12x09: The Man In My Attic (feat. Scotty Landes)

[00:00:00] This podcast contains adult language and content.

[00:00:02] Listener discretion is advised.

[00:00:04] If you have a story to share, send it to let'snotmeetstoriesatgmail.com.

[00:00:09] Enjoy the show. They had a little toddler boy named Matt and a baby named John. Jack was a biker and he often picked me up on his Harley, which was the most amazing thing. His wife Diane was cool too. She loaned me a lot of her leather clothes to wear at rock concerts. The two of them enjoyed going out and partying a lot and they paid me well.

[00:01:41] It was like a dream job. They were going out clubbing that night

[00:01:45] and I had to put Matt to bed and I rocked John off to sleep. of her face was horribly swollen. She was bleeding. Naively, I asked, Diane, what happened? Did you get into a fight? She raced past me to the phone in the dining room and started dialing. It was an old tabletop-style phone with a rotary.

[00:03:00] Jack came in next, flying past me and screaming.

[00:03:04] He grabbed the heavy phone receiver from her hand and bashed the side of her head, causing The silence that settled as Jon stopped crying was almost scarier than the screaming. Was Diane okay? I situated Jon back into his crib and went out into the living room. Diane was lying on the floor broken, bleeding and hardly recognizable, but somehow still

[00:04:20] breathing.

[00:04:21] Jack told me to sit as he dial't want to go back to prison. He said that he would do anything to not go back. I kept nodding and agreeing with him. And then he took his foot off the brake and drove past the turn.

[00:05:42] I looked at him horrified. what happened since Diane refused to press charges. About a week later, I got a letter from her apologizing for everything. I never saw them or their kids after that night, but I always wonder and hope that those kids grew up to be good people. So, that's exactly why it's important for

[00:07:00] me to make sure that my daughter always as a young woman in the city. Nothing fazed me. Of course, it was uncomfortable, but I never felt truly terrified.

[00:08:20] That is until one night when I was coming home from work well after midnight.

[00:08:24] The train car that I was in had first time we locked eyes in the train car. He asked where I was headed. I told

[00:09:42] him that I was going home. Then he asked me if there was anyone waiting up for me this late.

[00:10:42] Finally it seemed like he stopped. I thought that I would be relieved once I had shaken him, but as soon as I couldn't

[00:10:47] see him anymore, my fear only heightened.

[00:10:51] I still had to double back to my apartment, and the trains had stopped running.

[00:10:56] I figured he knew I had walked too far and would have to turn around, so it was entirely

[00:11:01] possible he was posted up somewhere on that same street, waiting for me to come back. Looking to upgrade your daily meals effortlessly? While factors delectable, chef-crafted dishes are here to revolutionize your dining experience. No matter where your busy schedule takes you, be ready with their convenient, pre-prepared meals, carefully curated by chefs and approved by dietitians, with a rotating selection of

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[00:13:43] cleanup needed. Head to factormeals.com'm a hunter and I like to hunt wild boar specifically. I have gone deer hunting and I have been known to get a turkey for Thanksgiving, but I mostly hunt boar. For those of you who don't know, boars are a big problem in the United States. A sow can have two

[00:15:04] litters a year and it's not uncommon for litter to consist of 10 or more pigs. Given that pigs I was mostly just tinkering with my new toy, cycling through the different settings, and I was feeling a little impatient since I had spotted multiple deer but no boar. Deer were out of season, and as I mentioned earlier, my current setup wasn't even legal for deer. So, I moved to another spot I'd seen days earlier. I figured it probably wasn't going to be any better than the first spot I was in, but

[00:16:22] it gave me something to do, and a new spot to explore with my new scope. I adjusted my range and zoomed in slightly and I remembered jolting a little when I saw that it wasn't actually a bear. It was a man. But since he was so low and hunched over, I thought I was looking at a young bear. I figured it couldn't be. I would have seen headlights coming from the road where I was perched if another person

[00:17:40] was out there.

[00:17:41] I was 30 miles away from everything.

[00:17:44] So this wasn't my destination where people could just walk to. There was a long pause, but neither of us moved a muscle. The center of my sight was on the dirt in front of his feet, and I couldn't bring myself to shift my gaze in any other direction. But I was concerned. Was someone lost, or was this voice his? Help! Please! I can't walk! The voice called out.

[00:19:00] That's when I called bullshit.

[00:19:03] I knew he could walk.

[00:19:04] When I first saw him, he was traversing was easily six feet tall and very lean. He took a couple of long strides in my direction, so I instinctively sent a round sailing above his head into the tree line. He stopped dead in his tracks and then hunched down on all fours. The next one will fuck you up. Go away, I warned.

[00:20:24] He stayed on all fours this time. I had my sights on the passenger seat and sped off. I reported it to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but all they did was scold me for hunting at night by myself. And guess what? I never received an update from them. I have no idea what that guy's deal was, but I feel that I may have dodged quite the bullet

[00:21:40] that night. decent-sized field with some hills and trees towards the end. I need to explain this in order for you to understand the events that took place. From where we were sitting, we had a clear view of the school as well as the school's basketball court. The school was illuminated by the side lights so we could easily see if somebody was walking by but it wasn't necessarily easy for people to see us.

