in mid 2005 I fulfilled one of my biggest dreams to have my own Farm I had grown up on a farm in Oklahoma with my grandparents until they passed away and I was left in the care of an aunt who lived in Texas I was 14 years old at the time unfortunately after my grandparents passed away their children decided to sell the property because no one was really willing to take care of it and I was just a kid that was a devastating blow because really that place had great sentimental value to me after all
that had been my home since my parents passed away when I was just 3 years old so basically that was the home I had known for my entire conscious life however when I was 28 years old I made a good amount of money after investing my savings in a real estate business with my best friend it wasn't a lot of money I mean not that it made me a millionaire but it was enough money to allow me to buy a decent sized Farm the truth is that my initial intention was to get my grandparents Farm
back that is to buy it from its current owners but even though I made them a very good offer they refused to sell it I told them my family history and the meaning that this place had for me with the intention of softening their hearts and making them understand that I had an important reason for wanting to buy precisely that property but this only served for them to ask me an absolutely ridiculous amount for it in short I achieved the opposite effect after this disappointment I simply gave up but not on buying a farm but
on trying to buy my grandparents Old Farm so I opted for one that was for sale in South Texas the property was 30 acres and from the very moment I set foot there I knew I wanted it the main house was a two-story log construction but it was spacious and fairly modern in design for being in the country likewise it enjoyed all the amenities you could have in the city but on a large tract of land there was also a huge Barn a large and well equipped Paddock for livestock pens for pigs and an extensive
corn Plantation but one of the places that attracted me the most was a large carpentry Workshop that was also equipped with all kinds of tools and materials for work this immediately caught my attention as my grandfather also had a rather large workshop on our Old Farm and was an excellent Carpenter I had learned a great deal from him and also liked carpentry very much so I knew I would be spending quite a bit of time at this place the owner of the farm was a boy about my age or the age I was at the
time he told me that this place belonged to his father who had lived there alone since he separated from his mother in the mid 1980s but he had recently passed away he told me that his father never remarried and had no more children so he was his only Heir but he had decided to sell the farm because he never really liked the countryside and that's why he hardly ever ever came here plus his father also preferred to visit him in the city or take him camping and other places because this Farm was like his sanctuary
and he didn't like to receive visitors not even his own the boy joked that his dad was a Hermit of sorts and that's why he spent most of his life confined to this Farm of his own free will he also told me that almost everything in the place he designed and built himself obviously with a little bit of labor but most of it was done by him as he was a great Carpenter and had a lot of talent for design and construction while chatting with him I asked him what his father had passed away from
if he could say so of course then he told me that he was HIV positive and died from related complications however that was something they found out about after his passing I wasn't even sure if he knew that himself I told him I was very sorry and told him a little about my history with my grandparents after that he handed me all the keys put himself on call if I needed anything else and we set our goodbyes a few days later I settled into the property I was really excited and pleased with the deal I
had made the place was beautiful and was everything I had wished for however I noticed that in some places some repairs needed to be made and I also thought I would do a couple of remodeling some boards were no longer in their best condition and in other places there were leaks so I spent a few days in the carpentry shop working on it one afternoon while I was working on a large plank of wood that I had thought of to make a coffee table for the kitchen I started looking through the shelves for some 180
grit sandpaper that I needed for polishing but it was nowhere to be found so I glanced over to one of the shelves in the back corner and thought I saw some other materials there so I walked over there to see if I could find it but as I was standing on my tiptoes in the corner looking through the Shelf I noticed that the sheet of wood on the floor under my feet felt strange Hollow I stood for a moment outside it and with the heel of my boot I tapped it several times and indeed it
sounded different from the rest of the floor it sounded as if it was laid over an empty space this made me curious because I didn't know if it was a depression in the floor under the workshop or if this was put there on purpose I was almost sure it was the ladder because all the boards around it sounded exactly the same compact on all edges this was the only one that sounded Hollow as if it was the lid of something now I was curious so I reached for a bar and started to peel the board
