So Supernatural - HAUNTED: Curse of the Crying Boy Paintings

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

In 1980s Britain, a series of haunting portraits featuring a tearful little boy were discovered untouched amidst the ashes of devastating house and business fires. While rumors of the subject and the artists' backstory became fodder for the tabloids, there's been no good explanation for why this particular image has managed to survive so many devastating fires... Unless it caused them... For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/haunted-curse-of-the-crying-boy-paintings So Supernatural is an audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social!Instagram: @sosupernatualpodTwitter: @_sosupernaturalFacebook: /sosupernaturalpod

There's something about superstitions that say a lot about human nature. Don't walk under a ladder. Don't open an umbrella inside. Don't step on a crack or break your mother's back. It sounds a little absurd, right? Yet, for some reason, we sometimes follow these weird, unspoken rules. But do superstitions exist because they really do signal some bad omen? Is there something ingrained in our DNA that gives us that gut reaction that says,

I'm not messing with that? Or is it just hysteria? When enough people believe something, it turns into mass paranoia. Ron and May Hall in South Yorkshire, England, might have an answer. In the early 80s, May and Ron's house unexpectedly caught fire. And only one thing survived the flames. A popular painting of a little boy with tears rolling down his face. Now, the Halls weren't wildly superstitious people, but they took one look at that unscathed portrait, turned to each other, and said, this thing is cursed. Because this didn't just happen once, but dozens of times all over England around the same decade,

sending the whole country into a tizzy and creating this brand new superstition. Don't hang a portrait of the crying boy in your home, restaurant, or office. Otherwise, the whole place will burst into flames. It kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, if these walls could talk, doesn't it? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is So Supernatural, the story of the crying boy portraits. You know how they say you can feel an artist's emotions through their work? I definitely find that to be true.

Like, think about the most delicious meal you've ever had. Probably home-cooked, right? You could taste the love. But this idea works both ways. When an artist has a darkness inside, that translates too. Take The Scream, for example, a painting by Edvard Munch. You've probably all seen it. It looks like this ghostly figure walking over a bridge. The sky is blazing red, and the person in the image has their hands on their cheeks, their eyes and mouth both wide open, and they are staring at you in utter terror.

Whenever I see the painting, I have a hard time getting that face out of my head. But it got even more disturbing for me when I learned that Monk suffered a lot of trauma in his life. He lost both parents, a brother and a sister, all before the age of 14. So not only does art have this ability to transfer an artist's emotions, it sort of crystallizes them as well, keeps them trapped there forever. And that's why today's story is so fascinating to me. Because it got me thinking, maybe art is capable of more than just making someone feel a certain way. Maybe art is capable of manifesting those feelings, leading to real life, sometimes even devastating, events. So let me set the scene. It's the early 1980s. Jane McCutcheon is living in Nottingham, England,

three hours northwest of London. She's living with her two young children. Now, Jane lives a pretty quiet, middle-class life. She doesn't have a ton of prized possessions or expensive things around her home. But she has this one painting that she really loves, although she can't really put her finger on why. It's a photorealistic painting of a little boy, probably no older than six or seven, and he's got tears rolling down his cheeks. The portrait was done back in the late 1960s, maybe early 70s, by some virtually unknown artist. And somewhere along the line, it got mass produced and was sold in department stores across the UK. And look, the boy in the picture is

adorable. I'll give Jane that. But if you go and Google this amber-toned painting, I promise you, it will leave you feeling weird inside, like something just isn't right. But I guess Jane was seemingly impervious to this feeling when she first saw it. Actually, she said she had the almost opposite reaction, like there was something about this painting that called to her, that begged her to take it home. So Jane bought it and gave it some prime real estate. She hung it right over the fireplace in her living room. Well, one evening, Jane leaves her two little kids alone under the gaze of that creepy painting to watch some TV. And she goes to the kitchen to

clean up. As she's washing the floor, her two-year-old comes in and points back to the living room. Jane follows her toddler back to see what they're worried about, and when she gets there, she finds her handmade drapes are on fire and the flames are spreading fast. So she grabs her two kids, gets the hell out of her house, seemingly runs into a neighbor's and calls the fire department. Now, thankfully, Jane and her kids are totally fine, but their house isn't. By the time the fire department puts out the flames,

her place is pretty much destroyed. I mean, burnt to a crisp. But when they go walking through the remains later, there is one thing peering up at them from the ashes. It's that little boy's face from the portrait. And when one of the firemen sees this, his response terrifies Jane. He says, oh no, not another one. So no, this wasn't the first time local firefighters had seen this portrait lying in the ashes of a house fire. And it wouldn't be the last either. It was around that same time, in the early 80s, that Ron and May Hall also had that little boy's painting hanging in their living room.

And just like Jane, the Halls' house went up in flames out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Half of their home was gone, their furniture and everything in it reduced to ash. But that painting survived. Here's the thing, though. Ron Hall's brother, Peter, is a firefighter in the town of Rotherham, about four miles away. When he tells

his station officer about the crying boy portrait, the guy is not surprised. He says he has personally logged more than, wait for it, 50 instances of a home or business being burned down after hanging that painting. And let me say that one more time for the people in the back. 50 instances. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a coincidence. I mean, it gives me the friggin heebie-jeebies. And listen to some of these stories. A pizza parlor in Norfolk burned down, completely destroying everything on its walls, except the crying boy. Two sisters living in the town of Kilburn each bought a portrait for their respective homes, and afterwards, both of their houses caught fire.

One of the sisters even claimed she saw the painting swaying side to side on its own before the blaze. One woman in the Isle of Wight tried to get ahead of the problem by burning her copy herself after hearing the stories about it. Only the flames wouldn't catch. Instead, she claimed to suffer some serious bad luck after the fact. And these accounts go on and on and on, to the point where it gets hard to deny. There is something about these paintings that seems downright diabolical. So much so that one of the UK's national tabloids actually picks up the story. On September 4th, 1985, The Sun prints an article with the headline, Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy. The piece talks about Ron and May

Hall's experience and that firefighters have been seeing this trend for the last five years. And that same day, the sun is flooded with calls from people all over the UK who say, wait a second, the crying boy portrait cursed me too. They're just inundated with stories of tragic fires, poltergeist activity, even people dying after they bought the portrait. The crying boy story starts growing so out of control that The Sun begins running daily updates on it. But the question for many of those tabloid readers is, who is this little boy? And why does his photorealistic portrait come with so much death and so much destruction?

Well, it turns out the answer to that lied in the signature of those paintings and in the artist himself, a man named Giovanni Bragoline. Just before Halloween in 1985, the Sun printed something pretty outrageous. Quote, Enough is enough, folks. If you are worried about a crying boy picture hanging in your home, send it to us immediately. We will destroy it for you, and that should see the back of any curse. End quote.

After that, the Sun is bombarded with crying boy paintings from all over the country. People who, regardless of whether they were affected by the curse or not, are now very eager to get that thing out of their home. And I mean, talk about Halloween decor. Imagine walking through the halls of the Sun's office after dark while it is lined wall to wall with hundreds of these evil paintings. All of those tear-filled little eyes following you as you pass. Honestly, it's like the third act of a horror film for me. But by Halloween day, the Sun has about 2,500 of these things stashed around the office. So the question became, how do we get rid of them before they get rid of us? Well, editor Kelvin McKenzie, who's been spearheading the story from the get-go, has a solution.

An interesting solution. A huge, giant bonfire. And he says he's going to do it on the roof of the paper's London offices, no less. Now, to me, not the best plan, especially because these things seem to be impervious to fire. And duh, when he tries to get the London and Thames fire brigades to supervise, they basically laugh in his face. So McKenzie pivots. Armed with a photographer, a reporter, and a handful of interns, they drive two trucks filled with Crying Boy paintings down to the town of Reading. They build their fire and they start tossing these paintings in one by one.

And then the following day, November 1st, the Sun prints another headline, Sun Nails Curse of the Weeping Boy for Good. Alongside it was a picture of one of those pretty interns in a tiny little outfit tossing a portrait into the bonfire as a fireman watches on. Now, whether or not they actually had any success in burning these things, since many of them had already survived a fire, is for some reason unclear. Still, this just goes to show that the Sun didn't appear to be taking these cursed portraits very seriously. They cared more about turning this into a publicity stunt than actually getting rid of some growing English hex. But to the people who actually owned one, who saw these things swinging from side to side in their home, falling off their walls unprompted, who had lost

a home or even a family member in a fire, The Crying Boy was not a joke. And the only way to understand the why of it all was to learn the history of this painting and the artist who made it. Shortly after the sun washed its hands of the crying boy curse for its next headline of the week, a school teacher named George Mallory supposedly stepped up to the plate. He began with the one clue he had about the portraits, the artist's name, Giovanni Bregolin. Now, George was by no means the first person to poke around for Bregolin, but he was the first successful one.

