MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Divine Intervention

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

Today’s podcast will feature 2 stories that many people believe couldn't have happened by chance alone. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast. Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos: #2 -- "Bleeding Out" -- You couldn't have planned this even if you wanted to (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Zr0gqa1yk) #1 -- "Three Hangings" -- This story might be one of the most compelling cases of divine intervention (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNDWVv-faiI)   You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on my YouTube channel, just called "MrBallen" - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallen If you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's podcast will feature two stories that are about events that simply couldn't have happened by chance alone. The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called Bleeding Out, and this story comes full circle in the most unbelievable way. And the second and final story you'll hear today is called Three Hangings, and it might be one of the strongest examples of unseen forces shaping an outcome. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format,

then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. So, if that's of interest to you, please offer to let the follow button stay in your Airbnb for free. But don't tell them about all those human-hating honey badgers you've hid under all the bits. Okay, let's get it. into our first story called Bleeding Out. On the afternoon of June 29, 1934, a 37-year-old police officer named Captain Alan Falby pressed the throttle on his police motorcycle and sped down a street

in El Paso, Texas. Captain Falby's motorcycle lights and sirens were on because he was chasing a speeding pickup truck down the road. But despite the fact that obviously Captain Falby was in pursuit of this person, they were not slowing down at all. So Captain Falby had been a police officer for 11 years, and he loved his job, he loved his motorcycle, and he hated when suspects got away. So he kept his hand on the throttle and kept chasing down the suspect, but suddenly the truck he was going after slammed on its brakes and swerved hard to the left. Fulby tried to slow down, but it was too late. He slammed into the back of this truck, and then he and his bike went sliding across the asphalt for a few seconds, and the whole time Falby is feeling his body

getting totally scraped against the pavement and the winds getting knocked out of him. And then finally, when he came to a stop, you know, he was splayed out in the middle of the road. And his motorcycle, his beloved motorcycle, was laying on top of him, pinning his legs under him. And this bike weighed like 500 pounds. And adding insult to injury here, you know, as Falby is screaming out in pain because obviously horrible injuries have been sustained here, you know, he looks down the road and he sees the truck he was chasing, who clearly knew he just wrecked behind. them, they're not going to stay in help. They just drove off protecting themselves. And so pretty

quickly, Falby kind of assessed the situation he was in. You know, he tried for a second to push this bike off of him, but not only could he not move it, but every time he moved it just a little bit, the weight would kind of come down even harder and a little bit more pointed on his legs, which were crushed and he had this excruciating pain down there. And worse, he's looking underneath him and he's seeing this growing pool of blood. Clearly, he's sustained potentially life-threatening injuries here, and he's all alone. Like, there's nobody here to help him, and he's totally stuck. And so even though he began calling out for help, the reality was, you know, if nobody came along soon, he was done for. And he found himself starting to panic. Luckily,

though, just then, two men from down the road came running up to Captain Falby. Apparently they had been sort of behind the captain and were watching him pursuing this truck, and they had actually seen the accident. And so they had pulled over, and they were now running up to see if he was okay. And so right away, without even needing to ask Captain Falby what he needed, these two men saw the situation, you know, the bike is pinned on top of the cop. And so together these two men were able to lift this heavy motorcycle off of the captain's legs. And as soon as they did, all three of them looked, and they could clearly see, you know, the reason there's all this blood all over the pavement. There was this huge gash in Captain Falby's leg right above his knee that was just pouring out blood. And Captain Falby, you know, he saw that and he was already starting to feel lightheaded from.

blood loss, but just seeing this huge wound was totally disorienting. Fortunately, though, the two men who had arrived on the scene to help Captain Falby kept their composure. And one of them actually noticed that Captain Falby was wearing a necktie. He had a formal police uniform on that had, you know, a necktie as part of it. And he gently reached over and he told Captain Falby to relax and he undid his necktie. Meanwhile, the other man, he ran over to the side of the road where this big tree was and he got a stick, a pretty sturdy stick. And so the guy who under the necktie, he tied it around Captain Falby's leg above the wound, basically cutting off circulation to that wound, a tourniquet.

