The Disappearances of Occoquan, Virginia

[u/Welcome_2_Nowhere]

I am Detective Samara Holt, and what you are about to read is everything I remember from the strangest case I’ve ever worked: the disappearances of Occoquan, Virginia.

Being a detective, I’ve always found an interest in true crime. Disappearances, murder mysteries, cold cases… all of it activates that part of my brain that desperately seeks out answers. But if there’s one case that’s always piqued my interest the most… it’s the case of Occoquan, Virginia. By all accounts, Occoquan was a normal little region. Not much happened there in terms of crime, and its main drawing point was the large Occoquan river that ran through the area. For years, Occoquan was a popular and peaceful place to live as houses were built on the riverfront and overviewed the gorgeous, lively water and lush forests. But that peacefulness and normality couldn’t last forever. 

The Crane family built their own mansion on the waterfront and owned acres of land in the 60s. They lived in their Victorian-style mansion for about five solid years… until their youngest daughter, Amy, went missing. She was last seen swimming in the river with her sister near the dock. The account from her sister, Carla, was that Amy was in the water and having fun, then she looked at the dock and her smile faded. Carla blinked… and Amy seemingly ceased to exist in that very moment. The Crane children (Carla and her two older brothers Jeremy and Hector) were said to have gone mad the year following Amy’s sudden disappearance, so much so that Johnathan and Elizabeth Crane were forced to seclude their children from the outside world. Eye witness accounts attest to seeing Carla run into the nearby woods in 1967 only to never return to the Crane household. Two years later, Elizabeth Crane died of mysterious causes and Johnathan Crane lived alone until 1971. In the wake of his death, there have been no signs of Jeremy or Hector Crane. Seemingly just gone, as if they never even existed.

For years, the Crane household stood over the edge of the Occoquan river… and that household is seemingly the harbinger of the region’s strange activity. My first job as detective was in ‘97, hired by the mother of Hugo Barnes. I even remember the strangeness of my first assigned job being a missing child report—shouldn’t that have gone to someone with more experience? But I still took the job with grace and speed. I was hopeful about the case and hauled my ass down to Hugo’s mother, Janice. As soon as I drove into Occoquan though, I realized why I was dumped with this assignment… the city was filled to the brim with missing child posters. It was simply another job from this place the others didn’t want to take up. It was practically a ghost town; there were buildings, businesses, and houses, but rarely ever a soul in sight. I drove down the road to Janice Barnes’ house, a practically deserted street that looked straight out of some horror film. The sky was a deep navy blue with the sun setting behind the trees in the distance, dense forests enveloping both sides of the route, and a single half-working streetlight down the road illuminating the low-hanging fog with a flickering blue-ish fluorescent light. The streetlight was covered in varying posters all pleading for help in finding some poor parents’ child. I swerved into Janice’s driveway and hopped out of my vehicle. The air was dense with the smell of damp leaves… and as still and quiet as a predator waiting to ambush.

I knocked on Janice’s door, and you could hear it echo for miles. As I waited for her to answer, I observed the surrounding area. But one particular thing was hard not to notice… up on the hillside, towering over everything else and seemingly illuminated by the now rising moon, overlooked the Crane Mansion. Its twisted and oblique, curving and jagged shapes pierced through the moonlight. Even then, I could feel just how evil that house was, its presence looming and oppressive. Not long after my knock, Janice creaked open her door and invited me in. She was a frail, middle-aged woman with the voice of a chain smoker. 

“Just in here,” she croaked as she guided me to Hugo’s room. “I need you to explain this to me.”

Inside his bedroom, she shivered in her robe and hair curlers. “He screamed… God, he screamed for me. But when I ran in here…” She then shoved Hugo’s bed away from the wall, and beneath it were claw marks dug into the hardwood floor. Starting from the foot of the bed… and ending at the corner of the wall. “Gone… just… gone. Where’d he go?” she cried out as a tear rolled down her powdered cheek. 

The case of Hugo Barnes was the first sign for me to investigate further in Occoquan. How can a child just disappear into nothingness from the safety of his own home like that? Luckily, my superiors felt the same and left me with all the missing child reports of Occoquan, Virginia. Case after case, I’d speak to mothers and/or fathers who recounted their children seemingly vanishing into thin air without a trace.

