It was a rock / pop song. There is a female lead singer. She is white, she was kinda pretty I think. I don't think she has had any recent music releases in the past 20 years at least not that I am aware of. I don't remember the lyrics. That isn't much info, and could be anyone... She may have been a "One Hit Wonder".
The biggest clue I can give you is she had this huge prop globe in her music video.

This trip is probably by far the greatest one I’ve had. Here’s why. Btw, I’m still a lil high so I might not make sense 😭
I took them and didn’t feel anything for about an hour. My grandma and I started to watch Seinfeld. Mind you, she has no clue I’m tripping lmao so eventually everything starts to settle in. Paintings are breathing and the walls are moving and Seinfeld is 100x funnier. About an hour passes and we go outside onto the porch. She still has no clue I’m tripping and is very anti drug lmao. We’re sitting outside and just talking and stuff and she’s telling me about bands like The Rolling Stones and singers like Bob Seger so I turned them on and could feel the songs on like a spiritual level almost lol. I only listen to rap I’m a loser I know lmao. Stuff like Travis Scott and all that psychedelic shit sounds awesome. Anyways, we’re laughing and talking about music and just talking about memories that all of us had and it was just an amazing night. I just wanted to share this with y’all lmao.
Anyways, sleep awesome 🙏🏼

There is a song we play in ulta, it’s a female singer, I saw a tik tok where that singer remixed her song to say a verse for every city she performed in. Anyone have any clue what I’m talking about..?

So, this is my first time being in this subreddit. 16personalities say I'm ISTP, I made sure to retake the test several times to confirm it. now, I want your guys' opinion on what my MBTI is.
I will list a few of my personalities as well as other things about me:

• my taste in music varies, however, the music genres I listen to frequently is rap and heavy metal (I'm that type of person to have their volume up while listening to music). I listen to Airborne, Hollywood Undead, Twisted Sister, Green Day, My Chemical Romance, AC / DC, Nirvana, Queen, Mötley Crüe, Florida Georgia Line, and Eminem.
  
• I do listen to pop also, but I only listen to Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Madison Beer, Sam Smith and Charlie Puth. as for the others, I probably only know like 2, 3 or 4 songs from them.
  
• i'm not really good at conveying emotions, as in, I'm bad at expressing them. hell, I never know what expression is on my face when I look at people. to people, my relaxed face is an angry face. or a friend of mine calls it "tiger eyes" (when we first met), I never really bothered to tell them though since I don't see the point of doing so.
  
• I'm pretty blunt, like very blunt, I never filter myself (I swear alot but I don't do it in front of my mom). I make comments about almost everything and would speak what's on my mind (if I was comfortable with sharing it that is), I never sugarcoat things. but that doesn't mean I always tell the truth, I lie alot. even too my own relatives.
  
• I am pretty honest on how I feel about a certain person, if I hate them. I will show that I do, I won't fake liking them. I lie alot, I've done that multiple times selfishly in my life because I didn't want to get scolded at. but, I hate playing fake with people. I really do, even if my mom tells me too. I can't bring myself to do so.
  
• when it comes to education, I really suck at it (English and Science is my highest subjects, Math, AP and Filipino are my lowest subjects). I'm more of a sporty type, which really sucks tbh ngl. I haven't gotten an IQ test before but I have all sorts of random knowledge I acquired over the years that's not really Filipino school related that I learned on YouTube and Google, I've always been good at memorizing numbers, but when it comes to math. I suddenly started forgetting numbers. hell, it took me awhile to memorize the multiplication table and I still use my fingers for the bigger numbers to this day.
  
• I just lay around and play my phone on the living room couch, while my aunt does all the house chores. as the older sister, I should be the one to do them, but I couldn't bring myself to do it for whatever reason, but. I do them, not frequently but when my aunt and mom is out leaving me and my brother or whenever I feel like it doing them.
  
• my mood changes pretty quickly, I go from angry (I'm short-tempered) to calm in a few minutes. If I'm angry for a long time, I listen to music to calm down. I am usually calm though, even under pressure (it depends on the situation though. when it comes to being rushed on something or me studying, expect me start getting pissed).
  
• according to my mom, I was always friendly and surrounded by friends in school. I can make friends fairly quickly, and I surprisingly remember each one of their names. I would even buy snacks in the cafeteria for myself and my friends according to my mom, I love giving nicknames to most people (even tho I suck at it) especially my friends. although, after the pandemic. staying inside and all with no contact with my school friends, I became a little nervous when it comes to talking to other people. (I've always been terrible at conversation starters honestly 💀)
  
• I always want to try new things or be different things. my mom told me that I used to want to be a security guard when I was younger, I recall telling my dad when I was 12 that I wanted to be a police or a chef, but as of now. at 16, I either want to be a soldier or a singer. as for the try new things, whenever I get interested in things I find, well interesting and I try to learn more about them. only to be bored of it eventually and lose the interest all together, I've always hated that about myself honestly.
  
• I'm really competitive when it comes to video games, if you challenge me in a game. I'll do whatever it takes to get a higher score then you, then impress you with how high my score is. I also love crosswords and word search, it's basically the only two puzzles games I actually enjoy.
  
• Creative Type, but I'm really horrible at drawing (I can only draw stick figures). mine is more of a creative thinking thing (i.e creating fictional character scenarios, not thinking out of the box).
  
• I love puns, especially dark humor. but I'm terrible at making one myself.
  

Hi -- here is link to it on crosshare: https://crosshare.org/crosswords/uG8pDoJzgCAdahHDZust/my-first-crossword
I am very much a beginner (still on the Times quick ones), but from the start felt drawn to making clues up, so gave a whole puzzle a go.* My arsenal of tricks is quite limited so maybe it is very easy. And possible I've made a faux pas here or there. Would really really love your feedback and advice on how I could improve certain clues, and also overall feel of the puzzle. Maybe feels a bit samey? Or perhaps I've just been staring at it too long! I think maybe in future would like to try more &lit. clues to spice things up a bit -- but I do find those very hard to solve, let alone set...
*(Note: I actually borrowed a completed grid from a non-cryptic which i found on Google images, and just made up cryptic clues for it — so... maybe not counting as a fully self-set crossword... but excited to make my own now I know about crosshare).

Outlying community NYT Crossword Clue
https://crossword.fresherslive.com/nyt-mini-crossword-answers-for-june-08-2023

When I was younger (around 4-5 years ago), I listened to a song, and I've been looking for it for years, but I can't find it. I remember the music video clearly. It was the female singer singing to elderly people in what I assume to be a retirement home. The singer was wearing a baby blue long sleeve satin blouse with a skirt. She was on this small stage with a microphone singing an indie/soul song. I also want to mention that she was white & had a Bob for extra details.. If anyone has any clue, plss lmk. Thank you!!!

