Episode 109

For the next episode of Radio Rental. Even some bonus scary stories, visit tenderfootplus.com for details. The following podcast includes scary stories with content that could be triggering to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. At Radio Rental, our videos come to you. Defy all This is not your order. At Radio Rental, we carry one-of-a-kind video. Amen. Hey.

I'm Vince. Welcome to Radio Rental. A video rental store that specializes in horror. True horror. We've got an exclusive collection of the scariest tapes, full of the most horrifying horror stories you've ever heard. Horror had to sneak an extra one in there. All told by real people. Vetted. We also have a new slot machine and a video poker game. Yeah. Found these on the black market um found these at the local marketplace.

Anyway, boss wanted me to find a way to increase our cash flow. So now, in addition to scary stories, you can also get lucky. I'm actually pretty good at it. The slot machine. You wanna see? Check this out. Whoa, horse. Horse. Mango, damn it. Damn, damn it. That's okay. I'll get back. I'll get my mojo back. In the meantime, I'm gonna put in the tape for you. This is a twenty twenty four.

Me, my wife, and a group of friends were in Vegas for EDC, the Rafe Music Festival. We're there, first time in Vegas, we're all super excited. We're staying on the strip. We're staying at Deluxe. If you've never really stayed at the Luxor before, it's pretty spacious. The rooms are kind of like spread out. So because it was already a busy week, some of us were staying on like the 20th floor while other of us were like on the eighth floor. Like we were scared.

Now the way like the Luxor works, the elevators only go to like a select number of floors. We had to scan in to our elevators. That was the only way that people could like move through It was like our first night there. It's like 3 a.m. We're all exhausted. We had like been walking down the strip, you know, just doing Vegas stuff. My friend's like, hey, like, I'm downstairs, come get us. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go. I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty tired. I'm still aware of my surroundings.

Go downstairs. I meet them where the casino is. I meet up with my friends. I'm like, alright, let's go back to my room. Amen. As we're walking towards the elevators, we see that there's like this older gentleman just like standing there. I realized I'm like, oh like he's one of the workers. He's holding a little broom. And a little dustpan. But he's just kinda like just standing there. I was like, alright, whatever. So I go, I click on the the elevator button

We're just talking. The old man's just kind of like standing there. My friends get on the elevator, I like signal to the gentleman, I'm like, oh, are you gonna get in? And he's like, Yeah, yeah. He gets in with us. First weird thing I notice is I go, I put in the key card, and I press the floor number. Usually people will be like, oh, can you press this number for me? Like he just stays quiet.

So we go, the door's closed, we're just having a conversation. And my friend he looks at me and he's like, man, I am exhausted. This gets like a little chuckle out of the old man. He's like, oh, you think you're exhausted and I've been here for a long time. And we were like, oh yeah, like you've been working a couple of shifts like back to back. And he's like, Yeah, you could you you could say something like that. We were like, yeah man, that sucks.

Are you off tomorrow? And he's like, no, I work tomorrow and the next day and the next day and so on and so on. And we were like, geez, like sorry, man, sorry to hear that. We don't stop at our floor. We stop at the floor above us. At the time we don't notice anything weird about it, but like I have explained earlier, like certain elevators only go to the certain floors. So there was no reason for the elevator to stop at that floor above us.

But at the time I didn't really think much of it. Looking back at it is when I realized like damn that was weird. We don't get off. The gentleman doesn't get off either. Like he's still on in there. We all like looked at each other and we're like what the hell like this isn't our floor like that's weird so we get back in I put the key card again I put the correct floor number It goes down one floor. Thank you. I know for a fact.

This gentleman gets off behind us. Cause I can see him from my peripherals get off. I'm walking in front of my two friends. I just turn back to talk shit to them. And that's when I realize there's no one behind them. He's not there. There, there, there. There is no way that he could have like jumped back into the elevator and there was also nowhere else to go. When you like get off the elevators

The only thing in that lobby are other elevators. There's no like maintenance room. There's no like little storage area. It's just crystal glass that you can see down and then the four elevators. And if he would have gotten on another elevator, like we would have heard it. The keycards, they make a noise when you put it on the pad, so we would have heard it.

