The following document is the second of three critical pieces of evidence in FBI unsolved case #3964. Whereas the first document was a series of emails written by one of the victims, this second document is a written transcript of an interview with Captain Jason Yunis of the Pine Valley Police Department, one of the first responders on site. The interview was conducted by Agent Collin Pierce on January 3, 2014.
There is a soft click as Pierce turns on the tape recorder, then a scraping as he sits back in his chair.
CP: Please state your name and rank for the record before we get started here.
Yunis clears his throat.
JY: I'm Captain Jason Yunis, commander of the SWAT team here at the Pine Valley Police Department.
CP: And you know why you're here today, correct?
JY: Yes sir.
CP: Then you can begin your report whenever you're ready, captain.
There is a pause, lasting almost fifteen seconds, before Yunis continues.
JY: Well, to start with, we first got notified of the situation up at Blackgate about two weeks ago, back on the 19th. The blizzard had just started then, and the roads up to the asylum were already getting blocked with snow and ice. My team and I were notified that a situation was developing, and we might have to move out on a moment's notice if things got any worse.
There is a sound of paper rustling as Pierce opens up his file.
CP: And the phone lines went down on the 20th?
JY: Yes sir, half the houses on the entire east side of the city lost their phone and internet connections, the lines most likely having been knocked down somehow. The station couldn't raise Blackgate, and at that point, the roads had become too dangerous to travel on. For the next week, my team and I were on perpetual standby to go up the moment the roads were passable. We still had no idea what was even going on up there.
There's a sound of paper rustling as Pierce turns a page of his files.
CP: You waited all the way until New Year's Day for the weather to clear up, correct?
JY: Yes sir, that's right. It was a few minutes after dawn that we were called in to gear up and move out. It was still precarious going through the snow, but difficult isn't the same as impossible. It was a quarter to 8 by the time we arrived.
CP: Describe the scene on arrival, please.
Again there's a short pause, and Yunis lets out a small sigh before continuing.
JY: First off, the whole building was dark. Security shutters were drawn closed, but we didn't see a single light through them. One of the sections towards the building's left side looked like it had been burned out by a fire. Parts of the walls were blackened and the rood had collapsed in on itself, but the actual smoke and flames were long gone. There was at least a foot of snow still on the ground.
JY: The massive double doors of the front entrance were blocked by a mound of snow that was at least four feet high. We grabbed some shovels from our truck, and four of my men started digging away at the pile as the rest of us stood guard. When most of the snow had been cleared from the doors, we found our first vic. He had been buried beneath the snow, sitting with his back pressed against the doors. Poor bastard must have tried to run out in the storm, and got locked out by the time he changed his mind. We found the doors bolted shut, probably just like he found them.
Papers rustle again, and Pierce's chair scrapes against the floor as he stands to slide a piece of paper across the interview desk.
CP: Is the man in this picture here the one you found in the snow?
Yunis waits for thirty seconds in silence, studying the photograph carefully before replying.
JY: Yes sir, I think that's him.
CP: His name is Doctor David Quinn, and he was one of the lead psychologists at Blackgate. Our medical examiner found the cause of death to be hypothermia from extreme exposure. Continue, please.
Yunis clears his throat, tapping nervously against the table as he continues.
JY: We had no choice but to move the body so we could break in the doors. Two of my men used manual hydraulic rams while the other eight of us took up defensive positions around them, semi-auto weapons at the ready. We all had expectations for what we'd find inside, but I'll be honest sir, I don't think any of us were prepared for what we found when the doors crashed open.
CP: Describe every detail of that lobby exactly as you first saw it. No detail is too small or insignificant.
JY: Well, the minute the doors were clear, my two men with the rams immediately stepped back and the rest of us rushed forward in front of them. Before I even got a good look into the room, the first thing that hit me was the smell. Even with the cloth that covered the lower half of my face, I could clearly pick up the stench of rot. You know that smell, like when a rat dies in your roof or something? Take that, only ten times as thick and putrid.
There's another pause as Yunis takes a moment to compose himself.
JY: The second most obvious thing in the room I saw seconds later as we swept the room, weapons and flashlights raised. There were at least twenty bodies strewn about the entranceway and the lobby. Some lay on the floor as close as a foot away from the doors. Some were strewn across furniture, some slumped against the wall, but they were all dead. That much was obvious fairly quickly.
