Every Town - Halloween’s Dark Reality: The Night That Enables Evil

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Tonight isn’t about ghosts, goblins or monsters, it’s about what a costume lets ordinary people get away with. Four true stories, one night that keeps inviting bad choices. So let’s head around the country and check out Halloween’s Dark Reality: The Night That Enables Evil. To Get 15% off your next gift, go to UNCOMMONGOODS.com/EVERYTOWN 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://youtu.be/5ZsH4B5Miak 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watchv=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s⁠ ⁠https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy⁠ International & Other Ways To Watch: ⁠https://www.anangryboy.com/⁠ 💀 MERCH: https://scary-mysteries-merch.dashery.com/ 💀 Scary Mysteries SECRET VAULT: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries⁠   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠ 👁Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg⁠ 👁 TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald⁠ 👁Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial⁠ 👁 X: ⁠https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1⁠  🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at ⁠[e-mail]⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you ready to dive into the unknown? Join me, Peyton Moreland, on Into the Dark, the True Crime podcast from Ono Media with a hint of horror and mystery. Each week, I dive into a different case, breaking down the facts and pondering the age-old question, why do people do what they do? Now, sometimes the answer isn't so clear, and that's why I'll also explore conspiracy theories, hauntings, and all things spooky. From the Green River Killer to the Mothman incident, we will unravel all of the questions that keep us up at night. So don't miss out.

Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform. New episodes drop every Wednesday. Into the dark, where true crime meets the eerie unknown. Every town has a dark side. Porch lights glow and plastic fangs click. But Halloween's real trick isn't the costumes. It's the permission it gives. The mask loosens the space between impulse and consequence.

Most people play pretend, but a few don't. And those are the stories we're checking out today. Hey guys, it's Andrew. Welcome back to Everytown. Thanks for tuning in. Now, tonight isn't about ghosts, goblins, or monsters. It's about what a costume lets ordinary people get away with. Four stories, one night that keeps inviting bad choices.

So, let's head around the country and check out Halloween's dark reality, the night that enables evil. Every single Halloween while kids fall asleep with face paint cracking and parents are picking up candy wrappers while cops all around the country tighten up. And they know the pattern, and after dark the calls stack up, break-ins, assaults, and sometimes even worse. A Halloween isn't just about movies and pumpkins. It's one of the riskiest nights of the calendar year. Studies show property crime jumps around 24%, and violent incidents can spike close to 50%.

The numbers are interesting, but they don't paint the full picture. If you want to know why the night tilts this way, you have to rewind. Pass candy corn and haunted houses and past superheroes on sidewalks. All the way to before Halloween was even a word. 2000 years back, the Celts marked Sawin across what's now Ireland, Scotland, and parts of France. October 31st wasn't just the end of summer. It was a hinge in the year, a night when the barrier between worlds thinned. Ancestors could visit, but so could things you didn't want to meet.

So to ward off these frightening things, whatever they were, well, people lit huge bonfires and threw on animal hides. basically tried to look frightening enough that whatever was out there might mistake you for one of its own and just pass on by. On Sawin, rules loosened. Young people roamed and played tricks, and the social order of things flipped for a night, which should sound familiar. When Christianity moved in, the church tried to sand it down. All Saints Day and the evening before became All Hallows Eve, Halloween. And the name changed.

The instinct didn't. The costumes stayed in the idea that this night is different stayed too. And with it, the belief, conscious or not, that you can push lines you wouldn't cross on any other evening. Irish immigrants carried the old customs to America in the 1800s, and by then Halloween had changed. October 31st became a night where a mask could hide who you were, and, dark. could hide what you did. At the early 1900s, the vibes soured. Harmless tricks slid into real damage. Smash windows, torch buildings, injuries, and costumes gave cover and anonymity turned pranks into crimes. And police started seeing the pattern, and this wasn't holiday mischief anymore. It was

burglary, assault, and worse. Today, the numbers make it plain. Halloween ranked, among the most dangerous nights of the year. Property crime climbs by roughly a quarter, and violent incidents jump by about half, especially between 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. As to why exactly, it's pretty simple. Masked ran anonymity you don't get on a normal Tuesday. Alcohol flows, and crowds create confusion.

And baked into the culture from all those years back is the idea that rules bend on this night. So if Halloween tilts the rules, well, this is what it looks like when someone uses that tilt on purpose. A Halloween night, 2016, in Sanford, Florida. Joseph Smith and Roland Deloche were winding down from another ordinary day. And Joseph, who was 27, was an aspiring rapper, just two weeks away from releasing his first album. His older brother, 41-year-old Roland, had just gotten home from work, and he was a responsible guy who never missed a shift and never complained.

