An Unforgettable Fare
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Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's story is a good old-fashioned spooky story. It's about a missing person in Taiwan and it takes a totally bizarre turn and I'll say most of you will probably get the most thrill out of the apartment scene. Believe me, you'll know the scene when you get to it and it's towards the end of the podcast. So make sure you stick around to the end if you enjoy being spooked.

But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is at work, go ahead and sneak into their house and crawl into their bed and then open up a Nature Valley crunchy granola bar and very sloppily eat it so crumbs go everywhere in their bed and then without cleaning up anything, just pull the covers over your mess and leave.

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On the morning of February 4th, 1991, a taxi cab driver named Wang was chatting with the taxi dispatcher at headquarters when suddenly, for no clear reason, the dispatcher stopped talking to Wang and just began staring intently at something behind Wang. And so Wang noticed this and right away he turned around to see what it was he was looking at, but all Wang could see was just a window that looked out to this huge fenced-in parking lot that was full of taxi cabs and their drivers. This is where they would go to wait for fares.

And where the taxi headquarters were located was right near the airport in a very busy city called Kaohsiung City in Taiwan. And so taxi cabs in this area were really in high demand. And so as Wang looked out at the very busy parking lot full of drivers talking to potential customers, you know, to Wang, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was just a typical busy day.

But when Wang kind of looked at the dispatcher like, I don't really see what you see, the dispatcher just raised his finger and kind of pointed in the direction that he was staring. And so Wang turned around again. And this time, when he looked in the direction the dispatcher was pointing, he could see immediately why the dispatcher was reacting the way he was. Because the dispatcher was pointing at one of their colleagues, so another taxi driver who

whose name was Leo Shui Chung. And as Wang looked out at him, he saw Leo was sprinting across this very busy parking lot full of all these cabs and drivers and customers. And Leo was clutching this big golden statue of Buddha in his arms as he ran. And so Wang and the dispatcher watched Leo. And what he did is he kept running all the way across the lot until he got to his taxi cab, at which point he practically dove inside of it. He slammed the door, locked every door,

and then began looking around frantically like he was expecting someone to show up who had been like chasing him or something. But there was nobody around his car and Wang and the dispatcher kind of scanned the parking lot and they didn't see anybody who seemed remotely interested in Leo. And so Wang and the dispatcher continued to watch Leo from the window

and they saw eventually Leo stopped kind of scanning around for other people, and at that point he took that golden statue of Buddha and he placed it up on the dash of his cab. And this was not the first Buddha statue that he had put up there. From Wang and the dispatcher's perspective, it looked like he had at least two or three that were right up there alongside this new one. And then after Leo placed this new golden statue...

he sort of sat back in his chair and from Wang and the dispatcher's perspective, it sort of looked like he had closed his eyes and was praying or mumbling something. But, you know, whatever he was doing, it just seemed kind of odd.

And so eventually, Wang and the dispatcher stopped watching Leo, who still just continued to sit back in his chair and, you know, mumble or pray or something. And then Wang and the dispatcher looked at each other, and they exchanged very concerned looks. Because they both knew, you know, Leo was kind of a weird guy. But from his behavior today, it just seemed like, you know, something must be wrong with Leo. There has to be some issue.

So, for context, Leo was this 35-year-old guy who lived alone, and he had this reputation of being very antisocial and kind of just rude. Like, he had terrible manners.

But recently, Wang and the dispatcher and other taxi drivers who worked at this company had noticed that Leo's behavior had gone from being kind of awkward and antisocial to being kind of menacing. Like not even including the weird behavior he was exhibiting now, just like in his day-to-day interactions with people, he was just really aggressive.

Like, he always would tell his colleagues at the taxi company how much he hated stray cats and dogs. And, you know, a lot of people found these stray cats and dogs in their neighborhood in the city to be a bit of a nuisance. You know, they'd rummage through trash and make noise or whatever, but nobody really paid them much attention. They were just stray animals trying to survive. Like, it wasn't a big deal. But

But for Leo, he like obsessed over hating the stray cats and dogs and how much he wanted them to get out of his neighborhood. And somewhat recently, he had come to work and told his colleagues that he had gone out and gotten a crossbow. And at night, he'd begun shooting at the stray cats and dogs, which totally horrified his colleagues.

