MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Milk & Cookies (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

On the morning of March 8, 1961, a 13 year old boy living near Seattle, Washington, walked up the front steps of his house, opened the front door and went inside. He called out to see if anyone was home, but it was silent. He shrugged, then dropped his books and walked straight across the dining room and down a narrow hallway. When he reached the end of that hallway, where it led into the kitchen, the boy stopped. Frozen with fear, he just stared at what was in front of him…. (Today’s story has a VERY unlikely ending, so be sure you stick around to the end to hear it.)For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf 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 @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the morning of March 8th, 1961, a 13-year-old boy living near Seattle, Washington, walked up the front steps of his house, opened the front door, and went inside. He called out to see if anyone was home, but it was silent. He was alone. He shrugged, then dropped his books and walked straight ahead across the dining room and down a narrow hallway. When he reached the end of that hallway, where it led into the kitchen, the boy suddenly stopped. Frozen with fear, he just stared at what was in front of him. Today's story has a very unlikely ending, so make sure you stick around to hear it. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do,

and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, when you're on your deathbed, tell the five-star review button you have something extremely important to tell them, but then pass away without telling them. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line.

What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. I'm Peter Frank-O'Pern. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me.

Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time. Somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me.

And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. Okay, let's get into today's story. When Mary Kelly was still just a little girl, her two older sisters nicknamed her Mary Sunshine. This is because every morning, as soon as the girls would wake up,

Mary would leap out of bed and run around her house, pushing aside all the curtains so every room in the Burley, Idaho home filled with sunshine. The nickname stuck because it not only captured her cute morning routine, but it also captured her sense of optimism, energy, and radiance that people associated with her for her entire life. When Mary was born on October 11th, 1921, Burley was just a small rural town in southern Idaho with a population of just over 5,000 people. Most of its residents, the Kelly family included, were farmers, and the main crops grown in the town were grains, sugar beets, potatoes, and alfalfa. Like her older brother and two older sisters, Mary loved living on her family's farm. The kids held barnyard rodeos,

they had potato fights every fall after the harvest was done, and during the hot summers, they cooled off in the irrigation canal near their house. Mary's parents were devout Mormons, and this religion would always be central to Mary's life. Members of the Mormon church, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS for short, believe their church is actually the original Christian church started by Jesus Christ and brought back or restored in 1830 by LDS Church founder Joseph Smith, Jr. The teachings of the church, which center around the teachings of Jesus Christ, were all written down by Joseph Smith, Jr. in a book titled The Book of Mormon. Despite Mormons being known for living very modest and reserved lives,

for example, they don't drink alcohol, they avoid caffeine and tobacco, still, Mary's childhood home was a very fun, raucous place filled with music and stories. Mary was the daughter of a big, charismatic Irish father and a tiny English mother who sang duets together at church. Mary inherited her mother's quick wit, her sparkling blue-green eyes, and her curly hair, but she had her father's sense of humor. Her father also taught her at an early age how to dance and how to yodel. When Mary was 13 years old, a new family named the Campbells arrived in the neighboring town of Unity and joined the same

LDS church in Burley that the Kellys attended. Among the Campbells' 13 children was a handsome 16-year-old son named Curtis. He was dark-haired and serious with a flair for math, electronics, and engineering. By the time Mary was 16 and Curtis was 19, they had fallen in love, and the next year, in 1938, the two of them got married. Over the next 14 years, Curtis and Mary moved more than six times. They bounced from Utah to Idaho and then back to Utah. Then they made their way to Los Angeles, California, and Nevada. And wherever they lived, Mary was that mom who was full of energy, fun, and who loved a practical joke. At each new town, every kid in the neighborhood quickly learned that if you gave Mary a garden hose, you were sure to get soaked.

And if she was inside washing dishes, you still weren't safe because she'd just open the kitchen window and soak you with the sink hose attachment. And no matter where they found themselves, Mary always made sure her family attended an LDS church, and that the family was always involved in the church's education and activities. But for all her good nature and sense of fun, Mary was not a pushover. Once, when her car stalled out right in front of a green light, the vehicle behind her started honking their horn. Unable to get her car going, Mary casually hopped out of her car and walked back to the car

behind her, and she knocked on the driver's window, and when the incredulous man rolled down his window to see what she wanted, she said to him in a very sweet voice, Mr., if you'll go up there and start my car for me, I'll sit back here and honk your horn for you. The driver went from angry to smiling and laughing, and then got out of his car car and he walked up to Mary's car and proceeded to fix her engine for her. During those first 14 years of marriage, Curtis would serve in World War II as an aviation technician for the Navy. Mary would give birth to four sons and two daughters. However, two of the boys died shortly after they were born.

