Our Most TERRIFYING Stories: Halloween Special | The InBetween (Ep 180) - The InBetween Official Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(01:07):
What is the most widespreadand disturbing Halloween myth of all?
And what should we really be afraid of?
In today's story, I'll uncover the truthbehind this age old Halloween legend.
And it all starts with a little boynamed Timothy.
Halloween night, 1974 is a misty,rainy one.

(01:29):
But who cares, right?
It's going to take more
than just a little mist to deterthe thousands of kids in Pasadena, Texas,
who've been gearing up for this nightfor weeks.
That includes eight yearold Timothy O'Brien
in his planet of the apes costume,and his five year old sister Elizabeth.
Their dad, Ronald, puts a raincoat on

(01:50):
over his white opticians smockthat he wore for work.
He says hi to his neighbor JimBates and his two children, and the six
set out into the night to trick or treataround their suburban neighborhood.
And as they walk along, one of the housesdoesn't have any lights on,
but the kids go up and bang on the dooranyway.
Leave no stone unturned right?
But there's no answer.

(02:11):
Growing impatient, the kidsrun off to the next house and Jim follows.
And Ronald takes his timea little bit and lags behind just to see
if somebody is going to answer.
catching up a few minuteslater, Ronald says you guys need to learn
a little bit more patience.
There was somebody in that dark houseafter all.
And he produces a handful21 inch Pixy Stix.

(02:33):
Tubes of powdered sour candy, sweet nuts.
And Ronaldcans a tube to each of the four children.
And there's one stick left,and as the group is walking home,
Ronald spies a ten year oldthat he recognizes from church.
So he gives that boy the last Pixy stick.
Now before bed.
Timothy is allowedone snack out of his Halloween haul,

(02:56):
and he picks his Pixy Stix tube.
And carefully liftsthe flap of the tube, widens
the opening and upends the straw,waiting for the powder,
but it's stuck in the tube.
So Ronald takes the straw and rollsit between his palms to loosen the powder
and hands it back to his son.
Who immediately tips the straw and up andtakes in a mouthful of the sugary treat.

(03:19):
His face wrinkles.
This is so gross, he says.
It tastes better.
So his dad grabs him a glass of Kool-Aidto wash the taste away.
and Timothy immediatelybegins to complain that his stomach hurt,
and he runs to the bathroom,where he starts vomiting and convulsing.
And Ronald runs into the bathroomand holds his son while he's

(03:42):
vomitingAnd Timothy goes limp in his arms.
An ambulance is called, but TimothyO'Brien dies and route to the hospital.
Less than an hourafter consuming the candy.
Harris County ProsecutorMike Hilton was on call that night
and got the callthat there was a suspicious child death.

(04:03):
In wanting to get this investigationunderway as quickly as possible,
he puts in a call to Doctor Joseph Ato come
check who's the HarrisCounty Chief medical examiner.
The investigators give the doctor whatfew details they have of the case so far.
And the doctor asks,what does this bread smell like?
a call to the morgue revealsthat there is the scent of almonds

(04:25):
coming from the boy's mouth.
and doctor Jim check says that cyanide.
an autopsy provesthe medical examiner's hunch.
Timothy has been poisoned.
knowing that this took place immediatelyafter he ingested that Pixy stick.
The first question that the police haveis, where are the rest of the Pixy Stix?

(04:46):
The remaining four of the five sticksthat Ronald said
that he received from the neighborare all recovered by the police.
And thankfully, none of the other childrenhad consumed the candy.
The parents of the fifth child,the one that Ronald recognized from
church, were hysterical
when they couldn'tfind that piece of candy.

(05:08):
When alerted by authorities.
And the parents rushed upstairs to wheretheir son was sleeping in his bedroom,
only to find him lying in bedwith the straw clutched in his arms.
The boy had been unableto open the staples
that sealed the wrapper shut,and fell asleep trying.
Forensic investigators discoveredthat all five Pixy Stix had been opened,

(05:32):
and the top two inches of candy powderhad been replaced
with potassium cyanide powderAnd then resealed with a staple.
And according to the pathologistwho tested the Pixy Stix,
the candy that Timothy consumed was enough
cyanide to kill two adults.
While the other four tubescontain enough cyanide

(05:52):
to kill 4 to 5 adults.
Timothy's death from Poison Halloweencandy
understandablymakes Pasadena parents go a little nuts.
And hundreds of parentsgo to the police station and turn in
the candy that their kids collectedwhile trick or treating,
just in case it's laced with poison to.
Enough to fill an entire roomat the Pasadena police station.

(06:16):
Now, initially, please don't knowwho to suspect In a case like this,
usually the primary suspectsare the parents or the immediate family.
But Timothy's familyis there with him at the hospital.
Obviously mourning their loss.
So the police give Ronald
a little bit of time, and when he's ready,they take him back to that neighborhood

(06:37):
so he can point out the housewhere he got the Pixy Stix.
But Ronald is stumped.
He just can't find the house.
And he tells the officers he never sawthe face of the person responsible.
That a hairy arm had just emerged
from the doorway of the dark houseand handed him the candy.
couple of days go by and the investigatorsare incredibly frustrated.

(07:01):
So they take O'Brien out againand start leaning on him a little, saying,
you've got to give us something.
You have to remember where this candy camefrom.
O'Brien and his neighbor had only takentheir kids to the houses on two streets
because it had been raining. End.
After learning that none of the homesthat they visited had given out Pixy Stix,

(07:24):
the first flags of suspicion
went up in the investigators hands.
But the extra pressureput on by police work.
And after walking the neighborhoodfor the third time
with the police, O'Brien'smemory is jogged
and he leads them to the housewhere no one had entered the door.
The home is owned by a man named CourtneyMelvin.

(07:47):
Melvin is an air traffic controllerat Houston's William Hobby Airport.
And isn't home when police come knocking.
So officers go to his place of work
and arrest himin front of all of his colleagues.
Mysteries over.
Case closed. Right.
Except Melvin has an alibi.
Turns out he was working that nightand didn't get home until after 11 p.m..

(08:12):
Timesheetsand 200 people can confirm that.
His wife and daughterwere actually home that night,
but it turned out the lights earlybecause they ran out of candy.
Police also hearthat O'Brien was angry with his relatives
for not staying up latethe night of Timothy's funeral.
Which is odd.
Ronald had written a song about Jesusand Timothy joining his Lord in heaven.

(08:37):
And was pissed offwhen his grieving family
wouldn't stay up lateto watch a recording of the performance.
Being broadcast on TV.
And prosecutor Mike Hinton says that'swhen he knew something strange was going
on. So the police start diggingdeeper into Ronald O'Brien.
and soon after, the police interruptMike Hinton, the prosecutor,

(09:01):
because he's teaching a classat the Pasadena Police Academy.
They cannot wait to talk to him.
They discoveredthat Ronald had recently taken out
life insurance policies,and both of his children.
$10,000 per child in January of that year
and then, over the objectionsof his insurance company

(09:24):
and additional $20,000 per child
a month before Halloween.
Investigators already knowthat Ronald is over $100,000 in debt,
which is more like a half$1 million in today's dollars,
and In the ten yearsleading up to Halloween of 1974.

(09:46):
O'Brien had held 21 jobs
and was suspected of stealingand his current job.
and was about to be fired from.
There's now.
His car was about to be repossessed.
He'd already defaulted on several bankloans,
and his house was being foreclosed on.
And when investigators find outthat he had called the insurers at 9 a.m.

(10:10):
the morning after his son's deathto inquire about the payout,
they knew they were on the right track.
The prosecutor asked for and is granted
a search warrantto search the O'Brien's house.
What did they find? Scissors.
Scissors that, when tested, showstraces of a plastic residue

(10:32):
similar to that found on cyanidelaced sweets.
RonaldO'Brien is arrested for Timothy's murder
on November 5th, 1974.
He's indicted on onecount of capital murder and four counts
of attempted murder.
And as the investigation continues,evidence starts to stack up against

(10:54):
Ronald.
turns out he was taking classesat a community college And in class what?
Ask questions like.
Which is more lethal?
Cyanide or another poison?
Who asks that?
Another witness who worksfor a chemical company in Houston.
Tells police that a manhad come in to buy some cyanide.

(11:14):
But left after being toldthat the smallest amount that he could buy
was 5 pounds.
At this point,it is clear to investigators
that Ronald O'Brien had laced the candieswith poison ahead of time.
And hidden them upthe sleeve of his raincoat.
When he left the house.
Ball in an effort to kill his own children

(11:35):
and collect on their life insurancepolicies.
He gave the other children poison candy.
In an effort to shed suspicion.
But this is yearsbefore DNA and contactless debit cards.
And the policecan't put the Pixy Stix in Ronald's hands.
Or prove that he bought cyanide.

(11:57):
So the 30 year old optician says
was me.
Ronald enters a not guilty plea.
His defense strategy.
blame the tainted candyon some untraceable boogeyman.
The urban legendabout some crazed individual
who hands out Halloweencandy laced with poison

(12:17):
or needlesor apples with razor blades inserted.
And although police never discoverwhere or when Ronald bought the poison.
Friends, family, and coworkers all testify
against the man that the press is nowcalling the Candy man.
During the trial,a chemist who's acquainted with

(12:39):
O'Brien testifiesthat in the summer of 1973.
O'Brien contacted him, asking himabout cyanide and how much would be fatal.
Friends and coworkers testifythat in the months before Timothy's death.
O'Brien showed an unusual interestin cyanide,
and talked abouthow much it would take to kill a person.

(13:00):
O'Brien, sister in law and brother in law,testified that on the day of Timothy's
funeral, O'Brien talksabout using some of the insurance
payout to take a long vacationRonald's wife
even claims that Timothy didn't choosethe pixie stick that night,
that Ronald forced him to choose it.

(13:22):
The trialthat began in Houston on May 5th, 1975,
and on June 3rd, 1975, with the jury
taking only 46 minutesto return a guilty verdict
on one count of capital murderand four counts of attempted murder.
And after only 71 minutes, it is decided

(13:46):
that Ronald O'Brien will be executedby the electric chair.
And according to Reverend Carol Pickett.
A chaplain who works for the TexasDepartment of Criminal Justice.
O'Brien is noted
by his fellow inmatesfor killing his own trial
and is absolutely friendless.

(14:07):
In fact, the inmates actually petitionthe prison administration
to hold an orderly demonstrationon the night of O'Brien's execution
so they can show everybody elsehow much they hate him.
And on March 31st, 1984,
with a crowd of about 300 demonstratorsgathered

(14:29):
outside of the prisonyelling and cheering, shouting.
Trick or treat!
RonaldO'Brien was executed by lethal injection.
Now. Beforeand since the Pasadena, Texas poisoning.
Rumors of tainted candy being handed out
always surfaced around Halloween.

(14:50):
But whether the fear is that
somebody is handing out candy with brokenglass in it, or razorblades,
or that somebody is handing outecstasy pills.
There is little to no evidence to showthat parents have anything to worry about.
In fact, there haven't been any documentedcases of strangers

(15:10):
poisoning Halloween candy at all.
Ever.
Now, in 2000, there was a manin Minneapolis who was charged with
putting needles in Snickers bars that hethen handed out to trick or treaters.
However, the only victim was a teenager
who felt a slight prickfrom the sharp object that it.

(15:33):
We tend to be extra waryand suspicious of strangers on Halloween.
But Timothy O'Brien is the only childwho has actually died
or even been seriously injured byconsuming contaminated Halloween treats.
And in that case, it was his fatherthat was the monster all along.

(16:01):
Good versus evil.
A fight that has been going onsince before the beginning of time.
A fight that comes crashing into a God
fearing community in Tennessee in 1817.
Welcome to The InBetween. I'm Carol Ann.
And today we travel to Robertson County,Tennessee, to a legendary showdown

(16:21):
between a faithful Baptist familyand an epic, evil presence.
A battle knowntoday as the Bell Witch Haunting
1804 North Carolina.
John and Lucy Bell and their five kids,load up all their worldly possessions
into their prairie schooner,better known as a covered wagon,

(16:44):
or the 19th century version of the wood
paneled station wagon.
They are headed west
in search of more land,and they are radical change of scenery.
But they're not going to be alone in this.
Mostly unsettled new statecalled Tennessee.
In fact, many of their friends from NorthCarolina have already made the trip.

(17:08):
They get to a place called Adamsin Robertson County
where all of their friends are alreadysettled, buy about a thousand acres
of farmland on the Red River,with the house already on it.
They settle in and have three more babies
making the Bell Clana total of ten mouths for John to feed.
So besides John and Lucy, there's Jesse,

(17:31):
Drewry, John Jr., Esther, Zadok,
Elizabeth (or Betsy), Richard, and Joel.
But John is a hard worker,
honest, devout Baptist and a good farmer.
Does not take long beforeJohn starts doing pretty well for himself
and his family.
To say he is a respected member ofhis community would be an understatement.

(17:55):
That brings us all the way up to 1817.
That is when the trouble starts.
One day John is out in the field and seesan animal a ways off in the field.
In all the 13 yearshe's been hunting this land to feed
those ten mouths,he has never seen anything like this.

(18:16):
It kind of looks like a dog.
Huge dog, but it's not A dog.
Has the body of a dog,but it has the head of a rabbit.
Whatever it is, he shoots at itseveral times, but just runs off.
A few days later, Drew,he sees some kind of really big bird
perched on a fenceHe thinks it must be a wild turkey.

(18:40):
He runs in the houseto get his gun to shoot it,
causea big fat turkey can feed a lot of mouths.
But once he gets back and ready to shoot,the thing flies off.
That's when he sees it's not a turkey.
Something else.
Something way bigger than a turkey.
Sometime after that, Betsysees a little girl in a green dress

(19:01):
swinging from a branch of a tall oak tree.
But then she's gone.
Betsy is with other kids,but none of the other kids saw the girl.
And it's after these three odditiesthat the knocking starts.
Each night, there is knockingand scratching on the outside
walls of the house.

(19:22):
John just thinks it'ssomebody trying to scare them.
But try as they might,they can never catch anyone doing it.
They never see anyone running awayand they never find any tracks
around the house.
This goes on for like a year.
John tells his whole familynot to say anything to anybody.
He is sure they will catchwhoever is doing this.

(19:44):
Then things step up a notch.
Now, John and Lucy sleep
on the first floor of the houseand the children on the second floor.
Betsy has a room of her ownbecause she's a girl and the four boys
who still live at home, Richard Drew,
Joel and John Junior sleep in another.
Soon as the boys are settled into bed.

(20:05):
They hear a rat gnawing on the bedpost.
John and Drew get up to kill it.
But no rat.
They settle in againand the gnawing sound starts again.
They get up again,but they don't see anything.
And they don't see
anything on the bedpost, like a spotwhere something has been chewing on it.

(20:26):
This goes on for most of the nightwith the boys
continually getting up to search forwhatever is making the noise.
They can't find anything.
They can't even find a placewhere a rat would even get into the room.
Same thing repeats night after night.
Then it starts to happen in Betsy's room.

(20:48):
So it would make a ruckus in the boysroom.
And as soon as they got up to find it,
it would start making a ruckusin Betsy's room.
No one could get any sleep.
And it gets louder over time.
And sometimes they would hear somethingthat sounded like a dog
scratching on the floor.
Then things step up another notch.

(21:08):
Whatever this thing is, it startspulling the sheets off of the boys
and making the strange, choking sound.
No one in the house could get any sleepuntil it would quit,
usually between one and 3 a.m..
Then, as if it just decidedthat it needed to add
a new torture, it starts pulling hair.

(21:30):
And not just a tug.
Richard was just a kidwhen this all happened,
and so he didn't even really know anythingabout the knocking on the walls.
But the first thing he truly remembershappening to him
is the night his hair gets pulled so hard
that it lifts his head off the pillow.
Once things actually starthappening to the children,

(21:52):
John decidesit's time to bring in some help.
Now, if you readany of the books about this story,
you will find out quicklythat there is a huge cast of characters.
But to keep the story under 3 hours long,
we're really only going to mentiona few of the important ones.
There's the Bell's best friendsand neighbors, Mr.

(22:13):
and Mrs.
James Johnston, their two sons,John and Calvin.
Reverend Doug Ford, a Baptist pastor,
and the Gun brothers, James and Thomas,both Methodist pastors.
There's Kate Batts, the town eccentric,
and Joshua Gardener, Betsy's boyfriend.
Fun fact about James Johnston.

(22:35):
Not only didhe fight in the Revolutionary War,
but he has the most misspelled namein this entire story.
You can't hear it,but Johnston is actually spelled with a T,
so J-O-H-N-S-T-O-N.
For some reason,the Scottish don't pronounce the T. Huh.
Okay, so John decides this whole thingis getting out of control.

(22:58):
So he goes to his best friend,James Johnston, and says “There
is some strange crap going on at my houseand I have no idea what to do about it.”
So James says, “Well, why don't the missusand I come on over and spend the night?
I'm sure we can figure this out.”They come over and as soon as the light
is out for the night,the same things start happening to them.

(23:21):
Strange noisesand the sheets being pulled off.
And it doesn't matter
how hard you hold on to the sheets,the force pulling them is always stronger.
Finally, James is so frustrated
that he just asks it “Inthe name of the Lord.
What or who are you?
What do you want? And why are you here?”

(23:43):
Everything is quiet for a while.
Until it isn't.
The shenanigansstart up again with the entity
creating disturbancesas it jumped from room to room.
Poor Betsy seemed to get the worst of it.
Her two best friends, Theny and Rebecca,who would regularly come over
and stay overnight,would hear the crack of an open hand slap

(24:08):
and watch the redness appear on Betsy'scheek.
Things actually get so bad for herthat John and Lucy
send her to other people's housesto spend the night.
But the entity would follow her and bothernot only her,
but the family she was with.
Unfortunately,even though it was pestering Betsy

(24:29):
somewhere else, it still pestersthe Bell house at the same time.
These disturbancesgo on night after night,
and more and morepeople are invited to the Bell House
in hopes that someone can figure outwhat is going on.
Over the course of their investigations,it is discovered
that this entity is intelligent.

(24:52):
If they ask it a question like, “Howmany people are here?” or “How many dogs
do the Bells have,” the answerwould come in the form of either knocking
or scratching with the right answerevery time.
Over the following days and weeks,the number of visitors begins to grow,
with the Bells doing their best to houseand feed them all.

(25:15):
And the ghost begins to talk.
It starts with people hearing faint,uninteligible whispers,
which strengthen to low soft
whispers, which strengthen until it'sloud enough to be not only heard
but understood by everyone in the room.
So they ask again, “Who are you

(25:36):
and what do you want?” “I am a spirit.
I was once very happy,but have been disturbed.”
The voice becomes strongerand stronger over time
until it becomescapable of full conversations
and even starts to inject itselfinto family affairs.
John Junior is planning a tripto North Carolina

(25:57):
to deal with some family business.
In the middle of his conversation to goover all of the details with his parents,
the ghost busts in and tells JohnJr don't go.
The business you hope will be donewhen you're there, won't be.
It's going to be a hard trip for nothing.
Not to mention the fact thatthe girl of your dreams is coming to town.

(26:18):
John Jr obviously laughs offthe ghost's advice and goes anyway.
Six months later he returns.
Having accomplishednothing in North Carolina.
And a very nice young, cute
rich lady came to town to visit familywhile he was gone.
But she's left already.

