4x06: First Floor Apt - Let's Not Meet (Feat. Jessica McEvoy)

[00:00:03] My name is Andrew Tate, and this is Season 4, Episode 6 of Lets Not Meet, A True Horror Podcast. You'll probably recognize my guest this week as one of the great voices from the No Sleep Podcast. Joining me this episode is Jessica McEvoy. Enjoy the show.

[00:00:30] This story occurred in September of 2018 at one of my first college parties. Being the anxious wreck that I am in all situations, I pre-gamed quite heavily to try and alleviate the anxiety

[00:00:54] that I felt around my new college friends and large parties in general. I took a few shots since one of my best friends from home had been with me that weekend. I was beyond excited to

[00:01:08] show her the social scene at my new university, and I didn't want to have any inhibitions once we rolled up. When we arrived, I was already much more inebriated than I had let on to any of my

[00:01:21] three friends that came with me, but I was so eager to demonstrate how fun I could be in college that I ended up having a few more beers than I had had in years. I promptly blacked out around

[00:01:36] midnight. So, in telling this story, I lose nearly all recollection of what actually happened. I have a flash of memory where I'm leaving the party after it ended, being physically supported by

[00:01:49] three of my friends in order to make the walk back to our dorm. Bless their souls. I lose most, if not all, of my memory at this point in the events. According to my friends, a man they had

[00:02:02] never met before, who had appeared to be around our age and relatively normal looking, walked up to the four of us as we were headed back to the dorm and began chatting. Nothing particularly out of

[00:02:16] the ordinary for a group of college girls on a Friday night, except for his intense fixation on me, clearly much, much more intoxicated than the rest of the group. After a few minutes of innocuous

[00:02:30] conversation, he suddenly started encouraging me to go back with him to his apartment, telling my friends that I would make it home just fine and that he was trustworthy. Apparently, I seemed interested in the idea for reasons that neither my friends nor I can discern, slurring back a

[00:02:51] sure or a cool every few sentences. To the best of my knowledge, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about and was just agreeing because my grasp of reality was total shit.

[00:03:07] My friends, of course, told him that there was no way that I'd be going with him and attempted to walk away faster than he could keep up, but like all bona fide creeps,

[00:03:17] he couldn't be deterred. For the entire three block walk back to my dorm, he escalated his behavior and kept trying to talk to me, grab my arm, touch my hair, or just generally engage in

[00:03:30] predatory behavior. Then we arrived back at the dorm, which was locked to everyone that didn't have a keycard specifically for the building, so my friends rushed inside with me in tow, thinking that they had escaped the creepy guy. Instead of being locked out, though,

[00:03:47] he tailgated so close to my arm that when my friends and I went through the doors, he followed immediately after. My best friend from home is far from afraid of confrontation,

[00:04:00] so she told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off and attempted to drag me to the elevator. I'm mostly unclear on what happened here, but it seems that as the elevator was closing,

[00:04:12] he told me to come out and for some reason blackout drunk me thought that he was the authority on where I would be going. I crept out of the elevator at the last second,

[00:04:24] and apparently he ushered me out the door as my friends went up the eight floors to my room, helpless to stop me from leaving. My memories kick in here. I remember the second we got outside,

[00:04:35] there was an Uber waiting for us as if it had been there for a few moments already. I remember him opening the door and gently gliding me in. When we were driving, I think I asked him where we were going. I was gripped with horrible anxiety, total disorientation

[00:04:53] with the motion of the car slurring all of my visuals outside. He told me we were going to his apartment five miles away on the far west side of the campus. I lived on the south side at the time,

[00:05:04] so it was a fair distance. I don't remember much else from the car ride, except that it took nearly 20 minutes and I kept asking him who he was and where we were going because I couldn't remember.

