Episode 98

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A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers. But it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught.
The answers were there, hidden in plain sight.

So why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster. Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam.

Available now. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.

Take a break from the same old boring blockbusters and experience a new kind of movie night with Radio Rental.

At Radio Rental, our videos come to life in your living room, defy all logic and reasoning, and make you question your own reality.

This is not your ordinary video rental store. At Radio Rental, we carry one-of-a-kind videos so frightening, so mind-bending, you won't be able to sleep at night.

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Oh, I.

Hi. Welcome to Radio Rental.

Sorry I had the lights off. I was just

meditating. That's...
Yep. Yep.

It's me, Vince, the junior associate clerk. Still have the job.

Uh, Malachi, um...

Can you...

Can you please jump- jump off my lap? Uh...

Thank you.

You're here for the tapes, aren't you? Yes, I am. What? Oh, here we go.

This story takes place around 1993, making me about 11 years old at the time. I'm on vacation with my mother, my father and my little brother.

I grew up in central Victoria in Australia. In the summertime, we would travel across state lines to the north coast of New South Wales to visit my aunt.

It's about an eight to ten hour drive. So we would usually book accommodation somewhere in the middle of the trip to give my dad a break from driving.

On this one occasion, my mother found an advertisement for a brand new resort hotel.

It was situated in really picturesque wilderness. This is an enormous remote area that's dominated by mostly dense natural growth bushlands.

We were on our way back from New South Wales coming down into Victoria. And it's the last day of our vacation, so we're coming home from my aunt's place.

We finished eating our lunch at the roadside diner that we stopped at, and my parents were checking the road maps to plot the course to our overnight accommodation.

It looked like the resort was quite a drive to get to. It was about an hour away from any other towns in that region.
And eventually we were driving down a flat straight stretch of hardtop.

In remote regional Australia, it's actually common to drive down these enormous long straight stretches of road without ever seeing any other signs of life for really long periods of time.

And this was definitely one of those occasions.

And the longer we spent going down this straight road, the more my parents started remarking out loud about it in this bemused way, joking that we might never find the place.

Eventually though, after driving for a while, we found it. You would have missed this turn if you weren't looking for it.
The entrance was barely visible unless you were right in front of it.

The left turn took us immediately onto a really rough dirt track winding through the trees. And after about 15 minutes of following this road in, we arrived at a fence line and gate.

We still hadn't seen any signage to confirm that we were going the right way.

Sort of felt like someone's private property. We opened the gate, we drove through and we closed it behind us.
And then after following the road in for a bit longer, we came to a clearing.

In the middle of the clearing, we could see the newly constructed resort hotel.

We parked and my parents they got out and they went into the reception building and then my brother and I sat there and waited.

It was very quiet.

It felt like my brother and I were the only people in existence just sitting there in the back of the car.

When they finally came back out and I see them come out of the door and they're walking over the courtyard towards us.

I'm expecting for them to just hop straight back in the car and then drive the car around to our room.

They come right up to the back window and my mum

bends half down so that her face is level with the window.

She goes, there's no one there.

Which was really weird. You would think that they were expecting us.
We had a booking. We were there on time.

You would think that there would still be somebody there. This wasn't past a time of the day where the reception would be closed or the employees would have finished work for the day.

My dad explained that when they hit the service bell, it rang out into silence and no one responded. They began calling out for somebody to come to the desk.
Nothing. Complete silence.

Eventually, Dad squeezed behind the front desk and peered into the office.

It was completely deserted.

There wasn't a single person in there.

But the desks had papers on them, coffee cups. People's personal items had been left out.

Extremely strange.

We walked next door to the dining hall. Immediately, we were faced with this big, cavernous, empty room with all these empty tables and chairs.

So it was very clear straight away that there was no one there. And we were even able to go into the kitchen and wander around in there too.

Again, no one was there.

There were signs that at some point earlier in the day, kitchen staff had been there.

We could see signs of prep work. We could see half-drank half-drank cups of drink.

There was even half-finished meals.

Where were all the people?

Protruding from the main cluster of buildings were two long wings, and they made up the individual rooms of the hotel. So we walked down one wing and then back up the other wing.

Every room was the same.

The door was wide open and there were no people.

Some rooms looked like housekeeping had been in the middle of the turn-down service because there were

stacks of freshly folded sheets and towels, but they were just sitting there. It was as though the maid had been holding a stack of sheets and then they just dropped them in a heap on the floor.

and left.

Beds were left right in the middle of being made. Some of them were half stripped, some of them were half remade.

Inside some of the rooms, we started seeing suitcases. Luggage must have belonged to the guests that were staying there.

They were left in the same manner, half opened or sitting upright in the middle of the room.

Just like the guest had been unpacking for the stay or packing up to check out and they just stood up and left.

My parents had actually grown a little quiet.

