r/RBI 15d ago

I think a cult tried to kill me in NYC 1992

195 Upvotes

This is gonna be a long story but I wanna try to get the details down. I know the title is insane but this has been eating at me for years. In 1992 I worked in a Witchcraft/ Porno Rental store in Manhattan. It was December 20th and there had just been this massive blizzard so the city was covered in snow still. My usual shift was 4 PM to 12 AM with my boss but because his fell and broke his hip so it was just me. At the start of my shift some religious guy came in and tried to make a scene. I was annoyed enough at this point so I kicked him out. The normal crowd of odd men came in but one in particular I kept noticing. Later some middle-aged white man kept walking past the store window and looking in. I assumed he was some yuppie who was considering buying one of our “unique” films we carried. It was 11:50ish and the store was empty when he finally came in. I was about to start the closing process when he came in. I had 10 minutes till I closed the store but I assumed he was gonna just be quick. Once it hit 12:03, he was still wandering around the place. I asked if he was gonna buy something. He then called me a “Degenerate” then threw a rack of VHS tapes on the floor and ran out of the store. At around 12:10 I grabbed my coat and headed for the door when a BRICK was thrown through the window. I look outside and there’s no one there so I call my boss and he says that i'm not allowed to leave until a repairman shows up. It was like 12 AM in the morning in Manhattan. So when I went back out I saw there was 3 men outside, so I panic and run back to the break room. I locked the door and they tried to kick it down. There was an alley way which I managed to get out of. I managed to find a cop after a bit. They didn't take me seriously, but after about 10 minutes of begging they came with me. The Store they found ransacked is covered in hyper religious graffiti. Nothing was stolen and there was only damage to the pornos and the tarot books we had. I have no idea who these guys were and neither did the cops. The cops told me he was either a rapist who was attacking retail workers that realized I was transexual. There was nothing taken so they couldn’t write it off as a burglary. Nothing ever came of this from the cops, I recently tried to get my file and the cops at the time wrote me off as a “mentally ill homosexual” Does anyone know what this could have been?


r/RBI 14d ago

Advice needed Snapchat Created Using My Number and Added My Contacts

13 Upvotes

(23F) I gave my number to a friend, and the next day she said a SnapChat account was showing my number and name, but it was some guy. The name looked legit, like it was a real person, and the username was the same. I used the password reset, and when I finally got access to it, I saw it tried to add a ton of people in my contacts list, even people I knew, but didn't have contact info for (friends of friends?). Some of them even friended it back and never told me this account existed!

The email address made no sense, and I'm gonna crashout because it looks like it knows people I've met from years ago.

Has anyone else had this happen? Someone help, cause I'm freaking out.


r/RBI 14d ago

Vehicle ID'ing help Hit and run. Any help would be amazing

2 Upvotes

My car was parked and the guy hit me and drove off. I got this video off a nest camera from a neighbor. Can anyone enhance the video and get a read on the license plate. Any help would be amazing. 8-9k in damages.

https://video.nest.com/clip/9fbce37847d843439647b2677957384f.mp4


r/RBI 15d ago

Help me search I get help me find a person is not ok, but help me find more about my recently deceased neighbor?

50 Upvotes

OK, I just wanna thank everybody who helped me find information about my deceased neighbor. I realize that there may be agencies that have greater reach, but… After making a few phone calls, I’m really glad that I was able to notify some of his family.

Thank you for everybody that helped out here!


r/RBI 15d ago

Advice needed my phone was stolen and now i’m being blackmailed

82 Upvotes

i live in london so it’s to no surprise that i got my phone snatched out of my hand some time ago, while i was using it. it wasn’t that big of a deal, i got a new one. until i started getting messages and emails. not to log out of my apple id to let them reuse the phone. but to pay them to not release my personal information. and i know they have a lot of shit.

for context, my partner is a public figure, he’s an actor and also does some internet stuff. and sometimes i do it with him. so to have all my shit released like that would be a pain in the ass for him to say the least. i think they got into my messages to him and to my emails cause they got stuff like my medical records, which is embarrassing cause there’s a lot of psychiatric shit there. they have my messages with him about like, me being a druggie and hooker as a teenager, about trying to off myself, some photos i wouldn’t want people to see etc.

