4x03: Manson Family Ranch - Let's Not Meet

[00:00:02] My name is Andrew Tate and this is Season 4, Episode 3 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. When I was about 8 or 9 my family took a skiing trip to a small resort a couple of hours from where we lived in Spain.

[00:00:34] The resort itself was a sleepy little town of about 400-500 people max with a few small supermarkets and hotels, but not much else. Typically, we picked the worst time possible to embark on the trip, which we had been planning for a few years.

[00:00:52] The night after we arrived there was a blizzard and so we spent the first half of the week locked in the hotel. Although we were able to go outside for the remaining few days, we had little to do given that the slopes were all shut down.

[00:01:08] The story I want to tell you comes from those first few days locked in the hotel. Despite my parents annoyance at the timing of the trip being a nightmare, myself and my sister, who was 11 months older than me, we were having a fantastic time.

[00:01:26] Locked up in the mountains with nothing to do, we were able to spend our days running around the hotel, eating sweets, and watching the TV in the lobby. I probably should mention that this hotel was somewhat of a maze.

[00:01:40] The large bar and restaurant area where my parents sat each day of reading was at the center of the hotel. A myriad of smaller rooms then connected to the bar area at random points, shooting off in different directions. All these rooms often had no discernible function.

[00:01:58] Each one had the same mahogany interior and they were full of couches, fireplaces, and antiques that allowed for great games of hide-and-seek. The rooms would often have offshoots themselves, connecting to a new room, which would then connect to yet more useless wooden caves.

[00:02:17] As such, it was possible to be four or five rooms away from the main hotel area at any time without knowing exactly where you were or how to get back. Anyway, at some point along the weekend, myself and my sister decided to play hide-and-seek.

[00:02:33] Now bearing in mind the previous information, it was almost an impossible challenge to find the hider, especially if they moved. To this day, I'm certain my sister was a filthy cheat.

[00:02:44] At one point in the game, I was just about to give up on searching for my sister until I heard her voice from what sounded like a few rooms away.

[00:02:54] After successfully navigating the web of rooms, I emerged to find her sitting on a couch alongside a German man with gray hair, probably in his 60s if I had to guess.

[00:03:06] As soon as I emerged into the room, the man turned to me and told me that he was taking my sister to the swimming pool and asked if I wanted to come.

[00:03:18] I remember immediately thinking that it was odd that there was a swimming pool that we hadn't heard of. My parents had been complaining that morning about how much TV we were watching, and so I was sure they would have taken us if they knew about it.

[00:03:34] And besides, the hotel did not seem of the size to be able to host one. I told the man that I'd have to ask my parents first and told my sister to come back with me to find them.

[00:03:45] He immediately replied that I should go, and he can take my sister on ahead. I told my sister that she absolutely had to come with me, but excited at the thought of a swimming pool, she said she didn't want to.

[00:04:00] We began to argue, with the man taking my sister's side and encouraging me to go ask my parents' permission whilst he waited with my sister. I dug my foot in, telling my sister that our parents would be very cross if we went somewhere on our own,

[00:04:18] and after a few minutes of bickering, she eventually gave in and came back with me, giving her assurance to the man that we would come back. Of course, when we told our parents, they were livid. My dad went back to the room to try and find the man,

[00:04:34] but with all the offshoots, and given that all the random rooms looked exactly the same, it was almost impossible to be sure that we were in the right one. In any case, there was no sign of him.

[00:04:46] I remember my dad screaming at the hotel lobby that he needed a list of all the male guests and their room numbers, but of course, they wouldn't give it to him.

[00:04:55] We spent the rest of the trip by our parents' side terrified of the thought of being locked up in a blizzard with him. Thankfully, we never saw the man again. The scary thing? We checked with the lobby, and as we imagined, the hotel did not have a pool.

[00:05:15] So scary German man who wanted to abduct me and my sister during a blizzard. Let's not meet. On my first summer back home from freshman year of college, I picked up a part-time job delivering pizzas in a town about 30 minutes away from where I lived.

[00:05:48] The area in rural Georgia is known for having places that are in the middle of nowhere, and the pizza place's whole shtick was that it delivered to even the most remote areas imaginable within the town's limits.