(26:38):
After a whilethey ask it again, “Who are you?
What do you want?”And the answer comes back the same.
“I am a spirit who was once very happy,but have been disturbed
and made unhappy.” But this timethey ask, “How were you disturbed?
And what makes you unhappy?”“I am the spirit of a person

(27:00):
who was buried in the woods nearbyand the grave has been disturbed.
My bones disinterred and scattered,and one of my teeth
was lost under this house.” “AndI am here looking for that tooth.”
At first it doesn't make much sense.
But then they remember.
A couple of years earlier, Drewand his friend were poking around

(27:22):
what everyone assumed was an old Indianburial ground looking for artifacts.
Drew's friendbrought a jawbone back to the Bell house,
threw it against the wall,
knocking a tooth out that droppedand fell between the floorboards.
John Bellchewed the boys out for their disrespect
and had one of his slaves take the jawbone back and rebury the bones.

(27:45):
So that must be it.
That's why the spirit is so unhappy.
John rips up the floor where the toothfell between the floorboards and sifts
through all of the dirt underneathbut can't find the tooth.
That'swhen the spirit cackles and says “Ha!
Just kidding.”Word is spreading about the goings on

(28:07):
at the Bell Houseand more people are showing up.
All of whom get full room and boardhospitality,
including feed for the horses, for
which John never takes a dime in return.
People are continually asking the Spiritquestions to which they get no answers.
Until one day, James Gunn,one of the Methodist pastor

(28:30):
friends of the Bells, asks itsome kind of question about why it's here.
To which it tells everyonethat it's the spirit of an immigrant
who had hidden some money on the propertyand now wants to give it all
to Betsy Bell.
It gave specific instructionsas to the where and the how of retrieving

(28:50):
said fortune, and the spirit appointedexcavation party heads out to go find it.
They move this huge boulderand then dig down
another six feet under thatwhen the spirit again says,
“Ha! Just
kidding.”The spirit continues to get stronger.
And while the exhibitions of shortsheeting and face

(29:12):
slapping continue to happenonly in the dark, the voice starts talking
not only in candlelit rooms,but also during the daytime.
And it showcases a new talent,impersonations.
Whoever or whatever this thing is,
it can not only sound like any one elseit wants to,

(29:34):
but it can recite word for wordwhat someone has said in the past.
And it has a thoroughknowledge of the Bible cover to cover.
It can quote Scripturewith the best of them
and even correctsthose who quote it wrong.
They even test it.
They open to some random page in the Bibleand give a chapter and verse number,

(29:57):
and the Spirit can tell youwhat the verse is.
It can also sing any him in the churchsongbook.
Now remember thatI said some of the Bell's best friends
are the Reverend Sugg Fort,a Baptist pastor, and the Gunn brothers,
James and Thomas,both of whom are Methodist pastors.
Well,the spirit even go so far as to partake

(30:20):
in religious discussions with themor anyone else for that matter.
It is even able to recite the sermonsof both Reverend Fort and Reverend
James Gunn that were given by them
on the same day, at the same time,
13 miles apart, in their voices.

(30:42):
Not to mention that it knows everythingthat's going on with everyone in town.
If you managed to step out of line,the spirit makes sure everyone knows
about it.
Consequently, everyone in town startsto become a little Godlier,
because they don't want to be called outin front of everyone by the spirit.
Not a bad side effect.

(31:04):
And while all of this seems amazing
and dare I say, even beneficialfor some people in town
who may have been straying a little toofar away from the Ten Commandments,
it is still tormenting the bells.
Namely, Betsy and John.
Betsy gets hit with these fainting spellswhile John suffers through these times

(31:26):
where his tongue feels stiffand he feels like he's
got something in his mouth,like a stick going across.
Weird.
And while not life threatening,
it's enough to make himnot be able to eat for a little while.
Now we're pretty sure we know whyBetsy is being tortured.
She has caught the fancy of, and fanciesright back, one Joshua Gardner.

(31:49):
Keep in mind,she's super popular, and so is he.
So they're like the Taylor Swift,Travis Kelsey of their day.
But for some unknown reason,the spirit doesn't like Joshua
and continually tells Betsynot to marry him.
But Joshua, being the good man that he is,just keeps standing by her side.

(32:10):
Eventually, Betsy'sfainting spells ease up,
but her dad's troublesjust keep getting worse
with an even worse affliction developing,
the twitching and contorting of his face,with the spirit
declaring that it will torment old Jack
Belle to the end of his life.
All the while, more and more people arriveto ask the Spirit questions.

(32:36):
And if the rumors are true, that evenincludes future President Andrew Jackson.
But the entity never givesan honest answer.
First, it's the disturbed spiritlooking for its tooth.
Then it's the ghost with buried treasure.
Then the spirit of a dead childin North Carolina.
And then John Johnston's stepmother.

(32:58):
But somehowJames Gunn is able to crack the code.
And while no account of this storytells us exactly
what his question is,we do know the answer.
The spirit replies, have put the questionin a way that can no longer be evaded,
and I cannot tell the preachera flat lie.” “I am old Kate Bates's

(33:20):
witch here to tormentold Jack Bell out of his life.” What?
Kate Batts. But she's still alive.
And as far as anyone knows,she's not a witch.
A little eccentric, maybe,but kind and neighborly,
with no one ever sayinga bad word about her.
And certainly not a witch.

(33:41):
Most people don't believe it, but some do.
Of course,the real Kate Batts gets wind of this
and she's pissed, but it's too late.
The spirit becomes known as Kate.
And just so you know, from this point on,
when I talk about Kate, I'mtalking about Ghost Kate.
When I talk about the real Kate Batts

(34:03):
later, I'll call her the real Kate.
Now, if you remember,all of the trouble started in 1817.
So by now we're up to about 1819.
As terrible as Kate is to both Betsyand John.
She is exactly the opposite to John'swife, Lucy,

(34:24):
and is often heard to say that “OldLuce is a good woman.”
Kate actually goes out of her wayto do nice things for Lucy.
One evening, Lucy mentions that she wishesshe knew
if her son Jessie, had returned home yetfrom a big trip that he'd taken.
Kate replies, “Hang on, let me check.”

(34:44):
And after about a minute, returnsto tell Lucy, “Yeah, he's at home reading.
He's fine.” The next day,Lucy talks to Jessie and asked him,
“What were you doing around whatever time
last night?”Jessie says, “I was at home reading.”
So Lucy does her best to appease Kateto keep the goodwill flowing.

(35:06):
Fortunately, Lucy can never,not for lack of trying,
use Kate's affectionfor her to convince Kate
to ease her tormentson the rest of the family.
Around September of 1820,Lucy comes down with a bout of pleurisy,
which is inflammationof the lining around the lungs,
making it painful and hard to breathe.

(35:28):
While it's easily treatedtoday, 1820 is a different story.
Lucy is down for the count for weeks,
and rarely does Kate leave her side,asking her how she's feeling.
And did she sleep okay?
The presence is so constantthat even though Lucy is trying
to do her best, not to make Kate angry,

(35:49):
sometimes she just has to tell her,I can't deal with you right now.
And if Lucy is resting, Kate is quiet.
Lucy's condition worsens, and she getsto a point where she stops eating.
Kate gets so worked up about itthat she tells Lucy.
“Hold out your hands, Luce.
And I will give you something.”Lucy does as she's told

(36:10):
and into her handsfor a bunch of hazelnuts
witnessed by a couple of ladieswho had stopped by to check in on her.
The ladies, completely amazed,check the floor of the room above Lucy's.
But the floor is perfect.
There's no wayanyone could have dropped them from above.
After a while, Kate asks Lucywhy she's not eating the nuts.

(36:33):
Lucy says that she would,but she's too weak to crack them.
Much to Lucy's surprise,Kate says I'll crack them for you.
Followed by cracked nutsfalling onto the bed next to her.
And not just hazelnuts.
Kate would bring Lucy grapes, too.
Took a while,but eventually Lucy recovered.

(36:55):
One evening as the evening'sguests are talking about the whole grapes
phenomena, Kate breaks in asking,“Who wants grapes?”
And she proceeds to drop a bunch rightin Betsy's lap.
Now, there are plenty of peoplewho find it really hard to believe
that any of this is going on.
That it must be someone in the familyfaking all of it.

(37:18):
One of those is Detective Williams,
who comes to the houseand says he would like to investigate.
John says, okay, come on in,
and welcomes the detective with the samehospitality as he has extended
every one of the hundreds of other gueststrying to solve the mystery.
But Kate is quiet that night,and all the next day.

(37:40):
Detective Williams finally loseshis patience and says, “I knew it.
This whole thing is a scamperpetrated by the family for money.”
John a little incensed that this strangeris calling out his family's
honor, starts making movesto toss this guy out of his house.
When Kate breaks her silence.

(38:01):
“No, you don't, Jack. Let him stay.
I will attend to the gentleman
and satisfy himthat he is not so smart as he thinks.”
So John backs off and no more is heardfrom Kate for the rest of the evening.
Which, of course, makes Detective Williamsall the more smug about it.
“She's not going to show herselffor as long as I'm here.”

(38:24):
But once everyone is settled downto sleep, including Detective Williams,
Kate returns with a vengeance,pinning the detective down
and beating the crap out of himwhile asking him, “Which family member
do you think this is?” And justspewing out this torrent of beratement.

(38:45):
The ruckus wakes everyone upand they light candles.
Once they do the physical beatings stops,but the verbal one does not.
Detective Williams spendsthe rest of the night sitting in a chair
next to a lit candle and is gonebefore breakfast is served.
Detective Williams is not the first,nor the last, either

(39:07):
detective or magicianor witch doctor to come to the Bell House,
hoping to be the one that can either expelthe witch or expose the fraud.
But only one didJohn Bell seek out himself.
One Dr.
Mize of Franklin, Kentucky,about 35 miles away from the Bells
in Tennessee, has a reputationas an accomplished magician and conjurer.

(39:32):
How can he help? I have no idea.
But John'sfacial contortion issue is getting worse.
He's getting desperate.
He may not have believed at the beginningthat this invisible force
could actually kill him, but he's startingto change his mind on that one.
So he follows the advice of his friendJames Johnston,
and sends for the magicianwho arrives a few days later, studied up,

(39:56):
armed with his spells,and ready for business.
And he’s there a few days mixing potionsand reciting incantations.
And of course, Kate is silentthe whole time, which Dr.
Mize takes as a good sign,telling everyone there,
“Witches are shy around me.”Until one day when Dr.
Mize is mixing up some kind of potion,Kate asks him, “What are you doing?” Dr.

(40:21):
Mize, is a little freaked at firstsince this is the first time
he's actually heard Kate,but just tells her, “Nun ya business,”
and continues with whatever he's doingUntil Kate says,
“You forgot something.” Dr.
Maya says, “What did I miss?” Katetells him, “If you were a witch doctor,
you would know how to air ify that mess so

(40:44):
as to pass into the air form state
and see the spirit that talks to youwithout asking silly questions.” Dr.
Mize asks Kate, basically, “Whyshould I believe you?”
To which Kate responds with hertrademark tidal wave of beratements.
“You are a fool.”“You have no idea what you're doing.”

(41:05):
Which freaks outthe doctor who promptly leaves, stating
that this thing knowsmore about witchcraft than I do.
“I can't help you.”So life goes on like this
for many more weeks and months.
The verbal abuse and physical attackscontinue to escalate for John.
No one can do anything about it.

(41:26):
The spells of facial contortionsand stiff tongue are getting so bad
that they land him in bedfor a couple of days at a shot.
Nobody can figure out why.
Why John?
From all indications,John Bell, is not a perfect guy.
He still has the occasional issuewith the neighbor or whatever,

(41:48):
but he is well respected in his communityand has lots of friends
who would have no time for anyone
who does not possessa profound moral character.
Now, most of this accountcomes from John's son, Richard,
who was just over seven years oldwhen the whole phenomena started.

(42:09):
As an adult, he wrote a book called“Our Family Trouble”,
where he, with some helpfrom his still surviving siblings,
wrote down sort of an abbreviated accountof what he could remember.
And this is whathe had to say about his dad.
“No man was ever more faithful and swift
in the discharge of every dutyto his family,

(42:32):
to the church, to his neighbors,
to his fellow man, and to his God.”
“No mortal man ever brought a chargeof delinquency or dishonor to his door.
” “Not even the ghastly fiendthat haunted him to his death,
in all of his vilecurses and evil threats,
ever brought an accusation against him,

(42:54):
or uttered a solitary wordthat reflected upon his honor,
his character, his courage,or is integrity.”
And how can this entitywho is so fond of Lucy, act
so savagely towards those that Lucy loves?
Lucy was lucky enoughto find herself in Kate's favor,

(43:15):
but unlucky to have to watch the attacksagainst both her children and especially
her husband without the abilityto do anything about it.
But here we are, October of 1820.
John Is recovering from a particularly
heinous attackthat kept him in bed for a week.

(43:37):
But this particular dayhe's feeling better.
So calls on his son Richard,to take a walk with him to the hog pen,
which is only about 300 yardsfrom the house, to figure out
which pigs are stayingand which pigs are going.
On the way there,walking on a perfectly smooth road,
something jerks his shoe off his foot.

(44:00):
This is not exactly a new game for Kate.
She's done thisto some of the other kids as well.
So, Richard, knowing the drill immediatelyhelps him to get the shoe
back on and tiesthe laces in a double knot.
They start walking againand the other one flies off as well.
That one gets put back onand tied in a double knot.

(44:21):
But Kate continues to play thisinfuriating game the whole way to the pig
pen. The frustrationand stress can be seen on John's face,
but he does his best to remain stoicin front of his young son.
On their way back, John's shoescome off again,

(44:43):
and he gets slapped in the faceso hard that it kind of stuns him.
And he sits down on a log for a minute.
Then an attack of facial contortionsstarts again, which spreads
to his whole body.
While John is dealingwith this new physical assault,
Richard does his best to at leastkeep his dad's shoes on his feet.

(45:07):
But every time he gets a shoe on and tied,it just flies off again.
After a few moments, Kate takes her leave,
singing and laughing,and the assault on John ends.
For now.
As John standsup to walk back to the house, Richard sees
tears running down his father's face.

(45:28):
He looks like a manwho lost any semblance of hope.
He says to Richard, “Ican't take this much longer.
I'm pretty sureI don't have much time left.”
And then he looks to heaven and prays
to God to take this suffering from him.
But if that's not in the handhe's been dealt, then to please

(45:51):
stay by his side and give him the courage
to face whatever his future may hold.
John's heartfelt prayer seems to beanswered with a feeling of peace
and the father and son walk homewithout anything else happening.
However, once he gets home,John goes back to bed.

(46:12):
He has his ups and downs over the nextfew weeks, but the trip to the pig pen
would end up being the last timeJohn Bell ever leaves his home.
Much to the dismay of family and friends,John's health steadily declines,
and there's basically nothing that anyonecan do about it but sit and watch.
Now, it was John's
habit to get up every morningand wake up the family for the day ahead.

(46:36):
But December 19th, 1820, is different.
He's still sleeping when Lucy wakes up.
He's been so sick lately
that she decides to just let him sleepuntil after breakfast.
Breakfast comes and goesand John is still asleep.
They go going to wake him up and discoverthat they can't.

(46:56):
John Jr.
goes to the cabinet to get his medicine,and instead finds a smoky
looking vialabout a third full of some dark liquid.
He asks everyone who touchedDad's medicine.
Everyone says, not me.
And no one recognizesthe smoky vial of dark liquid
They send for the doctor right away.

(47:16):
But Kate burst out laughing and says,
“It's useless for youto try to relieve old Jack.
I've got him this time.
He will never get up from that bed again.”
They ask Kate about the strange vial.
She says, “Oh, yeah. I put it there.
I gave old Jack a big dose last nightwhile he was sleeping.

(47:38):
I don't fix him.” Once Doctor Hobsonarrives, he looks at the vial and says.
“I didn't give it to him.
I don't even know what it is.” John Jr.
took some of the dark liquid in a strawand gave it to one of the cats.
The cat ran in circles for a couple ofminutes and fell over dead.
John stays in this kind of comaall day and night.

(48:03):
Nothing anybody tries can wake him up.
The mystery vial is throwninto the fireplace
and a blue flame shoots up the chimney.
John never wakes up again
and passes away the morning of December20th, 1820, with Kate
laughing and singing the whole time

(48:24):
until John's last breath.
Then she goes silent.
Mercifully, she stays silentuntil after John's funeral.
But once that last shovel of dirtis thrown and the last mourners
turn to leave, she breaks outsinging, Roll me up some Brandy O,” and

(48:44):
continues singing
until the last of the mourners entersthe Bell House.
After John's death,Kate settles down quite a bit,
but she stays active enoughso no one forgets her.
Not that they would anyway.
But as the weeks go by, Betsy,
who by now is head overheels in love with Joshua

(49:05):
as much as he head over heels in lovewith her, starts to think, you know, Kate
hasn't said anything about not marryingJoshua in a long time.
Maybe everything's going to be okay.
Easter Sundayin the spring of 1821 is a beautiful day.
Betsy, Joshua, and some of their friends,decide to go down to the Red River

(49:29):
to fish for the afternoon.
As the two are enjoying some rare time
alone, the quiet is brokenby the all too familiar
taunts of Kateyelling, “Don't marry Joshua.
You can't marry Joshua.” Betsy,
with the all too fresh memoriesof what her father went through

(49:51):
at the hands of this entity,just cannot bear the thought
that if she marries Joshua, that Kate
might assault him in the same way.
So she breaks off their relationshipthat day,
and never sees Joshua again.
Shortly after, Katemakes one more appearance to Lucy

(50:13):
to let her know that she is leaving,but that she will be back in seven years.
And amazingly enough,she stays true to her word.
In February of 1828,
only Lucy,Richard and Joel are living in the house
with the rest of the children grownand outliving their own lives.
One night, Richard hears that same soundof something gnawing on the bedpost.

(50:37):
goes on for several nights,but he doesn't want to say anything
to Joel and his mom.
Only to find outthey're having the same issues, too.
Kate’s same old tricks of the scratchingnoises and pulling off of the covers
After a quick late night family meeting,
they all agree to not talk to Kate.

(50:58):
Maybe she'll go away.
And thankfully,within just a couple of weeks she does.
After the death of their father,the remaining Bells go on to live somewhat
normal livesand go on to spread descendants
throughout Tennessee,Missouri and Kentucky.
One interesting side note, Calvin,son of James Johnston,

(51:22):
and one of the only people to shake handswith the Bell Witch,
actually invented a writing systemfor the blind, that used raised lettering
that the blind could readwith their fingertips.
Braille, right?
Not so fast, cowboy.
Calvin makes the trip to New Orleansto get a patent for his invention,
only to be told that a Frenchmannamed Braille

(51:44):
had just gotten a patentfor the same thing, one week earlier. Doh!
Okay.
Like I said before,this account comes from Richard Williams
Bell, who wrote the bookcalled “Our Family Trouble”,
where he wrote down sort of an abbreviatedaccount of what he could remember.
He then gave that manuscript to his son,James Alan Bell,

(52:07):
with strict instructionsthat the diary of sorts should go
no where until all of John and Lucy'schildren had passed away.
The diary just sits,collecting dust for a long time,
until it is acquired by one MartinVan Buren Ingram,
who uses it to write a book in 1894called “An Authenticated History

(52:29):
of the famous Bell Witch.”And the publication of that book
is the main reasonwe know the Bell Witch story today.
So the burning question is, “Didit really happen?”
Well, I think something really happened.
What that is, I'm not sure.
What I am sure of is that there is a lotof controversy surrounding Mr.

