It was in the late 90s, I can't quite remember exact year actually, that. I was dating a guy who had a birthday that was a day before mine. So every year we would kind of go, do something for birthdays and and we didn't know what to do with that particular year. So we decided to go away to a small town, we're the town. It's a town in Northern California called Aetna Ann. Do. We neither of us had ever actually been there before. So we were pretty excited to go check it out. I grew up in a real, small town, so I always kind of am drawn to vacation small places, so you're just going to go there. You don't know anything about it, but you thought would be fine. You just get away for a couple of days. Yeah I mean you know we looked at the town and it was really cute and we thought we could have hiking and things like that, so Erin, Peters and her boyfriend.

Made a reservation at a little bed and breakfast in Etna. You can't even remember how we found it because you We didn't really go online in one thousand, nine hundred and ninety seven. So how did we find places in nineteen? I can't even? How did we sign place. I can't remember already I assumed that we went on line and then I was like I don't even know I don't know. Would you call like the Chamber of commerce? I can't probably figured we play okay, so you found a place yeah I mean I may have asked my family for a recommendation. I can't even remember so it's not. Now I found this bed and breakfast and is As far as I know, it was one of the few places you could actually stay in the town, snow, motel or hotel, or anything like that. So what did you do when you arrive at the bed and breakfast uhm? I think that we fell asleep for awhile 'cause we're both kind of exhausted and- And we got out

and I remember you know, having a glass of wine and there was no one else staying there. We describe, I mean we, the the bed and breakfast a little bit, but it look like what your room was like. It was a pretty old building. We stay it and I am sure it was probably the least expensive room that they had. But you know kind of your typical bed and breakfast with probably six to eight rooms in at total, maybe even less so you met the owner, she was nice and pleasant and helpful. Oh yeah, yeah. She was very friendly and happy to give us like suggestions, I'm going to eat and basically like there's one restaurant, that's open in town, so we walked down there, but when Aaron Peters in boyfriend got to the restaurant, it had just closed so there they were in tiny town on their birthdays and they couldn't find anything to eat. But

they decided they would try to make the best of it. At least they were in a pretty place. They wandered around and took a lot of pictures it was the late 90s, so Aaron and her boyfriend were getting on film and of of the town? There is some really beautiful mountains right nearby and you go hiking around there and it's really beautiful. You get back to the bed and breakfast hungry and do you you go to sleep. How did you sleep that night? I think we slept in fact I remember she had a video collection. So we watched a movie and I don't remember seeing her when we returned- and I remember it- we watch that movie about it's basically about the Clint

and so I think primary colors. I think that might be the name of it and then we went to bed after that and what was the next morning like she made breakfast. That was, you know just like some fruit and stuff, like that. I remember she had pictures of her in her spend all over kind of like the kitchen area and where we were eating and she talked about her husband, a little bit who had passed away and they you know, really sweet pictures of them together and we were just there for one night you know I was trying to remember. I think it was just one night. So what happened when you at home up So we got home and- and you know I'm sure, a few days past or some time passed and then I had taken the film in to develop. And I don't know if I waited in there a couple rolls or if it was just that raw. But when I went to pick up the prince, it takes a few days or whatever and uh immediately. You look through

like I remember every time I would take photos you flip through the prints, immediately and he was really excite usually like sitting in your car. You know I looking through part way in there's a picture of my boyfriend and I just kind of in art we were in our clothes like outside of the bad. You know like just kind of had fallen asleep and I looked and we were both very clearly a, and I immediately was like what How could we both be asleep like this is so strange? Like did you know? Did he happen to take this picture and you know so, I'm looking at it really closely, and you can just tell by you know, like our eyes and the way our bodies were, that we're totally out. I mean really asleep so there. You know I kind of freaked out and I was like how could this happen so called my boyfriend?

either call the you know. I you know that evening. When I saw him, I can't remember, and- I showed it to him and I was like we're both asleep. And he was kind of like yeah? That's weird and I was like wow. Have the picture get taken, you know and he so yeah, that's kind of creepy an I was like wool. You know someone else had to take this picture and He wasn't nearly as I think, disturbed as I was, and then of course, the more I started thinking about it, the more I I just wondered how it happened and who it could have did your camera of a timer on it at all that could have liked it. Not that I ever used, I mean it, may I'm sure it must have. I was just thinking about whether your boyfriend could have done it, but yeah I mean he cut us. Well, no, I mean he could have. He certainly denied doing that and he really looked asleep, and that was the thing that kind of threw me off. I thought it could have

