True Christmas Mysteries That Still Haunt Investigators

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
In the dark hours of winter At Christmas time, when
children dream of sugar plums and wrapped presents, something else
stirs and the shadows of history. From unexplained phenomena that
shook an entire English town to the disturbing discoveries left
behind in a bloodstained van, many chilling holiday mysteries remain unsolved,

(00:31):
their secrets locked away in the icy depths of Christmases
long ago. What force transformed a woman into ashes while
leaving her farmhouse untouched? Why did two people choose death
over revealing the fate of a missing child. What sinister
truth lies behind the disappearances of young lives cut short

(00:52):
during what should have been joyous celebrations. Even one of
our most cherished Christmas traditions, the a poem that gave
us our modern image of Santa Claus, harbors a centuries
old mystery about its true creator, And it may not
have been Clement Clarke Moore. From the strange case of

(01:12):
the thing that terrorized Warminster on Christmas morning nineteen sixty
four to the baffling murder of a young nurse in
Texas that left two others vanishing without a trace. The
stories I'll share with you tonight, pull us deeper into
the winter chill of unanswered questions. A mother's desperate search
for her daughter spans decades, while a hidden run driver's

(01:35):
identity remains hidden behind a wall of small town secrets
and suspicious silence. These aren't the kind of Christmas stories
you tell around the fire unless you're prepared to question
everything you thought you knew about what is supposed to
be the most wonderful time of the year. In this episode,
I'll unwrap haunting tales of disappearances, unexplained deaths, and phenomena

(02:00):
that defy rational explanation. In the end, you might find
yourself wondering what else lurks beneath the cheerful glow of
Christmas lights and the sound of silver bells. December's longest
nights hold more than just holiday magic. They harbor secrets
that continue to baffle investigators and honk communities long after

(02:21):
the decorations have been packed away. Tonight, rather than the
ghost of Christmases yet to come, We'll be fed frights
from the ghost of Christmas' past. I'm Darren Marler, and
this is weird darkness. Welcome weirdos. I'm Deren Marler and

(02:49):
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. In a small Texas town,

(03:11):
what started as a festive Christmas celebration in nineteen ninety
four ended in murder when a nurse was found dead
in her bed, and her boyfriend and his nine year
old son vanished, leaving behind only a truck full of
blood stained presents. A little girl vanishes on a winter
road trip to Las Vegas, and twenty Christmases later, a

(03:34):
detective's search for answers leads to a desperate couple's final confession,
but not to the truth about what really happened to
two year old Nicole Betterson. Behind one of the most
beloved Christmas poems ever written lies a centuries old mystery,
was Twas the Night Before Christmas? Penned by a scholarly

(03:55):
professor for his children? Or did someone else create the
story that shaped how we see Santa Claus. When Paddy
Vaughan left her home on Christmas Day nineteen ninety six,
she left behind three children and a trail of mysterious clues,
including an abandoned van, suspicious bloodstains, and a red work

(04:17):
uniform that would puzzle investigators for decades to come. When
farm hand John Larson awoke to find soot on his
pillow on Christmas morning eighteen eighty five, he never imagined
he discovered his employer Patrick Rooney dead from smoke inhalation,
and his wife Matilda mysteriously burned to ash and a

(04:38):
perfectly circular hole in their kitchen floor, with no other
fire damage to the house. In the quiet town of
New London, Connecticut, what began as a simple flat tire
on Christmas Eve nineteen seventy three turned into one of
the community's darkest mysteries when twenty year old Kevin Showalter
was struck and killed by a driver who banned the night,

(05:01):
leaving behind a grieving mother, whispers of a cover up,
and questions that would haunt the town for decades. A
teenage girl's first office Christmas party should have been a
celebration of new beginnings, but for Ronda Hinson, it became
her last night alive and the start of a mystery
that would puzzle investigators for over forty years. A mother's

(05:25):
quick errand turns into a decade's old mystery when Tracy
Mertens vanishes from her Birmingham flat days before Christmas, leaving
investigators with a yellow Ford escort. Two mysterious men and
questions that remain unanswered to this day. But first, on
Christmas morning nineteen sixty four, the quiet town of Warminster,

(05:48):
England woke up to strange sounds that would mark the
beginning of one of history's most puzzling mysteries, a series
of unexplained events that would become known worldwide as The Thing.
We begin with that story. Now, bult your doors, lock
your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me

(06:12):
into the weird darkness. Everything started early on Christmas morning
nineteen sixty four in a quiet village of Warminster, England,