(52:51):
Ingram's account.
The theory is that Mr.
Ingram made the whole thingup, fabricated his original source,
“Our Family Trouble’”his original source for his book,
and that the Bell Witch never existedbefore his book was published in 1894.
Could that be true?
Well, the original manuscript of “OurFamily Trouble” is nowhere to be found.

(53:15):
But absence of proof, is notproof of absence.
Could very well just be sittingin somebody's attic somewhere.
However, some people have gone overIngram's book pretty thoroughly
and have concludedthat there's something fishy
with the writing style,use of biblical verses, etc.
that lead them to believethat Ingram wrote both books.

(53:39):
However, we now know that Ingram's 1894
book was not the first mentionof the Bell Witch.
The February 7th, 1856 edition
of the Green MountainFree Man, reprinted in 1849 article
written by the SaturdayEvening Post entitled The Tennessee Ghost.

(53:59):
The Post article directly accuses Betsy
Bell of using ventriloquism to fooleverybody.
Rumor has itthat Betsy sued the paper for slander.
I would!
But unfortunately, I can't confirm that.
And that's not all.
We now have a second corroborating source.
Army Captain John Bell,no relation, was traveling from Cape

(54:24):
Girardeau, Missouri, to Washington, D.C.,as he passed through the Red River area.
He makes a note in his journal.
“Rather, a single circumstance was hererelated to me
of a young girl of about 15 years of age
residing but three miles from Murphy.”“A voice accompanies her,

(54:44):
which says she should marry a man,a neighbor.
Thousands of personshave visited her to hear this voice.
In many instances,it will reply to questions put to it.” -
Captain John R Bell.
It doesn't mention Betsyor the Bells by name,
but sure sounds like he'stalking about them to me.
And the contents of Captain Bell'sjournal is accessible

(55:07):
and its whereabouts is documentedsince he wrote it.
So we have no reason to believethat it's not authentic.
So we have various referencestalking about the Bell Witch
which makes me thinkthe events in question happened.
So now the questionis, “What were the actual events?

(55:27):
Were they something paranormal or over
exaggerated teen angst?”Well, one interesting
clue comes from a chemistry professorat Austin Peay State University named Dr.
Meagan Mann.
She zeroed in on the descriptionof what was ingested by John Bell.
The story says that whatever it was,it killed the cat really fast.

(55:51):
And when thrown in the fire, shotblue flames up the chimney.
Guess what element burns blue?
Arsenic.
And humans can actually metabolize
arsenic in small doses, but cats can't.
So if you give a cat arsenic, it'sgoing to go a little nuts
and keel over pretty quickly.

(56:11):
And despite its high toxicity,arsenic was used
for a number of things around that timeframe, including pesticides,
pigments and cosmetics,not to mention some medicines.
Okay.
So it sounds like there's a really goodchance that John ingested arsenic.
The next question is who gave it to him?

(56:33):
Some Bell witch scholars have a theorythat Lucy Bell
and the real Kate Battswere in cahoots to kill John.
But this makes no sense to me. Why?
John seemed to be a good man,so I don't see why
Lucy or the real Katewould want to get rid of him.
And I don't think that the real Kate wouldbe able to play the part of the ghost.

(56:56):
Kate, even if she had Lucy'shelp, for too long without being caught.
And if the two ladiesdid conspire to kill John,
why spare Lucy from the witches abuse?
Doesn’tthat just look a little suspicious?
And even darker theory suggeststhat Betsy created the whole thing
as a way to save herfrom her father's unwanted advances.

(57:20):
But that doesn't make any sense to meeither.
If this were the case,then why make things happen
on those nightswhen she is safe at her friend's houses?
Attention? Maybe.
But Kate was also known to be ableto reproduce people's voices to a tee
and know what's going on at other places.

(57:41):
Betsy would not have been able to recite
the two sermonsthat were given at the same time.
You could say that
maybe the doctor made a mistakeand gave John the wrong kind of medicine.
Mistakes do happen.
Except no one at the househad ever seen that bottle before.
So where did it come from?

(58:02):
Another thing the skeptics like to sayis that the whole thing is a hoax
made up in the 1950s
to make some tourism dollars.
Well, the Bell Witch Cave,which is a cave just off of the Red River,
that was part of the Bell propertyat the time of the hauntings

(58:22):
and is said to be where the witch wentafter she left the Bell House,
is now a tourist attraction, along
with some of the original buildingsfrom the Bell Farm.
But the Bell Witch was part of Tennesseefolklore
long beforethe cave was opened to tourists.
And if you live in the northern Tennessee,southern Kentucky area,

(58:44):
and want to meet the Bell Witch herself,head on over to Adams.
There are plenty of storiesonline of people who have experienced
everything from whispers in the earand pulling of hair
to being just upand slammed to the ground.
And that brings us to our last
possibility of what went on in that house

(59:07):
and who killed John Bell.
The witch did it.
He didn't believe in the supernatural,
until the supernatural believed in him.
Welcome to The InBetween.
I'm Carol Ann,and these are the chilling final days

(59:31):
of Christopher Case.
That is the iconic sound of Muzak music.
A staple sound in every elevatorand department store since the 1930s.
But by the 1980s, not in a good way.

(59:52):
to revamp its rather listless reputation,
Muzak Holdings Company reaches outto a former radio DJ from Richmond,
Virginia,who has a reputation for a good ear
and an uncanny abilityto predict music trends.
Christopher Case takes the job offerand moves from the East Coast

(01:00:13):
to the West Coast,specifically Seattle, Washington,
becoming Muzak's newestDirector of Programing.
And it seems to be a match made in heaven.
Christopher loves his job.
Muzak loves him.
And so does pretty much everyone elsehe meets.
Although he's a pretty popular guyand respected coworker, Christopher is

(01:00:34):
actually a very quiet guywith two main passions
in life - staying fit and music.
He's known for his regimeof regular workouts and frequent
use of vitamins and supplements,as well as his passion for old music.
And not like Glenn Miller

(01:00:55):
old. But old, old.
Like ancient Egyptianand Mediterranean civilizations old.
That's a mighty small niche.
Christopher is a single guy,but it's hard to tell if that's because
his idea of a great night is staying inand listening to track
after track of reconstructed drum beatsand haunting lyre melodies.

(01:01:17):
Or because his job requires himto travel a lot,
making a long term relationshiprather difficult.
But regardless of the inner workingsof Christopher's personal life, he's
known to his friends and family as a rocksolid, rational, conservative guy,
which makes the events of April of 1991

(01:01:37):
so utterly inconceivable.
Sometime aroundApril 11th, 1991, Christopher heads
from Seattle to San Franciscofor some kind of business meeting.
While outschmoozing with some fellow music
executives, he'sintroduced to an attractive woman
with a passion for ...ancientEgyptian music.

(01:02:00):
What are the odds?
two hit it off, spendinga good chunk of time discussing the topic.
One thing leads to another, and it becomesapparent that they both want more.
He wants to see more of her musiccollection, and she wants to see
more of him.
Now, whether it's becausethe woman is roughly 20 years his senior

(01:02:22):
or because he's just not interestedor because he doesn't think
a San Francisco Seattle relationship isever going to work is not known.
But what is knownis that the rising intensity
of both her demeanorand her advances starts to creep him out.
So he politely turns her down.

(01:02:43):
And evidently, she’s not as rocksolid as he is
because this rejection infuriates her.
She suddenly turns nasty, staresmenacingly
at Christopherand says, You're going to regret that.
I'm a witchand I'm going to put a curse on you.
You'll be dead within the week.
Christopher kind of whatevers his way back

(01:03:04):
to his hotel, and a couple of days later,back to Seattle.
When he gets home,he puts in a regular touching base
kind of call to a good friend of his fromback on the East Coast, Sammye Souder.
He tells her, “You are not going tobelieve this chick I had dinner with.
She put a curse on mebecause I wouldn't sleep with Now,
Christopher doesn't believe in anythinghe can't see that goes

(01:03:27):
for anythingreligious, paranormal or supernatural.
So the two just kind of laugh it off.
He says goodbye to Sammye,hangs up the phone
and puts the whole thing behind him.
Until a day or two later.
the morning
of April 14th,Sammye gets another call from Christopher,
but this one's a whole lot differentthan the last one.

(01:03:47):
According to Sammye,Christopher is completely freaked out.
He tells her he's been up all night,
that he's seeing these shadowy figuresmoving around his apartment
and that he can hearwhispering coming from different rooms.
But every time he closes in on the source,the whispering changes locations.

(01:04:10):
He's been alone in the apartmentall night,
but can't shake the feelingthat someone is watching him.
Two more days go by, and on April 16th,
Sammye gets another call from Christopher,worse than the last one.
He tells her thatwhatever these things are that are lurking

(01:04:30):
around his apartment at nightare now attacking him.
That he woke up to invisiblefingers around his throat
trying to choke him,and that the attack was so brutal,
it lifted him off of the bedand slammed him back down again.
He tells her that when morningfinally came, he noticed cuts on the ends

(01:04:53):
of all of his fingersand blood on his sheets.
After talking to Sammye,he heads out to a religious bookstore
called the Evangel Incorporated Bookstore.
He walks in the doorand asks the store manager, Rodney
Higuchi, “Where are the crucifixes?”Rodney directs him to the area
he's looking for, and Christopheris picking up about a dozen of them.

(01:05:17):
Rodney asks him, “What do you need themfor?” Christopher tells him,
“I am under attack by supernatural forcesand I need some protection.
Have these been blessed with holy water?
Rodney also points out a few books
they have on the subjectof fighting witchcraft.
So Christopher buys a couple of thoseas well and heads out the door.

(01:05:37):
He heads back home and startsdrawing the battle lines,
putting the crucifixes and some candlesin every room of his apartment,
pouring over the books, makinglittle notes about different methods
of warding off evil spirits,which he leaves all around the apartment.
He also pourssalt around the perimeter of every room

(01:05:59):
with extra piles in every corner.
But evidently that's not enough.
Because that night, April 16th, somethingso terrifying takes place
that Christopher flees his own homeand checks into a hotel.
The next morning,he returns to the bookstore -
so, like the day after his last visit.

(01:06:21):
while the manager, Rodney, doesn'tsay what Christopher bought this time,
he does say that it was likehe was looking at a different person.
He says that on Tuesday.
Christopherlooks pretty much like a normal guy
who was just very concernedabout some problem he's having.
But by Wednesday,he looks like a man under physical attack,

(01:06:44):
that he looked exhausted and desperate.
Rodney does his best to give Christopherevery idea
he can think of for him to defend himself.
That same afternoon,Christopher goes to see Father James
Mallahan, who said, “He could feel this
malignant power influencing his body,and he was scared to death

(01:07:06):
it was going to kill him.”
And Sammye isn't the only friendChristopher's calling.
He reaches out to several peopletelling them all
that he is under attack and really afraid
he won't live through the week.
He's terrified.
Sammye tries calling
Christopher Wednesday morning,but she doesn't know that he's at a hotel.

(01:07:29):
And remember, this is pre cellphone days,
so all she can do is keep trying,which she does all throughout the day.
When she doesn't get any answer from himby about 6 p.m.
Wednesday night,she calls the Seattle police and asks them
to do a welfare check on Christopher.
So the Seattle policecome rolling up to Christopher's door

(01:07:49):
and can see lines of salt on his porch,poured out in a geometric pattern.
They give the door knock.
No one answers,so they try the handle, but it's locked.
So they leave and call Sammyeto let her know that they tried.
But for the moment,there's really nothing else they can do.
Sammye then goes out for the eveningand comes home to the message light
blinking on her answering machine.

(01:08:11):
The message is from Christopher.
The good news that he doesn't soundfrantic and scared anymore.
The bad news is that he sounds like he'sresigned to the idea
that this is his last nightalive on this Earth.
Sammye tries calling Christopher
several more timesthe next day, Thursday, April 18th.

(01:08:33):
But again, no answer.
She calls the police one more timeand asks them for another welfare check.
The policeget to his house at 3:38 that afternoon.
They knock.
No answer, but this time the door’s open.
There are no signs of forcedentry on the door.

(01:08:53):
The officers step inside, callingChristopher's name, but the only noise
they hear is religious musiccoming from the radio in the living room.
The place is a disaster,
with hand scribbled noteslittering the floor, books on the occult
lying everywhere,salt along every edge of the floor,

(01:09:14):
burned down candles and crucifixesin multiple locations.
But no signs of a struggle,so likely no fight with an intruder.
As theycautiously move through the apartment,
they can see a small flicker of lightcoming from the bathroom.
They step in to find Christopher.

(01:09:34):
He's fullyclothed, kneeling in the bathtub,
surrounded by candles and crucifixes,almost as if he's
set up the bathtub as a bunkerto help him defend himself
against whatever evil it isthat's after him.
He's kneeling, facing the faucet wall
with his head on the edge of the tub,as if in prayer.

(01:09:56):
The frozen picture of a man's last action
before passing awaysometime during the previous night.
The coroner,who examined Christopher, determined
that he died of acute myocarditis,leading to heart failure.
So what happened to Christopher?
Did the so-called “witch” so completely

(01:10:17):
get into his headthat he literally scared himself to death?
Well, that is actually a thing.
When you have a sudden scare,your fight or flight response dumps
tons of adrenalineand glucose into your bloodstream
to give you the sudden burst of energyyou need to do either.
It also increases your heart rate

(01:10:38):
and constricts your blood vesselsto increase your blood pressure.
And while this is pretty much a recipefor disaster for people
with a heart condition or high bloodpressure, healthy people are not immune
from blood vessel constriction so strong
that it affects their heart’s abilityto pump blood at all.

(01:10:58):
But this is notwhat happened to Christopher.
He died of myocarditis.
That's different.
It's kind of rare, but it affects onein every 10,000 people or so, usually
those between 20 and 40, and even thosewho are completely fit and healthy.
And researchershave even speculated about a link

(01:11:20):
between myocarditis and some supplements.
Remember that he was a regular vitaminand supplement taker.
And at 35,he certainly is in the right age range.
unlike being scared to death, myocarditisis an inflammation of the heart muscle
caused most oftenby a viral or bacterial infection.

(01:11:41):
And myocarditis usually comeswith chest pains or shortness of breath
and flu like symptoms in the weeksleading up
to this kind of fatal attack,
of which Christopherseems to have suffered from.
And what are the chances of himdying of relatively rare
natural causes at the exact same time

(01:12:03):
he is fighting for his lifeagainst some supernatural force?
And how exactly is he fighting forhis life against some super natural force
when he didn't even believein supernatural forces?
Everyone who knew himsaid he was a stable,
rational guy with narya fanciful bone in his body.

(01:12:24):
Yet that last week of his lifehe was the exact polar opposite.
What can possibly cause that kind
of fundamental shift in seven days?
And who is the woman who cursed him?
Frustratingly enough,because the coroner ruled his death
as myocardial induced heart failure, i.e.,

(01:12:45):
natural causes,other than asking a few cursory questions
of his friends and family,police never investigated any deeper.
So that name will most likelynever be known.
Whether you believe in witches, in cursesor not,
Christophercertainly did that last week of his life.
He even told Sammye that he knew he wasn'tgoing to make it through the night.

(01:13:11):
The question is, did he coincidentally diefrom natural causes
at the exact same time he was havingsome kind of mental breakdown?
Or, was there an actual physical force
making his last days a living hell
before exacting the prescribed revengeon behalf of its creator?

(01:13:33):
Unfortunately,I don't think even gazing into the boiling
cauldron is going to give us the answerto this one.
Christopher was well known not to believein anything he couldn't see.
So I think the questionis, what exactly did he see?

(01:13:55):
The Brecon Beacon mountains of southernWales.
Ancient peaks and over the millennia,have watched over ancient people.
Ancient monumentsand maybe even ancient demons.
I'm Carol Ann, and this episodeis not for the easily spooked.
But if you think you've got what it takes,then hang with me, as we follow

(01:14:20):
one family's descentinto the ultimate nightmare
known as Haol Fanog.
Let's just say you're getting readyto move into a new place.
You go to buy supplies,and the total is $66.60.
A car that almost hit youwhen you're getting your new furniture

(01:14:43):
has a license plate of beast 666.
And the stop you make for your last mealbefore moving in
comes to a grand total of $6.66.
Would you take the hint?
I probably wouldn't either.
And neither did Bill and Liz Rich.
It's the spring of 1989, just outsidethe southern Welsh city of Brecon,

(01:15:07):
in the foothills of the Brecon Beaconsmountain range, in the shadows of pine.
Yvonne, the highest peak in southernWales.
The rich family Bill, Liz
and Bill's 14 year old son Lawrence,from a previous marriage,
pull off of the winding, narrow road
onto the driveway of their new house.

(01:15:29):
Wow. Rented.
Known as hail Senna or road to the peaks.
They get out of the car and start walkingtoward the house, which is actually
the renovated barn of the former manorhouse that once stood on the property.
But was now reduced to crumblingstone outlines.
All three of them can physically feela bubble of peace

(01:15:54):
in valley of them,separating them from the outside world.
This is exactly the fresh start.
Not to mention the peace and quietthey are looking for.
the road for these threehas not been easy to this point.
Bill, who had spent a number of yearstraveling the world
trying to find himself, finally married

(01:16:16):
and settled down with his wife,and soon thereafter Lawrence.
But after 16 years of marriage,his wife left him for someone else,
leaving him to figure outhow to be both parents to Lawrence.
Liz also had a pretty rebellious
youth, includingwandering the Mediterranean for years

(01:16:37):
looking for a fix for her decade longaffliction of anorexia.
Both wayward soulsfound their separate ways back to Wales,
where Bill stumbled into Liz'sherbalist shop
looking for a natural treatmentfor his depression.
That was it.
They both found what they were looking forin each other

(01:16:59):
and Liz's anorexia disappeared.
So life has taken an upwardturn for both of them,
but they still have their struggles.
Liz moves in with Bill,
but they have a bunch of Karen neighborsthat make life difficult.
Bill is worried about Lawrenceadjusting to losing his mom
and Liz moving in, and Bill and Liz decideto get married.

(01:17:23):
Oh, and Liz gets pregnant,
so everything's kind of a hot mess.
But Bill is an up and coming artistwho has a very good business
selling these painted wooden boxes,as well as having some of his paintings
attracting attentionin the international art world.
He even has a few paintings getting readyto be shown in an art exhibition in LA,

(01:17:48):
whose attendees are set to bethe likes of Sylvester Stallone.
Money is good.
So they start searching for a new place,and within
just a couple of weeks,they stumble onto Hail Phoenix.
It's perfect.
Three acres of land, a big house and barn
room for a huge studio for Bill.

(01:18:10):
Quiet and no neighbors.
Done.
And life is good for a while.
The summer is spentgetting settled in their new home.
Bill and Liz get married in September, andtheir baby boy, Ben, is born in October.
But November is when life changed.

(01:18:31):
Bill and Liz are up latedoing what newlyweds do.
Bill then heads down the stairs from thesecond floor to the bathroom on the first.
As he's in there.
He's startled by the banging of what
sounds likesomeone running down the upstairs hallway.
In hob now, boots have no boots.
Are boots that have thick headed nailsin the bottom for durability.

(01:18:55):
So you can imagine how loud that soundedimmediately.
Bill thinks, oh, oh.
Laurence must have heard Lizand I, and he's throwing a fit.
He steals himself for the discussionhe is about to have with his son.
When he peeks in his roomto find Laurence fast asleep.