Both brothers lived with her mother, Barbara, and their father had died a few years back, and Barbara had suffered a heart attack not long after. So the boys moved home to help with bills and make sure she was never alone. Family came first. At 8.54 p.m. that night, well, somebody knocked on their door. And Barbara answered expecting some late trick-or-treaters. Instead, she found a figure, standing before her in a mask. This masked individual pushed past her into the house.

Joseph was in the living room when the first shot rang out. Roland heard the gunfire from his bedroom and came running to help. He made it halfway across the room before the second shot dropped him. Then the killer turned the gun on Barbara. He forced her to her knees and made her beg for her life while her sons lay dying on the floor. For terrifying moments, she was certain she was about to join them. But the gunmen just walked out and disappeared into a neighborhood full of costumed people. Joseph died at the scene, and Roland died at the hospital.

Barbara survived, but she had to watch both her sons get murdered right in front of her. Police read the scene, deliberate, nothing stolen. And someone came to that door to kill the Smith brothers. But why? A lead surfaces. 30-year-old Dante James out of Chicago was staying nearby. The day after the murders, he's picked up on weapons charges. A gun at the place he's staying says it's his. The serial number is filed off.

He bonds out, though, cuts the ankle monitor, and runs. When they get him back eventually, he's cleared as the trigger man in the double murder case. But detectives think he and his girlfriend no more. more than they're saying. For the family members, they believe Joseph was the target, trying to leave street life for music, and Roland died the way Big Brothers do, running toward danger when family screams.

In this case, Halloween helped the killer, whoever they were, stake out the house without standing out just another mask on the block, and walk to the door like you belong, and leave into a river of disguises and never look back, and Barbara still lives on Hayes Drive. Every October 31st, the night rewinds. This particular case is still unsolved, with a reward for $15,000 still out there for any information leading to an arrest.

Somewhere, a killer walks free, shielded by the same holiday that let him knock, step in, and take two sons in under a minute. The holidays sneak up fast, but it's not too early to get your shopping done and actually have fun with it. Uncommon goods makes holiday shopping stress-free and joyful with thousands of one-of-a-kind gifts you can't find anywhere else. Uncommon goods looks for products that are high quality, unique, and often handmade or made in the U.S. Many are crafted by

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To get 15% off your next gift, go to Uncomcom slash Everytown. That's Uncommonoods.com slash everytown for 15% off. Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon goods were all out of the ordinary. Now this case in Sanford was planned violence, but in DePue, New York, there was a different kind of terror. No witness, no weapon, just a kid in a Halloween costume who never finishes a two-mile walk home. Its unsolved crime takes us to Ransom Road in Lancaster, where in 1982, nearly 37 years ago, a young man was... On October 30th, 1982, 18-year-old James Adamski was getting ready for the night. He looks forward to all year. Halloween is his thing, and he's built an Alice Cooper get-up, heavy eyeliner.

teased hair, the whole shock rock grin. James is a normal kid from upstate, artistic, and he liked to bowl on the weekends. And he's got plans after graduation and a family that believes in him. 18-year-old James Adamski was a senior at Depew High School. From all accounts that we're aware of, he was a super friendly guy, well-liked in high school. That night he heads to the 5 and 23 bar for a Halloween party packed with costumed college kids, taking advantage of of an all-you-can-drink special. He spends the night bouncing between friends, soaking in the outfits and music, and a little after 3.30 a.m., so technically, Halloween morning, he starts the two-mile walk home along

transit road. Still in costume, it's a route he knows, and he never makes it to the end. By morning, his family knows something's not right. He's not at a friend's house, sleeping it off, and James isn't the type to disappear without a word. So they call police, and DePue turns out. Officers, firefighters, volunteers, combing fields and ditches, while the Adomskies wait for a knock or call that doesn't come. Days stretch into weeks with nothing to hold on to. On December 26th, the Beatty-two, two rabbit hunters cut through a patch of woods about four miles from where James was last seen and find a shallow grave pulled over with leaves and scrap. Inside it is James, still wearing the costume he was last seen in.

The medical examiner rules homicide by blunt force, multiple blows to the head with something heavy, a bat, two by four maybe, perhaps a tire iron. Tough to say for sure since he had been in those woods for so long. But whatever it was, it was swung with a rage, its intentions, visible and final. Detectives work the obvious angles, and then the far-fetched ones. And everyone at the party, and everyone who might have been on that road, anyone who had words with anyone that night. A scuffle at the bar gets ruled out, and the people involved have nothing to do with James. He isn't mixed up in drugs or fights, and he doesn't have any known enemies. The picture that remains is painfully ordinary. A teen and he is a teenager. A teenager,

