“CHASING LEVIATHAN: What Monsters of the Deep Lurk in America Right Now?” #WeirdDarkness

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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It should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself.
Stories and content and Weird Darkness can be disturbing for
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discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos. I'm Tarn Marler and

(00:26):
this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore,
the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and
unexplained coming up in this episode. As the saying goes,

(00:47):
don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
But once in a while, the punishment goes far beyond
what the crime calls for. Marilyn Monroe was found dead
of a drug overdose on August fifth, nineteen sixty two,
and while the facts of her death are shocking, her
troubling childhood wasn't pretty either. We'll look at the life

(01:08):
and death of this Hollywood bombshell. We'll also take a
look at not the very first serial killer, but the
very first serial killer family in America. The bloody benders.
But first, when you think of monsters in America, you
probably think of Bigfoot in the American Northwest, or perhaps

(01:30):
the Chupicabra in the South. Maybe you think of dog
Man in the Upper Midwest. But people don't typically think
of the American lakes and shores, where we have our
own collection of monsters and sea serpents. We begin there. Now.
Bult your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,

(01:50):
and come with me into the weird darkness. The following
article was written by Charles Skinner back in eighteen ninety six.

(02:11):
You have to love the colorful language he uses when
relating the tales of sea serpents and lake monsters in America.
Here's the article, The Remarkable sea Serpent. It's been reported
at so many points and by so many witnesses not
addicted to fish tails nor liquor, that there ought to
be some reason for him. He's been especially numerous off

(02:34):
the New England coast. He was sighted off Cape Ann,
Massachusetts in eighteen seventeen, and several times off Nahant, Massachusetts.
Though alarming in appearance, for he has a hundred feet
of body, a shaggy head, and goggle eyes, he is
of lamb like disposition and has never justified the attempts
that have been made to kill or capture him. Rewards

(02:56):
were at one time offered to the seafaring man who
might catch him, and read Avenue cutters cruising about Massachusetts
Bay were ordered to keep a lookout for him and
have a gun double shotted for action. One fisherman emptied
the contents of a ducking gun into the serpent's head,
as he supposed, but the creature playfully wriggled a few
fathoms of its tail and made off. John Joscelyn, a gentleman,

(03:19):
reported that when he stirred about his neighborhood in sixteen
thirty eight, an enormous reptile was seen coiled up on
a rock at Cape Ann. He would have fired at him,
but for the earnest dissuasion of his Indian guide, who
declared that ill luck would come of the attempt. The
sea serpent sometimes shows amphibious tendencies and occasionally leaves the

(03:41):
sea for fresh water. Two of them were seen and
Devil's Lake, Wisconsin by four men in eighteen ninety two.
They confessed, however, that they were fishing at the time
the snakes had fins and were a matter of fifty
feet long. When one of these reptiles found the other
in his vicinage, he raised his head, had six feet
above the water, and fell upon him tooth and nail,

(04:03):
if he had nails. In their struggles, these unpleasant neighbors
made such waves that the fisherman's boat was nearly upset.
Even the humble Wabash River has its terror. For At Huntington, Indiana,
three truthful damsels of the town saw its waters churned
by a tail that splashed from side to side, while

(04:23):
far ahead was the prow of the animal, a leonine
skull with whiskers and as large as the head of
a boy of a dozen years. As if realizing what
kind of a report was going to be made about him,
the monster was overcome with bashfulness at the site of
the maidens and sank from view. In April eighteen ninety,

(04:44):
a water snake was reported in one of the twin
Lakes in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, but the eyewitnesses
of his sports led him off with a length of
twenty five feet. Cislatibosis Lake in Maine has a snake
with a head like a dog's but it's hardly worth
mentioning because it's only eight feet long, hardly longer than

(05:04):
the name of the lake. More Enterprise is shown across
the border for Skiff Lake, New Brunswick. They have a
similar snake thirty feet long in Cotton Mathers time. A
double headed snake was found at Newbury, Massachusetts. It had
a head at each end, and before it was killed,
it showed its evil disposition by chasing and striking at
the lad who first met it. A snake haunts Wolf Pond,

(05:27):
Pennsylvania that is an alleged relic of the Silurian Age
from four sixteen to four hundred and forty three point
seven million years ago. It was last seen in September
eighteen eighty seven, when it unrolled thirty feet of itself
before the eyes of an alarmed spectator. Again a fisherman,
the beholder struck him with a pole, and in revenge,

(05:48):
the serpent capsized his boat, but he forbore to eat
his enemy, and, diving to the bottom, disappeared. The creature
had a black body about six inches thick, ringed with
dingy yellow bands, and a mottled green head, long and
pointed like a Pike's. Silver Lake near Gainesville, New York,

(06:09):
was in eighteen fifty five reported to be the layer
of a great serpent, and old settlers declared that he
still comes to the surface now and then. Santa Barbara
Island off the California coast was for a long time
the supposed headquarters of swimming and flying monsters and sirens,
and no Mexican would pass in hearing of the yells
and spreams and strange songs without crossing himself and begging

(06:32):
the captain to give the rock a wide birth. But
the noise is all the noise of cats. A shipwrecked
Tabby people to the place many years ago, and her
numerous progeny lived there non dead fish and on the
eggs and chicks of seafowl. Spirit Canyon, a rocky gorge
that extends for three miles along Big Sioux River, Iowa,

(06:54):
was hewn through the stone by a spirit that took
the form of a dragon. Such were its size and
ferocity that the Indians avoided the place lest they should
fall victims to its ire. The Huron tribe believed in
a monster serpent ochneant who wore a horn on his
head that could pierce trees, rocks, and hills. A piece

(07:14):
of this horn was an ambulet of great value, for
it insured good luck. The Zuni tell of a plumed
serpent that lives in the water of sacred springs, and
they dare not destroy the venomous creatures that infest the
plains of Arizona, because to them, the killing of a
snake means a reduction in their slender water supply. The

