I can’t be very detail specific here due to the nature of my job, but I will try my best to communicate the story as best as I can.
I work in the Cyber Crimes division of a law enforcement agency- that’s about as specific I can get. And I want to be clear here- most of the stories that you read about the ‘dark web’ are outright fabrications. The tales of ‘Red Rooms’ and stories of hiring hitman are practically universally untrue. Most crime takes place on your normal everyday web.
One Tuesday afternoon though, I got a call saying there was a new case for me. Well, the officer on the other end of the call didn’t seem to be too sure that it was a case for me, but wanted me to have a look anyway.
I went down to talk to two young boys- both of them were teenagers, likely still in high school. I was wondering what this was all even about when one of them started blabbering about something they got off the Dark Web.
Apparently the two of them were doing a TikTok or YouTube challenge- I can’t care to remember which one it was, but they were looking for things to buy off the dark web. Again, honestly, there’s very little actual shady activity that goes on the dark web- unless you want to buy drugs, so the two of them were mainly disappointed.
Until they found a site that sold books- one of which they bought.
I was then handed the book in question- I put on a pair of gloves and flipped through it. It was filled with photos of a young lady- initially they were of her smiling and in locations such as that of a meadow, or city square- though as it went on they became more… provocative for a lack of a better term. She began wearing outfits like a maid uniform or a catgirl cosplay- and the last few photos were of her wearing nothing.
“Is this all you wanted to show me?” I asked, wondering what the fuss was about.
It was then that I was handed a card- one that had come with the book. It said:
Thank you for you purchase, dear customer. Inside you can find a treasure trove of photos of a young girl- though that’s not all that’s special about this book. To make sure that it is truly one of a kind, we made sure that you could get the full experience- the book is bound with her skin, so feel free to gently caress the leather as you think of her. Again, thank you for your purchase!
At this point I should probably mention for those who might be unaware what anthropomorphic bibliopegy is- it’s the name for the practice of binding a book with human skin. I probably don’t need to say this, but it is illegal. Even assuming the skin was from a cadaver you’d run into laws dealing with human remains.
This card though… from what was written on it, it was made to sound as if the skin had been taken from the girl why she was alive. Well, either that, or she had been killed and then skinned specifically to make this book.
I thought the whole thing was an elaborate joke. My first hunch was that the two boys were in on it- but they seemed too scared for it to be a hoax on their end and I interviewed the two of them separately and their stories held up.
Alright, perhaps they were telling the truth, but that didn’t mean that the book was really bound with human skin. Even if it felt like leather- it was most likely animal leather and all of this added for flavor.
I told the officer in charge of the case just that and said that there was no real need to investigate further- though I did give the young boys a warning regarding buying things off of sketch websites.
And that’s when the case ended.
Or so I thought.
As it turns out, the officer in charge of the case decided that on the off chance that it was real, to get the book tested. And it turned out the leater binding the book was as a matter of fact, from human skin.
As you can imagine- interest in the case surged after that. We were dealing with a potential murder case now, and we called the two boys back. I was also brough back on board to try to get to the root of things, and I was able to get the .Tor address of the site they used.
Unfortunately, all I got was an error message when I used that link. I did some more sleuthing but that got me nowhere.
Frustrated, I turned to other sources for help but there was little progress that I was able to make.
A DNA test of the skin didn’t reveal anything, and we searched far and wide to see if anyone recognized the girl in those photos. No match till date.
The case was about to turn cold when I managed to find an unexpected lead- on a forum I caught wind of someone else who had purchased a similar book and was confused regarding the veracity of what was claimed about it.
It was three States over, but we managed to track down the poster, who was a woman who had bought it out of morbid curiosity. Forensic testing revealed the cover was made of human skin as well. She had a different .Tor link, one which I tried, and this one actually worked.
The site by itself was nothing very impressive. It was as basic as could be- kind of like old sites back in the 2000s. I would’ve thought that it was a cheap prank based off this alone, but the two cases made me hold back my skepticism. I took screenshots of the websites and confirmed with the two boys who first came to us with this case that this was the site we were looking for.
Both of the books had been mailed from fake addresses from mailboxes within large cities, so there was little to go on there.
Given this, we decided to try the site for ourselves and I placed an order… only for nothing to turn up. If anything, what happene was that the site’s URL no longer worked.
And it’s here where things took a sinister turn. One of the boys, the one who had actually ordered the book, went missing one day. He was coming back home from school and then… well, there was no further trace of him. A manhunt for months came up with nothing, until one day, the other boy came to us saying that someone had delivered a piece of paper to his house.
It wasn’t a normal piece of paper- it was a roll of parchment. Testing later revealed that the skin was human, and it was from the boy who had gone missing. Upon it, written with what was later confirmed to be blood, were the words: ‘STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS.’
Eventually all leads went cold after that- and it’s been so for over five years. I’ve since moved on- or so I thought. There are still times when I think about the two girls and what fate awaited them, as well as that of the young boy.
Who were these people making these kinds of books?
I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer. But I am posting this here as a warning. For one- be careful who you meet online. You wouldn’t want to end up like one of those girls. And two, and most importantly, if you ever find a similar website, contact your local authorities, but do not buy anything off of it.
You don’t know where it’s from, after all.