And now, Leo had this weird thing going on with his Buddha statues that he was putting inside of his cab. And also, in addition to those statues, he had begun putting on the windows inside of his cab these things called fulus, which are these little strips of yellow parchment paper that basically ward off evil spirits.

And so Leo had basically transformed the interior of his cab into this sort of like weird shrine or temple. And in fact, Leo had put up so many of these Fulus on the inside of the windows, and again, all those statues that sat on the dash, that when he drove, he could barely see because his view was totally obstructed.

But despite everybody at the company seeing this totally weird behavior playing out with Leo, nobody went up to him and said, "Hey, what are you doing with these statues and pieces of paper? Like, what's going on here?" Because nobody wanted to interact with him. He seemed like kind of a menace, and so people just kind of let him do his thing. But now, as Wang and the dispatcher are watching Leo, like, run across the lot and act totally psychotic, they looked at each other and they were like, "Maybe we should do something."

And so Wang volunteered to call the police. And as Wang turned to go walk out and make the call, he saw Leo peeling out of the parking lot, nearly smashing into cars and people, just driving like a total maniac. And so Leo really felt like, okay, yeah, this really is the time to step in. Someone's going to get hurt here.

The following day, Wang would contact his friend in the police department and he would explain what was going on with Leo. And to Wang's surprise, his friend told him that actually the police were well aware of Leo. And that was because not all that long ago, Leo was actually a suspect in a murder case.

So about 10 months earlier, in April of 1990, a 23-year-old woman from Japan named Mariko Eguchi had visited Taiwan on vacation, and during this vacation, she had gone missing.

Now, at the time, the Taiwanese economy really relied heavily on Japanese tourism, and so Taiwan really aggressively marketed to Japan to, you know, "Come visit! Come on vacation here!" And so it was pretty common for Japanese college students to visit Taiwan on vacation to celebrate things like a graduation or a birthday party, and so that's what Mariko was doing. She was here celebrating, and she was traveling alone.

Also, one sort of quirky thing about Taiwanese culture at the time was it was pretty common for taxi cab drivers to open up their own personal homes to their fares, basically saying, "Hey, don't stay at a hotel. I'll give you a ride wherever you're going to go, but then at night, you can stay at my house with my family." And so it was just kind of a thing in Taiwan that people visited and stayed at the homes of their taxi cab drivers.

So when Mariko came to Taiwan on this vacation, this is what she did. She stayed in the home of the taxi cab driver, and it was during this period of time that she went missing. And so naturally, when the investigation began into her disappearance, the first place police went were the taxi cab drivers.

And so first, the police focused on a driver in the capital of Taiwan who said he had given Mariko a few rides, he had brought her sightseeing, and then he had let her stay in his home. But he said, you know, after that she left and he didn't see her again, he had no idea what happened to her. And the police would actually discover that after Mariko left that particular driver's house, she would send a postcard to her family that was dated after she had left. And so basically this ruled out the first driver as a suspect.

And so for a little while this case went cold because the police couldn't find any other taxi cab drivers that had given Mariko a ride.

But then, a few months later, the police offered a reward for information about what happened to Mariko, and it was then that police got a tip that Mariko had been seen speaking to Leo at the train station before she disappeared. But when police spoke to Leo, he immediately said, yes, I did give Mariko a ride, but that was it. She didn't stay at my house. It was just this one ride from the train station into town. And, you know, after she got out, I have no idea what happened to her.

And so police would ask Leo dozens more questions and they would try to get more information from him.

but he just didn't have any. And then at the same time, there was this flood of all these new tips that began coming into the police station about this case. But it would turn out a lot of these leads, like all of them, were just terrible tips. People were calling in totally random stuff just because now there was this monetary reward for information, and it was kind of incentivizing people to just call in anything. And it was actually making the investigation much harder because now the police had all these bad tips, and so they really weren't getting anywhere.

