I'm A Cop & I Keep Getting Called To The Same House | Creep Cast

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I'm the cream and the big bad cream.

The creepy hunter.

Welcome back to Creepcast.

Today we're diving into a deliciously evil tale called, I'm a cop and I keep getting called to the same house.

Nice little cops episode.

This is a cop episode.

So this one's been recommended a few times in the comments section and whatnot.

So looking into the author, her name is SF Barkley.

And she was like in real life, a former police officer in western Pennsylvania who, while she was a police officer, experienced several strange and like supernatural calls.

So she started writing about them, like online, on no sleep, stuff like that.

And since then, has been a part of several anthology stories where there's been like collective writers groups, but has written her own novel as well called Patch Lane, which looking at it right now, with 430 reviews, it has 4.3 stars on Amazon, which is pretty high.

Patch Lane.

Patch Lane.

The description for the book says, Sarah Hastings is a rookie cop who works the night shift in Amber Forest, small rural town in western Pennsylvania.

After repeatedly responding to an abandoned and allegedly haunted farmhouse for 911 hang-up calls, she discovers a dead body in a secret room.

So

it's about a police officer who's on investigation, supposedly supernatural.

It looks pretty highly rated.

And this story that we're going to read today is from six years ago.

And like I said, it's very highly rated in the subreddit, and a bunch of people have told us to check it out.

So if this is good,

you can check out SF Barkley's other works on Amazon.

It looks like they're all sold on Amazon.

Shout out to her.

Or wherever you want to support her.

SF Barkley.

Go check this one out.

It looks like a.

Go ahead.

What was I saying?

Well, we have not read the story.

We're like, go there right now and buy it.

And then the story sucks.

And we're like, I said, I gave the clause.

I gave the clause.

If it's good,

I gave the clause.

Thank you, the camera.

Happy man.

I'm so glad that you guys were so happy about the Eat Me Like a Bug thing.

I was fighting for my life with the editor she made a joke to my wife about cutting it and i was calling her like you better you better not

and i and i'm glad it paid off i'm glad it paid off yeah i threatened i threatened to do horrible things to her future business opportunities destroy

the future to the ground exactly yeah yeah so i'm glad you all appreciate it i don't know if our merch is still up but if it's still up now uh it is

yeah it is probably closing into when the hoodies and stuff and those pre-orders are going to be done mind you we have to manufacture them, so it's going to take a sec.

So just fucking bear with us, dude.

But the hoodies are going to be.

Be an adult, grow up.

Thank you.

And, you know, I thank you so much to everyone who has supported and purchased some of the merch.

It's been fucking awesome for us.

We appreciate you.

Also, thank you to anybody this year who has supported us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all that stuff, and gave us a nice ranking or rating there.

It really does help.

So we appreciate that as well.

But I will say, without further ado, let's get into the r/slash no sleep story of I'm a cop and I keep getting called to the same house.

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And hey, let's get back to that episode.

Also, I want to say fucking ACAP, dude.

I think every cop in the United States is a fucking coward, and I hate the cops.

Thank you.

Thank you, King.

That's only brave opinions on this podcast.

You know what?

I think I think if you have a problem, deal with it.

Calling somebody else to fucking clean up your mess.

Am I right?

It was was especially funny because as soon as you said deal with it, the connection cut.

Like you got raided the moment you said that.

Yeah, SWAT team just raids in and just beats the shit out of me.

FBI, Michael.

It's pretty easy to rappel in on your set.

Get up!

That'd be great.

Maybe you think one of them would stick around to finish the podcast with me?

That'd be friendly.

You know what?

No, because they're all so fucking stupid that they wouldn't be able to read.

Yo, we can blink and cut anything.

No, you're not.

You're sure.

Go ahead.

No, no, no.

Go ahead.

We're having fun.

Okay, I'm going to read this story now.

I'm excited.

This is a multi-part one.

It doesn't look super, super duper.

It's pretty short parts.

But it is a little multi-part thing.

So I'm curious.

I'm curious to see this one.

We were going to read I Dare My Best Friend to Ruin My Life.

So that one will potentially be in a future episode, but today we landed on this one.

Yeah.

We'll see how it does.

We'll see what Barkley's got in store.

Also continue to do the liking on Spotify and all that stuff.

We're currently 35 on the charts, and Hawk 2 is nowhere to be seen.

So I think we won.

We won.

We win.

We won.

I won, Mr.

Stark.

At some point, we need to get up and be consistently in the top 10, guys.

We need to spit.

in Theo Vaughn's face.

We need to spit in Caller Daddy's face.

We need to spit in Bad Friend's face.

I'm kind of just reading the list of people here.

Yeah, yeah.

Call me Chris.

She's ahead of us.

We got to kill her.

Call me Chris.

Done.

Bullet to the back of the head.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Yep.

She listens to the show, so that's a

threat, Chris.

Should you remember that?

Oh, God.

I threw up a little bit.

I will say this, too.

I did.

I can't remember if I told you this last time.

I did get, before we get too deep into this, because this is a very controversial thing with the cops and stuff, and I have a controversial opinion.

I got up a day,

and it is so cold.

I cheaped out and I got the one that did not have, it doesn't have a heater.

And Isaiah, when I tell you, I was watching Titanic the other day and I, Kate Winslet, at the end of that movie, when she's like shivering and her, her lips are blue.

That's what my asshole looks like every time I take a shit and use my bidet.

I don't think it's possible that a bidet could give you a chemical peel through freezing the lips of your asshole, but it happens to me every time.

So now I'm in a perpetual state of frostburn.

All right.

I've been frostbitten so many times.

to the point where it makes, you know, because I used to look forward to having a nice, a nice shit

to start your day, you know?

Not anymore.

I've given up on coffee and Red Bull because

that extreme pressure of cold water peeling the dead skin layer of off my gray asshole is so intense that it wakes you up immediately.

So

this is just that was the controversial opinion, but I will say that if you're going to get the bidet, get the heated one.

That's all I had to say

that's it that's that's the that's my message

i'm a local rookie cop in a small town in pennsylvania currently stuck working night shift i work the normal patrol shift driving around pulling traffic responding to your normal domestic disputes and whatever other wonderful calls dispatch sends my way but ever since this past weekend Every single night, I keep getting calls at the same house.

At first, I thought it was my coworkers playing pranks on the rookie.

I have two years on the job, but in such a small town I work with most guys my dad's age.

I've omitted certain names and addresses for obvious reasons.

Anyway, here's what happened.

Friday night, around 0200 hours, so actually Saturday morning, dispatch gets over the radio.

1034, go ahead.

We just got a 9-11 hang-up from a landline that's coming back to XXX Patch Lane.

Can you go check it out?

10-4 en route.

So I immediately start driving to the address, which was about six miles away, but it's a pretty rural area, so I got there in less than 10 minutes.

I turn right onto the gravel lane, and after about 7 seconds, I see the house up ahead on the right.

No lights on inside.

I park my cruiser on the gravel lane, lights off, so as not to announce myself in case there is an actual emergency going on inside.

We're trained not to just roll up to a house, lights on, in case the subject decides to ambush the officers arriving with gunfire.

Anyway, I quietly approached the old farmhouse and checked the perimeter.

No signs of anything, no lights, no sound, not even a car parked anywhere.

I begin to think maybe dispatch got the address wrong.

10:34 to dispatch.

Dispatch, go ahead.

I'm at Patch Lane.

Can you confirm this is the address?

Standby.

1034.

Yes, that's the correct address.

You need backup?

Negative.

Appears nobody is home, but I'll update.

At this point, I knock on the front door and announce myself.

Officer Barkley!

Police department.

No answer.

All the windows were closed, and I gently try the front door.

Locked.

1034 to dispatch.

Dispatch, go ahead.

It looks like this house is abandoned.

I think the 9-11.

I think the 9-1-1 hangup 9-11.

Sorry, guys.

Sorry.

It's always on my mind.

I apologize.

I think that the 9-1-1 hangup might have been some wires crossed.

Clearly, no report.

10-4.

Sorry, I'm just taking a moment of silence.

Yeah, I mean, I every day in my life.

Yeah.

Oh, may

zingra.

How sweet

the sound

that

saved

two towers

for

me.

I once

was

lost,

but now

I'm found.

I just wanted to pay a little homage, is all I want to do the whole thing.

I appreciate it.

You know, between between this bit and the ACAB opening, we are going going to get destroyed.

See, I'm really, I'm really getting

all our Texas boys.

I'm really

emotionally tugging.

People don't know where I stand.

So

that's the great emotional drama of the play.

Yeah, exactly.

People are like, who does he, what does he stand for?

Hey, regardless of what's going on, you're just rooting for the little guy.

I'm always an underground guy.

And here's another thing, too.

I will do stolen valor.

That's another thing I won't.

I will do that.

You will see me do that in my lifetime, and I will get caught.

I respect that.

I respect that.

At this point, it's about 0-2.30 out.

I'm just going to say 2.30.

It's about 2.30, and I need a cup of coffee since I have another three and a half hours left on shift.

I head over to the local 24-hour gas station and find two of my ever-so-busy co-workers standing there fueling up on caffeine as well.

They grin and ask me if I had fun responding to the old dog's house.

Clearly, I must have had a dumb look on my face, showing the confusion I was feeling, because then he goes,

You don't know, do you?

He continues.

The old farmhouse belonged to Dr.

Wentz.

He was the guy that I'm sure you've heard of about...

I'm sure you've heard about.

Who used to go...

Oh my.

Good fucking God, Hunter.

Get it together.

Good, my God.

God!

That old farmhouse belonged to Dr.

Wentz.

He was the guy I'm sure you've heard about who used to do botched abortions and all sorts of inhumane procedures back in the 1800s.

He's the guy the rich went to when they had young daughters getting knocked up, when they had special needs child they didn't want to keep.

God damn.

He built the house himself and even named the road Patch Lane as a joke to all the patching he did for people.

I'm just laughing

at you.

Because it sounds like the cop like midway through is like get it together.

Come on

Tell the rookie about the abortion doctor.

Who's to cut up dogs?

He called every Mexican person he saw in Chihuahua.

He was horribly insensitive.

I finished my coffee, laughing about the old tale the guys were trying to pull over on me.

I wasn't going to let these guys spook me, especially being that I was one of the only females on the department.

I have to have skin twice as thick.

I finish up my shift, get some Z's, back in I go on Saturday night.

Around the same time,

I think my wife got home and was singing to the dog.

That or there's just a disembodied woman's voice singing.

Maybe it was Dr.

Wentz or one of his family.

Maybe it was Dr.

Patch or Patch Land or whatever they call it.

Maybe a little later around 2:30 a.m., I get the call.

Dispatch to at 1034 1034 go ahead we got another 911 hang up for the same number as last night this time they stayed on the line and we could hear someone talking but can't make it out can you go check it out again can you confirm the address again it comes back to patch lane

now i'm pretty sure the guys are getting dispatched in on some type of joke but whatever I still have to respond, better safe than sorry.

