 Road dogs, billy big rigs, big strappers, flatbed cowboys, freight shakers, trucklets, 18-wheelers, deadheads, yard dogs, you got your ears on? Whatever you call yourselves or whatever call sign or moniker is thrust upon you. This episode is dedicated to all you truckers driving the Boulevard, keeping our bellies full, shells stocked, septics cleaned, and brains entertained with what you're hauling. In the eyes of this ratchet jaw, I'm honored to have you listening. Maybe once in a while grab your CB, head to Sesame Street, and tell other drivers how to join this weirdo convoy. Appreciate it. May your brake checks be few, your shutter trouble be absent, and your bare bites non-existent. Keep it cool on the stool. This is Spooky Santa, and I'm 10 and on the side. The legend of Old Stanker, a folk tale descended from English werewolf stories of the 10th century, was long assumed by modern inhabitants of East Yorkshire to be nothing more than fiction. Until the residents of Kingston upon Hull, or Hull as it is commonly called, started meeting the monster in the flesh. Over a century after the last stories of the monster, a truck driver reported that he'd been attacked by a creature whose description sounds like it was ripped from the most thrilling and vile Saxon-era accounts of Old Stanker itself. No further reports surfaced at the time, but the legend was reborn, and this time it refused to stay dormant. In 2015, one reported sighting of the werewolf near Barmston Drain led to a wave of local sightings that terrified citizens of Hull for nearly a year, dragging Old Stanker into the media spotlight. Just as the werewolf sightings of Canuck Chase made the English country town notorious among paranormal enthusiasts, Hull has gained its own otherworldly reputation as a result of its hairy problem. The possibility of a real encounter with a werewolf became such a concern in the town that a few citizens even went so far as to organize an official werewolf hunt. However, despite the best efforts of intrepid investigators, the true story of Old Stanker the werewolf remains shrouded in mystery. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up this hour, a man in Louisiana has a magnetic personality, not for the ladies but for the paranormal. A truck driver was not prepared for what he experienced one summer night at a tiny truck stop in the middle of nowhere, hardly the place where one would expect to encounter a ghost if that's even what it was. But first, in 2016 there was something of a folk panic in Yorkshire, Northern England following reported sightings of an 8-foot werewolf with a very human face. It's known as the Beast of Barmston Drain, but most people call him Old Stanker. We begin with that story. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And if you're already a member of this weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen with you. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter and visit WeirdDarkness.com to find the daily Weird Darkness podcast. Stop streaming, be horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free. Listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated. Send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. You can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Fans of Old Stanker's foul breath and vicious attitude persisted for hundreds of years before dying down in the late 18th century. After that, the werewolf was forgotten. Then in the 1960s, a truck driver reported that while traveling down a quiet road in Yorkshire, he noticed what looked like a pair of red lights by the side of the road. According to the driver's story, when he slowed the truck down to get a better look at the lights, a huge wolf-like creature attacked his truck. The creature reportedly tried to break the windshield of the truck before disappearing back into the dark. As it did, the driver realized that what he had mistaken for a pair of red lights were in fact the creature's glowing red eyes. When residents of Yorkshire began hearing about the driver's harrowing encounter, they began to realize that the giant red-eyed wolf-like attacker bore a frightening resemblance to the legend of Old Stanker. With so many sightings from residents of Hall and nearby towns, Old Stanker became a viral sensation. Reports of the creature were published in national papers and the fervor surrounding the werewolf sightings built until the people of Hall were genuinely concerned that they were at risk of being attacked. So in the interest of reclaiming their idealic country roads and peace of mind, several citizens of Hall did what any sensible denizens of a werewolf-besieged town would do. They planned a werewolf hunt. On the full moon of May 21, 2016, a journalist, a local historian and a folklorist in his family gathered in St. Mary's graveyard to discover the truth behind the monster once and for all. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate and the party was forced to disband before the opportunity to dispel the werewolf menace presented itself. The earliest accounts of Old Stanker described a truly fearsome beast. Stories that date back to the 1100s describe him as a wolf-like monster that walks on its hind legs like a human. According to these legends, Old Stanker was, or is, formidably tall with a long, powerful tail that could sweep its prey off their feet. Its luminous, blood-red eyes were compared to crimson and darting fire. The most recent stories have included a profoundly creepy additional detail. Old Stanker's face looks uncannily human-like. But the calling card of this ravenous creature was its horrible breath, the source of its nickname. Even the oldest accounts made note of how terrible its breathed stank. As if the idea of a rank-smelling vicious predator weren't disturbing enough, Old Stanker's notorious halitosis has a deeply unpleasant historical origin. At the time that the first tales of the werewolf were taking shape, real wolves were known to scavenge in graveyards. To date, no one has gotten close enough to confirm firsthand whether or not the monster-terrorizing residents of Hall has necrotic breath. Though centuries passed between Old Stanker's reported attack on a stagecoach along York Road in the 18th century and its ambush of a truck driver in the 1960s, not even half a century had passed before another Yorkshire resident had an encounter with a legendary creature. In December of 2015, a woman claimed that as she watched from a bridge near the banks of Bamston Drain, a figure below her went from standing upright to prowling on all fours. The figure then reared back on its hind legs and took off in the direction of the river. Before her eyes, the figure jumped 30 feet to cross the river and land on the opposite bank before darting away. Shortly after a Yorkshire woman reported seeing a figure go from standing upright to bounding on all fours across an embankment, other stories began to surface of the same mysterious monster. According to a couple who claimed to have seen the half-man half-dog, the tall, shaggy creature was lurking in Bamston Drain, the same area where the first sighting took place. The figure was allegedly eating a German shepherd dog by the embankment. When a couple stopped to try and see the figure more clearly, it suddenly took off jumping eight feet to clear a nearby fence, still carrying its meal between its teeth. Old Stinker's recent reign of terror overhaul is the newest addition to a history of werewolf folklore that has surrounded East Yorkshire, and particularly the city of Flixton since the 12th century. In the Saxon area, the wolves of the Yorkshire Wolves were known for being so crafty and vicious that a hostel known as Spittle Ho was built just to shelter travelers who would otherwise be likely to fall victim to a hungry pack. These wolves were so efficient at taking down both sheep and shepherd alike that the people of Flixton assumed them to be human shapeshifters in disguise. An account that dates two centuries later tells another tale of a monster that stalked and devoured Flixton's residence. The last story of the Flixton werewolf was a late 18th century report of a wolf-like monster ambushing a stagecoach that was passing along York Road. The stagecoach's occupants drove the monster away with gunfire, but instead of dying, it escaped, possibly deciding to take a different road instead that led southward to Hall. A truck driver's earlier account of having been attacked by Old Stinker would later prove to be far from the only reported sighting of the werewolf by a driver. One such witness claims that she saw the creature while driving to get some pizza. The driver's friend, who had been sitting in the back seat, pointed out what he had assumed to be a fox. But when the driver looked out her window, what she saw looked less like a fox and more like a monster. A dog-like creature covered in cream and gray fur was walking on its hind legs right toward her car. She described the ghastly critter as being taller than the car itself and even more disturbingly having a human-like face. Once newspapers began to report the accounts of witnesses who claimed to have seen the wolf-like creature, it wasn't long before more sightings started pouring in. One witness claimed to have had her own frightening encounter with the monster while she was out