MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Talking to the Dead (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

On March 22nd, 1994, four people were sitting in a circle inside of a dark hotel room. In front of them was a homemade ouija board, which is something people use to try to communicate with the dead. It's basically a rectangular board or paper with letters and numbers on it, as well as the words “yes” and “no” on it. The four people in the hotel room reached out one finger each and placed that finger on a glass cup that was flipped upside down resting in the middle of the board. After looking around at each other nervously, one of the four people began to speak out loud. They asked the room if there were any spirits with them right now, and nothing happened. The four people started to laugh at themselves for trying this and were about to remove their fingers and go to bed, when suddenly the glass cup began to move. As the four looked at each other incredulously trying to see if someone was moving it on purpose, the glass cup slid all the way to the corner of the board and came to a stop over the word “yes.” This ouija board session, which would continue for several more minutes and would terrify the four people in this room, would not only become one of the most famous ouija board sessions of all time, but also, it would have a dramatic impact on a major criminal case.For 100s more stories like this one, 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.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On March 22nd, 1994, four people were sitting in a circle inside of a dark hotel room in England. In front of them was a homemade Ouija board, which is something people use

to try to communicate with the dead. It's basically a rectangular piece of paper or board with letters and numbers on it, as well as the words yes and no on it. The four people in the hotel room reached out one finger each and placed that finger on a glass cup that was flipped upside down, resting in the middle of this Ouija board. After looking around at each other nervously, one of the four people began to speak out loud. They asked the room if there were any spirits with them right now, and nothing happened. The four people started to laugh at themselves for even trying to do this, and they were about to remove their fingers and just go to bed when suddenly the glass cup began to move. As the four people stared at each other trying to figure out if one of them was moving the cup on purpose, the glass cup slid all the way to the corner of the board and came to a stop

over the word yes. This Ouija board session, which would continue for several more minutes and would terrify the four people in this room, would not only become one of the most famous Ouija board sessions of all time, but also it would have a dramatic impact on a major criminal case. But before we get into that 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, please set up a lengthy traffic detour

right through the Amazon Music Follow buttons driveway. Okay, let's get into today's story. I'm Peter Frankopan. 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. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say.

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. On the evening of February 9th, 1993, a 45-year-old man named Harry Fuller drove down High Street in Wadhurst, a small village in East Sussex, England. Harry glanced out his car window and saw people walking into the shops and pubs that gave the village its charm, and as he did, Harry thought to himself how nice it would be if he just stopped right now and went into one of those pubs. But Harry knew he still had some work to do, so he kept on driving and grabbed his mobile phone, and with one eye on the road, he dialed one of his clients. Harry was a car salesman, but he didn't work out of a dealership. He specialized in buying cars at auctions and then resold them for a profit.

buying cars at auctions and then resold them for a profit. And earlier that day, he'd seen a car coming up for auction soon that he thought he could sell to one of his clients. That client picked up on the other line, and in a big, excited voice, Harry went right into his sales pitch. When Harry was a child, he had struggled with reading and writing, so to make up for that, he developed his public speaking skills. His friends said Harry could tell a story like nobody else, and that gift for storytelling had served him well as a salesman. On the phone, Harry told his client that the car he'd seen was everything the man could ever hope for in a vehicle, and he painted a vivid picture of what it would feel like to sit behind the wheel. And within minutes, Harry knew he'd won this man over,

and that there was going to be a big sale and a big commission in Harry's future. Harry told his client that he'd get the car when it came up for auction, and then he'd sell it to him for a very fair price. Harry reminded the client that he preferred to deal in cash. Then he said he'd be in touch soon and hung up the phone. Harry smiled. He couldn't wait to get home to tell his wife, Nicola, all about this very likely big sale he was going to close. A few minutes later, Harry reached the other end of High Street and arrived at the three-story brick cottage he and his wife, Nicola, rented. Harry pulled around the back of

the cottage, parked his car, and stepped outside. Harry and Nikola had only been living in Wadhurst for a few months, but they loved the home they'd found. It was next to a tea shop and close to several other stores and restaurants on High Street. But even more importantly for Harry, there was plenty of space behind the cottage for him to park all the cars he bought at auction until he sold them off. Harry opened the back door of his cottage, he walked inside, and called out for his wife. Nicola yelled back that she was upstairs in their bedroom. Harry made his way first to the front room of the cottage, and when he got there, he breathed in the smell of fresh flowers that always seemed to fill the house. Whenever Harry had a chance, he would buy flowers for Nicola and put them all over the house because he thought that she should be surrounded by things

