The Horned Man and the Ghost Train Tragedy of 1979

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. In nineteen

(00:31):
forty four, Dorothy Forstein came home from shopping and was
attacked by an intruder beat within an inch of her life.
Nothing was stolen, no fingerprints left, no clue as to
how the person entered the house to begin with. Dorothy
recovered from her injuries, but years later she found her

(00:52):
grim fate wasn't done with her. SETI. The search for
extraterrestrial intelligence is continually scanning the heavens on the lookout
for life elsewhere in the universe. But is it possible
that somewhere on another planet out there, those beings are
doing the same thing and could actually be watching us.

(01:15):
Scientists say not only is it possible, but they suspect
it could be. Over a thousand extraterrestrial space stations are
watching our every move. Eighteen year old Ellen Lucas was
to be married on October third, but the evening of
October second, she went out with her fiance never to

(01:36):
be seen alive again. Did a horrible accident destroy the
chances of this couple's happy life together, a random act
of violence? Or was it something even more sinister. She
seemed the perfect American, even born to a US military doctor,
graduating from a prestigious American college, and working tirelessly doing

(02:01):
her part to serve her country as a military analyst.
What could cause this seemingly patriotic citizen to become a
spy for the enemy. But first, Some of the most
unsettling of urban legends can take place in some the
happiest places on Earth. Ghostly children swinging in a playground,

(02:24):
phantom like warriors coming out at night in beautiful Hawaii.
But there's one I never heard of until just this
morning while planning for this episode, I had to look
it up. It has to do with a boy, a
theme park, and a man with horns. We begin with
that story. Now, bult your doors, lock your windows, turn

(02:49):
off your lights, and come with me into the weird darkness.

(03:16):
One of the most unsettling urban legends in Sydney, Australia
concerns the place where happiness is Luna Park, Millson's Point
on the ninth of June, Jenny and James Gonson were
taking their two boys on a family vacation to Sydney,
having already visited Taranga Zoo. They caught the ferry to

(03:38):
Circular Quay in order to get to Luna Park at
Milson's Point. It was whilst they were there that they
encountered a busker dressed in animal skins and a great
horned headdress, and the infamous photo of Damian Godson was
snapped with the horned man's arm around him. It was
the last photo that would ever be taken of the boy.

(04:01):
Later that night, before leaving Luna Park, the Godsens realized
that they had extra ride tickets left, and the boys
wanted to ride the Ghost Train with their father. Jenny,
for some reason, had a craving for ice cream and
decided to give the ride a pass. Shortly after, when
Jenny returned to the Ghost Train to meet with him,

(04:21):
she was confronted with smoke and flames erupting from the ride.
Although they tried, firefighters could not adequately combat the fire,
in the end having to pump water from Sydney Harbor itself,
and seven people died in the blaze. James Godsen and
his two sons were among the dead. They were found

(04:43):
huddled together into a corner of one of the tunnels
where they'd been burned alive. Today there is a plaque
and a statue that marks the spot and the lives lost.
But that's not where the story ends. It's where the
urban legend begins. Questions began to arise about the fire

(05:04):
and how it started, claims that ranged from sabotage to
faulty wiring, although it was demonstrated that the ride's wiring
was not the source of ignition. Some including his niece,
say that the owner of the park at the time,
Abe Saffron, started the fire deliberately, but why. Some of

(05:24):
the theories or that he owned several organizations in Sydney,
a large amount of money and was looking to claim
insurance from the event, not expecting anyone to actually be
in the ride at such a time of night. He
was charged with criminal negligence, though for failing to follow
through with a variety of safety recommendations regarding the ride,

(05:45):
not causing the fire to occur in the first place.
What is perhaps the most interesting theory revolves around the
last photo that was taken of Damian godson before he
was tragically burnt Aliveture of the Horned Man. People have
drawn startling similarities between what occurred on the night of

