True Thanksgiving Horrors: Unsolved Murders, Cold Case Crimes & Mysterious Disappearances

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
As families across the United States meet up to celebrate Thanksgiving,
there's another side to the beloved holiday, one filled with
senseless killings, spooky disappearances, unsolved murders, and cold cases that
have plagued communities for decades. From the infamous skyjacking of D. B.

(00:25):
Cooper on Thanksgiving Eve in nineteen seventy one to the
heartbreaking disappearance of the Skelton Brothers in twenty ten, the
holiday season has been marked by cases that still baffle
investigators and haunt families. These stories stretch across decades, even
into the last century, and take place across the country.

(00:46):
A federal public defender found strangled in Portland, a rapper
shot dead outside his mother's house in New Orleans, a
game warden killed while patrolling in nineteen nineteen, and countless
others who disappeared without a trace or have been the
victims of crime. Taking place on what should be a
joyous day of family and feasting. For many families still

(01:10):
awaiting closure, the Thanksgiving holiday is an agonizing reminder of
those lost to unsolved mystery. I'm Darren Marler and this
is weird Darkness. Welcome weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this

(01:36):
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. While the rest of
Americans are at home with their families, eating turkey and

(01:59):
enjoy annual celebrations, Thanksgiving has a darker side. We may
often overlook this truth because it's rarely discussed at the
Thanksgiving table. Every Thanksgiving Day, there are some tragic and
mysterious incidents. Many of these unfathomably awful things are never explained,
whether it's murders, gory accidents, or strange vanishings during the night.

(02:24):
These true life, unexplained mysteries and horrendous crimes might make
excellent dinner table conversation, assuming you were dining with other
weirdos like yourself. We'll talk about the year we had
two Thanksgivings in the United States. A weirdo family member
shares a freaky true Thanksgiving story with an explosive ending.

(02:49):
Two brothers solve an almost two hundred year old murder
mystery thanks to a Thanksgiving ghost story that was told
to them by their grandfather and I'll share a horrific
Thanksgiving tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century.
The Hotel del Coronado in San Diego is one of

(03:10):
the most beautiful hotels in the world and some say
the most haunted. On November nineteenth, nineteen twenty four, Hollywood
movie producer Thomas Einz died after celebrating his forty second
birthday aboard a yacht belonging to infamous newspaper publisher William
Randolph Hurst. But to this day, the exact circumstances of

(03:31):
his death remain a mystery. Could this be why his
ghost still wanders the movie studio that he founded. On
the night of November twentieth, nineteen oh one, a young
North Carolina woman named Nell Cropsy vanished from her family's
home in Elizabeth City. After a frantic search that lasted
more than a month, Nell's body was discovered floating in

(03:54):
a nearby river. She had been brutally murdered, but by who.
On November twenty third, nineteen ten, American born homeopathic physician
and salesman Hally Harvey Crippen, usually known simply as doctor
Crippen in crime mantles was hanged at Pentonville Prison in
London for the murder of his wife, Cora, But was

(04:16):
he really a murderer. While the Holidays are usually a
time of cheer and happiness, the people of Chicago learned
of a Christmas related tragedy on November twenty second, nineteen twelve,
when the famed Christmas Tree ship went down in a
storm on Lake Michigan. The tragedy changed the face of
the holidays for the people of Chicago in a very

(04:38):
unexpected way, and later it's the original short horror story
of fiction entitled Black Friday by horror writer Jason R. Davis. Now,
bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird dark. Yes, the

(05:09):
afternoon before Thanksgiving nineteen seventy one, a mysterious man in
a dark suit and black tie boarded Northwest Airlines flight
three oh five in Portland. He looked like a typical
business executive and gave his name as Dan Cooper, though
the media would later mistakenly dub him dB Cooper, a

(05:30):
name that would stick in public memory. During a flight
to Seattle, Cooper revealed a bomb in his briefcase to
a flight attendant, initiating what would become the only unsolved
hijacking in US history. After landing in Seattle, he calmly
negotiated his demands two hundred thousand dollars in cash, four parachutes,

(05:52):
and food for the crew. Once his requests were met,
he released all passengers, keeping only three pilots and one
flight attendant aboard. The plane took off again in light
rain and darkness, heading south with the marked bills. About
forty five minutes after takeoff, Cooper sent the flight attendant
to join the pilots and the cockpit. He then donned

(06:14):
a parachute, tied the bag of twenty dollars bills to himself,
and lowered the rear stairs. Somewhere north of Portland. He
jumped into the night, leaving behind only his black tie.
The military response was substantial. Jets, helicopters, and even a
C one thirty aircraft had followed Cooper's plane. In the

(06:36):
days that followed, approximately one thousand troops searched the suspected
jump zone. The FBI even had a Boeing seven to
twenty seven conduct tests over the ocean, dropping weights from
the lowered stairs to determine Cooper's likely jump point. They
went so far as to deploy an SR seventy one
spy plane to photograph the entire flight path, but Cooper

(07:00):
had vanished without a trace. The case took an unexpected
turn in nineteen eighty when a young boy named Brian
Ingram made a startling discovery. While digging a fire pit
in the sand at Tina Bar along the Columbia River,
just north of Portland. He unearthed three bundles of cash,
still bound with rubber bands, totaling fifty eight hundred dollars.

(07:21):
The serial numbers matched Cooper's ransom money, the first piece
of evidence to surface since the hijacking. The location of
the money, about twenty miles from the FBI's suspected drop
zone near Ariel, Washington, sparked intense debate. Various theories emerged.
Did the money washed down through smaller rivers to the Columbia.

(07:43):
Was the FBI's flight path wrong. Did Cooper or someone
else deliberately bury the money there to mislead investigators. The
mystery deepened when doctor Leonard Palmer, a Portland State University geologist,
analyzed the sandbar. His report suggested the money was buried
in a layer of sand deposited by dredging in nineteen

(08:04):
seventy four, implying the money had been somewhere else for years. However,
the intact rubber bands on the bundles seemed to contradict
this timeline. In two thousand and seven, FBI Special Agent
Larry Carr reopened the case with a novel approach, treating
it like a bank robbery and releasing previously unknown details

(08:25):
to the public. This sparked renewed interest and led to
the formation of the Cooper Research Team in two thousand
and eight. To this day, fierce debates continue about whether
Cooper survived the jump, his level of skydiving expertise, and
his true identity. The case is inspired books, movies, and songs,
transforming Cooper into a folk legend. Despite countless theories and

(08:50):
suspects over the decades, the true identity of dB Cooper
and the full story of what happened that Thanksgiving Eve
remain a mystery. Kelsey Bareth, a twenty nine year old
flight instructor and mother from Woodland Park, Colorado, was last

(09:12):
seen shopping at a local grocery store with her one
year old daughter on November twenty second, twenty eighteen. She
was seen in surveillance footage walking into the store around noon.
That day, she exchanged custody of her daughter with her fiancee,
Patrick Frazy. This was the last known sighting of Bareth.
The days after her disappearance, Bareth's phone sent a text

(09:35):
to her employer saying that she would not be going
to work for a week. Her mother reported her missing
on December second, after losing touch with her. Police later
determined that Bareth's cell phone pinged near Gooding, Idaho, on
November twenty fifth, indicating that it had made a journey
from Colorado. The investigation eventually showed that Frazy had asked

(09:56):
his former girlfriend, Crystal Lee Kenney to caire Bill Beareth
at least twice. Kenneth testified that on Thanksgiving Day, Phrasey
had fatally struck Bareth with a baseball bat inside her townhouse,
then burned her body on his property. Kenneth H. Kenny
pleaded guilty to cleaning the crime scene and disposing of
Bareth's cell phone in Idaho to mislead investigators. Prasey was

(10:20):
convicted in November twenty nineteen a first degree murder and
was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole plus one hundred and fifty six years. Kenny pleaded
guilty to evidence tampering and got three years in prison.
Searches for Bareth's remains have turned up nothing. The case

(10:41):
gained national attention, raising awareness of domestic violence and the
difficulty of prosecuting murder cases when no body has been found.
In honor of Bareth's legacy, her family honors her memory
and as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse. Fifty

(11:01):
three year old Paul Joseph Knackle of Dubuque, Iowa, mysteriously
disappeared in mid November nineteen ninety. He last contacted family
on November twelfth, and a relative believes he saw as
maroon nineteen eighty one Mercury Zephyr parked along US Route
one fifty one near the Dubukee, Wisconsin Bridge on November thirteenth.

(11:22):
His family reported him missing on November twenty fifth, after
he did not show up for the family's Thanksgiving dinner
or go to work at the Swiss Colony mail order
gift warehouse in Monroe, Wisconsin. Extensive searches did not locate
Nakel or his vehicle for more than three decades. On
October twelfth, twenty twenty three, Newton Marine Service employees dredging

(11:45):
the Mississippi River at the Hawthorne Boat Ramp found a
submerged vehicle. That vehicle, a nineteen eighty one Mercury Zephyr,
belonged to Knackl. The vehicle was processed by investigators and
no human remains were located inside. Paul Knuckel is still missing.

(12:12):
Nancy berguson fifty seven, an assistant federal public defender in Portland, Oregon,
was discovered dead in her home in southwest Portland on
November twenty sixth, two thousand and nine. At first, authorities
thought she died of natural causes because there were no
obvious signs of trauma, but an autopsy later found that
she had been strangled two days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day,

(12:34):
likely with a soft object like a scarf. From the beginning,
the investigation encountered major obstacles. The initial assumption of a
natural death also meant the crime scene was not immediately secured,
possibly losing crucial evidence. Despite considerable resources dedicated to the case,
the investigation did not lead anywhere for close to a decade.

(12:57):
A major breakthrough came in January nineteen when Portland police
arrested twenty eight year old Christopher Alexander Williamson in an
unrelated crime in Portland while investigating Berguson's murder. Authorities did
not provide details on how Williamson was connected to the crime,
but they said someone had called a tip line and
that cooperation among agencies was key in Williamson's arrest. Williamson

(13:21):
pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and burglary in March
twenty twenty. He was given a sentence of fifteen years
in prison. Medical evidence showed that Williamson had a genetic
disorder that would result in a life expectancy of less
than ten years, an element that weighed on the sentencing decision.
Berguson's family supported the plea agreement and expressed hope for

(13:42):
justice and closure after years of uncertainty. Nancy Berguson's tragic
passing shook her community with her clients. She was a
passionate advocate and she was a dedicated public servant. Her
colleagues were called The Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association created
a lecture series in her honor. The Nancy Bergesson Ardent

(14:03):
Advocate lecture series to embody her spirit and serve as
an inspiration for future defense attorneys and the battle for justice.
The case being resolved brought some degree of closure, but
also shown a light on the complications and challenges that
came with investigating a homicide, particularly where early assessments can
prove fatal in the wrong way. The night before Thanksgiving

(14:39):
in twenty fifteen, Maria Isabelle Elizalde disappeared from her Dallas house,
leaving her family with questions that still have no answers.
Years later, Maria, a fifteen year old biracial teenage girl
with both Hispanic and Native American heritage, have been playing
outside with her younger sisters and some neighborhood kids seven

(15:00):
thirty pm. Her stepfather noticed the children playing outside around
nine pm, but when their mother, Kathleen Rodriguez, called them
inside a short time later, Maria did not follow her
sister's back in. Maria had only just moved to live
with her mother in Dallas. Most of her life, she
had lived with her grandmother in Mexico, but she had
moved back to Texas roughly a year before her disappearance.

(15:22):
After allegations of sexual abuse by a relative in Mexico.
She finished before fleeing home once in a fit of anger,
but only for a day, not this drawn out absence.
Maria was five feet tall one hundred forty pounds when
she went missing. She had brown hair with distinct blue
dyed ends, and was wearing a blue sweater, blue jeans,

(15:44):
and high heeled shoes that night. According to the police,
a distinguishing characteristic as a scar that runs through her
right eyebrow. Police have categorized Maria as an endangered runaway
and suggested that she could still be somewhere in Texas,
perhaps in Dallas Vault, Spryings or Cedar Hill, but her
family worries that something worse happened to her. In May

(16:08):
twenty twenty one, in hopes of generating new leads, Dallas
Police collaborated with Clear Channel Outdoor Americas to project Maria's
image on digital billboards throughout North Texas. These included her
last known image and altered photographic representations of what she
might look like at the age of twenty one. Despite
these efforts and her mother's unending search, Maria's fate is

(16:31):
still unknown, which leads her family to wonder what happened
on that Thanksgiving Eve up next on weird darkness. From
a car packed with bullets in Florida to a briefcase

(16:54):
loaded with bombs and Texas, some of America's darkest mysteries
have played out against the back of Thanksgiving festivities. His
families across the country gathered over turkey and gratitude. Some
were observing grim anniversaries of unsolved crimes that had torn
apart holiday celebrations and left communities searching for answers. A

(17:15):
rap star on the rise shot dead on his mother's lawn,
a college student whose drowning gave rise to conspiracy theories,
and a holiday gathering that ended in gunfire through a
living room window just some of the cases that we'll
look at that continued to fascinate investigators and bedevil families
decades later. Seen Montgomery was a twenty one year old

(17:59):
college student from Pennsylvania who tragically went missing in the
early hours of Thanksgiving Day, November twenty seventh, twenty fourteen.
He was last seen leaving Kildair's Irish Pub in the
Mattiyank neighborhood of Philadelphia. After an extensive search, his body
was discovered in the Scholkill River on January third, twenty fifteen.

(18:20):
The Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office ruled his death in accidental drowning,
but it has also been proposed he may have been
a victim of the Smiley Face killers. In two thousand
and eight, two retired New York police detectives Frank Agannon
and Anthony Duarte proposed a chilling theory. Dozens of drowning
deaths across eleven states, they said were not mere accidents,

(18:44):
but the handiwork of organized killers. The murders, which dated
back to nineteen ninety seven, had several alarmingly similar aspects
that peaked the detective's interest. The victims shared a common profile.
They were nearly all white college men, men who were
athletic and did well in school. None had gone missing

(19:04):
without having been drinking at bars or parties. First, most interestingly,
in at least a dozen cases, the investigators came across
Smiley faced graffiti near where the bodies were found in
the water. The deaths generally happened in deep freeze northern
states in the winter, when even very drunk students were
likely to shy away from the freezing water. Although most

(19:28):
cases were officially determined to be accidental drownings, at least
two cases were clear homicides. Patrick McNeil, twenty, never returned
from Dapper Dog Bar in Manhattan in February nineteen ninety seven.
His body was found two months later, but evidence indicated
that he had died before entering the water. Likewise, twenty

(19:49):
one year old Chris Jenkins also went missing on Halloween
in two thousand and two in Minneapolis, only to turn
up months later in an atypical position, face up, his
hands crossed his chest. Some experts backed the story, Cyril Weckt,
a forensic pathologist, who said the numbers made it almost
impossible for these deaths not to be linked the Spiley

(20:11):
Faced Killers. Professor Lee Gilbertson, who initially expressed skepticism but
later was convinced, declared that they are a nationwide organization
that revels in killing young men. But many experts vehemently disagreed.
The theory was ludicrous, absolutely insane, said the criminal profiler
Pat Brown, pointing out that it's not an unusual symbol.

