The Eyeball Killer, The Cannibal, and The Chessboard Killer: History's Strangest Murder Methods

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode, we'll look

(00:29):
at some historic serial murderers and the strange and unusual
way they killed their victims. When it comes to planning
the burial of someone, it's always best to keep in
mind that whomever is watching how you treat the deceased
might be in charge of deciding what happens to you
when you are deceased. Sadly, one undertaker, Millard f Rogers,

(00:53):
apparently forgot about the Golden Rule and committed gruesome acts
against families. Residents in the town of Blakeney are reporting
something horrifying prowling around the neighborhood in backyards, something they
describe as a devil dog, a hell hound, a black shuck.

(01:15):
And we've all been guilty of wishing we had more
money coming in. Some people go out and get a
second job. Others look at what they have to sell online,
or look at what skills they have to offer to
the public that they could charge money for. Or you
can go the route of Georgia Tan. Her entrepreneurial spirit
brought her millions of dollars, and it was a simple idea.

(01:38):
Steal other people's children and then sell them. Now, bult
your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and
come with me into the weird darkness. Murder is always horrendous,

(02:14):
but when it's committed in a unique, deviant way, there's
something even more sinister to the crime. While some serial
killers stick to guns or knives, others prefer a strange,
distinctive act that satisfies their demented curiosity or perverse sexual needs.
Charles Albright is known as the Texas eyeball Killer and

(02:37):
the Dallas Ripper for good reason. In nineteen ninety and
nineteen ninety one, Albright terrorized the Dallas community by going
after what he felt were easy targets, female sex workers.
His technique was to pick up women, shoot them, and
then dump their half naked bodies, but not before he
removed the eyes from his victims and them as souvenirs.

(03:02):
Some could say it began at the age of eleven,
when Albright started a taxidermy class at the behest of
his overprotective adoptive mother, Dell Albright. Young Albright took to
it immediately, going so far as to remove the eyes
from birds, leaving two buttons sewn on where the eyes
used to be. Throughund his life, he was obsessed with

(03:24):
women's eyes, including painting them and cutting them out of photographs.
In December nineteen ninety one, Albright was charged with the
murder of Shirley Williams, only one of three suspected victims,
due to her hairs turning up inside his vacuum. He
was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Before anyone

(03:46):
knew who he was, Albert DeSalvo was dubbed the Boston
Strangler back in the nineteen sixties when he went on
a killing spree from nineteen sixty two to nineteen sixty four.
He preyed on the weak and only, sneaking into women's houses,
many of them older women, savagely raping and then strangling
them to death. His typical method was to strangle the

(04:10):
victims with their own underwear or stockings. Once he was
finished choking them, he would then tie the underwear into
a bow around the woman's neck. He then ransacked her
home and took some of the victim's belongings for a keepsake.
DeSalvo ended up in jail, but not for murder. While
he was a convicted rapist, he was never found guilty

(04:32):
of killing, even after he confessed to strangling thirteen women
in nineteen seventy three. DeSalvo was stabbed to death in prison.
In two thousand and one, his remains were exhumed in
an attempt to match his DNA with a DNA sample
from the hum of his last and final victim, Mary Sullivan. Sadly,
results were inconclusive. However, in twenty thirteen, police took a

(04:55):
DNA sample from a water bottle DeSalvo's nephew drank from
and det herment with ninety nine point nine percent certainty
that Albert DeSalvo raped and murdered Miss Sullivan. Police then
concluded that he was likely responsible for all of the
murders attributed to the Boston strangler. Jeffrey Dahmer, dubbed the

(05:17):
Milwaukee Cannibal, kept the community on high alert from nineteen
seventy eight to nineteen ninety one with his serial killings.
He preyed on teenage boys and men, subjecting them to
the extremes of torture. Dahmer's pattern was to rape and
kill his victims, followed by dismembering them and later consuming

(05:38):
parts of their bodies. Dahmer was also reported to have
sex with the corpses that he left behind. His motivation
was to create a submissive zombie sex slave to attend
to his needs. He capture his victims and then drill
a hole in their heads or inject hydrochloric acid or
boiling water as a crude form of surgery, thinking that

