n the summer of 2021, a new neighbor moved into what had been a peaceful mobile home park in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, a suburb just north of Minneapolis. Until then, the residents of the mobile home park held regular barbecues and other outdoor gatherings when the cold Minnesota weather allowed. Their kids played outside and walked to and from the bus stop without the slightest hint of hesitation. The trailer park residents got along well with each other. That all changed when the new neighbor moved in.
The new neighbor was a bully who victimized the residents of the mobile home park. The bully chased them, taunted them, and sometimes attacked them. The residents were unable to relax even when they were inside their own homes because the bully peaked through their windows and made sounds that they said became terrifying to them. One day, 41-year-old Rachael Gross was carrying her groceries from her car to her home when the bully dropped down from her roof and knocked her to the ground. During the struggle that followed, the bully ripped her jacket before Rachael was able to escape into her house. Her groceries lay scattered on her front lawn. The bully even followed Rachael to the nearby nursing home where she worked and to her favorite local restaurant. Each time, Rachael rushed inside to safety. The bully always stopped just shy of following her in. During another attack, Rachael slung water from her water bottle onto the bully. The shock from the water gave her just enough time to get inside before the bully ran back toward her. After numerous attacks, Rachael and her neighbors began to carry sticks, brooms, golf clubs, and baseball bats anytime they went outside. Rachael and her neighbors called the authorities on several occasions, but the bully continued to terrorize the neighborhood. Because Rachael was most often the target of the bully, her neighbors began to suspect that she was somehow helping him despite her emphatic denials.
Rachael felt trapped. She said, “I’m pretty stressed out and pretty anxious all the time. I can’t even have peace. I’m so exhausted. I hope this gets a solution and somebody comes to help so I don’t have to deal with this anymore, and so that we can all have a peaceful summer with our kids and our grandkids and actually have a barbecue and just relax.” Summer turned into fall and there was no relief from the bully. Parents had to walk their kids to and from the bust stop armed with a variety of weapons. The kids used their backpacks as shields. The neighborhood cancelled all of their usual outside activities including trick-or-treating at Halloween. For two years, the residents of the trailer park lived in fear of the bully. In the fall of 2023, reports of the bullying ended. Rumors persist that someone in the mobile home park murdered the bully. Perhaps they were all involved in the murder conspiracy. Some of the rumors go as far as to say that there is no evidence to be found because the residents ate the bully during a Thanksgiving celebration. The new neighbor which plagued that mobile home park was a wild turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sources:
1. Kirsten Mitchell, “‘This turkey has literally taken over our life’: Wild turkey terrorizing neighbors in Coon Rapids,” CBS News, January 21, 2023, accessed November 16, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/wild-turkey-terrorizing-neighbors-in-coon-rapids/.
2. The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), March 5, 2023, p.5M.