There's a Stranger in Your Walls

[00:00:00] Picture this. It's time for bed after a long day at work and you're about to go to sleep.

[00:00:07] The lights are off and your relaxing sound machine is on and you're pulling back your

[00:00:11] sheets. Suddenly, you hear a tapping. It sounds like it's coming from inside of your walls.

[00:00:19] Great, just what you need. A rat problem. You look for an exterminator to call after work

[00:00:25] tomorrow. But the next morning, when you wake up, things seem a bit out of place. There's

[00:00:32] a cup in the sink but you left your sink empty. One of your chairs is too far back. That's

[00:00:40] not how you left it. Where is it? If you did. While you're standing in the kitchen,

[00:00:46] confused there's more tapping. At this time, it sounds like footsteps. Your heart starts

[00:00:52] racing. Maybe it's not a rodent problem. Could your apartment be haunted? When people

[00:01:01] find things out of place in their house and start hearing strange sounds, their minds

[00:01:05] go to the paranormal. Although sometimes, the truth and the living can be far worse.

[00:01:17] My name is Edward and here is a horse.

[00:01:25] Philip Peters retired after 40 years at the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in

[00:01:30] 1930. He and his wife, Helen, were enjoying their time together. The children were adults

[00:01:36] now and lived 250 miles away. For fun, Philip and Helen were part of a local mandolin band

[00:01:42] and they taught music lessons together. But their fun and carefree retirement came to an

[00:01:48] end in 1941. Helen had fallen and broken her hip. She had to spend weeks at the hospital

[00:01:55] and Philip was left at home alone. Or at least he thought he was.

[00:02:02] Peters neighbors knew that he was lonely and invited him over for dinner, but even gave

[00:02:07] him leftover for the next few days. On October 17, 1941, Peter walked over to his house

[00:02:14] after dinner, was carrying his leftovers. He unlocked his door and he was met with a disturbing

[00:02:20] scene. In his living room there was a stranger just standing there. The man was tall and

[00:02:28] disheveled and raiding his icebox. Philip and the stranger began to fight. Unfortunately

[00:02:34] the stranger beat Philip to death with a cast iron stove shaker.

[00:02:41] Philip's neighbors were worried about him and they went to check on him. They were shocked

[00:02:46] to find their friend dead on the floor. Police arrived, searched the house but could not

[00:02:51] find the intruder. They were also met with a confusing detail that there was no sign

[00:02:56] of force entry.

[00:02:59] Did Philip know his murderer? How did he get in?

[00:03:04] Police was baffled. Helen returned to her lonely house months later

[00:03:08] in February of 1942. She had entered her hip again and returns to the hospital for

[00:03:14] another few months. It wasn't until April of 1942 that she would once again be back

[00:03:19] to her house for good. Her long time home felt different now and it wasn't just because

[00:03:24] of her husband. Weird things were happening around there. She started hearing tapping

[00:03:30] in the walls. Her food kept going missing. Her things were being moved.

[00:03:37] After breaking her hips twice moving around was very difficult for her so she tried to

[00:03:41] hire help but no one lasted. One woman Helen had hired fled and fear claiming that she

[00:03:48] would not stay in a haunted house. The woman Helen hired after that also quit. She had

[00:03:55] seen a pale and bony hand slide around to open her door. That's when Helen began to

[00:04:01] feel afraid as well. She started to think that her house was haunted so she ended up leaving

[00:04:08] and moving to grand junction with her son. And once she was gone, neighbors started noticing

[00:04:13] more strange occurrences. There were strange sounds coming from Helen's empty house.

[00:04:20] They also started smelling strong disgusting smells and they continued to report every weird

[00:04:25] event to the police. The police would stop by, search the house but never found anything

[00:04:32] out of the ordinary. Everyone believed that the house was haunted. Locals even gave

[00:04:38] it a nickname. It was known as the Monk Reef Ghost. The police investigation had gone

[00:04:45] cold and the continued calls about Philip and Helen's old house were confusing for officers.

