Morbid - Listener Tales 87

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Well- DAMN SAM! It’s Listener Tales 87! This week’s episode is brought to you by WORST ROOMMATES EVER! Inspired by the show coming back to Netflix on 6/26 for SEASON TWO-We pull stories about creepy cohabitators that are brought to you, BY you, For you, FROM you, and ALLLLL about you! This week we hear about ex-roommate parting curses, previous spectral owners who HATE the updated decor tastes, a roomie who whispers sinister things in the wee hours, a horrifying close call, and the ghost story of two ghouls in love! If you’ve got a listener tale please send it on over to [e-mail] with “Listener Tales” somewhere in the subject line :)Sifting through the show notes for "Worst Roommate Ever" information? Check it out on Netflix at https://www.netflix.com/title/81031682?source=35 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 Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. It is morbid and it's Halloween. Halloween, Halloween. And actually, this was supposed to be a little earlier in the week, but we had a nor'easter up here in the northeast. In the north-east.

And that's what's called a nor'easter. You know, I didn't know that. I know. I loved that you didn't know. I asked her that the other day. I was like, why did they even call in a noreaster? And I was like, well, directions. And I was like, you know.

Oh, you're right. It has nothing to do with Easter. No, it certainly does not. But we had a pretty gnarly one, and it knocked out the power for our entire area for days on end. Yeah, we were without for like two and a half days. Yeah, it was back to like Puritan times. And, whoo. It was horrific.

That was tough. I did, however, play a lot of best fiends. Yeah, I did too, actually, because it was, we didn't have any internet, no Wi-Fi, no cable, no nothing, which sounds, again, first world problems. Like, we are like, we didn't have TV. Yeah. But like, it's a very cushy life. It is a very cushy life that we could be so destroyed by not having Wi-Fi. Like, for sure.

But it was like weird because we've just had it. Yeah. It was just so quiet. And it was funny. Not funny. It was like ironic because you were talking about that in the Velasca Axe murders. How quiet everything was. And then I was sitting there in bed like, oh cool.

I'm literally never going to sleep then. Yeah. Because it's dead silent. And so dark. And then the wind was crazy. So like if it hit your house in a certain way, it was making like super creepy like howling noises. Yeah. It was definitely, it was a throwback for sure for a few days. And with kids, it was like, whew, it was tough. Yeah. But we figured it out. We kept them busy. We made it through.

We were very lucky to still have heat so I can count on that. We had like the stuff we really needed, so that was good. But all our like extra things were like meh. But it also made it so that we could not post our episode because we didn't have the internet. But here we are. We're here now. Hello. We have power. We have all that good stuff. and we were able to post this episode. Yay. And finish it. So that's good.

But another, in the meantime, and I couldn't wait to talk about this, a huge true crime thing happened this past week. Yeah, it did. One of the unidentified victims from the John Wayne Gacy case was finally identified. That's huge. Like crazy. Because that was like almost like 40 years ago. Yeah.

Like that's a long time. And imagine like his family. Yes. I'm sure other people passed away in his family without knowing whatever happened to him. Oh, yeah. And the people who were on scene that day, like I read something in the Chicago Sun Times, and it was one of the attorneys that was there from Chicago. His name's Terry Sullivan.

And he said, quote, the entire gasey story was on the face of one of those skulls. And he said it had the look of horror, pure horror. Oh, my God. And he said, the remains we found were no longer bodies, bodies removed by time, bones. But the look on the face of one of those skulls from the crawl space, was something I can never forget. Wow. So this, I mean, that case, if you go back and listen to our episodes, you'll see it's,

he's a horrific monster. And there are, they're still unidentified victims. But we now know that one of those victims has a name and it is Francis Wayne Alexander. And he was 21 years old. A baby. Yeah. And he was adorable. Like the picture of him, you're just like, oh, I just want to grab your face.

I know. And he, like, smiling in the picture, it like, ruins you. Yeah. And he lived on the normal. side and he had disappeared. No one know where he went and that's unfortunately what happens. So I'm glad that there's closure on that. Yeah, I hope that brought like people and his family closure and friends. Yeah. But to any of his family members that are, you know, still around, like, ooh, our heart goes out to you. Absolutely. That is horrific. But rest in peace to Francis.

Yes. And we're glad that it's at least moving in that direction. Hopefully we can get them all identified. I know the cool thing is that DNA is like just coming even now still so far. Yeah. that I think a lot of these victims hopefully will be named. Yeah, hopefully we'll keep seeing the progress in that. But yeah, so that was a really, really good but still like somber thing that happened this week. Yeah. Other than that, I think it's really just been the lead up to Halloween, which is always like a kind of sad to me the week before Halloween. Okay, I agree.

It's fun but sad. Because I'm like, oh, no, it's almost over. In fact, I have like a little Halloween countdown thing. And today I did it to one. And I was like, man. Yeah. It's like great, but you're like, oh no, but then it's going to be over for another year. Like not that spooky season ever leaves here, but no, of course not.

Like the official spooky season. Right. Like haunted houses are going to be gone. But then at the same time, like Elena and I were saying this to each other the other day, then it's kind of exciting because like all the holidays come. Like, this is a really good time of year. It is. We love this time of year.

It just feels like a happy time of year. It does. And hopefully it's going to be a happy time of year for everybody. I think so. Keep it spooky the whole year round. A. But in, you know, in the Halloween story, spirit, we decided to do a story that has like a lot of lore with it. And it's also a Massachusetts

story, which we love a Massachusetts. This is a terrible story, but we love to talk about Massachusetts. This is the story of Sharon Gregory and the man who brutally murdered her in 1988. Right. You'll find out what the like, you know, that there's all the lore and rumors that came along with this that kind of fit with the Halloween theme. So this took place in Greenfield, Massachusetts. It's a very small town. It has about 18,000 people. I've literally never heard of it.

