September 25, 2024 • 59 mins
Ever wondered what eerie secrets lie in the haunted corridors of Connecticut's past? Grab your pumpkin cold brew and join us as we share our favorite fall traditions, from Halloween decorations to family stories. We soon venture into the spine-chilling history of Connecticut's mental asylums, exploring how the rise of tuberculosis fueled the vampire panic and led to the establishment of these institutions. The grand architecture of Kirkbride buildings offers a haunting backdrop to our discussion on the intersection of fear, folklore, and mental health practices in 19th century New England.
Next, we unravel the chilling events of the New England vampire panic. Picture communities driven by fear and superstition, exhuming bodies to halt the spread of tuberculosis. We recount the macabre rituals performed on figures like Rachel Harris and Abigail Staples, and the modern DNA revelations about John Barber's grave in Griswold. This segment offers a deep dive into the blend of historical fact and folklore that gripped these communities, providing a window into their terrified mindset and extreme actions during the vampire scares.
Finally, brace yourself for the bone-chilling tale of Gerald Floyd Bettis, the infamous Dog Boy of Quitman, Arkansas. From his disturbing childhood behaviors to the sinister rumors surrounding his home on Mulberry Street, we paint a haunting portrait of a boy destined for darkness. The eerie history of his house, its high market value despite its notorious past, and the grim fates of his family members add layers of intrigue. As we discuss the property's renovations and current status, this chapter leaves you with chills and a deeper understanding of the haunted legacies lurking in seemingly ordinary places.
STAY HOWLING BOO CREW!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Omnis immundae spiritus, omnis satanica
potestas, omnis incursiainfernalis adversarii, omnis
legio, omnis congregatio etsecta diabolica.
In nomine et virtute Domininostri Jesus.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Christ to rejoice and rejoice.
(00:57):
Oh boo crew, here we are again.
Live, not really live.
We're all live, but we're notlive in person eating mcdees
talking about that people oh no.
Have we been cut?
Have you think we're possessedby the satanic mcdees cult from
(01:18):
last week's story?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
no, I think I've been possessed since as a little kid
like in general or byMcDonald's.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I think they, because of my love for McDonald's, like
All right, but to clarify, byMcDonald's, not by anything else
.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I hope nothing else, all right.
I mean, we are putting the boysof fall up in the house, that's
true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We started.
I couldn't, I couldn't take itanymore.
I had to start decorating,decorating.
I'm getting peer pressure frommy sister and you know, she's
telling my, she's telling my momto put the witch out and which
is like.
It's this old witch from likethe 1990s right when, like when
outdoor ornaments and stuff werelike made to built to last.
So my mom still has one ofthose and every time there's a
(02:03):
chill in the air, whether it befall, winter, winter, spring or
summer, my sister insists onsaying Ma, put the witch out.
So this is to you, fam, and toyou, boo Crew.
You get to get the insight onmy family antics.
So welcome to the familyeverybody.
But for real, we are in trueNew England style, sipping on
(02:24):
some dunks.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, tell them what you got today.
I'm not the only one.
I got a pumpkin cold brew.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, you did girl.
Yeah, I did.
I was feeling it.
I was listening to Red RightHand.
You know that song.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I was listening to it on my way to go.
Do all the spooky stuff youdon't know it.
From Scream the.
From Scream the movie Screamthe Red Riding.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Hood, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You made me.
Yeah, I'm interesting, it'skaraoke hour now, so that got me
in the mood, you know, and it'slike, it's not super bright
outside, there's an overcast,and it's been like that all
weekend.
It's beautiful, it's chilly out, there's an overcast, but it's
(03:07):
really really nice out.
I mean, fall is in the air,actually, happy fall.
First day of fall was actuallyyesterday, yeah, so we're doing
it.
Oh, and jack's here.
Jack says hello everybody.
Jack wants some mcdonald's, buthe's not getting any.
You're not getting any, bro.
It's not happening, not rightnow.
So, yes, completelyunprofessional, we are eating
and drinking and doing our thingright now while we're getting
set up for our stories.
You're actually going firstthis week and I'm excited for it
(03:30):
because you have been extremely.
This has been a clandestine,clandestine let's get the word
right clandestine topic.
You haven't shared anythingwith me that could be bad news.
You know what's great?
I can edit this because, like,like, it's gonna be like eight
minutes of us straight chewingour food, and I don't really
(03:50):
care because I'm enjoying myself.
Are you enjoying yourself?
Yeah, and for anyone that hasan aversion to chewing and lip
smacking sorry, sorry about that, but uh, it's happening it's
happening.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It is happening.
I'm sorry, I needed somenourishment before I start on
this, this escapade so tell mewhat's your story about this
week so you know how I I wasstaying in true form of you know
, going through where I've lived, and we have now landed in the
wonderful state of ct so that Iwould pick it out of the box.
(04:27):
Um, so we we've talked aboutall of the like not all of them,
but all of the the mentalinstitutions and the asylums and
everything, and a lot of themhave gone away.
They're closed down, but Idecided to revisit it, not
necessarily the asylums, for thereason why there was so many
asylums.
There was a huge vampire panicthat happened that's why asylums
(04:53):
became a thing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Oh, that's one of the reasons why.
Okay, I'm pretty sure it wasjust one of the reasons, just
one the biggest reason wasconsumption.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh, if nobody knows what consumption is tuberculosis
the tb.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's right tb.
Someone in your family had that, didn't they?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
um my great, my great grandmother, amy grandmother's
mom, your grandmother's mom sothat that's uh, that's
interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay, I I like where this is going so far.
You know, I have I have a lovefor asylums and institutions
that there's something about.
There's something about mental,mental health in general that
I'm just very attracted to.
Um, but these places inparticular, these are my places.
This, these are my places.
This is my alley for sure.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well, I kind of figured that it would be, but
I'm like not going intospecifics about any of the
asylums, it's just and I willget to it later in the story it
just it absolutely like when Imoved here and you started
telling me about all thesedifferent places.
There's a lot around here Hugeand beautiful and gorgeous, and
(06:09):
you know how?
They would just have balconiesupon balconies and they would
just take people out in theirbeds and let them.
You know, like you knew whenyou were going there, that that
was like that, was it Right?
But it's the Kirkbridearchitecture.
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible yeah, but there were some um going
(06:33):
back earlier, before any ofthese places were really even at
stock to for you to be sent to,okay.
So, yeah, I mean, the asylumsaren't part of my story.
This kind of delves back, evena lot further than that, and I
(06:54):
just find it very interesting ofhow people's mindsets were and
I try to like fast forward onwhat we, you know like in
today's eyes.
You know we wouldn't bethinking the way that they were.
You know we wouldn't bethinking the way that they were.
It's just it fascinates me whatused to scare people to the
(07:14):
point of them doing the thingsthat they did.
Some of them were pretty wildand out there.
So that's fair.
Yeah, I agree with that, I am,I'm there.
I just I don't know.
I just I love hearing about thehistory part of things and how
people reacted to panics, so tospeak.
So this is 200 years after theSalem Witch Trials, farmers
(07:39):
became convinced that theirrelatives were returning from
their grave to feed on theliving 200 years.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that's the 1800s Close to yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Starting about 1790.
So yeah, um.
So.
New england vampire panic wasthe reaction of an outbreak of
tuberculosis, formerly known asconsumption, in the 19th century
.
Through 19th century throughoutRhode Island, eastern
(08:10):
Connecticut, southern Mass,vermont and other areas of the
New England states.
There are at least a dozenhistoric cases that have been
investigated.
In each case, new Englanders dugup the dead, destroyed their
internal organs to stop thespread of the disease.
(08:31):
Different communities treatedthe suspected vampires
differently.
Some simply flipped them overin their graves, while others
would decapitate the skull fromthe body and dissect the femur
bones to place it in an X, likeyou would see on the Jolly Roger
pirate ships Crazy right.
So when people saw the remainsin the type of formation, this
(08:54):
would happen primarily inPlymouth, mass and in some parts
of Maine.
In Connecticut, vermont andRhode Island residents burned
vampires' hearts, sometimesinhaling the smoke as a cure.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I'm shaking my head because you're at, like I know,
an uncomfortable amount of whatyou're saying right now.
You have not surprised me onceyet, and I'm concerned about how
much I know about this.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Okay.
So I figured I would just go inorder.
I don't have all.
I don't believe that I have all12.
I think that I just I pluckedout a handful of them in
chronological order so that wecould kind of just go through
one where they were from in theStates and how diverse it kind
of got with how they treated thebodies and the family.
(09:44):
So the earliest known case inNew England vampirism To have
name attached to it was RachelHarris of Manchester, vermont,
in 1790.
The year after her death herwidower, captain Isaac Burton,
married her step sister, hulda.
Before long, hulda beganexhibiting systems similar to
(10:06):
Rachel's and family and friendsthere for a reason that Rachel
was the culprit.
In February of 1793, more than500 Manchester residents braved
frigid temperatures to watch theliver-hardened lungs be removed
from Rachel's exhumed bodycorpse I should say not body and
burned on the blacksmith'sforge.
(10:28):
According to some versions ofthis story, portions of the
organs were preserved to makemedicine for holdup, although
dying shortly after in September.
But following her death, thegood people of Manchester
realized the error of their ways.
Maybe, maybe not.
They reasoned that perhapsRachel hadn't been a vampire at
(10:52):
all, but rather a witch.
Oh, vampires and witches I knowI'm circling around all the
things.
So, yeah, so you know, she wentfrom being a vampire to to
being a witch.
Since it didn't work, the nextvictim that we have up is
Abigail Staples of Cumberland,rhode Island, 1796.
(11:16):
So the Cumberland Town Councilgranted permission for Stephen
Staples to exhume the body ofthe 23-year-old daughter,
abigail, who had died ofconsumption.
Shortly after her death, hersister, lavinia, had started
showing familiar signs andsymptoms of consumption.
Lavinia told of dreams in whicha shadowy figure sat heavily on
(11:41):
her chest and drew out herbreath.
During one of the dreams shereportedly called out Abigail's
name.
The town officials consentedthat Staples could try an
experiment to save Lavinia'slife.
Despite noting the decision wasmade against the better
(12:01):
conscience of the council.
There is no record of what cameof the exhumation or, for that
matter, of Lavinia, so thatone's a hooey, hooey, we don't
know.
Okay, so we're moving down astate, going to John Barber of
Griswold, new London County.
He was born 1788, past 1843.
(12:26):
They exhumed his body shortlyafter I am going to fast forward
to 1990 for a moment Becausethere were some children playing
in a gravel pit that hadunearthed some human skulls,
leading to the discovery of anold farm burial ground that had
(12:47):
belonged to the Walton familyNight.
John boy, it's spelleddifferent, though.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's spelled with a D , isn't it?
No, it's W-A-L-T-O-N.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of was the
Walton family.
I thought it was W-A-L-T-E-N, mybad.
Most of the skeletons wereunremarkable, but one was in a
coffin marked with JB55 in tackson the lid.
The skeleton appeared to havebeen exhumed and reburied
approximately five years afterdeath, with its head and femurs
(13:25):
removed and placed on the chestin the manner of skull and
crossbones.
The ribcage had been brokenopen, presumably to remove the
heart.
Later DNA research suggestedthat the skeleton was that of a
farmer, john Barber, with thetacks on the coffin lid
(13:46):
therefore his initials and ageat death.
