 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. Towards the end of each year, as fireplaces are lit and hot cocoa is made, Americans have made it a tradition to revisit their favorite classic holiday books, movies and songs. And though ghost stories may seem out of place in present-day American holiday celebrations, they were once a Christmas staple, reaching their peak of popularity in Victorian England. Like most long-standing cultural customs, the precise origin of telling ghost stories at the end of the year is unknown, largely because it began as an oral tradition without written records. The season around winter solstice has been one of transition and change. For a very, very, very long time, the season has provoked oral stories about spooky things in many different countries and cultures all over the world. Spooky storytelling gave people something to do during the long dark evenings before electricity. Those long mid-winter nights meant folks had to stop working early and they spent their leisure hours huddled close to the fire. So that's what we'll do for this Christmas edition of Weird Darkness. I'll share the history of telling ghost stories during the season, and then I'll share a few true ghostly tales that take place during the holidays. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. 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, Christmas is supposed to be the merry season with joy and light in the darkness, but many places are haunted by ghosts and paranormal activity during this time. In fact, many of the ghost stories I'll share tonight are haunted especially around Christmas. Most all of us think of Christmas as a time of love, warmth, joy and charity, but for some, Christmas isn't merry at all. It's murderous. We'll look at some horrific holiday murders and the killers behind them. We visit Point Pleasant West Virginia during the holidays of 1967, but we don't see a sleigh and reindeer in the sky, we see a nightmare. If you're new here, welcome to the show and if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show and while you're listening, be sure to 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 and more. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. It was in Victorian England that telling supernatural tales at the end of the year, specifically during the Christmas season, went from an oral tradition to a timely trend. This was in part due to the development of the steam-powered printing press during the Industrial Revolution that made the written word more widely available. This gave Victorians the opportunity to commercialize and commodify existing oral ghost stories, turning them into a version they could sell. Higher literary rates, cheaper printing costs and more periodicals meant that editors needed to fill pages. Around Christmas time, they figured they could convert the old storytelling tradition to a printed version. People who moved out of their towns and villages and into larger cities still wanted access to the supernatural sagas they heard around the fireplace growing up. Fortunately, Victorian authors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Hallifont and Arthur Conan Doyle worked through the fall to cook up these stories and have them ready to print in time for Christmas. Industrialization not only provided tools to distribute spooky stories, uncertainty during the era also fueled interest in the genre according to Brittany Warman, a folklorist specializing in Gothic literature and the co-founder of the Carton Hall School of Folklore and the Fantastic. Interest was driven, she says, by the rise of industrialization, the rise of science and the looming fall of Victorian Britain as a superpower. All of these things were in people's minds and made the world seem a little darker and a little bit scarier. Telling horror-filled holiday tales continued to be a family affair in England, even when they were read rather than recited. We know from illustrations and diaries that whole families read these periodicals together. The popularity of Victorian Christmas ghost stories also transcended socioeconomic status. They were available to read everywhere from cheap publications to expensive Christmas annuals that middle-class ladies would show off on their coffee tables. Their broad audience was reflected in the stories themselves, which sometimes centered around working-class characters and other times took place in haunted manor houses. These upper-class settings were intended to invite readers from all classes into an idealized upper-crust Christmas, the type today's fans of Downton Abbey still enjoy his entertainment. Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol has forever linked the British author with the holiday season, but his contributions to Christmas in Victorian England, including the tradition of telling and reading ghost stories, extend far beyond Jacob Marley's visit to Scrooge. In fact, Dickens played a huge part in popularizing the genre in England. He wrote a bunch of different Christmas novellas, several of which involved ghosts specifically, and then he started editing more and more Christmas ghost stories from other people and working those into the magazines he was already editing, and that just caught like wildfire. Dickens also helped shape Christmas literature in general by formalizing expectations about themes like forgiveness and reunion during the holiday season. I've actually narrated the entire novel, A Christmas Carol, which is free to listen to on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com if you're interested in hearing it. Although countless trends made their way from England to America during the Victorian era, the telling of ghost stories during the Christmas season was not one that really caught on. A Christmas Carol was an immediate bestseller in the United States, but at the time of its publication, Dickens was arguably the most famous writer in the world and already wildly popular. The novella's success in the U.S. likely had more to do with Dickens' existing massive fan base than it did Americans' interest in incorporating the supernatural into Christmas. American Christmas scenes and stories tended to be syrupy sweet. There were a few American writers of the period trying to put Victorian-style Christmas ghost stories into American culture, including Ethangel Hawthorne and Henry James. Washington Irving made a similar and earlier attempt, slipping the supernatural into Christmas-themed short stories published in 1819 and 1820. Warman theorizes that Americans' reluctance to embrace the Christmas story tradition had to do at least in part with the country's attitudes towards things like magic and superstitions. In America, we generally had a bit of resistance to the supernatural in a way that European countries didn't. When you came to America, you came with a fresh start, you came with a secular mindset and the idea that you were leaving the past behind and some of these spooky superstitions were thought of as being part of the past. Another reason telling spooky stories never took off as a Christmas tradition in the United States was because it became more firmly established as a Halloween tradition thanks to Irish and Scottish immigrants. That really impacted culture here because they brought with them a concept similar to Halloween, and that became, for America, the time period for ghosts. Other than a Christmas carol, there is another piece of pop culture that reflects the Victorian Christmas time tradition, a single line from a song written and released in 1963 by American musicians. First recorded by Andy Williams, the song It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year lists scary ghost stories as one of the highlights of the holiday season. Although it's unclear why the writers of the song, Edward Pola and George Wile included this tradition, Plato says that it's possible the lyric is a reference to Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's only the one text, but it's such a big deal here in the US and in the UK, it's pretty much all that Americans know about Christmas ghost stories in isolation. But we're about to change that as we continue this Christmas episode of Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, our January Weirdo Watch Party brings sci-fi horror 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 bot for him, and a 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 a 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. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. You can stay up to date on everything Weird Darkness by signing up for the email newsletter. It's free, and every month I draw one name at random for my winner to receive a Weird Darkness prize back. You can sign up for the Weird Darkness newsletter for free right now at WeirdDarkness.com on the Contests page. You'll automatically be entered to win. The legend of the mistletoe bride is a ghost tale that many big houses claim as their own. Bramsil House is one of them, and the story of the dead bride trapped in the chest haunts the already haunted place. A girl will always remember her wedding day, and making sure the wedding day will be held on Christmas Day will surely make it easy to remember the wedding anniversary. But more people will remember it if the bride turns into a ghost. This is the case of the bride of Bramsil House in Hampshire, one of Britain's most crowded paranormal places. And although many big houses try to claim the ghost of the bride in the oak chest as their own, Bramsil could be one of the choices with no less than 14 ghosts they claim wander there. In the early 17th century, a girl named Anne Cope was to be married in this house. Anne is the name in some accounts of the story, Genevieve Orsini and others. English in some accounts while she was believed to be Italian in other accounts. What remains, though, is the same. It was Christmas Day, and everyone was in a festive mood. She and her husband, Sir Hugh Bethel, celebrated after having taken their vows, and as the old custom went, she was to be escorted to the marital bed. But before the party was over, the bride wanted to play a round of hide and seek, where the target to be found was her. And after a five-minute start, the search began, but to no avail. Searching the whole house, the guests came back empty with no sign of the bride. Perhaps it was a trick from the bride. Could she just be exceptionally good at this game? But as time went on, the innocent prank she could have played on the guests turned into a dangerous one. Many believed the bride had fled from her marriage. Her husband, Hugh, on the other hand, spent decades searching for his bride that was lost. It was only after 50 years the mystery surrounding her disappearance came into light, but by then her haunting had already begun. Hugh, now an old man, was in the attic, still searching. Having been through the mansion so many times, one should have thought that there could be no more things to be found. But then, when knocking on some oak paneling, a secret door he didn't know about suddenly opened. Inside the door was a room with a wooden chest. It was locked. Inside the chest, when he finally got it open, the remains of the bride he had hoped to spend his life with, still in her wedding dress, holding her bouquet of wilted flowers, which had been by her side all this time. In the lid of the chest, the bride had been trapped in. There were signs of nails scraping in her dying efforts to escape to get out, but she never would. So many accounts of the White Lady have been reported at Bramsill House. Even Michael I of Romania asked to move rooms after the White Lady kept passing his room during his stay there, and you can sense her arrival by scent, Lily of the Valley, which was Anne's favorite. Not so many remember her wedding and her death on one. She is remembered as such, although her real name is disputable. The name Mistletoe Bride, however, remains. Poems, movies, books and folklore retell about the young bride in the oak chest. The same story was retold by Susan E. Wallace in 1887 as The Old Oak Chest, and by Henry James as The Romance of Certain Old Clothes in 1868. The old tale was also made into a silver screen edition in 1904, when Percy Stowe made the short film The Mistletoe Bow. But the Mistletoe Bride is not the only ghost from England that starts at a wedding during Christmas time. A great hall during Christmas time with good food, merry guests and an unmistakable sound of a harp playing a love song. Scared yet? No? Sounds like the right vibe for a cozy Christmas time, doesn't it? But if the harp playing comes from nowhere and no one is playing, scared now? This is what festive guests might hear echoing through the halls every Christmas Eve at Stubbley Hall, reminiscing about the tragedy of war and love. Not far from Rosedale, Manchester in England sits the Stubbley Hall. Already in the 1600s, the hall was known for being an ancient mansion with stables, barns, dovecoats and watermill. So you know it's old, even by British standards. And such an old place carries many tales within the stone walls and stories about the paranormal and sightings of ghosts have been plentiful. And one of them is the story about Fatima. The night Ralph Distubbley lived here once upon a time, a night who served Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades in Jerusalem. At the beginning of the Crusades, Ralph joined in on, they saw it as a successful mission as they were able to capture Saladin, the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, but they never quite managed to seize Jerusalem, which they saw as a spiritual symbol and as the Holy City. One of the more romantic yet tragic tales from the Crusade Wars was about one of Saladin's daughters. Her name was Fatima and she fell in love with Ralph during the raging battle of the Holy City. However, in 1192 the British Crusaders had to pull out after the Battle of Jaffa and Ralph was forced to leave Fatima behind, but before leaving he swore his undying love for her, promising her he would return. As a token he gave her a diamond-studded cross to keep as a reminder of him. Three years went by and Fatima heard nothing of the night who promised to come back for her. Growing tired of just waiting she disguised herself as a troubadour and sailed across the ocean in search of him just bringing her harp. She played so well but hadn't been able to play in her sorrow, but she would never reach the shores of England to return to her beloved Ralph. On the eve of Christmas she died. The plague had traveled with them on the ship and she and the rest of the passengers and crew perished. The same night there was a wedding at Stubbley Hall, Ralph's wedding. He was to marry a wealthy baron's daughter. Maybe it was only to save the family who were in need of money. Maybe he fell in love with another one. Either way the song of his past lover came to the hall. During the celebrations he was standing by the window not enjoying the festivities. He was maybe thinking of Fatima, the woman he truly wanted to marry, and it was then that he heard the harp. The familiar but now so nostalgic sound of Fatima playing the harp, playing none other than the love song she had played for him, a traditional Saracen love song. He rushed into the grounds thinking he would see her among the trees. The guests noticed his disappearance and went after him and found him under an oak tree dead, clutching a diamond studded cross. When Weird Darkness returns Anne Boleyn is a ghost that's spotted across England, but during Christmas times it's reported she is haunting her childhood home at Hever Castle, the Christmas ghost of Anne Boleyn, up next on Weird Darkness. You've heard the first few episodes of Weirdling Woods but now the book is available where you can read all of the stories even before I use them in the podcast. This new anthology written by author John Allen not only gives you the chapters I've already used and will be using in Weird Darkness but it also includes a bonus chapter that I will not be sharing in the podcast and a list of horror-themed Easter eggs that have been hidden throughout all of the chapters. You can find Weirdling Woods in Paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon and on the Weird Darkness publishing page at WeirdDarkness.com. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. During this time of year, depression can loom heavy. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I'd like to recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There I've gathered numerous free resources to help you fight depression, including the Seven Cups app, the suicide and crisis hotline, 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. Christmas of all times of the year should be filled with light, not dark. That's the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. One of the more famous Christmas hauntings that know how to travel is the Ghost of the infamous Ann Bolin. Most known for the wedge between the State of England and the Catholic Church in the time of the Tudors, the people's perception of her at the time was awful and it would be understandable if she felt some sort of resentment or sorrow for how her life ended, even in the afterlife. As ghost sightings go, perhaps, the Tower of London is a more well-known place for ghost sightings of her, as this was the place she was held imprisoned and executed. But it is far from the only place paranormal sightings of the former Queen have been spotted in the UK. She's also been spotted in Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Roford Hall, just to name a few. But in the spirit of Christmas, we're going to have a look at where the Royal Ghost spends her Christmases in the afterlife. Every Christmas, she is said to make an appearance at Hever Castle, at least it is now expected. Christmas was supposedly her favorite time and Hever Castle was her childhood home with good memories. And contrary to how her ghost is seen at other locations, headless and darkly dressed for instance, it is said she is seen as more happy and content when spotted here. The castle was built in 1270 in the rural part of Kent and although relatively small compared to many other castles we see in England, it came to play a big part in England's history as it was the seat of the Bolin family. This is also the place where Anne and Henry first met, when he was still married to Queen Catherine of Aragon and