It's only like a few hours away from where we are. It's like in Western Massachusetts kind of thing. Our murderer that we're going to talk about is Mark Branch. He was 18 years old at the time of the crime. I should say this ahead of time. Not a ton is known detail-wise about this. It was like scrounge city to try to find anything I could. So I won't have like the most detailed background on all these people.

Like I normally would. It's just not out there. Yeah. But he did, what we know is he did have a history of emotional trouble as like a teen and a young kid. He was not, from what we could see, we don't know if he was diagnosed with any kind of mental illness. But he definitely had some emotional turmoil going on. Now, he attended New Salem Academy for a few weeks and then dropped out to receive care at McLean. I don't know why it's so hard for me to say that word. McLean. I don't know why it won't

come out right. It did. But yeah, McLean. So anybody from Massachusetts, probably is heard of McLean Hospital. Again, not a lot is known about what exact care he received there and for what, but he was obviously, you know, he was emotionally disturbed at the time. And that's what a lot of people around him will say that. His parents, Betty and Richard Branch, really didn't comment on his mental health or anything really about this case. So we have very little to go on when it comes to that. Now, the Union News published an article saying Mark Branch was socially awkward, aggressive, and emotionally disturbed. Everyone they spoke to after the crime who knew him said he was teased a lot. People really treated him kind of like shit, but he would also retaliate

with aggression. So it kind of like forced to this cycle. One thing they all agree on is that he talked about killing people a lot. Oh. He would offhandedly say, I wonder what it would be like to kill someone. Okay. Or like I would really like to kill someone. Like it was just very casual. Like I would like to do this. You should probably look more into that, everybody around him. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he would say it very bluntly, just I want to kill people. But because he was quiet and kind of emotionally unwell at the time, they figured he was kind of just going through it. Acting now. And they were like, he's not really, because nobody thinks anybody's really going to do it. I know. We probably should like work on that. I know. It's hard, though, because it's like, you never think you know a murderer. Of course not. That's not like what you think is going to happen. But it looks like his parents did try to get him help. They did what they could. Right. It states that that same article says that he went through public school in Massachusetts, then went to a private alternative school, and then went into two programs for

emotionally disturbed adolescents, all while doing some really messed up things to his classmates that we're going to talk about in a little bit. Oh. One thing we do know about Mark Branch, too, is that he loved horror movies. Now, specifically, he loved Friday the 13th in Jason Voorhees. This is often referred to as the Friday the 13th murder. It did not happen on Friday the 13th. It's said that because he idolized Jason Voorhees. Very weird idol.

I was going to say a very interesting idol. Because one, not real. But I guess, I mean, it does make sense to send. degree because like Jason was picked on so much and he probably found solace and not. Yeah, like a kindred spirit with Jason. Now, before we go any further, obviously we always say, we've said in a million times, movies do not make people kill people. They don't. No. And it's not even like how Billy was like movies, don't blame the movies. Movies don't kill people. They make killers more creative. Like, it's not even that. If you're going to kill someone, it's not because a movie. Told you

told you to. You're a disturbed person who's going to kill someone. But they really, back then, especially when this was happening, 1988, everyone blamed anything that they could outside of the actual human. It was that around the same time of like satanic panic. Oh, the 80s were definitely a satanic panic time. So this was like really perfect. But Video Expo 1 in Greenfield said when they talked to like a manager there, he said, quote, he rented strictly gore, period, the goryer the better. Again, this proves nothing. Robert Cuesnell, who managed the video store, said that Branch also helped him out there sometimes on the weekends, just because he loved movies in general. But he was also working

at a stop and shop at the time. Okay. No, normal like 18-year-old kids. I was going to say. Now, Sharon Gregory was 18 years old as well. She was a Greenfield Community College freshman, and she was majoring in psychology. Friends described her as, quote, an independent and determined to be an artist, a painter, like an amazing young woman. Wow. Also, people said she was, quote, one who loved art in the theater and cared for all people. She had many friends and the ties with her family were very, very close. She was an individual of free spirit.

I love that. Sounds awesome. I know. She and Mark Branch knew each other. But we're not like best friends or anything. They were like acquaintances, really. And they're from the same town. Yeah, they're from the same town.

Some of the same people they were hanging out with, so they would cross paths a lot. Yeah. And they talked. They knew each other. Yeah. It's not like they were just passing in the night. They knew each other. Okay.

Now, a friend of branches who did, he hung out with regularly, said the night before the murders, he had hung out with Sharon Gregory and two of her friends, and he said he saw all of them together. Mark was with them. Okay. So this was one thing that they were doing together. The only issue that seemed to point to any kind of motive in this murder, because that was the problem.

Once we get to the whole crime, you're going to say, what the fuck happened? Right. Like, why did, if they're just acquaintances, like, nothing seems to have tipped this off. Now, apparently, there were a lot of sources point to the idea that there was like a psychological profile that apparently had Mark's diagnosis on it from the hospital. He had it in his possession. Apparently Sharon got it in her possession at some point. and a lot of sources claim that she was using it as a psychology student to do a profile on him herself.

Okay. Tons of sources say that. I wonder how she got it. Well, we'll get into that. Okay. Because at first, I couldn't find anything that said how she got it. Right. And then finally, I found an affidavit that gave me a little more information about what was

going on, which, like, cleared up a lot of stuff. Because a lot of, even when we get to the point where they point to him as the killer, I was like, are you guys sure, though? Like, I don't know where your evidence is, but the affidavit has more in it. Now, Chief David McCarthy said, police chief David McCarthy said, quote, Sharon Gregory had in her possession a psychological profile of Mark Branch. And that profile was wanted badly by Mark Branch. He didn't like her having it and he wanted it.