[00:06:03] I could fill books with the weird experiences that summer, from the call that came from a long-abandoned warehouse to the dog that got excited about the pizza in my hand and accidentally shredded my pants with their claws,

[00:06:17] but one will always stand out in my mind as the creepiest. It was getting fairly late at night, around 10 30 p.m., so I was confident at the time that I would be sent on no further calls before closing at 11.

[00:06:32] However, someone barely managed to miss the cutoff time, and our clerk accepted their order since they were so close. I was given the address and a single box of hot dough

[00:06:44] and sent on my merry little way. The first red flag was the driveway or rather the lack thereof. There was a mailbox, but no actual driveway, not even gravel. It was just grass and a barely distinguishable trodden pathway that resembled more of a service trail

[00:07:02] than it did something frequently used. I bumped along wondering if I was en route to the place when I saw a slightly above average sized house come over the horizon, horribly dilapidated and completely surrounded by overgrown woods. I guesstimated

[00:07:20] where the rest of the driveway led and ended up parking in a grassy patch that could have been the walkway just as easily as it could have been the front yard, headlights aimed directly towards the porch as per company policy.

[00:07:34] I walked up to the door, but I believe that calling it a door is generous. It was a door frame all right, but the door itself was just a large slab of wood propped haphazardly against the side of it barely covering the entrance.

[00:07:49] This was red flag number two. The third and fourth red flag were also on the quote unquote door. This included the A4 sheet of printer paper with the words AROUND BACK scribbled in all caps, which was hanging just below the place where somebody had engraved on the door

[00:08:09] with the title MANSON FAMILY RANCH. Typically, I would never go around the back of a house, especially a shady unlit house and especially especially at night.

[00:08:21] However, this was my last drop of the day and I was ready to get it over with and be on my way home. Against my better judgment, I made my way around the back of the house.

[00:08:31] The door back here was just an actual door, but it was covered in both cobwebs and fresh spider webs. Clearly, this was a door that had not been used in some time. I found the cleanest area available and knocked. I counted to 45 and knocked again.

[00:08:47] There were no lights on in the house and I could hear no movement from inside. I knocked and counted again and repeated the sequence three more times before I was finally creeped out enough to decide to return to my car.

[00:09:01] As I returned, I finally heard a voice coming from inside the house, clearly agitated, but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I tried to knock one more time and as I was counting, I heard something in the woods behind me.

[00:09:16] It started out as just movement deep in the trees, but soon enough I could make out distinct running footsteps coming directly towards me from the bush. As I was standing there coming to terms with my impending demise,

[00:09:29] I followed the direction of the noise to the edge of the woods, which is around 15 feet away from me. In the moonlight, I could clearly see a woman stepping out. She was relatively old, maybe in her 60s, I would guess.

[00:09:43] She had long, blondish-gray hair, which was tangled and matted and hung down past her hips. She was in what looked to be originally a white nightgown, but at that time it was dingy and closer to a

[00:09:58] beige or brown color. She was absolutely barefoot and her feet were covered in dirt and what appeared to be blood, presumably due to the fact that she had just sprinted through the prickly woods where there was no trail to be seen.

[00:10:14] I never learned her name, but still affectionately referred to her as Red Flag Number Five. She stopped short when she saw me and started to shake her head, no, with wide eyes. I stood there like a terrified deer in the most fucked up headlights ever

[00:10:34] as she took a few more steps towards me, reaching out to me, finger pointed. Her voice came out way stronger than mine would have at the time when she spoke. You know how southern people can either sound like loving grandmothers or backwoods murderers? Well,

[00:10:52] she sounded like the latter when she drawled, Oh no, no, no, no, honey. You get on, you get, you get out of here. I wish I could say I listened. I ran, I left, but

[00:11:10] I was in such shock at how the events were playing out that my own self-preservation was put on the back burner while I tried to figure out just what the Kentucky Fried Fuck was happening. She seemed to realize

[00:11:24] that I was not moving, even if I could not make my mouth move to ask her what was happening or even what to do with the stupid pizza in my hands. She looked at me like she could have smacked the hell out of me right then and there

[00:11:40] and proceeded to deliver red flags number six through twelve. Darlin, didn't you hear me? You deaf or dumb? Young girls like you come out here and they don't get to leave.