CP: Describe the bodies, please.
Yunis stops his tapping as he speaks.
JY: Six of them looked like they were patients. At least, there were six of them that wore the white jumpsuits of the inmates, patients, whatever, but most of the white in their clothes was now stained deep red. I recognized the uniforms of three of the male bodies as that of security guards, and the last eleven looked like they were maybe orderlies or nurses. We still had to check each body to confirm the deaths, and when we got closer, we realized how gnarly things really were.
Yunis stops, takes a shaky breath, then continues.
JY: They weren't all dead from the same causes. The lucky ones, they looked like they had just been shot or stabbed. For them, there was minimal blood, usually from a single lethal stab wound or bullethole. There weren't very many of those bodies. Most of the corpses in the foyer looked like they had literally been ripped apart. Their chests had been carved open, with their intestines and other organs spilling out onto the tile floor, floor that was almost entirely covered in dried blood and human entrails. It was a fucking bloodbath in every sense of the word.
CP: Did you touch or tamper with any of the bodies in the lobby?
JY: With all due respect, sir, we only got as close to those corpses as we had to, and then we got the hell out of there. My men and I, we've seen a lot of shit while on the force. Hostage situations gone wrong, school shooting aftermaths, you name it. We kept our heads through all of it. But our first sight in that asylum, that made half of my squad lose their stomachs. I've never seen anything like it, and I pray to God that I never do again.
Yunis has raised his voice as he spoke, then goes quiet.
CP: I understand. What happened there was horrible beyond words, no one can deny that. But in order for us to truly understand what exactly it was that happened, I need you to keep talking. Tell me what you found on the other floors, how you found the book, everything. This case could rest on your testimony, Jason.
There is another pause, this one almost a minute in length.
JY: I... I understand, sir.
CP: Take it slow. Tell me what you found on the rest of the first floor, for a start. Just keep talking.
JY: After we left the lobby, we um... we continued to sweep the ground floor. There were rooms and cells for the patients, examination rooms, and a cafeteria on the floor, and for every room, it was the same. My men and I would wait by each entryway, I'd count to three, and then we'd breach. We'd rush in, weapons up, checking behind every corner and under every desk and table. We didn't find a single survivor on the floor, but we found plenty more of the dead. Like in the lobby, there were mostly staff: doctors, nurses, guards, orderlies. And like in the lobby, most of them had been killed in similarly brutal ways.
Yunis starts to fidget uncomfortably, and his chair creaks quietly as he continues to speak.
JY: There was one woman in particular, towards the end of our floor sweep, that got to me. She was young, maybe in her early twenties, with pretty features and hair that would have been beautiful if it hadn't been caked with dried blood. She was lumped up against the cafeteria wall when we found her, and she had two different scalpels jutting out from her chest. Her shirt, pants, and undergarments had been ripped off, implying a rape, but that wasn't what killed her either. You know what it was? She had a kitchen knife clutched in her left hand, and both of her wrists had been slit. Her arms lay at her sides, a pool of dried blood around each one. She had been abused and tortured by inmates, but it was herself that killed her. The treatment she had endured was enough to drive her to suicide, agent. That was exactly what had happened there. It hadn't been a nightmare, it had been fucking insanity.
Yunis stops, exhales, and then continues quieter.
JY: And after all that, we still had all of the second floor left to search. I didn't know if I could do it, after everything I saw downstairs. My team and I, we climbed those stairs in silence and sorrow. None of us were sure how much more of this we could take without breaking. Yet the moment we arrived on the second floor, we immediately saw that it was different.
CP: In what way?
There's a sharp exhale from Yunis, almost a humorless laugh.
JY: On the first floor, there were at least a hundred bodies that we found. They were scattered here and there, most likely fallen right where they died. There was blood and evidence of struggles in almost every room; chairs and tables were broken, desks overturned, the works. But from the moment we left the stairwell and stepped onto the second floor, we saw that it wasn't like that up here. The main hall, at least, looked perfectly normal.
JY: We knew from our briefing that the second floor contained the administrative offices, along with rooms for some of the most sensitive patients. My team and I started to check each of the offices like we did on the ground floor, and our hopes quickly turned back to dismay. We found victims here as well, just not as many of them. Mainly doctors found dead in their offices, a few patients found shot or stabbed in the rooms as well, most likely done in defense by the staff. It was in one of these rooms that we found your first piece of evidence.