that were as beautiful as she was. Then, after smelling the flowers, Harry walked upstairs to the large second floor landing and headed down the hall into the bedroom where he found Nicola getting ready to go out to dinner with some of her friends. When Nicola heard Harry come into the room, she walked over to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. And Harry kissed her back and told her about this big sale he was likely going to close. There were things about Harry's work that Nicola did not totally understand, but she knew he was always happy when he could sell a car, so she was happy for him. Then Harry took a step back, looked at the dress Nicola was wearing, and told her she looked absolutely gorgeous. Harry and Nicola had been married for about six months, and their friends and family said they already were the

perfect couple. However, when they had first gotten together, some of those same friends and family did not think this. They thought maybe the couple would not even work. Nicola was 27 years old, almost 20 years younger than Harry, and while Harry loved to talk, tell stories, and meet new people, Nicola was the opposite. She was quiet and reserved. Her idea of a good time was sitting in her garden and maybe reading a book all day. But when her sister had introduced her to Harry, Nicola fell for the tall, older man with the long brown hair almost immediately. She thought Harry was charming and handsome, and she loved how confident he was. And when Harry met Nicola, he thought he'd found the woman of his dreams. She was smart and caring, and she was beautiful, with short brown hair,

a great smile, and a sweet voice. Within just two months of dating, the pair got married. Nicola's parents worried she was rushing into this marriage, but after they saw how happy Harry made her, they came to love him just like she did. Back in their second floor bedroom, Nicola put her hand on Harry's shoulder and steadied herself as she put on her shoes, and then she and Harry headed downstairs together. Nicola heard a car pull up out front, she looked out the peephole and saw her friend was waiting outside, so she gave Harry another kiss, told him not to work too hard, and then she headed outside.

Once Nicola was gone, Harry sat down on the couch and thought again about maybe going out and grabbing a beer at one of the pubs. But before he could decide if he really wanted to do that, the phone rang. So he leaned over to the end table, answered the phone, and he heard his friend and insurance broker, Stephen Young, on the other line. Harry and Stephen talked briefly about a new business venture Harry was starting, and then at some point the conversation turned to golf, and then a couple of minutes later, Harry hung up the phone with Stephen,

but he kept staring at the phone in his hand wondering if maybe he should make one more work call before calling it for the night recently a former business associate of Harry's had gotten angry at Harry because he believed Harry had cost him a ton of money Harry knew this associate was not someone he should ignore or totally put off, but Harry just did not want to ruin his evening by calling this guy and arguing with him over the phone. So Harry just put the phone back and then settled back into the couch and decided to just avoid dealing with this problem for at least one more day. And later that night, after Nicola got home and she and Harry were lying in bed chatting,

Harry made it a point not to talk about work. Instead, he and Nicola talked about an upcoming beach vacation they'd planned. Nicola said she couldn't wait to get away from the overcast weather in Wadhurst, and Harry said he was looking forward to spending time by the ocean with his beautiful wife and nothing else to worry about. And as Nicola drifted off to sleep that night, she thought about how just a year earlier she couldn't have imagined being so happy and so in love. The following morning at

around 8 30 a.m, Nicola stood in the kitchen on the first floor. She was wearing her nightgown and she didn't feel fully awake yet. She opened a cabinet, took out a mug, and set it down on the kitchen counter. She poured herself a cup of coffee and added in a little cream and sugar, then she pulled a cigarette out of a pack on the counter, lit it, and took a drag. Nicola loved having a few minutes in the morning to relax before she went to the shop in town where she worked part-time. She grabbed an ashtray, walked out of the kitchen, crossed through the front room, and walked upstairs to the second floor landing. She sat down on the floor, stretched out her legs, and slowly drank her coffee and smoked her cigarette. Then she heard the front

door open downstairs and suddenly cold air blew through the house. Harry called out to say it was him and he was home and she told him that there was coffee ready in the kitchen. Harry had just walked to a shop down the road to buy some cigarettes of his own and he was now going to join his wife for their morning coffee before he started making work calls. But as Harry turned towards the kitchen, there was a loud knock at the front door, so he turned back around and looked out the peephole. Harry shook his head. He did not feel like dealing with the person on the other side of the door right now, but he knew he really had no choice. They were here right now. So Harry opened the door and welcomed this person inside. From the second floor landing, Nicola heard Harry and this other

