Completely Derailed (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Today, I'm going to share three stories about people who had certain plans in place that got completely derailed. And in each case, the way they responded made everything way, way worse. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So, if that's of interest to you, go ahead and offer to clean the follow buttons car. But instead of cleaning the outside, just open it up and blast the inside with a hose, and then leave. Our first story is called a not-so-helpful hurricane. In the early morning hours of August 26, 2017, a 44-year-old man named Steve McDowell frantically rode his bike through the rain down a flooded road in Mont Belvue, which was a suburb of Houston, Texas. Steve was racing to get home as fast as he could because he was trying to outrun a huge hurricane. Now, Steve had known this hurricane was coming and it had been all over the news, but he didn't think it was supposed to get this bad until later in the day, so he'd thought he'd have time to run a quick errand before sheltering at home. But the storm was already really strong. Rain was pouring down and the water in the streets was so deep at this point that Steve could barely steer his bike. In fact, it was so intense that Steve knew the smart thing to do right now would actually just be to stop and shelter somewhere, basically like save yourself now. But he really knew he couldn't actually do that because he had two young kids who he had left at his house, sleeping in bed. He's not going to abandon them, he needs to get back to them. And then also, his ex-wife Crystal had made plans to stop by the house that day to pick the kids up. Now, there was not an official evacuation order yet, but Crystal had obviously heard about the hurricane, and she had texted Steve the night before to say that her plan was to swing by and pick up the kids and bring them with her to Dallas, which was going to be out of the hurricane's path. And so Steve, he just continued peddling as hard as he could, as fast as he could, and eventually, despite this huge storm around him, he eventually made it to his street. He rushed up his driveway, he went right up to the garage, opened it up, rushed inside, and just ditched all of his soaking wet clothes right there and went inside to check on his kids. And luckily, they were still in their beds, fast asleep, none the wiser that he had stepped out at all. After that, Steve went and took a shower and then he changed into dry clothes, and then he turned on the TV to look for updates on the hurricane. But as soon as Steve flipped on the channel to the local news, he got really freaked out, because most of Houston at this point was apparently already underwater from this storm. There were all these aerial shots being played on the screen with entire highways completely submerged in water, and cars stranded in the streets. And Steve had no idea how Crystal's car would be able to drive through this mess. And so Steve was really worried. Even though they were divorced, and Crystal had recently started dating someone else, he still cared about her a lot. Deep down, he'd even been hoping they'd get back together someday. Steve tried to stay calm and just continued to sit there on the couch, absolutely glued to the news. But an hour passed, and then two, and there was no sign of Crystal, and when he looked out the window, he saw the water in the street was getting higher and higher, and just the sight of that filled him with an incredible sense of dread. A few hours later, and Steve was still on the couch. As kids had woken up a while ago, so now they were there with him, and they were all watching cartoons instead of the news. Steve was still really anxious about Crystal's car in the storm, and just like the storm in general, it just didn't appear to be slowing down at all. And so he was trying not to let his anxiety show to the kids to not, you know, scare them. But outside, I mean, he's looking and it's just pounding rain, and he just couldn't stop thinking about Crystal's car stuck somewhere, with the water getting higher and higher all around it. Just then, Steve felt a cell phone vibrate, and he saw it was a text from Crystal's uncle, Jeff, and he was asking Steve if he had seen Crystal, because he hadn't heard from her all day. Steve's heart sank, and he went into the next room where the kids wouldn't hear any. He called Jeff, and he told him about how Crystal had not come to pick up the kids yet. And they both agreed that this was really concerning. And there was now a pretty good chance that Crystal had gotten into an accident, or was trapped somewhere on the now very flooded roads. So Jeff said he would call the police and reporter missing. Three days later, on the morning of August 29th, Steve was in his bedroom getting dressed for the day. By this point, the rain had finally led up, like the storm has gone, and the flood water had even begun to go down. So Steve was just getting ready to go back to his job as a shipping manager for the first time since the hurricane