(07:35):
gods were not so kind to the snakes as men were,
for the agitized trees of Chalcedony Park in Arizona are
held to be arrows shot by the angry deities that
the monsters who vexed this region. Indians living on the
shore of Canandagua Lake, New York tamed a pretty spotted
snake and fed and petted it until it took a

(07:55):
deer at a meal. It grew so large that it
eventually encircled the camp and began to prey on its keepers. Vainly.
They tried to kill the creature until a small boy
took an arrow of red willow, anointed it with the
blood of a young woman, and shone it from the
basewood bow at the creature's heart. It did not enter
at once, it merely stuck to the scales, but presently

(08:17):
it began to bore and twist its way into the
serpent's body. The serpent rolled into the lake and made
it foam. In its agony, it swallowed water and vomited
it up again, with men dead and alive, before it died.
The monster Amholock, whose home is a lake near Forked Mountain, Oregon,
had but one passion to catch and drown all things.

(08:39):
And when you look into the lake, you see that
he has even drowned the sky in it, and has
made the trees stand upside down. In the water. Wherever
he sets his feet, the ground would soften. As three
children were digging roots at the edge of the water,
he fell on them and impaled two of them on
his horns, the eldest only contriving to escape. When this

(09:01):
boy reached home, his body was full of blotches, and
the father suspected how it was. Yet he went to
the lake at once. The bodies of the children came
out of the mud at his feet to meet him,
but went down again and emerged later across the water.
They led him on his way until he came to
the place where they were drowned. A fog now began

(09:21):
to steam up from the water, but through it he
could see the little ones lifted on the monster's horns,
and hear them cry, we have changed our bodies. Five
times they came up and spoke to him, and five
times he raised a dismal cry and begged them to return,
but they could not. Next morning he saw them rise

(09:41):
through the fog again and building the camp. He stayed
there and mourned for several days. For five days they
showed themselves, but after that they went down, and he
saw and heard no more of them. And Bulloch had
taken the children, and they would live with him forever after.
Crater Lake, Oregon was a haunt of water devils, who

(10:04):
dragged into it and drowned all who ventured near. Only
within a few years could Indians be persuaded to go
to it as guides. Its discoverers saw it in the
work of the great Spirit, but could not guess its meaning.
All but one of these Klamath stole away. After they
had looked into its circular basin and sheer walls. He

(10:25):
fancied that if it was a home of gods they
might have some message for men. So, camping on the
brink of the lofty cliffs, he waited in his sleep.
A vision came to him, and he heard voices, but
could neither make out appearances nor distinguish a word. Every
night this dream was repeated. He finally went down to

(10:45):
the lake and bathed, and instantly found his strength increased,
and saw that the people of his dreams were the
Jenny of the waters. Whether good or bad, he could
not guess. One day he got a fish for food.
A thousand water devils came to the surface on the
instant and seized him. They carried him to a rock
on the north side of the lake that stands two

(11:06):
thousand feet above the water, and from that they dashed
him down, gathering the remains of a shattered body below
and devouring them. Since that taste, they have been eager
for men's blood. A rock on the south side of
the lake, called the Phantom Ship, is believed by the
Indians to be a destructive monster, innocent as it looks

(11:27):
in the daytime. So with Rock Lake in Washington, a
hideous reptile sports about its waters and gulps down everything
that it finds in or on them. Only in eighteen
fifty three, a band of Indians who had fled hither
for security against the soldiers were overtaken by this creature,
lashed to death and eaten. The Indians of Louisiana, Mississippi,

(11:52):
and Texas believed that the King Snake or God Snake
lived in the Gulf of Mexico. It slept in a
cat in a pure crystal at the bottom, and its head,
being shaped from a solid emerald, lighted the ocean for
leagues when it arose near the surface. Similar to this
is the belief of the Cherokee in the Kings of Rattlesnakes,

(12:13):
bright old inhabitants of the mountains that grew to a
mighty size and drew to themselves every creature that they
looked upon. Each were a crown of carbuncle of dazzling brightness.
The Indians avoided Klamath Lake because it was haunted by
a monster that was half dragon, half hippopotamus. Hutton Lake,
Wyoming is the home of a serpent queen whose breathing

(12:37):
may be seen in the bubbles that well up in
the center. She is constantly watching for her lover, but
takes all men who come in her way to her
grotto beneath the water, when she finds that they are
not the one she is expected, and there they become
her slaves. To lure victims into the lake, she sets
there a decoy of a beautiful red swan, And should

(12:59):
the hunter kill this bird, he will become possessed of
divine power. Should he see the woman, as the Serpent
Queen is called, he will never live to tell of
it unless he has seen her from a hiding place
near the shore. For so surely as he is noticed
by this Diana of the Depths, so surely will her
spies the land snakes, sting him to death. In appearance,

(13:23):
she is a lovely girl in all but her face,
and that is shaped like the head of a monster snake.
Her name is never spoken by the Indians, for fear
that it'll cost them their lives. Michael Paw Brave fisherman
of Patterson, New Jersey, hero of the fight with the
biggest snapping turtle in Dover Slank, wearer of a scar

(13:43):
on his seat of honor as a memento at the conflict,
member of the Cursy Reds, he whose presence of Mind
was showing and holding out a chip of Saint Nicholas's
staff when he met the Nine Witches of the Rocks
capering in the mists of Passaic Falls, gave battle from
a boat to a monster had ascended to the cataract.
One of the cursey reds, leaning out too far, fell

(14:05):
astride of the Horny Beast, and was carried at express speed,
roaring with fright, until unhorsed by a projecting rock, up
which he scrambled to safety, falling to work with bayonets
and staves. The company dispatched the creature and dragged it
to shore. One Dutchman, who was quite a traveler, having
been as far from home as Albany, said that the

(14:27):
thing was what the van Rensselaers cut up from beef,
and that he believed they called it a sturgeon up next.