(06:01):
he'd be able to take over their minds. Dahmer was
arrested in July nineteen ninety one, at which time authorities
discovered severed heads and male organs inside his apartment. He
was convicted and given life in prison, but he was
killed by another inmate, Charles Sarver, in nineteen ninety four.
Between nineteen seventy four and nineteen seventy eight, Ted Bundy

(06:25):
committed unspeakable acts of violence within several different states. He
was charming and attractive, making it relatively easy to lure
in women and girls, some as young as fifteen. Bundy
dismembered some of his victims after he brutally killed them
and removed the heads to keep as trophies, as he
once told a detective he did with victim Georgianne Hawkins.

(06:49):
He was also known to have sex with the corpses
and was thought to be sexually attracted only to unconscious women.
Bundy reportedly killed thirty people during his crime brea in
the seventies. He evicted in nineteen eighty and sentenced to
death in Florida. He died by the electric chair in
nineteen eighty nine in Wisconsin. During the nineteen fifties, ed

(07:12):
Gen killed women and kept part of them to create
things in his home, but he began his intrigue with
the dead in cemeteries after Ed's oppressive mother died. He
began roaming cemeteries and digging up corpses that looked like
his mother. He used the decomposing skin to make rotten
flesh upholstery for his furniture. He practiced necrophilia and did

(07:35):
taxidermy on human bodies. When his crimes escalated to murder,
he kept human organs in his home and made clothing
and accessories from body parts. When he was arrested, police
found a female victim strung up in his barn with
her torso gutted like a hunted animal. Geen was only
convicted of two murders, though authorities suspect there were many more,

(07:59):
and sent to a man mental health facility because he
was not mentally fit to stand trial. In nineteen eighty four,
he died from cancer. Richard Trenton Chase was granted the
title of the Vampire of Sacramento. In the nineteen seventies.
He went on a murder spree, killing six people in
a single month and an entire family a couple of

(08:22):
years later. What made his crimes so disturbing was that
he not only cut up his victims, but he drank
their blood. Chase also supposedly ate part of a brain
from one of his victims, who was pregnant at the time.
Growing up, Chase always displayed abnormal personality traits that eventually
led him to frequent mental hospitals. His love of blood

(08:44):
became evident in his early twenties, when he killed animals
and ate them raw or blended up. In nineteen seventy nine,
Chase was convicted and sentenced to death row. However, he
killed himself by overdosing the following year in his cell.
Andre Chikatillo was known as the Butcher of Roustov for

(09:05):
his love of dismembering his victims. The Ukrainian born criminal
terrorized the Soviet Union between nineteen seventy eight and nineteen ninety,
especially at the bus and train stations where Chikatillo met
most of his fifty two victims. Women and children, both
boys and girls, were his targets of choice. When he
first started out, he was meanly attracted to his victim's eyes,

(09:28):
lacerating the sockets and sometimes removing the eyes completely. As
time went on, Chikatillo's desired torture grew. He began to
remove other organs, including tongues, and reportedly eight the genitals
of some of his victims. Chikatillo eventually confessed to his crimes,
stating that he killed fifty six victims, not just fifty two.

(09:51):
He was convicted in nineteen ninety two and executed by
a gunshot two years later. Alexander Pachushkin alarmed Oscow, Russia
when he began killing in nineteen ninety two. He became
known as the chess board killer because he aimed to
kill sixty four people to fill all the squares on
a chessboard. It was also said that Patchushkin was actively

(10:15):
competing with serial killer Andre Chikatillo, whom I just mentioned,
and trying to beat his victim count of fifty three.
Pachushkin usually went after older homeless men, drinking vodka with
them before striking them with a hammer. It was believed
he preferred to strike from behind, not only to catch
his victims off guard, but to keep himself from getting

(10:37):
sprayed with blood. In the end, Pachushkin was caught before
he was able to reach his goal of sixty four victims.
It's known that he killed forty eight. He was convicted
in two thousand and seven and received a life sentence,
serving his first fifteen years locked in solitary confinement. From
nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety seven, Indonesia dealt with

