Orobe (Or-row-be) Marcel is a large man, standing at 6’3’’, nearly 250 pounds. Even with that being the case, his family members joked that in a former life he was a ballerina, as he was always very quiet on his feet. Orobe prefers to live in solitude. He doesn’t partake in any of the family businesses, much less their get togethers. He calls home a small cabin deep within the dense woods that sit outside the town the Billows family runs.

 

Orobe was born in Wisconsin, but moved a bit further south when his brother, Joseph, found a great deal in an up and coming town in a different state, that went by the unofficial name of “Billows”. While he and his brother didn’t live together, he made the decision to go to the small town with him when he realized the opportunities that had to potential to arise from living on the outskirts of a place where no one but his brother knew he existed. Complete and total anonymity.

 

When he was 15, he went out to live on his own, and never looked back. He spent the next many years of his life building his own makeshift cabins and living in them, circumventing the need for any proper, legitimate form of employment. He instead found the means to get by through check, and later credit card fraud, skills he learned that he then kept hidden from the rest of his family, even in their most dire of financial straits.

 

Besides fraud, Orobe has had his hand in a number of different crimes, most of them violent, none of which he’s ever been caught for. He started with petty theft, then moved on to robberies before he found his penchant for killing animals, and eventually graduated to humans; he didn’t find too much fun in the act of killing itself. What he truly enjoyed was the hunt. He loved to watch his prey, to terrorize his target, to stalk them in such a way that it made them crumble from the inside out. It was the only true joy he ever felt, breaking down another human being until they were nothing but a shell of their former self. This was something he became quite adept at.

 

The rest of the Marcel/Billows clan sees him as a sort of leader, even while maintaining next to no contact with them; ultimately, he serves himself before any and all else. Orobe Marcel is a very intelligent man, much smarter than even the next few members of his family all put together. He learned from an early age to use this intelligence to his advantage, mastering the arts of manipulation and deception.

 

A quick thinker, Orobe has always been especially pragmatic, able to sort of see all the trajectories a certain action might take. He tries to foresee all the outcomes to any decisions he may make, so as to ultimately make the best one possible. He tries to see opportunity in everything, and does everything he can to better perfect his craft. That’s why he saw a unique opportunity while walking the desolate streets of Billows one night, seeing a family get out of their car at his sister-in-law’s diner. By this point in his life, he had all but mastered the art of making a lone person’s life a living, waking hell. He felt as if he would relish the idea of doing so to an entire family.

 

He knew his sister-in-law Roberta didn’t keep functional cameras at the restaurant, much of the reason for that being Orobe’s insistence. He watched from some tall grass while the family piled out of their dark colored Hyundai truck; a husband and wife, and a young son and daughter (that’s what his guess was at least). He kept his eyes on them as they turned the corner towards the entrance to the restaurant, and casually walked closer to it to see where they sat. Much to his joy, they sat out of view of their truck.

 

He decided to take advantage of the opportunity he’d been given. He knew no one in the town drove that kind of vehicle, so they weren’t local. He had a number of different targets, exactly what he wanted. And best of all, they had made themselves vulnerable, which Orobe used as a sort of sick justification for what he was going to do. What that was, he wasn’t exactly sure yet.

 

He waited a while to make sure they didn’t forget something in the car, and to make sure they were in fact staying to eat. Not only this, but he observed that the other people in the diner were nearly done with their food, so he waited for a man and woman to leave, then for two older men to do the same. He waited until the family was ordering their food to go through their vehicle, which he was overjoyed to find was unlocked. This further solidified in his mind that he was just in doing what he was doing, a sort of sick self-affirmation.

 

He began rifling through the car, first going through the glove box. He found the title and registration, which gave him the parent’s names, and a few loose pieces of mail which gave him their address. Northern California. He had never been to California, and this would provide him with a reason to go. He seemed a bit giddy at the idea.

 

After collecting their information and making a general mess of the rest of the front seats, he went through the backseat. There were toys that clearly belonged to the boy; action figures, superhero trading cards, a Transformers coloring book. Then he came across a backpack. This backpack evidently belonged to the daughter, as it was pink with frills on the outer edging. Instead of ravaging through all of the belongings, he delicately opened the backpack and found, amongst a bevy of art supplies, a folder filled with drawings. He flipped through a few of them, silently acknowledging to himself that the daughter was quite the gifted artist.

 

The sound of footsteps caught his attention, and Orobe quickly darted his head up to find the source of them. Walking about 30 feet away from where he was currently in a car that didn’t belong to him was his dimwitted nephew, Atol, and Roberta’s cousin, who went by the nickname “Duke”. He loudly whispered their names, and through the open back passenger’s side door, motioned for them to come over to him.

 

The two men knew who it was, and obliged. They inquired as to what he was doing, which Orobe promptly told them was his and only his business. He asked them to do one simple thing: wait about 3 minutes, then go in and tell the family inside Daisy’s Diner that someone had broken into their vehicle. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

The two men abided by Orobe’s orders, and waited those few minutes while Orobe exited the family’s vehicle with the folder of drawings, retreating into the tall grass, finding himself a good vantage point from which to observe the results of his unwanted invasion into an unsuspecting family’s means of travel. He waited until he heard the distant ding of the bell on the restaurant’s door; he knew that was the men entering. Shortly after that, he heard it again.

 

From around the corner came the man of the family, who looked at his rummaged through car, visibly upset. He went to the open passenger’s side door and leaned in, inspecting what was missing. After a few moments, the man got out of the car and just stood and looked at it, puzzled. He then looked all around him, perhaps for any sign of the person responsible for breaking into his car. Then, he saw the man lock eyes with one of the non-functioning security camera. After realizing its presence, the man took out his cell phone and rushed inside.

 

Orobe knew that even though the police would be coming soon, he had nothing to worry about, as they were essentially his extended family members, and everyone in his family knew to never reveal even the idea that he might exist; perfect anonymity. He watched on from a distance as the rest of the evening played out, with the family eventually leaving the diner and driving away.

