THE MURDEROUS HARPE BROTHERS: A Reign of Terror By America’s First Serial Killers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
In the late eighteenth century, the untamed country of Kentucky
and Illinois was still the wild Frontier before it could
be tamed by settlers. It was the domain of some
of the most bloodthirsty killers and thieves in American history.
Among them were two men who terrorized the frontier out

(00:27):
of pure bloodlust. It took years for the authorities to
end their killing spree because the Harp Brothers didn't choose
their victims. They simply killed anyone who got in their way,
including women and children. In fact, on August sixteenth, nineteen

(00:48):
seventy eight, one of the brothers smashed a baby's head
against a tree. He said he did it because she
annoyed him by constantly crying. That was bad enough, but
the worst part it was his own daughter. I'm Darren
Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome Weirdos. I'm Darren

(01:19):
Marler and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories
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While you're listening, be sure to check out Weird Darkness

(01:41):
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find all of that and more at Weird Darkness dot com.

(02:05):
Now bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Not much

(02:48):
is known about the Harp brothers before they began their
crime spree, and it's hard to separate fact from legend
about everything they did. Most likely they were born in
Orange County, North Carolina, to a Scottish family, but some
accounts say they were actually cousins, Joshua and William Harper,

(03:08):
who changed their names when they arrived from Scotland in
seventeen fifty nine. Mckajar Big Harp and Wiley Little Harp
were said to have fought for the British during the
Revolutionary War. It was not for their loyalty to the crown,
but simply so. They could kill and torture people without punishment. Allegedly,

(03:31):
the brothers joined a gang of criminals in North Carolina,
and they raped, stole, burned down properties, and murdered Patriot colonists.
One account stated that the gang kidnapped, raped, and murdered
three teenage girls. A fourth girl that was taken but
was rescued by Captain Frank Wood, who managed to wound

(03:53):
Little Harp. This would not be Captain Wood's last encounter
with the brothers either. After the war, the Harps moved
west and settled among the Chickamauga Cherokee people at Nickajack
near Chattanooga, Tennessee. They stayed there for around twelve years
after kidnapping two young women and forcing them to be

(04:16):
their wives. The unfortunate girls were Maria Davidson and Susan Wood,
Captain Wood's daughter. The women were treated like animals, beaten,
kept in chains, and raped. Some stories say that Maria
and Susan became pregnant several times, and each time the

(04:37):
brothers murdered the children. The brothers fled Nickajack in seventeen
ninety four after word reached their settlement that the authorities
had learned of their location. They took the women to
Powells Valley near Knoxville, where the brothers began robbing and
killing settlers who passed through the region. A few years later,

(04:58):
the Harps began their so called Trail of Death, a
killing spree across Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. In seventeen ninety seven,
the brothers were chased out of Knoxville for stealing livestock
and for murder, and they fled into Kentucky. After several
more murders, they earned the attention of law enforcement, and

(05:21):
after a local innkeeper informed on them, the Harps were
arrested and locked up in Danville, Kentucky. They didn't stay
behind bars for long, though, They managed to escape, and
before going on the run, murdered the son of the
innkeeper who had testified against them. Kentucky Governor James Garrard

(05:41):
placed a three hundred dollars bounty on their heads. The
Harps crossed the Ohio River into Illinois, murdered five men
along the way, and found refuge with a band of
outlaws at Cave in Rock. The cave was a stronghold
for bandits and river pirates, which which were then led
by Samuel Mason, who organized raids on these slow flatboats

(06:05):
that were traveling down the Ohio River. The Harps soon
introduced even more vile methods of murder to the already
violent gang. Unlike the Pirates, the Harps did not wait
until nightfall or the cover of a storm to do
their dirty work. They operated boldly in broad daylight. Their

(06:27):
most effective method was to appear on the riverbank and
flag down passing boats, usually telling them that they had
been attacked by Indians or robbed and needed help. When
the sympathetic travelers came ashore, the Harps would slaughter them
on the spot and raid the boat. Their trademark method
of murder was to disembowel their victims, load their stomachs

(06:50):
with stones, and then sink the bodies in the river.
As it later turned out, the Harps were too vile
for even the rough outlaw at keie Van Rock. After
a raid on a flatboat, the sole survivor of the
craft was stripped of his clothes, tied onto a blindfolded horse,
and run off a cliff while the Harps watched and

(07:13):
howled with delight. The other outlaws who witnessed this were
sickened by the brother's bloodthirsty entertainment, and forced the Harps
and their women to leave. The murderer's brothers, together with
their wives and the children they had allowed to live,
returned to Tennessee. The murders that have been credited to

(07:36):
them continued, including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and
thrown in the Holton River, James Brassel, who had his
throat slashed, and John Graves and his teenage son, who
were found dead with their heads cleaved in by axes.
In Logan County, the Harps killed a little girl, a

(07:57):
young slave, and an entire family they found asleep in
their camp. Then, on August sixteenth, seventeen ninety eight, Big
Harp committed his most vicious crime when he smashed his
baby daughter's head against a tree because her crying annoyed him. Later,
he stated that this was the only killing that he

(08:19):
felt remorse for. A week later, the brothers embarked on
one more terrible murder spree. The Stegle family in Webster
County offered them shelter in their house, unaware that the
Harps were monsters. That night, the brothers killed another guest
named Major William Love the Stegles four month old child

(08:42):
because he was crying, and Missus Steagle after she began
screaming when she discovered her murdered child. The Harps then
set the cabin on fire in an effort to conceal
the crime. John Stiegel, the husband and father of the
latest Harp's victims, formed a posse with another man, John Leaper.
They were determined to hunt down the Harps and found

(09:05):
them on August twenty fourth, seventeen ninety nine. When the
brothers were told to surrender, they tried to flee. Big
Harper was wounded in the chase and was pulled off
his horse by John Leaper. He'd been shot in the
spine and was unable to walk. While Harp lay dying,
he confessed to twenty of the numerous murders that he committed,

(09:26):
but he never begged for his life. John Steegle produced
a knife with which to cut off the killer's head,
and Harp simply growled, cut away and be damned. Big
Harp's head was placed on a stake and left outside
the ruins of the Steegle house as a warning to
other outlaws the area where the homestead was once located

(09:48):
is still known as Harp's Head Road today. Little Harp
managed to escape from the posse and he joined back
up with Samuel Mason at cave En Rock. He stayed
with the gang for four years until he got caught
up in a plot to kill Mason. A reward had
been placed on Mason's head, dead or alive, of one

(10:11):
thousand dollars. This was a grand sum in those days,
but Harp didn't just want the money. He wanted to
take over Mason's criminal enterprise. He contrived to get Mason alone,
then Little Harp buried his tomahawk into his friend's back.
He finished him off, and then hacked off Mason's head.

(10:32):
He carried the grisly object off and placed it on
the desk of the judge who had been charged with
dispensing the reward. The men who were present that day
all confirmed that he brought in the head of Samuel Mason.
But just as the judge was counting out the gold
coins and payment, one of the bystanders recognized Little Harp

(10:53):
as an outlaw himself. He tried to escape, but it
was too late. He was captured and hanged in January
eighteen oh four, his head was placed on a spike
along Natchez Road. It was a fitting end to a
man who had brought so much terror and fear to
the frontier for so many years. In our recent family

(11:55):
reunion in Singapore, I shared with my mother and sisters
about YGS. When the conversation wandered on to the subject
of strange experiences. My younger sister Kara then revealed that
she was sensitive to the spirits as well. Around two
thousand and two, Kara decided to further her studies and

(12:16):
get a degree. She and her friend b attended university
together and they found accommodation in nearby Bedford Park, a
southern suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. The units or flats
at Bedford Park were built in a basic utilitarian design,
four square shaped units arranged side by side like boxes,

(12:39):
three stories stacked one above the other in exactly the
same way. It was not five star housing, but the
location was close to campus and the rent was reasonable
for students on a shoe string budget. The entrance to
their ground floor unit opened onto the living room slash
dining room, which in turn led on the far right

(13:00):
into the master bedroom. A short hallway separated the master
from the second bedroom, with the latter having the bathroom
on its left. The kitchen was located just beyond the
living and dining area, sharing a common wall with the bathroom.
My mother came over from Singapore later that year to
spend some time with my sister, who was the youngest

(13:22):
to leave the nest. Mom stayed there for a week
before flying to Sydney to see me for a few days,
and then came back to Adelaide for the remainder of
her stay. While she was there at Bedford Park, Mom
helped with taking out the garbage. She did this without
incident for an entire week. After she returned from Sydney

(13:43):
to Bedford Park, she made her way as usual out
the kitchen by the back door to the bin bay area.
The little path led past the electrical fuse box on
the far wall. Somehow, on this occasion, Mom couldn't get
past the use box. It was late afternoon, there was
still plenty of light around. She couldn't see anything there

(14:06):
that would be causing the problem, but she was certain
that something big was in front of her blocking her way.
Whatever it was, it was not about to let her past.
Mystified by this, Mom gave up after a few attempts,
deciding to try again another time. The next morning, she
was able to reach the bin bay without any problem.