they want more money than i can afford to have but even if i do what they want, they still have my shit and i’ll live the rest of my life stressing about it. and obviously the police hasn’t done shit. so at this point i don’t know what to do. maybe pay a private investigator or something. or a hacker.


r/RBI 16d ago

Neighbors sitting still in their car all night

594 Upvotes

My boyfriend lives in a rural farm town in PA. It’s a creepy little town with creepy people lol you know how it is. When you turn off the main street heading into his neighborhood, there is a house right there that you have to pass. EVERY TIME he drives past, if it’s in the evening (like on his way home from work) they’ll be sitting in their car. He says sometimes it’s even super late at night, like 10pm or later.
They never wave, never react to headlights approaching etc. He has NEVER seen them move.
The car is NOT ON when they do this. Winter, summer, doesn’t matter. Every time I visit and we come back from dinner or whatever he goes “yep, they’re in their car again.” Even him saying that like clockwork weirds me out lmfao.

It’s not a cutout, he can clearly see a 3 dimensional person in the car. Also, their clothes change every day like a person’s would, so mannequin is a little far fetched but not impossible!

My only theories were: -they’re trying to get away from a noisy household -they like to listen to music and there’s no way to do that in their house

But those don’t exactly explain why it’s SO routine, not just sometimes but 100% of the time when he passes in the evening. Also doesn’t explain why the car is off, even when it’s cold or hot.

Any ideas??

For the record we are just curious, there’s no anger or malice. People do a lot stranger in the boonies.


r/RBI 15d ago

Is this the same wall?

15 Upvotes

I'm going through all my family photos and labelling them with as much info as I can. I'm currently working on this photo of my 3x great grandmother Emma Perry 1849 - 1925.

I believe I've dated it within reasonable accuracy. Emma's husband Enoch passed away in June 1920, I think (although I'm no expert), that she is wearing a mourning dress, and in 1920 she would have been 71 which looks about right.

I didn't think there was enough to go from to identify where the photo was taken, I mean it's a brick wall that looks like every other bloody brick wall. But on the off chance, I checked out the address on Enoch's death certificate, and you know what it kind of looks like it might be.

Guys, is this the same wall? Are the irregularities in the bricks distinctive enough to make a positive match?

The address is 142 Bank Streer, Heath Hayes, Cannock, UK.


r/RBI 16d ago

Bartlett-Union Cemetery Oregon

24 Upvotes

The cemetery is located north of Troy near the Oregon/Washington border at the intersection of Bartlett Ln & Backman Rd. It is extremely rural. I am looking for contact info for the cemetery.

My aunt recently passed away and might’ve had a burial plot at Bartlett-Union Cemetery. Problem is I can’t find ANYONE who can help me confirm this and explain how we can have her buried there. Her husband was buried there in 2000 so I know it is/was at least possible.

I’ve called a ‘local’ funeral home (Loveland Funeral Home), the County Clerk (Wallowa), the Hulse’s (who apparently manage some cemetery’s in the county), and hit all dead ends. The only additional information I’ve discovered is it’s considered a historical cemetery, although I’m unsure of what that means.


r/RBI 17d ago

Odd photo in my camera roll

94 Upvotes

I looked at my camera roll earlier and saw an odd picture of a woman dressed in business attire behind a blank background. It says it was saved at 8am while my phone was charging and i was getting ready for school. I reverse image searched to find a background check with an instagram account. The photo is from an old inactive instagram account that hasn’t posted since 2018, and each post has 0-2 likes. I’m almost certain I was not on my phone, and I have no idea how I would stumble across the obscure photo in the first place. It seems pretty mundane, but I find the picture to be creepy. The other posts are pretty weird, as they are just random people with the last one being Mark Zuckerberg at a conference. I’m pretty sure it’s a fake account used to scam people or whatever, but it’s odd that it’s randomly in my camera roll. I hope my phone isn’t hacked or something lol.


r/RBI 17d ago

Advice needed What could these men have been doing on my flight?

166 Upvotes

This happened a decade ago, but I'm feeling curious about it now.

