Morbid - Anna George and the Murder of George Saxton

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

On the evening of October 6, 1898, forty-eight-year-old George Saxton, brother of First Lady Ida McKinley, was riding his bike to the home of his lady friend Eva Althouse when an assailant dressed in black emerged from the shadows and fired two shots. Wounded, George crawled towards Eva’s house and had just reached the front steps when the shooter approached and fired two more shots, killing him almost instantly.Within hours of Saxton’s death, his former mistress, Anna George, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. For more than a decade, Saxton and George had been carrying on a scandalous relationship that began as an illicit affair until Saxton successfully convinced George to divorce her husband, supposedly with promises to marry her. However, once she was a single woman again, Saxton’s enthusiasm for marriage had cooled and over time his interest in Anna waned. Anna George’s sensational arrest and trial dominated headlines for months and, as Saxton was extremely unpopular, many people sympathized with the accused woman and even reveled in Saxton’s death. After an intense and closely watched three-week trial, Anna George was acquitted of the murder and soon after she faded out of the spotlight, leaving the murder of George Saxton officially unsolved to this day.Thank you to the glorious David White, of the Bring Me The Axe Podcast, for research!ReferencesAkron Beacon Journal. 1906. "Former Akron man suicided in Ravenna." Akron Beacon Journal, July 23: 8.Bellamy, John Stark. 2011. A Woman Scorned: The Murder of George Saxton. Cleveland, OH: Independent.Boston Daily Globe. 1899. "Mintz on Saxton." Boston Daily Globe, April 23: 2.—. 1898. "Public sympathy with Mrs. George." Boston Daily Globe, October 9: 1.Cincinnati Post. 1898. "Before bar of justice." Cincinnati Post, October 10: 1.—. 1898. "Charged with murder of G.D. Saxton." Cincinnati Post, October 11: 1.Clinton County Democrat. 1898. "The good people of Canton rejoice that he has been removed." Clinton County Democrat, November 10: 1.Coe, Jonathan. 2012. Canton's Great Tragedy the Murder of George D. Saxton, Together with a History of the Arrest and Trial of Annie E. George Charged with the Murder. Detroit, MI: Gale.Dayton Daily News. 1899. "Loved to the hour of death." Dayton Daily News, April 8: 1.Dayton Herald. 1899. "Relations of Mrs. George and Saxton are told to the jury." Dayton Herald, April 8: 1.—. 1899. "Youth claims to have seen the killing of Saxton." Dayton Herald, July 25: 1.New York Times. 1899. "Belated evidence heard at Chicago against Mrs. George." New York Times, July 25: 4.Scripps-McRae Telegram. 1898. "Out of court noted alienation case was settled." Cincinnati Post, October 5: 7.Stark County Democrat. 1899. "Sterling were the remarks of the attorney by the same name." Stark County Democrat, April 27: 1.—. 1899. "Testimony being heard at a rapid and exceedingly gratifying pace." Stark County Democvrat, April 13: 1. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Alana. I am a... I wanted to do the cool thing. This is morbid. Welcome back. Hey. It's the holiday weekend still. And I hope you're not floating on Lake Lanier. I hope you're not.

And we are, we decided to take, you know, morbid into like a weird place this weekend because of the holiday weekend. We did. Indeed. Instead of taking a week off, which I would. we ever do that. We never do that. We decided to just make it really weird. And lakey. And lakey, very watery. Yeah. Very liquidy. Very vacation spots. Very vacationy. Except mine, I don't know. I want to go there. I don't know if everybody else does. But I think at the end of it, you might. I'll find out. I don't know much about your thing. So I think what we're going to do today is I have a

really cool swamp in Louisiana. Because I love Louisiana. And I love swamps in Louisiana, and I want to go to this one. There's a fact I did not know about you. I love swamps in Louisiana. Who doesn't love a Louisiana swamp? I don't know. It seems awesome. Probably a lot of people.

There's so many cool stories about these swamps. I'm going to be covering Manchack Swamp today. And after we talk about Manchack Swamp, you know, what it is, some spooky haunted tales that go along with it. Then we are going to talk, well, actually, a listener actually wrote in and had told us something to do, not with Manchak Swamp in particular, but with Louisiana and one particular thing that I'm going to talk about. So I just wanted to like shout them out. I know that's cool that that happened. And then we had, since Ash covered Lake Lanier, the last episode, we also had a listener tale come in about Lake Lanier. Which was perfect timing.

So we figure why not throw someone's personal experience with Lake Lanier after we've heard all about the catfishes that are Volkswagen's that are going to eat you. Ladies who are just going to wear a blue dress at you. Just wear a blue dress at you. And somebody who's going to float on a raft with a 45 foot stick and just dive into the water. If you just like you'll find a van there. You'll find a van there. Two vans. You'll find a whole damn civilization at the bottom of Lake Lanier.

You certainly will. And I hate it. I hate it. And I hate it. I hate it. So wait, is there a civilization under your swamp? There is not. Okay.

No, my swamp is just a swamp. Just a swamp. But it's got a really cool story to go along with it. Oh, girl. And a lady who is like, whoa, whoa. Whoa. She just walked around saying, whoa, whoa. No, she walked around saying something much scarier than whoa, whoa.

Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, no, no. We're going to be talking about Frenier, which is 25 miles northwest of New Orleans. Frenier is like a ghost town now. It's really doesn't exist. Yeah. But it used to be like a booming logging town along with Ruddick, which is where Manchak Swamp is really like

around. Okay. Basically to get to these towns, you would have to use the swamp back then. Ew. Also, can we talk about the fact that it's frenier and linear? I know. Isn't that weird? Sort of.

