Criminology - A Nightmare Before Halloween; The Murder of Cheri Jo Bates

Episode Date: October 30, 2022

In this very special Halloween episode of Criminology, 'The Nightmare before Halloween,' we take part alongside many of our true crime podcast friends to bring you some creepy and terrifying tales of terror.  It's a jam-packed episode, and in our segment at around the hour and 30-minute mark, we explore the October 30th, 1966 murder of Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, CA.    …1 campfire… …1 dark forest… …31 bone-chilling stories… …Will YOU survive the night?   This Halloween season, enter the woods for a unique and truly epic podcast experience! Around the campfire Shane Waters will introduce 31 crime podcast hosts, including Mike and Morf. Each host brings a new, nerve-wracking true story to the circle. It's an extra special, two part, five-hour, Halloween event, but before hitting play you might want to ask yourself…can you really handle this much murder and mayhem?   So, pull up to the fire and brace yourself for 'A Nightmare Before Halloween' …but be warned… …bad things happen in these woods….   Podcasts are listed here in order of appearance:   - Foul Play: Crime Series [https://link.chtbl.com/foulplay] - Murder She Told [https://tinyurl.com/55473exk] - Crime Salad [https://tinyurl.com/4pbtdtpc] - Crimelines [https://linktr.ee/crimelines] - Frightful [https://link.chtbl.com/frightful] - Reverie True Crime [https://linktr.ee/paigeelmore] - Rotten to the Core [https://link.chtbl.com/Rotten] - The Trail Went Cold [https://tinyurl.com/2zydj3y] - Once Upon A Crime [https://www.truecrimepodcast.com] - Criminology [https://tinyurl.com/yvuu9u8d] - The Peripheral & Generation Why [https://link.chtbl.com/ThePeripheral] - Live, Laugh, Larceny [https://linktr.ee/Live.Laugh.Larceny.Podcast] - The Hidden Staircase [https://link.chtbl.com/TheHiddenStaircase] - True Crime Cases with Lanie & It's Haunted...What Now? [https://linktr.ee/LanieHobbs] - Obscura: A True Crime Podcast & Disaster [https://link.chtbl.com/obscura] - True Crime Island [https://tinyurl.com/y6kk2npj] - Based on a True Story [https://tinyurl.com/37axzn5z] - The Asian Madness Podcast [https://tinyurl.com/yckkxbjn] - Sistas Who Kill [https://linktr.ee/Sistas.Who.Kill.Podcast] - Hometown History [https://link.chtbl.com/hometownhistory] - Coffee and Cases [https://linktr.ee/coffeeandcases] - Military Murder [https://tinyurl.com/yc5fxjyh] - Dystopian Simulation Radio [https://tinyurl.com/khpw786w] - Cults, Crimes & Cabernet [https://linktr.ee/cultscrimesandcabernet] - Morbidology [https://tinyurl.com/mshyvxyt] - Dark Pountine [https://tinyurl.com/ycydanm9] - Hillbilly Horror Stories [https://tinyurl.com/567vxrkz] - True Consequences [https://tinyurl.com/39fpfv3h] - Gone Cold [https://tinyurl.com/ytzxudt8] - Crime Stories with Nancy Grace & Crime Online [https://tinyurl.com/3dxp47wf] - True Crime IRL & True Crime Sleep Stories [https://tinyurl.com/ykzwmnxr] ReplyForward Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 2.30 of the criminology podcast. This is Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, what is going on with you? I'm excited. It's Halloween. I love the fall.

Not that it's ever fall here in Florida, but that end of October week, I just get excited for Halloween. I have since I'm a kid and I still am now. Yeah, I love Halloween. And you know, you and I kind of have a tradition of presenting a Halloween or a paranormal themed case. It's something that we've been doing the last week of every October here on criminology. It's become a bit of a tradition. But this year, we're doing something a little bit different. You and I are both very excited about it. But before we get into that, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had a new donation from Crystal Carruthers and both Becky Mueling and Colleen Holt up their donation. So we really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so much for the new Patreon support. It means a lot.

And to anyone that would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology. Yeah, this year, we were invited to take part and collaborate in a very special Halloween-themed crossover episode alongside a lot of our podcast friends. So in this episode, you'll hear a lot of creepy tales and cases in 10 minutes or less from some great podcasters. Some may be hosts that you're familiar with, but some may be new ones you'll want to check out. The case that we'll be presenting is the October 30th, 1966 murder of Sherry Joe Bates in Riverside, one that longtime listeners of criminology will be familiar with. We think and we hope that listeners will really have fun with this episode.

And we hope you enjoy it. Now, if you only want to listen to the part that Morp and I do, you'll find it at around the hour 30 mark. Happy Halloween, everyone. Yeah, happy Halloween. Hello, friend. And welcome to a nightmare before Halloween. Take a seat here next to the campfire. Don't you know the woods are a terribly dangerous place to be alone?

I've invited a few friends here to join us tonight. They are almost exclusively crime podcasters who all have a terrifying tale to share. You're going to hear 31 spooky stories. And before we conclude with a soothing, deadly bedtime story, we'll be visited by someone the devil himself would likely think twice before crossing. All podcasts joining tonight, you'll find listed in the episode's show notes, in order of appearance, along with a link on where to find them. If you're on the mood for true crime or spooky tales,

or maybe to learn about some other podcasts you could start listening to. Well, then you're in the right place. Ah, the campfire feels nice and warm now, doesn't it? I'm Shane Waters, by the way, the host of Fowl Play Crime Series. And tonight, stay close. You never know who or what could be lurking in these dark woods. I'll start with the first spooky crime story of the night. The night of Halloween was once called All Hallowsy.

It was the night where costumes were worn to ward off evil spirits who had crossed over from the dead into the living world to Rome. The customary costume was intended for protection, a layer of clothing to change a person's appearance, blend in with the spirits, and dispel any incoming evil. In today's world, it is other humans rather than spirits that we have come to fear. When a person disappears, literally vanishes without a trace, our world suddenly takes on a menacing and unknown feeling. Busy lives, bustling traffic, life happening in every direction, and somehow a human being gets swallowed up like a vortex spinning and capturing its prey.

When there are no clues, when there is no evidence to find, the world carries on, and yet this individual is no longer in it. For those left behind, they have unanswered questions and a desperate need for answers to try and make sense of it. On February 27, 2003, around 4 p.m., the Minneapolis Police Department received a phone call. A body had been found floating in the Mississippi River, just south of the iconic 3rd Avenue Bridge. The imposing structure, with its sweeping concrete arches that flow across the full 2,223 foot length of the bridge, connects downtown Minneapolis with the northeast area, as dispatch sent water recovery teams.

to the scene, detectives were put on alert. There are many different reasons a body can end up in the water. All are tragic events. Some, however, come straight from dark and sinister places. The Mississippi River had been frozen in recent weeks, with the harsh winter keeping the temperatures below freezing. A slow thawing had begun to emerge, the ice cautiously melting, and with its gentle reduction came the release of objects that had been held in its icy grip.

As water experts respectfully began to recover the body onto dry land, the glances between them could not be mistaken. They had recovered at least 13 bodies from that stretch of water, and none looked like this. When the air in a person's lungs is replaced by water, the ability to breathe is impaired and restricted, rising until it fills the lungs to capacity. The liquid causes suffocation, air is forced out, and the lungs are immersed. completely, leading to respiration grudgingly, yet inevitably coming to an end. At this point, a body will begin to sink into the darkness of the waters below and out of sight.

Over time, gases are released, swelling up the body and causing it to rise again to break the surface of the water. With the torso more bloated and buoyant, the usual position a body takes is face down, arms out with a slight droop of the hands toward the seabed below and legs that are angled downward. The body the team pulled out of the Mississippi River at 6.28 p.m. that evening had not been in that position. Fully clothed and lying on his back, the male body floated, unanchored in the water. On his feet were slip-on clog-like shoes, still firmly in place. He was wearing a tan-collared Native American costume with dangling tassels up the arms. The top section still neatly tucked into his pants. His arms were crossed over his chest, with one arm gently resting on top of the other.

Inside his left fist, clenched and locked in place, was a clump of human hair. Later that evening, the medical examiner was able to confirm the identity of this unknown soul, found so tragically in the icy cold waters. His name was Christopher Jenkins. His body had been found in the river exactly four months to the day when he had so mysteriously disappeared on Halloween night in 2002. Chris was 21 years old in a student at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota's Business School. He was due to graduate with his bachelor's degree in marketing and entrepreneurial management in May 2003.

Chris was a happy guy. He had a girlfriend he adored and he was a captain and goalie of the University of lacrosse team. Life was good. On October 31st, 2002, Chris was planning a night out for Halloween. his girlfriend Ashley Rice was a waitress at the Lone Tree Bar and Grill in downtown Minneapolis. He dropped her off for her day shift that day at 10 a.m. Before heading into the Rosedale shopping mall, he was hunting for a costume to wear out that night. His choice was the Native American costume he was still wearing when he was found in the river

exactly four months later. Inside the Lone Tree Bar, after 11 p.m. that night, the group fanned out as they met other friends and enjoyed the atmosphere. Witnesses remember seeing Chris dancing and chatting with people. As the night wore on, it appeared that Chris became more intoxicated. As the time approached midnight, a bouncer made his way over to Chris and was escorted out of the bar. Exactly why has never been fully established with any certainty. Outside there was a chill in the air, and darkness had closed in.

Chris had no phone or wallet on him. His costume didn't have pockets. Ashley was carrying his belongings for him. but she was still inside the bar. At 12.30 a.m., Chris was outside the Lone Tree Grill after being shown the door by the bouncer. From there, Chris vanished into the night. The Minneapolis Police Department wouldn't accept a missing person's report until 72 hours had passed without any indications of foul play.

They expected Chris to reappear at any time. Minneapolis police detectives did find a witness who they thought saw Chris on the night he disappeared. The witness was cycling. across the Hennepin Avenue Bridge at around 2 a.m. on Halloween night. They saw a man walking across the bridge alone. This was the only possible siding of Chris after he was at the Lone Tree Bar. In a meeting with his parents, police said they believed Chris had taken his own life and jumped into the Mississippi River on the night of Halloween. He had struggled with depression in the past, and detectives thought this was the most likely explanation for his disappearance.

The autopsy of Chris Jenkins, further deep in the same thing. the mystery of what happened to him. He did not have water in his lungs. It was not the river that took his life. Arms crossed, hair grasped in his hand, his body looked like it had been posed, pushed into the water while still in stages of rigor mortis, locking the position in place before the freezing temperatures took cold. The hair inside his fist was believed to be his own. He had no injuries consistent with falling into the river from a height, his slip-on shoes, still in place, and clothes neatly arranged do not support a sudden submersion in water in the inevitable struggle to survive that would follow. The levels of decomposition across his body were much less

than would have been expected, after four months in the water, even considering the shocking cold waters of winter. His case, however, remained marked as accidental drowning or suicide. It would be another three years before the status of Chris's case would change. In 2006, The work of Chuck Lausch managed to provide enough material for the police chief to reclassify Chris's death as a homicide. Part of that material was a statement from an unnamed individual who was currently in prison. They said they saw someone push Chris off the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and into the water below on that Halloween night in 2002. Chris Jenkins had been murdered and he might not have been the only one. From 1,200 miles away in New York City, a retired NYPD homicide detective was following the news in Chris's case.

He immediately booked flights to Minneapolis. Kevin Gannon was a 20-year veteran of the New York Police. He wanted to investigate the details of this case for himself. For the past nine years, Gannon had been working with a small team of retired detectives investigating clusters of drowning deaths of young men in cities across the United States, almost all of them have been determined as accidental drownings. The team didn't agree. Some of these cases they believed were homicides that were connected to each other.

This team wanted the world to know that there was a serial killer at work. One of the things Gannon had found that connected those deaths was what he had come to know as the killer's calling card. In many of these cases, left on the nearest man-made structure to where a body is found floating in the water were three simple marks. normally innocent and happy. In this context, they were mocking and foreboding. They were marks that made a distinctive and unmistakable smiley face, painted on trees, fences, concrete structures, or walls.

It was a face that stared down the observer with a permanent, taunting smirk. In a notable amount of these cases, enhancing their ominous impact, the smiley faces were painted with horns. Two other retired detectives, Anthony DeWarde, and Michael Donovan, were on Gannon's team, along with a university criminal justice professor, Dr. Lee Gilbertson. As the number of cases they were linking together rose, they came to realize these killings could not be the work of one individual acting alone. What has become known as the Smiley-Face killers, due to the sinister calling card,

the team believed there was a serial killing syndicate operating across multiple cities and state lines in the United States. Working in partnership, this deadly underground group were silent and covert, and they have been operating for years. Scores of young men, all fitting the same profile, were going missing on nights out. Mostly in their early 20s, they were white men fit and athletic, usually at universities, and doing well in their studies. They were young, and seemed to have everything going for them. After vanishing in the dead of night, they were being held by the killers for different amounts of time. It will be days, weeks, or even months before their bodies were dumped into nearby waters, and found to be returned to devastated families.

In almost all cases, their tragic deaths had been classified as accidental drownings. Intoxicated, unsteady on their feet, walking by the riverbank, it happens. People fall in and are unable to save themselves, only in many of these cases, these men didn't drown. There was no water in their lungs. There was no bloating with how bodies decomposed in water and become buoyant. They had been killed before their bodies entered the water, and often with unexplained amounts of the central nervous system depressant GHB in their systems. However, this terrifying trend had started, the team believed it had expanded into a network of individuals working and carefully planned and executed, synchronized with each other. The victims were targeted, assessed to ensure

they met the same profile criteria. They were then followed, drugged, and kidnapped, snatched off the street and away from the safety of their friends during a night out, never to be seen alive again. I don't know about you, but I will never look at smiley faces the same way again. My first friend joining here tonight is Kristen Sivy from murder she told. Kristen's tale is on the murder of Alzada Pauline Young from 1940 in Rockland, Maine. crunched under his shoes and the son's last rays pried their way into his squinted eyes as John walked down Crescent Street. John knocked on his neighbor's door. He'd gotten fed up with his stepdaughter's

long absences. It had been a week since he'd seen Pauline. She came to the door and he said, it's time to come home, Pauline. She was just 16 years old, but had a mind of her own. And John was growing impatient with her. They walked home, their backs to the setting sun. It was Halloween night. John's other two children that lived with him were on their way out the door to go trick-or-treating, leaving him and Pauline alone. John, in his authoritarian way,

said that her days of staying overnight away from the house were over, and that her wings were getting clipped. She was livid. She said that she was leaving and yelled, To hell with supper, to hell with you, and to hell with mother. John locked all the doors, daring her to try and leave. Pauline grabbed a knife from the kitchen and came at John. He grabbed the closest weapon, a hammer, and threw it at her, hitting her in the forehead and rendering her instantly unconscious.

She crumpled to the floor face down. John rolled her over, checked her pulse, checked her breathing, and discovered that he'd killed his wife's daughter with a single brutal blow. He panicked. Who would believe that a husky stoneworker like him could have felt threatened by a 16-year-old girl who would believe that he acted in self-defense. He had to think fast. He picked up her body and moved it downstairs in the cellar as a temporary measure. He cleaned up the kitchen from their struggle. He'd figure out what to do with the body later. His wife and kids went to bed that night, but he couldn't sleep knowing what he'd done and what gruesome task awaited him tomorrow. When he shut the door to his home after ushering his children off to school, he breathed a sigh of relief.

His family hadn't discovered his secret. But what now? John lived in a duplex right in the heart of Rockland, Maine. He couldn't just carry a body to the ocean. He had neighbors and foot traffic on all sides. So he improvised. He gathered up some sharp tools and went to work, dissecting Pauline's 16-year-old frame into pieces that would fit into burlap bags. Using an axe and a kitchen knife, he cleaved her body into six parts,

placing each in its respective container. He buried some of them under his porch, which he cleverly accessed through a basement window. He worked in the shallow crawl space beneath the porch deck, which was concealed by a wooden trellis, dug a trench, and buried two of the bags there. He covered them with dirt and placed two wooden planks on top to conceal the disturbed soil. He had four to go. There was some cover in the backyard where there were some outbuildings. At first, he considered working within the buildings, but the shed was chalk full of coal, and the henhouse had a wooden floor.

But there were a few feet between the shed and the henhouse where he wouldn't be too exposed to nosy neighbors. He grabbed his shovel and went to work. When he finished, he made three trips inside, bringing one sack per trip and deposited them into the earth. He covered the soil and then asked a couple of neighbors to move his children's playhouse into the tight spot and conceal the turned soil. The final sack would have to wait for the cover of darkness. His family returned home from their routine daily schedule and he tried to maintain normalcy, but he felt nervous and wild.

After they went to bed, John picked up the final sack and walked to the salty shore of Rockland Harbor. he picked up a heavy rock and stowed it in the bag next to Pauline's head. He cinched the bag shut, bound it with a rope, and walked it to the end of the pier. With his considerable strength, he hurled the bag into the harbor and collapsed. What had he done? On Tuesday, November 5th, five days after he had killed Pauline, John went to the police and reported her missing. He had a part to play. The concerned father. Little did John know. No, neighbors were growing suspicious. His neighbor, Marion Allen, remembered hearing a woman scream four times, and then a heavy fall, after which all was quiet except the radio. She heard John's wife

return home from work and say to John three times, I can't, Daddy. Thelma was accustomed to calling her husband, Daddy. After all, he was 21 years her senior, she being 33 and he being 54. What terrible thing had John asked his wife to do. And Marion heard John pacing all night, walking up and down the stairs. She could feel the heat radiating off the walls. He had built two heavy fires, one in the kitchen range and another in the parlor stove. She was suspicious of the purpose of those fires. Stories were circulating around the Phelps home, and on Thursday, a week after the killing, Marion decided to act. She went to the sheriff of Knox County, Earl Ludwig,

and told him everything she knew. The sheriff recalled Marion coming into his office and opening up about her fears that something terrible had befallen Pauline. She became so unglued during her telling that he fetched a doctor to treat her. The police all went to the Phelps home that evening and looked into the matter. John was home and answered the door. They recalled that he was very calm. and invited them in to search wherever they liked. They went to the cellar, and John invited them

to use the short-handled shovel that was laying against the foundation wall to dig around. John said simply that she had gathered her clothing and run away on the night of Halloween. After further routine questioning, the officers left. That might have been the end of the story of Pauline if it hadn't have been for what happened Saturday morning. Rockland Patrolman Ronald Sukaforth was doing his rounds on the cobblestone streets and dirt roads when he came across a middle-aged man covered with blood. He was wandering dazedly near the police station. The officer took him straight to Knox County General Hospital. The man said that he had taken five poisonous tablets, mercury bichloride, and when those failed to work, he tried to take his own life by

cutting his left wrist. He also told the doctor that there was an important note in one of his pockets, a truth he wished to tell. Dr. Wiseman searched his pockets and discovered a slip of paper, scrawled with a handful of simple words that revealed that the man before him, John Phelps, had killed his stepdaughter. He immediately notified the sheriff of his discovery. By 4 a.m. that morning, the top brass from local law enforcement gathered at John's bedside and he, he told them everything. The men summoned additional help and made their way to John's home. It wasn't long before they found the first two sacks hidden underneath the front porch. The local doctor, borrowing a knife from the newspaper reporter, slit the ropes that bound

the sack and revealed the right thigh and groin. The second sack contained both legs, still clad with stockings. They next turned their attention to his outbuildings, wedged between the other two buildings was a children's playhouse. They decided to remove it. Several officers lifted up and revealed that the earth had been recently disturbed. A foot and a half under the surface, they discovered a third sack, then a fourth, then a fifth. Dr. Weissman cut the rope securing the bag and found first the left arm and upper left half of the body, cut down a center line. In the fourth bag was the other thigh, and in the fifth was the right half of the body. The parts were all taken to Burby Funeral Home, where the doctor assembled the parts like a ghastly

jigsaw puzzle. He later told reporters that some of the internal organs were never found. That afternoon, Dr. Weissman told reporters that he believed John wouldn't live more than a week. He was in critical condition. Police headed to Witham's wharf and started dragging. the bottom of the harbor with grappling hooks, hoping to snag the bag that contained Pauline's head. There was an urgency to the search. The sooner they recovered the bag, the better the condition would be, and the sooner they could examine her head to determine if John's story of a single hammer blow was truthful. All week, John struggled for his life, but his strong constitution triumphed, and on Thursday, two weeks after Pauline's death, he was released from the hospital.

While John convalesed, police searched the harbor. Hundreds of man-hours and even a diver turned up nothing. Pauline's head had vanished. As soon as John was released, he was immediately arrested on a murder charge and arraigned the following day in Rockland District Court. He pled not guilty, explaining that he only acted in self-defense. The judge held him without bail through the winter to stand trial. In February, four months after Pauline's death,

A grand jury convened and indicted John, and he was arraigned again in Superior Court. The judge read the charges, and to everyone's surprise, John pled guilty. The legal process was over. The prosecutor motioned for sentencing, and the judge obliged, imposing a life sentence at Maine State prison in Thomaston. John had been jailed in Thomaston for 24 years when in 1964, he petitioned Maine's governor and the executive counsel for a pardon for the second time. They granted him parole. He lived out his final years with his daughter, Rachel. On August 28, 1968, John died at the age of 81 and was buried in

East Hartford, Connecticut, near where his daughter lived. This story became a legend in the Rockland community. People comment even today on blog posts about this murder. They always thought it was a myth and were stunned to learn that it was true. The house became known as a haunted house. Kids were fearful going near it. There was a speculation of what happened to Pauline's head. Perhaps it wasn't discarded in the bay. One longtime Rockland resident, who was just eight years old when it happened, believed that John had thrown the head in a quarry behind the church. Another woman said that it was a legend in their family that John had passed one of her ancestors with a burlap bag. when she asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was going to drown kittens in the quarry.

The author of a local history book wrote that it affected the children of the era, himself included. He wrote, it was literally years before any of us would even walk past the house, day or night. Sometimes we would race past the house on our bicycles, but that was the extent of our courage. Take a trip to Rockland, Maine today. It's beautiful. The harbor is filled with sailboats. The Streets are lined with beautiful brick buildings. It's clean, manicured, and tidy. But under the surface is a dark chapter and a haunting mystery that still lingers today. How many legends might just be based on true stories you think? Ah, there you are, Ashley. Ashley is the host of Crime Salad. The story she has for us tonight happened on Halloween night in 2004, when one house in Napa Valley

was transformed into a real-life horror movie that began the terrifying, blood-curdling scream. And you think of Halloween, you think of all the little tiny ghost, goblins, and princesses, with wide-eyed wonderment walking through the neighborhood as their parents watch them go from door to door for a forbidden treat from a stranger. It's ironic because parents spend all year telling their children not to talk to strangers or be swayed by talk of lost puppies, kittens, or free candy. But on this one special magical night of the year, we throw caution to the window and allow the most innocent among us to take candy from strangers.