[00:04:50] July of 1942 detectives Roy Bloxom and Bill Jackson decided to try and get to the bottom

[00:04:56] of the Monk Reef Ghost mystery. They staked out in front of the house instead of waiting

[00:05:01] for another call from someone in the neighborhood. As they were sitting in the car, they noticed

[00:05:06] a curtain move from the inside of the house. They quickly ran from their car to the house

[00:05:12] but when they got inside it was empty. As they were ready to give up, they heard noises

[00:05:18] coming from the upstairs area. The pair opened a closet door and saw a pair of legs trying

[00:05:24] to disappear into a tiny opening that led to the attic. This didn't appear to be a ghost.

[00:05:32] He reached for the pair of legs and pulled down hard. And although it was not a ghost,

[00:05:38] the man had a ghastly appearance to him. He was tall, very skinny and disheveled. He

[00:05:47] was taken downtown to the police station. He was six feet tall and 75 pounds. The man

[00:05:54] turned out to be theodore Edward Coneys. He was given a meal in the bath and that's

[00:06:00] when he gave officers his name, age, confession and life story. He was 59 years old.

[00:06:07] Theodore Edward Coneys was born in Illinois in the 1880s, though the exact date is unknown.

[00:06:13] He moved to Denver in the 1910s and his health had always been pretty bad, even as a child.

[00:06:19] He was always under weight and that didn't change in adulthood. Due to his health issues,

[00:06:25] Theodore was not able to keep a job long term and he was frequently without a place to live.

[00:06:30] When he had first arrived in Denver, Theodore found himself at the same music center that

[00:06:35] Philip and Helen taught lessons at. Theodore even took some mandolin lessons from them.

[00:06:41] At some point when he was 18, they even had him over for dinner. He knew whether house was,

[00:06:47] they had been kind to him and his youth. Decades later, maybe they would be kind to him again,

[00:06:54] so he knocked at their house one night, wondering if they would share a meal with him again.

[00:06:57] There was no answer. He peaked inside and it appeared that no one was home.

[00:07:03] He tried the door and happened to be unlocked. It turns out Philip had been at the hospital

[00:07:10] with Helen that night. Philip didn't lock his door and Theodore just walked in.

[00:07:16] At first, he was only planning on taking some food and leaving but he changed his mind.

[00:07:22] He decided to make the Peter's attic his new home and so he wedged himself through the tiny

[00:07:27] hole in the closet and made himself a nest in the attic. At night, when Philip or Helen were asleep,

[00:07:33] he would sneak down from his nest and take their food. This was working for Theodore until

[00:07:39] the night he was caught by Philip and he filled him. He snuck back up to the attic right after

[00:07:45] the murder and police never found him. He stayed there while Helen was in the hospital.

[00:07:50] And when she returned months later, Theodore was still there. He was among grief-goats.

[00:08:00] He lived off of cornmeal, preserves and canned food that he found in the basement.

[00:08:05] For water, he would climb onto the roof and grab snow and melt it.

[00:08:09] When police officers caught Theodore and arrested him, they found the smallest officer

[00:08:14] and sent him to the attic. They wanted to see the home he had made for himself.

[00:08:19] But a second he got up there, he threw up. The smell was overwhelming. Theodore had been

[00:08:26] collecting his own waste up there for all of those months. Theodore was charged and convicted

[00:08:33] for the murder of Philip Peters to remain in prison until his own death in 1967.

[00:08:39] I come across a lot of ghost stories because of my work. And if I've heard a mysterious tapping

[00:08:47] in the middle of the night, my mind would go to the paranormal as well. All around the world,

[00:08:52] there are cases of people experiencing things that make them think is my house haunted.

[00:08:58] When really it's not a ghost. It's another person living in their house without them knowing a thing.

[00:09:05] It would be surprised to know how common this is and it is until social media and those late-night

[00:09:10] stories that I came across this bizarre type of situation. And it has a name. It's called

[00:09:16] Frogging with the pH in the front. The official definition of Frogging is when someone lives in

[00:09:23] someone else's house without the resident or homeowners knowledge. I got this name because the

[00:09:29] person doing this hops from house to house like a frog leaping from one place to another.

[00:09:35] They usually live in places that they won't be noticed in, like in the inside of the walls.