(14:29):
On her way back to the unit, she met the
neighbor who lived upstairs with her young daughter. When Mom
mentioned her odd experience, the woman's eyes widened. I felt
that same way too. Kara agreed with Bomb there was
something not quite right about the whole property, but it
was the best she could find at the time, and

(14:50):
she could not afford the cost of moving. By now,
she had the skin prickling sensation of being watched at
all hours of the day or night, especially in the
master bedroom, which was hers. She had the clear impression
of resentment and that someone or something was really unhappy
at having them there. Kara found herself staying away from

(15:14):
the living room unless Bee was with her. A tree
grew outside the living room window. Its leafy foliage obscured
part of the natural light coming in from the street.
She thought it had an odd cold spot. It was
always exceptionally cooler in temperature from the rest of the place,
even during the heat of summer. She and her flatmate

(15:36):
b spent many hours checking all the doors, windows, nooks
and crannies for areas where drafts could have possibly been
sneaking in, but there wasn't even a crack. B proved
to be even more sensitive than Kara to the nuances
around the unit. She had chosen the smaller second room
as being less unsettled of the two, but she soon

(15:59):
felt so trouble in the place that she asked her
parents for help. These parents asked the pastor at their
church to cleanse and bless the unit. The uneasiness didn't
exactly disappear for either of them, but it calmed down
noticeably for a while, but gradually, over time the strangeness

(16:19):
began to build up again. Then my sister woke up
in the middle of the night with the weirdest feeling
that someone was calling her. Kara sat up in bed
and saw a shadow standing at the foot of her bed.
From the width of the shoulders and the height, she
had the impression it was a tall male figure looking

(16:41):
down at her with a puzzled air and some curiosity.
Kara had a distinct thought in her mind that she
knew came from this shadow man. Who are you and
what are you doing here, so she thought, the thought
right back at it, but I live here now her reply,
the Shadowman disappeared. Fully awake now and quite unnerved, Kara

(17:07):
got out of bed and turned on all the lights.
She promptly did a search all through her bedroom, flinging
open the cupboards, looking under the bed, everywhere she could
think of, but she didn't find a thing. In the days,
months and years after that encounter, Kara would still get
the occasional fleeting glimpse of a long shadow out of

(17:29):
the corner of her eyes, but the disturbing feelings of
being warned away subsided. Kara ended up staying there for
a total of seven years. There was no further episode
with the Shadowman. She and b got used to sensing
the other flatmate simply as a quiet presence in the background.

(17:57):
For many years, Doctor Crippen was a name that would
make the blood run cold. Once the star exhibit of
Madame Tussau's Chamber of Horrors, the infamous murderer has become
a byword for cold eyed evil. His case became famous
because of the global communications age, with Crippen becoming the

(18:18):
first fugitive from justice to be captured with the aid
of the then new wireless telegraph. Hally Harvey Crippen was
an American homeopath living in London, charged in nineteen ten
with murdering his wife, Cora. His capture, trial, conviction, and
execution were played out on newspaper front pages around the world.

(18:42):
The doctor's reserved, emotionless demeanor convinced readers of his guilt,
and at his death by hanging in November that year,
he had few defenders. Crippen's trial was one of the
first to center around the embryonic discipline of forensic pathology,
with the prosecution presenting seemingly incontrovertible scientific evidence of his guilt.

(19:08):
The story begins with the disappearance of Crippen's wife, Cora,
after a dinner party at their home in January nineteen ten.
When police questioned the doctor about his wife's whereabouts, he
first told them that she had moved back to America,
where she had then died. Later, he changed his story,
claiming she had actually returned to America to live with

(19:31):
her lover, music hall actor Bruce Miller. Holly Crippen was,
by all accounts, the classic hen pecked husband, constantly undermined
by his overbearing, flamboyant wife, Cora, was often openly unfaithful
to Holly, taking a string of younger lovers and flaunting

(19:51):
the fact in public. Crippen himself had also taken a lover,
secretary ethel Leneve in response to his wife lifes infidelity.
The motive for murder was as old as the hills.
With the police sniffing around, Crippen and his mistress went
on the run, believing it was only a matter of

(20:11):
time before they were arrested. Their disappearance led to further
searches of the house, culminating in the discovery of a
horror show in the coal cellar, a mass of rotting,
dismembered human flesh wrapped in a pair of old pajamas.
Pioneering forensic pathologist Bernard Spillsbury determined the remains to be

(20:35):
of Crippen's wife, Cora, by matching surgery marks on a
piece of still intact skin. Spilbury also found traces of
the drug hyacine in the flesh, which police discovered Crippen
had purchased shortly before Cora's disappearance. Things looked bad for
Hally Harvey. Crippen exacerbated by his decision to leave the country,

(20:59):
attempting to to abscond to Canada aboard the S S. Montrose.
The couple posed as father and son, with the diminutive
Ethel disguised as a boy. The ship's captain, Henry George Kendall,
aware that Scotland Yard were pursuing the pair, had seen
through Ethel's paltry disguise and used the ship's brand new

(21:20):
Marconi wireless telegraph to radio his suspicions to the authorities.
Quote have strong suspicions that Crippen, London seller, murderer and
accomplice are among saloon passengers. Accomplice dressed as boy, manner
and build undoubtedly a girl. Inspector Walter du of Scotland

(21:40):
Yard boarded a faster ship to Quebec and was waiting
with the Canadian police to arrest Crippen and Lenev as
the S S. Montrose arrived in the harbor. This apprehension
using wireless communications was a historical first in nineteen ten.
The subsequent trial at the Old Bailey was dominated by

(22:02):
the new science of forensics, with Crippen himself showing little
emotion or remorse during the proceedings. The jury swiftly found
him guilty, and on the twenty second of October, just
as Richard Everard Webster donned a black cap to deliver
his damning verdict. Holly Harvey Crippen, you have been convicted

(22:25):
upon evidence which could leave no doubt on the minds
of any reasonable men, that you cruelly poisoned your wife,
that you concealed your crime, you mutilated her body and
disposed piecemeal of her remains. On the ghastly and wicked
nature of the crime, I will not dwell, the judge added,
before delivering the ultimate punishment of death by hanging. Crippen

(22:49):
was subsequently executed at Pentonville Jail on November twenty third,
his only request to be buried with a photograph of Ethel.
Whilst few questioned the doctor's guilt, some aspects of the
case were strange. The remains found in the basement of
the Crippen's house were missing the head, limbs and skeleton.

(23:13):
Why had Crippen gone to the trouble of dismembering and
disposing of his wife's body elsewhere, only to leave part
of it in his home. These curiosities aside. It wasn't
until two thousand and seven that a serious challenge to
the long standing belief in Crippen's guilt emerged. Like most people,

(23:34):
forensic toxicologist John Trestrail had heard the name doctor Crippen,
but it wasn't until he learned of the details of
the case that alarm bells began to ring in his head.
Cora Crippen's murder contained one feature so unusual that Trestrail
had never encountered it before in over twenty years of practice.

(23:55):
According to the prosecution, pathologist Bernard's Billsbury, the cause of
death poison. Yet Crippen was also accused of dismembering the body.
For Trestrail, this made no sense. Murderers invariably chose poison
to kill their victims because they want to pass the
death off as natural or an accident, so why dismember

(24:19):
the body. Trestrail's investigation pushed Crippen's descendants to commission new
tests on the piece of tissue Billsbury had used to
identify the body. The results were a bombshell. The DNA
extracted from the remains was not from Cora. Was doctor Crippen,

(24:40):
a man whose name had become synonymous with murder innocent
after all. For forensic toxicologist John Trestrail, the Crippen case
was an anomaly. As a veteran of hundreds of FBI
cases and the author of standard textbooks on the subject,
Crippen's mutilation of a victim he had teasoned with something

(25:01):
he had never seen before. A poisoner wants the death
to appear natural so he can get a death certificate.
This is the only case I know of where the
victim was dismembered. It doesn't make sense, Trestrail said. If
Crippen was the culprit, then he had essentially filaied his
wife's body, leaving nothing but a tangled mess of flesh

(25:23):
and skin hidden beneath a slab in his cellar Dawn
entirely where corrus head, limbs, skeleton, and sex organs. The
grisly treatment of corus corpse raises the obvious question as
to whether someone as timid as Crippen could have done
something so horrific. But more crucially, why did he having

(25:47):
successfully disposed of the majority of his wife's body. Indeed,
none of the other body parts have ever been found.
Why did Crippen leave these small scraps wrapped up a
pair of pajamas where they would surely be discovered. The
strangeness of his behavior has led some to speculate that
Crippen was framed by the police, although there appears little

(26:11):
other evidence or even motive for this to be the case. Clearly,
if Cora had later turned up alive, it would have
been incredibly damaging for Spillsbury and the police to have
staked their reputation on the belief that she was buried
in Crippen's cellar. Those remains did contain a piece of

(26:31):
skin featuring what Spillsbury identified as a surgery scar. This
scar was found to be consistent with a four inch
scar Cora had from an operation of her abdomen some
years previously in the PRECSI era, and to a jury
unused to forensic evidence, Spillsbury's findings looked incredibly persuasive, so

(26:54):
much so that it took them just twenty seven minutes
to return a guilty verdict at the trial. Spillsbury was
a brilliant man whose findings during his lifetime were rarely challenged. However,
working with primitive equipment at the infancy of forensics, some
of his conclusions look somewhat less impressive to modernize a

(27:18):
modern day forensic scientist, David Foran of Michigan State University
believes Spillsbury was overreaching in his evidence at the Crippen
trial and the surgery scar was nothing more than a
fold of skin, something the defense at the trial had
argued to little avail. Foreign believes the marks on the

(27:40):
skin are simply natural folds because of the visible hair
follicles present on the surface, something that would not be
the case if it was scar tissue. Tressrail was also
skeptical about the poison. Crippen was supposed to have used,
a common sedative and depressant named hyacine that he'd never
seen used in any other poisoning case in the literature.

