16x26: Camping Trip with Miley Cyrus’ Official Stalker

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[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_00] This podcast contains adult language and content. The stories shared in this podcast are told from the perspective of the authors. Their accounts and opinions are personal and do not reflect the stance of the production team. If you have a story to share, send it to letsnotmeetstories at gmail.com. Enjoy the show.

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00] This took place in the summer of 2009 when I was 14. For reference, I'm a 25-year-old woman.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_00] My family wasn't super financially well off, but my dad managed to pull together a family camping trip to Savannah, Georgia. Though Savannah wasn't home to the most beautiful beaches, there was a beach there that held a lot of sentimental value. I remember camping on Tybee Island many times as a kid. I was over the moon when I heard that we were going to go there.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_00] It was exciting to go back for the first time since I was a much smaller kid, and this time I was able to bring my best friend. The weekend had never looked more enticing. The trip started normally. We got to the campsite and my dad started to set up his tent. My oldest brother and his girlfriend were just hanging out while my other older brother was busy exploring the site, and my friend and I hung out on the picnic table near the rather small tent.

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER_00] After everything was set up, we were all just hanging out relaxing as it was already getting late by this time. We were just chilling and smoking a joint when our camp neighbor popped out of his tent. He must have smelled our weed, so he came over and introduced himself. We'll call him Dan. He was probably mid-fifties, around six feet tall, give or take an inch or two. And he had gray hair that was about ear length. Seeing him kind of made my skin crawl.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00] So Dan approached us, introduced himself, and asked to smoke with us. My friend and I didn't partake in the group chat, as we just didn't really give a shit, like most teen girls wouldn't. So we just conversed amongst ourselves, close by, so that we could still smoke. But we kept our distance so we wouldn't have to engage in conversation with Dan. I wasn't too worried, as I had my two older brothers and my dad there to protect us.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00] And one thing about my middle oldest brother is that he was a wild little shit, who probably would have killed the guy if he tried anything funny. But regardless, I was still aware of how much he gave me the creeps. However, he didn't try anything, so that was cool. He just played guitar with my dad and my oldest brother until we decided to crash. That night, my friend and I decided to sleep on the picnic table.

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_00] The tent with my dad felt too small, and we felt too cool to share a tent with him anyway. One of my brothers was already sleeping in the car, and my eldest brother took off with his girlfriend to go sleep on the beach. So my friend and I decided, fuck it. Let's sleep on the table. This was a bad idea. We spent the whole night getting eaten by mosquitoes and feeling like we were being watched. It was terrible. We slept in the car for the rest of the trip.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_00] The next morning, Dan popped up on us again as we were smoking a bowl while readying ourselves to go get breakfast. My dad, being a total gentleman that he is, invited Dan to come along. He still seemed normal enough. He never said anything weird to my friend or me. But I could sense that something was off about him. But again, I felt safe with my brothers and my dad. I felt like just the appearance of my dad there would be enough to make him steer clear of us.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00] My dad's not too tall, but he's fit. He's covered in tattoos with long hair and several facial piercings. He's a total metalhead, and despite having a big heart, he has the male equivalent of resting bitch face. So breakfast started normally. We were all baked and giggling. We were enjoying our breakfast while Dan suddenly piped up. He started talking about the show Hannah Montana. The rest of us exchanged glances like,

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_00] Is this grown man really raving about a tween television series? As we sat back and listened, Dan went on and on about how beautiful Miley Cyrus is, how much he hated the character Oliver, and how cool the character Lily was. We were all looking at him like, what the fuck? When the real fucking dinger was thrown out there.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00] This guy, this delusional man, told us that he was in a relationship with Miley. He said that when she had a love interest on the show, it was really just a subliminal message that she was sending to him. He said that the lyrics in her music were all for him. We were shocked, since it was pretty clear that this guy was mistaken. What would the point be? So we just nodded our heads and hurried to finish our breakfast.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00] Nobody even had to say what we were all thinking. Later that day, we had digested our food a bit, relaxed and smoked, and we all decided to hit the beach. The part we went to was near a pier and a bunch of shops, so my friend and I decided to wander around and get a little time away from the testosterone. We roamed the shops a bit and picked out some cute necklaces. We then headed over to the pier.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00] Now, the entrance to the pier had this little gazebo with tables and drink machines, stuff like that. So my friend and I decided that we were going to plant ourselves there for a bit to cool off. We were chilling there, talking about normal teen stuff, when I spotted Dan sitting just a couple of tables behind us. My friend was sitting with her back towards Dan's direction, so I quietly let her know that Dan was there watching us

