The House So Evil It Had to Be Destroyed | Pittsburgh's Congelier Mansion - Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
My Aiden. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should never
let it get like this. I'm leaving. I will not
let you keep me, you vile, evil creature. Mommy's coming

(00:44):
for you, Aiden, my sweet Aiden, Mommy loves you. When

(01:10):
you think of the most haunted house in America, you
probably jump right to the sinister looking colonial in Amityville,
Long Island, or maybe the home in Saint Louis that
inspired The Exorcist. But not every famous haunt as an
empire of entertainment media to boost its reputation. Some of
it is part of a local oral history, and for

(01:33):
residents of Pennsylvania's most western city, Pittsburgh, the stories of
the Conglier Mansion made it more than deserving of the
title of most Haunted home in America. It's been given
several other monikers through the years, including the House the
Devil Built. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.

(02:10):
Welcome weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and
unexplained coming up in this episode, A chance meeting brings

(02:35):
two people love, then marriage, then jealousy and murder. He
terrified citizens in Australia in the nineteen nineties, suspected of
at least twelve murders and sentenced to seven life terms
in prison. His name was Ivan Malutt. How could a

(02:57):
young woman remember herself being old? A toddler plays with
an imaginary friend who ends up being his deceased grandmother,
whom he has never met. In nineteen seventy two, an
aircraft crashed into the Florida Everglades and has become one
of the most famous aircraft flights. In the Annals of

(03:19):
the Supernatural, a young girl is beaten and abused as
a child, ignored by her family and schoolmates, and ended
up crying each night alone in her room. Although she
was not truly alone, there is no doubt that something
puzzling did happen hundreds of years ago. In Ireland. Scientists, historians,

(03:43):
and locals admit this particular place is shrouded in mystery. Skyquakes,
mist puffers, Seneca guns. The mysterious booms in South Carolina
have many names, but no one knows what causes them.
A man had apparently leapt off the roof of a building,

(04:05):
committing suicide, and that would have been the end of it,
except that police found a note in the man's pocket
with instructions on how to find the pieces of his girlfriend.
No one paid much attention to Casper Hauser when he
strolled into Nuremberg one morning in eighteen twenty eight, but
that would soon change. When a man goes to prison

(04:29):
only to come home a year later and find his
wife with another man, well you know the ending already.
A woman's body was found in a secluded Texas home,
sitting upright in a rocking chair in front of a
mysterious altar. The murder of Olivia Mabel is so strange
that authorities are asking for your help in solving the mystery.

(04:53):
But first, the dark and strange history of the Congolier
Mansion in Pittsburgh is lost to t time, but not
to those who've heard the stories. We begin there now.
Bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird darkness. According to legend,

(05:28):
the house at eleven twenty nine Ridge Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
was built in the eighteen sixties. In the Manchester neighborhood
in Pittsburgh's north side. Charles Condelier was the original owner
and inhabitant, along with his wife Lda and their maid, Essi.
Conjulier made a fortune as a direct result of the

(05:50):
Civil War and moved his family north to settle in
the booming industry town of Pittsburgh. Like many great tragic stories,
it ends with in fidelity and a jealous wife. Leida,
after discovering her husband and Essie were having an affair
in a rage, took several knives from the kitchen and

(06:10):
slaughtered her unfaithful husband and his paramour. She was found
by a neighbor several days later, calmly sitting in a
chair with a severed head of the maid in her lap.
After the grisly murders, the house was dormant for quite
some time until a railroad company purchased it in eighteen

(06:31):
ninety two, planning to convert it into housing for their staff.
After several workers complained of strange noises and unexplained happenings
in the house, the railroad abandoned it and put it
up for sale, where it remained on the market for
several years until nineteen hundred when Adolph C. Brunreichter, a

(06:52):
German born doctor, purchased the house. Brunreichter was described by
his neighbors as a recluse who did not often partake
in socializing and spent much of his time in the
house by himself. But on the night of August twelfth,
nineteen oh one, neighbours reported the sounds of a woman
screaming and strange lights in the home. The police were

(07:15):
called and were appalled to find the body of a
decapitated woman and the doctor nowhere to be found. What
comes next is straight out of American horror story, as
they discovered a laboratory in the basement with several more
body parts and most horrifying, a severed head that doctor

(07:35):
Brunwreichter had used in his ghoulish experiments to keep victims
of decapitation alive. After the fact, the doctor was never
seen again, though almost thirty years later some believe he
emerged from hiding in New York, drunk and claiming to
have conducted strange experiments in Pittsburgh. Police did not put

(07:57):
much weight on the man's claimed identity in an eventually
released him from prison, deeming him harmless and never to
appear in history again. Thanks to its dark history, which
only seemed to grow with each new tenant, the house
developed a reputation as a home for wayward spirits. According
to some accounts, Thomas Edison himself was one of the

(08:20):
many who visited the house to investigate the notorious paranormal phenomenon.
Along with Julia Murray, a psychic medium of the time,
they claimed to encounter a malevolent spirit with the power
to harm the living and the ability to travel beyond
the confines of the house. It continued to be dormant

(08:41):
of any new inhabitants until it was once again purchased,
this time by the Equitable Gas Company, again to be
converted into apartments for its workers. As before, the workers
inside reported strange noises, disembodied voices, and two workers were
discovered dead in the basement of the house. No cause

(09:02):
of death or homicide suspect was ever found, and many
of the men quickly moved out of the housing. The
company continued to maintain a presence in the area, but
in November nineteen twenty seven, a massive gas explosion resulted
in spectacular damage to the surrounding area. Leaving twenty seven

(09:23):
dead over five hundred people injured. The house itself was
totally destroyed in the blast, leaving only a crater in
the earth where once the house had stood. The site, however,
was not free of its dark past just because the
house was gone. Several locals continued to report strange occurrences

(09:44):
happening in and around the former location of the house,
leading some to suggest the explosion was caused by the
devil in an attempt to reclaim the dark and mysterious
house for himself. The story of the Congilier Mansion is
captured the imaginations and the horror of American citizens for
over a century, but like Amityville, how much of the

(10:09):
stories are real. We do know a family named Congelier
lived at that exact address on Ridge Avenue, and in
nineteen twenty seven, Murrie Congelier was killed during a gas
explosion when shattered glass from the house windows severed an
artery in her leg. The house was then demolished some

(10:29):
time after her death, and a highway was later built
over the homestead. As for the evil German doctor, no
record of him exists, according to historian Troy Taylor, but
the legend continues to haunt locals as they shared their
experiences and stories of the strange mansion. Perhaps it just

(10:49):
so happens the origins of the legends have some horrifying
grounding in fact, but it's something we may never truly know.
Pittsburgh is home to a slew of haunted histories, from
the Hallowed Halls to the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of
leading to the world famous Halloween attraction Scarehouse, rumored to

(11:10):
be really haunted. The Congulier Mansion is just one of
many tales of hauntings intertwined in the industrial history of
America's steel town, and whether you choose to believe the
gruesome tales or not, some parts are rooted in fact.
So that begs the question, where there's smoke, is there

(11:33):
a fire or is this simply a case of the
collective imaginations of the people of Pittsburgh run wild for
local scares and fun We may never know. I have

(11:56):
three very vivid memories of when I was younger. It's
hard to tell if this was a reincarnation or just
childhood dreams of sorts. These are very clear to me.
I hope I can describe them in detail, but I've
always been bad at explaining. I remember being an old
lady sitting in my big bed at home, tons of

(12:18):
children surrounding me, my mind going a little, couldn't remember
their relation to me, but knew they were family. I
had four kids. They kind of stood around my bed. Lastly,
my husband was old as well. He sat at my
side and was holding my hand, saying it's okay to go.