person say hello to each other, but before she could even figure out who had come into her home, she heard a loud crashing sound coming from downstairs in the front room. Nicola put her coffee and cigarette down, got to her feet, rushed down the stairs, and looked into the front room of the house, and immediately she began to scream. Ten hours later, on the evening of February 10th, Detective Superintendent Graham Hill of the Sussex Police drove down High Street past a row of old brick cottages. Then he slowed down and parked across the street from Harry and Nicola's cottage. Hill glanced out his car window and in the glow of the street lights, he saw a crowd of local residents gathered nearby. He wasn't surprised by the scene because police showing up in force to a cottage in Wadhurst was a very rare sight. Hill stepped out of his car.

He was tall and thin with gray hair and he wore a dark suit and tie. It was cold, so he could see his breath hanging in the air. So he quickly walked across the street, past the crowd of people, and went up to Harry and Nicola's front door. Earlier that evening, the Sussex police had received an urgent phone call from Nicola's parents. They said they'd been trying to reach Nicola all day, but they hadn't heard from her, and that a co-worker had told them that Nicola had not shown up for work that day. Nicola's parents were worried because Nicola was not the type of person who would miss work without calling first.

So the police had gone by the cottage just to make sure everything was okay, but nobody had answered when they knocked on the door. And then one of Harry and Nicola's neighbors said they had heard strange sounds coming from the cottage that morning. So the police had forced the door open and gone inside. And when they had stepped into the front room of the cottage, they knew instantly that something horrible had happened. So they had called into the station and Detective Hill and the rest of the investigative team had headed over. Standing at the closed front door of the cottage, Hill turned around and looked back at the crowd of people staring up at him both right in front of the cottage and up and down High Street.

Then he took a deep breath, turned back around, and opened the door, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him. Hill was a veteran of law enforcement, and it took a lot to affect him, but when he stepped inside of that cottage, he was shocked by what he saw. A large path of blood led from the front room towards the back of the house, so Hill followed the blood out of the room down a hall and past the kitchen, then he stopped outside of the laundry room where the blood trail ended and where several officers were now standing, taking pictures. Hill stepped past the officers into the laundry room and looked down at the ground. Harry Fuller's body was propped up against the washing machine, and it was clear he had been shot to death.

But as Hill looked at Harry, he noticed something strange. He crouched down to get a better look, and saw there was white powder on the front of Harry's shirt. The placement of the powder seemed purposeful, like someone had sprinkled it on Harry after he was dead or dying. Hill thought the powder could be cocaine, but they would need to test it first to make sure that was true. Hill told a member of the team to collect samples of the white powder and then made his way back to the front of the house. He heard movement on the second floor, so he turned and began walking upstairs, and when he reached the second floor landing, he saw a coffee mug on the floor next to a half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray and drops of dry blood leading down the hall. Hill followed this blood trail and eventually wound up in a

bedroom where more officers were now gathered. On the ground in front of them was the dead body of Nicola Fuller. She was still wearing her nightgown with a duvet partially covering her. But the thing that really stood out to Hill was the blood-spattered phone lying right next to Nicola's outstretched hand. Just based on his first impression of the scene, Hill thought Nicola must have gotten away from her attacker after she had been wounded and had made it to this phone in the bedroom to try to call for help. That meant, for at least a moment, Nicola must have thought she might be able to escape the horror that was unfolding in her home, and the image of this poor young woman spending her final seconds terrified

and desperately trying to save herself made Hill very angry. Hill took a deep breath and reminded himself to stay calm. Then he turned and headed back downstairs. Once down there, a ballistics expert who was crouched down in the front room waved him over. When Hill walked over to him, the expert showed Hill several bullets they had found on the floor. At first glance, Hill thought they just looked like standard.32 caliber bullets from a pistol, but the ballistics expert said there was something that made these bullets very unique. They had been manually altered to presumably cause as much damage as possible on impact. Hill knew his work was just starting, but the altered bullets and

the white powder on Harry's shirt got him thinking that maybe these murders were tied to drugs. Whether the powder turned out to be cocaine or not, it seemed to Hill like the killer or killers had put it there on Harry to make the police think it was drugs so that at least the first impression would be this was drug-related. Also, just the gruesome nature of the way in which Harry and Nicola were killed with these altered bullets that totally ruined their bodies, it reminded Hill of some other incredibly violent drug-related homicide cases he and his colleagues had investigated in the past. But that was just an initial theory, and Hill would have to wait for test results on the white powder to know if it really was cocaine.