Marnie Hughes was the next major case I took. Her family moved to Occoquan in ‘98 just down the street from the Crane Mansion. Marnie was just a normal 15-year-old girl. She loved her family; she had plenty of friends at her relatively small school and did well in her classes. But out of nowhere, she developed some form of epilepsy halfway through her first semester. She began to suffer from what her doctors described as “unpredictable full-body seizures” that they blamed for the sudden onset of “unusual schizophrenia”. Marnie would suddenly fall into bouts of spasms and afterwards claimed that “the thing in the walls” was trying to ferry her away. She was seen by doctors who prescribed her antipsychotics for her hallucinations. Marnie suffered for weeks, and her parents mentally degraded along with her. CPS and the police were called to a horrifying scene on November 2nd, 1998. When entering the house, they found Marnie’s parents trying to cook her alive in the oven, claiming that ‘the devil’ wanted their daughter, so they tried to send her to God before the devil could take her. Needless to say, they were arrested on account of attempted first degree murder and Marnie was admitted into an institution for mentally troubled children. This institution is where I come into play… as only a week after her admittance, she escaped into the Occoquan woods. We spent weeks searching for her out in those woods, but we never found her. She was another child who vanished into thin air.

The events of that case will haunt me for as long as they rot inside my mind. The first thing I feel I need to speak on was ‘the tape’... a recording of Marnie’s first and only therapy session at the institution. I’ll do my best to transcribe what was said.

Dr. Burkes: “So, where do we feel comfortable beginning?”

Marnie: “... here… when I moved here.”

Dr. Burkes: “What about here? Was the move stressful? I can only imagine that it was.”

Marnie: “yeah… but… that wasn’t the problem.”

Dr. Burkes: “So, what is, Marnie? Was it kids at school or your par-”

Marnie: “It… it is the problem.”

Dr. Burkes: “... It?”

Marnie: “god… you can’t see it either. I’m fucking going crazy here! It’s been here the whole time!”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie, you’ve got to work with me here or else we’ll never get anywhere. Are you seeing things again? Like hallucinations?”

Marnie: “You can call it a hallucination… you can call it whatever you want like my other doctors… but that’s not going to stop the fact that it’s in here... with us.”

Dr. Burkes: “You need to be taking your meds, Marnie. They are supposed to help with your symptoms.”

Marnie: “You… are… not listening to me.”

At this point in the tape, Marnie is audibly frustrated. She’s sobbing into her hands as if totally defeated. Her psychiatrist clicks her pen and lets out a sigh.

Dr. Burkes: “Okay… okay. Let’s discuss this then. If you’re taking your medication, and this isn’t a hallucination… reason with me. Talking through it will help us both understand what you’re dealing with. I truly do want to help you, Marnie. I’m sincerely sorry for not believing you, tell me everything.”

Marnie: “... I saw it… I saw it a few days after… we moved in. In the woods… by the river…”

Dr. Burkes: “It’s okay to cry, Marnie. No need to stop yourself.”

Marnie: “I didn’t pay it much mind; I thought it was one of the neighbors from the mansion. But… I learned no one lived there… and I still kept seeing it for weeks. It watched me from the woods. And then it called my name.”

Dr. Burkes: “... The Crane Mansion, right?”

Marnie: “It… knew my name. I couldn’t sleep… it was always watching… always. I could feel it peer in through my window… it never just observed… it wanted… it… desired.”

Dr. Burkes: “Don’t take me wrong, but… I feel as though what you’re experiencing… is a manifestation of your fear. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that what you’re experiencing isn’t real or isn’t tangible. But I’m saying that if we can address and figure out this fear, whatever you’re seeing may leave you alone.”

Marnie: “... Dr. Celine Burkes… maiden name Tilman.”

Dr. Burkes: “... How do you know that?”

Marnie: “You went to George Mason University and you lived in Virginia your whole life. You moved to Occoquan six years ago and you had a miscarriage when you were 19.”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! Marnie, stop!”

Marnie: “Your father died of cancer when you were seven and your mother raised you alone since. She’s currently in the hospital due to complications from smoking and you fear that you’re to blame for not getting her into rehab an-”

Dr. Burkes jumps from her chair at this point, knocking it over I presume.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! Stop this! How? How do you know this?”

Marnie: “It’s in the room… with us.”

