[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- The cabinets are banging and the music's blaring.
I want to believe that it's in my head.
- "dad, somebody's in the house."
♪ ♪
- It wasn't a lie. This was my life.
This is what happened to me.
- I'm naked and someone is in my house.
- "man found hiding between a family's' walls."
- "intruder secretly living inside her attic."
- "man slithers out from under home."
- Make sure your crawl spaces are locked.
- I hear footsteps.
I'm vulnerable, naked, and someone is in my house.
- There was somebody violating my home.
- I want to believe it's in my head.
- This giant man's handprint.
- You came into my home. You invaded my privacy.
- [scream echoes]
- We had a phrogger in our house.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- In 1986, I am 14 years old
And I live in pepperell, massachusetts.
- The town I lived in was small, quiet, peaceful.
We rode our bikes up and down the street.
There was no traffic.
- The town's so small that there's not much to do.
I live on a gravel road in a split-level ranch.
You have the kitchen, the living room,
Three bedrooms.
Downstairs, the bedroom, a family room.
We call it the red room.
And a laundry/cellar area.
♪ ♪
I live with my dad, my little sister karen.
She's eight.
And my friend kathy. She's 15.
My mother passed away a year earlier.
When I lost my mom, it was devastating.
I missed her so much.
Mom was my everything. She was my rock.
And now I had to be there for my sister.
I had to feed her. I had to clothe her.
I had to do the laundry. I had to get her to school.
Her and myself.
I have a lot of responsibility
Dealing with the loss of my mom.
It's difficult.
The solution my dad has is to allow kathy,
My best friend, to move in.
Her parents moved to tennessee,
But she wanted to stay for high school.
My dad offered to be guardian,
So she stayed and moved in with us.
We are so excited to be sisters.
We were partners in crime.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
My dad, he tries hard.
He works far from the home as a hotel restaurant manager.
And he has trouble with three girls.
He doesn't know what to do.
But being home alone has its benefits.
I'm able to stay up late.
Talk on the phone all night. Have ice cream for dinner.
Torment my little sister any time.
- My sister fed me. She washed me.
She beat me up. She made fun of me.
We were sisters.
I loved hanging out with my big sister.
[faint pop music]
- Our laundry broke
And we had to go to the laundromat.
And dad drops us off.
So we put in the clothes,
And there was a huge picture window with a little shelf.
And it's a small town, and we're bored.
So we got into the window and we performed the dance.
Lo and behold, some boys walk in
And they want to exchange numbers.
As a boy-crazy 14-year-old,
A little bit of an attention hound, I think,
"yay! This is great."
[birds chirping]
But I miss mom.
When mom died, a part of me died.
I'm sad. I need answers.
I do something incredibly stupid.
[eerie music]
Kathy and I decide we're gonna hold a séance.
♪ ♪
And in the séance we're asking,
"mom, are you there?"
The cover to the electrical panel
Flew off onto the ground
And scared the crap out of us.
"oh, my god." we were done.
♪ ♪
After the séance,
Crazy, weird things start to take place.
One morning I wake up
And all the stuff from the shed in the backyard--
The rakes, the shovels, the lawn chairs,
Is all tossed all over the backyard.
I look at kathy. She looks at me.
We know it's not karen.
And we're a little baffled.
How? Who? What?
We tell dad, and he blames it on the neighbor kids.
He says, "your friends are pulling jokes on you.
It'll be okay. Just go clean it up."
This is just the beginning.
- I did not grasp what was happening.
I had no idea what was to come.
[doorbell ringing]
- One day, the doorbell rings.
Broad daylight.
Answer the door. Nobody.
♪ ♪
Is somebody messing with me and I'm just not catching them?
Do I have a ghost?
[thunder cracks]
Three days later, there was a thunder and lightning storm
And lightning lit up the front bay windows.
And I hear karen and kathy
Screaming at the top of their lungs
And telling me my mother is in the dining room
Because they saw a human shadow when the lightning struck.
At this point, I don't know what to think.
[ominous music]
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪
And then one evening,
We are talking to boys on the phone,
And a huge knock comes at the window of our bedroom
As if a pretty decent-sized rock was thrown into it.
[loud bang]
My heart is in my throat.
Because we're together, we know I didn't do it,
She didn't do it. We're all together.
Karen didn't do it. She's here.
They were so scared.
My dad's at work. He's not home.
When it's 2:00 in the morning
And you have banging coming on your windows
From outside your bedroom, what do you do?
You call the police.
The police came out to investigate.
