Leticia X Rodriguez, a TikToker currently living in Nashville, Tennessee, recently shared an experience on TikTok that terrified her, and the video has already racked up 12 million views. She was out on a walking trail with her mom and their dogs when they had a strange encounter with a man. Not long after, they were being chased, and it sent her into a panic. As she put it in her post, “I’m literally still shaking. I swear, watching true crime has saved my life today.”
Leticia and her mom were enjoying a beautiful Saturday at a park, specifically heading into a secluded trail. They eventually stopped at a small, enclosed bridge area to give their dogs some water. That is when a man approached them. At first, he walked past, but then he circled back. “And that’s when I hear him say, hi. Hey. Hello,” she recounted. When she turned around, he apologized for scaring them, but the situation got weird fast.
He started asking about their dogs, and Leticia noticed something immediately off about his appearance. “He was wearing a white T-shirt, like, just a regular white T-shirt, basketball shorts, like, gray basketball shorts, and dress shoes. And he had sunglasses on. He was bald, and he was probably in his, like, late 40s, early 50s.” Another thing that made Leticia suspicious is the fact that the man was holding a flip phone, which she initially mistook for a taser.
He first approached, asking about the dogs
She said that he apologized and said that he had to come up and talk to them “because I’m being followed. I’m being followed by these guys.” Leticia says she didn’t want to look away from him, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw two other men standing at the entrances to the bridge, effectively cornering them. These men had flip phones too, and as Leticia and her mom tried to leave, she heard one of them say, “cut the cell towers. This won’t take too long.”
She said that her interest in true crime told her it was better to act normal and not look like she was calling the police, so that she wouldn’t trigger them if she and her mom were targets. So, she stayed silent, got her mom to start moving, and left in the opposite direction, keeping her phone out to call friends and family.
Then she noticed that all three men were following them. “As soon as we pick up the pace, they pick up the pace,” she said. So, in fear, she starts dropping items, just in case it was needed as evidence. Then, they reached the end of the hiking path. The men stopped at the edge of the woods and watched the women. After that, she called the police, who eventually showed up to look for the men.
When she was done with the report, the cop told her that the situation may have been a cruel prank. ‘She was telling me that there are many people that stay in trails, that do things like that just to scare people and to intimidate them.” Prank or not, however, she was terrified, for herself and others. She asked her viewers, “Um, so, again, just be careful when you go out on walks, especially if you’re going by yourself.”
The comments on her video reflect just how scary this is for so many women. Allie shared, “I used to walk trails alone and with headphones on, I feel lucky to be alive.” Another user, Bek, pointed out the unfair reality of these situations, saying, “My husband talks about all this stuff he’s done alone, and all I can think of is that I’ve NEVER and will never get that luxury.”
According to The Trek, it is important to be prepared and aware of your surroundings, especially if you are hiking or backpacking, even though the statistical likelihood of a violent encounter in a national park is incredibly low, at just .00000025%.
The Trek advises that you should always tell someone your plan, carry a GPS or satellite phone, and trust your instincts above all else. Additionally, they stated that if a vibe feels off, keep moving. Never second-guess your gut feeling when it comes to your own safety. One commenter suggested using the All Trails app, that allows users to share their route and real-time location.
This ability to share their location would have been very helpful for the Federal lab worker from Los Alamos, whose body was recently found. It could have also saved John Donovan, whose gear saved the lives of others, even though he was missing.
Published: Jun 12, 2026 06:35 pm