A nearby coffin was similarlylabeled NB13, likely his son,
nathan Barber, who died in 1826,aged 13.
(14:07):
This identity was confirmedthrough further DNA research in
2022.
There was an unnamed NewIpswich resident of 1810.
So Dr John Clough of New Ipswich, new Hampshire, reported the
influence of the mind onphysical organization in Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal,volume 21, 1840.
(14:27):
In connection with thesesuperstitions, I cannot omit to
mention a circumstance whichoccurred in this town, new
ipswich, not 30 years since, andsimilar occurrences probably
occurred in many other towns innew england.
This was disinterring a humanbody which belonged to a family
(14:49):
all strongly predisposed toconsumption For the purpose of
removing the heart, which wasburned, the ashes of which were
considered a sovereign remedy tothose of the family who were
still living and might beafflicted with the same disease.
This only illustrates the factthat those elements of character
(15:11):
which held such magic sway overthe minds of men in ancient
times have not ceased altogetherto influence the community in
our comparatively enlightenedday.
Are you liking it so far?
Yeah, we're getting there.
But what's this have to do withasylums?
Mind your own self.
Just people got sent to asylumsafter this To go die.
It really didn't have anythingto do with the silence, mind
your own self.
Just people got sent to asylumsafter this to go die.
(15:32):
It really didn't have anythingto do with this.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
This is before the asylum you said that people went
to asylums for vampirism no, no, we'll take that part out,
because of the TB.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Continue.
Okay, all right.
So the next family that we arebringing to light is the Saladay
family.
The family of Philip Saladaycame from Switzerland, bought
and settled on a lot in FrenchGrant soon after the opening of
the country for settlement.
Consumption developed in thefamily sometime after their
(16:11):
location in Ohio.
The head of the family and theoldest son died of it as others
began to manifest symptoms whenthey attempted to stop the
progress of the disease byexhuming the remains of the
family members and burning theheart, lungs and liver.
This was done in the winter of1816 through 17, in the presence
(16:32):
of a large concourse ofspectators who lived in the
surrounding neighborhood and byMajor John Amos Wheeler of
Wheelersburg.
Samuel Saladay was the one theydisinterred and offered up as a
sacrifice to stop, if possible,the further spread of the
disease.
But like other superstitiousnotions, the regard to curing
(16:55):
diseases, it proved to be afailure for them as well.
The other members of the familycontinued to die off until the
last one was gone, except George.
So he was the only remainingliving person out of the
Saladays.
So he was the only remainingliving person out of the
Saladays.
Frederick Ransom of SouthWoodstock, windsor County,
vermont, died of tuberculosis onFebruary 14, 1817 at the age of
(17:20):
20.
This is so sad, they're likedying so young.
His father was worried thatRansom would attack his family,
so he had him exhumed and hisheart burned on a blacksmith's
sword.
Ransom was a dartsmith collegestudent from a very well-to-do
family.
It was unusual that he shouldfall victim to the vampire panic
(17:43):
which was most common amongless educated communities.
Henry David Thoreau wrote inhis journal of 26 September in
1859, the savage in man is neverquite eradicated.
I have just read of a family inVermont who, several of its
members having died ofconsumption, just burned the
(18:04):
lungs and hearts and liver ofthe last deceased in order to
prevent any more from having itas a reference to contemporary
superstition.
When rural Rhode Islanders movedwest into Connecticut, locals
perceived them as uneducated andvicious, which was partially
due to the Rhode Islanders'belief in vampirism.
(18:25):
Newspapers were also skeptical,calling belief of vampirism an
old superstition and a curiousidea.
While the press dismissed thispractice as superstition, the
burning of the organs was widelyaccepted as a folk medicine in
other communities.
In Woodstock, where localbelief was still present, town
(18:45):
records report hundreds ofonlookers attending the burning
of Frederick Ransom's heart.
So his was kind of famousbecause he was one of the more
educated of the dozen that thereis data on.
There was another anonymoussibling of Boston Mass in
(19:06):
Suffolk County.
So in 1873, dr Lucy Abelreported to Mass State Board of
Health.
She should be sorry to beunderstood as recommending
drunkenness as a cure forconsumption, but I have known
several instances where nearlyall the family, from five to
nine children, have successivelydied of fighting.
(19:26):
Finally, one of the boys, fromsheer desperation, took to
excessive drinking of alcoholicstimulants.
These boys are now past midlifeand enjoying good health.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
When last heard of so they just had to get wasted and
they would beat consumption.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, and she hated to report that because you know
I mean Become an alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Don't get tb right wow.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
In two families not less than five or six victims,
and each were carried off byconsumption.
So the alcoholism is working.
Is what I'm getting from this?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
or they were just lucky, maybe they didn't have
like a really bad case ofconsumption.
I don't't know, I don't know.
Well, the next family was theSpalding family.
This went from asylums tovampires, to alcoholism, don't
forget witches, oh witches.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
How could I forget witches?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, all right.
So we are moving to theSpalding family of Dummerston,
vermont, in 1859, where, in hisjournal, henry David Thoreau
wrote the savage in a man isnever eradicated.
I have just read a family inVermont, with several of its
(20:44):
members having died ofconsumption, just buried the
lungs and heart and liver of thelast to prevent any more from
having it.
At the time, thoreau himselfhad long been battling TB, of
which he would die three yearslater, although in his case no
one seemed to have suspectedvampire involvement.
(21:05):
As for the episode to whichThoreau referred, it's likely
the 1790s ordeal of the Spaldingfamily.
Having lost six of his 11 adultchildren to consumption,
lieutenant Leonard Spalding wasdesperate when yet another
daughter grew ill.
The body of the most recentlydeceased child was dug up and
(21:25):
the vital organs removed andburned.
Incidentally, onevampire-adjacent belief of the
day was that vines would growbetween buried caskets and that
once all the burials in the plothad been so connected, another
family would die.
When Spalding's son Reuben wasburied in 1794, his grave was
(21:47):
set apart from those of hisother family members.
Possibly to break the chain IsSarah Tillinghast of Exeter,
rhode Island.
Sarah was the first of SnuffyTillinghast's 14 children to die
.
When his surviving childrenclaimed that Sarah continued to
visit them at night, it mighthave seemed part of the natural
(22:08):
grieving process.
But by 1799, five or moreTillinghast children had died of
consumption, and another wasgravely ill.
When the bodies of the deadwere exhumed, all except Sarah
were found to be in advancedstages of decomposition.
Her heart was removed andburned in front of the family
home.
So another family, the Youngfamily from Rhode Island.
(22:31):
Miss Nancy Young died at 19.
Her sister commenced to a rapiddecline in health, with sure
indications that she must soonfollow Nancy to the grave.
When Nancy's other siblingsbegan to decline, their father,
captain Levi Young, asked hisneighbors and friends to exhume
and burn her remains while allthe members, I think we're
(22:52):
getting to the one that you knowabout.
So the Ray family in JB JewettCity, connecticut, in 1845.
Jewett City, connecticut, in1845.
(23:21):
So 24-year-old Lemuel, okay.
So in 1845 Lem Ray died ofconsumption at age 24.
His death was followed by thatof his father a few years later
and then his brother Three yearslater.
When Lem's oldest, oldestbrother, henry, fell ill, the
family took to drastic measures,again exhuming the body and
burning it, although Henry dieddespite their efforts of trying
to cure him.
(23:42):
So we've made it to the end.
The very last recorded instanceof vampirism has been probably
the best documented of thesuspected Vampirism of New
England was of one, miss MercyBrown.
In 1883, mercy's mother died ofconsumption.
(24:03):
Seven months later Mercy's20-year-old sister died, and a
couple years after that bothMercy and her brother, edwin,
grew ill.
Edwin was sent away to recover,but Mercy soon died.
Mercy's father, george, was bythen desperate to save his
remaining children and, thoughhe was said to not believe in
(24:25):
vampires, consented to havingthe family's bodies exhumed.
As the Providence Journalreported on March 21, 1892, dr
Harold Metcalf, the medicalexaminer of the district to
examine the bodies, is not oneto believe in vampire
superstition.
He made his examination withoutexceptional results, according
(24:49):
to his own belief.
Without exceptional results,according to his own belief, but
found in one of the bodies, tothe satisfaction of many of the
other people down there, a signwhich they regarded as proof.
When he removed the heart andthe liver from Mercy's body, a
quantity of blood dripped therefrom the vampire.
(25:09):
The attendants of the doctorsaid, and then, conforming to
the theory of the necessity ofdestroying the vampire, burned
the heart and liver Once burned,what once was the heart and
liver, were mixed with water andgiven to the surviving brother
to drink.
They were in hopes that thiswould stop the influence of the
undead.
Tb was responsible forapproximately one out of every
(25:31):
four deaths in the eastern US.
To this day, tb remains theworld's most deadliest
infectious disease, responsiblefor well over a million deaths
each year.
As it happened, the New Englandvampire scares started winding
down towards the end of the 19thcentury.
Perhaps not coincidentally,this was around the same time
(25:56):
that Robert Koch identified thebacteria responsible for causing
tuberculosis.
A reporter for the ProvidenceJournal covered the infamous
Mercy's Brown exhumation, andthe story spread.
It reached newspapers all theway to New England and it is
said it may have even inspiredBram Stoker's novel Dracula.
(26:17):
That's it, I don't know.
What do you think you knowabout this?
You've lived here.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I just think that it's funny how vampires witches.
I feel like I should have gonemore into like the Jewett City
part, because I feel like that'spart that you was, that part
you knew about.
Yeah, you can go visit theirgraves, oh shit.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
No, really, yeah, let's go.
We could.
We could go right now if youwanted.
No, oh, ok, well, I'll take youthere.
Ok, you can go visit theirgraves.
There's like a little so it,little um, so it's called the
devil's chair it's.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
It's in that cemetery also.
It's supposed to be cursed.
Wait, you've told me about thisplace, have I like?
The the chair is okay.
Wait, is this the same placewhere okay no, that's the little
people.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah, no, it's.
Yeah, the cemetery is open tothe public.
You can go there and you canlook at the graves.
It's not the best, I'll tellyou right now it's not like the
best taking care of cemetery,which is kind of sad, but that's
where the Jewish City Vampiresare located.
(27:28):
Vampires are, uh, are locatedalso.
Um, when they dug them up,after being in the ground for
like over a year or whatever,they were perfectly preserved.
It looked like they had justburied them.
There was no sign ofdecomposition or anything, not
no sign, but it was suspectedthat they were vampires so when
(27:55):
I was reading through this Ithink there was also blood found
, yeah, on one of their mouths,so why didn't you put it in?
you're talking abouttuberculosis.
Talk about vampirism.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
You talked about tb so, yes, so on, some of them
being that it's in new englandand them being buried.
The ground freezes what freezesin the ground.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I mean it kept their bodies together, but their
organs, their insides, werestill wet.
That's the thing that doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
They've been down there for a year or plus however
long it was okay, but dependingon when they buried them, their
bodies would freeze.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So if they didn't drain, well, first of all back
in the day, they wouldn't burybodies in the cold weather.
They would store their bodiesuntil the weather got warmer and
that's why they would putpeople in like root cellars and
in ice houses and stuff, becauseyou couldn't break the ground.
So if you died in the coldermonths, they would stow you away
(29:06):
and then, as it got warmer,then they would dig down and
they would bury you.