I felt him get off and I saw him through my peripherals and my friends who were walking in front of him felt him get off and we heard the elevator door close. I'm frozen and my friends could tell that there's something wrong just by looking at me and they're like, What what is it? And I just point behind them and they turn around and they realize the gentleman's not there anymore. And they look at each other They look at me and they're like, yo, where'd he go? Go, go, go, go.

You guys saw him get off, right? And they're like, we felt him get like behind us. Thank you. Guys like let's just go back to my room like please let's just go back We go back, my wife's there, like two other friends of ours are there and we explain to them like what just happened. And they're like, Man, are you guys like messing with us? And I was like, No, I promise you like This just happened. I think we just saw a ghost.

It was really creepy the way he was talking and like just the fact that my friend said like man I'm like really tired and he kinda like was scoffing at us of like you think you're tired? Like Buddy, I've been like on a eternity shift right now.

Everyone just kept asking us to see if like our stories would stay the same. They're like, Man, are you sure that you saw him get off the elevator? Or like are you sure that someone was in there with you? And we're like, yes. Like we would describe him. It was like an older gentleman. He had glasses on, white hair. like spalding in the front. We all describe them the same way. I'm like, there's no way we all just shared like a fake memory. My friend started doing research on the Luxor.

If you haven't, go and look at the history of the Luxor. It is definitely one of the most haunted places in Vegas on the strip. There's just like this really weird energy there. I believe there's like a female spirit that likes to mess around with, especially when it's like gentlemen in the rooms by themselves. They'll feel like a a female presence. Or sometimes when they're sleeping, like something will like cuddle up on them.

People also talk about cause like when they're staying like in like the higher floors, like they'll look down and they'll have like that feeling of like, bro, you should just jump. A lot of people say that it draws like a certain negative energy that you could feel at times there. Cause I don't know. It's something like really creepy about that hotel.

If it would have just been me by myself, there would have been like room for doubt. I would've been like, you know what? Like I was tired, like we had been drinking, like I I would have found any excuse. But it's the fact that I shared that experience with two other people. And they saw the same thing I saw and they felt the same thing I felt, heard the same thing I heard, it adds more to it.

I'm a hundred percent sure there's no other explanation. Unless this guy was the fastest man alive and just like maneuvered his way into the elevator. That ghost ride was one for the bugs for sure.

Oh, freaky. Old dude's been probably cleaning that hotel since the early days. Vegas has some dark energy, man. I would know. Whispers in the dark. Phenomena that slip past logic. Legends that refuse to die. When the unknown stirs, its trail leads to our podcast. So supernatural. I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm her sister, Rosha Pecorrero. Together, we explore all of the world's most bizarre mysteries. And listen to So Supernatural every Friday wherever you get your podcast.

If you walk into a room and can't remember why, It could be nothing or something more. If you confuse a familiar recipe, it could be a slip-up. Or it could be associated with amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Amyloid is a protein that your body produces naturally, but a buildup in the brain could lead to memory and thinking issues. To see what may be behind your memory and thinking issues.

Talk to your doctor about getting a full assessment. It's never too early to start the conversation. Visit amyloid.com to learn more. Okay, we're back. Let's play another tape.

I was uh in between jobs. I travel a lot for work. I would spend six months working straight and then come home for a few months waiting for a project. I was a telecommunications climber for T Mobile, so I used to climb cellphone towers and just travel all over the country. When I'd come back home I'd usually try to find s fun stuff to do, like whether, you know, with friends or by myself.

My uh childhood friends we always had a um like a snowboarding trip. In twenty twenty three we decided to go to uh Lake Tahoe to uh you know, go snowboarding and we had a Airbnb and I was driving from Phoenix to Lake Tahoe and usually I do it by myself.

I was in North Phoenix, just getting out of town, kind of going towards Wickenburg, and there was a dude standing on the side of the road and he was hitchhiking and I was kind of like, uh, like, you know, he looks clean, he might need help. So I just pulled over and asked him what he was up to, and he was like, oh nothing, just hitchhiking. So I was like, well, I can drive you there. I'll be driving past there or at least close. And he was like, okay. He's a really good name's Kenny.

