5 Craigslist Ads That’ll Haunt Your Screen

VanishedVoyage

5 Craigslist Ads That’ll Haunt Your Screen      #DisturbingAds #CraigslistCreeps #InternetHorror #CreepyFinds #DarkWebVibes #YouWon’tBelieveThis #RealLifeNightmare #TrueInternetCrime #ScaryStoriesOnline #CraigslistChaos

Transcript

00:00In 2011, this job posting was uploaded to Craigslist, asking for someone to watch over

00:10a patch of farmland and feed a few cows somewhere in Southern Ohio in exchange for $300 a week.

00:16It ended up being one of the most notorious cases of ad-related crimes of the decade.

00:21The ad read,

00:22Caretaker Position for Farm, Southern Ohio.

00:25Simply watch over a 688-acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows.

00:31You get $300 a week and a nice two-bedroom trailer.

00:34Somewhat older and single preferred, but we'll consider all.

00:38Relocation a must.

00:40You must have a clean record and be trustworthy.

00:42This is a permanent position.

00:44The farm is used mainly as a hunting preserve, is overrun with game, has a stocked three-acre pond,

00:50but some beef cattle will be kept.

00:52Nearest neighbor is a mile away.

00:54The place is secluded and beautiful.

00:56It will be a real getaway for the right person.

00:59Job of a lifetime.

01:00If you are ready to relocate, please contact ASAP.

01:03Position will not stay open.

01:05Include name, age, phone number, and email, please.

01:08Some of the men who responded to the ad were interviewed directly by a man who identified

01:12himself as Jack, along with his 16-year-old accomplice, Brogan Rafferty, whom he referred

01:17to as his nephew.

01:19The candidates who made it to the interview stage said they didn't notice anything strange

01:22about Jack or his so-called nephew, and that they just looked like a couple of farmers who

01:26needed someone to look after their land.

01:28Scott Davis, a 48-year-old man who was interviewed by Jack over breakfast at a little restaurant

01:33in Marietta, Ohio, was the second-to-last candidate to go through the screening process for the

01:38job.

01:39After breakfast, he rode with Jack and Brogan to a remote wooded area near Akron.

01:44Immediately after getting out of the car to survey his surroundings, Davis heard a clicking

01:47sound.

01:48He turned around to see Jack pointing a gun at him.

01:51It was then that he realized that the click he heard had been the gun misfiring, but before

01:56he could react, Jack shot him in the elbow.

01:58Despite the wound, Davis managed to escape.

02:01He ran for his life for seven hours through the woods, eventually finding a house and asking

02:05the owner for help.

02:07They called 911, and news about the incident began to spread.

02:11Five days later, police received a call from a woman named Deborah Bruce, who claimed that

02:15her 51-year-old twin brother, David Pauley, had responded to the same job ad on Craigslist.

02:20According to Deborah, her brother had driven from Virginia to Ohio with all his belongings

02:25in his car, in the hopes that the new job would work out for him and help him get back on his feet.

02:30Tragically, a couple days later, police found the body of David Pauley, along with the body

02:34of another victim by the name of Ralph Geiger, buried in the woods close to where Scott Davis

02:38had been shot in the elbow.

02:40At this point in the case, investigators were able to identify a pattern in the victims.

02:45Jack and Brogan targeted homeless, down on their luck, or otherwise vulnerable middle-aged men

02:50with limited family ties, and lured them to an isolated location under the appearance of a

02:54life-changing job opportunity, only to later rob them of all their belongings and shoot them

02:59on the spot.

03:00Their hope was that, because of their few family ties, their disappearance would go unnoticed,

03:04giving Jack and Brogan enough time to bury the bodies and get rid of the evidence.

03:09This pattern explains why certain candidates were rejected during the interview process,

03:12such as 58-year-old Ron Sanson, a former Navy officer with a college degree, and an unnamed

03:18woman in her 20s who had also applied for the job.

03:21During the investigation, police traced the Craigslist ad, which led them to the home of

03:25a man named Joe Bice in Akron, Ohio.

03:28He denied posting the ad and claimed that it was probably posted by the man who rented out

03:32his basement space.

03:34When police asked Joe Bice for the name of his tenant, he responded that he only knew him

03:37as Dutch.