(14:48):
Marilyn Monroe was found dead of a drug overdose on
August fifth, nineteen sixty two. And while the facts of
her death are shocking, her troubling childhood wasn't pretty either.
We look at the life and death of this Hollywood bombshell.
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That's Weird Darkness dot com slash coffee. Marilyn Monroe died

(16:20):
of a barbituate overdose. Her body was discovered August fifth,
nineteen sixty two, in her home at one two three
zero five fifth Helena Drive in Brentwood, California. Since then,
her tragic demise has been the subject of some of
the most enduring conspiracy theories in history, including that she
was one of many historical suicides that were actually murdered.

(16:43):
Yet the actual details of her passing are just as
shocking and interesting as the stories bandled about by conspiracy theorists.
Whether you believe she was a celebrity mk ultra victim
or not, knowing how Marilyn Monroe really died and the
many strange details that surround it might just surprise you
more than even the most plausible conspiracy. According to the

(17:06):
coroner's report, Marilyn Monroe overdosed on nembutalh pills. However, no
pills were found in her stomach. The deputy coroner, doctor
Thomas Nogucci, later explained the lack of pills as a
result of Monroe's long history of substance abuse. The pills
in her stomach were digested more quickly than they would
have been by someone who wasn't an addict. Yet, the

(17:28):
fact that no pills were found in her stomach has
been used by conspiracy theorists through the years to support
their theory that perhaps she did not die of an
overdose at all, but instead was assassinated by the CIA. FBI,
or even her own housekeeper. Doctor Thomas Nogucci was tasked

(17:49):
with the autopsy, but he wasn't exactly given a complete picture.
According to him, when he received Marilyn Monroe's body in
the morgue, the samples from her stomach and intestines had
already been destroyed. This affected the toxicology reports, which made
doctor Negucci believe people would think that she had been assassinated.
He also discovered that while other organs had been sent

(18:11):
to the toxicology labs, tests were never done. The only
parts of Monroe's body that were put to complete toxicology
tests were samples of her blood and her liver. Sergeant
Jack Clemens of the Los Angeles Police Department was the
first officer to arrive on the scene of Marilyn Monroe's passing. Later,
in his own writings of the event, he recalled that

(18:32):
Monroe's housekeeper, Eunice Murray, was running the washing machine when
he arrived. He also noted that Murray was acting strangely
and was evasive when questioned. Detective Sergeant Robert E. Byron,
who arrived on the scene a few minutes after Clemens,
also noted in his report that Murray was acting like
an unreliable witness. He wrote, it is officer's opinion that

(18:54):
Missus Murray was vague and possibly evasive in answering questions
pertaining to the activities of Miss Monroe during this time.
Conspiracy theorists have used Murray's behavior that tragic night as
proof that there was something inappropriate and fishy going on,
and that perhaps the housekeeper knew more than she was
letting on. Marilyn Monroe spoke to several people on the

(19:16):
phone the night she passed. Among them was Peter Lawford,
an old friend of the actress and the brother in
law of John F. Kennedy. According to Lawford, Monroe seemed
to be under the influence of drugs. He also claimed
that she told him say goodbye to pat say goodbye
to the President, and say goodbye to yourself, because you're
a nice guy. Lawford became extremely worried about Monroe and

(19:40):
phoned several people to check up on her. When he
was unable to reach doctor Ralph Greenson, Lawford called Monroe's lawyer,
Milton A. Rudin, who in turn reached out to Monroe's housekeeper,
who told him that Monroe was fine. This message, however,
has further fueled conspiracy theories that perhaps John F. Kennedy
and the government were somehow in in Monroe's demise. Norman

(20:02):
Mahler's biography of Marilyn Monroe was one of the first
to suggest that foul play was a factor in Monroe's passing.
In the nineteen sixties, a self published biography by Frank A.
Cappell made claims that Monroe was murdered as part of
a communist conspiracy, but it wasn't until Mahler's account was
published in nineteen seventy three that the conspiracy theories really

(20:25):
took hold. Miehler was the first to suggest Monroe had
an affair with Robert F. Kennedy and that her involvement
with him led to her demise. He was savaged by
critics for his implications and later admitted I'd say it
was ten to one that Monroe's death was an accidental suicide.
When questioned as to why he felt the need to

(20:45):
bring RFK into it, he said, I needed money very badly.
Following Mahler's accusations against RFK biographer Robert F. Slatzer in
nineteen seventy five, further argued that Monroe was killed by RFK,
then the Attorney General, because she threatened to go public
with government secrets RFK had confided in her. Also in

(21:08):
nineteen seventy five, journalist Anthony Scadudo published an article alleging
Monroe was ordered to be killed by the Kennedy brothers
that she had kept a red diary where she supposedly
stored secret government information that Kennedys had confided in her.
Monroe took a phone call from Joe DiMaggio Junior between
seven pm and seven fifteen pm, and, by all accounts,

(21:30):
had a happy conversation with the twenty year old, during
which Demaggio Junior told her that he'd just broken up
with a young woman Monroe disliked. Housekeeper Eunice Murray also
later confirmed that Monroe was happy, gay, alert, anything but
depressed during the talk. Monroe took her last call of
the night from Peter Lawford about half an hour later,

(21:52):
at seven forty pm or seven forty five pm, during
which Lawford noted she sounded slurred and barely audible. The
coroner later observed Monroe was laughing and chatting on the
telephone with Joe DiMaggio's son, Joe Junior. Yet, and this
was one of the strangest facts of the case. Not
thirty minutes after this happy conversation, Marilyn Monroe was dying.

(22:17):
The police weren't notified of the tragedy until after Marilyn
Monroe's psychiatrist, doctor Ralph Greenson and physician doctor Hyman Engelberg
had visited her home. The Los Angeles Police Department was
called around four to twenty five am, almost an hour
and a half from when Monroe was supposedly found unresponsive
by her housekeeper. During that time, Eunice Murray, doctor Greenson,

(22:41):
and doctor Engelberg were alone at the scene. When Sergeant
Jack Clements inquired as to why police had not been
notified earlier, the doctors said they needed permission from twentieth
Century Fox's publicity department before they could alert law enforcement.
Following the many conspiracy theories published in the nineteen seven,
District Attorney John Van DeCamp ordered a review at the

(23:03):
actress's passing in nineteen eighty two. It spanned twenty nine
pages and took three and a half months to prepare.
After a thorough investigation, Vandicamp found that there was no
foul play in Monroe's death, noting, based on the evidence
available to us, it appears that her death could have
been a suicide or a result of an accidental drug overdose.

(23:24):
It is possible that while her ingestion of a lethal
quantity of barbituous was voluntary, she may have been in
such a state of emotional confusion that she lacked a
clearly formed purpose. The district attorney added that no further
inquiry was planned into Monroe's demise and that reopening the
case was unnecessary. Unice Murray initially told Sergeant Jack Clements

(23:46):
that she phoned doctor Ralph Greenson around midnight. She later
said that she first called the doctor at three am.
Peter Lawford, who persisted in trying to check up on
Marilyn Monroe after their earlier conversation, claimed he had been
told that she died around midnight. Milton Rudin, her attorney,
also said that he had been told she died around
midnight by doctor Greenson himself. These discrepancies in time have

(24:11):
been interpreted as proof that doctor Greenson and Murray staged
a cover up of the actress's passing. Between midnight and
when the police were finally called at four to twenty
five am. Jodomaggio and Marilyn Monroe originally married on January fourteenth,
nineteen fifty four, but their marriage only lasted a short
two hundred seventy four days. They divorced in October nineteen

(24:34):
fifty four. They remained friends through the years, and when
Monroe was admitted into a psychiatric hospital in nineteen sixty one,
she turned to DiMaggio to secure her release. Some reports
indicated the pair was due to remarry shortly after Monroe
passed away. Following her untimely demise, DiMaggio sent Roses to
her grave several times a week until he passed in

(24:56):
nineteen ninety nine. Jodomaggio was left devastated by Marilyn Monroe's death.
He arranged the star's funeral as a very private ceremony,
with most of her prominent Hollywood friends excluded. People like
Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford were deliberately not invited by DiMaggio,
who believed that her Hollywood friends and acquaintances had reduced

(25:18):
her to the state that led her to her untimely demise.
Only thirty of Monroe's closest friends and relatives, including her
half sister Bernice Baker Miracle, were invited. Monroe was buried
when a green Amelia Pucci dress and her longtime makeup artist,
Whitney Snyder made up her face for the last time.
In her will, Monroe said that she wanted the bulk

(25:40):
of her estate to go to Lee Strasburg, her acting coach.
Monroe instructed him to give some of her personal effects
to close family and friends, as well as maintain her
publicity rights and film investments, but according to some of
her friends, he never did, and when he died in
nineteen eighty two, his wife, Anna Strasburg, licensed Roe's likeness

(26:00):
and put her personal belongings on display. The real problems, though,
began when Anna Strasburg started selling off belongings that were
supposed to go to Monroe's loved ones. Anna Strasburg made
an estimated twenty million to thirty million dollars off of
Monroe's legacy. Despite several lawsuits to stop this, Anna Strasburg
was eventually allowed to keep Monroe's rights and belongings as

(26:24):
part of her former husband's state, while Marilyn Monroe's image
graced the covers of magazines, movie posters, and film screens
for much of the latter half of the twentieth century.
The true story of her childhood is far less romantic
than the Hollywood starlet's reputation might lead you to believe.
Born to a mother with undiagnosed schizophrenia and an essentially

(26:47):
non existent father, Norma Jean Baker, who would later change
her name to the well known Moniker, Marilyn Monroe spent
much of her childhood and adolescence moving between orphanages and
foster homes, seeking out any semblance familial stability she could find.
In Marilyn Monroe's early years, there were few signs to
suggest that she would one day become a beloved Hollywood icon,

(27:09):
the star of films like some like it, hot and
gentlemen preferred blondes, Monroe created an image for herself based
not on her tragic upbringing, but her ability to mesmerize
audiences with her beauty, wit, and charm. Though her demons
never ceased to follow her, Monroe was able to leave
behind her troubled childhood and, at least for a short time,

(27:30):
basque in the spotlight of international adoration. Norma Jean Baker
was born to Gladys Baker on June first, nineteen twenty six,
but her time with her mother was short lived. Baker,
who had struggled with undiagnosed mental health issues as well
as financial difficulties, gave up her daughter to a foster
home only two weeks after giving birth. The foster home

(27:53):
was located in Hawthorne, California, and run by Ida and
Wayne Bolander, a kind religious couple. It was Marylyn's mother's
hope that she would be able to maintain a long
term relationship with her newborn daughter by making this sacrifice
right away, As she had already lost custody of two children,
Jackie and Bernice, from a previous marriage. Norma Jean ended

(28:14):
up living with the bull Enders for most of the
first seven years of her life. When Norma Jean was
in the foster home in which she had been living
since just after her birth, she found herself in perhaps
the closest semblance of a family unit she would have
until her adolescence. However, this time of stability was also
fraught with difficulties, primarily having to do with her mother's

(28:35):
mental health. One such instance occurred when Baker arrived unexpectedly
at the foster home and a manic state, requesting to
take her daughter back home to Hollywood with her. When
Norma Jean's foster parents, Ida and Wayne Bolander refused. Sensing
the unpredictability of Baker's state of mind, Baker proceeded to
lock Ida out of the house hide Norma Jean, all

(28:57):
of three years old at the time, in a Duffel
bag an attempt to escape with her. The attempt was unsuccessful,
and the Bolanders retained custody of Norma Jean. According to
her birth certificate, Marilyn Monroe born Norma Jean Mortensen and
later baptized Norma Jean Baker was born to Gladys Baker
Mortensen and Edward Mortenson at Los Angeles General Hospital on

(29:20):
June first, nineteen twenty six, but as with many things
in the Future Star's life, even these details were unreliable
at best. Despite his name being on her birth certificate,
there is little evidence to suggest that Mortensen was Norma
Jean's biological father. Though he had once been married to Baker,
the pair had separated before the pregnancy. Throughout her life,

(29:43):
Norma Jean struggled to confirm the true identity of her father.
Many believe it was C. Stanley Gifford, whom Baker had
worked with while employed as a film cutter at Consolidated
Film Industries prior to Norma Jean's birth. However, Gifford repeatedly
denied being Norma jeane father. Despite numerous attempts on her
part to meet with him during her adult life, Gifford

(30:05):
refused to speak with her. Though Norma Jean spent the
first seven years of her childhood living in a foster
home in a Los Angeles suburb, she still remained in
contact with her mother, Gladys Baker. After numerous failed attempts
at regaining custody of her daughter, Gladys finally managed to
convince Ida Bolander, the foster mother, that she was stable
enough to care for Norma Jean again. After Baker received

(30:29):
a bank loan to help her buy a home in Hollywood,
she and Norma Jean were finally able to live together
under the same roof for the first time. The arrangement
didn't last long, though. A short time after the two
were reunited, Baker learned that her son Jackie and her
grandfather had both passed This, along with mounting financial strain,

(30:49):
precipitated a breakdown so dramatic the authorities had to be
called in. Shortly after this event, Baker was institutionalized and
diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Norma Jean became a ward of
the state and was sent to live in another foster home.
Following the diagnosis and institutionalization of her mother, Norma Jean

(31:10):
found herself yet again moving between unstable homes. After shifting
between a few different residences, Norma Jean went to live
with her mother's friend, Grace McKee, who in turn became
her new legal guardian for a time, but after only
two years time, McGee got married to Doc Goddard and
could no longer afford to care for Norma Jean. At

(31:31):
this point, Norma Jean found herself at the Los Angeles
Orphans Home Society. In an interview, she remembered her reaction
to being brought to the orphanage. I began to cry,
she said, please, please don't make me go inside. I'm
not an orphan. My mother's not deceased. I'm not an orphan.
It's just that she's sick in the hospital and can't
take care of me, Please don't make me live in
an orphan's home. Grace McKee, who was now Grace Goddard,

(31:55):
later returned to get Norma Jean, who had spent two
years on the orphanage, and tried to include her in
the family with her new husband and his children. Ultimately,
this failed, and Norma Jean continued moving from Foster home
to Foster home. These homes included those of her great
aunt Olive and Anna lower By age sixteen, having spent
the last eight years shifting between homes, she ended up

(32:18):
back in the care of the Goddards. Though Gladys Baker
gave up custody of Norma Jean shortly after her birth
due to financial strain, she was determined to maintain a
relationship with her daughter. She made frequent visits to the
Bolanders home in Hawthorne, California to spend time with Norma Jean.
On a few occasions, she was permitted to take her
daughter back to her Hollywood apartment for the evening. During

(32:41):
this time, Baker was working at Consolidated Film Industries, trying
to save money to readopt her daughter. By the time
she was fifteen, Norma Jean was living with the Goddards
and attending Vanay's High School, enjoying some of the most
normal and stable months of her life. However, when the
Goddards determined that they would be moving to Virginia and
that Norma Jean would not be able to go with them,

(33:03):
she decided she would do whatever it took to avoid
going back into the foster care system or another orphanage.
With Grace Goddard's blessing and guidance, Norma Jean decided to
marry her twenty one year old boyfriend, Jim Doherty, in
order to avoid being placed in another home when the
Goddards left town. After the two were officially engaged, Norma

(33:24):
Jean dropped out of high school. Just a few weeks
after Norma Jean's sixteenth birthday, she and Doherty were married.
It wasn't just that Norma Jean was raised without a father,
or that she spent much of her adolescence jumping between
foster homes due to her mother's inability to care for her.
In fact, many of the struggles she endured during childhood

(33:45):
and adolescence were present long before she was born. Throughout
her life, Norma Jean's mother, Gladys Baker suffered from bouts
of mania that had been attributed to either depression or
paranoid schizophrenia, and she was far from alone. Each member
of her own immediate family had at one point or
another been diagnosed with various mental illnesses and institutionalized. Baker's parents,

(34:09):
Otis and Delia Monroe had both been institutionalized at the
end of their lives, and her brother Marian, was diagnosed
with paranoid schizophrenia. Because of this legacy of mental health
struggles on her mother's side, Norma Jean spent much of
her life concerned that she too would suffer the same
unstable fate. Between the ages of eight and sixteen, Norma

(34:30):
Jean shifted between numerous homes and guardians before finally marrying
and becoming emancipated from the foster care system. During this
volatile period, however, she did find herself with one guardian
who provided her with some semblance of normalcy. When Grace
Goddard could no longer care for her, she sent Norma
Jean to live with Grace's aunt Anna ant Lower or

(34:51):
aunt Anna. Lucky for Norma Jean, aunt Anna turned out
to be one of the kindest caregivers she'd had. Aunt
Anne was also a member of the Christian Science Church
and began instructing Norma Jean in his teachings. It was
at this point that Norma Jean became a dedicated Christian
scientist before eventually parting from the church some eight years later.

(35:13):
After her mother's breakdown and subsequent institutionalization, Norma Jean saw
her mom only rarely. During one of their meetings, Baker
revealed to Norma Jean the name of her half sister, Bernice,
one of the two other children Baker had before giving
birth to Norma Jean. This information appeared to give Norma
Jean a new found hope at having a family connection,

(35:33):
and she began writing to Bernice, who lived in Kentucky.
This eventually became one of the longest lasting relationships in
Norma Jean's life. Due to a severe lack of consistency
in her home and family life, Norma Jean found other
ways to cope with and make sense of her situation,
and in many cases this led to exaggerated, if not
entirely fabricated stories about her life and family. This habit

(35:57):
manifested early on in the form of the presumed identity
of her father. Her birth father, who was never part
of her life and has never been officially identified, remained
a ghost to her much of her life, despite the
fact she desperately wanted to meet him. To deal with
these feelings of loss, she began to associate a picture
that she once found in her mother's room with the
famous actor Clark Gable, which led her to begin telling

(36:19):
classmates that he was in fact her father. Later, when
her career was in full swing, she began stating in
interviews that both of her parents had perished when she
was young, and that this was what had led to
her upbringing in orphanages and foster homes. Though her father's
whereabouts were never confirmed, her mother was still alive during
this time. When we're darkness returns. As the saying goes,

(36:47):
don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
But once in a while, the punishment goes far beyond
what the crime calls for. Plus will take a look
at not the very first serial killer, but the first
real killer family in America, The Bloody Benders coming up Awaredows.

(37:18):
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(37:40):
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(38:05):
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If you want to be in next month's random drawing,
subscribe to the free newsletter at Weird Darkness dot com
slash newsletter That's Weird Darkness dot com slash newsletter and
congratulations to Luis and Clark. The justice system was founded

(38:40):
on the principle that every crime or injustice has a
fitting punishment. An ancient and modern societies, punishments ensured that
wrongdoers pay for their crimes. In most cases, these punishments
included and still include, paying fines and carrying out set
tasks to make restitution. Worst case scenario, public execution aimed

(39:01):
to teach a lesson and deter future offenders, but in
a few cases, especially in the medieval era, punishments were
so severe that they scared everyone that learned of and
saw them. In the Middle Ages, Norsemen and Scandinavian Vikings
raided monasteries and coastal cities, inspiring fear for their bold exploits.

(39:23):
As the most vicious raiding warriors, Vikings traveled worldwide seeking booty,
killing and taking victims as slaves. But while the reputation
abroad was fierce, Vikings were a civilized community with set
rules for punishing wrongdoers back home. The blood Eagle is
one of the most famous Norse execution traditions that is

(39:44):
still just as shocking today. A son carried out the
blood Eagle against a person who murdered their father. In
the blood eagle, the executioner opened the offender's back. The
ribs were separated from the backbone and twisted it upwards
to resemble wings. Then the executioner pulled out the lungs
and draped them over the wings, after which the executioner

(40:07):
added salt to the wound for maximum pain. Yes, this
was happening while the person was still alive. The pain
inflicted by the ritual punishment was unimaginable, and offenders eventually
succumbed to their injuries. Chinese history is full of tales
of mighty empires, exploits, and triumphs that made the nation great. However,

(40:29):
there was one brutal practice from the ancient Chinese that
is frightening to fathom. The punishment was called ling chi,
or slow slicing. It was reserved for major crimes like
treason and mass murder. As the name suggests, ling Chi,
also known as death by a thousand cuts, was a
brutal punishment where the executioner took their time killing a lawbreaker.

(40:52):
After being tied to a post, the condemned was cut
into portions, then, bit by bit, the executioner removed segment
to reveal underlying tissue. Since Chinese law never specified a
particular approach for conducting the punishment. It varied from one
region to another. In some places, the accused suffered over

(41:13):
three thousand cuts, while in others the process took a
few cuts and time. Either way, time varied depending on
the officials and how much pity they felt for the accused.
Elephants are majestic and proud creatures, and while different cultures
revere them, others found new ways to make them useful

(41:34):
in society. Unfortunately, useful in this case means a tool
of punishment, and while elephants are majestic, they are also
very large and very strong. Executioners made sure death by
elephant was as dramatic as possible. In South and Southeast Asia,

(41:54):
elephants trampled the accused to death. In India, punishment by
an elephant is known as gungaroo. It was reserved for
people who committed major crimes like rebellion, tax evasion, and theft.
In these cases, the elephants crushed the accused methodically, starting
from the lower limbs and moving upwards. In Thailand, the

(42:16):
punishment had more flare, as the elephants were trained to
toss the accused in the air. In Vietnam, wrongdoors were
tied to a stake and the elephant charged at them,
crushing them in the process. Cannons were powerful weapons used
by armies to crush their enemies from long distances and
break down walls when needed. In Punjab, troops used cannons

(42:39):
to execute rebellious personalities and inspire fear under British control.
Though effective, it was an unpopular approach. In this ruthless
style of punishment, victims had their hands and feet tied
to the front of cannons, with their buttocks covering the
mouth of the cannon. When the executioner fired the cannon,
the accused died off on the spot, leaving only pieces behind.

(43:03):
Since the technique was brutally raw, everyone near the cannon
was covered with blood and guts each time it was fired.
Sailing was an exciting and rewarding career choice back when
water travel was the only way to move around the globe,
but you best stay on your boss's good side. To
punish disloyalty, captains used a method called keel hauling. Keel

(43:26):
Hauling was a punishment perfected by the Dutch Army, one
that could be meted out at any time while at sea.
The punishment, which could be fatal or not, required that
the offender be tied with rope, after which the captain
dragged them underwater from the ship's left to the right side.
The punishment was severe, since while being dragged under the ship,

(43:46):
the keel or ship's bottom could tear the person apart,
and in most cases they would drown. Yet, if one
survived keel hauling, the torture left them with horrible scars
that marked them for life. As cruel punishments go, drawing
and quartering are the most unusual techniques ever, ones that

(44:07):
struck fear into spectators. In this punishment, the executioner ties
the victim to a horse. The horse drags them to
the gallows where the execution will happen. At the gallows,
they are then hung, beheaded, or disemboweled. The quartering involved
splitting the accused in fours by tying the body to
two strong horses. The stallions are forced to run in

(44:30):
opposite directions, tearing the body into pieces in a most
dramatic fashion. The spectacle associated with this punishment was to
provide ultimate humiliation to the wrongdoer and great entertainment to onlookers.
The punishment was popular since it was rare and used sparingly,
reserved for those guilty of treason. Boiling is a process