walking her dog. Unlike some of her fellow witnesses, she wasn't able to get a very close look because her dog wouldn't let her. According to her account, the dog refused to go any further along the path and the woman herself was overcome with horror. Residents of Hall weren't the only ones concerned about the sudden influx in werewolf sightings in their town. A local government council officer, Steve Wilson, offered to document any sightings of old stanker and report his findings back to City Council. Other Hall council members responded with gravitas when questioned about the beast as well. After a citizen named Wayne Carr filed a freedom of information request to inquire if the City Council had prepared any written policy or performed any risk assessments for the purpose of dealing with the werewolf effectively, he received a formal response through the appropriate channels. No, the council did not elaborate any further than that word. To anyone living outside of Hall, Wayne Carr's formal request that the Hall City Council disclose whether or not it had taken appropriate measures to prepare for a werewolf infestation might sound like an overreaction. The truth is that in East Yorkshire, old stanker isn't the weirdest thing lurking in those woods. An area known as the Wold Newton Triangle is reportedly home to a variety of freaky creatures, including zombies, fairies, and a screaming human skull, and it's practically in Hall's backyard. With this paranormal hotspot just a short drive away and legends of old stinker beginning to gain traction again after decades, it's almost surprising that the Hall City Council responded to citizens' requests to capture the werewolf with a curt no rather than producing a hidden treatise on proper civic response in the event of a werewolf emergency. Up next on Weird Darkness, a man in Louisiana has a magnetic personality, not for the ladies but for the paranormal. Plus, a truck driver was not prepared for what he experienced one summer night at a tiny truck stop in the middle of nowhere, hardly the place where one would expect to find a ghost. Assuming that's even what it was, these stories, when Weird Darkness returns. On the day of his execution, a serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation, he claims he is a demon, and also claims that before their time is over, based on the novel from best selling author Steve Dace, a new kind of horror, he believes in the devil, before you leave here today you will have committed three murders, it doesn't matter, he believes in the devil. I'm Darren Marlar, welcome back to Weird Darkness. They come at all hours, ghastly apparitions that move furniture, unlock doors, douse beds with paranormal liquid and roam the halls in a continuous state of aggravation. So said 61-year-old Rick Boling, the owner of this green-colored home in an unassuming Lafour Parish neighborhood near the banks of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in Louisiana. Decades ago it was the home and death place for a woman rumored to have had an ordinary reputation. But the blame, Boling said, falls squarely on his own status as a magnet for the paranormal. Maybe I'm crazy, but she sees it too, he said, referring to his live-in girlfriend, Pat. A lady I spent 12 years with, she seen it. A lady I spent 6 years with, she seen it. Everybody that I'm around experiences no matter where I live. From 1972 to 1983, Mr. Boling spent his days with the recently deceased as a homicide investigator with Avalos and St. Charles Parishes. It was about then that his alleged paranormal visits began. The ghost of a priest sharing his Indian ancestry, Boling said, began to follow his every move. Boling said photographs taken over decades reveal the priestly apparition, his face bearing jutting features typical of his forebearers. Outside of a few annoyances that usually occur after he has angered the spirit like rearranging furniture or inducing him to vomit, Boling said the priestly ghost is an acceptable companion. This thing has never hurt me at all, he said. People get used to it, everybody gets used to it. Getting used to a ghost as easier said than done, contends Pat Posh, Boling's girlfriend for more than a year. Posh maintains that in 66 years of life she has had only one experience with the supernatural, a vision of her late husband. But then she moved in with Boling and the spiritual visits came at a rapid pace. One night a lamp shade began spinning, she said, until Boling scolded the presumed ghost and told it to leave. The next morning she said the lamp was set atop a different nightstand and its shade was stashed under the bed. On any given day a clock will wander off a bookshelf or a deadbolt will randomly unlock. One night Posh said they relocked a deadbolt on the front door only to discover the back door lock broken. Another night she said they were lying in bed when an invisible liquid suddenly engulfed them. Boling acknowledged the occurrences could be psychosomatic but the physical mark left behind proves they are grounded in reality. A lot of it could be a lot of imagination he said because I know that the bed was not wet and it was in my head. I don't know. But I felt it too, said Pat, and your clothes were wet. I was soaking wet. The clothes he was in he took them off and the next morning they were still wet. You could wring water out of them. It's these unexplained encounters that Boling pins on his ghost, which he said first revealed itself on film in 1985. He was atop a Santa Fe, New Mexico mountain in an adobe church. The church houses a candle that locals say never burns out. Boling took several pictures of the room, one of which he said reveals the priestly image whose shimmering face pokes through flowing robes. Eight months ago the priestly apparition showed up on film a second time, Boling said at Bro's hideaway in Lockport, Louisiana. Bro's hideaway is a tavern next to an abandoned church where, locals recall, members prayed over the body of a dead baby tucked in an ice chest in an unsuccessful attempt to resurrect it. Photos taken one night at Bro's hideaway show that Boling said are the wispy apparitions of three faces above himself and his girlfriend. Somebody who looked at it so far says it's not smoke, smoke is not that white, he said. Boling admitted that some will doubt his experiences, but contended that they refused to accept the supernatural. And addressing the skeptics, he concluded by saying, look at it real good. Have an open mind. In 2019, six teenagers tried to rob a Chicago home and it ended with one dead shot by the homeowner. A Minnesota man is confronted by burglars at his home in 2012 and ends up being charged with murder for killing the intruders. In 2023, a man was killed after he broke into a home and the homeowner is charged with murder. As a listener to Weird Darkness, you know how bad things can go in a crime and even when defending yourself against the criminals, sometimes you are the one facing legal problems. That's why you never let the criminals get access to your home to begin with. Home security is no longer recommended. It is essential. And with ADT, it's no longer for the elite. It's for everyone. Right now, you can get a free home security system from ADT to keep burglars from entering your home in the first place. Just visit WeirdDarkness.com slash ADT. ADT is the biggest and most trusted name in home security and has been since 1874. And they are still equipping people like you and me with the newest and best home security technology with 24-7 monitoring and 24-7 customer service. Whether your home is basic or ultra smart, ADT is the best option for your home security. And again, you can get a free custom-built home security system with the latest technology by visiting WeirdDarkness.com slash ADT. That's WeirdDarkness.com The life of a long-haul trucker is a difficult one. Long, tedious hours on the road, away from family for days or even weeks at a time. As Mike L. explains, they also witness many weird and incredible things on their interstate travels. Yet Mike was not prepared for what he experienced one summer night at a tiny truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Hardly the place where one would expect a ghost, if that's what it was. This is Mike's story in his own words. I'm an over-the-road truck driver and I drive across all the lower 48 states. I see some unusual things from time to time, but nothing compares to what I encountered in Palestine, Arkansas in mid-June of 2011. I was on a long haul from Detroit, Michigan to Houston, Texas. This was day three of my trip and I was beginning to run out of driving hours for the day. I noticed a truck stop slash gas station on the side of I-40 pulled off and decided to call it a night. I was running ahead of schedule, so I was going to have myself a long 14-hour break instead of the usual 10. Off the bat, I didn't like the area, but had no other choice. The bathrooms were unkempt and had enough graffiti on the walls to classify itself as an inner city truck stop even though I was practically in the middle of nowhere. It was also a small shop with parking for only a dozen trucks. After washing up, I purchased a new work knife, some hot food, and headed out to my truck. I sat in the captain's chair and listened to the radio while I ate my dinner with the windows down, letting