MrBallen

And within an hour, Patrice's property was swarming with police and crime scene techs and a forensic expert who specialized in this type of scene.

And detectives fanned out all across the area and began speaking to Patrice's neighbors.

And because pretty much everyone in the neighborhood had been experiencing the same type of break-ins and property damage that Patrice had been,

it actually didn't take long for police to develop a profile of Patrice's killer.

Their conclusion was that very likely, the killer was the same individual who was harassing everybody else.

But what officials couldn't understand is why had everybody else experienced effectively minor vandalism, but Patrice went from minor vandalism to really excessive violence?

And this required developing a profile of Patrice.

And so as police searched for her killer, they were also working on reconstructing Patrice's movements on the final day of her life.

And at first, in their efforts, really they were just stumped.

I mean, all she had done on that day, as far as they could tell, were some basic chores.

But as they dug into what those chores consisted of,

they found two things that actually explained everything.

It would turn out that every day for the past couple of years, Patrice had been making two terrible mistakes.

She fed her cats out on the porch and she emptied her compost into the garden.

And these two actions ultimately were what sort of attracted her stalker, Big Bastard, to her home.

because Big Bastard was a black bear.

He loved to eat cat food and kitchen compost scraps.

And eventually he decided that Patrice was food too.

So on that day in early November of 2023, when Patrice fed her cats and emptied her compost for the last time, Big Bastard waited until Patrice was in bed and then broke into her house and savagely killed her.

By the time the deputy arrived at Patrice's home,