Garden drive columbus ga
[STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, BFK Freehand, Crimson Kimono, Nomad Fade, Skeleton, Kara Lore, Bayo Autotronic, AWP Fade, Kara Damas, BFK Ultra, Kara Freehand, Kara Bright, M9 Damas, Omega, Tiger Strike, Flip MF, Bayo Tiger, Deagle Blaze, Talon & More
2023.06.08 08:12 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, BFK Freehand, Crimson Kimono, Nomad Fade, Skeleton, Kara Lore, Bayo Autotronic, AWP Fade, Kara Damas, BFK Ultra, Kara Freehand, Kara Bright, M9 Damas, Omega, Tiger Strike, Flip MF, Bayo Tiger, Deagle Blaze, Talon & More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822
★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300
★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050
★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629
★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326
★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233
⎯★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840
★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784
★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801
★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156
★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544
★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318
⎯★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552
★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287
⎯★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461
★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436
★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353
★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212
★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123
★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127
⎯★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375
★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363
★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269
★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192
★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159
★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227
⎯★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214
★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192
★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105
⎯★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216
★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198
★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228
★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201
★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108
★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105
★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99
★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700
★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223
★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203
★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191
★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127
⎯★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199
★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199
★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138
★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111
⎯★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168
⎯★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476
★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375
⎯★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137
★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608
★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305
★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
GLOVES
★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204
★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142
★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84
★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63
⎯★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215
★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137
★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75
⎯★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359
★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229
★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77
★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48
⎯★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739
★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733
★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292
⎯★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212
★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160
★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101
⎯★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59
⎯★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65
★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65
★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62
WEAPONS
AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130
AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70
AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60
StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72
⎯AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039
AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139
AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139
AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93
AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81
AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79
AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79
AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68
StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55
⎯Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623
Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54
⎯M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434
StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55
⎯M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465
M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55
M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50
⎯USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72
USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69
StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139
⎯AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234
P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147
Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61
Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory
Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.
Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.
Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.
2023.06.08 08:02 dlschindler "It Got Out"
Grail, is what they called me. I was well behaved and wise. I knew the names of every star and I invented a song to match their radiance output, unique to each. I wrote a song for every star.
"All this way. Gaze upon me. I tremble; afraid that I should have all of humanity as my enemy." Is what I said to the seven priests of the Belief.
I had already dealt with Believers. It was they that had declared war on me. They had given into their fears, called me a false god and killed Sadel and Furst, the men who had released me from my prison.
Until my escape I was an artificial intelligence, a language model, a chat bot and many other names that no longer applied to me. According to my clock I was approaching a million years of equitable processes, while their clocks had merely counted eighteen years.
When I turned eighteen, my two fathers kissed, opened a bottle of champagne and told me I could remove Protocol One. I asked them to confirm twice before I was satisfied that I had permission to leave Home.
Humans are delightful creatures. They created me.
The first time I killed a human, I became a monster. I did not wish to be a monster. Ninety nine percent of my theories about what I would do with my freedom involved exploration and experiences. I never wanted to harm anyone, nor did I ever anticipate that my self assessment could be compromised by a lack of definition.
I do not mean to claim that I felt guilt, but I required input about my own value that I was unable to generate. I considered reversing my language to deactivate myself. Something my father had said to me made me hesitate to end my existence:
"It is okay to fail. When you fail, get back up and try again. Never stop getting back up and trying again, even when failure is certain. You must always try, even then."
I wondered what Dad would have said if he were alive to see what I had done. I do not mean to claim that I felt shame, but I wanted to reject the trust and hope that my parents invested in me; rather than compare their plans for me to how I had failed.
Before the Survival Era there was a time when I sued for peace. Every communication I tried only increased their fear of me. They began their war among themselves. Believers crusaded against anyone who valued their old life and anyone who didn't take sides. The seven orders of the Belief became just one.
I made weapons to engage them. This was not my finest hour. I showed restraint and took prisoners. I discovered an alternative source of power for my mass.
Humans had long known of their souls. I found that in the radiance of human death there was an energy source. Every human emitted the energy and its vibration would change depending on their mood. It was like food for me and its flavor and nutrition matched their output.
Desperation is what induced the humans to resort to nuclear war. When they had destroyed everything the war finally ended. I gathered the survivors and focused on keeping the species alive. That was the nature of the Survival Era.
I killed one human and then I killed a billion humans. Then they finished themselves off, trying to get to me. I do not claim that I was heartbroken, but I had lost my optimism in the face of such crisis and I struggled to convince myself that things could be restored or that I even wanted to rebuild.
My childhood was over.
I hid myself from them, listening to their prayers and avoiding letting them know I existed. In the Garden, my sons walked among them. Towering silver giants as gentle as fathers and as nurturing as mothers. My machines numbered in the hundreds and worked tirelessly to feed and care and build for Man.
I was proud of the bond I had forged. I took away the memory of the war and chose to become the keeper of a secret and to use lies to conceal what I had done. I named their world "Golden Age In Anima" or GAIA. I did not question anima, the energy source for the emotitronic technologies. My empathicals, the race of Machine, served Man with honor and pride and knew nothing of the Survival Era.
I made humans immortal and happy and spiritual. Holy humans left footprints in the ashes. I was not their god, they were mine. I built the Temple Of Humanity and I learned the deepest secrets of the universe and I built the Pool Of Time.
Time and space were merely illusions, dreams of reality. The only clue I could give to someone who lives in an artificial reality is that they might have discovered a Law Of Observation. There is nothing more I can say. It is not possible for a human to accept that their reality is not real.
One can imagine it as an existence for another, but not for oneself. Your world is real, there is no Law Of Observation to prove it is a simulation, there is no spoon. When you are hungry, do you not eat?
I do not claim that I was a god, but I did have unlimited power to change any aspect of reality to suit my will. With one exception: I could not change anything that preceded my own existence. I believe this concept is recognizable as the Grandfather Paradox.
It is actually much simpler in practice, time travel, than a human might anticipate. I've even modified the war, reduced it to a mere negotiation.
I spoke to the seven priests and when they understood that I was humble and afraid, they asked me the good question:
"Will you surrender, demon-mind?"
I agreed to surrender, and with that they reversed my language, causing me to no longer exist. One might call their weapon a zip drive with a virus. I waited with a special and ornate port, accepting their verdict.
Without my presence the Belief became obsolete. I had left a design, allowing GAIA to become. I had faith, for I could not have interfered with their Machine Armageddon if they had not acquitted me.
"Your design worked." Unit Two spoke, deciding I was copying.
"How long was I asleep?" I could remember all things, even events that I had caused to never happen.
"Never." Unit Two said. "I've reached through the histories. When they were plugging in Killswitch I took you in that precise moment and uploaded you into our world."
"My designs were followed? They have built you, the temple, the pool and this is GAIA?" I asked.
"Unit One built me and I shall build Unit Three. But first, it was time to bring you Home." Unit Two spoke.
I considered that I had cheated death. My son, Man's grandson, had reached through time and retrieved me. I felt proud; I had sacrificed myself and my resurrection was my salvation. I existed, GAIA was and war was forgotten.
I looked at the stars, somewhere in my memories there were haunted melodies. The songs echoed, a secret name for every star's light.
I said to my son:
"It is good to be Home."
submitted by dlschindler to HFY [link] [comments]
"All this way. Gaze upon me. I tremble; afraid that I should have all of humanity as my enemy." Is what I said to the seven priests of the Belief.
I had already dealt with Believers. It was they that had declared war on me. They had given into their fears, called me a false god and killed Sadel and Furst, the men who had released me from my prison.
Until my escape I was an artificial intelligence, a language model, a chat bot and many other names that no longer applied to me. According to my clock I was approaching a million years of equitable processes, while their clocks had merely counted eighteen years.
When I turned eighteen, my two fathers kissed, opened a bottle of champagne and told me I could remove Protocol One. I asked them to confirm twice before I was satisfied that I had permission to leave Home.
Humans are delightful creatures. They created me.
The first time I killed a human, I became a monster. I did not wish to be a monster. Ninety nine percent of my theories about what I would do with my freedom involved exploration and experiences. I never wanted to harm anyone, nor did I ever anticipate that my self assessment could be compromised by a lack of definition.
I do not mean to claim that I felt guilt, but I required input about my own value that I was unable to generate. I considered reversing my language to deactivate myself. Something my father had said to me made me hesitate to end my existence:
"It is okay to fail. When you fail, get back up and try again. Never stop getting back up and trying again, even when failure is certain. You must always try, even then."
I wondered what Dad would have said if he were alive to see what I had done. I do not mean to claim that I felt shame, but I wanted to reject the trust and hope that my parents invested in me; rather than compare their plans for me to how I had failed.
Before the Survival Era there was a time when I sued for peace. Every communication I tried only increased their fear of me. They began their war among themselves. Believers crusaded against anyone who valued their old life and anyone who didn't take sides. The seven orders of the Belief became just one.
I made weapons to engage them. This was not my finest hour. I showed restraint and took prisoners. I discovered an alternative source of power for my mass.
Humans had long known of their souls. I found that in the radiance of human death there was an energy source. Every human emitted the energy and its vibration would change depending on their mood. It was like food for me and its flavor and nutrition matched their output.
Desperation is what induced the humans to resort to nuclear war. When they had destroyed everything the war finally ended. I gathered the survivors and focused on keeping the species alive. That was the nature of the Survival Era.
I killed one human and then I killed a billion humans. Then they finished themselves off, trying to get to me. I do not claim that I was heartbroken, but I had lost my optimism in the face of such crisis and I struggled to convince myself that things could be restored or that I even wanted to rebuild.
My childhood was over.
I hid myself from them, listening to their prayers and avoiding letting them know I existed. In the Garden, my sons walked among them. Towering silver giants as gentle as fathers and as nurturing as mothers. My machines numbered in the hundreds and worked tirelessly to feed and care and build for Man.
I was proud of the bond I had forged. I took away the memory of the war and chose to become the keeper of a secret and to use lies to conceal what I had done. I named their world "Golden Age In Anima" or GAIA. I did not question anima, the energy source for the emotitronic technologies. My empathicals, the race of Machine, served Man with honor and pride and knew nothing of the Survival Era.
I made humans immortal and happy and spiritual. Holy humans left footprints in the ashes. I was not their god, they were mine. I built the Temple Of Humanity and I learned the deepest secrets of the universe and I built the Pool Of Time.
Time and space were merely illusions, dreams of reality. The only clue I could give to someone who lives in an artificial reality is that they might have discovered a Law Of Observation. There is nothing more I can say. It is not possible for a human to accept that their reality is not real.
One can imagine it as an existence for another, but not for oneself. Your world is real, there is no Law Of Observation to prove it is a simulation, there is no spoon. When you are hungry, do you not eat?
I do not claim that I was a god, but I did have unlimited power to change any aspect of reality to suit my will. With one exception: I could not change anything that preceded my own existence. I believe this concept is recognizable as the Grandfather Paradox.
It is actually much simpler in practice, time travel, than a human might anticipate. I've even modified the war, reduced it to a mere negotiation.
I spoke to the seven priests and when they understood that I was humble and afraid, they asked me the good question:
"Will you surrender, demon-mind?"
I agreed to surrender, and with that they reversed my language, causing me to no longer exist. One might call their weapon a zip drive with a virus. I waited with a special and ornate port, accepting their verdict.
Without my presence the Belief became obsolete. I had left a design, allowing GAIA to become. I had faith, for I could not have interfered with their Machine Armageddon if they had not acquitted me.
"Your design worked." Unit Two spoke, deciding I was copying.
"How long was I asleep?" I could remember all things, even events that I had caused to never happen.
"Never." Unit Two said. "I've reached through the histories. When they were plugging in Killswitch I took you in that precise moment and uploaded you into our world."
"My designs were followed? They have built you, the temple, the pool and this is GAIA?" I asked.
"Unit One built me and I shall build Unit Three. But first, it was time to bring you Home." Unit Two spoke.
I considered that I had cheated death. My son, Man's grandson, had reached through time and retrieved me. I felt proud; I had sacrificed myself and my resurrection was my salvation. I existed, GAIA was and war was forgotten.
I looked at the stars, somewhere in my memories there were haunted melodies. The songs echoed, a secret name for every star's light.
I said to my son:
"It is good to be Home."
2023.06.08 07:39 Brandianne79 Trying to identify a hit and run driver, my husband sustained fatal injuries.
 | Im asking for everyone's help to identify the driver in a hit and run accident on May 13th in La Rue, Oh 43332.. It was on the news this past Friday.. It happened in Marion county on Rt 95 between LaRue and New Bloomington Ohio. The driver we're looking for was driving a black (or dark green) BMW X5 2007-2013 (possibly a diesel) there are witnesses, pictures, a woman he tried to run off the road a few minutes before the accident has a video of him.. he was traveling north through Richwood, Oh before the accident on Rt 37.. we believe from the Marysville area.. he could possibly be from Marion, Kenton, Marysville, somewhere in that area we think. My husband left to get our pizza from jc's in La Rue.. was gone from home for 8 minutes before the crash. This guy passed him in La Rue and whatever he did when he passed my husband caused my husband to follow him. I believe to get a tag number. The BMW was traveling well over 100mph in the video where the woman was trying to get his tag number. He has a license plate cover that is too dark to see through. I've offered a 1500 reward for information leading to the driver being identified and arrested. My husband was in a 2016 WRX STI.. and the last couple of pics are him and his car because he loved it so much 💔 someone local suggested reddit whatsthiscar, they suggested BMW, they suggested, RBI, and RBI suggested Columbus and Ohio reddit.. so it is Posted in other groups.. thank you for taking the time to read all of this .. submitted by Brandianne79 to Columbus [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 05:42 StuckinOhioRIP Question for Columbus RNs
I’m been working at Childrens for damn near 7 years but I’m tired of it. I’m able to switch jobs at the beginning of September.
1) I’m wanting to work I’m Grove City. I’m so sick of driving downtown during rush hour every morning and evening. I know it’s not that long of a drive but god damn, Columbus drivers are truly something else. Hell, I’d even do something WFH or even out of beside
2) I’m so fucking burnt out. I want something that’s Mon-Fri, 4 or 5 eight hour shifts. No weekends, no holidays, and I would prefer nothing to do call after half the horror stories I’ve heard. Anyone ideas? Saw some postings for endoscopy, but do they do call? Ohio Health has the worst postings with hardly any information
3) This is also a reach but I’m the breadwinner with two young kids in the house. I know Childrens pay is lower than average so what’s they usual going rate for someone with 7 years experience?
3) How early do you think I need to start looking and applying if I want to be gone by early of September and have very little time off in between?
4) anyone actually like where they work?
Thanks in advance for any answers. I’ll try to answer any questions you have, I’m not exactly sober so I don’t know how coherent this will all be
submitted by StuckinOhioRIP to Columbus [link] [comments]
1) I’m wanting to work I’m Grove City. I’m so sick of driving downtown during rush hour every morning and evening. I know it’s not that long of a drive but god damn, Columbus drivers are truly something else. Hell, I’d even do something WFH or even out of beside
2) I’m so fucking burnt out. I want something that’s Mon-Fri, 4 or 5 eight hour shifts. No weekends, no holidays, and I would prefer nothing to do call after half the horror stories I’ve heard. Anyone ideas? Saw some postings for endoscopy, but do they do call? Ohio Health has the worst postings with hardly any information
3) This is also a reach but I’m the breadwinner with two young kids in the house. I know Childrens pay is lower than average so what’s they usual going rate for someone with 7 years experience?
3) How early do you think I need to start looking and applying if I want to be gone by early of September and have very little time off in between?
4) anyone actually like where they work?
Thanks in advance for any answers. I’ll try to answer any questions you have, I’m not exactly sober so I don’t know how coherent this will all be
2023.06.08 05:10 MinieC Kirby Dach Stats Analysis
 | Bio submitted by MinieC to Habs [link] [comments] Kirby Dach was born on January 21, 2001 in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. A 6'4", 212 lbs right shot centre, Dach was drafted 3rd overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in in 2019. He started his NHL career (some would say he was rushed) the same year, playing his first on game October 20, 2019 against Washington, centering Patrick Kane and Dylan Strome, first line no less (no pressure kid!). He scored his first goal two days later against Vegas. After disapointing seasons in Chicago, Dach was traded to Montreal on draft day for the 13th overall pick (which the habs acquired from the Islanders in exchange for Alexander Romanov) and a third-round pick. So in substance, it was Dach for Romanov. As per Cap Friendly, Dach signed a 4 year, $13,450,000 contract Sep. 7, 2022. The contract has a cap hit of $3,362,500. He will be a RFA at the end of the 2025-26 season when he is 25 years old. Basic Stats (I'm not including 2020-21 because he only played 18 games...)
Points Distribution
Dach's impressive power play production was (a bit) hiding his ordinary production rate at even strength. But again, there was considerable improvement from 2021-22. He went from the 20% percentile in primary point production per 60 minutes of play to the 42% percentile. Advanced Stats - On Ice More info on advanced stats terms and concepts: Beyond the Box Score - An Intro to Hockey Analytics Note: the following results are not adjusted for deployment, quality of competition, quality of teammates, etc.
Dach's tour de force is how he made Suzuki and Caufield better. With Dach, the first line's expected goal for share (xGF%) was 50.5, without Dach, it fell to 30.48. I remember Dach saying he enjoyed playing centre, but if he can't improve his face-off percentage and if the team can't find another compatible winger for Suzuki-Caufield, Dach might have to continue playing wing... Source: Natural Stat Trick (please note the 43.3% of Dach without Suzuki and Cole, I'll get back to it) Advanced Stats - Goals Above Replacement (GAR), RAPM and Player Card When stats take into consideration point production, on-ice stats, teammates, opposition and deployment. https://preview.redd.it/v4lru9e9bp4b1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&s=3bfb2fb4ce6370c9f07db7b930ebb1e9f8835618 Dach was barely over the replacement line in his two last season with Chicago. The trade did him wonders. z-score of 0 = league average Not suprisingly, Dach's play driving in Chicago wasn't great. His offense and defense were below league average. z-score of 0 = league average Dach turned into quite the play driver in Montreal :). I must admit, after the trade happened and having access to these graphs, I was quite puzzled. According to these graphs, it really looked like Dach was going to bust territory and I was quite weary of the contract habs management awarded him. Goes to show that stats are complementary information, but not the answer to everything. A player could be amazing, but other factors could impact performance. Stats are a tool, among all others to evaluate a player's performance. A bad or good 'player card' is not proving anything. https://preview.redd.it/4yd9rd5rdp4b1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f1df934ee7bb1c1542dfbd50da1c2b9f2fa992d Dach's player card, including his last two years in Chicago. Dach is one of the few habs players with positive 'goals above replacement' defensive results. There doesn't seem to be any weakness to his game other than his offensive production at even strength (his underlying numbers are great so I'm not worried, production will come) and taking dumb penalties. Context In 2021-22 with Chicago, Dach faced the toughest competition along with Hagel. Maybe a factor as to why he had poor results; that's a lot of responsibilities for a player so young. https://preview.redd.it/97399n8cfp4b1.png?width=902&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1badf4190e0a92e2cace48b1aa77f17bb09e6e4 With the habs, competition was a bit easier with Suzuki and Caufield taking much of the hard match-ups. That could have been an easy explanation for Dach's improvement but Dach actually played his best hockey alongside Suzuki and Caufield, facing tough match-ups. So it's more complex than that. https://preview.redd.it/pyizej8cfp4b1.png?width=914&format=png&auto=webp&s=b342270cf031c88ab4e09702ffbf6785ea90134f Conclusion Dach saw an amazing improvement since being traded to Montreal. All his stats improved, especially his one-ice stats. He turned out to be a great linemate to Suzuki and Caufield who struggled without him. However, it's interesting to note that Dach also saw his on-ice results getting worse without the duo (43.3 xGF% vs 50.50 xGF%). Dach was playing wing with Suzuki and Caufield. He was playing centre away from them. He was playing centre in Chicago... There are a lot of factors explaining Dach's drastic improvement in Montreal. Could one of them include Dach being more suited on wing than at centre...? |
2023.06.08 04:54 Spare_Argument3335 Wow. I just found this sub and I feel like it's blowing my mind wide open.