I have said before that dissecting Lord Huron and their intricate lore often feels like a game of 4d chess. With every new revelation I am convinced that the band is simply, inter-dimensionally, eight intergalactic steps ahead of me at all times. Ok, I'm being dramatic. But I do have a kind of interesting theory/observation.
I think the song "Way Out There" holds some pretty important clues about the Lord Huron universe. I consider it their "thesis statement," the song that sort of sums up what the band's whole deal is. Looking at Strange Trails and Vide Noir through the lens of "Way Out There" as their thesis statement can get pretty interesting! Remember this is all just my crazy theory, lol I promise I don't think of any of it is definitive. Also I'm aware this is probably WAYYY too detailed... I am literally just having fun and conducting some literary analysis because I'm bored and its' summer break.
I consider the "Way Out There" to be a physical place. It seems to be a place full of danger but also beauty. It is the wild. Something very important about the Way Out There is that it is a place of complete loneliness. The characters of the Lord Huron universe each have their own unique relationship with the Way Out There. It can be a place of escape, e.g. Lonesome Dreams, with its upbeat presentation of loneliness. Or it can be a place of death and destruction, as it is presented through Cobb's perspective in the song Way Out There itself.
"I've Got a Place in the World and I've Found my Way" - Leigh's Relationship with the Way Out There
Before you call me too crazy I gotta tell ya, I haven't seen the Vide Noir movie so I hope I don't look too dumb with my theories. Everything I know about these characters is based on the pre-movie Wiki and my own personal understanding of the song lyrics. Please don't spoil the movie for me...if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
From what I know, Leigh Green is a woman who fled Hollywood after a failed relationship and struggles with addiction, and ended up taking refuge in the wild. Finding solace in nature is a common theme in Lord Huron's music. Leigh is now an elusive woman. She wants to be left alone. It seems the place she lives is so wild and dangerous, that it kills many who search for it. This can be seen in the lyrics for La Belle Fleur Sauvage: "What you're looking for won't be found easily/It grows upon the mountain, in a sacred place/Up beyond the clouds an ancient ground, so they say/And many men have died trekking up that way." I believe that this "sacred place" is -you guessed it - the WAY OUT THERE!
However, what makes Leigh compelling is that she has somehow made peace with this dangerous place. This is evidenced in her song, Long Lost.
"I've got a place in the world And I found my way Out in the night all alone In the Way Out There I ain't lonely I'm long lost."
While men like Cobb Avery, Remy Fusil, and Buck Vernon have a negative view of the Way Out There, Leigh has actually somehow girlbossed her way into LOVING it. To me this speaks volumes about who she is. She is one of the only people in this entire universe who has made peace with this overarching theme of the "distant place that is dangerous yet still calls your name." It is mostly a place of disturbance, but Leigh has changed that in order to empower herself.
Is the Way Out There also the Void?
I think that the Way Out There and the Void may also be the same place. They share so many characteristics.

• Elusive
• Dangerous
• Deadly
• Beautiful
• A dream/goal to achieve or reach, but also
• A place you can become trapped in

This also makes sense when you consider that in the album Vide Noir, Leigh is implied to be "the emerald star," who resides in the Void. Buck, by searching for her, also finds himself in the Void. Could the Void be the same place that many men have died trekking to?? And is Leigh la belle Fleur Sauvage? Is she the emerald star at the end of it??? THIS IS WHY I LOVE LORD HURON. Because the lore really IS this convoluted, so all of this is plausible!
I also believe the Way Out There is the place described in Ends of the Earth. This is because the song Way Out There describes it as "drifting in a land that time forgot," and Ends of the Earth references about "a land that time don't command." Cool, right? That could establish the Way Out There as a defined location within the Lord Huron universe, with its own unique characteristics, such as timelessness. It also adds to the mythos of the place. It seems like the characters have this yearning to visit the Way Out There, yet also a healthy fear of it.
Fun Little Easter eggs

1. In Long Lost, Leigh asks to be left "where the moonbeams carve through the leaves like blades." And what is track 10 on Vide Noir? It's the song Moonbeam! Moonbeam is also pretty clearly about Leigh. She's coming down to Buck in a dream, "shining down like a Moonbeam."
2. How about Lost in Time and Space? Buck is "aimless searching for a long lost face." Who is the subject of the song Long Lost? It's Leigh. This means the title of the next album was in fact foreshadowed within Vide Noir.
3. In Cursed, the singer describes "looking into her eyes and see the endless night staring back." I think this is referring to the woman we learn of in Cursed being hooked on the drug Vide Noir. Thus, we see the concepts of "pure black void" and "endless night" being introduced in Strange Trails before becoming a central theme in the next album. (Not to mention "follow me into the endless night" also being a lyric in Meet me in the Woods.)
4. In Louisa, the singer asks his woman to "meet me by the river baby one more time." What does Buck do in Vide Noir? He "waits by the river". Does this mean Louisa is about Leigh? (Is the wait by the river river, the river that winds on forever from Ends of the Earth?? Nobody knows for sure).

There are in fact, more Easter eggs, but I think I've given you enough of an egg sampling to last til next April. This post is extremely long and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only one who reads it.
Like I said, this is just some casual fun literary analysis. Lord Huron have certainly given us more than enough material to analyze.
What do you think, aimless traveler? Is it my mind that's completely "way out there?" Or do you think... I might be onto something? :)

This is Part 2 of this write-up. Please read part 1 first. This is the link:
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/143r7l9/felix_vail_the_pedophile_serial_killer_caught/

PART 2:

ANNETTE CRAVER:

