Every night, a little girl woke up screaming and crying, repeating the words, “No, it hurts!” Her mother decided to call 911 to investigate the cause behind the nightmares — and was terrified by what she discovered…
Every night, six-year-old Emily woke up shrieking in pain, clutching her legs and crying, “No, it hurts!” Her mother, Sarah, thought they were just nightmares — until one night, a frantic 911 call uncovered a terrifying truth hidden inside their own home.
Sarah Thompson was a single mother living in a quiet suburb of Portland, Oregon. Her daughter, Emily, was a bright, sweet girl who loved drawing rainbows and playing with her golden retriever, Max. But for the past two months, something had changed. Every night around 2 a.m., Emily woke up screaming.
At first, Sarah assumed it was just night terrors. She tried everything — removing sugar before bedtime, reading gentle bedtime stories, even leaving the light on. But nothing worked. Emily’s cries grew louder, her words clearer. “No, please stop! It hurts!” she screamed in the middle of the night, tears streaming down her face.
Sarah’s heart broke each time. One night, as she tried to calm Emily, she noticed faint bruises along the girl’s thighs. When she asked, Emily went silent, trembling and burying her face into her stuffed bunny. Sarah’s stomach twisted. Emily had always been a clumsy kid, but these bruises were different — darker, in patterns that didn’t make sense.
Her first thought was medical. Maybe something was wrong physically — anemia, a circulation issue, something. The pediatrician, however, found nothing alarming. “Just keep an eye on her,” he said. But the bruises kept appearing.
Then one night, Sarah woke up to the sound of Emily crying again, but this time, her voice was muffled. Sarah rushed into the room — and froze. Emily was lying stiff, eyes wide open, as if in a trance.
Panicking, Sarah grabbed her phone and dialed 911. “Please, my daughter — she keeps screaming in pain at night! I think someone’s hurting her!” she sobbed into the phone.
When the officers arrived, they began a routine check. They scanned the bedroom — nothing unusual. Then, one of them noticed the baby monitor on the nightstand, its tiny red light blinking.
The officer played back the recording. What they heard made everyone’s blood run cold.
The recording captured Emily whimpering softly in her sleep — then a loud thud, followed by a man’s voice whispering: “Hold still.”
Sarah’s entire body went numb. “That’s impossible,” she stammered. “It’s just the two of us here.”
The officers exchanged uneasy looks. They immediately checked the entire house — every door, every window, every closet. Nothing seemed broken or disturbed. But when one of them opened the basement door, a faint creak echoed through the house. A rush of cold air came from below.
They descended slowly, flashlights sweeping across the cluttered space. And there — behind an old shelf stacked with paint cans — they found a small crawl space. Someone had been living there.
Inside were a thin mattress, food wrappers, and a small camera battery pack — the same model as the one attached to the baby monitor upstairs.
Sarah’s legs gave out. She fell to her knees, sobbing. The police later identified the intruder as David Clark, a 32-year-old handyman who had done repair work in Sarah’s house months earlier. He had installed the baby monitor himself. After the job, he’d copied her house key without her knowing and had been sneaking in through the basement at night.
The recordings revealed that he had been entering Emily’s room, touching her as she slept — causing her to cry out in pain and terror. Each night, when Sarah came rushing in, he slipped back into the crawl space, hidden beneath her feet.
The police arrested David that night. Sarah and Emily were taken to a safe shelter, where child psychologists began working with Emily to help her recover from the trauma.
The hardest part for Sarah wasn’t the betrayal — it was the guilt. The signs had been there all along, and she hadn’t seen them. “I thought she was dreaming,” she whispered to the detective. “I never imagined this could happen in my own home.”
In the weeks that followed, Sarah couldn’t sleep. Every creak in the house made her heart race. Emily began therapy sessions twice a week, and though the nightmares slowly faded, the fear never fully left her eyes.
News of the case spread through local media. Neighbors were horrified — no one could believe something so sinister had been happening right next door. The police later revealed that David Clark had done similar work in two other homes, where strange disturbances had been reported but never investigated.
Sarah decided to move out of the house. She sold it within a month, refusing to step inside again after the last police inspection. The new place had no basement, no crawl spaces — and she installed a state-of-the-art security system. “This will never happen again,” she told Emily as they unpacked boxes.
Despite the trauma, their bond grew stronger. Emily began drawing again — pictures of sunny skies and smiling faces. Her therapist said that was a good sign, a step toward healing.
Months later, during an interview with a local journalist, Sarah shared her story to raise awareness. “If your child wakes up crying, don’t assume it’s just a bad dream,” she said. “Listen to them. Look for the signs. I wish I had sooner.”
David Clark was sentenced to 25 years in prison for child endangerment, trespassing, and assault. But for Sarah, justice didn’t erase the scars. Every time she looked at the baby monitor — now boxed away in storage — she remembered that faint red light blinking in the dark.
Yet there was hope. On Emily’s seventh birthday, she blew out her candles and whispered, “No more bad dreams, Mommy.” Sarah hugged her tightly, tears of relief streaming down her cheeks.
That night, for the first time in months, Emily slept peacefully — and so did Sarah.
But as the house fell silent, Sarah left one small light on in the hallway — not out of fear, but as a reminder: sometimes the monsters aren’t under the bed. They’re the ones we let inside.
👉 What would you have done if this happened in your neighborhood?