So I drive down the road, turn onto the gravel road, park my cruiser away from the house, check the perimeter, and go up to the front door.

Still no sign of life inside.

I knock on the door and announce myself.

Officer Barkley with the police department.

I'm about to leave and I go to check the door handle out of pure habit, sure shit, the door opens.

I was so startled by the fact that the door opened, my right hand immediately went to my gun on my right side.

I announce myself again.

Officer Barkley, the police department.

Come to the front door, or else I'm entering.

Before entering a house, for officer safety reasons, we always get on the radio.

1034, dispatch.

Dispatch, go ahead.

No one appears home, but the front door is unlocked.

I'm going to make entry and check the house.

It appears abandoned, though.

Do we have any backup available?

1034, all units are still on the f- on the fatal DUI accident.

Do you need one to break?

Negative.

I'll advise.

I figured I didn't need backup breaking from a potential homicide scene for this abandoned house search.

I make entry, gun drawn.

I proceed through the first floor, dodging cobwebs and stepping over dead insects and critters.

By the way, can they can police do that?

Just enter a...

Like, if no one answers, could they just walk in?

I guess so, as long as they announce.

Buddy.

The system's so fucked, they do whatever they want.

Okay.

Sorry, I forgot who I was talking to.

Let me call literally anyone else.

Also, can I just say, I do like this setup.

I like this setup of,

I like the little urban legend beforehand.

Kind of reminds me of like House of a Thousand Corpses, Dr.

Satan kind of vibe.

And I like that the, I like that, that the officer has been there before.

And then when she goes back, it's just unlocked.

It's just a classic little, you know, haunted house trope kind of thing.

I really, I like the little setup so far.

Yeah, it's like, it's like like your classic officer responds to creepy call It's like a it is a fun campfire story

I feel like I'd be with my friends at a campfire saying the story and we would all be in our sleeping bags and we'd be all scared and shaking.

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels very

very

classic.

Feels very classic.

A palate cleanser after you and the boys did a spin the bottle.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

We're not making this to another.

Which one did you make that joke on?

What?

Someone made the web comic about

the cucumber tastes better pickled.

Well, first off, that's a Dave Chappelle line.

Just want to put that out there.

What, it is?

Yeah, it's in the Chappelle show.

It's when he's on

trial defending Michael Jackson.

And I said, and then he says, sometimes the cucumber tastes better pickled.

All right.

Well, I didn't need to know that.

Yeah, so

web animation of you talking about making happy accidents with your friends in the woods.

There's some happy accidents.

That's what I tried to tell the assistant preacher.

He got me out of that church.

As a matter of fact, he threatened to register me with the state of Illinois.

So that's why I told the family we were moving to

out of Detroit because, you know, the business was gone in the region.

That's why we're down here now.

But

look, I'm just saying that

is the kind of heart no one wants to work anymore.

Okay.

That's where this country's brought this to.

Sometimes the cucumber tastes better pickled.

So how

I don't know what it is about you that keeps wanting to take stories in that direction.

I'm just saying, I can't wait.

People don't know we are getting ready to go on break and we're getting ready to go camping.

And it's going to be awesome.

I don't like anything you're saying.

I will say during the, well, we were reading Goatman on tour, Hunter kept bringing that up at every show, kept bringing up the whole like, oh,

isn't it funny if some guys got to fooling around in the woods?

And I will just say, LA did not like that joke.

Nothing funny about it.

Every other city found it hilarious.

In California,

not a laugh in the room.

They were just staring at us.

Dead meme immediately.

Just a couple guys.

And you kept trying to force it.

Oh, I absolutely did.

It was.

There's a couple guys fisting around.

You know what I mean?

It is what it is.

Yep.

Yep, that's what it is.

I'm going to keep reading now.

Okay.

I continue upstairs through the bedrooms, closets, and everywhere a person could be.

I checked.

I worked my way back downstairs and checked the basement.

It's a pretty small basement, but it's broken into several tiny rooms.

One room has a metal door with a padlock on it.

Padlock needs a key to open it and is completely rusted shut, covered in cobwebs, and even one big old black spider was guarding that lock, having made its home.

Clearly, this lock has been there for years, maybe decades.

I didn't worry much about it since there's no way anyone was in there due to how rusted this old lock was.

Even the keyhole looked corroded and filled with rust and dirt.

I eventually left and advised dispatch and a report.

I grab a cup of hot coffee around 4 a.m.

and catch up with one of the guys from the DUI crash and ask him him what the mess of a scene looked like.

Told me I'm lucky I wasn't stuck on that scene.

He asked me about the patch lane house and I told him it was pretty creepy, but I checked it out and it has to be crossed wired somewhere.

I felt comfortable telling him it was creepy since I knew this guy from when my dad was still on the force and he treats me like a daughter.

He said he used to get dropped calls all the time back

All the time from there back in the 90s, but there was actually a family living there back then Each time he got dispatched, they were surprised to see him and they let him search the whole house.

Never any problems.

Just a single mom with her two kids minding their own business.

I asked him what happened to that family, and he said nothing suspicious.

They moved away after maybe 10 months or so, definitely less than a year.

And a few families moved in and out, renting the house, but ever since about the late 90s, nobody moved in.

I asked him if he remembered there being a locked room in the basement.

Honestly, not really knowing what it was.

Honestly, not really knowing

honestly.

Sorry, they almost won that time.

Honestly, not really knowing what I was expecting as a response.

And his eyebrows raised, and he said,

and he said,

And he said,

You know what?

I actually didn't remember until you just asked now.

Yeah,

wow.

The only reason I remember is because a nice girl that lived there with their kids didn't have a key and couldn't get into the room.

It was asked me if I knew a local locksmith, but I told her I didn't really know anyone since anytime the cops need in somewhere, we just smashed the lock open.

She giggled, and I remember she was a very attractive-looking looking girl that voice was actually too good that i i was expecting you to launch into a bit at some point but you never did that was just thank you did you see that's what i i wanted a little bit of time i think i delivered i think i i think i got you i think i hooked you a little bit i think you did i think you did a really good job the only time you tried that hard is when it's going somewhere when you have like a joke lined up but you didn't know not so far at least so we both shrugged it off finding it odd but moved on with our shift into the early hours with another DUI stop and a domestic violence call from a guy whose wife drank too much and decided it was a good time to confront him for cheating on her three years ago.

God damn.

God,

we kind of keep under,

keep overshadowing this horrifying DUI accident that happened.

Good point.

Well, there was a DUI fatality.

Yeah.

And there's another DUI stop and then a domestic violence scenario.

So a lot, a lot happened.

I mean, like, most people I know who are police, like, this tends to be the vibe.

It's like, yeah, well, yesterday we had a couple domestics.

This guy

beat his wife to death.

I just, we, we, even we haven't commented on it.

I'm just, from a police standpoint, you'd have to see so much shit or hear about so much crazy shit every day, you know, that it's just all

annoying.

Water off a duck's back at some point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fast forward to Sunday night.

Back at work, and this time the call comes out right at 0300.

Dispatch to 1034.

1034 go ahead.

Hey, we have another 911 hang up from Patch Lane.

Are you able to go?

Since I was in the middle of eating my lunch, I decided not to even go.

Yeah, dispatch.

I cleared the house last night.

I didn't even see a landline telephone in the house.

Standby, 1034 to Sergeant Oakley.

Oakley, go ahead.

Hey, Serge, did you hear this call?

Do you need me to go or can we clear it?

1034, just drive by.

No need to go in if you don't see anything, but at least drive by.

Received.

Show me in route.

I was pissed since I didn't get to finish eating, but I did my job and drove down the gravel road.

This time, the front door was wide open, and I know I shut it closed the night before.

At this point, I began to think a homeless person's inside, which is still a trespass.

So I call it the dispatch.

I have an open door, and I'm going to check it out.

Homeless people scare the shit out of me, dude.

The idea of a homeless person being inside.

You are all over the place.

your political compass right now is like a star

on the board they freak me out they do

you ever look at a uh anytime i drive by which i don't know if you feel the same anytime i drive by a house it's abandoned i'm like i bet you anything there's just a fucking a litter of homeless men in there doing all doing god knows what but i'm like it's like you pissed everyone off this episode what like every demographic what did i do wrong because they're homeless people They're not animals.

It's like, they're someone who does not currently have a home.

Now, I'll give you that there's like people who are high on something and maybe you don't know what, but they seem unstable.

That's scary, right?

No, no, no.

That's more so just anyone on like heavy drugs.

I'm not saying I'm afraid of homeless people.

I'm saying that I am, I am saying that when I look at a house and you're like, oh, it's vacant.

There shouldn't be anyone in there.

And the idea that there is like a homeless guy in there freaks me out.

We had my grandfather, he used to live in this really big house over in East Tennessee.

And

after he went through a divorce, he just quit taking care of it.

And he started living in a double wide on the property of the big, like fancy house.

And he didn't touch that house for like 20 years.

So my dad and I go in there to clean it up or like see if we were trying to see if the house was salvageable because like the roof had fallen in and stuff like that.

And we go inside, and someone had been living in there.

And like, keep in mind, the house is not like a closed-off house.

Like, all the windows are broken.

There's like vines growing up the walls.

And we go in there, and there was like

a homemade cot that was laid out, and then like some empty cans of food and stuff like that.

And it looked recent.

That's why.

But

here's what's weird about it.

This isn't a property that's in like the middle of a town.

So it's like, oh, he walked down the station.

This is, you've got, there is one gas station, but like, you know, everyone who's at the gas station.

Other than that, it is trees and dirt roads for at least eight miles.

That's what I'm saying, dude.

I'm saying that.

So it's like, it's like, where is he?

If he's not here right now, where'd he go?

That's what I'm saying.

It's like.

Fucking homeless people walking around the fucking woods making Minecraft zombie sounds.

You know what I mean?

Going into your house, and then they have a cot.

How do they bring the cot up there?

They got a cot and fucking canned beans.

Well,

and that's the same thing with the story, though.

She's like, oh, I went, I drove down the gravel road.

So it's the same idea.

It's like, what, at a homeless guy?

He's just like, I'm going to walk down this road and just see where it leads me today.

I doubt it, dude.

I don't fucking trust him.

So here's the thing about this house, right?

Though, because now I'm talking about more of my trauma that's being unveiled.

Sure.

I was maybe like nine at the time, nine or ten.

And we set

all of

that stuff that we found inside of the house.

We set it outside.

We didn't throw any away.

It's just like, hey, we're trying to redo the house.

Like,

here's your stuff.

Come get it.

So

the next day, and we were sleeping in the double wide that was in line of sight of the house.

Oh, yeah.

They probably came out like fucking possums and grabbed it.

We go to sleep that night.

We wake up the next morning and everything had been moved back into the house.

My, my God.

My.

So now here's the thing.

We were like, it was in such a way they either had to come from the road or the double wide we were staying at.

So the other alternative is, were they in the house while I was in there?

Oh, dude, I bet you they were.

In the closet or the basement or just being real quiet while we were

thinking about that sometimes.

Can you imagine like you're like walking around?