Born on the 7th of December 1965, Annette Craver was intelligent and creative. At 15 she was a singer-songwriter and in her senior year at a private school that specialized in medicine. Her dream was to become a midwife.
http://charleyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vail_annette6.jpg(A photo of Annette Craver.)
In the summer of 1981, she and her mother, Mary Rose greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas. They had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America.
VAIL MEETS ANNETTE
While people browsed the sale, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’” he said about the 15-year-old.
In April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both. After graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later, and convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death 3 years prior. It would be over a year before Mary Rose would see her daughter again.
That fall, Annette (who was still 15) would fall pregnant, and Vail would force her to have a painful abortion.
Jerry Woodall, reportedly friends with Vail later recalled an embarrassing scene, where the 42-year-old Vail was in a sleeping bag, having public sex with a 16-year-old Annette, only 20 feet away from him and his then-wife Meredith McMackin. Annette grinned and waved at them. Woodall and McMackin did their best to ignore them.
McMackin would later say that Vail had “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”
Later that summer, police in California would arrest Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier. Annette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200. After Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to get married. However, as a 17-year-old she needed permission.
Annette told her mother that she loved Vail, that they were already “spiritually married” and that they would travel to Mexico and get married there if she refused. Not wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.
On August 15th, 1983, in Bakersfield, California, the couple were wed.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE
Four months after the marriage, Annette turned 18, allowing her to collect more than $98,000 ($293,500 today) from life insurance policies on her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.
In April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting at her door. She told her she wanted to divorce Vail, and enroll in college. She talked about Vail’s temper, including an incident where he had broken his hand trying to punch his wife. He missed and hit a wall.
A few weeks later, Vail showed up. The couple fought constantly, and Vail left after a few days. Mary Rose said that Vail was “insanely jealous” and would become furious when Annette spoke of her desire to go out with younger men.
She and Annette worked on renovating the two homes after Vail left, enjoying their time together. The 2 even started a garden together.
Annette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. He wrote to her: “After we hung up, I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with God and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”
He referred to being away from Annette as “deprivation jail” and to her ego as “his jailor.”
“The idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you. My mind is kissing you everywhere.”
After that, Vail would return to Annette’s life. Rose said, “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’” His influence on Annette had only grown stronger. According to Rose, she even compared Vail to God, a comparison Vail agreed with.
After this, the couple angrily insisted that Rose move out and deed the house to Annette. Accompanied by suicidal thoughts brought on by Vail’s continued control over her daughter, Rose left for California to stay with family and friends, deeding the house to Annette for $7000 ($21,000 today) before she did.
Annette would add Vail to the deed, and a month later had deeded him both homes, leaving him as the sole owner.
ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Mere weeks after deeding the houses to Vail, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned in October, he was alone.
Vail told a neighbor that Annette had a lot of money wither her when he’d left her, and that she was likely visiting friends in Denver.
Upon learning that Annette hadn’t come back with Vail, Mary Rose called him. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled to an investigative reporter years later. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.” The next day, Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000 ($150,000 today) but didn't elaborate.
On Oct 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who spoke with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”
On January 22, 1985, Detective Dennis Davis and another officer questioned Vail at his home (This is obscenely late to start questioning him). By this point, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.” Davis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate. Vail confirmed this was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.
The next day, Vail called a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” as he wrote in his journal.
When Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette woke up and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket. (There is no Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, and there has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.)
He told the officers that she had told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico. When asked if he would take a lie detector test, Vail said no.
After Davis left, he wrote a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” about Annette, told her that after the couple had returned from Costa Rica Annette had been “seeing friends and relatives --- completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.” He wrote that Annette “disappeared herself from you” because Rose kept imposing her “value system” on her, and said Annette viewed her mother, grandmother, and herself as “zero self-image whores for approval.”
He explained the 2 had no plans to communicate, he did not know where she was, and that “I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
When Rose returned to Tulsa in April 1985, she entered the cottage Annette used to live in, only to find almost all the young woman’s belongings were gone, including her clothes and her diary.
Inside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.
Instead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. It said that as of that day, they had $41,600 ($125,000 today) in cash.
Rose shared the information with the police. Detective Davis showed up again, and Vail told Davis the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks, contradicting his earlier statement that they kept the money in cash.
After a while, Davis left, and despite the (seemingly obvious) suspicious behavior of Vail, closed the missing person’s case.
AFTER ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Rose kept calling Vail after this and was finally able to reach him on September 14th 1985.
When asked about Annette’s whereabouts he refused to tell her.
When asked about Annette’s missing clothes he said he gave them to charity.
When asked about the insurance money, Vail told her ‘That’s all she really cared about.’ Rose hung up.
Two years later, fed up with the lack of progress in Annette’s case, Rose would return to Tulsa. She spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to locate Vail. When that failed, she simply went and found him herself.
Tipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside. When asked where Annette went, he replied “Mexico.” When asked where in Mexico, he said the 2 had made a pact to contact each other every 5 years, contradicting his statement that the 2 didn’t have plans to communicate. Rose didn’t believe a word of it.
The whole time Vail never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.
BETH FIELD
Some time after this, Vail began dating Beth Field. Soon the couple had began arguing, and Vail would call her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he would strike her so hard he ruptured her ear drum. She told Vail there was no justification for violence, to which he responded, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”
In August 1988 Beth received a call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing that he had likely murdered her.
Four months after the call, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to a court order. He slapped her, struck her, and threw her across the bedroom. She asked if Vail was going to kill her, to which Vail replied, “It depends on what you tell me.”
A judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.
While Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived. After composing herself, she told him “There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.”
He looked at her and asked, “Really?” She said “yes, really.” This time, the message seemed to go through. Vail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she never saw him again.
MARY ROSE LEARNS ABOUT THE OTHER 2 CASES
In the summer of 1991 (6 years after Annette's disappearance), Rose drove over 2000 miles to Canyon Lake, Texas to speak to Sue Jordan, Felix Vail’s sister. Jordan said that Vail had told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned, which was news to Rose.
Before she left, Jordan also told her, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”
After the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, writing every word she could remember. She also called the public library in Lake Charles.
The librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary Horton. She told Rose that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning and that the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value. The librarian made copies of newspaper articles and mailed them to her.
After reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared her suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article made after Vail's son Bill reported him to the police. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.
In 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell. She contacted Newell, who helped her find the family of Sharon Hensley. When Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered. Rose asked if Peggy knew a Felix Vail. Peggy replied with "you bet I do"
THE INVESTIGATION HEATS UP… AND COOLS DOWN
The detective who helped Rose before, Terry Newell, contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI. When Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she'd finally gotten somewhere. He was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He still remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S. Vail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family. Both the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.
Bell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail. He was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving Vail grew cold once again.
A QUICK RUN DOWN OF EVENTS
In the fall of 1997, family and friends held a mural for Annette.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Vail’s son Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. He’s quoted saying “now I’ll get to be with my mom.” Months before passing away in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years,” before writing about getting a good haircut. He drove to Kansas but didn’t attend his own son’s funeral. If he had, he would have heard the recording, with his son detailing how he had overheard his father talk about murdering Bill's mother, Mary.
When Vail learned of the recording, he wrote to Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy. He blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”
In 2012, while attempting to confront Vail with reporter Jerry Mitchell whom she had contacted to write about Vial, Rose was stopped by Kaye Faulkner, Vial’s sister. She told Rose and Mitchell of the recording and urged Mitchell to get a copy of it. She also said that she believed Vial had murdered Mary Horton, Sharon Hensley, and Annette Craver.
She gave the reporter Vial’s number, as well as the numbers of her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth. Vial didn’t answer those calls, so Mitchell left a message. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on his behalf.
MITCHELL INVESTIGATES
Mitchell arrived in Lake Charles and stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories. He began tracking down people who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary.
Many described Mary’s fair of drowning. A close friend of Vails, Judson McCann II described Vial as a ladies’ man, and insinuated he was a cheater. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on. When Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”
Another close friend, Bob Hodges described Vial’s story of Mary ‘falling’ in the river as “horse manure.”
A college roommate of Mary, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, said “Nobody believed it was an accident.”
Mitchell shared Mary’s autopsy report with pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City, who concluded that foul play had taken place in her death.
The report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water. There were hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion. But most convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water.
“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she was put in the water.”
A cousin put Mary’s brother Will Horton in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962. He had never forgotten Mary’s death. “Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”
