5x18: Abducted In Broad Daylight - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories in this show can be disturbing and frightening for some. Listener discretion is advised. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:18] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 5, Episode 18 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast.

[00:01:06] I went to college in Miami and studied film. During my senior year, in 2015-2016, one of my film classes had us creating short films. My friend Jake and I opted to make a found footage style horror film about a ghost in the Everglades.

[00:01:36] Not exactly a new idea, however, we just wanted to showcase the creepy and unique environment Miami had to offer. Jake and I set off to both star and direct in our film and we brought our friend Charlie

[00:01:51] along, our actor friend, as the last member of the main cast. We didn't want to drive out to the Everglades every time we shot, so we found a similar environment at Black Point Marina. We arrived on location and began filming.

[00:02:11] Black Point Marina is south of Miami in Homestead and is just as wild as the Everglades if you walk in far enough. There's a bar next to the marina and a large parking lot.

[00:02:27] Where we decided to film was part of the marina that was essentially a no exit road. A nice water side walk with crocodile warning signs posted at regular intervals. Florida is the only place in the world with both crocodiles and alligators existing in

[00:02:46] the wild, as well as a plethora of exotic wildlife that went rampant after being introduced, like the giant snake born of a boa constrictor and anaconda. This was separated from the no exit road by a smaller creek and wooded area.

[00:03:05] Jake, Charlie, and I wandered down the fenced off no exit road with cameras in hand. The road was dark and shrouded in Everglades-esque forest on either side. A couple of street lamps lit the road at far intervals. The road in between these lamps was very dark and quiet.

[00:03:31] We could hear the distant sounds of the bar across the water. Other than that, the sounds of wildlife, toads, etc., surrounded us. At a certain point down this road, there is a small bridge that connects to the water side walk on the other side of the trees.

[00:03:51] Once you pass the bridge, there's no exit except to go back the way you've come. Jake, Charlie, and I chose a spot to film a scene, in the trees right on the edge of the creek.

[00:04:03] The water wasn't deep, however, it was dark and could easily hide alligators or crocodiles. We began to film when a man in a yellow raincoat with the hood pulled up, seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

[00:04:19] He pulled behind him a small white dinghy and brought it down to the water's edge about twenty-five feet away from us. We didn't pay him much mind, but we did wonder where on earth he expected to go in such shallow and narrow waterways.

[00:04:37] He would have more luck going out to one of the main waterways. We stopped filming and chatted amongst ourselves, turning our backs for a couple of minutes. At one point, we were all alerted to the fact that this man and his boat had disappeared completely.

[00:04:54] There was no way he had passed us on the creek, as we had been standing on the waterway edge the entire time. He also couldn't have gone back the other direction because the stream quickly became far too narrow for even a kayak to navigate.

[00:05:12] So we ran out of the trees back onto the road, and he was nowhere in sight. We were confused, but we didn't dwell too long on the matter. A couple of months passed, and my sister moved to Miami to attend school there.

[00:05:28] Jake and I decided to take her out to Black Point to check out the spot that we had been filming at. It was about 10 p.m. on a Monday night when we headed out there.

[00:05:39] After parking, we cut into the no-exit road and began walking towards the place where we had seen the man and the dinghy. At this point, it was close to 11 p.m., and no one was around. The bar was even quiet across the road.

[00:05:56] A group of people had been sitting at the entrance of the road drinking and laying low. We had wandered down the very dark road for a couple of minutes when we came to a bend.

[00:06:09] We started around the corner when an extremely disheveled lady almost ran into us coming from the other direction. She had no shoes on, a torn white dress, and her hair was wild all over the place. It covered her face, which was cast downward.

[00:06:28] She walked past us with a quick pace. I remember thinking, Jesus, what on earth was she up to? We all looked at each other in confusion. It was very strange and very creepy. Stupidly, we continued on.

[00:06:46] We had just passed the bridge to the water-side walkway, the only other exit, when we stopped because we thought we saw a raccoon. For some reason, my heart started to pound and I felt a weird, almost primal, something is wrong type of feeling.

[00:07:04] Both my sister and I were facing the trees when Jake said, oh shit. We turned in the direction that he was looking, just in time to see a silhouetted figure emerge on all fours from within the trees. The figure was a man.

