Hate waiting a week for the next episode of Radio Rental? Subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus to get early access to episodes, add free listening and bonus scary stories. Visit TenderfootPlus.com for details. 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 our kind videos, so frightening, so mind-bending, you won't be able to sleep at night. You've gone. Radio Rental. Welcome to Radio Rental. If you're new here, what took you so long? Radio Rental is a little video shop of horrors. And not just because of all the dust. And my ghastly alphabetizing system. Actually, let's not focus on the negatives. Let's watch a new scary tape, shall we? And remember, these are all 100% real. [Laughs] Creepy laugh. When I was around eight or nine years old, I started having this dream. I would wake up. My door was open. And there was a man standing in my doorway. This went on for years. My mom and I were driving home from school one day. And I had had one of these dreams earlier that week. I could not shake it. I just said, "I've been having these really weird dreams about a man in my room." She asked me to walk her through the dreams. And I walked her through this very vivid dream. She asked me if I knew what a repressed memory was. As 10 years old, I had no idea what a repressed memory was. She said, "I'm going to tell you what happened to us when you were little." She started to tell the story. And she said that it was something real that happened to you. Everything came back. This was, in this summer, the dead heat of the summer in the Midwest. It was mid-1990s. I was about four or five years old. I split time between my mom and my dad's house. This was a particular evening where it was with my mom. My mom and I lived in an apartment complex. We were on the ground floor. Our unit had two bedrooms. We had one long hallway that ran from the living room down to the bedrooms. And the bedrooms were on opposite sides of the hallway. Sitting in my mom's bed, you could look across the hallway and see into my bedroom. We also had a cat named Sally. Sally would never leave our side. Always would sleep with me. She just would never leave the room you were in. We were pretty new to the community, did not know too many people around. My mom was having her bras and underwear stolen from the communal laundry room. I think she just talked it up to someone being really creepy. This particular evening was on a Thursday, which was notable because on Thursdays I got to sleep in bed with my mom. My parents were really trying to encourage me to sleep more independently. But I was really excited because I got to sleep with my mom on this particular night. We went to bed the same time because it was in the middle of the summer. There were two open windows that were just above the headboard behind the bed that we were in. We fell asleep. I remember waking up at some point. I lifted my head up very slightly. Sally was jumping off the bed. I saw her run into my room. I could not see into my room. It was pitch black, but I could see the hallway and I saw our cat disappear into my room. I felt it was an important thing to wake up and tell my mom. I turned to her and I nudged her. She stirred very slightly, but didn't wake up. I looked back into the hallway. When I looked back, I saw the dark shape of a man standing in my mom's doorway. I yelled. I kicked my mom. I shoved her and she also looked up and saw that there was someone in her doorway. It was dark behind him. We could just truly see the shape of his figure standing in the doorway. My mom was just screaming. She picked me up and she threw me out of the window. I remember expecting to hit the window and then I didn't. The screen popped and I fell into some bushes. She very quickly jumped out after me. I remember my hand hurting so bad because she was just yanking me, running. I don't even know if my feet were touching the ground. I remember us running down the grass to one of the walkways to just be in the lit area. It was very dark. The pathways were the only things that were lit. And so we ran down to one of the walkways that was maybe 200 feet from the window. Never seen my mom that scared before. She was sort of running in circles, looking, trying to scream for help, trying to just get someone's attention. I was scared that my mom was scared. I think I understood there shouldn't be a man in the doorway. But I didn't understand what we had likely just escaped. At some point there was someone. I think he would just park their car. Maybe they got enough work late or something. They heard us screaming and they came over. It was an older man. My mom didn't want to go back into someone's house. No one seemed safe. I think in that type of situation. So we stayed in the parking lot while that man went into his unit and called the police. And I don't think we waited very long. What I really remember was sitting on the wooden steps. The police were asking us questions and they were coming in and out. The police don't really know how he got in. Our front door, the deadbolt was unlocked and the chain was down. My mom, again as a single woman with a child, swore up and down as she locked that door. She checked it multiple times. She locked it when we walked in. She made sure it was locked before we went to bed. It was locked. The chain was up. The deadbolt was there. What the police had surmised is that the man had exited through that door. We didn't have a patio. We had no other exterior exits. Really there was not a lot they could do at that point. There was no crime outside of breaking and entering committed. And so nothing ever came of it. My mom and I went and stayed with my grandparents that night and we actually never spent the night in that apartment again. We just didn't feel safe. Eventually we decided to move. We went back about a week later, started packing up all of our things. At one point my mom was cleaning out the kitchen and there was a utility closet next to the kitchen. She opened it and she found on top of the water cooler a notebook. That contained drawings and like some scribbles.
