Brownwood's Haunted House
01:17:46 Share

Planning a trip this year? Travel smarter and connect deeper by learning the local language with Rosetta Stone. With over 30 years of experience, Rosetta Stone's immersive intuitive method helps you live the language, not just memorize it. Choose from over 25 languages including Spanish, French, Japanese, and more. Their True Accent speech recognition technology gives real-time feedback to help perfect your pronunciation.

No translations, just natural learning that builds from words to phrases to full conversations. Whether you have five minutes or an hour, you can learn anytime on desktop or mobile. Get a lifetime membership and unlock all 25 languages. Learn as much as you want, whenever you want. Rosetta Stone. Learn confidently. Connect authentically.

Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosettastone.com slash pod 50 to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash pod 50 and start learning today.

Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath come, or one that lieth dead in the desert, or a ghost unburied, or a demon, or a ghoul, whatever thou be until thou art removed, thou shalt find here no water to drink. Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own. Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence break through thou not.

We are protected, though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may be scared to death.

Welcome to Scared to Death, Creeps, Peepers, Roberts and Annabelles. I'm Dan. Hello, Dan. I'm Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay. Hello, good sir. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, I'm peachy keen, jellybean. A couple quick things and then we are into today's horror. Thanks for all the recent ratings and reviews. Always appreciated. Those reviews help us stay relevant and next to personal recommendations, help us find new listeners better than anything else. So, thanks for all the recent ratings and reviews.

Thank you again. And thanks to anyone who has signed up on Patreon to be a Robert or Annabelle recently. Very grateful for your support. And then a quick merch announcement for May. Only four weeks until we hit 300 episodes. Oh, my gosh. That's so crazy. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for making that possible. Yeah. Thanks for sticking around for this ride.

Uh, celebrate 300 episodes of scared to death with the killer new 300 rituals collection, a FUD mid FUD fun mid somner, uh, inspired design featuring a ceremonial ritual site adorned with flowers and bones, uh, marking 300 horror packed episodes. Your favorite spoopy podcast, uh, design available in a tea mug and collectible spring tote bag. Also available. The red cap tea featuring the Scottish gnome from episode two 89, uh,

Very cool 70s illustration style of a darkly curious little guy peeking over the letters S-T-D-P. Also, for those attending camp this year, be on the lookout for camp merch dropping soon. You can visit badmagicproductions.com for all that. Everything. Everything you need to know about us is there. If you want to go to camp, if you are looking for merch, if you...

Want to just see what we're up to. Speaking of what we're up to, what tales did you pick from those sent in to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com this week? Yes. Well, Dan, I have three stories this week, which is super fun. My first story is it's heavy, and it goes into us asking how much power does the hat man have?

Okay. Okay. Like these entities that we see, that we hear about, how much do they truly affect us? All right. Then in my second story, kind of like a little bit of a haunted house kind of vibe. And then my third story is what I believe to be a new creature, a new something to be afraid of. All right. Several stories. Okay.

And then my first of three tales takes place in Brownwood, Texas this week, and it's a lot more graphic than most of the stories I share here in terms of some grisly true crime details. So I'm warning you now, details from a murder that may have added additional paranormal energy to a property already rumored to be haunted.

And then my second story involves the possibility of one man's ghost emailing from beyond the grave. Okay. Yeah, short, very strange confirmation type tale that really makes you wonder what's possible. And for my third story, we will head to Los Angeles to explore the reportedly haunted Sodin House where some think Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the Black Dahlia, may have been murdered. Again, pretty intense crime details in the story. And her killer may haunt this location. I bet he does. Yeah.

So once you've donned your protective socks, our strange little pre-show ritual here, if you're new, I will get started. Okay. Well, this week I have these super duper cute Scooby Dooby Doo socks. Oh, they're adorable. Thank you so much for sending socks and helping us to keep this tradition going. Yeah. Thank you. It's very nice. You guys take the time to do things like that.

And I'll jump in here. So until just last month, just outside of the little central Texas town of Brownwood, down a dusty narrow road flanked by brittle fields and twisted oak trees, there was an old Victorian farmhouse that many locals had simply just called the haunted house for as long as most around town who knew of it could remember. It had sat abandoned for decades. No one seemed to remember who lived there last or who first built it.

The paint had been peeled away for years, the windows had all been shattered long ago, and the roof was sagging inward like the house itself was trying to collapse in on and bury something it didn't want anyone else to find. The land around it was choked with weeds and prairie grass, but if you look closely, you can still see the rusted outline of an old storm cellar hidden beside the one-time home.

For as long as anyone could seem to remember, people had said that the house, and especially the storm cellar hidden directly beside it, were cursed. That something terrible had happened there long, long ago. Some say a family was slaughtered during a robbery gone wrong. Others whispered about a farmhand who went mad and turned on his employers. There are no surviving records to confirm any of this, just old newspaper clippings hinting at violence and a lingering local superstition. Stay away from that house after dark.

especially the storm cellar. Don't go in at any time, day or night. And for the most part, people in and around Brownwood had seemed to follow those unwritten rules. Now, finally, they have no choice but to stay out. The old home and accompanying storm cellar were both demolished just weeks before we sat down to record this episode. As published in an article on brownwoodnews.com on April 4th, 2025,

The house and Storm's shelter were torn down, according to local Brent Woodley, to quote, erase all those bad memories and make everything fresh, you might say. We're going to get this down as a favor to the community and also to ourselves. The death of a local woman was the final straw that led to calls for the demolition. Back on May 13th, 2016, Brownwood's haunted house became the home of some very much of this world horror.

On that tragic day, 25-year-old local Rhonda Shantae Blankenship disappeared. Shantae was well-known in her rural Brown County neighborhood that lay a bit outside the city limits of Brownwood. She had some developmental disabilities that made her a little more vulnerable, a little more trusting than most, sometimes to her detriment. She'd been diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder as a child, and although she had technically graduated from high school, she could not read or write more than just a few simple words.

She had a speech impediment and could not drive, hold a job, or live independently, but she was happy. She lived with her grandfather, her boyfriend, and some other family members. She was a sweet soul who loved her routines, her daily walks, her friendly chats with the neighbors. She loved listening to music on her phone, shopping for clothes, eating at the local cafe, and going for evening strolls around her neighborhood. She attended the North Lake Community Church and sang in the choir.

She was someone most who knew tried to keep an eye out for her. And so when she didn't return home the evening of May 13th, her family and many others in her neighborhood and a whole bunch of concerned people in nearby Brownwood sprang into action to find her. Search parties combed the streets, wooded areas, and even the abandoned properties on the edge of town. And that was how, two days after she went missing, two searchers, Charlie Radel and Jackie Neal, stumbled across the haunted storm cellar of the haunted old farmhouse.

They saw some hair and a brightly colored rubber bracelet just inside the gate to the abandoned property, and they noticed fresh tire tracks. They went inside the gate, walked into the tall weeds to the storm cellar a few yards from the house, and just outside the storm cellar they saw another bright rubber bracelet. Radal and Neil then looked down inside the open storm cellar and found Shantae's lifeless body lying headfirst down the concrete stairs wearing only a t-shirt.

Her head and face were covered in blood. A bloody lawnmower blade lay nearby. She had been brutally assaulted and murdered. An autopsy revealed that Shantae died from blunt force trauma to her head, face, and neck, consistent with the lawnmower blade being used as a murder weapon. There was a shoe print on her chest where she had been kicked or stomped, and the medical examiner found evidence of strangulation and evidence she had been sexually assaulted.

Her murder rattled the community to its core. It felt almost too horrifying to be real, that a member of their tight-knit town had not just been hurt, but discarded like garbage in a place everyone already feared. Wild rumors floated around that the house had something to do with Shantae's death, that she'd been sacrificed in some sort of occult ritual, that the house had somehow darkly influenced whoever had done the terrible things they had done to her. The subsequent homicide investigation would drag on for years.

