Way back in 2007, there was a boy named Cody Smith who lived in Candor, Michigan. He was very fond of scary chainmail and pop-ups. Everyday he would find new ones and send them to everyone he knew. He even started writing some himself and sending them to strangers. He loved scaring people on the internet. He didn't have many friends.
One day in November, he opened up his inbox inbox to find a message. It was from an address called 'smithsisters93@aol'.
In the email, they claimed to be his older sisters. This confused Cody. As far as he knew, he was an only child. They also said that, years ago, they had lived in his house.
He replied, saying that he didn't have any sisters, and told them to get lost and leave him alone.
The next day, Cody received a chilling reply with photo attachments.
The first photo was of two girls. A photo of a polaroid. They looked about middle school age, and were likely twins. The two of them (the Smith sisters) were out at some outdoor event. Maybe a festival or a carnival. Both of them had dirty-blonde hair grown out just past their shoulders, and wore spaghetti strap camisole tops. The caption written on the polaroid said: "Smith Sisters Murdered Anonymously".
In the email, the girls insisted that they were in fact his older sisters. They told him that they had lived in his house, and that his bedroom had once been their bedroom. They told him all about growing up, about their lives, and how happy they had been... until one horrible night.
He opened the second attachment. It was a close up of a newspaper article.
“In 2003, two sisters were brutally murdered in the small community of Candor, Michigan. Lisa and Sarah Smith, both age 13 were attacked in their parent's home on the night of November 17th, at around midnight. The Smith Sisters were sleeping in bed when an intruder broke into the home. No one heard them scream. In the morning, their parents found the dead bodies of the Smith Sisters hidden in the bedroom closet. The sisters been skinned alive. The killer was long gone and no trace of him could be found. They had been murdered anonymously. The police conducted an extensive investigation, but it was to no avail, the motives for the attack couldn't be discovered, and the attacker was never found. The only lead authorities had was a series of strange emails found on Lisa's computer. The case was closed in October of 2000.”
The rest was a wall of rage. The smith sisters were angry that the case was closed, angry that people forgot about them, angry that even their own parents wanted to forget about them, and angry that their parents decided to start over and have a new baby. A son named Cody. Their little brother.
They hated that their parents never spoke about their daughters, or their untimely death to their new son.
Now, even Cody could tell that something was wrong here.
First off, the wording is unprofessional. "No one heard them scream"? "skinned alive"? Really?
That's the shit you see in slasher movies, you can not publish that to the press.
And what does "They had been murdered anonymously," even mean? Mystery attackers don't sign their work to begin with, and its not a phrase commonly used by the press or the police either.
Secondly, "Smith Sisters" is capitalized like a band name. Or like a popular entity.
Third, They don't close unfinished cases. Unsolved murders go cold unless they're impossible to solve.
Cody sent a heated reply. He didn't believe a word they wrote. He didn't believe the Smith sisters were related to him and he didn't believe the newspaper article was real. Cody punctuated the email with a sharp: "go to hell".
Minutes later, he got another email. It read "If you don't believe us, look in the closet."
These were the final emails found on his computer.
The next morning, Cody's mother came into his room to wake him up for school, only to find him missing, with a bloodstain taking his place on the bed. Panicked, she checked the first place she thought he could be hiding. He wasn't under his bed. Then, she checked the closet and found his dead body was curled up on the closet floor. He had been skinned alive.
During the initial investigation, the police found a message carved into the baseboard. It read "Lisa and Sarah 1993". Next to that, was another carving. It read "Cody 2007". They had attempted to trace the sender of the emails, but were unable to do so. Neither could they uncover who registered the 'smithsisters93@aol' email address. They swabbed for evidence, and got nothing but Cody's blood and dust bunnies.
After interviewing the parents (the only other people in the house at the suspected time of death), the police were able to set a few facts straight.
The Smith family only ever had one child. Cody Smith. Birth records corroborate this.
The names and dates scratched into the closet baseboard were not there before the night of Cody's murder.
A Lisa and Sarah Smith have never lived nor died in Candor, Michigan.
There was no forensic evidence to confirm that the parents did it, even though they should have heard him screaming. However, it appears that there was nothing to hear. The neighbors hadn't heard anything either. Not a single sound.
The Candor County Police Department did the best they could with what they had. A few long-shot suspects were interviewed, but nothing came of it. Profiling didn't help. The murder of Cody Smith remains a cold case mystery leaving the residents of Candor, Michigan in shock for years.