(20:33):
I bet you'd find a spilely face if you looked
in an area five Miles Square. The FBI formally rejected
the theory in two thousand and eight, saying we've not
developed any evidence to support links between these tragic deaths
or any evidence substantiating the theory that these deaths are
the work of a serial killer or killers. Most of

(20:53):
these cases seem to be drowning in connection with alcohol.
In some families of the victims became suspicious of the
detective's motives. Bill Sostak, whos son died in all but
in New York and who expressed disappointment, said, I just
feel that Kevin is a sponge. He attaches to the families,
he sucks the life out of them, and when he

(21:14):
has nothing left to suck, he dumps them. I believe
he has re victimized families, had done more harm than good. Yes,
I do, and that's a pity. The theory keeps coming back,
no matter how many people are skeptical of it, and
there have been other drownings in similar but different circumstances,
as on Milwaukee dot Com, columnist Eugene Kane wrote, I've

(21:37):
been warned and he passed not to write about the
secret killer of white men in Wisconsin who uses drunkenness
and college age guys to lure them into the river
and find some way to drown them. I'm still curious
why big drinking black men don't end up in the
river and why the drunkenness and race rarely comes up.
The theory has even gone global, with cases popping up

(22:00):
in Ireland, England, Spain, and France. While the consensus among
many experts is that these drownings are merely tragic accidents,
the theory of serial murders by these smiley faced killers
keeps coming up, perhaps because it truly does provide a
theory of abductions, injuries, and deaths for what otherwise is
simple drowning or similar senseless deaths. And as one observer said,

(22:25):
whatever the truth is, it is clear that somebody is
messing with us and laughing about it. It was meant

(22:45):
to be a festive party on Thanksgiving Day in nineteen
eighty nine in Mira, mar Florida, but it ended in
a double murder. Home video footage of the party showed
a man known only by a street name Bull, a
detail that would later proved vital in the investigation of
an unsolved crime. Seconds after that video was recorded, Bull

(23:06):
tracked Angelina Gauntlet and her boyfriend Courtney Lindsay's car home
from the party. A witness, Cecilia Best, was in the
backseat of their car. Once they reached their destination, Bull
walked over to the vehicle and opened fire. The man
just kept shooting and shooting. Cecilia remembered, still terrified all
these years later, that she wouldn't put her face on camera.

(23:28):
I guess Courtney tried to shoot back. Maybe he was saying,
I'm shot, I'm shot, I'm dead. I heard him say that.
Angelita's teenage daughter Terry, was inside the house, heard the
shots and ducked for cover. I heard gunfire. I just
laid on the floor, she recalled. When police arrived, they
worked to shield her from the scene, but she knew

(23:49):
something horrible had happened when she saw her mom's car door.
Ajar Detective Joe Tomlin of the Miramar Police said that
it was believed that Bull, whom he said, came from
Jamaica and was a drug trafficker. While the precise motive
for the murders was never clear, investigators found out that
Courtney was a former police officer in Jamaica, which indicated

(24:10):
there might have been bad blood between the two men.
For over two decades, police have obtained a clear image
of the killer's face from the party video without a
named match. What happened and who did it is pretty
clear in this case, Detective Tomlin said, all we're asking
for is who this person is. Terry Gauntlet. Now a

(24:30):
mother with a daughter of her own, still holds out
hope for closure. It's a long time ago, I know,
but if you know of something like that happening, I mean,
it's not nothing that you forget. She said. We need closure.
My mom is not resting in peace, and I don't
believe she will until this case is closed. The case
is still open, waiting for someone to put a name

(24:51):
to the man who calls himself Bull in the party video.
On November twenty third, nineteen seventy seven, a series of
nerve wrangling events went down in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. At about

(25:14):
eight thirty am that morning, a twenty four year old
woman was waiting for the bus when a man in
a blue car with Ohio plates told her that she
had nice breasts. Terrified, she managed to remember to write
down his license plate number before he drove away. That
same day, six year old Beth Lynn Barr left Johnson
Elementary School at two fifteen pm, early for Thanksgiving break.

(25:37):
Witnesses reported seeing someone put a schoolgirl matching Beth's description
into a blue car with a red and white license
plate as she trudged the short distance back home. Beth
never made it home. Sir she Efferts began right away,
especially because Beth's father was a Wilkinsburg police officer. When
police canvassed the neighborhood that night, the woman from the

(25:59):
bus stop explained her conversation with the suspicious man. Her
story fit the witness report, a white man in his forties,
five foot ten, brown, curly hair, wearing a gray suit
and blue tinted glasses. Police believed they located the car
at a nearby motel. It was a rental and had
OHIO plates, but the agency said the car had never

(26:20):
left its lot. A potential break came when police arrested
a salesman, but he was able to confirm he had
been in another city that day. The case went cold
until March nineteen seventy nine, when a man walking his
dog stumbled upon a grizzly find near Restlands Memorial Cemetery
in Monroeville. He located what remained of Beth. She was

(26:43):
still in the red pant suit, blue tennis shoes, and
plaid coat that she had disappeared in. An autopsy determined
that she had been stabbed multiple times. Investigators theorized that
Beth's case could be linked to unsolved murders in the region.
Just weeks before Beth disappeared, another victim's remains had been

(27:03):
discovered at Brady's Run Park, and a year before that,
a woman named Barbara Lewis had been murdered after being
accosted at a bus stop in Penn Hills, the same
fate as the woman who spotted the suspicious man the
morning Beth vanished. The woman from the bus stop later
complained that Wilkinsburg police might have botched the case by

(27:24):
refusing assistance from more seasoned detectives. Other possible leads went unpursuit,
including a report of a police officer who witnessed someone
buying a shovel under suspicious circumstances around the time of
the kidnapping and today, decades later. Beth's murder remains unsolved,
but investigators with the Alleghany County Police say they've been

(27:47):
working with three boxes of reports from the case, and
as is the case with all cold cases, it remains open.
As the woman at the bus stop said, someone's going
to come forward. Forty eight year old Cynthia Linda Alonso

(28:12):
was last seen on November twenty fifth, two thousand and four,
in West Oakland, California, getting inside a vehicle driven by
her boyfriend Eric Mora, on the way to her mother's
San Francisco home for Thanksgiving dinner. She never showed up,
and her family filed a missing person report. The investigation
soon zeroed in on Mora, especially after authorities found bloodstains

(28:35):
that contained Alonzo's DNA in his home and noticed scratches
on his hands. Although Alonzo's body was never found, Mora
was charged with her murder in February two thousand and seven.
In March twenty twelve, he was found guilty of second
degree murder and sentenced to a term of fifteen years
to life in prison. But in March twenty sixteen, an

(28:57):
appellate court found that the trial judge had run longly
prevented the defense from introducing evidence about other possible suspects.
And overturned Mora's conviction. That year, Mora admitted killing Alonzo
and went on to say that he buried her body
in West Oakland, close to Seventh and Maritime Streets. Despite
intensive searches conducted by the FBI, the Oakland Police, and

(29:20):
the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, her remains weren't immediately discovered.
In June twenty seventeen, Mora pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter
and was sentenced to eleven years in prison. On May fourth,
twenty twenty two, workers found human remains covered in tarps
and a shallow grave near the area Mora had previously described.

(29:40):
The remains were identified as those of Cynthia Alonso by
the Almeida County Coroner's Office. The discovery brought long awaited
closure for her family, which has spent nearly eighteen years
without knowing her fate. On Thanksgiving weekend in nineteen eighty five,

(30:07):
a mystery turned tragic in Lake Worth, Texas. Members of
the Blount family arrived home to find a briefcase left
on their front porch. When Angela Blount, fifteen opened it
in their trailer home, a bomb exploded, killing her her
father Joe Blount and her cousin, Michael Columbus. No one
could understand at first why anyone would want to hurt

(30:30):
the family. One neighbor, who sold illegal arms wondered if
the bomb was meant for him instead. The case went
cold for more than a decade. Then, following the Oklahoma
City bombing in nineteen eighty five, federal agents made a
decision to review all outstanding bomb cases, including this one.
Then in nineteen ninety seven, they had what was sounded

(30:51):
like a breakthrough. A jail inmate testified that another prisoner,
Michael Tony, had confessed to planting the bomb, But as
Tony's try hyles started, the story unraveled. The inmate acknowledged
he and Tony had fabricated the confession with the hope
of the inmate getting released. They never believed Tony would
be alleged to have committed murder. While prosecutors could not

(31:15):
present any physical evidence putting Tony at the scene of
the bombing, two other people were found. Tony's former wife,
Kim and his one time best friend Chris Meeks. Neither
remembered anything about the bombing at first, but then after
reading about the case, they told police they had been
with Tony when he dropped off a briefcase at the
trailer park that night. The briefcase had bombs, she cried.

(31:39):
Tony was convicted in nineteen ninety nine and sentenced to death,
largely based on their testimony. Years later, Tony's lawyers made
a critical discovery prosecutors had hidden fourteen documents that included
evidence indicating the witnesses were lying and that police may
have told them what to say. In two thousand and eight,

(31:59):
the High Criminal Court in Texas overturned Tony's conviction. Prosecutors
opted not to try him a second time, and in
September two thousand and nine, he was released after a
decade on death row. Sadly, one month after his release,
Tony was killed in a truck accident in which his
vehicle ran off the road and overturned. To this day,

(32:20):
the identity of the Blount family's killer remains a mystery.
On Thanksgiving Night in two thousand and two, November twenty eight,
a shooting took place at the Tacoma, Washington home of

(32:41):
Joe and Evangeline Britt, where about twenty five family members
and friends were gathered to celebrate the holiday at about
ten oh five PM, an unidentified gunman approached a first
floor window and fired several shots at the living area.
The attack killed nineteen year old Kimberly Riley and five
year old Jeremy Britt bayn Devong. Two others, Jeff Spencer

(33:03):
and his sister Harmony, were injured but lived. Kimberly Riley
was new to Tacoma, a University of Washington student from Volcano,
Hawaii who had relocated earlier in nineteen eighty six. She
was there with her brother, James Riley, who had become
friends with the Britt family after they discovered a shared
interest in working on cars. Jeremy Britt baying Devong was

(33:25):
a grandson of the homeowners and a regular at their home.
Witnesses described seeing a man with dark hair and a
puffy jacket running southbound on Ell Street after the attack.
Also seeing speeding away with its headlights off, was a
dark colored, full sized Ford pickup truck from the nineteen
seventies or nineteen eighties with a weathered white colored canopy

(33:45):
and loud exhaust. Investigators also looked into whether this incident
was related to another shooting at the same home on
March third, two thousand, when an unidentified person took twenty
three rounds toward the house. No one was injured in
that earlier incident, which has not been solved. The motive
behind the Thanksgiving shooting in two thousand and two remains

(34:06):
unclear despite extensive investigations. Though all of the victims had
no known criminal backgrounds or ties to gangs, authorities say
they will not rule out gang related activity. The case
has not been solved, and authorities are still asking for
the public's help and bringing closure to the victims' families.

(34:36):
Rapper Solsia's Slim was shot and killed outside his mother's
house in New Orleans on November twenty sixth, two thousand
and three. The artist, who was born James Tapp, Who's
found shot multiple times on the front lawn of a
two story duplex that he'd bought for his mother in Gentili.
The killing appeared to echo the grim reality Slim frequently
wrote about in his music. As a rapper for No

(34:58):
Limit Records, he wrote songs about what happened in perilous neighborhoods,
stories of gang violence, and drug dealing. Witness has described
a dark clothed figure fleeing the scene, but police announced
no suspects in the days after the murder, and his stepfather,
asking not to be identified, said he believed jealousy over
Slim's increasing success may have caused his death. He justified

(35:21):
the rapper's controversial lyrics, saying Slim was not trying to
incite violence, but rather to give audience as a glimpse
into the harsh realities of life in impoverished neighborhoods and
ideally to affect change. Slim had spent several years behind
bars before hitting it big with his music career. He
was convicted of armed robbery in nineteen ninety five and
subsequently spent four years in prison for a parole violation,

(35:44):
but Slim had stayed out of the legal system since
his release in two thousand and one. According to his stepfather,
the case remains unsolved. Coming up on a day set
aside for family gatherings and gratitude, some families instead are
grappling with unimaginable tragedy and decades of unanswered questions, from

(36:07):
the eerie disappearance of three young brothers in Michigan to
the baffling death of a game warden in nineteen nineteen.
Thanksgiving has been punctuated by puzzling cases that continue to
test the ingenuity of investigators. While some long lost mysteries,
such as the discovery by a local fisherman of a
car driven by two missing men in an Illinois river,

(36:28):
eventually are brought to light by modern technology, others that
of a sixteen year old Karen Mitchell, who disappeared after
leaving a relative's shoe store, linger in darkness, leaving families
to wonder what happened on what should have been a
day of celebration. These stories are up next. He was

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November twenty seventh, nineteen ninety seven, and a woman was
bird watching along to Shaminy Creek during a Thanksgiving visit
to her boyfriend's home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Through her binoculars,
she first mistook a pair of sneakers for a heron.
Then she noticed that the sneakers were connected to a
decomposing body of a young black man in his late

(37:27):
teens or early twenties that was wedged between rocks and
the creek. The victim was wearing green Tommy Hill figure
clothing and had no identification on him ever since his
identity and cause of death have been unclear despite attempts
to identify him. No Cheminy Creek is a forty point
seven mile stream that flows entirely within Bucks County, Pennsylvania,

(37:49):
and has long been the scene of occasional incidents. The
fifty six year old man drowned in October twenty twenty
two after his vehicle was swept away and submerged in
the creek. His body was covered by a rescue team,
and the Bucks County Corner's Office ruled that he had
died accidentally. Major flooding of the creek on record eighteen
thirty three and eighteen sixty five was devastating to bridges

(38:11):
and other infrastructure. The creek has been the focus of
flood mitigation efforts in recent years aimed at avoiding future disasters.
VSP and the US Air Force Investigative Agency in Delaware
may not have the time to sift through all the
files compiled on the case over the years, and other
states lacked the manpower or resources to devote to the investigation.

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In spite of all efforts, that nineteen ninety seven find
is one of the creek's most persistent mysteries, bearing out
many aspects of law enforcement struggle to solve cases like these.

