Ep. 60: Dear David (Part I)

Gina (00:10)

Gosh.

Welcome to I Scream, You Scream, your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. I'm Gina.

Kathryn (00:21)

I'm Kathryn

Gina (00:23)

And in December, are talking about ghosts while we have some cocktails. So if you'd like to join us in a libation, feel free. Real quick though, huge shout out to friend of the pod, Chloe, who recently joined us on Patreon. We're so happy to have you there. And as a quick reminder, if you also want a shout out on the podcast, plus a bunch of additional fun stuff, you can join us on Patreon too. Link is in the show notes. We will welcome you there with open arms and.

Kathryn (00:39)

Yay!

Gina (00:51)

I don't know if you want it a hug, but I won't press it on you if you don't want it. But until then, grab a drink, grab a spoon, grab what you got, and let's dig in.

Kathryn (01:00)

Yay, cheers.

Gina (01:01)

Cheers. Are you having a whiskey-ish coffee today?

Kathryn (01:06)

I am. It's the perfect snowy day. We are in hour four of a 24-hour snowfall, so there will be many of these to come today. What are you having? I saw something real cute when you took your sip. I love it. You love a Negroni. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gina (01:10)

Mmm.

wow.

Yay! Oh, I love that. Good.

Negroni. Classic Negroni. I do love it. Because it's so easy. Three ingredients, same

amount of each, stick it in a cup with ice and stir. Easy.

Kathryn (01:34)

And it

seems much more complicated than that. Like the taste, it tastes like so much more than three ingredients.

Gina (01:37)

Mm-hmm.

I know.

And it's not, you'll know this, it's not like a very traditionally Gina cocktail. Because Gina cocktails are very like floral and like not very spirit forward and like very light, kind like stereotypically girly cocktails is what I go for. And the Negroni is strong.

Kathryn (01:48)

No. Yeah.

Yeah, you like a spa water type cocktail. Like a cucumber.

Gina (02:05)

Yeah, like anything with cucumber.

Yeah, like a cucumber Collins. I love a cucumber Collins.

Kathryn (02:11)

I don't know if I've ever had a cucumber Collins sounds like it sounds like a nice spring drink what What are the ingredients of a Negroni like it's ginger beer? right I Thought it was Jim. What am I thinking of I think I'm thinking of something else Yep, I am I am yep

Gina (02:17)

So good.

No, so it's, I wish it had ginger beer in it, but actually that'd probably be really good. I think I have a Moscow Mule maybe. Those have ginger beer in it. Okay, those are good

too. So Negroni is Campari, sweet vermouth and gin. That's it. Although technically I am, I am having the wrong, ⁓ I'm having dry vermouth with it. So I don't know what it is. Technically not a Negroni, but I used what I had and it tastes fine.

Kathryn (02:39)

my god, okay, yeah, I was thinking of a mule, sorry. Yeah.

It's basically the same. Yeah, wow, that's super not a Gina drink. I was 100 % thinking of mules.

Gina (02:56)

I do love a mule though. I like ⁓ the pomp and circumstance of a mule with like the fancy little cup that it comes in. I like that.

Kathryn (03:01)

Yeah.

⁓ Please tell me.

Gina (03:04)

do. I have something to tell you. I have to tell you this

story. OK, something happened to me this morning, and it scared the ever-loving hell out of me. And then everything was fine. So here's what happened. So on weekends, I sleep in later than Tom does, because I get up earlier than him for work during the week. So I'll get up early and feed Rue and do whatever.

Kathryn (03:14)

Perfect.

Gina (03:25)

So on weekends, he's really protective of me being able to sleep in and get some hours that I might have lost during the week or so. Yeah, we love Tom. Tom is the best. So this morning, he woke up before I did. ⁓ I felt him get out of bed, but I was still kind of snoozing. And real quick, just while he was going to feed Rue, I checked my phone just to see what time it was.

Kathryn (03:34)

We do love time.

Gina (03:50)

and it was around 8.30 in the morning and I'd gotten a notification. You know when you get a package and they like take a picture of where they left it? I had just gotten one that a package had been delivered and the picture was of it like just inside our door which leads into our kitchen. So it was like a picture of two packages in our kitchen. And I was like, great, I ordered stuff because of Black Friday, like Tom must have gotten the package when they came, whatever, whatever. So I fall back asleep for like another hour.

Kathryn (03:56)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Gina (04:16)

I wake up again around 9.30 and Tom had gotten back into bed. He was just looking at his phone, waiting for me to wake up so we could hang out. And one of the first things he says was like, did you get out of bed this morning? And I was like, no, I've been dead to the world for nine hours, why? And he was like, there were packages in the kitchen when I woke up. And I just assumed you must have heard the door and went to go get them. And I was like, I thought you got the door to get the packages. So I like.

burst out of bed and I go into the kitchen and I'm like, okay, so you didn't answer the door to get these, I didn't answer the door to get these, the door is shut, somebody must have come in our house, I guess, to put them in here and then we checked the door and the door was locked. And you can only lock the door if either you have a set of keys or you are inside the house. And so at first I was thinking somebody has...

like a set of our keys or like stole a set of our keys or maybe there's somebody in our house. Like I was freaking out. I was like, Tom, lock it down. We have a Frogger situation. Somebody's like receiving our mail. This is not okay. I'm like ready to call the police. I was terrified because it was like who, how did these get inside my house? So cut to like 15, 20 minutes later, we had moved from the kitchen into the family room, which is like down the hall. So you can't really see the kitchen from there.

Kathryn (05:17)

Ooh.

We have a mail receiving situation.

Yeah, that's weird.

Gina (05:40)

and I hear a voice from the kitchen just say like, hello, hello, is anyone there? I'm like, there's a voice in my, who is that? And so I look like down the hallway thinking I'm about to tackle this Frogger who's been taking my packages. And it was our postman, like my favorite postman, he's like the sweetest, nicest little old guy. And he was like, hey, I just wanted to let you know I was just dropping off your mail and like you left your keys in the door. Must've been like last night when you were coming home. And I was like,

Kathryn (06:10)

my god.

