Playing with Fire (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

In the first story, it's ultimately about this person who is so set on making a change

“in their lives that they take drastic measures to affect that change, with some very unfortunate”

consequences. The second story is about this town in California where there was this perceived threat, and it was sort of normalized and people were not that worried about it until it totally spiraled out of control. 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 place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the follow button's house, and right on their bathroom mirror, I'm watching you in red lipstick.

Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called "The Tip Off".

Early in the morning, on February 5th, 1990, 57-year-old Laverne Pavlanock stood in the kitchen of a Wilsonville organ apartment making some coffee, mornings with a best part of Laverne's

“day, because she had the whole apartment to herself.”

Now she lived with her boyfriend, John Sussnowski, but he worked at a nearby mill and had to be out early in order to catch the bus there. And each time he left, Laverne felt like a huge weight lifted off of her, because when John wasn't home, Laverne could go about her day and pretend she was safe, but that's all it was, it was pretend.

John, in reality, was an incredibly violent man, I mean, he was seriously physically abusive, especially when he was drunk, which was basically all the time. So Laverne had actually been married, but her husband had died of cancer, and she had

ultimately met John following her husband's death.

And so when they met, Laverne was very vulnerable and lonely, and she really hadn't realized the kind of person John was, until it was too late. It had been 10 years now, and Laverne still had not, you know, built up the courage to leave him.

“I mean, the reality was, as she was just scared of how he would react, and so she sort”

of felt trapped. Now, she sat down at her kitchen table with her coffee, and she opened up the local paper. And as soon as she did, the first thing she saw was a big black and white photo of a smiling young woman who likely was in her 20s.

The photo was connected to an article about a recent murder that happened 30 miles away, just northeast of Portland. The victim had been identified as a woman named Tanya Bennett, and Tanya Bennett was the girl in the photo. The article said she had been beaten and then also strangled with a robe, and then she had

been left on the side of the highway. And when Laverne read about the area she actually had been, you know, dumped, she realized it actually was only about a mile and a half down from this famous scenic overlook that Laverne had actually been to before, like she was familiar with this area. And so Laverne, she's reading the article, and she's looking at this picture back

and forth, and it was like something was sort of forming in her mind. She just had like this weird sense that she knew something about this case. And then as she stared at this photo for a little bit longer, it's like it all came together, and she realized almost certainly that she knew, John, very likely killed this woman.

And so even though she loved her peaceful quiet mornings with her coffee, Laverne immediately stood up, she grabbed the phone, and she called the police. After she hung up with police, Laverne was very shaken up, I mean her heart was still racing, I mean this was a very risky thing she was doing, because she had no way of knowing if what she had just given authorities was enough to arrest John.

If it wasn't, it was entirely possible that John would discover this betrayal of her calling the police about him, implicating him in a murder, and he would probably just continue his abuse if not amp up his abuse of Laverne. And so the way she saw it is, either what she just did was going to end the chapter with John, and he was going to go to jail for murder, or Laverne might wind up being the

next dead girl on the side of the highway. A little over a week later, on the morning of February 16th, Detective John Engram, sat with this partner in a very clean living room in Wilsonville, Oregon. Engram was the lead investigator on Tanya Bennett's murder case, and he was there to speak to Laverne, who was sitting on the opposite couch, and Laverne seemed really nervous,

kept fidgeting constantly, and offering Engram in his partner refreshments, it was just very clear that there was a lot on this woman's mind. So Engram knew that Laverne had a week earlier, called an a tip about the victim's killer. She thought it was her own boyfriend, John Sussnowski, and right now Engram was very eager

the full story of why she believed what she believed. In part because Engram's case so far had absolutely no other leads, like this was it. The victim's body had been found on a grassy slope, so close to the edge of the highway that you could see her from the road. But Engram and his partner had not been able to find any witnesses.

A few people had claimed to have seen Tanya, along with some man at a bar earlier in the night before she went missing, but no one had been able to effectively describe that man.

