Stranger Than Fiction Vol. XIII

Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction, and today's podcast features three stories

that demonstrate that.

The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel

and has been remastered for today's episode.

The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

The first story you'll hear is called What's Wrong With Mommy, and it's about a family's

Christmas morning that quickly turns into a nightmare.

The second story you'll hear is called Stealing a Slice, and it's about a standoff in

a Domino's Pizza Chain that takes a wild turn.

And the third and final story you'll hear is called Peek Experience, and it's about

a man who wakes up after an avalanche and finds himself in another life or death situation.

But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious

delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we

do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays.

So if that's of interest to you, wait until the follow button has left for their summer

vacation, and while they're gone, go into their house and completely decorate the interior

and also the exterior for Christmas.

Okay, let's get into our first story called What's Wrong With Mommy.

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In the early evening hours of December 24, 2011, so Christmas Eve, 26-year-old Zazel

Preston sat on her bed in her little apartment in Anaheim, California, and wrapped Christmas

gifts for her children.

Laying next to her was her newest addition to the family, her third child, a seven-week-old

little boy.

This Christmas was a big deal for Zazel.

It was also a big deal for her husband, 30-year-old William Wallace, not only because it was

going to be the first Christmas with their new son, but also because this was the first

Christmas after Zazel and William had reconciled their relationship.

They had been married for the past three years, but over those three years, their relationship

had been very unhealthy and toxic and at times abusive.

Earlier that year, when Zazel had discovered that she was pregnant, this baby became

kind of like a new anchor point for their relationship.

It was like suddenly they could put their differences aside and just focus on raising

their kids together.

After wrapping her final present, Zazel hopped off the bed, she scooped up her little boy,

and then she headed out into the living room where she met up with her husband and her

two older children, who were little girls aged three and eight, and then they all headed

outside and went next door to celebrate Christmas Eve at a party with their neighbors.

Early the next morning, so on Christmas Day, Zazel's two oldest children, the two girls,

they got up early and they rushed out of their bedrooms and they ran down the hallway

into the living room where their parents were waiting for them on the couch along with

their baby brother.

The living room was completely decked out with Christmas decorations that the family had

put up over the past couple of weeks.

The Christmas tree was in the corner with bright multicolored lights and ornaments all over

it.

There were wreaths on the wall and other string lights around the top of the room and

then over their fireplace where all of their stockings nailed up stuffed with goodies.

The little girls squealed with delight and ran around the couch and took up spots right

underneath the Christmas tree and they grabbed their first present and they turned and looked

at their parents on the couch and they saw their dad kind of give them a nod of approval

which meant, okay, you can start opening your gifts.

And so the girls happily began tearing into the festive wrapping and then after each of

them had their brand new toy in hand, they turned around reflexively to show their parents.

And so William, he sees the toys and he says, oh, they're so great guys and then when

the girls they look at their mother and they show her the toys, she doesn't even react.

She completely ignores them.

And so at some point, you know, these little kids, they start yelling for their mom, hey

mom, check it out, look at this new toy.

But Zazel just sits there, she doesn't say a word, she's just sitting back on the couch

completely ignoring them.

Finally, the eight year old turns to William and says, what's wrong with mommy?

And at this point, William pauses and then he gives Zazel a scathing look before very

bluntly saying to these young kids, mommy got drunk and now she's ruined Christmas.

The girls knew from William's tone of voice that their parents must be fighting and so

they did what they normally did when this happened and that was to just try to ignore it.

And so the little girls, they turned away from their parents and began opening more

presents doing their best not to disturb their parents who were sitting silently behind

them.

And then a little after 9 a.m. after most of the presents had been opened, William abruptly

stood up and walked into the other room and placed a phone call.

And then a few minutes later, there was a loud knock on the front door.

The night before, after Zazel and William and their kids had left their neighbor's party

and come back to their apartment, Zazel and William had gotten into a vicious fight.

And by the time the kids had all gone to bed, the fight between the parents had become

very physical.

Neighbors would recall late at night on Christmas Eve hearing this very loud commotion coming

from Zazel and William's apartment.

And at some point, apparently Zazel had tried to run out of the apartment, but William

had chased after her and hauled her back inside.

The sounds coming from their apartment would eventually stop somewhere in the wee hours

of Christmas Day.

And then as the sun came up on Christmas Day, Zazel and William had made their way to the

couch and they were sitting there with their seven-week old baby waiting for their two oldest

to wake up and come open presents.

Except when their two little girls came out of their bedrooms and bombed into the living

room to begin celebrating, only William was alive.