Yeah, but that body would stillbe frozen.
No, it's preserved, not frozen.
And if they're doing that,they're not.
Your insides are not.
That that's it, it doesn't.
They buried them and then ayear later, dug them up.
(29:37):
And remember, these are notcaskets like we know caskets
today.
These are pine boxes.
There's no type of actual agentlike lacquer or that thereof.
They're not metal and they'renot sealed tight.
They're just.
(29:57):
They're just coffins.
So that was the that was.
The weird thing is thateverything like you shouldn't
have wet blood inside your bodyafter a year of being buried.
Well, mercy did.
Yes, she did, and it was shethe one that had blood in her
mouth.
Or was it the?
Was it the jewish city vampires?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
um, the only one that really talked about having like
the blood was mercy, so verywell could have been I.
Maybe I should have dug deeperinto the jewish.
Um, no, yeah, she was the one.
Yeah, that's when I mean whenthey pulled her organs out,
(30:40):
there was blood dripping fromher organs.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Right, but when they dug one of them up, there was
blood near the corner of theirmouth.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You also have to remember and I'm not saying that
this is what happened to thesepeople, because it doesn't make
sense that after a year youstill have wet organs in your
body but sometimes people wereburied alive.
People would think that theywere dead right, they would be
pronounced dead, but they'dreally just be in a deep sleep
(31:15):
or comatose or what have you andthen they'd be buried dead.
And that was another thing thatwas in the um, I think in the
jewish city story, that therewere scratches on the inside of
the coffin that's scary.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Could you imagine that being the way that you go?
No, already sick and you likeyou.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Just you know like let me take a rest for a few
days.
My body can't handle it.
It's gonna shut down and try torepair itself.
Then you wake up in a fuckingbox underground.
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
so I grew up not knowing that this vampire panic
was actually a thing, becausefrom my great-grandmother, amy,
she was sent to the desert andit was told to her that she
(32:15):
would live longer and have abetter life if she was in a dry
climate.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Which is interesting because when you and I have
talked about it in the past,when you and I have talked about
it in the past, it was thoughtthat the sea air would help the
lungs of those with TB.
That's why they would a lot ofthe sanatoriums, which are what
(32:52):
they were used for.
They were used for tuberculosis, as tuberculosis wards were
near the ocean, like Seaside San, as tuberculosis wards were
near the ocean, like seasidesanatorium.
Right, it's near the ocean, sothey would roll, like you said,
roll the patients out to thesethese like um enclosed patios,
open up all these huge windowsand just let the sea air hit
(33:13):
there, you know, have theminhale the sea air and the salt
water, the salt and everythingwas supposed to to heal.
But I mean, honestly, no one, noone, knew.
It was one of those thingswhere I mean, remember being
being a doctor, while professionis still a practice Right,
they're still practicing,they're always going to practice
, still practicing, they'realways going to practice it's an
(33:39):
unknown.
You know, medicine is unknownuntil it's known, until it's
proven, until it's tested, untilit's successful, and that takes
a very long time.
Hence why so many people diedduring the that massive tb
outbreak.
Back then it was a good storylots of little vampire pockets
yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
So I mean, yeah, it was mostly about tb, but like
not intentionally supposed to beabout consumption, but just how
they looked at it, as you know,once everybody started dying
off that, they considered theone that just passed to come
back and make the others gravelyill it's good that you did a
(34:20):
vampire one, since we watchedsalem lot the other day which is
a good book and a good movie.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So the moment that we've all been waiting for for,
like what?
Three weeks, maybe four, whatis it?
Three, three weeks, maybe thelong-awaited arkansas story?
Yay, what?
What's your view on serialkillers?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
oh god my view on serial killers yeah, um, what
are your feelings?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
what are your feelings on?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I don't, I, I, I could live without mating one, I
but.
But you know what?
If I, okay, I take that back.
If I knew that I would not be avictim, I would want to pick
their brain apart.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, I mean that's been like the lifelong desire of
scientists and doctors.
They always ask serial killersthat are caught in prison that
are on death row or if they canhave their brain once they pass.
Some say yes, some say no.
I think Ted Bundy said yes tothat.
(35:37):
Um, I do you think.
Well, you and I just startedwatching.
This is my third time watchingit, your first time.
Dexter.
Which spoiler alert spoilers.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, it sucked me in really fast, like sometimes.
I mean, ph knows, it takes melike three or four, five
episodes to get going.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
But, but this is a good one.
I mean, this is I know it'slike a serial killer with it's a
serial killer with a code.
And there are serial killersthat do have codes, Don't get me
wrong, they're not all.
Which, which is interesting,right, serial killer that has a
code.
It might not be necessarily acode that you and I would agree
with, but they have their owncode, they stand by their own
(36:21):
rules.
They make certain agreementswith themselves that they're
going to choose certain people.
But what if this story kind ofhit upon serial killers, but in
a different way, meaning what ifthere were more serial killers
to be in this world?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I just don't.
I don't think that we hearabout them, whether it's that
they're not being caught or thenews is caught up on some other
catastrophe that's happeningyears ago, when you were
recently moved out of georgiaand there was a possible serial
(37:00):
killer.
There were serial killings thatwere happening in a particular
area, yeah, and made me want togo back because you know oh, you
just go back and hang out inthe area and see if you can
catch the guy no, well, I mean II feared for my daughter, but
yeah for sure I don't like that.
There's serial killers.
We all have our problems.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Right.
But this story?
This story asks the question ofwhat if you are destined to be
a serial killer, but don'tnecessarily make it to that.
Quote.
Unquote, level Right.
Humans are simple but socomplex at the same time.
We're all gray characters inthe world, neutral characters.
We all have a little good and alittle bit bad mixed within us.
(37:39):
There's a spectrum from sane toinsanity.
I truly believe that.
So why not a spectrum fromdocile to murderous?
that was my main question whenreading this this is a story
about a serial killer to be thatnever quite made it to where he
was going get out of here.
And this is the legend ofGerald Floyd Bettis, better
(38:05):
known as the Dog Boy of Quitman,Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
I'm here for it.
Oh, this sounds good.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Born in 1954, gerald Floyd Bettis was a deeply
unsettling figure from an earlyage.
Even as a young boy, hisbehavior veered sharply away
from the innocent mischieftypical of children his age.
Raised in a small town, ruraltown of Quitman, arkansas which
(38:33):
is absolutely gorgeous, by theway.
I was looking at real estatethere.
Oh, I've never been to Arkansas, but I can understand why
people would want to live there.
This is a town where everyoneknew each other.
Gerald stood out, and not forachievements or likability, but
for the growing sense of fearand dread that surrounded him.
Gerald's parents, floyd andAline Bettis, were older than
(38:57):
most parents at the time and itseemed from the beginning that
they struggled with controllingtheir son's increasingly erratic
behavior.
While other children in thetown played outside or attended
school events, gerald spent muchof his time alone, hidden away
in the confines of his family'slarge and imposing house on
Mulberry Street.
The Bettis home itself becamesort of a fortress for Gerald's
(39:23):
dark activities, became sort ofa fortress for Gerald's dark
activities, and the boy'speculiar behavior gradually
became the source of gossip andworry among the locals.
It wasn't long before neighborsbegan noticing disturbing signs
of Gerald's cruelty,particularly towards animals,
stray dogs and cats, equipmentbegan to disappear and whispers
spread through the town thatGerald was behind it.
(39:45):
Neighbors would later recounthorrifying scenes.
They had witnessed Gerald luringstray dogs into his yard only
to imprison them in makeshiftcages he constructed in the
basement of his home.
These dogs were not justconfined, they were subjected to
bizarre, often grotesqueexperiments, revealing an early
penchant for sadism that wouldonly intensify as Gerald grew
(40:07):
older.
One neighbor remembered seeingGerald dragging a dog into the
house by its hind legs, whileanother reported hearing strange
noises, whimpering, growlingand sharp yelps emanating from
the basement late at night.
Children and equipment werewarned to stay away from the
Bettis house, but curiosityoften got the better of them,
(40:27):
leading the tales of terrifyingencounters with Gerald, whom
they began to refer to as DogBoy.
By the time he reachedadolescence, gerald's reputation
as a violent and dangerousindividual had solidified.
The townspeople viewed him witha mix of fear and revulsion,
avoiding the Bettis homewhenever possible.
So there was actually an add-onto this house that Gerald put
(40:52):
on, and it was said that he putthe add-on to the house so he
could store more animals, so hecould torture them Get out of
here.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah, was it just always like cats and dogs yeah,
it was mainly dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Oh my God, it was mainly dogs.
His cruel treatment of animalswas not just a hobby or a phase.
It was a precursor to the evenmore disturbing behavior he
would later exhibit toward hisown parents.
The dark nickname Dog Boy stuckwith him for life.
His relationship with hiselderly parents, floyd and Aline
Bettis, grew increasinglystrained.
(41:28):
He was domineering and abusive,not just verbally but
physically.
According to local accounts,gerald kept his parents
essentially imprisoned in theirown home, controlling their
every move.
Some claim that his mother wasconfined to the upper floors of
the house for a long period,unable to leave due to her son's
tyranny.
The situation escalated furtherwhen Gerald's father, floyd,
(41:50):
died under mysteriouscircumstances.
Though no official cause ofdeath was linked to foul play,
whispers circulated in Quitmanthat Gerald may have been
involved in his father's death.
Gerald was actually suspectedof throwing his father down the
stairs and that would be thesuspicious circumstance of him
passing, but there was no proof.
These rumors only fed into thegrowing legend of Gerald Bettis.
(42:15):
By the time Gerald Bettisreached adulthood, his menacing
reputation had deeply rooteditself in the small town of
Quitman.
This quiet farming community,established in 1881, had long
been a place where life movedslowly and everyone knew their
neighbor's business, with apopulation hovering around 740
residents, for decades.
(42:36):
Word of Gerald's unsettlingbehavior spread quickly and as
it did, his story took on a lifeof its own.
The town's isolation, nestledwithin rural Arkansas, created a
perfect environment for thelegend of Dog Boy to flourish
unchecked, transforming GeraldBettis from a disturbed man into
a figure almost cloaked in myth.
In Quitman, gerald Bettiswasn't simply remembered as a
(43:01):
local terror who mistreatedanimals and brutalized his own
family.
He became something far darker.
To many, it seemed as thoughGerald had been touched by an
evil force, almost as if he werecursed from birth.
The tales of his cruelty grewmore horrifying with each
retelling.
At the heart of the legend wasthe Battis family home, a
(43:22):
sprawling old home that stood asa monument to the horrors that
had taken place within its walls.
The once humble residence,which had housed generations of
the Bettis family, was nowviewed as something much more
sinister, a place of lingeringdarkness.
The house itself became asinfamous as the man who lived
(43:43):
there, adding an air of mysteryand fear that surrounded
Gerald's legacy.
Locals spoke of strangehappenings at the house even
during Gerald's lifetime.
Neighbors reported hearingunsettling noises coming from
within strange thumps in thenight, inexplicable creaks and
the chilling sound of dogshowling, even when no animals
(44:04):
were present.
Others swore they saw shadowfigures moving past the windows
when the house was supposed tobe empty.
These eerie occurrences onlydeepened the fear surrounding
Gerald and his home, solidifyinghis status as something more
than just a man.
He was almost a specter, hisvery presence casting a dark
(44:27):
cloud over the town.