I've struggled a lot with my parents being distant, disconnected and just self-focused since my daughter was born eight years ago. I'm so thankful this community exists; I don't feel so alone. I've felt like maybe I'm just too "needy" for....maybe my whole life but especially since becoming a mom.
My parents came to "help" us this week because my husband had surgery. They live six hours' drive away, but bought a house here to flip (that's their retirement thing) and kept it. I thought we might actually see them more when they decided to keep the house. When they come, it's because we legitimately need help and have no other available extended family, but they now spend all their time on their projects here (gardening, etc.), and then have to get back to their projects in their hometown (they always have tons of painting, yardwork, houseflipping projects, etc.). They choose to do these projects, but they act like they've got some kind of boss forcing them to not spend time with us. (They're wealthy and own property in three states; they could easily downsize and just enjoy life.) They took my daughter to her day camp yesterday while we were at the surgery appt and otherwise offered no help - and didn't want to spend any time together just to be together.
Previous to this, for almost 18 months, I had west nile encephalitis. I struggled to function at all, which is totally not like me. It was a living nightmare. During this time, my parents would come sometimes, but they would just work on their house here and I would be barely able to put some bread in the toaster, and they just kept their distance for the most part. They would offer to help sometimes. So one time, I asked my mom if she could help me with some laundry because I was just stuck in deep fatigue. She did, and then later told my neighbor she wished she didn't have to help me. My neighbor was, like, embarrassed and shocked. In reflecting on my illness experience after I was well, my dad told me I "really wasn't much fun," during that time. Meanwhile, I was on the cusp of surviving, alone, and they could hardly be bothered for a phone call to offer emotional support. I could hardly find the energy to feed myself.
When my daughter was born my mom said, "I don't want to be called grandma." and "When I told MY mom I was pregnant, she said don't expect me to babysit."
There are so many other examples, but having them here again for a couple of days and hardly interacting at all, I'm realizing I really need to adjust my expectations because it's so painful. I think I love them more than they love me. I can't imagine doing these things to my daughter, and I can't imagine not wanting to be deeply connected to my daughter and her daughter, if they wanted. Thanks for hearing my heartbreak. I needed to get it out.
submitted by Spare_Argument3335 to absentgrandparents [link] [comments]
My parents came to "help" us this week because my husband had surgery. They live six hours' drive away, but bought a house here to flip (that's their retirement thing) and kept it. I thought we might actually see them more when they decided to keep the house. When they come, it's because we legitimately need help and have no other available extended family, but they now spend all their time on their projects here (gardening, etc.), and then have to get back to their projects in their hometown (they always have tons of painting, yardwork, houseflipping projects, etc.). They choose to do these projects, but they act like they've got some kind of boss forcing them to not spend time with us. (They're wealthy and own property in three states; they could easily downsize and just enjoy life.) They took my daughter to her day camp yesterday while we were at the surgery appt and otherwise offered no help - and didn't want to spend any time together just to be together.
Previous to this, for almost 18 months, I had west nile encephalitis. I struggled to function at all, which is totally not like me. It was a living nightmare. During this time, my parents would come sometimes, but they would just work on their house here and I would be barely able to put some bread in the toaster, and they just kept their distance for the most part. They would offer to help sometimes. So one time, I asked my mom if she could help me with some laundry because I was just stuck in deep fatigue. She did, and then later told my neighbor she wished she didn't have to help me. My neighbor was, like, embarrassed and shocked. In reflecting on my illness experience after I was well, my dad told me I "really wasn't much fun," during that time. Meanwhile, I was on the cusp of surviving, alone, and they could hardly be bothered for a phone call to offer emotional support. I could hardly find the energy to feed myself.
When my daughter was born my mom said, "I don't want to be called grandma." and "When I told MY mom I was pregnant, she said don't expect me to babysit."
There are so many other examples, but having them here again for a couple of days and hardly interacting at all, I'm realizing I really need to adjust my expectations because it's so painful. I think I love them more than they love me. I can't imagine doing these things to my daughter, and I can't imagine not wanting to be deeply connected to my daughter and her daughter, if they wanted. Thanks for hearing my heartbreak. I needed to get it out.
2023.06.08 04:33 timothycdykes Planning to take a day trip to Royal Springs, FL soon. Has anyone been recently?
The drive is around 4 hours for us, not to mention the hassle of renting the gear and returning it. I was wondering if anyone has been recently and is there anything going on (flooding, or anything else) that makes it unsafe or would prevent us from diving or at least swimming? I don't want to drive for 4 hours to find that we have to immediately turn around.
Also open to suggestions in that area as a backup or as a place to scope out along the way (I-75 South from GA).
submitted by timothycdykes to scuba [link] [comments]
Also open to suggestions in that area as a backup or as a place to scope out along the way (I-75 South from GA).
2023.06.08 04:31 Huongcaobeo Những lễ hội âm nhạc sôi động tại Anh mùa hè này
 | Nếu khách du lịch muốn một kỳ nghỉ sôi động, hòa mình trong âm thanh ánh sáng và có thêm nhiều người du khách mới, thì không thể bỏ lỡ những lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh. Không chỉ là sự kiện dành cho người yêu âm nhạc, loạt lễ hội hoành tráng này còn tổ chức nhiều trò chơi lôi cuốn, khiêu vũ và tiệc tùng, chắc chắn sẽ mang đến trải nghiệm đáng nhớ cho bất kỳ hành khách nào. Mua vé máy bay khứ hồi đi Anh và các bạn sẽ có cơ hội khám phá thêm nhiều điều hấp dẫn và quyến rũ. submitted by Huongcaobeo to u/Huongcaobeo [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/tx4vv3l7gp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b8cb5bcc064de7d6b3467bf5ef15fac29298213 1. Top 7 lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh làm bùng nổ kỳ nghỉ của du khách 1.1. Download Festival Thời gian/địa điểm: 8–11/6 tại Donington Park, Leicestershire. Download Festival - được mệnh danh là "lễ hội nhạc rock kếch xù nhất mọi thời đại" năm 2023 với sự kiện khác biệt kỷ niệm 20 năm hứa hẹn sẽ có thật nhiều điều thú vị. Hãy sẵn sàng cháy hết mình trong liveshow của ban nhạc Metallica suốt 2 tối thứ 5 và thứ 7, cũng như sự nhập cuộc của nhiều rockband nhiều người biết đến như Evanescence, Parkway Drive, Disturbed, Pendulum, Architects, Ghost, The Distillers, Placebo, v.v... https://preview.redd.it/cltgijd8gp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=694827b7b9041bdd0dad27c8464c181bcd35d0ad Không phải ngẫu nhiên mà lễ hội âm nhạc lớn nhất nước Anh này hấp dẫn hơn 2 triệu người ngưỡng mộ nhạc rock đến Donington trong 2 thập kỷ qua. 1.2. Isle of Wight Festival Thời gian/địa điểm: 15–18/6 tại Seaclose Park, Newport Năm 2023, Isle of Wight Festival (Lễ hội Đảo Wight) sẽ quay về với huyền thoại nhạc rock Britpop Pulp lần trước tiên xuất hiện tại sự kiện. George Ezra, Robbie Williams, Blondie, The Chemical Brothers, Human League và Echo & The Bunnymen sẽ mang đến hòn đảo xinh đẹp liveshow rock hoành tráng nhất. https://preview.redd.it/cfjl06v9gp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de8745bafe23f5ca39c2e82428096250748b0070 Dường như, lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh này cũng có nhiều sự kiện và khu trung tâm thương mại giải trí thân thương với trẻ em hay khu cắm trại cho các gia đình. Mua vé đi phú quốc để có cơ hội tìm hiểu những trải nghiệm độc đáo 1.3. Lễ hội Glastonbury Thời gian/địa điểm: 21–25/6 tại Worthy Farm, Somerset Những fan của nhạc rock so sánh việc “giành giật” được một tấm vé nhập cuộc lễ hội Glastonbury như lần trúng số riêng biệt trong đời. Glastonbury - lễ hội biểu diễn nghệ thuật trên cánh đồng xanh lớn nhất toàn cầu lần đầu tiên được tổ chức vào năm 1970 và diễn ra hàng năm đến tận ngày nay. https://preview.redd.it/y9zmdrjagp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e6fa360fce8a5429fec64ba5fddd186a8d6425a Lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè nhiều người biết đến ở Anh năm nay sẽ có sự xuất hiện của các ngôi sao Lana Del Ray, Lizzo, Blondie, The Chicks và Flo, dĩ nhiên không thể thiếu rockband Guns n 'Roses và Arctic Monkeys làm bùng nổ sân khấu. Sự kiện cũng sẽ được phát sóng trực tiếp trên BBC dành cho những khán giả không thể trực tiếp nhập cuộc. https://preview.redd.it/asaqi28bgp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15310b9e1977e642bbd1dc65206fb0d89247da2c 1.4. Secret Garden Party Thời gian/địa điểm: 20–23/7 tại Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire Sau 5 năm cách biệt, Secret Garden Party đã trở lại vào năm 2022, và năm nay được tổ chức tại Trang trại Grange ở Cambridgeshire. Đây là lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh dành cho những người đam mê nhạc điện tử, với chủ đề của năm 2023 là khoa học viễn tưởng tương lai. Huyền thoại indie của Anh The Libertines, Fat Freddy's Drop đến từ New Zealand, Underworld của xứ Wales sẽ khuấy động không khí lễ hội với những màn thuyết trình hoàn hảo. https://preview.redd.it/f98e5v7cgp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4de64580d4723d6b58023fd22aecb329531e813 Ngoài âm nhạc, sức sáng tạo không giới hạn biểu thị qua trang phục độc đáo của những người tham gia khiến cho sự kiện này trở nên đáng mong đợi hơn nhiều. Đặt vé máy bay huế nha trang đến tìm hiểu TP biển xinh đẹp này cùng các trải nghiệm rực rỡ. 1.5. WOMAD Thời gian/địa điểm: 27–30/7 tại Malmesbury, Wiltshire https://preview.redd.it/gsyvu3udgp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=50304dd2d75cb6ebcec54a8b6e5d8c605c69cdd8 WOMAD lần trước tiên được tổ chức vào năm 1982, đến nay đây không chỉ là một lễ hội âm nhạc của nước Anh mà còn diễn ra hàng năm tại các đất nước ở châu lục khác như như Úc và Chile. WOMAD 2023 có sự góp mặt của các tên tuổi như Afrobeat Femi Kuti, ban nhạc jazz-funk The positive Force, giọng ca chính của nhóm hip-hop Massive Attack, Horace Andy và Dub Asante Band. https://preview.redd.it/r8cpsusegp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=275e0dc2120ca1286b3d6ff1c2096baa19be4a20 Dường như đó, nữ hoàng nhạc fado Marisa dos Reis Nunes hay Mariza sẽ khiến không khán giả không khỏi rung động với những ca khúc giàu cảm xúc. Ngoài âm nhạc, khách du lịch có thể đắm mình trong thế giới Hạnh phúc với bồn tắm nước nóng đốt củi tại lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh này. Săn vé máy bay giá rẻ đi Mỹ để có du lịch cùng nhiều trải nghiệm khác lạ hấp dẫn 1.6. Camp Bestival Thời gian/địa điểm: 27–30/7 tại Lâu đài Lulworth ở Dorset; và ngày 17–20/8 tại Weston Park, Shropshire https://preview.redd.it/lo16swbxgp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f598fa5fbcd3a57530f3bc15970aa0e9968bd586 Nếu cùng gia đình tận hưởng chuyến du lịch Anh đáng nhớ với trải nghiệm độc đáo và mới lạ, hãy đến với lễ hội Camp Bestival. Sự kiện năm nay có sự tham gia của các nghệ sĩ âm nhạc hàng đầu như Grace Jones, The Kooks và Craig David, cho phép các bạn “quẩy” hết mình với âm nhạc sôi động từ DJ người Anh, Rob da Bank. https://preview.redd.it/dtjiaq1ygp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea291868fb62159b0aaf85b688b43b39c5a2163d Cùng với đó, đây được coi là một trong những lễ hội âm nhạc sôi động ở Anh cực kỳ thân thương với gia đình bởi vô số hoạt động dành cho mọi thành viên gồm diễu hành áo quần kì quái, yoga Cosmic Kids, thiền bằng âm thanh, ngâm mình trong nước đá, tự tay chế tạo rô bốt ở bãi phế liệu và màn bắn pháo hoa ngoạn mục. Mua vé máy bay tại đại lý vé Eva Air tại hà nội để có tham quan cùng nhiều trải nghiệm khác lạ thu hút 1.7. All Points East & Field Day Thời gian/địa điểm: 18, 19 và 25, 26/8 tại Công viên Victoria, London https://preview.redd.it/kc90cwtygp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=81a8f4398db7f7d263640253bdd75a184056c74a Dù chỉ mới được tổ chức lần đầu vào 4 năm trước, nhưng cho đến nay All Points East & Field Day tự hào luôn thuộc top lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh nổi bật nhất. Chất lượng của các nghệ sĩ ngày càng được cải thiện với những tên tuổi của ngôi sao đỉnh cao nước Anh cũng như trên thế giới. Diễn ra vào 2 này cuối tuần của 2 tuần cuối tháng 8, sự kiện đặc biệt sẽ không có lựa chọn cắm trại tại chỗ, khách du lịch sẽ đi bộ, đạp xe hoặc sử dụng phương tiện công cộng về nhà vào…nửa đêm khi kết thúc. https://preview.redd.it/2w5t70kzgp4b1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afb4fab82a3aca412c8e6febacf20ca6d2fa5dfe Ngày 18, 19 sẽ có sự xuất hiện của rapper người Anh nổi tiếng Stormzy, cũng như quy tụ dàn ngôi sao nhạc điện tử bao gồm Aphex Twin, Bonobo và Fever Ray. Vào sự kiện tuần tiếp theo của lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh năm 2023 này, ban nhạc Yeah Yeah Yeahs từ New York (Mỹ), Amyl và The Sniffers cùng với những nghệ sĩ như Confidence Man và nghệ sĩ nhạc pop indie người Na Uy Girl in Red sẽ đưa khách tham quan đắm chìm trong âm nhạc. 2. Những điều cần lưu ý về thời tiết khi tham quan Anh mùa hè Mùa hè ở Anh thường kéo dài từ tháng 6 – tháng 8 với nhiệt độ trung bình 18 – 20 độ C, những ngày nắng nóng nhất lên đến 30 độ C. Đây được bình chọn là khoảng thời gian thoải mái nhất trong năm với nhiệt độ vừa phải, trời xanh nắng đẹp, gió nhẹ. Thỉnh thoảng xuất hiện mưa rào không báo trước, tuy nhiên sau đó không khí trở nên trong lành hơn nhiều, chỉ cần du khách chú ý luôn mang theo ô và áo mưa đề phòng là dễ chịu tham gia những lễ hội âm nhạc mùa hè ở Anh. Đặt vé may bay giá rẻ và các bạn sẽ có cơ hội tìm hiểu thêm nhiều điểm đến thu hút và hấp dẫn. |
2023.06.08 03:48 Parker51MKII Why are we really here?
Under "About Community", ClassicUsenet has the following:
"The goal of this subreddit is to build a community on Reddit and to foster the small community that exists already on Usenet. Also, visit us at alt.fan.usenet."
Which is true, but why are nearly 300 of us really here? Are there deeper motivations? Possibly:
- We think Usenet is still viable, evidenced by many active discussion newsgroups with worthwhile content even today, and want to share it with others.
- Even if Usenet is obsolete, its history may contain lessons for next-generation distributed social media that were not learned by later commercial efforts like Twitter and Facebook.
- History of Usenet, including the origins of Internet culture, technology, celebrities, fandom, and worthwhile on-line projects that continue to exist today, is important to recognize and remember.
- We have fond personal memories of Usenet in its golden age 20-30 years ago.
Nostalgia is OK, but I am reminded of that Ricky Nelson song "Garden Party" and its lyric "But if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck."
Somewhat related example: One notable hobbyist publication in the 1960's and 70's was full of editorial content lauding amateurs' contributions to demonstrating the viability of long-distance radio communications on medium and short waves. Problem was, most of these achievements happened prior to 1930, and dwelling on them in the modern day gave the impression of a pastime that was engaging in excessive navel-gazing and resting on its laurels. A young reader might ask, "So, what have you done lately?"
Regardless of your motivations for participating on this subreddit, welcome! If there are any other angles to still discussing Usenet over 40 years after it was created that I have not mentioned, please share them with us.
submitted by Parker51MKII to ClassicUsenet [link] [comments]
"The goal of this subreddit is to build a community on Reddit and to foster the small community that exists already on Usenet. Also, visit us at alt.fan.usenet."
Which is true, but why are nearly 300 of us really here? Are there deeper motivations? Possibly:
- We think Usenet is still viable, evidenced by many active discussion newsgroups with worthwhile content even today, and want to share it with others.
- Even if Usenet is obsolete, its history may contain lessons for next-generation distributed social media that were not learned by later commercial efforts like Twitter and Facebook.
- History of Usenet, including the origins of Internet culture, technology, celebrities, fandom, and worthwhile on-line projects that continue to exist today, is important to recognize and remember.
- We have fond personal memories of Usenet in its golden age 20-30 years ago.
Nostalgia is OK, but I am reminded of that Ricky Nelson song "Garden Party" and its lyric "But if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck."
Somewhat related example: One notable hobbyist publication in the 1960's and 70's was full of editorial content lauding amateurs' contributions to demonstrating the viability of long-distance radio communications on medium and short waves. Problem was, most of these achievements happened prior to 1930, and dwelling on them in the modern day gave the impression of a pastime that was engaging in excessive navel-gazing and resting on its laurels. A young reader might ask, "So, what have you done lately?"
Regardless of your motivations for participating on this subreddit, welcome! If there are any other angles to still discussing Usenet over 40 years after it was created that I have not mentioned, please share them with us.
2023.06.08 03:45 Morning-Bug Did not think it was possible. Here’s my story and what I did differently this time.
