Eerie News with M.P. Pellicer | STORIES: The Triple Six and More! - Eerie News

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, This is Marlene with the Eerie News and
today we've got a chock full of weird news to share. Okay,
some recent, then some older. Like always, lets put a
mix together. First story though, is out of Stranger than
Fiction stories and it's titled The Hunter of Priests. Maloney

(00:26):
was a bounty hunter who was tasked with hunting priests.
He became so efficient at his work that he became
one of the most despised but feared men in Ireland.
John Maloney, he was also had an aka. I believe
this is the Gaelic way of saying his name. Sean
Nick Suggart, or John of the Priests, was born in

(00:48):
County Mayo, Ireland. He led a dissipated life of drinking
and carousing, and in order to fund this lifestyle, he
became a thief. The law caught up with him after
he stole horses, which in those times meant a death sentence.
Lucky for Malauney, it turned out the Anglican ruled courts
were in need of a pre hunter, and someone of

(01:09):
such low character was deemed the perfect person to carry
out this mission. He was given the status of Persevon
and in exchange he escaped the Hangsman's News. The year
was seventeen fifteen. That same year, he gave testimony at
Castle Bar before the Grand Jury on the whereabouts of
the Vicar General of Twam Diocese, Francis Bourke and James

(01:31):
lynchen ticular Archbishop of Twam. The document bore a cross
or an ex for his signature, indicating he was illiterate.
The seventeen oh nine Penal Act demanded subjects of the
land recognized that Protestant Queen Anne was the supreme head
of the Church.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Of England and Ireland.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
The Act was introduced after the Battle of the Boyne.
The aim was to assure economic, social and political supremacy
of Protestantism and eradicate Catholicism within two generations. Priests especially
were ordered to take the oath of abjuration and recognize
her as such. If they refused, they were sentenced to

(02:11):
death or deported. Of two thousand area priests, only twenty
three had taken the oath, so Maloney had plenty of work.
Bishops and priests were banished, and new priests were not
allowed entry into Ireland. Not surprisingly, Maloney outed himself in
hunting priests. One of his tricts was to pretend to
be on his deathbed, and when a priest was summoned
to administer last rites, he would pull out a knife

(02:34):
to force the man to return or kill him. Other
times he would go into the confessional and then kill
the priest who sat close by to forgive him of
his sins. He became known as a demon of death. However,
despite his notoriety, many priests did not know exactly what
he looked like. No doubt, he was also spurred by

(02:55):
the rewards he received, which were rumored to be one
hundred pounds for a bishop or archbishop, twenty pounds for
a priest, ten pounds for a hedge school teacher, and
five pounds for a priest in training. Instead of acting
as a spy, Maloney had become an executioner. Once he
brought them back, if they refused to take the oath,

(03:18):
they would be executed. It turned out most of the
time he would kill them ahead of time, just to
collect the bounty on them.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
A rogue is a rogue, no matter how.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Good he was in bounding hunting priests, but the copious
amounts he received for his efforts or wasted on heavy
drinking and expensive taste, which had led him to a
narrow escape from the gallows before. Despite his services to
the courts, he was extremely unpopular and hated by all,
especially the Catholics. Some of the Protestants received him at

(03:48):
their house, including John Bingham, who was a sheriff of Mayo.
He opened the doors of his home newbrook House and
South Mayo. Rumors were that the heads of the executed
priests were kept in the houses cellar. Another place where
the remains of the murdered priests were dumped was a
lake in the parish of Balentober. Moloney became the scourge

(04:08):
of the area priest and he killed all but two
of them. They had all smarted him by living in disguise.
Masses were celebrated in secret, where the priest kept his
face hidden so the congregation could honestly claim they did
not know the identity of who conducted the mass. Lookouts
were Watchfross soldiers and an escape route was planned ahead.

(04:29):
John Maloney convinced his own sister, Nancy Lawman Lawnin, a
devout Catholic, that he was at death's door and that
a priest should be brought to him. Father Kilger, one
of the two remaining priests, came in response to the
summons and for his troubles, he was stabbed to death
by Maloney. The priest Hunter knew that the last remaining
priest would come to the funeral, so he lay in

(04:50):
wait for him. This man was Friar Burke, father Kilger's nephew.
Suspecting that Maloney planned to ambush him, he brought two bodyguards,
John McCann and Fergus McCormick. McCann had his own personal
vendetta against Maloney, since one of his relatives, father Higgins,
had been murdered by the bounty hunter. Friar Burke, acted

(05:11):
as a pallbearer and as a funeral proceeded to the cemetery,
Maloney jumped from behind a tree with a knife in
hand and chased the poor Friar, who fled towards the
Partry mountains. Finally, the friar couldn't run anymore, and in
the struggle he stabbed his attacker, and then McCann arrived
on the scene and finished the job of killing John
the Hunter. Stories are told that after Maloney was buried

(05:32):
in the cemetery of Balentover abbey. The inhabitants of County
Mayo dug him from his grave.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
And threw him into Low Cara.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Eventually the body was recovered and buried in unconsecrated ground
facing north where the sun never rises. An ash tree
was planted as a marker, which became known as the
Hangman's tree, and never bore fruit, and after one hundred
and fifty years it was split in half. Another Wack
that as a spy for the courts was John Garcia
or Garcia. He was either from Spain or Portugal. He

(06:01):
was brought in from abroad as a priest catcher. Garzia's
antipathy towards a Catholic church was a run and he
had with the inquisition after he questioned Dogma. There were
rumors that he was not Catholic but Jewish. He came
to Dublin in seventeen seventeen, lodged with Catholic Curergy and
claimed he had once been ordained a priest, thus establishing

