Unwanted Strangers

[0] Today's podcast features two separate, unique stories that both involve unwanted strangers.

[1] The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[2] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[3] The first story you'll hear is called You're Strong, and it's about a woman who has a very surprising response to a stranger.

[4] And the second story you'll hear is called Dr. Ramsey, and it's about a family who gets stalked by a very unlikely person.

[5] But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[6] So, if that's of interest to you, please sneak in to the five -star review button's house and remove all the strings in their sweatpants.

[7] Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.

[8] Okay, let's get into our first story called You're Strong.

[9] I'm Dan Tversky.

[10] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[11] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[12] What's the answer?

[13] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[14] Hysterical.

[15] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[16] Binge all episodes of Hesterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[17] On September 6, 2006, 51 -year -old Susan Coonhausen was returning from her job as an emergency room nurse in Portland, Oregon.

[18] On the way, she stopped at a hair salon to get her hair dye.

[19] While she waited her turn, she picked up a magazine in a particular quote stood out to her.

[20] It said, I will not live an unlived life.

[21] I will not live in fear.

[22] At the time, Susan was fighting with her husband Mike.

[23] They had been married for nearly 18 years, and their marriage had become toxic, and Susan had finally gotten the courage up to tell Mike she wanted a divorce, and Mike did not want a force.

[24] And so they had these bitter, awful fights, and Susan was just looking for things to latch onto, and this type of quote gave her motivation to follow through with this very difficult decision.

[25] About an hour later, with her hair now a slightly different color brown, she hopped back in her car and drove the last couple of miles home to her quiet little neighborhood.

[26] She pulled into the driveway of her one -story Cape Cod home with their gray picket fence around it.

[27] She went in the back door into their mudroom, and right away she saw a note next to the microwave that her husband had left because at this time they were still living together and the note just said sue i've had trouble sleeping i've gone to the beach i'll see in a couple of days she put the note down and then unlocked the door that led into the house which was into the kitchen and as soon as the door opened up she heard the beeping sound of their security alarm and then she walked all the way through the house to the front door she unlocked it went outside and then checked their mail and then went back inside the house after she got back inside and had shut and locked the front door behind her she kicked off her shoes and then began walking across the house towards the kitchen.

[28] She got about halfway there when she looked over to her left and she noticed the first floor bedroom that they used as a guestroom was really dark.

[29] And every morning before she left for work, she would open all the curtains around the house.

[30] And so in the evening, the sun would come into the house and it would be nice and bright.

[31] And so she's thinking to herself that I forget to open the curtains in that room because it shouldn't be that dark.

[32] And as she's staring at the room, a man she didn't recognize walked out from behind the bedroom door and started walking towards her.

[33] He was immediately.

[34] medium -height, medium build, he had a hat pulled down over his eyes, he had yellow rubber gloves on, and he was holding a hammer.

[35] He began walking right towards her.

[36] For many people, the sight of a stranger inside of your home carrying a hammer would be enough to prompt you to turn around and run out of your house, but not Sue.

[37] She had been an emergency room nurse for the past 30 years, and in that time, she had done things like crack open people's ribs to massage their hearts.

[38] She had administered IVs and thrashing patients that were suffering from withdrawals.

[39] And she and the other nurses she worked with trained regularly in self -defense because you just never knew what was going to happen in the ER.

[40] You needed to be ready to slip chokeholds and defend yourself.

[41] And so here Sue was staring down this intruder in her house with 30 years of preparation for this moment.

[42] And so Sue ran at the sky faster than he was coming at her and it caught him off guard.

[43] She figured if she could just get up close to him, the power.

[44] of the hammer strikes would be less.

[45] And so she rams into him.

[46] And she's about 5 -5 and significantly outweighed him.

[47] He's about 5 '9, maybe 200 pounds.

[48] And so she rams him into the wall.

[49] He hits her in the head once with the hammer, but it wasn't enough to subdue her or even knock her down.

[50] She barely felt it.

[51] And so she's holding on to him and she's screaming at him, who are you?

[52] What do you want?

