Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 75: Haunted Resorts: The White Witch of Rose Hall and The Ghosts of Hotel Del Coronado // Dark Summer Series

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

We're continuing our descent into Dark Summer with a look at some of the most haunted, summery resorts in the world. Would you dare stay a night in the most haunted room at the Hotel Del Coronado? TW: Suicide Check out our merch here: https://www.heartstartspounding.com/stickers  This episode is brought to you by Liquid IV. Turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with Liquid I.V.® Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V.® when you go to liquidiv.com and use code HSP at checkout.   This episode is also sponsored by Apostrophe. Apostrophe is an online platform that connects you with an expert dermatology team to get customized acne treatment for your skinGet your first visit for only five dollars at Apostrophe.com/HSP when you use our code: HSP Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after-show called Footnotes. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. We have a newsletter now! Be sure to sign up for updates and more.

It's that feeling. When the energy in the room shifts. When the air gets sucked out of a moment. And everything starts to feel wrong. It's the instinct between fight or flight. When your brain is trying to make sense of what it's seeing. It's when your heart starts pounding. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I'm your host, Kaylyn Moore. We're deep into our summer series here on the show, and today I want to talk about something that's been on my mind for a while. Picture it. You're relaxing on the beach all day, soaking up the sun on vacation, and then you retire to your room at the resort at the end of the night. The cold water from the shower feels good on your sun-worn skin, and the thread count

of the sheets is so lovely. You fall asleep in just a few minutes ready to do it all again tomorrow. But sometime around 3 a.m. you wake up to a noise in your room. Maybe it's just the breeze coming through the window but maybe it's something else. But maybe it's something else. The place you're staying at, as beautiful as it is, has a dark past. Many resorts do. It's just that the tourism industry has done a pretty good job of making sure that you don't know that. Well, today I want to dive into the dark history of a few summery locations and the ghost stories

that accompany them. We're going to look at a Jamaican resort that's said to be haunted by a witch and then I want to tell you about the sunny Californian hotel and the mysterious tragedy that happened on its grounds. And as a reminder you can listen to this episode and every episode including archived episodes ad free by subscribing on Patreon or Apple Podcasts for just $5 a month. You'll also get an exclusive bonus episode each month. So far this summer we've covered Ouija board horror and I just released the newest bonus episode on secret societies. I'm really excited about that

one and like every bonus episode this idea was voted on by the Patreon High Council tier. If you want to listen and you're not a subscriber you can also do a free trial on Apple and Patreon to test drive and the links for those are in the show description. And if you sign up for Patreon now you'll get a free Heart Starts Pounding rogue Detecting Society sticker featuring our friendly neighborhood ghost, Jinx, when you hit your third month of subscription. I'm obsessed with these stickers, I actually can't wait to get mine and put it on my laptop. If you want to see what they look like, I'll put a link to heartstartspounding.com backslash

stickers in the show notes. So again, ad-free listening, exclusive monthly bonus episode, and free trials on Apple podcasts and Patreon. Okay, we're gonna get into it after a short break. This episode is sponsored by Liquid IV. Summer is upon us and it is quite hot in the rogue detecting society headquarters. Our old Victorian home is not the most efficiently

air-conditioned house, which means I need to keep cool this summer with things like ice cream, popsicles, lemonade, little treats. The thing is, ice cream is not very hydrating. That's why I keep my pantry stocked with liquid IV in my favorite summer flavors. Popsicle firecracker, rainbow sherbert. You can actually freeze them in molds and make hydrating liquid IV popsicles. Tear, pour, and live more. It's that simple. Liquid IV is extraordinary hydration for physical endurance, mental clarity, and overall well-being. A single stick of liquid

IV plus 16 ounces of water delivers better hydration than water alone with 3 times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink, plus 8 vitamins and nutrients, which is exactly what I need when hunting through our sweltering haunted attic looking for cursed objects. There are so many flavors to choose from, including new sugar-free flavors like raspberry melon, green grape, and white peach. You'll never ever get bored. And today we have a special offer for listeners of HeartStars Pounding.

Turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code HSP at checkout. That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code HSP at liquidiv.com. I want you to picture a grand mansion standing tall against a backdrop of a clear blue sky,

framed by lush greenery and tropical flora. This is Rose Hall, an 18th century Georgian mansion perched on the hills overlooking Montego Bay, Jamaica. With its whitewashed facade and imposing stone steps leading up to the entrance, it radiates an air of elegance and grandeur. Rose Hall sits over the sea and from its front steps you can see the turquoise water glistening in the sun just past a field of manicured grass. And while it's a beautiful summer stay for families on vacation, guests often complain of, well, strange things that happen inside. Take for instance the story of a woman who stayed at Rose Hall in 2007. One night, she lay in bed fast asleep

when she heard a banging on her door. She rolled over to one side to check the clock and the red glow said 2.30 a.m. through the darkness. Maybe she imagined the sound she thought as she drifted back to sleep. But there it was again. This time her eyes shot open. The room was so dark shapes danced in her eyes as she looked around the room. She reached for her husband to nervously wake him and ask him to see who was at the door, but he wasn't there. Terrified now, she tiptoed out of bed and bumbled her way over to the door in the

dark where she held her eye to the peephole. Outside was the shape of a man. It was… her husband? She pulled open the door, what are you doing out there? But her husband? She pulled open the door. What are you doing out there? But her husband looked confused. What do you mean? He asked. You asked me to come out here. Her husband proceeded to tell her that a few minutes prior, she had apparently woken him from his sleep and told him to go out into the hall.

But... she didn't. woken him from his sleep and told him to go out into the hall. But she didn't. She was dead asleep and she had never been one to sleepwalk or talk. Her mind immediately went to earlier that day when the couple, along with their 10 year old daughter, had done a tour of the grounds of Rose Hall, where they heard the terrifying stories of the resort's history, and how strange occurrences like this weren't that uncommon. And it's true, Rose Hall has a devastating past. It was first built by a man from England, Henry Fanning, on a plot of land he had purchased

to build a large sugar plantation on. Henry named the hall after the woman he was about to marry, Rose Kelly. He would never be able to enjoy the home, however, because he passed away shortly after the wedding. The home was completed by Rose's second husband, who also passed away before he could make any use of it. It was as if the land the home was built on was trying to purge itself of the ownership.

During the tour, the woman and her family also had heard stories of an evil spirit that haunts the grounds, known as the White Witch. It's said that the witch's above ground tomb is still on the property of Rose Hall and her spirit is forever tethered to the land. To tell the story of the White Witch, we have to tell the story of how Rose Hall came to be, which is deeply embedded in the history of Jamaica. So let's go back to that time, in the 1700s, when the White Witch wasn't resting in her tomb. She was a living woman named Annie Palmer.

Annie Palmer was born in the 18th century in England, but moved with her parents to Haiti around the age of seven. It's said that while she was there, she was mostly raised by her Haitian nanny while her parents did business. That nanny taught her how to do everything, how to ride a bike, how to braid hair, and also how to practice Haitian Voodoo. Voodoo is a respected religious practice in Haiti brought over by West African slaves who practiced it for over 6,000 years. If Haitian practices were taught to white

families, they were almost always blended with Catholicism to make it more palatable. But Voodoo was and is still openly practiced to honor nature. It's not the voodoo doll revenge type religion it often gets portrayed as. A typical practice happens outside and can start with a priest or priestess sacrificing a chicken to a god as a welcome offering so that they can provide spiritual influence on issues in congregants' lives, like their health. So Annie, with the aid of her nanny, turned to voodoo to help when her parents became gravely ill when she was just 10 years old. Her mother and father both died the same year

from what was most likely yellow fever. By 18 years old, Annie went to Jamaica to find a husband where she met John Palmer, the nephew of Rose Kelly, who was the woman the hall was named after. Annie would have walked up to Rose Hall on a sunny day when the land was a fully functioning plantation. Thousands of slaves would have been working the land, cutting sugarcane since before the sun rose, hands raw and bloody from squeezing the sugar

cane all day to extract the product. And yet, when she saw this, she immediately fell in love. She and John Palmer married shortly after. But if you look at historical records, you'll see that John Palmer died shortly after the two were wed. There are a few different versions of what happened that survived from over 200 years ago. One says that Annie was bored with John and took a lover, perhaps one of her many, many slaves.

And one night during a rendezvous, he caught her and became violent. Another says that Annie wanted the plantation to herself. Either way, it's believed that one night she brought him a poisoned drink and watched as he writhed around on the floor until the light left his eyes. And after that, Annie ran the plantation and her personal life with bloodlust. She was said to be extremely cruel to her slaves and what started as violence as discipline became violence for sport. She would watch them be beaten from her favorite balcony and then instruct them to be starved to death, all alone in the basement if they disobeyed her.