He tied it off, and then the other guy came back over with the stick, and he handed it to the guy with the necktie, and he took the stick and threaded it carefully through the necktie that was now wrapped around the captain's leg, and he began twisting the stick, wrapping up the fabric as he twisted it, which in turn mechanically tightened that tourniquet around the captain's leg, much tighter than you could do, you know, without something mechanical. Like, this is somebody who clearly knew how to make a real tourniquet out of sort of everyday materials. And so they tie off the super tight tourniquet, they stop the bleeding, and it ultimately saves Captain Falby's life. In fact, by the time Captain Falby actually got brought to the hospital and they took off

this DIY tourniquet and patched him up for real, the doctor would tell Captain Falby that, you know, he was about 10 minutes away from death, from blood loss. So had it not been for those two guys who showed up and made that tourniquet, he very likely would have died. Four years later, on December 12, 1938, Captain Falby was back at work. And he had been, you know, ever since maybe six months after his injury. He had just gone back to work, fully recovered. You know, he did have some scar tissue on his leg, but he was basically back to full capacity. And so on this particular day, Captain Falby was on patrol like he normally was in El Paso

when he got a call over the radio about a bad car accident that had happened out on Route 80, which is a major road in that town. And so Captain Falby races over to the scene, and he sees there's this car that's clearly veered off the road and smashed into a tree, and the driver, or who appears to be the driver, is sitting still in the driver's seat and they were unconscious. And so Falby was the first on the scene.

He pulls over, he gets off his bike, he rushes over to the car, and he carefully pulls this unconscious man out of the car, and he lays him on the ground, and he sees this guy has a horrible gash in his leg, and it's bleeding profusely. But because this basically mirrored the exact same type of injury that Falby himself had had four years earlier when he crashed his motorcycle, Falby knew what to do. He didn't have, you know, an issued tourniquet on hand, but he knew how to make one.

He had a necktie, and there were sticks on the side of the road. So as quick as he could, he rushed over, grabbed a sturdy stick, took off his necktie, tied it around this man's leg, used the stick to tighten it up even further, and he cut off the bleeding to that wound. And so at this point, now that Captain Falby has realized that, okay, you know, this guy appears to be stable now. He's not actively bleeding. He's clearly still breathing, albeit unconscious, but, you know, it seems like he has a fighting chance here.

So he's waiting for paramedics to show up and take this guy to the hospital, and he's just sitting there sort of, you know, happy he was able to be here and save this guy. When he sort of looks at this guy and he realizes something, the man he had just saved with his DIY tourniquet was literally the actual same guy who had saved Captain Falby with a DIY tourniquet. four years earlier. Captain Falby had never even gotten the guy's name. They had not stayed in touch after his accident.

They had gone separate ways, but now he's looking down at this man, and he's realizing it's the same one. The guy's name was Alfred Smith, and he would make a full recovery. But when he was rushed to the hospital, they would say, you know, you were within about maybe 10 minutes of bleeding to death

had it not been for Captain Falby. So literally, this DIY tourniquet story played out almost exactly the same way with these two guys doing it two years. other but four years apart. Later on, Captain Falby and Alfred Smith would give an interview to Ripley's Believe It or Not in a TV show to talk about the incredible coincidence that saved both their lives. And when the interviewer at some point congratulated Captain Falby on his heroic efforts, Falby simply stated, quote, one good tourniquet deserves another.

You see, Alfred Smith was the man who put the tourniquet around my leg and saved my life when my motorcycle hit that truck. After all, one good tourniquet deserves another. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The next and final story of today's episode is called Three Hangings. Late on the evening of November 15, 1884, a 20-year-old man named John Lee helped his sister Elizabeth clear the dining room table in the English manner where they both worked. John was a butler at this manor and his sister Elizabeth was a cook. And the manor itself had a name. It was called the Glen.

