Missing: Lashaya Stine

Sixteen‑year‑old Lashaya Stine was born on February 8, 2000, to her mother, Sabrina Jones, who remembers her daughter as responsible, mature beyond her years, and deeply rooted in her family. She was the kind of teenager who cooked dinner for her younger siblings, who kept her grades high without being asked, who talked about her future with a quiet, steady confidence.

She was an honor student at George Washington High School, preparing for her senior year. She had dreams of working in the medical field — dreams she was already turning into reality. She’d earned an internship at the University of Colorado Hospital and had a job interview scheduled for July 16, 2016. Her clothes for the interview were already laid out.

But she never made it to that interview.

The Last Night at Home

In the early hours of July 15, 2016, the house was still. The kind of stillness that only exists at 2 A.M., when the world is dark and the air feels suspended. At some point during that hour, Lashaya quietly slipped out the front door.

She didn’t take her phone.

She didn’t take her charger.

She didn’t take her wallet, which still held money.

She didn’t take any clothes.

Everything she would have needed for a planned departure remained neatly in her room. It looked as though she intended to return — as though she expected the night to be brief.

Her mother believes she left to meet someone she trusted.

The Last Known Footage

Surveillance cameras later captured her walking near East Montview Boulevard and North Peoria Street — a corridor of flickering streetlights, aging motels, and late‑night foot traffic. The footage shows her moving with purpose, not wandering. She glances over her shoulder once, as if expecting someone.

She was wearing a white tank top and gray sweatpants, her long black hair pulled into the bun she wore almost every day. Her walk is steady. Her posture is calm.

These are the last confirmed images of her.

A Mother’s Desperation

When morning came and her daughter’s bed was still empty, Sabrina’s fear ignited instantly. She reported her missing within hours. She and family members canvassed the neighborhood, knocking on doors, handing out flyers, begging businesses to review their surveillance footage.

“It has been pure devastation,” Sabrina said. “The fact that I haven’t seen her face, or heard her voice for months is the most horrible thing.”

She keeps her daughter’s room the same.

She still wakes at night thinking she hears footsteps in the hallway.

Sightings on East Colfax

In the weeks and months that followed, multiple witnesses reported seeing a girl who looked like Lashaya along East Colfax — a desolate stretch lined with cheap motels, neon vacancy signs, and the constant churn of drugs and exploitation. Some said she appeared disoriented, as if drugged. Others said she was being watched or controlled.

These sightings were consistent with patterns seen in trafficking cases:

movement between motels,

being accompanied by older adults,

appearing dazed or monitored.

When Sabrina shared these reports with police, she was told her daughter may have been moved to Kansas City, Kansas. But no new tips have surfaced from that area.

Leads That Fade Into Silence

One of the most haunting aspects of the case is the silence from people who may know more.

Sabrina once received a message on Facebook from a young woman whose sister’s boyfriend allegedly had information about what happened to Lashaya. But he refused to speak with detectives.

“People in the Denver area who know about my daughter are afraid to come forward,” Sabrina said.

Rumors.

Half‑truths.

Whispers that never become statements.

The fog around the case thickens with every year that passes.

The Search That Never Stops

Despite the time, the family has never stopped searching. They’ve held vigils, organized community walks, worked with nonprofits, and kept her story alive. They believe someone, somewhere, knows something — and that even the smallest detail could bring her home.

You can read my original article on Lashaya’s disappearance here:  

Darkmatter: Missing Lashaya Stine

There is a $15,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.

If you have any information, please contact:

911

Aurora Police Sgt. Chris Poppe: 303‑739‑6130

Aurora Police: 303‑627‑3100

Crime Stoppers: 720‑913‑7867

Bring Our Missing Home Tip Line: 810‑294‑4858

A Message to Lashaya

If she is still out there, her mother wants her to hear this:

“I wish there was some way I could talk to her and let her know that it’s not too late. Don’t give up on your life. She needs to hear my voice.”

Description at the Time of Disappearance

Age: 16

Height: 5'6"

Weight: Approximately 150 lbs

Hair: Long black hair, usually worn in a bun

Eyes: Brown

Build: Slender, athletic

Identifying Mark: Quarter‑sized round scar on her chest

Other: Pierced ears, often wore simple stud earrings

Into the Half‑Light: A Behavioral Profile of the Offender Behind a Disappearance Like Madeleine McCann’s

Some crimes do not erupt into the world — they seep into it. They arrive quietly, like a change in the weather, and by the time anyone notices, the damage is already done. A child vanishes from a holiday apartment, and the world is left staring into a void that seems to swallow logic whole.

But voids have shapes.

And shadows have patterns.

In cases like Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, criminal profilers don’t look for a face — they look for a type. A psychological silhouette. A man who moves through the world differently, quietly, invisibly.