Despite the heartbreak of losing those two children, the economic and political upheaval of a war that redefined the United States as the world's superpower, and the disruption of constantly moving and Curtis constantly changing jobs, Mary and Curtis still had a very strong and happy marriage. When Curtis walked through the door after work, his children knew their parents would always take a few minutes alone with each other to hold hands and talk about their day. In 1952, just ahead of their 15th wedding anniversary, the Campbells' good life got even better when Curtis landed a top-paying job as an engineer with Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle, Washington. in Seattle, Washington. The work, developing the technology that would later be used to design drones for the US military, was more exciting and challenging than anything else

Curtis had ever done. The Campbells bought their first house, a three bedroom bungalow just outside of Seattle. It had three bedrooms and a pastel colored double porcelain sink in the narrow kitchen right under a window that overlooked the backyard. And so Mary loved to fire her sink hose out of that window to soak her kids and her kids' unsuspecting friends. When the kids had had enough of Mary's big practical joke, there were also empty lots on

either side of this house where the kids had plenty of room to play and ride their bikes. Both Mary and Curtis were active in the local LDS church in their town of White Center, and Curtis were active in the local LDS church in their town of White Center, and within a year of their arrival there, Curtis became an ordained Mormon bishop and the leader of the ward where the Campbells attended church. Three years later, in 1956, Mary and Curtis welcomed their fifth child, a little boy who was immediately nicknamed Kelly after his mother's maiden name. Mary felt truly blessed. She was busy working in the church she loved, and she was busy raising her five beautiful children. But two years later, the Campbells' 20-year-long marriage fell apart. As bishop, Curtis had lots of one-on-one interactions

with members of his ward. Often they involved counseling people about their marriages and relationships, as well as giving spiritual guidance. And in late 1957, Curtis began an adulterous affair with a young and strikingly beautiful young woman named Janice, who had come to him for advice about her marriage. Even after church elders stripped Curtis of his bishopship, Mary continued to defend him against accusations and rumors of infidelity. But in 1958, when Boeing reassigned Curtis to McGuire Air Force Base in Trenton, New Jersey, Mary had no choice but to face the terrible truth. Curtis told his wife he did not want her to go with him to New Jersey.

Instead, it would be his lover, Janice, who eventually followed Curtis to the East Coast. Mary and her kids were devastated. The perfect life they thought they had was now ruined. Mary packed up her family and moved back to Utah, where her family was, to regroup. In letters to her sister, it was clear that Mary had made up her mind that she'd rather, quote, paddle her boat alone than accept anything less than a committed and faithful marriage. But that didn't mean Mary was opposed to the idea of reconciliation with Curtis, and it didn't take Curtis very long to see the damage he had done to himself and his family. Shortly after she moved to New Jersey with him, Janice left Curtis and went back to her parents' home in Utah, and so Curtis, now all alone, fell into a deep depression.

Despite feeling betrayed and hurt by him, Mary was very worried about Curtis. So, after nearly a year of being separated, when Curtis began to reach out to Mary and tell her how much he missed their life together, Mary was open to moving with the kids to New Jersey to be with him again. And in the spring of 1959, the Campbell family was reunited. And one year later, when Boeing sent Curtis from New Jersey back to Seattle, Mary would bring with them a sixth child, a baby

boy, and Curtis would buy Mary her dream home, a big two-story farmhouse 20 miles south of Seattle. The white wood-sided house had a covered wraparound porch, a big kitchen, and a side entrance. The long gravel driveway was lined with trees and lilac bushes, which Mary loved. Most of the nearby properties were lettuce farms, and in the spring, the dark, damp fields would be covered in green. The local schools were good, and there was plenty of room for the children to play. And right after they had unpacked in their new home, Mary got deeply involved in LDS church activities. Over the next two years, she became the head of her local wards relief committee. She was also a member of the church building fund committee, and she was active in Primary,

the LDS program that offered religious instruction to kids aged 3 to 12. But Mary had changed. The separation and Curtis's infidelity had taken some of the light out of her nature. It had also made her very sympathetic to the plight of divorced or single women. So in 1960, a year after they were back in Seattle in a little town called Kent, when the ward bishop asked Mary Ann Curtis to help counsel and support a young single mother who had just joined their ward and didn't know anyone, Mary was very quick to say yes. 26-year-old Thelma Ann Swenson was grateful for Mary Ann Curtis's help. Ten years earlier, she had moved to Utah from her hometown in England and married a Mormon from Salt Lake City. When the marriage broke down, she moved to Kent in Washington with

her three young children, but she was just barely scraping by financially. Mary immediately hired Thelma to take care of her four-year-old son and new baby. Mary would often drop them off at Thelma's trailer home after Mary dropped her three older children off at school. This arrangement allowed Thelma to get a much-needed paycheck, and it gave Mary more time to spend on church activities when her older kids were at school. As Thelma and Mary became friends, Thelma opened up to Mary and Curtis about problems she was having with her estranged husband. And when Thelma showed up one evening at their house with a bruise on her face,

she told them that the injury was the result of her estranged husband hitting her. The Campbells were horrified and urged Thelma to contact them anytime she ever needed anything or anytime she ever felt like she was in danger. From that point on, Mary always made sure to invite Thelma and her kids to every holiday dinner just so that they wouldn't be alone a couple times a year. On the morning of Wednesday, March 8th, 1961, so roughly one year after Mary and her family had moved back to Seattle to the town of Kent, Mary was up early as usual, cooking breakfast for her kids and making bologna sandwiches for their bagged lunches. It was a cool 51 degrees Fahrenheit outside and very cloudy. When Mary looked out the window, she was just happy to see that at least it wasn't raining. By 8.30 a.m., Mary had all the