Gerald Bettis died in the late1988 while serving time in
prison, reportedly from a drugoverdose at the age of 34.
However, even in death, thestories about him did not die
down.
Instead, they only grew moreintense With his passing.
The Bettis home became a beaconfor tales of paranormal activity
(44:50):
, with locals and outsidersalike reporting eerie encounters
.
Some claim to have seenGerald's ghosts still wandering
the house, while others spoke ofphantom dogs roaming the
property, their tortured howlsechoing through the quiet
streets at night.
The most terrifying stories,however, came from those who
dared to enter the Betta's home.
According to local lore,objects would move on their own,
(45:13):
chairs sliding across the floor, doors slamming shut without
warning and strange lightsflickering in rooms that hadn't
been wired for electricity inyears.
Some visitors claimed to feelan oppressive force in the house
, as if something unseen waswatching them, waiting for them
to leave.
Others reported being touchedor pushed by invisible hands,
(45:33):
their skin breaking out ingoosebumps, even in the warm
Arkansas summer.
For many, the house had become aliving entity haunted by the
malevolent spirit of JaredBettis, and one specific story
that I came across was about aman named Ed Munnerlin, and he
was out of Little Rock.
He had an eerie encounter atthe house.
He was a former pilot withFederal Express you know FedEx
(45:55):
and was working on remodelingthe home back in 2007.
He preferred to work on thehouse at night because he said
that there were too many peoplethat were curious about the
ghost and wanted to come in.
So he claims to have actuallyseen the ghost of gerald bettis
looking at him several times.
Oh what in this article that Ifound, he said quote he was this
(46:17):
huge, weird looking cat withlong brown hair, creepy eyes and
big and great big arms andhands.
He walked right in front of meand glared at me.
Right after I saw him, hewalked through the wall and
disappeared cat, I would shit mypants and then run.
(46:38):
I think he called see, when Ifirst read it I was like, oh my
god was a fucking hairy cat.
I think he it was slang for hewas a.
You know he was a fucking hairycat.
I think he it was slang for hewas a.
You know, he was a weirdlooking cat.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, but still my mind was like, oh my God, he
turned into a cat.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I know I thought that's where you were going with
it, because he tortured animalshe does.
He got turned into a cat in hisafterlife, can you?
Speaker 2 (46:58):
imagine, oh my God, a big ass cat like from like from
like the broadway show cats,just like this big guy in a
leotard.
To this day, residents ofquitman warn curious visitors
(47:19):
not to linger too long near theold house lest they too fall
victim to the darkness thatstill seems to hang heavy in the
air around it.
Gerald bettis may be gone, butthe terror he unleashed on
Quitman lives on, an enduringreminder of a man who left a
legacy of fear and haunting thattime has yet to erase.
Yeah, so that's the story ofDog Boy.
He wasn't a serial killer, yeah, but he was like the start of
(47:42):
one, but he was the start of one.
So you know, in my mind was like, oh my God god, how many people
are like that in this world?
They're just roaming around.
I mean, it said that in yourlifetime you walk past or in the
presence of at least eightmurderers.
Wow, right, and actively.
In the us, at any given time,there are 25 to 50 serial
killers, active serial killers.
That's crazy.
But how many are like just atthe brink, right?
(48:05):
one strand, one strand okay.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
So question is the house still there?
So the house is still there.
Get out of here.
Over the years since he went to, like he went to prison, so
obviously he was a young guywhen he died he was 34.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
He deaded his dad.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Well, supposedly supposedly well, supposedly.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Well, here's the thing he went to prison for
elder abuse, for, like, beatingon his mom and not taking care
of her and stuff, and so he wentto prison.
He also had a drug problem andin prison he overdosed.
Jesus yeah, so like supposedlyhis father died right Because he
fell.
But there's speculation thatGeralderald threw him up jesus
(48:47):
yeah, he was a big guy and hisparents were older, so his
mother was alive when he went toprison.
Okay, she, I feel so bad forthis woman.
What happened was he?
He was seen pushing her to getinto the house and one of the
neighbors called the cops andthey did a welfare check and at
that point she told them whatwas going on and that's when he
(49:10):
went to prison and then he diedof the drug overdose.
So, but she still lived in thathouse while he was in prison
and then he died and then shedied.
So she had to live there withall of that Just menace of If
she could even see it, if it waseven affecting her.
Yeah, but I did do a deep diveon the house because I wanted to
(49:31):
see what it looked like, right?
So I found a picture of thehouse and it's this cute little.
It's not little, it's a cute,it's a good sized house, it's
yellow.
On mulberry street I mean so?
cute.
Right then I noticed something.
I noticed that you know,normally when you look up a
house you have zillow and redfinand all that.
I was like, oh you know, let metake a chance, because when we
(49:53):
were looking for our house, youknow we would click on.
We would click on houses thatwere off the market just to see
if we could see any pictures.
Yeah, so I clicked on thezillow ad and it's off market.
Someone lives there now Get outof here.
Oh yeah, like they totallyrenovated the inside, which
leads me to all the pictures Ifound of the actual inside of
that Get out of here.
(50:15):
And not only did I find it, Ifound it before it got renovated
for where the current I'massuming the current owners, or
the owners right before thecurrent owners lived and before
that.
So I have pictures of itcompletely like cleared out,
like before someone moved inthere and then, and like when it
was, there were parts of itboarded up and then, when
(50:37):
someone bought it, renovated itand then put it back on the
market.
So I have two sets which I'mgoing to put all of the picture,
I'm going to put the link.
You know what?
I should just make a google docbecause there's so many
pictures and I don't want tolike, I don't want to take up
too much space on on the site,so I'll put a, I'll put the link
, I'll put a google doc and I'llput a link with all the
pictures.
It's like 50 something pictures,because normally you don't, you
(51:00):
don't see that when it's offmarket and I was like, oh my god
, with all the, with everythingthat's surrounding this house,
you would think, because evenlike amityville, right, if you
look up amityville, you can'tsee pictures of the house.
Inside you you can see oldpictures, like you can see crime
scene pictures and you can seeif you, if you dig deep enough,
(51:21):
you can find pictures of thehouse when it was put on the
market and everything before.
I mean it always had hype, butlike also like before the hype
hype, like before the conjuringuniverse and all that.
But like you really have tolook.
This was so easy, it was oneclick away and then I went into
redfin just to see if there wasanything different and then I
found the second set of photos,so it was like 50 something
(51:43):
photos of this place and it'sjust, it's nuts Cause you never.
It was like jackpot.
You can never find that,especially in an infamous house
like this.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, so, okay.
So that leads me to do.
The people that live there nowknow what happened in that house
.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Of course.
Well, and the people that livethere now I don't know who they
are, but you know it comes uplike the property taxes and
everything.
Like you know, I kind of wentdeeper than most.
You always do so, like thepeople that are there now are
like my age, right.
So have they interviewed them?
I don't know, but I checked thesurrounding houses, I checked
(52:20):
the whole damn street, everyonearound them in their 60s and
their 70s.
They were all around when ithappened.
So these people are literallysurrounded by the people that
witnessed and experienced allthis through it all yeah
Speaker 3 (52:33):
wow, yeah, I could only imagine they're probably
getting knocks on the door allthe time because I was, I was, I
was ready for you to say that,like you know the infamous
paranormal people went thereLike I said, it's not a vacant
house, like people live thereand you know what.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
There's no fence around the house and it's a nice
piece of property.
It's not like Amityville.
Like Amityville has a fencearound it, there's cameras
heavily watched by the policeand by the neighborhood itself,
like that neighborhood is veryprotective of that house yeah,
well, I mean even us driving by,people were watching us yeah,
(53:14):
yeah, and I also noticed thishouse back to the arkansas house
on mulberry has changed hands alot, a lot.
I was looking at the pricinghistory and like the purchase
history so like since 1985, it'sswitched hands like six times
and a lot of times it was takenoff market and put back on.
But also it's one of the mostexpensive houses on that street
(53:38):
Because it's haunted.
Like $100,000 more.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Get out of here Than every other house Because they
want you to be serious aboutbuying it.
Probably I'll let you see allthe photos.
It's creepy, so people that doregularly paranormal lockdowns
and overnights, and have youever seen one about?
Speaker 2 (53:57):
I mean, there has to be something out there.
There's got to be somethingwe're going to have to look to
see if any of the ghost huntersthat have TV shows have gone.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, because I was waiting for you to say that you
can go.
The one that we always watchwent there, or something.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
No, I've never heard of this place.
I didn't know.
When you picked Arkansas, I waslike, well, let me go and look
this up.
I couldn't believe it.
That's so sad, though.
Not even one strand away.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
He was one opportunity away.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yeah, strand away.
I like he was one opportunityaway.
Yeah, there's a difference andthat's what I mean.
Like what's the spectrum?
There's got to be a serialkiller spectrum.
Was he fully educated?
Like, did he make it throughschool?
Like I?
I have all the questions aboutthis.
See that this is, this is whatwould happen with me being in
front of a serial killer.
Like, are they?
Are they like on genius levelof, like academics or you know?
Are they, are they not?
Are they?
Some are, some are not?
I don't, and they just have,like, these tendencies I don't
(54:53):
know.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, it doesn't say.
I mean, I know he went toschool, but if he finished,
that's a whole different story.
If you look at this street, ifyou look at this neighborhood,
it's not.
It's not gitcheville like, it'snot this, like run down, nasty
area of the town.
It's a really nice, respectablearea.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
So like well, I mean, if there's only 700 and
something 740, yeah I wouldthink most of the communities
would be respectable,respectable.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, I mean, but you know like it's not, like he
came from a troubling background.
So that's why the whole, thewhole presumption of it's the
house that's making him do it,it's the house that has them
under this influence.
I just think he's a troubledperson.
I think that he was on on, likeI said, I think we're all on a
(55:47):
spectrum.
I think he was more on thespectrum towards being a
murderer yeah, no, I would haveso many questions for him, yeah,
if he would even answer.
I mean, he was just a peculiarperson.
I don't think that there were alot of people around him like I
want to know where his angerstemmed from.
I want to, yeah, I want to knowif the current owners of the
(56:07):
house experience anything, orlike did you get the house saged
?
Did you put salt around it?
On the steps or in the doorwayof the house which was one of
(56:28):
the relatives, the ancestors?
Speaker 3 (56:32):
So is this like army kind of land, or was it just?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
in a community, it's a farming community.
But this soldier was World War.
I era soldier.
Hobby farm-ish no, no, nothobby farm, like actual farming
community Okay.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, so it was like passed down and passed down, and
passed down, so people actuallyfarmed the land.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
Wow, it's very sad, but it also intrigues me,
wanting to know more about,wanting to further investigate
my theory on the serial killerspectrum, the SKS.
If I only thought about thiswhen I was doing my thesis in
college, maybe I would havefinished college.
Speaker 3 (57:21):
Crazy, those are good ones.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
And that wraps up another episode of paranormal
howl hour.
We hope you enjoyed the ghostlytales and spine tingling
stories we've shared tonight.
If you've got a thirst for moresupernatural secrets and eerie
encounters, make sure you likeand subscribe to our podcast.
You can find us on all ourfavorite podcast platforms.
Listen to us on apple podcast,spotify, youtube, amazon music
and stitcher.
We're also available oniHeartRadio, so no matter where
(57:46):
you turn in, we've got youcovered.