I'm like. Oh yeah, he did. You know like just took a pill and it was funny- and he thought it was cute, but he was really a slow you know how like it wasn't just me like. I knew I was asleep and he is very clearly asleep as well, and it's also like the angle, the way it was taken. It doesn't look it's just like an odd angle. You know like you, can really see the top half of our bodies like lane in this bed completely asleep. What were the difference in scenarios that were running through your head Oh, I don't know I mean at first, I just you know there was maybe other there other people that were guess there, but there weren't. I know there are no other gas, so then I was. Really freaked out, and now? I think I came to the conclusion that I mean. I think I guess that it may have been her and yeah. I think I right in saying I'm like she was so nice.

You know she seemed very normal, very normal and hi our. What I you know. I don't know, and I guess I thought I would never know what happened. I keep it. That's like a horror movie. Well, I think the weirdest part me too was that somebody knowingly did it with your own camera like, he'd, knowing that you would go home and sometime later discovered that they were in your room. I mean the fact that you intentionally like are gonna get caught in a way you know. So what did you do? Did you call the woman? No, I didn't you know. I did really do anything. I think that I thought maybe briefly about who I could call like. Could you call the sheriff or could you call somebody, but then I was like what would I say,

and you know what what do I have to prove but, like all you can see, is like the quilt of the bad you know and maybe like part of the bed frame. So how could you even prove that anybody did anything wrong? You know like it doesn't really seem like a believable story. I have never liked bed and breakfasts I refuse to say them because it's for me it's just this kind of like this forced in timoci an it's, so personal, and so when you wake up in the morning like I never want the breakfast. I do add a woman making breakfast for me. I want it to be so impersonal. It feels like I'm in there. Rich, but I don't know them and you have to go help yourself, take, get the orange juice. Oh yeah, it's really and see all the other stuff in their house. Yeah yeah, it's it's really personal. You know. That's the thing, I'm sure we didn't lock the door. You know

but it's very like the whole house- is wide open. It's not like. I was nervous about my well being that was kind of it. Aaron save the photos, but she tried to forget about it years. Lee She went to a San Francisco Giants game with a friend from high school and her friends fiance Steve Morse in there and it's the first time. I had met him and he is that we talking about Himself- and I was like well Steve. Where are you, come and he was like. Oh I'm from Aetna, and I just completely kind of froze and I was like you're from Aetna and she was like yeah. Why and I was like. Oh, I am. I stayed at this bed and breakfast and the weirdest thing happened and he didn't even need to hear anymore of the story. He was yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about and the woman. Was busted and

doesn't you know no longer has this bed and breakfast- and I was other people well according to at queen, to this. You know to my friends, fiance yeah yeah and that she had gotten caught and I ask a couple more questions, but you know we had a baseball game, so I didn't I didn't find out too much. It was just a trip and you know then, of course, after the fact had lots of questions like how did she get, hot and how many years had she been doing this, oh and then I say but thinking about did she used to do this with her husband? They had run this place to get for years like how long has this been going on. I mean maybe she thought she was giving you a nice memory or something yeah. That's a nice way to think about. It I don't know how it's it's so scary. I I don't know I guess would have to assume that there is does maybe the idea or the thrill of kind of

seeking someone out a little bit. I don't know, maybe that's why she yeah. I really have no idea. I was hoping you guys could figure that out. We made some calls one. I said there used to be an old in a big, victorian house. It since burned down the locals, nicknamed it the peekaboo in because the owner would spy on his guests through holes, he drilled in the walls. Maybe that's what Aaron's friend Steve was thinking about, but we do find a single thing about it. In the newspaper archives, we tried the Aetna Police Department. They did not return. Our call, maybe one day we'll take a trip out there and try to finish the story. We did happen to stumble across a twenty eleven guide to owning operating bed and breakfast in a section.