This is the profile of that man.

The Watcher Who Blends In

Before he ever crossed the threshold, he watched.

Not dramatically — not the cinematic villain lurking behind hedges — but with the subtle, predatory patience of someone who has spent years studying the soft spots in other people’s lives. He notices the things most people never think to guard:

the door that doesn’t fully click

the window that never quite locks

the parents who trust routine

the children who sleep deeply

He memorizes patterns the way others memorize prayers.

He is the kind of man who can stand in a crowd and leave no imprint at all, except perhaps a faint, inexplicable unease.

A Life Spent Crossing Boundaries

Forensic psychology has a name for men like this: organized opportunistic predators.

They don’t begin with abduction. They begin with smaller trespasses:

slipping into places they shouldn’t be

watching people who don’t know they’re being watched

testing doors, windows, limits

learning how to move without being seen

These are not accidents.

They are rehearsals.

Inside his mind is a locked room where:

deviant fantasies grow unchecked

power feels attainable only in the dark

control becomes a substitute for identity

empathy has long since withered

He is not impulsive.

He is not frenzied.

He is cold.

His crime is not an explosion — it is an eclipse.

The Night the World Shifted

He chooses the night with care. He has watched long enough to understand the rhythm of the parents’ movements, the timing of their check-ins, the way the resort exhales after dusk.

When he moves, he moves with the confidence of someone who has crossed many thresholds before this one.

He enters the apartment quietly, almost reverently.

He lifts the child with the ease of someone who has rehearsed the moment in his mind.

He leaves without disturbing the air.

To the world, it looks impossible — a vanishing.

To him, it is simply the execution of a plan he has carried like a secret pulse beneath his skin.

The Man Who Walks Away

After the crime, he becomes two men.

The outer man

calm

polite

unremarkable

the kind of man who blends into the scenery of a resort or a town

The inner man

vibrating with the aftershock of the act

compulsively watching the news

replaying the night in obsessive loops

waiting for a knock on the door that never comes

He may leave the area abruptly — not out of panic, but because the place has become too charged with the memory of what he did. He may clean obsessively. He may drink more. He may sleep less. He may feel, for the first time in his life, that he has crossed a line he cannot uncross.

And he is right.

The Composite Shadow

When all the threads are woven together, the offender in a case like this resembles a silhouette more than a man:

male, 25–55

familiar with the resort’s geography

practiced in moving unnoticed

patient, observant, quietly predatory

capable of planning without appearing to plan

a man who has lived his life in the half-light, where doors are suggestions and silence is a language

He is the kind of figure who could pass you on a staircase and leave no impression at all — except a chill that lingers long after he’s gone.

Author’s Note

Cases like this haunt us because they expose a truth we rarely want to face: evil does not always announce itself. Sometimes it wears the most ordinary face in the room. Sometimes it walks beside us unnoticed. And sometimes, it slips through a door we didn’t realize we’d left open.

Understanding the psychology behind these offenders doesn’t solve the mystery — but it illuminates the shape of the darkness we’re staring into.

And sometimes, that’s where the search begins.

CHAPTER FOUR — The Storm That Found Her

Evening did not fall over Springfield so much as descend — a slow, deliberate shroud settling over rooftops and chimneys, dimming the world to a palette of bruised violets and coal‑smoke gray. Lamps flickered to life behind wavering curtains, their glow fragile against the encroaching dark, like small defiances in a city that did not yet know it was standing on the edge of history.

Mary paused in the doorway of her sister Elizabeth’s parlor, her hand resting lightly on the carved frame. Elizabeth glanced up from her embroidery, offering a small, knowing smile — the kind that said she saw more than she ever commented on. Elizabeth had always been steady, composed, the quiet center of any room. Mary loved her for it, even when that steadiness felt like a mirror reflecting Mary’s own restlessness.

“Try not to startle him tonight,” Elizabeth murmured, half‑teasing.

Mary lifted her chin. “I don’t startle him. I wake him.”

Elizabeth’s smile deepened, but she said nothing more. She rarely did when Mary’s fire showed. She simply let it burn.

The room was warm, but the warmth felt borrowed, temporary — a thin veneer over the cold that seeped in from the unsettled nation beyond the windows. Mary could feel the tension in the air, the way one feels the pressure before a storm breaks.

And she knew, without being told, that he would come tonight.

Not because he had promised.

But because something in the world — some current she could not name — seemed to pull them toward each other with the inevitability of tides.

When Abraham Lincoln stepped inside, he looked as though he had walked through weather no one else could see. His coat was dusted with road grit, his hair wind‑tossed, his expression shadowed by thoughts that clung to him like damp wool. He paused, blinking as though adjusting to the lamplight, or perhaps to the fact of her presence.

