 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. 150 years ago, Jacob Cooley ordered his African-American slave, Hosea, to build a chest for his first child. Hosea set to work, crafting a wooden chest of some remark. For some unknown reason, his master was displeased with his efforts and beat his slave to a pulp, killing him. Cooley's other slaves vowed to avenge the death of their friend and sprinkled the dried blood of an owl in the chest and had a conjureman curse the chest. As if by magic, Cooley's first born died in infancy and, over the forthcoming years, a total of 17 deaths were attributed to the conjure chest. 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 in this episode... In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, there is a home built by slaves that is considered the most haunted in Alabama. Drivers are reporting strange, ghostly orbs following them on dark roads. Deng Thanh Ngoc is a well-known con man who has used the names of multiple dead soldiers to con veteran groups into giving him money. One identity he stole created a fascinating but dark story. A woman comes home to find her visiting sister murdered and police were convinced she was the one who committed the crime. So what went wrong with the case to allow her to get away with it? A bordello, pizza and a haunting. You can find them all at the Red Onion Saloon. Plus later, I'll share two creepypastas from Weirdo Family Members, a brief history of egg birding from Louise Latham and dreamality from Kara Raich. But first, the brutal death of an African slave brings a curse upon the wooden chest he was ordered to construct. We begin with that story. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, my newsletter, to enter contests, to connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. 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. An elegant mahogany-venir chest of drawers, hand-carved by an African-American slave 150 years ago, resides in the Kentucky Historic Museum at Frankfurt. Crafted in the Empire style, the chest has glass knobs on its four drawers. Nothing about its outward appearance gives any hint that tragedy has stalked its existence, that it's known to historians as the Conjured Chest. Two decades before the Civil War, the family of one Jacob Cooley lived a sumptuous life as wealthy southern planters. Jacob owned many slaves and farmed thousands of acres. He was also an evil, despicable man who frequently beat his slaves for the slightest infraction of his stringent rules. Jacob Cooley ordered one of his slaves, an excellent furniture maker named Hosea, to construct a chest that would be used for his first-born child. For some unknown reason, Jacob was angered at Hosea's finished product and beat him so savagely he died a few days later. Cooley's slaves, led by an old conjure man, placed a curse on the chest for all future generations. One drawer was sprinkled with dried owl's blood and a conjure chant was sung. All those associated with the chest would fall within the curse's evil power. Although Jacob Cooley himself evidently escaped the malevolence, his descendants were not as fortunate. The baby for whom the chest was originally built died soon after birth. The chest was in his nursery. His brother inherited the chest and he was stabbed to death by his personal servant. Jacob Cooley had another son, John, who inherited one of his father's many plantations. The young man led a serene bachelor's life until a vivacious young woman barely out of routines came into his life. Her name was Ellie and she soon married John nearly three times her age. The couple inherited the conjured chest. Knowing of the tragedies that had befallen her husband's siblings, she put the chest in an attic. Meanwhile, Jacob Cooley's youngest daughter Melinda eloped with a waggish Irishman named Sean. With nowhere to live, Melinda turned to Ellie. John and Ellie had done well and had accumulated several farms in Tennessee. They turned over one of these to Sean and Melinda to work. While Melinda bore her young husband a brood of children and worked from sunrise to sunset, Sean came to loathe the dullness of farm life. Ellie Cooley tried to help, but Sean's rebuffs made her presence unwelcome. To try and bring some beauty into Melinda's dreary existence, Ellie sent over her father-in-law's chest. It had been in her attic for a very long time and nothing had happened. She had almost forgotten the chest's legacy. Perhaps the curse was only a lot of talk. Within days, Sean deserted his wife for the bright lights of New Orleans. Melinda was inconsolable. She took to her bed with an ailment. There Melinda soon died, an exhausted gray-haired woman barely out of her thirties. Shortly after his wife's death, Sean was struck in the head by a steamboat's gangplank and died. The conjure chest had claimed its third and fourth victims. The couple left many orphaned children. John Cooley was given the job of traveling to Tennessee to assign the youngsters to other family members. The youngest, a baby named Evelyn, ran up to him, her tiny arms outstretched. John took her to live with his own family in Kentucky. Little Evelyn grew into a beautiful and intelligent young woman. When she turned 16, Evelyn passed an examination that provided her with a teaching certificate, with which she took over a one-room schoolhouse. She met and married a Scotsman, Malcolm Johnson barely two months after she began teaching. As a wedding present, Ellie presented her niece with Jacob Cooley's handsome chest, and the evil passed to a new generation. Evelyn Johnson had children and even adopted a young orphan, a girl named Arabella. The curse was all but forgotten. Evelyn had the chest but didn't find it necessary to use right away. However, after Arabella married some years later, Evelyn put the girl's bridal gown in the chest. Shortly thereafter, Arabella's husband suddenly died. That was the beginning of a series of horrible events visited upon Evelyn and Ellie. Arabella's child died after her baby clothes had been put in the chest. Evelyn's daughter-in-law, Esther, married to her oldest son, put her wedding attire in the chest. She died. Once Aunt Sarah knitted a scarf and gloves to give to her son for Christmas. While walking