She did a profile on him and she made it known to him what the profile was. They're very vague when they talk about this. Just she had a profile, that's it. The end. Okay. But we'll get more into it. Don't worry. So another friend of Mark's named Scott Landry said he was with Cheryl Gregory. Cheryl Gregory is Sharon Gregory's identical twin. Oh, shit. Yes. It was Cheryl who had heard Mark talking about the psychological profile that was done on him while he was receiving medical treatment at the hospital. It was Cheryl who asked, can I see it? And asked him, can I take it home to, like, read through it? And Mark agreed, but said, don't show it to anyone. And when you're done reading it, burn it.

Okay. So I think it was just like, it is. I can't imagine like one of my like acquaintances or friends going to treatment and then like being like, can I read this? Yeah. But apparently people were interested. I think he talked about it a lot. So maybe it was just, it's a strange scenario. And I mean, she's a psychology major.

Yeah. Well, and Cheryl isn't is the twin. So yeah. I don't even know if she's a psychology major. Or no, I mean. Sharon. Sharon was. Now, Sharon knew about this because, of course, her twin sister, Cheryl, but no one was able to find this profile after the crime.

Okay. This profile, no one could find it. It wasn't in the home where Sharon ended up being killed, and it is said in a lot of sources that Sharon was writing that psychological profile on Mark. They never found that either. And they say that's why he was mad, that he didn't want her writing this psychological profile on him. But the affidavit I found proves otherwise. that it was Cheryl who asked for the official psych profile he had, and he willingly gave it to Cheryl.

Right. Sharon knew about it, but that's as far as that part goes. I honestly wonder, would he have killed Cheryl if Cheryl had been the one at home that day? Because what we will see is that he came into their house and he killed Sharon. We're going to talk about it. Do you think he possibly can, like, did they look so much alike where he was confused? I don't know how alike they looked, but they're twins. and she was the one with that profile.

Right. And he's the one that wanted it back. Yeah, and I wonder if it was Cheryl in the house that day, would he have killed Cheryl? Right. It's horrifying to think about regardless. I'm sure Cheryl thought about that too. Yeah, the affidavit really like threw me for a loop when I read that because I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

No one seems to be positing that it could have been Cheryl that he was actually going after. Right. Because there's no other, there's nothing that says he was specifically going. going after Sharon. Right. I think he was being weird with them no matter what, because I think they had talked to friends. I won't mention it. And he was, they were like, he's like weird and I don't know.

Like they felt a little uncomfortable with him. Okay. But nothing would have pointed to this. Right. No. Yeah. So let's talk about the crime. So on October 24th, 1988 in Greenfield, Massachusetts,

Mark Branch, dressed in full Jason for he's cosplay. Oh. He was wearing the hockey mask, which is. terrifying. He had like seven of those hockey masks. Okay. That were like props. Yeah. Which like on any other thing, I'd be like cool collection. Right. But with this I'm like a little different. Hate it. He had on the black boots, the outfit, everything. He set out for Sharon's apartment in Sharon's apartment where she was with her, like her family's home. Okay. Now he apparently was planning to end this psychological study once and for all. That was the motive that they put out. No one

knows for sure exactly what happened, like, you know, moment by moment when he got there. But what we do know is that he showed up. He was seen by a witness, which we'll talk about in a second, and he chased her up her stairs. Oh my God. And into her bathroom where she tried desperately to hide from him. He found her and brutally stabbed her to death. Oh, that's so fucking scary. Her twin sister Cheryl found her. Oh my God. Her brutalized body in the bathroom in her bathtub. She had been stabbed repeatedly in the head, chest, and abdomen. In the head? Yes.

Now, police chief David McCarthy said, quote, I've been a cop for 25 years, and this is the grossest killing I have ever seen. She received a lot of stab wounds and there was a lot of blood. It was a gruesome scene. I would think so. Which, like, yeah, absolutely. But also, I was like, the grossest killing. Like, that's what you have to say?

Yeah. I just thought that was, like, a very weird way to say it. I was like, you want to, like, thesaurus that really quick? Yeah, like, I don't know. Maybe, let's pick a different adjective. You don't really want to be quoted as being, like, gross. Like, that's, like, yeah.

Yikes. It was just a very strange way to say it to me. Maybe let's just go with worst. Yeah, I was like, oh, I don't know. Now, again, I found that affidavit, and it has the officers who came to the scene first, and it tells a horrifying tale. So here are some of the tidbits I pulled out of it. One of the things says, and this is directly right from,

right from the affidavit. Preliminary examination of the deceased at the scene showed evidence of multiple stab wounds about the back and the head and that the deceased's throat had been slashed. There was a large amount of blood in the bathroom and outer hall, as well as traces of blood on the stairway. The weapon used to inflict the injuries was not found at the scene. The deceased was closed. Now Detective F. Peter Clark spoke with the deceased sister Cheryl. she resided at the same address with the deceased and their parents. So again, it could have been her there that day. She told Detective Clark that the deceased had recently been concerned about an individual named Mark,

who Cheryl knew to be a person who hung around with Scott Landry of Maple Street Greenfields. The deceased had told Cheryl that she was frightened by the manner in which Mark stared at her. So that's, when you look at like every other source about this, which is not a lot. Yeah. When you look, you really have to dig. They don't give you. They just say, okay, well, Sharon was making this psychological profile on him.

He was mad. He didn't want it done, so he killed her. Right. And it seems like there's way more to that. But then they're like, so the police just arrested Mark. And you're like, how did they know that, though? Like when there's no connective tissue there at all, I'm always like, why did they just suddenly think of Mark Branch?