kids packed into the family's Plymouth station wagon. The first real baby car seats wouldn't be invented until the next year, so Mary just made sure the kids used their seatbelts and she settled the baby, Russell, in the front passenger seat. Just before 9 a.m., she dropped her three older children, Scott and Janelle and Patty, off at school. She told her older daughter, 11-year-old Janelle, that Thelma would be picking up the girls after school and taking them to Primary, their after-school church instruction program, but that she, their mom, would come get Janelle and Patty after primary and bring them home for dinner. Scott was 13 years old, which meant he didn't go to primary anymore as the age cutoff was 12, and at the age of 13, his parents had allowed him to begin walking home after school on his own. After smiling and telling her son she would see him after school, Mary looked behind her and checked that her four-year-old Kelly

was still belted in the back seat, and then she turned to the front seat to make sure her seven-month-old baby, Russell, was still secured in that seat. Then Mary looked one more time at her older kids as they walked into the school building, and then she pulled away from the curb, out of the parking lot, and headed for her church, where she had two meetings that day. Shortly after walking into the LDS church, Mary turned and saw Thelma walk through the front door as well with her own young kids. Thelma shook off the hood of her coat and ran her fingers through her short dark curls that were damp with Seattle's constant mist. She'd once told Mary that she thought she'd left all the rain and clouds behind her when she moved away from England,

a place notorious for its wet weather. When Thelma looked around and saw Mary, she smiled and walked over. The two women chatted for a few minutes, Thelma confirming that she was all set to take Mary's four-year-old son, Kelly, home with her that afternoon for a play date. By the time Mary's second church meeting ended at noon, Mary was very thankful for Thelma's help. By that point,

Mary's baby, Russell, had started to get restless and fussy, and so Mary was eager to get back to her home and put him down for a nap, and then maybe she'd have a little time to herself. It was about 1230 in the afternoon when Mary drove up the long gravel drive to her house, parked the car in the detached garage, and led herself into her house through the side door, which led directly into the kitchen. Talking quietly to baby Russell, she walked without stopping through the kitchen and down the hallway past the door to the combination powder room and bathroom and into the dining room. Once there, she put down her purse on the dining room table and settled Russell into a small crib they had in the dining

room. She gave him a kiss, then covered him with a thick cotton blanket. Still dressed in her coat, Mary decided to stop at the powder room to freshen up before going back to the kitchen. And so she turned around and began walking back down the hallway that she had just come in on. And then about halfway down, she turned left to go into the powder room bathroom. But as soon as she turned, she stopped right in the doorway. And then she screamed because a man she had never seen before in her life was standing right in front of her in the powder room bathroom. Paralyzed with shock, Mary just stood there as the man suddenly lunged out with his left hand and grabbed her and knocked her to the ground. Mary fell hard onto the hallway floor, but before she could even move, the man was on top of her

with one of his knees pressing into her stomach and the other knee across her neck and jaw. Her scream was now muffled, and she saw the man raise his right arm above her head. She felt another wave of panic rush through her, as she realized in his right hand was a length of metal pipe. But instead of striking her with the pipe, the man, while holding that pipe high over his head, told Mary to stop screaming. Instantly, Mary did as she was told. And then, lying there perfectly still under the crushing weight of her attacker, Mary felt a sudden calm wash over her. She nodded her head reassuringly, and the man slowly rose to his feet. Then the man reached down with his left hand to help Mary stand up. As she got to her feet, Mary noticed immediately that this man also had a gun in his front pocket.

Then, as soon as Mary was on her feet, she did what she had done her whole life. She called on her faith and looked at the man in front of her not as a monster, but as a human being. She took a moment to compose herself, pulling the skirt of her dress down and pushing back the hair that had come out of its clips. She straightened her glasses, she took a deep breath, and then she looked up at the man who was now just standing there awkwardly with his arms and his metal pipe down by his sides. She had never seen this person before. He was young, in his early 20s, with shaggy hair that fell across his pale soft face, and he was huge. Not only tall, but very big and heavy. Mary let out a deep breath and then said, what do you want? The man seemed eerily calm. He told her that he was there because he needed money. The only cash Mary had was in her wallet, which was in the dining room.