(06:07):
the ninth of June and ancient rituals of child sacrifice
to the Canaanite god Moloch. Although most dismissed this as
piple paffle, the similarities between what occurred and Canaanite ritual
sacrifice seemed to feed the flames of conspiracy. It was
said that children would be led into a large kiln
with a single entrance, then burnt alive inside. Eerily enough,

(06:33):
of the seven victims of the fire, six were children.
Albeit the disaster struck at a theme park, So was
it coincidence that children happened to be involved, or was
the placement of the fire chosen deliberately. Not only that,
but the busker himself was dressed in cowhide and horns
reminiscent of the bullhead of Moloch coincidence. Even now, people

(06:59):
who lived near the park have reported hearing the blood
curdling screams of children and smelt the stench of burning plastic,
even though the night is clear and the park is closed.
Maybe they never left the ride at all. Sometimes the

(07:39):
last person one would expect winds up being a great
unexplained mystery. Our story here begins in nineteen forty four
with an otherwise unassuming and well liked housewife and mother
of three by the name of Dorothy Cooper Forstein, who
lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her husband and Magistrate Jewels Forstein,

(08:02):
who had brought to their marriage two children he'd had
with his previous wife. She also had an infant son
with Jewels, and by all accounts, Dorothy was quite happily
married and had no known problems with anyone around her whatsoever.
Dorothy would have been, by all appearances to have been
just another upper middle class housewife, and there would have

(08:24):
been no reason to suspect that she was going to
go on to become the center of one of the
strangest vanishings there is. On the evening in January of
nineteen forty four, Dorothy dropped her three children off at
a friend's house and went off to do some shopping.
She came home but around nightfall, and nothing seemed to

(08:45):
be amiss at all as she let herself into her
home and began to unload her groceries. Considering that this
was a very safe neighborhood with no crime, there would
have been no reason for her to even suspect that
she was in any danger at all. Unfortunately for her,
she was not as alone as she had thought, and
from the shadows crept the form of a menacing stranger,

(09:08):
who proceeded to pounce upon her and begin to savagely
beat her. At some point in the melee, a phone
was knocked from the wall, and the operator on the
other end heard the struggle and alerted police. When authorities arrived,
they found Dorothy Forrestein crumpled unconscious upon the floor, and
she was found to have suffered serious injuries, including a

(09:30):
broken jaw and nose and a fractured shoulder, as well
as a concussion and myriad scrapes, scratches and bruises. When
she was questioned on the attack, she was unable to
give any description of her assailant, as it had been
too dark and she had not gotten a good look
at him. As she was ruthlessly beaten to within an
inch of her life. It would be found that oddly

(09:54):
nothing at all had been stolen from the house, and
there were no fingerprints of the mysterious trespasser to be
found anywhere, nor was there any evidence as to how
the intruder had gotten into the house to begin with,
leaving authorities quite baffled as to what was going on.
The best anyone could come up with was that it

(10:15):
may have been carried out by a person with a
grudge against her magistrate husband, but no one had any
real clue. There were no suspects, and no arrests were
ever made. Indeed, it is still unknown if this assault
has anything to do with what would happen next. A
few years went by, and although Dorothy recovered physically, both

(10:39):
her and her husband were still considerably troubled and shaken
by the unsolved crime. They'd never really gotten quite back
to normal, But things were about to take a turn
for the bizarre and make their paranoia justified. On the
night of October eighteenth, nineteen forty nine, Jules Forced was

(11:00):
away on business for the evening, leaving Dorothy at home
with her two youngest children, as her then nineteen year
old oldest daughter was out with friends during this time.
The evening was allegedly quiet and unefentful, and the neighbor
would even later say that she had spoken with Dorothy
on the phone, and that nothing at all had seemed strange.