[00:09:41] An unused attic or even a basement if someone else is house. It would only come out when everyone

[00:09:47] else was asleep or out of their home. And although having another person living in your place without

[00:09:53] you knowing is disturbing and violating, in some cases like we just heard. It can also be deadly.

[00:10:04] Daniel Laplante was born and raised in towns in Massachusetts. He had a very difficult childhood

[00:10:11] plagued by abuse from the hands of adults that were supposed to care of him. His own father,

[00:10:16] his stepfather and even his psychiatrist abused him. Classmate said he smelled and just had an

[00:10:22] appearance that showed he didn't take care of himself. Plus, he was a loner. He was diagnosed

[00:10:28] with anti-social personality disorder at age 18. During his teens, Daniel Laplante was in and out of

[00:10:35] trouble with the law. He had broken into several homes in stolen jewelry, money and other things.

[00:10:41] He was also caught looking into the windows of different homes in his neighborhood on different

[00:10:46] occasions. Despite his social struggles and difficult upbringing, Daniel found himself in love.

[00:10:53] He started going after a girl named Tina Bowen. And so he called her and told her that a friend

[00:10:58] had given him her phone number. A dead of you phone calls between them and eventually agreed to

[00:11:03] meet for a date. The dates did not go well. It was clear to Tina that something was off about

[00:11:10] Daniel. He didn't appear to be who he said he was. He brought up weird conversations and after

[00:11:17] an hour Tina had enough and she left. That was the extent of their relationship. Just one day

[00:11:23] and it was over. At least that's what Tina thought. Not long after their short-lived relationship

[00:11:31] in December of 1986, the Bowen family began experiencing strange things in their house.

[00:11:37] Tina and her sister Karen noticed that when they left the room and returned,

[00:11:43] the TV channel had changed. If they left the kitchen for just a moment and returned,

[00:11:49] their food would be gone. Things they had left in one place disappeared and will show up somewhere else.

[00:11:57] They kept hearing noises from within their walls and they told their dad. Their dad, Frank Bowen,

[00:12:03] thought his daughters were just messing with each other. He dismissed their fears and while he

[00:12:07] looked the other way, his daughters continued to be mentally tortured in their own house.

[00:12:13] As all these strange experiences continued, the girls grew more and more paranoid.

[00:12:19] On December 8th, Frank and a friend were hanging out at home. They noticed that there was

[00:12:24] something wrong in the bathroom. No one had been home but it seemed like someone had just used

[00:12:30] a toilet. Frank frantically searched the house hoping to find the intruder. He went from room to

[00:12:36] room and when he opened one of the closets, he found Daniel a plant.

[00:12:44] Daniel was holding a hatchet in one hand and it still ran into the other. He swung the hatchet

[00:12:49] up Frank and ordered everyone in the house to go into the nearest room. And everyone did.

[00:12:56] There was nothing else a family could do. Fortunately, as they were waiting for their

[00:13:00] opportunity to escape, they saw a chance. Daniel stepped out of the room where he was holding

[00:13:06] the family hostage for just a second and that's when Tina Bowen escaped through a window. She ran

[00:13:12] to a neighbor's house where she called 911. Police arrived shortly with search dogs but Daniel had

[00:13:18] gotten away. The father, Frank, told investigators that the most chilling part of everything was

[00:13:24] how calm Daniel was during it all. He coldly and calmly told the Bowen family to get into the

[00:13:32] other room even the way he swung the hatchet was collected and calculated. The Bowen family was

[00:13:38] obviously shaken and afraid for their lives. They fled their house to a nearby hotel.

[00:13:45] Unfortunately, their nightmare was not over.

[00:13:49] Two days after being held hostage in their own home, Frank returned to his house to grab some

[00:13:55] belongings. And as he was inside, he saw a face pressing up against the front window. It was

[00:14:01] a intruder from two days ago. He immediately called 911 to report what he had seen and when they

[00:14:07] arrived he told officers Stephen Bessensen about what he saw and handed him the key to the door.