(06:32):
some fifteen miles from the famous Stonehenge monument. This small
town of ten thousand was about to become known all
over the world for something a little stranger. At one
twenty five am, a woman named Mildred Head was startled
awake by a strange noise. At first, she thought twigs

(06:52):
were scratching the top of her roof. Then the noise
intensified with the sound of giant heelstones beating down. It
was clear and calm outside her window that night, but
she heard a strange humming sound, growing louder and then
fading to a whisper. Missus Head wasn't the only one
hearing strange things that Christmas morning. Hours later, soldiers sleeping

(07:16):
at a camp nearby were jolted awake as if a
gigantic chimney had been ripped from the roof and scattered
across the camp. At six thirty am, Roger Rump and
his wife heard was sounded like all five thousand tiles
on their roof being lifted up and banging back down again.
At the same time, a woman named Marjorie By was
walking to church when she was floored by what she

(07:39):
said were savage sound waves. More than thirty people in
total described hearing the mysterious sounds that Christmas morning. Because
no one could see whatever was making the sounds, the
townspeople dubbed it the Thing. The surreal occurrences extended into
the new year. Come February nineteen sixty, a flock of

(08:01):
pigeons began dying off, dying off in droves. By June,
people started noticing strange things in the sky. These objects
were described differently by different witnesses. Some described seeing something
irridescent and cigar shaped with blinking lights. Others described spotting
what appeared to be twin red hot pokers hanging in

(08:23):
the sky. One even described witnessing something resembling a train
car with round windows that burned like flames. Words of
these strange doings spread rapidly. By August nineteen sixty five,
some eight thousand inquisitive visitors had arrived in Warminster hoping
to catch a glimpse of the thing themselves. When a

(08:45):
local man named Gordon Faulkner snapped a picture of what
he claimed was a flying saucer in September, the story
made the newspapers throughout England and even crossed over to America.
A local newspaper reporter, Arthur Shuttlewood, platted himself firmly in
the corner of the events. Initially, he was skeptical about
the stories, but came to believe that visitors from other

(09:06):
worlds were coming to Warminster and seeing something strange in
the sky himself. He wrote multiple books about the thing
and helped put the town on the map as a
place for UFO sightings. The town has since embraced its
newfound fame. Shops started selling UFO themed souvenirs, and people

(09:26):
gathered on nearby hills to watch the night sky. The
BBC even made a documentary about Warminster called Pie in
the Sky in nineteen sixty six. By the early nineteen seventies,
reports of bizarre sounds and images began to fade. Some
speculated that the strange happenings could have been due to
classified military experiments, given that a large military training area

(09:51):
was just down the road. Others felt something plainly beyond
explanation had occurred in Warminster. Today, no one really knows
what caused the odd events of Warminster, and a small
town mural painted in twenty fifteen depicting several UFOs flying
over the local landscape still connects the community with its

(10:13):
mysterious visitor. People still sometimes gather on hillsides around town
hoping to see mysterious lights in the sky, hoping for
a peak at the thing that once put their sleepy
town on the world map, and the Warminster thing itself.
It remains mysterious, with its truth known only to the

(10:35):
thing itself, but it should teach us that sometimes the
most intriguing mystique can spring forth from a Christmas morning
in an ordinary town. Coming up just two days before

(10:59):
Christmas nineteen ninety four, Tracy Mertens made a quick trip
to her old apartment to get some belongings, but what
happened next would become one of England's most haunting holiday mysteries. Plus,
a mysterious fire on Christmas Eve eighteen eighty five reduced
Matilda Ruiney to ashes in her own kitchen, leaving behind

(11:20):
only her burned feet in shoes and a puzzle that
has baffled investigators for over a century. How could a
blaze hot enough to incinerate a human body leave the
rest of the farmhouse virtually untouched? And on a cold
December night in nineteen eighty one, nineteen year old Ronda

(11:40):
Hinson left her first office Christmas party with dreams of
the future ahead, but she never made it home. Forty
years later, the mystery of who killed the bright young
tennis star just half a mile from her parents' house
remains unsolved. These stories and more when Weird Darkness anywaredos

(12:14):
If you enjoy the narrations that I bring you throughout
the year. I'd like to ask for a Christmas favor
this month, Please ask two or three people you know
to give Weird Darkness a listen. It's the perfect time
to share some holiday stories with people you know who
typically love paranormal and true crime content. Plus, you'll be
helping Weird Darkness grow, which is the best Christmas gift