And word of the brutal killing drew more darkly curious people than ever to the site of Shantae's murder, to Brownwood's haunted house and even more haunted storm cellar. The police used DNA phenotyping technology to create a composite image of the suspected killer, releasing it to the public. And that sketch would eventually lead to Shantae's killer's arrest. In late 2018, nearly a year and a half after her death,

A family member of Shantae saw the image and immediately thought of someone they knew, a local 21-year-old man named Ryan Riggs. Ryan was a neighbor and one of Shantae's brother's former classmates. He was an acquaintance of Shantae's boyfriend, but he didn't have a close relationship with Shantae or her family. Up until that point, he had not been on anyone's radar. But then after Shantae's brother also noticed the similarity between the digital image and Ryan Riggs, police attempted to speak to him, but now he was nowhere to be found.

His parents said they didn't know where he was. Law enforcement tried to find him for several days, but he had apparently left town. During their investigation into him, deputies discovered that Riggs had illegally dumped some trash, so now they had something to charge him with, a good excuse to bring him in for questioning whether he wanted to talk or not. And a warrant was obtained for a charge of illegal dumping. Deputies attempted to find Riggs to execute this warrant, but he still wasn't home or at work.

Riggs' parents claimed they hadn't seen him for almost a week and a half, although he'd been in the house to leave $20 and a note apologizing for missing his mother's birthday. Six days later, Ryan Riggs reappeared. On November 15, 2018, exactly 18 months after Shantae's body had been found, he somberly walked into the local Northlake Community Church, accompanied by his parents.

Riggs, who had been a sporadic attendee of the church, met with the pastor, Ron Keener, and confessed to Keener that he had murdered Shantae Blankenship, although he made no mention of the sexual assault. He told Keener that he wanted to confess to the Wednesday night church congregation, quote, to make things right, if only it were that easy. Keener said he would allow Riggs to address the parishioners, but that he would also be calling Brown County Sheriff Vance Hill as soon as the service was over.

Riggs stood up in front of the sparsely attended congregation and confessed, I'm a murderer. I killed Shantae Blankenship. He gave no details and again made no mention of the sexual assault. Several members of the congregation gasped. Some came up and hugged him. Immediately after making his stunning confession at the church, Riggs went with Pastor Keener and his parents to the Brown County Sheriff's Office. There, he gave a two-hour confession to Sergeant Byrd and Texas Ranger Jason Shea.

Riggs told the officers that he knew Shantae, just like everyone in the community knew her. He said he saw her by the community mailboxes on the day she died, asked her to hang out, then took her in his truck to a lookout point by the lake. He said that there he talked and flirted with Shantae, then took her to a more secluded area, and that was where he suddenly attacked her. He strangled her in the front seat of his truck, took her clothes off, and raped her. He said Shantae fought him, but she couldn't scream because his arm was pressed against her neck.

After he assaulted her while she was unconscious but not dead, he said he felt the urge to take her to the old abandoned Victorian house, the Brownwood Haunted House. It was like the house was calling him. It was like he knew that there he would find the dark will to do what he did next. He said that once he made it to the property, he dragged her out of his truck, threw her over the fence. She was still alive as he dragged her to the storm cellar.

Once she was inside, he walked back to his truck, grabbed the lawnmower blade out of the back, then went and hacked at her head and face over and over to make sure she was dead. He admitted that during his bloodlust, he also stomped on her chest. After he left her body in the storm cellar, he took Shantae's cell phone, threw it away several miles down the road. He candidly told police, I wanted both things to happen, the rape and the murder. He described, quote, having a part of me that wants nothing but destruction and evil.

He admitted he knew Shantae had disabilities and chose her for that reason, because she was physically small and would be, quote, an easy target. When asked why he confessed, he told police he had been hiding when they came to serve the warrant for illegal dumping and, quote, I knew the cops weren't there at the house about to trash. He admitted that he had gone on the run after that day. He said he'd contemplated suicide and spent time talking to God. He claimed that God told him if you want salvation, this is what you need to do.

Riggs said he went to the church to turn myself into God. Now I'm turning myself into the law. When asked what punishment Riggs thought he deserved, he replied with no hesitation, death, for sure. He wouldn't get that punishment. But he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison with zero possibility of parole.

Following his trial, the old farmhouse and storm cellar reportedly felt more cursed and haunted than ever and drew more visitors than it had before. Enough to convince locals to pressure the county to demolish it all before someone else got hurt or worse, before someone felt drawn to commit the unspeakable. Time now for the tale of Brownwood's haunted house of horrors. Locals say you could still hear Shantae's cries echoing from the storm cellar at night.

There are rumors that Ryan wasn't completely honest with investigators, that she regained consciousness before the blade came down. Some said that if you stood close enough to the house, you might even feel a hand, small and desperate, grasp at your own, begging you for help. And that brings us to the claim of someone who listed their name only as Alex. Alex doesn't claim to be from Brownwood. He said that he was a then 22-year-old amateur paranormal investigator when he made it to the property several years ago now.

when he was living a few towns over and had read about Shantae's murder online. He said he was drawn to her story, fascinated and horrified in equal measure. One night in mid-October, Alex decided to drive out to the farmhouse and see for himself if some of the stories he had read about were true. He got there just after midnight. He said it was cold and partially cloudy, and the dusty fields around the old house looked ghostly under the half-moon. The house looked even worse than it did in the pictures, like it was barely clinging to existence.

and yet it felt more alive to Alex than any other house he could ever remember approaching. He said it was like he could hear a slight hum in the air and feel a magnetic-like pull from the place drawing him towards it. Alex parked his car on the side of the road, grabbed his flashlight and audio recorder, and made his way through the tall, dead, and dying weeds around the home. The moment he crossed onto the property, he said he felt the air grow heavier, thicker, like he was wading into deep water.

As he approached the front steps, his flashlight flickered. He shrugged it off, telling himself that the batteries were old, even though he knew better. And he pushed the door open. The inside of the house was a collapsed mess. Broken furniture, rotting wallpaper, graffiti from years of trespassers, mostly high school kids looking for a place to party. But there was something else, too. Something Alex couldn't explain. A smell, faint but sickly sweet, like flowers left to rot in a closed-up room.

He wandered through the first floor, his recorder running. Every so often he thought he heard footsteps behind him. But every time he turned around, the room would be empty. Soon beginning to worry that the house would cave in on him and that another murder victim's body would be found, this one a direct victim of the property itself, he stepped outside and found the storm cellar. Alex hesitated. He knew the story. Knew what had happened down there. Part of him wanted to turn around to leave and never come back, but curiosity won out.

He shined his light down the narrow, crumbling stairs, and something gleamed at the bottom. Carefully, he made his way down. The air was icy cold, far colder than it should have been for a Texas autumn night. He scanned the dirt floor, and there, half buried in the dust, was a small bracelet. A simple thing, pink plastic beads the kind a child might wear. Or Shantae. He couldn't believe it. How had the police not noticed it? How had they left it there? Or had they left it? Was what he was seeing real?

Alex knelt down and, while reaching for it, he heard a whisper. So soft he almost thought he imagined it. He froze and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Then the voice came again, closer this time. "Please, help me." Alex jumped to his feet, his heart pounding. He pointed his flashlight wildly around the cellar, but there was no one there. No one he could see at least. And no footprints in the dust but his own.

But then out of the corner of his eye, he saw it, a shadow moving along the far wall, quick and skittering like something trying to stay just out of sight. Without thinking, Alex bolted up the stairs. As he ran, he felt something, a hand, cold and weightless, brush against his ankle. He didn't stop running until he reached his car. Later back home, he said he played back the audio from his recorder. Most of it was just static, the sounds of his footsteps and breathing. But near the end, right before he ran, he claims there was something else, a soft crackling whisper, almost too faint to hear.

and not a woman's voice this time, but a man's, or something presenting itself as a man. When Alex turned up the volume, it became clear. Stay. Alex never went back to Brownwood's house, haunted house. He said he thinks that the farmhouse was evil, that he was not hearing Shantae's ghost, but sympathy for her to try and convince him not to leave, but to stay and engage with it. He thinks if he would have done that, he might have brought something with him from that cursed place, or that he might have done something terrible and never left.