(01:19:15):
It wasn't Laurence. Then who was it?
And when he got to the bedroomwhere Liz was up nursing.
Then he asked her about it.
She hasn't heard a thing,but they will both tell you
that from the instant Bill hears
those footsteps, everything changes.
The next morning, the house just feelscold and claustrophobic.

(01:19:39):
Laurence comes thundering down the stairsto Bill and Liz in the kitchen
with a scowl on his face,and Bill asks him, what's wrong?
Nothing.
Well, it doesn't look like nothing.
I said, nothing's wrong.
Okay.
That's certainly not the happy golucky kid they had yesterday.
But okay.
He's a teenagergoing through a lot of changes.

(01:20:01):
Whatever.
Still trying to figure outexactly what he heard the night before.
Bill opens the electric billand can't quite believe what he sees.
The bill for the quarter.
So the previousthree months is 750 pounds.
That's like three grand in today's U.S.
dollars. Holy crap.

(01:20:23):
That's like pot farm levels.
The bill and Liz did not have a pot farm.
They didn't even have a regular farm.
They have a pig and a couple of goats.
But that hardly qualifies.
They have no idea why the billwould be that high.
And from that momenton, anything that could go wrong did.

(01:20:44):
Over the next several months.
All of those ordersBill had for his painted wooden boxes
were inexplicably canceled.
Their car battery would go dead overnightfor no reason.
The gallery in LA that was set to showBill's paintings went under,
causing his paintings to be helduntil proper ownership

(01:21:05):
could be established, a processthat could take years.
And not only are they still hearingthose same invisible boots
running down the hallway,but now they also hear
invisible slipperspadding their way down the stairs.
The temperature in the houseis totally unpredictable.
Some days the house is so hotthat Liz has sweat running down her face.

(01:21:27):
She tells Bill to turn the heat downand Bill says the heat's not on.
Other times it's just the opposite.
Where she's so cold, she's shivering.
They both experience sudden odors,
either of sulfur or incense,so strong that they feel like
they're going to vomit, and then theyseemingly evaporate as fast as they came.

(01:21:49):
And it feels to everyone that they are
not the only ones living in their house.
One day.
Bill is in his studio,and Liz is in the bedroom
with Ben when she hears a door slam.
Was that Bill?
Then she hears the next door slamand then the next door slam.
The next door is the one to the roomshe is in.

(01:22:12):
Sure enough, Liz jumps as she hears
the door to her room slam as well.
Except the door was already closedand it had never opened.
Everybody's nerves are wearing thinand Laurence is going downhill fast.
He'd been telling Bill for a whilethat he wanted to paint his room.

(01:22:34):
You know, make it his own space suitone day.
Bill gives his money and says,knock yourself out.
Laurence picks out his paintand paints his room all by himself.
However, Bill and Lizare a little dismayed
to discover that his room is now a bloodred color.
Bill still thinks Laurenceis acting out to the new family changes,

(01:22:58):
so he buys him a little presenta TV VCR combo for his bedroom.
Big mistake, because nowBill and Liz are kept up at night
by the screams of horror moviesat full volume.
All night long.
And any suggestionthat maybe he at least turned down
the volume is metwith the proverbial hand.

(01:23:21):
The biggest thing that breaks Bill's heart
is seeing the physical changesto his son's face.
Lawrence.
His cheeks are sinking inand his eyes have dark circles under them.
Bill barely recognizesthe face he now sees as his own kid.
Bill'smom comes to stay with them for a weekend,
and after she's been there for a bit,they hear Lawrence coming out of his room,

(01:23:44):
which is a pretty rare affair these days.
He even eats dinner in there most nights.
So Graham gets up and wandersover to the stairway to say hi.
Lawrence yells, get away from me!
Grandma looks like she's been slappedin the face and just says, Lawrence.
Lawrence tells his grandmother to f off.

(01:24:06):
Spits in her face and startsheading back to his room.
Bill pushes past his motheron the staircase and shouts at Lawrence
to apologize.
At which point Lawrence tells him to f offand spits in his face
to head back to his room and slamsthe door.
Bill is shockednot only by his son's behavior,

(01:24:28):
but by the realizationthat that was not his son.
Liz says we need help.
She contacts the landlord, Phil Holborn,
and asks him if anything strangehas ever been reported in the house.
He says no.
She contacts the former tenantthat was there right before them,
Bridget Bascomb, who tells Liz, well,I saw a spinning wheel

(01:24:52):
spinning by itself once,but I didn't really think much of it.
I loved it there.
They bring in a Catholic priestwho goes around and blesses every room.
Much to Bill and Liz's relief.
The house just feels better.
But only for a couple of days.
And one day when Liz is coming backfrom taking Ben for a walk,

(01:25:14):
which she does as often as she can,since she figured out
that the further away from the houseshe is, the better she feels.
Somehow,their bubble of peace has become a prison
of nightmares,and she comes up the driveway.
She glances up at the windows of the houseand sees an old woman
standing there, looking none too happy.

(01:25:35):
When Liz tells Bill what she saw,
Bill says all of thisis because of the ghost of some old lady.
Liz says, nope, she's here,but this isn't her doing.
Not long after that, the Richard starthaving some plumbing issues.
The floor under the toilet is heavingand making the toilet loose.

(01:25:57):
Bill calls the plumber.
Of course, the floor goes back to normal
right before he gets there.
Plumber can't find anything wrong,so he receipts the toilet
and leaves, but the floor heaves again.
So Bill calls the plumberagain, and the plumber says,
They thought I was done with that place.

(01:26:19):
Turns out that he'sthe same guy that had installed
the radiator heating systemback in the 60s, when the current
landlord's mother,Marian, was living there.
The plumber finishes the radiator job,but is called back the next day
by the old ladyyelling at him to come back
because all of the radiatorshave come loose.
He comes back,has no idea how they could even come off,

(01:26:42):
but dutifully tightens them all back on.
The next day he gets this same calland goes back again.
The same thing happensfor a number of days in a row,
until the plumber has an idea and decidesto use different
screws to reinsert all the radiators.
This time he uses a cruciform screw,which was the name for the cross

(01:27:05):
head screw, known todayas a Phillips screw.
Before Henry Phillipsbought the rights to the design
and it worked,the radiators never came loose again.
Not long after that, Bill is rearrangingsome stacks of furniture
left in his studioby the landlord for storage.
When he finds a faded old pictureof an elderly woman,

(01:27:28):
he shows the picture to Liz,whose face goes pale.
That's her. That's the old woman.
It's a picture of Marian,the landlord's mother.
Bill decides to do an interviewwith the local newspaper
as soon as it hits the stands.
He gets a call from a guywho worked on the house back in the 50s.

(01:27:49):
When it was converted from a barnto a house.
Saying without saying it.
He implies that the small family graveyard
on the property had maybe been disturbed.
Maybe that was their issue.
And then there's the morningthat Bill wakes up Liz in a total panic.
She says, what's wrong?

(01:28:10):
Bill shows her his hand overnight.
His fingertips have become swollen.
The skin is cracking and bleeding.
He can't even hold a paintbrush.
He can't paint.
Bill is crushed.
Now it's personal.
He feels like whatever this thingis, it's trying to not only take away

(01:28:33):
the one thing that has been keeping himsane these past few months,
but also taking away his abilityto make his living as meager as it is.
Meanwhile, a fight withthe electric company is brewing.
After that first hellacious bill.
Bill called the company, saying,there must be some kind of mistake.

(01:28:55):
There's no waywe use this much electricity.
The response from the electric companyis, you're right.
That is really high.But there's no mistake.
So you still have to pay it.
After a few more lively phone calls,
the electric company sends someone outto check the line to the meter.

(01:29:15):
Everything checks out fine.
So again, the electric company saysour meter is fine.
So the problem is in your house,which is your responsibility.
Pay up.
Bill hires energy
consultants to come out and take a lookat all of their appliances.
They all check out.
Fine, but the outrageously high bills

(01:29:36):
keep coming and do all of this.
All of their animals start to die.
The pig gets sick and has to be put down.
Lawrence is Guineapig dies and their goat,
who has two kids, accidentally crushesone of them.
Liz's next caller brings in Ray Williams
of the Christian Spiritualist Churchin Cardiff.

(01:29:59):
His opinion is thatLauren needs to be removed from the house.
Either he's the center of the poltergeistactivity or if he's not.
This is not a healthy environmentfor a kid to grow up in.
Liz breaks the news to Bill, who's crushedby the idea of sending his son away.
And she adds, oh, by the way,I'm pregnant.

(01:30:24):
Ray Williams comes by to see the houseand has a couple of mediums
with him, one by the name of Larry Harry.
They only mention himbecause I think that name is hilarious.
They cleanse the house,which seems to do nothing
The two mediums come back,and they tell the riches that they sense.
Four entities on the farm.
The ghosts of two menand an old woman that are trapped there.

(01:30:49):
And some other entitythat doesn't want to go.
But don't worry.
At least they set the three trapspirits free.
That didn't seem to work either.
But one day, Mr.
Harry comes back againwith another medium and tells Bill
they're going to build a psychicwall of protection around the house.

(01:31:09):
They walk around the housefor about a half hour and say it's done.
Almost immediately, Bill and Lizcan feel the difference in the house.
It's brighter, feels better.
The next few days are a dream, with Bill's
fingers healing overnight,and their neighbor
commissions Bill to paint a portraitof their prize horse, echo.

(01:31:32):
Fantastic.
The only hard part was saying goodbyeto Lawrence.
The boarding school they found for himwas right there in Brecon
so they could visit
whenever they wanted to,but that didn't really make it any easier.
But to keep his mind off of all of that,
Bill dove into the horse painting project.

(01:31:53):
The neighbors had given hima picture of the horse.
But Bill went out one day,looking over the neighbor's
fields, looking for the perfect backgroundto put behind him.
He finds the perfect spot
with the mountains in the back,and sits down to sketch it out.
And see sitting there.
Another neighbor comesby, starts chatting.
Turns out all of the farms in the area

(01:32:16):
are all suffering from a blanket of badluck.
All the livestock that's been born lately,
or either all deformedor blind or deaf or dead.
The last time.
When did all of this start?
Turns out the first deformed calf was bornthe day after Larry, Harry

(01:32:37):
and his friend had erected the protectivepsychic wall around Bill's house.
So it's like the negativity and bad mojo
they had been experiencinghad now been pushed out to everyone else.
Bill keeps working on the horse
painting, and he's more than satisfiedat how it's coming along.

(01:32:57):
With the exception of the horse's rightrear leg, no matter how many times
Bill starts it over,it keeps coming out looking.
And. He finally gives up,
making it look as good as he canand delivers the painting.
The neighbors are thrilled.
Not long after,Liz gets a call from the neighbor's wife.

(01:33:20):
Now, keep in mindthat the neighbors are aware
of some funky thingsthat are going down at Haol Fanog.
Maybe not the full extent,but they know something's going on.
So the neighbor's wife callsto let them know that their horse
had contracted an infection of its right
rear leg,making it look exactly as deformed

(01:33:44):
as it looked in the painting,and they had to put it down.
They buried the horse right where it fell,which happened to be
in the exact same spotin which Bill had painted it.
Barely able to hide her insinuationthat the curse of Haol Fanog,
and by extension,Bill had killed their horse,

(01:34:05):
she little is known that they burnedBill's painting.
Several weeks of peace later.
So around August of 1990, a brutal storm
seems to wash awaytheir wall of protection.
The house goes from completely peacefulto 100% ominous.

(01:34:25):
The thing is back.
What follows is a string
of people, religious and secular,
all trying to help the richesrid their home of this dark energy.
Sometimes nothing changes.
But sometimes things would be betterfor a while.
One man, David Holmwood,even managed to exorcize the evil presence

(01:34:48):
for almost two years.
And as awesomeas that felt for the riches,
they still knew deep insidethat it wasn't really gone.
They could feelwhatever this thing is simmering
in the dark recesses, waiting.
Just so you know,their power bill is still off the charts.

(01:35:11):
And as usual, the peace does not last.
And as time plods on,
the electricity in the houseis not the only thing draining away.
So is Bill's creativity and inspiration
to paint,seeing the proverbial writing on the wall.
He knows he has to make a choicebetween putting his time and energy

(01:35:34):
into his life's passion, or into standing
with his wife to protect their family.
He can't do both.
The choice really isn't all that hard.
But like the loss of any good friend,
Bill grieves the loss of this hugechunk of who he is
and is angry for having to make the choiceto begin with.

(01:35:58):
In his anger and frustration, grabsone of his older paintings and starts
covering over it in a frenzy of sadnessand frustration.
After 20 minutes of blind emotionguiding the paintbrush,
covering the canvas in dark, vibrantcolors, Bill is finished

(01:36:18):
both emotionally as wellas with the painting.
He sits back to see what the result is,
only to be shocked at what he sees
in a sea of dark hues in turmoil.
A bright whitecross dominates the Color Storm,
and for the first time in a longtime, Bill sees

(01:36:41):
just a flicker of lightat the end of his tunnel.
He names the painting testimony.
Throughout this entire ordeal.
Bill and Liz just kept talking to people,going to the library and collecting
any information they could findabout the history of the property.
One interesting thing they dug upis that in

(01:37:02):
1898, there was a murder.
23 year old Thomas Edwards was hangedfor taking an ax
to the back of the head of 118 year oldJames Griffith
James's body was foundburied in a muck heap a stone's
throw away at the farm at Kum Goody,where they both worked as farmhands.

(01:37:24):
But some say the actual murderhappened at Haol Fanog.
There are suggestionsthat it was a fight over
money or a beef over a farmer's daughter.
There is a surprise.
But there is also the persistent legendthat James was taken out
because he witnessed some kind of ceremonyof the dark arts variety.

(01:37:47):
And supposedly Thomas was told by
someone in said dark artsring that if he committed this murder,
he would be taken care of,And that Thomas believed
until the very momentthe noose is tightened around his neck,
that someone was going to step forwardwith an alibi
or somethingto stop this whole execution thing.

(01:38:09):
But no one did.
Maybe Thomas misunderstoodwhat was meant by him being taken care of.
Another interesting tidbit that comes tolight comes from the local vet
slash animal controlofficer called the dog warden.
The riches had decided to try their luckwith animals one more time

(01:38:30):
and get a Dobermanpuppy named Bo, both for the kids,
of which they now had two,and the third one
was due soon, and for protection.
At first the puppy was your regular puppy,
but soon it was reduced to shaking
and crying in its spot in the corner.
Obviously terrified of something.

(01:38:54):
So the Riches called Liz Jonesthe dog warden, to come and take a look
at Bo, just to make sure that nothing'swrong with him.
After pronouncing Bo fit as a federal
and admitting she has no ideawhat's causing his behavior,
she confesses to the richesthat she almost didn't come.
She never wanted to set footon this property again.

(01:39:17):
Turns out she's friends with BridgetteBascombe, the previous tenant of Haol
Fanog, the girl who really didn't thinkanything of her spinning spinning wheel.
Well, Bridgette has to go out of town,
so she asks Liz Jones to take care of heranimals for her.
Liz says no problem, and starts going toHaol Fanog every day to feed the animals.

(01:39:40):
And guess what?
She heard the clomping bootsrunning down the hallway too.
More than once.
But she doesn't find anythingwrong with Bo,
so Bill takes him to the local vet,who also can't find anything wrong.
But as soon as they get home,Bo takes his regular
spot, crying, shaking and whimpering.

(01:40:03):
Now I know we have a lot of animal loverswatching whose hearts
are breaking for poor Bo,but I have to digress for just a moment
and talk about one of the actual goodthings to come out of this whole ordeal.
Bill and Lizhad both been spiritual people
before 1989, but their faith was just not

(01:40:24):
really in the foreground of their dayto day lives.
However, as the months and years of mentaland physical torture ticked by.
Not only do they figure out thatthey are stronger together than alone,
but they discover that they are strongerwith God than without him,
and are eventually baptizedinto the Baptist faith.

(01:40:47):
So here's Bill laying on the floorwith his face next to Bo's,
trying to comfort the poorterrified puppy.
When inspiration strikes,
he lays his hand on Bo's head and says,
Jesus, whatever is bothering this dog,take his fear away.

(01:41:08):
And with that, Bo stops shaking andwhimpering and falls into a deep sleep
he hasn't had in days, maybe even weeks,
and has bothered no more.
By now, the riches had been giventhe name of another person
who might be able to help them.
David Home one has done a good jobhelping them keep the monsters at bay

(01:41:32):
for a long time, but the riches needed
someone to get rid of it once and for all.
Enter one Eddie Burke.
Eddie had come to prominencein the paranormal world recently,
when word got outthat he cleared a haunted bank.
Now he wants to help the riches, but

(01:41:55):
he also wants to bring a documentary crew.
So the riches tell him.
We're going to have tothink about that one.
They really weren't sure that they wantedto invite that kind of publicity.
And Eddie was not a Christian.
All of their Christian friendstell the riches to stay away from him.

(01:42:16):
But one friend steps up and tells them,Give Eddie a shot.
Why not?
No one else has been ableto get rid of this thing.
The riches certainly arein full on desperation mode at this point.
The activity is more pervasivethan it has ever been
with something unusually happeningalmost every day.

(01:42:38):
And it comes in waves, ramping uplike someone turning up the voltage.
When it's at its worst,even affects their children,
who become much grumpier and harderto put to bed at night.
But then something usually happens,like seeing the old woman
in the children's rooms.
That drains that pent up charge,dissipating the oppressive atmosphere

(01:43:03):
for a while, but only for a while.
Whatever it is, it's angry.
The riches decide to accept Eddie Burke'soffer of help,
but getting everythingcoordinated takes some time.
The waiting is especially hard for Bill.
He is about as low as he can go right now.

(01:43:25):
His physical energy is draining away.
Bills are piling upwith no income in sight.
He no longer has his painting as a refuge,
and their third child has just been born,bringing with it
all kinds of new pressuresof taking care of the other two.
So Liz can concentrate on the new one.

(01:43:47):
And just like they didwhen their second child was born,
they had both of their motherscome to stay for help and support.
But this house has a wayof pulling out the worst in people.
Just like the first time.
Perfectly cordial in laws devolved
into arguing unhelpful distractions.

(01:44:09):
So the riches sent them home.
One night, as Billsat alone at the kitchen table,
trying to comprehend
how they'd even gotten to this place.
He looks up to noticeone of their big, sharp
kitchen knivessitting next to his arm on the table.
Immediately he's ticked off.

(01:44:31):
He and Liz are always careful to make surethey put it back in the drawer
so the little onescan get their little fingers on it.
Obviously, Liz must have left it out.
How irresponsible can you get?
He gets up, grabsthe knife to put it back in the drawer,
and a sudden thought rushes into his head.

(01:44:52):
What would it feellike to run that blade over his wrist?
He shoves the knife in the drawer, closeshis eyes, and tries
to shove the thoughts of deathout of his head.
But the thoughts don't want to go away.
Think of how easy it would be.
No more pressure. No more problems.

(01:45:14):
Just peace.
He tries to flood his head with positiveimages of Liz
and his children,but the dark thoughts keep winning.
He opens his eyes again.
And there's the knife.
The one he hadjust put away in the drawer.
Come on.
It'll be over in an instant.

(01:45:35):
You won't feel a thing.
Bill lashes out,knocking the knife to the floor.
When Liz comes through the doorto see what happened,
she finds Bill on his knees on the floorwith tears in his eyes.
Bill says this House wants us.
And if we don't do something soon,I'm afraid it's going to get us.