Papers rustle as Pierce looks through his files for something.
CP: Do you mean the laptop?
JY: Yeah. We came to one of the offices at the far end of the hall, close to where it became a corner leading on towards the right. I glanced at the plaque on the door, which read 'Doctor Josiah Warren, Head of Psychological Medicine, and I remember thinking, "I wonder if he had any answers?" Then we rushed in, only to find more of the dead.
There is a pause as Yunis gathers his thoughts, and resumes his nervous tapping on the table.
JY: There were two dead patients by the doorway, one male, one female, and both had been shot through the chest. The doctor himself was slumped over in his chair, and the red stains on his white coat made it easy to tell how he died. He had two knife wounds, one in each shoulder, if the bloodstains were anything to go by. But he was also tied to the chair with a rope around each hand, and both of his forearms had been slit open from the palm all the way to the bicep. From the looks of the wound, he died from severed arteries in the arms. But the wounds in the shoulder, the way he had been strapped in, it looked like he had been tortured first. Yet, none of the other doctors we had found on this floor or the one below looked like they had been.
JY: I had been distracted for a moment by the nature of the body, and I was snapped out of it by an electronic beeping. My eyes swept the room as my men searched, and one of them bent down to pick up a laptop that was on the floor. The glass screen was cracked and the battery was almost completely drained, but from what I could see, it was open to some kind of email site. The officer who picked it up, Sam Nelson, was able to save the emails that the computer was open to before the battery shut off. We marked it to pick up later for evidence, then left the room and turned down the hall.
JY: What we saw in this section of the hallway made us stop in our tracks. There were at least a hundred inmates lying on the hall floor, as far as the hall went. At first we thought they were just all sleeping because of how, well... at peace they looked. There were no injuries, no blood, nothing. Most of the men and women even had faint smiles on their motionless faces. It was like they all just died in their sleep... in the hall.
CP: You checked every one of them?
JY: Every single one. There were no pulses, no heartbeats. They were all dead, and with such a drastic opposite to the massacre downstairs, I didn't know what to think. We checked all the patient rooms along the hall, but they were empty of bodies or signs of struggle. Within minutes, there was only one room left, the farthest patient room. But what happened next is, I mean, I...
Yunis trails off and his nervous tapping becomes louder. He inhales and exhales rapidly, his breathing heavy and labored.
CP: Go on, Jason.
Pierce closes the folder and whispers something too quiet to be picked up by the recorder.
JY: What I mean to say is... I don't exactly know what happened next. I don't know if I can trust what I saw or even explain it-
CP: Just describe what you felt, what you saw, what you heard. Let us be the judge of what it was.
Pierce's chair creaks quietly as he sits back in his chair.
JY: Well, it was down to the last room. But unlike the others along the hall, this door was open. My men and I, we lined up on either side of the door and we readied our weapons and lights. All the security shutters were still closed, see, and there was no electricity left. Using my hands I counted to three, and on the third finger, I turned and lead the charge into the room. But the moment my foot crossed the threshold, everything turned bright. And I don't mean the lights turned on, I mean that the walls, the floor, the roof, everything was replaced by a burning, bright white. I stumbled back, my eyes shut to the harshness of the sudden light, and I expected to bump into my men behind me. But I didn't. I didn't feel anything behind me.
JY: I forced my eyes open, and as suddenly as the light came, it was gone. I couldn't believe what my eyes were showing me. I wasn't in the same room I was in only seconds ago, I don't think I was even in the same building. I was in a hospital hallway now, but it was different than the one were just in. The walls were a pale green and the paint was faded and chipped. The floor was tiled and there were benches along the walls, but everything looked off. It was like the pictures you see of old hospitals, like from the 60s. I could feel fear rising in my throat, and I turned to face my team. They were gone.
Yunis nervously coughs once.
JY: There was no one behind me. My team was gone. The bodies lying across the hall were gone. Everything was replaced by an old hallway that seemed to stretch indefinitely in either direction, locked doors on the sides leading off to other rooms. I called out for my men, but my voice echoed down the hall with no response.
JY: At this point, I was panicking. I couldn't think straight and I gripped my weapon even tighter as I turned back the other way, to look back down the hall in the direction I was first facing. But when I turned, I saw a figure standing a few feet in front of me. I knew it was a person, I could tell from their shape that it was. But I couldn't discern any features, any details of the face, nothing. The figure was completely covered in shadow, though it stood in the middle of the brightly lit hall.