Yeah, we didn't mean to do that. Yeah. Cute. So in the 1800s, early 1900s, you would literally. like boat down this swamp to get to the next town. I love that. Yeah. So it's crazy. It's located in John the Baptist Parish, which I love that Louisiana had their parish names are like so much. They are. Like John the Baptist Parish. That's where I live. That's awesome. That's awesome. It is. You're not wrong. It's just cool. I just, I'm like fascinated by Louisiana. I don't know why Louisiana as a whole is

very fascinating. The entire state. Like I love you guys. I think it's. It's the coolest. It is. I don't disagree with you. Not just Nalans. I think that, and I know that's like really annoying to people who don't live in New Orleans, or who do live in New Orleans. But I think New Orleans is great, but I think Louisiana has such like a, like I know

we were just saying this, but I think it's like has such like a Southern Gothic vibe to it. Like anytime I'm on like TikTok or something and my TikTok knows me now. Isn't it the best when your TikTok gets to? know you. It's really cool when you're just like, bitch, you get me. Just gets you. So now I get all these like vibey aesthetic people who just do creepy things in like Southern Cemetery. Just like just walk through. I love that. Like just walk through wearing like some cool like witchy outfit. Like Misty Day. Like cool like cool music playing. And it just is like hashtag Southern Gothic. And I'm always like,

yeah. Yeah. That's all that is. A really good podcast. It is a really good podcast. That's a phenomenal podcast actually. I want that podcast. Go listen to that podcast. And I think he might have covered like Manchak Swamp. Oh shit. Yeah. Or something, I think he covered part of it at least. Cool. Go check it out. So yeah, we're talking about Frenier, which really doesn't exist, but it's still kind of there. It did. At one point. It did. It really did. And it went out with a bang. And it was a time. It doesn't now. The reason it doesn't exist anymore, we are going to get to. Okay. And Wowser is it a story? So the swamp itself is really gross. It's like really cool, but it's like green, like pee green.

But it's like this one's like super green. And it's got tons of alligators in it. So if you're not worried about the ghosts that I'm going to talk about, you should be worried about the alligator. Definitely be worried about that. It's definitely what you think of when you think of like a haunted by you, you know. Yeah, I'm picturing it in my head right now. And I feel like I'm doing, I feel like my brain's doing a good job. Yeah, it really, it just gives you that whole vibe.

And the one thing that everybody probably, especially people from Louisiana listening, are probably like, what about the curse of voodoo queen, Julia Brown? Oh, no. Because I know you guys know it. I'm sure you know it. We love a good curse. We love a good curse. I love it so much.

So she's sometimes referred to as Julia Black, but I'm pretty sure everything else I saw was Julia Brown is like her name. Okay. And it's called the curse of voodoo queen. Julia Brown. So she lived in Frenier after moving there in the 1860s after her husband passed away. She built a little cabin that still exists on the edge of the lake. When are we going? Or swamp. I keep saying lake. It's a swamp. When are we going? I want to go to this cabin so bad. And she was also known as a healer and a

voodoo priestess. So she was just an all around cool lady. She was doing the damn thing. She was just cool. That's awesome. She just built a cabin on a switzerland. swamp in Louisiana. I was like, cool, I live here. Let me heal you. And I think it's known, it's basically like a folk healer in Louisiana tradition is known as a traitor, I think it is. It's like a French word.

So I'm so sorry if I butchered that guy, Louisiana people tell me. Yeah. Because I love your state. I want to get it right. People in the community would go to her to basically just cure what illed them. Right. Back then, it's not like doctors were like really doing anything. except being like do some cocaine about it.

I was literally just going to say like handing you some cocaine for your problems. Cure like the cocaine of it all. Rub this on your gum so you'll be fine. I think she was the one that they would go to to be like, hey, like my head's been hurting. And she would cure them. Like she was really good at it. They needed her. They really like she was kind of, it's hard to explain.

It's just like she was beloved in that way. Sure. But it's also kind of like that she was ignored outside of that. Like they used her when they needed her. And then they were like, she's kind of weird outside of that, which is like not cool. Well, she's not weird. She's helping you. No, she's, fuck you.

Awesome. We would have been at her cabin every single day for dinner. I would have brought dinner as well. I would have been hanging with Julia all day. Yeah, I didn't expect her to cook for me. She sounds awesome. And what she, like, and this is just bonkers. So what she would do at night, what she would, and she would do this during the day, but

at night it was a lot creepier. Of course. She would sit on her. She had a rocking chair, of course, on her little porch. You can picture this cabin. Yes, I literally can. I know every single. single one of you are picturing a cabin by a swamp in Louisiana and that's exactly what it looks like.

Picture it Louisiana a long, long, long, long, long time ago. Just picture it. She would sit in her rocking chair on her porch, on her handmade cabin on a swamp in Louisiana. And sometimes she would strum a little guitar. Okay. And she would sing a lot. And a lot of times she would sing like really eerie songs. And many of them were like predictions.

Yeah. So people started calling her actually the big bad. Oh, that's not very nice. Because her predictions and prophecies about people usually came true. I mean, she knows what's up. So basically, like, she was known as an Oracle. So if you would float past her, go into like town or whatever you were doing, she would just start strumming and sing something about you and you would get a prophecy. Or sometimes. If you didn't, like, good for you. And you can just keep going. I was going to say you probably didn't want what. them. And she definitely, like, specialized in, like, telling people, like, when they were going to die. No, thanks. You know, you're going to get really ill soon. And, like, no, you know, I don't want to know of that. Nope. But she predicted some bad stuff that happened in surrounding towns, too. And she was correct. So people were starting to get a little freaked out by her. And they were like, they would literally row past her and just be like, please don't. Please don't. Please don't. Please don't sing. Like, people just didn't want to know. But she was just letting them have. She's got to let it out. She's got to, I mean, yeah. She's got to let it out. Yeah.

You can't just expect Julia to have all that inside. It must be exhausting. That's really tiring. So, you know, it's not her fault. Then 1915 comes around. One of the townspeople is just, just tooting their boat down that swamp right past Aunt Julia. They used to call her Aunt Julia, by the way. Aunt Julia's cabin.

