 This episode is dedicated to the men and women of our armed forces and first responders. Whether you are currently serving or have served in the past, you are appreciated. It is because of your courage and sacrifice that we enjoy the freedoms and liberties we hold dear. And I for one, appreciate every single one of you for protecting what many of us take for granted. So thank you. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and 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 this hour, desolate vistas, noxious gas, people sinking into the ground. No, this is not a description of a scene from a horror film. It's everyday life in Centralia, Pennsylvania, a creepy, abandoned town that's been on fire since 1962 and was likely the inspiration for one of the most terrifying video games ever created. In tonight's sudden death overtime content in the podcast, once upon a time there was a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He fell in love with a girl whose parents disapproved and they ran away to be together. Sound familiar? I guarantee you have not heard this love story, which as the newspapers put it at the time, as unique a romance as ever a pair of young lovers engaged in. And for once, the newspapers were not exaggerating. You will laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to bang your head against the nearest wall when you hear the story. That's in tonight's sudden death overtime content which you will only find in the Weird Darkness podcast. But coming up first, we've all gone to the bathroom or the kitchen sink for a drink of water. You ever had a sip of that water and suddenly one day it just tastes a bit off? Well, in those cases, that's nothing to worry about. Something innocuous has seeped into the waterline but it's harmless, it disappears quickly. But then there are times it's something to worry about. Like when you are unwittingly drinking the liquefied remains of a corpse. We begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. If you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite somebody else to listen in with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter and visit WeirdDarkness.com to find the daily Weird Darkness podcast. Watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free. Listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated. Send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, fold your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Water is the essence of life. Approximately 60% of the human body is made up of water. A person can only survive three or four days without water. Today we have the convenience of buying bottled water or getting it from the tap at home. Sure, we know what's in our water when it comes with a label, but what about when it doesn't? In 2015, residents of the Grand Chapulutepic Apartments in Mexico City, Mexico noticed something odd about their water. They were getting it from their faucets and it had an unusual taste. They complained to officials who then had city workers inspect a large water tank that supplies the water for the area. They found the problem. A body had been dumped into the tank and had traveled from the main tank and into a smaller filtration tank. The body was completely putrified. According to the medical examiner, she was basically soup. Fortunately for the victim, she had had some plastic surgery in her past. Implants are coated with individual serial numbers which led investigators to adopt her. He was able to identify her as 27-year-old Carmen Esparza. Carmen had been studying psychology in Cancun, but relocated to Mexico City where she pursued a career in acting. She supported herself with two jobs, one as a personal assistant and another in a restaurant. Her apartment in the Cuantamoc neighborhood was paid for by her boyfriend, a wealthy businessman whom she broke up with after meeting a wealthy lawyer. Just one week before she was set to move out of the apartment, she disappeared. When she went missing in February 2014, friends and family contacted authorities, filing a missing person report they turned to social media, campaigning to try and find her. They posted photos of her on the streets with the hope that someone would recognize her. They feared the worst as a human trafficking ring was growing in that part of the city. A friend, Javier Paz, told the Daily Mail newspaper she was a talented and beautiful woman who dreamed of being an actress. When she failed to turn up at the clinic where she worked, we all thought that she might have been kidnapped and sold off into the sex trafficking industry, but it seems that her body was back in her apartment block the whole time. Carmen wasn't the first to be found inside of a water tank. There's also the story of Canadian student Elisa Lam, which gained internet notoriety for the sheer bizarreness of the true events that unfolded. Ms. Lam had disappeared while on a trip to Los Angeles, only to be found almost three weeks later in the water tank atop the Cecil Hotel after hotel guests had complained about tainted water. Elisa Lam was the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong and a student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She, like so many, suffered with bipolar disorder and depression. She was on four different types of medication, well, buterin, lamectol, cerakwell, and afexor. She kept a blog named Ather Fields on Blogspot and used it from 2010 until 2012, posting pictures of fashion models as well as writing about her life and her struggle with mental illness. In January 2012, she lamented that she had a relapse, forcing her to drop several classes at university and leaving her so utterly directionless and lost. She worried that her school transcript would look suspicious with the withdrawals and she feared it would leave her unable to attend graduate school. Abandoning her original blog, she moved to Tumblr where she continued posting about fashion, quotes, and a few posts written by herself as she dealt with this difficult time in her life. Elisa took a trip to the United States, calling her parents every day so they wouldn't worry. She visited the San Diego Zoo, even posting pictures on her social media accounts. On January 26, 2013, she arrived in Los Angeles and after two days checked into the Cecil Hotel. Originally assigned to share a room on the fifth floor, she was later moved to a room of her own after her roommates complained about her odd behavior. On January 31, the day she was supposed to check out of the hotel, she failed to contact her parents. When her family didn't hear from her, they called the Los Angeles Police and then flew to Los Angeles to help with the search. Staff at the Cecil Hotel said that they had seen her on January 31 and that she was alone. The manager of a bookstore nearby, Katie Orphin, said she had also seen Elisa that day. Having met her while she was purchasing gifts for her family, Katie recalled she was outgoing, very lively, very friendly. She was talking about what book she was getting and whether or not what she was getting would be too heavy for her to carry around as she traveled. Police searched Elisa's room, had dogs go through the building, and even up to the rooftop, but they turned up no trace of her. By February 6, with still no sign of her, the LAPD had flyers with her image on them posted in the neighborhood and online. On February 14, two weeks after she disappeared, the LAPD released a video showing the last known sighting of Elisa Lam, taken in one of the Cecil's elevators by a video surveillance camera on February 1. The video drew worldwide attention to the case. Elisa's behavior was very odd and has since been extensively analyzed and scrutinized by professionals and amateurs alike. In the clip, the camera at one of the rear corners of the elevator looks down from the ceiling, showing not only the interior of the elevator, but a partial view of the outside hallway. The video is grainy and the timestamp is obscured, but you can clearly see Elisa. Elisa Lam enters the elevator in a red hooded sweatshirt, zipped up over a gray t-shirt with black shorts and sandals. She enters from the left and goes straight to the elevator controls, selects several floors, and then steps back to the corner. The door fails to close, and after a few seconds she steps up two feet, leans out and looks both directions before stepping back in. The door still remains open. Elisa walks to the door again and stands in the doorway leaning on the side before stepping out into the hall. To her side, back in, looking to the side, then back out. She steps sideways again, and for a few seconds she is mostly unseen behind the wall she has her back to just outside. The whole time, the door remains open. You can then see her right arm go up to her head. Then she turns and re-enters the elevator, putting both hands on the side of the door. She goes back to the controls, presses several buttons, and returns back to the wall, putting both hands over her ears. The door still remains open. She turns to her right and rubs her forearms together, then waves her hands out to her sides with palms flat and fingers outstretched, while bowing forward just slightly and rocking gently. When she backs to the wall again and walks away to the left, the door finally closes. There are several theories as to what was really happening. One, Elisa was trying to get the elevator door to close in order to escape someone pursuing her. Two, Elisa was under the influence of ecstasy or some other party drug. Three, Elisa was having a psychotic episode. Four, some claimed the video had been intentionally tampered with, intentionally obscuring the timestamp, slowing parts down, and even removing nearly a minute of footage. They believed this was all done in order to protect the identity of someone who may have been involved in Elisa's disappearance. While police searched for Elisa Lam, guests at the Cecil Hotel began to complain about low water pressure. Water from faucets was brown or black. It had an unusual taste. On February 19th, they discovered Elisa Lam's body inside one of the four 1,000 gallon tanks that provided water to guest rooms, a kitchen and a coffee shop. The tank had to be drained and cut open in order to remove Elisa's body. The maintenance hatch was small, too small for even someone as little as Elisa to get in, let alone the equipment needed to remove her body. On February 21st, the Los Angeles Coroner's Office issued a statement. Elisa Lam had died of accidental drowning, with her bipolar disorder as a significant factor. Their official report, released in June, stated that her body had been found naked. Clothing similar to what she had had on in the elevator video, was floating in the water and covered with a sand-like particulate. Her watch and room key were also recovered with her body. Elisa Lam's body was moderately decomposed and bloated. Her skin was mostly greenish and separation evident, with some marbling on her abdomen. There was no evidence of physical trauma, sexual assault or suicide. Toxicology tests were incomplete and inconclusive as not enough of her blood was preserved or available for testing. What they did find was traces consistent with her prescription medication, as was found with her belongings, as well as some non-prescription drugs such as Sinutab and Ibuprofen. She also had a blood alcohol level of 0.02%, but no sign of recreational drugs. With doors and stairs that accessed the hotel roof locked, where only staff had the pass codes and keys, how did Elisa get up there? In addition, each tank was a 4x8-foot cylinder propped up by concrete blocks. There was no fixed access point to them. Even hotel workers had to use a ladder to see inside. They were also protected by heavy lids that would be more than difficult to replace from within. Since her death, her Tumblr blog was updated, which is assumed to have been through Tumblr's Q option, which allowed posts to automatically publish themselves when a user was away. Her phone was never found, and it speculated that perhaps continued updates were facilitated by someone who had stolen her phone or perhaps a hacker. Now is the time to ask yourself, is drinking corpse water all that bad? Actually, according to a scientist in the field of forensic science, it isn't. In the cases of Carmen Esparza and Elisa Lam, their bodies had reached the stage of active decay. Active decay is characterized as being the period of greatest mass loss, which means that the body had been overtaken by billions and trillions of bacteria, resulting in the purge of decomposition fluids into the surrounding environment, or in this case, the water. Fortunately for us, the filtration process the water underwent before reaching the tap likely killed off a lot of the bacteria. Chlorine is added to water supplies to do just that. The next line of defense is the human stomach. Stomach secretions are made up of hydrochloric acid, which not only helps the body break down, digest and absorb nutrients, but it also works to eliminate bacteria and viruses. According to the Daily Beast, it is suggested that the worst-case scenario biologically from drinking corpse water is that you would vomit and not feel well for a few days, similar to the effects of mild food poisoning. For the record, we here at Weird Darkness do not recommend drinking corpse water. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There I have gathered numerous free resources to help you fight depression, including the Seven Cups app, the suicide prevention lifeline, ifred.org and more. These resources are absolutely free and they are there when you need them on the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. He has been spotted all over the world, but photographic evidence is lacking, as is any scientific proof, but he still exists and is still seen. And now, you can search for Bigfoot every month in the Find Bigfoot calendar by Timothy Wayne Williams. Each month, you'll be captivated by an original Timothy Wayne Williams painting, beautiful and captivating, but within each painting hides a monster. Bigfoot is hiding somewhere in each painting. Search for Bigfoot and invite others to do so as well with the new Find Bigfoot calendar available now at WeirdDarkness.com slash Bigfoot. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Bigfoot. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Let's check into the dark line. This is David from Sarasota, Florida, where my grandma lived and where I grew up, basically, from when I was seven to like 21. There's a house behind her is that me and my mom and my aunt lived in for probably two weeks. And the reason I say two weeks is because that house was, in fact, super haunted. I was pretty young. I don't remember everything that happened, but the story is that my mom's told me and people that were living there told me. I would always, I sleep in the back room and I would always play with my toys and my mom, before we would go anywhere, would tell me, all right, pick everything up, put them in the bin. I would do so. She would watch me do so. And then we'd go to leave. She'd go check the house, go check my and then boom, all my toys scattered on the floor. Every single time I would pick them all up. And then I'd get yelled at about not putting them away. And I would tell her, I put all my toys away. And, you know, like for a giant toy box to basically have every single toy out of it, even though I didn't even have every toy out of it when I was playing with the toys, it made it scared me a little bit. I was a kid. I was just like, I don't know what my toys are doing there. I don't know. And so my mom would just help me clean it up. We'd leave toys would be back on the floor. I'd get yelled at a little bit by it, but she wouldn't know what did it or if I was doing it. And like I said before, my other stories that I've sent in, my mom has had some really scary things happen to her when she was younger with the Ouija board and all types of things. And so anyways, we're in this house. And I guess the reason why we moved out is because my mom kept hearing her name being called like as if my two brothers, which are just about one of my brothers, 10 years older than the other ones, like eight, she would hear them like calling her name all the time in different rooms. And they would not be there. And the last time she was in the shower and she heard my brother Jason calling for help like, mom, help me, come here, please, come here, help me, help me, help me, please, mom, crystal, crystal. And he kept calling her by her name, actually crystal, she said, instead of mom, but it sounded just like my brother. So she hurry up, got out the shower, went and looked in every single room was yelling to my brother's name. My brother wasn't there. She called my brother. Where are you? I'm at my friend's house, blah, blah, blah, in the neighborhood. Why, what's wrong? We left that house after that happened to my mom and she didn't tell me that story until I was a little bit older. My mom believes that there was something more than just a spirit there for it to be calling her name and sounding like my brother. So vividly where she got so scared where she brushed out of the shower, soaking wet, looking for my brother, thinking he's like dying. And yeah, that scared her half to death. And we moved out of the house and as a kid out to other people move in, there's some older people out asking, Hey, anything going on weird around the house? And every time I'd ask the old guy, he would look at me with this mean face and then go inside right after every single time that we would jump on our trampoline and ask him, Hey, I used to live there. Anything weird? And every time he'd see us, he would just ignore us with a mean face and go back inside and through a lot of crazy paranormal stuff. But I don't think any demons or ghosts even want to mess with this guy right here. All right, guys, I'll see you later. And I hope every single one of you guys have a great day. Thanks, David. I hope you have a great day too. If you got a true paranormal or creepy story to share of your own, well, you can do the same thing David did. You can call the dark line toll free at 1-877-277-5944. That's 1-877-277-5944. Desolate vistas. Noxious gas. People sinking into the ground. Now, this isn't a description of a scene from a horror film. It's everyday life in Centralia, Pennsylvania. A creepy abandoned town that's been on fire since 1962. There aren't escaped mental patients roaming the streets of this abandoned coal mining town, but that doesn't make it any less of a creepy tourist destination. Past the barricades set up to keep people from driving down a collapsing road and the random spurts of lethal smoke that can seriously harm if inhaled, there is an empty town that was once home to thousands of people whose only sin was living in a town built on top of a coal mine. If Centralia, Pennsylvania seems familiar, that's because it was the basis for the design of Silent Hill, a psychological horror game based around the mysterious happenings in a desolate town. Thanks to a fire still raging below the town, Centralia has become the very essence of a ghost town. Empty, creepy, and dangerous to those still living. How long can an underground fire really burn? Apparently, basically forever. The fire under the town has been burning since 1962 and shows no signs of stopping. Route 61, the abandoned highway that leads to the town, is where most of the fire seems to still be burning. Horrifyingly, most of the warning signs have now disappeared from the area. One of the few things that still exists to warn travelers about the fire is a tree with a sign that simply says, fire. As of weird Pennsylvania's visit to Centralia, the temperature 30 feet below the surface registered at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Even before reaching Centralia proper, one of the main dangers on the road is a caution to watch out for smoke. Every crack and hole in the ground is just another spot where noxious fumes can escape, creating a very real danger of possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Before it was consumed by a raging underground fire, Centralia's maximum population was only 2761. That's basically a flood of people, though, compared to the 10 residents that were listed on the U.S. Census in 2010. Even fewer people live there now, with a reported seven residents in 2013, and it's likely that even that minuscule number has dipped further over time. Also of note, sitting just two blocks north of Route 42 in Centralia is the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church, which still holds weekly services on Sunday and supposedly hasn't been directly affected by the fire. In addition to sitting on top of a roaring 1000-degree fire, Centralia might also be haunted. Some visitors to the town have noted that a ghostly voice haunts the streets. Possibly the disturbed souls of those departed, buried in the three cemeteries in Centralia, who cannot rest knowing the town they grew up in, worked in, lived in, and loved, is now gone. Lost to fire and the incompetence of those who could have stopped it from taking the town and their final resting place from them. There's the story posted on a bulletin board a few years ago of Ruth Ederson who visited in the fall of 1998. Ruth and her friends swore they saw a couple of people walking out of the smoke who appeared to be wearing mining helmets. The two figures walked up out of the large subsidence hole behind the graveyards and dematerialized like the smoke rising out of the same hole. Scott Saylor of Maze Landing, New Jersey wrote in an email, I visited Centralia last weekend with a couple of friends and I thought I might share a very weird experience I had while exploring the town. We were there for about an hour and a half and we were checking out the interesting locations that I heard about like the burning hillside, the crack and Route 61 and the streets without homes. We were in the area next to an old cemetery on the east side of the town, east of Route 61. We had just checked out the old tombstones and were getting a whiff of smoke from the east of that so we walked down the old gravel road to look around. We found a slag covered hillside with steam coming out of it and were pretty fascinated by some fossils we found when we heard what sounded like a voice saying something inaudible from down below where we were. All three of us heard it. We figured it was someone else checking out the area too so we sort of ignored it. Then we heard it again a little more clearly. A few words and it sort of sounded like, leave this place. At that moment the hill we were standing on started steaming more than a few moments before and it really stunk like rotten eggs, sulfur I guess. Well it sort of spooked us so we figured we better head back to the car. As we were walking back in the area of the cemetery we heard it again, not the same words and not clear but something like, why, why did you do that? What was even weirder was that it wasn't like someone was yelling it out of the bushes, it was quiet and kind of closer and we couldn't figure out the direction it was coming from. Too weird. We got back to our car and didn't see any other cars or people the whole time we were there. We left and weren't sure what to make of it. We really weren't sure we wanted to even talk about it. All I know is I'm not going back. When I got home I found out that the area where we were walking was near the location that was where the fire started, across from the cemetery. I just thought I'd let you know about it, something is not right about that place. We'll return to talking about Centralia, Pennsylvania, the inspiration for Silent Hill coming up in just a moment. If you're looking for Weird Darkness merchandise you can find it in the Weird Darkness store and no matter what you buy, 100% of the profits I receive from the store are donated to organizations that help people who struggle with depression. You can search through all the merchandise by clicking on store at WeirdDarkness.com. Hey Weirdos, our January Weirdo Watch Party brings to sci-fi holder host Juke Suha back with another cheesy sci-fi flick, 1953's The Twonky. The last thing college lit professor Kerry West wants while his wife is out of town is a television set to keep him company, but that's just what his wife Carol and his bought for him and the television is alive. Possessed by something from the future, the TV is militantly intent on regulating the professor's daily life. The Weirdo Watch Party is always free to watch online with all of us, so grab your popcorn, your candy, your soda, jump into some fun and even get involved in the live chat if you want to and watch the movie along with a fun sci-fi horror host. It's The Twonky from 1953, presented by Juke Suha. The Weirdo Watch Party is Saturday, January 7th, starting at 7pm Pacific, 8pm Mountain, 9pm Central, 10pm Eastern. You can see a trailer for the film and watch horror movies and horror hosts for free 24-7 on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. Again, our January Weirdo Watch Party, Saturday, January 7th. Get the details on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. We continue talking about Centralia, Pennsylvania, the perpetually burning town. Whether these stories have any validity