along a train trestle, he fell off and was killed a few days before Christmas. Two other tragedies befell Evelyn's immediate family. A son-in-law deserted his wife and a child was crippled for life in a bizarre accident. Yet Evelyn's husband, Malcolm, was a success. A small man, always courteous to those around him, he parlayed a shrewd Scottish sense of thrift into a burgeoning business empire that, at its height, consisted of mills, houses, a cullyard, wharf, and a dry goods store. Malcolm was an extraordinarily wealthy man when he died. Despite her material comfort, his wife was haunted by the memories of those around her who were struck down or stricken in some other way by hardship. She took her own life. 11 Persons The conjure chest was taking its toll. As the 20th century unfolded, the chest was inherited by Virginia Cary Hudson from her grandmother Evelyn Johnson. Mrs. Hudson thought tales of the curse were just hearsay. She was wrong. Her first baby's clothes were put into the chest. She died. Another child's clothes were tucked in a drawer, and she contacted infantile paralysis. Another daughter's wedding dress was stored there, and her first husband ran off. A son was stabbed in the hand. He had clothes in the chest. A friend of the family put hunting clothes in it. He was shot in a hunting accident. And so it went. 16 victims, all of whom had one thing in common. Some of their personal clothing had been put in the conjure chest. Mrs. Hudson wanted to put an end to the curse. She found what she had hoped would be the solution in the form of an old friend of hers, an African-American woman named Annie. Annie understood curses and conjures. The spell cast by Hosea's faithful companions would be broken only when three conditions were met. First, Mrs. Hudson would have to be given a dead owl without her having to ask for one. Second, the green leaves of a willow tree had to be boiled from sun up to sun down. The dead owl had to remain in sight. Third, the boiled liquid was then to be buried in a jug with its handle facing east toward the rising sun below a flowering bush. A stuffed owl, given to Mrs. Hudson's son by a friend, accomplished the first requirement. Mrs. Hudson plucked leaves from a nearby willow tree and boiled them in a large black pot. The owl kept watch from a kitchen counter. At dusk, old Annie and Mrs. Hudson took the jug and with its handle pointed east buried it beneath a flowering lilac bush outside the kitchen window. Annie said they would only know if the curse had been broken if one of them died before the first full days of fall. Annie died in early September, the 17th and last known victim. The final private owner of the conjure chest was Mrs. Hudson's daughter, Virginia C. Main. Though she may have been skeptical of the curse and knew fully the story of the curse being lifted by Annie and her mother, she never stored anything in the chest and kept it hidden in her attic. The Kentucky History Museum has it now. Mrs. Main donated it to the museum in 1976. According to museum registrar, Mike Hudson, the chest is in storage in our vaults, awaiting the time when it fits into a new exhibit. Supposedly the curse has been removed, but has it? Tucked safely in the top chest drawer is an envelope with a cluster of owl feathers inside. The museum isn't taking any chances. On 17th Street in Tuscaloosa, there is a home that is hailed as the most haunted in the state of Alabama. It is called the Drish House, which was formerly known as Monroe Place. Built mostly by slaves for John Drish and his wife on a plot of 450 acres, it was a beautiful home, styled in both the Greek and Italian Renaissance style. However, as beautiful as it was, darkness from its past marred its beauty. The owner, John Drish, already had a sad, morbid history when the house was built. He was a doctor and was married to a woman named Catherine Washington. They had a daughter named Catherine. Sadly, his wife died when their daughter was young. He sent her to live in Virginia with relatives because he believed living with a widower would not be good for her. John Drish was allegedly a charming man, and it didn't take long for him to woo and marry a rich widow by the name of Sarah Owen in 1825. He brought his daughter Catherine back to Alabama to live with him, but their relationship was frayed, so much so that a story of cruelty surrounds them. Allegedly, Catherine fell in love with a man John didn't prove of. He locked her in her room with very little food and water, and she eventually relented. She later married only to bring her sons back to the Drish House. She had divorced their father. Many rumors suggest that Catherine suffered from mental illness. Though charming, John Drish was an alcoholic, and he suffered from a violent temper. Sadly, John Drish would die because of that. There are three stories surrounding his death. The first is he threw himself from a second floor balcony. The second is that he was drunk and fell down the stairs, and the third story alleges that he was trying to stop drinking and began to shake from withdrawals and fell. Regardless of which story is true, John Drish died in 1867, leaving his distraught wife to plan his funeral. Sarah was so distraught that she became more and more eccentric. She planned an elaborate funeral. When it was over, she kept her husband's funeral candles and hid them away. She insisted that they be burned at her funeral. When she died in 1884, no one could find the candles, so her wishes were not met. Sadly, these were not the only dark things to surround the Drish family. Dr. Drish's niece was murdered by her husband, and there was also a rumor that a runaway slave hid in one of the towers, but when he exited because he needed food, he was returned to his owner who burned him alive. There have been reports of a male ghost who is assumed to be this slave. Since Sarah's death, the house has been used as a school, a church, salvage yard, an auto parts store and was also reportedly a prison during the Civil War. Besides the male ghost, ghost lights have also been reported near the top of the house and what appears to be a ghostly fire shooting from the third-story tower. Of course, there is no fire when the firemen arrive. This occurrence is either