You're listening to a Morbid network podcast. I'm going deep into my wife's family history, digging up the cold.

Case of her murdered great-grandmother. Did I mention that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually the.

Beloved family patriarch? Binge all episodes.

Of Ghost.

Story.

Ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. I'm Elena. I didn't have a microphone in front of.

My face, so that would have been weird. We've been doing.

This for five years. And I still don't remember to put the microphone in front of my face.

And.

This is morbid. Yeah, it is. It's ListenerTales. So it's brought to you.

By You.

For You From You and All About You, and it's Lucy, Mother, and fucking goosey up in here. It is Lucy, and it is very goosey. I have the microphone in front of my face now, so we can do this. I'm going to start this ListenerTales because I'm excited for this tale. Subject line.

Thank you for trying to help.

Me out.

I appreciate that. I will always try. I'm struggling. I will always. I will always try. I will always.

This one's called ListenerTale, Decom on Demaray Drive with a yet for Ash. I was going to say it, don't you forget it. Don't you forget it. But anytime I see a decomp on something, I'm like, huh. You're like, Tell me all about it. It's happening there. Tell me. This says, Well, hello, my.

Spook-alicious ladies.

Of all things morbid and spoopy. Have I got a listener tail for you? I'm confident it will inspire you to yet yourself right out of my.

Childhood memories and right back to the safety.

Of wherever you are listening from. Be prepared to grab your butts and.

Secure your titties.

We're about.

To have some.

Full body chills. Let's go, brother. But first, a little pre-tail gushing. A big shout out to my oldest daughter, Meg. Yes, you can use her first name and my first name. Thank you. Thank you, Heidi. Your name is Heidi. She introduced me to your podcast back on April 15th, 2023, during a short three-hour... A short three-hour road trip? I was like.

That's not short.

That's pretty short, though. Well, for a road trip, yeah. I was going to say for a Girl's Day out shopping. The first episode I heard was the one where you stumbled across a video on the dark web that pictured feet moving around with a suitcase leaking black fluid.

When you went back to find.

It again, the video was gone. Oh, remember those TikToks? Yes. Fuck, I forgot about those. What was the name? I can't remember. No, me either. Dammit. We'll have to see. Then the episode of The Killer Lady Clown who shot her lover's wife in the face, You literally.

Had me at Hello, weirdos. I've been hooked ever since. I went back to episode one and have.

Since finished episode 347, the Jack the Ripper series. You're in a good place. Yeah, you are. All those episodes in under four months. Damn. As most of us hooked on Morbid Weirdos tend to do. I listen to you as I cook. I cook, clean, fold laundry, drive around, etc, etc. Hands down, your podcast is my favorite, and I've told the dozen or so fellow true crime fans to check it out. Thank you. Now to my spoopy story. I've withheld the names of my family members for their privacy. However, I've listed their names and resources for your eyes only at the end of the tail.

On my resources page.

Wow, look at you. I know. In the event your curiosity inspires you to research this case even further. Oh, I hope you do. My research skills or total lack thereof left me frustrated. I have to tell you, ladies, I'm so impressed with your research skills and Dave's. I was going to say mostly it's Dave's. But thank you very much. I couldn't find shit without creating multiple accounts. Forget that. I'll give you all I've got and let you take it from here if you so desire. So here goes. I've attached my listener tail roughly a 20-minute read without commentary called DeComp on Demarade Drive. Enjoy. Let's go. Let's go. I got to bring it up. Bring it back. Back in the Just kidding.

I was.

Like, What? I was doing it again. You were like, Where are we? I thought you were going, Oh.

I was like, What?

No, no, no. I said, Bring it back.

And then I went, Oh.

You didn't see the shoulders of it all.

That's what took me out. Sorry. Back to Heidi tooth. It's not about me. Back in the.

Day, my father worked as.

An insurance agent with a side.

Hustle as a contractor, builder, and craftsman. Damn. He would find a trash heap of a home, buy it for pennies, gut it, remodel it, and flip it for profit. He carried paper on those homes and did so well fiscally that he eventually gave up his insurance work for a Dawn Till Desk self-employed contractor building gig, which incredibly, he is still hard at work today in his mid-70s. Let's go, Papa. Your dad. What can.

I say?

Dad loves what he does. That's great. You'll never work a day in your life.

Hell, yeah.

My little brother and I spent many summers as free laborers for our dad's intensive home renovations. Sure, we'd both grown in unison when dad announced that he bought another Hovell, but we learned some incredible skills of our own and first-hand lessons in the value of hard work and visionary promise. That was a beautiful sentence. The vast majority of my dad's remodeling projects were phenomenal. Everyone who knew him wanted my dad to remodel their kitchens, bathrooms, or build their entire home additions. There was even a time when one of his homes was featured in an architectural digest magazine.

Damn. Look, mama.

We made it. Nevertheless, the home I'm about to introduce you to was not one such phenomenal project. On a Hot July day in Grants Pass, Oregon, is that all right? Dadsit, Oregon Trail. Dad loaded my little brother and me into our family's brown Ford van and took us with him to inspect a potential remodel that was owned by Mr. Floyd Baker, one of my dad's insurance clients. Floyd had fallen on hard times and was looking to sell his house. I like that you made up the names in this and you chose Floyd. I like Floyd. I appreciate that.

It's similar to Boyd, and that's what me and Elena.

Call each other. There you go. Quick side note. If you google the residence, I've attached the information for your eyes only, you'll find that it sits near the west end of Demaray Drive. Today, this area is considered suburbia, with the surrounding pastures divvied up into additional housing and pot gardens. But back when I was just a tween in the mid 1980s, this property was a good 15-minute drive out into the countryside of to get to the transport pass proper. Now back to that feeful July day. Dad pulled up in front of the home's two-car garage, which was and still is attached to the right side of the house.

Its double-wing single-garage door stood gaping.

Open what? You just said double-wing. Oh, I thought he said double-wing. I thought you said wing. It actually says.

Double-wide, but I said double-wing.

I'm 12. You are 12.

You said double-wing.

I was like that. I said wing, and that was.

Still wrong. We out here.

It's double wide. Single garage doors stood gaping open like a dark, yawning mouth. That's scary. I don't know about that. I hate that. Dad told.

Us the same thing.

You're like, I do. I know exactly how I feel about it. Dad told us to stay by the van as he hopped out and greeted Floyd, who approached the van with a toothy grin. I don't like that. I like my man to smile at me with no teeth.

Give me a soft smile. Give me a gummy smile. No, no, no, soft smiles only. Smises. Smise at.

Me, baby. Floyd.

So dad and Floyd mozied.

Off to inspect the house and surrounding acreage. My brother and I quickly grew bored of sitting in the hot van and decided to Lloyder in the shade of the trees near the house. As we tumbled out of the van and moved closer to the house, a horrendous stench slapped our faces and burned our nostrils. Good God. What is that? Death. You said it like that. We were farm kids. We'd smelled dead animals before. A rotting rodent left by the barn cats here. A putrid post-butcher gut pile there. You get the idea. I sure do. I feel like I can smell it. But this smell, far, far worse.

The pungency was profound.

I love that sentence. And it had a disgustingly and indescribably sweet twist to its rancid odor.

Oh, we know that.

That's right. Eew, so gross. Our senses of smell were seared by it.

My brother and I flippantly commented on.