(44:53):
associated with cooking or even industrial processes, but in the
fifteen hundreds, executioners used it for punishment. In this execution method,
prisoners were placed in large containers filled with boiling water, oil, wax,
and even wine. They were left there until they died.
Death by boiling drew out the victims suffering for as

(45:16):
long as possible. The Roman emperor Nero was a boiling champion.
Under his reign, many early Christians, then considered rebellious, were
boiled in oil. In England during Henry the Yates rule,
boiling was a punishment for those guilty of treason or
killing their husbands or masters with poison. Since death by
boiling was fascinating, it was done in public, where a

(45:37):
huge metal container was set on a massive fire as
citizens watched a human be boiled alive. The process for
one person could take as long as two hours. Fans
of medieval films and shows like Game of Thrones know
the torture by rats punishment method all too well. Government

(45:58):
used this punishment to coerce confessions or teach the victim
a lesson. A victim is tied down and an upside
down bucket is put upon their bare stomach or chest.
Then a hungry or even diseased rat is thrown under
the bucket. The executioner heats up the bucket with the
rat inside. As the rat realizes it's trapped, it starts

(46:18):
nibbling the victim's flesh to escape. Often, the frenzied rat
eats its way into the flesh while looking for a
way out, and in the process it causes unimaginable pain
and stress. While surviving the punishment was possible, it left
the sufferer with wounds that took a lot of time
to heal. While rats are innocent rodents, creative executioners found

(46:38):
ways to make them lethal weapons. Families are the most
important social units, and in Roman society, parricides, or the
killing of parents or near relatives, attracted severe punishments. The
standard punishment for parricide among Romans was called poenakoula, which
translates to sown in a bag. Executioners first beat the

(47:02):
condemned with rods until they were weak in bleeding. Then
the individuals were sewn into a leather sack with a rooster, snake, monkey,
and dog. This unique combination guaranteed that there would be
chaos within the leather sack. As if that wasn't enough,
executioners then threw the enclosed sack into the sea. If
the accused didn't die from being attacked by the animals,

(47:25):
drowning in the sea completed the job in cruelty and severity.
This is one ugly punishment, and ancient people had lots
of creative methods to kill people guilty or accused without
evidence of murdering royalty, but no other punishment method surpasses scaffism,
also known as the boats. You could call it bittersweet.

(47:48):
You'll get that joke in a minute. Scaffism involved the
trapping of an individual between two small boats or tree trunks.
The executioner would bind them to ensure they couldn't free themselves.
For scaffism to work properly, executioners chose to put the
victims into swamps. Still water is home to many bugs
and small animals, perfect for torture. The next step of

(48:11):
the punishment was a little strange. The victim was force
fed with milk and honey. This is where that bittersweet
joke comes in a mixture that was intended to cause diarrhea.
Executioners applied the remaining mixture to the accused's exposed skin
to attract wild animals, insects and rats. Most times the

(48:31):
accused died from being eaten alive, exposure, dehydration, and their wounds.
Got to make you thankful for hangings, shooting squads, electric
chair and lethal injection, doesn't it. In eighteen seventy, a

(48:52):
group of new families moved to the wind ravaged planes
near what would become Cherry Veil, Cansas. The were spiritualists,
a religion that was foreign to the homesteaders already in
the new state, but locals tended to accept newcomers without
asking too many questions. Two of the families moved away
within a year, discouraged by the difficult conditions, and the

(49:13):
others kept to themselves. But the Bender family was different.
At first, they appeared to be a normal family. John
Bender Senior and his troop settled near the Great Osage
Trail later known as the Santa Fe Trail, over which
innumerable travelers passed on their way to the west. The
older Bender, called Paw, made a claim for one hundred

(49:34):
and sixty acres in what is now Labette County. His
son John, sometimes called Thomas, claimed a smaller parcel that
adjoined PAW's land, but never lived on or worked it.
The venders also included Maw and a daughter named Kate,
who advertised herself as a spiritualist, medium, and healer. Mom
Paw reportedly mostly spoke German, although the younger benders spoke

(49:56):
fluent English. The group soon built a one room hall
equipped with a canvas curtain that divided the space into
two areas. The front was a public inn and store,
and the family quarters were in the back. Travelers on
the trail were welcome to refresh themselves with a meal
and resupply their wagons with liquor, tobacco, horse feed, gunpowder,

(50:17):
and food. Kate, who was reportedly attractive and outgoing, also
drew customers to the end with her supposed psychic and
healing abilities. These men, who usually traveled alone, often spent
the night. The trail was a dangerous place, and there
were many reasons for travelers to go missing on their
way out west bandits accidents, conflicts with Native Americans, disease,

(50:40):
but over the course of several years, more and more
people went missing around the time they passed through Labette County.
It usually took time for such disappearances to draw attention.
Mail and news traveled slowly back then, but that all
changed March eighteen seventy three after a well known physician
from Independence, Kansas, doctor William Yorke, seemingly disappeared after getting

(51:03):
off the train at Cherryvale. Doctor York had two powerful
brothers who were determined to find out what happened to him,
Colonel Edward Yorke and Kansas Senator Alexander York. Colonel York
led an investigation in Leabette County. When questioned, the Benders
denied all knowledge of York's disappearance, although Maub Bender flew

(51:24):
into a violent passion in the words of the Weekly
Kansas Chief when asked about a report of a woman
who had been threatened with pistols and knives that they're
in maud defended herself by claiming that the visitor had
been a witch, a bad and wicked woman whom she
would kill if ever she came near them again. Around
the same time, the township held a meeting at the

(51:44):
Harmony Grove Schoolhouse. Both male benders were in attendance. The
townsfolk decided to search every homestead for evidence of the missing,
but the weather turned bad and it was several days
before a search could begin. Eventually, a neighbor noticed starving
farm animals wandering the Bender property. When he investigated the end,
he found it empty. The Benders had fled. The volunteers