in the dry wind. The Mississippi River had just began flooding, but there hadn't been any rain in over a week. The surrounding area was beginning to look like Nevada more than Arkansas. I finished my meal and cleaned up a bit. I slid out of the seat and onto the pavement as a gust of warm wind hit me. I strolled over to the dumpster, tossed my garbage inside and began slowly walking back to my truck. I fished out a filterless cigarette and leaned against the bug-splattered side of my truck and lit it with my lighter. I enjoyed the smoke as I watched the sun set below the horizon. A few more trucks had backed into spots. I spotted one guy walking out of the store with a bottle of beer in his hand, looking around nervously as he quickly strode over to his truck. The life of a trucker, something interesting and new every day, risking his job over one lousy beer. I climbed back into the cab of the truck, dropped back into the sleeper berth, changed into a pair of pajamas and laid down to get some rest. I didn't bother setting an alarm. I felt sleep creep over me and accepted it as I drifted off into Dream World. I awoke with the cab of the truck rocking violently, knocking the bottle of water I'd placed on my nightstand over onto the floor. I sat straight up, fully awake and pressed the button on the truck's radio slash alarm. It was shortly after three in the morning. I reached down and grabbed the bottle of water that had fallen, twisted the cap off and took a few deep gulps before wondering what had rocked my truck so violently. Then I remembered. The wind. I settled back down, got my heart rate back below a hundred and laid my head down on the pillow. The truck rocked again, knocking my ashtray over that I had set in the cup holder and once again tossing my water bottle onto the floor. I flipped on the overhead light, slid on my shoes and grabbed another cigarette from my pack. I opened the curtains, sat in the captain's chair and shut off the sleeper light. I opened the door and noticed that it had cooled down considerably. I shut off the truck, pocketed the keys and climbed down onto the pavement to look around. At this time of night the truck stop had only lights around the gasoline pumps and their light could not reach the truck parking area. I looked around a moment, lit my cigarette and then noticed something. The wind had stopped blowing. I wondered what had caused my truck to rock so violently then. Earthquake maybe? I knew that a few had been reported around Memphis and I was probably close enough to have felt a tremor, but that rocking motion did not feel like an earthquake. It felt like the wind hitting the side of my truck with a strong gust. Curiously and cautiously I walked around the front of my truck to the passenger side and looked down the length of my trailer. I noticed movement low to the ground about four feet, not fast. I used my keys to unlock the passenger side door, jumped up and grabbed my large flashlight from an overhead storage compartment. I climbed back down and closed and locked the door. I clicked on the light and shined it down the side of my trailer. There was a young girl standing off into the field about ten feet behind my truck, but when I looked harder, she wasn't there. Well, like I said earlier, truck drivers see something new every day. This was certainly new. I began to walk toward the rear of my truck, scanning the field with my flashlight for any trace of the girl I had just seen. When I reached the back, there was no trace. It must have been a trick of the eyes. Heck, I hadn't even fully awakened yet. I glanced over my shoulder, there were no cars at the pumps and the clerk definitely had not noticed me. I felt the call of the wild coming on and didn't feel much like walking into the store wearing my pajamas. I was in the middle of nowhere. No one could see me, so I figured no harm, no foul. I stood at the rear of the trailer and did my business, looking around for that girl again, also hoping that she wasn't hiding behind something and watching me do this. I put everything away and walked to the driver's side of my truck toward the cab. I took the last couple of puffs off my cigarette and flung it into the parking lot, used my keys to unlock the truck, and popped the door open. Just as I planted my foot on the fairing, I heard a distinct giggle, a girl's giggle. I stepped back down and shined the flashlight around. Nothing. This is getting kind of creepy, I said, out loud. He heard me. A small girl's voice answered back. I jumped backward away from my truck. The voice had come from inside my cab. Something was wrong. I had the entire truck locked up while I was walking around. There was no way that someone could have gotten in without breaking a window. Stealing myself for what was going to be an uncomfortable encounter at the least, I took a step on the fairing and leaned my head into my truck. Is anyone in here? I asked. I hit the switch to turn on the sleeper's birthlight. I climbed in. I put a knee on the seat and peered into the sleeper birth. Good night! A soft voice said, which seemed to emanate from all around me. I flinched as I heard the word and felt a cold chill run through my body. I slid off the seat and stood up in the cab, bumping my temple off the overhead storage bins. I looked around the sleeper. No one was there. I turned around and shuffled into the cab to close the door. When I saw the young girl again, standing outside my truck on the pavement, looking up at me with lifeless eyes. Those eyes, you see, they weren't meant for a person. They were designed for a predator. All of a sudden, I felt like prey. I reached forward and slammed the door shut and flicked the lock. I quickly decided that I was not staying here for the rest of the night. I turned the key and heard my truck's motor rumble to life along with the familiar annoying buzz that was my air pressure gauge telling me that I didn't have enough air to release the brakes. I took a furtive glance out the window and there she stood, still as a tree looking up at me and smiling. I didn't want to get any closer to the window until I was ready to get my truck moving. This was wrong and I did not want any part of this. That girl wasn't human, at least not any more she wasn't. It was almost as if she was something so inhuman that it would take the form of a human. It's hard for me to explain and I feel sick just thinking about it. I heard the siren shut off and hit the valves to supply air to my brake system and the system began to air up. The siren came on again. Screw this, I thought to myself, I have enough to get out of here. I disengaged the clutch, ground the truck into gear and roared out the parking lot like the devil himself was behind me, which, or all I knew, he was. I looked in my side mirror as I was about to start turning right and I saw the girl washed in a red and amber glow of my running lights. She was smiling at me and waving. I flew through my gears as quickly as they would let me as I got back onto the interstate. I drove about 45 minutes, repeatedly hitting the switch to turn on my interior lights to look around the cab and the sleeper before finally spotting a larger truck stop at the next exit. After backing into one of the few remaining spots left, I shut off my lights and turned on the sleeper birth light as I walked into the back and then paused. At the store, I had bought a souvenir, nothing fancy, just a postcard with a picture of Arkansas on it. I also had bought a new knife. I had never even taken the knife out of the box and remembered putting the postcard into a drawer for safekeeping. The point of the blade had been driven directly into the spot on I-40 where I had originally stopped for the night. The blade had been driven in deep, pegging the postcard to my nightstand. It took me several minutes just to work the knife loose enough to withdraw it from the nightstand. Thankfully, when I turned the postcard over, no message had been left for me. To this day, I do not know what I saw. I hear other truckers talk of strange things that they see on the interstates, US highways, but I have never mentioned my experience. I always felt that just by mentioning her, I'd walk back out of my truck and there she'd be, sitting on my bunk waiting for me. I threw that postcard away and tossed the knife into a dumpster. I got another postcard from Arkansas just to keep the collection going. I've got 36 so far. The Weird Darkness returns. No animal had ever made such sounds, neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls. At times, it sounded like a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated by Satan had formed a hellish choir. And that was only a small part of the demonic possession of a girl named Clara. Up next, I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. One strange phenomena that seems to go back well into the recesses of the shadows of time is that of demonic possession, the idea that mysterious entities from beyond our reality can jump forth to take over our bodies like a hand in a puppet. There are countless such accounts throughout history, to various levels of veracity, and the idea of such possessions has been explained away as anything from mental illness to delusions to outright lies. Yet every once in a while, a case will come along that seems to be beyond rational