(12:35):
you could ever present to me. Drop a link to
the show or a favorite episode in your social media.
Maybe send a text to a few people to wish
them a very scary Christmas, along with a link to
the website. Email a coworker or two and give them
something even more terrifying than the annual performance review they receive.
Those always scared me. However, you share the show with others,

(12:56):
please know it makes a world of difference and I
appreciate it more than you know. From all of us
here at Weird Darkness, Robin myself and Pumpkin Spice. Robin
calls are pumpkin butt, but that's only because Pumpkin doesn't
understand the English language. Have a very merry Christmas. It

(13:26):
was December nineteen ninety four and Tracy Mertens was starting over.
It was just a few months into twenty twenty one,
and the thirty one year old mother of two had
recently returned to Rochdale, England with their longtime boyfriend Joey
Cavanaugh and their children. They had been based in Birmingham,
but Tracy wanted a fresh start. It turned out a

(13:47):
trip back to Birmingham which spark a case that remains
one of the most mysterious in the region's history. Two
days before Christmas, on December twenty third, Tracy returned to
their former Birmingham Ham flat. She had come to retrieve
a few belongings and important papers they had left behind.
Tracy had been in the flat for all of ten

(14:08):
minutes when someone knocked on the door. When she opened it,
two men pushed their way inside, asking where Joey was.
The men made off in a distinctive yellow Ford escort
featuring silver paneled sides and a stuffed toy in the
rear window. With Tracy, they drove seventy miles to a
location in a town called Eton and Cheshire, where they

(14:31):
dumped Tracy badly injured, at the steps of a church.
She was discovered by a passer by who summoned help.
Shortly before she died early Christmas Eve morning. Tracy was
able to describe to the police what the men looked like.
They were both black men in their early thirties who
were heavy set. She said they wore brown leather baseball

(14:52):
caps and black leather coats as she heard them speaking
a language she could not understand, which police believe may
have been Petois. The police were determined to track down
her killer, interviewing members of Tracy's family on Christmas Day
to try to piece together what had happened. They interviewed
more than two thousand people and obtained eighteen hundred statements.

(15:15):
They found out that Joey, Tracy's boyfriend, had been using
drugs and owed some people money, but he always insisted
he had nothing to do with what happened to Tracy.
Tracy's sister Sharon recalled that Tracy had been behaving erradically
some months before she died. In the summer of nineteen
ninety four, Tracy had come to spend a few weeks

(15:35):
with her sister Linda. She looked and acted frightened of
something and was taking inexplicable measures to secure herself, taping
shut the letterbox, taping the windows, but After a couple
of weeks, she returned home to Birmingham. Sharon thinks Tracy
wouldn't tell the man where Joey was because she thought
her children were with him. She was trying to keep

(15:57):
them safe. Tracy was described as a doting mom who
lived for her children. She worked as a lunch lady
at a school and was known as a fun, shatty
person who was beloved by her family. A thirty thousand
pounds reward was offered by police for information leading to
a breakthrough in the case. They arrested someone in Birmingham

(16:17):
in nineteen ninety five who they believed could be responsible,
but they felt they did not have enough evidence to confirm.
Only today, decades later, the police are searching for the
people who injured Tracy. Crispus has never been the same
for Tracy's family. Her sister, Sharon says the holiday always
reminds her of Tracy and the awful thing that happened

(16:39):
to her, But the police have not lost hope. Detective
Superintendent to Guy Hindel says Tracy's case remains an active
investigation and new leads are being pursued. Although the case
remains unsolved, Police still hopes someone will step forward with
information that can help them discover who hurt Tracy Mertens

(17:01):
and why. On December twenty fourth, eighteen eighty five, very
strange things happened at a farmhouse in Seneca, Illinois. What

(17:25):
began as an ordinary holiday night would become one of
history's most baffling puzzlements. Patrick and Matilda Rooney were celebrating
Christmas Eve with their farm hand, John Larson. After some
drinks together, Larson went up to bed that night. He
woke up coughing with difficulty breathing, but eventually fell back asleep.