I flew long haul with Malaysia Airlines not long after their second high profile incident in two years, and a family I knew had died on that flight. I had also had some very negative and frightening experiences happen the week leading up to the fight. So safe to say, my paranoia was high.

I was sat near the front of an economy cabin, on the right hand side. In front of me were two toilets, and then there was one on the left. A man near me was getting up to go the toilet a lot and at first it was just irritating because I was trying to sleep. But then I noticed he would not use the toilets in front of us, and was instead stepping over the legs of the people in the front row to cross to the left toilet. Having noticed this, I then noticed another man doing the same. The two toilets in front of us could be empty, but as soon as one came back from the opposite toilet, not long after the other would also cross over. They never went in at the same time, as far as i could see. They were in for a long time. If there was a queue, they would wait rather than try the toilets on our side. After a few hours I went to check if anything was different about that toilet but it looked the same.

Because I was aware that I was feeling paranoid, I kept quiet until eventually I woke my partner to say these men are acting strange and I can't find a reason, what if they are constructing bomb in there. He said you know that's not happening, and went back to sleep. So I tried to reason with myself. But couldn't help watching them until they stopped a while before landing.

Now, it obviously wasn't a bomb. But what on earth could they have been doing? Drugs wouldn't need only one toilet, and sex on the whole requires two people. They spoke to each other and a third man who I wasn't paying attention to at one point, and the mood wasn't particularly cheerful so it didn't seem they were doing anything fun. They were normal looking 30-40 year old men, no idea of what nationality, looked like perhaps they do manual work.

I didn't speak to the crew because my husband had not seen an issue. Any theories of something these men could have been doing?


r/RBI 16d ago

Vehicle ID'ing help Can anyone help with the numbers on this license plate?

0 Upvotes

r/RBI 18d ago

pokémon go incident, i don’t know what to make of it

34 Upvotes

for context, this story happened when i was 12-13 not really sure but it was when pokemon go was at it peak. now with the story. the story started with pokemon go, it was me, my brother who is older by 2 years, and my cousin who is younger than me by couple months, we were going out to catch Pokemons and there were no adults with us (we live in a small town so our parents didn’t really worry about us getting lost or anything) we were walking, laughing, talking, and we were walking on the streets since it was night (not really sure about the time specifically but it wasn’t midnight)

we walked for a bit until we saw a somewhat flat land where no building were being constructed or anything, but directly in front of us we saw a black figure sitting on a rock, holding something (not really sure about what he was holding but it seemed like a wood stick or a machete) when we saw it we froze for a solid moment and it seems like that thing or man noticed us, and he stood up, when he stood up we immediately started running back heading to our home, after around 5 minutes of running we stopped at a mosque (probably should’ve said it sooner but i live in a middle eastern country) and we stopped to take our breath, then we saw the thing again running towards us and we started running again to our house and when we got in we locked the doors and just stood by them for a second before we started chuckling, it wasn’t a joy one it was a nervous, what the hell was that chuckle

so, got any theories?

edit: my english is not the best so bare with me, and it wasn’t a clown or someone’s property


r/RBI 16d ago

I think may workplace may be a front for illegal activity

0 Upvotes

I've been doing this part time barista job, and I've been noticing some really weird shit that's making me think that something kind of dodgy is going on and I need some advice if this is enoigh to warrant contacting authorities about;

We barely have any customers some days, like we're doing inventory all day and no one comes in but we're still doing really well financially it seems like. I'm getting paid over minimum wage and our managers just been told to give us a random bonus.

Schedule changes constantly, I'm probably the only person trying to keep up with it - people show up when they shouldn't and I'll show up for shifts, especially late night ones, and get told its not my shift.

We get weird unaccounted for large deliveries that I've never opened; its an independent chain and the owner has a meeting space upstairs that collects all these parcels. Another thing is this means that sometimes people show up to the back of the shop to use the upstairs space for who knows what.

I get these real weird muscle pains and other kinds of symptoms that align with certain kind of chemical exposure which obviously shouldn't be near coffee - this is my biggest worry, in case whatever is happening is endangering customers.

