Today's story is a classic, scary, cabin in the forest story, but with a very big plot twist at the end. But before we get into that story, 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, the next time the like button is looking to adopt a pet, tell them you just rescued a puppy and you'd love for them to adopt it. And when they say yes, go ahead and drop your puppy off, but don't tell them that your puppy is he's actually a hangry saltwater crocodile. 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 story. On the night of October 17th, 2019, a 47-year-old woman named Ada Quintal stepped out of family's cabin in rural Michigan to take her dog for a walk and have a smoke. It was very late. It was about 1:30 in the morning. Now, this cabin where she was staying was very isolated. It was about a half mile away from any neighbors, but Ada actually enjoyed the solitude.

She was surrounded on all sides by forest and swamps, and the wilderness actually made Ada feel a lot safer than when she was back home in the densely populated Detroit area where she lived full-time. And this was because just a few months earlier, when she had been back home in Detroit, she had been the victim of an unprovoked attack. She had been out in the city around all these people in broad daylight, and this guy came up to her and just jumped her, broke her nose, gave her a concussion, and then ran off. But the scariest part of this attack was not the fact that she had been brutalized. It was that this guy did not appear to have any reason to attack her. He didn't know Ada, and Ada had not been robbed or anything. It was like he just randomly identified her and attacked her, and the guy had never been caught. And so this ordeal had had such a profound impact on Ada that it really began to affect her health, both mentally and physically. She started to just decline, and on top of that, she had been laid off from her engineering job, and so now she was unemployed and seriously depressed.

And so recently, when Ada's uncle had called her and offered to pay her to come out and live in this two-story family cabin and fix it up for the winter, Ada had jumped at the chance. I mean, not only would this solve her unemployment issue, but also she loved this cabin. It had been in her family for 75 years, and some of her fondest childhood memories were in this cabin. She looked at this as a chance to get away from the city and just be in her happy place and reset and recover from the trauma of the attack. For the past week, Ada and her boyfriend had been staying in this cabin and doing small repairs and cleaning it up. But two days earlier, her boyfriend had to leave and go back to the city where they were actually fixing up another property, a condo. And so now it was just Ada and her dog. But that was totally fine with Ada. She liked being out here by herself, so this was no big deal. But tonight, she was feeling frustrated because she couldn't sleep. About an hour earlier, she had taken a pill to help her sleep, but so far it hadn't worked, and so she was feeling wired and anxious.

And so she had decided to go on a walk with her dog in hopes that that would clear her mind and allow her to finally get some rest. Now, these roads that surrounded this cabin were small and zigzaggy, and there weren't any streetlights. I mean, this is not exactly a good place to go for a night time walk, but Ada knew this place like the back of her hand, and she also carried a nine millimeter pistol in her pocket, just for protection. And so after walking for a few minutes down one of these dark winding roads, Ada's dog stopped to relieve himself on a bush. So as the dog was going to the bathroom, Ada just casually smoked and waited. But at some point, the dog just stopped going to the bathroom, turned slightly and began growling, and its ears perked up, and it was looking off into the darkness right ahead of them. And so Ada instinctively took her flashlight and raised it up and aimed it in the direction her dog was looking. Right away, that cone of light illuminated these two eyes, looking right back at Ada. And immediately, Ada knew what she was staring at.

It was a mountain lion. And so doing her best to stay calm, Ada slowly reached into her pocket to pull out her gun. But before pulling it out, the two eyes blinked shut, and then she heard it turn and run off into the forest. It was gone. Once Ada was sure the mountain lion really was gone, she breathed a sigh of relief and then very quickly tugged on her dog's leash. They turned around and she hustled back towards the cabin. When Ada reached her cabin, which was all lit up because she had left all the lights on before she had left. She jumped up the front steps, she opened up the door, she went inside with her dog, and after letting her dog off the leash, she shut and locked the door. Then she grabbed her phone and texted her boyfriend to tell him about this mountain lion. Then after hitting send, Ada felt relieved to be back in her cabin, but at the same time, she still felt very on edge. She had been just a few feet away from a mountain lion in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.