It was this gorgeous property right on the beach in the seaside community in England. Now, years ago, the Glen had been much more grand, and in fact, the King and Queen of England had at one point came to stay at the Glen. But recently, the Glen and the family who owned it had fallen on hard times. The staff was down to a skeleton crew of just John, his sister Elizabeth, and two elderly maids, which meant virtually all the physical labor at this property fell to John to take care of. So, on this night, John was lugging a huge pile of heavy china in his arms to bring out to the kitchen, And as he was doing this, he was trying to talk to his sister, who was also kind of helping clear the table,

about an upcoming dinner party they were going to host at the Glen for some very important lawyers and politicians. But as John tried to talk to Elizabeth, Elizabeth just wasn't really reacting. She was kind of staring off into space, and, you know, she was only carrying one or maybe two plates off the dining room table while John is carrying like 50. And so John was becoming really annoyed with his sister. I mean, she's not really helping, and she's ignoring him. And so John was about to complain to his sister about her behavior when suddenly she turned around and she apologized to him and said, you know what, I'm sorry I'm acting this way, I just don't feel very good, and I really think I should go lie down. Now, John was about to be really annoyed at this, but then he noticed his sister had her hands kind of reflexively over her stomach. And John knew his sister was pregnant, and so suddenly he felt like, okay, you know, the reason she's acting this way must be because of her pregnancy.

And so he did not press the issue. Now, you need to understand that Elizabeth did not tell John that she was pregnant, nor did she tell anybody else in the house, because the owners of the Glen were very traditional and very religious, and they almost certainly would not approve of Elizabeth's pregnancy because she wasn't married. At the time in England, it was not okay to have babies out of wedlock. It was viewed as, like, this totally taboo thing that you should never do.

But despite Elizabeth's best efforts to conceal her pregnancy, John and the other two elderly maids very quickly realized what was going on because every morning they would see Elizabeth vomiting because of morning sickness. And so when they approached her and said, hey, you know, it looks like you're pregnant, you know, what's going on here? Elizabeth refused to talk about it. She did not admit to being pregnant. She just kind of said, leave me alone.

I mean, John didn't even know who the father was. Like, Elizabeth did not want to talk to anyone about her pregnancy. But despite all that, John and the other two maids really wanted to support Elizabeth and help her get through this pregnancy, you know, without being found out and potentially fired because of it. So, when Elizabeth said to John that she just wanted to go lie down because she was feeling sick, he didn't press the issue, and he just told her, you know what, I'm fine, I'll finish up, you go lay down, I hope you feel better.

By 11 p.m., John was nearly done with all of his chores and he was getting ready for bed when one of the elderly maids came into the room and told John it was time for their nightly prayers. And without any hesitation, John put down the silverware that he was polishing and followed the maid into the living room where one of the owners of the glen was waiting in her night clothes. The owner was a 68-year-old woman named Emma Case, and at night, she really liked to lead a nightly prayer with her staff. It was something she really enjoyed doing. Now, John was not a very religious person, but he really cared about Emma, and so he agreed to do these nightly prayers, really just to make her happy. I mean, after all, Emma had basically saved him on multiple occasions.

John had begun working for Emma six years earlier when he was just 14 years old. And John, he was kind of like a rough kid and a troublemaker, but Emma, she just had a soft spot for him. And at some point, when John admitted to Emma that he was really interested in traveling the world someday, Emma would help him get into the British Royal Navy. And for two years, John very happily served in the military and did get to see the world. But at the two-year mark, John came down with this terrible case of pneumonia, and it forced him to leave the military early. And so when John was medically discharged, he came back home and he had no idea what he was going to do. I mean, he anticipated staying in the Navy for some time, not just two years. But luckily,

Emma stepped in again and she gave this glowing recommendation of John to one of her very wealthy friends, basically saying, hey, you should hire John. And this wealthy friend of Emma's agreed and hired John, and John was so happy, so relieved. I mean, Emma has totally picked him up again. But after getting hired, John would make a totally stupid mistake. He would steal this really expensive plate from this wealthy friend, and he would get caught. And this wealthy friend, they didn't just scold John and make him give the plate back. They got the police involved, and ultimately, John would be sent to prison for six months for the theft. And when John got out again, he was certain nobody was going to hire him. I mean, he just went to jail for stealing.