(11:00):
a serial killer named Akhmad Suraji or the Black Magic Killer.
Throughout those eleven years, he killed forty two women and
girls as young as eleven years old. He lured them
in with his supposed magic healing powers, offering to help
them with their troubles. He buried his victims waist deep
in the ground, supposedly as part of his healing practice,

(11:23):
but then used a cable to strangle them to death. Afterward,
it was said that he drank their saliva to enhance
his magical powers. Saraji said that his dead father told
him in a dream to commit the crimes in order
to become a true healer. Saraji was arrested in nineteen
ninety seven and executed by firing squad in two thousand

(11:44):
and eight. One of Surraji's three wives was also held accountable.
She was originally given the death penalty, but later it
was changed to a life sentence. From around nineteen seventy
one until nineteen eighty three, Robert Hanson terrified Alaska as
the Butcher Baker and killed anywhere from seventeen to thirty women,

(12:08):
many of them sex workers. In addition to kidnapping and
raping his victims, he took them to remote places like
the Nick River to torture them and then let them go.
He would then hunt the fleeing women like wild animals,
striking at them with a knife or gunning them down
with a rifle. Hanson was convicted for only four murders

(12:29):
in nineteen eighty three and received a sentence of four
hundred sixty one years in prison without parole. In twenty fourteen,
he died in a nearby hospital. A once successful pig farmer,
Robert Picton became known as more than a multimillion dollar
rancher in Vancouver, Canada. His rampage began in two thousand

(12:51):
and two as he began going after young vulnerable women,
viciously killing and disfiguring them. Targeting local sex workers, knapped
and then murdered them at his farm. After he killed them,
he fed their corpses to his pigs to hide any evidence.
There were also claims that picked In sold human remains
mixed with his pork to customers without them knowing. While

(13:15):
Pickton was charged for twenty murders, he was only convicted
of six in the second degree. In two thousand and seven,
he was given life in prison without any possibility of
parole for twenty five years. And Danas Sue Gray. She
was a California nurse and pro skydiver with an obsession
for shopping, which ultimately drove her to murder three and

(13:38):
to attempt to murder another. In nineteen ninety four, she
started financing her need for luxury items by robbing and
murdering elderly women. Gray strangled her elderly victims with a
telephone court and she beat and stabbed them to death.
After killing them, she ransacked their wallets, taking credit cards
and cash to help support her shopping addiction. Her fourth

(14:01):
and final victim survived the attack and was able to
identify Gray, leading to her arrest and conviction. In nineteen
ninety eight. Gray received a life sentence without possibility of parole.

(14:27):
You know, we all have been guilty of wishing we
had more money coming in. Some people go out and
get a second job. Others look at what they have
that they could sell online, or look at what skills
they have to offer to the public that they could
charge money for. Or you can go the route of
Georgia Tan. Her entrepreneurial spirit brought her millions of dollars,

(14:49):
and it was a simple idea, steal other people's children
and then sell them. That story is up next on
Weird Darkness. Between nineteen twenty four and nineteen fifty, a

(15:35):
woman named Georgia Tan abducted and separated more than five
thousand children from their parents, many of whom were poor
and unwed mothers. Tan looked like a grandmother, and few
families had any idea that she was actually a Tennessee
baby farmer. During her time working at the Tennessee Children's

(15:55):
Home Society, she and her network of social worker spotters
search for children to pull into their operation. With the
help of political friends, Tan was able to legally separate
parents from their children by citing neglect. The most attractive
children were sold to wealthy families, including celebrities. Hundreds of

(16:16):
unwonted and unadoptable children died under Tan's care, often due
to neglect and starvation. It's believed that some of the
children's bodies might still be buried on the grounds of
the Children's Home or Tan operated. Tan spent more than
twenty five years kidnapping children and profiting off of the poor.