You're like, oh, yeah, man, this is going to be.

I don't know.

You know, you're like talking to your dad, like, oh, this is this problem.

This house looks too, like, you're just casual conversation.

No, it's too renovated, blah, blah.

And then you walk by, and then, like, the closet you didn't open, that's where the guy was standing.

You know, I almost, it's weird.

It's weird you mentioned that.

Cause I

used to have these nightmares about that house because there were so many ghost stories.

Do not tell me that you do not fucking trauma dump me right now.

Listen, I used, I used to have so many nightmares about that house.

I would have dreams about like there was a monster in it or like it was on fire or stuff like because it was just a creepy house, right?

Because it was old, decrepit.

It was built like in the late 19 or early 1900s.

So it looked like an old like plantation style house or whatever, but it was like overgrown and stuff.

So I used to have nightmares about it.

And I would have this one nightmare where there was a face looking at me from like the top of the stairs.

Oh my god.

Like where the banister was, there'd be someone looking down.

I had that dream a lot.

And it's almost so vivid.

I wonder if it's like a memory.

How old were you?

How old were you when you went into the house with your dad?

Like nine, like nine or ten.

Dude, you, oh my God, Isaiah, you saw a fucking 50-year-old homeless guy looking at you.

You ain't probably

his fucking gross ass finger up to his list.

He did.

Shh,

like, you know, like Sleepy Hollow or some shit.

He might have.

He might have, because honestly, I don't remember that.

You called him the canned man.

Because he had like a bunch of fucking canned beans rattling around.

The canned man keeps looking at me.

Your dad's like, shut up.

Come on.

We got to go go meet grandpa on the double-wide.

It's like the canned man treats me nicer than grandpa or dad ever did.

I mean, if it was the can man, he was quite nice to me.

Like, I did.

Did I know?

I bet he was.

You know why?

Because every day you would fucking paw around your grandpa's double-wide trailer for some cans, canned of Heinz beans.

Can man.

He had a spoon, you'd hit the side of it.

Can man.

You hear him rustle around.

Are you?

the can?

The can-man is certainly a great creepcast character to relay off my possible childhood trauma.

Look, here's what I have to say.

Here's what I think.

If it is a repressed memory, I hope it stays repressed.

I hope I never took that one up.

I have a haunting feeling that you are going to get a visit from the Can Man in your dreams tonight, dude.

I have a feeling if I do, you probably have a roll of decks in your brain.

I hope.

I actually haven't thought about that in a long time until we started reading about the house.

And as she's describing, like, the open door, I'm thinking, like, oh, that's kind of familiar.

There's a man standing there with

a string of cans attached to his belt.

Is there a couple inside?

I like to imagine that the can-man was actually very kind.

You can do anything you want with your life.

He's just stuffing his face.

He was very...

Yeah, he was just like a friendly old guy.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's a much more pleasant outcome.

I didn't want to go down the hill.

Yeah, I know.

Because we decided that the house was too far gone

because it was like too damaged.

It cost more to repair it than, you know, it would be to just get a new place right.

So

we went back years later because it had, what was that wood called?

Wormy chestnut.

It's like a older like vintage wood that some of the floorboards were made of.

And we're like, oh, well, maybe we could salvage it and sell it because it's apparently worth a penny.

So we go back to look at the house again,

and uh, like the cot was still there, I remember.

Oh my god, uh, but there, but dad was like, No, no one's been here for a while.

But I think you may have just been lying to me, he's 100% lying.

You know why?

Probably because I bet you have anything.

If I met your parents, the first thing it'd say is, Yeah, it's weird back then is when Isaiah was seeing the can man, he kept coming into our room late at night and he had

bush beans all over his lips and shirt.

We kept saying, Isaiah,

what the hell are you doing with all these bush beans on your shirt?

The can man shared it with me.

I'm sharing it with the can-man.

I like the idea that there was

like a creepy old man who lived in the house outside, and the worst thing he ever did was sneak me beans to share with him as he told me stories.

Come bring me beans, we can eat it together.

Yeah,

weird hackling thing.

I'm spending $70 a week on bush beans for Christ's sakes, Isaiah.

I do vividly remember finding a dead cat in the house.

Isaiah, this is not the time or place

to keep.

I don't think I'm like, you need to

talk to a therapist immediately.

I remember because I'd never seen like a pet-sized animal dead or like an animal that could be a pet dead.

I remember

what it looked like in the shape of a human, and it was under a rag.

Yeah.

It's under a blanket.

That's what that smell was.

That's why I was was

like a

looked like a cat at first but then a man drug it upstairs i don't know what happened to it

this time the front door was wide open and i know i shut it closed the night before at this point i begin to think a homeless person's inside which you still trespass so i call it to dispatch and i have an open door and i'm gonna check it out I make entry and this time I see someone run around the corner.

My gun's drawn since I have no idea what to expect here and I announce myself and run after them.

When I turn the corner it's just the kitchen and door to the basement.

No way out.

I run into the basement and nobody's down there.

Nobody.

I get on my radio and ask for backup but get no response.

Make my way back up and still nothing on the radio.

I finish clearing the house and still can't find the person.

I make my way out to my cruiser and use the cruiser radio and I'm out of breath at this point.

1034 to dispatch.

Go ahead.

Did you hear any of the calls for backup?

Negative 1034.

You need unite?

No, you can disregard.

I

had one subject on the premise, but they're gone.

I'm heading back to the station.

So, of course, everyone asked me about what happened, and all I can say is that they must have ran out when they saw me.

I didn't tell anyone that the direction they ran left them absolutely no way of running outside.

I begin to wonder if I'm going crazy.

I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

Rookie, remember.

So at this point, I just have one more night before I can rest.

Monday night shift left me speechless.

At roll call, everyone jokes about when I'm planning to go back to Patch Lane.

I tell them they can get the call and I'm done.

3 a.m.

Dispatch to 1045.

1045 is my good friend who has been to the house in the 90s.

1045, go.

We got a 911 to to hang up on Patch Lane.

Sergeant Gabe DOK just to drive by and make sure no one's there.

1045 okay.

Show me en route.

Not even 30 seconds go by my cell phone beeps and I have a text.

Hey, want to meet me there?

Bastard.

Of course I'm going to say no.

So yeah, I go.

1034 to dispatch.

You can add me to 1045's call.

10-4.

We show up the same time, and this time the front door is wide open again.

Awesome.

Both clear the first floor, then the top floor, and make our way into the basement together.

Nothing.

Then we turn the corner, and I see there's no lock on the metal door anymore.

We look at each other, and he said,

I thought you said this was locked.

Uh, it was.

So he slowly opens the door, and we are hit in the face with the most horrid smell.

A smell I know well.

The smell of death.

We find a a corpse of a young female.

Bloated.

Fresh.

The body naturally bloats about two to four days after death and traps gases.

That's where the odor comes from.

We call for backup, and medical examiners show up on the scene.

They process the scene and begin to take the body away.

I ask them how long has the body been there.

They're the experts, not me.

And the MEs and the ME guys say between three to four days based on rigor mortis, liver mortis, and a few other medical terms, I probably can't even spell.

I said there's no way that's possible because I was there a day ago and there's no way that was freshly locked.

The lock was so corroded, rusted, covered in cobwebs, nobody touched it in years.

They said, Officer Barkley, that isn't our job to explain.

We're just telling you that this body has been laying in the exact position, in this exact position, in that room, for between three to four days.

Tomorrow will be my first night back, and I'm not sure what to expect.

That's the end of part one.

That's a fun, fun idea.

Fun setup.

Now, let me ask you this.

Do you think that it's veering towards

paranormal, or do you think it's like crazy just serial killer?

Oh, definitely, definitely paranormal.

The way that it was like...

Oh, there's an old doctor who used to do like private abortions there.

And then it's like, oh, she sees someone who runs into the basement, then disappears.

I think that's all.

I think it's definitely paranormal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I guess, too, with the locks just being like, there's a lot of like weird tomfoolery going on, a lot of unexplainable stuff.

There's a lot of ghostly shenanigans about

ghostly shenanigans, you say.

Well, I'm stoked for part two, though.

That was a fun little setup.

It was fun.

I enjoy it here.

I'm, you know, I'm going to do I am going to grab a crisp bread bowl from my mini fridge right here.

Oh,

yes, a beautiful, wow, delicious, sugar-free.

Hold on.

Part two.

All right, part two.

Update Thursday, August 9th, 2018.

I woke up this morning to a blaring ringing coming from my nightstand.

Smacked my alarm clock, but it didn't stop the noise.

I finally realized with half an eye open that it was my phone.

I answer.

Hello?

Barkley, wake the hell up.

Chief wants to see you now.

Sergeant Oakley is not the voice I wanted to hear at 8 a.m.

this morning.

I rolled my ass out of bed and began to to get ready to head into the station since I knew it was never a good sign when good old Chief Fox wants you in his office ASAP.

Around 9, I walked into the station in uniform and headed towards Chief Fox's office.

I knocked on his open door and poked my head around the corner.

Chief said, Barkley, come in and shut the door.

Shut the door and took a seat.

Well, Barkley, you shouldn't be surprised while you're here.

You got dispatched to the same goddamn house for four nights in a row and discovered a dead body on the fourth night.

And this body has been there for at least two of the previous nights.

You really fucked up, Barkley.

And now I have paperwork out the ass, and you need to answer some questions.

What the hell?

How is he turning this thing on me?

I did my job.

I followed protocol.

I followed my training, and I cleared the house as I was taught.

Okay, Chief.

What questions do you have?

Walk me through the first night.

Did you check the windows?

The doors?

Yes, I checked checked the windows, which are all secured, and the front door is locked.

There are no other doors except the front door.

It's a very old and small farmhouse.

All right.

What about the second night?

Windows, doors?

Chief, I checked the windows, and as my report said, the second night the door was unlocked.

I followed the protocol and made my entry.

And tell me why you didn't check the room in the basement.

Well, according to Marilyn v.

Beawey,

I conducted a person sweep of the home to check for any persons on the the premises since the property appeared abandoned.

I looked in all the areas and a person could potentially hide, and when I got to the room, I saw the clock was rusted, corroded, and covered in cobwebs.

There was no way anyone could have hidden in that room and locked themselves inside.

I was not searching for a crime or illegal substances.

I was only legally allowed to search for persons in the residence.

I know the fucking law, Berkeley.

Thanks.

Did you try the lock?

Well, no.

I could see that it would not have opened.

Did you think to try to call one of your mail officers to try to open the lock?

Ooh, shot, you dumb broad.

Right?

Does that not read like that?

You stupid bitch.

Yeah, that reads like, did you need a man to come do it for you?

Yeah, I find you need a man to come.

Yeah.

Chief, the reason I didn't try to open it was because I thought it was too weak.

I didn't try to open it because I could tell

it had not been touched in decades.

Well, thanks for your expertise in locks and corrosion.

This entire case is fucked up thanks to you.

I'm I'm gonna keep a close eye on you.

Chief Fox, I followed all our department's procedures and stayed within the law.

