In 1928, a Pennsylvania folk healer named Nelson Rehmeyer was beaten and killed by three men who believed he’d hexed them. They weren’t strangers—they knew him, had sat at his kitchen table, and came armed with folk instructions: steal his spellbook, take a lock of hair, and destroy them to break the curse. When the fire they set didn’t catch, the legend began.
This episode unpacks the true story behind what became known as the Hex Murder of York County—a case where powwow, the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of Bible-based folk healing, was twisted into justification for murder. We’ll dig into how Rehmeyer’s practice and The Long Lost Friend put him at the center of rural magical fear, and how folk systems like powwow and hexerei blurred the line between healing and suspicion.
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