But as Ada was doing her best to calm herself down, she heard this noise coming from outside the living room window, almost like twigs snapping, like somebody was walking past the window. The way this cabin was set up is when you first walked inside, you were in the kitchen, and then the back half of the cabin was a living room. Then there were also stairs leading up to a second floor. But from in the kitchen, you had a clear line of sight into the living room and vice versa. It was like one big room with two functions. And so from where Ada was standing in the kitchen, she could clearly see the window in the living room where this noise had come through. But because the inside of the cabin was all lit up and the outside was dark, from her perspective, all she could see was a reflection on that window. So to look outside that window to see what had made that noise, she would need to get right up next to the window. And so feeling pretty nervous at this point, she walked across the cabin, she made her way towards this window, and then she pressed her face right up against the glass to look outside.

But all she saw outside was just darkness. I mean, there was nothing out there. And so Ada stepped back from the window and started to wonder if maybe the sound she had just heard was maybe that mountain lion. Maybe it followed her back here. That was It's terrifying, but at least she was inside. But also she was thinking to herself, mountain lions are not known for being aggressive towards humans, and they wouldn't come up to her cabin like this and prowl around outside. That's just not what mountain lions do. But Ada didn't really have any other explanation. And so she told herself, It's got to be nothing. There's nothing out there. This is a safe place. And so she forgot about the noise, and she took off her code and put her stuff down. And then she sat down on the couch in the living room, turned on the TV, and tried to relax. But only about 20 minutes later, when Ada had finally relaxed and was even thinking about getting into her bed and going to sleep, she heard another noise coming from that same window in the living room. And this time, when she looked up and looked out that window, despite the reflections inside the cabin, she could clearly tell there was something moving outside of her cabin, and it was definitely not a mountain lion.

It looked like a man. And so Ada had to stifle a scream, and then instinctively, she lunged for her gun on the coffee table and then darted behind the couch and crouched down to make sure whoever was out there couldn't see her. And then, with gun in hand, she began calling out to the person out there that, Hey, I'm armed. If you come in here, I'm going to shoot you. But it was just silence. And then Ada strained her ears to try to hear any sound that would give away where this person went. Were they still outside that window? Had they moved somewhere else? But all she could hear was the sound of the wind whipping outside and an owl hooting off in the distance. But then, right as Ada was starting to wonder, Did I really see somebody out there? Is this all in my head? That's when she heard the distinct of footsteps on her front porch. Again, Ada had to stifle a scream, and she darted to the other side of the couch, preventing the person from the front of the house to seeing her now. Then she grabbed her phone, and she was dialing 911, and she was about to hit call when she stopped herself.

And she began to wonder, Am I just totally overreacting here? I don't know if there's somebody out there. I could be hearing things, or maybe it's just an animal or something. Also, deep down, Ada knew that ever since that attack in Detroit that summer, that basically everything scared her. She was starting to wonder if maybe she was just being totally paranoid and there was nothing going on. She didn't want to embarrass herself by calling 911 and having them come out here and finding nothing. And so, Ada decided she would call her boyfriend. And so she called her boyfriend. As the phone is ringing, she's listening intently for any other footsteps outside, but she can't hear anything. And then her boyfriend, he didn't pick up. It's also like 2:30 in the morning at this point, but her boyfriend doesn't answer. And so after that, she tries calling one of her friends, and her friend does pick up. Right away, Ada began telling this friend about all the things that had happened that night, from going out and seeing the mountain lion and then coming back in, hearing the sound, and now hearing the footsteps on the front porch.

