The clue showed up on my front porch after a few more weird things happened. Shortly after getting my cheap camera, I found that where the two cords connected with the three connectors on it had been disconnected, then tied in a knot, as though to prevent it from becoming disconnected if I tripped over the cord, which was on the ground and on my walkway. It was then that I alerted my neighbors and relatives that were also my neighbors, of what was going on and to be on the lookout.
Things got quiet for about a week, then at around 3:00 a.m. one nigh, as I was tossing and turning trying to fall back to sleep, I heard what sounded like a power drill! The sound was coming from somewhere in the back of my house and it lasted for about 15 seconds. I thought hard as to what else it could have been, but I didn’t even have an ice maker or anything else that made noise like that.
Next, my set of keys with the house keys on it disappeared, never to be found again. Then I would come home from work some days and would just feel like something was “off” in my house, but of course I could never figure out what. But then one day I came home to find both my security door and my front door standing slightly a jar! That morning, before I left for work, my front door had started creeping back open after I thought I’d closed it, so I got annoyed and closed it harder and pushed on it to make sure it was closed, then I locked both locks on that and my security screen door. I reported that incident to the police, but nothing could be done as nothing in my house was missing or disturbed.
Another time, I had just had my small horseshoe shaped driveway repaved, so there were cones with caution tape to block the two entrances of my driveway. I had already moved my car to the road before they started repaving that day so I could leave if needed. I drove across my road and up my grandma’s long, winding driveway and was gone about 15 minutes. When I came back to finally be able to park in my garage again, I found something odd. One of the cones with the tape still attached to it had been moved from the entrance of my driveway to over in front of my garage door about 50 ft away. The other cone still sat at my driveways entrance, but the caution tape had been removed from it and instead, wrapped around the side door door knob on my garage! Scary, yes I know.
So, you can imagine all the people around me that were suspect to me. My neighbors probably thought I was weird and skittish! So, I was surprised when one day my boyfriend came into my house and said that he had one of my neighbors outside and he wanted to see me. So I go out to my front porch and see a slightly older gentleman chilling in one of my porch chairs. He told me that I probably wouldn’t remember him because I haven’t seen him since I was 16, which was years ago at that point. He then told me that I used to come to his mom’s house with my mom when she would deliver his mom her Avon order. He said that my mom felt uneasy about him being around me back then, so she didn’t ever let us really interact. He said he still lived just up the road from me and wanted to come and offer his condolences about my mom’s recent death. Small neighborhood, so word traveled.
Apparently, my boyfriend had seen him at a gas station with his car broke down and my neighbor, Russell, asked him if he was going towards my road and happy coincidence he was! They talked on the ride and connected the necessary dots to figure out that they both knew me. So, Russell and I stayed on the porch talking and I was comfortable with that enough, even after my boyfriend left for work, as Russell could just walk home.
Our conversation was casual, until he suddenly steered the conversation, that is. Out of the blue, he asked me if I’d be willing to film him in various positions why he wore women’s clothes and underwear and lingerie! He finished the disturbing question by telling me that he would pay me to do it for him. I must have had quite an expression on my face right then, because he decided to excuse himself and leave just then.
I sat there and had a smoke for a few minutes after he left, then I let it slowly dawn on me that it had to be him. Once that occurred to me though, I started watching him closely on the occasions that he would come over. I just had to know if it was him because it’s hard to be afraid of someone possibly dangerous to you, if you don’t even know who they are.
When Russell did come over, we always sat outside on my front porch. Overtime, I started to bring up little things about me thinking that someone was outside my house at night. I knew I needed a reason to get him to walk on my lawn or my tan bark or some gravel or something so that I could get a measure of his boot print.
Meanwhile, I installed a security motion light, putting the motion sensor outside my bedroom window with the light inside my bedroom window, just on the other side of the wall. All that caused though, was a sporadic game of I guess, cat and mouse maybe? The light would come on and my boyfriend and I would go outside to check and there’d be nothing. Then we started to notice that the light in my room would sometimes stay constantly on. We started just hiding and standing outside and the light wouldn’t come on again until we went back inside.
The next time Russell came over, I had him come out and water my plants outside with me, which required him to walk on my lawn. I measured his footprint as soon as he left and yes 13 in! I thought for sure that was my proof, until I remembered that I had a pair of hiking boots that also had a 13-in outsole print, so it seemed kind of common. Reasonable doubt, I guess.