Want to join the conversationor share your own paranormal
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Follow us on Instagram, tiktokand YouTube.
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Send your stories over toBooCrewHQ at Hotmailcom with a
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(58:08):
Again, that's BooCrewHQ atHotmailcom.
Because we're hot, but not male.
We're ridiculous, I know yoursupport keeps the haunt alive
and helps us bring morespine-chilling content.
Until next time, keep yourlanterns lit and your minds open
.
The shadows are always lurking.
Keep howling, we'll be rightback.
(58:33):
Thank you.
Omnis immundae spiritus, omnis satanica
potestas, omnis incursiainfernalis adversarii, omnis
legio, omnis congregatio etsecta diabolica.
In nomine et virtute Domininostri Jesus.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Christ to rejoice and rejoice.
(00:57):
Oh boo crew, here we are again.
Live, not really live.
We're all live, but we're notlive in person eating mcdees
talking about that people oh no.
Have we been cut?
Have you think we're possessedby the satanic mcdees cult from
(01:18):
last week's story?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
no, I think I've been possessed since as a little kid
like in general or byMcDonald's.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
I think they, because of my love for McDonald's, like
All right, but to clarify, byMcDonald's, not by anything else
.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
I hope nothing else, all right.
I mean, we are putting the boysof fall up in the house, that's
true, that's true.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We started.
I couldn't, I couldn't take itanymore.
I had to start decorating,decorating.
I'm getting peer pressure frommy sister and you know, she's
telling my, she's telling my momto put the witch out and which
is like.
It's this old witch from likethe 1990s right when, like when
outdoor ornaments and stuff werelike made to built to last.
So my mom still has one ofthose and every time there's a
(02:03):
chill in the air, whether it befall, winter, winter, spring or
summer, my sister insists onsaying Ma, put the witch out.
So this is to you, fam, and toyou, boo Crew.
You get to get the insight onmy family antics.
So welcome to the familyeverybody.
But for real, we are in trueNew England style, sipping on
(02:24):
some dunks.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, tell them what you got today.
I'm not the only one.
I got a pumpkin cold brew.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah, you did girl.
Yeah, I did.
I was feeling it.
I was listening to Red RightHand.
You know that song.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I was listening to it on my way to go.
Do all the spooky stuff youdon't know it.
From Scream the.
From Scream the movie Screamthe Red Riding.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Hood, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
You made me.
Yeah, I'm interesting, it'skaraoke hour now, so that got me
in the mood, you know, and it'slike, it's not super bright
outside, there's an overcast,and it's been like that all
weekend.
It's beautiful, it's chilly out, there's an overcast, but it's
(03:07):
really really nice out.
I mean, fall is in the air,actually, happy fall.
First day of fall was actuallyyesterday, yeah, so we're doing
it.
Oh, and jack's here.
Jack says hello everybody.
Jack wants some mcdonald's, buthe's not getting any.
You're not getting any, bro.
It's not happening, not rightnow.
So, yes, completelyunprofessional, we are eating
and drinking and doing our thingright now while we're getting
set up for our stories.
You're actually going firstthis week and I'm excited for it
(03:30):
because you have been extremely.
This has been a clandestine,clandestine let's get the word
right clandestine topic.
You haven't shared anythingwith me that could be bad news.
You know what's great?
I can edit this because, like,like, it's gonna be like eight
minutes of us straight chewingour food, and I don't really
(03:50):
care because I'm enjoying myself.
Are you enjoying yourself?
Yeah, and for anyone that hasan aversion to chewing and lip
smacking sorry, sorry about that, but uh, it's happening it's
happening.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It is happening.
I'm sorry, I needed somenourishment before I start on
this, this escapade so tell mewhat's your story about this
week so you know how I I wasstaying in true form of you know
, going through where I've lived, and we have now landed in the
wonderful state of ct so that Iwould pick it out of the box.
(04:27):
Um, so we we've talked aboutall of the like not all of them,
but all of the the mentalinstitutions and the asylums and
everything, and a lot of themhave gone away.
They're closed down, but Idecided to revisit it, not
necessarily the asylums, for thereason why there was so many
asylums.
There was a huge vampire panicthat happened that's why asylums
(04:53):
became a thing.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Oh, that's one of the reasons why.
Okay, I'm pretty sure it wasjust one of the reasons, just
one the biggest reason wasconsumption.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh, if nobody knows what consumption is tuberculosis
the tb.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's right tb.
Someone in your family had that, didn't they?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
um my great, my great grandmother, amy grandmother's
mom, your grandmother's mom sothat that's uh, that's
interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay, I I like where this is going so far.
You know, I have I have a lovefor asylums and institutions
that there's something about.
There's something about mental,mental health in general that
I'm just very attracted to.
Um, but these places inparticular, these are my places.
This, these are my places.
This is my alley for sure.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Well, I kind of figured that it would be, but
I'm like not going intospecifics about any of the
asylums, it's just and I willget to it later in the story it
just it absolutely like when Imoved here and you started
telling me about all thesedifferent places.
There's a lot around here Hugeand beautiful and gorgeous, and
(06:09):
you know how?
They would just have balconiesupon balconies and they would
just take people out in theirbeds and let them.
You know, like you knew whenyou were going there, that that
was like that, was it Right?
But it's the Kirkbridearchitecture.
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible yeah, but there were some um going
(06:33):
back earlier, before any ofthese places were really even at
stock to for you to be sent to,okay.
So, yeah, I mean, the asylumsaren't part of my story.
This kind of delves back, evena lot further than that, and I
(06:54):
just find it very interesting ofhow people's mindsets were and
I try to like fast forward onwhat we, you know like in
today's eyes.
You know we wouldn't bethinking the way that they were.
You know we wouldn't bethinking the way that they were.
It's just it fascinates me whatused to scare people to the
(07:14):
point of them doing the thingsthat they did.
Some of them were pretty wildand out there.
So that's fair.
Yeah, I agree with that, I am,I'm there.
I just I don't know.
I just I love hearing about thehistory part of things and how
people reacted to panics, so tospeak.
So this is 200 years after theSalem Witch Trials, farmers
(07:39):
became convinced that theirrelatives were returning from
their grave to feed on theliving 200 years.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So that's the 1800s Close to yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Starting about 1790.
So yeah, um.
So.
New england vampire panic wasthe reaction of an outbreak of
tuberculosis, formerly known asconsumption, in the 19th century
.
Through 19th century throughoutRhode Island, eastern
(08:10):
Connecticut, southern Mass,vermont and other areas of the
New England states.
There are at least a dozenhistoric cases that have been
investigated.
In each case, new Englanders dugup the dead, destroyed their
internal organs to stop thespread of the disease.
(08:31):
Different communities treatedthe suspected vampires
differently.
Some simply flipped them overin their graves, while others
would decapitate the skull fromthe body and dissect the femur
bones to place it in an X, likeyou would see on the Jolly Roger
pirate ships Crazy right.
So when people saw the remainsin the type of formation, this
(08:54):
would happen primarily inPlymouth, mass and in some parts
of Maine.
In Connecticut, vermont andRhode Island residents burned
vampires' hearts, sometimesinhaling the smoke as a cure.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I'm shaking my head because you're at, like I know,
an uncomfortable amount of whatyou're saying right now.
You have not surprised me onceyet, and I'm concerned about how
much I know about this.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Okay.
So I figured I would just go inorder.
I don't have all.
I don't believe that I have all12.
I think that I just I pluckedout a handful of them in
chronological order so that wecould kind of just go through
one where they were from in theStates and how diverse it kind
of got with how they treated thebodies and the family.
(09:44):
So the earliest known case inNew England vampirism To have
name attached to it was RachelHarris of Manchester, vermont,
in 1790.
The year after her death herwidower, captain Isaac Burton,
married her step sister, hulda.
Before long, hulda beganexhibiting systems similar to
(10:06):
Rachel's and family and friendsthere for a reason that Rachel
was the culprit.
In February of 1793, more than500 Manchester residents braved
frigid temperatures to watch theliver-hardened lungs be removed
from Rachel's exhumed bodycorpse I should say not body and
burned on the blacksmith'sforge.
(10:28):
According to some versions ofthis story, portions of the
organs were preserved to makemedicine for holdup, although
dying shortly after in September.
But following her death, thegood people of Manchester
realized the error of their ways.
Maybe, maybe not.
They reasoned that perhapsRachel hadn't been a vampire at
(10:52):
all, but rather a witch.
Oh, vampires and witches I knowI'm circling around all the
things.
So, yeah, so you know, she wentfrom being a vampire to to
being a witch.
Since it didn't work, the nextvictim that we have up is
Abigail Staples of Cumberland,rhode Island, 1796.
(11:16):
So the Cumberland Town Councilgranted permission for Stephen
Staples to exhume the body ofthe 23-year-old daughter,
abigail, who had died ofconsumption.
Shortly after her death, hersister, lavinia, had started
showing familiar signs andsymptoms of consumption.
Lavinia told of dreams in whicha shadowy figure sat heavily on
(11:41):
her chest and drew out herbreath.
During one of the dreams shereportedly called out Abigail's
name.
The town officials consentedthat Staples could try an
experiment to save Lavinia'slife.
Despite noting the decision wasmade against the better
(12:01):
conscience of the council.
There is no record of what cameof the exhumation or, for that
matter, of Lavinia, so thatone's a hooey, hooey, we don't
know.
Okay, so we're moving down astate, going to John Barber of
Griswold, new London County.
He was born 1788, past 1843.
(12:26):
They exhumed his body shortlyafter I am going to fast forward
to 1990 for a moment Becausethere were some children playing
in a gravel pit that hadunearthed some human skulls,
leading to the discovery of anold farm burial ground that had
(12:47):
belonged to the Walton familyNight.
John boy, it's spelleddifferent, though.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
It's spelled with a D , isn't it?
No, it's W-A-L-T-O-N.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of was the
Walton family.
I thought it was W-A-L-T-E-N, mybad.
Most of the skeletons wereunremarkable, but one was in a
coffin marked with JB55 in tackson the lid.
The skeleton appeared to havebeen exhumed and reburied
approximately five years afterdeath, with its head and femurs
(13:25):
removed and placed on the chestin the manner of skull and
crossbones.
The ribcage had been brokenopen, presumably to remove the
heart.
Later DNA research suggestedthat the skeleton was that of a
farmer, john Barber, with thetacks on the coffin lid
(13:46):
therefore his initials and ageat death.
A nearby coffin was similarlylabeled NB13, likely his son,
nathan Barber, who died in 1826,aged 13.
(14:07):
This identity was confirmedthrough further DNA research in
2022.
There was an unnamed NewIpswich resident of 1810.
So Dr John Clough of New Ipswich, new Hampshire, reported the
influence of the mind onphysical organization in Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal,volume 21, 1840.
(14:27):
In connection with thesesuperstitions, I cannot omit to
mention a circumstance whichoccurred in this town, new
ipswich, not 30 years since, andsimilar occurrences probably
occurred in many other towns innew england.
This was disinterring a humanbody which belonged to a family
(14:49):
all strongly predisposed toconsumption For the purpose of
removing the heart, which wasburned, the ashes of which were
considered a sovereign remedy tothose of the family who were
still living and might beafflicted with the same disease.