[00:05:18] After getting out of the car, I have only one more memory which is vomiting from being drunk. According to my hometown friend, I called her crying about 20-25 minutes after he took me away

[00:05:32] from them at the dorm, sent her my location, and begged her to call me an Uber home saying that I didn't know where I was or who I was with. I don't remember that ride, but do remember collapsing

[00:05:46] into my friend's arms at the entrance to my dorm. Luckily, the time stamps and phone calls prove that nothing awful happened to me, but the experience was so nauseating that I haven't

[00:05:57] gotten that drunk since, nor do I think I ever will. This wasn't too awful of an experience, and I debated posting it here, but I think it demonstrates how sickeningly normal it is for average-seeming people to have potentially malicious intentions.

[00:06:16] I'm infinitely grateful for how generous and vigilant my friends were in protecting me. However, this fucker somehow found me on Instagram a few days later and requested to follow me. I

[00:06:28] hadn't known his name until he did that, but luckily now I do and he will remain forever on my block list till the end of time. And boy, I hope we never meet again for his sake, because I promise I'm a lot stronger when I'm not alcohol poisoned.

[00:06:44] My skin still crawls thinking about this guy. He saw me shopping for school supplies and things for my new apartment one evening during my first week of grad school, and decided I was his mark.

[00:07:05] I had just moved to my new college town. Didn't even have a cell phone yet after leaving the one my folks paid for during undergrad behind. I was grown and could take care of myself. What a nitwit I was. As I left the parking lot with my purchases,

[00:07:22] I noticed this truck pull up behind me at the exit. It was late and there weren't too many people out. I pulled out, and so did he. It was a few miles down a long retail street with lots of stoplights

[00:07:36] before my turn. As I drove, I realized the guy in the back seat was my friend. I was in a relationship, so I ignored him. Over the next few miles, he kept trying to get me

[00:07:48] to look at him. Some red lights he would end up ahead of me, some behind or beside. At every light he positioned himself so he could stare at me, either directly or in one of his mirrors.

[00:08:03] His gaze was on me, and I could see him. I was in a hurry to get to him, but I didn't or in one of his mirrors. His gaze was unwavering, and my anxiety rose.

[00:08:16] He was driving oddly, speeding up close to my bumper, hitting his brakes when he was in front of me, swerving close to my car a couple of times. Finally, at a red light where he was beside me,

[00:08:29] I glanced over and absolutely started to panic when I was met with an unbelievably empty, unwavering stare, and realized he was fiddling with himself. He was getting off to the fact that I was terrified, and he was following me,

[00:08:48] and he was trying to force me to pull over. At one point, I scooted through an intersection on a hard yellow a couple of cars ahead of him, thinking I could shake him. Nope. He went around

[00:09:01] the cars at the light and ran the red and got back in front of me. A freeway entrance ramp came up, and I tried to fake him out by putting on my signal and getting into the merge lane for it.

[00:09:13] He took the bait and started up the ramp. I quickly got out of the merge lane and continued straight. Again, I had hoped to lose him, but he drove his truck down the embankment and kept following.

[00:09:26] At another light where he was beside me, I pulled through the light and then turned at the last possible second. He made a u-turn and ran another red to follow me. My panic really

[00:09:38] ramped up at that point. With no cell phone, no sense of direction, in a new city, I really didn't know what to do. So I turned on classic rock and forced myself to sing along and forced myself to

[00:09:52] go the speed limit so I wouldn't crash out of terrified stupidity. I decided to drive to the supermarket across town because I remembered it had a police station in it. He followed me all the

[00:10:04] way there. He burned out of the lot as soon as he saw all the cop cruisers parked out front. I filed a report and asked for a police escort home. I insisted because something told me this

[00:10:17] creep was waiting for me to leave the police station. He was. As soon as I pulled out, I saw him. I pulled over and told the officer following me and he went after him, but the truck had taken

[00:10:30] off and the cop couldn't catch him. The police got the surveillance video from the first store. It turned out this jerk had been dogging me the entire time I was shopping. I saw him on

[00:10:42] surveillance footage following me through the store. I saw him follow me out, close enough to grab my elbow. I saw footage of him circling the lot in his truck waiting for me to pull out when

[00:10:54] I took too long to unload my cart. My heart sank. I was able to remember six of seven digits of his plate and the make and model of his truck. In the end, the cops did nothing. They said it was a he

[00:11:10] said she said since the surveillance video didn't catch him doing anything particularly unlawful and was a losing case to try to charge him with anything. I ended up trading vehicles with a

[00:11:22] friend for a couple of months to try to feel safer and went on with my life. I had no idea what this disgusting piece of shit did just a handful of months later until almost 15 years had passed.