(38:52):
Sixteen year old Karen Marie Mitchell from Eureka, California, disappeared
on Thanksgiving Day nineteen ninety seven. She just finished work
and had entered the shoe store owned by her aunt
and legal guardian, Annie Casper. After a short stay with
her aunt, Karen left to return home and prepare for
Thanksgiving dinner. She never arrived. A passer by later reported

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seeing Karen enter a light blue car being driven by
an older white man. Nevertheless, police were never able to
identify the driver. They did look into two potential suspects.
The first, Wayne Adam Ford, was a convicted murderer whose
description matched that of the driver the witness described. Ford
had confessed to other murderers, but denied having anything to

(39:37):
do with Karen's disappearance. Police found nothing linking him to
her case. The other suspect was Robert Durst, who later
became notorious due to an HBO documentary. The JINX investigators
found that Durst had shopped at Casper's shoe store multiple
times and was in Eureka the day that Karen went missing,

(39:58):
but like Ford, he could not be pinned directly to
the crime. Now, all these years later, Karen's disappearance remains
a mystery, and no one knows what happened to her
that Thanksgiving Day. On Thanksgiving Day, November twenty seventh, nineteen, nineteen,

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thirty two year old game protector John H. Woodruff departed
his Scotia, New York com to patrol Schenectady County. He
was looking into reports of a foreign visitor believed to
have violated game laws. When he didn't return, search parties
with state troopers and deputy sheriffs combed the area for
weeks but found nothing. His fate would not be known

(40:50):
until his remains were found on April fourth, nineteen twenty one,
in a shallow grave near a creek bed in Glenville.
The coroner ruled his skull had been brushed by a
heavy weapon wielded by a powerful individual. Woodroff's service revolver
and badge had never turned up, and his murder has
never been solved. Woodroff had begun his career as a

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game protector on November one, nineteen nineteen, only twenty six
days before his disappearance, having achieved first place on his
competitive civil service exam. It's known that he was steadfast
on enforcing game laws, and that created some resentment with
those he prosecuted. His wife would later report that her
husband had been sent a threatening letter during the summer

(41:33):
of nineteen nineteen, the contents of which he never revealed.
The investigation into his death encountered a multitude of hurdles
because of how long it took for his body to
be discovered. In nineteen forty seven, it was reopened by
the state police because of new leads, but no arrests
were ever made. Rumors lingered and involved a dead Glenville

(41:54):
man who supposedly confessed to killing Woodruff, but that was
never confirmed. The danger of life as a game protector
in the early nineteen hundreds were underscored with Woodruf's death,
since many officers worked solo in large territories and faced
hostility from violators. His slaying is among New York State's
oldest unsolved cases. On Thanksgiving Day in twenty ten, three

(42:28):
young brothers disappeared from their father's backyard in Mourency, Michigan,
kicking off one of the state's most haunting missing persons cases,
The Skeleton Boys Andrew nine Alexander seven and Tanner five
were last seen playing outdoors while visiting their father, John Skelton,
for the holiday. When the boys failed to return to

(42:49):
their mother, Tanya's others, John Skelton provided a bizarre explanation.
He said he had given his sons to an underground
organization to keep them safe from their mother. No evidence
advanced this narrative. The police found no trace of the
brothers has despite all the searches and investigations, ever been found.

(43:11):
John Skelton was eventually charged with unlawful imprisonment and sentenced
to ten to fifteen years in prison, but never charged
with murder. He sticks to his story about giving the
boys away, but investigators have never found any evidence that
any such organization exists. The case took a new turn
in December twenty twenty three, when Kenya's others made the

(43:33):
difficult decision to file court papers requesting that her sons
be declared dead in the eyes of the law. This
agonizing move followed thirteen years of seeking and waiting for answers.
The case of the missing Skelton brothers still haunts their
Michigan community and their fate, which the authorities say they
suspect is death remains one of the state's most troubling

(43:56):
unsolved mysteries, and their mother continues to hope some one
we'll come forward with information about what really happened to
her sons that Thanksgiving Day. A mysterious disappearance befuddled Illinois

(44:17):
authorities for nearly half a century, starting in February nineteen
seventy six, sixty five year old Clarence Owens and seventy
two year old Everett Hawley had attended a farm auction
and simply disappeared. The men had a busy day the
day they went missing. They were in attendance at a
political rally for a gubernatorial candidate, James Thompson at the

(44:39):
American Legion in Pecatonica, before stopping by a place called
Rocky's Cafe and visiting Owen's son, who lived in the area.
They were last seen at the farm sale around two
forty two three PM in a nineteen sixty six Chevy
Impala with new gold paint. The two men were reported
missing after they didn't arrive for a s scheduled appointment

(45:01):
in German Valley the following day. Attempts to find them
proved unsuccessful. And for decades, their fate remained a mystery,
leaving their friends and family without closure. Solving this decade's
old mystery would not come until March twenty twenty four,
when fishermen with sonar equipment spotted a submerged car in

(45:21):
the Pecatonica River. Salvage crews were summoned and eventually dragged
to gold nineteen sixty six Chevrolet and Paula from the water,
the same car Owens and Hawley were in when they vanished.
Investigators discovered more than one hundred bones inside the vehicle.
The remains were sent to a forensic anthropologist in Saint Louis, Missouri,

(45:42):
who determined that they belonged to two adult men, and
that they showed no signs of trauma. Advanced DNA analysis
by the Illinois State Police Division of Forensic Services verified
what many had feared. The remains belonged to Owens and Holly.
The scientists identified a living relative of both men to
whom they were able to match the DNA from the bones.

(46:04):
The cause of death is still under investigation, but investigators
said they found no signs of foul play. It finally
gave closure to the families that were here waiting almost
fifty years for answers when the Bago County Sheriff Gary
Karwana set about that discovery. The case is a reminder
that even decades old mysteries can eventually be solved thanks

(46:26):
to advances in technology and painstaking detective work. We can
only hope that the rest of these cases can find
some closures soon as well. The year was nineteen thirty nine,

(46:48):
and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was busy trying to both
drag the country out of the Great Depression and to
prepare the nation for the war clouds gathering on the horizon.
When Thanksgiving nineteen thirty nine rolled around, his mind was
clearly focused on the Great Depression. As of nineteen thirty nine,
Thanksgiving wasn't an official holiday. To be sure, Abraham Lincoln

(47:11):
had decreed it would be the last Thursday of November
when he declared it a holiday back in eighteen sixty three,
but that wasn't set in stone. So FDR had an idea.
I Franklin D. Roosevelt's President of the United States of America,
do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty third of November nineteen
thirty nine as a day of general Thanksgiving. How appropriate

(47:36):
that Roosevelt's proclamation was issued on October thirty, first Halloween,
a day known for tricks or treats more than former
though as upon hearing this proclamation, the average citizen felt
like it was a trick, both irritating and confusing them
at the same time, FDR just made everybody's yearly calendar

(47:58):
a moot point for November ninetheen thirty nine. At the time,
it was up to the president to issue a Thanksgiving
proclamation to announce on what day the holiday would fall. However,
Thanksgiving had always been the last Thursday in November because
that was the day President Abraham Lincoln observed the holiday
in eighteen sixty three. FDR's first Thanksgiving while in office

(48:21):
occurred in nineteen thirty three, a year that featured the
rare five thursdays. Then, as now, the Christmas shopping season
didn't officially kick off until after Americans had dug into
their turkey. But as there would only be twenty four
shopping days left after Thanksgiving fell on November thirtieth, some
business leaders urged Roosevelt to declare the fourth, not the

(48:44):
last Thursday, as the national day of Thanksgiving. FDR was
inundated by requests from businesses to make the change, including
the National Retail Dry Goods Association. Everyone who had something
to sell wanted to extend the Christmas shopping seat by
one week, but Roosevelt rejected the idea at first on
the grounds that such a change might cause confusion. That

(49:08):
was nineteen thirty three, but the Great Depression wasn't going away,
and in nineteen thirty nine the same issue rolled around,
with Thanksgiving again falling on November thirtieth, meaning another shortened
Christmas shopping season, raising the same worries from merchants and
the business community, who, to be fair, had gone through

(49:28):
a lot during the depression years. FDR's eventual giving in
to businesses in nineteen thirty nine likely proved him more
right than he probably would have liked about people getting confused.
Smaller businesses complained that they'd lose business to the larger
stores other companies that depended on Thanksgiving as the last

(49:48):
Thursday of November, they lost money. Schools were disrupted by
Roosevelt's decision. Most schools had already scheduled vacations by the
time they learned of Thanksgiving's new date, and had to
decide whether or not to reschedule everything. Football coaches scrambled
to reschedule games set for November thirtieth. Families didn't know
when to have their holiday meals. Some families had no

(50:11):
idea about the change because their calendars still indicated the
traditional date, and of course, people weren't sure when to
start their Christmas shopping. Some folks found mirth in the situation.
Mister President, I see by the paper this morning where
you want to change Thanksgiving Day to November twenty third,
of which I heartily approve. Thanks wrote one Shelby O.

(50:35):
Bennett of Shinston, West Virginia, whose letter has been saved
by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Librarian Museum. She continued,
Now there are some things that I would like done
and would appreciate your approval. One has Sunday changed to Wednesday.
Two have Mondays to be Christmas. Three have it strictly
against the will of God to work on Tuesday. Thousands letters,

(51:00):
most not so lighthearted, poured into the White House. Opposition grew.
Americans were angry that Roosevelt tried to alter such a
long standing tradition and American values just to help businesses
make more money. While governors usually followed the president's lead
with state proclamations for the same day, in nineteen thirty nine,

(51:21):
some states took matters into their own hands and defied
the presidential proclamation. Some governors declared November thirtieth as Thanksgiving,
and so depending upon where somebody lived, Thanksgiving was celebrated
on November twenty third and November thirtieth. This was worse
than changing the date in the first place, because many

(51:42):
families did not have the same day off as family
members in other states and were therefore unable to celebrate
the holiday together. Twenty three states observed Thanksgiving Day on
November twenty third, twenty three states celebrated on November thirtieth,
and Texas and Colorado declared both Thursdays to be holidays.

(52:02):
Now that's an idea I can get behind. Double the
turkey and stuffing count me in. The Jackson County Journal
pretty much didn't care, and in a brief editorial, said
people should just pick the day that suited them best,
the twenty third or the thirtieth. The journal wrote, in
a piece titled two Thanksgivings quote, we will have two
Thanksgivings in North Carolina. This year, President Roosevelt's claimed November

(52:25):
twenty three as a day of National Thanksgiving. In consequence,
the federal courts, the post offices, and the national banks
will observe November twenty three is a holiday. State banks, schools,
state offices, and county and city officials will observe November thirty.
Take your choice, have your turkey either day you wish,
But above all, let each of us be thankful every

(52:46):
day in the year that we live in the United
States of America, that our forefathers bought for us, with
their blood and suffering the inestimable privileges that we enjoy,
and that a divine providence has showered innumerable blessings upon
on our land and upon each of us individually. In
other words, celebrate the spirit of the holiday. And although

(53:08):
the federal government would observe it one day and state
of local governments another, no harm, no foul, but most folks,
to put it mildly, went ballistic. The main opponents to
moving Thanksgiving were traditionalists, but one industry sector in particular
almost collectively lost their minds. Calendar manufacturers. Understandable. John Taylor

(53:31):
of the Budget Press in Ohio wrote to FDR and
described the apocalyptic scenario the President had gifted his business with,
writing that most calendars are sold in January and that
his firm had printed two million that month. If very
many customers demand nineteen forty calendars to correspond with your proclamation,
Taylor wrote, hundreds of thousands of dollars will be lost

(53:54):
by the calendar companies, and in many instances it'll lead
to bankruptcy. FDR I declared the next to last Thursday
in November as Thanksgiving two more times, but even after
the outbreak of World War II in December nineteen forty one,
Congress saw the issue as important enough to act. On
December twenty sixth, nineteen forty one, it finally passed a

(54:16):
law kneeling down the fourth Thursday of November as the
official Thanksgiving, and there it remains. This story was sent
into US from Weirdo family member Rachel Gates. I had
the creepiest Thanksgiving happen when I was a young teenager

(54:37):
in the nineties. You first have to know some facts
for this story to make sense, so let me explain.
Fact one. My mom had a balloon business at the
time that means there were strings of fishing line hanging
through our living room. Fact two. I was in love
with Keanu Reeves after Speed came out. My prize possession
was a giant poster given to me a few years earlier.

(54:59):
It was huge and would fall down all the time.
The edges were covered in tape from being hung up
over and over again. Fact three. My mom had been
a single parent for years until she remarried. She worked
a lot, which means we kids were generally unruly and messy.
To put it kindly, we were slops. It took me
joining the military to gain much better cleaning routines, so

(55:21):
our house was generally chaotic. Fact four. Our house was haunted.
We think we know by whom, but I'll share that next. Now.
The house we lived in was a cute Victorian in Belvedere, Illinois.
We rented it from the son of someone mom used
to do home care for. She was a sweet old
lady who was very clean. The house was all decked

(55:44):
out in seventies shag carpet and heavy gold blackout drapes.
She loved me and I loved visiting her. So when
she died and we found ourselves needing a place to
move to. Her son was more than happy to rent
to us, But shortly after moving in, things started happening.
All the cabinets opening by themselves, things flying off shelves

(56:06):
orbs flying through rooms, like actual balls of light flashing
or floating around, not dust on a camera lens, electronics
turning on and off, TV channels changing by themselves, voices
you can't make out speaking, whistling in your ear while
on the toilet, Strange lights, and the heating events. You

(56:27):
name it. Maybe some can be explained, but put them
all together and it doesn't add up. Even if we
had some kind of environmental issues, you'd still have to
explain shared identical hallucinations. I've tried to explain it away.
This is how I can be an atheist who believes
in ghosts. I think now this sweet old lady was

(56:47):
trying to scare us out of her clean, beautiful home,
which now looked like a bomb had gone off inside.
This all culminated to an epic Thanksgiving event in nineteen
ninety five. We actually clean every year before the feast,
so the house was put together. We were starving as
the smells of all the best homemade dishes wafted through
the house. My dad stepdad, but I always called him

(57:11):
Dad invites his old friend over from the reservation for dinner,
so he got the guest of honor seat at the
head of the table, which happened to be the only
chair facing the kitchen with his back to the living room.
Dinner was almost ready when I realized my speed poster
had fallen down. I didn't have time to hang it
up and didn't want it to wrinkle, So, being me,

(57:31):
I decided to hang it up in the living room
on the fishing line with clothes line clips. That means
all through dinner, I could look over at Keano's dreamy face.
This is important. Later Finally, dinner was served, piping hot
and smelling magical. One thing about my family is we
have extra patving because we are great in the kitchen.

(57:53):
Even my mom, who's a health nut, is just amazing
at cooking. We all sit down around the dining room
table pray I was a Catholic at the time, and
dig in slowly. We started hearing this flapping noise. Looking around,
we noticed my poster bouncing around. It was an old house,
so we thought it might be a draft. It didn't

(58:15):
seem windy out, but we were inside, so it must be.
We kept eating and laughed it off, but it kept
going up and down, up and down. The flapping became bouncing,
bouncing became whipping, until the sound of paper wrinkling is
I now wonder how the poster even stayed put, let alone,
how the fishing line wasn't ripped from the wall. Now

(58:39):
we aren't eating, We're staring, slack jawed. No one made
a sound. It kept going and going for minutes. Then,
seemingly out of nowhere, there was a huge explosion. It
shook the living room. Mom's instinct was to grab the
kids and glasses, like you do when you hit on
the brakes too hard in the car. The food shook.