[00:07:48] [SPEAKER_00] and said that we should probably get out of there. So we got up and started heading towards the beach. We got off the pier, made it to the beach, and thought we were in the clear since we hadn't seen him get up after us. But of course, we were wrong. Not long after entering the beach part of the area, we saw that he was walking behind us.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00] He wasn't walking too close, but close enough that it was blatantly obvious that he was indeed following us. So we silently came up with a plan. In case he caught up to us, we agreed that we would jump him if he tried anything. We were two small teen girls, but my friend was a crazy little Gemini who had also been attending kickboxing classes regularly for years. The girl could roundhouse kick the shit out of him,

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00] and he wouldn't even expect it. So she made me feel brave and unafraid. This is the best kind of friend to have in a situation like this. However, as unafraid as I may have been, I still knew our best shot would be finding either one of my brothers or my dad. Fortunately for us, we saw my brother and his girlfriend relaxing on the beach not too far ahead. So we rushed up to them, and Dan veered off somewhere else. Once we were sure he was gone,

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00] we started telling my brother about Dan following us. He was clearly bothered, but told us to just stay close, keep an eye out, and let him know if he says anything weird. And that was that. I have no idea if he wanted to snatch us up or simply follow us around. I don't recall seeing Dan again that night, or on our last day there. His gear was gone by morning, and we all breathed a sigh of relief because, let's be real,

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00] Dan was strange. We were all pretty stoked to spend our last day without him. Our last day was great. We had a blast, and Dan never came back, so we packed up and waved goodbye to Savannah as we all laughed and discussed all the crazy shit that Dan had said during that trip. We could all agree that this seemingly super nice and normal middle-aged man had given us a trip to remember. But there's more.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_00] After about a week or so of being home, my dad was watching the news when guess who popped up on the screen. You guessed it. Headline, Miley Cyrus Stalker arrested in Savannah, Georgia after trying to gain access to studio. Or something along those lines. It was none other than Dan. And there was no mistaking it, they said his name and listed our vacation weekend in Savannah as the time and place of his arrest. And of course,

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_00] the picture solidified any prior doubts. It was him. So during that weekend, when he wasn't with us, he was actively stalking Miley Cyrus and was arrested for trying to get into her studio or wherever she was filming. And that was why he wasn't there that day. We decided, screw it. Let's Google this guy. It turns out that wasn't the first time he had been arrested for stalking her. Dan had been arrested in a couple of different states

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00] as he had been following her around the country. He genuinely believed that they were in love. We found a video of him on YouTube being interviewed by a guy from the news. Dan was talking about how he was there to see Miley and he said he was going to ask her to marry him. He looked so jittery and excited, like someone who was truly excited to propose to the love of their life. I think that was part of what weirded me out the most.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00] He really, truly believed it with all of his heart. As a last thought, I'll leave you with this. I kept wondering why Dan was drawn to my friend and me, and recently, as I relayed this story to a friend, something dawned on me. Hannah Montana or Miley on the show was brunette and her best friend Lily was a blonde. I was a brunette and my friend was a blonde. So, what if he saw us

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00] and had some weird thought of us being like them or something? I don't know, this theory could be a stretch, but my mind was blown when I thought about it. So, to Miley's stalker, I seriously hope that neither Miley nor I have to encounter you ever, ever again.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_00] This happened in 2019. I was in my second year of college and living in a townhome about a ten-minute walk from campus. I lived with two other girls at the time, but they were all back at their parents' house for the holidays. I work in healthcare, and I was working during Christmas, so I was still at home. To start with a bit of backstory, there used to be four of us living there, but one girl had moved out due to issues with her boyfriend.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_00] He was a jackass who abused our kindness and allowing him to stay there. He was only supposed to come by every so often, but he basically ended up living there. We told her she needed to kick him out after an incident with him one night, after he got physical with her and was verbally abusive with the rest of us. She wouldn't listen, and we told her we would have to talk to the landlord. Long story short, she ended up moving out and left on bad terms.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_00] For some additional context, not while living in this house, but while living elsewhere, I was in a physically and mentally abusive relationship, so I understood how things may have been going for her. I tried my best for two years at that point to help her open her eyes to the abuse and help her separate from him, but it is nearly impossible to help people who aren't ready to help themselves. In any case, the nature of their relationship was affecting everyone, and the rest of the roommates