But thank you notes. It says some hosts like to take a photograph of each guest at some point during the visit and mail it as a Mama it goes on to say this is a good idea, provided that the timing, an occasion of taking the picture are appropriate. Aaron Peters got in touch with us. A few months ago after we spoke with a woman, named Amber Don. The first night I moved in. I know I had I had been playing music. While I was unpacking and I and to bed that night, and I turn off the music and I this laying in my bed and I heard footsteps in the attic and they were very clear footsteps. If you miss that one, it's called a bump in the night at the

and the episode we asked you to get in touch. If something unusual like that ever happened to you. A lot of people wrote to us so today for our last episode of twenty. Seventeen here are the ones we couldn't stop thinking about. I'm Phoebe judge. This is criminal one morning me and Brett had woken up for in practice. Really early in MJ woke up for football practice, and we were walking around house and notice that somebody had opened up all of the covered drawers and the microwave door in the oven door and shower stall doors and everything refrigerator the dishwasher, the

dryer, the washer. Everything was open. What do you mean you up in the morning? It was all open or yeah. We all had just gone to bed after like a normal night and then woke up in the morning and everything yeah. Everything was just left wide open as if a ghost to come through the house and blown everything open or something we weren't sure how explain it in their senior year of College, at Ohio State Mark Hartman and Brett Mcglynn moved into a huge house with a lot of their friends, pen of them, but Mark Breton, their friend MJ got there a little before everyone else, because they had to start training for marching band at football. They'd only been there for a few days when they woke up to find everything opened up, but even before that, the house was apparently just bad here's mark. I was terrible, we moved in and it was as if no I had ever been in the house. Since the last tenants moved out, there was trash

everywhere and everything was still dirty and there was furniture and some electrical problems and some stairs in the house were falling apart things like that. It was a very large house in on our lease there. Ten of us- and we took up the second and the third floor. There is a completely separately so on the first floor and there is no actual physical separation between our lease is. There was like a staircase that would go down to like a door that just walked out of the house. Uhm. You can get to any floor from there, including the basement. Ok, so it was just three of you in this big house at this point at this point in time, yeah did you ever think?

One of the other people was playing a trick on you honestly Brett had slept, walked a few times throughout college, so I kind of assumed, maybe he had just slept, walked and done some something random like that, but I was on the third floor of the house and it seemed a pretty impressive beat for me to sleep, walk down a flight of stairs open up everything and then walk back upstairs without hurting myself. So I did seem like it was really what happens What did you do? I mean, I think that I would be really. I think I and get out of the house. What did you do? We decide had to go and investigate the house. We each grabbed, you know base. All bad or something? Then we were going through all the rooms and opening the closets, and so all of you had a baseball, bat, baseball, bat or a knife, or something like

One of us would hold the closet in the other ones, have like baseball bat ready to like jump at anything that like came out of the closet, we would kind of. Open the doors quickly as if we were a swat team or something have his sickly, bridging clear and other than just like the house being dirty, and we don't really find anything until we went into the basement yeah. We definitely save that for class so we went down there. I mean it's very dark in basement. It was like different, like boilers and breakers and whatnot, but there's also a door down there and there's a door that none of us at the key to an MJ started freaking out, so what we ended up doing is just we propped up a a door that was lying around in the basement. We propped it up in the open doorway

that went down to the basement and put a wedge chair between it and the door so that Trevor was down there wouldn't come back up, so it is like if in case there was like a like a monster or like a bad guy. This would help this would save you yeah. I guess that's what we did to try to make ourselves feel safe. I would get worried that I'd be happy that I had barricaded the door, but I also think I'd be worried that if someone were in there I would be starving them to death exact, and I was kind of some of my motivation to take down that the chair way between the wall and the door that we had was like in Kc down there. I didn't want didn't want to trap, come down there. You know for me. Even more mad. Exactly But after that initial search did you did you go back down into the basement? Often so I lived on the third floor and