(59:00):
It was like an earthquake. My ears were assaulted from
the noise. Our heads snapped around to the kitchen. What
we saw was crazy. There was a huge box of
foil balloons in the doorway. It took two men to
move that box under the desk in the dining room.
You don't think about it when you buy foil balloons,
but deflated and stacked close together, a big box is

(59:21):
basically a brick of metal. It was at least four
or five feet away, right in the kitchen doorway. There
was only one witness as to what had happened. My
dad's friend, having an awkward position, was the only one
to see what was going on. As we were mesmerized
by the flying poster, he turned around to see movement
catching his eye. Right before him. He watched as the

(59:43):
impossibly heavy box lifted off the ground of its own accord.
He said. It floated out from under the desk and
flew up and up about six or seven feet off
the ground. Then, as we were all distracted, the box
just fell. Gravity suddenly turned back on, and the resulting

(01:00:03):
explosion was the equivalent of an acme anvil dropping straight
into our dining room, minus the cloud of dust and
wiley coyote. Holy cow, That actually happened, and we lived
in that house for years. People who live there now
don't even believe in ghosts, and nothing happens to them.
I don't know them, but my cousin does, and she

(01:00:25):
was astounded when I told her what used to go
on in there. But then the old lady must approve
of them, as they updated and improved the whole house.
Moral of the story, clean your house or ghosts will
ruin your holidays. And speaking of I'm going to go
clean right now. My house is predictably a mess, but

(01:00:47):
not for lack of trying. I promise a grandpase Haunting
Thanksgiving ghosts appeared to help two brothers uncover a nearly
two hundred year old murder mystery. Bill and Frank Watson

(01:01:08):
were told a chilling tale about fifty seven Irish immigrants
who died at a railroad site in Pennsylvania during the
cholera epidemic in eighteen thirty two. The area is now
known as Duffy's Cut, as the rail worker's boss was
named Philip Duffy. It's a stretch of tracks located around
thirty miles from Philadelphia. The brothers were told the chilling

(01:01:30):
tale by their grandpa, a railroad worker, every Thanksgiving. They
believe the rail workers died violently, not from colerain. Frank
told CNN in twenty ten, this is a murder mystery
from one hundred and seventy eight years ago, and it's
finally coming to the light of day. According to local legend,
a man walking home from a tavern claimed to see

(01:01:53):
mysterious green figures dancing in the mist. In September nineteen
o nine. The documents the unnamed man as saying, I
saw with my own eyes the ghosts of the irishmen
who died with cholera a month ago, a dancing around
the big trench where they were buried. It's true, mister,
it was awful. Frank inherited the railroad papers from his

(01:02:15):
grandpa and said one of the documents said X marks
the spot. They suspected that the files contained clues to
the location of a mass grave. Bill and Frank delved
deeper into the case. They started digging in two thousand
and two, and years later found forks and tobacco pipe shards.
The brothers didn't believe struggling laborers would discard valuable items.

(01:02:40):
Researchers in March two thousand and nine found a bone,
raising suspicions that cholera may not have killed the rail workers.
Teams also uncovered a skull that had been pierced by
a bullet and cleaved by a hatchet bill. A historian said,
we have no idea what percentage of these guys were murdered,
but if we have fifty seven, it's the word first

(01:03:00):
mass murder in Pennsylvania history. He said the average age
at the workers was around twenty two years old. Forensic
anthropologist Janet Monk said the case provided vital clues about
the lives of Irish immigrants. She said it was a
cruel and rugged existence that characterizes the immigrant experience, and
it speaks very broadly of the xenophobia that existed at

(01:03:21):
the time. Mong discovered bonds from at least seven skeletons,
including four adults. She said, one skull has a little
divot on what would have been the sidebone of the skull.
That little divot is something that did not happen when
they excavated it out of the ground. The anthropologists speculated
that one of the laborers must have been clunked on

(01:03:42):
their head before they died. Researchers believe more bodies are
underneath the surface. Bill Watson said the coffins had been
shut with more than one hundred nails per coffin. The
remains of five men and one woman from those who
died at Duffy's Cut were laid to rest at a
ceremony in Pennsylvania in twenty twelve. The body of teenager

(01:04:04):
John Ruddy, who was from County Donegal was repatriated to
Ireland and a burial took place in County Tyrone for
Catherine Burns in October twenty fifteen. Forensics believe that injuries
to her skull indicated that she had been murdered. Duffy's
cut later became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line.

(01:04:38):
Up next on Weird Darkness, I'll share a horrific Thanksgiving
tale from the latter part of the nineteenth century, and
I'm honestly not sure if it's true or false. As

(01:05:09):
Americans gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, it is perhaps time
to turn the clock back to one family feast that
did not raise quite as much cheer. It tells of
the terrible incidents that took place in a house in Oakville, Georgia, USA,
in the latter part of the nineteenth century. This spot
has earned a high place amongst haunted localities, and in

(01:05:30):
its day was comparable with the famous house in Berkeley Square.
Situated in the midst of picturesque but lonely country, this house,
the property of a farmer named Walsingham, had a worldwide
reputation among psychical investigators. For some time. The house had
been left deserted by its owner, and it would seem
that during the temporary absence of its material master, it

(01:05:53):
passed into the hands of beings or forces, call them
what you will, who wished to remain in undisputed possess.
When Walsingham and his family decided to return and take
up their abode in the house, they were struck on
the very first day by the peculiar feeling of the place.
They could not decide in any way what this feeling was,
but on analysis linked it to claustrophobia, an overpowering dread

(01:06:18):
of being alone within any four walls. Their dog, Don Caesar,
absolutely refused to enter the house. On being dragged in,
he immediately broke out into furious barking. His back bristled
with rage, and he showed every sign of terror. This
occurred several times during the day and the same evening.
Being attracted to the spot by his wines and howls,

(01:06:41):
Walsingham saw his dog attacking some invisible enemy. Don Caesar
the dog at last sprang in the air as if
at a man's throat, but fell back as if he
had received a heavy blow. When picked up, the dog's
neck had been found to be broken. The Walsingham's cat,
on the other hand, manifest stood every sign of delight

(01:07:02):
at being in the house. It strolled from room to room,
purring loudly, and was seen on several occasions twisting its
head from side to side and arching its back as
if someone were stroking it. To say that the Walsinghams
were amazed at these things would be to describe their
feelings mildly. They were very much upset, but had not

(01:07:23):
as yet any suspicion on the score of supernatural causes.
But that evening, just towards the dusk, the house was
suddenly filled with shouts, groans, and hideous laughter, heard by
all the occupants, and putting them into a veritable panic.
Miss Amelia Walsingham, while sitting in front of her mirror,
saw a man's hand upon her shoulder, yet there was

(01:07:46):
no reflection of it in the glass, nor was there
any arm or body apparent. Walsingham himself saw footprints forming
in the dust of a garden path before him as
he walked, yet no mortal could be seen. But though
these things were uncanny and terrifying, and were sufficient to
make the family realize that some force out of the

(01:08:07):
usual was at work. They pealed into insignificance before the
later incidents, which took place during the evening meal. The
family was seated at supper with one or two guests
when their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud and
horrible groan uttered apparently in the room above. Little notice
was taken of it until one of the guests pointed

(01:08:29):
out a stain of what looked like blood on the tablecloth,
and it was then seen that some liquid was slowly
dripping from the ceiling overhead. This liquid was so much
like freshly shed blood as to horrify those who witnessed
its slow dripping. It would be hard to imagine a
more gruesome occurrence at any time, But the peculiar form

(01:08:50):
of this horror and the theatrical way in which it
was carried out, would put it down as the invention
of some most evil minded but decidedly clever person. It
flashed into the minds of all sitting at the table
that some terrible deed had been committed in the room above,
some frightful murder. For a few seconds, all sat silent,

(01:09:10):
with white faces looking out of the corner of their
eyes at each other in terror. Then Walsingham shook off
this paralysis spear and ran out of the room, followed
by his son. They went quickly upstairs to the room
over the dining room and flung open the door, dreading
what fearful sight their eyes should meet. But it was empty.

(01:09:30):
They tore up the carpet and there found the boards
to be soaked with the same red, gruesome liquid as
was dripping into the room beneath, but there was no explanation,
nor was any afterwards discovered. The liquid was later examined
under a microscope by a medical man and pronounced to
be human blood. This incident was too much for the Walsinghams,

(01:09:54):
and they left the house and removed to another. Walsingham
house then fell into entire and stories of the occurrences
being put abroad. The place was shunned by day as
well as by night. This neglect obviously did not tend
to make the spot look more cheerful, and it is
stated that in addition to the gloom that generally settles

(01:10:14):
on the most ordinary of empty houses, there was an
undoubted feeling of depression in the air around the place.
Quite normal people said it felt to them as if
the atmosphere of the locality weighed more than anywhere else.
The house had not been approached for several months when
a young man named Horace Gunn decided to make it
the subject of a wager, betting a friend a fair

(01:10:38):
sum of money that he would stay alone in the
house for one night and have no aid within call.
This enthusiastic young man carried out his intention and went
to the house one evening before it was dark. His
story is best told in his own words quote, I
had been in the house about an hour and nothing
had happened. It was just beginning to get dark, and

(01:11:00):
I thought that I would set about lighting a fire.
Though I did not consider myself an expert in this art,
I was very much surprised at being absolutely unable to
do so. My matches went out one after the other,
as if blown out by a strong draft. Once, when
I had succeeded in lighting a piece of paper, it
only smoldered for a few seconds and then went out.

(01:11:21):
This was bad enough, as I had to give up
the idea of a cheerful blaze to keep me company.
But to my disgust, I found that my lamp would
not light either. It was as if it were filled
with water instead of with oil. It was now quite dark,
and whilst I was looking about for some means of
getting a light, there came a terrible yell of pain

(01:11:42):
from underneath the house. And this was the signal for
an outbreak of the most hideous and devilish noises. There
were shouts, screams, groans, laughter, thumping, and the continual running
up and downstairs as of several heavily shod people. My
hair bristled. I stood out of the window, practically paralyzed
with fear. And had I then been able to control

(01:12:04):
my limbs, I would have fled from the house. I
would have lost my wager and a hundred like it,
rather than stay in that haunt of fiends. Then suddenly
the noises stopped. Complete silence fell on the place. But
far from reassuring me, this made matters worse. For now
I dreaded the silence even more than I had the
ghostly noises All the time. I listened, listened for something now,

(01:12:28):
and then I thought I heard soft footsteps drawing near me,
But it was nothing. This waiting and dreading was far
worse than the pandemonium of terror. I did not have
long to wait for the next move, for in the
darkness there suddenly appeared a small spot of grayish light
on the wall opposite me. It grew larger and larger,

(01:12:48):
altering in shape, until it assumed the outline of a
human head, at the same time losing its flatness. Soon
it was a real head floating in the air. Its
hair was long and gray and matted together, and it
had a deep and jagged cut in one temple. The
whole face indicated suffering and misery. The eyes were wide

(01:13:10):
open and gleamed with an unearthly fire, while they seemed
to direct their gaze upon me. The head moved about
the room, but always the eyes were turned in my direction.
Then it vanished, but there broke out in the room
aloud and awe inspiring wail as of several souls in anguish.
I thought then that I could see indistinct shapes flitting

(01:13:32):
about and mustering up all my courage. I attempted to
pass them and gain the door, but just as I
reached it, I felt my ankle seized in a firm grasp.
I was thrown down and felt fingers grasping at my throat.
At this point, mister Gunn's story ceases. He was found
by his friends the next morning, unconscious on the floor

(01:13:53):
by the door, and bearing on his throat the marks
of long, thin fingers with cruel curve to nails. After
this experience, no one was found to have anything more
to do with the house, though a few people interested
in such matters attempted to find out some reason for
this terrible haunting. Though several avenues of investigation were explored,

(01:14:16):
nothing very conclusive was discovered. The house had by this
time acquired such an evil reputation that no one would
occupy it, and it was ultimately demolished. Many human bones
were found under it and in its grounds. How they
came there it was never known, but it was supposed
that they had lain there for many years, and were

(01:14:37):
the bones of people who might have been murdered when
the house was a roadside in of very bad repute,
and herein perhaps lies an explanation for the hauntings of
the house. A few days before returning to his house,
mister Walsingham, having discovered in the grounds some old, dried bones,
and not able to decide whether they were human or not,

(01:14:58):
settled the matter, as he thought by ordering them to
be thrown into a lime kiln. Is it possible that
the spirits of the men whose bones were thus so
indecently treated summoned to their aid certain dark forces in
order to make the place uninhabitable by mortals in revenge
for the insult offered to their remains. The Hotel del

(01:15:28):
Coronado in San Diego is one of the most beautiful
hotels in the world, but some say it is also
the most haunted. The ghost story that has long been
attached to the hotel is unique, and that it is
one of the only Thanksgiving ghost stories that is told.
It involves a young woman named Kate Morgan who checked

(01:15:50):
into the hotel on Thanksgiving Day eighteen ninety two and
never checked out. When the Hotel del Coronado opened in
a teen eighty eight, it was the largest resort hotel
in the world. In the middle eighteen eighties, the San
Diego area was in the middle of a real estate boom.
To draw people to the area, several wealthy businessmen went

(01:16:13):
together and built the Hotel del Coronado. The popularity of
the hotel was established before the nineteen twenties. It had
already hosted presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Wilson. The hotel
went on to host Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford,

(01:16:37):
Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton,
George Bush, and Barack Obama. By the nineteen twenties, Hollywood's
stars and Starlit's discovered that the Dell was the in
place to stay. Many celebrities made their way south to
party during the era of Prohibition and used the Hotel

(01:17:00):
Dell as their personal playground. Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin,
and Ramon Navarro were a few of the many actors
who stayed at the hotel during weekend getaways. Other notables
have included Marilyn Monroe, Thomas Edison, L. Frank Baum, Vincent Price,
Babe Ruth, and many others. During World War Two, the

(01:17:24):
hotel was used to house Navy pilots and the families
of officers. By the end of the war, the neglected
hotel had started to age, and while millions were spent
to refurbish it, a new owner in nineteen sixty three
planned to tear it down, but he changed his mind
and remodeled and expanded it instead. It remains today as

(01:17:46):
one of the most beautiful resorts on the West Coast
and one with several ghosts. The hotel's hauntings include the
ghosts of a little boy and girl, a former hotel
caretaker seen in the dining room, and a Victorian woman
who has been seen dancing in the ballroom, but there
are none as famous as the ghost of Kate Morgan.

(01:18:10):
As mentioned, Kate checked into the hotel on Thanksgiving Day
eighteen ninety two, and she has never left. Hotel guests
and employees believe that most of the paranormal events that
occur at the hotel can be connected to Kate. Witnesses
report flickering lights, televisions that turn on and off by themselves,

(01:18:31):
dramatic shifts in room temperatures, odd sense, unexplained voices, the
sound of strange footsteps, mysterious breezes which cause curtains to
billow when windows are closed, and objects which move of
their own accord, and some claim to have seen the
ghost of Kate Borgan herself. Kate Morgan, a pretty woman

(01:18:56):
in her mid twenties, checked into the Hotel del Coronado
alone on Thursday, November twenty fourth, eighteen ninety two, Thanksgiving evening.
During her stay, hotel employees, many of whom had frequent
interactions with Kate, reported that she had appeared ill and
very unhappy. She had also told quite a few employees

(01:19:19):
that she was waiting for her brother, who she said
was a doctor, to join her, but he never showed up.
Five days after she checked in, Kate was found dead
on an exterior staircase leading to the beach. She had
a gunshot wound to her head, which the San Diego
County Coroner leader determined was self inflicted. A search of

(01:19:41):
her hotel room revealed no personal belongings. In fact, there
was nothing to identify the Beautiful Stranger except the name
she used when she registered, Lottie A. Bernard from Detroit.
After her death, police sent a sketch of Kate's face
and information about her death to newspapers and police stations

(01:20:02):
around the country in the hopes that someone could shed
light on the dark mystery surrounding the suicide of the
unknown girl at the Coronado Hotel. Eventually, Lottie Bernard was
identified as Kate Morgan, originally from Iowa and the wife
of Tom Morgan. Reportedly, Tom Morgan was a gambler who

(01:20:23):
may have made his living gambling on the railroad. After
the inquest into Kate's suicide, a gentleman came forward to
say he had seen Kate arguing with a man thought
to have been Tom on a train en route to
San Diego. The witness said that Tom disembarked before reaching
San Diego, and Kate continued on to the Hotel Del

(01:20:44):
Coronado by herself, where it is assumed she waited for
Tom to join her. When he never showed up, Kate
took her own life. Since that time, paranormal activity has
been reported in the room Kate stayed in during her
eighteen ninety two visit, Rumed thirty three twenty seven, and

(01:21:05):
in other areas of the hotel as well. She is
the most enduring ghost of the Grand Hotel and continues
her hold on the place almost one hundred twenty five
years after her tragic death. On November nineteenth, nineteen twenty four,

(01:21:39):
Hollywood movie producer Thomas Eintz died after celebrating his forty
second birthday aboard a yacht belonging to infamous newspaper publisher
William Randolph Hurst. But to this day, the exact circumstances
of his death remain a mystery. Could this be why
his ghost still wanders the movie student that he founded.