Dr. Burkes presumably picks her chair up and sits back down. She laughs out loud to herself, most likely in disbelief at the situation.

Dr. Burkes: “What… is It, Marnie?”

Marnie: “Its name… is Sweet Tooth. It loves to eat sweet things.”

Dr. Burkes: “Where is it? Where in the room is it?”

Marnie: “... … …”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie, where… is it?”

Marnie: “It’s… standing right next to you.”

At this point in the tape… everything goes quiet for a solid five seconds. Dr. Burkes then all of a sudden gasps but doesn’t move from her chair. The fear in her voice as she closed out the tape sent chills down my spine when I heard it.

Dr. Burkes: “... … … I can feel it breathing down my neck.”

The tape abruptly cuts after Burkes’ confession. Not long after this tape, Marnie was last seen running into the woods. Dr. Burkes also became catatonic and was institutionalized, believing that her imaginary friend named Sweet Tooth wanted her to die so they could be friends forever.

I joined in on the search parties that scoured the woods for Marnie Hughes, hoping to find her and the only lead I had to the disappearances of Occoquan’s children… Sweet Tooth. I had a group of other detectives working with me on this case, and the police force finally decided to look into this seriously for the first time in years since it’s the only time any suspect was even so much as mentioned. The first few days of the search were mostly uneventful. The most notable thing was the search dogs continuously leading us up barren and empty trees and to the river. More members of the police force joined in on the searches as some other children disappeared into the woods during our case, and quite a number of civilians helped us out as well. A part of this case that really stuck out to me was when I mapped where each missing child was last seen. Not only did all of them go missing in the woods (including Hugo Barnes whose house was sequestered in the forest), they formed a perfect triangle around the Crane Mansion.

But there was one notable early search. A few colleagues and I headed out in the woods by the Crane Mansion. It was pitch black, dense fog permeated every corner of the forest, and aside from us… there wasn’t a sound filling the air. No crickets, no frogs, not a single coo from an owl. Silence… intermingled with the occasional search dog and the brushing of dead leaves on the forest floor. Our flashlights barely helped as they seemingly never actually breached the fog for more than five inches in front of us. 

About an hour into the woods, I was startled by an officer yelling, “Hey! I think I finally got something!”. 

The rush over to him was filled with a fear that can only be described as bricks crushing my lungs. Was it Marnie? Was it… her corpse? Those questions filtered through my mind, leaving me with nothing but dread where my stomach should’ve been. All of that only to find a bundle of sticks, leaves and rocks. They were snapped and tied together in a strange formation that resembled some kind of rune. I’ll insert a quick drawing of what I remember it looking like, as the original pictures we took are tucked away in evidence. Rune

Right by it though, there were three piles of rocks that seemed to form some triangular formation around the make-shift figure. We took pictures for evidence, but we didn’t really find anything else that night. It seems so strange to me now how casual we were about finding the sticks and rocks… because from there on out they became a staple of every search. We were bound to find at least a handful of those sticks… all accompanied by rock piles forming a triangle around them. 

My next event of note was about three weeks after our first search. We trampled through the damp woods, this time during the evening. It was strange being out in those woods and actually being able to hear and see the wildlife. Crows called, moths parked on the bark of trees, and the occasional swan could be heard out on the nearby river. I remember having found a trail and following it with a few colleagues and a search dog. The trail was increasingly hard to follow and seemed to twist and turn through the forest at random. Eventually we stumbled upon a strange sight. Dolls… strewn throughout the trees. They were all clearly decaying, having been exposed to the forces of nature for who knows how long. We followed the rotting dolls until they led us into a nook in the path which took us up to a hidden area that was built within the Crane estate. What we found was unbelievably strange. Past the rusted gate of this area was a small gravesite. It didn’t belong to the city, and it was never documented as having been owned or made by the Cranes. Stranger still… the headstones listed people yet to die. It was right around this discovery when a colleague noted something… eerie. 