That is so many layers of fucked. Mm-hmm. That is a sad, sad, sad true crime story. It is. And also, like, the guy, the killer, I can't remember his name. Ryan. Ryan. This is going to sound really crazy, probably, but I just, like, when he confessed and people hugged him, my initial reaction was like, what are you fucking doing hugging him? Me too. But then I thought, like,

Okay. It's also like strangely brave to come forward and admit it because like it didn't seem for sure. I mean, I don't know if he wouldn't have confessed what kind of like evidence they had. I think they had DNA evidence, so they would have gotten it. Okay. Because I was thinking –

I was working off the thought that they may not have been able to prove it and that in a strange twist, it was like giving her family closure, which is not, not to make it excusable or anything, but just like in that moment, I was like,

okay, I guess it's brave to like face what you did. I think just my own take and looking into some other things I didn't share, you know, here in the story. Yeah. I think he just knew that they were going to get him. Yeah. And it was like, am I going to try and live a life on the run? And, you know, like how is that going to work out? You know, like that almost never ever works out. Yeah, not in modern times. Not in modern times. Or do I confess? And a lot of times, you know, when people confess, they get –

A lesser sentence. A lesser sentence. And then also just, but he didn't hold back on certain details. So I also wonder like just truly like guilty conscience. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. As he should. But crazy that he chose after doing what he did to go to that location. Yeah. I know there is like, so there's then like the paranormal pieces of it, right? So there's the human horrors of it. Yeah. And then there's the paranormal piece of it. And it's like-

I mean, I don't know if Ryan was unwell or, you know, like what. Nothing says that. Nothing speaks to like mental health problems. Yeah, which is kind of crazy, you know, that he was never diagnosed with like something else that was pushing him to do this other than just an evil urge. Right, exactly. Which is its own kind of scary. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy that like he was already in a remote area when he assaulted her, when he did what he did. Yeah. And then, so it's like, if you're thinking like criminal logic. Yeah. And you want to reduce the chance of getting caught, why are you going to drive to another place during the day, no less, you know, with, you know, somebody you've assaulted in the truck with you. Yeah.

And, you know, if you get pulled over, if anybody sees you, it like leads to the chance of you getting caught. Right. And then you're going to drive to a different place and you drive to that place, the one place in the area that has like very like long standing dark, you know, paranormal associations. Yeah. It's like, so what was that about? Yeah. Like that's creepy that he felt like pulled there. But then also like, I don't know, maybe like, yeah, maybe it was something supernatural or maybe it was just...

Maybe Ryan is just evil. Oh, totally. Evil breeds evil. And he was like, well, let's go to this other evil place. Or maybe he thought that no one would ever look there. Like, why would anyone, you know, the people that come to the Brownwood house, you know, are paranormal investigators. It was a party spot too. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Very crazy. I have some pictures. This first pic is a photo of the Brownwood haunted house before, obviously, it was demolished.

And yeah, it is like I heard other people describe it as like locals. Yeah. Saying that it looks it's like the classic. This is where a haunted house would be filmed like a haunted house movie. Totally. Or some movie like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It just could not look fucking creepier. It's so dilapidated. I mean, despite what happened, it should have been demolished anyways. Like it's just it appears to be.

A wooden structure that looks like a huge fire hazard. Like at any given moment, because it is so dry rotted and falling apart, it feels like at any moment this thing was just going to collapse. Totally. And then you look, and I don't know this next picture. I don't know for sure that this is the storm cellar. It came up when I was searching. I'm not positive.

But I think it would be something like that. But that's terrifying. There's just like a hole down into the ground, this old storm cellar with like a little bit of like a old concrete ceiling. And then just this door that you like reach down beneath you to pull up towards you to open. I mean, again, it looks like, yeah, that's where exactly what happened would have happened in a horror movie. Right. That's exactly where you would run to hide and then would die because something else would get you in the storm cellar. Storm cellars also are just –

So creepy. And they're like dungeons. Yeah, like at your grandma's house, they have a cellar. Yeah. And it always freaks me out. Yeah. I think I've been down there like three times in the however many years we've been together. Oh, yeah. What is it? 13 years. It's like...

Nope. No, thanks. And it's attached to the house. It's not even held back. Like it's, it's basically just a basement and I still, it stresses me out. Yeah. Because it's like, yeah, the, it's smaller than a basement would be. It's definitely not where you would like hang out. There's no like egress windows or anything. Right. There's no like playroom or like couch and TV. It's all concrete and stone. I mean, it looks like a place where you would chain somebody up. And then this next picture is the house being demolished.

just very recently. Honestly, it looks like it didn't take much. No, it was ready to fall over. And then this next picture is, you know, sadly, a photo of Rhonda Shantae Blankenship. And then finally, the final photo is a picture of Ryan Riggs, her killer that he had posted to Facebook, you know, after he did what he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to see what's on his walls. I mean, I see a gun, but then, you know, various like drawings and, you know, he might've. He was disturbed. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. That was, I was going to say mentally ill, but he was definitely disturbed. Yeah. But flew under the radar. I always feel bad for the parents of the killer. Yes. Because I can't even fathom what that would be like. Like,

If you are a parent who's in tune with your kids, you know when something is off, when they're having a bad day. Yeah. You know, what's that saying? Like...

your best day is only as good as like your kid's worst day or something. It's just like, like as a parent, you're just so, and however you come to parenthood, that's like, that has nothing to do with about biology. It's just like, you know, if you love somebody, you know, and you've helped raise them and you're so connected to them and you know their moods and their tendencies, I,

I bet if you talk to Ryan's parents, he's probably just like, oh yeah, he's like a great kid. And then all of a sudden there was this shift and we were constantly trying and trying. And I just can't imagine the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment. I mean, his parents most likely had to leave town, start their lives over because a town is not going to, they're not going to blame you, but they're also not going to forgive you for what your child did. Some people won't, yeah. Aye yi yi.

Sad, sad, sad. Are you ready to leave the site of a grisly murder and perhaps the location of a tragically murdered woman's spirit for a much lighter story? Yeah. Before we move on to more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or Annabelle on our Patreon to get these episodes ad-free, additional bonus episodes, and more.

Time is money, as they say, and I don't know a single person who isn't busy or who has time on their hands. So when I get lost in the market searching for healthy items for my family, I leave feeling so annoyed that I just lost precious time in my day. No matter how much I love grocery shopping, which I truly do, I don't have endless time to spend there. Thankfully, there is Thrive Market.

They have banned over 1,000 harmful ingredients from their store so our family can shop safely and efficiently. And even better, Thrive Market carries lots of the hard-to-find brands we have come to know and love, saving even more time. Speaking of hard-to-find items, I became obsessed with something called Pantene.

They make these cinnamon sugar twists, and they are a perfect dupe for something I could only ever find at a very specific fast-food taco place. I can eat these things by the bagful, knowing they are made with real ingredients and fit

and 50% less fat. Without Thrive Market, I'd never be able to get my favorite snack. Ready to make the switch? Go to thrivemarket.com slash scaredtodeath for 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T-H-R-I-V-E market.com slash scaredtodeath. Thrivemarket.com slash scaredtodeath.

Summer is just around the corner, and with that season will come lots of activity with family and friends. All of those fun summer plans require a good amount of coordination, and therefore, lots of phone calls and texts about what dates work, where to go, and what to do. With premium wireless plans from Mint Mobile, you can chat as long as you want about your summer plans. Every Mint Mobile plan comes with high-speed data, too, making it easy to share the best pictures from your adventures.

Making the switch to Mint Mobile is easy and painless. You won't miss a single call or text because they make the process so smooth. We love the extra savings of being with Mint Mobile and are using our extra funds to pay for some incredible concerts this summer. What will you do with your Mint Mobile savings this summer? This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank.

Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at mintmobile.com slash scared. That's mintmobile.com slash scared. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 per month. New customer offer for the first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

When we ask the mom figures in our lives what they want for Mother's Day, they all seem to say the same thing. I just want you to call me. I want you to share your life with me.

