13x05: Stalked by a Murderer

[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. I'm a 21 year old female and this story took place when I was around 11.

[00:00:46] I remember this day clearly because it was the first time I was ever allowed to walk to and from school by myself. Up until the age of 14, I lived in what I thought was a safe place in Chautauqua County, New York.

[00:00:59] This was an area where everyone knew everyone. Being a kid in this area, if you ever thought that you would get away with something, you needed to be prepared to be talked to by your parents by the time you got home.

[00:01:11] This day in particular was a cold winter's day. School unfortunately was still open so all of the neighborhood kids had to walk through knee-high inches of snow just to get there. It took me longer to leave the house as I was walking with my older sister to school.

[00:01:29] I had to wait and walk with her since she knew the routes better than me. I always used to make fun of her for being paranoid and taking a different route home every day from school, but after that day, I learned that that was what saved my life.

[00:01:45] As I was waiting by the door to leave, my mom told me that I should get a ride with her since my sister was too sick to go to school.

[00:01:53] I made a big deal about walking by myself because I was almost 12 years old and all my friends' parents let them walk alone. She looked at me for a long while and then told me to make sure that I paid attention to cars.

[00:02:07] I got hit by a car and almost died when I was 9 years old, so the worry that was displayed on her face, it was well warranted. I hurriedly nodded and then headed out the door to go to school.

[00:02:20] My sister didn't like to dilly-dally on our walks to school since she was always in a rush to get there early, but since I was on my own for once, I thought that it would be a good idea to take my time.

[00:02:33] I kept stopping to play in the brown slush left on the side of the road and even made funny looking snowballs to see how far I could throw them. Halfway to school, I noticed a white van was following behind me.

[00:02:46] Being the playful child that I was, if I hadn't bent down to make another snowball, I wouldn't have noticed that it was slowly creeping up the street. I told myself I was being paranoid for thinking that the van might be following,

[00:03:01] so I continued walking faster than before to get to school. Once I got to school, I took a glance over my shoulder and I saw that the van was still a few feet behind me.

[00:03:13] It wasn't until I was on school grounds that it flew past me and drove away. I thought that that would be the end of it, but throughout the day when I would look outside, the van would still be there.

[00:03:25] It was easy to spot since it had a bright yellow smiley face sticker on it. At the end of the day, it was still around, so I was nervous to walk home. I couldn't call my mom since she was at work and my sister was home sick,

[00:03:40] so I had to start walking home. I tried to blend in with a group of kids, but most of them were getting picked up while many others were walking in a different direction than I was, so everyone dispersed quickly.

[00:03:54] Remembering what my sister advised, I took another route home. I didn't have this route clearly memorized, but I decided it was better to get going than to have the van spot me. I ended up getting confused, but I made it to the main street.

[00:04:10] Then I realized I was heading back in the direction of the school. As I tried to turn myself around, hidden behind the rows of cars was the white van with the smiley face sticker.

[00:04:23] I tried to stay calm and keep walking, but once I heard the van door quietly click open, I ran. I could hear the rush of two pairs of heavy footfalls behind me. They were getting closer, so I cut corners.

[00:04:38] I then cut into a bunch of backyards until my house was in my sight. Once I saw it, I forced myself through the thick snow to the front door. My heart was racing, not because I had been running, but because I could still hear them behind me.

[00:04:54] Once I got the door open, I banged on it with all my might until someone answered. My sister looked confused as she opened the door, but after taking one look at my face, she pulled me inside, then shut and locked the door.

[00:05:08] Shortly after I got home, the van crept up the road and lingered right outside of our house. It stayed out there until my brother got home. To whoever got out of that van and attempted to chase me, to do God knows what,

[00:05:24] let's not meet. This happened seven years ago when I was a little more naive. I was 30 pounds lighter, but still just as short as I am today. It was a week before Christmas, and I was finishing up my shopping.

[00:05:56] My mother, aunt, and Nana are all big lottery people, so I tend to get them scratcher tickets and season tickets as Christmas gifts. I don't do any gambling myself, so this is always my one time buying them in a year.

[00:06:12] I always go to the same place just down the street from where I live. I wouldn't say that I live in a dangerous area, but it's not a gated community either.

[00:06:21] I will say, it's generally pretty solid and children could walk around in the area by themselves without any issues even after dusk. I had an old car at the time. It was a Saab.