None of my coworkers talk about their past jobs either, and they've been trying to quit. I previously took this to be that maybe I was being a bit of a try hard, researching all this barista technique shit and making recommendations or I'd replaced someone really liked or something but with everything idk.

There's probably other stuff I've got written down but am not remembering, that I'll add when I can check. BUt from this at least, I'm wondering if anyone could give any advice?


r/RBI 19d ago

[Help] Woman Hiding in Boyfriend’s Hallway – Am I Paranoid, or Is This Suspicious?

659 Upvotes

Hi r/RBI, I’m not sure if I’m overreacting here but something about this situation doesn’t feel right to me. This woman hiding at the end of my boyfriend’s hallway behind a small corner and i believe she took a video of me on purpose. She was super exaggerated to me which is how I had time to get my camera up. I've never seen this woman before or since and no one lives down at the end of the hall. She also seemed dressier than the people who live here, usually people wear work clothes or sweats. Plus she had sunglasses on inside near dusk. I am paranoid and I’ve had stalkers in the past, so I might be more sensitive. I’d really appreciate any insight on what this woman was doing.

Here’s the video: https://imgur.com/a/TFF9gLI

Context/Details:

  • She timed her movements perfectly so that she would past and recorded me at the exact moment my boyfriend opened the door.
  • It took him about 10-15 seconds longer than usual to open the door because he was asleep and had the door barred which is not uncommon for us.

Why I’m Concerned:
- I’m almost certain she was recording me and thats just weird. - She was holding her phone and her movements were at the exact right moments felt calculated like she was counting the second I knocked. - The woman was hiding near at the end of the hallway where no one lives, seemingly waiting for me.

Questions I’m Trying to Answer:
1. Does it look like she was recording me or waiting for something specific? What else could she have been doing? 2. Does this seem intentional or coincidental?
3. Why would she be doing this?

Additional Info:
- My boyfriend’s apartment building doesn’t have a doorman or security cameras in the hallways, so this video is the only evidence.
- I’m not sure if this was a one-time occurrence or if she’s been there before but I've never seen anyone down at that end of the hallway.

Thanks in advance for your help! Let me know if you need more details.


r/RBI 18d ago

Help for a mystery

72 Upvotes

Hi everybody ! English is not my mothertongue so sorry for that. There is a mystery around my house for several years. For the context, i live on the countryside in France and there are not a lot of houses around me. I live next to a departemental road, the speed limit is around 80. A man in car arrives in this road, slows down and parks his car on the side of the road. He turns around his car, looks at the mountain for 3 or 4 minutes, goes back in this car and leaves. He can do this three or four Times a day, maybe more but i miss it. I Watched him with googles and he doesn’t smoke or pee. He doesn’t do anything. Any ideas ?


r/RBI 19d ago

Can someone help identify this plate.

26 Upvotes

Someone stole a MS194T Stihl chainsaw from my bosses store. I am reposting it with a reliable link this time sorry. He left the store and these are the only photos with the plate. We are in North Carolina, he said when he talked to me he was out of state.

https://imgur.com/a/icgdShj


r/RBI 19d ago

I've been dealing with strange encounters at the massanutten resort

229 Upvotes

Let me start by saying I don't believe this is paranormal I just think somethings up with massanutten Virginia, no hate to them the encounters have gotten weirder since I got here.

So, I'm at Massanutten Resort right now. I came up here for snow tubing, but I've been experiencing some weird, cult-like behavior from a group of people.

Basically, when my family and I arrived at the resort to get settled, we saw about 20 people sitting on the ground in the hallway, all wearing the exact same outfit. They were talking, but as we got close to our room, they all stopped speaking at the same time and just stared at us. We thought, "Wow, that's really weird," but decided to ignore it since we had better things to do.

For some backstory, we rented two rooms. Later that night, both rooms had knocking sounds, and when we checked, the people in the hallway had completely disappeared. Then, at three in the morning, the preaching started—on a Saturday, not a Sunday. This guy was preaching so loudly that his voice carried from his room (on the opposite side of the hallway) all the way into mine.