(16:37):
Although she is not the first woman in history to
separate children from their families, her story is one of
the most bizarre and disturbing out there. Some of the
children in Tan's care suffered greatly both before and after
they were placed with their adoptive parents, according to Barbara
Bezant's Raymond in her book The Baby Thief, The Untold

(16:58):
Story of Georgia Tan, the baby seller who corrupted adoption.
Tan allegedly molested some of the girls. She abducted and
sold teenagers to single men who were possible pedophiles. She
ordered older kids to sit on men's laps and say daddy.
Some children were bought by adults to serve as farm

(17:19):
hands or domestic servants, and others were neglected by their
new families, enduring beatings, starvations, and sometimes rape. One of
the children Tan sold off, Jim Lambert, recalled Tan, removing
him and his three siblings from their mother in nineteen
thirty two. He was later abused by his adoptive mother,

(17:40):
and when he finally found information about his biological mother,
he found out she had already died. In the late
nineteen forties, the Tennessee governor tasked Attorney Robert L. Taylor
with investigating Georgia Tan and Judge Camille Kelly, who helped
Tan push through suspicious adoptions. What Taylor found it was
hard to believe. When he visited Tan's orphanage, Taylor noted

(18:04):
her babies died like flies. Taylor speculated that Tan made
more than a million dollars selling children. It was common
for the kids to be transported out of state at
night to meet their adoptive parents, with many of the
children going to California and New York. Under Georgia Tan's directive,

(18:24):
children were abducted from the streets, daycare centers, and even churches.
She and her operatives took kids born to mothers serving
time in prison or placed in mental hospitals. Others were
stolen from the hospital shortly after they were born. Doctors, nurses,
and social workers were in on Tan's operation, together, whisking

(18:45):
the infants off before anyone noticed. Some doctors would even
take bribes to tell new parents that their babies had
died at birth. A number of the abducted children did
die under Tan's watch, and others were adopted out, but
their real identities were kept secret and records were falsified.

(19:05):
Few would ever reunite with their birth parents. While Georgia
Tan was executive director of the Tennessee Children's Home Society,
numerous children died under her care. At the time, the
infant mortality rate in Memphis was considerably larger than anywhere
else in the United States. It's believed that as many
as five hundred children died due to disease, inadequate care,

(19:29):
and possibly abuse. Despite this alarming statistic, Tan was praised
for the work she performed. The media at the time
praised her as the foremost leading light in adoption laws.
Eleanor Roosevelt consulted with Tan over child welfare, and President
Truman asked her to attend his inauguration. Actress Joan Crawford

(19:52):
adopted five children during her life. Into nineteen forty seven,
she found her twin daughters, Kathy and Cynthia, through the
Tennis Children's Home Society. Contradictory to Georgia Tan's supposed mission
of placing children in better homes, Crawford allegedly abused her kids.
Cindy and Kathy, however, vehemently denied that their mother hurt them.

(20:15):
Actors June Allison and Dick Powell also adopted a child
from the society, so did actress Lana Turner and Mary Pickford,
writer Pearl S Buck, and New York governor Herbert Lehman.
Professional wrestler Rick Flair, who was born in Memphis in
nineteen forty nine, was reportedly one of the many children
Tan had snatched from unsuspecting birth parents. Georgia Tan started

(20:39):
working for the Tennessee Children's Home Society in nineteen twenty four.
It wasn't long before she realized that babies could mean
big business. She developed a marketing strategy and paid for
ads and newspapers to entice prospective parents. In one advertisement
that she placed around the holidays, cherubic blonde babies looked

(21:00):
up beamingly as the words want a real live Christmas
Present lured in potential buyers. In another ad from nineteen
thirty five, an adorable little boy holds a ball. The
caption reads, yours for the asking George wants to play catch,
but he needs a daddy to complete the team. A

(21:21):
woman named Alma Simple gave birth to a daughter named
Irma in Memphis, Tennessee, on August twenty seventh, nineteen forty five.
Her boyfriend, Julius John Tallos, worked in the Air Force
and had recently shipped out to Panama. Six weeks after
Sipple settled into a one bedroom apartment, she was visited
by Georgia Tan, who claimed she was checking in on

(21:42):
a neighbor who was purportedly abusing a child. Tan returned
the next day and noticed Irma had a cold. She
offered to take the baby to the hospital because Sipple
couldn't afford a doctor. Sipple agreed and tried to visit
her baby the next day, but when she tried to
see her child, she was told Irma belonged to the
Children's Home Society. Then a few days later, tand told

(22:06):
her that Irma died of pneumonia. Simple attempted to arrange
a funeral, but Tan claimed she had already taken care
of it. Sipple had no idea that Irma was in
fact still alive, and adopted out to a couple in Cincinnati.
They renamed her Sandra. In December nineteen eighty nine, Sipple
was watching Unsolved Mysteries when she saw a segment about Tan.