CP: Did the figure say anything to you?
JY: No. "Who are you?" I asked cautiously, taking a step back and raising my weapon to aim at it. It didn't answer, but took a step forward. I repeated the question, more forcefully this time, and the figure rushed forward. At that moment, its form twisted before my eyes. It was shadowy and indistinguishable in one moment, and then in the next I could tell that it was a young man, tall and dark haired, with tanned skin. Then in the next second it was a young child, no older than thirteen, with blonde hair that was almost shaved and sad, haunted eyes. I didn't know what to think of it, but I didn't have to think. Something was rushing towards me, and I pulled the trigger.
JY: Nothing happened. My gun didn't fire, which was impossible. It was loaded correctly and had been cleaned just hours before, yet it didn't fire. The figure, the boy, the man, whatever it was it was getting closer, and it was letting out an ear-splitting screech. I had no choice. I turned and I ran as fast as I could away from it, and I could hear the pounding of its footsteps coming after me.
JY: The hall sped by in a blur, doors and benches and other halls passing by in a flash. I managed to risk a glance behind me as I ran, and I saw that the figure had reverted back to its shadowy form. And the lights of the hall went dark as he passed them, leaving nothing but darkness behind us. I couldn't go back.
JY: I turned back around to watch the hallway in front of me, but the hall ended abruptly at a doorway, and I slid to a stop. Frantically I tried to open the door, but it was locked. My heart was racing and I could hear the figure's footsteps behind me, deafeningly loud as they thundered across the tile floor. I whirled around, and I caught a glimpse of dark hands and shadowy tendrils reaching out for me before everything faded away. What happened next was... it was a nightmare.
JY: I saw visions flash before me, in a way that could only be described as dreams. I knew I was awake, but I was also living out memories that I never had and seeing things that I've been afraid of my whole life. It was like a... like a highlight reel of all my fears washing over me at once. I felt the nausea of vertigo hit me as I heard the words of my abusive father, who's been dead for years. I saw things that weren't real, like my family lying on the first floor with the rest of the bodies. My wife replacing the woman in the cafeteria. My son tortured in the chair instead of Josiah Warren. It was goddamn horrific and it, it seemed to stretch on for hours.
Yunis has to pause then, the story clearly taking a toll on him. There is a sound of an object scraping against the table softly as he picks up a glass of water and takes a few sips, putting it back with a clang. Pierce flips through pages of his file, and the soft scratching of pen on paper is heard before Yunis continues.
JY: When the nightmares finally cleared, I found myself still in the hall where I had been when the figure caught up to me. He, it, was nowhere to be seen. I turned around slowly, my head feeling like it was splitting apart, and I saw that the door was open now. I caught a glimpse of what lay inside, a small room that was burned out, its walls blackened by soot and its floor covered in ash. I didn't know what else to do and I was doing much thinking by then, so after a moment of hesitation, I stepped forward.
JY: My foot touched the sill of the door, I blinked, and all of a sudden I was back in the room at Blackgate. It happened instantly, one moment the burned room was in front me and then the next, I was in the patient room, gun in hand, and could feel the presence of my team behind me. Sam Nelson, who was right behind me, asked why I had stopped. Somehow, it had only been seconds since I stepped into the patient room, yet I had spent minutes running from the shadow figure and I didn't understand what the hell had just happened. I still don't understand it.
JY: I didn't have time to think. Before I could answer Sam, I heard a quiet cough from somewhere in the room and I took another step in, allowing the rest of my team to move in after me. I turned my flashlight left and right, sweeping the room in a quick gaze, and then I saw him. There, sitting against the padded wall, was the young man that the shadow figure had become. He looked paler than when I had first seen him, and his dark hair was dirty and matted. He seemed dangerously thin, and his white jumpsuit looked baggy on him. But there was no blood, no wounds. And we saw his chest heaving slowly in labored breaths.
Yunis' voice increases in volume and speed as he speaks.
JY: "Who the hell are you?" I yelled, and I took a step forward. He just looked up at me with emotionless brown eyes, and I saw a nametag on his jumpsuit. Lucas. "What did you do to me?" I asked instead, getting down on one knee next to him. I knew my team had their weapons trained on him, so he couldn't try anything. But that close to him, I saw he was in no condition to struggle or fight. He was critically malnourished, and every breath seemed a struggle.
