Where's My Son?

Dawn has a gift. She can see people who aren’t there. And then, one night, a spirit comes to her and threatens to take Dawn’s son away if she doesn’t help her. Dawn has to decide if her gift is actually a curse.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Twinkle, twinkle, pox and poey. What's inside this little boy? Strings and fur and mud and sticks and if you poke it, it'll kick. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ah! Listen to Spooked. Say, "Toot."

• 0:25Glynn Washington?

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• 1:07Speaker 02

  Do you like scary stories? Think you've heard it all? Well, you've never heard it like this.

• 1:15Speaker 02

  Radio Rental is a horror podcast featuring true scary stories told by real people.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  He's tapping. Tap, tap, tap. He's tapping on the door. He wants us to open the door.

• 1:27Speaker 04

  And then their light turns on. And then their light turns on in the shape of a triangle. And I'd say it's probably about the length of a school bus, you know, right above my head.

• 1:35Speaker 05

  She had long, ratted hair. She was wearing a dress. Her ribs were showing. Her fingers were long. She looked shriveled, partially decayed.

• 1:46Speaker 06

  I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I'm pleading with them to just please let me out. Dee's eyes started opening. They were pure white. And I lose it.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Radio Rental returns October 23rd. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:14Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so ever since the firecrackers started, I've been wanting to take him. I live close to Oakland's Chinatown and as soon as you start hearing that pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, you know it's just about time for this massive Chinese New Year celebration. And my little man, who is just two years old, I tell him, "We gotta get ready because we're going to the festival, right?" And it's a beautiful Saturday, thousands upon thousands of people packing the streets, but I've got a plan. We start early, kind of push through the crowd to find a spot on the curb where a tiny boy can actually see what's happening.

• 2:53Glynn Washington?

  He's looking around, all wide-eyed, excited, and finally, procession starts with all these synchronized drummers marching, and he's trying to clap to the beat. They're followed by a kids' dancing troupe, decked all in white, and it's angelic. I stare at him, seeing all of this for the first time, it's awesome. Men stroll by with giant stilts for legs, throwing candy, then hundreds of elderly women holding yellow and blue lanterns, puppets on strings, a twirling flower show, it is so much color. Then the crowd starts pressing in tight, tight, tight, and I know it's just about time.

• 3:37Glynn Washington?

  And there it is, gorgeous, red and orange and black, 25 feet long, leaping, shimmying, animated by six separate dancers, the dragon, tail whipping from side to side, diving, shaking, it's magical. The drums, the color, the dance of the beast, the dragon's head spins directly towards us, it opens wide its huge mouth. My little boy looks up at the monster and takes off, running, top speed through this wall of people, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" I run after him, but I'm a grown man fighting this press of people.

• 4:18Glynn Washington?

  "Hey, hey, look down, look down, there's a little boy, look for a little boy." 10 seconds.

• 4:28Glynn Washington?

  Twenty seconds. Who sees a little boy?

• 4:33Glynn Washington?

  Sixty seconds. I'm past full panic. Nobody move! Nobody move! There's a little boy! I'm like a crazy person. Look down! Everybody look down! A little boy! A boy! Boy!

• 4:47Glynn Washington?

  Two minutes go by. Three. I see two police officers. I-I need a perimeter! Right there! Right at the curb! He's gone! He's two! Two years old! Don't let any people leave! Don't let anybody leave! Call! Call somebody! They look at me like I'm crazy. And I'm running again, screaming. Boy! Boy!

• 5:09Glynn Washington?

  And then I see him.

• 5:12Glynn Washington?

  Sitting down the stairs. Somebody's shop. Eating an ice cream cone. Where did he get an ice cream cone? Probably pulled it out of the garbage or something. And I-I'm weeping. I'm running up to him. Hugging on him, kissing on him. Boy! Boy, where'd you go?

• 5:29Glynn Washington?

  Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that?

• 5:32Glynn Washington?

  And he looks up at me. Like I'm simple. Like he has to explain things to me slowly.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  I-I see the dragon. I run away fast.

• 5:45Glynn Washington?

  He takes a bite out of his ice cream cone. He nods like he's confident in that decision. But I'm still out of my mind. I wanna holler some more. Tell him not to run away from dragons. But that doesn't even make any sense. So I think about it. And I say. Listen, hey. Hey.