She's sitting on her porch. And she's just calmly rocking in her rocking chair. And everybody said it was like the squeak of the rocking chair. Oh, yeah. heard it before you said anything. Yeah, it was just that squeaky rocking chair. She's just sitting there watching everything go by. And they said that she had this like creepy smile on her face as she was doing it. And she rocked back and forth and she started singing, when I die, I'm going to take you all with me. Doesn't that give you? Auntie. And she's singing it with a smile on her face. When I die, I'm going to take you all with me.

I don't want to go. And somebody was tooting past her house on a little boat in a swamp filled with alligators here and that. I'd be like, really? I'd be like, why? Is it like invite? Like, do I have to RSVP? Yeah.

Because I won't. Yeah. Apparently, and it's like conferred. And she started, the townsperson heard that and immediately was like, what the hell? And then people, that's, because this was 1915. Everybody started hearing her singing that. They'd go by and they would hear her sitting there going, when I die, I'm going to take the whole town with me.

And everybody was like. What the hell is going on? And there are documents that confirm that there are witnesses that say they heard her singing this all the time. Was she mad at everyone? Oh, she was happy as a clam and you'll find out why. But a very long-time resident named Helen Schlosserberg, she said, quote, Aunt Julia Brown always sat on her front porch and played her guitar and sang songs that she would make up. The words to one of the songs she sang said that one day she would die and everyone would die with her.

Oh, man. So it's like confirmed. And this guy who had first initially heard it, he went back and he told everybody because he was like, her predictions are always true. Right. And, you know, like, we're all going to die with her. As you ride by her, she's giving you a prophecy more often than not. And sometimes it's good.

Sometimes it's bad. But if she's singing that shit at you, you better, you better heed that warning. You better move town, buddy. That's not just her singing like, oh, I have twinkle, twinkle, little star stuck in my head. She's like, no, like this. She's like, I'm about to kill you all with me. Auntie Julia is telling you some business and you better make some arrangements because she's taking the whole town with her.

It's happening. You need to become a resident of a town elsewhere. You do. So, so everyone was freaked out when he tells them this. They're like, what are we supposed to do? And they're like, okay. So they're like, let's, you know, let's go check on her. Let's like, we should start, you know, paying a little more attention outside of needing her,

basically. And so they're like riding by her cabin just to see if she's going to sing it again. And suddenly she's not on the porch. And they're like, huh. So a couple days go by and they're like, what's going on? Why isn't she on the porch anymore? So now, of course, everybody's like, did she die? Okay.

Like, we should figure this out. So the next day, a few of them show up at her cabin and they find her dead. Oh, no. So they figured, first of all, she did a lot of shit for us. And we kind of treated her like a pariah outside of. of needing her. You know, when we weren't asking her to heal us, we were kind of just being like, look at that crazy lady on the porch.

And she was basically ostracized for having the gift of prophecy. Like she was, people were treating her like kind of shitty for just knowing shit that was going to happen and telling people. Right. But also, they were probably thinking, we got to make shit right. And we have to make sure that her prophecy does get fulfilled without actually killing us all. Right. We need to figure out a way to make this make sense and like it'll be fulfilled.

Make it make sense. So they decided let's throw her a massive funeral. Every single person in the town can be there so that it's like when I go, I'm going to take you all with me. So we're all there with her when she goes. Yeah. There's no loopholes with Auntie Julia. Yeah. I don't know if like, you know, prophesizing has loopholes.

But like they, I will give it to them. They gave it their best shot. It's too late. They're just doing that because they don't want to die. They're not doing it for the right reasons of loving anti-joules. No, and you know what? Like, let me just, quick little side note. If you have a, like, a voodoo priestess, Auntie Julia in your town.

Respect her. Respect her and cherish her. Cherisher. Hold her close. Because man, oh, man, I wish I had one in my town. And I don't. So if you have one, hold on to her. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd like one. Send her here if you'd like. Yeah. Send her auntie Julia here. like she's cool she is also the garage door just opened and I just freaked out yeah every time it happens it terrifies me it freaks me out um so the way they figure so again they're figuring it's a technicality of you know we're there when the coffin goes in the ground right and you know we're all

with her so they placed her in a coffin in a wooden box and placed that wooden box in the ground and they had everyone showed up everyone paid their respects why'd they put her in a wooden box that's how they used to do it anyways. But immediately after she was buried on September 29th, 1915, the New Orleans hurricane of 1915 hit. No one, and when I say immediately after it happened, she went in the ground and it started raining. Boom. No one knew it was coming because it's 1950, except obviously Julia Brown knew it was coming. There was no way to prepare for it. And they knew immediately this was what Julia was saying. So she wasn't saying like I'm doing anything.

She was just like Mother Earth is about to take you all. No, but she was fucking happy about like she was smiling. Like I'm going to take you all with me. Yeah, because she was probably like you've all used me all this time. Let's stick together now. Exactly. We're all going to stick together in death, motherfuckers. Now, this was a category four hurricanes.

And it came hurling into New Orleans. Hurricanes are terrifying. And then made its way into the surrounding towns of like Reddick and Fronnier. And it flattened them. I mean, decimated these towns. There was nothing left of them. 145 mile per hour winds, flooding all these swamp lands and all the marshes, all the lakes overflowed and flooded into the towns.