explanation and shows that there may be more to it than just hoaxes and misunderstandings. Back in the early 1900s, a girl by the name of Clara Germana Sealy was attending a school at a place called St. Michael's Mission in LaToll, South Africa. By all accounts, the young 16-year-old girl, an orphan, was a fairly normal, even quiet girl, and she was just as devout and religious as any of her peers. There would have been nothing at the time to indicate that anything was amiss with Clara, or that dark forces were gathering about her like storm clouds rolling in on a clear day, and there certainly would have been no indication that this sweet, young girl was to go on to become one of the scariest demonic possession cases on record. Most of what is known of this case has been gleaned from journals and diaries written by nuns and priests at the Mission, and although it is unclear just when the incident started, it seems likely that it began with a confession that Clara made one day. She allegedly told her confessor, a father, Horner or Esmus, that she had reached out to the Devil for the purpose of forming a dark pact, although she did not have any details on why she had done so. However, soon after this confession, there would be a series of strange phenomena that would steadily orbit the girl. The most glaring, weird anomaly at first was that Clara, who knew no foreign languages, began to speak in Polish, German, French, Latin and others, which started off as just a few words here and there, but steadily graduated to fluent sentences and even ranting. She had never demonstrated even the slightest ability nor even any interest in these languages before, leaving everyone perplexed and not a little spooked that she should know them to any degree. Even Clara claimed to not know she was able to speak these languages. This was witnessed by numerous people at the Mission, and it was also said that these episodes of speaking foreign languages often happened after Clara fell into a sort of days or trance, and that she would sometimes not even remember what she had said or what had happened during these spells. Soon after, Clara graduated to spontaneously spitting out the deepest, darkest secrets of those around her, even people she had never met before, including bad things they had done and impure thoughts they had had. In particular, she would revel in the most vulgar sexual fantasies she claimed the people of the cloth around her had, many of which were confirmed in diary entries by spooked nuns who felt that Clara could reach in to read their minds. She seemed to know all of their fears and various other pieces of information she had no business knowing, and at around this point, it was dawning on everyone that something truly strange was going on. In the following days, Clara began to demonstrate an aversion to religious imagery, which must have been tough considering she was in a Christian mission. She would take roundabout paths around these objects and could not bear to be in the same room with them. If somehow she was to come into contact with such a relic, she would allegedly unleash a savage, horribly unearthly wail that one nun would describe thus. No animal had made such sounds, neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls. At times, it sounded like a veritable herd of wild beasts orchestrated by Satan had formed a hellish choir. During these tantrums, it was claimed that Clara would become possessed of extraordinary strength, that she would throw nuns across the room, and that she could barely be held down even by four people. This coincided with a general tendency for Clara to gradually transform from a once quiet and even meek teenager to an increasingly aggressive, powerful, and very confrontational personality. She would sometimes hiss, snarl and growl at people around her, most often completely unprovoked, and the increasingly frightened nuns turned to help in order to perform an exorcism of what they were now convinced was a demon-possessed child. Two Roman Catholic priests, by the name of Reverend Mansuetti and Reverend Erasmus, went about performing an exorcism on Clara, and it would prove to be a rather harrowing experience to say the least. One of the first things the girl did when confronted with the duo was leap onto Reverend Mansuetti, knock away his Bible, and begin strangling him with his own stole, and she would have been successful too if a group of nuns and the other priest hadn't pried her off of him. After this, she began hurling things about, and at one point purportedly levitated a full five feet off the floor, prompting those present to have her tied down. For two days, the priests confronted whatever supernatural evil was residing within Clara, and through it all, she showed many traits that convinced all who were present that this was not simply a mentally ill child or lunatic. In addition to the levitation and the speaking of tongues, she also seemed to know when she was being sprayed with holy water. In order to test this, the priests even switched between holy water and regular water without Clara's knowledge, but whereas normal water had no effect, holy water would send her into an absolute rage. However, the holy water was apparently the key, and it was what eventually cast the demon out. The case is rather obscure and not very well documented, but it is certainly a curious one that was witnessed by numerous people. If the reports are to be believed, various witnesses saw this teenager display classical signs of demonic possession, including speaking in languages they have no business knowing, and aversion to religious paraphernalia, superhuman strength, uncharacteristic violent behavior, and levitation five feet up in the air. There is no way of knowing if there is any truth to demonic possession in the literal sense, but the case of Clara Germanicilli certainly ranks up there with some of the most potentially genuine accounts out there. The Overtime Content You can become a patron and or subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com, or you can search for Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter at Weird Darkness, and please tell others about the show who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And if you'd like to be a part of the show, you can call in to the dark line toll-free and tell your own true paranormal story or a story that happened to someone you know. That number is 1-877-277-5944. Again, the toll-free number is 1-877-277-5944. You can also email me anytime on the contact page at WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Hey Weirdos, keep listening. Hour 2 of the Weird Darkness radio show is coming up. Mount Everest is plagued with supernatural phenomena, ghost sightings, and other unexplained occurrences. And rescue missions on the mountain are considered suicidal. Stranded hikers are sometimes left exposed to the elements so long that they don't survive. The mountain is like an open graveyard. Corpses are constantly abandoned or frozen in the snow. So it's no wonder that ghost sightings on Mount Everest are inevitable. It would almost be weirder if there weren't any at all. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved, and unexplained. Coming up this hour. Want to live on a cheap in Tokyo, Japan? It's easy to do if you don't mind living with a ghost or two. Cryptozoologists are a buzz about recent sightings of a creature seen in the lakes of Kanamara in Ireland. The creature is rumored to be up to 30 feet long, with a mane of hair running along its back. Is it a yet undiscovered species of fish, a giant eel, a cousin to the Loch Ness monster in Scotland, or even perhaps a living dinosaur? No one has yet been able to answer the question, but recently monster hunters from around the globe came together in Ireland to try and find answers. And for decades, mountain hikers have been reporting strange things happening on Mount Everest while scaling to the top. Weird events and encounters that could only be described as supernatural. We begin there. If you're new here, welcome to the show. And if you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please take a moment and invite someone else to listen. Recommending Weird Darkness to others helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And while you're listening, be sure to follow Weird Darkness on Facebook and Twitter and visit WeirdDarkness.com to find the daily Weird Darkness podcast. Watch streaming B horror movies and horror hosts 24-7 for free. Listen to free audiobooks that I've narrated, send me your own true story of something paranormal that's happened to you or someone you know and more. And you can find it all at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Some of the scary tales about Mount Everest are obviously fake, but some have a ring of truth. At such high altitudes, it's logical to explain some of these supernatural Mount Everest hauntings as simple hallucinations. A significant decrease in oxygen makes the brain conjure up some peculiar images. But what if there is some credence to these scary tales? What if something really is haunting the Himalayan mountain? Mount Everest is notorious for its corpses. People travel from all around the world to climb the Himalayan mountain, but not all of them survive the harsh conditions. There are avalanches, slippery