as did I, so we had quite a bit to talk about. We had heaps of opportunity to talk as he, an alcoholic,

[00:14:06] usually arrived for his first beer at 7am. But early on, he never struck me as a bad person. He just seemed to be a sadly complicated person. Anyone who's been to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, or any other country in Southeast Asia

[00:14:24] understands how rare it is to see a dog that's not some kind of street mutt or a tiny pet. Dog's dog was massively muscular with a metal chain which gave some semblance of control if things were to kick off. I really like dogs, so I was quite interested

[00:14:43] in what this huge dog was doing on the island and always made sure to have some water out for it. It was friendly enough, but never left its owner's side. It seemed to be a working dog in terms of its intensity. It was clearly a guard dog.

[00:15:02] It turns out the dog's former owner was actually a Finnish drug dealer that Dog the man had bought for him. Dog told me that the Rottweiler had an attack command and he kept him primed by using it on other island dogs.

[00:15:17] He told me that it had killed multiple dogs this way. I didn't believe this at first, but there was an island dog that the manager would often leave food out for and this dog would only come near the bar when Dog's monster wasn't around.

[00:15:34] But that night, the street dog made a big appearance and must have been hungry enough to brave it. When this island dog approached the food bowl, Dog the man hissed a command and the Rottweiler bounded for the island dog knocking over chairs and anything else in the way

[00:15:53] until he was called off. It was pretty scary. A few nights later, I was sitting at the bar talking with Dog about this job that I would soon be taking on at a digital marketing company. I was in talks with the CEO of this company

[00:16:09] for a digital marketing job in which I would get to work from home or coffee shops or wherever updating and improving websites. Dog said that the job and the company sounded made up. He said that it was likely some kind of con to get my bank details.

[00:16:27] I told him it was a legit company and that I had already looked into it. He stuck around and talked to me as the restaurant was closing. My girlfriend then joined us and we were all having a beer at the bar. He then told my girlfriend

[00:16:40] how I believed everything that I read online and how I shouldn't do that. He said people publish all kinds of made up bullshit on the internet. I asked him what he was going on about. I also asked him if he was referring to anything specific. He curtly said,

[00:16:59] never Google me. I replied, how could I Google you? Your name is Dog. If I Googled you, I would just see a picture of a dog. And then I remembered those tank tops that he wore, the ones that said, Dogs Offshore Bar. When that dawned on me,

[00:17:20] I laughed, I'm definitely going to Google you. He was getting quite annoyed but other than owning a weaponized canine I still thought that he was pretty harmless. I was wrong. I began reading these interesting things I was finding out loud. I found out about his bar

[00:17:38] and other stories that were linked to him. One story of particular interest was the one about a conviction. The joking and laughing stopped and I quickly stopped reading aloud. I looked over at my girlfriend and I could see the smile leaving her face as she realized

[00:17:56] that we were drinking with a murderer. It turned out that Dog had murdered his Thai girlfriend. He was briefly imprisoned before posting bail. You can pay bail for murder in Thailand. He then fled the country before trial. He had stabbed her. His alibi to the police

[00:18:20] was that he couldn't have killed her because he was having sex with somebody else on the beach during the time of the murder. He tried to tell us that this was all false. He had killed her for moving on. I was nodding along to everything that he said

[00:18:40] trying my best to show that I agreed with him whilst making sure the machete that I used to open up coconuts for cocktails was within easy reach should his beast be given any command words. He told us about how hard it was

[00:18:58] being one of the few English guys in Thai prison. He told us that he would attack prison guards so that he would be moved into solitary confinement where they then beat him mercilessly. He told us that the guards used to leave shanks in his room

[00:19:16] and put him in the yard with pedophiles so that he might kill them. He told us that he had killed before he went to prison and that he killed while he was in prison but that he didn't kill him until he left. He told us that he was

[00:19:35] heading to the palace and that he was going to meet a girl in a bar next to him for a meeting and that by the time he finished his meeting my girlfriend I was waiting for him and his dog to come for us.

[00:20:04] I was convinced that they would. I even propped up a bin against the door so if anyone was coming in, the bin would be loudly knocked over, possibly giving us a chance to react. My friend ended up triggering this to happen, and

[00:20:19] I nearly attacked him when he opened our door. It was messed up. We decided to leave as soon as we could after this. We only saw a dog once more. My girlfriend was opening a can of coconut milk, and he approached her and

[00:20:32] jokingly asked if she needed a knife as he patted his back pocket. He had been living in a tent on the island with his dog, keeping watch while he slept. I'm not sure if he's still out there now, but dog, let's not meet again.