 

Orobe then went into the diner to speak with his sister-in-law, nephew and cousin. There, he learned that the family whose privacy he’d just invaded were heading to the local motel. It just so happened that his brother, Joseph, was the owner of said motel. He sat down next to his male family members at the counter while Roberta got him a coffee. He starting sifting through the drawings in the folder, which was labeled “Katie’s Portfolio”, and came across one that depicted the family.

 

It was a typical child’s drawing of their family, all standing in front of their house, with a big yellow sun in the upper left hand corner. Orobe asked Roberta for the big box of crayons she kept there for the kids who came into the restaurant (not enough came in to justify buying individual packs for crayons). She went and retrieved the pack of 64 crayons and gave it to him. He took out the dull black crayon, and just as he was about to draw something, he stopped.

 

“Hey Atol?” he asked in the direction of his nephew.

 

Atol looked at him. Orobe then ordered Atol to draw himself next to the family with the black crayon. Atol abided, drawing what was essentially a thick stick figure. Orobe then asked what message he’d like to give the people in the picture. Atol thought for a minute, then said the first real thing that had popped into his head.

 

“Nice to see you!”

 

Orobe told him to write it, and Atol did as he was told. With no further words, Orobe snatched the drawing from him and put it back in the folder, got up, and left the diner.

 

Orobe preferred travelling on foot, but through his years of fraud, he had acquired a number of different vehicles which he kept hidden at different locations around Billows. This night, however, he chose to walk. He made his way the mile and a half or so down the road to The Galleria Motel. He stayed back a while, making sure the family was asleep. He then casually walked across the brightly lit parking lot to the motel office, where his brother Joseph was nearly asleep behind the counter.

 

The bell from Orobe opening the door made Joseph nearly jump off of his stool. He stuttered when greeting his seldom seen, brooding older brother. Orobe skipped the formalities and asked him which room the recently checked in family was staying in, to which his brother hastily replied. Orobe let out a slight laugh when Joseph revealed that they were staying in the only room with 2 queen beds, which just so happened to be connected to another room. To him, this was almost serendipitous, the ease of which his not-so-well crafted plan was showing.

 

He got the keys he needed, and headed for the room next to the family’s and quietly entered. Though he was relatively sure they were asleep, he sat on the bed, in the dark, in silence, and waited for what he felt was the perfect moment to do what he needed to do. Orobe, in addition to being intelligent and pragmatic, also exhibited incredible patience. When the time was right, he took the augmented drawing from the folder and folded it one time over. He then quietly unlocked the handle lock and the deadbolt to the door that separated the rooms. There was a chain lock on the side opposite Orobe, but he had a hook-like tool that made him able to unlock it.

 

When he finally got all the locks undone, he silently entered the nearly pitch black room. From where he was standing, he could see both beds perfectly. He spent a few moments observing the sleeping family, going so far as to stand next to their beds and hover over them, taking a special interest in the daughter, who he deduced was Katie. He then set the folded piece of paper on the floor in front of the main door to the family’s room. And with that, he retreated to the space between the rooms, took one final look at the sleeping Katie, and closed the separation door, locking the two locks that were on the door itself, unable to lock the chain.

 

He then went to sleep for about an hour, making sure to wake up before it got bright out, and exited the motel. He then went into the woods across the street and patiently waited for the family to wake up.

 

The sun came out, and the family he was spying on stayed in the motel much longer than he expected them to. However, when they finally came out of their room, he was pleased to see that the father looked rushed, and worried, at least that’s what he could tell through his pocket binoculars. He considered this round of whatever he was doing a complete success. As they pulled off down the road, away from Billows, he retreated back to his small shack in the woods to prepare for the next part of what would become his magnum opus.

 

_____

 

Another bit of knowledge Orobe gained from his unwanted perusing of Katie’s family’s car was their loose vacation itinerary. While it didn’t give an exact date as to their returning home, it was clear from the number of stops they had marked down, as well as their final destination (Florida), that they would be gone for at least a week or two. More than enough time for him to do what he wanted to do.

 

So Orobe set out on his own road trip in one of his number of cars, with the Botic family residence as his destination, only he didn’t take any detours. Using fraudulent funds, he stayed at a motel for the night during his travels. Finally, nearing dark the following evening, he arrived at the Botic household.

 

Before Orobe began building his own humble abodes in the wilderness of Wisconsin and later the woods that surround Billows, he spent his nights in other people’s houses. This wouldn’t sound too strange, however, if it weren’t for the fact that the people weren’t aware of Orobe’s slumbering in their homes. He would wait until late at night, then use self-taught skills from his childhood to sneakily enter the domiciles through windows or even front doors, and usually spend the night in the basements of the homes.

 

When the owners of the house would leave, Orobe would rummage throughout the home, taking whatever he felt he needed, as well as food for the day. He would relax on their couches, clean up in their showers, use the restrooms, and generally treat the home as his own; this was only after finding calendars and day planners in the home so he knew for certain when he had to be out. If a given house didn’t have such information at hand, he would never press his luck; this means he was never once caught doing this.

 

Just before leaving, he stopped by Joseph and Roberta’s house, looking for Atol. He had his nephew get a piece of paper and write a simple phrase on it, knowing it would come out poorly spelled and barely legible, just as he wanted it. The phrase: “The girl is vary good at pichures.”.

 

Orobe parked his vehicle 2 blocks away from the Botic house, and walked to the front door. During his drive, he had done a full look-through of Katie’s drawings, and formulated his next step. The drawing he chose for this phase of his stalking was that of a small brown and black dog.. He folded the picture and the note and placed them both in an envelope. The mailbox was full, and the mail delivery person had began stacking their incoming mail on the porch. Orobe simply put his envelope on top of the pile.

 

He then went around to the back of the house and jimmied open the sliding glass door that led into the home’s living room. From this point, he essentially made himself at home. For the next nearly two weeks, he lived in their home, slept in their beds, ate their food, and utilized their facilities. When he felt they would be coming home soon, he left, staying in a nearby hotel.

 

That was only at night though. He spent from dawn until dusk on foot in the Botic’s neighborhood, anxiously awaiting their return. And finally, into their driveway pulled their Hyundai, and out poured the Botic family. From a bench near the end of their block, Orobe watched as they unpacked their vehicle, and went into what they believed had been the nearly month long empty home, the father picking up the mail as they walked through the front door.

