The Violated Domicile

Yesterday I came across one of the stranger stories I've covered. It was a strange story to begin with, but with each new development, the strange level continued to rise until we reached a level of strangitude that was dangerous to comprehend. It's like one of those things you'd see in a movie or a crappy reality TV show that would lead you to declare, "That could never be real!" After today, I wish I could still believe that.

We were sent to a small town about an hour outside of the city. A quaint suburb where everybody knows everybody and the weather is foretold by an old man in a rocking chair. The peace and quiet that the town has come to know as its own was ravaged early in the morning by the dastardly acts of a clan of vile miscreants.

Along a neighborhood block that stretched a fair distance, one single house was subjected to the wrath of Hell itself. The residents who dwelt within were horrified to discover that their humble abode had been violated several times over. Painted and carved into their house (and boat) were countless vile expressions, including the words "bitch", "fuck" and "dike porn".

According to the residents, this atrocious act was preformed by an evil neighbor, who recruited innocent neighborhood kids to do her ungodly bidding. These minions of the night wreaked havoc on their residence, and were caught doing so by the family's security camera .

While the residents were unable to figure out how to show us the video on their computer, they assured us that it clearly displayed the neighbor's dastardly actions. The neighbor was arrested, along with several neighborhood kids, and was released on bail later that day.

While obtaining footage of the neighbor's house, they just happened to arrive home, fresh from the Big House, and not too pleased to see the good people of the local media outside their home.

After speaking with them about why we were there, they informed us that it was not them who were the deviants, but those living within the defiled house. And they could prove it... because they have a security camera pointed at their house as well!

They showed us several videos displaying the neighbors screaming profanities at neighborhood kids, passers-by and each other. Perhaps this vandalism wasn't simply a random act of satanism preformed by misguided riffraff, as the victims had claimed.

For further information, we were sent down the street to speak to the mother of one of the kids who was arrested as well. We had been told that she was very upset over what her son had done and was very explicit about wanting to express her remorse for his actions. From a sleuth's point of view, this sounded highly promising. However, I was unable to prepare myself for the wild turn that this story was about to take.

As we approached the home, we were greeted by a cryptic and mysterious message:

Wow, this is getting nuts.

So we go to the door and are greeted by an elderly lady in a wheelchair. As she wept, she told us that she'd be happy to explain what happened, but that we wouldn't want to report it. We pressed her to continue, and heard the following as she hid behind her door:

"We are weeping for our eternal souls. The devil has come into our home and possessed our son to do terrible things."

She then shut the door and left us with our mouths agape.

At this point, we decided that we had delved deep enough into this bizarre community. With nearly an hour's worth of footage and interviews, we returned to the station, ready to craft our journalistic masterpiece.

There was just one underlying issue... Remember the vandalism? That little nugget that set off this frightening chain of events? Well we were never able to get our hands on the security camera footage. For this reason, our epic journey into the fog of mystery (and quite possibly the discovery of some sort of cross-dimensional portal) was downgraded from a package in the top of the show to a brief vo/sot in the third block.

Our efforts never led to any conclusive answer to the Mystery of the Defiled House. Who really vandalized this home? Was it vengeful teenagers? Jealous neighbors? Hellspawn? I returned the next day to investigate further, only to discover that the bizarre town had vanished completely.

Not really. But I wouldn't have been surprised if it had.

What a town.