(17:47):
But the next morning, Larson saw something unusual, black soot
on his pillow. When he went downstairs to check on
his employers, he found something disturbing. Patrick Rooney was dead
in the bedroom, but his wife Matilda was missing. Then
Larsen looked into the kitchen and saw something horrible, a

(18:07):
huge blackened hole in the floor. In that hole were
ashes and what appeared to be a burned human foot.
This was all that remained of Matilda Rooney. When doctor
Floyd Clint Dennen showed up to investigate, he found more clues.
There was an odd odor in the house and greasy

(18:29):
soot on the walls. There was a candle in the
kitchen that was partially burned on the table. He found
some bones in the charred hole in the floor, including
a skull and two burned feet, which remained in Matilda's shoes.
What was peculiar was that while missus Rooney had weighed
roughly one hundred and sixty pounds when alive, all of

(18:49):
her that remained was twelve pounds of ash and bone.
The mystery grew when investigators noticed something odd. Aside from
the hole where Matilda's body had lane, nothing else in
the house burned. How could a fire reach temperatures hot
enough to burn a person into ashes around twenty five
hundred degrees fahrenheit and not burn the entire house down.

(19:14):
It may have been murder, some people theorized, and both
John Larson and the Rooney's son John emerged as suspects,
but Larson's story did not hold up. There was an
outline of his body in the bed where he had
been sleeping, indicating he had not budged all night. Larson
died two weeks later of inhaling the same smoke that

(19:35):
had killed Patrick Rooney. Scientists and doctors formulated various theories
to explain what had happened. Some thought it was spontaneous
human combustion, the notion that someone might burst into flames
for no reason at all. Others theorized that Missus Rooney
had accidentally been set on fire by the candle on
the table, perhaps when she was lighting a cigarette. It

(19:58):
was just as likely that she and her husband, who
were drinking, had not reacted quickly enough to extinguish the fire.
One theory proposed that after Missus Rooney's clothes ignited, her
body fat may have served as a candlewick, which would
keep the fire burning but limited to her body alone.
This phenomenon is known as the wick effect, and some

(20:20):
scientists believe it can explain other puzzling cases similar to
this one. Missus Rooney's was not the only case of
its kind. Two hundred similar incidents around the world have
been reported of individuals found turned to ash while their
surroundings remained largely intact. Scientists nowadays don't think it's possible

(20:41):
for people to spontaneously combust, but they are still not
entirely sure how the fires that consume them can burn
so hot while remaining so contained. The truth of what
actually happened to Matilda Rooney on that Christmas Eve is
a mystery. Modern scientists will tell tell you there had
to be something that sparks the flame. Humans don't just

(21:04):
spontaneously combust, but they still cannot fully explain why such
an intense fire apparently burned only one person while leaving
everything else almost untouched. More than a century later, the
peculiar story of missus Rooney's fire remains a mystery, and

(21:24):
probably will for many Christmases to come. Nineteen year old
Ronda Hinson was looking forward to a Christmas office party
in December nineteen eighty one. She had recently graduated from

(21:47):
high school in Valdis, North Carolina, and was working as
a clerical employee at a steel company. Ronda had been
a lively young woman and an excellent tennis player in
high school with many friends. That night, December twenty second,
Ronda went to the company party with some friends. She
exited the festivities with two girl friends at midnight. After

(22:10):
dropping them off, she started the ten mile drive to
her parents' home where she lived. But something terrible was coming.
Judy Henson woke up suddenly at one a m in fear.
She experienced a weird sense that something was wrong with
her daughter. She soon found her hunch was correct. Ronda's

(22:30):
car was discovered just half a mile from home, and
Ronda was lying next to it on the ground. She
had been killed. Police later learned that someone had shot
Ronda with a high powered rifle. The bullet had been
powerful enough to pass through the trunk of the car,
through her car seat, and into her heart. Initially, Rodriguez

(22:51):
and Evans wondered if Ronda had just been the victim
of a random attack, but after digging a little deeper,
they started finding signs that suggested someone who knew her
might have done her harm. In the weeks leading up
to her death, Ronda had been acting out of sorts.
She began asking her father Bobby, to accompany her when
she drove into town, though she generally preferred driving alone.

(23:14):
Once she looked as though she wished to tell her
father something significant, but she didn't. She had also asked
her mother if it was acceptable to date a married man,
which was so not like her. There were now witnesses
who had observed some suspicious cars on the night that
Ronda died. Between twelve fifteen and twelve thirty am, a

(23:35):
witness spotted a blue Chevrolet parked by the side of
the road that Ronda would travel by on the way home.
Inside the car sat two men. Later, another witness passed
the area where Ronda lay, a similar blue car sped away.
In both instances, Ronda's car was parked with someone standing
next to it. The witness thought the individuals might have

(23:56):
been intoxicated and drove away. To enhance it's her memory.
The police had this witness hypnotized. The witness recalled under
hypnosis that the blue auto was a Chevelle from around
nineteen seventy with some gray primer paint on it. They
also recalled spotting another car, a black or dark blue Transam,
parked nearby. The witness described the man that they had