(11:21):
At around eleven thirty pm, Jules came home to find
quite a sight awaiting him. The house at first seemed
to be empty, and he could not fathom where his
family could have got off to at that hour. Going upstairs,
he would find his two youngest children hiding in their bedroom,
cowering in fear from some unseen threat. When asked what

(11:45):
had scared them so badly, they allegedly could only say,
mommy's gone over and over again. When they calmed down,
they would allegedly tell a very curious series of events. Indeed,
according to the nine year old daughter, Marcy, they'd heard
a noise and when she had looked to see what
it was, there'd been a stranger wearing a brown peaked

(12:09):
cap and a brown jacket, carrying their mother's unconscious body
over his shoulder down the stairs. The girl claimed that
she'd asked the man what he was doing, and that
he had simply kindly patted her on the shoulder and
calmly told her go back to sleep, little one. Your
mommy has been sick, but she will be all right now.

(12:30):
After that, he had continued on his way down the
stairs and out of the house, oddly making sure to
lock the door behind him. It would be the last
time anyone would ever see Dorothy Forstein again. Most surprisingly,
this had apparently all happened only fifteen minutes before Jules
had arrived at home, but there was no sign at

(12:53):
all of where the man and Dorothy had gone. There
was a massive search carried out for the missing Dorothy Forstein,
with police checking all over Philadelphia, including hospitals, nursing homes,
and even morgues, all to no avail. Philadelphia Police Captain
James Kelly of Philadelphia's Detective Bureau sent out ten thousand

(13:15):
notices to police departments and institutions all over the country,
but no trace was discovered. No sign of either her
or her alleged captor has ever been found, and indeed,
it is not even clear as to how accurate Marcy's
accounts of events is. In the end, we are no
closer to figuring out what happened to her than we

(13:36):
were back in nineteen forty nine, and it looks to
be a disappearance that will never be solved. Oddly, there
have been some strange little details surrounding the mysterious case
in the years since. One is that while the case
was very widely covered in the news at the time,
the story quickly went out of circulation and was I

(14:00):
sort of swept under the carpet. From around a week
it was all over the news, then nothing. Currently, there's
very little information to be found on such a weird case,
which seems odd to say the least. There's also the
rather bizarre claim that articles written of on the case
seemed to be shut down by Forstein's own family, which

(14:21):
was claimed by author and researcher Troy Taylor, who said
of the drop off the radar and subsequent cover up
of the Forstein case. Thus, for decades, no further word
of Dorothy Forstein appeared in print. Then in two thousand
and three, I featured the story of Dorothy Forstein on
my website, and soon after I received a letter from
an attorney from the Forstein family asking if the story

(14:43):
could be removed. The letter was not threatening, It merely
made an appeal for the privacy of the family members
and asked if I would consider removing it out of
consideration for their grief. I agreed to do so, and
I later learned that several sites that had also featured
my article on the disappearance had received a similar letter.
Why the secrecy about a fifty year old disappearance? No

(15:05):
one could say, and to this day no one is talking.
This is one part of the mystery that seems to
be almost as intriguing as the case itself. Why would
someone want to suppress this story after so many decades?
And is it even someone who is really in the
family at all? Is there some sort of cover up

(15:28):
going on, and if so, why? It's hard to say,
But if this episode suddenly disappears, you know where to look.
It at the very least, adds a new sine of
the weird to an already strange case. In the end,
the case of Dorothy Forstein is a curious one that
is hard to really unravel. Why did she disappear and

(15:53):
who took her? Was it the same person who attacked
her years prior? Where did she go? And was the
child's account true? There are so many questions and few answers,
leaving this another odd, unexplained disappearance doomed to forever lurk
in the realm of speculation. When we'd darkness returns, scientists

(16:29):
say it's possible over a thousand extraterrestrial space stations are
watching us right now. Plus what happened to Ellen Lucas
on the night before her wedding that snuffed out her
life and any chance of happiness. Those stories are coming up.