had an affair with her younger sister Mary. She is often reported to be seen under a big oak tree that stands on the castle grounds. This is the place Anne and Henry spent a lot of time courting. Although the ending for the couple was one of the most dramatic breakups in British history, the courting seems to have been genuine. Henry is said to have written her at least 17 letters, begging her to be his, and the length he went to marry her spoke to how much he wanted her in his life. Although they did get together in the end, their match was an unpopular one. In order to divorce the Queen, he had to part with the Catholic Church and Anne was in the public eye, a witch, a heretic, and a seducer that was a danger to the empire and people law. They never had a son, but their child Elizabeth I turned out to be one of England's longest reigning queens. But after several miscarriages, never ending gossiping and pressure from all sides, their love turned sour and in the end Henry found another one and decided to get rid of Anne in a most dramatic way. On the charges of treason and adultery and incest with her brother, she was sent to the Tower of London and sentenced to death. On May 19th in 1536, she was executed by beheading at the Tower. With such an accessible place with such a famous ghost, the reports about sightings has been plentiful. Like in 2015, when a tourist at the castle captured something on camera, he was certain had to be the former queen by the fireplace. I believe there is something important historically inside the fireplace she wants me to recover, Mr Archer that took the picture told the papers at the time. Who is to say for what reason Anne has to haunt her childhood home, let alone England as a whole? In any case, her imprints on the course of the history, religion and the royal line were irrevocably shaken by her life and work. It has also been said that she has been seen walking across the beautiful bridge on the premises that crosses River Eden, perhaps on her way to the place of her happy and innocent childhood. On a chilly Christmas Eve, a woman and her father were riding in their carriage down the road to Hawkerst Kent. In the 18th century, highwaymen were notorious and feared in the English countryside. They robbed whoever came their way and sometimes the robbery went more violently than necessary and Hawkerst housed some of the most notorious gangs and smugglers at the time, making the place feared along the English coast. This had been the case of the young woman's brother who had been killed on maybe even the same road, but there was one road to take to get anywhere and the same family was again meeting an unfortunate end. The carriage was stopped by the highwayman Gilbert when they were around the village of Martin and Kent. He ordered the father and daughter out of the carriage to strip them of their possessions and valuables, but as soon as the daughter stepped on the ground, the horse bolted, carrying her father away, leaving her all alone with the robber at the side of the road, seemingly helpless. But the story comes with a twist seldom seen in other horror stories like these. The horror, not only by being robbed, dawned on her as she laid eyes on the face of the man. She recognized him, Gilbert, as the one who had murdered her brother, and she refused to see such a fate befall herself. Enraged and afraid, she drew a knife and stabbed the man before he could take more from her by reaching for a hidden knife in her bag and planting it in Gilbert's side and fled into the bushes. When the father and the driver managed to calm the horses, they returned to the site of where they had left her alone. There, all they could find was Gilbert's dead body that they buried on the side of the road. It wasn't until the next day the woman was found by the villagers of Martin, wandering around after having stabbed a man to death. All alone, this cold Christmas Eve, she had been fleeing from the danger from the last night. But although she escaped alive, her body unharmed, it's told that during the night, she had gone completely mad. And every Christmas ever since, the same scene, the robbery, the murder is repeated by their ghosts, first by Gilbert himself, then later perhaps joined by the woman. When Weird Darkness returns, the brown lady of Rainham Hall is probably one of the most iconic ghost pictures out there. But is it real? Was it just a double exposure? The picture of the brown lady of Rainham Hall has been viral since 1936. A photographer that year took the infamous picture, forever putting it in the mystery box for people to wonder about ever since. But what is the story behind it and who is that ghostly figure? According to legend, the brown lady of Rainham Hall is the lost ghost of Dorothy Walpole and she lived a very unhappy life with her violent and bad tempered husband. And very often, especially during Christmas time, the ghost of the brown lady is reported to have been spotted. That story is up next on Weird Darkness. You shut yourself in. The lights are out and you're listening to Weird Darkness. But suddenly, you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now. You're too scared to. If you doze off, you might be vulnerable to the creatures who haunt your dreams. That's just one more reason to have Weird Dark Roast Coffee in the cupboard, because you just never know when you might need it. Weird Dark Roast Coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh roasted to order by Evansville Coffee and delivery is free for your first order. Just use the promo code Weird, you can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. Welcome back to Weird Darkness, I'm Darren Marlar. It was just another day in the upper class England with their old and haunted mansions and stories. Up in Norfolk lays the old Raynam Hall that was about to become one of the most haunted places in Great Britain. Captain Hubert C. Provant was working in London as a photographer for the Country Life magazine. On September 19, 1936, he and his assistant, Indra Sheara, were taking photos of the Raynam Hall for an article. Inside the 300-year-old mansion, they were setting up the camera to take another of the old Hall's main staircase. Suddenly, Sheara saw a vapor-y form gradually assuming the appearance of a woman. The figure was moving down the stairs towards them. Sheara directed Provant to take the cap off the lens while Sheara pressed the trigger to take the picture. After the negative was developed for the article, they saw more clear what they had gotten on camera that day, and the famous legendary photo of the brown lady of Raynam Hall was born. And after the photo, so was the legend. So who was this lady, or should we rather say is this lady? According to legend, the brown lady of Raynam Hall is the lost ghost of Dorothy Walpole. She was born in 1686 and, according to gossip, the prettiest sister of Robert Walpole, seen as the first prime minister of Great Britain. Walpole was neighbors with Charles Townsend, second Viscount Townsend in Norfolk, and it just so happened that his sister Dorothy married Townsend in 1713. Although they were good neighbors, and even brother-in-laws, there was bad blood between the men, especially in politics, and when Walpole built his own mansion, Houghton Hall, did this effect pour Dorothy at all? What he knows is that it wasn't particularly happy marriage. Dorothy was Charles' second wife. He looked upon the hall as his pride. As Lord Hervey said, Lord Townsend looked upon his own seat at Raynam as the metropolis of Norfolk, and considered every stone that augmented the splendor of Houghton as a diminution of the gradual of Raynam. Charles was also well-known for his violent temper. Dorothy was rumored to have been a mistress of a Lord Wharton, a well-known womanizer, and that no woman could be 24 hours under his roof and walk out with her reputation intact. When Charles discovered his wife and her affair with Lord Wharton, the story says he punished her by locking her in her rooms in the family Raynam Hall. To make matters worse, there are still rumors that she was in fact entrapped by the countess of Wharton, inviting Dorothy to stay a few days, knowing full well her husband wouldn't let her walk out with her reputation intact. After this, she remained at Raynam Hall until her death in 1726, dying of smallpox. But did she really leave the halls? Is she still roaming the place, still locked up, still trying to get out? Whatever the truth is, the legend was there to stay, and the first recorded sighting in the ghost was in 1835. One Christmas, the new Lord Charles Townsend invited some guests to the hall for celebrations. Among the guests were Colonel Loftus and another guest named Hawkins. One night, as they approached their bedrooms, they saw the brown lady, noticing the dated and brown dress she wore. The following night, Loftus claimed he saw it again. He said that he was drawn to the specter's empty eye sockets, dark in the glowing face, the once so pretty Dorothy. After Loftus reported what he saw, it ended with some of the staff permanently leaving Raynam Hall. It was all recorded by another guest, Lucia C. Stone. Just a year after, the brown lady was seen again. This time, it was Captain Frederick Marriott, a