(06:23):
himself as a staunch Catholic. He circulated among the local
families and passed on the intelligence he gathered to the authorities.
In June seventeen, eighteen seven, priests and nuns at the
Convent of the Poor Clares in North king Street were
arrested during a night raid. Garzia testified they had celebrated Mass.
They were sentenced to being transported to a penal colony,

(06:44):
even though it's not.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Certain if this took place.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Since some of the priests continued to live in Ireland,
enthusiasm for hunting priest waned, and eventually Guarzia's service were
no longer in high demand. He complained of poverty and
that he was openly hated by the Catholic populous. He
was once attacked by a mob, which was a common
occurrence for those who had once spied on priest and Catholics.
William King, the Archbishop of Dublin, never paid him all

(07:10):
he was owed, and eventually Guarcia was accommodated at Dublin
Castle to keep him safe. In seventeen twenty he said
that Irish priest had instigated persecution of his family in Spain,
and as a result, his mother had cut off his allowance.
No doubt, she also learned he had become a Protestant.
The Inquisition had ordered his picture to be burnt. In

(07:31):
seventeen twenty three, itets believe he went to Minorca, then
a British possession, as a missionary, despite having a wife
and two children while he was in Dublin. So it
seems that being a priest catcher was considered a despicable trade,
not only by the Catholics but by the Protestants who
employed them. So, yes, that usually happens with people end
up doing dirty work.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, so yes.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
I had never heard that they were actually hunting priests
in a Queen Anne took the throne. But there you
go so much so. And this is the thing that
apparently his real instructions were you need to bring them back.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
How's that?

Speaker 1 (08:15):
In other words, he was being told, you need to
find them and bring them back so they can be
offered to take that oath of abjuration, and then if
they don't, then you know, they get executed or deported
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
This is what they were going to do with them.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
But what happens, I guess it was more trouble than
not to do that. So he ended up killing them
once he got ahold of them. He wasn't bringing them
back and having them go before I guess the authorities
and say, okay, do you swear the oath. No, okay whatever, No,
he was just forget it. I guess he would bring

(08:54):
back that thing about them the steering, uh storing the
heads of the priests. And I don't know if that's
true Urban mid but that almost sounds like, you know,
when they.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Put out a poster for dead or alive like that.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Maybe he had to bring back the priestat I don't know,
but yeah, that's way out there anyway.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Next story.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Also out of strangers in fiction stories is the forgotten
crimes of the Old West. Echoes of the past, especially
violent when it's heard sometimes years afterward. Stories of skulduggery
and secret burials traveled from town to town, brought by
visitors who stayed at roadside inns and taverns in the
Old West. Time is eighteen seventy October thirteenth, Charles Kennedy

(09:35):
was arrested for murder. He owned a tavern and inn
at the junction of the Mara and Taos roads in
New Mexico. This was at the base of Balo Flechavo Pass.
He lived there with his seventeen year old wife, Gregoria
and their one year old son, Samuel. The crime took
place on the night of December twenty fourth, eighteen sixty nine,
Kennedy had two men staying the night. One was a

(09:57):
tall man with a full red beard. The other was
a little by the name of Jose Cortes. At a
later trial, Cortes testified that he saw Kennedy shooting American
with a pistol. A stranger came to the house and
stopped for the night.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
He was an.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
American with large red whiskers. They retired for the night,
then a shot.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Woke him up.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
When they say, the shot woke Jose Cortez up, but
there was no light in the room. Kennedy lit a
candle and by the light Jose saw blood pour from
the bullet hole in the man's head into his red whiskers.
Cortes knew the killer was Kennedy because there was no
one else at the end besides Kennedy, his wife, the stranger,
and himself. Jose Cortes refused to help Kennedy bury the

(10:43):
dead man and took the first opportunity to run away,
no doubt, fearing he would join the man with the
red whiskers in a secret grave. He went to twles,
but kept what he witnessed a secret until September, when
he told police what he saw take place.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Upon Kennedy's arrest.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Nine months after the crime, a number of bones were
found in the inn's gardens and they were presented at court.
Two doctors examined them and opined they belonged to a
human body. On October six, eighteen seventy, an Indian belonging
to the Pueblo Dials came to town and stated that
a human skeleton was found buried under one of the

(11:19):
rooms of Kennedy's house. It begged the question how many
travelers had Kennedy done away with. Unfortunately, these strangers were
rarely missed in the highly transient settlement and no questions
were asked when they disappeared. Just as Edward McBride held
an inquest and it was decided the dead man came
to his death at the hands of Charles Kennedy. The

(11:42):
skeleton with the skull, which bore evidence of a bullet
entering the right temple, were brought back to town. The
townspeople held an impromptu trial but failed to agree despite
testimony from Jose Cortes and Kennedy's wife, so another trial
was scheduled. Sheriff Hoe was feeling was fitting up a
more secure jail cell through the winter for the prisoner,

(12:04):
and in the meantime he was kept in a loghouse
heavily guarded.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
By two men. At eleven p m.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
On October seventh, a band of armed disguised men forced
to sheriff to turn over the prisoner. It seemed they
thought one twelve was enough. Kennedy was taken to an
old slaughter house about half a mile from town, and
he was hung from a rafter. The body was discovered
in the morning, and the corner's jury returned a verdict

(12:29):
that Kennedy came to his death by hanging at the
hands of parties. Unknown stories are that Kennedy's wife, not
jose Cortes, was the one who reported him to authorities
after he killed their ten year old son and twenty travelers.
This version is difficult to believe, since the census of
eighteen seventy taken in the month between the murder and
his trial. His wife, Gregoria, was seventeen years old with