(17:12):
Many of us watch the night skies and wonder if
anyone is out there. Are extraterrestrials on distant planets curious
about us humans? Could they be looking for traces of
other alien civilizations in the same way we look for
evidence of their existence. Scientists say there can be over

(17:33):
a thousand extraterrestrial space stations watching us right now without
our knowledge. Of course, how is it possible and how
did researchers come up with these numbers? In a paper
Which Stars Can See Earth as a Transisting Exoplanet published
by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, scientists

(17:56):
discuss which stars can see Earth as a transiting exoplanet.
According to Lisa Kaltenegger, Associate Professor of Astronomy in the
College of Arts and Sciences and director of Cornell's Karl
Sagan Institute, and Joshua Pepper, Associate Professor of physics at
Lehigh University scientists have identified one thousand and four main

(18:17):
sequence stars similar to our Sun that might contain Earth
like planets in their own habitable zones, all within about
three hundred light years of Earth, and which should be
able to detect Earth's chemical traces of life. If observers
were out there searching from planets orbiting these stars, they'd
be able to see signs of a biosphere in the

(18:39):
atmosphere of our pale blue dot. And we can even
see some of the brightest of these stars in our
night sky without binoculars or telescopes, Koltenegger said in a statement.
As Mike wall Over as space dot Com explains, astronomers
have found most of the more than four thousand exoplanets
discovered to date with the transit method, which detects the

(19:01):
tiny brightness dips caused when an orbiting world crosses its
host stars face from the observer's perspective. Soon, researchers will
also be able to scan the atmospheres of some nearby
transiting planets for potential signs of life. Currently, we really
have no clue who is out there, but it's never
wrong to speculate, and we may soon have better numbers

(19:23):
to consider, As space dot Com reports, the new results
deal only with stars. Scientists don't know how many planets
orbit the one thousand and four suns flagged by Caltonneggar
and pepper Let alone, how many of these systems host
worlds that may be conducive to life as we know it.

(19:44):
In order to detect if planets are harboring life, however,
scientists must first determine what features indicate that life is
or once was present. Over the last decade, astronomers have
expended great effort trying to find what traces of simple
forms of life known as biosignatures, might exist elsewhere in

(20:05):
the universe. But what if an alien planet hosted intelligent
life that built a technological civilization. Could there be techno
signatures that a civilization on another world would create. Could
such types of signatures be seen from Earth? And could
these techno signatures be even easier to detect than biosignatures.

(20:28):
Extraterrestrial watchers may indeed be out there, but it's possible
they do not wish to have any contact with humans.
There are many problems on our planet, and it's understandable
if advanced alien species avoid us. If you were a
member of an alien race, would you think it's wise
to initiate contact with humans? Could humanity handle contact with extraterrestrials?

(20:53):
According to scientists, extraterrestrials are deliberately waiting for the right
moment before they reveal themselves. In a recent study published
by the Astronomical Journal, scientists have tried to shed new
light on the Fermi paradox and the Aurora effect by
investigating the existence of alien civilizations on other planets. We

(21:15):
model the settlement of the galaxy by spacefaring civilizations in
order to address issues related to the Fermi paradox. We're
motivated to explore the problem in a way that avoids
assumptions about the agency i e. Questions of intent and
motivation of any exo civilization seeking to settle other planetary
systems researchers right. In the study, scientists started by considering

(21:39):
the speed of an advancing settlement front to determine if
the galaxy can become inhabited with spacefaring civilizations on time
scales shorter than its age. They included the directed settlement
of nearby settlable systems through the launching of probes with
a finite velocity and range. In addition to this, research

(21:59):
also considered the effect of stellar motions on the long
term behavior of the settlement front, which adds a diffusive
component to its advance. The results of these models demonstrate
that the Milky Way can be readily filled in with
settled stellar systems under conservative assumptions about interstellar spacecraft velocities
and launch rates. According to scientists, the Fermi paradox, a

(22:23):
concept presented by physicists and Rico Fermi regarding the existence
of extraterrestrial intelligence, has intrigued all researchers searching for alien life.
According to the Fermi paradox, due to the number of
planets and stars in the galaxy, there should be another
world teeming with intelligent extraterrestrial life. If this is true,

(22:46):
then Earth should have already been visited or at least
contacted by aliens. However, since humans have not yet come
across evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, many doubt the existence
of alien pas civilizations. Researchers of the recent studies say
that it's possible extraterrestrials are in close vicinity to the Earth,