They didn't find anybody or anything.
♪ ♪
The police asked, "where's your parents?"
Dad says, "you're not supposed to be home by yourself
"at 2:00 in the morning.
There's nobody here. Stop bothering the police."
I thought, "we have ghosts."
This is the only logical explanation
For the madness.
People thought I was acting out in grief
And that I needed grief counseling and help
Because I lost my mother.
No one believes us.
[ominous music]
It wasn't long before kathy and I
Moved through this house as a team.
If we were going upstairs, kathy would have the front,
Karen would be in the middle,
And I would walk up the stairs backwards
So we could see if anything was gonna come at us.
- Everyone was scared.
- At night, I barricade my bedroom door.
I sleep with a knife under my pillow.
But at a certain point, the fear turns to anger.
So the next night,
I'm on the phone in my bedroom.
I hear banging on the wall.
And kathy picks up a plastic bat
And we kick the door in to the laundry room
Which leads to the cellar.
We yell, "whoever or whatever you are,
"come out, show yourself.
We're over this."
I see nothing.
Nothing.
♪ ♪
For six months, incidents happened on and off.
A couple of days in a row.
A week with nothing.
Two weeks, every day, incidents.
A week, nothing.
And then one evening, I'm in the bathroom.
I'm doing my hair. I'm doing my makeup,
'cause it's Friday night and we're going roller skating.
I go roller skating to meet boys.
Kathy is babysitting.
The plan is dad's going to pick up kathy
And drop us all off at the skating rink.
As I'm getting ready,
A rock comes at the bathroom window.
The rock hit so hard,
It cracked the pane in the window.
And dad's home.
He's in his room watching tv. I run to him.
"dad! Check it out."
Dad got a little nervous.
Dad says, "I'm going to check out."
In the meantime, I decide to call kathy.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
My phone line is dead.
I go upstairs to the kitchen,
And that line is dead.
Dad comes inside with a bag of individually-wrapped candy
And a bb gun.
We don't know what's going on,
But the phone lines had been cut and burnt.
I'm panicked.
♪ ♪
"see? See, dad? See?"
This is the first incident that happens
Dad sees firsthand.
Dad says, "oh, we'll get to the bottom of this."
But dad's scratching his head.
He reports the cutting and the burning of the phone lines.
Phone lines get repaired,
And all the activities die off altogether,
And things are quiet.
[tense music]
Karen is sick.
Somebody has to stay home to take care of karen.
- Tina was the lucky winner that day.
- Karen and I are laying on my dad's bed
In his room watching television,
And she's sleeping.
It's about lunchtime,
And I hear the radio go on in the kitchen.
My heart is in my throat.
I don't have kathy. Now I'm alone.
I have to protect karen.
The cabinets in the kitchen are banging.
Something is opening and closing the cabinets
At a really rapid pace.
And the music's blaring, and I panic.
Whatever it is, it's back.
And I think, "what? What do I do?"
Karen's still sleeping.
So I go to the phone and I call dad.
Remember, dad's a hotel restaurant manager,
And it's lunchtime.
Bad time to call dad.
[hushed] "dad, somebody's in the house."
"tina, hush. Nobody is there.
We're gonna talk when I get home."
My dad doesn't believe me.
While I'm on the phone, karen wakes up.
- I was hungry. I went to the kitchen.
I wanted a snack.
- And she starts crying.
I thought, "oh, no!"
- I yell to tina,
"where are the cupcakes and orange juice?"
We had just went grocery shopping.
They should have been there.
[tense music]
- Where did they go?
So I tell karen, "kathy took 'em to school for lunch.
Let's have something else."
- Tina, later on, said, "let's go get ready.
I have to go to work."
- I have a job mucking stalls at the local thoroughbred farm.
And we had daycare set up for karen by the neighbor.
So I'm getting changed,
And I hear karen singing.
♪ I found 'em, I found 'em ♪
"kathy didn't take this to school.
They're right here."
And I ran into the red room
And there was the box of cupcakes
With a few empty wrappers hanging out.
I grab her by the hand and we get out of that house.
♪ ♪
We arrive home.
We pulled into the driveway, and all the lights are on.
I say, "dad, when I left today, it was daylight.
I didn't have the lights on."
We walked through the front door.
All the tvs are on.
All the radios, they were all on the same stations
And they were up as loud as they possibly could be.
This is twice dad sees, like, something is wrong here.
I'm not lying.
So my dad starts with the basement.
And he's turning off the televisions and radios
As he hits room to room.
Karen's following along behind him.