But despite the slow progress the police were making in this case, this case had really been elevated and become like a huge international news story and lots of people all over the world were following it. And during this time when all these people are tuned in to this case, really weird things began happening surrounding this case.

People in the city began receiving all these strange phone calls from this kind of frantic woman speaking Japanese. And in Taiwan, people predominantly speak Taiwanese and Mandarin, not Japanese. So this is a weird phone call to be getting in Taiwan.

And also, at this time, you need to remember that Mariko's disappearance was kind of all over the news. And so to get these weird calls from a woman speaking Japanese who sounds totally frantic, it made people in the city believe that it was Mariko placing these strange phone calls. But these calls, they didn't make any sense. It was just a woman kind of yelling in Japanese, and then she would just abruptly hang up.

And also there were all these reports of people claiming to have seen Mariko or heard Mariko just in the city walking around. None of it was substantiated, but there was just kind of this eerie quality to the case.

And so when Wang called his friend at the police department to report Leo for his totally weird behavior, this was at a time when the Mariko missing person case was still totally front of mind in Taiwan and around the world. And also the police were still actively investigating this case. And frankly, Leo had not been ruled out as a suspect in this case. He was not considered a primary suspect by any means, but he wasn't ruled out yet.

And so the police are hearing that Leo's acting really funny, and it made them think, hey, maybe we should reinvestigate this guy and see if he really is connected to the Mariko missing person case. And so ultimately, after Wang hung up, his friend in the police department got in touch with the lead detective on the Mariko case and told him about what was going on with Leo. And this lead detective, whose name was Lin Xiaoji, decided he would just put Leo under surveillance to see what he was doing.

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Starting sometime in the middle of February of 1991, Detective Lin and a few of his colleagues began taking turns trailing Leo basically 24/7. And so the police just kept their distance and they followed Leo all around the city as he picked up his fares. And you know, the police never got out to talk to any of the fares, you know, to get insights into whatever Leo might have been saying inside the cab. They just kind of watched from a distance and just wanted to see if there was any obvious red flags.

Detective Lin figured, you know, if Leo was somehow involved in whatever happened to Mariko, let's say she was killed, and let's say Leo was responsible for killing her, maybe if they followed Leo long enough, he might drive to an area that was kind of connected to her murder. Maybe her gravesite, or the place where he killed her, or something. You know, going to kind of strange random locations without a fare would likely be an indication to police that that was a place of interest.

But, as the police tailed Lei-Ao, that's not what he did. Lei-Ao basically never ever left his cab. Lei-Ao basically just picked up a passenger, drove them where they needed to go, and then repeated, over and over and over again all day long. And then at the end of the night, instead of going home to his apartment that police knew he had, he would just sleep inside of his cab, just like in parking lots and stuff.

And the only times he would go into his apartment appeared to be just so he could go to the bathroom or maybe shower or something because they would see him through the window. But whenever Leao went into his apartment, he went through the same totally weird ritual every time. He would be in his cab parked out front of his apartment and the police are, you know, parked far enough away that they can watch this. And Leao at some point would begin kind of frantically looking all around him as if he was looking for somebody who was trying to hurt him or who was spying on him or something. And then

and then after kind of making sure the coast was clear leia would open up his door and sprint like absolutely as fast as he could into his apartment building and he'd only be in there for like a couple of minutes before he'd come bombing back out and practically dive into his cab and he would shut all the doors lock all the doors and then you know he'd clutch his golden statues and he'd rub his fulus that were taped all over the inside of his cab and he'd continue frantically looking around you know to make sure nobody was there to hurt him or something and then

And then after a little while, he'd kind of calm down, he'd put a statue back on the dash, he'd kind of make sure his Fulus were all in place, and then he would drive away. So of course, Layow's behavior, you know, from the police's perspective, was totally bizarre. But in Detective Lin's mind, it didn't really seem like the behavior of a murderer. It seemed more like the behavior of someone who had lost their mind.

Finally, on March 4th, 1991, Detective Lin decided that he just needed to speak to Layout, which required, you know, basically ambushing Layout.

