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well let's just start with you introducing yourself uh my name is Amber Don and I live with my family in Berwyn
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Illinois I work as a animal trainer at the Shedd Aquarium and that's about it what kind of animals do you train mostly
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penguins and otters but I also work with all of our animals in the Marine Mammal
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Department what do you train a penguin to do um mostly husbandry care so we practice
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going to the vet with them we ask them to be calm in our lap and calm with other people we can teach them to spin
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and to follow us train them you know to come to their names you can teach a penguin almost anything
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so do you have like Penguin friends ones that you like more than others well I love all of her Penguins but I do have
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my favorites I helped hand raise 11 of them so um yeah I mean a penguin chooses you
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they choose you to be their person and then every time you come out into exhibit they come
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out of the water and run up to you and do their little flirty Behavior I knew I wanted to work with animals
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ever since I was a small child so I started working with them eight years ago oh
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we're we're here to talk about something that happened longer ago than that um how long ago were you living in that
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apartment in Washington 21 years ago long before she worked with penguins amberdon moved to one of the rainiest
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places in America the small town of Enumclaw Washington to be closer to her brother and
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sister-in-law it was gorgeous I could see Mount Rainier out of my bedroom window of this
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apartment like right there it was it was gorgeous she moved into a small apartment
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building her apartment was on the top floor a one bedroom with a little dining room a living room and kitchen and a
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little balcony on the front she was 20. the first night I moved in you know I had I had been playing music
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while I was unpacking and I went to bed that night and I turned off the music and I was laying in
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my bed and I heard footsteps in the Attic and they're a very clear footsteps um and I I wasn't quite sure why I would be
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hearing that but you know all whenever you move into a new apartment you know you start to notice all the little
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different sounds that that particular space makes and so I wasn't quite sure what it was but it sounded like
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footsteps had you been told that there was an attic in the apartment or was did you
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have an entrance to the attic in your apartment there was a crawl space that it was just
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a little push-up I don't even know what you would call it like a it's like a trap door in the
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ceiling kind of sort of yeah it was like it would push up into the ceiling so it
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was like a a square maybe two and a half by two and a half feet that push up into
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the ceiling and that came into my bedroom or it was in my bedroom ceiling so I could see it from my bed
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and I thought okay you're you know that's probably not what it is you know you're
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you have an act like I know I have an active imagination so I just you know fell asleep anyway but the next
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day I went to the landlord and I told them you know I I think I heard footsteps up there last night is there any way
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that anybody could be up there and uh she told me no she said it was probably squirrels or raccoon or
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something I was like well that squirrels were in a pretty big set of boots then we've all had that feeling that
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something isn't quite right and we're very good at talking ourselves down going on with our lives telling
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ourselves that it's all in our imagination and most of the time it is I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
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[Music] oh [Music] I was very meticulous you know everything was very organized I
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knew it was in my cupboards and I would buy a six-pack of soda I would drink one maybe take one to work
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with me and I would come back and there would be three left and it's like well did I drink two
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that's odd or like cans of soup would be missing what did you did what did you think was happening
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well I I had moved to Enumclaw to be close to my brother and he lived about three blocks away he
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had a key to the apartment I assumed that he was coming into my apartment and eating my food because I that is
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something he would do just come over and grab a can of soda or whatever so I I thought it was him did you confront him
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yeah I called him I told him you know I can't afford to feed you don't come over
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here and eat my food and it it wasn't happening all the time I just would notice it every now and
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again Amber wasn't home much she was working several jobs processing papers for an accountant working at the local
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drugstore and waitressing at night so when she noticed that little things in her apartment had been moved she'd
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second guess herself chalk it up to exhaustion she was starting to feel at home in
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Enumclaw she had her two cats and then she got a puppy she she was beautiful German Shepherd mix she was
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maybe nine or ten weeks old so really little yeah she's just a baby so she was learning to be potty trained so I would
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come home in between my jobs and walk her and I was kenneling her in the bathroom
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while she was you know learning her her manners and learning to be potty trained
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so I kept her in the bathroom with you know newspaper on the floor and water and toys and stuff one night she was
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waitressing when she got a call from her landlord saying that her bathroom was flooding and my downstairs neighbor was
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getting rained on in her bathroom so I I came home and we we came in my apartment
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and I opened up the bathroom door and my puppy was in the bathroom sink I asked her I was like did you put her
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in the sink she's like no we wouldn't open the door because we didn't know how big the dog was we didn't know if it was
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people friendly so this is why you had to come here but there's no way she could have gotten
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into that sink she was a little puppy and the toilet was you know far enough away from the sink that she wouldn't
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have been able to climb was there water all over the ground uh-huh it was a big mess
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but the puppy was dry like safe in the sink yeah she was sitting in this foreign
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but like someone must have put her in the sink right there's no way she could have yes someone must have put her in
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that sink Enumclaw is a tiny safe farming Community nothing ever went on there so anytime Amber got worried she just
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reminded herself that her brother and sister-in-law were three blocks away and she kept herself busy
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she'd been living in her apartment for about six months when she got sick and called into her jobs