(01:45:55):
By the timeEddie arrives, it's March of 1993.
Now, he's not really your typical ghosthunter or medium in experience as a child.
Got him to thinking that maybethere's more to this life than we know.
But he spent his adult life as a principalscience officer for the civil service.

(01:46:16):
Pretty no nonsense.
But then in 1970, his wife dies
of a heart attackand appears to him, causing him
to look more towardwhat we can feel than what we can see.
As he sits down with friendsto discuss the happenings at all pfennig.
Eddie suddenly feels informationcoming through to him,

(01:46:38):
telling himthere is much confusion at this place.
Many layers of influence,
some of which are unpleasant.
And that he needs to keep his mind openand his senses sharp.
When Eddie, with the help of his friendCaptain Ferguson Cunningham,
get to the house.
Eddiefollows the instructions coming to him

(01:47:00):
by the guides who promised to help him.
He lays down a barrier of lightaround the property's
perimeter and another around the houseitself.
Eddie tells Bill thatthere is a concentration of energy here
and it's not friendly, but he can see
that the house is feeling with light.

(01:47:22):
He can sense the presence of Christand hears the words,
and there will be nowhere leftfor them to go.
The light shall prevail.
Eddie asks Bill if there's some crime loss
of significance nearby,as he's also hearing.
And so I shall leave my markand my protection upon this place.

(01:47:44):
Bill stops for a moment and smilesknowingly,
and leads the man into the housewhere his last painting
testimony, hangs on the living room wall.
Bill's mind is blown.
All this timehe saw the cross in his painting

(01:48:05):
as the hope of Christswimming in a sea of evil.
But instead, this whole time, it's
been the image of God's defeat of evil.
The day after Eddie's visit,the ever spinning electric meter
starts to slow down.
Something's working wrong,and he warns them

(01:48:28):
that the activity and cleansingthat has taken place at Ail
Pfennig is now going to become a beacon
for other souls looking for the light.
So don't be surprisedif you start seeing more apparitions.
And they do.
But none of them give off anyill intent vibes.
Instead,it's like they're all just passing

(01:48:49):
through the houseon their way to somewhere else.
Not exactly the result they werelooking for, but better than evil.
The house is bright and happy again.
And Bill's son, Lawrence, who pretty muchdid 180 after getting out of that house,
comes over to play with his brothersand sister on a regular basis.

(01:49:12):
And laughter fills every space.
But Bill and les can feelthat things are not quite right.
Somewherein the flurry of vicars and mediums.
Some one had managed to release Marion'sspirit, and Eddie
says he was able to release the spiritsof both the murderer and his victim.

(01:49:36):
The two male spirits that were there.
Whatever that last dark forceis, it's not quite gone.
And the electric meter startsto spin fast or.
Now, before you come to any conclusionsabout this
last entity being an actual demon.
There are a couple more avenuesto consider.

(01:49:57):
Way backwhen Bill and Liz had just become an item,
young Lawrence was fascinated with Egypt,
so the three took a bonding vacation
to Egypt,including a tour of the Pyramid of Cheops,
the largest of the three pyramids of Giza.
They all got up really early to beatnot only the heat of the day,

(01:50:19):
but the other tourist as well.
You know. Worked.
They were the only ones aroundwhen they started up.
The dark passagewaysthat led to the burial chamber.
Once they get in the chamber,Liz can see these flashes of light
within the rocks like laser light.
And she asked the boys, you see that?
And both boys say, see what?

(01:50:42):
But then they all feel a presence
enter the room with them,
totally creeped out and feelinglike they're all in danger.
They all take off, runningout of the chamber through the tunnels
and don't stop until they are outsidein the sunshine again.
Liz would later report seeing those same

(01:51:03):
flashing lights again in their barn.
But the Egypt ties don't stop there.
As the encounters in their housewere at their highest levels,
both Bill and Liz saw an entitythat they both described as being about
seven feet tall,all black, with the head of a bird

(01:51:24):
closely resembling picturesand statues of the Egyptian god
Horus and Liz's mother, whomthe riches would stay
with occasionally when they neededa few days away from the farm.
Found a pendant on her living room floorthat looked strangely Egyptian
wasn't hers, knowingthey had been to Egypt,
she assumed it was a souvenir of Liz'sand handed it to her.

(01:51:48):
Here, I found your pendant.
But neither Liz nor Bill had ever seen itbefore.
Liz hands it to Bill, who immediatelydrops it on the carpet after getting hit
with what felt like an electrical surgethrough his arm.
Bill takes the pendant outsideand smashes it with a hammer.

(01:52:09):
So maybe the familyaccidentally brought back
some kind of spiritfrom the ancient tomb of Cheops.
But there is still one more avenueto explore ley lines.
During the parade of interested partiesthat waltz
through hell over the six year ordeal.
Many were searching for ley lines.

(01:52:31):
Ley line is a theoretical line of energythat flows through the Earth,
and if you check out a ley line map,you'll see that many churches
and ancient monumentshave been erected on these lines.
What I didn't knowis that these lines are said to either
followor are created by underground rivers,

(01:52:54):
and the energy emittedcan either be positive or negative.
So dozers, people who are skilledat detecting underground
water and mineralscan also detect these energy channels.
And according to them,hey, fact is sitting on
more than one negative energy river.

(01:53:16):
You know what negative energy musthave taken to generate a flow of the size?
And they all said I wouldn't live here.
So do the negative entities comefrom the energy of those negative energy
ley lines?
Or are they just attracted to the negativeenergy signatures they radiate?
Very good question.

(01:53:37):
But I gotta say,I have a hard time with the whole ley
line ideaevery time I try to compare maps.
No, nobody's map is the same.
Not helpful.
But no matter where the dark energy camefrom originally,
it's pretty evidentthat it's now entrenched in Haile Fennec.

(01:53:59):
Eddie pays the farm.
Another visit.
And as he's getting in touch
with the dark presence,which he describes as something
without form, without personality,something very ancient.
The oppression in the room ramps up.
He describes the force as somethingprimitive, possibly a force summoned

(01:54:24):
by early pagans who did not understandthe power they were messing with.
as Eddie is dealing with that entity,the tape recorder that had been set up
and turned on in the corner suddenlylets out this loud crack like it's
been struck by lightning or somethingstops
the oppression that filled the room.

(01:54:46):
It's gone.
Since Eddie's second visit to Haol Fanog,
there has been no reportsof any strange phenomena at the farm,
and the electricity bill is now belowthe average for a house that size.
I wish I could say, and they all lived
happily ever after, but I can't.

(01:55:08):
In the aftermath, it seems asif the dark force had just taken
too much from Bill, who turned to alcoholto try and erase the memories.
After leaving, Haol Fanog, now nicknamed
Hellfire Farm or the Welsh Amityville,
Bill and Liz divorced,and Bill passed away in 2016.

(01:55:32):
One of Bill's biggest fearsis that the House would get them.
Looks like in the end, it did.
Small confessionI had heard of when it goes before,
but I never really looked into him beforeI started researching for this video.

(01:55:54):
Oh my God, how horrifying!
The mimicry, the cannibalism.
No. Thank you.
And while doing all that research,
I found two of the most terrifyingWendigo stories.
So hold on to your teddy bearsas we go deep
into the Wendigo.
The writer of this story says that due

(01:56:16):
to the nature of the encounter,she prefers to remain anonymous.
But instead uses the pen name Alex.
On September13th of 2016, Alex is driving up
the Big Horn Mountainsoutside of Buffalo, Wyoming.
Just like every other trip,she packed accordingly.
Two bottles of water, six Nutri-Grain barsand a loaded handgun.

(01:56:38):
she drove up to thisarea 4 or 5 times a week, never
worrying about ghost stories or monsters.
As far as she knew,these mountains were mostly harmless,
with the exception of some predatorsthat are rarely seen and the weather.
But something in her changed.
On September 13th.
Instead of going to her usualneck of the woods.

(01:56:59):
She went to a remote campsite known asHettinger, about 15 miles outside of town.
It's a beautiful placewhere if you cross the fence,
you can get up to a peakwhere you can see for miles.
And as she's looking outover the majestic, snow covered landscape.
She sees a tall, slender figure

(01:57:23):
marching through the blanket of snow.
Now normally she would just ignore itas a hunter on the move.
But Hettinger was pretty far awayfrom any known hunting areas.
to this day,
she wishes she would have justpacked up her things and left right then.
She wishes she had never peekedthrough her binoculars.

(01:57:44):
But sometimes knowing is the only safeoption.
And Alex says she will never let herselfforget that moment.
The moment she peers through
the cold glass over the winter plateau.
The moment she focuses her lenses
and the figure becomes clear.

(01:58:07):
And she drops behind the rocks.
She is 1000ft away or more.
Hidden by a rock and within the treeline.
But it's looking at heras if it could see her.
But that's impossible for a human.
But then again, this thing,whatever it is, it isn't human.
And Alexpeaks back up over the top of the rock

(01:58:29):
without her binocularsto take another look.
In. It's just standing theresniffing the air, looking at her.
heart sinks and she can't move.
She is frozen in fear.
But she looks around herand sees that about 200ft behind her.
Is a small rock cave.

(01:58:49):
Big enough to squeeze intoand deep enough to hide in the dark.
So crouching down,she slowly inches her way
backwards toward the entrance to the cave.
And just beforeshe's at the cave entrance,
she straightens up a little bitto take one last look.
And it's sprinting towards her.

(01:59:11):
Alex moves as fast as she caninto the cave and tucks herself in.
And the moment she makes it,the is now standing
exactly where she had just been standing.
It's skin looks damp and gray,
and it has really long handswith really long fingers
to match that end, a big,

(01:59:33):
sharp, dagger like claws.
And she moves her hand
to cup her mouth to cover her breathing,which is out of control.
But as she moves her hand, a little rocktumbles to the frozen ground.
And she looks down at the rock and snapsher head back up to see its cold eyes
peering into the darkness of the cave,searching.

(01:59:57):
It's almost as if it can't see her, but
it knows something is there.
And Alex stands still as a statue
with her breath stuck in her chest.
And it reaches in, groping around,and it almost finds her backpack.
And after about five minutes of forever,

(02:00:19):
it seems to give up and go backto just sniffing the air.
And she waits there in shock.
The suffocating weight of fear
bearing down on herwith every passing moment.
Now the cave entrancequickly gets dark as night starts to fall
and the creature finally wanders off.

(02:00:41):
and Alexwait a little longer to poke her head out.
But when she finally does,she takes a look around and sees nothing.
Like really nothing.
Not only is the creature gone,but there are no footprints
or tracksor anything that show it was even there.
When she decides it is time to go.

(02:01:01):
And she cautiously leaves the protectionof the cave, watches her footsteps
to make sure she's not making any noise,and makes her way back down to her car.
she even uses her key to unlock the door.
Instead of using the button lock.
She gets in and she sinks downand she takes one last look.

(02:01:22):
She doesn't see anything.
And Alex finally gets up the gutsto actually start the car,
puts it into reverse, and startsto exit the parking lot.
So she can drive down the roadthat will take her to the main highway.
And she's just about turned aroundwhen she sees it.
And it is as tall as the trees,and it is staring at her.

(02:01:44):
and she hits the gas.
And the car startsfishtailing on the frozen pavement,
but she manages to get itgoing straight again and keeps driving.
And as she reaches the main road,she looks in her rearview mirror
and she sees thatthe thing is following her and keeping up.
And she looks back at the roadand keeps her eyes

(02:02:06):
there, focusing,just focusing on driving and not crashing.
And after a few miles, she looksin the mirror again and it's gone.
To this day, Alex has not been back,
not even to that region of the mountains.
And since that day, she has spenta lot of time figuring out what

(02:02:28):
that thing was.
And she found severalmyths about the creature and its origins.
And her advice?
Stay safe and know that the world is
far more vast than we know.

(02:02:50):
This story comes from Reddit userSarah Beth, 11.
and Sarah.
Beth says that she isby no means a writer,
just a domestic engineerliving in North Texas.
And she also states that she doesnot believe in the paranormal.
Not ghosts, not demons, not aliens.
None of it.
However, the event that happened to her

(02:03:12):
on Halloween of 2013 Has lefther scratching her head ever since.
This was her firstand last post on Reddit,
and she says she had never heardof the Black Eyed Kids.
Until the day before she shared her story.
When she told her best friendabout the incident.

(02:03:33):
And her friend, an avid reader of No SleepStories, told
Sarah BettsIf you don't post this, I will.
Now, according to SarahBeth, that night had been a pretty slow
trick or treat night for her neighborhood,which is pretty odd.
They usually have kids from differentareas being dropped off

(02:03:53):
in their neighborhood, Creating a constantparade of kids at the door.
But oddly, that night they had no morethan 8 or 10 groups of kids all night.
And around 930,she and her husband are in the family room
watching one of those ghost showsthat are based on actual events.
And while she and her husbandboth discount the paranormal stuff,

(02:04:17):
they do love a good ghost story.
And it's Halloween, right?
Sarah Beth and her husband
hadn't had any activity at their doorin over a half an hour.
So they decide it's timeto get up and turn off the porch light
and let their dog,Chloe, out of her crate.
Chloe is an American bulldogand she's very docile.
They only put her in her crate
because they were afraid

(02:04:38):
that Chloe would try to get out and playwith all of the kids,
and Sarah Beth didn'tfeel like chasing her down the street.
and they didn'twant her to scare any of the kids,
because she can look a little intimidatingfor the younger kids.
So Sarah Beth gets up, turns the outsidelight off, lets Chloe out of her crate,
who follows Sarah Beth back to the couchand lays out her feet.

(02:05:00):
And it was getting close to 10 p.m.
when her husband says, you know what?
I gotta work tomorrow.
I'm tired.
I'm going to go upstairs,take a shower and go to bed.
And her teenage son was out withhis friends at a local haunted house,
and she didn't expect him to be backfor at least another hour.
So that left SarahBeth alone on the couch with Chloe.
Now, just because she saysshe doesn't believe

(02:05:22):
doesn't mean those ghost showsdon't freak her out a bit.
And now, watching them alone,
she admits she was a little on edge.
It wasn't long aftershe heard the water upstairs.
Turn on for the showerwhen she hears a light.
Knock knock, knock at the front door.
And Sarah Beth's initial reaction is.

(02:05:44):
What the hell?
It's 10:00. Go home.
But an uneasy feeling comes over her.
Why did knock?
Their doorbell glows.
And in the dark, without the porch light,it would be extra bright.
It would be extra obvious to anybodystanding there.

(02:06:06):
And Sarah Beth pauses.
She can't really ignore it.
Their front door has a big beveledglass panel,
And anyone standing right at the doorcan see in enough
to see that somebody is in the family roomwatching TV.
It would be pretty rude for herto just sit there and not answer it.

(02:06:27):
Knock knock knock again from the door.
She glances down at Chloeand Chloe is gone.
And Sarah looks along the usual paththat Chloe takes
to the front door,expecting her to be on her way there.
But nothing.
Chloe's not there.
Sarah Beth stands up to look aroundthe room better and finds Chloe.

(02:06:49):
Crouching by the back doorlike she wants to go out.
However, Chloenever asked to go out that way.
She always comes and licks SarahBeth's hand or puts her head on her knee.
That was totally out of characterfor Chloe.
And Sarah Beth admits that Chloe's oddbehavior only heightens her anxiety.

(02:07:11):
Chloe. Great.
She says.
Chloe just turns back to look at SarahBeth.
Like hell no lady, I ain't moving.
And Sarah Beth yells up to her husband,but she knows
if he's already stepped into the shower.
There is no way he's going to hear her.
Knock knock knock again.

(02:07:31):
About that same time,a car drives down the street and casts
just enough light onto the doorthat Sarah Beth can see the silhouette
of two young childrenon the other side of the glass.
She instantly feels relief.
It's just some kids.
Probably a couple of neighborswho are on their way back home for trick

(02:07:51):
or treating and just want to stop and showSarah Beth their costumes.
And she heads to the door
and looks back to make surethat Chloe isn't following her.
What a great watchdog,she thinks to herself as Chloe
just sits there,not moving any closer to the door.
And Sarah Beth turns on the porch lightwhen she gets to the door, and
sure enough, she can see through the glassthat it's two pretty young kids.

(02:08:14):
And she thinks it's a little latefor such young kids.
And wonders about what kind of parentswould let their kids roam
the streets this late at night.
And she opens the door,but only wide enough to where she can
block Chloe's escape.
Should she decide to get braveso only a couple of feet.
And what strikes Sarah Beth immediatelyas odd is that

(02:08:37):
the kids aren't wearing any costumes,just their normal street clothes.
Also, no customary trick or treat either.
SarahBeth starts to feel very uneasy again.
Standing at the door are a boy and a girl.
The girl to Sarah's leftis older, about 11 or 12.

(02:08:58):
And she can tell the girl is blond,but she can't make out
any distinct features because of the waythat the porch lights are hung.
Most of the light falls behind them.
And Sarah Beth had not openedthe door wide enough
for any of the inside lightto fall directly on them, either.
But she can tell that the boy is younger,probably a foot shorter,

(02:09:21):
maybe 8 or 9 years old,and looks to have light brown hair.
The girl very politely speaks up.
Ma'am, can we come insideto use your phone to call our mom?
As the girl speaks,something in the pit of Sarah
Beth's stomach is telling hersomething is wrong.

(02:09:42):
What kid, even at that age, doesn'thave a cell phone of their own these days?
She can't remember the last timeanybody asked
to use her home phone. Hon,
don't you
have a phone of your ownthat you can call your mom on?
And both kids turn and look at one another

(02:10:03):
like they're about to say something,but they never do.
They just both turn back to Sarah Beth.
And she says, ma'am, my cell phone batterydoesn't have any charge left in it.
Can we please come insideand call our mother?
We're alone out here,and my brother is scared.
and Sarah Beth admitsthat there are now two competing feelings

(02:10:25):
going on inside of her.
The first,a mother's heart that desperately wants
to help these two young childrenget back to their mom.
The other a sinking fear in her
stomachthat keeps the other feeling at bay.
It was then that Sarah Beth noticedthat during their conversation,

(02:10:46):
she had actually opened up the doora few more inches
that she had no recollection of doing.
She starts.
Honey, why don't you give me your mother'snumber and I'll call her myself?
Another pause, and the kids once againlook at each other
without saying anything.
And after a moment, they both turnback to Sarah Beth, and the girl says.

(02:11:10):
Ma'am, my little brotherneeds to use your bathroom.
Can we come inside while you call our mom?
And with that last statement, the littlegirl moves closer toward the door.
Like she's just going to walkright on past Sarah Beth.
And as the girl makes that forward move,she steps into the light coming
from inside of the house, giving SarahBeth her first real good look at the girl.

(02:11:34):
Solid jet black eyes.
That's all she can see.
That motherly instinct is goneand replaced by terror
that Sarah Beth doesn't think she has everfelt in her entire life.
She could feel every hair on her arms
and the back of her neckstanding at attention.

(02:11:58):
And Sarah Beth closes the door again towhere just her face is able to peek out.
And the little girlstops and pleads again.
Please, ma'am.
We're really scared and alone out here.
We have to come inside.
Please help us.
Then, like, on cue, both
kids begin to whimper and cry.

(02:12:21):
That's when the fear takes overand Sarah Beth shuts and locks the door.
I'll call your momif you give me the number.
She shouts through the door.
But I am not letting you in my house.
And she can still see them.
They're on the porch, staring at herthrough the beveled glass window.
And part of herwants to run upstairs to her husband.