friend of Charles Dickens. He originally wanted to prove a theory of his that the hauntings were caused by local smugglers. According to him, the smugglers spread the story to keep people away from the area. That night, he requested he spend the night in the haunted room at Raynam Hall. Marriott's daughter, Florence, wrote about her father's experience in 1891, saying, He took possession of the room in which the portrait of the apparition hung and in which she had been often seen and slept each night with a loaded revolver under his pillow. For two days, nephews of the Baronet knocked at his door as he was undressing to go to bed and asked him to step over to their room, which was at the other end of the corridor, and give them his opinion on a new gun just arrived from London. My father was in his shirt and trousers, but as the hour was late and everybody had retired to rest except themselves, he prepared to accompany them as he was. As they were leaving the room, he caught up his revolver in case you meet the brown lady, he said, laughing. When the inspection of the gun was over, the young man in the same spirit declared they would accompany my father back again, in case you meet the brown lady, they repeated, laughing also. The three gentlemen therefore returned in company. The corridor was long and dark, for the lights had been extinguished, but as they reached the middle of it, they saw the glimmer of a lamp coming towards them from the other end. One of the ladies going to visit the nurseries, whispered the young townsant to my father. Now the bedroom doors on that corridor faced each other and each room had a double door with a space between, as is the case in many old-fashioned houses. My father, as I have said, was in shirt and trousers only and his native modesty made him feel uncomfortable, so he slipped within one of the outer doors, his friends following his example, in order to conceal himself until the lady should have passed by. I've heard him describe how he watched her approaching nearer and nearer, through the chink of the door, until, as she was close enough for him to distinguish the colors and style of her costume, he recognized the figure as the facsimile of the portrait of the brown lady. He had his finger on the trigger of his revolver and was about to demand it to stop and give the reason for its presence there, when the figure halted of its own accord before the door behind which he stood and, holding the lighted lamp she carried to her features, grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner at him. This act so infuriated my father, he was anything but lamb-like in disposition that he sprang into the corridor with a bound and discharged the revolver right in her face. The figure instantly disappeared. The figure, at which for several minutes, three men had been looking together and the bullet passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor and lodged in the panel of the inner one. My father never attempted again to interfere with the brown lady of Rainham. When the son of Lady Townsend and his friend saw her next, they knew who she was. They saw her on the staircase and identified the ghost with the portrait hanging on the wall in the haunted room. Of course, the portrait was of Lady Dorothy Walpole. After Proven and Sheara took the picture in Rainham Hall, they published their experience in Country Life Magazine, December 26, 1936. They were published again in Life Magazine on January 4, 1937. So all in all, they did profit on this. But could it be that they just took a picture? After the picture was taken, a paranormal investigator, Harry Price, interviewed both Proven and Sheara. He said, I will say it once, I was impressed. I was told a perfectly simple story. Mr. Indra Sheara saw the apparition descending the stairs at the precise moment when Captain Proven's head was under the black cloth. A shout and the cap was off and the flashball fired with the results which we now see. I could not shake their story and I had no right to disbelieve them. Only collusion between the two would account for the ghost if it's a fake. The negative is entirely innocent of any faking. But there have been numerous attempts at debunking the picture and its status as proof. Some claim Sheara faked the image by putting grease or something in the lens in the shape of a lady, maybe moved down the stairs himself during an exposure, or maybe it's simply an accidental double exposure or light somehow getting into the camera. Some even claim that the figure looks eerily like the Virgin Mary statue and that the image is of her in the staircase, the statue that is not the Virgin Mary. Among those examining, trying to debunk the validity of the picture, is Joe Nichols' detailed writings that the photograph is nothing more than double exposure, and the magician John Booth wrote that the photograph could be easily made. Booth had the magician Ron Wilson cover himself in a bedsheet and walk down the staircase at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. It apparently turned out very similar to the photograph. So what is that? Debunked or proof, haunted town or just a town with the biggest hoax of all time? The legend of the Mothman reached a craze in a small town of Point Pleasant in West Virginia in the 60s. It has everything from a classic pulp science fiction movie from that time, UFOs, monsters in the sky, an abandoned chemical plant from the war, and a black 57 Chevy. But what does that have to do with Christmas? On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed. It connected Point Pleasant to Ohio. When it collapsed under the weight of rush hour traffic, it resulted in the death of 46 people and wrapped packages dropping to the river. Sightings of the strange monster had been spotted by many in the time before the tragedy. Some saw the Mothman as a premonition of the oncoming disaster. Some saw it as the cause of it. In any case, this spurred the legend that the Mothman was an omen of doom. It's not just ghosts that haunt the holidays, sometimes we get a monster. The legend of the Mothman reached a craze in the small town of Point Pleasant in West Virginia during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays of the 1960s. It was November. Five grave diggers dug a grave in a cemetery in West Virginia. One of them was Kenneth Duncan, and he was digging the grave for his father-in-law. It was the 12th of November, 1966, and he was about to be the first official witness to the Mothman. Suddenly, he saw something right above the trees. It was no bird. It looked more like a human being, but at the same time, it wasn't. This creature had wings. It was gliding through the trees and was in sight for about a minute, Duncan said. The four other men together with Duncan did not see the creature before it flew away, and the men didn't talk about this strange encounter with others than their close friends. Perhaps it would be forgotten, had other people not started reporting seeing the exact same thing. This November sighting was not to be the last. Perhaps the most reported about and famous sighting was the Scarbury and Millet sighting on November 15, 1966, in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. This is the first sighting to be reported to the media and get any public attention. Two couples, Linda and Roger Scarbury and Steve and Mary Millet, were riding around north of the city. In a place used as a so-called Lover's Lane, joyriding around, they reached the abandoned North Power Plant. It's known as the TNT area, or the TNT plant. There, they saw the eyes of a creature, reflected from the headlights of their Black 57 Chevy. There was no glowing about it until the lights hit it, Linda said in her handwritten account of the incident. They were glowing red after this, belonging to a gray figure, six or seven feet, man-like with wings. They said the creature wobbled like it couldn't keep its balance. Terrified at the sighting, they drove off down Route 62, Linda yelling at Roger to speed up. As they went around a curve, they saw the creature on a hill by a large billboard, spreading its wings. It started to fly, flying back and forth over the car. We didn't know what it was. I don't think we've ever been so scared, Linda said. Going a hundred miles an hour, they tried to speed away from the creature, but the mothman still managed to keep up. They couldn't get away, hearing the wings hitting the top of the car. They reported to have been scratch marks on the Chevy after the incident. It squeaked like a big mouse, Mary Millet said. It was first when they reached the outskirts of Point Pleasant, they managed to get away from the creature as it disappeared, veering off into a nearby field. They stopped at the local dairy land and tried to figure out what to do about it all. Linda wanted to go to the police to report it, but both Roger and Steve didn't want to be laughed at. They wanted to go back to see if the thing was still there. But the group was too scared and turned back to Point Pleasant. When they did, they noticed a dead dog along the road where the creature jumped out, going across the roof of the car before it disappeared in the field again. It was gone when they went back later. They drove back