 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're 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 13th through the 24th, 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. Be sure to come back every day from December 13th through the 24th for more holiday horrors. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, pour yourself an eggnog, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. William Terrace was the Kenneth Branagh of his day, a superstar of the popular melodramas – handsome, talented – he was royalty of the theatre set and played most often at the Adelphi Theatre in the Strand. In that was where he met a violent end on the evening of December 16th, 1897. Terrace made a habit of dining at the Greenroom Club just off the Strand. It was a short walk from the club to Maiden Lane, narrow street behind the theatre where he could get into the back door of the Adelphi. All the leading players of the theatre had a key. On December 16th, Terrace walked as usual from the club to the theatre, accompanied that evening by John Graves, an elderly friend of his. Chatting companionably, the two men turned into Maiden Lane. The street was dimly lit. Neither of the men noticed the figure standing across the street in the flickering shadows cast by the gaslit streetlights. The man stood silently, a dark-eyed figure in a black cloak. His hat pulled down low over his eyes. As the two friends approached the back door, Graves told Terrace goodnight and walked on. Terrace unbuttoned his frock coat and reached into his pocket for the key. As he slid the key into the lock, the dark figure rushed across the narrow lane and plunged a knife into Terrace's back. The knife glanced off the actor's shoulder blade, leaving a bad wound. Terrace staggered around to face his attacker, who struck twice more. The second knife blow landed high up near Terrace's spine. The third pierced the actor directly over the heart. The attack on William Terrace never should have happened. It was the result of a tragic mistake. Terrace's attacker was a bit player at the Adelphi by the name of Richard Arthur Prince. Aged 32, he had come to seek his fortune on the London stage. Unfortunately, Prince was a wretchedly bad actor and he was lucky to get bit parts. His fellow bit players at the Adelphi called him Mad Arthur behind his back, but to his face, they cruelly encouraged his vanity and his dreams of fame and fortune. The trouble really started during the play that had previously run at the theatre. The other bit players teased Prince unmercifully, assuring him that he was destined to become one of the greatest actors of all time. They told him the other actor was relegated to bit parts. They even had Prince, pathetically, act out Terrace's role as the hero of the show. They commiserated loudly with Prince, saying that Terrace's role really should have gone to him. At all the while, they were laughing at him behind their hands. Prince, already unstable, was consumed by a rabid jealousy towards Terrace. Terrace, meanwhile, was completely unaware of the drama going on backstage. He didn't even know Prince by sight. When that play finished its run, all of the bit players, including Prince, were, of course, out of work. Prince auditioned for roles elsewhere but never even made callbacks. He applied to the actor's benevolent fund for unemployment relief and he also approached other actors for handouts, including William Terrace. Terrace, when asked, unhesitatingly gave Prince a sovereign. This was on the evening of December 15th. The next day, the actor's benevolent fund met and turned down Prince's request for assistance. When he heard the news, Prince asked who the chairman of the committee was. Someone told him Terry, meaning Edward Terry, a comedian, but Prince had heard Terrace. The unbalanced Prince went to a shop and bought a sharp butcher's knife for one shilling nine pence, using the sovereign that Terrace had given him. Then at dusk, he went to Maiden Lane to lie in wait for William Terrace. After the attack, Richard Prince simply stood there while people rushed to the scene. He was seized and arrested immediately. Meanwhile, Terrace was carried into the theater through the door he had been about to open. He died 20 minutes later. His head cradled by his leading lady, Jesse Milward. Terrace was only 41 years old. The impact of Terrace's death was even felt miles away at his home. That evening, Tom, the actor's 17-year-old son, was playing chess with his younger brother. Mrs. Terrace sat in an armchair nearby. The family terrier dozed contentedly in her lap. A few minutes past eight, the exact time of the stabbing, the little dog suddenly leapt from Mrs. Terrace's lap and ran circles around the room, barking frantically. Then he darted under the table and stayed there, cowering and snapping at something only he could see. The family finally managed to calm