off the floor and when I finally managed to pull it out I was very surprised indeed this was no coincidence under the board there was a kind of secret trunk where some things had been kept or rather hidden among them there was an old book a pair of glasses and a knife but what caught my attention the most was a wooden box a little smaller than a shoe box that was in the corner it was old and had some dark stains that looked like fingers fers it looked like someone had handled it with dirty hands
of something and their fingers were marked all over the box I immediately picked it up and carried it with me to the workt I was very curious to find out what was inside it I assumed old family heirlooms from the previous owner or perhaps some things of value but what I found there was something very different something I was totally unprepared for just as I assumed inside I discovered some old objects that were not exactly valuable but surely had some meaning for whoever put them there among the things there was also a pile of photographs
tied with a red ribbon but they were behind a small sheet of paper that had the word dolls written on it in marker the items included some rings an old lighter and even a silver pin with a flower on it but when I pulled out the tape and discovered the pictures my stomach knotted up and I almost threw up all the pictures were of young women naked or semi naked and bound with ropes and handcuffs the photos were old they looked like they were from the 80s or '90s and some were in very bad shape
probably from the time they were in the wooden box but what was really disturbing was that none of these women were smiling or posing they all looked terrified and most were crying it seemed clear that these women were not doing this of their own free will as I flipped through the photographs I came across some that really turned my stomach several of them were of girls no more than 16 or 17 years old and in most of them you could see significant signs of physical violence bruises on their faces and other parts of their bodies
blood stains on their mouths and things of that sort it was very disturbing at this point I was completely shocked but I soon realized another even more disturbing detail I started turning the photographs over and then discovered that each one had a name and year written on the back Leah 1986 Alice 1993 Stephanie 199 97 in all I counted 39 photographs and the most recent one was from 1999 this one was of a blonde girl named Rose at that point I had a terrible thought in my head these were the kind of things I used
to see in serial killer documentaries but then I remembered one in particular one I had seen a few years ago where they talked about a series of disappearances of women that had occurred in the state that had never been solved I remembered that most of the victims were women women engaged in prostitution and the presenter was talking about the fact that when the victims are women at night it seems that the authorities don't take it too seriously to look for them I sat in my work chair with my back completely straight and my eyes fixed
on the wall for a moment as my mind Whirled trying to process what I had just found out is it possible that this boy's father was actually a serial killer and they never knew it after all this would explain the fact that he didn't like anyone coming to the ranch not even his own son even if to a lesser extent this would also explain the fact that he had contracted HIV as I was thinking about that I remembered that there were other things inside the secret trunk so I walked over there and picked up the
old book that was in the corner of the trunk this one had no signs on the cover it was just a book with a leather cover as if its original cover had been torn and someone had replaced it with some kind of old leather lining probably from another book since this cover was quite a bit bigger than the pages it contained and had no inscription so I didn't know what it was about until I opened it and started reading as I began to glance through the book my blood slowly began to freeze and a cold
sweat began to drip from my forehead it was a 120 page book where the author who was nowhere to be found explained in great detail what were the 10 most effective ways to make a corpse disappear I can tell you that I only managed to skim the first few pages because my nerves would not allow me to read anymore just to give you a little idea in those first Pages it talked about how to dismember the corpse separate the meat from the bones and feed it to the dogs or pigs then roast the bones in
the oven pulverize them with a hammer and spread them in the yard or use them as fertilizer for plants I swear I had never in my life felt so terrified and disgusted at the same time especially when I looked back into the trunk and noticed the huge butcher knife lying there next to the glasses I was now almost certain that this man was a sexual Abit and a serial killer but how could someone murder 39 women over two decades and get away with it at that moment I was tremendously confused and upset I didn't know
what to do I didn't know what to think I had seen enough TV shows of criminal cases to know that this qualified as clear evidence that this guy really was a serial killer but but on the other hand he was already deceased and his son didn't really seem to be aware of it since he told me about his father in a very good way but you never know obviously that evening my carpentry work took a back seat and I couldn't sleep a wink all night either I couldn't sleep just thinking about the awful things that
