 adds her to during the podcast that are not in my voice or placed by third party agencies outside of my control and should not imply an endorsement by Weird Darkness or myself. Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. In March 1788 Maria Smith was attacked by a stranger who uttered some foul words, stabbed her, then ran. She survived but was only the first of more than 50 women to suffer the same in London. This wasn't Jack the Ripper. He wouldn't come along for another 100 years. This was the monster of London. On his first day walking to the bus stop alone before school, Eton Pates was abducted and became one of the first children whose face ended up on a milk carton. If you're left handed, you might be offended by one of the stories I have in this episode. But then you lefties are all sinister anyway, right? In 1827, young Maria Martin slipped into a red barn to meet her secret lover. It was the last time she would be seen alive. It sounds like the makings of a paranormal slasher film. A woman is followed home one day by a paranormal entity, an entity that is angry because it used to be a human that was murdered. Imagine your business is failing and you need to drum up customers, so you hire a consultant. No problem, he says. All I need is a few things to get started. Do you happen to have any problem chopping off your closest living relative's hand? Welcome to Mootie Magic that some say still takes place even today. Edward Howard Bell was a murderer on the run and evaded capture for close to 20 years. When finally captured, authorities found out they didn't have just a murderer but a serial killer who he claims had sent 11 young girls to heaven. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com where you can find me on Facebook, Twitter and more, along with the Weird Darkness Weirdos Facebook group. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. In March 1788, a London woman named Maria Smith was standing on a friend's doorstep when a stranger suddenly accosted her, muttered some unrecorded but evidently horribly vile comments, stabbed her with a knife and fled, leaving her slightly wounded. Although she had no way of knowing it at the time, she was the first victim of a bizarre crime spree that would not be eclipsed in notoriety until Jack the Ripper stalked the land a century later. Over the next two years, some 50 other women, mostly young and attractive ones, would be attacked in a similar fashion. The attacks were simple and rarely varied. The annual register neatly summed up this peculiar reign of terror. During the course of the two last and present months, the streets at the Metropolis were infested by a villain of a species that has hitherto been nondescript. It was his practice to follow some well-dressed lady whom he found unaccompanied by a man and sometimes, after using gross language, sometimes without saying a word, to give her a cut with a sharp instrument he held concealed in his hand either through her strays or through her petticoats behind. Several ladies were attacked by him in this manner and several wounded, and the wretch had always the address to escape undetected. Nowadays, our psychoanalytically inclined society would have all manner of elaborate clinical terms to describe and explain such a warped miscreant, but Londoners of the time had an exquisitely expressive, straightforward name for him. He became famous as The Monster. The women of London became understandably panicky. A male contemporary recorded peevishly that, when he walked the streets, every woman we meet regards us with distrust, shrinks, sidling from all touch. On one occasion a gentleman presented a young lady of his acquaintance with a bouquet. When she took it from him, a wire binding the flowers pricked her hand. She immediately became hysterical, thinking her suitor was The Monster in disguise. The befuddled man was arrested and hauled off to the watchhouse before she realized her error. The crimes became so notorious that many women, perhaps insulted at being ignored by The Monster, claimed falsely to have been among his victims. In April 1790, a reward of £100 was raised for anyone who could apprehend the villain or give information which would lead to his capture. The suspect was described as about 30 years old, medium height, thin, a little pockmarked with light brown hair, pale skin and a large nose. Servants were told to report any suspicious activity by their employers. Washer women were advised to be on guard for any men's clothing with unexplained blood stains, and cutlers were asked to take note if any customer matching the monster's description wanted his knives sharpened. As always, the entertainment industry was not slow to capitalize on the uproar. One theater put on a musical piece called The Monster. We're told that the songs were well adapted and produced unbounded applause. More traditional criminals also found The Monster useful. In May, a man was robbed by some pickpockets. As a diversion, the thieves pointed at their victim and yelled, That is The Monster. Within seconds an angry crowd had gathered and the poor man was forced to flee for his life while his muggers made a clean getaway. It was only with great difficulty that good Samaritans managed to help him escape to the police office where he was safely hidden until the would-be Lynch Bob finally disbanded. A variation on this scam was utilized by a young woman whom a man found lying on the ground with blood on her dress. The distressed lady explained that she had just been the victim of The Monster and would he be kind enough to fetch her a coach. After she had driven off, her rescuer realized that she had managed to rob him of his watch. Monsters come in many different forms. On the evening of January 18, 1790, a girl named Anne Porter was climbing the steps of her house when a man she knew by sight suddenly dashed over and stabbed her in the hip. Five months later, she saw her assailant in St. James Park, a male acquaintance walking with her managed to chase the man down and the suspect was taken into custody. At long last, it seemed they had finally caged The Monster. Four days later, the man, a 23-year-old dancer turned artificial flower maker by the name of Rennwick or Rennwick Williams, was formally charged in Bow Street. He was described as a well-dressed young man of genteel appearance and Porter and five other women identified him as the man who had stabbed them or used vial language to them in the street. In his defense, Williams asserted that he could prove that he was at work at all the times these women were assaulted. He was sent to the new prison at Clarkinwell to await trial. It was not an easy task to transfer him to his prison cell. News of his capture had spread, with the result that, according to the Edinburgh Herald, the streets were very much crowded. The mob were so exasperated that they would have destroyed him could they have got at him. Later, more of The Monster's victims came forward and unhesitatingly identified Williams as their attacker. Williams went through two trials. The first quickly collapsed on a technicality at the Old Bailey in a courtroom that was uncommonly crowded. He pleaded not guilty. The arguments put forward by the prosecution and the defense were uncomplicated. A troop of women took