(12:40):
We've all said goodbye, then breaking down crying, saying he
loved me over and over as I kind of fell
asleep and died. I remember talking to someone who refused
to show his face. We were staring down at the world.
He said, what do you say You lived a long

(13:01):
and happy life. Do you want to stop now or
give it another try? I remember telling him I wanted
to try and do better this time. I remember seeing
myself on the ground at about six years old, lifeless
and dead. I remember kind of laying on top of

(13:22):
her body, and then that body becoming me. Elvira Houghton,
a dressmaker in Southbridge, Massachusetts, hired a carriage and driver

(13:46):
to take her to her mother's funeral in the summer
of eighteen forty seven. The driver twenty seven year old
Milton Streeter was instantly infatuated with Alvira. They had a
pleasant conversation, and when they returned to Southbridge, Milton asked
if he could see her again, and Dalvira said yes,

(14:06):
also twenty seven years old, Elvira feared she was approaching
that delicate and dreaded period when, having out maidened all
her early associates, she would remain alone, a withered remnant
of the past. Her fear may have clouded her judgment.
After a whirlwind courtship of just one month, she and

(14:27):
Milton Streeter were married. It did not take long for
the couple to realize they had very little in common.
Elvira liked to wear fashionable clothes and attend balls and parties.
Milton was a man of dissolute habits who would rather
drink and play nine pins. He was also not very bright,

(14:49):
As the Boston Herald would say, Streeter is a man
of a low order of intellect and almost entirely governed
by animal passions. He brought this trait to the marriage
in the form of extreme jealousy. The young man of
Southbridge knew about Streeter's jealousy and would play jokes on him,
trying to rile him up by implying that they were

(15:10):
intimate with his wife. Sometimes they would give him half
a dollar to give to Elvira as payment for unspecified services.
The worst of them was a man named Bacon, who
had come from out of town. He learned of Streeter's
jealousy and did everything he could to insinuate that he
was in unlawful communication with Elvira. Streeter began neglecting his

(15:35):
occupation to spend time watching Bacon and his wife, and
although he found no evidence of unfaithfulness, he was convinced
the two were intimate. When he could take it no more,
he threatened Elvira with a razor and demanded that she confess.
She did not confess. Instead, she filed a complaint with

(15:57):
the Justice of the Peace, saying that she considered her
life endangered by any further cohabitation with Streeter. The justice
ordered the couple to separate and put Streeter under one
hundred dollars bond to keep the peace. To pay his bond,
Streeter sold his share of the household furnishings to his
sister's husband, Joseph James. On October twenty third, eighteen forty eight,

(16:21):
Streeter and Jane's loaded the goods into a wagon and
hauled it to Jane's house. When they had unloaded the wagons,
Treeter said that he had left his shirts and had
to go back to his old apartment to get them.
Jans took him back to the house and waited outside.
He heard Streeter ask his wife where the shirts were,
and she said they were upstairs in the basket. Then

(16:43):
he heard her go up the stairs. A few minutes later,
Jans heard a scream and rushed up the stairs to
find Alviras Streeter coming downstairs, bleeding profusely from her throat.
He took hold of her and led her to a
neighbor's door. As Jane and the neighbor were helping Alvira
out of the house, they saw that Streeter himself was

(17:03):
also bleeding. He had slashed his own throat. By the
time a doctor arrived, Alvira was dead, Streeter's wound was
not as serious. He was stitched up and taken to jail.
Milton Streeter's defense at his trial the following June was insanity.
The testimony revealed a history of mental problems beginning when

(17:25):
Streeter was two years old. When his mother wasn't looking,
he fell off his chair into an open fire. One
side of his head was severely burned, laying bare the skull.
During childhood, he was subject to severe fits which caused
the impairment of his mental faculties, which had always been
considered below standard. The murder said his attorneys had no motive,

(17:49):
and was probably committed in a state of frenzy occasioned
by jealousy and aggravated by the reprehensible conduct of some
young man in his neighborhood playing jokes on him. The
jury was reluctant to convict Streeter of a capital crime,
but at the time there were no degrees of murder.
He was either guilty or not guilty. After nine hours

(18:11):
of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of murder, but
accompanied the verdict with a unanimous recommendation for mercy. The
judge sentenced Bilton Street to hang, but left the date
of the execution to the discretion of the governor. The
newspapers put the heaviest blame on the irresponsible pranksters of Southbridge.

(18:32):
The New York Commercial Advertiser said, these rude and remorseless
jokers have now the satisfaction of knowing that their fine
sport has been purchased by the death of one human
being at the hands of a murderer, and as yet
to be farther paid by the death of another on
the scaffold. In December eighteen forty nine, the Governor of

(18:52):
Massachusetts accepted the unanimous decision of the Committee of Pardons
and commuted Milton Streeter's sentence from death to life at
hard labor in the state prison. Coming up. He terrified
citizens in Australia in the nineteen nineties, suspected of at

(19:15):
least twelve murders and sentenced to seven life terms in prison.
His name was Ivan Malott. Plus, a toddler plays with
an imaginary friend who ends up being his deceased grandmother,
whom he had never met, and in nineteen seventy two
an aircraft crashed into the Florida Everglades and has become

(19:37):
one of the most famous aircraft flights in the Annals
of the Supernatural. But first, a young girl is beaten
and abused as a child, ignored by her family and schoolmates,
and ended up crying each night alone in her room.
Although she was not truly alone. That story is up

(19:57):
next on Weird Darkness. For as long as I can remember,

(20:22):
I've been alone. As a young girl, I was always
bullied and abused by my brother. He would always hit me,
and people would always treat me bad at school, and
my mom didn't bother to see what was wrong. I'm
not in school anymore. I'm in my mid twenties. Every night,
as a child and teen, I would cry myself to bed,

(20:44):
and I would feel very depressed and suicidal seeing that
no one cared about the harm that was happening to me.
With that said, I've always felt a presence near me
ever since all the bullying and attacks started to happen.
When I was six. As a smaller child, I used
to live in a haunted apartment. I would see many ghosts,

(21:06):
including a man that was killed in the building and
lived where we lived at the time. My mom always
claimed I would scream because I saw clowns in my closet.
Ever since I can remember, the paranormal has always followed me,
especially throughout the upcoming years. I know I've always seen
ghosts and shadows all these years until now. Well now,

(21:31):
I don't have many friends, and I've never really had
many friends, maybe just two actual friends. So I've always
felt really alone and depressed for some reason. Though most
of the time when I'm feeling this way, I always
feel cold chills everywhere, and then I start to feel
a sudden warmth. This happens almost all the time I'm

(21:55):
going through this. Or I'll be out somewhere and I'll
see someone and I wish I had I had more friends,
and then I'd get a deep gut feeling that tells
me to talk to them, followed with chills. For example,
one day I was out eating at a taco place
and I see this girl and a voice in my
head tells me that she and I will be friends.