So we started driving and we were just talking and turns out that he was a professional hitchhiker. He's been hitchhiking for the last twenty years. Like all over the world. I actually just talked to him, he got back to the US from Peru. So I asked him, I was like, well, you know, like it's it gonna be a big house. He seemed like a cool dude. Instead of going to Laughlin, do you wanna come to Lake Tahoe and, you know, kick it in the snow and He's like, Yeah, sure, let's do it.

We ended up going to Lake Tahoe. There was a bunch of uh weather, like crazy weather. We ended up getting stuck there for an extra week because there was just, you know, 20 feet of snow and everybody on the mountain couldn't leave. So we just kind of hung out there and Basically we were there for two weeks and on the drive back he wanted me to drop him off basically in Laughlin again because that was where his plan was to just kind of gamble and get some more cash before

Fort to fly out to Ireland to do some sort of yoga retreat or something like that. He's kind of hippie. When we were on our way back though, he had these rewards. I was so tired. I've been driving for like twelve hours, maybe, and dealing with the snow and everything else like that. It was just really exhausting. So Man, I was like, I can't drive anymore. We're gonna have to stop somewhere. He's like, well let's stop in Vegas at the Flamingo.

I have this like uh uh rewards thing where we can get a free room and a little bit of money to uh spend on food and you know if we gamble a little bit, that's kinda is what it is. But I was like, okay. So we end up going with

I thought it was funny, we ended up skipping all the lines because he he was part of that rewards membership or whatever and they gave him$150 f worth of food that we had to spend that night and then they gave us a room in this older part of the flamingo, which I didn't know at the time, hadn't been remodeled yet. Most of it has button. We got food, you know. We we both were

We walk up the stairs and it's like on the fourth floor down this like really kinda old old hallway. Like you could tell it was like old carpet and the the paint looked like didn't look like crap. Sunspot. So we're like, well at least it's a free bed, you know, it's whatever. They put us in this corner room. I didn't realize it, but it was a a room where the window was from the floor all the way to the ceiling. It just seemed like it was like an older, non-updated room.

probably around twelve thirty, one o'clock, we both are like, okay, we can fall asleep now. So I hear him fall asleep first and he started snoring, so I was just like, okay, you know, I'm gonna try and fall asleep too. So I started falling asleep and I don't know how long it took, maybe 30 minutes. And the next thing I know it felt like someone grabbed the back of my head. And shoved it down into the pillow because I was sleeping on my stomach.

It was like scary because I thought this dude that I thought was really cool, Kenny, was It was terrifying. It literally felt like like someone was above me trying to kill me. Like like holding my and I'm I'm 220 pounds and I'm in really good shape and I f truly feel like if someone was trying to hold my head down. I'd be able to kinda like get out of that move at least a little bit.

There was nothing. Like it almost felt like my body was frozen and my head was just being shoved straight down into the pillow. And it was to the point too where I was started like kind of gagging a little bit like I couldn't breathe. And it was right around the time when I started really panicking and after about two or three seconds of my head being held down to the pillow I It like felt like it just went away and I got up. I started yelling at Kenny'cause I was convinced that it was him.

I looked at him, he was totally asleep, turned over, wrapped up in the blankets, snoring. I sat there and I watched him for a second. Is this guy messing with me? Is he actually trying to hurt me or what's going on? And I was like, what in the world? And it just freaked me out because I've never had anybody do that to me before. Or anything.

I'm kinda sitting there in my bed and I'm listening to him snore and I'm kinda thinking to myself, like, what in the world It was like 2.55, almost 3 o'clock in the morning, and trying to go back to bed, I started noticing that the temperature in the room got really hot. I got up and I messed with the AC unit and it was all the way pinned down and but it was still like hot like I was Sweating.

And so I lay back in bed and I'm sitting there and Where the whole window was There was just like this shadowy tall figure in the corner of the room. And it was scary. I was terrified. I was frozen. I was just stuck in bed. It looked like a like a man that was probably six foot six, six foot seven, like a really tall guy. broad shoulders and almost looked like it was like uh wearing like some sort of trench coat or suit.