(28:04):
With hyacine so rare in poisoning cases and toxicology still
primitive in nineteen ten, Trestrail believes the prosecution's team would
not have searched for let alone found the presence of
the drug in the remains. Several theories have been positive
about the presence of hyacine in the body recovered from

(28:25):
Crippen's cellar. Renowned barrister Edward Marshall Hall thought Crippen may
have been using hyacine on his wife as a sexual
depressant due to her promiscuity, and had accidentally given her
an overdose. If that theory is true, it still leaves
us with the conundrum of why Crippen had disposed of

(28:47):
his wife's body in two locations, electing to leave lumps
of flesh in his own cellar. Nobody had ever provided
a convincing motive for Crippen's actions in this regard, and
it remained a tenalizing mystery at the heart of the case.
Whilst the evidence used to convict doctor Cripman at his

(29:07):
trial now looks speculative at best, Trestrail's trump card is
something undreamt of in the days of Bernard Spillsbury DNA.
Spurred on by his investigation, Trestrail enlisted forensic biologist David
Forran to conduct DNA tests on a sample of skin
tissue preserved from Spillsbury's original nineteen ten slides at the

(29:31):
Royal London Hospital. Trestrail ad used genealogists to meticulously unravel
Cora Crippen's convoluted family tree in the hope of finding
modern day relatives, and eventually found Marie Hamill, a sixty
four year old Californian living quietly in a suburb of
Los Angeles. Forran's team at the Forensic Biology Lab at

(29:53):
Michigan State University compared a DNA swab provided by Hamil
against DNA from the u s century old Royal Hospital samples,
only to come to a startling conclusion that threatened to
turn one of crime's most famous cases on its head.
The skin Spillsbury had used all those years ago to

(30:14):
send doctor Crippen to the gallows was not from Cora Crippen.
In fact, the DNA wasn't even female. With one fell swoop,
both the central case against Crippen that he had murdered
his wife and rumors that he may have been conducting
illegal backstreet abortions crumbled. Thoran's results have come under fire,

(30:37):
but he stands firm against criticism that the samples were
too old to reliably test. A slide in a museum
is a pretty nice way to preserve DNA, he said.
Compare that two bones that have been in the ground
for thousands of years. There was a lot more DNA
work that showed unequivocally that the remains were male. Critics

(31:00):
believe that the modern day relatives of Cora may not
actually be blood relations, thus nullifying the results, although this
is something denied by Marie Hamill, who is the granddaughter
of Cora's half sister, Bertha Mersinger. Assuming the DNA findings
are correct, the results have led to speculation that Crippen

(31:21):
may have murdered one of Cora's lovers, or even that
he was some undiscovered Edwardian serial killer. Whatever the truth,
the DNA evidence suggested that even if Crippen had killed Cora,
he had not buried her remains at Hilldrop Crescent. In
light of the circumstantial evidence against him, and with such

(31:44):
an obvious motive for murder, Crippen's explanation for his wife's
disappearance always looked unbelievable. However, some tantalizing hints do exist
that suggest the possibility he was telling the truth. Most
of these were suppressed at the trial for fear they
might damage the case against the doctor, but have been

(32:06):
rediscovered over the years by researchers into the enduring case.
One statement obtained by the police not used at the trial,
was from a cab driver who testified that two weeks
before Cora's disappearance, he had helped a woman matching her
description carry six steamer trunks from the house at hill
Drop Crescent. Similar evidence that around the same time Cora

(32:30):
may have tried to withdraw a large sum of money
from the Crippen deposit account was also not followed up.
Several letters were sent to Crippen at Pentonville Prison from
a woman claiming to be Cora, one stating I don't
want to be responsible for your demise if I can
save you in this way, but I will never come

(32:51):
forward personally, as I am happy now. Whilst it's generally
thought these letters are hoaxes and all too common hindrance
in many high profile criminal case, they were never passed
on to Crippen's defense and so were not investigated further
to determine their providence. If the forensic case against doctor

(33:11):
Crippen now looks decidedly unsound, the circumstantial one remains as
strong as ever. Crippen's lies, suspicious behavior, his flight from justice,
and his refusal to talk are all redolent of some
kind of guilt, But was it of his wife's murder.
Shortly after Cora's disappearance had become noticed, Crippen started to

(33:34):
claim that his wife had returned to the United States.
He would later write to her friends saying that Cora
had unfortunately been taken ill and passed away. This naturally
aroused suspicion. Why had Cora not written to her friends
herself or told them she was returning to America. Suspicion

(33:55):
only grew when Crippen moved his mistress, ethel Leneve into
his house and she began to openly wear Cora's clothing
and jewelry. After a few weeks had passed and the
whispers about Crippen had become louder, Chief Inspector Due of
the Metropolitan Police called by to question the doctor about
his wife's absence. Crippen admitted to do that he had

(34:19):
made up the entire story about his wife's death out
of embarrassment, because she had in fact eloped to Chicago
with one of her lovers from the music hall. Having
made Due his confidant about this delicate matter, the detective
was inclined to believe Crippen. A subsequent search of the
house revealed nothing, and Due elected to drop the matter.

(34:41):
What Holly Crippen did next did not look like the
actions of an innocent man. Though, centing that the police
may not believe him, he and Ethel fled the country,
taking the ferry to Brussels before moving on to Antwerp,
where they boarded the s S. Montrose for their ill
fated voyage to Canada. Would a man entirely innocent of

(35:03):
wrongdoing really have upturned his whole life to become a fugitive.
It's impossible to know what was going on in Crippen's
mind at the time, but his actions almost looked tantamount
to a confession. The case against doctor Crippen looked open
and shut. Shortly after his wife vanished without trace. Body

(35:25):
parts are found in his cellar. At the first sign
to the police, he fled the country. Any prosecution would
have successfully won the case against him on circumstantial evidence alone.
For their part, Crippan's defense attempted to argue the human
remains had predated their client's residence at Hilldrop Crescent and

(35:46):
must have been deposited there by a previous tenant. However,
the prosecution would soon thwart Crippen's last chance of escaping
the gallows. Crippen's trial at the Old Bailey lasted just
five days. Faced with a barrage of damning evidence against
their client, the defense countered with the argument that the

(36:06):
body buried under the coal cellar was not Cora and
had been left there before the couple had moved into
the house. This line of defense looked futile from the off.
Hally and Cora Crippen had moved into the house at
Hilldrop Crescent in nineteen o five. The body was discovered
in nineteen ten. Could the couple really have lived there

(36:28):
for more than five years unaware that a putrefying corpse
was buried in a shallow grave in their ground floor
coal cellar. Crippen's hopes were comprehensively dashed when fragments of
a pajama top found amongst the flesh, was traced back
to a local firm of shirt makers from the still
intact label which read Jones Brothers Holloway Ltd. An employee

(36:52):
from the firm was called to testify, who confirmed to
the courtroom that Jones Brothers had not become a limited
company until nineteen o six, the year after Crippen had
moved into the house. This put to bed any doubt
that whoever was buried in the cellar had been put
there before Crippen was a resident, but in order to

(37:13):
be sure the conviction, the prosecution had to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that it was specifically Cora and not
some other unfortunate who had somehow met a grim fate
in the Crippen cellar. The scar Bernard Spillsbury had found
on a piece of skin was the most obvious connection,
matching as it did a surgery scar. Cora was known

(37:35):
to have also strown amongst the remains, where three hinds
hair curlers of the type Cora was known to use,
wrapped in brownish blonde hair that matched the doctor's missing wife.
To round off the case against Crippen, the prosecution produced
evidence from an Oxford Street chemist that Crippen had purchased
a large quantity of the drug hyacine he claimed as

(37:58):
an ingredient for his home eight patent medicines a fortnight
before corus disappearance. This was the very toxic substance prosecution
toxicologist William Wilcox had detected in the remains from the
coal cellar. Given the weight of evidence against him, the
jury at the trial really had little choice but to

(38:19):
send Crippen to the gallows. Back in nineteen ten, the
criminal justice system enacted its verdicts with startling haste, and
just a month after his sentencing, Crippen was hung ethel
Leneve was tried separately and acquitted of being an accessory
after the fact, after which she emigrated to America and

(38:40):
disappeared from the public eye. The case, however, has never
left the public conscience and even inspired a popular song
of the era. Doctor Crippen killed Bella Albore ran away
with Miss Lenev right across the Ocean Blue, followed by
Inspector do Gypsyhoy Naughty Boy. Crippen deserves his reputation as

(39:02):
one of history's most notorious murderers is debatable. The case
may have become one of countless obscure domestic murders if
not for the novelty of Crippen's capture and the gruesome
nature of the crime. The Doctor's presence among other infamous
murders in the chilling Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussau's