[00:07:25] We quickly realized he was about 500 feet away in the direction that we had come. The man, who had been low to the ground like a stalking cat, quickly stood and started to walk towards us in a very quick pace.

[00:07:41] We stood motionless for a couple of seconds, assessing the man's intentions. Quite quickly, we all knew something was off. At first I was thinking to myself, this isn't real, this isn't happening. However, he was now coming towards us at a very fast pace.

[00:08:01] We all had our phone lights on and hurriedly moved to switch them off. Quick, cross the bridge, Jake said in a hushed tone. We sprinted across the bridge, grateful to have an escape. Once we crossed, we all got low and watched through the trees.

[00:08:18] We could see the main road through the trees thanks to the street lamps. However, there was a particularly dense patch of forest which completely hid the road from view. The man, who at this point was running, ran through this patch of trees but did not emerge

[00:08:34] on the other side. We all sat, listening intently, hardly breathing. My heart was thumping heavily. Suddenly, we heard the snap and crack of someone with heavy footfalls coming through the trees towards us.

[00:08:50] The man was trying to head us off rather than crossing the bridge and pursuing us that way. I don't know why we had even waited for this long. However, at this point, we sprinted as fast as we could back towards the entrance and

[00:09:06] that group of people we had seen before. It was weird. I'm an athlete and was in pretty great shape, but I found that while I was running for my life I felt slower than usual.

[00:09:19] It was like I couldn't muster the speed I felt that I needed to escape the situation. I tensed, waiting for a gunshot to sound or for the sound of footfalls to pick up behind us on the path. It never came and we emerged at the entrance.

[00:09:36] We found that the group of people were still there. They were around our age. Before heading to the car, we asked them if they had seen a woman come down the road and leave and they all shook their heads and said that they hadn't.

[00:09:50] This was strange because this road was literally the only way out. Not waiting around to find out more, we ran back to the car and drove back to Miami. While in the car, we googled the area and found that it was an old human trafficking

[00:10:06] site that could potentially still be active. We also found an article about an old man that had gone missing from the marina a couple of years back. The article described the man as having a small white dinghy with wheels.

[00:10:21] I don't know what on earth is up with Blackpoint, whether it's some haunted shit or whether it's a bunch of creepy people hanging out in the forest, but the creepy man that crawled

[00:10:32] out of the forest to stalk us down a darkened, deserted street in the middle of the night. Let's not meet. When this happened, I was a senior in high school and lived with my mother who frequently traveled for work, usually being gone for days at a time.

[00:11:01] As I was her only child and she had recently gone through a divorce with my stepfather, I was used to being by myself. Well, thankfully, I wasn't completely alone. I have two large dogs to keep me company and they gave me an added sense of security.

[00:11:18] Now to give you a clear picture of my female dog, she was a Roddy, Akita, and Shepherd mix and boy was she intimidating. She was rescued from an abusive home and even though she was my baby, when it came to strangers

[00:11:34] she could be mean as hell, especially when it came to larger men. She would frequently growl at other animals and it took her a good year or so to be able to be left with my male dog, a friendly but not overly smart Husky who wouldn't hurt

[00:11:53] a fly. My point being, I knew what her growls sounded like. Now for the layout of my house, it's important in the story because I lived in a raised ranch. If you walked up the driveway, on your right would be two steps leading up to our porch

[00:12:10] which extended across the front of our house and was partially hidden by pillars and bushes. The front door was right at the top of these steps and on either side of the door, long

[00:12:21] rectangular windows that allowed you to see inside to a set of stairs and a platform at the second floor. At the top of this platform and to your left was a narrow hallway leading to my bedroom with my windows overlooking the front lawn.

[00:12:39] Being a 120 pound, 17 year old female who was very into true crime and murder documentaries at the time, I had enough sense to always make sure that the doors were locked and the blinds were closed when by myself.

[00:12:55] One night in particular, I'm sitting in my room relaxing and getting ready for an uneventful night in as it was snowing and my mother was out of town so I had to take care of our dogs.