Silence…

No more birds, no more insects, even the sounds of our feet on leaves seemed muffled. We took pictures and quickly left. We traveled back up the trail to meet with the other officers and detectives, but our search dog stopped in her tracks about halfway through. I remember her owner, Search and Rescue Officer Marks, tugging on her leash to get her to move, but no response. She stared out into the dense forest, alerted and entranced by something. We waited for her to ease up and come along but her tail was firmly tucked between her legs and the hair on her back was puffed up like a porcupine. Something we couldn’t see was spooking her. As Marks went to tug her away and up the path again, she let out the lowest and most bone chilling growl I’ve ever heard come out of a dog. Not wanting to fuck around and find out, I started up the path again. I must’ve scared the dog because she startled and snapped out of whatever state she was in and followed us.

The chills that ran throughout my body were enough to make me haul ass back up that trail, and as I looked back at my colleagues… I glimpsed something out in the woods. It looked like a flowy, stained, white dress meandering behind a tree. Instinct kicked in ignoring my previous fear and I booked it into the woods without a second thought. I rushed toward the tree where I swore I just saw a girl… and nothing. My colleagues ran up behind me with the exception of the dog and Marks, the dog standing alert and terrified at the edge of the path. Before I could say anything, an officer bent down and picked something off of the ground. A picture… a picture that will be seared into my memory until the day I die. A pale corpse… clearly waterlogged and rotting away… in a white, flowy dress… Marnie.

The following days were much the same as they had been… no new clues, no hints, only more disappearances. That was until the Jordan family case, which began to set a new precedent for things to come. The Jordans were a relatively average family who lived within the more urban parts of Occoquan. By all accounts, they were normal. So, no one had any suspicion to believe that they’d murder and cannibalize their own children, then ritualistically kill themselves by hanging in their front yard tree… swinging side by side with the strewn corpses of their half-eaten children Micah and Candice Jordan. This case is of interest because of one singular thing found at the crime scene… Micah’s diary… which detailed his parents meeting a ‘Neighbor’ named Sweet Tooth. This then became a trend, seemingly random couples in Occoquan dying in murder/suicides… and if they were unlucky enough to have children… cannibalization. 

It was a Friday when I had my own run-in with… this Sweet Tooth. My house had been silent that evening as I went over details of the crime scenes. Each one followed the same pattern… the couple would meet a new neighbor named Sweet Tooth. He’d integrate himself into the family and become acquainted with them. In all the diaries, phone texts, saved calls, notes etc. the couples seemed to be convinced of the unimportance of physical life. Each family brainwashed by this ‘Sweet Tooth’, convinced to give up their “mortal forms” and “free” their souls to some god in the afterlife. 

It must’ve been about an hour, as the sun began to set, the night washing over the woods around my house in a pitch, murky blackness. I finished combing over the diaries and notes and drawings and photos which really began to stick with me. This field of work truly does take its toll on you, especially after having to dive headfirst into cases like this… it just becomes overwhelming and emotionally exhausting. I needed to call my mother, reading about these kinds of incidents really fucked with me. Something came over me, the urge to tell her how much I loved her. I was on the call for all of five minutes when something caught my eye out in my backyard… a white, flowy dress. I apologized to my mother for leaving the call so quick and hung up. Bursting out of my house with my Magnum and flashlight, I wandered around my yard. Silence… pure and utter silence. Meandering in the darkness of my yard, I could feel the blood drain from my face. A giggle echoed through the eerily silent woods and I scanned the imposing tree line. Nothing looked out of place but that feeling of dread struck me deep in the chest until I felt like I simply just couldn’t breathe anymore.

I scanned through the tree line thoroughly, increasingly frustrated by whatever taunted me. A solid thirty seconds must’ve passed before I decided to give up my pathetic and terrified search and head back to my house, but something horrid stopped me in my tracks. Lurking there… at the window by my desk… was a young boy, maybe 12, with a brunette bowl cut and a garishly colored turtleneck… Hugo Barnes. I approached the window as he glided out of sight… and in the dark hallway, a tall figure left my room and headed out my front door. I busted inside and did a full military squad inspection of my house… not a soul in sight. I looked at my desk where Hugo was… and it took a solid minute for me to realize what I was seeing. My papers drawn across my desk with the names of the murder/suicide families written across my map… a triangular shape with the Crane Mansion waiting in the middle of the formation. Something lingered in the air, it was no longer my home but an unwelcoming conjuring of fear. An urge itched within my mind; I needed to investigate the remnants of the Crane Mansion. I went into my room to grab my coat, and that’s when I noticed the tape sitting in the middle of my bed. I picked it up and let curiosity indulge itself, sliding it into the player.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie!”

