Why I Started Living the Nomad Life- Leaving Nashville To Protect Myself From My Attacker

***warning, there are graphic images, not for the faint of heart***

This isn’t my usual happy post about my travels across the US, this is a dark post about why I started traveling full time in March of 2019. 

I feel it’s important to share my story to protect others.

I was advised by two detectives to get out of town where I was living and working for two years…after I was attacked at knifepoint by my roommate. We read his journals while he was in jail and the detectives compared them to serial killers they had studied. I feel that it’s important to share my story to protect others; his probation is up soon and he’s is Ted Bundy level scary. It’s also a big part of why I live life the way I do. I’m not ashamed to tell my story and I hope it encourages others to speak out too.

Here’s the story in more detail:

The days leading up to the attack: 

The attack happened on a Wednesday. On the previous Saturday night, I was at home and my roommate, Connor, had gone out in Nashville to party. At around 11pm he sent my other roommate and I a photo of himself covered in blood. The look on his face really freaked me out; it was a really creepy subtle smirk.

Connor Thompson

He claimed 20 black guys had jumped him, yet he had no injuries in the photo. I instantly knew he was lying. A couple hours later he sent more photos covered in even more blood.

This time he had a fat lip, which didn’t make sense since he had claimed to be at home for hours by then and there was no injury in the first photo.

I sent them to my dad’s best friend who was a homicide detective for a long time and had worked on some big cases. He told me to get out of the house and said that based on the blood splatters, the blood didn’t come from him. 

The next morning he came home still in his bloody clothes and he sat on the couch for hours in them. It was one of the creepiest things I had ever seen. I snuck away to go down to the police station to report it to the cops. The cops were alarmed and wanted to go talk to him but at the time he was one of my best friends so I told them not to but wanted them to look into him (I regret this). (We were just friends and never romantic).

(Side note from a month before:We also went out together for Halloween. We entered the same big costume contest. I won first place and he cussed me out and was enraged by it. I thought he was just drunk but the next morning he did it again while sober. Yelling and cussing at me for winning the cash… even tho I paid for his cover and drinks at the bar cause he forgot his wallet. Which isn’t cheap in Nashville. He said it was so much hostility).

I started documenting in my notes on my phone the weird things he was saying over the next couple days. I wrote them down right after he said them. These are direct quotes:

He would watch Netflix, but would fast forward and watch only violent parts of showed. I noticed this long before the attack but they continued after the photos as well.

He had been going to a therapist the whole time he lived with me and he said a few times that he had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. He was always asking my why I was studying forensic psychology. I briefly told him that when I was a kid, a serial killer was found and arrested who lived a few blocks away from my house and this sparked my interest in psychology and crimes. 

The night of the attack:

On November 28th, 2018, I was sitting in my kitchen just outside of Nashville, Tennessee studying for finals for my Masters of Science in Forensic Psychology. I was working full-time as a social worker and also doing school full-time online. 

While I was studying, my roommate who I had lived with for 11 months came home and randomly shouted that if the guy I was seeing at the time ever came over again he would “blow his fucking head off” with his “rifle”. I was speechless and terrified and he walked out of the room.

I grabbed my keys and texted him saying I was going to get a burger and asked if he wanted one. I wanted to appear calm and normal because he had already be scaring me a lot in the days leading up to this. I didn’t want to trigger him.

I drove to the grocery store and sat in the parking lot in my car to calm myself down for over an hour.

My other roommate usually got home around 11-midnight. He was in the military so I felt semi-safe going back because it was about that time (another regret).

I had a final due that night at midnight that I was still editing so that was where my mind was at. I wanted to keep my 4.0. I went back into the kitchen and sat right next to the back door to work so that I had a quick exit if something happened.

I got up to make some tea. We had a counter that wrapped around and I was standing in the back corner of it getting my tea out. All of the sudden I heard my roommate say, “do you know there’s different ways to hold a knife to stab someone?” 

I turned around and he was standing there with a switchblade up in the air pointing it at me. I always thought I would go into fight mode when I was put in a life or death situation, but I froze and couldn’t move. 

He started talking about how the serial killer I had mentioned before and then started showing different ways to stab someone. He moved closer to me while jousting the knife towards me showing each different way to stab someone. I yelled at him to put the knife down and he kept coming closer. 

I was cornered and had nowhere to go. He had the knife up to my face and neck and I finally snapped out of it and hit his hand and ran. 

My keys were right by the door still, thankfully, from when I had left earlier after the gun threat. I grabbed them and got into my car and sped off. It was winter and I went to the police station with no shoes, jacket or bra and was very shaken up and in shock.