He and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed an elite task force unit that investigated homicides. Three young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies (officers) wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer. Horton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer,” to which the other detectives agreed.
Shortly afterwards, DeLouche left the task force, and for seemingly the hundredth time, grew cold again.
After Mitchell posted a story about Vail titled “Gone” (It’s nearly 9,000 words long, and the precursor to the 35,500 word story I have drawn heavily from) a man named Wesley Turnage contacted him. He told him of a conversation he had had with Vail in 1963 during a car ride.
According to Turnage, Vail called Mary a bitch and said she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems. He quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”
Mitchell would make another discovery. District Attorney Salter Jr. had ordered that the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.
Will Horton told Mitchell the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail. That matched the stories Mitchell had heard from grand jurors’ families.
Horton then contacted District Attorney John DeRosier, who said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.
Then came an interesting wrinkle in the story. Finding Vail.
He’d disappeared, returning on Labor Day weekend 2012 to sell his property, before disappearing again. Luckily, another reader of "Gone" came to the rescue. He phoned Mitchell, telling him where Vial was. Canyon Lake, Texas.
Mitchell then contacted Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. Yaksic then contacted Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.
Yaksic shared a copy of GONE with Showalter, who in turn called Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case. Curtis phoned Mitchell to find out where Vail was. A few days later, he called back to say the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.
On Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found him at that address, living in a storage shed. Curtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women. Vail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger (Where "Gone" was published) of lying about him. The whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.
​
Will Horton gave Mitchell the number of his cousin, who was a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac Abshire Jr. When Mitchell sat down with the man, he shared a haunting story.
Abshire had worked with Vail and offered him a room to rent out. Once Vail and Mary were married, Vail had moved out. Abshire viewed himself as “a big brother” to Mary, calling her “a sweet little girl.”
After the marriage, Vail had become angry at work, talking about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant, and how he didn’t like his baby. On the Friday before she was killed, the couple visited Abshire, bringing Bill, who was still an infant. Mary privately asked Abshire if he thought Vail could take her baby away.
Two days later, Mary was dead.
Abshire and two other workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.
Abshire said while they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’”
They recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. Blood boiled on the boat, everyone voicing the same opinion. Vail had killed Mary.
Abshire had kept photos from that day for over 50 years. He said he had given them to Deputy Curtis as well as a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.
Despite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 ($150,000 today) life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000 ($24,000 today), which promised to pay double if she died by accident.
It was almost as if he knew she was about to die.
Deputies had reported witnesses claims that Vail had told them he didn’t love his wife, that she looked stupid and vulgar, and that he had had sexual relations with multiple women, and at least one man.
Vail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered. Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As for the trotline the 2 were supposedly running, deputies found it still inside Vail’s tackle box.
Most witnesses the Deputies had spoken too felt that Vail was capable of killing his wife.
When asked if he believed Vail killed his wife, Abshire said “Oh, my God, yes.”
THE CHASE & THE FINAL CLUES:
Ever since Vail had sold his Mississippi property, Mary Rose had wondered if he would eventually sell the Tulsa property, the one she and Annette had lived in. He did. Vail sold it for $149,000. Rose asked the question on the mind of everyone investigating. “What is he going to do with all that money? --- He could be running.”
On April 30th Mitchell got a call saying that Vail had left Texas. He was pulled over by police in Columbus, Mississippi after hopping the fence of his now dead brother Ronnie’s property. Curtis told Mitchell that the Columbus police were sending him a photo of Vail and the white pick-up truck he was pulled over in. He once again warned Mitchell that Vail could be running.
Vail’s sister called again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier. She wondered if he was driving to the home of possible witness Wesley Turnage.
Mitchell called Turnage to let him know that Vail might be headed his way. Turnage replied “If he sets foot on my property, there won’t be no trial.” He called Mitchell back later, saying no one in Montpelier had seen Vail.
Private Investigator Gina Frenzel, who had questioned Vail herself, including pretending to be his girlfriend, called Mitchell with good news. Vail had contacted her and told her he was back in Canyon Lake. Mitchell informed Curtis.
On May 17th 2012, authorities arrested Felix Vail for the murder of his wife Mary Horton.
In telephone calls from the jail in Lake Charles, he shared his explanation of what happened the night of Oct. 28, 1962, when Mary died.
He referred to his first wife as a “coon-ass lady,” saying she was “half kneeling” on his feet when she “saw one of the float buckets that were on the line.” He said the boat was “going real slow along the edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump ... and it dumped her right out.” Vail said he shut off the motor and dove in “where she had plopped in the water. I mean, nothing. The river had sucked her right in.” He said he “dove around until I was exhausted, and came in immediately to the police station in town and reported the accident and that was it.”
This story differed greatly from his story in 1962 when he said his wife was sitting on top of a boat seat when she fell out, not that she was kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about hitting a stump — just swerving to miss it.
It also differed from the story he had told his son, where a wave from another boat had dumped Mary out.
Vail told Frenzel that the case “has been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
He blamed the families and Mitchell, “an evil, shrimpy reporter,” for what had happened, calling the charges “fabricated” and insisting that “a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them.”
At Vail’s request, Frenzel returned his truck to his home and went inside to take care of a few tasks. While there, she spent 16 hours photographing all his journals, more than 2,400 pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs and business cards, some dating back to the 1960s. She found a collection of women’s jewelry, old buttons, pins, and even a glass dildo.
Disturbingly, if at this point unsurprisingly, she found a photograph of a naked 3-year-old girl. Frenzel later spoke with the girl, now a woman. The journals revealed that Vail had stalked her for years.
Frenzel discovered the birth certificate of Annette Craver, who had used it for previous trips to Mexico.
Mitchell and Frenzel poured through the journals she had photographed. They noticed gaps in them that lead them to believe Vail had ripped pages out, including times when he should have been with Sharon and Annette.
His journals were dominated by sex, dreams of sex and reflected an obsession with children. In a March 27, 1986, entry, Vail wrote about the visit of a woman and her daughters in his home. “The little girls were delicious --- We massaged some, hugged & kissed some & it was 12 (midnight) & time for them to go.”
On Aug. 29, 1992, Vail walked into the Wal-Mart in West Point, and as he wrote in his journal “a 1-year-old white girl looked in my eyes loving me like there was no age difference between us.”
When Mitchell interviewed Kert Germany, a co-worker of Vail in 1977 he said that Vail attracted women wherever he went, and that Vail had told him the best sex of his life had been with 2- or 3-year-old girl.
It was that this time that Alexandra Christianson, Vail’s ex-wife called Mitchell and told him her story. She also put him in contact with Bruce Biedebach, the man she had been on a date with when she left with Vail. Biedebach would tell Mitchell that during a party in 1965 that turned into a “boast-fest” Vail had boasted about something he had done, that no one else had done.
Killed his wife.
He told the men at the party that he had held his wife’s head underwater until she drowned.
Biedebach then put Mitchell in contact with Rob Fremont, who had bicycled around California with Vail when he was 13. He said that while riding with Vail, he had told him that he hit his wife on the head and drowned her. Fremont never rode with him again after that.
With as much evidence as they could possibly gather, the case went to trial.
THE TRIAL:
Vail’s trial began on August 8th, 2016.
District Attorney John DeRosier laid out the evidence clearly.
He spoke of the evidence against Vail about Mary’s murder on October 28th, 1962.
He spoke about Vail swearing to Sharon Hensley’s mother that she wanted to start a new life in 1974.
He spoke about his letters to Mary Rose, telling her he wouldn’t tell her where her daughter Annette was “even if he knew.” Vail smirked at that one.
Finally, he spoke to the jurors.
“Mary Horton Vail is gone, Sharon Hensley is gone,” DeRosier said, “and Annette Craver Vail is gone.”
“You’re going to write the last chapter, and it’s simply going to read, ‘And justice was finally done. William Felix Vail, guilty as charged.’”
Prosecutors called all three families to testify.
Will Horton told jurors of his sister, “Mary was the kind of person you would want as a friend.” He broke while talking about visiting his nephew after he death in 1962. “I just wanted Bill to know how much his mother loved him.”
Brian Hensley told jurors that he last saw his sister, Sharon, with Vail before the pair left Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1972. Other than a telephone call and letter in the months that followed, he said no one had seen or heard from her since.
When Mary Rose took the stand, Vail bowed his head.
This was the woman who had been working for 32 long years to bring him into this court.
This was the mother who had waited 32 years for this moment.
She called Annette “a huge light in my life. We were always loving toward each other.” She testified that Vail ran off with her daughter on his motorcycle and married her. She testified that Annette, who inherited nearly $100,000 and received two homes, disappeared weeks after deeding those homes to Vail.
Wesley Turnage, Rob Fremont, and Bruce Biedebach swore under oath that Vail said he killed his first wife. Biedebach said he asked Vail if Mary was a bitch, to which Vail had said yes. Vail laughed in court as he told the story.
The current coroner, forensic pathologist Dr. Terry Welke, testified that in most drownings, the body comes up in a “dead person’s float,” with the back of the head surfacing first and the limbs hanging down in the water.
After sharing a series of pictures to show it, he showed the court two black-and-white photographs of Mary Horton when her body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1962, less than two days after she reportedly drowned. Her body was stiff, with her hands over chest as if she was in a coffin.
They also saw the videotaped testimony of Isaac Abshire Jr, who had died in 2014. He said her body was stiff when it surfaced either sideways or face up when she bobbed up in the Calcasieu River.
That testimony helped contribute to Welke’s homicide conclusion. So did the unbroken grease-like stain across her Chi Omega sweatshirt, which he believed could have come from a tarp covering her. Welke concluded Mary was dead and stiff before her body went into the water, explaining why rigor had set in.
Testimony was heard of Vail not paying for his own wife’s funeral, despite having made thousands from her life insurance.
THE VERDICT
The jury didn’t even take a half hour to reach their verdict.
William Felix Vail Sr was unanimously found guilty of murdering Mary Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After the verdict, the prosecutor also revealed that the FBI had found out that Vail had molested a child over 30 years ago. They were unable to put him on trial for it, as the statue of limitations had passed.
Finally, nearly 54 years after she was murdered, Mary Horton had found justice.
Finally, 42 years after her disappearance, Sharon Hensley had found justice.
And Annette Craver, with the help of her mother Mary Rose’s tireless efforts, had finally found justice after 32 years.
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f75084c7dce4fb08e12e45ccba5e40a1
This a photo of Mary, Sharon and Annette. I felt it was fitting to end off with. May they all rest in peace.
MY SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/8284?nav
https://charleyproject.org/case/annette-michelle-craver-vail
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5796622/mary-elizabeth-vail
https://charleyproject.org/case/sharon-hensley
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/20525?nav