had happened in that place it took me a couple of days to decide what to do but finally I decided to do the right thing I called the police and gave them all the evidence I had found but first I contacted Caesar the son of The Man Who Sold me the farm I told him everything about what I had found and that I was going to give it to the police his reaction was no less than expected he was as surprised as I was when I found all this but I also noticed him very shocked
and maybe disappointed after all how could someone feel who just found out that his father whom he always considered a righteous man was actually a sexual abert and a ruthless killer a few days after I turned the evidence over to the police they informed me that indeed many of the photographs belonged to women who had disappeared Without a Trace others had never been reported so they were never heard from most of them were night workers which reminded me again of that TV program I had seen and I realized that this man was the person behind
all these disappearances after that the police searched the entire property for the bodies of the victims but never found anything however according to the an Anis of the photographs these were taken in the basement of the house where they later found another compartment on the floor similar to the one in the carpentry shop but this one had a lot of creepy stuff like chains leather straps handcuffs whips and more creepy gadgets that they presume were used on the victims as you can imagine after this I wouldn't stay in that property it was very nice and
all but there was no way I could live there knowing the creepy things that happened in that place so I talked to Caesar again and he had no problem in agree in to give me my money back and cancel the deal I really felt sorry for him because I figured it would not be easy to be in his position but I also thought of all those families of all those innocent girls who had to go through the pain of not knowing what happened to their loved one and who now after Decades of uncertainty would finally
have closure this finding in that farm was the most terrifying experience of my whole life and after that I spent years having nightmares in which horrifying images of what those poor girls lived through were reproduced I don't know if they were just inventions of my traumatized mind or if they were real what I do know is that it took me a while to digest what happened in that [Music] place I will never forget the summer of 1995 at that time I was 9 years old and I lived in my grandparents old farmhouse with them and
my father since my mother died while giving birth to me that summer was especially sweltering but I managed to have fun anyway I was always a bit sickly and so my grandmother Emma took great care of me so during the days when it was too sunny or just the weather was not the most favorable she would not let me play outside so I had to find a way to entertain myself inside the house my cousins always used to visit us during the summer vacations but that Year Aunt Lily decided to take them to the beach
I had to stay behind because I had the MS that week so I was stuck in the monotony of the countryside with my grandparents and Dad the farm was big but for a single child every nook and cranny seemed already fully explored and every game repeated at nauseum but there was one place that always offered something to entertain and that was the attic which was full of old junk and cobwebs I never understood why my grandparents never finished getting rid of all the junk that was there because clearly there were a lot of things that
were useless and that nobody would repair like an old rocking chair with a broken leg a sewing machine from the years of yesty year that was no longer useful for anything and a lot of old clothes that nobody used among other artifacts and objects of all kinds stuffed in boxes and Trunks others were just lying around but I wasn't complaining either because thanks to all the stuff in the place it had become my favorite place to play it was like a world of hidden treasures and Mysteries to discover that afternoon I spent it putting together
an improvised truck with pieces that I took from some of the junk that was around among them the wheel that made the old sewing machine work which was metallic and reminded me of a wagon wheel but much smaller from there came the idea of making a truck with the junk in the Attic but it would not be so easy since I needed many materials with more or less specific shapes to do it so I took the task of sifting through everything moving things from here to there opening old boxes and Trunks in search of any
material that could serve me I remember that I even stole the strings of an old guitar to make the ties and assemble the pieces but I still lacked the front wheels well I managed to match the wheel of the sewing machine with the lid of a pot that I got lying around and that was more or less the same size these served me perfectly as rear wheels so I just had to get the front ones I started to move things and open boxes and Trunks taking out a lot of junk and leaving them scattered all
over the attic and that's how I got a super strange device that was like a kind of cart that had on on top a handle a pair of Handles in front as a radio and four wheels but this was missing one and another was half broken however two wheels was just what I needed and these were the perfect size it was all I needed to finish putting together my super truck the only problem was that these wheels were made of solid iron as was the bottom of this sort of unknown device that to this day