(23:08):
but they're simply waiting for the time when Earth or
the Solar System gets closer to their homeworld before sending
out a probe or launching an expedition. If long enough
as a billion years, well then that's one solution to
the Fermi paradox. Carol Nellenback told Business Insider habitable worlds
are so rare that you have to wait longer than

(23:29):
any civilizations expected to last before another one comes in range.
Every system could be habitable and could be settled, but
they wouldn't visit us because they're not close enough. He added.
Most people believe that humans will sooner or later establish
open contact with aliens, but it's possible certain requirements must

(23:51):
be met before this meeting can take place. Science fiction
authors and some scientists sometimes say humans will be invited
to join the galactic Club, but when this will happen
is unknown. According to David Schwartzmann, a biochemist at Howard
University in Washington, d C. There's a reason not to

(24:12):
give up on SETI. Schwartzman thinks aliens are out there,
despite the fact that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has
only found silence. He also outlines what we need to
do for planet Earth to be initiated into the Galactic Club.
Our world will change completely once we enter the Galactic Club,
he said. I submit that if we want to enter

(24:34):
the Galactic Club, the challenge lies in reconstructing our global
political economy. A few minor side benefits should result, like
no more war, no more poverty, a future for all
of humanity's children with a substantial proportion of biodiversity. Intact,
we should not expect the Galactic Club to save us
from ourselves. Ellen Lucas of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was to be

(25:21):
married on October third, eighteen seventy four. The typically happy
eighteen year old was somewhat anxious the evening of October second,
repeatedly looking at the clock as she hastily ate supper.
Ellen changed her clothes and left the houise at seven,
telling her mother that she would not be gone long.
Missus Lucas watched her daughter walk to the corner where

(25:43):
she met her fiance, James E. Lattin. Ellen never came
home that night, and early the next morning, her family
and friends began a search for her. The search ended
when two workmen found her body based down in a
stream in a secluded spot called the Cedars near Berkshire
Pond in northern Bridgeport. At first, suicide was suspected, but

(26:09):
the water in the stream was only a few inches deep,
and Allan had shown no signs of depression and had
been enthusiastically preparing for her wedding. A hasty post mortem
examination verified that she had not drowned, and the only
mark of violence on the body was one small bruise
on her forehead. The doctors also discovered that Ellen had

(26:31):
been six months pregnant. Foul play was suspected, and for
fiancee James Latin became the prime suspect. Twenty six year
old James Latin was a tall and good looking butcher's
clerk with a terrible reputation in Bridgeport. He'd been married
once before, when he was nineteen and his bride fifteen.

(26:55):
The marriage lasted three months and the wife filed for divorce.
He was convicted a theft and had served a term
in the New Haven jail. He became engaged once again
to a young woman who died mysteriously shortly before their
wedding day. A gruesome story told by several people in
Bridgeport said that Latin had at least once cut the

(27:16):
paws off a dog and dipped the stumps in turpentine
to see the dogs squirm and hear him howl. Ellen's
parents had objected to the marriage, but Ellen was deeply
in love with Latin. It was likely that her parents
knew of Ellen's pregnancy, and despite their opposition, they hastened
the wedding day. Investigators learned that Latin had purchased poison

(27:40):
from a Bridgeport druggist. On September twenty ninth, they found
strychnine in an old shoe in the stable where Latin
kept his horse. With this new information, the police exhumed
Ellen's body and gave the stomach to a chemist for analysis,
but he found no traces of poison. The stomach did
contain grains of sand and vegetable matter, consistent with the

(28:02):
stream where her body was found. Latin said that he
had not been with Ellen that night, but had been
on board the schooner Josephine, which was captained by his cousin.
His alibi did not hold at the inquest. A Miss
Bassett testified to seeing him with Ellen earlier that evening
near the train depot, and heard Ellen say to him,

(28:23):
now you'll be there, won't you if you're not there,
you know what the consequences will be. At seven o'clock
he was seen going toward Ellen's house. At eight thirty,
he was seen alone in Bridgeport by Ellen's two sisters.
A crew member of the Josephine testified that Latin had
slept on the schooner but had not come aboard until

