Ever had gut feeling about someone that turned out to be true? We are given instincts as warning systems that prevent us from falling into the hands of danger. Sometimes they turn out to be false alarms, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Just ask these people:
All stories have been edited for clarity.
A Family Man
“When I was an adolescent, my dad’s cousin came to town. Both my mom and dad had many cousins so it wasn’t unusual to meet one I had never even heard of before.
This particular cousin had been very close with my dad when they were kids, but his father had accepted a job on the West Coast (over 2000 miles away from us) and it had been decades since they had been in touch.
One night, my mother invited him to have dinner at our home with our family of six. Throughout the meal, my dad’s cousin told stories of the pranks they pulled growing up, his military service, and his own family of six. The visit went well. He thanked my mother for the meal and hugged my dad goodbye.
As they were getting ready for bed that night, I heard my mom mention to my dad that she had been creeped out the entire night. She then said she wanted my dad to promise her that he would never let ‘that man’ be left alone with any of us kids. My dad was indignant and demanded to know what exactly his cousin did to deserve that type of treatment. Mom had no idea, but her instinct was strong enough that she continued pushing the point until Dad relented.
About ten years later, I found out why my mother was so alarmed.
I did not know the rest of this story until I was an adult with a child of my own.
The year I went off to college, my mom found out that my dad’s cousin had been arrested for murder. It was discovered that he was responsible for at least seventeen deaths over a span of twenty three years.
He is currently on death row.
Despite his healthy childhood, military service, and appearances of being a ‘family man,’ my mother’s instincts were spot on.”
Stranger Danger
“I remember one time when I was twelve, I was walking my dog. We passed a man who was sitting on a bench near the path where I was walking. At first glance the man seemed to be enjoying a nice early summer afternoon outside. At first, I paid no attention to him.
At the end of the path, I looked back but noticed the man had gotten up and was walking toward me with his bike next to him. He was a great distance away, but I could feel the hairs on my neck standing straight up. Trying to calm myself down, I just kept on walking towards the field where I could let the dog run free for a while.
But I never got there.
Halfway between the path where I first saw him and the field, there was an amphitheatre. My dog wanted to sniff everywhere, which allowed enough time for the man to close the gap between he and I. When he caught up with me, the man asked me to sit down on the bench with him.
I, being naive and still wanting to be polite, did so. The man sat down next to me and the first thing he said was that I was such a beautiful girl. He said some more things that I can’t remember exactly, but it was bad enough to make me run after a minute or so.
The man never laid a finger on me but I felt violated by his words and the way he stared at me. He kept calling me ‘a beautiful brave girl’ and kept complimenting my looks. When I got home, I ran up the stairs of my porch, trying not to trip over my dog. As soon as my mom saw me, she knew something was wrong. I don’t remember if I came in crying or that it was something else that made her ask questions, but I remember sitting on the couch, crying because of what happened. My mom was shocked and very angry with that man.
Luckily I never saw him again.”
The New Guy
“My boss hired a man to help with his workload. Immediately, me and all my other coworkers were weirded out by him. I had never met someone who scared me so badly just by walking in the room. The strange way he spoke and stared at people just put out the weirdest vibes.
At the time, dogs were allowed in the office. Ever since the new man started, my dog would growl at him the second he saw him. I knew something was wrong when because my dog is a lover and never growled, so I knew I had to keep my guard up.
My coworkers and I did a quick Google search of him after a few weeks because we all had a gut feeling that something was seriously wrong. We also wanted to see what his past employment and experience was in our industry.
We immediately found dozens of YouTube videos he recorded of himself, ‘coaching’ men on how to date women. In his videos, the new guy talked about when to text a woman a ‘sexy’ photo, how to touch a woman and where the best place to touch her was and a whole bunch of questionable subjects. He even wrote a very misogynistic, sexual book which he self-published, and displayed several copies on his desk even though there was a photo of a naked woman on it.
Something that really tipped me off was when he asked me a lot of personal questions. Something told me not to give him any information about me whatsoever.
The new guy asked me how old I was, and I said ‘Let’s just say I’m still in my twenties!’ His eyes filled with rage. It was like his pupils grew large and..black. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. It was like he morphed into a different person as he growled, ‘Well that’s ridiculous that you won’t tell me. Just ridiculous.’ Then he stormed off.
All of the other employees eventually saw ‘the look’ for themselves, and it was always when someone wouldn’t comply with something he asked. If he didn’t get his way, he changed into something very scary.
Over the following weeks, things escalated the longer he worked in the office. He would contact me outside of work, for mundane things just to ‘hear my voice.’ When I didn’t participate, the guy would berate me to the point that I had to beg him not to contact me. One time he literally chased me out of the office. All day long he would make comments about my outfits and the shape of my breasts.
After weeks of this, every employee informed our boss in person and via text and email detailing the harassment. We repeatedly told him we did not feel comfortable with this man’s behavior. The new guy even stole my coworker’s identity to access people’s homes (we worked in a real estate office, and he was not licensed but told clients that he was.) Life was a nightmare.
After a little more digging, we found out that the man had a criminal record that included stalking women. There were over twenty offenses which was why he couldn’t obtain a real estate license. Ultimately, it became obvious that he he was stealing and lying about his credentials. Oh, and he went by a name that wasn’t even his legal, given name.
The company now just consists of this man and my boss. Everyone in the industry thinks this man has my boss brainwashed. Every other employee was either fired because they complained about harassment, or quit abruptly. When 5+ employees leave and it’s just you left and the person that created the problem, then that’s quite something.
