Hey, I’m really stressed and confused about something that happened recently and could use some advice. Earlier, a family friend came into my room uninvited, looking for something. My mom told me to leave the room to give him space because he’d just had a pretty intense argument with a relative. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, so I stepped out.
While I was gone, my cousin asked if he could use my phone for a bit. He said he needed to airdrop something to his sister’s phone. Honestly, something about that didn’t sit right with me, but I let him anyway since I didn’t want to cause a scene. When he gave my phone back, I checked it and noticed some stuff was missing.
There was this private recording I’d made — it was a family member talking about being threatened by the family friend. It was important, like evidence, but it was deleted. There was also a recording of a fight between two family members that had disappeared. I confronted my cousin, asked if he deleted or messed with anything, and he got defensive, denying it. I asked him to show me what he’d airdropped, and he got upset, saying I was accusing him of something. His aunt told me to drop it and that she’d talk to him later.
When I went back into my room, I saw the family friend had left, but everything was all messed up — clothes and things scattered everywhere, like someone had been searching through stuff and then tried to put it back but didn’t do a good job. I looked around and realized a bunch of important family documents were missing from the drawer — stuff with personal info for my cousin, aunt, uncle, marriage certificates for my parents and their in-laws, passports, birth certificates, even my sister’s divorce papers. Some less important papers were left, but the main ones were gone.
I told my family what happened. My uncle said he’d “handle it” and left in a car. The thing is, I’m scared to go to the cops because the family friend knows some people who might cause problems for us. I don’t know if I’m responsible for what got deleted or taken since it was my phone and my stuff, but I feel like I was kind of naive trusting my cousin.
I don’t really understand everything that’s going on or what might come next, and I’m stuck feeling like I’m in the middle of something bigger than me. What should I do? Should I involve the police? Should I just try to keep quiet? Any advice would be appreciated.
Location: Michigan , United States