This only illustrates the factthat those elements of character
(15:11):
which held such magic sway overthe minds of men in ancient
times have not ceased altogetherto influence the community in
our comparatively enlightenedday.
Are you liking it so far?
Yeah, we're getting there.
But what's this have to do withasylums?
Mind your own self.
Just people got sent to asylumsafter this To go die.
It really didn't have anythingto do with the silence, mind
your own self.
Just people got sent to asylumsafter this to go die.
(15:32):
It really didn't have anythingto do with this.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
This is before the asylum you said that people went
to asylums for vampirism no, no, we'll take that part out,
because of the TB.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Continue.
Okay, all right.
So the next family that we arebringing to light is the Saladay
family.
The family of Philip Saladaycame from Switzerland, bought
and settled on a lot in FrenchGrant soon after the opening of
the country for settlement.
Consumption developed in thefamily sometime after their
(16:11):
location in Ohio.
The head of the family and theoldest son died of it as others
began to manifest symptoms whenthey attempted to stop the
progress of the disease byexhuming the remains of the
family members and burning theheart, lungs and liver.
This was done in the winter of1816 through 17, in the presence
(16:32):
of a large concourse ofspectators who lived in the
surrounding neighborhood and byMajor John Amos Wheeler of
Wheelersburg.
Samuel Saladay was the one theydisinterred and offered up as a
sacrifice to stop, if possible,the further spread of the
disease.
But like other superstitiousnotions, the regard to curing
(16:55):
diseases, it proved to be afailure for them as well.
The other members of the familycontinued to die off until the
last one was gone, except George.
So he was the only remainingliving person out of the
Saladays.
So he was the only remainingliving person out of the
Saladays.
Frederick Ransom of SouthWoodstock, windsor County,
vermont, died of tuberculosis onFebruary 14, 1817 at the age of
(17:20):
20.
This is so sad, they're likedying so young.
His father was worried thatRansom would attack his family,
so he had him exhumed and hisheart burned on a blacksmith's
sword.
Ransom was a dartsmith collegestudent from a very well-to-do
family.
It was unusual that he shouldfall victim to the vampire panic
(17:43):
which was most common amongless educated communities.
Henry David Thoreau wrote inhis journal of 26 September in
1859, the savage in man is neverquite eradicated.
I have just read of a family inVermont who, several of its
members having died ofconsumption, just burned the
(18:04):
lungs and hearts and liver ofthe last deceased in order to
prevent any more from having itas a reference to contemporary
superstition.
When rural Rhode Islanders movedwest into Connecticut, locals
perceived them as uneducated andvicious, which was partially
due to the Rhode Islanders'belief in vampirism.
(18:25):
Newspapers were also skeptical,calling belief of vampirism an
old superstition and a curiousidea.
While the press dismissed thispractice as superstition, the
burning of the organs was widelyaccepted as a folk medicine in
other communities.
In Woodstock, where localbelief was still present, town
(18:45):
records report hundreds ofonlookers attending the burning
of Frederick Ransom's heart.
So his was kind of famousbecause he was one of the more
educated of the dozen that thereis data on.
There was another anonymoussibling of Boston Mass in
(19:06):
Suffolk County.
So in 1873, dr Lucy Abelreported to Mass State Board of
Health.
She should be sorry to beunderstood as recommending
drunkenness as a cure forconsumption, but I have known
several instances where nearlyall the family, from five to
nine children, have successivelydied of fighting.
(19:26):
Finally, one of the boys, fromsheer desperation, took to
excessive drinking of alcoholicstimulants.
These boys are now past midlifeand enjoying good health.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
When last heard of so they just had to get wasted and
they would beat consumption.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, and she hated to report that because you know
I mean Become an alcoholic.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Don't get tb right wow.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
In two families not less than five or six victims,
and each were carried off byconsumption.
So the alcoholism is working.
Is what I'm getting from this?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
or they were just lucky, maybe they didn't have
like a really bad case ofconsumption.
I don't't know, I don't know.
Well, the next family was theSpalding family.
This went from asylums tovampires, to alcoholism, don't
forget witches, oh witches.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
How could I forget witches?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, all right.
So we are moving to theSpalding family of Dummerston,
vermont, in 1859, where, in hisjournal, henry David Thoreau
wrote the savage in a man isnever eradicated.
I have just read a family inVermont, with several of its
(20:44):
members having died ofconsumption, just buried the
lungs and heart and liver of thelast to prevent any more from
having it.
At the time, thoreau himselfhad long been battling TB, of
which he would die three yearslater, although in his case no
one seemed to have suspectedvampire involvement.
(21:05):
As for the episode to whichThoreau referred, it's likely
the 1790s ordeal of the Spaldingfamily.
Having lost six of his 11 adultchildren to consumption,
lieutenant Leonard Spalding wasdesperate when yet another
daughter grew ill.
The body of the most recentlydeceased child was dug up and
(21:25):
the vital organs removed andburned.
Incidentally, onevampire-adjacent belief of the
day was that vines would growbetween buried caskets and that
once all the burials in the plothad been so connected, another
family would die.
When Spalding's son Reuben wasburied in 1794, his grave was
(21:47):
set apart from those of hisother family members.
Possibly to break the chain IsSarah Tillinghast of Exeter,
rhode Island.
Sarah was the first of SnuffyTillinghast's 14 children to die
.
When his surviving childrenclaimed that Sarah continued to
visit them at night, it mighthave seemed part of the natural
(22:08):
grieving process.
But by 1799, five or moreTillinghast children had died of
consumption, and another wasgravely ill.
When the bodies of the deadwere exhumed, all except Sarah
were found to be in advancedstages of decomposition.
Her heart was removed andburned in front of the family
home.
So another family, the Youngfamily from Rhode Island.
(22:31):
Miss Nancy Young died at 19.
Her sister commenced to a rapiddecline in health, with sure
indications that she must soonfollow Nancy to the grave.
When Nancy's other siblingsbegan to decline, their father,
captain Levi Young, asked hisneighbors and friends to exhume
and burn her remains while allthe members, I think we're
(22:52):
getting to the one that you knowabout.
So the Ray family in JB JewettCity, connecticut, in 1845.
Jewett City, connecticut, in1845.
(23:21):
So 24-year-old Lemuel, okay.
So in 1845 Lem Ray died ofconsumption at age 24.
His death was followed by thatof his father a few years later
and then his brother Three yearslater.
When Lem's oldest, oldestbrother, henry, fell ill, the
family took to drastic measures,again exhuming the body and
burning it, although Henry dieddespite their efforts of trying
to cure him.
(23:42):
So we've made it to the end.
The very last recorded instanceof vampirism has been probably
the best documented of thesuspected Vampirism of New
England was of one, miss MercyBrown.
In 1883, mercy's mother died ofconsumption.
(24:03):
Seven months later Mercy's20-year-old sister died, and a
couple years after that bothMercy and her brother, edwin,
grew ill.
Edwin was sent away to recover,but Mercy soon died.
Mercy's father, george, was bythen desperate to save his
remaining children and, thoughhe was said to not believe in
(24:25):
vampires, consented to havingthe family's bodies exhumed.
As the Providence Journalreported on March 21, 1892, dr
Harold Metcalf, the medicalexaminer of the district to
examine the bodies, is not oneto believe in vampire
superstition.
He made his examination withoutexceptional results, according
(24:49):
to his own belief.
Without exceptional results,according to his own belief, but
found in one of the bodies, tothe satisfaction of many of the
other people down there, a signwhich they regarded as proof.
When he removed the heart andthe liver from Mercy's body, a
quantity of blood dripped therefrom the vampire.
(25:09):
The attendants of the doctorsaid, and then, conforming to
the theory of the necessity ofdestroying the vampire, burned
the heart and liver Once burned,what once was the heart and
liver, were mixed with water andgiven to the surviving brother
to drink.
They were in hopes that thiswould stop the influence of the
undead.
Tb was responsible forapproximately one out of every
(25:31):
four deaths in the eastern US.
To this day, tb remains theworld's most deadliest
infectious disease, responsiblefor well over a million deaths
each year.
As it happened, the New Englandvampire scares started winding
down towards the end of the 19thcentury.
Perhaps not coincidentally,this was around the same time
(25:56):
that Robert Koch identified thebacteria responsible for causing
tuberculosis.
A reporter for the ProvidenceJournal covered the infamous
Mercy's Brown exhumation, andthe story spread.
It reached newspapers all theway to New England and it is
said it may have even inspiredBram Stoker's novel Dracula.
(26:17):
That's it, I don't know.
What do you think you knowabout this?
You've lived here.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I just think that it's funny how vampires witches.
I feel like I should have gonemore into like the Jewett City
part, because I feel like that'spart that you was, that part
you knew about.
Yeah, you can go visit theirgraves, oh shit.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
No, really, yeah, let's go.
We could.
We could go right now if youwanted.
No, oh, ok, well, I'll take youthere.
Ok, you can go visit theirgraves.
There's like a little so it,little um, so it's called the
devil's chair it's.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
It's in that cemetery also.
It's supposed to be cursed.
Wait, you've told me about thisplace, have I like?
The the chair is okay.
Wait, is this the same placewhere okay no, that's the little
people.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I know what you're talking about.
Yeah, no, it's.
Yeah, the cemetery is open tothe public.
You can go there and you canlook at the graves.
It's not the best, I'll tellyou right now it's not like the
best taking care of cemetery,which is kind of sad, but that's
where the Jewish City Vampiresare located.
(27:28):
Vampires are, uh, are locatedalso.
Um, when they dug them up,after being in the ground for
like over a year or whatever,they were perfectly preserved.
It looked like they had justburied them.
There was no sign ofdecomposition or anything, not
no sign, but it was suspectedthat they were vampires so when
(27:55):
I was reading through this Ithink there was also blood found
, yeah, on one of their mouths,so why didn't you put it in?
you're talking abouttuberculosis.
Talk about vampirism.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
You talked about tb so, yes, so on, some of them
being that it's in new englandand them being buried.
The ground freezes what freezesin the ground.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I mean it kept their bodies together, but their
organs, their insides, werestill wet.
That's the thing that doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
They've been down there for a year or plus however
long it was okay, but dependingon when they buried them, their
bodies would freeze.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
So if they didn't drain, well, first of all back
in the day, they wouldn't burybodies in the cold weather.
They would store their bodiesuntil the weather got warmer and
that's why they would putpeople in like root cellars and
in ice houses and stuff, becauseyou couldn't break the ground.
So if you died in the coldermonths, they would stow you away
(29:06):
and then, as it got warmer,then they would dig down and
they would bury you.
Yeah, but that body would stillbe frozen.
No, it's preserved, not frozen.
And if they're doing that,they're not.
Your insides are not.
That that's it, it doesn't.
They buried them and then ayear later, dug them up.
(29:37):
And remember, these are notcaskets like we know caskets
today.
These are pine boxes.
There's no type of actual agentlike lacquer or that thereof.
They're not metal and they'renot sealed tight.
They're just.
(29:57):
They're just coffins.
So that was the that was.
The weird thing is thateverything like you shouldn't
have wet blood inside your bodyafter a year of being buried.
Well, mercy did.
Yes, she did, and it was shethe one that had blood in her
mouth.
Or was it the?
Was it the jewish city vampires?
Speaker 3 (30:17):
um, the only one that really talked about having like
the blood was mercy, so verywell could have been I.
Maybe I should have dug deeperinto the jewish.