(24:19):
seen as approximately six feet tall with dark brown hair.
It's been many years since that terrible Christmas party, but
Ronda's family still grieves her dearly. Her mother has preserved
Ronda's room just as it was in her life, with
her old baby doll and tennis trophies still displayed. A
phrase echoing on Ronda's grave marker is always a ray

(24:42):
of sunshine. Something her parents believe did their daughter justice.
The question of who killed Ronda Henson has never been solved.
The police continue to offer a twenty thousand dollars reward
for information that leads to solving the case, but hope
all but fit aids with each passing year, and with
it the hope that somebody somewhere will come forward with

(25:06):
the information needed to explain what happened to the bright
young woman who never made it home after her first
office Christmas party. When We're Darkness returns. On Christmas Eve,

(25:28):
nineteen seventy three, twenty year old Kevin Showalter was killed
by a hidden run driver while changing a flat tire
in New London, Connecticut, sparking a decade's long mystery that
would implicate a former mayor, prompt a false confession, and
leave a mother searching tirelessly for justice that never came.
And when Detective Rosekin gets a twenty year old missing

(25:51):
person case just before Christmas, he uncovers a web of
secrets that leads to a chilling final letter and a
mystery that may never be solved. But first, a happy
Christmas celebration in small town, Texas ends in murder when
a woman is found dead and her boyfriend and his
young son mysteriously vanish, leaving behind only a truck full

(26:15):
of bloodied presents and a desperate phone call begging for help.
That story is up next. Ebenezer Scrooge learned the lesson

(26:39):
in just one night that it is more blessed to
give than to receive. Of course, it took three ghosts
scarying the crap out of him to get the point across.
But there's an easier and less terrifying way of going
about it. Just scare it forward. The next time you're
in a drive through buying fast food, donuts, or coffee,
tell the attendant you want to pay for the person
behind you. In fact, you can miss a weirddarkness dot

(27:02):
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to give to the drive through worker that they can
pass on to the person behind you in line so
you don't have to explain everything. It's a great way
to bring a little joy to someone during the holiday season,
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(27:22):
it forward. Get started at Weirddarkness dot com slash scare
it forward. That's Weirddarkness dot com slash scare it Forward.
What should have been a joyful Christmas celebration turned into

(27:45):
a tragic mystery for the small town of Lockhart, Texas.
In December nineteen ninety four, Latricia White, a thirty eight
year old nurse, was celebrating the holiday with her boyfriend
Lee Dub Wackerhagen and his nine year old son Chance.
The three were last spotted enjoying themselves at a local
restaurant just days after Christmas, but everything fell apart in

(28:07):
a way that went very wrong. When Latricia failed to
come to work or call in her father, Jack White,
began to worry. On December twenty seventh, he checked on
her and horrifyingly discovered his daughter in her bedroom shot
six times with a twenty two caliber gun, and even
stranger Dub and Chance had gone missing. Initially, the police

(28:30):
believed Dub may have murdered Latricia in a rage. Those
who knew him said he had a bad temper and
was often jealous. A few days before Christmas, he and
Latricia had had a big fight over Chance, and Dub
threatened to leave, but the pair appeared to have patched
things up, as they were spotted sharing a restaurant meal
happily together. Soon after. Three days after Latricia's body was discovered,

(28:55):
police found Dub's pickup truck parked out in a field
about thirty miles away. What they discovered inside only deepened
the mystery of the case. There were Dub's wallet, check book,
and hunting rifle which had never been fired. In the
rear were crispus presents, some still wrapped stained with blood.

(29:16):
Tests revealed the blood was not Latricia's, indicating some one
else had been injured. The case took another bizarre twist
four months later, when Chance's grandfather answered a call from
a young boy who said, helped me before the line
went dead. The grandfather thought it was Chance, but loyal
friends thought it more likely a cruel prank. Dubb's family

(29:39):
believes he and Chance were murdered by some one they knew.
Latricia's family and the police, however, believed that Latricia was
killed by Dub, who is on the run with his son.
Years later, investigators uncovered evidence that Dub and Chance were
in fact victims themselves, but the case remains unsolved to
this day. The mystery of what really happened that Christmas

(30:02):
in Lockhart lives on a nurse, her boyfriend, and his
young son were spending the holidays together. Then one was dead,
two others vanished for good, leaving only blood soaked Christmas
gifts and a lot of unanswered questions. Kevin Showalter was

(30:28):
a young man driving home to New London, Connecticut, on
Christmas Eve in nineteen seventy three, after visiting his relatives.
It was an uneventful night and no one could have
predicted a tragic end. Kevin pulled over to the side
of the road to fix the flat tire on his car.
This simple action would be his last. Kevin was busy

(30:50):
changing the tire, and soon a car approached him from behind.
The driver hit Kevin and left the scene, leaving the
twenty year old severely injured on the paper. By the
time help got there, Kevin had died, hit by someone
who had never stopped to help or even call for help.
The police began investigating immediately, but they had few leads.

