Hey, strangers. Just a note at the top of the episode before we begin.

I am getting over a little bit of a cold, so apologies if my voice is a little hoarse.

I'm Laura Norton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives for stories that can't quite be explained.

Strangers, there is truly something magical about a public park.

No, really, stay with us on this.

We know magical probably feels like a stretch for the park closest to your house.

Maybe it's a place overrun with screeching kids and squeaky swings

or sun-bleached play equipment that hasn't seen a fresh coat of paint since the moon landing.

Your fellow patrons have a habit of leaving trash or a canine byproducts in the grass.

Perhaps blaring traffic or cookie cutter suburbia

across the street makes the whole thing feel decidedly mundane.

But still, we invite you to humor us because we contend that public parks are special.

For many of us, they were the first place where we had any autonomy as children, with a watchful parent perched on a bench, never too

far away. Or maybe the park was the first place that you went without adult supervision. You saw a friend or made a

friend. It was a place of possibility. That is the magical thing. It truly is a place of the people.

Anyone, everyone, and anything. Things do happen in parks. That comes as no surprise. They are public

places. Some are irritating, like seeing that annoying neighbor that you usually go out of your

way to avoid, or discovering your toddler has found a lighter in the

sandbox, and some are, well, less of a daydream and more of a nightmare. In a nation increasingly

defined by urban sprawl, we ask, where's a monster going to hide, if not in a public park?

The park is for everyone, after all.

That question brings us to today's story, and we bring you to Columbus, Indiana, and more

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