[00:11:53] So I finally stopped being a white person in a horror movie when I realized that this was not a funny little ghost story. This was a 5'3", 160 pound me potentially being targeted to be robbed or kidnapped or worse.

[00:12:08] So I dropped the dumb little pizza, which had these serial killer toppings by the way, and started running back to my car, which I had stupidly left on and unlocked as was usual for most of my deliveries. As I neared the car,

[00:12:25] I heard a slam from behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see that the wooden door had been pushed over and had fallen onto the porch beneath it. As I was closing the car door,

[00:12:36] an older man was limping down the front steps, waving his arms like an airplane runway attendant at me, calling me a little bitch, telling me to get out of the fucking car now.

[00:12:49] At a loss of what to do, I called out something muttery and shaky along the lines of pizza's out back. I floored my dad's shitty little 90s Lexus and somehow managed to avoid the trees on the odd trail back to the main road,

[00:13:05] which was still 12 miles and several turns from any road that actually had a name let alone painted lines. I reported it to my manager and he said that he contacted the police but nothing ever came of it that I'm aware of. Either way,

[00:13:21] that was my first and hopefully last personal encounter with the self-proclaimed Manson Family Ranch. I had just turned 15 and it was the end of the summer. My parents were working. They were administrative and monetary consultants at a lawyer buffet.

[00:13:53] And my brother was in basketball practice. So I was home alone with my puppy watching TV. The phone rang. Hello? A feminine voice responded. Hello, are you Martha's son? Um, yeah, my name is, insert name, who asks?

[00:14:14] Oh, it's Janice. Your mom and I have been working together for five years at the lawyer buffet. Now I've never seen nor heard of Janice. My parents have always kept their jobs and personal lives miles apart.

[00:14:29] But I knew who she was. My mom always spoke about her and she was a personal assistant of one of the buffet's owners. Oh, yeah, Janice. My mom isn't here at the moment. What can I help you with?

[00:14:44] Oh, I'm sorry, but Mr. Delgado called me. Your mom and dad are in court. They seem to be in trouble and he's just arriving there. A fraud allegation, he said. They can't call due to legal proceedings.

[00:14:59] But can I have your cell phone number? Mr. Delgado will call you right away so he can explain better. Uh, yeah, sure. I gave her my number. Don't worry. I'm sure it's nothing serious. Take care. She ended the call. Don't worry. I was scared shitless.

[00:15:21] My mom and dad would never commit a crime. Or at least I don't think so. Maybe this was just a misunderstanding. Before I continue, I must clarify some things. Mr. Delgado was another name that I knew.

[00:15:35] This time thanks to my dad. He was a junior associate at the same buffet that my parents and Janice worked. And as far as my parents' conversations went, he was a capable lawyer. My cell phone rang. A male voice. Hello? Uh, yes. Mr. Delgado?

[00:15:55] Yeah, kid. Listen to me. We're in quite the trouble. I'm here in court. Your parents are being prosecuted for tax evasion and financial fraud. Now, I'm working the bare minimum here and the judge won't let me talk to them. So I need your help.

[00:16:10] This is a thunder of a case. So if we don't work fast, it could be serious. What? My parents would never do something like that. We haven't done anything illegal. Oh, I believe you. I know you're scared, but listen to me.

[00:16:26] I need your help so we can help your mom and dad, alright? Uh, I'll try. I was almost crying at this point. Have your parents made some big purchases recently? A property? A car? House items like TV,

[00:16:40] computers, fridges, or anything like that? Anything that could set the government's alarms off about illegal money movement? Well, they bought me a computer for my birthday and my brother, he got a new iPad. He may have used my dad's credit card.

[00:16:55] That's great. That could be part of it. Anything else? Not that I can remember. Maybe they took an extra large sum of cash from the bank. Do you have access to the safe? Your dad said he had one.

[00:17:10] Safe? We don't have a safe. Not one that I'm aware of. I don't know what you're talking about. Damn. I thought he told you about it. Maybe it's because you're too young. Your brother didn't know either. Have you talked with Josh, my brother?