If you feel I handled these calls improperly, then please provide me with any additional training and procedures that would guide me how I should have handled it.

Nobody likes a smartass, Berkeley.

Go start your shift.

You have a lot of follow-ups to do now for this.

You have a lot of follow-ups to do now for this case.

It can't be doing that shit at night.

Bro, I love, I love like stereotypical.

settings.

You're off this case.

I got people against your ass, Berkeley.

Listen here.

The mayor's at my ass.

This whole department's coming apart.

Yeah, exactly.

We're falling apart at the seams, and the mayor's at my ass.

You're off this case.

You're back on it.

Now you're off.

You're on the case.

You're off the case.

You're on the case again.

No one's on the case.

Everyone's on it.

No one's on it.

You snip.

Get off the case.

All right, come here.

Get on the the case.

All right, now that you're on it, now get off it.

I wanted you on so I can put you off.

I have so much paperwork.

That's got to be like crack to like grow a mustache, be on a department for years, and then yell at like some rookie, you're off the case.

That's got to be if I was a 58-year-old man with a stash, and I was just like, I was like, you son of a bitch,

the mayor is breathing down my neck, and now I got a stack of paperwork paperwork that's going to take me the rest of the goddamn week.

I'm keeping an eye on you, Berkeley.

That's so good.

I love that one.

I'm keeping an eye on you.

I feel like, hold on, I've got aviators.

Should I put them on?

I think so.

Even you're a cop now, Isaiah.

You got to.

Hold on.

If you're in cop energy, you got to put on the aviators.

Nobody likes a smart ass, bro.

Most of broccoli.

Nobody likes a smart ass, Barkley.

Don't start your shift.

You have a lot of follow-ups to do now for this case.

It can't be doing that shit at night.

Get out of my office.

Hello?

He had to get up to go get his aviators.

Oh, no, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.

Okay, that took much longer than i was originally expecting but i found them

all right that was definitely worth the time that was definitely worth the time it was definitely worth it 100

what an asshole i knew from the day city council hired me that he hated me yeah as i said it's a small town so the chief tends to do what city council tells him to do lucky for me city council was eager to hire another female officer but i don't think fox was on board with their idea i'm used to the sexism in these small towns, but I tolerate it since my fellow

That's so funny me putting the shades on to be like, yeah, I'm used to the sexism in small towns.

But I tolerate it since my fellow patrol officers, for the most part, don't share the chief's criticisms.

I decided to follow up with the medical examiner's office to see what information they had from the autopsy and the crime scene, since we didn't seem to have a copy of their report at our station.

I called the chief medical examiner.

Hey, it's Officer Barkley from the Patch Lane case.

Did you guys finish up the autopsy report?

Yeah.

Oh,

okay.

I didn't see a copy here at the station.

Can you send it over?

I'm pretty busy right now, and plus, that's a my assistant's job.

All right, how about I just swing by and pick it up?

You can do whatever your little heart desires.

Gotta be

got to be

an appropriate way to talk.

You can do whatever you want to, sweetheart.

Sexual harassment.

Got it.

I'm just a medical examiner.

You don't have to tell me about sexism in small towns because I know all about it.

Yeah, tell me about sexism in small towns, sweetheart.

I'm the chief of sexual assault.

I'm the chief of,

I'll assault your sexual any day you want.

I'm medical examiner.

I'll examine you medically.

What?

You got a...

He's wearing like a female body inspector shirt like yeah he's wearing either a female body inspector shirt or he's wearing the uh the shirt that's like a tuxedo but it's just a short-sleeve shirt yeah

yeah he's like anytime you want i think the body's here somewhere

oh that yeah well i think we have that i thought you meant i i thought you were talking about something else right so jobs jobs but he's actually getting me pizza rolls from the store right now so

just like overneath a corpse, like eating like warmed up tuxedos.

It's like the grease is dripping all over the body.

Oh shit.

Good.

The chief medical examiner wasn't exactly eager to help, but I grabbed my cruiser's keys and headed on over to the lab.

The assistant was a young girl, fresh out of college, greeted me with a smile.

Hello, officer.

How can I help you?

Asked her for a copy of the ME's report from Patch Lane, and she proceeded to enter some letters into her computer then hit print.

She handed me a three-page document and so I asked.

Aren't there more pages?

Nope, that's it.

I found this very odd considering most medical autopsy reports for a homicide case are all well over 20 or 30 pages.

I took a seat to look over the report and I guess my confusion and anger showed on my face since the receptionist asked if there was a problem.

So I reviewed the autopsy report.

I saw that for the hair color, color, which was clearly long and blonde, they listed brunette.

For eye color, they listed undetermined.

I wish this was the end of the shit show, but the entire report seemed to be either wrong or just incomplete.

The manner of death was listed as homicide, but the cause of death was listed as undetermined.

What the hell?

Isn't that their job to determine cause of death?

I marched over to the chief medical examiner's office and knocked twice before walking in.

Chief, is this just a skeleton report from the patch lane incident?

Held up the three-page document in my hands to show him.

A skeleton report is just a basic report cops will fill out prior to end of shift, and then the next day, with fresh eyes, they fill in the gaps.

However, with the homicide case and being that this was now over 48 hours later, I didn't understand why they would only have a skeleton report.

Nope, that's the finished report, sweetheart.

I hate when old creepy men call me sweetheart.

Well, why is there no cause of death listed?

Because thanks to you, the body sat in a locked room for three days and left us barely any evidence to work with.

Why the hell is everyone blaming me for this?

Then can you explain why the hair color was wrong and about half of these items are listed as undetermined?

If you think you can do better, go right ahead.

God, what is this police department?

She's like the only professional person.

She's like, am I the only person actually doing my job here?

He's like, I took my crack at it.

If you think you're better, go ahead.

Change it.

I wrote it all in pencil.

Erase whatever you want and write whatever you need down.

It's really funny because it's like, hey, you didn't list a cause of death.

It's like, it's been a whole two days.

You think we can tell after two days?

Who are you?

Exactly.

What do I look like?

Harry Houditi?

Do you think I'm Batman or something?

World's greatest detective?

No, ma'am.

Come on.

How am I supposed to tell?

You think I could tell how somebody died from a body?

They got to be alive to tell me that about a big duh.

Toots.

And then she's like,

okay,

did you...

Why did you say her hair was brewed?

What do you want me to do?

Look, God, so what?

We're going to get this.

I've got a block.

First, she wants me to be a magician, figuring out how she likes to do it.

She wants me to look at the body.

Who are they hiring down at the department these days?

Sweetheart.

You're so much prettier when you smile.

Yeah,

he immediately immediately launches into like has anyone ever told you you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

Oh my god, you might be the you might be the most beautiful angel I've ever seen.

Let me

surprise God let you come down from heaven.

I don't mean to be too forward here, but you have an amazing rack.

I don't mean to be too harsh, but it's just a fact.

I like to be very subtle, but I would love to make love to you at any point.

and i i hate to impose this question because i i pride myself on my subtlety but are your nipples tiny or are they the big pancake ones

just tell me he's like

he's he's like taking his clothes off yeah she's like

without everyone's acting so far i would not surprise me this medical there this fucking police department sucks

she's like uh did you why did you list the hair colors brunette?

And he's like naked, rubbing oil on himself.

He's like,

yeah.

Coconut oil is great for the skin, sweetheart.

I would like to take you on a date tonight.

What do you say?

I'm going to take you to the fanciest restaurant in the bed.

It's called Olive Garden.

Free breadsticks, sweetheart.

Do you like bread?

She's like, do I like bread?

Oh, yeah.

They even put leaves in there.

She's like, it's spices.

It's regano.

No, no, no, leaves.

Leaves.

They put leaves in there.

Then, if you get the potato soup, you can dip the bread in the soup, and then it's a whole nother world.

It's a different ballgame.

If you can get potato soup, if you can get cabbage soup from Olive Garden, she's like, Are you eating like a Depression era person at a restaurant?

I would like the edge of a loaf of bread and a bowl of your finest cabbage soup.

Thank you.

What do you mean they sell pasta here?

What is it?

Wet bread?

I don't like that.

Disgusting.

Yeah, get the fuck out of here.

Leave the case.

We're going to Rain Robin.

Yum.

Okay.

Where was I?

Okay, yeah.

I asked to go see the body and I wanted to make sure I wasn't just making shit up in my own head.

Shockingly, he agreed and took me over to the freezer.

Again, it's a small town, so the morgue only had about five bodies in the freezer.

That's a lot of bodies, I feel like

for a small town to have in the freezer.

Yeah, there's 70 people who live in this town.

There's five dead bodies already.

We had an 8% casualty event last night.

I do not know how we are going to economically recover from the DUI incident

of the five people undead.

That includes the mayor,

his secretary, the head of commerce, and the owner of the bank.

We don't know how to do it.

As well as the pastor of three churches in the region.

One of them was Jewish.

We don't know how he did it.

That's how good he was.

We'll never recover.

Oyve.

It's.

I get

There's a body in there that's in both like a priest garb and like a Jewish synagogue.

He's a rabbi and a priest.

How the hell did you do it, rabbi priest?

Okay, we have to, I have to get, we have to lock in on the story a little bit.

We were pushing it with the bug thing last time.

Yeah,

i know everyone's bad whatever

we're having fun oh sorry that we're having a good time i found our jane dough from patch lane and zipped open the bag i immediately noticed her blonde hair i knew i wasn't crazy grabbed some latex gloves and began to go through her pockets to look for identification since clearly the emmy's office decided it was undetermined if she had items in her pockets found a receipt from a gas station for 10 gallons of gas priced at 112 per gallon.

I actually felt jealous of this dead woman, wondering where she found to get where she found to go, where she found to get gas that sheep.

Man, I don't know why that hurt.

Then I looked up the top of the receipt and saw the date stamp as 10-20, 1998.

So what 12 years ago?

20 years ago, yep.

Why the hell would she keep a receipt that old?

I flipped the receipt over and saw there was some type of writing, like in pencil on it, but I couldn't make it out.

Put the receipt in a baggie and decided I was going to send it out to the PA State Lab for further testing to see if they could decipher what was written.

The more I looked at her, I also noticed she was wearing bleached jeans with a multicolored sweatshirt, like what my mom used to dress me in when I was younger.

I left the freezer since I could barely feel my own fingers and asked the chief Emmy if he had copies of their attempts to identify the body, dental moldings, fingerprints, DNA tests, etc.

Handed me over a stack of some papers and said, Good luck.

Why are there only six fingerprints?

Why don't you do all ten like normal?

Well,

why did you check the lock of the door while you were through this?

God

What?

What is this?

This is the most fucking petty police department of all time.

Well, why didn't you check the lock of the door while you were there three days ago?

I don't tell you how to do your job, so why the hell are you going to try to tell me how to do mine?

What is this?

It's insane.

He's literally like, look, you couldn't find the body, so I'm going to not identify it.

Exactly.

You just don't put that up.

I left out four fingers, even Stevens.

It's a clean state.

