 Murder Slash Suicide, Orphans, Five Children by Bruce Troctenberg, Oregonian staff writer. A Portland mother of five died of gunshot wounds early Sunday in an apparent murder suicide in a North Portland home where she had sought refuge. Her former husband turned the gun on himself after first shooting her, according to the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office. Dead are Marles H. 36 and Billy H. 42. Mrs. H. and the children had been living at the home of Mary E. Bellinger where the shooting occurred. She came here in the hopes of finding some protection, Mrs. Bellinger said. We had known each other for about four and a half years. We used to live next door to each other. The medical examiner's office said Mrs. H. was beaten and killed about 2.50 a.m. Sunday after she left her former husband in the house. Billy H. also died of a gunshot wound. Mrs. Bellinger said she hopes the children can spend Christmas with her family. I hope the court is good enough to let the kids stay here for Christmas. We want to try to make this the best Christmas that we can for them. We don't want to upset them any more than possible. The police youth division said later Sunday the children would be allowed to spend Christmas at the Bellinger's home. An article from the Portland, Oregonian, December 24, 1973. Merry Christmas and welcome, weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you are new here, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Android so you don't miss future episodes. This is a special 12 Nightmares of Christmas episode. Each day from December 13 through December 24, I'm posting a new episode of Weird Darkness featuring material from the new book The Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays by Sylvia Schultz. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, pour yourself an eggnog and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The Dakota, the iconic hotel at the corner of Central Park West and 72nd Street in New York City is a place that many New Yorkers call home. Several of them are ghosts. On December 8, 1980, John Lennon joined the ranks of the spirits who roamed the Dakota's elegant hallways. Just outside the building's front entrance, Lennon was shot four times in the back and shoulder by Mark David Chapman. Lennon staggered a few steps, then collapsed near his frantic wife, Yoko Ono. The first reported sighting of Lennon's ghost was in 1983 when Amanda Moores and musician Joey Harrow saw Lennon standing in the archway at the Dakota's entrance, mere yards from where he'd been gunned down. Perhaps being so close to the scene of his murder had put Lennon in a pensive, even foul mood. Moores almost walked up to the Beatle to say hello, but she said the look on his face let her know he was not in the mood to chat with strangers. Lennon was in a much better frame of mind when he showed up in his own apartment. Yoko Ono lived at the Dakota for 20 years after her husband's death. One day she came into the living room to see Lennon's ghost sitting at his white piano. He turned to her and said, Don't be afraid, I am still with you. Then he vanished. After his death, Lennon claimed to have had his own paranormal experiences in the Dakota Hotel. He told of seeing a phantom he called the Crying Lady who would pace the Dakota's hallways. Lennon was not alone. Many other witnesses have reported seeing the Crying Lady. She may be the spirit of Elise Vesley, who was manager of the building through the 1930s, 40s and 50s. Lennon herself, in life, believed passionately in the paranormal. She even claimed to have telekinetic powers. Unfortunately, her son was hit and killed by a truck outside the Dakota. In response to the tragedy, Elise became very protective of the children in a hotel. This sense of responsibility may be why she still haunts the halls of the building. It has become somewhat of a joking urban legend to claim that Elvis Presley is still alive and well and flipping burgers in a diner somewhere in East Podunk. As a part of American culture, Elvis sightings are right up there with UFO encounters. But even with all the national inquirer articles shouting otherwise, the undeniable fact remains that Elvis Presley did indeed die on August 16, 1977. So what sort of phantom Elvis are people seeing? The best guess is that it's just that simple. People who claim an Elvis sighting are actually running into his ghost. The spirit of Elvis seems reluctant to leave this plane of existence. He appeared to an acquaintance, an elderly farmer named Claude Buchanan just after Elvis passed away. Claude said that before the news of Presley's death was announced, the figure of Elvis showed up and told him, I've come to say goodbye for a while, Claude. But one year, Elvis decided to go home for Christmas. On December 20, 1980, a truck driver named Jack Matthews was taking