But while he waited, he wanted to start digging into Harry's work to see if maybe he was not just a car dealer. Maybe his business included drug trafficking. Thank you. 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. 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. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans 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 Mr ballins medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts and if you're a prime member you can listen early and add free on Amazon music so in the days following the murders Hill began looking into Harry's business

practices but he didn't find any links to the drug trade and when the lab results came back on that white powder from harry's shirt it turned out just to be sugar hill didn't really know what to make of this revelation he just knew that whoever had placed that sugar there had done so on purpose it was a message of some kind he just didn't know what it was so hill kept kept digging into Harry's business operations and he started to get a much clearer picture of Harry's work and his personality. From interviews with work associates, friends, and people in town, Hill learned that Harry had earned the nickname Flash Harry because he loved flashy cars, flashy clothes, and flashing large stacks of cash around.

Hill knew that the cars and clothes could just be part of Harry's larger-than-life persona that had attracted Nicola to him and had made him such an effective salesman. But Hill took notice when he heard a bunch of stories about Harry walking into pubs, reaching into his pockets, and showing off thousands of pounds, which is British money. Hill also learned that Harry would brag that the money in his pockets and showing off thousands of pounds, which is British money. Hill also learned that Harry would brag that the money in his pockets was nothing and that he had tens of thousands of pounds in cash stashed away at home. And when police spoke to Harry's insurance broker, Stephen Young, he confirmed that Harry did most of his business in cash. Now, there was nothing

necessarily illegal about that, but Hill knew people often used cash in business transactions just so they wouldn't leave any records behind. And so, the more Hill learned about how Harry operated, the more he became convinced that the murderer had to be someone Harry had done business with. And then, in late February, about two weeks after the murders, Hill discovered something that he thought might break the case wide open. Hill found out that weeks before the murders, Harry had unknowingly purchased a stolen high-end car at an auction to sell to a client. And when police had informed him that the car was stolen and pressed him for more information, Harry had eventually exposed another car theft operation in the area that he knew about, and he even pointed to a man he'd done business with,

Roger Lee, as being the potential leader of that car theft ring. Police hadn't been able to tie Roger Lee to the car thefts yet, but they learned from people who knew Lee that he blamed Harry for costing him a lot of money, and Lee wanted revenge. Lee was the person calling the night before Harry was killed, who Harry decided to ignore and deal with another day. On a cold February afternoon, over two weeks after the murders, Hill dispatched one of his detectives to meet with Roger Lee to try to learn more about his connections to Harry. The detective left the station and when he'd driven about an hour, he turned off the main road onto a narrow dirt road surrounded by huge green trees. The

detective followed this road deep into the forest until it reached Lee's caravan or trailer home. The detective parked in front of the trailer, stepped out of the car, and looked out at the woods. The surroundings made him feel uneasy, like he was in the middle of nowhere. Then he walked up to the trailer and knocked on the door. A few moments later, the door opened and Lee stared out at him. Lee was stocky with a wide face and dark eyes, and he had a reputation for being someone who admired the famous American mobster Al Capone. And similar to Al Capone, Lee had a reputation for threatening violence against anyone who stood in his way. The detective introduced himself and told Lee he just needed to ask him a few questions. And to the detective's surprise, Lee smiled politely and welcomed him inside.

Once they were sitting down, the detective looked Lee in the eye and asked him if he knew a man named Harry Fuller. A huge grin immediately came across Lee's face and he replied, no comment. So the detective leaned forward and asked if Harry Fuller had played a part in shutting down a car theft operation that Lee was allegedly linked to. Lee grinned again and said, no comment. The detective would ask several more questions and would get several more no comment responses, and so eventually the detective gave up for the day, headed to the door, and just told Lee not to leave town because they would be in touch. The news about Roger Lee not answering any questions annoyed Detective Hill,

but it didn't change his mind about Lee's possible involvement in the murders. In fact, Hill still considered Lee a very important suspect, but he knew he would have to keep digging to find enough evidence to connect Lee to the murder if he wanted to arrest him and hold him for questioning. But as February came to an end, things started to run cold for the murder investigation. No murder weapon had been found, no fingerprints in the house had turned up anything useful, and nothing had been discovered that placed Roger Lee in Wadhurst

at the time Harry and Nicola were killed. Hill was getting frustrated, and Nicola's parents were getting angry. They wanted action, and they wanted the person who had killed their daughter to be brought to justice. In mid-March, over a month after the murders, Hill and his team walked back into Harry and Nicola's cottage like they had done so many times over the last several weeks, hoping that this time they would find something they had missed, so maybe they could get the investigation back on track. Once inside, Hill began walking upstairs as the other officers he was with began searching the front room. But before Hill reached the second floor, he heard someone downstairs shout his name,

so Hill quickly turned around and walked back downstairs and into the front room. And immediately, Hill felt a jolt of excitement when he saw one of the officers lying face down on the floor with their arms stretched out under the couch like they were reaching for something. Then that officer pulled something out from underneath, stood up, walked over to Hill, and handed it to him. It was a recording device that they had all overlooked every other time they had been inside of this home. Hill called over all the other members of his team who were there, and then he hit play on the device. Hill could feel the anticipation in the room. Then they heard Harry's voice, and the voice of another man, and they

realized they were listening to both sides of a phone call. It would turn out, for several days right before he was murdered, Harry had begun using this recording device to record all of his phone calls. Police would never know exactly why Harry had done this, but Hill suspected it might have been because Harry was afraid someone was coming after him. And Hill still thought that person coming after Harry could be Roger Lee, the wannabe Al Capone. after Harry could be Roger Lee, the wannabe Al Capone. Over the following weeks, police began identifying and speaking with all the people who popped up on Harry's recording device, and as they spoke to each of these people, they learned nothing new. Finally, the police were down to just one more person on the recording that they had not yet spoken to, and the reason they had not spoken to them was because the police couldn't actually identify who it was. And so, after weeks of trying in vain to figure out who

this mystery person was, Detective Hill finally just went on TV and played the recording with this mystery person's voice on it, hoping someone from the public might recognize it. public might recognize it. On the night of April 15th, 1993, so not long after Hill had gone on TV, a woman and her husband who lived in a town near Wadhurst were sitting on their couch watching Crime Watch, one of their favorite TV shows. Crime Watch was a British show that featured details about active police investigations, and on the show members of law enforcement and the host would ask viewers to help them identify someone who could potentially help a case move

forward. On the couch, the woman and her husband watched as Detective Hill and the Crimewatch host introduced details about Harry and Nicola's unsolved murders. Then, Hill announced that he was going to play a recording of a phone call between Harry and an unidentified man, and Hill said learning the identity of this man could be crucial in helping police find Harry and Nicola's killer. The woman leaned forward on the couch and listened intently to the recording. Then, after it was done playing, a stunned look came across her face. She turned and looked over at her husband, and she said to him that the voice on that recording sounded exactly like his brother. Her husband shrugged and said, no way, it can't be him. But then,

Detective Hill, on TV, said they would play the recording again. So at this point, both the woman and her husband turned and looked back at the TV and leaned forward intently to listen as closely as they could. And when the recording played again, the woman stared at her husband knowingly. And finally, her husband breathed out a big sigh and said, yeah, that's my brother. The woman immediately got off the couch, she grabbed the phone, and she called her brother-in-law. And when he picked up, she told him what she had just seen on TV and said he needed to contact the police right away to make it clear he had nothing to do with Harry and Nicola's murder.

After they hung up, this brother-in-law would immediately call the Sussex police to say that yes, he was the mystery caller. And when Detective Hill followed up with this brother-in-law and got more information from him, Hill would come to realize that he'd been totally wrong about the killer's motive. Based on conversations with this brother-in-law, who was the mystery voice on the recording, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation and evidence found at the crime scene, here is what Sussex Police believe happened on the morning that Harry and Nicola Fuller were murdered,