(28:43):
late that night. A woman named Mattie Smith testified at
the inquest that Lattin had asked her if she knew
of any medicine to produce abortion. He did not want
to marry because he had some other girl he was
paying attention to. He said he was engaged to a
girl who was with child and he wanted to get
rid of it. Though the cause of death was still unknown,

(29:06):
the coroner's jury ruled that Ellen Lucas had died by
violence at the hands of James E. Latton. The murder
generated great excitement in Bridgeport, and it was reported that
the murder scene was visited by hundreds of people daily.
When the trial began on February twenty third, crowds gathered
early at the courthouse. By ten a m. The courtroom,

(29:29):
as well as halls and stairways were packed with spectators.
The sheriff barred the front door with two long ladders
to prevent any more from entering, and detailed two extra
police officers to maintain order in the hallways. Believing that
a fair jury trial in Bridgeport was impossible, Latin's attorneys
took advantage of a statutes recently adopted in Connecticut and

(29:51):
elected to be tried by two judges instead of a jury.
The trial, heard by Judges Beardsley and Sandford, went on
for two weeks. After the final arguments, the judges deliberated
and returned a verdict of second degree murder. Judge Sandford
explained their reasoning in great detail. While the judges were

(30:11):
satisfied that Latin killed Alan Lucas, the circumstantial evidence did
not meet the standard of proof required for first degree murder.
The sentenced to James E. Lattin to state prison for
the term of his natural life. The Sanford Advocate summarized
the crime this way. The details of this diabolical crime
place Latin in the light of a merciless brute who,

(30:35):
feigning love a commodity of which his soul is incapable
to this unfortunate girl, gaining her confidence and having accomplished
his unholy purposes, enticed her, in the midst of her
trials to an out of the way ravine and deliberately
took her life, committing a double murder. Coming up. She

(31:06):
seemed the perfect American, even born to a US military doctor,
graduating from a prestigious American college, and working tirelessly doing
her part to serve her country as a military analyst.
What would cause this seemingly patriotic citizen to become a
spy for the enemy. The story of Havana Anna. When

(31:29):
weird darkness returns, the fictional world of espionage will often

(31:55):
depict James Bond or Jason Bourne fighting off a gang
of hulking goons before scaling a skyscraper and then driving
a sports car off a bridge. Their downtime will consist
of lavish drinks and beautiful women. The reality is something
far more subversive and far more mundane. Real life spying

(32:18):
requires a patience and slow exacting nature that is far
removed from explosions and fistfights. Spying, after all, is a
dirty trade of dirty lies and dirty secrets. Bond creator
Ian Fleming said so himself. This is the story of
Anna Montes, a mild mannered, shy and retiring intelligence analyst

(32:42):
working tirelessly for the American government. It would take a
long time before anybody cought and onto the fact that
Anna lived a secret life as a Cuban double agent.
Anna had access to the most sensitive of data of
the American military and shared it with her Cuban cohorts.

(33:03):
Anna seemed like the perfect American on paper. She was
even an army brat. She was born in West Germany
to a United States Army doctor. She was educated at
the University of Virginia and then obtained her master's at
John Hopkins. Anna was a bright, intelligent, and seemingly patriotic American.

(33:23):
The mind boggles at how somebody so ordinary could even
become a double agent for a hostile foreign nation, and
how a top intelligence analyst within the American government managed
to live on a pyramid of lies. Beyond the lies
and secrets that Anna kept while in the office, Anna
also had a quiet private life that her colleagues barely

(33:45):
knew about. She was totally conspicuous the way a double
agent should be. The damage that Anna did to her
home nation wasn't just in telling harmless office tales are
never that easy. Anna knowingly put American troops and civilians

(34:06):
into harm's way until her arrest in two thousand and one,
and it's impossible to know the full extent of how
much damage she caused, but lives were lost from Anna's
dirty work. Cuba is not a great military threat to
the United States in terms of sheer military force, and