Ever since the news about the Crying Boy painting broke, people had been trying to uncover the artist's identity with no luck. But that's because Giovanni Bregolin was a pseudonym. George traced Bregolin back to a post-World War II Madrid and found that his real name was Bruno Amadio, and supposedly he was still alive. As the story goes, George actually met with Bruno,

and when he asked the painter about his subject, Bruno spilled the tea. Here's what he supposedly said. The little boy in the paintings was an orphan that Bruno met on the streets of Madrid back in 1969. But apparently there was something about this kid that Bruno just couldn't get out of his mind. His soulful eyes. They haunt Bruno in a way that makes him think that I have to get this feeling down on a canvas. So the next time Bruno sees this little boy, he sits him down for a portrait. Then presumably another and another.

Now the boy doesn't speak, but he's been seen with this Catholic priest before. So Bruno goes to him to get the scoop on this kid. He learns this boy's name is Don Bonillo, and he ran away from home after both of his parents died, in a tragic fire. Apparently, the priest gave Bruno a warning. Stay away from that little boy, because wherever he goes, fire breaks out without explanation, which is how Don got his nickname amongst the locals. They called him Diablo. Now, Bruno finds this ridiculous. The little boy seems sweet, cooperative.

He sits for those portraits and doesn't appear to complain, just cries sometimes, apparently. So Bruno doesn't just keep working with him. He adopts him. But then one day, Bruno arrives at his studio to find the entire place up in flames, just as the priest had warned. Bruno scolds Don and blames him for the whole thing, so Don runs away in tears, and Bruno never sees him again. After that, Bruno said he experienced even more bad luck. No one would buy his paintings for a very long time. He became a starving artist, at least until some department store got their hands on his work and mass-produced them for all of England.

So things seemed to eventually turn around for Bruno. But not for Don. In 1976, a car crashed into a wall outside Barcelona and exploded. The driver was allegedly found dead inside, burned beyond recognition. And the driver's license, which was sitting in the glove compartment, was legible. It belonged to 19-year-old Don Bonillo. This account was published in a book of spooky stories from 2000 called Haunted Liverpool, and if it's true, then it explains a heck of a lot. But there are some people who say that they couldn't find George Mallory when they went back to confirm this story or interview him further. So do with this information what you

will. I guess a few art historians took up the case after the book was published and tried to track down Bruno too. They did confirm that Bruno worked under the pseudonym Giovanni Bragolin, that he was an academically trained Spanish-born painter who worked in Venice before moving back to Spain,

and that he was painting in the town of Padua, Italy until he died on September 22nd, 1981. But if that date is accurate, then it means George Mallory, if he does exist, probably didn't meet with Bruno in person since the son story didn't run until after he died, which would explain why Amadio, Bragolin, whatever you want to call him, never came forward to debunk claims of this cursed portrait in the first place.

But even if he was aware that these paintings and his subject carried some sort of bad omen, would he be shouting it from the rooftops? I probably wouldn't. As I mentioned before, I truly do think superstitions are something to be considered. That there's something ingrained inside of us that we can't explain that screams danger, unknown forces at work. But let's put a pin in that for a second. Because when we come back, I have two friends I want you to meet. And I want to get their take on this as well. So listen, I love this show and I love every single one of you who listens and I want to make So Supernatural so big together. So after hyping up this surprise that I have for you all, I am finally ready to share it. The secret is,

even though you'll still hear my voice every week, I actually have two storytellers who some of you may recognize if you've listened to their multiple other true crime podcasts previously. And they're going to take the wheel and guide you through some of the spookiest, most head-scratching, bizarre stories every single week. And I think they're going to share these stories in a way that you all are going to love. They are literal sisters and absolute powerhouses. Let me introduce you to Rasha Pecoraro and Yvette Gentile. Hi, ladies.

Oh, my God. I cannot tell you how excited we are. We are just literally over the moon, can't contain ourselves that we get to go on this journey with you beyond, beyond honored to be a part of So Supernatural. Sorry. Thank you. My sister took my words right out of my mouth. She does that all the time. But thank you, Ashley, truly. I'm so excited.

And you guys, secretly, they have both been here listening to this case from the beginning because, like you, they're so into this stuff. And what I think is so cool about this case is that it touches on a pretty culturally widespread superstition. Like in some cultures, people think art can predict the future or be some kind of bad omen. I mean, I've also heard theories that someone's soul can, people hang and worship portraits of their ancestors on their walls because they believe they have protective powers, which we totally believe in Hawaii. And also in Tibetan Buddhism, they actually believe paintings have curative properties, like alleviating stress and stuff. They use them as part of their meditation.

And personally, I've always felt like the Buddhists have a lot of stuff figured out that we just don't. And maybe we can just add haunted portraits to that list now. I love it. So, but I actually want to ask you guys about this specific painting because, I mean, you've seen the picture now. Yep. Yep. Would you hang it in your house? That's a big no. Hard no. Yeah. Yeah, right? Yeah. It's creepy. It's sad. It's all the things things I would not want this in my home. It doesn't even match my decor. And for me, I'm going to say absolutely not. There is no way possible that I would ever put this in my house. But the thing about it is, is like art speaks to people in so many different ways. So what we absolutely wouldn't hang, someone else is drawn to it. That's the crazy thing.

But you guys, the mystery here is what compelled the UK department stores to mass produce this thing in the first place. I know, I know, right? Like someone actually thought this is something that thousands of people are gonna wanna own and put up on their wall. And the shocking part is, is that they did. But why?

Well, this is why or at least another reason why I do think that there's something supernatural going on with this portrait, because a lot of the people who reported owning this thing said that they like they couldn't put their finger on why they wanted it in the first place. But like they were compelled to buy it or there was something, like, drawing them to it. And, in fact, when the son offered to take them off people's hands, there actually were a few who said they had developed this strange emotional connection with the child in the portrait. And they couldn't bring themselves to part with it. I mean, call me quirky or weird, but I kind of see it. Like, maybe there was something about the little boy's sad face that just drew them in. Like, they needed to protect him from

something. Yeah, but I mean, like, in the end, they're the ones who end up needing protection. But look, listen, there are a few things that I realized about this cursed portrait as I looked a little bit deeper. Because it turns out that the Crying Boy portraits were part of actually a series, meaning that there wasn't just one kid. Apparently, Bruno painted a bunch of different children, so it wasn't like the same one that was always found in the house fires, I realized. And then I learned that some of them

weren't even painted by Bruno at all. They were actually part of another series called Childhood by a Scottish artist. And that artist was named Anna Zinkaisen. Okay, I mean, so there goes the Don Bonillo and the Little Diablo theory. I mean, clearly, that doesn't explain all of the cases. And the number one question is, did they ever find out what caused them? So yes, kind of.

According to Alan Wilkinson, the Rotherham Fire Station manager who worked with Peter Hall said that in every case of a crying boy fire, they seemed to find the cause. And usually it was human carelessness, like kitchen fires, some sort of electrical fault. But what he couldn't necessarily explain, though, was how these portraits managed to be one of the only things to survive the flames. I think that's the part that freaks me out the most. Imagine everything in your entire home is gone, reduced to just cinders. And when you tread back through the ash, the only thing left staring up at you is that little boy's face. I mean, I'm telling everyone I was cursed too if that happened to me. What else are you supposed to believe? Well, I mean, I think there's a rational theory here, sort of, but I don't know how satisfying it's actually

going to be. So in 2010, this British comedy writer named Steve Punt does his own little kind of tongue-in-cheek investigation. And he sets out looking for a crying boy painting and actually finds two of them. And of course, they're like on eBay of all places. This is crazy, you guys. So I actually looked this up. I looked up Steve Punt. I looked up this whole little thing. And he had this painting.

Stop it. I did. He had this painting on eBay of all places. And he lit it on fire. And do you know that it would not burn? Like it just got a black rim, a very light black rim. And he let the fire go until it actually went out. Crazy. So let me just tell you, eBay should have a warning on stuff like this because that's crazy. So, well, I don't know if this is before or after

he lights it on fire, but I know that he went and took it to a psychic of all places. And he didn't like show her the picture or tell her anything. And actually, she says she doesn't even want to see the painting. She just wants to like read its energy. And from what I understand, it was like wrapped up or something. So without any context, here is what she says, what she comes up with. So she says that the painting is of a child named Thomas. And she says there's not a lot of wealth or love or comfort around this boy.