Oh, it's so scary. At one point, 25 people in Frenier tried to take shelter in a railroad depot structure. It collapsed under the chaos and killed all 25 people at once. Oh, no. 275 people died. Wow. And it took two full weeks for people. from towns nearby to even attempt to come back into Frineer to look for survivors and like

try to help at all when they came into town they took the only way in which was Manchak swamp right as they came down the swamp they could hear a rocking chair creaking and soft singing but other than that it was dead silent oh my god that's so spooky then they began seeing things and what they were so they're they're coming in and they're seeing things like draped over trees and like bobbing in the water in front of them and they're like, what the, what is that shit? Then they get closer to them and they see that they are the bodies of townspeople who had been flung into trees and drowned in the storm. Oh, that is dark. Yeah. One of the literally handful of survivors said that he clung to an upturned cypress tree and just closed his eyes

while he could hear screaming all around him while people were dying. Oh my goodness. And I'm, when I say a handful of survivors, there's literally like count on one hand. hand the amount of people survived. That's so terrible. Now, Frenier and Reddak, again, were leveled, completely gone, and they were just left abandoned. From the New Orleans Times, Picayune, from October 2nd, 1915, that's the same newspaper from the Axeman in New Orleans, where they published that. It said, quote, about this, now this was in the newspaper. It said, the funeral was scheduled, and Aunt Julia had been placed in her casket, and the casket in turn had been placed in the customary wooden box and sealed. At four o'clock, however, the storm had become so

violent that everyone left the house in a stampede, abandoning the corpse. The corpse was found Thursday, and so was the wooden box, but the casket never has been found. What? Yep. Yep. Yo, that is crazy. Yep. So, Auntie Julia is out there. Oh my goodness, where is she? Now, those who are survived in the surrounding townsfolk, anybody who like was able to get out of this, which is not a lot of people, they had to come do something about the dead. There's so many dead people. So they erected a mass grave and they erected it at the highest point in the swamp for all these victims. Because again, they're not going to be able to digging that many graves. No, of course. And they're going to have to ID everybody. So it's a mass grave. That's so sad. There was a fence that says 1915 on like a wooden thing.

and then it's just like there's wooden grave markers in there, but if you go today, you can see it. It's literally if you go down Manchak Swamp, there's a gate that says 1915 and it's like the area where the mass grave is. Oh, wow. And apparently Julia Brown's memorial or grave marker is about 100 yards away separate from everybody else. But I don't know if she's, I don't think she's there. No, of course not. her memorial marker. But people will say now that if you go down Manchak swamp, especially at night, you'll hear

screams of like a woman and like people in there. And you'll also see Auntie Julia standing in the foggy swamp wearing white and singing, when I die, I'm going to take the whole town with me. Oh my. And people who see the cabin at night, because again, her cabin's still there, can see flickering candlelight sometimes. and they'll hear her still singing from inside. And to Julia never left.

And if you go to that mass grave in the cemetery at night, people say they hear chanting and singing, almost like a voodoo ceremony is going on, like, all around them. Yeah. Sounds awesome. Yeah. And terrifying all at the same time. Yeah.

There is a tour that people, I looked online, and it's like got hugely amazing reviews for seeing this stuff. and it's the Cajun Pride Swamp Tour. Oh, cool. They actually purchase the land, so they'll take you, like, right to it. Oh, that's cool. And it's supposedly like an amazing tour that I really want to take now. I can't wait to go.

I think they sound awesome. When are we going to Louisiana? Right. I need to go. I need to go to Louisiana. So there's the Manchak Swamp. Now, there's also the Manchak Swamp Bridge that has seemingly absorbed the curse of Julia Brown.

Oh. So September 14. 17th, 1976, it collapsed with cars on the bridge. Oh my God, that is my biggest fucking cheer. Yes, because a tugboat slammed into it. Well, fuck that tubboat. Now, according to a clipping in the Daily Review newspaper from September 20th, 1976, the bridge attendant who was responsible for like opening the bridge

and closing it to traffic, he had to delay the opening of it for an up, like an incoming tugboat because a train was coming. Okay. So he said, and he testified that he warned the tugboat four times that the bridge was staying down, and he said he watched the tugboat slow down. It like came to a stationary position and seemed to be heeding his warnings. But the tug, and the tug was apparently stopped completely while the trains crossed over. But then it started to come forward before the bridge was open, like for no reason. Right. So it was beginning to open and the tugboat slammed into the support. board beams, like hard. Yeah. And collapsed the bridge.

Wow. And it had at least two cars and a truck that plunged into the water below. Oh, my goodness. The tugboat captain said he never heard the warnings, but that's strange because he stopped. Right. So like what's going on here? Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. I think it might be Julia Brown.

Just like. Just being just fucking around. Moving things around. I don't know. I mean, I'm not here. I'm not here to point fingers at Julia. Yeah. saying there's a curse. There's a curse about, so it could be happening. Right. It could have oozed

onto this bridge. Only two people survived the crash and the rest were never found. What? They remain in the water below. Jude. Yeah. All these people that are just never found. Honestly, people who are never found in water. No. I found another body of water that I'm definitely covering in an upcoming episode. I'm not going to tell you. This is going to be like the new spooky roads. It's just like haunted bodies of water. Honestly, we're going to add it in because I found a few. It's fun. And I found one in Japan.

And we haven't done a lot of Japan things. So I feel like it would be cool for like our Japanese listeners. Absolutely. And woo boy, I'm going to cover it soon because it's really cool. Maybe we should just do this like once a month. We should, a fun, spooky water. We can make it like a summer thing. Yeah, there you go.

Scary water. How do you guys feel about that? So about this crash, a woman named Roxanna Cologne gave an interview with Harold Guide about it. She was actually on the bridge when it happened and she was a kid. Oh, dang. Or she was like coming onto the bridge. Okay. She saw the entire thing happen. That'll change you. She said, quote, the ground started to shake and I remember hearing loud screeching sounds. I looked out of the car window and realized the bridge had collapsed. My stepdad and I were the 14th vehicle in line to get on that bridge. Cologne saw an 18-wheeler

jackknife and fly in the air. It was horrible and I remember seeing pieces of concrete and bodies falling into the water. I screamed and my stepdad took my head and told me to get down on the floor of the passenger front seat. And she said she thinks it was his way of like protecting her from what was happening. Like don't see any of this. So he like literally just shoved her down and was like, you don't need to watch this carnage in front of us. And she said to this day, I can't get on a bridge. I remember seeing cars plummeting into the water. You could see them going in. Wow. So that is the Manchak Swamp Bridge. Now there is this. crazy like, you know, of course with all this kind of thing, with these spooky roads and these

bridges and these swamps, there's always a ghost story. Oh, hell yeah. Like for all of them. I was waiting for it. So there's one that says there were three teens on their way to New Orleans one night. Okay. And they were going over the Manchak Swamp Bridge. And originally they had their windows down, but the driver was kind of like freaked out because of the swamp. And he was like, oh, so he rolled them up. And his friends were like, no, let's roll them down. Like it's nice out. He was annoyed, but then suddenly they hear screaming, and it's like a woman. So they slam on the brakes, and they're creeping through slowly, just seeing if anyone's in trouble. They're like, who the hell was that? Because it sounds like she's in pain. Yeah, so they're like, what do we do?