[00:21:03] This happened back when I was in high school. It was a Wednesday night. Usually on Wednesdays, I would have youth group at my church, while my mom would have ladies night with her mom, where they'd play cards, watch TV, etc.

[00:21:18] This generally meant that we would be gone until 9 or 9.30 every Wednesday night. For whatever reason, both of us decided to stay home on this particular Wednesday. I was downstairs in my mom's room, which was in the basement, watching TV with her.

[00:21:35] At this time, we also had a roommate with his dog Cinnamon living with us. Our roommate was gone that night, which was standard as he was a night owl. Whenever he was gone, Cinnamon would sleep with either me or my mom.

[00:21:50] I slept on a full sized bed that folded out from a futon. Even though it was a tight fit for me and a full size pit bull, I always took the opportunity to have Cinnamon sleep with me. She was and still is a great dog. It was about 8.30.

[00:22:08] Keep in mind, we wouldn't usually be home at this time and our roommate wasn't home either. But I decided to head to bed at around this time. The way that our house was set up from the basement level where my mom's bedroom was,

[00:22:22] you'd go up a set of stairs, hit a landing, and then go up another set of stairs that led to the kitchen and the living room. From there, you could see the front door. So Cinnamon and I were walking up the stairs and we hit the landing.

[00:22:36] As soon as we did, Cinnamon let out a loud bark and booked it up the other flight of stairs. I looked up and I saw her tearing through the kitchen. As I followed her, our front door burst open, swinging wide enough to hit the wall.

[00:22:53] In the doorframe, I saw a man standing there in all black with his hood pulled up and black gloves on his hands. He quickly spun around and ran down our front steps and away to the sidewalk.

[00:23:06] Cinnamon stood there barking at the screen door to our porch well after he was gone. It was a fast, loud and shocking event. It was winter and pitch black, so I really didn't see much since it was dark and it all happened so fast.

[00:23:22] I ran over, slammed the front door shut, locked the deadbolt, and then took Cinnamon to my room where I promptly locked the door as well. I called my mom and I told her what happened from upstairs and

[00:23:34] she told me to lock the door and stay in my room. That night, obviously, I didn't sleep all that much. I was listening out for any noises or footsteps outside my window. I swore that I heard some things, but ultimately nothing else happened.

[00:23:52] I spent the night snuggled up to Cinnamon, thanking her for protecting me and being a scary pit bull, even though she was always so gentle. I'll never forget it. So to the man who broke into my house as Cinnamon and I were going to bed,

[00:24:07] I'm glad we'll never meet again. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I used to compare myself to others all of the time. I was so worried about keeping up with everyone else and social media was a huge culprit in making me feel this way.

[00:24:30] However, my therapist gave me some sound advice that really resonated with me. She asked if I truly believed that so and so went home after work and thought about me all day. It really put things into perspective.

[00:24:45] When so and so goes home to their family and gets back to their life, the clothes I wear, the car that I drive, or the way that I live my life is probably the last thing on their mind. I stopped comparing myself to other people and

[00:24:59] worrying about what they thought because it doesn't matter. That's been the magical phrase I've used for a number of bad thoughts and things that pop up in my life. It doesn't matter. Comparison is the thief of joy and it's easy to envy other people's lives.

[00:25:16] I'm so thankful for my therapist and all the ways that she's helped me to start living my best life. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

[00:25:29] All you do is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash not meet today to get 10% off your first month.

[00:25:47] That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash not meet. Now back to the show. This story happened back when I was in college around 1998. I went to school on a converted military base. The base was shut down and a small part of it became a school campus.

[00:26:26] This meant that there were a lot of back roads and walkways that were essentially abandoned. No one was on the back roads other than the local and military police who still patrolled the site. I lived in a small apartment on the base,

[00:26:42] which was converted from being officers' quarters. My girlfriend at the time was ordinarily with me, but on this occasion she was house sitting about half an hour away. One late night at around 1 AM, she called me and I woke up.

[00:26:58] She was panicked because she thought that she heard someone walking around outside of the house, so she asked me to come and stay with her. I was worried, so I got up, threw on some clothes, and I headed out to go to her.

[00:27:13] There was a way to save some time by cutting through the abandoned parts of the base. Since I was in a hurry, this seemed like the best way. There was no power to this part of the base, so the streetlights weren't on.