I still don't know what it is the thing is that the wheels were attached to the base with some kind of screw and no matter how hard I Tri red I couldn't get them off with my own hands so I started looking inside the attic for something that would serve as a tool to get them off I didn't want to bother my grandfather so as not to run the risk of him getting angry or telling me that I couldn't do that I knew that nothing in there was used at all but for some reason he
liked to accumulate things in there yet he didn't like to be messed with his junk even though he never did anything with it the thing is that inside the junk pile I got a kickstand which seemed like a perfect tool to try to force the wheels off and I quickly got to work I started to push the wheels out by Levering them with the goat leg but they were really hard so I had to use a lot of force until finally one of the wheels shot out and smashed against the brick wall right in front
of me opening a hole in it and cracking all the plaster around it at that moment I covered my mouth with my two hands feeling fear invade my body now I was in trouble I stood up from the floor immediately and went to pull out the Iron Wheel that went through the brick and was embedded in the wall without having the slightest idea of how I was going to fix it without my grandparents noticing I quickly put my hand in the hole and took the wheel but when I removed it I realized that it had
opened a hole in the other lining of the brick leaving a hole there but when I looked in that place I noticed something strange and that is that there seemed to be another space behind that wall that is to say when the brick broke I expected to see outside but in reality there was like a kind of compartment there as if there was another space behind that wall I slowly approached and peaked through the hole everything was very dark there but indeed there was like some kind of chamber but the space didn't seem very big
I also noticed that there was a strong smell emanating from that place a smell like mold or something rotten and dry I immediately began to look in the old tool chest to see if I could find a flashlight unfortunately I did not find one but I did get an old lighter that for my luck still worked so I turned it on and lit it inside the hole then I realized that it was a space the size of a closet and there was definitely something in there it was an old wooden trunk like the others that
were in the Attic only this one for some reason was hidden behind that wall as you can imagine for a 99-year-old boy to find a secret chamber inside the house was like finding a pirate treasure I was completely fascinated and my curiosity was triggered to infinity and beyond so without telling anything to my grandparents I took the goat leg and started to break the brick little by little so as not to make much noise this was not a difficult task since the blow of the heavy Iron Wheel had cracked a good piece of wall so
in the end I ended up opening a hole big enough to put my hands in and try to open the trunk but this one had a clasp that was making the task very difficult for me however after struggling with it for a few minutes it finally opened at that time it was laid afternoon and the attic window was open and the sun's rays were Illuminating the place so now I had a better visibility indeed this was a trunk just like the others but with the difference that the wood was in bad shape and had a
very bad smell the first thing I could see was clothes more like a dress since the whole piece was the same it was greenish and smelled really horrible but I could see that the fabric had a flower print I pulled the fabric with my hands to try to pull it aside and see what was underneath it but it was a little heavier than normal it was then when I started to feel with my hands what was underneath and to my absolute horror I realized that Not underneath but inside the stinking and crumpled dress there were
bones I quickly pulled my hands away trying to calm down as my heart was starting to pound and my head felt like it was going to explode I was sure that what I had touched were bones bones covered with something sticky and smelly but it was still a bit dark dark in there and I couldn't see well so I reached for the lighter again and Shone the light inside the trunk but when I did my heart almost stopped because now I could clearly see a skeleton it was lying in a fetal position inside the narrow
wooden trunk what I had touched before were its legs but now I could see its head and even its hair which was long and blonde and still had a braid intact at that moment I began to scream in Terror as I stood in front of the wall completely paralyzed with panic my grandmother was the first to go upstairs and then came my father who was with her in the kitchen at that time my grandfather was feeding the animals in the barn that's why he didn't come right away obviously my grandmother and father started asking me
desperately what was going on but I was so scared I couldn't articulate a word I just pointed my finger at the hole in the wall my grandmother and my father looked at each other and then came closer to see what was in there then she also started screaming in Terror while covering her mouth with her hands my father hugged her and also me but he was as scared and bewildered as we were at that moment my grandfather entered the attic but his reaction was very different from all of us he stayed with his eyes fixed