blamed on the ghost of the slave or Sarah Drish, who is believed to be angry because her wishes of using her husband's funeral candles at her own funeral were not met. Though the house fell in disrepair for a while, it has been restored and it is now open for those who wish to hold events there. So there is hope that the dark history of the Drish house is gone and can now have a bright future. Up next, drivers are reporting strange ghostly orbs following them on dark roads and Dangtang Nock is a well-known con man who was used the names of multiple dead soldiers to con veteran groups into giving him money, but one identity that he stole created a fascinating and dark story. These tales and more when Weird Darkness returns. Hey truckers, if you're on the road behind the wheel of a tractor trailer for a living, I have a contest just for you. Every month, I'm doing a random drawing from entries I receive in the Deadhead Truckers Contest. Go to WeirdDarkness.com slash truckers and register to win. If I draw out your name, you'll win two Weird Darkness Trucker t-shirts, two travel mugs, a large pillow, and a blank hardback journal. If you listen to Weird Darkness because handling 18 wheels alone on the road by yourself just isn't scary enough, then this monthly contest is for you. Register to win at your next 10-100 and visit WeirdDarkness.com slash truckers. That's Weird Darkness.com slash truckers. Roads have always seemed to attract about them tales of the strange and unusual. They push out further and further ahead of us, their destinations not visible, mysterious as the landscape rushes by us, sometimes bringing with it bizarreness. It is perhaps this almost primal sense of oddness that has spawned countless tales of haunted roads, inhabited by all manner of strange entities and apparitions. One feature of some spooky haunted roads are ghost lights, also called spook lights, dancing and twirling in the dark to baffle and amaze, and sometimes they seem to be far from harmless. Some malevolent spook lights seem to be linked to some sort of phantom motorists, and perhaps one of the more well-known of these is said to prowl a rural road in the town of Switzerland in St. John's County, Florida, in the United States. Here there is a modest little road called Greenbrier Road, which runs just east of the main town and there have for years been tales of a rather aggressive spook light that stalks vehicles that dare to drive along here at night. The enigmatic light is typically said to look just like a motorcycle headlight, which will pull up behind cars and steadily catch up no matter how fast the car goes, growing even larger in the rear view mirrors of the startled drivers. The light of the Greenbrier Road will then either chase the car until it is gone or bizarrely perch itself atop the vehicle, sort of piggybacking the car for some distance before blinking out of existence, as if it were never there at all. In some cases the mysterious light has even been blamed for causing crashes alongside this lonely stretch of road. The most common origin story for this mysterious light is that it is the wraith of a doomed motorcyclist who died along the road when he was decapitated after running into a telephone pole wire and that he now terrorizes the stretch upon which he met his fate, with only the headlight of his phantom bike visible. One witness named Todd M gave his story to the weird U.S. website saying, A few years ago I went to see Greenbrier Road at night with three of my friends. We had heard the stories about that light that people see and we wanted to see it. We drove up and down the road for like 40 minutes trying to see something but never saw anything until we got ready to leave. My friend Tom was driving and he looked in the rear view mirror and said, What's that? He looked behind us and there was the headlight of a motorcycle coming up fast. We slowed down a little and thought the biker would pass us, but then, just as it got right behind us about a hundred feet, the light went out. There was no motorcycle or anything. We turned around and went back but didn't see anything. I really think we saw a ghost biker of that guy that was killed on his motorcycle on that road. The malignant Greenbrier Ghost Light is so well known in the area that it has been the target of paranormal investigations and even scientific studies and police investigations trying to find a rational explanation for what people are seeing, but no explanation has ever been found. Speaking of phantom motorcyclists, there is another similar spook said to haunt a remote stretch of road winding through the rural farming county of Exeter in Tulare County, California, which is supposedly the stomping ground of a similar ghost. In this case, in the 1950s, a group of friends allegedly decided to play a prank on one of their friends by stretching out some rope across a narrow road called Bardsley Road in the Fresno Valley, after which they lied in wait for their motorcycle riding pal to come cruising by on his way home from work. The plan was for the rope to just hit him in the chest and knock him off his bike, which was pretty mean but they didn't intend to seriously hurt him, certainly not kill him. The story goes that the rider came along the darkened road as expected and also hit the rope just as expected. What wasn't expected was that the rope would be too high and lop his head clean off to go rolling across the pavement. In the aftermath of the gruesome accident, people started occasionally claiming to see a bright light shooting up and down the road, sometimes accompanied by the sound of a motorcycle engine and with the full apparition of a headless rider visible as well. Motorists and people walking along the road at night have also told of being followed or even chased by the Phantom Motorcyclist and it's believed that if you encounter the rider, you will be cursed to be in an accident yourself. Adding to these is a headless rider said to prowl Creek Road of Ojai, California, apparently riding a vintage 1940s motorcycle and appearing as a glowing light at first, often pulling right up next motorists to bang on their vehicles or chase them. Interestingly, Creek Road is ground zero for all manner of ghostly phenomena and high