Reader Submission: The Shooter

“I had just started my second year as an Oregon state trooper. I was riding with another officer when dispatch came on and said there was a call of a man holding a gun to a woman’s head, so of course we got there as fast as we could.

When we arrived, we found a woman crying and repeating over and over, ‘He shot me. He shot me.’ I bent down to talk to her and said ‘He didn’t shoot you,’ but she wouldn’t listen. I asked if she had any family she could stay with, and she said no. She wouldn’t let us take her anywhere so we asked if she would be okay by herself. She said yes and we left.

At the end of our night shift, we went back to the station and told the dispatchers and other officers about the weird call. An officer looked up her name and went pale. He then hesitantly told us that a young woman by that name had been shot in the head by her husband about six years ago. Police never caught the shooter. We all went grim and tried to forget about what happened. We eventually did…until two years later.

I was training a new officer when we got a call about a man holding a gun to a woman’s head. We headed over to the house and found the same lady. Our radios crackled as we approached her, but she simply pointed to the house and said, ‘There. He’s in there.’ We pulled out our guns and found a man inside, sitting on the ground with his hands in the air. I handcuffed him and ran his name and learned he was the wanted shooter.

The man got 20 years in prison, and we never heard from that house again. Was it just luck that we showed when he was there? Or was it a ghost wanting justice for her murder? To this day, it still creeps me out to think about it. I hope she’s finally at peace.”

Have you encountered a ghost? Share your story here!