THE DARK BENEATH: SPECIAL UPDATE - (Case File #24) Rae Childress
- Loretta & David Allseitz
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
The Dark Beneath is fiction—lore, not evidence. If you take it as fact, that’s between you, your lying uncle, and whatever’s creeping around your woods at 2 a.m.
CASE FILE #24
Terrell State Hospital
December in Terrell doesn’t look like Christmas.
It looks like fluorescent lights and locked doors and a building that hums even when nobody’s talking.
Rae turned ten this month.
Ten.
Three months after we put her inside state custody for what happened in Point.
They don’t treat her like a fragile child here.
They don’t forget what she’s done.
Her file is thick. Red tabs. Prior violence clearly documented.
So when a girl was found in a utility closet off the rec hallway—bruised, hypoxic, plastic embedded in her cheek—Rae’s name was the first one spoken out loud.
No one whispered it.
They said it.
The Closet
Headcount came up short by one.
Six to eight minutes. That’s all.
The closet light was off. Mop bucket tipped. Water bleeding into the grout lines like it had somewhere better to be.
The girl was on the floor.
Finger-shaped bruising around her throat.
Burst vessels in her eyes.
A snapped doll arm—hard plastic—lodged against her cheekbone where someone had driven it forward with force.
There is a difference between a fight and an assault.
This was an assault.
She lived.
Barely.
Before the oxygen settled back into her brain, she whispered one word to the nurse leaning over her:
“Inside.”
Inside what, no one knows.
Within twenty-four hours, she stopped speaking.
Not selectively.
Completely.
Immediate Reaction
Rae was separated the moment suspicion formed.
Observation room. Direct questioning.
No one danced around it.
“You were near the hallway. Where were you?”
She looked at the staff member and said, very evenly:
“You don’t like me.”
Not denial.
Not admission.
Just fact.
She wasn’t agitated.
She wasn’t defensive.
She was steady.
That’s what bothered me.
The Window
Here’s the part that matters.
During that eight-minute window:
Four children were not directly visible at various points.
Two were together, confirmed.
One was in the restroom.
Rae was seen at the art table three minutes before the missing-child alert.
No cameras cover the corner leading to that closet.
The broken doll arm came from a communal bin.
No usable prints.
Water from the mop bucket diluted anything that might’ve mattered.
She could have done it.
Physically? Yes.
The closet is narrow. Surprise works in tight spaces.
David measured it himself.
“She could have generated enough pressure,” he said quietly, later. “If she caught her off guard.”
Could have.
That’s the phrase that ruins cases.
The Girl Who Won’t Speak
They tried photographs first.
Lineup of faces from the ward.
When Rae’s picture came up on the tablet, the girl’s pupils widened.
Her breathing shifted.
She shoved the screen away.
Refused to look again.
When Rae was brought past the observation window two days later, the girl pulled the blanket over her head.
Shaking.
But she didn’t point.
Didn’t nod.
Didn’t write a name.
Fear isn’t testimony.
And we needed testimony.
The Ward After
Here’s what no one logs in official reports.
The other kids changed.
They didn’t crowd Rae before.
But now they orbit.
Wide arcs at lunch tables.
Empty chair buffers during group.
Crayons slid across the table instead of handed.
No dramatic accusations.
Just distance.
That’s not hysteria.
That’s hierarchy.
Pattern
People assume violence is loud.
With Rae, it never was.
In Point, it wasn’t frenzy.
It was controlled.
This felt the same.
Not emotional.
Not explosive.
Contained.
Intentional.
When I walked the hallway outside that closet, I didn’t feel chaos.
I felt rehearsal.
David didn’t argue with me.
He just said, “We don’t have it.”
And he was right.
We didn’t.
The Problem
Rae is already labeled violent.
That part isn’t up for debate.
The problem isn’t capability.
The problem is proof.
No camera footage.
No witness.
No confession.
Multiple children with access to the corridor.
You can’t escalate confinement on instinct.
You can’t alter treatment on suspicion.
You can’t discipline based on what everyone feels.
The official file reads:
ASSAULT — PERPETRATOR UNDETERMINED.
There’s something almost clinical about that phrasing.
Perpetrator undetermined.
As if harm just floats around and chooses a body at random.
The Hallway
Before we left, Rae passed us on the way back from structured activity.
She didn’t smile.
Didn’t glare.
Didn’t react.
She just looked at me.
Steady.
Ten years old.
No fidgeting. No fear.
I’ve interviewed grown men who couldn’t hold eye contact like that.
She didn’t ask what we thought.
She didn’t need to.
Because here’s what December taught her:
It doesn’t matter if everyone believes it was you.
Belief doesn’t open doors.
Evidence does.
And if there isn’t any—
You stay exactly where you are.
Watching.
Three months inside.
Ten years old.
And Rae already understands the difference
between being known
and being proven.
— Loretta & David Smitty
Haven't met Rae Childress yet? You can find her story HERE.
If CASE FILE #24 is the first you're reading, make sure to go back and check out "The Dark Beneath" series of posts! The Dark Beneath: Scary Folklore & Whispers in Texas
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