• 6:05Glynn Washington?

  The next time. You run away from monsters.

• 6:10Glynn Washington?

  Take daddy with you.

• 7:20Glynn Washington?

  Now, you know that parenting can be tough in the best of circumstances. 21-year-old stay-at-home mom Dawn Presley, she's felt cursed for most of her life because she's able to sense spirits. But she's never seen one. Then one day, she visits her Seattle neighborhood playground. Spooked.

• 8:11Speaker 07

  I was there with my foster mom, and we decided she had the day off work. We're gonna go let the kids play and get some pretzels. So my foster mom is watching my son at the playground, and I run in to go to the bathroom. Being six months pregnant, the bathroom is my friend.

• 8:39Speaker 07

  I came out of the bathroom stall, and I looked in the mirror,

• 8:46Speaker 07

  and I see two women in the mirror.

• 8:51Speaker 07

  One is very young and dressed in vintage clothing. And the other is a woman in her 60s or 70s, dressed in modern clothing. But there's only one woman standing there, the older lady in the modern clothing. And I thought it was odd. And...

• 9:22Speaker 07

  The older lady is not doing anything. The younger lady looks at me in the mirror. So I'm standing back and she looks at me and all of a sudden, this vision comes to me of these two girls that are sisters. And one falls into a frozen lake.

• 9:45Speaker 07

  And I see a cracked form. And she tries to avoid it.

• 9:54Speaker 07

  But she falls through and dies.

• 9:58Speaker 07

  And I, I feel the emotion of sadness coming from her. As the vision floods my mind, I'm amazed and don't quite understand what's happening. I, am I really seeing this? Am I really hearing this?

• 10:17Speaker 07

  This girl's looking at me. She's not talking to me, but she's giving me these images. It's like I'm in her, seeing things from her perspective. I get a shiver because I'm cold. And I'm watching the hole in the ice kind of start to close as I sink.

• 10:46Speaker 07

  And, um,

• 10:50Speaker 07

  I just kind of get this emotional feeling like what the spirit is trying to tell me.

• 11:00Speaker 07

  But they were so close. Like literally best friends did everything together that this sister who passed chose to stay with her sister because she wanted to protect her and be with her and love her.

• 11:15Speaker 07

  And, um,

• 11:19Speaker 07

  then the, I just am so freaked out. I, you know, I finished washing my hands and I leave really quick.

• 11:32Speaker 07

  I just was so shocked. As I'm walking out of the bathroom, I'm taking slow, deep breaths, walking very slowly back to the playground. And before I get there, I sit down and I go over in my head again, what did I just see? I knew things I shouldn't know. And I don't know how I know them. And all of a sudden, I knew that this was the sister of the woman standing in the bathroom and that she had been there to protect her.

• 12:18Glynn Washington?

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• 13:00Glynn Washington?

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• 13:26Speaker 07

  So I get up. I gather my emotions and I walk to my foster mom.

• 13:37Speaker 07

  I tell her I just had the weirdest experience in my life.

• 13:43Speaker 07

  And this, I walk out of the bathroom and there's one lady standing there, but there's two ladies in the mirror.

• 13:52Speaker 07

  I tell her what happens.

• 13:55Speaker 07

  And she's kind of speechless. And my foster mom looks at me and she hugs me. And she says, I love you. Let's just move on with our day now.

• 14:28Speaker 07

  My next experience.

• 14:33Speaker 07

  The one I think that really taught me the most, to be honest.

• 14:40Speaker 07

  About a year later.

• 14:43Speaker 07

  My then-husband and I.

• 14:47Speaker 07

  We moved to Montana.

• 14:51Speaker 07

  And it was kind of a quiet Midwest typical small town. My sons are now one and a half and six months old.

• 15:09Speaker 07

  Just like most nights, I was positive my neighbors are having another party.

• 15:16Speaker 07

  I go to the window to look and they're not having another party. There's just one woman. I can hear her yelling, but I can't understand what she's saying. She has brown wavy hair just past her shoulder. She's got bangs. She's mid to late twenties and she is wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a brown leather jacket, a white shirt with a blue sweater, 80s style clothing.