Asshole.

I decided I was going to redo her fingerprints since the ones he handed me look shitty and weren't even complete.

She's usually more thorough than this, and I have no idea why it feels like I'm the only one even trying to solve this case anymore.

Fingerprinted all 10 of our Jane Dones' fingers and ran them through my mobile automated fingerprint identification system.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I got a hit, so I clicked see more and my screen read.

Michelle Klein, date of birth, July 5th, 1972, date of death, October 20th, 1998.

What the hell?

Interesting.

End of part two.

So this is, so wait, do you, let me ask you this.

With everyone being so fucking up in arms and stuff, do you think that the story is trying to bait and switch you?

Like, oh, the police department's in on it?

Or do you think it's just incomp?

Like, do you think that the police department is trying to hide something?

Or do you think that's it?

The police department's a hundred percent in on it you think you think this guy being like look what you want me to do my job are you crazy like

yeah that's a hundred percent uh

this is undoubtedly police department malfeasance um

i i do think as far as like the case itself goes there's some weird time wibbly wobbly stuff going on i think

Because it's like she died in 1998.

Her clothes are from 98.

The receipts from 98.

So yeah, I think this is

some weird time warp thing that's happening.

I don't know exactly what yet.

Maybe she died then and was transported because she was dead for two days.

It's not like the body's been there for 20 years, right?

Right.

Or maybe there was something that preserved her body perfectly, but then why would the date of death be listed?

That wouldn't make sense.

So I feel like this is, maybe it's like, maybe it is an old case that like the body repeated itself, was like copied over into the house or something.

I don't know, but I am interested.

Part 3.

Update August 13th, 2018.

I woke up Friday evening, groggy with a pounding headache.

I'm beginning to think the bottle of wine I finished Thursday night wasn't such a great idea.

That's the thing with cops.

When we come across horrible scenes that we can't rationalize or explain, whether it be murdered children, abusive husbands, finding a 20-year dead body, we turn to alcohol.

Me personally, I turn to a nice dark Merlot.

Is that how you pronounce Merlot?

Merlot?

Yeah, I think it's Merlot.

Yeah, you're right.

I couldn't stop wondering how the hell that body could have died 20 years ago.

It was fresh.

I could still smell it.

Made absolutely no sense.

Grab my keys in my left hand as I wedged

my right hand fingers between my duty belt and uniform belt to get my last belt keeper snapped in place before running out the door to make it to roll call on time.

While driving to the station, all I could could think about was how there's no way my mobile aphis was correct.

I decided that as soon as roll call ended, I was going to grab a different mobile aphis from the back cave, the not so creative name we called the room with all of our tools, gadgets, and weapons, and scan my Jane Doe's fingerprints again.

As soon as roll call was over, I ran upstairs, grabbed Jane Doe's fingerprints from the case file.

Next, I grabbed one of the newer mobile Aphis devices and scanned Jane Doe's fingerprints.

It was running slow, but seemed to be thinking.

The screen read, read,

processing, processing, processing.

And after it felt like an eternity, but in reality it was maybe three minutes, I got the message.

System has timed out.

Failed attempt.

Weird.

This has never happened to me before.

I decided to try it again.

This time I can actually feel my heart start to thud louder and louder as I waited for the results.

Processing, processing.

No results found.

What the hell?

Are you kidding me?

This is the response I'm used to seeing when I scan a suspect's fingerprints who has never before been arrested.

I didn't tell anyone about my previous Michelle Klein results because it didn't make any sense to me.

I worried something exactly like this would happen, and I would like, and I would look like the crazy one.

Before I could jump on one of the computers to start to do some digging, I heard the tone drop.

The tone is the loud, high-pitched screaming tone that makes every cop's heart skip a beat.

Dispatched all available units.

We just received a call for gunshots fired near the McDonald's.

This town is insane.

I don't.

I'm in hell.

The caller is unsure where the shooting occurred, but heard three gunshots followed by the screeching tires and someone yelling.

Can I say real quick?

I have a story, but I feel like this is a good one.

So when I was a kid, I actually had to go to court.

Because the canned man was being arrested and you were forced up on the stand.

That's him observed.

I've never been called to court as a witness.

Thank you.

I got a speeding ticket.

I was going,

I think it was like 16 over the speed limit or whatever when I was 16.

So to try to scare me, I was driving through Kentucky.

They sent me to a local court.

So I show up at my court date and at the beginning, so like, you know, you show up early morning, 7.30, 8, whatever, and you have to sit there in the back before they call up your case.

So you're just listening to all the trials, right?

So I'm listening to all the trials.

And it's all of the initial hearings, like all of the,

what do they call it when they do

reasonable suspicion?

What do they call it?

I'm going to find that there's plausible deniability.

Whatever.

No, the thing where it's like, I'm going to find that there's reasonable suspicion or whatever to go forward with your case.

Basically, like the judge is determining, does the case deserve to go into trial, guilty, not guilty, whatever.

So I'm sitting there listening to all of it.

And they are going through a bunch of the assaults.

And the whole line of people going up to the stand, up to the bench to talk to the judge are the kind of people you'd expect, like a bunch of like drug addict looking guys in t-shirts who are there.

It's all like domestic and stuff like that.

But there's one girl in line who looks like a soccer mom.

Like she's like, has her face done in makeup.

She's like wearing like a track suit or whatever.

And the whole time, I'm like, what is she here for?

And she gets up to the front.

And the judge is like, do you understand

the

ruling against you?

And she was like, no, I do not.

And he was like, would you like me to read like the officer's report?

And she was like, yes, I would.

And in my head, I'm like, oh, yes.

Fantastic.

Give me the tea.

And the judge reads off the officer's report.

And it's like, suspect entered into a local McDonald's and after getting into a disagreement with the worker, hopped the counter and began punching several members of the staff.

Good fucking God.

After this, she began grabbing food and refreshments from behind the counter and throwing them at patrons as they entered.

When police arrived to the scene, she began throwing ice cream at them before she had to be tased and arrested.

Of course.

You know, sometimes you have those days, dude.

Sometimes you have those days.

So the whole courtroom is like starting to laugh and the judge like has to slam the gavel.

He's like, order, order, whatever.

And he was like, man, I'm going to find that there's reasonable suspicion, suspicion maybe whatever i'm gonna find there's reasonable suspicion to move forward until then uh i'll see to it that you are not allowed to enter a mcdonald's and she says what how many mcdonald's which ones and he says any mcdonald's in the continental united states

And then, so she's walking out the door and some crack addict in the back of the courtroom, whenever she's about to walk out, goes, here comes the hamburgler.

Everyone in the court started laughing,

man.

To get totally fucking burned by a crack addict, homeless guy would be fucking brutal.

Yeah, she got this.

Dude, it was like scratching scabs off of his skin, like near shirtless.

And he's like, Here comes the ham burglar.

And like the judge was laughing, like the

other crack addicts, like abusers were laughing.

It was great.

Yeah.

Anyways, yeah, that's happening in this town.

There's gunshots being fired near McDonald's.

I ran to my cruiser, flipped the switch to turn on my lights and siren, and raced to the scene.

We circulated the area for over an hour with no results.

Finally, dispatch got back on the air.

Dispatched all units.

We just received a call from the hospital that they are gunshot wound patient and they would like an officer to respond.

Sergeant Oakley was kind enough to offer the rookies assistance.

Just like that, I spent the entire rest of my night sitting at the hospital waiting for the victim to come out of surgery so that I could question him.

I spent all Friday night thinking about our Jane Doe case and trying to find answers.

But the more I thought about the case, the more questions I had.

When I returned to work Saturday, I decided I wanted to return to Patch Lane and try to get some closure to some of the unanswered questions.

After everything that happened, I realized it would be best for me to not go alone.

I texted my friend Tim, he's a badge number 1045 who responded last time with me, and asked if he'd be willing to head back over to Patch Lane with me under the radar.

He agreed and we both advised Dispatch to hold us out doing foot patrol around the park.

This is an area we had a lot of problems at night with underage drinking and smoking.

Hold my cruiser to a stop and shut off the engine.

Tim slowly forced himself out of his cruiser, muttering about his bad back.

Barkley, what are we even looking for back here?

Anything, Tim.

I just don't think the ME's office processed the scene properly based on how they handled the body.

What are you talking about?

Shit, I didn't tell him about my little visit to the Emmy's office.

Nothing.

Let's start out and do a full sweep of the perimeter.

She should tell him.

If she trusts him, she should tell him.

Yeah, why would she not?

Especially the way.

Maybe at this second, it's like, okay, we're standing here.

Let's just get this over with and then I'll explain it to him.

But she needs to explain it to him.

I feel like you would debrief that or I'm surprised that she's like, as a veteran on the force, that she wouldn't be like, has this happened to you?

Like, this seems so odd.

you know what i mean

yeah you'd think it'd be something to bring up

i wasn't really sure what i was expecting there was still police tape across the front door with a fire red sticker on the seal of the doorway stamped do not enter i leaned in to check the door handle to make sure it was locked as i reached down i heard a loud shill scream come from immediately behind me I jumped up, turned around, and shined my flashlight straight ahead.

Nobody was there.

I heard a much softer, quieter skill skilf come from ground level.

Redirecting my light downward, sitting in front of me was a Halloween black cat.

Jesus Christ, cat.

What the hell are you screaming at me for?

Now that she had my attention, she came up to me and wrapped her body around my leg, purring.

I proceeded to check the rest of the windows, merged my way to the rear of the house, towards Tim.

Haley, yes I named her, followed me and began frantically meowing at me the closer I got to the rear of the house.

Her screaming got so bad, I had to throw her some crackers from my pocket just to distract her, and it worked.

I noticed a shadow in the upper level window, but couldn't make out what it was.

I began taking steps backward to get a better look through the upper level window, all while shining my flashlight upwards.

About the seventh or eighth step back, I felt something hard and sharp whack into the back of my ankle.

It brought me to my knees.

Tim came running over since this time I was the one doing the yelling and not Haley.

He shined his light light down to make sure I was okay.

Thank God there was no blood and I seemed to be fine.

I bent over to see what it was that I felt going to my ankle and I felt a rusted, sharp chunk of metal.

It was an old root cellar door handle.

Root cellars are not uncommon on these old farms.

It was a way for farmers to store their harvest over the long winter months when refrigeration was non-existent.

What the hell is that?

It's a root cellar door.

We need to see what's down there.

We opened the door and I used my ASP baton to wrap all of the spider webs around it and clear a path for us.

Barkley, you're fucking going first.

I'm getting too old for this.

I'm getting out of the way.

So, hold on.

She heard a scream, but then she wrote it off as being the cat.

And then after that, something just, a door handle just flew into her ankle.

Yeah, I was confused by that.

I didn't know if that she was like walking or if she like tripped into it or not.

I don't know.

She seems very nonchalant.

also i just want to say has she never been around a fucking cat before do you like to discern because if if i was like oh i heard a cat scream but just to say i heard a violent horrid shrilled scream i would almost think it's not like an animal i guess i would say i have never confused a woman's scream for a cat scream aside from like a mountain lion right

I shot my let down and began going down one step at a time.