But they aren't really strangers. They're usually kind-hearted neighbors, all participating in the making of innocent children memories. That's exactly how Halloween night in 2004 began for the three young women living in the adorable little house on Dorset Street in downtown Napa Valley, California. 26-year-old Adrian and Sonia and 26-year-old Lauren Mianza became fast and close friends when they played in the same volleyball league. It wasn't long before they moved in together into a charming 900-square-foot bungalow in the heart

of Idealic Napa Valley. Soon they had made friends with another 26-year-old who lived next door, Leslie Mazara. When Leslie needed a place to live, they invited her to be their third roommate. So that Halloween night, the three of them made dinner together, baked cookies, and they handed out candy to trick-or-treaters and dreamed of someday having families of their own. And by 11 o'clock p.m., they were all in bed, unaware of a watcher, fixated on the women, inside the house on Dorset. This is exactly how many seasonal Halloween horror-themed movies start, but this was real life and without the soundtrack filled with ominous music. What it did have was a murderous villain, standing in the shadows,

waiting and watching to fulfill his malevolent plan. Adrian and Leslie each slept upstairs in blissful ignorance of the horror to come, while Lauren slept in the downstairs bedroom with her German Shepherd mix Chloe. And then around 1 a.m., Chloe began to growl, just as a security light in the backyard switched on. Lauren dismissed the warning mark and shushed Chloe to be quiet. She assumed it was something as innocent as a neighborhood cat triggering the motion sensor. She couldn't have been more wrong. In her ignorance, she calmed Chloe down and easily fell back asleep until she was abruptly awakened again

to the sound of someone walking past her room and heading. upstairs. Again, Lauren assumed one of her roommates had their boyfriend visiting and again shushed Chloe intending to go back to sleep. And that is when she was awakened one last time. But this time was by a blood-curdling, terrified scream followed by desperate pleas for help. At that moment, Lauren heard someone coming down the stairs heading right towards her. Without thinking, she ran with Chloe to the backyard, hoping he wasn't on her trail. And that is when she was, she realized the intruder must have exited through a front-facing window, which would turn out to be how he entered the home as well. In a moment of stunning bravery, usually reserved for horror

film heroines, Lauren climbed the stairs and headed towards the cries for help. As she entered Adrian's room, she noticed the floor was wet. In a surreal cinematic moment, it dawned on her that the floor was soaked with blood of her friends. Simultaneously, she took in the scene and saw Leslie lying face down on the floor covered in stab wounds. Leslie was no longer moving. The sound she heard were coming from her friend Adrian so weakly crying for help while crouched behind the bed in a fetal position. Her throat had been cut.

Lauren ran down the stairs to call for help only to discover that the phone line had been cut. Even though she heard the intruder leave through the front door, she no longer felt safe inside the home. She grabbed her cell phone and headed for her car calling 911 as she drove away safely. When authorities arrived, they were shocked by the rage and viciousness of the assault. They theorized that Leslie had been attacked first in her sleep and Adrian was attacked second when she came in to help fight off the intruder.

Law enforcement were sure that the attacker personally knew one or more of the women based on the number of stab wounds. This attack seemed personal. Both women were stabbed violently and repeatedly. Their best evidence was a drop of blood from the killer left outside the window when he exited the residence. There was also a pile of cigarette butts left in the tree line where the attacker watched the house while working up his courage to kill his target. The DNA left on the cigarette butts matched the DNA of the DNA of of the blood droplet. As a result, police interviewed over 1,000 people

and took DNA samples from over 200 suspects. It was almost a year later without a viable suspect, and police decided that they released saw the evidence to the public in hopes that it would generate new leads. They knew that Leslie and Adrian's attacker was a smoker of white European descent. He also smoked a newer brand of cigarettes,

which had only been on the market for four months. They were Camel Turkish gold brand. Authorities interviewed Lauren again and asked if any of the women knew any smokers. That is when Lauren remembered that Adrian's best friend Lily and her boyfriend Eric had helped the women move into their home in June of 2004. Lily's boyfriend Eric was a smoker. When authorities looked at their files, they realized that Lily and Eric had both cooperated throughout the investigation and Eric was asked to provide a DNA sample.

at that time. While they prepared to contact Eric again, something extraordinary happened. Eric Koppel, who was now married to Lily, walked into the police headquarters and confessed. He knew it was only a matter of time before they found him, and as a result, he decided to take the coward's way out and kill himself. He wrote goodbye letters to his parents, family members, and his wife. They all encouraged Eric to do the right thing and turn himself in, which he did. In a plea deal, Eric was offered two life sentences without the possibility of parole as long as he waived his right to appeal the sentences. Now, police discovered that Eric and Lily had been engaged and they were supposed to be married the same day as the attack. However, Lily delayed the wedding and Eric felt like this was all because of Adrian's interference in his relationship.

In fact, on the day after the attack, he should have been in Hawaii on his honeymoon. Instead, he was outside the little house on Dorset, working up the courage to act out his rage on innocent women. At sentencing, Arlene and Kathy, the two mothers of Eric's victims, would no longer be silenced. Eric had taken the lives of two vibrant young women in the most terrifying way.

Arlene and Kathy wanted answers as to why their daughters had to die. A few months earlier, Eric's mother Robin had the audacity to write a letter to Adrian's mother, telling her the murders were God's will, and both girls were in a better place. Arlene wrote back telling her that she couldn't have been more wrong, and Jesus wept at these women's deaths. Kathy, who was Leslie's mother, shared a 13-page letter with the court highlighting her daughter's

many accomplishments in the short 26 years she had on Earth. Then she looked directly at Eric and told him she would never forgive him. She stated, quote, I'm told that you have found God since your senseless rampage. It is right for us to hope that sometime, somewhere down the long road ahead, you will learn to take these murders into your heart like a man and let the guilt tear and rip apart your heart from the inside out, as your senseless and violent act resulting in the murders of Leslie and Adrian have done to all who loved them and the lives they touched. May you live a hundred years in misery and an internal.

eternity in hell." Adrian's mother was equally as angry. Eric and Lily had invited her to their wedding to read a scripture, blessing their marriage, all while knowing Eric had taken her daughter from her. She too faced Eric and said, quote, I know you. I know that you are a man who brutally and callously took the life of a wonderful woman. You cannot love Lily and bring a knife into Adrian's home and stab her, end quote.

She told Eric that Adrian had to be buried wearing a turtleneck to cover where he had viciously and remorsefully slit her daughter's throat. She called him cruel for inviting her to his wedding to bless his union, knowing he had caused Adrian's death. She ended by calling him a murderer and a coward. Next, Lily was allowed to speak, and we aren't going to share the entirety of her words because someone as grotesque as Eric Cople shouldn't have anyone say such wonderful and flowery things about him after knowing what he did to two defenseless women. The most egregious of her words were when she told Eric how proud she was of him because he had confessed. She told him, quote, Eric, there is nothing in this world you can do to make me love you less, end quote,

apparently murder isn't cause for a little less love. The monster himself spoke and offered hollow words filled with excuses and manipulations. to evoke sympathy. Other than Lily, he chose the wrong audience. In his self-serving statement, he stated that, quote, I am a broken man, a man splintered by a penetrating awareness of my own potential for wickedness. While I cannot fathom the full extent of the anguish I have caused,

I recognize that my sinful deeds have inflicted terrific agony on a great number of people. The words evade me to articulate the depths of my sorrow, or my terminal I created." He told the court that he suffered from suicidal ideation as a teenager and was always depressed which he masked with alcohol and other substances. Then he said, quote, In the months preceding Halloween 2004,

several traumatic events happened in my life in rapid succession. My immediate family dissolved largely as a result of certain disturbing revelations about specific members and worst of all, my relationship with Lily, the singular ray of light in my otherwise black world was in peril of collapsing. The real truth is that this small, petty, vengeful man believed that Adrian was poisoning Lily's mind against him, that she was making her yearn for a single life while highlighting Eric's deficiencies. When Lily called off the wedding, he thought of nothing else but lashing out

his displaced anger on her best friend and taking Leslie's life as collateral damage. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. learn something about myself. Crime salad is my favorite kind of salad. Hold on a minute. Charlie,

your shoe is on fire. I told her not to sit too close to the fire. Okay, sorry about that. Back to spooky and murdery. Charlie here is a great friend. She hosts Crime Lines, which is a crime podcast that brings in relevant historical and context to cases. This is the story of the Pollock Twins. On the morning of Sunday, May 7, 1957, Joanna Pollock, age 11, and her younger sister Jacqueline, age 6, left home to walk to church at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Hexham, England. The church was just half a mile from their home, and they usually walked as a family. But the girl's nine-year-old friend Anthony came by to see if they wanted to go with him. He was serving as an altar boy that day, so he had to be there a little early.

As they walked towards the church, a 51-year-old woman named Marjorie Wynne got into her car. Marjorie was in an altered state as she had taken handfuls of barbiturts that morning, possibly in a suicide attempt. As Marjorie approached where the children were walking, she swerved her vehicle across the road, jump the curb, striking, and killing all three children. Marjorie was treated for her injuries and promptly. arrested. While Marjorie dealt with the British court system, the families of the children struggled to deal with their grief. John Pollock, the girl's father, worried that his daughter's deaths were his fault, though a devout Catholic he strongly believed in reincarnation. He had prayed to God to send him proof of his belief. By trying to test God, John first believed that God had

taken his daughters away. But then John began to wonder if God was actually answering his prayer and would send the girls back in new bodies. He started telling his wife Florence not to worry. Not only would the girls be reincarnated, they would return to their family. John became even more convinced when eight months after the deaths of Joanna and Jacqueline, Florence became pregnant again. He knew that it meant one of the girls was on her way back. But as Florence's abdomen swelled beyond what it had during her previous pregnancies, John became sure both girls were coming back. Though the doctor said he believed there was only one baby, John was sure it was twins.

On October 4, 1958, Florence gave birth to twin baby girls. They named the girls Jillian and Jennifer, and John looked for the signs he had asked God for, proof that the girls were really Joanna and Jacqueline back again. One early sign was that Jennifer had two birth marks. They coincided with marks Jacqueline had, one scar and one birthmark. Florence, though, remained unconvinced. A couple of birth marks were not enough for her to toss out her lifelong religious belief system.

John watched as Gillian grew and developed a build and personality like Joanna's, and Jennifer leaned towards Jacqueline. But maybe he was just seeing what he wanted to see. When the twins were three, Florence pulled out an old box of Joanna and Jacqueline's toys. She worried about the two fighting over whatever was in the box, but that didn't happen. Instead, each girl immediately grabbed four different dolls. Gillian grabbed the doll that belonged to Joanna and Jennifer grabbed the one that belonged to Jacqueline.

They both said the dolls were gifts from Father Christmas, and these toddlers could not have known that they were, in fact, Christmas gifts for their late sisters. Here is Florence in an interview explaining that moment. When I got these two dolls out, one said, oh, that's Mary and that's Susan. And it was exactly the same names as my other daughters had named them. And that was the sort of really turning point in my way of thinking. After this, with the girls fully verbal, the evidence that they were their sisters reincarnated started piling up. In 1963, when the girls were four years old, the family went to visit friends in Hexham. They had moved away when the twins were still infants.

As they walked through town, Gillian and Jennifer insisted they wanted to go to the park and play on the swings. They didn't know there was a park nearby, but that's not the remarkable bit, four-year-olds always ask to go to the playground. The remarkable part was that in spite of never having been there, they led their family to the park their late sisters used to play at, as though they knew their way around town. On another occasion, Gillian pointed to Jennifer's birthmark on her forehead, the one in the same spot where Jacqueline had a scar. Gillian said, that's from where she fell on the bucket.

and a bucket was the exact thing that had left the gash on Jacqueline's head. Another time John was wearing a smock that Florence used to wear when she delivered milk before the twins were born. Jennifer asked him why he was wearing it when it belonged to Florence. Jennifer never would have seen Florence wearing that smock before, but her late sister would have. The story of the Pollock twins spread and paranormal research Ian Stevenson traveled to the family home in 1963 when the girls were four. He first interviewed John and Florence in an attempt to assess the situation. After speaking with them and then the girls, he believed that their account was credible.

But as the girls approached the age of five, their past life memories began to fade. By the time Stevenson visited them when they were eight, the memories were gone. By the time he last checked in with them when they were 20, even the memories of the memories had left. He had to depend almost entirely on John and Florence's reports. At the age of 22, Gillian did experience a flashback of sorts. She remembered playing in a sandpit with her older brothers, but it wasn't a place she recognized. She described the house in the yard, and John said it perfectly matched a property they lived at, when Joanna was a toddler, and Jillian had never been to.

Those who believe that the Pollock twins are the reincarnations of their older sisters are generally the people who already believe in the principal even before they heard of the girls. And of those who think John and Florence projected their own beliefs onto the twins are generally people who already don't believe in reincarnation. Our own biases color how we see all cases. whether they are of this world, out of this world, or simply otherworldly. Are you a believer in reincarnation? I know some folks hope to be reincarnated because they fear death.

But I argue there is a fate worse than death. Peter Laws is the host of our curious past and frightful. So take a deep breath and follow Peter now. As the two of you wander through the cemetery to explore this thought, what could be worse than death, opening one's eyes into the damp, cold blackness of a buried coffin. Horrible, yes, but cases of premature burial are not only found in the fictional works of Gothic writers like Edgar Allan Poe. Shockingly, history is littered with incidents of real cases in which people have been buried alive. Essie Dunbar was 30 years old when she died.

It was the summer of 1915 in Blackville, South Carolina, when she had a seizure. She'd had fits before she was epileptic, but this one was incredibly severe, and it left her lying on the ground seemingly lifeless. A physician was quickly called to examine her, and everybody's worst fears were confirmed. Essie was pronounced dead. Her corpse was placed into a wooden coffin, and a funeral service was quickly arranged for the following morning. Despite the speed at which the funeral was arranged,

most of Essie's relatives were able to attend the service to say goodbye. But Essie's sister, who hurried to attend, arrived late. By the time she rushed to the churchyard, the service was almost over. In fact, the coffin had already been lowered into the grave and dirt had been thrown across it. Yet she wanted to see her sister one final time, and so the minister and the undertakers kindly agreed. They would dig the soil away and lift the coffin for one last farewell. The screws were slowly and carefully removed, and then the lid was prized open and lifted on. And that is when the screams began, because the body of Essie suddenly sat up, turned towards her sister, and smiled at her.

The ministers were horrified and recoiled from the sight, falling backwards from the grave. Others scrambled to get away, trampling a man who broke his rib in the chaos. The solemn funeral service erupted into hysterical panic. On seeing Essie, grinning at her, the sister shrieked in fright and ran away, as did the others. And those who dared to look back would see a sight to chill the bones. Essie, who had died the day before, was crawling out of the coffin, and she was running after them into town. The mourners would have to get over their fright because Erci was clearly back and she intended to stay. Indeed, she would live among them for another 40 years, and though

the locals may have whispered rumors at night that their town now had a permanent ghost or zombie, most people knew the truth, and the fact that the explanation was natural made it no less terrifying. Essey had been buried alive on that awful summer morning, and the fact that the explanation, in 1915. And if it wasn't for her sister, she'd have been left down there forever. Unlike A.C. Dunbar, not all people managed to escape the grave, like Samuel MacDonald. The year was 1815 when Samuel MacDonald was working alone. It was a remote, wooded area of Maine, New England, and he was used to the challenges of the American wilderness, the difficult terrain, the harsh weather, the deadly wildlife, and of course, the loneliness. Yet at least he could

always rely on his good health to see him through, until that is one day when he started to feel unwell. He hoped his illness might pass, but a good worse and more worrying by the day. If this was us today, we'd have options in this situation, phones with GPS trackers, medication, four-by-four trucks to get us through any landscape, but Samuel was born in 1770. This was not a time for options. Alone and unsure of what to do, Samuel just lit a fire and lay in front of it, desperately praying that the rest and warmth might perk him up. It did not.

It's not clear who discovered Samuel, but somebody found his corpse still laid out by the long dead fire, not far from Umburg Lake. They managed to get words Samuel's sons, who then made the long, heartbreaking trek to pay their respects. After traveling hundreds of miles, they finally arrived at his cabin. Grief-stricken, the sons wanted to honor their father with a proper burial. Yet the weather conditions were too harsh. Dragging a cadaver across the wintry terrain would be impossible.

And so instead they dug a grave in the forest nearby. Then they placed their dad in a temporary wooden coffin. They sank him into a hole, deep enough to avoid any animals burrowing in and getting to their dad. and then they shoveled the soil on top, packing it down and set a final farewell, and with a promise that they would return the following spring. This lonely wilderness grave was hardly ideal, but it would at least give some peace to Samuel, and they would return later to take him back home for a fall and proper burial. The winter passed, and so the boys returned in the new year, ready to begin the grim task of digging their father back up.

They headed into the wood and slammed the shovels in, scattering the songbirds as they did. Then finally, metal hit wood. We can't be sure what made the McDonald Boys open the coffin that day. Maybe they wanted to give one final nod of respect to their loving parent. Or maybe something seemed off about the lid. Whatever the reason, they decided to prize the wooden lid open to check on their dad. They braced themselves to see a decomposed face, but were baffled to see the back of their father's head instead. Samuel MacDonald was no longer lying on his back as they had placed him.

He had somehow turned over onto his stomach. Had animals got to the body after all, or had some ghoulish passerby desecrated the grave? Confused, they reached down and gently lifted their dad up. He tucked some tugging. When they finally pulled him high enough to see, they saw something that would haunt their knights forever. Samuel MacDonald had not been turned by anyone else. He had turned himself through a panicked sense of disorientation. He had not died by the fire after all.

He had died right there in the hole. Without realizing it, his boys had buried him alive. And when the sons lifted him out, they saw the despair of their father's final. moments. Toward the end, Samuel MacDonald had used his teeth to gnaw his way through the wooden boards in a wild and panicked and useless attempt at escape. Stories like this helped fuel the widespread dread of premature burial in the 17th and 18th centuries. In response, a number of elaborate fail-safe systems were invented, like coffins having glass windows and breathing tubes through which the victim could suck in much needed.

air and scream for help. Even better, some systems had a run of cords from the hand of the corpse to a bell above the ground, though perhaps a pistol and a single bullet might have been the most welcome edition of them all. Now, thankfully, advances in medical science mean accidentally burying people is less likely today, but make no mistake it can still happen. Like Mildred Clark in 1994, she was 86 years old when a coroner in New York, declared her deceased. She was wheeled into the freezer at the morgue and lay there for an hour and a half before one of the supervisors happened to notice her move. And yet it still thought that today, with more thorough procedures, the chances of being buried alive are slim, but they are not zero.

Actually, when you think about it, perhaps the chances are much more than that, because there is one other chilling possibility. There may be more premature burials than we. ever imagined, and that the recorded numbers are low simply because we never get to find out. And how could we? These days, over half of all cadavers are cremated, and that proportion is growing. How many of them flutter their eyes open, if only for a moment, to find themselves in an oven? That is terrifying enough. But perhaps it's preferable to the alternative. The thought of others right now, somewhere in the world, desperately scraping. and gnawing their fingernails against wood in what Edgar Allan Poe called the rigid embrace of

the narrow house, the coffin from which they cannot escape. Perhaps we should take some comfort in the fact that most people would not survive much longer than an hour in a properly buried airtight coffin. Still though, when you wake up to find yourself in a casket six feet under the ground, way too deep for anybody to hear you scream. 60 minutes can feel like an awfully long time. So, are you now fearful of being buried alive? Before you go worrying about that, first maybe you should stay away from the Ohio River.

Page is the host of reverie. Reverie means to daydream. But sometimes when we zone out, intrusive thoughts can creep in. We might start to think about our anxieties and worst fears. Is there a green- clawed beast? in the Ohio River, waiting to snatch you up when you least expected? Be careful if you ever go to Indiana and decide to take a dip in the Ohio River. The movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon came out in 1954. But could there actually be a creature just like it living in the Ohio River?

This story begins in Evansville, Indiana, August 21st, 1955. Peak summertime, and everyone is ready to be immersed in cool waters. All everyone wanted to do during the summer was go for a dip in the river, swim, and have a good time while cooling off. At this point in time, people's households had no air-conditioned. which was a completely miserable experience. A woman named Naomi Johnson, her three kids, and Naomi's good friend Louise Lamble, headed out to West Evansville to hop into the Ohio River, to soak in the coolness of the water, to relax them in this awful heat.

The river is roughly 15 feet deep. A few sources say that the two women witnessed what appeared to be a UFO. To them, it looked like the underside of a bushel barrel, but they didn't take it too seriously and shrugged it off. There's no way it could have been a UFO, right? They get to the river, and everything is going as planned. Louise and Naomi's kids were hanging out on the shore. Louise was laying out while the kids were playing around.

Naomi was around 15 feet away from the shoreline, enjoying her wade in the water when something bizarre and terrifying occurred. Something curled around Naomi's knee. All of a sudden, Naomi was bent backwards and violently slapping the water. She was scared to death and explained that it felt like, like a ginormous hand. She said it also felt furry and had claws. This thing submerged her underwater,

but she was able to kick it off, and she popped up to the surface, taking a huge breath, then screaming her lungs out. In that moment, whatever this was, clutched her leg again. Her friend Louise was in utter shock.

She was, frozen in terror, staring at her friend. Eventually, she did start yelling for help, which everyone up and down the shore heard. Louise snapped out of it and leaped into the water, to get her inner tube and move it towards Naomi, who was able to get a good grasp of it. Naomi was struggling to ascend onto the floatable device, but she got away from this beast and ultimately got a few feet to the shoreline. It's possible that the splash of Louise jumping into the water for the inner tube frightened the creature, and that's the reason it let go.

Medical help finally got to the river. Naomi had her cuts and scratches taken care of on her lower leg, but there was a really weird blue-green stain that none of the men could get rid of. It left the mark of a great big hand, and for a few days it stayed on her leg. Reportedly, a sample was taken from the print, and according to one source I read, the discolourations were proven to be mud from caves beneath the river, and possibly swirled around and stirred up by boat traffic or any underwater movement.

After this happened, the legend of the green- clawed beast was born. Some people believe, after the way Naomi described what she felt, that this creature bared a striking resemblance to the Thetus Lake Monster, which is known to be in Canada. That creature is super hostile. Others think this could have been the Loveland Frogman, which Christy and Heather of the Sinisterhood podcast did a great and hilarious episode on. Or this could have been the works of the Big Muddy Monster,

who was first seen on the Big Muddy River. Now, there are a few theories that could be reasonable possibilities. Maybe it was a huge garfish. There had been catfish said to be as huge, huge as a Volkswagen, and catfish can really injure you if you encounter one. Fish fins could also possibly cause the hand-like impressions. There were a few movies that came out recently before the attack, which could make Naomi and others freak out more. The creature from the Black Lagoon, where a massive green creature with

claw hands strikes a female as she is swimming. Also, Part 2, Revenge of the Creature, had just come out a few weeks prior to their trip to the river. Terry Colvin, an investigator, had talked to Naomi and her husband after this traumatic episode happened. They told Terry, a man who said he was an Air Force colonel, who really sounded like a character out of the movie Men in Black, he came to their home and said that neither of them could ever speak of that event again after he interviewed them and took very detailed notes.

According to American Monsters.com first brought to international attention in the early 1970s, this grisly aberration of natural selection has been described as being nearly five feet tall, and weighing approximately 120 pounds with an epidermis consisting solely of silver scales. This animal's horrifying visage is made complete by the six razor-sharp spikes, connected to one another by a thin webbing, which are said to protrude from its amphibious skull. With its dark, bulbous eyes, fish-like mouth, and webbed hands, feet, and ears,

the Thetus Lake monster bears more than a passing resemblance to the iconoclastic image of the creature from the Black Lagoon. What lends credibility to these reports, however, is the fact that for centuries North American natives have reported numerous, and oftentimes fatal encounters with various creatures which they describe as being carnivorous aquatic humanoids. Naomi's experience gained the interest of UFologists, because on the same date that this happened to her, a horrifying case which is said to be one of the most terrifying ever recorded in UFology, there were encounters with bizarre creatures known as the Hopkinsville Goblin case. As far as the Green Clawed Beast, there has not been a sighting or incident since. However, the story has only grown since the kids who witnessed it went on to tell the story

and it spread like wildfire ever since. Some are still terrified to get into the Ohio. River. What do you think? Could there be a strange amphibious humanoid creature living in the Ohio River? Or is there a more rational explanation? And this was all out of fear, dread, panic, and imagination. Until next time, stay safe and take care. No swimming in lakes for me. If you're looking for a not-so-evil queen to worship, Joshua should be your podcast host of choice. I'm honestly a bit scared of him, so I'm just going to let Joshua, from rotten to the core, take it from here. We all know the tradition of lighting jack-a-lanterns on Halloween to keep away evil spirits.