Zazel had been beaten to death by William.

And after he had beaten her to death the night before, he had dragged her into the living

room, set her up on the couch to make it look like she was sitting, and then put sunglasses

on her eyes in order to trick the children.

And so all morning, as this three-year-old and eight-year-old are opening these gifts

and turning and showing their mother with excitement, she was dead the whole time.

But at around 9 a.m., William realized his charade was not going to last because his kids

were really keyed in to there being something wrong with their mother and so that was when

he got up and he called 911 and he told them that his wife had gotten drunk and fallen

into a glass coffee table and so she was hurt and so a little bit later the police and

paramedics they arrived, they go inside and right away they can tell, William is lying

to them.

There's more to this story than they're being told.

And so ultimately, William would be convicted of secondary murder and he would be sentenced

to 15 years to life in prison.

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Our next story is called Stealing a Slice.

On January 30th, 1989, two young men were working the afternoon lunch shift at a Domino's

Pizza Restaurant in Shambly, Georgia.

Their names were Darryl Wilson and Sean Bernset.

And most weeks, this shift that they worked together was really boring because virtually

nobody came into the restaurant.

But on this day, at around 11 a.m., as Darryl and Sean are kind of twiddling their thumbs

waiting for the shift to end, a man who was obviously disgruntled and very agitated, stormed

in the door, carrying a gun, a 357 magnum guns or really powerful handgun, and he aimed

it straight at them.

Darryl and Sean were so shocked by this that at first they didn't do anything, but then

it kind of dawned on them that, oh my goodness, this guy's coming in here to rob the place.

And so Darryl and Sean suddenly put their hands up and they began saying, okay, take

whatever you want, take whatever you want.

And the man suddenly began shouting something at them like he wanted something, and it

took Darryl and Sean a second to kind of understand what he was asking for, but when

they started to process the things he was saying, they kind of understood that this did not

seem like a robbery.

The guy was demanding that they call Tom S. Monahan, so he, this guy, the guy with the gun,

can talk to Tom.

Now Darryl and Sean may have known this, but probably not because they likely didn't

care, but Tom S. Monahan at the time was the owner of Domino's.

Not like this particular restaurant in Shambli, Georgia, but like the entire national

chain, he was the actual owner of the company.

And so this guy is coming in being like, let me talk to the owner of Domino's.

And so at some point Darryl and Sean understood who Tom S. Monahan was, perhaps the guy with

the gun explained it, or maybe one of them did know who Tom S. Monahan was, but either

way, Darryl and Sean suddenly realized, oh my goodness, this guy wants to talk to the

owner, but they have no way of getting in touch with the owner of Domino's.

They're just pizza cooks.

They're not like connected to the sea suite.

But when Darryl and Sean told the guy like, hey, we don't know how to get in touch with

the literal owner of this major franchise.

Well, the guy didn't like that, and he got really frantic and began yelling and screaming

like, you've got to do it, you've got to get Tom in the phone.

And so Darryl and Sean are like, okay, and they grab the phone, and they try to call

their own boss, because they don't know who else to call.

And as they're calling their own boss, this guy fires two shots into the ceiling.

So this is like a really high intensity situation that's escalating really quickly.

But Darryl, who actually was the one on the phone, he did his best to stay calm, and when

his boss got on the other line, he tried his best to explain the situation as quickly

as he could, because he could tell, you know, this guy with the gun is very close to potentially

shooting them.

And the boss of Darryl and Sean did understand, okay, clearly there is a crisis happening

at this branch.

And when Darryl said, you've got to find a way to get Tom S. Monahan on the phone, like

right now, his boss was like, I got it.

And a few minutes later, Darryl's boss, who's still on the phone with him, was like, okay,

I'm going to patch you through.

And then a second later, Tom S. Monahan hops on the phone, and he's like, what's going

on?

And at this point, Darryl just handed the phone over to the guy with the gun, and said,

here you go, Tom's on the phone, and the man with the gun grabbed the phone, put it

to his ear, and then began rattling off these totally bizarre demands.

He wanted a white limousine to show up to the restaurant to be his getaway car.

He wanted $10,000 in cash, and he wanted a copy of a science fiction novel about the

Freemasons called the Widow's Son.

And so Darryl and Sean, who are behind the counter witnessing this, they're hearing

these demands, and it's clicking for them, that clearly this guy is not mentally well.

This is a guy who's totally unhinged, and who knows what's going to happen.

After a few minutes on the phone, the gunman hung up, and then told Darryl and Sean

very calmly that now the three of them were just going to sit in this restaurant and

wait for his demands to be met.