(22:17):
It wasn't wrong. Later on I was introduced to her
and we became friends. This kind of thing happens a
lot to me. Another example, I haven't had good luck
with getting a boyfriend, and don't get me wrong, I
have dated, but it's been a year and a half
or two years. So where I work at in a
contact center, we got some new people. One is a

(22:40):
guy my age and has long hair, is chubby, not fat,
and it's not too short but not tall, and wears
glasses just like me. Turns out we have many things
in common from what I saw. Well, I know nothing
about this person, not a darn thing, and I had
no clue what his name was or what it could

(23:01):
possibly be. At work, we get emails delivered to us
on outlook and for our department, I can see a
list of names. So I was looking through all the
names and I saw one that got my heart racing.
I saw the name Max Jacobo, and then again I
got that feeling in the pit of my stomach telling
me that it was his name. I looked it up

(23:24):
and indeed it was him, and we have more things
in common than I'd like to admit. Now, every time
I walk by him, I have a strong feeling, and
I feel like he also looks at me because I
caught him doing so. The point is, even though I'm
so alone, they don't feel as if. I always feel

(23:45):
as if there's a presence who's helping me. At the
end of the day, when I'm ready to call it
a night, I always feel like I'm being watched, though
like I'm not alone. I've even felt like I've received
warm hugs on a cuple of occasions. This always happens
when my emotions are the strongest. How do I know

(24:06):
if I'm truly alone. I don't have good communications with
my family, but I heavily feel a presence that follows
me everywhere. I can't explain this phenomenon anything I need
help with. It always feels like I get a helping hand,
as in emotional help when I'm feeling down or I

(24:27):
think I'm getting sick. Random things always appear in all
kinds of places, like random quotes on my Internet browser
as inspirational ones, or on several occasions, my phone or
computer would act up and then just play the perfect
song depending on how I'm feeling that day. Recently, I

(24:47):
bought a car from my aunt, and I'd received an
important letter in the mail regarding my registration, and I
thought I didn't need the paper, so I threw it away,
or at least I thought I did. It. Turns out
I needed that paper because the car wasn't under my
name yet I looked everywhere for it and nothing. The

(25:08):
next day, it was on top of my bed and
no one had left it there. At night, I'll go
to bed really sad, and I have a salt lamp
that calms me down, so I'll turn it on, but
sometimes I forget, so when I wake up in the
middle of the night, the salt lamp will be on

(25:28):
and no one other than me could have done it.
There's just certain things I can't explain, or are very
hard to explain. I'm not sure if anyone else has
gone through something like this. In September nineteen ninety two,

(25:50):
hikers in Australia's Bellnglow State Forest found the decomposed remains
of two women. The corpses were identified as Carolin Klaar
twenty one and Joan Walters, twenty two, British tourists last
seen alive in Sydney on April eighteenth, nineteen ninety two.
Autopsies revealed that both women had been raped before Walters

(26:14):
was stabbed to death and Clark shot. A short while later,
the skeletal remains of James Gibson and Deborah Everest, both
nineteen years old, were discovered in the same area. They
had been missing since December nineteen eighty nine. Then, after
the decomposed corpse of twenty one year old Simon Schmidtel

(26:35):
was found, a task force was hastily put together. The
police now knew they had a serial killer working the area,
preying on hitchhikers and backpackers. November nineteen ninety two brought
the gruesome discovery of two more bodies, like Simone Schmidel,
twenty one year old Gibor Neusbauer and his fiancee, twenty

(26:57):
year old Anga Habsheed, were tourists from Germany. They had
last been seen alive on December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one,
when they sat off to hitchhike from Sydney to Darwin.
The police investigation, meanwhile, was getting nowhere. Then a man
named Paul Onions contacted the task force from Birmingham, England.

(27:19):
Onions described an incident that had happened in January of
nineteen ninety while he was touring Australia. He'd been thumbling
rides when a man in a Nissan truck had picked
him up just north of the Belenglowe State Forest. The
man had pulled a gun and threatened him, but Onions
had managed to jump from the vehicle and escape. Onions

(27:40):
was able to provide a description of his assailant, and
the police were very interested given the proximity of the attack.
The trail led eventually to a man named Ivan Malutt
in Australia national of Croatian descent. Millad had an arrest
record for an attempted rape and was known to be
something of a weapons and thus zeist. When police raided

(28:02):
his Sydney home on May twenty second, nineteen ninety four,
they found all the evidence they needed, including firearms that
would later be linked to the murders by ballistics and
camping gear stolen from the victims. Malot was charged with
seven counts of murder and was convicted on all counts
in July nineteen ninety six. He was sentenced to seven

(28:25):
life terms. Police also regard him as the primary suspect
in a series of twelve murders committed in and around Newcastle,
Australia during the late nineteen seventies. Hi, Marlar, something super

(29:03):
crazy happened this morning. It was about nine am, and
after breakfast I came upstairs with my two year old
son to clean and make the beds. He went to
his room to play and I kept on cleaning my room.
About seven or eight minutes later, I heard my son talking.
I didn't think much of it, but then he started

(29:23):
to talk like he was answering someone's questions. So I
went and stood by his door from where I saw
that he was sitting on the floor, looking up and
talking to someone or something. I asked him, Benjamin, who
are you talking to? And he said Grandma. I froze Marler.

(29:45):
I wasn't expecting him to say that. I said, no, Ben,
Grandma is in heaven. He said, no, Mama, grandma right there,
and then he pointed at an empty space on the floor.
I again said, ben, Grandma is in heaven, and he
got super upset and started to cry, and he kept saying, no, Mama,
grandma right there, playing truck Mama right there. Then he

(30:10):
stopped crying, like just stop, and looked up and said, okay,
grandma by So I asked him, Benjamin, is Grandma here?
He said yes, Mama panlettas. I asked him what are
pan lettas? And he looked at me like I was
supposed to know what the word meant. All of a sudden,

(30:33):
I remember a word my mom said a lot to me,
and I asked him, baby, do you mean pantalettas and
he smiled and said, yes, Mama, pan lettas. Here's the thing.
My mother died September twenty fourth, twenty ten, and when
she was alive, she used to tell me that when

(30:53):
she died, I was going to get her pant lettas
as my inheritance. Pantalettas is an old fashioned Spanish word
for panties. There's no way he knew the word. We
mainly speak English in our house, and pantaletas is not
a word I use. I truly believe my dead mother
was in that room playing with my son, and that