or alternate explanations is difficult to say. Sometimes people see what they want to see. Some folks believe they are more open to these types of experiences. In the end, everyone believes what they want to believe. Some believe Centralia is haunted. For some, that's what draws them there. For others, it is the reason to never visit in the first place. Even though the fire under Centralia has been raging since 1962, it doesn't show any signs of slowing down. According to the Smithsonian, the underground fire has actually been growing by about 75 feet a year across four different directions. The fire is most evident along the St. Ignatius Cemetery. The citizens of Mount Carmel are actually worried that at some point the fire will reach them and that they'll fall into a sinkhole. But researchers who have been watching the fire closely doubt that's going to happen. Geologist Gary Greenfield says, I don't think neighboring towns will become another Centralia, at least not right away. On Valentine's Day 1981, a 12-year-old boy was swallowed up while playing with his cousin in their grandmother's backyard. The sinkhole opened slowly, but that doesn't mean it wasn't dangerous. According to reports, the boy slowly slid through steam-warmed mud until he was six feet below ground level in a carbon monoxide-filled hole. If he'd been playing alone, he certainly would have perished. Not only does Centralia serve as the influence for Silent Hill, but it could very easily double for the gateway to hell in a pinch. The local police make sure to let people know that spray painting the highway will earn them a misdemeanor, but what does that really matter when the rest of the town is spewing brimstone? The catalyst for the underground fire is a subject of intense debate, but most people believe that it was a spark from a burning landfill that spread to Centralia's rich coal deposits, which started the never-ending blaze. The coal mine, once a figurative gold mine for the city of Centralia and its inhabitants, was ultimately the town's undoing. As noxious fumes escaped from the sidewalk, the ground began to cave in and swallow pieces of the city and the surrounding area, and anyone who stuck around was likely to asphyxiate on the fumes that hung around the town. The fumes of Centralia's underground fire didn't just destroy the roads and homes. The carbon monoxide also managed to taint the vegetation around the town. It turned the town into an eerie wasteland where nothing seems to be living, but rather hovering just at the point of demise. Route 61, the four-lane highway that leads into the town, was finally shuttered in the 90s after the ground began to crack open and sinkholes destroyed any possibility of the road being useful. In fact, the closer you come to the city, the worse the road gets. People who happen to be in the vicinity are warned to keep watch of their children at all times in case a sinkhole opens in the road. Due to the constant release of noxious fumes into the air, it is very possible to asphyxiate due to smoke inhalation, even if you are outside. The most likely cause of suffocation in Centralia is a random release of smoke or gas that strikes without warning and fills your lungs before you can take refuge. In 1981, after a 12-year-old boy was almost swallowed by a sinkhole in his grandmother's backyard, Centralia's mayor collapsed in an apartment above a gas station that he owned and operated. Even though he was on the second story of a building, he had become overcome by fumes that managed to work their way up to his home through a vent pipe in the building. Even though noxious gases have almost completely destroyed the vegetation and wildlife surrounding Centralia, nature always finds a way to come back. Route 61, the highway that leads to the township, is full of fissures that are filling with new foliage that seems like it is sprouting directly from hell. If this whole underground minefire thing seems a little suspicious to you, then you may be happy to know that you are not alone. There is a large group of conspiracy theorists who believe that the government and private corporations used the minefire as a way to grab the land at a low price. Many of Centralia's residents believe that the firefighting methods used on the underground blaze were purposely ineffective and that they were given no choice but to leave their homes. The Centralia conspiracy goes something like this. After the minefire began in 1962, various government agencies, along with private businesses, conspired to get at the valuable anthracite coal under the town. By using ineffective firefighting methods, Centralia PA's residents were eventually forced into a position where they had no choice but to leave their homes. At first, state and federal governments made relocation a voluntary choice. However, some residents ultimately refused to leave. They stood between the government and the coal. As a result, the power of eminent domain was used to take the last remaining properties and evict more residents. Indeed, the Centralia conspiracy theory was used as part of the last remaining residents' defense arguments. They attempted to convince a judge that the government's use of eminent domain was illegal and should be nullified. While they were unsuccessful in proving a conspiracy, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania agreed to settle and allowed the last residents to stay in 2013. The minefire conspiracy is certainly not baseless paranoia either. During the first few decades of the fire, a number of businesses and entrepreneurs proposed digging out the fire in exchange for the rights to mine the coal. Unlike other boroughs in Pennsylvania, Centralia actually owns the mining rights to the mineral rights under the town. It would have to give these up before anyone could take out the coal. In addition, the government's inaction to address the minefire problem in Centralia, Pennsylvania looks suspicious. When layered with the questionable use of eminent domain, there appears to be ample grounds to suggest a conspiracy. In his book, Fire Underground, David Dacog states that in all of his years researching the story of Centralia, he has yet to find a single hard piece of evidence proving that there was a government conspiracy to take the town's coal. The judge who presided over the Centralia eminent domain case apparently agreed too. The conspiracy theory has a number of other holes as well. While cheap, betuminous coal has remained a strong business, the demand for Pennsylvania's anthracite coal continues to decline. Why go through the trouble of moving the residents if the coal wasn't profitable? It is even questionable how much coal is left under the town. Reports vary. Some sources ascertain there are significant reserves, while many others suggest that the majority of the coal was mined out decades ago. In addition, while eminent domain transferred residents' properties to the state, the mineral rights are still held by the borough of Centralia. Regardless of the counterarguments, the conspiracy theory lives on today. People are drawn to conspiracy theories because sometimes the truth of a given situation simply defies logic. Could elected officials along with government agencies really be so uncaring, unthoughtful and inept as to let an entire town burn? Or was it really a willful act done with the hope of profiting at the people's expense? You beat the judge. In the meantime, enjoy playing your Silent Hill video game. What is it like to be a murderer, to commit the crime, to have the police examining every scene you've been to for clues in order to track you down? And what if other psychopathic murderers were also out to get you? For the true crime enthusiast, killers, the card game is full of mystery, intrigue and dark humor. Two to five players draw cards to reveal the victims and scenarios, with each kill bringing you closer to winning. But watch out, for the police are also in the game, following up on every clue to stop your murder spree. Roll the dice to determine if you leave evidence at the scene or if you avoid the police. Use your cards to mess with other players and emerge victorious or end up as a victim yourself. The back of the killer card deck also allows you to experience the cold facts, unique history and horror all fans of true crime love. The dark trivia will make your party both exciting and disturbingly entertaining for dark game night. Numerous expansion packs make this role-playing game even more delightfully deadly by adding more scenarios, more law enforcement, more victims and expand up to 10 players at once. Part RPG, part collectible, all card game. For ages 18 and up, gameplay includes sensitive topics. Killers the card game, available now at WeirdDarkness.com slash card game. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash card game. In the eyes of this ratchet jaw, I'm honored to have you listening. Maybe once in a while grab your CB, head to Sesame Street and tell other drivers how to join this weirdo convoy. Appreciate it. May your break checks be for you, your shutter trouble be absent, and your bare bites non-existent. Keep it cool on the stool. This is Spooky Santa and I'm 10 and on the side. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and 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 this hour, in the middle of the 20th century people across the United States called for the closure of mental asylums. Stories of horrific abuse emerged from asylums nationwide, but what happens when you forcibly shut down all of the asylums at once? America found out and it was not pleasant. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio says UFOs could pose a threat to national security. Could he be right or is he off his rocker? A girl is possessed by the spirit of her dead grandfather and he forces her to do penance for his wrongdoings. In this week's sudden death overtime, the murders of a 21-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl are found to be connected, but only after 30 years and there might possibly be a third victim connected as well. That's in this sudden death overtime this week which you can only find in the podcast. But first, different races were present on Earth in the distant past. We can't deny that, but some of the races were quite strange, a bit too strange to be believed. Are we trying to erase perhaps thousands of years in our history just because the facts don't fit into our history books? We begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. If you're already a member of this weirdo family, please take a moment and invite somebody else to listen in with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter and visit WeirdDarkness.com where you can find the daily Weird Darkness podcast, watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free, listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated to send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Ancient and prehistoric rock art found in thousands of places throughout the world undoubtedly had its purpose and meaning, even if it's difficult to interpret it and understand the intentions of ancient artists. Nevertheless, hours of observations are not needed to see our ancestors tried to convey an important message to future generations. Ancient civilizations used a variety of ways, myths, cave paintings, artifacts, and more to tell us about the world they lived in. Their story is intriguing and based on what we're about to find out, it's clear mysterious unknown beings walked the earth with humans. Who were they? Where did they come from and why were they so important to our ancestors? Unlocking the meaning and significance of these ancient images is a complex, problem-ridden task and in most cases it will always remain an open book. For no matter how refined the technology at our disposal becomes, we cannot enter the minds of the creators and thus we can never satisfactorily know what motivated them to produce art in stone. According to John Vincent Baleza, a great explorer, pilgrim, and the foremost specialist in the cultural history of Upper Tibet. Painted or carved on rock images represent a chronicle of daily life in the distant past, special events and habits of our ancestors and those who lived on earth but were not humans. Many ancient legends have been passed on through the ages orally and they too confirm those facts. Different races were present on earth in the distant past. Were some of these individuals visitors from other star systems or from our planet's mysterious subterranean realms? As mentioned in Genesis chapter 6 verse 4, the race of giants lived on earth in ancient times before Noah's flood. Also