And like what evidence did they have? Exactly. But now we see in the affidavit that Cheryl had said she was concerned about him. And then we will also see there's physical evidence as well that ties him that they don't mention an and a witness, you said. Yeah. So immediately, obviously, as soon as Cheryl says, Mark, Mark Branch is now the name that everybody's saying. Of course. Now, other than Mark Branch, Sharon was very popular, very well liked. She had a lot of close friends and family. None of them had anything against her. There was no enemies here. Police went to Mark's home to chat with him after this, but he wasn't home. His mother spoke to the police.

and said she hadn't seen him since that morning. And she described the car he was driving. She said he was driving a gray Chevrolet Chivette and it was in good shape. So bad for his mom. Imagine the police knocking on her door and she's like, what? And they're like, we're looking for your son. In relation to a murder. Yeah, I mean, this poor woman.

And they seem like they tried. Well, I was going to say. To get him the help he needed. It's not like he was ignored or neglected help-wise. No. They gave it their best shot to help him. Yeah, they sent him to multiple programs like you said. So I really feel for his parents.

When they looked up his information at the DMV, it confirmed that he was driving in 1983 Chevy Chavette, color gray, and it was a two-door sedan. Okay. Now, this is what brings us to the witness that they were able to find. So this witness described seeing Mark, described him to a T, at the scene that morning, and they were able to accurately describe him and his car at Sharon Gregory's home when the murder occurred. Now, from the affidavit, Michael J. Rockwell lived across from Sharon Gregory. Mr. Rockwell told the officers that at 12 noon on this date, he had just begun to watch television when he heard the

sound of a car door closing. The sound came from the driveway to the east of his house. He looked out his window and observed a dark gray chivette, possibly two-door, parked facing into the driveway. The front end of the chivet was about even with the walk going from the driveway to the front door of the residence. Mr. Rockwell observed a white male approximately six feet tall, approximately 180 to 195 pounds with dark hair. Mr. Rockwell said the hair was a long military cut. He did not see any facial hair. The man was wearing jean tight pants, a jean jacket, both of stonewashed or acid dyed color. The man was clean cut. The man had his hands in his pockets, and Rockwell watched him walk to the front door of the address. The man was not wearing glass. The man was not wearing

glasses that is describing Mark Branch to a team. Yes. Between about three and five minutes later, Mr. Rockwell again heard a car door from the direction of the driveway. He looked out the window again and saw the same person now seated in the Chevette. He heard the engine start and saw the Chevette back out of the driveway and head west. Approximately 30 to 40 minutes later, Mr. Rockwell again heard a car in the same driveway. Looking out, he saw Cheryl's car pull in. Moments later, he saw police cars arrive. Oh, wow. So he saw the whole thing go down.

Can we also talk about the fact that this happened at 12 noon? 12 noon. Like, what the fuck? Middle of the day. This guy's just sitting down to watch TV and he sees that. Yeah. And he had left. And has no idea what's going on.

He had left his, so Mark Branch had left his parents home earlier that morning. Right. And was like, bye, going to do some stuff, be back. And that's what he's going. Like, what? And then just even you describing him just like, then he pulled out of the driveway and headed west. Yeah, just brutally killed this car.

Stabder in the chest, faced. head and then just backs out of her driveway and goes out of arm. And then just leaves for someone to find her, for her family to find her. That's so wild. He's a wild end of it. In this case, only gets weirder. Really? Now, after speaking with Mark's mother, they were given permission to search his bedroom. Okay. It's when they went into his bedroom that the case gets like kind of ridiculous. So this, they saw a ton of horror paraphernalia, especially Friday the 13th and Jason's He had like action figures, all that stuff. Now, he had tons of horror magazines, like replica weapons from the horror movies, the whole gamut.

But obviously, this is not the reason he did this. But at the time, the police went in there and were like, boom, this is why. Like he was watching horror movies. And it's like, no, he's just disturbed. Now, as soon as this was happening, former friends of his said they were worried he was just on the run believing he was actually Jason Orhees, like just trying to be him. No. And that's like mental illness. That's what I was going to say, right? Like he does have a mental illness. He does. It seems to me like he was just trying. I think he wanted to kill someone. It was very clear he did. He said it to people his entire life. Multiple occasions.

And he just found a persona that seemed to fit him well. And that's what he did. I don't think it has, you can't correlate the horror movie with what he did. I think he wanted to do it. Jason just gave him an identity. In Avenue. That's all. Now, people started coming forward saying that in high school, Mark had written obsessive and threatening letters to girls literally describing how he would murder them. What? And nobody. People were just like, hey, by the way, this happened. Yeah, they're like, that was weird. He also pulled a knife on a girl in school as well. And another girl from high school said he left school after threatening her and then putting a scalpel through a photo of her and leaving it in her locker. and he was pulled out of school. What the fuck?

Yeah. So, I mean, this is... Where did this kid get a scalpel? This is an extremely violent kid. Yeah. Clearly. This is sad. Like, this is horrible.

Because clearly, it seems like this could have been stopped. Yeah. Like, he could have been put somewhere where he would have been had help. Yeah. It's wild. For long term. But on the flip side of it, too, not even on the flip side, but the other side of it here, like, he is just an angry, violent person.

Right. I think, like, he's emotionally distilled. Because I don't know what he was diagnosed with, if anything. We don't even know. Because that's never been released. His parents fought to keep those private. I just know that this is clearly a violent, angry individual who was talking about doing something forever.