The tradition comes from 19th century Ireland, and it started with turnips carved with demonic faces to keep away the spirit of stingy jack. A man who tricked the devil from collecting his soul, but was doomed to roam the earth forever more, unable to attain heaven or hell. Family started lighting their lanterns on Halloween to save themselves from his and other evil spirits. That's a myth, though, right? I mean, nothing like that could possibly happen. Could it? Happy Halloween, my daughter.

Darling, this is Joshua Waters, you are not so evil queen and the host of Rotten to the Corps. And thank you for joining us all on the special spooky collaboration. Come now, gather round the fire and hear my tale, the story that is pulled straight from hell. October 30th, 2012 seemed like a normal day for Elspietta Placoska. her seven-year-old son Justin and his five-year-old friend who was spending the night, Olivia Dworkovsky, in Naperville, Illinois. Early into the night, as three of them were winding down in the main bedroom of the condo.

Elspietta started to feel a presence. She wasn't sure exactly what it was, that was until it started to speak to her. Soon, a black shadow was making itself. visible to her and even started to convince her that her son and his friend were possessed by the devil himself. Elspietta claims that the shadow started to tell her to kill them, kill them. You are going to be the last one. She said the shadow told her, you are going to die, but you will be the last one. Something in the shadows of voice held power over her. She then went to the kitchen to grab a knife. The compelling drawl of

the unearthly aspirations of the apparition was just too much for Elspietta, and she proceeded to stab both children over 100 times, before even then killing the family's two dogs, believing that by killing the children, she was allowing them to enter heaven. After the murders, Els Vieta was interviewed by several investigators and psychiatrists. Some believe she was browbeaten into a confession by police after she claimed that her life and marriage were her motivation. Dr. Philip Reznik, the main defense expert who worked on the case, stated that her father's death in her home country of Poland just several weeks before was a big contributor to her descent into madness. Even several friends and neighbors claimed that she was acting unusual and talked about devils in the days that led up to the crime.

He also said that it was unheard of for someone to fake manic and psychotic symptoms for the number of days Plakowska exhibited them after the murders. The jury didn't believe her deed of the devil's story, which she and her defense team put together. And Elspietta Placoska was charged with first-degree murder, and given life in prison in 2017. We may never know if she was just struggling with a psychotic breakdown, or if she was truly haunted by something evil and unknown. Something so dark that it could cause a loving mother to horrifically murder two innocent children and dogs

on that bloody devil's night not so long ago. Sweet dreams, my darlings, and don't forget to light your jack-a-lanterns. You may not know this by the sound of our voices, but Joshua and I are actually brothers. I was going to joke about him being the older one, but I'm a bit worried for my safety, so I'm just going to leave that bit out. What you also probably didn't know is that my next friend has been sitting here quietly and patiently this entire time. He's just kind like that. Robin Ward is from the Trailwick Hold, which is like unsolved mysteries, but in podcast form. This is the tale of the Unsolved 1981 murders, Ronald Sissman, and Elizabeth Platt.

So at around 7.40 p.m. on Halloween night in 1981, the New York City Police Department was summoned to a third-floor duplex apartment on West 22nd Street and the Chelsea section of Manhattan near Greenwich Village. When they arrived, they discovered that two people have been brutally murdered. One of the victims was Ronald Sissman, a 39-year-old freelance photographer from Canada who operated his business from the apartment. The second victim was Elizabeth Plathsman, a 20-year-old art major and honor student at Smith College in Massachusetts, who originally hailed from the village of Roslyn in Long Island. The couple had met several weeks earlier before they started dating. Both victims were severely beaten before Ron was shot four times and Elizabeth shot three times, and each of them received one execution-style bullet to the back of their heads.

Since no witnesses reported hearing any shots, silencers may have been used. Police suspected that at least two killers were involved, and since there were no signs of forced entry, they believed that the victims willingly let the perpetrators inside the apartment before they were attacked. The place had also been ransacked, but it was unclear if anything was actually stolen. However, Rod's neighbors told investigators that they believed he sold drugs from his apartment in order to supplement his income, creating a potential motive for the crime. A small amount of white powder believed to be cocaine was found at the scene, and since Elizabeth's friends and family denied that she had any involvement with drugs or illegal activity,

she may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is pretty much the only hard information we have about the murders, but like I mentioned earlier, this case does have some odd rabbit holes which may or may not be connected to what happened. For starters, one year before he was killed, Ron had faced potential legal trouble from an actress named Melanie Holler, who once had a recurring role on the popular sitcom Welcome Back Cotter. She became acquainted with Ron when he photographed her on a few occasions, but in April of 1980, Ron took Melanie to a dinner party being held at the home of a show business promoter named Roy Raiden. Well, Melanie soon made headlines when she publicly accused Radin of drugging, beating, and raping her at the party,

and also claimed that Radin and some of the other partygoers had filmed the whole thing. For his part, Raiden said that Melanie had willingly taken part in some sadomasochistic games, maintaining that everything that happened to her was consensual. Even though Raiden was initially charged with numerous offenses, he ultimately only pled guilty to the charge of illegal possession of a handgun, for which he received a sentence of three years probation and a $1,000 fine. In May of 1983, Raden was murdered in a contract hit while he was financing the Francis Ford Coppola directed film The Cotton Club,

but that's probably a story for another podcast. Anyway, three days after the incident at Radin's party, Melody alleged that she went to visit Ron at his apartment and he drugged her. However, Ron claimed that Melanie was acting hysterical and he only gave her a legally prescribed tranquilizer to calm her down. In the end, Melanie decided not to press charges against Ron, and the authorities ultimately believed that this whole saga had no connection to the murders of Ron and Elizabeth. However, the investigation went in a completely different direction

when an inmate at the Attica Correctional Facility came forward and implicated one of the most infamous serial killers of all time, the son of Sam himself, David Berkowitz. Now, I'm sure most of you already know this story, but from the summer of 1976 until 1977, New York City was terrorized by a series of crimes known as the Son of Sam murders, as a total of six people were shot to death, and seven others were seriously wounded. The perpetrator was eventually identified as David Berkowitz, who received six life sentences for his crimes,

but the case has always been surrounded by conspiracy theories about how Berkowitz was supposedly a member of a satanic cult which orchestrated the son of Sam murders, and he did not commit all the shootings alone. If you're a fan of Unsaw Mysteries, you've probably watched their creepy two-part segment which explored this theory, and of course, Netflix released an entire documentary series about it titled The Sons of Sam, a Descent to Darkness. According to this inmate at Attica, a few weeks before Ron and Elizabeth were killed, Berkowitz had told him that the satanic cult he was associated with was planning a ritualist, murder, which would take place in or near Greenwich Village on Halloween. Berkowitz allegedly described it as a quote-unquote inside house cleaning thing and said that a

male and female would get their head shot off before evidence was removed from the scene. Of course, this fit the description of the Sisman-Plathman murder, and when questioned about it, Berkowitz claimed that Ron possessed an actual snuff film from one of the Son of Sam shootings. Since Ron was supposedly facing his own legal problems over potential drug charges, he was planning to turn the snuff film over to the authorities in exchange for immunity from prosecution. However, after Ron and Elizabeth were murdered, the film was taken by the perpetrators, and Berkowitz apparently provided an accurate description of Ron's apartment, suggesting that he may have had inside knowledge of what happened.

If that wasn't enough, Berkowitz would provide a tie-in to this other side-story, story involving Roy Radin. As you recall, Radin was murdered in a contract hit in 1983, and four separate people went to prison for their roles in the crime. One of them was a guy named William Menser, who shot Radin several times in the head, and then put a stick of dynamite in his mouth in order to blow off his face and make identification more difficult. Berkowitz claimed that Menser was a former associate of Charles Manson and a member of his satanic cult, who referred to him as Manson too. In fact, Berkowitz said that Menser was responsible for the 1974 murder of 19-year-old Stanford University student Arles Perry, who was also supposedly the victim of this cult.

But of course, the problem with that claim is that in 2018, DNA profiling linked Arles' murder to a suspect named Stephen Blake Crawford, the security guard who discovered her body, and he fatally shot himself when police showed up to arrest him. When I first heard about this whole Berkowitz satanic cult theory on unsawed mysteries during the late 1980s, I bought it hook, line, and sinker, but as the years have gone on, I've grown a lot more skeptical and now believe the theory was nothing more than a symptom of the satanic panic which pervaded American culture during that time period. In fact, the detail about these two victims being killed because they possessed a snuff film

pretty much makes this crime the perfect stereotype of a 1980s moral panic. In the end, no evidence was ever found to corroborate Berkowitz's story that Ron and Elizabeth were murdered by a satanic cult, and I'm skeptical that Berkowitz had any inside knowledge about the crime, or that this so-called snuff film ever existed. It's possible the authorities are correct, and the crime was drug-related, but I can see why we have these wild sensationalistic theories.

I mean, this is an unsolved double murder which took place on Halloween, and supposedly had connections to Son of Sam, a snuff film, the Cotton Club murders, and Welcome Back Cotter. You can't get any stranger than that, but I'm sure most of these angles are nothing more than Red Herrings. However, until we know the full truth, the murders of Ronald Sissman and Elizabeth Plathsman will continue to remain one of the most bizarre, unsolved Halloween mysteries of all time.

You know the rest. I guess you could say, the trail went cold. The trail went cold indeed, Robin. Next, I'd like you to imagine how a mother could end the lives of her two children, all in the name of love. Esther is the host of Once Upon a Crime. Each week, she creates gripping, storytelling episodes, with details you simply won't hear anywhere else. Esther, I'll let you take it from here. Susan Smith was a 23-year-old mother living in Union, South Carolina, in 1994.

She had two boys. Michael was three years old, and her youngest, Alexander, just. 14 months. On October 25, 1994, a desperate call came into 911. Susan reported that she had been carjacked by a stranger. Her two boys had been strapped in their car seats in the backseat of her vehicle when the man approached her at a stoplight. At gunpoint, he demanded she get out of the car. Then the man drove off with her two little boys still in the back seat. A statewide manhunt ensued to search for the kidnapper and find the missing children.

Susan and her husband David, who were going through a divorce, appeared on television to plead for the safe return of their babies. Susan wept throughout her statement, begging the carjacker to let her boys come home. But investigators had harbored doubts about Smith's story from the beginning, and within days, were able to secure a confession from the young mother. On that cold October evening, Smith had strapped her sleepy children into their car seats,

driven her car to the shore of John D. Long Lake, and parked it in the middle of the book, boat ramp. Placing the car in neutral, she released the handbrake and exited the vehicle. Smith watched as the car slowly rolled into the lake with her two children trapped inside. After the car was fully submerged in the water, she walked to a nearby house where she banged on the door and claimed she'd just been carjacked. Smith's motivation for murdering her own babies, she'd been having an affair with a coworker who had just broken off the relationship. She had fallen in love.

with him and become possessive and clingy. One of the reasons he'd stated for breaking up with Smith was that he was not ready to take on the responsibility of her two children. Angry and distraught at being jilted and desperate to keep her lover, Susan Smith did the unthinkable. She became one of the most hated women in America and was looked upon as no less than a monster. Mothers who kill are viewed as the most evil type of murderer. A woman who can so callously take the lives of the babies she has carried in her own

womb, given birth to, and whom should love and protect them more fiercely than anyone else on earth, what could be more cruel? In fact, a legend that is as old as time, and one I learned at the knee of my Mexican grandmother as a little girl, has been passed down for generations as a true horror story. The monster at the center of that story? A woman who drowns her two little boys. The legend goes something like this. Once a long, long time ago, there was a beautiful young girl named Maria who lived in a small village. She was beautiful but haughty. All the local boys, humble farmers and ranch hands wanted to woo the lovely Maria, but she would turn her nose up at them. She was going to marry the most handsome man in the world, and she would be rich as well.

One day that handsome man rode into town. He was the son of a wealthy rancher. Maria set her sights on him. She prepared herself to catch his attention by wearing her finest outfit, a beautiful white dressed that she knew played up her long black hair, her flashing deep brown eyes, and her lips painted a bright red. She also wore high-hilled shoes that made a sharp clicking sound as she walked down the lane. She arrived at the town square and caught the attention of the handsome paquero. The young man sought her out, and he quickly fell in love and asked for her hand. The humble peasant girl was now the wife of a rich rancher. At first, all was wonderful for Maria. She lived in a beautiful home and in short order had two children, both sons.

But not long after her sons were born, her husband began to spend less time at home. He said he needed to attend to ranch business, but she suspected he was off seeing other women and that he was now bored with her. When he was home, he spent little time with Maria, only paying attention to his two boys. Maria became jealous, not only of the other women she suspected he was seeing, but of her own two sons as well. Maria was used to having the admiration of all the men in the village and now her own husband ignored her. One day Maria was walking along the river with her boys

and her husband, who'd been gone for days, drove by in a carriage. He stopped the carriage and got out to hug and kiss his sons and greeting. He also spoiled them with gifts of candy. For Maria, there was nothing, not even a greeting. She seethed as she stood at the side of the road, ignored. But she was even more angry when she looked inside the carriage and saw that a younger woman, nicely dressed and obviously wealthy, was inside. She now had proof that her husband was two-timing her, and she was furious.

Her husband and the woman drove off in the carriage, and Maria could not control her anger. She looked into the eyes of her two beautiful boys, and all she could see was the image of their cheating father. Enraged, and before she knew what she was doing, she picked up her sons one at a time and threw them into the river below. watching them sink into the dark waters, she screamed and ran down to them, but it was too late. The river had carried them away. Maria, as if in a daze, went home and put on her beautiful white dress in high heels. She returned to the riverbank and walked up and down along the shore, crying and calling out for her children.

After a time, people from nearby began to hear a woman's pitiful cries and followed the sound to the river. They saw the woman in a white dress, now splattered with river mud and torn by the jagged rocks. Her face was frozen into a mask of grief. Her hair was wild entangled by the wind. Some of the men climbed down towards the river to try and help her, but before they could reach her, she let out one last cry, Where are you, my children? And then plunged herself into the water.

The strong current carried her away, never to be seen again. From now on, the beautiful Maria, who had killed her own children and then taken her own life, would be known as La Yorona, which means the crying woman. Now, children who have learned the story of La Yorona can sometimes hear late at night, after the clock strikes midnight, the sound of high hills clicking outside their windows as they're just drifting off to sleep. Sometimes they can hear her weeping.

Other times, La Yorana cries out in a terrifying voice, calling to her dead children. But children are warned. If they are naughty or have recently acted like a traviso, a disobedient child, La Yorona may become angry. Then without warning, she will snatch them up and carry them off into the spirit world. Or God forbid, the child struggles to free themselves from her icy grasp. Then she may pitch them into the dark, cold river, where they will be carried off to the netherworld. So children learn to beware of La Yorona.

We're told never to stay up past our bedtimes or play outside after dark. Because if we do, we may hear the cries of Lai Yorona coming to carry us off. Susan Smith was sentenced to life in prison. Coming up to the fire next are my two favorite mics, Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford, from criminology. Tonight they will share the story of the 1966 murder of college student Sherry Joe Bates. October 30th, the night before Halloween, has long been referred to as Devil's Night.

On that night, every year across the country, there are instances of vandalism or pranks. usually it's a result of teenagers misbehaving, and in most cases, trees filled with toilet paper may be the extent of the mischief. Sometimes, however, the crimes committed on October 30th go far beyond harmless fun. Such was the case for 18-year-old Cherry Joe Bates, whose brutal murder shocked her hometown of Riverside, California, and it remains unsolved to this day. The city of Riverside is an hour west of Los Angeles. In 1966, many of Riverside's residents were transplants who came to work at Riverside area military bases.

Such was the case for the Bates family, who moved from Omaha, Nebraska in 1957. Joseph Bates, the Patriarch of the family, found work as a machinist at the Corona Naval Ordinance Lab. His wife Irene was a homemaker, and rounding out the Bates family was son Michael and daughter Sherry Joe. During the 1960s, Irene Bays began to start. with her mental health and had to be committed to a mental hospital. As a result, Joseph and Irene's marriage suffered and they eventually divorced in 1965. Michael graduated from Ramona High School and joined the Navy. Sherry Joe and her father, Joseph, found themselves alone in their suddenly quiet home, located at 4195 via San Jose in Riverside. Sherry Joe was a popular and outgoing student with lots of friends

at Ramona High School, she was a cheerleader who dated one of the school star football players. The young couple even made plans to marry. Following graduation in 1966, Sherry Joe immediately enrolled at Riverside City College less than four miles away from her home. With her fiance away at college in Northern California, Sherry Joe applied herself to her studies, and she took a part-time job at a local bank. She had hopes of becoming a flight attendant. On Sunday, October 30th, while Joseph Bates was out,

Sherry Joe left her home headed for the Riverside City College Library to check out some books and study. She scrawled her dad a quick note that read, Dad went to the RCC Library and left it for him in case he arrived home and wondered where she was. Along the way, one of her friends passed her on the road. Sherry Joe was hard to miss in her lime green VW Buck. It was about 6.10 p.m. when the friend saw Sherry Joe a few minutes later, later at about 6.15 p.m. She pulled into the RCC library parking lot. According to one witness who later came forward, she was followed closely by a late model bronze Oldsmobile. Sherry Joe parked and

went into the library. Although some people that knew her would later say that they didn't recall seeing her in the library, at least one witness that knew her confirmed she was in the library and he detailed how she was writing in a blue spiral notebook. Exactly what happened. After Sherry Joe walked into the library, remains unclear to this day. Police believe that Sherry Joe left the library at 9 p.m. when it closed. Back at home, Sherry's dad arrived home and found Sherry's note. He went to bed expecting Sherry Joe would be home later that evening, but she never made it home.

At 6.30 the next morning on Halloween, an RCC groundskeeper traveling along Terracina Drive next to the library, found Sherry's lifeless body face down in a gravel alleyway and raced a call for help. Police arrived and found a grisly crime scene. Sherry Joe had been brutally stabbed and slashed with a knife. One slash wound to her throat was so severe that she was almost decapitated. Some possibly important clues were found at the scene. A man's paint splattered Timex wristwatch size 7 was discovered. Police believe that Sherry Joe had yanked it from her killer's wrist during the attack. They also found a single blood clotted hair in her hand, possibly from the killer. The investigation into Sherry Joe's murder was extensive, and police started with an examination

of her car. Police found the books. She had checked out on the front seat, indicating that she had made it back to her car after leaving the library. When they opened the hood, they discovered that someone had tampered with the ignition and coil wire making it impossible for the VW bug to start. When Sherry Joe went to start her car up, it wouldn't start. It's believed that at that moment, the person,

person who tampered with the VW approached her offering her assistance. She apparently accepted the offer of help not wanting to be stranded after dark at the library. Rather than hold back this detail about the disabling of Sherry Joe's car, police chose to share it with the press. Police arranged to do a recreation of the night of the murder and painstakingly rounded up every single person known to have been in the library the night Sherry Joe was killed. They had them wear the same clothes, parked the same car as they drove, in the same spots they had been parked in and sit in the same seats in the library.

Police accounted for everyone who was at the library of the night of the murder, with the exception of two people. Missing from the recreation were a heavyset young man with a beard who was about 5'11 and a young woman. It's not clear if the young woman missing from the recreation was Sherry Joe, but police hoped to ID the bearded man. They never did. Also missing from the reenactment was a studebaker with oxidized paint that was seen parked on Riverside Avenue. It too, as well as its driver, were never identified.

with one witness who lived close to the library. The witness told them that sometime around 10.30 p.m. On the night of the murder, they heard a terrible scream in the alleyway where Sherry Joe's body was found. A few moments later, they heard what sounded like an old car, start up and drive off. Another witness came forward with an interesting account. They said that shortly before the library closed, they had walked down the same alleyway in the darkness between two abandoned homes. They saw a man smoking a cigarette. The embers were clear. But unfortunately, Fortunately, the light from the cigarette didn't illuminate the man's face, clearly enough for them to give a description. Cigarette bots were found at that exact spot and collected into evidence.

Despite all of the Riverside Police Department's best efforts, the investigation into the Sherry Joe's murder seemed to grind to a halt. They were at a loss trying to ID anyone that would want the pretty unpopular 18-year-old dead. Then a month after Sherry Joe was murdered, two nearly identical typed letters were anonymously mailed to the Riverside Press Enterprise newspaper and to the Riverside Police Department. In the letter, which has been dubbed the confession letter, the sender claimed responsibility for Sherry Joe's murder and provided chilling details. The letter read as follows.

She was young and beautiful, but now she is battered and dead. She is not the first and she will not be the last. I lay awake nights thinking about my next victim. Maybe she will be the beautiful blonde that babysits near the little store and walks down the dark alley each evening about seven. Or maybe she'll be the shapely blue-eyed brunette that said no when I asked for a date in high school. But maybe it will not be either. But I shall cut off her female parts.

and deposit them for the whole city to see, so don't make it easy for me. Keep your sisters, daughters, and wives off the streets and alleys. Miss Bates was stupid. She went to the slaughter like a lamb. She did not put up a struggle, but I did. It was a ball. I first pulled the middle wire from the distributor. Then I waited for her in the library and followed her out after about two minutes.

The battery must have been about dead by then. I then offered to help. She was then very willing to talk with me. I told her that my car was down the street and that I would give her a lift home. when we were away from the library walking. I said it was about time. She asked me about time for what. I said it was about time for her to die.

I grabbed her around the neck with my hand over her mouth and my other hand with a small knife at her throat. She went very willingly. Her breast felt very warm and firm under my hands, but only one thing was on my mind, making her pay for the brush off that she had given me during the years prior. She died hard.

She squirmed and shook as I choked her, and her lips twitched. She let out a scream once and I kicked her head to shut her up. I plunged the knife into her, and it broke. I then finished the job by cutting her throat. I am not sick. I am insane. But that will not stop the game.

This letter should be published for all to read it. It just might save that girl in the alley. But that is up to you. It will be on your conscience, not mine. Yes, I did make that a call to you also. It was just a warning. Beware, I'm stalking your girls now. The confession letter was disturbing to say the least.

Police felt confident that the author had known only details that the killer would have known. But actually much of those details included were reported in local newspapers in the days following Sherry Joe's murder. As troubling and tantalizing as the letter was to police, it wasn't the only letter in Sherry Joe's case. On April 30th, 1967, six months after the murder, the Riverside Police, the Riverside Press Enterprise, and even Sherry Joe's father, Joseph Bates, all received hand-scrawled letters. The letters simply read, Bates had to die.

there will be more. Not long after Sherry Joe was killed, a janitor at Riverside City College found a morbid poem etched in pin on the underside of a desk in the RCC library. The poem was so disturbing to him that he thought it may be related to Sherry Joe's murder and he reported it to police. The poem read as follows. Sick of living, unwilling to die, cut, clean, if red, clean, blood spurting, dripping, spilling, all over her new dress. Oh well, it was red anyway. Life draining into an uncertain death. She won't die this time. Someone will find her. Just wait till next time. R. H. While the desktop poem was strange, there was nothing connecting it solidly to the murder of Sherry Joe Bates. She certainly wasn't wearing a red dress when she died, but it was just one more strange clue tied to Sherry Joe Bates.

Making the investigation even tougher for investigators, that desktop poem and other clues from Sherry Joe's murder, including the letters, would eventually be tied to California's infamous serial killer, the Zodiac. While no physical evidence seems to connect Sherry Joe abates to the zodiac, the two cases have been hopelessly entangled together for over 50 years. DNA from the cigarette butts found near the crime scene and the clotted hair found in Sherry Joe's hand do not match a favorite suspect of Riverside PD who has been on their radar since early on in the investigation. Both Sherry Joe's case and the Zodiac case remain unsolved.