(12:52):
an infant son that she testified at the trial, about
which had witnessed, is probably true, no doubt, helping to
seal his fate. The group of men who took Kennedy
from the Cellarer supposedly led by Robert Allison aka Clay Allison.
He was a Confederate soldier who after the war went
westward and soon developed a reputation as a gunslinger with

(13:15):
a bad temper. Among his friends were the Erp brothers,
Kick Carson and James Batmasterson, who said of his companion
quote the best eradicator of bad men, liars, cheats and
thieves end quote. Clay Allison was born with a club foot. However,
this did not stop him from immediately enlisting in the
Confederate Army when the Civil War broke out. However, a

(13:38):
few months later he was discharged for medical reasons which
were listed as quote emotional or physical excitement produces paroximal
of a mixed character, partly epileptic and partly maniacal. End.
There is also mention that he received a blow to
his head many years before, which might have led to
his psychotic behavior when drinking. Even though it was known

(13:59):
that he was a difficult child, he rejoined a few
months later and served as a scoutan spy for the
ninth Tennessee cavalry, and in eighteen sixty five he was
held as a prisoner of war for a week and
was convicted of spying and sentenced to be shot. The
night before his planned execution, he killed the guard and escaped.
By eighteen eighty, Allison moved to a ranch in hamp

(14:21):
Hill County, Texas, married America McCullough and fathered two daughters,
Patty and Clay. Ironically, after being known as a notorious shoodist,
he died at the age of forty six in a
freak accident. A grain sack slid from his wagon and
when he reached toward he fell and one of the
wheels passed over his neck, killing him. He once remarked quote,

(14:41):
I never killed a man that did not need killing.
Elizabethtown was known for its many saloons, and no doubt
Alis and the others in the group were well in
their cups when they strunk Kennedy up, but had seen
the disruptive behavior continued, so much so that two weeks later,
just as McBride announced that a serious riot was going on,
and he sent a telegram to the governor requesting troops

(15:03):
station at Cimarron to be sent to Elizabethtown, since it
was feared the town would be destroyed by fire. McBride's
own house had been burnt down. By the time soldiers arrived,
things had quieted down. Justice McBride died in nineteen hundred
nineteen hundred, and his obituary described him as an old timer.
It was noted he was instrumental in the capture of

(15:23):
Sam Ketchum only a year before. After a hold up,
the black Jack Ketchum gang headed for Turkey Creek Canyon
above Cimarron, where they had a hideout. A posse consisting
of Sheriff at Far of Worfunnel County, Colorado, special Agent W.
Hreeen of the Colorado and Southern Railroads, and five deputies

(15:44):
found their trail and tracked them into the canyon, where
Sam was wounded.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Deputies W. H.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Love and Tom Smith, along with Serf Farr, were killed. Wounded,
Sam made his escape and wandered in the mountains before
coming to McBride's r ranch in search of food and medicine.
McBride turned him over to the law, and he and
his son received the reward for his capture. Ketchum was
taken to Santa Fe Territorial Prison, where he died from
the wounds. He was buried in the Odd Fellow Cemetery

(16:10):
in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Another member of the gang,
William H. Mc ginnis, a train robber in Desperado, was
tried to have found guilty of murder in the second degree.
Mc guinness was the alias of William Elsie Lee, a
well known member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch. He was
sent to the New Mexico Territorial Prison in nineteen o six.

(16:31):
He was released and returned to Bag's Wyoming, where he
ran a saloon and mended his outlaw ways. He married twice,
had three children, and moved to California. He died in
Los Angeles in nineteen thirty four. Now we're going to
fast forward to nineteen twenty three September, and human bones
are found about a mile and a half from Whitewater, Colorado.

(16:51):
Coroner Crone and under Sheriff C. A. Clay concluded they'd
been buried for many years, and they suspected they belonged
to a man killed during a brawl at a saloon
close to the discovery of the remains. W. H. Kaufman,
a local resident of the area since eighteen eighty three
told the story of what happened to the unfortunate victim.
At that spot was a saloon and blacksmith's shop. In

(17:13):
eighteen eighty three there was a fight and two men
were killed, and mister Kauflin remembered that one of them
was buried nearby. Without money and perhaps an identity, a
man was dumped without a coffin into unconsecrated grounds. The
years passed and the weather eroded the area, uncovering the
bones and scattering them along the roadside. After little digging,
the rest of the skeleton was found. The plans were

(17:35):
to rebury them. Unlike the lynching of Charles Kennedy, no
one near the identity of those killed or even the
reason was this man buried in a field because of
expediencyre because he was murdered. Do you even exist if
no one knows your name, which, by the way, if
you think about it, is a very good question.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
All of this happened, you.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Know, when they hang Charles Kennedy, they did it because
they had It was very recent and they had one,
at the very least two witnesses. Cortez and is probably
his Kennedy's wife. But from what I understand, they dug
up a bunch of bones in his property. But what

(18:18):
happens is they didn't know who they were.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
They couldn't probably even say how they got killed. This guy.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
They could say that because apparently he had a it
looked like his skull, you know that, there was evidence
he had been shot in the head. But again, if
it wasn't for that, how long had he been carrying
on and doing that again? Because these were transients stopping
at this little inn slash tavern.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
No one knows their name.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Nobody's around to say, hey, that guy that was heading
over to Cimarron or whatever. He never got there. We
never heard from him again. And he kind of took
advantage of that same thing with this other one where
they discovered nineteen twenty three these bones that go back
about fifty years.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Or was he buried.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
He was nobody and they were like, we're not going
to trude around with this dead guy.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
We don't even know who he is.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
We'll just bury him here or was he murdered, And
it was like, okay, let's bury him quick, all right,
that kind of deal. So, and remember these were the
times Let's say, let's say you owned a saloon or
a tavern or something, and you're out in the middle
of nowhere, and all of a sudden there's a shootout
and they kill one of the people they were. The guy,

(19:22):
one of the men, the one that kills him, tells
the the saloon owner probably doesn't want to get in
the middle of this.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
He says, we're gonna bury this gun. You better keep
your mind shut. I want to come back and pay
you a visit.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
And what do you think happens nine times out of
ten unless there's a bunch of other people. They he
shuts up. And of course, remember another thing. This guy
that led the uh that lynch party, he was a hothead,
all right, he was what was it? I never killed
a man that did not need killing, Okay. I don't

(19:58):
think he needed much of a pretext to kill somebody.
So yeah, yeah, again, Do you exist if nobody knows
your name? Back then that time?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
No? Not really?

