Audio By Carbonatix
In northeast Phoenix, a family of women tells an eerie story of footsteps on the roof, blood in the living room and midnight strikes by a black-clad “Ninja” that sounds like a script from a Hollywood thriller. “Living hell,” “terrorism,” and “sickening” are some of the words the women use to describe a series of mysterious crimes committed against them over the past two and a half years. The women, who live near 32nd Street and Nisbet Road, say they are the victims of a man who is trying to drive them crazy. And the police, who didn’t believe them at first, say there is little the cops can do. The plot of this real-life chiller goes like this:
For the past decade, Kim Bowser, her mother Kathy and Kim’s grandmother “Lucy” (who asked that her true name not be used) have lived together in a quaint, one-story home. All three women work together at a restaurant and general store, and the younger two attend college.
On a cold night in January 1989, they begin to hear what sounds like footsteps on their roof. When the women go out to investigate, they see nothing, yet the noises continue for several nights.
The terror mounts. The women begin receiving prank telephone calls and hearing pounding on their walls. They detect signs of someone entering their home: Cigarette butts are found in their living room, though none of the three smokes; doors hang from their hinges. Broken locks and shattered windows leave the trio in fear.
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Their property–cars, a water heater, the swimming pool–is damaged and vandalized. The family’s telephone lines are cut repeatedly. Their collies, who keep an eye on the family’s quarter-acre lot, have their teeth bashed in and are even poisoned. The haunting signs of personal violation persist. The women receive mysterious notes using letters cut from newspapers to form words. The prank calls increase to as many as 27 a day–calls that are “so dirty and filthy you wouldn’t want to hear them,” Lucy says. In June of this year, just after carpeting and painting their home in shades of light gray and bright white, they return from work to find that the floors and walls throughout their house have been splattered with blood. As Lucy says, “This isn’t fantasyland–this is hell.” The suspected villain in all this–confirmed by several sightings by the women and their neighbors–is described as an average-size man dressed in black from head to toe. He wears black gloves and a black ski mask. From what they can tell, he smokes Marlboro Menthols and wears a gold watch. He is known around the neighborhood as the “Ninja.”
But the police don’t believe the women–at least they didn’t at first. “The incidents were difficult to substantiate,” Sergeant Chris Bray of the Phoenix Police Department explains now. “It’s extremely unusual to have one house with all these incidents and no one else seeing it.” Some officers, the women say, laugh at them, even insult them.
But it’s not funny to the victims.
“I’m about to crawl through my skin,” Lucy says in a hoarse, tear-choked voice.
In a suspense film, the Bowsers might get themselves a semiautomatic weapon and stalk their “Ninja” late at night, down a dark alley. But in real life–though a couple of neighborhood teens have chased the prowler, even slept on the roof waiting for him–the women feel helpless. “The police give us such a hard time, I don’t even call them,” Lucy says. The victims-in-residence keep to themselves, staying out of their own backyard, never venturing into their pool.
What the women have done, though, is seek support from their neighbors. Last month, after going door to door around the neighborhood, they held a meeting with police and a couple dozen neighbors. Nearby residents complained of similar problems–annoying calls, peeping Toms, footsteps on the roof–though to a much lesser degree. They also reported seeing the same mysterious person in the black suit. “The cops were treating [the women] like they were bananas, like they were making these things up,” says one neighbor. “But I think they were shocked to see how many people were there.” Sergeant Bray, who was at the meeting, says police have “beefed up” patrol in the neighborhood since last fall, following a murder in the area and a general increase in crime throughout the neighborhood. But the women and other neighbors say the cops are just beginning to take them seriously.
As far as who this “Ninja” could be, police still have no suspects, Bray says, but they do have one or two “possibilities.” Many residents suspect it is actually someone who lives in the neighborhood, because the prowler comes and goes so quickly. He also seems to know the Bowsers’ schedule and plans his strikes accordingly. Bray says the possibility that the suspect lives close at hand “hasn’t been ruled out.” Because the Bowsers have heard a female voice on some of the anonymous prank calls, they believe their prowler has a companion.