I'm sitting there with the covers kind of pulled up to my chin, like what in the world is that? And but at the same time, I'm still sweating because the room got really hot. So I just sat there and I stared at it, and then as I'm staring at it, I was just waiting for it to go away. And either I put my head down or I blinked or whatever, and it was just gone.

I was just kinda like, okay, I'm just gonna sit here. And right around that time I remember looking at the clock too,'cause I'm like, okay, how long has have I been sitting here for? It was right around like three fifteen, three twenty. The closet lights turn on. And they started flickering and then he turned off. What was weird though is that when I first walked into the room There's no switch to even turn on the closet lights.

And then the bathroom fan turned on, which is another weird thing because there was no switch to turn the fan on, because I took a shower and I knew that that wasn't working, but it turned on. And then the air conditioner flipped on a different way and then it got really cold. So went from being really hot to like super cold. And so I'm under the covers watching these lights flicker right around the time that these lights stopped flickering. The figure in the corner just kind of disappeared.

Kenny this whole time is snoring, so I know that he's not even picking up on any of this stuff. Like it was gone. I got up and I went over to flip on the lights just to try and see what the heck's going on in this creepy room. It was only the light for the bathroom and only the light. the main living room light that would even turn on.

For the rest of the night I basically just kind of stood there up until about four o'clock. That's when the cause the air kept getting hot and cold and hot and cold. And then finally it just got cold and it went away. And then it was like this creepy figure didn't show back up. The lights flickered maybe once or twice more between, you know, me waiting from three fifteen, three twenty until four. And then it all just like went away. I was so tired I ended up just falling asleep.

So the next morning I wake up, Kenny is still sleeping. I get up, immediately get dressed. I didn't even want to take a shower or go into the bathroom or anything. I was basically put on my shoes, just ready to leave. Right around the time that I was kinda like okay Out of here, let's get on the road. He was waking up, and that's when I started walking around the room looking at stuff. Like, okay. with the fan, you know, trying to rationalize basically what it what was going on the night before.

Like, okay, why were the lights flickering? Was there like a weird shadow over here in the corner that I, you know, didn't notice before? And what was really weird is over in that corner there was a weird stain on the wall. Just like a bunch of weird splatters all over the wall. I don't I didn't know what it was. And then that's when I noticed under the closet,'cause I walked over there and this is all while Kenny's getting up and we're kinda getting our bags together.

That there's the light in the closet, and I was like, oh, there's a light in here. Okay, so there's a little bit of sense, but then the cord was chopped. And I was like what the heck like how the okay that makes no sense and then I went into the bathroom again and that's when I started playing with with the light trying to see if I could get up get the That's kind of when I told Kenny, I was like, what do you remember from last night?

When we got into the room, you went to bed and then what? And he was like, Nothing. I just went to bed. And that's when I told him, like, dude, something held my head down last night. And he was he was just kinda looking at me like, What the heck?

Like I was just speechless. I was like, I was like, was that you? Like were you playing a joke on me? Like what because I was very upfront about it. And he was like, no, dude. He's like, what what why would you even ask me that? And I was like, well, I had just had a really weird experience in this hotel room. And I explained everything.

He was just kind of quiet for a while. I don't know if he thought I was crazy or I was making it up. And then later on, because we hung out for another day or two before he flew out to uh to New York he asked me, he was like, you were weird with me after that. He's like, what what was with that?

I'm like, dude, I thought you were holding my head down. I was like honestly, I was very angry. I was convinced I tried to rationalize it, but I was convinced that you woke up, you were playing in some weird joke on me and you're holding my head down, but when I got up, you were still sleeping.

No dude, he's like that I did not do that. I I c he just said he's like I can't explain it. He's like I was sleeping and I was like I Kinda realize that too and when I woke up and he was still snoring but I just had to had to Yeah. I have been to Vegas since I lived in hotel rooms for a long time. Like Yeah. I had to start living back in hotel rooms again in 2024 when I moved to Wyoming to work out there at uh a few of the coal mines that they hired me to go out there and work on stuff.