a load to Memphis. About a hundred miles outside of the city, he picked up a hitchhiker. The night was dark and the hitcher was just a dim form in the passenger seat, a hat pulled low over his face. But the hitcher didn't seem like a threat to Matthews. On the contrary, he was well-spoken and polite, just the kind of company you'd want on a long trip. In a light Tennessee drawl, he told Matthews that he was going to Memphis to see his mama and daddy for the holidays. The hours passed in pleasant conversation. They talked quite a bit about cars and the hitchhiker mentioned that he owned several Cadillacs. Matthew took the boast, or surely that's what it was, with a good-natured grin and a grain of salt, or three. The truck rolled into Memphis and in the glow of the streetlights, the hitchhiker's face began to seem somehow familiar to Matthews. The man asked to be dropped off on Elvis Presley Boulevard and that is when the penny dropped for Matthews. His passenger looked startlingly like the late entertainer. Matthews found the boulevard and carefully pulled the 16-wheeler over to let his passenger out. He stuck out his hand to wish the guy a merry Christmas and realized he'd never told his passenger his name. I'm Jack Matthews, by the way. The hitchhiker looked Matthews in the eye. I'm Elvis Presley, sir. Chicago and her suburbs are justly famous for the phantom hitchhikers that roam the streets. Hovering somewhere between urban legend and outright ghost story, these apparitions rack up the paranormal equivalent of frequent flyer miles with their many appearances to unsuspecting motorists. And the notorious Resurrection Mary is by no means the only spirit that wanders the highways and byways of the second city. Take the Kennedy Road phantom, for example. This mysterious female ghost first showed up near the town of Byron, Illinois in December 1980. Her appearance was so shocking that once word got out, traffic was sometimes bumper to bumper along Kennedy Road with curiosity seekers angling for a glimpse of the young lady. This may well have been because the slender young woman wore next to nothing even in the frigid Chicago weather. One witness, Dave Trenholm, came to Chicago Tribune reporters with his story. He said that he was driving along Kennedy Road at about 9 p.m. on the night of January 2, 1981 with Guy Harriet of Oregon. Dave claimed that the young lady stepped out from behind some bushes at the side of the road. She was, Dave said, tall, slender, nice looking, about 20. All she was wearing were some black panties and some kind of scarf around her neck. This despite the fact that the thermometer hovered around 10 degrees that night. As the woman spotted the car, she turned and ran toward a nearby farmhouse and vanished. Sightings like this went on for weeks from December 1980 well into January 1981. Reliable witnesses filled police blotters with reports of the girl's clothing or lack of it. Different witnesses described different outfits. The girl was seen wearing light colored shorts and a sweatshirt or shorts and a light jacket or even a tiny halter top. One detail remained constant, she was always skimply dressed. This argued against the whole thing being a hoax. It would take a seriously dedicated or outright insane prankster to walk alongside the side of a rural road in the dead of winter half naked. Who was she? A mentally handicapped girl had been reported missing by her parents around Christmas and for a while she became a possible candidate. But that theory was dismissed. Putting aside the possibility of a joke, people naturally turned to the paranormal for an explanation. Perhaps she was a car accident victim who had returned to haunt the stretch of Kennedy Road or maybe she was the ghost of a woman who had been buried in a nearby cemetery which had been abandoned and recently destroyed. The story took a gruesome turn in late January 1981. The Rockford Register star published a report that an Ogil County Sheriff's car had struck a mysterious woman around 8pm and run her over. The woman had suddenly appeared in the middle of the road and the driver of the squad car had no time to react. The car slammed into the woman and she was pulled underneath the vehicle. According to the officers filling the report they heard her bones crunch and felt the impact of the tires rolling over her body. The squad car screeched to a stop and the officers wrenched their doors open and flung themselves out of the car horrified at what they had accidentally done. They sprinted back up the road aghast at the carnage that surely awaited them but they never found the woman's body. Puzzled the officers made their report and braced for the derision that was sure to follow. A police lieutenant called the story crazy and untrue but the officers were simply doing their duty which that night included filing a report of