had started. But as he finished putting on his boots, his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen, and he saw that he was getting a call from the Chambers County Sheriff's Department, and immediately his heart began to race. Over the last three days, Steve and the rest of Crystal's family had not gotten any updates from the Sheriff's Department about Crystal. Now, the Houston area was in complete chaos right now because of the storm. I mean, hundreds of thousands of buildings have been destroyed, and first responders had had to rescue more than 17,000 people already. So even though they were looking for Crystal after she had been reported missing, the resources were spread quite thin, and the family all knew that. It was unfortunate, but it was a reality. Now, when Steve answered the phone, a sheriff's deputy told him that they had found Crystal's car. It had been abandoned in the parking lot of a motel, and when Steve heard this, his heart began to race because this was exactly the nightmare scenario he'd been afraid of. Because Steve had been right to be really worried about this hurricane, it did prevent Crystal's car from getting through the streets. And this was a massive problem for Steve, but not because he was worried about Crystal's safety. So Crystal did have plans to come over to Steve's house and pick up their kits, but she'd actually already done that the night before the hurricane. And when she got to Steve's place, Crystal and Steve got into this huge argument, and during the argument, she uninvited him to a family vacation they had coming up, telling him she was going to bring her new boyfriend instead, and Steve, who was very much still in love with Crystal and very jealous of her new relationship. He snapped and he ended up strangling Crystal to death, and then he left her body in the woods. And then the next morning, in an attempt to cover up his tracks, he drove her car to that cheap motel parking lot in a sea part of town, and he left it there with the doors unlocked and the keys on the console. He figured that, you know, given the part of town they were in, somebody would come along and just steal this car and drive it away. And if the police did ever find it, they would just assume that Crystal was killed by a car-jacker instead of by Steve. But Steve's plan immediately failed because the storm picked up much earlier and much harder than he had expected. And that motel parking lot got completely submerged before anyone ever had a chance to steal Crystal's car. So the Sheriff's Department, they eventually find the car, right where Steve had left it, and when they reviewed security footage, it showed Steve dropping Crystal's car off on the morning she was reported missing, and then it shows him hopping on a bike and hustling his way back home. Steve was ultimately found guilty of murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Our next story is called Vacation Fatigue. Around 3.30 a.m. on April 11, 2019, a 33-year-old man named Luke Goodyear sat at a patio table on a crowded public beach on PP Island in Thailand. His friend, Paul Jones, along with a few of their other friends, all sat around him, and the table was covered in empty beer bottles from a long night of drinking and catching up. So Luke had been here in Thailand on vacation for the past few days, and so far he was having like the time of his life. Thailand, after all, was like his favorite place in the whole world. He'd actually lived here for six years when he was in his 20s, and even though Luke had moved away and had been living in Australia for the past couple of years, he'd stayed close with a lot of his friends from when he lived here, like Paul. So he was really glad to finally be back here and to be able to get together with him and their friend group here and just sort of relive old times. But now their beach party was ending and super late, and for the first time really all night, Luke realized just how exhausted he was. He was still kind of jet lagged in the past few days, living out of a suitcase and party anger, we're getting to him. So Luke and Paul were sharing a room at a hotel nearby, and Luke just turned to Paul and he said, "Hey, I'm going to call it tonight and go to bed." And Paul said, "You know what, I'll come along too since he was also pretty worn out." So Luke and Paul, they stand up, they say bye to their friends, and they make plans to see each other the next day, and then the two of them, Luke and Paul, they turn and head back to their hotel. About 20 minutes later, Luke unlocked the door of his and Paul's hotel room, and they both stumbled their way inside. It was almost 4 a.m. at this point, and Luke was so tired, he just wanted to pass out immediately. And so while Paul went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, Luke just went right over to his bed, he stripped off his shirt and his shorts, and he threw them down on the floor near a suitcase, and then he just crawled right into bed, got under the covers and fell asleep. A few hours later, around 8 a.m., a Thai police officer