(22:30):
The show recommended that viewers who had run ends with
Tan reach out to the group Tennessee's Right to Know,
who would help families reunite with their children who were
kidnapped and adopted out. Simple and Irma slash Sandra were
reunited seven months later, forty four years after the baby
was stolen from her true mother, Tan placed an estimated

(22:53):
five thousand children into new families. Over the course of
her career. She outright stole some of them, kidnapped others,
and persuaded some parents to relinquish their kids. During adoption proceedings.
Tan worked with a judge, Camille Kelly, whom she paid off,
so parents had a difficult time getting their children back,

(23:13):
even though mothers and fathers went to the police. They
were often poorly educated and didn't have a lot of money.
They struggled to go up against Tan, who was wealthy
and had a lot of powerful and intimidating connections in
the legal and political systems. Denny Glad, who was President
of Right to Know in Tennessee during the nineties, didn't

(23:34):
think the majority of adoptive parents had any idea the
children they were taking in were obtained illegally, she told
the Los Angeles Times. For whatever reason, most of them
had not been able to qualify to adopt in the
state in which they lived. Primarily age was the reason.
Most were in their forties and fifties. These parents, who

(23:55):
were desperate to expand their families, learned about the availability
of Tennessee children through the grapevine. The cost to adopt
one of Tan's children in California was approximately seven hundred
and fifty dollars. Denny Glad, the president of Right to Know,
in Tennessee in the nineties, suspected that Georgia Tan could
have been motivated by more than just financial gain. Most

(24:17):
of the victims her operation kidnapped were children of poor
parents or single mothers. They had fewer advantages in their
lives than kids who lived with more affluent families. Glad
explained to the Los Angeles Times in nineteen ninety, Miss
Tan thought that affluency meant good, and I believe that's
just how she justified what she was doing. She was

(24:38):
taking children who never would have had a chance and
placing them in homes where they were going to get
good educations and all the material things. She just thought
that she knew better than God. In nineteen fifty, the
governor of Tennessee held a press conference in forming the
public of Tan's crimes. Yet most of the children she
placed in adoptive homes were never reuni united with their

(25:00):
biological families. No effort was made to reconnect parents with
their children. In nineteen ninety five, following years of red tape,
the victims were finally allowed to get access to their
birth certificates and adoption records. Even then, only a small
percentage reconnected with their birth mothers. Tan died from uterine

(25:22):
cancer at the age of fifty nine in September of
nineteen fifty Just days earlier, the state of Tennessee announced
the case against her. The charges did not include kidnapping. Rather,
they focused on her stealing money from a state funded organization.
Tan didn't leave any of her fortune to the Tennessee
Children's Home Society or charitable organizations. The judge that she

(25:45):
worked with, Camille Kelly, resigned after the investigation and passed
away in nineteen fifty four. The Children's Home Society shut
down permanently in nineteen thirteen. Georgia Tan graduated from Martha
Washington in College in Virginia with a degree in music.
She was a teacher for a brief time before committing

(26:06):
to a career in social work in nineteen twenty. She
took advantage of her father's role as judge of the
Mississippi Second Chancery District Court and the absence of laws
regarding adoption, she kidnapped children from poor women while employed
by the Kate McWillie Powers Receiving Home for Children in Jackson, Mississippi. However,
her acts were discovered and she was fired for her actions.