the second book of Samuel, chapter 21 verse 20, mentions a giant, a raphium, a man of great stature that had on every hand six fingers and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number and he also was born to the giant, described as having six toes and six fingers. Unearthed remains of giant people prove without any doubt that giants did live at the same time in the past. Also carvings on the granite walls depicting feet with six toes or hands with six fingers confirm the giant's very existence on earth. A gene of the giants is still present with us and it determines even today how many fingers and toes you have. Among Morani Indians from the Amazonian region of Ecuador, there are people with six fingers and six toes. They are not people of gigantic size but they demonstrate some typical physical characteristic of a giant race such as six toes, six fingers and even double dentition. The Jornada Magalan prehistoric Indian culture of which there are no known modern descendants today made thousands of rock carvings in the area of the three rivers New Mexico. Among them there is one depicting a hand with six fingers. The hand reaches toward the sky with a wavy design over it. A snake? The Milky Way? Celestial designs are to the right. Below is another hand with only five fingers, according to Nile Root, an expert on petroglyphs. Did the hand belong to a shaman or someone else considered to be a superman in the eyes of the ancients? Gods, pharaohs, goddesses and high priests and other important figures of pharyonic times were often depicted in the bob reliefs on the temple walls of stone buildings in ancient Egypt. One of such bob reliefs found on one of many decorated walls of the Egyptian temple depicts someone with six fingers holding some kind of pointing stick that probably was a kind of magic wand. Who was he? Was he a powerful Egyptian ruler? A priest or perhaps a magician holding an attribute of power in his hand? Was it a magical weapon similar to a magic cup? A thunder weapon possessed by Vep Kororoti? According to one legend, he used to demonstrate his power by raising his magical weapon and pointing it first at a tree and then at a stone and destroyed them both. Once upon a time, shining golden airships from a distant star system appeared in the sky. The ancient spacemen arrived in the area. They had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. The earth shook and thunder echoed over the hills. The strangers in the golden ships looked like humans with fine features, white skin, bluish black hair and thick beards. They, as if by magic, suspended the heaviest stones, flung lightning and melted rocks, says a remarkable story as told to a German photojournalist Carl Brueger in 1972. The story inspired Brueger to write a very controversial book entitled Chronicle of A Kekor published in 1976. Soon after, Carl Brueger was murdered. Was Brueger's mysterious death related to the secret knowledge of a Kekor he possessed? The ancestors of the present-day natives of Argentina and Peru came from the north. They were men of a white race. Today there are still a few survivors of these people and they are pure white. Their name is the Eurus of Lake Titicaca. They existed before the sun when the earth was still dark and cold. These mysterious beings claim that their ancestors were builders of Tiamonaco's civilization. The first inhabitants of the region had also six fingers. The legends reveal that they were not quite the same as men who came after the sun. Who were those mysterious Eurus people, keepers of secrets much older than Machu Picchu? The local Indians believed that their blood was black and they could neither be struck by lightning nor drown. They finally disappeared because they disobeyed the gods' orders and mixed with humans. According to the pictographic writings from the region of Tiamonaco some five million years ago, when there was as yet no humans on earth but only gigantic animals, a large and shiny spacecraft landed on the island of the sun in the middle of the lake Titicaca. Its crewmen represented a race of man-like beings with blood different from ours. They came to settle in the region of the lake. The purpose of their visitation was the insemination of human intelligence. Mungna was a female human-like being who stepped down from the spaceship. She resembled a woman from her breasts to her feet, but she was not of human origin. She had a conical head, long ears and webbed hands with only four fingers. As ancient records say, she was named Origena or Big Ears and came from Venus where the atmospheric conditions are not unlike those on earth but where water was abundant and to this kind of environment the mysterious female creature had her webbed feet. One day, having fulfilled her task, the alien female creature re-entered the spaceships and traveled to her home planet. Many legends of Central and South America mentioned white-skinned gods who came from across the ocean. There are also references to the first men living on Easter Island, the survivors of the world's first race who had shining bodies and huge ears, although their lobes were not stretched. Some other records mention mysterious early tribes, the long ears who were about 2.5 meters or 8 feet tall and had white skin and red hair. Later, following tradition, the Inca nobles had a custom of deforming their ear lobes by hanging heavy ornaments from them. It is worth mentioning that depictions of people with long ears can be found in the regions of East and South Pacific Ocean, Peru and India. An enigma surrounds this vanished white race of beings and their past on the planet earth. The legends say that they came by boat from a land that lies behind America. Did they arrive on earth from space and later moved in their boats to chosen destinations? They must have been present on earth a very long time ago, but the question is, when? Long ears individuals are depicted on many Bob reliefs on Angkor Wat. All ancient depictions of gods of Japan, India and China show mysterious long ears. So we ask, are we trying to erase perhaps thousands of years in our history? Just because the facts do not fit in our history books? Up next, in the middle of the 20th century, people across the United States called for the closure of mental asylums. Stories of horrific abuse emerged from asylums nationwide, but what happens when you forcibly shut down all of the mental asylums at once? America found out, and it was not pleasant. That story is up next, when Weird Darkness returns. Paranormal experiences, encountering extraterrestrials, extraordinary states of consciousness, spiritual phenomenon, encounters with non-human entities that can't be explained by science. These stories of what people have come across are ubiquitous here on Weird Darkness, and often those who have had these encounters choose to stay quiet and not even tell close friends or family out of fear of ridicule, and they suffer silently, trying to deal with the internal horror of what they've experienced. If I'm describing you or someone you know, there is now a place you can turn to for professional counseling from experts who, unlike others in their field, are open to the paranormal, supernatural and extraterrestrial experiences of others, and they're not there to explain away your experience, but to help you recover from it and move forward with living. I'm referring to the Opus Network. If you want to reach out for help or learn more, look for the Opus Network towards the bottom of the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. From the 1850s to the 1980s, large state-run psychiatric facilities housed most of America's citizens with mental illness. This practice began to change in the 1960s when legislation dismantled the state-run asylum system, replacing it with a community-based care policy that ultimately failed as well. Support for closing asylums and transitioning to community-based care facilities or outpatient treatment centers began to grow in the 1950s. By then, the public was aware of the issues with asylums. They were frequently overcrowded, and many patients experienced deplorable conditions. At the same time, several new psychiatric drugs became available. Doctors were able to sell politicians on the idea that these drugs would make it possible for previously institutionalized patients to live in the community. The research that led to deinstitutionalization began in the 1950s, but it wasn't until the 1960s that the federal and state governments passed laws which closed asylums en masse. The asylums were far from perfect. There were many cases of systematic mistreatment. One of the most horrifying examples was the Willowbrook State School in New York. Some institutions also practiced eugenics and sterilized patients. However, the facilities kept many people with mental illness off the streets, out of jail, and in relatively safe housing with access to treatment. The consequences of deinstitutionalization were not immediate. Many politicians were eager to save money by placing the responsibility of care onto communities and the federal government instead of the states. In the middle of the 20th century, people across the United States called for the closure of mental asylums. Stories of horrific abuse emerged from asylums nationwide, from the infamous Willowbrook State School in New York to the Topeka Insane Asylum in Kansas. Patients at certain asylums endured various forms of torture, including extended confinement and waterboarding, which was considered a cure at the time. Asylum administrators also often denied adequate food and clothing to their patients, and many facilities were understaffed. Though not every asylum mistreated patients, tragic stories upset the public, causing progressive groups to rail against the facilities. When mental institutions closed, many patients were unable to find work to support themselves and became homeless. Mental illness also frequently coincides with substance dependency, such as addictions to drugs, alcohol, or both. When patients were no longer looked after by a staff of nurses and doctors at a mental institution, they often turned to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate, which only worsened the effects of their mental illness and made it even more difficult to find a stable income in lifestyle. The problem, unfortunately, has not gotten much better. Today, about 20-25% of the homeless population suffers from a severe mental illness, and mental illness is the third largest cause of homelessness for single adults. When large mental asylums were still in use, the population of prisoners with mental illness was only about 1% in 1880. Once institutions began closing in the 1960s, the number started rising significantly. By the 1980s, around 10% of the imprisoned population suffered from severe mental illness. In 2012, New York Daily News dubbed the Los Angeles County Jail the largest de facto psychiatric inpatient facility in the U.S., with New York City's Rikers Island coming in second. The issue is that, for individuals with severe mental illness, prison is not the right solution. Placing them there puts an undue burden on law enforcement, who are not trained to handle patients with mental illness. Though the majority of people with mental illness are nonviolent, some incidents led to legislation requiring they get treatment. In 1999, a man named Andrew Goldstein pushed Kendra Webdale in front of a New York City subway train, killing her. He had failed to take his medication for diagnosed schizophrenia. After the incident, Kendra's law went into effect, which according to New York Daily News gave courts the power to compel the mentally ill to accept treatment as a condition of living in society. The law lets judges order the mental health system to treat those with severe mental illness. This potentially gives people access to mental health treatments. However, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union oppose Kendra's law and similar laws because this law unconstitutionally expands the circumstance under which the state may compel persons with neurobiological disorders to undergo treatments against his or her will. In 1963, John F. Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act. It essentially shifted the responsibility of caring for people with mental illness from the states to the federal government, which began to rely on community centers for patient care. The intention was to allow patients to remain at home and continue participating in society with community-based care rather than via large institutions. It was an idealistic plan requiring a lot of follow-through by the federal government. Kennedy's assassination occurred less than a month after he signed the bill. The community programs never received stable funding and people widely deemed the legislation a failure. In the 1950s and 60s, psychiatrists pushed community care for people with mental illness. Many psychiatrists realized moving away from or reforming the existing systems could prove too difficult, so a community-based option seemed practical. Decades later, those who composed the legislation readily admitted the plan had numerous flaws. According to Dr. John A. Talbot, president of the American Psychiatric Association, the psychiatrists involved in the policymaking at that time certainly oversold community treatment and our credibility today is probably damaged because of it. The legislation ordered the opening of community-run mental health centers but psychiatrists recognized the lack of local resources to assume this responsibility, especially when state hospitals discharged patients quickly and unexpectedly. However, despite a lack of faith in the program, officials passed the Community Mental Health Act in 1963. Until the 1850s, people with mental illness in the United States were mostly on the streets and in jail cells. Facilities built throughout the following century provided many of them with a place to live, though the system was far from ideal. Today, the living conditions for Americans who need treatment are often shockingly similar to those preceding the 1850s, with many left homeless or in prison. When psychiatric facilities began to close, they left behind crumbling buildings. Some structures turned into schools or new hospitals, but many remain unused. The decaying buildings inspired many urban legends, such as the Cropsey story in Staten Island, New York. Kids told tales of an escaped patient from the closed Willowbrook School living in tunnels beneath the buildings. Cropsey supposedly kidnapped neighborhood kids. The stories held a grain of truth. In the 1980s, children went missing on Staten Island. The courts convicted a former orderly at Willowbrook named Andre Rand in several kidnapping cases, most involving children with mental disabilities. He camped in the woods around Willowbrook with former patients. He was a former employee at Willowbrook, as he was employed as a custodian there when it was an operation. I actually featured his story in an episode of Weird Darkness some time back. I'll place a link to that in the show notes. Up next, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio says that UFOs could pose a threat to national security. We'll find out if he could be right or maybe if he's off his rocker. But first, let's check into the dark line and see who left us a message. My name is Frances Johnson-Garner and I have a little short story, true story. One day I was cleaning the master bath in my new house and just as I was bending down to do a last brush before flush, I heard the family name Bynog being whispered in my right ear. I haven't thought about this name or heard it in decades. Well, this was no one but my daddy. He's been gone since 2008 and I sure miss him. Thank you, Darren. Appreciate it. Bye-bye. Do you have a true paranormal story that's happened to you or somebody you know? You can share it by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. Or you can call the dark line just like Frances Johnson just did. You can call it toll-free at 1-877-277-5944. That's 1-877-277-5944. I might use your story in a future episode. The chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee says the Pentagon and the public need to know more, not less about UFOs. In 2020, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is one of several lawmakers to have received closed-door briefings from military officials about unknown objects flying in restricted airspace. Rubio is unaware of the existence of a secret Pentagon study of UFOs or UAPs until the New York Times and Politico reported about ATIP, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a multi-agency effort created to share information about UFO incidents involving military personnel or facilities. The December 2017 news report was accompanied by the released videos recorded by U.S. Navy pilots. One video, the so-called tic-tac, was recorded off the coast of Southern California in 2004. The two other videos, dubbed Gimbal and Go Fast, were recorded in 2015 by Navy pilots operating in waters off Florida, Rubio's home state. The news stories set off an international wake of additional media coverage and prompted congressional members and senior staffers to ask for closed-door briefings. Staffers and elected members of the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees have received multiple briefings, which included face-to-face meetings with military pilots and officials, along with statements from scientists who have worked as consultants to government-funded research programs. Rubio, who became Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 and Vice Chairman Senator Mark Warner, have both publicly acknowledged the briefings, but have said little about what was discussed at the time of this episode's recording. The three UFO videos were first released by the Pentagon at the request of former Intelligence Officer Lou Elizondo, who managed the A-Tip program from 2010 until he left the military in 2017. Military officials subsequently re-released the videos in 2020. Elizondo told Mystery Wire there are many other videos recorded by military personnel, but those have not yet been made public. A-Tip grew out of a larger program, AUSAP, or Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Applications Program, which was initiated in 2007 by Nevada Senator Harry Reid and two of the senior colleagues, Senators Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens. AUSAP became operational in 2008 when the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, signed a contract with a Las Vegas-based company, BAS, a subsidiary of Bigelow Aerospace. $22 million was allocated to the BAS effort, which investigated UFOs as well as a much broader range of related phenomena. When the funding for AUSAP was siphoned away by other Pentagon programs, the program, renamed A-Tip, continued but with a smaller focus. In the nearly three years since the existence of A-Tip and AUSAP were revealed, Pentagon spokespersons have continued to issue contradictory statements about the military study of UAPs. The Pentagon has both confirmed and denied that A-Tip studied UFOs or UAPs. There have also been conflicting statements about Lou Elizondo's role with those programs. Members of Congress, along with journalists and the public, have been eager to clear up the inconsistencies and to find out what the military has learned about UFOs and UAPs. Elizondo is among several former A-Tip and AUSAP personnel who have met with members of Congress and committee staff. Senator Marco Rubio has taken a leading role in trying to understand the extent of UAP incursions into American airspace, whether these appearances constitute a threat to national security and aviation safety, and whether foreign adversaries may have leapfrogged American technological superiority. In a new and exclusive interview, Senator Rubio talked about the Pentagon needing to get to the bottom of who or what is operating the mystery craft. The American public deserves to know as much as possible about it, Senator Rubio said while speaking with next-star reporter Kelly Myers for Mystery Wire. And we shouldn't allow the stigma associated with the term UFO to keep us from trying to answer that question at the end of the day. These are things that are potentially endangering our national security and could cause an accident, you know, in terms of crashing into something that's up there. So I don't know what they are and that's the problem. Since the briefings given to senators and their senior staff, Senator Rubio's Intelligence Committee has promoted an ongoing UFO study by the Pentagon that, according to the senator, has bipartisan support. I think it's certainly not a partisan issue. I think there's different levels of interest in it. Look, I mean, the stigma, it starts out with the fact that a lot of pilots for a long time wouldn't even report on these things because they were told not to. You need to go see the, you know, the flight surgeon to check your head. So people just decided, oh, you know, they're going to think I'm crazy, I'm not going to report on it. I think some of that seeps into the politics and no one ever wants to be accused of being a person that's out there sort of chasing these things that have been the realm of science fiction for such a long time. Senator Rubio went on to explain specifically why the UFO question needs to be asked and studied. I remind everybody, I want you to put aside all that stuff that people talk about extraterrestrials and all that. This is a very simple equation for me. There are things flying over our military installations. We don't know what they are or where they're from. We don't know if it's some other country what's doing it and we need to know the answer to that question. Simple. That's what it's about. I'm not going to speculate about what it is. I'm not going to try to guess. I'm not going to fall into all these traps and conspiracy theories. We just need to know the answer to that question. Up next on Weird Darkness, a girl is possessed by the spirit of her dead grandfather and he forces her to pay for his sins. That story is up next. Imagine what kind of neighborhood you'd live in if everyone just once a week paid for the car behind them in the drive-thru. That's what Weird Darkness' scare it forward is all about. Want to join in on the fun? Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash scare it forward to print out free flyers to give to the drive-through attendant that they can give to the guy behind you. It explains it all so you don't have to. Then the next time you're grabbing fast food, coffee, or donuts in the drive-through, just give the flyer to the drive-through worker and say, you want to pay for the car behind you. Maybe the car behind you will pass on the generosity to the car behind them. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash scare it forward to get started. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash scare it forward. In November 1565, a married, teenaged girl named Nicole Aubrey began experiencing physical torments that she claimed had been brought on by a vision of her dead grandfather. A native of Vervence, France, the 15-year-old Nicole had become so sick that she could not eat and reportedly went into such contortions that, as one eyewitness would later describe, 12 or 15 men were needed to hold her down. She also spoke in a gruff and frightening voice and claimed that the spirit of her grandfather was possessing her. The grandfather told her that he had died without confessing and instructed Nicole and her family to carry out various penances as a result. Despite the family doing what was requested, the possession continued. Nicole's family arranged for a Dominican priest, Pierre de la Motte, to exercise her. Through repeated exorcisms, de la Motte managed to get the possessing spirit to confess that it was a devil rather than an angel. Nicole's possession became worse and she became deaf, blind and mute to make her unable to take communion. Also, the chief devil possessing her reportedly invited numerous other devils to come in to possess her body as well. According to reports, de la Motte drove out 28 of the demons possessing Nicole, after which they fled to Geneva, which was the center of the Calvinist movement at the time. The chief demon possessing her, who named himself Beelzebub, the prince of the Huguenots – Huguenots were French Protestants – insisted that no one less than the Bishop of Lyon could drive him out. When Bishop Jean de Boers arrived in Vervenz in January 1566 to do an exorcism, he was no more successful than the other priests. The case quickly took on political dimensions, with the local Huguenots insisting that the entire possession story was a hoax and attempted to have the exorcisms stopped. They had good reason for their skepticism, considering the Beelzebub was accusing them of consorting with Satan. Largely for her own protection, Nicole was transferred to Lyon, where she was subjected to a series of public exorcisms which took on all the pomp of a religious pageant. Each day, Nicole was taken from the convent where she was staying in a great religious procession to the majestic Cathedral Notre Dame de Lyon, where she mounted a specially constructed scaffold. There, before a large audience, the exorcist would order Prince