stepped inside the same hotel where Luke and Paul were staying at. The police had gotten a call from a guest here that morning, who apparently had woken up to find their roommate dead. So in the lobby, the police officer noticed there was a man who was hunched over in a chair crying. And so right away he's thinking clearly he has something to do with why I'm here, and the man who was Paul, he looked up, saw the officer, and he walked over to him and he explained that he was the one who had made the emergency call. And then, you know, with tears still streaming down his face, he pointed to a room that was right down the hallway. And so the officer, he headed that way, and when he opened the door to the room, he felt this breeze of air. And he saw the glass door of the balcony that let outside, it was completely shattered. And then near the shattered door on the ground, was a man's body, just sprawled out on the floor, and he was in this huge pool of blood. And when he walked over, he saw there was this massive shard of glass that was poking out of his back, like he had been impaled through his abdomen out the backside by this piece of glass. So the deceased man was, of course, Luke, Luke Goodyear. And while a forensics team was in the room sweeping the scene, the initial police officer who had seen Paul and Paul had directed him down the hallway, he went back to the lobby, and he sat down with Paul. And he asked him, you know, to give him any more details he could about what had happened to your roommate. Now, Paul still seemed very shaken up at this point, but when he composed himself, all he could say to the officer was he had no idea what happened. He was like, I was asleep all night, and he had just woken up in the morning to find Luke's body, you know, impaled by the glass. He said that as unbelievable as it sounded, he never heard glass breaking, like he didn't hear anything. He just went to bed woke up and there was Luke. Now, the officer, as he's listening to Paul tell the story, he couldn't help but feel like this is sort of unbelievable. The idea that this huge glass door that was relatively close to where Paul was sleeping to had shattered, and like Luke is violently impaled by some of this glass, and like he's floundering around, presumably right near you, the idea that you didn't wake up to that seemed crazy, like very far-fetched. But the more this officer spoke to Paul, the more it seemed like Paul was just genuinely like confounded by the whole thing, like totally devastated and just confused himself. He's like, I had no idea. Like I don't understand how this happened. I didn't hear it. And so the police officer finished taking Paul's statement, and then hurried back to the room, hoping that maybe the forensics team would find something that could explain what happened here. Because right now, the officer had just no idea. However, after the Thai police finished investigating the scene, all they could really say was that Luke had somehow slammed into the glass door and got impaled by the glass when it broke. Aside from that, investigators were completely stomped. I mean, the only way for that big glass door to break was by extreme force, like if Luke was pushed into it or something. But they'd ruled out foul play since there was no evidence that suggested Paul had done it, and they were sure no one else had entered the room at any point. So eventually, investigators took a step back and just started from square one. They looked over all the evidence they had, including the photos of the scene. And that's when they realized the thing that ultimately killed Luke had been right in front of them all along. Investigators believed that at some point in the middle of the night, when Luke and Paul were both asleep, Luke got up to use the bathroom. But he was so tired and still half asleep and he wasn't really paying attention to where he was going. So he didn't remember or didn't see that he had left something on the ground right next to his bed, which was his suitcase. And when Luke got out of his bed and sort of was like half, half with it, he trips over the suitcase and falls into the balcony door so hard that it shattered. And then that massive shard of class went right through his abdomen. And Paul, who was also incredibly exhausted, did exactly what he had told the police. He slept through the whole thing. And so the case was closed. And Luke's death was officially ruled an accident. Our next and final story of today's episode is called "Forgot to Catch Up." A little after 6 p.m. on July 26th, 1957, a 19-year-old man named Bobby Patrum opened a cupboard in his friend Ralph Johnson's kitchen outside the small town of Liberty, North Carolina. Bobby grabbed a stack of plates and then carried them over to the kitchen table where Ralph and their other friend, Alton Smith, were organizing a bunch of food and napkins and other barbecue supplies. So Ralph was gonna have a barbecue that night and host a bunch of people and Bobby and Alton, who were close friends with Ralph, had come over to help set up. And so far, the setup for