(02:12:41):
But the bigger part doesn'twant to lose track of where they are.
That would freak her outeven more to not know where they are.
And after what seems like forever,but was probably only a few seconds.
Sarah Beth decides to call her neighbor,who lives across the street.
And as she makes her way to the side tablein the family room where her phone is.

(02:13:02):
She glances to the back door.
Chloe is nowhere to be found.
They later find her in the guestbedroom under the bed.
And when Sarah gets her phone and startslooking through for the contact
information for her neighbor.
The kids step away from the windowand begin to walk towards the street.
And with her phone in hand,her finger poised to hit the button

(02:13:25):
to call the neighbor,Sarah Beth walks closer to the window
to see if she can see where the kids went.
Once she's close enough to the glass,
she can see out enoughto make out people's shapes.
But she can't see much detail.
Of course, standing that close to the doormakes it pretty obvious
for anybody outside to see thatsomeone is standing right at the door.

(02:13:47):
But right now, Sarah Beth
doesn't really careif these kids know she's watching them.
From the door.
SarahBeth can see that the kids are standing
at the streetlampnearest to her house, staring at her.
And only after she hits the buttonto actually dial her neighbor's number
and puts the phone to her ear.

(02:14:08):
Did the kids start walking awaydown the street?
And once Sarah Beth sees her neighborcome out and go stand underneath
that street lamp, she goes out to meet him
and the kids are nowhere to be found.
As she says,she doesn't believe in any of this stuff
and had never heard of Black Eyed Kidsbefore, talking to her friend.

(02:14:29):
what she really thinks,what she has to think is that
these kids were just out yanking people'schains on Halloween night.
But she will say this for them.
They were good.
Really good.
They scaredthe crap out of her and her dog.

(02:14:55):
The messageappeared in both their minds at once.
I'm going to kill you.
But that was just
the beginning of a nightmarethat would claim the life of a loyal dog,
destroy a marriage and drive one manto drink himself to death.
I'm Carol Ann, and tonight's story provesthat sometimes

(02:15:16):
the real horror isn'tin surviving a Dogman encounter.
It's in living with the memory.
Not every kid is born
with a silver iPhone in their hand,including Joyce Stone.
The third of three children,
she was born in the late 50sto a southeast Kansas farmer and his wife,

(02:15:37):
who barely have enough moneyto feed the two boys they already have.
Joyce's dad has no problem making it known
throughout Joyce's childhoodthat she was supposed to be a boy.
At least a boy can pull his weightwith chores around the farm to help out.
So Joyce,like any other little girl in her shoes

(02:15:58):
who just wants the approvalof her father, starts going by
the name Jo (Joyce is way too girly),and does everything she can
to grow into the toughest, bravest tomboythat a girl can be.
She works hard to be able to do anythingher brothers can do.
But her brothers are just like anybodyelse's older brothers (even mine),

(02:16:23):
who love nothing morethan to freak her out any chance they get.
If she flinches, she is treated to rounds
of, “You’re such a girl.”That's the worst.
You can be scared, but you can't show it.
So Jo makes it her missionto never show fear.

(02:16:43):
Well, as the years rollon, we get to the spring of 1975.
Jo has grown into one tough teenager,
but the farm is still not doing very well.
So at age 17, she drops out of school,
gets her GED to help on the farm.
But what she really wants to do,her lifelong ambition, is to be a nurse.

(02:17:07):
She applies to nursing school,and even though she's a year too young,
her tough as nails attitude, convinces
the school administratorsto let her give it a shot.
Nursing school is tougherthan she thought it was going to be.
There's so much to learn.
But Jo, being the tenacious young womanthat she is,

(02:17:28):
just put on her big girlpants and works as hard as she can.
Now Jo has herself a boyfriend, Dale,who's about 18 and starting out his life
well enough that he has his own houseon the other side of town already.
So they fall into a routine.
Jo goes to school during the day,spends evenings with Dale,

(02:17:50):
comes home around 10:30-11:00 at night,
sleeps for a couple of hours,and then gets up at 3 a.m.
to study for school later in the morning.
Sounds like a rough schedule to me,but she's
getting a 4.0 - so okay.
Jo's family farm is a full five milesfrom town in the middle of nowhere.

(02:18:11):
Woods all around.
So at night it'sespecially dark with only a little yellow
bug light bulb on the porchto show her the way.
On the night of May6th, she's making her way
through the dark onto the dim yellowlight of the porch.
She hears somethingrustling around in the brush and trees.

(02:18:33):
Whatever it is, it's a few feet upoff the ground and about 30ft away.
She stops, looks over there thinking,what is that?
Whatever it is. Sounds big.
She walks over to that side of the porchand looks out into the trees and shrubs
to see if she can figure out what it is,but it's quiet.

(02:18:53):
In fact, everything is quiet.
So she thinks, well, maybe it's a buck
with its hornscaught in the branches or something.
Weird,but not out of the realm of possibility.
But whatever it is, Jo claps her hands
and yells, “Get out of here,”to try to scare it away.
Maybe the loud yelling will startle it,and it can free itself.

(02:19:16):
But instead of something running away,she hears this “huff” sound and thinks,
that's not like any deerI know, or any animal for that matter.
But things sound strange in the dark,
so she just kind of says,whatever, and goes in the house.
Two nights later, Jo wakes up to rumbling
thunder and branchesscraping on the metal roof. Yes!

(02:19:40):
Jo loves storms.
So she just lies back in her bed,watching the flashing lightning
through her tall bedroom windows, knowing
she doesn't have school in the morningso she can watch all night.
Her room at the back of the househas two really big tall windows.
One on the leftby her bed and one on the right, right

(02:20:03):
across the roomfrom the door to the hallway.
She fluffs her pillow, puts her head backdown, and gets ready for the show.
Lightning flashesand she notices something
blocking the light of the windowby her bed.
She sits up, starts to get out of bedwhen there's another
light flash,and she sees that she's right.

(02:20:24):
The lightning only shows throughabout the top third of the window.
But that doesn't make any sense.
The house is up on cinder blocks,so if something's standing that
tall in front of the window,it would have to be 8 to 9ft tall.
But whatever. It's got to be her brother.
He must be standing on something.
And the funky light is just making himlook bigger.

(02:20:46):
She starts walkingtoward the window with a plan
to throw her sheer curtains backand ruin her brother's prank.
Lightning flashes again,and she thinks that can't be my brother.
Well, maybe it's the shed in the backyardthrowing a shadow.
That's got to be it.
She turns and heads down the hallwayto use the bathroom.

(02:21:08):
As she's coming back,lightning flashes again
and stops her in her tracks.
The shadow blocking the lighthas moved to the window on the right,
and she's standing theretrying to wrap your head around
how the shadow from the shedcould move to the other window.
So she goes over to the window by her bed,with the idea that she can kind of

(02:21:32):
look over to the right and see exactlywhat is blocking the light.
And as she gets close to the window,the shadow glides back over to the left.
Okay, that's not her brother.
He is incapable of gliding,
and as much as she hates the feeling,she's starting to get scared.

(02:21:53):
She creeps a little closer.
Her knees are shaking a bit,but she knows in her head she's safe.
The curtains are only sheers,but they're white shears.
So when the lightning flashes, it'sgoing to bounce off the white.
And whatever's outsidecan't see her inside her dark room.
Right?
When she gets to about a footand a half away, she steals herself

(02:22:15):
to push the curtains asideand find out what is going on out there.
Another flashand Jo watches the shadow shorten
until it's even with her height.
What?
Now she is full on scared.
Like it or not. But she can't move.
She is nailed to that spot,looking out the window,

(02:22:36):
waiting for the next flash, hopingshe can figure out what is out there.
She hears a little bang on the window,and the sound of
sniffing like an animaltrying to catch a scent.
And it dawns on herthat whatever this thing is,
maybe it's the same thing she triedto chase out of the yard the other night.
Maybe she made it mad.

(02:22:58):
The storm is getting closer,so the flashes are faster.
The next flash, Jo, sees this thing'sright arm
reach up toward the top of the windowand her heart stops.
She sees through the shears,not the paw of an animal, but a hand.
Five separate fingers,each one with 2 or 3 inch claw at the end.

(02:23:22):
Now her knees are really startingto shake.
She hears what sounds like scratchingat the trim of her window.
Is thing trying to get in?
She wants to run,but she is frozen in fear.
She doesn't know what to do.
She just can't think.
A full on lightningstrike hits a dead tree

(02:23:42):
not far from the house,taking off a big branch.
A series of lightning strikesturns night into day.
Long enoughfor Jo to see the profile of this creature
as it turns its head to check outwhat's going on with the tree.
What she sees changes her life forever.
It has a wide head like a wolf,but massive.

(02:24:07):
It has ears on it, like a German Shepherdor like a Doberman.
Maybe 4 or 5in long,with tufts of hair at the end.
This nose on this thing is way longer
than anything she'd ever seen on a dog,or in pictures of wolves.
She sees bright white teeththat are about three inches
long, with canines that are even longer.

(02:24:30):
Its fur is all blackand from what she can see,
this thing is jacked.
Jo's body finally catches up with her headand she takes off
running into the living room, jumpson the couch and covers her head.
Her whole body is shaking.
Her head goes into overdrivetrying to figure out what to do.

(02:24:52):
Should she tell her family what she saw?
If she does,they're never going to believe her
and they're going to mock herrelentlessly.
Okay, that options out.
Instead, she just says, well, okay,I have no idea what I just saw,
but I'm certainly not going out at nightanymore.

(02:25:14):
Finals are coming up.
I'll just stay homeand put all my energy into studying.
By the next morning, Jo'strying to convince herself
that she didn't really see what she knowsshe saw.
As she leaves for school,she casually goes around the house
to the back to check out the treethat was struck by lightning.

(02:25:34):
The tree branch is right thereon the ground.
Okay. That happened.
So she looks up at the trim around herbedroom window and sees
fresh gouges in the woodand flecks of black trim
paint on the ground, and thinks,it wasn't a dream.
That really happened.
So now Jo's afraid to be in her room.

(02:25:57):
She just has this feelingthat she's somehow made this thing mad.
So, new plan.
From that pointon, she takes naps in her room
in the afternoonwhile it's still light out.
Then she takes out her clothesfor the next day,
hangs them on her bedroomdoor knob, and sleeps for a few more hours
in the living room couch until her alarmgoes off at 3 a.m., when it's

(02:26:20):
time to wake up, turn on the lampand start studying for school.
Problem is, the lamp shinesright into her parents room.
So her dad says, nuh-uh.
I can't sleep.
You're going to have to takeyour studying back into your room.
Well, that's not going to happen.
So Jo has a new idea.
She'll study in the kitchen.

(02:26:41):
Seems like a solid option.
When you walk into the kitchen,it has windows on two side walls
that have white curtains on the bottomhalf,
and then a door to the outsideon the far wall.
So she sets up a little readinglamp on the table so she doesn't have
to use the big fluorescentoverhead lights that late at night.
And she figures outthat she actually really likes it there.

(02:27:04):
As she's studying,
she can look up at those whitewindow curtains and use them as kind of a
mental whiteboard to figure outwhatever problem she has in her head.
Just a couple nightsinto this new routine, so May 10th,
just four nights after the thunderstorm,she's in the kitchen at 3 a.m.
studying when she feels a sensationthat is totally new for her.

(02:27:28):
She feels the hair on the back of her neckstand up.
Jo has no idea how she knows this,but she knows in that instant that
this thing is back and it's watching herthrough the windows behind her.
Remember, with the house foundationbeing up a bit and with the curtains
covering the bottom half of the windows,this thing has to be

(02:27:50):
8 to 9 feet tall.
It starts to growl.
The deepest, biggest canine
sounding growl Jo has ever heard.
She can feel itjust as much as she can hear it.
And it freezes her solid, head down,
looking at her booksand pencil frozen on the page.

(02:28:14):
As the monster continues to growl,
she can hear it
move around the outside of the house,past the door to the backyard,
and back up the other sideuntil it is right in front of her.
She keeps her eyes on the pagein front of her, too
afraid to look up at the window.
When a thought pops into her head.

(02:28:35):
If you look it in the eyes,it will come into you.
Well, what does that mean?
Does it mean it's going to possess her?
Or it's just going to tear through theglass and physically come in and get her?
Jo doesn't know,but she doesn't plan on finding out.
She's had enough experiencewith animals to know that a lot of times
if you look it in the eyes,it's a challenge.

(02:28:58):
And she has no intentionof challenging this thing.
But her head starts drifting up like it'sfollowing orders from somebody else.
And she thinks, no, no, no.
I'm not going to look at it.
Don't look at it.
She tries closing her eyes,but her eyelids won't even move.
And then she sees it.

(02:29:19):
She sees these neon yellow green lights
hovering 6 or 7in apart,and she thinks, well, that's ridiculous.
Something waytoo tall would have to be out there
with a little lantern or somethingto make that kind of eye shine.
But again, her bodyfinally catches up with her brain,
and she stands up so fastthat her chair goes sliding

(02:29:40):
across the floor behind her,smacking into the fridge.
The bang is like a starting gun,and she takes off
running to her parents room, bargesright in on her sleeping parents,
and dives on to their bed,landing right between them.
She just aboutgives them a heart attack, but
she is terrifiedand she doesn't care who knows. It.

(02:30:02):
Mom reaches over to turn on herlight and says,
what is going on?
The only thing Jo can manage to eek out
is something about a monster outside.
Her mom, thinking this has to besome kind of stupid joke, says,
“Do you want me to go outsideand make that big bad monster go away?”

(02:30:23):
Jo starts crying hysterically.
Then finally hits her mom thatwhatever's going on is actually serious.
Jo's dad turns over, looks at Jo,who shaking uncontrollably
and says, “Are you afraid,” hopinghe would get her standard
response of, “I'm not afraid of anything.”

(02:30:46):
But that is not the response he gets.
Instead, Jo looks up at her dad,
the last person in the worldshe wants to show fear
to, and just nods her head yes.
Her dad puts his hand on her armsand says, “It's okay.
You just fell asleepwhile you were studying

(02:31:07):
and had a nightmare.”And Jo so wants him to be right.
She nods her head yes,and actually chooses to believe him,
because the having a nightmarescenario is a way better option
than the thought of this monstercoming back and finding her again.
So she goes back out onto the couch.

(02:31:27):
She's not going to be sleeping tonight,so she throws a blanket over her head
with a lamp underneath so she doesn'tbother her dad, and tries to study.
Her dad comes out and sees whatshe's doing and says, don't be ridiculous.
Just go back in the kitchen and study.
Not a single fiber of her
being wants to do that, but she does.

(02:31:51):
Nothing else happens that night,or for the next couple of nights.
She's finally starting to relaxa little bit and get back in
the groove of actuallygetting some real studying done.
It's kind of important because she hasfinals coming up in just a couple of days.
But the third night it happens again.
Hair standing up on the back of her neck,she thinks, no, no, no.

(02:32:16):
She braces herself for the growlto come from the window behind her.
Jo's head starts again, involuntarilymoving to
look at this thing at the window,
which is already standing in front of her.
This time Jo can see the whole head move,
and she realizes just its headtakes up most of the width of the window.

(02:32:42):
Looks like a werewolf.
She takes off out of the kitcheninto the living room,
diving onto the couch, and coversher head.
The next day,Jo tries to figure out what to do.
She can't keep doing this.
She can't get any studying doneand finals are tomorrow.
So she calls her boyfriend, Daleand says, “Can I come over to your place

(02:33:05):
and study tonight?” Dale, who hasn't seen
or heard from Jo in a few days,asks her, “Are you breaking up with me?”
Jo says, “No, but I'll explain later.”
So that evening,the two go out for dinner,
and Jo musters up the courageto tell Dale,
“I'm being stalked by a werewolf.”Dale starts to laugh.

(02:33:29):
Jo starts to cry.
This is the one personshe thought she could tell that
might actually believe her.
Dale sees the tears well up in Jo's eyes
and fall down her face and realizesshe's serious.
What is going on?
This is not the tough as nails girlI know.

(02:33:50):
So he says, “You know what? I'm sorry.
Let's go get your stuff.
Get your books, get your clothes.
You can spend the night.
I'll stay up and stand guardwhile you study.
And you know King.
King won't let anything get by him.” King
is Dale's huge pit bullwho still won't allow Jo into the house

(02:34:10):
without a full inspection,even though she and Dale
have been seeing each otherfor like six months already.
There is nothingthat dog would not do for Dale.
So they head over to his place andpark themselves on the living room floor.
Jo, with her bookspread out all over, and Dale
watching TV or whatever to pass the time.

(02:34:31):
Time rolls on.
It's almost 4 a.m..
Jo's feeling pretty good.
Nothing's happening,and she's getting some good work done.
Dale says you want something to drink?
Jo says sure.
Dale gets up and walks over to the fridge.
Now the living room and the kitchen areasare pretty much just one big room.
Dale doesn't even need to turn on a light,because the light from the living room

(02:34:53):
is more than enough.
After a few minutes,Jo realizes that he hasn't come back.
She looks up into the kitchen
and sees Dale still leaning over,looking into the fridge.
When she hears himspeak in this high pitched,
strangulated tonethat she has never heard from him before.
Come here now.

(02:35:14):
Jo walks into the kitchenand bends down to look into the fridge
to see what the problem is,and she sees that everything inside
the fridge is shakingbecause Dale is shaking.
Then they both hear thiscrying, whimpering, coming from outside.
Is that King?
Dale says, “It can't be king.
He doesn't cry like that.”That's when the hair on the back of Jo's

(02:35:38):
neck starts to stand up,
and she thinks this cannot be happening.
She's miles from her house.
How could this thing track her so far?
But then comes the growl.
Jo freaks out.
Oh my God.
It followed me.

(02:36:00):
Dale grabs Jo by the wrist and startsdragging her out of the kitchen.
And keep in mindthat Jo weighs 110 at best.
Dale is like 6’2” and weighs about 210.
So if he's taking her somewhere,she's going like it or not.
So he startsdragging her out of the kitchen, but
stops on a dime, staring out the window.

(02:36:22):
Jo looks out the windowand sees the two huge yellowish green eyes
staring right back at him, brighterthan she has ever seen them before.
She looks back at Daleand he looks like he's totally zoned out.
Almost like he's in a trance.
She looks back out the window,and she can see that this thing has

(02:36:42):
what looks like a thick lion's mane of jet
black hair surrounding his head.
She can see those massive white teethagain.
And a tonguethat's black and it's drooling.
She doesn't know if it's droolingbecause its mouth is open
or because it'santicipating its next meal.

(02:37:04):
But she knowsshe doesn't want to find out.
Jo watch watches the creature's eyesmove from Dale’s eyes down to the grip
that Dale has on Jo's arm as its lips
curl back in a snarl.
And Jo and Dale hear at the same time,a message delivered in their heads.

(02:37:24):
I'm going to kill you!
Dale takes off with Jo in tow,out of the kitchen,
through the living room, past his bedroom,and into the bathroom.
No windows.
Very smart.
However, just like Jo's house,the bathroom is on the same wall
as the kitchen.
So on the outside itthis thing only has to shuffle over

(02:37:47):
about eight feet to be right on the otherside of the wall from them.
So there they are in the bathroom, Dale
holding Jo so tight she can't breathe.
He says, “I am so sorry.
I thought it was just the stressgetting to you, but this thing is real!”
Jo says, “I think it's hurting me.”