- So we searched the downstairs.
Everything seems fine.
We go upstairs.
We open up the bedroom closet door.
He says, "excuse me. I'll just let you be,"
And shuts the door.
- "dad, that's not funny."
And now it's quiet.
We hear,
"girls, get your asses over here now."
And I look.
I see my dad
Standing face to face with this thing.
Hair spiked with hairspray.
Makeup on the face like war paint.
A fur coat.
And I see a hatchet to the side.
I hear dad, "it's okay.
"this is just a homeless person looking for food.
"it's okay. We're all going into the last room on the left.
It's okay."
And he has his hands up as he backs down the hall.
Dad gets in and he closes the door.
And he's trying to keep three young girls calm.
- I am crying.
I don't know what is happening.
- Dad says, "tina, go to the phone."
So I went to the physical phone that was into the wall
And it had been removed.
The lamp had been removed.
- And she starts freaking out.
"no light. No phone. No light. No phone."
She's pacing back and forth in the bedroom.
- "dad, no light, no phone. Dad, no light, no phone."
The walls were coming in on me. I couldn't breathe.
And just like the movies, I saw that window.
- Dad, I'm going for help.
- The next thing I know,
She jumps out the window and she's gone.
- Kathy sticks her head out the window
And screams at the top of her lungs,
"run, tina, run!"
And I ran like I've never run before.
I knew at any moment this thing is gonna get me.
I ran through the woods.
The trees scratched my face and I didn't care.
I ran up the neighbor's back door
Two and three steps at a time.
And I'm banging. Bang, bang, bang.
Neighbor opens up the door and I just ran her over.
"there's a guy in the house with an axe
And he's got the whole family!"
She says, "what?"
I couldn't get it out fast enough.
The neighbor called the police
And all we can do is wait.
I don't know if they're alive or dead.
- One state trooper pulls into the driveway.
I see police hiding in the woods around the house.
- There was a very tall police officer
That came up to the window and said,
"come on, honey, let's go."
And I was crying and screaming.
And my father picked me up and threw me out to him.
[somber music]
- Within 30 minutes,
My sister, my friend, and my dad
Made it to the neighbor's.
And I was thankful.
Dad got on his knees
And gave me a huge apology.
[tense music]
- We searched the entire home.
Under beds. In closets.
In cubby holes. Repeatedly.
We searched the wooded area surrounding that home.
And of course, we had cruisers searching the roads.
And nothing turned up.
Didn't know what happened to the intruder,
But I found the hatchet
Just outside the rear door on the ground.
My initial impression was maybe he has left here.
- He got away
And we were advised to not spend the night.
The next night, dad calls the local police.
He says, "meet me at the house.
I don't want to enter the home alone."
- I was asked to come into the station by the chief,
And he's advised me that the bowen family
Wanted to go home, retrieve some items,
And they wanted a police escort.
- We arrive at the house,
And someone is waving at us
From the second floor bedroom window.
- As I approached the home, I saw no footprints,
No sign of a break.
So I unlocked the door.
[ominous music]
And I went upstairs a little bit.
I looked to the right, and I could see a picture
With a knife through it still stuck in the wall.
And written on it, it said,
"I'm still here. Come find me."
I went upstairs a little further,
And I saw another picture with a knife through it.
And it said, "I'm going to kill you all."
Those pictures were not on the wall
When they locked the house.
So I'm thinking, "he's got to still be here."
We searched. And I mean we searched.
Closets, under the bed, any place that we felt
That the average guy could fit into.
We didn't find anything.
And they said, "well, he's not here."
And I said, "no, he is here."
I was adamant. "he's here."
So they agreed to search the house again.
We looked in places that we didn't look before.
And we wound up downstairs.
We're in a small laundry room,
And I'm looking across the room and my eyes are wandering.
And all of a sudden, just like that,
I see part of the wall is not a wall separating rooms.
I looked at it and said,
"that wall was designed to hide pipes."
So when he built this wall to hide the pipes,
He never brought it all the way over
To meet the other wall.
There was a 7 to 8, maybe 9-inch space.
I looked at the base of it,
And I said, "someone could fit in there."
So I asked the sergeant for his flashlight.
♪ ♪
And I saw what appeared to be a 3 1/2 to 4 foot-high
Pile of dirty clothes.
I said, "I got the sob right here. That's him."
I drew my pistol.
I put it right up by the side of his head.
I said, "I want to see your hands,
And I want to see 'em real slow."
♪ ♪
- The police had brought up a person,
And I recognized those eyes.