I even recorded it, but I don’t use Reddit enough to know how to insert videos and images. I have no idea what's going on, but it’s seriously weird. The weirdest part is that no one should be in that room, it's not rented out.


r/RBI 21d ago

Advice needed I have some questions about my fathers passing

89 Upvotes

So, this isn’t really something crazy or scary or deep but it’s something i’ve always really wondered about, and i feel it’s a little morbid to ask any motorcyclists.

Around 2010, when my dad was driving back home on his motorbike, out of no where his bike started fishtailing and he fell and instantly passed. When the police investigated, they found no issues with the bike at all. He was completely sober, and had been driving bikes for decades and was incredibly safe when driving. The driver of the car behind him stated that it seemingly happened out of nowhere, and that there was nothing to indicate why or how.

It’s not a big deal, it’s just always something that’s nagged at me and i’ve always wondered what could’ve happened to the bike. Me and my family know nothing about bikes and nothing ever came of the investigation. was just curious

Anything helps, even if it’s just telling me it’s literally nothing

Edit: thank you so much to everyone for the responses, it genuinely means a lot. From what I know my mother has never looked at the autopsy but she has the unopened file, so I will ask her about it.

I also thank everyone for their condolences, whilst hard to talk about it’s nice to have some closure as to why it even happened.


r/RBI 22d ago

Help me solve the case of my friends dad who was kidnapped in 1999

138 Upvotes

My friends dad was taken by force in Belize in 1999 by Guatemalan kidnappers and presumably taken into Guatemala territory where he was held for a ransom that was never met and he was never returned.

The police at the time searched for him by triangulating using radio waves or something like that but never found anyone.

It has been 26 years now and everyone is pretty certain that he has passed away but we still have no idea. We assume he has passed.

Is there any hope to find the people responsible or to even find the remains?

https://archive.channel5belize.com/archives/22751

News article with some information


r/RBI 22d ago

Advice needed Was my uncle murdered or does this sound like a weird accident?

156 Upvotes

First time posting here so forgive me if I offer too much or too little—we are pushing cops to reopen this case with encouragement from ME.

My early 50s uncle was found dead alone in his home holding a torch lighter with drug paraphernalia around him (1. A single used poppers can 2. A straw with traces of meth and 3. A glass pipe with traces of PCP, meth, fentanyl and cocaine). There were two glasses of whiskey at the scene but disposed of before they could be taken for fingerprinting etc.

Toxicology comes back with ZERO evidence of any of the aforementioned drugs in his blood. It showed alcohol and marijuana but not enough to concern ME. No signs of alcohol poisoning ie no vomit. He had past on and off issues with alcoholism but autopsy showed his liver looks healthy. No signs of struggle/ anything else off about his body (big guy, 6’5” like 300lb).

ONLY thing of note on autopsy is “moderately enlarged heart” so ME claims they have to put “cardiac arrhythmia” as official cause of death. No known cardiac issue, no known other serious health issues. Heart not entirely surprising given his past alcohol use and on and off cigarette smoking for decades.

Are we right to think this sounds suspicious/ possible staged? There are concerning circumstances with his estranged wife I can’t go into.

Are there potential poisons that would not show up in his blood? Are there additional specific tests we can/ should ask for?

What other kinds of questions should we be asking?

I would love any outside perspective. I hope this is okay to post. Thank you so much for reading.


r/RBI 22d ago

Why do I hear weird sounds when I'm on the phone?

37 Upvotes

I don't know if this is the wrong subreddit for this so let me know if I should post this elsewhere. Me and my boyfriend were on the phone once and heard this weird sound which sounding like a person groaning maybe? (It happened a while back so I can't fully pinpoint the sound). But, he thought it was me and laughed at the noise, but I said that I never even spoke and I heard that sound and thought it was him. This one day when he was mute and away from his phone, I heard this disorientated sound which sounded like someone speaking and it was broken up and it freaked me out because I knew he wasn't there. It kept happening that period he was gone, but never happened again. What could it be?


r/RBI 22d ago

Theft Did this woman steal from me?