I went slowly so as to not fall through one of these old wooden stairs.

We walked down what could only be described as a tunnel for about 10 seconds before we reached a small set of stairs.

There were about four steps up that led to a smaller hatch, almost like an attic door.

One that you must crawl through without a ladder.

I reached up and opened the hatch, popped my head up and shined my light around.

There was a large rug over the hatch opening.

Tim helped me push it out of the way.

Once we could finally see in the room, I recognized it.

It was the room we found Jane Doe.

Tim grabbed my arm and convinced me we needed to leave because this house was still an active crime scene and we couldn't go walking around inside.

We finally figured out how the body got into that room.

I knew I wasn't crazy.

There was no way anyone had touched that lock on the outside.

Turned around and retraced our steps, careful not to disturb anything.

Along the way, tried to look for evidence, but it was too dark.

It was an area that would be better examined during daylight.

We returned to our cruisers and calmed our nerves over a long smoke break, despite the fact that I'm not even a smoker.

I got home, passed out, and went back into work on Sunday.

One thing I love about working weekends is that there is no brass at the station when I go into work.

However, this day was different.

As soon as I walked in the station, I overheard my co-workers talking about some suits that were up in the chief's office.

Sergeant Oakley saw me and immediately snapped his fingers at me.

Barkley, get over here.

Chief got called in today because of a surprise visit from some suits.

He wants you in his office immediately.

Headed upstairs to the chief's office, little surprised that the feds were getting involved in this case.

I began to wonder if the FBI got involved because of a potential serial killer.

My thoughts were quickly interrupted by Chief Fox.

Barkley, get your ass in here.

Oh, the wonderful sound of his voice.

Hello, Chief.

How can I help?

Barkley, the marshals got called in to help help with this case.

The U.S.

Marshals?

They usually go after fugitives.

Do they think a fugitive did this to our Jane Doe?

Do they think our John Doe is a fugitive?

My mind is going 100 miles per minute.

Chief Fox then told me I had to sit down with them and answer any and all questions that they had.

I took a seat and walked them through my past week, explaining the 911 hang-ups and finding the body.

I wasn't planning to give them any details about the fingerprints, Michelle Klein, or the secret door, but they asked me something that sparked my interest.

Officer Barkley, are you familiar with the U.S.

Marshals Witness Protection Program?

Ooh, in end of part three, into part four.

Part four.

Let's go.

I'm excited.

The glasses are really doing a lot of heavy lifting here for me, emotionally.

I just want you to know.

I don't know why, but this story reminds me of the showers for some reason.

I think it's because whenever I was thinking about the

hidden door or whatever, I was thinking of the same kind of setup of the hallways that led to the shower room, like kind of like that underground kind of vibe.

And there's like a hint of a paranormal vibe to that story, too.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's a good

combination, I think.

Update Tuesday, August 14th, 2018.

My conversation with the U.S.

Marshals left me speechless.

It seemed like every time a question was answered, it created 10 more questions.

My Jane Doe was in the witness protection program.

Why?

Why would she risk her life by coming back here?

Who wanted to kill her?

The U.S.

Marshals were extremely professional, polished, and appeared as though they wanted to help.

They weren't willing to divulge any specifics or details of why Jane Doe was put into the program or why she may have been killed.

They did tell me that she was a key witness to a very high-profile case years ago involving the ATF.

They also admitted that Michelle Klein was her real name.

However, they faked her death upon entry of the witness protection program.

Wherever I ran her fingerprints through APHIS, I triggered an alert in their system, and that's how they came to be standing in front of me.

Okay, so I will say,

that's really cool.

I got worried for a second that the story was going to take a direction of being like the whole department's in on it.

And the second she ran the fingerprints, like, um, they blotted them out of the system.

So I was just afraid that there was going to be like an unbelievable level of like local cop corruption corruption or whatever.

But I do like the idea, like, oh, no, the reason it did that is because this was a witness protection case.

We had to investigate.

So, like,

I like the direction the story's going right now.

Yeah, it's a fun,

I guess.

I guess what is it?

Like,

it's bounding itself more in the realm of mystery than it is the supernatural.

I feel like it's subverting your expectations a bit, I think.

In a good way, yeah.

You know, this honestly reminds me of how, like, the OG Sherlock Holmes stories went.

Because a lot of those, I remember reading

this Sherlock Holmes story as a kid called The Speckled Band.

Um, and it was about this woman who said that there was like a ghost that would come into her room.

And

one night she, she woke up from bed and then yelled the speckled band and then died.

So everyone thought the ghost did it.

But then it's Sherlock Holmes going through and seeing that there's like a secret entrance, a secret wall that people were hiding in, stuff like that.

It reminds me of that a lot, in a good way.

I like it.

Before I could ask any questions, they shook my hand and thanked me for my time.

They walked out the door before I could even get a why out of my mouth.

Who killed Michelle Klein?

Who kept calling 911?

What did this poor woman get herself into?

Why was there a receipt in her pocket from 20 years ago?

I finished up the rest of my ship completing paperwork, which I eventually faked over to the suits.

Sorry, which I eventually faxed over to the suits I went home early Monday morning and only had two glasses of wine before rolling into bed by 5 a.m.

Don't be mistaken it's not that I didn't want to drink an entire bottle again but I was just too tired

Monday evening I headed back towards the station for roll call which started around 5 p.m.

Sergeant Oakley read and summarized aloud the prior shift's reports before releasing us to hit the road.

Before I could finish racking my cruiser, dispatch calls.

Dispatch to 1034.

1034 go ahead.

1034, we just got a call from a senior citizen who currently at who is currently at her neighbor's house.

She is a medical alert customer and oxygen dependent.

Her phone lines are currently not working and has requested to speak with an officer.

1034 show me en route.

Although there isn't much for an officer to do on a call such as this, we are obligated to respond if someone calls and requests to see an officer.

Drive down the long country road towards the caller and can't help but glance to my right as I pass the patch lane sign.

I arrive on scene to meet with the sweetest old woman who reminded me very much my own grandmother.

She explained to me that she walked to her neighbor's house and called the phone company about her phones not working but just wanted an officer to keep her company until her phones were fixed so she was oxygen dependent.

She also shared that she was already had more than one fall in her home and used her medical alert.

I told her I was happy to wait with her.

She lived in an older farmhouse, there are many of those in this area, and had one of the prettiest farmlands I've seen in a while.

She had her garden filled with colorful flowers and cute lawn ornaments throughout.

She caught me staring and said, Oh, yes, my daughter comes by every week to help keep my garden looking so pretty.

Her husband mows the lawn for me and she tends to my flowers.

Yeah, that's the kind of voice to think of when I think of a sweet, lovely old woman.

Yeah.

I was shocked to see the local phone company drive down the gravel road within 30 minutes of my arrival.

I went outside to greet the technician and explain the problem.

He introduced himself as Tom and asked me where the box was located.

As quick as I could repeat the question in my head, I heard the older woman yell from the porch, It's behind the shed!

I followed Tom behind the shed, and about 20 yards away, I saw a large three-foot square pole sticking out of the ground.

Tom walked over to it and began reaching on his belt for some tools.

What is that?

This is the box that connects our telephone line, as well as her neighbor's lines, to the central telephone system.

I'm going to see if there's a problem with the wires making the connections.

He attempted to open the hinge.

No luck.

These things usually go months, maybe years without being opened, and take a little TLC to open.

There we go.

The front face opened after just a little elbow grease was put into it.

Saw several wires and some labels next to wires containing a series of numbers.

So explain to me what's going going on here.

Well, these boxes were put here way before your time.

They had to install these when landlines were first becoming a thing.

You see the wires and the numbers after them?

They show the address each wire is associated.

I noticed a loose wire hanging from the bottom with no label.

This one appeared to have a female attachment on the end.

I asked.

What is the wire made to connect to?

Oh,

that's there so we can plug our phones into and make phone calls into the test lines.

Wait, what?

You can carry a phone in your pocket, plug it in, and make a call from a box?

Well, it isn't exactly that simple.

You need a certain type of phone, but yeah, I guess you kind of like that.

What phone number would show up when you called someone from that box?

Whichever neighbor's line you selected up here?

As he motioned to the labels and switches, it was then that I had my light bulb moment.

What if my 911

hang-ups at Patch Lane were being done at one of these boxes?

I asked.

So if a house had no electricity, no telephone, could it still show up as the origin of the phone call if someone called from a box?

Tom paused for a moment to think about it and responded.

Uh

I guess, yeah.

I mean, that's possible.

As long as the telephone line has not been reassigned to another person.

Tom finished up his work and was able to get the phones working again.

I left the scene within the hour, so it was still light outside.

I decided to head back to Patch Lane in the daylight to see if if I could find one of those landline telephone poles.

I arrived on scene and began walking through the acreage.

After about 20 minutes, I found it.

I leaned over and wrapped my two fingers inside the front panel and pulled.

The door opened with ease, much like the last box I watched Tom open.

Somebody had opened this box recently, but who?

As I started to head back towards my cruiser, I heard screaming.

Damn it, Haley.

Turned around and saw Haley sitting by the front porch.

She's really got to to clarify screaming and

it's messing with me a little bit.

This time, she looked in pain.

She was holding a front paw in the air and kept looking at it, screaming in pain.

Got closer to her and saw that her paw looked incredibly swollen.

I'm an animal lover, so I decided to wrap her in an old uniform shirt I had in my trunk and set her in my cruiser.

Grabbed my phone from my front vest pocket, googled local veterinarians.

I was pretty damn surprised to see my family's old vet was showing us still open and in business.

We had a black lab growing up that I swear was the most intelligent dog.

Dr.

DeMeyer's was just down the road and open until 8 p.m.

I glanced at my watch and saw it was already 7.40, so I rushed down the road to the vet.

Dr.

Mayer immediately took us in and began examining her paw.

I couldn't believe this guy was still alive, let alone still working.

I remember him as being old when I was a kid.

He has to be in his 80s by by now.

My dad used to always take our dog to him, and I remember he would call

Dr.

Myers the mayor because he knew everyone in his.

Because he knew everyone in this town and knew everything about them.

For as much as my dog hated the vet, I swear my dad loved going there to shoot the shit with Dr.

Myers.

So, where'd you find this cat, officer?

Down on Patch Lane at an abandoned farmhouse.

She was sitting on the front porch, crying in pain.

I just couldn't leave her there.

I don't know if I would say that.

I just remember the stories that circulated the town way back when.

He stopped to write down some notes in his chart.

He looked up and said,

That was a beautiful farm.

I remember taking care of a cows on the old Wentz farm when the when the goods lived there.

Did you know the guy that lived there after the goods passed?

Oh, I never knew knew him.

I only heard many stories.

What stories?

Well, that fellow was a jack of all trades, you could say.

He dipped his hands into about every illegal scheme you could think of.

I heard rumors he ties to the mafia.

The guy's blonde hair and blue-eyed, yet supposedly was Italian.