to town and stopped at Tiny's Diner. There, they contacted the police. If I had seen it while by myself, I wouldn't have said anything, but there were four of us who saw it, Roger later told the local papers. Deputy Millard Halstead was the one that met them. The couples told about a large, winged creature with glowing red eyes. Halstead didn't believe them at first. He knew they weren't troublemakers and saw that they were terrified, so he went to investigate. The couples went with the deputy to the area. Halstead heard strange static disturbances from the radio but found no trace of the creature. The couples sat in the car and said they saw shadows circling around nearby and dust kick up from the cold yard nearby. The millettes were too scared to go home and they stayed awake all night in Scarbury's trailer. Lights on, terrified. The next day, the couples went back to the area in the daylight. They found tracks looking like two horseshoes put together. Steve reported seeing something fly up when a door kicked open. They left the place before they could see what it was. The same day, the sheriff George Johnson held a press conference. The local press attended and named the creature Mothman. Batman had just gotten a television series at that time, so they named him after one of the villains of the series. After this, more and more sightings were reported, including Duncan's at the cemetery. It sparked national, even international attention in the media. Steve said to the local paper, We understand people are laughing at us, but we wouldn't make all of this up to make us look like fools. After this particular sighting, several of the previous ones came forward, and we'll hear about them 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've 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 Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. If you or someone you know struggles with depression or dark thoughts, I'd like to recommend the Hope in the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There, I've gathered numerous free resources to help you fight depression, including the Seven Cups app, the Suiciding Crisis Hotline, the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression, 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. We return now to the Mothman and how he terrorized the holidays in 1966 in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. And once the first report came out, others quickly flooded in. People flocked to the wildlife area where the incident took place and the volunteer fire department had to direct traffic. Two of them also came forward with tales of seeing a large bird with red eyes according to the Gettysburg Times. One famous anecdote from this time must be Newell Partridge and his missing dog. He was a contractor living 100 miles north and claimed the Mothman had something to do with the disappearance of his German shepherd dog Bandit. He sighted a thing in the meadow near his home only 90 minutes before the sighting of the couples in Point Pleasant. He took a flashlight and directed it towards the shadows. Glowing, red eyes looked back and Bandit started barking and ran after the creature. The dog never returned and the next morning, there was no trace of it. At the time of the Mothman sightings, residents also reported chilling incidents of unexplained paranormal activity, vanishing pets. Remember that dog laying dead in the road? Also, there were reports of television interference. Rumors of men in black, UFOs, weird dreams and shadows in the corner of their eyes. That's just some of the reported responses around this time in Point Pleasant and the areas surrounding it. That's just some of the reported responses around this time in Point Pleasant and the areas surrounding it according to newspaper clippings around the time. And the legend, Spun, grew and at last culminated in a fatal tragedy of the people in Point Pleasant. On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed. It connected Point Pleasant to Ohio and was an Ibar Chain suspension bridge built in 1928. When it collapsed under the weight of rush hour traffic, it resulted in the deaths of 46 people. Two of the victims were never found. Analysis showed the bridge carried more weight than it had been designed for and had been poorly maintained. The collapse of the bridge made it so several other old bridges were maintained and inspected. Historian Henry Petroski called it a cautionary tale for engineers of every kind. Several reports, including John Keele in his book The Mothman Prophecies, linked the Mothman to the horrible disaster as it was at the height of the Mothman sightings. The bridge was full of cars coming back from work or from Christmas shopping and they suddenly felt the bridge shake. Then came a moaning of metal before the screeching of the collapse. Then the bridge went down into the water. Many citizens spooked by the torrent of eerie occurrences blamed the Mothman for this unexpected disaster. It was only 13 months since the first Mothman sighting by Duncan. The strange thing about the connection is that several reports claimed they had strange dreams and nightmares about drowning and an oncoming disaster. This was also reported by Mary Hire. She was a reporter and wrote the column Where the Water Mingles in the Athens Messenger. She often reported on the weird occurrences in Point Pleasant and often about the Mothman. She became therefore a good friend of John Keele. There were also tales about men in black coming down to her office to try and shut her down. She told Keele on November 19, 1967, a month before the disaster, had a terrible nightmare. There were a lot of people drowning in the river and Christmas packages were floating everywhere in the water. It's like something awful is going to happen. Some saw the Mothman as a premonition of the upcoming disaster. Some saw it as the cause of the disaster. In any case, this spurred the legend that the Mothman was an omen of doom. This has not been the last time horrible disasters have been connected to sighting some strange creatures. Both before 9-11 and before the Russian apartment bombings, several claimed to have seen huge bird-like creatures with legs near the surrounding area of where the tragedies took place. So what was it all? Was it just a hoax? Was it an actual thing? Something in between? Cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall said it could be an undiscovered species of giant owl, dubbing it Big Hoot, as evidence of reports of it have existed in the Point Pleasant area long before and after the legend of Mothman was born. So is that it? Was it an enormous owl or other bird that terrified the inhabitants? There have also been theories about it being a big crane, as the description could be fitted to the big sandhill crane, as it does have a wingspan of about 7 feet and can stand as tall as a man. That was what Dr. Robert L. Smith, professor in wildlife biology at WVU, said at the time. Another theory is around the abandoned TNT area, the local leftover bunkers that were used for storing toxic chemicals during the Great War. It was used as an ammunition manufacturing facility that employed a few thousand people at its peak. What really happened in there? What exactly was stored in there? Could it be that it interfered with the neighboring wildlife reserve, creating something new? In May of 2010, one of the igloos at TNT containing 20,000 pounds of unstable materials suddenly exploded. Fortunately, no one was injured, but the place had to be shut down and cleaned out before opening again. Was that enough? Is the danger gone now? Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, this is not the only occurrences of Mothman. For the particularly interested, the Mothman fandom Wiki has made a super interesting timeline of supposed Mothman sightings, both before the 60s and after. Today, the Mothman is something of a legend, still living in point pleasant as a memory the people keep alive. It has its own museum dedicated to it with a 24-hour webcam around the area. A diner called the Mothman Diner has been run for almost 50 years now. It has its own statue in the town, even its own festival every September dedicated to the one and only. The legend has spun several books, movies, art, toys, and the occasional reported sighting. The last big sighting on camera was in 2016. A man was driving down the road and suddenly saw something jumping from the nearby trees. The man had just moved to point pleasant and claimed he didn't know anything about the legend and that he did not edit the photos that he took of the thing in the sky. Let's hope that the Mothman in fact is not an omen of doom then, and that if it is, the sightings will stop entirely for the sake of the people of point pleasant. On Christmas Eve 2002, in Middletown, Pennsylvania, Scott Hulaver 28 drove his brother Ernest Hulaver Jr. 42 to the home of his estranged wife and two children. Ernest broke into the home and crept into the bedroom of Gene Hulaver 43 and pulled out his .22 caliber pistol. He shot her in the head. He left her room and crept into the bedroom of each of his daughters, Elizabeth 15 and Victoria 20. He then shot each girl in the head, leaving only Victoria's infant daughter, nine-month-old Madison, alive. Their bodies were not discovered until Christmas morning. Madison found unharmed near her mother's body. Ernest was the only suspect as he was about to be tried on rape charges. Police alleged that he had been molesting both his daughters for years. Ernest was acquitted of the rape charges during the course of his murder trial as all three of his witnesses were now dead. In 2004, he was found guilty of all three murders and given three consecutive death sentences. As of now, he remains on death row. Scott Hulaver was sentenced to a 12.5 to 25-year term in prison on three counts of third degree murder. His most recent appeal was dismissed on January 11, 2018, and he remains in prison to this day. Up next, it's Jeffrey Pardo, the killer Santa on Weird Darkness. 