And they're like, they're not seeing anything. And they're too freaked out to like just stop and get out and look because it's a night time. Yeah. So they're like, you know what? We're just going to put the windows back up. Like, I don't know what to do here. Then suddenly they hear a louder scream. and then they hear a growling sound. But like a growling sound like it was from some great beast, like a Sasquatch or something. And they started speeding down the bridge to get out and had to slam the brakes on

because up ahead of them, it looked like the bridge collapsed again. What? So as they're going in reverse, they're hearing like thudding sounds and their car tire had popped. Oh, no. And then they try to change the tire and they hear a, woman behind them softly start singing one day I'm going to die and take the whole town with me

no like no and they said it was like mayhem like chaos around them they're like the bridge just glas what is happening and then all at once like they all got in the car to just be like what the fuck do we do and they heard and they said they look up the bridge was completely fine what and they j it and they had they ended up with a flat tire that they had to change oh my gosh the everything stopped the the bridge was wasn't collapsed. It just... That's so crazy. That's like crazy hallucinations.

Literally were they on, like LSD? And of course, this is like a story, but it's like, yeah, but still. But that's scary as far. I mean, based on everything else that we've heard so far, I'm like, I'm buying it. Well, and I'm thinking that that great beast sound could have been something called the Roo-Garoo. That's what I was thinking as well. Aren't you?

No. The Roo-Garoo. Or the loop guru. It's also known as. Now, this is a cryptid of Loo-Roo. Louisiana lore. We love a cryptid. We love them. It dwells on the bayou and is said to be half man and half animal, which sounds awesome. It sounds like the devil. It sounds awesome. It has roots in France and was told to young children to keep them from running off alone into the woods, which is a really great way to not

have children run into the woods. Yeah, that'll do it, I bet. Yeah, it's, it'll definitely do it. It's like crampus. It's like, like, be good. or roo-garoo is going to get you. Now, when the French came to Louisiana, it became embedded in the Cajun legend and culture. And that's when it kind of changed a little bit. Okay. So like kind of fit the bayou more.

Of course. The roo-garoo has the body of a man and the head of a snarling red-eyed wolf usually. Oh, dang. But it also can have the head of kind of like, well, some things say it can have the head of any bayou dweller it wants. Okay. So it can be like a hog.

Maybe it changes its outfit. It's horrifying. Yeah, hoghead is not for me. As long as the animal lives in the bayou, I think it can be part of that. It can be part of the whole Rougaroo package that you get. I didn't sign up for that. It's like signing up for cable and you're like I'd really like Bravo. And also I would like all the news channels.

Yeah, it's just like that. Totally. Absolutely. I just looked at her like she lost her actual mind. You sign up for a Roo-Garoo and you're like, I would really like the man. part of it. I just keep thinking rogu. But I think I also have to get the, you know, the bayou hog or something about it. You know, like the Roku TVs. That's all I can think of. That's what it is. Yeah, you pick. It's like, you know, the soup de jour, whatever it is. I think I'm just saying words. Why did it's soup to jure come into this? I don't know. The soup of the day, I don't know. Oh, okay. Okay. I see. I see where you're going with that. I did. I did not at first. I was like, now we're eating soup. Like, what the fuck? No, I think everyone agrees. I'm. I'm not making sense, but it's been a long day. So, yeah, so if you're, this guy is not awesome.

Like, not awesome to come across. Like, it's, it's funny to talk about, but then you're like, no, I don't want to run into him. I'm all set with experiencing that, thank you. Yeah, if you are, you know, approached by this creature, it's definitely going to attack you. Like, that's for sure what it's all about. It's not there to talk to you. It's not there to offer you the soup to jour. It doesn't want to know your Game of Thrones theory.

Like it just wants to, like it doesn't want to talk to you about anything. It just wants to hurt you. So if you're attacked by this creature, it will attack you, but then it will reveal itself to you for who it really is because these creatures are real people who you know. What? What? Then it's going to reveal itself to you, but it's only going to do that if you try to defend yourself and you draw blood from it.

Okay. So if you draw blood from it after it attacks you, it's going to reveal who it really. is. And then what? And then they're going to tell you that you must not tell a single soul of your experience with it for one year and one day. Okay. Or in other sources, 101 days. Okay. If you break that promise, though, you will be turned into a Rougaroo yourself forever. Oh, bitch. Or the Rougaroo will curse you to kill yourself. Oh, yeah. That's very dark. There are also variations that connect this to like regular everyday people who have a legitimate condition that turns them into a meat-craving roo-garoo at night.

What? Yeah. And if they were to bite a human, like human flesh, they would become fully transformed. Maybe that's what happens to your youngest. She just becomes a roo-a-roo at night. I think she is a roo-o-a-n-n-n-n-kut. Did you think that ever? I didn't, but you know what?

You just really like that. Nail on the head. That was one of those, like, glass-shattering moments where you're like, oh, my God, she is. She's a roo-my-old. My youngest child is a roo-roo. How do you feel about that? I mean, I feel like I have answers now. We're not supposed to say anything about that.

No, we're not, well, we're not supposed to. We haven't experienced. We haven't had. She hasn't attacked. And she hasn't revealed herself to us. And I haven't drawn blood. Don't do that. That'll never happen.

So we're good. So is she just going to destroy us all then if you don't draw blood? I think she's just going to like make our lives all up hard at night. Because it is. It's at night. She turns into a roo guru. At night. I can't wait to tell John that.