But that was when Emma for a third time stepped in and helped John again. Emma was a big believer in forgiving people and giving them additional chances when they screwed up. And so she said to John, you know what? I understand you made a mistake. Why don't you come back to the glen and work for me? You can be our butler. John couldn't believe it. I mean, he knew he did not deserve this chance, especially from Emma, who's now been done wrong by him multiple times. But, you know, he was so grateful and he said to Emma, you know, I'll take this, of course, and I will do anything you want, you know, no matter what, I will do the best possible job. I'm not going to screw this up. And so far, that was exactly what

John had done since coming back to the glen. He did whatever Emma wanted, and that included nightly prayers. So on this night, after John walked into the dining room, he took a seat next to Emma at the table, and then after Elizabeth and the other two elderly maids took their seats at the table, they all held hands and they bowed their heads, and then Emma began to leave them in prayer. When the service was over, the two maids got up and headed to the kitchen to make a cup of hot cocoa for Emma. Emma typically stayed up really, really late, basically later than anybody else in the house, and she liked to drink hot cocoa and just sit by the fire and read and write letters.

It was just kind of her time to be alone and to be left alone. And so after the maids had gone, John stood up too and he said good night to Emma and told her to enjoy the rest of her night, and then he made his way into the kitchen and he went into the pantry, which doubled as his bedroom. And once in the pantry, he pulled out his cot, climbed under the covers, and he fell asleep. A few hours later, at about 3.30 in the morning, John suddenly woke up in the pantry to the sound of somebody screaming outside the door. And so John, you know, he burst out of the pantry door, and right away, he's looking in the

kitchen, and it's just completely covered in smoke. He can barely see, but not far from him in the kitchen was his sister and also one of the maids, and they were the ones screaming. And they were actually screaming at John to wake up and go get everybody. we need to get them out of the house and get some help. And so John, his first instinct is, okay, clearly there's a fire or something. And Emma, you know, she's upstairs and she could be in trouble. And so John, you know, he instinctively ran towards the stairs

and began going up to the second floor to save Emma. But as he went up the stairs, the other maid was coming down the stairs looking totally frantic and she would tell John that she was just in Emma's bedroom and she couldn't see Emma anywhere and her bed was totally on fire. And so she didn't know if Emma was even in there, but it didn't look good. And so John at this point, he turned and went with that maid back to the kitchen where they linked up with John's sister and that other maid. And the four of them filled up buckets of water and tried to run back up the stairs to attempt to put out the fire that was in Emma's bedroom. But by the time they got back upstairs, the fire up there had really spread.

And there was like a wall of fire right in front of Emma's bedroom. So there was no way to really get through it and their little buckets of water did nothing. And so even though they hated the idea of leaving Emma potentially behind, the four of them knew. they couldn't do anything more, and so finally the four of them turned and began running downstairs to evacuate. And as they ran through the dining room on the first floor, they would find Emma. She was laying on the ground, sprawled out, and it was obvious to all four of them that she was clearly dead. However, it was also obvious that the fire had not killed her. She had clearly been hacked to death. She had all these horrible wounds on her head that looked like somebody had taken an axe,

basically to her head, and her neck was so deeply cut, it was almost like someone tried to remove her head. John and Elizabeth and the two maids just stood there staring in shock at Emma, not even sure what to do, and then one of the maids just started screaming, and then all four of them just turned and ran out of the house. Eventually, some neighbors, some local fishermen, and members of the Coast Guard were able to put out the fire at the glen. But this was not just a fire, this was a murder. And so when police came to investigate, suspicion immediately fell on John. This was back in the day, well before forensic science was used in investigations. And so at the time, the way police kind of figured out, who done it,

is by intuition and gut feeling and assumptions. I mean, it was basically like pseudoscience. But at the time, that's how it was. And quickly, the police determined that whoever had killed Emma and inflicted these horrible injuries on her, they had to be really strong. And so the assumption was, you know, John is the only man in the house, and so very likely the strongest person in the house,

and so he must have been the one to do this, because it didn't look like anybody else had the strength to do this. Also, the investigators found these blood trails underneath the rubble from the fire that showed Emma had not actually been murdered where she was found on the ground in the dining room. Instead, she had actually been killed in the hallway near the stairs, which was not far from the pantry where John slept. and basically right outside of John's pantry door was a bloody hatchet and a bloody knife. And on top of all of that, investigators also determined that the fire had been set intentionally,

and the person who set it had used this particular type of oil that was very flammable, and they had doused it all over the house and ignited it. And it turned out the only place where this oil was located inside of the Glen was inside of the pantry where John slept. So on the same day, this whole fire breaks out and they find Emma dead, John was arrested for Emma's murder. The next day, John was in his jail cell, and a guard came down the hall and wrapped on the bars and told John he had a visitor. His lawyer was here to talk to him. But John was confused because he didn't have a lawyer, so he had no idea who this was. But regardless, the guard opened up the cell