Anyone caught running away was likely snapped up in bear traps that were set along the edge of the plantation. Even the children were put to ridiculous standards. If they spilled a single drop of water in the heavy wooden buckets they used to carry water to the main house, they would be severely punished. No one in Annie's life was spared and she was vitriolic towards each of her following husbands all of which she killed. Her second husband was stabbed to death and just to make sure the deed was totally done,

Annie poured hot oil into his ears. Her third husband was strangled. Their bodies are said to be buried under three palm trees which still blow today in the Jamaican breeze by the fifth hole of the Cinnamon Hill golf course. Annie wouldn't meet her match until she struck up a relationship with one of the slaves on the plantation, a man by the name of Taku. Taku was patient with Annie, possibly because he wanted to slowly gain her trust and use what he learned from her to protect his friends and family. But one day, Taku left Annie's quarters to find that his grandniece, Millicent, had been killed. What happened? Taku asked. It was explained to him that Annie had used a spell to kill Millicent when she realized that another man Annie was interested in, Robert Rutherford was eyeing

the girl. It was then that Taku swore he'd get his revenge, and the next day, he calmly walked into Annie's quarters, digging his fingernails into his fists to control his rage. There, he found Annie laying on her bed casually, the warm Caribbean breeze gently flowing into her room from an open window. She looked like she didn't have a care in the world, none of this mattered to her. Taku was overtaken by such a violent rage that he lunged at Annie and strangled her in her own bed. Yet another owner of the plantation

to meet an unfortunate and untimely end. But Annie didn't let her earthly death stop her terror on the property. She's haunted Rose Hall from her grave, an above ground tomb that sits on the grounds as a grim reminder of the hotel's history. In 1833 slavery was abolished in Jamaica after a slave uprising and the plantation fell into disrepair. Eventually a family tried

moving in in the early 1900s but moved out when an invisible hand pushed their maid off of Rose's favorite balcony. It remained unoccupied until the wealthy Rollins family immaculately restored the manor in the 1960s to its full splendor, even making it a commercial tourist destination with a restaurant, a bar, a golf course, and a wedding venue. Still, even after all these years, there's a portrait that hangs in the main hall of the resort. Though there are no names on the photo,

it's assumed that it features Annie wearing her favorite color, red, which reminded her of blood. In the portrait, the woman in red is surrounded by children who all look strangely morose. That's because Annie never had any children, and according to the legends, she used dolls as stand-ins for the family she never had to make her look like a good-hearted mother. It's said that when you walk under the photo to this day, that Annie's eyes will track

your every move. And that picture would have been seen by the family who experienced the strange event at the beginning of this story, when the woman's husband wound up out in the hall after his wife told him to leave. Some have suggested that that was the voice of Annie, expelling a man from a woman's sleeping chambers for fear she would be killed in her own bed. While it's been debated how accurate the story of Annie Palmer actually is,

how much of her story is real versus how much became folklore over the years, it's not hard to find stories of people who experienced hauntings on the property. It's also not uncommon to find stories of people who believe a spirit attached to them on the property and followed them home. In 2018, a man complained that he felt like something was off after visiting Rose Hall with his wife on vacation. He felt like no matter how much sleep he got upon return, he was always horribly exhausted, something that was not common for him. He also was randomly struck with bouts of

deep and intense sadness. The man claimed that the electronics in his home had all started going haywire out of the blue, not usually one to believe in the supernatural. He couldn't help but wonder if something from Rose Hall had followed him home. Another woman couldn't shake a recurring nightmare that she was photographing Annie's apparition, even when she had made it all the way back home to New York. In the dream, her camera would be smashed as she tried to capture a photo of a white figure. She would awake from the dream feeling like she was being suffocated in her own bed, her heart beating out of her chest.

Whether or not you believe in the ghost of Annie Palmer, the White Witch, Rose Hall was built on land that didn't want it by people who died untimely deaths trying to complete their vision. And to me, it makes sense that now as people come to the island to visit, to marvel at its horrors and indulge in its beauty, they feel as if something is trying to expel them from the land and occasionally haunt them even when they make it home. Is it the ghost of Annie Palmer who haunts Rose Hall? Or is there something else?