This Mother's Day, don't just call your mom. Make that call and also send an AuraFrame as well. I mean, how sweet would it be to call your mom or the mom-like people whom you love on Mother's Day and share your favorite story behind your favorite picture that you just uploaded to their new AuraFrame? Dan and I don't live close to any of our families, so the AuraFrame remains one of the most important.

cherished ways we keep our families up to date on our lives. Anytime we go somewhere that offers those like super cheesy green screen photos, I insist that we get them. And we pose super weird and we make absurd faces. You can imagine it. Our families all think they're hilarious and it's so much fun to share the story behind the picture with them. A great picture and a great conversation piece all shared thanks to the magic of Aura Frames.

Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver matte frame. That's A-U-R-A frames.com. Promo code SCARED. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Thanks for listening to our sponsor deals, creeps and peepers. Now we're going to head to Pennsylvania for something lighter.

Jack Freese, a man from Dunmore, Pennsylvania, died of heart arrhythmia on June 10th, 2011. His passing was completely unexpected and sudden. He was just 32 years old. His family and friends were, understandably, stunned and devastated by his passing. One of the hardest hit was Tim Hart, Jack's best friend for the past 17 years. Tim called Jack his right-hand man and jokingly recalled how Jack once hated him because he was a new kid at school and got a bunch of attention from the other kids.

But soon after Jack took the time to get to know him, they became fast friends. And best, inseparable friends soon after that. Tim and many of those who knew Jack described him as sensitive, kind-hearted, and unique. A large number of people would grieve him. But he would only reach out from beyond the grave to a handful of them. Time now for the tale of emails from the grave. Five months after Jack's death, Tim received an email from his friend's account.

The subject line gave him the chills. It read, I'm watching. Tim later told a reporter from the BBC, One night in November, I was sitting on my couch going through my emails on my phone and it popped up. Sender, Jack Friess. I turned ghost white when I read it. It was very quick and short, but to a point that only Jack and I could relate on. The email read, Did you hear me? I'm at your house. Clean your fucking attic.

During Jack's second-to-last visit at Tim's house before he passed, the two men had went up into Tim's attic and discussed what to do with the cluttered space. They were the only two present in the attic that day, and no one overheard their conversation. The attic was dusty in addition to being cluttered, and Jack told Tim he should clean it before his next visit. Tim can't imagine that Jack felt this brief conversation was noteworthy enough for him to have spoken about it with anyone else. Not even the two men spoke about it again.

What was once a mundane conversation now was potential evidence of the supernatural. Was Jack Friess really communicating from beyond the grave? Tim replied, but he never received a response. Someone else, though, would also get an email from Jack, or at least from Jack's account. That person was Jack's cousin, Jim McGraw, who said that Jack was like a brother to him. The subject of his email was simply, Hey, Jim.

Again, its contents were brief. It said, Couldn't get through to him. His fucking email didn't work. Jim had broken his ankle a week before he received that email. He believed that was Jack's way of comforting him as he was still having a hard time coping with his cousin's passing.

Jim said, I'd like to say Jack sent it just because I look at it as he's gone, but he's still trying to connect with me, trying to tell me to move along, to feel better. Jack's friends say no one has the password to his email account and they don't believe anyone had hacked him. Did Jack freeze somehow some way use modern technology to send a message to two of his friends from the other side?

I would love that. I know. It's an interesting story, right? It's been covered by like the BBC, ABC News, like a bunch of like people have looked into this story. And it's, yeah, it's a little quick little story, but just, yeah, just fascinating. Like,

Who could have gotten to his account? Who would have been able to hack into his account and had knowledge of those events? Right. Like the broken ankle could be... But the dirty attic, that was uber specific. Yeah, very specific reference that only those two theoretically might know of. Right. Because on the ankle, it's like, well, anybody who's run into this guy in the last two weeks knows he has a broken ankle. So that...

But even still, who's getting into the account? Who's taking the time? And also, why only two emails? Right, exactly. So if it was a prank from a friend or a relative, you'd think they'd keep it going. Yeah, why not take it further? Yeah, or email more people or... I don't know. And not let it become such a big story. Like, okay, we don't need to involve the BBC here. It was just me. I did it. Somehow, an email from beyond feels like...

like something I'd be open to because it's, it's not, I don't have to see anything. Yeah. So I don't have to feel scared in my space of my home. Yeah. Uh, it doesn't happen in the middle of the night. Like it's, an email is so benign, I guess. And we do have tons of accounts of, you know, uh, poltergeists, you know,

You know, ghost spirits, whatever, you know, what have you, interacting with electricity. Yeah. You know, flickering lights, all that stuff. It's all like, you know, making, you know, the voice come through like a spirit box, like a speaker. Yeah. You know, there's lots of – lots and lots and lots of cases of spirits supposedly interacting via electricity in some way. And, you know, this –

It does fall under that spectrum. That's fair. Yeah. Good point. I have two photos with this one. Okay. The first is just a YouTube still of Jack Freese. That is him, the larger man on the right. And then this next one is just a screenshot. This comes from an ABC little segment on this. It's the email sent to Tim Art from Jack Freese's account. It's pretty funny. Did you hear me? I'm at your house. Clean your effing attic. Uh-huh.

It does feel like a prank email. From the spirit or from somebody else? From somebody else. Just like, I'm watching. Or that was his sense of humor. Totally. And he wanted to mess with his buddy. Yeah. What a funny thing. Okay. You ready for one more? Oh, yes, sir. And this is another, yeah, involving another one involving an intense crime.

Tucked away on Franklin Avenue in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, there's a house that looks less like a home and more like the ruins of some ancient forgotten civilization. The Sodin House, designed by Lloyd Wright, son of famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

was built in 1926. Its style is Mayan revival, an architectural movement that loves grand temple-like designs full of heavy concrete blocks, sharp lines, and deep shadows. I don't think there's a lot of these homes out there. To some, to me, it looks like a lost Mayan temple. To others, especially when the sun sets and shadows take over, it looks like the gaping mouth of a monstrous creature, which is why some have named it the Jaws House.

Originally built for John and Ruth Soden, the house was meant to be a glamorous party hub for Hollywood elite. Imagine 1920s flappers, silent film stars, the city's wealthiest gathering for lavish parties under a sky full of stars. But somehow, right from the start, something about the Soden house felt off. Visitors said the massive, cavernous spaces inside the home seemed to swallow up sound, that it was easy to get lost, disoriented, walking along its long corridors and open courtyards.

The house almost seemed designed not to welcome, but to trap. And eventually, perhaps it did trap something, something or someone. In the mid-1940s, a new resident moved in, Dr. George Hodel. Hodel was a brilliant but deeply unsettling man, a wealthy physician and a major figure in LA's high society. But beneath the surface, there were whispers about him for years. Rumors of inappropriate relationships, bizarre parties, and dark secrets hidden behind the concrete walls of the Soden house.

And then in 1947, Los Angeles was rocked by one of the most infamous unsolved murders in American history. Elizabeth Short, a young woman later dubbed the Black Dahlia by the press, was found brutally murdered. Her body had been mutilated, drained of blood, surgically bisected, and left posed grotesquely in a vacant lot near downtown. Her body had apparently been washed by the killer after death.

Short's face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect known as the Glasgow Smile. She had several cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been sliced away. The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her buttocks. The corpse had been posed with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart. The case shocked not just the city but the nation, and it remains officially unsolved to this day.

But decades later, Dr. Hodel's own son, Steve Hodel, who had grown up inside the Soden house, came forward with a chilling accusation. Steve, by then a retired LAPD homicide detective, had spent years piecing together evidence supporting that his own father had been the one to kill Elizabeth Short and that the murder may have taken place inside the basement of the Soden house. It was actually a pretty strong case for this.

Back in 1950, after three years of mounting suspicions, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office bugged Hodel's house, and some of their recordings captured him making some pretty incriminating statements, like, "'Supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They can't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead. Creepy, right? And it gets worse. Human remains have supposedly been found in the yard of the Soden house over the years. Dogs trained to detect the scent of human decomposition have alerted on the property.'