Um, no, yeah, she was the one.
Yeah, that's when I mean whenthey pulled her organs out,
(30:40):
there was blood dripping fromher organs.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Right, but when they dug one of them up, there was
blood near the corner of theirmouth.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You also have to remember and I'm not saying that
this is what happened to thesepeople, because it doesn't make
sense that after a year youstill have wet organs in your
body but sometimes people wereburied alive.
People would think that theywere dead right, they would be
pronounced dead, but they'dreally just be in a deep sleep
(31:15):
or comatose or what have you andthen they'd be buried dead.
And that was another thing thatwas in the um, I think in the
jewish city story, that therewere scratches on the inside of
the coffin that's scary.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Could you imagine that being the way that you go?
No, already sick and you likeyou.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Just you know like let me take a rest for a few
days.
My body can't handle it.
It's gonna shut down and try torepair itself.
Then you wake up in a fuckingbox underground.
Yeah, so.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
so I grew up not knowing that this vampire panic
was actually a thing, becausefrom my great-grandmother, amy,
she was sent to the desert andit was told to her that she
(32:15):
would live longer and have abetter life if she was in a dry
climate.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Which is interesting because when you and I have
talked about it in the past,when you and I have talked about
it in the past, it was thoughtthat the sea air would help the
lungs of those with TB.
That's why they would a lot ofthe sanatoriums, which are what
(32:52):
they were used for.
They were used for tuberculosis, as tuberculosis wards were
near the ocean, like Seaside San, as tuberculosis wards were
near the ocean, like seasidesanatorium.
Right, it's near the ocean, sothey would roll, like you said,
roll the patients out to thesethese like um enclosed patios,
open up all these huge windowsand just let the sea air hit
(33:13):
there, you know, have theminhale the sea air and the salt
water, the salt and everythingwas supposed to to heal.
But I mean, honestly, no one, noone, knew.
It was one of those thingswhere I mean, remember being
being a doctor, while professionis still a practice Right,
they're still practicing,they're always going to practice
, still practicing, they'realways going to practice it's an
(33:39):
unknown.
You know, medicine is unknownuntil it's known, until it's
proven, until it's tested, untilit's successful, and that takes
a very long time.
Hence why so many people diedduring the that massive tb
outbreak.
Back then it was a good storylots of little vampire pockets
yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
So I mean, yeah, it was mostly about tb, but like
not intentionally supposed to beabout consumption, but just how
they looked at it, as you know,once everybody started dying
off that, they considered theone that just passed to come
back and make the others gravelyill it's good that you did a
(34:20):
vampire one, since we watchedsalem lot the other day which is
a good book and a good movie.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
So the moment that we've all been waiting for for,
like what?
Three weeks, maybe four, whatis it?
Three, three weeks, maybe thelong-awaited arkansas story?
Yay, what?
What's your view on serialkillers?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
oh god my view on serial killers yeah, um, what
are your feelings?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
what are your feelings on?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I don't, I, I, I could live without mating one, I
but.
But you know what?
If I, okay, I take that back.
If I knew that I would not be avictim, I would want to pick
their brain apart.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, I mean that's been like the lifelong desire of
scientists and doctors.
They always ask serial killersthat are caught in prison that
are on death row or if they canhave their brain once they pass.
Some say yes, some say no.
I think Ted Bundy said yes tothat.
(35:37):
Um, I do you think.
Well, you and I just startedwatching.
This is my third time watchingit, your first time.
Dexter.
Which spoiler alert spoilers.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
Yeah, it sucked me in really fast, like sometimes.
I mean, ph knows, it takes melike three or four, five
episodes to get going.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
But, but this is a good one.
I mean, this is I know it'slike a serial killer with it's a
serial killer with a code.
And there are serial killersthat do have codes, Don't get me
wrong, they're not all.
Which, which is interesting,right, serial killer that has a
code.
It might not be necessarily acode that you and I would agree
with, but they have their owncode, they stand by their own
(36:21):
rules.
They make certain agreementswith themselves that they're
going to choose certain people.
But what if this story kind ofhit upon serial killers, but in
a different way, meaning what ifthere were more serial killers
to be in this world?
Speaker 3 (36:38):
I just don't.
I don't think that we hearabout them, whether it's that
they're not being caught or thenews is caught up on some other
catastrophe that's happeningyears ago, when you were
recently moved out of georgiaand there was a possible serial
(37:00):
killer.
There were serial killings thatwere happening in a particular
area, yeah, and made me want togo back because you know oh, you
just go back and hang out inthe area and see if you can
catch the guy no, well, I mean II feared for my daughter, but
yeah for sure I don't like that.
There's serial killers.
We all have our problems.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Right.
But this story?
This story asks the question ofwhat if you are destined to be
a serial killer, but don'tnecessarily make it to that.
Quote.
Unquote, level Right.
Humans are simple but socomplex at the same time.
We're all gray characters inthe world, neutral characters.
We all have a little good and alittle bit bad mixed within us.
(37:39):
There's a spectrum from sane toinsanity.
I truly believe that.
So why not a spectrum fromdocile to murderous?
that was my main question whenreading this this is a story
about a serial killer to be thatnever quite made it to where he
was going get out of here.
And this is the legend ofGerald Floyd Bettis, better
(38:05):
known as the Dog Boy of Quitman,Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
I'm here for it.
Oh, this sounds good.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Born in 1954, gerald Floyd Bettis was a deeply
unsettling figure from an earlyage.
Even as a young boy, hisbehavior veered sharply away
from the innocent mischieftypical of children his age.
Raised in a small town, ruraltown of Quitman, arkansas which
(38:33):
is absolutely gorgeous, by theway.
I was looking at real estatethere.
Oh, I've never been to Arkansas, but I can understand why
people would want to live there.
This is a town where everyoneknew each other.
Gerald stood out, and not forachievements or likability, but
for the growing sense of fearand dread that surrounded him.
Gerald's parents, floyd andAline Bettis, were older than
(38:57):
most parents at the time and itseemed from the beginning that
they struggled with controllingtheir son's increasingly erratic
behavior.
While other children in thetown played outside or attended
school events, gerald spent muchof his time alone, hidden away
in the confines of his family'slarge and imposing house on
Mulberry Street.
The Bettis home itself becamesort of a fortress for Gerald's
(39:23):
dark activities, became sort ofa fortress for Gerald's dark
activities, and the boy'speculiar behavior gradually
became the source of gossip andworry among the locals.
It wasn't long before neighborsbegan noticing disturbing signs
of Gerald's cruelty,particularly towards animals,
stray dogs and cats, equipmentbegan to disappear and whispers
spread through the town thatGerald was behind it.
(39:45):
Neighbors would later recounthorrifying scenes.
They had witnessed Gerald luringstray dogs into his yard only
to imprison them in makeshiftcages he constructed in the
basement of his home.
These dogs were not justconfined, they were subjected to
bizarre, often grotesqueexperiments, revealing an early
penchant for sadism that wouldonly intensify as Gerald grew
(40:07):
older.
One neighbor remembered seeingGerald dragging a dog into the
house by its hind legs, whileanother reported hearing strange
noises, whimpering, growlingand sharp yelps emanating from
the basement late at night.
Children and equipment werewarned to stay away from the
Bettis house, but curiosityoften got the better of them,
(40:27):
leading the tales of terrifyingencounters with Gerald, whom
they began to refer to as DogBoy.
By the time he reachedadolescence, gerald's reputation
as a violent and dangerousindividual had solidified.
The townspeople viewed him witha mix of fear and revulsion,
avoiding the Bettis homewhenever possible.
So there was actually an add-onto this house that Gerald put
(40:52):
on, and it was said that he putthe add-on to the house so he
could store more animals, so hecould torture them Get out of
here.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah, was it just always like cats and dogs yeah,
it was mainly dogs.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Oh my God, it was mainly dogs.
His cruel treatment of animalswas not just a hobby or a phase.
It was a precursor to the evenmore disturbing behavior he
would later exhibit toward hisown parents.
The dark nickname Dog Boy stuckwith him for life.
His relationship with hiselderly parents, floyd and Aline
Bettis, grew increasinglystrained.
(41:28):
He was domineering and abusive,not just verbally but
physically.
According to local accounts,gerald kept his parents
essentially imprisoned in theirown home, controlling their
every move.
Some claim that his mother wasconfined to the upper floors of
the house for a long period,unable to leave due to her son's
tyranny.
The situation escalated furtherwhen Gerald's father, floyd,
(41:50):
died under mysteriouscircumstances.
Though no official cause ofdeath was linked to foul play,
whispers circulated in Quitmanthat Gerald may have been
involved in his father's death.
Gerald was actually suspectedof throwing his father down the
stairs and that would be thesuspicious circumstance of him
passing, but there was no proof.
These rumors only fed into thegrowing legend of Gerald Bettis.
(42:15):
By the time Gerald Bettisreached adulthood, his menacing
reputation had deeply rooteditself in the small town of
Quitman.
This quiet farming community,established in 1881, had long
been a place where life movedslowly and everyone knew their
neighbor's business, with apopulation hovering around 740
residents, for decades.
(42:36):
Word of Gerald's unsettlingbehavior spread quickly and as
it did, his story took on a lifeof its own.
The town's isolation, nestledwithin rural Arkansas, created a
perfect environment for thelegend of Dog Boy to flourish
unchecked, transforming GeraldBettis from a disturbed man into
a figure almost cloaked in myth.
In Quitman, gerald Bettiswasn't simply remembered as a
(43:01):
local terror who mistreatedanimals and brutalized his own
family.
He became something far darker.
To many, it seemed as thoughGerald had been touched by an
evil force, almost as if he werecursed from birth.
The tales of his cruelty grewmore horrifying with each
retelling.
At the heart of the legend wasthe Battis family home, a
(43:22):
sprawling old home that stood asa monument to the horrors that
had taken place within its walls.
The once humble residence,which had housed generations of
the Bettis family, was nowviewed as something much more
sinister, a place of lingeringdarkness.
The house itself became asinfamous as the man who lived
(43:43):
there, adding an air of mysteryand fear that surrounded
Gerald's legacy.
Locals spoke of strangehappenings at the house even
during Gerald's lifetime.
Neighbors reported hearingunsettling noises coming from
within strange thumps in thenight, inexplicable creaks and
the chilling sound of dogshowling, even when no animals
(44:04):
were present.
Others swore they saw shadowfigures moving past the windows
when the house was supposed tobe empty.
These eerie occurrences onlydeepened the fear surrounding
Gerald and his home, solidifyinghis status as something more
than just a man.
He was almost a specter, hisvery presence casting a dark
(44:27):
cloud over the town.
Gerald Bettis died in the late1988 while serving time in
prison, reportedly from a drugoverdose at the age of 34.
However, even in death, thestories about him did not die
down.
Instead, they only grew moreintense With his passing.
The Bettis home became a beaconfor tales of paranormal activity
(44:50):
, with locals and outsidersalike reporting eerie encounters
.
Some claim to have seenGerald's ghosts still wandering
the house, while others spoke ofphantom dogs roaming the
property, their tortured howlsechoing through the quiet
streets at night.
The most terrifying stories,however, came from those who
dared to enter the Betta's home.
According to local lore,objects would move on their own,
(45:13):
chairs sliding across the floor, doors slamming shut without
warning and strange lightsflickering in rooms that hadn't
been wired for electricity inyears.