[00:27:26] It was pitch black aside from the light of my headlights. I was on this back road and suddenly I saw flashing lights. I was being pulled over. Granted, I was speeding and in a hurry, but I was also speeding in the middle of nowhere, so I pulled over.

[00:27:44] The officer got out and asked for the standard, license and registration. I handed it over and I told him about the phone call that I got from my girlfriend. I let him know that I just wanted to make sure that my girlfriend was safe.

[00:27:58] Then he went back to his car and just sat there. A few minutes later, another police car pulled up. Through the rear view mirror reflection, I could see the two officers talking and staring at me. Finally, the new officer on the scene approached my car and said,

[00:28:15] get out of the car. I asked him why, and he just repeated the order. Now that I was out of the car, I realized that both cars had two officers in them. So it was me and four police officers.

[00:28:31] They had me stand to the side while they started searching my car. One of them turned to me and said, you know, you seem to be in a big hurry in the middle of the night. What were you running from?

[00:28:45] I was a bit shocked at the accusation, but I told him the story and I communicated to the first officer about my girlfriend's call. He just turned away. The next officer told me that my car was pretty nice. He implied that due to how late it was and

[00:29:02] how fast I was driving, it seemed possible that I stole it. This was also odd, so I pointed out that the name listed on the registration and my license matched up perfectly. Then the officers started talking. One stood by me as the other three grouped together.

[00:29:21] Then out of nowhere, two more cruisers containing four more officers showed up. Keep in mind, we were on a deserted road at about 1.30 AM. The other four officers got out of the two cars and

[00:29:35] the seven of them started talking while the now eighth officer was staying by me. One of the officers got into my car and pulled out a bag of tortillas that I assumed had fallen out of a grocery bag earlier that day.

[00:29:52] He then looked at the other police and said, this kid was speeding in the middle of the night with food and supplies in his car. Seems like someone did something and was planning to get away or hide out for a while.

[00:30:05] At this point, I was both scared and baffled at the absurdity of what was happening. Not to mention, I was still worried about the call that I received from my panicked girlfriend. Then the group of seven officers abruptly stopped talking to me as they looked at me,

[00:30:21] waiting for a reply or a reaction of some sort. But I didn't really know what to say. Finally, one of the officers said, you see the wear on these tires? This wear is from someone who does an excessive amount of high speed driving.

[00:30:38] He must like to speed, huh? Feeling defeated and pissed off, I angrily replied, yep, all the fucking time. Right as I said that, I wished I could grab the words and take them back. I watched the officer's face freeze,

[00:30:57] like this was the moment that he had been waiting for. He looked at the other seven officers, went back to his car and then opened the trunk. I had no idea why. The officer who was still standing near me then asked, where are you from? I answered.

[00:31:16] Another officer heard me and said, that's the town of Barbara Boxer. But I won't hold that against you too much. Barbara Boxer was a senator. I wish I could say that I planned this, but these words involuntarily flew out of my incredibly nervous mouth.

[00:31:36] Yeah, Dianne Feinstein too, she's my neighbor. The trunk cop overheard this and asked, what did that kid say? The officer next to me said, kid says he's neighbors with Feinstein. They all paused and looked at each other.

[00:31:53] The officer that was at the trunk closed it and came up to me. He got right in my face and snarled, get the fuck out of here. Without hesitating for a second, I got back into my car. The whole episode wound up being a 45 minute detour for me.

[00:32:09] I drove to the main roadway and finally to my girlfriend, who was also worried because the drive which typically took 30 minutes had taken over an hour. I still have no idea what was going on with that stop or why so many additional officers were called to the scene.

[00:32:26] I also have no idea what would have happened next if my nervous mouth hadn't blabbed that out. For a time, I worked at a rural hospital in Mississippi. During this time, I would often drive between my home state of Texas and Mississippi in the afternoons and evenings.

[00:32:57] I've seen a lot of weird and wacky things in doing so, as the creepiness of the bayou back roads is unmatched. A regular occurrence was seeing shirtless or possibly naked men in ragged out

[00:33:09] pickups waiting on the side of the road to try and follow me as I passed them at night. I also saw all kinds of assorted rural fuckery. But the weirdest thing I've seen wasn't stereotypical at all.

[00:33:24] While traveling down I-10 one afternoon, I noticed a Prius pacing me in my blind spot, blocking me so that I couldn't get out of my lane. I gave them a moment to pass, but when they did,

[00:33:36] I began to slow down, which only resulted in them matching my speed. This continued for several miles and all of the go ahead waves that I had offered them were being ignored. I finally got tired of going well under the speed limit, so

[00:33:54] I slowed down before punching it. I took advantage of the better acceleration that my car had to blaze a path ahead of them until I was able to shoot off at about 95 miles per hour. Then they decided to speed up.