walking home in the dark with a killer somewhere nearby, watching him at the bar, trailing him when he left, or taking a chance when they pass by a costume kid alone on that road. This case is also still unsolved. Police have put modern forensics to old evidence and posted an $11,000 reward, but time is done what time does. Unfortunately, we've only had two leads, since 2017, and, you know, both of those leads didn't really go anywhere. His mother and father

have both since passed away, and, you know, while they were living, they were never given closure. His little brother Andy, eight years old then, remembers one last clean detail. James leaning down before heading out and saying, have a good time trick-or-treating kid with a kiss on the forehead. For the Adomskys, Halloween didn't just lose its shine. It became a date they carry every year. A reminder that somewhere out there, the person who took James used the night he loved his cover. If James's case is a vanishing on the margin of town, Midland is the wilderness version of the same story.

Same weekend, same age, same decision to take the quick way. Only this time the trail itself becomes the question. October 30th, 1998 in Midland, Ontario. 18-year-old Jake Just is all set for Halloween weekend. Tall, easy-going, blonde hair and green eyes. Jake Just loved music, snowboarding, and skateboarding. The 18-year-old high school student had a job, a girlfriend, and a family who adored him. That night, the plan is simple.

A party out in the woods. A place where the team. and the sunnyside area are known to hang out when they want to cut loose. The party is small town familiar, something you might have done growing up yourself. Beer in the woods, dares that feel hilarious at 18, the kind of night you'd expect to eventually outgrow, not fear. Close to midnight, the revelry starts to wind down and Jake and his buddy decide to head on home.

There are two ways back. well-lit streets through town or the quicker Sunnyside Trail, dark and cutting through the trees. I'm still going towards the light on the street because I want to walk down the street, right? Because we're falling and tripping on everything and I wasn't having a good time at all, like, walking through there. So by the time we got through, he wants to go this way to Vinden, which is a bush, the whole way. That's where that swamp is, whatever, where everyone's searched. They decide to split up. His friend takes the lights.

Jake opts for the creepier shortcut. But it's all good. They'll meet on the other side. They've done it before. Now sometime after midnight, now officially Halloween, Jake steps on to the trail, and he isn't seen again. His friend waits for a bit, but at some point decides to head home alone. And he didn't think anything bad had happened.

Just without cell phones, you can only wait around for so long. At first, there's no panic Because maybe he doubled back Maybe he ran into someone But the minute's stack And by morning his family knows This is all wrong Now I called him the next day

He wasn't home yet So I figured he was just out Like he found something else to do That's the way he was Like he would have seen something And went to another party or something like that And that was the last time I've seen him What follows is one of Midlands

Largest searches The whole town pitches in. Tracking dogs are sent along the trails, aerial sweeps are conducted, and teams push through brush and marsh. Ponds are checked and low areas dragged, and tips come in, interviews pile up, but still nothing breaks. And the hardest part of it all is that there isn't a single shred of evidence pointing to anything happening to Jake at all. There's no clothes, no wallet, no remains. It's as if Halloween night sucked him up into the void. A theories gather because the evidence doesn't.

An accident on the trail seems plausible until you consider how thoroughly the area was combed and how well Jake knew the route. Getting lost and slipping into the marshes is raised and ruled down the same way. The theory that sits heavy is the one people don't want to say out loud. violence. Rumors surface, and someone chasing them from the party, a dangerous encounter on the path, or a deliberate targeting. Remember, Halloween makes that all easier. Darkness, crowds in costumes, late hours, noise that can mask a struggle. It all creates room for a predator to move without drawing a second look. This is classified as a missing person case to date.

We can't rule out foul play in any way of the shape or form in any of the scenarios that we just described. But it is still considered a missing person case. Today, Jake would be in his mid-40s. And if he's alive, he's living alive far from the boy who stepped onto that trail. The more likely truth is that something happened on Halloween of 98. An accident nobody found, but more than likely, a crime someone hid well. The case still gets reviewed from time to time, new tips still get checked. The Sunnyside Trail is better lit now.

But for people who remember that weekend, it's a landmark with a shadow. In a place, a promising teenager walked into the dark and never came out. And then Halloween crosses a threshold it has no right to, out of the woods and into a dorm room. In Long Beach, New York, the horror is in chaos in the street or the woods. its ritual knowledge inside a locked community. October 31st, 1986. Torah High School promised shelter from the noise outside, an Orthodox yeshiva where boys could sink into prayer and study

and let the world pass by. For 15-year-old, Cham Weiss, and two weeks shy of his 16th birthday, it was a place to deepen faith, not to test it. His family knew what survival meant, The grandparents who outlasted the camps. My father, Anton, born in a displaced person's camp after the war. They built a quiet life on Staten Island, observant, orderly, and safe, so their children could grow up with a certainty they never had.

