RedHanded - Episode 118 - Halloween Special Part 1: Demons of Murder & Tantric Child Sacrifice

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

It’s Halloween so that means that it’s time for a troubling story swap. Join Hannah and Suruthi in part one of this Halloween special as they turn their stomachs with the case of a cult-ish Anglican exorcism, and harrowing stories of modern-day Indian child sacrifice... Spooky Bitch merch available now (with international shipping) at: www.redhandedshop.com   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And it's Halloween. Welcome to Red Handed. It is. Oh my God, it's not even Halloween. Today is my birth. Well, today isn't my birthday. The day this comes out.

Oh shit, yeah. Happy birthday, Ronters. Fuck. That's quite nice. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to you. Happy Saruti's birthday to everyone.

I'm making it a national holiday. And we're honouring it by releasing this episode. So you're welcome. And it won't fall on the same day again for ten years. Seven years. I can't do maths. So you're welcome. And it won't fall it on the same day again for 10

years. Seven years. I can't do maths. Seven years. Welcome. It's been a long old wait since last year. This is Halloween part one. We are going to do what we always do on Halloween, which is do a story swap. So there will be two stories for the price of one in this episode. And we've got a very exciting part two that will be coming out on thursday do you think we can tell them yeah i mean they can't come so we're like it's so exciting but not really for them on thursday the episode that will be dropped into your phone and into your ear holes is going to be a live show live from Shoreditch House. We're recording it on Wednesday night and it will be out for you

on Thursday morning. So we're recording at Shoreditch House in London. If you don't already know it, you can't come, I'm afraid. We have never released a live show on the feed before. So you'll get to see

how much shit we chat in real life. And also you can never tell how much we laugh at our own jokes, but you will be able to now. Unedited. I'm not going to say unedited. I'm definitely going to edit it. And also, for those of you who have already had the chance,

it's been out for a week now, but it's going to be out for another five weeks, and then that's it. If you want to get your spooky bitch merch, now is the time to do it. Head on over to redhandedshop.com and get yourself a hoodie get yourself a t-shirt get yourself a top get all three why not get the full look the full ensemble we need to bring out some leggings and then people could just be head

to toe i mean watch this space who knows who knows we'll start doing pants that's underwear for you americans the fun never ends i'd wear a spooky bitch fucking sports bra. I'd wear the shit out of that. To be discussed. AOP. I think we'd better get on with it. I feel like it's been about seven years. I'm scared.

I feel there's so much pressure. And even more pressure because you're going first. I know. Well, yeah, I did say I was like, Baxi, double no Baxis. But now I'm regretting my choice. I think just because I'm so jaded and desensitized, I'll be reading about something that a normal person would probably be like,

oh my God, this is horrific. But I'm like, oh my, only one baby died. This is bullshit. This is the thing. It is very much like, I look at all these lists that they're trying to find scary Halloween episodes and I'm like, is this even scary anymore? I don't know. Am I scared?

Who can even tell? I can't no um so i think because of that both of us have gone a little bit rogue this year just out of like trying to keep it like keep it together keep it fresh we gotta spice things up yeah exactly so um i actually mine's probably a bit less rogue just because of where it is but i don't actually think we've ever done a uk case for halloween but that is about to change because this this episode I'm repping the British Isles with my case I'm taking you to Osset which is a small market town in West Yorkshire which is bang in between Wakefield where the monster mansion is and Dewsbury which does not have an

infamous prison full of the most dangerous prisoners in the UK, but it does have a river. If you Google why is Dewsbury famous, it says there's a river. So shout out to Dewsbury and its river. But we're not dealing with Dewsbury, we're dealing with Osset, so I'll get back on track. Osset is small and it has a population of just over 20,000 people. And in 1974, which is where we are today, there even fewer not less fewer haha well done me you said it like I was immediately gonna start yelling at you you were I could see it in your I'm here for the storytelling I'm not here for um here for grammar yelling but I appreciate that I appreciate that and I feel like some hardcore spooky bitches might already know the story that I'm about to tell,

but I'm really banking on our friends over the pond never having heard it. I actually didn't know it and I'm amazed that I didn't because I feel like it's something I should know. And also all of the really bad shit went down on my birthday. Such a birthday themed episode. I've got even more to bring up. For those of you who don't know, my birthday is on the 6th of October. But before we get to the 6th of October in 1974, before I was even a twinkle in my mum's eye. I love how you've made that such a feminist one, isn't it? A twinkle in your dad's eye. He's dead. I don't think about him ever.

I love it. Your mum's like, hey, let's go. Yeah, he doesn't get the credit for this but before we get to the 6th of October we have to meet the Taylor family Michael Taylor lived in Osset with his wife Christine and their five children they lived a fairly normal life Michael was 31 which does seem a little bit young to have five whole children but I'll let it go because it really is the least of his problems. He's got quite a lot of problems and some of the smaller ones that he encountered included not being able to hold down a job, industry was in a decline in the north at that time and on top of that Michael had a bad back which meant manual labour was out of the question.

Michael felt a lot of pressure for not being able to provide for his family like he thought he should be able to. He also suffered from what his doctor called mild bouts of depression. At the time, Osset was quite a religious place. There were tons of denominations knocking about, so Christians could take their pick of what particular flavour of Jesus they wanted to participate in. But not the Taylors. The family went to the odd service, possibly Easter and Christmas maybe,

but more for the community aspect rather than any religious devotion. But in 1974, that all changed. A family friend of the Taylors, a lady called Barbara Wardman, convinced the Taylors to go with her, that's Michael and his wife Christine that is, to her local church group, which was called the christian fellowship group and it was led by a 22 year old preacher called uh marie robinson did you say 23 22 22 fucking hell yep 22 year old marie robinson was leading this church group and things get pretty crazy it's not like handholding and like painting pictures of your like journey of thought towards philosophical prowess it's not like hand-holding and like painting pictures of your like journey of thought towards philosophical prowess it's very like what happens in church oh that's what happens if you

have to do a confirmation class you have to like draw a picture of your journey to god and like think about how to be a better person but you also have to draw a picture of what that might look like and make a list of like all the bad things you've done and how you can rectify them. Oh, yeah. It's a whole thing. So then everyone just knows all your shit in a painting. Yeah. Well, the idea is that God already knows.

So what's the point? That's true. And the priest already knows. He knows already. He knows. Oh, yeah, because I know this isn't Catholic, but you have to confess. So he knows everything. Oh, that's very much know this isn't Catholic, but like you have to confess. So like he knows everything.

Oh, that's very much a Catholic thing. What a fucking scam. What a racket. But 22, honestly, what was I doing at 22? Absolutely fucking nothing. Yeah, well, Marie Robinson really had her fucking shit together. She was already leading her own church prayer group. Perhaps Barbara Wardman, the lady who invited the Taylors to this prayer group,

was trying to lift Michael out of his depression. And maybe she thought that religion, as religious people sometimes do, think that it's the way to help and to lift people out of the dumps with a message of love and warmth and kindness. This church group, as I said, pretty intense. And it's kind of like what you would expect in like deepest Bible Belt America. There's a lot of speaking in tongues. There's a lot of healing. There's a lot of talking about like the exercising of your sins, all run by a 22 year old. Someone get her a spooky bitch hoodie, fucking hell.

Yeah. Quick stat. So certainly this type of caper was very out of place in West Yorkshire at the time. But for a non-religious man, Michael Taylor took to the church group like a duck to water at his very first meeting.

Marie was overcome with the presence of the Holy Spirit. And apparently that is obvious because she began to shake and quiver like a feather. And Marie knew that Michael had back problems and she wanted to heal him. But there was another lady at the meeting who was called Mavis Smith and she started to cry. So Marie was like, oh, who do I heal first? Who does God want me to touch with my glowing hands so she tried to sort mavis out but she couldn't the 22 year old marie turned her attention to the 31 year old michael taylor and michael taylor immediately started to speak in tongues marie started speaking in tongues at him

as well and that just seems so bit like your first ever one, to just be so balls deep in it seems bizarre. But he was. He's loved it. All over it. It is. That is remarkable. I feel like the kind of people that have that kind of reaction would be, in my mind, the people that are indoctrinated into it. They go every week. They're seeing it all the time. But no. Yeah. And Michael bloody loved these church meetings.

And he kept going to all of them over the next few weeks and he especially liked Marie Robinson. The plot thickens. The plot solidifies. The group did a lot of exercising of people's sins and would use the quote-unquote power of God to wash away evil from people in the meeting and all of these meetings were reasonably public but michael and marie soon started to have secret meetings just the two of them and one of these meetings included staying up all night on the first of october and making the sign of the cross over each other because marie was worried that the full moon would send michael around the bend with its evil powers okay so it's one of the triggers for depression, the full moon, and secondly, does just staying up all night doing the sign of the cross fix that? But I do have a

theory about the full moon. Go for it. Stay with me. What controls the tides? The moon. And what is 70% of your body made of? Water. Oh. Kaboom. So maybe. I think the full moon fucks me up but like not like murderously oh in what way i just think like i whenever i feel a bit like oh like everything's a mess it's always a full moon did i tell you i went to a hairdresser and she told me i should always get my hair cut when the moon's full. And it wasn't, it wasn't, it was in fucking Soho. It was in Soho. And I was like, okay. Your hair's not water.

I don't know what the reasoning behind that was, but who knows, who knows. Maybe she knows something we don't know. Yeah, I think hairdressers are a con, as we all know anyway. Apart from you hairdressers that are listening, I love you, just all the other ones. So they're doing all of this full moon stuff, which I think maybe has a little bit more stock in it

than the other things, but never mind. When Michael Taylor wasn't with Marie and he was in his own home with his wife and family, Michael was not himself. He was quite irritable and surly and just not the man that Christine had married. And that, on top of his all-night seances with a 22-year-old

Marie Robinson, made Christine Taylor pretty annoyed, as it would. It would do. So the day after the full moon fiasco, Christine went to a fellowship meeting and accused her husband Michael of having an affair with Marie Robinson in front of the entire church group. That's not the way to do it. That's not the way. Don't do it.'t do it some balls check out the bollocks on christine not the way to handle this situation you drag them on dr phil i love that show michael unsurprisingly did not like this one bit but he didn't turn on his wife christine he channeled his anger by attacking marie robinson and later she described him as looking as if he was ready to kill. He flung himself at her screaming in tongues and he reportedly looked

quote almost bestial with a really wild look in his eye. So Marie started to shout the name Jesus and later she claimed that she firmly believed that it was only because she was calling Jesus's name that she was not killed that night. And this is all just kicking off in some fucking church group in Yorkshire. Like, yep. Yep. Population of 20,000 people. I could just imagine at the door there's like a group of brownies knocking. We're in here next. Is everything okay? Excuse me, are you finished? It's just I've got my PGCE in here. Brown owl, what's going on? Oh, God, shut up. Do more fire safety. Happily. That was my brown owl impression. Okay, so Michael later claimed that he at that moment felt an evil influence overcome him.

He had to be restrained by several members of the church group. But most people left that meeting totally unharmed. A bit upset maybe, but no one was physically injured. Yeah, I mean, I'd be bloody upset. Fucking hell. Yeah, Michael is pretty upset as well. The next day, Michael was spotted on the streets of Osset shouting at a woman to drink the milk of human kindness. And then he spat at her and told her that that was the milk she needed to drink.

Burn. And then he told her that the wrath of God was upon her. Even sicker burn. Just in the street. Just in the streets of Yorkshire. In the street. Where people just minding their fucking business. So I think we can safely say at this stage in the game, something was quite seriously wrong with Michael Taylor.

And basically everyone in Osset agreed. On the 4th of October, Michael and Christine returned to the church meeting to receive absolution from Marie for the attack the night before. And Michael was awarded this absolution and deliverance from his sins. But some of the members of the congregation felt that that wasn't quite enough. Do you want to guess what happens next? They do an exorcism. Oh, bingo. Ten points for you. Knew it. That 22-year-old, she's fucking ready. She's like,

this is what I've been waiting for. This is my moment. So they all decided that there was only one way forward. It was an exorcism of Michael's demons, but it turned out that that was a bit beyond Marie Robinson's remit. They were going to need an actual church and actual priests. The exorcism began just before midnight on the 5th of October at the St. Thames Church near Barnsley. The two men of God who were present at the exorcism were Father Peter Vincent, who was an Anglican, and Reverend Ray Smith, who was a Methodist minister. I'm going to be calling them Father Pete and Rev Ray because I think that's funny. And also, who knew that Anglicans were down with exorcism? I did not know that.

Is this a thing that the Anglican Church does on the regular? Was this a one-off? No, I think it was. So I've read a little bit about it because in my mind, I was like, oh, the Catholics are the ones that are all like demons and all of that. But it turns out that Anglicans, although they are part of the Church of England Protestant sort of group of churches, they do uphold a lot of Roman Catholic beliefs and traditions, like, for example, calling their priests father and stuff like that. And you do see that quite a lot, like borrowing from different denominations. But it turns out the Anglican Church is a little bit more of the Catholic persuasion than Methodists are, I suppose.

But he's a Methodist too, but Methodists, they get into it. I guess that kind of makes sense. When you think of like the deep south in America, people of like Bible Belt, they talk about like kind of those revivals and they kind of have like an element of speaking in tongues and exorcisms there. I think some of those preachers are Methodist. So I guess it kind of makes sense. Oh yeah, I think you're right there. Yeah, it was just the Anglican that threw me off, but I don't really know too much about it really. I've never heard of that before. So yeah, apparently they hold up a lot of Roman

Catholic ideals, including the expulsion of demons. And that night, Father Pete and Rev Ray claimed to have cast out over 40 demons from Michael Taylor. Michael began to convulse and speak in tongues the second the exorcism began. Crucifixes were shoved into his mouth and he was continuously doused in holy water. He was kicking and biting and spitting and all sorts, so he was tied to the ground of the church. The two men of the cloth were kind enough to name some of the demons that they pulled kicking and screaming out of Michael Taylor that very night, and some of them were the demons of incest, bestiality, lewdness, heresy, carnal knowledge, and blasphemy. Lewdness?

Yeah, I mean, these don't seem that bad. Fucking lamest demon of all. Yeah, lewdness. Carnal knowledge. Oh no, you know about penises and vaginas to hell with you just next to incest and uh bestiality quite just mix it all up and also 40 demons 40 demons get such an infestation over 40 they said so quickly and they're not even done because after those ones were pulled out everyone uh, including Father Pete and Rev Ray, were pretty tired.

And Rev Ray and Father Pete decided that they would have to go home and get some rest. Even though they knew that Michael still had at least three demons still inside him. Question. Yes. Did they tell Michael, we've exercised 37 of the demons? No, 40. They were extra. They got 43. Oh, right. Sorry. Did they tell Michael, we've exorcised 37 of the demons? No, 40. They were extra. They got 43. Oh, right. Sorry. Did they tell him, basically, that he still had three in him when they left? Even if they did, I don't think he would have been in a state to sort of process the information.

He's just been tied to a cold church floor, covered in water, sticking crucifixes in his orifices for however long. He's obviously very, very not okay. I just ask because, you know, we've talked about cases where exorcism has actually been used to help people suffering from certain mental illnesses if they believe that it's going to. But if they're like, there's still three in you, I'm off. It is a little bit worse because they knew the names of the demons that they left inside him as well

and these demons it's not funny and these demons were insanity violence and murder maybe uh swap that out for blasphemy i'm gonna say perhaps or lewdness or heresy he could be a heretic until the morning it doesn't matter he could know what a vagina is until then. I think that's okay. But being insane and wanting to murder. And I don't want to say if they got a Catholic priest to do it, it would have gone better, but it probably would have. They go to exorcism school. Oh, I would sign up just to go to exorcism school. I'm going to ask Father Neil about it, for sure, because they must have some sort of... Training to be a priest is like seven years it's like becoming a doctor oh my god we should do a patreon episode

on just asking father neil an ama with father neil on exorcism yep yep it's doing it i'm doing it i'm gonna have to go to his church though so i'll try not to burst into flames as i walk in it's just gonna be demonic possession father neil how do you feel about that i wonder if anyone in my family has told him that he's become a regular cameo appearance on this show. I hope they haven't. Anyway, I'll say it's just like a research project for the Vatican or something. And they hired you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He doesn't know, probably. So at daybreak, all parties in the church agreed that the remaining three demons,

which were insanity, violence and murder, let's's not forget would be cast out the following night and before they left they all said a prayer hoping that the murder demon still inside michael would work its own way out like a splinter but i think we all know that that's not going to happen daybreak in early october is usually just before 7 a.m or somewhere before 8 a.m depending on what's going on in the sky, in the UK anyway. And at 9.45, so probably at most almost three hours after Michael left the church, after they all left the church, on the 6th of October, the West Yorkshire police received a call from a pretty distressed local. They reported a man walking around the streets totally naked and covered in red paint.

PC Ian Walker couldn't decide whether he thought the call was a hoax or not. Not much goes on in Osset. So he went down to the town centre and located a totally naked man lying on the ground in the fetal position. You won't be surprised to find out it was Michael Taylor and he was not covered in red paint. He was covered in blood. And full of demons

and well three demons so he's probably got room for like 40 more but maybe they like grow in size when you like when a bit when a baby eats another baby in the womb it just sort of takes over they fill up the space they're in like a carp it will only grow to the size of the thing that you put it in like the fish yeah oh didn't know that good that's what i always thought because people were like oh how are you gonna have a baby because i'm small and i was like babies are like carp surely it'll just grow to fill me up if i do and then it'll be fine maybe i also find that editing a podcast fills this time that you have if you have a day to do it it will take a day so pc walker slowly approached the huddled Michael and asked him what he was covered in. And then Michael Taylor screamed at him that it was the blood of Satan.

PC Walker, unnerved, no doubt, radioed immediately to get a police car to the Taylor family home. But another unit had already beaten him there. When PC Walker arrived at the house, another officer walked out and told him that he really did not want to go in there. He said something to the effect of, it's a right mess in there. I think that is a direct quote. But PC Ian Walker wasn't having it. He had to know, so he had to go into the house. Don't do it, PC Walker. Yeah, don't do it, PC Walker. This is your moment to turn on your heel and never, ever return. But he's not listening to us or anybody else.

And inside the house was a scene of abhorrent gore. The front room was completely destroyed and pieces of human flesh and bits of brain littered the floor. Christine Taylor lay dead with her blood covering the floor. Christine Taylor lay dead, with her blood covering the walls. Her face had been clawed off, her tongue ripped out, and her eyes had been pulled out of their sockets. And Christine had died asphyxiating on her own blood. It was obvious that Michael Taylor was the culprit, and even worse than that, he had clearly done all of the damage to his wife with his bare hands. How? How do you do that much damage with your bare hands? I don't know. Have you ever heard that like you actually are perfectly capable of biting off your own finger because it's just the consistency of like a carrot but your brain stops you from doing it? That doesn't shock me, but yes.

So maybe we're much more capable of like ripping other people apart than we think we are. We're just stopped by our brain. And clearly his brain is not functioning at maximum. But I can't even open jars of pickles sometimes. Like, they tear something. And I really want to. I really want to open it. It's worse, I'm afraid.

The family poodle also lay dead. Michael had pulled off its arms and its legs. Not that poodles have arms, but they did when I wrote this apparently, pulled off all four of its legs, completely out of their sockets. And the poor dog had also lost its tongue and eyes to Michael's murderous mania. Wow. Leave the dogs alone. Michael Taylor was taken to the nearest hospital, hosed down and questioned. And he told the police all about the exorcism that had happened the night before and he said quote it was a long night they danced around me and

burned my cross because i was tainted with the evil they had me in the church all night look at my hands i was banging on the floor the power was in me i couldn't get rid of it and neither could they they were too late i was compelled by a force within me to destroy everything living within the house michael claimed that he remembered nothing about the actual murder but when he was asked how too late. I was compelled by a force within me to destroy everything living within the house. Michael claimed that he remembered nothing about the actual murder, but when he was asked how he felt, he said, quote, I feel released. I am released. It is done. The evil in her has been destroyed. But he didn't understand that he'd actually killed her. Whenever anyone asked him about his wife, he just said, no, I love my wife and she's fine now because I fixed it. So he did his own little DIY exorcism with his hands on her face. With his hands on her face. Yeah, exactly. And when it came to his trial, both

prosecution and defense accepted that Michael's mental health was a huge factor in the case. The prosecution, who's called Mr. Baker QC, told the jury that they were about to hear what would make it difficult for them to believe that they were not in the Middle Ages. Whereas Michael Taylor's defense barrister, called Mr. Ognall QC, said, quote, Let those who are truly responsible for this killing stand up. We submit that Taylor is a mere cipher. The real guilt lies elsewhere. Religion is key. And he is, of course, making the point that Marie Robinson's prayer group was much closer to a cult, where Michael's unstable mental health was exacerbated. But when he took the stand, Michael very calmly explained,

whenever he was asked, that he was possessed by demons and that he thought his wife was too. He claimed, again, to have absolutely no recollection of the killing. But I really think it's a case of in his narrative that's the only thing he could have done like in the world he was living in at that present moment he thought it was the right thing it comes back down to the whole definition of insanity in a court of law his intention wasn't to kill her he didn't think he was doing that within the parameters of his ability to think at that time he thought what he was doing that. Within the parameters of his ability to think at that time, he thought what he was doing wasn't wrong. That's exactly it. And because of that irresistible urge, Michael Taylor

was found not guilty by reason of insanity. And the major consequence of that was that Christine Taylor's death was found not to be a murder, but manslaughter. And what I can't get over with this one is Michael went from someone who had minor, minor bouts of depression, and that's a doctor has said that, and they went from that to full blown psychosis in a matter of weeks. That's the thing that's most unbelievable about it. Well, not unbelievable, because obviously it happened. The thing that's most like shocking about it, because he was seeing a doctor, he'd been diagnosed with depression. But to go from that to suddenly having severe psychosis. But the sign of the cross session, that happened on the 1st of October.

And on the 6th of October, Christine's dead. So it's less than a week. And also with like the onset of a lot of that kind of psychosis, unless it's been triggered by something else, it usually happens a bit earlier in life. I know he's young. He's only 31. But there were no signs as a teenager or in the mid-20s?

I mean, it's the 70s. Maybe it's sort of when it flew under the radar a bit, but it does seem absolutely unbelievable that it happened so quickly. And some people use that to say that he really must have been possessed by demons because no mental illness would have come on that quickly. But we're going to skip over that pretty swiftly. Because we know on this show, and you know because you listen to it, that psychosis presents itself within the framework that is familiar.

But I still find it strange that speaking in tongues and demonic possessions and the prayer group itself had only been a part of Michael's life for a few weeks. It's not like it's entrenched in him, this way of thinking. It dovetailed so perfectly at the time that this episode or this psychosis was coming on, and it just happened to mesh together. Maybe, maybe. So Michael was sent off to Broadmoor for two years, and his defence attorney stated that the clerics involved with the exorcism should be with him at the very least in spirit, which I thought was pretty funny.

But unsurprisingly, this case has caused huge religious uproar, and as a result, it's the last recorded exorcism ever performed by the anglican church i don't think it means it was the last but it's the only one they've admitted to how interesting who do they have to because catholic priests have to get permission from the pope or from vatican or from the vatican well like maybe their bishop like it's sort there's a there's a big like hierarchy someone like neil for example would have to go to maybe the top person he would go to would be the archbishop of his particular diocese and then maybe that archbishop can then escalate it higher if he thinks he needs to or maybe he's just like no you can totally do an exorcism no worries just hire

out that church hall yeah exactly that's. But even in spite of this, Father Pete remains convinced that he did absolutely nothing wrong. And what Michael Taylor was presenting on that day in October was a full-blown demonic possession. And during trial, he said, quote, I'm quite convinced God will bring good out of this in his own way. However tragic it was at the time, if the psychiatrist said this crime would not have been committed,

but for the exorcism, that seems like a rather strange thing to say. People will draw their own conclusions. Will they? I certainly have. Yeah, I was going to say they probably will. And I don't think they're all going to be in your favour. No. And it just seems like, oh, however tragic it was, it's all part of God's big plan. There are five kids who've not got a mother now. And a dog with no arms or legs. Rev Ray chimed in and he said, quote, If people come to me in trouble of any kind, I will try to help. I would give such comfort as I could, but I'm only an ordinary human being with human failings.

Cheers, Rev Ray. You'll probably be unsurprised to hear that nothing happened to either Father Pete or Rev Ray. They were not sanctioned by their parishes, their diocese leaders, or even by the legal system. Oh, I'm shocked. Yeah. After Michael Taylor did two years in Britain's most infamous hospital for the criminally insane,

he was transferred to Bradford Royal Infirmary for a further two years. And after that, he was released. Things did not get better for him when he was out. He attempted suicide four times. And in one of these attempts, he jumped off a bridge and seriously injured his back and legs.

In July 2005, so that's 31 years after he killed his wife, Michael Taylor found himself in even more trouble. He was arrested for sexually harassing and touching an underage girl. And when he was arrested he asked the officers, quote, am I going to Broadmoor for murdering my wife? So he clearly has absolutely no idea what is going on. He hasn't got fucking Scooby-Doo what's going on. Absolutely not a Scooby snack of what is going on. But the thing that is, because we've come across these sort of things before, is what is so surprising to me about this whole story is like we've talked about the fact that he's not sort of been a lifelong churchgoer and been immersed in it all his life. He became sort of fanatical about it, but it immersed in it all his life. He became sort of

fanatical about it, but it seems like it was because he just fancied this Marie girl. But really, it's the onset of this psychosis so quickly without that many sort of recorded red flags. That's mad. That's crazy. Yeah, no, absolutely. It's one of those things that's like, like pretending to like a band that they like is probably as far as I would go. Even that, a slippery slope. Full force into a new religion. I literally only listen to the Hamilton soundtrack these days. So I don't know, like, unless it's Hamilton, I don't know. Amazing. It's only Lizzo going on on my end. For his abuse of this underage girl, Michael Taylor was given three years of community service and psychiatric treatment. And as far as I know, he's just out there living his life.

Osset will always remember the events of that October, and especially PC Ian Walker, who said, quote, of all of the incidents in which I was involved in 30 years of police work, nothing affected me like this one. The stupidity and futility of it all, the complete and utter waste of life and destruction of police work, nothing affected me like this one. The stupidity and futility of it all, the complete and utter waste of life and destruction of a family, not to mention the death and other traumas, are far beyond anything else I've ever come across. Before this event, I was agnostic. Now I'm an atheist.

Mic drop. And then he just leaves. Mic drop. Yeah. Hashtag millennials. I don't know. Wow. So that's my story. Geez. Hashtag millennials. I don't know. Wow. So that's my story.

Jeez. Jeez, Louise. Jesus Christ, Louise. Fucking hell, Louise. You bitch. That's one for Emma Ridley. She knows. She knows who she is.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies. Environmental disasters.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators

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there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post

by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance,

but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+.

Join Wondery in the Wond as like no looking i think we've just morphed into the same person honestly like i think our brains just like go down similar routes without knowing it that's what happens when you share a google search history i think it is the window to the soul after all it does i have to remember to use my own personal one when i'm googling other things like when i was googling this case i didn't want to give it away. Oh fuck I didn't oh I fucked myself up. No I saw you checking populations

of Austerly or Otterly what was it? Austerly. That's the one. I was like what is she up to? My favourite one

is when your mum uses your computer and it's like how much is £500 in rupees? And just visiting like sari websites and all this stuff.

Yeah. God. I love it so much she's hilarious speaking of saris and rupees well i'm taking us to india today i know it's exciting well kind of it's also horrible because this is a pretty grim case what's interesting is that i've also gone for a case or a set of cases with a similar undertone to what you chose. Okay. So people can't shout at me for just ragging on Christians. No, no. Good job. Thanks for having my back.

No, we're going to take a deep dive into some very non-Christian things today. So get excited, everybody. Because my Halloween case today is definitely a bit rogue, but it is also terrifying, so stick with me. I'm firstly ashamed to say that I didn't really know that this was something that was happening. But then I randomly read this article and then I just couldn't stop. And I spent so long reading about it that I had to cover it because I'd spent so long reading about it. I was like, read on your own time, Barla. So this is the case that I'm doing now. So we're heading into the world of black magic, voodoo, occultists, and child sacrifice murders in India. Whoa, okay, I'm ready. Modern day child sacrifice murders in India.

But before we get there, let's start at the beginning. You've all heard of tantric sex, yes? Tantric yoga, tantric medication, tantric meditation. My friend's dad used to go, it was really embarrassing. To tantric yoga? To tantric massage, it was even worse. Oh, that sounds like tantric sex and tantric yoga and tantric meditation smashed into one. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he was definitely getting a happy ending. I think that's pretty much spot on what was happening there.

Delicious. Lovely. So yes, of course, you've all heard of these things, but in a very like westernized way and like, this is here you go, here's some yoga, here's some meditation. It's like people go onto like a tantric yoga thing on like a hen do. Exactly. Exactly. But let's discuss the roots of Tantrism, because the practice of human sacrifice and ritual murders that are, as I said at the start, modern day and still actually happening today in India, have their roots in the cult of Tantrism. And Tantrism is a mix of mystical practices that grew out of Hinduism. It was a spiritual movement that began in medieval India. And while it had its heyday in like the 8th century, it still has many followers today.

Some estimates say that around a million strong in India alone. And an important tantric text called the Kalika Purana was written in the 9thth century and it outlines key tantric rites, many of which call for blood sacrifice, human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism. So it's literally in the book, it's in the scriptures of this sort of offshoot of Hinduism that people do at hen parties. Right, okay. I'm scared. Oh, get scared. It's going to be scary. And this book, The Kalika Purana, even has an entire chapter on how to properly perform human sacrifices in order to please the goddess Kali. Can you go and get this book at, like, Waterstones? Potentially.

I didn't look into that. I reckon we could dig it out. It's a thing. I googled a lot of stuff about tantrism. I think it's out there. Okay. Guess what you're getting for your birthday? I could be converted. I could be converted because it promises all sorts of things if you just murder the right people.

Yeah. And I can't convert because I'm not a Hindi. This is an offshoot. So maybe you can. I don't know. I didn't look into it enough. Let's have a look later. We're not actually going away this weekend for your birthday, are we? You're just going to take me off to a tantrism cult. That's exactly what's happening. Sariti, why are we at the airport? Be quiet, get in the bag.

It's all for Kali. Who knows? So a good way to look at these tantrics, who are the holy men who practice tantrism and their followers, is as devotees of the goddess Kali. So Kali is... Is she the one in the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? Um, I've never seen that film. I think it is. Okay, let's, maybe, maybe she's like huge. She's got like, she wears like a necklace made of skulls. She's usually shown standing on a person.

She's always got her tongue out. She looks very scary. She's terrifying. Cool. I think, I think so. So she is, as I said, rather terrifying and fearsome looking goddess from Hindu mythology. And she is the goddess of death and destruction and doomsday. But as with most Hindu deities, she also has her flip side and is also seen as a mother figure, as a protector, and importantly, as a liberator of souls. And sometimes she's even referred to as the dark mother.

If you please her, you can ward off the evil eye, bring peace and riches to your home. So it's worthwhile if you believe in this. Yeah, she sounds like she's doing some good shit. Yeah, she's like a strict mother. Like Mary Poppins. But with more blood sacrifice. Firm, but kind. Practically perfect

in every way. But the thing is, with all of this, like when we're talking about this, obviously we're saying it originated in medieval India. It all sounds pretty old school, right? So let's bring it into the 2000s. Nowadays, most people living in India who practice some form of Hinduism, just like Christians here or Muslims here or whatever, like the majority of people are practicing it in some form of like normal, quote unquote, normal way. But there's no getting away from the fact that as a pagan religion, Hinduism is an incredibly ritualistic religion. If you think the Catholics are weird with their tiny little wafers and their

wine, Hindus take things to a whole new level of crazy. Believe me, I've been there, I've seen it, got the t-shirt, it's all there. And it's a religion very much based on superstition and importantly, sacrifice. So some people, in order to please a god or a deity to get something that they want from them, they'll fast or they will give up something like you know people do at lent but they'll do it over a longer period of time or they'll shave their heads there's all sorts of stuff that you can do because if you find a way to please that deity from whom you want something they require payment and you have to do it through sacrifice but these tantrics so the holy men that we're talking

about involved with tantrism, far transcend what quote-unquote normal Hindus are up to. They are busy burrowing into the religious, uneducated, poor, rural communities, mainly across northern India. Now, I found varying reports of how many such murders, so we're talking about sort of ritual human sacrifice murders associated with tantrics, have happened or have occurred in recent times in India. But of course, the truth is that such cases are, of course, underreported and underinvestigated. So to find like a definitive, this exact number is obviously impossible slash it would be a fake number even if we did find it.

But it is most certainly not a crime that is out of the headlines. One article published by The Guardian reported that between 2014 and 2016, 51 such murders were reported. And those are the ones that are reported. 51 in two years. That's crazy. It is. It gets even crazier because when you extend that number to include not just those killed in rituals, so as human sacrifice, but to those who were accused of being witches and then were lynched, according to the Washington Post, that number grows to an alarming 2,100 people between 2000 and 2012. So these days, the practice of tantrism and human sacrifice is most prevalent in the northern and eastern parts of India. So West Bengal, Maharashtra,

Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, which actually has the highest reported number of ritual murders. I sort of fell down a bit of a rabbit hole at this point. And I was like, I don't really know anything really about voodoo or black magic associated with Hinduism or even these offshoots of it. But I think, you know, apart from like what my grandma talked to me about, but potentially because my family are from the south and it's not as prevalent there, it definitely seems to be more prevalent in the north, in the west and in the east. But I did find that apparently the cradle and birthplace of black magic in India is often said to be a place called Mayong, a village in Assam in eastern India. But I did Google this and have a look. There's like articles on like, this is our second culture trip reference in two episodes.

But there's a big article on culturetrip.com about Mayong and it being the cradle of black magic and voodoo in India. And given the fact that this village widely markets this fact, makes me feel like it's mainly for the tourists now. Maybe there's the secret one that's the real one. And that secret one is the one I'm about to tell you about. Oh my god, okay. We're not going to go to Mayong. If you want to, I think you can. I think they do like organise tours there now but instead we're starting today in the village of baha in the state of uttar pradesh now if you google image this place

which is something i tried to do you will only see satellite images of it that's it just taken from like google maps that's just like a patch of green and it's like that's that place that's it is it like the um that place in mexico like it's called um the the silent zone where no one's phones work and cameras stop working and all of that is it like that maybe phones just don't work so there's no pictures oh my god i've not heard of this place in mexico it's called uh zona de silencio it's a thing nothing works there well i know what i'm going to be Googling immediately after this is over. But no, I think with this place, it's more because it's just so remote. And so, well, not remote isn't the right word.

Basically, it is actually only 150 miles from Delhi. So that's really not that far. No, not in India where everything is massive and far away. Exactly. I mean, even Birmingham is only like 130 miles from where we are. Like, it's not that far. But the roads are so bad and the village is so isolated that it would probably take you about eight hours to drive there, reading some journalists who talk about taking that journey. And yeah, like I said, I think if you Google it, you don't see any images because I just don't think there are many people there who have phones or many people there who are taking pictures. And when you compare that

to the likes of Mayong and the incredibly staged voodoo press shots that they have, you can tell which one's kind of the real deal. And it may only be 150 miles away from the metropolis of the Indian capital, but it is a long, long way from the 21st century. Because there aren't really many towns near Baha. But the ones that are close enough are scared of this village. In Bulansha, which is about like, which is like the nearest sort of thing you could even come close to calling a proper town. The local people talk of the terrifying and dark things that go on in Baha. And one Guardian journalist who went to Baha to write about these murders was given the same advice by everyone she spoke to concerning Baha. And one Guardian journalist who went to Baha to write about these murders was given the

same advice by everyone she spoke to concerning Baha. They all said, don't go. It is an evil place. The people there are cursed. So to get my geek on, for all of you Game of Thrones fans, I know Hannah's not, but for everyone else, it reminds me of the city of Asshai that is mentioned in the show. It's just like this incredibly dark place where all these people are cursed and it's all very sad and creepy things are going on and they're like sacrificing kids. Like a lot of this is true, depending on which way you look at it and we'll go on to talk about it. It's all fucking true, especially the child human sacrifice bit. Spoilers. Because it is most definitely not just rumours or hype. The thing to remember with what we're about to talk about is that it all sounds super unbelievable

because it's so crazy. But what you need to remember is while I'm telling you the story, it's really easy to start thinking it's not real and just sort of listen along like it's a story. Remember that this is real. What's happening? It's really, really horrifying. So according to the South China Morning Post, an official tally in 2006 stood at 28 people having been sacrificed in the state of Uttar Pradesh in just four months. And this state is where this village is. 28 people in just four months. That's fucking almost two a week. That's unbelievable. So the first case I'm going to discuss today was one of those 28. A lady named Sumitra Bhushan was living in Baha'a and she had lived there all her life. She was crushingly poor, as most people in the area are. She worked as a labourer in the sugarcane fields that surrounded the village. But the meagre money that she earned

was barely enough to eat, leave alone pay off the huge debts that her husband had amassed before abandoning her. She had two sons, 27-year-old Satbir and 23-year-old Sanjay, but they were completely useless. And then, just when Sumitra thought that things couldn't get any worse, the night terrors began. She started having nightmarish visions of Kali, and Sumitra was terrified. One day, a tantric, so remember the priests that practice this offshoot of Hinduism called tantrism, came to the village, so Sumitra went to see him and begged him for help. He was selling advice and medicines to other villagers when Sumitra approached him. When she told him about the visions and the night terrors,

he told Sumitra to slaughter a chicken and offer the blood and the remains to the goddess Kali. So Sumitra followed his instructions. But the nightmares only got worse. And they not only got worse for her, but now suddenly her sons started having the same night terrors. So she returned to the tantric. And this time the man told her, for the sake of your family, you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village. Interesting point to note here is that for tantrics, the preference is usually for boys aged between three and 12. But tantrics will also apparently take girls,

apparently when they can't get a young boy to murder. And apparently, children who were born as breech babies are particularly prized. Really? Is that because they're most difficult to get out? Maybe, maybe. Interesting. Or maybe if they've survived a breech birth in a remote area, that means they're super duper. Very, very possible. So after having taken this advice, Sumitra,

one night soon after, along with her two sons, went and abducted a neighbor's son, three-year-old Akash Singh. The deranged family dragged the poor terrified boy into their house where Satbir performed the puja or ritual. The family smeared sandalwood paste on Akash and sandalwood paste is used in a lot of rituals around Hinduism and a lot of prayers and things like that as it is believed to bring one closer to the divine and as the family were rubbing him with sandal paste, Satpira recited tantric mantras and lit incense. Sumitra then rubbed ghee all over the child. Ghee is like clarified butter, in case anyone doesn't know. They tried to outlaw it in Britain, but the curry houses were not having it.

No, they're absolutely not. Nothing you eat in a curry house would ever taste of anything if they banned ghee. But ghee, again, is actually also really important in Hindu prayers and in religion. It is thought to contain goodness and light and bring peace and happiness. So how ironic what they're doing with it. So after the chanting was done, one of Sumitra's two sons took out a knife and cut out the three-year-old boy's tongue, and then his nose and his ears and his hands.

They made sure to kill him slowly. They then laid his body in front of a poster of Kali. They then placed Akash's tiny mutilated body in the gutter outside their house. The next day, Sumitra told the other villagers that she had found Akash like that, but no one believed her. And after her sons were caught and tortured into a confession, they told them everything. The family somehow managed to escape mob justice, which is usually what befalls such people, and they were actually turned over to the police. But the tantric who advised Sumitra has never been found.

And if you think that this is a standalone case of brutality, you'd be wrong. Obviously because of the numbers that I've been throwing at you since the start of this, but also because of many other cases that have come to light and have been reported. Within months of this case, the Guardian reported that in a village near Baha, a woman hacked her neighbor's three-year-old son to death after a tantric promised her wealth and riches beyond her wildest dreams if she did. Her own son? No, a neighbour's son.

Oh, God. I mean, still terrible. Yeah. And in another case, in a village again nearby, a couple who were desperate for a son were told by a tantric to abduct a child and kill it. So they had a six-year-old boy kidnapped and mutilated him. Then, to seal the deal, the woman took a bath in the child's blood. It really makes me think of albinism in Tanzania. Exactly. That idea of some humans being more magic than others

oh absolutely i think in this we'll go on to talk about it but it's almost the other way it's definitely it's this idea of sacrifice the gods the deities they demand blood they demand of they demand flesh and that's what these tantrics are going around preaching and we only know about these particular cases because they actually came to the attention of law enforcement. Generally speaking, what happens in a lot of these areas is that they're not even being policed properly. India is a huge country. There's a lot of rural settlements and villages that are kind of miles and miles away from police stations or anything like that. So they often turn to tribal law. And often what happens is lynchings. That's just how it goes down. So

that's why it's unbelievable that these cases actually came to light and that the villagers and their family sent them to the police. So another such case occurred in Maharashtra, which is the state in northern India. And this happened in January 2017, two years ago. According to a report by the South China Morning Post, that morning, Sarika Ingal woke up to find her six-year-old son Krishna was missing. She searched the entire village looking for him, but no luck. The next day, Krishna was finally found. Well, his body was, because his mutilated body had been left just behind

his family's home. His throat had been slit and his eyes had dozens of marks from needle piercings underneath them. Oh my god. And horrifyingly, whoever had killed Krishna had drilled a hole into the back of his head. That was in 2017. Why? To pull his brain out? I mean, who the fuck knows? Who the fuck knows? There isn't any like sort of set pattern that we see with these ritual killings. It's almost just like extend the pain as long as possible,

kill them, offer the blood and the flesh to Kali. So in all the killings you see, the victim has sort of gone through a different form of murder, or it's like they've just used whatever they've had to do it. Right. And does Kali like it more if there's more suffering? Does that make it better? Yes. So it again is written in the holy book of Tantrism that you need, sounds awful, but it's almost like the meat marinades, the flesh marinades in the pain is the closest translation I can get to. Is that the more pain and suffering you cause, the better a sacrifice it is. Right.

So thankfully, the police did actually investigate Krishna's murder. And unbelievably, they found that he had been killed by a tantric holy man at the request of Krishna's own aunt, Draupadi Pol. Again, it was all apparently to win favor with Kali. Draupadi was apparently miserable because her and her husband argued all the time. So she went to see a tantric priest about it. And this priest had told her that if she offered the flesh and blood of a young boy to Kali, that peace would return to her home. So Draupadi paid the man to kill for her and essentially handed over her young nephew. It's like the fucking mundanity of the reasons that she's using. So transactional.

It is. And she's just like, yeah, OK, here have my nephew. Is Kali like specifically the goddess of that particular region or is it just that the tantric it's it's just the tantric vibes so really the way that it works is that each deity would be responsible for a different sort of thing you would pray to different gods or goddesses for different things but ultimately if you please a god enough you're going to get the basic things that people want, which is health, wealth and happiness. You could get that from anybody. But the way that you would go about getting it from different gods would be a different sacrifice or a different way of doing it. The followers of Tantrism are all devotees

of the goddess Kali. I see. They are also obviously like we see with any religion, they're subverting what it means. They're doing their own thing to fill whatever bloodlust or need that they have. It's all nonsense, obviously, but this is just taking that nonsense to an incredibly ghoulish, gruesome and violent end. It's honestly, I had no idea. And it's absolutely fucking terrifying.

So after Krishna's body was found, if you're wondering how did they know that this was a ritual killing? His body obviously showed signs of torture, but how did they know that this was a ritual killing? Well, near Krishna's body, the police also found a little pit in which they found sandalwood paste, incense, ghee, and images of Kali. So it all linked together. So they're not trying that hard to hide it then. They're just like, oh, this is chill. It's fine. We'll just leave it here.

Just kicking around. And the brazenness of this goes even further because they found a deep grave next to this pit that had been intended for little Krishna. I don't know why they just dumped him behind the house when they dug this grave for him, but they found this grave and Draupadi admitted that that's what it was for. And that in itself is quite, I guess, another alarming thing because Draupadi and the priest didn't even care about Krishna in death. They got what they needed from him. They killed him, but they were going to bury him. And Hindus don't bury their dead, they cremate them. If you bury somebody, you're trapping them, you're trapping their soul. They can't reincarnate, if that's the right verb, to reincarnate. They can't be reincarnated. And obviously,

there's no logical difference if you bury a body or cremate it. But Draupadi clearly believes. So she was willing to sacrifice her nephew's peace for all eternity as far as she's concerned to what just get her husband to chill the fuck out yeah oh my life that just that you're so right like it's the absolute banality of it like i've just been rowing fix it magic tantrism man yeah and i and I'm going to escalate it all the way to the point that I kill my nephew. It's mad. And you have to remember that she, like I keep saying, she's his aunt.

So Sarika, Krishna's heartbroken mother, was horrified obviously when the truth came out, especially when she realised that it had been her own sister-in-law who had done this. But what was even worse, she had seen Draupadi digging that grave earlier in the week. She'd worked on it for days because it was so deep. And Sarika had asked her

what she was doing. She told her that she was digging a foundation because she was going to build a temple. And so Sarika had helped her. She had dug her own son's grave. Oh God, that's hideous. So obviously these people are greedy, selfish, uneducated and brainwashed, and therefore incredibly malleable to the whims of corrupt and evil tantric priests. I'm not letting them off the hook. They know what they're doing is wrong, but they do it anyway. But in other cases of this kind of child sacrifice, human sacrifice thing,

it does seem to be quite an epidemic that's happening, as I said, particularly in the north of India and in the west and in the east. It does seem to be due to larger scale issues like mass crop failures, grinding poverty and shocking superstition. But bloody hell, how easily people can be convinced of anything is absolutely fucking terrifying well it's the faith that you put in men of god isn't it or holy men or whatever whatever culture you're in it's like oh absolutely you're just like well they know better than me same as like in my story with the exorcism they'll know what to do they're they're in touch with with god they'll how could they possibly be wrong how would they tell me to do something that's bad for me or bad for anyone around me? Oh, 100%. That is a big, big, big part of why this kind of thing is happening in the first place.

And I have one last case to cover in this story. Okay. And this one really impacted me. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And once I'd done it, I took the dog for a walk. But even when I was walking, I kept flinching because I was thinking about thinking about it. And then once I'd done it, I took the dog for a walk. But like, even when I was walking, I kept flinching because I was thinking about one particular bit. So you've been warned.

In July 2017, a woman named Mangala in Kolkata rushed her daughter to Bankura Medical College. The three-year-old had a raging fever. Once she was admitted, the doctors realized that it seemed to be some sort of an infection, but they couldn't understand what was causing it. When they examined the child, they found signs of sexual abuse and also one of her arms was broken. It was clear someone had been raping and abusing this little girl. She's three years old. The doctors then performed an x-ray for the broken

arm and they couldn't believe what they saw. Inside this little girl were seven giant needles that had been inserted into her body. I'm tapping out. Yeah, it gets worse. Well, the needles bit gets worse. And this was the bit I couldn't stop thinking about. The needles had been inserted into her body in a way that they pierced many of her internal organs. The needles had been inserted into her liver, one into her vagina, and even, and this is the worst one for me, and one even into her ovary. Oh my god, it's horrible. So at first, when the doctors realized what they were seeing, they were worried that removing the needles might kill the girl.

But eventually they had no other choice. And on the 18th of July 2017, they operated. At first, they actually reported that the operation had been a success. But a few days later, the little girl died of sepsis and pneumonia. I keep calling her a little girl because the other ones, they seem to name the children and there's even photos, but in this one, they never name her anywhere. They blur her face out and everything. So I don't know. So when the police questioned the mother, it was quickly revealed who the culprit was. It was her boss, a man named Sanatan Thakur.

He practiced, of course, tantrism, and the voodoo and the black magic that goes along with it. He had quite literally turned this little three-year-old girl into a voodoo doll. Mangala, the little girl's mother, had worked for Thakur as a maid, and this is how he had gained access to the child. Thakur went on the run as soon as the girl was taken into hospital. He knew they were going to find out what was going on and remember this happened in Kolkata. He was arrested again in Uttar Pradesh, the same place that Bahar is. He was arrested on the 31st of July so he's out,

he's like on the run for like two weeks and he'd been living in a village in Uttar Pradesh disguised as a hermit. And he's quite a wealthy man. And also just... Yeah, if he's got a maid. Well, a lot of people do in India, it's a lot cheaper to have cheap labor, but he's got money. So when he was caught, he immediately basically confessed to what he'd done. He told the police that he'd been raping the young girl for months and it turns out that he had injected the needles into her weeks before

she was taken to hospital and it was because of that that obviously caused the infection. And when he was asked why he had done what he had done he said that it was all to help him master tantric sadhana and this is apparently the process by which one achieves spiritual liberation. So I guess like achieves nirvana. So it's basically the idea that in reincarnation, until you achieve that state, you will constantly be recycled into the world, I guess, as different people, as different things, depending on how pure a life you've led, etc. Your hardship or your, you know, karma will be repaid in the next life. But the ultimate aim is to achieve nirvana,

is to achieve liberation of your soul so that you ascend to heaven or whatever. So you're basically not trapped in this earthly world anymore. He's trying to skip that step by trying to achieve this thing called tantric sadhana by killing a child okay can't you just go to that place and then you get fast oh yeah if you die there die there he's got to wait until he's old and then he's got to make sure he dies oh i see and also if you remember kali is called the liberator of souls oh yeah maybe that's why he believes you know turn to tantrism do what i need, please her, she'll liberate my soul. Obviously, it's a load of fucking bollocks and he's just a piece of shit because he doesn't even, he's not even just killing these kids like the others are, as if that's good enough.