[53] Because there was a part of her that thought, this is a burglary.

[54] I'll just give you what you want.

[55] But the guy didn't say anything.

[56] And so Susan grabbed him and pushed even harder against the wall, and the man would say two words.

[57] It was the only two words he said the entire time, and it was, you're strong.

[58] And Susan, when she heard that, it was like an adrenaline rush.

[59] She knew this guy was not trying to rob her.

[60] He was just trying to kill her.

[61] And she thought, no, I'm going to live.

[62] And she managed to wrestle the hammer away from him while pending him against the wall, and then smashed him in the head three times with this hammer before he managed to get it back.

[63] But when he reached for the hammer, she grabbed his throat and began to choking the life out of him.

[64] The man immediately went for his throat to get her hand off of him, so he was not trying to attack her.

[65] And Susan realized that she had him on the defensive, and she grabbed tighter and tighter around his throat.

[66] She moved her other hand up and really started crushing his windpipe.

[67] And then she screamed at him, I'll call an ambulance if you tell me who sent you.

[68] And the man looked at her and just grunted at her.

[69] And so she continued to squeeze harder and harder until his face turned purple and his eyes rolled back.

[70] And she knew as an emergency room nurse, if she continued, she would kill him, and she wasn't really prepared to do that, and so she threw him to the ground, she turned, and began to run towards the front door.

[71] But this guy jumped up and leapt after her, grabbed her by the ankle, and tripped her to the ground.

[72] When she landed, she rolled over onto her back, and right on top of her is this guy wielding the hammer, and he's about to bring it down on her, and so she instinctively just shot up.

[73] She sat up as fast as she could, and she bit down as hard as she could on the inner part of his upper leg.

[74] She bit so hard she tore through the fabric.

[75] And the guy screamed out in pain, he couldn't even hit her with the hammer, he began staggering back, at which point she released the bite, got up onto a knee, and then bit him again on the side of his rib cage as hard as she could, once again tearing through the fabric.

[76] And so now this guy is howling at the top of his lungs, at which point Sue grabs him and throws him to the ground, but she falls with him, and she lands directly behind his back.

[77] And he's still trying to grab her, and he's got the hammer, and he's trying to hit her, And so she reaches out and puts her arm over his throat and puts him in a wicked chokehold, one that he was not getting out of.

[78] And so the guy is trying to fight and get his neck out of the chokehold.

[79] But Susan decided that this guy, he's not going to talk.

[80] He's not going to tell me what he wants.

[81] He's here to kill me. So I'm going to kill him first.

[82] And she proceeded to choke him to death.

[83] And once he stopped moving, she calmly stood up, looked down, knew he was dead.

[84] She grabbed his hammer and then calmly walked up the front door, walked to her neighbor's house, knocked on the door and then her neighbor comes up and sees Sue just standing there with her clothes tattered and she's all bruised and bloodied.

[85] But she looks like she's totally okay.

[86] And the neighbor asks Sue, you know, what are you doing?

[87] What's going on?

[88] Why do you have that hammer?

[89] And Sue would tell her that, well, I had an intruder and he tried to kill me, so I killed him.

[90] And I need to use your phone to call the police.

[91] And so her neighbor's like, okay, come on in and use my phone.

[92] And so Sue walks in with her hammer in hand and calmly calls the police and tells them what happened.

[93] Police and paramedics show up and they go inside of Sue's house and they confirmed that her attacker was in fact dead.

[94] And her attacker turned out to be 59 -year -old Ed Haffey, who was a Vietnam veteran with a long rap sheet.

[95] They discovered Ed's backpack inside of Susan's house and in it was a notebook that contained instructions for what to do after he killed Susan.

[96] And one of those instructions was to call Mike.

[97] It turns out this Mike was Susan's husband.

[98] He had paid Ed $50 ,000 to kill his wife.

[99] And Mike, earlier in the day, had gone to the house and allowed Ed in and told him where to go and where to wait, and then on his way out, he had written that note saying, I'll see in a couple of days.