And she was worried that maybe she was just making it all up, but she was still really scared. And even though Ada was trying to be composed as she was telling her friend, her voice began to crack and she began to cry because she really was scared. And the friend just said, Look, I'm going to call the police on your behalf. It seems like it's worth having them come out just to make sure you're really okay. Give me the address, and I'll tell them to go. And so Ada would give her friend the address, but she told the friend, Thank you, but do not call right now. Just please stay on the phone for a minute and let me just do a quick investigation. Let me look out the windows and just really make sure that this is nothing before you call the police. And so the friend said, Okay, look around, but then I'm calling the police. And so with her phone and her gun in hand, Ada very carefully crept out from behind the couch, keeping a low profile, staying below the sideline of all the windows. And she crept from the living into the kitchen towards the front of the house, and she walked over to the sink, and she very slowly raised her head until she could just barely peek through the window right above the sink that overlooked the front porch.

Because remember, that was the last place she had heard sounds from the on the porch. And so she very carefully peeks and looks out the window, and there's nothing there. Nobody's on the porch. It's just empty dark forest. She's safe. Ada let out a relieved half cry, half laugh, and then stood all the way up and felt totally ridiculous. Wireless because clearly she had just imagined all these people wandering around the outside of her house. And so she was about to tell her friend that, Hey, sorry, there is no issue here. Don't call the police. But before she could get the words out, Ada happened to turn around and was looking back towards the living room, and she froze because there in that same window she had heard those sounds coming from in the living room was now the silhouettes of two men, clear as day, just looking in the window right at Ada. And so acting purely on instinct, Ada just raised her gun and aimed it at these two men. And to her horror, the two men also raised guns and aimed them right back at Ada. And so Ada just started firing her gun at the window, and these men began shooting back at her.

Right before Ada leapt to the ground, she was pretty sure she hit one of the men in the head with one of her rounds. And so she lands on the ground. It's absolute pandemonium at this point. Then her friend who's still on the phone is screaming like, What's going on? What's going on? And all Ada could think to do was yell out, There's two men. They're shooting at me. I think I shot one of them. The friend is screaming, I'm going to call the police. Then the line goes dead. And Ada, who's crouched down behind the kitchen island at this point, she realizes all the shooting has stopped. It's now dead silent in the cabin. And so for a second, Ada was thinking to herself, Maybe I managed to shoot both of them, and that's why it's quiet right now. But then another thought began to enter her head that maybe she had only shot one of them and the other survivor was moving into position to maybe ambush her. And so as she's running through what she's going to do, she hears this horrible, loud thumping shooting sound right above her in the second floor of the cabin.

Now, Ada knew at this moment, she should just get her dog and run, because if this second shooter has survived and has now come into her cabin and is upstairs, that means the forest is now clear and she can make a run for it. But as she sat there by the island still clutching her gun in this beloved family cabin of hers, she began thinking about the fact that ever since that attack in Detroit over the summer, that had totally wrecked her life and made her scared of everything. And so as she heard the sound of whoever this was marching around on her second floor, she made a decision. She was going to stand her ground and fight. And so she took a deep breath. She stood up with gun in hand. She made her way to the stairs and began to go up. It's no secret that a lot of the stories I've covered over the years are about real people who have been victims of just unspeaking intubulable violence. That's why, back in April of 2022, we decided to launch the Mr. Ballon Foundation, which was established to honor and support victims of violent crime and their families.

Now, over two years later, I'm happy to report that with your help, because none of this would be possible without all of you, we have been able to give $1.4 million to this group of people, to these victims and their families who are often overlooked after the news story about whatever happened to them fades. All donations that are made to the Mr. Ballen Foundation, literally 100% of them, go out the door to the cause. Meaning if you give $10, that $10 is going to the victims, it's going to their families. This is one of the very rare nonprofits that can actually say that. If you're interested in joining the Mr. Ballen Foundation community and contributing to this effort, all you have to do is go to Mr. Ballen. Foundation and click on Donate. Again, just go to Mr. Balin. Foundation and click on Donate. Thank you again to all our our owners, our listeners, viewers, all the people that made this possible. We are genuinely changing the world. Thank you so much. Now, back to the story. The police arrived at the cabin about 30 minutes later because Ada's friend did call the police, and she warned them that as far as she knew, there could be at least two gunmen there, and maybe Ada had shot one of them.