[00:11:36] I was watching a Discovery ID show about the kidnapping and murder of Sandy Jeffers. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw the mugshot of her killer, Aaron Lee Skeen. It was him.

[00:11:50] I was so disgusted that law enforcement did nothing in my case that I tracked down the investigator in the murder case and after verifying some things about his vehicle that were changed in

[00:12:02] the TV reenactment to weed out people making crap up, she took my contact info and official statement. She could neither confirm nor deny that my run-in was with Skeen but qualified her statement by

[00:12:16] saying at least you don't have to worry about him anymore because he got life without parole. I only wish something could have been done when he terrorized me. Perhaps things would have been different for Sandy. So yeah, creepy murderous stalker crazy dude, let's not ever meet again.

[00:12:39] Hi, this is my first ever post here. I purposefully researched a subreddit where I could share this and perhaps get it off my chest. English is my second language so I apologize for any grammar errors. I live in San Jose, California and I recently moved downtown.

[00:13:09] For those of you not familiar with the area, let's just say it's not the safest part of town. I live by myself in an apartment building. That night, I had one of my best friends visiting from

[00:13:21] LA. I haven't seen my friend in a while so we decided to have an old school weed video games and horror movie marathon. We're in our early 30s. It was around 1.30am. We're high as a kite

[00:13:35] at this point and in the middle of some silly horror movie. Now imagine how the following must have felt. Someone is screaming in the movie. It's loud. Then an intense banging starts. Two loud booms. It wasn't in the movie though. It was the window. My body literally froze.

[00:13:58] My brain was going a thousand miles per hour. I look at my friend right in the eyes. He turned pale and he looked like he had seen a ghost. During all of this, the banging continued for at

[00:14:12] least 15 seconds. My brain couldn't really accept it and I tried to rationalize it by thinking, ah maybe the volume of the TV is too high and the neighbor is just complaining.

[00:14:25] When I snapped out of it, there was no way. This wasn't the hey your TV is too loud type of banging. It was more like the I'm coming in type. It felt like it lasted forever.

[00:14:37] I finally found the courage to yell something. All I could come up with was, who is it? More banging. I didn't have the courage to go look through the blinds so I rushed into my room.

[00:14:52] I own a 9mm pistol so I grabbed it and waited. I was terrified at the idea of making a life changing decision if this person would have broken in. The banging stopped. I told my friend,

[00:15:07] we should rush outside of the apartment. Go to the second entrance of the building. That way we could see who was in front of my window. But at the same time, they would be at a safe distance

[00:15:17] from us. I drop my pistol on my bed and we rush outside. We open the building door. We see the basic looking guy on a bicycle. Of course, makes sense. This idiot was banging on the wrong window.

[00:15:33] Huge sigh of relief. I yell at the dude, hey wrong window. He goes, huh? So I asked if he was banging on my window. He goes, oh no man, I wasn't. But I saw a really sketchy dude walking

[00:15:51] away. Yeah, sure you did buddy. I thought to myself. We went back to our apartment having a laugh. This guy couldn't admit that he messed up. Couple of hours go by. It's around 3.40am now. The munchies are real. Thank god for the vending machine on the third floor.

[00:16:12] We get into the elevator and life is good. The door opens up. Now sitting on one of the chairs, there's a guy with a thousand yard stare. He was wearing a beanie and a long coat.

