This happened about six months ago.
I was 22 at the time, and my daughter was only 4.
I lived in a two story house with just me, my daughter, and my husband.
I was taking at-home classes to be an iPhone specialist, starting at 5 pm and ending at
10 pm Monday-Friday.
My husband had left for his two weeks of training he does every year for the military, so it's
just me my daughter and our pit bull mix, Mavis.
I had just finished my classes for the week and had the weekend free, so I decided to
go to my mother's house until Sunday, so I packed up my stuff and my daughter's stuff,
and we went for the weekend.
We returned home Sunday to find someone had broken into our home, there are muddy footprints
everywhere and windows open but nothing was missing.
That struck me as odd because I have iPads, laptops, etc. just laying about in my room,
so I made sure all the windows and doors were locked.
Nothing happened that night, but the next day my mother came over to pick my daughter
up so I could do my classes without worrying what she was into.
They left, and I went to watch the class upstairs.
I put headphones on so I can hear my instructor teach the class, but swear I keep hearing
stuff downstairs.
I even text my mom and told her I heard stuff downstairs and it was creeping me out, but
she ensured me it was probably just Mavis because everything was locked up tight and
no one could get in.
I agreed, thinking I was probably just freaking myself out.
I continued listening to my instructor teach, and I swear I heard footsteps on the stairs,
so I hurry up and take my headset off and listen.
I didn't hear anything.
I walked down the stairs and didn't see anything, either, so I went back to class.
At 10pm my class was over, and my mom decided to just keep my daughter for the night.
I was doing my homework with mavis upstairs with me and all of a sudden she started barking
and growling and ran down stairs.
Now, Mavis usually barks and growls at the slightest noise outside so I didn't think
much of it but decided I should check it out anyway because of what happened while I was
at my mother's.
Again, nothing out of the ordinary so I went back upstairs.
I was finally done with homework, and it's about midnight, so I went downstairs and called
my mom like I do every night.
We were talking, and I decided I open my daughter's door and peek my head in.
I don't know why I did this because my daughter was at my mom's for the night, just a habit
I guess.
I should have mentioned earlier that when you look in my daughter's room, her bed is
on the far wall a good ways away from the door, so you can clearly see under her bed.
So I opened the door and to my horror, a man was under her bed.
I just froze and didn't move, just stood there in shock.
After what felt like minutes I slowly shut the door and whispered into the phone to my
mom that there's a man in my house under my daughters bed.
My mom was terrified and was already in the car on her way.
She already had my brother call the police, and she screamed at me to get outside, so
I ran outside with Mavis and waited for the police to arrive.
About 3 minutes later, they came and searched my house and found no one.
But they discovered my bathroom window was open, and they happened to shine their light
at the living room window, and I could clearly see two huge hand prints where they slid the
window down.
The cops waited for my mom and brother to get there, and while we're waiting, they told
me about this man that usually stays two houses down from mine with his parents.
Both of his parents have a pretty bad drug habit, and this guy has been known to put
women in the hospital and trying to kill them.
What scares me even more is since we have bought this house my daughter has been terrified
and always told my mom she wanted to stay with her because it wasn't safe at mommy's
house.
I didn't think too much of it because I thought maybe it was just a new place and you know
how kids are with new places.
After this whole thing happened, I stayed with my mom until my husband came home.
We decided to ask our daughter about the house what she told me absolutely terrified me.
She said that at night while her dad and I sleep monsters come to her window and try
to get in she says it's a boy monster and a girl.
The next day we installed alarms on all the windows and security lights.
I can't stop questioning why.
Why was this man under my daughter's bed?
Was he waiting for me to go to sleep?
Was he waiting for my mom to bring my daughter back home and I put her to bed?
I get sick to my stomach thinking what could have happened.
In March of 2003 when I was my 17, my younger brother and I took a weekend camping trip
up to the Los Padres National Forrest.
We had gone there many times with our family for day camping, swimming, and just lounging
around.
This time though we went alone for a two night camping trip at our favorite spot that most
locals simply called “the gorge”.
We will never forget this weekend for all the wrong reasons.
We got there Saturday morning at around 9am and hiked the 5 miles out to “the gorge”.
The gorge is a large swimming hole with a huge 60 foot rock-cliff boulder that visitors
loved to jump from into the deep water below.
The jumping rock cliff is very steep and one must jump in a specific location below to
ensure that they do not hit the rocks protruding from the wall face.