and he led John down the hallway to this room, and when John walked in, he saw there was this man who was very well dressed and very handsome, he was sitting at this table, and clearly he was waiting for John. And John, you know, at first he didn't really know who this guy was. Then it dawned on him that he knows who this guy is. And it made no sense that he was here to defend John. The man's name was Reginald Templar, and he was a very successful lawyer, highly respected in the area. And he also happened to be one of Emma's absolute closest friends. So Reginald Templar, Emma's close friend, the woman who's been murdered, is here to defend the person who's accused of killing Emma. It just didn't make any since. But eventually, Reginald gestured for John to come in the room and sit down. And so John just

kind of made his way in and he sat down. And Reginald immediately said, John, I know you did not kill Emma. That's why I'm here. John was so relieved. And before long, he was pouring out all the information he could about everything he could recall about the night of the fire and the murder. And as he did, Reginald took all these notes and he began creating a framework for John's defense. And so by the time John was back in his jail cell, he couldn't help but feel kind of optimistic that maybe with Reginald's help, he could actually beat this thing and prove he didn't do this. But John's relief would be short-lived. His first court appearance went extremely well. Reginald showed up in a fancy suit, and he was just completely on his game and just ripped the prosecution apart and basically

said their entire case was just circumstantial and he rattled off all these legal precedents, which John didn't really understand, but he looked up and saw the judge, definitely knew these precedents and was impressed with what Reginald was doing. And then also, Reginald would say that the police did a terrible job investigating. They basically didn't investigate and just jumped to conclusions that it was John. And so as Reginald is basically destroying the prosecution, Reginald looked over at the prosecutor, and he could tell the prosecutor looked really nervous. And so John was really starting to feel confident that Reginald was exactly what he needed.

But on the day of the second court appearance, Reginald just didn't show up. With no explanation, he didn't contact anybody, and so John just sat there waiting to see what was going to happen. The judge delayed for as long as he could, but eventually, when, you know, Reginald still didn't show up, the judge looked to John and said, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to defend yourself.

Which, of course, John did not know how to do. I mean, he barely had even gone to school, let alone studied law. And from there, things only got worse for John. Reginald continued to miss court dates with no explanation, and then on other times he would show up to court, but instead of being this fantastic, you know, very sharp lawyer, he kind of acted like a maniac. He would start all these unnecessary fights with the judge over totally irrelevant matters, like how to pronounce a particular word, and then when he had witnesses on the stand,

his line of questioning didn't make any sense. He would ask things like, well, what did you have for breakfast today, and what's your favorite color? And then finally, Reginald just withdrew altogether from the case, leaving John with no lawyer at all, which admittedly might have actually been an improvement for John. After Reginald withdrew, another lawyer found out about it and took pity on John and volunteered to take on the case, but it was on very short notice and this other lawyer had good intentions, but was not nearly as skilled as Reginald was when he was kind of on his game on that first day. And so really quickly, this lawyer kind of fumbled the case,

and then when it went to the jury to decide whether or not Reginald was guilty, it took them less than an hour to come back and say, oh yeah, he's guilty, he killed Emma. And so, John was sentenced to death by hanging. For the next three months, John sat in his jail cell waiting for his execution. And as he waited, he continually insisted that he really was innocent and that ultimately God would protect him. Finally, February 23, 1885 rolled around. This was the day of John's execution, except something very weird happened on this day.