slopes, and inclement temperatures that prove fatal. Unfortunately, many of the bodies continue to go unidentified. In fact, in 2017, four bodies were discovered in a tent on an Everest base camp. Analysts believed the campers passed away due to altitude sickness. The creepy-kicker? None of the local climbing agencies reported any missing climbers. Pemba Dorje, a Sherpa from Nepal, confessed to spotting black shadows during his 2004 ascent of Mount Everest. He noted, When I paused at a mound of rocks, I saw some spirits in the form of black shadows coming towards me, stretching their hands and begging for something to eat. Dorje theorized that the shadows were perhaps spirits belonging to mountaineers killed during past climbs. His theory isn't too far-fetched because it is sometimes tradition to leave a deceased climber's body on the mountain as a form of respect. While Mount Everest hosts hundreds of corpses, there is one corpse in particular that everybody seems to talk about. The deceased man is known as Green Boots. The body is now a landmark on the main northeast ridge route of the mountain. In death, Green Boots has become a guide for the living. Creepily enough, passing climbers occasionally pose with the body and take pictures with it, and David Sharp, a fellow mountaineer, famously died of hypothermia right next to Green Boots' body. Mohan Singh, a resident of Bemny, a local Himalayan village, reportedly encountered a strange man outside his home one day while chopping wood during the winter months of 2009. The sky turned black, and the stranger demanded to know why Singh was cutting the trees. Then he reached for Singh's shirt, but the stranger's fingers went right through Singh's body, just like a ghost's fingers might do. Also, throughout the altercation, the stranger's body continuously changed sizes, growing up to nine feet tall then suddenly shrinking to the height of a chicken. Baba Harbhaja Singh, no relation to Mohan Singh I just told you about, was an Indian Army soldier known as the Hero of Natula. He passed away in 1968 after slipping into a stream while escorting a mule in the Himalayas. His body was eventually recovered by a search party supposedly led by his own ghost. Singh entered soldiers' dreams and informed them of his death. He would also randomly appear on horseback, guiding the search party to his own body. Some people say that Singh's ghost still protects India's border against any impending attacks. After escaping, the strange man, Singh found himself with an intense fever. He believed the only way to resolve the fever was to slaughter a goat during a special ecstasy ceremony arranged by a Hindu priest. In June 1933, Frank Smith suddenly sensed he wasn't alone as he descended from one of Mount Everest's notorious death zones. During a break from the arduous journey, he encountered the presence of a man. Smith divided his mint cake and attempted to share half of it with a phantom companion. Some time later, Smith discovered two dark bulbous objects hovering above him. He described one of the objects as having squat underdeveloped wings, while the other possessed a beak-like protuberance like the spout of a teakettle. The inexplicable objects remained pulsating over him until eventually disappearing in a passing mist. Arguably the best evidence of real yetis actually comes from photographs of numerous large footprints found in snow on Mount Everest. Some of the photos were snapped by Himalayan mountaineer Eric Shipton and he shared he was one of the glaciers of the Menlang Basin at a height of about 19,000 feet. That late one afternoon we came across those curious footprints in the snow. We did not follow them further than was convenient, a mile or so, for we were carrying heavy loads at the time and besides we had reached a particularly interesting stage in the exploration of the basin. These particular ones seemed to be very fresh, probably not more than 24 hours old. We had no doubt whatsoever that the creatures, for there had been at least two that had made the tracks were yetis or wild men. In 1975, Doug Haston and Doug Scott claimed to sense a third climber aiding their survival during one particularly brutal night on Mount Everest. Haston and Scott were members of the first expedition that successfully climbed Mount Everest using an uncharted path. Their hiking method utilized finger holds, edges and smears rather than normal crack climbing. The ghostly mountaineer that the men encountered apparently provided extra company and encouragement. Haston and Scott claimed that the Phantom Climber helped them make it through the night alive. Are there living dinosaurs in Ireland? That story is up next on Weird Darkness. By the way, if you have a true story to tell of your own, something that has happened to you or someone you know, you can share it by clicking on tell your story at WeirdDarkness.com. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Have you seen the Monster Channel? It has horror hosts, B horror movies, retro television commercials and a whole lot more. You can watch it any time, absolutely free 24-7-365 on the Weirdo Watch Party page at WeirdDarkness.com. Recently, Conspiracy Journal ran an article. The hunt for the giant horse-headed eel begins soon in Ireland. That's right. The quest to try and solve the mystery of these massive Irish beasts will hopefully soon be underway. This is not just an Irish phenomenon, though. It should be noted that a number of witnesses to the Loch Ness monsters of Scotland said that what they encountered also looked like giant eels. We'll begin with a classic story and a controversial one from January 1934. On this occasion, the witness was a man named Arthur Grant of Glen Urquhart, Scotland. That Grant was a student veterinarian added to the weight and credibility of his report. A keen motorcyclist, 21-year-old Grant was on the roads, heading home at around 1am, when he very nearly became the first person to ever have a head-on collision with a Nessie. Fortunately, however, neither monster nor motorcycle were injured. That the night sky was dominated by a powerful, eerie moon meant that Grant had a very good view of the beast, as it loomed before him, caught in the glare of his motorbike's headlight. It was at a distance of around 120 feet that Grant caught sight of something unusual in front of him. Exactly how unusual became immediately apparent. Grant said of his sighting that he was practically on top of the monster when its tiny head sat atop an elongated neck suddenly turned in his direction. Evidently just as shocked as Grant was, the monster made two bounds across the road, headed down to the lock and vanished into the depths with an almighty splash. Grant brought his motorcycle to what was literally a screeching halt and demonstrating his spirited character gave chase. It was quickly cleared of Grant, however, that as a result of the huge splash, the monster had made good its escape. Nevertheless, in the time between it was first seen and when it fled for the dark waters, Grant was able to get an excellent view of his quarry. He described the monster as having a bulky body, flippers rather than legs, and an approximately six-foot-long, thick tail that looked like it could inflict significant damage. As for its overall size, Grant suggested somewhere close to 20 feet. Skeptics claim that Grant fabricated the story. However, it should be noted that he was insistent that he saw a monster and even made a statement to that effect to the Edinburgh-based veterinary society. Given that Grant was a student veterinarian, it seems unlikely that he would have taken the risk of recklessly lying to the veterinary society. A prank on the press is one thing, risking one's entire future career in front of the society would have been quite another entirely. Grant's statement is an important one, as it adds some additional intriguing data to his original report. As he said, given his profession, he knew more than a bit about the world of natural history. As a result, he had pondered deeply on the nature of the monster. Interestingly, Grant said that the beast seemed to be a chimera, as to say a combination of several creatures. The head of the monster explained Grant was eel-like. Moving on to the 21st century, on May 26, 2007, a man named Gordon Holmes filmed, well, something in Loch Ness. It was something that turned Holmes into an overnight media sensation, albeit a brief sensation. The day in question was dominated by heavy rain, but which cleared as the evening arrived, allowing Holmes to get clear footage of what looked like some kind of animal moving at a significant rate of knots in the waters of Loch Ness. The specific location from where all the action was captured was a parking area on the A82 Road, just a couple of miles from Drumna Docket. Not only that, Holmes estimated as he excitedly watched and filmed that the creature was around 14 meters in length, which, if true, effectively ruled out everything known to live in the inland waters of the British Isles. Holmes, a lab technician, caught the attention of not just the British media but also the likes of NBC News and CNN. He and his near-priceless film were quickly big news. Holmes said when the media descended upon him in absolute droves, that he could scarcely believe what he was seeing. His first thought was giant