Unexpected Guests | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

it was in the late 90s I I can't quite remember the exact year actually um but I was dating a guy who had a
birthday that was a day before mine so every year we would kind of go do something for our birthdays and we
um didn't know what to do that particular year so we decided to go away to a small town where
the town it's a small town in northern California called Aetna and we neither of us had ever actually
been there before so we were pretty excited to go check it out um I grew up in a really small town so I
always kind of am drawn to vacation in small places so you're just going to go there you didn't know anything about it
but you thought it'd be fine you just get away for a couple of days yeah I mean you know we looked at the town
and it was really cute and we thought we'd go hiking and things like that so Aaron Peters and her boyfriend made a
reservation at a little bed and breakfast in Aetna I can't even remember how we found it because
you know you didn't really go online in 1997. so how did we find places in 19 I can't
even how did we find places I can't remember I assumed that we went online and then I
was like I don't even I don't know yeah would you call like the Chamber of Commerce I can't probably okay so you
found a place yeah I mean I may have asked my family for a recommendation I can't even remember
so somehow I found this bed and breakfast and as as far as I know it was one of the few places you could actually stay
in the town There's No motel or hotel or anything like that so what did you do when you arrive at
the bed and breakfast um I think that we fell asleep for a while because we were both kind of
exhausted and then we got up and I remember you know having a glass of wine and there was no one else staying there
will you describe I mean we the the bed and breakfast a little bit what it looked like what your room was like
it was a pretty old building um we stayed and I I'm sure it was probably the least expensive room that
they had [Music] um but you know you're kind of your typical bed and breakfast with probably six to eight rooms in it
total maybe even less so you met the owner she was nice and pleasant and helpful oh yeah yeah she
was very friendly and happy to give us like suggestions on where to eat and she was basically like
there's one restaurant that's open in town so we walk down there but when Aaron Peters and her boyfriend got to
the restaurant it had just closed so there they were in this Tiny Town on their birthdays and they couldn't find
anything to eat but they decided they would try to make the best of it at least they were in a pretty place they
wandered around and took a lot of pictures this was the late 90s so Aaron and her boyfriend were shooting on film
yeah lots of pictures of the town there are some really beautiful mountains right nearby and you can go hiking
around there and it's really beautiful you get back to the bed and breakfast hungry
and you just you go to sleep how did you sleep that night um I think we slept fine in fact I
remember she had a video collection um so we watched a movie and I don't remember seeing her when we returned
um and I remember we watched that movie about um it's basically about the clintons I
think primary colors I think that might be the name of it and then we went to bed after that and what was the next
morning like she made breakfast that was you know just like some fruit and stuff like that
I remember she had pictures of her and her husband all over kind of like the kitchen area
and where we were eating and she talked about her husband a little bit who had passed away
um and they seemed you know really sweet pictures of them together and were you just there for one night
yeah you know I was trying to remember I think it was just one night so what happened when you got home
um so we got home and and you know I'm sure a few days passed or some time passed and then I had taken the film in
to develop and I don't know if I waited and there were a couple rolls or if it was just that role
but when I went to pick up the prints it takes a few days or whatever and immediately you look through like I
remember every time I would take photos you flip through the prints like immediately and you're always really
excited usually like sitting in your car you know and I was flipping through and
part way in there's a picture of my boyfriend and I just kind of in our we were in our clothes like on the outside
of the bed you know like just kind of had fallen asleep and um I looked at it and we were both very
clearly asleep um and I immediately was like well how could we both be asleep like this is so
strange like did he you know did he happen to take this picture and you know so I'm looking at
it really closely um and you can just tell by you know like our eyes and the way our bodies
were that we were totally out I mean really asleep um so then you know I kind of freaked
out and I was just like how could this happen and so I um called my boyfriend I either
called him or you know I then you know that evening when I saw him I can't remember and I showed it to him and I
was like we're both asleep and he was kind of like yeah that's weird and I was like well how'd the picture get taken
you know and he um he was like oh yeah that's kind of creepy and I was like well you know someone else had to take
this picture and he wasn't nearly as I think Disturbed as I was and then of course the more I started thinking about
it the more I just wondered how it happened and who it could have been um did your camera have a timer on it at
all that could have um like not that I ever used I mean it may I'm sure it must have I was just
thinking about whether your boyfriend could have done it but yeah I mean he could have well no I mean he could have
he certainly denied doing it and he really looked asleep that was the thing that kind of threw me off I thought it
could have been and like oh yeah he did you know like just took a picture and it
was funny and he thought it was cute um but he was really asleep you know like it wasn't just me like I knew I was
asleep and he is very clearly asleep as well and it's also just like the angle the way it was taken it doesn't look
it's just like an odd angle you know like you can really see the top half of our bodies like laying in this bed
completely asleep what were the difference in scenarios that were running through your head oh I
don't know I mean at first I just I you know that there was maybe other there were other people that were guests
there uh but there weren't I no there was no other guess um so then I was just really freaked out
um you know I think I came to the conclusion that I mean I think I guess that it may have been her and I think I
remember even saying to him like she was so nice you know she seemed very normal