(26:29):
Tan then moved to Texas before settling in Memphis, Tennessee,
where she earned the title of executive director at the
city's Tennessee Children's Home Society. Even though Tan made adoption
more socially acceptable, she also used some legal processes that
later became controversial. Under her directive, all of the Children's

(26:49):
Home Society's adoptions were closed, meaning all information about an
adoptee's birth parents was kept private. The records were shrouded
in secrecy, and children were not permitted to find out
who their biological parents were. Many states still follow these rules. Interestingly,
in nineteen ninety nine, Tennessee became the first state to

(27:12):
change its rules regarding closed adoptions. Despite her criminal methods,
Georgia Tan also brought more attention to the potential of
adoption for many Americans, making it more popular. Before nineteen twenty,
little was done for orphans. They were often put in
institutions and orphanages, and no one cared if they lived

(27:32):
or died. According to Barbara Besantz Raymond, author of The
Baby Thief, The Untold Story of Georgia Tan, the baby
seller who corrupted adoption. Tan did give some children better
homes than the ones they were born into. However, it
is unclear to this day how many found better futures
and prospects due to her meddling. Coming up on Weird Darkness,

(28:08):
residents in the town of Blakeney are reporting something horrifying
prowling around the neighborhoods in backyards, something they describe as
a devil dog, a hell hound, a black shuck. But first,
when it comes to planning the burial of someone, it's
always best to keep in mind that whoever's watching how

(28:29):
you treat the deceased might be in charge of deciding
what happens to you when you become deceased. Sadly, one undertaker,
Millard f Rogers, apparently forgot about the Golden Rule and
committed gruesome acts against families. That story is up next
on Weird Darkness. It's November twelfth, eighteen ninety one, and

(29:18):
you sit down in your favorite chair after a day's
work and open up the Alton, Illinois Evening Telegraph. Right
there on the front page is a story that makes
you immediately lose your appetite for dinner. Headline horrible practice
revolving charges against an undertaker. Sensation in a Chicago suburb,

(29:41):
the bodies of pauper infants disposed of by being placed
in coffins containing corpses, which the Undertaker has been called
upon to attend to six pauper children said to have
been buried in one grave. Chicago, November eleventh. Inglewood, recently
a suburb of Chicago, but now embraced in the city,
is greatly wrought up over the revolting charges that are

(30:04):
being made against Undertaker Millard F. Rogers. Citizens whose deceased
relatives were buried by the Undertaker are apprehensive that the
graves of their loved ones have been desecrated, and a
number of people have announced their intention of exuming their
friend's remains and satisfying themselves that they are not the
victims of the repulsive practice of burying pauper infants in

(30:26):
the coffins of deceased adults. Three weeks ago, the remains
of an inglewoodman were exhumed shortly after being buried by
Undertaker Rogers, and the body of a pauper infant was
found between the feet of the corpse. Rogers claimed at
the time that he was a victim of conspiracy inspired
by his assistant C. F. Norman Tuesday, However, another case

(30:49):
came to light. Disturbed by rumors, the friends of the
late James P. Tansey, who died eighteen months ago, had
him exhumed, and the remains of an infant were found
under the satin trimmings at the foot of the coffin.
The remains of mister Tansey were interred to Mount Alavet
long before Norman went to work for Rogers, and this

(31:09):
fact has convinced most of the friends who believed the
undertaker's tale, that there is more in the charges than
they supposed. Among the staunchest friends were the Masons and Oddfellows,
of which organizations Rogers is a member. He proclaimed that
they would stand by him. But Tuesday evening it was
decided in the Inglewood lodges of both orders to make

(31:31):
a full investigation, and a member of the Masonic fraternity
admitted that if the charges were substantiated, Rogers would be expelled.
The citizens have thoroughly organized for an investigation of the charges,
and the attorney for the prosecution stated Tuesday evening that
he had satisfied himself that Rogers had buried in one

(31:51):
grave at Oakwood Cemetery the bodies of six pauper children.
As none of the children had relatives able to stand
the expense of exuming the remains, and there is nothing
in the statutes pronouncing such action criminal, the matter will
not be pushed further in this direction, but other cases
will be pushed. Some time ago, the father of mister