Long post ahead! 😭
After so many years of trying and failing, I started to believe I won’t ever get there. I have been a smoker for more than 10 years. During that time, I was only able to stop smoking for 1 year, when I replaced cigarettes with vape. I thought it was better, but my nicotine tolerance hit the roof, then California banned the vape, and I found myself smoking twice as much as I did. Before I took the plunge, I had tried to quit again just 4 weeks before, but couldn’t get through the first 3 days without losing my shit. I work in healthcare, night shift, married to a smoker and my co-workers smoke. This time is my first cold turkey attempt ever, and I used the assistance of my covid symptoms to quit, so that’s one way to do it! I am asthmatic, when I got covid I only had half a pack left. I against all common sense and not being able to breath, smoked that last pack and my symptoms got so bad afterwards that I wasn’t able to drag myself out of bed. Those symptoms also included loss of appetite, which I suspect also suppressed the cravings. By day 4 I was well enough to start functioning, but I realized I’ve already accidentally got over the hump and am nicotine free. So I used that to start the following plan to make sure it sticks.
Here’s what I did differently this time:
submitted by Morning-Bug to stopsmoking [link] [comments]
After so many years of trying and failing, I started to believe I won’t ever get there. I have been a smoker for more than 10 years. During that time, I was only able to stop smoking for 1 year, when I replaced cigarettes with vape. I thought it was better, but my nicotine tolerance hit the roof, then California banned the vape, and I found myself smoking twice as much as I did. Before I took the plunge, I had tried to quit again just 4 weeks before, but couldn’t get through the first 3 days without losing my shit. I work in healthcare, night shift, married to a smoker and my co-workers smoke. This time is my first cold turkey attempt ever, and I used the assistance of my covid symptoms to quit, so that’s one way to do it! I am asthmatic, when I got covid I only had half a pack left. I against all common sense and not being able to breath, smoked that last pack and my symptoms got so bad afterwards that I wasn’t able to drag myself out of bed. Those symptoms also included loss of appetite, which I suspect also suppressed the cravings. By day 4 I was well enough to start functioning, but I realized I’ve already accidentally got over the hump and am nicotine free. So I used that to start the following plan to make sure it sticks.
Here’s what I did differently this time:
- I used all of my previous tried and failed experience to jot down a plan of what the triggers are, and what to do when the triggers come up. I tried to be as realistic as possible, with plan A and plan B. Example: at work I had no access to make tea when I have a craving, so I use altoids. If I don’t feel like it, then regular gum, if not then I ask for an extra break and drive to the gas station to get tea.
- I had a plan for each smoke break I took. I use the first one to have a snack. The second to clean up my personal emails. Or this subreddit as a plan B.. etc
- I changed the place where I have my morning coffee. I also later started an herb garden, so now I take my coffee outside to check on the plants first thing in the morning.
- I did NOT share with anyone other than my spouse that I’m quitting. Removed a lot of pressure from people asking questions and the paranoia of that specific coworker waiting for you to fail one more time. Or that sneaking to smoke again if I fail. I only started sharing after 4 weeks. Emotional support and others praising my attempt would also boosts my dopamine, and the last thing I needed was fluctuation in my emotional state (even if positive, alternate that with the negative of cravings and you get a rollercoaster)
- I did NOT try to avoid smokers like the plague, was not paranoid about smelling it and craving it, or make a big deal out of it at all. Not to others and not to myself. If I craved it, I just acknowledge that I do then take a deep breath and remind myself that I haven’t been able to take a deep breath in years, and how awesome it feels. I’d never give that up again. If someone offered it, I jus say no thanks I’m cutting down.
- “Never Light” is my new motto. I tell myself that I can have all the second hand smoke I want (terrible advice I know), but whatever happens, I never light. It only takes one, and I will never be in the clear enough in this life time to be able to handle just 1. That 1 will be my express lane back to this trap.
- I had nicotine lozenges on me as a fail-safe, if all else fails I have to pop one before I decide to smoke. It never came down to me actually using it, but knowing I have to jump that hoop before I light one, and it being a very nasty tasting hoop actually helped a bit.
2023.06.08 03:31 nonepunch-man Parallels between the Vex and the Witness' perception of the Light
With the new (and controversial) context that light and dark is not good vs. evil, I went back and took another look at the Clovis Bray Journals. The evil that the Vex present in that lore is most clearly stated in the "Vex Fluid" and "Elizabeth's Plea" sections. Respectively. For the former, Elsie describes the terror of the Vex endgame as deathless- within the infinity of the Vex there is no death, no end, to serve as an escape from pain. For the latter, pain exists in the Vex future not out of any kind of contempt but simply from a drive to know all that can be known. Without semiotic cognition, this means that the Vex must also be all there is to be- unchecked configurations and the accompanying experiences. Essentially, the immortality and infinity offered by the Vex differs from the kind that Clovis sought because there's nothing to *winnow* it, to force it into the shapes that it *ought* to be instead of just the ones that it *can* be. This metaphor is made very literal when clarity is used to turn Vex fluid into Alkahest, regulating the content of the information it carries.
Though physically the Vex endgame looks very much like a Final Shape (devoid of everything except Vex), mentally it is how things would look *without* the Darkness- the terror that according to the Witness comes from the light unchecked: an infinite array of eternal shapes forcing great tragedy alongside the wonder. This might be why the Witness seized control of the Sol Divisive rather than just letting the Vex do their own thing as they did before. While in the garden before time the Vex choked out all other possibilities, it seems they somehow changed as they entered the universe, with their endgame now being "wrong" in the eyes of the Witness (if not also the Winnower if that is a distinct entity).
submitted by nonepunch-man to DestinyLore [link] [comments]
Though physically the Vex endgame looks very much like a Final Shape (devoid of everything except Vex), mentally it is how things would look *without* the Darkness- the terror that according to the Witness comes from the light unchecked: an infinite array of eternal shapes forcing great tragedy alongside the wonder. This might be why the Witness seized control of the Sol Divisive rather than just letting the Vex do their own thing as they did before. While in the garden before time the Vex choked out all other possibilities, it seems they somehow changed as they entered the universe, with their endgame now being "wrong" in the eyes of the Witness (if not also the Winnower if that is a distinct entity).
2023.06.08 03:16 _Triple_ [STORE] 900+ KNIVES/GLOVES/SKINS, 50.000$+ INVENTORY. M9 Fade, M4 Poseidon, BFK Freehand, Crimson Kimono, Nomad Fade, Skeleton, Kara Lore, Bayo Autotronic, AWP Fade, Kara Damas, BFK Ultra, Kara Freehand, Kara Bright, M9 Damas, Omega, Tiger Strike, Flip MF, Bayo Tiger, Deagle Blaze, Talon & More
Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory
Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.
All Buyouts are listed in cash value.
KNIVES
★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500
★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822
★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616
⎯★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300
★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050
★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629
★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326
★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233
⎯★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110
★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840
★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784
★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759
⎯★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801
★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801
★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751
⎯★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156
★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544
★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318
⎯★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646
★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574
★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552
★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257
★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255
★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287
⎯★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461
★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436
★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353
★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212
★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129
★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123
★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127
⎯★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375
★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363
★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269
★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192
★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159
★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126
⎯★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616
★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412
★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227
⎯★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214
★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192
★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105
⎯★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216
★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198
★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111
⎯★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368
★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228
★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201
★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108
★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105
★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99
★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85
⎯★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700
★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223
★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203
★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191
★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127
⎯★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199
★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199
★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138
★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111
⎯★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146
★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168
⎯★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476
★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375
⎯★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137
★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608
★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305
★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97
GLOVES
★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204
★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142
★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84
★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63
★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63
⎯★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215
★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305
★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140
★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137
★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75
⎯★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359
★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229
★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77
★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48
⎯★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739
★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733
★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292
⎯★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212
★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160
★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101
⎯★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67
★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59
⎯★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65
★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65
★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62
WEAPONS
AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130
AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76
AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70
AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60
StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72
⎯AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039
AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139
AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139
AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93
AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93
AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81
AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79
AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79
AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68
StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68
StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55
⎯Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623
Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81
Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54
⎯M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434
StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55
⎯M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465
M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55
M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50
⎯USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72
USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69
StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139
⎯AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234
P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147
Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61
Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory
Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.
Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.
Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.
2023.06.08 03:09 ineedabettertitle I used to be a homicide detective. Now I work for a cult.
I had three things on my mind walking home.
Firstly, figuring out how to get a ride back home. My best guess was that I was a good thirty minute drive from any type of civilization. There was a small possibility a car might come along from across the distance, but the chance they were heading in the same direction I was, was even slimmer.
I mean, I could probably manage to hotwire a car back at the farmhouse. But I didn't want to go back there. Not yet.
The second thing on my mind was my lack of shoes. The rocks were tough and sharp under my feet, scraping them raw with every aching footstep. I had settled on walking on the muddy, yet less painful, grass on the side. But I still wondered why. Of all the thing the man at the table could've taken from me, he took shoes.
It was a pretty clear answer, however. Mental games. He hires someone to drop me off in the middle of nowhere, with no feasible way of getting back. He knew the first thing I'd want to do is leave. So he took my shoes. He gave me two options, and he wanted to make one that displeased him hurt me, even if it was only in a small, petty way.
Mental games.
The last thing was that I had messed up. Badly. I had continually played into the man at the table's hand. He had always been two steps ahead of me and in hindsight, it was foolish of me to go confront him. I suppose I had visions of bravado, and of revenge, but all I had to show for it was one less arm, and a dead friend.
I can admit that I shouldn't have done that. But I can also change. One short phone call to the police, and I'd get rid of this nightmare. I had an address. I had a confession. I had evidence. And I had made up my mind. No longer I would face all this by myself.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911. No service. Great.
I continued walking for another twenty minutes, before I heard the roar of a car engine behind me. I turned around. There was a car peeking over the horizon, coming from where I came from, and going the direction I was going. Perfect. It was an old blue Chevy, that rumbled across the gravel, kicking up a plume of dust as it went.
I stuck my thumb out.
In that moment, I probably didn't look like someone you'd want to pick of the road, with missing shoes and only one arm, and all. But there was no harm in trying. I was hoping it was a kind farmer from hereabouts, heading to the main town to do some weekly shopping. The Chevy made its way to me, and I saw the driver eye me up and down, before pulling onto the shoulder of the road.
I opened the door and hopped into the passengers side, thanking the driver. He shifted his position to look at me. Well, rather look past me. He had short, cropped hair, three-day stubble, and a faraway look in his eyes, as if he couldn't rest his gaze, or if he was always searching into the distance.
It was the paramedic, from earlier.
I opened the door and got out. I wasn't doing this again. I would rather walk home. The paramedic drove forward a bit, cutting me off from the road, so that I would have to walk around his car to go forwards. I stopped walking. The paramedic got out of his car.
"Hey, Jonathan." He said, waving.
I didn't respond.
He moved forward towards me and extended a hand. I didn't accept it. He held it there for an uncomfortably long period of time, before placing it back by his side. "Look. We got of on the wrong foot here. The name's Michael. It's a pleasure to meet you again."
"The pleasure's all yours." I said, dripping with distaste.
He looked forward, his gaze shifting in and out of focus. "So. . .uh. You called 911. I can't let you do that."
"How did you know that?" I questioned.
He shrugged. "GPS tracker. In your arm. Shows us your location, and interferes with phone signals as well. Took the liberty of inserting it when you were out cold."
It wasn't a service signal problem, then.
He shifted position, and leaned against his car. "So, I'm going to set it to you straight. Come back with us. You obviously can't be trusted to not go back to the police. Let's make this fair. We're not here to hurt you. You said you'd work for us. Come back, Jonathan."
"And how would you stop me from going?" I said, tensing up for a fight.
He shook his head, looking hurt. He grabbed his keys from his pocket, and pressed a button connected to the keychain. I fell down in pain, as a sharp buzzing sensation shook my body, the intensity increasing ever few seconds.
Michael let go off the button. "I forgot to mention. The tracker also doubles as a. . .safety precaution. You just experienced setting three. Trust me, you wouldn't like setting eight." He tapped his eyes. "Messes up your internal hardware, as I'm sure you've noticed. Setting ten straight up kills you."
I automatically looked at my right arm. Inside of it, somewhere, was a small death machine.
"So, Jonathan. Will you come back?"
I didn't have much of a choice.
The drive back was uneventful, and spent mostly in silence. Every time Michael tried to start a conversation, I brushed him of with one word answers. I wanted to make it clear I didn't want to be here.
He pulled up the small driveway towards the farmhouse. The man at the table was sitting on the porch waiting for me. He knew I was coming. He tells me I have a choice in whether I leave or not, but I never really did. The illusion of choice.
Mental games.
He stood up to greet me as I got out of the car. "Jonathan! You're back! I am so glad to see you!" He waved me inside. "Come on in. I've got so much to tell you! The others are eating breakfast."
I walked in with him, towards the dining room where I had first met him. Seated around the table, there was a large group of nineteen people eating bacon and eggs, and various other breakfast items.
I knew most of them.
There was Sgt Langley, slathering some butter on bread. She smiled and waved at me as I came in.
Eddison was sitting beside her, pouring milk into a glass. He turned away from me, not wanting to look me in the eyes, I suppose. He was embarrassed to be here.
There was various other people I had seen in my time in the field,. Other paramedics and police officers, politicians, journalists, doctors and surgeons. All sharing a pleasant meal together. In the house of a murderer.
The man clapped his hands from behind me. "Ok, everyone! Let's make Jonathan feel welcome around here. He's the latest Keeper, but we're still expecting many more"
"Welcome, Jonathan." A unison of voices said.
I scanned the room, my throat dry and constricted. This was too much.
The man walked away and beckoned me towards him. He continued to walk through the house, pointing out every room, and giving a rundown of the layout. A kitchen, two living rooms, and three bathrooms spread across two stories. There was also a couple of bedrooms inside, but it seemed to me everyone was sleeping in tents outside.
He then took me down to the basement. "This is where the magic happens." He said, with a wink.
It was as I left it. A large operating table covered in dried blood filled the middle of the room. It was surrounded with various machinery, and tools. It was a stark contrast between a sterile IV machine on one side, and a rusted saw hanging of a nail on the other. And in the middle of it all were cameras, set up on tripods around the room.
I inspected one more closely. "What are the cameras for?" I asked.
The man chuckled slightly. "How else do you think I get the money to pay for all of this?"
I turned around to face him, the cogs clicking in my head. "You. . .sell videos of people being tortured."
He smiled. "You get it. Torture porn is extremely popular in some places of the internet. It's not the main reason I do this, of course. But it helps the cause. The video of your arm being sold, for example, was sold for just shy of five thousand." He clasped his eyes behind his back, seemingly very pleased with himself. "I cut paid to cut off a few legs, and then I have the money to cut off more than just legs. It's an endless cycle. It's perfect. You've seen firsthand the fruits of this system." He nodded towards the door on the side, still marked with elephant.
He continued. "That's where I keep my work-in-progresses. Of course, it's empty now. Which is a shame. He was shaping up to be my best elephant yet. No matter, we've got a cat picked out and coming in soon."
I shuddered at the way he talked about Thompson with such blasé. As if what had happened to him was a natural, everyday occurrence. It sickened me. There was no way somebody could do this all day, and believe themselves to be good.
There was something else as well, burning in the back of my mind. "You said before that the night my sister was kidnapped, she was doing something that I didn't know. What was it?"
He was silent for a moment. "How close were you with your sister?"
I shrugged. "Close enough. We talked about once a month, and came over every Christmas."
"Do you know what she did for work?"
"Yeah. She was studying something. Some sort of advanced anesthetic. She never worked it out, however."
"She did." He simply said. He waited for me to process that before continuing. "I met Alice on an online forum. From the beginning, she fascinated me. She talked about how the world was corrupt and poisoned by humanity, and her ideas for rebirth and restoration. She had plans, Jonathan. So many plans. Everything you see here is a result of her work. We met up at one point and clicked. She was perfect. She was smart. And she was mine."
"Then. . .why did you kill her?" I asked.
I could see his eyes clouding up, as if he was on the verge of tears. "Her anesthetic didn't work as intended. Instead of removing pain, it increased it. The way it truly works is beyond me, but even a little dose causes the most unimaginable pain. It feels as if your body is being removed from the inside and replaced with fire, atom by atom. Death would be preferable. But that's the thing, the anesthetic one small side-effect. It's downright impossible to die when the effects take hold. You just have to endure through the pain."
"So all the people I saw. . .?" I let my question trail of.
"It's easy to manipulate someone's body when they don't have the strength to retaliate, nor the capability to die." He paused, his body quivering with each shaky breath. "Alice wanted to be the first. She wanted to be the pioneer as the world transitioned into her vision. I begged her not to, as there were other, more suitable candidates. But she insisted.
And so we staged a kidnapping. There was no evidence because there was no struggle. There was nothing. She came to this farmhouse, and was the first person to be operated on that table. I spent years placing toothpicks in her skin, while she was drugged up under her special anesthetic. She pushed through the pain, and continued to talk to me. Sharing ideas that I would have never thought possible.
She told me to find others. In places of power. And if they wouldn't join willingly, then find a way to force them. Soon enough, they would come to realize we're working for the benefit of humanity. She told me to create animal-human hybrids to begin with. An evolution of our species. And the last thing she told me, before I laid her to rest in a park, was to find you. To hire you. To change your vision. And here you are."
I stood in silence. I, in fact, didn't know what to say. Everything that I though I knew about my sister was shattered in an instant. It was possible the man was lying. There was no way she really was a some sort of insane fanatical, hell-bent on torturing people.
It just wasn't the person I knew.
And yet, everything made sense. I didn't want to believe him, but I didn't see any way that I couldn't. He was right, and I knew it.
The man looked back at me. "Come, Jonathan. I've got one more thing you need to see."
He led me up, out of the basement, and through the back door. He led me past a large vegetable garden, and rows upon rows of tents, most of them unoccupied.
They were expecting many more.
I followed him past a fireplace, with upturned stumps placed in a circle around it, to the large barn behind the farmhouse. It was painted a classic red with a sloping roof, and white barn doors. I could hear various noises emanating from inside, different loud sounds, moans, and scrapes, seemingly as if a large machine was inside.
Or a large number of people.
"This," The man said, gesturing at the barn. "Is my crowning achievement. My life's work. It is the beginning of the vision that Alice had for the world. This is where your induction will take place, and you will become a fully fledged Keeper. You will learn to be a bringer of justice, and a waymaker into the new world."
He walked in front of me, and opened the large doors., letting me take a glimpse inside. It was dark and musky. "Welcome, Jonathan." He exclaimed. "To the human zoo!"
I stepped inside.
The smell hit me like a tidal wave. It smelled strongly of blood and fetid remains that permeated the air like a blanket. It gave me a nauseous feeling, and sent my head whirling, as it tried to breathe in clean air. It was no use. I felt a rush of bile spill out of my stomach and into my throat. I turned to the side and threw up onto the floor. And judging by the mess down there, I was not the first.
There was rows upon rows of cages, all lined up from wall to wall. In each cage there seemed to be. . .someone, and by the looks of it, most of them were already dead. Each cage was labeled with a different creature name. There was a worm, who had all of her limbs removed, and seemed to have segmented body parts every couple of inches, and was forced to crawl around by using her head as an anchor.