Mary felt the shift immediately.

He carried storms inside him.

“Miss Todd,” he said, bowing his head with that awkward gravity that made her pulse tighten.

“Mr. Lincoln.”

Their names felt like the beginning of something dangerous.

He did not sit. He hovered near the hearth, long fingers brushing the mantel as though grounding himself. The firelight carved hollows beneath his cheekbones, deepening the melancholy that lived in his eyes.

“You appear troubled,” Mary said softly.

“I am always troubled,” he replied. “The question is only by what.”

She stepped closer. “Then let us begin with ambition. Is it a virtue or a flaw?”

He looked at her sharply — not offended, but awakened.

“That depends,” he said, “on whether ambition serves the world… or devours it.”

“And if it does both?”

“Then it becomes a burden.”

Mary tilted her head. “Or a destiny.”

Something flickered in his expression — a recognition, a warning, a spark.

Elizabeth watched them from across the room, her needle paused mid‑air. Mary caught her sister’s gaze — a mixture of concern and curiosity — before Elizabeth looked away, as though giving them privacy she knew they needed.

Around them, the parlor murmured with polite conversation, but the air between the two of them felt charged, intimate, almost perilous. She could feel the pull of him — not romantic softness, but something darker, deeper, more consuming. A meeting of minds that felt like the beginning of a fire.

He lowered his voice. “You speak as though you expect to shape the world.”

“I expect to shape my life,” she said. “And perhaps the life of the man who dares to stand beside me.”

The fire cracked sharply, as if startled.

Lincoln’s breath caught — barely, but she saw it.

He was a man who feared his own depths.

She was a woman unafraid of them.

And somewhere beyond the walls, the nation trembled — a country splitting along fault lines that neither of them could yet name, but both could feel.

The World Tilts

Springfield was a city of arguments.

Men shouted in taverns, in law offices, in the muddy streets where horses stamped and wagons rattled. Newspapers printed accusations in ink so dark it smudged the fingers of anyone who dared to read them. The country was fracturing — not cleanly, but like a bone splintering under pressure.

Mary walked through it all with her chin lifted, her mind sharp as a blade.

Elizabeth often accompanied her to debates, though she preferred to sit quietly in the back. Mary, however, leaned forward, absorbing every word.

One evening, a man scoffed at a speaker’s condemnation of slavery.

“Sentiment,” he muttered. “Women’s talk.”

Mary turned her head. “Then perhaps women should be running the country. We seem to be the only ones who recognize cruelty when we see it.”

Elizabeth’s hand tightened around Mary’s wrist — a silent plea for restraint — but Mary did not look away from the man.

He blinked, startled.

He had not expected to be challenged.

Certainly not by a woman.

Mary did not correct him.

She simply won.

Lincoln spoke rarely in these gatherings, but when he did, the room shifted. His voice was not loud, but it carried — steady, resonant, threaded with a sorrow that made even his opponents pause.

Mary watched him.

She watched the way he leaned forward when injustice was mentioned.

She watched the way his hands tightened when cruelty was excused.

She watched the way he seemed to absorb the world’s pain as though it were his own.

And she felt something inside her align with him — not in softness, but in purpose.

One evening, after a particularly heated debate, they walked together beneath a sky heavy with unfallen snow.

“You argue as though the nation is a single man,” Mary said.

“Perhaps it is,” he murmured. “A man torn between what he wants and what he fears.”

“And what do you fear, Mr. Lincoln?”

He hesitated.

“Failure,” he said finally. “And the cost of trying.”

Mary stopped walking. “Greatness always costs.”

He looked at her then — really looked — as though seeing the shape of his future reflected in her eyes.

And perhaps he did.

The Engagement

The engagement came quietly.

No grand gesture.

No dramatic declaration.

Just two people standing in a parlor, the air between them trembling with unspoken certainty.

He asked.

She said yes.

Elizabeth embraced her, whispering, “Be gentle with him. He is not like other men.”

Mary nodded, though she did not yet understand the depth of her sister’s warning.

For a moment — a brief, fragile moment — the world felt steady.

But Lincoln was a man built of contradictions.

He loved deeply but feared the weight of being loved.

He longed for connection but recoiled from expectation.

He wanted a future but doubted he deserved one.

The Break

The break came like a winter wind — sudden, sharp, merciless.

He withdrew.

He avoided her.

He vanished into his thoughts, into his melancholy, into the shadows that had always lived inside him.

Elizabeth found Mary sitting alone one afternoon, staring at the cold hearth.

“He is frightened,” Elizabeth said gently.

“So am I,” Mary whispered. “But I do not run.”

When he finally spoke, his voice was hollow.

“I cannot,” he said. “I am not… enough.”

Mary felt the words like a blade sliding between her ribs.