It was just some guy she was with, and so Engram and his partner had basically talked

to, just about anyone they could think of that might have known Tanya, they'd canvas their neighborhood that interviewed her family, co-workers, friends, and they still had not been able to find anybody who fit as a suspect. They also hadn't found any good physical evidence at the scene, like fingerprints or helpful forensics.

“So now Engram was hoping that Laverne was going to be the key to his whole case.”

And so eventually Engram looked at Laverne and said, whenever you're ready, tell me what you know, tell me the story of why you believe John killed Tanya. Now at first Laverne just continued to squirm in her seat, and she was, you know, obviously very nervous, but eventually after Engram told her to take a breath, calm down, it's okay.

We just want to hear your story, eventually with a shaking voice. She told them that on the night of the murder, John had come home around maybe one or two in the morning, and immediately gotten the shower. Now this was unusual, I mean this is not something that he typically did, he didn't shower it to in the morning, but Laverne really hadn't thought much of it until the next

day when they went to a local bar, and she'd literally overheard John bragging to somebody about murdering Tanya, describing how he had picked up at a truck stop, killed her, then took her to the highway by Columbia River Gorge to dump her body by the scenic overlook. As Laverne spoke, I mean Engram and his partner were shocked.

I mean basically, Laverne had overheard, effectively a confession, and the details of that confession

did seem to line up with what they had heard so far. Tanya had been seen out late at night with some man, although nobody could really describe the man, and also where her body was found, you know, it was near the scenic overlook,

“something that was, you know, publicly known, but still, I mean that's what Laverne heard John”

say, it lined up. But he kept a poker face and just told Laverne to please keep going, keep elaborating. And so Laverne, she continued speaking, and she went on to say that the reason she didn't come forward right away was because she was scared of John. He was a violent alcoholic who abused her, which is also part of the reason why this seemed

real to her. I mean, she was totally not shocked at the idea that maybe John killed someone.

But she was basically fearful that he might kill her too, and so she had kept it to herself,

until she had seen the article in the paper, and also saw the picture of the girl, and she just looked so young and innocent, and she just couldn't help but feel like she owed it to that girl to come forward. Now, at this point, England's mind was whirling. I mean, if this was all true, it was huge for this case. I mean, potentially, this just solved the whole murder. I mean, this is what happened potentially. But he also knew, you know, right now,

“it was just one woman's story. You know, he needed actual proof. He couldn't just take Laverne's”

word for it. So he asked Laverne if he and his partner could just go ahead and search the apartment. And as soon as Laverne nodded, the detectives jumped to their feet and got to work. Laverne led the detectives down the hallway to the master bedroom, and then from there she backed off and just, you know, let the men get to work. And the detectives, they immediately split up and spread out to cover more ground. England had actually brought along a list of stuff that they were

theoretically looking for. And one of the things on his list was a swatch of denim from the front buttons of Tanya's jeans. It had been missing when they found her, like it had been intentionally cut out, which was obviously pretty unusual. And it made him think that Tanya's killer had taken a trophy or something. But after a few minutes of searching around the bedroom, England did not see this denim patch. In fact, he actually didn't see anything at first glance that connected John

Tanya. Until he went over to look through this cardboard box of papers and began sifting through them. And when he pulled out a torn piece of scrap paper and read what was on it, he froze. On this piece of scrap paper was a handwritten message that just said, quote, "tea Bennett, good piece." England immediately called his partner over who walked over and looked at the note and both of them were like, okay, obviously we need to bring John in right away for a chat.

But after leaving the bedroom and walking towards the door to leave, who comes in the front door, none other than John saw Snapski. About an hour later, England sat at an interrogation table in the sheriff's office,

relatively calm. Back at the apartment when John had walked in the door and sort of saw

the detectives and didn't know what was going on, England had told him who he was and why he was there. And John had really just seemed surprised, but had quickly agreed to go with them to the station if they wanted to speak to him. But England knew from experience that, you know, just because John was acting very cooperative did not mean he was innocent. Now, England's slid a picture of Tanya across the table and asked John if he knew who she was or had anything to do with her murder.