Something that belonged to Jamaica way before Annie even went there that's causing these disturbances. More after the break. This episode is brought to you by Apostrophe. If you have ever felt self-conscious about your skin, just know I see you. I've always struggled with redness, acne, you name it. I was so self-conscious for a huge chunk of my life, but once I started prioritizing skincare and learning about my

skin, it really started improving, which is why I'm so excited to partner with Apostrophe. Apostrophe is an online platform that connects you with an expert dermatology team to get customized acne treatment for your skin. Through apostrophe, you can get access to oral and topical medication that use clinically proven ingredients to help clear acne. All you have to do is fill out an online consultation about your skin goals and medical history. Then snap a few selfies and a dermatology provider will create a customized treatment plan just for you. I've been using apostrophe for almost a year now and I really love my results. My goal was definitely to reduce redness in my skin and my personalized skin care

included azelaic acid which helps with the redness. The results are great. My skin is smoother, it's definitely less red, it looks a lot more calm. I look refreshed in the morning when I use it the night before. And as someone who spends a lot of time with the camera pointed at my face for the internet to see now, it helps give me a lot more confidence. We have a special deal for our audience. Get your first visit for only $5 at apostrophe.com slash hsp when you use our code HSP. That's a savings of $15.

This code is only available to our listeners. To get started, just go to apostrophe.com slash HSP and click get started. Then use our code HSP at signup and you'll get your first visit for only $5. Thank you to Apostrophe for sponsoring this episode. I wouldn't be able to do an episode on haunted resorts without talking about the infamous Hotel del Coronado in California. Nestled along the sun-kissed shores of Coronado Island in Southern California stands an iconic red-roofed edifice that has witnessed more than its fair

share of history and mystery. This opulent Victorian beachfront resort has graced the coastline since 1888. Its gleaming white façade and striking red turrets rise against the backdrop of the serene Pacific Ocean, presenting an image of timeless elegance and grandeur. But, as with many beautiful and interesting things I talk about on this show, there's much more to the Hotel del Coronado than its hauntingly beautiful design. Just ask Cecilia, who worked in the hotel's gift shop starting around 2008. When Cecilia would help guests in the gift shop, she would ask them how they were liking

the hotel, and sometimes they would get this look on their face. Like they had something on their mind, but they were afraid to tell her. Almost like they thought she would think they were crazy if they said anything. But usually they did. They would nervously ask her, Do you think the hotel is haunted? Guests would go on to describe strange things that were happening in their rooms. Like how they would close the windows and turn off all the lights when they left for the day, only to come back and find that every light and fan was somehow on.

And yet, everything else would be right where they left it, it's not like their room had been serviced. Or how sometimes the volume on their TV sets would randomly switch to full blast. Or how in the dead of night, the censored light in the bathroom would go off even though no one was in there. According to Cecilia, this always happened between 4 and 4.30 in the morning. Cecilia was never surprised when guests told her their stories because it happened so frequently. And to be honest, she experienced quite a bit of strange activity herself,

just working in the hotel's gift shop. It usually started with the lights flickering. She felt like that signaled that something was about to happen. And then an object like a book or a pair of binoculars would fly off their display case and onto the floor. Sometimes she'd come into work and find that not only had the books flown off their shelves,

but they had arranged themselves near the threshold of the room. One time, Cecilia noticed that a marble game on display was missing three marbles. Maybe it was just some kid that came in and jacked them without anyone noticing. It was annoying, but it was just the display game, so she left it alone. However, two months later, she noticed that two of the marbles had reappeared in the game. No stranger to the weird things that happened at the hotel, she jokingly said out loud to

whatever was haunting the store, if you're going to bring the marbles back, at least bring all of them. Just then, a perfume bottle across the room smashed onto the floor a few feet away from where it was displayed. Cecilia was the only one in the store when it happened. When asked exactly what she thought was going on, she explained that she believed there were a few spirits that haunted the grounds at the Hotel del Coronado. But the most prevalent one, and the one that comes up the most

when you research the history of the hotel, is the spirit of Kate Morgan. On Thanksgiving Day, 1892, a 24-year-old woman checked into the Coronado under the name Lottie Anderson Bernard. She had no luggage with her, yet she didn't give a checkout date. The clerk assigned her room 302 for $3.80 a night. That included all meals, and he sent her on her way. For the next five days, the young woman stayed in the hotel. At first, her demeanor was chipper.