(39:24):
and his depiction in fiction have also done much to
secure his place in the public imagination. Today, modern forensics
has raised serious doubts about the identity of the victim
in the coal cellar. On one hand, we have nineteen
ten era CSI and an iron clad, circumstantial case. On

(39:46):
the other, we have seemingly incontrovertible DNA evidence that the
body was not Crippen's wife. The two are not entirely irreconcilable.
Even if doctor Crippen's unlikely story about cou Lura was
true and he did not murder her, he was surely
responsible for someone's death. But Crippen never talked, and whatever

(40:10):
secrets lurked in the gloom of that dank cellar went
with him to his grave. On September second, nineteen thirty five,

(40:45):
the Labor Day hurricane slammed into the Florida Keys, obliterating
everything in its path and sweeping scores of men, women,
and children out to sea. At least four hundred and
twenty three people in the Category five storm, though no
one knows just how many perished. Even today, lost victims

(41:08):
skeletal remains occasionally surface, along with whispered tales of ghosts.
In nineteen thirty five, the only way in and out
of the Keys was by boat or by rail. As
the storm drew near. Escape by boat became impossible, and
nearly one thousand people found themselves trapped. A rescue train

(41:31):
braved the pounding wind and rain, but was overcome when
it stopped to help the stranded. The train cars quickly flooded,
and many of the people who thought themselves saved were
drowned or swept away. For years after the disaster, reports
of a phantom train plagued the area. The Key West

(41:52):
extension of the Florida East Coast Railway was never rebuilt
after the storm, but in the early nineteen forties, weird
events began to experience along the old line. Reports American hauntings,
inc The sound of a steam engine and a train
whistle could sometimes be heard later at night, and occasionally

(42:13):
a headlight could be seen silently rolling by in the
early hours of the morning. The phantom train isn't the
only hurricane related haunting. Legend has it the victim's tortured
spirits roam the swamps at night, searching for help that
never comes. The haunched figures reportedly stagger in the same

(42:34):
direction before fading back into the darkness, only to repeat
their fruitless march another night. Do you think victims of
the Labor Day Hurricane haunt Key West to this day,
or are the story is nothing more than remnants from
the tragic past. At more than three hundred pounds, Nathaniel

(43:27):
Barjonah cut an intimidating figure in the small Montana town
of Great Falls, but few in Great Falls knew just
how frightened they truly should have been. Bar Jonah had
moved to Great Falls from Massachusetts, where he had just
finished a long sentence for the sexual assault and attempted

(43:49):
murder of a young boy. And in this sleepy town
at the edge of the Rockies he would strike again,
but now he had a taste for human flesh. Nathaniel
Barjona was born David Paul Brown in Worcester, Massachusetts, in
nineteen fifty seven, and there were early signs that he

(44:11):
was not a normal child. In nineteen sixty four, Barjona
received a wisha board for his seventh birthday. Using the
promise of trying the board out, he lured a five
year old neighbor into his basement. There, he tried to
strangle her. Luckily, the girl's screams alerted Barjona's mother, who

(44:32):
ran downstairs and forced him to let her go. His
mother likely assumed that the boy didn't know what he
was doing, and nothing came of the incident. But in
nineteen seventy Barjona decided to try again. Promising another neighbor,
a six year old boy, that they could go sledding,
Barjona lured the child to a secluded area. He then

(44:55):
sexually assaulted him. This became a pattern for nathanie O Barjona,
but as he grew older, he developed a more sophisticated
technique to gain access to victims. In nineteen seventy five,
Barjonah approached an eight year old boy on his way
to school, claiming to be a police officer. Barjonah lured

(45:17):
the boy into his car, where he began to sexually
assault and strangle him. Luckily for the boy, a neighbor
looking out their window saw the boy being abducted and
called the police. Barjonah was arrested, but was only sentenced
to a year's probation. The light sentence emboldened Barjona, and

(45:38):
three years later he abducted another two boys from a
movie theater after claiming to be a police officer and
telling them they were under arrest. He handcuffed the boys
before taking them to a secluded area and molesting them.
Trying to silence a potential witness, Barjona began strangling one
of the children. When he was convinced that the boy

(46:01):
was dead, to put the other victim in his trunk
and drove away. Luckily, the boy had actually survived the
attack and ran to get help. Barjona was soon found
by the police, with the other victims still in his trunk.
This time, Barjona was charged with attempted murder and sentenced

(46:21):
to eighteen to twenty years in prison. While in prison,
Barjona began meeting with a psychiatrist after hearing him describe
as fantasies which revolved around murdering, dissecting, and eventually eating children.
The psychiatrist recommended that he be moved to a mental hospital,

(46:41):
but in nineteen ninety one, a judge concurred with psychiatric
evaluations that had somehow found him to not be a
dangerous threat. Inexplicably, the judge agreed to release Barjona on
probation if he moved to Montana to live with the mother,
though it was recommended that he seek psychiatric help. Just

(47:05):
days after being released, Barjonah spotted a seven year old
boy sitting in a parked car. He forced his way
into the car and tried to smother the boy by
sitting on top of him. Luckily, Barjona was stopped by
the boy's mother and was quickly arrested. Somehow after the arrest,

(47:27):
no one from the Massachusetts court followed up with probation
officers in Montana, to which Barjonah had quickly fled. This
allowed Barjonah to melt into the local community. By now,
he had changed his name from David Brown to Nathaniel
Benjamin Levi Barjona, claiming that he wanted to know what

(47:47):
it felt like to live with the persecution that Jewish
people experienced. He alternatively claimed that he had always been
Jewish and the actual truth may never be known for sure.
The name change, he had changed little else about himself.
In nineteen ninety six, ten year old Zachary Ramsay disappeared

(48:09):
on his way to school. His parents filed a missing
person report, but the local police department wasn't used to
this sort of crime. With few leads, the case went cold. Meanwhile,
Nathaniel Barjona was living in a nearby apartment complex. There,
he had secretly been luring young boys from the area

(48:29):
inside his apartment before sexually assaulting them. He'd even installed
a pulley from the ceiling, where he hung at least
one of them by the neck. Yet these crimes went
undiscovered for years. One woman grew suspicious after her child
suddenly became withdrawn and angry after spending time with Barjonah.

(48:52):
But no one thought that someone in Great Falls could
be molesting children, and no one suspected that Barjonah was
a murderer. But other neighbors did notice that the food
Barjonah made for them was full of a strange meat
that they couldn't identify. When asked, Barjona claimed that it

(49:12):
had come from a deer he shut, though no one
knew Barjona to ever go hunting. In nineteen ninety nine,
he was arrested outside a local elementary school, carrying a
fake gun and dressed as a police officer. At first,
the charge was simply impersonating an officer, but when the
police searched Barjona's home, they made a shocking discovery. Inside

(49:39):
Nathaniel Barjonah's home, investigators discovered thousands of photos of children
cut from magazines and a bizarre journal written in code.
Even more importantly for the investigation, they also found a
piece of human bone. The journal was sent to the
FBI to be decoded while the police and began looking

(50:00):
into the possibility that Barjonah had murdered Ramsay. Meanwhile, other
neighbors now came forward with allegations that Barjonah had been
molesting their children, and Barjonah was quickly charged with kidnapping
and sexual assault. By the time the trial began, the
FBI had decoded bar Jonah's journal. Inside, he described his

(50:24):
obsession with torturing and murdering children. There was also a
list of twenty two names. Eight of them were known
to be Nathaniel Barjonah's earlier victims, many of the rest
were local children. The others were never identified. Even more disturbingly,
the diary detailed his plans to cook and eat children.

(50:48):
Barbecued kid, sex, a la carte, my little kid dessert,
little boy stew, little boy pot pies, and lunch is
served on the padd with roasted child were all entries
in Barjonah's twisted writings, taken with the meat grinder that

(51:08):
police found in bar Jonah's home. The writings raised a
dark suspicion, thinking of the strange meals Barjonah had fed them.
His neighbors began to wonder if Barjonah had murdered Ramsey
and fed them his flesh. But Barjonah denied that he
had killed Ramsey at all, and there was never enough

(51:29):
evidence to prove these allegations of cannibalism one way or
the other. Though there is more than enough circumstantial evidence
to make one wonder. That said, there wasn't even enough
evidence to substantiate the claim that Barjonah had murdered Ramsey
in the first place, and after the boy's mother claimed

(51:49):
that she didn't think he did it, the charges were dropped. Instead.
Barjona was sentenced to one hundred and thirty years in
prison for the molestation hi charges. Others in town wanted
to take their own form of justice. One resident told
the press that if Barjona were released quote, his life
wouldn't be worth a plug nickel around here unquote, but

(52:13):
no one would ever get the chance to kill Nathaniel Barjona.
He was found dead in his cell in two thousand
and eight. Morbidly obese. He died from cardiovascular disease. To
this day, no one is sure how many people Nathaniel
bar Jonah killed. He is a possible suspect in several

(52:34):
murders and Massachusetts, Wyoming, and Montana, but none have ever
been conclusively solved. In the world of paranormal research, there

