I wrote about my true experience with a possible serial killer

The details were that my family (gay moms and a brother, I was 9-10 at the time, female) moved out of a trailer park to a subdivision in another town. We upgraded from a mobile home to a two story house that had pillars in the front; it felt like a fairy tale. That was, until my moms went on a camping vacation and my brother and I went to my dads for the weekend. 

Turns out, in the middle of the night before my moms came home, the power went out. When the power went out and back on, it caused a surge. Something that could happen in anyone's home, at any time, when the power goes out and randomly comes back on.

Because of this surge, the smoke detector had a short-circuit and disabled completely. At the very same time as that was happening, there was some dog fur behind the dryer that was next to the plug. When the surge happened, the electric current sparked the plug behind the dryer and ignited the dog fur. This was the cause of the house fire and death to my dog, one cat, and two other cats having gone through traumatic things that night. We closed all the windows when we left, leaving the fire to eat every single bite of oxygen in the house. My family dog passed away in her sleep in the upstairs room, one of my cats passed away at the edge of the crawlspace, trying to get away. Two of my other cats had hypothermia from the cold water that was leaking in the basement, and scarred lungs from the smoke they inhaled, but they survived.

We didn't know the damage until our next door neighbors, who agreed to let my dog out, came to let her out the next morning. They couldn't open our door because it was melted shut from the inside. They called the police and found out what had happened.

It was news for the small neighborhood we lived in. In fact, it was the talk of our street as dumpsters got dropped off in our driveway to collect the soot-ridden walls and materials that were left of our house. My moms had to go through everything, dusted and melted, to inventory it for insurance purposes. One day they allowed me to come to the house, to see it.

They thought it would be good for me to understand what had happened to our house, though it was awful, it was reality. For my 10 year old self, after seeing my room covered in black and things melted and miss-shaped, I left and sat on our front porch while the cleaners and workers passed me to collect more damaged goods from my home.

My neighbor across the street, a white older man with a beer gut, white hair, and full on white beard to match approached me. I knew him from when we first moved in, he introduced himself to our family as Rob. He was retired and liked to motorcycle when the weather is right. He sat next to me on the front porch, my head in-between my lap I didn't bother to lift it.

"Hey. I'm real sorry about what happened" He had a southern drawl to his tone, though we lived in Michigan. I grew up with family in the South so it didn't stand out too much to me at the time. I didn't say anything in response, I think I was crying.

"I know both of your moms work pretty crazy hours. I know you're going through a lot right now. When you're done with school on some days, if you get lonely, just know you can come over to my house if you want. We can talk, I can make you food, we could play games, whatever you want." At the time I thought he was being like every other adult in my life, offering me a safe space and place to be. I didn't think this was weird, in fact, I think I mentioned it to my bio-mom that he offered to look after me and she said that was sweet of him. I never took him up on this offer because he was seemingly in his 60's and I couldn't imagine us hanging out. I would walk home every day from school after the bus dropped me off and he would see me and say hello, but that was it.

Fast forward five(?) years.

My next door neighbor, the one to watch our dog, was a stay at home mom with a husband. They ended up having two children and were on to their third at the time this happened. She homeschooled her children, did not believe in vaccines, and was overall kind of loose in the head. She had a lot of time on her hands. She was an extreme coupon-er, she canned almost anything she could get her hands on, she joined a lot of MLM's, you get the idea. Because of all her free time, she watched a lot of TV. One of which being America's Most Wanted.

On one episode, she saw a man that looked EXACTLY like Rob, AND his Brother (who had visited over the years, also on motorcycle), saying they traveled across the U.S, found girls that were younger than teenagers or were teenagers, raped and murdered them and then traveled across state lines to do again. They had been doing it for 20+ years. (I have tried to find this episode of Americas Most Wanted, because I would LOVE to see Robs face in the sketch, but I have been unable to find it). They were on America's Most Wanted because they would move to a state, commit a horrible crime, and then move to another state. Because they moved to another state, it made it almost impossible for other police forces to communicate with each other.

My dumbass neighbor did not call the cops like they tell you to do on the show. I can not tell you why, because she didn't even know herself. When she told us, a year later, she said she was so flabbergasted and couldn't believe it, so she thought it would be a good joke and confront him. He approached her gardening one day, because he was retired so he was often home. She was incredibly nervous and said "You know, the weirdest thing happened. I swear I saw you on America's Most Wanted". Rob was a friendly guy, rosy cheeks and sunny deposition. When she said this, she said his face turned dark and he looked extremely angry. He said to her "You think I would do that to those girls?"

She didn't disclose what she saw him on America's Most Wanted for.

The very next night, unbeknownst to our entire family that, that encounter happened, I went to the bathroom at midnight. Our bathroom had a window that was facing the front of the house and I could hear a lot of noise going on. I checked out to see what was happening and there was multiple U-Hauls in front of Robs house, loading stuff. I remember being really weirded out that someone would move at that time. I was also only 15 at the time, so I didn't know how the world worked so I also thought this could be normal? Turned out my moms had woken up to the same noises that night and saw him move.

Our neighbor didn't tell us the truth about their interaction at least a year until Rob moved out. She seriously was a not bright person and I think she was ashamed of how she handled the whole situation .