the shivering, wild-eyed dog. Half an hour later, a cast member from the play, Secret Service, who had been an eyewitness to the tragedy, knocked on their door with the shattering news. Terrace's son-in-law, a fellow actor named Seymour Hicks, was taken to the Bow Street police station to identify Prince. Prince was raving and foaming at the mouth. He was later found guilty, but insane, and died in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in 1937. Hicks left the police station and went to the Adelphi, where Terrace's body lay on a couch. The actor played the hero even in death. His face was calm and his lips curved in a slight smile. Hicks dealt by the couch to pay his respects to his father-in-law. Years later, Hicks wrote of the experience he had in the empty room. In the serenity and quiet of the room, he said, I to this day feel sure. I heard a voice say to me, Are there men living such fools as to think there is no hereafter? That night I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that William Terrace and myself would meet again. True to his word, Terrace began haunting his beloved Adelphi almost immediately after his tragic death. Many actors reported hearing strange tapping noises coming from Terrace's old dressing room, but things didn't really heat up until 1928, over 30 years after Terrace was murdered. Every evening, when he entered the theater by the Maiden Lane door, Terrace had been in the habit of giving Jesse Millward's dressing room door a tap with his walking stick as he went down the corridor to his own room. It was his affectionate signal to his leading lady that he had arrived. In 1928, a musical comedy actress named June was using Jesse Millward's old dressing room. It was June's practice not to leave the theater after a matinee. Instead, she would have a light meal brought in from a restaurant then have a nap on the Chase Lounge until about 7.15 p.m. But the couch didn't provide much rest. As soon as June relaxed enough to drop off to sleep, the couch would start to vibrate then lurch as if someone were underneath it kicking the bottom. Then a pale greenish light would form in front of her dressing table mirror then disappear. June mentioned these things to Ethel Rowland, her dresser. Ethel replied that often when June was on stage, a knock would sound on her dressing room door, a knock that sounded like someone wrapping the door with a walking stick. When Ethel went to answer the door, there was never anyone there. June eventually told a theater veteran at the Adelphi about these strange events. She suggested it might be William Terrace, returning to the theater he loved so much. The actors held a seance at the theater to try and contact their colleague. Nothing happened during the seance, but afterwards June was no longer troubled by noises and lights in her room. The Adelphi's historian, W.J. McQueen Pope wrote in 1959 that an apparition of Terrace had been seen only once outside the theater. A few years before, on a summer's evening, a man who didn't know the story of the murder was walking on Maiden Lane near the theater's back door, exactly where the stabbing had taken place. He saw a handsome man in old-fashioned clothes coming towards him. The man passed him without a word, but his appearance was so striking that the witness turned for another look, but the man had completely vanished. The witness was sure he had just hallucinated the whole thing until the historian told him about the murder of William Terrace some 60 years in the past. Billy and Linda Meeklos and their children, Billy Jr. and Nicole, live in a gorgeous 18th-century farmhouse in Allentown, Pennsylvania. They moved into the house in 1977 and discovered almost immediately that they were sharing their new home with more than one ghost. For several nights after they moved in, Linda and Billy were kept awake by the thundering hoofbeats of a horse that galloped in circles around the house. The galloping was so energetic that the couple could hear the horse's hooves kicking up gravel, but there was no gravel and there was no horse. The house is set in deep woods with only soft forest duff around it. Soon after that, Linda began to hear children's voices calling Mommy Mommy. Billy Jr. spoke of seeing a small girl walking close to Linda. Unnerved but also intrigued, Linda did some research on the house. She traced its history all the way back to the first settler, George Schubert, the soldier in the Revolutionary War. Schubert had built a cabin on the property. The cabin later burned to the ground. Then Schubert built the farmhouse that now stands on the property. Shortly after the house was built, five of the Schubert children died of smallpox within a week. With such tragedy in its past, it is no wonder the house is a magnet for spirit energy. Linda started a diary to keep track of all the paranormal events in the house. She discovered that