And Cham fit the mold, serious student, respectful, careful with the rules that govern Orthodox life. He kept a single room on the third floor, move through the cadence of the day. Talmud, Minion, meals, more study, with the calm of someone who believes discipline is a kind of freedom. Halloween night slid past

almost unnoticed inside the yeshiva. Classes, services, and that familiar routine. Later, classmates saw a champ reading in the hallway, and the building thinning to silence as boys drifted back to their rooms to sleep before morning prayers. Now, sometime after midnight, now November 1st, Cham turned out his light and lay down in his narrow bed.

The next morning, when Cham didn't appear for Shabbat prayers, a dorm supervisor went to check on him. He found Cham on the floor of his room, still in his PJs. A single, crushing blow from a sharp, heavy object had killed him fast and without warning. The weapon was gone, and there were no signs. of forced entry. His room opened to a fire escape, but nothing suggested it was used. Nothing was missing, no overturned furniture, and no defensive wounds. Everything pointed to an attack while he slept by someone who knew the building and, more unsettling, knew the community. Detective Don Daly, a 25-year veteran, kept circling the same details. The murder fell on the Sabbath,

when observing Jews avoid writing and other weekday tasks, already unusual for a crime scene. But the room carried signals of ritual understanding. And Cham's body had been moved after death, first arranged in bed, then placed on the floor. In Orthodox practice, the deceased is set at the lowest, coolest point in the room. A window was left open, indicating police say that the killer was familiar. familiar with Orthodox Jewish traditions.

A gesture consistent with opening a window or door to let the soul depart. Taken together, it didn't look like a stranger blundering through a dorm room at random. It looked like someone who understood Orthodox custom well enough to leave a scene that nodded to it. Someone from inside that world, possibly even inside the school. As detectives widened the lens, unsettling details surfaced. In the months before the murder, the yeshiva's principal twice phoned the wife's home to request a private meeting with Cham. What was discussed was never shared with the family, and Cham avoided the topic altogether. After the crime scene was sealed, investigators permitted a memorial candle in his room in keeping with tradition.

Two days later, a second candle appeared. No one on staff or in the dorm took responsibility. And to police, it suggested someone had slipped back into the room and possibly the killer themselves. And then the investigation ran into a different kind of barrier. Detective Daly convened students, teachers, and rabbis, asking for any fragment that might help. We would like to interview any student, faculty member, employee, or anyone who was involved in any way with that yeshiva during that time period. And he was met with only silence. And part of it he later said reflected religious caution.

In Orthodox practice, you don't level grave accusations on suspicion alone. You need proof or corroboration. In effect, the same principles that ordered daily life also stalled cooperation. Leeds pulled in multiple directions. Some speculated about a troubled student. Others looked at faculty. A few still wondered about an outsider with rare access. In 1994, the family received an anonymous Easter card addressed to Cham,

and around the same time his gravestone was defaced. The Hebrew letters spelling out murder, though, with an incorrect final character. Whether either act came from the killer or a taunting copycat, that was never established. In 2013, NASA County Police formally reopened the case and posted a $25,000 reward and revisited witnesses and applied modern forensics to preserved evidence. Their public posture has been consistent. The killer likely had intimate knowledge of the building and the community. And yet, decades on, still no arrests.

Police say they have DNA evidence, including a hair found at the murder scene and hope to use it to catch the killer. And while tips have already begun to flow to investigators, the one to break this case remains elusive. Four Halloweens and four families who don't get the holiday back. In Sanford, a mask turned a porch into cover. And to Pew, an Alice Cooper costume, made a kid both visible and vulnerable. In Midland, shortcut trail offered speed instead of safety. And in Long Beach, Someone used ritual knowledge to move through a dorm without leaving a clean trail. Different crimes, same leverage. Halloween supplies a permission structure.

Anonymity from masks, confusion from crowds, and darkness that eats detail, alcohol that lowers breaks. The night is liminal and rules feel looser, consequences further away. And that's all some people need. Not ghosts, people. People who see a window and step right through it. And maybe that instinct is older than the candy in the porch lights. Salwin's idea that the boundary thins and anything can walk among us. The truth is simpler and colder.

On October 31st, the boundary that thins is between impulse and action. So enjoy the night, but respect it. Choose light over shortcuts. Keep your group tight. Open your door with purpose. And remember, the scariest thing on Halloween isn't what's in a mask.

It's what the mask that's a regular person do. Stay safe out there. And that's it for today's every town. Thanks for tuning in. If you want more from us, check out our feature film An Angry Boy, a dark revenge thriller,

perfect for the Halloween season, now available to rent on all major platforms. Remember to come back here next week, Same place, same time for another episode of Everytown, though it's strange and mysterious stories, because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.