Human Resources (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

**MrBallen** (0:00)
One morning in March of 1999, a detective in Norcross, Georgia, leaned in close to his computer monitor. He was reviewing video footage that his team had recorded at a murder scene, and finally, he had arrived at the exact frame that he wanted to analyze. And so he looked at it, he zoomed in, and as he did, he smiled, because he saw that the exact thing he was looking for in this frame was not there. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark & Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place, because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please hack the follow button social media accounts and remove their date of birth so that nobody wishes them a happy birthday. Okay, let's get into today's story.
Around 10.3 in the morning on March 15, 1999, 20-year-old Danielle Jennings, sat in her cubicle at the offices of a landscaping company in Atlanta, Georgia, anxiously watching the door to her boss's office. She was nervous because in just a few minutes, she had a meeting to discuss a sexual harassment complaint that she had recently filed against one of her coworkers, a guy named Jeff Copeland. Now, Danielle had hoped that her Human Resources Department would handle this complaint quietly, discreetly, but instead, HR had asked Danielle, her boss, and Jeff, to sit down together. Ultimately, they wanted them all to sit down face to face to talk this problem through. Now, for Danielle, I mean, this was horrifying. However, even though this was like the last way Danielle wanted to handle this, she had ultimately agreed to do this meeting. Because really, she needed this job, and she was worried if she didn't take this meeting, it could jeopardize her role here. So just then, she looked over and she saw the head of HR walk into her boss's office, followed closely by Jeff.
So at this point, Danielle, she took a deep breath, stood up from her desk, she straightened her clothes, and then headed into the meeting.
An hour later, Danielle walked back out of her boss's office, and her hands were shaking because the HR meeting had basically gone exactly how she'd been afraid it would go. Jeff had completely downplayed the whole thing as like this big misunderstanding.
Even though her boss had talked a lot about repercussions for Jeff, Danielle had gotten the feeling that nothing was actually going to be done here. And so this whole experience had been really embarrassing and also just overwhelming. And now Danielle really just wanted some distance, not just from Jeff and her boss in HR, but from everyone. She just wanted to go be alone. So she decided she would use her lunch break to just go home for a bit and try to recover. So she grabbed her purse and her jacket, and then she also told a coworker that she was stepping out for a bit, and then she made her way to the exit.
A half an hour later, around noon, Danielle pulled into the parking lot of the Ashley Lake Apartments in Norcross, Georgia. She parked her car, she got out, and then she started walking through the sprawling complex toward where she actually lived. As she neared her building, Danielle noticed that a light fixture under the awning that led into her building was flickering again. This complex admittedly was sort of a dump. Things were always breaking, and it always seemed to take the management company months to send someone around to repair anything if they even sent anybody at all. And also, beyond just being sort of a rundown place, the apartment complex objectively was just not safe. Domestic violence disputes were very common, and lately, there had been a rash of break-ins that had Danielle and a lot of people who lived here on edge. And so Danielle, she really wished she could be raising her three-year-old son Tristan somewhere nicer, somewhere safer. But for now, this really was like the best she and her fiance Luis could afford. Now, Danielle walked under the awning and she unlocked the door, and she went inside. And it was quiet, because Luis was at work and her son Tristan was at daycare. So she had the place to herself, which was ideal, because again, she just wanted her space. She headed into the kitchen and she put her purse on the table, and as she did, she just looked at the engagement ring on her finger. So Luis, her fiancé, had proposed to her three months ago at Christmas, and Danielle was still getting used to how good it felt to be with someone as reliable and grounded as he was. Now, she dated some downright dangerous guys before, including Tristan's biological father, and next to them, Luis was like a saint. Also, Luis just had this ability to know exactly what to say, to calm Danielle down, like whenever she was stressed.