turns taking the stand to tell of the verbal and physical abuse that they had suffered at the hands of The Monster and to declare that the defendant was their attacker. When it was Williams' turn to speak, he denied all the charges against him and a long, impassioned speech largely devoted to complaining about the scandalous paragraphs the public prints carried about him. He made the not unreasonable point that the malicious exaggerations made about the case had so prejudiced public opinion against him that it was impossible for him to receive a fair hearing. He closed by saying that he appealed to the great author of truth that I have the strongest affection for the happiness and comfort of the superior part of his creation, the fair sex, to whom I have in every circumstance that occurred in my life endeavoured to render assistance and protection. On paper, at least, the case against Williams does not seem very impressive. A search of his room found no weapons or bloodstained clothing. His employer and six of Williams' co-workers gave him an alibi for the time of the attack on the principal prosecution witness, Ann Porter, and gave the accused the best character a man can have. In his summing up, the judge pointed out that the testimony of these alibi witnesses showed various contradictions and discrepancies, but this would hardly be unusual. After all, they were trying to recollect details of a then-inconsequential January night six months after the fact. Other character witnesses, many of them female, testified to Williams' humanity in good nature. He had no known previous history of violent behavior. The sole evidence against Williams was the parade of victims identifying him as the monster. Although the testimony of the victims contained their own share of inconsistencies, the women all asserted unwaveringly that he was their attacker. On the other hand, I would certainly hate to put my life in the hands of eyewitnesses. They have continually to be shown to be unreliable. Were these women so certain Williams had attacked them because he was, in fact, the monster, or did their vehemence stem from everyone's understandable anxiety to bring closure to the terrifying crime spree? A further complication is that Williams and Ann Porter, the woman most responsible for his arrest, had met before under unpleasant circumstances. He reportedly once made a pass at her in a pub and insulted her when she rejected his advances. Could this have caused him to harbor a grudge serious enough to later attack her with a knife? Or, as Williams claimed, was Porter out to frame him as revenge for having verbally disparaged her? Williams had said that he was content to leave his fate to the decision of a British jury. He probably regretted those words when the verdict of guilty was immediately delivered. After his conviction, Williams remained in Newgate until his sentencing at the Decembera Sizes. He wild away the time in classic Georgian-era fashion. He threw a thumping good party. In August, he sent out invitations to about 20 couples to call on him in his cell. Tea was served, after which they had dancing, with music provided by two violins and a flute. A contemporary account stated sardonically that the cuts and entree chats of the monster were much admired. The merry dance was followed by a cold supper and a variety of wines, such as would not discredit the most sumptuous gala. The party broke up at 9pm, that being the usual hour for locking the doors of the prison. In early December, Williams received his sentence for assault with intent to kill. In one of British legal history s quirkier moments, it was very fortunate for him that this was the crime for which he was found guilty. The physical attacks were considered mere misdemeanors. If he had been sentenced for deliberately slashing the women s clothing, a far more serious offense, he would have been hanged. He was given six years. Fortunately for Williams, the monster quickly faded from public memory. Modern-day researcher Jan Bondensen believed that he changed his name to Henry Williams and returned to his old career of flower making, as if nothing had happened. Williams had fathered a child during his imprisonment and upon gaining his freedom, he married the mother and disappeared from history. This is one of those naggingly uncertain cases that leaves you feeling vaguely annoyed. Was this nondescript flower making Mr. Jekyll concealing an inner Mr. Hyde, which for a brief period was unleashed upon the women of London? Or did the real monster, no doubt amazed at his unbelievable good luck, take Williams' arrest as his golden opportunity to take his dark urges to other places, perhaps to take other but equally ugly forms? Or, as Bondensen suggested, was there never really a monster at all? Were the attacks unconnected copycat crimes that became seen as the work of one frightening overpowering figure thanks to the power of a sensationalist media building up mass hysteria? We will likely never know. Coming up on Weird Darkness, if you're left handed you might be offended by one of the stories I have coming up next, but then you lefties are all sinister anyway, right? But first, on his first day walking to the bus stop alone before school, Eton Pates was abducted and became one of the first children whose face ended up on a milk carton. These stories and more when Weird Darkness returns. Are you a member of the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate is a private membership where you receive commercial-free episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast and radio show. Behind the scenes video updates about future projects and events I am working on. You can share your own opinions on ideas to help me decide upon Weird Darkness contests and events. You can hear audiobooks I am narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I am working on outside of Weird Darkness. You get all of these benefits and more, starting at only $5 per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. On the morning of May 25, 1979, six-year-old Eton Pates walked the two blocks from his home to his bus stop in Manhattan. It was his first time walking there alone before school, and the last day his parents would ever see him. That's because someone abducted Eton during that walk. In his parents' effort to find him, Eton became among the first children to be featured on milk cartons. Julian Stanley Pates didn't realize that their son was missing until later that day when he didn't come home from the Independence Plaza school. They soon learned he hadn't been in his first grade class that day or even made the bus that morning and called the police. Eton's disappearance led to a nationwide search that wasn't resolved until 2017 Pedro Hernandez was convicted of abducting and killing him. Eton was among the first non-celebrity missing children to gain national attention the way Jean-Benet Ramsey would in 1996. In the early 1980s, Eton's face appeared on milk cartons all over the country, encouraging people to contact the authorities if they'd seen him. Eton's case also led President Ronald Reagan to declare May 25, National Missing Children's Day in 1983 and played a role in the founding of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In the decades after Eton went missing, there