“Not enough for whom?” she whispered.

“For you,” he said. “For myself. For the life you deserve.”

She reached for him, but he stepped back.

And the distance between them — that small, terrible distance — felt like the width of a grave.

He left her standing in the parlor, the fire dying behind her, the shadows lengthening like hands reaching for her ankles.

For days, she moved through the house like a ghost.

Elizabeth tried to coax her into conversation, but Mary only shook her head.

Her sister finally said, “You are stronger than this.”

Mary looked up, eyes hollow. “Strength does not stop a storm.”

Elizabeth touched her cheek. “No. But it teaches you how to stand in it.”

The Aftermath

Lincoln returned weeks later, pale and shaken, as though he had been wandering through some private wilderness.

He apologized.

He explained.

He faltered.

Mary listened.

She did not forgive him easily.

But she recognized something in him — a man who feared his own destiny, yet could not escape it.

And she, who had never feared the dark, stepped toward him once more.

Not because she was weak.

But because she understood storms.

She had been raised in one.

She had become one.

And she knew — with a certainty that felt like prophecy — that their lives were already entwined, their fates already written in the shadows gathering across the nation.

Silence as Evidence

One of the hardest things to accept in a case like Nancy Guthrie’s is that sometimes the loudest clue isn’t a message, a sighting, or a breakthrough — it’s the silence.

People imagine kidnappers as constant communicators, sending updates, demands, threats. But in real investigations, that’s not how it works. When a ransom note is followed by nothing… that absence becomes its own kind of data. It tells you something about control, about access, about what the perpetrators can or can’t do anymore.

In genuine hostage situations, communication doesn’t just stop. There are follow‑ups. There are instructions. There are proofs of life. There’s movement. But here, we have a void — and voids aren’t neutral. They point somewhere.

Silence can mean the plan fell apart.

Silence can mean the offender lost access to the victim.

Silence can mean the notes were never meant to lead to an exchange.

And sometimes, silence means the truth is darker than anyone wants to say out loud.

This isn’t speculation. It’s pattern recognition. It’s what investigators look for when everything else has gone still.

Nancy deserved a voice in her own story. And when that voice was taken from her, the responsibility shifted to the rest of us — to read the gaps, to question the quiet, and to refuse to let silence be the final word.

Friday the 13th: Fear, Folklore, and the Stories That Gave a Date Its Power

“When thirteen sit down to dine, the first to rise is the first to die.”

It’s a warning that has echoed through centuries—whispered at dinner tables, repeated in superstition, and embedded in cultural memory. Friday the 13th is more than just a date on a calendar. For many, it carries a quiet dread that feels older than logic itself.

But where did that fear come from? And why has it endured?

The Fear Has a Name

The fear of Friday the 13th isn’t imaginary—it’s recognized in psychology.

Triskaidekaphobia: the fear of the number 13

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the fear of Friday the 13th specifically

These fears aren’t about the date itself. They’re about pattern-making—the human tendency to connect coincidence with meaning, especially when fear is involved.

Thirteen at the Table

One of the earliest Western associations between the number 13 and death comes from Christian symbolism.

At the Last Supper, there were thirteen people seated at the table. One of them—Judas Iscariot—would betray Jesus, setting into motion events that led to crucifixion the following day, Good Friday. Over time, the image of thirteen dining together became linked with betrayal and death.

This wasn’t originally a superstition—it became one after the story was repeatedly retold, reinforcing fear through generations.

The Thirteen Club: Tempting Fate on Purpose

In the late 1800s, a group of skeptics decided to challenge superstition head-on.

The Thirteen Club met on the 13th day of each month. Members sat at thirteen tables, with thirteen place settings. To reach the dining room, they walked under ladders, spilled salt, broke mirrors, crossed knives, and surrounded themselves with black cats.

Their goal was to prove superstition harmless—but even among skeptics, unease lingered.

Ironically, several members later became U.S. presidents. The club survived. The fear did not disappear.

Thirteen, the Moon, and “Unclean” Numbers

In many cultures, the number thirteen is tied to the moon.

There are roughly thirteen lunar cycles in a year, mirroring the menstrual cycle. In patriarchal religious traditions, anything associated with cyclical time, the moon, or feminine power was often treated with suspicion—or outright condemnation.

Over time, thirteen shifted from a symbol of natural rhythm to something labeled “unclean,” unsettling, or forbidden.

The Legend of the HMS Friday

One of the most persistent Friday the 13th stories comes from naval lore.

According to legend, the British Royal Navy attempted to disprove superstition by commissioning a ship named HMS Friday. Her keel was laid on a Friday. She was launched on a Friday. She set sail on Friday the 13th—under a captain named Friday.

The ship was allegedly never seen again.