Beelzebub to speak, and Nicole would dutifully deliver a sermon on the evils that the Protestants would inflict on France's Catholics. The content was little different from the anti-Huguenots sermons that priests and bishops across the country were delivering on a daily basis. That a demon, one of Satan's fallen, was telling the Catholics who were listening, but they largely wanted to believe about their Huguenot neighbors seemed guaranteed to boost religious tensions. Among other things, Prince Beelzebub told his listeners that local Huguenots had stolen a communion wafer, cut it up, and burned the pieces. Beelzebub also boasted that I with my obstinate Huguenots will do him, Christ, more evil than the Jews did. We're running short on time, so unfortunately I can't share the rest of this story here in the radio show, but in tonight's Sudden Death Overtime in the podcast, you will be able to hear the rest of the possession of Nicole Aubrey. Also in tonight's Sudden Death Overtime, I've got the murders of a 21-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl who were found to be connected, but only after 30 years, and there might possibly be a third victim connected as well. Both of those stories in the Sudden Death Overtime tonight. The radio show is only on the weekends here. I upload episodes for the podcast seven nights per week. You can subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com or just search for Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter at Weird Darkness. And please, tell others about the show who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And if you'd like to be a part of the show, you can call in to the dark line toll-free to tell your own true paranormal story or a story that's happened to somebody you know. That number is 1-877-277-5944. Again, that toll-free number is 1-877-277-5944. You can also email me anytime at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions, copyright Weird Darkness 2022. And a final thought for you, don't compare your progress with that of others. We all need our own time to travel our own distance. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. In November 1565, a married teenage girl named Nicole Aubrey began experiencing physical torments that she claimed had been brought on by a vision of her dead grandfather. A native of Vervence, France, the 15-year-old Nicole had become so sick that she could not eat and reportedly went into such contortions that, as one eyewitness would later describe, 12 or 15 men were needed to hold her down. She also spoke in a gruff and frightening voice and claimed that the spirit of her grandfather was possessing her. The grandfather told her that he had died without confessing and instructed Nicole and her family to carry out various penances as a result. Despite the family doing what was requested, the possession continued. Nicole's family arranged for a Dominican priest, Pierre de la Motte, to exercise her. Through repeated exorcisms, de la Motte managed to get the possessing spirit to confess that it was a devil rather than an angel. Nicole's possession became worse and she became deaf, blind and mute to make her unable to take communion. Also, the chief devil possessing her reportedly invited numerous other devils to come in to possess her body as well. According to reports, de la Motte drove out 28 of the demons possessing Nicole, after which they fled to Geneva, which was the center of the Calvinist movement at the time. The chief demon possessing her, who named himself Beelzebub, the Prince of the Huguenots – Huguenots were French Protestants – insisted that no one less than the Bishop of Lyon could drive him out. When Bishop Jean de Boers arrived in Vervins in January 1566 to do an exorcism, he was no more successful than the other priests. The case quickly took on political dimensions with the local Huguenots insisting that the entire possession story was a hoax and attempted to have the exorcisms stopped. They had good reason for their skepticism, considering the Beelzebub was accusing them of consorting with Satan. Largely for her own protection, Nicole was transferred to Lyon, where she was subjected to a series of public exorcisms which took on all the pomp of a religious pageant. Each day, Nicole was taken from the convent where she was staying in a great religious procession to the majestic Cathedral Notre Dame de Lyon where she mounted a specially constructed scaffold. There, before a large audience, the exorcist would order Prince Beelzebub to speak and Nicole would dutifully deliver a sermon on the evils that the Protestants would inflict on France's Catholics. The content was little different from the Huguenot sermons that priests and bishops across the country were delivering on a daily basis. That a demon, one of Satan's fallen, was telling the Catholics who were listening, but they largely wanted to believe about their Huguenot neighbors seemed guaranteed to boost religious tensions. Among other things, Prince Beelzebub told his listeners that local Huguenots had stolen a communion wafer, cut it up, and burned the pieces. Beelzebub also boasted that I with my obstinate Huguenots will do him, Christ, more evil than the Jews did. According to one Catholic chronicler describing Nicole Arbery's public exorcisms, the Catholics in great joy gave thanks to God, being more confirmed in their faith. While some Huguenots returned to the way of salvation, others became more and more stubborn mocking the entire proceeding thing. That Huguenots continued to insist that the entire spectacle was a hoax perpetrated by the church using a gullible young girl did nothing to ease tensions. On February 8th, 1566, the miracle of Leon occurred when the Bishop of Leon held up a communion wafer and drove out the last of the demons from Nicole's body. Nothing more seems to have been recorded about Nicole, and she faded into obscurity afterward. The Leon miracle helped reinforce anti-pronestine attitudes with Catholic clergy spreading the word across Europe to become one of the rallying points of the Counter-Reformation. It also played an important role in the religious holy wars that racked France during the 16th century. That included the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in August 1572 in which thousands of Huguenots were killed. The French wars of religion would drag on until the end of the 16th century and would eventually lead to the expulsion of the Huguenots from France. One of the most intriguing descriptions of Nicole's possession was how she was able to speak without the apparent use of her vocal cords. According to Jean Boulez, who wrote the most well-known description of Nicole and her possession, speaking in Nicole with her mouth open wide enough to allow the passage of a walnut and with a swelling beneath the throat, or to be more exact, in the throat beneath the chin, but in any case, without either making use or moving the lips, the grandfather replied loudly in a cracked voice, I am from God, who endured death and suffering for us all from the Virgin Mary and all the saints of paradise, I am the soul of Joaquin Willet. Though Nicole had initially insisted that her grandfather's spirit was using her body with her conscious cooperation, she was later forced to revise this to be more in keeping with Catholic doctrine. Since doctrine didn't allow for the existence of good spirits using living people to pass on messages, their interrogation shaped her response to conform with church views on demonic possession. Given her desire to please her interrogators, the anti-Protestant message she delivered hardly seems that surprising. Along with spurring the anti-Huguenot mania gripping France, Nicole Oppry's possession also became influential in terms of inspiring copycat cases of possession. In the French city of Soissons, four people were publicly exercised in 1582. One of these, a 13-year-old boy named Laurent, was reportedly possessed by a demon calling himself Benoit. Another possessee was more unusual since he was a 50-year-old man who managed to be possessed twice. Repossessed? A third case was more unusual still since it was a woman named Magalite Obrey, no relation, who claimed to be possessed by the same Beelzebub who had possessed Nicole Obrey years before. Though the Soissons possessions were never as well known as Nicole Obrey's case, there were numerous similarities. All of the possessees went into convulsions whenever holy relics were placed on their stomach or when they were forced to drink holy water. And, like Nicole Obrey, they accused the local Huguenots of various religious crimes. The demons reportedly claimed that they had come to give comfort to their Huguenot friends, but were forced to recognize the power of the true church during the public exorcism which drove them out. The last great possession case of the 16th century was Martha Brosier, who apparently became convinced that she was possessed after reading about Nicole Obrey's case. Beginning in 1598, Martha's family carried her from town to town in the Loire Valley where she received multiple public exorcisms. This continued for over a year before French authorities had her arrested out of fear that she would stir up anti-Huguenot prejudice. Martha either escaped or was helped to escape and returned to seeking out exorcisms, this time in southern France. Despite traveling to Rome and appealing to the Vatican, Martha was diagnosed as suffering from illness rather than being truly possessed. According to the various doctors and theologians who examined her, her condition was a Latin phrase which translates to nothing from the demon, much invention, a little from illness. Though the age of possession was hardly over, there would be other cases throughout the 17th and 18th centuries that Nicole Obrey exorcism and others like it became a central plank in the propaganda war being waged by the Catholic Church against Protestant movements. The miracle of León would be part of Catholic tradition long after the political turmoil that inspired it died down. That exorcism and cases of demonic possession are still with us today in many societies demonstrates its popularity as a tool for propping up belief systems being threatened by skepticism. How effective that tool is depends on the willingness of people to believe the unbelievable. I'd like you to meet the newest member of our Weirdo family. Meet Syjack, a female arctic wolf. While visiting the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Kingsburg, Colorado, Robin and I fell in love with the place and their mission to save the lives of animals from abuse and neglect. I immediately felt drawn to Syjack upon seeing her and decided to adopt her in the name of Weird Darkness. And that means you had a part in that, Weirdos. Syjack was born in a safari park that couldn't care for her. But the Wild Animal Sanctuary steps in to save Syjack and other wild animals from private owners and less than ideal living conditions. Syjack now has a lifelong home in a large acreage, natural habitat near other wolves. Wild Animal Sanctuary has saved numerous other wild animals from abuse and neglect, lions, grizzlies, tigers, panthers and more. Visit wildanimalsanctuary.org to learn more, donate to the sanctuary and maybe adopt an animal of your own, like we have with Syjack. That's wildanimalsanctuary.org. One case which had received notoriety in the UK was the murder of Eve Stratford, aged just 21, which was remarkably linked to the murder of Lynn Whedon, aged just 16, after 30 years. In 2004, the two killings were discovered to have been committed by the same perpetrator using DNA testing. And so, two murders across different parts of a sprawling London were established to have been committed by a serial killer, who for 40 years had been hiding in plain sight. Eve's murder occurred on the 18th of March, 1975, while Lynn's was almost six months after on the 10th of September, 1975, both occurring in suburban London. There was also potential links to a third murder of Linda Farrow, who was killed in her home in January of that year, with many similarities to the other two. The three murders were all in the Greater London area of Layton, Hounslow and Chigwell. The double murders occurred in 1975 and it is chilling to think that the killer has been possibly roaming free ever since. The case was reopened in 2007, but it is one of those that we really are not any closer to despite all of the years having passed. As of 2020, the case remains open. Eve Stratford had moved to Layton with her boyfriend in 1972, having been raised by a German mother and English father in the Aldershot area of southern England. At the time of