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_00] didn't feel safe with him there, so instead of simply asking him to leave, she moved out. It was Christmas Eve, and I was going to be working the next day, so I was getting ready for bed. I locked the doors, turned the lights off, and went downstairs where my bedroom was. I was scrolling on TikTok for about an hour when I heard what sounded like the chairs in the kitchen moving. The kitchen is right above my bedroom. I thought maybe I was hearing the neighbors next door,

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_00] as we share the same walls and sometimes they can be loud, but I remembered one of them texting me and asking me to bring in a package that they were expecting while they were gone. The noise was short-lived, though, so ultimately, I brushed it off. The next thing I knew, my bedroom door was slowly being opened. At that moment, I got a flashback and I remembered my second grade teacher telling us about the time

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_00] someone broke into her house and she acted as if she were asleep. So, if they were just there to rob her, they wouldn't feel the need to hurt her. This would have been a great plan, but my freaking phone screen was lighting up my face, so I couldn't act like I was asleep. From where I was lying in bed, I could be seen from the door, so we were just looking at each other. There I was, lying in my bed, mentally shitting myself,

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00] while this guy had one foot in my bedroom with the door cracked open. It felt like an eternity. He then slowly retreated his foot and closed the door. I just sat there in complete and utter shock. I couldn't make out what he looked like. My eyes were adjusting to the dark again from the phone screen. All I could see was a backwards baseball cap. I knew I had to call the police,

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_00] but my anxious ass knew that if I called, it would alert my parents' phones. Being naive, I didn't want to make them worry. Also, I was scared that he might still be somewhere in the house, and I didn't know what he would do if he heard me call. So I texted the guy I was seeing at the time and said, Somebody just broke into my house. They came into my room. He snapped me out of it and told me to call the police, so I did. The dispatcher told me

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00] that if I didn't feel comfortable going to unlock the front door for them, they would have to break it down. I told her I didn't care. I wasn't going up there alone. A couple of minutes later, I saw flashlights shining through my window. I heard the police knocking on the door and announcing themselves. They got inside and they asked me where I was. I came out of my room and they came and got me. They had me wait on the back porch while two of them searched the house and one of them stayed with me.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_00] It was like that shit that you see in movies where they have their guns and they turn the corner with their partner and everything. They didn't find anyone and said that nothing looked like it had been taken. They even tried to get fingerprints but they were unsuccessful. They then started asking me questions and informed me that the back door was unlocked and had no signs of being broken into. I told them I locked it. Luckily, the guy I was talking to stayed with me that night but I still couldn't sleep.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00] I kept having to go check every inch of the house over and over. I placed chairs under the door handles on the front and back door and my bedroom door. The next day, I informed the landlord but she refused to come out and change the locks and she never ended up changing them for the rest of the time that we lived there. Every time I go to bed now, I triple check to make sure that all of the doors have been locked. It doesn't matter where I am. I have a dog now and he helps me

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_00] ease my anxiety of intruders and I've also purchased a doorbell camera. I believe it was my old roommate's boyfriend. I think that they may have made an extra key for him because he was basically living there. But I don't understand why he didn't do anything to me, the house, or our belongings. If it were just someone random, I don't know why they wouldn't have done what they intended. And that could be many different possibilities. I'll never know

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00] what the intruder's intentions were that night, but to the man who broke into my house on Christmas Eve, let's not meet again.

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[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00] I grew up mainly in a small town in Texas. My family and I lived in such a small town that everybody knew each other and even if you didn't know someone's name, you at least recognized their face. I grew up with three siblings and we would all walk to and from school together. At the time of this memory, I was a seven-year-old boy and I remember it was an intensely hot day. For some reason, I can't recall,

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00] I was walking home alone that day. This was highly unusual and rarely ever happened. We didn't live too far from the school, but we would take certain tucked-away routes that we perceived as shortcuts. This particular route was occupied by just a few houses and most of them were empty, so it was usually very quiet. It was an inactive area where you were unlikely to encounter any cars driving by. I remember thinking

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00] it was so hot that day and my backpack was heavy, so I couldn't wait to get home. Halfway to my house, quietly out of nowhere, I heard a car slowly driving behind me. After walking for a while, I finally turned around to see that it was a small black car and I could see that there was more than one person in it. Being a very shy and anxious kid, I tried to ignore it and keep walking, but it continued

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00] to slowly trail behind me. Part of me thought that this was all a prank. After what seemed like forever being slowly followed, I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, so I stopped walking and I stepped further aside to see if they would just eventually pass me. Even at the time of this happening, I never thought that I was in danger because this small quiet town was known for being so safe

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00] and like I said, everyone knew each other. The car then slowly drove up to me and rolled down its passenger window. There were three young men in the car. They weren't teenagers and they looked like they were in their 20s. I remember being caught off guard by not recognizing any of them, which was very strange for this town. The guy in the passenger seat then smiled and asked, hey, do you need a ride?