Now you only explain to me, officer.

Never did it understand.

But I suspect he was going...

But I suspect he was giving something to providing something to them.

Very odd character.

Never heard about the owner of Patch Lane until just now.

Where is he now?

I asked.

Oh, he left town quite a few years ago.

Never did see him again.

Well, anywho, here's some penicillin.

You're going to have to give it to Haley for the next five days.

This will help clear up her abscess, her obsess, or her abscess, right?

Her abscess,

yeah.

Her abscess to make sure the infection doesn't get any worse.

If it does get worse, call my office.

Wait, what the hell?

I'm going to have to give her medicine?

So now I have a cat.

More of a dog person, but I can't stomach the idea of dropping her off of the local shelter either.

On my way home, I stopped at the local mart and picked up a litter box, some cat litter, cat food.

These cats are lower maintenance and more independent than dogs.

Haley decided to snuggle up next to me for the night, and I'll admit it was the best I slept in months.

I woke up Tuesday morning and decided to make it a productive day, despite the fact it's my day off from work, and I'm exhausted.

Began to think, who would have more information on Patch Lane or Michelle Klein.

All my thoughts came back to the same person, my dad.

He was on the forest back in the 90s.

Hell, he was on the forest even back in the 80s and 70s.

Drove over to his house and pulled into the driveway.

Saw the rosebush in bloom in the front of the house and it instantly reminded me of my mom.

She passed away a few years back, but every time I go to my dad's, I find pieces of her everywhere.

such as rosebush that she planted.

Welcome myself inside and was greeted with the best bear hug.

After feeding me and fueling me with his famous super secret recipe, coffee, we sat down.

Dad, have you ever been to the house on Patch Lane?

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I have.

Many, many years ago.

Really?

What were you there for?

The ATF needed a couple of uniformed officers to assist him with gathering evidence for a case.

They busted the owner of the place for smuggling and illegal guns and he had them stored in the shed of the farm.

What?

I've been researching this place for over a week and I never heard of an ATF raid.

Oh, that's because it was confidential.

We never wrote a police report on the incident.

It was fully documented on the federal level and they were very good about keeping it

out of the media.

We didn't have space phones back then, so it was much easier to keep this under wrap.

You know what happened to the owner?

Who was he?

His name was John.

No, wait, Joseph.

Yeah, Joseph.

Joseph Mueller, I believe.

It was similar to Miller, but not quite Miller.

What about what happened to him?

Right, well, he had an inside mole with the police department and caught wind of the raid, and he flew the coupe, and I never really got an update since then.

I'm beginning to wonder why Tim didn't tell me any of this.

Dad, I've been dispatched to patch lane several times with Tim, and he didn't tell me any of this.

Do you know why he wouldn't tell me about it?

Well, Tim didn't join the department until about 1997, maybe 98.

This all happened around 95, about two years before then.

Well, that made me feel a little better.

I feel guilty for insinuating that I was questioning Tim.

My dad began to ask me questions about my own calls to patch lane, but I made the dash to the front door and told him I had to get going because of Haley and simply told him I had taken an astray who was still healing.

What is with characters in these stories not explaining?

Like, just tell your dad.

Maybe your dad knows more info.

You're a detective.

Do the detective thing.

Just seems odd.

Seems odd that that's not like, because I feel like the obvious answer, she has no reason reason to,

I guess, be sus like,

she has no reason to be so, I don't know, cautious or like, so, like, hmm, suspicious of everyone around her.

Just seems odd, right?

I would be suspicious of the department if I was her, but if there's anyone you can trust, it's your dad and Tim.

Yeah.

Right.

So I would tell them everything.

I'm suspicious of the department because the department's the guys that are like, oh, blonde, Brunette.

Yeah, well, that's the difference.

The department is incompetent, but yeah, Tim and the dad, you would be like, these are at least competent people that I trust.

Yeah, Yeah, here's what I know.

Can you help?

Yeah.

I hadn't heard back from the Pennsylvania State Lab yet, so I called them to get an update on what was written on the back of the receipt I found in Michelle's pocket.

Receptionist answered the phone.

State Forensics Department.

Hello, this is Officer Barkley following up on

case number 2018.

Redacted.

I wanted to check the status of my evidence.

The receptionist transferred me.

A mail answered.

Hello, Officer Barkley.

Sorry, we've been busy.

I didn't get a chance to call you sooner.

We were successful in extracting the writing on the back of the receiver provided to us.

It read L34R16L8.

What does that even read?

I can't say for certain what this means, but in my personal opinion, this definitely looks like the combination to a safe.

Interesting.

We haven't got anything about a safe yet, right?

I don't think so.

I imagine, though, she's going to go back and try to find see if there's something in the actual

like if there's a safe in the house, potentially.

I also think this next part is our last part.

Part five, I think, is the last one.

Yeah,

we'll see.

I don't know if it's all going to wrap up right now, but we'll find out.

Yeah.

Update: Wednesday, August 15th, 2018.

I became obsessed with trying to figure out where a safe could possibly be on Patch Lane.

I woke up early Tuesday morning and threw some food in a bowl for Haley before racing out of my house.

Don't worry, Haley.

Mom will be home later.

She meowed goodbye in response, brushed along my leg, and trotted over to the couch to curl up and wait for my return.

So damn hard to leave her now.

She filled a void in my heart I didn't know existed.

Headed over to my dad's.

I didn't call him ahead of time since he's just down the road and I stop in all the time.

So I was pulling up, I saw Tim's truck parked in my dad's driveway.

Not very surprised since they're good friends and today is Tim's day off as well, so they tend to catch up on Tuesdays or Wednesdays over a cigar on the back deck.

I was actually really glad Tim was there because I had some more questions I wanted to run by him as well.

My dad greeted me with his famous bear hug, and Tim gave me a nod on the head and smiled.

How's it going?

Hey, I'm actually really glad you guys are both here.

I wanted to ask you both about Patch Lane.

Tim chimed in.

Jesus, see what I'm talking about?

Your girl's obsessed with this case now.

Ship off the old block, am I right?

Oh, I remember those days of obsessing over cases.

I gotta say, retirement has treated me well.

Such a cheesy line.

I remember my days back on the fourth.

Oh, well, the time has gone

been pretty well to me.

I remember working them cases.

I tell you what, by God, we down here.

We down here.

We got our time off now on the Lord's Day.

Taking our time off the way God intended.

It's just like the Sabbath because I'm resting.

Ain't that right?

Can I get an amen?

Okay.

Amen, brother.

Amen.

I welcome myself back into the conversation.

Okay, well, maybe there's a reason to be obsessed.

I just talked to the state's forensic lab, and it looked like Michelle had written a code to a safe on the back of the receipt that she had in her pocket.

I thought there's a safe somewhere on Patch Lane that could have answers for me.

Tim took a long inhale of a cigar, held it, slowly released.

You're going to make me go back there, aren't you?

Flashed him a smile and offered.

Well, I could go alone.

Tim agreed, and my my dad laughed at him and remarked.

Yeah, she does that shit to me, too.

Good luck with that.

Tim, I also wanted to ask you about the 911 hang-ups you used to respond to back when you were a rookie.

What else do you remember about the tenant?

Tim thought for a moment and replied.

Well,

she was certainly a pretty young girl.

She had two very young children.

Neither could talk yet, so I bet they were under two.

She looked young herself, too.

I would suspect she was maybe around 20 years old, if that just had that baby face, you know.

Anyhow, she was very curious about the house and the locked door and the basement.

Most people hated the cops showed up.

Most people hated when the cop showed up, but she always seemed, I don't know, relieved.

She would mention how big that house was and how she always felt like someone was watching her.

God, good fucking lord.

Even the tenants after the sorry,

even the tenants after her made similar comments.

I was chalked up to being the mystery, being the history of the Wentz Farm, you know?

Good God.

I don't know why it would be.

I always thought she moved somewhere else.

Because right after she left, the new tenant came in.

I guess I don't know exactly what happened to her.

Do you remember her name?

Oh, God.

I'm awful with names.

I'll never forget a face, but I can't remember her names.

You know that.

Could her name have been Michelle Klein?

Honestly, I don't know.

It could have, but I have no idea.

It was 20 years ago.

Dad, what do you know about the tenants of the house in in the late 90s?

I remember all the tenants were

similar.

What do you mean?

They like look similar.

Dad, this is important.

Just tell me what you're trying to spit out.

Well, all the tenants were young, attractive women.

They're mostly blonde from out of town.

Type of girls that...

Your mother would not have liked me stopping to talk at the grocery store if you catch my drift.

Whores.

Wait, are you saying that you think that they're prostitutes?

No!

No, I'm just...

I mean, they're young, pretty, kind of ditzy, you know?

I wasn't sure what to make of this information, but I let Tim finish his cigar before we headed into the station.

We were scheduled off for Tuesday, but given this new information, I requested and was granted to come in and work overtime to follow up.

I remembered that Tim used to go to the beach and come back with old coins and whatnot that he would find using his metal detector.

I asked him if he could could bring his metal detector to Patch Lane with him this evening to help us find the safe.

After we broke from roll call, we immediately headed to Patch Lane.

Seam was done being processed, so we walked through the front door.

We went up to the master bedroom and tried every floorboard, every inch of the wall, looking for where a safe could be hidden.

We were unsuccessful.

We mutually decided to try the basement before the rest of the house.

Worked our way into the room where we found Michelle's body.

There are some scenes you just won't forget.

That was one.

Her body was purple, swollen, and unrecognizable as human.

The only way I even identified her as a young woman was based on the long blonde hair and the clothing she had on.

Tim ran his metal detector along the cement wall and we heard beep, beep.

He continued to move it along to the left.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

We looked at each other for a moment before he dropped his metal detector and we grabbed at the wall.

I don't know what we were even grabbing at, but we kept feeling along the wall.

As I pushed along the wall, the block moved.

I grabbed my knife from my pocket and Tim grabbed his.

Both shoved our knives along the cement brick, eased it out from the wall.

There it was.

The safe.

It was an old-fashioned turn-dial lock, like the kind I used to have on my high school locker.

Drawing on my memory, cleared the lock before trying the combination.

Spun to the left, stopping at 34, spun it two times to the right, stopping at 16, spun it back to the left, stopped at 8.

Click.

I went to open the door.

Tim's eyes and mine locked on the safe.

Then I heard another click.

This wasn't like the unlocking of the safe.

This was familiar.

It was the cocking of a revolver.

I turned around and was faced with the barrel of a gun.

Well, well, well.

You pigs just can't stay away from my house.

He had blonde hair, although the gray was taking over, and piercing blue eyes.

You're as bad as that bitch who couldn't keep her mouth shut.

You know, I let her live here because she appeared cute and dumb.

Her curiosity got her.

Okay, what is happening here?

This is fucking stupid.

Okay, hold on now.

All right, let me get back in.

I'm fading, bro.

We're almost there.

We're so close.

You're as bad as that bitch who couldn't keep her mouth shut.

You know, I let her live here because she appeared appeared cute and dumb.