[00:34:10] They stayed within my sight for the next 25 miles or so and matched my changing speeds from 55 behind a slow truck to almost 100. But they wouldn't pass me and they wouldn't go away. I was used to making quick decisions in traffic, so when I had an opportunity,

[00:34:31] I exited the freeway in a way that they were unable to follow. I decided that since I had pulled off, I would get some gas, do my thing and rejoin the freeway.

[00:34:41] After a bit of stalling at my pit stop, I hopped back on the freeway only to pass them as they were sitting on the shoulder just a short ways up from where I pulled off. It was as if they were waiting for me.

[00:34:55] I was properly spooked, so I made sure to take note of their license plate as I continued on my journey. I didn't see them again for a few miles but after a short absence, they showed up again.

[00:35:08] This time they tore up the road until they were tailgating me. They stayed on me or at least in my view for the next 45 minutes, continually matching my speed and my lane selection. At this point, I had had enough.

[00:35:25] So, I again pulled a maneuver that forced them to be in line beside me. I finally got a look at who was in the vehicle and it was this middle-aged couple

[00:35:35] and they were just staring at me with the most intense look of hatred that I had ever seen. I'm not ashamed to admit that my blood ran cold when I saw the look of pure rage in their faces.

[00:35:50] I gave them the what did I do sort of shrugging gesture. The male passenger responded with a sarcastic, slightly crazed looking smile while pointing at his temple in a you better think gesture. This was followed by the universal signal for cutting a throat.

[00:36:11] The female was driving and she was all over the road as she glared at me. She then tried to force me onto the shoulder. Although I was visibly nervous, I gave them the finger and pinned the throttle. Then, I took off at go directly to jail speeds.

[00:36:30] I didn't stop until their car had faded entirely into the distance. Once they were out of sight, I then took an alternate route through the curvy or country roads to make sure that I lost them and to make sure that I couldn't be found.

[00:36:45] I am reasonably certain that I did not cut them off or do anything else prior to this incident. I didn't recognize them at all. I have no idea what their problem was and I'm glad that I didn't give them a chance to tell me.

[00:37:15] This story is about a neighbor I had once been fairly comfortable around. This relationship changed nearly overnight when he started making me insanely uncomfortable to the point that I broke my lease and had to move.

[00:37:31] I had lived in the same apartment complex for two years and across from me was my neighbor Sam. He was a single father of three and seemed like a normal enough guy. Over the two years I lived there, we had engaged in small talk many times

[00:37:48] and I believed that he was a nice person. He somewhat felt more like a father figure to me since he was twice my age and always seemed willing to help out if I needed it. Last summer, the area I live in experienced an insane heat wave

[00:38:05] that we simply didn't have the infrastructure to deal with. It's common for apartments and homes in the northern part of the United States to not have air conditioning. Temperatures were uncharacteristically aiming to reach over 100 degrees and without AC,

[00:38:21] this meant that everyone had to prepare to endure 90 plus degree heat in their homes with no relief. I had purchased a portable AC unit and being from the southern part of the US, I didn't have the slightest clue on how to set it up.

[00:38:38] The online advice that I could find was only useful for windows that slid open vertically which provided me with a unique dilemma given that my windows slid horizontally. After struggling with the AC vent for a while, I decided to knock on my neighbor's door to ask for help.

[00:38:58] This turned out to be a big mistake. After he helped me out, he left my apartment but then started to text message me. These messages made me feel quite uneasy. His first one read, I could tell that we were nervous around each other. I'm shy.

[00:39:17] What are you up to tonight? I was grossed out and disturbed by that since it seemed delusional. I wasn't nervous around him at all. I wasn't attracted to him yet in his mind, he interpreted my disinterest as being nervous, I guess.

[00:39:34] I didn't reply to that message but he proceeded to text me and call me every day after that. He was even leaving me voicemails, one in which he blew me a kiss. I never responded to anything so I started to get scared because

[00:39:49] normal people don't continue to call and text someone that's not responding to them. Yet this guy wouldn't leave me alone. I figured if he was this unhinged then outright rejecting him and telling him I wasn't interested could possibly be dangerous so I continued to ignore him.

[00:40:09] As this developed, whenever I was coming home at night, I always had a friend on the phone with me just in case I bumped into him. I had become on edge by all of the unwanted contact so I called my cousin who's a lawyer.