And Steve Hodel's investigation suggested that Elizabeth Short may not have been his father's only victim, that George Hodel may have been a serial killer operating under the noses of Hollywood's elite, protected by money, power, and connections. While Dr. Hodel fled the country in 1950 and lived abroad for years, he was never officially charged in the Black Dahlia case. He died a free man in 1999. And according to some, he returned to the Soten house after death.

After Hodel's departure, the house changed hands several times. In 2001, designer Zorin Balbus bought and lovingly restored it, bringing the house back to its full eerie grandeur. And with its rebirth came stories. Time now for the tale of the Sodin House, Shadows of the Black Dahlia. There were stories of hauntings, stories of voices in the walls, stories of figures glimpsed moving between the stone corridors.

Over time, the Soden house became a magnet for ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, and the just plain curious. And among all the rumors, I found two chilling encounters that stood out to me. In 2015, the house was rented out for a high-end Halloween party, a masked ball event filled with actors, influencers, and wealthy guests. One of the guests, a woman named Erica, shared her experience later in an interview with the Paranormal Blog.

Erica said that around midnight, she got separated from her group. While looking for a bathroom, she said she wandered deeper into the house, past the crowded rooms, and into one of the empty hallways near the back courtyard. There, she said she saw a man standing alone. She said he was tall, wearing a 1940s-style suit with slicked-back hair. And surprisingly, no mask for the masked event.

At first, she assumed he was just another guest. Maybe someone had gone who had gone for that vintage look. But then he smiled at her and it gave her the creeps. She said there was something off about his face. His eyes were too dark. She said like light did not reflect in them at all and that he beckoned for her to come closer. Erica said she suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of dread, like her body was screaming at her to run. She turned and hurried back towards the main party. And when she looked back over her shoulder, the man was gone.

Later that night, Erica said she mentioned the strange encounter to some friends. One of the house staff overheard her and asked very seriously if she could describe the man again. And when she did, the staff member allegedly went pale. She said she had seen him too, and just like with Erica, he had scared her. Apparently, several people have reported seeing this same man in the house over the years, always near midnight, always alone.

And many of them came to the same conclusion. It was a spirit of Dr. Hodel himself, still prowling the halls of his former home, still looking for young women to torment. The second story comes from a group of amateur ghost hunters who said they rented the house for a private investigation in 2019. Armed with EMF meters, voice recorders, and thermal cameras, they spent hours exploring the property. For most of the night, things were apparently quiet. A few cold spots, some minor equipment malfunctions, but nothing dramatic.

Then they went down into the basement. The basement of the Soden house is, again, where Steve Hodel believed the Black Dahlia murder took place. Down there, the group set up a digital recorder and ran a spirit box, a device that rapidly scans radio frequencies, supposedly allowing spirits to communicate. At first, as is often the case, they heard nothing but static. But then, a voice. A woman's voice, faint and broken, saying what sounded like...

The group froze. They all went silent and continued to listen. And they claimed they heard it again. The word, cut, followed by several seconds of static, and then the word, me. Then, according to one investigator, the air around them grew ice cold. One woman claimed she felt fingers brushing the back of her neck. She suddenly felt threatened and terrified. The group now fled the basement and then out of the house without finishing their investigation. Later, while reviewing footage, they said they discovered something stranger.

In one frame of thermal imaging, taken just before they ran, there appeared to be a figure crouched in the corner of the basement, a figure none of them had seen while exploring. Was this the entity that touched the woman's neck? The ghost of Dr. Hodel, possible brutal killer of Elizabeth Short. Today, the Soden house is occasionally open for private events and tours. It's still a favorite for architecture buffs and true crime fans fascinated by its bloody legacy.

And some leave the home feeling that something dark still clings to the old concrete walls of the basement. Whether it's the restless spirit of a brutal killer, the ghost of one of his victims, or simply the echoes of unspeakable violence, perhaps something inside the Soden house has never forgotten what once happened there. I love this. True crime, mystery, and paranormal all wrapped into one. Do you think that guy did it?

Did you ever cover the Black Dahlia? It's been several years, and I remember thinking that it was very, very possible. I mean, pretty fascinating that his own son, who became a homicide investigator. Honestly, probably like weirdly inspired by the thought that his dad might have been the killer. Right, right. Clearly, he felt there was something off about his dad, and that his dad had motive and the means to do it, and that he did do it.

Dad watch. Oh, yeah. No kidding. A little dad watcher. Oh, my gosh. I have some photos. Okay. This first photo, I mean, this is a wildly impressive house.

This first photo is the Soden house. This is a picture taken from the front. Yeah. You know, having lived in LA and I'm pretty familiar with the Los Feliz area, I don't know where this house is. Do you? Nope. I don't. Yeah. I don't remember. I mean, I remember coming across the address, but it didn't mean anything to me. Right, right, right. But yeah, on the map, no, I don't know where it is. And it's, I mean, there's tons of articles you can do. I mean, it shows up in a lot of, you know,

Obviously, because of the history with Black Dahlia, it'll show up in articles. But then just on its own as an architectural kind of like masterpiece, it'll show up. I mean, you'll see these pictures. The next one. So that's the – this is the interior courtyard. That is incredible. It is incredible. It also feels like I'm not trying to like minimize the – The grandeur of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just 100% not my style and it feels so weirdly out of context. Yeah.

In LA, like it just – I mean in a way it fits in for LA being a place where anything goes. But it feels out of place in terms of like there is so much other incredible architecture there. Like this feels like it belongs in another country. Yeah. I mean that's very, very uber specific like Mayan style. But I feel like I'm on like a Disney backlot. Yeah. Or I'm at actual Disneyland because you'll go into like different areas of Disneyland and it's like –

It's so themed out so perfectly that it's like, I'm like, oh, if you told me that this was like Disneyland Egypt, I'd be like, okay. Funny Egypt. I guess, yeah, with like the shape of like, yeah, the – Like pyramid type, like the triangular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This next one is just another shot of the courtyard. You can just see the pool better. There's a bunch of people there gathered for some kind of, you know, party.

Yeah, our viewing looks like a – I do love those open interior courtyards in some homes. That's such a cool thing in certain climates, you know, certain areas. Oh, yeah. I love it. I mean, it's the thing that I love about Frank Lloyd Wright and, you know, Joseph Eichler. Eichler specifically did a lot of open courtyards, and I just love that so much. This next one, photo from the much less grandeur basement. Okay. It just has a small, like, unfinished basement, you know, short ceilings.

And like a creepy dark spot on the floor that I guess they probably say like, you know, that could be a blood stain or. Right. Could be oil. Yeah. This next one, a photo of actress Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia. Yep. Young and hopeful for success in Hollywood. Looks like she's outside of like Hollywood high school. Uh-huh. Yeah. It does look like a high school. And then this final one, Dr. George Hodel, former owner of the Soden house and perhaps Elizabeth's killer. Dang. Yeah.

I want to talk to his son. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a lot of questions. Probably questions that he doesn't have answers to, but, you know, nonetheless. What a strange thing to grow up thinking that your dad is a killer or could be a killer. Yeah, no kidding. Because it's like, you know. And to try to, I mean, you know, after he'd already passed, but to try to, what, posthumously, like, pin the murders on him. Be like, you know, like, we deserve to solve this case, and I do think my dad did it.

Yeah. I've dedicated years to trying to show that my dad was a serial killer. It would be so crazy to have that case suddenly solved.

And then if in solving it, and I believe that they have thought this for a long time, that it was never a standalone murder. So if you solved one, then you might open up a ring of like, you know, people who worked together or a series of other murders that happened. But I know there are so many unsolved murders and, you know, with like a America's like true crime fascination. Yeah. I do think about, and after, you know, doing so many true crime episodes on, on time suck, I think about like,

You know, all the serial killers that have gotten away. Uh-huh. You know, and we say now, it's like, yeah, well, you know, no one's going to get away with these things today. But tons of people go missing every single year. We don't know what happens to many of them. And there's tons of unsolved murders every single year. So there could be, like, you know, the most prolific serial killer in history could be active currently right now.