(34:26):
it's hard to really imagine the potential physical damage Cuba
could do to their giant neighbors. Instead, Cuba is the
best in the world at selling secrets, a many niche
out of selling US military secrets to other nations such
as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and this is
how the Cuban government tries to combat their enemy. While

(34:49):
Cuba often looks like the smaller beguiled nation living just
outside of America's shadow, they operate with their own cunning
and ingenuity that del Castro was, after all, a genius
at politics. The Cuban Intelligence Directorate, commonly known as G two,
were initially trained by the KEYGB upon their foundation, and

(35:11):
throughout their forty year history, they have operated in Chile, Grenada, Nicaragua,
and Vietnam, but surely their greatest ever coup was putting
an agent deep in the American DIA Defense Intelligence Agency.
Montesa's recruitment into the G two and her relationship with
Cuba evolved out of Montesa's anger at US foreign policy

(35:34):
while still a student earning her degree in foreign relations.
Her ire at American foreign policy drew the attention of
talent spotting Cubans and they sought to recruit Anna. This
was all the way back in the mid nineteen eighties,
before she even got a job in government. Montes's anger
was likely a result of her Puerto Rican ancestry and

(35:56):
the feelings against America's constant intervention in Latin in America.
Just after her recruitment, Anna applied for a job within
the DIA in a clerical function. This meant that Anna
would handle matters of defense and the most classified of
military secrets. Anna was an award winning member of the DIA.

(36:17):
One of the core reasons Anna was never caught for
so long was the fact that she never took any
documents to her home and worked with a tenacity and
ambition within the office that sought admirers instead of enemies.
Anna memorized all of the information she got her hands
on and would later type them up on her personal laptop.

(36:39):
She would then transfer the information onto encrypted messages for
her Cuban handlers. Anna received all of her own instructions
by the Cuban handlers on a short wave radio. Montes
tenaciously managed her double life, a rising star in both
Washington and Havanna, with Fidel himself having been aware of Montes.

(37:00):
She was a prefect analyst by day, and at night
she was frantically typing up the memorized messages to Havana.
During this period of intense spying, the quiet, resolute and
ambitious Anna managed to rise through the ranks of the DEA.
Anna was considered a model employee and would often be
given as an example to follow for new starters of

(37:22):
the agency. Anna eventually became the Cuban expert nicknamed the
Queen of Cuba within the DIA and dealt intensely with
Cuban affairs. The only suspicion that her colleagues had on
her were the potentially more left leaning political beliefs that
Anna held. However, even with this, Anna managed to pass

(37:43):
a polygraph during a round of questioning and keep under
the radar for almost twenty years. The most incredible thing
about Anna's activity was that she was not even paid
for taking such risks, the motives being solely politically motivated.
This is in contrast to other agents that were paid
in the millions for selling secrets, greedy double agents such

(38:07):
as Aldrich Aims that took home sacks of cash. The
DIA had strong beliefs that there was a Cuban mole
in their midst. In nineteen ninety six, the Cuban military
shot down a plane piloted by brothers to the rescue
a Cuban resistance organization based in America. The Americans claimed
this was an act of aggression against a civilian plane,

(38:29):
with the Cubans stating the opposite. This incident alerted suspicions
into how the Cuban government were so prepared for the
plane before the shooting, and if they'd been tipped off.
Questions were raised into the possibility of a double agent.
While called to consult at an internal meeting at the
Pentagon after this incident, Montes broke protocol by failing to

(38:51):
remain on duty until dismissed. This raised suspicion within the agency.
Scott Carmichael was an investigator that took an immediate reaction
to Anna, and soon others were alerted. Was her sparkling
record just too good to be true? What about the
trips Anna made to Guantanamo Bay? Why was Anna always

(39:12):
so willing to go to Cuba? Counterintelligence officer Scott Carmichael said,
after meeting Anna and carrying out a search for all
DIA employees and potential moles, the moment I saw her name,
I knew the gut reaction that any intelligence agent will
tell you overwhelms the facts and evidence and proof they