And John didn't deny it or act horrified or offended to be asked. He just said,

“"He didn't really remember." And when England showed him the note they found in his bedroom,”

that said, "T-benet, good peace on it." John just sort of squinted at it and said he really wasn't

sure if he wrote that or not. So these were all very straightforward questions, and it was highly

suspicious to England that John apparently just couldn't answer them, at least not cleanly. And really, the rest of his interview went the same way. With John giving mostly just vague non-answer to everything in Grimast, no matter how binary the question was supposed to be. And England was just sort of struck by how non-chalant, John seemed whenever he responded. Even though, I mean, he was being questioned about his connection to a murder.

This was not a time to be non-chalant. This was a time to be forthcoming. However, despite England's very high suspicion of John, realistically the only evidence he had on John, at least at this point, was all circumstantial. And so was not nearly enough to actually arrest John.

“What they needed in order to do that was some form of hard evidence that directly connected him”

to Tonya's murder. So ultimately, at the end of this interview, you know, despite how weird the

whole thing had been, England just sighed and told John that for now, he could go. Four days later, England had just gotten to his office for the morning when his desk phone rang. He picked up and was surprised to hear LeBurn's voice on the other end. But before he could ask her what this was about, LeBurn told him she had found something in her car that morning and felt like he needed to see it. And when she told him what this thing was,

England said he would be right over. Then he immediately hung up and ran to find his partner. As he drove to LeBurn, he found his heart was racing. I mean, over the last few days, they hadn't found any additional evidence to prove John was their killer. In fact, if anything, they'd actually lost some evidence,

“since that note they found inside of John's things in his house and that up being a dead end.”

Because their analysts couldn't actually match the handwriting to John, so they didn't know for sure if it was him. But now, based on what LeBurn had just told him on the phone about what she found in her car, he was pretty much positive that this was the break he needed. Within the hour, Ingram and his partner were standing in LeBurn's garage with LeBurn staring into the open trunk of her car. LeBurn had told Ingram that she kept her car and really her whole life,

very, very clean, like her apartment's clean, everything's clean all the time. And when she went into her car that day, she noticed there was a little swatch of denim sitting in the trunk. And she knew that she had not put it there and considering she was sort of on high alert about John and about his connection to this murder, it just seemed like something worth flagging to police. And for Ingram and his partner as they're staring into the trunk at this

little swatch of denim that looks very much like the swatch of denim they were secretly looking for. They had not publicly revealed that the killer had taken a little swatch of denim from Tanya's genes. That was private. They're looking at this thinking oh my goodness. Like this is the break we needed. Clearly, that's the denim from Tanya's genes. And so LeBurn was right to call this in. This is potentially huge. Now obviously Ingram knew that they would still

have to get this denim tested to make sure it really was Tanya's. I mean, it's entirely possible that it was actually LeBurn's or John's or was unrelated, but circumstantially this felt like hitting the jackpot. And so Ingram watched as his partner picked up the swatch, put it into an evidence bag, and then they left and said they would have a tested and they would be in touch. The following morning Ingram was at his desk reviewing all the evidence that they had so far.

And by this point, they had a lot of evidence. The previous night after finding the denim, they had brought John in for a polygraph test and he had completely failed it. The tested administrator had even noted that in his opinion John definitely knew what had happened to Tanya. So now realistically Ingram was just sort of waiting on confirmation that that fabric was a match. And then at that point, they could go and arrest John. And when Ingram's phone rang,

he picked it up immediately and it was the lab. And so Ingram sat up straight, ready for some good news. But the tech on get their lines sounded sort of glum and he told Ingram that the denim from

And at this, Ingram was just completely stunned. I mean, the idea that they had just found the same

unique cut of denim in a car in their main suspects house could not be a coincidence. I mean, it was not typical for people to have little swatches of denim lying around. Like this is not something that you just happened to have, it felt sort of specific. And so they just had to be more to this than met the eye. And even though Ingram tried to work out some kind of reasonable