Gina (06:10)

⁓

so whoever dropped off the packages this morning, because it wasn't our normal post guy who brought the packages. It was like how FedEx is like a separate thing, similar thing here. So whoever it was must have saw my keys in the door and like opened the door, put the packages in and then locked the door behind them, but not taking the keys out.

Kathryn (06:16)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So they just kind of locked you guys in.

Gina (06:33)

So they just kind of locked us in a little bit.

And yeah, they were my keys. So it was my fault. And I almost called the police because I'm silly.

Kathryn (06:43)

That's fantastic. I really did not know where that was gonna go. That could have been so many different things.

Gina (06:44)

Yeah, it was genuinely really scary.

And I do have to say, because my mom does listen to this podcast, that's not a habit, mom. I don't do things like this. That is a rarity. Actually, the only... I'm usually very responsible because I'm terrified of people being in my space if I don't know about it. Like, that really scares me. And I know why I left my keys at the door last night. And it's because Tom and I... It's pizza night every Friday. So Tom and I went out to get some pizza.

Kathryn (06:51)

Yeah.

You really don't? No. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Gina (07:13)

And as part of that, everywhere is doing their little Christmas specials right now. So we got a little side of pigs in blankets, pigs in a blanket, they call it pigs in blankets here. And ⁓ as I was carrying it up the stairs to get into our place, as I was unlocking the door, all the pigs in a blanket spilled out of the box and fell onto the ground. And I was really upset. Yeah, I was really upset about it.

Kathryn (07:31)

Wait, no, that's heartbreaking. I love a pig in blankie.

Gina (07:36)

I was so upset about it, so I was trying to like pick up the little wieners and like get the door open and I was so sad. And so I was just distracted by the sausage and I left my keys in the door all

Kathryn (07:45)

Yeah.

There was a pig emergency, that's valid. Okay, well I'm glad you're safe. I'm glad you don't have a frogger.

Gina (07:51)

was a pig emergency. So that's that was my Frogger scare.

Kathryn (07:58)

are people in my life that I've needed to worry about that with and you were never one of them. Yeah.

Gina (08:03)

No, no. Even

when I was like a kid, I couldn't sleep with the window open because I was scared someone would crawl in.

Kathryn (08:10)

Yeah, I always slept with my window open, but we had screens and I also was still scared someone was gonna crawl in. So I just did it anyway. Yeah, that's a... I don't know if that's a valid fear, but it feels like a valid fear.

Gina (08:15)

Hmm. Yeah. I'm pretty sure we had screens too.

I think it's more of a valid

fear than what I was taught to be afraid of as a child, which was quicksand. That's never been an issue for me.

Kathryn (08:33)

Yeah,

we all were afraid of quicksand. That actually almost kind of was an issue for me one time when I was in France. Yeah, because what is that? I don't know how to pronounce it, the Mont Saint-Michel or whatever has that like muck around it. And I was wandering and I like almost wandered right in and they were like, you can't go over there. It's like quicksand. And I was like, no one fucking told me that.

Gina (08:38)

What?

the, yes.

god!

Kathryn (08:59)

Nobody said anything. I don't know how true that is, it's the closest anyone I know has come to accidentally wandering into quicksand.

Gina (09:03)

This is.

I believe it.

What my brain

is doing right now is like, they have quicksand in France, but obviously they do. You can have quicksand anywhere, but in my brain, I'm like, ow, that's so close to me.

Kathryn (09:19)

Anywhere, yeah. That's so close. Yeah. I also,

don't know if it is quicksand. I was told that it, like, whatever it was, whatever that surrounding area was, it acted like quicksand. I don't know how true that was. It could have very much been like, this idiot high school is wandering away from the group, like, tell her something that's gonna scare her. You know what I mean? Well, quicksand, it worked. I was right back with the group. I didn't leave ever again.

Gina (09:35)

Okay.

There's a monster over there. That's funny.

I've seen enough Indiana Jones to know that if you don't have a very long vine within reaching distance, you're screwed. Or a hot babe. A hot babe with a long stick.

Kathryn (09:55)

which I rarely do.

Alright, let's move on.

Gina (10:05)

⁓ I would love to beseech you to tell me a tale, because I'm very intrigued by this topic.

Kathryn (10:12)

Excellent, okay. We are talking about Dear David today, refresh my memory, what do you know about this topic?

Gina (10:21)

So not a whole lot. I didn't know it was going on when it was going on. I've heard it covered once on Ghost Huns, which quick shout out, if you haven't listened to Ghost Huns, you definitely should because it's absolutely hilarious. So good. But that's it. Nothing else outside of that.

Kathryn (10:25)

Okay. Yeah, okay.

Okay.

with GoSons. So fun.

Okay.

Okay. While we're doing shout outs, I do have to shout out our good pal Will over at Red Tree House because he has a very good episode on this as well. So I listened to that a few months ago and that was when I was like deciding whether or not I wanted to do this topic. ⁓ And I did decide to do this topic. So here we go.

Gina (10:49)

Mmm.

Kathryn (11:03)

so to your point of when it took place, as much as I hate to admit it, it took place almost a decade ago, which was 2017. Awful. Yep. Yep. Yep. So almost 10 years ago. I'm sure this is true for many people, but when I think of time, I very much think of life in pre and post COVID time. And now I'm sure most of us do that.

Gina (11:13)

Ooh, ow.

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (11:28)

So this was pre-COVID. Relative to the fact that this took place pre-COVID, there was a whole lot going on in 2017 that most of us have probably forgotten by now because none of that's relevant anymore. So as a quick refresher, I'm just gonna like paint a picture of what the world was like in 2017. Significant political unrest all over the world. That's been true.

Gina (11:43)

Yeah.

Kathryn (11:56)

for quite a while at this point, but it felt kind of new in 2017. For the purposes of the majority of our listeners are in the United States and the UK. I'll be focusing mostly on those, but Brexit was freshly all over the news. Remember those days? Yeah, yep. It was brand new information. ⁓ Numerous terrorists attacked across the UK and United States.

