MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Stay Away

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

There are some places we just aren't meant to go, and today we have 3 stories that each give us a stark reminder to just "stay away." The audio from all three stories has been pulled fro...m 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:#3 -- "Not So Lazy River" -- A pair decides to float on a unique body of water (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/fMaWaiWRs_4?feature=shared)#2 -- "Out on a Limb" -- A search party stumbles onto a morbid discovery (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/XxrnuiotrN0?feature=shared)#1 -- "Pope Lick Monster" -- A couple goes looking for a monster in Kentucky (Original YouTube link -- https://youtu.be/mLPGMZvqxV8?feature=shared)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main 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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. There are some places in the world that we are just not meant to go, and today's 3 stories will remind us that we really should just stay away from those places. The audio from all 3 of today's stories have been pulled from our main YouTube channel and have been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.
Starting point is 00:00:30 The first story you'll hear is called The Not-So-Lazy River and it's about two people who decide to take rafts on a very unique body of water. The second story you'll hear is called Out on a Limb and it's about a farmer who decides to stay out late to finish his harvest but little did he know, this decision would cost him dearly. And the third and final story you'll hear is called The Popelick Monster, and it's about a couple who literally go looking for a folklore monster somewhere in Kentucky, but in doing so, they actually come face to face with a real monster. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious
Starting point is 00:01:08 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, please offer to do the Amazon Music Follow Button's dishes, but be sure to leave all the cups and bowls upright in the dishwasher. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Not-So-Lazy River. Hello, I'm Emily, one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. Some of them hit the big time overnight, some had to plug away for years, but in our latest series we're talking about a man who was world famous before he was even born. A life of extreme privilege that was mapped out from the start but left him struggling to find his
Starting point is 00:02:14 true purpose. A man who compared to his big brother felt a bit, you know, spare. Yes, it's Prince Harry. You might think you know everything about him, but trust me, there's even more. We follow Harry and the obsessive, all-consuming relationship of his life, not with Meghan, but the British tabloid press. Hounded and harassed, Harry is taking on an institution almost every bit as powerful as his own royal family. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wandery Plus, on Apple Podcasts, or the Wandery app. From Wandery, this is The Spy Who.
Starting point is 00:03:01 This month, we open the file on Oleg Lelin, the spy who saved MI5. Lenin's actions changed the course of the Cold War in the 1970s, a Russian who defected to Britain after being caught in a love affair that shook the world. His actions triggered the biggest removal of spies by any government in history. It's a story of an overstretched security service in need of a win and a covert plan to bring catastrophe to Britain's streets.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Saved MI5 early and ad-free with Wandery Plus. If you take a trip to Hawaii, there's a good chance you'll visit the beautiful Rainbow Falls on the eastern side of the big island. But if you travel less than a mile upstream of those falls, you'll find an equally beautiful attraction that far less people know about, and it's called the Boiling Pots. 10,000 years ago, after a volcanic eruption, lava was flowing down the side of the mountain when it entered the Wailuku River. As the lava gradually cooled, the river water flowing all around it wound up carving out these standalone pools of
Starting point is 00:04:21 water that were connected by a series of small waterfalls. These pools collectively make up the boiling pots, and they get their name because periodically the water in these pools appears to be boiling. Tourists at the boiling pots are allowed to look at the water from a safe distance on this cement overlook, but under no circumstances are allowed to actually enter the water. In 2015, Jolie Reiswig was a 62 year old woman living in Kona, Hawaii, which is on the western side of the island. There she owned a bed and breakfast, whose main allure was that guests at this bed and breakfast got to go on these fun adventure tours with Jolie all over the
Starting point is 00:04:58 island, and they almost always involved paddleboarding or swimming because Jolie was an avid outdoors person and a very talented swimmer and swim instructor and so felt comfortable leading these types of excursions. On September 14th of that year, Jolie brought one of her male guests from her bed-and-breakfast out for an adventure tour at the boiling pots. She would have known that it was an off-limits area for swimmers because there were signs up everywhere saying as much, but Jolie wasn't planning to swim in the boiling pots. Instead, she was planning to float on them on inflatable rafts. And so she and this man climbed aboard
Starting point is 00:05:32 their respective rafts and began paddling around one of the upper pools, taking in the incredible view of this natural phenomenon. As they were relaxing, suddenly there was this rush of water that came tumbling over the fall that dumped down into the pool they were in. It was a flash flood. And before Jolie and this man could swim outside of the pool and get to safety, the water under them began to churn violently and actually thrust them over the edge down into the next pool. And as soon as they hit the water, they had fallen off of their rafts.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Now they're swimming in the water and they're feeling a current pulling them down and pulling them forward towards the next lip into the next pool. And so they both began desperately swimming towards the edge. Jolie actually grabbed the man and helped push him up and out to safety. And as soon as he was on land, he turned around to grab her, but she wasn't there. And so he's looking around and all he can see is her raft floating on the surface being taken down into the rapids And so he thinks okay She must have fallen into the next pool and so on the side of the waterway he runs down and he's looking into the next Pool the next pool the next pool and she's nowhere to be found and
Starting point is 00:06:35 After a few minutes of looking and not knowing where she was he called the authorities They came out and they launched this huge search for her But despite searching the entirety of the boiling pots and all the way downstream there was no sign of her and after looking for an entire week they never found anything it was like she just disappeared and so they turned the search off. As devastating as this was for the family to not have closure about what happened to Jolie, this was not a surprising outcome. In fact, it was almost an expected outcome considering why the boiling pots are off limits to swimmers. Each of the pools of water that make up the boiling pots
Starting point is 00:07:12 is a deep, nearly vertical shaft of water, and at the bottom of it are these entrances to these underground tunnels, and these entrances are big enough for a person to slip inside of. And these tunnels are not short. They go on for long ways in all different directions. In a flash flood scenario, that increased water that's flowing down the boiling pots creates this unbelievable current that inside
Starting point is 00:07:35 of each of these pools is pulling straight down, which gives the water the impression that it's boiling because basically the water is tumbling over as it's being filtered up and down inside of this vertical shaft. And so if you get grabbed by this current it's going to pull you down and into one of these tunnels and you won't get out again unless the current releases you. And so Jolie, after helping her guest get out of the water to safety, she was pulled down and into one of these tunnels and she was held there for five months until finally the current released her and her remains were spotted just below the Out on a Limb. On the evening of March 25th, 2017, a 25-year-old farmer named Akbar Sulebiro was harvesting palm fruit at the local oil palm grove near his tiny village in Indonesia.
Starting point is 00:08:45 Now the way Akbar would do this is he would use this long curved pole and he would prod at the bright red fruit in the tree knocking it to the ground and then he would gather it up, put it in his cart and wheel it back home to be sold for palm oil. Now on this night Akbar was actually working later than usual because his wife and kids were out of town for a couple of days visiting family and so there was no real reason to head back home because the house was empty. But Akbar was actually just fine with that because there was tons of ripe fruit and so staying late would be quite profitable. But after a while when the sun had finally set and it was getting difficult to actually
Starting point is 00:09:22 even see the fruit in the tree, Akbar knew he really needed to leave soon because this area at night was actually not safe. And so Akbar gathered up the remainder of his fruit on the ground, he put his pole in the cart as well, and he began quickly making his way back home. Later that evening, one of Akbar's neighbors was asleep in their bed inside of their home when they woke up suddenly to the sound of something out in the jungle, not far from where Akbar had been harvesting palm fruit. And so this neighbor, when they sat up, they couldn't really tell what the sound was. It almost sounded like a stifled scream or maybe some animal that was fighting with another animal. But as the neighbor sat there straining their ears to try to hear it again,
Starting point is 00:10:05 they didn't. All they heard was normal sounds coming from the outside, and so the neighbor decided that the sound they heard must have been a cat or maybe a monkey, and you know, whatever it was, it couldn't have been a big deal. And so this neighbor went back to sleep. The following evening, so 24 hours later, another one of Akbar's neighbors walked outside of their home to begin the walk over to the jungle to harvest palm fruit, and when they went
Starting point is 00:10:30 outside, normally, around this time, Akbar would be coming outside as well, because these two often went to the grove together. But you know, this neighbor is looking and Akbar is not outside, and he looks up at Akbar's house and it's dark and quiet, and so this neighbor's thinking to themselves you know where is Akbar you know I know he worked late last night I didn't hear him come in and come to think of it you know I haven't seen him all day and now of course I'm not seeing him as well and so this neighbor feeling concerned about Akbar walked over and knocked on his door but nobody answered and so really starting to think that something could be
Starting point is 00:11:03 wrong with Akbar this neighbor went to Akbar's uncle's house. And when Akbar's uncle came to the door, this neighbor explained what was going on and their concern that you know something could have happened to Akbar. And so the uncle and this neighbor would go back over to Akbar's home and they would actually try the door. It was locked. They looked inside the windows and it looked like no one was in there. And they also noticed that where Akbar typically kept his cart that he would transport his fruit in, it wasn't there either, which made them think Akbar must still be out somewhere with this cart, because this cart is very important to him. And so ultimately, the uncle, after seeing the state of his nephew's home, he agreed
Starting point is 00:11:42 with this neighbor that something was wrong here, and if they wanted to find Akbar, they really needed to get together a search party right now and go looking for him. So the uncle contacted the leaders of the village, and they in turn rounded up all the able-bodied men in the village, and they all got together with headlamps and flashlights and machetes and knives and then altogether they began walking away from the village into the jungle in the direction of this palm grove which was the place that Akbar had been last. And so this big group of men they get inside the jungle and they begin walking along this path which was the most likely path that Akbar would have taken
Starting point is 00:12:21 to go to the palm grove and also to return from the palm grove. And as they're walking, you know, the sun is starting to set, it's getting dark, and the animals in the jungle, they're all making noises and kind of yelling at this group as they're moving through. In this group, they're shining their light around looking for any sign of Akbar, but there wasn't any. They were calling his name out, there was no response, and then at some point, as they got closer to the palm grove They noticed there were a couple of bright red fruits palm fruits that had clearly been recently harvested That were scattered on the trail and so the group began to fan out in this area thinking that oh my goodness Akbar must be somewhere nearby, you know
Starting point is 00:12:58 Maybe there was some sort of accident and he's fallen somewhere or just something's happened to him But he's got to be in this area And so the group began fanning out off the trail kind of hacking their way through all the underbrush and then suddenly one of the men after he hacked through a particularly dense stretch of the jungle he looked down and saw something and began to scream and he raised his machete and began running forward. As far as we can tell this is what happened to Akbar. The previous night after Akbar had decided, you know, it wasn't safe to be in the jungle at night. He needed to leave.
Starting point is 00:13:35 And so he gathered up all of his things and he began walking along that path where the search party would find all that fruit scattered on the trail. And so he's walking along this path and he thinks he's alone, he thinks he's okay, but in reality, he wasn't. He was being watched and followed very closely from something up in the trees. And so as Akbar moved along, this thing was kind of trailing him and seeing what he was going to do. And then at some point, this thing up in the trees began moving its way down closer and closer to Akbar. It was a 23 foot long reticulated python.
Starting point is 00:14:11 It was a massive snake. And this snake came down and launched an attack on Akbar, grabbing the back of his neck with its powerful jaws. And as soon as the snake clamped down on Akbar's neck, he let out a stifled scream, which was the scream that had woken up that other neighbor, who sat up in bed wondering what that was, that was Akbar screaming out. But that was the only sound Akbar could make, because immediately the snake wrapped itself all around Akbar and squeezed him tight. And after crushing Akbar, breaking almost every
Starting point is 00:14:45 bone in his body, the snake relaxed and then slithered off of Akbar. And so Akbar fell to the ground and was either dead or very close to death. And at this point the snake opened up its jaws and positioned itself right in front of Akbar's head. And then it began kind of slithering itself forward, consuming Akbar head first. And the way pythons do this is they don't really chew on their victim, instead they kind of put their mouth over the top of whatever they're going to consume and they kind of undulate and walk their bodies forward, driving the victim deeper and deeper into their body until they are completely consumed.
Starting point is 00:15:25 And so the next night, when one of the members of the search party had gone off the trail and began hacking away and then saw something and charged after it with his machete, what he was seeing was the python who very clearly had a person inside of its stomach. You could see the outline of the person. And so this search party member ran forward and hacked the snake, opened it up, and there was Akbar fully dressed and deceased inside of the snake. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan.
Starting point is 00:16:03 And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we delve into the life of Alan Turing. Why are we talking about Alan Turing, Peter? Alan Turing is the father of computer science and some of those questions we're thinking about today around artificial intelligence. Turing was so involved in setting and framing what some of those questions were, but he's also interesting for lots of other reasons, Afro. He had such a fascinating life. He was unapologetically gay at a time when that was completely criminalised
Starting point is 00:16:34 and stigmatised. And from his imagination, he created ideas that have formed a very physical, practical foundation for all of the technology on which our lives depend. And on top of that, he's responsible for being part of a team that saved millions, maybe even tens of millions of lives because of his work during the Second World War using maths and computer science to code break. So join us on Legacy wherever you get your podcasts. What if your partner developed 21 new identities?
Starting point is 00:17:08 Or you discovered that your friend who helped you through the darkest times was actually a conniving con artist? Or what if you began seeing demons everywhere, inhabiting people around you, including your son? What would you do? I'm Whit Misseldein, the creator of This Is Actually Happening, a podcast that brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events, told by the people who lived them. In our newest season, you'll hear even more intimate first-person accounts of how regular
Starting point is 00:17:36 people have overcome remarkable circumstances, like the man who went to jail for 17 years for accidentally shooting the person who tried to save his life, to a close friend of the infamous scam artist, Amanda Riley. These haunting accounts sound like Hollywood movies, but I assure you, this is actually happening. Follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad free on Wondry+. The next and final story of today's episode is called The Popeluck Monster. While she was in high school in Dayton, Ohio, Raquel Bain became known as a bit of a thrill
Starting point is 00:18:28 seeker, primarily because she would do something called car surfing, which is exactly what it sounds like. She would climb onto the exterior of cars and hold onto the roof while somebody else drove it around. In addition to seeking out these physical thrills, Raquel was also drawn to psychological ones, like going to places that were supposedly haunted and seeing if she could spook herself. Following high school, Raquel kind of calmed down and became less of the wild teenager she was known for being, and instead she really focused on building a life and a career for herself.
Starting point is 00:19:03 And so she would go to college and she would earn her degree in surgical technologies, and then by 2009 she was employed full-time as a surgical assistant in Dayton. Also around that time she had her first child, a son, who she adored. But despite creating this life full of stereotypically adult, mature things like having a career and starting a family. Deep down, Raquel was still very much the thrill-seeking wild teenager she was back in high school. But as an adult, she just never had time to go seek out those thrills. So, with that in mind, fast forward to April of 2016. By this point point Raquel is 26 years old and that month a very rare Weekend popped up where Raquel did not have to work and she didn't have any child care
Starting point is 00:19:53 Responsibilities and so wanting to take advantage of this free time Raquel asked her boyfriend 41 year old David knee if he would join her on a road trip that weekend to Louisville Kentucky where Raquel wanted to check out the infamously scary David Knee if he would join her on a road trip that weekend to Louisville, Kentucky, where Raquel wanted to check out the infamously scary Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Back in the 1900s, Waverly Hills was a place where tuberculosis patients were sent. Tuberculosis, or TB for short, is an infection of the lungs and it can be deadly. Today there's a cure for it, but back in the early 1900s, there wasn't. And so most of the people who went to Waverly Hills died there and usually very slowly and
Starting point is 00:20:33 painfully and in total isolation from their families because in virtue of being sent to Waverly Hills, they were effectively being quarantined to stop the spread of the disease. Waverly Hills would eventually shut down permanently in 1961 because by that point the cure had been found and after it shut down the building basically just sat there. Nobody else came in and turned it into anything else. And so this building is basically abandoned and lots of people began sneaking in to see what it was like in there and a shocking number of these trespassers reported seeing ghosts inside. Today the sanatorium is still very much in the same condition it was left in but the Waverly Hills Historical Society has stepped
Starting point is 00:21:18 in and made it very hard for people to sneak into the building. However, knowing people do want to go in and look around, the historical society has begun offering guided tours of the sanatorium. And these tours are given exclusively at night to increase the spooky effect. And so David, who had only been dating Raquel for a month when she asked him to come with her to the sanatorium, he was not really that keen on doing this. It did
Starting point is 00:21:45 not really appeal to him to go walking around this totally terrifying place, but he could tell it was important to Raquel, she was really excited about it, and so he agreed to go. A few days later, on the late afternoon of April 23rd, the new couple left Raquel's place, they climbed into the car, and they began driving south. Three hours later, they climbed into the car, and they began driving south. Three hours later, they arrived in Louisville and they stopped to get dinner, and then after they were done eating, they looked at the time and realized it was only about 6 45 pm, and the tour they had scheduled at the sanatorium was not until 10 pm, so they had a few hours to kill. And before David could suggest anything, Raquel already had the perfect idea of how they should kill this time. She told David that earlier
Starting point is 00:22:32 that day she had learned about a spot just outside of Louisville that might actually be more terrifying than the sanatorium they had come all this way to see. And so Raquel wanted to spend these few hours checking out this new spooky spot. This spooky spot was a rickety old narrow abandoned looking bridge called the Pope Lick Tressle. It's located just east of downtown Louisville in this heavily wooded area. The bridge is about 800 feet long and at its highest point right in the middle of the bridge it's about 90 to 100 feet off the ground. And this bridge connects the tops of two of the bigger rolling hills in the area. But the bridge's physical appearance has nothing to do
Starting point is 00:23:19 with why it's considered so spooky. The reason the Pope Lick Tressel has become a central part of Kentucky folklore is because locals say there is a monster called the Pope Lick Monster that lives underneath the bridge. It's half goat, half man, and when anyone is near this bridge at night, this monster is supposed to come out from underneath this bridge, and then what happens next is very ambiguous. It kind of depends on who you're talking to. But generally speaking, once the poplick monster has emerged and it sees you, you're dead. Now, how you die ranges from the monster leaping out and attacking you with an axe, to the monster using some sort of mind control to lure you up onto the bridge where
Starting point is 00:24:05 you leap off. David, after hearing this suggestion, was again not really that keen to go do this really terrifying sounding thing, but seeing the excitement in his girlfriend's face, he agreed to go. And so the two left the restaurant, they climbed back in the car, and they drove for about 15 or 20 minutes to the Pope Lick-Trestle Bridge. The bridge actually passed over a relatively main road, and so the couple parked just off the side of this main road.
Starting point is 00:24:35 And then once they were outside, they began looking for a pathway up this hillside to get up to the bridge. And very quickly, they found a well-worn dirt path that snaked up the side of this wooded hillside that looked very much like it would bring them up to the bridge. So with Raquel in front and David behind her, they began walking up this dirt path and as they're walking they start to see signs that clearly say no trespassing but they ignore them because they're looking at this path thinking, okay, lots of people clearly come up here, so we've got to be okay. And so they keep on walking up this
Starting point is 00:25:10 path and they're getting closer and closer to the top of this hill where they think it's going to connect with this bridge and right as they're getting close they see there's this huge chain link fence, this eight foot tall chain link fence with barbed wire across the top that extends in either direction out of view. And so the couple walks up to this fence and there are more signs that say no trespassing private property and there are additional warning signs saying that what is on the other side of this fence is also just plain dangerous so turn around and leave. But as Raquel and David are staring at all these signs in this fence, they see not far from the path, somebody had clearly bent two of the fence posts and created a narrow gap in the fence that you could slip through. And so from David and Raquel's perspective,
Starting point is 00:26:08 that looked like the way other trespassers must have found their way up to the bridge and so it must be safe. And so once again, the couple disregarded all the warnings, they made their way over to this gap in the fence, they both slipped through, and they kept on walking up the hill. Just a couple of minutes later, they reached this this clearing which was at the top of this hill and once
Starting point is 00:26:29 they were in this clearing they were able to turn and they could actually see the bridge, it was only a couple hundred feet away from them and it was totally intimidating. By this point it's totally dark out and from their perspective all they see is this very narrow bridge that they know is 100 feet off the ground at certain points. And they can see there's no guardrails on either side of this bridge. It would have almost looked like a tightrope kind of extending off into the darkness. But even if the couple was really intimidated by the sight of this bridge and with all these warning signs before it, they were able to put their fear aside and just keep on going.
Starting point is 00:27:08 And so with David now in the lead and Raquel behind him, they walked the couple of hundred feet over to the start of this narrow bridge and when they got there, without actually stepping onto the bridge, David came to a stop, he turned around to face Raquel and he gestured for her to come stand next to him so they could take a selfie with the bridge in the background. Because David at this point is thinking, we're not going to go on this bridge, we're just going to look at this bridge, take some pictures and then we'll go. But Raquel, who he's looking at, gesturing to come stand with him, just walks right past him onto the bridge and takes several steps out onto this narrow rickety
Starting point is 00:27:45 old thing and then she stops, turns around, and gestures for David to come with her and walk across the entire bridge. And David again is having his second thoughts but he sees Raquel wants to do this and so he agrees to go. After they had walked about a hundred maybe two hundred feet across this bridge, the two of them just started laughing because it was totally exhilarating what they were doing. Not so much the quest for the poplick monster, but rather the very real risk they were taking walking this tightrope bridge in the middle of the night. The couple would continue to very
Starting point is 00:28:22 cautiously but quickly make their way across this bridge and when they reached about the halfway point when they were at the highest point from the ground the bridge itself begins to shake. And then from behind them they hear this loud grinding sound. And so the couple that whip their heads around and they see there are these two bright glowing lights that are looking right at them all the way on the start of the bridge and they realize it's a train. When Raquel and David walked up that dirt path and snuck through the fence and reached the top of the hill and could actually see the Pope Lick Trestle
Starting point is 00:28:59 bridge, they would have also seen the train tracks in the hillside that clearly extended onto the Pope Lick Trestle and went across the bridge. This was a train bridge. They would have seen that. But it's assumed that the couple who didn't live in the area and so didn't know much about the Pope Lick Trestle, it's assumed they thought, well, you know, this is a train bridge, but it's got to be abandoned. It certainly looks abandoned and it does. It looks totally old. It does not look active even though it is. Or the couple thought, well, this is just an old train bridge.
Starting point is 00:29:32 It might be active, but surely no train is going to come through any time soon. We can get across the bridge before a train arrives. But of course, they were wrong. When the couple turned around and saw these two headlights bearing down on them, they quickly realized they would not be able to outrun this train. The train's clearly trying to stop. It has seen them. It's hitting its brakes. It's sounding its horn, but it's just clearly moving too quickly so they cannot run to the other side to safety. And because this bridge was meant for a single train
Starting point is 00:30:07 to pass through, there was no other track they could just jump onto to avoid being hit. And there were no walkways on either side of this railway. And so literally all they had was the track that this train was going to cross over and they were on it. And so with no other choices, David yells to Raquel that they have to climb down and hang off the side of this bridge. Now there were these wooden slats that ran underneath the rails, they ran perpendicular
Starting point is 00:30:36 to the rails, and these wooden slats kind of extended off the edge of the bridge on either side just a couple of inches. And so in theory, if you were holding onto the outside of one of these wooden slats and kind of dangling off the edge of the bridge, a train could cross those tracks and not run over your hands or fingers. You would just have to hold on that whole time as the train is rumbling through. And so David he flops down onto his stomach and he's trying to lower himself as fast as he can as this train is getting closer and closer, and he's yelling for Raquel to do the same thing, but she's not really moving very quickly.
Starting point is 00:31:10 And finally David, he gets in position, he's hanging off the edge of this bridge on these wooden slats, and he sees Raquel, she's not quite there, and then the train comes flying through, it strikes Raquel, and sends her flying off the bridge to the ground below. strikes Raquel and sends her flying off the bridge to the ground below. David would somehow manage to hold on the whole time as this train went past him, and then once the train had passed him, he pulled himself back up onto the tracks, he ran the rest of the way across the bridge, he went down that hillside, and when he found Raquel, it was immediately apparent that she was deceased. In the end, the railroad was not issued any citations or sued for negligence. It was determined they did their due diligence by setting up that 8-foot-tall barbed wire fence,
Starting point is 00:31:55 with all those signs telling people to stay back and warning people about the hazards of going past this fence. It was actually David who got in trouble for this tragedy. He was cited and charged with a felony of unlawfully disrupting and or delaying a train causing financial damages. He would plead to a lesser charge of trespassing and would be fined $2,300. Shockingly, this tragedy is just one of many that have occurred on the Popelik-Tressell Bridge. Since the bridge's construction in the 1800s, there have been dozens of people who have died on this bridge. And several of these deaths, many of them fairly recent the last 20 or so years,
Starting point is 00:32:38 have occurred under the same conditions as Raquel's. People went looking for the Poplik monster and then were struck by a train. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bollin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories, and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts, Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, and Runful. Just search for Bollin Studios wherever you get your podcasts and you'll find them all. Also, there are hundreds more stories like the ones you heard today, but in video format on our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.
Starting point is 00:33:59 And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans
Starting point is 00:34:24 have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts and if you're a Prime member you can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.

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