[100] When police brought Mike in, he initially denied all charges and said he had nothing to do with this, but he would eventually confess and then would be sentenced to seven years in prison for soliciting to murder his wife.

[101] Although Mike never gave his exact motivations for why he actually did this, he would have been ruined financially during this divorce, but if Susan were to die, he would inherit the house.

[102] Immediately after his sentencing, Susan sued Mike for a million dollars, claiming she wanted to make sure he didn't have any more money so that he couldn't go hire another hitman to finish the job.

[103] Susan didn't have to worry for very long, though, because Mike would die shortly thereafter in prison.

[104] As for Susan, she never faced any criminal charges and in fact was hailed as a hero in the wake of the attack.

[105] I'm Dan Taberski.

[106] In 2011, Something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[107] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[108] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[109] She's like, I can't.

[110] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

[111] It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls.

[112] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[113] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[114] Well, you were holding something back.

[115] Intentionally.

[116] Yeah, yeah.

[117] Well, yeah.

[118] No, it's hysteria.

[119] It's all in your head.

[120] It's not physical.

[121] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[122] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[123] Or is it something else entirely?

[124] Something's wrong here.

[125] Something's not right.

[126] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[127] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[128] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[129] You can binge all episodes of Histerical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[130] If you're listening to this podcast, then check.

[131] chances are good, you are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[132] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[133] We just launched a brand new Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[134] And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome.

[135] In this free, weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

[136] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[137] Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[138] Our second and final story is called Dr. Ramsey.

[139] In 1978, a nine -year -old girl named Kim was walking to the corner store to get some pasta sauce for her mother.

[140] On her walk home, a man she'd never met before, walks up behind her and speeds up to where he's walking in step with her.

[141] And he looks at her and introduces himself and says, Hi, I'm Dr. Ramsey.

[142] I'm a pediatrician.

[143] Do you know what a pediatrician is?

[144] And Kim immediately had a bad vibe about this Dr. Ramsey character.

[145] There was just something odd about him, the fact that he had approached her so suddenly and was right on top of her.

[146] So her reaction was to not answer his questions and instead put her head down and walk even faster because she knows she's almost at her house.

[147] She's almost at safety.

[148] And if she can just get there, she doesn't have to deal with this strange man. But as she sped up, so too did Dr. Ramsey staying in step with her, and he begins peppering her with additional questions and comments.

[149] Are your parents looking for a pediatrician for you?

[150] Of course they are.

[151] You're a big girl now.

[152] How old are you?

[153] What's your name?

[154] Your hair is so beautiful.

[155] Where do you live?

[156] When Kim got to be about 10 meters away from her house, she just takes off running, and she bolts up her back steps through the kitchen door, into her house, slams the door behind her, and for a few seconds she just stands there almost anticipating hearing this Dr. Ramsey guy come up the back steps behind her.

[157] But he doesn't, and after a couple of minutes, she pokes her head around and looks out the window and he's not there anymore.

[158] And she feels completely relieved that that weird guy is now gone and she can just forget about it.

[159] But it turns out she couldn't just forget about this because Dr. Ramsey was not going away anytime soon.

[160] It wasn't long after this first initial interaction with Dr. Ramsey that Kim was home one day and she happened to be looking at.

[161] out her front window to the road and she sees a blue Ford Galaxy drive slowly by their property.

[162] And she's looking at the car and she can tell immediately that the person driving it is Dr. Ramsey.

[163] But Dr. Ramsey doesn't see her.

[164] She's kind of obscured behind curtains on the window and she's watching him and he was looking at their front door and he was waving as if there was someone standing on their front steps, but Kim knew there wasn't.

[165] And so he bizarrely just drove the rest of the way past their property, waving the whole time and then drove off.

[166] Now at this point, has not told her mom or her dad or her siblings about Dr. Ramsey because that first interaction, she kind of chalked it up to maybe her being paranoid and maybe even being a little bit rude that she ran away from this doctor who was just trying to talk to her.

[167] But now that she's seen him drive past her house and he's acting strange, her alarm bells are starting to go off.

[168] But she doesn't tell her parents quite yet.