[00:40:26] I told him everything that was going on. He asked me for my neighbor's full name and after looking him up, he found out that my neighbor was a convicted sex offender. He had been in prison for five years for assaulting an underage girl.

[00:40:42] He was also able to find out that my neighbor had been arrested back in 88 for armed burglary. These are just the times that he's been caught so who knows what else he's done. This information caused me to immediately search for a new apartment.

[00:41:00] The one with the earliest vacancy was three weeks out so I had to wait. I went to the leasing office of my then apartment complex and I told them about everything that was going on. I let them know that I was interested in breaking my lease

[00:41:14] to move out as soon as the new apartment was available. I was happy that I was on my way out of this living situation but of course one last thing had to happen. I'm so grateful that I had a male friend over on this particular night.

[00:41:30] The vent for my portable AC had fallen out of the window and I was fiddling with it. I was trying to get it to sit right like it was before. While doing so I got another text from the neighbor. He said,

[00:41:45] I see you. You're looking really good today. Would you like some help? Upon reading this I realized he must have been outside and watching me through the window. I was now shaking with fear. My friend saw how scared I was and when I told him what happened

[00:42:03] he went downstairs to confront Sam. He pretended to be my boyfriend and told him to stop texting me. I was so shaken up that I called out of work and I booked the next flight to my home state

[00:42:16] to wait the remaining three weeks out at my best friend's apartment far away from my creepy neighbor. Fast forward to three weeks later. I hired movers to get all my stuff out of the old apartment. The last thing I had to do was clean out the fridge.

[00:42:32] After I was done, Sam and I coincidentally left our apartments at the same time. When we made eye contact he licked his lips. That was the last time I saw him. I'm so glad that I moved.

[00:42:55] Hey everyone don't forget I'm taking Let's Not Meet on the road this year. Tickets for my next Let's Not Meet live tour dates are available now. On August 10th I'll be at the House of Blues in San Diego, California.

[00:43:05] August 11th at the Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles, California. August 18th here in Sacramento, California at Harlow's. And on September 19th in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Metro Music Hall. Links to tickets will be in the show notes as well as at letsnotmeetpodcast.com.

[00:43:22] This is a great opportunity to hear your story in person so if you're a local who's able to make it out to the show make sure you let us know in your story submission so that we can add it to

[00:43:31] the setlist. Write to us at letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. I'll see you there. This happened about 15 years ago. So my buddies and I decided to go fishing and camping. We were at a pretty remote lake off of a 4x4 trail about 2 hours away from where we were living.

[00:44:08] There were 4 of us, all men with me being the smallest at 195 pounds which is important to note. The camping spot that we picked had great fishing as it was a nice deep spot in the

[00:44:22] lake with a lot of trout. The lake was right next to the campground but the campground itself was pretty rough. It was on the side of a steep hill with barely enough room to pitch tents

[00:44:34] and have a small firing at that. It was accessible via a rough steep trail winding 100 yards away from where you park your 4x4 above the camp. My buddies and I had a great day drinking beers and catching our limits on nice decent sized trout.

[00:44:54] After it got dark we built a small fire and we bullshitted the night away. It was a great time. Suddenly there was somebody shining a blinding light in our eyes from about 10 to 20 yards away.

[00:45:09] We didn't hear this person approach at all. The person announced themselves as the sheriff. One of my friends asked, are you the county sheriff? My buddy specified the county that we were in as he asked this. The stranger with the blinding light didn't respond to the question

[00:45:29] instead he shined the light in each of our faces and said, have a good night before walking off. The four of us just sat there dumbfounded asking each other what the hell that was all about.

[00:45:42] After a minute or two curiosity got the better of me so I lit up this person with my stupidly powerful flashlight. He was walking away from us so he was about 50 to 60 yards away right before

[00:45:56] a crest and a bend of the trail. I caught a glimpse of him right before he was out of sight. We all did. It was just some guy in a flannel shirt and jeans. I said, that's not a fucking

[00:46:11] sheriff. He heard me as I said that and we watched as he picked up his pace to move quickly to get out of our line of sight. A few moments later we heard an engine start and that was it. It was so

[00:46:25] strange that we hadn't heard the vehicle earlier but I attributed that to my buddies and I being drunk and loud and not really paying attention to our surroundings. Now what makes this so scary is

[00:46:40] what if that guy approached our campsite and it wasn't four big dudes? What if it was just a single person, a group of women or a couple? What was he intending to do? This happened about

[00:47:05] six and a half years ago when I lived alone in a small house in a small town in New Zealand. I was living far away from the biggest region, Auckland. This was easily one of the scariest

[00:47:18] incidents that has ever occurred in my lifetime even until now. It all started when one morning I decided to go and buy some things that I had forgotten to purchase from the local market. As I stepped outside I found the strangest thing waiting for me.