There is no historical record confirming the ship existed—but the story endures. Not because it’s proven, but because it feels right to a fearful mind.

Friday, October 13th, 1307

One event tied to Friday the 13th is indisputably real.

On Friday, October 13th, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the mass arrest of the Knights Templar. Hundreds were tortured into false confessions of heresy. Many were executed. The order was dismantled almost overnight.

Power, betrayal, and death converged on that date—and history remembered it.

Why the Fear Persists

Friday the 13th isn’t dangerous because of fate or curses.

It’s dangerous because humans remember patterns—especially when tragedy reinforces them. When fear is repeated often enough, it becomes tradition. When tradition is passed down, it becomes truth.

And so, the date lingers, heavy with meaning.

Not because it must…

…but because we taught it how.

🕯️ This post explores cultural superstition and historical associations. It is not a claim of supernatural causation.

Podcast form MyCrimanyPod

The Red Thread of Fate: When Love Is Promised, but Loss Comes First

There is an old legend that says we are not as alone as we think.

That somewhere beyond sight, an invisible red thread is tied around us at birth—looped gently around a finger or ankle—and bound to another person somewhere in the world.

The thread stretches.

It tangles.

It pulls tight, then slack again.

But it never breaks.

This is known as the Red Thread of Fate, an ancient legend passed through generations in East Asia. It promises that two people destined for each other will meet—no matter how far apart they are, no matter how long it takes.

But legends are quiet about something important.

They never say when.

When Fate Is Patient—and Cruel

In softer retellings, the red thread leads to love fulfilled. Two people meet. Destiny is rewarded. The story ends.

But older versions are not so kind.

In some tellings, the thread stretches across lifetimes.

In others, it binds people who circle each other endlessly, always just missing their moment.

And in the darkest versions, one end of the thread goes still—while the other keeps pulling.

Because fate does not promise timing.

It only promises connection.

Loving Someone You Were Meant to Meet

What happens when the red thread leads you to someone…

but not for long?

What happens when you feel the pull—deep, undeniable—only to lose them to death, disappearance, or circumstance before the story can unfold?

The legend never answers that.

But people living with loss do.

They describe it as recognition without resolution.

As knowing someone was meant to matter—without knowing why they were taken so soon.

Love, in these moments, feels unfinished.

And yet it remains.

The Thread After Loss

Those who love someone who is gone often speak of an invisible tether.

They feel it in ordinary moments:

When a song still feels like it belongs to someone else

When a choice feels guided by a voice that no longer speaks

When love continues, even without a place to land

The red thread does not vanish when a person does.

It simply stops moving.

Still connected.

Still present.

Still pulling softly in the background of a life that has learned to go on anyway.

Valentine’s Day and the Love That Endures

Valentine’s Day celebrates beginnings.

But for some, it is a day of remembering what never had the chance to finish.

A love interrupted.

A future imagined but never lived.

A person who felt inevitable—and then was gone.

The Red Thread of Fate offers a different way to understand that pain.

Not as failure.

Not as something broken.

But as proof that some connections are not meant to be measured by time.

If the Thread Never Breaks…

Then perhaps love is not something we lose.

Perhaps it is something we carry.

Perhaps the thread does not lead us only to people—but through them. Into the lives we live afterward. Into the choices we make. Into the quiet ways we continue loving even when no one sees it.

The legend does not say the thread guarantees happiness.

Only meaning.

And sometimes, meaning is enough.

The Black-Eyed Children

Some knocks are not meant to be answered.

⚠️ Content Note

This article explores unsettling folklore and psychological fear involving nighttime encounters and children. There is no graphic violence, but themes of dread, intrusion, and loss of safety may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised — especially when reading alone at night.

The knock is deliberate.

Not urgent.

Not desperate.

Just controlled enough to let you know it was intentional.

When you open the door, a child stands there.

They don’t step back when the light hits them.

They don’t blink.

They don’t look past you into the house.

They stand close to the threshold — close enough to feel like they already understand where the boundary is.

For a moment, your mind searches for something familiar. Something ordinary.

And then your body reacts.

Your chest tightens.

Your skin prickles.

Your thoughts slow, as if some deeper part of you has taken control.

Something is wrong.

Then you see their eyes.

They are not dark in the way human eyes are meant to be.

Human eyes have contrast — white, color, reflection, depth.

These do not.

They are black — flat, depthless, and wrong.

As if light goes in and never comes back out.

The Fear That Arrives Before Understanding

Those who encounter the Black-Eyed Children describe the fear as immediate and absolute — not panic, but certainty.

A quiet, suffocating knowing.

Many report feeling unable to move or speak, as if their body has decided that stillness is safer than action. Some say their vision narrowed. Others describe nausea, trembling, or an overwhelming urge to retreat.