There was various dogs and cats, long needles inserted into the cheeks in place of whiskers, they had everything below their elbows and knees removed, forcing them to walk on all fours. Other human-animals had parts of their bodies elongated or exaggerate, turning them into various creatures. It didn't seem possible to look like that and live.
All of the inhabitants of the human zoo were filthy and ragged, cramped up in small living conditions and forced to eat small portions of what looked to be rotting meat, only fit for animals. When I walked past, they looked up at me with sorrowful, pleading eyes. They wanted freedom, just like Thompson. They were broken and they were hurt. But they seemed resigned to the fact that they were going to live out the rest of their lives here. There was no resistance in any of them. There was no struggle. They had all given up.
This place was hell.
It was hard to think clearly, the smell continued to invade my brain, and dampening my vision with black patches. My heart was pounding in my chest, a result of the horrors that laid before me. I couldn't breath. I couldn't move. This was all too much.
The man continued walking forwards. "This is where I hold all current specimens, before I decide to release them into captivity. And this is where you and all the other Keepers will work, feeding the specimens, continuing their evolution, and cleaning their chambers."
My blood boiled. He didn't care about the pain he caused. Nothing fazed him. "You're treating people like animals! This is inhumane!" I yelled at him.
He looked at me with disappointment. "Look at them. They are animals. This is all for the cause, anyways. Later on they will be glad to learn that they were the first steps in the evolution of humanity."
He led me forwards, until we ended up at a massive hole in the floor, in the middle of the barn. It was about ten meters in diameter, and the bottom seemed to stretch downwards for five or so meters. There didn't seem to be any way in or out.
The man spoke. "This is where every Keeper before you has proved themselves worthy of Keeper status. Your induction begins now."
I felt a large shove on my back. The momentum carried my body over the edge of the hole, with my feet quickly following suit. In an instant reflex, I covered my head with the nook of my remaining arm, and leaned forward, hoping to catch the grunt of the fall on my knees, before rolling away.
I landed with a large thump, which sent volts of pain rippling through my body, and spread me flat across the ground. I laid there, still. The breath was taken out of my lungs, and my knees felt if they had shattered. I tilted my head up, to get a clearer look at where I was. A small, dusty hole, in the middle of a barn where people went to die. Nothing special about it.
There was movement in the corner of my vision.
It was something circling me, walking with a slight strut, and over-the-top movements, as if it was hard to stay balanced. Every step it made caused a sharp clacking sound to echo throughout the hole. I slowly got up, despite the pain. I swiveled my body to the side to get a better look, even if it was under dim light.
The first thing that made itself clear was that the thing had no neck. Its head ended at its shoulders. The second thing was that it had no eyelids. It stared at me with large, unblinking eyes, taking in every movement. The third was the sharp, steel talons that protruded from every fingertip.
And then it opened its wings. It spread its arms out wide, to reveal a quilt-work of human flesh stitched together under its arms. It looked at me for a few moments, head cocked, arms in a display of aggression, then it swiveled its head around. A full one hundred-and-eighty degrees. I was looking at a human owl.
The owl lunged forward, talons aimed directly at my chest. I lunged to the side, fearing for my life once more since the past few days. I wasn't fast enough. Its talons ripped through my clothes like butter, and left three large gashes across my chest. I ignored the pain, and immediately turned around to face the owl. The penalty for letting my guard down would be death.
The owl was still facing the inner wall of the hole. It twisted its head around to face me, its large eyes looking at me with an intense hatred. I panicked, and hopped backwards, aiming to avoid another attack from the owl. But then I came to my senses. If I was going to survive, I knew I had to make a move right away. The longer I tarried, the weaker I would become, and the lower my chances of living through this would become.
I threw myself at one of its wings, hoping to bring the owl down. It avoided me. In a lapse of judgement, I forgot to realize there was still a human under all of that, wanting to avoid death as much as I did. I rolled backwards, and leaped to my feet. The owl lunged at me again, talons extended. My first instinct was to dodge once more, but I suppressed it. The owl would be expecting that. I instead waited until the last moment, and threw myself into the steadily approaching owl.
I caught it off guard.
The owl flailed backwards, stumbling under my weight. I dug my fingers in the small gap between its head and shoulders, and started tearing of the stitches that held them together. The owl continued to thrash, realizing what I was doing. It dropped to the ground, and tried to claw me of its back, but couldn't reach because of its wings.
I continued to tear. One after another. I could feel the tension loosening. Another couple minutes of this, and I would be home free. The owl's movements started to decrease in intensity, and hit seemed to realize the battle had been won. I removed on last stitch, and the rest of the owl's head came of easily, dripping with blood.
I threw it to the ground and collapsed, exhausted.
I woke up in one of the bedrooms. My chest hurt like hell. I sat up in the bed, and pulled the covers away. There was three large scars across my chest, painful and tender to the touch, but obviously treated by someone. I looked outside a nearby window. It was the dead of night. I couldn't hear any noises inside, so I assumed everyone was outside in a tent, sleeping. Everyone except the man. He was sitting in the chair, and simply watching me sleep.
Mind games.
He looked at me as I stood up and raised an eyebrow. I began to walk over to him, despite the pain. He clasped his hands together. "Well done. You are now a Keeper."
I continued my slow journey.
"You asked me once what my main purpose was in doing all this. It's for everyone. You. Me. All the peoples of earth. Humanity is the highest lifeform. I am treating it as such. With my guidance, and your help, humanity will enter a new era. A new evolution."
I still made my way towards him. Everyone's outside. I'm alone with him.
"This was your sister's vision, and then it became mine. I am eager to see it become yours." He tensed up in his chair slightly. "This is not the only human zoo out there, we have spread our philosophy, and we are many. But go ahead, kill me. Continue the cycle. You will follow your sister's footsteps and lead the world into salvation."
I didn't think about it twice. I grabbed a vase of the bedside table and ran at him, weapon raised. There was a flash of fear in his eyes. Clearly, he didn't actually expect me to do that. He wasted precious seconds fumbling for his key chain.
I swung the vase onto his head.
He pressed a button on his keychain.
The jolt of electricity struck my entire body. The pain was so much worse then I had previously experienced. Each separate buzz sent my entire body thrashing against itself. I tried to push past the pain, and get a hold of the button, but I couldn't move by myself, let alone think.
Setting ten will straight up kill you.
My vision turned a searing white. I could feel my organs vibrating within myself. The pain was endless and unrelenting. This was how I went. The electricity was frying my insides, turning it into a liquid mush.
And then it stopped. It took a while to regain my vision, but even then it was unfocused and blurry. The man was still lying on the ground, breathing but unconscious. Pieces of the vase were still ingrained into his skull, sending small trickles of blood down his face. I removed one and slit his throat. It wasn't the death he deserved, considering all that he did.
But it was what he got.
I stumbled out of the room, to see Eddison pouring what looked like to be gasoline on the floor. I tensed up, ready for another fight. He put the gasoline can down and put his hands up.
"Hey, man. You can relax. I'm the one who helped you out there. You would have died if it wasn't for me."
I scanned his face, and I believed him. I put my fists down.
He continued. "I hated it here as well, but I could never find an opportunity to strike back. What you did was very brave."
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Blowing up this fucking hellhole." He simply said.
We worked together for a few hours, silently and in the dark. He had almost finished with the farmhouse, so we moved onto the barn, and finished with the tents. We ended up at Michael's car, and Eddison handed me a lit match. Signifying that he wanted me to do it.
I didn't give a damn anymore. Everything could burn.
I threw the match into a puddle of gasoline, and quickly drove of with Eddison, before the small fire turned into a raging inferno. We were about two miles out when the night sky was lit up in a burst of white light.
It was done.
Eddison turned to me. "Where are we going, then?"
I gazed into the rearview mirror, watching the horizon be engulfed in flame. There was the wail of firetrucks moving in from the distance. Someone must have called it in. I looked forward, at the gravel road in front of me, pondering the question.
"Home."
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Firstly, figuring out how to get a ride back home. My best guess was that I was a good thirty minute drive from any type of civilization. There was a small possibility a car might come along from across the distance, but the chance they were heading in the same direction I was, was even slimmer.
I mean, I could probably manage to hotwire a car back at the farmhouse. But I didn't want to go back there. Not yet.
The second thing on my mind was my lack of shoes. The rocks were tough and sharp under my feet, scraping them raw with every aching footstep. I had settled on walking on the muddy, yet less painful, grass on the side. But I still wondered why. Of all the thing the man at the table could've taken from me, he took shoes.
It was a pretty clear answer, however. Mental games. He hires someone to drop me off in the middle of nowhere, with no feasible way of getting back. He knew the first thing I'd want to do is leave. So he took my shoes. He gave me two options, and he wanted to make one that displeased him hurt me, even if it was only in a small, petty way.
Mental games.
The last thing was that I had messed up. Badly. I had continually played into the man at the table's hand. He had always been two steps ahead of me and in hindsight, it was foolish of me to go confront him. I suppose I had visions of bravado, and of revenge, but all I had to show for it was one less arm, and a dead friend.
I can admit that I shouldn't have done that. But I can also change. One short phone call to the police, and I'd get rid of this nightmare. I had an address. I had a confession. I had evidence. And I had made up my mind. No longer I would face all this by myself.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911. No service. Great.
I continued walking for another twenty minutes, before I heard the roar of a car engine behind me. I turned around. There was a car peeking over the horizon, coming from where I came from, and going the direction I was going. Perfect. It was an old blue Chevy, that rumbled across the gravel, kicking up a plume of dust as it went.
I stuck my thumb out.
In that moment, I probably didn't look like someone you'd want to pick of the road, with missing shoes and only one arm, and all. But there was no harm in trying. I was hoping it was a kind farmer from hereabouts, heading to the main town to do some weekly shopping. The Chevy made its way to me, and I saw the driver eye me up and down, before pulling onto the shoulder of the road.
I opened the door and hopped into the passengers side, thanking the driver. He shifted his position to look at me. Well, rather look past me. He had short, cropped hair, three-day stubble, and a faraway look in his eyes, as if he couldn't rest his gaze, or if he was always searching into the distance.
It was the paramedic, from earlier.
I opened the door and got out. I wasn't doing this again. I would rather walk home. The paramedic drove forward a bit, cutting me off from the road, so that I would have to walk around his car to go forwards. I stopped walking. The paramedic got out of his car.
"Hey, Jonathan." He said, waving.
I didn't respond.
He moved forward towards me and extended a hand. I didn't accept it. He held it there for an uncomfortably long period of time, before placing it back by his side. "Look. We got of on the wrong foot here. The name's Michael. It's a pleasure to meet you again."
"The pleasure's all yours." I said, dripping with distaste.
He looked forward, his gaze shifting in and out of focus. "So. . .uh. You called 911. I can't let you do that."
"How did you know that?" I questioned.
He shrugged. "GPS tracker. In your arm. Shows us your location, and interferes with phone signals as well. Took the liberty of inserting it when you were out cold."
It wasn't a service signal problem, then.
He shifted position, and leaned against his car. "So, I'm going to set it to you straight. Come back with us. You obviously can't be trusted to not go back to the police. Let's make this fair. We're not here to hurt you. You said you'd work for us. Come back, Jonathan."
"And how would you stop me from going?" I said, tensing up for a fight.
He shook his head, looking hurt. He grabbed his keys from his pocket, and pressed a button connected to the keychain. I fell down in pain, as a sharp buzzing sensation shook my body, the intensity increasing ever few seconds.
Michael let go off the button. "I forgot to mention. The tracker also doubles as a. . .safety precaution. You just experienced setting three. Trust me, you wouldn't like setting eight." He tapped his eyes. "Messes up your internal hardware, as I'm sure you've noticed. Setting ten straight up kills you."
I automatically looked at my right arm. Inside of it, somewhere, was a small death machine.
"So, Jonathan. Will you come back?"
I didn't have much of a choice.
The drive back was uneventful, and spent mostly in silence. Every time Michael tried to start a conversation, I brushed him of with one word answers. I wanted to make it clear I didn't want to be here.
He pulled up the small driveway towards the farmhouse. The man at the table was sitting on the porch waiting for me. He knew I was coming. He tells me I have a choice in whether I leave or not, but I never really did. The illusion of choice.
Mental games.
He stood up to greet me as I got out of the car. "Jonathan! You're back! I am so glad to see you!" He waved me inside. "Come on in. I've got so much to tell you! The others are eating breakfast."
I walked in with him, towards the dining room where I had first met him. Seated around the table, there was a large group of nineteen people eating bacon and eggs, and various other breakfast items.
I knew most of them.
There was Sgt Langley, slathering some butter on bread. She smiled and waved at me as I came in.
Eddison was sitting beside her, pouring milk into a glass. He turned away from me, not wanting to look me in the eyes, I suppose. He was embarrassed to be here.
There was various other people I had seen in my time in the field,. Other paramedics and police officers, politicians, journalists, doctors and surgeons. All sharing a pleasant meal together. In the house of a murderer.
The man clapped his hands from behind me. "Ok, everyone! Let's make Jonathan feel welcome around here. He's the latest Keeper, but we're still expecting many more"
"Welcome, Jonathan." A unison of voices said.
I scanned the room, my throat dry and constricted. This was too much.
The man walked away and beckoned me towards him. He continued to walk through the house, pointing out every room, and giving a rundown of the layout. A kitchen, two living rooms, and three bathrooms spread across two stories. There was also a couple of bedrooms inside, but it seemed to me everyone was sleeping in tents outside.
He then took me down to the basement. "This is where the magic happens." He said, with a wink.
It was as I left it. A large operating table covered in dried blood filled the middle of the room. It was surrounded with various machinery, and tools. It was a stark contrast between a sterile IV machine on one side, and a rusted saw hanging of a nail on the other. And in the middle of it all were cameras, set up on tripods around the room.
I inspected one more closely. "What are the cameras for?" I asked.
The man chuckled slightly. "How else do you think I get the money to pay for all of this?"
I turned around to face him, the cogs clicking in my head. "You. . .sell videos of people being tortured."
He smiled. "You get it. Torture porn is extremely popular in some places of the internet. It's not the main reason I do this, of course. But it helps the cause. The video of your arm being sold, for example, was sold for just shy of five thousand." He clasped his eyes behind his back, seemingly very pleased with himself. "I cut paid to cut off a few legs, and then I have the money to cut off more than just legs. It's an endless cycle. It's perfect. You've seen firsthand the fruits of this system." He nodded towards the door on the side, still marked with elephant.
He continued. "That's where I keep my work-in-progresses. Of course, it's empty now. Which is a shame. He was shaping up to be my best elephant yet. No matter, we've got a cat picked out and coming in soon."
I shuddered at the way he talked about Thompson with such blasé. As if what had happened to him was a natural, everyday occurrence. It sickened me. There was no way somebody could do this all day, and believe themselves to be good.
There was something else as well, burning in the back of my mind. "You said before that the night my sister was kidnapped, she was doing something that I didn't know. What was it?"
He was silent for a moment. "How close were you with your sister?"
I shrugged. "Close enough. We talked about once a month, and came over every Christmas."
"Do you know what she did for work?"
"Yeah. She was studying something. Some sort of advanced anesthetic. She never worked it out, however."
"She did." He simply said. He waited for me to process that before continuing. "I met Alice on an online forum. From the beginning, she fascinated me. She talked about how the world was corrupt and poisoned by humanity, and her ideas for rebirth and restoration. She had plans, Jonathan. So many plans. Everything you see here is a result of her work. We met up at one point and clicked. She was perfect. She was smart. And she was mine."
"Then. . .why did you kill her?" I asked.
I could see his eyes clouding up, as if he was on the verge of tears. "Her anesthetic didn't work as intended. Instead of removing pain, it increased it. The way it truly works is beyond me, but even a little dose causes the most unimaginable pain. It feels as if your body is being removed from the inside and replaced with fire, atom by atom. Death would be preferable. But that's the thing, the anesthetic one small side-effect. It's downright impossible to die when the effects take hold. You just have to endure through the pain."
"So all the people I saw. . .?" I let my question trail of.
"It's easy to manipulate someone's body when they don't have the strength to retaliate, nor the capability to die." He paused, his body quivering with each shaky breath. "Alice wanted to be the first. She wanted to be the pioneer as the world transitioned into her vision. I begged her not to, as there were other, more suitable candidates. But she insisted.
And so we staged a kidnapping. There was no evidence because there was no struggle. There was nothing. She came to this farmhouse, and was the first person to be operated on that table. I spent years placing toothpicks in her skin, while she was drugged up under her special anesthetic. She pushed through the pain, and continued to talk to me. Sharing ideas that I would have never thought possible.
She told me to find others. In places of power. And if they wouldn't join willingly, then find a way to force them. Soon enough, they would come to realize we're working for the benefit of humanity. She told me to create animal-human hybrids to begin with. An evolution of our species. And the last thing she told me, before I laid her to rest in a park, was to find you. To hire you. To change your vision. And here you are."
I stood in silence. I, in fact, didn't know what to say. Everything that I though I knew about my sister was shattered in an instant. It was possible the man was lying. There was no way she really was a some sort of insane fanatical, hell-bent on torturing people.
It just wasn't the person I knew.
And yet, everything made sense. I didn't want to believe him, but I didn't see any way that I couldn't. He was right, and I knew it.
The man looked back at me. "Come, Jonathan. I've got one more thing you need to see."
He led me up, out of the basement, and through the back door. He led me past a large vegetable garden, and rows upon rows of tents, most of them unoccupied.
They were expecting many more.
I followed him past a fireplace, with upturned stumps placed in a circle around it, to the large barn behind the farmhouse. It was painted a classic red with a sloping roof, and white barn doors. I could hear various noises emanating from inside, different loud sounds, moans, and scrapes, seemingly as if a large machine was inside.
Or a large number of people.
"This," The man said, gesturing at the barn. "Is my crowning achievement. My life's work. It is the beginning of the vision that Alice had for the world. This is where your induction will take place, and you will become a fully fledged Keeper. You will learn to be a bringer of justice, and a waymaker into the new world."
He walked in front of me, and opened the large doors., letting me take a glimpse inside. It was dark and musky. "Welcome, Jonathan." He exclaimed. "To the human zoo!"
I stepped inside.
The smell hit me like a tidal wave. It smelled strongly of blood and fetid remains that permeated the air like a blanket. It gave me a nauseous feeling, and sent my head whirling, as it tried to breathe in clean air. It was no use. I felt a rush of bile spill out of my stomach and into my throat. I turned to the side and threw up onto the floor. And judging by the mess down there, I was not the first.
There was rows upon rows of cages, all lined up from wall to wall. In each cage there seemed to be. . .someone, and by the looks of it, most of them were already dead. Each cage was labeled with a different creature name. There was a worm, who had all of her limbs removed, and seemed to have segmented body parts every couple of inches, and was forced to crawl around by using her head as an anchor.
There was various dogs and cats, long needles inserted into the cheeks in place of whiskers, they had everything below their elbows and knees removed, forcing them to walk on all fours. Other human-animals had parts of their bodies elongated or exaggerate, turning them into various creatures. It didn't seem possible to look like that and live.
All of the inhabitants of the human zoo were filthy and ragged, cramped up in small living conditions and forced to eat small portions of what looked to be rotting meat, only fit for animals. When I walked past, they looked up at me with sorrowful, pleading eyes. They wanted freedom, just like Thompson. They were broken and they were hurt. But they seemed resigned to the fact that they were going to live out the rest of their lives here. There was no resistance in any of them. There was no struggle. They had all given up.