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00] Still being ignorant and not sensing any danger, I thought it was tempting because it was so hot outside. Regardless of actually wanting to get into the car, I just said, what? He repeated, do you want a ride? Then the guy in the back seat of the car began to open the back door to let me in as he grinned at me. Once again, even though I actually wanted a ride home, I just said, what?

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00] All three of them laughed and the man, still smiling, asked again, do you need a ride? At this point, I was embarrassed and anxious. The neighborhood was eerily silent aside from our interaction. The silence in the background was interrupted by the sound of a screen door opening in the distance. I then noticed a familiar elderly woman just looking at us from her door. Looking back, I think she did this to let them be aware

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_00] of her presence and possibly scare them away because this was obviously a very sketchy scene that she was witnessing. When I turned back around to look at the men, none of them were smiling anymore. They all looked suddenly serious. Then, the guy in the passenger seat took a much more stern tone and abruptly said, get in the car! I felt like I was being put on the spot and I could feel a sense of urgency so naturally

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_00] I became even more nervous and once again I just said, what? I then heard the screen door shut and the elderly woman stood on the porch making her presence even more evident. The men were all clearly very annoyed and the man in the passenger seat then said, forget it. Then, the guy in the back seat shut the door and they quickly drove off. I turned to the elderly lady on the porch

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_00] and she gave me a gentle smile. I shyly smiled back even though I was completely oblivious to the danger of the situation and then I continued to walk home. It wasn't until years later that I realized how shady this situation was. I'm so grateful that the old woman essentially scared these men away. I was so close to voluntarily getting into their car and if she weren't there who knows

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_00] what these men would have done when they lost their patience. It gives me chills to think about what may have happened if I had gotten into that car with those strangers. So I'd like to say thank you to that kind elderly woman and to the three strangers in that black car let's not meet.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_00] This happened over 20 years ago and I had forgotten all about it until recently. I wanted to share this because I think it's a good reminder that sometimes the most unexpected things can happen when you least expect them. This really made me feel like I couldn't be safe anywhere and it caused me to be hypervigilant every time I left the house. That feeling stayed with me for a long time afterward. It was winter time about 11 in the morning and I was standing

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00] at a bus stop. This bus stop was in a mini mall where there was a bigger department store a dollar store and another little shop. I was going to catch the bus to my brand new job and that day was going to be my very first day there. So I was excited but I was also nervous. I definitely wanted to make a good impression. While I was waiting for the bus I realized I was running about 15 minutes early and I also noticed that I had forgotten my gloves.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_00] It was bitterly cold out and my hands were freezing. I only had a couple of dollars on me but I figured I might be able to find some gloves at the dollar store. When I went into the store it was quite big. There was nobody shopping around in there yet. The only other person I saw was the older man behind the counter at the front. He gave me a big smile and came around the counter to greet me. I asked him where the gloves were located

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00] and he told me that he would show me. As soon as he said this he laughingly grabbed my left hand with his right hand and started walking me towards the back of the store. The back of the store had a display table with various items on it including toys on the wall behind the table was a section displaying winter items and just to the right of that was a door labeled employees only. Everything happened really fast. When he grabbed

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00] my hand and started bringing me towards the back I kind of awkwardly laughed because he was laughing. I just thought that he was overly friendly and he was trying to be helpful. I had also been in this store a couple of times before and both times this guy was there. I always saw him ringing people up and he was always happy smiling and laughing with every customer he interacted with. I never got any weird vibes any other time I was there.