How awful the smell was, but again, boredom and a touch of curiosity sent in. What the heck was taking Dad so long? While we waited, we tried to pinpoint where the nasty odor was coming from. We quickly determined it was coming from the garage. Yep, definitely the garage. We had no doubt. We peered into the dimness of the open garage door with our hands clamped tightly over our mouths and noses. Our eyes took a moment to adjust from the bright summer sun. As our vision came into focus, we noticed that a slab of concrete had been cut out of the parking space on the left side of the garage floor. The missing slab was roughly four to five feet long by two or three feet wide and five or six inches deep right down to the dirt. There were dark red splotches around the missing section of concrete. Weird.

Weird indeed. Along the left side of the.

Garage or like we like to say unique. Yeah, different.

Along the left side of the garage, there was.

A step and a door that led into the house. The bottom half of the door was dented in. Huh, that's odd too. Sure is. The rest.

Of the.

Garage was unassuming. A cluttered workbench stretched along the right side of the garage, and the back wall was covered with overfilled wooden shelving that reached from floor to ceiling. At the back of the garage toward the left side, a door stood opened and offered a peek into the backyard. As I aforementioned, we were '80s kids. I was 10 or 11 and my brother is two years younger than me. So it goes without saying that electronic divergence was not an option for us back in those days. Instead, our curiosities piqued and we resorted to our youthful and warped imaginations for entertainment. What could be a better game than this? One of us decided it would be great fun to see who could run all the way through the foul garage and out the back door without taking a breath. My God. I would have 100 % played this game.

I.

Would not. I don't recall whose grand idea it was, but the game was a foot. It was Alina's. We really was. It was mine. We ran from the front and out the back, then again from the back to the front. Next, we mixed it up by adding a jump over the missing section of concrete slab as we ran through the rancid garage. After that, we realized we were much.

Too successful with.

These minor challenges and decided to see how many times we could run back and forth through the garage without having to gasp for a gulf of putrid air. We were nailing it. Oh, my God. You guys are probably so stinky. So stinky. Jump ahead about a decade. I was with forensics and seriously considered it as a field of study as I headed off to college. However, the memory of my experience in the Demarie garage and how truly disgusting the pong of human decomposition is, persuasively steered me.

Away from that career choice.

I ended up caring for the living rather than the dead. Hey, good.

For.

You. Jump ahead another.

10.

Years. I'm around 30 years old and assisting a surgeon with Lansing a softball size abscess in a patient's groin. That sounds fucking horrible.

You just...

You picked that.

Sentence up and you just dropped it right in front of us. As a softball-sized abscess. You didn't ask me. On the groin. You didn't knock on the door.

You busted.

Through the door.

And you just dropped.

That sentence in my lap. Remember when.

You learned- Now I have to have that. Remember when you learned how to hold a softball and you had to figure out how to arrange your fingers around it?

Still they wouldn't fit because the softball is fucking huge.

On your groin? Yeah. An abscess?

It's going to get worse. We successfully drained about a liter of loose, yellow, pearl. You wanted to read this one. Some stuff.

From the abscess. No, no, no.

She said, leader of loose, yellow, purelescence.

Wait, were you going to skip over the whole thing? No. No, shut up. It had black flex of necrotic tissue in it. Yeat. She just goes, Yeat. I'm so upset. The stench of that drainage was the closest smell to human decomp that I've ever experienced in.

Nearly 40 years. Oh, my God, girly. I just had onion rings for lunch. Why did you do.

That to me? I suppose that would make sense. It was necrotic tissue, after all. In fact, you ladies read a listener tale in which a thoughtful writer tried to describe the reek of human decomp. She was so close. But I remember saying out loud.

What about the sweetness? Thank you.

Ready? No sooner had the words left, but I was going to say I say that. No sooner had the words left my mouth than Elena said, There's a sweet smell, too. Truth. It's my personal conviction that a sweet odor and decomposition is what makes the decomp smell uniquely human. It's true. It's a sickly sweet smell.

That's how I felt about my onion rings today.

They were.

Sickly sweet. No, I got sonic onion rings, and why do they make them taste like cake? I don't like it. They literally have vanilla in them. Why were my onion rings like decalc?

Actually, I, too, know the smell of human decomposition. I do at this point. It was like my sonic.

Onion rings. Honestly, it might be close.

It was like making onion rings.

It was like seizing to cyst. It's true, though.

There's like a weird... You know when something is so sweet that you're like- It smells bad. -i want to launch myself into the sun. That was so bad. I don't know if I know about that. You know how sometimes somebody will give you like you'll order a coffee and they put too many pumps of something in it and you take a sip and you're like, It's just like, Oh, my God.

It does this certain thing to your tongue, I feel like.

Yeah, and it's just human decomp. It's all the horrible smells you can think of of garbage, rotting, but add a sweet... I don't know how to describe it. Like a sweet layer on top that just as you smell that hot, rot, and garbage that turns your stomach, the sweetness leaks in after it. You're just like, well. It's just like you don't know where you're... That was loud. You don't know where you're supposed to go or feel because you're like, it's so confusing.

You know where you go? You go home, Roger. You go home, Roger, and you take a shout-shout.

It's a lot. It's really hard to describe. I think that's why nobody can really describe it accurately.

It's like rotting garbage that a Starbucks barista just goes by and pumps all the caramel on.

Yeah, but she puts like-.

The.

Sugar-free one. I was just going to say the sugar-free one that's somehow sweeter. It's just because it's fake. It's like aspertine. Like, rancidly sweet. It's like, aspertine. Recently, I have been dipping my toes into some different types of writing. Writing for television has always felt like it would be a super fascinating step outside of my comfort zone. Taking a class on the Masterclass app with none other than Shauna Rymes as my instructor has really made me feel confident that I can journey into it and maybe succeed. I found the classes to be detailed, easy to understand, and really fulfilling. Masterclass makes a meaningful gift of the season for you and anyone on your list because both of you can learn from the best to become the best, from leadership to effective communication to writing novels or for television. Honestly, how much would it cost to take a one-on-one class from the world's best? Easily hundreds to thousands of dollars. With a Masterclass annual membership, it's $10 a month. Memberships started $120 a year for unlimited access to one-on-one classes with all 180-plus Masterclass instructors. Learn how to negotiate a raise with Chris Voss, or learn to cook with none other than Wolfgang Puck.

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Now back to the mid 1980s. Dad finally returned with a grumpy look on his face and told us to get in the van. We're leaving. Yeah, I get out of there. My brother and I playfully bounded back to the van, offhandedly commenting on how vile Floyd's garage smelled. Dad merely grunted an agreement. We started back down to Demaray Drive toward our own home, which was less than two miles away. We lived on the road that runs parallel to Demaray Drive along its south side. In retrospect, we live much too close to Floyd's house. Dad was silent for a minute. As we turned off the road, dad finally asked, Do you know what that smell was?

Oh, my God. Is he going to.

Tell you? My brother and I both offered lame ideas, like really rotten garbage. Dad eventually clarified by saying, That was the smell of Floyd's wife. She was murdered in the garage while he was away on business.

He said, So take that rancid smell out of your mouth, okay?