on the hole for a few seconds then he looked at all of us and then he looked down at that moment I didn't know how to interpret very well the exchange of looks between my grandfather my father and my grandmother but somehow it was evident that my grandfather knew what was there a few moments later my father sent me to my room and told me to wait there I remember looking at him and my grandmother and now both of them didn't look as scared as I was they were crying while looking at my grandfather with
an accusatory look and the lad kept his eyes down after that I went to my room and told my father not to be long because I really didn't want to be alone after what I had seen that day nobody wanted to talk about what had happened no matter how much I asked nobody gave me any explanation it wasn't until the next day when the police came to the house and took grandfather away that my father finally talked to me but the only thing he told me was that my grandfather had done something very bad when
he was young and now he had to take the consequences of that I was 9 years old but I wasn't stupid so I asked Dad directly my grandfather killed her right after that question my dad just looked down and nodded his head and started to cry I then asked asked him who she was but my father never gave me that answer it wasn't until a few years later that I learned the truth about the corpse in the Attic this woman was my dad's biological mother my grandfather's first wife who had supposedly abandoned him and my
dad when my dad was only a year old but what really happened was that my grandfather strangled her in the middle of a heated argument it seems that at that time he was already seeing my grandmother and my other grandmother that is the one in the attic found out about his affair and they began to have problems according to the testimony my grandfather gave to the police this happened one night when he came home very drunk which made my grandmother very angry and they started arguing again but this time the violence escalated and it all
ended with my biological grandmother being strangled by my grandfather the latter told the police that it had been an accident that he never really intended to strangle her he was just very drunk and very angry and did not measure his actions but when he realized it was too late so the only thing he could think of to hide what he had done was to take Grandma's body from the attic put her in a trunk and then build a makeshift brick wall so that no one could ever find her the rest was very simple my grandmother
was Swedish and had no other relatives in the country other than her mother who had passed away a few years earlier so he made up that she abandoned him and her son and went back to her native country by that time his close friends knew that they were going through a marital crisis so no one was too surprised that this could be true only the fact that she abandoned her young son was strange but in the end no one knows what a grieving woman is capable of learning about all this was a great disappointment to
me my grandfather was always one of the most important figures in my life I admired and respected him very much so this crime really broke my heart he received a 30-year prison sentence but at 65 years old this was a life sentence however he passed away 5 years later due to lung cancer in spite of everything that happened my father my grandmother and I always visited him and watched over him he apologized to all of us for what he did especially to my dad and although it took him a long time to forgive his father
I know that in the end he did as for my grandmother the living one she didn't know anything she married my grandfather a few months later and since then she took care of my dad and raised him as if he was her own son I didn't even know she wasn't my grandmother by Blood but she was always the best mother and grandmother anyone could have the truth of it all is that this event changed our lives completely and is something that to this day we remember with sadness but also with resilience I have told this
story only once or twice in my life because it is something I don't like to talk about so I have decided to write it down and share it with you as a way of catharsis happy night in the mid 1990s I was working as a manager at a farm supply store in an agricultural area of Iowa I was renting at the time and was in serious financial trouble basically struggling to make ends meet and the job didn't pay very well to say the least I was only there because I hadn't found something better that's when
one morning I checked the local job board and came across a job that seemed ideal for me a family was looking for a person to take care of a farm this immediately caught my attention so I looked for the nearest pay phone and called the reference number to find out more about the job on the other end of the line I was answered by a young man who identified himself as the son of the owner he told me that they needed a person to take care of the farm while his father recovered from open heart
surgery he had undergone a few weeks early earlier the job was for a year and a half as this was the time the doctor stipulated for his father to be in a controlled environment and recover satisfactorily I asked the boy about the work to be done inside the farm and he told me that there were actually no plantations at that time no livestock either just a chicken Coupe a few pigs and a couple of horses to be fed and cared for however he made it clear to me that the drainage system that the pig pen
had was efficient enough that I didn't have to do more than turn on a faucet and let the drainage do its thing the job seemed simple enough and the pay was good it was perfect for me because not only would I be getting a pretty decent paycheck but I would be saving on rent for the next 7 months the guy gave me a brief phone interview in which he asked me only about my previous jobs and if I had immediate availability so I provided him with a brief list of jobs I had done and some