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_00] So just as we got back to that area out of nowhere his hand clamped around my wrist really hard. His other hand then reached over and grabbed my chest ridiculously hard. He tried pushing me towards the door that said employees only. I couldn't believe how fast everything changed and how quickly this was happening. I was so happy I had worn my shit-kicking boots that day because the only thing I could do was kick him in the shin

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00] and try to pull away. We went back and forth with me trying to get away while he tried everything he could to hold my arm tighter. He also kept trying to push me towards that door even though I was landing kicks. In all this he lost his balance and he started to fall onto the display and that was when I was able to get my arm away. I took off running as fast as I could. I ran into the back of the big store next door

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00] which had a customer service department where there were other people and phones. So to try and wrap this up I used the store's phone to call my mom because I didn't know what to do. I was confused. I was trying to process what just happened so I wasn't sure if I should call the cops or what. I ended up missing the bus which meant that I definitely complicated things for my first day at my new job but I did end up calling the cops after I got off the phone with my mom who came to get me.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_00] Even though I was alright after the situation I ultimately decided to call because what if I hadn't gotten lucky what if the guy ended up doing it to somebody else and they didn't get away. What if something even worse happened to the next person? After I called the police they arrested him and we had to go down to the station to give our statement. About one week later there was an article in the newspaper about how they arrested five people who owned that dollar store because they had apparently

[00:30:22] [SPEAKER_00] been up to some shady shit. As I said at the beginning this messed me up for quite a while after that I didn't feel safe when I left my house. All I wanted to do was buy a damn pair of gloves that day. So to the guy at the dollar store let's not meet again. In 2018 I ended up in a small town that didn't have very

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_00] much until it wasn't I woke up one morning and my friend had gone to work leaving me with their parent for the day. I sat with my friend's parent and talked for a while until they offered me some water. I accepted and they poured it from a jug as they explained city

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_00] water is so bad for you so I get well water from my sister. Everything seemed fine but I found that the well water was a bit odd. I tried not to think too much about it though. I'm from a big city and I'm not really exposed to well water so I assumed it was the difference. I should mention that I spend my time watching people and their body language micro expressions things like that. I do this in conversation

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_00] because I find it interesting. Over time I noticed a bit of a shift. My friend's parents started saying things like the world is a cruel place for beautiful people like you but we won't ever be. They talked about how they had always been there for me and kept me safe. They also said how they hoped that I had spent a

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_00] time made when I was taking sips of water. Eventually they were telling me to drink the water and I told myself that I was being paranoid. I told myself that my friend's parent was only insisting I drink the water because they were being a parent fretting over health stuff. And

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_00] later in the evening my friend's parents started talking about other things like how the government wanted their secrets because they had found a way to cure terminal illnesses. And then the

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_00] chemical hypnosis. Essentially things were getting strange so I contacted my parents and asked if they would switch my travel ticket so that I could depart sooner since my bad feeling about being in this new place was getting worse. I left my phone unattended while I washed my hair and then my friend came home from work. I felt better afterwards and I sat in the kitchen with them feeling kind of ridiculous for being nervous about the well water and the

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_00] uncommon ideas but when I saw my friend's parent fill up my friend's water bottle with tap water that was it for me. I said I was tired leaving in three hours because of a family emergency. I saw my psychologist a few days after I returned home and she said did you get a blood test when you got back? You should have.

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_00] She told me that the behavior lined up with how any information to come up in a test. I haven't heard from the friend that I was visiting since I left and I haven't reached out. I'm healthy and sober with my mental health under control but this still makes me so nervous to talk

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_00] about. In the summer of 2021 my boyfriend and I were staying on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. The house we were renting had terrible phone service. To get

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00] a signal we would have to walk or drive to the main road. It was about a mile walk down the hill. No street lights. Our relationship was very toxic. We fought all of the time and when we did he would take off and leave me at the house with no car and no cell service. This was one of those times. My boyfriend had been sitting in his truck listening to music. When I looked out the window his truck was gone. I

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_00] was trying to call him. The gas station was another mile away. It was very dark, probably around 1am. I was walking and this old blue pickup truck drove by and came to a stop about the equivalent of a block away. The man driving the pickup didn't say anything and I couldn't even see him. But he opened his door. Another car came toward us, so he ended up

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_00] it was odd but I shrugged it off. About five minutes later the truck came back. This time it was driving towards me on my side of the road. He was driving very slowly. The windows were darkly tinted, so much so that I was unable to see the driver. I then noticed that what I had thought was a canopy in the bed of his truck was actually made out of wood.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00] I then turned around and started to head back to the house but of course I saw the blue pickup truck once again. I got a close look at the wooden thing and it appeared to be some kind of cargo or wooden box with a door. He stopped again about a block away, pulled over, and opened the door just like he did the first time I saw him. And when another car approached he took off. My boyfriend wasn't answering my calls this entire time