After a beat with our mouths hanging open and our eyes bulging, my brother and I started asking dad all sorts of questions. He calmly, this is a dad, he calmly and matter-of-factly answered each one. How old were you? Good for your dad, just being like, You know what? Here it is. The story was that Floyd's wife was bludgeoned to death in the garage with a hammer that was reportedly plucked from the cluttered workbench. Oh, that's horrific. The removed concrete slab had a bloody footprint or something on it in the wife's own blood, and so it was taken for evidence. The dent in the door was from the wife falling against it during the attack. This is fucked up. That's so sad. She was brutally killed. The odor was from the wife rotting in the garage for two weeks in the heat of summer. Because he was away. Apparently, she had been found by Floyd himself upon his return from the business trip. Oh, my God. The cherry on top was that Mrs. Baker's decomposing body was removed not long enough before my brother and I were carelessly... Were running carelessly through the garage. My dad didn't realize we would be exposed to any of that.

Oof, mistake number one. Mistake number two, my dad decided to buy Floyd's house. What the fuck? Let me repeat myself so that this is plainly clear. My father of previously sound mind, resolved to purchase Mr. Floyd Baker's murder home. That's a choice. Okay, so dad gives each one of us his remod... Excuse me, sorry.

It's okay that you were a little flustered after that. I'm a little flustered. Okay. Take that breath. So dad.

Gives each one of his remodels a unique or sophisticated name, such as the Woodland or the Redwood Falls or the Chateau- I love your dad. -to list a few. But for this, the abhorrent model, we understandably and very simply dubbed it The Murderhouse and still call it that to this day. Honestly, I don't know what else you could name it. In the months following my dad's decision to make The Murderhouse his next remodel, we would show up on site as a family to help deep clean, dispose of garbage, and otherwise assist Floyd with moving out of the home. Poor Floyd. Floyd's wife had a little white Pomeranian, which Floyd claimed to utterly despise. On one such occasion that we were there helping them clean, I distinctively recall Floyd carrying the palm in one arm while dramatically waving one of the dogs, pause at us and repeatedly saying, Bye-bye. Bye-bye. As he climbed into his vehicle with the dog and drove away, No more palm. It turned out that Floyd took the palm to be euthanized, cremated, and buried along with his wife. I didn't see the end of that sentence coming.

I thought you were saying that he came to love the dog. I thought he came to love the dog. And he was like, Bye-bye, going on a trip. That's what I thought too. Oh, my God. Oh, F Lloyd. That's not okay. The end of that sentence was.

Such a jump-scare. That was so mean.

Fucking Floyd.

I feel like I was just tricked.

You were. You were duped. I was like, Oh, bye-bye. Bye-bye. That's what Floyd was like too. And the dog's just like, Okay, that's so sad. And also, it's like, Dude, your wife probably loved that fucking dog.

Damn. Why the fuck did you use it? You know what? Heidi has the right response. What the actual fuck?

You should have given it to somebody else. You don't just kill a dog because you don't want it fluid.

I'm on an emotional roller coaster right now.

It's like Lucy, Lucy, Apple, Juicy.

Damn. Flash forward two decades with me. I'm here with you. Yeah, let's get out of there. I'm working as an ICU nurse, so you are a superhero. Yeah, yeah. I have a male patient who purposely blew half of his lower jaw off, who purposely blew half of his lower jaw off during a failed suicide attempt. Oh, my God. The kicker? He first shot and killed the family dog before attempting to kill himself. I don't think.

That's.

A kicker.

I don't think anybody told you what a.

Kicker was. Well, when I learned of that fact, my mind had instantly gone back to Floyd, cheerfully waving the jaw of his wife's palm as he left to have it euthanized. What the heck? Why not give the pet to someone who would love to have it? Honestly, there are no adequate words for these people.

Truly, that's the thing. Just give it to someone else. God.

Back at the murder house, I remember that the inside of the home reeked of cheap cigarette smoke. The interior walls were formerly white, but had acquired a permanent orange tinge and had brownish streaks of nicotine tar that had dripped down the walls like wet mascara. You paint a picture, Heidi. You do.

Have you ever been in a house where somebody has smoked like that? It's crazy what it does.

To the walls. Oh, it's wild. We scrubbed them as best we could to no avail. The tar persistently seeped through several fresh layers of paint. We eventually resorted to painting them with a special sealant used after grease fires before repainting the walls successfully.

If that's not an anecdote to not smoke ever.

Damn. One day, my mom, brother, and I were cleaning up in the garage, sands the odor of human decomp. Floyd had a large trash can by the workbench. At one point, while tossing some garbage into the trash, my brother spied a bone more than a foot long and nearly an inch in diameter with bits of fatty flesh on it. He anxiously pointed it out to mom and me. Mom, who was an ER nurse, noted that she didn't think it was human. Was she sure? Damn, was she an animal of some sort? We lived on a farm full of horses, cows, dogs, cats, turkeys, chickens, pigs, ponies, etc, and we assisted with butchering our own meat. But this bone was unfamiliar and downright unsettling. Could it be from a child? I asked. My mom didn't think so, but we all agreed it didn't look like a bone we farm folks were familiar with. As we gathered around the trash postulating and gawking at the bone, Floyd came in through the back door of the garage and asked, What are we looking at? The kids are curious about a bone in your trash? I answered my mom with a quick side nod toward the garage.

After a passing glance, Floyd burst out into graveled laughter. That's just a turkey leg bone. No, it's not Floyd. He then turned and sauntered back out the way he had come in.

Why Floyd's always lying?

He's like, He's always lying. That was and still is the strangest turkey leg bone I have ever seen.

Yeah, that's because it was not.

A turkey leg bone. Mom gave us a wide-eyed shrug and we returned to cleaning. But from that moment on, I was exceedingly suspicious of Floyd.

Me too, after.

The bye-bye. August brought the Josephine County Fair to town. My family-owned a vacant lot near the fairground, so we parked cars there every fair season to help pay for the lot's annual property taxes. As a reward at the end of the hot and exhausting week of parking cars all day every day, my parents stayed to park the cars after sunset while my brother and I got to go enjoy a couple of hours of fun at the fair before it closed for the season. We were noshing on cotton candy and strolling through the selection of rads when Floyd literally jumped out at us from around the dark side of a ticket booth. Boo.

Get out of here, Floyd.

You're too wily. You're wicked wily.

It's way.

Too wily. My brother and I gasped and grabbed each other's arms with sticky fingers. Floyd burst into obnoxious cackles, rubbing his hands together with glee. He was pleased. He was plainly very pleased at our fright. Floyd glanced from side to side with his dark, beady eyes. Where are your parents? Everywhere. Oh, they're everywhere?

Everywhere, Floyd. Get the fuck out of here. My parents are everywhere.

Every single person in this fair as my parent, Floyd.

And they'll get you, Floyd.

Oh, they're close to... I love, Oh, they're close by, somewhere, I answered, even though they weren't. Smart. Floyd looked around for a few seconds longer, then said, Well, I guess I'll go find them then. As he disappeared back into the shadows around the ticket booth, my brother and I exchanged horrified looks and took off running the opposite direction. We fled the fair grounds frequently dancing behind us and met up with our parents back at the property. We were unnerved and trembling. My parents looked worried and became hypervigiant and keeping one eye out for us and the other for Floyd, who never did reappear that night, at least as far as my brother and I knew of. Floyd finally moved back to California, I think, from which he had originally come. My entire family breathed a huge sigh relief at his departure. Bye, Floyd. Not too long after Floyd left, my parents received news that Floyd had killed himself somewhere along the Pacific Coast. Oh, that's sad. Only then did my parents start sharing additional details about Floyd. Okay, maybe that's not sad. Apparently, I wondered about this. Apparently, the police believed he had murdered his wife and staged a business trip as an alibi.