(01:22:02):
Thomas Heintz was a pioneering member of the Hollywood elite.
In nineteen eighteen, he founded Culver Studios and was considered
to be the father of the Western. He was also
the man who introduced the world to Mary Pickford, crowning
her America's sweetheart. Eints rose from being a fifteen dollars
per week actor to become the head of a studio,

(01:22:25):
and to this day still has a street named after
him in Culver City, Heintz Boulevard. Almost a century later,
Culver Studios remains one of Hollywood's most historic studios. It
was the site of filming for Gone with the Wind,
Citizen Kane, and other classics. Over the years, the film

(01:22:46):
lot has been home to such names as RKO, Howard Hughes,
and Desilu Studios. In addition to film classics, Culver Studios
was also the birthplace to favorite television shows like The
Andie Griffith Show, Lassie, Hogan's Heroes, and Batman. Previous owners
of the studio have included Cecil B. De Mill and

(01:23:09):
eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, but Thomas Eints had humble beginnings
in the movie capitol. In nineteen fifteen, Heintz partnered with D. W.
Griffith and Mark Sennett to create the Triangle Motion Picture
Company in Culver City. Somewhere along the way, the deal
went sour, and Heintz sold out and entered into a

(01:23:32):
lease with Harry Culver for a new fourteen acre studio
fronting on Washington Boulevard. It took two years to build
the Thomas H. Heintz Studio, and in December nineteen eighteen,
a Los Angeles newspaper called it a motion picture plant
that looks like a beautiful Southern estate. Heints, a visionary

(01:23:52):
in the industry, promoted the glamour of movie making, and
he entertained the King and Queen of Belgium and President
Woodrow Wilson at the s Studios. The Administration building became
a well known landmark, and Eins was rapidly expanding his
successful facility. Unfortunately, it was not meant to last, and
neither was Heinz's revered status. Sadly, Heins is remembered much

(01:24:17):
more today for his scandalous death than for his contribution
to the art of movie making. Einsteed in November nineteen
twenty four, while celebrating his birthday on board a yacht
owned by newspaper magnet William Randolph Hurst. The real story
of how einst died will probably never be known, but

(01:24:37):
Hollywood rumors tell a strange and twisted tale. Eins's mysterious
death will forever be linked to Marian Davies and William
Randolph Hurst, the greatest newspaper baron and one of the
most powerful men in American history. By the nineteen twenties,
Hurst had also become a major film financier as well.

(01:24:58):
He had first become interested in film through newsreels in
nineteen eleven, but soon his hobby turned to a quest
for profit. It was not long before his zeal for
the movies was enhanced due to his passion for furthering
the film career of sweet but untalented film actress Marion Davies,
with whom Hurst had been carrying on a notorious affair.

(01:25:21):
Hurst bought stock in MGM and created Cosmopolitan Productions, a
company that specifically produced Marion's films. His newspapers and magazines
proclaimed her to be a miracle of the movies, and
he did everything he could to entrench her into the
Hollywood film colony. Parties thrown at Marion's beach House were

(01:25:42):
the most extravagant in town, and people grabbed at the
chance of an invitation to a hearst affair. In addition,
being able to relax at Hurst's vast mansion in San Simeon,
with millions of dollars worth of imported furnishings, tapestries, paintings,
and thirty five automobiles in the garage, was a must
for anyone lucky enough to get an invitation for the weekend.

(01:26:06):
Marian also earned high marks as a hostess, even if
privately the party attendees made fun at her attempts at
acting on the screen. Another popular party spot was Hurst's
two hundred eighty foot yacht, the Oneida. Invitations to the
boat were even more highly coveted than those for the
beach house parties. On the night of Saturday, November fifteenth,

(01:26:29):
nineteen twenty four, the yacht left San Pedro Harbor for
a weekend cruise to San Diego. The cream of Hollywood's
Charmed Circle received invitations to a party on board the
Oneida that weekend. There were a number of guests on board,
but the only names that became available after the party
were Hearst, Mary and Davies, actress Sina Owen, and author

(01:26:52):
Eleanor Glynn. That weekend marked the forty third birthday of
Thomas Eintz, who was in the midst of negotiations with
Hurst concerning the use of his Culver City Studios as
a base for Cosmopolitan productions. It had been planned to
throw eints a birthday party on board the yacht Missus. Heintz,
who had also been invited, decided not to go along

(01:27:15):
on the trip because she was not feeling well. Heintz,
the guest of honor, missed the boat when it sailed
from San Pedro because of his attendants at the premiere
of The Mirage, his latest film. It is believed that
he took the last train to San Diego, where he
met the Oneida and joined the party for the return trip.

(01:27:35):
The celebration on board was said to be a wonderful occasion,
but then things got murky. In the early morning hours
of the following Wednesday, Thomas Einz died at his Benedict
Canyon home. His death was attributed to heart failure. When
the news reached the press, all sorts of ugly rumors

(01:27:56):
began to circulate, as well as a hash of conflicting stories.
Things became so heated that Chester Kempley, the District attorney
in San Diego, where the yacht had been anchored for
the weekend, was forced to open an investigation. The principles
were all strangely absent at the hearings that followed. Hurst
could not be reached for a statement. Marion Eleanor Glenn

(01:28:19):
and Sina Owen, the only names known for certain to
have been on board, were not called by the DA
to give testimony. The only person present at the hearing
in San Diego was a doctor named Goodman, an employee
of Hearst. His official version of events, which was printed
in Hursts newspapers, stated that after eating and drinking too

(01:28:41):
much at the party, Aintz died of acute indigestion. He
was taken from the yacht and rushed home, where he
later died. After the hearing, the case was closed. Originally, D. A.
Kempley had insisted that he planned to call every single
person who had been on board the yacht to give
their version of events, But not only did he not

(01:29:03):
call any of them, he suddenly, after just the one session,
called off all further inquiry altogether. He was satisfied that
Heinz's death had been explained, but others were not, including
a number of newspaper columnists and writers of the day
who demanded that the authorities look into Heinz's suspicious death.

(01:29:24):
One of the strangest facts about the cruise was that
no accurate list of the guests on board the ship
that weekend has ever been revealed. There were obviously many
more people on board than has ever been reported. Several
well known personalities of the film world have been mentioned
as Hurst's guests that weekend, but none of them ever

(01:29:45):
publicly admitted to being on board the yacht. Of course,
there were many rumors about who was there, just what
actually occurred, and what really happened to cause the death
of Thomas Einz. Perhaps the most exciting room to make
the rounds and Hollywood involved the presence of Einz's friend
Charlie Chaplin on board the Oneida for the party. Ruber

(01:30:08):
had it, however, that Chaplain had not been invited just
because he was Aince's pal. Hurst was insanely jealous of
other men's attention to mary and Davies, and his detectives
had recently informed him that Marian and Chaplain had been
seen together during a period of time when he was
out of town. Hurst allegedly invited the comedic actor on

(01:30:29):
board the yacht for the weekend cruise so that he
could observe for himself how Chaplin and Maryan behaved around
one another. It is believed that Hurst saw Maryan and
Chaplain slip off together during the party that he discovered
them together on the lower deck. A loud altercation followed,
and Hurst ran for his cabin to retrieve a diamond

(01:30:50):
studded revolver that he kept on board. Hurst was rumored
to be an expert shot and often amused his guests
on the boat by shooting down seagulls with a single bullet.
In the confusion that followed, it was rumored a shot
was fired, but it was Thomas Eins and not Chaplain
who ended up with a bullet in the head. Eins's

(01:31:10):
funeral was held on November twenty first, attended by his family,
Mary and Davies, Chaplain, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Harold Lloyd.
Hurst was noticeably absent. The body was immediately cremated and
an official inquest was never held. Despite the fact that
the evidence was now in ashes, Hurst knew he could

(01:31:33):
be in trouble with the Hollywood rumor mill. Everyone on
board the Oneida was sworn to secrecy and it wouldn't
be wise to cross Hurst. But in spite of this,
persistent rumors linked Hurst to Heintz's death. No one could
resist talking about the way the hearings into Heinz's death
had been called off, the lack of an official inquest,

(01:31:54):
or the damning story that Charlie Chaplin's secretary had seen
Eins carried off the yacht bleeding from a bullet wound
to the head. Some thought it no coincidence that famed
gossip columnist Luella Parsons was awarded a lifetime contract with
Hurst soon after the incident, since it was rumored that
she had seen everything that had happened. Luella also felt

(01:32:17):
the need to do a little covering up of her
own and insisted that she had been in New York
at the time of Heinz's death. The only problem with
this story was that Vera Burnett, Marian's stand in, clearly
recalled seeing Luella with Marian and Davies at the studio
ready for departure on the yacht. Vera valued her job, though,

(01:32:38):
and decided not to make a big deal out of it.
Marion and Hurst managed to ride out the scandal unscathed.
But as D. W. Griffith remarked in later years, all
you have to do to make Hurst turn white as
a ghost is mentioned Eins's name. There's plenty wrong there,
but Hurst is too big to touch. It was widely

(01:33:00):
known in Hollywood that if you ever wanted to attend
another party at Marion's beach house or the San Simeon Castle,
you didn't mention Eins's name any place where Hurst might
hear you. In the years that followed, Hurst discreetly provided
Heinz's widow, Nell with a trust fund that was later
wiped out by the Depression. Broke and penniless, Nell finished

(01:33:24):
out her days as a taxi driver. As for Hurst,
the entire affair was eventually reduced to a sardonic joke
in Hollywood, as the Oneida became known as William Randolph's Hearst. Strangely, though,
death did not bring an end to sidings of Thomas Heinz,
and his mysterious death also started rumors about Culver's Studios

(01:33:46):
being haunted. Heinz built the studios, but they changed hands
several times after his death. Cecil B. De Mille, Howard Hughes,
David Selznik, Desi Arnez, and Lucille Ball made sig gnificant
contributions to film and television history on this lot. The
rumors of the haunting have persisted for years. Employees have

(01:34:09):
reported ghostly figures roaming the lot at night, while others
recount being frightened by the apparition of a woman who
appears on the third floor from time to time. She
always disappears quickly, leaving a cold spot of chilling wind behind.
Most famous, however, are the sightings of Thomas Einz himself.

(01:34:30):
Witnesses have reported seeing the ghost of a man climbing
the stairs in the main administration building, heading for the
executive screening room. This had been Einz's private projection room.
During his tenure at the studio, remodeling seemed to bring
out the worst in Heinz's ghost. In nineteen eighty eight,
when he began to reveal his displeasure over some major renovations,

(01:34:53):
the first to encounter him were two workmen who looked
up to see a man in an odd bowler type
hat while then from the catwalks above stage one, two three.
When they spoke to him, he frowned and then turned
and walked into the second floor wall. Later that summer,
special effects man Eugene Hilchy spoke to another worker who

(01:35:13):
had also seen a man wearing an odd hat, this
time on stage two, three four. Hilchy was convinced the
man's description matched that of Einz. The worker's statement was
enough to cement his belief. The ghost had reportedly turned
to the workman and said, I don't like what you're
doing to my studio. Then he vanished into the wall.

(01:35:36):
Even after the renovations, much of Heinz's original studio remains
as it was, and the sense of history here is
very strong. Today, Culver Studios remains one of the busiest
lots in town. Hopefully, Thomas Heinz's spirit can find a
little piece in that when Weird Darkness Returns. In November

(01:36:09):
of nineteen oh one, Nell Cropsey vanished from her family's home.
Her body was found a month later floating in a
river nearby. She had been brutally murdered, but by who?
Plus Doctor Crippen was hanged in November of nineteen ten
for the murder of his wife, Cora, But was he
truly the one who murdered her? These stories and more

(01:36:30):
when Weird Darkness Returns. On the night of November twentieth,

(01:36:52):
nineteen oh one, a young North Carolina woman named Nell
Cropsy vanished from her family's home in Elizabeth City. After
a frantic search that lasted more than a month, Nell's
body was discovered floating in a nearby river. She had
been brutally murdered, but by who? Her lover spent more

(01:37:13):
than a dozen years in prison proclaiming his innocence before
being pardoned by the governor. Did he kill Nell? And
if not, then who did? And why did he commit
suicide soon after getting out of prison. The story of
Nell Cropsey remains one of the strange tales of murder
in the state's history. And perhaps the unanswered questions that

(01:37:35):
still surround the case are the reason why Nell's ghost
still haunts her family home today. Nell Maud Cropsey was
born in July eighteen eighty two. Her parents, William and
his wife Mary Luis, lived in Brooklyn, New York, but
in eighteen ninety eight left the city for the southern
community of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. They moved on to

(01:37:58):
a sixty five acre farm, and William became a judge
in Pasquotank County. They happily settled into their new home,
and Nell and her younger sister, Olive became quite well
known in the area. They were both beautiful girls and
had more than their shriff suitors. Olive began a relationship
with a man named Roy Crawford, while Nell was courted

(01:38:20):
by Jim Wilcox, the son of the local sheriff. By
nineteen o one, they had been together nearly two years
and were talking about marriage. On the evening of November twentieth,
both Roy and Jim visited the Cropsy home. The two
couples spent the evening together, and around eleven p m.

(01:38:40):
Jim stood up and asked Nell to join him on
the front porch to talk. Everyone else in the house
except for Olive and Roy, was asleep. A half hour passed,
and Olive assumed that Nell had come back into the
house and gone to bed. Roy Crawford left the house,
seeing no one outside. When Olive went to the room

(01:39:01):
that she shared with her sister, she saw that Nell
was not in her bed. She assumed Nell was still
with Jim and went to sleep. Around midnight, the cropsy's
dog suddenly began barking loudly. The entire household was awakened
and went out on to the front porch to see
the cause of the disturbance. There was no one there,

(01:39:24):
but at that point Olive realized that Nell had never
come to bed. Her sister was missing. Missus Cropsey was terrified,
but her husband tried to calm her, suggesting that perhaps
Nell and Jim had decided to Elope. They had been
talking about marriage and it was not unusual for young

(01:39:44):
couples to run off and get married, he told his wife.
By morning, William Cropsey was not convinced that his daughter
had run away. Nell had been excited about an upcoming
trip to New York. None of her belongings were missing,
Her clothing and soon cases were still in the closet.
William was sure something was wrong. He went to the

(01:40:06):
ham of Sheriff Wilcox to ask questions. Jim had been
the last one to see Nell that night, perhaps he
had some idea of where she might be. When he arrived.
Jim was home but refused to come to the parlor
and speak with Nell's father. Angry and alarmed, William went
to see the chief of police. The authorities forced Jim

(01:40:27):
Wilcox to return to the Cropsy home and they questioned
him for hours. Despite pleas from Mary and Olive, Jim
refused to tell them anything. All that he would say
was that he had left Nell crying on the porch
after a ten minute conversation. He refused to say why
the young woman was crying, what the conversation was about,

(01:40:49):
or where he had gone after he left the Cropsy home.
A massive hunt for Nell Cropsy began. Law enforcement officers, volunteers,
and trained blood combed the area, searching the forests and swamps.
There was no sign of the missing girl. Rumors began
to surface that painted an ugly picture of the relationship

(01:41:11):
between Nell and Jim Wilcox. Friends told the police about
terrible fights and Nell's fear of Jim's violent temper. They'd
been fighting more than usual over the last couple of months,
and Berry Cropsey told the police that Nell had recently
confided that she planned to stop seeing Jim. Weeks passed

(01:41:31):
with still no trace of the missing girl. Jim Wilcox
still refused to talk to the police, and the Cropsy
family began to fear the worst. Then, on December twenty seventh,
Nell's body was found floating in the Pasquatank River. The
river had been searched many times without success, causing many

(01:41:51):
to surmise that the killer had recently taken the girl's
body from a hiding place and dumped it into the river.
With no other suspect. Jim Wilcox was arrested. While in jail,
death threats poured into the police station, promising that Jim
would be lynched for his crime. To make matters worse,
he still refused to account for his whereabouts in the

(01:42:13):
house after Nell disappeared. The autopsy showed that Nell had
been killed by a violent blow to the left temple.
Jim's temper was said to be violent. Could an argument
have turned deadly, Jim weaved his right to a preliminary hearing,
and he went straight to trial. In March nineteen oh two.