Only after this reaction do they consciously register the eyes.

Smooth. Black. Unbroken by reflection.

By then, the fear has already chosen for them.

They Appear Only at Boundaries

The Black-Eyed Children are not seen wandering neighborhoods or playing in the street.

They appear at thresholds.

Doors.

Windows.

Car doors in empty parking lots.

Places where one space becomes another.

They ask to be let inside.

Their voices are calm and polite, sometimes slightly delayed — as though the words are being selected carefully rather than spoken naturally.

They might say:

“We need to come in.”

“We can’t enter unless you let us.”

“Our parents are nearby.”

If you hesitate, they don’t react.

They wait.

The Ones Who Nearly Opened the Door

In the late 1990s, journalist Brian Bethel described sitting alone in his car at night when two boys approached and asked for a ride.

Before he noticed their eyes, fear overwhelmed him so suddenly it felt physical — nausea, shaking, a desperate need to escape. When he finally looked closely, he understood why.

Their eyes were completely black.

He locked his doors and drove away.

Later, he said the most disturbing part wasn’t what happened — but the sense that something irreversible would have happened if he had agreed.

Others describe similar moments. A hand tightening on a doorknob. The pressure to be polite clashing with the certainty that politeness would be a mistake. The feeling that refusing them carried risk — but allowing them inside carried finality.

Some say the fear lingered long after the encounter ended, settling into their homes like something that never fully left.

Other Reported Encounters

A Knock Just Before Midnight

One account describes a woman living alone who heard a soft knock shortly before midnight. When she opened the door, two children stood on the porch — a boy and a girl, both unusually still.

They asked to come inside to use the phone.

She hesitated, unsure why her hands began to shake. The porch light flickered, and in that brief pulse of brightness she noticed their eyes — completely black, absorbing the light instead of reflecting it.

She stepped back and closed the door.

The knocking didn’t stop immediately. It continued — slow, patient — for nearly a minute before silence returned.

She later said the quiet afterward felt heavier than the knocking itself.

The Parking Lot Encounter

Another story comes from a driver sitting in a nearly empty parking lot late at night. A child appeared beside the passenger door without being seen approaching.

He asked for a ride home.

The driver described feeling an overwhelming pressure to unlock the door, even while a deep unease told her not to. When she finally looked directly at him, she realized his eyes held no visible whites — only a smooth darkness.

She started the car and drove away.

In the rearview mirror, she said the child remained standing exactly where he had been — not watching her leave, not moving at all.

The Window Tap

Some accounts don’t involve doors at all.

One witness described sitting in a dimly lit living room when a faint tapping came from the window. Outside stood a child who appeared too calm for the late hour. He gestured toward the door, as if asking to be let in without speaking.

The witness said the moment their eyes met, an intense dread washed over them — a certainty that opening the door would be a mistake they couldn’t undo.

When they turned on the porch light, the child was gone.

The tapping never returned.

Why They Ask

Across folklore and belief systems, there are stories of beings that cannot cross into protected spaces without permission.

They knock.

They request entry.

They wait.

The danger is not aggression. The danger is consent.

The Black-Eyed Children follow this rule with unsettling precision.

They do not threaten.

They do not force their way inside.

They rely on empathy.

On hesitation.

On the instinct to protect a child who appears vulnerable.

One Last Account

One story appears only occasionally — shared quietly, often without names.

A man living alone described hearing a knock just after midnight. When he opened the door, a single child stood on the porch. No coat. No visible breath in the cold air. Just a stillness that felt deliberate.

The child asked to come inside.

He almost said yes.

He later said the urge to invite them in felt overwhelming — not like kindness, but pressure, as though the silence between them demanded an answer.

Then he noticed the eyes.

Black. Flat. Reflecting nothing.

He closed the door.

The knocking stopped immediately.

Hours later, just before sunrise, he opened the door to check the porch.

No footprints.

No sound.

Nothing out of place.

But when he turned to go back inside, he hesitated.

Because the door was already slightly open — just enough to suggest that at some point during the night…

it had not been fully closed.

Nightmare Ending

Stories of the Black-Eyed Children do not end with violence.

They end with hesitation.

With a moment suspended in silence — a child standing motionless in the dark, waiting for an invitation that must be freely given.

A hand on a doorknob.

A voice caught in your throat.

An instinct begging you not to make a mistake you can’t undo.

Because some doors aren’t meant to be forced open.

And some things don’t need to break in.

They just need you

to let them in.

🖤 — MyCrimany

The Woman in Black of Morehead, Kentucky

A Life Remembered — Even Without a Name

There are some people who do not arrive loudly in a place. They appear slowly, quietly, until one day their presence feels as permanent as the roads themselves. In Morehead, Kentucky, a woman dressed entirely in black became one of those quiet constants — someone seen almost daily, yet never fully known.