Don't say that. That's not true. That's nope, nope, nope, nope. Not a fun thought. No. No, and I do think like, okay, you know, if there's tons of unsolved murders every year, it's like, yes, but how many of those internally do the police department fucking know who did it? They just are missing that one piece of evidence, you know? So it's like- And usually it's going to be somebody they knew. Yeah. Murder. Murder.

murder on the brain. Okay. Well, let's step away from murder. And just a quick reminder to all of you creeps and peepers out there listening. Maybe you're new to the show. Maybe you've been here a while. You've probably heard us talk about Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp. It's coming up the first weekend of September of this year. We're really excited. Live scared to death, karaoke, kayaking and water slides and rock climbing and pickleball. Well, no. Yeah. I

pickleball. Sorry, I was doing the motion. You guys can't see me anymore. And non-active things like mixology classes and bracelet making and Lego building. So there's something for everyone. If you're looking for some space to step away from the madness of the world, whatever your version of madness looks like,

We would love to see you there. Go to badmagicproductions.com and get tickets and come hang out with us. Come hang out. Specifically me. I need friends. You do? Do I? All right. Let's get going with the hat man.

I have been debating on whether or not to share this story, my story. It's very serious and very, very personal. I don't want to cheapen anything about it by telling it for the sake of entertainment. I'm sharing it because it still lingers in my mind, because there is so little information out there on him. And if sharing this could help someone, maybe it's worth unpacking.

I've always been slightly obsessed with the darker side of life, but never really believed it to be real. Even after all of this, I cannot say I believe 100%. I'm just a skeptic through and through. And I don't believe that the hat man is capable of doing anything. He's an omen. Take from that what you will.

I met my husband in 2008. He was a bright, lively person who lived to help others. He was the guy that would pull over and change tires for people on the side of the road. The guy that would drive hours to help people move, even though it was his one and only day off that month. He was amazing. He loved life.

We bought our house in 2014. A couple weeks or maybe months later, I had a sleep paralysis episode one morning. I thought I had woken up and that it was still dark out. I walked out of the bedroom and what I saw at the end of the hallway stunned me. There was a man. He was about my height, 5'7", wearing a black suit, no tie, and a black fedora. The real kind. Not the one made popular by douchebags in the 90s.

He was old, his skin was very pale, and only half of his face was illuminated. I woke up and was immediately trapped in my own body for a couple of minutes before gasping and jolting upright. I've always had crazy dreams, and I've had sleep paralysis for several years, but never the two at the same time.

I told my husband and my best friend about the weird image of the man. My friend asked me if I had felt threatened. No, I felt like I was keeping him from coming down the hall, like he couldn't touch me, I said. I quickly forgot about it altogether, until a year or so later, when my husband and I were watching the movie The Nightmare.

There's a part where a man describes seeing the hat man. I was so startled that I had to leave the room. My eyes started to tear up and my whole body tensed. We stopped the movie and talked about it. We tried to do some research on this hat man, but nothing really existing on the web to speak of. So life went on.

But this time, it stuck with me. That image. That feeling. My husband worked out of town a lot, and on the nights when he was away, I started locking the door to the bedroom. I would turn on the hallway light, then the bathroom light, then the bedroom light, and work my way backwards. Over time, I started going to bed before dark. Even still, I felt uneasy with my back to the end of the hallway, even during daylight.

During this period, on two separate occasions, I watched a bird fly directly into the window on the garage and die. Everything started to spiral pretty quickly after our first six months in the house. Unbeknownst to me, my husband had started using cocaine and drinking heavily when he was out of town.

By 2015, he'd lost his job. We fought almost daily. His anger was out of control. He withdrew from friends and family and spent so much time either sleeping or out with his drug buddies. Thinking it was just depression, I begged him to get help, and he swore he would. My loving, caring, sweet husband had become unrecognizable in a short period of time.

By 2016, he was barely at the house anymore. He would stumble in at 5 a.m., sleep on the couch, wake up at noon, and leave to God only knows where. I just put my head down, worked as much as I could, and kept locking that bedroom door.

By 2017, his anger had grown to violence. On one occasion, our fight had migrated to the hallway. He had ripped a door off the hinges and stood there in that same spot, the exact same spot as the hat man, and he screamed like an animal. No words, just a sound so loud my ears were left ringing. And that was the first time I thought it. Is he possessed by the hat man?

No. This is just drugs. This is just mental illness gone unchecked. But also, what if it's not? What if that's what possession is? I don't actually think he was possessed. However, this was simply the first time I drew a link between the two. I just didn't understand what the link was yet. By the end of 2017, my husband was dead. Suicide.

Nothing.

Middle of the night walk to the kitchen without turning one light on? Also nothing. By all standards of sanity, I should have seen this as proof that the hat man was never there to begin with. But instead, all I could think about was that he couldn't touch me because he hadn't come for me. Yikes. Yikes is right. Yeah, that's a really disturbing story. It really is because, I mean...

You know what this fan is saying is that her partner was just this like lively, vivacious, fun-loving guy. And like, okay, sure. I definitely had the thought that like maybe he was a cocaine user all along and that's why he was so lively. And it just finally caught up to him. Yeah. But it...

I feel like the way that this person has written this story, I feel like they would have revealed that. Yeah, shared that detail. Yeah, because they're not – I don't get the feeling – again, I mean, they say, like, I'm not telling this story to discredit other paranormal stories or to make anybody else's struggle with mental illness, drug addiction, or anyone who –

has been, you know, affected by death, by suicide, they're not looking to exploit anything. So like, they're just, they seem like a very honest and sincere person. I feel like that would have come out. Yeah. And then like the placement of some of his outbursts in the hallway, like,

Where she had seen the hat man and then also like the weird birds dying in the garage where. Yeah, like slamming into the garage window and dying. Like just, it's weird when birds do that in general, just fly right into a window. And I understand that like sometimes it's so clean. Totally. But a garage window is like not the cleanest window in the house. Yeah, not normally. Yeah, and then for that, for him to do what he did at the end. Yeah, there's just a lot of strange details in that story. Yeah, a lot of like.

If he died in the garage and then the birds died there, he was the most angry at the end of the hallway. Yeah. And that's interesting that just the thought of like the hat man is an omen. Or a possession. I mean, she definitely explores that as well. Like, you know, but then writes it off and is like, no, I don't think so. Right. So creepy though. We've got a lot of heavy ones today. I know. Gosh. All right. Well, let's go on to like a slightly less heavy one. Okay. Hey guys, what's going on?

My name is John, and I thought I would share something with you. I usually wouldn't share personal stories, but this is a must. Like so many before this experience slash encounter, I did not believe in spiritual beings, ghosts, and so on, but that has changed now. I work as a construction remodeler for very wealthy residential homeowners. Some of these high-end homes are new builds, but most of them are very old homes being rebuilt.

A few weeks back, myself and another employee began renovations inside of a house that was built in 1901. The first day, everything seemed normal. The homeowners were living in the house as it was being renovated, but informed us that the next day they would be leaving for a four-day vacation to Chicago and were taking their kids with them so the house would be vacant for the remainder of our stay.

The next day, we were setting up our equipment to begin the job when my co-worker informed me that he would need to leave for a couple of hours to go to another job site to help some other foreman. He would be back later on in the day. This left me in the house all by myself. No biggie. Happens all the time.

When my helper left, I was upstairs working in one of the children's bedrooms. I had both of my AirPods in, listening to music at a very low volume, when from downstairs, I heard the back door open and shut as if someone had walked inside. I took out one of my AirPods, thinking that my helper was back. I heard cabinet doors opening and shutting, which was really odd for my co-worker to be doing. Feeling a bit uneasy, I yelled out, Jeff, I'm upstairs, bud!

thinking maybe he was roaming the house looking for me. As soon as I yelled out to him, clear as day, I heard footsteps walking towards the stairs. The footsteps began going up the stairs, so I stood up to meet Jeff. I opened the door and said, Hey man, let's not... But I was speaking to the air. No one was there.