One cop was standing outside of the station, he recognized me from a few days before and he brought me inside right away and into a safe room. I told them what happened and they immediately went and arrested him.

In the short 20-minute window, he was somehow was able to get rid of his gun and computer. They were nowhere to be found.

His family is extremely wealthy and he got bailed out within few hours even though he had been charged with a domestic violence assault with a deadly weapon. The police instantly filed a protection order for me so that he couldn’t step foot in my neighborhood or contact me in any form. If he did he would be sent back to jail. Even for a text message.

While he was in jail I went into his room to look through his stuff. I found all of his bloody ripped clothes, a bloody jacket and shoes. 

I also found a huge pile of journals and started reading them. What I found was horrifying and scared me more than anything else. He talked about drugging and raping women, child porn, sex with an 11-year-old girl, violent thoughts about hurting people. This was over a thousand pages of all dark and fucked up stuff. I also found all of his papers from his therapy sessions where he talks about his child porn addiction endlessly. I’m still freaked out by them to this day. 

I looked in his car and he had multiple knives, a wooden club, rope and bloody towels…I also found another journal that was an entire book about his ex girlfriend, who was already married and he hadn’t dated in years. I contacted her and warned her.

I also found a ripped up bible in a shoebox in his room.

I didn’t think I was allowed to look through his stuff so I didn’t tell the cops until the next day. I called them back over because his car had bloody towels inside and I found 3 bloody blankets in out living room closet.

The cops could tell I was super freaked out and started asking more questions. I finally had a melt down and told them about the journals. I had only taken a handful of his journals out of his bedroom so they could only ready those because they didn’t have a warrant.

We found multiple hard drives and other odd things too stashed away in closets in the house.

The detective had told me how serious the journals were and that they reminded him of serial killers he had studied. He called my roommate and read some of the journals off to him to let him know that we had more on him than just the attack. Sadly the judge never approved a warrant so we weren’t able to used the journals in court.

The court session wasn’t until March and I was required to go so I stayed in Nashville and continued to work. I slept with a handgun in my hand every single night until then. The detective also gave me his number. He worked nights mostly and he would park outside of my house if I told him I was scared and would work in his car and wait for calls. I’m so grateful for him.

There was 4 months between the attack and him having to go to court. I went into a bad depression and was scared 24/7. I didn’t know how to cope with the fear even with my educational background. It was too intense.

I was a long 9 hours in court. Sitting in the same room as him for that long was an absolute nightmare. Luckily, just after my attack I headed home for Christmas and I was seated next to a super cute guy on my flight. He was a Godsend and supported me the entire time and sat through court with me. 

He pleaded guilty to attacking me with  a knife and didn’t get single day in jail. He looked at me and smiled after. I was so enraged that I started shouting that he was a pedophile and a rapist and looked at his mom and told her to watch him. My friend got out of his seat and grabbed me from the front of the court and we left.

He was a free man and a psychopath. I was terrified to live in Nashville. The detective told me it was in my best interest to move back home to Washington and get away from Nashville where he was doing probation.

I spoke out about my attack afterword’s and blasted his name and photo on my instagram and Facebook. He’s a dangerous person and he’s on dating apps. I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to someone else and I didn’t take action and speak up. I realize that this puts me in more danger, but it’s important to me to protect and warn others. And maybe someone with some power will read this and help me take him down.

His name is Connor Thompson, he’s from Brentwood Tennessee.

Connor Thompson. Photo I took in our garage
Connor Thompson. Photo I took in our back yard

I reported it to the FBI multiple times and they haven’t done anything. He needs to be locked up but I’m not sure if it’ll happen unless he does another attack. He’s still on probation for a few more months. Thanks to everyone trying to defund the police, the cops and probation couldn’t verify if he was being monitored. I can only hope that he is. 

I took off from Nashville a couple weeks after court. I was initially planning on just spending two weeks driving home to take my time and explore places, and now it’s turned into 1.5 years. It’s hard to stop once your start. It’s been extremely healing for me. I don’t struggle with depression at all anymore, I’ve healed from that. I’m so happy, But I still live in fear at the same time. Changing my location makes me feel better and brings me peace. Usually my friends and family don’t even know exactly where I am.

I’m hoping to stumble across a town or city that feels right and makes me feel safe and comfortable. Hopefully that’s soon but for now I’m going to keep traveling and living freely. If you want to support my journey to healing, my venom is @maggmountains and my cash app is @blondegypsy

Much love,

Maggie