[00:06:32] It was the classic kind of car that no one would be able to drive if they didn't know it well. It was quite finicky, but since I knew it well myself, I was fine with driving it.

[00:06:44] Sometimes the Saab wouldn't even start unless you held the brake and shifted through the gears. After doing that, I still had to push really hard into park before being able to turn the key to start it.

[00:06:57] It took me forever to figure out my Saab's secret handshake, but once I had the routine down, it always started for me just fine. The roof needed to be manually lifted back up since if you put it down, it would fall on your head.

[00:07:12] Now, none of these quirks were design features for the car, it just had a lot of wonky stuff going on with it. My brother who had some toxic rage issues had broken the handle on my passenger side door right before this happened.

[00:07:25] So, it wasn't possible to open that door at all anymore. To get into the passenger side, people had to pull a dukes of hazard by sliding through the window or they had to get in through my side. So as I said before, it was Christmas time.

[00:07:42] There was a bit of snow and sludge outside, but it was a pretty normal day. I went to the gas station to get the scratcher tickets. These had to be purchased with cash only, so I had enough money to make my purchase in hand.

[00:07:56] There were a few people behind me in line and a few people playing keno in the seating area. There was one wiry looking guy behind me to the side in line, but I didn't notice much else about him,

[00:08:09] other than the fact that he was standing a little closer to me than I would have personally liked. I then made my purchases. I bought several $20 scratch tickets. My family insisted on not getting tickets for any less since they had bad odds.

[00:08:24] The scratchers and a couple of year-long season tickets added up to just over $400. I paid the cashier and headed back out to my little janky sob. Then I sat down, closed my door without locking it, and began to count and organize the tickets and my money.

[00:08:43] Not even one minute later, that wiry looking man came out and walked by my car. As he did, he stalled just for a second and tried to open the passenger side door, but the handle was broken so it didn't work.

[00:08:59] It just made this clunking sound as the handle was sort of free moving, but it wasn't connected to any door opening mechanisms. My heart dropped and my stomach turned. My body went into panic mode, but my head hadn't caught up to what was going on just yet.

[00:09:17] The man immediately kept trying after he failed to open the door. After that, he nonchalantly walked out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk. Honestly, I never thought much about this until I started telling some people about it.

[00:09:32] I didn't even consider that the man was probably thinking of robbing me or worse. I'm now a lot more vigilant when I'm handling cash or items with high cash value, especially during Christmas time. I've always despised using my old laundry detergent because it was just so messy

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[00:11:54] Now back to the show. It took me years to even tell my parents about this because I felt like if I told people it would make the encounter more real. I think I've been avoiding doing that since it was the scariest and

[00:12:22] creepiest thing that has happened to me in my 33 years of life. In 2007 my family and I took a weekend trip to Chicago. At the time I was 15 and my brother was 18. We're from Michigan, so we took the train from Holland to Chicago.

[00:12:41] On the last day of the trip, we got to the train station to head home. There was a while before the train was going to depart, so we found an area to sit down and wait for the hour or so.

[00:12:54] I asked my mom if I could go find the platform that our train would be leaving from, but she said no. I continually begged her to let me go and she finally said yes, so I went off.

[00:13:04] I walked a little further into this station and I found the platform. As I was strolling, I was looking around and taking a couple of pictures of the train station. Just as I turned to walk back to where my family was, I felt something grip around my arm.

[00:13:20] It was so instant and so strong. I immediately winced in pain. Half of me expected to turn around and find my brother playing a prank on me, but it turned out I saw a man that I had never seen before. I still remember his face.

[00:13:36] It was weathered and angry. If I had to guess, I'd say he appeared to be in his mid to late 50s. He was wearing a brown Carhartt jacket, which is a standard blue collar work jacket. He was also wearing a red t-shirt with the baseball hat.

[00:13:54] As we stood there, he just kept looking at me and gripping my arm tighter and tighter. I had no idea what was going on. I felt frozen. Everything that was taught to me as a kid about being kidnapped,

[00:14:07] run, kick, scream, draw attention to the situation, it all went out the window. I felt like I couldn't scream and I couldn't move. I was so scared that I felt like I couldn't do anything. He shushed me and then gripped my arm even tighter.

[00:14:25] Then he started to walk with me, guiding me away in the opposite direction of my family. Somehow I managed to pull my arm away, but I was still in shock and unable to scream, but he was able to grab my arm again. Thankfully, something washed over me.