[169] But the next day when Kim was playing outside, a car drove by and she turned to look at it and it was the Blue Ford Galaxy.

[170] And who was driving?

[171] Dr. Ramsey.

[172] And he slows down and he waves to her and he smiles at her as he passes by and she kind of looks at him like what are you doing at this point kim knows he's acting inappropriately whatever his angle is it just didn't feel right so she runs inside and she explains to her mom that when she went to the store to get that pasta sauce on our way back this strange man dr ramssey approached her she came back to the house now i've seen him twice outside of our property and he's clearly waving at me there's something wrong with this guy kim's mother reacted to this news the way most of us would which is you're talking about a in this nice neighborhood who's driving down the road saying hi to my kid and he claims he's a pediatrician like that's a child's doctor it makes sense he might be waving to kids that's that's part of his job talking and interacting with kids and so her mother says this can't be a big deal i'm sure he just works in the area and this is part of his commute going down this road and now you've seen him a couple days in a row it's just a coincidence but shortly after this when dr ramsie started calling their house kim's mother and father very quickly ditched the he's a doctor so we can trust him routine and became very concerned.

[173] A couple of days after Kim had told her mother about Dr. Ramsey, Kim gets called into the living room where her father's sitting and he looks very troubled.

[174] And he calls her over and has her sit down and he says, you're not in trouble.

[175] I just need you to talk me through exactly what happened when Dr. Ramsey approached you.

[176] Your mother told me about it.

[177] And there's been a couple weird things that have happened here.

[178] And I just got to hear the story from you.

[179] And so Kim goes through the story.

[180] She describes how she was leaving the store.

[181] He just kind of showed up.

[182] And Kim did not talk to him.

[183] she put her head down and basically ran back to the house, and that was it.

[184] Kim's father reacts to this like he's totally perplexed about something, that he's hearing the facts, but they don't make any sense.

[185] And he says to Kim, are you sure you didn't say anything to him?

[186] Kim said, no, I was scared.

[187] I didn't say anything.

[188] Kim's father's like, then how did he know your name?

[189] Kim was like, what do you mean?

[190] And her father said, well, just the other day, I got a phone call from someone saying they were Dr. Ramsey, and they asked to speak with you, Kim, by name.

[191] They said, can I speak to Kim?

[192] And I thought that was odd because, you know, you're my child.

[193] And I said, well, why do you need to speak to my daughter?

[194] Why can't you speak to me?

[195] I'm her father.

[196] You're a doctor.

[197] You can speak to me. And they hung up.

[198] And then they called back again.

[199] And they asked for you by name again, as if they hadn't heard me the first time.

[200] And so I said, again, why do you need to talk to my daughter?

[201] You can just talk to me. I'm her parent.

[202] At which time they hung up again.

[203] And so I wanted to hear from you directly if you had given your name to him.

[204] Because the fact that he knew your name on that call seems really obvious.

[205] to me. Kim assured her father that she did not give him her name.

[206] And you got to remember that this is back in 1978, so Dr. Ramsey would not have been able to use the internet to try to find Kim's name, nor would Kim's name have been listed in a telephone book because she was a minor.

[207] It would have been her father or her mother that was listed in the telephone book.

[208] So in order for Dr. Ramsey to have her name, he would need to know someone that would give up her name or do some digging, which is obviously very creepy considering the fact that Kim has never met him He is a strange older man and she's a nine -year -old girl.

[209] So with that in mind, Kim and her parents are on edge about this Dr. Ramsey character, but they don't have any clear recourse because he didn't do anything that was criminal.

[210] They couldn't go to the police and say, he figured out our daughter's name because they would be saying a doctor, a pediatrician, no less, knows our child's name and was waving and smiling at her.

[211] But shortly after this, Dr. Ramsey's behavior would take a dark turn.

[212] He would call Kim's house again just a couple of days after those first two calls, and Kim's father would answer, and right away, Dr. Ramsey says, I need to talk to Kim.

[213] And Kim's father goes into protective mode, and he says, do not call this house again, and he hangs up.