And for the next five and a half hours, that's what they did.

Darryl, Sean, and the gunman who just kept the gun aimed at Darryl and Sean, they just

sat inside this restaurant.

And at the same time, you know, by this point, the police have been called, and they're

completely surrounding this restaurant, and when the gunman came into the store because

this was a very slow day, there weren't any other customers or staff inside, so it really

was just Darryl, Sean, and the gunman, and so it's a total standoff.

But interestingly, for Sean and Darryl, who are right there with this gunman, they started

to sense that this guy was not here to hurt them.

He was really after Tom Asmonahan, and over those five and a half hours they were just

sitting there with him with his gun aimed right at them, he periodically began telling

them, you know, what his grapes were with Tom Asmonahan.

The gunman told Darryl and Sean that Tom was specifically targeting him, the gunman,

and also Tom was secretly communicating with the gunman when the gunman didn't want

to talk to him, almost like telekinesis or something.

And also, the gunman told them that Tom Asmonahan periodically will walk around his property

at night, kind of creeping around, you know, scaring the gunman.

And Darryl and Sean, you know, they're hearing these things and not believing any of it,

but they were very empathetic and said, oh, yeah, I can understand why that would be an

issue.

I can understand why you'd come in here and demand to speak to Tom Asmonahan, yep, totally

get it.

And that was just kind of how the day was going.

And then around 4.30 pm, so they've been in there a long time by this point, the gunman

told Darryl and Sean that he was really hungry, so they better go make him some pizzas.

So Darryl and Sean just got up, they went in the back, they made two large, everything

pizzas, and after they were made, they put them in boxes and slid them across the counter

to the gunman.

And at this moment, Darryl and Sean knew the gunman in order to eat would have to put his

weapon down to open up the box and get the pizza.

And so the second they handed it over, without even communicating with each other, they

kind of waited for the gunman to put the gun down and he did, he put the gun down, he

opened the pizza up, he grabbed the slice, and at that moment Darryl and Sean began sprinting

past him towards the door and the gunman who's seeing this happening drops the pizza, grabs

the gun and he turns and he aims.

So to really understand what's happening here, you need to understand what type of marketing

dominoes like the national franchise was doing to advertise their product.

Starting in 1985, dominoes came up with a very popular advertising campaign called the

Noid.

And the Noid was actually a character, it was like this weird claymation character with

big sneakers and bunny ears.

He was like this goofy thing that was the equivalent of McDonald's hamburger, but this

was for pizza.

And what dominoes did with the Noid is they would run these ads on TV where the Noid

was like this menace who was always out to disrupt pizza deliveries.

Not necessarily dominoes, pizza deliveries, but generally pizza deliveries, it's like

the Noids gonna destroy them, either by freezing the pizzas on their way to the person's

house or smashing them into the ground or causing whatever mayhem the Noid could create

to stop pizzas from getting to their customers.

And so dominoes kind of catchy thing was avoid the Noid with dominoes, meaning like

dominoes, the chain was the only chain capable of avoiding all the chaos that could disrupt

you getting the thing you want, your pizza.

And this advertising campaign was brilliant, not only because it really worked, people

really liked dominoes because it did seem like they were superior, but also they were able

to kind of franchise this character itself, the Noid.

It became a toy you could buy and there was talk about doing a TV show and maybe a movie

around this Noid character.

And Michael Jackson, like the King of Pop, he put the Noid in one of his music videos,

I mean this was a really, really successful advertising campaign, but for as successful

as this campaign was, it did unfortunately lead to what happened inside of this dominoes

restaurant in Shambley, Georgia.

So on the day this gunman came charging in and held up the place, you know, aiming the

gun at Sean and Darryl, it would turn out the gunman's name was Kenneth Lamar Noid.

And Kenneth Lamar Noid was not going into the store to get money or to steal food or

to hurt, you know, Darryl or Sean, he was there to get his revenge on Tom S. Monahan,

who he looked at as the person responsible for coming up with this Noid campaign.

Because Kenneth Lamar Noid was very mentally ill and he believed the avoid the Noid campaign

was not a marketing campaign, but rather Tom S. Monahan specifically targeting Kenneth

Lamar Noid, basically making him out to be this big villain.

That Kenneth's plan for how to deal with this totally backfired because in a totally

ironic twist by holding up this dominoes franchise and creating this huge standoff, he literally

became like the Noid because no pizza deliveries could be had that entire day out of that franchise.