I believed it. Oh, shit. Never have I ever met a man creepier than Floyd. Supposedly, he hadn't been arrested because the police didn't have enough evidence to support their theory. Moreover, a local police detective and a close family friend of ours told my parents that Floyd reportedly had at least two former wives who had also died under suspicious circumstances. Fucking Floyd. Jeez, we had associated ourselves with a possible serial killer. Could it get much worse than that? Yes, it could, and it did.

What? I didn't think it.

Was going to get worse. My dad started ripping down walls at the murder house and adding on a master suite. I remember him telling us that he had found some really bad things written on the sheetrock, but he never did say what those things were. Moreover, my dad replaced the dented inner door of the garage and filled it in the missing concrete slab. Everything got a good scrub down and fresh paint, new carpet, new linoleum. However, my dad always felt like he was being watched as he worked, and so he got his remodel project done in as little time as possible. Just the basics. No detailed craft work. By the way, dad's craft work is one of his signature moves. Too bad, Murderhouse. You basic. Well, it's.

Like when Nicole Byers is like, You basic.

I love that he has craft work that he puts in his homes. That's really cool. That's like detail. That's really cool. Astonishingly, my parents decided to use this particular home as a rental rather than selling it. Mistake number three. The first people they rented it to was a young couple with several small children. I don't even think they made it a full month before telling my parents, We can't stay here any longer. Things come out of the walls at night and scare the kids.

I'm sorry. No. Of things come out of the walls. Like, things.

Or people? Several things. Ghost? Apparently, yeah.

Or things. I hate it.

I hate it here. I made a mental note to myself. I don't even know if I'll ever be there at night, but never ever fall asleep at the murder house.

That's a dope mental note.

That is back then.

Write that down.

My mom was part of a women's prayer group. After hearing the news of demons in the walls, no real surprise there, she and her lady friends went through the murder house room by room, praying over it, blessing it, and binding any evil spirits in the name of Jesus Christ. Ash, this is the Christian equivalent of a good saging. I got you, girl. After that, my parents were successful in renting out the home. In 1988, my mom's oldest brother and his wife bought the murder house and moved into it. I remember my aunt asking my dad if he could go under the house and cover any exposed pipes. She explained, Because animals keep getting under there and bang on the pipes. It keeps us awake all night.

That's not.

Animals, baby. My dad had a blank look on his face and responded along the lines of, There aren't any exposed pipes under your house. Another time, my aunt and uncle invited our family over for a movie night. They had a big-screen TV that faced their bed, so the adults all piled on the bed while my brother and I sat on the floor leaning against the foot of the bed to watch the show. At some point during the movie, a huge, rigid gust of air came up through the floor beneath my brother and me. We were startled by it as it shot past us towards the ceiling. We literally had chills running up and down our spines. We asked our aunt and uncle if they had turned on the AC. Nope, no AC. Scared out of our minds, my brother and I left off the floor and into the bed. I remember the adults complaining about not having enough room for all of us on the bed, but my brother and I simply refused to go back down on the floor. I don't blame you. My aunt and uncle only lived there for a couple of years.

My last memory inside the murder house was a time when I was hanging out with my aunt. I wasn't feeling well, so she had me lay down on the couch in the living room while she worked from home. Somehow I fell asleep. Even as I type this, my brain is screaming.

You never write down.

Your dope mental thought. No, you didn't write down that dope mental note. I remember waking up with a start as desk was falling. I couldn't believe I hadn't died or been tortured by a wall demon. Nevertheless, never again would I let that happen. Almost every day from the time I was 11 until I moved out of my family home at 18, I would jog the three-mile loop that consisted of my street, two-side streets, and Demaray Drive. Every time I would near the murder house, I would jog along the opposite side of Demaray Drive and watched the house with a steady side gaze as I neared it and then passed it. I always felt like the house was watching me back. In preparation for this listener tale, I had a couple of details that I simply couldn't pin down. I spent hours, literally hours researching online with zero success, so I resorted to calling my parents. Hey, Mom. I know this is out of the blue, but do you remember when Dad took us to the house on Demaray for the first time? The murder house? Of course. I chuckled to myself at the involuntary note of disgust in her voice as she said, Of course.

Do you remember what year that was or how old I was? Goodness, Mom answered, Maybe 10. I don't remember the year. Let's ask your dad. My dad wasn't sure of the year either. He was certain he bought the murder house from Floyd in the mid-'80s, though, and he knew that my aunt bought it in 1988. Dad chuckled when I told him that the house was back on the market with no mention of a garage murder and that it had gone through several owners over the years. He said that he wasn't surprised at all. Dad wrapped up our little trip down memory lane with a touch of astonishment about Floyd. Man, I can't believe he was in our lives.

What a great end note on Floyd. Like, Shit, can't believe we knew that, man. Just shit.

Can't believe we knew.

That, man. Like, Damn, what a guy to know. I love that. I can't get in Floyd.

Ladies, the moral of my story is this. Keep it weird, but not so weird that you accidentally expose your kids to the horrid smell of human de cop in the heat of summer. But do keep it so weird that you are honest and calm about answering all of your kids rambling murder questions, but not so weird that you decide to buy said murder house and then rent it to an unsuspecting young family with little kids who wake up to demons coming out of their walls. Certainly don't keep it so weird that you then sell the home to your in-laws who invite you over and expose you and your own kids to cold, ghostly, air-and-banging pipes. Don't keep it so weird that you watch the house that's watching you as you jog by every day. Definitely don't keep it so weird that you let a possible serial killer be a part of your family's lives. Yeah, don't keep it that weird.

Bye, Heidi. Oh, you know what, Heidi? This house does have creepy vibes just looking at it.

-shit went down. -do you see it? -shit went down. Yeah.

It's sad because it's like a cute house in a way.

That's how I pictured.

The house. But it feels... It's actually not how I pictured it. That's funny.

See, that's how I pictured it. Yeah. Uh-oh, Heidi. You just gave me a new hyper fixation, so thank you for that. Wow. Because now I'm going to go crazy looking into this. I'm going to investigate it. I'm going to investigate this, Heidi.

Damn, Heidi. That was a good one.

Heidi, that was horrifying and so well told. Thanks for being a hero ICU nurse. Yes, you're a fucking badass. Never changed. Your parents sound hilarious. I love them. I am forever impressed that your dad just decided to make something he loved into his whole job and did it forever, and he's in his 70s and still doing it, and then he's a craftsman.

Pour one out for your dad. Good job, dad.

I love all of you. I loved his vibe. Your dad's vibe was great.

-he is good vibe.

Impeccable, actually. He has good vibes. Yeah, it was immaculate.

I pictured him as the good guy in the movie that hangs out with the crappy guy who he really just wants to kill the whole time. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're right. The Sopranos of it all.

The Sopranos of it all. Well, my.

Next one is called, a listener tale, My Haunted Ass Baby.

That's amazing.

So it says, Hello, attached as a putifah about my haunted ass baby. Also attached are some pictures of my family and haunted baby as a baby.

Haunted baby.

As a baby. Haunted baby is adorable.

I love haunted baby.

She said, I haven't really come across anyone else with a haunted baby, so I thought this would be a good story to submit. Happy reading. You're like, I've been on the lookout. I love you. Never have I come across another haunted baby.

Oh, we can use her name. Casey. Casey. Hello, Casey. Also your family and you are just beautiful.

