American Hauntings Podcast

Check out the brand new podcast, American Dread, from Adam White.

Two winters. Two murders. Eighteen years apart.

In Decatur, Illinois, the winters of 1942 and 1960 were marked not by snow and holiday cheer, but by the sound of shotguns shattering the night.

In this episode of American Dread, we revisit two chilling cases: the Short Street double shooting of 1942, and the shotgun murder of Virginia Eades in 1960. Different killers, di...

On October 26, 1965, a 16-year-old girl named Sylvia Likens died in Indianapolis from shock, malnutrition, and a brain hemorrhage. She had been tortured for three months and by the time she died, she could barely move or speak. She had been tortured, neglected, sexually humiliated, starved, beaten, and cut by her tormentors. Her autopsy later revealed 150 wounds on her body, including cigarette burns, skin brandings, and knife woun...

Check out the brand new podcast, American Dread, from Adam White.

On a quiet May night in 1976, the city of Decatur, Illinois, was shattered by a brutal double murder that still echoes nearly fifty years later. Two young cousins, June and Marcella Freeman, were savagely stabbed to death and left discarded like trash on the side of West Center Street. Their killer, Michael Timothy Gibson, would soon be caught — but justice didn’t end...

The true story of THE ENTITY doesn’t begin with Carla Moran coming home from work one night, it actually started with researchers Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor from the Department of Parapsychology at UCLA visiting the home on August 22, 1974. A short time earlier, the two men had been discussing the paranormal in a local bookstore when they were approached by a woman name Doris Blither, who wanted to tell them about her haunted hous...

Enjoy this bonus episode about the history and hauntings of The Bell Witch Cave, including Troy's own firsthand tales of his times in the cave!

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.com

Want an episode every week, plus other awesome perks and discount...

It was Easter Sunday, April 15, 1990, and Ray and Marie Thornton were driving along Snow Prairie Road, a rural highway about 12 miles outside of Coldwater, Michigan. Ray was at the wheel and Marie was next to him and the couple was playing a game they often played in the car to kill time on the road -- trying to make words and phrases out of the license plates they saw.

But things were quiet along the secluded back road they were on...

There’s no denying that there are so many similarities between JAWS and the 1916 shark attacks on the Jersey Shore as well as the disaster of the USS Indianapolis that it’s truly terrifying. If you decide to spend your summer vacation on a beach somewhere, you might want to remember what we’ve been telling you all season – “sometimes, it’s NOT just a movie.”

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Fac...

This year we have some of THE BEST ghost stories from the Haunted America Conference attendees. Check 'em out!

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newsletter at AmericanHauntingsPodcast.com

Want an episode every week, plus other awesome perks and discounts? Check out our Patreon page

Fin...

The legend of the Bell Witch is one of the greatest ghost stories in American history. It has all the elements of what we have come to think of as a Hollywood-style haunting – a vengeful spirit, flying objects, sounds that can’t be unexplained, a pretty young girl, and a violent death. It’s also one of the only hauntings in history in which a spirit is responsible for the death of one of the protagonists in the case.

Have a question...

There isn’t a lot that I can say about this film that you don’t already know – it’s a classic, there’s no two ways about that. It’s not only one of the greatest horror films of the 1980s but one of the great horror films of all time. But if you’re not old enough to have seen it in 1982 when it came out, you might be wondering why it was so scary to those of us who were. 

And for those who already know, it turns out there was another...

In 1986, the town of Southington, Connecticut, was in an uproar. Normally, a place known for its perfect small-town charm, it had been thrown into a frenzy of media chaos, thanks to a family that was reporting that their new house was haunted.

A check of real estate records in town revealed that the house was indeed the former Hallahan Funeral Home. The idea of living in what was once a funeral home did cause some concerns for the S...

In 1981, a young man in Connecticut took the idea of the insanity plea to the next level. He claimed that he was innocent of the murder he’d committed – he’d only done it because he was possessed by a demon.

While the previous two Conjuring films took the intrepid duo, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to haunted houses, this was a new kind of horror story for the pair. And while the film takes the demon plot and runs wild with it in the last...

“It was chaos, things started flying around, people were screaming.” 

In 1977, hot on the heels of the publicity they received after the Amityville Horror case – which is show in the cold open of the film – the Warrens claimed that they investigated the happenings in Enfield, undoubtedly drawn there by all the press the case was getting at the time. Before they even arrived at the Hodgson home, several independent observers dismisse...

This is, of course, based on a true story. But how true is this story? Well, as you’re just about to hear, NOT VERY. Truth, as they say, is often much stranger than fiction, but in some cases, you actually have to FIND the truth first. And when it comes to THE CONJURING – and with Ed and Lorraine Warren themselves – the truth is a very, very elusive thing.

Have a question or comment? Text us on the Haunt Line @ 217-791-7859

New Faceb...

Maybe what gets called a DEMON isn’t what the variations of Christian churches thinks it is. Their narrow definition leaves out an awful lot of other faiths around the world and since people believed in spirits that attacked and even possessed people long before Christianity became a thing, then they might be something else... We can call them whatever we want but whatever they really are, one thing seems clear – that they’re very ...

Charles Raymond Starkweather was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, on November 24, 1938. He was the third of seven children born to Guy and Helen Starkweather. They were an ordinary, working-class family, and there was nothing about them to suggest that one of the Starkweather children would grow up to be a natural born killer. 

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our...

On October 16, 1992, one of the greatest horror films of the 1990s -- CANDYMAN -- opened across the country. But it’s the reality that the film is inspired by – racial terror, poverty, drugs, police indifference, and the disturbing murder of a Chicago woman – that is even more frightening than the movie itself. 

New Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/troytayloroddities

Check out our updated website and sign up for our newslette...

On May 2, 1962, a Haitian man named Clairvius Narcisse died of a mysterious illness – or so it seemed at the time. 

Then, a little over 18 years later, his sister, Angelina, was shopping in a local market and saw a terrifying, vacant-eyed man lurching toward her on the street. Angelina screamed, although not because the poor man in the ragged, threadbare clothing was so frightening on his own. She screamed because the dead man was h...

LIVE from Dead of Winter 2025!

We ended up having to rely on our third audio backup, so, it sounds like a live show. Would you expect anything different from us? Enjoy!