I don't know if it is faulty wiring or you're a bad breaker. Nothing but like a every like it like three or four times a week like just all the power in my room just shut off, and I have to like go down to the basement, flip the breaker and then the power be back on my so one of those times that I had to go flip the breaker It just so happened that that door was open. Sharks, like I saw I like, walked downstairs what in the door and it's just the normal bedroom like had batterers and dresser, and you know the normal college, looking and then from the bathroom somebody or a guy said like. I was wondering when I get to the people that live here. Just like a like a regular college student and when we

you just kind of casual about it. All and nonchalant me. The high yeah basically is like completely non threatening and later that day, a bunch of us were hanging out and Brett Talk and the downstairs, roommates and says: hey. I met your guys roommate Jeremy today and they like we I have a roommate named Jeremy. Yeah is that he's the one down in the basement. No one had ever heard of anyone named Jeremy, so they called their landlord, who called the police I come home from practice one day and there are police and landlords and all my roommates out on the lawn, it's very chaotic scene now. So I don't think the guy was actually downstairs when the police came so like. I don't actually know what happened to him. I'm honestly

not sure I came home and he wasn't home when they knocked his door down and then full days later I went down and all this stuff was gone. I never saw him again. There was this guy um. He was just a student going for a masters degree at Ohio State, the school newspaper, the land turn road up the incident and they made a video what they found shocked everyone, a bad room that someone else had been living in. No, what Like you got to be kidding me, Jeremy had access to a bathroom in the basement and a sink that he could have used to do laundry, but the guys don't think he ever ate their food or went into their rooms. Chelsea's spears for the lantern. Did you feel famous oh, I did. It was crazy how much it how much it blew up. We got. We had articles on USA today, ABC

headquarters in New York called me. Did an interview, Jay Leno talked about us in his monologue. Steve Harvey contacted me asking asking: if we wanted to go on his show, it was pretty crazy. Did you do any of these things I did a few of them. I didn't I didn't physically go anywhere like I think Steve Harveys thing would have required us to fly to Chicago. So I did a couple of phone interviews and things like that, but Mark and Brett graduated and moved out of that big house. The one thing that always bothered me.

About that whole sequence of events. Is we never really figured out who went around opening up all those cabinets, but years later, I'm working at start up and eventually the people at the start. Up, like you know, find out about this story, and so, like people are talking about it and one of the people who are working with comes up to Maine and starts to talk to me about the story- and you know this random coworker of mine told me it was him he was the one that opened up all those cabinets. Can you had lived in the house the year before us and

the guy that was in the basement was a cousin of one of the people that was on their lease and they had made some kind of arrangement with him that he would pay them a little bit of money in order to live in that room in the basement after they had left their lease. That guy decided to keep his key and then he would like periodically come in and then just kind of like screw with the people living in the house. Now opening tab Nishan, like other things like that, but I They had never told the basement roommate that they were leaving. Although how you could not tell that everybody had left, you know it's beyond Maine, so play the guy in the basement. Just decided to stay there as long as he could, because you know you're living there for free, essentially cuz. He could just sneak in and that side entrance and go straight to the basement without ever being seen by anyone. Basically

I mean it's awful that it is awful thing that you know when you go to a place like ok, well, the last people are gone at safe. For me, it's crazy to think that someone else would have the keys to the house that you just moved into yeah. That's. It's pretty creepy. Like I mean it wasn't just like the guy in the basement. It was also that coworker of mine, he also had keys, and I have to assume that it wasn't just him also had kids. I wonder how many landlords never actually change the locks. have I'm looking for Amanda Hello, it's Phoebe judge calling are you in Texas? I am. I am an often then well thanks, very much for

king with us and for writing in about your story. Of course, I thought it was an interesting story. It's all had done in at the end of it? I was like oh yeah, something like that kind of happened to me an I honestly I wasn't really expecting an email back. So look at that. We are so just again it introduce yourself with you. Maybe Amanda. I grew up in a really small town and I came to Austin for school. I went to St Edwards University so you grew up in a small town in Texas called Yoakam about an hour and a half se fish of Austin.