(39:33):
may have at the time. The instincts you hone over
years and years of talking to people, you just know.
Carmichael was positive he had his woman. After profiling Anna,
the FBI soon joined forces with the DIA to actually
catch montees in the act of spying. The two agencies

(39:53):
tapped her phones, staked her out. They followed Anna intensely,
and they noticed her patterns for four years. They found
the payphones around Washington, d c. Where Anna was stopping
to make calls, and traced the numbers to pagers in
New York which were linked to suspected Cuban agents. The
most ingenious sting of all was to set up an

(40:15):
urgent meeting at work with Anna, during which they could
access and search her purse, which she left at her desk.
It was inside her purse that they found ENCRYPTID notes
that Montes was passing to her handlers. From nineteen eighty
five until two thousand and one, Anna Montes had managed
to live a double life of working in the higher
echelons of national defense and for the Cuban government at

(40:39):
the same time. Anna Montes was arrested just ten days
after nine to eleven. It is impossible to really know
the full extent of Anna's spying, and in sixteen years
you can never find out all of the state secrets
that she managed to sell. Perhaps Anna herself doesn't even

(41:01):
Anna made a plea bargain in avoidance of the death
penalty in a plea agreement with the prosecutors and was
then debriefed by the US government, But despite this it
is impossible to not just how much she gave away
to an enemy state. Carmichael believes that Montes's secret sharing
led directly to the death of an American soldier operating

(41:22):
in El Salvador in March of nineteen eighty seven. Montes
had only recently visited El Salvador that year and knew
the precise location of the camp where special forces were
operating before being attacked by rebel forces. Once the gig
was up, the Cuban government washed their hands the agent
and left her out to dry. Anna was subsequently sentenced

(41:44):
to twenty five years in prison, a lenient sentence for
high treason. Anna may very well be a free woman
by the year twenty twenty seven. This is subject to
five years probation. Anna's own lawyer, Plato Cacheris, said the
Spionius was a moral crusade against the evils of American imperialism.

(42:05):
Anna felt so strongly that the Cubans were subject to
American strong arbing for too long. Being a Puerto Rican,
It's arguable that the imperialism against her own nation may
have lit the fuse of revolt. The fact that somebody
who was working completely under the radar of any investigators
for such a long time and can climb to the

(42:25):
highest ranks of the US defense as an eye opener
for anybody that works in state security. Anna maintained a
double life and worked with a joan of arc like
commitment that went far beyond money and greed. The mystery
remains as to how many other operatives are now as
of the time of my recording this episode selling the

(42:46):
secrets that keep Americans or any other nation safe. After all,
Anna Montez wasn't even the most famous Anna to be
caught spying against America. There would later be the Russian
Spot and a Chapman caught nearly ten years later in
a major Russian spy ring. It is often the case

(43:07):
in geopolitics the enemies walk amongst us. Thanks for listening.
If you're listening to the show via podcast or YouTube,

(43:30):
be sure to subscribe if you haven't already done so,
and leave a review of the show in the podcast
app you listen from. And if you're already a weirdo,
please take a moment today and share Weird Darkness with
somebody you know who loves paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or mysteries like you do. All stories in Weird Darkness

(43:50):
are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you
can find source links or links to the authors in
the show notes. Damien and the Horned Man was written
by Jacqueline Vessi Wells for medium dot Com. The Disappearance
of Dorothy Forrestein is by Brent Swanzer for a Mysterious Universe?
Are we being watched by alien space Stations? Is by

(44:13):
Cynthia McKenzie for Message to Eagle. The Bridgeport Tragedy is
by Robert Wilhelm for Murder by Gaslight and Havana Anna
the Cuban Spy is by Kieran w for Mystery Confidential.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light Galatians five, verse thirteen. You,

(44:35):
my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but
do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather
serve one another humbly in love and a final thought,
never apologize for how much love you have to give.
Just feel sorry for those who didn't want any of it.

(44:58):
I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in the weird darkness.

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