And they put me up at a hotel and it was that was the first time that I lived long term in a hotel or even stayed Yeah. Hard time. hotel rooms for a while because I was always waking up think like right and it was always right as soon as it felt like I was like starting to fall asleep.

I would start I'd just like wake up and just start looking around like what's going on. And it even like changed the way that I like like have the curtains drawn and stuff in hotel rooms because I don't wanna be able to see out or their light shining in. It just freaked me out. I've never had someone hold my face down into a pillow like that before. I didn't even That's what it reminds me of though. someone like legitimately holding a pillow down and trying to suffocate you.

One thing though that really like still lingers too is just like how strong the hand felt. And that was one thing that kind of made me rationalize it too with Kenny is Kenny is like a little dude. He's got like like little hands. Like it literally felt like these hands like wrapped around my head. Wrapped around my head and pushed my face down into the pillow. Then just held it there and And then it was just like

Like not even like letting go or letting me up. It was just like this like strong hand just was just disappeared.

What wait man. This guy just picked up a total effing stranger off the side of the road, and then slept in the same hotel room with him because he had had points. That's very trusting. I mean yes, something weird happened in the room, but I mean was it an entity? Or was it Kenny?

I just can't rule out Kenny. He seems like a weirdo just like me uh a guy I know. Anyway. Noted that hitchhiking is alive and well. I'm always trying to find ways to make new friends, so Maybe I'll give these thumbs a try. This storyteller could have been pretty unlucky. But you know who's going to be lucky? Here we go. Horse. Horse. Horse. Italian flag, damn. Ugh. Well let's let's take another ad break.

Ah. So I haven't gotten a win yet. Which is fine. Big deal. Whatever. I'm not upset about it. Such is life, Vince. Such is life. It might not be my lucky day, but it is yours. I have a third tape for you. That's right. Yeah, you guys just go ahead and play it yourself. Until next time, friend. Warning. This one is dark.

Back in 1998, I was the manager of an independent cell phone and pager store. Yeah. In Flint, Michigan. I grew up in Flint. You know, at the time it was known as the murder capital of the country. So sad stories were pretty common. knowing people that had violent things happen to them was not that rare. And so from my perspective, I felt like I was, I don't know, if jaded or, you know, it took a bit to rattle me.

Also, because I worked at a patron cell phone store, there were a lot of strange characters. This was an era where, you know, the people who had cell phones without a contract and pagers month to month were drug dealers and other people like that. I had been followed home before by people who had been shopping at the store. I'd had people run in and steal things from the store. So it certainly was a slightly dangerous but not super scary place to work. I was pretty used to it at that point.

A young woman came in to get both a pager and a cell phone. And she seemed about the same age I was. And at the time, that was a really time-consuming transaction, which sounds a little silly, but you know, I had to call like the home office and get the number and there was all these steps you had to take. And then you also had to manually program the pager and the cell phone. Right off something felt a little off about her. I couldn't even quite place what it was.

She seemed a little strange and I frankly just thought she was high. Like I thought, well, she's she's messed up on something. I don't know. So I had her fill up the paperwork, she picked out her phone or pager. I don't really remember all the details of that part, but I had to input all of her data into our, you know, fancy like Windows 98 operating system by hand. So she was kinda kept talking while I was doing that and we were being a little bit distracted, like, okay.

But again, you know, sometimes people are uh kind of yammer when they're happy. From that point, she started to explain to me why she needed this. Because cell phones at the time were a little bit unusual. They were kind of new to have a brand to have a cellphone that you took unless you had money and you could be on a contract. She was explaining to me that she had to drive back and forth from Flint, Michigan, to Ann Arbor, which is a good hour drive.

And I thought, oh, that's actually it's a long drive'cause I'd commuted to school and I understood that. Then she said the reason she was doing that was because her husband was in the hospital. I thought, oh, that's so sad. Uh what a tragedy to be like this young woman who also's husband is ill. And my first thought was like, what could it be? Does he have cancer or do there's something going on? Because he had um shot himself while Cleaning has gone.

And that was when my Sympathy turned to alarm. The second she said that, I don't know why, but you know that feeling you have where the hair goes up on the back of your neck? Something in my brain just screams she's lying. But I didn't know exactly about what. I thought, oh my god, did she shoot him? Because obvious I don't know, in Flint that sort of a thing, I guess, that you'd think the worst.