 

Now that orobe knew they were home, he only felt it right to give them a few days of peace and quiet, with no interruption on his part. That is, of course, besides the note and drawing he’d left in the mail. He knew it would be discovered when one either the mother or father went to the police. This meant that either the police would come to their home, or one of them would go to the police station. It ended up being the latter, as Orobe followed the father to the local police department, where he presumably filed a report.

 

This told Orobe that the father was keeping what was going on from the rest of his family, and Orobe didn’t like that. His whole goal in this endeavor was to terrorize an entire family, and that wouldn’t work if only one family member knew of what was going on. He decided once and for all that his next move would be a bold one.

 

About a week after they got back, Orobe went and bought a German Shepherd, black and brown, just like Katie’s drawing. He waited until the family left, knowing they were going to the park, as he had learned from setting up a small microphone in their house, that he could hear while within a certain range. When they left, he took the dog and placed it in their backyard, haphazardly tying its leash around the top of their fence, not making it apparent that someone had left the dog there intentionally, but tight enough that the dog wouldn’t get away.

 

He knew that they would keep the dog. Something told him that the wife and kids would convince the father to keep him, and allow him to become a member of their family. This was his plan, and it had worked perfectly. While they advertised that the dog had been found, of course no one claimed it. He came to learn that the dog’s name was Roscoe, and that it was particularly fond of Katie. Perfect, he thought, as that even though he wanted the whole family to suffer, she was essentially the main target. There was something about her, and her art, that spoke to Orobe. He had a strange fixation on her. Not necessarily sexual, but he did take a special interest in her.

 

It was when the family accepted Roscoe into their home that Orobe showed his true patience, as he wouldn’t do anything again until the end of summer. He waited until they were gone one afternoon and entered their home to look at their calendar, from which he learned that they were going to be heading to their family cabin for one final end of summer vacation, and got the location of the place. It was in Long Lake that Orobe would strike next.

 

_____

 

Knowing the day they would be going to Long Lake, Orobe made the four hour trip himself 3 days beforehand. This go round, he didn’t want the husband to know that he was there, as he wanted to toy with them a little bit. He found an empty cabin from which he could see the Botic’s and stayed there while he waited. Doing his due diligence, he learned that most of the town had evacuated, having spent their time there earlier in the summer. This was ideal for what he wanted to do.

 

Not ideal, however, was the immediate neighbor to the Botic’s cabin. It was an older man and two kids who looked about 10-11 year old, one boy and one girl. Orobe was always very careful when he was inside houses, making sure to not let his presence be known to the outside world. He was equally as careful to not be seen outside these houses as well. But as is the case with everyone, he is not perfect.

 

When the neighbors drove off in their car one day, Orobe left his current “home” to do some recognizance on the Botic’s cabin. He left after the neighbors were out of site. As soon as he was the short way down the street and walking onto the Botic’s property, he saw the neighbor’s car coming back around the way. Knowing they had seen him, he stopped walking and waved them down. The car pulled over and the older man lowered his window.

 

“Hi there, I was just trying to see if anyone was home around here, and if I could maybe borrow some gasoline for my lawnmower? The name’s Jim by the way.” he said, extending his hand for a handshake.

 

This sentiment was returned by the man, who introduced his name as Floyd, and his grandkids Nikki and Tyler. Floyd explained that this late in the year, not many people were in town anymore, and that he himself was leaving in a few days. He further told Orobe that he did not have any extra fuel, before asking where Orobe was staying.

 

“I’m a cousin of the people who live…about 4 cabins down from here.” he lied, only being two cabins away on the other side of the street.

 

“Is that Tom and Nancy’s place?” Floyd inquired.

 

“No, no, my cousin’s names are Neil and Terry, they actually just inherited the cabin from the people who owned it before them.” Orobe “explained”.

 

“Oh, must be Jerry’s old place. He hasn’t been up here in a few years, thought maybe something might have happened to him.” Floyd said, believing Orobe’s lies.

 

Orobe affirmed Floyd’s inquisition and the two parted ways, with Floyd pulling onto the gravel and dirt driveway a bit away from the Botic’s cabin, and Orobe walking back from whence he came. Orobe felt that they could be potential witnesses to what he planned to do, and resolved to see if they would leave before the Botic’s arrived, and if they didn’t, he would develop a new plan of action.

 

As it turned out, Floyd and his grandkids began packing up their vehicle before the Botic’s arrived, and Orobe thought he would be in the clear. Just as that idea set in, however, the Botic’s Hyundai pulled into the dirt and gravel driveway next to Floyd’s cabin. Not wanting to take the chance that Floyd would tell them someone new was staying in the area, a fact that may be offputting to the targets of his stalking, he decided to strike immediately.

 

Unable to do anything before the two families talked, Orobe waited behind a large tree just on the other side of Floyd’s cabin. He waited until the Botic’s were inside their cabin, then entered Floyd’s through a window in the back while all three occupants were inside. He silently waited in a room until Floyd entered, immediately stabbing him in the neck, and covering his mouth so as not to draw any attention from his younger would-be victims.

 

After hiding Floyd’s lifeless body under the bed in the room, he then picked up a pillow off the couch before heading to the grandkids room, where they were laying in bunk beds. He waited around the corner for the perfect moment, then rushed into the room. Before the distracted kids knew what was happening, he had his left hand stretched to the top bunk, smothering the girl’s face with the pillow, his large hands able to make it so she could hardly move, while stabbing the young boy repeatedly in the neck and throat.

 

He covered both the bodies with the blankets on which they laid, and then found Floyd’s car keys on the kitchen table. This next part was the most risky, as he had to go out in the open and get into Floyd’s car to drive it away. He looked through a window facing the Botic’s cabin, and tried to determine when at least the adults were both in the room farthest back. When this happened, Orobe made his move, locking the door behind him, running outside, jumping into Floyd’s car, and driving away. He headed to his temporary cabin and parked the car in the back. He wasn’t worried about DNA or fingerprints, as he had been wearing plastic gloves during this entire ordeal.