The gorge has many primitive camping areas and is overall a beautiful yet isolated place.
The first day was very fun and after a long day of swimming, catching crawdads, jumping
from rocks and just relaxing we set up our tent, made a fire, and ate our cans of spaghetti
o’s and the few crawdads we had cooked for dinner.
Towards the end of dinner we were visited by a large group of students who were camping
farther down the river.
They stated they were students from the bay area who had a few nights left in their almost
two week long school camping trip.
We offered them some of our chips and snacks and chatted a bit with them before they made
their hike back to their camping spot.
It soon got dark and my brother and I got ready for bed.
My brother was two years younger than I and had a deep fear of isolation so we slept in
the same tent and agreed that we would keep our fire burning the entire night to ease
his anxiety.
We put five large logs in the fire and crept inside our tent and got into our sleeping
bags.
We both fell asleep very fast as we were exhausted from the day.
Around 2:30 in the morning we were both awoken by a large splash of water near our tent that
put out our fire.
We heard no voices, and could not see much from inside our tent.
We froze in terror.
My brother began to cry and I tried to calm him down.
I told him that I would go outside to investigate and that everything would be ok.
I told him that our water bladder must of fell from the tree where we had hung it and
that I’m sure it was some kind of a coincidence.
I grabbed my flashlight, unzipped our tent, and stepped outside.
I pointed the flashlight over to the fire pit and saw four large men sitting around
our fireplace all staring at me with what I can only describe as expressionless faces.
It appeared as though they had slit open our 2 gallon water bladder that we had hanging
over a tree and had thrown it into our fire.
I was in shock and didn’t know what to say.
For about 5 seconds none of them said anything, we just stared at each other.
Then one of them said in a very drunk voice “get your pussy friend out here”.
I then heard my brother hyperventilating and screaming and crying in our tent in a way
that made me feel so helpless.
I had no weapons and my brother and I were outnumbered two to one.
I asked the men what they wanted and told them that we could just leave and that we
were sorry if we had taken their camping spot or invaded their area.
They ignored my question and just stood up.
That is when I saw that two of the four men were holding something in their hands.
Long sword shaped in appearance like a machete or small sword, but they looked homemade and
very primitive.
The men yelled at us to get up and to bring our “pussy asses with them”.
I thought for a second that these might be drunk rangers getting mad at us for having
too big of a fire but once I glanced at their clothing and saw their baggy jean pants and
their black and gray hoodie type clothing I knew we were not that lucky.
I had heard in the past that drug dealers and or the Mexican cartel had been caught
hiding large amounts of marijuana plants in the forest and wondered if these men were
some of these men who somehow felt that we were a threat to their crops.
I was in fear for our lives.
The men did not touch us or directly threaten us with violence but I definitely felt an
implied threat in their tone and believed that we really had no choice in the matter.
My brother who was still crying and I followed the lead male while the other three men fell
back behind us.
My brother put his hand on my shoulder and was visibly shaking.
He then whispered to me that they were walking in the direction of the 60+ foot rock cliff
and that we needed to run.
I was petrified and had not been paying attention to where they were leading us but realized
that he was right.
I stopped dead in my tracks and said to the men “what are you going to do to us”.
The lead male stated in a slurred voice “nothing, we are just gonna have some fun with you pussies”.
I felt that we really had no choice but to do what they said and hoped that they were
merely screwing with us and that this would all be over soon.
After about thirty seconds of walking we arrived at the jumping spot on top of the bounder
overlooking the gorge swimming area.
One of the men then stated “have you guys ever jumped from here”?
I told them that yes I had but my brother had not as it was a pretty high jump and was
very dangerous for most people due to the height and the rocks below.
The men laughed and again called my brother a “pussy”.
I told them that we were not pussies as I had jumped from this spot before but that
it was not safe to do in the dark.
The men then formed a half circle around us and one of the men then said “I wanna see,
show us that you are not a bunch of pussies”.
I screamed at them that it was too dangerous at night and that during the day was dangerous
enough.
I told them that there are many rocks that you have to avoid and that if you did not
jump correctly that the jump could kill you”.
I pleaded and pleaded.
The men just laughed and took a few steps closer to us.
I was beyond scared and could hear my heart beating through my ears.
My brother by this point was crying loudly and saying things I could not understand.
He was beyond terrified and so was I. I grabbed his hand and told him that we needed to get
away from these men as we were in great danger.