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-thru 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-thru, just give the flyer to the drive-thru 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. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar, and if you're looking for Weird Darkness merchandise, you can find t-shirts, buttons, hoodies, office supplies, clothes for your kids, stickers, magnets, coffee mugs, and more with all of your favorite Weird Darkness designs. You can find something for you or the weirdo in your life by clicking on store at WeirdDarkness.com. In all proceeds, go to benefit those who suffer from depression. So you're helping yourself and you're helping others at the same time. Click on store at WeirdDarkness.com. Christmas parties are a time for joy, laughs, and family, a time to be shared with the ones you love. But sometimes, the ones who love us have a different plan. That was the case of Bruce Jeffry Pardo, the killer Santa. Bruce Jeffry Pardo grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California, graduated from John H. Polytechnic High School and went on to study computer science at California State Northridge. A bright man, he graduated and secured himself a job as a software engineer for Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Bruce was not the model employee, spending time hacking the company system to access private personal information, including but not limited to compensation, tax information, etc. He also had very poor attendance. Despite all of this, by 1988, at the age of 24, he found himself engaged to Delia, a fellow employee. Bruce still lived with his mother and he was not in the best financial shape, so Delia agreed to pay for a wedding reception at the country club, as well as a honeymoon in Tahiti. Everything was set up and both Delia and Bruce's mother were excited. The big day arrived on June 17, 1989. Delia waited at the church in nervous anticipation, but Bruce never showed up. She later discovered that he had withdrawn $3,000 from their joint bank account and took a trip of his own to Palm Springs, Florida. Delia, of course, called off their engagement and things went back to how they used to be. It wasn't until 2001 that Bruce found himself in another difficult situation. He was living with his girlfriend, Eleanor and their 13-month-old son, Matthew, in Woodland Hills, California. It was the most stable relationship Bruce had ever had, and things were going really well. That is, until the day Eleanor went out, leaving Bruce home alone with the baby. Bruce turned on the television and got sucked in. He wasn't paying careful attention to Matthew and the boy fell into the backyard pool. When Eleanor returned home, she found Bruce holding their son nearly hysterical. Matthew was rushed to the hospital and after just a week of intense medical attention, the doctors informed them that their son would never fully recover. In fact, Matthew had sustained brain damage and was now a paraplegic. As Bruce did when things got hard, he left never to see his son again, despite his mother's continued interest and support to the child. In 2004, a co-worker of Bruce has introduced him to his sister-in-law Sylvia. Sylvia was a 40-year-old mother of three, and they hit it off right from the start. January 29, 2006, the couple was married. Bruce purchased a three-bedroom, $452,000 home in Montrose. The happy family attended church together regularly. Bruce even volunteered as a nusher. But things are not always as they seem, as we already know with Bruce. The relationship was suffering under financial stress, and then Bruce's mother Nancy decided she had to say something. She was quite fond Sylvia and knew her son had his troubles. She told her about her son's past relationships, including that with Eleanor and their son Matthew. Sylvia was shocked by this revelation, having not known anything about Matthew and further angered by Bruce's dishonesty and his lack of responsibility. Then it was discovered that although Bruce had not seen his son since that day in the hospital, he was still continuing to claim him on his taxes as a dependent. Sylvia filed for divorce in April 2008, and Bruce spiraled into depression. In June, he purchased his first gun, a 9mm handgun. On June 18, in divorce court, he was ordered to pay $1,785 per month in spousal support. He wrote his first check, which bounced, and then he stopped payment on the second, making no further attempts to pay. On July 31, he was fired from his job for billing fraudulent hours. He applied for unemployment but was denied, as workers who are fired are deemed ineligible. On August 8, Bruce purchased another 9mm handgun, followed by another purchase on September 8. He then contacted one of his neighbors, Jerry, who happened to be a proprietor of Jerry's costumes. He requested a custom-sized Santa suit with a little extra room for comfort, as he was 6'4 and 270 pounds, making a standard suit too small. He told her that it was for a children's party and paid a $200 deposit with a promise to pick up and pay the rest in November. Then, on October 11, he purchased his fourth handgun. He received a call from an old high school friend, Steve Irwin, who asked him over to his home in Iowa to celebrate his 45th birthday. Bruce accepted, and while he was there, confided in Steve. He was embarrassed that his personal life was open and on display in court where everyone could see his finances and now knew of his firing. Even more so, he was upset that he and his mother hardly spoke, and during the divorce proceedings she chose to sit with Sylvia's family, not providing support to her own son. November came, and Bruce returned to Jerry's costumes and paid the outstanding fee for his costume and even left a $20 tip. On the 13th, he purchased yet another handgun, now totaling five. He had also acquired a DeWalt compressor, a 50-foot hose, and a tank of high octane fuel. Just one week before Christmas, on December 18, 2008, Bruce's divorce from Sylvia was final. He agreed to let her keep her diamond engagement ring and agreed to pay her $10,000. The next day, he went to a Montrose travel agency where he booked a ticket to Iowa where he would visit his friend Steve. He paid $650 for a round-trip flight that would depart at 12.20 a.m. on Christmas Day and return two weeks later. He rented a Dodge caliber from Budget, then rented a Silver RAV4 from a rent-a-rec. He loaded up the RAV4 with maps of the Southwestern United States as well as water, food, clothing, a tank of gas, a laptop, and a desktop computer. Early evening, on Christmas Eve, he stopped to chat with a neighbor, saying he was heading out to a Christmas party. He had been signed up to serve as an usher for a midnight mass at the church he attended, but didn't show up. Instead, at approximately 11.30 p.m., dressed in his Santa suit, Bruce knocked on the door of his former-in-law's house, where he knew his ex-wife would be. The door was answered by 8-year-old Letitia Jusofpolski, Sylvia's niece. Excited to see Santa Claus, she rushed toward him. Bruce didn't hesitate. He fired, hitting her in the face. He went on to shoot indiscriminately at the frightened party guests. When he felt he was done shooting, he unwrapped the gift he had brought with him. He was a homemade flamethrower. He began to spray racing fuel around the home, intent on lighting it with a flare. Unfortunately for Bruce, the flames from two separate fireplaces triggered an explosion. Bruce fled the house, dropping a pair of fake glasses and his Santa hat in the yard. He jumped into the Dodge-caliber rental car and drove 30 miles to Silmar, parking about a block away from his brother's home. He carefully peeled his shredded Santa suit off his body as it had melted into his skin from the explosion, causing third-degree burns. He used his suit to set up a booby trap. If the suit was moved, a tripwire would ignite a flash fire exploding 200 rounds of ammunition. Bruce's brother returned home around 3.10 in the morning and found him sprawled on the living room couch with two handguns by a side. He was dead, having shot himself. Back at the house, the fire soared 40 to 50 feet and took 80 firefighters an hour and a half to extinguish. Nine people were dead and three others wounded. Due to the intensity of the fire, victims could only be identified with dental and medical records. Silvia Ortega Pardo, Bruce's ex-wife, died from a gunshot. Alicia Sotomayor Ortega, Silvia's mother, died from a gunshot. Joseph S. Ortega, Silvia's father, died from multiple gunshots. Charles Ortega, Silvia's brother, died from a combination of smoke inhalation and gunshots. Sherri Lynn Ortega, Charles' wife, died from a combination of smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds. James Ortega, Silvia's brother, died from a combination of smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds. Teresa Ortega, James' wife, died from a combination of smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds. Alicia Ortega Ortiz, Silvia's sister, died from a combination of smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds. And Michael Andre Ortiz, Alicia's son, died in the fire. Sylvia's eight-year-old niece, who had been shot in the face at the very beginning of the incident, actually survived, but she suffered severe, non-life-threatening injuries. A 16-year-old girl was shot and wounded in the back, and a 20-year-old woman suffered a broken ankle jumping from a second floor window. Up next on Weird Darkness, it's a Christmas horror, starring a boy named Christie, his sister, who did nothing but encourage his torture, accusations of witchcraft, and death. Christie Bommu's cruel Christmas, when Weird Darkness returns. 