 

He went to the cabin the first night and placed a small microphone, similar to the one he had in their house, so he could know their plans, and more accurately determine how long they would be gone for if and when they left the cabin. The next morning, he learned that they would eventually be going to a different part of the lake that had a small playground and a raft for the kids to play on. Deciding he wanted to have a little fun with them, he waited until they left, then mowed their lawn. This was to be the calm before the inevitable storm.

 

He waited at a distance for when the family came home to see their freshly cut grass, and got a slight kick at watching their confusion play out. After they went inside, Orobe went back to his cabin and used the next day for more surveillance. He noticed that in the morning, they put the dog outside to use the bathroom, tying his leash around a pole. This would provide the opportunity to do what he wanted to do next.

 

The following morning, at roughly the exact same time as the day before, the wife of the family took Roscoe outside and tied him up. No sooner than the dock shut did Orobe run full speed at the dog and cut its throat with a jagged piece of metal he’d found in the shed behind the cabin he was staying in, to the point that the dog’s head was being held on by nothing by skin. From there, he cut the dog’s stomach open, and used his bare hands to tear out the dog’s insides and left them next to the lifeless, furry body.

 

To add insult to injury, Orobe made a few trips back and forth between the dog’s carcass and the siding of the Botic’s cabin. He did this so he could get a sufficient enough amount of the dog’s blood on his hands to write out a message on the side of the cabin.

 

“GOOD DOGGY”

 

And with that, he retreated to a vantage point from which he could see the aftermath of his work. It look longer than he expected for someone to come outside, but eventually, the father did, much to Orobe’s dismay. He wanted to be sure that the rest of the family was aware of what was going on, and from what Orobe had learned from body language as well as the different microphones he had placed in their domiciles, he all but knew for sure that the family had no idea what was going on.

 

He watched as the patriarch of the Botic family came outside, saw what had happened, and run back inside to tell his family to stay inside and not look out the window. Mr. Botic then returned outside, dug a hole for the now-expired Roscoe and placed him inside it, stroking his blood-covered fur, sobbing. Sure, this was all well and good for Orobe, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Even more to his dissatisfaction was the fact that the father had noticed and washed away the message on the side of the cabin, which was meant as a last ditch effort to alert the rest of the family that something wasn’t right.

 

Angry, Orobe went back to his cabin and retrieved his truck, sitting in it until the Mr. Botic went back inside the cabin, explaining to his family that “a large animal attacked and hurt Roscoe, and that with such a large animal on the loose, they should leave.”. Orobe couldn’t help but laugh and wonder how long the man could keep his charade going.

 

He heard that when the family was done packing, they were going to stop at the gas station just outside of Long Lake, so that is where Orobe went next.

 

Orobe parked his vehicle behind a large sign that stood next to the gas station. He waited for the family to show up, and when they did, they parked at a gas pump and piled out of their car, heading into the gas station. He then briskly walked to the car and put an envelope containing a new drawing under the windshield wiper of their Hyundai. This drawing was of their family playing in a pool, which Orobe had Atol add himself into, behind the fence in the picture. This drawing was to let the family know that he was watching them. Next, to confuse them, he had Atol draw a few wrapped presents with bows on them. He then asked him to write a nice message on the back, which he did.

 

“We are a hapy famly.”

 

Orobe quickly walked behind the gas station and climbed the ladder that led to the roof. Up there, he watched as the father ran out of the gas station and grabbed the envelope from under the windshield wiper, much to Orobe’s annoyance. Once again, this man would seemingly keep what was going on with his family a secret. He then laughed to himself as the father looked both ways down the road, then did a circle around the gas station not once, but twice, before going back in the gas station.

 

Orobe camped out on the roof for a while, long after hearing the family he was stalking pull out of the driveway and head back on their way home. He chose not to follow them, as the father would surely be looking for anyone on their tail.

 

_____

 

For the next few months, Orobe analyzed all of the drawings in Katie’s portfolio, figuring out which ones he wanted to have Atol add to, figuring out which way things would go if he left this picture instead of that one, basically looking at every possible outcome of his next 5 moves. Then, he came across the picture of what looked like Katie as a princess. In the picture, she was wearing a big pink dress and a tiara, and had a wand in her hand. It was titled “Princess Penelope”.

 

His next idea popped into his head faster than any other one had yet. It would be his most drastic, but one that he felt needed to be done in order to sufficiently move along with his “project”.

 

Orobe’s sister in law had a well known sexual proclivity. She was known to engage in what some would call “strange” sexual behavior with her husband, Orobe’s brother Joseph. She derived pleasure from humiliating him. This was only done in the privacy of their own home, and for a long time, just between the two adults. Later in life, however, she began insisting that their son, Atol, be in the room to witness her making a mockery of the boy’s father. It was known around town, and frowned upon, but as the Marcels essentially owned Billows, it was never brought up.

 

Their odd sexual habits took a darker turn one day, however, when the 15 year old Atol was proposition by his mother to make love to her, in a further effort to humiliate his father. Already being a slow boy, Atol didn’t really understand that what he was doing was wrong; he was simply following his mother’s orders.

 

Orobe found this to be particularly disgusting. Even moreso, he was enraged when Roberta became pregnant with her son’s child. This is something Orobe never quite got over. He found it absolutely abhorrent that his sister in law would do such a thing with her own son, let alone making a fool of his only brother.

 

He saw a way to kill two birds with one stone after going through Katie’s drawings again. He found one where the subject of the drawing was a princess. He felt he had finally found a way to make sure everyone in the family knew they were being targeted by something. It would require finesse, but that’s something Orobe had in spades.

 

He began by sitting down with Roberta and Atol to them them what he was going to do. Simply put, he let them know that he was going to murder their daughter. After a very brief refusal, Orobe was granted “permission” by the girl’s parents. Essentially, he gained their sick blessing through the threat of violence to them, and the cowards gave up their daughter to save themselves. In addition to that, he manipulated them into thinking he was doing them a favor, and saving the girl from a poor life, which in all honesty, he probably was, in his own sick, twisted way.