[00:13:06] I would frequently get this creepy feeling of being watched when I was by myself but always chalked it up to my paranoia. This night was different though. My female dog was laying at the top of the platform looking out the windows by the front

[00:13:22] door as she usually did. Only this time she slowly stood as the hair on the back of her neck all the way down to her tail shot straight up. She then let out the loudest, deepest growl I have ever heard and would not break eye

[00:13:39] contact with whatever or whoever was at our front door. I quietly crept towards her and once I finally reached the end of the hall, I stood there frozen and refusing to look around the corner as all the lights were on and I knew that

[00:13:58] they could see inside a whole lot better than I could see out. I'm not sure how long I stood there like that but it felt like an eternity. I strained my ears trying to listen for any sound outside or even the jiggling of a doorknob

[00:14:13] but all I could hear was the horrifying growl as she continued to stare down, refusing to even spare a glance in my direction as I quietly pleaded with her to come to me.

[00:14:26] Until I finally heard her growl stop and she laid back down and looked at me as if it was her way of saying the danger is gone now. I waited a bit longer then reached around the corner and turned off the lights as I

[00:14:43] carefully made my way down the stairs into our front door. After peering through the windows and finding no one there, I decided to open the door to inspect further. What I did find however was a single set of large footprints in fresh snow.

[00:15:05] These prints led up to my driveway, to my front door then across my porch as if they were using the bushes as cover to get to the other end of my house unseen and into the surrounding trees.

[00:15:22] Fortunately I moved after graduation and never had a similar experience at that house again but it's something that I have never forgotten and I often wonder just what would have happened

[00:15:35] if I had forgotten to lock my doors or if I did not have my beloved dog there to watch over me. Part of me doesn't want to know. I've had many experiences over the years with creepy men trying to follow me in their cars

[00:15:51] after leaving clubs, my father running out of his house with a baseball bat after hearing someone attempting to open our back door in the middle of the night and a few more. This instance in particular always stuck with me because of how it made me feel in the

[00:16:06] moment. There's something so vulnerable about being watched in your own home and it's a feeling that I never want to experience again. So to the creepy man looking in my windows at night, you made the right call by not choosing

[00:16:22] to come face to face with my furry guardian and I sincerely hope we never meet again. This final story does contain some violent and adult content. Listener discretion is advised. I was 24 years old and a student at the International Culinary School in Denver.

[00:17:05] I worked as a banker at a distribution center for Whole Foods. This is where we met. He was 23 years old and a baker colleague of mine. Let's make his name Matthew. His work ethic was above anyone else's in the room and it grabbed my attention.

[00:17:26] We would chat while working. He was odd but very intelligent and philosophical. After a couple of months, he asked me out on our first date. October 2015, we met at Washington Park, known to the Denver residents as Wash Park.

[00:17:46] It was a 155 acre park replica of George Washington's garden at Mount Vernon. It was beautiful and had a huge outdoor brick fireplace in the middle of the park. This fireplace is where we would spend our next four anniversaries. We walked around the park engaging in small talk.

[00:18:10] I found it a bit odd how quiet he was when it came to talking about himself. He just kept asking me questions about me. I'm an introvert myself so I struggled with this a bit but understood his shyness.

[00:18:27] We ended the evening and he walked me to my trailblazer. I was freshly out of a relationship about a month prior that ended very badly with my ex who had previously raped me and threw all of my stuff out of the house when I told him

[00:18:44] I was leaving him. And eight months before that, another ex kicked me out of his house a week after having an abortion on Valentine's Day thus ending my four year relationship. Needless to say, I was not looking for anything serious.

[00:19:04] But there was something about Matthew that just drew me in. He was very charismatic, giving, and strikingly handsome. I thought, I deserve this. Just let someone good in. After all the bad, you need this.

[00:19:22] Matthew only lived two miles from my Cherry Creek neighborhood studio apartment so we started seeing a lot more of each other outside of work. As I got to know him, I realized we had a connection that I hadn't shared with another person.

[00:19:41] We had both gone through a lot of painful times in our lives. It was comforting to me that he could relate to that part of my life. Six months after we started dating, he moved into my little basement studio.

[00:19:57] A couple of months later, I started to notice odd behaviors from him. He would get very edgy and have angry fits. One day, I went on my laptop and found this massive, grossly huge amount of porn. Much much more than the normal person would have.