Oh, my gosh. Thanks for being beautiful. The Colin A. Pick is so cute. You're so cute. Oh, my God, your kids are so cute. I don't know what this is, this other photo yet, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid. Okay. Hello, my spooky friends. Alena and Ash, how tickled I was to have discovered your podcast by random, once well during South Carolina evening.

Sounds delightful -Oh, cool.

-wow.

You guys are great writers.

I was pissed that day because of the heat and humidity. That sun sure does have the audacity. I was tired of feeling sweat in every nook and cranny from my tooties to my booties. My tooties to my booties. My tooties to my booties. I love it. Because when I got in my car that night to head home from my sister-in-law's house after helping her in her yard that day, I had no desire to turn on my normal music playlist. I swiped over to the podcast and saw Morbid. Yep, that's me. I'll give it a listen. I'm like, Hey, look at that. That's me. I haven't stopped since.

That's why we named it Morbid, because we're like, I know a lot of people feel.

Like they, too, are morbid. Elena was like, We should name it Macab. I was like, What's.

That mean again? I was like, Morbid.

I was like, We should just name it Morbid.

I was like, That sounds better.

Here we are, five years later. Here we are. And Casey says, I haven't stopped since. I torture my kids on road trips, listening to you guys. Only six episodes and we'll be in Florida, boys. Communal groans of displeasure in the back seat. They're used to you now and are happy to oblige these days. Thanks, man. My name is Casey. Yeah, thanks, man. My name is Casey. I'm 32, happily married to my man of 14 years, Eli, and we have three children. I was blessed with all boys. We've got Lane, pronounced as Lane, but my husband was really into World of Warcraft at the time and insisted on spelling it with two Ls because that was the name of the realms that he played in, Iroll.

I love.

That for you guys. I love that a lot. I love that you were like, you.

Know what? I love the whimsy of.

It all. You indulged.

Him in that. You know what? Mikey just gave all the rock on.

Because he loves vibes. Isn't that what the cool.

Kids call it? So, Mikey approves.

We approve. He's a fellow wower.

Lane is a really cool name.

I like the name Lane a lot. Well, that was fucking terrifying that that just happened. What fell? Did it fall onto the castor?

The applause is happening right now.

Our ancestors in the room.

Also- They also approve of Lane because our roadcaster is haunted.

That's the thing we record them to.

Yeah, our pod lab is haunted, really. Every time that we need encouragement or need to make a decision or they like something, the roadcaster will just hit the applause button without anyone near it.

It just did for you. And at the same time, something fell.

Yeah, it was the... What's it called? Lighter.

Lighter? But not onto it? No. Oh, so they like your kid's name? Cool. Well, there's also Watson and Ellis. Oh, Watson and Ellis.

I love all those names. Good job.

Watson is a wicked cute name. That's my favorite of them all. They are 12, six, and two. I love them with all my heart. I love you. Me too. Me as well. I love all of them. When I was in high school and was constantly asked what I wanted to be, what career I wanted to pursue, I never had an answer because all I ever really wanted is to be a mom.

Me too.

I feel that in my bones.

I just want to hug you.

You're a great human, and I love you. I had never felt fulfilled until I held my first son in my arms. Yep, this is it. This is what.

I meant to do. Oh, my God, Casey. High five.

I love you so much. You fucking rule. Oh, my God. You're probably such a good mom. I'm so excited. You see the.

Fruit.

Loops. Oh, my God. Obsessed. Shut up. Enough about that. I've been wanting to share my story with you all for a hot minute, but I could never find the time to just sit down and write. My mom brain be all over the place. You know how it.

Is, Elena. I do. I do know that.

Here it goes. One of my kids was born haunted. Can you guess which one it was? Just for fun reasons, I'll insert a pic of each of them and you can feel them out. I want to see. All right, so first we have Lane. He doesn't give me haunted vibes.

No.

Lane is just a little. Lane is just like, I want to smush.

Lane's cheeks. The picture we see is just this beautiful little baby in a.

Little basket. And he has a lamb. And he has a lamb. And then there's Watson with a cool, sick-ass, shark hat and matching shark shorts.

He might be Watson. I think.

It's Watson. But then there's Ellis in an Elf costume.

They're all so cute that I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I don't know. Something, I feel Watson.

I feel Watson, but then something's also telling me Ellis.

Yeah, I could see, Ellis, too. There's nothing distinctive that I'm like, That is a haunted baby. No, it's just vibes. It's the vibes.

I feel. It's just vibes. I'm going, Ellis.

I'm going with Watson.

All right, let's go. Let's go. Do you get any creepy vibes from them? Yeah, I didn't either. But that middle one.

Oh, did I get a cut at Watson?

-watson in the cute ass hat and the shark panies is the one. He must have shared my womb with his many spirit friends because no lie, the day we brought him home was the day the activity.

Began in our house. I knew it was Watson.

This joker put us through the river. So, Watson was born January ninth, 2017. We got a cappy.

That's the day. Maybe that's what it was. I felt the vibe with him. The cappy vibe. Me and Watson together forever.

I had a fast and easy labor, eight hours.

How fast? So quick.

He was born after four pushes with the most perfect round head at nine pounds even.

Nine pounds. Damn, Mama. That's wild. Good job.

My biggest baby out of all three of them. We were over the moon and we're so happy to be going home to start our new adventure as a family of four. I felt super confident going into the second baby, and I was less anxious and way more prepared. It helped me a lot that we also waited six years in between kids. Although I did think to myself, What the fuck am I doing? I have a six-year-old at home that can wipe his own ass and make his own Pop Tart and sleeps all night, and I'm starting this shit all over again. I could literally leave this kid at the hospital and walk away. Oh, postpartum intrusive thoughts.

I was just going to say that's exactly what it is. The immediate thought of like, Oh, fuck. What do I do? That's a whole person.

I am responsible solely for this thing. So much fun. Alas, we did bring his little cute ass home, and we quickly fell into a routine.

Yeah, don't feel weird if you ever think that. When you have a baby, everyone has that moment of like, Oh, fuck. That's good to know. That's a whole ass person, and I have to bring it home and keep it alive forever.

And keep the other one.

Alive if you've got it. Yeah, that's the thing.

If you've You'll get.

Through it, though.

So when he was about a week old, I got up after feeding at around 2:30 AM and went into the kitchen to wash the bottle, where I found our side-by-side refrigerator wide the fuck open. Oh, fuck. Thinking it may have been my six-year-old lane, I closed the fridge and went to his room prepared to scold, and found a little angel sleeping in his bed with no snacks to be seen anywhere near him. Not near a crumb of the lip or sticky jello fingers, so I chalked it up to being a weird happening. Maybe my husband accidentally left it open on one of his late-night food bingeers after smoking his devil's lettuce because anxiety. Although, after questioning him about it, he denied this claim. A couple of weeks later, I was sitting out in the living room with both my boys. Lane had his toy box out here, and we were just lounging around. Toys were scattered all over as they do, eye roll. I noticed that one of his RC cars was lit up, which was weird because I had recently removed the batteries because things with noise get on my nerves. I had to break the news to Lane and just tell him that it was broken.

Slap's hand, bad mom.

No way.

But I'd be damned if this thing wasn't lit the hell up. I got up to check it and removed said batteries again, thinking my husband banned it against me and put them back in to gain parenting points with Lane. As I bent down to pick it up, that thing drove across my living room into the dining room. I looked at Lane and he looked at me. I looked at Lane and he looked at me. He did not have the controller. I did not have the controller.

Who has the controller?