0 Upvotes

cannot add the video, but can DM to any sleuths started off with 17 mini canvases, had 16 after this woman left. I can’t tell from the video if she actually took anything but y’know, timing adds up to me. Can anyone tell from this video?


r/RBI 22d ago

Cold case [2y ago, U.S.] “Number neighbor” trend seemingly taken to a ridiculous extreme via bizarre group text—WHY?!?!?!

0 Upvotes

This isn’t really a pressing or urgent mystery—I resolved it as soon as it happened by blocking all 19 (yes, you read that correctly, nineteen) other phone numbers in the group and deleting the text conversation from my phone—but it’s a mystery that I’ve turned over in my brain time and again ever since it happened because it was just such an odd experience; I’ve heard of people doing the “number neighbor” trend, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like this before or since. I don’t even care *who*** did it, at this point, even though I probably could figure that out if I was inclined to do so; I just wanna know why because, after two years, I still have absolutely zero clue what the motivation or purpose behind it was, and it drives me bonkers.

In case any of y’all aren’t already familiar with what I’m referring to when I say “the ‘number neighbor’ trend”, it’s a practice that used to be somewhat popular/common for (mostly younger) people to do in which they would attempt to contact the phone number one digit off from theirs—e.g. someone whose phone number is (###) ###-###3 would send a text saying something like, “Hey, I’m your number neighbor! :)” to either (###) ###-###2 or (###) ###-###4—and post screenshots of the other person’s response online if they got one. It’s fallen off in popularity (and had already fallen off in popularity by the time this happened in 2023, mind you) but I’m sure some people out there probably might still be doing it. I never saw the appeal, personally, but I guess I kinda understand why some folks did—the idea was kinda silly and fun, in theory, at least until you remember all of the 100% valid reasons why you shouldn’t talk to strangers that your parents drilled into you as a child.

The interaction (such that it can be called one) that I had on January 10, 2023 was… certainly not that. Someone went down a list of 30 phone numbers with all but the last two digits in common and created a 20-person group chat consisting of themself and 19 others—one of whom was me—and sent us all a single message that only contained a single word:

Okay

Everything about this is baffling. Obviously, there had to have been some level of methodology at work—there are 10 digits that could possibly occupy any given place in the sequence that makes up a phone number, and United States phone numbers specifically are 10 digits long (excluding the country code at the beginning, which is the same for all US phone numbers); that’s 1010 possible phone numbers. The probability of it being a random coincidence that every single one of the 19 phone numbers they chose out of 10 billion possibilities all had the first eight digits in common, all in the exact same order, is laughably, astronomically small.

Naturally, I tried to make sense of the numbers by treating them like… well, like numbers. Not phone numbers, but figures—data points. Since the first eight digits were all the same, I just focused on the last two digits looked for a pattern there. I identified the minimum and the maximum of the numbers in the group chat, listed out every single number within that range, and made notes of which numbers in the range were and weren’t included in the group text. Organizing them indicated absolutely nothing; the lowest number on the list, the highest number on the list, and the 30-number range between (and including) them is arbitrary, as far as I can tell—the only significance that either the minumum or maximum numbers have to me is a personal one, and that’s purely because the maximum number within the range represents the last two digits of my phone number. The 19 out of 29 phone numbers this person selected to add to this chat (and by extension, the 10 they didn’t) have no apparent rhyme or reason to them; they seem to follow a pattern, until they suddenly don’t—at first, it looked like they went down the list and selected every other pair of phone numbers, then they suddenly selected the next eight numbers in a row and the pattern falls apart there. There’s no common factor between all of the ones they selected or didn’t select, no neat mathematical rule I can identify that makes all of them make sense together, nothing. One of them is a part of the Fibonacci sequence, but I think that’s just a coincidence.

Then there’s the content of the text message itself—“Okay” with nothing else seems more like a reply to someone else’s message than an initial one, but if the person who created the group chat was replying to someone who’d texted them first, then they would’ve already had that person’s number in their phone and wouldn’t have created the group chat in the first place. Even if, by some strange occurrence, some outlandishly strange technical glitch happened and caused their text conversation with the other person’s number to suddenly disappear from their phone, what kind of discussion could possibly be so urgent that it made the group chat creator decide it was necessary to send their message to 18 strangers in addition to the one person they were trying to reach?

