The Man Who Called His Own Murder

July 14, 2019 — 2:38 a.m.

“911, what’s your emergency?” you

“There’s someone in my house,” the caller whispered.

“Sir, can you confirm your address?”

A beat of silence.

“He’s at the door. I think he has a knife.”

Static.

Then—nothing.

The line stayed open for eleven more seconds. No screaming. No crash. No sounds of a struggle. Just dead air, followed by a faint rustling—then a click.

The call came from Dale Whitman, a 43-year-old mechanic living in Cypress Hollow, a quiet neighborhood on the edge of rural Idaho. When police arrived six minutes later, they found no signs of a break-in. The front door was locked from the inside. Lights off. No movement inside.

They knocked. No answer.

Eventually, they forced entry.

Inside, everything looked normal.

A half-eaten bowl of cereal sat on the kitchen table.

A single slipper lay turned over near the hallway.

The house phone sat off the hook, dangling from the receiver.

No sign of Dale Whitman.

No blood. No signs of struggle. No broken windows. Nothing stolen. All doors and windows were locked from the inside.

Dale was simply… gone.

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The Vanishing

Dale had lived in that house for six years after his divorce. No roommates, no pets. He kept a small, neat home. Paid his bills on time. Worked full-time at a local garage. He wasn’t close to anyone, but everyone described him the same way: polite, dependable, private.

He had no known enemies, no debt, and no criminal history. He didn’t use drugs. He drank occasionally, but never to excess. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—that explained why a man like Dale would make a chilling 911 call, then disappear without a trace.

Detectives found no evidence of forced entry, no prints other than his own, and no DNA out of place. Cadaver dogs picked up no scent. His phone records were clean. Surveillance footage from nearby houses showed no one entering or leaving the property during the hours before or after the call.

It was as if Dale Whitman had vanished into thin air.

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A Witness—Maybe

Two days later, a neighbor came forward: Ben McCrae, who lived two houses down. He claimed that around 2:30 a.m. the night of Dale’s disappearance, he stepped outside to smoke. He saw someone—or something—standing in Dale’s backyard.

“It was tall,” Ben said. “Could’ve been six-foot-five. Just standing there. Didn’t move. Looked like it was wearing a long coat. I thought maybe Dale had someone over, or maybe it was just a tree. But it wasn’t a tree.”

Ben didn’t report it at the time. He’d had a few beers and chalked it up to his imagination.

Now, he wasn’t so sure.

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The Letter

Two weeks after Dale disappeared, a letter appeared in the overnight drop box at the local police station. It was typed on old paper, folded twice, and placed in a plain envelope. No return address. No postage.

The message was just one line:

“Do not look for him. He called too late.”

There were no fingerprints. No markings. The paper was run through forensic analysis, but nothing useful turned up.

The investigators were left with an empty house, a chilling voicemail, a shadowy witness, and a cryptic warning. The case, officially, was listed as “missing person under suspicious circumstances.” But no one had any real leads.

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The Theories

1. Staged Disappearance

Some believed Dale staged the whole thing. That he wanted to disappear, and the 911 call was meant to confuse authorities. But why? He left behind his wallet, car keys, and phone. There were no large cash withdrawals. No tickets booked. No sign of planning.

2. Sudden Attack

Others speculated he knew his attacker and let them in, explaining the lack of forced entry. Maybe the call was a last-ditch effort before being ambushed. But there were no signs of a struggle. Not even a trace of blood.

3. Supernatural

Online forums exploded with wild theories. Some believed Dale was taken by something not human. Paranormal blogs connected his disappearance to a 1978 case in Maine where a woman vanished mid-911 call, also without a trace.

One user claimed the strange sound in Dale’s call—described as static—was actually a voice layered beneath the noise. Slowed down and filtered, it allegedly says, “He sees you.”

No official evidence ever supported that claim.

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The House Today

The house at 113 Cypress Hollow has changed hands twice since Dale’s disappearance. The current owners, a retired couple from Boise, say they’ve experienced “unusual” things—doors unlocking on their own, cold spots in the hallway, whispers near the kitchen.

They once found the landline off the hook at 2:38 a.m.—the exact time of Dale’s call.

They no longer keep a landline.

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Family and Closure

Dale’s sister, Marie Whitman, remains his most vocal advocate. She believes something happened that night—something outside the reach of typical investigation.

“He was scared. You can hear it in his voice,” she told a local journalist. “He called for help. And somehow, that wasn’t enough.”

Every year on July 14th, she posts a message on her social media:

> “Still missing. Still waiting. Still watching the door.”

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Unanswered Questions

What happened in the six minutes between Dale’s call and the police arrival?

Who—or what—was the tall figure in the backyard?

Who wrote the letter that said he called “too late?”

And most chilling of all:

What did Dale see on the other side of the door?