very normal and um so I thought oh wow what you know I don't know and I guess I thought I would never know what happened
um I can't that's like a horror movie well I think the weirdest part to me too was that somebody knowingly did it with
your own camera like knowing that you would go home and sometime later discover that they were in your room
I mean the fact that like you intentionally like are gonna get caught in a way you know oh man
[Music] oh so what did you do did you call the woman no I didn't you know I didn't really do
anything I think that I thought maybe briefly about who I could call like could you call the sheriff or could you
call somebody um but then I was like what would I say and you know what what do I have to
prove but like all you can see is like the quilt of the bed you know and maybe like part of the bed frame so how could
you even prove that anybody did anything wrong you know like it just doesn't really seem like a
believable story I have never liked bed and breakfasts I refuse to say than them because it's for
me it's just this kind of it's like this forced intimacy and it's so personal and
so when you wake up in the morning like I never want the breakfast I don't want a woman making breakfast for me I want
it to be so impersonal it feels like I'm in their kitchen but I don't know them and you have to go help yourself to get
the orange juice oh yeah it's really and see all the other stuff in their house yeah yeah it's it's really personal and
you know that's the thing I'm sure we didn't lock the door um you know it's very like the whole
house is wide open it's not like I was nervous about my well-being that was kind of it Aaron saved the
photos but she tried to forget about it years later she went to a San Francisco Giants game with a friend from high
school and her friend's fiance Steve we're sitting there and it's the first time I had met him
and um he's talking about himself and I was like well Steve where are you from and
he was like oh I'm from Aetna and I just completely kind of froze and I was like
you're from Aetna and he was like yeah why and I was like oh I um I stayed at this bed and breakfast and the weirdest
thing happened and he didn't even need to hear any more of the story he was like yeah I know exactly what you're
talking about and um the woman was busted and doesn't you know no longer has this bed and
breakfast and I was other people well I according to according to this um you know to my friends uh fiance yeah
and that she had gotten caught and I asked him a couple more questions but you know we were at a baseball game so I
didn't I didn't find out too much but it was just a trip and you know then of course I after the fact had lots of
questions like how did she get caught and how many years had she been doing this
oh and then I started thinking about um did she used to do this with her husband they had run this place together
for years like how long has this been going on I mean maybe she thought she was giving
you a nice memory or something yeah that's a nice way to think about it I I don't know it's it's so scary I I
don't know I guess I would have to assume that there was the maybe the idea or the thrill of kind
of freaking someone out a little bit um I don't know maybe that's why she did it
I really have no idea I was hoping you guys could figure that out we made some calls one guy said there
used to be an old Inn and a big Victorian house it's since burned down the locals nicknamed it the peekaboo Inn
because the owner would spy on his guests through holes he drilled in the walls maybe that's what Aaron's friend Steve
was thinking about but we didn't find a single thing about it in the newspaper archives
we tried the Aetna police department they did not return our call maybe one day we'll take a trip out there and try
to finish the story we did happen to stumble across a 2011 guide to owning and operating bed and
breakfast in a section about thank you notes it says some hosts like to take a photograph of each guest at some point
during the visit and mail it as a memento it goes on to say this is a great idea
provided that the timing and occasion of taking the picture are appropriate Aaron Peters got in touch with us a few
months ago after he spoke with a woman named Amber Dawn the first night I moved in
you know I had I had been playing music while I was unpacking and I went to bed that night and I
turned off the music and I was laying in my bed and I heard footsteps in the Attic
and they're very clear footsteps if you missed that one it's called a bump in the night
at the end of the episode we asked you to get in touch if something unusual like that had ever happened to you
a lot of people wrote to us so today for our last episode of 2017 here are the ones we couldn't stop
thinking about I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] foreign [Music] one morning me and Brett had woken up
for band practice really early and MJ woke up for football practice and we were walking around the house and
noticed that somebody had opened up all of the cupboards and drawers and the microwave door and the oven door and
shower stall doors and everything the refrigerator the dishwasher the dryer the washer everything was open what do
you mean you woke up in the morning and it was all open or yeah we all had just gone to bed after
like a normal night and then woke up in the morning and everything was open yeah
everything was just left wide open as if a ghost had come through the house and blowing everything open or something we
weren't sure how to explain it in their senior year of college at Ohio State Mark Hartman and Brett McGlynn
moved into a huge house with a lot of their friends 10 of them but Mark Brett and their friend MJ got there a little
before everyone else because they had to start training for marching band and football
they'd only been there for a few days when they woke up to find everything opened up but even before that the house
was apparently just bad here's Mark oh it was terrible uh we moved in and it was as if uh no one had ever been in the
house since the last tenants moved out there was trash everywhere and everything was still dirty and there was
furniture and some electrical problems and some stairs in the house were falling apart and things like that it
was a very large house I mean on our lease there are 10 of us and we took up the second and the third floor there is
a completely separate lease though on the first floor and there was no actual physical separation between our
leases there was like a staircase that would go down to like a door that just walked out of the house
um and you could get to any floor from there including the basement okay so it was just three of you in this big house
at this point at this point in time yeah did you ever think that one of the other
people was playing a trick on you yeah honestly uh Brett had slap walked a few times throughout