She walked with purpose but without urgency. Head slightly lowered, steps steady, gaze rarely lingering on anyone for long. To strangers, she might have looked like a passing shadow. But to the town, she became something else entirely: a figure woven into the rhythm of everyday life.

They called her Siscelia.

Beneath the Bridge, Between Two Worlds

The stretch of US 60 where she walked is not loud or crowded. It is a place of passing headlights, long stretches of pavement, and wind that carries the smell of creek water through the trees. Cars moved around her, drivers glancing twice — once in curiosity, and once in quiet recognition.

When night came, she returned to the same place: the underside of the Triplett Creek Bridge.

Concrete beams cast long shadows there, and the sound of water moving beneath the structure filled the silence. In winter, frost clung to the edges of stone. In warmer months, the air felt heavy with humidity and the soft hum of insects. It was not a place most people would choose — but it was the place she returned to again and again.

She did not appear lost.

She appeared resolute.

A Community Watching from a Distance

Morehead is the kind of town where people notice patterns. The owner of a small shop might see her pass each morning. A driver might slow instinctively when approaching her on the roadside. Someone might leave a bag of food nearby, unsure if she would accept it.

Often, she declined.

Not harshly. Not angrily. Simply with a quiet refusal that suggested boundaries drawn long before anyone in town ever met her.

People described her voice as soft. Her demeanor as polite but guarded. She seemed aware of the world around her, yet determined to remain slightly apart from it — as if closeness required a vulnerability she was unwilling to give.

And so she moved through town like a silhouette at dusk: present, familiar, but never fully revealed.

A Name Without a Past

In 2010, an arrest for giving a false name or address briefly disrupted the quiet routine. For a moment, it seemed as though answers might surface — a history, a connection, something that would explain who she had been before Morehead.

But nothing concrete emerged.

No confirmed identity.

No detailed backstory.

Only the same steady figure returning to the roads afterward, continuing her life in the same measured rhythm.

Mystery surrounded her, but the town did not treat her as a spectacle. Instead, there was a quiet understanding — an unspoken agreement that whatever she carried from her past belonged to her alone.

The Stillness of December

On December 15, 2018, the familiar rhythm stopped.

Winter had settled into the hills of eastern Kentucky. The air was cold enough to sting the lungs. Frost traced the edges of branches and clung to the ground beneath the bridge.

It was there that she was found — in the same place she had returned to for nearly a decade.

Authorities later determined she had passed away from natural causes. There was no violence, no sudden tragedy. Just a quiet ending that mirrored the quiet way she had lived.

But the silence she left behind felt heavier than anyone expected.

A Farewell Without a Name

What happened next revealed the heart of the community she had lived among.

Morehead did not allow her story to end in anonymity.

A funeral was arranged — not by family who had known her for years, but by people whose lives had brushed against hers in small, fleeting ways. People who had seen her walking. People who had spoken to her briefly. People who understood that even a life lived quietly deserves to be acknowledged.

Candles flickered softly as those gathered said goodbye. Flowers rested gently where words felt insufficient. For the first time, the woman who had spent years at the edges of the crowd became the center of collective remembrance.

It was not a spectacle.

It was an act of care.

The Weight of Being Remembered

There is something profoundly human about the way communities remember those who lived quietly among them. The Woman in Black did not share her story openly, yet she left an imprint — a reminder that presence alone can matter.

Her life challenges the way we think about visibility. About independence. About how dignity can exist even in solitude.

She was not simply a mystery.

She was a person navigating the world in a way that made sense to her — even if others never fully understood why.

And perhaps that is why her memory lingers.

Why Her Story Still Matters

Stories like hers ask us to slow down. To look again at the people we pass every day. To recognize that even the most private lives carry histories we may never see.

Today, efforts continue to remember her with respect and compassion. If you believe you may recognize the woman known as Siscelia — or if her story feels familiar — consider contacting local authorities in Rowan County, Kentucky. Even the smallest piece of information could help restore a name that has remained just out of reach.

Because anonymity does not erase humanity.

And remembrance is its own form of justice.

🕯️ Author’s Reflection

This story is shared not as a mystery to solve, but as a life to honor. The Woman in Black moved through Morehead with quiet strength, leaving behind a legacy that lives not in headlines, but in the memories of those who watched over her from a distance.

She walked alone.

But she was never unseen.

Langston Hughes and the Sound of a Dream Holding Its Breath

 

A meditation on silence, deferred dreams, and why his words still haunt America

Some writers shout.

Some explain.

Langston Hughes listened.

Reading Hughes feels like standing still while time moves around you. Like hearing a familiar ache named for the first time. His poems do not rush. They wait. They sit in the quiet place where disappointment settles after hope has been postponed too many times to count.