(31:16):
she told him to say that word so I would
know he was telling the truth. I just hope this
is a one time thing and he doesn't start seeing
and talking to dead people all the time. I felt
at peace after the incident, but I have been researching
online and I'm scared that it could happen again. On

(31:52):
December twenty ninth, nineteen seventy two, Eastern Airlines Flight four
oh one, a Lockheed L ten eleven aircraft left crashed
into the Florida Everglades near Miami International Airport, killing one
hundred one of the one hundred seventy five people on board,
and has since become one of the most famous air

(32:12):
craft flights in the Annals of the Supernatural due to
malfunctioning lights and displays. The airplane crashed northwest of Miami,
almost nineteen miles from the end of Runway nine left,
in the heart of the Everglades, a vast swamp region
of water, sawgrass, marshland, and alligators. Flight four O one

(32:35):
was traveling two hundred twenty seven miles an hour when
it hit the ground. The left wing tip hit first,
then the left engine and the left landing gear. Together
they slashed three long trails through the heavy saw grass.
Each trail was five feet wide and more than one
hundred feet long. When the main part of the fuselage

(32:56):
hit the ground, it continued to move through the grass
and water, coming apart as it went. It hitt once,
lifted into the air, and then slammed back down again
with a hard grinding sound. About halfway along its path,
the nose of the plane spun clockwise and careened around
until it was sliding backwards. As the plane was skidding

(33:18):
through the swamp, a fireball rushed through the cabin from
front to rear. Passengers felt a blast of cold air
and then a wet wave of fuel. As the plane
broke apart. The huge white fuselage crumpled and tore into
five large sections and countless smaller pieces. From the first
impact to the point that it came to a shuddering halt,

(33:40):
the plane traveled more than a third of a mile.
Passengers drowned in the murky water. Others were thrown from
the plane, suffering broken bones, paralyzing injuries, and death. Rescue
workers converged on the scene, saving many lives and recovering
many more of the dead than the living. As it happened,

(34:03):
the crash of Flight four oh one was not the
end of the story. Captain Bob Loft and flight engineer
Dan Repo were among the one hundred and three people
who lost their lives when Flight four oh one crashed.
Both of the men would be found to be at
fault by the NTSB investigation, although most of the blame
fell on Loft's shoulders. They were accused of being preoccupied

(34:28):
with finding a source for an indicator light problem and
ignoring the fact that the plane was steadily losing altitude.
When they discovered what was wrong, it was too late,
a fact that apparently haunted both men after their deaths,
for their ghosts soon began to be encountered aboard other
Eastern l ten eleven gents. Apparently to save costs, Eastern

(34:50):
ordered the salvageable parts of the aircraft to be removed
and incorporated into other Eastern planes. Soon after, reports of
the ghosts of repl lofts and even some unidentified flight
attendants were encountered on various Eastern flights for the next
year or so. They were most often seen on Eastern

(35:11):
flights that contained the salvaged parts. Eastern crew members and
passengers saw the ghosts, or heard them speak on the
plane's intercom systems, or received verbal messages and warnings from them.
Witnesses also experienced cold sensations and sensed invisible presences, aircraft

(35:31):
power turning on by its own volition, and a tool
inexplicably appearing in a mechanic's hand when no one was
in the area. Substantiation of the sightings was difficult, however,
eyewitness reports made to Eastern's management were met with skepticism
and a fear of further damaging the airline's reputation and

(35:52):
causing a further loss of business. The crash had done
enough damage and for the public to hear that the
ghosts of some of the lost planes crew were visiting
other flights could make for a public relations disaster. For
the most part, eyewitness crew members were told that perhaps
seeing a psychiatrist would be in order, which most took

(36:13):
as a precursor to being fired. After that, most were
reluctant to talk to anyone investigating the hauntings, and the
sightings that did occur were often covered up. Logsheets that
contained the siding reports as well as the names of
witnesses mysteriously disappeared from the planes where they occurred. Normally

(36:34):
a logbook would contain entries for several months, but these
pages vanished to this day. Many hotly deny the stories
of the ghosts from flight four oh one, despite the
scores of credible witnesses that eventually came forward. Eventually, once
the parts from flight four oh one were removed from

(36:55):
the various planes, the hauntings came to an end. Eastern
Airlines ceased operations in January nineteen ninety one, leaving behind
a mystery of what actually happened in the plains that
were said to have been visited by ghosts. Up next,

(37:21):
a woman's body was found in a secluded Texas home,
sitting upright in a rocking chair in front of a
mysterious altar. The murder of Olivia Mabel is so strange
that authorities are asking for your help in solving the mystery.
When a man goes to prison only to come home
a year later and find his wife with another man,

(37:41):
you know the ending already. Plus there is no doubt
that something puzzling did happen hundreds of years ago in Ireland. Scientists, historians,
and locals admit this particular place is shrouded in mystery.
These stories and more when we your darkness returns. On

(38:26):
February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety four, Olivia Mabel's body was
found in her secluded, Texas ranch, sitting upright in a
rocking chair in front of a mysterious altar dedicated to
her deceased son. The mysterious discovery of Olivia Mabel's body
is at the heart of Selina's first and only unsolved case.

(38:50):
Olivia Jane Mabel was a proud stay at home mom,
living with her husband Travis and their son Aiden, on
twelve point seven seven acres of property and quiet town
of Selina, Texas. In nineteen ninety tragedy paid an unexpected
visit to the Footlights ranch as young Eden was found
dead in the small seasonal pond on the property. Olivia

(39:15):
was heartbroken. Suffering this unimaginable tragedy threw her into a
deep grief, filled with self blame and a refusal to
believe the facts. She eventually pulled away from her friends,
her work, and her husband, which led to a divorce
in early nineteen ninety one. Ex husband Travis had happily

(39:37):
remarried and moved to New England, losing touch with Miss
Mabel after a matter of months. With no other family members,
Olivia was last seen in September nineteen ninety one, at
roughly nine thirty pm. On February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety four,
police responded to several silent nine one one calls coming

(40:00):
from the usually still Mabel house. What they found was
all but unseen for this small town. In a neglected
and dust ridden house seemingly not touched in years, the
body of Olivia Babel was found inside the bedroom of
her late son. The room was clean and well taken

(40:22):
care of, in stark contrast to the dirt and disrepair
contained in the rest of the home. Against the far
wall of the room. There was a crudely constructed and
decorated altar, surrounded by hand drawn images and hundreds of
heartfelt letters to her child. Pasted to the front of
the altar were words written in Tibetan and Sanskrit languages,

(40:46):
translating as construct or two build. Her body was found
sitting upright in a rocking chair, clutching an eerie, hand
crafted stick doll of her lost child. In a nineteen
ninety nine magazine article, Sergeant Terry goldscher, lead investigator for
the case, had this to say about the curious circumstances

(41:09):
surrounding the discovery of Olivia Mabel. Nobody had seen her
in years almost three. I think she clearly passed her
time in some pretty unhealthy ways. The negligent damage to
the house, the obsession with her deceased son, and the
clearly pagan symbols and altar were all signs of something

(41:30):
seriously wrong with her mental health, which is understandable after
the death of a child like that. But she just
balled up, ran her husband out, never went back to church. See.
If she had reached out, her brothers and sisters in
Christ would have supported her, But she left the flock
and became the devil's prey, plain and simple. After a

(41:52):
thorough investigation, the case was closed with an unsolved outcome.
Local rumors have become legend regarding what happened to Olivia,
the most popular being that Miss Mabel attracted or created
something evil. The first officer on the scene, Francesca Santiago,
describes what she witnessed entering the residence. I spent a

(42:16):
lot of time in El Paso and had an uncle
that was into some really dark occult stuff. I recognized
it immediately when I walked in that room. I saw
the symbols and the photos on that altar. I felt
a strong, angry presence looming over me. He was honestly
the last thing I expected to see in this town.