[214] But seconds later, the phone is ringing again, and at this point, the family has come in the room because they heard their father screaming at someone on the phone.

[215] The phone's ringing, and their father picks the phone up and puts it back in the receiver, canceling the call.

[216] And he looks at his family, and he says, do not answer the phone.

[217] The phone rings again and picks it up and cancels it again.

[218] On and on, the phone rang incessantly all night until they disconnected the phone line.

[219] The next day, when they plugged the phones back in, Kim's parents told all of the kids, do not answer the phone, no matter what, don't answer the phone.

[220] And once again, the phone starts ringing, and Kim's father picks it up, he doesn't say anything, and he hears on the other end of the line, Dr. Ramsey, asking for Kim.

[221] And he says, do not call this house again, and he slams it, thinking that's going to do it, but, of course, it doesn't.

[222] And over the next several days, anytime the phone was plugged in, it was practically a non -stop call from Dr. Ramsey.

[223] And one time, when Kim's father did pick up the phone, he reacted to it like it was some horrible thing being told to him, and he put it down, he disconnected the phone, and he went into the kitchen.

[224] And one of Kim's brothers overhears their father talking to their mother in a hushed tone, and he's saying to her, he just told me he's going to hurt Kim unless he can speak to her.

[225] After this threat was made, things got very complicated.

[226] Back in the 1970s, there weren't any stalking laws that would protect Kim and her family from Dr. Ramsey.

[227] Even though Dr. Ramsey had just threatened Kim, there was no proof he had done that, and he hadn't done anything physical.

[228] And so there wasn't any legal recourse.

[229] The police couldn't really do anything.

[230] And so Kim's father ends up calling one of his friends, who happens to be a police officer.

[231] He explains the situation, and he says, would you mind for the next little bit, just escorting my daughter Kim to and from school because we don't want her to be out walking around by herself with this guy rolling around the neighborhood.

[232] The friend says yes and he began bringing Kim to and from school and Kim felt a lot safer with her father's friend because you have this police officer that's walking around with you.

[233] But it also isolated Kim in a really major way.

[234] She wasn't really allowed to go outside anymore without an escort, which meant her life was confined largely to being inside almost 24 -7 and there was no clear resolution in for how to handle Dr. Ramsey, and so it was like this indefinite period of time that Kim was just not going to be allowed to have a normal life.

[235] Once Dr. Ramsey was completely cut off from any interaction with Kim, I mean, she barely went outside, and when she did, she was with this police escort, and she never answered the phone.

[236] Once that was going on, Dr. Ramsey became desperate.

[237] One evening, Kim, her sister, two of her brothers, and her mother were in the kitchen chatting when one of her brother suddenly reacts like he sees something out the back window that leads out to their garage and he runs over and he's looking out and Kim and our family are turning to him saying what do you see what's going on and he goes there's someone in the garage and they all run to the windows and they're looking out and there's a window on the side of their garage their garage was detached from their house and there's a window on the side and there was this man there standing there looking out at them and once he saw that everybody is looking at him he ducked his head down And as Kim's family is looking at each other, like, did we really just see someone in the window?

[238] Because it's kind of dark and they're not there anymore.

[239] Suddenly, the garage door slowly rises up and out pops a man who stands up, looks at them just long enough that Kim yells, that's Dr. Ramsey.

[240] I saw him.

[241] That's Dr. Ramsey.

[242] And then the guy takes off down the driveway away from their house.

[243] And Kim's two brothers immediately run out the house and chase him down the road.

[244] But eventually he darts into another property and he disappears and they can't find it.

[245] Kim's mother calls the police, they show up, they take down some statements, and they basically say, look, if he comes back, let us know, but for now, just go back in your house and lock the doors and keep an eye out.

[246] For two weeks after the garage incident, they didn't hear from Dr. Ramsey and they didn't see Dr. Ramsey, and it was this great reprieve from this very stressful time in their lives.

[247] But after those two weeks, Kim's father walked outside onto their front porch, and he saw their beloved German Shepherd was dead lying off the side of the porch, and he goes over to the and it looks like it's been roughed up, but it's hard to tell what actually happened to it.