strangeness, including at least two Phantom horse riders, numerous apparitions, a smoking horribly burned and disfigured entity called the Char Man and even a supposed vampire, making a headless motorcycle rider actually one of the less bizarre tales from this place. Other sinister spook lights seem to be malevolent spirits or even possibly demons, located out just northeast of Jacksonville, Florida, is St. George Island, which is home to a historic sugarcane, cotton and corn plantation from the slave days called Kingsley Plantation, established by a man named Zephaniah Kingsley in 1813. The original plantation would quickly grow until Kingsley owned around a total of 32,000 acres of land and employed about 200 slaves. Despite having so many slaves, Kingsley was known for being a very lax and kind slave master, allowing his workforce to basically do whatever they wanted when they were off-duty and they were allowed to sell any crafts they made on their own time. Kingsley even married one of his slaves, Anna Magigene Gi, who would go on to take a prominent management role on the plantation, own her own land and end up being one of the richest women in the state. Although conditions were much better for slaves on the Kingsley Plantation than they were elsewhere, there was some amount of tragedy on the plantation, nevertheless. At some point, one of the slaves allegedly took to beating and raping other female slaves, even according to the stories murdering a few and hiding their bodies in the wilderness. When the other slaves got wind of this grim behavior, they are said to have gathered up a lynch mob to hunt the perpetrator down and had him strung up and hanged on a massive, spooky-looking oak tree right in front of the plantation along the main road to the premises, leaving his lifeless body to swing there in the wind. Although Kingsley would move to Haiti along with all of his slaves in 1837, it seems that at least some of them remained in a macabre sense. Over the years, the Kingsley Plantation has come to gather quite a reputation for being intensely haunted, supposedly by the ghosts of those murdered here. One is a woman in white that is frequently spotted roaming around and as a habit of photobombing pictures taken at the locale, while another is an unearthly screaming or wailing that supposedly emanates from the old abandoned well on the property, said to be from a victim of the crime spree, whose body was unceremoniously dumped down there in the darkness. However, one of the most frightening of the spirits of the old Kingsley Plantation is supposedly the vindictive spirit of the mad slave murderer himself, who terrorizes the plantation's creepy and rugged unpaved road. This particularly malicious spirit typically takes the form of two malevolent angry-looking red lights said to be his glowing eyes, earning the phantom the name Old Red Eyes. These lights will supposedly appear right behind cars right about at the old oak tree and chase them, in some reports even relentlessly attacking them. One report of an encounter with Old Red Eyes was described by a witness thus, I've sold Red Eyes several years ago. I have a friend that lives just off of that road and had taken him home from Jacksonville one night. It was about midnight and after driving him off, I was driving back down that road to the hard road and looked in the side mirror on my car and saw two red lights. At first I thought it was the taillights of another car but they were too close together. I slowed down a little and watched them in the mirror and it looked like they were coming closer. I knew that I had not passed another car and it did not seem like a car would be coming down that dark road backwards. I stopped and stuck my head out the window and looked back and there was nothing there. Then I looked in the mirror again and there they were and they were right behind my car. I gunned it and got the hell out of there. What I saw wasn't a car. Just as ominous is the appropriately named Demon's Road in Huntsville, Texas, which is already spooky enough, as it meanders through groves of twisted trees and darkened woods and ends up at the desolate Martha's Chapel Cemetery. The real name is Bowden Road but it has earned its nickname in the decidedly frightening phenomena that have been reported from there, such as Shadow People, a ghostly child with glowing eyes on a tricycle, a hulking faceless beast, a strange hooded figure and arms reaching out from graves. There are many spirits said to lurk along the murky stretches of this road and in the cemetery but one of the creepiest is a ghostlight that seems to be quite malicious indeed. Motorists venturing down the Demon's Road have often reported mysterious red lights hovering about in the dark, the number of which seem to depend on how many people are in the vehicle at the time. These spook lights will supposedly aggressively pursue cars and, spookiest of all, will leave unexplained handprints on the outside. Indeed, these lights have plagued many who have traveled down the road, often leaving those handprints and always hostile, sometimes even clawing or grabbing at cars to leave scratches and dents behind. What could this diabolical force be and why does it want to attack vehicles? Nobody knows. Another case in Texas of an aggressive ghostlight is that said to Roma Road in Hardin County, leading from Bragg to Saratoga, which actually at one point was a part of the Santa Fe Railroad back in the early 1900s before being paved over to be turned into a road. In an area called Big Thicket, there have long been reports of a multi-colored spook light hovering about at night along the road and in the surrounding wilderness, with many of them pointing at the light being quite evil. Even from the beginning, the reports of the Big Thicket Ghostlight, also called the Saratoga Ghostlight, were far from friendly. Hunters reported being chased by the lights and it was not uncommon to hear of them rushing amongst horses to send the animals into a panicked frenzy, to the point that on at least one occasion a horse-drawn wagon was forced to go crashing into a ditch because of the lights. At the time, the lights became a pretty widespread rumor, attracting all sorts of curiosity seekers. An author, F. E. Abernethy, would