And so Kenneth Lamar Noid, in an effort to stop Tom S. Monahan from running this Noid campaign

because I'm no villain, I don't go after pizzas, I don't try to stop people from getting

their pizzas.

And in effort to do that, that is exactly what he did.

He literally became the human version of the Noid.

And so after Darryl and Sean made a run for it towards the door, Kenneth did grab his

gun and he did aim it at the two men and he even fired it a couple of times.

But he missed and Darryl and Sean were totally unheard.

In fact, nobody got hurt.

All that happened is Kenneth Lamar Noid looked like the Noid and he got arrested.

However, instead of going to jail, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital.

As for the actual advertising campaign itself, which was very successful, you know, avoid

the Noid.

Well, they would not survive this total PR nightmare.

And Tom S. Monahan canceled it immediately after Kenneth Lamar Noid was taken off.

So in a weird way, Kenneth actually did sort of get his revenge.

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The next and final story of today's episode is called Peek Experience.

On April 1, 1984, a 28-year-old man named James Sevenye opened his eyes and looked down

and saw his whole body was covered in snow, and a lot of that snow had turned red from

what looked like blood.

James tried to take a breath in, but as soon as he did, his chest exploded in pain.

Then James began moving his tongue around in his mouth, and he realized there was this

weird substance in his mouth, and there were all these sharp objects in his mouth, and

so when he spit, he realized what it was, it was blood and shattered teeth.

James began to panic and tried to lift up one of his arms, but it wouldn't move, and

then when he tried to move his other arm, it did move, but that little movement hurt

so bad he began crying in pain.

So James is dealing with this blinding full body pain that he has no idea what it came

from.

He's looking around and he can barely understand where he is or what happened, but then

James looked up kind of right behind him and he saw this enormous snow-covered mountain.

Now James had no idea what mountain this was, but in his head, he thought, you know,

I must have attempted to climb that mountain.

James was a self-described climbing bum, which really just meant he lived out of his

car most of the time and traveled all around the world, seeking out the most dangerous

mountains in the world for him to climb.

And so as James was racking his brain, trying to remember what happened, suddenly it all

just came flooding back.

He remembered he was here in the Canadian Rockies, with his best friend, Richard Whitmore,

and the two of them had attempted to climb this particular mountain.

It was an 11,000-foot tall mountain called Mount Delta Form, and James remembered that

as they were making their way up this mountain, they were hit by an avalanche.

Now James didn't really remember what happened once the avalanche hit them, but it would

turn out he had fallen along with his friend Richard, about 140 stories as this avalanche

carried them down the mountain.

For reference, that's taller than the Empire State Building, so this is a massive fall.

And so as James is remembering that avalanche, he began looking around frantically for his

friend, Richard, hoping that maybe he was okay and nearby, and they could work together

to get out of this situation.

And sure enough, at some point, James looked over, and he saw there was a crumpled figure

kind of lying in the snow that obviously was another person.

And so James instinctively tried to sit up to go over to his friend, but as soon as he

attempted to do that, he felt the blinding pain in his body.

I mean, he is totally wrecked here, and he couldn't stand up.

That James really wanted to go see his friend, so he kind of rolled over, and through the

pain using his one good arm, he crawled his way over to Richard, and for a second, he thought

maybe his friend was alive that he too had survived this epic fall.

But as he looked down at Richard, he could see his chest was not moving, and his neck was

twisted really badly and so was his back, and so James knew his friend Richard was dead.

And so James just collapsed into the snow, feeling unbelievable anguish and sadness and fear.

I mean, this is the only other person out here.

They are nowhere near civilization, and it's going to be at least four days before anybody

even notices that they aren't back yet, because that was when James and Richard were supposed

to be home.

And now, James is thinking like, I can't even stand up, I can barely breathe, I'm so badly

hurt, what am I going to do?

And pretty quickly, James adopted the mindset of, unfortunately, you're going to die here.

And this was something James said at which thought would happen to him eventually, that a

mountain would end up killing him, and here he was, realizing that, yep, that's exactly

what's about to happen, I'm going to die out here.

And so James just kind of lay there, resigned to his fate, literally waiting to die.

And after about twenty minutes, when his body began to go numb and he was starting to enter

into hypothermia, James heard a voice from behind him.

It was this woman who walked right up to him, and she said, you can't give up, you have

to try.

And James, even though he was totally caught off guard that there was another person

out here, there was something so calming about this woman and the way she was talking to

him, that without any hesitation, it was like James's whole mindset about this situation

completely changed.

Suddenly, he was not ready to give up and die.

But now, because of this woman, he was going to fight to survive.