[248] Now, at first, the family is absolutely devastated about the loss of their beloved animal.

[249] But shortly after that, they start thinking, do you think Dr. Ramsey could have had something to do with the death of our dog?

[250] And so Kim's father calls the police and says, I think our stalker, Dr. Ramsey, killed our dog.

[251] But the police would say there was no evidence to suggest anybody killed your dog.

[252] It could have just been an accident.

[253] Also, we haven't even been able to identify who this Dr. Ramsey, person is because there are no Dr. Ramsey's in this town.

[254] And so probably he's using a fake name.

[255] So the family's sad and frustrated, but once again has nothing they can do about this.

[256] That night, Kim and her family are sitting at home.

[257] They're all very sad about the loss of their dog and the phone rings.

[258] Now, prior to this, there had been two weeks where Dr. Ramsey hadn't called once.

[259] And so Kim's father picks the phone up and says, hello, and it's Dr. Ramsey.

[260] But unlike all the other calls where Dr. Ramsey almost always began with put Kim on the phone.

[261] This time he started with, there are seven people in your house right now.

[262] Your wife's in the kitchen.

[263] You're in the living room.

[264] Your three sons are watching TV in the den and your two daughters are upstairs in their respective bedrooms.

[265] Kim's father is obviously horrified to hear this because it was all accurate and he just screams into the phone, stay away from my family and he hangs up.

[266] After this phone call, Kim's father was naturally very shaken up by this because even though they knew Dr. Ramsey was probably living in the area, and he clearly drove past the property and was local.

[267] It just felt way more intimate for him to be naming things that meant he had to have been near their house recently and looking in windows.

[268] And so Kim's father runs around the house and makes sure all windows are shut and locked, blinds drawn, all the doors are locked, and then he goes all around the house to make sure all his kids and his wife and everybody's okay.

[269] And then afterwards, he considered calling the police, but felt like it was kind of futile, because to this point, they haven't been able to help them, and nothing has changed.

[270] It was just another creepy phone call.

[271] And so they don't do anything.

[272] The next day, they plugged their phone line back in because they need to use a phone.

[273] And shortly thereafter, the daily calls with Dr. Ramsey began again.

[274] And now every call, whenever they did pick up, started with Dr. Ramsey identifying who was in the house and where they were.

[275] After a couple of days of this, the family was just living in paranoia.

[276] It was this horrible time in their lives.

[277] And one night, the phone rings and Kim's father picks it up, ready to just scream at this guy and take out his frustration.

[278] And Dr. Ramsey, instead of giving the report, starts by saying, I can open your kitchen window and I can open your French doors to the side of your house.

[279] Kim's father is about to yell at him, but instead just hangs the phone up and runs into the kitchen and he checks the window and he knows it's faulty.

[280] And clearly, so does Dr. Ramsey.

[281] And so he gets a piece of twine and he ties it over the latch and gets it as tight as he can.

[282] And then he ran over to the French doors, which were faulty.

[283] You'd have to push pretty hard, but you could, in theory, pop the doors open if you knew these were faulty doors.

[284] And so Kim's father is not taking any chances and he gets some nails out of the junk drawer and he nails a row of nails into the ground, right into the hardwood sitting immediately outside the frame of the door.

[285] So if you were to push on them, you would just butt up against the heads of these nails and it would keep it shut.

[286] It was his temporary solution until he ordered a proper lock to fit on the door.

[287] At this point, it was safe to say Kim and her family were living in fear that Dr. Ramsey at any given point could just break into their house because clearly he, was canvassing their house and testing different entry points, and he had already found two.

[288] And so now they just felt totally unsafe in their house.

[289] But oddly enough, after that last call where Dr. Ramsey had said he knew the kitchen and the doors were faulty, the calls from Dr. Ramsey decreased to almost zero, and they didn't see him anywhere.

[290] And it started to feel like maybe he had gotten his thrills and he was moving on now.

[291] And it just so happened that around the time the family is starting to think this could be over, the mother and father had to go to this company function where the kids couldn't go.