(53:06):
are two distinct types of non corporeal creatures, ghosts and
shadow people. In many instances, it can be nearly impossible
to tell the difference between ghosts and shadow people. But
after some exhaustive research into these scary monsters and super creeps,
here's a handby guide to help you figure out whether

(53:27):
you're dealing with an energy sucking shadow creature or a
full bodied apparition. Are ghosts and shadow people the same things.
It's a question that's bogged down believers in the supernatural
for a long time. While they both share similarities, they're
definitely not the same thing. Not only are there different

(53:50):
classes of shadow people, but the types of ghosts that
you're likely to bump into aren't anything like the ominous
figures cut by a shadow person. The following guidelines will
teach you how to know if you saw a ghost
or a shadow person lurking in your room and what
to do about it. Pure normal experts have been debating

(54:13):
for decades about whether or not ghosts can actually understand
what is happening around them, or if they are simply
going through the motions of a past life. It is
believed that ghostly apparitions are simply the residual energy left
over when a person dies, meaning that while you may
be able to see them, they can't see or interact

(54:36):
with you. On the other hand, shadow people are sometimes
corporeal beings who are at best believed to be from
another dimension, and at worst they may be demonic in nature.
People who have had interactions with shadow people believe that
the creatures make conscious decisions for how they'll treat a person,

(54:59):
something a ghost can't do. What of the many stark
differences between a ghost and a shadow person is that
ghosts used to be a physical person, while shadow people
have always been the creepy crawleys that come to you
when you sleep. No one knows why the residual energy
released when humans die creates ghosts for some people and

(55:22):
not for others, but it very well may have something
to do with that person having unfinished business on the
corporeal plane. Shadow people have always existed, whether they're from
another dimension, a time traveler, or a demonic entity. It's
believed that these creatures are fully aware of what they're doing.

(55:45):
If you've never been visited by a ghost or a
shadow person, your first experience with either can be terrifying
and confusing. How do you know with which type of
entity you're dealing? When it comes to ghosts, there are
a few different types of entities that you can encounter.
There are ghosts with interactive personalities like Bruce Willis at

(56:08):
the end of the sixth Sense or a Civil War
battlefield ghost, but there are also ectoplasmic mists that are
just as visible as interactive full body apparitions. Aside from
the two visible and easily recognizable types of ghosts, there
are poultergeists or noisy ghosts, which are essentially pure energy.

(56:32):
You're more likely to experience one of these if you
have a teenager in the home or a large amount
of pent up negative energy. They knock things down, break windows, etc. Finally,
there are orbs and the swirling bits of light that
are most commonly seen in photographs. Shadow people, though, are
usually described as being tall and human like, but as

(56:56):
if their bodies are made of shadows rather than flesh
and blood. The most notable shadow person is the hat Man,
who's been appearing since at least two thousand and one,
since he was discussed on art Bells Coast to Coast am.
It's been theorized that hat Man is a separate phenomena

(57:17):
from shadow people, even though he appears in the same
way as the rest of his creepy brethren. Trying to
determine the intentions of a ghost is nearly impossible. You
might find, depending on what type of paranormal phenomenon with
which you're dealing, that the ghost doesn't have any intentions.
If you have a poltergeist in the home, it's taking

(57:39):
cues from you or whomever's negative energy helped manifest the creature,
and it's going to keep doing what it's doing until
you cleanse the home. If you're dealing with an interactive ghost,
it could be re enacting something from its life over
and over without any ill intent towards you. Despite the

(57:59):
negative ravations of a ghost clanging and banging around your house,
the intent of a shadow creature is nothing but malicious.
Since the first report of a shadow person there have
not been any claims of one of these creatures doing
anything positive whatsoever. Many paranormal experts believe that shadow people

(58:21):
want to feed off your negative energy and fear. An
interesting theory positive about shadow people is that they're likely
aware of other types of paranormal creatures and that they
feed off them the same way they feed off of humans.
If a spirit or an entity is trapped in a
particularly haunted location, meaning that it's rich in negative energy,

(58:44):
then it's likely that a shadow person or shadow people
are aware of this location and use it as a
feeding ground. It's been theorized that shadow people prefer the
fresh negative energy of someone that they've trapped, but the
residual energy of an entity trapped in its own torment
for eternity is probably just as good. While no one

(59:08):
knows exactly why shadow people exist, one interesting idea is
that they are similar to poltergeists, meaning that humans create
them from their own negative energy. While most ghosts are
created through outside means murder, suicide, etc. A poultrygeist tends
to be created when someone with a lot of pent

(59:31):
up negative energy becomes a vessel for their awful feelings.
This is usually done subconsciously, although you could probably manifest
a poltergeist or shadow person if you tried hard enough.
If you believe that you've created a shadow person by accident,
then your best bet is to try and clear all
the negative energy in your life. Start meditating, cleanse your apartment,

(59:56):
do whatever you've got to do to stop feeding that
horrible creature. The most out there theory about shadow people
posits that they aren't technically ghosts or creatures of any kind,
but rather there are people who are having out of
body experiences. Some paranormal researchers believe that our consciousness leaves

(01:00:17):
our body while we sleep and allows us to show
ourselves to other people who are tuned into our frequency.
This differentiates shadow people from ghosts in a major way
because it means that shadow people aren't even dead. It
could be argued that if our consciousness leaves our bodies

(01:00:39):
while we sleep, that they're technically the ghosts of the living,
although it's likely that we'll never be able to determine
if this is actually what's happening, While shadow people could
be a figurative shadow of a person who's still alive.
Spiritual medium James Van Prapp claims that actual ghosts are

(01:00:59):
usually what's left of a person who can't move on
past the mortal plane of existence. Sometimes they just can't
accept that they're dead. One of the things that ghosts
and shadow people have in common is that they are
drawn to negative energy and people who are spiritually open.
The main difference in this scenario is why ghosts and

(01:01:21):
shadow people are drawn to someone. Ghosts may simply be
making themselves visible to you because you're open, or something
happened to you at a young age that made you
a magnet or spiritual activity. While shadow people are also
drawn to someone who's open, it tends to be a
more malicious reason. They want to feed off of you

(01:01:43):
in one way or another. If they can feed off
your fear when you see them, great, If they can
feed off the entities around you and the fear that creates,
that's also good. No one knows exactly what ghosts or
shadow people are. While they can both take on the
characteristics of a human, that does not necessarily mean that

(01:02:06):
they are or were human at one time or another.
Some paranormal researchers believe that ghosts and shadow people are
both creatures from another dimension and that they are simply
manifesting in different ways. Some scientists believe that alternate dimensions
exist directly next to ours, it's just their vibrations are

(01:02:29):
slightly off. It's possible that shadow creatures and ghosts are
actually entities from another dimension that are somehow bleeding through
to our own. Whether you have found yourself haunted by
a ghost or a shadow person, there are a few
things you can do to get rid of both entities. Unfortunately,

(01:02:51):
clearing your hum of an extreme haunting is harder than
it sounds. Since ghosts tend to be residual energy, you
could always try to ignore them and wait around for
the haunting to disperse, although in the case of a poltergeist,
the haunting could increase if you ignore it. Paranormal researcher

(01:03:12):
Lloyd Auerback says that telling the ghost or shadow person
to leave tends to work if you are forceful enough. However,
if you engage the creature and you waver, you could
end up with an even larger haunting than you had.
If you can swing it, have paranormal experts come out
and sage the haunted area, or maybe call a priest

(01:03:36):
that should do the trick. I've never been a religious person.

(01:04:07):
Of course, I believe in a power that makes us
who we are, that helps us, and that is fighting
to protect us from the other world. I've never been
skeptical about the things that others find strange. I've always
been interested in finding out what lies beyond our realm
of being. I truly believe in ghosts or any supernatural beings.

(01:04:31):
The first time I had a paranormal experience was during
my childhood. I can still remember it very clearly. I
went with my grandmother to visit her sister. When we
arrived at her house, I saw a silhouette made of
steam that talked to me. I tried to forget this
experience because I was too young and maybe my imagination

(01:04:54):
was creating it. Neither my grandmother or her sister believed me,
but I do believe it happen. And a few years later,
during college, I was having trouble sleeping. After several hours,
I started to feel cold and I wanted to cover
myself with the blanket. But when I sat upright, I
saw something like a black shadow standing near my bed.

(01:05:17):
When I saw it, it stopped moving and it seemed
like it was looking at me. I covered myself with
the blanket and closed my eyes because I was afraid.
After this, I have felt something watching me almost every
single day. It's like someone is following me. And when
I stop and look to the place where I feel

(01:05:40):
that he stands, I feel like he's getting closer. I
somehow know that it's a he. I don't think that
he wants to hurt me, but I don't feel like
he's protecting me either. This incident took place in the

(01:06:05):
mid nineteen eighties. My mother died suddenly just a few
weeks before this all took place. We were not terribly close,
as my parents had gotten a divorce during the nineteen seventies.
I was living with my boyfriend at his apartment and
it was getting dark outside and I had to go
get my boyfriend from work at eight o'clock. I planned

(01:06:27):
on cleaning and finishing my housework. I bent down to
pick up something I had dropped, and standing back up,
I saw as clear as day my mother just sitting
in the corner of my hallway outside our bedroom. I
only saw her for a split second. I even second
guessed if I was seeing things, but it was just

(01:06:49):
too real for me to conclude that it was my imagination.
After cleaning up, I collected my boyfriend from work. I
was freaked out, but not too scared because she didn't
really look scary or threatening and she wasn't doing anything
but sitting there. A few hours later, my boyfriend and
I were laying in our bedroom and I was telling

(01:07:11):
my boyfriend about what had happened. All of a sudden,
there was a boom and all the power cut out.
What happened was that the breaker had tripped and the
box was wide open, and the breaker box was behind
the chair I saw my mother in earlier that day.
This freak does both out and we basically just laid

(01:07:32):
in bed the rest of the night. This morning, I
felt my hair being pulled. I normally experienced this only
in my house. It especially happens in my room, all office,
and kitchen, and it always seems to happen while I'm alone.