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Okay, next story out of Also, strangers in fiction stories
talk about identity being everything. This is entitled This is
titled The Impostor. The Romanos are executed July nineteen eighteen,

(20:35):
the Russian Royal family wards are Nicholas the second says Arena,
Alexandra Fedrodovna and their five children, Alexei, Olga, Tatiana, Maria
and Anastasia. The aftermath of the massacre, there was a
cloud of mystery and speculation, and the horror of the
family's last few days were kept from the press. There

(20:56):
was also doubt if the youngest Anastasia and Alexei had
been killed and instead were spared. After being moved from
house to house, by May nineteen eighteen, the royal family
was sent to Ipative House and Yekaterenburg, which was under
Bolshevik control. They called it the House of Special Purposes.
Was owned by Yakov Yurovowski, a dedicated Marxist and Bolshevik

(21:19):
with close links to the Cheka, the secret police force
run by the revolutionaries. The Romanovs spent their last seventy
eight days there. European newspapers reported that Anastasia had somehow
escaped the fate that befell her family in the cellar
of the House of Special Purpose. The Russian government would
not acknowledge the whole family had been shot until nineteen

(21:40):
twenty six, fueling hopes that not all the royal family
were executed. The most legendary claimant to being a survivor
was a woman who appeared in nineteen twenty saying she
was Anastasia. Her name was Anna Anderson, and she was
only one of many who claimed to be the last
Grand Duchess. It all started in February nineteen twenty when

(22:02):
a young woman with no identification was pulled from the
Landwark Canal in Berlin without anything on her person to
lend a clue as to who she was or where
she came from. The authorities nicknamed her Madame Unknown and
took her to dal Duff Asylum. The mystery deepened when
she refused to speak the first six months at the asylum.

(22:22):
She had scars all over her body, and when she
finally spoke, she had a Russian accent. According to the
Book of Romanov Phantasy, there was another inmate named Clara Pethert,
who had been admitted in nineteen twenty one after accusing
her neighbors of stealing her money. Prior to World War One,
she lived in Russia. Clara would say to Anna, your

(22:43):
face is familiar to me. You do not come from
ordinary circles. Anna would put her finger to her lips
in a shushing motion. In October of that year, Clara
showed Madame Unknown a newspaper headlined the Truth about the
murder of the Tsar. It featured a portrait of the
Grand Duchess with the caption is one of the daughters alive.

(23:03):
Clara then went on to tell others that Madama Known
was Tatiana even after she was released in January nineteen
twenty two, despite the fact she had little resemblance to
any of the Romanov daughters. Exiles from the Russian court
came to the asylum to see the supposed Grand Duchess.
Some were convinced she was Tatiana. Others were at least intrigued. However,

(23:25):
Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden, a lady in waiting to Serena Alexandra,
declared she's too short for Tatiana. It was after this
that Madama Known specified she didn't say she was Tatiana,
eventually intimating she was Anastasia and taking the name of
Anna Anderson. She claimed that after being gravely wounded, she

(23:46):
was rescued from the murder scene by a soldier named
Alexander Trevowski, whom she eventually married and lived with em
Bucharest until his death, at which time she made her
way to Berlin. Or Exhausted and shaken, she attempted suicide
by jumping off a bridge. Anna Anderson was eventually released
from the Daldorf Asylum and went on to meet many

(24:06):
the acquaintances and relatives of the Romanov family. She spent
the next few years living in the homes of her supporters,
because there were many she convinced of her secret identity.
During these years, Lenin refused to confirm the Romanov family
had been killed, only that Sir Nicholas the second had
been executed. This left the fate of the rest of
the family in limbo. Officially, that is, despite her supporters.

(24:34):
Immediate family of the Romanovs who met Anna were convinced
that she was not Anastasia. Both aunts, Princess Irene of
Prussia and Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna Alexandrovna met with Anna
and both came to the conclusion she was not Anastasia.
The dowager Empress refused to meet with Anna, but as

(24:56):
painful as it was, she believed the reports that her
son aimed and the entire family had been executed. This
included her granddaughter Anastasia. There were other telltale signs that
Anna Anderson was not Anastasia. She did not speak English, French,
or Russian, all of which the real Anastasia knew how
to converse influently. In nineteen twenty seven, the Grand Duke

(25:19):
of Hess Serena, Alexander's brother, completed an investigation that identified
Anna as a factory worker from Poland name Francisca Shanskowsko.
Despite the proof provided, others continued to support her in
Germany and the United States. Throughout the years, Anna Anderson
was in and out of mental hospitals. She began a

(25:41):
suit in a German court in nineteen thirty eight to
prove her identity. The case dragged on until nineteen seventy,
when the court decided that she had not proven herself
to be Anastasia. In nineteen sixty eight, she came to America,
where she met and married an American history professor and genealogist,
John Ecott Manahan aka Jack Manahan. She was seventy two