CP: Did he answer you?
JY: He turned to look at me, and he was only able to whisper one sentence before he collapsed. "Find the book in the room that can't burn." Then he slumped forward, and I caught him before he collapsed on top of me. He was dead. The hospital had been secured, and except for him, there were no survivors. At least, that's what my team said. But we hadn't secured the whole building, not yet.
JY: I turned and sprinted out of the room, ignoring my teammates' questions and ignoring protocols. I knew where I had to go. I sprinted down the hallway, stepping over the bodies that lined it, and practically leaped down the stairs to the ground floor. There was one door we hadn't opened, one door that was still shut. We hadn't stepped foot into the left-wing of the building, the one that had been destroyed by a fire. I knew from our briefing that that side of the building held records and reference books, but I was looking for the room that I had seen after the shadow figure touched me.
JY: I could hear my team following me as I entered the burnt-out wing. Most of the furniture and contents of the rooms had been destroyed in the blaze, and some of the walls and parts of the ceiling had been turned to rubble. But I moved quickly, stepping over collapsed beams and ignoring the soot-stained walls. I glanced at each room I passed but didn't enter any of them. They had all been burned out, but six rooms in, I stopped in my tracks.
JY: Looking through an empty doorway, I saw the room, just as I had seen it before. The walls and the floor looked like the rest of the room, covered in ash and blackened with soot. But the furniture, the objects in the room, they had remained untouched. Bookshelves and filing cabinets lined the walls, all perfectly safe from the flames. In the center of the room lay a desk, and on that desk there was a small, leather-bound journal. The cover was a light tan, but there was a bloody handprint smudged across the front of it. The print was almost black, and I knew that the dried blood had been on it for a very long time.
JY: I moved forward, transfixed by the sight of the book that didn't burn. My hands reached down to pick it up, and in the second before my fingers brushed against the cover, I saw a glimpse of the shadowy tendrils that had caught up to me before shrink back into the pages. But it was just a glance and it was too late to pull away. My hand touched the book, and the moment it did, I heard a voice whisper, "We're close now." I turned, looking around the room and at my teammates, but there was no one else in the room and none of my men had spoken. It was like the voice had come from my mind, but it wasn't a voice I had ever heard before. We tagged the book for evidence and called in that the asylum was secured but... I don't understand what happened there.
Pierce closes the folder and stands up, the metal chair scraping against tile floor.
CP: I need you to be honest, Jason. Do you still hear that voice in your mind?
No one speaks for almost a full minute.
JY: I... yes. Yes, I do. I hear him at nights, in my dreams. I don't sleep very well anymore. I hear that voice, telling me to do things. Promising to take away my nightmares if I do what he asks. Whispering secrets that I don't want to hear. I think it belongs to the figure I saw in the asylum.
Pierce's voice is less calm now, and a footstep can be heard as he takes a step closer to Yunis, who is still sitting.
CP: What kind of things does he tell you, Jason?
JY: He said that he was responsible for what happened at Blackgate. He said that he brought justice there. He said that... that you were going to speak to me today, and he told me to tell you everything. He says you're not even a real FBI agent.
Pierce steps back hurriedly, his footsteps echoing loudly in the room. He presses a button on the wall, and the button clicks audibly
CP: Guards? Guards! I think we're done here, Jason.
Yunis leaps up suddenly, his chair skidding away behind him. He takes a few quick steps towards Pierce, his voice a shout as he speaks.
JY: He says that your real name is Aaron Graham! He says you're a doctor, working for an Institute for Paranormal Research. He says that I have to tell you everything, and that I have to kill you for this nightmare to end!
There is a scuffle and grunting from both parties as Yunis throws himself at Pierce, fists flying. Seconds later, the door crashes open and heavy booted footsteps rush across the floor. Guards grab at Yunis and pull him away, and he struggles and protests as Pierce slumps down to the floor, panting heavily.
JY: What the hell, get off me! I'm a federal officer, get your hands off of me! We aren't done, doctor! You might take me away, but he'll find you somehow! You can't run from-
End of transcript.
(Note: Captain Jason Yunis' condition worsened in the days after his interview, and a consulting psychologist recommended Yunis for treatment. He was transferred to an unnamed CDC facility, where he was reported to have died in his sleep four days after.)