[00:20:20] I did confront him about it. I asked him not to do that on my laptop and to use his phone. He became enraged and started yelling that he had no privacy and he stormed out. I could hear him outside breaking things.

[00:20:38] He came back later after walking off the steam and apologized. I had no clue how to process this. I tried to be understanding and just move on. The next several months, we had been living together in a large one-bedroom apartment next door.

[00:20:59] He had acted fairly normal during this time, but I could tell he was struggling with how to behave, react to situations, and how to relate to people. I could sense his agitation growing as he struggled to keep a job due to his temper and attitude.

[00:21:20] One day, he blew up at me for taking in the previous tenant's cat. I knew her and tried to give the cat back to her, but she insisted that I keep him. Matthew hated this. We already had his cat and my dog living with us.

[00:21:38] He didn't want a new cat, but I let him stay with us anyway. So I'm at work and he's texting me in a fit of anger about the animals. He says something to me so dark and twisted that I started freaking out at work, thinking

[00:21:54] that he might actually do something to them. I tell my boss that I have an emergency and I have to run home. I find out that the animals are all okay. At this point in our relationship, we've been together for about a year and a half.

[00:22:11] I've come to find out that his mental illness runs in his family. One day at home, he started talking to me about his struggles with belonging in the world and relating to other people. He tells me he has to constantly humor everyone, including me.

[00:22:30] He's sick of living in society and wants to go off the grid in the mountains. He tells me no one understands him and that he feels like he can't even talk to me. I begin to put pieces together that mental illness could be creeping up on him.

[00:22:47] In this discussion, his anger just keeps climbing. The more I try to be understanding, the angrier he gets. I start to feel like he's actually trying to scare me. He starts talking about hurting animals again. Then he starts talking about images of hurting me.

[00:23:08] He went on to describe a very vivid and horrifying image. He's completely frantic with his words, and now I feel like he's in some kind of state of psychosis. I wasn't scared. I owned a handgun. I honestly was only concerned for his mental health at this point.

[00:23:31] I said, you don't mean that. You're just trying to scare me. Which throws him into more anger, yelling. See what I mean? I can't talk to you. You don't listen. I literally just told you that I imagine hurting you, and you're too fucking stupid to leave.

[00:23:51] I've killed a person, Chelsea. I shot him and buried him in a field. I have ripped out a man's eye. I ate it. I was a drug dealer in the past. I'm not a good person. I still didn't believe him.

[00:24:11] He was kind of a smaller guy, short and fit, but not intimidating by the looks of him. I thought, how shitty would it be of me to abandon him at what seems to be the peak of his mental illness? So I stayed. A bad decision.

[00:24:32] The next couple of years continued with angry outbursts. It would come and go every three to six months. He made conflicts with neighbors, ultimately resulting in us getting kicked out of our own apartment. We moved to Green Mountain in Golden. It was in the foothills west of Denver.

[00:24:53] One of my family friends in Florida was getting married, so I decided to make a vacation out of it. I had the whole week planned out, traveling all along the east coast with fun stops and activities. A couple of nights into the trip was the wedding.

[00:25:11] And for this night, we decided to share a hotel room with my mom to save both of us a little money. At the wedding, Matthew was completely weird. He wouldn't talk to anyone. He barely ate. He wouldn't dance.

[00:25:27] He sat at the table with folded arms until we decided to leave the venue and walk around the grounds. I got worried after a couple of hours and missed the end of the party just looking for him.

[00:25:39] The next morning, I left the hotel room to take my dog out. When I came back, my mom was in tears and looked terrified. She said to me, Chelsea, he is a psycho. You have to get rid of him.

[00:25:55] Apparently as soon as I left the room, Matthew started an argument with my mom resulting in calling her names. He tore the door handle off the door and left. I found him on the beach. He was on the phone leaving his dad a voicemail.

[00:26:11] When he saw me, he yelled at me to leave him alone and he doesn't want anything to do with me or my family. Well, his dad heard the voicemail thinking Matthew was saying it to him. This is a very unstable man to begin with.

[00:26:27] He's been a homeless drug addict for all of Matthew's life. The voicemail threw him into a bender, we later found out. I couldn't afford to change our flight tickets so I reluctantly finished out the vacation with him.