explain of the phenomenon in his book, Tales from the Big Thicket, Thus. Light seers poured onto the road by the hundreds. People of all ages and intellects came to see and test their beliefs in the supernatural. They shot at it, they chased it, and they tested it with litmus paper and geiger counters. A preacher harangued the road's multitudes from the top of his car, making the light as an ill omen of the world's impending doom. There were some nights the light didn't show at all, but for the most part, it was there to inspire stories that could be passed on, to change and grow at the will and imagination of the storyteller. In later years, the light did not stop its antics in the slightest bit, with reports of it chasing people or even attacking them common, such as cases in which the light stopped car engines, burned people's hands, or even violently knocked them down. There have been reports of cars being dinged, dented or smashed by the ghost light, and it is generally not something one wants to encounter while driving down the already eerie rural road. As usual, there have been many attempts to rationally explain the big, thicket light, such as that it is some sort of illusion, swamp gas or merely headlights, and there have been a fair number of more paranormal explanations as well, including that it is the spirit of a hunter or civil war soldier, or even that it is a curse placed over a lost Spanish treasure. Whatever the case may be, the stories of the evil ghost light of Saratoga persist. Texas seems to be a haven for such spook lights, because there is another road in this state that has its own scary stories of such entities. In the area of Mitchell Flat, east of Martha Texas, there have long been reports of mystery lights floating out over the desert landscape since at least the 1800s. The phenomena are usually described as dancing orbs of light that zip and zoom low to the ground over the parched desert scrub, and they have collectively been coined the Marfa Lights. While the phenomenon is puzzling but usually harmless and distant, there have been some reports that show these lights can be rather frightening on occasion. In one report from Weird Texas, one man named Tim Stevens gave an account of a very bizarre experience, witnessed by a friend of his father's named Roy while traveling down Route 90 in the 1970s. According to the report, Roy had been driving for hours out from San Antonio after sunset and just before dark, and there had been no other cars out in this remote stretch of the highway that evening. Suddenly he noticed what he took to be headlights in his rearview mirror. For some time, the lights remained a comfortable distance away, but at some point, the lights quickly closed the distance to follow right behind him. The report explained the following sequence of events. My dad said that Roy had been driving up with the lights a comfortable distance behind him for several minutes when the vehicle sped up and approached his truck rapidly. For a few seconds, he honestly thought he was about to be rear-ended. Before an impact occurred, however, the lights stopped a few feet short of hitting his truck. At 60 miles per hour, in the middle of an otherwise deserted highway, there probably wasn't too much to ask for a courtesy of a little breathing room. So Roy tapped the brakes. The driver of the vehicle behind him maintained his distance. Roy again tapped his brakes. No response. Finally, very annoyed, Roy jammed hard on his brakes for a fraction of a second. To his amazement, the vehicle behind him stayed the exact distance from his rear bumper as it had been. Roy decided to try a different approach. He said he floored the gas pedal, making his small truck shudder and lurch ahead. The speed crept up to 80 miles per hour. The lights behind him reacted in perfect unison, staying several feet behind his truck. As it approached speeds, Roy was sure he'd never pushed it to before. At nearly 100 miles per hour, the truck was beginning to vibrate badly, but the lights did not waver. Enough was enough. Roy eased off the gas and let the truck coast down to a sane speed. Then he stood on the brakes. The tires screeched and smoked, and the truck pitched and slid slightly to the side. But the whole time, Roy watched the lights in the mirror. They stayed in exactly the same spot until the truck came to a stop. Roy then saw something completely unexpected. The lights shot out off the road to the right and fired across the desert like missiles. He craned his neck around to try and follow them visually, impressed by the driver's driving on what was sure to be a very rough road. He smiled and was about to drive on when a thought occurred to him. He frowned and, making sure he wasn't about to be run over by a big rig or other traffic, put his truck in reverse and slowly backed up, maybe a couple hundred feet. He checked the barbed wire fence line for a road, a gate, or other break of some kind where his pursuer may have slipped through. But there was none. Roy said he was pretty spooked, all right. Off the distance, he could see lights move swiftly across the horizon. Whatever this was, whether it was connected to the Marfa lights or not, it certainly seems hard to explain away as a trick of light or headlight reflections from the distance. Ghost lights have been a persistent phenomenon within the world of the weird, and there have been countless theories to try and explain them. Yet none seem to touch on those lights that seem to reach out from the merely mysterious to lash out at or harass those who encounter them. Is there some explanation for this, or is this just hoaxes and tall tales? If it is indeed real, then why do these particular spook lights cling to these locations, and why do they seem so hostile and threatening? It seems to be beyond our ability to comprehend at this point, and these lights may flit about the periphery of our understanding, prowling their haunted grounds without ever being satisfactorily explained. In Washington, D.C., there are two walls that, from far enough away, appear to be black slabs. As you come closer, you start to notice the etchings on the walls. Closer still, and you will see that the etchings are names. In total, there are 58,308 