(01:07:56):
Today I felt two tugs at my hair while I
was in my room. I've been trying to sleep, and
then out of nowhere, I felt a tug. I have
medium length hare, so at one point I thought it
was just static or my hair getting caught on something.
But then I noticed it happening more often. There was
one time when I was alone listening to my music

(01:08:19):
in my room and I felt a tug. Whatever was
tugging at my hair pulled my hair so hard that
a strand broke off. I felt and heard the strand break.
Not to mention, I was spooked after that. What was
odd was that I wasn't wearing any jewelry, and I
also hadn't done anything with my hair that day. As

(01:08:40):
far as the history of my house, I wasn't made
aware that anyone had passed away here or anything of
that ilk. I was informed that the house was built
of the nineteen fifties. It does show its age from
time to time with creaks and weird sounds, but I
have not seen anything. Where I grew up, we had

(01:09:04):
a lot of empty lots. I remember one of them
had a huge tree growing in the center of the lot. Actually,
it was very jungle like and overgrown. My mother and
I would often go past that lot when we went
grocery shopping. One day, we were walking next to that
land and I suddenly saw what looked like a man

(01:09:26):
hanging from one of the branches. He was wearing a
white shirt and white pants, It was not clear because
he was a little transparent and I didn't see his
face clearly. He did nothing but hanging there. Surprisingly, I
didn't get scared at all. I told my mother that
I saw a hanging man on the tree, and she

(01:09:48):
looked and said, there's no one there. So I looked
back and he was gone. After a few months, I
totally forgot about this incident. Then a few years ago,
a very nice family came and built a huge, beautiful
house on that lot, and they cut down that tree.
The owners moved to another house, but they didn't tell

(01:10:10):
us anything. Another family came in and even they moved
after two months, but nobody told anything to any one
like this. Four or five families moved every two or
three months, so this house was totally abandoned. I think
that hanging man is still there. That is why nobody

(01:10:30):
can live in that house. The interesting part is I
saw a few people cleaning this house a few days ago,
and they painted the house. Looks like a new family
is going to move in. I hope they stick around
longer than the last few families who tried to live there.

(01:10:54):
This is my friend's story. His mother told him this story,
which happened when he was a baby, about three or
four years old. One day, he was playing with a
toy with his mother. Then he said he heard the
telephone ringing and picked up the receiver and began talking
into it. His mother had not heard any ringing from
the phone, and he was sure he was just playing

(01:11:16):
with the telephone. After talking into the phone for several minutes,
he hung up and said, Mom, that was grandmother. She
said to tell you goodbye. At that moment, the phone
rang for real. His mother answered the phone, and she
was surprised. It was the unexpected news that his grandma

(01:11:36):
had just died. A lady who moved into her deceased
aunt's house began to suspect something was a miss when
small objects appeared to move around the house by themselves. However,
she became quite alarmed when the TV in the upstairs

(01:11:58):
bedroom came on all by itself. This wasn't a one
off occurrence. It happened regularly at the same time on
certain days of the week, and no matter on what
channel the TV had been on, it always featured the
same channel. Eventually, she began to realize that the TV
came on for her aunt's favorite TV shows. She also

(01:12:21):
discovered that if the TV came on by itself, she
could tell it to switch off by itself, and it
would do so. She even videoed this to prove to
stunned neighbors and relatives that it was true. She became
convinced that her aunt was continuing to share the home
with her and her baby as a result of this activity.

(01:12:47):
I had a period in my late twenties when I
wasn't necessarily doing that well, drinking too much, which left
my nervous system shredded and vulnerable. I woke up in
sleep paralysis while living in my mom's basement with a
spectral hag floating not far above me, maybe six inches
classic banshee form, skeletal face half rotted in parts, cheek

(01:13:12):
bones exposed, gaping mouth, eye sockets, stringy hair. I just
freaked and froze. Not that I would have been able
to do anything anyway, as I couldn't move. I was
living in a semi raw, semi unfinished basement at the time,
with styrofoam insulation in the ceiling. I watched in real

(01:13:34):
time as the specter gradually went from three D to
two D, becoming a shape and a texture of ceiling
insulation that completely matched the skeletal hag I had just
been seeing at leaves. You're wondering if it's your unconscious
mind putting pieces together and making patterns, or if it

(01:13:55):
was a true visitation. That house is haunted and those
spirits did not like me. Either way, I don't intend
on going back to verify it. Took a nap midday,
once slight, lucid dream, but nothing spectacular. I woke up

(01:14:16):
to sounds of people talking outside my bay window and
moving my porch furniture. I tried to get up to
stop them, but realized I was in sleep paralysis. Talked
myself through it, blinking frequently. The sounds go away, but
a shadow starts growing in the corner of my living room.
I just keep telling myself that it's sleep paralysis. But

(01:14:38):
the shadow turns into this very tall, black shadow of
a witch with black tattered robes hanging off her and
long claws. She walks up to me and gets her
face close to mine, and then vanishes and I can
move again. It really bothered me. I don't scare easily,
but she was the embodiment of things that scare me.

(01:15:04):
I recently moved into an apartment with my dad, my sister,
and my brother. My sister and I share a bedroom.
One night, my sister told me that she knew how
to contact the dead. I was a little freaked out,
but I wanted to try it. I said that we
should contact our great grandma, who died in the nineties,

(01:15:25):
so we did. We began asking her questions like are
you at peace? Are you disappointed in us? Are you
in heaven? Are you happy? The only positive answer was
She's not disappointed. After that, she told us that she
was not at peace, not in heaven, and not happy.

(01:15:46):
We felt like she was there to protect our family.
Since I moved in, I have felt a presence, not
a good one. I'm always on edge and i always
feel like I'm being watched. Said she felt like our
grandma wanted us to break the chain we were holding hands.
She looked very scared, so we did. We felt like

(01:16:09):
there was something evil in our room. We sat with
the lights on for about an hour before deciding to
go to bed. We turned out the lights and soon
felt the presence again, only it felt stronger. We sat
with our eyes closed. We did not want to see it,
but I did anyway, I had a vision in my

(01:16:30):
head of a tall, dark, menacing figure standing near my
bed staring at us. I asked her to turn on
the lights, and she said no, She felt like it
was a demon. Spirits can't do anything to you, but
demons can. We began to say the Lord's prayer and

(01:16:51):
pray in tongues. The presence went away and we turned
on the lights. I still feel it, not as prominently
that night, but it's still there. My house was located
near an old two lane highway just outside the city

(01:17:11):
limits of a town named Elizabethan. This area was settled
in the late seventeen sixties. Its historical notability is among
the most fascinating in the entire state. Its home of
the first permanent settlement outside the original thirteen colonies, so
it's bound to have a lot of history. To be
more precise in the description of our home, we settled

(01:17:34):
in a small three bedroom home off a one lane
road originally made for logging trails. I've also heard these
roads called ridge runners, which were built by moonshiners, so
I'm not sure what the original purpose of this road
was used for. I'd like to add that moonshining is
still prevalent in this area today. In addition, this is

(01:17:55):
an old neighborhood where mostly senior citizens live, so the
Knights stay very quiet, apart from the tree frogs, crickets,
and a few neighborhood dogs that bark at raccoons or
other stray animals that dare venture into their domain. We
shared only one street lamp down the road, so besides
the tranquility of the quiet country life, unless there was

(01:18:17):
a full moon, it was so dark that you could
practically cut it with a knife. Up behind us was
another one lane road with a few old homes, and
behind and above that road consists of woods mixed in
with some farmland. When we first moved to the area
back in the mid nineties, we were told some creepy
stories that I presumed to be nothing more than old

(01:18:40):
southern folklore. I didn't put much thought into it other
than just that until later. We weren't there even a
year when we experienced our first paranormal experience. My older
daughter came running into my room late one night and
told me she had heard something strange and thought someone
was standing outside her bedroom window. She said she was

(01:19:03):
almost asleep when she heard something tapping on her end
of the house and then the window. As I explained earlier,
this was an old neighborhood, so the likelihood of it
being some teenage kid messing around was very small. Her
bedroom light was off, so we crept over to her window,
and after adjusting our eyes to the darkness, we could

(01:19:26):
see something tall, dark and slender, standing about seven feet
from the window. It appeared to be a man, but
then a little too tall and lanky to be a person.
We stood there whispering to each other because we couldn't
remember if there was a tree outside her room or not.
The moon shed just enough light so that we could

(01:19:48):
see something, but couldn't tell if it was someone or
something standing outside her bedroom window. My husband noticed that
I wasn't in bed up to see where I was.
He turned the hall light on emotion for him to
turn it off. Once he turned it off and we
looked back in the spot, it was completely gone, no

(01:20:11):
sign of anything standing there, not even a bush or
a small tree. We were both freaked out, and of
course my husband just made a joke of it and
summed it up to us girls and our wild imaginations.
About a year later, we were asked to move out
of that house so that the landlord's brother and family
could move in because he'd been out of work for

(01:20:33):
quite some time and could no longer afford to pay
rent somewhere else. My parents had bought five acres of
land about a mile up the road from us. They
had a house built on top of the land slash
hill and were just waiting for my dad to retire
in six months. We told them our situation, so they
gave me two acres of the land to move on.