much of the activity happens in April and around Christmas. On Christmas Eve 1981, 8-year-old Billy Jr. and his sister Nicole were sleeping in Billy's room with the door open. Nicole was restless and kept waking up. Suddenly, she shook Billy awake and pointed to the door. A glowing figure stood beside the door to their parents' room. As they watched, it vanished. During another Christmas season, the Meekloses invited a friend of theirs, Larry, to stay with them for the holiday. Larry was a Vietnam vet who had just gone through the breakup of his marriage. The Meekloses had cut their tree and carried it home a couple of days before Christmas, and Linda felt that Larry would welcome an invitation to help decorate the tree. The weather was unseasonably warm, but Linda felt that a fire in the fireplace would add to the festive air. Larry decorated the tree, while Billy carried in some wood and got the fire going. Linda brought in snacks for the men as they worked. When the men were finished, they all sat down to relax to enjoy the crackling fire and the colorful tree. Someone, though, didn't seem to appreciate Larry's decorating efforts. The tree started shaking violently, but all the ornaments fell off and rolled across the floor. Billy stood up about to give the cat holy hell for jumping on the tree, but the cat was nowhere in the room. Then the room turned icy cold. Knowing that a severe drop in temperature can sometimes announce a ghostly manifestation, Billy decided to try an experiment. Linda had arranged colored balls in a sleigh as a decoration for the mantelpiece. Billy spoke to the empty air. Listen, if anybody is really here, knock the balls out of the sleigh. Ten minutes later, a ball rose from the sleigh and dropped with a click onto the mantel. There was a small building on the property that had been the groom's quarters when the land was a horse farm. Larry had lived in the building for a while but had moved out. He later committed suicide. Billy had lit a kerosene heater in the building to keep the pipes from freezing. On December 23, 1983, Billy was deathly sick, far too sick to get out of bed. By Christmas day, he was feeling better. The first thing he did was to go to the outbuilding to check on the kerosene heater, which would run only 24 hours on one tank. That should have been bone dry and out, he said, but when he got to the building to check the heater, it was full of fuel and burning. Billy couldn't explain how the heater got filled, but he suspects maybe Larry returned to do his friend a favor. During another Christmas season, the meekloses had a relative from Ohio come for a visit. Sometime between 1.30 am and 2.00 am, Angie came suddenly awake. A loud scratching noise had pulled her from sleep. It started at the top of the stairway and grew fainter near the bottom as if a large dog was walking down the stairs. About 20 minutes later, Angie heard a crash from the kitchen as if a metal tray had fallen off the counter. A few minutes after that, Angie said she sensed a friendly presence sitting on a chair in the loft where she was trying to sleep. And according to Linda's haunting diary, on Wednesday night, December 18, 1985, she was in the bedroom, reading at 11 o'clock at night while Billy was taking a shower in the basement. As Linda read, she heard piano music filling the house. Billy barged into the bedroom, his face half covered with shaving lotion. Tell me you were just playing the piano, Linda, he begged. She shook her head. That was the one and only time the piano played a phantom tune. It never happened again. Lord Calvert's mansion stands in Riverdale, Maryland. It's a late Georgian plantation house that was built between 1801 and 1807. It was rumored to be haunted by Lord Calvert's son-in-law who hanged himself from a tree in the front yard. The mansion is now a museum, but in 1972 it was occupied by 75-year-old Mr. Smith. He was uncomfortable rattling around the haunted mansion by himself, so he asked Rick, a deputy sheriff in Prince George's County, to move in with him for protection. One December night, while Mr. Smith was out visiting friends for Christmas, Rick was outside in the barn, tending to the horses. His chores done, he started for the house and noticed that the light in the attic was on. For a moment he just stood and stared at the lit window. He knew the attic wasn't wired for electricity, but he could plainly see the rafters through the window. The light source was strong, not flickering. It had to be coming from inside the attic. Rick's police training kicked in and he rushed into the house in search of an intruder. He secured all three of the lower floors, making sure all of the houses outside doors were locked. Then he headed to the attic. Slowly, Rick pushed the attic door open. Only darkness met his eyes. Rick knew he had seen light in the attic less than five minutes before. There was a lamp in