(01:42:34):
He was found guilty a first degree murder and was
sentenced to hang. Before he could go to the gallows,
his case was declared a mistrial by the North Carolina
Supreme Court. He was tried again for murder in nineteen
oh three, and this time was found guilty of second
degree murder. He was sentenced to spend the next thirty

(01:42:55):
years in prison. In nineteen eighteen, though Jim received a
visit from govern Under Thomas Walter Bickott. A short time later,
he was pardoned and released. After Jim got out of prison,
he met with famed newspaper editor W. O. Sanders, who
was planning a book about the Cropsy case. Whatever Jim

(01:43:15):
had to tell him was apparently so shocking that Saunders
made immediate plans to start on the proposed book, but
it was never to be. A Short time after the meeting,
Jim committed suicide with a shotgun blast to the head.
Soon after, Saunders was killed in a car accident. Whatever

(01:43:35):
Jim Wilcox told Saunders at that meeting will never be
known However, it's just one of the mysteries connected to
this case. We will likely never know what happened to
Nell Cropsey that night in nineteen o one, and perhaps
this is the reason why her spirit refuses to rest
for the past century. Those who've lived in the former

(01:43:56):
cropsy home have reported strange occurrences, lights go on and off,
doors open and shut, water rushes from the sink even
when no one turns the handle, and strange cold gusts
of air waft through the house without explanation. Some reports
also include sightings of a pale young woman who's been

(01:44:19):
seen walking across empty rooms. People passing by on the
street have seen the same pale figure looking wistfully from
an upstairs window. One resident claimed to recognize Nell when
she awoke and saw the murdered girl standing at the
foot of her bed one night. Will the enduring mystery
of Nell's death ever be solved after all of these years,

(01:44:42):
It seems unlikely, which means that the unfortunate young woman
is just as unlikely to find the peace that she
still seeks. Her lingering presence reminds us that she never
truly received the justice that she deserved, and because she
still walks. She has never forgotten. Her sad story is
told over and over as we recall the tragic tale

(01:45:05):
of her ghost. Dead men or in a dead young
woman really do tell tales. On November twenty third, nineteen ten,

(01:45:32):
American board homeopathic physician and salesman Hally Harvey Crippen, usually
known simply as doctor Crippen in crime annals, was hanged
at Pentonville Prison in London for the murder of his wife, Cora.
He has the dubious distinction of being the first criminal
to be captured with the aid of wireless communication. Crippen

(01:45:53):
was born in Coldwater, Michigan, in September eighteen sixty two.
He graduated from the Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in
eighteen eighty four. Crippen's first wife, Charlotte, died of a
stroke in eighteen ninety two, and Crippen entrusted his parents
living in California with the care of his two year

(01:46:13):
old son, Hawley Otto. Having qualified as a homeopathic doctor,
Crippen started to practice in New York, where in eighteen
ninety four he married his second wife, Corren Cora Turner,
who used the stage name of Belle Elmore. She was
a would be music hall singer who openly had affairs

(01:46:35):
with other men. Needless to say, their marriage was not
a happy one. In eighteen ninety four, Crippen started working
for Doctor Munions, a homeopathic pharmaceutical company, and three years
later he and his wife moved to England. His American
medical credentials were not sufficient to allow him to practice
medicine in the UK, and today wouldn't have allowed him

(01:46:57):
to practice here either. Rippins went to work as a
distributor of patent medicines. Cora went back to work too,
and began socializing with a number of famous variety players
of the time, including Lil Hawthorne of the Hawthorne Sisters
and Lil's husband, manager John Nash. In eighteen ninety nine,

(01:47:18):
Crippen lost his job with Munions for spending too much
time managing his wife's stage career. He became manager of
Drought's Institution for the Death, where he met Ethel lenev
a young typist, around nineteen oh three. No one knows
when their affair began, but it is known that she
was his mistress by nineteen oh five, and that year

(01:47:41):
the Crippens moved into a house on Camden Road and
began taking in lodgers to supplement Crippen's income. After Cora
started an affair with one of the lodgers, Crippen began
sleeping with Ethel. After a party at their home on
January thirty first, nineteen ten, Cora disappeared. Polly Crippen claimed

(01:48:03):
that she had returned to America and then later added
that she had died and had been cremated in California. Meanwhile,
his lover Ethel moved into the house on Camden Road
and began openly wearing Cora's clothes and jewelry. Police first
heard of Cora's disappearance from her friend side showed strong
woman Kate Williams, better known as Volcano, but began to

(01:48:27):
take the matter more seriously when asked to investigate by
personal friends of Scotland Yard Superintendent Frank Frost, John Nash
and his entertainer wife Lil Hawthorne. The Crippen house was searched,
but nothing was found. Crippen was interviewed by Chief Inspector
Walter dou and after the interview and a quick search

(01:48:47):
of the house, Deue was satisfied. However, Grippin and Lenev
didn't know that police suspicions had been relieved, and fled
in panic to Brussels, where they spent the night at
a hotel. The following day, they went to Antwerp and
boarded the Canadian Pacific liner s S Montrose for Canada.
Their disappearance led the police at Scotland Yard to perform

(01:49:11):
another three searches of the house. During the fourth and
final search, they found the remains of a human body
buried under the brick floor of the basement. Sir Bernard
Spilsbury found traces of the calming drug scopolamine in the remains.
The corpse was identified by a piece of skin from
its abdomen. However, the head, limbs, and skeleton were never recovered. Meanwhile,

(01:49:36):
Grippin and Lenev were crossing the Atlantic on the Montrose,
with Lenev disguised as a boy. Captain Henry George Kendall
recognized the fugitives though, and just before steaming out of
range of the land based transmitters, had telegraphist Lawrence Ernst
Hughes sent a wireless telegram to the British authorities have

(01:49:56):
strong suspicions that Crippin London sellar, murderer and a co
helpless are among saloon passengers. Mustache taken off, growing beard,
accomplice dressed as boy, manner and build undoubtedly a girl.
Had Crippen traveled third class, he would have probably escaped
Kendall's notice. Doue boarded a faster white star liner, the

(01:50:18):
SS Laurentiic arrived in Quebec, Canada, ahead of Crippen and
contacted the Canadian authorities. As the Montrose entered the Saint
Lawrence River, Dew came aboard disguised as a pilot. Canada
was then still a dominion within the British Empire. If Crippen,
an American citizen, had sailed to the United States instead,

(01:50:38):
even if he had been recognized, it would have taken
extradition proceedings to bring him to trial. Kendall invited Crippens
to meet the pilots as they came aboard. Dew removed
his pilot's cap and said, good morning, doctor Crippen. Do
you know me. I'm Chief Inspector dou from Scotland Yard.
After a pause, Crippen replied, thank god, it's over. The

(01:51:00):
suspense has been too great. I couldn't stand it any longer.
He then held out his wrists for the handcuffs. Crippen
and lenev were arrested on board the Montrose on July
thirty first, nineteen ten. Crippen was returned to England on
board the s S Megantic. Crippen and Ethel were tried
separately in London. Ethel was tried as an accessory and

(01:51:24):
was later acquitted, but Crippen would not be so lucky.
No matter how strange the trial turned out to be,
the pathologists appearing for the prosecution, including Bernard Spillsbury, could
not identify the remains or even discern whether they were
male or female. However, Spillsbury found a piece of skin
with what he claimed to be an abdominal scar, consistent

(01:51:47):
with Chorus medical history. Large quantities of the toxic compound
hyeskine were found in the remains, and Crippen had bought
the drug before the murder from a local chemist. Crippen's
defense maintained that Cora had fled to America with another
man named Bruce Miller. They also said that Cora and
Crippen had only been living in the house since nineteen

(01:52:09):
oh five, suggesting a previous owner of the house was
responsible for the placement of the remains. The defense also
asserted that the abdominal scar identified by pathologist Spillsbury was
really just folded tissue, for it, among other things, had
hair follicles growing from it, something scar tissue could not have.

(01:52:31):
Other evidence presented by the prosecution included a piece of
a man's pajama top, supposedly from a pair Cora had
given Crippen a year earlier. The pajama bottoms were found
in Crippen's bedroom, but not the top. The fragment included
the manufacturer's label Jones Brothers curlers with bleached hair consistent
with Cora's both were found with the remains. Throughout the

(01:52:55):
proceedings and his sentencing, Crippen showed no remorse for his wife,
as concern for only his lover's reputation. After twenty seven
minutes of deliberations, the jury found Crippen guilty of murder.
He was hanged at nine a m November twenty third,
nineteen ten at his request. A photograph of ethel Leneve

(01:53:17):
was placed in his coffin with him. Crippen was dead,
but the story doesn't end there. Many doubts remain as
to whether or not Crippen truly murdered his wife. The
novelist Raymond Chandler commented that it seemed unbelievable that Crippen
would successfully dispose of his wife's limbs and head, and

(01:53:39):
then rather stupidly bury her torso under the cellar floor
of his home. In October two thousand seven, Michigan State
University forensic scientist David Forren claimed that mitochondrial DNA evidence
showed that the remains found beneath the cellar floor in
Crippen's home were not those of Cora Crippen. This reach

(01:54:00):
was based on genealogical identification of three matrilineal relatives of
Cora Crippen great nieces located by US genealogist Beth Wills,
whose mitochondrial DNA haplotype was compared with DNA extracted from
a slide with flesh taken from the torso and Crippen's
cellar carefully preserved in a London hospital museum. This has

(01:54:22):
raised new questions about the actual identity of the remains
found in the cellar, and, by extension, over Crippen's guilt.
One theory is that Crippen may have been carrying out
illegal abortions. It may be that one of his patients
died and that he disposed of the body in the
way he was accused of disposing of his wife. However,

(01:54:44):
the remains were also tested for sex at Michigan State
using a highly sensitive essay of the Y chromosome. On
this basis, the researchers found that the body parts were
those of a man. The research team also argued that
a scular on the abdomen of the body, which the
Crown prosecution interpreted as a scar, consistent with one Missus

(01:55:05):
Crippen was known to have, convincing the jury that the
remains were Missus Crippen's, was incorrectly identified due to the
tissues having hair follicles, whereas scars do not, a point
which doctor Crippen's defense argued at the time. These recent
arguments for Crippen's innocence have been disputed by some commentators,
although in no instance has it been disputed by actual scientists.

(01:55:28):
It has been argued that the DNA sample could have
been tainted or mislabeled, or alternatively, that the alleged relatives
were not actually blood relatives of missus Crippen. However, the
research has since been published in the January twenty eleven
issue of the Premier Journal of Forensic Sciences, following careful
peer review by highly qualified forensic scientists. Numerous requests have

(01:55:53):
been made for samples of the blonde hair found at
the scene and now preserved in new Scotland Yard's museum
to conduct ds testing to see if they are Cora's.
Obtaining a DNA sample from these sources would greatly lessen
any questions of contamination. New Scotland Yard has repeatedly denied
this request. However, new Scotland Yard was willing to test

(01:56:16):
a hair from the crime scene for a fee, which
in turn was rejected by the investigators as over the top,
making this an option which is still open if new
Scotland Yard continues to extend the offer. Some have suggested
that the police planted the body parts and particularly the
fragment of the pajama top at the scene to incriminate Crippen.

(01:56:38):
Others suggested motive is that Scotland Yard was under tremendous
public pressure to find and bring to trial a suspect
for this heinous crime, but it should be noted that
the case did not become public until after the remains
were found. Was doctor Crippen guilty it may not matter.
In December two thousand and nine, the Criminal Cases Revive Commission,

(01:57:00):
having reviewed the case, declared that the Court of Appeal
will not hear the case to pardon Crippen posthumously. Coming up,
the citizens of Chicago have their celebration of Christmas changed

(01:57:22):
in a dramatic and horrifying way in nineteen twelve thanks
to a storm on Lake Michigan that consumed the Christmas
Tree Ship. That story is up next on Weird Darkness.

(01:57:52):
While the Holidays are usually a time of cheer and happiness,
the people of Chicago learned of a Christmas related tragedy
November twenty second, nineteen twelve, when the Roos Simmons, the
famed Christmas Tree Ship, went down in a storm on
Lake Michigan. The tragedy changed the face of the holiday

(01:58:12):
for the people of Chicago in a very unexpected way.
For many years, one of the great traditions of Chicago
was the arrival of the famous Christmas Tree Ship. Starting
in eighteen eighty seven, Captain Hermann Schunemann and his brother
August began returning with bundles of their fragrant cargo. Schuneman
sold Christmas trees and handmade wreaths from his mooring on

(01:58:35):
the Chicago River near the Clark Street Bridge. The tallest
trees drawn from the shipment were presented to the grateful
owners of downtown theaters, and in return the brothers received
complimentary season passes. The rest were sold to celebrating citizens,
many of whom spoke of their fond memories of the
Schunemans and the Rows Simmons their Christmas tree ship for generations.

(01:58:58):
By nineteen twelve, chicagoans anxiously looked forward to the ship's
arrival and anticipated searching for the perfect tree among the wares,
which ranged in price from seventy five cents to a dollar.
Herman affixed a hand painted sign to the dock each year,
reminding his customers that he had ventured into the deep
snows of the Upper Peninsula to hand pick just the

(01:59:21):
right trees for his fine friends. Back in Chicago, Herman Schunemann,
the master of the Rouse Simmons, his wife, and three
young daughters, lived in a small apartment at sixteen thirty
eight North Clark Street, just a little over a mile
north of the river. His oldest daughter, Elsie, was devoted
to her father and had recently become active in the

(01:59:41):
family's seasonal business. It was a business that was not
without risk. The month of November, when the shipment of
trees had to be sailed across the Great Lakes, was
a particularly treacherous one. From Lake Michigan. High winds and
deadly gales had sent many ships to the bottom of
Lake Michigan. In eighteen ninety eight, Captain Schuneman's brother August

(02:00:03):
went down with all hands while manning the schooner as
Thall in the waters off north suburban Glencoe. But his
brother's death and the threat of more dangerous weather failed
to deter Hermann Schunemann. He knew. The Rouse Simmons was
a sturdy ship built in eighteen sixty eight. The wooden
schooner was fitted with three masts and had been intended

(02:00:24):
for use in the lumber industry. Its large hold made
it perfect for storing hundreds of Christmas trees each season.
On November twenty second, nineteen twelve, Captain Schunemann, with a
crew and passenger list of sixteen and between twenty seven
thousand and fifty thousand trees tied and bundled below decks
set sail from Manistique, Michigan, bound for Chicago. The skies

(02:00:48):
were overcast and high winds were predicted, but the Rouse
Simmons headed straight into the open waters of the lake.
When a storm broke, the wooden ship was hopelessly trapped
far from shore. The ship foundered in the rough waters,
and eventually the sails blew out and the ice covered
masts collapsed. A short time later, the Rouse Simmons disappeared.