Some visitors claimed to feelan oppressive force in the house
, as if something unseen waswatching them, waiting for them
to leave.
Others reported being touchedor pushed by invisible hands,
(45:33):
their skin breaking out ingoosebumps, even in the warm
Arkansas summer.
For many, the house had become aliving entity haunted by the
malevolent spirit of JaredBettis, and one specific story
that I came across was about aman named Ed Munnerlin, and he
was out of Little Rock.
He had an eerie encounter atthe house.
He was a former pilot withFederal Express you know FedEx
(45:55):
and was working on remodelingthe home back in 2007.
He preferred to work on thehouse at night because he said
that there were too many peoplethat were curious about the
ghost and wanted to come in.
So he claims to have actuallyseen the ghost of gerald bettis
looking at him several times.
Oh what in this article that Ifound, he said quote he was this
(46:17):
huge, weird looking cat withlong brown hair, creepy eyes and
big and great big arms andhands.
He walked right in front of meand glared at me.
Right after I saw him, hewalked through the wall and
disappeared cat, I would shit mypants and then run.
(46:38):
I think he called see, when Ifirst read it I was like, oh my
god was a fucking hairy cat.
I think he it was slang for hewas a.
You know he was a fucking hairycat.
I think he it was slang for hewas a.
You know, he was a weirdlooking cat.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, but still my mind was like, oh my God, he
turned into a cat.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
I know I thought that's where you were going with
it, because he tortured animalshe does.
He got turned into a cat in hisafterlife, can you?
Speaker 2 (46:58):
imagine, oh my God, a big ass cat like from like from
like the broadway show cats,just like this big guy in a
leotard.
To this day, residents ofquitman warn curious visitors
(47:19):
not to linger too long near theold house lest they too fall
victim to the darkness thatstill seems to hang heavy in the
air around it.
Gerald bettis may be gone, butthe terror he unleashed on
Quitman lives on, an enduringreminder of a man who left a
legacy of fear and haunting thattime has yet to erase.
Yeah, so that's the story ofDog Boy.
He wasn't a serial killer, yeah, but he was like the start of
(47:42):
one, but he was the start of one.
So you know, in my mind was like, oh my God god, how many people
are like that in this world?
They're just roaming around.
I mean, it said that in yourlifetime you walk past or in the
presence of at least eightmurderers.
Wow, right, and actively.
In the us, at any given time,there are 25 to 50 serial
killers, active serial killers.
That's crazy.
But how many are like just atthe brink, right?
(48:05):
one strand, one strand okay.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
So question is the house still there?
So the house is still there.
Get out of here.
Over the years since he went to, like he went to prison, so
obviously he was a young guywhen he died he was 34.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
He deaded his dad.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
Well, supposedly supposedly well, supposedly.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Well, here's the thing he went to prison for
elder abuse, for, like, beatingon his mom and not taking care
of her and stuff, and so he wentto prison.
He also had a drug problem andin prison he overdosed.
Jesus yeah, so like supposedlyhis father died right Because he
fell.
But there's speculation thatGeralderald threw him up jesus
(48:47):
yeah, he was a big guy and hisparents were older, so his
mother was alive when he went toprison.
Okay, she, I feel so bad forthis woman.
What happened was he?
He was seen pushing her to getinto the house and one of the
neighbors called the cops andthey did a welfare check and at
that point she told them whatwas going on and that's when he
(49:10):
went to prison and then he diedof the drug overdose.
So, but she still lived in thathouse while he was in prison
and then he died and then shedied.
So she had to live there withall of that Just menace of If
she could even see it, if it waseven affecting her.
Yeah, but I did do a deep diveon the house because I wanted to
(49:31):
see what it looked like, right?
So I found a picture of thehouse and it's this cute little.
It's not little, it's a cute,it's a good sized house, it's
yellow.
On mulberry street I mean so?
cute.
Right then I noticed something.
I noticed that you know,normally when you look up a
house you have zillow and redfinand all that.
I was like, oh you know, let metake a chance, because when we
(49:53):
were looking for our house, youknow we would click on.
We would click on houses thatwere off the market just to see
if we could see any pictures.
Yeah, so I clicked on thezillow ad and it's off market.
Someone lives there now Get outof here.
Oh yeah, like they totallyrenovated the inside, which
leads me to all the pictures Ifound of the actual inside of
that Get out of here.
(50:15):
And not only did I find it, Ifound it before it got renovated
for where the current I'massuming the current owners, or
the owners right before thecurrent owners lived and before
that.
So I have pictures of itcompletely like cleared out,
like before someone moved inthere and then, and like when it
was, there were parts of itboarded up and then, when
(50:37):
someone bought it, renovated itand then put it back on the
market.
So I have two sets which I'mgoing to put all of the picture,
I'm going to put the link.
You know what?
I should just make a google docbecause there's so many
pictures and I don't want tolike, I don't want to take up
too much space on on the site,so I'll put a, I'll put the link
, I'll put a google doc and I'llput a link with all the
pictures.
It's like 50 something pictures,because normally you don't, you
(51:00):
don't see that when it's offmarket and I was like, oh my god
, with all the, with everythingthat's surrounding this house,
you would think, because evenlike amityville, right, if you
look up amityville, you can'tsee pictures of the house.
Inside you you can see oldpictures, like you can see crime
scene pictures and you can seeif you, if you dig deep enough,
(51:21):
you can find pictures of thehouse when it was put on the
market and everything before.
I mean it always had hype, butlike also like before the hype
hype, like before the conjuringuniverse and all that.
But like you really have tolook.
This was so easy, it was oneclick away and then I went into
redfin just to see if there wasanything different and then I
found the second set of photos,so it was like 50 something
(51:43):
photos of this place and it'sjust, it's nuts Cause you never.
It was like jackpot.
You can never find that,especially in an infamous house
like this.
Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, so, okay.
So that leads me to do.
The people that live there nowknow what happened in that house
.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Of course.
Well, and the people that livethere now I don't know who they
are, but you know it comes uplike the property taxes and
everything.
Like you know, I kind of wentdeeper than most.
You always do so, like thepeople that are there now are
like my age, right.
So have they interviewed them?
I don't know, but I checked thesurrounding houses, I checked
(52:20):
the whole damn street, everyonearound them in their 60s and
their 70s.
They were all around when ithappened.
So these people are literallysurrounded by the people that
witnessed and experienced allthis through it all yeah
Speaker 3 (52:33):
wow, yeah, I could only imagine they're probably
getting knocks on the door allthe time because I was, I was, I
was ready for you to say that,like you know the infamous
paranormal people went thereLike I said, it's not a vacant
house, like people live thereand you know what.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
There's no fence around the house and it's a nice
piece of property.
It's not like Amityville.
Like Amityville has a fencearound it, there's cameras
heavily watched by the policeand by the neighborhood itself,
like that neighborhood is veryprotective of that house yeah,
well, I mean even us driving by,people were watching us yeah,
(53:14):
yeah, and I also noticed thishouse back to the arkansas house
on mulberry has changed hands alot, a lot.
I was looking at the pricinghistory and like the purchase
history so like since 1985, it'sswitched hands like six times
and a lot of times it was takenoff market and put back on.
But also it's one of the mostexpensive houses on that street
(53:38):
Because it's haunted.
Like $100,000 more.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Get out of here Than every other house Because they
want you to be serious aboutbuying it.
Probably I'll let you see allthe photos.
It's creepy, so people that doregularly paranormal lockdowns
and overnights, and have youever seen one about?
Speaker 2 (53:57):
I mean, there has to be something out there.
There's got to be somethingwe're going to have to look to
see if any of the ghost huntersthat have TV shows have gone.
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, because I was waiting for you to say that you
can go.
The one that we always watchwent there, or something.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
No, I've never heard of this place.
I didn't know.
When you picked Arkansas, I waslike, well, let me go and look
this up.
I couldn't believe it.
That's so sad, though.
Not even one strand away.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
He was one opportunity away.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yeah, strand away.
I like he was one opportunityaway.
Yeah, there's a difference andthat's what I mean.
Like what's the spectrum?
There's got to be a serialkiller spectrum.
Was he fully educated?
Like, did he make it throughschool?
Like I?
I have all the questions aboutthis.
See that this is, this is whatwould happen with me being in
front of a serial killer.
Like, are they?
Are they like on genius levelof, like academics or you know?
Are they, are they not?
Are they?
Some are, some are not?
I don't, and they just have,like, these tendencies I don't
(54:53):
know.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, it doesn't say.
I mean, I know he went toschool, but if he finished,
that's a whole different story.
If you look at this street, ifyou look at this neighborhood,
it's not.
It's not gitcheville like, it'snot this, like run down, nasty
area of the town.
It's a really nice, respectablearea.
Speaker 3 (55:14):
So like well, I mean, if there's only 700 and
something 740, yeah I wouldthink most of the communities
would be respectable,respectable.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, I mean, but you know like it's not, like he
came from a troubling background.
So that's why the whole, thewhole presumption of it's the
house that's making him do it,it's the house that has them
under this influence.
I just think he's a troubledperson.
I think that he was on on, likeI said, I think we're all on a
(55:47):
spectrum.
I think he was more on thespectrum towards being a
murderer yeah, no, I would haveso many questions for him, yeah,
if he would even answer.
I mean, he was just a peculiarperson.
I don't think that there were alot of people around him like I
want to know where his angerstemmed from.
I want to, yeah, I want to knowif the current owners of the
(56:07):
house experience anything, orlike did you get the house saged
?
Did you put salt around it?
On the steps or in the doorwayof the house which was one of
(56:28):
the relatives, the ancestors?
Speaker 3 (56:32):
So is this like army kind of land, or was it just?
Speaker 2 (56:37):
in a community, it's a farming community.
But this soldier was World War.
I era soldier.
Hobby farm-ish no, no, nothobby farm, like actual farming
community Okay.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, so it was like passed down and passed down, and
passed down, so people actuallyfarmed the land.
Speaker 2 (56:56):
Wow, it's very sad, but it also intrigues me,
wanting to know more about,wanting to further investigate
my theory on the serial killerspectrum, the SKS.
If I only thought about thiswhen I was doing my thesis in
college, maybe I would havefinished college.
Speaker 3 (57:21):
Crazy, those are good ones.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
And that wraps up another episode of paranormal
howl hour.
We hope you enjoyed the ghostlytales and spine tingling
stories we've shared tonight.
If you've got a thirst for moresupernatural secrets and eerie
encounters, make sure you likeand subscribe to our podcast.
You can find us on all ourfavorite podcast platforms.
Listen to us on apple podcast,spotify, youtube, amazon music
and stitcher.
We're also available oniHeartRadio, so no matter where
(57:46):
you turn in, we've got youcovered.
Want to join the conversationor share your own paranormal
experiences?
Follow us on Instagram, tiktokand YouTube.
We would love to hear yourshort stories and spooky
theories, so don't be shy.
Send your stories over toBooCrewHQ at Hotmailcom with a
chance to be featured on anepisode of the Howcast.
(58:08):
Again, that's BooCrewHQ atHotmailcom.
Because we're hot, but not male.
We're ridiculous, I know yoursupport keeps the haunt alive
and helps us bring morespine-chilling content.
Until next time, keep yourlanterns lit and your minds open
.
The shadows are always lurking.
Keep howling, we'll be rightback.
(58:33):
Thank you.
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