So Detective Lin coordinated with his officers who were out surveilling Leao, and he had them tell him when Leao was at his apartment, you know, going in to use the bathroom. And when they called in to Detective Lin that, hey, he just got to his apartment, he's about to run inside, Detective Lin and some other officers raced to the apartment, and they were all ready outside for whenever Leao came running back out to dive back into his cab. They were going to intercept him.

And now Detective Lin and his colleagues didn't really know how Leao was going to react to having all these police standing there ready to grab him. I mean, was this guy going to be hostile? Was he going to be aggressive? Was he going to be scared, sad? They had no idea. It just seemed like Leao was totally unstable, so they all kind of had to be ready for whatever reaction he was going to have. However, the way Leao ultimately reacted to this was not the way any of the officers suspected.

When Leo came bombing out of his apartment after a very short bathroom break, he began charging down the stairs towards his cab, and then seemed to kind of realize there were all these detectives and police officers all standing in front of him, literally getting ready to grab him, and Leo just collapsed to his knees and began sobbing and thanking them over and over and over again.

Now, Detective Lin had no idea what this was. He didn't really understand what Leia was thanking them for, but he didn't waste any time trying to figure out what was going on.

Instead, Detective Lin just went up to Leia and said, "Hey, we need to speak to you at the station. Will you come with us?" And Leia was like, "Of course I will! Of course I will!" And so Detective Lin drove Leia out to the police station, and when they got there, Leia was saying things like, "Oh, I wish I could just stay at the police station with you all. Like, this is where I'm safe. I want to stay here."

Now, Lin didn't really respond to this. He just kind of said, "Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah." And then they went inside together to head towards the interview room. And as they're walking there, Leia was saying over and over again to Detective Lin and any of the officers who passes by, you know, "Thank you so much. You're my savior. Thank you." Now, the police had no idea why Leia was treating them like his saviors, because to them, they're like, "Dude, we just ambushed you and brought you to the police station to question you about potentially being involved in a murder."

So I don't know how he saved you, but it would turn out, Leo had a really compelling reason to believe they really had just saved him. Because it would turn out, Leo had this absolutely terrifying thing happening inside of his apartment.

Just several minutes earlier, when Leao had run into his apartment, so right before he charged back outside and police grabbed him and took him to the station, you know, when he was still inside of his apartment, he stepped inside and the apartment was totally dark. All the lights are off, all the shades are drawn, and immediately Leao felt his heart starting to race. And he looked around his apartment and it was totally silent, but then he heard it.

He could hear on the far side of his apartment in a room that he couldn't quite see into, the sound of breathing. But Lei Ao lives alone. There shouldn't be anybody here. He has no pets, there's nobody here, but he hears breathing in another room. But Lei Ao knew there was nothing he could do. The only thing he could do was just try to get in there, go to the bathroom, and get out as quickly as possible.

And so very slowly, Layal began kind of tiptoeing across the living room floor, kind of making sure to stay out of eyesight of the doorway that led into the room where the breathing was coming from. And as soon as he kind of got past an area where he could be seen from the doorway, he ran the rest of the way down the hallway, he cut into the bathroom and shut the door and locked it. And then as quickly as he could, you know, he did his business. He used a washcloth to clean himself because he didn't have time to take a shower because of what was going on inside of his apartment.

And then once he was all done, you know, he took a deep breath and then he opened up the door. And this time the apartment was absolutely silent. There was no more breathing. And so Lei Ao, thinking he had this opportunity to get out of here without being caught by this thing inside of his apartment, he turned and just started running towards the door.

And as soon as he did, he began to hear a voice, a hoarse female voice, screaming at him from the other side of his apartment, screeching, why, why, why? And as Leo is just about to get to the door, he turns and he sees Mariko, the missing woman, running with her hair all knotted and matted, hanging over her face, sprinting towards him from that back room. And Leo, he only managed to barely get out of his apartment and shut it and lock it before she ran into the door.

And then it went silent again. This is why Leia was acting totally crazy. Because he was terrified of what he believed was like this demonic entity inside of his apartment. He didn't think that was a real person. He thought it was like the spirit of Mariko or something. And she was haunting him.