She told the man as much as she headed past him down the hall in that direction. The man followed behind her and then stood without saying anything while she opened her purse, took out her wallet, and then laid the three $1 bills that were inside, along with some change, on the dining room table. She also pulled out her credit cards and driver's license, laying them on the table as well, and then she also just said to the man, you know, anything of value in this house, it's yours. Even though this man had said he wanted money, the only item that he was interested in was her

driver's license. He reached out and grabbed it, looking carefully at the typewritten name, then turning to her with his first question. Are you Mary Campbell? Mary nodded. Yes, I am. And then, as this was happening, the thing Mary was most worried about happened. In the crib just a few feet away from them, Russell started crying. Mary silently prayed that the man would not hurt her child, and he didn't. As he stood there still staring at her license, he casually told her to go take care of her baby. Feeling an enormous sense of relief, Mary turned away from the man and stepped quickly to the crib. She reached down and picked the baby up and rocked him for a second, all the while glancing across the room at the man who had just put her license back on the table

and was now emptying out the other contents of her purse onto the table. Mary changed Russell's diaper, and then she laid him carefully back down in his crib. Then, Mary told the stranger very gently that her baby was going to keep crying if she didn't feed him, and so she really needed to go into the kitchen and make Russell a bottle. While that might have been true, in reality, all Mary was thinking about in that moment was just getting this intruder away from her baby. So she asked the man if he would like to join her in the kitchen as she makes the bottle, and maybe she could fix him something to eat as well.

The man agreed, and the two walked down the hallway to the kitchen, Mary first, the man after her. While Mary prepared the bottle of milk, and the two walked down the hallway to the kitchen, Mary first, the man after her. While Mary prepared the bottle of milk, the man stood quietly in the middle of the kitchen without saying a word. After the bottle was ready, Mary walked past the man who stayed put, and she went back down the hallway all the way to the dining room where she fed Russell as quickly as she could. All the while, the man just stayed in the kitchen, standing there watching Mary down this hallway. After giving her baby a kiss on the forehead, Mary tucked him back into his crib and

returned to the kitchen where the stranger was. Mary was too nervous to sit down, so she went to the refrigerator and took out the hamburger meat that she was planning to serve that night for her family's dinner. She unwrapped it and asked the stranger if she could make a hamburger for him. When he said no in a very polite tone, Mary couldn't help but feel sort of relieved. After that initial attack, the man had not threatened her in any way, and now he was just standing there quietly in her kitchen and being very polite about it. Mary took a few more quick glances at him and noticed that despite him being this really big person, he looked more like a child than a man. In fact, he couldn't be much older than her oldest child, Del, a 19-year-old young man who had left home just two years earlier to join the Navy. As soon as she thought of her

son, Del, Mary felt even better, and slowly her fear started to give way to her usual curiosity about people and her conviction that even the most flawed human beings could be helped and ultimately redeemed. So after her visitor very kindly refused the offer of a hamburger, Mary poured them both glasses of cold milk and set out a plate of the cookies she had made the night before. She sat down in one of the chairs that was nearest the sink at the kitchen table, and then she nodded to the chair opposite her on the other side of the table, and she asked the man if he would like to please sit down with her. The man seemed to like this idea, so he walked over and sat down.

He also carefully laid the metal pipe he was carrying on the empty chair next to him. Once they were both seated at the kitchen table, Mary reached for a cookie and took a bite, and then pushed the plate in his direction. As he took a cookie off the plate, Mary asked him why had he tried to rob her. The man explained that for the last six months he had not been able to find any work and he and his wife desperately needed money so they could buy food and take care of their two-year-old son. Mary listened, already turning ideas over in her head about how she might be able to help this young family like she and her husband had been helping Thelma. When there was an opening in the discussion, Mary gently encouraged the stranger not to rob her, that that was the

easy way out and something he would likely regret. She then told him he should consider opening himself up to prayer and also to asking for help and guidance. They chatted for a few more minutes over the milk and cookies. Then suddenly, the man asked Mary if she would like to go upstairs with him and see what he had done to her house. She couldn't tell if he was proud of what he did or if he felt bad and just wanted to show her. Clearly, there was something off about this man, but he didn't seem like he wanted to hurt her, and she didn't want to make him angry again. So she said, OK.

And together, they headed up the stairs. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. Okay, maybe that's a stretch. But if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right, it's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's

Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all, but behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab a car

to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Right away, she could see that the bedrooms and the hall closet and study had been ransacked. Articles of clothing had been pulled out of drawers and tossed on top of the floor.

The man apologized for the mess, saying he had tried to make it look like a burglary had happened. When Mary knelt down in front of the bureau in the master bedroom to start refolding the clothes back into the drawers, the man also bent down and started to help her. Once they had put everything back in place in the master bedroom, the man stood up and then took the gun out of his front hip pocket. It was Curtis's gun. Clearly, he had found it and stolen it. The man looked at the weapon for a moment as if he was seeing it for the first time. Then he sighed and looked at Mary and said, I guess I won't be needing this anymore. And then he walked over to Curtis's bedside bureau and put the gun back in the top drawer where he had found it. After this, Mary and the stranger

left that room and headed for the study next door. Inside, Mary picked up some of the loose papers on the ground, and as she did, she very gently told the man who was standing next to her that she needed to take these papers down to the kitchen, and, you know, maybe it was time for him to be on his way anyhow. The man nodded, and the two headed back downstairs. Once inside the kitchen again, Mary put the papers on the kitchen counter and then turned to face the man who was once again standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Mary smiled at him and thanked him for helping her clean up the upstairs, and she also told him that he had not done any real damage, so she had no plans to tell anyone or call the police or say anything. She also told him that he was free to take the cash in the dining room on his

