Mr. Thomas

Cassy stared at the new fence between her yard and the new neighbor's.There was the pile of boards stacked against the back fence. Boards from the shop that Mr. Thomas had in his backyard.

Two years ago when Cassy and her family moved into this house, she had been so excited. She was going to start school and they were going to have a house not an apartment. Mr. Thomas had sat on his porch and watched them move in.

He stood in his yard with his big plastic goggles on his face and his electric trimmer and cut the hedges every week. When she played in her yard she could feel him watching her, until one day she stood in the driveway and hollered at him, “STOP watching me!”

He turned off the trimmer and looked at her. “I think you are a very smart girl. I once had a girl your age and she was very smart too.”

He said she and her mother went away and didn’t come back. That was all he said to her.

One day after school she was in the back yard with her new puppy. The puppy was digging under the fence between her yard and Mr. Thomas’. No matter how much she tugged and pulled at him, the puppy would not stop digging. By the next day there was a hole big enough for the puppy to crawl through.

Mr. Thomas walked to their house that night holding the puppy by the scruff of the neck. “Keep this dog in your yard or he will never come back.” He growled. Cassy’s parents apologized and he gave them a slight smile and went home. Cassy wondered why the dog would want to go to that yard and not the other. She began to spy on Mr. Thomas.

When he went to the store she went through the hedge and into the back yard. The high fence hid the fact there yard was full of junk. She found his workshop and there was nothing exciting there. Attached to the workshop was a building with no doors or windows. She heard some crying and someone shush-ing.

“Hello?” she called. There was no answer. “Hello? Is anyone there?” Silence.

Cassy heard a car in the front and thought Mr. Thomas was coming home so she ran back to her own yard.

She watched for the next time Mr. Thomas left, carefully she slipped into the backyard. This time she walked around the building. His shop was next to the fence the door was closed with a twist lock on it and no padlock. This part of the shed did not touch the back fence so she could walk all the way around it.

She pounded on the walls of the shop. “Is anyone there?” There was no answer so she continued to pound as she walked down the wall.

“Who are you?” She heard a voice call from inside the shack.

“I am Cassy. I live next door. Who are you? Why are you in the shed?” Cassy looked at the walls with no windows. There were pipes out the side and top.

“I think you had better go home. Where is Thomas?” This voice was from an older woman. “You better not let him know you were here or that you talked to us.”

“Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t tell anyone we are here. You and your family could be in trouble.”

“Trouble with who?”

“It doesn’t matter, but your family could die if anyone knew we were here. Go home and don’t come back.” The woman sounded scared.

She didn’t sneak back over into his yard for a couple of days. She wondered who the two women were. Could they be Mr. Thomas' wife and daughter who he said left and never came back?

She waited until one day he drove away with a trailer full of junk. He would be gone for a while. She ran to the back yard and slipped under the board. She knocked on the wall.

“Are you still there?” There was no answer at first. She called again.

“Yes, why are you back?” It was the woman.

“Why are you in there? How come your little girl doesn’t come out and play?” There was silence.

“We can’t come out.” A little voice answered.

“Hush!” The woman admonished.

“Is Mr. Thomas keeping you prisoner?”

“You might say that. He doesn’t like us to talk to other people.” This was from the little girl.

“I think you better stop talking to her.” This was a different voice.

“Who all is living in there?” Cassy was curious.

There was a long pause, “There are five of us here.” Cassy heard something like a cat crying.

“Do you have a kitty in there?”

“No. Now you go on home.”

Cassy heard the big gate hinges squeak and she slipped through the fence and went to the front to watch for Mr. Thomas.

She visited the women in the little shop, talking to them whenever Mr. Thomas was gone. He almost caught her one day, but she managed to get through the fence just as he opened the shop door on the other side of the building. She waited until he was in the shop and went back to press her ear to the wall. She could hear him talking and the women answering, but not what they said.

Cassy learned that the girl was about her age, her name was Linda. She didn't understand who the other women were. One was the grandmother and the other's were aunts. They were all very nice, but Cassy was told never to tell anyone, not even her parents about them.

Two weeks later Cassy came home to find an ambulance and police cars in Mr. Thomas' yard. Her father went to the nearest officer.

"What happened? Is Mr. Thomas alreight?"

The officer turned and after a moment he glared at Cassy's father. "He is dead."

"How did it happen?"

Another officer came up and led her father away while Cassy and her mother were told to go into the house and stay there.

Cassy slipped out the back door and went to the hole in the fence. She peeked into the space. The door to the shed was open, there was no noise from the shed. They must have come out. Cassy went back to her room and watched the action through her window she had a little smile on her lips as she watched the black van take Mr. Thomas away.



This is Robyn Barnes. Our top story tonight is a family of five women were found captive in a shed in the back of one of the cities residence. Mr. Thomas Wayne Glenn told neighbors that his wife and daughter left him to live with her family. His wife did not have a family. She was an orphan and had never married Mr. Thomas. He had picked her off the street as a runaway. He has kept her captive in his back yard for forty years. There were five women in the shed and the authorities are still trying to sort out the details. It seems that Mr. Thomas died the night before and there was an anonymous call to the station reporting the death and that the police might want to look at a suspicious shed in the backyard. As soon as we have more information we will be the first to break it.