her death, Eve was working as a Playboy Bunny in the Playboy Club of Park Lane, which had led to the unfortunate dubbing of the murderer as the Bunny Killer. Eve was also a centerfold for Mayfair Magazine and Adult Magazine, the piece had been released just days before her murder. Eve was found by her boyfriend at their flat in Layton. Her throat had been cut multiple times and a nylon stocking was tied to one ankle while she was bound with a scarf. Lynn's boyfriend at the time was Tony Priest, the lead singer of pop band Onyx, not to be confused with a 1990s hip hop act. There is potential that Eve knew her killer. Neighbors were said to have heard muted conversation followed by a bang with no discernible ruckus and no damage to suggest forced entry. There was semen found on Eve's clothes and a bouquet of bloody flowers was next to her body when she was discovered. The police described the rape as likely, with police at the time being unable to rule out consensual sex. That might seem pragmatic on behalf of the detectives, but it also casts aspersions on the victim. This had all occurred around early evening between 4 and 5 pm on March 18, 1975. One interesting theory was that the killer was a stalker that knew Eve's whereabouts and when she would be home alone. Bear in mind, she lived with three men. They could very possibly have disguised themselves as a flower deliveryman, explaining the blood-soaked fresh bouquet. This theory was posted on many forums online and should only be considered that, a theory. Lynn's murder seemed a bit more random but no less disgusting. A lot younger and less famous than Eve, Lynn was just a schoolgirl who was killed on her way home after 11 pm in September of that year, after an evening out with friends. Lynn was walking alone. It is believed by detectives that she was followed on foot from the great western road through an alleyway called the Short Hedges where she was bludgeoned and thrown into the grounds of an electrical substation, a common eyesore in urban England. Lynn actually died a week later in a hospital from her injuries which included blunt force trauma. It wasn't until the 21st century that the two were eventually linked together as being committed by the same person which means that for over 40 years there has been a London serial killer that had fallen completely below the radar with two definite victims to his claim and more potentially linked. While the British media may revel and glorifying these legendary gruesome figures of the night such as Jack the Ripper and Jack the Stripper, we shouldn't glamorize anybody capable of such foul intent by creating legends of elusive serial killers and we should focus on the real tragedy which was the innocent women's lives being cut short in their prime just to serve the pathetic needs of a sadistic psychopath. For better or for worse, this one flew completely under the radar of British media and their hysteria. Detective Chief Inspector Andy Mortimer from the homicide and serious crime command quoted in 2007 said, advances in forensic science mean that we're able to re-look at certain older cases with the very real possibility that some progress can be made that would not have been possible previously. As a result, we now have a DNA link between the murders of Eve and Lynn who was just 16 at the time of her death. We believe the killer could have confided in someone over the years about what happened or might have even bragged about the murders. They've kept a dark secret for the last 30 years and I'm sure they would have felt the need to share this burden with someone. We appeal to anyone who feels they might have some information however seemingly unimportant to come forward. Both murders were featured on the iconic BBC show Crime Watch in 2007 when the cold case was reopened. It is extremely likely that the killer knew Eve and this was a strong hunch by detectives however with Lynn it may have been a moment born out of savage opportunism. However, despite new appeals opening up seemingly every decade there is nothing to note that stands out as having been revealed between the DNA discovery and present day. Linda Farrell, a casino croupier, was pregnant at the time of her death. She was seemingly stabbed with her head completely severed using a freezer knife. However, one thing that may rule out a connection to the other two is that the murder was not seemingly sexual. A man was seen running from the area at the time that was in their late 30s, 5'9 wearing a donkey jacket and wellingtons. This occurred on Whitehall Road in Chingford and a Ford Cortina was seen departing Whitehall Road around the time of the murder. From the description above I think we can rule out Linda as being connected to the first two with people even suggesting the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe was linked to the crime. Yorkshire however is quite far from Chingford. The Met Police offered a £20,000 reward and connection to solving the case back in 2009. These cases do not age well. The leads seem almost non-existent at present and despite the appearance of DNA and as people begin to die or simply forget, closure on such cases seems nearly impossible. There is a strong reality that the killer himself is already dead. Two linked murders and a serial killer seemingly loose in 1975 London and it regrettably took 40 years to even connect the killings and shed light on the fact that a serial killer had been walking the streets of London and getting away with it for such a long time. While Britain has a lurid and disturbing history of crime and they have some of the most infamous serial killers on record, here was one operating in such a savage and predatory nature and nobody even knew he existed. However, in a world of increasing technological advancement and avid interests in true crime, a day of reckoning may eventually come for Eve, Lynn and Linda. Are you more than just a listener of Weird Darkness? Are you a fan? Are you a loyal or even a vowed member of the Weirdo family? Then you can join us in the Darkness Syndicate. As a member of the Darkness Syndicate, you can receive exclusive Weird Darkness merchandise, get daily episodes of the podcast, commercial free, listen to chapters of audiobooks that I narrate even before the publishers or authors hear them, and get news about the Weird Darkness podcast before anyone else. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com slash Syndicate. That's Weird Darkness.com slash Syndicate. Once upon a time, there was a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He fell in love with a girl whose parents disapproved, and they ran away to be together. Sound familiar? I guarantee you've not heard this story, which is, quote, as unique a romance as ever a pair of young lovers engaged in, and for once the 20th century newspapers that said that weren't exaggerating. It's part Romeo and Juliet, with a hefty helping of My Side of the Mountain and a dash of Katy Perry's teenage dream. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll want to bang your head against the nearest wall. One fine day in 1910, 17-year-old Beatrice Sanders, who was rarely pretty, with dark eyes and a complexion like snow and roses, wandered into R.M. Laird's drugstore in Newark, New Jersey. There, her life was forever changed when Cupid's arrow struck her heart. I leave it to you to decide if that arrow was aimed at ice cream sundaes or at 17-year-old Soda Fountain employee Laver Talman. According to the Evening World newspaper from December 1st, 1910, a good-looking boy, with broad shoulders and a ruddy complexion, and Beatrice found it very pleasant to cross the street from her home and partake of sodas and sundaes at his counter. He served her so generously and with such enthusiasm that he made a great hit. Beatrice came often and oftener, and before they knew it, the young couple were head over ears in love. They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but if Beatrice has any indication, it works the other way too. Alas, the course of true love never did run smooth. It wouldn't be a proper love story, though, if Beatrice's parents demurely acquiesced to their teenage daughter marrying the first boy to give her a free soda, right? Well, from the same article, when Beatrice went to Bradley Beach for the summer, Laver wrote burning letters. Papa Sanders found one of these missives and informed his daughter that she better come down out of the clouds. She said her love was higher than the clouds and she couldn't get down. Am I the only one who didn't fight with my parents in metaphors when I was a teenager? At least Beatrice's mother was a tad more prosaic. With the Evening World reporting, her mother stormed about the foolish romance and said Beatrice in a hurry to the Hackettstown Seminary. But Beatrice determined to balk and wrote Laver that her love for him would never die and couldn't he rescue her from the torture of stuffy schoolrooms? What knight needs shining armor when he has ice cream? The newspaper continued, Laver had only $30 in the world and the slender wage that accrued from compounding Sundays. But $30 is a lot of money when you sugar it with a mountain of love and after he had talked the situation over with a friend, Laver hit upon a plan. He and Beatrice would elope to the snuggest, coziest cave in the universe. If I'd had a high school girlfriend who had suggested that we run away together to live in a cave in the middle of nowhere, I would have dumped her faster than you can say five-star resort or bust. But here the boy out on this one because, well, he made a compelling case. According to the article, he'd buy a rifle and a shotgun and fish hooks and snares and bird traps and a skittle and a spider and a bag of charcoal. That is an exhaustive list of everything two teenagers could possibly need to survive alone in the wilderness. Other than, you know, winter clothing, bedding, medicine, candles, pots and pans, I digress anyway. If you're not convinced by his practicality, he's a sweet talker too. They would be like gypsy lovers, faring forth in the woods in the daytime and sitting out under the stars in the crisp fall evenings. Nature would fill their souls with ecstasy and they would be happy beyond measure of happiness, according to the evening world. I'll pass. Fortunately for Laver, his beloved felt differently. Beatrice was more than charmed with the idea and one beautiful day in September the lovers met and journeyed to their cave. If the part of this story that troubles you most is the impropriety of two unmarried people living together, rest assured they had every intention of tying the knot. Laver Tullman was quoted in the same December 1st, 1910 evening world article as saying, Of course we intended to get married, but we put it off for fear that our people would come after us and tear us apart. We did not think we could get married without the marriage leaking out and that is why we hurried to the cave. They needn't have worried. According to Mrs. Sanders, Beatrice's mother, she was quoted in the newspaper as saying, When they eloped, we just let them go their own sweet way. There wasn't anything else to do and we didn't want a lot of notoriety. Incidentally, the Sanders won the Parents of the Year award in 1910, I'm sure. Their new home was deep in the Catskill Mountains, giving Beatrice and Laver plenty of space to practice their dirty dancing moves while humming, I've had the time of my life. It may not have been a luxury hotel, but Beatrice and Laver weren't slumming it either. According to a December 12, 1910 article from the Spokane Press, it was just the finest cave imaginable too, a great big regular robbers cave. Why Captain Kitt himself would have pounded upon it in glee as a bully hiding place from policemen and might have hit a million dollars in bullion and diamonds in the big black hole that led off to no one knows where from the southeast corner. They didn't have diamonds, but the young lovers subsisted well enough on fish, rabbits, birds, and provisions from nearby farmers. Beatrice, by Laver's account, cooked great. Whatever they lacked in nutrition, they made up for with the healthiest ingredient of all, love. According to that same Spokane Press article, for in the soft, romantic days of September and October, they sat alone beneath the stars and gazed into each other's eyes and loved each other and forgot the world. They were very, very happy, also very, very young. They also were very, very boring if Laver's Diary, published in the New York Tribune on December 2, 1910, is any judge. Get a load of this. September 18, met Beatrice on Market Street, had guns and luggage ready, took train to New