“explanation for why that swatch was there, the only thing that actually made sense was that the fake”

denim was planted there. And so feeling a mix of, again, shock, but also just frustration here. I mean, he thought he was so close to solving this thing. And now he was sort of back to square one. Ingram realized that the next stop had to be LeBurn's. He needed to go speak to her again. Later that morning, Ingram and his partner were once again back in LeBurn's living room with a very nervous looking LeBurn sitting across from them. This time Ingram was going to be

a little tougher on her. Because he now knew that, you know, whatever she had told him before, very likely was not the full story. And as soon as Ingram asked LeBurn point blank, if she had planted that evidence that denim inside of her car, LeBurn just kind of looked back at him and her face began to sort of quiver and then she just started sobbing. And she told them she was so,

“sorry, she explained that she had cut up some jeans and put that front button part in her car”

and pretended to have found it so that they'd be able to arrest John. She said she had just gotten so worried when they let him go after interviewing him. Because she knew John Kilton, yeah, he had to have she heard him talk about it. Like he did it in his dangerous. Then she just wanted to make sure the police held him accountable. Now in Ingram heard this, he could hear like the earnestness in her voice. Like clearly this woman is scared of John and thinks he did this.

She believes he did this. And so he wanted to believe her angle here as inappropriate as planting evidence was. But critically, he knew LeBurn still was definitely not telling him everything. Because there was simply no way she could have known to plant that unique cut of the jeans unless she had intimate knowledge of the crime or some other inside information. But there was just something missing here. Why would she randomly choose that front cut of denim as just the

“the evidence? Oh, here's some evidence. You can make John look guilty. Why would she choose that?”

That's way too on the nose. And when he pointed this out to LeBurn, it was like LeBurn's energy completely shifted, you know, from from sobbing and sadness and remorse to just pure like hesitation. Like she didn't really know how to react. But there wasn't any more sadness. It was like a, oh, something's off here. And then LeBurn kind of took a deep breath. And she looked at Ingram and she said, I was lying. You're right. My story about planting the evidence. That was a lie.

But she went on to say that the reason she had lied was because she had ultimately been too afraid

that if the police knew the whole story that she would get in trouble too, then LeBurn explained what really happened to Tanya. On the night, the Tanya was murdered. LeBurn said, John called her that night and he was sort of frantic. And he said to her that he was in trouble and that she needed to meet him at the bar that he was at. And to bring along a shower curtain. And so LeBurn said because she was very scared of John. And you know, it was just fearful of asking any questions.

She had just done what he said. And she got the shower curtain and she'd driven out there. And she found John in a parking lot standing over a body. It was Tanya. And she was just lying there on the ground, motionless. LeBurn said she was horrified and didn't know what to do. So she just helped. She literally helped John put Tanya's body into her car. LeBurn's car wrapped her up in that curtain she'd brought along. And then together, they dumped her body at a spot along the highway.

But as LeBurn continued to talk, her story suddenly got much darker. Because she actually eventually confessed that actually Tanya had not been dead when she had

first arrived. But instead, she was still clinging to life. And at John's request,

LeBurn had tied rope around Tanya's neck and held it tight while John sexually assaulted her. LeBurn said after he was done, Tanya was no longer breathing. Ingram could barely conceal his shock when she explained this. I mean, here was this gentle soft spoken lady who was now telling him that she had actively participated in the sexual assault and murder of this young woman. It was hard to wrap his head around it. And at the moment,

all Ingram could think was, this can't be real. But what LeBurn was saying, just fit. It explained John's cage answers to his questions, his failed polygraph. And how LeBurn knew the right

actually made the cut on Tanya's genes. They knew. But despite getting this earth-shattering confession

“here, Ingram wanted to be completely sure that this version of the story LeBurn was telling him”

was actually the truth. And he knew exactly how to prove it. The following day, Ingram was behind the wheel of his cruiser next to his partner, and LeBurn sat in the back, sort of absent-mindedly staring out the window. They were driving down the highway northeast of Portland, and Ingram had instructed LeBurn to let him know when they reached the spot where they'd dumped Tanya's body. Now, the newspapers had published the

general location of where the body had been found. But certainly not specifics. So Ingram knew that if LeBurn could point out the exact spot, well, that meant she was telling the truth. As they began to get closer and closer to the spot Ingram knew, was the spot. He sort of felt his heart rate pick up, but he didn't drive any faster or slower. He didn't signal that it was coming