Gina (12:09)

Mm-hmm. Wow. Yeah. Jeez.

Kathryn (12:21)

Black Lives Matter was like running in full force. Me Too movement had just started. ⁓ Not to mention there were several natural disasters, particularly in the United States. We had like five hurricanes that year that were like super devastating. There's just like a lot going on. ⁓ All of this is to say retrospectively,

A lot of people kind of look back at 2017 as this weird, like, bad luck type of year. Kind of like end of 2016 moving into 2000, like end of 2017 and early 2018. That chunk of time is often referred to as just a very unlucky year. And I thought that was interesting because I've always kind of felt that way because that was a really rough year for me. Like 2017.

Gina (12:57)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (13:14)

helped me navigate 2020, just personal life alone. It was like a very traumatic year for me. So I thought it was interesting. I was looking into it for this episode and a lot of people felt that way. And quick shout out, this is such an aside, but quick shout out to our Mothman episode when I mentioned he was seen in Chicago that year. I thought that was kind of a fun like overlap in episodes. Like there really was something to.

Gina (13:36)

Huh?

Kathryn (13:41)

People were just feeling very weird in 2017.

Gina (13:44)

you've casted my mind back and I'm vividly remembering how much 2017 sucked.

Kathryn (13:50)

It sucked, right? But we've forgotten about that as of 2020. Yeah, exactly. So there are a lot of little pockets of weird things happening. the, you know, the things I mentioned were just kind of the overall tip of the iceberg type of mood setters. But when I moved from Chicago, and I lived with my parents for a little bit, I stumbled upon this story.

Gina (13:52)

I forgot, yeah.

Kathryn (14:17)

that was happening in real time at the end of 2017. And the story became like my whole personality and I was not alone in this. This was a thing that like people latched onto and it became its own little, I'm going to call it a very mini mass hysteria situation because it was very, it was very like 2017 coded because as with any story that

Gina (14:36)

Okay.

Kathryn (14:46)

went viral in 2017, it all started with a tweet. So a man named Adam Ellis, he's an artist and a cartoonist, and he was working for Buzzfeed back in 2017. And for anyone out there who does not know what Buzzfeed is, I don't even know how to describe it to you. It's like the most millennial coded, like quote unquote, news.

resource that ever existed and it's like the place where you could take a quiz, a personality quiz, to find out like what type of bread you were. That's like all it was.

Gina (15:11)

Yeah.

Yes. That is exclusively

what me and my friends used it for, was the quizzes. Yeah.

Kathryn (15:23)

For quizzes, yeah, there were all

these really fun personality quizzes and you'd like share them on Facebook, but it also was a new site. Like it was just the weirdest. It was just super 2010s. Like was like that is what the internet was in 2010 era. It still technically exists, but like I said, the 2010s, it just dominated the internet for our like demographic. So Adam Ellis worked there as a cartoonist.

Gina (15:28)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You

Kathryn (15:51)

And you've definitely seen his work, especially in that era. You'll like notice the style. You've definitely seen his work before.

Gina (15:59)

This guy! Yes, yes, yes. I've seen so many of these,

Kathryn (16:01)

Yeah, yes. Yep.

Absolutely. Yeah, they're they circulate on the internet all the time, especially around that era. He was like very popular, like late 2010s. So he works there as a cartoonist and his social media was usually filled with his cartoons because he's a cartoon artist, obviously. Brunch with friends, you know, going out just like your average.

artist in New York City millennial pop culture kind of social media presence. That's what it was. Until August 7th, 2017, he tweeted, quote, So my apartment is currently being haunted by a ghost of a dead child and he's trying to kill me. Thread.

Gina (16:47)

Ooh, okay, strong opening.

Kathryn (16:50)

Strong opening. goes on to say, He started appearing in my dreams, but I think he's crossed over to the real world now. The first time I saw him, I was experiencing sleep paralysis and saw a child sitting in the green rocking chair at the foot of my bed. He had a huge misshapen head that was dented on one side. I did my best to draw it

So we'll share that in the YouTube video bit. For those listening, it's just an illustration of a very creepy looking little boy. looks very angry and like a piece of his head is dented in on the upper like right side or something like that. It's unsettling. And for those

Gina (17:24)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (17:28)

who are listening and not watching the YouTube, we always share photos related to the episodes on our socials on Wednesdays. So check it out and it will be there anyway. So. Wow, this is such a 2010s type episode. I love that. OK. So he goes on to say, for a while he just stared at me, but then he got out of the chair and started shambling toward the bed.

Gina (17:38)

On Wednesdays, we share pictures. Sorry.

Hell yeah!

Kathryn (17:56)

I couldn't move because I was paralyzed. have sleep paralysis fairly often. It sucks. Right before he reached my bed, I woke up screaming.

I had another dream a few nights later where I was in a library and a girl came up to me and said quote, you've seen Dear David haven't you? I was like, who? She said Dear David, you saw him. I love that part because that's very Gina coded. I was like, what? Who?

She said, Dear David, you saw him. She continued to say, He's dead. He only appears at midnight and you can ask him two questions if you say Dear David first. Then she added, but never tried to ask him a third question or he'll kill you. I was very shaken. Having two dreams about the same thing is pretty weird for me. Anyway, a couple of weeks passed without incident. Then David came back in another dream.

Same situation. I was in bed and he was sitting in the rocking chair near the window staring at me. In the dream I say, Dear David, how did you die? He mumbles in an accident in a store. I say, Dear David, what happened in the store? He groans a shelf was pushed on my head. I'm frozen with fear. I ask who pushed the shelf and David doesn't answer.

Gina (19:17)

No!

Kathryn (19:20)

I realize then that I've asked a third question, which I'm not supposed to do. At that point, I woke up absolutely terrified from the dream. The next couple days, I googled deaths in the city, but I can't find anything about a kid named David dying in the store. I even tried different names, Daniel, Dylan, Devin, nothing. A few weeks go by without incident. Sort of randomly, the apartment above mine is vacated and I have the opportunity to move into it.

