 When a child goes missing, a parent's mind naturally begins to prepare itself for the unthinkable while hoping for the best. This was true in the disappearance of Harley Dilley, a 14-year-old boy who went missing near the end of 2019. But his parents would have never imagined that his body would be found much closer to home than anyone could have expected. This is the strange case of the boy in the chimney. Harley Dilley isn't a case that I expected to cover when he first went missing back in 2019. After all, there wasn't anything too terribly unusual about Harley. He was your average teenage boy and almost everyone expected that he'd be found sooner or later, possibly after running away from home. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case. Now, you may remember the case of Joshua Maddox that I covered a while back here on True Crime Stories. If you weren't following the channel back then though, I definitely urge you to check out that video. I'll add a card above if you want to check it out. But Joshua's case was shockingly similar to the case of Harley Dilley. In fact, some people think the two cases are virtually identical, and I agree. Joshua Maddox was also found stuck in a chimney not too far from his childhood home. The only difference is that he was stuck there for seven years. Thankfully, in the case of Harley Dilley, his parents wouldn't be forced to wait such an incredibly long time for closure. Fort Clinton, Ohio is a small village that can be found in Southwestern Summit County, Ohio. It's a very, very small village with a population of just 2,000 people. A total of around 380 families live here, with the area being fairly average in terms of income and amenities. By all means, it's a quiet little village where nothing unusual really happens. It's the perfect place to settle down and raise a family as more than 25% of the population is under the age of 18. According to crime grades and area vibes, crime is virtually non-existent in Fort Clinton, with violent crime rates being 70% less than the national average. I'll be honest with you, I've never thought about Ohio too much, but while researching this case, I nearly convinced myself to move there. Fort Clinton is truly that great of a town. But the town isn't without its faults. In fact, many people claim that the police department in Fort Clinton is so poorly equipped to handle tragedy and crime that they may have single-handedly led to the death of Harley Dilley. To be fair, it doesn't seem like the police department really disagrees with these claims. With the chief of police, Robert Hickman, recalling Harley's case, thinking, quote, did we mess up or did we not? I don't know. I can't give you that answer. My biggest recommendation for any police department that experiences a case like this is don't be afraid to ask for help. Harley Dilley was your average teenage boy, at least by most people's standards. His mother said that he was a great kid and doesn't seem like he ever got into much trouble. He's been described as a mama's boy through and through, and that certainly seems to be accurate. Whatever his mother asked him to do, he usually didn't, even if he had his own way of doing it and he did it at his own pace. But all in all, he was a great kid. His father didn't have anything negative to say about him either, recalling him very fondly. Harley loved playing basketball, and it seems like he took the sport fairly seriously. But he was also an avid gamer, having accounts on Discord and Twitch, where he would often share Madden gameplay with his friends, even managing to bring in over 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now, I did a bit of digging after hearing about this report, and I found a web sleuths forum that has information about Harley's case, but it's also a hot spot for rumors and speculation. Many of the users were quick to jump on Harley's case when it had just begun to unfold. Now, I haven't been able to verify any of these claims because the posts that these people are referring to have since been removed, but several of the users mentioned that Harley used to post to YouTube quite frequently in 2018 and 2019. These videos have led to a lot of speculation regarding Harley's disappearance, and they paint his parents in a much different light than how they may have otherwise been perceived online and in television interviews. Now, let me reiterate, I cannot confirm these reports, so they should be taken as rumors and nothing more, but according to multiple members of the web sleuths community, Harley may have had a fairly troublesome home life. It's been reported that he posted several videos to YouTube that documented various types of abuse that were taking place in his home. One particularly concerning video was titled I'm Scared, and it's a video that was deleted within days of Harley's disappearance. This video is the only one I was actually able to track down after someone re-uploaded it, and Harley explains that he's having one of the worst days of his life. He mentions how he got into an argument with his mother after school, an argument that supposedly lasted for about five minutes. During the argument, Harley's mother threatened to call the police on him, a threat that she'd reportedly followed up on in the past, even though it wasn't a matter that concerned the police in any way, at least not if you ask me. From the information I've collected, these calls were meant for no other reason than to scare Harley into doing what his mother asked. But things began to take a dark turn when Harley continued to explain his mother's punishment. In the video, Harley is in his backyard and reveals that his mother locked him out of the house as punishment. Bear in mind, this video was taken in the middle of winter, and Harley can be seen bundled up in a jacket while waiting outside for his mother to finally let him in. According to a web-sloothed user, Harley had revealed in another video that she'd