But she also says that the child was connected to the devil in some way and that he was a fire starter, was misunderstood and didn't have a long life. And in fact, she suspects that he also died in a fire. And the psychic didn't know anything about the painting, right? Is that what you're saying? No, yeah.

Like I said, it was completely wrapped up. And it's not something they could have looked up before. And I mean, I didn't know this story before this one. I don't know what are the odds. You know, never rule anything out. But I think that's wild that that's what they came up with. That's crazy. Crazy.

But I think the important part, so that, you know, the psychic was interesting. But the real important part of Steve's experiment was that he also tried to figure out why these prints never got destroyed in the blaze. So I know that he took some of the portraits down to the building research establishment, and it was basically their job to literally set fire to things and figure out how to prevent it. And so the technical director of fire safety there helps Steve light this thing up with what sounds like a blowtorch, whatever. And while it burns a little, to your point, the flames don't spread. The director says that the only thing he can think of to explain this, and it's worth noting that while he says this, he also says he can't actually prove it. He says that it might be coated in some sort of fire retardant chemical, which makes sense in some cases, I guess. But then you got to wonder, like, what about the situations where everything else in the house burnt to a crisp besides this painting?

Right. Yeah, right. we just mentioned, that Alan Wilkinson guy, he said he was baffled at how the fires could destroy so much and leave this portrait as the only thing untouched. Like in my mind, if whatever's on it can prevent fires, we should be using it everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. On top of that, though, apparently a friend of Wilkinson's owned a copy of the portrait and didn't want it in her house anymore. So she handed it over to him. And as a joke, he brought it to his firehouse station and like mounted it on the wall as, you know, again, tongue in cheek. But literally within a matter of days,

his supervisors came to him and with all seriousness, ordered him to take it down. As they should have. So all this to say, these firefighters weren't impervious to this superstition either. Although there is definitely something

to be said about the Sun's role in all of this, because mass hysteria is no joke. So you have to wonder how many people wouldn't have thought twice about the portrait's role in their misfortune had the Sun not made that connection. But then again, it's one thing to stir up panic to sell a few papers. It's another to believe it for yourself. Which apparently happened with Kelvin McKenzie, the editor at The Sun, because he also refused to hang one in his office after the story stopped running. And still, the superstitions around the portrait prevail.

As recently as 2010, another house caught fire in Rotherham. The owner of that home, a man named Stan Jones, says this was the third time it happened. And the crying boy painting he paid two pounds for at a flea market managed to survive the fire every single time. So that is the story of the crying boy portraits i am so glad that i finally got to share my little secret with all of you guys i can't say enough how excited i am to bring so supernatural back rasha yvette i know this show is going to be in the best hands with you both at the mic well mahalo nui loa, Ashley. That means thank you very much. We are from Hawaii, so you'll always hear little Hawaiian antidotes through the show. And we are so honored to be taking over So Supernatural, but not really. We're all still

together. Yes. I just have to tell you, I had a dream the other night and we have so supernatural, like it's embedded in our DNA because our mom believed in the magic. She believed in the mystical. She believed in the unknown. She was that Nancy Drew looking for, you know, the ghost and this and that. So like I have chicken skin again every time I say it, but we are so supernatural. Yeah. And I, you know, a lot of people might not know your history. And I actually, like, want to leave it a little bit of a mystery.

And if our listeners want to know more, they can go follow us. We now have an Instagram, so supernaturalpod. And I think they should go there and learn a little bit more about you. Because not only are you both such incredible storytellers, but you do have a very unique perspective on everything from true crime to the unexplained. So, I mean, I really couldn't have chosen two better people to join me on this adventure. And look, I will come to you all and say hi each week, but they are going to be your guides through the spooky and the sinister and everything

supernatural from here on out. But before I fully pass the baton, join all three of us again next week. We're going to dive deep into a whole new episode of So Supernatural. This is So Supernatural, an Audiochuck original produced by Crime House. And be sure to connect with us on Instagram at sosupernaturalpod. And you can visit our website, sosupernaturalpodcast.com. We will be back next Friday with a brand new episode. So what do you think, Chuck?

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