[00:47:35] Lying in the center of my doorstep was a small USB flash drive. It was so small that I almost didn't notice it and I nearly stepped on it. At first I was confused. I took a second to look

[00:47:49] around to see if anyone was hiding out, pranking me but as my eyes scanned the area I didn't see anybody and outside of my house was dead silent. So then questions began to flood my head. Who put

[00:48:03] that there? Well that was my first obvious thought. It was just a generic USB stick, no labeling or anything. No one would waste their time to walk up to my house just to place this on

[00:48:17] my doorstep I thought. But that appeared to be exactly what happened. There was no way to know where it came from or who dropped it or anything. For all I knew they could have purposely dropped

[00:48:31] it there hoping that someone curious who lacked common sense would pick it up and just plug it into their computer. That being said I took it inside and I plugged it into my computer. The device was full of pictures. In fact it contained nothing but pictures.

[00:48:49] There were dozens of them fully filling the USB drive's storage capacity. I started by opening the first picture and clicked through all of them in order. The first few were shots from around town, general places that I recognized from passing

[00:49:05] through sometimes when I'm taking my morning stroll. The fourth image was taken on our town's busiest street. In the image the street was full of people but there was somebody in it who caught

[00:49:18] my attention immediately. It was me. The image showed me among the crowd just minding my own business. The picture was from when I was buying groceries for my barbecue just a day prior.

[00:49:35] At first I thought, this is a small town maybe it's just a coincidence that I'm in the picture. The next image had been taken on the same day. Again it was in town and again I was in it.

[00:49:51] The photographer was closer to me this time. A little too close actually. Whoever had taken these pictures of me was someone that I hadn't even noticed. Next came several more pictures of

[00:50:04] me in various locations around town. Then I saw something even more chilling. A photo of my house. It was night time in the image and the living room light was on. I clicked through the next image and it was another one of my house,

[00:50:20] this time taken even closer. In the picture through the living room window I could be seen sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone. I could tell by my attire in the photo that it

[00:50:33] had been taken just the night before, right after I had taken a shower. I had no idea that somebody had been outside watching me. I kept clicking through the images on the drive. It was photo

[00:50:46] after photo of me inside my house taken just outside my window. Since it was so light inside and so dark outside I was unable to see that somebody was out there watching me. While I couldn't see them they could see me clear as day.

[00:51:05] After looking at 20 or so pictures of me inside my house I was thrown a real curveball. There was an image taken of my hallway. Whoever was taking these photos of me had been inside my house the night before. There were photos of my living room now lightless and

[00:51:26] empty, obviously taken after I had gone to sleep. There were also photos of my kitchen, dining area, stairwell and several taken as the unknown person ascended my stairs towards where I was sleeping. As I kept looking through these photos my brain started to run wild with thoughts

[00:51:48] about who had been following me. I wondered, had I wronged somebody? Did I say the wrong thing to the wrong person or was this just somebody completely random who was doing this? Were they armed? Whatever the case, somebody had come inside my house that night while I

[00:52:07] was sleeping and took pictures of all of the rooms in my house including my bedroom. The second to last picture was of me, fast asleep in my bed, completely oblivious to the person in my home. I have since moved out of that house.

[00:52:38] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet. Make sure to stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended ad-free version of this week's episode and if

[00:52:47] you want to get access go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes all at a higher

[00:52:58] bit rate and hours and hours of bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else. This week you have heard Desert Disaster by Psynox, Meeting a Murderer on an Island by Red Relic, My Savior Cinnamon the Pitbull by Immediate Patient 31, Terrified by Eight Police Officers

[00:53:21] by HamFX, The Hundred Mile Chase by Alan J. H., He Was Watching Me in My Window by Emariski, Fake Sheriff Approached Us While Camping by West Coast Trawler, Stalked, My Experience by Aggressive Counter 769 and finally, Stalked in College by Immediate Housing 385. All of the stories you've

[00:53:48] heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast, is not associated with Reddit or any other message boards online. If you have a story to share send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Finally,

[00:54:03] make sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like Odd Trails and the Old Time Radiocast at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. I'll see you all next week. Everyone stay safe.