(42:38):
The people who have read into the case have their
own theory of what happened to Miss Mabel. Based on
translations of the Sanskrit found on the altar, Lucal legend
now holds that she might have created an entity of
her son, a sentient being based in Tibetan Buddhism, created
through the power of the practitioner's thoughts. It is known

(42:59):
in Tan as a tulpa or in English a thought form.
Years after the discovery of Miss Mabel's body, rumors that
the house was inhabited by evil spirits grew so persistent
that current landlord, Christopher Hagen hasn't been able to sell
the property. In two thousand and five, in an attempt

(43:20):
to debunk these tales, mister Hagen hired Austin based paranormal
investigator Drew Navarro to determine the validity of this legendary tale.
I'm not even sure this was even ever on our
physical plane, said mister Navarro. And the hundreds of locations
I've studied, I've never felt such an imposing force. I

(43:41):
couldn't breathe. My heart was constantly racing, its energy kept changing,
but none of it felt inviting. Whatever's in there, it's
extremely possessive and behaves so errantically like a jealous child
throwing a tantrum. As far as I'm concerned, that house
and that entire property should be avoided. It needs a
serious intervention because I'm not sure what we are dealing with.

(44:05):
This only added fuel to the fire surrounding the rumors
of a living tulpa inhabiting the Footlight's ranch. One of
the oddest parts for me, said Officer Santiago, is the
date on the last letter we found, dated the very
day we kicked that swollen door down. The city concluded
that she postdated everything. But I don't believe she was

(44:27):
alone in that house, and I don't believe her spirit
wasn't still in the room with us that night. But
then that makes me the crazy one, right. The letter,
written by Olivia Mabel, dated February twenty seventh, nineteen ninety four, read,
my Aidan, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have

(44:49):
never let it get like this. I'm leaving. I will
not let you keep me, you vile, evil creature. Mommy's
coming for you, Aiden, my suite, Aiden, Mommy loves you.
The thirteen acre property still sits vacant as when the
mysterious discovery surprised the sleepy North Texas town. You can

(45:13):
see photos of the letter and other pieces of the crime,
hear actual news reports, and find information to contact authorities.
If you have any information at Oliviamabel dot com. You
can find a link in the show notes. The wholesale

(45:50):
robbery operation was uncovered outside of Irvington, Indiana, four miles
east of Indianapolis. In January eighteen seventy nine, John G. F.
Brown and Presley Miller were convicted of grand larceny and
concealing stolen goods and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary.

(46:10):
Brown's wife, Mary, was also indicted, but was released on
her own recognisance. John Brown left his wife with a
forty acre farm to manage and three children to raise.
She was thirty three years old, nineteen years younger than
her husband, and desperately in need of help. That's not

(46:31):
to say that Mary Brown was helpless. She very soon
found the answer to all of her problems in Joseph W. Wade,
a thirty three year old Irvington saloon owner. Wade, who
was in the middle of a divorce, agreed to live
at the farm and manage it for Mary, and even
before his divorce was final, he was sharing her bed

(46:51):
as well as her board. A one year prison sentence
is not very long. John Brown was released from the
penny atentiary and returned to his farm to find a
domestic situation that was not to his liking. It's not
clear what transpired at the Brown farm, but John Brown
expected trouble and consulted his attorney. The last thing Brown

(47:15):
said to him was I may never see you again.
Less than three weeks later, John Brown was found murdered
at a railroad crossing about three miles from the farm.
A neighbor found a horse and buggy. Its cushion and
lap rug were saturated with blood. The buggy was identified
as John Brown's, and a search of the area found

(47:38):
his body lying nearby, beside the railroad tracks. It first
looked like he'd been shot in the head, but it
was later determined that his skull had been fractured with
a hammer. It didn't take long to determine who was responsible.
Joe Wade was clearly in conflict with John Brown, and
Mary Brown had told her friends she would do away

(48:00):
with her husband if he ever returned. She had a younger,
better looking man, and she didn't desire to be tied
down to an old fool like Brown. Both were arrested
for the murder of John Brown. At first, they both
denied any knowledge of the murder, but after a brief incarceration,
Mary Brown weakened and told her story of what happened

(48:23):
the night of the murder. She said that Wade had
planned to go to Irvington to sell his horse and
went out to hitch the buggy. I went about attending
to my work as usual when I heard a dull,
heavy sound and some groans. I rushed out and saw
my husband dying. I had the child in my arms,
and Wade said, take in that child. I did so,

(48:45):
after which I came out again and exclaimed, oh my god,
what have you done. He came up to me and
put his arms around me, saying, this is what love
will do, Darling. My reason for making a different statement
before was Wade threatened my life if I gave him away.
After hearing Mary Brown's confession, Wade corroborated the story of

(49:06):
the surroundings of the murder, but said it was Mary
who actually did the killing. Both were charged with first
degree murder. They were tried separately, with Joseph Wade tried
first in April of that year. The issue was not
whether Wade was involved in the murder, but whether he
wielded the hammer and if it was premeditated. Wade could

(49:27):
not convince a jury that he was only an accessory.
He was convicted a first degree murder and sentenced to hang.
When Mary Brown was tried in July, Wade testified for
the prosecution. He was not offered any clemency for his testimony.
He would hang regardless, so he had no incentive to lie.
He testified that he had been discussing the sale of

(49:49):
a horse with John Brown that Friday evening when Mary
came up behind her husband and struck him in the
back of the head with a wooden mallet. He fell
to the floor, knocking his head against the table. Wade
grabbed a lamp from the table as Mary struck Brown again,
this time in the face. Wade said, my god, woman,
what have you done? She said, that's no more than

(50:11):
he has done. Wade hurried out of the house and
began to unhitch his horse. Mary asked where he was going,
and he said, Irvington. No you ain't, said Mary, Joe Wade.
If you leave me now, you'll rue the day. You're
a man and I'm a woman. You've been staying here
and nobody will suspect me of doing this. She wrapped