 

Next, he sent Roberta out of the room to talk with Atol privately. He gave Atol the necessary utensils to add to the drawing of the princess, which was to be a pool of blood and Atol himself holding a knife. Atol wondered why he had to do this, but never vocally questioned the ever-overbearing presence of his uncle. When he was done, Orobe told him he’d be coming for his daughter soon, and that he was doing a good thing by giving his daughter up to Orobe.

 

A few days later, while Roberta was at Daisy’s and Atol was out doing whatever it is Atol does, Orobe went to the home to visit their daughter. She was, as was the case with most days, playing alone, running around the filthy house freely. Orobe walked right past her without acknowledging she was even there, and headed to the basement.

 

Past the main room was a smaller area that Orobe planned to use for his next step. He used duct tape to hold up a large white sheet that covered the wall on the left and draped onto the floor below, a sort of makeshift background for his project. He then got a video camera from upstairs and made sure the tape inside was empty and the batteries full. He brought a small sort of chest and put it to the left of the white sheet.

 

Next, he went upstairs to retrieve the daughter. The 8 year old girl was sitting in the living room watching some cartoons when Orobe picked her up from behind, and despite her objections, forcefully carried her upstairs to a filthy bedroom. Hanging on the back of the door was a princess costume that Orobe had picked up a few towns over. He essentially tossed the daughter in the room and told her to put on the dress, closing the door most of the way behind her to give her privacy. A short time later, she opened the door, dressed in the pink gown and tiara, with a wand in hand. It was as close a personification to Katie’s drawing as one could get.

 

He then led her by the hand back down to the basement, where they entered the area with the white sheet. He sat the girl on the chest and explained to her exactly what he wanted her to do. The orders were to introduce herself as Princess Penelope, and for her to tell the camera how happy she was that her prince had come to rescue her. In addition to that, she was to talk about how much she liked her new home, and to refer to it as “the castle”. She was then to talk about how her “daddy was a mean man, who wouldn’t let the prince rescue her”, and how “she was now going to be punished for her daddy’s mistakes”.

 

After assuring her that any mistakes would result in punishment, Orobe then ordered her to get into the chest, which she initially refused to do. After some threatening persuasion to the young girl, she reluctantly got in the case, which Orobe closed behind her, placing a padlock on the handle to keep her inside. He then went upstairs and grabbed a large butcher knife from the kitchen.

 

From there he went back downstairs and turned on the video camera, which was sitting on a small stool to the back of the room, keeping the hanging white sheet in frame. He then unlocked the chest and opened it. The girl got out of the chest, whimpering, with tears streaming down her face. Orobe then ordered her to “go”, and begin the “show”. She walked onto the draping part of the white sheet while orobe went and picked up the camera.

 

After ordering her to begin again, the daughter began sobbing, which was met with a vicious slap to the face from Orobe. With that, she started her “performance”, all the while Orobe kept the camera focused on her. When she said the line “the prince is going to punish me because my daddy wasn’t nice to him”, Orobe sat the camera back down on the stool and walked into the frame. He then proceeded to brutally stab the 8 year old girl, her screams filling the damp air in the small room.

 

When he was finished, he turned off the video camera and walked upstairs and outside. He went and got a shovel from the garage that was next to the house and walked into the cornfield behind the house. He then dug a hole in which to dump his niece’s body. After burying her, he changed his clothes and finished the last part of this step.

 

Since before he killed Roscoe and left the drawing on the windshield in Long Lake, Orobe knew he was going to deliver the next drawing as a present, but it wasn’t until he got the idea of killing his niece that he knew what the present would be. As such, he put the videotape, along with an envelope containing the princess drawing, in a small box and wrapped it in green Christmas wrapping paper, with a to/from note that read “to: Katie” and “from: : )”. He then began the drive back to Northern California.

 

He arrived at about 3:00am, and parked about a block down from the Botic’s home. He had already made certain that the family didn’t have a home security system, and was bewildered at the fact that the patriarch of the family had kept everything Orobe had done a secret, going so far as to not provide them with extra security. Again, Orobe laughed at the foolishness of the father, but at same time, he both relished and loathed the fact that he was making it so easy, as Orobe prefers the thrill of the hunt over all else.

 

Orobe walked down the street and up the Botic’s driveway. From there he made his way to the backyard, where a simple lockpicking technique on the sliding glass door granted him access to their home. He casually yet silently made his way through their kitchen, down their hallway, and into their living room, which housed a large, fully decorated Christmas tree.

 

He sat down on their couch for a few minutes, taking in the ambiance of their home. He’d come to feel a connection to the home, and to the family itself. He was taking pride in implementing his way into their lives, but at the same time feeling frustrated that still, only the father truly knew. He took some solace in knowing that the mother had inquired as to what’s going on with the father’s affected moods, but she never got the true answer.

 

Orobe stood up from the couch and placed the wrapped gift under the tree; it was the only present under the tree at this point, which made him figure it had only recently been put up. He placed the gift right at the front of the tree, in hopes that a child would come down in the morning and see it. That’s when heard a creak on the stairs, followed by footsteps.

 

Never one to panic, Orobe simply stepped into the shadows. He watched as the father came down the stairs and turned towards the kitchen. Simultaneously, not wanting to press his luck, Orobe silently went to the front door and unlocked it. Then, while the father was running the faucet in the kitchen, Orobe quickly opened the door and stepped outside, closing it behind him.

 

He then went to his car and listened to see what came of his most recent attempt at terrorizing this family, but from what he gathered, all the father did was open the present and hide everything before simply going back to bed. Feeling defeated again, Orobe decided to stick around in town before heading back to Billows to see if anything unfolded.

 

Sure enough, the next day, he followed the father to a pawn shop, where the man picked up a VCR and took it back to his house. After some time in the house, which Orobe was unable to listen in on as he figured the man had gone into the basement, where there were no microphones, the father left the house once again and headed straight to the police station. A few more days of surveillance revealed to Orobe that police were stationed to watch the house, but at an inconspicuous distance, suggesting that once again, the family STILL did not know what was going on.