already done this once before when either he or his brother was just four years old, locking them out in the cold yet again. Harley continues to explain that he's hungry and needs to get inside to get his schoolwork done, but he can't because he's stuck outside. He ends the video in tears a few moments later. Several armchair detectives on the web-sloothed forums say that they witnessed a video online that revealed that Harley had been heading out to meet someone on the day that he went missing. Now, based on this sheer number of people who claim to have witnessed this video, I'm going to step out on a limb and say that this allegation appears to be true. The only problem is that we don't know for sure who Harley was going to meet that day. The forum users say that the video suggested it was someone that he'd been speaking to online, but we don't know if this was one of his friends that he knew personally, or if it was someone he'd never actually met in person before. This report suggests that he left for school on the morning of December 20th, but he never actually made it to school, as none of his friends reported seeing him that day. Considering the area was quite safe, it wasn't uncommon for Harley to roam around and explore the outdoors, which sometimes included an abandoned home that was next door to him. His parents had told him not to go near the home, but it doesn't seem like Harley obeyed them, as we know he'd visited the home several times in the past. The abandoned house was located at 507 Fulton Street, and it was just steps away from where Harley had grown up. The house, while abandoned, was still maintained by the family who owned it and occasionally used it as a summer home. In 2019, the owner of the home mentioned that it had been sitting vacant for about 10 years, with family only staying in the home for a few weeks at a time throughout this process. The house had been built in the 1850s and was owned by the same family ever since. It had seen many renovations over the years, and from the outside, it looked just as modern as any other house on the block. It was a two-story home that was kept in reasonable condition, all things considered. However, the home and its lawn had become a popular hangout for local teens based on a few reports I've seen online. As far as we know, no one had ever entered the home since the homeowners abandoned it, as all the doors and windows had been locked the last time that it was used. As soon as Harley's parents reported him missing, the local police began to search the area, hoping that they'd find out that Harley had been hiding out somewhere. Police began their search inside and outside of the dilly home, searching for any clues or evidence that they could find that may explain where Harley may have gone. By all means, nothing appears to have been out of the ordinary. All of Harley's belongings were accounted for, aside from the things that he took with him on a normal school day. Police also searched the area outside of 507 Fulton Street, but they never found any clues or evidence. The home appeared to have been untouched for quite some time, even though there were a few reports that Harley had been hanging out near the home in the past. But here's where things get pretty interesting, making the case far more complicated. The forum posts continually refer to a person known only by his screen name and nickname of Drip. In fact, Harley mentioned this person in one of his YouTube videos before. Harley was playing Madden Mobile on a live stream while using Discord at the same time, and during a broadcast, he posted about Drip on Discord and said, quote, Drip is the worst in this community. He came to my house, he stalked me. Things get even more interesting when we find out that on the day that Harley vanished, he'd done his best to beg his parents to let him stay home from school. He wasn't sick or anything, and his parents don't seem to know why he was so adamant about staying home that day, but he played every card that he had, hoping to get out of school. When they refused to let him stay home, he rather strangely seems to have left for school extra early that morning. This is where internet detectives have begun to go wild, claiming that it's possible Harley may have left for school early in order to avoid this elusive individual named Drip. If Drip truly was a stalker, maybe Harley was trying to outpace him and make his way to school early so as to avoid Drip, but I'll be honest, this seems like a bit of a stretch to me, and there's literally no evidence to suggest this. The only slight bit of evidence that we have that suggests that this person named Drip may have been involved is info that's been passed around online, suggesting that Harley's online activity alluded to the idea that Harley may have left home early that day to meet someone. There's one other interesting detail in the case though that makes Harley's case all the more interesting and certainly far more concerning. We know that Harley suffered from either OCD or ASD, but it seems that his family leaned more towards the idea of OCD. Now, as someone who's been diagnosed with OCD, I can tell you without a doubt that Harley's decision to leave home early that day was very unusual. According to his mother, Harley was a creature of extreme habit. In fact, he would bathe several times per day as part of his typical OCD ritual. So leaving for school early just doesn't make any sense here unless there was something seriously wrong or something seriously important, maybe this rumored meetup. I managed to track down this person named Drip online and I tied him to a Reddit account and I won't reveal the name too because it appears that Drip may be underage. I don't know this for sure, but just to be safe, it's not something I'm comfortable sharing. It's easy enough to find online though if you're truly interested. So on this Reddit account, I was able to confirm that Drip had indeed been stalking