[00:23:01] To our left, there was a little paveded out by this point, so we started quietly packing up our things to leave. Then this guy began walking towards us. Once he stepped into the field, it became much more difficult to see him as the light from our school only lit up so far.

[00:24:22] We took this as our cue to finally him, but we wore ourselves out,

[00:25:40] and we stopped behind some bushes, noticing that the man was nowhere in sight.

[00:25:45] We stayed behind those bushes for about 20 minutes trying to calm down. when I was 16 or 17. I was coming home by myself on a Thursday night after being out at a pub with some friends. We were in the central area of the city, so I had to take a bus to get home to my residential neighborhood. I had done this hundreds of times, so I didn't see it as being particularly dangerous,

[00:27:00] especially since I live in a fairly nice neighborhood.

[00:27:03] Since it was about 11 p.m. in the middle of a work week

[00:27:07] and because I lived in a residential area, freaked out since I was painfully aware that we were the only two people around. Just as I was weighing my options, he turned down the path of one of the houses to our right, which made me breathe a sigh of relief, since it appeared that he was just going to his house. I was happy since it seemed as though I was just being paranoid the whole time.

[00:28:20] The houses in my area are terraced path and he walked back out into the street. He was looking around, looking for me. He must have been waiting for me in the doorway knowing that if I kept walking I wouldn't see him until it was too late. Unfortunately for him, his hiding place also meant that he couldn't see me.

[00:29:44] So when I didn't walk past as he anticipated, he had no perception of this at the time. Lesson learned, trust your gut.

[00:32:24] This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you've had the starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. home from work. I checked the video and saw that it was a man. He was pressed right up against the door and was fumbling the panic starting to get to me. I wasn't sure if I should leave the house and call the police, or if I should acknowledge whoever was up there and yell at them. I chose a mixture of both.

[00:35:00] I began dialing 911 and ran into my bedroom so I could lock myself inside.

[00:35:05] As soon as I began running, it sounded and the dispatcher told me to stay on the line. I heard the man approach my bedroom door and rattle the handle. He also went through the cupboards in my kitchen. I am not sure why he stuck around after I made the call. I would

[00:36:20] have left if I were him but he stayed until the police came and they arrested

[00:36:23] him. He was armed with a knife that I had the same driver as last time, as I work in a small building, among other identical buildings, with a convoluted road system in between them all. It can be confusing for someone to deliver to the area if they're not used to it.

[00:37:43] I had been watching the map and went outside once I noticed that he was close by.

[00:37:45] I stood under a cluster of bright lights in our parking lot As soon as he pulled up, he was speaking another language on his phone, which then translated to English. He said something along the lines of, Hello, I'm practicing English and I need new friends. Will you be my friend? He then faced his phone towards me. I just felt like this was strange and inappropriate, so I said, Oh, that's a cool app.

[00:39:03] As I stood there, waiting for him to hand me my food. I posted about it on social media. It turns out he did the same thing to someone who lived two miles away from me. She made a late night order as well, and he asked her where she lived and if they could hang out while he was holding her food hostage. His boldness and the fact that he seems to only drive late at night makes me think that

[00:40:21] he often tries to cross eye contact with my friend. And then he went and got into the passenger seat of a truck parked nearby. As he was getting into the truck, she saw me walk out. Now it's worth mentioning that the city that I live in is the top city for trafficking

[00:41:40] in our state, and took us past the gas

[00:43:01] station again. We wanted to see if the truck was there, and we wanted to see if they would orange lights on top and a ladder in the back. I never heard anything back, but I doubted they had and James are both shorter than I am. He's about five eight and she's five two. I'm five 11. The kiss print was at a height that if I popped up on the balls of my feet, I could reach that spot with my lips. But it was far above where Jessica would be able to reach

[00:45:42] and as much as I love the thought of James

[00:45:44] and bubble gum pink lipstick, narrow, and not easily navigated due to it being pretty high up. Their front porch would be the easiest way to try and get in, but even that would take some dedication since there are tall boxwood edges along the fence. After taking all of this into consideration, I thought that Jessica had climbed onto a chair and kissed the glass.

[00:47:02] Even though we never got to the bottom of it, James cleaned the kiss mark off of the

[00:47:05] glass, and we just went on with our night. elaborately prank James by setting me up or something like that. The next time it happened was a few days later when I hadn't been there. Jessica called me and she was rattled and a little accusatory. I have a key to their house and she asked if I had come over and used the key to get in to kiss the glass again since she noticed that there was a lip print on their door when

[00:48:24] they woke up.

[00:48:26] I told her it was okay and advised her to call the police. She called them and they came several hours later. They looked around for about five minutes

[00:49:40] and pretty much just told her it was weird.

[00:49:44] They said that she could take pictures

[00:49:45] and submit them online. podcast, Bananas on the Exactly Right Network. It's a fantastic show. Again, that's on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. This week you have heard, why I make sure my daughter can call for help by Sassy Pants Five, Creep tried to follow me home by technical fee 4195, the man I saw through my night scope

[00:51:02] by perpetual connection,

[00:51:04] why I no longer sneak out by depressed mayonnaise,