something inexplicable. By the end of January the reports of the half-dressed phantom of Kennedy Road had begun to taper off. Soon the pretty young ghost seemed to fade out of existence despite the people still quite eager to see her. That was decades ago but many ghost hunters still keep a sharp eye out for her as they drive down that lonely stretch of road, especially the guys. The following three stories come from the website Paranormal.About.com where people gather to share their odd experiences. The first story was shared by a reader with the screen name Misty Jean. When I was 9 years old, I am 30 now, I could not get to sleep on Christmas Eve because I was excited about presents and wondered if my parents had anything to do with the gifts I had received from Santa the year before. That night it was hot because the heater was on and I lived in Texas so I got thirsty. Also I was wanting to spy. I got out of bed and cracked open my door to make sure no one was out in the living room so that way I could get something to drink. When I opened the door I saw someone bent over then he stood up. It was Santa Claus, dressed in the red and white get up. Something strange was that I could see the lights of the Christmas tree shining right through him. He was taking the stockings down off the mantel and placing them on the coffee table. When he started to turn around to put the next stocking on the table, I closed the door and jumped into bed. The next morning I woke up and told my sister what I had seen. I told her where he had put the stockings. When we went into the living room the stockings were where I said he had put them. We both turned and looked at each other and froze for a moment. From then on I have told everyone that I believe in Santa. This story also from Paranormal.About.com comes from contributor Skitty Scat. This incident took place near Seattle, Washington on Christmas Eve of 1957 or 1958. Mom was at a kitchen window when she yelled for my sister and me ages around 5 and 7 to come look. There was Santa and an elf carrying a big brown bag walking down the middle of the street. My dad went running out the door to see if Santa could come and say Merry Christmas to us kids, but Santa, the elf, and the big brown bag had vanished. And one more story from Arthur H. My mother, to whom I was very close, passed away in 1964 when I was 17 years old. I left home that year and moved to Ontario from Nova Scotia. In 1969 I met a girl whom I will call Karen and we got married in March of 1970. In December of 1971 we were expecting our first child. We were living in a small bungalow, there was a fireplace in the living room. My wife and I loved the fireplace and we had it lit every night. It was Christmas Eve 1971 and we had just finished putting the gifts under the tree and a nice fire gave off a beautiful glow. On the tree one string of lights which was supposed to flash had stopped several days before. It was five minutes to midnight when the fire in the fireplace suddenly went out and the string of lights started to flash and the other lights stopped flashing. My wife and I were sitting on the floor and it had become very chilly in the room. I looked over to my lazy boy chair and a figure was sitting there, my mother, with a big beautiful smile on her face. My wife who had never met my mother said she could see the same thing. This ghost never spoke but just kept looking at me and my wife and smiling. At twelve midnight the fire in the fireplace started up again and the lights on the tree stopped flashing and the others started flashing again. I looked over to the chair and the ghost was gone. No matter what I did to those Christmas lights, they never flashed again. Murder Slash Suicide Orphans Five Children by Bruce Trockenberg, Oregonian staff writer. A Portland mother of five died of gunshot wounds early Sunday in an apparent murder suicide in a North Portland home where she had sought refuge. Her former husband turned the gun on himself after first shooting her, according to the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office. Dead are Marles H. 36 and Billy H. 42. Mrs. H. and the children had been living at the home of Mary E. Bellinger where the shooting occurred. She came here in the hopes of finding some protection, Mrs. Bellinger said. We had known each other for about four and a half years. We used to live next door to each other. The medical examiner's office said Mrs. H was beaten and killed about 2.50 a.m. Sunday after she left her former husband in the house. Billy H. also died of a gunshot wound. Mrs. Bellinger said she hopes the children can spend Christmas with her family. I hope the court is good enough to let the kids stay here for Christmas. We want to try to make this the best Christmas that we can for them. We don't want to upset them any more than possible. The police youth division