Note: Two updates at the end for those interested.

When I was 12 -- a couple months from 13 -- I was diagnosed with early onset bipolar disorder. I was really struggling around that time, and that was also around the time that I started middle school.

I live in a rather sketchy part of my city. It has its nicer, wealthier parts, but we also have quite a bit of gang activity and such. My family has always been lower middle class, and therefore, I attended a pretty bad school. To keep it short, lots of gang activity, sketchy "transactions" in the bathrooms and behind the building that were oftentimes overlooked, homeless people hiding out in the woods behind the building, an embezzling principal at one point, etc. The school was pretty much "forgotten" by the district.

Those 3 years were the worst years of my life, and I tended to attract toxic people while living in that mindset. That's when I met Tanisha.

I don't remember how we met. It seems like she just appeared by my side one day during gym class. It turned out that she lived in a little cul-de-sac that branched off from my subdivision, and that little cul-de-sac and it's two parallel streets always creeped me the hell out. They were very dark and shrouded by trees, and I felt uncomfortable every time I would cross into that part of the neighborhood. Now I believe that it was my intuition when I was anywhere near her.

It started with strange (not quite, but close to) stalking. I'd get home from school and she'd be at my mailbox. I'd come home from an errand, and she'd call the house as soon as we pulled in the driveway. From day one, I immediately felt uncomfortable when around her. So why did I continue to go around her? I didn't, really. I never told her to leave me alone, no, but I didn't initiate or welcome it either. Again, I was 13 and depressed out of my mind. I wanted to be around someone.

We would take walks sometimes, and sometimes it would turn into a casual offer to go hang out at her place. Every time I would get near her house -- standing in the road facing it, for instance -- I would immediately feel sick at my stomach and have this overwhelming feeling of dread. I always followed my instincts.

Casual offers turned into begging. The house appeared to be really well maintained and landscaped, but she always told me about how her mother was an alcoholic and didn't take care of her and her little brother, and how she (Tanisha) would sell herself on one of our main roads going into the city. All of this could very well have been true, sure, but it just didn't feel right. I felt like she was making up stories for attention.

There's a rather large reservoir near my subdivision, and during 7th grade, before turning 14, a young girl went missing. A week later, she showed up in the reservoir. Over 6 months or so, from what I remember, Tanisha would disappear for 3 or 4 days, and every once in a while during those periods, a kid would go missing and end up in the reservoir. I feel like it wasn't much of a pattern then or else the authorities would have picked up on it, but on the other hand, this type of attendance wasn't at all uncommon at my school. No one really cared, to be honest. I don't know.

During the first week of November (I remember because it was my birthday), she knocked on my window very early in the morning, around 3:00 AM, if I remember correctly. She said that she had a birthday present for me waiting at her house, and wanted me to come with her to go get it. It was too big for her to carry all the way to my house, she said. She sounded desperate, almost frantic. I told her no, and when she asked why, I told her that we had an alarm system and that my mother would wake up if I disarmed it. She started crying and begged for me to come with her.

She wasn't at school the following day, and two or three days later another kid showed up in the reservoir.

There are gaps in my memory from those three years partially because I was so terribly unhappy, I'm sure, along with beginning to work things out with my doctor, so I'm not quite sure what happened after that. What I do remember is that she came to my house right after some snow had fallen, and my mother met her outside. My mother told her that if she ever came near me or our property again that she would call the police for stalking and harassment. Shortly after that, she was pulled out of school. I've never seen her since.

As an adult all these years later, I've asked my mother why she confronted Tanisha the way she did, hoping for some concrete information. She told me she would have overwhelming bad feelings whenever she came around, and that was all she would say.

I've never heard any concrete evidence that Tanisha was responsible for the murders -- I'm not even sure if that's something that would be reported since she was so young -- but I've always felt that she was responsible or involved in some way. I've learned over the years to always, always trust your instincts, especially as a woman, and it seemed like the gradual (and then not-so-gradual) downward spiral there at the end, and the way she begged and frantically pleaded for me to go into her house... I honestly don't know where I would be right now if I hadn't have trusted my instincts.

But, as far as I remember, no more kids showed up in the reservoir.

EDIT: No rumors were ever started. None of this was ever mentioned to anyone other than my mother and the two officers who came to talk to me.

I specifically said numerous times that all of this was a hunch and based on instincts. There weren't any accusations, there weren't any rumors.

If she was depressed and/or lonely, fine. If not, fine. I'm simply talking about an experience I lived through. Done. I'm not concerned if this sounds ridiculous to you or far fetched. Your opinion is your opinion, and I respect that.

EDIT #2: For those of you who are super interested, I've found my yearbooks from those three years. I've blacked out the majority of each name, understandably, and the name of my school at the time, for privacy reasons. Image over at Imgur.