college so I kind of assumed maybe he had just slept walked and done some something random like that
but I was on the third floor of the house and it seemed a pretty impressive feat for me to sleepwalk down a flight
of stairs open up everything and then walk back upstairs without hurting myself so
I didn't seem like it was really what happened [Music] yeah what did you do I mean I think that I
would be really scary I think I would try to get out of the house what did you do we decided to go
to go grabs you know you know and then we were going through all the rooms and opening the closets
and so all of you had a baseball bat yeah or a baseball bat or a knife or a something like one of us would hold the
closet and the other one have like baseball bat ready to like jump at anything that like came out of the
closet we would kind of like open the doors quickly as if we were a SWAT team or something yeah basically breach and
clear uh and other than just like the house being dirty um we didn't really find anything until
we went to the basement oh yeah we definitely saved that for last so when we went down there
um I mean it's very dark in the basement uh it was like a different like uh boilers and Breakers
and whatnot but there's also a door down there and there's a door that none of us
had the key to and MJ started freaking out so what we ended up doing is just we propped up a uh a door that was lying
around in the basement we propped it up in the open uh doorway that led down to the basement and put a wedged chair
between it and the door so that whatever was down there wouldn't come back up so it's like in case there was like a
like a monster or like a bad guy you this would help this would save you yeah yeah I guess that's what we did to try
to make ourselves feel safe I would get worried that I'd be happy that I had barricaded the door but I
also think I'd be worried that if someone were in there I would be starving them to death exactly and that
was kind of some of my motivation to take down that uh the chair wedge between the wall and the door that we
had I was like in case he was down there I didn't want didn't want to trap someone down there
you know or make them even more mad exactly so after that initial search did you did
you go back down into the basement so I lived on the third floor and uh I don't know if it was faulty
wiring or you know a bad breaker or something but like uh every like like three or four times a
week like just all the power in my room would just shut off and I'd have to like go down to the
basement flip the breaker and then the power would be back on my way so one of those times that I had to
go flip the breaker um it just so happened that that door was open [Music] I was kind of shocked like so I like
walked downstairs looked into the door and it was just a normal bedroom like had mattress and dresser and
you know a normal College looking room and then uh from the bathroom somebody said or a guy said like I was wondering
when I get to meet the people that live here like a like a regular college student
and when was he just kind of Kennedy you're completely non-threatening and um later that day A bunch of us were
hanging out and Brett's talking to the downstairs roommates and and says hey I met your guy's roommate Jeremy today and
they were like we don't have a roommate named Jeremy he's like yeah he's the one down the
basement no one had ever heard of anyone named Jeremy so they called their landlord who called
the police I come home from practice there are police and landlords and all my roommates out on the lawn and it's
very chaotic scene no uh I don't think the guy was actually downstairs when the police came so like I don't actually
know what happened to him I'm honestly not sure I came home and he wasn't home when they knocked his door down and uh
then a couple days later I went down and all the stuff was gone I never saw him again who was this guy
um he was just a student going for a master's degree at Ohio State the school newspaper the lantern wrote
up the incident and they made a video what they found shocked everyone a bedroom that someone else had been
living in no what like you got to be kidding me Jeremy had access to a bathroom in the
basement and a sink that he could have used to do laundry but the guys don't think he ever ate their food or went
into their rooms Chelsea Spears for the lantern did you feel a little famous oh I did it was crazy how much it how
much it blew up um we got we had articles on USA Today ABC headquarters in New York called me did
an interview Jay Leno talked about us in his monologue Steve Harvey contacted me asking asking
if we wanted to go on a show it was pretty crazy did you do any of these things I did a few of them I didn't I
didn't physically go anywhere like I think Steve Harvey's thing would have required us to fly to Chicago
so uh I did a couple of phone interviews and things like that but Mark and Brett graduated and moved out
of that big house the one thing that always bothered me about that whole sequence of events is we never really
figured out who went around opening up all those cabinets but years later I'm working at
a startup and eventually the people at the startup like you know find out about this story and so like
you know people are talking about it and one of the people I'm working with comes
up to me and starts to talk to me about the story and you know this random co-worker of
mine told me it was him he was the one that opened up all those cabinets he had lived in the house the year
before us and the guy that was in the basement was a cousin of one of the people that was on their lease
and they had made some kind of arrangement with him that he would pay them a little bit of money in order to
live in that room in the basement after they had left their lease that guy decided to keep his key and then he
would like periodically come in and then just kind of like screw with the people
living in the house you know opening cabinets and like other things like that but I guess they had never told the
basement roommate that they were leaving although how you could not tell that everybody had left
you know it's beyond me so the probably the guy in the basement just decided to stay there as long as he could because
you know you're living there for free essentially because he could just sneak in in that side entrance and go straight
to the basement without ever being seen by anyone basically I mean it's awful it is awful to think
that you know when you go to a place who's like okay well the last people are gone it's safe for me it's crazy to
think that someone else would have the keys to the house that you just moved into
yeah that's pretty creepy like I mean it wasn't just like the guy in the basement it was also
that co-worker of mine he also had keys and I have to assume that it wasn't just