the attic for emergencies, but the bulb was completely cold. The deputy shivered. None of his police training had prepared him for seeing a bright light in an attic window. An attic without electricity. One of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous and intriguing homes is the Dana House in Springfield, Illinois. Instruction started in 1902 and the huge house was finished in 1904. It is a magnificent example of Wright's prairie style, the first of Wright's designs to feature two-story rooms. Like the hall, the gallery and the dining room, Frank Lloyd Wright fans and architecture enthusiasts drool over this house, which features a library with glass-fronted built-in bookcases, a billiards room and a bowling alley. And paranormal investigators salivate, because although management and state officials deny it, the Dana House is haunted. Very haunted. The Dana House was built at the request of Sue C. Lawrence, later known as Suzy. You see it, don't you? Sue C. Suzy? Born in October 1862, Sue married Edwin Ward Dana on December 4th, 1883. The marriage was short and fraught with financial troubles. Edwin Dana was a businessman but not a very good one. Starting out as a real estate investor, Dana set himself up as president of the Western Business Agency. When that failed, his father-in-law sent him to Oregon to manage some mines. In Oregon, Edwin suffered a fatal accident in one of the mines. Suzy came back to Springfield, her spirits in tatters. Her husband was dead and she had also buried two infant children that she had been unable to carry to term. On February 17, 1901, a few years after Suzy's return from Oregon, her father passed away. R.D. Lawrence's death was another blow to the young widow but it left her with a financial windfall. She decided to build a grand new home for the surviving members of her family – herself, her mother, her grandmother, who would pass away a year and a half later in August 1902, and her cousin Flora Lawrence. Wanting the sophistication a Chicago architect could bring to sleepy Springfield, she tapped Frank Lloyd Wright for the job. Suzy Lawrence Dana lived a life marked by tragic losses, despite her elegant surroundings. She married a concert singer from Denmark in March 1912. Oregon Constantin Dahl was half Suzy's age, so it was quite the scandal. He died just a year later. In 1915, she married a native of Springfield, Charles Gurman. They eventually separated and she divorced him in 1930. Suzy had no head for money. In 1915, she received about $10,000 in income from her father's rental properties. Unfortunately, she had borrowed $132,000 to fund her lavish lifestyle. Suzy turned to the spirit world for advice and consolation. She held seances in her home on a regular basis, inviting the cream of Springfield society. Maybe some of that spiritualist energy is imbued in the walls of the gracious home. Suzy Lawrence passed away on February 20, 1946, but her spirit still seems to linger in her beloved home. In life Suzy loved to throw parties. She started things off with a bang during the holiday season of 1904, the year the house was finished. She hosted lavish holiday parties. She followed those up with house warmings for the women's club, parties for local children, including those in orphanages, dinners for residents of nursing homes, and a special gala for the families of the workers who had built the house. And apparently Suzy still loves the holidays. I spoke with Mike Anderson, a folk musician also jovially known as the dulcimer guy. Along with other musicians, Mike performs for the open houses held at the Dana House every December. Mike has been performing at the home for nearly 40 years, and he readily admits to several chilling experiences. He claims the house definitely has its own personality. Mike brings the unique perspective of a musician to his experiences. One of the favorite places to put a musician is above the front door. There is a balcony there, he said. There was one year myself and a vocalist and a guitar player were doing Christmas music on that balcony. The sun was pouring through a window and that sun was hot. The musician's shifts were eight hours long, with the musicians playing in two to three hours stints. The other two performers took a break, leaving Mike on the balcony to play solo. Suddenly the balcony got deathly cold to the point where I could barely move my fingers to play, and it stayed that way for about 10 minutes. During another Christmas open house, one of the performers was a young violin player, a boy about 12 or 14 years old. As a seasoned performer, Mike led the boy to the balcony where his violin music would dazzle guests coming in the front door while Mike set himself up in the gallery. As Mike went towards the gallery, he heard the boy's panicked voice calling him back. Mike returned to the front door and looked up at the boy. The violin player peered