“up. He just kept on driving steady, going straight, sort of expecting LeBurn to call it out”

any moment. But the cruiser drove right past the actual spot where the body had been found, and LeBurn didn't say anything. For a few minutes, they just kept on driving down the road in total silence and, you know, Ingram's feeling really disappointed here, and as they're driving along, suddenly LeBurn says, hey, wait a minute, turn around. So Ingram did, and soon they were headed back the way they'd come. And this time, when they passed the actual crime scene,

so the actual spot where Tanya had been found. LeBurn called it out and said, that's where she was. Stop. As Ingram parked the car, he looked back at LeBurn who was staring intently out the window, right at the exact spot on that slope right off the highway where the body had been found. Then, once they were parked, all three of them go out of the car,

“and LeBurn went over to the edge of the road and pointed, like right to the exact spot where Tanya”

had been found on the slope. And even though Ingram tried to keep his expression neutral here, internally, he was sort of amazed. I mean, clearly, LeBurn was telling the truth. It would have been impossible for her to have chosen that specific spot without having prior knowledge of where Tanya had been, meaning she was telling the truth. She must have been involved in killing Tanya. As they all climbed back into the car, Ingram knew they now had more than enough to formally

arrest John and also LeBurn. She'd done the right thing by coming forward, but of course now, they were going to be consequences. On February 21st, so 16 days after LeBurn called with her

first tip, John Savznowski was arrested. And five days after that, LeBurn was arrested as well,

and both of them were charged with murder. About 11 months later, LeBurn's trial started, and at that point LeBurn actually tried to change her story again. She tried to recant her confession and said, "No, I didn't actually do this, but the jury didn't buy her change of heart and convicted her of murder." And she was sentenced to life in prison. As per John, two months after LeBurn sentencing, he was given the same sentence, life in prison,

and that should have been the end of the case, at least from the legal perspective. But for the next three years following sentencing, Ingram just couldn't stop thinking about LeBurn and John and Tanya Bennett, despite what LeBurn had done, he felt a lot of empathy for her. She'd obviously been under John's control, and had seemed genuinely terrified of him. But more than that, Ingram had this horrible nagging feeling that they'd gotten something wrong here. Then, one March afternoon

in 1994, Ingram was in his office at the Sheriff's Department going over some paperwork. When his desk phone rang, when he picked it up, it was the prosecutor who'd worked Tanya's case. And the prosecutor said, they'd just gotten a very strange letter about Tanya's murder, and as soon as the prosecutor described, the letter's contents, Ingram felt sick to his stomach. Ingram had been right to worry that he and his partner and really the whole legal system had

potentially just gotten something wrong with this case. You know, it just felt like there was something left unsaid. There was some loophole, there was some loose end something, but he didn't know what it was. It would turn out. The thing that was wrong was LeBurn. Because their star witness LeBurn was not just the sweet older lady afraid of her abusive boyfriend who had come forward and told the truth to spite the consequences. That wasn't really the story. In fact,

basically everything she told Ingram and his partner was a lie. What was true and what ultimately

drove LeBurn to do what she did was she really wanted to break up with John, but she didn't know how to do it. And so what she ultimately did to attempt to rid herself of John was to frame him

you know, little details about the murder and the news. She also snuck a peek at Ingram's list of

“evidence during that early interview that was done at her apartment. And so that's how she knew”

about, you know, that swatch of denim they were looking for. And she also just happened to take a few really lucky guesses. Like when she pointed out the spot on the side of the highway where the body was found, she just guessed. But it happened to be right. However, the problem was, despite,

you know, basically nailing the framing of John and getting him wrapped up with a murder conviction,

she also sort of inadvertently implicated herself. You know, when she came out and said, well, I participated in the murder, her thinking was, they'll take pity on me and they'll blame John, he'll go to jail and I'll be okay. But no, she also got convicted of murder and went to jail as well. And Leverne and John were literally in prison, basically riding out their life sentences, when the actual killer, the real Tanya Bennett killer, sent a letter to authorities, confessing to

his crime. That was why that prosecutor called Ingram. It was to tell him like, I think there's been a mistake. They clearly didn't do it. After the real killer was arrested in 1995, Leverne and John were both released from prison. In total, they both served four years in jail all because

of Leverne's lies. Our second and final story is called The Intruder.