Can you please help me find this song. Me and my sister used to listen to it back in 2016 or so, I have no idea which time period it was from though. I know all the clues I have are very less, but here they are —the album cover was very summery, like maybe a sea or a beach or something. —the artist is a band. —the lead male singer's voice was unique in it's own way. Had an electric feel to it (the music too). —i'm pretty sure two of the members (male and female) were either dating or married. —the band was not that popular. —over all vibe of that song and their album was fresh and summery. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember this band or song, please help!

Can you please help me find this song. Me and my sister used to listen to it back in 2016 or so, I have no idea which time period it was from though. I know all the clues I have are very less, but here they are —the album cover was very summery, like maybe a sea or a beach or something. —the artist is a band. —the lead male singer's voice was unique in it's own way. Had an electric feel to it (the music too). —i'm pretty sure two of the members (male and female) were either dating or married. —the band was not that popular. —over all vibe of that song and their album was fresh and summery. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember this band or song, please help!

Hi, I have a crossword I've set (my very first!). I did it by finding an already completed non-cryptic grid I found on google images and then I made new clues for the answers (so perhaps not counted as a fully set crossword in that I borrowed a completed grid!). I would love to share it with you all to get your feedback but I'm not having much luck finding a way of getting it online to then share such that it could have that neat check/reveal functionality I'm seeing in others' POTD posts. Do you know of a platform that could help me out? (I've tried various but either failing to find one which will let me create my own grid, or with ones that seem to allow this (e.g. amuselabs) I'm failing to understand the interface. If not, OK to just share a picture of the grid and clues (and then maybe the answers too but hidden?). Thanks so much for your help.

There are always things going on in Middle Georgia, though finding out about them can be a challenge. Here are a few interesting events taking place this week: read the full article on Middle Georgia Times for more.
THURSDAY, JUNE 8
Macon Bike Party: Rivoli Roll (6 - 8 p.m.)
On Thursday, Bike Walk Macon will throw another Macon Bike Party, this time exploring North Macon and Bolingbroke. Macon Bike Parties are “slow-paced community bicycle ride[s]” that allow participants to see Macon neighborhoods from a different perspective.
- The Triangle - 1425 Old Forsyth Road, Macon
FRIDAY, JUNE 9
Boz Scaggs at the Macon City Auditorium (7:30 p.m.)
The multitalented Boz Scaggs will be performing at the Macon City Auditorium on Friday evening. Scaggs is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was a bandmate of Steve Miller) in both The Ardells and the Steven Miller Band and is also credited for helping the formation of the band TOTO). Tickets start at $46.75 on Ticketmaster.com.
- Macon City Auditorium - 415 First Street, Macon
Kenny Wayne Shepherd at the Grand Opera House (7:30 p.m.)
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is a completely self-taught guitarist, singer, and songwriter who performs blues-infused rock n' roll music. Ally Venable, a young guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Texas will open for Shepherd at the historic Grand Opera House in Downtown Macon. Tickets to the Kenny Wayne Shepherd concert start at $49.
- Grand Opera House - 651 Mulberry Street, Macon
SATURDAY, JUNE 10
The Great Art Hunt in Downtown Macon (9:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.)
The Great Art Hunt returns this Saturday. This fun event involves a map and a list of clues that are meant to help you find the many murals and sculptures located around Downtown Macon. Teams wil take pictures at the art they are able to location and if the teams find all 20 locations, the team will be entered into a drawing for a week long vacation on St. George Island (for those 18 and older). There will also be small mini-prizes to find along the way as well as a Great Art Hunt tote bag. The event starts at The 567 Center any time between 9:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. The event ends at 7 p.m. when the photos must be emailed to The 567 Center as proof. Children 10 years old and under can participate for free (though they will not receive a t-shirt or tote bag). Tickets are $100 for a team of 4, $80 for a team of 3, or $60 for a team of 2.
- The 567 Center - 456 1st Street, Macon
Bird Day at the Museum of Arts and Sciences (10 a.m.)
The Museum of Arts and Sciences will hold their annual Bird Day on Saturday morning. Participants will see the Museum’s birds and learn all about the many types of birds from special guests from the Georgia Falconry Association (Dennis Mock and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Davis). Bird Day activities are included with regular museum admission for Saturday (which is $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for seniors and students, and $6.95 for children 6 to 16 years of age) and museum members receive free entry.
- Museum of Arts and Sciences - 4182 Forsyth Road, Macon
Picnic in the Park Food Truck Festival (11 a.m. - 4 p.m.)
The 5th Annual Picnic in the Park Food Truck Festival will take place Saturday morning in Carolyn Crayton Park (f/k/a Central City Park) Members of the public are invited to bring their families and pop-up tents, picnic blankets, and chairs for lots of food and fun.
- Macon Bibb County Recreation - 150 Willie Smokie Glover Drive, Macon
SUNDAY, JUNE 11
Macon Film Guild presents “Other People’s Children” at the Douglass Theatre (2 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.)
“Other People’s Children” is a drama/comedy from France that deals with the complications that occur when two middle aged people fall in love while one of them has a young daughter (and an ex-wife in the picture) to consider. This movie will include subtitles and is not rated. Admission to the screening of “Other People’s Children” is a very reasonable $5.
- The Douglass Theatre - 355 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Macon
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment about the event you are psyched about this week.

I really didn’t know how to word the question but here’s an example. I have no clue who is behind the music in most Taylor Swift songs. I am sure I could find this out but when Taylor Swift plays on the radio, these people are never mentioned. Whereas if it was a more popular musician, say the Chainsmokers, they are always credited, usually before the singer. Same with DJs like Calvin Harris or Zedd. Some singers, such as whoever sings “Hey Brother” by Avicii, aren’t credited at all, yet they do the same amount of vocals as Taylor Swift would in one of her “own” songs. I’ve thought that it could be that the DJs produce it, but I’m sure Taylor Swift doesn’t produce all her music yet gets sole credit. Why?