It's impossible for us to get into every detail of Sherry Joe's murder in this short segment, let alone delve into the Zodiac portion of the mystery. But if you want a complete deep dive into Sherry Joe's case as well as the Zodiac case, be sure to go back and listen to our complete first season of criminology, where we explore both cases in great detail. Thanks, Mike and Mike. Do you know what serial killer scares you the most? Is it the Zodiac?

Well, I asked our next storyteller, one of the hosts of Generation Y, and the peripheral podcast, Justin Evans, that very question. A question I get a lot is what serial killer scares you the most. Now, they're all horrible. They all leave a trail of shattered lives and victims in their wake. but when it comes to which one actually scares me I had to think about that I mean take the cunning and conniving Ted Bundy

who could coax many young women into his car or the horrendous Jeffrey Dahmer who preyed on vulnerable young gay men Ted Bundy had a type which was a younger female in their teens to early 20s and dark shoulder-length hair uh Jeffrey Dahmer mainly tarred targeted men of color, and as scary as both of them are, I is a middle-aged straight white guy,

would not be targeted by either of them, and that really applies to most serial killers. Women, at-risk youth, minorities, the LGBT community, are far more affected by crimes of violence, especially at the hands of a serial killer than I ever would be. So what's my answer? Which serial killer could I even fall prey to? I'm not the target demographic for most of these predators. In reality, there are only a few, and even those wouldn't target me directly. But get rid of me, as it were, if I were in their way of their actual intended target,

which brings me to Richard Ramirez. When I was a child, I remember seeing a man's face. on the TV and I asked my mom, who is that? What's going on? And she said, they caught a very scary man. Now, as I got older and learned more about serial killers, Richard always stood out to me because of that moment as a child where I actually saw his face on my own TV. Once I started reading about him and how he chose his victims, it became very clear to me that he wasn't like the others. Some serial killers will stalk their victims for days, watching and choosing carefully the most vulnerable. Others will stage a scene where their intended victims will be misled into their car or home. And then there are those who target sex workers or at-risk individuals.

Richard, on the other hand, would go out at night, walk down the street, follow you into your house as you got home from work or returned from the store. He targeted women, but if there was a man in the house, he would shoot them and kill them first because Richard perceived them as the bigger threat and something that was in the way of his end goal. And his goal was typically raping and murdering the woman. And I can only imagine opening up my garage door and pulling into my garage, and as the garage door is closing, somebody's slipping underneath and into my home. Sometimes Richard would break into a house or an apartment, not even knowing who was inside, but with the intention of killing anyone he came across. He would search for unlocked doors or

windows to gain silent access to the home. Once inside, he would get low to the ground in a prone position and wait for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Richard hunted at night, which is how he got the moniker, the nightstocker. Among his many victims, those who survived were left maimed or tormented. Their ages ranged from nine to 83 years old. He would strangle, shoot, stab, and bludgeon his victims. his M.O. would change based on whatever opportunity was presented to him, which made him elusive to capture, but his brutality always stayed the same.

Richard Ramirez was walking chaos. Even knowing that his reign of terror ended in 1985 and that he would end up dying behind bars in 2013. He's one of the few that got me, struck that spine-chilling nerve that I just couldn't shake. After reading several books and watching interviews, one night I just, I couldn't rest, I could not get to sleep. Every bump, creak, or sound would startle me, and I would imagine someone or something trying to come into my home. Now, every house has its own person. personality, it sounds, but this night I had to go out and sit on my sofa with gun in hand while memorizing every noise. I had to hear it, rationalize it, and deem it as non-threatening.

This ranged from the compressor in my refrigerator going off to a random squirrel dropping a nut on my roof. Everything had to be categorized and labeled before I felt safe. safe enough to go lay back down in my warm, safe bed. Because fear is never rational. Fear makes us act and behave in ways way outside of our norm. We'll turn our backs on family. We'll form angry mobs to hunt down others and even commit genocide. Out of fear and ignorance.

Luckily, my fear only drove me to sitting in the dark by myself, listening to the noises in my own home, like a scared child who finally was brave enough to come out from under the blankets. That was the most irrational I've ever behaved out of fear. We all have behaved irrationally, I think out of fear, which is why sometimes it's nice to take a little lighthearted look at true crime. This is Trevin and Amanda from Live, Laugh Larsonie, the show that takes a deep dive into shallow crime. We've all heard legends and spooky lore in a group setting. There are stories that everyone at least somewhat knows and is willing to loosely retell, hoping to get some kind of frighten response. Maybe it's a sleepover between

a bunch of preteen girls or a Boy Scout troop gathered around a campfire. No matter the setting, fear is a powerful emotion when shared. There's always that one person who shares the lover's lane story, about the teens who drive to Lover's Lane to make out and hear about an escaped convict in the area the boy tries to calm the girl down but she insists on being taken home once the girl gets out of the car she finds a bloody hook stuck to the side of the car door gasps and sounds of unease surround the storyteller as they sit back and admire that they are the Stephen king of their generation the thing about these creepy stories is that they have been retold and passed down from generations like a game of telephone but with deadlier consequences

The story was probably about two young lovers, who later figured out that the boy's dad left his tackle box in the back seat with his fishing hooks exposed. This story later got retold more and more, over time turning into something much more dreadful. But really, what's scarier than dating the son of a fisherman? Not a fisherman! So gather around your podcast listening to Vice, because I'm about to tell you a whole new story that I expect will be repeated in large gatherings for millennia. On the eve of spooky season, four young girls gathered for a late-night game of scary stories. Margaret pretty much plagiarized the plot of hocus-pocus, while Carly told the true story of how her mom took her to Starbucks,

and they were out of non-fat vanilla oat milk. Obviously, she knew her crowd, because the twist was almost too much for everyone to bear. Come on, Susie, Margaret said. Why don't you tell us a scary story? Susie cowered in the corner. She was never one for spooky stories. As a child, she was always very sensitive to such tales. No thank you, Susie said.

I'd rather skip my turn. Just as the crowd began to berate their friend for not playing along. Come on, loser! That's when Josephine jumped in and interrupted them. If Susie won't tell a story, then I'll jump ahead and see just how much I can scare her. Josephine was the more edgy one of the group. She was allowed to wear her shoes in the house, and her parents didn't put parental controls on their HBO Mac's subscription.

There's no telling what kinds of things Josephine has seen with her young eyes. Previously on the Sopranos. This party was also at Josephine's house, so she had no issue with turning up the scary factor, as she was already safely at home. I'm going to tell you the story of Miss Mumu, the demon cow of Middletown, Ohio, Josephine said. Kicked out of hell itself for being too evil, Miss Mumu comes out every October to graze on the souls of young girls.

The smiles of glee quickly turned to looks of unease. Josephine had a very descriptive way of speaking, and they couldn't believe that she said the word hell. Josephine went into more detail about how the hellish heifer would stalk the children and eat them before turning them all into cow pies. La la la la la la la la la la la. Susie shouted while plugging her ears. Stop it, you're scaring her, Margaret exclaimed. What? I'm just foreshadowing.

It's a commonly used plot device in horror movies. Josephine said in her defense. Looking at the clock, Margaret realized that it was time for her to get home. Susie, Carly, and Margaret gathered up their things as they headed for the door. Have a safe walk, Susie. Don't let Miss Mumu get you, Josephine shouted, just before closing her door. At the end of Josephine's driveway, Margaret went left as Susie and Carly headed right. The two had made this walk many nights before, but there was something strange about this particular evening. Maybe it was the scary stories that they just swapped

or how they were irresponsibly drinking ice coffees at 10 p.m. As they continued to walk, they couldn't help but feel like they were being watched. From the opposite side of the street, they heard a rustling of leaves. What was that? Susie whispered over to Carly. In that moment, the fear had crept in the Carly, too. The sounds of the night crickets and street lamps slowly began to silence, as the only thing the two could hear were their hearts beating. Carly grabbed Susie's hand as they both stood frozen in the middle of the street.

Neither one could conjure the strength to check their surroundings. Just as they were about to make a run for it, they heard another noise from behind them. It sounded like that of a giant beast huffing just before an attack. Susie slowly turned her head to see a large figure with two big horns. It's Miss Moomoo! Susie yelled, as both girls screamed and ran for it. But as the girls were gaining speed, they couldn't help but notice that the demon bull was chasing after them. No matter what direction they would take, the loud stumps of the creature would follow close behind,

while still making its demonic snorts. Fatigued and dehydrated from the iced coffees, the girls knew they were only a block away from a busy intersection, where they could get help. It took everything they had to keep running, as they could feel the hot breath of the beast blowing on their backs. As the headlights of the cars came into focus, the girls ran onto the crosswalk and flagged down the cars at the red light. Help us! You've got to help us! The two screamed, before continuing to run across the street.

As the girls reached the next sidewalk, they began to hear car horns honking and people screaming. I'm a thirsty cow! The beast cried out. Can anyone pour me a caramoo-lou? The honking continued. as the cow person refused to get out of the street. Sue and Carly were finally coming back to reality. They were no longer viewing the world in the same scared way they had been.

Taking a closer look, that's when they realized that this was no beast. Standing in front of the angry drivers was a drunk woman, just wearing a cow costume. The two girls watched as police lights quickly filled the intersection. As the police officer stepped out of their car, a strange man came running from one of the nearby houses. Thank God you're here, said the man. That is the same cow that I spotted peeing on my front porch earlier. In September of 2008, Middletown Ohio woman, Michelle Allen,

was arrested for getting in the way of traffic and chasing children while wearing a cow suit. There were also accusations from a neighbor stating that she had urinated on his porch. At the time of her arrest, she was smelling strongly of alcohol while also threatening the arresting officers. She was charged with one count of disorderly conduct. According to police, this was the 50th time Allen had been arrested. On the following Tuesday, Michelle Allen showed up to court wearing the very same cowsuit and challenged other people in court to, quote, suck her udders. Investigators believe that this may have been a promotional stunt for a local haunted trail,

as an employee of the trail did come to repossess the cowsuit. Whether this was a stunt or not, the charge did land Allen in jail for 30 days, and I don't think we can blame a promotional stunt for the other 49 arrests. So let the story of Miss Mumu be the start of a new spooky legend to tell kids around the campfire. Because it's Halloween season, and Miss Mumu may just be wandering the streets of Middletown, Ohio right now, grazing on the souls of those who stay up too late. Mumu strikes! Yes, if anybody is a listener of our show, Miss Mumu did come up a couple weeks ago in a different way,

but we were just so tickled by the name that. I had to make a call back to it. Oh, I am obsessed. What a story. Oh, my God. I really want to dress as a cow for Halloween now and just tell someone, suck my ears. I've got a sheep costume you can wear, but I don't have a cow one. So if anybody's never listened to us before, we do movie versions, basically, of stories.

So sometimes we will kind of exaggerate things a little bit more to add the drama. But at the end, I always try to do some sort of a recap that explains the truth. Yeah. Nobody called her Miss Mumu. I don't know anything about these girls, but I do know that a drunk woman dressed as a cow did chase women, pee on a porch, and make a fool of herself in traffic. Yep, yep. We always tell true stories, but we always say, eh, the details may vary here and there. We like to have a little bit of fun with our stories.

So if you ever need a lighthearted break, we would love for you to jump over to Live Laugh Larsonie any time. I'm going to look for a cow costume now on Amazon. I'm sure to come into you sometime, right? Okay, for my next friend, she's going to ask you to close your eyes. Just go with it. I'll keep an eye out for anything shady. Her name is Sammy from the hidden staircase. Okay, here she comes.

Close your eyes and imagine a room. Its walls are covered in antique wallpaper, now torn and faded. If you look closely, you can see the outline of a secret door. a door that will open if you are willing to enter. There is a staircase there that descends into the darkness. In added space, a room filled with terrible wonders. It is a library of mystery, a catalog of terrors. The pages of its books are stained with ink,

capturing moments of time stained with blood. Its shelves are weighted with stories that have yet to be told, with the answers to questions that have yet to be asked. Those stories are waiting for you at the bottom of the hidden staircase. I'm Sammy, the host of the Hidden Staircase podcast, true crime, paranormal, and mysterious cases from the archives. Every story you hear dates before the 1950s. But for this Halloween special, I'm going to tell you about a game,

a game that can only be played at midnight. This game should not be taken lightly. If anything, this game should not be played at all. But if you're going to play the midnight game, you might as well know the rules. The midnight game is an old pagan ritual, used mainly as punishment for those who have broken the laws of the pagan religion in question.

While it was mainly used as a scare tactic to not disobey the gods, there is still a very existent chance of death to those who play the midnight game. There is an even higher chance of permanent mental scarring. It is highly recommended that you do not play the midnight game. However, for those few thrill seekers searching for a rush, or for those delving into obscure cult rituals, these are simple instructions on how to play. Do so at your own risk. Pre-requisites. It must be exactly 12 a.m. when you begin performing the ritual. Otherwise, it will not work. Materials. You will need a candle, a piece of paper, a writing implement, matches or a lighter, salt, a wooden door, and at least one drop of your

own blood. If you are playing with multiple people, they will need their own of the four mentioned materials and they will have to perform the steps below accordingly. Step 1. Write your full name, first, middle, and last, on the piece of paper. Put at least one drop of blood on the paper. Allow it to soak into the paper. Step 2. Turn off all the lights. in the place you are doing this. Go to your wooden door and place the paper with your name on it in front of the door.

Now, take out the candle and light it. Place it on top of the paper. Step 3. Knock on the door 22 times. The hour must be 12 a.m. upon the final knock. Then, open the door, blow out the candle, and close the door. You have just allowed the midnight man to enter your house.

Step 4. Immediately relight your candle. This is where the game begins. You must now lurk around your now completely dark house with the lit candle in your hand. Your goal is to avoid the midnight man at all costs until 3.33 a.m. Should your candle ever go out, that means the midnight. Man is near you, you must relight your candle in the next 10 seconds. If you are not successful in doing this, you must then immediately surround yourself with a circle of salt. If you are unsuccessful in both of your actions, the Midnight Man will create a hallucination

of your greatest fear and rip out your organs one by one. You will feel it, but you will be unable to react. If you are successful in creating a circle of salt, you must remain in there until 3.33 a.m. If you are successful in relighting your candle, you may proceed with the game. You must continue to 3.33 a.m. without being attacked by the Midnight Man or being trapped inside the Circle of Salt to win the midnight game. The Midnight Man will leave your house at 333am, and you'll be safe to proceed with your morning. Addition.

Indications that you are near the midnight man will include sudden drops in temperature, seeing a pure black, humanoid figure through the darkness, in hearing very soft whispering coming from an indiscernible source. If you experience any of these, it is advised that you leave the area to avoid the midnight man. Do not turn any of the lights on during the midnight game. Do not use a flashlight during the midnight game. Do not attempt to use another person's blood on your name.

Do not use a lighter as a substitute for a candle. It will not work. And definitely do not attempt to provoke the midnight man in any way. Even when the game is over, he will always be watching you. Good luck. You are going to need it. Okay, you can open your eyes now. It's spooky season. And my next friend Lainey loves being scared.

So she is sharing listeners submitted stories from her two podcasts, True Crime Cases with Lainey, and it's haunted, what now? The trigger warning before we get into the story, we do discuss mental health crises and suicidal thoughts. This will probably be a very long story, but I'll never forget it as long as I live. I also didn't believe in anything paranormal or outside the realm of science until this happened. I still just don't know what to make of it, to be honest, and I would love to hear

what people think might have been going on. So my freshman year of college, I moved into a dorm in a very old historic building in Florida. It was 2020 and COVID was still really bad, so each student had their own room. I quickly made friends with a girl who lived directly next door, Sophie, and a girl on the third floor, Evie. On the first or second night, we got to talking of about ghost and spiritual stuff, as we all realized we were very into the occult and whatnot. The third floor girl, Evie, suggested that we make and play a Ouija board. I had tried one before at sleepovers, and it had never worked, but I was interested, and it was a super old building that was supposedly haunted, so we gave it a shot.

We made the board out of cardboard, and that was the first of many nights using this thing. It worked every single time without fail, no matter. what combination of people had their hands on the planchette. We eventually got a store-bought board, and no change occurred. We used this board probably every day. It became like an obsession. It's all we talked about. I'm still not sure if it was because the thought of speaking to something otherworldly was exciting, or if something else was going on. I could tell so many little stories, but I'll try to sum up the important stuff. We knew it was legit, the first of the first of the first night we played. We were quickly introduced to the entity on the other side. It went by

shove most of the time, but occasionally by Solo or S-O. I don't think we spoke to anyone but them the entire time. We tested it by asking for the name of another friend we recently made stepmom. It guessed correctly immediately without her having her hands on the board. We had just met her. There is no way we could have known this. On the second or third night, we asked Shove to give us a sign that they were really there. We heard a noise at the closed door to my room and looked over to see a shadow outside of it, as if someone was standing right outside the door. We opened it, and of course, no one was there. We closed it, and the shadow was gone. Little things happened over the course of the semester. Things would be moved that I couldn't explain. The sink in the bathroom down the hall would turn

off and on by itself when nobody was around, stuff like that. After a few weeks of this, things really started to get weird. One night, I was playing the board with Evie's boyfriend and Sophie. Evie was laying with her head in her boyfriend's lap, not touching the board. Suddenly, she started panicking and hyperventilating. We thought she must be having a random panic attack or something, but she claimed she was unable to control where her eyes were looking. We went to take her out of the building because she was so freaked out, and in the lobby she swore she saw someone out of the corner of her eye, saw that no one was actually there and bolted out the front doors, terrified. Shav really seemed to turn on Evie for whatever reason. On another night, not long after that one,

the three of us original girls were playing the board and Evie told us her back was really hurting. She asked us to look and see if she had a really bad sunburn on her lower back. Strange, but that's what she said it felt like. There were a ton of fresh scratches on her lower back when we looked. This was scary because she was not leaning on anything and had both hands on the board. I can attach a picture of the scratches if anyone is interested. Around the time of these events, Evie started to act really strange. For the first months I knew her, she was always very calm and down to earth.

But she began acting extremely short-tempered and possessed. or jealous. Now, this is where I'm not sure what to think. Was it a mental health crisis or were our nightly activities causing side effects? I'm not sure I'll ever know, but I remember Evie screaming at me and stomping up the stairs to her room and being so shocked, it was so out of character. During a fight with her boyfriend, she ripped her hair out and slammed her head on the floor. And then after a week or so, she was involuntarily institutionalized, after telling her therapist that she was going to take her life. This was obviously very upsetting for Sophie and me.

And then Sophie had begun having suicidal thoughts. I'm not sure if this started before or after Evie left. And then one morning I woke up and checked my phone, and Sophie had gone to the hospital earlier that morning because she woke up and couldn't breathe. And it ended up being some tonsil issue, I believe, but the timing was really weird. Both Sophie and Evie ended up dropping out of college for mental health reasons.

I spent the rest of the semester and the one after in that room and never had any serious issues. I had a roommate the second semester of that year and she didn't have any issues either. I played the board every once in a while to show curious friends the ghosts that lived in my room. Shove was always there, but did nothing more than respond on the board. I'm still very much in touch with Sophie and Evie. Evie completely returned her old self not long after dropping out. Whether this was due to the removal of stressful college work or being away from that building for good, I don't never know.

Was she possessed? Who was Shove? Was Shove even real? Or did we just make them up because we desperately wanted to believe something else was out there? I'll probably never get any answers. But I guess at least I have a good story to tell at parties. Now altruistic study 166 brings us our final story about a possessive entity. I was dating a guy not long ago.

We did chat about our weird ghost experiences, and he said a lot of weird stuff happens around him. It didn't really bother me as most things aren't sinister. At his house, you would hear walking down the corridors, knocking strange smells that seem to just appear and stick around. His son used to turn to us and ask us, who else was in the house or ask, who's that? It was fairly innocent stuff until about a month ago. I woke up in the night and went for a cigarette. I went to the toilet and then got back into bed. I heard a creak by the door and wondered if it was his child.

It wasn't. This huge, slim shadow stood by the door and I mean huge. I've seen stuff before and did. didn't get a scared feeling, but this literally filled me with dread and horror. I was trying to shake the guy I was dating awake, but he wasn't waking up. And I heard a weird laughter and just the words, Mine. Then the shadow disappeared.

I didn't sleep and left when the sun came up. We talked about it later in the day and the guy is fully aware of it. It's moved with him everywhere he goes, and his son has seen it too and sleepwalks since he first saw it. The son once slept walked over to me and just leaned in my face whispering. Since I saw it that night, the guy's mental health has deteriorated so poorly. He just lays in bed, doesn't eat, lashes out, and I had to walk away. Does anyone else have a similar experience or something like that? Something definitely has a hold on this poor guy and may even be moving on to his son.

I hope that that's not the case, and I hope that they both get help and are safe and okay. I hope you don't feel bad that you had to get yourself out of that situation instead of remaining with him. If he's aware of what is going on, then he may have invited this entity into his life, and you're not responsible for that. Are you getting a bit spooked now? Well, not every terrifying monster is alive. You'll find out what I mean from Justin Drown, who is the host of Obscinct.

A True Crime Podcast and Disaster, get ready and hold on tight. Growing up in Ohio, I remember being terrified of tornadoes. When there was a warning on the television, I remember being sure that this would be the end. A tornado would come and wipe out the house. I'd be sucked into the air, never to be seen again. Nice thoughts for a kid to have, I know. To be fair to little kid me, there was something about the way local news stations since station-wise to storm. Each tornado warning made to seem like it could be the end times.

A serious-faced man on the television telling me in a stern voice to heed his warning. If you are in a mandatory evacuation area, you need to get to high ground now. This is the time. There won't be another request because it will be too late. That time probably is now. If you're in the Fort Myers area, Lee County, Collier County, that looks like that will be the land. fall area, Kelly. This is a major hurricane. Top winds are now above 125 miles per hour sustained. That's right. We'll have another update with our hurricane expert coming up shortly. But first of all, let's give you the very latest that we have from the National Hurricane Center and our Hurricane Hunter flight information showing that our pressure has now dropped to 954 millibars or 28.17 inches of mercury. The flight level, by the way, at 9140 feet. And the eye information is that it's about 8 miles.

wide and the maximum flight winds have been about 162 miles per hour. And because of that, the new advisory should come in very shortly signifying. This is a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. And Kelly, look at the outer bands now coming in. Unfortunately, you cannot really do much from here on now, folks. Anybody from Charlotte Harbor southward just batten down the hatches. And, of course, with the outer rain bands, we are dealing with tornadoes. Some severe weather further inland, central poke.

County remains under a tornado warning. We also have tornado warnings in effect for Okeechobee County, Osceola County. That's in east central Florida. That tornado warning going until 225 Eastern Time, and these storms have generally been moving towards the north between 30 and 40 miles per hour. Now the interstates are open. Interstate 75 is open. Interstate 10 is open as well. And Kelly, folks really have to get out of this very last minute. Do so immediately. My parents scooping me up and bringing us into the basement. These acts, these moments, they held a gravity. Oh, wait.

There were things I'd seen in movies that I could never see in real life. Yes, Fred Kruger haunted my dreams, but tornadoes inhabited the real world. And one day, I saw something I'd never forget, something that would be seared into my brain. It was the usual happenings in such a case in our small Ohio home. The bad weather, the news report with the stern man giving us the tornado warning. We prepared for the basement. My memories are loose. But as my parents were scurrying about, I went to the kitchen window.

And there, out in the cornfields that stretched into the horizon, was a dark spike tunneling into the sky with a misty cloud of debris. My child eyes finally saw a tornado in person. Sure, it was far away. But as we wait in the basement, as morbid as it sounds, I was sure this would be it. Say goodbye to Power Rangers on TV. Say goodbye to my schoolmates.