said later Sunday the children would be allowed to spend Christmas at the Bellinger's home. An article from the Portland, Oregonian, December 24, 1973. Domestic violence pays no attention to the date on the calendar. If death is going to come from within the family it doesn't matter what day it is. Marles and Billy couldn't work out their differences peacefully and they both ended up dead. The violence tore apart the front room of the home. Marles was shot just inside the front door on a couch near a glass-fronted cabinet. The gunshots shattered the glass into a thousand twinkling shards. Blood from the murder-suicide drenched the room in gore. The couple's five children and the family who took them in were unharmed. But the echo of that terrible violence still thrums through the North Portland, Oregon home. Marles and Billy still haunt the house where their lives ended in a blast of lead and a spray of blood. Twelve years after the tragic event, in 1985, a family moved into the house that had sat abandoned for so long. Michael and Carolyn Brown had been looking not seriously for a large, older home and a three-story Victorian just a block away from where they were living came up for sale. It was listed at $58,000 but no one bought it. The price dropped several times and the Browns became interested even though the house had sat empty for a year and a half. The couple made an offer of $42,000 and the house was theirs. The Browns couldn't believe their luck. They moved into the house in November 1985 along with their daughters, Jenny and Cassie. The Browns lived in the house for a year and a half before Carolyn began to have spooky feelings about their new home. It wasn't anything specific, nothing she could put her finger on, just a feeling of something being not quite right. Six months later, she and Michael were talking about the house, comparing notes as it were, and Carolyn discovered that Michael also found the house disconcerting in a way he couldn't explain to her or to himself. Both Michael and Carolyn agreed that perhaps the floors in the home were a little too creaky, that perhaps the window in their daughter Jenny's room shouldn't be opening by itself. A couple of years after the Browns moved in, a former owner of the house stopped by to see his old home. As he was leaving, he asked the couple if they knew that their home had been the scene of a murder suicide. Shocked at the news, Carolyn and Michael did some investigating with the neighbors. Sure enough, the neighbors confirmed the story. A lady had left her husband and come to the home of her friends seeking safety for herself and her five children. Her husband had come after her, killed her, then turned the gun on himself. Cassie, the couple's younger daughter, was the first in the family to see the ghosts of Marles and Billy. She told Carolyn that a nice lady would come to tuck her in at night, but that a man would also come into her room. Cassie, not yet three years old, found the man scary because he never smiled. He only watched. But the lady was kind and pulled the blankets up and tucked Cassie in, soothing the toddler to sleep. On a Christmas Eve, 1989, daughter Jenny snuck downstairs for an early peak at the presence under the tree. A man was standing near the tree, gazing at it, his back to the little girl. Jenny caught her breath. Could it be her dad standing there, or even Santa Claus? The man turned to face her and vanished. Jenny, scared out of her wits by the man who was obviously neither her father nor Santa, scampered back to bed. Much later, she told her parents what she'd seen. The man she described sounded a lot like the man Cassie had seen watching her in her bedroom. The Browns were forced to admit they were sharing their home with ghosts. One of the spirits made its presence known exactly a year later. On Christmas Eve, 1990, the Browns hosted the annual family Christmas at their beautiful, spacious home. Carolyn's sister-in-law had brought a tray of mixed nuts for the party. The relatives had all gone home and Michael and the two girls had already gone to bed. Carolyn was in the kitchen, straightening up the last of the party mess. I was putting some stuff away and noticed that the tray with the nuts was half way off the table, Carolyn said. I pushed it back onto the table and then I started putting things away again. And then the tray just flipped backwards. It was like someone had taken his hand underneath and flipped it up. The tray hit the wall and nuts scattered everywhere. Carolyn snapped off the lights and bolted for the safety of her bedroom. The spilled nuts could wait until morning. Many connoisseurs of horror fiction consider Edgar Allan Poe to be the father of the genre. And one of his finest short stories is The Cask of Amantolato. This deeply creepy tale is a staple of high school literature classes and for good reason. It's the story of a man who gets bricked up alive in a dungeon, a fate he thoroughly deserves. What most of these high school English students don't know is that Poe based his story on true events. Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809. In 1827, the 18-year-old Poe enlisted in the army. His first posting was pretty close to home at Fort Independence on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. One Sunday, when he had some free time, Poe wandered outside the fort's walls down to the water's edge. A monument there had caught his attention and naturally he wanted a closer look. On one side of the obelisk, Poe read the inscription, the officers of the U.S. Regiment of Lieutenant already erected this monument as a testimony of their respect and friendship for an amiable man and gallant officer. On another side of the monument, Poe found a few lines from a poem by William Collins. Here on her comes a pilgrim gray to deck the turf that wraps his clay. Curiouser and curiouser, Poe must have thought. He continued his circle of the obelisk. On the northern side, which faced Boston, he found yet another piece of the puzzle. Beneath this stone are deposited the remains of Lieutenant Robert F. Massey of the U.S. Regiment of Light Artillery. Near this spot on the 25th December, 1817, fell Lieutenant Robert F. Massey aged 21 years. In his late teens, Poe had the makings of a horror writer and here was the seed of what promised to be an amazing story. All he needed were the juicy details. He did a little poking around on the sly and before long, he had some very illuminating conversations with his fellow soldiers. Ten years earlier, in the summer of 1817, a young Lieutenant named Robert Massey had been posted to the fort. He was a likable guy and made friends quickly. But there was one officer who just didn't take to Massey. Call it a personality conflict if you want to, but truth was Captain Green didn't much like anyone at the fort. He was a bully, plain and simple. The other man just tried to avoid him but it wasn't always easy to do on the small island. On Christmas Eve, Massey, Green and a few other officers settled in for an evening of cards. Massey and the others enjoyed the friendly games but Green seemed determined to ruin Christmas for everyone. Around midnight, Massey won the hand of cards they'd been playing. With a grin he reached for his winnings. Well, Merry Christmas to me! Green leapt from his chair with a snarl and smacked Massey across the face for an open palm. You cheated! Then he said the words that froze every man's blood. I demand satisfaction! Lieutenant Massey knew he was in serious trouble. A duel of honor could not be ignored even on Christmas Day. Even worse, he knew Captain Green was an expert swordsman. He spent the remaining hours of the night tossing in a cold sweat of dreadful anticipation. The next morning, at the break of dawn, Massey and Green met outside the walls of the fort along with their seconds. In the stinging cold air, their seconds, following tradition, pleaded with the two men to set aside their impending duel. But Green refused and Massey had no choice but to go through with it. The duel began with a clash of steel. Massey did his best to defend himself but Green pressed his attack. On that cold, clear Christmas morning, he wanted to kill. Massey gasped as Green's cold blade pierced his chest. The duel was over within moments. The young Lieutenant's men lifted him gently from the sand and carried him to the infirmary. Robert Massey died later that afternoon. Massey had been respected and well liked by his men. He'd made friends in the months he'd been at the fort. His men moved through their days in a haze of depression and grief. There was no reason Massey had to die. A young man cut down in the prime of his strength just to satisfy some bullies' lust for killing. Then some of Massey's friends learned some information they found very interesting indeed. They already resented Captain Green for the capricious death of their friend Massey. They were intrigued to learn that Green had goaded officers at other forts into duels on equally flimsy pretexts. In short, Green was responsible for the deaths of six other men. He was, Massey's friends realized, a sociopathic killer who chose to murder his victims in plain sight. Robert Massey's friends had a monument erected to mark the spot where he'd been run through. At nearly the same time, a strange thing happened. Captain Green disappeared. The top brass at the fort could give no explanation, so after some time, he was considered a deserter. Green was never seen or heard from again. But the story, co-discovered, didn't end there. One night, still mourning the senseless death of their friend, a handful of Massey's fellow officers paid Captain Green a visit. They brought several bottles with