The Creep Who Gave My Mom PTSD

This story is about an event that happened to my mother around 1972 when she was 8 years old. Shes told me about it since i was young and she truly thinks about it and is affected to this day.

To set the scene, both of my grandparents ran a restaurant/gas station in our home town. They have always ran a business of some type since the 50's. This means that a lot of days my mom would have to take the school bus home and stay by herself if my grandma had to stay and help run things. (Usually no more than an hour or 2).

My uncle (her older brother) would usually come home on the bus with her but he was a little older and sometimes had football practice. So was the case on the day of the event im getting too.

So my mother arrived home on this day, let herself in the house and put away her things. She had just recently received a new puppy and knew the first thing she needed to do was take the pup out to the yard to use restroom.

She wrapped the dog in a white towel (this is important) and walked him outside. As she put down the dog she shook its hair out of the blanket, flailing it about the wind. Its then she noticed the neighbors son was staring at her from across the street.

This guy was in his late 20's and was known to be very strange and mentally ill (though in the country mental illness seems not to always be recognized). He would do psycho shit like killing the neighbors pigs or skinning stray cats and hanging them from a clothes line in their yard. Real sick shit.

My mom said he always creeped her and everyone else out. She said he would stare at her when she would play outside and made her feel generally uncomfortable. She said he appeared out of nowhere in his yard that day, and as she shook out the blanket, he began grinning and waving.

Feeling more than a little shook, she picked up her pup, went inside and locked the door. She began to do some homework and after about 5 minutes of work, she heard a loud knock at the door.

She slowly walked to the window to see who it was (she knew it wasnt my grandparents because of course they had keys). As she opened the blinds, her eyes locked with those of the creep from across the street, like he was already looking in the window. She jumped and said she screamed a little as she shut the blinds.

She walked to the door and made sure it was locked. She said he just continued with a slow continuous thud on the door, almost in rhythm. KNOCK...KNOCK...KNOCK.

Then she really got terrified as he began speaking to her through the door. "Hi sweetie, i saw you with your doggy, let me in to see him". She was in shock. "Come on and let me in sweetie, please, i want to see your puppy".

In full freak out mode my mom screamed. "YOU need to leave now! You need to go back to your house! I dont know you!"

He kept knocking. KNOCK...KNOCK...KNOCK. I can see the fear in my moms eyes when she describes that part and it gives my whole body chills. He said "Dammit, let me in! I saw you waving your flag of surrender!" I shit you not, the guy thought my mom shaking hair from the blanket was a flag of "surrender" and a sign for him to come over.

My mom screamed "Im calling my daddy and the police if you dont leave now!" With this the knocking stopped. She tried to catch her breath and shake off her fear. She then got up from the door and ran to the basement level of the home (it was an old house so the kitchen and rec room was down there along with the only phone in the house).

She made it to the phone and began to dial 911. All of a sudden she heard a shatter from the next room. She looked over to see the crazed neighbor attempting to crawl through the kitchen window. He was ripping down the curtain as his upper body got through and my mother screamed what was happening to the police on the phone. All of a sudden he was bleeding from the abdomen where the window glass had cut him as his lower half couldnt squeeze through.

Then my mom began hearing my grandmothers screams "What the hell are you doing!" Then the guy yelling in pain and squirming out the window as she hit him from behind with some tool that was laying her garden on the side of the house where the entrance to the window was. He manage to get out the window and bolted to his house. The police came, grandma called my grandfather and he arrived as well after shutting down the business as soon as she told him.

They arrested him for breaking and entering and something else i believe that was unrelated (probation violation i assume). On the day of his court date he told them the white flag of "surrender" story, but this was the final nut on his crazy cake as they put him in a mental institution that day. He may had gotten out but went back because my mother said he later died in an institution. Outside the courthouse the crazy Appalachian redneck family of the creep tried to blame my 8 YEAR OLD mother and the mans father called my mother a harlot. Needless to say my army trained grandpa beat the guys ass on the courthouse steps as the local cops turned a blind eye.

That story has always stuck with me, my moms had to receive therapy for it so it haunts her alot as well to this day. We always cant help but wonder though, "What would he have done to her if my grandma didnt come home at that moment"? So to you, you creepy cat killer who traumatized my mom, lets not meet.