And now I know I know this person.
And I can't think...
How do--where do--who--
♪ ♪
I think I do. I don't know the name.
And it came.
That's danny laplante.
I spoke with him for months on the telephone.
Danny got my number
Through the boys we met in townsend
Dancing in the window at the laundromat.
I'm boy-crazy.
I didn't think it was weird at all
That an unidentified boy called me on my phone.
Danny introduced himself to me
At an eighth grade school event.
I'm 14.
I'm shallow,
And I'm not attracted to danny in person
Like I was the danny on the telephone.
'cause he was just flat-out ugly,
And I had forgot all about him.
But this thing at the front door,
This is danny laplante.
This is all my fault.
Six months or longer,
Danny was moving in and out of the house,
Eating our food,
Turning our radios and televisions on and off,
Knocking on the walls inside and out.
There were electrical outlets in my bedroom
That had been cut out and balanced in the wall
So he could remove them and peek.
- Daniel was charged when he was arrested
From the bowen home
For breaking and entering, kidnapping,
And threatening bodily harm.
Following his arrest,
He was actually held for roughly 9 1/2 months.
Daniel's mother was able to come up with the $10,000 bail
That allowed daniel to be released
In mid-October of 1987.
[tense music]
On December 1st,
The gustafson home in the town of townsend
Was broken into.
Unfortunately, priscilla gustafson returns to her home
With her young son
Only to find an intruder there.
And the intruder ties her to the bed,
Rapes and murders a pregnant mother,
Drowns the five-year-old son in the bathtub,
And upon the daughter abigail's return
From school to the home,
Drowns her in a separate bathtub.
Three murders in one home.
I had no facts on the case whatsoever.
I just knew townsend, triple murder, and I said,
"I wonder what daniel laplante is doing today."
I did become involved in the manhunt.
I told them that, "this young man can hide anywhere.
Don't leave anything unturned."
♪ ♪
Eventually, I did find him.
He was in a dumpster, and they arrested him.
In October of 1988,
Daniel laplante was tried and convicted
Of three counts of murder
And sentenced to three consecutive life terms
With no chance of parole.
Judge robert barton said,
"if massachusetts had the death penalty,
I would personally pull the switch."
♪ ♪
- When I found out danny was arrested
For the murder of two innocent babies...
For a pregnant mom,
It was sickening.
It was horrible.
[somber music]
I realize he could have killed us.
He had unlimited opportunity
To do physical harm to us
Over that six months of hell.
- I didn't know who this man was.
I didn't know why he was doing this to our family.
I just was scared.
This man ruined my life.
Ruined my childhood.
Ruined everything.
- I realize the hand of god was with us
The night dad came home
And found danny in the closet.
We had a phrogger in our house,
And I believe that this incident tormented him
Until he died.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- I moved to this new town.
I didn't know anyone in town.
I had no friends and was single.
The only people I knew in enumclaw
Was my brother eric and his family.
- Enumclaw is an idyllic little mountain town
On the way out to the ski resorts and the mountain pass.
It's green. It's beautiful.
Sits right underneath mount rainier.
Amber wants a little less hustle and bustle in her life,
And I think that the draw of enumclaw
Made enumclaw really attractive to her.
♪ ♪
- When I moved to enumclaw,
I was working and going to school at the time.
So I was very focused on just getting through my education.
♪ ♪
I was working for an insurance salesman
Doing just data processing for him.
I was waiting tables.
And I was also working for a drugstore
Just as a cashier.
And then in between that, I was taking two classes.
♪ ♪
When you entered the apartment,
You entered it into a hallway.
If you went to the left,
You came across the bathroom and the bedroom.
To the right, the kitchen, the living room,
And the dining room.
It was a nice, sunny apartment.
I could see mount rainier from my bedroom window.
It's majestic. It was calming.
I loved it.
[tense music]
It's always exciting to move into a new space.
I had been unpacking all day, but wasn't finished.
There were still things in boxes
And the apartment was kind of in disarray still.
I had finished for the evening
And turned off the music and was lying in bed
Listening to the sounds of that space.
♪ ♪
The sounds of the traffic.
♪ ♪
The sounds of the neighbors.
The sounds of the refrigerator
And the air conditioning coming on.
[air conditioning hissing]
♪ ♪
[creaking]
I hear footsteps above me,
Walking across the ceiling.
I look up and notice that there's a crawlspace door
That pushes up into the ceiling in my bedroom.
I am on the top floor.
There's nothing above me but an attic.
♪ ♪
Could it have been an animal? Could it have been the wind?