(52:08):
who later arrived for the search noted that the bender's
wagon was gone. Little else had been taken from the
hum besides food and clothing. Though the house was empty,
all else seemed normal until someone opened a trap door
in the floor. What they found beneath was chilling. The
trap door, located behind the curtain in the bender's private quarters,

(52:30):
led to a foul smelling cellar, which was drenched with blood. Horrified,
the group lifted up the cabin from its foundations and
dug into the ground, yet found nothing. The investigation then
turned to the garden, which was freshly plowed. Neighbors recalled
that the garden always seemed freshly plowed. Working through the night,

(52:51):
the volunteer's first unearthed York's body. The back of his
head had been smashed and his throat slit. Soon they
found more bodies with similar injuries. Accounts differ about the
number of bodies excavated from the site, but totals hover
around a dozen. In all, the benders may have committed
as many as twenty one murders. Their terrible work garnered

(53:13):
the family only a few thousand dollars, and some livestock
investigators later pieced together the group's modus operandi. It's believed
that guests at the inn were urged to sit against
the separating curtain, and while dining, would be hit on
the head with a hammer from behind the curtain. Their
body was then dropped into the trap door to the cellar,
where one of the benders slit their unfortunate victim's throat

(53:36):
before stripping the body of its valuables. One man, a
mister Wetzel, heard this theory and remembered a time when
he had been at the inn and declined to sit
in the designated spot near the curtain. His decision had
caused mab Bender to become angry and abusive toward him,
and when he saw the male benders emerge from behind
the cloth, he and his companion decided to leave. A

(53:58):
traveler named William Pickering told and almost identical story. The
crimes created a sensation in the newspapers, drawing journalists and
curiosity seekers from all over the country. Altogether, the murders
are without a parallel read. An account reprinted in the
Chicago Tribune. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported over three thousand

(54:18):
people at the crime scene, with more trains arriving. A
book published in Philadelphia soon after the murders were discovered,
the Five Fiends or the Bender Hotel Horror in Kansas,
described how large numbers of people arrived upon the scene
who had heard of the diabolical acts of bloody murder
and rapacious robbery. Hardened men were moved to tears. The

(54:43):
house in which the murders took place was disassembled and
carried away piece by piece by souvenir takers. Senator York
offered one thousand dollars reward for the Benders, and the
governor chipped in another two thousand, but the reward was
never claimed. In the years following the sensational crimes, several
women were arrested as Ma or Kate, but none were

(55:04):
positively identified. A number of vigilante groups claimed to have
found the Benders and murdered them, but none brought back proof.
The older Benders were allegedly seen on their way to
Saint Louis by way of Kansas City, and the younger
Benders were supposedly seen heading to an outlaw colony on
the border of Texas and New Mexico, but no one
knows what ultimately became of them. Investigators were likely hampered

(55:28):
by the group's deceit. None of the Benders were actually
named Bender, and the only members who were likely related
were Ma and her daughter Kate. Paw was reportedly born
John Flickinger in the early eighteen hundreds in either Germany
or the Netherlands. Ma is said to have been born
Almira Meek and her first husband named Griffith, with whom

(55:49):
she had twelve children. Ma was married several times before
marrying Paw, but each husband before him reportedly died of
head wounds. Her daughter, Kate, was born Eliza Griffith. John
Bender Junior's real name was John Gebhart, and many who
knew them in Kansas said that he was Kate's husband,

(56:09):
not her brother. Today, nothing remains to indicate the exact
location where the Bender house stood, although there is a
historical marker at a nearby rest area, though rumors still
surround the case. Some say Maw murdered Paw over a
stolen property soon after they fled. Others say Paw committed

(56:29):
suicide in Lake Michigan in eighteen eighty four after one
hundred and forty years, though we'll probably never know what
really happened to the Bloody Benders. Thanks for listening. If

(56:51):
you like to show, please share it with someone you
know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters,
or unsolved mysteries like you do. The stories in Weird
Darkness aren't purported to be true unless dated otherwise, and
you can find source links or links to the authors
in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production and
trademark of Marler House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness. And now

(57:13):
that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you
with a little light. Romans twelve, verse twenty one, do
not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
And a final thought from the Dali Lama the fourteenth.
When reason ends, then anger begins. Therefore anger is a

(57:33):
sign of weakness. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me.
In the weird darkness. Stiltsis lettabosis, sis lati bosis link

(57:55):
seis lattabosis. Is that even a real word? Seiss lata bosis.
That's gotta be a missprint. Seriously. Okay, let's see. We'll
go to four vo dot com. See what they think. Nope,
let's try pronounce dot voa news dot com. Nope, I'm

(58:21):
not even sure if that's a real word. Sis led
a Bosas lake. I'm just gonna I'm skipping to say
it's a lake hardly longer than the name of the lake,
sis led to bosis. Oh, I guess I have to,
all right, So I have to say the name of
the lake. All right, I'll go back. Monroe was buried
in a green Emilio Pouci dress and her long t

(58:42):
Pucci Pouci, Pouci, Peuci Pucci. See, this is a fashion thing,
and I know nothing of fashion. And if you were
to see me, uh in person, the way I dress,
you'd totally understand. Set themselves apart by showing sportswear. A
designer like POUCHI for Pouci Poci. She's got a little

(59:07):
bit of his stomach there. She's got a poochie. You
got a poochy dress, leaves room for you to overeat Thanksgiving.
I guess all right, here we go. She sent Norma
Jean to live with Grace's aunt an a lower or
aunt Anna and a lower or aunt Anna. With Grace's
aunt an a lower or aunt Anna. She sent Norma

(59:27):
Jane to live with Grace's aunt aunt lower or. She
sent Norma Jeane to live with Grace's aunt and Anna
yep nick and aunt aunt Anna aunt on an oh.
She sent Norma Jeane to live with Grace's aunt Anna
lower or aunt Anna.

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