him that also had keys I wonder how many landlords never actually changed the locks
[Music] no hello I'm looking for Amanda hello it's Phoebe judge calling are you in Texas I am in Texas I'm in
Austin well thanks very much for speaking with us and for writing in about your story
of course um I thought it was an interesting story that y'all had done and um at the end of it I was like oh
well yeah it's kind of happened to me and I honestly I wasn't really expecting an
email back so here we have to look at that here we are well so just again introduce yourself will you
um my name's Amanda I grew up in a really small town and I came to Austin for school I went to Saint Edwards
University so you grew up in a small town in Texas it's called Yocum it's uh about an hour
and a half Southeast ish of Austin so when you left and came to Austin was Austin kind of like a big it must be a
big City compared to Yoakum oh yes very much so um Yocum has got I think 5 000 people
roughly and what car were you driving then I'm thinking about this car it doesn't
have a lot of it's not that ostentatious it's not that fancy it's it's just like it's a car
it's a simple good car they're a diamond doesn't like you see them all the time it's that's my that's
been my first car that I've ever had that I'm still driving um but I don't have the original key
um to the car and because I just have a copy anytime I lock my door and I don't have a clicker
anymore so anytime I lock my door I have to put the key in to unlock it and because it's
not the original key it just there's this alarm that goes off every single time and it doesn't stop until I start the
ignition she says this alarm is horrible and she hates it so she just doesn't lock the
car and leaving it unlocked isn't a big deal for one she says she never leaves anything of value in her car she says
that if she did have something worth stealing she'd rather someone just open the door to take it better than breaking
a window and she never had any issues she'd been in Austin for a couple of years never
locking the car and never having any trouble until one morning when she was a junior in college it had rained really
and I went out into my car and I noticed that my seat was pushed all the way back
and I kind of thought it was odd but I was like well you know maybe I just did this and I forgot that I had done this
um and I was probably running late to class already so I kind of just brushed It Off
um and it continued to ring kind of heavy that day and into the next day and overnight and that's when I noticed it a
second time it was the second day that my seat had been pushed back and just down all the way down
and that's when I was like oh somebody slept in here okay you're just like okay you said okay okay
you know there's not anything I could do other than lock my car um but I guess in the back of my mind I
thought oh well this is a creative way to not you know sleep in the rain and stay out of the rain so
um I just kind of Let It Go and it was something that continued to happen and that was just kind of our little system
did you notice any other strange things was it in the car no um um I'd be given a little gift
uh so there were some bushes that would Bloom near uh next to my apartment and occasionally there would be a flower
there [Music] um one time they left me a little bit of change in my senior year they left me a little
rained that you would get like out of a coin machine but nothing was ever taken from my car
[Music] um or really moved other than my seat uh there was another time that my work sweater that had been in
the back because I kind of just took it off and threw it in the back um was actually up in the front seat and
that one was I think the only time that they actually used anything of mine and I remember thinking oh well it was
really cold last night so do you think that you're the nicest person on Earth I think I would have locked that door
after about night too that's fair um and it's something I I mean I lost my car occasionally but I mean even like even
right now it's I know for a fact it's not locked and they were leaving you little thank
you gifts yeah never um any actual interaction and that was the interesting thing is that over this
like year and a half almost two year long period we never ran into each other we never saw each other
um that was just kind of our little system was I'll leave my car open and you can
sleep here and if I mean you don't have to leave anything but occasionally they would and that was it and that was our
system for two years and we just don't talk so I get it and and I think I get you
park the car you don't need it but what what happened if you in the middle of the night got sick and thought I have to
go and I have to get some Tylenol I have to go I mean would it then what would that keep you from going I like I don't
want to wake them up and they're in the middle of their sleep I don't know that that never
really occurred to me like what what I guess if it were raining I'd probably make one of my roommates come with me
and you know feel like yeah I gotta use my car right now you gotta go buddy so this was you think this was only
happening when it was raining yeah it only happened when it would rain and it would have to rain fairly heavily
so not too too often but often enough that saying you where to find my car and they knew it was open
after graduation Amanda went to Cambodia to teach English for a year so she was gone and her car wasn't in its usual
spot in her apartment complex I did think about that at the end of my senior year when I was moving that
um like I was like well where are they gonna where are they gonna sleep now hopefully they can find another place
that's safe you know it's funny everybody is so afraid of everything lately and I'm so afraid of everyone
else this is a good reminder we don't have to be they needed was a shelter and if I can provide that in a
really small way then yeah why not [Music] thank you thanks to everyone who wrote To Us with
mysterious stories from their lives hearing from you is one of the best parts of the job
we'll be back in January with brand new Criminal stories and we're excited to announce that we're also working on a
little side project that has nothing to do with crime we'll tell you more about it in the new year
thanks so much for listening and supporting us it means an awful lot criminalists produced by Lauren Spore
Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers our intern is Matilda or fellino Julian Alexander makes original
illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and
Twitter at criminal show criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a
proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around and thanks to adzerk for providing their
ad serving platform to radiotopia until next year I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
[Laughter] [Music] radiotopia from PRX