Could it have been something next door?
♪ ♪
I eventually drift off and I fell asleep.
So I woke up the next morning remembering what I had heard.
So I approached one of the employees
Of the apartment complex with my concern.
They were very dismissive and told me
That it was probably a squirrel or raccoon.
That no one could be up there.
And I accepted that answer,
Probably because I wanted to.
I did go on with my life.
I had three jobs. I had no choice.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
So one day, I leave the apartment
To go to the grocery store,
And I noticed that there's a man
Sitting behind the grocery store.
Now, this is a quiet mountain town.
I have never seen a homeless person in this town.
But this gentleman was just sitting there,
And he looks at me.
♪ ♪
He looks at me longer than is socially acceptable.
♪ ♪
And I just kept walking and moved on with my errand,
And I came back and he was gone.
♪ ♪
I have the two cats,
And I have to buy cat food for them.
So one day, when I'm at the pet store,
I noticed this little black and white and tan puppy,
And she looks up at me,
And there's just a connection there.
She's so sweet and quiet,
And she just looks into my eyes,
And I know that I have to have her.
I buy her.
I bring her home, and I name her after athena.
I call her thea for short.
She is about eight weeks old.
- When she got thea, she's just so happy.
She got to have her little two kitties and her dog,
And she had her little family and her apartment.
And she's working really hard and getting stuff done.
Just, you know, taking care of life.
- Should I have gotten a puppy with three jobs
Going to school? No.
But the heart wants what the heart wants,
And I wanted thea in my life.
And so I brought her home and she was my dog.
So thea is a small puppy,
And she needs to be potty trained.
So I kennel her in the bathroom.
I lay down plastic and newspaper
So that if she has an accident
While I'm at work, it's easy to clean up.
So she is kept in the bathroom with food and water and toys.
[ominous music]
I'm at work one night, and I get a call from someone
At the apartment complex letting me know that water
Is raining down on my downstairs neighbor
And that there is a leak coming from my bathroom.
But they need me to come home because
When they tried to go into the bathroom, there's a dog.
And they need me to come home to get the dog
So they can fix the problem.
So I get home and find two employees
Of the apartment complex in the apartment,
And they're waiting to get into the bathroom.
I open the door,
And thea is in the bathroom sink.
How did she get in the sink?
I asked one of the apartment employees
If they had put her in the sink,
And they said no.
They were waiting for me to come to get the dog
So that they could fix the problem.
She's a small puppy.
She's about eight, nine weeks old at this point,
And the toilet is a good 2 1/2 feet away from the sink.
And the sink is standard, what? 3 1/2 feet high.
How did she get up there?
- There's water everywhere. Your dog's in the sink.
None of that made sense.
This is really scary for her.
And it's scary for me.
I'm really worried about her.
♪ ♪
- One day I come home,
And I noticed that the window that I leave open
So the cats can access their litter box is closed.
And I know that I didn't close it,
Because I specifically left it open
So that they could get to their litter box.
♪ ♪
My bedroom door is open,
And I know that I closed it before I left.
♪ ♪
So I go to the kitchen, I open the refrigerator,
And I see that there are four cans of soda
When I had left five in the fridge.
♪ ♪
I go to make dinner and I open up the cupboard,
And the can of soup that I was planning on making for dinner
Is not in my cupboard.
When the food starts missing,
That's when I go to my brother eric and am done.
"stop coming into my apartment, stop eating my food.
Give me my key back."
And he accuses me of being crazy.
"I'm not coming into your apartment.
I don't need your food."
He denies it but I still think it's him.
I am fully in denial at this point.
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
So the issue is persisting.
The food is still missing from the house.
The doors are still different than how I left them.
So I start really paying attention.
And I start marking the level of the milk on the container.
I'm keeping track how many cans of soup
I have in the cupboard,
How many cans of soda I have in the fridge.
I'm really paying attention now.
♪ ♪
And these things are still happening.
[door slams]
[birds chirping]
[tense music]
One day, I call in sick for work
And I spend the day on the couch.
And I'm quiet all day long, just watching shows.
♪ ♪
I hear a loud thump coming from the bedroom.
♪ ♪
But I have animals and so I assume it's the two cats
And the dog who are playing.
So I go on with my evening.
Then around 11:00 at night, I turn off the television,
I turn off the lights,
And I lit a candle.
♪ ♪
I drew a bath and I got into the tub.
♪ ♪
It's dark.
I look up, and the crawlspace door is open.