[00:14:14] The officer walked around the house looking at the fresh footprints on the snow before he noticed

[00:14:20] the door. He was met with one of the most disturbing scenes he had ever seen. There was a knife

[00:14:27] sticking out of the right wall and then on a family picture he saw writing it read

[00:14:34] I'm still here. Come find me. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He turned around and

[00:14:43] that's when he saw another knife. This knife was on the opposite wall and stabbed through another

[00:14:48] family picture. There was writing there too. This one said, I'm going to kill you all.

[00:14:58] Officer Bessensen called for backup and in just a few minutes officer Scott and Chief Young

[00:15:03] arrived at Bowen residence. The search for the house looking into all the obvious places and found

[00:15:09] nobody. Officer Bessensen told the other two that bastard is still here were missing something

[00:15:17] and that's when he realized there was a section in the wall behind the toilet. It was made

[00:15:21] white enough to hide pipes and he looked inside. There was a pile of clothes and underneath that

[00:15:28] pile of clothes was Daniel a plant hiding. It was evident that Daniel knew exactly where to hide

[00:15:36] because he had been there before. His hiding spot was very hard to get into. It was a corner

[00:15:43] with concrete foundation and an inner wall and then another outfacing wall that separated the

[00:15:49] toilet from the plumbing pipes. The spot was so small there was barely enough room for him.

[00:15:56] He had to sit in a crouch position and that's what he did. He even fell asleep in that position.

[00:16:02] The entrance to Daniel's hiding spot was tiny. It was a very narrow opening that was as wide

[00:16:09] as a piece of paper. Daniel was taken into custody where he made a chilling confession to investigators.

[00:16:16] He told them he had been going in and out of the Bowen home unnoticed for weeks.

[00:16:22] He spent a lot of time living there. He would do things to confuse a family on purpose and do

[00:16:28] things to annoy them. He would change the channels on the TV set, drink the Bowen's girls cups of

[00:16:34] milk, fill the bath tub with urine and leave trails of pennies in the hallway. He's scaring them

[00:16:40] was fun for him. It was amusing to him. Daniel did this for an entire year. He became a ghost in

[00:16:49] the walls of the Bowen home. His reign of terror still affects the family 30 years later.

[00:16:57] Karen Bowen still cannot sleep in the dark.

[00:17:03] The rest of the story continues right after this. Stay with me.

[00:17:10] Daniel spent almost 11 months in jail. His mom made bail in October of 1987.

[00:17:17] And although the Bowen family's nightmare was over, Daniel was not done terrorizing others.

[00:17:25] Almost immediately after getting bailed out he started breaking and entering into homes.

[00:17:30] The December of 1987 just two months after being bailed out, Daniel broke into the house

[00:17:36] of Andrew in Priscilla Gustafson in towns and Massachusetts. This was the second time he had been in

[00:17:42] the Gustafson home. He liked going back to familiar places just like he did with the Bowen home.

[00:17:49] While Daniel was in their house, Priscilla and her five-year-old son, William, got home.

[00:17:54] Daniel a plant came out of his hiding spot and aimed the gun at Priscilla and William.

[00:17:59] He ordered Priscilla into her bedroom where he assaulted her and then shot her.

[00:18:04] Then he took five-year-old William to the bathroom where he drowned him.

[00:18:08] He tried to leave after that but heard seven-year-old Abigail Gustafson get home from school.

[00:18:13] And he drowned her too. There was a manhunt for Daniel after police found the gruesome crime scene.

[00:18:20] And even though there was no evidence tying him to the scene, he wasn't immediate suspect because of his history.

[00:18:27] He escaped the police a few times but he was found hiding inside of a dumpster.

[00:18:33] When the Bowen family heard about the tragic murder and Daniel's arrest,

[00:18:38] it was very scared. The fear Daniel would not be prosecuted and would somehow make his way back

[00:18:44] to the inside of their walls. The family fled their house for a few days and went into hiding

[00:18:50] themselves. The Bowens did not feel safe, not until Daniel was behind bars. It was sentenced to

[00:18:57] three consecutive life sentences without the chance of parole. In 2017, Daniel asked for his

[00:19:04] sentence to be reduced. He was granted a hearing for that. There was a new law in the state of

[00:19:09] Massachusetts that allowed people convicted as juveniles for more than 30 years to ask for parole.