[00:26:54] Over the next several months, his anger is getting worse, outbursts more often and he begins to break things in his outrage. He begins to collect survival gear and starts studying farming and homesteading. He is deep into this idea of abandoning society.

[00:27:14] He goes into the wilderness to seek spots where he could build shelters. He begins to get upset with me because I'm not taking this seriously and I'm not studying how to live off the grid. At this point in my life, I'm struggling with my health.

[00:27:28] I have Crohn's disease, my medication is screwing with my physical and mental health, so I take up fitness and delve into nutrition. I lost quite a bit of weight that my medication put me on and I started to get fit.

[00:27:42] This is where my mindset is and he doesn't like it. He begins getting mad at little things like me not doing the dishes at 6am before I go to work. It's 7am and I'm getting ready for work.

[00:27:55] He gets mad, starts yelling at me, calling me shallow, saying that I've abandoned all my interests that made him fall in love with me. He doesn't like that I've just recently taken up using makeup, hence the shallow comment.

[00:28:12] I'm 29 and only then started to take an interest in it. He yells at me more, you're useless, you don't cook, clean or fuck. I wish I never helped you get better after your back surgery.

[00:28:28] Now I do cook and I do clean, but I know that he reaches for things to say that will hurt me. And yeah, after someone tells you they imagine hurting you during sex, you stop having sex with them. He gets angry.

[00:28:45] He rips the coat rack off of the wall, slams the apartment door then continues to completely rip the hallway door off its hinges and breaks the glass door that leads to the outside.

[00:28:57] Also I should mention that in this apartment and the previous one he had removed our bedroom door even when I asked him not to. That's one I never understood. Just some weird control move I suppose. I felt completely stuck in this relationship.

[00:29:15] Literally no one knew what I was living with at home. I never wanted to leave work and go home. I always went to the gym for a couple of hours after work to shorten my night with him. I felt stuck because we shared a bank account.

[00:29:30] And since he was becoming physical and breaking things and threatening to kill himself during his tantrums, I was scared of what he might do if I told him I was leaving. I was scared for my safety, the animals and for his safety.

[00:29:44] If he did take his life, I couldn't live with myself. My first childhood boyfriend took his life and it deeply affected me. We shared a bank account because after my back surgery a few years earlier when I was

[00:29:58] doped up on painkillers, he lured me into the bank to sign him onto my account. After that last argument, I decided to start planning to leave. I opened an account with a new bank, talked to a close friend about what was going on

[00:30:17] and she said I could live with her in her finished basement as long as I needed to. I started looking into storage units. I was going to call out of work and move everything out while he was at work.

[00:30:31] Then he lost his job, fired again for his attitude and anger. Shit, I'd have to wait on leaving again. During this time off of work, he became engulfed in this conspiracy theory called Transforming Our World, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

[00:30:51] He read it into this as the government rounding up people around the world to kill them off and to keep the healthy ones in order to save the planet. Obsessed is the smallest form of word I can use to describe his demeanor about this.

[00:31:06] It's literally the only subject that would come out of his mouth. He would try to shove this information in my face constantly, but I told him I just don't care about it. He would wake me up in the middle of the night yelling that we needed to leave.

[00:31:22] We had to get out of the city and into the mountains before they come to get us. I was furious. I had yelled at him to shut up and let me sleep. I had work the next morning. February 23rd, 2019. I got up for work.

[00:31:41] Instead of letting me get ready, he forced me to sit at the kitchen table, which he had completely covered in post-it notes, books, and information packets on Agenda 23. And he told me that I couldn't leave for work until I read everything and listened to every

[00:31:57] piece of music which he thought connected to Agenda 23 via mind control. He got in the shower. I took pictures of everything so that I would have evidence if anything ever happened, so that I could prove how much he truly had lost it.

[00:32:14] He got mad when he realized I didn't read it. He'd call me a sheep of society. I went to work but left the trailblazer with him that day. He was supposed to take it for an oil change.