Frustrated and back to square one, I decided one day to take a short walk and show up at his place to see if I could possibly see anything in his trailer maybe. He invited me in and we chilled and smoked and talked for a bit. As soon as he got up to use the bathroom, I braved a little bit of a look around, but ultimately found nothing relevant. Russell liked baseball, so we sat around for a while talking about it and looking through some of his baseball card collection.
This may be a time for me to mention that “Russell” is a direct relative of a prominent family here. So much so, that his direct ancestors were around when our small historic area was first founded.
Well, unfortunately my boyfriend and I eventually split, and it soon became evident that Russell did like me. To this day, I honestly can’t say why I did, but Russell and I started hanging out a little more. I’m not sure if it was because I was genuinely interested a tad, or if I just wanted to gain his trust in order to find some proof that he was indeed, the nightcrawler. Our Hangouts however, remained casual.
One night, I had a date with another guy and he came over to my place for a couple hours that evening. I found out later that night that Russell noticed his car in my driveway. He left me a note on my security door for me to “please call him later.” I waited the whole next day until the next evening to call him. He said he had a surprise for me, but he wouldn’t be over to my place with it until about midnight. I hesitantly accepted, and proceeded to notify my grandma across the road and my uncle at the property right behind mine.
Russell showed up to my door at about 11:45 p.m., true to his word. With him, he had a bunch of restaurant takeout containers from the restaurant that he did closing duties at. He then took me by the hand and led me to the hill on the neighboring property where I discovered the cutout plastic for someone to sit on a while back across from my large living room windows. His family did happen to own that piece of property, where they kept some of their horses. He spread out a blanket and started setting out the food he had brought over with him for us. As he did so, he told me that he remembered I said that I had a love for full moon lit nights. So, he thought that the full moon that night combined with my obvious love of picnics I often spoke of, was a perfect date idea for us. I had my phone with me the whole time, ready to dial for help, but I didn’t need it that night. We talked and laughed and had a pretty good time and the food was delicious! Though I waited for him to eat before I ate.
Russell and I hanging out actually kind of fizzled out after our moonlit escapade. Even the stalking activity seemed to stop for a while. In fact, it was quiet for about 6 months. I slowly began to get more comfortable and relaxed in my own home. Russell and I didn’t really speak to or see each other during that time. I found out later that he had moved back in with his ex, though that didn’t last.
Then again, good things only last so long because the stalking activity started again! At first, I tried to tell myself that I was just being paranoid but another trip outside to do some tracking quickly disproved that theory. Plus, I found a single flower left under my bedroom window. That day I quit screwing around and followed the footprints out of my field and into a neighbor’s. From there, the footprints continued through the back of the neighbor’s property, through some bog mud and eventually, to his trailer.
I wasn’t really surprised, but nonetheless I began to form a plan for that night. Looking back, I’ll admit that it was a stupid and drunkenly formed plan. But, somehow it still went okay. So, as soon as it got dark that night, I set out to retrace Russell’s steps to his trailer. I walked silently and used no light to see my way, instead I used the little amount of moonlight I had after my eyes adjusted. When I got to his neighbor’s house across the street from his trailer, I waited silently in the shadows for most of the neighbor’s lights to go out for the night.
A little while after the last light flicked out at Russell’s neighbor’s house, I sillently crept over to Russell’s trailer and quietly snaked my way up the fig tree outside his front door. After I felt I was sufficiently hidden up in the tree, I began to drop small, unripened figs onto his metal roof. You know, one at a time every couple of minutes, while I listened between drops. When that didn’t seem to get his attention, I climbed back down the fig tree a little ways and tapped on his trailer roof. That trick worked and he stepped outside while looking around, puzzled, as I watched him from above.
I waited until he was just about to go back inside to start climbing down. It wasn’t until I dropped down behind him with a loud thud, that he turned around and came face to face with me. Since it was after 1:00 in the morning and we hadn’t seen each other for months, he was definitely surprised to see me. I stood before him dressed in black with my hair slicked back in a tight ponytail, with a serious expression on my face. I looked him dead in the eyes and said “I don’t like baseball as much as you do, russell.” He gazed back at me and started to say something, but I instantly cut him off saying “so I don’t really do the whole three strikes thing, for me it’s less and if I ever hear you creeping and crawling around on my property again, a baseball bat will be the very least of your worries.”
I walked away after saying that to him the same way I came, just so he knew that I knew exactly what he’d been up to. I moved out of that house shortly thereafter and that was that. Though, the stalking actually did stop after my unannounced visit that night.