[292] So the kids would be alone, but the kids said, you know, we're fine with it.

[293] We have each other.

[294] The house will be locked.

[295] We won't go anywhere.

[296] And the parents, even though they hated the idea of their kids being alone at all because of everything going on with Dr. Ramsey, they felt like, you know what, it does seem like he's kind of moved on and we're only going to be gone for a couple of hours.

[297] So I'm sure this is going to be fine.

[298] So that night, after her parents leave, Kim is sitting on the couch.

[299] She's watching TV.

[300] Her younger brother is laying on the ground right in front of her, and her sister is sitting on the other end of the couch and she's on the phone.

[301] And Kim said she found herself looking out of her room into the kitchen towards the side of the house where those French doors were that led out into the side yard, and those doors were still only secured by the nails her father had put into the ground.

[302] The lock her father had ordered had not come in yet.

[303] Kim found herself looking at these doors feeling really uneasy about it, and then as she was looking at it, she could have sworn she saw the doors begin to push open and she's looking at it even more closely and then for sure she sees the doors bow inward like someone is pushing on the top and the nails are stopping the bottom and for a split second she sees the clear silhouette of Dr. Ramsey and she screams it wakes up her sister and her brother and she's pointing at the double doors they all look and once again he pushes on those doors exposing himself just for a second to the kids so now all three kids have now seen this guy trying to force his way into their house and so they scream and run right upstairs they go into kim's room they shut the door lock it turn the lights off and they go over to the window that's looking out to the front of their house now dr ramsie is on the side of the house so they wouldn't be able to see him through this window but they're just praying that he does not break through those doors and come in the house they're hoping they'll see him as he exits the front of their house and they're kind of keeping an eye out the window just praying they see this guy leave their property and leave them alone but they don't see him leave and they don't hear any noise downstairs or outside.

[304] It's just total silence.

[305] And they're wondering, did he already get in the house?

[306] They decide they need to look for themselves.

[307] And so they leave Kim's room and they sneak down the hall to the side room, which was their brother's room, that overlooked to the area where Dr. Ramsey would be.

[308] They go over to the window and they poke their heads up and look out the window downstairs.

[309] And sure enough, there is a man standing right in front of those French doors with his hands on them, kind of looking in, looking around.

[310] And at this point, the kids suck themselves down underneath the window so that he doesn't see him.

[311] And as they're crouched down, they hear him start banging on the door downstairs, at which point Kim's sister who was there with her just says, What do you want?

[312] The banging stops and the man says, I have a pizza, come down and get it.

[313] Kim and her siblings didn't order a pizza.

[314] So they just yell out, if you don't leave, we're going to call the cops.

[315] And then Kim pokes her head over the window and she looks down, and she can clearly see it's Dr. Ramsey who's now turned and he's running away from their house.

[316] Just a couple of minutes later, Kim's two older brothers returned.

[317] they were out at a skating rink and they come back they come inside and Kim and her two younger siblings go up and tell them what happened and immediately those two run out and start looking for him but he's long gone by now so they come back in they shut all the doors they lock everything they shut the blinds and they say okay all we can do is just get a knife out of the kitchen each of us and just be armed until our parents come back so they all grab a knife except for the youngest brother and they all retreated to their rooms and basically just waited for their parents to come home an hour later Kim's parents are still gone and all the kids are still in their rooms and her younger brother gets hungry and he decides to go down to the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal.

[318] So he goes downstairs and he's getting his cereal together and he starts feeling like someone is watching him.

[319] And he's looking around and he knows all the curtains have been drawn and everything's locked and shut and he's just siking himself out.

[320] But he notices the French doors that are leading to the side of the house.

[321] Those have glass panes on them and there's nothing covering them.

[322] And so as he's getting his cereal together, he finds himself constantly looking over at this door and finally he decides, okay, I'm going to put my my cereal down and just go look out the glass, just make sure no one's there.

[323] And so he walks a little bit closer to these doors and he gets about, you know, five, six feet away and the glare from the lights above still make it impossible to look out this glass.