Hughes knew that silence does not mean peace.

Silence means pressure.

When Hope Is Asked to Wait Too Long

He asks it simply, almost casually:

“What happens to a dream deferred?”

The question opens a door most people avoid. Because the answer is not neat.

A deferred dream does not sleep. It stays awake. It dries under the sun of repetition. It ferments in the dark. It becomes heavy—“like a load” the body adjusts to carrying, even as the spine bends beneath it.

This is how people learn endurance without relief. How patience becomes muscle memory. How wanting something begins to feel dangerous.

In America, deferred dreams are inherited. Passed down quietly. Taught through watching. Through warnings disguised as advice. Through learning which hopes are safe to voice and which ones must be swallowed.

Hughes didn’t romanticize this. He named it.

Being Sent Away Without Being Gone

In one of his most restrained lines, Hughes writes:

“I, too, sing America.”

Not loudly. Not angrily. Just too.

That word carries the weight of exclusion. It acknowledges the room. The table. The song already in progress. And the long history of being told to step aside while others are heard.

Elsewhere, he writes of being sent to the kitchen. Not punished. Not expelled. Just removed. Out of sight. Out of comfort. Out of belonging.

This is how erasure works. Politely. Repeatedly. Until it no longer feels like something happening to you—but something you carry inside.

And still, Hughes says:

“Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table.”

Not as a request.

As a certainty shaped by survival.

The Cost of Refusing to Be Palatable

What many people don’t realize is that Hughes paid for this honesty.

He was criticized not only by white audiences, but by members of his own community—accused of being too raw, too poor, too honest. Some feared that telling the truth about Black life would give America ammunition rather than insight.

Hughes refused to soften his work.

That choice mattered. Psychologically, it meant choosing isolation over approval. Truth over protection. He understood that being acceptable is often just another way of being silent—and he would not trade his voice for comfort.

Writing While Being Watched

There is another layer that makes his restraint feel heavier.

For years, Langston Hughes was monitored by the FBI. Not because he committed a crime—but because he believed openly, associated freely, and refused to dilute his ideas during a time when dissent itself was suspect.

To write under surveillance changes a person. It sharpens implication. It teaches economy. It turns quiet into strategy.

When Hughes writes with restraint, it is not caution born of fear—it is precision born of awareness. He knew eyes were on him. He wrote anyway.

That knowledge feels disturbingly modern.

The Loneliness Beneath the Voice

Hughes wrote for everyone, yet kept much of himself private. He never married. He rarely wrote directly about his own loneliness. He did not label his inner life for public comfort.

Instead, his poems are filled with solitary speakers. Individuals addressing America, not embraced by it. Voices standing just slightly apart—observing, listening, absorbing.

There is a particular clarity that comes from being adjacent rather than included. Hughes knew it well. It sharpened his empathy. It also left its mark.

He belonged everywhere in his work—and nowhere completely in his life.

The Quiet Before the Breaking Point

At the end of Harlem, Hughes leaves us with one final possibility:

“Or does it explode?”

The line hangs there. Unanswered. Because explosion is not always immediate. Sometimes it is delayed for decades. Sometimes it looks like rage. Sometimes like grief. Sometimes like entire communities reaching the edge of what restraint can hold.

Hughes understood that there is a cost to being unheard. That unresolved pressure does not dissolve. It transforms.

The question was never whether something would break.

Only when.

Why This Matters Now

Because America is still asking people to wait.

Because dreams are still being deferred with polite language and familiar excuses. Because frustration is still mislabeled as anger, and exhaustion is still mistaken for weakness. Because we are still more comfortable debating tone than listening to pain.

What Hughes understood—and what feels impossible to ignore now—is that silence does not mean consent. It means accumulation.

In an era of constant visibility, people are still unheard. In a country obsessed with progress, many are still being told to be patient. The language has changed. The pressure has not.

Hughes reminds us that what goes unacknowledged does not disappear. It lives in bodies. In communities. In moments when restraint finally gives way to reaction and everyone asks how it happened so suddenly.

It was never sudden.

Reading Hughes now isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about recognition. About understanding that the questions he asked were not meant for one generation alone. They were meant to be carried forward until they were answered honestly.

We are still carrying them.

And the dream—still deferred—still asks what comes next.

Author’s Note

I wrote this not because Langston Hughes belongs to the past, but because his work keeps meeting me in the present. His questions surface every time I hear someone told to wait, to soften, to be patient a little longer. This piece is not an analysis meant to resolve his poetry—it’s an acknowledgment of how unfinished it still feels, and why that unfinished feeling matters. Hughes listened carefully to the pressure beneath silence. I hope this essay encourages us to do the same.