references also the phone number of the store and my home remember this was in the early '90s and cell phones were not as common as they are now in fact it was quite a luxury that a minimum wage earner like me could not afford as for the layout I told the guy that I could move in immediately if required after this brief phone interview the guy told me he would call me if I was right for the job after which I hung up and crossed my fingers that I would 2 days later I received a
call from the guy who confirmed that I had been chosen for the job and 2 days later I was settling in at the farm the place was not as I imagined it it was rather modest just a small one-story house with three bedrooms two bathrooms living room kitchen and porch plus two other sheds built about 100 or 150 M from the house as the boy told me the work was no big deal it was basically cleaning the stables and Corrals which was pretty easy since there weren't too many animals and providing food for the pigs
chickens and horses when I finished that I would saddle up one of the horses and take a walk around the property to make sure everything was in order this was all before lunch after which I would take care of anything that needed fixing and if there was no more work to be done I would sit and watch TV until dinner time all in all it was a fairly comfortable job nothing like the work normally done on a productive Farm which is usually very demanding although the owner's children came around from time to time most of
the time I was on my own and this was also great because I could do things at my own pace however when I was about 5 months into working there my usual 700 p.m. dinner was interrupted when the front door of the house burst open and suddenly an army of men armed to the teeth and wearing FBI jackets entered the house one of them handed me a piece of paper and told me they had a warrant to search the property I was completely stunned and didn't know what to say or how to act so I
just told them that I was not the owner and told them the circumstances why I was in that house they didn't seem too happy with my answer or maybe the fact that the owners weren't there the thing is they allowed me to call them and then the guy told me to step aside and that his lawyer would take care of everything I told him I was fine and then hung up the phone after that the cops started to search the property but it looked like they were looking for something specific as they didn't bother much
to check the house or any of the buildings instead they went in with a back ho and continued to the back of the property getting out of sight after a while I honestly didn't know what to do at that point but the agents didn't arrest me and the owner didn't tell me to leave the residence either so I assumed everything was fine and went to the kitchen to eat my dinner after dinner I sat on the couch watching TV listening to the sound of a helicopter hovering overhead I didn't think much of it until I
started to hear a big commotion in front of the house suddenly it sounded like a lot of cars were coming and a lot of noise voices footsteps what the hell I muttered and looked out the window that's when I saw a crowd of news Vans cameras and reporters stationed on the front lawn then a reporter looked at me and pointed her finger in my direction there he is let's go and then everyone else started running toward the house I immediately closed the curtains and moved behind the couch but in less than a blink of an
eye the driveway was completely packed with reporters and cameramen talking like parrots and asking me questions I didn't even understand I had no idea what was going on so I took control of the TV and started looking at the local news channels that's when I saw what was happening and completely froze there were the images of the farm the reporters outside and the officers around a huge hole The Anchor Man was talking to another guy on the phone while the images were being shown the man mentioned that a police chief had disappeared a few months
earlier after seizing a large shipment of Narcotics and it was presumed that he had been kidnapped by the mafia but there was no idea what his whereabouts might be until now when a member of a major criminal organization was captured and in exchange for a reduced sentence gave the officers the possible location of the body then the images changed to a helicopter view of the Back Field a group of the same FBI guys and some state police officers were standing around the large hole in the ground then a news helicopter scanned from the air and
thanks to the powerful lights I could see a human silhouette wrapped in a black bag and secured with duct tape my jaw dropped to the floor and my eyes opened so wide they almost hurt I felt like my heart was going to explode at any moment I was going crazy what in God's name have I gotten myself into I said to myself as I was on the verge of a mental breakdown I needed some answers and I needed them right away so I called the family and told them what was going on they said they
were aware but not to worry about it that that I was in no danger legal or otherwise they told me to stay in the house and not to talk to the media that they had been notified and I was not involved in any way none of that reassured me how could I be reassured after learning about something like that however there wasn't much I could do at least at that point so I hung up and went back to watching the news coverage as the hours passed the story became clearer indeed the body belonged to the