Say goodbye to the house. And be prepared to be sucked into the sky. Of course, that didn't happen. But the image of the tornado ripping up the cornfield, never left me. My nightmares of Mr. Kruger and his knife fingers were placed. Now, you would think such an experience would leave an impression on me, and impress on me a better sense of judgment among my peers when it came to natural disasters. You would be wrong. When I moved to Florida at 12, I became acquainted with hurricanes as all Floridians do.

They became a staple every year. And with the first hurricanes, I did treat it with a sense of wonder and awe. They were mysterious to me. But when I turned 13, that healthy fear-driven awe turned to curiosity. And I would honestly, at the time, watch the news with hopes for getting the big one. I'm not lying to say that hurricanes excited me at that age. You see, there's something about your teenage years that have you believing that you're invincible.

You feel so healthy, so in your pride. You couldn't possibly die, right? You are truly the main character of your own movie. Luckily, most of us grow out of this phase. Most of us. How was 15 when Hurricane Charlie devastated Florida in 2004? Welcome back. I'm Bill Conelli. And I'm Kelly Cass.

We continue to monitor the progress of Hurricane Charlie, which is yet to make landfall along the western seaboard of Florida, but it's already causing problems further inland. Major water concerns. the next few hours. We have a landfall south of Tampa. What are the implications? Let's go right to Dr. Steve Lyons. Steve? Well, Bill, the buzzsaw is heading right toward the greater Port Charlotte area here in Fort Myers area. Currently, category four hurricane. Now, that could produce very extreme damage wind-wise, but also flood-wise. The Captiva Island area is right here. Of course,

Naples is over here. You're going to be missed just to the north at Naples, although it's still blustery and the weather's going downhill, winds gusting to 55 to 60 miles per hour right now. But what's going to happen here when this gets on shore in about two hours? We're very concerned about the flood potential from surge, but also the wind when we get up to category four in this range, we're looking at extensive to extreme damage. So if you're not in a well-reinforced constructed home or a poorly built home, you need to get out of it and go next store to your neighbor's house that's built better for the next five hours as this system makes landfall and moves inland. We can see a lot of roofs blown off

if they're poorly constructed homes, signs down in the landfall area. We can see all kinds of trees down, power outages will be widespread in the area of landfall. Now the other big problem is water level rise. We're going to see a significant surge here, and locally it could be as high as 18 feet. In category 4 hurricane in this area, we can see water rises as high as 18. It's going to come up in a hurry. It's moving at 20 miles per hour to the northeast. That accentuates the height of the surge, but it also makes things go from nothing to a very big water rise very quickly. So don't be outside near the ocean right now. You should be well away from the coast on high ground because the water is going to rise very quickly over the next one to three hours in the greater

Fort Myers area, particularly near the Port Charlotte area. It was one of four named hurricanes that season and how many people were prepared for what came. The hurricane upgraded from a category two to a category four. Charlie killed 20 people, 15 of them directly. And like the morons we were, my friend Mike and I went jogging during the most intense part of the storm, and the wind and the rain were unreal. That's what I remember most. Oh, and the tree's shaking and blowing to the point of making a sort of

of music. Did I mention we were barefoot? No, I'm not kidding you. We were jogging through a category four hurricane, barefoot, and I could feel the grip beneath my feet. Yes, we were those idiots you see in the background of a news report. When I was here when we woke up, it was a category two storm emerging off the coast of Cuba, but the way everything was set up, it looked like, hey, it was coming to the Tampa Bay area. Then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it takes just a time, need a little shift to the right and because of the way our coast is set up, that means a landfall much further south. That was bad enough, but it also was strengthening too, and it was strengthening rapidly. So this thing becomes a category four storm. Now, as the forward speed is being picked up,

you're going to bring hurricane force winds into where you just saw can in a place that they don't typically get hurricane force winds. So while Tampa was spared, yeah, it was at the expense of Charlotte Harbor and Polk County and Orlando. And you know what? Everybody has, evacuated inland just to be in the middle of this storm. So we learned a lot. There were a lot of lessons learned from this particular storm. And then it eventually went up and made another landfall in South and in North Carolina as well. But you're talking about making landfall with 145 to 150 mile per hour winds and 15 billion dollars in damage.

And little did we know, right, that this was just one of four storms that were going to hit the state. three of them crossing right where Ken is right now. And, you know, I'll say this too. Go ahead, Ken. Oh, I was going to say, you know, it's really kind of hard to wrap your arms around how big of a deal this is unless you're in the middle of it. And I can tell you a little story. We were out here covering the storms day after day,

and they were cleaning up and cleaning up, but still not making a whole lot of headway. And somebody from Tampa, photographer came in and saw a couple of trees that were down in Lakeland and said, oh, now I get it. And I thought, brother, you don't get it. at all. I mean, that's nothing in comparison to the scope of this whole thing. You know, and on television, it's all very contained and you kind of get a sense of it, but you live through it. Man, it's a totally different situation. Luckily, we made it back fine. At the time,

we treated it as bragging rights. Now, looking back, I feel like such a fool to the point that I rarely bring it up, but I figured the circumstances of this specific podcast are special. Maybe now is a good time to introduce you to my friend Cambo. His accent alone might help ease your fear. Cambo is the host of True Crime Island, and this is the tale of Who Killed, Little Nima Louise Carter. So grab a beer and pull up a deck chair. It's Halloween.

And it was Halloween night in 1977 Lawton, Oklahoma. At 606 Southwest's 23rd place, George and Rose Carter have put their daughter 19-month-old Nima Louise to bed. George and Rose then retired to their own bedroom to sleep. The quiet of the night was broken by little Nima crying in the other room. George and Rose would let Nima cry it out rather than go in to see her. They didn't want a spoiler, a decision they would regret for the rest of their lives. You see, on this Halloween night, there was evil lurking at 606 23rd place.

In the morning, Rose was alarmed as she went to get Nima out of a cot. Nima wasn't there and a search of the house failed to find her. The Carter's didn't lock their back door, a thing a lot of people back in the day didn't do. George and Rose called police, but a search of the area failed to find their daughter. Now, there'd been some strange goings on before that Halloween night. The Carter's home had been broken into when photos of Nima had been scattered behind a shed in the back yard. Now this happened just days after their dog had been poisoned. On Wednesday the 23rd of November, Nima's body would be found on the floor of an abandoned house at 1916 D Avenue, just minutes from

the Carter's home. Although she'd been found on the floor of the kitchen, she'd had been in an old refrigerator, suffocated and it looked like someone had entered their house, opened the fridge, and her body had fallen out. Now, police on the scene were shocked at the similarity of an unsolved case from the year before, where three and a half-year-old twin sisters, Tina and Mary Carpitcher, were found locked in an old fridge in an abandoned house less than a mile from where Nima was found, and it was near train tracks. Now, Mary suffocated, but Tina survived by being able to breathe some air from a worn seal on the door.

Now the twins had disappeared from their grandma's house on the 8th of April, 1976 and found on the 10th. They'd both been beaten, bitten, and put in the fridge and left a die. Now these old fridges were before they had magnetic locks, and they were able to be locked by the handle at the front, and this prevented the girls from escaping. But Tina was able to identify her abductor. It was her babysitter, 16-year-old Jacqueline. Robido. Now this was backed up by a girl who heard her screams from the fridge that day and opened the door. It was 11-year-old Kathy Ford who asked Tina who did this to her. And Tina replies, Jackie Boo.

Not only were the two cases similar in that the kids had been left in fridges to die, but Jacqueline Robedo had previously babysat for the Carter's as well. But police in 1976 didn't have any real leads to follow until that Halloween murder of Nima. Now they then interviewed the now 18-year-old Robido and she of course denied any involvement in either of the crimes and police couldn't get a confession from her. Anyway, Jacqueline Roboto would eventually be charged in the death of Mary Carpitcher and after a mistrial she would eventually be convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced a life imprisonment. Now, Tina had testified that Jackie had entered their grandma's living room at 3 North West 28th

Street where they were watching the telly on the afternoon of April 8, 1976, and told them to come with her. They walked several blocks to the house where they were told to get into the refrigerator and their aunt Tomasina would come get them later and take them for ice cream. Now, what's also disturbing about this case was that a missing, Mr and Mrs Craig that lived nearby saw Robido walking near the house and she had hold of the two little girl's arms by the wrist and they were trying to pull loose.

Now Miss Craig said that afterwards they saw Robido walking alone. Now they also said she didn't report this to the police at the time because I guess like other people I didn't want to get involved. Jeez. Jacqueline Roboto would never be brought. to justice for the Halloween murder of Neiman Carter. Roboto would die in prison on the 26th of August 2005, age 46. So, to my question at the start, who killed Neema Carter?

Well, I think we can safely say Jacqueline Robito did it, and she probably broke into the house and threw Neiman's photos behind the shed, and I reckon she poisoned the dog as well. Why? Well, it looks like the Carter's got a new babysitter, and Robido was pissed off. Robido had spoken to a friend at the local Quickey Mart after George Carter had told her that they had another babysitter.

Now she said, they told me that was my job. Well, if that's the way he wants it, so be it. A jealous rage or a psycho killer. Lucky they finally locked her up so she couldn't kill again. So I've been Cambo Ford from True Crime Island. Have a happy Halloween. Don't forget to lock your doors and make sure you delete your browser history. Good night.

The accent helped, right? Based on a true story is hosted by Dan. It's the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. You can take it from here, Dan. One of my favorite movies to watch around Halloween is 1992's The Crucible. That movie is actually based on a play by Arthur Miller. So it's not necessarily trying to tell something directly from history, but nevertheless, it tells the story of the Salem witch trials. So let's take a few minutes to learn more about the true story as we dig into the history behind the crucible.

It's dark. Winona Ryder's character, a girl named Abigail Williams, wakes with a start. There's a girl in the bed with her, and with a little shake, Abigail wakes her up. Quietly, the two girls get out of bed and put pillows in their place. They carefully cover the pillows with blankets, so if anyone were to peek in at them, they would think that the two girls were still in bed. Then they sneak downstairs and out the side door. The camera cuts to another house, and we see more girls sneaking out of their homes as well. Then an overhead shot shows even more girls as they quietly make their way down the empty dirt streets of the town.

If you pause the movie, you can see 12 girls at any one time on the screen. And speaking of pausing, let's pause the movie. movie ourselves for a moment here because it doesn't give any sort of indication of time, date, or location. So before we continue further, let's turn to history to date what we're seeing here and give ourselves a geographical setting. All of this is happening in Salem, Massachusetts on the east coast of the United States. That's about 15 miles or 24 kilometers to the north of Boston. The year is 1692. Salem has been in existence for 66 years and has quickly grown to being one of the most important seaports on the new continent.

In 1692, of course, the United States wasn't really a thing yet, so Salem was an English colony. More specifically, it was one of the settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Boston was considered another settlement in that same colony. If we go back to the movie, Abigail and the other girls were on their way into the forest. Once there, a slave named Tichiba leads to the, them in some sort of ritual. The girl starts swaying back and forth as Tichuba chants. One of the girls says, make a spell on Joseph Baker, Tichuba. Make him love me.

Another one calls out, make Daniel Poole, my husband. This whole opening sequence of the love spell ritual in the forest outside of Salem is, well, to be honest, we don't really know if it's true or not, but it's probably not. You see, there's so much about the events surrounding the story that we just don't know. It was 16. after all, and not everything was documented. With that said, what we do know of the events leading up to the Salem Witch Trials, the evidence suggests that it was not because of a love spell ritual being conducted in secret in the forest, like we see in the opening scenes of the movie.

One of the sources of documentation that we do know about comes from a man named Reverend John Hale. He wrote a book in 1697. You can find the full text of the book linked over at based on a true storypodcast.com slash 143. But here's a quote from his book that gives us an idea for what might have started the whole thing. I fear some young persons through a vain curiosity to know their future condition have tampered with the devil's tools. So far that hereby one door was open to Satan to play those pranks. I knew one of the afflicted persons who, as I was credibly informed, did try with an egg,

and a glass to find her future husband's calling till there came up a coffin, that is, a specter in likeness of a coffin. And she was afterward followed with diabolical molestation to her death, and so died a single person, a just warning to others to take heed of handling the devil's weapons lest they get a wound thereby. Another, I was called to pray with, being under sore fits and vexations of Satan. And upon examination, I found she had tried the same charm. And after her confession of it and manifestation of repentance for it and our prayers to God for her, she was speedily released from those bonds of Satan. This iniquity, though I take it not to be the capital crime condemned, Exodus 22, because such persons act ignorantly,

not considering they hereby go to the devil. Yet borders very much upon. it and is too like Saul's going to the witch at Endor and a Hazaya sending to the god of Echron to inquire. What Reverend Hale is referring to is something known as Umancy or sometimes referred to as a Venus glass. It was thought to have been something like a crystal ball, something used to tell one's future. Remember that scene in Harry Potter and the prisoner of Askeban where Harry is in Professor Trelawney's divination class and he sees the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup. to reveal the grim. Well, that's basically what this charm was,

except instead of tea leaves, they used an egg. The basic concept of this method of divination is to provide some sort of heat and drop an egg onto it. Then you read the shape that the egg white takes when it starts to solidify. As Hale mentioned, the girls seem to have been using this

as a way of telling who their future husbands might be. So you can see how this, the idea of the rituals that we're seeing in the forest in the movie, trying to cast love spells and things like that could be turned into what we see. As the story goes, the two girls who started playing with this form of divination might have been Abigail Williams and Betty Paris. They got scared when the egg white revealed the shape of a coffin,

presumably predicting some horrible fate, kind of like what we saw with Harry Potter. So it's not likely that they were performing the love spell rituals that we see in the movie, instead they were using eggs as a form of divination or umancy. Think about that the next time you crack an egg over your pan. The shape you see when the egg white hits the heated pan was one of the ingredients that went into the Salem witch trials hysteria. On the other side of that, Reverend Hale's words also give us a peek into the mindset of Christianity of the day, as he mentions the charm being the bonds of Satan. In fact, Reverend Hale's book

opens with a scripture verse from Isaiah 8, verses 19 and 20. When they say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. The witch that Reverend Hale mentions is also from the Bible, the witch of Endor. That comes from 1st Samuel chapter 28, verses 6 through 8. When the first king of Israel, Saul, sought out the council of a witch in the city of Endor. He asked the witch to, quote, divine unto me by the familiar spirit and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee, end quote.

As that story goes, King Saul asked for the spirit of his old mentor and prophet of God, Samuel. But things didn't turn out so well when the Spirit of Samuel prophesied the Israelites would be defeated by the Philistines the next day in battle. And so you start to get an idea for a word. why the Christians in Salem could see this as an example of cause and effect. Essentially, there are dire consequences for getting help from a witch. Between February of 1692 and May of 1693, more than 200 people were accused of what we now know as the Salem witch trials. 30 of those were found guilty by the court, and 20 of those 30 were killed, 19 by hanging

and one by being pressed to death when he refused. to go to trial. Looking back on it, many historians have suggested the Salem Witch trials became an excuse for people to steal land and possessions. After all, when someone was accused, all their assets would be forfeited to the crown. Remember, it was an English settlement and not the United States. The United States was not a country yet. But it's not like the king personally took the assets of those accused.

That's just how the law worked. And then those assets would usually come up for auction. Often the accuser would coincidentally be the one purchasing or, simply taking ownership. That's how the assets would change hands legally. So those accused would lose their possessions and someone else would swoop in to take them over. It was all legal. Meanwhile, lives were ruined and even lost in the process. It wasn't until 18 years later in 1711 that a bill was passed to officially restore the good names and rights. 578 pounds was split amongst the survivors and relatives of the accused.

It's tough to calculate the exact amount from that time. But as close as I can figure, that's probably about $42,000 in today's U.S. dollars. So far, there has been a lot of tales from the U.S. But the world is a really big place. Jessica is the host of the Asian Madness podcast. She specifically covers crime on the Asian continent. Who better to bring us a tale from her home country of Taiwan? Many of you may not be familiar with Taiwan and what it's like.

But just like any other place around the world, we have some specific spots that are said to be extra haunted. One of these places is a tunnel in Taipei City called Shinhai Tunnel. What's so special about this place? Well, for one thing, this tunnel is notorious for all the accidents that have taken place in and around it. Another reason is because the western entrance of the tunnel leads directly to the second municipal funeral parlor in Taipei City. Not only that, the mountain in which the tunnel is carved from is home to many old graves. So if you drive during the day and you look up, it might just seem like any old regular mountain. But if you look closely, you can see there are many traditional gravestones lined up all around it.

Almost everyone is aware that this tunnel is known to be haunted. Many people who drive through this tunnel are wary and extra careful. It might be a bit superstitious, but it doesn't hurt to be alert while driving through tunnels. Many people have reportedly seen a womanly figure walking in the tunnel, and some have even heard a woman's voice near them when driving. It should be impossible to hear something like that so clearly when you're driving through a tunnel. tunnel, which leads us to today's tale. A taxi driver experienced something quite extreme, and this is his story. One night he was making his usual rounds around the city, and that's

when he drove through the tunnel. At the entrance, he found an expressionless young woman waving at him, so of course he stopped and let her get in. He didn't think much of it. The area was close to the city, so not exactly in the middle of nowhere. The woman was very pale, almost sickly. The driver didn't pry, just simply asked her for her destination. She gave him an address, and off he went. They drove around and the driver was feeling somewhat uncomfortable, like something in the air didn't feel right, but he chalked it up to him being superstitious and tired. Eventually, the taxi driver arrived at their destination. and as the woman was about to get off, she calmly told the driver that she didn't have money on her

and asked if he would please wait outside while she went in and got her purse. Well, it's not like the driver had much of a choice, so he agreed to this. The woman got out, entered the residence, and thus began the waiting game. The driver waited and waited, and time seemed to go by even more slowly in the middle of the night. Finally, 20 minutes went by and he was a little frustrated. He wanted to continue on his taxi route, or maybe even go home. So he got out of his taxi, went out to the residence and pressed on the doorbell. It was late, so it took a few tries, but eventually a man answered.

The taxi driver explained that he dropped off a young woman about 20 minutes ago and she said she needed to get her purse and that he was still waiting. The man on the other end of the call box eventually walked out, and it was an older man. He handed the money over to the taxi driver and apologized. The driver was a bit confused, but before he could ask or say anything, the older man opened his mouth once again. According to him, his daughter had passed away in a car accident a while ago in Shanghai Tunnel, where she was picked up that night. Ever since then, she would appear sporadically, hail taxis, and asked him to drop her off at her home.

The driver had no words for this older man. He simply thanked him, gave him his condolences, and got back in his taxi. Understandably, he decided to call it a night and headed straight home afterwards. So that's one of the many, many tales involving this Shinai Tunnel, probably the very, the most haunted tunnel in Taiwan. I know that this tale is probably more on the sad and depressing end rather than the spooky side, but can you really not get spooked out as well, knowing you gave a lift to a ghost? It's perfectly normal to feel a mix of emotions, and this is one of those cases. I don't give lifts to anyone, and that was a good example as to why.

May I ask, have you ever heard of summoning the Candyman? Mara and Taz, from Sisters Who Kill, are here to share the tale. Our players this week are the plantation owner, the murderer, and Daniel Ravital, the Candyman. There once lived a man named Daniel Robatel. Daniel was a slave who worked on a plantation in New Orleans, Nalans, as they like to call it. But he wasn't just any old slave. this man was also a talented painter. I mean, hands down, everybody loved to see his paintings.

So his owner, the plantation owner, decides that he wants Daniel to paint a portrait of his daughter, his beautiful, loving, snow white-flake-skinned daughter. Now, paintings, of course, as most of you know, they take time, especially really good ones. So that meant that Daniel had to spend a lot of time with his owner. daughter and he ended up falling in love with her, which is one big mistake. The plantation owner, of course, found out about this and he was pissed. I mean, he was livid to the point that he grabbed a mob of people, a mob of angry white men to go get Daniel. The mob came and they were armed with pitchforks and they were ready to catch Daniel. They chased him through the fields and they

finally caught him, and when they caught him, they were near an old barn. Daniel, he had been running and hiding, and he was exhausted, and he literally could not run anymore. The mob came up, they grabbed Daniel, and they were all starling at him with a snagletooth self, and they took a rusty saw, and they cut off Daniel's right hand, the hand that he was so famously known for painting these beautiful portraits, the hand of a slave that fell in love. with his master's daughter. The next thing in the mob did was go and find a whole bunch of honey. Don't ask me why these white folks had all this honey, but they did, and they douse Daniel's body in this honey and threw him in a beehive. They watched and they laughed and they snickered

and they kept making Daniel stay in this beehive into the bees stung him to death. Now listen, the average person can safely tolerate 10 stings per pound of your body. This means that although 500 stings could kill a child, the average adult can withstand over 11,000 bee stings before dying. So needless to say, Daniel suffered a painful, painful death, and it wasn't fast either. His arm is throbbing from his hand being cut off, and on top of that, his body is swelling due to all the bee stings. And as if this is not enough,

the plantation owner comes over and holds a mirror to Daniel's face so that he could look at himself. He mocks Daniel and says, bet my daughter won't like you no more. Bet that's the end of that. So Daniel is like, man, this is really messed up. They could have just killed me, but you're going to torture me to death? I bet.

So before Daniel dies, he looks into the mirror and he whispers, Candyman. Now this puts a curse on the plantation owner, the mob, and anybody else who dare speak his name. The plantation owner and the mob, they all end up dying in mysterious ways. Nobody was ever able to explain it. Due to the excruciatingly painful way that Daniel died,

his spirit was never able to rest. Years after passing, his ghost rose from its grave. Daniel's ghost appears with a hook for a hand dressed in a black trench coat with fur on the collar. Under his black trench coat is a hollowed out chest cavity covered in honey and bees. Legend has it that those who have summon the Candyman were killed with his hook, and if that didn't work, the Swammer Bees would finish them off. If you decide that you want to talk to the Candyman,

all you got to do is say Candyman five times while looking into a mirror, and he will appear. Candyman. Candy Man. Candy Man. Candy man. Nah, y'all got it. All right, y'all, we have a part of our show called... Well, I'm not black. I'm O-Chance.

I ain't do it, but if I did, this is how I would have got away with it. I ain't do Halloween last year. But if I did, I would have been Reggie from Rocket Power. I ain't do it, but if I did, I would have dressed up like Josephine Baker. But you know, like a lot of people dress up as Josephinecker because she is a vaudeville performer that is very famous. But when a lot of people do it, they ended up doing blackface. So we have a couple minutes left and we're going to tell you guys why doing Blackface for Halloween is a horrible thing. Blackface is inappropriate anytime.

But people like to think that they can get away with it because it's Halloween and you're supposed to dress up as something. But there's like an actual history behind Blackface and why it's demeaning. It's not even just Blackface. It's cultural appropriation in all types. But like, Blackface has been frowned on since Black Menstall shows of the 18th and 19th century. Like, this is a long history of demeaning behavior that you can't just excuse with the date of a holiday. Right. So Blackface actually first showed up in American theater. And fun fact, it is the only form of theater that is original to America. Everything else was made outside, made or originated outside of this country. And it is made by actors burning cork. And later they use shoe polish to paint their faces black so that they could play these stereotypes of what they thought black people were.

To pass on the ideas that black people that were from the South were lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, meant to only be mammies or piccaninnies. And they did this by also playing music, song and dance. They did this not only by creating stereotypes about black people, but they also tried to give this illusion because Blackface, the art of Blackface, started way before the Civil War. So they were giving this illusion through art and propaganda that slaves on the plantation were happy. They're singing and dancing and shucking and driving and eating watermelon. So they must be having a good time. That's why slavery is a good thing.