My nightmare started when I woke up on a park bench in Omaha, Nebraska. My original travel plans were much more adventurous, but most of the vacation fund dried up after the company’s CFO found me in his car…with his wife. Turns out she wanted to get caught, to make him jealous or something.
That is how, for reasons not totally beyond my control, I ended up summering in Omaha instead of Oahu. But hey, at least they have great fried pickles. I spent most of my time their napping, and that was what brought me to the park bench.
I woke up to a bird on my shoe. He was pecking away at the residual crumbs of what may or may not have been fried pickles.
“Hey little guy,” I said, smiling down at my visitor. He wasn’t a bird of paradise, but at least he liked me. Then the crumbs ran out, and he didn’t like me so much anymore. “Fuck you, too!” I shouted as he flew away, off to go play with some other man’s heart no doubt. Just as I was about to settle back in to my midday nap, I felt my phone buzz.
Finally, I thought. Someone to talk to. I was getting sick of just swiping through my home screen pages every time I wanted to look busy, but when I pulled my iPhone out, I found something even more surprisingly than a text from a friend or loved one. It was an airdrop:
ANONYMOUS would like to share some photos.
Decline Accept
I looked around. There were people near me, but most of them weren’t young enough to know how to airdrop something, and no one was using their phone. I accepted.
“What the hellll?” I let out before a chuckle. The first picture was of me, slumped over on the park bench, sleeping with my mouth open. I was instantly filled with embarrassment and wonder. On the one hand, it’s pretty depressing to see yourself sleeping in an unflattering position and I had a triple chin thing going in the photo. On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that it was pretty funny.
I looked up, hoping to catch someone giggling or at least staring in my direction, but I couldn’t see anyone who gave the slightest indication that it was them. In fact, by the time I looked up, I was alone.
Weird.
The second picture wasn’t funny at all. It was all black, with a bunch of characters in what looked like Mandarin or some other Eastern language drawn on with the digital marker. A message from the sender. But I couldn’t read whatever language it was, and I didn’t know how I would go about translating it, seeing as I couldn’t just copy and paste the text, so I chose to just ignore the message, telling myself I would go to the trouble of translating it later. God, do I wish I wasn’t such a procrastinator.
The sun was setting so I stood up, took one last glance around for any hidden airdroppers, and walked back to my motel.
Later that night, I found myself hopelessly scrolling through Tinder. I realized long ago that dating apps can tell you a lot about the place you’re visiting, and I considered it part of my cultural experience to judge strangers behind a screen in my pajamas. Mostly I would just swipe my way through and laugh at the weird corn people without even considering a meet up, but every once in a while I would swipe right if I felt something. I never imagined that I would get anywhere.
Then I got another notification, and this time from someone I actually wanted to talk to. It was a girl (who looked waay out of my league) named Cristina.
“Hey, Greg. If you were on a lifeboat with me, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and the Queen (who was already dead at this point), who would you eat first?” I stared at her message. It was kind of quirky, but I liked it so I texted back.
“Obviously you, because I need the Rock to do all the rowing, the Queen is dead, and you’re quite the snack…” I smiled, proud of my work. The CFO’s wife didn’t know what she walked out on. Luckily, Cristina liked my reply as much as I did, and we struck up a nice conversation that had me copying the address to a local karaoke bar into my phone an hour later. It was only then that I began to regret my choice in vacation attire, and noticed that the bird had shat on my loafers. I ironed the only Polo I brought, threw on my sneakers and sped out.
On the way I stopped to fill up at a Chevron and went in to grab some mints (I thought about buying some banana sleeves, but that seemed a little too boastful.) When I went to pay, I dropped some change out of my wallet. Shit. The cashier, some kind of wannabe cowboy like everyone else in that city, smirked. I took a penny from the little plastic dish out of spite before leaving the store. While I was in my car, my phone buzzed. I snatched it up with excitement, assuming it was Cristina, but saw a different yet familiar name.
ANONYMOUS would like to share a photo.
Decline Accept
What the fuck? I looked around at the cars in the lot. Two others were filling up, and about four more were parked in front of the convenience store. I wondered whether someone inside the store would still be close enough to airdrop. Cautiously, I accepted.
The photo was of me bending over to pick up the change I had spilt, taken from the parking lot. I stared at it for a little while. It was funny and embarrassing just like the first one, my butt crack was even showing a little, but for some reason this photo made me uneasy. Is someone following me? I wondered. Had some influencer punk started a one-man hidden camera show where he just waited for you to do something embarrassing? I stared at the other cars.. Some of the windows were too tinted to see in. After a minute or two, I rolled out of there and drove off.
At the bar, I was relieved and elated to find that Cristina looked as good, nay, better than she did in her photos. “Wow,” I stuttered. “You’re beautiful.” She also said the same about me, which I chalked up to having ironed the polo. Things were off to a good start.
Throughout the date, Cristina was bubbly and adorable. She told me all about her life in rural Nebraska and what brought her to the “big city”, but I couldn’t pay attention to any of it. I really wish I could have, but I just couldn’t get those damn airdropped photos out of my head.
Cristina left to go to the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to look around the bar, scanning the room for any familiar faces. Everyone looked engrossed in their own evenings and dates and cringy singing, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched.
“Hey, your profile says you really like to sing,” Cristina began with a smile. That was a fast bathroom break. “But you never said what type of music!” I stared at her, still a bit lost in thought, and it took a couple seconds to register what she was saying.
“Oh, well I like simple boring things, really. Commercial jingles, recycling PSA’s, communist propaganda, that kind of stuff.” Cristina smiled.
“You’re…you’re not a communist, right?”
“Of course not!” I laughed. “Let’s go sing something,” I got up from our table and offered her my hand.
“Good, because my parents always said that if I moved to the big city I’d end up marrying a commie, and I hate to prove them right about anything.” She giggled.
“Hey, baby, I’m so capitalist I changed my birthplace to the Cayman islands.” Cristina giggled even more. Damn were we getting along well. I got up onto the little square stage they had for karaoke singers and looked out at the crowd. Then I got a notification. You can probably already guess how it read.
ANONYMOUS would like to share a photo.
Decline Accept
I looked out across the room, dumb founded that ANONYMOUS had followed me here. I thought about showing Cristina but decided it would just worry her, and, even worse, prove her parents were right about the “big city”. I accepted the photo and startled backwards. My phone nearly fell to the floor. It was a photo of me at the bar, but not up on stage where it would have been easy for anyone to sneak a photo. It was from before, at our table, when I had turned to check out the other people. The worst part was that I was looking right at the mutherfucking camera!
My hand trembled. I tried to calm down. For some reason I didn’t want whoever sent the photo to know I was nervous. And I did NOT want Cristina to think that I was scared to sing Ring of Fire in front of a couple dozen famer hicks. But it was obvious from this picture that the photos weren’t just to be funny. This time, I wasn’t making any faces and my ass wasn’t showing. My face in the photo was one of concern.
How did I look right at the camera without realizing it? It struck me that the person sending these photos was going to extra lengths to remain hidden, maybe even as far as to camouflage themselves. They could be anyone, anywhere, with any sort of goal in mind. I shuttered.
The music started up and Cristina began to sing. I whipped around and looked at her. She was smiling, oblivious to the whole thing. And she looked happy. I didn’t want to spoil this moment, which was probably the only truly fun one of my vacation and the first time in a while that I was feeling some self-confidence. I began interchanging lines with her.
“I went down, down, down and the flames went higher.” I baritoned into the mic. She winked at me. I made it through the song and asked her to get the hell out of there, to which she excitedly said yes.
On the way back to my place, I thought about telling her about the photos but didn’t want to kill the mood. Still, I couldn’t help but look through the windows of every car that we passed.
I checked the rear view mirror for the umpteenth time, and a blue pickup truck was tailing close behind us. I made a right turn, then another, and the truck stayed close behind. After a while I made two more right turns and the headlights disappeared from my rearview mirror. Phew.
“What are you doing?” Cristina asked.
“Huh?”
“You just made four right turns. You went in a circle.”
“Oh, yeah haha. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, I wanted to be smooth. Just made a wrong turn back there.” Cristina nodded and reached out for my hand. I checked the rearview mirror. More headlights. Another pickup.
When we rolled into the parking lot of the motel, the truck behind us continued down the road, and I noticed it was red. I felt relieved until I pulled into my parking spot and hopped out of the car. Behind us to the right, the same blue truck from before was parked. Shit, he must have taken a quicker way over here.
How did he know where I was staying?
I put my arm over Cristina’s shoulder and rushed her into my room.
After the deed was done, Cristina promptly fell asleep (which I hoped was the sign of a job well done) and I decided to go for a walk in the parking lot. I wanted to figure out what the fuck was going on, but I didn’t want to call the police before there were any real threats or anything.
So, like every dumbass horror film victim, I went alone into the dark to investigate. I stepped out into the dark motel parking lot and eyed the truck sitting across the lot. Its headlights and grill formed an angry face that stared at me. I felt like it could read my thoughts. Leave, it said to me. Get out of here, you’ll only get into trouble. The headlight eyes bore into my brain. Don’t be dumb and you won’t get hurt-
A loud BANG came from behind me. I spun around to see a dark figure turn the corner and disappear around the back of the motel. My heart started to pound, urging me to move my legs in either a flight or fight direction.
I sprinted off towards the figure, and in moments I was turning the corner. Behind the motel, there were only tall thin trees and a formidable darkness that shielded whatever had run away from me. I paused, searching through the trees for my stalker. I squinted but couldn’t quite make anything out in the dark.
Then I heard something. Behind me. Something was...coughing.
Slowly, with my eyes first, I turned around and what I saw made my heart flutter. The sounds were coming from a dumpster, the kind usually left behind restaurants or apartment complexes that can only be moved by big semi garbage trucks. From within the dark dumpster, the head of a terrible beast with a black mask rose up. Its mouth, full of razor sharp, enamel covered fangs, clamped down onto a chicken bone with a hiss. It was a raccoon.
I laughed. There was so much pent up adrenaline in my body that I couldn’t help but convulse with the giggles. Soon tears were spilling out of my eyes and I had to lean on my knees to keep from passing out.
“You scared the shit out of me,” I told the raccoon, and it scampered off into the shadows. I remained there until my laughter subsided, and when it was gone I decided to stay a little while longer. It was a beautiful spot. Nebraska wasn’t that bad when you got to know it.