way out. Then she stepped forward toward the table, and as casually as she could, she picked up the length of metal pipe from the kitchen chair and bent down and placed it under the table out of reach. The man watched her do this. Then, after a pause, he asked if she might be able to give him a ride away from her house. Mary sat down on one of the chairs for a moment, just wishing now that this man would leave. She took a deep breath and then she looked up at the man who had now moved to the side door of the kitchen that opened into the side and backyard mary looked at him and said no i can't give you a ride then mary stood up and walked over to the door with him and pointed through the window on the door to an

outside white gate on the edge of their property and she told him that if he went through that gate and crossed a wooden plank that led over a stream and into the woods, that no one would see him leaving. The man stared at Mary for a few seconds, and then he thanked her for the milk and cookies, and then he looked down kind of sheepishly and said he was sorry that he had hurt her, and then he turned and reached for the doorknob. Mary felt a flood of relief wash over her. She immediately began running over the crazy story she would tell Curtis that night when he came home and they sat together on the couch in the living room talking about their day. Later that same afternoon, Thelma arrived at the schoolyard to pick up Mary's daughters, Janelle and Patty.

Scott, happy he had aged out of primary religious education classes, had already started the walk home to his family's farmhouse. There was barely enough room in Thelma's old car for the two girls. They had to squeeze in alongside their little brother Kelly, as well as Thelma's kids who were ages seven, five, and three. Janelle was annoyed when Thelma said that she would be back in about an hour or so to pick them up, not their mother. Apparently their mom had called Thelma to arrange a last-second swap because their mom was tied up with something. Janelle didn't care about the last-second swap or getting a ride with Thelma. She just hated how

crowded it was in Thelma's old car and didn't want to have to get back in. But Janelle just shrugged and hopped out of the car and began steering the younger children towards the door of the church. Sure enough, about an hour later at 5 p.m., Thelma was waiting outside for the kids, and all six of them piled into her tiny car. But instead of Thelma turning south towards their farmhouse, Thelma drove north. When Janelle asked where they were going, Thelma told the kids they were going to her house to meet up with their older brother Scott and Bishop Owen, who was the LDS bishop for their ward. Janelle shrugged again. She had no idea why her brother was at Thelma's, but she didn't care about that. Mostly, she was just feeling irritated as she jostled with her nine-year-old sister Patty for a little more elbow room. nine-year-old sister Patty for a little more elbow room. As they pulled into the drive leading up to Thelma's small, shabby two-story rental house, Thelma parked next to Bishop Owen's car and then

opened the heavy back door of the car to let all the kids out. When they walked through the front door into the small living room, they saw Bishop Owen sitting on the couch holding seven-month-old Russell. In a nearby chair, they saw their brother, Scott, who was watching TV, but he looked like he was staring right through the TV, like he was totally zoned out. Before the children could even say hello, Thelma had shooed Janelle and her sister Patty outside to play with Kelly and Thelma's three children. About an hour and a half later, around 7 p.m., the kids were still outside, and it was getting dark and chilly when Patty complained that she needed to use the bathroom. Janelle walked to the back door of the house only to find it locked.

Cold, tired, and hungry, Janelle was certain this locked door was the work of her annoying 13-year-old brother Scott, and she immediately started rattling the doorknob and yelling for him to come and unlock the door and let them in or she was going to tell their mother. But when she and the other kids heard the bolt pull back, it wasn't Scott standing in front of them, it was Bishop Owen. He stepped aside and all the kids streamed in. Patty headed for the bathroom while Janelle went straight to the living room to glare at her brother. But when she finally planted herself directly in front of the TV he was watching, she saw right away that something was very, very off about him. Before she could ask him what was wrong,

through the window she caught sight of something moving outside. When she turned to look, she saw her father's car pull up next to Thelma's car, and behind her father's car she saw two police cars, the single-dome lights on the roof of each one flashing bright red. Several hours earlier, Mary's son, Scott, left Meridian Junior High School just ahead of his sister's and began the walk home. The walk took about 30 minutes, and at 4 p.m., Scott turned off the main street and started walking down his family's long driveway. As he passed by the detached garage, he noticed his mother's station wagon was gone.

Scott thought to himself, if his mom and baby brother were not home, maybe he could just go inside, drop his things off, and then head right back out again and go see his friend, Larry Smith, who lived in the house next door. When Scott walked into his own house through the front door, he reflexively called out for his mother, but there was no answer. However, when he passed through the living room into the dining room, he saw his mother's purse laying on the dining room table with her driver's license and credit cards spilled out next to it. Then he noticed his mother's coat hanging over the end of the baby's crib, and perhaps most

surprising, he saw his seven-month-old brother, Russell, in the crib fast asleep. If Russell was here, then his mother surely had to be here too, which was strange since he hadn't seen her car. But regardless, he moved towards the bottom of the stairs and called out again for his mother, but still there was no answer. The big house was totally quiet. Scott put down his things on the dining room table and headed down the hallway for the kitchen. On the way, he glanced into the powder room, but no one was inside. When he reached the end of the hallway and looked into the kitchen for the first time, he froze. What he saw inside of it was so terrible he couldn't even begin to process it.