[00:14:42] I'm assuming it was a rush of adrenaline that finally kicked in because I ripped my arm away from him, turned around and started running away. To this day, I still feel like I've never ran faster than I did at that moment.

[00:14:57] I felt like my legs weren't even touching the ground. I never even turned back to see if he was following me or not. I ran until I got back to my family and I jumped into my brother's lap.

[00:15:09] I looked up just in time to see him come into the area where my family was. When he saw that I was back in the safety of my family, he pretended to look at a broken vending machine before turning around and walking away.

[00:15:23] I woke up the next morning with bruises on my arm where he grabbed me. The following story contains some depictions of animal cruelty. Listener discretion is advised. This happened on a camping trip I went on recently with my friend Julia.

[00:15:47] We were expecting this to be a normal camping trip, but we both experienced the scariest thing that has ever happened to us. Julia and I are both women in our early 20s and we were out camping in a remote area of Montana.

[00:16:02] The area that we went to isn't super populated but it's still fairly popular amongst locals who camp often just like we do. So, it wasn't super unusual when we saw a group of three people who looked to be a little older than us driving past our campsite

[00:16:21] about an hour after we set up our table and chairs. We simply assumed that they were searching for a good spot to stop and set up camp. But then, when the car was still in our sight through the trees, we saw it turn around.

[00:16:36] As it was driving back, we both noticed that one of the guys stuck his phone out the window and seemed to be taking pictures or recording us. We both thought that this was weird,

[00:16:46] so I covertly walked a little bit closer to take a picture of their license plate as a safety measure. When I got closer, I saw that the number on the back plate had been covered with black paint. Julia and I both got a bad feeling about this

[00:17:02] as we were both aware that men are creepy towards women all the time. We were prepared with bear spray since Montana is grizzly bear country and we decided that the encounter wasn't sketchy enough for us to pack up our stuff and find a different spot.

[00:17:17] We just put up an empty tent outside and then slept in our car to trick the people into thinking that we were sleeping in the tent if they tried to attack us. Later that night, when both of us were asleep in my car,

[00:17:30] we heard branches rustling and snapping outside of the empty tent despite the fact that it was not windy. Originally, we thought it was a bear trying to climb up to our food and scented hygiene products. We then heard male voices outside,

[00:17:48] so I lifted my head to the window and I saw that same car that had passed us earlier. I got up from the air mattress that we had put down to make an area for us to sleep on

[00:17:59] and locked the doors individually so that my car wouldn't make a beeping noise. Julia and I stayed still, hoping that the men would leave. We heard them talking a bit, but it was hard to make out what they were saying

[00:18:12] since they sounded so muffled from inside the car. Then we heard more rustling and branches snapping which made us think that they were trying to steal something, which was weird, but neither of us wanted to look out the window just in case they might have spotted us.

[00:18:29] Eventually, we heard the car leave, which was a huge relief, but we were too freaked out to get out of the car until it was light outside and campers nearby would be waking up. When I finally got out of the car,

[00:18:42] nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. The men had hung a dead deer that was obviously killed recently right above our tent. It was leaking blood on top of our tent and everywhere else. The internal organs were ripped out and its limbs were cut off

[00:19:01] and laid out in a circle around the tent. This was really messed up in and of itself, but hunting permits weren't even being sold when it happened, which meant that this deer was illegally killed. As soon as we processed what we were looking at,

[00:19:19] Julia and I completely freaked out and drove away without even taking down our camp. Once we were in a place with cell service, Julia called the police and forest service to report what happened as I drove home. Forest service was nice enough to retrieve our stuff for us,

[00:19:36] but I didn't even want my stuff back in case there was some weird curse put on it or something. The police are looking into it to charge a fine for killing wild game during off-season. It was really creepy, and I haven't heard from them since.

[00:19:54] I love camping so much, but after this, I don't know if I can camp for quite a long time. This story happened about 7 or 8 years ago. I was a single mom living on an island in southeast Alaska. There are only 26 miles of road on the island

[00:20:30] just to give you an idea of how small this place really is. I was a single mom living on an island in southeast Alaska. There are only 26 miles of road on the island just to give you an idea of how small this place really is.