Harley for at least a few weeks. In fact, Harley also had a Reddit account and was part of an online Madden mobile subreddit. Drip took every opportunity that he had to bully Harley online and it doesn't seem like Harley had ever met Drip in person. As he alluded to the fact that Drip at this point had never been able to track him down in real life. But just over a week after Drip had last bullied Harley, Harley went missing. When Reddit users noticed the connection here, they began to harass Drip about his potential involvement. But this is where things got far worse than I could have ever imagined. When users began to ask Drip about Harley, he repeatedly told them to leave him alone, responding that he had no idea where Harley was. Then came the bombshell. Harley had told a few of his friends online that Drip had shown up outside of his house one day stalking him. When Drip was confronted about this, he responded, quote, I don't live near him at all. This was confirmation that Drip did in fact know where Harley lived. Drip's final response to the questions about Harley came merely hours before Harley's body was found. Drip has never posted to Reddit again since 2020. Police were conducting a now routine search for Harley on January 13th of 2020. They once again made their way to the abandoned home next door to Harley's home at 507 Fulton Street. This time, they decided to investigate further and they entered the home, hoping to find additional clues inside. Unfortunately, they discovered exactly what they had feared. On the second floor of the home, they found Harley's glasses lying on the ground. Nearby, they also found a maroon jacket that belonged to Harley. But what they discovered next would be the most heartbreaking discovery in all of Port Clinton, Ohio's history. As the investigators continued to search the home, they noticed a small hole in the drywall of one of the upstairs bedrooms. When they looked inside the hole, they found that it led to a chimney that was no longer in use. The home had originally been built with a fireplace, but this fireplace and chimney had since been closed up, remaining hidden inside the walls of the home. The homeowner said that the hole in the wall was normally covered with a vent cap, but he couldn't explain why this cap had been removed. As officers looked inside the hole, they discovered the remains of Harley Dilley. A coroner was called to the scene and determined that Harley most likely passed away the same day that he disappeared. Investigators say that due to the weather, he most likely lost his life within hours of getting stuck inside the chimney. But that's the big question here. How did Harley get inside the chimney? Well, even though the chimney had been closed off inside the home, it was still accessible from the roof of the home. The roof of the home was also very easy to access because a large antenna pole was located just outside the back of the home, only about a foot away from the home. It would have been easy enough to climb the pole and get onto the roof of the home and virtually anyone could have done it. From here, the chimney was very easily accessible. But many people in the WebSlooth community don't believe that Harley ended up in the chimney by sheer chance or due to an accident. They believe he was pushed likely by the mysterious person named Drip. All we know for sure is that after Harley ended up in the chimney, there was no chance of him being able to escape. The chimney was only nine inches by 13 inches, meaning entering the chimney would have been difficult enough. Getting out would have been darn near impossible. Police theorized that the items of clothing that they found inside the home were likely put there by Harley while there's no evidence to suggest that Harley ever entered the home, they believed that he likely became lodged in the chimney, then pushed open the vent cap from inside the chimney. He then took off several items of clothing and poked them through the vent cap to try to get more room inside the chimney than shimmy out and escape, but it simply wasn't possible. But this is nothing more than a theory and police don't know for certain what actually happened here. The official reason for Harley entering the chimney that day has never been determined. It's entirely possible that he climbed the pole and entered the chimney out of pure curiosity, hoping that the chimney led to a fireplace that would let him inside the home. And this is certainly a plausible assumption. To be perfectly honest, I probably would have come to the same conclusion when I was a teenager, but because the fireplace had been boarded up and walled over, there was no way out. But what about drip? Well, the mysterious person named a drip has never been identified. Police have officially ruled the case as an accident and they say that there's no indication of foul play, but we have to remember early in the investigation, police clearly stated that they had a reason to believe that Harley was heading out to meet someone that day, hence why he left for school so early. So whatever came of this and why did investigators suddenly change their mind about this clue when there's evidence in Harley's online history to suggest that this was in all reality a possibility. Unfortunately, we don't know. Since this mysterious drip person has never been found, it's likely that these questions will remain unanswered. Police have closed the investigation and they aren't taking things any further. Officially, the tragic case of the trapped teen, Harley Dilly, has been solved, but in the minds of many, myself included, the real mystery has only just begun. Thanks for tuning in to True Crime Stories, everyone. If you liked the video, I'd appreciate it if you hit the like button and subscribe. Also, feel free to leave a comment below. Comments really help out the channel more than you may realize. But with that, my name is Ty Nottz and I'll catch you guys in the next video.