(31:13):
There was little physical evidence at the scene, and no
witnesses stepped forward to say what they had seen. As
the townsfolks speculated. Some began to wonder if someone was
trying to hide the truth. Kevin's mother, Lorraine Showalter, refused
to allow her son's death to be lost to memory.
She urged the police to treat the case seriously and

(31:34):
continued looking for answers about who had murdered her son.
She didn't back down even when the investigation appeared to
lead nowhere. Two years after Kevin's death, police received an
interesting tip. An anonymous tipster told them, of all people,
that Charles C. O'Neill, the former mayor of New London,

(31:55):
could have been the driver who hit Kevin. This was
big news because O'Neill was a big figure around town.
The police looked into O'Neill's whereabouts on the night Kevin died,
but did not find enough evidence to charge him with
the crime. What it seemed like the case might never
be solved, something unexpected occurred. One man stepped forward and

(32:17):
said that he was the one who had hit Kevin,
but when police investigated his account, they learned he was
not truthful. His admission only further complicated the case. The
case went unsolved for almost a decade. Lorraine Showalter began
to suspect that influential people in town were keeping the
truth from coming out. Then came a glimmer of hope.

(32:40):
In nineteen eighty four, police announced they would revisit the investigation.
They re examined all the evidence and interviewed witnesses one
more time. They also re examined whether the former mayor
O'Neill had been involved. But despite this new investigation, the
mystery remained unsolved. Eventually, people in New London began to

(33:02):
lose interest in the case. Kevin's family always remembered. They
kept asking the questions, was Kevin's death a true accident
or did someone strike him on purpose? Was someone covering
up what really happened. Police speculated that the driver could
have been under the influence of drink or drugs that night.

(33:23):
Others speculated whether someone had motive to harm Kevin, but
after so many years, no one could say for certain
what had unfolded. Today, his case is still unsolved. We
still don't know who was behind the wheel of the
car that struck him that Christmas Eve. Even with a
dozen investigators and leads over the years, Kevin's family has

(33:46):
never given up searching for answers. Detective Jeff Rosekin wasn't
ready for another missing person case. They were already enough

(34:10):
in Las Vegas, where people arrived and departed like desert winds.
But there was something different about this one. It was
of a little girl named Nicole, who had gone missing
twenty years earlier. The story began in nineteen seventy seven. Nicole,
aged two, lived in Michigan with her father, Jarrett Betterson. Jarrett,

(34:31):
who had been driving, had killed her mother, Susan Klingell,
in a car accident. Shortly thereafter, Jarrett met a woman
named Barbara, and together they planted a stake out in
the western part of the country. They assured Nichole's grandparents,
the Klingels, that they would care for her well. I'm
going to be a good mother to Nicole, Barbara had
promised as they bid farewell. Through tears, the Klingels watched

(34:55):
as their granddaughters slipped from their lives. They had already
lost their daughter Susan, and were now losing their only grandchild.
Photos were all they had left of a smiling little
girl with curly black hair, dressed in a red and
white dress with a ribbon. Twenty years passed, the elderly
Klingels had wanted to locate their granddaughter, who would be

(35:17):
an adult by now. They engaged a private investigator who
tracked down Jarrett and Barbara, living in a tiny apartment
in Las Vegas, but Nicole was nowhere to be found.
It was as if she had vanished into thin air.
Soon after departing Michigan in nineteen seventy eight, Detective Rosegen
turned to a trick to try and get a confession.

(35:39):
He visited the Bettersons and pretended that he knew what
happened to Nicole. I know what happened to your daughter,
he said to Jarrett. It'll go a lot easier on
you if you tell us the whole story. The plan
seemed to work. Jarrett, who's now in a wheelchair, was frightened.
He said he would explain it all in a few weeks.
But before he could tell the truth, he and Barbara

(36:01):
made an awful decision. They wrote one last letter to
Jared's mother, enclosing money for her cremation. We should be
dead by the time you get this, Barbara wrote, I'm
sorry about so much, though it's been a sad and
difficult life. When police discovered them, in their apartment, Barbara
was clutching a Bible and a red rose. They had

(36:23):
preferred to take their secret to their graves rather than
answer questions about what had happened to Nicole. The mystery
of what happened to the little girl has never been solved.
Did she make it to Las Vegas, did she end
up with another family somewhere along the line, or was
an even worse fate suffered along that long trip west?