eel. Holmes told the media of the eel theory they have serpent-like features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years. On September 17, 2009, John Downs of the UK-based Centre for Forty in Zoology, his wife Carina and CFZ colleague Max Blake, took a trip to Ireland's low lean. It was during the course of the expedition that the team encountered something incredible. As Carina notes, something very strange appeared before them. I saw a trail left by something as it made its way from the island to the shore to the east of it. I was to be pressed for an answer, I would probably suggest a large eel. Max Blake recorded his thoughts on the encounter If I had to make a guess, I would say that it was most likely to have been a giant eel. In June 2015, a huge fish was spotted by two astonished and terrified anglers on the River Nain in the fence, Cambridgeshire, England. One of the fishermen told BBC Radio, Cambridgeshire, that on the day when all hell broke loose, the two friends were boating in the direction of Whittlesey when their boat juttered, suggesting they had collided with something. But with what? They peered over the side of the boat and encountered something extraordinary. A huge creature, easily six feet in length and possibly even slightly bigger, was swimming by. While they weren't sure of the specific type of fish, there's no denying it was a definitive monster and hardly the kind of thing one would expect to see in the River Nain or in any other stretch of English water. The two men speculated that what they had seen was a sturgeon, not an impossibility since a sturgeon can grow to impressive sizes, but the catfish was also offered as a potential candidate. Then there was the theory of another witness, namely that the creature was not a catfish but a giant eel. We'll look a bit closer to what that witness saw coming up. Also, later this hour, if you'd like to live on the cheap in Tokyo, Japan, it's easy to do. If you don't mind living with a ghost or two. Be sure to sign up for the Weird Darkness newsletter. You can stay up to date on everything Weird Darkness and also win some cool prizes at the same time. You can sign up for it at WeirdDarkness.com. I'm Darren Marlar. Welcome back to Weird Darkness. So what is this strange lake monster being seen in Ireland? We continue with what that next witness saw right now. The witness was Michelle Cooper, who was prompted to come forward by the media publicity given to the June 2015 encounter. Her sighting, however, had occurred somewhere in the region of one year earlier. She said to the Cambridge News that some of her friends poked fun at her when she told them of her encounter with the mysterious Leviathan. But Michelle was sure that she saw something huge and daunting. Notably, while speaking with the media, she noted that when I researched what it could be, I found it looked exactly like the giant eels you get in America. I was really shaken up by it. Monster hunters are coming to Ireland this summer in search of this eel-like creature with a head like a horse. Cryptozoology is a sub-science that aims to uncover creatures that are usually confined to folklore, and cryptozoologists from the U.S. and elsewhere are making plans to explore Irish lakes in search of mysterious creatures this coming August and make a documentary about their findings. Ireland has a rich history of these animals, and the documentary makers are planning to search the lakes of Connemara for the horse eel or pistas as they are known. The fearsome eel is said to be about 30 feet long, with hair running along its spine. Richard Freeman is the head of the Fortean Centre of Zoology and Devon in the U.K., and said this is the first time since the 1960s that this horse eel has been hunted for. This centre is the only one of its kind in the world, and Richard, who is an ex zookeeper, has been at the helm since founding it in 1992. He is providing support for the documentary Enigma that Travis Wolfe and Allison Jorlian intend to shoot later this year. He told the Irish Mirror the last proper investigations were carried out by Captain Lionel Leslie and other F.W. Holliday in the late 1960s. Captain Leslie used dynamite to force the creatures to the surface. He reported seeing one thrashing about at the surface after a blast had been set off. The creatures reported from the Lowe's are known locally as horse eels or pistas. They are said to resemble eels with a horse-like mane running along the back. They range from 10 to 30 feet long and are capable of crawling across the land. The most famous sighting occurred in 1954 at Lofada when Georgina Carberry, a librarian from Clifton and her friends, saw a 30-foot eel-like beast with jaws like a shark. The creature she described as wormy terrified her so much she had nightmares for years and would never return to the Lowe alone or at night. However, Richard said this new study is particularly important because the monsters may just be a massive strain of eel. He said the monsters may be a gigantic mutant strain of the common eel. The European eels live in fresh water, but when it is ready to breed, it swims out into the Sargasso Sea. The eels breed and die here and the young swim back to the waters inhabited by their ancestors. However, there is a theory that some eels never sexually develop. These eonic eels, as they are known, remain in fresh water and nobody knows just how long they live or how big they get. It is believed that these mutations are, on occasion, within a normal population of eels. The Enigma Documentary aims to uncover what is really in these lakes, using state-of-the-art equipment and to document their findings. Richard said that if we can understand what causes such growth in eels, we may be able to understand animal growth in general much better. When asked about the skepticism that surrounds cryptozoology, Richard said that he doesn't pay any notice to it. He said, I stopped caring about what mainstream science thinks a long time ago. The Giant Squid, the Mountain Gorilla, the Komodo Dragon, and the Okapi were all dismissed as myths before they were discovered. Large animals are still being discovered today. The great days of zoology are not done. For generations, the farmers and fishermen of Kanamara have spoke of strange creatures that dwelt within the surrounding bog waters. They were addressed by different names and though somewhat elusive, they were quite real. Children were often warned to avoid certain lakes and even peat harvesters knew better than to work near shore during the evening. On a June day in 1954, Georgina Carberry and three friends biked down to Lofotta. They unlocked a boat owned by the Clifton Angling Association and set out upon it with their fishing gear. By late in the afternoon, they had succeeded in securing a number of trout. The group decided to set the boat ashore along a finger of land that almost splits the lake in half. As they were settling down with their tee, one of them pointed out an object moving from an island, the island, which she assumed was a man swimming. Soon it became apparent that it was too big to be human. The mysterious object was approaching them at a very leisurely pace. When it reached within 20 yards distance, Georgina made the first move and jumped back. The others took cue and likewise got some distance from the water. As soon as they had moved, the thing swung right around a rock near the shore and dove. In less than two minutes, it had gone practically up to the island again, where it reappeared. When the creature came close to the group on shore, it opened its huge, great mouth. Two big humps were noticed sticking above the water behind its head. Georgina said she spotted a forked tail when it swung around the rock. The interior of its mouth was white and Georgina likened it to a shark's mouth. Georgina described the animal's skin as wormy or creepy, as it seemed to have motion throughout its body at all times. Georgina claimed to have reoccurring nightmares afterwards and avoided the lake for a good six or seven years. Even then, she wouldn't go alone. One of the other witnesses to this day begs her family not to go near Lofata. On February 22, 1968, farmer and marble quarry worker Stephen Coyne set off to gather dry peat near Lona-Huan with his eldest and the family dog. As he approached the peat bed, Stephen spotted a black object amongst a patch of reeds within the lake, assuming it was the dog he whistled for, but the dog appeared running along the shore. While en route, it noticed a figure in the water and began barking. Stephen could see it was some sort of large animal with a black head that was rounded like a kettle and fused upon a neck an estimated 9 inch to a foot in diameter. The skin was black, hairless and slick looking, very much like an eels. The creature began swimming around the small low until it apparently became annoyed at the dog's continual barking. With an open mouth, it began humming in on the canine's position. However, when Stephen arrived at his dog's side for support, it retreated and resumed its aimless swim around the low. Whenever it would duck its head under water, two humps would come into view. A flat tail was also seen on occasion and in one instance was even extended up towards the head. Stephen sent his son home to get a camera. Unfortunately, there was no