them. Never one to turn down a free drink, Green lifted a few glasses, and still the other officers kept topping off his mug. Soon, Green was knee-walking drunk. Two burly officers propped him up, one under each arm, and they went for a walk. The whole group manhandled Green out of his room and down to one of the old dungeons of the fort. Earlier that day, the officers had gone searching for the most remote of the abandoned cells. The dungeon had fallen out of regular use, but the cells were still equipped with the iron shackles of days gone by. The man hustled Green down to the dark, filthy cell and dragged him through the narrow door. They dumped him onto the dusty floor and clamped the rusty iron manacles to his wrists and ankles. Green came to a groggy half-consciousness and slurred a question, what the hell was going on? Then realization cut through the fog of alcohol. The officers ignored him as he began to yell and struggle against his chains. Silently, they mixed mortar and began to take bricks from the pile stacked next to the door. It didn't take long for the men working together to brick up the narrow cell door. It took longer, probably much longer, for Green to die screaming in the pitch blackness. The officers involved all requested transfers to other forts, but before they all left, whispers began among the lower ranks. The story was shared in low, muttered tones. Ten years later, there were still soldiers at Fort Independence who remembered the true story of the fate of Captain Green. They shared that hushed tale with budding horror writer, Edgar Allen Poe. The higher-ups got wind of Poe's research as he was called into the office of the fort's commander. Poe was told that he was strictly forbidden to tell anyone the story of Massey's duel and its grisly consequences. Poe agreed to the gag order. Of course, no writer could sit on a juicy story like that forever. Many years later, Poe composed a story set in Europe titled The Cask of Amantolado. He was forbidden to tell the story, but no one had said he couldn't write a story that had its roots in the sand of Castle Island, roots that reached down into the dungeons far below the ground. But there is yet more to this story. In 1905, a work crew on the island discovered the oldest section of the fort. On comparing the prison cells to the fort's original plans, the crew realized that they didn't match. A bricked up section of wall captured their attention. Maybe the missing cells were behind the wall. The foreman called for a more light and a couple of pickaxes and the men set to work, solving the mystery. After a couple hours' hard work, there was a hole in the wall large enough for a small man to fit through. The man came back out of the cell much more quickly than he'd gone in. There's a skeleton in there. He gasped. The men pulled down the rest of the wall, revealing a skeleton dressed in the tattered remains of an 1812-era army uniform. Rusted shackles still encircled the bones of the wrists and ankles. The skeleton's jaw hung open in a soundless screen. The remains were never identified. They were simply given a military funeral and buried in the cemetery on Castle Island. The gravestone reads unknown. Funny that the unknown soldier rested on the same island where Lieutenant Massey's monument stands tall and proud. Or at least it did for a while. A bridge was built in 1891 that connected Castle Island to Boston and thousands of weekend visitors came to see Massey's monument. In 1892, a new cemetery was opened on Governor's Island and the monument and Massey's remains were moved there. In 1908, the body and monument were moved again to Rest Haven Cemetery on Dear Island. Massey was allowed to rest in Rest Haven until 1939 when he and his monument were uprooted once again and moved halfway across the state to Ier, Massachusetts. Robert Massey was finally buried at Fort Devons. May he rest in peace. Until the next time, someone moves in. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with others and help build the Weird Darkness community by converting your friends and families into weirdos as well. Sharing this on your own social media is greatly appreciated and really helps the show. This special episode is part of my 12 Nightmares of Christmas series. It's a collaboration with paranormal blogger and author Sylvia Schultz. The stories I used in this episode are from her book The Spirits of Christmas, The Dark Side of the Holidays, and you can find a link to that book in the show notes. Do you have a dark tale to tell? Share your story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. Music in this episode is provided by Midnight Syndicate. Find a link to purchase and download this dark, creepy Christmas music in the show notes. I'm your creator and host Darren Marlar. Merry Christmas and 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.