(50:32):
up the body in a blanket and he helped her
load it into the buggy. Then Mary dressed in Joe's
clothes and drove the buggy with Joe sitting beside her.
Anyone who saw them would think they were two men.
They left the body by the railroad track, and Mary
turned his pockets inside out to make it look like
he was robbed. Abandoning the buggy, they walked back to

(50:54):
the farm. The jury deliberated for forty six hours, then
found Mary Brown guilty of first degree murder. She was
sentenced to hang on October twenty ninth, eighteen eighty, the
same day as Joseph Wade. Two days before the scheduled hanging,
Governor Williams granted them a thirty day respite to appeal

(51:16):
their cases to the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court
reviewed both cases. They found that two of the jurors
on Mary Brown's case were not competent, having prejudged the defendant.
She was granted a new trial. The Supreme Court found
nothing wrong with Joe Ward's trial and let the verdict stand.
On November eighteenth, Governor James D. Williams, in his last

(51:39):
official act before dying three days later of inflammation of
the bladder, granted Wade another respite so he could bring
another appeal to the Supreme Court. This time, he appealed
on the grounds that the judge gave the jury erroneous instructions.
While awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling. Ward testified at Mary

(51:59):
Brown's second trial, this time said that Mary's intent to
kill her husband was of a sudden conception. The murder
had not been planned. Mary Brown was again convicted of
first degree murder, but this time sentenced to life imprisonment
in the women's reformatory. In February eighteen eighty one, the

(52:20):
Supreme Court granted Joseph Ward a new trial, and in
his second trial, he was also sentenced to life in prison.
There are some ancient mysteries that cannot be easily solved.

(52:41):
This is especially true when witnesses to strange events are
long gone. In all that is left are ancient ruins
that raise more questions than answers. There is no doubt
that something puzzling did happen hundreds of years ago in Ireland. Scientists, historians,
and locals admit this particular place is shrouded in mystery.

(53:04):
Our understanding of the nature of reality is insufficient in
this case. Archaeologists who excavated the site could not shed
more light on this historical Irish mystery. What we're about
to discover is a case that shows legends and science
sometimes collide. Some who've investigated the place say there is

(53:25):
no other explanation than the presence of a completely unknown,
unexplained force. Your own opinion of the events will most
likely be based on your own personal beliefs and common sense.
Look at what happened through the eyes of scientists and locals.
We examine myths and legends and compare them with real

(53:46):
case scenarios. As always, it's up to you to judge
the events for yourself. There are countless ruined churches in Ireland,
but one is of particular interest. Jumping Church of Kildemock,
formerly known as Millikstown Church, is located some miles south
of Ardian County. The church has become famous for its

(54:09):
eye striking ancient ruins. The age of the church is unknown,
but historians think it is rather old. In nineteen fifty three,
archaeologists excavating at the site discovered a silver penny from
the reign of Edward the Third, who ruled from thirteen
twenty seven to thirteen seventy seven. Locals tell the church

(54:30):
was already a ruin in the eighteenth century. The Jumping
Church is mentioned in Irish folklore and myths. The most
puzzling part about its history is that one wall of
the church was mysteriously relocated some two or three feet
from its foundations. The wall hasn't fallen, it's simply moved.

(54:52):
How is that possible? Jumping Church of Kildemoch remains an
unexplained ancient mystery that may never be sawt According to legends,
the wall of the church moved in seventeen fifteen to
exclude the grave of an excommunicated man outside the building.
A plaque on the site reads this wall by its pitch,

(55:13):
tilt and position can be seen to have moved three
feet from its foundation. Contemporary accounts mention a severe storm
in seventeen fifteen when the wall was lifted and deposited
as it now stands, but local traditions states that the
wall jumped inwards to exclude the grave of an excommunicated person.
Apparently the church was so annoyed that it moved all

(55:36):
by itself, leaving the sinner's grave outside of the church grounds.
It certainly does sound like a very implausible scenario. Buildings
require an external force to change location. Another explanation to
the strange movement is that on Candlemas Day in seventeen fifteen,
a great storm caused the wall to shift. This scientific

(55:59):
explanation doesn't provide all the answers, though, How can a
storm lift part of a building and set it back
down in a new location. Archaeologists who excavated the site
did confirm the wall had been moved. When the original
outline of the church became apparent, it was revealed that
the wall really did stand two to three feet inside

(56:21):
its foundations, standing nineteen feet high, fifteen feet wide and
three feet thick. The huge bulk of masonry rises imposingly
from the ground close to the foundation from which it
had cleanly been severed. In his book Kildemok The Jumping
Church that contains detailed history of the church, Father Michael

(56:42):
Murtaw writes the storm theory is far fetched. A storm
alone could hardly have lifted a chunk of masonry, he said,
that's many tons in weight, and move it to one
or so meters inward and replace it at a precarious slant.
The wall is built of rough stubble stone and would
easily crumble. He continues. There is also the supernatural explanation

(57:03):
that Hinges on a controversial burial within the walls of
the ruined church. It said that the wall jumped inwards
to exclude the unworthy corpse from the holy ground of
the church interior. There are other local stories from the
period that tell of controversial burials and refusals of burials
to those to cease who offended the church's sense of
what was right. Whatever the explanation, natural supernatural, are both

(57:27):
the natural beauty of the area and the spiritual history
of a community combined in this hallowed spot and draw
one into contemplation. Father Michael Murtau wrote, if you ask locals,
many will tell you they believe the legend is true.
The man who was buried on the Kildomock Church grounds
was a freemason who had abandoned the Catholic faith. He

(57:49):
died suddenly and unexpectedly while working on the building of
Stabren Church. He fell to his death from scaffolding. His
corpse was brought to Kildemok and laid to rest within
the ruined church inside the west wall. The next day,
locals report that the church's wall had jumped inward, leaving
the remains outside the sacred enclosure of the one time. Building.

(58:14):
Historians think the controversial burial of the freemason did take
place as well as the storm, but what happened next
is unknown. The whole story sounds incredible and unbelievable, but
there is an answer to this ancient mystery hidden somewhere,
we just cannot find it. We're forced to admit that

(58:35):
there is still much we do not know about the
nature of reality. When we're darkness returns, skyquakes, mist puffers,
Seneca guns. The mysterious booms in South Carolina have many names,

(58:58):
but no one knows what causes them. But first, no
one paid much attention to Casper Hauser when he strolled
into Nuremberg one morning in eighteen twenty eight, but that
would soon change. That story is up next. No one

(59:36):
paid much attention to Casper Hauser when he strolled into
Nuremberg one morning in eighteen twenty eight. The young boy
of about sixteen was wearing pantaloons, a silk necktie, a waistcoat,
a gray jacket, and a handkerchief with the initials k
h embroidered on it. His boots were so torn up
that his feet were bursting through them and mangled from

(59:59):
the road When police finally approached the apparent vagabond, they
found that he could only speak a few words and
was clutching a letter addressed to a cavalry captain. The
missive claimed that its author had no blood relation to Hawser,
even though the author had raised him as a son.
It also noted that since eighteen twelve, Hawser had not