were fake confessions, false leads, and even young men who showed up at the pizza's doorstep claiming to be Eton. For a long time, investigators suspected Jose Ramos of abducting him. Ramos was a friend of Eton's former babysitter who was convicted of child molestation in the 1980s, but investigators were never able to confirm that Ramos was guilty. In 2000, authorities declared Eton legally dead, and the case went cold. Investigators reopened the case in 2010. In two years later, they excavated the foundation of a home near Eton's to look for clues. The excavation didn't turn anything up, but the media coverage of it did lead people to report some new tips, one of which led investigators to the person that they were looking for. That person was Pedro Hernandez, who had been 18 and worked at the bodega near Eton's bus stop the day he disappeared. Investigators discovered that in 1982, Hernandez had admitted in an open church confessional that he had killed a young boy. His family knew about this and had begun discussing it again when they saw the news of the excavation. Police interrogated Hernandez, and he confessed that he had lured Eton into the bodega and strangled him. He then put his body in a box and left it outside in a trash pile a couple of blocks away. Hernandez's 2015 case ended in a mistrial because one juror was not convinced he was guilty. Like the defense had argued, the juror was concerned that Hernandez was mentally ill and that police may have coerced him into a false confession. At his next trial in 2017, Hernandez was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life in federal prison. A favorite book of many young adults when growing up was The Face on the Milk Carton, a novel written by Caroline B. Cooney. The book is about a 15-year-old girl named Janie Johnson who lives with her loving parents. One day, Janie is startled to see her face on a milk carton under the heading Missing Child. The milk carton claimed that Jenny Spring was kidnapped from a New Jersey shopping mall at the age of three. The rest of the book explores Janie's journey to find the truth as she begins having flashbacks of people and places that suggest that her past isn't what she thought. The book was eerily similar to a real-life case. In the 1980s, seven-year-old Bonnie Lohman saw her face on a milk carton and set off a chain of events that would lead to her being reunited with her father. In the late 1970s and 1980s, several high-profile Missing Child cases dominated the news, prompting the founding of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 1984. The most famous of these cases included, of course, the disappearance of Aiton Pates and the murder of Adam Walsh, son of America's most wanted host, John Walsh. At the time, there was no uniform system of raising awareness for Missing Children. In September 1984, Anderson and Erickson Derry printed on their milk cartons the images of two local paper boys who had been kidnapped. The nonprofit National Child Safety Council latched onto the idea and soon created a nationwide program called the Missing Children Milk Carton Program. By March 1985, almost half of America's independent dairies had adopted similar milk carton initiatives. On its face, the milk carton campaign seemed like a brilliant idea. After all, nearly every family bought milk. Thus it followed that milk cartons seemed a logical vehicle for mass communication. Unfortunately, despite the billions of milk cartons distributed under the campaign, most of the Missing Children featured were never found, including Aiton Pates. One reason may have been that most of the children featured were abducted by a non-custodial divorced parent rather than a stranger. This statistic was reinforced by the Bonnie Lohman case. At the age of three, Bonnie was taken from her father by her mother and stepfather. One day, Bonnie was at the supermarket with her stepfather when she spotted herself on a milk carton. She was too young to understand the significance of her discovery, which may be why her stepfather allowed Bonnie to cut out and save her picture. He warned his young stepdaughter to keep the image a secret though, but the neighbors recognized Bonnie's face from the milk carton and called the police. Bonnie was soon reunited with her father. In addition to the campaign's overemphasis of the idea of stranger danger, critics pointed out that the children featured were overwhelmingly white, which was not at all representative of the demographics of Missing Children. Stand-up comedian Eddie Griffin even had a routine called White Kids on Milk Cartons based on this troubling statistic. Lastly, idiotricians were concerned that normalizing the occurrence of Missing Children by plastering their faces on milk cartons was potentially scarring for young children. As a child of the 80s, I certainly remember the smiling faces staring back at me while I ate my cereal. I wouldn't say it terrified me into thinking that I too might be abducted. I only recall feeling sadness for the parents and hoping that they would be reunited with their kids. The milk carton campaign faded out in the late 1980s and was abandoned altogether when the Amber Alert system was created in 1996. The replacement of paper milk cartons with plastic jugs also contributed to its demise. Most recently, in 2000, the parents of Mollie Bish put their daughter on a milk carton in addition to leveraging other resources when their daughter disappeared from her lifeguarding job. Tragically, the milk carton tactic failed yet again. Mollie's body was found three years later and her case remains unsolved to this day. While the milk carton campaign may not have successfully recovered abducted children, it did raise crucial awareness about child abductions generally. One revelation for advocacy groups was that Missing Children could include everything from stranger kidnappings to non-custodial abductions to runaways. If you read the face on the milk carton as a young adult, you might have fantasized that that was how many Missing Children cases were resolved. Sadly, save for Bonnie Lohman's incredible story, this couldn't be farther from the truth in the 1980s. Each year, 800,000 children are reported missing in America, including those who are lost, injured, have run away from home, or are abducted. Thankfully, the likelihood of finding a missing child has increased tremendously in recent years due to advances in technology and faster action taken by authorities. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, when accounting for all the missing children, that number goes way up, more than 99% come home alive. With those kinds of statistics, I'm happy to leave the milk carton campaign behind in favor of methods that actually help bring kids home. Lefties have never had it easy. From the dawn of recorded history, being left-handed is often been viewed with fear and suspicion. The Bible contains numerous passages condemning left-handedness. The most famous of these references comes from the book of Matthew. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me he cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Everything from handshaking customs, sharing the left hand rather than the right, is still considered a deep insult in many Muslim cultures to language use seems stacked against the lowly southpaw. In most European languages, right has a double meaning conveying justice, lawfulness, and truth. For example, righteous, right-minded, etc. Words for left, on the other hand, they don't fare so well. The French gauche, the Italian sedistra, and the Portuguese canhoto also provide alternative meanings such as brash, awkward, and uncouth. The very word sinister comes from the Latin word for left and also provides the medical term for left-handedness, synestrality. Strangely enough, actual references to right and left-handedness tend to be difficult to find prior to the 19th century. While archaeological examination of Stone Age implements tends not to show a clear right-handed preference in those populations, evidence for hemispheric lateralization and presumed hand preference likely predates humanity itself. Despite famous historical figures who were known to be left-handed, including Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lewis Carroll, there was little actual evidence that left-handed people were persecuted in ancient times. Of course, prior to the advent of universal literacy, left-handers who aren't typically ambidextrous to some extent had few difficulties in conforming to social norms relating to proper hand usage. The earliest known medical reference to left-handedness was by Sir Thomas Brown who published Sudoxia Epidemica, or Inquiries into Very Many Received Tenets and Commonly Presumed Truths, which examined proved but vulgar errors in 1648. In dismissing prejudice against left-handers as being a vulgar error, Brown struck the first blow for fairness. A century later, Benjamin Franklin wrote the famous A Petition of the Left Hand, directed against right-handed bias in schools. Aside from those two examples, however, there was little else written on the subject prior to the 1800s. By the mid-19th century, however, things began to change. Medical researchers often debated on whether left-handers were born or made, i.e., was it due to heredity or environment? With the discovery of hemispheric lateralization and specialized brain structures linked to language, the question of why right-handedness tended to be predominant in most cultures was inevitably linked to evolutionary factors. Darwin was all the rage at the time. Anthropologists reporting on primitive cultures, such as hotentots and bushmen, found a greater than expected incidence of left-handedness. Similar findings were made by archaeologists researching prehistoric art, which reaffirmed the impression that right-handedness was a mark of evolutionary success, while those left-handers who still remained could be seen as hereditary degenerates. Over the next few decades, researchers linked left-handedness to a range of psychiatric and medical abnormalities, including feeble-mindedness and psychosis. The most notorious indictment of left-handedness came from Cesar Lombroso, who was already world-famous for his research linking heredity and crime. In 1903, Lombroso published in Left-Handedness and Left-Sidedness in North American Review. In his paper, Lombroso reported that a disproportionate number of criminals and lunatics were left-handed, and that persons who are more agile with the left-hand are ordinarily found among women, children, and savages, and they were more numerous in ages past than they are now. By associating left-handedness with genetic inferiority, new policies designed to weed out left-handedness became another platform in the growing eugenics movement of the time. Almost inevitably, the arguments against left-handedness took on a decidedly racist component. In his 1913 diatribe against left-handedness, Edward Tenney Brewster wrote that synestarity, left-handedness, is slightly more common in the lower strata of society than in the higher, among negroes than among white persons, and among savages than among civilized persons. He added that the curious thing about the inheritance of left-handedness, which as we have seen depends on a peculiarity of the brain, is that it resembles closely the inheritance of two other peculiarities which are also dependent on brain structure, namely mental ability and moral excellence. Breeding out left-handedness became a sacred duty for eugenics supporters. In pathologizing left-handers, teachers and child care authorities in most cultures began to advocate the forced reorientation of left-handed children. Although some early educational psychologists spoke out against the practice and some even encouraged teaching children to become ambidextrous instead, forcing left-handed children to use their right hands became accepted practice in countries around the world. The methods used ranged from gentle encouragement to physical discipline and the results were often mixed. While some children made the transition with few problems, the long-term consequences of forced right-handedness remain controversial and often depend on the harshness of the teaching method used. Although stuttering, emotional stunting and motor impairments have long been reported in hand reorientation cases, research into converted left-handers has also shown evidence of neurological changes, increased incidence of schizophrenia and potential writing problems. That's not from being left-handed but being forced to not be left-handed. Since forced right-handedness continues to be practiced in some countries, in fact many countries, the true extent to which it actually occurs likely can't be determined with any accuracy. Countries where active discouragement of left-handedness have been known to occur until relatively recently include China, Japan, Russia and most Muslim countries. Given the ongoing biases favoring right-handedness in most settings, left-handed children still face numerous obstacles at school and at home. Still, in recent years there has been a groundswell of support for left-handers, including resources to make living in a right-handed dominant world easier. So lefties of the world unite. You have nothing to lose, but right-handed scissors and right-handed coffee mugs. You sinister beings. When Weird Darkness returns, in 1827, young Maria Martin slipped into a red barn to meet her secret lover. It was the last time she would be seen alive. Plus, it sounds like the makings of a paranormal slasher film. A woman is followed home one day by a paranormal entity, an entity that's angry because it used to be a human that was murdered. And imagine your business is failing and you need to drum up customers so you hire a consultant. No problem, he says, all I need is a few things to get started. They happen to have any problems shopping off your closest living relative's hand. Welcome to Mootie Magic that some say still takes place even today. These stories are up next on Weird Darkness. Nothing goes better with chocolate than vanilla, and nothing goes better with the darkness than vampires, so we've combined all of them into a new blend of weird dark roast coffee called Very Van Pilla. This bloody good blend combines a medium dark roast coffee with hints of chocolate, vanilla, and just a tad bit of dried cherry, too. So good, you'll want to sink your fangs into the fresh roasted bag itself. Weird Dark Roast Very Van Pilla, the only thing at stake, sorry, not sorry, bad pun, is your dissatisfaction with