• 15:58Speaker 07

  She keeps looking under cars, looking around the bushes, trying to find something. I said, James, James, get over here. Do you see this woman? She's sitting out here yelling. Can you go talk to her and tell her to be quiet so we can get the kids to sleep? And my husband looks at me in all honesty and says, there's nobody out there. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't hear anything. There's nobody out there. My heart starts racing.

• 16:37Speaker 07

  I get goosebumps and I'm realizing this is a spirit. Every night for the next three weeks, the exact same thing happens. Like she's stuck in a loop and has to repeat herself. One night, I'm looking through my bedroom window. The lady turned and looked at me and we locked eyes. And I instantly had a vision.

• 17:21Speaker 07

  I knew that her son was dead and I knew and she didn't.

• 17:31Speaker 07

  The landlord was babysitting.

• 17:35Speaker 07

  And the little boy was just being really annoying. And the landlord pushed him. And he fell and hit his head. And he died.

• 17:50Speaker 07

  In a panic, the landlord opened the boy's window

• 17:56Speaker 07

  to make it look like he had run away.

• 17:59Speaker 07

  Took the kid and buried him by the river. When the mother returned and they couldn't find her son,

• 18:08Speaker 07

  she was so overcome by grief, she took her life.

• 18:14Speaker 07

  The minute she realized I could see her, it was strange, like, how had she not noticed me before?

• 18:25Speaker 07

  She looked me straight in the eye and then looked around and then looked me straight in the eye again.

• 18:35Speaker 07

  I backed away from the window and climbed into bed, pulled the covers up as far as I can. I grabbed my book to distract me.

• 18:48Speaker 07

  And then it was like I could feel her moving closer towards me as she walked into my house. It was like she must have walked through the walls.

• 19:02Speaker 07

  And I saw out of the corner of my eye a movement down the hall before she walked into my room.

• 19:14Speaker 07

  I was scared. I didn't know what was gonna happen. And I'm sitting up in bed.

• 19:22Speaker 07

  My husband is asleep beside me.

• 19:26Speaker 07

  And she walks right up next to me and just stares at me. And I'm terrified.

• 19:38Speaker 07

  I could kind of see through her, but she was right there in front of me, just staring at me. She was pale, like sickly.

• 19:52Speaker 07

  And I just look at her

• 19:56Speaker 07

  and then go back to my book and pretend that I can't see her. After staring at me for maybe five or 10 minutes, she leaves.

• 20:11Speaker 07

  And then we do it again the next night and the next night.

• 20:18Speaker 07

  After about a week, she started to bring other spirits to stand in the room and watch our interaction. She knew I was afraid of her and wanted to intimidate me with more spirits just standing there, watching.

• 20:35Speaker 07

  My husband just believes that I'm losing my mind, maybe postpartum depression, missing family, being in another state. And he dismisses it

• 20:51Speaker 07

  and doesn't believe me. To not speak of it to anybody, especially the children or him, I'm exhausted because I'm not sleeping. And more spirits every day start coming.

• 21:08Speaker 07

  When I finally decided to confront her, there was probably 15 to 20 spirits in the room. It felt like I had an audience to my sleeping.

• 21:21Speaker 07

  I said, "What do you want? What do you want?" And she said, "Just tell me where my son is. I know you know."

• 21:34Speaker 07

  I remember looking in her eyes.

• 21:39Speaker 07

  And there was just such sorrow, sadness, depth that I could have never imagined.

• 21:49Speaker 07

  I tell her, I don't know.

• 21:53Speaker 07

  I straight up lied to her.

• 21:57Speaker 07

  She said, I know you're lying. And walked out.

• 22:03Speaker 07

  As a mother, I really sympathized for her. I could not imagine my children leaving this plane of existence before me.

• 22:16Speaker 07

  But I couldn't tell her because I didn't believe myself. At this point in my life, I had been so invalidated with my curse for so many years that I didn't believe what I was feeling, what I was seeing.

• 22:33Speaker 07

  And I didn't want to give her false hope.

• 22:51Speaker 07

  One night, I looked at her and said, I don't know where your son is. I'm sorry. She turned to me and said, I don't want you lying to me anymore. She walked out of the bedroom, stood next to my son's door, turned, looked at me angrily,

• 23:18Speaker 07

  and then walked into the room. So of course, I got up and watched her from the doorway. She walked up to my son's bed.