[00:16:26] I immediately knew that he didn't live here. I immediately knew this was the guy. The guy on the bike wasn't lying. I didn't say a word. Neither did my friend. We kept walking. He stood up and

[00:16:42] entered the elevator. All I told my friend was, damn that guy looked sketchy. I didn't want to panic him. Nor panic myself. As we arrived to the vending machine, we both almost at the same time

[00:16:57] went, it was him. We then hear one of those emergency doors open. He's walked up the fire stairs. My friend grabs a small plant ready to smash him over the head with it. And there he is.

[00:17:14] He walks in. There's only a ping pong table between me and him. He kept his hand in his pocket while walking my way. Is he holding a knife? I can't let him get to striking distance.

[00:17:30] How's it going, man? I said while walking away from him. He's young around five foot 10, stocky body type. His face doesn't look healthy though. He mumbles something that I can't understand

[00:17:45] followed by, why are you walking away from me? I ain't no po-po. We did a full circle around the table. No panic yet. We keep walking while he slowly follows us. We open the door that goes to

[00:18:02] the poolside. He immediately rushes to it so he wouldn't get locked outside. As soon as we turn the corner, we sprinted, rushed to the other side and re-enter the building and go down to my

[00:18:14] apartment. I opened the emergency door and there he was. He had predicted our move. He was 20 feet from me. We rushed back to the other door and yet again he rushed back there. By this point,

[00:18:32] I yelled, I fucking called the police on you. That was bluffing though. We had one way out, down the dog walk that would lead to the street. We sprinted like our lives depended on it because

[00:18:46] it really felt like it did. So we're rushing down the stairs five steps at a time, smashing open the door and we're in the streets. We run around the building and we finally manage to get to my door.

[00:19:00] I don't drop my keys nor miss the hole. It's a smooth door unlocking. I had piercing focus somehow. We're in. I lock the door and call 911. The operator tells us they had received multiple calls from the building. Apparently the guy was banging on people's doors like a maniac

[00:19:20] after one and a half hours. Finally, the police department shows up. We search around the whole complex. One of the officers tells us that it took so long because someone has gone full joker

[00:19:31] on his wife and carved a smile on her face. I was kind of surprised that the officer even shared that with us. I didn't think that they could as if our night wasn't creepy enough. We obviously

[00:19:44] didn't find anyone. The funny part of this is when we got back, we realized that my friend had ran the whole time with the plant in his hand, the one that he was supposed to use as a weapon,

[00:19:56] and brought it back to our apartment. The unfunny part is that my friend left the next day and my window still faces the street. The street that the long coat guy is still roaming. This happened

[00:20:26] about a year ago. There were so many terrible factors working against me that night, I'm astounded I got away unscathed, at least physically. This all begins when I'm at my friend's apartment,

[00:20:40] who lives in a really rough part of town. In a series of poor decisions, that night I decided to get belligerently drunk and take a few pills of god knows what. I know, I know. Safe to say,

[00:20:55] after a solid night of partying, around 4am I was not in the right state of mind. My drug addled brain decides that instead of staying the night at my friend's apartment like

[00:21:06] I normally would, I wanted to Uber back to my own apartment. My friend's apartment had two separate entrances slash exits to the building. One in the back, unlit parking lot of the building,

[00:21:20] and one facing the street. They had two sets of keys for each door, and I only had keys to the one in the back of the apartment. Since my Uber would obviously arrive at the street, and the door

[00:21:33] in the front of the building locks itself behind you, I exited this way when the driver was soon to arrive. Looking back, standing outside that apartment, I realize I looked like the easiest

[00:21:47] target on the planet. I'm a small, petite female in my early 20s, and I can hardly stay upright. I'm using a street lamp to prop myself up, and not doing a good job at that either.

[00:22:01] The light was basically a beacon for any nearby predators saying, come get me. I'm not paying attention to my surroundings at all in this state, despite the fact that there was literally a

[00:22:13] bullet hole in the front door I just came out of. Not good. I remember checking to see what car I was getting picked up in, and was only able to pick out the fact that it was a black sedan.