She wasn't sure. When the police arrived, they showed up guns drawn, and they walked up to the cabin They searched the outside, but there was nobody out there. It was silent. Then when they made entry into the cabin, they saw clearly there had been a shootout. I mean, there were bullet holes all over the place, broken windows. But after searching the cabin top to bottom, they didn't find anybody. No Ada, no shooters. However, they did find Ada's terrified dog inside of the cabin, and the dog would be just fine. Now, once the cabin was secured of any threats, the police would do another comprehensive search, looking for any evidence that would tell them where Ada or the shooters had gone. During this secondary search, they would find Ada's shoes and her cell phone on the roof of the cabin, and they would also find her gun on the ground not far from the roof, suggesting maybe she had fallen off the roof or jumped from the roof, but they were located roughly in the same area. During this secondary search, they wouldn't find Ada or the gunman, but they would find Ada's cell phone and her shoes on the roof of the cabin, and they would also find Ada's gun on the ground not far from where her shoes and cell phone have been found.

But that was it. Police immediately a massive search in the forest surrounding the cabin, but despite looking all over the place, they could not find any signs of Ada or her attackers. Police checked local hospitals to see if maybe the man that Ada had shot had shown up seeking medical attention, but as far as they could tell, he hadn't. And so pretty quickly, the police theorized that maybe there were no gunmen. Maybe what really happened here is Ada's boyfriend attacked her, and he was responsible for whatever happened to her. But when police checked on Ada's boyfriend, It would turn out he had a rock solid alibi. He had been with Ada's adult son at the time Ada had gone missing, and Ada's own son said, Yes, for sure. He was with me. He did not do this. But after that, the police thought, Okay, well, maybe if Ada's boyfriend didn't do this, maybe he hired other people to hurt Ada. But there was no evidence of any strange financial transactions. And as far as they could tell, when they did some digging, there was no strife in Ada and her boyfriend's relationship. So there was no clear reason why he would want to hurt her.

And so that lead also fell flat. Police would confirm that Ada was attacked that previous summer by this random guy in Detroit. And so for a little while, they speculated that maybe this guy, this attacker who had never been caught, had maybe tracked Ada down to finish off the job. But that seemed so far fetched and just unlikely that that basically was shut down as well. And as the days passed, the evidence that was coming in only made the case more confusing. For example, there were all these bullets fired during this big shootout in the cabin, and when they examined the actual bullets they extracted from the walls and the floor and the ceiling, they were all from Ada's gun. However, outside and inside the cabin, they found all these different shell casings suggesting that those bullets had been fired from different weapons, i. E, maybe the attacker's weapons. And so as the weeks passed by and Ada and her attackers were not found, people began to speculate that maybe this was all an elaborate setup by Ada just so she could disappear. Or other people thought maybe she was abducted by aliens. I mean, there were lots of theories surrounding this, but basically, nobody knew what happened.

And then pretty soon, the case just went completely cold. That is until December 21st, 2019, so about two months after Ada's disappearance. And on that day, Ada's family decided to drain a pond that was near that cabin in the woods. At this point, the family was so desperate for closure that they were prepared to do just about anything to find Ada and to figure out what happened to her. And so even though this pond had previously been searched by the police, they drain this pond, and sure enough, they find Ada. She was deceased, and her body was found about 300 yards away from the cabin, and she was covered in only about a foot of water. Now, initially, the speculation was, Well, here you go. She must have been chased out of her cabin by these attackers, and she was shot and killed, and this is where she fell. But after a quick examination of her body, it was clear she had no bullet wounds on her anywhere. In fact, she didn't even have any bruises on her or any major scrapes or cuts or anything, so it didn't even seem like she had been in any physical struggle at all before she died.

