On May 22nd, 1993, a man named Kurt was carrying some boxes into his new home. He had just moved in to this two-story house, along with his fiancé, whose name was Kim. Kurt went into the house, and he dropped the boxes in the foyer, and then he turned back to head back down to the car to get another load. And as he walked down the steps, he passed his fiancee Kim, and they smiled at each other.

She was making her way up.

He was making his way down.

But seconds after they passed each other, right as Kurt got back to the car, he felt this incredible

pressure and blast wave hit him in the back that almost sent him flying.

And then when Kurt turned around, he could not believe what he saw.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do.

So, if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the follow button's house and replace their toothpaste with numbing cream.

Okay, let's get into today's story.

Okay. On the evening of Friday, May 21st, 1993, a 29-year-old woman named Kemmanger clapped her hands together in front of her with happiness in the basement of the Golden Congregational Church in rural Iowa.

Her closest friends had gathered here to throw Kem and her fiancé, 32-year-old Kurt Simon,

a combination wedding shower and goodbye party, and now they were presenting the couple with their gift.

It was a money tree planted in a little yellow coffee can with envelopes full of cash hanging off of it.

Cam and Kurt both smiled and began making their way through the crowd to give everybody a big hug and to say thank you.

Tonight was a big night for them.

All their plans were finally falling into place.

Tomorrow they would pack all of Kurt's belongings into their car and they would drive 230 miles south from a place where he had been living in Iowa to the city of Bloomington, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, where Kem already lived.

And in Bloomington, they would begin their new life together as a soon-to-be-married couple, raising Cam's two children from previous relationships.

It had been a whirlwind eight months since they had first met on actually a blind date.

Kemp had known almost immediately that Kurt really was something special,

but it hadn't been easy for them to get to this point.

They both had almost no money.

...