764 - Part 1

**EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING** My unexpected journey into the heart of evil starts innocently enough with a viral video that is more than meets the eye.

The sun was setting, and I was making a short trek from my bathroom to my refrigerator to get a glass of wine to go along with the bubble bath I had just prepared for myself. It was a rare opportunity for me. My 6 year old daughter was having a sleepover with her grandma and I had just spent the past 4 hours tracking down a huge lead in my ongoing research into the Highland Park mass shooting, a lead that had yielded a massive breakthrough. After shooting off a few excited emails, I turned off my computer and headed to the bathroom. I thought the stars had finally aligned for me to indulge in a night of rest and relaxation. Except, that night, they hadn’t.

My phone buzzed. I glanced at the notification casually as I poured my glass of wine, expecting to see a congratulatory response regarding my Highland Park research that night. Instead, I found a message from an anonymous Twitter user sitting in my message requests. The contents of that message would mark the beginning of the next major arc in my journey as an independent researcher of strange, online phenomena.

“do you have signal?

I have a lot of info on that Kyle Spitze guy.

His mom was killed yesterday morning… he posted videos…”

I walked to the bath and shut off the water, setting my wine down next to the faucet. I glanced longingly at the bath as I trudged out of the room and back towards my study. This shouldn’t take long, I thought to myself, blissfully unaware that I was about to fall down a truly life changing rabbit hole.