I don't think he'll buy it. I can't wait to tell him that our youngest is a roo guru. Who knew? That our youngest is a bayou. werewolf creature from lore. And he'll be like, yeah, we're a warwolf. But I think the moral of the story is don't let the Rougar like bite you or anything. Like don't let anyone bite you. I was literally just going to say that. Unless they're like a hot vampire. Yeah, only let Edward Cullen like you. That's the only time that they can bite you. Do you know how bad I wanted Edward Cullen to turn me into a

vampire when I was like 12? I love it so bad. So so bad. Um, that you know, the good news is, here's the good news, everybody. Is there good news? There's a way to keep the Rougaroo away. What do you have to do, though? Because sometimes they'll just walk up to your house. You don't want that. So when they walk up to your house, you could leave 13 objects outside of your door, like stones or coins or something like that. However, we're Irish and you literally can't even have like 13 plates at a table. Well, here's the thing, though. They can't count past 12. So, but, which seems like something, you know, which seems like something, I feel like if you couldn't count past 12, you can get around that by like not trying to count past 12. But they don't get that.

They want to count past 12, but they can't. And when they find out that they can't, they will like get real pissed. They have to have like some self-reflection time. They just want to count your shit. And when they can't count your shit that you left for them, they get really angry. And they keep trying to until the sun comes up. And then they have to go. And then they're either going to be human again or they have to run away.

All right. So they're just going to sit there and count your shit forever until they can't. Now, what do I do if I live in an apartment and I can't even have like a welcome mat? Then you're fucked. Or you could leave a colander, like a strainer on your doorstep or in your window. I'm going to do that. Because it will try to count the holes and can't because of all the dumb. Hey, careful. Careful. Careful over there. Careful. Did I say an untruth? Did I say an untruth? Did I say an untruth? Did I say an untruth? I'm not. commenting. No comment today. Funny thing, the Rougaroo is definitely one of those like parenting hacks to keep your kids from being bad or running off into the woods, like tell them about the

Rougaroo. Absolutely. And funny thing too, I read that people in Louisiana, and I hope that our Louisiana listeners can tell me if this is true because I love it, if it is. It's just a fun thing. Like if you've ever experienced a Roo-Roo. That or that people will say that they made the Rougaroo if they had a bad night sleep or stayed up all night. Like it's a saying. They made the roo guru I made the roo guru last night. Like I just couldn't sleep because they cause all kind of havoc at night. Yeah, yeah. And they sometimes refer to people who like party all night as like fair roo guru or fair loop guru because it's I love it. I love it. I'm sad that that's not my way anymore. What a cute way of just being like, God, I got a shitty night sleep last night. You're just

like, oh, I made the rooogaroo last night. I really couldn't sleep. Like I'm going to say that. I'm going to adopt to that because I love it. Please do. I'll honor it. I really will. There's also a Rougaroo Fest in October. Do you get to dress up as like whatever you want? Do you get to dress up as whatever you want?

There's a costume contest. Oh, when are we going? This Rougaroo Fest costume contest was ranked as one of the top ten parties in the, or costume parties in the United States by USA Today. I want to go, please. And you can dress up as all kinds of shit. They have categories like pets, most creative, funniest. scariest movies characters, kids costumes, and best overall. Let's go and win. I want to do this so bad.

I'm not even kidding. What do you win? I don't know, but I think you just win the distinction, but I'm not really sure. That's fine. I'll take it. I just love to win. And it's Rougaroo Fest. So that's all yeah. There's a Rougaroo Queen. Yeah. You can be the Rougaroo Queen? Okay, can you can that's kind of my like, can both of us get to be the Rougaroo Queen? Right. I feel like it's like my destiny. Can we be the Rougaroo queens of of it. I mean, we can ask. We can ask Louisiana. Is that okay? Excuse me. It's in, it's, where is it? Homa, Louisiana, H-O-U-M-A. How do you say it, Louisiana? I'm scared to mess it up. H-O-U-M-A. Halma? Howma? Probably. That's what I would think. I don't know.

Right? Is it how H-M-A-G-U-Spelled and then say it. Exactly. It's Halma, Louisiana. Yeah. So yeah, there's a Ruber, Rougaroo Queen and... A keen? A keen. And all the proceeds from the Rougaroo Fest go to the Wetlands Discovery Center. Oh, hell yeah. Which is apparently revolutionizing how people think, teach, and learn about Louisiana's disappearing coast. Hell yeah. So it's all for a good cause, too. Oh, no, it's disappearing coast. I don't like that.

I know, that's not awesome. But we love a Rougaroo Fest. And we love a Rougaroo Fest that's also contributing to educating people about wetlands. Yeah. I mean, I love it all. I'm here for it. You're doing it right, Louisiana. You're doing it right. I love that. And then I saw that in our inbox, we had a message that was entitled Louisiana, bitch, with three alligator emojis.

Louisiana, bitch. That's what that says. And I said, whoa. And it's from Gabby. So hi, hi, Gabby. Let me tell you, you're awesome. And that just really, really sold it for me. And Gabby was actually first telling us all about Myrtle's Plantation.

Oh, okay, yeah. And she told us how in elementary school they learn all about that. Yikes. They learn, because I think I told you guys during the Myrtle Plantation episode, go back and listen if you want to, that there's like the story of Chloe, you know, and how she's the one who haunts. And like there was discrepancy about whether she lost her ear. Yeah, yeah.

listening into a conversation that she wasn't supposed to and they cut off her ear. She said that in Louisiana, the only story we believe is that of Chloe's ears cut off for listening in when she's supposed to. Oh my goodness. And then she ends up poisoning the cake and killing the family. Good. Bye. So they also go on like a field trip there.

It's just like, whoa. Yeah. Let's go to school there. And she also mentioned that there is something called a roo guru. And she said that this is like a pretty big thing. Most people at least know the name Rougaroo there. And she gave me a little background on it, which I think I just told you guys, but thank you for giving to me Gabby. Oh, I love when people do that. Thank you.