(36:45):
The police may never know. The only thing left now
is a mystery that has haunted two families for more
than twenty years, amid hundreds of others. At the Las
Vegas Police Department is Detective Rosekin's file on Nicole, inside
our outdated accident reports, police photos, and investigation notes. But
the thing we really need is absent an explanation of

(37:08):
what exactly happened to a smiling two year old girl
who vanished on a winter's day in nineteen seventy seven.
Coming up on weird darkness, a mother of three vanishes

(37:31):
on Christmas Day, leaving behind a recently cleaned van, traces
of blood, and a question that would haunt her Texas
town for more than twenty five years. What really happened
to Patty Vaughan and then behind one of the most
beloved Christmas poems of all time lies a century's old mystery.

(37:51):
Was Twas the Night Before Christmas written by a serious
Bible professor for his children? Or did someone else create
the story that would forever shape how we imagine Santa
Claus who truly was the author of Twas the Night
before Christmas? Something terrible happened on Christmas Day in nineteen

(38:31):
ninety six in a small town in Lavernia, Texas. Thirty
two years old and mother to three kids, Patty Vaughan
left her house and never came home. No one knew
at the time that it would soon become one of
texas most enigmatic mysteries. Hatty was struggling with some tough
changes in her life. She and her husband, j R.

(38:52):
Vaughan had separated two months before she vanished. Patty was
seeing a new guy. She was trying to have a
new beginning, but on December twenty fifth, after she drove
away from her house in her blue Dodge Caravan, Patty
appeared to disappear. Patty's van was discovered the following day,
abandoned on the shoulder of a highway approximately fifteen miles

(39:14):
from her home. Something didn't look right. One of the
van's front tires was deflated, and someone had recently vacuumed
the inside carpet of the van. The blood, a red
work uniform with the letters j M on it, and
a heap of clothes were discovered by police. Oddly, Patty's
keys and purse were missing. Investigators made even more disturbing

(39:38):
discoveries when they searched Patty's house. They discovered blood in
several locations on the walls and the floor of her bedroom,
inside her closet, and in the bathroom. Someone had attempted
to clean up the blood before the police arrived. Tests
conducted later indicated that the blood was Patty's. In twenty twelve,

(40:00):
twelve years later, scientists tested more things from Patty's van
and found DNA from another woman. The police believe they
do know the identity of this woman, but they require
more evidence before they can look into her. Further speculation
started to circle around Patty's husband, Jr. As Being the
focus on the case. The same day cops discovered Patty's van, Jr.

(40:24):
Filed for divorce. He returned to their house soon after
Patty went missing, but then left Texas and moved to Colorado.
He maintained that he had nothing to do with Patty's
disappearance and that he believed she had left on her
own accord. Patty Wallace, Patty's mother, became so convinced of
Jr's involvement that she got herself into serious trouble. In

(40:47):
February nineteen ninety seven, she was arrested for trespassing into
Jr's home and attacking him with a baseball bat. She
was distraught over her daughter's disappearance, and the charges against
her were later dropped. Inquiry dragged on for years. That
was when police cleared an intriguing location, the concrete foundation

(41:07):
of a school in Natalia, Texas, where jr. Had worked
at the time Patty vanished. They searched behind the school gymnasium,
where they thought Patty's remains might be buried in the concrete,
but didn't find anything. No one knows what happened to
Patty Vaughan on that Christmas Day, more than twenty five
years ago. The Bexer County Sheriff's Office continues to search

(41:29):
for answers. They're offering a three thousand dollars reward for
someone who can give information that helps them solve the case.
Almost everyone knows the popular Christmas poem twas the night

(41:53):
before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature
was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung
by the chimney with care, in hopes that Saint Nicholas
soon would be there. The children were nestled, all snug
in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced in
their heads. And Mama in her kerchief, and I in
my cap, had just settled our brains for a long

(42:16):
winter's nap, went out on the lawn. There arose such
a clatter. I sprang from my bed to see what
was the matter. Away to the window. I flew like
a flash, tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow
gave a luster of midday. Two objects below. When what
to my wondering eyes did appear but a miniature sleigh,