Blackface was something that started off in vaudeville shows and then made its way to the Great White Way known as Broadway. From there, it was the most popular form of entertainment to the point where black performers that may have worked the vaudeville circuit, they ended up having to cork up. Corking up is basically when you burn the cork and you paint your face black. Famous black performers had to cork up at that time because that was the only way that they would be able to perform. Because that was the only way that white people would accept entertainment from a black performer. That was the only way that they would accept any type of black media. So when you guys are picking out your Halloween costumes this year, not saying that you can't be somebody outside your race,

but you don't have to darken your skin to do it. You can be Wakanda if you want to. Just don't paint your skin black, right? Like, I've seen some white boys dress up as the Migos, and it was one of the best costumes. And they were still white boys. And still white boys. I know exactly who they were.

There's a way to do it. Also, do not dress up as people's culture. People's culture are not a costume. Do not put on head dress. dresses and all that stuff. They have a meaning. They have a purpose. And it's not for you to get voted best dressed at a party. All right. Thanks. So until next time, happy Halloween. Candyman. Well, I didn't call this the nightmare before Halloween for nothing, I guess. Good luck to both of us. A lot of my friends here tonight have two podcasts. As do I. I'd like to share a

little history with you for my podcast, hometown history. Did you know there is a different Candyman, too? Halloween is really a special time, isn't it? Especially for me. You can see why, if you know who I am. Look up a little. That's me, a jack-a-lantern. At Halloween time every year, I sit up here and watch everybody go by.

It's a nice and scary time, isn't it? All those wonderful costumes and masks and makeup? I think about how much fun Halloween is. I also worry a little bit about the things that can spoil the fun of Halloween. Those kinds of things scare me too. The best part of old Halloween safety PSAs, like that one, was the long list of well-intentioned but often terrible advice, like, don't wear black.

What about this color? A white costume makes an unusual different kind of which was more likely to be safe on Halloween night. Another suggestion was to wear large fluorescent reflective panels all over your body so you're basically glowing in the dark. A good way to make any costume easier to see at night is to decorate it with reflective tape or reflective patches. This one was a little more reasonable. Expand the eye holes in your mask. Now, how about the mask? Any problem with it?

Do you remember how? hard it was to see out through those little eye holes. To be safe at night, you have to be able to see clearly, as well as be seen. We can improve the mask by cutting larger holes to look out of. Or, if you want to have even less fun, there is an even safer way. You can simply not wear a mask. But as every 80s or 90 kid knows, the greatest threat was always the candy. You see, some people think it's fun to play tricks with your treats. Watch out for candy wrappers that have been torn or punctured. That might be a sign of tampering. There might be things in the candy. So break open candy bars before you eat them. Cut fruit into pieces before you eat it, just in case

something's been stuck in it. Watch out for things that look like candy, but might be medicines or drugs, or even poisons. Don't eat anything that doesn't look right. If it looks funny, it might not be so funny if you ate it. Treats are so much fun to collect. It'd be awful to have them spoil your Halloween fun by making you sick. Corey's treats won't make her sick, and I hope yours won't make you sick either. This idea that strangers were trying to poison you was everywhere when we were kids. Every kid in America heard this warning, every single Halloween.

And if people gave you fruit or cookies or unwrapped candy, your parents probably made you throw it away. The irony of all this hysteria and fear was that it came back to one case in Texas, where a man named Ronald Clark O'Brien used a giant pixie stick to poison his own son. O'Brien laced five of these pixie sticks with potassium cyanide and handed them out on Halloween night. He gave two of them to his children, Timothy and Elizabeth, on whom he had recently taken out life insurance policies. In order to disguise the source of the poisoned candy, O'Brien, Ryan gave two more pixie sticks to his neighbor's kids. He gave the fifth to a 10-year-old from his church. Fortunately, four of the children were not in the mood for pixie sticks.

Unfortunately, Timothy O'Brien's eight-year-old son did eat his and died on the way to the hospital later that night. This next clip is from live coverage from the courthouse during O'Brien's murder trial in 1975. Most of today's testimony came from Jimmy Bates, a close friend of the O'Brien family. Bates said that before Halloween, O'Brien asked if he could bring his children over to trick-or-treat with the Bates' children on Halloween night. Both families ate dinner together, and then the fathers took the children trick-or-treating. Bates said O'Brien went to one house where no one appeared to be home, and after the children had scampered ahead to the next house, O'Brien came off the pump porch carrying the pixie sticks. He gave the pixie sticks to the children, and then,

later took them back and said he wanted to stop at his car for a moment. Bates said when O'Brien came back into the Bates' house, he returned the pixie sticks to the children. Later that night, Timothy O'Brien died from eating a poisoned pixie stick. O'Brien was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death by electrocution. He was executed by lethal injection nine years later on March 31, 1984, in the middle of the night. In the words of the prison chaplain, the most despised person ever escorted into the death house was Ronald Clark O'Brien, a short puffy man who had been absolutely friendless during the eight and a half years he'd been in prison. In the week before he was scheduled to be executed, in fact inmates at the walls had even petitioned to be allowed some

manner of organized demonstrations to show their disdain for the former optician who had been convicted of murdering his eight-year-old son. Even if you've never heard this story before, you probably know O'Brien's nickname. They called him the Candyman. Obviously, this is an extreme story involving a heinous crime, but there's a lesson in it, even for those of us who are not planning to poison a family member this Halloween. Personal relationships matter. If the people closest to you are not trying to kill you, it is likely no one will.

We often have this idea in life that we have to make everyone happy. We have to make everyone like us. In reality, we just have to be kind and faithful to the people in our inner circles and in our neighborhoods. And if we do that, chances are extremely good that no one will die. Over 90% of homicides are committed by people we know, and of all violent crimes, homicide is the least likely to be committed by a stranger. If you lose your job, your money, your status, but all your most important relationships are healthy, you're probably going to be okay.

So this Halloween season, I'd encourage you again to invest in the things that matter. I'd also like to encourage you to wear black and a mask if you'd like, and to not ruin your costume with reflective panels or cut your candy bars into little pieces before you eat them. If you can do all that, then you won't have to worry about scary, real things happening on Halloween, right? Right, and it's safe, Halloween, ween, we. History can be spooky sometimes too, right? Do you enjoy coffee? How about true crime?

While Maggie and Allison cover lesser-known cases and they like their coffee hot and cases cold. On the Coffee and Cases podcast. The setting for our case this week, Maggie, is New York. The towns of Cheek to Waga and DePue, New York, to be exact. On the evening of Saturday, October 30th, 1982. 18-year-old James Adamski had on his costume. He was going for what he called the American Gigolo look. The Richard Gear film had just come out two years earlier, and I'm sure

James, this 18-year-old, was loving the idea of going as a young man looking for a sugar mama. Oh, I'm sure. I'm positive. Now, Maggie, this was a different time, since it wasn't until 1988 that all states in the U.S. had raised their drinking age to 21. Oh, I feel so dumb. I didn't even know that there was a different age. I didn't know this either until I started researching this case. But at the time, it was legal at the age of 18 to drink in New York. And that was precisely James Adansky's plan. He was heading from his home on View Court in Cheektawaga to the 5 and 20, 23 bar at the corner of Transit Road and Walden Avenue in DePue. They were having a Halloween Eve

celebration, and it was one of those pay a cover charge and drink all night deals. Okay. So I feel like very typical experience for a lot of 18-year-olds. Yes. And I'm thinking it happened on Halloween Eve because Halloween Eve was a Saturday. Oh, yeah. I think Halloween was on a Sunday. Before making the two-mile walk from his home to the bar, he let his parents know he'd be home later. And then when passing by his eight-year-old younger brother, Andy, already in his costume and ready to go get as much candy as humanly possible, James kissed his little brother on the forehead and said, have a good time trick-or-treating kid as he strode out the door. I know. I can imagine like a little ruffling of the hair.

Yeah, me too. At the bar that night, like most 18-year-olds, I'm sure would. James made the most of the all-you-can-drink, and by most accounts, was quite inebriated by the end of the night. Yeah, again, as most 18-year-old people would be. Yes. While James was a happy-go-lucky, thoughtful guy, he did get into an argument that evening with some other patrons at the bar, but it luckily quickly de-escalated before anything. got out of hand or got physical or anything like that. James left 5 and 23 in the wee hours of the following morning, October 31st. And 5 and 23 is the name of the bar? Correct. Okay. He left the bar walking south in the company of a young woman and walked along Transit Road near Broadway with her for part

of his journey back home before parting ways around 3.30 a.m. So I'm assuming because you say a young woman, we don't know this lady's name? I have not seen her name printed anywhere, no. But James Adamski never made it home. His brother Andy recalled to journalist Dan Herbick and Karen Robinson of the Buffalo News, quote, when he didn't come home the next morning, my mother knew something was wrong. He was very respectful of our parents. He would never have stayed away all night without telling them, end quote. You know what this is. reminds me of. It reminds me of the episode we did, episode 150 on Kurt Sova, like he tells his parents, he's going to be out and they just kind of trust him and they go to bed. But then when

they wake up, he isn't there. Yeah, it's super similar because James kind of had that same relationship with his parents. So when he didn't come home, that was so out of character for him that his parents immediately alerted law enforcement when he didn't come home. However, even with launching a large-scale search, officers found no sign of James. Nearly two months after his disappearance, though, on December 26th, day of Christmas, two rabbit hunters were out in a rural wooded area, right by some railroad tracks near Ransom Road in Lancaster, New York, when they approached what looked like a thicket. Upon moving some leaves and twigs out of way, thinking that they would scare rabbits out into the open, they instead discovered a body,

buried in a shallow grave, and covered with those twigs that I mentioned. The very next day, police had identified the body as that of James Adamski. He was still dressed in his costume from the night he went missing, though his body was found in a location four miles from where he had last been seen. the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. From what law enforcement speculated was an instrument like a baseball bat, a two by four, or a tire iron. Oh, my goodness. That is such a wide range of potential weapons.

Are tire irons the things that you use when you're changing a flat tire? It does skinny things? He had been dealt numerous blows to the head, making it clear that this is. was a homicide and not an accident. But finding the perpetrator would prove harder than they thought because James was a young man whom everybody seemed to adore and who had no known enemies. Who would want to harm someone like that? And while there was the argument at the bar, those individuals were questioned by and cleared

by law enforcement. Yeah, and you said it de-escalated quickly, so that makes me think they kind of resolved it on their own. And the girl he walked partially with the last other than the perpetrator to see him alive was also questioned and cleared as well. Police did collect some of the twigs that had been covering James's body because those twigs were of a similar length and had clearly been broken off of nearby trees, which told law enforcement that the perpetrator had touched them while attempting to conceal James's body. So it wasn't as though his body were there two months and so, you know, random branches had fallen. Yeah, it was just natural. Exactly. This is purposeful concealment.

Those twigs were sent to a laboratory to test for fingerprints, but they were unable to find any. But what about his clothes? There should be something on those. Yes, and you're right, because while an attempt at a obtaining DNA evidence was unsuccessful with the twigs, law enforcement do still have his Halloween costume, and they do hope that one day DNA testing will advance enough that the clothes will point them directly to James's killer. And it advances. I feel like every day we're learning about new advancement, so I'm sure that it's possible. Exactly. In the meantime, what police need most is for someone, anyone with information about that night to come forward to detail, everything that they remember. The smallest and seemingly insignificant memory of that night could be

all they need to solve this case. And they do believe, Maggie, because of the body's location so far away, that someone had picked James up in a car. I wonder if it was someone he knew. Well, they speculate on that. We don't know. It was either someone he knew, and so he willingly accepted a ride from them and then something went awry along the way or he was forced into a car by someone with an intent to cause harm. But despite many uncertainties, one detail actually stands out to me and that is that his body was found in a rural area that was not easily accessible. So they needed to be familiar with the area. That's what it seems to say to me. While James's father passed away in 2000 and his mother in 2005 without any closure,

his brother Andy and James's other siblings still live with hope of answers. Andy recalled the devastating aftermath of his brother's murder in the Buffalo News article, Cold Case Files, 34 years later, Halloween murder haunts family, and how his mother became so overprotective of the rest of her children, always worried that they too would be killed. Of his older brother James, who he looked up to so much, Andy said, quote, My brother was such a good person.

He was the type of person who would give you the shirt off his back, just so you'd have a shirt. If they ever do catch the person, and the whole story comes out, I know it will be hard for me. But it's even harder, not knowing, and quote. To close,

Here are a few words from a detective of the Lancaster Police Department. My name is Robert Cornell. I'm a detective with the Town of Lancaster Police Department in New York. My department is still actively investigating Yaw-Mitt by James Adanski. If anyone has any information on this case, anything would be helpful to our investigation. If you could please call our police department. There's an $11,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and indictment in this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lancaster Police Department at 716-683-2800.

You could buy a lot of candy for $11,000. Mama Margo is the host of military murder, which focuses on crimes committed by military members, veterans, and sometimes their spouses. Don't worry, you don't have to have knowledge about the military to listen. Now, let's jump. into this true spooky tale. In 1993, an Army sergeant named Stephen was notified that his wife was in the hospital. At the hospital, his wife confessed that she was pregnant. Stephen was like, wait, I had a vasectomy, how can that be?

The wifie eventually confessed that she had an affair. Stephen pressed his wife to learn who she had an affair with. The wife wouldn't give him much information, except to say the person's rank, which was specialist. And once she told her husband that the guy she was cheating on him with was a specialist, he didn't even bother waiting around for the name because Stephen knew exactly who it was. It was his best friend. So Stephen then marched his pissed off self off to the military base and there he began to hunt for his wife's lover. Mind you, the wife had asked Stephen for a divorce And even though he was hesitant at first, he had finally said yes before this incident.

Fast forward to the military installation, which happens to be in Germany, and Stephen is looking for his ex-best friend. He finds the specialist. The specialist's name is Greg, and Greg is in a phone booth. The phone booth is in front of the dining facility during dinner time, so there are plenty of people around. Greg doesn't see Steve coming, and in fact, he's on the phone with Stephen's wife. Eventually he sees Stephen and he tells the woman, your husband is here and then the call goes dead. At the phone booth, Stephen and Greg are fighting to the death.

Then all of a sudden, Greg collapses. A circle of onlookers gather around. It looks like Stephen is whooping on Greg because Greg is just laying there while Stephen keeps punching him. But Steve isn't punching him. He's actually stabbing him. Greg is laying there motionless and people are watching and then Steve starts to make some sort of chopping motions with what eventually turns out to be a knife. He gets up and starts kicking Greg repeatedly on the head until the head physically detaches from the body.

Everyone is now watching in horror. They are probably hiding now as Stephen picks up the man's head. He scoffs and says aloud, that's what you get for being an adulterer. Then Stephen drives off with Greg's head in tow. Minutes later, there is a commotion at the hospital. A blood-soaked Stephen walks into his wife's hospital room and grabs something from his bag.

It's Greg's head. He places it down next to her and forces her to look at it. And then he says, now you can picture this for the rest of your life. Stephen was immediately arrested and it wasn't hard to prove he didn't. it. There were dozens of eyewitnesses after all. And Stephen confessed to the doctors in the hospital. Months later, at his military court martial, also known as a trial, he put on the good soldier defense,

evidence that he was the best thing since sliced bread and he had never, ever, ever, ever done anything wrong in his life. Ultimately, Stephen was convicted of killing Greg and was sentenced to life in prison. But the Army General in charge of this, this court-martial ended up reducing Stephen's sentence to 30 years. Needless to say, this former soldier served less than 30 years due to good time and was released. Crazy story, right? Bet you thought it was an urban legend, but it's not. I don't even have a comment for that story.

I'll just leave it. My friends of the dystopian simulation radio are here to share an underwater nightmare that takes place on the floor of a cave that has taken several lives. and it's time. In 1996, expert cave diver, Nuno Gomez of New York City, was awarded a Guinness World Record for the deepest dive in Bushman's Hall, a cave in South Africa. Gomez descended over 270 meters down to the depths of the cave,

where it took only 14 minutes to plunge into the darkest depths of what the locals call Bussman's hat, where he spent just four minutes at the bottom in an expedition that took a total of 12 plus hours to complete. The lengthy stint factored in a decompression schedule to stave off the bends, a painful decompression sickness that can cause pain,

paralysis, and death if a diver ascends you quickly. Nuno Gomez made it out from the deepest depths of the bushman's cave with his life intact. But the same could not be said to those before and

after him. Bozmann Gat claimed the life of Eben Linden in 1993, after Leiden passed out descending 60 metres. The cave also took the life of D'Andrea, who was only 20 years old, when he blacked out in the Bushman's cave while doing an air dive. He died at around 70 metres, his body sinking 270 meters to the bottom where it would remain for a decade. David Shaw was a technical diver, pilot, father and husband, and lover of all things extreme. His wife, Anne, knew that there was always a risk that Dave may not return from his adventures, but knew how passionate he was about his endeavors, and had never dreamed of denying him of them. David had some close calls in the past, but he always believed that God was watching over him.

He was constantly testing his limits and pushing the boundaries to see how far he could go. David began scuba diving in his early 40s. He enjoyed it right away, but it wasn't challenging enough, and soon he began pursuing more technical dives. This is where Dave became interested in cave diving. In order to dive deeper for longer, divers use rebreevers, a specialist diving apparatus that recycles the air. David Shaw purchased his own rebreather, but felt limited by what the equipment had to offer. So he made some edits of his own that would allow him to descend even deeper. Dave had always been interested in exploring untouched pockets of the earth, of which few remain,

and he believed cave-diving offered unexplored territory that he could be the first to see. Bushman's Hole, a submerged freshwater cave in northern Cape, South Africa, west of Johannesburg, called Dave's name. and on October 28, 2004, he completed a record-breaking dive of 270 meters. To enter the cave, a diver must first climb down rocks before connecting with the water below and descend into a narrow tube that widens as it goes deeper. The main part of the cave is around 60 metres down, and a rope attached to the ceiling of the main cave guides the diver through the cavernous black abyss. this. Without the rope, a diver would find themselves disorientated, with nothing but darkness in

every direction. Divers carry powerful lights for this reason, strong white beams cutting through the void, alerting other divers on the mission of their presence. When David resurfaced, he said he had spotted the body of D'Andrea, whose body had been suspended 270 meters down in the cave for an entire decade. David described. turning his head to the left while on the cave floor, where he found himself face to face with D'Andrea, his face still covered with a mask. Dave added that at that depth, he struggled to breathe

and knew he had to resurface. David Shaw felt compelled to retrieve D'Andrea's body. Not only had he sin it during his dive, the image of which had played on his mind since resurfacing, but he had even experienced a premonition of finding Dion's body in a dream he had just a couple of days before the dive. David, a father himself, went to Dion Dry's parents

and told them of his plans to retrieve their son's body. They were ecstatic at the news and had always wanted their son's remains back on dry land so they could honour his memory and lay him to rest. Dion's body had been in the cave for so long, that it was assumed that his remains would be skeletal. To prevent the bones from slipping out of his diving suit and dispersing in all directions,

it was agreed David would carefully put the remains into a customized body bag that he would take down with him. At that depth, David Shaw would have a maximum of five minutes to load Dion's skeletal remains into the body. bag. This included cutting the dive suit off Dion's body. Always pushing the limits, David decided that he wanted to salvage Dion's equipment, which was lodged on the cave floor. He planned to tie a separate rope to the equipment with the hope of excavating it and dragging it to the surface. Within two months, David Shaw returned to South Africa, prepared to retrieve

Dion's body. On January 8, 2005, with a camera mounted to his helmet, David descended into Bushman's cave for what would tragically be his final dive. With a camera mounted to his helmet to film the dive, and DeAndrea's family, waiting patiently at the surface of the cave to receive his remains, David plunged into the water. Factoring in the lengthy ascent for adequate decompression to avoid the bends, David would be in the water for approximately 12 hours, with 12 minutes to dive to the bottom, and a mere five minutes spent preparing Deon's remains for excavation. Dion's body was expected to break the surface around 1.5 hours into the dive, but this would not be the case. At 6.15 a.m., David plunged into the darkness, never to resurface alive.

The mission was supported by a team of 30, including two world-renowned support divers and others meeting him along the way at various depths of the dive. One of the team divers, Don Shirley, waited at a depth of 220 meters, waiting for David to meet him. But when he looked below, he could see no sign of movement.

Just a still spotlight, static on the cave floor, unmoving. The diver descended to assist David, but the handset on his wrist cracked under the pressure before surpassing 240 metres, and he made the decision to return to the surface. David Shaw died attempting to retrieve D'ond Dyer's body. When the team pulled up the line, they found D'ondrea's body attached to it, as well as the body of David Shaw, with the camera still attached to his dive helmet.

Although he had lost his life, he had completed his mission of salvaging Dian's remains from the cave floor. When the team reviewed the footage, they watched David Shaw's last month. The video showed David Shaw on the cave floor, his hands pale white in front of him, pulling out the body back. Although it was assumed that after 10 years Dion's body would have been skeletal, the body instead seemed to be in a more preserved state, almost a state of mummification with buoyancy. Dion's body unexpectedly floated up before David, making the task of getting it into the body bag more difficult. In the footage, David becomes tangled in the line, the rope wrapping around his torch

and arms, making the job almost impossible. David attempts to cut himself free from the tangle with his scissors, but misses the rope multiple times, struggling and slipping backwards on the sloped. cave floor. His breathing becomes laborious and his hands start shaking. When it was time to leave, David knew this and attempted to swim up, but he was tangled in the ropes, unable to free himself. The increased breathing caused by David's struggle produced significantly more CO2, eventually depriving him of oxygen and causing him to drift off. His light, still hanging as he floated unconscious. The final scene of David's life showed his hands,

motionless, the line he failed to cut wound loosely between his fingers. Despite meticulous planning, David died alone on the cave floor. His teammates helpless and unable to save him, forced to look down at his light, unmoving and still. Maybe our Christmas special can take place at that cave? Whitney and Melissa are the hosts of cult crimes in Cabernet. Four times a year they travel to locations to help the family members of the murdered and missing. I'll let them take it over from here. Mount Pleasant, Michigan is a city located in the heart of the state. If you need a visual and are aware of how Michigan looks like a mitten, Mount Pleasant is right smack Dab in the center of the palm. It has a population of just under 22,000. The main campus of

Central Michigan University calls Mount Pleasant home. It is truly a college town, as when school is in session, the population almost doubles in size. Mount Pleasant is also home to the Christ's community fellowship. This is a very small church, so small. that the congregation was of about 14 people at its height. It was led by pastor John D. White, who came with a past. White was a veteran of the Navy and also had worked as a long-haul truck driver in his early years. Before becoming head of the fellowship, he lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, which is a little over 100 miles south of Mount Pleasant. In 1980 is where our first report of violent behavior really begins. White was 22 years old when he invited his 17-year-old neighbor, Teresa Etherton, over to show her his stock car race track setup.

Teresa walked down into the basement where White attacked her and stabbed her 15 times before choking her. Teresa remembers White's hands around her neck and saying, quote, You're going to go now. I'm really sorry you had to go like this, but what the f you're just a woman. Teresa is obviously a badass and survived the attack and White was arrested after Teresa reported him to police. He pled no contest and in 1981 he was sent to prison for 10 years. After being incarcerated for two years, he appealed and was released. Teresa did not hear of his release until one day.

day while standing in line at his door, she heard his chilling voice and turned around to see White smiling at her. This was the first time the justice system failed a victim of John White's, while leaving him free to hurt more people. There is a gap in White's criminal history after he was released in the mid-80s. He wasn't connected with any crimes until July of 1994. White had gotten married, had one kid with one on the way, and they were living near Kalamazoo, Michigan at the time. White was working maintenance at a textile facility where he met a 26-year-old woman named Vicki Sue Wall. The two struck up an affair, and the evening of July 11, 1994, surveillance footage confirmed that the two met in the Meyer grocery store on Gull Road. Vicky got into the black pickup

truck with John at around 3 a.m. and the two left the lot, and Vicki was not seen again. She was reported missing, and police would call White in for questioning. He told the police that the two were having an affair, that they did meet at the Myers parking lot, and that he returned her to her home later. There was no evidence to hold him on any charges, so he was free to go after questioning. White checked himself into the Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital not long after Vicky went missing. Six weeks after Vicki was lasting alive, her body was found just two. miles away from that Myers grocery store. This was in a rural area. She was found naked except for a shirt and a bra that had been wrapped around her neck. Her body was very decomposed. The medical

examiner could not determine the cause of death and very little evidence was found. White refused to speak with police again and would not take a lie detector test. His pickup truck was searched and with The help of Luminal, blood was found in several areas. In early September 1994, about a week after Vicki's body was found, White would be arrested at the psychiatric hospital. Only having the blood evidence inside White's pickup truck and very little other evidence, first-degree murder charges wouldn't hold up in court. White pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two.

to eight to 15 years. John claimed to love Vicky and that her death was just an accident. While incarcerated, John was seeing a psychologist. He told his doctor that he had murderous fantasies and was turned on by necrophilia. He also claimed to have learned that his fantasies were wrong and that he was aware of that and that he had been reformed. When White was released on February 11, 2007, he was set on being a man of God. He moved to Mount Pleasant into a mobile home neighborhood about 11 miles west of town. He took on the pastor role at the Christ Community Fellowship Church where he met and fell in love with Sally Gay. The two would get engaged and Sally moved in with him in the neighborhood and her daughter Rebecca Gay and her son lived just a few doors down.