 

It was at this point that Orobe decided to make it so there was no question to the family that they were the subject of a long standing, elaborate stalking expedition, and that they should be afraid, that they know they’re in potential danger, and that some strange person has been infiltrating their lives. That this person brutally killed their dog, and has been in their home. But Orobe being the perfectionist he was, still wanted to accomplish this task with finesse. He was going to give it one final shot with grace before pulling out all the stops and throwing it directly in their faces.

 

_____

 

Over the next few months, Orobe spent about 3-4 days per month in the Botic’s Northern California town, gathering what information he could from them. During this time, he confirmed that the rest of the family had no clue what was going on, which infuriated Orobe. He did, however, gain one very useful piece of information. Katie’s birthday was coming up in March, and the Botic’s were planning a big party for her. To figure out the best way to alert the family of something going on, he hung around and listened to the family for the few days before the party.

 

As luck would have it, Orobe learned on the day of the party that there was going to be a table used for holding all the gifts. All he had to do was figure out a way to get his “gift” on it, and put it in the middle of them all. This task proved to be especially easy.

 

While sitting a few houses down from the Botic’s, listening to them as they moved between the inside and outside of their house, setting up the party, Orobe waited for them to start setting up all the gifts on the table. He heard them take a box full of presents outside, presumably to be set up. A few minutes later, the mother and father went back inside the house, and the woman commented on how she needed her husband’s help getting chairs down from the attic. This was his opportunity.

 

While risky, Orobe didn’t know if he would get another opportunity. He got out of his car and swiftly walked to the Botic residence as soon as he heard the two adults let down the stairs to the attic. He was confident that the kids were watching television in the living room, so they were of no concern to him. He made his way into the backyard and walked to the table full of gifts, where he strategically placed his own in the middle, out of sight from someone who wasn’t specifically looking for it.

 

With that, he rushed back to his car to listen some more. He was successful. When he got back to the car, they were still bringing chairs down from the attic, and the kids were none the wiser. He looked around and didn’t see anyone that may have noticed him, so he decided to drive away for the time being.

 

Orobe had gone through Katie’s portfolio countless times, and was unable to find a suitable picture to leave a clue on this time, so he instead opted to just instill fear. He found a painting of the Botic’s son, a boy named Alex. He then ordered Atol to paint some bushes and a picture of himself on the picture. Then, in red pen, Orobe relayed a message to Atol for him to write across the top of the picture.

 

“Me and your brother are frends now. When will we be frends?”

 

Even though Orobe had murdered his daughter, Atol, being the simple-minded man he was, enjoyed doing arts and crafts with his uncle, and didn’t understand that he was essentially being used as a patsy for an elaborate stalking scheme.

 

The goal of the additions to the painting was to suggest to the family that the boy had been in contact with the stalker. Orobe felt that there was no way the husband could keep that from the family, although he had underestimated the length to which the Botic patriarch would go to to shield his loved ones from this horror.

 

In addition to the picture, Orobe had wrapped an actual gift for 8 year old Katie; a rather expensive set of sketching pencils. With that, orobe wrote a simple note himself, as he felt this would be the time Katie would find out she had an “admirer” of sorts.

 

“Never stop drawing.”

 

Orobe went and got food while waiting for the party to start, all the while contemplating what his next move would be. He was confident that the family would now know what had been going on, and had to figure out something that would terrorize them all. Knowing the party had started while he was away, Orobe headed back to wait to see if everything would come crashing down as he hoped, or if the father would somehow figure out a way of lying to his family once again.

 

Sitting only a house away from the Botic residence, Orobe parked along with all the rest of the cars of the party guests, adequately blending in. From where he was, he could just barely see what was going in the backyard, and was just able to make out what was going on as far as the party progressing. After a lot of playing and eating, it looked to him like it was finally time for Katie to open her presents.

 

After a while, he saw the mother and father both stand up and walk over to Katie. This was it. She had found the gift he’d left. The two parents then walked into the house, where Orobe was able to hear the entire event unfold.

 

Mr. Botic told his wife everything. He told her about what had happened at the hotel, the origins and ultimate demise of their family dog, how he had gone to police, the videotape of the young girl being stabbed to death, everything. Orobe listened with pleasure as Katie’s mother broke down into tears, some of fear, and others of rage. She was, understandably, livid that her husband had kept such things from her.

 

After his confession, they looked at the painting and were stricken with fear all over again. The wife ran outside and collected their son, bringing him inside to talk to him. They asked him if he’d been approached by or talked to any strangers recently, to which he obviously replied that he hadn’t. When they were done, the wife told her husband she was going to stop the party once the presents were done, and this was Orobe’s note that he should leave. He was thrilled that the wife now knew what was going on. He knew it would put them on high alert, and for Orobe, this made doing what he was doing that much more fun.

 

When Orobe had Atol add on to the painting of the young Botic boy, he also dictated a letter to Atol from him to write. Knowing it would be riddled with spelling errors, Orobe just further distanced himself from being considered a suspect for when this inevitably all came to a head, and further solidified the mentally-handicapped Atol as the “true” perpetrator.

 

Dear Katie,

I would like so much to be your frend. I don’t have a lot of frends, but youre pichures make me so happy and they are so good! You are a very very good artist and to be a friend with someone so tallented would be so fun. I dont think youre mommy and daddy would want us to be frends thow so maybe it could be a fun secrit. I want you to draw me lots and lots and lots and lots of pichures so that I can look at them all the time. I hope we can be frends.

 

Orobe stayed in town for about a month, and learned that the Botic’s had gone to the police once again. He also listened as the married couple fought day after day, night after night, about how the man of the family had kept such a serious secret from his wife for so long. He listened as their marriage began to fall apart, and all Orobe did was smile. He was causing pain, and that was his goal above all else.

 

Then one day, while the whole family was out, Orobe snuck back into the Botic residence and left the letter for Katie to find in her bedroom. He then waited for the family to get home, where Katie found the letter almost immediately after going into her bedroom, which she then brought downstairs.