February 10th, 1993. Just before 8.30 a.m. on February 10th, the killer pulled their customized white Volkswagen car around the back of Harry and Nicola's cottage and parked it amongst the other cars that Harry kept back there. Then the killer picked up their mobile phone, called Harry, and told him they needed to talk in person. Harry said he was about to walk down the street to grab cigarettes, but he'd be home soon. So the killer stepped out of their car and walked to the side of the cottage where they

could watch the street out front without actually being seen. The killer was calm and patient as they waited. Then, a few minutes later, the killer saw Harry walking down the sidewalk and then he saw him go up to his cottage front door, open it up, go inside, and shut the door behind him. Once Harry was inside, the killer walked around to the front of the cottage and knocked on the front door. Harry eventually opened the front door and the killer greeted him and stepped inside. Then Harry closed the door and the two of them walked into the front room of the cottage. And while Harry was facing the other way, the killer took a quick breath, reached into their pocket and pulled out a Walter PPK pistol, raised it and fired. The bullet

hit Harry in the back and he crashed to the floor. Harry died almost instantly, but before the killer could make sure, they heard movement on the stairs. The killer looked up and saw Nicola come into view, and when Nicola saw Harry lying on the floor bleeding, she began to scream, and turned to run back up the stairs. The killer immediately raised the gun again and fired, striking Nicola in the shoulder. She stumbled forward on the stairs but caught herself and got back up on her feet and kept going up the stairs. But when she turned around to see how close the killer was, she heard another bang and she felt a bullet graze her forehead. Nicola screamed as another round struck her in the cheek, cutting through her tongue and shattering the bones around her eye.

Covered in blood, Nicola fell to her knees, but somehow she managed to drag herself up the remaining few stairs and down the hall towards her bedroom. The killer, who was still at the bottom of the stairs, just stood there in shock. The plan had been to kill Harry, not to kill his wife, and now the killer questioned what they had done and what they should do next. Meanwhile, Nicola had crawled all the way down her hall into her upstairs bedroom where she pulled herself across the floor to the bedside table. She reached up, grabbed the phone, and dialed 999, the English number for emergency services. But when the emergency operator answered, Nicola couldn't speak because of the damage to her mouth and tongue. So she screamed, hoping that would be enough. However, the operator mistook her screams for that of a child who had mistakenly dialed 999.

And so the operator began asking Nicola if she could please speak with her mommy. Nicola tried to talk again, but no words came out, so she just kept on screaming, and unfortunately, the operator just continued to assume that this was a child who had accidentally dialed 999, and so this was not a real emergency. Moments later, the killer wandered into the bedroom and shot Nicola in the head. As she lay dead on the floor, the operator, who had somehow not heard the gunshot, simply hung up and did not send police to the cottage. After partially covering Nicola with a duvet cover, the killer took several deep breaths to try to calm themselves down

and then they walked across the room to the dresser and opened the drawers. The killer dug through Harry's clothes and then finally found what they were looking for, an envelope with thousands of pounds in cash tucked away inside. The killer slipped the envelope into their pocket and then ran out of the room and down the stairs. Back on the first floor, the killer grabbed Harry's dead body under his arms and dragged him from the front room over to the laundry room and leaned him against the washing machine. Then the killer crouched down, reached into their pocket, and pulled out a plastic bag with sugar inside of it

and sprinkled the sugar all over Harry's shirt. The killer then stood up, walked outside through the back door, and climbed into their car. Then they calmly drove to the insurance brokerage firm they owned like nothing had ever happened. It would turn out Harry's friend and insurance broker, Stephen Young, was the killer. When Young's sister-in-law had called him to say that she heard his voice on Crimewatch, Young went to meet with the police. The police had interviewed him early on and had not suspected him at all, so he assumed he could easily just go right back in, talk to police, and get himself cleared of any wrongdoing. But when Young talked to police this second time,

he made a fatal error that quickly turned him into Detective Hill's primary suspect. When police had asked if Young owned a gun, he said yes, he owns several legally registered guns. But then, without prompting, Young also told them that he altered his bullets in his home workshop. Young made it sound like altering bullets was a money-saving practice, but this information made Detective Hill and his ballistics expert immediately suspicious because they had found altered bullets at the crime scene. So, Hill felt like they had enough to get a warrant to search Young's home and office, and when they went to Young's house, they discovered a huge

collection of weapons along with bullets that had been altered in the exact same way as the bullets found inside of Harry and Nicola's home. When they searched Hill's insurance brokerage firm, they found records indicating his business was in debt and in danger of going under. But a payment of £6,000 to a creditor had been made on the day following Harry and Nicola's murder and that payment had allowed Young to barely keep his company afloat. It would turn out that the murders had nothing to do with the drug trade or Harry talking to the police about a potential car theft operation. Harry had just bragged about having lots of cash on hand to the wrong person. When Young had called Harry to discuss Harry's new business venture the night before the murders,

this was the call that was heard on that recording, Harry said he had just secured a large investment in cash and he was holding on to the money. So Young murdered Harry to steal that money and save his own business. Nicola was never intended to be a target. Young killed her just so there would be no witnesses. As for the sugar that Young sprinkled all over Harry's shirt after he killed him, he had done that in hopes that the police would think it was cocaine and so would go down an investigative path that would not lead to him. Steven Young was ultimately arrested and found guilty of committing the double homicide.