When John was led from the jail to the gallows where he was going to be executed, the hangman could not get the gallows to work. The trapdoor in the gallows were the condemned stands, where it's supposed to open up and they fall down and the news breaks their neck, that trapdoor, it would not function whenever John was standing on it. Now, when John was moved off the trap door, it functioned perfectly fine. It was only when he was on that trap door that it would not work. And so think about this. Pretend you're John, Three different times, the hangman led him onto that trapdoor, they put the noose around his neck, put a bag over his head, asked him for his last words, and they threw that lever,

and each time John is expecting to die, and it's not working. Finally, after the third failure, the hangman just called off the execution, and then actually a judge would weigh in and say, you know what, we cannot possibly attempt for a fourth time to execute John. This constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and so they swapped his sentence from a death sentence, to 22 years in prison. And none of this would make any sense until one day, six years after Emma's murder,

when John, by this point, was just sitting in a jail cell and everybody had forgotten about him. On that day, in 1890, a group of very high society-type people, you know, politicians, and lawyers, and rich people, they all gathered in this misty cemetery, not far from the glen. The group was in the cemetery for the burial

of a very important and well-respected man who had died after slowly going in safe. And as the priest finished his final blessing, the mourners began chucking handfuls of dirt into the grave, and as they did, one of them said quietly but out loud, today we have buried a murderer. Here's what many people believe really happened on the night of November 15, 1884, when Emma was killed. At the time of Emma's murder, Elizabeth's pregnancy was very scandalous, but not just for Elizabeth. It was also scandalous for the father of the baby, the father who nobody knew,

except for Elizabeth. And it was scandalous for this father, because, like Elizabeth, he was worried what society would think if they found out he was having a baby out of wedlock, especially with Elizabeth, who basically from a societal standpoint was kind of below his station. But despite all that, the father of the baby did not attempt to distance himself from Elizabeth. Instead, on the night of the murderer, the father of the baby actually decided to sneak into the glen to see Elizabeth. But Emma was still awake. She was up late. drinking her hot cocoa, writing and reading, and she heard the sound of the father coming into her home. And so she got up to go investigate, and she would eventually find the father up in the hallway

right outside of Elizabeth's bedroom. Remember, Emma is very traditional, she's very conservative and religious, and she's seeing this strange man in her house clearly going into or coming out of Elizabeth's room, and she was so offended and angry. And so Emma just began screaming at the sky to get out of her house, and if he didn't, she was going to tell the whole world about this illicit relationship. And then Emma walked up and hit this guy right in the face. And at this point, the father just snapped. And he flew into this rage and he began screaming back at Emma. And then he grabbed a hatchet that was on the wall right near the pantry. He pulled it off and he brought it down right on top of Emma's head. And Emma crumpled to the ground. And the man, you know, he's

looking down at Emma and he's realizing he's inflicted this horrific injury on Emma and if she doesn't die, she's going to tell someone and then this father is going to go to jail, if not worse. So in a moment of panic, this father runs into the kitchen, gets a kitchen knife, comes back and he finished Emma off. Once she was deceased, he dragged her back to the dining room where she normally did her reading and writing, and then he doused her and the whole house in that weird oil that he found in the pantry where John was sleeping, and after getting the whole house covered in it, he ignited it and then he ran out of the house. But over the next six years, Emma's killer felt so bad about what he had done, both to Emma and then

nearly killing Elizabeth and his unborn child, that he went completely insane, and this caused his physical health to totally fail, and he died. But right before he died, as he's laying in his deathbed, he began ranting and raving about all the things he regretted in his life, including murdering a woman at a big, beautiful, seaside estate. Basically, he was admitting to killing Emma, and he did it in the first of his life. company of all the people who would then be at his burial, and so that's why, as they're throwing the dirt onto his casket, they're saying, today we buried a murderer. The killer's identity

was none other than Reginald Templar, John's lawyer. Now, nobody knows if Reginald took John's case because he felt guilty and wanted to prevent an innocent man from going to jail, or if he just wanted to sabotage John's case to ensure he did go to jail to protect himself, like we don't know. Either way, though, it was during the course of this trial that Reginald began his descent into madness, which would ultimately lead to his death. Some people believe the reason the gallows malfunctioned every time John stood on that trapdoor and it wouldn't open was because of divine intervention, that God or a god or some deity came to earth and literally interfered with the execution to spare John's life. And the reason people think that is because, you know, John really was an innocent man and he did not deserve to die.

John would serve all 22 years of his sentence, and then when he got out, he became famous for being the man who could not be hanged. John would eventually get married and he would move to America, or he would live a very happy and quiet life until he died at the age of 81. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacassio, research and fact-checking by Shelley Scho, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear.

Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacasio and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Manata and Delana Corley. artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner, theme song Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin.

If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad free, you can subscribe to SeriousXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit seriousxm.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.