So I immediately wondered like did she shoot him or like I felt like she was lying about some aspect of it, but I I didn't understand. And I honestly felt a little bit of panic when she was talking. I I I wasn't sure how to respond. And I was young too. I probably didn't handle it very elegantly.

But I remember telling her that I was, you know, sorry to hear that. And the thing that I thought was really strange in the moment was that she didn't seem super upset about her husband. She seemed more stressed about the drive. It did stick out to me that it was a little weird that she didn't seem more worried about her husband in in that situation, but again I I don't er I didn't understand the context of what she was going through, so I just kind of accepted it for what it was.

I do remember her being in the store for a weirdly long amount of time as I was, you know, waiting for their number to be sent back. from the uh home office so that I could program all of her things. And I remember offering to let her leave'cause i it made me a little uncomfortable and uh she opted to stay. She was definitely making small tops Her voice was kind of lilting and I remember that part, that she seemed, like I said, a little out of it.

Finally, when it their transaction was over, she left and I felt genuine relief when she left. And then I felt sort of foolish because I'm like, yeah, we deal with like strange people all day long. You know, this isn't exactly a place frequented by, you know, the most reputable folks in town.

A couple weeks later. I was listening to the radio because it was the nineties. The DJ said something like, breaking news alert. Melissa such and such has been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada for murder. And I remembered literally whipping around and looking at the radio as if they were talking to me and thinking, that's her name. Like I can't believe that. I was like I could have misheard. A couple weeks later,'cause time moves much slower back then.

I was opening the bills and you had to do it manually. So you'd slice open the bill and you'd pull out the little um receipt and check or cash, whatever it was, and then I had to input it into our system. I opened it and there was no money. It was just the bill returned with a note. And it said Melissa is in jail in Las Vegas, Nevada on a charge of open murder. Please said nothing else regarding this. Thank you.

I just stared at it. I was like, oh my gosh, that that's her. I mean, I heard it correctly on the radio, and I met her face to face, and this would all happen. you know, within a couple of weeks. And I just remember being stunned and my assumption at the time was that somehow I was right she had lied and that maybe she had killed her husband and maybe he had died and you know that was it.

But, you know, there was no way to check. I I don't know who I would have called other than, you know, the police and Ben Nosey and just try to ask questions. I kept that little piece of paper because it was so strange. And I'm a little bit of a paper hoarder. So I I kept that and kinda stuck it in a folder and didn't think about it again. I mean obviously I told people, friends at the time.

And then years pass and I moved several times and obviously I've got like stacks of papers at this point uh in my life and I happen to open a folder And that fell out years later. And I was like, oh my gosh, I completely forgot about this. What a crazy thing to have happen that this woman that I'd waited on, you know, probably killed her husband. By then, you know, you could Google up everything. So I just did a little research, got online, and figured out that it turns out.

That indeed, uh, she had been I guess lying. But I it's hard to say about what still. What I found online was that she had actually driven to Las Vegas pretty shortly after I had sold her her cell phone and pager with her child in tow. I do not recall her mentioning a child as well. Uh which seemed very strange. What had happened is she took her child with her, drove across the country.

No one had heard from her in a week and the first people had found of her was that she was banging on the door of her hotel neighbor's room. And it turns out that she had actually killed her toddler and attempted to kill herself. was then arrested and put in jail. She must have had some regrets or something if she ran to the next room. Forty four forty five. That's what she was in jail for.

She'd never been arrested for what had happened with her husband, and I have no idea if she had anything to do with it. In fact, when I did research it not that long ago again to try to find out more of what happened, it turns out that her former husband actually died at the age of 66 in 2025.

And he had, at least according to the the tributes to him, had actually been a bodybuilder before he had somehow had an accident with this gun. A couple people alluded to a terrible tragedy in his life that he survived. Yeah. And I have to assume the tragedy was the the horrible murder of his son. She is not mentioned in his tributes andor obituary at all. That's the story of how I sold the cell phone in a pager to a murderer.

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