On April 16, I tried to find a geocache called Little Liz in Fremont, California.
I couldn’t find it. Well, less of a “couldn’t find it” and more of a “gave up before I could get there” kind of cache. Even if the ground had not been covered in up to a foot of unpassable water in some places, I still wouldn’t have gotten it, methinks. Parking resonably nearby, I headed over towards the general cache area and passed the wooden gazebo at the beginning. I noticed a guy sitting on his bike on the wooden ramp leading up to the gazebo; the only reason I noticed him was that there was a ”no bicycles” sign over his head and I thought it was pretty humorous. In retrospect, I wish I’d taken a photo.
When I headed down the mulchy trail, my sixth sense kept kicking in and I noticed the aforementioed guy following me on his bike. Ordinarily, it’s not very unusual to see hikers and bikers together on the same trails, but he was keeping my same pace and staying back about 200 feet or so. When I stopped at several trail markers to pretend to look around and enjoy the scenery, he stopped his bike and sat still each time. When I continued moving on, he moved, too. At the end of the Muskrat Trail, it takes a sharp left and becomes Willow Trail. About 300 feet down Willow, I stopped and looked over my shoulder. He stopped at the trail junction and just stared at me while still sitting on his bike. I stood there for quite some time, looking around (while still keeping an eye on him) to see if I could find something that could be considered a weapon. The nearby stones were too small, and the sticks were too soft after the heavy soaking from the recent rain.
I was much more worried about going further into the woods with this guy apparently stalking me, so it took a few moments of planning and decision-making to figure out my next moves. I knew, having looked at my GPS, that the cache was further down Willow Trail and a few hundred feet to the left, so I thought I could lose him quickly and unseen. I continued on down Willow Trail and it curved slightly. Once he was out of sight, I ran down the trail to the upcoming left turn, heading in about 20 feet. Here the mud and water were so thick that I considered the trail unpassable at that point. I gave up quickly. I turned around, headed back down Willow Trail, and saw him coming my way. He turned around and went back the way we’d both come. He disappeared much quicker than I would have thought since I knew where the righthand turn onto Muskrat was. I was as tense and coiled as a mountain lion as I walked back down the path. At a non-official mini trail that branched west off of Willow, I spied him about 30 feet away through the branches. He was just standing there looking at me. Needless to say, I arrived back at my car very quickly thereafter — according to my GPS, my speed on the way out averaged 3 mph, on the way back it reached 5.7 mph. I chalked this cache off as one I will never again attempt, certainly not without companions in number.
I received an email today from the cache owner, known as MaxEntropy:
“Sit down, you’re about to be freaked out. I’m the cache owner of Little Liz, the cache where you were stalked through the little woods in Fremont. That woods is known as Stiver’s Lagoon… Today, on the news, I saw that a body was found in Stiver’s Lagoon. Your log describes an extremely creepy incident and it may be important if this is a murder case. I’m going to send your log to the Fremont police if it turns out to be murder and naturally, they’ll want to talk to you. You might want to call them first. That’s all that I know. I’ll keep you posted.”
The Argus Online newspaper reported the following excerpted story:
“A man walking his dog Tuesday afternoon [May 13] found a body among the cattails and tules in a shallow creek near Stivers Lagoon. Brandon Martinez, 21, said he was walking his boxer, Jack, about 2:20 p.m. when the dog pulled him toward a gazebo just south of Lake Elizabeth in Central Park… It was ‘in sort of a fetal position,’ clad in jeans and a long-sleeve black sweatshirt and covered with flies, Martinez said. He said it looked as if it had been there ‘a long time.’ Martinez said it looked as if someone tried to cover the body with surrounding vegetation… The Alameda County Coroner’s Office arrived about 4:30 p.m. and retrieved the body. Police could not confirm whether the body was that of a male or female.”
Always trust your instincts.
I received a call from the Fremont police detective assigned to the case who set aside my initial fears and created all new ones. Apparently, although the results are not back from Toxicology, the body was that of a known local drunk. It is currently assumed that he simply had too much to drink, fell in the lagoon, and drowned. My unfortunate experience was due to the fact that Stiver’s Lagoon is apparently (according to the detective) a local pickup spot for gay men — the creep stalking me was probably looking for some unwelcome action. *shudder* Now I know TWO places in the Bay Area to avoid. Man, I gotta lose this earring!