(01:00:21):
gone a step from the house, in order that nobody
might know where he was brought up. The mysterious note
went on to claimed that the boy could read, write,
and wanted to become a horseman like his father. Although
he did not have parents, said the letter. If he did,
he would have been a learned man. It ended ominously

(01:00:42):
with the author stating that it would cost me my
neck had he escorted Hawser to Nuremberg himself. Police took
the boy into custody, where observers reported that although he
behaved as if he were a child, indeed he walked
as though he were a toddler just learning how he
was clearly not a madman or an idiot. He did

(01:01:03):
not speak unless it was to parrot words and praises.
He had a very small vocabulary, which consisted mainly of
words referring to horses. Oddly, although his feet had been
damaged from his journey, they were as soft as the
palm of a hand, as though he had never worn
shoes before he had traveled to Nuremberg, Hauser was repulsed

(01:01:25):
by all food and drink, except for bread and water.
When he was brought a lighted candle, he stared in
amazement and tried to grab it, only to burn his hand.
He was equally fascinated by his own reflection in a mirror,
which he also tried to grab in vain. Hauser was
eventually made a ward of the city and went into

(01:01:48):
custody of Lord Stanhope, a British nobleman. As the forest
Boy learned to communicate effectively, he began to weave a
strange tale about being brought up in a prison. He
claimed to have never seen the face of the man
who brought him to the outskirts of Nuremberg, saying that
he'd been forced to look at the ground the whole

(01:02:08):
journey before being handed the letter and left alone. Hauser
also described a detailed dream in which he found himself
in an enormous castle, in the company of an elaborately
dressed woman and a man all in black with a sword.
Professor Dahmer, who'd been treating and observing Hauser, theorized this

(01:02:28):
could have been a faint memory of his early life
before the prison. This strange tale that seems torn from
a Dickens novel, enthralled all of Europe. There were rumors
he was a lost prince, perhaps the son of Grand
Duke Carl von Baden and his wife Stephanie de Boharnes,
who'd been adopted by Napoleon. Many people, however, thought he

(01:02:51):
was just an impostor seeking fame and fortune. Another strange
incident further fueled the rumors. In eighteen twenty nine, Hawser
was found in Dahmer's basement, bleeding profusely from a wound
in his head. He claimed that he had recognized the
voice of his attacker, the same man who had brought
him to Nuremberg. Casper Hauser's mysterious life concluded in an

(01:03:14):
equally enigmatic manner. One night in eighteen thirty three, he
burst through the door of his home in Aspect, clutching
his side and babbling about how he'd been lured to
the park by a stranger, who then stabbed him in
the side. His story was doubted from the first, and
when Hauser attempted to lead his friends back to the
spot of the stabbing, he collapsed midway on the journey.

(01:03:38):
He died of his wound. The mystery of his life
did not end with his death. DNA tests in nineteen
ninety eight using a sample from his bloodstained shirt and
blood samples from two of de Bohanne's living descendants have
shown he was not in fact a Prince of Baden,
and so true identity of Casper Hauser remains an skyquakes

(01:04:20):
mistpoofers Seneca guns. The mysterious booms in South Carolina have
many names, but no one knows what causes them, and
recently the mystery came back in the spotlight after an
unexplained boom rattled the Charleston area. My whole house just shook.

(01:04:41):
Anyone else weird and heard loud boom on Folly Beach,
wrote one witness on Facebook. The whole restaurant here at
Sham Creek just shook earthquake, wrote another. The boom and
subsequent vibration startled Charleston area residence around twelve twenty six
p ter by one witnesses were searching for answers online.

(01:05:05):
Though an earthquake was the most common theory, the USGS
website shows no record of a quake, so what was it?
The most logical explanation is a sonic boom. After all,
a nearby air station did confirm they had F eighteen
jets in flight at the time of the incident. However,

(01:05:26):
while a sonic boom seems likely, people in the area
have reported odd booms as far back as the mid
eighteen hundreds, well before the invention of modern aircraft. In
eighteen fifty, James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Lake Gun, a
short story named after the odd sounds that emanated from

(01:05:47):
New York's Seneca Lake. The mysterious sounds continue to this
day and are now known as the Seneca Guns. Though
the name originated in New York, Seneca Gun has become
a catch all term for the strange booms heard up
and down America's East Coast, including South Carolina. In two

(01:06:09):
thousand and seven, I had my own experience with the
Seneca Guns. I was alone at my in law's home
in Beaufort, South Carolina, when a large boom rattled the
entire house. I was convinced someone had driven into a
support pillar in the garage, but found nothing when I
went to investigate. The boom was so powerful it cracked

(01:06:31):
a wall in the neighborhood guardhouse, and the security team
accused my husband of dynamite fishing after finding him on
the beach. He hadn't been though. We never did find
an explanation for the boom. Though a quick Google search
turned up and continues to turn up, countless reports of
mysterious booms in the South Carolina low Country. Theories about

(01:06:54):
the sores of the booms ranged from the fascinating to
the mundane. A few theories include shallow earthquakes that are
too small to be recorded, military aircraft or submarine activity,
naval guns firing offshore, top secret military testing, tidal waves,

(01:07:15):
landslides off the continental shelf, pockets of air released from
the ground, methane gas released from the ocean floor, new
faults forming a meteorite exploding in the atmosphere, cold air
slamming into warm air, even Indian ghosts. Yes, really that

(01:07:37):
what's clear. South Carolina is booming. It's not clear if
scientists will ever agree on the cause. Has anyone else
heard a mysterious boom? What do you think causes the
sounds coming up? A man had apparently left off the

(01:08:02):
roof of a building, committing suicide, and that would have
been the end of the story, except if police found
a note in the man's pocket with instructions on how
to find the pieces of his girlfriend. That story is
up next on Weird Darkness. In late October of two

(01:08:42):
thousand and six, police responded to a call from the
Omni Hotel in New Orleans regarding a jumper. A man
had apparently leapt off the roof of the building and
landed five stories down on the hotel's parking garage roof.
When the police got there, it was clear that the
man died on impact. It seemed at first that this

(01:09:04):
was not a job for homicide. What did they have
to do with a man who took his own life.
The answer was in the deceased's front pocket, in the
form of a several page long suicide note in it
or instructions on how to find pieces of his girlfriend.

(01:09:24):
Zack Bowen was, according to those who knew him, a
decent person. There was nothing about him that made people
guarded or nervous. He was neither extraordinarily attractive nor memorably unattractive.
He was not mean. He was not the homecoming king.
He was just a pretty average American boy. He had

(01:09:46):
plenty of friends, was sociable, and clearly hid whatever was
welling beneath the surface. In the last few years of
his life, when Zack was eighteen years old, he met
a twenty eight year old stripper named Lana Shupack. The
two married, and, according to some sources, Zach joined the
military in order to support her and the two children

(01:10:09):
their marriage bore. He rose to the rank of sergeant
in the U S Army over the course of a
tour in Kosovo and a tour in Iraq. Some of
this time in Iraq was spent at Abu Grab. At
least one of his friends told Bowen's biographer that he
seemed to change while overseas. He was less happy and

(01:10:30):
wanted to come home. Zach Bowen got his wish to
come home via a general discharge because of the less
than honorable conditions of his departure from the army, despite
an alleged honorable recommendation from his commanding officer, Bowen was
left bitter still. He managed to keep enough of a

(01:10:50):
Smile on to become a bartender in the French quarter
of New Orleans. After he came home. He and his
wife separated not long after his return, leaving Zach single
in a city full of eligible women. Bowen eventually set
his sights on another bartender. Her name was Addie Hull.