[324] And so he's kind of squinting his eyes, but he can't see anything.

[325] And so he steps forward and he puts his hands like this and he looks right out one of the panes of glass.

[326] And staring back at him is Dr. Ramsey, who's probably been there the whole time.

[327] And he's just standing there looking at him.

[328] And he freaks out, he screams for his brothers, and as soon as he turns back around, Dr. Ramsey has run away.

[329] He's gone.

[330] All of the siblings come pouring downstairs, knives in hand, and they're asking what's going on, and the youngest brother is trying to explain that he just saw Dr. Ramsey right on the other side of this door, and the older brothers go running outside.

[331] They're screaming for this guy.

[332] They're looking for him, but he's gone, and they all come back in the house, and they don't know what to do, and so they all stay up together in the kitchen with their knives, with everything shut and locked, just waiting for their parents to come back and shortly after they hear their parents using their keys to come in the house they come in and the kids explain what happened to their parents and the parents feel horrible and they're like I'm so sorry that we left we should never have left you guys but as horrible as this was for the family when they call the police they can't really do anything because he wasn't there now nobody got hurt nothing was taken and they don't even know what this guy's name is and so they just said stay inside keep everything locked and let us know if he comes back a couple of horrible weeks for this family goes by where they're living in constant fear.

[333] The parents are never away from their kids.

[334] The father had to take time off from work.

[335] It's just this very stressful time where they are totally prisoners in their own home.

[336] And after about two weeks of this, Kim is at school.

[337] She's at recess with her class outside.

[338] And she was playing on the playground when she looks out at the road and she sees Dr. Ramsey in his car parked waving at her and yelling her name.

[339] And so Kim is horrified.

[340] She turns and runs to teacher and she points at him and she says that guy's stalking our family i have to go inside and tell my parents they immediately took this very seriously they took kim inside to the principal's office and they called home to kim's mom and when she picks up kim's mom explains that she just got a call from the school office asking her to verify whether her husband was going to be picking up kim from school early and kim's mom said no he's not picking her up there's no one picking her up early and that's when they put it together that Dr. Ramsey must have been in touch with the school to try to convince them that he was Kim's father and he was here to pick her up and that's why he was parked outside.

[341] Kim's mother is horrified because she's thinking to herself if the school hadn't been diligent to confirm this, there's a chance they would have given her child to Dr. Ramsey.

[342] This proved to be kind of like the final straw, even though there was a whole bunch of final straws along the way, this was the one that ultimately pushed Kim's father over the edge.

[343] That night, Kim was sleeping in bed when she woke up because she was thirsty and she goes downstairs to the kitchen.

[344] And she's surprised to find her father is sitting at the kitchen table.

[345] The lights are off and he's got a gun in front of him and he looks totally disheveled and upset.

[346] And she knows right away that this is because of Dr. Ramsey.

[347] She's not thinking this is anything else.

[348] And so she walks over to the sink and just kind of ignores the fact that this is happening.

[349] She gets a sip of water and then she sits down with her father and says, is everything okay?

[350] And her father looks up and he just says, no, I'm not okay.

[351] I'm tired of leaving the house and wondering if when I come home, my family's not going to be there anymore.

[352] I'm tired of not being able to protect my own kids.

[353] I'm tired of this.

[354] This has to end.

[355] Kim didn't know what to say, so she just sat there in silence with her father until he told her to go back to bed.

[356] Kim says after this night, they never heard from Dr. Ramsey again.

[357] It was like he vanished off the face of the earth.

[358] No more phone calls, no more drive -bys, no more anything.

[359] He was just gone.

[360] And while we don't know for sure what happened to Dr. Ramsey, I think it's safe to assume that Kim's father had something to do with it.

[361] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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[380] short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.

[381] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[382] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[383] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[384] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[385] What happens next?

[386] Depends on who you ask.

[387] Was it a crime of passion?

[388] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[389] This was clearly an intentional act.

[390] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[391] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[392] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[393] Everyone had an opinion.

[394] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[395] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[396] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[397] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[398] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.