Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today we're going to look at three stories that demonstrate that. But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the like button to go on an all-expenses paid trip to Venice, Italy, and the second you're both in a gondola, push them into the canal. Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. On April 16th, 2024, a 42-year-old woman named Erika Nunez and her 68-year-old uncle named Paulo Braga, arrived at a bank in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in a cab. Erika got out of the back seat first and then asked the driver to wait so she could go inside the bank to get a wheelchair for her uncle because recently he had been sick with pneumonia in the hospital. She found one in the lobby and then wheeled it back outside.

When she got back to the cab, the driver helped her lift her uncle Paulo into the wheelchair and Then afterward, Erica thanked the driver, and then she wheeled her uncle up to the bank, and as she got near the door, a bank attendant came out and opened up the door for them to go inside. Erica smiled at the attendant. Her uncle had been living with her for the past eight months, and so Erica was pretty accustomed to some level of care undertaking, but it had gotten a lot harder recently with her uncle being in the hospital with pneumonia, and so Erica was just exhausted. And so little gestures like this were very appreciated. But despite her exhaustion, today was a really good day for Erica because her uncle was so appreciative for all the help that he had actually offered to go to this bank with her today and take out a loan for her in his name so she could do some much-needed repairs around her house. So Erica and her uncle made their way through the bank towards the front desk and then told the attendant that they needed to see a loan officer.

She explained that they had already called ahead and her uncle had been approved for a loan. He was just here now to sign the paperwork. The attendant nodded and then typed a few things on their computer and then came out from behind the desk and led Erica and her uncle to a desk in back to wait for the loan officer. A minute later, when Erica saw the loan officer approaching the desk, she stood up and smiled and was about to say hello, but the loan officer did not smile back. Instead, she just glared at Erica and her uncle in a way that made Erica feel very uncomfortable. Then, instead of shaking their hands, the loan officer just turned around and walked away. Erica looked around in confusion and then sat down awkwardly, feeling worried and also a little annoyed. She turned and watched as this loan officer continued walking away and then stopped next to some employee. She bent down and whispered something in the employee's ear, and Erica watched as this employee's eyes went wide as she heard whatever the loan officer said. Then this loan officer and that employee, they got up and they vanished into a back room of the bank.

Now Now, Erica was feeling really weird about all of this. She turned to her uncle and she saw he couldn't even meet her eyes. She reached out and just began massaging his neck and shoulders. A little while later, the loan officer would come back to the desk, and this time she was carrying this huge stack of papers, and she placed it on the desk in front of Erica's uncle. But instead of sitting down and going over this huge amount of paperwork with them, the loan officer just stood there staring at Erica, and Erica stared right back. For about 30 seconds, there was just tense silence, and then eventually, the loan officer pulled out her phone and very obviously started filming. Now, Erica went from feeling just uncomfortable to feeling afraid. I mean, this was definitely not normal bank behavior, even for a seemingly very rude employee. But Erica decided to ignore the weirdness and just get her uncle started on the paperwork. But after a few minutes, Erica began to hear the sound of emergency sirens outside the bank. When she looked up, she saw all these police and first responders running towards her. The video that that loan officer shot that day of Erica and her uncle went viral in Brazil.

In this video, Erika is seen smiling and attempting to help her uncle sign this paperwork, and she's obviously holding up her uncle's head. But her uncle is not weak from illness. Her uncle is dead. In fact, he had died hours before Erika had brought him to the bank. Now, Erika later claimed that she had no idea her uncle was dead. However, it was very obvious to everyone around her, which is why all the bank employees were acting so strange. Erica was arrested and held for 16 days before being released on bail. She faces charges of abusing a corpse and attempted theft through fraud. Her case has not yet been adjudicated. Thanks to DraftKings for sponsoring this. With the football season kicking off, it's the perfect time to dive into the action with my partners at DraftKings, the number one place to bet on touch downs. Right now, all new customers who bet just $5 will instantly get $250 in bonus bets, plus one month of NFL Plus premium. Now, that's something worth celebrating. Even if Siegall Lung will be dancing in the end zone, it'll probably get flagged for taunting. So download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and sign up using my promo code, Mr. Balling.

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North Carolina does have big cats, including Panthers. After all, their professional football team is named the Carolina Panthers. However, the Panthers in North Carolina are typically of the brownish color, not the pitch black variety like the panther that was apparently prowling all over Henderson County in recent days. Nonetheless, Chris was absolutely convinced that had seen this Black Panther about a week ago when he was out walking his and Rachel's new puppy. He swore the Panther had been following him in the tree line around his property, and he had been afraid it was thinking about attacking his dog. Ever since, he told Jake he'd been nervous walking around his property outside, and so he'd begun to carry a gun for protection. Jake was in the middle of telling Chris that he, too, was now carrying a gun around for the same reason when they were interrupted by Rachel calling for Chris from the kitchen. Jake and Chris got up off the couch walked into the kitchen where Rachel told them that she had been trying to show Autumn a YouTube video about how to dye hair at home when her phone had died. She asked Chris if he wouldn't mind going back to their apartment and getting her a phone charger.