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_00] but I managed to get back to the private road that headed up to the house. That damn truck was coming back as I was about to turn on the road so I passed the road and kept walking. I didn't want this driver to know what road I lived on I also didn't want to lose phone service. So once again I walked along that road with the consistent traffic since that seemed to scare him off. This time I started taking pictures of him.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_00] I sent the pictures to my boyfriend and my best friend. I said that if something happened to me look for this truck. The truck took off again and I thought maybe I was safe since I called my best friend and asked him to stay on the phone with me. I had started walking back toward my road. I figured I was safe because the truck hadn't come back. Right when I started up my road the truck came back again

[00:38:34] [SPEAKER_00] so I started running faster than I ever had in my life. Instead of running to my house I ran up the hill and into the woods. I saw the headlights go by. The truck continued past where all the houses were and I kept running up toward the house but I still stayed close to the tree line. I ducked down behind a tree and a bush. The truck went back down the hill very slowly. Once it felt safe

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_00] I emerged and started making my way back to the house. The truck came back again though. When I saw it I was ducking behind somebody's fence. I couldn't believe how relentless this person was. Eventually I made it safely back to the house. I could hear every time that truck came back and he made it obvious that he was circling me. Even after I was inside the house I heard him drive by about every 25 minutes for the next three hours at

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_00] least. By then my best friend had driven an hour to get there. My boyfriend finally checked his text messages five hours later and came home acting all worried. Whoever that guy was I don't know why he had a wooden cage built on his truck but I hope we

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[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_00] When I started 7th grade, I started hanging out with the meanest kid in

[00:41:59] kids.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_00] There were a lot of them, and half of them were family. The ones who were related all lived in what we called the hauler. Hauler folk are not to be trusted, and if you're from a small rural area, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The kids were ranging from the age of 9th to 12th grade. They were always in trouble, getting suspended, getting detention, defying authority, and they just looked like a bunch of punks. I had

[00:42:30] [SPEAKER_00] always been a good kid, but a lot of things changed during this era for me. My mom married this leech, who she insisted was a human around this time. He was both verbally and emotionally abusive to me, my brother, and my sister. We had essentially become estranged from our mother during this time because of said leech. She never seemed to have time for us or our problems anymore. She was always a single parent up

[00:43:00] [SPEAKER_00] until this point, but honestly, not a good one. So when I met a bunch of other angry kids, it made me feel better, and soon, I started doing really bad things as well. One of the holler kids in this family was my age. She and I became best frenemies, so to escape my reality, I tried to spend as much time at her house as possible. I hated it. Those people lived like animals, but it was

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_00] better than going home. As a side note, going over there led to other terrifying experiences, like the time her grandmother held me cousins, specifically the one that we called P-Bob, would often bounce around the holler from house to house, probably out of boredom. P-Bob was about 17, maybe 18 at the time, and it seemed that once he

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_00] noticed I was spending a lot of time at the frenemy's house, he came around more. I can recall one specific time when I started. Our camping trip basically consisted of us setting up an old worn out tent off to the side of their dust bowl property, taking a radio and some off-brand pop and staying in the tent until it got too cold at around

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_00] 3 or 4 AM. As such, they left me out there by myself that night, but that's neither here nor there. Probably at around 10 or 11 at night, P-Bob and another cousin snuck up on our tent and scared us. P-Bob was a big boy, he was large, and he also lifted weights. I remember he had a head like a bull, and he always had the most condescending look on his face.

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_00] Some of the other boys, all of whom were older, were actually really nice, and I really considered them my friends. Spoiler, they P-Bob, however, was always aloof. He was perpetually a smartass, unless he was raging about something. Sometimes, when I'd be at my friend's house, I could hear him in his mom's house next door screaming his guts out at her.