The spirits. I went over to pick it up. The lights had turned off at this point. No fucking batteries were in there. Oh, no. I threw that thing in the trash immediately. No possess.

Toys in my house. No way.

As the weeks went on and turned into months, we were still having weird phantom toys, speaking, driving by themselves, and the occasional kitchen cabinet opened in the middle of the night. That gives six cents and I don't like that.

The cabinets, though, are better than the refrigerator. Well, for.

Like-.

I'm just thinking practical.

-perishables. Sorry, I could not get the word perishables.

Out of my face. I'm just thinking practicality-wise. It's like, okay.

But.

It's way scary. Yeah, no, the six cents scene where he is sitting there with his hands on the table and all the cabinets are opened and he takes his hands off and it's like the handprints.

And the sweat. Yeah, too much. Actually, my hands are trying to sweat right now.

Thinking about it.

I'm a little stressed.

Six cents fucks me up still to this day.

Oh, yeah, that movie is fucked. But we were learning to live with these weird happenings. But then things started to get a little more weird. I posted a picture on my Facebook one day of Watson. He's always had these huge blue, silver eyes that look too big for his head. I love them. Me too. My great aunt commented on this particular picture of him. I should point out that this great aunt was very spiritual, practiced white magic, and once had a ghost friend that she claimed was a Cherokee native that followed her everywhere. I love this aunt. I do too. I want to be this aunt. She was very eclectic, and I always enjoyed interactingactions with her and hearing her stories. She posted that Watson's eyes were beautiful and that he can see more than we can. That's cool. She got the vibes from the picture. Okay, Aunt Jan, thanks for that. I took it with a grain of salt, but didn't like the idea that my big-eyed baby was seeing ghosties and spirits. But alas, I.

Believe she was right.

My big-eyed baby. When Watson was about five months old that had been brought to my attention by my husband that I had developed this new annoying habit of snoring and I didn't believe him. To prove him wrong, I paid 29.99 for an app and quickly learned he ain't no liar. Cry in emoji. Now I felt obliged to continue to use this thing, so I didn't feel like it was a waste of money. At night, it would begin to record. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm excited. Oh, I'm so excited. I always think that I want to do that to hear if my snoring is that bad. I want to do so bad. But I'm not.

Going to. I might do it.

Someone died in my house, so I'm not doing that. I'm going to do it. Did anybody die?

I don't know.

Maybe. You don't know?

I don't know.

You should look into that. I should look into that. Anyways, at night, it would begin to record when it detected snoring or snoring-like noises. It kept a log of what time it was when these noises took place. I would wake up in the morning and scroll through my snores and listen. Sometimes we got the occasional fart and it would be my day. I love you so much. We would be friends. I love farts and snoring and you. On this day, I was listening to my little sound bites and got to one that had the timestamp of 3:03 AM. I love that it was 3:03, like that band. I'm listening to it, but I don't hear snoring. What I do hear is what sounds like something sitting down on my bed and an aggressive, breathy-sounding whisper says, Watson. No. I don't fuck with that. No. I would throw hands with a spirit if they said my kid's name like that.

I'd be like, I'm going to fuck.

You up. Don't say my kid's name. I don't like it. Now, Watson was still in our room at this point. He slept right beside me every night. My phone recorded on a side table between me and his baby bed. I immediately woke up my husband and demanded to know if he was up last night with Watson. He said he hadn't woken up at all, let alone go sit on the side of my bed and talk to Watson. This freaked me out. This was not okay. Something was trying to get my baby's attention, and I am not okay with this.

No.

I don't blame you. I reached out to a medium. I was scared as it was, but definitely didn't want negative energy trying to get my baby. I needed to know if he was safe. Have you all not seen abnormal activity, too? I have. I have not. I know what's up. Not today, demons.

No way.

We set up a meeting with the medium, and she came to the conclusion that Watson did attract spirits. But from what she could tell, they were harmless and mostly familial. Fun side note. I found out after Watson was born that my great grandpa had a twin brother that died at four years old and his name was Watson. That's crazy that you just felt compelled to name your child that too. This made me feel lots better about it, but we had a stern talk to the ghosty after that, that there will be no talking to the baby. I didn't have any other issues as far as that was concerned. Still, the occasional toy, the occasional cabinet, that was old news at this point. Flash forward to a few months later, Watson's now walking. Watson is adjusting to sleeping in his own room, and it is not going great. I feel that. I mean, damn, it was worse when he was a newborn. He would always wake up screaming and most of the time end up in bed with me and Eli. When I say most of the time, I mean every night.

I feel this so hard.

After one of the worst nights we had with him, I was cleaning around the house, checking things off my list one by one. Vacuaming was done, kitchen cleaned. I went on to my next chore to clean and dust out our mantle above the fireplace. Above the mantle, there's a mirror that doesn't get much attention because no one can reach it without being on a stool. As I'm dusting the mantle, I noticed something on the mirror. It's wxy, like one of those crayons you get with your Easter egg dye kits. I see a W and then an A and then a T-S-O-N. Something slash someone has written my baby's name on this fucking mirror.

Nope.

I'm freaked the fuck out. I call my husband at work in demand to know if he did it. Why would I do that, Casey? It's a.

Very valid question. I love that.

He's like, Why would I ever? He's right. He'd never do anything like that. I called Tulane, who's only six, and asked if he did it. The kid barely knows how to spell his own name, so of course, he denied it. Plus, he would never have been able to reach out there, up there. Talk about freaky. We left the house and I got some sage. I'd never cleansed my home before, but something had to be done. I read sage for dummies and got to it. I felt accomplished. Be gone, you intrusive spirit, and stop being so obsessed with my baby.

Why are you so obsessed with Watson? Why are you so obsessed with him?

Things really tapered off after the sage. Watson still had issues sleeping in his room and didn't willingly sleep in there until his little brother, Ellis, moved in last year. Watson sleeps in there with so that Ellis won't be afraid like he was. My card. Watson has told me that he used to see monsters in his room and that's why he would cry. He's also told me that I'm not his real mom and that his real mom died in 1984, but he still loves me.

Oh.

Wow. Then she writes, Okay, child. Thanks for that.

Okay, child.

Oh, my God. As he's gotten older and began taking an interest in other things like sports and school, he really hasn't talked any craziness lately. We are thankful for that. Me too. He's growing up to be a kind, handsome boy and only a little haunted young man. I'll attach pictures of the mirror for you guys as well as a video I took of him where you can clearly see an orb fly from his head. I wish I still had the recording of The Whisper, but apparently the app deletes soundbites after 28 days, and I didn't know that at the time. Sad face. Thank you for taking the time to read about my spooky boy. I hope I did a good job writing all of this out. You did. Writing was never my thing and will continue to not be my thing. Lots of love to you guys. I will be tickled pink if you choose to read this on your podcast. Love and light always, Casey.

I love this story.

Oh, my God, I.

Love it so- And I'm so obsessed with these little boofies.

And it says Watson, for sure. Oh, yeah. You could see that clear as day. That's really upsetting. That's really upsetting. Oh, my gosh, he's so cute, though. All of them are so freaking adorable.

Let me see. Hold on. I love them a lot. Oh, yeah, it definitely does. It says Watson.

Yeah, that's Watson right there.

That says it.

That's really upsetting. I had to download the video to see if it will work. Oh, my goodness. Let me see if this is flying from this baby's head. Hims got a jumpalene.

Hims got a jampoline. Okay.

Oh, shit.

Did you watch.