[00:20:41] It was a Friday night. My kid and I were scheduled to fly out of town for a long weekend in Seattle. So, after I worked all day, I picked up my kid and headed to the airport. Our flight to Seattle was cancelled that night

[00:20:54] so we rescheduled for the first flight in the morning before heading back home at about 8.30pm. As a side note, I wasn't a fan of cell phones and did not yet have one, but after this incident, I got one. We lived about 14 miles north of town.

[00:21:11] I was tired and frustrated about our cancelled flight so I was probably driving a little faster than normal. About 3 miles from home, I came up behind a dark colored pickup truck. The truck was going slower than I was so I slowed down

[00:21:28] but still got a little close to the truck's bumper. I tried to pass the truck but realized I was in a no-passing zone. The driver evidently felt that I was tailgating too closely because they slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.

[00:21:43] People occasionally do this since we have only one main road on the island. After that, I hit the gas, pulled around the truck, and headed home. Immediately after the truck pulled back onto the road, they sped up and moved right up to my back bumper. I thought,

[00:22:00] okay, you're pissed that I tailgated you. Message received. Now back off. But the truck didn't back off. The driver turned off their headlights so I could no longer see how close they were. So I increased my speed a little bit, hoping to get rid of this person.

[00:22:16] Then, all of a sudden, they flipped their headlights back on revealing that they were just inches from my car. At this point, my preteen daughter was starting to get worried. She turned around in her seat to look out the back window. It was very dark

[00:22:31] with no street lights so we couldn't see anyone in the truck and that made it even creepier. The truck stuck behind me and proceeded to turn their headlights on and off several more times. Each time the lights came back on, they would be right on my tail.

[00:22:49] This went on until we got close to our turnoff which was the main road leading to our residential neighborhood. I signaled in hope that the truck would keep going straight. But when I turned, the truck turned. Our street was about three blocks away.

[00:23:05] But I didn't want to turn down my dark road with this angry truck following me especially since this is Alaska. Everybody owns a gun here and there are no open carry laws. So, I didn't turn down our street but I kept driving straight

[00:23:20] while trying to reassure my daughter that everything was okay. Less than a mile from my house, there's a large elementary school with basketball courts, a running track, hiking trails, and a big playground. The school's driveway and parking lot are open until 10 p.m. for students

[00:23:37] or neighbors to use. At 10 p.m., the gate is closed and locked. I decided to drive directly to the school since there are often people there even at 8.30 at night. I drove up the driveway and into the parking lot of the school.

[00:23:53] There were three or four cars parked but I didn't see any people outside. So, I parked between cars directly under a streetlight. The truck followed us up the driveway but didn't enter the parking lot. The truck stayed in the middle of the driveway

[00:24:09] just at the entrance of this parking lot. It was as if the driver was blocking the driveway with their truck. The driver turned off their headlights and waited in their vehicle. We sat tight and we waited for the truck to leave

[00:24:24] or for someone to come out of the school. About 15 minutes later, the truck turned on its headlights, backed up, and drove down the school's driveway towards the main road. We were relieved but I decided to wait another five minutes and then some just to be sure.

[00:24:43] We were tired and we hadn't eaten dinner yet so eventually, I started the car and we decided to exit the school parking lot. As I got to the end of the school's driveway, I turned right onto the road towards home. There were no other cars on the street

[00:24:57] that I could see. As soon as my car made the turn, bright headlights came on directly behind us. The truck had not left. The driver had hidden behind the driveway's gate, turned off their headlights, and waited for us. As soon as their car pulled off of the driveway,

[00:25:16] the driver turned on their high beams and rushed right up to the back of my bumper. To be truthful, this freaked me out. I don't get scared easily but having that truck come right up on us with bright white headlights in a very dark, deserted street

[00:25:32] was enough to get my adrenaline pumping. I couldn't keep driving around the neighborhood all night with Mr. Road Rage on my ass. This was rural Alaska so there weren't many well-lit places with people hanging around and the only convenience store on that end of the island

[00:25:49] had already closed but I remembered that wonderful piece of advice about driving to a fire or police station if you were being followed. The Alaskan state troopers had their headquarters along the main road back towards town so I headed there. The troopers have cameras

[00:26:07] that cover their entire property so I knew that if we could make it to their parking lot I could honk and be seen by the dispatcher and any officers inside the building. I knew two dispatchers who worked there. The truck followed us all the way

[00:26:22] to the troopers' headquarters which was seven or eight miles away from my neighborhood. When the driver saw me pull into the troopers' parking lot they finally turned around and drove back the way that we had come from. I went inside the troopers' station and reported the incident.