And so, after kind of moving around and looking back towards this woman, she would say to

him, put your coat on.

And so James, despite the excruciating pain, used his one arm that still worked, and kind

of propped himself up, and then he pulled his coat out of his pack, which was lying near

him.

And very painfully, he slipped this coat over his broken and damaged arms.

And then once the coat was on him, the woman said to James, now take a sip of water.

And so James, without any hesitation, he reached over and grabbed this water.

He unscrewed the top and took a sip.

Even though the water stung his totally shattered mouth.

And then after James put the water down, the woman very calmly told him, okay now, disconnect

yourself from Richard's body, and then use the tree right here to pull yourself up.

And so he untied from Richard, and then using his one good arm, he grabbed the tree, and

he managed to hoist himself up onto his totally destroyed legs.

And he couldn't believe he was even standing at this point.

But here he was, you know, up on his feet.

And then the woman said, okay, it's time to move.

And so James began walking away from the mountain, and this woman just followed along

behind him.

And for a long time, he trudged through this knee-high snow, barely able to take a step

without this blinding pain coursing through his body.

But every time he began to stumble or slow down or seemed like he was going to give up,

the woman would very calmly urge him to keep going, keep going, keep moving.

And finally, after about four hours of this horribly painful trek, James was on, he came

upon the camp that he and his friend Richard had built before coming over to this mountain

to begin this climb.

And so James quickly began moving towards his tent that was still pitched, that he knew

inside had a warm sleeping bag and some water and food.

And so as he made his way towards the tent, he stopped himself, and he turned around to

talk to his guide to thank her for pushing him onward, but when he turned, there was

no one there.

And when he looked at the ground, there was only one set of bloody footprints that were

his, leading all the way back to where he had fallen.

This guide, this woman, she didn't exist.

James was totally unsettled by this and really didn't know what to do about it.

But he knew right now the priority was just to survive.

And so he made his way over to his tent, and he attempted to get inside of it, but his

hands were so cold and so badly beaten up that he couldn't use the zipper, he couldn't

even get it open.

And then finally, when he managed to use a tool to get it open, he couldn't open up

his sleeping bag, it was like his body was shutting down.

And so we thought, okay, I'll make a fire, and that will be enough to keep me warm.

But again, it's like his body was failing him and he couldn't do it, he couldn't start

the fire.

And so right as James is realizing that, you know, despite making it to this campsite,

he may not be able to survive because he can't use the campsite, he began to hear voices.

Right away, James is worried that the voices he's hearing don't really exist, like this

woman he had seen, but sure enough, just a second later, three skiers came around the

corner and they saw James.

And amazingly, one of them was a very experienced mountain guide, and another one of them

was a nurse.

And so right away, when they saw James, they saw he was dying, the nurse rushed over, she

made a fire for him, she got him comfortable, she put on warm clothes, and the mountain guide

he took off to go get help.

And sure enough, a couple hours later, a helicopter arrived and they airlifted James out and he

would make a full recovery.

However, it would take James years before he finally opened up about this mysterious

vanishing woman who literally saved his life.

Without her talking to him and urging him to go, he would have laid there next to his

friend and died.

But James, he was afraid to bring up that he had seen this woman, and fear that people

would think he was crazy.

But when he finally brought it up, he would quickly learn that he was far from the first

person to experience this phenomenon of having this invisible person help you.

In fact, this phenomenon is common enough that it has its own name, it's called the

third man effect.

The third man refers to this mysterious vanishing person that steps in and helps people survive

who have just undergone some horribly traumatic event.

An example of somebody else who has experienced the third man effect was the very last person

to escape the second world trade center tower on September 11, 2001 in New York City during

the terrorist attacks.

He was able to get out right before it collapsed because a mysterious vanishing voice told

him exactly which direction to go until he escaped.

And so whether the third man effect is actually supernatural or just a trick of survivor psychology,

you know, we don't know.

James, who is both an atheist and a scientist, says he does not believe that this woman who

saved him was an angel or connected to religion in any way.

Instead, he just said, you know, it was a presence that I needed at the time that saved

my life, but that is the extent of my understanding.

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes

use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic

purposes.

The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive

produced by me, Mr. Ballin.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone, research and fact-checking

by Shelley Xu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan, research

and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear, audio editing and post-produced by Whit

Lucacio, Jordan Stidham, and Cole Lucacio, production coordination by Samantha Collins,

production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Clogsden

Keiner, theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive

episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin

YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have

to see to believe.

Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.

If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to

SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash Podcast Plus to

listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.

So that's going to do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya.

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