your old coffee. Sip it while the sun is down if you're one of the undead. Or when the sun is up if you just feel dead and need a bit of a boost, get your Weird Dark Roast Very Van Pilla at WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash coffee. In March, 1826, a love affair blossomed between 24-year-old Berea Martin and 22-year-old William Quarter. Just one year later, their secret romance ended in slaughter and became one of the most notorious murder cases in English history. The couple hailed from Polsted, a small town in Suffolk, England. William Quarter, the son of a farmer, had a reputation for being a ladies' man and a troublemaker. He once swindled his father out of his own pigs and helped steal livestock from another farmer. The Cumbly Martin was no stranger to romance either. She already birthed two children. One was from William's older brother, though the baby died as an infant. The other was a baby boy, whose father wanted nothing to do with the illegitimate child, apart from sending money from time to time. William preferred to keep the relationship secret. Yet in 1827, the pair had a child. Though the offspring died soon after birth, young William still seemed intent on marrying Maria. Alas, Maria had a less-than-favorable reputation in the community. William spoke of rumors that authorities wished to prosecute her for having bastard children, so William suggested they elope. The pair hatched their plan in front of Maria's stepmother, Ann Martin. They were to meet at the Red Barn, a popular landmark located on Barnfield Hill less than a mile from the Martin home. Afterward, they would leave for Ipswich. A date was set, Wednesday, May 16, 1827. William appeared eager to marry his sweetheart. As the secret wedding day arrived, however, he delayed not once but twice. Two days later, William visited Maria and, as witnessed by Maria's stepmother, told her that they had to flee at once. A warrant, he claimed, was out for her arrest. Historical records indicate that no such warrant had been issued. Nevertheless, William's words frightened Maria. She feared being seen, so William convinced her to disguise herself as a man. The two were to meet in the Red Barn, where William would wait for her with a disguise. They would then flee to Ipswich as originally planned. The unsuspecting Maria did as she was told and made her way to the Red Barn. It was the last time she would be seen alive. Maria vanished after that day in May. When family and friends questioned William, he claimed that she had simply left for Ipswich ahead of him. Inquiries continued, and William made himself scarce, leaving town altogether. He wrote to the Martin family claiming that he and Maria were indeed married and living together on the Isle of Wight. Various excuses were made as to Maria's silence. She was ill, her hand hurt, and she could not write a letter. She did write a letter, but it must have been lost in the mail. Months went by, and the suspicions in the Martin family only grew. It was around this time that stepmother Ann spoke of troubling dreams. She had visions of Maria's murder, her body being buried in the Red Barn. On April 19, 1928, Ann's husband made his way to the barn to soothe his wife's troubled mind. As instructed, he dug in one of the grain storage bins. What he discovered was shockingly consistent with Ann's vision. Wrapped in a sack were human remains. While the body had decomposed, family members successfully identified the body as Maria's thanks to preserved hair and clothing. A tooth missing from Maria's mouth was also missing from the corpse's jaw, and one glaring piece of evidence implicated Maria's former lover, William's signature green handkerchief, was wound tightly around the body's neck. The constable of Polstead set out to find William Quarter. The man had turned out put little effort in covering his tracks. Authorities secured an address through one of William's friends. With the help of London policeman James Lee, they soon tracked down the suspect in London. William had established a new life in England's capital as the master of a boarding house known as Everly Grove. He'd recently married Mary Moore, a woman he met courtesy of a singles ad in the paper. Lee devised a sting operation to catch the suspect. He posed as a father inquiring about boarding his daughter, then cornered Quarter and notified him of the charges. William feigned innocence of knowing about Maria or her murder. He was taken to Suffolk instead trial at Shire Hall, Burry St. Edmonds, where he pled not guilty. By then, news of the case spread throughout the region. Crowds converged upon the courthouse while media outlets reported on every little detail. The throng grew so large that spectators who wished to view the trial had to be chosen by ticket. The evidence against William Quarter was overwhelming. Maria's stepmother recounted the events leading up to the murder. Distalled elopement and claims of a warrant, William's luring of Maria into the red barn on the last night she was seen alive. Maria's father testified about discovering the body and Maria's little brother claimed he saw William with a pistol and a pickaxe on the day of the murder. Leah also found the pistols incriminating letters and a French passport at William's new residence. The precise cause of death was hard to determine. The body had gunshot wounds, there was William's handkerchief around the neck, and a gash to the eye that may or may not have been a posthumous wound resulting from the pickaxe. As for motive, prosecutors suggested William was eager to get rid of Maria because she knew too much about his criminal activities and that they quarreled over the child support she received from the father of her child. Additional rumors swirled over the mysterious death of Maria and William's infant. The baby was supposed to have been interred in Sudbury, though no record of the burial or trace of a proper burial at all could be found. The jury deliberated for a mere 35 minutes. They found William Corder guilty. The judge sentenced him to hang. In a grisly twist of the era, the judge also declared that William's body would be dissected for medical study. William fretted over confessing as he awaited his execution. Finally, at the behest of his wife as well as the prison warden and governor, he admitted to the death of Maria Martin. He claimed that he had been quarreling with his former lover when he accidentally shot her in the eye. He also wrote in his confession that the two argued about someone discovering the actual burial site of their child. On August 11, 1828, a weak William Corder stepped onto the gallows. He was hanged before a crowd of 7000 or 20,000 depending on which version you believe. By the time of the hanging, the tale of the Red Barn murder had swept beyond England. Numerous plays, novels and tabloid-style newspapers chronicled the events. Charles Dickens reluctantly included the story in his magazine All the Year Round. Many, many years later, American songwriter Tom Waits penned Murder in the Red Barn, a song that some critics suggest was inspired by the sensational story. Supposed locks of Maria's hair and strands of the rope that hung William Corder were readily purchased by buyers. Around 5,000 people viewed Corder's body after the hanging. His body was