He would be sentenced to two life sentences. However, this was not the end of the story. On March 22, 1994, the night before Stephen Young would be found guilty in court, four of the jurors in his murder trial were sitting together in an old wood-paneled hotel bar. All 12 jurors had been given rooms in this hotel for that night, but most of the jurors had gone to bed. However, these four had stayed up drinking and talking. The hotel they were staying in was hundreds of years old and had a reputation for being haunted, and so as they consumed more and more alcohol, the jury foreman, who was one of the four staying up late, suggested they go back to one of their rooms and host a seance

to see if maybe they could contact one of the ghosts roaming the hotel's halls. So they left the hotel bar and stumbled upstairs to one of their rooms and then once inside the foreman grabbed a pen and several pieces of paper from the bedside table. Then he sat down on the floor and created a makeshift Ouija board which is a board with the letters of the alphabet and the words yes and no on it that people will use to try to communicate with the spirits of the dead. When the jury foreman finished making this homemade Ouija board, he grabbed one of the hotel room's drinking glasses and placed it on the center of the board upside down. Then all four jurors sat down on the floor in a circle and then each of them placed a finger

on the top of this glass and then sat quietly waiting for instruction. The foreman called for complete silence and then in a low, serious tone, he asked out loud if any spirits were present in the room with them right now. For a second, nothing happened, but right as the group was about to take their fingers off the glass and go to bed, the glass began to slide across the Ouija board and ultimately landed on the word yes. The jurors gasped and looked at each other and asked who had moved the glass, but they all said they hadn't done anything, so the glass must have moved on its own. Feeling excited and scared, the foreman asked another question. Who was the spirit in the room with them? And again, the jurors felt the glass begin to move under their fingers.

room with them. And again, the jurors felt the glass begin to move under their fingers. This time it circled around the board, stopping on the letter H before moving to the letter A, then it slid across to letter R and so on and so forth until it had spelled out the name Harry Fuller. The jurors laughed nervously when it was done and again asked each other if any of them were moving the glass on purpose, but they all continued to say no. And so eventually, one of the jurors asked the apparent spirit of Harry Fuller who had killed him and his wife. The room fell silent again. Then, again, the glass began to move and spelled out the name Stephen Young. After it was done, the jurors pulled their fingers off the glass and just stared at the board. Then, after a tense moment of silence, they kind of nervously laughed again and decided they had

had enough talking to the dead, and so they all got up and went to their separate rooms and went to sleep. The following morning, at breakfast with the rest of the jurors, the foreman revealed what he and the three others had done the night before. And for the most part, the jurors at the table thought it was a funny story. Later that day, the jury reconvened in court and found Stephen Young guilty of Harry and Nicola's murders, a verdict that law enforcement believed was clearly supported by concrete evidence. But then in April, a month after the trial, one of the jurors who had learned about the Ouija board when the foreman told the story at breakfast, sent an anonymous letter to the court explaining

what had happened. And he said he could not live with himself if somehow a drunken seance with a Ouija board had somehow affected the guilty verdict. And when Stephen Young's attorneys were notified by the judge about this letter and about the seance, they demanded a retrial and the court granted them one. And so a retrial with a new jury was conducted, but again Stephen Young was found guilty and again sentenced to two life sentences. The legal outcome of the second trial was the same as the first, but any sense of closure Nicola's parents had found

was shattered by the media frenzy surrounding the hotel seance. Nicola's father would say that the jurors had made a mockery of his daughter and son-in-law's deaths, and for years to come, the murders of Harry and Nicola would be remembered not for the tragic loss of life, but for the drunk jurors who tried to talk to the dead. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's story, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, just called Mr. Ballin, where we have hundreds more stories just like this one, many of which are only available on YouTube. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, Prime members. You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early

and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. 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 her 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 Thank you.