Three mysteries we can’t stop thinking about.

Music in the episode “Sylvestor” by Blue Dot Sessions “Decompression” by Blue Dot Sessions “Gizmo” by Podington Bear “Tanguedo” by Blue Dot Sessions “Inamorata” by Blue Dot Sessions “Folly and Typeset” by Blue Dot Sessions (original music for Criminal) “Samara” by Podington Bear “Alphabet Soup” by Podington Bear

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.chtbl.com/n33u0HsA

Say hello on Twitter (@CriminalShow), Instagram (@criminal_podcast), and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsCriminal/.

Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice https://bit.ly/accomplicenewsletter.

We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

Artwork by Julienne Alexander http://www.yssrs.com/.

Check out our online shop https://store.dftba.com/collections/criminal.

Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 81 originally published 12/15/2017 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-81-unexpected-guests-12-15-17

Brief Summary

Aaron Peters shares a creepy experience at a bed and breakfast where a mysterious photo of her and her boyfriend sleeping was taken without their knowledge.

Key points

A Mysterious Photo. Aaron Peters discovers a photo of her and her boyfriend asleep, raising unsettling questions.
The Creepy Bed and Breakfast. Aaron recounts a strange experience at a B&B where someone took a photo of them while they slept.
The Mystery of the Cabinets. Years later, a co-worker reveals he was the one opening cabinets in their old house.
A Strange Arrangement. A basement roommate kept his key and played pranks on the new tenants.
An Unexpected Visitor. Amanda discovers someone had been sleeping in her car while she left it unlocked.
A Unique System. For two years, Amanda and her unseen guest coexisted without ever meeting.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How could we both be asleep?

Aaron Peters reflects on a mysterious photo.

4:51WatchJan 5, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from Criminal | A Podcast About Crime

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.