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 ten 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. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. Christmas, or the holidays in general, are a time for friends and family. Sometimes being together is wonderful and sometimes it's misery. When Christy Bamu traveled from East London to visit his older sister Magali, he found nothing but misery. On December 20, 2010, 15-year-old Christy Bamu and four of his siblings visited their older sister Magali Bamu and her boyfriend Eric Bakubi, who were both 28 at the time. Everything was fine until Christy had to use the restroom and found that he couldn't get in. It was such a dire emergency, he wet himself and then, out of embarrassment, tried to hide the evidence by hiding his pants in the kitchen. Bakubi, who had suffered brain damage, took this as a sign that Christy had brought kendochi or witchcraft into his home. He had no choice but to exercise the boy, but it didn't stop with Christy. Bakubi went after the other four as well. To say it started with simple beatings is to make it sound like beatings are acceptable, but compared with what Christy would eventually suffer, the beatings would have been preferable. Over the next four days, all five, three boys and two girls were asked to prove that they were witches. Kelly, the older sister, said, they started talking about kendochi, witchcraft and this and that. It was as if they were obsessed by witchcraft, and then it became absolutely unbearable. They decided we had to come there to kill them. It started with prayer and fasting, and when that wasn't enough, the beatings began. He began to hit Christy while my sister was watching and didn't do anything. Kelly said, I begged him, we didn't do anything. We are innocent. She didn't argue at all. It was as if it was completely normal. She was just sitting there as a spectator. They were beaten, attacked with a knife, and one of the girls was even forced to eat a light bulb. Bakubi told them to jump out of a window so he could watch them fly. They looked to Magali, their older sister, for help, but all she did was encourage her boyfriend. He hit and hit Christy, Kelly said. He was not feeling well. He was having trouble breathing and he fell over. As far as Eric and Magali were concerned, how was the Kondoki coming out of him? The sisters, ages 11 and 20, were accused of sorcery, black magic, as well as witchcraft. They chose to make false confessions. According to Kelly, Magali and Bakubi asked if we were witches. I repeated again and again that we were not witches. I did not know what was going on in their minds. They decided we had come there to kill them. Eventually, they all admitted to being witches to end the attacks. While that worked for four of them, Christy was not so lucky. Bakubi ordered them to attack their brother. For Christy, the beatings turned to torture. Christy asked for forgiveness. He asked again and again. Magali did absolutely nothing. She didn't lift a finger and said that she was convinced that we did bad things, Kelly said. Christy was attacked, suffering more than 200 blows. His teeth were broken with a hammer. He was hit with metal poles. Bakubi used a pair of pliers to rip his ear and heavy ceramic tiles were dropped on his head. As one would expect, Christy begged for death. He got his wish on Christmas morning. Magali and Bakubi called their father Pierre Bamu. Dad, you got to pick up the children because they're witches and you're a witch, too, Magali told her father. Bakubi said, you got to come and pick up the children. You got to pick up Christy because he's a witch and he's practicing witchcraft on another child of the family. If you don't, I'm going to kill him. According to Pierre, when he said that, I wanted to say something to him. Then straight after that, I heard Christy's voice. Christy was talking in a calm voice. He wasn't crying. He just spoke to me in a voice like we're using now. Dad, come and get me. Otherwise, Eric will kill me. And then he was cut off. When Eric said that, knowing Eric as I do, I said it's not going to come to that because he's a nice person, a really nice person. Magali and Bakubi put all the siblings into the bathtub. Bakubi proceeded to hose them off with cold water. When he saw that Christy was no longer moving, he stopped and pulled him from the tub, only to discover he had died. When the paramedics arrived, they tried to save Christy but were unsuccessful. He was gone. All were standing in the living room hysterical, terrified and soaking wet. In a staggering act of depravity and cruelty, they both forced the other to take part in the assaults upon Christy. The children had no option other than to do as they were told or risk the same violence to themselves. As Christy's injuries became even more severe, he even pleaded to be allowed to die. Eventually Bakubi took him into the bathroom, put him in the bath and started to run the water. Christy was just too badly injured and exhausted to resist or to keep his head above the water. Christy had been the victim of a prolonged attack of unspeakable savagery and brutality. Christy was killed in the name of witchcraft. It's hard to believe in this day and age anyone could believe someone was practicing witchcraft, said Brian Altman. Christy's discovered blood all over the home, on the ceiling, walls, as well as on all the tools they had used in their attacks. Eric Bakubi and Magali Bamu were arrested for their crimes. Bakubi claimed self-defense, saying he was defending himself because Christy was a witch. Magali claimed Bakubi forced her to join in on the attack. Bakubi would only admit to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility from his reported brain damage. Magali denied her involvement. It's an unprecedented scenario where siblings are murdering another sibling. The family have been very positive they've pulled together remarkably well. They were more than willing to give evidence and make sure the perpetrators were dealt with appropriately, said Detective Inspector Paul Maddock. It was prolonged torture involving mental and physical suffering being inflicted before death, said Judge David Page. While he accepted Bakubi's claim that brain damage might have made him more inclined to believe Christy was a witch, he also added, the belief in witchcraft, however genuine, cannot excuse an assault to another person, let alone the killing of another human being. During the course of the trial, Judge David Page pointed out that at no point did Magali show any remorse for her actions. Bakubi was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison. Magali was sentenced to a minimum of 25. Thanks for listening. If you missed any part of tonight's show or if you'd like to hear it again, you can subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app at WeirdDarkness.com slash listen. Not only will you hear a copy of tonight's show, but you'll also get a daily episode of Weird Darkness as I post 7 days per week. Again, you can subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com slash listen, or 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 send in your own paranormal experiences by clicking on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com. 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 2022. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Luke 1 verses 30-33. But the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his Father David, and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. And a final thought. Bless us, Lord, this Christmas with quietness of mind. Teach us to be patient and always to be kind. Helen Steiner Rice I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness and Merry Christmas. 