then taken to Cambridge for an autopsy in front of students and physicians. Surgeons conducting a phrenological examination noted that the killer's skull was developed in the areas of secretiveness, acquisitiveness, destructiveness, and a lack of benevolence. The Red Barn and nearby Martin Cottage became tourist attractions. The barn itself was stripped clear by souvenir hunters and much of the wood was turned into toothpicks. Tourists chipped away at Maria's tombstone until it was little more than a rocky nub. After the dissection was complete, Corder's skeleton went on display in a museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His skin was tanned by a surgeon and bound forever to a bull's eye. A 21-year-old woman says she was forced to call in a psychic medium to cleanse her haunted home after an angry and aggressive ghost assaulted her in the shower. Leah Lewis says that she had endured months of ghostly activity in the Newhall House that she shared with her mother, Colette, before things took a turn for the worse and she discovered unexplained scratches on her thigh that she believes were left by a ghost. She claims the medium helped the ghost to pass to the other side and leave this world. She said, I didn't feel anything at all in the shower until I saw the scratches when I was drying myself. I told my mom and she said, I think we need to contact Ian Griffiths, the psychic medium now. We've been putting it off for a while, but now I have been physically assaulted. Incredibly, it's believed the ghost followed Leah home from her work at a shop in Burton that it had been haunting. A claim Mr. Griffiths had made after he has said that he had seen the ghost follow her home. There was speculation from shop staff that the ghost was a man who may have been murdered in the area years before it became a shop, as he was described as aggressive and angry. The trouble started a few weeks after Leah's grandfather died. Her mother, Colette, said Leah started saying that she could see and hear things which none of us could. I remember this one evening driving to my mom's. She asked me if I saw the little girl stood on the roadside and I was blown away as I couldn't see anyone in sight. Fast forward a few months and her ability has only got stronger. She come home from work and tells me about the activity she had experienced while being there. Little did we know she would end up having the man upstairs as she referred to him, follow her home and become our worst nightmare. Leah started to hear noises and movement upstairs and then one particular night she says as she left her bedroom and saw a tall, bald, slender man leaving another bedroom. On another occasion, Leah's mother said that she heard a man breathing down her ear. It was three low breaths. That same evening, Leah found the scratches after taking a shower and insists that she could not have done them herself as they were two pronounced. She later went into her mother's room, asking her what she was looking for in a wardrobe as she could hear her mom rummaging around in there. However, she was shocked to discover that her mom was in bed and had not moved nor been in her wardrobe. The next night, Leah took a shower and after she got out came downstairs to show her mom another mark she had across her hip. Her mom said, with her now being physically harmed, I thought enough is enough and I needed to do something about it. I asked around my friends and they asked their friends and I got quite a few recommendations for Ian Griffiths and I reached out to him, giving him a small description of what had been going on and right from the get-go, he was amazing. Leah says she is now looking into her own supernatural abilities and said, when Ian came to our house he was able to describe my brother's bedroom in detail and he hadn't even been in. He went into my mom's bedroom and went straight to the wardrobe and said that he could sense activity. I said this is where I had been hearing everything too and thought I was going mad. He went into my bedroom and saw my candles which I used when I meditate and speak to my granddad. He confirmed everything we had experienced and then he passed the man over to the other side from his house. One day at around 6.40pm I was leaving my house to go to the shop and suddenly I felt really angry and I felt I needed to get out. Ian later said this was around the same time the man passed over. Mr. Griffiths told Staffordshire Live that as soon as he heard from Leah's mom he pictured the man as slim and tall, wandering around the house and had never been there before. He said I told her what I was picking up and she says that's what's been happening and what we have seen wandering around the house. The male spirit didn't seem positive. I got a more negative feeling from him. Over the years of mediumship I have learned how to remove spirits. It's years of learning and experience removing good and negative spirits. Some negative ones can be very challenging at times. Some can mark you as it did with Leah or make you feel ill and put unwanted emotions on people. I've been affected by some negative ones, pushed, marked, and even nasty comments close to my ear or face but in the end it comes down to learning about how to deal with each negative spirit that I have come across over the years. Once I've removed the spirit I start blessing the person that's been affected and blessing the home. In each room I say prayers and they take a bit of time going around the home. Some places may have portals where spirits can and go through like a doorway. This home had two portals where spirits can come and go. I seal them up so nothing else comes into the home. Each time someone texts about spirits in the home you never know what you're going to come across or what challenges you face. Sometimes it can take over your life. I love the work of mediumship and paranormal investigating. Today when we think of medicine we think of drugstores, pharmacies. Medicine comes in many forms from cough syrup to painkillers and more. We don't generally think about where it came from, how it was discovered, who first thought of it. I venture to guess that many people don't know that penicillin was discovered by mistake and began as a form of mold. If we go back even further there are stories of people using mummies grinding up their bodies for medicinal purposes. In South Africa some forms of medicine called muti have utilized rituals consisting of dancing, chanting, playing drums and sacrifice. The sacrifices over time have come to be known as muti killings. Muti derived from umuti the zulu word for tree has become synonymous with traditional African medicine. Most commonly it is made from herbs and plants to cure common ailments. Muti is also used in complex medical situations as well as providing a sort of magic, delivering love spells or curses. For example, a person could be given lion fat for courage. In fact, muti is part of a ritual with the South African soccer team. So far, muti seems pretty harmless, unless you are the animal being sacrificed of course. There is however a darker side of muti, a side that believes the human body is extremely valuable for its parts. Human sacrifice while not common is a part of muti. It is believed that after 300 people are sacrificed each year so that