And so he had no idea what to do, he didn't know who to tell, and he just began living out of his cab instead of dealing with whatever was going on in his apartment. And so when Leia charged outside after this latest encounter with Mariko, you know, he sees the police, and Leia is just overwhelmed with relief. Hopefully, he's thinking, they can get rid of her and his life can go back to normal.

But as overjoyed as Leo appeared to be, and now having the police on his side, you know, finally being able to deal with whatever was going on, when push came to shove, Leo actually did not feel comfortable immediately giving up details of whatever was going on with Mariko inside of his apartment. But as Leo was brought by Detective Lin to the police station to tell them what was going on with how Mariko was in his apartment and she was haunting him, you know, it seemed like it was the ghost of her or something, you

You know, as Leia was having that conversation, other police officers were sent to Leia's apartment to go see if maybe Mariko really was in his apartment. Maybe that's where she had been this whole time. Maybe she broke into this guy's apartment and was just squatting there and harassing him. And that was the mystery. That's where she's been.

But when police went into Leao's apartment, there was no sign whatsoever that anybody else besides Leao was living in that apartment. There was no sign of a break-in. I mean, there was nothing. It was just Leao's apartment. And so this made police really suspicious of Leao because his story was so outrageous. And also he's talking about a person who's actively missing, Mariko.

And so the police really pressured Lei-Ao to, you know, "Come forward, give us more information. Why did you say this is Mariko in your apartment? Because there's nobody in your apartment, you know? Tell us what's going on here." And so finally, after four days of intense questioning of Lei-Ao, Lei-Ao did finally admit to police that there was more to this story.

It would turn out Lei Ao really did pick Mariko up at the train station when she arrived in Taiwan for her vacation. So he did give her a ride just like he said he had. But Lei Ao had lied about what happened after that.

It would turn out, after giving her this ride, Lei Ao stayed with Mariko, and they went sightseeing together, and then Lei Ao invited Mariko to stay with him at his apartment, which again was customary in Taiwan. And so Mariko said yes, and she went to his apartment in the evening, and while they were there, Lei Ao did proposition Mariko, and she rejected him.

And at first, Leia would just let it go. But then after Mariko fell asleep that night, he got his crossbow that he used to shoot dogs and cats, and he went into her room and he shot her four times with the crossbow and then cut her head off.

Leia would bury her body the following night, but that same night was the first time Leia began hearing the breathing. In his apartment, he couldn't quite place it, and then, not long after that, the head of Mariko, the severed head, would chase him all around his apartment, screaming, Why? Why? Why? at him.

And so basically, Mariko's severed head began haunting Leia incessantly to the point where he moved into his taxi cab and put up all those Fulu papers to protect him from evil spirits and also put up all those statues of Buddha for the same reason. I mean, he was living in his cab to protect himself from what he believed was this evil spirit. And so when people saw Leia in his cab kind of sitting back and muttering to himself, that was him praying that he would live through whatever was going on with this head.

Leao would tell police where he buried Mariko's body, and he would tell police he buried her entire body in one location, including her head. But when police dug her up, it was only her lower half. Her head was missing. Leao was convicted of murder, and to this day, he is still in prison.

Many people in Taiwan believe that, you know, this case was ultimately solved because of Mariko's spirit, that she played a big role. You know, her head haunting Liao is what drove him crazy to the point where he admitted to police what he did.

And then also, people in Taiwan think all those strange phone calls they were getting from that woman who was speaking Japanese and acting frantic and then hanging up, they say that was Mariko's spirit too. That that was maybe one of her attempts just to keep people engaged with the story so that it wouldn't fade and become a cold case. And in fact, even some of the police, including Detective Lin, say they do believe Mariko's spirit played a role.

And in fact, Detective Lin said at one point when he was inside of Liao's apartment, he was by himself and he felt someone push him on the back. And when he turned around, there was nobody there. And so he was convinced that Mariko's spirit was inhabiting that apartment.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts, not just this one, but also Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, bedtime stories, wartime stories, and run full. Just search for Ballin studios on any podcast platform and you'll find all of them. If you want to watch hundreds more strange, dark, and mysterious stories, just head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin.

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