• 23:30Speaker 07

  I said to her, what are you doing?

• 23:34Speaker 07

  And she said, you will tell me the information.

• 23:38Speaker 07

  You'll tell me where my son is.

• 23:41Speaker 07

  And she put her hand above my son.

• 23:48Speaker 07

  I believed at that moment that she was fully capable of strangling my son in his sleep.

• 23:58Speaker 07

  So I told her that her son had been murdered by their landlord, who was also their neighbor, and he was buried by the river.

• 24:10Speaker 07

  Next to the bridge, under the rocks.

• 24:15Speaker 07

  She walked out of the room.

• 24:19Speaker 07

  And I thought that was it. I kissed my kids and I climbed back in bed.

• 24:26Speaker 07

  About 10 minutes later, I can feel her again. And I get out of bed because I can feel her coming closer. But she feels different. There's no sadness and sorrow coming out of her. And I go look in my living room. She's standing there with her son. They were holding hands.

• 24:54Speaker 07

  He couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Dark brown hair, cut short.

• 25:02Speaker 07

  He was wearing a white turtleneck and a dark blue sweatshirt.

• 25:13Speaker 07

  She has a new light about her. She looks at me, smiles and says, "Thank you." And I can feel her joy.

• 25:25Speaker 07

  I tell her I'm sorry and you're welcome. I feel so bad that I waited so long to tell her because I couldn't trust my own self. I had never been validated. Nobody believed me.

• 25:42Speaker 07

  After I told her you're welcome, they walked away

• 25:49Speaker 07

  and just kind of disappeared, like two or three steps and then gone. Like they had just walked through a curtain.

• 26:00Speaker 07

  I believe that us running into each other was pure chance. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time for her. But at the time, I didn't realize that that was my responsibility. I started to wonder, oh, maybe this isn't a curse. Maybe this isn't so bad. I was able to help someone. After I had dealt with this lady's son, the other spirits that she brought started talking to me as well.

• 26:42Speaker 07

  Some of them wanted information that I wasn't always able to provide. Some of them wanted closure. And some of them wanted to just say goodbye before they passed on. They needed to talk to someone. And they would just come in. And it was like a floodgate had opened. It set me on the path of being able to accept myself and to really trust myself with my gift.

• 27:33Glynn Washington?

  Thank you so much, Dawn, for sharing your gift and reuniting a family from beyond the veil. I couldn't do it. I couldn't. But Dawn, she helps folks just like her, those who can feel what is beyond the veil. We're going to have more information about Dawn's work in our show notes. The original score for that story was by Sudie Watchpress. It was produced by Chris Hembrick.

• 28:12Glynn Washington?

  Now, spooksters, we walk this path together. Spook, Season 6. And do you possess a power that no one will believe? That you don't understand yourself? That you are scared to tell the people close to you? Well, tell me all about it. Email us your story, [email protected], because there is nothing better than a spook story from a spooked listener. Let us know. [email protected]. And at the dark side, know that you're ready. Get the spook t-shirt of your dreams. It's available right now at snapjudgment.org. And remember, if you like your storytelling under the bright light of day,

• 28:54Glynn Washington?

  get the amazing, stupendous Snap Judgment Podcast, because it might just change your life. It's storytelling with a beat.

• 29:15Glynn Washington?

  Spook was created by the team that always tells kids the truth about the sounds that go bump in the night. Except, of course, for Mark Ristich. The youngsters know not to ask him any questions. There's Anna Sussman, Eliza Smith, Chris Hamrick, and when Lauren Newsom, Davy Kim, Leon Morimoto, Renzo Gorio, Teo DeCot, Marissa Dodge, Zoe Farigno, Tiffany DeLiza, Ann Ford, Greta Weber, and Doug Stewart. The spook theme songs by Pat Massey Miller. My name is Don Washington, and I understand that people like comfort, warmth, that folk love to enjoy the finer things life has to offer. There is nothing wrong with that.

• 30:00Glynn Washington?

  As long as it doesn't make you complacent, forgetful, lull you into a false sense of security so that you neglect even the basic steps that keep dark forces at bay, no matter who you think you are or what you think you've done. Listen when I tell you, never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, turn out the lights.