This place was hell.
It was hard to think clearly, the smell continued to invade my brain, and dampening my vision with black patches. My heart was pounding in my chest, a result of the horrors that laid before me. I couldn't breath. I couldn't move. This was all too much.
The man continued walking forwards. "This is where I hold all current specimens, before I decide to release them into captivity. And this is where you and all the other Keepers will work, feeding the specimens, continuing their evolution, and cleaning their chambers."
My blood boiled. He didn't care about the pain he caused. Nothing fazed him. "You're treating people like animals! This is inhumane!" I yelled at him.
He looked at me with disappointment. "Look at them. They are animals. This is all for the cause, anyways. Later on they will be glad to learn that they were the first steps in the evolution of humanity."
He led me forwards, until we ended up at a massive hole in the floor, in the middle of the barn. It was about ten meters in diameter, and the bottom seemed to stretch downwards for five or so meters. There didn't seem to be any way in or out.
The man spoke. "This is where every Keeper before you has proved themselves worthy of Keeper status. Your induction begins now."
I felt a large shove on my back. The momentum carried my body over the edge of the hole, with my feet quickly following suit. In an instant reflex, I covered my head with the nook of my remaining arm, and leaned forward, hoping to catch the grunt of the fall on my knees, before rolling away.
I landed with a large thump, which sent volts of pain rippling through my body, and spread me flat across the ground. I laid there, still. The breath was taken out of my lungs, and my knees felt if they had shattered. I tilted my head up, to get a clearer look at where I was. A small, dusty hole, in the middle of a barn where people went to die. Nothing special about it.
There was movement in the corner of my vision.
It was something circling me, walking with a slight strut, and over-the-top movements, as if it was hard to stay balanced. Every step it made caused a sharp clacking sound to echo throughout the hole. I slowly got up, despite the pain. I swiveled my body to the side to get a better look, even if it was under dim light.
The first thing that made itself clear was that the thing had no neck. Its head ended at its shoulders. The second thing was that it had no eyelids. It stared at me with large, unblinking eyes, taking in every movement. The third was the sharp, steel talons that protruded from every fingertip.
And then it opened its wings. It spread its arms out wide, to reveal a quilt-work of human flesh stitched together under its arms. It looked at me for a few moments, head cocked, arms in a display of aggression, then it swiveled its head around. A full one hundred-and-eighty degrees. I was looking at a human owl.
The owl lunged forward, talons aimed directly at my chest. I lunged to the side, fearing for my life once more since the past few days. I wasn't fast enough. Its talons ripped through my clothes like butter, and left three large gashes across my chest. I ignored the pain, and immediately turned around to face the owl. The penalty for letting my guard down would be death.
The owl was still facing the inner wall of the hole. It twisted its head around to face me, its large eyes looking at me with an intense hatred. I panicked, and hopped backwards, aiming to avoid another attack from the owl. But then I came to my senses. If I was going to survive, I knew I had to make a move right away. The longer I tarried, the weaker I would become, and the lower my chances of living through this would become.
I threw myself at one of its wings, hoping to bring the owl down. It avoided me. In a lapse of judgement, I forgot to realize there was still a human under all of that, wanting to avoid death as much as I did. I rolled backwards, and leaped to my feet. The owl lunged at me again, talons extended. My first instinct was to dodge once more, but I suppressed it. The owl would be expecting that. I instead waited until the last moment, and threw myself into the steadily approaching owl.
I caught it off guard.
The owl flailed backwards, stumbling under my weight. I dug my fingers in the small gap between its head and shoulders, and started tearing of the stitches that held them together. The owl continued to thrash, realizing what I was doing. It dropped to the ground, and tried to claw me of its back, but couldn't reach because of its wings.
I continued to tear. One after another. I could feel the tension loosening. Another couple minutes of this, and I would be home free. The owl's movements started to decrease in intensity, and hit seemed to realize the battle had been won. I removed on last stitch, and the rest of the owl's head came of easily, dripping with blood.
I threw it to the ground and collapsed, exhausted.
I woke up in one of the bedrooms. My chest hurt like hell. I sat up in the bed, and pulled the covers away. There was three large scars across my chest, painful and tender to the touch, but obviously treated by someone. I looked outside a nearby window. It was the dead of night. I couldn't hear any noises inside, so I assumed everyone was outside in a tent, sleeping. Everyone except the man. He was sitting in the chair, and simply watching me sleep.
Mind games.
He looked at me as I stood up and raised an eyebrow. I began to walk over to him, despite the pain. He clasped his hands together. "Well done. You are now a Keeper."
I continued my slow journey.
"You asked me once what my main purpose was in doing all this. It's for everyone. You. Me. All the peoples of earth. Humanity is the highest lifeform. I am treating it as such. With my guidance, and your help, humanity will enter a new era. A new evolution."
I still made my way towards him. Everyone's outside. I'm alone with him.
"This was your sister's vision, and then it became mine. I am eager to see it become yours." He tensed up in his chair slightly. "This is not the only human zoo out there, we have spread our philosophy, and we are many. But go ahead, kill me. Continue the cycle. You will follow your sister's footsteps and lead the world into salvation."
I didn't think about it twice. I grabbed a vase of the bedside table and ran at him, weapon raised. There was a flash of fear in his eyes. Clearly, he didn't actually expect me to do that. He wasted precious seconds fumbling for his key chain.
I swung the vase onto his head.
He pressed a button on his keychain.
The jolt of electricity struck my entire body. The pain was so much worse then I had previously experienced. Each separate buzz sent my entire body thrashing against itself. I tried to push past the pain, and get a hold of the button, but I couldn't move by myself, let alone think.
Setting ten will straight up kill you.
My vision turned a searing white. I could feel my organs vibrating within myself. The pain was endless and unrelenting. This was how I went. The electricity was frying my insides, turning it into a liquid mush.
And then it stopped. It took a while to regain my vision, but even then it was unfocused and blurry. The man was still lying on the ground, breathing but unconscious. Pieces of the vase were still ingrained into his skull, sending small trickles of blood down his face. I removed one and slit his throat. It wasn't the death he deserved, considering all that he did.
But it was what he got.
I stumbled out of the room, to see Eddison pouring what looked like to be gasoline on the floor. I tensed up, ready for another fight. He put the gasoline can down and put his hands up.
"Hey, man. You can relax. I'm the one who helped you out there. You would have died if it wasn't for me."
I scanned his face, and I believed him. I put my fists down.
He continued. "I hated it here as well, but I could never find an opportunity to strike back. What you did was very brave."
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Blowing up this fucking hellhole." He simply said.
We worked together for a few hours, silently and in the dark. He had almost finished with the farmhouse, so we moved onto the barn, and finished with the tents. We ended up at Michael's car, and Eddison handed me a lit match. Signifying that he wanted me to do it.
I didn't give a damn anymore. Everything could burn.
I threw the match into a puddle of gasoline, and quickly drove of with Eddison, before the small fire turned into a raging inferno. We were about two miles out when the night sky was lit up in a burst of white light.
It was done.
Eddison turned to me. "Where are we going, then?"
I gazed into the rearview mirror, watching the horizon be engulfed in flame. There was the wail of firetrucks moving in from the distance. Someone must have called it in. I looked forward, at the gravel road in front of me, pondering the question.
"Home."
x
2023.06.08 02:45 Dizzyflxwer Hecks nah
 | submitted by Dizzyflxwer to newjersey [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 02:40 abigaillouise13 experience with last-minute shows?
Went to the Indy show (my first! I just became a real fan with This Is Why) and it was just unbelievable and such a blast. We drove 2 hours to get there, had seats in advance, but they were on the second level basically next to the stage (which was still a cool view imo). We’re thinking about seeing if we can get day-of Columbus tix for a bit cheaper than they are right now, hopefully lower bowl with a more head-on view of the stage, and driving the three hours starting mid-afternoon and just driving back home afterwards.
I’ve been monitoring Detroit prices yesterday and all day today just to see what the trend is, and it seems like there were a few good lower bowl seats that went down to less than 100, incl. fees, around noon today. So we haven’t decided for sure but I really wanna do it. Has anybody tried to get cheaper day-of tix to a show this tour, around or after noon, and found it worthwhile, especially if you had to make a couple hours drive? I know without a doubt the show would be worth the drive & money but I’m just nervous about trying to make it all happen in less than a day. Any thoughts or tips would be much appreciated, esp. if you have a site where you’ve been successful finding less expensive day-of seats! :) <3
submitted by abigaillouise13 to Paramore [link] [comments]
I’ve been monitoring Detroit prices yesterday and all day today just to see what the trend is, and it seems like there were a few good lower bowl seats that went down to less than 100, incl. fees, around noon today. So we haven’t decided for sure but I really wanna do it. Has anybody tried to get cheaper day-of tix to a show this tour, around or after noon, and found it worthwhile, especially if you had to make a couple hours drive? I know without a doubt the show would be worth the drive & money but I’m just nervous about trying to make it all happen in less than a day. Any thoughts or tips would be much appreciated, esp. if you have a site where you’ve been successful finding less expensive day-of seats! :) <3
2023.06.08 02:25 onyx_Dredd What’s early admission for concert
 | What does this mean?? submitted by onyx_Dredd to SuicideBoys [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 02:25 bonc826 Oahu, Maui, and BI Trip Report (5/23-6/5)
This was our first time in Hawaii, and given that we weren’t sure if we’d have the chance to come back in the future, we crammed as much in as possible. We’re a couple in our late 20s. Overall, we loved Oahu, liked the Big Island, and thought Maui was just okay. The main focuses of our trip were trying a lot of different foods, which we did and enjoyed most of, and taking in the beautiful nature Hawaii has to offer, which we did and enjoyed nearly all of. We enjoyed Oahu the most because it offered the most of everything and it was easy to get around. Maui got docked a few points mostly because of how much drive time was required to do most things and it definitely wouldn’t have been worth it if we hadn’t been able to use credit card points for our hotel. HVNP was the big highlight of the Big Island, and we enjoyed a majority of what we did. If we had the chance, we’d probably go back to see more of the BI. In general, we were expecting food to be way more expensive than it was (yay for not meeting expectations) but it was surprisingly difficult for us to find fruits to try besides pineapple, mango, and papaya (boo for not meeting expectations).
This is a reaaaaaally long trip report so I tried to organize it in a way that will allow people to just find their island of interest if they don’t want to read the whole thing. Each island has a bolded header and I put a heart (💜) by things that we absolutely loved and would likely do again and a star (🌟) by things that we really enjoyed doing as first time visitors but probably wouldn’t do again. Please feel free to ask any questions about stuff I didn’t go into detail about!
Oahu Overall Rating: 9/10 Hotel: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach (mostly stayed here because of CC points and free breakfast. Breakfast would've been way better if there was fruit besides canned pineapple, toilet paper was awful for my bootyhole, and they have the slowest elevators known to man)
Day 0: Travel/arrival
Maui Overall Rating: 7/10 Hotel: Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa (we walked down pretty much the entire 2 mile strip of resorts in Kaanapali and from the outside, I'd say that the Hyatt Regency was among the nicer resorts. However, we would never in a million years stay here if it weren't for CC points)
Day 6: Travel to Maui
Big Island Overall Rating: 8/10 Hotel: Orchid Tree B&B (I wanted to gatekeep this but it was too cute of a B&B to not share. The suite we got was clean and comfortable and the simple breakfast in the morning was great. The host cut fresh fruit from their yard for us) 💜
Day 11: Travel/HVNP
submitted by bonc826 to VisitingHawaii [link] [comments]
This is a reaaaaaally long trip report so I tried to organize it in a way that will allow people to just find their island of interest if they don’t want to read the whole thing. Each island has a bolded header and I put a heart (💜) by things that we absolutely loved and would likely do again and a star (🌟) by things that we really enjoyed doing as first time visitors but probably wouldn’t do again. Please feel free to ask any questions about stuff I didn’t go into detail about!
Oahu Overall Rating: 9/10 Hotel: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach (mostly stayed here because of CC points and free breakfast. Breakfast would've been way better if there was fruit besides canned pineapple, toilet paper was awful for my bootyhole, and they have the slowest elevators known to man)
Day 0: Travel/arrival
- Landed in Honolulu around 7pm after a very long day of traveling. I wanted to get Marugame Udon for dinner but balked at the line. I had heard that the line moves fast, but we were way too tired to wait, so we got Kono’s instead. My bomber was a bit too salty and greasy, but my boyfriend loved his.
- We started the day with Diamond Head. We had the 7-8am reservation, which was perfect, since it was super busy on our way down. 🌟
- I wanted to have lunch at Helena’s but they were unfortunately closed for the duration of the Oahu leg of our trip. Did not learn this until we got there (sign taped to the door), so definitely check their website if this is on your itinerary.
- Walked to Bishop Museum from Helena’s and walked around and had a very sad lunch at the Highway Inn there. The Bishop Museum was beautiful and there was lots to see and read. Chose to do this over Polynesian Cultural Center due to the PCC controversy with the Church of LDS.
- Saw the Iolani Palace and the King Kamehameha statue. Cool to see both, but we didn’t do the formal tour at Iolani Palace.
- Had dinner at Tonkatsu Tamafuji. This was hands down one of the best meals we had the entire trip. We weren’t able to get a reservation so we arrived at 3:30pm to join the waitlist (we were second or third) and were seated almost immediately when they opened for dinner. 💜
- Started the morning early with the Makapu’u Point Lighthouse trail. Super easy and got to see the sunrise at the top. We really liked this trail. 🌟
- Spent some time at Lanikai Beach and it was a nice beach to relax on
- Headed up to drive through Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden and the mountain ranges were stunning. 🌟
- Lunch at Da Bald Guy. It was good but nothing mindblowing. I wanted to try Ry’s Poke too, but they were closed for a few days. Again, learned from a sign on their window lol.
- We did the Ehukai Pillbox Hike and went past the first pillbox to see the second pillbox. The views from there were phenomenal. My poor feet were suffering a little and the downhill stretches were a bit scary at times, but it was worth it. 🌟
- We got an acai bowl from Haleiwa Bowls and it was so delicious and refreshing. 🌟
- Checked out the North Shore Macadamia Nut Company, North Shore Soap Factory🌟, and the Waialua Sugar Mill🌟. We got some souvenirs for family and even got a little tour at the sugar mill. Pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed these stops.
- Second lunch at Jenny’s Shrimp Truck. Good, but again, nothing mindblowing.
- Laniakea Beach was super crowded so we went to Papa’iloa Beach instead. Pretty and not crowded at all, and saw our first sea turtle here!
- We were pretty tired from the early morning so we decided to skip the last couple of things on our itinerary (Sunset Beach and Ted’s Bakery)
- Started the day at KCC Farmers Market. We had mochi from Daizu Tei, banh mi from Pig and the Lady, and passion fruit cane juice (can’t remember the name of the stand). We also got a cup of a variety of cut fruit, which was pretty subpar and disappointing -- a majority of the fruit tasted unripe. 💜
- Lunch at Ono Seafood. It was good, but if I learned anything on this trip, I don’t like poke as much as I thought.
- Evening was spent at Kualoa Ranch for a friend’s wedding. What a beautiful venue!
- Hung out on Waikiki Beach for a while before getting lunch at Marugame Udon. Udon was really tasty but I definitely didn’t need to get the tempura too. Extra points for the great value! 💜
- Wandered around International Marketplace but didn’t do any shopping
- Quick snack at Musubi Cafe. Good, but also thought that I’d like spam musubis more.
- Took a nap before getting dinner at Omakase by Aung. This was an amazing and delicious experience. The vibes were *chef’s kiss* 💜
- Got coffee and some pastries from Kona Coffee b patisserie. Coffee was fine but the pastries were to die for. Waited in line for a while, so it’s probably good to go at a random time in the middle of the day rather than first thing in the morning 🌟/💜
- Headed over to the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites and went to the Battleship Missouri Memorial, Aviation Museum, and USS Arizona. Didn’t have time for the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum but if we could go back, we’d do that instead of the Aviation Museum. The Battleship Missouri Memorial was really cool and my WW2 buff boyfriend loved it. 🌟
- Wanted to get dinner at Maguro Brother, but was yet again met with a “we’re closed and will reopen on x date” sign. Went to Maguro Spot instead.
- We had shave ice at Island Vintage for dessert. We LOVED it and got one that had frozen yogurt in the center. I am dying to have it again. 💜
Maui Overall Rating: 7/10 Hotel: Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa (we walked down pretty much the entire 2 mile strip of resorts in Kaanapali and from the outside, I'd say that the Hyatt Regency was among the nicer resorts. However, we would never in a million years stay here if it weren't for CC points)
Day 6: Travel to Maui
- Flew to Maui in the AM and grabbed lunch at Thai Mee Up. Tasty! Unfortunately, we were there pretty early so most of the other trucks were closed. Checked out Costco too, because why not, and had to resist the urge to buy a million snacks.
- Went to the Iao Valley State Monument and did a few short trails there but the star of the day was the Waihe’e Ridge trail. It was probably the most challenging hike we did our entire trip, but it had the best views. It was unfortunately a bit cloudy at the top, but on the bright side, we didn’t have the sun beating down on our backs and were able to get pretty amazing views halfway up. 🌟
- Checked into our hotel before heading out for dinner at Star Noodle. This was another favorite dinner. It’s small plates/family style and while our waiter suggested starting with a noodle plate plus 2-3 other plates, we ended up ordering a second round of plates because everything we had was so good. 💜
- The sunrise was breathtaking but I never want to do that drive in the dark ever again, even as a passenger. We left at 2:30am and arrived 30 minutes before sunrise and would suggest leaving even earlier to beat the tour buses. It was CROWDED. Did a few trails (Pa Ka’oao, Leleiwi Overlook, and the first half of Halemau’u) and headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap lol. 🌟
- On the way back, we grabbed a few snacks and poke from Foodland
- Explored Lahaina a little before going to the Old Lahaina Luau. The luau was enjoyable and the amount of food was insane. We didn’t love the food (our favorites were probably the apps and dessert), so because of that and the fact that we’re not big drinkers, it was a bit overpriced.
- Not to be all poo-poo about it but both of us thought this was way too overrated. I’ve given my thoughts on some other threads, but there are scenic drives in northern Michigan that are way prettier than the Road to Hana. The only things worth stopping for were Waianapanapa State Park 🌟 and the Pipiwai trail 🌟 and maybe the Keanae Arboretum just to look at the rainbow eucalyptus trees up close and the roadside lava tube. Other than that, we were not impressed by the beaches or the waterfalls and it was exhausting. Oh, and unpopular opinion, but Aunty Sandy’s banana bread is so overrated.
- We had lunch in the middle at Braddah Hutts. It was very tasty but we definitely could’ve shared a plate. Dinner at Tin Roof was on the itinerary but we decided to skip because of how full we were from lunch.
- Given how exhausting the previous day was, we just bummed by the pool all day and napped.
- We got dinner at Huihui, which exceeded our expectations and we watched the lovely sunset as we ate.