 

Orobe listened as Katie’s parents talked about what their next move should be, and grinned as they contemplated moving. They of course took the letter to the police as well. They took both kids out of school and kept them in the house at all times. They put their house up for sale and had moving trucks come only 10 days after the decision was made. Orobe kept tabs from both up close and from afar as they stayed in a city about 2 hours away until mid-May before he followed them to their new residence in suburban Colorado.

 

Orobe wanted to give the family a false sense of security, some unfound hope, so he didn’t make any further “contact” with the family for nearly half a year, although he did keep a close eye on them  both in person and from Billows. He had gotten into both of the parent’s email accounts, which they both used frequently, and with that came their calendars, contacts, and personal information. It was as if they were intentionally making it easy for Orobe to keep tabs on them. They obviously weren’t, but Orobe both appreciated and resented the simplicity of it all. At one point in those 5 months Orobe didn’t do anything to them, they took a roadtrip to Florida. Orobe used that time to skulk through their new Colorado home and fit it with microphones.

 

_____

 

Orobe drove by their Colorado home one day while the family was out and placed two letters inside their mailbox, mixing them in with the rest of the mail that had already been delivered that day. Inside the first envelope, he had forged a letterhead from a Northern California estate attorney and written a letter to the Botics providing details on where and when the reading of Nick (the father)’s mother’s will would be.

 

The letter was as professional as one could make it, and he was sending it more as a joke than anything else. Orobe knew they would quickly be able to debunk the letter with a simple phone call, but the idea of instilling that much dread in them made it all worth it. It also would let the family know that their stalker knew where they were, and that their move did nothing to stop him.

 

He sat and listened as the frightened man made a panicked call to his mother, verifying her safety. Meanwhile, the wife noticed the other envelope, this one unmarked, mixed within the mail and opened it. It was a picture Katie had drawn of her grandmother, now adorned with X’s over the eyes. A little something extra to go with the heart-wrenching “lawyer letter”.

 

Orobe sat in his vehicle and listened as the father of the Botic’s broke down and cried, seemingly at his wits end. He listened as the man made a phone call to the California detective and had him place a unit on the grandmother’s retirement home, not that Orobe had any plans for her.

 

_____

 

Orobe spent the next several months, seven to be exact, developing the next part of his plan. He was to the point where he wanted to find a way to make the father commit suicide. He didn’t like how he treated his family, with the lies and deceit, and wanted to be done with him, but in the most painful way to his family. To do this, he dug up the body of his niece and cut off her left hand. He then proceeded to burn off her decomposing fingertips and paint her nails. This was all for effect; his plan was to mail the body part to the Botic family.

 

In addition to this part of his plan, Orobe began developing another aspect, one that he knew he wanted, but wasn’t sure how to exactly utilize quite yet. He began constructing tunnels underneath the farmland at BiloXy farms, beginning in the barn, and stretching a few different directions out into the fields. He only finished one; it was to be used as a quick getaway if Orobe got into any dire situation while at his sister-in-law’s house. He didn’t tell the rest of the family about this tunnel either.

 

At the end of the only finished tunnel was a large dug out area, about the size of a common jail cell. Orobe liked to think of himself as a visionary. He took pride in what he did, and with his next project, he began trying to make works of art out of the scenarios he put everyone in. In some sort of sick way, he drew inspiration from Katie. Orobe was also something of a savant with electronics. Not that it would have taken one to complete what he was trying to do, but he knew his way around home theatre setup.

 

Orobe sent Atol to pawn shops in several surrounding towns to buy a multitude of televisions, mostly older, tube tvs. He then set these televisions up, piling them on top of each other in the dug out area at the end of the tunnel. Using a few thousand yards of extension cords, he connected them to a number of surge protectors in the basement of the farmhouse. He also used hundreds of dollars worth of adapter cords to have the option of connecting them to a camera in the basement room he killed his niece in; at this point he had decided that he was going to go to Colorado and kidnap the father.

 

Knowing he couldn’t trust Atol to do this, and he was going to have to get his hands dirty himself, he employed Atol to design him a mask, which to his surprise, Atol was very adept at. It became a hobby of Atol’s over the next while.

 

Orobe sent the package containing the little girl’s rotting hand to the Botics. He knew the police presence would be heavy in the following weeks, so he waited a while to go to Colorado himself. When he did, his goal was to kidnap the father. He wasn’t planning on killing him, just terrorizing the family a bit more. The ultimate goal was to get Katie, but he wanted everyone to suffer as much as he could make them before he did the final deed.

 

Upon his arrival to Colorado and his listening to the Botic family communications from his vehicle parked nearby, Orobe learned something interesting. Mr. Botic was going out of town, under the guise of doing research for a book he was writing. Orobe found this to be a lie by checking Nick’s browser history, which contained maps to Billows, specifically Daisy’s Diner. Orobe listened while the family devised a convoluted, elaborate plan to get every other family member to a safe place, which made him laugh. If only they knew.

 

Orobe left for Billows before Nick did, with the intention of beating him to Daisy’s. He got there nearly 8 hours before Nick did, and waited at Daisy’s the entire time for him to show up. Eventually, he saw the familiar Hyundai truck pull into the Daisy’s parking lot, this time directly in front of the large windows on the restaurant. With this, Orobe exited the restaurant out a back door, put on his mask, and drew his hood over his head before making his way around the building.

 

He waited a few moments, watching Nick talk to Roberta; Orobe hadn’t informed his sister-in-law of the situation, as he wanted her reaction to the man to be genuine. Orobe was waiting for the right time to tell his brother and sister-in-law that their only son was being used in an elaborate scheme, the end result of which would likely be the imprisonment of the mentally damaged Atol.

 

While Roberta and Mr. Botic were talking, Orobe made his way to the father’s Hyundai truck and jimmied open the door. He then began clumsily rummaging around inside the vehicle, his only objective being to draw the attention of someone in the restaurant, which would then alert Nick to his vehicle being rifled through. While keeping the inside of the restaurant in his periphery, Orobe essentially twiddled his thumbs waiting for the attention to be diverted to him.

 

Finally, Orobe saw all the heads in the restaurant turn towards his direction, followed by Nick running out of the restaurant. By the time he reached the door, Orobe was around the corner, waiting with a lead pipe. As he had expected, Nick ran around the corner after him, and Orobe swung the pipe and hit the man he’d been terrorizing for so long directly in the side of the skull, rendering him unconscious.