[00:32:28] He was texting me all morning about leaving the city, telling me I wasn't safe at work and I needed to leave before shit hit the fan. Before I could take my lunch break, he told me he was going to come by my work to get

[00:32:41] my debit card for an oil change. I work in downtown Denver for two hotels as an accountant. It's a very busy, bustling area. I had just gotten a promotion and was in the middle of training. He pulled up to the sidewalk. He wouldn't roll down the window.

[00:32:59] I opened the door and reached in to hand him my card. He told me to get in the car. I said, no, I'm busy. I need to get back to work. Just take the card. He was adamant and said, please, I have to talk to you about something.

[00:33:16] Just get in for a minute. I felt like something weird was going on, but I sat in the passenger seat and kept the door open. I turned around and noticed all of his survival gear packed in the roof of the car. He told me to close the door.

[00:33:32] Then yelled, Chelsea, close the door. I just said, no, hurry up so I can get back. He said, fine. Then sped off. My high heel nearly dragged the street. It startled me, so I pulled it in and closed the door. He ran a red light.

[00:33:51] I screamed at him to stop and let me out. He refused. I unlocked the door, but he was quick to lock it up again. I pulled the emergency brake and tried to escape again. No luck. He ran another red light.

[00:34:09] We almost got hit by a big public transit bus that had to slam on their brakes. He zipped through the downtown area into Capitol Hill neighborhood. I told him if he doesn't let me out that I was going to call the police.

[00:34:26] He grabbed my phone out of my hand and put it in the driver's side door. I reached for it, and he punched me in the face. Holding my face, I yelled at him, you hit me. What the fuck? Give me my phone back now.

[00:34:44] He said, I didn't want to hit you, but I thought you were coming at me. So I reacted. It's self-defense now. If you reach for it again, I'll handcuff you. Also, I have your gun. He said it, patting his jean pocket.

[00:35:09] I could see the outline of the gun. So I sat there and behaved. I asked him, where is he taking me? He said to his old job to turn in his uniforms so that they wouldn't come looking for him.

[00:35:25] And then we were going to go home first, then leave the city. I thought to myself, okay, just stay calm until we get to his old job. I can get help there. On the way there, he was pointing out billboards talking about how we're being brainwashed

[00:35:46] and this is how they do it. And that they're following us. We need to hurry up and get out of the city. And your sense of direction is going to help us get away from them.

[00:35:58] He took back roads trying to lose them, even though no one was following us. He stopped somewhere random and said to me, if you want to make the wrong decision and leave, go ahead. It's not kidnapping if I let you go.

[00:36:16] My mind immediately went to thinking, he's going to shoot me in the back if I tried to get out. And I'm in the middle of nowhere, in high heels with no phone and no money.

[00:36:29] I stayed in the car thinking, I can get real help at a safe place if I wait. I told him no. I found an envelope and a pen in my side door.

[00:36:46] I slid them under my right leg, using my high heel to keep my leg up just barely enough to write on it. I wrote my license plate number, address, and he has a gun. We stopped at the red light. I looked over at the girl next to me.

[00:37:04] I mouthed, help me. I put my hand up to my head like a phone and mouthed, call 911 for the entire red light. She gave me a strange look but took off.

[00:37:22] When we got to his old job, I told him I needed to use the bathroom very badly and used my Crohn's disease as an excuse. He said, are you going to behave or do I need to handcuff you in the car? I told him no, I'm fine.

[00:37:38] I'm calm. I just need to use the bathroom. He walked me inside. I saw someone outside on a smoke break but I tried not to make eye contact in case Matthew thought I was trying to give him a sign of distress.

[00:37:56] We went inside and he brought me to the door of the ladies room. I went in and listened for him. He left to go turn in his uniforms. I raced down the hall as quiet as possible in my heels.

[00:38:14] I saw the receptionist and slipped her my note and whispered frantically, please hurry. I'm with Matthew. Hurry, he's coming back. Her face turned white like she saw a ghost after she read my note.

[00:38:29] I raced back to the bathroom thinking he'd come to retrieve me and take me home where the police would find me if they didn't stop us before we got there. I heard whispers outside of the bathroom, a girl and a man.

[00:38:44] I peeked my head out and it was the receptionist and an owner of the company. The owner told me to hurry with him upstairs into an office for safety. I was terrified that Matthew would find out and start shooting the place up.