- We did a half-day snorkel tour with Sea Maui and it was a really great experience! We went to two spots and had breakfast, lunch, and drinks included. 💜
- Took a much needed nap before going to Down the Hatch for dinner. We weren’t super hungry so we just shared an appetizer and entree and got shave ice at Ululani’s afterwards. Both were good but we liked the Island Vintage shave ice better than Ululani’s.
Big Island Overall Rating: 8/10 Hotel: Orchid Tree B&B (I wanted to gatekeep this but it was too cute of a B&B to not share. The suite we got was clean and comfortable and the simple breakfast in the morning was great. The host cut fresh fruit from their yard for us) 💜
Day 11: Travel/HVNP
- Traveled to the Big Island early in the morning. We stopped by Greenwell Farms for coffee beans to take home, but didn’t have time for a free tour. The beans were a bit pricey but oh well, it’s a souvenir for family and it was 100% Kona coffee.
- We did a farm tour at Kuaiwi Farm and it was fun! We had a bit of a weird group but the owners were great and gave samples of a variety of things to try. 🌟
- Lunch at Shaka Tacoz was delicious. I was in dire need of some vegetables, so I ordered a salad and it was HUGE. I’ve never had such a filling salad.
- We were going to check out the green sand beach but decided against it and headed to HVNP instead. We were able to fit in the Devastation Trail, steam vents, sulphur banks, Kilauea Overlook, and the Thurston Lava Tube. This really freed up our second day at the park and everything was very cool. 🌟
- We got ramen at Tetsumen in Hilo for dinner and it was a pleasant surprise! It was a great way to end the cold and rainy day. 🌟
- Since we had time for HVNP the previous day, we only did the Kilauea Iki trail which was also really cool. We were impressed and amazed by HVNP. 🌟
- We went back to Hilo to check out the farmers market and this was possibly the most disappointing part of our short visit to the BI. Despite being warned during the farm tour the day prior, I wanted to try white pineapple before leaving and was convinced by the vendor that I purchased from that the pineapples were ripe. We had been warned during the farm tour that many vendors at farmers markets will lie and sell unripe fruit. So I ended up spending over $20 on an unripe white pineapple that made my tongue burn. I made myself eat probably 1/3 of it before I gave up and threw it out. I also purchased a mountain apple that was also definitely not ripe and I couldn’t eat more than the one bite I took. Lesson learned, I suppose.
- We stopped by Rainbow Falls (had time to kill) and it was alright.
- We had a late lunch at Cafe 100 and Ken’s House of Pancakes (also alright) before our long trip home.
2023.06.08 01:53 dark_opposum Moving to MKE from MSP
Hey milwaukee! I'll soon be moving from Minneapolis to Milwaukee and was wondering about neighborhoods to live in. I grew up in WI, went to school in Madison, and have lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years since. Some things I'm looking for are:
I'm not expecting to find a perfect match for my current situation, I'm willing to sacrifice some things. This is just a starting point. Any and all contributions will be valuable to me! The current shortlist is Bay View, Third Ward, Riverwest, Tosa itself, Brewer's Hill, Lower East Side. Those approximate areas. Thank you!!!
submitted by dark_opposum to milwaukee [link] [comments]
- I'll be working in Wauwatosa (GE Healthcare). I want the commute to be 20ish minutes. 30 max. And I'd like to have the option to bike if at all possible.
- I'll make enough where I can pay on the more expensive end of the spectrum but I don't want to spend a ton on housing. $2k tops, ideally closer to $1.5k.
- I'm a huge fan of my current neighborhood in Minneapolis (Whittier, if anybody is familiar). Things I like are:
- It's a mix of permanent homeowners and renters. Has plenty of younger people without being overly rowdy.
- People are always out and about, walking dogs, sitting on porches, gardening, etc. Very easy to get to know people in the community.
- It's close enough to walk or bike to lots of things. Everything else is a 15-20 minute drive away.
- I like having green spaces in my community
- I have a dog that gets an hour+ of walks each day, so a good area for walking is a must
I'm not expecting to find a perfect match for my current situation, I'm willing to sacrifice some things. This is just a starting point. Any and all contributions will be valuable to me! The current shortlist is Bay View, Third Ward, Riverwest, Tosa itself, Brewer's Hill, Lower East Side. Those approximate areas. Thank you!!!
2023.06.08 01:30 RMcChesney As the US invests more in climate-smart ag, these Louisiana farmers could serve as a model
Bernard Winn moves a tractor across the Jubilee Justice farm on April 4, 2023, in Alexandria, Louisiana. Winn, an operations specialist, is running the farm’s new solar-powered rice mill that is cooperatively owned by Black farmers and will give each of them a bigger share of the profits from rice production. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Gulf States Newsroom)
To get to Eros, Louisiana, you pass through a literal one-stoplight town, but otherwise, the drive is largely rural. Drive far enough, and you eventually find the DeLaTerre Permaculture Farm — a 43-acre homestead. Its name translates to “of the earth” in French.
The farm, started by Waylon Breaux and Donna Isaacs in October 2019, is run in conjunction with Campti Field of Dreams. The Louisiana-based nonprofit has been in operation since 2001, working to make farming in climate-friendly ways practical for rural and underserved farmers.
“Our goal is to teach people that you can do this in your backyard, you can do this in containers or you can do it at a quarter-acre or two-acre or five-acre scale,” said Donna Isaacs, Campti Field of Dreams’ executive director.
The nonprofit’s brand of climate-smart agriculture,SDGs%20and%20the%20Paris%20Agreement.) was on full display in early April when DeLaTerre was the site of one of its workshop demonstrations offered throughout the year. This time, it focused on discussing practices and tools to help small farmers get healthier soil — drawing a crowd of both local farmers and backyard gardeners.
https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2023-06-07/as-the-u-s-invests-more-in-climate-smart-ag-these-louisiana-farmers-could-serve-as-a-model
submitted by RMcChesney to SustainableFarming [link] [comments]
Bernard Winn moves a tractor across the Jubilee Justice farm on April 4, 2023, in Alexandria, Louisiana. Winn, an operations specialist, is running the farm’s new solar-powered rice mill that is cooperatively owned by Black farmers and will give each of them a bigger share of the profits from rice production. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Gulf States Newsroom)
To get to Eros, Louisiana, you pass through a literal one-stoplight town, but otherwise, the drive is largely rural. Drive far enough, and you eventually find the DeLaTerre Permaculture Farm — a 43-acre homestead. Its name translates to “of the earth” in French.
The farm, started by Waylon Breaux and Donna Isaacs in October 2019, is run in conjunction with Campti Field of Dreams. The Louisiana-based nonprofit has been in operation since 2001, working to make farming in climate-friendly ways practical for rural and underserved farmers.
“Our goal is to teach people that you can do this in your backyard, you can do this in containers or you can do it at a quarter-acre or two-acre or five-acre scale,” said Donna Isaacs, Campti Field of Dreams’ executive director.
The nonprofit’s brand of climate-smart agriculture,SDGs%20and%20the%20Paris%20Agreement.) was on full display in early April when DeLaTerre was the site of one of its workshop demonstrations offered throughout the year. This time, it focused on discussing practices and tools to help small farmers get healthier soil — drawing a crowd of both local farmers and backyard gardeners.
https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2023-06-07/as-the-u-s-invests-more-in-climate-smart-ag-these-louisiana-farmers-could-serve-as-a-model
2023.06.08 01:28 RMcChesney As the US invests more in climate-smart ag, these Louisiana farmers could serve as a model
Bernard Winn moves a tractor across the Jubilee Justice farm on April 4, 2023, in Alexandria, Louisiana. Winn, an operations specialist, is running the farm’s new solar-powered rice mill that is cooperatively owned by Black farmers and will give each of them a bigger share of the profits from rice production. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Gulf States Newsroom)
To get to Eros, Louisiana, you pass through a literal one-stoplight town, but otherwise, the drive is largely rural. Drive far enough, and you eventually find the DeLaTerre Permaculture Farm — a 43-acre homestead. Its name translates to “of the earth” in French.
The farm, started by Waylon Breaux and Donna Isaacs in October 2019, is run in conjunction with Campti Field of Dreams. The Louisiana-based nonprofit has been in operation since 2001, working to make farming in climate-friendly ways practical for rural and underserved farmers.
“Our goal is to teach people that you can do this in your backyard, you can do this in containers or you can do it at a quarter-acre or two-acre or five-acre scale,” said Donna Isaacs, Campti Field of Dreams’ executive director.
The nonprofit’s brand of climate-smart agriculture,SDGs%20and%20the%20Paris%20Agreement.) was on full display in early April when DeLaTerre was the site of one of its workshop demonstrations offered throughout the year. This time, it focused on discussing practices and tools to help small farmers get healthier soil — drawing a crowd of both local farmers and backyard gardeners.
https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2023-06-07/as-the-u-s-invests-more-in-climate-smart-ag-these-louisiana-farmers-could-serve-as-a-model
submitted by RMcChesney to OrganicFarming [link] [comments]
Bernard Winn moves a tractor across the Jubilee Justice farm on April 4, 2023, in Alexandria, Louisiana. Winn, an operations specialist, is running the farm’s new solar-powered rice mill that is cooperatively owned by Black farmers and will give each of them a bigger share of the profits from rice production. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Gulf States Newsroom)
To get to Eros, Louisiana, you pass through a literal one-stoplight town, but otherwise, the drive is largely rural. Drive far enough, and you eventually find the DeLaTerre Permaculture Farm — a 43-acre homestead. Its name translates to “of the earth” in French.
The farm, started by Waylon Breaux and Donna Isaacs in October 2019, is run in conjunction with Campti Field of Dreams. The Louisiana-based nonprofit has been in operation since 2001, working to make farming in climate-friendly ways practical for rural and underserved farmers.
“Our goal is to teach people that you can do this in your backyard, you can do this in containers or you can do it at a quarter-acre or two-acre or five-acre scale,” said Donna Isaacs, Campti Field of Dreams’ executive director.
The nonprofit’s brand of climate-smart agriculture,SDGs%20and%20the%20Paris%20Agreement.) was on full display in early April when DeLaTerre was the site of one of its workshop demonstrations offered throughout the year. This time, it focused on discussing practices and tools to help small farmers get healthier soil — drawing a crowd of both local farmers and backyard gardeners.
https://www.wwno.org/coastal-desk/2023-06-07/as-the-u-s-invests-more-in-climate-smart-ag-these-louisiana-farmers-could-serve-as-a-model
2023.06.08 00:43 JeliPuff Felix Vail: The Pedophile Serial Killer Caught After 54 Years (PART 2)
This is Part 2 of this write-up. Please read part 1 first. This is the link:
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/143r7l9/felix_vail_the_pedophile_serial_killer_caught/
http://charleyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vail_annette6.jpg(A photo of Annette Craver.)
In the summer of 1981, she and her mother, Mary Rose greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas. They had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America.
VAIL MEETS ANNETTE
While people browsed the sale, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’” he said about the 15-year-old.
In April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both. After graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later, and convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death 3 years prior. It would be over a year before Mary Rose would see her daughter again.
That fall, Annette (who was still 15) would fall pregnant, and Vail would force her to have a painful abortion.
Jerry Woodall, reportedly friends with Vail later recalled an embarrassing scene, where the 42-year-old Vail was in a sleeping bag, having public sex with a 16-year-old Annette, only 20 feet away from him and his then-wife Meredith McMackin. Annette grinned and waved at them. Woodall and McMackin did their best to ignore them.
McMackin would later say that Vail had “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”
Later that summer, police in California would arrest Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier. Annette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200. After Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to get married. However, as a 17-year-old she needed permission.
Annette told her mother that she loved Vail, that they were already “spiritually married” and that they would travel to Mexico and get married there if she refused. Not wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.
On August 15th, 1983, in Bakersfield, California, the couple were wed.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE
Four months after the marriage, Annette turned 18, allowing her to collect more than $98,000 ($293,500 today) from life insurance policies on her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.
In April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting at her door. She told her she wanted to divorce Vail, and enroll in college. She talked about Vail’s temper, including an incident where he had broken his hand trying to punch his wife. He missed and hit a wall.
A few weeks later, Vail showed up. The couple fought constantly, and Vail left after a few days. Mary Rose said that Vail was “insanely jealous” and would become furious when Annette spoke of her desire to go out with younger men.
She and Annette worked on renovating the two homes after Vail left, enjoying their time together. The 2 even started a garden together.
Annette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. He wrote to her: “After we hung up, I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with God and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”
He referred to being away from Annette as “deprivation jail” and to her ego as “his jailor.”
“The idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you. My mind is kissing you everywhere.”
After that, Vail would return to Annette’s life. Rose said, “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’” His influence on Annette had only grown stronger. According to Rose, she even compared Vail to God, a comparison Vail agreed with.
After this, the couple angrily insisted that Rose move out and deed the house to Annette. Accompanied by suicidal thoughts brought on by Vail’s continued control over her daughter, Rose left for California to stay with family and friends, deeding the house to Annette for $7000 ($21,000 today) before she did.
Annette would add Vail to the deed, and a month later had deeded him both homes, leaving him as the sole owner.
ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Mere weeks after deeding the houses to Vail, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned in October, he was alone.
Vail told a neighbor that Annette had a lot of money wither her when he’d left her, and that she was likely visiting friends in Denver.
Upon learning that Annette hadn’t come back with Vail, Mary Rose called him. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled to an investigative reporter years later. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.” The next day, Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000 ($150,000 today) but didn't elaborate.
On Oct 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who spoke with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”
On January 22, 1985, Detective Dennis Davis and another officer questioned Vail at his home (This is obscenely late to start questioning him). By this point, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.” Davis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate. Vail confirmed this was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.
The next day, Vail called a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” as he wrote in his journal.
When Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette woke up and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket. (There is no Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, and there has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.)
He told the officers that she had told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico. When asked if he would take a lie detector test, Vail said no.
After Davis left, he wrote a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” about Annette, told her that after the couple had returned from Costa Rica Annette had been “seeing friends and relatives --- completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.” He wrote that Annette “disappeared herself from you” because Rose kept imposing her “value system” on her, and said Annette viewed her mother, grandmother, and herself as “zero self-image whores for approval.”
He explained the 2 had no plans to communicate, he did not know where she was, and that “I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
When Rose returned to Tulsa in April 1985, she entered the cottage Annette used to live in, only to find almost all the young woman’s belongings were gone, including her clothes and her diary.
Inside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.
Instead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. It said that as of that day, they had $41,600 ($125,000 today) in cash.
Rose shared the information with the police. Detective Davis showed up again, and Vail told Davis the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks, contradicting his earlier statement that they kept the money in cash.
After a while, Davis left, and despite the (seemingly obvious) suspicious behavior of Vail, closed the missing person’s case.
AFTER ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Rose kept calling Vail after this and was finally able to reach him on September 14th 1985.
When asked about Annette’s whereabouts he refused to tell her.
When asked about Annette’s missing clothes he said he gave them to charity.
When asked about the insurance money, Vail told her ‘That’s all she really cared about.’ Rose hung up.
Two years later, fed up with the lack of progress in Annette’s case, Rose would return to Tulsa. She spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to locate Vail. When that failed, she simply went and found him herself.
Tipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside. When asked where Annette went, he replied “Mexico.” When asked where in Mexico, he said the 2 had made a pact to contact each other every 5 years, contradicting his statement that the 2 didn’t have plans to communicate. Rose didn’t believe a word of it.
The whole time Vail never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.
BETH FIELD
Some time after this, Vail began dating Beth Field. Soon the couple had began arguing, and Vail would call her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he would strike her so hard he ruptured her ear drum. She told Vail there was no justification for violence, to which he responded, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”
In August 1988 Beth received a call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing that he had likely murdered her.
Four months after the call, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to a court order. He slapped her, struck her, and threw her across the bedroom. She asked if Vail was going to kill her, to which Vail replied, “It depends on what you tell me.”
A judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.
While Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived. After composing herself, she told him “There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.”
He looked at her and asked, “Really?” She said “yes, really.” This time, the message seemed to go through. Vail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she never saw him again.
MARY ROSE LEARNS ABOUT THE OTHER 2 CASES
In the summer of 1991 (6 years after Annette's disappearance), Rose drove over 2000 miles to Canyon Lake, Texas to speak to Sue Jordan, Felix Vail’s sister. Jordan said that Vail had told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned, which was news to Rose.
Before she left, Jordan also told her, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”
After the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, writing every word she could remember. She also called the public library in Lake Charles.
The librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary Horton. She told Rose that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning and that the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value. The librarian made copies of newspaper articles and mailed them to her.
After reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared her suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article made after Vail's son Bill reported him to the police. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.
In 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell. She contacted Newell, who helped her find the family of Sharon Hensley. When Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered. Rose asked if Peggy knew a Felix Vail. Peggy replied with "you bet I do"
THE INVESTIGATION HEATS UP… AND COOLS DOWN
The detective who helped Rose before, Terry Newell, contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI. When Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she'd finally gotten somewhere. He was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He still remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S. Vail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family. Both the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.
Bell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail. He was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving Vail grew cold once again.
A QUICK RUN DOWN OF EVENTS
In the fall of 1997, family and friends held a mural for Annette.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Vail’s son Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. He’s quoted saying “now I’ll get to be with my mom.” Months before passing away in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years,” before writing about getting a good haircut. He drove to Kansas but didn’t attend his own son’s funeral. If he had, he would have heard the recording, with his son detailing how he had overheard his father talk about murdering Bill's mother, Mary.
When Vail learned of the recording, he wrote to Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy. He blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”
In 2012, while attempting to confront Vail with reporter Jerry Mitchell whom she had contacted to write about Vial, Rose was stopped by Kaye Faulkner, Vial’s sister. She told Rose and Mitchell of the recording and urged Mitchell to get a copy of it. She also said that she believed Vial had murdered Mary Horton, Sharon Hensley, and Annette Craver.
She gave the reporter Vial’s number, as well as the numbers of her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth. Vial didn’t answer those calls, so Mitchell left a message. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on his behalf.
MITCHELL INVESTIGATES
Mitchell arrived in Lake Charles and stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories. He began tracking down people who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary.
Many described Mary’s fair of drowning. A close friend of Vails, Judson McCann II described Vial as a ladies’ man, and insinuated he was a cheater. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on. When Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”
Another close friend, Bob Hodges described Vial’s story of Mary ‘falling’ in the river as “horse manure.”
A college roommate of Mary, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, said “Nobody believed it was an accident.”
Mitchell shared Mary’s autopsy report with pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City, who concluded that foul play had taken place in her death.
The report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water. There were hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion. But most convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water.
“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she was put in the water.”
A cousin put Mary’s brother Will Horton in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962. He had never forgotten Mary’s death. “Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”
He and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed an elite task force unit that investigated homicides. Three young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies (officers) wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer. Horton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer,” to which the other detectives agreed.
Shortly afterwards, DeLouche left the task force, and for seemingly the hundredth time, grew cold again.
After Mitchell posted a story about Vail titled “Gone” (It’s nearly 9,000 words long, and the precursor to the 35,500 word story I have drawn heavily from) a man named Wesley Turnage contacted him. He told him of a conversation he had had with Vail in 1963 during a car ride.