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 WeirdDarkness.com slash syndicate. Ah Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year when friends and family get together, share meals, memories and gifts. Generally speaking, people are gracious when they receive a gift, but there's always that outlier who is less than pleased. As the gift giver, what do you do when that person doesn't like your gift? Well, in the case of Melissa Young, you kill them. It was Christmas Day 2013 when Alan Williamson visited his neighbor, Melissa Young. When she gave him his gift, a pair of unisex trainers and a copy of the Sun Newspapers 2014 calendar, he was not pleased. Young proceeded to block him in her home against his will. He managed to call 999, the equivalent of 911 in the United States. Police could hear Alan shouting, let me out, but were unable to speak to him directly. Before police arrived on the scene, Young made her own call. She informed the police that she had stabbed someone about seven times. I'm psychiatric, can you take me to Royal Edinburgh Hospital, please? She asked. When they arrived, police found Young covered in blood. The power it gave me was amazing, she told them. What really happened behind closed doors, we may never know. What we do know is that Alan was stabbed 29 times, 12 on the left side of his chest, 12 on the left upper limb, and 5 on his lower left side. Several of the stab wounds went so deep into his chest they pierced both his heart and his lungs. The lower stab wounds caused injury to his pancreas, stomach and spleen. One of the stab wounds transected the left femoral vein. The deepest wound was 8.5 cm or 3.35 inches deep. As for Melissa Young, she was immediately remanded to Cortenvale, a women's prison in Stirling, Scotland. Toxicology reports indicated that blood taken after her arrest showed trace amounts of four different drugs and she had also exceeded the legal alcohol drink-drive limit. However, in court, the judge concluded that given Young had a history of both drug and alcohol abuse, it seems unlikely that either drink or drugs played a big part in what happened. Six consultant psychiatrists agreed that Young suffered from a severe personality disorder. Dr. Lenahan described the disorder as a mixed personality disorder with emotionally unstable, borderline, narcissistic, histrionic and anti-social traits. Another psychiatrist, Dr. Kahn, diagnosed Young with schizophrenia. Another doctor testified that Young was prone to violent and dangerous outbursts, was on 14 different prescription drugs, inhaled solvents daily and was a known alcoholic. Making matters worse, she had smoked heroin that very morning. Regarding Young having diminished responsibility for her actions, the judge surmised the general impression that one was left with from all the psychiatrists. Dr. Kahn accepted it was of someone who was manipulative and prone to using psychiatric symptoms as a means to obtain an end. When questioned, Melissa Young refused to accept that she had stabbed Alan more than seven times and claimed that either he or the police inflicted the remaining stab wounds as a personal vendetta against her. Worse, she stated that she was indifferent to the fact that she had taken his life. Specifically, she didn't like him. Young also claimed that the Archangel St. Michael had taken over her body as an instrument of God to punish the unclean demon. Further evidence of her dislike of Alan Williamson is the fact that earlier that same year she abducted and assaulted him, accusing him of stealing her house keys. She held him against his will, waving a knife menacingly. Alan was in such fear for his own safety, he chose to jump from the first floor balcony down to the garden below just to escape. She told the court that if he had only accepted her gifts, she would not have stabbed him. After only five days, Melissa Young was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole after twenty years. But her troubles didn't stop there. While incarcerated, she attacked and bit a female prison guard in 2014. She lunged at the guard, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground by her hair. She climbed on top of her and bit her in the stomach, drawing blood. Her defense claimed there is a substantial medical health background as she is transgender. Despite this, she was given an additional six months to her sentence. Melissa Young stood at six feet three inches and had been born Richard McCabe. She transitioned in 2002. About a year after her transition, Young took on a job at a sauna. Her employer, a gay man going by the name of Cher, recalled a time when she had told him about her teen years, when she was bullied for cross-dressing. She showed me nude pictures of herself as Richard and he was beautiful. She would dress as a woman at the age of fourteen or fifteen, gangs of kids used to beat her up in the street. He added, she didn't have much of a life after her transition. She suffered from paranoia and thought everyone was always talking about her. Her smoking cannabis on a daily basis didn't help that. Melissa never had any relationships with men. It was all one-night stands, of which there were many. She was too unbalanced to get close to. Cher eventually parted ways with Young after he discovered that she'd begun prostituting from her home. Then I found out she had started turning tricks at her flat. I was angry because she was trying to steal our customers. After everything that had happened, I sacked her. You've been bragging about taking groups of drunken men sometimes as many as thirteen at a time to the back of the nightclub for relations. Though she has filed appeals, they've all been denied and Melissa Young remains in custody. Christmas 1929 Charles Lawson murdered his wife and six of his seven children. Charles Davis Lawson married Fannie Manring in 1911. The couple proceeded to have eight children. Their third child, William, was born in 1914 but tragically died in 1920. Charles moved his family to Germantown, North Carolina in 1918 with his younger two brothers moved there. They worked as tenant tobacco farmers and saved their money to purchase their own farm in 1927. A few months before Christmas, 1929, Charles sustained a head injury. Family and friends believed his mental state had been altered but were never truly concerned. Fast forward to a week or so before Christmas. Charles, now 43, took his wife, Fannie, 37, and their seven children, Marie, 17, Arthur, 16, Carrie, 12, Maybell, 7, James, 4, Raymond, H2, and Mary Lou, four months old, into town to buy new clothes and have a family portrait taken. This was a rather unusual occurrence for a working-class rural family in that era. Stella Lawson, a relative of the family, overheard her mother and aunts discussing a secret Fannie Lawson had confided in them. She was concerned about an incestuous relationship between Charles and their oldest daughter Marie. Ella May, a close friend of Marie Lawson, had also been confided in. A few weeks before Christmas, Marie told her she was pregnant with her father's baby and that both her parents knew about this. On the afternoon of December 25, 1929, Charles sent his son Arthur into town on an errand. Once Arthur was gone, Charles took his 12-gauge shotgun and waited by the tobacco barn. His daughters, Carrie and Maybell, were leaving to go to their uncle and aunts' house. When they were in range, Charles shot them and bludgeoned them, placing their bodies in the tobacco barn. He returned to the house and shot his wife Fannie, who was on the porch. Hearing the gunshot, his daughter Marie, who was inside the house, screamed. The two youngest boys, James and Raymond, ran and hid. Charles went inside, shot Marie, then found the two boys and shot them as well. He then took the baby and bludgeoned her to death. He took the bodies of his family and carefully set them out. He rested their heads on rocks and folded their arms across their bodies. Charles left the house and went off into the woods on his own. Several hours later, he shot himself, the gunshot heard by the numerous people who had gathered at his home learning of the massacre from Arthur and the police. On Christmas Eve 2002, in Middletown, Pennsylvania, Scott Hulaver, 28, drove his brother, Ernest Hulaver, Jr., 42, to the home of his estranged wife and two children. Ernest broke into the home and crept into the bedroom of Gene Hulaver, 43, and pulled out his 22-caliber pistol. He shot her in the head. He left her room and crept into the bedroom of each of his daughters, Elizabeth, 15, and Victoria, 20. He then shot each girl in the head, leaving only Victoria's infant daughter, nine-month-old Madison, alive. Their bodies were not discovered until Christmas morning. Madison found unharmed near her mother's body. Ernest was the only suspect as he was about to be tried on rape charges. Police alleged that he had been molesting both his daughters for years. Ernest was acquitted of the rape charges during the course of his murder trial, as all three of his witnesses were now dead. In 2004, he was found guilty of all three murders and given three consecutive death sentences. As of now, he remains on death row. Scott Hulaver was sentenced to a 12-and-a-half-to-25-year term in prison on three counts of third-degree murder. His most recent appeal was dismissed on January 11, 2018, and he remains in prison to this day. Weird Darkness, email newsletter for free at WeirdDarkness.com.