[00:39:00] So I told him no, he has my gun, just let me leave with him to keep everyone safe. Have the police follow us. The owner said that it was okay, Matthew had already caught on and taken off in my trailblazer and that the building was already locked down.

[00:39:18] I rushed upstairs into an office and the police were there within minutes. I was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. I was finally safe and the rush of adrenaline hit me. I gave them my story when they took me downstairs to leave.

[00:39:35] They had to try a few times to get me out of the building. I was so scared that Matthew would be lurking around somewhere and start shooting. They took me to the station in a quiet and comfortable room to get my full story.

[00:39:49] They couldn't believe it when I told them that Matthew and I had been together for four and a half years. Everyone at the station told me how I did everything right and how lucky I was.

[00:40:01] The victim's advocate that spoke with me told me that if I had made it home with him, he most likely would have killed me. The police searched my neighborhood all night, but they didn't catch him.

[00:40:14] It wasn't safe to go home, so I stayed with the same friend who was going to let me move in with her. I had to take a taxi from downtown Denver to Parker.

[00:40:24] It's over an hour ride, but the police station gave me a voucher since Matthew had also taken my debit card. I had nothing but the clothes that I was wearing. She gave me clothes to wear and an old cell phone to use.

[00:40:40] Apparently, while driving home on the highway after I got away, he threw both our phones out the window. He told the police that he disassembled my gun and threw it in pieces out the window.

[00:40:54] He said he spent the night in one of his shelters up on Green Mountain near where we lived. They caught him at home around midnight the next night. He had gone home and wrote me a bunch of notes apologizing and saying goodbye.

[00:41:09] I went home on the third night and had a friend stay with me. The police stayed in my neighborhood, checking up on me for the next week. All in the next couple of weeks, COVID-19 hit hard. Everyone that worked at the hotels were put on furloughs indefinitely.

[00:41:30] I had no idea if Matthew was going to bail out of jail, but I had to get a restraining order. That didn't help me feel more safe though. I actually moved a few towns over. He was only in jail for two months.

[00:41:46] They didn't want to keep too many inmates due to COVID. He sent me three very long messages on Facebook the day after he was released, which breaks the restraining order. He sent me pictures of us together, apologizing and trying to explain himself, wanting me back.

[00:42:03] I blocked him and wrote his dad telling him about it and said, make him stop or else I'll report him and send him back to jail. Do not take my one warning as a weakness of kindness.

[00:42:17] I never heard from him again, but Matthew did also call my mom's work in Indiana, trying to talk to her. He was unsuccessful. I ended up moving to my hometown in Indiana to try and rebuild a normal, quiet life.

[00:42:33] I'm convinced that he still has my gun, that he stashed it in his shelter in the mountains. I took off work one day looking for his shelter to retrieve it, but I was unsuccessful.

[00:42:47] I'm writing this to you on the one year anniversary of my abduction in hopes to reach out to listeners who might be going through something similar. If you are in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship and feel stuck, don't stay.

[00:43:04] Take the red flag seriously in the beginning before it gets any further. You're not alone and you're not stuck. Be courageous and don't be afraid to ask for help. I still struggle constantly with trust issues and feeling safe.

[00:43:23] I don't sleep unless I drink and smoke myself to sleep. The day after my abduction, I lost eight pounds in three days and a total of 40 pounds in just a couple of months, all from stress. I tried therapy, but it makes the trauma fresh and my anxiety worse.

[00:43:42] I know there are others out there that can take my story and use it to empower themselves, so please do, and good luck. And to Matthew, the unstable mental case who I did nothing to but try and help, fuck you.

[00:43:59] And for both of our sakes, let's never meet again, because if we do, I'll be ready this time locked and loaded. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast.

[00:44:26] This week you have heard Haunted Human Trafficking Area in Miami by Kate, Footprints in the Snow by Vicky. And finally, Abducted in Broad Daylight by Liz Klein. All of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors.

[00:44:44] 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, as always, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com.

[00:44:55] And if you want to get access to those weekly half-hour bonus episodes and tons more bonus content, head over to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to support the show. Join today. This show is not possible without our patrons.

[00:45:10] Thank you so much for the support, and thank you for listening. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode. Stay safe.