I’m still scared he will find me and retaliate, I still have nightmares about what could’ve and COULD happen, and I can say the same for my other female co-workers who left. Even the men left. That’s how bad this got.”
Life Of The Party…
“A few years ago, my brother and a friend of his went to a house party. The host was an acquaintance that they didn’t know very well. At this party, they happened talk to a couple of other guests that they had never met before, who were also friends of a friend of the host.
During this casual conversation, both my brother and his friend got a feeling that the other people were very strange. I don’t know exactly what it was that tipped them off, but my brother told me that he and his friend felt very uncomfortable.
After that night, they both moved on and didn’t really think much of it. There were quite a few degrees of separation between them and the others so they never ran into them again, and they were both content to let it stay that way.
A few months later, the host of the party, along with several of his friends, were arrested for the premeditated and carefully planned murder of a sixty-two-year-old woman who they had all owed money to. Altogether, six people were convicted of murder or accessory to murder. It was also determined that several other people from the party knew about the plan beforehand.
My brother said that based only on that short conversation he had with the other party guests, he wasn’t very surprised that they turned out to be capable of something like that.”
Kind But Deadly
“Back in middle school, I sat next to a guy in my math class who was very arrogant and rude to teachers, but for whatever reason he was very kind to me.
We had to work on a project together near the end of the year. I was nervous because I thought he was pretty rude to authority, but never really questioned it since he was always kind and welcoming to me. He always asking me how I was doing and offered me a piece of gum. Even though we never really established a friendship, he seemed to be quite fond of me.
When I began to discuss the project, I noticed the boy watching me in a rather uncomfortable way. As we talked about the project, he began dissing it and started asking me personal questions. He asked me where I lived, what I ate for breakfast, and other odd things.
Ever since the project, I had an eerie feeling about him.
Thankfully we had ended up going to different high schools.
During my sophomore year, I heard a group of girls in one of my classes talking about a boy we had all went to middle school with being arrested. I decided to join in on the conversation and asked who had been arrested and why.
It was the boy.
The boy that I had sat next to in the middle school math class, as I learned, had been in a gang since the eighth grade. He was making a drug deal and supposedly the supplier had ripped him off, so he pulled out a gun and shot him.
This was a complete surprise to me, since he had always been kind, even though I had an odd feeling about him.”
Snake In The Grass
“My mom is a social butterfly. She has a large friend group, and the bunch of them organize parties and get-togethers all the time.
One day, one of the women in the group introduced one of her new friends to everyone. Everyone adored her and she became part of the group as well. I’ll call her Kate.
My mother immediately disliked like Kate. She hated her fake tan, the way she laughed, even the way she handled her kids. Everything about her made my mother uneasy. So while Kate had become established as part of the friend group, she and my mother weren’t exactly close friends.
A couple years later, my mom found some emails that revealed her husband (my stepfather) had been sleeping with another woman for the past eight months. My mother was absolutely devastated. This wasn’t the first time it happened. My mom just couldn’t believe how he betrayed her trust yet again.
During that time, my mom had given Kate a chance and they had gotten closer. She called Kate and she dropped everything to over comfort my mom. My mother cried as she talked about what happened. Kate sat there consoling her and giving her kind words of sympathy.
A few days later, she found out Kate was the one sleeping with her now ex-husband.”
Brother’s Keeper
“We were at a BBQ party at a friends house. Some people there we knew, some we never met before. There was one guy who was there with his brother. They were probably in their thirties. The people throwing the BBQ were giving us a tour of their house. After the tour ended, I got a closer look at one of the two brothers in our group and felt my skin crawl. There was a group of us, but I still felt just grossly uncomfortable and my instincts told me there was something about the brothers that didn’t feel right.
It turned out that one of the brothers worked with my husband.
I ended up at a company picnic later that same year with one of the brothers again. This time, the guy was there with his boat. He was offering rides to people and their kids. The brother even suggested the kids could ride alone with him. Without hesitation, I said, ‘NO,’ and I told my husband to make sure he was never alone with anyone’s kids.
My husband respected what I was saying, but he still wasn’t really getting it.
Thankfully, nothing happened. About six to eight months passed since the last interaction with the strange brothers. Then one day I was watching the news and saw an all too familiar face.
On the news, the oldest brother was wanted for the murder of a teenager. According to the report, he had killed the girl about three months before the BBQ party.
I didnt know the full story, but in my mind, there would never be no right story to this.”
Something’s Fishy
“I had a surfing buddy who was a little different from my other friends. He was a financial adviser with an insurance company. This meant he was always on the lookout for his next customer.
Despite this, I had no problems with how persistent he was. We would surf together, eat lunch, and hang out often.
One day I invited him to my home so he could shower and get ready for an appointment with a client.
This was the first time he met my wife. As we walked into my house, my dog started acting weird. He’s normally friendly, but the moment he saw my friend, my dog lunged at him and bit him on the hand. I had to restrain him to stop it going further.
Seconds later, my wife came inside from the back garden. She looked my friend in the eye and something snapped in her as well. Within seconds, she asked me , ‘What the hell is he doing in our house?’
In the moment, I called her out for being rude. Then my wife said that she wanted him to get out immediately. So my friend left without even having his shower
After asking my wife what happened, she said she could not understand her reaction but felt something like something was off.
As it turned out, my friend was later found guilty of defrauding many of his customers for millions of dollars in a big scam. Fortunately for us we weren’t one of them.”