[00:26:38] We didn't get a license plate but I wanted law enforcement to know that there was a truck out there terrorizing people. I think that if I had gone directly home the driver would have followed me. The driver took more than 30 minutes

[00:26:53] out of their Friday evening to follow us then wait around and follow us some more. Who knows if things would have escalated to violence but I'm very thankful that we didn't take any chances and we didn't have to find out.

[00:27:08] We caught our flight to Seattle the next morning and had a nice relaxing long weekend. This happened about five years ago when I was around 16 or 17 years old. I always enjoyed walking back then. I spent at least an hour a day walking along the roads

[00:27:37] around the neighborhood that I was living in. One day I was out walking my normal route. I was going down the street that my house was on taking a right on the main street that it intersected with and following it until I got to the end.

[00:27:51] From there I would cross the crosswalk and retrace my steps back home. On this particular day on my journey back home I was about 20 feet from where I would leave the main road to get home. I had my headphones in blasting music as always.

[00:28:07] I know that this can be a bad habit I am a young female who has been put in many sketchy situations while going for my walks but since it was daylight and the roads were pretty busy I figured I was safe to carry on listening to my music.

[00:28:21] As I was about to pass the entrance of the side street before leaving this main road a black Ford F-150 pulled up. The man driving stopped and gestured for me to walk in front of him so I did. I was about to go on my merry way

[00:28:35] when I barely heard someone trying to talk to me. I turned my music down and took my headphones out as I looked to see the man in the black Ford. He was still stopped at the entrance of the side road so I looked at him, puzzled

[00:28:50] trying to figure out what he was saying. He pointed at me and nodded and grinned. What's a beautiful girl like you doing out here? He asked. I laughed and replied um walking. It's a beautiful day for that he commented seemingly just making small talk. Yeah.

[00:29:10] I trailed off before turning away from him to continue on my route home. Wait. The man called out. Even though this encounter was odd I didn't see any red flags just yet so I stopped and I turned around to be polite. The man then rattled off

[00:29:26] you are so beautiful. You also have a really nice body. This hot weather is nice for such a hot girl. Now I grew incredibly uncomfortable at this point seeing as this man had to be in his mid 40s. He had a bit of a receding hairline

[00:29:42] with black hair a nose with a protruding bridge blue eyes that were surrounded by slight wrinkles and he was dressed in a button-up shirt. I instantly brought up my age telling him I'm a minor. When I was a kid there were multiple times

[00:29:58] where I was mistaken for being older than I was. I was hoping that saying this would get this fully grown adult man to back off. But he didn't. He replied oh that's okay come over here get in the truck. He then called me sweetheart.

[00:30:17] That's when the red flags shot up for me. Stranger danger. I panicked and laughed nervously looking at the cars around me to see if anyone noticed what was going on. Nobody did. No that's fine I declined my house isn't far. No really get in the truck

[00:30:36] I'll take you home. He pressed. No. I curtly replied as I turned and started walking away. Come on just get in here with me he called out. I was hoping that he would just drive off as I started walking but he didn't. Instead he drove extremely slowly

[00:30:55] following me. He was talking to me through his window complimenting me and trying to pressure me into getting into his truck. I pulled out my phone while still walking and I lifted my ear to pretend to answer a call. Hey dad I said

[00:31:10] I'll be home in about 10 minutes. I stopped pretending to listen to a response before continuing Oh you're outside waiting for me? Awesome I'll help you with that when I get back see you in a few minutes love you. After the man heard me say that he took off

[00:31:28] tires screeching. I ran the rest of the way home after that and I made it back within 6 minutes. I made a real phone call to my dad along the way. He called the police who showed up shortly afterward. They took my statement

[00:31:45] as well as a description of the man. It turns out there was a man they were looking for in my area who was known for exposing himself to minors and trying to pick them up but they never found out who he actually was. To the creep

[00:32:00] in the black Ford F-150 let's not meet again. Tickets are going fast for the Let's Not Meet Live Tour. San Diego is almost sold out so make sure you get your tickets for August 10th then I'll be in Los Angeles on August 11th then Sacramento, California August 18th

[00:32:32] Salt Lake City September 19th Seattle, Washington October 9th Portland, Oregon October 30th Houston, Texas November 9th and finally Dallas, Texas on November 10th. You can get your tickets at letsnotmeetpodcast.com slash tour or just click the links in the show notes.