She was drinking whiskey cocktails and riding horses. But staff would later testify that as the week progressed, she seemed to become more ill. I'm dying of stomach cancer, she told one staff member. Another she told she was suffering from neuralgia, which was causing her severe pain but that she had a brother who was a doctor who would be arriving any day to look after her. On day four of her stay, she went out into the shops in San Diego where she purchased a gun, a.44 caliber American Bulldog pistol, a Christmas present for a friend, she insisted. On day five,

she vanished. It wasn't until the next morning when an electrician was walking down towards the beach after the storm that he saw the body of a woman sprawled out on the steps of the beach path, a bullet hole in her right temple. out on the steps of the beach path, a bullet hole in her right temple. The hotel tried to find her next of kin, but the doctor brother she spoke so highly about seemed to not exist. In fact, the woman seemed to not exist.

Anywhere they searched the name Lottie Anderson Bernard came up empty. She must have used that as an alias. To find the true identity of the woman, police sketched her face and what she was wearing, all black everything, black dress, black underwear, and even included the ring she wore, hoping that any of these details would trigger something in someone's mind. She earned the nickname in the papers of the beautiful stranger. Soon, an unknown source sent in a letter to police claiming that the woman went by the name Kate Morgan and that she was from an upper class family in Iowa.

That's around the time that police get a phone call from the Grant family, a well-to-do family in Los Angeles. They say that their servant, a young woman named Katie Logan, had gone missing. She left the day before Thanksgiving, saying she had to go down to San Diego to have some papers signed but would be back the next day to cook them Thanksgiving dinner. She had left all of her belongings at their home, so the police went over to the Grant family house to check them out. And inside of her luggage was a marriage certificate for Katie Farmer and Thomas Morgan. Bingo. This must

have been the woman at Hotel del Coronado. On December 11th, the San Francisco Chronicle published that there was no doubt the woman was Katie Morgan. The Grants were shocked that she had used a fake name with them and they said that Katie didn't tell them much about her past but she seemed to have a rocky marriage with Thomas. The police received a report from a witness who claimed that Katie was with Thomas on her train ride down to San Diego, but that the two were arguing and Thomas got off in Orange County while Katie continued on. The coroner with her identity confirmed ruled her death

a suicide without ever conducting a full autopsy. He didn't even check to see if she had the stomach cancer she told so many about. Obviously questions lingered. Was this truly a suicide or was she a victim of foul play even though the gun she bought the day before was found near her body? Did Thomas come back to find her in San Diego and murder her on the beach? What were they arguing about on the train? Conflicting testimonies at the inquest only fueled speculation. Rumors started spreading that Katie was actually heading to the hotel to meet a lover after it was revealed that really she was estranged from her husband.

Kate's family in Iowa insisted that it couldn't have been a suicide. But what it was, we may never know. There's a lot we won't ever know about Kate. Like why did she lie about her illnesses? Why did she tell the Grants she would be back to cook Thanksgiving dinner? And if she was from a well-off family, why did she move to California to be a servant? And perhaps it's this unknown bit of Kate's history that has prevented her from ever leaving the property. To this day, guests and staff report encountering Kate's restless spirit.

Usually it starts with her initials. It's not uncommon to wake up in the hotel and see K.M. on a bathroom mirror, as if traced in the condensation of hot breath. A woman believed to be Kate is often seen gliding down corridors, standing by windows, or causing inexplicable disturbances in room 302, which is now room 3327. Lights flicker, doorknobs rattle, and bedcovers are mysteriously pulled off in the dead of night. In one particularly eerie encounter, a secret service agent assigned to then Vice President George Bush was spooked by strange occurrences just down the hall from Kate's room.

He demanded a room change in the middle of the night and was allowed one. Some more Kate sightings after a short break. sightings after a short break. In 2023, a woman named Luneth B was staying at the hotel during a trip down the California coast. She hadn't heard much about it. Certainly not that it was haunted. But that night as she lay in bed with her partner asleep beside her, they both awoke at 3am to the feeling that something was off. They couldn't fall back asleep no matter how hard they tried. They said it almost felt like something in the room was preventing them from going back to bed.

was preventing them from going back to bed. And then, just as Cecilia heard many other guests talk about, the bathroom light started flickering. It was sensor controlled and only would go on if someone was in the bathroom. But the two watched as it flickered on and then back off, flickered on and then back off. Theickered on and then back off. The two jumped out of bed and decided to walk up and down the beach until the sun rose in a few hours. They were too afraid of what was in that room. When they came back

later in the morning, they told the woman at the front desk what happened and her face went pale. She informed them that they were staying in Kate's room, and told them her story. They didn't want to believe that's what was happening, but when they got back into the room, the light was back on even though they made sure to turn it off before they left. That night, Luneth slept a little better. She had closed the bathroom door and put a towel under it, just in case whatever it was came back. And sure enough, when she woke up, the bathroom light was still on.