(02:38:09):
And they both just stand therehaving no idea what to do next.
Jo feels the hair on her neckstand up again,
and from right on the otherside of the wall from where they are
standing, (Howdid you know that?) comes this roar,
ten times bigger and deeper
and more vicious than ever before.

(02:38:32):
Both of them can feel the soundreverberating in their chests.
And can even see the bottles and stuffon the shower shelf moving.
Jo shouts, “Go away!”
When they hear something else crying.
King!He's still out there with that thing.
Dale yells, “King!” They hearKing's whining

(02:38:52):
change to vicious growlsand the snarls of an attack.
The fight is on.
Sadly, it doesn't take long beforeneither of them can hear King anymore.
Dale is freaking.
Tears are streaming down his face.
But now that King is no longer a threat,

(02:39:13):
the creature is really mad.
It starts bangingand scratching at the outside
wall of the house, rightwhere Jo and Dale are still standing.
They hear the siding crackingand being ripped off as this thing
is tunneling through the wall,roaring in anger the whole time.

(02:39:34):
Unbeknownst to them, the neighborwhose house is less than 100ft
away, hears King's screamingand thinks it's Jo.
So he calls the cops and says,you guys better get over here right now,
because I think my neighboris killing his girlfriend.
Jo and Dale hear sirens coming,and Jo prays
that it is enough to scare this thing offbecause it is coming for them,

(02:39:57):
and they are frozen in fearand have nowhere to go.
Fish in a barrel.
But as the sirens get closer,everything else goes quiet.
Maybe it's gone, but neither of themmakes a move to go find out.
They hear a loud bang, bang, bang, bangon the door, followed by a voice yelling,
“Open the door or we're going to kick itin!” Oh thank God!

(02:40:21):
Dale leads Jo out of the bathroomto the front door and opens it
for the police, hurries them insideand quickly shuts the door behind them.
The cops take a look at Dale and Jo
and look all around the living room.
“You guys been partyingjust a little too hard tonight?”
Dale points to Jo's booksall over the floor and says, “No, sir.

(02:40:45):
She is studying for her finals.”Another officer who had gone around
the back of the house comes in and says,you gotta come and see this.
So everyone troops outsideand around to the back of the house,
and Dale falls to his knees.
Jo follows his eyes and sees what he sees.

(02:41:06):
King.
And lets just
say, it is obvious to anyone aroundthat this dog fought
for his master to the very end.
The policethen look at the back of the house.
There is a three foot by three foot
hole torn through the siding, insulationeverywhere,

(02:41:29):
all the way down to the sheetrockon the inside.
The cops just look at each other.
Anyone have any good ideaswhere to even start writing this one up?
Nope.
One cop looks at Dale and says, “Doyou want to report this?” Dale says,
“I wouldn't know what to report.”
The cop says, “Neither do I.

(02:41:51):
I’m willing to let this go,if you are.” Dale says.
“I'm good with that.”And with that, they left.
Dale and Jo go back in and quicklygrab some stuff,
jump in Dale's car and leave.
They really don't have anywhere else to
go, so Dale just drives the 18 milesto Jo's school,

(02:42:11):
where they wait in the car until it's timefor Jo to go take her finals.
Dale just sits in the parking lotwaiting for her to get done.
Jo doesn't even remember taking the tests.
Some other part of her braintotally takes over.
When she's done, she goes back to the carand Dale just sitting there in a daze.

(02:42:33):
They start going back and forth with Dale
being sorry he didn't believe her, and Jobeing sorry about King,
and that she should never have come over,and Dale saying it's not your fault, but
I don'tthink we can see each other anymore.
The two don't speak for 3 or 4 weeks,

(02:42:53):
but they'll eventually reaches outand says he wants to see Jo again.
But they make an honest to God pinky swear
to never tell another soul what happened,
and do their bestto just move forward with life.
They date for a while, get married,
move away from Kansas and have a daughter.

(02:43:16):
But the memories are just too much.
They are divorcedbefore their little girl's first birthday,
and Dales life startsa downward spiral of drugs and alcohol.
And as much as it breaks Jo's heart,they keep their promise
to never talk about it.
Fast forward30 years, and Dale is on his deathbed.

(02:43:37):
Cirrhosis of the liver from all thoseyears of using alcohol as a numbing agent.
Jo goes to see himand Dale tells her, “I was wrong.
We should have told people.
The only way I could get past the picture
in my head of those green eyesdrilling into my soul,
and get any sleep at night,was to get messed up and pass out first.

(02:44:02):
Don't end up like me.
You need to start talking to people.”
So Jo makes Dale a promiseto start telling their story.
And that's exactly what she's doing.
Some interesting tidbits of informationregarding this story.
Jo actually moves back to Kansasnot long after their daughter was born,

(02:44:22):
and though she's never actually seenthis monster again, she still feels her
neck hair detection system go offoccasionally to this day.
Not long after the attack at Dales House,
Dale had to go see an ophthalmologist
because his eyesight just tanked.
The ophthalmologist saysit looks like he experienced

(02:44:44):
some kind of burnon the retina of both eyes.
And Dale has to wearsuper thick glasses from that point on.
It isn't until about four years ago,Jo stumbles across information
about something called a dogman,and she thinks, “That’s it!
That’s what we saw!”

(02:45:04):
And for whatever reason, just being able
to put a name to the beast that haunts her
makes the whole ordealjust a little easier to cope with.
It's a real thing.
It's not just her going crazy.
Hearing about others with experiencessimilar to hers has helped.

(02:45:26):
But the one thing Johas always wanted to do,
but just couldn't bring herself to do it
out of guilt, is get a dog of her own.
After all, in her mind, she's the reasonthat King died that night.
Why should she have the pleasureof having one of her own?

(02:45:46):
But I'm happy to report that
in just the last few months,after 40 years
of being a nurse and helping otherswhen they are at their worst,
Jo has gotten a dog of hervery own named Victor,
who has no idea he's actually a dog.
And I think Jo likes it that way.

(02:46:15):
I know we spend a lot of timetalking about specific monster encounters.
But what about the things that happenin regular life
that are totally unexplainableand just damn creepy?
Those are the stories that we have foryou today.
This story is from Reddit user Robbie, 12.
All the names in this storyare pseudonyms.

(02:46:36):
Heather asks, have you guys everheard of Old Hag syndrome?
Or maybe sleep paralysis?
For years, she had no ideathat it actually had a name.
But it happened to her a few years agowhen she was 15.
Back in the year 2000.
It started with a trend of sleepparalysis.
Nights back to back.
One of those nights,she even heard a voice

(02:46:57):
talking to her in a different language.
Fast forward about a week.
Her little nephew, Troy,
who's about eight years old at the time,was staying with the family for a while.
And they both were getting ready for bedbecause it was night
and they both had school the next day.
And Troy was in the showerand Heather was on the phone.
And Troy comes out of the showerscared and pale,

(02:47:18):
and asks, Heather,can I stay in your room tonight?
And Heather says, why?
And Troy says, Some voice is talking to me
in the shower in a different language.
Now, Heather had told no one aboutthe things that were happening to her.
So she is shocked when she hears the samethings are happening to Troy.

(02:47:41):
Plus, Troyhated sleeping in Heather's room
because Heather would just messwith them all night, so she knew
it had to be pretty serious for himto want to stay in her room.
That same night.
The old ladythat I haven't seen in her dreams
actually appears in front of her.
At first,the old lady is brushing her dry,

(02:48:04):
shriveled white old hair with Heather'sbrush in front of the mirror.
She is old, wrinkled and hideous,
and has kind of a hell speak voice.
Immediately,Heather tries to get up, but she can't.
She tries to scream,but no sound comes out of her mouth.
And as Heather'swatching, the old lady disappears

(02:48:28):
from where she's standing by the mirrorand reappears right
next to the bed by Heather, and she grabsHeather's arms in her cold, bony hands.
Heather feels cold and scared,
and the old woman keeps saying,come with me.
And Heather can't scream.
But she keeps shaking her head. No.
And Troy is moving and shaking like he's

(02:48:51):
having some kind of epileptic fit,which he's never had before.
And Heather feels more than helplessas she cannot reach out to him.
She cannot help him.
for the next four hours,
Heather can do nothing but watch
as all kind of strange creatures

(02:49:13):
come out of the shadows around her room.
Finally, at 5:30 a.m.,
Heather's sisterChrissy wakes up and feels kind of weird.
And she decides she's going to go downto the kitchen and get a glass of water.
So she puts the glass under the icedispenser of the fridge,
pushesthe glass back, and two cockroaches,

(02:49:34):
which they have never had before,come falling out of the dispenser.
Chrissy drops the glass and screams.
And that scream made the nightmarehappening in Heather's room disappear.

(02:49:54):
This story is from Reddit user CheeseWedge 12,
but it's a storythat a good friend shared with him
and he has never been able to shakeor tell it as well as his friend did.
We are just going to call the friend Laneand Lane's wife, Marie.
Lane Anne Marieand just bought a new house
and are moving in with their one yearold daughter, Molly.

(02:50:17):
It's an old housethat needs a lot of work, but they got it
for a really good priceand they are ready to make it shine.
After being in the housea week or so, Lane notices a life
sized dollsitting in the corner of Molly's room.
And because he's a normal human being,it creeps him out.
So he turns it around to face the cornerso it'll stop staring at him.

(02:50:40):
And after he puts Molly to bed, he goesdownstairs and asks his wife about it.
Where did we get that doll?
Marie looks at him and says, I don't know.
I just assume that somebody gave it to youfor Molly, and we moved it here.
Mine's a little weirded out.
He does not remember moving that doll.
Maybe it was in the housewhen they moved in and he just didn't

(02:51:03):
notice it.
The next morning,he goes to get Molly out of her crib,
and he sees that the doll is no longerfacing the corner.
It is turned aroundand staring at him again.
Totally creeped out.
He grabs the doll, throws itin the closet, and shuts the closet door.
And that night,Laine and Marie are having an argument,

(02:51:23):
and it's getting kind of loudand it's getting kind of focused.
So at first they don't notice Mollycrying up in her room.
At a lull in the argument.
Marie hears Molly crying and says, I'mgoing to go check on her.
But Lane says she will be fine.
Let's finish hashing this out.
Another minute goes by and Lane realizesthat he's practically

(02:51:45):
having to shoutto be heard over the cries of Molly.
And the cries sound different.
They're not a normal cry.
And he glances at Marie and the twoquickly head upstairs to Molly's room.
And what Lane sees as he opens the door
literally makes his eyes water with fear.

(02:52:07):
The closet door is open and the life
sized doll is sitting nextto the crib, motionless.
But its arms are reaching
through the bars of the cribtowards Molly.
Just stiff and motionless.
It's like it was caught in the actof returning to an inanimate object.

(02:52:31):
Needless to say, the doll was thrown outand maybe even burned.
There is no explanation for that
other than something completely demonic.
For 40 years, something

(02:52:52):
has been hunting villagers in Peru'sAmazon jungle.
Armored figures floatingsilently on hovering
platforms using technologythat shouldn't exist.
When 15 year oldTalia fought back and escaped,
she revealed the truthabout Los Pelacaras, the Face Peelers.
I'm Carol Ann.

(02:53:17):
What is the one thingthat makes you undeniably you?
Your face.
No two faces are the same.
Well, not usually.
Here's a picture of my momand her twin sister.
Can you pick which one is my mom?
No, it's the other one.
Our face is such a huge part
of our identity and sense of who we arethat it's impossible to quantify.

(02:53:38):
So what would you doif someone tried to steal it?
Well, apparently that's what's beengoing on in Peru for the last 40 years.
Yes. In this episode,we are going back to Peru
- land of the Nazca Linesand the Nazca Mummies.
And no, I am not being paidby the Peruvian Board of Tourism.

(02:53:59):
Maybe I should be.
But this time we are heading furthernorth, into the heart of the Amazon jungle
and the supposed home of Los Pelacaras- the Face Peelers.
Right up front.
I have to issue an apology to all of youthat this story did not hit my radar
back in 2023,when it hit everyone else's radar.

(02:54:21):
I have no idea howI could have missed this one.
But in digging in, I found out thatthis did not just start in 2023.
This has been going on for decades.
So what do I mean by “this” exactly?
Well, it seems as though villages deep inthe jungles of Peru
have been under attack for the betterpart of 40 years by something.

(02:54:45):
I don't knowif it's human or aliens or animals.
I have no idea.
So for this episode,I am going to refer to them as attackers.
So the people of these Peruvian villageshave been attacked by these attackers,
whose primary missionseems to be stealing people's faces.
And unlike many other cryptidsor strange beings that we talked about,

(02:55:08):
these attackers are not rooted in Peruvianfolklore.
Don't get me wrong.
They certainly have their share of crazylegends
like the Pishtaco, Not fish taco.
- a creepy white guywith hypnotically glowing yellow eyes
that sucks the fat out of its victims.
Or even older,are the stories of the Supay,

(02:55:30):
a shapeshifting spirit who would consumethe life force of its victims.
Unlike these nightmares, the Face Peelers
have only been a thingfor roughly 40 years.
Today's younger adultsremember being told by their mothers
to get home before dark,or the Pelacaras will get you.
Regular boogeyman stuff.
But the generation before them

(02:55:51):
will tell you that their parentsnever used the Pelacaras
as the boogeyman storyto keep the kids in line.
They never heard of them as children.
Now, the earliest accountI can find comes from a mention
in a 2023 Facebook post from a man talkingabout how the attacks happening around
that time are not new,that he knew of a guy in 1993

(02:56:14):
who was found dead on his farmwith all of his organs missing.
Not exactly Face Peeler M.O., but that iswho his family and friends blame it on.
And then we have this story.
September 26th, 2013.
44 year old Juan Cervantes is seen tyingone on in
not just one town, but in two.

(02:56:36):
Then he decides it's a good ideato take a canoe out on Lake Imiria. So
surprise, surprise when the next morningrolls around and no one has seen him.
They start a search around the lake
and find his empty canoeabout 600ft from shore.
They go out to get the canoe,but they don't see anything else.
As they’re bringing the canoe backin, Juan's body pops

(02:56:57):
up to the surface from somewheredeep under the water.
I don't specifically knowwhen they started the search
or when they found the boat, but Juan'sbody was recovered early in the morning
of September 28th, so he'd likelybeen in the water less than 48 hours.
Juan’s autopsy showed no signs of drowningand no signs of any kind of trauma

(02:57:20):
to the body, so he wasn't attackedand he died before he entered the water.
The only thing found that might be linkedto a cause of death
is that his face is missing.
Now you know whythey call them Face Peelers.
Some community membersspeculated that he must have died
of a heart attack or something,and then fell over into the water where

(02:57:41):
the fish in the lakemust have eaten his face.
Okay. Plausible.
But if the fish were that hungry,why didn't they start eating all of him?
Why just his face?
People in the region reportvarious attacks that are blamed
on the Face Peelersthroughout the years 2000 to 2023.

(02:58:01):
But 2023 is when all hell breaks
loose Food fight!
and we get our first good look at what
a Face Peeler really looks like.
And just to note,some of the dates are a little sketchy,
but I have done everything I canto build an accurate timeline.

(02:58:22):
So it's the summer of 2023.
The people in the village of SanAntonio de Pintuyacu in the Alto Nanay
region of Peru, the indigenous Ikitupeople are not having a great summer.
Just to give you an idea of where this is,there is no way to get to this village
except by a ten hourboat ride from Iquitos.

(02:58:45):
The reason they're not havinga great summer is that for weeks,
something has been tryingto get into their village at night.
Pairs of somethingsfloating through the air about three feet
off the ground,wearing head to toe black body armor.
Nobody knows who they areor what they want,
but they are freaking people out.

(02:59:06):
So the men of the village have takento spending most of the night, every night
sitting on their porcheswith their flashlights and their shotguns,
trying to protect their familiesfrom these unknown invaders.
On July 11th, 2023, Talia Dávila
Diaz is 15 years oldand lives in the village.
It's just getting dark outsidearound 6-6:30 at night,

(02:59:28):
and Talia decides to go out into herbackyard to pick some fruit for dinner.
So as she's picking the fruit,she feels a rush of air
from behind her,scattering the leaves in front of her.
She turns to look and sees a 6 to 7fttall man
hovering behind her on this flying disc
like a hoverboard platform coveredhead to toe

(02:59:50):
in some kind of hard black armorwith piercing bright yellow eyes.
He lands next to her, grabsher, and puts his hand over her mouth
as a second guy, lookingjust like the first one comes up
from the gully in the backyard,swoops in and grabs Talia’s feet.
The two attackers jumpback on their hoverboards, one behind her

(03:00:13):
holding her mouth, the other onein front of her, holding her feet,
and take her to the edge of heryard behind a chicken coop.
the one holding her feet,takes out some powder
and a liquid and puts them togetherinto some kind of mixture.
Takes out a nasal syringe,sucks up the solution, and shoots it
up to Talia's nose.
Instantlyshe starts feeling kind of sedated.

(03:00:36):
He then takes out a tubeof some kind of cream
and startsrubbing the cream onto Talia's face.
Again, instantly, Talia saysshe could feel her face going numb.
She hears one say to the other in Spanish,“Be careful, be careful.
Don't use too much.
You'll ruin the flesh.” Then they take outwhat must be some kind of laser

(03:01:00):
scalpel and startmaking an incision on Talia's neck.
She starts to struggle enoughthat they actually have to start over
with a second incision.
But Talia is not done yet.
She manages to get her hand upunder the edge of the helmet of the one
holding her from behind, and startspushing his helmet up, and it's working.

(03:01:21):
As the helmet moves up,the attacker lets go of
to Talia to grab the helmetto keep it from coming off,
which upsets the whole apple cartand they drop her.
This is her chance.
She starts screaming for help.
The attackers know the jig is upand one says, “Come
on, we got to get out of here.”
And the other says, “Well,we just can't leave her here.”

(03:01:42):
He grabs her by the hair and startsdragging her.
The villagershear her scream and come running
and are right there withinjust a few seconds.
The attacker finally lets go of Talia'shair,
and both attackersshoot straight up and off into the night.
The villagers find Talia unconscious
with a swollen face and blood on her neck.

(03:02:05):
Luckily for her,the cuts on her neck were only superficial
and the swelling in her faceeventually went away,
although it took a good weekto get back to normal.
One thing to noteis that the village is pretty much
the last stop beforeheading into the endless Amazon jungle.
Because of that, and the factthat they are a ten hour boat ride

(03:02:26):
to anything close to a city, the PeruvianNavy has given them a satellite
uplink to be the communication pointfor anyone who needs help in the area.
So Talia's attack was the last straw.
They jump on the satellite phoneand demand that the Navy and the police
get out there and protect them.

(03:02:46):
The nature of Talia’s attack requiresthe police to open an investigation.
So the police show up with a Navy escort,
take everyone's statement, and leave.
Some investigation.
Then the police turn around to the mediaand tell them that it was gold miners
wearing jetpacks, trying to scarethe villagers away from their land

(03:03:09):
so they can mine the gold there.
The local media have actually been doinga pretty good job
of covering these eventswith some sense of gravity.
But once the gold miner theory was trottedout, media outlets
all over the worldjust run with it and don't look back.
Which is too badbecause that is not the end of the story.