I think that they were starting to think that we might be in danger. I think that they were starting to think

that they needed to make a decision

based on keeping us, the kids, safe.

We had found our way back to the courtyard and back to our car. We We still didn't find anybody.

Dad pointed to a couple of expensive-looking motorbikes that were propped up.

He said, the keys are left in the ignition. It's like the Mary Celeste.

I didn't really understand what this meant at the time until years later when I read an account of the infamous Mary Celeste ghost ship and its crew that just vanished without a trace.

And the day was coming to an end. It was now past 6 p.m.

and it was starting to get dark.

I remember this sense of unease had been gradually creeping into my mind, but

when it occurred to me that it was going to be dark soon, like dark dark, the creeping accelerated into a palpable sense of dread.

I was really frightened about the prospect of being in that place after dark.

My father was inspecting inside of the reception office again and he discovered the lights wouldn't turn on. The power was off to the whole facility.

We went back into the dining hall.

Mum sat at a table with my brother and I while my dad inspected the kitchen again.

A wall-mounted phone in the kitchen still had had a dial tone when he lifted the receiver.

He and mum then had to spend some time looking around for a phone book and they looked up the nearest police station and called.

Dad stood there on the phone explaining this whole strange story to a constable who reacted with the same wribe amusement that we initially expressed.

The constable started paying attention though when we explained that all the power was out

and that every single door in the whole resort was either unlocked or flung wide open.

Then he went on to explain that being over an hour away it was going to take them some time to drive over and check it out.

He said that we didn't have to wait for them if we didn't want to. So after this we got back in our car and left.

We drove about an hour to the nearest town and we stayed in the local pub.

Mum and dad, they were checking the news for like the next six months because they really wanted to know what was going on there and they were certain that sooner or later they would see

some clue as to why it was like that. But there was nothing.
We never found out anything about it. And because it was 1993,

it was very difficult to find any information about it.

I've tried to think about this as objectively and as constructively as possible.

I don't think that it was a chemical or a fire emergency because there wasn't really any signs of a fire or any hazardous stuff.

I don't think that it was bandits because people's valuables were just left lying around.

I don't think that they went bankrupt or anything like that because it wouldn't play out the way that that place looked. I don't know.
It's like the people just vanished.

It's like the people all at the same time stopped what they were doing and left on foot.

I still think back on this night. I've also attempted to find this resort so that I can see satellite imagery of it.
I can find the town we ended up staying in. It's called Koriong.

And I can find some other landmarks from the area. But I've never been able to find that long road with the left turn or the clearing

or the resort.

Damn.

Where'd they all go? What if it was a plague? Like,

they all died of the plague and then disintegrated. Or maybe they were like abducted by aliens.
Aliens who wanted to study, study people from Florida.

That was a Florida accent, right? There's so many possibilities that I should not explore.

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The day started off like any other. I was just hanging out in the office in a house that we're renting, just on the computer for the most part.
I just ordered some lunch from a takeout place.

On this day, my girlfriend was working.

She usually works from about 7am till about 12pm. That's the usual five-hour shift that she would do on a typical day like that.
Occasionally, she does work double shifts, and this was one such day.

She messaged me maybe about an hour or so into her shift or so saying, yeah, she was doing a double. And I thought, okay, fair enough.
I won't worry about lunch or anything like that. I order stuff.

I go out and I grab it. I come back to the office and I close the door because we have cats and the cats would usually come in and try and steal food.

No sooner had I sat down and I started to pull everything out of the bag that I heard the door open.

I jumped and I turned around. And I see my girlfriend standing there.

She never comes home when when she's doing a double shift because she doesn't see the point. The travel time doesn't add up at all.

I was extremely surprised. I remember jumping in my chair because I wasn't expecting her to come home, obviously.

And she made this little noise, like an ah sort of noise, like she was trying to pretend to scare me. And I mean, this was on brand for her.
This was something she did.

And then she just goes off to the left to go to the bedroom.

I thought nothing of it. I thought she was just going to go and get changed so we could stay in the office and maybe play a game or two in here.

I thought nothing of it. I went back to eating my lunch and I just waited and a couple of minutes passed and I realized there was no sound in the house.
Like it was dead quiet.

Now our bedroom shares a wall with the office, so you could hear everything that would go on in the bedroom if you were in the office.

I get up from the chair, then I cross over to where the bedroom is and the door's left open.

Completely empty. There's no one inside.

I look over to my right and I see that the bathroom door's closed so I figured she's just in there. Okay that's fine.
And I just go back to the office and continue doing what I'm doing.

Finish eating, started doing a few more things and then I realize again that it's still dead quiet. She couldn't have been in the bathroom.
I wasn't hearing any noise at all from the bathroom.

So I get up again and I start searching around the house, opening doors, looking through everything. There's no sign of her whatsoever.
It's just an empty house. I hadn't heard anyone leave.