[00:17:28] I was going to call him, but he rarely answers... when he's playing. Yeah. Janice spoke to him before calling you. You can't call your brother, nor your parents. These kinds of procedures are really sketchy. Your parents' cell phones are held by the police,

[00:17:45] and I'm sure they're going to track the calls. They won't check mine or Janice because we're the lawyers. But yours are not safe, so please answer only if it's one of us two. Janice's number is... Insert the number. And this is mine. Understood? Uh, yes, sir.

[00:18:04] Okay. Call you later. Take care. He hung up. I was scared. I did not know what to do. I couldn't call anyone. And I just found out that my dad was keeping a secret safe from me. What the hell? Since when did my parents

[00:18:21] manage that amount of money? I waited for an hour. I was just about to call Mr. Delgado when I received a call. The number was Janice. Sweetie, how are you? I'm fine.

[00:18:36] Oh baby, don't cry. We're going to solve this together. I know this is probably going to end well. Mr. Delgado was able to speak to your dad, Philip, and they had made a deal with the

[00:18:47] prosecution. They're going to do some home checks to see if there are any stolen or fraudulent assets, and this will all be over. That's amazing. Thanks, Janice. I know, I know. But that brings us to another problem. These break-ins are sometimes done by

[00:19:07] unscrupulous people, and they will take anything they consider valuable as evidence. They will never return it. Your mother fears that they will do that, especially to her jewelry and most importantly, her wedding ring. You need to take it all out, including the computers.

[00:19:24] We already told the judge about them, and he discarded them as the cause. But we don't know if your parents will respect that verdict. Mr. Delgado is going to pick the things up.

[00:19:36] Wait, I don't know where my mom keeps her jewels or wedding ring. She never used it because it was way too small for her finger after she gained some weight.

[00:19:47] They must be in her room. Just look for those that you can save. Worry about those that could look suspicious. Okay, but does Mr. Delgado know where I live? Yes, sweetie. He will wait for you in the park on the other side of the street.

[00:20:05] Be ready in 30 minutes. She hung up. And I did what I was told. I went through my house, searching for anything that could be expensive, and put it in my backpack. I was able to find my mom's ring and other jewels.

[00:20:21] I also packed my brother's laptop and my old computer. Better be safe, I thought. I went to the park and waited. Mere minutes later, a black SUV made a turn and parked on

[00:20:35] the other side. A bald man with a suit came out. When I came close, maybe 100 meters, give or take, my survival instinct finally kicked in. Mr. Delgado? I asked. Yes, boy. It's me. Yep, that was definitely the voice in the cell phone, no doubt about it.

[00:20:57] But there was something off. Mr. Delgado was a junior associate. As I told you, my father always said he was an intelligent young man that would go very far. The guy in front of me was at least

[00:21:11] in his 40s, not young at all. I stopped, so the man came closer. Is there a problem? Are you alright? His fatherly tone was almost enough to make me put my guards down. Almost. No, I'm fine. Well then let's go. Your parents are waiting. Sorry, what?

[00:21:35] Where are we going? To court, obviously. You can't be here when the police do the checkup. The alarm has gone off in my head and its volume is just increasing. In that moment, I finally start putting the pieces together. Mistakes in their story. Some illogical points

[00:21:54] that they've made. This was all wrong. There was something wrong here. I needed to get away from there as fast as I could. But there was a problem. Mr. Delgado had company. I could see

[00:22:08] in the SUV there was another man in the driver's seat. The park was totally empty and my house was too far for a sprint. No one in the streets either. I was alone until I remembered. I wasn't.

[00:22:22] Mr. Delgado looked at me very suspiciously like he knew something changed. Hey kid, let's go. Ah, my puppy. What? I can't leave my puppy alone. He's just a few months old. He was a birthday

[00:22:38] present. I need to go for him. It's important. We don't have time for the dog, he said. I was making time. I needed him to believe that I was still in his game until someone arrived in the

[00:22:54] area. It was still a public park in the summer. It was bound to happen sooner or later. More likely sooner. I think he knew the same, whoever he was. He knew he couldn't stay in the open for

[00:23:07] too long. He responded, fine, go for the puppy. But give me the backpack. It looks really heavy. It will only make you go slower. Shit, I didn't want to but I gave it to him.

