When I was 8 years old my family moved into a lower income part of town. The good thing about it was my aunt (moms sister) and older brother (on my dads side) lived in the same neighborhood as us. There was a old small building from what I’m told was a church. I used to come there to play a lot as I didn’t have many friends. (My father kept my family isolated majority of my life) there was a girl who used to always come and play with me (before you ask she was NOT a ghost)her name was Henrietta.
I always liked Henrietta we always played together. She was like the best friend I’d ever have considering I hadn’t had any. Henrietta’s family stayed about two houses down from a older man named Mr Herbert. I’d say maybe he was in his early 40’s during the time. He was always very creepy looking to me. He would ALWAYS stare at me and Henrietta through his bushes or he’d be peeking out the windows at us.
Mr Herbert gave me the worst feeling ever. I used to tell Henrietta not to talk to him because he seemed like he was kinda weird. But she always as a child tried to see the good in people. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling of something sinister about him. I remember one night looking out my bedroom window and seeing him across the street in the bushes just staring at my house.
I closed the curtain for what seemed like 10 minutes and when I opened the curtains back up he was walking through the field back to his house. The next morning the police were everywhere. Seems like Henrietta had went missing and no one could find her. I remember her parents being really hysterical about it because Henrietta was their only child. Because I was her friend at the time the police along with my parents went to the station and I told them I’d last seen Henrietta at the old church we’d played at.
I was heading home and she said she was waiting on a great friend to come by with candy. I had no clue who she was talking about. But I did mention the creepy neighbor Mr Herbert how he was always following us and staring at us and had made some comments about our body. My parents told me to stop telling “stories” as they call it. Anyways the apparently ruled Mr Herbert out as a suspect in her disappearance.
Henrietta never came home again. Mr Herbert skipped town about 6 months later and still no Henrietta. It’s been 24 years now since her disappearance. One day I cut on the news in our town and low and behold, Mr Herbert who was much older was on there. Apparently the police came up with testing and found new evidence that was overlooked that linked to Mr Herbert.
They found Henrietta’s body or dismembered parts I should say, buried in a shallow grave. Mr Herbert had violated her then murdered her. He buried her beneath the old church floor. Apparently he was wanted in other places as well. The police said he had a list of young girls he was going to kill or had killed. He marked them out after each death. The police say he had my photo and my name in a list (I was after Henrietta on the list) apparently he was going to kill me next at some point. They ended up giving him life w/ no parole and he is currently still incarcerated. Every time I think of what happened I get the chills because it could have been me next.