And it's like, but I also am like, what do you do? I don't, that's like, how do you stop that? I feel like there needs to be protocol for something like this. But it's like, I don't know what it is. It's like really sad. but also people he went to school with said that he kept files on girls and would call them at night and use the information in the files to scare them. Like he would keep like detailed information and then call them at night and be like,

let me just read things to you to, like and scream. What? Yeah. And scream wasn't even out yet. Yeah, that's a lot. Now, a former classmate was quoted in a news article confirming these accusations of his behavior growing up and saying, quote, he's been planning. he's been planning to kill someone ever since he was a kid.

Yeah. So this is not horror movies. This is he wanted to kill someone. Right. Now the next morning, after the murder, his car was located. It was abandoned about, without him in it, about 13 miles from Greenfield, Massachusetts. It was parked right outside of a forest. And when they searched it, they found blood on the front seat and on the center and front console.

It later matched Sharon Gregory's blood. So there's your physical evidence connection. him to it. This is from the affidavit. Detective Peter Scurrett from the Greenfield Police Department spoke with Thomas Smith MD who conducted the autopsy of the deceased. Dr. Smith said upon first impression that the instrument which made the stab wounds in the deceased was likely a single-edged knife with a blade width of approximately one to one and a half

inches and a blade length of between four inches and five inches. Wow. death resulted from multiple stab wounds numbering about two dozen. Oh. Two dozen stab wounds. Now, this is where we bring in a man named John Monty. Okay. Who's John Monty, you ask?

I do. You want to know. I do. He was a house painter from Quincy, Kedzee, who discovered that he had psychic abilities. How? Painting houses, I'm not really sure. Do a damn thing? I don't know.

We're all familiar with how I feel about psychics and police investigations. I'm normally very against it. I think it causes more harm than good. John's kind of wild. There's times when you're just like, okay, John. Yeah. Like you might know stuff. And then there's other times where you're like, John, stay out of it.

And that's why psychics and investigations like this, I think, are just not good. Because if they're not good 100% of the time, they're not good. They're doing harm. And it's like when they're telling parents, that their kid is alive or dead and it's the other way around. It's like, nobody needs that. We don't need that. We need real investigation here.

We need science. We need like hard. We need eyeballs looking at real things. There are other times when you go to a psychic. Absolutely. Go to psychics. Like go get your tarot cards read. Like do that.

That's fun. But when it's like life or death here, it's like I think it just brings more harm. That's me. But in this case, it's weird though in this case because you're going to be like... It is like a case-by-case situation. Yeah, which to me makes it harmful. Right.

Because if it's not working in all cases, then why are we doing it? Right. I can see that. Because you can't really trust it. You know, because people get lucky. Now, yeah. So he does have like a pretty good success rate, to be honest, if we're really judging by like, you know, psychics who like involve themselves in crimes.

In March, I'm just going to give you a couple of like background things on him, just so you can see why he was pulled. into this case because the investigators actually pulled him into the case to help. Oh, wow. Because they were like, we need to find Mark Branch at this point. Because remember, he wasn't in his car. They don't know where he is now. So they were kind of desperate. And we'll talk about how crazy the town got. But they immediately pulled John Monty in and were like, you know, he's local. He's had some success. Let's see what he has to say. Well, they're probably at the point where they're like, what the fuck else are we going to do? And honestly, on this side of in the investigation, I get it a

more because we're looking for the killer. Right. That is a different. But when we're talking about where's a missing child? A victim. Is this child alive? Is this victim alive? That's when it gets hairy to me. Yeah, absolutely. When we're talking about whether this kid is alive or where your, your loved one is alive or not, or where they could be. What happened to them? Yeah, that's when I hate it. Looking for the killer? All right. Bring him in. Right. Why not? What's the worst that could happen? We don't find it. And that's like, sure. I feel like that doesn't hurt people as much. So in March, Just to give you a little bit of John Monty. He predicted on a taped radio show that President Reagan would be shot by the end of March.

Whoa. But he would survive. He wrote it down, too, to document it. That did happen. He said, quote, there is sadness around President Reagan. I feel he will be shot in the left side of his body after a speech in Washington. I feel it will happen by the end of March, but the president will live. Imagine hearing that as President Reagan?

I'd be like, you fucking kidding me? I'd be like, I'm not going anywhere. I wouldn't give any fucking speeches. Now, in case you didn't know, Reagan was shot March 30th. Yeah. By John Hinkley Jr., who was released, by the way, and now releases YouTube videos of him singing wild. Just putting it out there. Like, he's on YouTube now.

Didn't know that. And he's just like strumming a guitar singing. No, thank you. There's a lot. But that's another story for another day. He attempted to assassinate the president because he became obsessed with the movie taxi driver and in turn was obsessed with Jody Foster. in that movie. He thought

that, you know, his thought process was that if he killed the president, Jody would fall in love with him. Seems legit. It didn't work. Again, movies. Don't do this. Real weird. But he was shot at the Washington Hilton Hotel by Hinkley when he fired six shots at him

and the men around him. He was shot in the left lung. That's crazy. So John Monty said the left side of his body. Yeah, he did. And it just missed his heart, so he survived. His secret service agent Timothy McCarthy was shot as well, but survived, and a DC police officer was shot. But they, and I think the DC police officer was Thomas Dillahanty.

Reagan's press secretary, James Brady, was shot in the head. The bullet literally got him in the eye, and he was permanently affected with brain damage. He had partial paralysis, speech and memory issues as a result, like really sad. from that he became a huge advocate for stricter gun laws and requirements for background checks for weapons Congress actually passed the Brady bill in 1993 from this whole thing just had to give you a little quick background a little history lesson but yeah so John Monty was right he even predicted the left side of his body which is like crazy then in 1995 John Monty also predicted that there would be a weapon found buried on OJ Simpson's property Whoa. Well, in 2016, retired Los Angeles Police Department cop George Maycott came forward and was like, oh yeah, I found this in 1998.