[00:23:24] It would at least appease him somehow. If I refused, who knows what he would do. And I went away. I didn't run. I walked, trying to keep my calm, trying to keep the charade up

[00:23:37] until I was sure that my distance between us was enough. And then I sped up. I didn't even think it was possible for me to go that fast. As I got farther away, I could see that the SUV started to

[00:23:48] take off. I stopped. I was in front of my house. I broke apart. I was crying. I was shouting, scared, sad, mad. How could I be that stupid? My neighbor heard me and came over that moment. She must have

[00:24:03] thought that I was having a panic attack. Maybe I was. She hugged me, trying to keep me calm. I told her everything. She was the one who called my mother. My mom was in our home within 15 minutes.

[00:24:17] The magic of love, as she normally took 45. After that, she hugged me so tight. I was terrified. And it would still be a long time after the incident that I felt better. To this day,

[00:24:29] I'm still unable to answer a call from an unknown number without feeling the pain I felt in my stomach. And in general, I hate phone calls. I only text to say what I need to say to everyone

[00:24:42] I meet. I gave away the equivalent of $5,000 in electronics, jewelry, and some spare cash that I had found. I gave away my mom's wedding ring and my two family heirlooms. In that moment,

[00:24:53] I just hated myself. I hated that I had been tricked so easily. Even if my family said the most important thing was that I wasn't hurt, I still felt the pain of losing all the material

[00:25:05] things. As did my mom. And that hurt me the most. With time, we were able to understand that this was a very long game that we had been involved in for months. How did they know my parents'

[00:25:17] co-workers' names and jobs? My mom quote unquote lost a flash drive with lots of documents some weeks prior. She believes in the bus, with a lot of job information on it as well. Nothing legal,

[00:25:30] mostly administrative. She never thought much of it, but they probably got our phone number from the documents. How did they know where we lived though? That summer, we had received a lot of calls from different services. Banks, cell phone lines, public services to quote verify data.

[00:25:46] Most of the time, it was my brother who answered, sometimes my mom or me. We understood that under the pretext, they were able to obtain not only our address, my brother is sure that he gave them

[00:25:59] the quote gas company, but they verified my parents' names as well. How did they know I was alone so that they could trick me? Same method. With their almost daily calls, they knew who was

[00:26:12] at home at that time and were able to pinpoint that most Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was left in the house with no one else, not even my brother. I also believe that they could have come to the

[00:26:25] area at some time as they knew the park had no security cameras and that my mom did not use her ring. They created this whole story almost perfectly, but still they had flaws. First,

[00:26:39] the one that saved me, Delgado's age. Second, I forgot my mother had just been working at the buffet for only three years. It was impossible that she would have met Janice five years prior. Third, the safe, I think. Obviously a general assumption that they had made, believing every

[00:26:57] person has one. And fourth, I found it weird that Mr. Delgado was acting as my parents' lawyer when my uncle, my dad's brother, had always been the one in charge of any legal problems that we had.

[00:27:11] Oh yeah, all their legal chit-chat? I didn't know our legal system that well, but it's almost impossible you are taken suddenly into court and judged in less than half a day without being able

[00:27:24] to establish defense. I was the victim of the millionaire call, a method in which the criminals manipulate the most naive and vulnerable person in a household using an emotional bargain so that they will willingly give things up, even themselves. The thieves were never caught,

[00:27:43] the phones they used were fake, used without camera footage, and police had nothing to work with. There were no fingerprints or anything similar because they didn't touch anything that we keep.

[00:27:55] I wasn't able to see the SUV plate due to the distance and Mr. D was an average Joe without any identifiable mark. The only good thing that happened that day was that I didn't enter that

[00:28:08] damn car. I wouldn't be riding this if I did. We lived in fear that they would appear someday as they knew our home address, but thanks to God it didn't happen and I hope that it stays

[00:28:21] that way. So Janice and Mr. Delgado, let's not meet again. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard Invitation as a Kid to

[00:28:48] the Non-Existent Pool by Reddit user Jagerboy11, Pizza for the Ranch by Reddit user Octopotato, and finally The Millionaire Call by Redditor Faco5045. The stories that you've heard this week were all produced and narrated with the permission of their respected authors. If you'd

[00:29:08] like to hear your story on the show, please email me at letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. If you're looking for bonus material, as always, you can check out patreon.com forward slash

[00:29:18] let's not meet podcast for all the bonus episodes. I'll see you guys next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.