police chief who had disappeared it was now a fact that he had been kidnapped and killed by the mob but the most frightening part was the Revelation that the poor old man who had to undergo heart surgery was in fact a very dangerous mobster and it was he who had ordered the crime the next morning I saddled up one of the horses and went for a ride around the area the hole was still open but obviously there was nothing or rather no one in there anymore however I could now feel the at atmosphere completely different
from how it was before all this I shuddered just thinking that I was living in the house of a mobster capable of ordering the annihilation of anyone even someone with a high rank in the police that same afternoon I called the family again and told them I wanted to quit my job they insisted that I stay and reaffirmed that I was in no danger but I really didn't want to stay there any longer so I politely let them know that I had made the decision to quit they understood and asked me to give them a
couple of days to look for someone else I agreed and sure enough a couple of days later the owner's son showed up to give me the rest of my pay and Say Goodbye they told me that they had not found a replacement so they would stay in the house until they found one I recommended some people to them and provided their numbers we made some small talk until I loaded the last of my stuff and then we said goodbye after that I moved to De Moine City and never heard from that family again years ago
I was the proud owner of a cattle farm called Willow Creek about an hour from Lexington Kentucky I worked it hard for almost two decades until the economic crisis forced me to sell it now I lead a routine life in the city waiting for retirement my memories of my farm however are tinged by a very dark event that still haunts me it was a hot summer 13 years ago now when the Old Farm weeder finally gave up it wasn't a great loss but its absence meant that Landscape Maintenance would become a problem I had a
small but loyal crew a couple of experienced workers and a few guys from town who helped out part-time however we needed someone dedicated solely to keeping the place presentable you see the farm was not only my livelihood it was also part of the community we would organize tours for schools and groups sometimes free sometimes for a small fee it was a way to connect with people and generate additional income so with the weed whacker out of commission and summer in full swing I decided to place an ad in the local paper looking for a gardener
and that's how I met Theodore Theodore showed up for the interview with an impeccable appearance and a rather Serene attitude he looked about 35 years old and in general both his appearance and his attitude were pleasant he seemed like a nice guy he explained that he had recently moved to the area looking for a fresh start and that he had experience in gardening and Landscaping and truth be told his willingness to work for a modest salary and his apparent enthusiasm for the position finally won me over we needed someone reliable and with a good attitude
and Theodore seemed to fit the bill perfectly when he started his job I was very pleased as he diligently went about his tasks which reaffirmed confirmed to me that I had made a good choice with him he kept the gardens impeccable pruned the bushes with precision and made sure that the tourist route was always in perfect condition but among all the areas he had to work on he took a very special interest in one in particular the Lagoon actually it was a small artificial Lake that we had at the back of the house and we
didn't really pay much attention to it but Theodore found it very fascinating and said he wanted to create a real Masterpiece there something to surprise ruris the visitors Theodore would spend hours there contemplating the water and the water lies and always talked about how he would make a work of art that would Captivate the attention of everyone who visited the farm although his obsession seemed a bit strange to me I decided to give him creative freedom after all that would be an added attraction for the farm I remember once I went to check on his
progress at the lake and found him planting new flowers these were very Lush and really gave a very different feel to that place than before so I made a comment about how pretty they looked there and at that moment he turned to me with a half strange smile and said beauty is only skin deep sir what really matters now is what's underneath it may not sound too strange on its own but it was the way he said it that made me a little uneasy his eyes had an intense look in them as if he was
trying to tell me something without really saying it it gave me chills once as I was passing near the greenhouse I overheard Theodore talking animatedly with one of the young men who worked part-time on the farm the boy listened attentively as he explained with a somewhat strange expression how plants need something to feed on to grow strong and healthy I have a special formula Theodore said with the same strange Smile as the other day a fertilizer that I prepare myself it's amazing how the plants respond to to it they grow Lush and full of life
the way Theodore spoke of his secret mixture almost with a maob delight sent shivers down my spine it wasn't the things he said but the way he said them that gave me goosebumps but the moment that really Disturbed me happened a few months after Theodore's arrival at the farm it was a quiet evening the sun was beginning to set and the other workers had already returned home as I was walking near the tool shed a metallic noise caught my attention and curiosity led me to peek through the door that was a jar and there was