names, each one belonging to an American man or woman who lost their life in the Vietnam War. Most of these lost souls return home to be buried, but far too many, some who died but were never found, others who were taken as POWs, etc., never came back. For the families of these missing 1,200 people, there was a hole that will never be filled, a hole created by uncertainty, by fear, by grief. To this day, there are mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters hoping for a miracle, hoping that their loved one will return and with each passing year, the chances of that miracle happening shrinks. For the family of Master Sergeant John Hartley Robertson, that miracle happened in 2013, no matter what the world tells them. John Robertson was 32 when the helicopter he was in was shot down over Laos in May 1968. The copter carrying Robertson was never recovered and in 1976, he and the other passengers were declared dead. In 1982, Robertson, along with his brothers-in-arms, had his name etched into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. He can be found on Panel 64E, Row 8. At the same time as the memorial was opened to the public, the U.S. government received reports that Robertson was alive. Robertson's wife and children weren't told. Tom Fontz never had an easy life. Born in Detroit, Fontz's father died when he was young and while Fontz never liked to speak about it, his children believed that their grandfather perished in a house fire. After the death of his father, Fontz spent a life in and out of orphanages and detention centers, suffering abuses he preferred to keep to himself. When the chance came, Fontz joined the U.S. Army and spent 27 months in Vietnam. His time in the military gave Fontz something he had been missing, a family. After the war, Fontz became a born-again Christian and chose to live his life by a simple but honorable credo, radical love no one left behind, no one left unloved. Fontz spent his life traveling the world on humanitarian missions, doing his best to ease the suffering of others. In 2008, Fontz was on a humanitarian mission in Vietnam when he heard about John Robertson, the American soldier who had been living in a small village. Fontz set out to the village to find Robertson. Robertson was old and he had all but forgotten how to speak English. He sat with Fontz and explained what happened in May 1968. His copter was en route to a rescue mission when it was shot down over some mountains. Robertson survived the crash but was instantly taken captive by North Vietnamese soldiers. For four years, they kept Robertson caged up, beating and starving him. At first, they tortured Robertson in hopes of gaining information from him, but in time, the torture just became something to pass the time. When he saw his chance, Robertson escaped from his cage and ran. He evaded the soldiers that pursued him and broke out of the forest before collapsing into a field where he was found by a woman he would later marry and have four children with. For reasons unknown, Robertson never tried to contact his family in America. For over 40 years, John Hartley Robertson lived with his new wife and children under the name of his new wife's dead husband, Dang Tan Nuck. Fontz pushed Robertson now in his 70s for more information. He wasn't about to blindly trust the man but he hoped, deep in his heart, that what he was being told was the truth. Robertson was clear on some details but other things like when he was born or the names of his American children he couldn't remember. He was suffering from dementia and would often break down in tears. Fontz, with the help of Emmy-winning documentarian Michael Jorgensen, searched for more information on Robertson. They found that the U.S. government has been contacted by Robertson multiple times but they never informed his family. Robertson first contacted the U.S. military in 2006 to tell them that he was alive. In the information he filled out, Robertson wrote down the name of a non-existent high school and the wrong address for his U.S. home. He also misspelled his own name. Robertson tried again in 2008 and this time he was taken to the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh where he was fingerprinted. His prints did not match the ones on file. As far as the U.S. government was concerned, this was another case of a Vietnamese man trying to trick the military into giving him the back pay that John Robertson would be owed. Tom Fontz wasn't so ready to call Robertson a liar, though. His belief is that the U.S. authorities are working to keep Robertson and other living U.S. MIA POWs in Vietnam silent, though the reason to do so is unclear. Fontz and Jorgensen took Robertson to Edmonton, Canada to meet his only living sister, Jean Robertson Holly. After a brief moment, Jean was sure the man standing before her was her brother back from the dead. Jorgensen turned the story into a documentary titled Undocumented in 2013. Shortly after the premiere, U.S. authorities released new information on Robertson. In 1991, former CIA paramilitary operations officer Billy Waugh traveled to Vietnam to find Robertson and obtain a DNA sample for testing. Waugh was successful and the test proved that Robertson had not taken the name Dangtang Nock from a dead man. He was Dangtang Nock. How Dangtang Nock, a Vietnamese citizen of French origin, had found the name of Master Sergeant John Hartley Robertson, or why he chose it, is unknown. What is known is that Dangtang Nock is a well-known con man who has used the names of multiple dead soldiers to con veterans groups into giving him money. Waugh believed that Nock had collected thousands of dollars over the year. Still, Master Sergeant Robertson's family held out hope. In November of 2013, they started a GoFundMe campaign in hopes to get the money needed to perform their own DNA test. While they were unable to reach the intended goal, the Robertson family was able to get the test done. The results showed that Waugh had found over 20 years earlier. Dangtang Nock was not John Hartley Robertson. Men like Dangtang Nock, men who take advantage of the grieving and the hopeful, are true monsters who walk the earth every day. To lose a family member to a war can be nothing less than shattering to one's