their body parts may be used. The goal is not necessarily to kill but rather to harvest. Unfortunately, killing is almost always the end result. The harvest is ordered by a sangoma or witch doctor who was hired by a client with a specific need. If a client is looking to bring in more business to their shop, hands would be cut off then buried palm up in front of their shop. Various body parts are buried on farms in order to guarantee a good harvest. Blood is good for vitality. Genitals, breasts and placentas are used for infertility and good luck with the genitalia of young boys and virgin girls is the most sought after. Brains are good for political power. There is a belief that the body parts removed from a person while that person is alive and screaming are more valuable, their screams making their power stronger. On September 21, 2001, a body was discovered floating in the River Thames. On average in London approximately 40-45 bodies are recovered from that river but this one was different. This one was a child. The body was badly mutilated and found floating near Tower Bridge. He appeared to be about five to seven years old and of Afro-Caribbean descent. His autopsy showed that his legs had been severed above the knees, his arms had been cut off at the shoulders and his head was removed. His stomach contained traces of cough medicine, cause of death, violent trauma to the neck, after which his limbs were skillfully removed. Unable to identify the boy, police began calling him Adam. People began to speculate that Adam had been a mootie sacrifice, a victim of a mootie killing. Not only that, but his death opened their eyes to what may have been happening for a while. Had Adam been the latest in a long line of cult-like mootie killings? Police requested assistance from the investigative psychology unit of the South African Police Service. They were put in contact with a Sangoma called Credo Mutua, who could provide his insights. Mutua believed Adam's death was a result of a ritual sacrifice that is common in West Africa. Unfortunately, Mutua was widely considered a fraudster and his belief could not be wholly trusted. On January 29, 2002, Dr. Hendrik Schultz traveled to London from South Africa to perform a second post-mortem examination. He believed Adam was a victim of mootie killing. It is my opinion that the nature of the discovery of the body features of the external examination, including the nature of the wounds, clothing, and mechanism of death, are consistent with those of a ritual homicide as practiced in Africa. According to Dr. Schultz, Adam was likely beheaded while he was still alive. The case of Adam remains unsolved. It is widely held that the easiest victims of a mootie killing will be trafficked to children. According to UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, 1,000-1,500 Guatemalan babies and children are trafficked each year for adoption by couples in North America and Europe. Girls as young as 13, mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe, are trafficked as male-order brides. In most cases, these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence. Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work, but also for sexual exploitation and to work in shops or on farms. Nearly 90% of these trafficked domestic workers are girls. Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana are trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Gavin. Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria. Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe. While it may seem like traditional mootie is a thing of the past, you can still visit a mootie market today in Johannesburg, South Africa. You won't find victims of mootie killings there, but you will find people ready to share their knowledge of traditional African medicine. Up next on Weird Darkness, Edward Howard Bell was a murderer on the run and evaded capture for close to 20 years. When finally captured, authorities found they didn't have just a murderer. They had a serial killer who claimed he had sent 11 young girls to heaven. That story is up next. To what lengths will someone go in order to survive? Does the survival instinct override their conscience and allow them to commit not only murder, but also the taboo act of cannibalism? What happens when a person crosses the line from dark fantasy to real-life acts of brutal rape, murder, and cannibalism? Are these people driven by a desire so insatiable that they are incapable of controlling it? Murderous Minds Volume 3 Stories of Real-Life Murderers that Escape the Headlines is the latest offering in a series that takes you inside the lives of killers who committed cold-blooded murder for a glimpse at events that drove them to kill. Authored within a historical context, each chapter is an unbelievable venture inside the dark and twisted world of real cannibal killers whose names and crimes might not be familiar to you. By weaving a tale in which dark fantasies become reality, this audiobook invites you to see life from a perspective few ever witnessed, from that of the killer. Along with a historical look at cannibalism through the ages, these stories beg the listener to answer the question, was the murderer committing cannibalism because he was incapable of resisting the urge to kill and consume or is the explanation simply pure evil? Murderous Minds Volume 3, written by Ryan Becker and Curtis Giles Vasey, narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar. Hear a free sample on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Edward Howard Bell was convicted of murdering United States Marine Larry Dickens after Dickens confronted Bell for exposing himself to a group of children. When Bell posted Bell, he evaded law enforcement for nearly 20 years. However, when he was caught, Bell reportedly told police he murdered multiple people, not just Dickens in the 70s. He claims that he sent 11 young girls to heaven. The mystery that surrounds the disappearance of 11 young girls around Galveston, Texas continues to haunt families in the surrounding communities. What's unclear is whether Bell is being truthful in his confession or taunting police and victims. A&E has a six-part documentary which examines Bell's claims. Bell identified nine of the 11 alleged victims by name. A&E fills in the blanks by suggesting the names of the other two victims that were never named by Bell. The documentary reexamines evidence and profiles the murderer gathering information from police and the reporter who broke the story. Bell was a former United States Marine who worked as a youth counselor. Bell had a wife and one daughter. In his youth, he was a Boy Scout and earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from Texas A&M. He claims that he suffered abuse at the hands of his father which programmed him to become a child molester, rapist and murderer. In 1978, Bell murdered United States Marine Larry Dickens. That year Bell was staying with his mother in Pasadena, Texas. One afternoon he exited his white van and he was nude from the waist down. He started to self-gratify in front of a group of children in Larry Dickens neighborhood. Dickens confronted Bell and attempted to prevent his escape until law enforcement arrived. Instead, Bell shot and killed Dickens. Bell