(26:04):
years old and he was twenty one years old, and
I'm sorry he was twenty one years her junior. Jack
Manahan was also a millionaire who had paid for anna'sphare
from Germany. Another man who was courting her was a
Russian immigrant named Gleb Bachkin. His father, doctor Evensi Bachen,
had been murdered with the Imperial family. He said that

(26:24):
Anna was indeed Anastasia, his childhood friend, and he had
orchestrated her visit to Charlottesville. He was a peculiar character himself.
He had established the Church of Aphrodite in nineteen thirty
eight and called himself the most reverend Archbishop. Upon her
death in nineteen eighty four, Anderson's body was cremated. Anna

(26:47):
ashes were buried in the churchyard at Castle Seon, Germany.
Her memorial plaque at Castle Sion, where ashes were scattered reeds.
Anastasia Manahan nineteen oh one nineteen eighty four, even though
her actual birth year was eighteen ninety six. In nineteen
fifty six, movie Anastasia, based on Anna's life earned Ingrid

(27:09):
Bergmann an Academy Award. In nineteen seventy nine, under the
guise of scientific research geology, geologists located three skulls in
the area of Yekaterinburg. However, the topic was still delicate,
and they were reburied until nineteen ninety when Yeltsen agreed
to a recovery of the remains. Investigators found nine skeletons

(27:31):
in one grave.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
DNA from the Romanov.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Bones were compared with that from Prince Philip and were
found to be a match. Alexandra's wife Azar Nicholas the
Second was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and Prince Philip's mother,
Alice of Battenberg, was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria as well.
They had the bones of Nicholas the Second, Alexandra, his wife,

(27:54):
and three of the children. After the bones were assembled,
it was found that two bodies were missing, those of
Election and one of his sister. They also recovered the
remains of three servants and a family doctor. Anna Anderson
died on February twelfth, nineteen eighty four. In nineteen ninety,

(28:14):
two locks of Anna's hair were found in an envelope
in a bookstore in Chapel Hill. It was inside a
book once owned by Anna's husband, which she had sold.
A dealer going through the book caught an envelope with
Anastasia's hair written on the outside. He sold it to
Susan Burkhardt for twenty dollars. Six strands were examined at
Penn State. It was concluded the owner of the hair

(28:36):
could not be related to the arena. Then, another source
of Anna's DNA was found, with a tissue sample kept
at Martha Jefferson Hospital, which was retained due to a
routine surgery she underwent. The sample was sent to the
British scientist who had tested the Romanov bones. A blood
sample was taken from carrel Maker, a relative of Francisca Shenskowska,

(29:00):
in nineteen ninety four. His results were that Anna Anderson
was not Anastasia and there was one hundred percent match
to corel Maker.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
It come firmed that Anna's real identity.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Was Franciska Shanskowska, as proven in nineteen twenty seven. In
nineteen ninety eight, the royal remains were interred in Saints
Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, where Russia's sars
hadrh historically been laid to rest. In two thousand and seven,
Sergai Potnikov, an amateur historian, came upon a small hollow

(29:30):
covered with nettles. He belonged to a group who would
spend their summer weekends looking for the lost Romanovs. He,
along with a companion, started to get dig and found
bone fragments, which included a piece of pelvis and skull
by the size of cathella, came from a child. In total,
forty four different fragments were found. They also found pieces
of Japanese ceramic bottles used to carry sulphoric acid poured

(29:54):
on the corpses. Archaeologists confirmed they belonged to Prince Alexey
and Princess anneste Asia. The site was six miles north
of Yakatarenberg, where the other bodies were discovered. It appeared
to match a location described in the memoirs of Jurowski,
the Bolshevik executioner in charge of the Romanovs captivity. He

(30:17):
described where the bodies of nine victims were doused with
sulphoric acid and buried along a road, and Alexey's body
and one of his sister's bodies was burned and left
in a pit nearby. It's incredible to think that this
lady is crazy and she gets supported for years and
years and years by other crazies, even though there's family members,

(30:40):
close family members in other words, people that knew Anastasia
when she was alive, and they're saying this is not her.
Her uncle as Stasia's uncle finds out who this lady
really is, okay, and even back then, of course, there's
no DNA comparison, which she doesn't know what she's the

(31:00):
languages she fluently knows. And these people that believe it,
even including this man that married her, who's she's twenty
one years older than him, brings her over to where
he's at and they marry, and you know, and they
still believe it. And then also very disturbing, which you know,

(31:22):
they in other words, even when the Bolsheviks, not Communists,
took over in Russia, they would admit that they had killed,
they had executed Bazaarre, but they really did not want
it known that they had killed the entire family because overall,
I think there would have been an outcry because one

(31:43):
thing is that you're going to kill the head of
the royal family, and another thing is to do away
with women and children. And even then that when the
others were discovered, they even even buried the two youngest
children apart, because again they knew that there was condemnation

(32:05):
for them doing that, which is that's the norm for communists.
But anyway, let's get on to another story. So yeah,
being an imposter paid up for that crazy lady. Next
story is titled the Triple six and this is als
out of strangers and fiction stories.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
US Route Highway sixty six six starts at Monticello, Utah,
ends and Gallop, New Mexico. The desert scenery is beautiful,
but it is also land with a long history of
strange phenomena, so much so that some travelers take pains
to avoid it, especially after dark when there's a full moon.
US Route sixty six was finalized in nineteen twenty six.

(32:48):
This road connected the cities of Chicago, Illinois, to Los Angeles, California.
Several extensions were added along Route sixty six. The sixth
extension became known as Route sixty sixty six and was
quickly given the moniker of the Devil's Highway. It runs
for two hundred miles, passing through the Navajo Nation and

(33:09):
ship Rock.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Let me see.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
The road was also referred to as the Triple six
in the New Mexico counties of San Juan and McKinley.
It was once the deadliest per mile. In New Mexico.
The two lane road runs throughural country full of blind hills,
making these stretches very dangerous. The most notorious portion is
now US Route one nine to one in Arizona, which

(33:38):
winds through the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest and the White Mountains.
There are four hundred curves or one hundred and twenty
miles stretch. The Automobile Association of America for many years
published its Indian County map of the four Corners region
of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Route six sixty
six is marked with a red arrow. Two thousand and three,

(34:00):
A Route six sixty six was renamed to US Route
four ninety one in an effort to escape its notorious
reputation as a cursed roadway with an unusually high number
of accidents and fatalities. One incident of high strangeness is
the sighting of a black vehicle that appears out of
nowhere and charges motorists along lonely stretches of the road.

(34:21):
It is supposedly driven by the devil himself. See the
trailer of the nineteenth Yeah. I put a link here
to the trailer of a nineteen seventy seven film called
The Car, which is based on the sightings through the years.
For some, it starts when the sun is dipping towards
the horizon and a feeling of intense fear envelops them.

(34:41):
Once night falls, they see the headlights coming behind them.
The vehicle comes dangerously close, and no matter if they
speed up, the car paces them. Some pull over and
the black car races past them. Others find the car
has disappeared. Travelers report a semi truck that speeds along
the highway and forces them off the road. It's described
as having an evil intent, almost as if it's possessed

(35:03):
by a demonic spirit known as a mad trucker. The
police suspected the driver would intentionally run over pedestrians.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
In other words, this is.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Besides being, in other words, more than just like an
urban myth. Apparently maybe at one point they were suspecting
they had someone out there there that was actually on
purpose running people over. There were also bodies dumped along
the highway. Some remain anonymous. Let me see if I
can show this trailer of the car. Okay, for those
of you watching, let me see if I can get it.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's uh.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
You know one of those nineteen which is not opening.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Let me see when it opens.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
But anyway, night travelers along Route six sixty six describe
a pack of black hounds that race alongside their cars.
These beasts are believed to have caused different accidents through
the years by shredding tires and umping through windows into
the vehicles themselves. Autos are known to inexplicably overheat or
tires go flat for no reason. There is a specter

(36:08):
of a girl seen on the side of the road
dressed in a white gown. She has a sad expression
on her face and disappears when she's approached. In contrast
to are stories of faceless phantom hitchhikers. Some legends connected
to the Haunted Highway are tied to Indian culture. What
of these are skin walkers, which have the ability to
shape shift. The belief is that these were once medicine

(36:29):
men who turn to dark witchcraft. They haunt the highway
will appear suddenly in front of traffic, sometimes as a human,
but at the times in an animal form the shape
shifter can adopt. It's inevitable that serious accidents are said
to be caused by their appearance. In more alarming are
stories of an evil shaman appearing in the backseat of
a car. His aiming is to steal the driver's soul

(36:51):
when a bad accident takes their life. They are ominous
reports of motorists who have disappeared without a trace. Sometimes
a vehicle or something belonging to the missing person has recovered,
but there are times when nothing is found. In some cases,
the missing person has reappeared with no memory of what
happened to them, whether it was for hours or days
that they were gone. Reports of missing time are also common,

(37:15):
with no recollection.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Of what was seeing, heard, or experienced during the drive.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Let me see if I can get this official trailer
of the car.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Evil has visited me birth in many forms. Now it
returns as the car.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
There was no driver in the car, the car possessed.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
I know why he didn't go into the cemetery. The
ground was hollowed. Who knows what it wants? They all know.

(38:33):
Nothing can stop the car. This is lad. We can't
let him through, no matter what. There's nowhere to turn
the car. He didn't here, nowhere to hide, no way

(38:56):
to stop the car. I hear the engine of that car.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
It's around here.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
Somewhere.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Wait, I'm scared.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
No, I'm Tomisha won't go out and tell me what
to do?

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Baby, What evil force drives the car?

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Anyway, I'm telling you, as a matter of fact, I
think that James Brolin in this movie predates I think
the Amityville Horror.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
I think I'm not sure. Anyway, Let's keep goal.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
You watch that movie, like, yeah, all right, all right,
but you got a love I'm sorry. That's nineteen seventies
movies to the degree. Anyway, let's keep going, all right.
Throughout the years, there were hundreds of accidents. These are
some of them. Nineteen forty eight, the Boots family were
involved in a one car accident with the driver explicably
low control of the vehicle. Is skidded on the highway

(40:02):
and rolled down one hundred and sixty foot cliff to
the bottom of the canyon. Arnold Bluts Boots and his
wife Francis smashed the front windshield and got out. However,
Catherine Boots was trapped in the back seat and was
seriously injured. They were traveling on US Route sixty sixty six,
eight miles south of Alpine or Alpine. Nineteen fifty five,
one man burned to death and two others were hospitalized.

(40:25):
Was second and third degree burns over most of their
bodies after their nineteen thirty six pickup truck went off
the road and rolled down a ravine ten miles north
of Gallop en Route sixty sixty six. The survivors told
police they had been drinking and decided to take a
ride out on the Devil's Highway. However, they could remember
what happened after they left town. In nineteen fifty nine,

(40:47):
Billy John was struck and killed near the Shamrock Motel
north of Gallop, unrouted sixty sixty six. In nineteen sixty
a three am had on collision landed three persons in
the hospital. It happened on Route sixty six six, about
ten miles north of Gallup. In nineteen ninety six, on

(41:08):
a section of sixty sixty six near Newcombe, Rose, Tellier
Lee and one of her sons and one of her
grandsons were killed in a crash that also took the
life of Charles Bump, whose pickup veered across the center
line and smashed into the league car head on. In
nineteen ninety five, J. McCollum, pastor of the First Baptist
Church of Gallop, New Mexico, said, quote, it's an evil