[00:32:51] I can't wait to see you guys there. I just want to start off by saying this has been ongoing for years. I'm 18 now but everything started when I was 14. I'd like to think that I have a lot more common sense now

[00:33:13] so please try to keep that in mind and look at this from the perspective of a 14 year old. I've ridden horses my whole life but I was never able to keep them close to home. So when the opportunity came to keep them at a place that was

[00:33:27] 5 minutes down the road from my house with my best friend's ponies I was over the moon. Little did I know what was to take place over the following years. I want to start with a bit of backstory. The horse I owned at the time

[00:33:39] came from a rescue that I volunteered at for 5 years. One day I was drinking a cup of tea with the owner of the rescue center. We usually did this after a hard day of mucking out fields and dragging barrows of hay around to distribute to the 40 horses

[00:33:55] and donkeys living there. As we were drinking our tea she told me about a farm that was just down the road from my house. She said that her father had built that farm and she said he would be turning in his grave

[00:34:08] if he found out who owned it now. I was intrigued so I pressed for more details. She told me that the man who owned it now, Elliot, was a pig farmer. He murdered his brother-in-law who was asking him to pay back $150,000 in debt.

[00:34:26] Elliot ground him up in the meat grinder and fed him to the pigs. He then moved those pigs somewhere that was 2-3 hours away so that by the time the police tracked them down any DNA evidence would have been long gone and out of their system.

[00:34:43] He was charged with murder but ended up being acquitted due to lack of evidence. What's ironic is that he moved those pigs without a moving permit which is illegal and suspect as moving permits aren't hard to get. So in the end, Elliot was only punished

[00:35:01] for the illegal transport of livestock and not for murder. The owner of the horse rescue told me that although that is what transpired everyone in the village knew that he did it. Now that we've got that out of the way let's get back to the farm

[00:35:19] where I would be keeping my horse. I had known the owners for a while as I used to ride horses with my best friend Annie. Nothing particularly scary had happened while we were riding horses out there except for once.

[00:35:34] We had decided to ride down a different trail that day one that went past an unfamiliar farm. We didn't know who owned it and we weren't sure if they were friendly so we proceeded with caution. All seemed fine as we were riding through the fields

[00:35:50] until the path came to a stop. There were gates and guard dogs in the way. We assumed we must have taken a wrong turn so instead of trying to pass through the gates we decided to carry on through the fields and around the outskirts of the farm.

[00:36:05] This meant that we were unknowingly trespassing. The horses started to feel extremely uneasy beneath us. The horse I was on kept stopping and then suddenly shooting forward. Annie's horse started backing up into the brook that ran alongside us. Annie was trying to decide

[00:36:22] if she should throw herself off of the horse before they both ended up in the brook. I looked towards the farm and that's when I saw a man standing completely still staring at us. I honestly thought that he was a scarecrow at first

[00:36:37] and I had no idea how long he had been there for. He disappeared after about 30 seconds of making eye contact with me. For some reason it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. There was just something unsettling about him. A few minutes later

[00:36:55] we finally got the horses under control and that's when we heard gunshots behind us. Guns are illegal in my country. Only licensed owners can have them. The only reasonable explanation was that someone was scaring birds off of their crops or shooting rabbits and they didn't see us coming.

[00:37:16] The horses broke into a gallop while Annie and I were shitting ourselves because if whoever was shooting didn't know that we were there we could have caught a stray bullet. All the while we were looking back to see if any birds were flying away to confirm our theory.

[00:37:32] We never saw any. So we assumed that the shots were meant for us to warn us to stay away. Later that night Annie and I looked at a map to see where our wrong turn was. The gates were placed in the middle of a trail

[00:37:50] that was supposed to carry on but who in their right mind would go past a bunch of snarling guard dogs? At any point that man could have redirected us. Shooting towards us was crazy. We didn't tell anyone what happened that day as we were more worried about

[00:38:08] getting in trouble for trespassing. That is only where the problems began though. Odd scenarios started playing out at the farm where my horse stayed after that. Sheep were stolen, ponies were let out and a white pickup truck was often seen prowling around the area. Nothing seemed too serious

[00:38:30] until October of that year when we were riding in the dark as the days are shorter in fall and winter. On one October evening we were goofing around and laughing like 14 year olds when we heard the sound of an owl. It was coming from one of the fields

[00:38:47] that the scary farmer owned. I began hooting like the owl imitating it as a joke. I wasn't expecting the owl to hoot in response but it did. I found this hilarious and Annie began joining in. This carried on for about five minutes which in hindsight

[00:39:06] should have been a red flag. Any owl would have stopped replying within the first two or three calls realizing that it was not speaking to one of its own. This owl continually replied and sounded louder every few calls. The longer this went on

[00:39:23] the less owl-like this thing sounded. There was a moment where the noise almost sounded strained. That was when Annie turned to me and said, that's not an owl. We essentially led whoever was hooting right to us. They were now able to pinpoint exactly where we were.