soul. To lose them again because of the actions of a con man is something no one should ever have to feel. The want to believe that your loved one is alive and well overtakes the rational side of your mind, pushing out all doubts because in the end, all any of us want is a happy ending. To find out more about MIA or POWs that are still missing and to donate to those families who are still living with uncertainty about their loved one who fought in Vietnam, you can visit POW-MIAFAMILIES.ORG. That's POW-MIAFAMILIES.ORG. When Weird Darkness returns, a woman comes home to find her visiting sister murdered and police are convinced she was the one who committed the crime. So why wasn't she locked up in prison? And a bordello, pizza and a haunting, you can find them all at the Red Onion Saloon. These stories are up next. What kind of person does it take to build a civilization from the ground up? Astronaut Nick Burke will have to learn how to be a leader if he wants humanity to survive on a new planet, even if he himself is no longer human. Nick Burke dreams of successfully creating the first sustainable space colony in human history. After a third failed mission on Mars, Nick returns to Earth heartbroken. But during the trip home, he has an epiphany caused by a near-death experience on how to truly accomplish his dream. Nick launches a billionaire-funded startup company that solves the interstellar travel problem, transporting people in a spaceship without any people aboard. After Nick lands on his new, distant planet, he has to combat his greatest trials yet, including raising children and goats while becoming a colony-building survivalist. Fans of Andy Weir's The Martian and Dennis E. Taylor's We Are Legion, We Are Bob, will find familiar themes of innovative science fiction ideas with plenty of humor and pop culture. The hard science fiction novel, Seed, by Matthew G. Dick, narrated by Darren Marlar. Here are free samples on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Mrs. Ida Quinlan and her nine-year-old son Johnny went out to buy a pair of stockings around nine o'clock on the night of February 1, 1896, leaving her baby in the care of her sister Mrs. Sophia Grant. They took a streetcar to the store several miles away, purchased the stockings and other sundry items, returning to the house at around 11. Ida rang the bell, but there was no response, so she went to the landlord who lived nearby and got a key to the house. Entering the sitting room, she was surprised to see the drawers of the chiffonniers pulled out and the contents spread on the floor. She called for Sophia and getting no response went into the kitchen, where she found her sister lying dead on the floor, covered with blood. Horrified, Ida ran from the house to seek assistance from the neighbors. At least that was the story she told the police. The following day, Ida Quinlan was arrested for the murder of her own sister. They lived in a three-story tenement in the Charlestown section of Boston. It was a two-family home, but at the time, Ida Quinlan and the two children shared the house with her sister Sophia Grant and their brother, Angus McLeod, a conductor on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. They also took in lodgers. John Thompson, a breakman on the same line as Angus, had a room there. Sophia had married B. W. Grant three years earlier, but after a few months, they decided that they did not want to live together. She stayed in Charlestown and he lived in Providence, Rhode Island, where he had a dry goods business. It was said Sophia and her husband were on friendly terms and corresponded frequently. Dr. O'Brien examined the body for the police and determined Sophia Grant had been struck in the head several times with a blunt object, fracturing her skull. She was wearing nothing but a nightdress and stockings, but had not been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of a struggle, but a rocking chair in the kitchen was overturned. She was probably struck while sitting in it. Robbery was thought to be the motive but no one from the house could say that anything was missing. Ida thought Sophia kept $25 in one of the drawers but that could not be confirmed. The doors had been locked when Ida returned and there were no signs of a forced entry. It could have been one of the residents of the house but everyone with a latch key had an alibi. It might have been a former lodger who kept his key or possibly the killer had climbed a drain pipe and entered through a broken window on the third floor. But the police did not think it was necessary to go so far afield. Ida Quinlan's story did not stand up to close scrutiny. The police had several reasons to suspect Ida of the murder. She had a record of violence having been charged with assault and battery three months earlier. Ida's husband David had moved out due to her bad temper and drinking habits. She was the last to see the murdered woman and the first to find her dead. She could not explain why she left the house after 9 o'clock and travelled so far to make a purchase that she could have made at a store near her home. It was unusual for her to keep her 9-year-old boy out past 11. After finding the body, she ran from the house without first checking on her baby. Their guard dog, a large black Newfoundland named Fred, gave no indication of being disturbed by an intruder. The police were convinced that Ida Quinlan was guilty and arrested her for the murder of her sister. Additional evidence was gathered. Dr. Wood of Harvard University who did forensic analysis for the police examined the dress Ida wore and found blood, not in blotches which might have resulted from touching the body after death, but small spots as if spattered. Her Macintosh, shirt waste and shoes also had spots of blood. 