[chilling music]
♪ ♪
Just a black hole in the white ceiling.
I am terrified.
♪ ♪
And everything slows down.
♪ ♪
All the pieces fall into place,
And I know that I'm not imagining this.
Somebody is in my house.
♪ ♪
That thump that I heard, that was him.
♪ ♪
The footsteps,
The food,
The doors,
Thea in the sink,
That man behind the grocery store.
All of these puzzle pieces come together
To create a picture that I can no longer deny.
For the first time,
All my suspicions are confirmed.
And this is the first time that I feel real fear.
He's had access to me for six months.
If he wanted to hurt me, I would be hurt.
That's not what he wants.
♪ ♪
But if I scare him,
If I let him know that I know he's here,
He might hurt me so that I don't call the cops.
♪ ♪
So I need to be very chill.
[drain gurgling]
♪ ♪
I get out of the tub.
I'm vulnerable. I'm naked.
And someone is in my house.
♪ ♪
I have to go into my bedroom for the robe,
And that is the most frightening part
Because there's only one place he could be hiding
And that's in the closet.
And it's a mirror door closet.
So I see myself in the dark,
Naked and alone, reaching for my robe,
Knowing that he's on the other side of that door.
♪ ♪
- I put on my robe very calmly.
I walk by the closet
Knowing that he's on the other side of that door.
There's a junk drawer right below the phone.
And in that junk drawer, there's a hammer.
And so I take the hammer out of the drawer
And hold it in my hand, claw side out,
As I make that phone call.
And as I'm on the phone,
I'm looking down that hallway
To where he would be coming, and I am ready.
[tense music]
Anybody comes at me in this moment
Is going to get a face full of a claw hammer.
And I call my brother.
My sister-in-law answers the phone,
And I just say, "theresa,
I think there's someone in my house."
And she tells me, "get out of the house. I'm on my way."
So I pick up my puppy,
And I walk out the door in my bathrobe
With a claw hammer in one hand and a puppy in the other.
- She wanted that dog so badly that she wasn't letting anybody
Take that away from her or mess with it.
Not at all. And that's amber.
- And I'm waiting at the bottom of the stairs
For theresa to come.
I'm terrified and I just keep thinking
That if he comes out of that apartment door,
I am no longer going to be able to contain myself.
♪ ♪
But she gets there in minutes,
And she's got both her german shepherds
In the backseat of that car.
[tense music]
So I get to my brother's house,
And theresa gets me some clothes.
We call the police,
And I tell the police what had occurred.
That I had heard a sound,
That the crawlspace door was open,
And that I had suspected someone living in my apartment
For the past six months.
And I kind of explained to them about the missing food
And the footsteps.
But even as I'm telling the police, it sounds crazy.
♪ ♪
The police go and they check it out.
And they find the crawlspace door open.
They go up there, and there's nobody there.
But they find some stuff up there.
There's a sleeping bag.
There's some food and a book.
And the police never found him.
He was gone before they came.
I never found out who he was.
♪ ♪
There's no crime.
Nothing has been stolen.
There was no assault.
There's really no signs of a break in.
So the police can't really do much of anything.
The next day, I go back to the apartment,
And I pack up all my stuff.
And the whole time I'm there packing,
I'm wondering, "is he up there?"
But I was moved out before the sun set that day.
- Six months of someone just living their life above you.
So I couldn't believe she even went back to get her things.
I would've ran and never looked back at that place.
- I left enumclaw. I never went back.
To have this unresolved,
It's just something that I've lived with,
Because I don't think I'll ever know who he was.
♪ ♪
- Amber and I, for the next few years,
Lived together off and on and we're very, very close.
And even though amber is so strong and tough,
Her sense of safety was really, really changed.
I remember one night she called my work,
And I had to leave work and come home
Because she had watched a movie
And she had a chair propped up against the door,
Like, to defend off invaders.
Amber had a really hard time feeling safe after this.
I think forever.
- I know that there was no malice with him.
And I think maybe that's why I've been able
To live with this story.
I think he was just alone and desperate.
And that doesn't necessarily make him a bad person.
But I would love to meet him.
I would love to talk to him.
I shared this experience with him
Without us ever meeting,
And that would close the book on this encounter.
♪ ♪
- There were two perfect footprints
Of a shoe on the wall.
- Every single cabinet is open.
Every single door that someone had access to is open.
The fridge, the washing machine,
The oven, the dishwasher, everything.
- Is there somebody still in the house?
- When he pushed up his access panel to the attic,
It resisted and someone pushed down.
I was scared.