There, on the floor, was his mother. Under her head was a red velvet cushion taken from the living room couch. Blood had gushed out of her mouth and formed a huge puddle under her head. There were dark bruises like a collar around her throat. Her blood-soaked, dark red hair looked black. Her eyes were wide open and staring, and her glasses were on the floor next to her. Scott started backing away. He knew without being told that his mother was dead. Then he turned, stumbled, and ran down the hallway, back through the dining room, past his brother, and out the front door.

Once outside, he ran along the pathway behind his house to his friend Larry's house. Bursting through their back door, Scott found Larry's mother and frantically explained what he had just seen in the kitchen. As Mrs. Smith picked up the phone to call police, Scott suddenly remembered that he had left his brother, Russell, in the house. Ignoring Mrs. Smith's questions, Scott ran back to his own farmhouse and into the dining room where he saw his brother still laying in his crib fast asleep. He carefully lifted Russell out of his little bed and then sat down on the living room couch, holding the baby until police and the local doctor arrived.

When police did arrive, they led Scott, who was still holding his brother, back to the Smith's house next door where Scott called his father at Boeing. After he was off the phone, one of the police officers asked Scott a few more questions about what he had seen. Then the officer drove Scott and Russell over to Thelma's house where Bishop Owen was waiting for them. When Scott stepped inside of Thelma's house, Bishop Owen took the baby from Scott's arms and began rocking him, and then he settled Scott into a chair and turned on the TV. Scott said nothing. He just sat there staring at the TV with no expression at all on his face.

Back at the Campbell's farmhouse, the doctor confirmed that Mary was dead. She had been strangled and hit on the head three times. And when the doctor picked up the pillow that was underneath her head, he noticed a small hole in the pillow with singed edges in the fabric and realized someone had clearly fired a gun into this pillow. And when they examined Mary's head again, they noticed there was a gunshot in her left temple. And so they had placed the pillow over her head, fired that shot into her temple, and then afterwards they had placed the pillow under her head. And that was how she was found. Even before police began collecting evidence, they were totally puzzled by what they saw inside the house. With credit cards left on the dining room table, it did not look like a robbery, and if the attacker was looking for valuables, why did they only pull the clothes out of the

drawers in the children's rooms upstairs and not go through the neatly folded items in the closed drawers in the master bedroom where Mary and Curtis slept? And who had been sitting at the kitchen table eating milk and cookies? When Curtis arrived, the police refused to let him into his own house. Dazed and shocked, Curtis just asked, where's my wife's car? And immediately when police saw it was gone from the garage, they sent out a description of the car over the police radio in case the killer had used it to escape. A few minutes later, Curtis was back in his car heading to Thelma's house.

Two police cars followed him with their lights flashing red. As Curtis stepped into Thelma's house, his daughter, Janelle, looked from him back at her brother, who she could now tell was crying. Curtis walked to the couch and sat down. He motioned for Janelle and Patty and Kelly to sit down with him. Then he looked at the scared little faces all turned in his direction, and he said, Your mother is dead. Someone killed her. Curtis was quickly removed from the list of possible suspects. Dozens of

people could confirm that he had been at work that day during the window of time when Mary was killed, sometime between 12 30 p.m. when she arrived home from her church meetings and 2 30 p.m. By 8 p.m. on the night of the murder, police had located the Campbell station wagon in the parking lot of the Group Health Hospital in the town of Renton, three miles away. There were no weapons or blood in the car. All it told police was that the murderer must have gotten a ride to the Campbell's house and then used the station wagon to make their getaway. Once Curtis was allowed back into his house later that night with his children, he went upstairs to check for his gun in his drawer and found it was missing. He told the police about it, and they asked him what kind of gun it was and what caliber it was. When he told them, they realized it was the same as the gun that had been used to shoot Mary in the head.

Even though there were almost 100 law enforcement personnel working the murder case, by Friday, March 10th, so two days into the investigation, the best lead police had was still just a report from the Campbell's neighbor. The neighbor told police that at about 9.30 a.m. on the day Mary was murdered, she had seen a big man with shaggy hair almost down to his shoulders walking first across the Campbell's front yard and then later that day across their backyard. On that Friday, police got an anonymous tip over the phone that would eventually lead to the break they were looking for. The police were told to check out Art Ferguson, the husband of one of the members of Mary Campbell's church. He matched the description

of who the neighbor had seen and he had recently just gotten a haircut. 21 years old and weighing 220 pounds, Art, along with his 20-year-old wife, Virginia, actually did not have very much information to offer police when they were questioned. While Art did not know the Campbells, his wife, Virginia, did, and she was totally traumatized by the murder. Between sobs, Virginia kept going over and over what little she knew about Mary's movements the morning of Mary's murder. She'd seen Mary at church, and she'd heard Mary and Thelma making plans for a playdate. She'd even visited Thelma after church and seen Mary's son, Kelly, out playing in Thelma's backyard. But after Virginia's visit with Thelma, Art and Virginia had not been in Kent. They had spent the afternoon driving 60 miles to eastern Washington

to see if Art could find work at two local mills out there. The reason Art had a haircut was because Virginia had insisted that he had to get one. She thought he wasn't getting hired because he looked sloppy. But the next day, Saturday, three days after the murder, police got a call from Art's father. He told them that they better get out to his place. There was something his son needed to tell them. Once police arrived, they found Art sitting at his father's table, head in his hands. He didn't waste any time telling police what had been weighing so heavily on his mind for the last three days. Art told them in a calm voice that he had killed Mary Campbell.