names of some tenants in our complex including my moms. We called the police back and they came and they took the notebook and there were some wrappers in there and other things that led them to believe that the man had likely been in the utility closet that evening while we were there. If we had come and gone at some point the man had likely come in and was hiding in the utility closet and had waited until we went to sleep to come out. When he came out he walked down the hallway first went into my room to see if I was there and that was when I had woken up. There were a lot of things that could have made this go very differently. He came out of the closet and went into my room first. Was the intentionality towards me? Not my mom. What if it wasn't a Thursday? My room was an interior room that didn't have windows. There was no exit. She pushed me through the window when as she was jumping through she looked behind her and he was not coming towards her and it's really scary to think about if that window had been closed. Once he saw that we were gone he could have probably tried to grab for my mom but he didn't. He picked the Thursday and I happened to be in my mom's bed and she happened to have two open windows that were a foot above her headboard and we were on the ground floor. A lot of things had to happen for us to be okay. It's very scary if I start to let myself think about that too much. Now that was freaky. Me to break? Great. How about an ad break? After all nothing is more calming than the dulcet tones of consumerism. Wow how about all of those things you can buy and get and watch and listen to and and subscribe to. Discount codes and free trials sounds too good to be true but you know what is true. The next story 100% true. Let's play it. I was 17 getting ready to enter my junior year of high school the last few days of summer. Those few days where you're not really looking forward to going back to school as a high school kid just wanting the summer to continue. Me and two of my friends we were actually on our way to go get school supplies for the upcoming year. We were all riding in my friends truck going to the local Walmart, lived in a pretty big city about half a million people or so. We were sitting at a stoplight fairly busy intersection just waiting for the light to turn green and we're chatting. My friend who was sitting next to me kind of sitting sideways in the truck so he can kind of see like behind us. He says hey there's this guy who's just kind of staring at us over there. And I remember I said what where? Right as I turn my head my friend says he's getting out he's coming over here. I turn my head and sure enough here comes this man out of a car that was behind us a few cars and then the next lane over to the left. This guy is running through traffic and as soon as he came between the cars and he was in between the lanes that's when I noticed he had about a three-foot-long one-inch black metal pipe in his hands. He runs around the back of the truck. My friend jumps out of the truck and before I can even jump out with him the guy had already run in between the cars and traffic and was right there at the door. The look in this guy's face was just pure evil. I was scared but I was also angry at the same time. My adrenaline was pumping really hard. I remember I was shaking. In a split second I felt like I was already sweating. We have to get out of this situation. I'm scooting. I'm trying to get out of the truck. My friend just goes hey man what's what's the deal? Because like we didn't know him. We had never seen him before. We had never interacted with this man before. I mean this was a grown man and we were like 16 17-year-old kids. The guy just starts screaming at him. What was our problem? What the hell are you staring at? My friend just kind of puts his hands up. Hey man I don't know what's going on. We're not staring at anybody. We looked over and you were staring at us. And before I even get up this guy swung as hard as he could. I hear this pipe come around just clocked my friend on the side of the head. He swung it so hard that I could hear the air. It immediately knocks him to the ground. Lays him open. He's got blood gushing out of his head. He wasn't knocked out but it knocked him clear off of his feet. I jump out of the truck. I'm already yelling at the guy. Trying to get him to not look at my friend anymore and look at me because I didn't want him to continue to hit my friend with this pipe. I just said hey motherfucker you're about to get it. Our only option is to fight this guy. I can't let this guy hit my friend again. I have to fight him. There was no other choice. It was fight or flight and there was nowhere to run. We're sitting in traffic. We can't go anywhere in the car. We have to get out and try and disarm this guy any way that we can. By the time I got my feet out of the truck and was standing up, he had already taken off running. Ran back to his car, jumped in and drove away. He didn't take off fast. He just got in, put his car on drive and slowly drove off like nothing ever happened. The lighted turn green, cars are starting to go. People are now honking and upset that there's this incident in our traffic. I'm trying to look at his license plate. My friend that was driving got the license plate by looking in his side mirror. So we had a description and the guy just took off. There was an extreme sense of confusion. We didn't understand why we had been attacked. We didn't know this man and this was like a grown up. This was like an adult doing this. And we hadn't done anything. Had we thrown something at his car or flipped him off or yelled something as we drove by, but we didn't even know this guy even existed. We were all just kind of sitting there looking at each other like, I can't believe this just happened. We didn't believe. We called the police and an ambulance showed up. We gave the police all the information. The police were almost accusatory. They kept asking us, did you say anything? Did you look at him? Did you do this? Did you? And we just kept telling him no. We were sitting in traffic. My friend noticed this guy staring at us and that was it. The guy got out and it was on. I had never seen him. I never looked at him. There was no gestures. We don't even know who this guy was. I mean, just a guy in traffic. Then the cops said, was there a possibility that maybe you cut him off in traffic? And we said, no, he was in the other lane. We weren't even, and he was like three or four cars behind us. We had just gotten off the highway and were sitting at this intersection. And it's not even like we were right next to him. He was behind us a few cars. The ambulance comes, takes my friend away. He ends up getting 10 stitches in his head. The side of his head was swollen up pretty big. Police take down all of our information. And we just kind of go on from there. School started a few days later. My friend that was driving was the one that called the police. It was him that came to us and said, hey, this detective wants to speak with us at my house about what happened in traffic the other day. And of course, we were both like, yes, we're doing this. Absolutely. This guy is not going to get away with this because we hadn't done anything wrong. The detective comes over, sits us down, gets our story again, you know, has us all go through it. The detective had a lineup of six pictures of different people. And individually, they separated us. And individually, they showed it to us. Me and my friend that got hit immediately picked a man out. We were like, oh, that's him. That's the guy right there. And the detective thanked us, said that this was a very serious case that they were really looking for him. But that's kind of all he alluded to at the time. He said that we would either be hearing from him or the district attorney's office later on. Months went by. We had all kind of moved on and forgotten about it. You know, we went on with our junior year of high school.