Gina (19:20)

Wee!

Kathryn (19:50)

It's a larger apartment, so I'm thrilled. Another month or two goes by and I sort of forget about Dear David. I think he lost track of me because I moved upstairs. But lately, something strange is happening. For the past four nights, my cats gather at the front door at exactly midnight and just stare at it, almost like something is on the other side. Last night, I got a weird feeling and looked out the peephole.

Gina (20:15)

Uhhh, mistake.

Another mistake.

Kathryn (20:18)

And huge mistake. I'm dead certain I saw movement on the other side. When I opened the door and turned on the hall light, nothing was there, but my cat seemed demurred, bushy tails, etc. And that's where I'm at right now. Dear David found me, I think. I don't know what to do. I'll keep you updated. So this is the first tweet thread. This is like

Again, he goes from just sharing like cartoons and you know, hanging out with friends to this. So everyone's kind of like, the fuck? Like, what is this? Is this like, are you being for real? Like, what are you doing? You know? So it doesn't quite spread yet. Like people are talking about it. It's mostly just feedback from his followers with like questions and like, what are you talking about? This is super weird. Are you OK? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Gina (20:58)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (21:11)

So a couple nights later on August 9th, he tweets an update. For the sixth night in a row, my cat has walked over to the front door promptly at midnight and stared at it. So I took a photo through the peephole because I'm too scared to open the door. I feel like I saw something. I couldn't tell, so I mustered the courage to open the door and nothing was there. But I took another photo. And then he shares an image of like outside the door in the hallway

there's two photos, one through a peephole and the one he took after he opened the door. And if you, kind of have to zoom in on the peephole one,

can see a little spherical something that is not there in the second photo.

Gina (21:52)

Yeah.

⁓ yeah,

it's like someone was standing on the stairs.

Kathryn (22:01)

It looks like someone's peeking around the stairs, yes.

Gina (22:05)

Yeah, okay, ew.

Kathryn (22:07)

So that's what he sees through the people. He's still kind of like, OK, it could be anything. That's just one little tiny spot. You know, that could be just a shadow or where you're taking a picture through a people. That's not the most solid evidence.

Gina (22:13)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (22:21)

So he's asking his followers whether or not they see the same thing that he's saying. He just says, is it just me or is there something in that first photo? And he said he wasn't sure if it was a smudge or just, you know, a blur, pretty much everything I just said. And he didn't know what to do. So he just deadbolted the lock and got into bed and just like pretended nothing was happening. But for the rest of the night, he could hear his cats meowing at the front door.

A little while later, he tweets an update saying it's been pretty quiet, ⁓ but he's going to download a sleep talk app to see if anything happens during the night. I know.

Gina (23:00)

⁓ that's

like paranormal activity vibes. That's how that makes me feel.

Kathryn (23:05)

Yes, yes. And that, we'll get to that because yes, this story very much has a paranormal activity vibe because not a lot happens for the first part of it.

yeah, this is just a few days of like the same kind of small things happening. So then he downloads the sleep app and a few nights later, he tweets saying that there were 33.

recordings in the sleep app that takes an individual recording every time it hears something and most of them are just nothing like the cats are messing around with something you can hear a car driving by just very normal nighttime sounds but he notes that there are three that stuck up to him as potentially notable one file recorded a snapping sound and then followed by a single step

And he goes on to say it was odd because he didn't get out of bed at all in the middle of the night. The second recording that stood out to him had this strange kind of electrical static throughout the entire thing. And it was the one that was recorded immediately after the sound of the snap and the step. None of the other recordings on the entire thing had this electrical feedback. And then immediately after the recording with the static,

there was a recording of another snapping sound, and then you can hear him groaning in his sleep. And then he goes on to say that all three of these recordings happened between 2 and 3 a.m. and he has no explanation for them.

Gina (24:45)

Okay.

Kathryn (24:45)

Sorry,

I'm like, engaging here. I love your reaction because all of these reactions are like, people are following this in real time and it's very like, I'm scared but also even he at this point is maintaining there could be a logic, you know, like that could have been the cat messing with something. There can still be very logical explanations for all of these things. Yeah.

Gina (25:01)

Like, yeah.

Yeah.

Kathryn (25:09)

So buckle up, we're just at the beginning. You're gonna be feeling this the whole way through. So are a few days of silence. He doesn't tweet anything again until three days later when he mentions he bought a Polaroid camera. And this was like the, remember, this was the era that like everyone had a Polaroid camera for fun. Like they were at weddings, you had them out with your friends, blah, blah, blah. So he goes out and buys one. And...

Gina (25:14)

Okay.

Yes. yeah.

Kathryn (25:36)

He just bought it to mess around with. It wasn't for anything specific, but he was going around taking pictures of his apartment and most of them were normal. It was just pictures of his apartment, except one, he like opened his door and took a picture out in the hallway and that picture allegedly developed all black. And so he was like going around trying to see if maybe, okay, maybe it was just a bad piece of film or whatever.

But every single picture he took, he had his apartment door open at that point. Just to like walk people through the layout. It's very similar to what I described with my previous duplex that I lived in. It wasn't like he opened it up and there was a bunch of other people's apartments. It was like his private entrance. So you just open the door and it was like stairs going down to the outside. But it was like his space. So it's not like totally weird that he'd have his door open.

Gina (26:17)

Mmm.

Kathryn (26:34)

while he was messing around with the camera. And every single picture he took where you could see the hallway in the background, because he had his door open, the hallway was pitch black. Like there was no reflection from the light on the inside of the apartment going out or anything like that. So at this point, people were like really starting to believe him because it was one of those things where it's like you can't edit a Polaroid photo really. And even if he did,

It's like, you can see he's like showing the time of when these things are happening and it's like happening in real time. It didn't appear like there was time to mess with it at all, you know? So it was just very strange and people were like, this is kind of when it started to gain a lot of traction because he kept having these very small pieces of quote unquote evidence that were just.

