This Paranormal Life - El Muerto The Grisly Murder That Created The Headless Horseman Legend

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

If you find yourself in rural south Texas roaming the vast wilderness that borders Mexico — ESPECIALLY if you’re an 1800s cattle rancher — listen for the sound of hooves, because if you hear them you might be about to come face-to-face with the legendary spirit of EL MUERTO. El Muerto is the terrifying legend of a headless horseman in Texas. But unlike other headless horseman legends around the world, El Muerto isn’t just a spirit, it’s a morbid folk tale of a real crime that was committed. Maybe this injustice is why El Muerto is said to haunt Texas to this day… Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get access to weekly bonus episodes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thisparanormallife.com/store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Intro music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.purple-planet.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Research by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ewen Friers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is there a black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy? If I punch myself and it hurts, does that make me strong or weak? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hey! Hello and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast. We're in every Tuesday, Rory and I investigate a different paranormal tale deciding by the end of that episode whether we think it's real. paranormal or not. As always, you're joined by myself, Kit Grimaldvena and this guy, my co-investigator,

Mr. Rory Pars. How are you doing today, Rory? I'm doing great, Kit. You know, we just got back from about three weeks of touring in America. So coming back into the studio we have here in London was kind of like an explorer discovering an ancient tomb. I was like pushing aside cobwebs, dusting off Apple keyboards. Shouldn't be. It was like three weeks max. Yeah, well, we don't pay for a cleaner, all right? And this place has very bad ventilation. Right. I found a spider the size of a donkey living in this place, all right? It can't be. It can't be.

Because the studio itself is the size of a donkey. So it would have to be a spider occupying every square inch of the space itself. It basically was. I thought I was opening the door to the studio. I was climbing inside of a spider's mouth. It was, I thought it was a tunnel. A spider was like, I thought this was a mouse hole. You guys work in here? What the fuck?

is wrong with you. Roy, we don't need to dilly dally at the start of the episode. I've got a huge investigation we need to dive into right here and now. Quick reminder that the best place to support this paranormal life and get a ton of stuff in return is patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. There is hundreds of episodes over there for your listening pleasure. Check it out. Patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life.

Texas 1850 in the wild scrublands west of San Antonio, two Texas Rangers and their helper Flores shuffle along the desert floor on their bellies. After days of tracking, they finally caught up with their target. An outlaw and cattle rustler by the name of Vidal. Vidal, who was wanted, dead or alive, have been stealing cattle and horses from settlements all along the San Antonio River. A few days before, he and his three henchmen had stolen horses from Creed Taylor, one of the Texas Rangers now peering down at Vidal's camp.

This was personal. Why, those dang vermin, I ought to go down there guns blazing and take out Vidal myself. Cool it, Creed. Now I'm as angry as you are, but we got to plan this. I reckons we return at night. With the cover of darkness, we'll have the advantage. A surprise attack tonight, that's the answer. The three men quietly retreated and headed back to Kamp to polish their pistols.

not a euphemism and discuss their plans further and when they returned that night Vidal and his henchmen were fast to sleep around a glowing campfire All righty boys You ready? I'll take left Hell yeah, I'll take right

Great and I'll head back to camp And make sure the coffee's still warm Shut it Flores, ain't no going back now Show no mercy Let's send a message you don't mess with Texas Yeehaw Well don't scream yaha, they're sleeping.

Whoa, they woke up. He gets shot in the neck. You had the complete element of surprise, and you yelled Yehah before you took the shot. In a cloud of smoke and a hail of bullets, the Rangers descended on the sleeping outlaws, and they didn't stand a chance. Before they could get up, they were gunned down without mercy.

The Rangers moved in to survey the scene. Well, that settles it. I'll get my horses and be on my way. Hold it. We ain't done yet. What you mean? They're as dead as George Washington. Where's that swine, Vidal?

Pass me my hunting knife. Wallace crouched down and began savagely hacking at Vidal's corpse. With shocking brutality, he removed Vidal's head. He pulled the headless corpse up onto one of the outlaw's horses and tied the body in an upright position on the saddle. with the hands lashed to the pommel. Oh my God. Next, he hung Vidal's decapitated head and sombrero from the saddle with a strip of rawhide.

This is too far, guys. This is too far. This is where Creed is nudging floor is like, okay, we wait till he looks the other way. Then we hit him over the head with a two by four. He's lost it. Next, he led the horse and its gruesome rider away from the camp. And with a smack and a yell, It's all into the wilderness.

There, let that be a warning to all the damn cattle rustlers out there. It's kind of like when you've got to throw your drunk friend into an Uber on a night out. And their kind of limp body just disappears into the horizon. Right. Yeah. And you're like, Godspeed, brother. Right. You take off your leather belt.

You wrap it round their wrists, tying their hands together so they can't drink any more drinks. Right. You know, you stick them in the cab. You stuff a bottle of water and some parasit. them all in their pockets. And then go, yeah, slap the ass of the Tesla that picked them up. And off it goes. Well, in the following months, cowboys, bandits, and Native Americans would see the headless

Vidal and his horse trekking aimlessly through the wilderness. So I guess the horse was able to kind of keep itself alive, even carrying around the dead weight of its evil former employer. Yeah, that's pretty wild. But people were so scared that the corpse of Vidal would bring bad luck. that they shot at it, the horse approached, and a legend began to circulate that the headless rider would bring misfortune. But eventually, the horse was captured by a posse of local ranchers

at a watering hole near the tiny community of Ben Bolt, just south of Alice, Texas. The withered and dried-up corpse of Vidal, now peppered with bullet holes and arrows, looked more like a piece of jerky, and was removed and at last buried. The horse was finally free. from the ordeal. And by the way, this horse was probably beyond jacked by this point. It had been walking with Vidal on its back for like a month.

It had basically had training weights on like Goku and was now free. Yeah, he was probably so confused. He started to think he was a camel. I like to think the horse didn't even know he was dead. And it's like driving him crazy. It starts off really chill. He's just like, oh, you're a little quiet today. By like day three, he was like, all right, the silent treatment.

All right, I don't know what I didn't deserve this, honestly. Oh, fuck you. No, fuck you actually. Once the body was buried, the ranchers believed that the whole morbid affair was finally over. But not long after, two soldiers were on watch at a local fort in present-day Uvaldi County when they spotted something strange. Ah, what a beautiful night.

Clear desert air, perfect visibility, and a full moon casting just enough light to see exactly what any object is, paranormal or otherwise. Couldn't have put it better myself. In fact, if we saw anything strange out here, the light is so strong and our military credentials so trustworthy that our testimony could be used with complete confidence

and even serve as evidence in any future investigations and podcasts. What's a podcast? There's something moving out there. What the hell is that? It can't be. The legends are true. A horse with a headless rider.

My God, I heard this story. A ranger. strept an outlaw to a horse and sent him into the wilderness. Yeah, but didn't you hear? A posse of ranchers caught that horse a few weeks back and they buried the corpse. The spectral figure of the headless horseman

would return and pass this fort on a number of occasions. With Vidal's corpse firmly in the ground, the soldiers realized this must be the ghost of the beheaded outlaw. They should have killed the horse when they had the chance. They really should have.

I know we said it was nice that they set it free, but only bad things have happened since. This is bad news for any other horses that are implicated in similar scenarios. Like next time an outlaw gets killed, they're going to have to turn to the horse and just be like, look, look, bud. I know you did nothing wrong. Right. But the last time we let a horse go, it kind of started a whole like statewide hunting spree. It was a whole thing. We can't really trust you.

Yeah. And the horse is like, my owner committed tax. I don't think he's going to come back from the grit. Doesn't matter, bud, doesn't matter. Yeah, but we don't know. Like, what if then every time someone's filling out their taxes, you're there. So, like, we can't risk it. We're going to have to break your legs.

Right. This goes for kind of any evil doer that is associated with a creature, you know? If you killed a wizard, you're not going to keep his owl alive, are you? You're going to put your hands around its little neck and strangle it. Because if you let that thing go, that owl is going to start gathering ingredients. for a potion of rejuvenation. Okay? And also, if we're talking about a kind of hypothetical wizarding world,

that owl is probably a 700-year-old man that was turned into an owl via a curse. It's like, he's capable of kind of anything. Yeah, that was another wizard that this wizard turned into an owl the last time they had a duel. It's ugly, but when you lock someone up, you have to turn to their pets and say, whose side are you on? Right. Pledge allegiance, okay? Real quick.

Yeah. Rory, I'm going to show you a kind of artist's interpretation of what we're dealing with here today in just a moment. But this is right off the back kind of a potential strange mashup of a, is this some kind of paranormal entity teaming up with a live horse? Hey, look, this is kind of a paranormal creature that exists a lot in a ton of different cultures, a headless horseman. This may just be the Western kind of version of that figure, that creature, that myth. but it exists in a lot of different cultures including our own Irish culture a creature known as the Doolahan.

Rory, you've beaten me to it, you are potentially an expert paranormal investigator after all. It's worth bringing up. There are several types of headless horsemen from all around the world. We'll have to figure out whether this one is unique or somehow connected to the others.

But sure, why don't we talk about it a little now as well as later? what is the Doolahan? I mean, I honestly don't remember beyond some kind of ghostly figure riding on the back of a horse that the only way you can defeat it is by throwing a bucket of blood over his head.

Right, you don't really remember the details, but you do kind of remember arguably the most important thing, which is how to smite him. Yes, this is what happened in our Irish heritage class growing up. They would try and teach me about the lore and the history of these creatures

and I would say, yeah, yeah, I get it. Now tell me how to kill it. You can skip all. I don't need to know about the tragic history. I don't need to know why it is the way it is or why it only appears on a full moon. Tell me what type of bullet I should load in my gun before I put the barrel in his mouth.

All right? Your biology teacher is like, we're talking about endangered white rhino. There's no reason to kill it. That would be so illegal. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I unfortunately also needed my memory jogged as to the kind of lore and mythos around the Doolahan.

But this is essentially it, a headless horseman, but specifically, apparently, a kind of demonic fairy riding around on horseback. It can be defeated by throwing a bucket of blood in its face. I don't know if back in the day buckets of blood were easier to come by than today, i.e. not very. So I feel like the Doolahans pretty safe on a kind of day-to-day basis. I don't know where I'd get a bucket of blood if I needed one.

Yeah, I'm sure back in the olden days, you could probably just pick it up from the local corner store. Yeah, yeah. Like a gallon of milk, bucket of blood, yeah. It said that the Doolahan was a kind of omen so that he'd be riding around, but then wherever he stopped, he would utter someone's name and that person would drop dead immediately. So some kind of overlap with the Banshee.

That's such a horrible power. Well, Rory, it's not even the most horrible bit, because by far the most badass bit about the Doolahan was the fact that he had a whip. Do you remember this? So unnecessary. If saying someone's name aloud kills them, you don't need a whip. You really don't. Yeah, but I don't need a Gucci belt.

I still want one because it looks hard, okay? You know? And if you're the dula hand, why not carry a whip? Did I mention the whip was made of a human spine? Which I was trying desperately to remember. Isn't that like a finishing move of like a Mortal Kombat character or something? I think it pulls the spine. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's exactly what the Doolahans does. Wow. But look, that's a little tangent into the world of the Doolahan. It's a little early given I haven't fully explored what today's creature in San Antonio, Texas is. But it might help kind of color some of the context around it as we move forward. Okay, Roy, I'm going to show you a picture of what we're dealing with here today. Whoa, okay, this thing's straight out of a comic book.

Well, this one is specifically because this is an artist's interpretation or a drawing, a kind of cartoon. And they're not trying to depict this thing accurately, I think, or give you a representation of what the sightings resembled. This is like a straight up out of a Marvel comic book. It's like the horse is on its back legs. The guy on the back has no head, but he's like, yeah, with a arm in the air. It's a headless horseman, but he's a cowboy. That's kind of whatever picture you're painting in your mind there is kind of what we're dealing with. While sightings of Vidal's headless figure riding through the wilderness continued for years,

travellers and ranchers named the apparition El Muerto, translating to the dead one. Ooh! And encounters have been associated with bad luck, mishaps and negative energy. For some reason, the word mishaps really throws me there because, like, bad luck and negative energy, I'm like, yeah, holy shit. like bad luck, like your friggin' uncle would die in a car crash after seeing El Muerto. Sure. But mishaps sounds like your foot got stuck in a bucket and then you kind of stomped around your kitchen like a clown.

And then you stood on a rake and the rake hit you in the head. Like it sounds like Charlie Chaplin level physical comedy. I mean, the last one just sounds like bad vibes too, which of course you're going to get if you see a dead body riding about on the back of a horse. It's like, yeah, it really ruined the mood. I was actually out on a date with a girl and he showed up and like, yeah, the vibes were just really off from that point on. I was like, of course they're going to be. I was going to say, yeah, like you finally bagged the date with the body that you've been kind of texting, you know, all summer.

You put a couple hours into your look, into the outfit. You got two tickets to the movies to see this great new comedy. You pick her up. El Mwerto is there. El Mwerto is standing outside. She's like, is that your friend? No, he's not my friend. I don't even know who that guy is.

Get out of here, dude. Here's five bucks. She's like, on second thoughts, I think I'm feeling tired. No, El Muerto. El Merto is cackling. The horse is screeching like a demon, and you're like, so what do you do for a living? Yeah, I'm so psyched to see the new naked gun.

Yeah, I've heard really great things. Can you shut up? He's firing off his revolver to the air. You're just like, yeah, I heard that latest Marvel movie was actually pretty good. Almore's like, it isn't. It relies on cameos to cover up the structural narrative problems. You're at the restaurant, you're getting dinner. You're like, I'm just going to head to the restroom for five minutes.

Elmarto leans in You know he's lying about his height on hinge He says he's six foot But he's actually 5-11 at a push He puts platforms in his cowboy boots Now to find out more about this creature We should really look at some of the sightings Because hopefully we have some that are more modern

Than its kind of Genesis And you can find records of many sightings online Including one from 1917 when, quote, a couple traveling by covered wagon to San Diego, Texas, camped for the night outside of town. They would report the next day that as they sat by the campfire, a large gray stallion sped by with a headless man shouting, quote, it is mine, it is all mine.

What? Loving that for him, kind of just stereotypical evil movie villain, kind of catchphrases. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that would refer to, but I guess he was in life a thief. Right, just kind of a greedy criminal. So, yeah, that checks out.

It is said that sightings are often accompanied by the sound of galloping hooves or blood-curdling cries. In 1969, a driver was startled when he saw a headless rider galloping alongside his car just outside of Freer. While it was reported to the authorities and an investigation was carried out, no conclusive evidence could be found. But you start to get a sense of how El Muerto lives on in folk memory through Texas

when you look at location names like Headless Horseman Hill. Okay, yeah. I can see a pretty subtle nod, yeah. Yeah, good place to start looking for evidence, I feel like. It's also a good way to kind of guarantee that the paranormal creature might, show up, you know, if you just name a place after him. Like, if we called a forest, like, Bigfoot Woods, you'd probably be like, oh, shit, okay, well, they got a spot for me. Nice. All right. Let me check it out. Yeah. When you think about it, there's such a fine line between

naming somewhere to, like, commemorate some kind of f***ed up disaster. Yeah. Versus naming it to honor someone in life. You know, like if you donated, if you Rory donated, you know, 10 million quid to the Tate Gallery in London, they'll name like a wing of the museum after you. They'll call it like the Rory Wing, you know, the Rory Gallery, the whatever it is. They'll pretty much whatever you want. And you could actually arguably come up with something funnier than that,

that they would kind of have to name it. Yeah, if you just got the cash. If you got the cash. So I see what you're saying, you know, they might have gone to name this thing being like kind of like a beware. This is some shit you might see if you hang out of this hill ahead. headless horseman. El Muerto is like, what an honor. I am so grateful to be awarded the key to the city. They're like, holy shit, there he is. Trap him. Trap him and bury him. Yeah, exactly.

They accidentally honored his legacy. You know, I will say you got to be careful sometimes. The names don't always line up with what you think because I recently in America wanted to visit an owl sanctuary. So I went to the nearest Hooters I could find. and it was not what I thought it was. Yeah. You find some birds all right. Find some birds. Rare ones too, but not the kind you were looking for.

Rory's talking to a waitress with double D's and he's like, so did you study biology or zoology at college, ma'am? I'm so confused. Yeah, the waitress walks over and is like, can I interest you and some chicken? And I'm like, I really did come here for owls. She's like, we don't have owls. Well, this is false advertising.

There's an owl in this logo, isn't there? Shirley? That is your name, isn't it? Shirley? No, Megan. Okay, Megan. But look, in the search for kind of more modern sightings of El Mwerto or similar headless horsemen, things got more modern than I was actually expecting.

In 2022, a short film. Based on the story of El Muerto was written and directed by Alcario Cari Cadena. And maybe, predictably, some of the crew working on the film, quote, claimed to have experienced paranormal phenomena, unexplained voices and signs, while shooting the film near historical sites in San Patricio County. All right, haunted film sets. We've heard this before. We have.

Can I ask what the film was about? I do think that is important. El Muerto. it was about him? Yes, I think the movie might have been called homework. Okay. And it's crazy. They think they saw him on set.

No, no, no. I don't want anyone to start connecting the fact that this is a bit like the Patterson footage where when people don't know about the Patterson Gimlin footage is that they were shooting a movie about Bigfoot when Bigfoot turned up on set. This is exactly what's happening. This is exactly. But it went on to become the most famous footage. of Bigfoot ever and has never technically been disproven so hopefully the same show happens here. Some of the cast in this film say that an actor disappeared into costume and makeup and re-emerged

as Al Muerre himself. It wasn't that long ago. I was watching a cold play live. They were doing a concert. It was live streamed. Maybe it was Glastonbury a couple of years ago. I was watching it with some friends. And we roasted one friend who will remain nameless to oblivion because at one point in Coldplay set for a while, they had these like giant kind of dead mouse style heads. Sure. Right. They would put on these kind of costumes halfway through the show and like halfway through the concert. Chris Martin and all the other guys like put on these crazy heads and then they like keep playing guitar and like dancing and singing or whatever. And one of our friends who was in the room was just like, where'd the f*** play go?

Is the concert over? Like, where did they go? We're like, are you a baby? Are you, you don't have a sense of like object permanence? They like put on a head and he was like, what the fuck just happened? Where did Chris Martin go? They're saying, he's just wearing a helmet, dude. That might have been what happened on set here.

Sure, even though they were on location shooting a movie about El Merto. As soon as El Merto came on set, they were like, holy fuck he's here. ear. Yeah. I mean, you have to understand that I'm going to be skeptical of this citing if it was on a film set about him where there's presumably an actor dressed as him. Well, Rory, why don't you keep your mind open for once, you pessimistic, f*** and listen to what the director had to say about what they experienced and then you will know from there whether you think this is real or not. Okay. The director Alcario said, quote,

The film was shot in only nine hours. Jesus, short movie. Wow. And in those nine hours, we experienced three different paranormal activities. We experienced an EVP that is a, Roy, do you know what this is an acronym for? Electronic Voice Phenomena. Very good. Ding.

He said with a male voice who answered, no. A moment after our actor, answered no on screen. What? So El Merto repeated. He was just miced. The man was miced up? Or was it?

Was it? Was it? We don't know that. What are you talking about? Let me finish. Let me finish. This is not going well. We pointed the camera to a guy dressed as El Merto,

and El Merto appeared on the monitors. Oh. Oh! That's the best scared man noise, by the way. Whoa! Moving on, all right, because there's two more paranormal phenomenon. If you didn't like that one. Okay, paranormal phenomenon number two.

He said, also, some boots were walking upstairs when everyone was downstairs. Okay, what, literally what are you talking about? The boots came to life and he saw them walking? Like, f***ed, bed and broomsticks? They just heard footsteps. footsteps. That's another way to worry. No one was upstairs, you know?

Okay. Like, you can picture it, right? It's like, dumb, dumb, dumb. And they're like, God damn it, is that the third AD walking around in the attic again? I told him to Greg? Greg, the third AD, is already there downstairs. Okay. All right.

Paranormal phenomenon number three. Let's see if this. tickles your fancy. Okay, he continues. And later, in the dark, a voice called out to three of us on a country road. The voice asked, what are y'all doing? That's pretty crazy, bro. That is kind of nuts when you think about it. Like, so he's like learned to speak more modern over the years, kind of? So in their nine-hour film shoot, they didn't even see him. Well, they didn't see him, but they heard him thrice. At one point you said they heard boots.

Isn't he on a horse? Isn't that the whole point? He's on a fucking horse? Yeah, but he's still, they cut off his head, not his feet, dude. He can walk. So he dismounts. He does. Because that would be the first time we've heard this.

Well, you said yourself, and I think everyone will remember, the horse was on two legs in one of the pictures. Is the horse wearing the boots? Okay, we have to move on. I insist we move on. Really? Was the horse wearing boots?

I'm just saying if you're going to, hey, ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. Alcario finished. If you're ever in San Patricio City, Texas, stop by the museum and courthouse for a few minutes. You are guaranteed to experience the paranormal. That's a pretty cool, like, tourist slogan. Yeah, but I don't know if I necessarily trust this person with judging what is and isn't paranormal. Yeah, you think as the director of kind of a small to medium budget short film, shooting for nine hours straight, kind of having to condense the entire film shoot into one day, he might have just simply been like sleep deprived or something. Yeah.

Hearing weird stuff. I think that's beyond small budget film. That is a music video. More than fair. Well, Rory wasn't fully won over, but that particular set of kind of eyewitness accounts. or ear witness accounts, I should really say. Yeah, because I didn't see it. I'm very disappointed as well because when you said it was a film crew,

immediately my head goes, bing, cameras everywhere. We are able to capture this thing. These guys are essentially witnesses. They're the perfect witnesses. And they heard boots. Yeah, but it's not a goat, you know. Not great. You're the film expert, right?

You get it. You know, you're shooting on film sets, you know, highly controlled. This isn't a ghost hunting show where there's 1,600 cameras monitoring the building. There's one very expensive camera that rolls for 30 seconds at a time. You know, it's not a given they're going to catch this thing on 70 mil Dolby Atmos, you know. That's true. That's true. I have dug myself a hole I cannot climb out of. So Rory did bring up earlier that it is worth mentioning that anyone who's seen Sleepy Hollow knows

that the Headless Horseman is a motif well-known across popular fiction. But interestingly, the Sleepy Hollow legend comes from the complete opposite side of America and from a totally different time period. And as it turns out, the Headless Horseman character has been present all the way back through European folklore since the Middle Ages, from Germanic to Dutch to Norse and English folklore. Different variations of the Headless Horseman theme exist all the way through to the Doolahan. in Ireland. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that it originates from a time where there were a lot more men

riding, a lot more horses. Right, that's a little giveaway for when the legend might have come from. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the headless horseman of 2025 is just a waymo driving itself around San Francisco. A car with no driver? Yeah, I want to know if nowadays the paranormal rule has had to adapt, where, you know, if I die, would I be riding on the back of my family cat, Princess Diamond?

Why the fuck would that happen? You know, because I don't have a horse. So they're like, sorry, Princess Diamond. You got to carry this dead son of a bitch. Right. Yeah, but it's not World of Warcraft. You don't need a mount. You don't need an animal to be your vehicle in the next life, I don't think.

Apparently these guys do. They're coming back and they can't do it by themselves. You know, you're forgetting the mechanics. of why Vidal ended up on horseback, which was he died on his feet, which is how they say is a good way to die, better than on your knees, so I've heard. But it was because he was then in death strapped to the horse to kind of wander the earth for eternity. All I'm saying is, if you're close to death, get rid of your hamster. If you don't want that little guy carrying your body around for eternity. That's all I'm going to say. Right. Well, you know, maybe the

ancient Egyptians were onto something because I seemed to kind of remember that. That like, wasn't it in ancient Egyptian times? If you died, they killed all your things. Yeah. Like if you had a cat, they were like, sorry, bud. Sling, if you had a borderline personal assistant, they kind of clubbed him over the head and put him in the grave with you too. Yeah, they're like, he's really going to need a personal assistant in the afterlife.

Yeah, that was the logic. Like, whatever you needed, they put in there. Crazy. Crazy. So we did talk a little bit about the Doolahan and that version of the Headless Horseman folklore. I was about to say myth. It's not a myth. It's very real. But I would be remiss if we also didn't bring up

the Headless Horseman of Scotland. Because in the Scottish version, the Horseman is the reanimated corpse of a Klansman who is decapitated at a battle on the Isle of Mull. But worryingly, we have his name. And his name is Ewan. Whoa. Same name as Researcher Ewan.

spelt the same way, which is not a, not maybe the most common spelling. So the headless Ewan roams the land mourning his fate. And similar to the Doolahan, seeing this thing can foretell a death in the witness's family. So genuinely worrying that researcher Ewan is a cryptid? I mean, it makes sense that these guys are bringing bad news, isn't it? If I saw any kind of skeleton man riding on the back of a ghost horse, I'm not going to be like, is it good news? You know, I know it's bad. I know you're here to tell me something made great.

You know, he arrives at your door. You see, oh, my goodness. He can't say anything, obviously. He silently reaches into a side bag and hands you a blood-soaked letter. Great. You're like, oh, no. You open it, and it's like, doge coin to the moon. And you're like, really?

You're just giving me, like, crypto tips? He's nodding his neck. He doesn't even have a head. He gives you a thumbs up, rides off into the night. I mean, you would probably go broke anyway, so I think that is bad news. So still. Bray, he just, I like the idea that he could be delivering good news. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who knows? Maybe there's some people out there that the bad news is good news. They're like, hey, your uncle Mike is going to die tonight. And you're like, oh, Mike, chaching, that guy was a dick and he was loaded. And I'm in the will. Perfect. Right.

Thank you, Doolahan. That feels like a trick because he's like outed you then as a bad person. All right. It was your Uncle Mike just on a horse with a skeleton mask. Aha! I knew you hated me. You're out of the will. No!

God damn it. I'm sorry, Uncle Mike. Where did you get a human spine whip? All right, Rory. Well, at the end of every episode of this paranormal life, we do have to seriously discuss whether we think something is real or not. We've talked a little about El Muerto. We've also talked about kind of the other similar traditions from Europe.

What do you think is going on here? Is this kind of just a European folk tale that's been imported to the new world when people arrived from Europe on boats? Or is there something more concrete and more potentially paranormal going on in Texas? I like this concept of like a headless horseman. I think it's cool that it appears so many times in so many different places and so many different cultures. I don't think this will be the last time we cover it.

I think we probably could do an in-depth investigation into the Doolahan or the guy from Sleepy Hollow or whatever those specific cases are. It feels like today we maybe picked the worst one. No, that's not true. That is not true. Unless there's more evidence other than the possibility of a... What did you say? a horse on its back legs wearing cowboy boots walking down with steps.

You asked me a dumb question. And so I scrambled. I panicked in the moment to provide an answer. You said, could the horse be wearing the boots? Which is technically possible because it's a ghost horse. Anything is possible. So this is a tough one today. I'm sorry, do you think the Doolahan?

Do you think if we investigate the Doolahan, you're going to get 22 eyewitness test. testimony, sorry, ear witness testimony? No, not that recent. Well, actually, I don't know. I don't know. We investigated the banshees and there were some pretty, we're not.

There were some pretty modern stuff there. I don't think that's true. Yeah, but the banshee doesn't count because it's just, you just hear someone screaming. Nine times out of ten, it's just foxes banging each other outside. What I brought you was a movie crew who all swore on no cap that they heard El Muerto.

They heard just a man say the word no. That's what it was. he said, what are y'all doing? Okay. Which, again, wouldn't be something El Merto would say, I don't think. He probably would. I think he'd say, give me the camera. He's just...

Now, I'm thinking about it. El Merto shouldn't say anything because he doesn't have a head. He's kind of arguably... Evp is the one piece of evidence we don't want from El Murto. So, I didn't really think about that. I wish I hadn't said that. fact. But hey, you have to give it to the story

that I think, I mean, we haven't investigated those other stories too in depth, but I think the origin story for El Merto is arguably the coolest of the bunch. It's pretty cool. I like the idea that he was a son of a bitch outlaw

that was murdered and then strapped to his horse doomed to wander. Because it's giving not just ghost, but ghost ship. Yeah. This is kind of the, we've covered a lot of ghost ship stories over the years,

and that's kind of how they work. It's like a crew is killed or whatever, and then their vehicle. The thing they were in at time of death just then wanders the earth and is spotted time and again. Hey, I'll say it right now on this podcast. When I inevitably die from suffocation at a hot dog eating contest, I want you to strap me to the back of my motorbike

and just set that thing to full speed and let me go. It's just go straight into a lamp post. Explodes into their pieces. Goes 80 miles an hour into an old folks home and detonates. You're like, great. Now we got to strap all them to their scooters and set them free. Yeah. What's the pet version of this?

Yeah, your hamster dies and you sellotape them to a Roomba. It just, it only goes for like 45 minutes. The battery isn't even that good. Yeah, this is a tough one. Again, I like the origin story. That's what we always say. In a paranormal case like this, what we want is a good origin story. And this one is as strong as it gets.

Why is he headless and on a horse? It's because they cut off his head and put him on a horse. Weird to have a sighting in 2022, because that means the horse died at some point and is also now a ghost. Yeah. Which I don't know how that happens. Would the horse not have to then die and ride on the back of a donkey or something? What's below him? I don't know. You're getting way too stuck in the

everybody dies and then needs a thing to ride. That's not how it works. He was strapped to it because, to send a message. He was strapped to it by another guy to send a message. Right. That's not fair on the horse. Getting caught up in this nonsense forever. It's not. Unfortunately, we do have to come down on conclusions. And if you'll pardon the pun kit, You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. It's going to be a no for me this week. Well, I led this two-legged donkey to water, and I can't make it think, apparently, because you couldn't think about it.