[00:22:25] Soon after stepping outside, a black sedan pulls up to the curb and starts rolling down the window, so I step forward. Before this man even spoke, I could feel something was wrong.

[00:22:39] He had an expression like he was tearing me apart with just his eyes. After seeing that look, it gave me a new meaning to the word predator to describe a criminal, because I then knew what it

[00:22:52] felt like to be prey. He basically barks at me, I'm your Uber driver. This was the second red flag that somehow made its way through my brain. Normally, Uber drivers just roll down the window and say, fossil fool 12, or any version of that. But always including your name.

[00:23:14] I think I just stared at him for a second, my brain slowly piecing together the situation I was potentially in, and I ask him, what's my name? He immediately is enraged, and starts

[00:23:28] screaming about he doesn't have fucking time for this and just get in the fucking car, etc, etc, etc. I don't think I've ever sobered up so fast in my life. I'm completely panicking. Obviously, this wasn't my Uber. Quickly checking the license plate, I immediately see it's not a

[00:23:49] match. Meanwhile, this guy is still screaming at me, and I have absolutely no idea what to do. If I bolt in either direction, this guy could easily outrun me or have a weapon.

[00:24:03] I'm also pretty sure at this point that if he's trying to nab a random girl off the street, he must have a weapon of some sort. I can't run back into the apartment door right behind me

[00:24:13] since it locks behind you, and I don't have the keys nor the time to unlock it. Running towards the back door would do nothing as well, as he's idling right by the mouth of the driveway towards

[00:24:25] the back parking lot. And again, I would have to take the time to find the right keys and get in. If I screamed, I'm not exactly in the type of neighborhood where someone would try to be a

[00:24:37] vigilante, and I can still hear the music radiating from my friend's third floor apartment. I knew they wouldn't hear me. Also, it's 4am and absolutely no one is around. People talk a lot on this sub how they either sprint into action or freeze, but I felt incapable

[00:24:58] of doing either. It was the absolute worst feeling I've ever felt in my life. Everything in me wanted to run, but I felt that if I did it would be the end of me. But if I kept standing

[00:25:14] there, staring in shock at this screaming man, the results would be the same. From when he started screaming at me to this point, I'm guessing only 20 seconds has passed by. Just as he's looking

[00:25:28] like he's getting ready to get out of the car, another black sedan pulls up right behind him. Checking the license plate as quickly as I can, I realize it's my actual Uber and make a full

[00:25:40] sprint to the car. Really only like six steps. And throw myself in, screaming at my real Uber driver, what's my name? The poor dude looks terrified but responds with my name quickly, to which I reply,

[00:25:56] get me the fuck out of here, that man is trying to kidnap me. If I was in this Uber driver's position, I think I would be too shocked to react as quickly as he did. But my dude flew out of

[00:26:08] there, offered to call the cops for me, which I declined and now regret, and then walked me to the front door of my apartment, ensuring I got inside safely. Truly an incredible human being.

[00:26:23] You can rest easy knowing he got the fattest tip my college student bank account would allow for, although he deserved much, much more. So to the man who ruined my sense of security and caused countless anxiety attacks when out in public for months, let's not meet.

[00:26:42] P.S. Although it took a while, I'm doing great now. Stay safe y'all. This event happened in January of 2013. I was then a 17 year old guy living in Portland, Oregon. Throughout my high school, I was always very active and cycling. I would often find myself

[00:27:15] cycling early in the morning and late at night, either coming back from school or from a friend's house. I didn't have a driver's license yet, so cycling was the only viable option

[00:27:27] for me if the weather permitted so. I lived in a safe area of the city and I had very good lighting, so I was never afraid of cycling in the dark. However, one night during my senior year of high

[00:27:41] school, this would all change. The distance from my school to my house was around 6 kilometers sticking to the main roads, but about 4 kilometers taking a shortcut through a nice wooded park. I had finished a long music rehearsal and was tired because it was already past 10 pm.