The fucking video? Oh, my God. Hold on. It just went away. Look up here. It literally flies out of his head. That's wild.

Damn.

I've actually never seen anything like that.

What?

It literally comes straight out of his head. He is so cute.

That was such a wild journey. Oh, my God. I'm obsessed with all three of those little muffins.

They have really great names. They do.

You guys are killing it. Lane, Watson, and Ellis, those are cool brothers.

Right there. They all go really well together.

Yeah, they do. They flow really well. I think we have time for one more. I would.

Do one more.

Let's party. Do you want me to do a cautionary tale for runners and joggers, or The Man in Black and the Glitching Lights?

I think you know.

The Man in Black and the Glitching Lights?

I knew you knew.

I knew you knew. This says, Hello, spooky ladies. You can use them, yeah. My name is Kate. Yes, you can use my first name. I'm a long time listener of the pod. I started listening back in COVID times and fell in love with your podcast as I was dealing with the stress of navigating my first year of teaching during the pandemic. Holy shit, you're another hero. Another one. Side note, we have three heroes here. We got an ER, an ICU nurse, a mom, and now we have a teacher. Like, damn.

Brought to you by, Heros.

Brought to you by... Heros. Thank you so much for the respectful way you always talk about teachers. Having been on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, speculation, negative comments, and even a couple of punches, no joke. What? I want you to know I truly appreciate it. I love my job, but I'd be lying if I said it was easy. Honestly, teachers, I don't say that lightly. Punches? I think you have one of the hardest jobs on planet Earth.

You absolutely do. Also, Kate, I will throw hands.

For you. I'll throw hands for you. Your podcast also helped me stay grounded while I was dealing with postpartum depression last year as a first time mama. I'm so sorry you went through that. Me too. My therapist actually recommended I listen to something comforting when I felt like I was not in control. And somehow your true crime stories did the trick. Not sure what that says about me, but thank you nonetheless. Got you. I'm glad we could help you get through it. I appreciate your sense of humor and wit, the detail you put into each case and the dignity you give to each victim. I think the true crime genre can sometimes fall into sensationalizing the crazy murderers out there. I'm grateful that your podcast sheds light on the wonderful people who were taken from this world too soon. But I also love how much you shit-talk the peaches of peaches of literally human garbage that commit these crimes. The amount of F-bombs I casually dropped may have increased since I started listening to your podcast. I'm not mad about it.

We should put a side.

Effect warning on. I know. I'm sorry, side effect. Attached, you will find a size 14, double-space, putiphe. Oh, you get it. If you read it on the show, I might literally die in the best way possible. Don't do that. You can feel free to trim this down as needed. Seriously, I'm an English teacher with ADHD, so brevity is not my forte. You will find several parental interjections throughout like this one. The story is about 10 to 11 minutes long. Perfect. Also, sorry for adding 10 minutes just to the introduction. Consider this my preshow banter. Anyway, on to my spooky story about the man in black that haunted my childhood home.

Let's fucking go. Let's go.

Subtitle, Am I haunted, possess, being punked by an old timey ghost? I hope.

The latter. I like a punking ghost.

And an old timey ghost. Before we get into the spooky stuff, you need a little background info. Setting the scene with a little imagery, some tasty details, and a sprinkle of facts that might come back later. A nice exposition Sunday, if.

You will. It's like an exposition dump.

I have always had a super close connection with my dad. We looked alike, we acted alike, and we both struggled with anxiety, yet always managed to look on the bright side of things. My dad and I could finish each other's sentences, had some of the same mannerisms, and enjoyed a lot of the same hobbies. My biggest compliments I've ever been given are, That's something your dad would do slash say, and you're just like your dad. That's so sweet. I know, I love that. We had a few more things in common, but more on that later. Unfortunately, my dad passed away last year. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It's been hard to keep positive without him, and our family has fallen apart as of late. Oh, I want to give you a hug. I know. It's been even more difficult raising my son without him around to sea. My dad passed away a few months before my son was born. Oh, my God. He does see. I'd like to think that I'm carrying on his legacy of being kind, lighthearted, and silly in a world that wants you to be anything but- You are. Yeah, everybody listen to that.

That last paragraph wasn't necessarily important to the story. I just wanted to gush about how awesome my dad was for a minute. Do it anytime. I think he'd get a kick out of this story being featured on the pod. Well, first he'd probably say, What's a podcast? I taught the man how to copy and paste on at least five occasions, and it never stuck. But I digress. I love it. That's such a dad thing. Oh, yeah. I've been debating on whether I should submit my listener tale for a while now, and something compelled me to finally just start typing it. As I type this, it's actually Father's Day, so maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Definitely. Anyway, our connection was always super strong. One day when I was in my late teens, I was driving my dad home after we'd gotten dinner. It was nighttime, so the street lights were on and we had the windows down as dad blasted the B-52s from this crackly stereo of a crummy, my crummy beat-up Saturn, rock lobster, he insisted. Hell, yeah. I love it. We pulled into our neighborhood. The curved streets lined with street lights casting their warm yellow glow.

We passed the house with the yippie Yorkie, and suddenly the streetlight went out. I sigh. This had happened to me before. In fact, it had happened quite often. Since I started driving, I could not recall a single trip in which at least one streetlight didn't go off as soon as I passed it. Huh. Oh, no. It was usually more than one. On occasion, it was a store sign. Huh. Once I shit you not while waiting at a red light after leaving my friend's house at 1:00 AM, the red light changed, but not to green, to nothing at all. What? When this streetlight went off with my dad in the car, I wasn't phased. I really didn't think anything of it. It was just some weird coincidence, or maybe I was part robot and I gave off some weird interference. I don't know. But as we passed the house with the blue shutters, another streetlight went off. My dad turned the music down and said, Sorry. For what? I asked. The lights. They always go out when I drive by. He replied. Oh, shit. They go out when you drive by? I asked. I just turned on to my street when I said this.

Our house was at the very end of our street. It wasn't a super long street, but there were probably four to five street lights on either side of the road. As we drove past the first one, every single light went out at the same time, like someone had just pulled the plug on our neighborhood. When I pulled into our driveway, our porch light went off too. The fuck? Fun fact, the switch for the porch light was on. It literally never worked again the whole time my parents lived there. They called the electrician once and everything. It was never fixed. What? I turned off the engine and we both sat there for a minute. That was the first time we realized that we'd both been experiencing this. As the years passed, we find out that it wasn't just the lights that would turn off. We both had trouble keeping our cell phones because ours would randomly die. Rip, my first Purple Razor. A favorite pastime of ours was watching movies, and when it was just the two of us, sometimes the TV would turn off on its own. What the fuck. My husband has told me so many times that I'm cursed when it comes to technology.

Things just always glitch around me. But the street lights turning off, I guess that had been happening to my dad for years, and I'd never really noticed. He never said anything to anyone about it. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed, but thinking back to our family car trips, I was definitely a sleepy passenger, especially if it was dark outside. As we sat in the driveway, my dad asked me, Did mom ever tell you about the man in black? No, he was not talking about Johnny Cash or Will Smith. This is the story my dad told me. I later got more details from my mom, which I'll throw in there, too. My brother refused to talk about it. I think you'll see why. I was born on the East Coast, but my family is originally from Ohio. When I was an infant, my parents moved us back to Ohio in a small farm town, in the middle of nowhere. My parents both worked in restaurants, so money was tight. We rented a small two-bedroom house in this farm town. My brother was three at the time, and he got one bedroom to himself. Since I was only months old, I was sleeping in a bassinet in my parents' room.