According to Turnage, Vail called Mary a bitch and said she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems. He quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”
Mitchell would make another discovery. District Attorney Salter Jr. had ordered that the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.
Will Horton told Mitchell the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail. That matched the stories Mitchell had heard from grand jurors’ families.
Horton then contacted District Attorney John DeRosier, who said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.
Then came an interesting wrinkle in the story. Finding Vail.
He’d disappeared, returning on Labor Day weekend 2012 to sell his property, before disappearing again. Luckily, another reader of "Gone" came to the rescue. He phoned Mitchell, telling him where Vial was. Canyon Lake, Texas.
Mitchell then contacted Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. Yaksic then contacted Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.
Yaksic shared a copy of GONE with Showalter, who in turn called Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case. Curtis phoned Mitchell to find out where Vail was. A few days later, he called back to say the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.
On Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found him at that address, living in a storage shed. Curtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women. Vail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger (Where "Gone" was published) of lying about him. The whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.
Will Horton gave Mitchell the number of his cousin, who was a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac Abshire Jr. When Mitchell sat down with the man, he shared a haunting story.
Abshire had worked with Vail and offered him a room to rent out. Once Vail and Mary were married, Vail had moved out. Abshire viewed himself as “a big brother” to Mary, calling her “a sweet little girl.”
After the marriage, Vail had become angry at work, talking about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant, and how he didn’t like his baby. On the Friday before she was killed, the couple visited Abshire, bringing Bill, who was still an infant. Mary privately asked Abshire if he thought Vail could take her baby away.
Two days later, Mary was dead.
Abshire and two other workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.
Abshire said while they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’”
They recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. Blood boiled on the boat, everyone voicing the same opinion. Vail had killed Mary.
Abshire had kept photos from that day for over 50 years. He said he had given them to Deputy Curtis as well as a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.
Despite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 ($150,000 today) life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000 ($24,000 today), which promised to pay double if she died by accident.
It was almost as if he knew she was about to die.
Deputies had reported witnesses claims that Vail had told them he didn’t love his wife, that she looked stupid and vulgar, and that he had had sexual relations with multiple women, and at least one man.
Vail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered. Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As for the trotline the 2 were supposedly running, deputies found it still inside Vail’s tackle box.
Most witnesses the Deputies had spoken too felt that Vail was capable of killing his wife.
When asked if he believed Vail killed his wife, Abshire said “Oh, my God, yes.”
THE CHASE & THE FINAL CLUES:
Ever since Vail had sold his Mississippi property, Mary Rose had wondered if he would eventually sell the Tulsa property, the one she and Annette had lived in. He did. Vail sold it for $149,000. Rose asked the question on the mind of everyone investigating. “What is he going to do with all that money? --- He could be running.”
On April 30th Mitchell got a call saying that Vail had left Texas. He was pulled over by police in Columbus, Mississippi after hopping the fence of his now dead brother Ronnie’s property. Curtis told Mitchell that the Columbus police were sending him a photo of Vail and the white pick-up truck he was pulled over in. He once again warned Mitchell that Vail could be running.
Vail’s sister called again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier. She wondered if he was driving to the home of possible witness Wesley Turnage.
Mitchell called Turnage to let him know that Vail might be headed his way. Turnage replied “If he sets foot on my property, there won’t be no trial.” He called Mitchell back later, saying no one in Montpelier had seen Vail.
Private Investigator Gina Frenzel, who had questioned Vail herself, including pretending to be his girlfriend, called Mitchell with good news. Vail had contacted her and told her he was back in Canyon Lake. Mitchell informed Curtis.
On May 17th 2012, authorities arrested Felix Vail for the murder of his wife Mary Horton.
In telephone calls from the jail in Lake Charles, he shared his explanation of what happened the night of Oct. 28, 1962, when Mary died.
He referred to his first wife as a “coon-ass lady,” saying she was “half kneeling” on his feet when she “saw one of the float buckets that were on the line.” He said the boat was “going real slow along the edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump ... and it dumped her right out.” Vail said he shut off the motor and dove in “where she had plopped in the water. I mean, nothing. The river had sucked her right in.” He said he “dove around until I was exhausted, and came in immediately to the police station in town and reported the accident and that was it.”
This story differed greatly from his story in 1962 when he said his wife was sitting on top of a boat seat when she fell out, not that she was kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about hitting a stump — just swerving to miss it.
It also differed from the story he had told his son, where a wave from another boat had dumped Mary out.
Vail told Frenzel that the case “has been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
He blamed the families and Mitchell, “an evil, shrimpy reporter,” for what had happened, calling the charges “fabricated” and insisting that “a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them.”
At Vail’s request, Frenzel returned his truck to his home and went inside to take care of a few tasks. While there, she spent 16 hours photographing all his journals, more than 2,400 pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs and business cards, some dating back to the 1960s. She found a collection of women’s jewelry, old buttons, pins, and even a glass dildo.
Disturbingly, if at this point unsurprisingly, she found a photograph of a naked 3-year-old girl. Frenzel later spoke with the girl, now a woman. The journals revealed that Vail had stalked her for years.
Frenzel discovered the birth certificate of Annette Craver, who had used it for previous trips to Mexico.
Mitchell and Frenzel poured through the journals she had photographed. They noticed gaps in them that lead them to believe Vail had ripped pages out, including times when he should have been with Sharon and Annette.
His journals were dominated by sex, dreams of sex and reflected an obsession with children. In a March 27, 1986, entry, Vail wrote about the visit of a woman and her daughters in his home. “The little girls were delicious --- We massaged some, hugged & kissed some & it was 12 (midnight) & time for them to go.”
On Aug. 29, 1992, Vail walked into the Wal-Mart in West Point, and as he wrote in his journal “a 1-year-old white girl looked in my eyes loving me like there was no age difference between us.”
When Mitchell interviewed Kert Germany, a co-worker of Vail in 1977 he said that Vail attracted women wherever he went, and that Vail had told him the best sex of his life had been with 2- or 3-year-old girl.
It was that this time that Alexandra Christianson, Vail’s ex-wife called Mitchell and told him her story. She also put him in contact with Bruce Biedebach, the man she had been on a date with when she left with Vail. Biedebach would tell Mitchell that during a party in 1965 that turned into a “boast-fest” Vail had boasted about something he had done, that no one else had done.
Killed his wife.
He told the men at the party that he had held his wife’s head underwater until she drowned.
Biedebach then put Mitchell in contact with Rob Fremont, who had bicycled around California with Vail when he was 13. He said that while riding with Vail, he had told him that he hit his wife on the head and drowned her. Fremont never rode with him again after that.
With as much evidence as they could possibly gather, the case went to trial.
THE TRIAL:
Vail’s trial began on August 8th, 2016.
District Attorney John DeRosier laid out the evidence clearly.
He spoke of the evidence against Vail about Mary’s murder on October 28th, 1962.
He spoke about Vail swearing to Sharon Hensley’s mother that she wanted to start a new life in 1974.
He spoke about his letters to Mary Rose, telling her he wouldn’t tell her where her daughter Annette was “even if he knew.” Vail smirked at that one.
Finally, he spoke to the jurors.
“Mary Horton Vail is gone, Sharon Hensley is gone,” DeRosier said, “and Annette Craver Vail is gone.”
“You’re going to write the last chapter, and it’s simply going to read, ‘And justice was finally done. William Felix Vail, guilty as charged.’”
Prosecutors called all three families to testify.
Will Horton told jurors of his sister, “Mary was the kind of person you would want as a friend.” He broke while talking about visiting his nephew after he death in 1962. “I just wanted Bill to know how much his mother loved him.”
Brian Hensley told jurors that he last saw his sister, Sharon, with Vail before the pair left Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1972. Other than a telephone call and letter in the months that followed, he said no one had seen or heard from her since.
When Mary Rose took the stand, Vail bowed his head.
This was the woman who had been working for 32 long years to bring him into this court.
This was the mother who had waited 32 years for this moment.
She called Annette “a huge light in my life. We were always loving toward each other.” She testified that Vail ran off with her daughter on his motorcycle and married her. She testified that Annette, who inherited nearly $100,000 and received two homes, disappeared weeks after deeding those homes to Vail.
Wesley Turnage, Rob Fremont, and Bruce Biedebach swore under oath that Vail said he killed his first wife. Biedebach said he asked Vail if Mary was a bitch, to which Vail had said yes. Vail laughed in court as he told the story.
The current coroner, forensic pathologist Dr. Terry Welke, testified that in most drownings, the body comes up in a “dead person’s float,” with the back of the head surfacing first and the limbs hanging down in the water.
After sharing a series of pictures to show it, he showed the court two black-and-white photographs of Mary Horton when her body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1962, less than two days after she reportedly drowned. Her body was stiff, with her hands over chest as if she was in a coffin.
They also saw the videotaped testimony of Isaac Abshire Jr, who had died in 2014. He said her body was stiff when it surfaced either sideways or face up when she bobbed up in the Calcasieu River.
That testimony helped contribute to Welke’s homicide conclusion. So did the unbroken grease-like stain across her Chi Omega sweatshirt, which he believed could have come from a tarp covering her. Welke concluded Mary was dead and stiff before her body went into the water, explaining why rigor had set in.
Testimony was heard of Vail not paying for his own wife’s funeral, despite having made thousands from her life insurance.
THE VERDICT
The jury didn’t even take a half hour to reach their verdict.
William Felix Vail Sr was unanimously found guilty of murdering Mary Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After the verdict, the prosecutor also revealed that the FBI had found out that Vail had molested a child over 30 years ago. They were unable to put him on trial for it, as the statue of limitations had passed.
Finally, nearly 54 years after she was murdered, Mary Horton had found justice.
Finally, 42 years after her disappearance, Sharon Hensley had found justice.
And Annette Craver, with the help of her mother Mary Rose’s tireless efforts, had finally found justice after 32 years.
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f75084c7dce4fb08e12e45ccba5e40a1
This a photo of Mary, Sharon and Annette. I felt it was fitting to end off with. May they all rest in peace.
MY SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/8284?nav
https://charleyproject.org/case/annette-michelle-craver-vail
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5796622/mary-elizabeth-vail
https://charleyproject.org/case/sharon-hensley
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/20525?nav
submitted by JeliPuff to UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]
https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/143r7l9/felix_vail_the_pedophile_serial_killer_caught/
PART 2:
ANNETTE CRAVER:
Born on the 7th of December 1965, Annette Craver was intelligent and creative. At 15 she was a singer-songwriter and in her senior year at a private school that specialized in medicine. Her dream was to become a midwife.http://charleyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/vail_annette6.jpg(A photo of Annette Craver.)
In the summer of 1981, she and her mother, Mary Rose greeted people at a friend’s yard sale in the Montrose neighborhood in Houston, Texas. They had just returned from a vacation in Mexico, and Annette felt heartsick, still infatuated with a boy named Adolfo, who was unable to join her in America.
VAIL MEETS ANNETTE
While people browsed the sale, Vail pulled up on a motorcycle and spoke with Annette. He was 41 and had done some carpentry work in the area. “When I saw her, I thought, ‘That’s going to be my new girlfriend,’” he said about the 15-year-old.
In April 1982, Rose and her daughter invested in a Tulsa home that had a rental cottage behind it. Rose began renovating both. After graduating from high school, Annette joined her mother in Tulsa. Vail appeared a few days later, and convinced Annette to leave with him on his motorcycle. They lived off the $500-a-month Social Security check that she received from her father’s death 3 years prior. It would be over a year before Mary Rose would see her daughter again.
That fall, Annette (who was still 15) would fall pregnant, and Vail would force her to have a painful abortion.
Jerry Woodall, reportedly friends with Vail later recalled an embarrassing scene, where the 42-year-old Vail was in a sleeping bag, having public sex with a 16-year-old Annette, only 20 feet away from him and his then-wife Meredith McMackin. Annette grinned and waved at them. Woodall and McMackin did their best to ignore them.
McMackin would later say that Vail had “this coldness and controlling aspect to his personality. Annette was so open and alive, but I think he just totally dominated her. He would try to convey that he was this higher form of being. At first, I thought maybe he was evolved, but then I realized it was this arrogant act.”
Later that summer, police in California would arrest Vail for violating probation a dozen years earlier. Annette telephoned Woodall, who gave her $200. After Vail walked free from prison, he and Annette decided to get married. However, as a 17-year-old she needed permission.
Annette told her mother that she loved Vail, that they were already “spiritually married” and that they would travel to Mexico and get married there if she refused. Not wanting to lose her daughter completely, Rose said OK.
On August 15th, 1983, in Bakersfield, California, the couple were wed.
AFTER THE MARRIAGE
Four months after the marriage, Annette turned 18, allowing her to collect more than $98,000 ($293,500 today) from life insurance policies on her late father. Accompanied by Vail, she withdrew all the money in cash from a San Antonio bank. She bought a Fiat convertible that Vail liked and paid for his dental work.
In April 1984, Rose returned home to find Annette waiting at her door. She told her she wanted to divorce Vail, and enroll in college. She talked about Vail’s temper, including an incident where he had broken his hand trying to punch his wife. He missed and hit a wall.
A few weeks later, Vail showed up. The couple fought constantly, and Vail left after a few days. Mary Rose said that Vail was “insanely jealous” and would become furious when Annette spoke of her desire to go out with younger men.
She and Annette worked on renovating the two homes after Vail left, enjoying their time together. The 2 even started a garden together.
Annette received a letter from Vail, who vowed their time apart would fuel their love. He wrote to her: “After we hung up, I went out to a park and ran and hung and talked with God and smoked some and shot some pool and rode with the top down out through the marsh playing ‘Iron Butterfly’ [“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”] and bathing every inch of your body-spirit being with love.”
He referred to being away from Annette as “deprivation jail” and to her ego as “his jailor.”
“The idea of her cutting away ego’s “feeder roots and creating roots between your spirit and the cosmic ground of loving makes me hot for you. My mind is kissing you everywhere.”
After that, Vail would return to Annette’s life. Rose said, “Annette told me, ‘Felix is the wisest person in the world, and I can’t make decisions without him.’” His influence on Annette had only grown stronger. According to Rose, she even compared Vail to God, a comparison Vail agreed with.
After this, the couple angrily insisted that Rose move out and deed the house to Annette. Accompanied by suicidal thoughts brought on by Vail’s continued control over her daughter, Rose left for California to stay with family and friends, deeding the house to Annette for $7000 ($21,000 today) before she did.
Annette would add Vail to the deed, and a month later had deeded him both homes, leaving him as the sole owner.
ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Mere weeks after deeding the houses to Vail, the couple told neighbors they were leaving on vacation. When Vail returned in October, he was alone.
Vail told a neighbor that Annette had a lot of money wither her when he’d left her, and that she was likely visiting friends in Denver.
Upon learning that Annette hadn’t come back with Vail, Mary Rose called him. “He told me that while they were camping, Annette had a sexual dream about being with other men in Mexico, and she wanted to go there,” she recalled to an investigative reporter years later. “He claimed that the dream made them both realize that she should have her freedom.” The next day, Vail told her he had put Annette on a bus with $50,000 ($150,000 today) but didn't elaborate.
On Oct 22, 1984, Rose filed a missing person’s report. She told the Tulsa Police Department that each person who spoke with Vail “gets a different story about the amount of money that Annette took with her and where she might be. We all believe that he knows where she is or has done something with her.”
On January 22, 1985, Detective Dennis Davis and another officer questioned Vail at his home (This is obscenely late to start questioning him). By this point, Vail had filed for divorce, citing an inability to find her after a “diligent search.” Davis said her mother, Mary Rose, mentioned her daughter had received more than $90,000 from her father’s estate. Vail confirmed this was true, saying the couple had spent much of that money traveling in foreign countries. He said they kept their money in cash because they didn’t trust banks and that he had found about $10,000 in cash when he returned home.
The next day, Vail called a lawyer, who promised to talk with the officers and tell them to “leave me alone,” as he wrote in his journal.
When Davis returned five days later, Vail had a detailed alibi: The couple left Tulsa between noon and 3 p.m. on Sept. 13, 1984, and stayed the night in a hotel in Claremont, Oklahoma. After two nights of camping on the river, Annette woke up and told Vail she had decided to leave him. He took her to the Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis and left before she bought the ticket. (There is no Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis, and there has never been a Trailways Bus Station in St. Louis.)
He told the officers that she had told him she was headed for Denver, where she planned to get a fake ID card and leave for Mexico. When asked if he would take a lie detector test, Vail said no.
After Davis left, he wrote a letter to Rose. He blamed her for the “bad things” about Annette, told her that after the couple had returned from Costa Rica Annette had been “seeing friends and relatives --- completing her relationships with them for the purpose of getting ready to drop everybody and start over.” He wrote that Annette “disappeared herself from you” because Rose kept imposing her “value system” on her, and said Annette viewed her mother, grandmother, and herself as “zero self-image whores for approval.”
He explained the 2 had no plans to communicate, he did not know where she was, and that “I also assure you that even if I did know, I would not tell you.”
When Rose returned to Tulsa in April 1985, she entered the cottage Annette used to live in, only to find almost all the young woman’s belongings were gone, including her clothes and her diary.
Inside a Barbie suitcase, Rose found a photograph of her daughter and several of her identification cards. She also located things that Annette had written, including a Feb. 17, 1984, note that contradicted Vail’s claim that the couple had spent most of her inheritance on their travel to Mexico and Central American countries.
Instead, the note detailed how they used the money to buy the Fiat, pay off all of Vail’s loans, and deposit $36,000 into Louisiana Savings. It said that as of that day, they had $41,600 ($125,000 today) in cash.
Rose shared the information with the police. Detective Davis showed up again, and Vail told Davis the couple divided the money into smaller cashier’s checks, contradicting his earlier statement that they kept the money in cash.
After a while, Davis left, and despite the (seemingly obvious) suspicious behavior of Vail, closed the missing person’s case.
AFTER ANNETTE’S DISAPPEARANCE
Rose kept calling Vail after this and was finally able to reach him on September 14th 1985.
When asked about Annette’s whereabouts he refused to tell her.
When asked about Annette’s missing clothes he said he gave them to charity.
When asked about the insurance money, Vail told her ‘That’s all she really cared about.’ Rose hung up.
Two years later, fed up with the lack of progress in Annette’s case, Rose would return to Tulsa. She spent thousands of dollars on private investigators to locate Vail. When that failed, she simply went and found him herself.
Tipped off that he was staying at someone’s house, she went there with a friend and found him sitting outside. When asked where Annette went, he replied “Mexico.” When asked where in Mexico, he said the 2 had made a pact to contact each other every 5 years, contradicting his statement that the 2 didn’t have plans to communicate. Rose didn’t believe a word of it.
The whole time Vail never looked up, never stood up and never looked her in the eye.
BETH FIELD
Some time after this, Vail began dating Beth Field. Soon the couple had began arguing, and Vail would call her a “whore.” During a December 1987 argument, he would strike her so hard he ruptured her ear drum. She told Vail there was no justification for violence, to which he responded, “If you quit behaving like a whore, I’ll quit hitting you.”
In August 1988 Beth received a call from Rose, sharing details about the disappearance of her daughter, Annette. From that point forward, Field said she began to examine Vail’s words more closely, realizing that he had likely murdered her.