received a 70-year prison sentence for the homicide of Dickens. While Bell was serving his sentence, he reached out to Texas prosecutors. He told them his 1978 murder of Dickens wasn't his only homicide that year. In fact, Bell told prosecutors he killed seven other people. He explained the seven victims were all young girls. At the time, prosecutors did not have enough evidence to pursue Bell's claims. In 2011, the Houston Chronicle interviewed Bell and during that interview, he admitted he killed more than seven young girls. He claimed he actually murdered 11. The Houston Chronicle quotes Bell as saying it was 11 that went to heaven. He described the crimes as sexually driven. Bell went on to blame the abuse he received from his father for his sexual deviancy and desire to murder innocent children. Bell even provided names for some of the victims. Captain Chris Concello of the Brasoria County Sheriff's Office told the Houston Chronicle that he was never able to prove Bell's claims. After Bell murdered Dickens, he posted bail. He then evaded police for 20 years. When he got arrested in 1992, he told law enforcement about the other murders. Bell had refused to provide law enforcement with written confessions and has requested immunity for the killings. The murders of the 11 young girls remains a mystery, and it is unclear if Bell is mentally unsound or a cold-blooded killer and pedophile. Former prosecutor Kurt Sistrunk told the Houston Chronicle of Bell's confession. I didn't believe we had sufficient evidence that we could proceed to grand jury with, and without getting into specifics, that's the decision that had to be made, no matter the temptations to proceed otherwise. It wasn't for a lack of effort. A six-part documentary on A&E examines the mystery surrounding the 11 young girls murdered in Texas. The series explores Bell's criminal and psychological profile, according to his confession. Bell has provided the names of nine out of the 11 victims and admits that he doesn't remember the names of the last two. Nonetheless, investigators explore Bell's purported sexual deviancy as well as his tendency to target young women in an attempt to identify the final two victims. It is accurate that 11 young women in and around Galveston, Texas, did go missing in the 1970s. What's unknown is whether Bell's confession is reliable. So far, it's been impossible to know if he is the actual culprit. The A&E program includes an interview with the Houston Chronicle reporter, Lisa Olsen, who broke the story about Bell's 11 that went to heaven claim. The documentary also features interviews with then homicide detective, Fred Page, who worked the case and was still an active officer at the time of the documentary. The documentary included statements from Olsen and Page, as well as Bell's letter to the former Galveston District Attorney, which stated, quote, I have decided to tell you that I was brainwashed into killing Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson in November 1971, unquote. In the documentary, Page recounts the details of Ackerman and Johnson's murder. Their murderer stripped them of most of their clothing and threw them into waste-deep water before shooting them with a .38 caliber pistol at close range. Bell claimed to have killed 15-year-olds Debbie Ackerman and Maria Johnson together. He also killed 14-year-olds Sharon Shaw and Rhonda Johnston together in Webster, Texas. He murdered Colette Wilson on her way home after attending a summer band camp. Wilson's bones were later discovered in a reservoir mixed in with the bones of 19-year-old Gloria Gonzalez. He killed 16-year-old Kimberly Pitchford after she had just finished a driver's education course. And finally he killed two middle schoolers, 14-year-old Georgia Geer and 12-year-old Brooks Bracewell. When Bell made the 11 went to heaven comment, he would recall murdering two other girls but he couldn't remember their names. A&E suggests that 14-year-old Brenda Jones and 12-year-old Susan Bowers, both of whom went missing in Texas during the 70s, do fit Bell's given profile. Jones disappeared from Galveston in 1971 and Bauer vanished from Galveston in 1977. The A&E investigators looked at the similarities between the cases of Jones and Bowers, coupled with what Bell admitted and his tendency to target young girls as support that Bell was potentially the murderer. Since the 1970s over 30 bodies of young women have been discovered in an area referred to as the Texas Killing Fields. The area is located in League City in between Galveston and Houston, Texas. It's an area of abandoned oil fields and overgrown brush. It's the location where Colette Wilson's body was found after she went missing in 1971. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. And you can find me on Facebook, Twitter and more, including the show's Weirdo's Facebook group on the Contact social page at WeirdDarkness.com. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, click on Tell Your Story. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Boy on the Mill Carton was written by Liz Jen from Medium and from History.com. The Sinister Left-Handers is by Dr. Romeo Battelli for Providenceia. The Red Barn Murder is by Stephanie Almeson for the lineup. The Haunting of Leah Lewis is by Helen Creft for Staffordshire Live. The Monster of London was posted at Strange Company. Murderous Mootee Magic was posted at the Scare Chamber. And He Sent Eleven Young Girls to Heaven was written by Matthew LaVell for unspeakable times. Again, you can find links to all of these stories in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Psalm 82 verses 3 and 4. Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them from the hands of the wicked. And a final thought from Aristotle. Anybody can become angry. That's easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. I'm Darren Marther. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. We'll be spending two hours with Hexen Arcane, sisters Morgan and Celeste Parker. These sexy sirens, these gorgeous ghouls, will be presenting 1972's Moon of the Wolf, starring David Janssen, Barbara Rush and Bradford Dillman. After several locals are viciously murdered, a Louisiana sheriff starts to suspect he might be dealing with a werewolf. Our weirdo watch party is always free to watch online, so grab your popcorn, candy and soda and jump into the fun and even get involved in a live chat as we watch the movie. It's Moon of the Wolf on Saturday, March 2nd, hosted by Hexen Arcane. The show begins at 10 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Central, 8 p.m. Mountain and 7 p.m. Pacific. You can watch a trailer for the film and watch horror hosts and schlocky B-movies anytime, day or night on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. Hope to see you March 2nd. Our brain is a wonderful thing, allowing us to make decisions, work on problems, plan for the future, live for today and remember our past. But that last item, remembering our past, can sometimes be painful if we're stuck going back to those memories again and again feeling shame for something we did or didn't do. How can we deal with our yesterdays? That's the topic of this week's message over at the Church of the Undead podcast, which you can get to by going to WeirdDarkness.com slash church.