So when you left and came to, Austin was Austin kind of like a big. It must be a big city compared to Yoakum. Oh yes, very much so um Yoakam is thought. I think five thousand people roughly and what car were you driving. Then I drive the same car. Now it's a two thousand and five Silver Chevy cobalt Okay, I'm thinking about this car. It doesn't have a lot of it's not that ostentatious. It's not that bad, see it's good just to get the car. It's a simple got a car they're a dime, a dozen when he see him all the time. It's

that's been my first car that I've ever had that I'm still driving, but I don't have the original key to the car and because I just have a copy anytime, I lock my door and I don't have a clicker anymore. So anytime, I lock my door. I have to put the key in to unlock it and because it's not the original key, it just there's this alarm. That goes off every single time and it doesn't stop until I start the ignition she says this alarm is horrible and she hates it. So she just doesn't lock the car and leaving it unlocked. Isn't a big deal for one. She says she never leaves anything of value in her car. She says that if she you have something worth stealing she'd. Rather someone just open the door to take it better than breaking a window and she never had any issues. She'd been in Austin for a couple of years,

never locking the car and never having any trouble until one morning when she was a junior in college, it had rained really I'm pretty heavily the night before and I went out into my car and I notice that my seat was pushed all the way back and I kind of thought it was odd, but I was like well, you know. Maybe I just did Yes- and I forgot that I had done this- and I was probably running late to class already, so I kinda just brushed it off and it continues to rain kind of heavy that day and into the next day. Overnight and that's when I noticed that a second time is the second day that might see it had been pushed back and just down all the way down, and that's when I was like. Oh somebody slept in here. Ok, you just like. Oh,

you said. Ok, you know, there's not anything. I could do other than lock my car, but I guess in the back of my mind, I thought oh well. This is a creative way to now You know, we've been arranged and stay out of the rain, so I just kind of let it go and it was something that continues to happen and was just very little system. Did you notice any other strange things was in the car? No I'm so occasionally I would get would be given a little gift, so there were some bush is that would bloom next to me department, and occasionally there would be a flower there. One time they left me a little bit of change,

and my senior year. They left me a little ring that you would get like out of a coin machine, but nothing was ever taken from my car. Or really moved other than my seat. There was another time that might work sweater that had been in the back 'cause. I kind of just took it off and threw it in the back was actually up in the front seat, and that was, I think, the only time that they actually used anything of mine- and I remember thinking oh well it was really cold last night. So do you think that you're the nicest person on earth gosh? I'm definitely definitely not the probably not, but um 'cause I'll tell you. I think I would have locked that door after about night too it is something I I mean I lock my car,

recently, but I mean even like even right now, it's I know for a fact, it's all off and they were leaving you little. Thank you. Gifts, yeah! Never any actual interaction- and I was the interesting thing- is that over this year and a half almost do your long period, we never ran into each other. We never saw each other um that was just kind of our little system was I'll leave my car open and you can sleep here an if I mean you don't have to leave anything, but occasionally they would, and that was it and now with our system for two years, and we just don't talk so I get it, and I think I get you park the car, you don't, but what what happen? If you in the middle of the night got sick and thought I have to go, and I have to get some tylenol I have to go, I mean then

with that, keep you from going either. I don't want to wake them up in there in the middle of their their sleep. I don't know that I have that, but never and never really occurred to me like what what I guess during a probably make one of my roommates come with me and you know feel like in yeah. I I got to use my car right now. You gotta go by, so this was you think this is only happening when it was raining I happened when it would rain and it would have to rain fairly heavily so not too too often, but often enough, but thing you were to find my car and they would. After graduation Amanda went to Cambodia to teach English for a year, so she was gone and her car was and in its usual spot in her apartment, complex. I did think about that

my senior year when I was moving that, like I was like well, where are they going to where they going to sleep now? Hopefully they can find another place that safe in order for me, everybody is so afraid of everything lately and if so, frayed of every nails for do. This is a good reminder. We don't have to be yeah, I mean all they needed was a little bit of shelter and if I can provide that in a really small ways and yeah, why not all everyone who wrote to us with mysterious stories from their lives hearing from you, this is one of the best parts of the job will be back in jail

with brand new criminal stories. We're excited to announce. There were also working on a little side project that nothing to do with crime I'll tell you more about it in the new year. Thanks so much for listening and supporting us, it means it criminalist used by Lawrence. Bore media Wilson and me. Audio mix by rob buyers are in turn, is Matilda. Felino Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of criminal. You can see them at this is criminal dot com, we're on Facebook and twitter at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public Radio, W Unc were proud. Member of radiotopia from Prxa collection of the best podcasts around and thanks to add Cirque for providing their ad serving platform to radio topia. Until next year, I'm Phoebe judge. This is Chris,

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