the barbecue had really been as fun as a party could be. I mean, the three friends had the radio way up and they were joking around and laughing as they got things ready. But at some point, Bobby and Alton noticed Ralph walk over to his fridge and he opened it up and then he looked visibly really frustrated. And before they could even ask him like, hey, what's wrong? He turned around and said, you know what, I forgot to buy ketchup. And given that this was gonna be a barbecue with like hot dogs and hamburgers and other things that required ketchup or should require ketchup, they all knew like we're gonna have to get ketchup before we start this barbecue. And so before Bobby or Alton could even volunteer to go get it, Ralph was like, you know what, there's a grocery store that's a few minutes down the road. You know, just take a couple of back roads. I can get there and back in just a few minutes. I'll go get it and Bobby and Alton, they're like, yeah, great, like you go get the ketchup and by the time you get back, we should be done setting up and then we'll be ready for this big party. So Ralph grabbed his car keys and headed out the door and Bobby and Alton continued getting ready. However, more than half an hour later, Bobby was sitting outside in a patio chair, checking his watch anxiously 'cause he knew the guests were gonna be here soon and Ralph was still not back. Now Bobby and Alton knew where this grocery store was. This is like literally 10 minutes away and Ralph had said as much, he was going to the one that was close by like he really should be back by now. And Bobby, he just couldn't help the fact that he was starting to feel pretty worried. Not even because like the guests were gonna show up and the host wasn't gonna be there. But more because, you know, Bobby knew the roads that led out of here to get to the grocery store were very winding and dangerous. I mean, Bobby himself had nearly driven off the road at least a couple of times, you know, coming out to this property and he started to wonder like, is the reason he isn't back yet because he got into a car accident? And so as Bobby is stressing about this, Alton came out of the house onto the patio and Bobby turned to him and he's like, you know, Ralph's still not back yet. Like, what do you think? And Alton, he nodded like, yeah, I know. Like, I'm starting to worry too here. So Bobby, he tried to stay calm, but longer he sat there without Ralph showing up. The more he became sure that there had to have been an accident. And by 7 p.m., an hour after Ralph had left and he was still gone, Bobby had become so anxious that he just, he couldn't wait around anymore. I mean, Alton was sort of okay with waiting, but, you know, Bobby was not. And so Bobby got up and he told Alton like, hey, we gotta go look for him. Like, this has been way too long. Like, come with me. We're gonna go check on him. A few minutes later, Bobby pulled his car out of Ralph's driveway and headed in the direction of the grocery store. Alton was next to him in the passenger seat, and as Bobby drove slowly down the narrow Tulane road, they both constantly scanned up ahead of them. They scanned the ditches on the side and even out into the woods, but, you know, there's no sign of Bobby or his car. You know, it's just like a vacant road and just forest in all directions. But about a half mile down the road, Bobby and Alton reached this really sharp curve in the road that was sort of like the most dangerous spot that Ralph would have had to navigate on his way to the grocery store and back. And as they made this turn, they gasped because right up ahead, like a hundred feet away, they see Ralph's car with its headlights on. And so Bobby, he hits the brakes and he started to pull over, but just then there was this deafening screech. It would turn out Ralph had not gotten into an accident at all. He had just taken a really, really long time at the grocery store to get the catch up and whatever else he had gotten. But he had gotten whatever he needed. He'd gotten back in his car and he was on his way back at the same time that Bobby and Alton had said, you know what, we gotta go look for him and they're driving up the road to go looking for him. And at the exact same time, they both, both vehicles, reached the most blind, most dangerous turn. And when they saw each other in the split second, they saw each other when they see those headlights Like last second, they both in an attempt to avoid each other. were swerved, and wound up swerving directly into each other's path, and they struck head on, and all three of them were killed. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacasio, story editing by Kate Murdoch. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher, research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Steven Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stidem, production support by Antonio Monada and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clogston Keiner, theme song "Something Wicked" by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya. [Music]