After a few more minutes spent collecting my thoughts and calming my nerves, I went back around the bend of my motel. I strode with new confidence towards my room, but still couldn’t resist looking over my shoulder at the blue truck in the parking lot. Is there someone in the driver’s seat? I didn’t want to be paranoid, but there was no way to deny that I felt like eyes were burning into my back. I walked more quickly until I reached my door, unlocked it and slipped inside.
Acting quickly, I shut the door behind me and put in the chain lock. I felt safer in my room. That is, until I lied back down onto the bed next to Cristina.
The instant my sweaty ass made contact with the crusty bed sheets, I got a notification. A lump formed in my throat and I grabbed my phone, but paused and said a silent prayer that it would just be a message of support from my mom, or a campaign donation request, or any other useless shit besides an airdrop before checking it. But I knew what it was, and looking at the screen only confirmed it.
ANONYMOUS would like to share a video.
Decline Accept
I gasped for oxygen. The humid air around me suddenly felt too thick to breath. I accepted the air drop and the video downloaded. It showed the door of my motel room. As I stared at the still frame, a new sense of anger rose up within me. Who the fuck was this Anonymous guy, anyway? Did he think he was scaring me? I mean, was he hoping that after seeing a few photos of myself I would send him my bank information? It was pathetic. I decided that I had done enough cowering and whimpering. I didn’t even play the video, but went to frantically jotting down a strongly worded letter in my Notes app threatening to call the police if he didn’t stop stalking me and at least tell me what he wanted. I signed off by writing;
Wishing you the best,
Pissed off Guy
I took a screenshot. “Pissed off guy” wasn’t my best work, creatively speaking, but I couldn’t think of any better names. I was too pissed off.
I opened the airdrop recipients in the vicinity. Despite my newfound courage, I trembled as the airdrop recipients in my area registered on my phone. For some reason, I was afraid that ANONYMOUS would pop up. Proving he was at the motel would make the situation feel more…real. Up until that point, all he had done was send me some pictures. If I sent something back to him, would he get more…aggressive?
I stared at the screen, my heart beating faster than a Browning automatic could shoot hollow-point bullets into a cheap motel room. One named appeared: ANONYMOUS’s iPhone. I swallowed a heavy breath. Was the air getting thicker? Slugs of sweat rolled down my face. I exhaled and sent my note to ANONYMOUS.
Shit, I thought to myself. What am I doing? I wanted to unsend it. For some reason this suddenly felt like the dumbest thing I’d ever done. I watched my screen intently. The tension was so high my heart almost sprung a leak, and I was afraid my bladder just might. Thankfully, it didn’t take very long to get a response.
ANONYMOUS would like to share some photos.
Decline Accept
I hit “accept” the instant I got his request.
It was a collection of photos. All the same photos he had sent me before. My blood boiled, and my face heated up. I work up the courage to talk to him and he just ignores me? I was starting to grow less concerned and more irritated by Anonymous’s antics, but then I noticed something.
The first picture of the most recent airdrop, the one where I’m asleep on a park bench and sporting a triple chin, had a red circle on it. The kind that you draw on a picture when you want to draw attention to something, except there didn’t seem to be anything particular inside the circle. I zoomed in, and my heart dropped into my stomach. Far off in the background, in the middle of the circle, was a man’s face hidden between the bushes.
He was wearing a dark hoodie that cast a shadow over his face, but zoomed in I could make out the details. He was bald, and most of his features were normal and indistinct, but his lips were curled up into an enormous hungry smile, with too many crooked yellow teeth crammed into his mouth for him to be a normal human.
His nostrils were flared, like he was breathing heavily. It gave the impression that he was almost lusting after me, like a beast stalking its prey. My blood pressure fell through the floor as I realized that he was looking straight at me. His ravenous chops wet with saliva, itching to sink his teeth into my plump, dormant flesh.
I nervously swiped to the next photo. Me in the gas station bending over to pick up my change. There was a red circle around someone standing a few yards behind me in line. It was the same man. He stared at me intently with eyes that were opened impossibly wide, and drool dripping from the corner of his mouth.
I nearly threw my phone in shock. He had been so close to me, and yet I didn’t remember seeing him. If you weren’t paying close attention, it would be easy to miss his inhuman features. I had probably been too distracted and embarrassment at having dropped my change on the floor to notice him. Damn my social anxiety.
The next photo was from the karaoke bar, the one where I was looking directly into the camera. Seeing me stare directly at the photographer without recognizing him or her made me queasy the first time I saw it, but now I was more worried about what was in the background. There was another red circle, in the dark hallway that led to the bathroom behind the bar to the left, but it was too dark to see anything in the shadows. I zoomed in and turned the brightness all the way up, and then I could just make out one thing.
A crooked, yellowed smile pointed in my direction.
Whoever or whatever he was, he had followed me for the whole day.
The last photo was all black except for something Anonymous had written, also in red. It said:
I AM NOT STALKER.
Goosebumps popped up behind my neck and down my shoulders. That’s when I remembered the video of me walking back to the motel room, the one I hadn’t watched.
With shaky fingers I opened the video. It was centered on the door of my motel room. For the first few seconds nothing happened. I thoroughly scanned the backgrounds and corners, making sure to search extra hard in the shadowy areas, but I couldn’t see the man anywhere.
Then he walked into center frame. This time he wasn’t hidden. He crept towards the door, his arms remaining eerily immobile as he walked, and when he got to the door, pulled a key card out and slipped inside. I gasped. When was this recorded?
That question was answered for me when a moment later I walked into frame, unlocked the door, and went in. It was from when I came back after finding the raccoon in the dumpster, less than two minutes ago.
I shivered. Suddenly, it was dawning on me that Cristina’s breathing sounded…different. It was just a little heavier and deeper than I remembered it being. Very slowly, I turned my head to look over at the other side of the bed and noticed that the lump under the covers seemed larger than it had before. I felt the air; it was thicker and wetter than I remembered it being and had a warm, almost metallic smell.
The body lying next to me wasn’t Cristina’s. I froze. What do I do? Dear God, what should I do now? Slowly, I sat up and pulled my legs over the side of the bed. I thought about turning the lights on, shouting for Cristina, trying to fight the stalker, but I had the gut feeling that she was beyond saving. Even if she was still alive, there was no way I could last more than a few seconds against this thing in bed with me. Whatever it was, it was built for hunting down humans and tearing them apart.
I casually mumbled “better take a shower” and crept over to the hall. Luckily the bathroom was right next to the front door.
Once I got in front of the bathroom door, I silently lunged for the front door, turned the lock as quietly as I could and tried to open it without making a sound. CLANG.
I stared in horror at the chain lock I had set when I came in. Idiot! I heard a rustle from the bed. The time for stealth was gone.
I yanked the chain out and swung the door open. In less than a second I was outside closing the door behind me and then bounding towards my car. I turned it on and peeled out without even checking to see whether my visitor had followed me.
I sped away from the motel towards the city and dialed 911.
At the police station, I waited for the cops to check out my room. When they came back, they asked to talk with me. I was led into the interrogation room, and they started to hit me with some accusatory questions. They said her body was ripped into pieces and strewn across the room, everywhere except the bed. Imagining myself in that room, totally oblivious to Cristina’s organs and tissue around me made me sick.
It soon became obvious that the police believed I killed her. I tried to convince them that there was someone else in my room, and told them there was video proof on my phone. I showed them the video that ANONYMOUS had sent me. They were intrigued, but still skeptical.
I was starting to get nervous that I wouldn’t return from my lame ass vacation for 10-30 years when something amazing happened.
Still in the officer’s hand, my phone got a notification.
ANONYMOUS would like to share a video.
Decline Accept
“That’s him, that’s the guy who’s been airdropping me stuff!” I said frantically. The officer raised an eyebrow. He hesitated, looked around, and after an agonizing pause accepted the video. They hid the screen from my face, but from his expression I could tell the video was something violent. All I could hear was an animal-like growl, heavy panting and a guttural human yell.
It wasn’t until after being cleared to leave and given my phone back that I watched the video. ANONYMOUS had filmed me leaving the parking lot of the motel, and then gone into the room and turned the lights on. The ‘thing’ was standing in the middle of the room, only a few feet from the camera. It stared at the camera and gave it a slow wave. Its slender fingers seemed to pulse with excitement, and the creature wiggled them elatedly. It smiled and its lips peeled back to reveal blood soaked teeth.
The room was covered in blood and body parts. There were intestines hanging off the lamp, what looked like a half-eaten liver soaking the office chair, teeth laid on the t.v. stand close enough to the camera to see that they were neat and white. I pictured him sucking them clean like cherry pits.
The most disturbing part of all was a big piece of skin that had been ripped off like a sheet and laid on the bed post by my side of the bed. In the middle of the skin was what looked like a belly button. I had been lying with my head right underneath Cristina’s drying stomach leather and never had a clue.
After the camera panned around the room, it focused back on the man. He stood there for a moment, his chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes wide and hungry. Then he took a lighting quick stride forward, and the camera turned toward the door. That is where the video ends. Watching it made me fear for ANONYMOUS’s safety, but I knew that he at least made it out healthy enough to make it to the police station.
Sometimes, when I’m alone and get the feeling I’m being watched, I open my airdrop options to see if ANONYMOUS is somewhere near me. I haven’t ever found him.
Earlier this morning while on the subway, I looked up and had a heart stopping shock. I was sitting at the end of one car and just happened to look through the window into the car behind us. There he was; the same creature that killed Cristina. The doors were still open and I almost took off running but… he wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring intently and smiling at a woman on the opposite row. Every few seconds he would lick his lips hungrily. I shuddered looking at his teeth because I couldn’t help but imagine them cutting into Cristina’s flesh, piercing through her skull and ripping her teeth out of their gums down to the root.
His prey had headphones in and was flipping through a magazine, totally oblivious to the terrible monster sitting just a few yards away from her. I took a picture through the foggy glass.
You can’t see the creature very well in the photo. But I can always circle him. Maybe she’ll have to zoom in, and she just might need to turn her brightness up all the way, but I’ll make sure she gets the message. I have no idea how to get the photo to her without drawing the attention of the creature, but I’ll figure it out. We’ll both figure it out. Wish us luck.