03:39Investigators were able to track Dutch down thanks to a phone call that he made to Joe

03:43Bice, unaware that his landlord had been in contact with the police.

03:46On November 16, 2011, police arrested Dutch and identified him as 52-year-old Richard Beasley.

03:53Scott Davis immediately confirmed that this was the same man who had interviewed him at

03:56the restaurant and shot him in the woods.

03:59Apparently, Richard Beasley had fled from the police and used different identities to avoid

04:02being detected, even using the names of some of his victims.

04:05Around that time, police also arrested Brogan Rafferty, Richard Beasley's teenage accomplice.

04:12At the time, Brogan was a 16-year-old high school student from Stowe, Ohio, whom Beasley

04:16had mentored and taken under his wing.

04:18Police searched Rafferty's house and found several weapons, as well as a disturbing poem

04:23hidden in his computer files from August 16, 2011.

04:27The chilling poem read,

04:28We took him out to the woods on a humid summer's night.

04:32The loud crack echoed and I didn't hear the thud.

04:35Investigators later determined that the poem described the murder of Ralph Geiger, one

04:40of the victims police had found in the woods.

04:43A few days later, on November 25, a fourth victim, a 47-year-old man named Timothy Kern,

04:48was found dead in the woods behind a mall in Akron.

04:51In 2013, Brogan Rafferty was sentenced to life without parole, and Richard Beasley was sentenced

04:56to execution after being found guilty of 27 total accounts of aggravated murder, aggravated

05:02robbery, kidnapping, and possession of illegal weapons.

05:06This innocent-looking job ad ended up being one of the most notorious luring posts in the

05:11site's history, and it played a strong contributing role to the sketchy connotation that Craigslist

05:16carries nowadays.

05:21On January 2nd, 2016, a disturbing ad was posted in the personal section of Craigslist.

05:28The personal section was a place where people could post personal ads for a variety of reasons.

05:32It was an interesting mix between an online dating platform, a space where people could

05:38rant and share their opinions on personal experiences, and a place for people to find

05:42friends with similar interests.

05:44Although most people used the personal section for legitimate reasons, it was also notorious

05:48for scams and other illegal activities, which is why Craigslist completely removed the section

05:53in 2018.

05:54This particular ad was posted by a person claiming to be a serial killer.

05:58Disturbingly, the post mentioned two public officials by name, and the person who uploaded

06:03the ad said that they would strike again.

06:06The ad read,

06:07Tulsa Murder.

06:09I was wanting to thank Tulsa for letting me have my first kill.

06:12It all started here, so I was thinking it should also be my first.

06:16I was nervous as hell, but I will get over it.

06:18It was a stranger on stranger, so the police will have a difficult time.

06:22It will not be my last though, thinking about going to OKC for next.

06:26To the people who started it all, Julie Free, Judge Glasgow.

06:30On the day that it was posted, the ad was immediately reported to the police, and an

06:34investigation was launched by the Tulsa Police Department.

06:37Specifically, the ad thanked a woman named Julie Free, an employee of the Department of

06:41Corrections and Judge Glasgow, who worked in the probate division of the Tulsa County

06:46District Court.

06:47The post thanked them, and referred to them as,

06:49The people who started it all.

06:51Because Julie Free and Judge Glasgow worked in overlapping departments, and would sometimes

06:56interact with the same offenders, police believed that the ad had to have been posted by someone

07:00who had, at some point, been involved in the criminal justice system, and that it might

07:04have been an act of revenge to stain their image.

07:07Craigslist provided the Tulsa Police Department all the information available about the post,

07:12but it didn't really lead anywhere.

07:14According to the police, there had been no recent crimes that matched the description

07:17provided in the ad.

07:19The police department said that the ad was probably a hoax, but they never found any

07:23evidence to prove it, which means it's still possible the post could have been legit.

07:27The homicide unit claimed that they had seen a similar situation before, when a 918 number

07:32texted random people disturbing questions about where to bury a body.

07:36The thing about the ad that aligned the police was that it specifically named two public officials,

07:41but to this day, it hasn't been confirmed whether this was just some sort of revenge hoax,

07:45or if something much more sinister was going on.

07:52In August of 2014, an 18-year-old girl named Haley Turner posted a Craigslist notice stating

07:57that she was, quote, looking to be abducted and taken away.