down at him, his face a picture of woe. I can't play here, the boy said. Why not? I don't know. The boy, a budding professional, was clearly chagrined at his own behavior, but when he mentioned that his fingers were freezing cold, Mike realized immediately what the issue was. He switched places and sent the young violinist to the gallery instead. Mike shared another strange experience he had in the Dana house, and again it happened regularly during the Christmas open houses. The house is set up so that you can pretty much tell where people are from the sound of their voices, Mike told me. He was set up to play on the balcony, and he kept an ear cocked for approaching tour groups. When a group came with an earshot of the balcony, Mike would start playing a Christmas carol on the dulcimer. One day, as the tour group came up, Mike dropped into what child is this? He noticed a woman walking several steps behind the tour group. She was wearing a long winter coat, in deference to the season. The group moved on into Susie's bedroom, but the woman in the long coat stopped on the steps leading down to the bedroom, just off the balcony. From the corner of his eye, Mike saw the group go into the room while the woman hung back. Mike turned to say to her, you need to catch up with your group, but the woman was gone. This happened several times, and each time Mike had just launched into what child is this on the balcony. It got to where I could almost make her appear just by playing that particular carol, Mike told me. Later a heart player joined the ensemble of performers. She had been at the house before, so Mike asked, is there any place you don't want to be stationed? The heart player shrugged, not really, but the balcony can get pretty weird. Mike nodded fervently, I know exactly what you mean, and he told the harpist his story. The harpist's face paled, you mean you've seen her too? Rufus Porter was a well-regarded journalist who lived in the Pikes Peak region near Cascade, Colorado. Porter was known as the Hard Rock Poet, and he wrote many short poems about the human condition, not fancy poetry, but words that ordinary people could enjoy. In December 1960, Porter was riding the rails from Spokane to Seattle. For one of a ticket, he was huddled in an open boxcar. When the train started to cross the Cascade Mountains, the temperature already brutally cold fell to below zero. Porter knew he couldn't survive much longer. Near Leavenworth, Washington, he caught a glimpse of a work camp. He jumped the train and headed painfully towards the camp to seek shelter. He made his way to the watchman's cabin, where a light burned a cheerful welcome in the window. With the last of his fading strength, Porter pounded on the door. An older bearded man with kind eyes opened the door. He ushered Porter into the cabin out of the bitter cold. He sat him down next to the fire, knelt before him and slipped his cold boots off. He fed Porter and treated his frostbite. But when Porter tried to thank him or engage him in conversation, the man would only reply with one simple phrase, I am your brother. After a night spent in a warm, comfortable bed, Porter left the work camp and made his way to Leavenworth. When he got to the town, he told his story of being rescued by the watchman and of being invited into the warmth and safety of the cozy cabin. Porter's tale was met with sideways looks and outright denial. The work camp outside of town had been deserted for years, people told him, and the watchman who had supposedly cared for him was long dead. Porter refused to believe this. The man's glances of kindness, his generous care, the humble way in which he would say, I am your brother, it all stayed planted firmly in Porter's mind. He decided to go to the work camp in daylight to see things for himself. He found the camp abandoned, just as the men in town had told him. There was no sign of life anywhere in the camp, and the ashes of the fire on the hearth and the watchman's cabin were cold and dead. If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with others and help build the Weird Darkness community by converting your friends and family into weirdos as well. This special episode is part of my 12 Nightmares of Christmas series, a collaboration with paranormal blogger and author Sylvia Schultz. The stories I used in this episode are all from her book, The Spirits of Christmas, the Dark Side of the Holidays, and you can find a link to the 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 and you can 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. Okay, Google, tell me a scary story. Have you heard the urban legend about the power cord that was too short? About 10 years ago there was this guy. I think his name was Henry. Anyway, he bought an alarm clock to put on his nightstand. But when he tried to plug it in, it was just too short. That one doesn't give you nightmares.