And she told me as children, we're taught that the Rougaroo will get you if you're bad and don't listen to your elders. Yes. Let's teach that to your kids. And then she said, yes, this is kind of scarring as a kid. But Louisiana has a motto of, how bad can we scare the kids without really fucking them up? There was also a Rougaroo Fest that happens in my hometown every year. It's the biggest Halloween throwdown in the south. People come from other states and countries specifically for our Rougariths.

Yes, like me and Elena. Correct. Which sounds awesome. And then Gabby also gave me a few more stories that I'm going to look further into. I'm not going to say them yet because I want to look into them to actually do an episode on them. Yes. Gabby. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Because she said there are so many stories that I can't cover them all. And she gave a link to the Louisiana travel page. And she said covering stories that are believed. by us from Louisiana. Not some bullshit outsiders make up because they make up some shit. Like I've literally been asked if I wrote an alligator to school when on vacation out of the South. You bitches be crazy. Yeah, that's a little intense. I love you, Gabby. I love you. So thank you for that, Gabby. And also Gabby told me if I needed help pronouncing words from

Louisiana, I should have hit you up. Oh, girl. Why didn't you? So that is my Louisiana like craziness. I love that. And on top of this, we also, like I mentioned earlier, have a listener tale from someone who has an experience in Lake Lanier. It's Lanier, right? Lanier, yeah, La. Why can't? Every time I say it right, I think I'm saying it wrong. Because I always want to say Lanier.

Yeah, we always want to say Lanier. But whenever we can have a listener tale that's directly connected to a recent episode, we got to do it. Hell yeah. Well, this is from, let me wait and see if I'm allowed to say. their name. I don't think you're allowed to, if I remember correctly. Yep, please don't say it. Look at me. Look at you, honey. All right, well, this person says, I'm a huge fan of the pod, hence why I'm taking the time to write this up. Thanks. I even got my boyfriend hooked. I love when you guys do that. I know. He never used to be interested in true crime, but one day I picked

him up while listening to the girl in the box episode. Oh man, what a way to start. I asked to finish the episode because how could anyone stop halfway through that crazy story and completely sucked him in. Now every time we're together, he asked to listen to the murder girl. That's y'all. I love that name. I'm honored. The murder girls. Listening to y'all in the car or after a stressful day feels like I'm just unwinding and hanging out with friends.

Is that weird? I hope not. By the way, Ash, I love the tangents. Being ADHD as fuck, my thoughts are less like on, or less like a train on tracks with a clear destination. And more like a Roomba from hell that doesn't know where it's going. It destroys everything in its path. You know, in that moment, we became kindred spirit. So thank you.

You are a Roomba from hell. I wish that I knew that about myself earlier, but I literally am. Your thoughts are. They absolutely are. No, I am as well. Yeah, yeah, you are as a human being. You know, it's so funny. I always loved that Roomba commercial, too.

Remember, I would always go, Roomba, Roomba. Like when I was like a little baby child. She won't when she was little, she would just come in and go, Roomba, Roomba. I thought that was really funny. We could say out of it. There were times when I was like, please stop. Yeah. Don't do the Roomba anymore.

You were kind of rude. No, I'm just kidding. I was not. You were crushing my Roomba dreams. I was. Anyway. John wants to get a Roomba and do DJ Roomba. I have a Roomba and my cats ride it around.

We need to do DJ Roomba. Anyway, enough rambling for now and on with the story. And I love that the rambling applied not only to you, but us as well. This takes place at Lake Lanier, which is widely considered by the residents of North Georgia, the most haunted lake in the country. And it is. As such, I think it does. some backstory, so just bear with me for a little bit. Lake Lanier, like all,

like all Georgia Lakes, was artificially manufactured. In the 1950s, someone thought of creating reservoir to supply water and power to Atlanta and the surrounding areas while simultaneously preventing flooding of the Chattahoochee River. Great idea, right? Well, maybe not. So much. Flooding the area displaced hundreds of families who left their entire communities under billions of gallons of water. So crazy still. Even hearing it again is like, what? I know. It's so true. What? That's how that was made? It's so crazy. In preparation for the lake, workers removed anything they considered dangerous, such as barns and wooden buildings that could float up.

However, much of the original structure remains making the bottom of Lake Lanier a sunken ghost town in more ways than one. And then this person gives us some information, but if you listen to the episode, then you already know that, but I appreciate you for putting that all in there. And then it says, now let's jump to the summer of 2019 when my then boyfriend, let's call him Jake. And I naively decided to take a trip to the aforementioned Lake of Death. Remember pre-COVID when you could actually go places and do things and see people? Yeah, me neither. We spent the majority of our trip doing what typical 20-somethings do, see, sex, drugs, and sun.

Yeah, that's very true. However, we never got in a boat or even on the water while intoxicated. I'm a stickler for safety and have seen too many people die in preventable accidents to take stupid risks. Look at that. I'm so proud of you. It's like you were hearing us before even hearing us. You heated our warning before you even heard it. That's amazing.

See, I knew you guys were all smart. I love you guys. I know it. I didn't need to say it to you guys, you know. But still, we love you, so we said it anyway. It's true. But on the last day of our vacation, Jake and I got into a huge argument. I don't even remember what we were fighting about.

It was something small, but at the time we got heated enough to start screaming at each other on the beach and cause a scene. I'm not going to lie to you. I wish I was on that beach because I, that sounds great. I would have been sitting there. I would have been inching closer. Just ready. I'd be like, oh, my God.