He had found a buried knife on OJ Simpson's property in 1998. And he said he was given the knife by a construction crew who was like digging up the Simpsons yard for like renovation and like raising the property basically. And he actually tried to give it over to the LAPD and they were like, nah, we don't want to. We don't care. Like literally we're like, no. Yeah, shocking. No, thank you. We're so shocked. So he kept it for like 13 years. So he was bringing it forward again to have it looked at. And it was determined that there was no DNA to suggest it was the murder weapon of, you know, Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman. But still, weird that he knew a weapon was buried in OJ's backyard. Yeah. But you can also, you know, there's so many things you can say about this. But he's also been dead wrong. on a ton of things.

Okay. And like led grieving families on wild goose chases to find their missing children, only to find nothing. This is again why I can't get behind this shit. Yeah. Like I can get behind it when we're looking for the killer. Can't get behind it when we're looking for the victim. I see that.

And I'm not always saying it's maliciously done on their parts. I'm sure a lot of them like thinks that they are going to help and they're trying to. Well, and they've had success in the past. I'm sure it then makes it in the future easier to. believe your gut instinct. Exactly. Some of them are malicious and just bad people. That's just the way of it.

That's just life. But I think some of them aren't malicious or bad, but, you know, rarely does it bring true comfort to anyone. So John was called in for this case as well, and we know his background now. So, you know, he was local. At the time, a lot of people knew him. He was like kind of rise in the ranks in the psychic community. So they gave Monty a photo of Sharon, and they didn't tell him anything else.

And this had just happened. You know, there was news about some of it, but like, I don't think he was like given any background information. And he immediately said he felt violence when he looked at her photo, which I think is a pretty safe bet when you're being handed a photo of a girl by a homicide detective. That's just me. Yeah. That's just me.

Yeah. He also said he kept hearing the name Jason. Oh, that's fucking weird. And he said it was echoing in his mind. He couldn't stop thinking of the name Jason. It's creepy. Then he said he was getting flashed. of images in his mind, some brutal, some confusing, but he said he knew where we had to go.

He's like, I'm going to take you where you have to go. So he brings investigators near this area where the car was found abandoned, and he walks them into the forest. They walked into the forest and came across an abandoned slaughterhouse. An investigator said they didn't even know that that was there. Oh, good. Like it was just like sitting in the middle of the forest. So of course, yeah, they go inside. It reminds me of like Texas Chainsbottles. It does. So they go inside. Of course, because this has turned into a legitimate horror movie, and that's what you do in a horror movie. You go into the abandoned slaughterhouse. Obvi.

In the middle of the woods. Correct. Inside the slaughterhouse, they found drawings on the walls. What the fuck? And these drawings were a man in a fucking mask murdering a woman on a set of stairs. Dude. Literally a recreation of the Sharon Gregory murder scene. And under the picture, it said a death of intention.

What? There was also Jason lives and Crystal Lake spray painted on the walls. That's really fucking lame. Which it's like, okay. Yeah. Now, if we're going to talk about, like, if we're going to say that he was hanging out in that abandoned slaughterhouse at any point that he did this. What if he was there when they were searching the car? Exactly.

Just sitting in that. That could be it for sure. But if you look at like video where they kind of videoed inside the sloth. house a little bit. You can see that there's a lot of spray paint on the walls. Some of them are like Freddy lives, you know, like lots of horror movie shit. It could just be that that was there. Yeah. It is weird. The picture is strange. For sure. Definitely strange. But I don't know. I don't think it totally. I mean, it's strange. I'll say that for sure. And it's like, did John know that that was there? Had he been there before? I don't know. You got a question. Yeah, you don't know. It's strange.

though. It seems like a teenage hangout. Exactly. I'll give it to them that you have to like raise an eyebrow a little bit. But I'm trying to err on the side of logic here. But you're also like the best devil's advocate. I know. It's like where you sit permanently. It is. It's where I sit. Now I know you're thinking, okay, look in the forest now. Correct. Because he's got to be in the forest. That is exactly what I was thinking. Well, they did. They searched. Good, good, good. But it was called off because nothing was found. And they declared it to be clean, which I was like, you declared the entire. higher forest clean of him? Like, I don't know. How big was the forest? Now, aside from the actual, like, caveman drawings in the abandoned slaughterhouse in the woods, where Mark Branch, his car was

found, that's, everything else was clean, apparently. There's no sign that he was anywhere. Now, everyone in this town in Greenfield was terrified. Obviously. The entire town was on edge. Well, especially because his friends were saying, like, we don't even know if he thinks he's Jason right now. There was a brutal killer on the loose. And everyone would. sure they knew who it was. So now they're all just waiting for Mark Branch to appear. And they're like, is he going to kill again? I don't know. And then this is right around Halloween. That really is terrifying. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure they leaned into it. Well, the police chief said, quote, there's fear and frenzy going on all over this town. People kept thinking they saw him. There were sightings of him

everywhere, but they were not, you know, as we'll find out later, they were not confirmed. People were just so on edge that they were seeing their real life boogeyman everywhere they Yeah. You know, an article from the Boston Globe said, quote, Unconfirmed sightings of Branch were reported by dozens of frightened people yesterday, prompting city officials to warn residents to keep doors and windows locked. Duh. So they were on like lockdown.

People as far as Albany, New York, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, they all reported sightings of him. Oh, wow. So the whole like all of New England was just on edge. It makes sense. Now, in the same article, a resident named Kathy said, quote, my children aren't sleeping well and neither am I. And she said her 12-year-old son said he had trouble falling asleep at night. Quote, just thinking about how violent this guy on the loose is, everybody's scared.