The church knew of his past, but believe in redemption and that John had been reformed. A few weeks before Halloween in 2012, John's fantasies started creeping back in. On Halloween Eve, John was at his home drinking heavily when his urges overtook him. He walked a few doors down to Rebecca's trailer in the early morning hours carrying a rubber mallet and zip ties. He entered her home and hit her in the head repeatedly until she was unconscious. He then took a zip tie, placed it around her neck, and tightened it, strangling her to death. Rebecca's three-year-old son was sleeping in the next room.

John then took the rubber mallet, towels he used to clean up the mess with, and placed all of it in trash bags with Rebecca's body. He loaded it into his pickup. He took her body about a mile from her home and disposed of it in a ditch behind a tree line. John then returned to Rebecca's home and cared for her son Conway, as he had before. He dressed him in his Halloween costume and met his father in a grocery store parking lot to exchange custody. When Rebecca didn't show up for work on Halloween, her coworkers became concerned and reported her missing. John took to his congregation pleading for prayers for her to be found.

The very next day, while being questioned, John admitted to murdering Rebecca and told police where they could find her body. He claimed his motive was his fantasies fueled by the necrophilia pornographic material that he had been watching for weeks leading up. He couldn't remember if he sexually assaulted Rebecca after her death or not, but she was found nude. He admitted to taking her car to a bar nearby called The Barn Door to stage her disappearance as a kidnapping. His confession was not the only nail in his coffin. Authorities were able to find Rebecca's blood and her necklace inside of his truck. fingerprints and DNA all tied back to John as well. He was not clean or meticulous in any way when committing this murder. This time, the justice system did not fail. Authorities were prepared to put him away for good. In April of 2013, White was sentenced to 56 years in prison at the time he was 55 years old.

John only lasted a few months in prison, and on August 28th of 2013, he was found hanging in his prison cell from self-inflicted asphyxiation. Revival attempts were made, but unsuccessful. Do you think Whitney and Melissa give listeners free Cabernet? We should find out. My friend Emily is coming to the campfire next. Her podcast is Morbinology, where she covers a new crime case each week. taking an in-depth look at any systemic failures that may have had a part to play in the crime. Now let's travel back in time to August of 1992 to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where our crime takes place.

Yoshi Hiro Hatori was a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who moved in with the Haymaker family. He was affectionately known by his friends and family as Yoshi. Yoshi was the third exchange student thought the Haymakers had hosted. and the second from Japan. Yoshi settled him perfectly. He enjoyed fishing with the family, and he always made sure to help out with his share of the chores. Brian Haymaker stated,

he was throwing his heart into everything. He was making friends. He was adventurous. He was having trouble with English, but he was going on anyway. When Yoshi came to America, he was enrolled in McKinley High School, where he was known as a fun-loving and conscientious student

who almost always had a smile on his face. His classmates said that he could always make them laugh, especially when he randomly broke into a Western dance step. As his friend Mandolin Fawn said, no matter who was rude to him, no matter what happened, he always had a smile on his face. In fall of 1992, Halloween was fast approaching, and Yoshi could hardly wait for his first Halloween in the United States.

He and Webb, who was the teenage son of the Haymakers, had been invited to a Halloween party, which was being held on the 17th of October. Yoshi had already picked out the perfect costume for somebody who was known for their impromptu dances. He was dressing up as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, donning a tuxedo and white jacket, and topped off with some jewelry around his neck.

Webb wasn't as excited as Yoshi, and he opted out of wearing a costume that night. The Halloween party was being held at the host family of another Japanese exchange student. The purpose of the Halloween party was for exchange students to get to know other exchange students so that they could share their experiences and make new friends. When Yoshi and Webb arrived in the neighbourhood,

they went up to 10311, East Brookside Drive. The home was adorned with all the Halloween decorations one would expect for a Halloween party. But Yoshi and Webb were unfortunately at the wrong home. They had transposed two numbers in the address of the home where the party was being held and ended up at 10311 instead of 101. The house belonged to Rodney Pierce and his wife Bonnie.

Yoshium Webb approached the front doorstep and knocked on the door. Bonnie opened it up, screamed, and then slammed it closed. She hollered to Rodney to go and get his gun. When Yoshi and Webb realized that they must have been at the wrong home, they turned around to walk back towards their car in pursuit of the correct home. As they were standing on the footpath outside the home, trying to figure out their next move, Rodney appeared at the door beside the carport. He was armed with a 44 magnum revolver.

He shouted at the teenagers to freeze, but Yoshi, who was just learning English, didn't understand what this command meant. Yoshi shouted out, We're here for the party as he proceeded to walk towards Rodney. While it isn't known for sure, there's every chance that Yoshi thought that the gun was a prop. Part of the Halloween party. When Yoshi didn't freeze, Rodney fired his gun point-blank at him, before running back inside. Yoshi crumbled at the ground as Webb ran to the home next door, screaming for help. The neighbour, Stanley Lucky, immediately called an ambulance and then bolted outside.

to try and assist Yoshi, who lay critically injured outside Rodney's home. Neither Rodney nor his wife offered any assistance. They stood inside their home, peering out the window, even shouting at Stanley to go away when he came to help Yoshi. Webb and Stanley attempted to comfort Yoshi, who was bleeding heavily. They held his hand as he sobbed.

Both Rodney and Bonnie stayed. stayed inside their home until police descended on the scene. Yoshi was bundled into an ambulance, but tragically, he died on route to hospital. He had been shot once in the chest. The bullet had perforated his left lung and then exited out his back. As news of the senseless shooting swept across the city like wildfire, many people were left wondering how something so tragic could have transpired. Holly Haymaker, whose family was hosting Yoshi,

said that of Rodney had in fact shouted freeze at Yoshi, he wouldn't have understood what it meant. As Holly said, Yoshi struggled with English. Rodney was taken into custody, but he wasn't arrested. Bud Connor, of the East Baton Rouge, Paris Sheriff's Department, said that there was no criminal intent on Rodney's part and stated that he was well within his rights to shoot.

the case was then turned over to the district attorney's office for a decision to be made on whether any action would be taken. It would be determined that Rodney would be facing a grand jury investigation. Just the day after the shooting, all of Japan's national television networks offered a lesson in English as the anchors explained how the word freeze could be used to mean, don't move or I'll shoot you. The shooting broke headlines in Japan were the shooting of anybody, in particular teenagers, were extremely rare. In fact, officials of both the government and the student sponsoring programs said that they never even thought that it would be necessary to teach high school students how to deal with possible gun attacks. At the time, tensions between America and Japan were high,

and the shooting only amplified the tension, with a lot of people saying that the shooting had reflected a decline in American society. As one TV reporter said, America, what a country! You can't even walk around outside and be safe. Many people live in fear all the time over there. On the 20th of October,

a memorial service was held at the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, where around 300 mourners packed in. During the emotional service, Yoshi's mother, Miko Hatori, said that she and her husband felt sympathy for Rodney. Turning to the crowd, she said, We are sorry in our awareness of Mr. Pierce's suffering from this most unfortunate event.

She went on to say that she was perplexed by how easily accessible guns are in America, before stating, without them, Mr. Pierce wouldn't have been put in the business. position he's in right now. Her words prompted a standing ovation from the mourners, as it highlighted her true compassion even in the face of adversity. Holly Haymaker also spoke. During the service, she recollected how on the first day that Yoshi entered her home, he put his arms around her and called her mum. She described how he slotted right in with the family and became an integral part

almost immediately. She told the mourners how Yoshi liked to keep his room tidy, and he loved dancing in the kitchen. Towards the end of the service, Yoshi's father, Masachi Hittori, thanked the crowd for coming to bid farewell to his son, who left the world with much undone. He said that despite their heartache, his family were dedicated to the mission Yoshi had undertaken to make friends in America and strengthen the ties between Japan and the United States. In a news conference the following day, Rodney's lawyer, Lewis Ungleswee, said that Rodney felt great regret over what he had done. He said that his client was not a criminal, but a person who was afraid of becoming the victim of a crime. He said that it was a dark night, and Rodney hadn't realized

that Yoshi was dressed up for a Halloween party. In early November, it was announced that a grand jury had rejected a second-degree murder charge and instead returned a manslaughter indictment against Rodney for shooting Yoshi. Following the decision, Rodney surrendered and his lawyer announced that he was expecting his client to post bond. Just the following day, Rodney posted a $100,000 property bond and was released from custody while awaiting trial. He pleaded not guilty to the charge. Within a month of the shooting, Japan collected over 800,000 signatures

on a petition urging the United States to adopt stricter gun control. They presented US Ambassador Michael Armacost with the petition who said, said that the petition would make a positive contribution to the debate on gun control in America. He also said that he would transmit the petition to the White House. Rodney's trial would begin in May of 1993. During opening statements, defense Unglesby said that Rodney shot Yoshi because he thought that he was protecting his wife and three children from an intruder.

Prosecutor Doug Moreau asked the jurors not to judge Rodney as a person, but judge his conduct on the night of the shooting. He described Rodney as criminally negligent and said that he should be convicted of manslaughter. He said that after Rodney opened the door, after it had been slammed closed by Bonnie, Yoshi interpreted this as an invitation to the party they had been searching for. The jury would hear a recorded interview between Rodney and investigators. He detailed how Bonnie told him to get his gun, and he didn't even question why. He said that when he went outside he saw Yoshi, who was wearing a white suit and carrying something, which turned out to be a camera. He said that Yoshi appeared to be laughing, but when he failed to stop moving, he shot him.

He said that he was protecting his family, but when he was asked if he knew what he was protecting them from, he simply said no. Prosecutor Morrow argued during the trial that the actions of the couple were not reasonable. He said that it hadn't been rational for a man of six feet two inches tall, to be afraid of a friendly, an unarmed boy who weighed just 130 pounds, a boy who rang the doorbell before walking away. Yoshi hadn't attempted to break in. He wasn't wearing a scary mask. He wasn't armed.

He was simply looking for a Halloween party. Following all of the testimony, the jury were sent away to deliberate. Under Louisiana law, homicide can be justified for a number of reasons, including what is known as the shoot the burglar law, which allows people to protect themselves from intruders. It took just three hours for the jury to reach a verdict. They found Rodney not guilty of manslaughter. Many in court applauded when the four women announced the verdict.

Yoshi's parents said that they weren't surprised, but they were disappointed. Rodney was later found to be liable to Yoshi's parents for $650,000. in damages. With this money, Yoshi's parents founded two charities in their son's name. One was to fund US students wanting to visit Japan, while the other was for gun control. His parents later presented President Bill Clinton with a petition signed by 1.7 million Japanese citizens calling for stricter gun laws. They became big supporters of the Brady Bill,

which mandated background checks and a five-day waiting period for the person. of guns in the United States. The shooting of Yoshi had truly been instrumental in the passage of the bill. Following his acquittal, Rodney Pierce claimed that he would never own a gun again, and he admitted that he had simply overreacted to his wife's fear. This overreaction caused a teenage boy in the frontier of adulthood to lose his life in the most terrifying way imaginable. So what do you think?

Should he have been found guilty? Mike Brown from Dark Poutine joins us from north of the 49th parallel. That's Canada, if you didn't know. Canadians are known for their politeness, but as Mike will remind us, a recent sword attack in Quebec City shows us some Canadians have a dark side too. In that attack, on Halloween night,

a man dressed in what has been described as medieval clothing went on a slashing and stabbing spree with a razor-sharp Japanese-style katana sword. After the attack, two people were left dead, and another five were hospitalized, some with serious injuries, and the attacker had fled the scene. One of the most notable buildings in Old Quebec City, overlooking the picturesque St. Lawrence River,

is the historic and posh Chateau Frontenac Hotel. Chateau Frontenac, a national historic site of Canada since 1981, first opened for business in 1893. It was here at around 10 p.m. on October 31st, 2020, that a black four-door Saturn was left motor still running by its driver, 24-year-old Carl Gerard. Gerard, dressed in black jogging pants, black leather boots, a short-sleeve kimono, and a black mask, had his sharpened 76.9 centimeter bladed katana sword in hand. He'd left his home in St. Therese, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, in the afternoon,

and had driven the 270 kilometers to Quebec City with murder on his mind. After exiting his vehicle, Gerard approached his first victim, a 26-year-old musician named Remy Belanger. Belanger was out for a leisurely stroll. He was listening to a podcast and stood to take a picture of Chateau Frontenac when he noticed a man, clad in black, advancing quickly toward him, soared above his head. Belanger later recalled thinking at first that it was a Halloween reveler playing some

kind of joke to irritate him. But when the first blow landed, hitting him in the head, he knew he was in trouble. Belanger put up his hand to defend himself and his fingers were severed. He fell to his knees as the attacker kept slashing and stabbing at him. Remy Belanger managed to pick up his fingers, got to his feet and fled toward the lobby of Chateau Frontenac, screaming for help in both English and French. Remy Belanger was later treated for wounds to his skull, neck, back, chest, arms, hands and hip. A cellist, Remy was transferred to a hospital in Montreal that specializes in limb replantation. There, doctors worked hard to save his hand so he could play music again. As Belanger ran away, Gerard did not pursue him, but turned his attention to 56-year-old Francois-Duches. He was

much beloved as the communications director for the Musei National de Beau Arts du quebec he was out for a slow jog gerard frustrated by his failure to kill remi balange only moments before made sure he succeeded this time he attacked duchin from behind hacking slashing and stabbing the defenseless man thirteen times in the neck trunk and back francois lay bleeding on the sidewalk of dutresor street where he was tended to by two good samaritans who had called nine one one, but it was too late. Francois Duchesne bled to death at the scene. Another couple walking together on DeBaud Street, Pierre Legreville and Lisa Mahmoud also encountered Carl Gerard that night. They too thought he was wearing a Halloween costume as he walked up to them,

sword in the attack position. Lisa Mamud didn't feel threatened and smiled at Gerard just before he hit Pierre Legreval. During the attack, Legerval had screamed for Gerard to stop, but the attacker persisted, unfazed. Pierre, who had serious wounds to the skull and shoulder, said, quote, he looked serene. He wasn't in shock mode from what he had just done, end quote. As Carl Gerard slashed and stabbed at Lisa Mahmoud at least 13 times, Lisa recalled, exclaiming, what are you doing? Luckily, before Gerard could finish the job, Lagreval and Mahmood managed to flee. Gerard's next victim was not so lucky. On Day's Rampart Street, 61-year-old Suzanne Claremont had just stepped out the front door to have a cigarette. Suzanne's husband, Jock, inside doing the dishes,

was startled by the sound of Suzanne's loyal dog howling like he'd never heard before. A hairdresser, Suzanne was a bright spot in the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, participating in regular, socially distanced gatherings with neighbors to watch the sunset every evening atop the old quarter's fortifications. Jock ran outside to find Suzanne laying on the sidewalk bleeding heavily from several wounds. He later said, I saw that she had a deep gash in the middle of her forehead. I tried to close the wound with my hands to hold her face together. Their neighbor, an emergency room doctor, ran outside baseball bat in hand.

She tried performing CPR, but Suzanne Claremont had lost too much blood. In the last group to encounter Carl Gerard was Gilberto Luccio Poros Alvarado. He was out with three of his friends when they came across Gerard all in black sword at his side. Gerard said, happy Halloween, before drawing his sword. Poros Alvarado, who thought the sword was fake at first, said he quickly realized the weapon was very real as the first blows landed. He and two of his friends fled together. The fourth person of the group, a young person whose name is under publication ban, was pursued and injured by Gerard. That young person also escaped, hiding inside a gas station.

He was later treated for injuries. Poros Alvarado, who'd suffered cuts to his head and a finger before he managed to escape, spent two weeks in hospital. There'd been a flood of 911 calls, coming in talking about a sword-wielding attack or dressed like a ninja, and last seen heading in the direction of the port. Shortly before, 1 a.m. on November 1,20, a port officer on patrol in the old port of Quebec noticed a man hiding in a bush. Aware of the attacks, the officer notified police, and cops arrived en masse taking the blood-covered man into custody. Carl Gerard, who was not talking at first, had no criminal record. It was quickly learned that in 2015, Gerard, quote, in a mental health context,

had made threats to do just as he did, killed people indiscriminately, and cause as much chaos and mayhem as he possibly could. Why hadn't he gotten the help that he needed at the time? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of many dignitaries to weigh in on the situation as the nation woke up to the news of a horrific series of attacks in what is normally a peaceful city.

Flags in the province were temporarily brought to happen. mass to honor the victims. Witnesses and police described Carl Gerard as calm and compliant during his arrest. He had no ID and at first refused to identify himself. After he was in custody, it was taken to hospital and later transported to a detention facility to be interrogated. He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Suzanne Claremont and Francois D'Duchin.

Carl Gerard's defense team claimed that the 24-year-old was driven to kill and who his victims were didn't matter at all. He admitted to killing to Shane and Claremont and injuring the five others. But his lawyer argued he was not criminally responsible at the time of the events because he was suffering from a mental disorder. At the outset of the trial was chilling testimony from witnesses to the attacks and surviving victims, all noting Gerard's deliberate, eerily calm demeanor during the stabbing and slashing spree that Halloween night. The prosecution had argued that the acts were premeditated,

noting Gerard had spoken to mental health workers since his late teen years, using a sword to attack people. The Crown's primary expert, psychiatrist Dr. Sylvain Fosier, concluded that Gerard suffered from a personality disorder and was on a narcissistic quest to express his resentment towards society, concluding that there were no signs of delusional thinking the accused knew very much what he was doing was wrong. Shackled and handcuffed in the witness box, Gerard testified on his own behalf. The accused killer claimed that his goal was to create chaos, change the world, and encourage

like-minded people. He stated that by the time he was 18 years old, he believed he had a top-secret mission to kill and that his life would be sacrificed at the end of it. After Claremont's killing, though, he said he began to question his actions. I thought I would have a feeling of accomplishment, but that wasn't the case, Gerard told the jury. I decided there shouldn't be one more death, my own or anyone else's, end quote. Gerard told the court he was fearful when he arrived in Quebec City and didn't want to go ahead with his plan but felt he had no choice. He described the killings as duty. I went against my will. I didn't want to, but I had to, Gerard said.

I saw lots of people and I attacked them with my sword to execute my mission. Gerard then told the jury that the killer no longer existed. There's a Carl Gerard with you today who likes making people laugh and helping others, Gerard said. It's different from Carl Gerard from the mission. who feels obliged to isolate himself, but that's in the past. There's no Carl Gerard from the mission anymore. Dr. Gilles Chamberlain, a psychiatrist, testified for the defense, concluding that Gerard was on the autism spectrum,

suffered from schizophrenia, and was delirious, and in a state of psychosis the night of the killings, unable to distinguish right from wrong. On May 20, 2022, minutes after beginning their fifth day of deliberations, the jury came to a decision. guilty on both counts of first-degree murder. On June 10, 2022, Carl Gerard was sentenced a life imprisonment without the possibility of parole before 2045. Hopefully, residents of Quebec City will rest a little easier, knowing that the killer is behind bars for a long time.

That said, Halloween will never be the same for those who lost loved ones or lived through the attacks. Did you think I first misspoke when you heard me say sword attack? My next friends that are joining us might have moonshine, by the way. I hope you don't mind. They are a husband and wife duo, Jerry and Tracy, from the Hillbilly Horror Stories podcast. I have no doubt that you'll love them as much as I do. So Tracy, let's jump in. For this episode, we're going to cover a Kentucky story, since that's where we're from.

We're going to cover a story from Lewis County, which is up around the West Virginia, Ohio. Border. Border, yeah. Mary Lou and her family move into a house. I had Aunt Mary Lou. Is that a fact? Yes, rest in peace. She's passed on.

It was my mommy's sister. Okay. So her family moves into this house. In case anybody cared. Sorry, go ahead. That everyone said was haunted, everybody in the surrounding area. Now, this house at one time belonged to an older couple who was having some marital problem. And during this time, the wife basically kicked the husband out of the home.

Well, the husband really didn't have any place to go, so he decided to stay in an out building that was just a few feet from the house. That seems fair. Yeah, the building was actually connected to the house by a walkway. Okay. So it was pretty close, but not in the house. Yes. Now, this was during a very hot summer, and that building must have become unbearably hot.

Hot to the point that the husband was found dead of an apparent heat stroke. Oh, wow, dang it's hot. You heard of a fan? Soon after, there were reports of the deceased husband being seen wandering the property on very hot nights. Now, when Mary Lou's family moved into the house, it was spring. So there really were no issues except that the family couldn't seem to keep the door closed on that small. outbuilding. I wonder how long it was until Mary Lou found out that he had passed. I don't know, and I didn't have any way of research

in that. I don't even know what your any of this happened, to be honest with you. Well, I wouldn't want you to lie. Eventually, Mary Lou's husband had to lock the door with a padlock. So we're going to fast forward a little bit. Mary Lou's husband goes to work one morning.

Mary Lou's just sitting up in the kitchen, drinking her coffee. She hears heavy footsteps, coming up the stairs. This is inside the house. And then she hears the back door slam shut. She thought, well, this is odd because anyone leaving through the back door would have had to walk right past her first. Yeah, in the kitchen. Don't act like you know the lay out of the house.

I do. I got it down in my mind. The footsteps were too heavy for a child, but she went and checked on the children just to make sure. And all the children were still sleeping their beds. She took a look around and she found the back door standing wide open, which is odd because it did slam shut. Yeah. But now it's open. It's wide open. Yeah, I'd be scared.

She decided to ignore the noises that she'd been hearing in the door slamming shut because it was extremely warm outside and she wanted to just shut the door and not let the hot air in. Later that day, she decides to go out and do some work in the yard. It's a little bit of gardening. She sat down under a tree to take a little bit of a break because like we said it was kind of warm. She hears the back door slam shut again. She knows the sound because she already heard it once that day. So she looks towards the house

and she can see the curtains parked in the kitchen window as if someone's peeking out and kind of moving it with their two hands. Yeah. At a second glance, she saw nothing. but then she saw the curtains fall back across the window. She immediately gets up, she walks around her house, trying to convince herself that she's just imagining all this,

and she comes across the opened basement door. She was sure that she had locked that door. She assumed that maybe the heat was just kind of making her delusional. She relocked the basement door, and then she went back to her work in the yard. She later passed by the door to only find it open again. The basement door? The basement door.