(01:20:55):
We stayed in their new home while we had a
modular home put on the land that they gave me.
About six months after we were settled into our new home,
one evening I heard someone beating on the back door.
We ran to the door to find my daughter's boyfriend,
who eventually became her husband. I opened the door and
he was white as a ghost. I had him come inside.

(01:21:18):
Of course, he stood there, pale as a sheet and shaking.
He said, as he was driving on our road, right
about at the road where he used to turn off
to go to our old house, he saw this tall,
slender thing with stringy hair, no face. He said, it
was walking on the same side of the road that
he was driving, and appeared to be walking toward him

(01:21:40):
at first, but then it looked as if its arms
and body were walking one direction, but his head was
facing him. He said. It did not have a face,
just ahead, long black stringy hair facing him, yet the
rest of the body was walking and facing the other direction.
Forward about ten years, I had been over to my

(01:22:03):
daughter and son in law's new house. I took my
little Jack Russell. I was driving my Honda Element and
had my dog Milo in his cage just behind me.
We were on our way back to our house on
the same road. I was on the phone talking to
my younger daughter, telling her that we were almost home,
when about a half a mile from the old road

(01:22:25):
cut off, something that looked like what a werewolf would
look like, if there was such a thing, ran right
out in front of me on its hind legs. The
only thing was he was somewhat transparent, but just slightly.
I was able to see every detail. It was like
something you would see in an old sci fi movie.

(01:22:45):
It looked right at me. I screamed and knew there
was no way of missing it. I braced myself for
the impact. He looked right in my eyes. It looked
straight evil. My dog went crazy and my daughter was
yelling at me, thinking I was in an accident. Whatever
it was went right through my car. I made my

(01:23:07):
daughter come outside and meet me while I got milo
out of the car and into the house. To this day,
I will not drive down that road at night. I
don't know if any of these things are related, but
I do know there is something about that road and
area that really creeps me out, and I hate even
going to that area in the daytime. Between nineteen thirty

(01:23:58):
and the early nineteen fifties, the Greenville County Tuberculosis Hospital
treated hundreds of patients suffering from tuberculosis. Several patients succumbed
to the deadly disease, though it's not clear just how
many never made it home. After closing for good sometime
in the nineteen fifties, the South Carolina hospital sat largely

(01:24:20):
abandoned until a fire ravaged the building in two thousand two.
Before its fiery demise, people exploring the old building claimed
to hear screams, sobs, and footsteps pounding down empty halls,
and locals say the ghosts are still there, though the
building is long gone legend has it that deceased patients

(01:24:43):
now haunt Herdclot's Park, which stands where the hospital once did.
In Haunted South Carolina, author Alan Brown reports that visitors
hear a number of strange sounds on the playground, including banging, screaming,
and the clanging of unseen bells. At night, people spot
shadows flitting in the darkness. In fact, some people living

(01:25:05):
near the park claim these shadowy beings enter their homes
after dark. Reports of pools of blood also surround Herdclot's Park.
In Haunted Hospitals of the South, author Randy Russell writes
all that is left of the former sanatorium is a
few puddles that turn red with blood after a rain.

(01:25:26):
The puddles are located near a memorial bench in Herdclot's Park.
Locals suggest the blood is from patients who died at
the TB Hospital, and that the park bench stands on
the site of the institution's former morgue. Last week, my
parents went out of town when I spent a few

(01:25:47):
days alone. This was no big deal, as I'm eighteen
and stay alone often, But this time, the creepiest thing
happened while they were away. One afternoon, I was up
in my room when the kitchen cabinets downstairs started banging.
Now I'm not talking about little thumps and thuds. It
sounded like someone was in my house, slamming the cabinet

(01:26:10):
doors as hard as they could, bang, bang, bang. I
was sure someone had broken in. I stood there for
a minute, freaking out and not sure what to do.
I eventually snapped out of it and headed to my
parents' room to get the gun. Like I said, I
was sure someone had forced their way inside the house

(01:26:30):
and was ransacking the place. So I got the gun,
loaded it, and left the room. The cabinets kept banging
the entire time I had it downstairs, and the second
my foot touched the bottom landing, the banging sounds stopped.
I mean one second there were these deafening bangs, and
the next second it was silent. I thought that whoever

(01:26:54):
was in the house had heard me coming down and
was hiding somewhere. I searched the house from top to bottom.
I looked under the beds, in the closets, up in
the attic, everywhere. There was no one around and nothing
had been disturbed. The cabinets were all closed, when I
got downstairs and the dishes were fine. Once I was

(01:27:16):
sure the house was empty, I grabbed my uniform and
went to work. Two hours early after my shift, I
was too afraid to come home, so I stayed out
until two in the morning. Thankfully, nothing happened when I
got back, and nothing weird has happened since then. This

(01:27:37):
happened to my dad some years back. The house my
parents were living in was a two bedroom house. There
was a small patch of grass in the front of
the house, and the veranda was just two steps from
the front gate. When visitors arrived during the day, they
always walked to the back of the house and knocked
on the kitchen door. However, when visitors arrived after dark,

(01:27:59):
they would knock on the front door, which was very
close to the street. One evening, at around twenty hundred hours,
my mother got into bed. My father joined her a
few minutes later. They weren't in bed more than five
minutes when, to their complete surprise, they heard a knock
at the kitchen door. My father, although somewhat concerned, got

(01:28:20):
out of bed and walked out of the room and
toward the kitchen at the back of the house. Somehow
My mother had the feeling of foreboding and called my
father back to the bedroom. She said, don't open the
door first to ask who was there. My father replied
that was exactly his intention. Then he turned and left

(01:28:40):
the room again. As soon as he walked into the passage,
he felt what seemed like hands on his elbows, lifting
him entirely off his feet. He was carried down the
passage through the living room toward the kitchen. He recalled
that out of absolute fear, he was shouting at the
top of his voice, yet there was no sound coming

(01:29:01):
from his mouth. Once he was in the middle of
the living room, it felt as though he was being
pushed from behind by whatever was carrying him into an
invisible wall. Something or someone was stopping him from being
carried any further. Suddenly, he was let down, ever so gently,
back on to his feet. He never made it to

(01:29:22):
the kitchen door. He turned and walked right back to
the bedroom. My mother recalled that when he walked into
the room, the sweat was pouring down his face and
there was no color in his face. When he lay down,
the bed shook for quite some time before he could
calm him down and tell her what had happened, they
never found out who their night visitor was. In Hillside, Illinois,

(01:29:51):
just outside of Chicago, is Mount Carmel Cemetery. In addition
to being the final resting place of al Capone, dian
O'Banion and notorious Chicago mobsters, the cemetery is also the
burial place of a woman named Julia Bucola Peta. While
her name may not spring to mind as part of
Chicago history, for those intrigued by the supernatural, she is

(01:30:14):
better known as the Italian Bride. Julia's grave is marked
today by a life sized statue of the unfortunate woman
in her wedding dress, a stone reproduction of the wedding
photo that is mounted on the front of her monument.
While a beautiful monument, there is nothing about it to
suggest that anything weird ever occurred in connection to it. However,

(01:30:37):
once you know the history behind the site, you'll soon
realize that this is one of the weirdest tales in
Chicago's Annals of the Unknown. Julia was born on June sixth,
eighteen ninety one, in Italy. Her father, George passed away
in nineteen thirteen, and her mother, Philhelmina emigrated to the
United States with her daughter. They traveled to the West

(01:31:00):
side of Chicago, where three other Bucola children, Henry, Joseph,
and Rosalia, were already settled. In June nineteen twenty, Julia
married Matthew Petta at Holly Rosary Church on North Damon Avenue.
Julia became pregnant soon after the wedding, but complications occurred,
and on March seventeenth, nineteen twenty one, Julia died while

(01:31:23):
giving birth to her son, Filippo. Because of the Italian
tradition that dying in childbirth made the woman a type
of martyr, Julia was buried in white, the martyr's color.
Her wedding dress also served as her burial gown, and
with her dead infant tucked into her arms, the two
were laid to rest in a single coffin at Mount

(01:31:44):
Carmel Cemetery. Philhelmina Bucula was inconsolable over her daughter's death.
Shortly after Julia was buried, Philhelmina began to experience strange
and terrifying dreams every night. In these nightmares, she envisioned
Julia telling her that she was still alive and needed
her help. For the next six years. The dreams plagued Philomina,

(01:32:09):
and she began trying, without success, to have her daughter's
grave opened and her body exhumed. She was unable to
explain why she needed to do this, She only knew
that she should. Finally, through sheer persistence, her request was
granted and a sympathetic judge passed down an order for
Julia's exhumation in nineteen twenty seven, six years after Julia's death,

(01:32:34):
The casket was removed from the grave. When it was opened,
Julia's body was found not to have decayed at all.
In fact, it was said that her flesh was still
as soft as it had been when she was alive.
A photograph was taken at the time of the exhumation
and shows Julia's incorruptible body in the casket. Philamina set

(01:32:55):
out to raise money for a more elaborate tombstone. The
finished work would be a grandiose tribute to her dead daughter,
a life sized sculpture of Julia. On her wedding day,
her mother and other admirers affixed the post mortem photo
of Julia on the front of her grave monument. Below
the image is the Italian phrase praise dopo six ani morta,

(01:33:19):
which roughly translates to taken six years after death. A
photo of Julia in her bridle ground, presumably the inspiration
for the statue, was also fastened to the stone. The
post mortem photograph shows a body that appears to be fresh,
with no discoloration of the skin, even after six years.