There are always things going on in Middle Georgia, though finding out about them can be a challenge. Here are a few interesting events taking place this week: read the full article on Middle Georgia Times for more.
TUESDAY, JUNE 6
Macon Bacon vs. Florence Flamingos - Georgia Southern Alumni Night (7 p.m.)
Tuesday is Georgia Southern Night at the Macon Bacon which means participants will receive a free Macon Bacon hat and all you can eat from the onsite food vendors. $5 from each ticket will also go towards Georgia Southern scholarships. Tickets to the Macon Bacon game cost $17.
- Luther Williams Field - 150 Willie Smokie Glover Drive, Macon
THURSDAY, JUNE 8
Macon Bike Party: Rivoli Roll (6 - 8 p.m.)
On Thursday, Bike Walk Macon will throw another Macon Bike Party, this time exploring North Macon and Bolingbroke. Macon Bike Parties are “slow-paced community bicycle ride[s]” that allow participants to see Macon neighborhoods from a different perspective.
- The Triangle - 1425 Old Forsyth Road, Macon
FRIDAY, JUNE 9
Boz Scaggs at the Macon City Auditorium (7:30 p.m.)
The multitalented Boz Scaggs will be performing at the Macon City Auditorium on Friday evening. Scaggs is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist who was a bandmate of Steve Miller) in both The Ardells and the Steven Miller Band and is also credited for helping the formation of the band TOTO). Tickets start at $46.75 on Ticketmaster.com.
- Macon City Auditorium - 415 First Street, Macon
Kenny Wayne Shepherd at the Grand Opera House (7:30 p.m.)
Kenny Wayne Shepherd is a completely self-taught guitarist, singer, and songwriter who performs blues-infused rock n' roll music. Ally Venable, a young guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Texas will open for Shepherd at the historic Grand Opera House in Downtown Macon. Tickets to the Kenny Wayne Shepherd concert start at $49.
- Grand Opera House - 651 Mulberry Street, Macon
SATURDAY, JUNE 10
The Great Art Hunt in Downtown Macon (9:30 a.m. - 7 p.m.)
The Great Art Hunt returns this Saturday. This fun event involves a map and a list of clues that are meant to help you find the many murals and sculptures located around Downtown Macon. Teams wil take pictures at the art they are able to location and if the teams find all 20 locations, the team will be entered into a drawing for a week long vacation on St. George Island (for those 18 and older). There will also be small mini-prizes to find along the way as well as a Great Art Hunt tote bag. The event starts at The 567 Center any time between 9:30 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. The event ends at 7 p.m. when the photos must be emailed to The 567 Center as proof. Children 10 years old and under can participate for free (though they will not receive a t-shirt or tote bag). Tickets are $100 for a team of 4, $80 for a team of 3, or $60 for a team of 2.
- The 567 Center - 456 1st Street, Macon
Bird Day at the Museum of Arts and Sciences (10 a.m.)
The Museum of Arts and Sciences will hold their annual Bird Day on Saturday morning. Participants will see the Museum’s birds and learn all about the many types of birds from special guests from the Georgia Falconry Association (Dennis Mock and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Davis). Bird Day activities are included with regular museum admission for Saturday (which is $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for seniors and students, and $6.95 for children 6 to 16 years of age) and museum members receive free entry.
- Museum of Arts and Sciences - 4182 Forsyth Road, Macon
Picnic in the Park Food Truck Festival (11 a.m. - 4 p.m.)
The 5th Annual Picnic in the Park Food Truck Festival will take place Saturday morning in Carolyn Crayton Park (f/k/a Central City Park) Members of the public are invited to bring their families and pop-up tents, picnic blankets, and chairs for lots of food and fun.
- Macon Bibb County Recreation - 150 Willie Smokie Glover Drive, Macon
SUNDAY, JUNE 11
Macon Film Guild presents “Other People’s Children” at the Douglass Theatre (2 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.)
“Other People’s Children” is a drama/comedy from France that deals with the complications that occur when two middle aged people fall in love while one of them has a young daughter (and an ex-wife in the picture) to consider. This movie will include subtitles and is not rated. Admission to the screening of “Other People’s Children” is a very reasonable $5.
- The Douglass Theatre - 355 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Macon
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment about the event you are psyched about this week.