So Supernatural - THE UNKNOWN: The Hex Hollow Murder

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

In 1928, a Pennsylvania faith healer was accused of placing a hex on multiple people in York county, leading to his brutal murder. But the events that followed his death convinced people he was actually practicing black magic. 

You know that feeling you get when things just aren't going your way? Your car won't start, you're late to a meeting, you spill coffee on your way to work? You might blame those things on, say, karma or mercury in retrograde or just bad luck. But if you lived in 1900s Pennsylvania, there'd be a different explanation. You might think you'd been cursed by the dark arts. Obviously, that sounds a little wild. And even if it was the answer, most people wouldn't do anything about it, much less break into someone's home and murder them in cold blood. But in 1928, John Blymeier was willing to do all of those things just to lift a curse.

And according to him, it actually worked. This is Supernatural. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. This week's episode is about the Hex Hollow murder. In 1928, a Pennsylvania faith healer named Nelson Ramire was accused of placing a curse, or a hex, on multiple people. One of his alleged victims took it upon himself to break the hex, but the events that followed only seemed to confirm that Nelson had been dabbling in the dark arts. We'll have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. If you take a drive through the winding, desolate streets of Hex Hollow, Pennsylvania, I can almost guarantee you'll get this haunting chill down your spine.

Hex Hollow lies in a heavily wooded area of York County, Pennsylvania. It has these centuries-old farmhouses that give off this eerie vibe, like something sinister happened there. Because, well, it did. The story starts before the Great Depression in the year 1900. The American dream is alive and well, the economy is chugging along, and agriculture is prospering. Pennsylvania itself is kind of this fresh land of opportunity, and German settlers are flocking to York County, hoping to grab a piece of the pie. One of these is the Blymeyer family. They settle down in York County about a 20-minute drive north of Hex Hollow.

But they're not making a living off of potatoes or corn like most of their neighbors. The Blymeyers are in the business of magic. The father, a guy named Emanuel Blymeyer, practices a form of Pennsylvania German folk magic known as powwow. It's this combination of rituals, medicinal potions, and Christian prayers that are meant to do good. So say someone's farm isn't producing enough crops or they come down with the flu. They could go to a powwow healer like Emanuel for help. He'd suggest maybe a ceremony or he'd bless an object that could help fix the problem. That might sound niche, but America as a whole is pretty open to spiritualism

at this time, and an estimated half of York County believes in witchcraft and hexes, which is basically the power of witches to cure people. As far as they're concerned, powwow is just as real as any medical treatment, provided it's done right. In the year 1900, Emanuel's five-year-old son John comes down with a mysterious illness. And no matter how many spells Emanuel performs, nothing seems to help. John just keeps getting sicker. Eventually, they contact another powwow healer in the area, a family friend that they've known for years, and after that visit, John's illness just disappears. This experience has a powerful effect on John, and as he grows up, he becomes almost obsessed with powwow, until finally he learns he's actually pretty good at it. At this point, he's a teenager

with a job at a local cigar factory. One evening, John and some co-workers are leaving work when they're confronted by a rabid dog. His friends are frozen with fear, but John approaches the dog. He places a gentle hand on its face and whispers an incantation. Like magic, the dog's mouth stops foaming and he just calms down. It even follows John home that night. And the next day, his buddies can't stop talking about his incredible powers. Then in 1912, around the time John turns 17, he gets sick again. He has these excruciating headaches that won't go away. He can't sleep, he loses a ton of weight, and supposedly his powers just vanish. John's mood is also off. When he's not

depressed, he's completely paranoid and twitchy, but he can't pinpoint what's wrong until it dawns on him. This must be some sort of hex. In the meantime, things start to turn around. At age 22, John marries a woman named Lily, and their relationship seems to have a positive effect on him. John's putting weight back on, he's sleeping soundly, and he even gets a have a positive effect on him. John's putting weight back on, he's sleeping soundly, and he even gets a new job at a lumber mill. Even his powwow

abilities seem to return. Until tragedy sets in. John and Lily give birth to their first child, but five weeks later, the baby dies of some unreported illness. So they try again, but their second child passes away after a premature birth. The whole thing is really heartbreaking. Naturally, John is traumatized and his life starts spiraling out of control again. He loses his new job, his marriage is on the rocks, and John has this nagging feeling that the hex has returned. So he decides to visit a local woman named Nellie Knoll, also known as the River Witch of Marietta. Nellie practices powwow magic, but she dabbles in the dark arts too. So if anyone's going to help John figure out who cursed him, he figures it's gotta be her. One visit costs him anywhere from $15 to

$75 in today's cash. And John has to go to her a few times to get all of the information. So it's not super cheap. At first, she only confirms John is indeed cursed. During his next visit, she says the curse was performed by a man. The following time, she says it's an old man. And on his next visit, she tells John that the old man lives in the country. Finally, Nellie reveals that John has known this man since childhood. John's racking his brain, trying to figure out who this old man in the country could be, but he's got nothing. So he pays for another session, and finally, the witch reveals the man's name. It's a local powwow healer from Hex Hollow named Nelson Raymeier, the same man who healed John when he was five years old.

So a little background on Nelson. He's 60 years old, and unlike John's family, the Blymeiers, he isn't a powwow practitioner by trade. For Nelson, it's more of a hobby, the only thing that breaks him out of his shell, because most of the time, he's a pretty reserved guy. Some would even call him a recluse. His main source of income is from his potato farm. It produces more than enough to support him, his wife Alice, and their two preteen daughters. So Nelson doesn't need to make money from his powwow side hustle. He just enjoys helping people. And compared to the Blymeyers, Nelson's kind of the best in all of York County,

hence why John saw him when he was so sick. When the witch tells John that Nelson is the guy who hexed him, he's in total disbelief. For one, Nelson's only known to practice good magic, meaning he only uses it to help people. Not to mention, the two families have known each other for decades. It just doesn't make sense that Nelson would wish John harm, but the River Witch has a spell to prove it. She tells John to take a dollar bill from his pocket and put the side with the portrait face down on his palm. When John looks at it again,

George Washington's portrait will disappear and the face of his hexer will replace it. John follows these instructions, and when he turns the dollar bill over, sure enough, there is the smirking face of Nelson Ramire staring back at him. Suddenly, it all clicks for John, and not just for himself. He thinks, wait a second, maybe Nelson Raymeier has been duping the entire town for years. Maybe he isn't a good magic practitioner at all. Maybe he's studying the dark arts. And if so, he is a threat to the entire community. Coming up, John tries to break the curse. Now back to the story.

When John realizes he's been hexed by Nelson, he asks the River Witch how he can undo the curse. She tells John he'll need to get two things and bury them six feet underground. The first is a lock of Nelson's hair, and the second is a book Nelson owns. But it's not just any book. It's a spell book that guarantees protection. It's called The Long Lost Friend. The first few pages read, quote, Whoever carries this book with him is safe from all his enemies, visible or invisible, and whoever has this book with him cannot die without the holy corpse of Jesus Christ, nor drown in any water, nor burn up in any fire, nor can any unjust sentence be passed upon him, so help me. So it makes sense why the witch recommends getting this book out of Nelson's hands.

For whatever reason, John feels like he can't pull off this heist on his own, so he recruits the help of a friend named John Curry. Curry is barely 14, so that's 20 years younger than John, so it seems a little bit, I don't know, strange? But apparently he shares a common interest because Curry's also sure that he's been hexed. Allegedly, he comes from an abusive home, but he doesn't blame that on alcohol or bad tempers. No, Curry thinks some malevolent force has taken over his family. Like, I wasn't kidding when I said everyone in York County believes witchcraft is the crux of their issues. Luckily, John has the answer. It's Nelson Raymeier. He's gone and hexed all of York County. Once Curry hears this, he's on board. So on the evening of November 26, 1928, the two take off for Nelson's home.

Unfortunately, this whole thing couldn't have come at a worse time for Nelson. His wife Alice has left him. Apparently, she was so sick of people coming to their house at all hours of the night for help that she told Nelson enough was enough. She took their two daughters and moved into another house a mile down the road. But that evening, trouble still finds its way to her doorstep. Apparently, both Johns stop at Alice's house first. I'm not sure why. I mean, it's possible that they heard Nelson's family had moved and maybe they didn't realize that he hadn't gone with them. But either way, Alice answers the door and tells the boys that Nelson's at their old house just a mile down the road.

So both Johns leave and they head down the dark wooded street to Nelson's property. They knock on the door and Nelson lets them inside. No questions asked. He pours them a drink. They spend the next few hours catching up in his kitchen. They're chatting about powwow, farming, town gossip, you name it. But it's kind of creepy because the whole time, John is scanning the room, plotting his next move.

Before they know it, it's like one in the morning. Nelson tells the boys he's got an extra bed if they want to spend the night, and both of them take him up on the offer. Now, they have this perfect opportunity to snoop around for the book. I mean, they could maybe even snip a lock of Nelson's hair if they tried. But weirdly, they do none of that. Instead, they wake up the next morning, Nelson makes them breakfast, and they go on their merry way. When John Curry asked John Blymeier why they didn't make a move, he says that the timing

wasn't right because they're going to need to use force. Apparently, Nelson is a huge man. Like, he's over six feet tall and a pretty well-built guy. So John realizes if Nelson were to fight back, they wouldn't stand a chance. So he says that they need another accomplice, and he has the perfect person in mind. That same afternoon, they visit the home of Milton and Alice Hess, a local farming family who for years had a really prosperous business, until 1926 when their crops stopped growing and their cows stopped producing. So for the last two years, the Hesses, like everyone else in York County, believe that they too have been hexed. It doesn't take much for John to

convince them that Nelson is to blame. All they need is a little extra manpower. So the Hesses offer up their 18-year-old son, Wilbert, and in the cover of night, the three of them return to Hex Hollow. It's around 1130 in the evening on November 27th when they knock on Nelson's door again. He opens his blinds and sees that both Johns have returned. This time, Nelson does ask what they need. After all, their arrival is way later than last time. They casually yell up that they forgot something. And Nelson says something like, okay, yeah, you can come in, of course, but make it quick. And then he unlocks the front door. This time, they kind of force

their way inside, past Nelson, and they start tearing through his house, looking for his copy of Long Lost Friend. Nelson's gotta be suspicious at this point, but for some reason, he doesn't do anything about it. Instead, he just makes his way into the kitchen and puts some wood in the stove. As soon as Nelson turns his back, John orders the other two to grab him. They wrestle Nelson to the ground and tie his hands and legs together, hoping to snip a lock of his hair. But Nelson is putting up a pretty good fight until eventually John Curry gets up, grabs a piece of wood from the fire, and hits Nelson so hard in the head that it actually breaks his skull. The three men hover over him, wondering, is he dead? Is it over? But then they notice he's still breathing. This makes John's

skin crawl. Like how can this guy still be alive? That's when the men take a rope and wrap it around Nelson's neck. They tighten the noose until, the color leaves Nelson's face. He has to be dead. Afterwards, the three men rip up Nelson's staircase because supposedly that's where he hides his cash. But they only find a couple of bucks at most, and they never find Nelson's copy of The Long Lost Friend. So just to be sure the curse is lifted, John decides to burn the house to the ground. First, John tells the others to secure all of the windows and doors so that no one can get in or out. Then they pour kerosene on Nelson's body and spark a match. They run

outside and watch as the kitchen starts crackling in flames. Then, suddenly, they spot Nelson through the window. He is up and moving around. John and his friends are so spooked, they hightail it out of there, praying Nelson won't escape the flames. If they're lucky, the entire house and Nelson will be nothing but ash in a few hours. But that's not exactly what happens. The following day, Nelson Raymeier's house is still standing. In fact, it looks practically untouched. It's as if it had been protected by magic.

Coming up, Nelson's case sparks powwow hysteria. Now back to the story. Two days after John and his friends set fire to Nelson's home, one of Nelson's neighbors discovers something unsettling. His name is David Vanover, and he's finishing his Thanksgiving dinner when he overhears Nelson's livestock making a lot of noise. David saunters over to the property where he finds Nelson's animals haven't been fed for days. His mail hasn't been collected either. David's worried, so he grabs another one of their neighbors named Oscar to help him check on Nelson. The two of them strut up to the farmhouse, the same farmhouse that should have been burnt to a crisp two nights earlier. But oddly, there's not enough damage for David to even register that the home had been on fire.

They knock and eventually David and Oscar let themselves inside. Chairs and broken wood are scattered around the kitchen. The walls are singed and the wooden floor has been burnt through to the point where they can see down into Nelson's basement. And lying near the charred hole is Nelson Raymeier's dead body, blackened from the fire. It's clear that foul play was involved, and it doesn't take the police very long to find out who was responsible. As soon as Alice hears about her husband's death, she tells authorities that two men, John Blymeier and John Curry, came to her house looking for her husband on the night of the 26th. The police bring in both men for questioning, and they're super quick to admit to the crime

and to give Wilbert Hess away, too. In both men's opinion, they thought the act was totally justified. Nelson Raymeier was a witch who had hexed multiple people in York County. He deserved this. It's almost like they were expecting to be exonerated. Like, they really believed

that they were the heroes of this story. When it comes time for John Blymeier to take the stand in January 1929, his lawyers argue that he's living with a mental health condition. Instead of prison, what he really needs is to be hospitalized. But John's mental state doesn't explain why so many other people in York County believe in this hex as well. There's Wilbert's parents, Milton and Alice Hess. And Wilbert's brother also implies that he believes in the curse on the witness stand. So does John Blymeier's mother.