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_00] He had a little sister whom he was unabashedly abusive towards. I even once saw him slap her, no holds barred. I remember being afraid to get out of that tent that night while P-Bob was there, like that old thing was really going to protect me in any way. Well, to skip ahead, there were dozens of other awful encounters with him over the next year or so. He grabbed me one day at school and tried to throw me down a flight

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_00] when I said something about it to my frenemy she belittled me and told me that he was only being funny. She was very cruel and a hateful person. They all were, really. By eighth grade, these quote-unquote friends had really changed me as a person and not for the better. Through me, P-Bob was introduced to a girl whom I frequently argued with named Lorelai. She was a

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_00] girl she and I hated each other immediately. We often fought but never got physical. Long story short, she met P-Bob because of one of our arguments and the two of them started dating. Toward the end of the school year, they broke up. I was oblivious to this as the only conversations I ever had with this girl were limited to giving her shit and her

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_00] to break up. I almost certainly had nothing to do with that, but I thought she was an imbecile, so I laughed it off. The end of the school day came and we all got on the bus. By this point, I had made a bus he

[00:47:36] [SPEAKER_00] immediately locked his eyes on me and gave me the dirtiest look I had ever seen. After he sat down in the seat behind Tasha and me, the bus finally took off. The ride started pretty normally, but about five miles into the ride, he started badgering me. I don't remember everything he said, but for many years, I did. In fact, for years following this event, I would hear his words on a loop and

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_00] experience his verbal attack repeatedly in my mind. It took a long time to stop thinking about it, so honestly, I'm glad that I don't remember it anymore, since he was saying a lot of horrific stuff. I mean said something about me causing him and Lorelai to break up since I had called him a quote unquote player. I

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_00] never did that. I never even heard that word before that day. All my bad kid friends were just laughing at me. Tasha was laughing too. This was one of the few times in my life where I truly lost my ability to speak. So I sat there without saying seats and was across from us. We were about six miles from my

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_00] drop off when he leaned over to Tasha and told her to move back to another seat which she did without hesitation and he jumped into the seat with me. He continued attacking me so I put my face against the bus window and tried to scoot as far into the corner as I could. I guess my refusal to pay attention to him could be what escalated the situation but the next thing I knew he had my head in a vice grip with his arms and he was

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_00] simultaneously strangling me and crushing my face. Keep in mind I was an 8th grader. This guy was supposed to have graduated a year or two prior so legally he was an adult. The school bus driver didn't do a thing to which he would later defend by saying that we kids on the back were always doing that kind of

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_00] it felt as if my cheek bones were collapsing. I don't remember how long this went on because things got blurry after this. I remember he eventually did let go of me then he hit me a few times and then he tried to strangle me again. Not only that but I remember at some point seeing everyone laughing at me but as I said all of that is a blur. The

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_00] was a complete stop and trying to hold back tears. When I got off the bus I ran straight into the house and to the bathroom to hide. I didn't want my mom to see me and I needed a moment to gather myself but the tears were pouring out by then and I couldn't make them stop. My face looked bad. It got worse over the next few days as bruises tend to get darker as they heal. When I didn't come out of the bathroom for a

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_00] while my mom came to the door and asked what I was doing. Tasha who was standing outside the door started crying and spilled the beans. My mom then forced me to come out of the bathroom. The police were called and I had to pose for what felt like an eternity for police evidence photos. My face looked like it had been put in a washing machine with a bunch of sneakers. My throat was bruised and I was scratched up. It was a mess. P-Bob went to jail over this,

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_00] but I actually had no idea that he did until I was in my early to mid twenties. I never rode the bus again for the rest of my years at that school Facebook in 2017. I was quick to decline that one. Kids, birds of a feather flock together. People like these are never your friends. Don't put yourself in the position

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_00] I did because things could have gone much worse. I would say let's not meet P-Bob but if you'd like to get access

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_00] go to patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast to sign up and support the show today. You'll get access to ad free versions of all of our episodes at a higher bit rate plus bonus stories every week in those extensions stories you won't hear anywhere else. Again that's patreon.com forward slash let's not meet podcast be sure to check out the new episodes of my other podcasts like odd trails and the old time radio cast and follow me on twitch at twitch.tv slash cryptic county if you have a story to share send it to let's not meet stories at

[00:53:21] [SPEAKER_00] gmail.com this week you have heard camping trip with Miley Cyrus's official stalker by ken zoe 420 my house was broken into on christmas eve by gwenny lu childhood memory by designer x jerry the worst first day of a new job by spr a parent may have tried to drug me by apathy the truck with the wooden cage by maz cabrona k bonita and

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_00] finally strangled on my way home from school by stray cat diaries all of the stories you've heard this week were narrated and produced with permission of their respective authors let's not meet a true horror podcast is not associated with reddit or any other message boards online if you have a story to share again send it to lets not meet stories at gmail.com we'll see you next week everybody stay safe forget

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