Police immediately arrested Art and took him into the police station, and there he spent most of the next day answering questions about his crime. He seemed to have remembered every detail of what happened. The following is based on Art's statement to police. On Wednesday, March 8th, so the day Mary was killed, Art said he walked up the driveway of Mary's farmhouse at about 9.30 a.m. In his pocket was a length of metal pipe. When he reached the house, he let himself in through the kitchen

and went upstairs and began ransacking the rooms so that when police investigated the murder he intended to commit, it would look like Mary had been killed by a burglar. When Art found Curtis's gun in the master bedroom, he stuck it into his front pocket along with some ammunition. Then he went back downstairs and hid in the combination powder and bathroom off of the downstairs hallway to wait for Mary to come home from her church meetings. Mary came home and Art attacked her as planned, but right away there was just something about Mary. Her charm totally disarmed him and instead of killing her, he quickly

found himself sitting in the kitchen eating cookies and drinking milk with her. When Art got to the part of the story where Mary had told him how to leave his house without being seen and how she would not call the police, Art paused. He told police at that point he had decided he was not going to kill Mary after all. She was just too nice and had been so kind to him. He told police he remembered turning and grabbing the doorknob and getting ready to walk out that side door. He said he even remembered the sound of Mary's voice behind him as she said goodbye to him. But the next thing Art knew, he had turned around and lunged at Mary, squeezing her neck as tightly as he could. According to his formal police statement, as he choked her, Mary, who was

totally surprised, stumbled backward a few steps, and both he and Mary slid down the front of the stove to the ground. Art said, quote, she tugged at my shirt front very lightly, and once at my hair, and tugged very lightly at my sleeve. Art said when his hands got tired and Mary's head fell forward, he released her neck, letting her fall all the way to the ground. Then he turned on his knees and grabbed the metal pipe Mary had shoved under the kitchen table. Art stood up, and with the pipe in his right hand, he swung it down hard at Mary's skull. He hit her three times until blood began to flow out of her mouth. Then he ran upstairs to get Curtis's gun that he had put back

earlier when he and Mary were up there. On his way back to the kitchen, he picked up a red velvet pillow from the living room couch. When he knelt down beside Mary, who was now motionless, he put the pillow against her left temple. He pressed Curtis's gun into the pillow and then fired a single shot. Then he laid Mary down on the floor of her kitchen, resting her head on top of the soft, round, and now blood-soaked pillow. Before leaving the house, Art dumped out the rest of the contents of Mary's purse on the dining room table, pocketing the $3 and change, and then he took her car keys. Art stepped out of the farmhouse and entered the Campbell's detached garage.

He got into Mary's station wagon and then laid the pipe, the gun, the gloves he was wearing, and his jacket on the seat next to him. Then he turned Mary's car on and drove down the driveway out onto the main road. On his way to the hospital parking lot in Renton, where Art would leave the car and drive home in his own vehicle that was parked there, he stopped along an empty stretch of road near the Puget Sound, and he threw the gun and pipe out into the woods. Art's story explained every strange circumstance about the crime scene that had left police baffled, from the milk and cookies left on the table, to the ransacked bedrooms, to the baby sleeping unharmed in his little bed. But what it didn't explain was why Art had killed this mother of six,

who he didn't even know. Art's bizarre answer to that question would lead the police to another person, the person police would accuse of being the real mastermind behind this murder. On March 8th, 1961, the morning of the murder, while Mary was busy dropping her kids off at school and then heading for her church meetings, Art was waiting next to his car in the parking lot of the hospital in Renton, about three miles away from Mary's farmhouse. At exactly the agreed-upon time, an older model car pulled up next to him and idled for a minute as Art opened the passenger door and climbed inside. The driver of the car asked Art if he was ready to go and whether he needed to take one more look at the map. Days earlier, the driver had made a hand-drawn map showing a detailed layout of the Campbell's farmhouse.