In fact, unless she had drowned, it really just seemed totally unclear how she had died. It was not until the medical examiner did Ada's autopsy that all this baffling evidence began to make sense. It would turn out in the wake of that horrible random attack that Ada had suffered over the summer, that Ada was actually doing far worse than she led on to her family and friends. She had basically begun to cope with her trauma and anxiety with substance abuse. And so on the night that had died, she was likely feeling totally stressed out and anxious, and she couldn't sleep as a result. She had taken some Valium, which is a fairly strong sedative, and also some anti-anxiety medication. But after taking those pills, she still wasn't tired. That was when she decided to go out for a walk with her dog to clear her head and have a smoke. But it was not cigarettes that she was smoking. She was smoking methamphetamine, known simply as meth. And meth is a very strong stimulant that people like because it makes them feel very strong and confident and alert, which for Ada was a powerful antidote to the helplessness she was feeling all the time from the attack she had suffered that summer.

But one of the many downsides of meth is that it can make you extremely paranoid. And so during her walk that night, as she's smoking meth, she sees a mountain lion, which terrifies her. Then after the mountain lion trots off, it was like that jolt of adrenaline and fear from seeing the mountain lion didn't subside because of smoking meth. It was like the meth sent her this paranoia overdrive that she couldn't escape from. And so when Ada went back inside of her cabin, she very likely did see people in her windows. But almost certainly, it was just her own reflection. But again, she's in this meth-induced paranoid state. And so instead of realizing it was her own reflection, she thought it was like intruders coming to get her. And before long, she'd raised her gun and thought the people outside were raising their gun back at her. But again, it's just her reflection. And so when she was shooting, she was She's basically having a shootout with herself. And then as for the strange noises she was hearing, like the footsteps on the second floor, very likely those were just natural sounds happening outside. She's out in the middle of a forest.

There's lots of noises that are totally natural at night. But again, she's in this paranoid state, and so she went upstairs to confront the person and then didn't see anybody. Then police theorized that she must have climbed out onto the roof to hide from these attackers. Then at some point, for reasons unknown, she leapt from the or climbed down or something, leaving behind her cell phone and shoes on the roof. She left her gun on the ground, and then she ran off into the forest where she ultimately collapsed 300 yards away in a foot of water, where she died not from drowning, but from a combination of hypothermia and also a toxic combination of drugs in her system. And so in the end, the danger that Ada was trying to escape was in her own mind. Before I When I became a professional, strange, dark, and mysterious storyteller, I served in the military. During my time in the military, I had some pretty wild experiences. But what I remember most about my time in service was not my own stories, but rather the stories I heard from other service members. Keep in mind, service members are sent to some of the most isolated and treacherous places in the world that very few people go to.

And so some of the stories that come out of those places are totally creepy and weird. And even more than that, a lot of these stories stay in-house. They stay in the military just because it's a cultural thing. People don't necessarily want to go out and tell the world about the totally unsettling and inexplicable thing they saw while they were deployed. It's like people might think they were crazy. But there's lots of stories like that. And so if hearing some of those crazy military stories appeals to you, well, boy, do I have a podcast for you? It's called Wartime Stories, and it's hosted by Luke LaMana, who himself is a veteran. He was a reconnaissance Marine, which I can tell you is a big deal. And so because he has access and placement, he's been able to extract some of these stories from the military, and he shares them on the show. And if you wanted to generalize the types of stories you're going to hear on this podcast, it's like the Strange, dark, and mysterious meets the battlefield and beyond. The Wartime Stories podcast is free, and it's available on any podcast platform. So all you have to do is go to your favorite platform and look up Wartime Stories, or you can search for Balin Studios because it's produced under Balin Studios.

You click on the show, give it a follow, and boom, you can start your bitch. New episodes drop every Monday. So if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, well, you got yourself a brand new weekly show. So that's going to do it. If you want more Strange, dark, and mysterious content, remember, we have a whole host of Strange, dark, and mysterious podcasts under the Balin Studio's umbrella. We have the Mr. Balin podcast, Mr. Balin's Medical mysteries. We have Bedtime Stories. We have Wartime Stories. We have Runful. They are awesome. They are free. There are tons and tons of episodes out there to binge right now. All you have to do is go to any podcast platform, look up Balin Studios, and boom, there you go. Thank you so much for all your support. Until next time. See you.