08:01Although the post immediately gained a lot of online attention, as far as I was able to

08:05find, images of the actual ad itself are no longer available.

08:09On August 7th, Haley left her house in Michigan and told her mother that she was going to run

08:13an errand. A few minutes later, she called a friend on the phone. During the conversation,

08:19she mentioned to her friend that she had noticed a man lying in the ditch in the middle of the road,

08:22and that she was going to get out of her car to see if he was okay. A few seconds later,

08:27Haley uttered the words,

08:28He has a gun, and the phone was suddenly disconnected. Terrified, the friend immediately

08:32called Haley's father, who drove to the area just north of Ohio in Bedford Township and found

08:37his daughter's car running in the road, but Haley was nowhere to be found. Haley was immediately

08:42reported as a missing person, and an investigation was launched to find her. Strangely, police found

08:48that at 10.06pm on August 7th, Haley had rented the DVDs for two movies from a family video store a few

08:55miles from Toledo, Ohio. The phone call with her friend had taken place a few minutes after that.

09:0016 hours after her disappearance, a local resident found Haley standing at a random corner holding a puppy

09:06in E-Course near Detroit. Although she was completely unscathed, she claimed that she had

09:11been abducted at gunpoint the night before, and that she had jumped from a moving vehicle to escape

09:15her captor. The whole story didn't really seem to add up, and police had a hard time believing her.

09:21The video footage from the DVD store where she was last seen didn't show anything suspicious,

09:25and there were no signs on her body suggesting that she had been attacked. After hours of questioning,

09:31Haley Turner eventually confessed, and pleaded guilty to causing a false police report to be filed.

09:36She was sentenced to three years probation and one month of community service, and was fined $15,000

09:41to reimburse the sheriff's office for the 16-hour search. Although her motives for faking her own

09:46abduction were never revealed, her mother mentioned that it had been an emotionally difficult year for

09:51her daughter, and that although she didn't justify her behavior, she interpreted the fake abduction as

09:56a cry for help. Some of Haley's other strange Craigslist posts indicated that she had a tendency to seek

10:01attention online, but these posts have since been deleted and are no longer publicly available.

10:07Disturbingly, police revealed that one man did actually respond to the ad, but Haley decided to

10:12fake her disappearance by herself instead of communicating with him. The fact that someone

10:17responded to this ad and was willing to carry out the abduction of an 18-year-old girl for money is

10:21pretty concerning. And what makes this even creepier is that the man who responded to Haley's

10:26ad asking to be abducted was never found by police. This creepy post was uploaded to Craigslist on July

10:3621st, 2009, by a man claiming to be a Baltimore-area homeowner. The ad pretty much speaks for itself,

10:44and it reads,

10:44By now you've probably heard of the Glenn Burney family that stored their 83-year-old grandmother's

10:50dead body in a freezer. It turns out that no law was broken. Yep, dumping a body is legal around

10:56here. Healthcare workers and other professionals are required to report deaths, but ordinary citizens

11:02are not. And apparently, no state law prohibits the burial or storage of a body on private property.

11:08I'm a laid-off Baltimore-area homeowner. After 10 months of unemployment and the future looking

11:13even more grim, I'm willing to consider allowing my backyard to be used for body dumping.

11:19Call it a private burial if you prefer. I could probably take a half-dozen bodies without arousing

11:24the attention of neighbors. It wouldn't hurt to have one under the garden, too.

11:28Me, a discreet Baltimore-county homeowner with a half-acre of easily tillable property on a quiet

11:33dead-end street. You, an individual, not a healthcare worker or other professional required

11:39to report a death, with the awkward inconvenience of disposing of a deceased relative,

11:43friend, colleague, or acquaintance. You must provide your own trash bags, tarp, quicklime,

11:49shovel, etc. I might be available to hold a flashlight, but I won't do any heavy lifting.

11:55Accidental deaths or natural causes only. I'm not getting involved in any shenanigans with

12:00Omar wannabes. I will not be a participant in or any accessory to any sort of crime. This is a

12:06limited-time offer. Act now before the state legislature changes the law. If and when the law

12:12changes, measures failed 10 years ago after the 1999 incident, you'll be grandfathered,

12:18literally and figuratively. Price is negotiable. Serious inquiries only.