Art had been told to memorize it along with the usual route that Mary Campbell took through her house when she came home with her baby. Art was feeling nervous and thought looking at the map again might calm him down. The driver handed him the piece of folded paper. As Art sat there studying it, he tried to use the memorization technique the driver had taught him that would apparently sear the image into his mind. Meanwhile, the driver put the car in gear and pressed the gas pedal. On the way to the Campbell's farmhouse, the driver stopped and bought two gallons of gas at a gas station and paid by check. When they arrived near the entrance to the Campbell's long gravel driveway, the driver took back the hand-drawn map,

they made sure Art had his piece of metal pipe inside of his jacket pocket, and that Art knew exactly where to find Curtis Campbell's loaded pistol. The driver also told Art to be sure he used a pillow from the couch to silence the sound of the shot that Art would eventually fire directly into Mary's temple. Art nodded. Just before he climbed out of the car, a pink and black truck passed by them on the main road. Art's driver only watched Art for a few seconds as he walked up the driveway toward the farmhouse. Then the driver checked their watch and turned the car around

and pulled back onto the road and started heading for their next stop. About three hours later, at 12.30 p.m., when Art ambushed Mary inside of her house, Art's driver was standing in a different house in front of a kitchen clock, watching the minute hand with intense concentration. The person standing next to the driver would later tell police she could make out the words the driver was speaking as they stared at the clock. Do it. Do it. Do it, they said. An hour later, the driver again looked at the clock. This time, the driver, aka the real mastermind behind the murder of Mary Campbell, smiled and then ran her fingers through her short, dark curls

and looked out the window at Mary's son, Kelly, playing in her yard. Then, Thelma Swenson, the hard luck case that Mary and Curtis had tried so hard to help, the babysitter who had once lived with them and who knew exactly where Curtis's loaded gun was and what Mary's everyday routines were when she got home from church or from running errands, turned to her good friend, Art's young wife, Virginia, and hugged her. And then, according to Virginia, Thelma swayed slowly side to side while holding on to Virginia and said, I know where Art is. He's up there right now butchering Mary Campbell. When Art confessed to the murder of

Mary Campbell, he told police that he was only acting on the orders of Thelma Swenson. He said she planned every detail of the attack. Art, who was mentally challenged and highly suggestible, of the attack. Art, who was mentally challenged and highly suggestible, claimed that he had been manipulated by Thelma into believing Mary Campbell was an evil person. In terms of getting him to commit the actual crime, Art said Thelma had used hypnosis. And when police checked local town library records, they would see that Thelma had checked out several books on mesmerism. Art accused Thelma of basically putting him into a trance and then literally walking him through every step he followed once he was inside of Mary's house. Police would later find a copy of that hand-drawn map of the Campbell's farmhouse in Thelma's house. The gas station attendant who took Thelma's two-dollar

check on the morning of the murder, and later the driver of that pink and black truck that had passed by, would both confirm that they saw Art in Thelma's car the morning of the murder. According to Art's wife, Virginia, Thelma had drawn her into the plot as well. Virginia told police that Thelma had met with both her and Art and asked them how they would go about killing someone and not getting caught. It was through these conversations she was having with Art and with Virginia that Thelma began to put together a plan to murder Mary Campbell. Virginia claimed that Thelma had even made her and Art rehearse how Art might strangle Mary using a length of

electrical cord with Virginia playing the part of the victim. But after Art had actually attacked Mary in her home, he told police that he genuinely had decided he was not going to kill Mary after all. It was like he had come out of his trance and he saw her for the person she really was, this really wonderful person. But he said after he turned to actually leave the house, he fell back under Thelma's control again. And then the next thing he knew, he was standing there in the kitchen with his hands around Mary's neck. It would turn out Thelma had a history of psychiatric problems and had been hospitalized twice. Once, following a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a mental illness that can cause

episodes of psychosis, delusions, and paranoia. Her estranged husband, who had never physically abused Thelma, would also testify that she was a pathological liar. According to Art and Virginia, far from being grateful to Mary for her help and support, Thelma had developed a deep hatred of Mary. She blamed Mary for the breakup of Thelma's own marriage, which didn't really make any sense, but she did, and even claimed that her estranged husband was the father of Mary's seven-month-old baby, even though the baby had been born in New Jersey before the Campbells had even met Thelma. Police also investigated the possibility that Thelma was becoming obsessed with Curtis and saw Mary as an obstacle to Thelma. Police also investigated the possibility that Thelma was becoming obsessed with Curtis

and saw Mary as an obstacle to Thelma pursuing that relationship. For his part, Curtis had already begun to suspect that Thelma was mentally unstable and that she was using makeup to fake the bruises that she claimed were the result of her estranged husband's physical abuse. For these reasons, in the weeks leading up to Mary's murder, Curtis had told Mary that they really should break off their friendship and involvement with Thelma. However, Mary wouldn't hear of it. She believed Thelma needed them and Mary did not want to abandon her. On September 23, 1961, just six months after Mary's murder, both Art Ferguson and Thelma Swenson were found guilty

of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. But that was not the end of this murder case. Two years later, on June 6, 1963, the Washington Supreme Court overturned the conviction against Thelma and ordered a new trial for her. Five months later, a new jury would acquit Thelma of all charges. While the court denied Thelma's request for custody of her three children, Thelma would go on to marry again and have a second set of three children before divorcing her second husband and taking those three children with her. In her memoir about her mother's death, titled The Multiple Murders of Mary Kelly Campbell, Janelle Campbell writes that as of 2021, Thelma Swenson was still alive.

Out of deference to Thelma's family, the author does not include any details about Thelma Swenson's current life or location. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, when you're on your deathbed, tell the five-star review button you have something extremely important to tell them, but then pass away without telling them.

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