[00:39:43] Upon this realization we turned our flashlights off ducked and tried to be quiet. This was hard since we each had about 1200 pounds of animals squishing through the mud underneath us. So, we said screw it and we galloped through the rest of the fields

[00:40:00] to get back to the horse's farm. What didn't occur to us was that the weight of the horses had left deep hoof marks in the soil which led straight to where we were going. We were freaking out as we got back but the adrenaline soon wore off

[00:40:18] and we ended up laughing about it while untacking the horses. We were about to lead them to the field when we heard the crunch of broken glass being stepped on from one of the old greenhouses opposite the stables. It was pitch black all around

[00:40:33] so we couldn't see a thing. Immediately we grabbed the pocket knife that we used to cut the hay bags open with and hid behind the stable door. We waited silently too scared to even breathe since we didn't want to make a sound.

[00:40:48] After 10 minutes of not hearing anything else I decided to be brave and make a dash for the horses who were tied up outside. I figured I could jump on one if I saw someone and get out of there quicker than them.

[00:41:02] My eyes had adjusted to the darkness by this point so I could kind of see into the greenhouse. I shouted back to Annie I don't think anyone's here we're just being paranoid. We laughed it off again and tried to shake off the terror that we had just experienced

[00:41:20] but the next day things became very, very real. The next morning was hot the ground had baked in the hot morning sun preserving the hoof prints from the previous night however there was something else in between them. In addition to the hoof prints there were massive boot prints

[00:41:41] leading from the field where we had heard the owl all the way back to our farm. That was when we started referring to whoever this was as Farmer Bigfoot. We told our parents who decided that we were just making drama out of our paranoia. They didn't believe us

[00:41:59] and that was that. But after that these boot prints continued to appear and they appeared a lot. When winter came Annie and I would skate on the ice where the fields flooded over and froze. We noticed that the prints would stop at the edge of the field

[00:42:18] where we would skate and then would continue in the opposite direction. We never saw anyone watching us though I lost Annie's phone in the fields one night when we were looking for prints in the dark. The next morning there were prints from Farmer Bigfoot everywhere.

[00:42:37] Our trail then started getting blocked off. First a huge old tree was taken down on the trail. And by old I mean this was a deeply rooted tree hundreds of years old. We cut ourselves a path through the tree to keep the trail unobstructed

[00:42:56] but it was then set on fire. Even though all this stuff was going on we weren't being deterred though. And whoever was behind this seemed to give up. Until 2018 when huge mounds of rubble started being dumped onto our trail. This time it made the trail inaccessible.

[00:43:20] We spoke to a man who lived nearby he told us that he didn't want to name the farmer who was behind all of this but he advised that we report it as the rubble was illegally blocking the bridle path. We reported it but the council

[00:43:35] won't go near the situation as the man behind this is a scary man. We were just told that we were being watched and to be careful. This freaked us out. But since we were teenagers Annie and I stayed out on the trail till 9pm one night

[00:43:52] trying to clear a path through the rubble. We also wrote The following day there were three more piles of rubble and the cleanup we had done on our path was covered over. We were at a loss so we decided to talk to another neighboring farm

[00:44:07] that also keeps horses. Without mentioning a direct name the lady at this farm said you have to be careful messing with him. Around here he's known as the man who makes people disappear. We were told that he was a very good person That's when it all clicked.

[00:44:26] This whole time farmer Bigfoot turned out to be Elliot. We had been messing with Elliot. The same Elliot who fed his brother-in-law to the pigs. No wonder the council wouldn't go near our situation or him. Again, Annie and I tried to tell our families

[00:44:46] but nothing came of it. They just thought that we were being dramatic. After we spoke to the neighboring farm things continued happening. Miscellaneous bones started being left on top of the piles of rubble. I'm guessing this was just to scare us.