But other than that, the three women are clueless as to why they have been singled out. “I live by the Bible and the testament,” Lucy says. “I’d never do anything to hurt anybody.”
Kathy Bowser says police have told them that because no men live in their house, the prowler may feel freer to strike. But police admit they have no concrete motive. Sergeant Bray suggests that the crimes may be aimed at “the one young lady there,” referring to Kim, age 19. “Or they could be related to some business dealings the women have. At some point they may have offended somebody.”
If someone in the family did offend somebody, they are paying a stiff price. Since 1989, Lucy says they have had reason to call police as many as 25 times in one month. The last week in July of this year, for example, fits the pattern: On July 25, at 3 a.m., Kim hears water flowing in the backyard. The women check outside and see water shooting up from their pool. Someone has cracked the top of a water pump, which costs $250 to replace. Two days later, a red warning light comes on in Lucy’s car. A mechanic finds a two-inch-thick plastic rod shoved between the two front tires. On July 29, they find a pair of pink sweat pants dangling from the roof. On July 30, a meeting of a dozen neighbors and New Times to discuss the problem is disrupted by what sounds like someone running across the roof. Outside, no one can be seen. And throughout the week, of course, the women receive countless offensive calls.
“If we have a night off, I’d be surprised,” Kathy says.
Because there is no pattern to the incidents–the prowler strikes at different times and in different ways–police are having great difficulty tracking him down, Bray says. “We don’t have a set time. We don’t have a set day of the week. That makes it hard for us to do anything.”
So what the Bowsers have had to do, Kathy says, is “turn our house into a fortress.” Along with repairing vandalized property, the women have spent several thousand dollars securing things since the ordeal began in 1989.
They installed a security system (at a cost of $800); replaced five screen doors and their front door twice ($300), while replacing four to six dead bolts on those doors ($45 each–there are currently four locks on the door); put up thick blinds over double-locked windows; installed a huge dead bolt on their garage door ($75–“We can’t even open it ourselves,” Lucy says); put in two iron-rod gates outside ($200); and removed two palm trees from the front of their home ($200) so the prowler wouldn’t be able to hide in front. They’ve changed their telephone number twice, but their harasser continues to get through. It is the sort of living nightmare, they say, that is slowly getting under their skin. That is exactly what they think their prowler wants to happen. “It’s a crazy mind game,” Kathy says. Adds Lucy, “I’m convinced they’re not after me to hurt me. They’re after me to harass me.”
It also doesn’t appear that the culprits are out to steal anything. Though $3,000 worth of toys, decorations and other belongings were taken from their garage, police can’t say the crimes are related. The only thing ever taken from inside the house–stolen the same night they discovered the blood–was a piece of welded artwork, worth about $350. They have also doled out big bucks to replace damaged property. They had to replace a water heater after finding a sign above it with the word “look” pasted on in letters cut out from a newspaper. “He was saying, `Look what I can do,'” Kathy says. Someone had damaged the heater beyond repair. Another time, a water bed was punctured, ruining the carpet in the bedroom. It cost several hundred dollars to replace the bed and carpet. In many of these instances, the women say, police won’t write reports because they can’t prove the damage was caused by an intruder. Though a request for records from the Phoenix Police Department was submitted last week by New Times, the department has not yet responded.
But the three women, who have reached a point of desperation, say they don’t want to criticize the cops. “We don’t want to say a bad word about the police,” Kathy says. “What we’re saying is, `Somebody help us–whether it’s the police, another ninja or somebody else–please help us.'”
And, she adds, “Remember this: The next day it could be your house he’s knocking on.”
“This isn’t fantasyland–this is hell.”
It is the sort of living nightmare that is slowly getting under their skin.
“What we’re saying is, `Somebody help us–please help us.’