One morning in early November of 2023, a 71-year-old woman named Betrie Smiller stood in front of her fridge in her little home in the rural town of Downeyville, California. And she saw she was running low on food, which meant it was time to place an order with the market in town, which delivered her

“grocery spur. Getting her food delivered was essential for Betrie's in where she was at in her”

life right now. She lived alone and had a whole house to take care of, which was definitely getting harder of the older she got. She'd also had some health problems lately, so it was getting more difficult just to move around, you know, she even had a walking stick just a proper self-up. As Betrie stood in front of her fridge, wondering what she was going to add to her grocery list, she heard one of her two cats meowing outside, and this reminded her that, among some other

chores, she needed to feed her cats. So she decided to make her list later, and she just closed the fridge door, put some cat food in a bowl, and then grabbed her walking stick, and headed outside. Betrie's carried the cat food out onto the porch. She had some other things to do outside, but she couldn't hold a lot of things at once because of her walking stick. So once she'd put the bowl down, she then headed back inside to get her compost, and then took that back outside to her

garden. And she tried to do all these outdoor chores really quickly, because she didn't like being outside these days. She had lived in Downyville for a long time, but over the past few years,

it had gotten really dangerous there. Now, she hadn't realized how bad it was at first,

because she mostly kept herself. But eventually, she learned that her neighbors were starting to get intruders on their property. There had also been a clear uptick and vandalism in people's yards and to their homes, and in fact, over the past few months, Betrie's herself had begun to experience this directly. In fact, she had dealt with so many attempted break-ins at her own house, that she'd become convinced that she had a stalker. She'd even put bars on her windows as a

“security measure, so that's why Betrie's did not like being outside. She felt exposed, like her,”

stalker, or whoever it was that was doing this, was going to be watching her and would come over here in attack. And so, as fast as she could, she dumped the compost in her garden, turned around, hustled inside, and shut the door behind her. And as soon as she had done that, it was safely inside her house, she felt hugely relieved. A few days later, on November 8th, at the Market in Town, where Betrie's typically got her groceries. A 55-year-old cashier named

Cassie Coke rang up a customer at the register. But as she begged her purchases, her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking about Betrie's. Cassie was typically the person that delivered Betrie's grocery order, but over the years, they had become closer than just a customer provider relationship. You know, they were friends. In fact, these days, the two of them would speak on the phone fairly often, just a chat. But now, Cassie realized she hadn't heard from Betrie's in days,

which was very odd, both because of their friendship, but also because she knew it had been a while since Betrie's made her grocery order. And so, Cassie had begun asking around at the store, and had found out that nobody else had heard from Betrie's either. Now, Cassie knew it was possible that Betrie's was just busy. And for pretty much anybody else, you know, one missed order, or even a couple missed orders, wouldn't be enough to make Cassie worry. But in this

case, Cassie was extra concerned because she knew about Betrie's stalker. And she knew that

Remember, this is a tiny rural town in California that had experienced a lot of exactly what

“Betrie's was experiencing. Break-ins, harassment, and other kinds of vandalism or damage. However,”

neither Betrie's nor anybody else had reported any actual violence. So, authorities were basically

overwhelmed with a flood of what they considered sort of relatively minor complaints. And Betrie's situation really didn't seem much worse than anybody else's in town, and also officials just didn't have the manpower to deal with it. And so, ultimately, all authorities did was just advise Betrie's on ways she could handle it herself, which was why she'd installed those bars on her windows. All this is to say, Cassie knew that Betrie's was genuinely terrified of her stalker,

who Betrie's referred to as "big bastard." And she was worried about what the stalker might do next. So, after Cassie was done with her shift that day, she tried to get in touch with Betrie's one more time. But, when she couldn't reach her yet again, Cassie called the police and asked them

“to go to a wellness check. That evening, a deputy from the Sierra County Sheriff's Department”

drove up to Betrie's house and parked in front. And immediately, he could tell something was wrong. The front door of her house was clearly smashed in, and there was a garden hose that was laying across her porch steps and was spraying water everywhere, like the water had just been left on. And so, the deputy got out of his cruiser and he walked over to the house and he found the turnoff for the water on the side of the house, and then he walked up the front steps of the porch.