 

Orobe then collected the unconscious man and loaded him into his truck, which he had parked behind the restaurant. Before heading to the planned destination, Orobe pulled over and stitched up the cut on Mr. Botic’s forehead (it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the multi-faceted Orobe was also skilled in basic first-aid). He then drove to the dug out spot at the end of the tunnel, which was about an hour away from Daisy’s Diner (BiloXy Farms itself was roughly 40 minutes away). Along the way, Nick began to wake up, but was again subdued by Orobe via a choke hold and again rendered unconscious.

 

Orobe threw him in the dug out part at the end of the tunnel and covered the top with two pieces of plywood hinged to the ground with stakes. He then made the quick drive back to the farmhouse where he had Atol waiting.

 

A few days prior, Orobe had Atol do his best to memorize a set of lines which he was to regale to the camera, which would in turn be broadcast on the number of televisions in the tunnel where Mr. Botic was. While the father was knocked out, Orobe had also activated both the GPS locator on the man’s phone, as well as the microphone, which he could listen to remotely. When Orobe arrived back at the house, he told Atol it was time.

 

When Orobe heard movement through the microphone on Mr. Botic’s phone, he remotely turned on all the TV’s.

 

Atol donned a mask that he had made and stepped in front of the camera, standing on the same sheet that his daughter had been brutally murdered on. While not exactly sure what he was saying, The impressionable Atol made sure to memorize the lines he’d been given by his uncle as well as he could, and was just happy that he was being included in Orobe’s life at all, and didn’t want to squander the opportunity he’d been given to impress him. While not verbatim, he did his best to deliver the message orobe had given him.

 

”Hi Katie’s daddy. I’m glad you got my present. I don’t wanna do no harm to your daughter the great artist, I just want her to be my friend and draw me pictures! I sent back the ones that weren’t my favorite but I’ve kept the ones that are my favorites and those are mine now. All I want is a friendship with Katie. Katie Katie Katie. She’s such a very good artist.”

 

Getting into the proverbial zone, Atol took the reins and began delivering the lines in a less monotone way, adding in some of his own emotion, sounding angrier.

 

“But you won’t let her be friends with me! You’re making me get you out of the way and I don’t want to do that because friends don’t hurt friends daddy’s! I want to be a good friend and not a bad friend! So, I’m going to make this simple. Simple simple easy peasy.If you promise to let your daughter the artist be my friend, I’ll leave you alone. But if you still won’t be nice, I’m gonna get really angry. Do you promise to be nice?”

 

Through the microphone, they both heard Mr. Botic mutter out a quiet “yes”. Orobe had told Atol that the man would in fact agree, and motioned to him to deliver the rest of the message.

 

”Good. But since you were such a meany pants, I’m not gonna tell you how to get out!”

 

Orobe then cut the feed. He thanked Atol and told him how good of a job he had done. Poor, simple-minded Atol had no clue what he was doing to himself. Hardly able to function on his own, Atol would do literally anything his mysterious uncle would tell him to, and had no idea that he was implicating himself in an elaborate crime.

 

Orobe then listened while Mr. Botic found the way to get out of the hole he was in, and waited while Mr. Botic walked through the woods for nearly 90 minutes looking for a road. Much to his surprise, the man had headed in the right direction, but got turned around a few times. He eventually found the main road, and wandered down it for about 45 minutes, until he he was only about a half hour away from Daisy’s. Orobe drove up the road behind him and pulled over to ask if he needed help.

 

Nick agreed and got in Orobe’s truck. Orobe never would have shown it, but he was absolutely thrilled that the man he’d been terrorizing for so long was now willingly sitting next to him in his car, and would be indebted to him for the help he offered. It was so poetically wrong, and Orobe loved every second of it.

 

He drove the man to Daisy’s Diner, where he dropped him off, and immediately turned around and headed back to the spot at the end of the tunnel. He proceeded to smash all the TV’s and cut the cords behind them, then caved in the tunnel behind everything. After doing this, he headed back to the farmhouse, where he pulled in the now useless cords through the long tunnel.

 

The police in Billows were family of Roberta, and all knew of the existence of Orobe, but all knowledge of him was shrouded in mystery. They knew the never bring up his name, and to turn away if they ever saw him. Roberta explained to her family members that he was the most  dangerous man any of them would ever meet, and that his business was his own, and that if there were any crimes that could be attributed to him, to do anything they could to divert attention away from him, under the threat of grievous harm. This is why Orobe wasn’t worried when he was sure the Nick would call the police and report what had just happened to him.

 

A few hours later, Orobe got a call from his brother Joseph who at the time was working the counter at the motel, alerting him that “the man he said to look out for” had arrived. Orobe took note of this and hung up the phone.

 

Orobe had filled Joseph and Roberta in on the very basics of what was going on. He didn’t outright tell them that he was stalking a family, but he told them that he and Atol were “working on a special project” that involved a family, and he had given them instructions for if they ever saw the father, knowing that he would never allow his family back to Billows without him.

 

Feeling petty, Orobe called Joseph and ordered him to slash all four of Mr. Botic’s vehicle’s tires. There wasn’t an overarching point to this miniscule action, but like all people, Orobe sometimes took solace in life’s simple pleasures. He knew Nick would get them fixed immediately and be on his way home, but it didn’t matter. It was still one more speed bump in the road of his and his family’s life.

 

After confirming that the man had left the town, Orobe took some time to himself and planned what would be the final move in his stalking of the Botic family. He was going to kidnap Katie. This would be the ultimate blow to the family’s morale. But there was a lot that had to happen before he did it. He was going to condition Atol into essentially becoming the true villain behind everything.

 

_____

 

He started spending more time with Atol, and would have him go through Katie’s portfolio, picking out his favorite pictures. He also obtained a slew of art supplies for Atol, and set him up a makeshift art studio in the garage next to the farmhouse. He showed his nephew how to design masks, and told Atol he wanted a new mask every day. Atol had the idea to decorate the art studio with Katie’s pictures.