Within a few weeks of moving in that summer, my parents started to notice something wasn't right. It started off small. A glass of water my mom swore she sat on the table would suddenly be on the bathroom counter. The cabinet door that my dad shut would be open the next time you walked into the room. Just little things that made you question your sanity a bit, but didn't make you think much of it. Plus, my parents were hardworking, sleep-deprived, parents of two young kids. Maybe they were just imagining things. This went on for weeks, but by autumn, things started to get more sinister.

Sinister vibe.

Sinister vibe. One night while my dad was at work, my parents worked opposite shifts. My mom was watching TV while my brother and I slept. She heard me crying from the bedroom, so she turned off the TV and went to check on me. She opened the door to the bedroom only to find me fast asleep. Then she heard crying from my brother's room, only it didn't sound like a three year old's cry. It sounded like a newborn baby. A little freaked out, my mom went into my brother's room. He, too, was asleep. Oh, I hate that a lot. Pretty soon, cabinet doors would open on their own right in front of my parents. Coffee cups sometimes fell out of the cabinets. My brother wouldn't sleep alone anymore, so he slept out on the couch with my mom. My mom pretty much always fell asleep in the chair in the living room anyway. She was quite the snore and preferred to sleep upright. My mom says one afternoon her cup of coffee slid quickly off the coffee table and shattered onto the floor. According to my dad, my mom wanted to move out from the first supernatural incident.

My dad convinced her to stay. Rent was cheap and they couldn't really afford to move out. Plus, we lived really close to my grandparents, who were frequent babysitters and helped when my dad had to leave for work before my mom got home. The final straw was when my grandma was watching us in between my parents' shifts. My grandma, a very religious woman, won't talk about this event either, so I'm just going to go off what my mom told me. I was napping and my brother was playing in the front room, which was a little foyer that was treated like a play room separate from the living room. My brother had his Hot Wheel's cars and was playing by himself as my grandma was fixing him a snack. My grandma, who was clear across the house, heard what sounded like a man's deep laugh, followed by my brother screaming. Oh, fuck that. When my grandma got into the front room, my brother was in the fetal position in the corner, crying and hugging in his knees. My grandma asked him what was wrong. He wouldn't answer. She scooped him up and held him until he calmed down a second.

Then he said, The man in black won't leave me alone. My grandma, I just got chills. I hate that. My grandma looked around the room and didn't see anyone. The front door wasn't locked, a common stupid small town thing. My grandma thought maybe someone had come in while she was in the kitchen. For context, the foyer was separated by a set of small wooden doors like you'd see for a closet. It's not unthinkable that the front door could be opened without my grandma seeing it. My grandma asked my brother what the man looked like, but all he would say was he was the man in black and he had a black hat. So my grandma looked outside but saw nothing. My grandma got my brother calmed down on the couch just in time to hear the same deep laugh again. This time it was coming from the room where I was sleeping. According to my mom, my grandma said she found me lying in the bassinet with my eyes wide open, but almost like I didn't register that she was looking at me. There was no signs of any man.

Like you were looking at something else.

Needless to say, when my mom got home from work, my grandma insisted that we move out. She told my grandpa, who was very protective and a man of action, and he convinced my parents to move in with them until we found a new place. Those are some good grandparents. They're like, Get the fuck out of there. In fact, the house we moved into was actually bought under my grandpa's name since my parents couldn't afford to buy it and break their lease. My parents had that house until five years ago. What a good set of parents. That's a good fam. As my parents were packing our things from the haunted house, my dad checked the attic in the ceiling of my parents' bedroom to see if we'd stored anything there. Once up there, he realized they'd never, ever even checked out the attic in the first place, and the only thing up there was an old dusty box. He took the box to the dining room table, wiped off the top layer of dust, and removed the lid. No. Inside were several very old black and white pictures. They were not ours and my dad guessed that they had been left by the owner or the previous renter.

There were a couple of family photos, some pictures of a farm, and one picture of a tall man in a black suit with a black hat. He was staring right into the camera with a blank face. My dad said he had large, bushy eyebrows that almost looked furrowed, giving him a menacing demeanor. In his hand, he held a Lantern. The Lantern was not lit. He had a feeling that this man was the man in black. He never asked my brother to look at the picture because he didn't want to scare him. A little worried that he would disturb whatever spirit this was if he took any of the pictures, he put them all back in the box and put the box back in the attic. Smart. The door of which was the ceiling of my parents' bedroom right above my bassinet. If you remember, my mom slept in the living room with my brother, so only my dad and I slept in that room right under the Man in Black's photo.

With the unlit Lantern.

Yep. Now, my dad didn't necessarily believe in the supernatural all that much, which is probably why he didn't feel the same of urgency my mom did when she asked to move out. I don't think he came to the same conclusion that I did, but I feel like the man in black might be the origin of the lights going out around both me and my dad. We shared a room with the man's picture, so maybe we shared a room with his spirit. I'm not really sure how ghosts prefer to haunt people, but maybe we were both a little haunted by the man in black. It's a pretty harmless, haunting if you think about it. The whole glasses falling off shelves thing didn't follow us to our new home. Just the lights going off here and there. I think I can handle that. My brother still won't talk about it, so I don't know if the lights go out for him too. As for me, I'm very happy that I don't remember a thing about that house or all the crazy shit that happened there. For real. I'm grateful that my mom and my grandparents insisted on getting us out of there before anyone got hurt.

I'm happy my dad can still laugh through it all. Seriously, even telling me that story in the car was almost like he was telling a joke, or like he was just telling me about what he did over the weekend. He so casually told me about how we lived in a haunted house for months and then was like, Well, I'm going to bed. See you. Oh, and yes, street lights still go off when I drive by them. The computer I'm using will randomly turn off and won't turn on again until my husband turns it on. Then it magically works just fine. I like to think it's my dad saying hello, especially when I'm watching Jeopardy, which my dad and I watched and played against each other all the time. Then the connection from the antenna will glitch and make the screen freeze just at the right time, so I can't answer the question. It's my dad getting the last laugh, like always. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, that's the story of the man in black and the glitchy lights. I hope you enjoyed it. If you're reading it, thanks so much for taking the time.

Keep being awesome and keep it weird, but not so weird that you freaked out by lights randomly going off. It's just an old timey man in black having a good time fucking with you, or my dad saying hi from the other side. Okay, bye. Bye. Damn. That was creepy. Holy shit. Oh, and you sent photos.

Let me see.

And your name is Kate. Sorry, I forgot if I could use your name again.

Oh, my God, you're so cute.

Oh, my God. Look at you.

And your dad. And your dad giving you a little courseage.

Oh, shut up.

Oh, my God. You guys are adorable. This baby is the cutest baby I've legit ever seen.

That was such a touching story.

As well. It was creepy and touching.

Oh, my God, Kate. Thank you for that. I'm glad that street lights still go off for you. I know that's fun. Because that's a really fun. You're like Nancy in the Craft.

Yeah. I hope it never gets dangerous, though. I hope you.

Can see safely. Yeah, exactly. Just raw.

Damn, you guys. You guys are always said that's such good details.

You really gave us some stuff here, and I appreciate you. We had a teacher, a mama, and then I see you, Nurse. I love it. Killing it.

Well, as always, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird. But not.

So weird that you have a haunted baby or your street lights turn off or you go and play in a garage where someone was murdered. Bye. Love you so much.

Hey,

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