(41:29):
oppression which needs to be broken end quote. Jo Coretto,
who ran the Raleigh Mortuary and galloped and buried a
fair number of the hundreds of people killed in Route
sixty sixty six accidents, called it the highway to hell.
The two counties traversed by Route sixty sixty six, McKinley
and San Juan, ranked as the most dangerous counties in

(41:50):
New Mexico to drive in based on alcohol related accidents.
Hayitchhiking was commonplace, and pedestrians were involved in about seventy
five percent of the fifth to twenty traffic fatalities occurring
each year. This was a quote from nineteen ninety five
on Route sixty sixty six. The country is popularized by

(42:11):
Tony Hillerman, author of the Joe Lee Porm and Jim
Chee mystery novels. The dark association of the road was
interwoven into the film Natural Born Killers. Throughout the movie,
the media covers a public's reaction to a psychopathics pair
murder spree as they take a bloody road trip down
Route sixty sixty six.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
So where does myth end? And truth begin.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
Do the high number of accidents and fatalities have something
to do with the road's name or is it just
sheer coincidence?

Speaker 2 (42:40):
What do you think who came first? The chicken, the
chicken or the egg? Was it evil and it caused it?

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Or was it just that after it started piling up
that's what happened. Anyway, I'm pulling a story. This is
from Substack articles. This is titled the Vampires Club. There
were times in America's history when the public was attracted
to the macab and tempting superstition was a founding reason
for different social clubs. After the end of the Civil

(43:13):
War in America, society did what it usually does after
warren bloodshed, which is to revel in activities that are whimsical,
if somewhat morbid. Such was the creation of the Vampires Club.
The bad luck attached to the thirteenth of the month,
especially if it falls on a Friday, spawned the thirteen Club.
Other fraternal organizations in existence were the military Order the Serpent,

(43:34):
also known as the Snake's spelled Snaix, the concatenated Order
of Who Who Oddfellows, and the ancient mystic Order of
Bagman of Baghdad. Britain boasts one of the oldest of
these groups, the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, founded in
eighteen twenty two. Okay, the vampires seem to have been

(44:01):
an organization of much the same milk as a thirteen club.
One would expect these sorts of hygiens and the Parisian
death cafes Cafe do Mort Cafe do nount were the decadent,
or more often the tourists, wishing to be not daring,
sipped absinthe and watched weird shows of the living turned
corpse corpses, then to skeletons and back, rather like a

(44:22):
skeletal skeletal strip tease. All these groups provided a convenient
excuse to get together and raise hell and other puile ways,
as was noted the following account published in the newspaper
state this is from eighteen ninety two, and basically what
it does is it describes describes like there are many,

(44:42):
because you know, when you went belong to these clubs,
it was like, you know, big dinner and everything. And
they the grewsome dishes of their bill of verair, which
is at their initial death launch they partake of hair
curdling vians their non superstitious crowd. They had foods titled
like a skeleton fodder, vampire wings, breaded headstone croquettes, uh

(45:09):
ands and and uh they were They would have like
black robe waiters that were standing around like this was
a big affair.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
And they would bring you graveyard cough drops or fried.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Souls if you preferred them.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Over the head of chief Ghoul, John M. Turner hung
a huge bat holding in his claws a human skull,
the sign of the organization. And electrocutionist Fred Bennett had
the outfit fixed up with colored glass eyes, into which
he occasionally threw an electric current with startling effect. Back
of the Avelene hung a gigantic horn fixed fitted with

(45:46):
an electrical attachment which made it emit a frightful groan
whenever anybody rose to speak in front of the chief
gul was a loving cup filled with vampire's blood, in
which an electric light glowed fitfully. Every bottle of wine
had a vampire blood label pasted on it, and whenever
a toast was drunk, the vampires applauded by moving their

(46:07):
arms slowly up and down to their sides like wings.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
That must have been a sight.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
But with all this gruesomeness, the death Watch was a
great success, and the pale Dawn saw a hundred men
vowing to be vampires to the end. Remember this is
we're talking here, a hundred members. The Vampires is a
brand new organization started early in April this Remember this
is dated back in eighteen ninety two when they started.
The Vampires is a brand new organization started early in

(46:33):
April by mister Turner and a dozen other non superstitious
theatrical people. It is a secret society and its motto
is unity, affinity, fidelity, but has no other purpose than
good fellowship and mutual aid and encouragement. It is simply
an organization in which if a vampire goes broke, every
other vampire will chip in and help him out. And
it gives a list of the officers. It has a

(46:56):
crossbones band composed entirely of orchestra leaders, including a gift.
There's the list of the people that are part of
the band. Has a quartet, you know, like that our
retired comic opera singers. So these were people that you know,
obviously involved in the theater in some way. After the

(47:17):
vns had been dissected. The loving cup was passed around,
and while one vampire drank his four score, fellow flappter
wings and sang their shriek, which begins quote by gravestone,
cold and white. We spread our wings at night over
the mounds. We love to dance and wake a corpse
right out of his trans his trans trans trance. Anybody
was welcome to get up for a speech, but as

(47:39):
the trump horn drowned every word, he said, the feasters
go along very comfortably. It is proposed to hold these
deaths Watches once a month from now and until the
supply of New York hotels is exhausted. A New York
Times article the day after the eighteen ninety two party
reported on the party decorations of coffin skeletons and vampires wires,

(48:00):
and described it seen as one hundred vampires around the tables,
including many actors, doctors and professional men. The fate of
these vampires is unclear, as there is not much extant
information on the organization. Unlike their music, group likely did
not exist for very long.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
I believe I believe this.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
The Vampire Club predated the The Dracula novel by bram Stoker.
I believe that was in eighteen ninety five or eighteen
ninety six. So my point being that you know a