As she's leaving the courthouse, she tells reporters that she's positive her son was hexed. And together, they seem to agree that ever since Nelson Ramire died, they all feel liberated somehow. In the end, John Blymeyer is convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. But after receiving his sentence, John turns to his lawyer, and with this bone-chilling sense of pride, he says, quote, Mr. Cohen, the witch is dead. I can eat and sleep in peace now. John Curry is also sentenced to life in prison, and Wilbert Hess is given 10 to 20 years. Meanwhile, outside of York County, the Hex Hollow murder story is spreading like wildfire. Newspapers begin conflating powwow healing with the dark arts, as though they're one in the same.

And the general public is terrified. Even the authorities buy into it. Police departments throughout Pennsylvania start to wonder if every unexplained case has some supernatural reason. Any crime that seems to have been committed by or against a supposed witch is called a hex murder. In March 1929, just four months after Nelson's murder, a 21-year-old woman is found dead in the woods outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Attached to her body are small pieces of paper with spells written on them, spells meant to protect her from murder. An autopsy confirms

that she had ingested a cocktail of poisons voluntarily, and investigators find out she'd been seeing a powwow healer for weeks before her death. But according to the healer, he was treating the woman for eczema. He hadn't given her any of the drugs found in her system. But still, he was arrested and charged with murder. Then, in January 1932, a 31-year-old man named Norman Bechtel is found dead in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He'd been stabbed nine times around his heart, but he also had these bizarre, almost ceremonious crescent-shaped cuts on his face. Detectives learned that Norman grew up in a small town well-versed in powwow magic, so they categorized this death as just another unsolved hex murder.

I mean, this is definitely not great police work, but the most disturbing incident happens in March 1934 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. A 63-year-old powwow healer named Susan Mummy is shot dead in her own home. Her killer is a man named Albert Shinsky, who says the act was in self-defense because supposedly Susan had placed a hex on him years ago. Albert remembered the exact moment it happened. After feuding over property lines, Susan had stared over the fence at him for what seemed like hours. Gradually, Albert felt his arms and legs go numb. It was so debilitating, he claimed he was no longer able to tend to his farm after that day. Then he started to have visions. Albert kept seeing this haunting black cat with glowing eyes lurking around his farm.

Sometimes the cat would come to him in broad daylight. Other times it would attack him while he was sleeping. Eventually, Albert couldn't take it anymore, so he murdered Susan. And like John Blymeier, he claimed he immediately felt at peace. So I know all of this seems a little out there. And honestly, none of it proves whether or not Nelson Raymeyer actually placed a hex on his neighbors or whether he had any powers to begin with. In fact, some people claim that when John Blymeyer was a child, he suffered from a bad case of malnutrition. And since we don't know exactly what Nelson did to help him, it's possible he medically diagnosed the problem and offered a practical solution, which would mean Nelson wasn't so much

magic as he was intuitive. Then there's the whole idea that Nelson was moving around in the flames and the fact that his entire home didn't burn down. At the time, this seemed like evidence that Nelson was channeling some sort of spirit or magic through his house, but there's actually a more logical solution. Author J. Ross McGinnis is an expert on the Hex Hollow murder case. He thinks it's possible that Nelson wasn't strangled to death. He was just unconscious when his body was lit on fire. And what John and his friends saw when they looked back at the house was a desperate Nelson trying to escape a slow and painful death. As for the house itself, Ricky Ebaugh, Nelson's great-grandson, believes it had nothing to do with magic, just pure luck.

Apparently, the positioning of Nelson's body was key. Remember, the fire had burnt a hole directly through the floor leading to the basement. Nelson's body may have been lying over a floor beam keeping him from falling through. So while the flames fell down to the basement, the fluids from Nelson's body dripped down, extinguishing the fire below. As for the rest of the house, there wasn't enough ventilation or cross-breeze to stoke the flames. Since fire needs oxygen to spread, it eventually died out on its own, which is why the house was still standing. So logically, it doesn't seem like magic played a role that night. But Nelson's death might have sparked supernatural activity in other ways. According to multiple sources, the Raymeier house is one of the most haunted locations in America.

Ghost hunters from all over the world come to Hex Hollow hoping to experience a piece of Nelson's magic for themselves. And a few have actually gotten lucky. Some have recorded electronic voice phenomena in the woods around his home. Others say if you throw stones at the house, they'll come hurtling right back. And a few claim they've seen a black dog with glowing red eyes lurking around Nelson's property, a pretty common theme in witchcraft legends. There have even been a few lucky people who claim they've seen the charred ghost

of Nelson Raymeier himself. But knowing Nelson, he's probably just minding his own business. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another episode. To hear more stories hosted by me, check out Crime Junkie and all AudioChuck originals.