And as he did this, he was constantly looking around and listening, trying to figure out what was going on here. I mean, he didn't know if there was an active threat inside the house. He had no idea what he was walking into. And so, he's on the porch and before going in through the front door, which was obviously, you know, smashed open, he looked in a window to see if

“he could see into the house to gauge what was going on here. And when he looked inside the house,”

the first thing he saw was blood all over the floor. And at that point, he unholstered his gun.

And so now, with his gun raised, the deputy stepped into the house. And he slowly walked through the living room, listening for any signs of sudden movement or an indication there was someone still in the house, but he didn't hear anything. And so there didn't appear to be an intruder present right now. But there was also no sign of the trees. All he saw was that blood towards the front of the house that was it. And so the deputy, he left the living room and walked towards the kitchen.

And as soon as he stepped across the threshold into the kitchen, he breathed in just kind of held his breath because what he saw was just chaos. All the cabinets were open. And all over the floor were remnants of all the food that likely was in the cabinets, like pieces of food and ripped up packaging and broken jars. A window at the far end of the room was also smashed. And the security bars that Patrice had put on the window were bent and hanging by their hinges. There was

actually so much just debris and just chaos in the kitchen. That at first, the deputy didn't

register what was actually laying in the center of the kitchen on the floor. But then when his brain sort of processed it, he realized what he was looking at was Patrice, at least what was left of her. But she no longer looked human because her body had literally been torn apart. The deputy quickly left the house and called in his terrible discovery to the sheriff. And within an hour Patrice's property was swarming with police and crime scene tax and a forensic expert who specialized in this type of

scene and detectives found out all across the area and began speaking to Patrice's neighbors. And because pretty much everyone in the neighborhood had been experiencing the same type of break-ins and property damage that Patrice had been, it actually didn't take long for police to develop a profile of Patrice's killer. Their conclusion was that very likely, the killer was the same individual who was harassing everybody else. But what officials couldn't understand is

why had everybody else experienced effectively minor vandalism? But Patrice went from minor vandalism to really excessive violence and this required developing a profile of Patrice. And so as police searched for her killer, they were also working on reconstructing Patrice's movements on the final day of her life. And at first, in their efforts, really, they were just stumped. I mean, all she had done on that day as far as they could tell were some basic chores. But as they dug

into what those chores consisted of, they found two things that actually explained everything. It would turn out that every day for the past couple of years Patrice had been making two terrible mistakes. She fed her cats out on the porch and she emptied her compost into the garden. And these two actions, ultimately, were what sort of attracted her stalker, big bastard to her home.

And eventually, he decided that Patrice was food too. So on that day, in early November of 2023,

“when Patrice fed her cats and emptied her compost for the last time, big bastard waited until”

Patrice was in bed and then broke into her house and savagely killed her. By the time the deputy arrived at Patrice's home, big bastard had been eating Patrice's body for days. And so what he saw in the kitchen was what was left of her. Black bears are not typically dangerous to people.

In fact, Patrice was the first known black bear fatality in California history.

“But it was exactly that sort of lack of perceived danger, which is why officials didn't”

help Patrice or any of our other neighbors get rid of these black bears when they were coming into their neighborhood and causing all this property damage and all this alarm. They basically said,

what's the worst they could do?

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballem Podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballem. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bohn, story editing by Evan Allen,

research and fact checking by Shelley Shu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Kalhan, research and fact checking supervision by Stevenier. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit LaCassio and Cole LaCassio, Perry Crowell and Jordan Stitham. Mixed in Mastered by Brendan Kane, Production Coordination by Samantha Collins, Production Support by Antonio Manada, and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clarkston-Kiner, theme song called Something Wicked by Ross

Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballem Podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballem Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballem YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly

“have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballem. If you want to listen”

to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast+ on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcast+ to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya!