MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Stranger Than Fiction Vol. XIII

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today’s podcast features 3 stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all three 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: #3 -- "What’s Wrong with Mommy?" -- Christmas day becomes a nightmare (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JPEtNglQ4o) #2 -- "Stealing a Slice" -- A standoff in a Domino's takes a wild turn (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6bh7mhT1Lk) #1 -- "Peak Experience" -- A man wakes up after an avalanche in a life and death situation (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6m1ImVG1MQ)   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.

Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. And today's podcast features three stories that demonstrate that. The audio from all three 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 What's Wrong with Mommy? And it's about a family's Christmas morning that quickly turns into a nightmare. The second story you'll hear is called Stealing a Slice.

And it's about a standoff in a Domino's Pizza Chain that takes a wild, turn. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Peak Experience, and it's about a man who wakes up after an avalanche and finds himself in another life or death situation. 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 podcast because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays. So, if that's of interest to you, wait until the follow button has left for their summer vacation and while they're gone, go into their house and completely decorate the interior and also the exterior for Christmas.

Okay, let's get into our first story called What's Wrong with Mommy? In the early evening hours of December 24, 2011, so Christmas Eve, 26-year-old Zazel Preston sat on her bed in her little apartment in Anaheim, California, and wrapped Christmas gifts for her children. Laying next to her was her newest addition to the family, her third child, a seven-week-old little boy. This Christmas was a big deal for Zazel. It was also a big deal for her husband, 30-year-old William Wallace, not only because it was going to be the first Christmas with their new son, but also because this was the first Christmas after Zazel and William had reconciled their relationship. They had been married for the past three years, but over those three years, their relationship

had been very unhealthy and toxic and at times abusive. But earlier that year, when Zazel had discovered that she was pregnant, this baby became kind of like a new anchor point for their relationship. It was like suddenly they could put their differences aside and just focus on raising their kids together. After wrapping her final present, Zazelle hopped off the bed, she scooped up her little boy, and then she headed out into the living room where she met up with her husband and her two older children, who were little girls aged three and eight, and then they all headed outside and went next door to celebrate Christmas Eve at a party with their neighbors.

Early the next morning, so on Christmas Day, Zazel's two oldest children, the two girls, they got up early and they rushed out of their bedrooms and they ran down the hallway into the living room where their parents were waiting for them on the couch along with their baby brother. The living room was completely decked out with Christmas decorations that the family had put up over the past couple of weeks. The Christmas tree was in the corner with bright multicolored lights and ornaments all over it. There were wreaths on the wall and other string lights around the top of the room. and then over their fireplace where all of their stockings nailed up stuffed with goodies. The little girls squealed with delight and ran around the couch and took up spots right underneath

the Christmas tree and they grabbed their first present and they turned and looked at their parents on the couch and they saw their dad kind of give them a nod of approval, which meant, okay, you can start opening your gifts. And so the girls happily began tearing into the festive wrapping, and then after each of them had their brand new toy in hand, they turned around reflexively to show their parents. And so William, he sees the toys and he says, oh, they're so great guys. And then when the girls, they look at their mother and they show her the toys, she doesn't even react. She completely ignores them.

And so at some point, you know, these little kids, they start yelling for their mom. Hey, mom, check it out. Look at this new toy. But Zazel just sits there. She doesn't say a word. She's just sitting back on the couch completely ignoring them. Finally, the eight-year-old turns to William and says, what's wrong with mommy? And at this point, William pauses.

And then he gives Zazel a scathing look before. very bluntly saying to these young kids, Mommy got drunk, and now she's ruined Christmas. The girls knew from William's tone of voice that their parents must be fighting. And so they did what they normally did when this happened, and that was to just try to ignore it. And so the little girls, they turned away from their parents

and began opening more presents, doing their best not to disturb their parents who were sitting silently behind them. And then, a little after 9 a.m., after most of the presents had been opened, William abruptly stood up and walked into the other room and placed a phone call. And then a few minutes later, there was a loud knock on the front door. The night before, after Zazel and William and their kids had left their neighbor's party

and come back to their apartment, Zazel and William had gotten into a vicious fight. And by the time the kids had all gone to bed, the fight between the parents had become very physical. Neighbors would recall late at night on Christmas Eve hearing this very loud, commotion coming from Zazel and Williams' apartment. And at some point, apparently Zazel had tried to run out of the apartment, but William had chased after her and hauled her back inside. The sounds coming from their apartment would eventually stop somewhere in the wee hours of Christmas Day. And then as the sun came up on Christmas Day, Zazel and William had made their way to the couch, and they were sitting there with their seven-week-old baby waiting for their two oldest to wake up

and come open presents. Except when their two little girls came, out of their bedrooms and bombed into the living room to begin celebrating, only William was alive. Zazel had been beaten to death by William. And after he had beaten her to death the night before, he had dragged her into the living room, set her up on the couch to make it look like she was sitting, and then put sunglasses on her eyes in order to trick the children. And so all morning, as this three-year-old and eight-year-old are opening these gifts and turning and showing their mother with excitement, she was dead the whole time. But at around 9 a.m., William realized his charade was not going to last because his kids were really keyed in to there being something wrong with their

mother. And so that was when he got up and he called 911 and he told them that his wife had gotten drunk and fallen into a glass coffee table. And so she was hurt. And so a little bit later, the police and paramedics, they arrive, they go inside. And right away they can tell, William is lying to them. There's more to this story than they're being told. And so ultimately, William would be convicted of second-degree murder, and he would be sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. As for Zazel's three children, they are now being looked after by her parents. Our next story is called Stealing a Slice. On January 30th, 1989, two young men were working the afternoon lunch shift at a Domino's Pizza restaurant in Shambly, Georgia. Their names were

Daryl Wilson and Sean Burn said. In most weeks, this show, shift that they worked together was really boring because virtually nobody came into the restaurant. But on this day, at around 11 a.m., as Daryl and Sean are kind of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the shift to end, a man who was obviously disgruntled and very agitated, stormed in the door, carrying a gun, a 357 magnum guns, or really powerful handgun, and he aimed it straight at them. Daryl and Sean were so shocked by this that at first they didn't do anything. But then it kind of dawned on them that, oh my goodness, this guy's coming in here to rob the place. And so Daryl and Sean suddenly put their hands up and they begin saying, you know,

okay, take whatever you want, take whatever you want. And the man suddenly began shouting something at them like he wanted something. And it took Daryl and Sean a second to kind of understand what he was asking for. But when they started to process the things he was saying, they kind of understood that this did not seem like a robbery. The guy was demanding that they call Tom S. Monaghan so he, this guy, the guy with the gun, can talk to Tom. Now, Daryl and Sean may have known this, but probably not, because they likely didn't care,

but Tom S. Monaghan at the time was the owner of Domino's. Not like this particular restaurant in Shambly, Georgia, but like the entire national chain. He was the actual owner of the company. And so this guy is coming in being like, let me talk to the owner of Domino's. And so at some point, Daryl and Sean understood who Tom S. Monaghan was. Perhaps the guy with the gun explained it, or maybe one of them did know who Thomas Mone was. But either way, Darrell and Sean suddenly realized, oh my goodness, this guy wants to talk to the owner, but they have no way of getting in touch with the owner of Domino's.

They're just pizza cooks. They're not, like, connected to the C-suite. But when Darrell and Sean told the guy, like, hey, we don't know how to get in touch with the literal owner of this major franchise. Well, the guy didn't like that. And he got really frantic and began yelling and screaming, like, you got to do it. You got to get Tom on the phone. And so Darrell and Sean are like, okay, and they grab the phone. And they try to call their own boss because they don't know who else to call.

And as they're calling their own boss, this guy fires two shots into the ceiling. So this is like a really high intensity situation that's escalating really quickly. But Daryl, who actually was the one on the phone, he did his best to stay calm. And when his boss got on the other line, he tried his best to explain the situation as quickly as he could, because he could tell, you know, this guy with the gun is very close to potentially shooting them. And the boss of Daryl and Sean did understand, okay, clearly there is a crisis happening at this branch. And when Daryl said, you gotta find a way to get Tom S. Monaghan on the phone like right now, his boss was like, I got it.

And a few minutes later, Daryl's boss, who's still on the phone with him, was like, okay, I'm going to patch you through. And then a second later, Tom S. Monaghan hops in the phone, and he's like, what's going on? And at this point, Daryl just handed the phone over to the guy with the gun and said, here you go, Tom's in the phone. And the man with the gun, grabbed the phone, put it to his ear, and then began rattling off these totally bizarre demands. He wanted a white limousine to show up to the restaurant to be his getaway car, he wanted $10,000 in cash, and he wanted a copy of a science fiction novel about the Freemasons called The Widow's Son. And so Darrell and Sean, who were behind the counter witnessing this, they're hearing these demands,

and it's clicking for them that clearly this guy is not mentally well. This is a guy who's totally unhinged, and who knows what's going to happen. After a few minutes on the phone, the gunman hung up and then told Darrell and Sean very calmly that now the three of them were just going to sit in this restaurant and wait for his demands to be met. And for the next five and a half hours, that's what they did. Daryl, Sean, and the gunmen, who just kept the gun, aimed at Daryl and Sean, they just sat inside of this restaurant. And at the same time, you know, by this point, the police have been called, and they're

completely surrounding this restaurant. And when the gunman came into the store, because this was a very slow day, there weren't any other customers or staff inside, so it really was just Daryl, Sean, and the gunman. and so it's a total standoff. But, interestingly, for Sean and Daryl, who were right there with this gunman, they started to sense that this guy was not here to hurt them. He was really after Tom S. Monaghan, and over those five and a half hours, they were just sitting there with him with his gun

aimed right at them. He periodically began telling them, you know, what his gripes were with Tom S. Monaghan. The gunman told Daryl and Sean that Tom was specifically targeting him, the gunman. And also, Tom was secretly communicating with the gunman when the gunman didn't want to talk to him, almost like telekinesis or something. And also, the gunman told them that Thomas Monaghan periodically will walk around his property at night, kind of creeping around, you know, scaring the gunman. And Daryl and Sean, you know, they're hearing these things and not believing any of it,

but they were very empathetic and said, oh yeah, I can understand why that would be an issue, I can understand why you'd come in here and demand to speak to Tom S. Monaghan, yep, totally get it. And that was just kind of how the day was going. And then around 4.30 p.m., so they've been in there a long time by this point, the gunman told Daryl and Sean that he was really hungry, so they better go make him some pizzas. So Daryl and Sean just got up, they went in the back, they made two large everything pizzas, and after they were made, they put him in boxes and slid him across the counter to the gunman. And at this moment, Daryl and Sean knew the gunman, in order to eat,

would have to put his weapon down to open up the box and get the pizza up. And so the second they handed it over, without even communicating with each other, they kind of waited for the gunman to put the gun down. And he did, he put the gun down, he opened the pizza up, he grabbed the sauce, slice, and at that moment, Daryl and Sean began sprinting past him towards the door, and the gunman who's seeing this happen, he drops the pizza, he grabs the gun, and he turns, and he aims. So to really understand what's happening here, you need to understand what type of marketing

Domino's, like the national franchise, was doing to advertise their product. Starting in 1985, Domino's came up with a very popular advertising campaign called The Noid. And The Noid was actually a character. It was like this weird claymation character with big sneakers and bunny ears. He was like this goofy thing that was the equivalent of McDonald's hamburger, but this was for pizza. And what Domino's did with The Noid is they would run these ads on TV, where the Noid was like this menace who was always out to disrupt pizza deliveries.

Not necessarily Domino's pizza deliveries, but generally, pizza deliveries, it's like the Noid's going to destroy them, either by freezing the pizzas on their way to the person's house or smashing them into the ground, or causing whatever mayhem the noid could create, to stop pizzas from getting to their customers. And so Domino's kind of catchy thing was, avoid the noid with Domino's, meaning like Domino's, the chain, was the only chain capable of avoiding all the chaos that could disrupt you getting the thing you want, your pizza. And this advertising campaign was brilliant, not only because it really worked, people really liked Domino's because it did seem like they were superior, but also they were able to kind of franchise this character itself, the noid. It became a toy you could buy, and there was talk about doing a TV show and maybe a movie around this Noid character.

And Michael Jackson, like the king of pop, he put The Noid in one of his music videos. I mean, this was a really, really successful advertising campaign. But for as successful as this campaign was, it did unfortunately lead to what happened inside of this Domino's restaurant in Shambly, Georgia. So on the day, this gunman came charging in and held up the place, you know, aiming the gun, at Sean and Daryl, it would turn out the gunman's name was Kenneth Lamar Noid. And Kenneth Lamar Noid was not going into the store to get money or to steal food or to hurt, you know, Daryl or Sean. He was there to get his revenge on Tom S. Monaghan, who he looked at as the person responsible for coming up with this Noid campaign.

Because Kenneth Lamar Noid was very mentally ill, and he believed the Avoid the Noid campaign was not a marketing campaign, but rather Tom S. Monaghan specifically targeting Kenneth Lamar Noid, basically making him out to be this big villain. But Kenneth's plan for how to deal with this totally backfired because, in a totally ironic twist, by holding up this Domino's franchise and creating this huge standoff, he literally became like the Noid because no pizza deliveries could be had that entire day out of that franchise. And so Kenneth Lamar Noid, in an effort to stop Tom M. M. M. Mahnahan from running this Noid campaign because I'm no villain, I don't go after pizzas, I don't try to stop people from getting their pizzas. In an effort to do that, that is exactly what

he did. He literally became the human version of the Noid. And so after Daryl and Sean made a run for it towards the door, Kenneth did grab his gun and he did aim it at the two men, and he even fired it a couple of times, but he missed and Daryl and Sean were totally unhurt. In fact, nobody got hurt. All that happened is Kenneth Lamar Noid looked like the noid, and he got arrested. However, instead of going to jail, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. As for the actual advertising campaign itself, which was very successful, you know, avoid the noid, well, it would not survive this total PR nightmare, and Thomas Monaghan canceled it immediately after Kenneth Lamar Noid was taken off.

So in a weird way, Kenneth actually did sort of get his revenge. The next and final story of today's episode is called Peak Experience. On April 1, 1984, a 28-year-old man, named James Semenye opened his eyes and looked down and saw his whole body was covered in snow, and a lot of that snow had turned red from what looked like blood. James tried to take a breath in, but as soon as he did, his chest exploded in pain. Then James began moving his tongue around in his mouth, and he realized there was this weird substance in his mouth,

and there were all these sharp objects in his mouth. And so when he spit, he realized what it was. It was blood and shattered teeth. James began to panic and tried to lift up one of the ones, his arms, but it wouldn't move. And then when he tried to move his other arm, it did move, but that little movement hurt so bad, he began crying in pain. So James is dealing with this blinding, full-body pain that he has no idea what it came from. He's looking around and he can barely understand where he is or what happened. But then James looked up kind of right behind him,

and he saw this enormous snow-covered mountain. Now, James had no idea what mountain this was, but in his head, he thought, you know, I must have attempted to climb that mountain. James was a self-described climbing bomb, which really just meant he lived out of his car most of the time and traveled all around the world, seeking out the most dangerous mountains in the world for him to climb. And so as James was racking his brain, trying to remember what happened, suddenly it all just came flooding back. He remembered he was here in the Canadian Rockies with his best friend, Richard Whitmore, and the two of them had attempted to climb this particular mountain. It was an 11,000 foot tall mountain called Mount Delta Form.

And James remembered that as they were making their way up this mountain, they were hit by an avalanche. Now, James didn't really remember what happened once the avalanche hit them, but it would turn out he had fallen, along with his friend Richard, about 140 stories as this avalanche carried them down the mountain. For reference, that's taller than the Empire State Building. So this is a massive fall. And so as James is remembering that avalanche, he began looking around frantically for his friend, Richard, hoping that maybe he was okay and, nearby and they could work together to get out of this situation. And sure enough, at some point James looked over and he saw there was a crumpled figure kind of lying in the snow that obviously was another person. And so James instinctively tried to sit up to go over to his friend, but as soon as

he attempted to do that, he felt the blinding pain in his body. I mean, he is totally wrecked here and he couldn't stand up. But James really wanted to go see his friend, so he kind of rolled over and through the pain, using his one good arm, he crawled his way over to Richard. And for a second, he thought maybe his friend was alive, that he too had survived this epic fall. But as he looked down at Richard, he could see his chest was not moving, and his neck was twisted really badly, and so was his back. And so James knew his friend, Richard, was dead. And so James just collapsed into the snow, feeling unbelievable anguish and sadness and fear. I mean, this is the only other person out here.

They are nowhere near civilization, and it's going to be at least four days before anybody even notices that they aren't back yet, because that was when James and Richard were supposed to be home. And now James is thinking, like, I can't even stand up, I can barely breathe, I'm so badly hurt, what am I going to do? And pretty quickly, James adopted the mindset of, unfortunately, you're going to die here. And this was something James had always thought would happen to him eventually, that a mountain would end up killing him, and here he was realizing that, yep, that's exactly,

That's exactly what's about to happen. I'm going to die out here. And so James just kind of lay there, resigned to his fate, literally waiting to die. And after about 20 minutes, when his body began to go numb and he was starting to enter into hypothermia, James heard a voice from behind him. It was this woman who walked right up to him, and she said, you can't give up. You have to try. And James, even though he was totally caught off guard that there was another person out here,

there was something so calming about this woman and the way she was talking to him, that without any hesitation, it was like James' whole mindset about this situation completely changed. Suddenly, he was not ready to give up and die. But now, because of this woman, he was going to fight to survive. And so, after kind of moving around and looking back towards this woman, she would say to him, put your coat on. And so, James, despite the excruciating pain,

used his one arm that still worked, and kind of propped himself up, and then he pulled his coat out of his pack, which was lying near him, and very painfully he slipped this coat over his broken and damaged arm, And then once the coat was on him, the woman said to James, now take a sip of water. And so James, without any hesitation, he reached over and grabbed this water. He unscrewed the top and took a sip, even though the water stung his totally shattered mouth.

And then after James put the water down, the woman very calmly told him, OK, now disconnect yourself from Richard's body and then use the tree right here to pull yourself up. And so he untied from Richard and then using his one good arm, he grabbed the tree, and he managed to hoist himself up onto his totally destroyed legs, and he couldn't believe he was even standing at this point, but here he was, you know, up on his feet, and then the woman said, okay, it's time to move. And so James began walking away from the mountain,

and this woman just followed along behind him. And for a long time, he trudged through this knee-high snow, barely able to take a step without this blinding pain coursing through his body, but every time he began to stumble or slow down or seemed like he was going to give up, the woman would very calmly urge him to keep going, keep going, keep moving. And finally, after about four hours of this horribly painful trek James was on, he came upon the camp that he and his friend Richard had built before coming over to this mountain to begin this climb.

And so James quickly began moving towards his tent that was still pitched, that he knew inside had a warm sleeping bag and some water and food. And so as he made his way towards the tent, he stopped himself and he turned around to talk to his guide, to thank her for pushing him onward, but when he turned, there was no one there. And when he looked at the ground, there was only one set of bloody footprints that were his leading all the way back to where he had fallen. This guide, this woman, she didn't exist.

James was totally unsettled by this and really didn't know what to do about it, but he knew right now the priority was just to survive. And so he made his way over to his tent, and he attempted to get inside of it, but his hands were so cold and so badly beaten up that he couldn't use the zipper. He couldn't even get it open. And then finally, when he managed to use a tool to get it open, he couldn't open up his sleeping bag. It was like his body was shutting down. And so we thought, okay, I'll make a fire.

And that will be enough to keep me warm. But again, it's like his body was failing him and he couldn't do it. He couldn't start the fire. And so right as James is realizing that, you know, despite making it to this campsite, he may not be able to survive because he can't use the campsite. He began to hear voices. Right away, James is worried that the voices he's hearing don't really exist, like this woman he had seen, but sure enough, just a second later, three skiers came around

the corner and they saw James. And amazingly, one of them was a very experienced mountain guide and another one of them was a nurse. And so right away when they saw James, they saw he was dying. The nurse rushed over, she made a fire for him, she got him comfortable, she put on warm clothes, and the mountain guide, he took off to go get help. And sure enough, a couple hours later, a helicopter arrived and they airlifted James out and he would make a full recovery. However, it would take James years before he finally opened up about this mysterious, vanishing woman who literally saved his life. Without her talking to him and urging him to go, he would have laid there next to his friend and died. But James, he was afraid to bring up that he had seen this woman and fear that people would think he was crazy.

But when he finally brought it up, he would quickly learn that he was far from the first person to experience this phenomenon of having this invisible person help you. In fact, this phenomenon is common enough that it has its own name. It's called the Third Man Effect. The Third Man refers to this mysterious, vanishing person that steps in and helps people survive who have just undergone some horribly traumatic event. An example of somebody else who has experienced the Third Man Effect was the very last person to escape the Second World Trade Center Tower on September 11, 2001, in New York City during the terrorist attacks.

He was able to get out right before it collapsed because a mysterious, vanishing voice told him exactly which direction to go until he escaped. And so whether the third man effect is actually supernatural or just a trick of survivor psychology, you know, we don't know. James, who is both an atheist and a scientist, says he does not believe that this woman who saved him was an angel or connected to religion in any way. Instead, he just said, you know, it was a presence that I needed at the time that saved my life,

but that is the extent of my understanding. 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,

research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Witt Lacassio, Jordan Stidham, and Cole LaCasio. Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner. Theme song called 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 SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.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. Thank you.