[00:28:01] I decided to take the shortcut home. Although the park can be scary due to the lack of lighting, I have taken the shortcut before at dark. During the summer, there's usually still a bit of a crowd

[00:28:13] at the park. This was winter and the park had a very different feeling being dark with no one around. At around 10 20, I took a left turn from the lit road into the wooded park. Already the scenery

[00:28:28] went from serene to frightening. I could get through the park in around 10 minutes. However, halfway through the dark park, I happened to run into two guys wearing dark colored hoods. Aside from the fact that they weren't wearing reflective clothing, they looked threatening

[00:28:48] and scary. I couldn't see their faces very well until I was about 20 meters from them. As I passed them though, I heard them quietly talking about something. Suddenly both guys pull out large knives from their jackets. My heart immediately sank and my adrenaline started to

[00:29:08] kick in. One of the guys starts to yell curse words at me and they both charge at me wielding their knives. I was prepared for the worst and thinking that I could end up dead and dumped somewhere.

[00:29:23] Fortunately for me, I was able to see a path that led to a lit street and I quickly cycled as fast as I could out of the park. Normally my legs would get tired since

[00:29:33] it was a good 300 meters to the busy road. As I got onto the lit road, I saw some traffic lights and immediately felt much safer. About 15 seconds later, the two guys walked out and pretended not

[00:29:48] to see me. I let out a sigh of relief as they went the opposite direction that I went. I eventually reached home around 1040. However, I ended up not telling my parents about this as it would

[00:30:02] get me in very serious trouble with them. After a few days, the horrifying thought of almost being murdered in a desolate park started to vanish from my mind. I never went through the

[00:30:13] park late at night again and I didn't even go through the park a few months after that. Just a week later, some very horrific news ended up shocking the neighborhood. A very popular junior from my high school was violently stabbed and killed in a brawl. He and

[00:30:32] his friends were doing some shopping at a store when three male teenagers started to cause him trouble and stole some items. When he confronted the three guys, they started getting violent and a large fight broke out between them. Those guys ended up stabbing the poor boy multiple times

[00:30:52] and he was rushed to the hospital. Sadly, he succumbed to his injuries. He was on the football and basketball teams at my school and was a very kind-hearted person in general. His death devastated the entire community. A few days afterwards, I come to read the news

[00:31:12] and was met with horror and disgust. Two of those three teenagers were exactly the same guys I encountered in the park late that night. Despite only being 18 years of age, they looked like they

[00:31:26] were at least in their late 20s. Those three teenagers were quickly identified by many of my schoolmates as they graduated a different high school a year before but were very active on social

[00:31:39] media. They were both sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. I don't know what would have happened if I wasn't athletic and wasn't able to outrun those hooded guys. I have been in fights

[00:31:53] and beaten up before but I had never been so scared for my life before this traumatic incident. So to the creepy guys who were either intimidating me or trying to murder me, let's not meet ever again.

[00:32:19] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. This week you have heard I Don't Remember How I Got Away by Reddit user Tameka Flynn Official. My Run-In

[00:32:30] With a Murderer Close Call by Reddit user Volatpropres. I Knew the First Floor Apartment Was a Bad Idea by Reddit user FunnyHow1. Fake Uber Driver Lured Me Into His Car by Reddit user FossilFool12. And finally, Some Dark Hooded Men on a Late Night Commute by Reddit user Autumn

[00:32:50] Phenomenon. All of the stories you've heard in this week's episode were narrated and produced with the permission of their respective authors. And if you'd like to hear your story on the show, email letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Thanks again to my guest Jessica McAvoy for appearing

[00:33:06] on the show this week. We are working on a couple of projects in the near future that I'm really excited about but I can't release any information just yet. Just know that the relationship between

[00:33:16] Let's Not Meet and No Sleep is ongoing. I'm very excited. Also, I'd like to give a shout out to the Patron of the Week John Lee Clare for supporting me over at patreon.com forward slash Let's Not

[00:33:27] Meet Podcast since 2018. Thanks so much. I appreciate all that you do. I'll see you all next week for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet.