American Hauntings Podcast

American Hauntings Podcast

History, hauntings, legends, lore, true crime, and the dark side of American History. Hosted by Cody Beck and Troy Taylor, Season 9, "Based on a True Story" is now live. Previous seasons cover Alton, IL, St. Louis, New Orleans, Hollywood, Heartland Horrors and Homicides, missing persons and the Villisca Axe Murders.

Episodes

November 14, 2025 35 mins

American Nightmares begins with the horror at the root of the stories that kept the early settlers huddled around the fire late into the night – the Devil himself.

Understanding the Devil in America is the key to understanding our undeniable taste for the evil and the monstrous in all their many forms. The pages of our history can be read as a tale of horror -- with the Devil as one of the main characters. The Devil, like the first ...

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Our nightmare begins, as all bad dreams do, in the dark.

The new show coming to the American Hauntings Podcast Network is AMERICAN NIGHTMARES, hosted by Troy Taylor (that’s me) and I’ll be delving into America’s history, hauntings, spirits, and sins in a way that we’ve never done before. I’ll be tackling the origins and the history of horror in America, from frightening stories of witch trials to monsters of literature and lore. In ...

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November 4, 2025 76 mins

“So, I’d been listening to this conversation and I finally walked over and picked up a film off the rack. I handed it to the biggest guy and told him, this is it. Take this home and watch it and if it’s not scary enough for you, I’ll give you your money back when you return it.”

“The guy came back the next day, and he handed me the case with the VHS tape in it. I asked him what he thought and he just had this look in his eye.”

“’Scar...

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This Halloween, we discuss our favorite guilty pleasure Horror movies! And we try our best to not judge ourselves and others about the scary movies we all hate to love. Check it out!

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.com

Want an episode every week, pl...

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In October 1985, four-year-old Timothy “TJ” Davison vanished from a grocery store parking lot in Decatur, Illinois — in broad daylight, while his aunt was just steps away. What followed was one of the most haunting mysteries in Central Illinois history: decades of silence, false leads, and another family disappearance that may be connected in ways no one ever proved. Nearly forty years later, American Dread revisits the case that s...

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October 21, 2025 45 mins

Post Malone only went into the room because he was with an expert. That’s what he said later, with a lot of regret. The room was part of the other man’s haunted museum in Las Vegas and inside it was the Dybbuk Box, considered by many as the world’s most haunted and cursed object. 

Even that creepy Annabelle doll wouldn’t mess with this thing, some said. It had never been opened before, though, because it was haunted by a Dybbu...

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In 1987, the Dardeen family’s quiet life in rural Illinois ended in unimaginable horror.

A crime so savage, it left investigators speechless — and decades later, still haunted by questions that no one could answer.

Cults. Serial killers. Satanic panic. Lies and legends.

American Dread: The Dardeen Family Massacre — one of the most graphic and disturbing cases in Illinois history.

Brought to you by American Hauntings Network.



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Mark spent the night drinking beer with his friends and trying to pick up girls, passing most of his time in a cantina called Sgt. Peppers, and a honky-tonk called the London Pub. But when his friends are ready to call it a night, they can’t find him in either bar. They assumed he’d gotten lucky and went back to the hotel without him. 

But Mark Kilroy was never seen alive again.

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @...

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September 23, 2025 59 mins

The initial inspiration for the film was NOT based on a true story – it was based on an unfinished Edgar Allan Poe story that was also called “The Lighthouse.” Max Eggers began adapting the story but couldn’t figure out what to do with it so his brother jumped in to help, sourcing the plot from the story of a Welsh lighthouse tragedy, which for most people, would sound tame. 

It isn’t. 

And while the story of Thomas Howell, Thomas Gr...

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September 9, 2025 60 mins

It’s been called the “SCARIEST FILM ON NETFLIX” by critics and viewers alike. It’s a Spanish film that’s written and directed by Paco Plaza, who found fame a few years before it came out with the REC found-footage franchise. But even though we’ve often bragged that the true stories we’ve talked about this season are scarier than the films they’re based on, the reality of that is really up to you. This time, though, the actual story...

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Check out the brand new podcast, American Dread, from Adam White.

On Halloween 1992, 20-year-old Penny Timmons vanished in Decatur, Illinois, leaving behind a chilling note in a gas station restroom: “He has a gun in his pants! HELP! This isn’t a joke!”



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NEW PREVIEW OF OUR NEW SHOW ON PATREON!

CANYON: THE TRUE STORY OF THE STARVED ROCK MURDERS

Available ONLY by becoming a Patreon supporter of American Hauntings. 

Go to https://patreon.com/americanhauntings and get signed up now!

On the cold, snow-covered morning of March 16, 1960, when the bodies of three women from the Chicago suburbs were discovered at Starved Rock State Park in Northern Illinois. The murders shocked the entir...

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Check out the brand new podcast, American Dread, from Adam White.

Two winters. Two murders. Eighteen years apart.

In Decatur, Illinois, the winters of 1942 and 1960 were marked not by snow and holiday cheer, but by the sound of shotguns shattering the night.

In this episode of American Dread, we revisit two chilling cases: the Short Street double shooting of 1942, and the shotgun murder of Virginia Eades in 1960. Different killers, di...

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August 26, 2025 92 mins

On October 26, 1965, a 16-year-old girl named Sylvia Likens died in Indianapolis from shock, malnutrition, and a brain hemorrhage. She had been tortured for three months and by the time she died, she could barely move or speak. She had been tortured, neglected, sexually humiliated, starved, beaten, and cut by her tormentors. Her autopsy later revealed 150 wounds on her body, including cigarette burns, skin brandings, and knife woun...

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Check out the brand new podcast, American Dread, from Adam White.

On a quiet May night in 1976, the city of Decatur, Illinois, was shattered by a brutal double murder that still echoes nearly fifty years later. Two young cousins, June and Marcella Freeman, were savagely stabbed to death and left discarded like trash on the side of West Center Street. Their killer, Michael Timothy Gibson, would soon be caught — but justice didn’t end...

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August 12, 2025 75 mins

The true story of THE ENTITY doesn’t begin with Carla Moran coming home from work one night, it actually started with researchers Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor from the Department of Parapsychology at UCLA visiting the home on August 22, 1974. A short time earlier, the two men had been discussing the paranormal in a local bookstore when they were approached by a woman name Doris Blither, who wanted to tell them about her haunted hous...

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August 5, 2025 47 mins

Enjoy this bonus episode about the history and hauntings of The Bell Witch Cave, including Troy's own firsthand tales of his times in the cave!

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.com

Want an episode every week, plus other awesome perks and discount...

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July 29, 2025 70 mins

It was Easter Sunday, April 15, 1990, and Ray and Marie Thornton were driving along Snow Prairie Road, a rural highway about 12 miles outside of Coldwater, Michigan. Ray was at the wheel and Marie was next to him and the couple was playing a game they often played in the car to kill time on the road -- trying to make words and phrases out of the license plates they saw.

But things were quiet along the secluded back road they were on...

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July 15, 2025 84 mins

There’s no denying that there are so many similarities between JAWS and the 1916 shark attacks on the Jersey Shore as well as the disaster of the USS Indianapolis that it’s truly terrifying. If you decide to spend your summer vacation on a beach somewhere, you might want to remember what we’ve been telling you all season – “sometimes, it’s NOT just a movie.”

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Fac...

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This year we have some of THE BEST ghost stories from the Haunted America Conference attendees. Check 'em out!

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.com

Want an episode every week, plus other awesome perks and discounts? Check out our Patreon page

Fin...

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