He is sexually abusing her. He's doing all of this. Like, I think it's all just his own twisted, sick fantasies wrapped up in some bullshit. So Thakur was obviously arrested and charged with rape and the murder of a child. And when he was brought before the court, hundreds of people from his own village gathered outside to demand that he receive the death penalty. Now a police officer involved in such ritual murder cases said, quote, it's because of blind superstition and rampant illiteracy. It's happened before and it will happen again,

but there is little we can do to stop it. This has been going on for centuries. These people are living in the dark ages. And this is the thing, although the fact that India is a rapidly emerging global economy, it is a deeply divided nation in the sense of like Mumbai has, I think it's maybe the last time I read about it, it's got the most millionaires and billionaires of anywhere, like per square foot. But right next to it, you've got slums. The country is in like an agricultural crisis right now, brought on by the government because of things like hybrid seeds and stuff that they're selling. But anyway, like, it's the fact that although it is such a booming country, there is a deep inequality. And it is also a very religious country. And one that unfortunately right now is being governed by

a right wing Hindu extremist. So great. That's great. That's just what the country needs. But just like Hannah said, intense reverence and blind adherence to the words of holy men is an incredibly strong part of the cultural ethos in India. You do what they say. If they're saying it, it must be right. Oh, I really am trying my very hardest, harder than I've ever tried in my life to crack a joke, but I just don't have it in me. Like, I feel so ill. I did make it quite a bummer of a case, didn't I? It was just because I started reading it and I was so, like, shocked by what I was reading that I just couldn't stop.

And I was like, that is truly shocking. I'm just amazed it's being reported. That's the thing that I can't get my head around. This is the thing. Again, it's such a divided country in the sense of you've got such deep superstition and religion and orthodoxy. But on the other side, you've got people that are like, this is fucking, this isn't normal is what I'm trying to say. Obviously, like with any case that we talk about, whether it's Christians, whether it's Hindus, whether it's Muslims, whatever's happening, these people are the outliers. They're the extremists. They're the people taking it to a different level.

But fucking hell, when I read this, I couldn't believe it. Many people in the country, including reporters, including police officers, they blame this sort of turn to the occult on the increasing gap between the rich and the poor between the rural and urban India and as I said particularly with this agricultural crisis that's going on so many farmers are committing suicide right now it's like a record number of people because they just can't eat they can't make any money like this is a travesty what's going on so obviously it's almost going back to medieval times where they're like right what can i do i need to take some extreme measure in order to fix this problem that i've in and then you've got these holy men roaming around telling them that they just need to kill some kids in order to do it yeah government's not

helping me god my yeah exactly exactly but saying that i don't want it to feel like this is a lost cause. Because, like I said, in southern India, where there is still a divide between the rich and the poor, and there's obviously a lot of farmers there depending on agriculture, but it doesn't seem to. And the reason is because there are, according to the South China Morning Post, because there have been many more reformist movements against superstition over the centuries in the South. So it's sort of been watered down to an extent there. So it can be addressed. It is an issue that can be addressed. But I think the truth of the matter is, like you alluded to, Hannah, kind of with the Tanzania witch doctor case, which we do have an episode on for our patrons. So if you guys haven't listened to that, definitely go listen to it. It's very similar to this story. But I think the biggest difference is that the truth of the matter is that Hinduism is a very ritualistic religion. These things like all religions or anything man-made for that matter can be open to interpretation or can be used as a method of control to lead to such despicable abuses. But aside from the ritualistic aspect, Hinduism is also a very hierarchical religion. If you think that racism only exists in heterogeneous countries like in Europe or in the US, then you are wrong. Oh no. It is alive and well and kicking in India. Because Hinduism has this archaic and rather, not rather, extremely destructive caste system. And most of the

victims of this kind of murder are often poor people from the lower castes. Essentially, India's less dead. To some of these people who are doing this kind of thing, they're disposable. And clearly for some, they're no more than a chicken to be sacrificed. That's my bummer of a Halloween episode. I hope you guys enjoy it. Happy Halloween. Let's have a quick tone shift to talk about something else. Next, you get another episode on Thursday. Aren't you excited? I'm going to make mine less miserable for that one. Yeah, mine's just going to be fucking jokes jokes jokes So get ready I've picked a case where I've been like

so kind of Halloweeny but mostly ghost pirates so tune in for that on Thursday and before we do that you can follow us on Instagram we're going to be doing loads of merchy stuff on there and we'll probably be doing some Shoreditch house stuff as

well i'll give my phone to one of my friends that's coming it's gonna be great so aside from that obviously the usual notices yeah so head over to redhandedshop.com get yourself some spooky bitch merch have yourselves a very happy halloween in two days oh i forgot to say my thing that related to birthdays and to the moon yeah just say it now there you go just the fun fact to end on it's less miserable than the rest of it so you can have that so basically all the gods have like their own special day in which you do stuff for them so it'll be like this god's day this god's day whatever like a saint's day yeah exactly exactly so kali has um her day which is kali puja it's always in october and it's always around well it's always in October and it's always around, well, it's always in October, it's always around Diwali. It's basically the night that there's no moon in

the sky. So they call it Amavase. So there's no moon in the sky. So it's the new moon nearest to Diwali. And it's on the 27th of October this year, which is two days before the Sapa Se came out. But fun fact, 1989, I was born on Kali's day. Oh, does that mean you're the releaser of souls? Maybe, who souls? Maybe. Who knows? Maybe that's why I'm in a duty this week. Maybe you'll find out.

Maybe you're shooting straight to Nirvana, mate. Maybe you don't have to do any more bullshit. Oh, that's great. No, my grandma told me that people who were born on Amavase, so new moon on that day, are all liars. And with that, let's hear from our gorgeous patrons that have given us some money recently. If you don't hear your name on the show immediately after you sign up, we're very sorry, but we just have so many and we can't get through them all at once. So that's we haven't forgotten you.

We're not leaving you out on purpose. We'll get there. So having said that, here are the people who've made the cut this week. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm joking. So, Rika Gabriel, Brenda Moore, Lauren Gunther, Catherine Knox,

Chris and Vance Sears, Megan McCauley, Lindsay Morales, Avril Merrifield, Nicole Bethel, McKinley Swift, Kathy, Julia X,

Kristen Brown, Rebecca Goodwill, Ruth Fox, Molly O'Leary, Louise Coe, Keo. Coe. Did you hear this fear

in my voice? Sydney Thorpe Celia Moore Rebecca Cadbury-Simmons Wren Frances O'Neill and Trisha Banish Are you actually Trish Banish?

Is that really or do you hate it so much that you insist people call you Trisha? Please reach out and let us know I have to know Trish Banish That's amazing You have to go now

Christina Sophie Murram, Kelsey Cole, C, C Evans, Carolina Kenny, uh, Re,

Renee, Rene, Renee Gagon, Gagnon? Yeah, we'll go with that. Uh, Gabriel Cyrus,

and Marnie Brady. Thank you guys so much. Thanks guys, and we'll see you on Thursday for some live, spooky, shoreditchy, Halloweeny goodness. See you then. Goodbye. Bye.

Bye. Thank you. more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows,

uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.