Me pretending to read my vogue, but like definitely listening to you. upside down. Literally. Can you guess why we're no longer together? No. He eventually threw his hands up in frustration and went to sit where we had set up for the day. Not wanting to be around him, I decided to go for a swim and to calm my thoughts and my

temper. Oh, that's like the best way to do it. No, not in Lake Lanier, but like to go for a swim. Let me preface the rest of this story by letting you know that I am a very strong swimmer. My mom jokes that I could swim before I could walk. I feel that. I swam for the varsity swim teams, both. of my high school and college. In addition to this, I worked as a lifeguard for four years. I even

saved a kid once. Yes, get it. Wow. Apparently, he wasn't actually drowning, but just faking it to try to get his parents' attention, which is a case study in and of itself. PSA, don't ignore your kids when they're in 12 feet deep of water. Yeah, don't do that. No, but back to the story. I swam out a few yards just far enough so that my toes couldn't touch the bottom when I suddenly became overcome with an intense sense of dread. Let me tell you, I have anxiety and this was not a typical panic attack. It was a feeling of terror that I have never felt before or since. There was no trigger, nothing outwardly dangerous. My blood turned to ice. My arms, though still treading water, no longer seemed to belong to me. Then without my head ever falling below the water, I started coughing water

out of my mouth and nose. That's insane. This discharge wasn't some sort of serious, is it cirrhose fluid? Is that how you say that? Serous fluid. Yeah, thank you. That could have originated inside. of me. It was gray, silty lake water that tasted of dirt and decay. This next part, I still can't explain or fully wrap my head around, but I felt a hand grab me by the ankle and pull me down into the water. People say that. What did I tell you? I started fighting like a wild animal, kicking, punching, and thrashing around. My blind punches made contact with someone, not something. I felt hair, flesh, and bone. Struggling to... I know. He's a hair. I know. hair hair flesh and bone oh my god fuck that no oh wow no struggling to open my eyes underwater i looked to see who

had a hold of me and saw her she had a sunken face and her mouth open as if to scream searing pain shot down my calf as she dug her nails in to get a better hold on me that's the last thing i remember before blacking out the next thing i remember is waking up on the beach the sun glared brightly at me as i coughed in pain from water inhalation apparently jake had dragged me out of the and on to dry land after seeing me go under and fail to resurface. He frantically doted on my leg, which had long gashes from mid-calf to the base of my heel. Rapping a towel around my shredded lower limb, he scooped me up and carted me off to the nearest emergency room. Thankfully, I didn't need any stitches. Turns out blood mixing with lake water makes it look like you're bleeding way more than you

actually are. I've actually experienced that. It's really weird. Eventually, Jake and I both calmed down, following the initial panic of what the fuck just happened? He told me upon seeing my leg, he assumed that I had gotten caught by some sort of debris and swept up in an undercurrent. After telling him my experience, he changed his opinion. Not to anything supernatural, but he assured that I was, excuse me, he assumed that I was stressed from our argument, had a panic attack while swimming and fell unconscious. But what about the face I saw and the scratches down my leg? According to him and most other people who hear this story, my mind was playing tricks on me.

Some sort of debris trapped my leg. When I went to look at it, my brain pieced together, what it could through the water and formed a face. No way. You experienced this. And I fully believe that you saw what you saw. And even if it was debris, what the fuck Lake Lanier. Yeah, exactly. Why do you have so much shit in your water?

Why do you have actual trees and volkswagons and vans and people and houses and buildings and racetrack seats under the water? Why? People are going to bump into things. Because what was never meant for recreational. I don't care. It's there. People are going to jump in it. I know that's very true. And they should know the human race for what we are. Come on. You say this is not for recreational purposes. People are going to throw on their swimsuit and go take a holiday. Like that's going to happen. People are going to

dive right in. It's true. You had to know. Now this says in all fairness, it's entirely possible that this is what happened. Nope. No. The rational side of me wants to accept a logical explanation. But still, there are things I can't explain away. I know what I saw. That face will haunt me until I die. I felt it, whatever it was, made of skin and bone and hair. And if it was just a panic attack, then why did I start coughing up water before my head was ever submerged? Yeah, that's the crazy part. I'll let you form your own opinion.

Was it a panic attack induced by a fight? Was it the Lady of the Lake of the Lake Lanier? I think something else, because the Lady of the Lake seems chill as fuck. Yeah, I think it's another hellish beast underneath there. Sorry for the length, never be. I tend to get sidetracked and rambling when telling stories. If you decide to tell this for a listener tale, episode, please feel free to shorten it as much as you need. Thanks. And one last thing. If you enjoyed

hearing about my experience at all, then I have a favor to ask. Please look up the case of Terrell Peterson. It will break your heart, but it's so important. His name deserves to be remembered. If you decide to talk about Terrell on the podcast, that would be fantastic. If not, at least someone else knows his name. He lived a short, horrible life, but his memory is still so important. I have a personal connection to the Terrell's case, so if you have any questions, please feel free to email me back. Okay, that's it for this super long message. If you made it this far, then thank you. Sincerely yours, anonymous.

I am definitely going to look into the case of Terrell Peterson. I'm literally copy and pasting it into Google at this moment. But, yeah, that is truly a horrific tale. That sounds terrible. Oh, no. Is it a really bad case? Yeah, it's about a child. Oh, no.

And a very beautiful child. Oh, that really hurt my soul. Oh, no. Well, on that note, thank you guys for sending in your tales and your personal experiences with these things because they add a little spice. And if you have any suggestions for a lake near you that you'd like covered, please write in. Do you have a lake, lagoon, ocean, sea, large puddle that you would like us to have a large puddle. Send it in. Seriously.

use the, just so we can like collect them all easily, right? Like spooky water. Spooky water. And then whatever else you want to say. Like a listener tail or a spooky road kind of thing. Spooky water. Yeah. And then we'll do some of those because I found a ton.

So I'm hoping that people have some really cool ones because water is terrifying. I love water. It's so scary. It's going to fuck me up this summer because I'm a literal fish, as you know. Yeah, you really are. The other day we were swimming and Elena had to drag me out of a pool so that we go to a meeting and I was like okay but why can't we just take it in the pool? Why? Why? And I was like, no. She was like no, we also need to like drive home and there's many steps involved. So no,

we cannot do that. It's like fine, mom. We don't have an internet connection at this pool. Oh man. Well, guys, we love you so much. And Elena, bomb episode. Thanks so much. I like to find a swamp. We do. Swampy. We just love it. And we hope we keep listening. And we hope. you keep it weird but not so weird that you die and take everybody with you thank you and good night