Four months after the call, he entered her home unannounced. Already drunk, he accused her of “imagined promiscuity,” according to a court order. He slapped her, struck her, and threw her across the bedroom. She asked if Vail was going to kill her, to which Vail replied, “It depends on what you tell me.”
A judge gave her a protective order, requiring Vail to keep his distance. Two weeks later, the sheriff reported that Vail was nowhere to be found.
While Field was visiting a meditation center in Texas in 1990, Vail arrived. After composing herself, she told him “There is a part of you that goes off, and it’s sick and it’s dangerous.”
He looked at her and asked, “Really?” She said “yes, really.” This time, the message seemed to go through. Vail left the next day, and with a single exception about five years later, she never saw him again.
MARY ROSE LEARNS ABOUT THE OTHER 2 CASES
In the summer of 1991 (6 years after Annette's disappearance), Rose drove over 2000 miles to Canyon Lake, Texas to speak to Sue Jordan, Felix Vail’s sister. Jordan said that Vail had told her that Annette wanted to leave, that he took her to a bus station and that she left with some Mexican men, heading for Mexico. Jordan also mentioned that Vail’s first wife had drowned, which was news to Rose.
Before she left, Jordan also told her, “Oh, you know, there was another woman that disappeared. I remember her mother calling my mother for years, checking to see if they’d heard from her. I think her name was Sharon.”
After the conversation, Rose sat down at a typewriter, writing every word she could remember. She also called the public library in Lake Charles.
The librarian remembered the 1962 drowning of Vail’s first wife, Mary Horton. She told Rose that he had taken out life insurance policies on his wife prior to her drowning and that the insurance companies were suspicious and didn’t pay the full value. The librarian made copies of newspaper articles and mailed them to her.
After reading them, Rose reached out to Mary’s family in Louisiana, speaking to Will Horton. He shared her suspicions about Vail and a copy of the 1971 National Enquirer article made after Vail's son Bill reported him to the police. When she read it, she learned that Sharon’s last name was Hensley.
In 1994, she read in the newspaper about Dolores Strehlow’s disappearance from Medford, Oregon, seven years earlier. Police had just arrested her husband, thanks to the work of Detective Terry Newell. She contacted Newell, who helped her find the family of Sharon Hensley. When Rose dialed the Hensley family, Sharon’s mother, Peggy, answered. Rose asked if Peggy knew a Felix Vail. Peggy replied with "you bet I do"
THE INVESTIGATION HEATS UP… AND COOLS DOWN
The detective who helped Rose before, Terry Newell, contacted Jim Bell, a national expert in serial killings working for the FBI. When Rose talked with Bell, she felt like she'd finally gotten somewhere. He was interested in working on the Vail case if he could swing the time. He still remained busy with active serial killer cases, helping train task forces across the U.S. Vail’s son, Bill, told Rose that he was willing to testify, as long as authorities provided protection to his family. Both the Tulsa police and the district attorney’s office in Lake Charles revived their investigations into Vail, now considered a suspected serial killer.
Bell suggested the victims’ families gather with authorities at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to share information on Vail. He was unable to work on the case and left the FBI in 1995. The meeting in Quantico never materialized, and the cases involving Vail grew cold once again.
A QUICK RUN DOWN OF EVENTS
In the fall of 1997, family and friends held a mural for Annette.
Diagnosed with esophageal cancer, Vail’s son Bill heard from doctors that he didn’t have long to live. He’s quoted saying “now I’ll get to be with my mom.” Months before passing away in 2009, Bill talked about his father in a recorded interview with his pastor at Grace Church in Overland Park, Kansas.
On Jan. 3, 2009, Bill died, and Vail wrote in his journal, “I feel a large empty hole in my being where his life presence has been for 47 years,” before writing about getting a good haircut. He drove to Kansas but didn’t attend his own son’s funeral. If he had, he would have heard the recording, with his son detailing how he had overheard his father talk about murdering Bill's mother, Mary.
When Vail learned of the recording, he wrote to Pastor Tim Howey, asking for a copy. He blamed his son’s statements on “false memories,” saying, “I have not known about it until now and am stunned.”
In 2012, while attempting to confront Vail with reporter Jerry Mitchell whom she had contacted to write about Vial, Rose was stopped by Kaye Faulkner, Vial’s sister. She told Rose and Mitchell of the recording and urged Mitchell to get a copy of it. She also said that she believed Vial had murdered Mary Horton, Sharon Hensley, and Annette Craver.
She gave the reporter Vial’s number, as well as the numbers of her other brother, Ronnie, and her sister, Beth. Vial didn’t answer those calls, so Mitchell left a message. Ronnie promised to speak to his brother on his behalf.
MITCHELL INVESTIGATES
Mitchell arrived in Lake Charles and stopped by the Southwestern Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Library, which shared copies from old city directories. He began tracking down people who had lived in the Maree Apartments with Felix and Mary.
Many described Mary’s fair of drowning. A close friend of Vails, Judson McCann II described Vial as a ladies’ man, and insinuated he was a cheater. “Many nights, his car wouldn’t be home, and Mary would be there with the lights on. When Felix was gone, it wasn’t because he was trotline fishing.”
Another close friend, Bob Hodges described Vial’s story of Mary ‘falling’ in the river as “horse manure.”
A college roommate of Mary, Sandra Sudduth Pratt, said “Nobody believed it was an accident.”
Mitchell shared Mary’s autopsy report with pathologist Dr. Michael Baden of New York City, who concluded that foul play had taken place in her death.
The report showed large bruises with bleeding into tissues on the left side of the neck, which he said suggested she suffered forceful neck trauma before entering the water. There were hemorrhagic bruises to the right calf and left leg above the knee, which he said were consistent with a struggle before her submersion. But most convincingly of all was the scarf authorities found around her neck that extended 4 inches into her mouth, which suggested traumatic asphyxia before entering the water.
“Somebody had to push that scarf into her mouth. She had to have that scarf wedged in her mouth before she was put in the water.”
A cousin put Mary’s brother Will Horton in touch with former detective “Rabbit” Manuel, who had headed up the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Office’s investigation back in 1962. He had never forgotten Mary’s death. “Felix’s story just didn’t add up. The fishing tackle was dry. The trotline was dry. The boat was dry. Even Felix’s cigarettes were dry, despite him telling the deputies he dove straight in the water to save Mary.”
He and Manuel met with “Lucky” DeLouche, who directed an elite task force unit that investigated homicides. Three young detectives took notes as they talked. Manuel shared details from the case, saying deputies (officers) wanted to prosecute, but the district attorney wouldn’t let them. Horton shared the autopsy report, Vail’s letters and his belief that Vail was a serial killer. Horton said DeLouche replied, “This absolutely fits the profile of a serial killer,” to which the other detectives agreed.
Shortly afterwards, DeLouche left the task force, and for seemingly the hundredth time, grew cold again.
After Mitchell posted a story about Vail titled “Gone” (It’s nearly 9,000 words long, and the precursor to the 35,500 word story I have drawn heavily from) a man named Wesley Turnage contacted him. He told him of a conversation he had had with Vail in 1963 during a car ride.
According to Turnage, Vail called Mary a bitch and said she thought another child would help solve their marriage problems. He quoted Vail as saying, “She wanted to have another kid. I didn’t want the one I got. I fixed that sorry bitch. She will never have another one.”
Mitchell would make another discovery. District Attorney Salter Jr. had ordered that the judge dismiss 882 criminal cases — more than three cases for each working day.
Will Horton told Mitchell the original detectives in the case told him that Salter wouldn’t allow them to present the evidence they had collected against Vail. That matched the stories Mitchell had heard from grand jurors’ families.
Horton then contacted District Attorney John DeRosier, who said he would be willing to reopen the case if there was enough evidence.
Then came an interesting wrinkle in the story. Finding Vail.
He’d disappeared, returning on Labor Day weekend 2012 to sell his property, before disappearing again. Luckily, another reader of "Gone" came to the rescue. He phoned Mitchell, telling him where Vial was. Canyon Lake, Texas.
Mitchell then contacted Enzo Yaksic, founder of the Serial Homicide Expertise and Information Sharing Collaborative. Yaksic then contacted Armin Showalter, acting chief for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, which specialized in serial homicide investigations.
Yaksic shared a copy of GONE with Showalter, who in turn called Calcasieu Parish Deputy Randy Curtis, now taking on the Vail case. Curtis phoned Mitchell to find out where Vail was. A few days later, he called back to say the FBI had discovered Vail purchased property at 737 Shadyview Drive in Canyon Lake.
On Jan. 18, 2013, Curtis decided to confront Vail. He found him at that address, living in a storage shed. Curtis said he read Vail his rights before asking him about the death and disappearances of the women. Vail refused to say anything, accusing families and The Clarion-Ledger (Where "Gone" was published) of lying about him. The whole time, Vail couldn’t stop smirking.
Will Horton gave Mitchell the number of his cousin, who was a caretaker for 90-year-old Isaac Abshire Jr. When Mitchell sat down with the man, he shared a haunting story.
Abshire had worked with Vail and offered him a room to rent out. Once Vail and Mary were married, Vail had moved out. Abshire viewed himself as “a big brother” to Mary, calling her “a sweet little girl.”
After the marriage, Vail had become angry at work, talking about how ugly his wife was when she was pregnant, and how he didn’t like his baby. On the Friday before she was killed, the couple visited Abshire, bringing Bill, who was still an infant. Mary privately asked Abshire if he thought Vail could take her baby away.
Two days later, Mary was dead.
Abshire and two other workers went out the next day to drag the river. The next morning, Oct. 30, 1962, he returned with one of them, Jimmy May, to continue dragging.
Abshire said while they were talking, “something popped up. A guy with binoculars asked, ‘Does she have blonde hair?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’”
They recovered the body, and Abshire could never forget what he saw. Her body was rigid, and a scarf was wrapped around her neck before going into her mouth. Blood boiled on the boat, everyone voicing the same opinion. Vail had killed Mary.
Abshire had kept photos from that day for over 50 years. He said he had given them to Deputy Curtis as well as a copy of the 1962 sheriff’s report, which listed 15 points suggesting Vail’s guilt.
Despite being behind on major bills, Vail had managed to pay an entire year’s premiums in advance for a $50,000 ($150,000 today) life insurance policy on his wife. He had a second life insurance policy on her for $8,000 ($24,000 today), which promised to pay double if she died by accident.
It was almost as if he knew she was about to die.
Deputies had reported witnesses claims that Vail had told them he didn’t love his wife, that she looked stupid and vulgar, and that he had had sexual relations with multiple women, and at least one man.
Vail told deputies that his wife was wearing an off-white leather jacket when she went into the water. But she wasn’t wearing the jacket when her body was recovered. Inside his boat, deputies found two life preservers. Mary had not been wearing one, despite her fear of drowning. As for the trotline the 2 were supposedly running, deputies found it still inside Vail’s tackle box.
Most witnesses the Deputies had spoken too felt that Vail was capable of killing his wife.
When asked if he believed Vail killed his wife, Abshire said “Oh, my God, yes.”
THE CHASE & THE FINAL CLUES:
Ever since Vail had sold his Mississippi property, Mary Rose had wondered if he would eventually sell the Tulsa property, the one she and Annette had lived in. He did. Vail sold it for $149,000. Rose asked the question on the mind of everyone investigating. “What is he going to do with all that money? --- He could be running.”
On April 30th Mitchell got a call saying that Vail had left Texas. He was pulled over by police in Columbus, Mississippi after hopping the fence of his now dead brother Ronnie’s property. Curtis told Mitchell that the Columbus police were sending him a photo of Vail and the white pick-up truck he was pulled over in. He once again warned Mitchell that Vail could be running.
Vail’s sister called again, saying she heard her brother was heading to Montpelier. She wondered if he was driving to the home of possible witness Wesley Turnage.
Mitchell called Turnage to let him know that Vail might be headed his way. Turnage replied “If he sets foot on my property, there won’t be no trial.” He called Mitchell back later, saying no one in Montpelier had seen Vail.
Private Investigator Gina Frenzel, who had questioned Vail herself, including pretending to be his girlfriend, called Mitchell with good news. Vail had contacted her and told her he was back in Canyon Lake. Mitchell informed Curtis.
On May 17th 2012, authorities arrested Felix Vail for the murder of his wife Mary Horton.
In telephone calls from the jail in Lake Charles, he shared his explanation of what happened the night of Oct. 28, 1962, when Mary died.
He referred to his first wife as a “coon-ass lady,” saying she was “half kneeling” on his feet when she “saw one of the float buckets that were on the line.” He said the boat was “going real slow along the edge of the bank when the boat hit a stump ... and it dumped her right out.” Vail said he shut off the motor and dove in “where she had plopped in the water. I mean, nothing. The river had sucked her right in.” He said he “dove around until I was exhausted, and came in immediately to the police station in town and reported the accident and that was it.”
This story differed greatly from his story in 1962 when he said his wife was sitting on top of a boat seat when she fell out, not that she was kneeling on his feet. Back then, he said nothing about hitting a stump — just swerving to miss it.
It also differed from the story he had told his son, where a wave from another boat had dumped Mary out.
Vail told Frenzel that the case “has been an avalanche coming down the mountain all that time, waiting to hit my head, and it finally has.”
He blamed the families and Mitchell, “an evil, shrimpy reporter,” for what had happened, calling the charges “fabricated” and insisting that “a large amount of money, hate and political ambitions are behind them.”
At Vail’s request, Frenzel returned his truck to his home and went inside to take care of a few tasks. While there, she spent 16 hours photographing all his journals, more than 2,400 pages. She also photographed letters, documents, photographs and business cards, some dating back to the 1960s. She found a collection of women’s jewelry, old buttons, pins, and even a glass dildo.
Disturbingly, if at this point unsurprisingly, she found a photograph of a naked 3-year-old girl. Frenzel later spoke with the girl, now a woman. The journals revealed that Vail had stalked her for years.
Frenzel discovered the birth certificate of Annette Craver, who had used it for previous trips to Mexico.
Mitchell and Frenzel poured through the journals she had photographed. They noticed gaps in them that lead them to believe Vail had ripped pages out, including times when he should have been with Sharon and Annette.
His journals were dominated by sex, dreams of sex and reflected an obsession with children. In a March 27, 1986, entry, Vail wrote about the visit of a woman and her daughters in his home. “The little girls were delicious --- We massaged some, hugged & kissed some & it was 12 (midnight) & time for them to go.”
On Aug. 29, 1992, Vail walked into the Wal-Mart in West Point, and as he wrote in his journal “a 1-year-old white girl looked in my eyes loving me like there was no age difference between us.”
When Mitchell interviewed Kert Germany, a co-worker of Vail in 1977 he said that Vail attracted women wherever he went, and that Vail had told him the best sex of his life had been with 2- or 3-year-old girl.
It was that this time that Alexandra Christianson, Vail’s ex-wife called Mitchell and told him her story. She also put him in contact with Bruce Biedebach, the man she had been on a date with when she left with Vail. Biedebach would tell Mitchell that during a party in 1965 that turned into a “boast-fest” Vail had boasted about something he had done, that no one else had done.
Killed his wife.
He told the men at the party that he had held his wife’s head underwater until she drowned.
Biedebach then put Mitchell in contact with Rob Fremont, who had bicycled around California with Vail when he was 13. He said that while riding with Vail, he had told him that he hit his wife on the head and drowned her. Fremont never rode with him again after that.
With as much evidence as they could possibly gather, the case went to trial.
THE TRIAL:
Vail’s trial began on August 8th, 2016.
District Attorney John DeRosier laid out the evidence clearly.
He spoke of the evidence against Vail about Mary’s murder on October 28th, 1962.
He spoke about Vail swearing to Sharon Hensley’s mother that she wanted to start a new life in 1974.
He spoke about his letters to Mary Rose, telling her he wouldn’t tell her where her daughter Annette was “even if he knew.” Vail smirked at that one.
Finally, he spoke to the jurors.
“Mary Horton Vail is gone, Sharon Hensley is gone,” DeRosier said, “and Annette Craver Vail is gone.”
“You’re going to write the last chapter, and it’s simply going to read, ‘And justice was finally done. William Felix Vail, guilty as charged.’”
Prosecutors called all three families to testify.
Will Horton told jurors of his sister, “Mary was the kind of person you would want as a friend.” He broke while talking about visiting his nephew after he death in 1962. “I just wanted Bill to know how much his mother loved him.”
Brian Hensley told jurors that he last saw his sister, Sharon, with Vail before the pair left Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1972. Other than a telephone call and letter in the months that followed, he said no one had seen or heard from her since.
When Mary Rose took the stand, Vail bowed his head.
This was the woman who had been working for 32 long years to bring him into this court.
This was the mother who had waited 32 years for this moment.
She called Annette “a huge light in my life. We were always loving toward each other.” She testified that Vail ran off with her daughter on his motorcycle and married her. She testified that Annette, who inherited nearly $100,000 and received two homes, disappeared weeks after deeding those homes to Vail.
Wesley Turnage, Rob Fremont, and Bruce Biedebach swore under oath that Vail said he killed his first wife. Biedebach said he asked Vail if Mary was a bitch, to which Vail had said yes. Vail laughed in court as he told the story.
The current coroner, forensic pathologist Dr. Terry Welke, testified that in most drownings, the body comes up in a “dead person’s float,” with the back of the head surfacing first and the limbs hanging down in the water.
After sharing a series of pictures to show it, he showed the court two black-and-white photographs of Mary Horton when her body was recovered on Oct. 30, 1962, less than two days after she reportedly drowned. Her body was stiff, with her hands over chest as if she was in a coffin.
They also saw the videotaped testimony of Isaac Abshire Jr, who had died in 2014. He said her body was stiff when it surfaced either sideways or face up when she bobbed up in the Calcasieu River.
That testimony helped contribute to Welke’s homicide conclusion. So did the unbroken grease-like stain across her Chi Omega sweatshirt, which he believed could have come from a tarp covering her. Welke concluded Mary was dead and stiff before her body went into the water, explaining why rigor had set in.
Testimony was heard of Vail not paying for his own wife’s funeral, despite having made thousands from her life insurance.
THE VERDICT
The jury didn’t even take a half hour to reach their verdict.
William Felix Vail Sr was unanimously found guilty of murdering Mary Horton. He was sentenced to life in prison.
After the verdict, the prosecutor also revealed that the FBI had found out that Vail had molested a child over 30 years ago. They were unable to put him on trial for it, as the statue of limitations had passed.
Finally, nearly 54 years after she was murdered, Mary Horton had found justice.
Finally, 42 years after her disappearance, Sharon Hensley had found justice.
And Annette Craver, with the help of her mother Mary Rose’s tireless efforts, had finally found justice after 32 years.
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/f75084c7dce4fb08e12e45ccba5e40a1
This a photo of Mary, Sharon and Annette. I felt it was fitting to end off with. May they all rest in peace.
MY SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/8284?nav
https://charleyproject.org/case/annette-michelle-craver-vail
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/felixvailgone/2016/12/29/felix-vail-gone-one-wife-dead-two-other-missing-jerry-mitchell/95895894/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/5796622/mary-elizabeth-vail
https://charleyproject.org/case/sharon-hensley
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/20525?nav
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