I hadn't heard anyone come in. I hadn't heard any doors open or any footsteps anywhere.

I

go out towards the living room and I look out the window at the front and her car's not in the driveway, so she can't be home at all.

I remember I just went back

into the office and I messaged my girlfriend again saying, hey, that was weird. You came home and then you left immediately after.

She messaged me back, dead confused.

Well, what do you mean? I never came home today. I was like, what? No, you were here.
You were home. I saw you.
I heard you. And she started questioning me.

When she opened the door, she is standing there in her blue button-up uniform, black leggings the usual sort of uniform that she would go to work in

she was definitely the right silhouette i guess you could say

she has long blonde hair and that was that was definitely present because it was recently dyed and it also had spots around the top where it was starting to darken as her hair continued to grow out

she also had this surprised expression that I had become so familiar with when she

made made

jokingly similar sort of actions, like trying to scare me a little bit. And there was also just her voice.
It was high, but not so high that it could be anyone else.

All of that altogether, I guess was no real reason

that I can think of that it would be anyone else.

It was definitely her.

She was adamant that she had not come home that day at all. She was working the double shift.
So now I'm left wondering, what came into the house? What opened the door?

It was like a slow creeping dread that you sort of feel when you realize that something like this has occurred.

It was me sort of coming to terms with the fact that she wasn't there, that she had never been there.

And I guess it was that building fear that there's something very wrong. And in that building unease you just try and reason it you try and make it right I guess

the way I guess I dealt with that was to call out to the house and find that degree of safety security because I mean this is something completely unexplainable you have no clue what's happened And you don't know if there's something in the house that might be dangerous to you or whatnot.

After the fact, I felt so uneasy. It felt like there was something wrong in the house,

but nothing happened after the fact. I even tried like

calling out around the house saying, hey, if there's any spirits or any doppelgangers in the house, just know that you're welcome here. I don't mean you any trouble, but this is my house.

This is where I live. And as long as you don't cause me any trouble, trouble, I won't cause you any trouble.

And I just went about my day as best I could.

My girlfriend came home later that evening and we discussed it. She still seemed dead confused about what happened and a little concerned.
She was like, so you saw someone here today, did you?

I thought, yeah, it was so weird. It was 100% like you.

It had your uniform on and she asked what it did. And I just said nothing.
It just made that little shout noise and then it went off to the bedroom and it was gone. Completely gone.

And that's pretty much where we left it. She asked me a few more questions about what it did but after that it just never really came up.

Since then it's in the past really. We don't talk about it.

A lot of people thought it might be a doppelganger which was my first thought.

Generally, when I think of a doppelganger, especially in the deep lore of doppelgangers, it's a really bad sign, usually of impending death.

Another person, I don't remember the exact name of it, it was some Norse folklore, I think it was, where it was a projection.

It's supposed to

project something that will occur.

It's sort of like an echo from the future, I guess.

Another rationalization is it's a bleeding over from a parallel universe into ours.

That seems a little more plausible to me because I'm more logic-based. I'm not really, I don't really subscribe to a lot of folklore or anything like that.

What I believe happened was a bleeding over from another universe, perhaps a universe in which she did come home and she never did the double shift.

What I was seeing was another girlfriend from another reality.

Two girlfriends? One an evil doppelganger? One real?

Man, I mean, maybe it's just me, but I'd pick that evil doppelganger. Uh, not for any weird reason, just because uh

I root for the underdog, and evil doppelgangers need love too.

Like

the drummer from the Red Hat Chili Peppers, just like picking him instead of Will Farrell, or Jeffrey Dean Morgan instead of Javier Bardem.

I'm just a really good guy is all I'm saying. I promise.

Anyway, another weird accent too, right? Norwegian, I'm guessing Norway. Hmm.
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And we're back. You know, I did some research, and it's not Norwegian.
It's actually an authentic Bronx accent. Should we do another?

Nope. No problem, boss.
Coming right back. Oh, well, that's the boss.
Duty calls. Need to go in the back and organize some shelves.
That's okay. Yeah, I like it back there.
It's quiet and I can think.

Not dark thoughts. Hey, you dipstick.
I need some help. Well, thanks for visiting Radio Rental.
Heading in the back. Malachi, please don't follow me.

Oh, good granny. Malachi, you're following me too close.

Radio Rental is created by Payne Lindsay and brought to you by Tenderfoot TV. Showrunner is Meredith Stedman.
Lead producer is Eric Quintana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright.

Guest host is Tony Cavallero.

Writing by Meredith Stedman. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set with additional score by Jay Ragsdale.

Editing by Eric Quintana, Payne Lindsay, Steven Perez, Cooper Skinner, Meredith Steadman, and Dylan Harrington. Sound design, Mix and Master by Steven Perez and Cooper Skinner.

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