12:23The post itself is off-putting enough, but the context behind the ad is even more disturbing.

12:29The links in the ad are both broken, but using the Wayback Machine, I was able to find a 2009

12:34version of the website, Welcome to Baltimore Hunt, which appears to be a sort of online guide for

12:39users to upload news and posts about their experience living in Baltimore. The link in

12:43the Craigslist ad leads to a blog post written by a man named Noam Sane. The article goes deeper

12:49into the reasons why he uploaded the ad to Craigslist, and what he hoped to accomplish with

12:53his underground private burial business. In the comments, more than a few users asked the

12:58man if they could use his backyard for a burial. The fact that the uploader of the ad explicitly

13:03mentioned that he wouldn't get involved in any criminal activity by burying anyone who hadn't

13:07died of natural causes has created a lot of online speculation. Using his backyard as a

13:13body dumping location would have been perfectly legal, and the only reason the ad stayed up for

13:17so long was because the man wasn't advertising an illegal service, such as burying people who

13:22had been murdered. This has made some people think that the only reason why he mentioned

13:26that he wouldn't get involved with any crimes in the first place was so that he could keep his ad

13:30up on the site, all while responding to emails and getting involved in much more shady

13:34body dumping business behind the scenes. Despite the disturbing nature of the ad, the claims Noam Sane

13:43made in the Craigslist ad are true. In 2009, it was legal for ordinary citizens to abstain from

13:49reporting a death and dump a body in Maryland, and the incident that he makes reference to in the ad

13:53really did happen. In 2009, police were called to an apartment in Glen Burnie, Maryland because the

13:59body of 83-year-old Doris Lee Cook was in the freezer. Police were told that the grandmother

14:04had died several weeks ago in the apartment she shared with her family, and because they had no

14:09money for a proper burial, they stored her body in the freezer for two weeks. The other incident that

14:14the ad mentions happened in 1999, and involved a 25-year-old father named Richard Marshall, who

14:20buried his 4-year-old daughter in a garbage bag in the woods in Severn, Maryland. The little girl had

14:25passed away in an accident eight months earlier, and because no law was broken, Richard Marshall was

14:30only charged for littering. Since then, several measures have been proposed to make body dumping

14:35illegal in Maryland. In 2007, a 49-year-old woman from Michigan named Anne Marie Linscott posted a

14:45generic freelance job ad on Craigslist. Although the ad has been deleted, and no evidence was made

14:51publicly available due to the sensitive nature of the incident, the three people who responded to

14:55the ad claimed that it looked like a job posting for a freelance writing gig. Disturbingly, as soon

15:00as the three people responded to the ad, they were emailed directly by Anne Marie Linscott, who

15:05explained that she was actually looking for a quote, silent assassin for an eradication task.

15:11She told the candidates that she was offering $5,000 to anyone who would eliminate a 56-year-old

15:16California woman named Carol, the wife of a man named Dwayne, who Linscott was having an affair with.

15:22According to police reports, Anne Marie and Dwayne had met in an online college course in 2005.

15:28That same year, they met in person and began their affair when Dwayne traveled to Nevada for a

15:32conference. Two years later, Anne Marie visited Dwayne in California, after which she started

15:37making plans to move to the West Coast. That's when she posted the murder-for-hire ad on Craigslist.

15:43After the candidates all reported the ad to the police, investigators tracked down Anne Marie

15:47Linscott and arrested her for using the internet to solicit murder. Police later found that she

15:53had also planted an explosive outside of Carol's bedroom in California, but because it didn't go

15:58off, she wasn't charged for it. After the incident, Carol left her family and career for three months

16:03and had to be hospitalized for stress. According to Linscott's friends and family, this wasn't the

16:08first time that Anne Marie became obsessed with a romantic interest. In 1997, she fell in love with

16:14a co-worker who had to get a restraining order after she began stalking him. Anne Marie's lawyer

16:19explained that she suffered from borderline personality disorder and severe attachment issues,

16:24but that didn't stop the court from sentencing her to 12 and a half years in prison in 2009.

16:29After serving her 12 and a half year sentence, Anne Marie Linscott was only recently released from prison.

16:44Anne Marie Linscott was only released from prison. Anne Marie Linscott was only released from

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