Theodore he had in his hand one of our biggest hunting knives and he was just looking at it running his finger along the blade slowly as if caressing it and the expression on his face I can't even describe it well it's like it was a mixture of Fascination and hunger it was very strange and quite disturbing when she finally looked up and saw me she gasped in fright like a startled animal in the dark he mumbled something about checking the tools and then hurried out of the shed leaving me standing there with a shivery feeling
running down my back I just stood there motionless trying to comprehend what I had just witnessed the encounter in the shed awakened an uneasiness in me that I couldn't ignore I began to watch Theodore more closely though discreetly not wanting to arouse suspicion or accuse him without evidence after all what had he really done just holding a knife however the little details began to accumulate he would sometimes arrive at work with scratches on his arms or dark dirt embedded under his fingernails even early in the morning before he had had time to get dirty on
the farm once I even thought I saw a blood stain on his sleeve but when I blinked it was gone they were fleeting details almost imperceptible but enough to fuel a growing sense that something wasn't right a year after I hired Theodore well he just vanished he didn't show up for work he didn't call and his phone was disconnected the address he had given me turned out to be a fake and the person who lived there had never heard of him uncertainty gwed at me but I also felt a strange relief this man had always
awakened an uneasy feeling in me that I didn't like at all and his sudden departure somehow brought me some peace I thought that this dark chapter had come to an end but it it didn't well it's obvious because if the story had ended there I wouldn't be here narrating it would I 6 months after Theodore's sudden disappearance reality hit me with a brutal force and I almost fell apart one summer day I was standing by the lake the place where Theodore had spent so many hours the vegetation had grown overgrown since his departure as he
had not hired anyone to replace him but there was one area in particular near the Shore that caught my attention the plants there were abnormally large and their colors were very intense almost phosphorescent standing out remarkably from the other plants an uneasy feeling ran through my body as I remembered Theodore's words about his special fertilizer at that moment I felt as if an inexplicable force was urging me to grab a shovel and start digging in that spot maybe it was curiosity maybe a macabra premonition but I wish I had never done it and had someone
else do it it turned out that about 60 cm deep or so the shovel hit something hard at first I thought it was a root or some old buried tool but as I removed the dirt the horrible truth revealed itself I was looking at a human skull Panic gripped me like never before in my life I backed away awkwardly falling backwards and sat there staring at the partially Unearthed skull time stopped at that instant for me every second was an eternity until I finally managed to overcome the shock and ran out to the house to
call the sheriff a few minutes later a group of officers arrived with a forensic team and continued the excavation they Unearthed two bodies both belonging to young women the coroner estimated that they had been buried there for about a year and a half What followed was an endless nightmare the police searched every inch of the farm journalists eagerly searched for a sensational story and I was subjected to countless interrogations in which I kept repeating the same story fortunately the police were soon convinced of my innocence I told them everything I knew about Theodore but unfortunately
it was not much despite the efforts of the police Theodore was never found detectives informed me that they suspected him of being responsible for at least five murders in three different states the pattern was always the same young women in their 20s and 30s buried in rural areas often near bodies of water they believed Theodore was constantly on the Move looking for temporary jobs on farms or parks where he could be alone and have access to isolated locations most chillingly the detectives mentioned that they had found traces of some kind of chemical in the soil
around the bodies they didn't give me details but the look on their faces as they talked about it chilled me to the Bone I couldn't stop thinking about Theodore's words about his special fertilizer and how the plants grew so well with something to feed on I always remember those moments as the darkest of my life because after that the combination of the economic crisis and the horror of what happened to Theodore led me to make a drastic decision I sold the farm and moved to the city I couldn't bear to continue living there knowing what
had happened aware that I had hired a murderer that I had conversed with him casually so many times the very idea of what was going through his mind still terrifies me today even today I wonder did he really murder those women on my property or did he simply take them there afterwards the uncertainty is a heavy burden I carry with me something that reminds me that sometimes the most mobra Darkness can hide behind the facade of a completely normal person