Gina (27:15)

Hmm.

Kathryn (27:28)

big enough to be like, yo dog, you're really haunted, but small enough to be believable. You know what I mean? Like these weren't big grand things, you know? Very much like parent. So someone tweeted that to someone was like, you need to like get Sage, need to call someone in and cleanse your apartment. At one point, like around the same time, he posts a photo of.

Gina (27:36)

That's a no from me, dog. Get the sage.

Kathryn (27:54)

he had put a ring of salt in front of his door to like keep it out. like he was genuinely, people were reacting exactly like that and like saying stuff like that to him. And he was genuinely asking for advice like that. Like he was following all of this advice. And he's still at the point where he's like, I don't know if I'm crazy. This is weird, but like.

Gina (27:57)

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kathryn (28:17)

It's happening. Like this is weird, right? He's still very much had that kind of like he's tweeting this for validation, it seems like hey, this thing happened. That's weird, right? You know, about a week goes by and he just keeps experiencing these very tiny things here and there. And then on August 21st, he tweets, all this ghost stuff has been really spooky. But the past weekend was the first time I actually felt unsafe in my home.

On Friday night, there was supposed to be a huge storm. In the end, it passed, but that night was so bizarre anyway. I fell asleep pretty early. was in, I, says,

Gina (28:52)

Double down. Double

down! Sorry.

Kathryn (28:55)

It's...

was incredibly tired for some reason. I had a dream that night where David was dragging me by the arm through an old abandoned warehouse. I'm not sure why I didn't fight back in the dream or how he was strong enough to pull me, but that's dream logic for you. It was... It is dream logic. Like, I get it. It was a creepy dream, but I didn't think much of it when I woke up. I took a shower and then I noticed something.

Gina (29:14)

Yeah.

Kathryn (29:25)

I had woken up with a huge bruise on my arm So look, maybe I injured myself the day before and my arm was hurting during the night, which I manifested as a dream. There could be a totally logical explanation for it. So I just brushed it off. I then went to get coffee, which I do every weekend morning.

When I walk to the coffee place, I always pass a food cart repair depot. Which, reminder, I don't think I mentioned this takes place in New York City. I was super thrown off by that. That is like the most New York thing in the world. A food cart repair depot. Just like a casual thing. He passes on his way to coffee. Yes. Yes, for those that do not, for those who live in New York, we actually do have a lot of New York City listeners.

Gina (29:54)

Okay.

Yeah.

You like you have. Ye olde food cart repair depot.

Hey-o!

Kathryn (30:12)

We

don't have those anywhere else in the world. That's very much a New York City thing. Anyway, says the depot is always incredibly busy, especially on weekends. I've lived in this neighborhood for over four years and the place has always been jam packed with carts getting serviced. But today it was completely abandoned. The whole warehouse was totally gutted and empty. Well, almost empty.

I went inside to look around because I was astonished that this place was suddenly empty after all these years. Basically the only thing in the entire warehouse was a single green chair. If you recall, David first appeared in my green rocking chair in the first dream I had about him. Could be nothing, but it's weird that this was the only thing left behind.

On my way back from getting coffee, the warehouse had been shuttered. It has remained shuttered ever since. So again, these are all like very normal things, but like all of them pieced together the same day that he had a dream about being dragged through a warehouse. He's starting to get like spooked, you know, like he's very much feeling like David is. There, you know. He has an official presence in the apartment.

Gina (31:19)

Mm-hmm.

No.

Kathryn (31:39)

He goes on, midnight, but lately it's been getting earlier and earlier, earlier every night. I was almost used to the routine so that when they started to cry at the door closer to 10, I was confused. began a new routine. They hover around the door at 10 p.m. and cry for about 15 minutes straight. Then

they wander off as if nothing ever happened. But this week, something else has been happening. Shortly after the usual cat stuff around 1030 or so, I start getting phone calls from an unmarked number. My entire call history for the past week just has a list of no caller ID missed calls. Since this has been happening for days on end, I obviously thought it might just be an automated telemarketer.

We all get those. will say it happened way less frequently way back in 2017 than it does now. I feel like people are going to be like, whatever. it was still weird that it would happen like super frequently. He also went on to say typically with the automated telemarketer calls, once you pick up, it typically stops.

Gina (32:32)

Yeah.

Kathryn (32:45)

which is also very different from how it is now. I feel like it makes it worse now if you pick up. So he picked up and he was expecting like an automated message as is usually the case. He then said, quote, instead what I heard on the other end was just a peculiar. Instead what I heard on the other end was a peculiar.

Gina (32:48)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (33:12)

electrical static sound, very similar to the static my sleep app picks up at night. I didn't say anything. I just listened, waiting for some automated message to start. After a little while, the static stopped and there was silence. I kept listening. I heard what I thought was breathing, but it was so faint. I couldn't be sure. My heart was racing. So it was really hard to hear. Then just as I was about to hang up,

I heard a very small voice whisper.

Something about the way they said hello freaked me out. It wasn't a question or a greeting, just hello. A flat statement, so quiet I could barely hear it. I panicked and hung up. I didn't know what else to do. I closed all the curtains in my apartment and turned on every single light. I watched TV until dawn because I was too scared to go to sleep. I sort of feel like I'm losing my mind.

Gina (33:50)

Uhhh.

Yep.

Kathryn (34:16)

If I look at each individual incident on its own, there are perfectly logical explanations for everything, but after three weeks of weird shit happening, I don't know how to make sense of all of this. The only thing I feel like can do now is write everything down, so that's what I'm doing, and that's what I'll keep doing.

So I'm just gonna keep rolling through because I love that like that reaction that he had is like all of us. I turned out all the lights, I closed all the curtains like that. What else are you gonna do? So people are invested now like genuinely. I don't remember what part of this story I jumped in at because whenever I first heard about the story it was through an article that like recounted all of it for you. So I think this may have been

Gina (34:33)

Sure.