This really shook her up this time. Well, yeah, that's where it's cooler. What are you letting all the hot air in? As soon as her husband got home, she told him about the events of the day. Now, her husband couldn't believe what he was hearing, and in fact, he scolded her for believing it herself. Now, over the next few weeks, the weather guy. extremely hot. With that, the paranormal activity increased as well, or should we say, heat it up. Uh-huh. Well, you know the paranormal I don't like a dagon heat either. Shoot. The building in which the old

man died was now padlocked, as we talked about. Even with that being the case, the door was still found standing wide open on several occasions. Mary Lee would lock it back and time and time again to no avail. I would have just given up. Her husband kept telling Mary that there had to be some kind of a simple explanation, but he sure didn't have one to offer up for it. I mean, because, you know, padlocks just become unlocked and taking off the lock and doors to open all the time. True.

I mean, I wonder what else was in there. I don't know. I can't imagine there was anything in there that anybody would want to take. One morning, she heard noises coming from the kitchen. And when she got in there, the whole room was vibrating. as if an angry hand was shaking the whole room. There were also sounds coming from inside the walls. It sounded as if someone was tearing at the boards

trying to rip them away. Later, that evening as Mary Lou was lying in bed, her son comes running into the room. He said that he heard a noise coming from the attic that was above his room. He said it sounded like someone was trying to get out. Ooh. She put them in her.

her bed to calm her down like most good mothers would. But just as she was about to doze off, the whole house started violently shaken again. Okay, was the husband there? Did he hear it? We'll get to it. The windows were vibrating so hard that it seemed like they were going to basically come out of their frames. And yes, her husband actually witnessed this event. He could no longer deny that something supernatural appeared to be at work here. His answer was to vacate the premises. Looking back at the events, years later, Mary Lou realizes that each of these occurrences happened at extremely hot days or hot nights.

She said it was almost as if the poor old man's soul was opening doors to get air. Mary Lou says she wonders if maybe someone had locked the door on that outbuilding, trapping the old man inside, causing his death and leaving his soul to wander, trying to tear out windows and doors seeking relief from the intense heat. Oh, bless his heart. That's an awful way to go. There would be an awful way to go. That's so terrible. So yeah, like I said, I don't know what the situation was. I don't know what year had happened. I don't know if somebody did lock the man in and that's why he was so against locks or maybe he just. Yeah, but who would have known he was in there except for his wife? I don't know. I mean, who else would have a reason to lock the door? Well, that mean heifer. We don't know that. She did. that. That's just an assumption that that could have happened. I mean,

it could just be that he wants the door open so he can't be trapped in there. Yeah. It didn't mean that it got locked in there at one point. He just wants to keep it open now. Yeah. Well, that poor soul. I could smell the moonshine, couldn't you? Bless their hearts. You must be thinking, man, Shane has a lot

of friends. And you're right, I do. And isn't it also amazing that this campfire doesn't need replenished with wood? I have four more friends to introduce you to, and here comes Eric Carter Landon now. Eric is the host of True Consequences, which focuses on crime and mysteries in New Mexico and the American Desert Southwest. Plus, he is a really good person altogether. You'll love him. Eric, take it away.

Sometimes, late at night, on the ditch banks, rivers, lakefronts, and arroyos of New Mexico. ago, people claim to hear the wails and sobs of a woman. She sounds distraught. She cries out. If you ever hear this cry, it's best you avoid any waterways, and by no means should you try to find or help this woman. If you value your life, you will close your eyes and go to sleep. Children, heed this warning, be wary of the cries of this woman. I am Eric Carter Londin, and this is Halloween at true consequences. Maria was the most beautiful woman in her Pueblo. She was well sought after by all the suitable bachelors in town, but she was not interested in any of them.

It wasn't until she met a tall and mysterious man from out of town. that she even considered dating anyone. He was quite the catch. He was rich, handsome, well-traveled, and the pair started dating, and very soon, they were in love. In a matter of months, they were engaged, and a short time later,

the couple were married in a huge celebration. The whole neighborhood was decorated with colorful paper flags and flowers. Within a couple of years, Maria and her husband had two kids. Everything was going perfectly. until one spring night. On the night of March 13, 1550, on the streets of Mexico City,

Maria was wandering the streets, grief-stricken, and angry. She had never been treated in such a way. The shame she felt was consuming her. How could her husband have embarrassed her like that in front of everyone? She waited faithfully for him while he traveled around the country, and he has the nerve to show up with a new woman in his carriage? He didn't even apologize for what he did. He simply told her, it was over and rode away as his new lover laughed.

She laughed. Who did they think they were? Maria was the prettiest woman in their neighborhood. She could have any man that she wanted. No one treated Maria that way. Not if they didn't want to suffer. Oh, he was going to suffer. She'd show him.

She'd show them all. Maria would make sure that no one tried to hurt. her like this ever again. She gathered up her resolve as she headed back to her house. She was wailing loudly as she made her way back to her doorstep. Maria was heartbroken. How could the man of her dreams betray her like this? She walked up the stairs and inhaled the smell of fresh tamales that she had made for her husband's arrival. He was going to pay for what he did. He will never forget this day. She was going to make sure of it. As she approached the bedroom of her children, she gently and silently opened the door. She strolled across the bedroom and walked

over to their beds and kissed each of them on their foreheads. Her son Julian and daughter Sophia were softly breathing. She gently woke them and led the pair down the stairs. What's happening, Mama? The boy asked. No te preoccupies, my amor. Don't worry, my love, she said. Where are we going, Mama? Dero Sophia asked. Somewhere beautiful, mehita. They crossed the street. They cross the street, and headed to the creek. Mama, Tengo Miego, I'm afraid, said Julian. Maria said, I know, my hitho.

Then she picked up her two children and submerged herself into the forceful stream. Her final thought was that her husband would be destroyed by what she did. Unfortunately, they all perished. As a curse for her horrible deeds,

Maria was forced to wander the waterways of the southwestern United States and Central and South America, America searching for her children. But her heart was so twisted with vengeance and rage that she became a predatory ghost, seeking out children who misbehave or are foolish enough to wander the bodies of water at night. She became known as La Yorona, or the Weeping Woman.

She's been seen in what seems to be a white wedding dress, all the while crying for her children. When an unsuspecting child finds themselves near a river, stream, or lake, they are likely to be taken and drowned by La Yorona. This story, or maybe something similar, is told over and over to children in Latino households as a means to keep them away from the water and to make them behave. Other cultures have Santa Claus giving you coal. Well, we have a ghost that will abduct you and drown you. Yeah.

I know. It's messed up. But it is such a rich folk tale with a long history and it continues to be passed down from generation to generation. All I can tell you is that if you ever hear the cries of a woman looking for her children late at night, don't go near the water. Or La Yorona just might get you. Thanks for listening and stay spooky New Mexico. You just heard a tale from New Mexico. So now let's go to Texas.

Gone Cold is hosted by Vincent. He covers crime and mysteries specifically in the Lone Star State. In the early 1990s, at age 13 or 14, I joined a group of friends at what was reportedly a haunted attraction off the beaten path in Fort Worth. If I remember right, we timed our arrival there at around midnight. Now, I personally did not expect to hear. hear the screams of the ghosts who were said to hunt this area. Rather, it was the punk rock

blasting from my older friend's car radio, cigarettes, booze, and a lack of adult supervision that got me there. Many of the folks I was with, however, were there to hear the ghoulish, anguished cries of the apparitions rumored to roam this particular pitch-black, dark, and heavily wooded spot in Tarrant County. They were there for the scare, and we all got one. But it wasn't the result of the roaming ghosts of three teenaged girls constantly reliving their deaths 30 years before. Instead, it was the cops. And at the height of the absurd era known as satanic panic, it's likely those boys in blue figured they'd busted up what was about to become some sort of devilish ritual or blood sacrifice, rather than what

it was, a bunch of latchkey kids cutting loose. Several of my delinquent friends and I successfully outmaneuvered and outran the police, luckily for us. Anyway, it didn't matter that the cops broke up the party, though we were somewhat close. We hadn't even gone to the right spot to hear the Lost Souls, the place known as Screaming Bridge. On the night of Saturday, February 4, 1961, Arlington High School Junior's Mary Lou, Kathy, Claudia, Donna, Joanne, and Dorothy left an Arlington movie theater as the credits for the film Butterfield 8, starring Elizabeth Taylor, began to roll. Packed tightly into Mary Lou's mid-1950s two-door Chevy, the girls went cruising. Perhaps the chilly, foggy night under a near full moon as inspiration.

Five of the girls wanted to show the new girl, Joanne, the area's haunted spots. Like Hell's Gate, through which, legend has it, a group of union spies were led to their hanging deaths at the hands of Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, and where the cries and prayers of their ghosts can be heard. And, perhaps, a lover's lane near the railroad tracks were a hobo who had just jumped off the train, is said to have been shot to death as he tried to help a woman in a car who was being assaulted. His ghost, if you're apt to believe such a thing, taps on the windows of parked cars, making

sure the occupants are safe. Joanne was a recent addition to the student body at Arlington High, and there seemed no better way to break her into the area than to introduce her to local apparitions. But before showing the new girl those sights, the teenagers made their way to another known lover's lane nearby. As they did, the girl spoke of an escaped convict, an urban legend about a sometimes masked man with a hook for a, for a hand that terrorized teenagers necking at lover's lanes. Likely a tale inspired by the terrifying and true Texas crimes committed by the phantom killer of Texarkana in the 1940s. There was little doubt the teenagers worked themselves up.

They drove to an especially dark and secluded area of Arlington Bedford Road, heading south from Mosier Valley and parked, still eerily whispering, the tale of the hook-handed man. After a few minutes, they noticed a car coming toward them, flashing its lights and honking its horn. The driver was shouting at them, but the girls couldn't understand what he was saying. And anyway, they were too spooked to find out.

Instead, Mary Lou put the car in drive and stepped on the gas. The driver of the other vehicle was horrified. He'd stopped just beyond a railroad crossing, and between the passing train's lights and those of his own vehicle, he saw blackness where the road's bridge had once been. It was just in time, the young man said he was no more than two feet from the long drop to the ditch below. After backing up, his headlights caught the barricades and sign warning, bridge out, that some malicious person had removed. from the road. But the girls weren't so lucky. Unable to see what was ahead in time to stop,

the car carrying Mary Lou, Kathy, Claudia, Donna, Joanne, and Dorothy plunged 25 feet down to the wooded and rocky drainage ditch below. The vehicle slammed into the other side's embankment some 40 feet across. It was approximately 10.15, p.m. Later, it was estimated that they were traveling 45 to 55 miles an hour.

Mary Lou and Claudia were killed instantly upon impact. Weeks old ice patches on the road from an earlier winter storm, along with the embankment's mud-slicked surface, made the rescue operation a difficult one, as did the sleet coming down. When responders and authorities were finally able to pull the girls from the wreckage, ambulances transported them to area hospitals. Kathy died upon arrival at a hospital in Dallas. Donna, Joanne, and Dorothy sustained major injuries that caused lifelong physical impairments, and of course, unimaginable, immeasurable, emotional trauma.

The Wooden Bridge at Arlington Bedford Road, was burned down by four teenage arsonists the week prior. Though their actions would be labeled in a kind of boys will be boys way by local authorities, who called what they did vandalism or mischief, it's long been rumored they'd set that particular bridge on fire because of who crossed it going south. The first freed persons community in Tarrant County,

Mosier Valley, or the river bottoms, as it is also known, was predominantly black in 1961. Some say the boys burned the bridge to impede members of that communities travel into North Arlington. A Tarrant County grand jury later declined to indict the boys, all of whom were white. They deserved a chance to make good, grand jurors said. Quote, no good would come of blighting the entire future of a group of bright and religious young men. Whoever moved the barricades put in place by county employees after these boys

destroyed the bridge was supposedly never identified. No one has ever been held accountable for the deaths and injuries of these girls, and the case in my mind remains unresolved. Countless iterations of the origins of Screaming Bridge have been told over the years, including that the girls were cheerleaders who were waved on by a sadistic man who knew what he was leading them to. They were neither cheerleaders nor waved on by anyone. Also, folks say two cars crashed in the middle of the one-lane wooden bridge, which caught fire and gave way, sending the passengers of both vehicles 25 feet straight down.

That, of course, isn't even close to the truth. Besides the screams of the three teenage girls who were killed at Screaming Bridge on February 4, 1961, folks have reported phenomena like the rolling in of heavy, mystic fog, whatever that means, and the appearance of Mary Lou, Claudia, and Kathy's tombstones on the surface of the murky, dull water. On the wrong bridges, folks report seeing the shimmering of headlights, or almost dying and, as they nearly drive off the structures themselves. Many ghost hunters and pursuers of the paranormal have tried to find the deadly site, but most often find instead one of two of the wrong concrete bridges in the area that are admittedly scary places in their own right. However, after being replaced with a concrete drainage tunnel filled in with dirt and rock around it,

soon after the deaths and injuries. No trace of screaming bridge has remained for many decades. Thanks for listening, y'all. My next friend is approaching, and before she gets here, I have to warn you, that I've met her in person before and not to get scared. Yes, I agree, I too think the devil himself is likely terrified of her, but in all honesty, she is a very kind lady. While everyone else has scary tales,

I thought it would be really nice to hear a personal story from her. Hello, Nancy Grace here from Crime Stories and CrimeOnline.com. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year, and it always has been. But I have to tell you that once I've had the twins, John David and Lucy, it's so much more fun. I love everything we do. Dressing them up, buying candy, decorating the house. I think I'm the only person in the neighborhood that has so many ghosts hanging from trees and skeletons sitting on patio furniture. I love it.

I think back when I was a little girl in rural Bibb County, Middle Georgia, we were so far out of the city of Macon, which was small itself, being like a 30-minute drive-in. So there were very few homes to go and trick-or-treat with. And it would be so dark out in the country at night. And we did not have anything like store-bought Halloween outfits. I remember for several years in a row, I would be a ghost. And I was so short, I'd actually wear a pillowcase. And the pillowcase would cover my head, of course, and go down to my ankles. And we would cut holes in the pillowcase for eyes.

That was, I didn't know we were poor. I was perfectly happy the way we were, but that would be my Halloween outfit. And I also remember that it dawned me much later that the pillowcases had pink stripes. So I was a very scary pillowcase with pink stripes, ghost. But it was so much fun. And I remember Miss Julia that lived on a huge farm next to our little spot would always make caramel apples and dress up like a witch and hand them out from her front porch. That was the big thing, going all the way in the night by foot under the moonlight

to get that caramel apple. And believe you me, I absolutely would do it. Of course, there are always older boys or teens scaring all the trick-or-treaters. At that time in my life, I didn't really know what to be scared of. I didn't know anything about crime or scary movies or anything like that growing up. I really only learned about crime when my fiancé was murdered just before our wedding. And that's when my world blew up. And I found out about violent crime and that there were actually things to be scared of in this world. But growing up in rural Georgia, where there was nothing to see as far as you could look except for soybean fields and tall pine trees.

That was a great way to have Halloween. And I remember my mother would always make a meal the one we dreaded and hated the most and we couldn't trick or treat until we ate it. For instance, one year it was stewed prunes. Anyway, thanks, Mom. That said, I have great memories growing up with Halloween. then I had the twins.

Now that's a whole other can of worms. That is an extravaganza like no other compared only to their birthday or Christmas. There has to be the right outfit. I remember one year, John David changed outfits. I think it was four times. And the same for Lucy. One year she was a cat. She was a witch.

She was some other animal, a spider. That takes a lot of border. I mean, you've got to have one for the school party, one for the church trunk fest, one for the actual trick-or-treating. I mean, and no, she doesn't sit, they don't set out going, I want five outfits. It's just, Mom, I want to be a witch now, where I want to be a cat. I'll never forget when John David wanted to be a bush, a bush, so he could sneak up on houses. Well, we got him a gilly suit. and he looked like a bush.

You know those things you see in war movies when it looks like an empty field and all of a sudden the soldiers all jump up? They're wearing gilly suits. My son has one. I saved it because I'm sure one day I'm going to need a gilly suit. I haven't used it yet, but oh, I'm so glad I'm doing this because I just remembered. I came up with my costume for this year last year.

I'm going to be Cousin It. I love Cousin It of the Adams family. and I got the most awesome cousin It outfit. Sometimes I wear it around the house just to scare the children. But now, you know, they've seen me come out so many times. I've got the whole thing. I've got the long hair. It goes head to toe.

The hat and the glasses. I can't wait. Now, that's deviating from my typical, as predicted, which outfit? A lot of people ask me, do you go see horror movies and Halloween? And the answer to that is a big H-E-D-L-L. No, I don't. Why? I've seen plenty of horror movies in real life. They weren't movies. They were real. Triple homicides, one homicide after the next, every type you can imagine. Drowning, strangulation, stabbing, shooting, asphyxiation, smothering, manual ligature, overdose, you name it, I've seen it. Bludgeoning. Bludgeoning. That's a bad one. So I have no desire to relive those real-life experiences on the big silver screen.

I'm going to stick with trick-or-treat. I'm going to help the twins get one of their mini costumes together. I'm going to follow them just as the sun sets at a discreet distance. It's like I'm not even there to make sure that no harm befalls them. we're going to have fun. We're going to hand out candy in the front yard to anybody that comes by. It's going to be a spooky night. And when the children get home, we're going to talk about all the candy they got.

We're going to line it up on the floor so they can count it and see who got the most. P.S. It's always John David. They're going to run around the house stealing each other's candy. laughing their heads off. They're going to go to sleep, too late, because it's a school night this year. And then once I know they're asleep, I'm going to go through all their candy to make sure there are no razor blades. And they will never know the real-life horrors that are out there. They'll sleep like two little angels.

and so will I. So happy Halloween. That will be me, Cousin It. Nancy Grace, signing off. Whoa! That's my very best witch's laugh. How was it? I thought that was pretty good.

And I'm looking forward to seeing Nancy Grace in her cousin It outfit. I don't know about you. Okay. Now it's time for our last terrifying tale. This one is to help you go to sleep. Kelly Barron's Brinks host True Crime IRL and True Crime Sleep Stories. 1912 in Veliska, Iowa, the Moore family was considered affluent in their small community, and they were very well-liked. Josiah, age 43, was married to Sarah, 39, and together

they had a beautiful, happy family with their four children, Herman, married, Catherine, Arthur Boyd, and the youngest Paul Vernon. On the evening of June 9th, the Moore family was attending a fun Children's Day program at their church. Lots of people were going to be there, including their good friends, the Stillinger family. 12-year-old Lena Stillinger and 8-year-old Ina Stilinger were good friends with the only Moore daughter, Catherine. The church event wasn't scheduled to end until about 10 p.m. that evening, and the little Stillinger girls were apprehensive to walk in the dark the two miles they'd needed to trek home. The walk home would have been especially dark for the little girls on this particular night, because the electric company

and the Veliscata Town Council were in the midst of a dispute about lighting, so the electric company shut off all the lights in the town, making the town extra dark. The more, the more than the Moore's arranged sleepover plans with the Stillinger's, and Lena and Ina accompanied the family of six to their East Second Street home after church services ended. Bedtime would have come a little later than usual this evening, with not arriving home until around 10 p.m. and having guests. So we can assume that all the kiddos were tucked in and sleeping by around 11 p.m. with J.B. and Sarah right behind them. Lena and Ina Stillinger slept downstairs in the main floor guest bedroom. Up the steep staircase and just to the left was the bedroom that the four more children shared. In between the two bedrooms was a small door that led into an attic storage space,

and this is where it's thought that someone may have been waiting until everyone in the house was fast asleep. The murders are thought to have happened sometime after midnight. they were bludgeoned to death with an axe, leaving their faces unrecognizable. The furious axe swings left scrapes and indentations in the walls and ceilings which can still be seen in the house today. After brutally attacking this family, he went one by one and covered each person's head with clothing to cover their mutilated faces. The sun would rise on Velisca, Iowa the morning of June 10th, over a town that would be, forever changed. Neighbor Mary Peckham got up at the crack of dawn to hang laundry on the clothes line and found it immediately unusual to see no activity coming from the normally busy Moore House.

By 8 a.m., Mary Peckham had a sinking feeling that something just wasn't right next door. She knocked on the door with no answer. She rang for J.B. Moore's brother, Ross, telling him something was going on next door, but that she didn't know what. She asked him to come over and check on the family, and he did. Like Mary, he knocked, tried to open the door and all of that, but nothing. He unlocked the house and went inside alone while Mary stayed safe outside the door. The house was eerily still, quiet and dark. He immediately noticed that all of the curtains had been tightly drawn and covered with additional items of clothing to block out any light that could seep in, making the small house seem all the more stifling. When he opened the bedroom door, Ross saw two

bodies on the bed and dark stains on the bed clothes. He returned immediately to the porch and told Mrs. Peckham to call the sheriff, and these findings would set into place one of the most mismanaged murder investigations ever to be undertaken. Once the murders were discovered, news traveled quickly in the small town. As neighbors and curious onlookers converged on the house, law enforcement officials quickly lost control of the crime scene. Had these murders been committed today, it's almost certain that law enforcement officials would have easily solved the crime

and brought the murderer to justice. Almost 100 years later, however, the Velisca Axe murders still remain a mystery. While no one was ever convicted of the Velisca Axe murders, there seemed to be no shortage of suspects. In the days following the crimes, you could have read about at least four possibilities in any edition of the newspaper. Many of the leads, however, were quickly exhausted, and as time wore on, they began to dwindle. There are many who believe Frank Jones, a prominent Velisca resident, an Iowa state senator, was responsible for the brutal deaths of the Moors and the Stillinger children. Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones at his implement store for many years before leaving to open his own store. Moore repeatedly took business away from Frank Jones, including a very successful John Deere dealership.

And Josiah Moore was rumored to have had a second. affair with Jones's daughter-in-law, though no evidence supports this. Were these bad business dealings and a potential affair? Enough motive for murder? Many people think yes, but many people also think Reverend George Kelly was responsible for the murders. Kelly was an English-born traveling minister in town on the night of the murders. He was described as peculiar, reportedly having suffered a mental breakdown as an adolescent.

As an adult, he was a child. accused of being a peeping Tom and several times asking young women and girls to pose nude for him. In 1917, Kelly was even arrested for the Velisca Axe murders. Police obtained a confession from him, however, it followed many hours of intense interrogation, and later Kelly recanted. After two separate trials, he was acquitted. And finally, in their 2017 book, The Man from the Train, Bill James and his daughter, Rachel McCarthy James, discussed the Velisca Ax murders as part of a much larger series of murders, which they believe were all committed by one single serial killer.

They conclude that the murderer was Paul Mueller, an immigrant, possibly from Germany who was the subject of an unsuccessful year-long manhunt as the sole suspect in the 1897 murder of a family in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, who had employed him as a farmhand. The co-authors of the book believe that Mueller was guilty of the Velasca Axe murders, as well as a killing spree that lasted over a decade, killing at least 59 people in 14 separate incidents. So who was responsible for the Velasca axe murders?

To this day, we still don't know, but there was a strong possibility that a serial killer was actually at work. To many people, it seems as though the house is trying to tell. speak to them. Visits by paranormal investigators have provided audio, video, and photographic proof of paranormal activity. Tours of the home have often been cut short by children's voices, falling lamps, moving ladders, and flying objects. Psychics have stated that there's a presence of spirits dwelling in the home, and many have claimed to communicate with them. Skeptics have come into the home and left believers.

Who killed the victims of the Velisca Axe murders? And is the house haunted? You can find out for yourself. And you can even stay there overnight. Have a happy and safe Halloween, everyone. And be sure to lock your doors. Bye-bye. Well, all good things must come to an end.

I hope you enjoyed a nightmare before Halloween. And don't forget, you can find the names of all the podcasts involved in the show notes. along with where to listen. Each of the stories you heard in this collaboration were created by those podcasters to give you this extra entertainment. So please, wherever you're listening, let your podcaster know that you appreciate them and what they do. I'd also like to thank my team at Fowl Play Crime Series for helping me put together this episode. It was seriously a massive undertaking.

Again, I'm Shane Waters, and it's been my honor to be your friend in the dark. Good night.