Now, obviously, Chris was not thrilled about going into the woods at night with this panther roaming around, but he loved his fiancé and would do anything for her, and he had his gun, so he said he would go. As Chris headed to the door to leave, Jake said, Hold on a minute. He grabbed his flashlight and grabbed his gun and told Chris he would tag along and watch his buddies back. The two guys said they'd be back in a minute, and then they walked out the door. A light wind rustled the leaves of the trees as Jake and Chris set out on the little path that connected their two homes. They both stayed absolutely quiet as they walked because they wanted to make sure they could hear any indication of this panther being nearby. But all they could hear was the wind, some crickets, and an owl hooting in the distance. But about halfway down the path, Chris suddenly heard something coming from the woods and instinctively he shot out his hand to stop Jake in his tracks. They both froze, and then Jake raised his flashlight and shined it at the under brush where Chris was saying he had heard noise.

And for a second, all they saw were green leaves. But then two eyes opened up and reflected back at them. The two men gasped and instinctively reached for their guns. But before they had to draw and do anything, this creature emerged from the under brush, and it was just a racoon. Chris and Jake laughed in relief and then continued walking down the path to Chris's house. They went inside, side, got Rachel's charger, and then they left and stepped back into the woods. But now, as Chris and Jake walked along this dark path, something just felt different. The crickets seemed to have gotten quieter and the wind had picked up. The owl that had been hooting before must have flown away because it was now strangely quiet, except for the sound of their footsteps and the wind in the trees. They were about 40 feet away from Jake's house when they suddenly heard a twig snap to their left. And so the two men turned to face the noise, and as they did, they heard another sound, a low raspy growl. And so Jake aimed his flashlight at the bush where these noises had come from.

And this time it was obvious it was not a racoon because the bushes were literally shaking like some enormous animal was inside of them. And so the two men looked at each other with wide eyes, and without saying a word, they both knew they were thinking the same thing. It's the panther. And so the two men drew their guns and they aimed it at the bush, hoping that this thing would just take off back into the woods. But it didn't. The bush continued to shake like whatever it was was going to leap out. And so the men just opened fire, and they kept on shooting until they heard a new horrible sound. And the second they heard it, they dropped their guns. It would turn out that was not a panther. After Chris and Jake had left the house, Rachel and Autumn decided to pull a prank. They had found some expired eggs in the fridge, and they had decided they would go hide in the bushes near that pathway and pelt the guys with them. When Rachel saw Chris and Jake approaching, she tried to couch down lower in the a bush so it was not to be seen.

But as she did, she stepped on a twig. At the same time, in anticipation of their prank, the women started to laugh. They tried to stifle their laughter, but that only made them snort and shake the bushes. That combination of noises, the snap twig, the stifled laughter, which resembled a short raspy growel, and the shaking bushes, signaled to the guys that this was no prank. This was the panther, and if they didn't act, it might attack them. And so they drew their guns and they began to shoot until they heard Autumn scream out in horror. Tragically, by the time they had stopped shooting, it was already too late for Rachel. She had been shot to death. Law enforcement did an investigation into the shooting, and they declared it was just a horrible accident. Everybody was sober, and the two men were carrying their weapons legally, and so no one was ever charged with Rachel's death. To this day, no one has ever gotten solid evidence that that Black Panther even exists. On a snowy morning in 1972, 22-year-old Sotria Critsonis sat at her bus stop in Seattle, Washington, adjusting her knit cap against the cold.

The hat actually still felt pretty weird on her head because just a few days earlier, she had cut her brown hair super short, and so she wasn't quite used to it yet. But despite that, she loved her new hair. In fact, she deliberately worn this big hat to hide her haircut because this would make the reveal to her friends at school that much better. She glanced up Rainer Avenue for any sign of her bus, but there wasn't one. The city's public transportation system was all out of whack that day because of the weather. And so Tria was becoming pretty impatient because now her bus was over an hour late. She'd already missed her first class of the day because of this bus, and now she was in danger of missing her second class. And that's when she heard the beep of a car horn and a pale yellow Volkswagen Beatle rolled up to the curb in front of her. So Tria had to squint through the snow, but she could see the silhouette of a man in the driver's seat of this car, and he was rolling down the window of the passenger side and waving her over.