The article goes on to explain the Halloween trick-or-treating time changed for the town and that they were literally like they were going to change when you could trick-or-treat to when it was light out. They were literally thinking this kid was going to massacre people on Halloween. A resident said, quote, that's what they're afraid of, that he's following. the movie right along. Yeah, I mean, I would be scared too. I would think that. And so this is wild. Like we said, Halloween was coming up and Mark's nowhere to be found at this point. As far as everyone was concerned, he was on the loose somewhere and he was going to strike again. Yeah. So they declared that trick-or-treating

had to be done only in the daylight hours in Greenfields. Massachusetts. They actually suggested kids not go trick-or-treating at all, but that was the only way they could do it if they chose to. And as a result, most parents kept their kids home that year. I would have kept my kids home. I totally get that. No fucking way would I do the streets. Yeah, I would just be like we're having a Halloween party at home. Like they even suggested people turn off their porch lights to discourage any after dark wandering or trick or trick or treating. Oh my God. So the whole town was dark. The feeling of that. Like, oh my, that's scary as hell. Yeah. And so the whole town's dark. Yeah. In the entire night, police patrolled all the tree lines and through the streets.

It's literally Friday the 13th. It must have been so scary. Now, in the affidavit, there seems to be a reason for them to worry that Halloween would be a shitty time. So it says, quote, in August, Cheryl had a conversation with Mark who bragged about having 12 different masks that he had sent away for, and that last Halloween he had dressed up as Jason, and somewhere around the Greenfield Middle School, he had jumped out of the bushes with a knife and chased a girl. The girl ran, and he said he fell. He told Cheryl that if he had not fallen, he would have stabbed her.

He told Cheryl that because he was unsuccessful, he planned on trying the same thing this coming Halloween, 1988. What the fuck? Yep. And like, what? Yeah. Now, the town had a lot of festivities that went on annually during Halloween because, like, New England's like all about. Fuck, yeah. Like, these small towns are all like, let's Halloween.

Like harvest. Let's go. Harvest the bestest. Now, there was a ragshag parade, and it was, which I looked at. up, it still happens in Greenfield, which is adorable. It's like a parade where all the kids dress up in their costumes and there's candy and it's like a big festival. Yeah, I love that.

It was called off because it was considered too risky. Yeah, I don't blame them. They were also scared that people may actually be dressing up as Jason for Halloween since it was a popular movie at the time. And they could possibly scare the shit out of everyone or get their asses kicked by vigilantes. Yes. Like, this is a real problem. Like this is bad all around.

And a local theater was planning to do like a whole showing of Halloween for the return of Michael Myers for spooky season. Hell yeah. And it was just coming out. So it was like a big deal. They canceled the showing for fear that it was going to inspire more. Dude, fuck. Mark Branch. He really fucked with everyone's spooky season.

Yeah, I'd be pissed. Like what the fuck. Now this was right in that time when people were like rock music and horror movies are making killers. So it makes sense that everybody's just like, uh. I get why like we. they had to cancel like Halloween stuff because you got to be safe, but it just sucks like the movies get canceled. Yeah, it does stink. Escapism is a thing.

So the town was a mess. They had full-time social workers and clinical psychologists hired to help members of the community deal with the fact that this man they all knew was out there and had killed a woman. Yeah, and a young girl. And a woman that they all knew and loved. Like, she was part of their community. Yeah. Now, his 19th birthday passed while he was missing. And the town was ready.

They were like, he might come back for like a birthday massacre. Like, we don't know. Is he going to come commemorate the occasion? Who knows? Like, they're living in fear. And he was brazen and theatrical as fuck. So they were like, maybe this is going to be his thing. I'm wondering how he's like getting around.

Yeah. Well, we'll find out. Now, he didn't show up. One of Branch's friends, the one who regularly hung out with him and had been speaking to the media a lot, said that he was doing so because he was genuinely scared for Branch's life now. He said he saw a couple of hunters in recent weeks at that point, and he had asked them, because it was like hunting season. And he had asked them, are you hunting bucks or doze? Because, you know, like, rural.

You know, we're just like, what you're doing? Yeah. And they responded, we're going after branches. Oh. Which, like, clever, but fucked. But, like, clever, but fun. But real fucked. Now, John Monty comes back again, and he tells police, he knows Mark Branch has hung himself from a tree in the fore.

forest and he said you got to go look for them again. Mm-hmm. And they're like, huh, okay. Now, Buckland, Massachusetts, which is where, again, outside of where his car had been found. November 29, 1988. This is like a month later. Yeah.

A hunter named Kevin Purrington was out following some deer. As he stalked through the heavily wooded area, he came across a partially decomposed body hanging from a tree. Mm-hmm. The man was hanging by his own bootlaces and belt, and he was wearing jeans and combat boots. Oh, wow. This body was not far from that abandoned slaughterhouse and less than a mile from his abandoned car. Huh.

Shocking. He was so close to the slaughterhouse and his car that law enforcement said if they had just kept moving like 200 yards, they would have run right into him. Yeah, obviously. And immediately, authorities could tell it was Mark Branch by the clothing he was wearing. Right. Witnesses who saw Branch the date of the murder described his clothing. to law enforcement. DNA proved it to be Mark Branch's body. And his cause of death was described as intentional like hanging. Okay. So, because people immediately were like, did someone do that?

Yeah. The medical examiner said he had likely hung himself the same day he had killed Sharon Gregory. So they marked that fucking forest all clear. And then they were like, and he had been hanging there since October 24th. You wouldn't have even had to cancel anything. Yep. But the death was only kind of concerned. for him to be a suicide because it's really rife for urban legend and lore to begin to swirl around what happened because people were like, hmm, like, did someone find him and like do that to him? Like, are we sure that he died on that day? Because again, they're estimating. Yeah, exactly. It's been a month. Cause, like, time of death is a very variable thing.