[00:45:05] Then a whole herd of sheep was stolen and the horses kept getting let out. The owners of our farm would never say who they suspected but we all knew exactly who this was. Then that white pickup we were seeing around intermittently started turning up almost every week.

[00:45:24] We started leaving breadcrumbs on our Snapchat stories thinking that we'd have documentation and multiple witnesses if anything happened to us. We told our friends that if we disappeared make sure to have the police take a look at Elliot. We were terrified but things quieted down for a while

[00:45:42] until September last year. We had just ridden and I was leading both horses back to the field on my own. It's down a dirt track about a two minute walk from the stables. We walked through the wooded area on the track and immediately a smell hit me.

[00:45:58] It was vile and I knew what it was. It was death. I knew I was smelling rotting flesh. It was enough to make you gag. I put the horses out in the field and immediately ran back to Annie to have her come to investigate with me.

[00:46:14] The farm owner overheard me and went to the house to grab a flashlight. Annie has a weak stomach so as soon as the smell hit her she threw up. It was so strong and so disgusting. The farm owner soon joined us and said someone has definitely been here.

[00:46:34] This only added to our fear but Annie quickly recovered from her vomit fiasco and rejoined us in the search. The farm owner said I really don't know what we're going to find here girls but I don't think it's going to be an animal.

[00:46:49] Our fear meter was now at the max but morbid curiosity drove us forward. After an hour of searching we decided to unstack a pile of wooden pallets. That's when we saw bags of white flesh. They were clear, ziplocked bags. Maggots were crawling inside the bags

[00:47:08] but there were no holes which implied that the bag's contents had been rotting for a good while before being cut up and put into bags. It was the most surreal experience. After more vomit from Annie we decided to call it a day. Reassured that the farm owner

[00:47:28] would deal with whatever the fuck this was. We assumed he would have called the police. Both Annie and I circled back to our parents again and they still dismissed it. They were still saying that we were being dramatic and I'm not sure how finding chunks of rotten flesh

[00:47:46] in the woods makes us dramatic but I digress. Anyhow, the farm owner is hands down one of the loveliest men on the planet. Annie and I always felt safe around him but what we found out days later was extremely questionable. He didn't call the police.

[00:48:06] He just buried the mystery meat. We assumed that's because he's older. Maybe he was feeling vulnerable and he didn't want to get involved in anything that might put him or his family at risk. I still don't have any idea why Annie and I didn't phone the police.

[00:48:25] I'm assuming we just didn't want to cause any trouble for the farm owner and no one else believed us so we figured why would the police? This unfortunately is where my story concludes. I know, how unsatisfying right? Well, I'm no longer at that farm

[00:48:43] but I still have horses my family finally came around and they believed everything I told them but I think that's only because I've kept this up for the past five years. Annie and I are still best friends and reminisce from time to time

[00:48:58] about how we were stalked by a murderer for years. We will never know what the meat we found in the bags was or if Elliot had anything to do with it nor will we ever know why he followed us all those years and tried to prevent us

[00:49:12] riding down our bridal path. I'm not sure if I want to know though. Thanks for listening and don't forget to go grab your tickets while you can for one of the live dates. San Diego is almost sold out and the other locations are selling pretty quick.

[00:49:43] Again, you can get those at letsnotmeetpodcast.com slash tour or just follow one of the links in the show notes and make sure to stick around after the music if you're a patron for your extended version of this week's episode. If you want to get access

[00:49:56] head over to patreon.com forward slash letsnotmeetpodcast to sign up and support the show today so you can get access to ad-free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate plus hours of bonus content with stories you won't hear anywhere else.

[00:50:10] This week you have heard followed through a snowstorm by throwaway. I'm grateful that my car door was broken by other account 5252, escaped a kidnapping in Chicago's train station by jwhite114, creepiest camping experience by yeehawbatman, nighttime road rage encounter in Alaska by rainyalaska1, the ford f-150 by chaosus

[00:50:35] and finally stalked by a murderer for three years by supertechnology4872. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. Letsnotmeet, a true horror podcast is not associated with Reddit or any of the message boards online.

[00:50:53] Make sure to send your stories to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com to hear them on the show. Check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like odd trails, my true paranormal podcast and the old time radio cast all at crypticcountypodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:51:08] We'll see you all next week. Everyone stay safe.