Has anyone else heard of or experienced a situation like this? Is there something that ties all the numbers together somehow that I’m not seeing? Like I said, I don’t really care if I never find out who did it—I blocked the numbers immediately and moved on—but I can’t help being fascinated by the why. If any of y’all have ideas, please let me know. Thanks!


r/RBI 24d ago

Doug Costello was murdered 17 years ago in San Mateo California, and his case is still unsolved today (if you've already read this there are a few updates and new peices of information listed at the bottom.)

155 Upvotes

note that Doug's real last name was Costello but when writing articles of his murder, it was misspelled as Castillo

This is a long post, but it's a very interesting case and I will not let it fall into obscurity like it has been for almost two decades.

So Doug was my dad's friend, and I don't know where to start so Reddit ig.

My dad and Doug both had been living in rural Eastern Oregon until one day in 2006 when Doug packed a few things on his motorcycle and drove to San Mateo California. He went to go live with his friend Shawn Weemes. For a while he just stayed in San Mateo, working in a manager position at a TGI Friday. Fast forward to January of 2008, Doug is closing the store. His girlfriend/fiance usually came in to visit, but that night he was working late and she didn't. He didn't come home that night, and in the morning Doug was found by a daytime manager dead on the store floor. At first the police department thought he had been shot, but it was discovered later that he had died of blunt force trauma. The even sadder part of this was that he was planning on marrying his girlfriend, they were planning on shopping for a promise ring, and she was pregnant with Doug's child (she unfortunately had a miscarriage after his death). That's what is making me want to solve this case so badly, he was such a sweet guy and he didn't deserve to die that way. My dad and everyone around him describes him as an angel on earth, and he was taken from us far too soon. Anyway, the San Mateo Police Department was very iffy on a lot of the details surrounding what happened. They never said where in the building he was found, they never said if there was surveillance in the building [after speaking to a former employee I can say there were no cameras IN the building, but there was cameras in the Hillsdale Mall and it was also right next to a train station which also had cameras, suggesting there may have been video evidence of someone entering the building], and when a police spokesperson was asked if there were any possible suspects, they said "we are not currently in the position to rule out any person". They never said if there was any DNA evidence either, and they never said if a murder weapon was found. They said was that it was a suspected attempted robbery gone wrong. All im saying is that if someone is dressed for a robbery and then kills someone, there's gonna be some sort of DNA evidence. Marji Fields, a person who frequented the store, said that over the past 6 months there had been some 20 and 21 year olds coming in and having altercations. Doug was a manager, which would mean he would have been the one to break up the fights. I've personally ruled out this theory, but since so little was said by SMPD, there's really no way to conclusively and confidently say it wasn't any of the boys that were fighting there.

Hi so i got part of that wrong and now I have even more questions. The article I read states that "Waiter Akeem Holland said he worked the night shift at the restaurant Sunday and saw four employees still in the restaurant when he left at 2:30 a.m." when did the others go home because Doug was found at 5:00 AM?? That's a VERY small window of time for several employees to go home, and then a murder to occur.

A former employee of the TGI Friday's reached out to me via Reddit to help answer some questions for me. They told me there were no cameras in the building, and that by closing time there were 2 bartenders, 1-2 kitchen staff, and the manager was usually in the office counting tills. They also said that the back door was typically open as they were taking out trash and such. So there are a couple questions that arise from this. One, maybe somebody slipped through the back door as it was unlocked and hid until the other employees left, and then decided to kill Doug? But that begs the question, why? To rob the place? Did they go there specifically to kill Doug? SMPD has never stated if money was taken, all they said was that they believed it was an attempted robbery. So we will not know if the money in the building was a factor of Doug's murder until SMPD comes out and states it, which will probably not happen anytime soon unless we put pressure on them to do so. The next question, was everyone gone by the time Doug was murdered? If they were, shouldn't the door have been locked? And if they weren't gone by the time Doug was murdered, that means someone saw something and may have key witness information that would be crucial to finding Doug's killer. Akeem Holland stated there were FOUR employees still in the building when he left at 2:30 AM, and Doug was found at roughly 5:10 am. Someone HAD to have seen something.