Okay. ⁓

Yeah.

Right.

Mm. Okay.

Kathryn (35:01)

the point where I joined and like had first heard about it and jumped in, but I don't remember. So, but this was when like people were like officially fully afraid of for him, you know? So he goes on to explain he moves the green chair out of his bedroom because he's now officially freaked out by this chair. ⁓ And he mentions he recognizes he should probably get rid of it, but he just has a feeling it's not associated with the chair. Like he just is like.

He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know like where it's coming from or whatever. So he says that David lost track of him once for a little bit when he, you know, moved his apartment. So he is thinking maybe if he leaves for a little bit again, he'll, you know, lose track of him again. So he mentions he does have a trip planned to Japan. So that's coming up. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But so now he's starting to plan like

How do I try to get this weird ghost kid to leave me alone? In the preparation for him being out of town to go to Japan, he buys one of those pet cameras. And he's explaining it to everyone. These were pretty new at the time, I think. I don't think it was like, now everyone has a camera everywhere. This was still pretty novel at the time.

Gina (36:17)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (36:21)

It's basically you can either have it running 24 seven or you know similar thing. It just turns on when it sees movement. It's one of those either way it sends you an alert when on your phone in the app whenever it does record movement. And so he's out with friends one night before his big trip and he has the camera on to test it before he's gone long term and.

His phone kept pinging periodically throughout the night with notifications that there was movement in the house. Every time he checked it, it was usually just the cats. That's obviously what it was purchased for. He has two cats, so there's going to be movement. He says, then around 11 p.m., it alerted me again that it detected motion. But when I checked the feet of my apartment, I didn't see anything. So I watched it again, still nothing.

I watched it a third time and I finally noticed something. And in the video, the video is like pointed in his living room and in the lower left hand corner is the green rocking chair. In the video after a few seconds, you can see the rocking chair just like slowly start to go as if someone has like sat down in it. Yes.

Gina (37:35)

Okay.

Was the, sorry, the, is it possible

that like one of the cats bumped the leg of the rocking chair or would you have seen that from the video where it was like pointed? Okay. Okay.

Kathryn (37:46)

you would have seen it from the video. The cats were nowhere to be found and it was like there

was nothing and then there was a few seconds of just nothing and then it just starts on its own. It's not like the video comes into it rocking. Yeah. Yep. Cool, cool,

Gina (37:57)

Okay, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, well, you know, if

there's other people living in that building, because sometimes, like, when my neighbors are slamming doors, my house will, shake a little bit. Or, maybe it could be that. I'm trying to comfort myself.

Kathryn (38:09)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. yeah, that's a good point. Yes. Yes. You're doing a good job.

Yes. He says it was a nerving, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. So I just put my phone away and tried not to panic. About a half hour later, I got another motion alert. Then this second one, I don't know if we can share videos in this, but if we can, we'll share them. the second video.

Same thing, you you can see the chair, there's a little bookshelf to the left of the chair, so in the center of the video. And again, nothing is happening, the cats are nowhere to be seen. But all of a sudden you see something that was hanging on the wall, just drop and fall onto the bookshelf. Like no movement or anything. But still, to your point, could be a door slamming or whatever. But you also don't hear anything in the video.

Gina (39:05)

need to get my feet off of the ground.

Kathryn (39:08)

What had what had fallen was a little turtle shell that he had hanging on the wall. He does say, yes, I know it's weird that I own a turtle shell, but my family lives in Montana and I picked it up later. I picked it up last year at a trading post, so it was just a little turtle shell that fell off the wall. He said, since I've been back home, I've been too nervous to turn the camera back on. And today has been pretty quiet.

With that said, I feel very uneasy. I put the chair in the hallway. Hope nothing happens tonight." So he kind of left it at that. That was like the end of that experience.

Then about a week later, September 5th, he starts posting again with more details from this pet camera. And at this point, he has had it running 24 seven because like stuff is happening all the time. Again, there wasn't anything super overt. That's what made the story so unnerving. Like you could see things happening, but

your point there could have been things happening downstairs like a big truck passing by there was all these little things that could have had explanations. One the most notable things especially for pet owners is you can see the cats behaving very strangely and you can see them appearing to interact with someone or something.

Gina (40:30)

Ugh.

Kathryn (40:31)

And

that is the part that really freaked me out. Yeah, so there is one video of the cat. One of his cats named Maxwell seemed to be like the most affected. At one point in this video, the two cats are just sitting there not doing anything. And at one point he gets up and kind of looks around and then like jumps over something. And it very much looks like what a cat does when it's startled. You how they kind of like, like, you know, and like kind of pop up in the air.

Gina (40:58)

Yeah.

Kathryn (41:01)

but nothing is happening. He's not even home and the other cat's not doing anything. And then one that really freaks me out, I'll share all of these with you, but I'll like, I'm just gonna roll through them right now. ⁓ At one point, Maxwell, the same cat that jumped was sitting on the coffee table and you can see him like get up on his hind legs and he's like batting at the air and like kind of doing this with his nose, like.

It looks like he's playing with someone or something like that or like doing something and

Adam even comes on and says like, understand like it could be a fly, it could be a bug, but like, like I don't really have one. He said he was like, I don't really I haven't really experienced a lot of like bug problems in this apartment. Like, you know, I never get fruit flies. I never like blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, it's just one of those things where it's like similar to the Math Man episode. You kind of just have to trust like this guy knows his pets. He knows what's weird behavior.

Gina (41:40)

Mmm.

Hmm.

Kathryn (42:01)

And like, I will say if it was my cat, Cinnamon is the worst hunter. She literally doesn't understand flies or bugs at all. She just avoids them at all costs. So if she was doing that, that would be very weird behavior. But for another cat, that's very normal behavior, you know? So like, yes. Mm-hmm.