(02:01:10):
Captain Hermann Schunemann was never heard from again, although many
of his trees were found washed ashore in Wisconsin A
few days after the ship vanished. The people of Chicago
and the family of Captain Schuneman were grief stricken and stunned.
Newspaper reporters found Elsie Schuneman and her mother weaving Christmas

(02:01:31):
garlands that came from the splintered trees recovered by Wisconsin
residence on the lake shore line, facing destitution. They sold
the garlands to the public. Every dollar the family possessed
had been tied up in the Rouse Simmons and its
ill fated cargo. The Chicago Inner Ocean Newspaper, with help
from the Lake Seamen's Union, organized an emergency relief fund

(02:01:52):
for the family. Elsie told the newspaper reporters, I'm going
to attempt to carry on father's Christmas tree business. I
will get friends to help me and send trees by
rail to Chicago and sell them from the foot of
Clark Street. Ever since I was a little girl, Papa
has sold them there, and lots and lots of people
never think of going anywhere else for their trees. As

(02:02:15):
a sales location for the trees, W. C. Holmes Shipping,
for whom Schunemann had operated a vessel in his younger days,
offered the family the use of a schooner, the Oneida.
It was moored at the Clark Street bridge, where the
Rau Simmons had rested for years and after the Ral
Simmons disaster, the new ship was filled with trees each year,

(02:02:36):
and the cherished Christmas tradition was unbroken. Meanwhile, in nineteen twelve,
the search for clues and survivors from the Rau Simmons continued.
The US Treasury Department offered the use of one of
their cutters to search the small islands of Lake Michigan
for any sign of the small ship. The hopes and
prayers of the families of the crew and passengers went

(02:02:57):
with the cutter, but those hopes faded. No sign of
the men were found, but two bottle messages were reportedly recovered.
The first was found on a beach at Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
on December thirteenth, nineteen twelve. It read Friday, everybody, goodbye.
I guess we are all through sea. Washed over our

(02:03:20):
deck load. Tuesday, during the night the small boat washed
over Ingwald and Steve fell overboard on Thursday. God help
us Hermann Schunemann. Ingvald Newhouse was a deckhand taken on
board just before sailing, and Stephen Nelson was the first
bait and son of Captain Charles Nelson, who was also lost.

(02:03:42):
The second bottle note, this one written by Captain Nelson,
was found years later in nineteen twenty seven. It read
these lines were written at ten thirty pm. Scooter rs
ready to go down about twenty miles southeast of two
rivers point between fifteen and twenty miles off shore. All
hands lashed to one line. Goodbye from time to time,

(02:04:05):
other curious artifacts, including a human skull, believed to have
come from the Christmas Tree Ship, were washed up along
beaches or snagged in fishermen's nets. On April twenty third,
nineteen twenty four, Captain Schuneman's wallet, containing business cards and
newspaper clippings, was recovered at Two Rivers Point, but the

(02:04:26):
final location of the Ralse Simmons remained a mystery until
October nineteen seventy one, a diver named G. Kent Belrichard
of Milwaukee found the remarkably preserved wreck under one hundred
eighty feet of water off the coast of Two Rivers.
As to the fate of the rest of the Schuneman family,

(02:04:47):
Elsie made good on her promise to continue the tradition
of the Christmas Tree Ship. They maintained the tree lot
at the Clark Street Bridge every holiday season until nineteen
thirty three, bringing happiness to thousands of shikoh Ugo families
every year. When where darkness returns, I have a fictional

(02:05:12):
tale of holiday horror for you, perfect for this time
of the year, seeing as the story is called Black
Friday that's coming up next. The cool air bristled across

(02:05:38):
the wide open space of the dimly lit parking lot.
The sun was still a long ways away. It was
just a very faded, light blue haze on the distant horizon.
Most nights it would be the dead time of night,
with the world still asleep. But that night, that morning,

(02:05:58):
it was far from still and asleep. Not the early
pre dawn morning after Thanksgiving, cars and trucks filled with
holiday traveled shoppers roamed in the early morning streets. Coffee
shops were already opened to the morning participants and filled
with many people getting their refills. Family members would be

(02:06:20):
switching out from the long lines, as many would be
tucked away in their vehicles while one member would brave
the cold. Solitary shoppers would be heavily bundled with Hunter
handwarmers placed strategically throughout their body to attempt to keep
them warm. Winter was coming, and so was Christmas. Tim

(02:06:41):
stood there. He was one of the many shoppers getting
ready to storm the doors into the closed department store.
The store itself still had an hour before they would
open to the onslaught of customers, and the line outside
was already stretched around to the side of the building.
Its end law out of sight. He was glad that

(02:07:02):
he was one of the few people closest to the door,
but then he had also been camping there since before
the store had even closed the night before. I'm going
back to the car, Tim looked over his shoulder. Michelle
was shivering behind him. Her face, the little he could
see exposed, as most of it was hidden behind her

(02:07:23):
pink scarf, was pale white from the cold. Even her
normally bright blue eyes seemed to be iced over with
a sheen of frost. He had warned her beforehand about
coming with him, that it wasn't easy to stand in
the line for hours on end. She had thought it
would be fun. She could play on her phone and
text people. She had told him that had lasted fifteen minutes.

(02:07:47):
By midnight. She had already been complaining about wanting to
go home and come back later. She didn't understand. Okay, Han,
you go get yourself warmed up, he said to her.
She hadn't even waited for him. She had already turned
and was bouncing back to their little Ford escort. The
heat wouldn't kick on for a couple of minutes, if

(02:08:09):
it did at all, but she had blankets in there
and it would get her out of the wind. The
couple next to him really came prepared. They were seated
in lawn chairs, large thick blankets pulled up to their faces,
and full headgear to keep them warm. They had long
since fallen asleep and were statues to the god of Greed.

(02:08:30):
Others nearby had set up tents. Those were the fanatics.
They had been camped out there for two days. When
Tim first showed up, he couldn't help but find out
more like what they were there for. One of them
was just there for the event of it. He just
planned on picking up a couple of new DVDs. Michelle
was shocked by the madness of it all. She was

(02:08:52):
furious at first. Didn't any of these people have families
they should be with It's Thanksgiving? Tim just smiled. She
was cute that she was in her tight blue jeans
that sometimes looked like they were just painted on. A
wiggle fit, he called them, as he knew she had
to shake her booty viciously to fit them into the

(02:09:13):
small space of the pants. Then there was her slim
fitting sweater that was thick enough to be warm, but
still tight to her shape. Damn, he felt lucky having
her there with him, even if she did spend most
of the time in the car. Tim looked back behind him.
People were still pulling into the parking lot and crossing

(02:09:34):
over towards the distant end of the line. The stream
was becoming larger, more cars were driving on the roads,
and the morning was waking up in greater force. He
loved being out there for it, just the feeling of
being a part of the morning as it was waking up.
The air smelled different. The cool breeze felt different, like

(02:09:55):
it was electric pulsating intensely. In preparation for what was
to come, Tim scanned the parking lot at how the
morning was coming alive, and stopped when his gaze fell
upon his car. He watched as the exhaust created a small,
poisonous fog spitting out from the rusted tailpipe. Maybe he

(02:10:15):
should think about getting a new car instead of waiting
in line for a television. That exhaust had to be
filtering into the heat. He didn't know how she could
stand to just sit in there. Then again, it was
either that or out here in the cold. Just like
her good looks, she wouldn't nearly die if it meant
to keep herself comfortable or looking good. Tim shifted as

(02:10:39):
he noticed that she wasn't alone in the car. She
was sitting behind the wheel, but Tim could just make
out another shape sitting there with her. He couldn't see
it too well, but there was definitely a dark shape
moving around in the front seat of the car. He
was making the whole car shake, rocking back and forth.

(02:10:59):
If Tim had known better, he would have thought there
was sexual feeling going on, but Michelle would never and
it was too soon. After she had left, Tim didn't
stop to think about his place in line when the
driver's side door opened and he could hear her screaming.
Michelle's scream could be heard loudly throughout the parking lot,
and it chilled him even deeper. He tried to run

(02:11:21):
as fast as he could, but his legs had long
since gone numb from standing and being out there in
the cold. They burned and pulled against him. He neared
the car as Michelle was trying to pull herself out.
Her hands just reaching over the top of the door
were covered in blood, and she struggled against the dark
shape trying to pull herself away. He could hear her

(02:11:44):
struggling sounding like she was trying to kick herself away,
But with the windows fogged and the angle he had
run towards her, he still couldn't see much more than
the streaks of blood coming down the driver's side door. Michele,
Tim yelled. He could see in greater detail how the
passenger side window had been broken in and the dark

(02:12:04):
shape was reaching through from the other side, chasing after
his girlfriend. She was staring at him through the window
as some of the fog had started to fade, making
her face just a haze. Her expression was of desperation,
and he knew that tears were streaming down her face.
He tried to push himself even faster to get around

(02:12:24):
the door to get her michel He rounded around the
open door, quickly reaching in to grab for her hand.
Take my hand, Tim said. He reached for hers, but
she wouldn't grab it. Her grip remained tight on the door,
fingers locked into their grasp. Her skin was covered in blood,
and he grabbed at her hands to pull them away.

(02:12:47):
The fingers stayed locked. She refused to look at him,
and a lump was beginning to form in the pit
of his stomach. There was a lot of blood He
hoped like hell that it wasn't hers. He silently prayed
to himself that it wasn't. He finally was able to
break away her fingers from the frame and took her
hands into his. The blood was wet and sticky, and

(02:13:09):
he had to fight to keep hold of her. As
he started pulling her out of the front seat of
the car, she wrenched back pulled away from him. When
her hand broke free from the door frame, he had
to pull harder. A tug of war occurred, with Michelle
being used as a rope. He pulled with all of
his strength, coursing through his legs to dig into the
black top of the parking lot. The shape hidden in

(02:13:31):
the darkness of the car. Tim couldn't see who or
what had her. He just knew he wanted to get
Michelle away from it. He pulled harder, feeling as she
was starting to come farther from the front seat of
the car. Then with a sudden snap, she was broken
free and lunged forward towards him. He fell back, and
Michelle came crashing down on top of him. Blood was

(02:13:54):
dripping from her and he could see the large chunk
of flesh taken out of her neck. He could also
see her collarbone, right where skin and muscles should have been,
through a large rip in her sweater around the tear.
A massive amount of red crimson already drenched her sweater
around the gaping hole, and it was quickly getting worse.

(02:14:15):
Tim looked to her eyes, turning her face so that
she was looking at him. Her face turned, but her
eyes were barely open, and looked at him with a
blank gaze. Her mouth was open, but inside her tongue
flopped with the motion. As Tim was jerking her around
trying to get her to snap out of it, she
was gone. He let her go and started to pull

(02:14:37):
himself out from under her. His eyes stayed locked into
her lifeless orbs as the black dots continued to look
back at him. She had just been there with him,
just minutes ago. She had been in line with him,
talking to him. He could already start to hear the
commotion from the crowd, and some that had family members

(02:14:59):
holding their place were already running over. Tim didn't turn
to look. He just wanted his Michelle to have her
eyes snap out of their days and to stare back
at him, not through him. He didn't even notice as
the dark shape started to crawl over Michelle and continue
towards him. Brett yawned, his eyes moist in the corner

(02:15:28):
as they thought to stay open. His mouth pulled tight,
and he could feel the muscles in his neck tense.
His whole body was feeling like it wasn't awake, and
there wasn't a single part of him that wanted to
be there. He couldn't remember the last time he had
woken up that early, had he Ever, he didn't want
to be up that early now it wasn't even five

(02:15:50):
in the morning. Yet he was unnatural, uncalled for to
be there. And to make it worse, he had to
listen to that man just drone on and on. He
was babbling something about lines and flow of traffic. Brett
really didn't care, like he really wanted to spend his
day after Thanksgiving listening to some wind bag who thought
he could just shout out orders and that they were

(02:16:12):
like sheep that would follow. Huh. Brett had to fight
from laughing out loud. Sheep that was like the pack
forming outside sheep being led to the slaughter. Just yesterday,
he had been dragged with his parents to his grandparents
over the river and through the woods to their cramped
little house somewhere lost in the cornfields of Illinois, to

(02:16:35):
endure a long day of his uncle screaming children. His
parents didn't want to leave until it was well past eight,
which meant they hadn't crossed back into Wisconsin until it
neared midnight. Then he had to be there to listening
to this man, who, on a normal day he would
consider to be a pretty cool boss. However, any man

(02:16:56):
inflicting the early morning torture was no longer considered to
be a nice man. So Brett's what are you going
to be? Brett blinked and looked through the blue clad
men and women around him to the man standing at
the middle, the man who now called him out for
not paying attention um walk in the line. Brett said,

(02:17:17):
thankful that Sullivan had told him the plans before Thanksgiving. Okay,
so grab your jacket and the item tickets and get
out there. Remember one ticket per customer, and make sure
to pitch our services. I don't want any computers going
out without any setups. If they get to register and
you haven't sold them, you failed failed. What the hell

(02:17:38):
did he know? Brett thought to himself. He couldn't remember
the last time he had seen the old man on
the sales floor. Brett grabbed his large, heavy winter coat
that he had sitting on one of the front displays,
made a check for the handwarmers he had kept in
the left front pocket, and started to walk towards the
front door. Behind him, he could hear Jim ramble on

(02:17:59):
to the rest of his true hoops. Troops preparing for war,
and this were the battlefield, he thought. As he reached
the large front metal gate, it clattered loudly in the
busy morning, and he wanted to cover his ears against
the screeching metal sound. Instead, he just clenched his teeth
until the metal was pulled far enough to the side
and rested there in its guided path. He stepped over

(02:18:22):
the metal rail that was the guide for the gate
and stood just before the large glass double door and
looked out into the darkness of the morning. He could
have sworn that the street lights had been on when
he had pulled into the parking lot, but now as
he looked out there, it was dark, almost completely dark.
Where usually he could see the cars parked in a lot.

(02:18:43):
The employees cars were always parked towards the back, and
a stab of concern spawned that he couldn't see his
own car. He reached for the lock and heard the
click as it unlatched with a dead thud. Something was
growing in his stomach, something wasn't right, and he had
a feeling starting to twist in his insides. The hairs

(02:19:06):
along his arms started to rise in a sudden shock
of what felt like electricity started to dance in the air.
Maybe it was just his fear. What the hell was
there to be afraid of? Come on, man, wake yourself
up and get out there. What the hell is there
to be afraid of? He knew he was saying it
in his mind, more to himself to calm his nerves,

(02:19:28):
But there was still that unnerving feeling that there was
something there. There was something out there that there was
to be afraid of. Why else wouldn't he just go
out there and start working up the line of customers.
He was one hell of a salesman. He could walk
that line and sell warranties to the most cranky of them,

(02:19:49):
and that was all commission money coming straight to his pocket.
Who said it didn't pay to be sleazy? He started
to pull on the doors, working to pull them apart.
They caught at first, and then started to pull apart
with ease, and Brett was met with the cold November
chill that was feasting its way through the morning. It
was hungry, that cold, and it wanted to make him

(02:20:12):
a part of it. A shiver ran through him. He
took a step out into the darkness and was met
with cold, stiff plastic assaulting his face, and he instantly
remembered why he hadn't been able to see the parking
lot from inside. Jim and his infinite genius to protect
the bargains, had covered the front door with that damn
black plastic so no one could see into the store.