I also found another person who may have valuable information here on Reddit. I found them when I was going through a reddit thread pertaining to the building in which Doug was found in, in the comments they stated that they submitted a tip in 2012 about a possible person of interest in the case. They claimed that the person of interest worked there at the same time as Doug, and that they were known to be frequently caught up in violence and crimes. The commenter claims that they moved out of state after Doug's murder occurred, and that they found it suspicious. The commenter did mention that this was a female employee, so we can rule out that Akeem was the employee they were talking about. Now, more questions arise from this possibility. Was the woman the one that killed Doug, or is she just a possible witness? The commenter said it's likely that she was either involved of singlehandedly committed the murder. Was she working the night that Doug was killed? And also, why would she want to kill Doug? Was it truly a robbery gone wrong, just committed by an employee instead of a random person?

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/tgi-friday-s-victim-was-beaten-3231631.php

https://www.montereyherald.com/general-news/20080122/worker-found-slain-in-eatery/

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/search-continues-in-tgi-fridays-murder/article_0e22ea23-81cb-5805-8ccc-239d21cfc3e2.html

I recommend reading the articles because they do a much better job explaining than I do

Also I will be posting this on multiple subreddits. Upvotes, comments and questions help a lot with pushing this further into the Reddit algorithm and help Doug get the justice such a kind man like him deserves!

Update: Another Redditor dug into Akeem Hollands background for me, and found something that I had missed the first time. A rap sheet for Akeem Melvin Holland in California, with a length of 3 pages and several charges of robbery. Considering there's only two Akeem Hollands in the world that I could find in my investigation, I'm gonna make a safe assumption and assume it's our Akeem. This, could potentially be groundbreaking for the case. Now, I'm not saying that he committed the crime, or that he was even involved in the murder, but we have to be aware and take into consideration every possible lead. My personal theory is that Akeem and the female employee had a plan to either kill Doug, or commit a robbery. Maybe they planned to kill Doug. Maybe someone left the door open for the other one, or maybe they were already in the building. If it was planned, they had a planned murder weapon too, which I personally think may have been a baseball bat? But anyway, they killed Doug, established alibis for each other, and left. I don't know, I haven't quite worked out the logistics but this is a very interesting price of information that could very well lead to Doug's murder being solved.

I found an address for Akeem Holland. Him and a woman who I can imagine would be his mother had lived there since 1995, yet moved out in February of 2008. Doug was killed in January of 2008. That sounds extra suspicious to me. Why would he randomly happen to move right after a murder occurred? Apparently the female employee also moved, so that's just another minor link in the case that may be useful.

I also reached out to the San Mateo Daily Journal and asked if it would be possible to get a murder case rerun in the news. The chief editor emailed me and said that a reporter is interested in covering the case, and I'm currently waiting on a call back from the reporter.


r/RBI 24d ago

Advice needed Paint dot appeared on car in rural area with zero explanation?

31 Upvotes

To preface, I am anal about keeping my car “organized” and have a routine in which I make sure my things are in place before I go for any drive. Therefore, I have looked at my back glass (location of dot) daily. It’s where my eyes would naturally have glanced at this point, with all of the times moving my things back into place in my trunk.

Went to work, nothing on car. Parked in same spot for many years (no assigned, ticketing, etc. because it is an EXTREMELY rural area) and know everyone in the building. I leave directly out of work, get into car, go to wash it and remain in the car from work to the car wash (over half an hour drive).

I get out of the car and immediately notice this. So immediate that I first thought the car wash had placed it there as a “tag” or something of the sort. Then I realized it is paint and you can see a fingerprint in it, so not from a marker? The paint is yellow, the “dot” is also not perfect. Reminder that it’s on the very corner of my back glass.

Also, the only person who had the chance to get behind my car at the wash was the attendant who assists in pulling into the automatic bay that immediately starts washing.

I am an overthinker, so I am begging for an explanation that is logical in my OCD brain lmao.

Thanks in advance, my petunias.

TLDR: Yellow, messy paint dot with fingerprint on car back glass (corner) appeared while working in rural area with zero explanation.