It's also a no for me. It's obviously a no. There's just kind of no evidence for any of it, really? Yeah, it's more of a myth, a legend. You know, a very cool one at that, but without real. evidence, you know, it's, it's never going to get the double yes. No. Well, unfortunately, we are covering this double note, by the way, double note for those keeping score. It is unfortunate that we have discovered this story, are researching it, just so close after setting foot in Texas for the

first time. We could have asked all the people who came to our recent live show in Dallas, whether they had heard of it, whether they had seen of it. That's true. You know, and we were kind of getting into the spirit of things. We were wearing cowboy hats during our live performance in Colorado and in Texas. Yes. And I did come out on stage

multiple times riding on the back of kit. Yeah, I had to get my calf strength up a bit, but I'm there now. I don't know if I could quite manage for the rest of time, but I can manage for a 90-minute live show. Speaking of live show, by the way, guys, If you are listening from the UK or Ireland, and you haven't picked up a ticket to see this paranormal life live in 2025, y'all are freaking effing up.

Y'all are messed up, messed up, Mest T.F. up. Because we are performing the best live podcast this side of Andromeda, this October in Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, Ireland for the first time, and Londinium, London. It is going to be absolutely huge. Our first UK live shows in two years almost. Yeah. It's going to be crazy. And look, we might have missed the chance to investigate this case in Texas. But hey, maybe we can investigate the Doolahan when we go to Dublin. That is a terrible idea.

Are you trying to get my uncle killed? Yeah, I'm in his will. But, like, I think I can honestly kind of up the stakes of the will before he dies. So I'll take a look at that, but I don't need anyone to start announcing kind of dead family members.

I don't want to attract the Doolahan to the event. Right. We can wait a little bit. But yeah, it is true. We're going around the UK and Ireland. Tickets, of course, at this paranormal life.com

forward slash tour. Links in the description of this pod, whether you're on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app of choice. And of course, always worth remembering that patrons heard about the tour

first. They got first dibs for pre-sale tickets by being a patron over at patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. We've been on there for like eight years now, making this paranormal life and making bonus content every week, every month for our beautiful, lovely, gorgeous patrons. It's the way we keep this show going, have done for all these years, and continue to do some of the best episodes of this paranormal life are strictly for patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. That's true. Some of the most top secret and classified cases, too.

I could tell you what they are, but we would have to just beep the titles, you know, because just saying them out loud is confiscated also. Right. I mean, the titles also have a lot of kind of profanity in them, so we'd have to beep them either way. Well, sure. Yeah, you just have to beep the whole thing.

Like last week's case, the sift-deep of the n-fickers. Isn't that crazy that we didn't even have to beep the last word because that wasn't bad compared to what came in the rest of the title. We really should beep f***ers. I think that's pretty bad. Well, we'll beat most of it,

just enough of it so people can tell what's going on. Yeah, so if you like too hot for TV stuff, head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. It's the borderline. I don't know who I'm trying to sell this to. This is the only fans of podcasting.

Oh, you're like headless horsemen? How about bottomless podcasters? I will show whole. I will show Hall if I have to. I'm not, I think we are done. This absolutely terrible case has kind of just gone to our brains. I think is what's happened. This is, you know, an instant classic right up there with Jeff the Mungoose

and that case that I did that was 23 minutes long. And while we're at it, why not just blame some people? Thank you to Simon Penny and John Freeman for that. awesome suggestion of a podcast to cover. Thank you for emailing that in. What a waste of time. My God. All right.

I'm joking. It was fun. Hey, no, I was joking. Don't say it wasn't that bad. That makes it sound like it was terrible. All right. I think we take another swing at this. Part two next week.

Does that sound good? I think there's more in here. I think there is more in here. All right, we got to wrap up. Thank you so much for listening. If you're in the UK and Ireland, pick up your tickets, this paranormal life.com. come see us this October.

We are of course going to be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale. On Friday, over on Patreon with the after party, and later this month with a bonus episode. Remember to live fast, investigate, and die young baby.