[00:19:15] His parole was denied. As a psychiatrist evaluated Daniel a plant and determined that he was not

[00:19:21] remorseful for any of his crimes, there was no doubt that if he were free again,

[00:19:26] he would begin to hide inside of a family home again and possibly commit murder.

[00:19:37] The Campbell family left their house in Honolulu for one week to visit family.

[00:19:42] This was a normal thing for them. As they drove back home, ready to sleep in their own beds

[00:19:47] and returned to the comfort of their house, they were met with an odd sight.

[00:19:53] There was a bike that did not belong to any of them sitting right in front of their house.

[00:19:58] James and Brittany Campbell told their kids to wait in the car so they could see what was going on.

[00:20:03] James tried opening the door but someone was inside yelling,

[00:20:07] this isn't your house, this isn't your house. This was his house and he pushed the door so

[00:20:14] hard that the man pushing against it fell. The stranger quickly stood up and James saw him.

[00:20:20] The stranger was wearing his own clothes and told James, again this isn't your home.

[00:20:27] James found a sledgehammer and chased a stranger out of his house while Brittany called the police.

[00:20:32] Police arrived and they arrested the stranger. His name was Ezekiel Zeyes.

[00:20:38] While the Campbell family was gone, he made himself at home in their house

[00:20:42] and when the Campbell's finally entered their home, it was a complete disaster.

[00:20:47] There were pots and pans all over the house. James' musical equipment was all out. The couch was

[00:20:53] full of bodily fluids. Their kitchen knives were spread out on their bed.

[00:21:00] The Campbell's thought that was it. During the investigation Ezekiel's journal entries

[00:21:06] were found. The writing and the journals was extremely disturbing. He wrote about performing

[00:21:11] surgeries on the family. He wanted to turn them into the perfect human specimens.

[00:21:17] In the notes Ezekiel left, there was also a paper titled,

[00:21:21] The Omnivore Trials, the rehabilitation of rat-like people.

[00:21:27] What did that even mean? It was bizarre.

[00:21:31] But the creepiest thing among the journal entries was that Ezekiel wrote about Brittany going

[00:21:36] through fertility treatment. They hadn't told anyone about this and had started months ago.

[00:21:43] This meant that Ezekiel had been living in their home for much longer than the week they were gone.

[00:21:50] But they found next confirmed their worst fear.

[00:21:54] They found dozens of videos of Ezekiel sitting on Brittany's desk chair.

[00:21:59] And some, he was shirtless and there were several of these videos dating back to weeks before

[00:22:04] the family went on vacation. Ezekiel had indeed been hiding in their house and they had no idea.

[00:22:13] This man invaded their home and destroyed the feeling of safety they all had.

[00:22:18] This happened in 2019 and it still shakes their core to talk about it.

[00:22:23] Ezekiel was charged with burglary for breaking into the Campbell family house, but he was released.

[00:22:30] Less than a year later he was back in jail, this time for good.

[00:22:34] He had been arrested again for vandalizing a temple, but while he was in jail,

[00:22:39] he killed another prisoner and will remain there for life.

[00:22:45] It's a common saying among skeptics regarding the paranormal that the living should be feared more

[00:22:50] than the dead. And now it may actually hold some truth, whether you agree or not depends on your

[00:22:57] own experiences. But if you have ever been through situations that involve noises at night,

[00:23:04] disappearing objects, or things being moved around your house, consider the possibility

[00:23:10] that you're home, your safe space. They actually have a real living ghost in the walls.

[00:23:23] If you have any real horror stories that you've heard and want to hear on the podcast,

[00:23:27] let me know. I'll leave my contact information in the description of this episode.

[00:23:32] For ad free listening and more, check us out on scaryplus.com and to get in touch with me,

[00:23:38] find me on Instagram and TikTok. I'm at Edwin Kov, that's EDWINC-O-V.

[00:23:45] This episode of Horror Story was researched by Don with script writing and pre-production

[00:23:51] of the scene at Lomagi. It was hosted and read by Edwin Kov,

[00:23:57] anyway, thank you very much for listening. See you soon.