(01:11:11):
The two had one important thing in common. They both
liked to drink a lot. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the
two holed up in their apartment together and rode out
the storm. They were two of very few people who
did not evacuate. This gained them media attention in the
wake of the storm, partly because Addie had a habit

(01:11:33):
of bearing her breasts at police officers when they drove by.
The two were also known to make cocktails for visitors
to the damaged neighborhood. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was
like a camping trip to the young couple. They lived
without electricity, drank what they had traded booze for water,
and lived a life without responsibility beyond survival. Many would

(01:11:57):
later say that it suited them, and going back to
real life had been the tragedy for the pair. Paul
was known for being a mean, drunk and abusing her
boyfriend when she was in the mood. Once things started
getting back to normal in the French Quarter, she reportedly
told their landlord that Bowen was cheating, so she was
going to kick him out. It's hard to tell if

(01:12:19):
these accusations were based on drunken delusion or reality. It
could be said that Zach Bowen and Addie Hall had
an unsustainable lifestyle. On the one hand, there is a bartender,
perhaps also a stripper according to some sources, who drinks
too much and maybe too free with her fists. On
the other hand, there is a damaged man who also

(01:12:42):
drinks too much, has been across the world to fight,
only to come back to a small corner of the
world and fight again in more ways than one. Add
to that, the fact that their friend Squirrel was allegedly
supplying them with a steady stream of cocaine and disaster
couldn't be more obvious. What was shocking was how it

(01:13:04):
all came crashing down. This was the state of their
lives when the twenty eight year olds got into a
fight on October fifth, two thousand and six, and their
apartment on North Rampart Street above the Voodoo Spiritual temple.
According to notes left by Bowin and evidence at the scene,
Vowen strangled Haul to death and the bathtub before cutting

(01:13:27):
her into pieces. Her head was placed in a pot
on the stove. Her feet were either in another pot
with her hands or in the oven with her legs.
Sources differ. The remainder of her corpse went in the
refrigerator in a large bag. What Zach did next was
cook what he managed to get on and in the oven.

(01:13:49):
He reportedly said that he was trying to separate the
meat from the bone. It's likely that this was an
attempt to get rid of the evidence. There's nothing to
suggest that the man was trying to consume Addie Hall's remains.
What he did cook was so charred as to be unrecognizable.
While the police knew who the victim was before they

(01:14:10):
even entered the ham more than a week later, it
took some time to id her because of the condition
of her remains. Some sources also state that Bowen had
sex with her corpse. Police, though adamantly deny that claim.
After the murder, Zack Bowen spent some time in the apartment,

(01:14:31):
writing messages on the wall and spray paint and penning
the five page note that would eventually be found with
his body. When he wasn't there, he was out drinking,
getting strippers, and doing drugs with his friends. All of
this was evidently in an effort to numb the shock
of what he had just done, as evidenced by what
he wrote and eventually did. The letter and Zack Bowen's

(01:14:55):
front pocket at the time of his death told police
where he lived, where they would find Addie, and why
his keys were also in his pocket, as was the
name of his landlord, who would eventually let the police
into the apartment. On the walls of the apartment in
spray paint, they found these messages, Please call my wife,

(01:15:17):
I love her. I'm a total failure. Look in the oven,
please help me stop the pain. There were also burns
on his body that left a message. He stated that
he burned himself with a cigarette for every year of
his life as punishment for his failures. There are those
from the French Quarter and elsewhere who think this was

(01:15:40):
more than just the story of tumultuous love, drugs, alcohol
and murder. There are those who believe Zach Bowen may
have been influenced by a demonic presence emanating up from
the voodoo shop above which the pair made their home.
Whether this theory holds any water is a matter of opinion. However,
the owner of the Voodoo spiritual temple is well known

(01:16:03):
and respected in the French quarter. Whether or not that
has any bearing on her hosting a demon in her
shop is another matter of opinion. Another possible explanation for
this bizarre crime is that Zach's experiences just caught up
to him. Perhaps he had some lingering issues from his
tours overseas. Maybe Addie really was as abusive as they say.

(01:16:28):
Maybe all of this added up to him feeling so
much like a failure that after he snapped and killed
his girlfriend, he first tried to hide the evidence and
then took his own life. Whatever the reason Zach Bowen
killed Daddy Hall, he was clearly one of the few
killers who went to enough trouble to cook their victims

(01:16:48):
and later felt true remorse. The Albert Fishes and Jeffrey
Dahmers of this world do not typically feel bad. Of course,
they also ate what they cooked. That Bowen killed himself,
and the clear confusion he felt in the aftermath is
evidence enough that even he was disgusted by what he
had done. Do demons, whether war related or truly from hell,

(01:17:14):
excuse such a ghastly crime? Of course, not even Zach
Bowen knew that. Is it possible that his own suffering
made victims out of both him and Atie Hall? Almost definitely?

(01:17:37):
Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share
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 are purported to be true
unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or
links to the authors in the show notes. The House

(01:17:58):
the Devil Built was posted at the Cult Museum. The
Bitter Fruit of a Jest was written by Robert Wilhelm.
For Murder by Gaslight serial Killer Ivan Malott is by
Robert Keller. Hannah's Past Lives was submitted anonymously. Patalatas was
submitted by Mitchie from Upcycle Creations. Ghosts of Flight four

(01:18:20):
oh one was written by Troy Taylor in his book
Cabinet of Curiosities. Who Is with Me is from your
ghost Stories dot Com. Unexplained Phenomenon in Ancient Ireland is
from Ellen Lloyd Mysterious Boom's Plague South Carolina was submitted anonymously.
The Zach and Addie murder suicide is by Shelley Barclay

(01:18:41):
for Historic Mysteries. The enduring two hundred year Mystery of
Casper Hauser was written by Gina DeMuro for All That's Interesting.
The Brown Tragedy was written by Robert Wilhelm for Murder
by Gaslight and the Bizarre Death of Olivia Mabel is
from Olivia Mabel dot Com. Weird Darkness is a production
and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're

(01:19:04):
coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a
little light. First, John three, verse eleven, this is the
message you heard from the beginning. We should love one another.
And a final thought, surround yourself with people who reduce
the amount of stress in your life. On Darren Marler,

(01:19:25):
thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness,

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The House So Evil It Had to Be Destroyed | Pittsburgh's Congelier Mansion

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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;}The House So Evil It Had to Be Destroyed | Pittsburgh's Congelier Mansion