Gina (42:20)

For Rue, that's very normal. She loves hunting bugs. And that's why I made a face

when you were saying that, because I was picturing her when she's hunting a bug. Because real quick, she also does the thing where she'll stand on her hind legs, and it's adorable, because she looks like a baby polar bear. she'll like, if we're playing with toys, she'll bat at it. But she doesn't do that when it's a bug, because the bug never stays in one place long enough for her to know she can just put her weight down there and then just bat at it. She'll be like,

Kathryn (42:29)

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Gina (42:47)

Prowling

around that's not how they hunt bugs or at least that's not how Ru hunts bugs

Kathryn (42:50)

Yeah,

that's a good point because when a cat sees a bug, do typically again, it depends on the pet, but typically they do go into hunting mode. ⁓ Cinnamon does that when she loves her feather toy. Like she does that with those. like this cat in the video, he wasn't in a hunting pose. He was looking like he was looking like the way Cinnamon looks when she's asking me for pets.

Gina (43:02)

Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (43:19)

Like, doing that, like, he was like up on hind legs and like going like that, like batting his paws. That's like somebody is there. Like, do you know what I mean? ⁓

Gina (43:20)

Okay, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Because Rue will do

that when she wants our attention. And she'll do that to leaves of a house plant. She'll do the batting thing. Because she knows it'll get us to pay attention to her. Yes, OK. I'm anti-bug theory. I don't think it was a bug.

Kathryn (43:36)

Yeah, yes. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and that's when like even so at this point I was paying attention to this story back in 2017 I was like logging in my into my Twitter to see if he had updates and I remember because I didn't I had never owned a cat at the time cinnamon's my first cat and I didn't have her yet and I Didn't know you know what I mean. I remember being like this could be a bug. This could just be a cat being weird I don't know now that I have a cat and I've seen her interact with different things. I'm like, that's weird so

Gina (43:51)

Hehehehe

Kathryn (44:12)

It's kind of quiet for about a month. I mean, he is giving updates and stuff like this, but not a lot is happening. He goes on his trip to Japan. The only updates before he leaves for his trip are just his cats are continuing to be strange. But the other thing that he has been experiencing is just the dreams have been continuing. So we're fast forwarding to a string of tweets.

He posts on October 3rd, 2017. Yes, yes. it's his last full day in Japan, basically. And he tweets, The past couple of weeks have been pretty peaceful.

Gina (44:42)

Happy birthday!

Kathryn (44:52)

I have people taking care of the cats and they say they've been doing fine. This morning I went for a long walk around... I don't know how to say it, I'm sorry. Sapporo?

Gina (45:04)

I'm thinking about Sabaro and I know that's not what you're talking about.

Kathryn (45:08)

It's

a city or like yeah, it's a city in Japan. I'm gonna say Sapporo. I never really planned my vacations. I just like to wander around and see what I find which like gives me so much anxiety. You plan, you schedule time to do that. You don't just do that the whole time. ⁓ But who am I? I don't know. He says, I came across this statue in a park. I couldn't find out any real information about it online. It was just weird and pretty.

Gina (45:13)

Okay.

Kathryn (45:37)

I was taking pictures of it from all different angles because it's a cylindrical statue. And just for those, I'll share a picture of it. But it's basically a cylinder with like statues of people all around it. It's like a montage of it's like a medley of people statues. So there's a lot of different people within this tattoo. said, I'm moving around to one side and I almost dropped my phone at what I saw.

Gina (45:52)

Okay.

Kathryn (46:07)

And what he sees, he shares this picture of a small child who appears to have a dented head. So the statue is like there in Japan. This is not like a new thing. This is not something he could have planted. It is something he could have looked up ahead of time. I'm just trying to play like skeptic along the way and we'll dive deep more into my skepticism later. It is something he could have found ahead of time. As far as

Gina (46:26)

Yeah.

Kathryn (46:35)

the tweets are concerned, this is brand new information. And this picture that he shares of this small child that appears to have a dented head does look very much like the illustration that he has drawn of Dear David. So he's all very confused about it, ⁓ doesn't know what to make of it. At this point, he's feeling very unsettled. This is the first

like weird thing that he has come across in Japan, but he very much feels like Dear David is following him basically. So he gets home, cats are fine, it's quiet for a little while until a couple weeks later on October 14th, he tweets, weird things have been happening with the electricity this week. First two bulbs have burned out in the hallway in less than a week. At this point,

I've just left them alone rather than get a ladder again, but the strangest thing has to do with the backlight on my TV. The TV has to be on in order for the backlight to be on, but last night the backlight was flickering on and off all by itself. I noticed it just some time before dawn when I woke up and went into the kitchen to get some water. I'd barely gotten back into bed when I saw a faint light come in the living room. Sorry, come on in the living room.

After a few seconds, it went dark again. I went back into the living room and stood there watching the backlight go on and off, on and off for at least a few minutes. It felt really bizarre. Eventually it stopped. And now the backlight doesn't work at all. It's only a couple of months old, so it shouldn't be dead already. Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I went to the diner near my apartment. It was the only thing open at 4 a.m. When I got back home, the sun was starting to come up.

So I figured I might as well shower and go into work early. I showered and brushed my teeth, then headed into the bedroom to get dressed. As I passed the front door, I heard a faint scratching sound coming from the other side. It was soft. I wasn't sure it had really even happened. I went over to the door, but I was too scared to look through the peephole. I couldn't bring myself to actually put my face that close to the sound. So I opted to take a photo through the peephole instead.

Since there's a skylight just outside my door, the hall was awash in faint yellow-green light. I snapped a couple photos. At first, the pictures didn't seem like anything, just a blur. Then, as I analyzed it, I started noticing things. Part of a face, an ear, an eye staring right back at me, just on the other side of the peephole. I think maybe it's time to get someone else involved.

It's obvious this isn't going to stop until I do something. I'm just not sure what that is yet. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

I'll share that one so people can like see.

Gina (49:34)

It's the ear for me. That's the bit that made me like notice it.

Kathryn (49:36)

It's the ear.

Yep.

Okay. So this is where we are. This is the first and again, but again, like this could just be a blurry something that his brain found those like, we are we as humans, we are trained to find human faces. That's like a thing that exists. So this could still be nothing. Couple weeks later, he tweets again, sorry for the radio silence the past couple weeks.

