In My Backyard

We knew it was bad, but not dead bodies in our backyard bad. If you watched the news recently, you may, or may not, have heard about the house in Lennox with bodies buried in its backyard. I heard about it on the news and later, when it was set on fire, I knew before the news did. It was the house behind mine!

On Sunday, just a couple days before the story broke, a cop car sat in the alley in front of our house. My parents wondered why they were there. It wasn’t until my mom and I went out and saw the block behind ours taped off and filled with more cop cars. We figured there must have been a huge drug bust. The cops in front of our house were there in case someone climbed over and walked through our yard like they had done so often in the past.

We were right to a point, but when the story hit the news, we felt so wrong. I am still not completely sure as to what happened. The biggest thing was the decomposed bodies buried in that backyard. This was huge news. Our family across the country heard the news. I admired all of the people that posted things on Facebook saying that’s the neighborhood I grew up in or I live a couple blocks away from there. I live in the house directly behind it! The only house I’ve ever lived in. A wall separates our yard from the yard with bodies buried in it. It couldn’t have been any closer. After seeing my mom on the Channel 34 news, my best friend texted me to ask what was going on. I told her and a cousin of mine, who called concerned for our safety, and explained to them that we had suspicions about the house, but none like this.

Every time I told someone that we had an idea, they would ask why so I would give them my story. From as far back as I can remember that house was bad news. It had a reputation for being a drug house. Seeing as how it was the house directly behind ours, we saw the most trouble from them. All those years, when cops would raid that house, we knew about it simply because of the strangers that walked through our yard. Whenever they were in trouble, they would climb the wooden fence separating our houses and walk through our yard to escape.

This happened here and there, but it was often enough that my mom called the cops quite a few times. Nothing ever happened though. At one point, it got really bad and that’s when my dad noticed the door. They had cut a door into the fence with hinges and all. That’s how they were getting through so my parents decided to build a brick wall. Telling the people in that house about the plan for a new wall scared my mom, but they got it done. Still, these strangers continued to climb over so my dad had to go two cinder blocks higher on the wall. That didn’t even stop them. They began using a ladder so much so that my dad had to go and check every so often to see if there was one. He would find a ladder, grab it, and throw it away. They never threatened us, but the problem never stopped either so of course there was a little fear that one day they might attack.

Even when we finally learned from the news what horrible things were really going on in that house, it wasn’t that scary. It was just really weird. It didn’t get scary until someone set the house on fire a day or so after the bodies were found. Flames shot up into the air from what many believed was an intentional fire. One wrong turn of the wind and a spark could have touched our house. That was scary, but now it’s all over. No more of that house and no more people walking through ours. We do think it’s really strange, but we are much happier knowing that we may finally get our peace.

~Michelle Mitchell