film, but when the boy returned with his mother and additional siblings making a total of seven at the scene, Mrs. Coyne proved to be the bravest of the bunch and drew closest to shore. Perhaps because of her vantage point, she would later note what appeared to be horns emitting from the animal's head, a feature unnoticed by Stephen or the children. Stephen thought the closest distance they had between the animal was nine yards, whereas Mrs. Coyne felt it was more like five yards. The creature kept swimming back and forth across the lake for the better part of an hour until finally the coins felt they had seen enough and returned home. Apparently the horse eel is not exclusively a water animal, as a man named Thomas Conley reported that one evening in September would he notice a strange animal lingering on the shore of Lona Hoon. The creature was rolling or crawling toward the water when Thomas first spotted it only 15 feet from the lake's edge. It was bigger than a mare's full and very long with a width estimated at two to two and a half feet. Conley said the skin was commented on as being very black and once it entered the water it created spray on both sides and remained a few seconds before sinking. Whatever happens this August, perhaps we may finally soon have an answer to the important question, are many of our lake monsters actually gigantic eels? Coming up, how would you like to live on the cheap in Tokyo, Japan? Well, it's easy to do. That's assuming you don't mind living with a couple of ghosts. That story is up next when Weird Darkness Returns. Welcome back to Weird Darkness, I'm Darren Marlar. The neon-drenched, vast urban megapolis of Tokyo, Japan is one of the largest, most advanced, high-tech and modernized cities on the planet. It's truly a wonder to behold and offers all of the modern conveniences and razzle-dazzle one would expect from such a bustling metropolis. Yet, if you want to live here, you are in for a surprise. Land prices and rent here are through the roof, with Tokyo consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities to live, not in just a pan, but on the entire planet. However, there is a way, and if you don't mind sharing a place with spirits and ghosts, you can get a really good deal. For such a modern and technologically advanced nation, the Japanese can be extremely superstitious, and this can even be seen in megacities like Tokyo. One area where this superstition comes to the foray is in choosing a place to live, and one type of residence that is typically shunned are what are known as Stigmatized Properties, or Jikobukan in Japanese, which are places that have some association with death and suffering. Such apartments or homes come in several levels of stigmatization. For instance, if a place is located next to a cemetery, this is seen as mildly stigmatized, or a bit more so if one can actually see the gravestones from the window. Higher up, the totem pole, are apartments or homes where there has been a death on the premises, such as a suicide, the death of a lone elderly tenant called a lonely death, or worse yet a violent murder or deadly accident. Such places are incredibly difficult to rent out, and it is difficult for real estate companies to cover up such things, as Japanese law requires that landlords tell potential buyers or renters of any defects, violent incidents, or deaths that have happened there. Get a house or flat where there has been a violent death, and it can be almost impossible to find a taker, as the Japanese believe that the very likely restless and even vengeful ghost will almost certainly linger there. Because of this aversion to these haunted, stigmatized locations, landlords are forced to drop the rent or prices of such homes considerably, with cuts of 30-50% or even more, depending on the severity of the place's dark past and the level of violence involved in the deaths. Murders are, of course, the worst, and one president of a Tokyo-based real estate company has said of these locations, Japanese people hate Jigobuken. It is a ghost problem. It is really the murders where the price needs to be cut in half. Those are the spirits that Japan fears the most. The author of this article continues by saying, I actually have experienced this in action when years ago I was shopping around for a place to rent, not long after moving to Japan. I was apartment hunting and absolutely shocked by some of the exorbitant rents in Tokyo when I came across a listing for an anomalously cheap place near Shinjuku. If you don't know anything about Tokyo, Shinjuku is a bustling economic center and holds some of the most prime real estate in the entire city. It is also one of the most expensive places to live in an already expensive city, so when I found this place I was thinking that I had locked out. I contacted the real estate agent who had been advertising the place and went out there to have a look. It was a bit of an older building, but the room looked fine, had obviously been fixed up, and I could not see any defects or particular reason why it should be so cheap. It is interesting to note that up until then there had been absolutely no mention of the apartment's grim past, but I was soon to find out. After I looked around the place and got all the specifics of it, I was just about sold. It seemed too good to be true, and that was when the guy showing me around sort of cleared his throat and gave me something akin to, by the way, there's one more thing. It turned out there had been a death in that apartment, indeed in the very room we were standing in. The agent explained to me that there had been an elderly man who'd lived there and he had fallen into a deep depression and apparently hanged himself there. Since the guy had no friends or family and had mostly kept to himself, the body had not even been discovered for several days, just dangling about on that cord in the shadows all alone. I can see how such knowledge can have a psychological effect on hauntings, because I immediately felt my hair stand up on end and I got a bit of a mild electric feel that pulsed through me. I suppose the guy saw my ash in face and reaction because he was quick to explain that the place had been renovated since then and that there had been a ceremony carried out there to cleanse it. I thanked him and went home. But I have to tell you I still almost took it as it was an excellent location and was so cheap. Alas, everyone told me to forget about it and I chickened out, but yeah, I almost lived in a haunted apartment in Tokyo. This could all be a real headache for landlords and real estate agents, with the only saving grace being that they are only legally required to tell of these incidents to the first tenant after death. Unfortunately for them, making it all even worse for them and negating this loophole is the fact that there have been people who have actually compiled maps of the various supposedly haunted apartments and homes in Tokyo for all to see. One realtor named Tiru Oshima had taken it upon himself to painstakingly compile information through police and newspaper reports, tip-offs from fellow agents, testimony from former tenants and his own research into the history of various properties in order to make a detailed online guide of properties where deaths and misfortune have occurred, which is made into a map that is offered for free online and which in Wikipedia style can be edited and expanded by contributors. For each stigmatized or supposedly haunted property, Oshima uses a system similar to the Michelin star system for restaurants, in this case awarding fire icons based on the gruesomeness of the death or deaths that have happened at the locations and the severity of the potential haunting. The higher the number of fire icons, up to a maximum of three, the more haunted and less desirable the property and thus cheaper. For instance, an apartment where an elderly woman died in her sleep is listed as a one-icon residence, another where a man killed himself as a two-icon place, and three-icon properties include an apartment where the tenant was stabbed to death by a home intruder and another where a young couple was killed in a gas explosion at the home. Clicking on an icon will bring up specific information on the property, including of course macabre details on who died there and how. The free online map has gone on to become the bane of real estate agents and landlords all over Tokyo, but has been met with open arms for people looking for a bargain on a place to live. The meticulously crafted map is constantly updated, currently holds around 9,000 fire icons and is extremely popular, with millions of views per day. It's interesting that there is so much fear of ghosts and the vestiges of death hanging over these places in such an advanced country and that these locations should be so completely shunned. Despite the lack of religious leanings and many of the inhabitants of Tokyo, there is still that old superstition of the taint of death and the belief in ghosts is very much alive here. Yet it could just work out in your favor if you are ever thinking about getting a place in Tokyo and if you don't mind having a potentially ghostly roommate, you could very well snag yourself a pretty nice pad at a reasonable price. You can become a patron and or subscribe to the podcast at WeirdDarkness.com, or you can search for Weird Darkness wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow the show on Facebook and Twitter at Weird Darkness and please tell others about the show who love the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. Doing that helps make it possible for me to keep doing the show. And if you'd like to be a part of the show, you can call in to the Dark Line toll-free and tell your own true paranormal story or a story that happened to someone you know. That number is 1-877-277-5944. Again, the toll-free number is 1-877-277-5944. You can also email me anytime on the contact page at WeirdDarkness.com. Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness. Don't go anywhere, weirdos, because sudden death over time is up next. Nearly 30 years ago, on August 1, 1990, authorities in New Hampshire met with still-grieving widow Pamela Smart to deliver some good news and bad. The good news is we've solved the murder of your husband, they said. The bad news is you're under arrest. Just three months earlier, on May 1, 1990, the 22-year-old media coordinator at Winnequinette High School had come back home from work to find her 24-year-old husband, Greg, brutally murdered in their living room in what appeared to be a botched robbery. Police determined that Greg had been killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. Further analysis revealed the bullet was from a .38 caliber gun, but the ransacked state of the smart home soon revealed itself to be a ruse. Pamela Smart was suspected of seducing one of her students and then convincing the student to murder her husband. The murder shocked the once quiet town of Derry, New Hampshire, and the ensuing trial captured headlines across the country. One of the first high-profile trials involving a teacher-student affair, the smart case also made an impact on pop culture. Joyce Maynard's popular novel, To Die For, drew upon details from the Pamela Smart story, and later was adapted by Gus Van Sant into the 1992 film with the same name, starring Nicole Kidman. Maynard's seductive page-turner, The New York Times Book Review calls it that, follows a local weather reporter named Suzanne Moreto who yearns for superstardom. When her dreams fail to come true, she decides her unglamorous husband is to blame, so she seduces a 15-year-old admirer to permanently take care of her husband. Greg Smart was murdered on or around May 1, 1990. Pamela reportedly found the body after coming home from a meeting and soon reported it to the police. Pamela was noticeably chatty about the death of her husband. Five days after the violent death of her husband, she contacted Bill Spencer at WMUR News Channel 9 and offered the station an exclusive interview. Then on May 14, police received an anonymous phone call indicating a girl named Cecilia Pierce knew about the plan to murder Greg. Cecilia was a student intern of Mrs. Smart's at Winnicannet High School. Cecilia first met Pamela when she was assigned to work at the school's media center. The two developed a close friendship, and Cecilia began to spend the night at the Smart home. There, she discovered her outgoing teacher possessed a very dark secret. Pamela was in love with a 15-year-old boy named Billy Flynn. The amorous instructor believed she could successfully keep the affair under wraps. Unfortunately for her, though in no way surprising, Billy was far less tight-lipped. Billy bragged about his love life to his buddies, Vance Lattam Jr., Patrick Randall, and Raymond Fowler. They all knew about the affair. The gang was known as troublemakers around Derry. When Billy suggested they rob a house, the others went along with it, not realizing who they were going to target. Greg Smart, the one man standing in Billy's way. On May 1, the gang drove to the Smart's condo. Vance and Raymond waited in a plaza behind the condo while Billy and Patrick went inside. Approximately 90 minutes later, the two returned to the car visibly shaken. On the ride home, Billy and Patrick admitted to killing Greg Smart. Patrick said he held the man down with a knife to his throat while Billy shot him in the head. On June 11, fresh off Cecilia's tip, police arrested Billy, Patrick, and Vance. Billy was charged with first-degree murder. Patrick and Vance were charged with being accomplices to the crime. It didn't take long for young Billy Flynn to confess to the killing, though he claimed the deadly act was justified. Greg had beaten Pamela, and Billy saw the bruises to prove it. A sensitive and protective boy, Billy merely wanted to save the woman he loved. For her, he was willing to kill. Bolstered by Billy's confession, the police zeroed in on Pamela Smart. First they tapped her phone line. Then they convinced Cecilia to wear a wire and get Pamela talking about the murder. On July 13, police obtained a recording between the two friends that implicated Pamela in the murder of her own husband. On August 1, she was arrested in her office at Winnequin at High School, and WMUR News caught the entire thing on tape. Before the trial even found a jury, the case became a media sensation. The image of the young, grieving widow now on trial for the death of her own husband captivated the nation. Beginning March 4, 1991, the trial was televised live every day, the first to air on court TV. Facing first degree murder charges, Pamela would receive life in prison if convicted. All four boys, Raymond had been arrested during the pre-trial hearing, had secured plea bargains before the trial began, and the prosecution used their testimonies to portray Pamela as a woman intent on murder. Pamela admitted to the affair with Billy, but claimed she was innocent of the murder. She claimed her husband was also sleeping around and she had wanted to repair the relationship. When she tried to end things with Billy, he flew into a jealous rage. Cecilia testified to the contrary though, claiming that two months before the murder, Pamela confessed she was madly in love with Billy. The jury sided with the prosecution. Pamela wanted to avoid expensive divorce fees and profit from Greg's $140,000 life insurance policy. On March 22, 1991, Pamela was found guilty of being an accomplice to first degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and witness tampering. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. All four boys served their sentences and were released. Billy was the last to be granted parole in March 2015, 25 years after the murder. In 2014, HBO aired a documentary, Captivated, featuring interviews with Pamela Smart, who maintains her innocence to this day. In May 2019, nearly 30 years after the shocking trial, Pamela Smart was denied a sentence reduction hearing by the New Hampshire Executive Council. Smart's failed request marked the second time she has asked the State Council for a hearing, thus exhausting all of her appeal options. In a jailhouse interview with WBZ's Paula Eben, Smart called the decision completely unfair. This final story comes from weirdo family Josh Merinkovic. He said, My whole life I've been able to see spirits or feel a presence from time to time. My mom attributes it to the fact that I almost died while she was giving birth to me. I literally had one more minute, a single minute to live or else they couldn't save me. We all believe that I got some sort of gift, sixth sense, or sometimes I think it's a curse. I have had many horrifying experiences in my 31 years. Most recently, it happened October 1st, 2018. My buddy that I grew up with that had moved a few hours away from me came home to spend the night at my place and visit. My brother, who this story revolves around, was at work all evening. He came home around 9.30 to shower and get ready because his friend from work was their birthday and they were going out for the night. He told me that he would be back sometime in the evening the following day. He left, my friend and I stayed up a bit longer, then decided we should hit the hay because I had to work the next morning and he had a 4 hour drive ahead of him. The next morning, October 2nd, my alarm went off at 5am for work. I got up and realized that my work clothes were downstairs in the dryer. I went down to get them and realized I had to use the restroom. My brother's bedroom is located in the basement as well and in order to get to the bathroom downstairs, you have to walk through his room. I pulled the curtain over, which separates his room from the rest of the finished basement and there was Tim, my buddy, sleeping on my brother's couch. When you first walk into his room, his headboard is right there, to the right. I looked over it and saw that my brother was in bed sleeping. Covers pulled up to his neck, fast asleep on his side. I thought, huh, interesting. He must have made it home late last night. I went to the restroom and came back out and I looked at my little brother sleeping away once more. I got ready and left out the front door, noting that my car and my mom's were the only ones out front of our house. I thought to myself that he must have parked on the side of the house in front of the garage. I got in my car and turned down my alley and then I saw it. My brother's car was not parked on the side in front of the garage. I parked my car immediately, ran back inside, down the stairs, threw open his curtain and looked in his bed. He wasn't there. The bed was empty.