Her curiosity is what got her killed.

Just like what I'm going to do to you two.

The problem with facing a gun is that no matter how fast I could grab my gun, we would have been able to pull his trigger faster.

However, there are other options.

Slowly walked towards our killer, hands in the air, leveled with my shoulders, and asked, You're Joseph, aren't you?

Yeah,

and you're dead.

As he finished his sentence, my nose was nearly touching the barrel of his gun.

I grabbed the the barrel, twisting it to his right, making a full 360-degree circle.

I heard his pointer finger snap as it got tangled in the trigger and broke.

I had his gun and pointed it right back at him.

Get on the fucking ground!

Slowly raised his hands in the air and got on his right knee, then his left.

Tim ran behind Joseph and placed him in handcuffs.

Once the scene was under control, we called for backup.

As officers arrived on scene, so did the suits.

Two suits from earlier in the week came down.

Tim and I recounted the evening's events.

It was at this point that I realized I still didn't get to see what was inside the safe.

Walked over and opened the door, grabbed a handful of papers, pulled them out.

They were photographs.

Tim instantly said,

That's her.

It was the girl.

Like I said, I never forget a face, just names.

Suits looked at him and said,

That's Michelle Klein.

Your body and our witness.

I took a deep inhale and released it with a a long sigh.

Now, could you please tell us what the hell went on here?

Oh, man.

The suits looked at each other, and the older one nodded his head.

All right.

So your Mr.

Joseph Mueller here was into some deep stuff.

Most predominantly, he ran illegal guns and sold them to some big names, including the mafia.

The ATF thought they could...

The ATF thought they got everything during their raid years ago.

But there are so many hidden passages, tunnels, and root cellars throughout this property.

And land he kept hiding...

He kept hiding them from...

Wait, wait, wait.

He kept hiding them somewhere new.

Trust us.

If you knew about how the tunnels and passages...

If you knew about the tunnels and passages you are literally standing on right now, you you have nightmares for years

suit took a sip of his coffee and continued

good coffee

anyways he used the the tenants as a cover-up and targeted tenants who uh who he thought wouldn't ask any questions and would be fine with sending checks addressed as cash to a PO box as their monthly rent checks but he didn't ex but he didn't ex uh he didn't expect was for Michelle Klein to start asking questions and go digging through this house.

She stumbled across one of the root cellars where he stored guns and called the feds immediately.

She didn't know she could trust the local

local police at this point and went straight to the ATF.

ATF cocktacked us.

It said they knew Mueller and knew he was and knew that if he found out that she knew, then she would be dead.

She knew that he knew that she knew that he knew that he'd be dead.

So they

so they sent

they sent her to us to protect her.

Part of her protection meant that we needed to fake her death so that Mueller wouldn't be suspicious and go looking for her.

She refused initially, but when he explained to her that their children's lives would be at risk too, she agreed.

He looked towards the safe and continued.

Looks like she used this safe here to store old family photographs and their birth certificates to prove their existence.

We told her she had to leave all this behind and couldn't take any evidence with her of her previous life or her children.

This all happened on October 20th, 1998.

It looks like she wrote down the safe code on the first piece of paper she could find and kept it after all these years.

Received notification about two weeks ago that her son was diagnosed with cancer.

God damn cancer.

Kim was only 22 years old and a brain tumor.

She kept on telling us she wanted to go see him and we explained to her why she why it just wasn't possible and we even told her we probably wouldn't uh recognize her he probably wouldn't recognize her it looked like she didn't it looked like she did her best to try to look as close as well oh my god i can't read it looks like she did her best to try to look as close as she looked 20 years ago including her clothing so that he would recognize her she probably wanted to go grab these photographs to show and proof that she was the mother and jog his memory when she was here Joseph must have seen her from one of his tree stands and wanted to silence her.

She was one of the only witnesses willing to go forward with testimony.

We just could never catch him after all these years.

Well, I hope this entire case can be closed now.

Yeah, I don't think you should be getting any more 911 hang-ups from this house.

So hold on.

I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

Okay, so there was.

I zoned out as you were explaining that, but there was this woman, Michelle Klein.

Yeah, there was a ditzy hot chick.

She was apparently living for this guy that was running guns.

Yeah, mafia guy.

Sure, yeah.

And she was like, hey, there's a guy's running guns.

So then she gets sore photographs.

Yeah, she gets in the witness protection program, puts to the safe in the photographs thing, blah, blah, blah, has to abandon her kids.

So her son gets cancer and she doesn't talk to her son.

so she was gonna go back to the house after all these years and

grab pictures to be like see this is me i'm your mom but the joseph mule mafia guy is in a tree stand and so

yeah so so she goes back to the house to get pictures of her life before witness protection

to tell a 22-year-old that she is his mother

and she wanted to see him

So

she went and bought clothes

from 20 years ago.

Yeah.

And then she goes to the house to get the photographs out of the wall.

But

the guy who 20 years ago had the house the ATF was searching is just living in the woods of the property now.

And he's in like, he's in like a tree stand with a rifle.

And he sees her

and then kills her

and then

for some reason after he kills her starts calling the police

to yeah i don't think you should be getting any more 911 hangups from that house yeah so he was like just to just to be evil i guess mess with the police and then when

the police show up to his which why did he got away from the police why does he care about this house that has nothing except pictures of a woman he killed in it yeah i don't think he should be getting any more 911 hangups from this house.

And then when the police show up to go through the safe, he's like, I'm going to kill you.

And then she like quick judo chop disarms him and he doesn't

get disarmed.

Yeah, I don't think you should be getting any more 911 hangups from that house.

I processed what they had just said and asked.

Yeah, wait.

Who is the one making those phone calls then?

We can't disclose that information, but you can think of them as a good samaritan who had eyes everywhere and wanted to see justice done

hold on

some

Someone saw that the guy who had the mouse murdered a woman and then put her in the secret room that led to another secret room in the house.

So their solution was to just call the police and say something was happening at this disclosed house over and over until

we headed back to the station where I started the never-ending paperwork process.

Now that we were more secluded, I grabbed one of the suits and decided to tell him about my experience at the medical examiner's office.

Began to think he was involved and it was something they needed to know.

He stopped me and said, This is actually something the Emmy wanted to talk to you himself about.

Hold on.

Asu came back with the Emmy and he extended his hand to shake mine.

I was confused by the gesture but shook his hand.

Officer Barkley, I just wanted to say what a fantastic job you did on this case.

I also wanted to apologize in person for how I acted and how I handled this case.

I received an anonymous threat that if I performed an autopsy or did anything at all with the body, my family was going to be killed.

They even knew my daughter's school and her schedule.

I am so sorry.

I was afraid to go to the authorities out of fear for my family.

I am so glad to see that you stuck your guns and saw this case through.

Dispatched to 1034.

1034, go ahead.

Are you able to respond to a 911 hang-up?

Affirmative.

What's the address?

Yeah!

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

Okay.

Well, Isaiah, what'd you think?

That's the end of it.

Except now it's an anthology of all the other kooky cases that's going on.

Okay.

So I meant the thing I said about the story earlier, that it's like a Sherlock Holmes format still fits, right?

It's like,

yeah, hold on.

You have like...

You have like, oh, it looks like it's a supernatural case, but then as the story goes on, you figure out that there's like

realistic.

It has a like Scooby-Doo.

Yeah, it's a guy in a mask.

It's not a monster.

Yeah.

My issue is I feel like the story bit off a bit more than it could chew with trying to set up like, oh, there's a house that someone from a different point in time appeared in the locked room.

And then at the end, it was afraid, kind of, to leave some of that to the audience's discretion.

So they had this huge info dump that explained because you explain so much that it becomes more complicated.

Like if you didn't say anything about the woman having a kid who has cancer, so she needs to dress up as how her son would remember her from 20 years ago.

If you just said nothing, you could be like, oh, well, maybe the killer dressed her in that because he's a freak and that's how he remembered her.

Right.

Just, if you just don't address it, you can give plausible reasons to the audience.

Like it tried too hard to make sure you understood everything that it kind of like led to more confusion.

Um, but that being said, I really liked the idea of setting up like a police officer's call to where you think it's a supernatural case, but then it has a reasonable explanation.

I feel like it leaned in a little heavy to the exposition dump at the end.

Um, but I like this format.

And also, this seems to be one of her first stories, I believe.

And now she's a published author with a bunch of works.

So, I would love to see this kind of format refined.

I think it could do well.

Yeah.

How do you feel there, detective?

I'm

dead inside.

Okay.

All right.

Well, having having the medical examiner at the end come out.

Officer Barkley, I just want to say what if.

So because

the guy, Joseph Mueller, one guy, one guy who is for some reason, 20 years later, living in a tree, 20 years later,

living in a tree stand, is for some reason,

this mysterious

person who's like, they're going to kill my family.

He had to then call Barkley

sweet tits and sugar or whatever the fuck he was saying.

He's like, sorry.

I had to be a completely different person.

Yeah, he had to be evil.

And then afterwards, there's the whole like the hero gets their way in the end because the medical examiner is like, I apologize for my behavior because this random person threatened to kill me.

And instead of doing what any medical examiner would do and telling the police I work with, I just went along with it and decided to help cover up a murder.

And there's other that you know, there could be more to there could be more to Joseph Mueller, right?

And these other stories out there from this, this

cop who just gets no respect, a little Ronnie Dangerfield,

Ronnie Dangerfield cop gets no respect.

It's a whack pack case of cops here.

But

maybe

have your

maybe have your antagonist of your story have a little more of a reveal than three sentences before he gets arrested

is a creative note that I probably would.

Maybe introduce the concept of someone being there before.

It's like a revolver cocks.

I'm going to kill you.

And then she disarms him and that's it.

Never gets prof again.

Why is he there to shoot police off?

He got off of the case 20 years ago.

Why is he in the woods near the old house?

Why even introduce the spooky urban legend thing?

I get it's to make the house seem creepier and to maybe introduce like a paranormal aspect.

But it's like, I just wish there was something

more tangible to this, and I feel sick and sad.

I feel like a piece of cloth.

All right, maybe we should end the episode there, buddy.

I feel like a ragweed.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you all so much for watching.

I want to check out some of the other stuff.

I like this idea.

I want to see it refined more.

So be sure to check it out.

We'll have stuff linked in the description.

Hunter, is there anything you'd like to say?

I feel like a piece of cloth.

I feel like a ragweed.

It's really.

I want to go home.

Thank you all so much for watching.

I'm a piece of cloth.

I hope you enjoyed.

Get the merch while you can.

I'm a rag weed.

It's going to be.

Sales are going to be over very very soon.

Thank you for the support,

continue to support

like, comment, audio platforms, all that.

Thank you all so much, and we will see you next week.

Until then,

stay creeped, you cast,

stay cast, you creeps.

Yeah,

how sweet

the sound

that has saved

two towers

from

me

I once

was

lost,

but now

I'm found

O May

Zingra

how sweet

the sound

that has saved

two towers

from

me.

I once

was

lost,

but now

I'm found.