Too terrified to stay, they checked out early. There's also the story from 20 years ago when a 12 year old girl stayed at the hotel. There's also the story from 20 years ago when a 12 year old girl stayed at the hotel. She was thrilled by the glamour of the Coronado with its old Hollywood touches and dutiful bell boys. Walking through the front doors, she felt a strange feeling of anticipation that she chalked up to excitement as she checked out the lobby and vintage elevators. When she walked in, one of the staff members handed her a pamphlet that had a section about Kate Morgan. She remembered being entranced by

the ghostly story of Kate, and she turned the pamphlet over and over in her hands, reading everything she could about the young woman's story. But that excited feeling slowly turned into feelings of dread. After she reached the downstairs area by the gift shop Cecilia would eventually work at. The more time she spent in that area of the hotel, the worse she felt. She wondered if she was just scaring herself

by reading so much about Kate. Up in the room with her mom and sister, she lied on the bed and read her book. Her father decided to go out into the hall to grab some ice, leaving the door open behind him, but as he did, the door violently slammed shut. Her dad came back in and asked, honestly, what any dad would have, why the hell are you all slamming doors?" But in the room he found three women, scared stiff, with all the color drained from their

faces. He tried to calm the mood by playfully asking if they had seen a ghost or something, and the little girl's stomach dropped. How could the door have slammed shut so violently? The windows had been closed and there was no draft. And later, she nudged the door to test it out, but it hardly budged. It was really heavy. It would have taken some extreme force to close the door like that. She felt there was no explanation other than the ghost she was so excited about was making her presence known.

other than the ghost she was so excited about was making her presence known. When Cecilia was asked what was haunting the hotel, she said there were a few things, but only one of them was Kate. She doesn't think Kate's the only spirit there. And when I was researching the hotel, I read tons of old newspapers looking for whatever else I could find on it.

And to my surprise, I found another story that resembles Kate's from just a few years after her death. In 1907, two fishermen were out on the beach by the Hotel Coronado when they stumbled upon the body of one of the hotel's guests. He was sprawled out not too far from where Kate was found but that wasn't the only similarity. He, too, had a gunshot wound to his head. His name was Amos Anderson and he was also from a wealthy out-of-state family. The cause of his death was ruled suicide but not many other details about the man are known.

Is it possible that Amos is also haunting this hotel? Kate's not the only guest to have suffered a tragedy on the grounds, and perhaps she's not alone in haunting it. So remember that this summer as you head out on your vacations if you're lucky enough to do so. Every place has a history. Don't let the tourism industry hide that from you. Dig it up and tell everyone just like I'm doing. This show really is never going to be invited to stay at a hotel, is it?

Okay, that's almost all I have for you. I mentioned at the beginning of the show that the Patreon High Council tier chooses the monthly bonus episode. Well, they also get access to a weekly show called Footnotes where I talk about things that didn't make it into the episode and go through photos and videos and other research I collected. I filmed these and put them up on Thursday nights

after the episode comes out. For this one, I've got some ghosty photos to share, some really scary ones. And I've also got a special guest that some Heart Starts Pounding superfans may remember, and that is Leo. Here's a brief excerpt from our convo. This is an image that I thought was really spooky.

So this image comes from a person whose father worked at the hotel for decades. And he took this photo one night and showed his daughter who posted it. What do you see when you first look at this image? An ugly rug. In a long hallway. In a long hallway and it's dark and creepy. Okay, let me zoom in. Look at this blur in the middle of the hallway. Interesting. What do you think about that?

It's not like off to the side or like floating. It looks like it is like someone standing. Yeah. It's in the middle of the hallway. It's the height of a woman. It's on the third floor by her room. The evidence grows. It's very eerie. This, I think they say is the biggest evidence caught on camera of something peculiar happening near her room. I'd be inclined to say that yeah, that might be an apparition.

Because it's like, okay, yeah, maybe it is a smudge, but it's like it's in the middle of a hallway. It looks like it's someone standing there and it's near her room. Yeah, that's the scariest part. I know the longer I look at it, the more unsettled I feel. So yeah, that's what you have to look forward to on this week's foot scariest part. I know, the longer I look at it, the more unsettled I feel. So yeah, that's what you have to look forward to on this week's footnotes. If you're interested in joining the High Council tier on Patreon, check out the link in the description. This has been Heart Starts Pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore. Heart Starts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Additional research by

Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. And until next time, stay curious.