Especially when he's like partially decomposed. Exactly. Now, of course there was a satanic cult reference in this whole thing because I was waiting for it. It was the time and Satan always makes an appearance for humans being fuck-ups. It's also Halloween. Exactly. So people were like, oh, was Sharon and Mark and the satanic cult together? No. 100% not true.

But they, of course, we're talking about it. And even now, people, now, today, people will say that he, quote, had help with his death. People think that maybe a mob of vigilantes hanged him whatever night they found him. And after all, the town had been gripped in fear and had basically had to cancel. all of Halloween because of his fucking nonsense. And it doesn't seem totally out of the realm of possibility. It doesn't. But I wonder, did anybody say like, oh, like, I was part of that mob?

Because I can't imagine anybody would stay quiet about that. You are right on my wavelength. Because the next thing I said was, but someone would have spilled by now, I feel like. Especially if, like, how united this town became in this. And if it was like your grandfather or something and he's dead now, you could tell you that story. He would be like, he was part of that. Like, he would definitely tell someone. Right.

I love that you were just like, boom. I was like, you were right here. You were right on my way, plane. And no one is as, you know, it just doesn't make someone would crack. Because no one is as good as the parents in nightmare on Elm Street and keeping secrets like that. There's a full circle. No one's that good. No.

And especially when it came to like somebody like this, like unfortunately people would want to take credit for that. Of course. Somebody would, somebody would end up just telling it out of like guilt or just like, here's an anecdote at a party. Like, let me tell you something. Here is my anecdote of the time I captured a sadistic killer. Exactly. So what we know is that he was hung either by his own hand or someone else. I think it was him.

Yeah. We don't know what we think it was the same day, but it could have been the same week, potentially, because it was a month out. It was cold, so that helps, like, you know, preserve. But it can also help fuck up a time of death. Right. Because, like, refrigeration is the same kind of thing with that. But we do know that he is dead.

He was dead for quite some time. They did not need to cancel Halloween likely. That's so angering. So that whole thing was done while he was just hanging in the woods. They had already looked in. Wow. Already looked in. That must have been like such a bad feeling as an investigator.

Well, that's a real bad look on the police department. Yeah, I'd be like, thanks guys. When they had to come out and be like, he was there a lot. So yeah, he was a mile from his abandoned car in the woods that we already looked at. sorry about no trick-or-treating everybody. Because not only that, it's like his car was right there. And then a mile away, one a mile away was that slaughterhouse that you also didn't know about. Exactly.

And then like, I feel like that was probably just like a fucking triangle in the woods of things leading to Mark Branch. Yeah. They didn't do a great job. That's really upsetting. I would move out of that town. And also, just as like a last side note, that's not to do with him, but they discovered the same week that they, or excuse me, they discovered in that same like span of

time that they discovered Mark Branch hanging from that tree. They found a helicopter that had crashed that week the week before over southwest Massachusetts. They found a helicopter crash in that woods near him. And apparently at a crash, people knew, but they couldn't find where it crashed. And it was in the same patch of woods. So I'm like, is this just like a void of despair in these woods that just like, are these like some of the fucking haunted woods? Like should we cover these? Like, did they go in that like forest? actually not see these things and we're just like, well, bye. That's weird. Like that forest, like, you just keep getting lost in.

Yeah, so like a week late, a week before this, a helicopter had crashed in those woods right near where he was, and they found it in the same trip. Those woods must be, like, real scary these days. I would not go near those. That's what I'm thinking. That's a scary. I feel like it must be one of those things where you walk in and this force field is like, like, womp, like it just keeps you out of there.

Yeah. I don't know. It's in Buckland. That's bizarre. I'd ever heard of Buckland. neither. It's, I know, Massachusetts, it's full of, like, random places that you're like, I don't even know that that exists. What I live in this state? But that is the very strange and very, like, pulled from a million different resources. Even still, I have so many questions. I feel like we're always going to have questions about this case. It's just one of those things that I don't think we'll ever have all the answers to.

Poor Sharon. But, I mean, his parents fought to, like, a little bit after. this happened, his parents fought to have those psychiatric records kept out of the public. They didn't want them in the media, which I'm interested to know. Yeah. What that's all about? Because I'm like, that might... Wouldn't that help a little, though? I think it would answer a lot of questions at least.

And I'm like, maybe it would hurt. But at the same time, you have to think the 80s was, I mean, even still, like, mental health is just now becoming talked about. Of course. They probably just didn't want to be associated with it and drug through the press. And again, I truly feel like his... his parents did everything they could. Absolutely.

They did. And I feel like his friends, you can't even, I'm like, what do you do? They're 18. They're high school kids and they don't, they're not taking them seriously. And it's like hindsight is 2020. I don't know. I mean, his behavior at school was wild. That's the only thing that I'm like, no one was. I mean, again, I don't know what you do.

But then again, he went to so many different schools that like his friends might not have even known about the things that happened at a previous school. Yeah. So it's a very strange, very sad situation. It sounds like Sharon and her sister were really close and like her family was really close and she sounds like a really cool artistic chick who is like a psychology major like doing the damn thing. Painting and being nice to people. Like just it's sad. It's sad all around.

In her own home. Like it's just really sad. It's fucked. So that is the what is called the Friday the 13th murder. Wow. Thank you. So it's a wild one. Yeah.

Well, as always, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you. you keep it weird i don't think i have to tell you not to keep it this weird don't keep it that weird i don't think i'll need to say that watch our movies and then turn it off and go live your life yeah thank you and good night bye