My husband, Garrett, and I have been married for 3 years and have a 16 month old son along with 4 dogs. Since the addition of our son, we had been getting quite cramped in our previous house, so we decided it was finally time to move. We found a house for close to the same price of our previous house that was nearly double the size. It was on the edge of our town so it was a little farther from everything, but we both agreed it was worth it.
Moving sucks normally, but even more so with a toddler. Which is why I got extremely annoyed when Garrett told me he invited his brother's family to stay with us less than a week after moving in. The deadline sucked, there's no other way to say it. It didn't help that since as a stay at home mom, most of the unpacking seemed to fall to me.
The house is 2 stories with 3 bedrooms (all upstairs). Downstairs has the living room, kitchen, play room, dining room, and my husband's media room. I figured, since my brother in law, his wife, and all three of their girls were going to be staying with us, that the guest bedroom wouldn't be big enough. So we set it up for the girls to stay in the nursery and my son would get moved to our bedroom. Which means that I had have every room unpacked...no shoving boxes unpacked in the extra room.
I always sleep terribly in new places, which wasn't helped by the fact that the house is about 40 years old and creaks all the time. I kept thinking I was hearing something walking above me, but I wrote it off since all that was above me was the attic. I figured it was probably just the old house creaking, or at the worst case scenario a mouse or something trapped in the attic. I told Garrett and he said that on the next payday we'd have an exterminator come out. I had other things to worry about, so I put it out of my mind.
About 3 days into the unpacking, Garrett started complaining about not being able to find a few of his things (his razor, extra pair of sunglasses, his flip flops, etc). I had focused on unpacking the downstairs first, so I figured he just mislabeled his boxes or possibly had left a few things behind on accident. Honestly I didn't really care about his missing things because I was busy trying to get the house ready for company that was arriving in 3 days.
When I finished unpacking downstairs, I moved upstairs (with only a day and a half until everybody arrived). I unpacked the guest bedroom and nursery first because I needed those rooms done and child proofed for the girls. Our room was done last. I kept finding boxes that were already opened, but I kept assuming that my husband had opened them looking for his stuff (I realize now I should have asked him, but I was stressed from having to get everything done so quickly). It wasn't until I started unpacking my boxes that I noticed some of my stuff was also missing. Things that I knew I had packed (my favorite bra, my scrapbooks, some lipstick). I brought it up to my husband and he told me the same thing I had told him...it would turn up, it was probably just in another box.
I still had 3 boxes to unpack when everybody arrived and I just shoved them in my closet to unpack later.
Now, having 8 people and 4 dogs in one house was not fun, to say the least. The fact that 4 of those people in the house were under the age of 5, made it downright chaotic at times. One morning my sister in law asked me if I had seen a pink blanket belonging to one of the girls. I didn't know where it was, but she blamed either my dogs or my son. When one of my son's stuffed animals went missing, I assumed one of her girls had left it somewhere. I love my nieces, but I was so glad when their visit ended a week later.
Garrett and I both forgot about all the missing items since none of them were essential to our day to day life. We got back into our routine and we both had completely forgotten about calling the exterminator when payday came around. It wasn't until my mom came by and commented on the noises coming from the attic that I even remembered. She said the same thing I had already thought (that it was a mouse or squirrel or something), and I called the exterminator that day. I set the appointment for the next day (which was yesterday).
Garrett took that day off to deal with the exterminator. The exterminator (his name was Paul) got here while I was fixing lunch for my son, so Garrett took him to the attic. Neither my husband or I had bothered to go to the attic yet, so Garrett figured it was a good time to check it out. They came back down quickly and literally ran down the stairs. Garrett told me to stop what I was doing and take Camden outside with Paul immediately while he put the dogs in the backyard. I was confused, but something in his tone let me know this was important. I went out the front with Paul, who told me to sit in his truck with the ac on. When Garrett came out to the front I could see the look of terror in his eyes. I've never seen anybody look so scared in my whole life. He got on his phone for a bit and then they both came and sat in the truck with me. Paul immediately locked the doors once everybody was inside. Garrett didn't tell me what he saw until after the police arrived.
There was an air mattress with blankets that looked as if it had been slept in recently. Most of our missing items were there. The pictures from my scrapbook were torn out and taped to the walls with some of the faces marked with a red "X" (I found out later they were drawn on with my missing lipstick). Garrett's razor was next to the mattress, but the blades weren't in it. My son's stuffed animal was up there, it had been stabbed repeatedly with a kitchen knife left in its head. My bra was there...there's not really a delicate way to put it, but somebody had apparently jerked off on it.
Everything was kind of a blur after that....we made statements, identified objects, there was an officer taking lots of pictures, not only of the attic, but of every place I had last seen the items found up there. We stayed in a hotel last night, and we'll probably be here for the foreseeable future. I don't know when we'll get to go back. I honestly don't want to go back, but we can't afford to break our lease to go somewhere else. Garrett has been on the phone making arrangements for a home security system put in and the locks changed. He said he's going to call the detective tomorrow to see if there's any news. Hopefully they can get a hit off the DNA left on my bra. I don't think I'll be able to feel safe again until they catch whoever it was up there.
UPDATE
The police said that nothing turned up from the DNA or the fingerprints, so whoever it was must not have been in the system. They finally gave us permission to go back to the house yesterday, so we picked up the dogs and checked out of our hotel room. We've had all the locks changed and installed a home security system. I listened to yall and had them add a sensor on both attic doors...the guy looked at me like I was crazy, but I really don't care. Detective Seitz has promised that our neighborhood will continue to be patrolled for the next week, just in case the guy tries to come back. I wish I had more to tell yall, but this isn't law & order. They don't always catch the bad guy. I couldn't sleep at all last night, but it was slightly reassuring that nothing tripped the alarm. Hopefully whoever was up there has been scared away for good. If anything else happens I'll let yall know, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it's over.