(32:13):
Sylvester and Inglewood Expressman died and the remains, after being
prepared by Rogers, were shipped to Wisconsin for burial. Soon after,
some alarming rumors were spread, but were not credited, and
until the recent charges were made, mister Sylvester did not
trouble himself about them. Lately he commenced an investigation, and

(32:34):
the other day induced the man who assisted Rogers at
the time of the burial to make a confession. This man,
whose name is Foskett, pretended to know but little, but
admitted that on the day the remains were prepared for burial,
a woman connected with Roger's establishment left the undertaker's shop
with the body of a child in a shawl, which
she carried. She went to the Sylvester residence, and when

(32:57):
she left, it is alleged she failed to bring the
infant body with her. Mister Sylvester will at once have
his father's remains exhumed by the Wisconsin relatives. Foskett further
admitted that while he was with Rogers, the body of
an infant was placed in the coffin of a woman
who lived near the corner of sixty first Street and
Stuart Avenue. He declares he cannot remember the name. Still.

(33:20):
Another suspicious case now being investigated is that of the
infant child of Officer W. H. Harris of the Inglewood
Police Station. It was remarked that the casket furnished by
Rogers was very large for an infant's remains. The coffin
will probably be exhumed. The practice of burying infants and
adults coffins could be made very remunerative to one who

(33:42):
did Roger's large business. Set an Inglewood physician on Wednesday.
The interminent fee of six dollars is charged in each case,
and if the undertaker has but one grave doug instead
of two, he can make a pretty penny in the
course of a year, especially when he does business for
a couple of foundlings homes and or asylums. While sad,

(34:03):
it was a common practice to bury stillborn children into
the gap at the foot of an adult grave. Usually
it was not the wishes of the family, only coming
down to the bottom line, the cost of a burial.
According to the January thirty first, eighteen ninety two edition
of the Cincinnati Inquirer, headline in cigar boxes, many little

(34:24):
bodies find nameless graves. We have many people bring us
little babes in boxes, it said, ranging in size from
a cigar box to a coffin a foot or so long,
said a sexton. They hardly ever leave instructions, so we
just put the boxes at the bottom of some grave
we dig for a grown person. Not surprisingly, the practice

(34:45):
of filling in a gap at the foot of an
adult grave with a child's coffin was a source of
much pain to bereaved pauper parents who could not afford
to have their babies buried in a plot with other children,
as would have been their desire for a parted child.

(35:35):
She heard the light, dragging and tinkling of a chain,
but could see nothing. Whatever made the noise, however, followed
her as she walked. It comes as no surprise to
Weird Norfolk that black shuck has been regularly seen in Blakeney,
whose name means black island. That the much feared devil

(35:55):
dog has been spotted quite so often, however, is quite
another matter. And then there's the not inconsiderable consideration that
in some tales, Schuck has not one but two heads.
A plethora of Blakeney sidings are included on the superb
Hidden East Anglia website, which recounts a host of unsettling

(36:17):
encounters in or close to the beautiful North Norfolk village.
Black Shucks haunt Norfolk folklore, a dark figure as big
as a calf and as noiseless as death, stalking through
the county since the sixteenth century. Seen across the county
and in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. Black Shuck takes many

(36:39):
forms and has many purposes, a true manifestation of everyone's fear,
A creature you definitely do not want to see on
a dark and stormy night. Whether he has eyes like saucers,
or hot breath like a lick of fire, Whether he
foretells your impending death, or is some kind of guardian spirit.

(37:00):
Whether he roams the coast or woodland, heath or roadside,
one thing is for certain. He is not of this realm.
Back to Blakeney, where there is the recurring tale of
Old Chuck who haunts Long Lane which runs south over
Rubery Hill, which is mentioned in W. A. DUTs The

(37:20):
Norfolk and Suffolk Coast, published in nineteen o nine. The
otherworldly creature has also been spotted in Little Lane in
Blakeney as he runs between Wells and Sheringham. Iris Portal,
writing to the Eastern Daily Press in nineteen fifty three,
suggested that Shuck regularly ran past her garden wall in
Long Lane. A few days after missus Portal's letter, another

(37:43):
appeared from Jeffrey Booty of west Ronton. It read, I
read with interest your article on Old Shuck and would
like the following on record. He travels between Blakeney, Sharingham
and Overstrand and is supposed to be searching for his master,
who was shipwrecked on the coast. Chuck is a large
black Retriever with a chain attached to his neck. This

(38:04):
apparently is a good description because one night, very late
to cycling from Sharingham, when to my surprise Schuck was
running beside me with his chain clinking the ground. He
followed me to my gate at west Runton and passed
on down the lane to the Beach. This is a
true incident, and I would like to know the description
of Schuck given by other people who have seen him.