Gina (49:47)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kathryn (50:06)

First, I had a friend come over, do some cleansing. She did the whole apartment and hallway. A lot of self-proclaimed professional mediums have reached out, plus a bunch of ghost hunter TV shows. I've declined them all because I really don't want strangers in my house sensationalizing what's going on. So instead, I had a friend come over and she cleansed the place. For about a week or so, it seemed like it worked. Things appeared to go back to normal.

The cats weren't gathering at the door anymore. I stopped having dreams. It started to seem like it was over. Then one morning last week, I was walking to work and I passed the shuttered warehouse as usual. This time, all the metal doors were wide open, sunlight pouring in. The warehouse was still mostly empty except one thing. There was a hearse parked near the back wall of the warehouse.

The warehouse has been closed for nearly two months. I have no idea why it was open that day. Nobody was even around. It was weird, but I tried not to think about it. It's not all that strange to see a hearse, I guess. Like, they have to park somewhere. I tried to put it out of my mind, and the next several days were uneventful. But something else happened last night. It was around 11 or so, and I was watching TV on the couch. I went into the kitchen to get a drink.

from the fridge and I noticed both of the cats were sitting by the far window staring up at it. The window looks out onto the roof of the business next door. I glanced out the window, but I didn't see anything. I figured maybe there was a mouse on the wall or something. I shrugged it off and grabbed a beer from the fridge. When I went to get the bottle opener, I noticed something. There's a window in the kitchen as well, which looks out on the same roof.

and someone was standing on the roof staring at me. I immediately ducked down. I reached up and flicked off the light switch. I peered over the window sill, but couldn't see much. My phone was in my pocket, so I grabbed it and took a photo. It's blurry and dark, but I swear someone was out there. I tried to take a better photo, but the figure had disappeared. I closed all the blinds and made sure the door was locked and then drank like five more beers until I was too drunk to be scared.

Gina (52:21)

Hell yeah, brother. ⁓

Kathryn (52:21)

Valid, yeah. But now I feel like I'm back

at square one. I'm sure it was him. He's not going away. I don't know what to do. And that is the end of part one of the Dear David story. So I do want feedback. I am going to show you...

Gina (52:35)

Oh my God, okay, Jesus.

Kathryn (52:45)

the photo that he took.

because I want your feedback.

Gina (52:49)

Okay.

Kathryn (52:50)

I want to hear your thoughts on what you're seeing. So in the first one, it's very hard to see, in like the lower left hand corner, you can kind of see the shape of something outside.

Gina (53:00)

Let

me, I'm gonna turn my big bright light off real quick, cause it's like making this hard to see.

Kathryn (53:05)

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Gina (53:09)

Hold on, is it the black smudgy thing in the corner that goes away, that disappears mysteriously?

Kathryn (53:13)

Yes.

Yes.

So what are your thoughts now? We're at the end of part one of the story. Spoiler alert, it's not a spoiler, we're at the end. But for everyone listening, I will be doing a part two later this week. So let's decompress and let's dissect part one. What are your thoughts? Where are you right now emotionally?

Gina (53:24)

Okay.

Okay. I...

Skeptical, like questioning, enjoying the story of it. Like I think the medium of Twitter as a storytelling tool for a story like this is genius. I'm not saying that he intentionally did it that way, but I do think like the platform, like short form lends itself very well to like building suspense, which I appreciate. The fact that he works at Buzzfeed, I wish that I wasn't judging him as much for that because in my head I'm like, well like if he...

Kathryn (53:43)

Yeah, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Gina (54:09)

is making this out to seem bigger than it really is. Wouldn't surprise me because he works at BuzzFeed and their whole thing was clickbait. That was their entire brand. However, there's a whole lot of, it's like you were saying towards the beginning, all of these things have an explanation, but when they're all part of the same story within a relatively short time frame, it becomes very compelling.

Kathryn (54:18)

Mm-hmm.

Gina (54:38)

I thought the Japan bit with the kid with the dented head, I was like, okay, you could have like Googled that ahead of time. That's fine. Honestly, the biggest convincer for me, and I still am like undecided. I don't know if I think this is real or not. the bit that convinces me the most, if I am going to consider myself convinced, is the cats.

Kathryn (54:46)

Yeah, for sure.

Okay.

Gina (54:59)

because animals know what's up. We talked about this before, like dogs, cats, animals have a read on things. They know things that we don't. Trust your animals. And so if they're behaving strangely, that's notable, especially cats. Because I don't know if you've ever tried to get the attention of a cat before, but it's not easy to do.

Kathryn (55:00)

Yes.

Especially cats.

If your pets are scared or startled, you should be too, basically. Yeah, so yes. And these videos of the cats, they do very much appear to be interacting with something. So I agree with that. And everything you're saying is very much what the discourse was around this as it was happening, because some people...

Gina (55:26)

Yes. Yeah.

Kathryn (55:43)

were like following this like, oh my God, he's haunted, bad things are happening to Adam Ellis, blah, blah, blah. But there was a whole other crop of people who were like, this is just a story, like he works for Buzzfeed, it's clickbait, blah, blah, blah. Everyone was kind of, I don't wanna say everyone, but it was basically, is it a hoax or is this guy really haunted? And I have my own opinions on it that I will save for part two because.

I want you to enjoy this. I don't want to give you anything about mine, but I have very strong opinions on it. But I love I love the story. You have to enjoy it for yourself because this is just I was I got to be there in real time. So like like I need everyone to just go on this journey for themselves. But we will talk about my thoughts in part two, which will be posted Thursday.

Gina (56:11)

Hey.

Thanks for letting me enjoy the ride!

Well, once again, I'm lucky because I get to hear the second part of this story right away. So let's wrap this up. I wanna hear what's next. Okay, ⁓ thank you so much for joining us. Make sure to tune in on Thursday. Until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.

Kathryn (56:38)

I know. All right.

and keep it creepy!