9-year-old Johnny Quinlan went questioned, said he had been by his mother's side all night, but the police found witnesses who contradicted that. At 9 o'clock, a delivery man came by with a dozen bottles of beer Ida had ordered. Normally, he would have carried them upstairs for her, but this time Ida carried them herself. While she was inside, William D. Daughtry, a tailor on his way to the shop, saw a boy standing alone on the street. He recognized him as Johnny Quinlan and said hello. Ida and Johnny had been seen apart long enough for her to have murdered Sophia. The biggest problem for the police was the absence of a motive for the murder. Relations between Ida and Sophia were cordial. There were no recent arguments or long-standing feuds between them. It was said that they disagreed on religious matters but not enough to incur violence. Ida would not benefit financially by her sister's death. There appeared to be no reason for Ida to kill her sister. In spite of this, the police were ready to take their case to the grand jury. Without a motive, it was doubtful that Ida would be indicted for a first-degree murder, but the police were sure that she'd be charged with second-degree murder or at least manslaughter. But the grand jury was not impressed by the evidence against Ida Quinlan and did not return any indictment. While they vowed to keep investigating, the police were reluctant to pursue any other theory. They had gone all in against Ida Quinlan and they still believed she was guilty. The reputation as officers rests on their claim, said the Boston Daily Advertiser, and it could not be said that they would attempt to pass over any other clue, yet it can easily be seen that it would be very hard for them to get up much enthusiasm in working over something that would be a slap in their own faces. The Boston police found no more evidence against Ida Quinlan or anyone else in the case. The murder, which made sensational headlines in February, was all but forgotten in March. In the small city of Skagway, Alaska, on Broadway Street, there is a building built with planks cut by the town's founder, Captain William Moore. This building is interesting for three reasons, a bit of naughty history, pizza, and a haunting. The naughty history of the building began just after its completion when it opened as a bordello in 1898 called the Red Onion Saloon. This was during the gold rush when miners, hoping to hit it big, traveled through Skagway which had been dubbed the Gateway to the Klondike on their way to find gold nuggets. Miners would come in looking for entertainment in both drink and ladies, and they found both in the Red Onion Saloon. The first floor was a saloon where the men would imbibe alcohol and dance with the women. The second floor contained 10 rooms where the men were entertained by the ladies who inhabited them. Choosing the ladies was done with dolls. Each had a doll that represented them behind the bar. If the dolls were sitting up, the lady that the doll represented was available. If the doll was lying on their back, they were entertaining. As time passed and the rush for gold faded from the area, the bordello eventually faded as well, leaving the building behind to become other things. It was used as barracks in World War II to house soldiers. It also became a union hall, bakery, and gift shop as well as a laundry and television station, but its history as a bordello would not fade and it was destined to become a saloon again. Only this time, there would be pizza. Today, it is a historical landmark and operates as a saloon and brothel themed pizzeria with pizzas with bordello-themed names like the Busti La Rue or Lady Lavoie, and the employees dress as madams from the Red Onion Saloons heyday as well as barmen and musicians in period dress from that time. It is also a working museum where they give tours and you can view items that were once in the brothel. Sounds like a fun place to visit, even without a ghost. The haunting itself is allegedly the ghost of a woman who had been named Lydia and is thought to have been a prostitute at the Red Onion Saloon during the Gold Rush. There have been multiple sightings of her, especially in the upstairs area, though she has been allegedly hostile to men, she does have a fondness for plants in the saloon and waters them. There have been footsteps heard on the second floor and if that doesn't frighten you, she also has appeared as a full-bodied apparition that ran down the hall when police came to check out a disturbance. She then ran into the madams room. When they checked it, no one was in the room. It is often this room where her spirit is seen walking around and watering plants that are no longer there. There is often a strong smell of perfume and cold spots. Unfortunately, it is not known whether she died in the Red Onion Saloon, but one of the former madams was believed to be named Lydia and perhaps it is her spirit that lingers. So if you want to do some ghost hunting on your own, the Red Onion Saloon operates from April to October. Get a drink, order a pizza, and if you're lucky, you'll also get to see Lydia. Thanks for listening! If you liked the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. Darren is D-A-R-R-E-N. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, visit the store for Weird Darkness t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, phone cases and more merchandise, sign up for monthly contests, find other podcasts that I host, and find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. The Conjure Chest was posted at theunexplainedmysteries.com. The haunting of Derish House was written by Amanda Penn. Haunted Roads and Spook Lights was written by Brent Swancer for Mysterious Universe. The strange return of Master Sergeant John Hartley Robertson is by Derek Ferracci for the 13th Floor. Did Ida Do-It is written by Robert Wilhelm for Murder by Gaslight. The Red Onion Saloon was written by Amanda Penn. And The Fictional Story, a brief history of egg-burning, was written by Louise Latham for Weird Darkness. And the other fictional story, Gremality, was written by Cara Raich for Weird Darkness. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Proverbs 11 verse 9. With his mouth, the godless destroys his neighbor. But through knowledge, the righteous escape. And a final thought, if the only prayer you said in your whole life was, thank you, that would suffice. Meister Eckhart. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, be sure to click the like button and subscribe to this channel and click the notification bell so you don't miss future videos. I post videos seven days a week. And while you're at it, spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.