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and so on this day for the very first time she didn't leave her apartment at all it was around seven o'clock at night
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I was on the couch and I was watching I was watching my stories watching my TV and I heard a loud thump in the bedroom
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and I just dismissed it because I have animals and they make noise and I just just missed it and kept on
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watching television later on that evening around 11 or so I turned off all the lights
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I drew a bath I got undressed and I got into the bathtub and I so I'm in the bathtub I got a
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candle lit and I look up and that crawl space door was open and everything just slowed way down
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and you're in the bath in the bathtub I'm in the bathroom naked in the bathtub naked in the bathtub in the dark
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and I must have sat in that bathtub for 10 to 15 seconds after seeing that crawl
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space door open but it felt like five minutes and I put it all together I was like
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okay the footsteps the first night the doors being closed when I had left them open the missing food Thea my dog
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in the sink there was someone living in my house with me so I very calmly got out of the tub
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and got my robe I put it on there was only one place he could have been hiding and that was in the bedroom
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closet and I had to walk by the closet in order to get out and the closet where those
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mirror doors and that was really scary to see myself you know in the dark knowing that he was
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on the other side of that door did you say anything no no if he would have if he would have
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opened that door if I would have seen him I would have lost it he's been living in my apartment for six months if
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he wanted to hurt me that's not what he wants he just needs a place to stay he's probably not a bad
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guy like he put Thea in the sink like he's I don't want to freak him out I don't want to scare him
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by screaming and yelling because then he might hurt me so that he doesn't get caught
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so I very quietly walked past the closet and I didn't go out the door I went to the phone
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and under my phone I had a junk drawer and in the junk drawer there was a hammer so I had the hammer in my hand
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claw out so if anybody came at me they're gonna get a face full of hammer claw and I called my sister
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this was before most of us had cell phones so Amber had to stay in the apartment and use the landline
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she told her sister-in-law that someone was in her house and her sister-in-law told her to get out of there as fast as
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she could so I grabbed my puppy and I walked out the door I walked out the door in my robe with a hammer in one
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hand and a puppy in the other and I got to the bottom of the stairs and I I was looking at the the apartment
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door and I was like please don't come out please don't come out please don't come out because like I said like if I
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would have seen him I think I would have lost it um she was there within minutes with her
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two giant German shepherds in the back of her car um and we went we went to her house and we called the
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police and what did they find out well the police came to the apartment but he was gone
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in the Attic the police found a little bit of food a book and a sleeping bag I don't know
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how he was getting into the apartment I mean I I left a window open for my cats so he could have gone
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in and out that way um I had a spare key he could have taken my spare keys and made a copy too I mean I don't know
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he could have lived there before me and maybe the managers didn't change the locks I don't I don't know
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she filed a police report and while Amber believes it was a man there's no way to know whoever was living up there
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was never found we spoke to Amber's brother Eric Olson and he remembers just how nervous and
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scared she was through the whole thing and how relieved she was to get out of there
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we also asked if you remembered Amber accusing him of stealing food from her apartment
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we said that sounds about right it's been more than 20 years and Amber says she still wishes she could find
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this person and asked them what was going on did you stay in the apartment no no my
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grandparents came over the next day and we moved out we moved all my stuff out you think that if there was a stranger
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in the house like the puppy would have been barking yeah well I got her while I lived there
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so as far as she knew that's that's normal you know mom goes to work and then Dad my friend comes yeah my friend
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comes down from the attic and hangs out and plays with me so when he came in that night she didn't
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bark she was just like oh hey laughs in our next apartment she made the landlord padlock the attic door
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it makes me so nervous now because I lose things and things think I've done that like wait a second did I drink that
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did I eat and now and I'm like Phoebe no you're fine but now I'm really you've given us all reason to be really worried
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like no maybe there is someone in here you know not that I want to make everybody
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paranoid but I think you just have to listen to your instincts I think that's what I've learned from this like
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deep down I knew what was going on but I didn't trust myself I you know I thought I was just
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imagining it but I think it since then I have learned to listen to my instincts and if my instincts are
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telling me that something is not right then something's not right so now do you ever do things like
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checking the garbage can to count how many Soup cans there are or no I I live I live with a family nothing is ever
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where it was placed you know I have no idea how many cans of soup I have in the cupboard
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foreign [Music] Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers our intern is matild erfilino
00:15:46
special thanks to Dick Gordon and Carol Jackson Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of
00:15:54
Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com and if you have a story like Amber Dawn's write to us at
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the show thanks very much criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio
00:16:24
wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around shows like love and
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have all sorts of like crazy side effects like later in life you'll grow a third arm or something people would look
00:16:53
at you like I was always kind of inspired by that you know American Psycho routine
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I'm a guest in your house I will pee in yourself sorry oh God Stephen I hope you
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make me a good documentary I'm so sick of reading it I can't even begin to tell you I'm so upset I could just cry and
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all of a sudden the wood on my wood pile started to shake probably dinner with a flower and then
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I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music]