I told him that I had jumped off the bounder into the water before and knew were to jump,
and that if he jumped with me that we would be ok.
I told him I would use my flashlight to help guide us and that I would tell him where to
put his feet and how far to jump.
The men laughed at us as we had our conversation and showed zero humanity or pity.
I held my brothers hand and placed his feet with my hand onto a specific place on the
rock ledge where I remembered jumping from the last time I was there months before.
I explained to him that I knew he was scared and so was I but that we needed to jump out
as far as we can and slightly to the right otherwise we could hit the rocks.
He was shaking, crying, and kept telling me that he couldn’t do it.
He then urinated on the floor.
The men laughed and laughed and kept saying they couldn’t believe how big of pussies
we were.
I then told my brother we needed to jump now and that he would be ok if he listened to
me.
I told him that after we jumped that we would swim to the shore on the right and would hide
in the bushes until daybreak and would go for help then.
I then grabbed his hand tightly and told him that when we hit the water he needed to tuck
his legs and arms in so that they would not get hurt from the impact of the water and
instructed him that he needed to swim hard to the surface as we would be sink pretty
far down due to the height we were jumping from.
I grabbed his hand and we jumped.
I pulled him hard with me to ensure that he would be safe from the rocks below and that
he jumped far enough out.
We fell for what seemed like for a minute but was only a few seconds in reality.
My brother yelled all the way down in a way I have never heard from another human being
before.
Terror, dread, and fear of eminent death reverberated from his voice.
I felt helpless and almost forgot where we were for those few seconds.
Then we hit the water.
As soon as we hit I lost my grip on my brother’s hand but did hear a second impact in the water.
I swam up towards the surface with all my energy and took a deep breath.
I then listened for my brother to surface and heard nothing.
I panicked and dove down into the water to try and grab him.
Just as I dove I felt his leg brush against my hand and realized that he was about to
surface.
I swam up again and heard my brother.
He was crying and kept saying that his arm hit a rock and that he could not feel it.
The men above were laughing again and I heard one of them say “they fucking made it, those
pussies”.
I then heard objects splashing in the water around us and realized that they were throwing
beer bottles or rocks or some other hard object at us.
I quickly grabbed my brother by his shirt and helped him swim to the nearby shore from
my memory of where it was.
The whole time we swam many objects landed dangerously close to us and I felt that if
any had hit us it would have caused death or great bodily harm to us especially if we
were hit in the head.
My flashlight had been lost in the fall and we were in complete darkness.
We reached the water’s edge and I pulled my brother to the shore.
Objects continued to rain down around us and we could hear the men yelling and laughing.
I told my brother that we needed to run.
He was crying, and was holding his injured arm that he still could not feel or use.
It had a deep cut around the elbow and even with just the starlight we could see that
it was a serious injury.
We stumbled down the tree line and began making our way through the darkness to one of the
main trails whose location I remembered from past memory.
We fell again and again and were cut by branches and rocks all over our bodies as we wondered
about down the overgrown trail.
Everything in my body told me to keep going and to get as far away from these men as we
could.
We walked for many minutes until we could no longer hear the men and then we waited.
I wrapped my brother’s arm with my shirt and told him that it was over and that all
we had to do was wait until morning for help.
We sat in that spot all night and my brother cried and shook for hours.
I just put my arm around him and patted his head as I did when we were children whenever
he had a panic attack and our parents were not around.
At daybreak we could finally see the severity of his injuries.
He had a deep gash in his arm and his shoulder was obviously dislocated.
I helped him hike up the nearby trail and we walked all the way back to the base camp
ranger station.
We explained what happened to the rangers and they sent two armed officers to go and
investigate the location.
My brother was sent to a nearby hospital for treatment and I joined him on the ambulance
ride over.
The rangers/police never found the men but did retrieve most of our gear.
The scary thing about this incident is that that same week two teenage boys were found
dead at the bottom of the gorge jumping area and their group had encountered a group of
people as we did at their camping location with similar machete objects who chased them
off their camping spot.
I am glad to be alive and my brother and I have never gone camping again alone or have
ever been back to that location.
All we have left from the incident are the scars on my brother’s arm, a hospital bills,
and a lot of trauma.
An article of the death of the two teenage boys is below.
I can only hope that their deaths were accidents as the authorities ruled.
I did not find out about their deaths until 7 years after but was horrified about the
similar circumstances and timing of the two events.