York and subway uptown, missed boat and went to lodging house, rough place but slept well. September 19, had rolls and coffee for breakfast, made boat for Catskill, took railway for Palinville, found cave after long tramp just about dark, nothing to sleep on, made fire, branches and leaves. September 20, beans and coffee for breakfast, went fishing and caught some perch, went walking in the woods and it was great. Tuesday, did a lot of walking and washed clothes, cooked some more beans with a lot of smoke, getting cold. Friday, was very cold last night, fire won't stay lit, Beatrice is a brick, she cooks better and better. Saturday, shot a rabbit, tough job cooking it, cave full of smoke. Sunday, walked in the woods, it was great, didn't try to hunt. Monday, farmers gave us milk and potatoes, shot some chipmunks, awful thin ones but we cooked them. October 1, about midnight, startled by wild animals, very much frightened but nothing came of it. October 2, rose early, farmers gave us a lot of potatoes, many fine ones. Wednesday, flapjacks and smoke for breakfast, mostly smoke, Beatrice cooked great, shot two squirrels. Friday, very cold. Saturday, rain, cave very wet and fire won't burn. Thursday, very cold. At 4.30, after lunch, left for New York, got to Yonkers at 7.30. November 14, Friday entry, got the grand bounce, look up ads in paper. Beatrice's own diary, published in The Washington Herald on that same date, is more effusive. I loved the there with all my heart, it would kill me if we were separated. We've known each other for several years and have always been in love. The only objection to our getting married was that we were considered too young. We did not think so, however, and that was why we ran away. Why did we live in a cave? Well, because it was so romantic. We were in love with nature and the cave where we lived for six weeks was a paradise. If we ever become rich, I'm going to have Laver by that cave for I treasure it beyond measure. For infatuation, love didn't fade. Later, when reminiscing about their time in the cave, Beatrice later said in that same article, Laver was so good to me, never did I dream a man could be so spiritual, have such high mental qualities. He treated me as if I were his sister. Okay, I know it's 1910, but sister? Really? Laver agreed wholeheartedly as he was quoted in the evening world saying, I don't think we could have been happier in heaven. However, all good things must come to an end. Only six weeks into their happily ever after, a new obstacle arose. This one far more difficult to overcome than parental objections. According to the evening world, December 1, 1910, yes, Bliss was no name for their ecstatic existence until the heavy frost came. They discovered very suddenly that the cave was very airy and open. There were plenty of leaves for covering, but even with leaves and evergreen boughs and warm blankets, the cruel frost cut its way in. Even turtle doves are not impervious to climatic changes, and Beatrice and Laver soon decided that they would come to a speedy and unhappy end if they remained in their cave. What's a pair of underage, penniless lovebirds to do? Return home and risk a cruel separation? Freeze to death in their lovelessness? Realize that some teenage dreams don't last forever? Six weeks after the start of their romantic escape into the wilderness, they made the most sensible decision of their young lives and used the last of their money to buy one-way train tickets to get lost in Yonkers. Once there, they pawned the rifle and shotgun and found cheap lodgings that must have been a far cry from the snuggest, coziest cave in the universe. Their troubles were far from over, though. Despite his best efforts, Laver was unable to find steady work. A Yonkers butcher gave the boy a job driving his delivery wagon, but after the wagon had run away with him twice, he got the grand bounce, according to the Newark Evening Star, December 2, 1910. He should have stuck to slinging sodas. The couple ran out of money less than a month later. Let that be a lesson to you kids. Stay in school and pass home economics class. When Beatrice and Laver could no longer afford coal to heat their tiny home, they kept warm by hanging out at the mall, a train station. Maybe they weren't so different from the teenagers of today after all. However, unlike the lenient mall cops who inhabit 80s teen movies, when a police officer spotted them munching on a bag of buns in the station, he arrested them on charges of vagrancy. Turns out love is, in fact, a crime. Rather than lock them up and throw away the key, police captain William Lent did something even worse. He called their parents. Shortly thereafter, the Yonkers city court was the scene of a touching family reunion. And by touching family reunion, I mean an episode of Mori Povich. There were declarations of love and loyalty, such as this from the Evening World on December 1, 1910. When Laver started to say that he was to blame for it all, the girl broke in and exclaimed, That isn't so. We love each other and that is all there is to it. Then she held her head higher than ever until her plump little nose was pointing to the ceiling. There were dramatic expressions of parental disapproval. The girl's father was so angry at the couple that he couldn't speak and he simply scowled at them during the brief court proceedings. And then, reported by the same newspaper article, there was a dispute that makes any conflict you've ever had with your in-laws look downright pleasant. If they're not married, said Mrs. Sanders as she left the court, I will have them married as soon as I get them home. If they did get married somewhere, I'm going to have them married over again in my presence. Laver's mother takes another view of the matter and indicates that she will prosecute the little girl for abduction of her son. Mrs. Talman alleges that the girl is 18 years old, while the boy is still a minor. I am mighty glad that I have preserved the letters Mrs. Sanders sent Laver, she said, for they show plainly that she lured him from his home and induced him to elope with her. I do not intend to let the matter rest. Mrs. Talman was already giving Jane Fonda a run for her mother as monster-in-law. No surprise, she had a financial incentive to object to her son's matrimonial arrangements. According to the Newark Evening Star from December 1, 1910, my son was a good boy before he got acquainted with the Sanders girl, but he no doubt fell in love with her and she with him and she took him away from me. When he went away with that girl, my only support practically left me. Since then, I have had to throw myself upon the neighbors more than once and have been almost crazy over the affair besides. In addition to her vested interest, poor Mrs. Talman must have felt history was repeating itself. Turns out that back in 1901, after 20 years of marriage, her husband, quote, fell in love with his bookkeeper, Marian Crossdale, and eloped with her. He succeeded in gaining possession of one of the son's Raymond, who subsequently married the Crossdale girl. Laver remained with his mother, who had since gained a precarious livelihood by giving music lessons, unquote. Man, I would love to be a fly on the wall at that family's Thanksgiving dinner, right? Well, notwithstanding her charge as a kidnapping, true love and or teenage hormones carried the day and wedding bells rang out. The headlines in the New York Tribune for December 2, 1910 read, Cave dwellers are wed. Escape from clutches of the law and get parents' blessing. Flight ends in happiness. Talman's diary tells of simple life when they had flapjacks for breakfast. Beatrice and Laver were released into the custody of their parents and promptly returned to Newark where they were soon officially married. Shortly thereafter, a reporter paid a visit to the newlyweds who were residing at the home of the elder Mrs. Talman. Perhaps that was Beatrice's punishment for kidnapping Laver. Inside the newspaper story, it read, Talman, anxious to show his mother that he'd become something of a culinary expert through his sojourn in the woods, was tossing flapjacks with all the skill of a dairy lunch window acrobat. The scene was one of perfect domestic bliss, and the girl wife concurred in the statement that all hands are supremely happy. Far from regretting their escapade, Talman and his bride are immensely proud of each other and are in ecstasies of bliss over the happy ending of their courtship and flight. The couple also indicated that they would be cashing in on their 15 minutes of fame and writing a book about their unconventional romance. That book later skyrocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list and was made into one of Hollywood's first talkies. The babes in the wood lived happily ever after. Just kidding, you know me better than that. The first signs of trouble emerged barely a month later when Laver had another run-in with the law. This time he was charged with crimes more serious than vagrancy. According to the Evening World, January 10, 1911, Laver Talman, the boy hero and Beatrice's child bride, the forest lovers, cave dwellers and explorers of the wild, were separated last night for the first time since their parents spanked them and took them to a minister and had them wed. As Mr. Shakespeare once said, that true love thing always did have trouble with the steering gear. Young Talman had been seeing things in the dark for several days. He has imagined that kidnappers were after Beatrice, among other things. Beatrice's tearful assurances that even should the brigands get her, she will burst her chains, saw through the prison bars and swim the hack and sack to get back to him have not comforted her husband. I'm going to teach somebody a lesson if I can ever get at him, he announced bravely. Last night, he got one of them. After spotting a mysterious stranger lurking on their street corner, Laver grabbed his shotgun and walked up to the man. The newspaper continued with details of the confrontation. What are you doing around here and why were the boy bridegroom's words? Hereafter, you follow me at your peril. I'm waiting for a car, said the stranger in a hoarse, menacing voice. I got off the other one too soon. Point that gun the other way, son, it might be loaded. It always is loaded, replied our hero, and it shall remain pointed at you until you leave the vicinity of my bride. An altercation ensued and they ran into the arms of a policeman who arrested them both. With her trademark saying Freud, Beatrice remained unperturbed. Oh well, she was quoted by the paper as saying, we both felt it was about time that another adventure happened to us. Beginning to wander, are Beatrice and Laver witness teenagers or cunning proto-Kardashians with media savvy far beyond their years? Still, charges of assault and battery with the intent to kill couldn't have been the kind of adventure they were looking for. However, luck was with the couple yet again and Laver was led off with a warning about the inadvisability of being too handy with loaded weapons. As best I can tell, Beatrice and Laver managed to keep a low profile after that, or were unsuccessful at getting back onto the front page for the next two decades, that is. The 1920 federal census found them living in New York with their two sons, Laver Jr. and Harold. A few years later, their marriage ended in much the same way it began. In the newspapers. From the Evening Star, October 2, 1931. Headline. Wed 18 years, man soothes. Baldensburg resident accuses wife of deserting him. Story. Accusing his wife Beatrice Tallman of deserting him after 18 years of married life, Laver Tallman of Baldensburg yesterday brought suit in circuit court here for an absolute divorce. The couple were married in New Jersey in 1910 and the husband tells the court his wife left him in August 1928. They have two children, Harold, 19 and Henry, 14, now in the custody of their father. Through attorney Jay Ridley Shields, the husband petitions for a divorce and permanent custody of the children. I don't know where Laver Jr. went, perhaps that's Harold, a middle name he chose to be called. Laver pops up in the 1930 census living with his sons and again in the 1940 census with a new wife by the name of Sarah. Did Beatrice find love at another soda fountain? Did Laver's paranoia drive her away? Did his mother eventually file those kidnapping charges? We may never know. Beatrice vanishes from the historical record. Beatrice and Laver's love was as sweet and fleeting as ice cream on a hot summer day. Since summer is almost over, I recommend a visit to your local ice cream parlor in their honor. You never know who you'll find behind the counter.