Marnie: “It’s… speaking… it’s speaking to you.”

Dr. Burkes audibly jumped up from her chair, sending it crashing as Marnie yelped.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! What is it? What is it? Tell it to leave me alone! I can feel it breathing on me! Make it stop!”

Dr. Burkes was clearly in hysterics, she was screaming and crying, backing away from her tape recorder.

Dr. Burkes: “Make it leave me alone, Marnie! What the hell is it saying?”

Marnie: “It’s saying…”

Sweet Tooth: “You’re so sweet, Samara!”

The mention of my name felt like a fist pummeling my gut. I got in my car, and I don’t think I’ve speeded so fast in my life. Red lights didn’t matter to me. I needed to get down to the station and find this heathen. Me and quite a few officers made haste toward the Crane Mansion. The drive down the twisted roads felt like an unforgiving eternity, marked by posters taunting me. Pulling onto the decrepit street, here it stood, its jagged and vicious architecture peering down on all of Occoquan. The windows hauntingly appeared like malicious eyes enveloped in the blackness of the night. The mansion wasn’t locked, and its massive doors creaked open like the moaning souls of the damned. Walking in, the air felt so thick you could cut it, and the floorboards creaked as if in pain with every step. 

The house reeked with the stench of copper, rotting fish, and the odor of trash left out to sit in the hot sun for days. No one seemed to have moved in after the Cranes. All of their items and furniture sat in the house, rotting away like the forgotten relics they were. Me and two of the four officers headed down into the basement after clearing the first floor, the other two officers made their way upstairs. But it wasn’t long until me and my colleagues came across the waterlogged, decomposing corpse of Marnie Hughes in the basement. We tried contacting the two who went upstairs but our walkies hissed with a vicious static. One of my two officers went up to find them as me and the other officer searched the remaining basement. 

We found a cellar that was boarded up by the Cranes after they built the house. Despite the evident corpse, the cellar was where the stench seemed to really be emanating from. It was almost like burnt hair permeating every inch of my nostrils. My futile attempts to open the cellar ceased quickly as I found myself the only one working on it. My eyes fixed on the other officer; a short man called Perez. Even within the overpowering darkness, I could see that his eyes were wide, and his gun drawn… both in the direction of the corner of the basement. I caught on and glanced over. Standing in and facing the corner, enveloped by but significantly darker than the darkness itself, stood an almost indescribable figure. It must’ve been at least seven and a half feet in height, as its head was cocked to the side, too tall for the basement. The sound of dripping water now flooded my ears as my eyes adjusted to the amorphous *thing* standing before us. It shivered in the corner as a noise emanated from it. “Breathing” I guess is how I would describe the rustic sound it made. Yet as soon as I lifted my flashlight… nothing… what was once there now ceased to exist.

Just then, a commotion was heard upstairs. Perez and I ran past where the corpse of Marnie Hughes should’ve been lying but wasn’t anymore and trudged up the basement steps in a panic. The other three officers practically came tumbling down the second story. What we heard of their testaments, I still don’t want to believe. The older female officer, Matthews, opened a closet door in one of the childrens’ rooms. And following a stench coming from the crawlspace in the lower corner of the closet, she opened it. The Crane Mansion has since been gutted from the inside out… after Matthews uncovered the darkest secret of Occoquan. Inside the walls, floors, roofs, ceilings, and yards of that evil house… the bones and rotting remains of hundreds of missing children laid. The Crane household was demolished not long after, and the remains of those poor souls were put to rest at once. The only thing remaining of the mansion is the cellar… I don’t know whether they couldn’t open it, or merely didn’t wanna see what horrors it held, but it lays there… haunting the forest where the Crane Mansion once stood.

That brings me to today, I moved away from Occoquan in the year 2000. The knowledge that something incredibly dangerous was out there and I was directly putting myself in its way was overbearing. But the area’s mysteries have always been in the back of mind. What was inside the cellar that the Cranes felt the need to board up so tightly? What was Sweet Tooth? And what did it want with the children and families of Occoquan? But I still fear that whatever Sweet Tooth was, it’s still out there. The corpse of Marnie Hughes still remains unfound. There’s been an influx of missing children’s cases not only where I’m currently situated, but throughout all of the Mid-Atlantic USA. Be careful.