The room grew colder as if someone opened a window letting cool air in. I stood there dumbfounded and told myself I must be going crazy. The room temperature went back to a normal one and I was back in my work area. Nothing out of the ordinary happened for the next two days. On the last day of the job, I was ordered to finish the job by myself, which meant I would be at the house alone again.

Throughout the day, I worked with my AirPods in. It constantly felt like I was being watched. I had this urge to look over my shoulder every couple of minutes. I kept taking one earbud out because I could have sworn I heard the back door open and shut or the kitchen cabinets opening and shutting, followed by footsteps walking around downstairs. I was on edge, feeling really freaked out.

Towards the end of the day, as I was collecting all of my things, I felt the urge to use the bathroom. I walked downstairs to use the lower level bathroom, which was incredibly small and had no lock on the door handle. As I sat down, I literally held the door to keep it closed. I could have left the door open since no one was there, but I felt a bit weird shitting in someone else's house with the door wide open. I'm glad I held the door shut.

As I was using the bathroom, I heard footsteps clear as day right outside the bathroom. I began to panic. My heart was beating extremely fast when someone grabbed the bathroom door handle and yanked down it so hard it lifted me off the toilet slightly. I screamed, someone's in here, knowing that no one should have been in that house with me. I sat there for a minute shaking. I pulled myself together, cleaned up, and slowly opened the door.

Nothing. I saw no one. Freaked out, I finished cleaning my workspace and grabbed my tools. Still feeling like someone or something was watching me, I locked the house up and started loading my tools into the truck. I sat in the truck for a minute, jotting down notes on my worksheet.

Leaves around my truck began to rustle as if someone was walking up to where I was parked. I was stunned. I saw two apparitions of two small arms sticking out from behind a column in the backyard. I knew there was no way two people could have walked past my car without me noticing. They also couldn't have been in the backyard because the whole house was gated with only one entrance, which was the driveway I was parked at.

An uneasy presence came over me. I threw my car in reverse. Time to get the fuck out. As I did, I saw two small, dirty, weathered-looking children wearing what seemed to be old soccer uniforms that were extremely discolored.

I slowly came to a stop and took in their faces. They looked like twins, and the look on their faces was the most disturbing look I've ever seen. They looked at me with evil grins, as if they were happy with my fearful reactions. They appeared demonic, evil, and extremely unpleasant.

I stared for only a couple of seconds before I hightailed it the hell out of there, and I told my boss I would not be going back to that place, that there was something not right with that house. I listened to horror podcasts and I watched horror films, but only absorbed it as entertainment. Until now. Going from a non-believer to someone who has witnessed the paranormal is a scary thing. John.

Yeah, John, that's a scary sighting. This is the whole thing of like, I'm surprised we actually don't hear more stories like that about like, you know, people working in someone else's home. Yes. Yeah. And then just experiencing all this, you know, traditional kind of poltergeist activity. I mean, this one with the extra kicker of like the two childlike apparitions in the backyard, which is super creepy. So creepy. But outside of that, all of the classic, you know, footsteps, feeling of being watched, you know,

And then like, you know, doors opening and closing on their own. I know. I've thought about like recently we had a handyman at our house, you know, doing some odds and ends. And it would never have occurred to me prior to the story to be like, hey, man, so you were at my house all day. Anything creepy going on? Yeah. Notice anything upstairs? Yeah. Yeah. And I should. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Like, well, I should if I want to know, which I guess ultimately I don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. Yeah, you might regret asking that question very much. Could you imagine? He's like, actually. Oh, yeah. That was, yeah, maybe the best not to ask that question. Or what if you're having work done at your house and the contractor is calling you frequently saying like,

Hey, did you just come home? Oh my God. That would be awful. Yeah. Were you just downstairs? Because I heard somebody walking around and some doors opening and shutting. Yeah. I thought maybe you came home for lunch or something. Maybe you forgot something. Nope. God. Terrible. We should ask your dad if he has any great stories from all the years of working in houses. He would say something if he did, I think. But yeah, but I should ask. Yeah. I mean, he told us one story like several years ago, but it was at home. I don't even remember that. I'll tell you later. Okay. He told me not to tell people. Okay.

That sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't remember that. Your dad loves a good tale. True. Okay, one more creepy new creature, I think. Okay. Okay.

Hello, guys. Love, love, love your podcast. This is the scariest thing that I have personally experienced. Time now for the tale of Their Legs Are On Backwards. I was in my very early 20s and I loved reading scary stories that had a supposed truth bent. I would look up stories to see if they would give me chills or if I could call bullshit immediately. It was a pretty fun pastime.

While searching for new stories one day, I found the story of all stories that absolutely creeped me out beyond words and still does. The story was from a newspaper in Salt Lake City. It was an account of two teenagers out after dark. A teenage boy and girl were on a date in a local park. The girl was sitting on the swing while the boy was just talking to her when out of the corner of their eyes, just in the shadows, they saw movement.

The lights were on over the swings and the playground equipment, but the light did not reach beyond there. They claimed they saw a human form with hairy, very large baseball-sized eyes scooting along on its belly with its head in the air, arms down by its side, dragging.

The scariest detail to me was that its legs were on backwards, where the knees were just pointing up as if to push itself forward on its feet behind it, scooting along very slowly.

The teens said they watched it circle around them in the shadows for a good 15 minutes, trying to identify what it could be. It circled closer and closer to the light. The teens decided it was time to get the fuck out. The next morning, they returned to the park to investigate in the light of day. They found footprints in the sand, creating circles from its scoot marks and dragging arms.

The idea of something human like this with knees straight up in the air pushing itself forward on its stomach is such a spooky visual. I was so freaked out by it that I told my dad the story and had a hard time going outside after dark. I lived in Colorado. I mean, what if this thing scooted itself all the way from Salt Lake City to Colorado?

My dad told me that it was likely someone with serious deformities that was trying to get out at night when no one would judge them. His explanation made more sense than the alternative, so every time I would think about this story, I started to feel bad for this poor, deformed person. And this all made sense and put my fears to rest. I forgot all about it until 2012. I was newly divorced and had moved into my own three-bedroom, two-bath place with my two sons.

My sons were always bringing home stray kids. If someone had a bad home life, they ended up at my house. They were mostly good kids, though their parents seemed to be problematic. One of the kids my son brought home, Shane, had just turned 16. His parents were much older and had already raised their other kids who were now in their 30s.

They seemed very uninterested in raising Shane. Shane was always super helpful, a good student, and got along with everyone. He'd been sleeping on the couch for two weeks when he did not come home one night. I was a little bit concerned, but also he did have two parents, so I just thought he must have gone home. Early in the morning, two days later, Shane showed up with another boy, and holy smokes, did they have a story to tell.

Shane said that the two of them decided to go to the other boy's house late in the day, which was way up in the woods. The other boy's parents owned property and had a home right in the middle of BLM land. The boys had wanted to get out of town and check on the other boy's mom. She was an alcoholic and had been yelling for days about seeing Chupacabra. They never paid attention to her because she was always drunk when she had these sightings.

This time of year in Colorado, it's notorious for wildfires that very quickly become uncontrollable, turning into full-fledged forest fires. As the boys were driving, they noticed a lot of fire trucks parked along the side of the road. They assumed it must have been a controlled burn because there had been no notifications of any fire activity in the area.

As the sun was setting, the boys noticed two figures up ahead lying in the middle of the road. They described the figures as having very large, dark eyes about the size of baseballs covered in hair. They said it looked like the creature's legs were on backwards. The boys swerved around the two figures and rushed to make it to the other boy's mom.

When they arrived at the house, they full on ran inside, grabbing the boys, dad and mom, frantically yelling about the things in the road. I told you it's the Chubacabra, the boy's mom said. They all jumped in the boy's car and took off down the road, this time with a loaded weapon. When they arrived at the spot, there were now four of these things in the road standing up.

They were ridiculously tall and their legs, instead of bending forward like a human knee, bent backwards. They stopped the car, gasping at these things just long enough to get their attention. All four of these beings charged the car. The boy threw it in reverse, speeding away. The four of them stayed up all night talking about what it was they had seen. No one had any idea what these things could have possibly been.