(38:26):
Chuck has been seen on the B thirteen eighty eight
at Blakeney, where in a letter to Hidden East Anglias
Mike Burgess from Jay Wallace in nineteen eighty three, he
was described as having two heads. When he catches a rat,
it escapes through his other mouth, and in another letter
to Ivan Bunn, editor of the Borderline Science Investigation Group's

(38:47):
Lantern a Missus, A P. Marcucci recalled hearing something strange
on the A one forty nine between Clay and Blakeney
at around midnight in the summer of nineteen sixty eight.
She heard the light direct bagging and tinkling of a chain,
but could see nothing. Whatever made the noise, however, followed
her as she walked. At the crossroads where there was

(39:10):
a street light. She paused to see if whatever was
behind her would pass by, but saw nothing. Then suddenly
she was aware that her invisible walking partner had passed
and made its way down Black Lane. Knowing the legend
of black Shuck and realizing he'd be making his way
to the marsh banks, she fled home, down the high

(39:31):
street and away from the beast that was so frequently
believed to foretell disaster. These tales have been told in
Blakeney for well over a century. In a feature about
the village and the Edp in September eighteen ninety six,
Old Schuck was mentioned. It is perhaps not generally known
that Old Chuck has one of his walks in Blakeney

(39:53):
Little Lane, where also, and even more wonderful spectral appearance
has been seen, according to local legend, nothing less than
a ghostly wagon with two ghostly horses wandering through the air.
The piece reads, there are men now in Blakeney who
could not be induced to walk down that haunted lane
after dark. Some believe the tales of black Shuck were

(40:16):
spread joyfully by smugglers who realized that the fear of
a devil dog who could condemn you to death with
a stare, would keep people off coastal lanes at night
while they got up to no good. On the website
which accompanies Richard Platt's book Smuggling in the British Isles,
a History, there is the following passage. If convoys of

(40:36):
wagons and horses rolling along these roads attracted too much attention.
Old superstitions provided plenty of ways of discouraging further interest.
Old Shuck the ghost dog is a persistent Norfolk legend that,
like the cannibals of Clovely, the smugglers exploited. Shuck is
an enormous black dog with one glowing eye and fiery breath.

(41:00):
Anyone who sees Old Chuck is sure to die within
a twelve month. Norfolk smugglers took advantage of the gullibility
of the villagers and tied a lantern round the neck
of a black ram, sending it running off to frighten
noisy locals when a run was due. Weird Norfolk suggests
that if anyone is gullible in this matter, it would

(41:21):
be the smugglers to believe that county folk would be
fooled by a sheep in a necklace. Thanks for listening.

(42:01):
If you like the show, please cheer it with someone
you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories in Weird
Darkness aren't purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and
you can find source links or links to the authors
in the show notes. Strange Predilections in Murder Methods is

(42:22):
by Carrissa Chessinik for Rankers. Unspeakable Times Six Children Jean
Grave is by Chris Woodyard for the Victorian Book of
the Dead website. How to Get Rich by Stealing and
Selling Children is by Noel Tallman for Weird History, and
The Black Chuck of Blakeney is by Stasia Briggs and
Sealfra Connor for Eastern Daily Press. Weird Darkness theme by

(42:46):
Alibi Music. Weird Darkness is a production of Marler House Productions.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light to BACKIC three verses
seventeen and eight. Though the fig tree does not bud,
and there are no grapes on the vines, though the
olive crop fails in the fields produce no food. Though

(43:09):
there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle
in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will be joyful in God, my Savior. And a
final thought, a strong soul shines after every storm. I'm
Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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