(03:03:31):
On July 15th, so just a few daysafter Talia’s experience,
a teacher named Silas Soto from San Luis
in Iparia was attackedby the same kind of attacker,
who burned his headwith some kind of laser.
In late July or early August, Raúl Piña
Inuma has a run in with these beingsthat leaves him knocked unconscious

(03:03:54):
with bruising all over his armsand neck from trying to fight them off.
Then there's this footage uploaded to X
on August 5th of 2023, so probably takenjust a few days prior to that.
It shows some residents of Nauta,which is actually a larger city of over
30,000 people, shining their flashlightsat something in the trees behind a house.

(03:04:17):
Of course, the footage isn't that great,but whatever that is,
I don't think it's human.
Who? On August 21st,
a man named Andersonis out hunting with his brother Claudio.
They're in a boat
and can see these lightsstarting to appear all around the village.
Then they see lights following their boat.

(03:04:40):
After a few minutes,the lights had moved closer
until they were just about 50ft overhead.
Anderson turns on his flashlightto get a better look and see a person
floating on some kind of hovering discthat was transparent.
He goes for his gun, but the being flewaway before he can get a shot off.
And even if he did manage to shoot it,I don't think it would have mattered.

(03:05:03):
Severalpeople have shot at these invaders,
but whatever armor they're wearingseems to be bulletproof.
Villagers have hit them and seen them
stumble a bit, but they just keep going.
Also in August, Mrs.
Marquita Chujandama Narvezis walking home from her farm
when something attacks herand cuts her cheek open.

(03:05:26):
There are even more sightings in Wawaimand Huampami.
On September 2nd, 2023, Pablo Vardalessees one of these flying people
hovering around his village in PucunaLake, takes a shot at it
and gets shot with a laser beamthat knocks him out for several hours.
September 5thKevin Machari Machari is attacked

(03:05:49):
by a flying beingwhile riding his motorcycle in Sapito.
Another attack in September is in Bagazan,where a teenage boy is found
with deep lacerationson both sides of his neck.
Luckily for him, he was found quicklyand taken to the hospital for treatment,
and survived.

(03:06:09):
There is video availableif you want to find it.
But I can't show it herebecause I want to keep my channel.
But suffice to say, unlike Talia's wounds,these are deep.
This kid is lucky to be alive.
And the worst one is oneI can't even show you.

(03:06:30):
Again, it's too graphic for YouTube.
It's from sometime in 2023,taken somewhere in the same vicinity
as all of these other reports.
But this one, this one really shows
why they are called Face Peelers.
video’s out there,if you want to go find it.
But be warned,it is not for the faint of heart.

(03:06:52):
It shows the police picking up a body
in rigor mortis from undera bunch of banana leaves on a beach,
and carrying him away from the watercloser to the camera.
As they bring him closer, it is impossible
to miss that three quarters of his faceand all of the tissue underneath
is completely strippedaway, leaving bleached white bone.

(03:07:18):
The entire face and left side of his headis gone
down to his collarbone,but the right side is still there.
One more thingthat is impossible not to notice
is that the line where the flesh has beentaken
off is a clean, pristine cut line.
Animals do not do this.

(03:07:39):
Piranhas do not do this.
It is absolutely the human version
of the cow mutilation picturesthat you've probably seen in the past.
Where part of the flesh of a cow's headhas been surgically removed.
It's just like that.
Now, it is possiblethat the video is a hoax.

(03:08:00):
It's a dummy.
It's a prop that someone createdfor a movie or something.
If that's the case, Bravo.
But I find that hard to believe.
When the police first lift him,
you can see his spine moving as his headfalls back.
Right after that, one of the policemenslips on a banana leaf and stumbles.

(03:08:21):
When he does, you can tell that whateverhe is carrying has some real weight to it.
It's heavy.
I can't say for sure,but it looks pretty damn real to me.
One interesting thing to noteabout all of these different encounters
is that they all describethe exact same thing, something that looks
very similar to the Green Goblinin the Spider-Man movie.

(03:08:44):
But it's not that either.
And it sure isn't somebodyflying around with a jetpack.
So what exactly are we dealing with here?
Well, there are a few options.
The first option is the excuse bythe government that these are people from
an illegal mining operationwearing jetpacks,
trying to scare people off their landso the miners can get the gold.

(03:09:07):
Now, I know cartels have the moneyto equip themselves with the latest
and greatest military gadgets,but the tech used here
is something that we've nevereven come close to seeing.
These thingsmove around in complete silence,
except when they're taking offstraight up at high speeds.
Then they produce a slight hum.

(03:09:29):
And they can maneuver in and outof the thick trees with no problem.
The jetpackswe have today don't move that gracefully
around obstructionsand our as noisy is all get out.
Not to mentionthat it's not even the rich cartels

(03:09:51):
that are being blamed,just illegal mining operations.
Illicit gold mining is profitable
but not cartel profitable.
Another idea that's been thrown aroundis organ harvesters.
Back around 2008, in the Pucallpa area,there was a rash of bodies
found with their stomachscut open, organs removed, and wads of cash

(03:10:13):
stuffed inside their torsos.
Those attacks were also blamedon the Face Peelers.
But if that's the case in this 2023rash of incidents,
then the organsstealers are terrible at their jobs.
Not one single organ was taken.
Could they be aliens?
I can't rule that one out.
Assailantsflying around using advanced technology

(03:10:35):
and leaving bodies in their wakethat looked like human versions
of cattle mutilationsthat we've all seen pictures, for decades?
You're one ugly motherfu--.
Not to mention that Peru in generalhas been a UFO hotspot for decades.
They see them all the time.

(03:10:55):
So if aliens are cruising aroundlooking for test subjects, what
better place than in the remote villagesof the Amazon jungle?
The last option,which I think is the most probable option,
is that this is allsome kind of government black ops program
using advanced techthat we just haven't seen yet.
Talia is the only person to hear themspeak,

(03:11:17):
and she describes them as the Peruvianand the Gringo.
One is the Peruvian because he spokethe same Spanish dialect that she does.
The other she calls the Gringo becausehe spoke Spanish, but not her Spanish.
Interesting that they both speak Spanish.
And their moves just sound very human.
The way they grab her legsand cover her mouth.

(03:11:39):
I can't say that I've heard that behavior
coming from any alien abduction encountersI've read about.
The only thing I can't really square withthis option
is the descriptionthat the attackers are like 6 to 7ft tall.
These guys are big.
Can they still be special ops guys?
Yes. The tallest height restrictionin a U.S.

(03:12:01):
service recruit is six foot8in or 6ft six inches for the Marines.
But what are the chancesthat every one of these things
that people see are that tall?
And they have been reported as possessing
superhuman capabilitieslike jumping over houses.
So while it seems probablethat they're human,

(03:12:22):
they don't seem human.
The good news is that by all accounts,
there have been no further attacksin that area of Peru.
But something was happening.
And if it can happen to them, who's to sayit can't happen
someplace else to someone else?
Maybe me.
Maybe you.

(03:12:49):
Today on The InBetween, we
are going to widen our creepiness circleand talk about some ghost stories.
The stories that we have todayfeature things that kids have experienced,
that I, as an adult,never want to experience.
Just a few years ago.

(03:13:10):
Angie lived in a two bedroom apartmentwith her two
sons, Riley, who is eight, and Tanner,who was ten.
She got one room, so the boys sharedthe other room with a bunk bed,
and they always used to fight overwho got the top bunk.
Riley usually won.
One night,Andrew's putting her boys to bed
and she's reading them some stories,and she sees that they're falling asleep.

(03:13:33):
So she gives them each a kiss on the head,and she quietly slips
out of their room and goes to her roomright next door and goes to bed.
About an hour later, Riley screamsbloody murder and Angie jumps out of her
bed, runs to the boy's room thinkingRiley must have fallen off the top bunk.
Sure enough, he is on the ground, headdown, still screaming.

(03:13:55):
And she tries to calm him down, asksif he's okay, thinking
I guess this is going to be a tripto the E.R. tonight.
And he just looks at herand screams. Get me out of here!
So she picks him up and carrieshim across the hall to the bathroom,
where she turns on the lights and startschecking him for injuries.
Long story short. Riley's fine.
Turns out he actually jumpedfrom the top bunk and landed just fine.

(03:14:18):
So Angie asks him, why did you do that?
And he blurts outTo get away from the lady on the ceiling.
With the backwards head.
Now, by this point, Tanner's woken upand he's so annoyed with Riley
and he's like, dude, it's fine.
You're okay.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
So Angiefinally manages to calm Riley down.
But from that night forward,Riley refuses to sleep in his own

(03:14:41):
bed and insistson sleeping with Angie in hers.
When she was okay with.
But she did try to convince himto go back to his own bed.
Tanner even offered to give him the bottombunk permanently.
Riley wouldn't budge.
So about a month goes
by and Tanner stillsleeping on the top bunk in the boys room.
And one night he wakes everybody upby jumping off the top bunk,

(03:15:06):
running into Angie's room, and climbinginto bed with Angie and Riley.
And Angie says, honey, what's up?
But Tanner refuses to talk about it.
Now he had just spent some timewith his slightly older cousin that day.
So Angie's thinking, well,maybe the boys watched some movies
that they shouldn't have been watching,and Tanner's just had a nightmare.
So she kind of pats him on the back,rubs his back a little bit, says,

(03:15:29):
all right, all right, you're safe.
Don't worry about it.And they all go back to sleep.
So now all three of them are sleepingin Angie's bed every night.
And she does her bestto get them to go back to their beds.
She even buys them cool tents that go overthe top and flashlights and comics.
And And the boys love this stuff.

(03:15:50):
And they'll hang out in their roomand enjoy it.
But only during the day.
and both the boys love animals.
So she even go so far as to buy themtwo mice with a big cage,
thinking that if there's some otherliving creature in the room,
that would give themsome sense of comfort.
But even that didn't work.
And one day, Tannerfinally tells Angie that he saw a shadow

(03:16:13):
moving on the ceiling that he thoughtwas a woman with long black hair.
He said he was woken upby a flashing white light, and he thought
it was Riley turning his flashlight onand off and on again.
But when he looked closer,it was coming from the closet.
And then he looked upand he saw the woman on the ceiling.
And he just. Nope. Did out of there.

(03:16:34):
Now Angie is like, great.
I have two kidswho are afraid of a monster in the closet.
And she talked to her ex andto some other parents, and they all tried
to reassure the boys that it's okay,that there's no such thing as monsters.
And she and her ex were actually almostto the point of taking the boys
to see a therapistbecause they thought, well, maybe

(03:16:56):
there's some other psychological issuegoing on.
So a few nights later, it's like 3:00
on a Saturday morningand everybody's asleep in Angie's bed.
Tanner's in the middle.
Riley's on the far sidenext to the window,
and Angie's on the sidethat's closest to the door.
Now, normally the door would be closed,but this particular night

(03:17:16):
it was open because they'd all justhad an epic Nerf gun fight before bed.
It was awesome.
So Andrews in bed, snoring away when shesuddenly wakes up So she opens her eyes
and as she's trying to focus,she sees a white flashing light
reflecting on the walloutside of her room.

(03:17:37):
she thinks it must beone of the boys is flashlights
losing its batteries or something,
and she debates on whether she actuallywants to get out of bed to go
turn it off, or whethershe should just roll over and ignore it.
When she seesthe source of the light is slowly
moving down the hallway,getting closer to her room.

(03:17:59):
well, she immediatelythinks there's an intruder.
So she very quietly gets out of bed,gets closer to the door
so she can maybe kind of seeif she can see what's going on out there
or hear anything.
And she peeks out into the hallway,and she sees that the light is flashing
near the ground, coming from the boy'sroom, and she doesn't hear anything.

(03:18:20):
No footsteps, nothing.
So she quietly tiptoes outinto the hallway
and looks into the boy's room,and the light stops.
She starts freaking out, soshe flips on the light switch and nothing.
Mice are chilling. Nothing out of place.
And she looks all over the floor forthe source of the light and finds nothing.

(03:18:42):
well.
They ended up moving outa couple of months later
and into a placewhere each of the boys got their own room,
and the boys were not afraid to bein their own rooms anymore.
And Tanner is now 15 years old.
So a couple of months ago.
And you told him the story of hergetting up at night to look for the light.

(03:19:02):
And Tanner turns white as a ghostand just looks at her.
and Angie's like Tanner.What's the matter?
And Tanner looks her dead in the eyeand says, You're lucky you didn't look up.
This next storyis crazy, because it comes from a guy

(03:19:24):
who claims that Dogmanhas been following him since he was young.
With two separate incidences20 years apart.
He doesn't want to give his name, so we'rejust going to refer to him as Brian.
Now. His first encountertakes place in 1988,
in the town of Alto, Michigan,which is just outside of Grand Rapids.

(03:19:47):
Brian is an elementary school,and he is outside
playing at recessat about ten in the morning.
He and his friends are playing warand Brian decides
to run into the forest adjacentto the elementary school to hide.
He makes his way to a riverby some railroad tracks.

(03:20:07):
When he hears a huge range
and he sees a dark haired
Dogman pulled into the forest,
sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four,before it disappears completely.
And Brian is so freaked outthat he completely forget

(03:20:29):
about recess and school, and runs
straight home to hide in his bed,and he keeps silent
about that encounter for yearsuntil he is an adult
and he describeswhat he saw as being about eight feet tall
and maybe 300 pounds blue eyes,

(03:20:52):
and it seemed almost like a Timberwolf,but upright and with longer legs.
And that brings us to the second sighting,
which takes place in a nearby towncalled Lowell in the winter of 2008.
Brian now has a familyall sleeping soundly

(03:21:13):
until he hears a thud from up on the roof,and for whatever reason,
the noises above his head spark
an explosion of memories
about his first encounter,bringing back that fear
to the forefront of his brainbut willing his legs to move.

(03:21:35):
Brian goes into the front closet,where they keep a machete for protection.
He grabs it quietly,slips out the front door, and looks up.
And that is when the very same blue eyeddog man pokes his head
over the edge of the roof

(03:21:55):
and stares directly at him.
The creature leaps off the roof like
30ft and bolts
on all fours till it gets to the treeline,
where it stands up and staresback at Brian.
Brian, feeling a surge of adrenalineat the idea that his family is now

(03:22:19):
in danger, runs full out,
wielding the machete right at the dog.
The dog man just stares at him,almost grinning
before he utters one audible word.

(03:22:41):
Brian stops dead in his tracks
and is overwhelmedby this weird sense of calm.
He drops his machete and bats away
slowly as the dog man turns around.
Walks into the woods and disappears.

(03:23:05):
Yeah.
You have cried out to us
more Skinwalkers storiesand we have heard your cries
And today we have an episodethat is six skinwalker stories
just for you.
The writer of the story

(03:23:26):
chose to remain anonymous,so we'll call her an.
And, and her bestie Karengo to college together and, and kind of
wanted to learn more about Karen'sNavajo background and traditions.
So Ann decides to join Karenfor a three day
stay at Karen'sgrandma's house on the reservation.

(03:23:48):
Her grandmother lives near Tuba City,Arizona,
out in the middle of nowherebut surrounded by other rural homes.
Now, the first day the girls arethere, it's pretty chill.
nothing out of the ordinary.
until grandma mentionsthat she saw a stray dog
come out of nowhere,and it doesn't want to leave.
And and thinking it is acting kindof strange, and it's kind of ugly looking.

(03:24:13):
It's got a black shaggy coat,
and it looks kind of like a mix betweena German Shepherd and a lab.
The next day, grandma's in the kitchenmaking lunch,
and the girls are watching a moviein the living room,
which has a large picture windowwith the curtains wide open
that looks out onto the front yardwhere the cars are parked.

(03:24:34):
Next to the window is a medium bookshelfwhere the DVDs are kept.
And Karen gets up to put the DVDthat they had just watched back
on the shelf,glances out the window and freaks out.
The dog is staring at themthrough the window,
standing on the wood box outside.

(03:24:57):
Not something normal dogs do.
And the other dogs in the yardseem to keep their distance.
And Karen storms to the front door,opens it up and yells, get out the box!
And the dog runs behind the shed.
The girls headed to the cityto get some groceries and come right back.
And the dog is nowhere to be seen.

(03:25:20):
Nothing unusual.
Grandma decides to go visit some friends.
So now it'sjust the girls at home by themselves.
And about 5:00 they hear
somebody trying to open the front door.
They're both a little surprisedbecause neither of them heard
any cars drive upand the dogs in the yard aren't barking.

(03:25:42):
so they both go to the living room windowso they can see who's at the door.
And to their surprise and shock,
they see that same black dog
trying to open the door with its paws.
Two paws wrapped around the brass
doorknob, standing on its hind legs.

(03:26:06):
And certainly thought that was weird,
But inexplicably isn't freaked out.
Karen, however, is.
She opens the door and chases the dog off.
Grandma comes backlater and Karen tells her what happened.
And grandma does not like what she hears.

(03:26:28):
But it's pretty late now,so all the ladies get ready for bed.
And and Karen are sleeping
in the spare bedroombecause it has two beds and one window
that's open just a little bitso they can get the night breeze.
They turn off the light, say theirgoodnight, and the night quiet settles in.
Until they hear a noisecoming from on top of the roof.

(03:26:51):
Pitter patterfootsteps and panting and scratching.
Then whatever is up theresounds like it jumps off the roof
onto this plastic water barrelthat's outside.
And they can hearwhat sounds like barking.
But as it grows louder, the other dogsstart barking as well.

(03:27:12):
And something startsrunning around the house barking.
And it was no dog.
Nope.
It wasn't.
This barking sounds human.
A deep male voice barking
like it knew that they knew

(03:27:35):
that it wasn't really a dog.
Then panting again by the window.
And now the girls are freaking out.
Karen goes to the windowand opens the curtains to look out.
And there is the stray dog on its hind
legs, looking into their bedroom.

(03:27:58):
But this time it stinks,
and it looks likeit's got two black holes in its neck.
With eyes that are twinkling like
ugly glossy spider eyes.
And paws that look like deformed hands
with overgrown, thick, sharp nails.

(03:28:20):
Both girls start screaming and slamthe curtains closed.
And grandma comes running through the doorand she sees it. Two.
She runs to her bed and grabsthe shotgun that's underneath.
Then she runs to the fireplace and grabsa handful of ashes.
She grabs three shells, coatsthe shells in the ashes

(03:28:41):
and loads them into the shotgun.
And she blesses herself in Navajoas she opens
the door and heads outside to shoot it.
And yelling in Navajo.
She tells this thing it's not welcomehere.
Get the hell out of here.
Go prowl someplace else.
and being a traditional family.
The next day,grandma calls a medicine man to come over.

(03:29:04):
And he prays over everyone.
With cedars smoke and an eagle feather.
Blesses the house.
Makes them all eat some bitter herbs.
And gives an an arrowhead.
Apparentlyshe needs to carry the arrowhead
and a small pouch of corn pollenfor protection.
And says so far seems to be workingpretty well.

(03:29:25):
The medicineman said the dog was a skinwalker.
The body of the stray dog,which was killed by the skinwalker,
created an illusion.
So they wouldn't knowit wasn't a real dog.
He also said that skinwalkerstend to hurt people using some kind of

(03:29:46):
human bone straw to shoot at someone,think spitballs, but deadlier.
To get human bones into their target.
Doctors can't detect it.
But that day,the medicine man pulled a piece of human
skull out of Grammer's right shoulder.
It was, like, two incheslong and a half an inch thick.

(03:30:10):
And it was real.
And. And Karen watched himpull it out of her.
That was intense.

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Our Most TERRIFYING Stories: Halloween Special | The InBetween (Ep 180)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Our Most TERRIFYING Stories: Halloween Special | The InBetween (Ep 180)