(01:33:40):
The rotted and decayed appearance of the coffin in the photo, however,
bears witness to the fact that it had been underground
for some time. Julia appears to be merely sleeping. Her
family took the fact that she was found to be
so well preserved as a sign from God, and so,
after collecting money from other family members and neighbors, they

(01:34:00):
created the impressive monument that stands over her grave today.
What mysterious secret rests at the grave of Julia Petta?
How could her body have stayed in perfect condition after
lying in the grave for six years. Many devout Catholics
in the neighborhood believed that Julia's incorruptibility meant that she

(01:34:21):
was a saint. Skeptics scoffed at the idea, claiming that
the post mortem photo must have been taken before she
was originally buried, although this doesn't explain the condition of
the casket or the decomposition of the infant that is
nestled in her arms. Another explanation was attributed to adipossir,
also known as corpse wax, a waxy substance consisting chiefly

(01:34:44):
of fatty acids and calcium soaps that is formed during
decomposition of dead body fat in moist or wet anaerobic conditions.
In other words, the shape and state of Julia's body
was preserved by a natural process. Of course, these explanations
did to dispel the local belief that Julia's preserved body
was proof of a miracle. But was it really There

(01:35:07):
are stories that have since been told about her mother, Philamina,
questioning the reality of her dreams. There were those who
claimed that she fabricated the entire story as retaliation for
a marriage of which she did not approve. She never
liked Matthew Petta, the story say, And this story is
given some credence by the fact that Julia's married name

(01:35:28):
does not appear on the grave monument, only Lucola. But
if Philamina lied about her nightmares to gain sympathy from
the community, and to help finance the building of the
elaborate monument. How does this explain the post mortem photograph?
The photo of Julia in her casket six years after
her death appears to be real. It has defied explanation

(01:35:50):
for nearly a century. And that's not the end of
this odd story. Reports have been told over the years
of a ghostly woman in white who has been seen
wandering at the edge of the cemetery where she rests.
Stories claim to have seen her in the daytime and
at night, and many who know the story of Julia
Petta believe that this is her restless spirit. One eerie

(01:36:14):
tale that was told involved a young boy who was
accidentally left behind the cemetery not far from Julia's grave.
When they returned to Mount Carmel to look for him,
they saw him holding the hand of a dark haired
young woman in a white dress. When the boy ran
toward his parents, the woman in white disappeared. The story

(01:36:35):
of the Italian Bride lives on today. It's the story
of a woman who became more famous in death than
she ever was in life, a prime ingredient for many
eerie tinges. In the small town of Errindiquoit, outside of

(01:36:56):
Rochester is DURHAMT Eastman Park, frequented by many hikers and
nature enthusiasts who spend their days exploring the vast area
enjoying its pristine beauty. But there are others who travel
to this park for far different reasons. They come from
far and wide and make their way to the crumbling
remains of a structure that sits near Lake Ontario along

(01:37:19):
Lake Shore Boulevard. They aren't here to enjoy any pristine beauty. Instead,
they are looking for a glimpse of the mysterious crumbling
remains of the White Ladies Castle. Before this area became
Durhant Eastman Park, this was the home of a reclusive
woman and her teenaged daughter. The daughter was very beautiful

(01:37:41):
and was pursued by many young male suitors. Her mother, however,
was incredibly protective and insisted that she ignore the charms
of these boys and spend her time at home in
their isolated estate. The mother warned her daughter of the
danger these young men presented and told her that they
had nothing but unsun savory intentions. Her daughter was respectful

(01:38:03):
of her mother's warnings, but still secretly longed for the
company of a young man. One night, the daughter left
their home to take a walk down to the shores
of the lake. Her mother waded up all night for her,
but the young woman never returned. The mother convinced herself
that her daughter had met a young man from the
area and must have run off with him. But some

(01:38:25):
people believed that the young woman was far too devoted
to her mother to have not returned home that night,
and for this reason they say that the girl must
have been murdered that evening. Unable to cope with her
daughter's disappearance, the mother took to wandering the desolate area
every night with her two white dogs, looking for her

(01:38:45):
daughter or the young man she had run off with.
People would see the grief stricken old woman out on
her solitary walk every night, wearing a white dress. Eventually,
after years of her nightly vigils, the old woman died
a lone and heartbroken. Her house fell into disrepair, eventually

(01:39:05):
to the point where it was nothing more than a foundation.
Teenagers began using the area as a lover's lane, driving
out to the quiet private area with their dates. Reports
began spreading of something very unusual taking place at the site.
Many of these young couples were scared away from their
amorous activities after seeing a white apparition followed by two

(01:39:29):
ghostly dogs coming toward their car. Some even reported seeing
the specter rising out of the waters of the lake,
always flanked by two dogs. Most witnesses say they are Doberman's.
The tragic story of the mother and daughter was remembered
and passed down from one generation to the next for
years now. The foundations of their former home have come

(01:39:52):
to be called White Lady Castle, and she is known
to all in the area as the White Lady. Today,
or in Eastman Park, is frequented by many curious locals
and ghost hunters who spend their evenings in the vicinity
of the White Lady Castle, hoping for a glimpse of
this enigmatic entity and retelling the legend of how she

(01:40:12):
came to wander. I first visited the White Ladies Castle,
not knowing any of the legends associated with it. My
friend had just heard that it was a good drinking
spot where kids from different high schools congregated to cause trouble.
So we made our way down there hoping to join
the party, and there were a lot of teenaged miscreants

(01:40:33):
who hung out there on weekends, at least in the
early eighties when I was of the proper teenage miscreanting age.
When we got there, it seemed unimpressive, just an old
foundation tucked away in the park, But the locals filled
us in on the real deal of the place. Told
us all about the lady who used to live in
the building who showed up looking for her daughter. We

(01:40:55):
were told that she was particularly aggressive towards men, especially
ones who were disrespectful of women. One story they told
us was of a real wanna be tough guy, you know,
the type high school jock, thinks he's hot stuff, says
whatever he wants to anyone at any time, the type

(01:41:16):
of guy who people despise, but who for some reason
runs the show and gets the girl in those teenage years. Well,
he had this girl in high school, and everyone knew
he was hitting her, cursing her out, and all sorts
of awful things. So one day he brought her back
to the park to make out in their car, and

(01:41:37):
she did something wrong, spilled a soda on him or
something trivial like that, and he went nuts. He started
yelling at her, calling her stupid, and even shook her
up a little bit physically. Well, the next thing anyone knows,
there was this white flash outside the car and the
sound of something banging against the door. He turned around

(01:41:59):
freaked out, thinking someone's messing with him. Being a testosterone
written jock, he gets out looking for a fight, only
to come face to face with the White Lady. No
one knows exactly what he saw or what happened, but
the girl told everyone that when he got in the car,
his face was all scratched and he wouldn't speak. He

(01:42:21):
was never the same. He barely graduated high school and
became totally antisocial. Nowadays, he still lives with his parents
and never leaves his house. He just sits silent in
his room all day watching TV. Now, I don't know
that this story is true. In fact, I never heard

(01:42:42):
anyone tell it except that specific group of guys, and
I've heard stories about this place for decades. But to
be standing at the White Ladies Castle hearing about how
the White Lady hates men. Knowing you came out looking
for trouble, well that will put a little bit of
fear in you. Thanks for listening. If you like what

(01:43:09):
you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss
future episodes. All stories used in Weird Darkness are purported
to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find
links to the authors, stories and sources I used in
the episode description, as well as on the website at
Weirddarkness dot com. If you like the show, please share
it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or

(01:43:30):
strained stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do.
You can email me and follow me on social media
through the Weird Darkness website. Weirddarkness dot com is also
where you can find information on sponsors you heard during
the show. Listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, get the
email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host. You can

(01:43:52):
visit the store for creepy and cool Weird Darkness merchandise.
Plus it's where you can find the Hope in the
Darkness page. If you are someone you know struggling with depression, addiction,
or thoughts of harming yourself or others, And if you
have a true, paranormal or creepy tale to tell of
your own, you can click on tell your Story. You
can find all of that and more at weird Darkness

(01:44:13):
dot com. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. I'm Darren Marler.
Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.

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