(02:20:35):
Heaven forbid that anyone could see in and see that
we only carried maybe two of some ultra low priced deal. Now,
let's keep the customers not knowing, so they stand in
line for three hours and still were not able to
get what they were waiting for. It was no wonder
While all his managers hated the damn holidays, Brett had
only been working there for seven months and he was

(02:20:57):
already starting to hate them. They ruined his fourth of July,
his labor day, and every other single holiday since he
had made the mistake of starting there. Brett closed the
door behind him and started to beat against the plastic,
working his way to find its end. Fuck this, he
muttered under his breath. The cold, wet plastic seemed to

(02:21:19):
fight against him, the darkness a small maze he was
trying to push his way through. He could almost imagine
how fish felt when they were trapped in the net.
The damn plastic just wouldn't seem to let him go.
The wind just seemed to catch it whenever he would
try to push it away from himself and whip it
back into him. It was like there were hands reaching

(02:21:40):
through the plastic trying to grab him. A sudden, strong
draft finally pushed the plastic away, allowing him to break free.
The wind, A slice of cold air that burned his skin,
rushed at him, and the light from the parking lot
revealed itself. He felt a brief, relieving sensation of being free,
and hate old deeply the clean, cool air. Bret had

(02:22:04):
just a second to enjoy being released from the plastic
before he realized that it hadn't been the wind that
had been pushing it in against him. Cynthia was rushing,
nearly running to reach the break room, where she could
already hear Jim talking about how they were all going

(02:22:24):
to survive the morning. It was his same speech that
he gave every year, the one about what everyone was
expected to do and how certain people were sharks walking
the line while others were given directions on how to
do the quick pitch on selling at the register. Jim
could sell. She definitely felt that way about him. He

(02:22:44):
had no soul and would sell a warranty to his
dying grandmother even if it cost her last dollar she had.
He would still make the sale. Listen to him and
a person could make some money in commissions, and that
she did. But she didn't like being late. She was
never late her damned alarm clock. Why hadn't it gone off?

(02:23:05):
She was never late. She knew they were already upset
with her. She could tell it from the tone of
Aaron's voice when he called, wondering where she was. Thank
goodness he had called, she never would have made it otherwise.
She eased her way into the already crowded room, sneaking
her way into the back of the crowd. Jim didn't
seem to notice, but Aaron did. It was probably for

(02:23:28):
the best, though, so that way he knew that she
was there and wouldn't be trying to call her again.
She wondered if anyone else had been late. Okay, everyone ready,
Everyone know what they're supposed to do, Jim called out
to the crowd. Cynthia looked over to the new guy.
His name was Rick or Randy something with an R damn.

(02:23:49):
She felt sorry for him. This was never what you
wanted to do for your first day. Only a sadistic
sob would put a man on his first day against
the morning rush. She looked back to Jim, who was
walking over with Randy or Rick or whatever his name was,
and was starting to lead him out of the room.
Cynthia had to step to the side to let them pass,

(02:24:10):
and she caught the evil stare that Jim gave her.
Then he turned his attention back to r and they
were heading toward the door. The rest of the half
awake zombies of the morning employees moved to follow, but Cynthia,
her pulse racing from having to hurry, had a quicker
step to her walk and was able to follow Jim
out the door before anyone else started to really move

(02:24:33):
They were all making their way from the back break area,
Jim and his long, quick manager's stride are eager to
please on his first day, and Cynthia with her just
being her normal chip herself. However, Cynthia slowed as they
were making their way to the front door. She slowed
as the hairs on the back of her neck stood,

(02:24:54):
and she realized that something just didn't feel right. The
front of the stoor was dark, darker than normal, but
that was to be expected with the plastic over the
front door. Still, that wasn't it. There was something else,
something that hung in the air. It was like there
was a bad smell of meat gone rank, but it
was so faint that she could feel it more than

(02:25:16):
smell it. Then there was also that tickle of a sound.
There was a thumping, like something dull being repeatedly knocked
against glass. Holy shit, is that the beating against the glass?
Ar said, as him and Jim headed toward the front door.
Jim stopped just before they both reached it. Cynthia thought
she knew why too. It was the same reason why

(02:25:38):
she slowed. He felt it too, or he heard it?
After all, Ur was right. It did sound like the
customers outside were hitting against the glass doors, that is,
if they were hitting it in slow motion and no energy.
The repetitive pumps did make it sound like there were
many of them and they wanted in. It's time, Jim's

(02:26:00):
said as he checked his watch. Yeah, but time for what,
Cynthia thought as she watched Jim move to unlock and
power on the inner doors. It was time for what
Cynthia could hear as the other employees started to stop
and stand at various spots around her. She took a
glimpse at them, and she could see them all as

(02:26:20):
the walking dead, as they all looked so tired and
half alive. She turned back from the crowd of employees
behind her in time to watch as the inner doors
glided loudly open and Jim strutted his way to the
outer doors. The inner doors started to squeak back closed,
the loud, high pitched squeal cutting through the mysterious thumping

(02:26:40):
with its own horror movie soundtrack. Jim and r were
cut off from the rest of them as they stood
and closed in the vestibule, each one taking sides as
Jim guided R in how the front iron gates folded
back away into the sides of the door. Cynthia stopped
watching them looked to the black tarp still hanging outside

(02:27:02):
the doors. She could see different shapes at different points
of the black tarp pushing through and then hitting into
the front glass door. She could hear the loud clank
as Jim secured the gate on the left side of
the door. The pounding on the door intensified. Jim, without
waiting for ar to finish with his side, came rushing

(02:27:23):
back into the front part of the store. Where all
my tech guys, Jim said, as he scanned through his
sleeping audience. No one responded. Jim turned back around. Where
were they? Cynthia had the fleeting thought as she watched
Jim unlocked the door and r flipped the power switch.
As the door slowly squealed open, even louder than the

(02:27:45):
inner door, no one expected what was about to happen.
The door didn't make it halfway, and Jim was just
about to give his morning get in line speech to
the customers while reaching to pull down the black tarp,
when all hell broke loose. A hand reached through the tarp,
grabbing Jim's hand. Just after he grabbed the tarp. He

(02:28:06):
barely had time to call out what the when the
weight shifted on the other side, from pulling Jim's arm
to pushing it forward. In a rush of flying black
darker than the moonless sky, the tarp rushed forward, the
first shapes falling forward, caught in it like it was
a fishing tarp. R, who had just kept himself a
little off to the right, just missed being caught by

(02:28:29):
the falling tarp, not that it helped him much. The
mass crowd, still not seen too well in the darkened
vestibule from where Cynthia stood, was quickly stumbling over the
first wave of the fallen and their hands quickly were
grabbing R. Their grasp ripped and pulled at his clothes.
As he started to stumble back, he might have made
it away from them as well, had he not backed

(02:28:51):
up against the glass stationary part of the gliding front door.
It was then, as R was trying to push against
a glass that would not move, that Cynthia saw what
was there. At first, she could only see all the
pairs of hands and disembodied arms. The hands themselves were
mostly all covered in crimson and dripping, but what they

(02:29:11):
belonged to. It was something like out of a horror flick,
the ones that her ex boyfriend Kenny used to always
try to get her to watch. Zombies. Zombies. She could
see the disfigured faces, the blank stare, and the stumbling
lurches as they made their way forward. She could tell
though she had never tried to watch those films, as

(02:29:33):
there was too much of people getting torn apart, their
intestines strewn around like bloody Christmas lights. She had a
passing reminder of having to help her mom put up
Christmas lights tomorrow. As she started to back up, the
zombies had already reached r and were starting to pull
him apart. They were tearing off limbs, but they were
eating into him, pulling his flesh away in large strips.

(02:29:56):
He was screaming in ways that Cynthia didn't know a
man could, the loud sound, not sounding like it came
from human vocal cords. Then the scream seemed to fill
with liquid gurgling before it was cut off. Cynthia hadn't
stayed around long enough to find out what caused the
scream to quit. She had turned tail and run, and

(02:30:18):
she hadn't even waited to see if any one was following.
She cared about them. Many of them were her friends,
but right now it was survival. She was a four foot,
petit eighteen year old girl, nothing but a snack to
those things. She didn't plan to have herself become an
easy snack. She made it to the back of the
center row. When she stopped running. She was panting a little,

(02:30:40):
but nowhere near yet worked up. No those weekly workouts
she had with that hot instructor that she had been
continuing to flirt with had kept her in shape. Behind her,
she could hear others coming her way. Running. The breath
caught in her throat as she turned to see who
was coming. She kept her body turned ready to run.

(02:31:01):
All her senses were alive, and she felt like she
was a deer who had just heard the snap of
a twig. With her head turned back, she saw shapes
running towards her. Shadows dancing in the dark, nothing more
than outlines running away from the lights surrounding the front.
Cynthia felt her breath catch and her chest seized. The
shapes were running, and images of running zombies flashed through

(02:31:24):
her head. She tried to think of where to go
and where to hide. Where could she go? Go go, go,
go go, The large shape yelled. Cynthia recognized his voice.
Ryan was yelling at her, and she turned back to run.
As they neared reaching her come on receiving, Ryan yelled
at her, waving his arm for her to follow. She

(02:31:46):
did quickly. She wasn't sure how many or if anyone
else was following. Sure she hoped there was, but she
could only afford to think about herself and get herself safe.
Cynthia heard a loud scream behind her. It wasn't all
the way to the front, so the zombies must have
been getting closer. She wanted to turn and look to

(02:32:06):
see how far away they were, but no, it wasn't safe.
Ahead Cynthia could see the light disappear where the sales
floor ended and the receiving department began. Her pace faltered,
as she could imagine once crossing that threshold, it was
going to be harder to see what was around the corner.
It was too dark in there. They shouldn't be going in.

(02:32:27):
Just what the hell was Ryan thinking? Ryan? Wait? Ryan
didn't wait. He kept running, and when he reached the
corner to turn into receiving, he disappeared into the darkness.
Cynthia didn't linger any longer. She pushed herself harder to
catch back up with them. Still not sure who the
second running figure was, she assumed it was Tommy. The

(02:32:49):
figure was about his size, and she couldn't imagine Ryan
being there without his twin. The shadows kept bouncing around her,
and she felt like she had entered into one of
those fun houses that tried to scare her. She entered
into the darkness and all sight was lost. The world
around her felt like it was gone, and the night
was taking over, like it was its own essence. It

(02:33:10):
was enveloping around her, and she was losing herself into
some bad horror film. It was the one where everything
was coming after her, everything from her nightmares. Ryan yelled
back to her, telling her to hurry. As her eyes
adjusted to the little light, she could see him starting
to climb his way up the roof access stairs, his
boots echoing off the metal stairs as he climbed. She

(02:33:32):
worried that they would be heard if any of those
things were nearby. Tommy was right behind Ryan, and she
hurried over to follow them. Come on, he yelled to her,
urging her on She started to climb, looking up to
Ryan as she did so. He was getting near the
roof access door. She was afraid they might freeze to
death once they got out there, but for the time being,

(02:33:53):
she just wanted to get somewhere safe. Being on a
roof where none of those things could get to her
was at least one step in the right direction. Ryan
reached the top of the ladder and started to push
on the door. She could hear him grunting and then
a frustrated cry out, shit, it's locked. She kept climbing,
though she already feared that they were going to be

(02:34:15):
stuck there. She heard another kind of grunt. It was
one that she had already learned and dreaded. Recognizing the
lights of the store turned on, the automatic timer must
have finally recognized that it was time to open the store.
Cynthia could see as the first wave of zombies made
their way around the corner. They moved slowly, some of

(02:34:37):
them limping those it looked like because part of their
legs had been eaten through. Most of them just stumbled,
walking slowly like they didn't remember how. It was like
they were mindless to the point of not knowing who
or what they used to be, but that they were
moving with a purpose and a desire to do something,
like they wanted something but didn't know what it was

(02:35:00):
that they wanted. A sick part of Cynthia that she
never knew existed until that very moment said to her
what separated these shoppers from many of their other customers.
She suppressed the small, insane laughter that had been building.
The answer wasn't all that funny, After all, these shoppers
wanted her flesh. What are we going to do, Ryan asked.

(02:35:22):
Cynthia looked back up to him. She was glad to
see that she was right and that it was Tommy
there with him. She always liked it when she was right.
She just smiled at herself and to them. She was
beginning to realize that she was about to die. It
was strange knowing that it was about to happen, but
she was done fighting it. She looked around her. There

(02:35:44):
was no place to go. The large receiving bay doors
already had pounding from the other side and the familiar
grunts from more zombies, so they were trapped. The only
way out was up, and with the freezing cold, even
that would have been a sentence. She watched as the
zombies started to gather below her feet. They were far

(02:36:05):
enough below her that as they reached up to try
and pull her back down, she was still safe. Above her,
Ryan and Tommy were working together to try and break
the door open. She just watched them for a brief time.
The fear that had previously gripped her seemed to have
left her as a now strange calm seemed to have
washed over her. She felt her hand release on the

(02:36:28):
cool metal, and she could feel herself falling back. Then
the hands. There were many of them, and they all
started to tear into her. They grabbed and they clawed,
and while she could hear herself screaming, she knew that
her body was filled with pain of being ripped apart.
She also didn't feel it, like her mind was already

(02:36:48):
away from it all. And then everything she had known
before was gone. She was gone and just becoming another
one of the many, one of the many craver mindlessly
craving what they don't even know what they are craving for.
She was lost to become a part of the mass.

(02:37:29):
Before I end this Thanksgiving episode, I want to share
a moment to express my thanks, gratitude, and appreciation to you,
my Weirdo family. I am so thankful to God for you.
You have no idea. I was praying today and giving
thanks to God for the blessings that we have. Ideally
thank him anyway for saving me, for bringing my bride

(02:37:50):
into my life, for giving me the skills and talent
to do what I do is I don't think I'm
qualified to do anything else. I thank God for the
roof over my head, food on the table, for allowing
us to give back to others in a variety of ways,
those who were in need. And in praying these things today,
I realized that you, my Weirdo family, have helped make

(02:38:11):
a lot of that possible. I didn't create this podcast
for any reason other than to entertain people, but you've
invited your friends and family to listen. You've shared links
to the episodes in your social media, emails and texts.
You stuck with me all these years, and what I
began as simply a creative outlet for myself has become
a full time career that has kept food on the table,

(02:38:35):
the house, payments on time. And you've shown your generosity
in so many ways through being patrons or buying merchandise
and donating to the fundraisers. I am so grateful to
God for you, because you've given this man a true
calling and purpose for being on this planet to entertain, enlighten,
and bring hope to those who listen. William Shakespeare said it, well,

(02:39:00):
no other answer make but thanks and thanks and ever thanks,
thanks for listening. If you like 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.

(02:39:25):
All stories used in Weird Darkness aren't 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.
Weird Darkness is a registered trademark gopy right Weird Darkness.
And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll
leave you with a little light one Timothy four, Verse four.

(02:39:49):
For everything God created is good, and nothing is to
be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving and a
final thought, we should just be thankful for being together.
I think that's what they mean by thanksgiving. Charlie Brown
Marcy from a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I'm Daryn Marler. Thanks

(02:40:11):
for joining me in the weird darkness.

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