(48:43):
lot of people obviously they believe that when you think
of the vampires, especially during this time period, everybody immediately
goes to the thought of Bram Stoker, of writing him
the book ram Stoker. Okay, yes, I'm right.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
He came out with this.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
The eighth the bram Stoker novel came out in eighteen
ninety seven. This predated the novel by five years, right,
So as far as possible inspiration, there's a possibility that,
among other things, I'm not saying that there was this
this vampire thing, whether you know, it was just people
getting together and being weird and morbid.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Was already it was some as you could tell.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
You had to have a little bit of money to
like join the secret society and hang out and have
all this all these things going on. All right, let's
move a little bit forward into Mountain times. This story
is out of the New York Posts and its dated
as a matter of fact today, and it's titled drugs
found at New York's Seminary Actually Priceless relics of Brooklyn's

(49:53):
Saint Raphael. I'm telling you it was a divine drug bust.
A work at an Orthodox cemetery, yonkers found a cache
of drugs, but soon discovered the priceless objects were of
a wholly different nature. Drug sniffing dogs swarmed Saint Vladimir's
Orthodox Theological Seminary last week when cops were called for

(50:14):
possible legal narcotics on the scenic, free tree covered campus. Instead,
what they found were first degree relics the body or
body fragments such as bone or flush of Saint Raphael
of Brooklyn, a Syrian immigrant who founded Saint Nicholas Cathedral
in what is now downtown Brooklyn and was glorified in
two thousand. The people that found them didn't know what

(50:37):
they were, said Father Michael Nasser of the seminary. They
weren't in a typical container. The seminarian who found the
suspected contraband quickly grabbed a nearby cop, one of our
officers who was actually out here at one of these
construction sites and doing some traffic, and he was approached
by a member of the seminary who thought they recovered
some kind of drugs or some type of illegal substance detectively.

(51:00):
Lieutenant Frank di Domisio of the Yonkers Police told the
station the objects had fallen out of a hole in
a plastic bag while being transported to be photographed and
catalog and miraculously had suffered no apparent damage its spiritual
connection for us maintaining our connection to that person he
lived in the twentieth century. NASCAR noted of the saint

(51:20):
who died in the Borough of Churches in nineteen fifteen. Okay,
the responding office police officers realized the mysterious items were
more or way more valuable than any street drug. The
discovery of the Cherish relics weren't the only bright spot
from the mix up. We got to meet the Canine
unit who came out here for a special prayer and blessing,

(51:42):
and allow us to thank them for all they do
for us as a seminary and the whole community. I
imagine we see San Raphael, the first Orthodox Christian bishop
consecrated on American soil, founded thirty churches in North America.
Raphael was born in Beirut in eighteen sixty to Syrian parents,
and came to America in eighteen ninety five. His feast

(52:03):
days celebrated on the first Saturday in November. I imagine
maybe they had the canine out there because they're thinking,
oh my god, we found the statue of drugs in
the seminary already. Okay, all right, let's if let's stay
on the religious show. We This is also a current
story out of Gateway Pundit and it stated for yesterday

(52:24):
and it's titled after one hundred years under construction, famous
Barcelona Basilica Sagreda Familia will be completed, becoming tallest church.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
In the world. I never I never heard.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Of this church almost a century and a half under construction,
but now Barcelona's world famous Sagreda Familia Basilica is about
to raise its immense central tower and become the tallest
Christian church in the world. The Basilica's general director, Xavier Martinez,
said Thursday that the tower will be finished at the

(52:57):
end of this year or at the beginning of.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
This is an important moment in the history of the
building of the Sagrada Familia because it will reach its
maximum height.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Martinez said. We are used to seeing.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Skyscrapers like those in the United states go up, but
it is remarkable. In the twenty first century, we are
building a cathedral. Once a gigantic tower of Jesus Christ
is up, the masterpiece of architect Antoni Gaudi will rise
to five hundred and sixty four feet. That will make
it taller than the Olmer Munster Church in southern Germany,

(53:30):
which tops out at five hundred and thirty one point
five feet. Next year will be the one hundredth anniversary
of the death of Gaudy. The church will hold several
events to celebrate his legacy, which includes several studying buildings
in Barcelona and other places in Spain. Poplio the fourteenth
has been invited for a solemn mass be held in

(53:50):
Gaudi's memory on June tenth, the day he died when
struck by a streetcar nineteen twenty six. Sagreda Familia officials
said that they hope to have a response from the
Vatican and in the coming weeks. Okay, and they're saying
here that let me see that this church has begun
in eighteen eighty two, taken over by Gaudi the following year,

(54:13):
who worked on it until his death in nineteen twenty six.
It's described as the most creative interpretation of Gothic architecture
since the Middle Ages. Who's consecrated a minor by Silica
by benedicta sixteenth and twenty ten. Okay, yeah, and it
says Pope Francis puts Catalan architect on Toni Gaudi, the

(54:33):
creator of the famous Barcelona about Silica on the path
to sainthood. All right, that's very interesting because you know what,
too many churches are getting burnt down, and it's about
time they finished.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
It must be wonderful to go there.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
I imagine, why wouldn't why wouldn't the Pope go there
to participate in the mouse But yeah, there you go.
And by the way, I'm thrilled real that it is
beautiful Gothic architecture. I am so tired of this square,

(55:06):
brutalist architecture that we've had. Okay, that is so ugly
and cold. I love architecture like that, you know, something
Victorian Gothic with curlicues and porticos and all that.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
So I'm thrilled with that architecture.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
So anyway, guys, I will be back soon with more
strange and unusual events.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Till next time.

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