About a year later we all get calls from the District Attorney's Office. They sent us subpoenas to be witnesses and everything and we're like, "Oh, wow, this is really going to happen. This is going to be a trial." We go to court, we all rode together just the same way we did to go get school supplies up to the courthouse, talked about it on the way there. I remember how scared I was at the time, and it turns out we were all just as scared. Three teenage boys don't get scared too often when you're all together. You feel like you're safe with your friends, and we were all definitely scared. We're sitting there in the pews that they have there. The detective comes up to us, thanked us for showing up for court, glad that we were there. He said that this case was going to get resolved, probably not in the manner that we were hoping it was going to get resolved, and was telling us that this case was probably going to go to a plea. The defense attorney was waiting to see if we showed up, and as soon as we did show up, that's when they wanted to go ahead and accept the plea offer that was offered to him. But he said, "Don't worry, this guy has bigger charges coming." We're just kind of like bigger charges. What do you mean, the worst crime? And that's when the detective told us that this man, when he hit my friend, was a wanted murder suspect for the murder of his own mother. They were actually looking for him at the time of this incident. My blood just ran cold. This guy could have killed us, and he wouldn't have thought twice about it. He had already killed someone. What's it to him to kill people that he doesn't know if he's willing to murder his own mother? That's terrifying. It wasn't like he murdered his mom and had been missing for 10 years. I mean, it was absolutely terrifying, especially when they brought him into the courtroom, because now we're sitting there looking at this guy face to face. I don't think I had ever been any more scared in my entire life. He was sentenced to, I believe, 10 years in jail as part of his plea, and then he went on to be convicted. We just thought this was some crazy person in traffic. We had no idea the level of crazy that we were kind of dealing with. And that really shook us. I remember all of us being very disturbed. That nobody told us that this guy was a murder suspect, because he could have easily just as well gotten our license plate. Afterwards, we went back to my friend's house. We were sitting around talking about it. We all honestly felt like we had dodged a bad situation that could have been far, far, far worse. To find that out and realize just how close to pure evil we came was absolutely terrifying. Ooh, you're on the edge of your seat, aren't you? Don't fall off, especially if you're driving. That could be extremely dangerous. Now, let's take a quick break for some ads. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart starts pounding, horror's hauntings and mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Kaelin Moore. Each week, I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwards horror and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the Darkly Curious, check out Heart Starts pounding on the Free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious. When we're back from all of those delightful ads, please buy from our sponsors. They're very nice people. And as always, it has been a pleasure having you. On behalf of all of us at Radio Rental, good night and good luck out there. I don't want to be hearing you on one of these tapes one day unless you're into that kind of thing. I mean, whatever floats your ghost. Did you get that malachite? I get it. Terry. Yeah, match. Not again. Radio Rental is created by Pain Lindsay and brought to you by Tenorfoot TV. Lead producer is Eric Kintana. Executive producers are Pain Lindsay and Donald Albright, hosted by Rainlilson as his character, Terry Carnation. Written and produced by Meredith Stedman, additional writing by Mark Lockland. Supervising producer is Tracy Kaplan. The associate producer is Joja Muhammad, editing by Eric Kintana, Mike Rooney, Steven Perez, and Meredith Stedman. Sound design by Cooper Skinner, with additional sound design by Steven Perez and April Ruha. Mixed in Master by Cooper Skinner, with additional mixing by Steven Perez and Devon Johnson. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set, with additional score by J. Ragsdale. Video editing by Dylan Harrington. Cover artwork by Trevor Eiler and Rob Sheridan. Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the team at UTA, the Nord Group, Station 16, Beck Media and Marketing, and the team at Odyssey. If you have a Radio Rental story that you'd like to share, please email us at
[email protected] Or contact us via the form on our website, radiorentalusa.com. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @radiorental. You can also follow the illustrious Terry Carnation on social media. Just search @TerryCarnation. On behalf of the Radio Rental store, we'd love it if you'd subscribe, rate, and review. Thanks for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]
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