Curious, she walked up to the now open window and leaned in, and the warmth coming from inside the car felt great. This is where Sotria got her first real look at the driver. He was a good-looking guy in his 20s. He was well-dressed, pleasant-seeming, just an overall normal-looking person. He explained that he'd actually been driving on Reiner Ave for a while, and he hadn't seen a bus in a long time, and so he offered to give Sotria a ride to her school. But remember, this is the 1970s, and hitchhiking at the time in America was pretty common, especially on the West Coast where Sotria was. And so pretty quickly, she agreed to get in because she knew this likely was her best chance at making it to school for her second class, and she was freezing. After the man pulled back on to Rainer Avenue, Sotria sat back in the seat enjoying the warm air blasting out of the vents. And as she did, she looked out her window at the familiar route passing by. Sotria was about to apologize to this guy for making him drive so far out of his way when she heard him turn on his blinker.

He was preparing to turn right. And this struck Sotria as odd because as she had explained to him back on the curb, her school was a straight shot down Rainer F. There was no need to turn. So what was he doing? Sotria looked over at the man, expecting him to explain why they were taking this sudden detour. But the man just stared straight ahead. And then a moment later, she heard the blinker turned on again, and she looked up and saw they were about to merge onto Interstate 5 southbound, which was definitely not the way to Sotria's school. And now Sotria felt a pang of fear. She opened her mouth to tell this guy he was going the wrong way, but he cut her off. And he looked at her and he said, You know, it's a terrible idea to take a ride from a stranger. The man kept on talking as he merged onto the highway, but Sotria was not listening at all. Instead, she was fixated on what he was doing with his right-hand. His left hand was on the wheel, but with his right-hand, he was fishing searching for something underneath his seat.

And so Sotria's mind began to race. Without taking her eyes off of this man and what he was doing, she traced with her hand and felt for the door handle, but she couldn't feel it. And then she turned and realized there was no door handle. It had been removed. Just then, the man stopped rummaging around underneath his seat. Whatever he was looking for, he had found it. The man sat partway up and looked at Sotria with his hand still hidden behind one of his legs and a determined but emotionless expression on face. At this point, Sotria felt her heart hammering so hard in her chest that she was worried she might pass out from terror. All she could think about was, what is he hiding behind his leg? What was underneath his seat? But then something strange happened. The man's face changed from determined and almost cruel to confused. Sotria watched as his eyes darted up to the top of her head. The man told Sotria to take off her hat, and with trembling hands, she did as she was instructed, although she had no idea why he was asking. And when the hat was off her head, the man looked shocked, and he dropped whatever it was he had found back under a seat, and Sotria heard it land with a heavy metallic thud, but she couldn't see it.

There was a long, tense silence, and then when the man finally spoke, He just said, Why did you cut your hair? The man immediately got off the highway and drove fast to Satria's school. When they got there, he opened up the door for her and told Satria to get out and said she was lucky. Then he drove away. Satria didn't report this encounter to police. She was embarrassed that she had gotten into a stranger's car in the first place. And after all, the guy, despite being really creepy, hadn't hurt her at all. And so she basically just tried to forget about it. But a few years later, in 1975, Satria was watching TV when she saw a familiar face come onto the screen. It was the man who had given her a ride being led into a courtroom in handcuffs. So Tria dropped everything and turned up the volume, and what she heard made her numb with horror. Because the newscaster was saying that this man who had given her a ride was a suspected serial killer accused of murdering dozens of young women who he would lure into his pale yellow Volkswagen Beatle and then bludgeon them to death with a crowbar or tire iron.

And he had a very specific type when it came to identifying his victims. They were young women who all had long, brown hair. And this man's name was Ted Bundy. Me and the whole team at Balin Studios have created a special thank you to all you amazing fans for all your support. Now, you may have already heard about this, but if you haven't, my very first book, Mr. Balin presents: Strange, Dark, and Mysterious: The Graphic Stories, finally comes out this year on October first. But that's not the thank you. The thank you is for anyone who pre-orders this book, which includes nine feature-length, amazingly illustrated stories, you will immediately gain access to a secret 10th story that's not in this book. This secret story is called A Forest So Evil, and it's really good. So here's how you get it. After you pre order your book, whether you've already done that or you do it now, you're going to get a confirmation code. Go to the link we provided below and enter that confirmation code into the text box. But be sure you select the appropriate vendor beforehand where you pre-ordered it from, and boom, you will immediately gain access to this secret 10th story.

I am truly touched at all the support you've shown me over the years, and so I really hope you enjoy this bonus story as a big thank you. Again, pre-order your copy today and then head to the link in the description, enter your confirmation code to get that bonus 10th story called A Forest So Evil. Wait, don't go anywhere. If you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious videos, click here.