The next morning, Shane and his friend, in the light of day, returned back to town. As they were driving, they saw the same fire trucks and also men on four-wheelers everywhere. And instead of hoses and axes, they were holding AK-47s. They told the boys to go back to where they came from, that, quote, there was a fire in the woods and it was not safe. But who fights a fire with guns? The boys did as they were told and returned home, staying all day and all night.

The next morning, they woke up early and hightailed it back to town, to my house, where they told me this crazy story.

Honestly, I wouldn't have believed a word they said except that they described the exact same creature that the kids in the park in Salt Lake City had seen all those years before. What are these creatures with hair all over them, eyes the size of baseballs, and legs on backwards? I'd love to hear your thoughts, creeps and peepers.

I have no idea. I don't know, but it sounds awful. And that's crazy. Like a posse was out looking for that. That's yeah, that's wild. That is wild. But like, I guess if you got enough calls from enough people saying like,

We saw something in the woods. Yeah. They might not think it's like a paranormal thing. They might just think like it's a hog or who knows, or some weirdo or just like, yeah, they're just trying to get to the bottom of it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I have a hard time believing that, uh, police and firemen are going to be out in full force hunting Chupacabra. Exactly. Exactly. True. How was work today, honey? Well, it's, yeah, it was really fun. Me and John and Brian, we were out there, you know, hunting Chupacabra. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. That's not happening. Nope. Um,

And then, but then the thing about the park, like the first part of the story, like the two kids at the park. I mean, I had so many thoughts, like one, um,

I mean, I guess, I don't know, if you're young teens and hormonal, you don't want to, like, leave your opportunity to do whatever at the park. Yeah. But I'm like, 15 minutes and this thing is, like, circling you? I don't know that, like, I would stay that long. And then also, like, his dad's explanation or the storyteller's dad's explanation, his or hers, of, like, this could have been a disabled person. I loved that. But I'm like, there's no way.

it's just going to circle two teams in the dark for 15 minutes. No, it's a terrible explanation. I just love that that's what the dad, he was like, okay, what can I just like, he's like clearly to his child, like, please shut the fuck up. You know, like let it go. Move on. Let me give you this. Like, but I love that it like caused so much empathy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Oh, okay. You know what? That's fair. And then I was just thinking just a question for you. It's like,

You know, cryptid stories are so different than a lot of other kind of, you know, paranormal encounters, supposed paranormal encounters, whatever.

If you could pick one, you get to have a definitive sighting where you see either the apparition of a ghost. Like clearly this is like an image of some human person that I'm kind of seeing through or just their shadowy form, but it's not a trick of light. It's not, you can't write it off as like, oh, there's just a weird shadow. I'm totally sober, blah, blah, blah. I saw the ghost. Or you see a weird animal, cryptid animal, like clearly see a beast that doesn't look like any known animal.

Like, which would you choose? Or you can say, like, which is scary? Which one do you not want to see? It's so tricky because, like, I have follow-up questions. On the ghost, is it the ghost of somebody I know or is it just a ghost? Let's say it's a ghost of somebody you know. Okay. Now, on the animal thing, it's like, am I aware that I'm having a paranormal sighting? Yes. When you see it, it looks like not only does it not look like any animal you know of, it doesn't look like any creature of this earth. Okay. I choose ghost of someone I know.

Because that's less scarier? Yes, because, okay, if it's a creature, if it's like some like weird, you know, Last of Us, you know, mushroom head, whatever. Oh my God, yeah. You know, if it's, especially in this season, I don't know if anybody's watching, but like the souped up version, it's like, I'm just scared that that thing is not contained to the woods.

It's not contained to wherever I'm seeing it. This is the beginning of a bigger problem. Yes. It's the beginning of a bigger problem. It's the bigger of a bigger problem. It's a bigger, bigger problem. It's a bigger, bigger problem if you know what a bigger, bigger problem is. Yeah. And now I'm scared to do like road trips.

I'm scared to go hiking. Like it starts to eliminate things from my life that I enjoy doing. Hiking, camping, a good road trip, you know, like going down a random road and just seeing like, oh, where does this take us? It kills a lot of my sense of adventure. Because now I feel like I need one of these AK-47s in case I run into a giant mushroom head. Right, right, right, right. Ghost of my grandfather. I'm like, what's up, pops? Like, that's kind of fun. Yeah. I mean, I also don't love it.

I guess it depends on how the ghost acts. But yeah, yeah. It could be scary. It could be comforting. It could be both. Yeah. What about you? Ooh. I mean, you had to know I was going to turn it back on you. I'm not just letting you get away with that. I didn't think that. I don't know why I didn't think that. But I think that's so tricky because they're both very cool in their own ways. I might lean towards, if it's somebody I know, I might lean towards...

Ghosts because I would be nice to know that there's proof that there's life after death. Okay. And that somebody's consciousness can, you know, continue on. That's very cool. But like if, okay, random ghosts versus cryptid, cryptid. I would pick cryptid because I'm like, then it makes me think like, did this come from another planet? And it gets my brain going in like an extraterrestrial direction, which is very exciting to me.

Like scary in kind of a fun way. I know random ghost doesn't fill me with joy because I'm like, well, how often are you going to come back? What is it that you want from me? You know, ghost of someone I know is like, I have a message or I'm just letting you know I'm all right or that I love you or whatever. Rando, not great. Yeah. Okay.

These conversations are so funny. You want to thank some Annabelles? Oh, do I? Oh, do I? All right. We'll be announcing the May charity in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, thank you so much, Roberts and Annabelles, who make all of this possible. And specifically, Annabelles, thank you for being double contributors. Monica Crispel, Ebonfeather, Jade Biondo, Nancy Pope,

Kirsten. I love the way it's written. Ian Ferguson, Andy Massey, Leanne Puffenberger, Chandler Christensen, and Amanda Buss. Nice. Nice. I would like to thank the following Annabelles as well. Victoria Rotman, Berkeley Trumbly, Larisa Harrow,

Ernest Morris. Whenever I hear the name Ernest, I still think of the old Ernest movies, like Ernest Goes to Camp. I mean, I don't ever think of them, but that's nice. Brittany Guidraz or Guidraz or Guidraz. Alex Kalk or Alex Kalky. Hunter Witt. Ruthann Reid. Christina Sisioni.

Heather Laney. All right. And I have several spoopy shout-outs.

To Morgan from Casey, aka the best new auntie, congrats. Hopefully baby girl made her appearance already. I'm so happy for you. You will be an amazing mom. Sending you both so much love. So cute. To Maria from Maria, happy 25th birthday to me. To Sissy Kaylee from Sissy Sierra, happy birthday. I love you more than anything, my soulmate. You are such a special piece in this world. I wouldn't be here without you.

To Steph, from Steph, happy 40th birthday to me. It's been a wild ride undergoing neurosurgery this year, but you got this girl. Remember that. To Melody Rose from your mom, Stephanie, happy 17th birthday. You're so strong, amazing, and so loved.

And to Toto and Zuzu from your dad, a.k.a. Titty Sister, happy belated birthdays. I love you both so much. From your dad, a.k.a. Titty Sister? That is hilarious. That is fucking whatever the story is there. It is fantastic. And I'll say happy birthday to Maria and Steph, too.

That's nice. Yeah, to give an outside person. I know. I love the emails of like, all right, none of my friends are getting into this. I'm doing it for myself. Yeah. Do you, friend? And that's our show. That's our show. Thanks for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can email us for everything else at info at scaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thank you to Logan Keith scoring today's show. Thanks to Heather Rylander organizing the My Story emails. To book editor Drew Etana polishing preparing listener stories for book number six.

Thank you to Olivia finding the second story I told this week. I found the first and third stories. We're on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at scared to death podcast. Also have a private Facebook group creeps and peepers full of horror lovers and big thanks to the all seen eyes, the creeps and peepers moderators. Enjoy your nightmares, creeps and peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye.

Add magic productions.

Don't say that. That's not true. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Not a fun thought. No.