(42:40):
an eight tiny reindeer with a little old driver. So
lively and quick I knew in a moment he must
be Saint Nick. More rapid than eagles, his coursers. They came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name.
Now Dasher, now dancer, now prancer, and vixen, on comet on,
cure on, donder and blitzen, to the top of the porch,

(43:03):
to the top of the wall. Now dash away, dash away,
dash away, all as leaves that before the wild hurricane
fly when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the housetop. The coursers they flew with
the sleigh full of toys, and Saint Nicholas too. And
then in a twinkling I heard on the roof the

(43:24):
prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew
in my head and was turning around down the chimney,
Saint Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all
in fur from his head to his foot, and his
clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle
of toys he had flung on his back, and he
looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes,

(43:45):
how they twinkled, His dimples, how merry, his cheeks were
like roses, his nose like a cherry, His droll little
mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the beard
on his chin was as white as the snow. The
stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke and encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly

(44:07):
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his
head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his
work and filled all the stockings. Then turned with a jerk,

(44:28):
and laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving
a nod up the chimney, he rose. He sprang to
his sleigh, to his team, gave a whistle, and away
they all flew like the down of a thistle. But
I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

(44:52):
A poem beloved by children and parents alike for more
than two hundred years. But this poem a visit from
Saint nick known popularly as Twas the Night Before Christmas
has a mystery attached to it, a mystery about who
actually wrote it. The poem was originally published anonymously in

(45:12):
a New York newspaper, The Troy Sentinel, on December twenty third,
eighteen twenty three. Nobody knew the name of their author,
the person who wrote the beloved lines about Santa Claus
and his eight tiny reindeer. Then twenty one years later,
in eighteen forty four, a professor named Clement Clarke Moore
did claim authorship. Moore said that he wrote the poem,

(45:33):
which was written under the title A Visit from Saint
Nicholas for his children. He said he had modeled a
description of Santa Claus on a poorly rubicond Dutchman who
lived in his neighborhood. But some say another wrote the
beloved Christmas poem. Henry Livingston Junior, who died in eighteen
twenty eight, was the real author. His family claims. According

(45:56):
to them, Livingstone would read the poem to his children
around Christmas of a eighteen o eight, several years before
it was ever published. Clu I of this mystery is
the names of Santa's last two reindeer. In the original
newspaper version, he had called them dunder and blixum, which
is Dutch for thunder and lightning. Those were revised to

(46:19):
donder and blitzen, German words with the same meaning. Others
argue that because Livingstone knew Dutch and Moore did not,
this demonstrates that Livingstone authored the poem. The mystery has
been examined by scholars over decades who poured through documents
from the era and evaluated writing styles. Some say Moore,

(46:41):
a serious Bible scholar, would never have written so playful
a children's poem, but others note that Moore wrote other
poems for his children and grandchildren that demonstrated he was
capable of fun. In two thousand, a professor named Donald
d Wayne Foster wrote a book about the case and
found out evidence that Livingstone was most likely the real author,

(47:03):
but his findings are in heavy dispute among historians. All
the physical evidence, including handwritten versions of the poem, as
well as statements from Moore's friends and acquaintances, points to
him as the true author. The officials said, today, over
two hundred years after it was first published, we still
can't say for certain who wrote Twas the Night Before Christmas.

(47:26):
The one thing is certain, whoever wrote it did so
to give us one of the most beloved Christmas stories
of all time, shaping the way we picture Santa Claus
and his magical Christmas Eve journey, and sometimes a Christmas
mystery is worth keeping. Thanks for listening. If you like

(47:59):
the show, please share it with someone you know who
loves the paranormal or strained stories, true crime, monsters, or
unsolved mysteries like you do. All stories used in Weird
Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and
you can find links to the author's stories and sources
I used in the episode description as well as on
the website at weird darkness dot com. Weird Darkness is

(48:22):
a registered trademark copyright Weird Darkness. And now that we're
coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a
little light John one, verse fourteen. So the word became
human and made his home among us. He was full
of unfailing love and faithfulness, and we have seen his glory,
the glory of the Father's one and only son. And

(48:46):
a final thought, God never gives someone a gift they
are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the
gift of Christmas, it's because we all have the ability
to understand and receive it, Pope Francis. And a final
final thought, the Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot
have a Nativity scene in Washington, d C. This wasn't

(49:08):
for any religious reasons. They just couldn't find three wise men.
Jay Leno. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in
the weird darkness.

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