 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Welcome Weirdos, I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. While you're listening, you might want to check out the Weird Darkness website. At WeirdDarkness.com, you can find paranormal and horror audiobooks I've narrated, the Weird Darkness store, streaming video of horror hosts and old horror movies, plus you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression, anxiety or thoughts of suicide. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Coming up in this episode of Weird Darkness, it's fairly rare to come across a ghost story with a relatively happy ending, where the living are able to accommodate the dead and even provide them with assistance. But one such story happened in 1957. When being born without arms or legs, how would you manage? How would you live your life? People have, of course, been born this way. But two very interesting men not only made the best of it, they could, but they made the rest of the world take notice. The bloodstain remains on the floor to this day and several witnesses have claimed to see a black mist materialize from the spot and glide through the house. We'll look at a haunted home in Pennsylvania that goes by the name Grumblethorpe. We've all had a trick of the light make it appear something was on the other side of a window, only for us to change angles and the image would disappear. But what if the image doesn't and you know it can't be there? Witnesses say they've seen people vanish into thin air. Drivers and motorists saw a young woman suddenly materialize in front of their vehicles. There are some strange things being seen around Bluebell Hill in Kent, United Kingdom. Murdered in Montana in 1983, Marie Philbrick was killed in the days before DNA analysis. Bernard P. Junior was convicted of her murder. But was he really her killer? At first, there was a time where being physically fit wasn't just good for your heart health and good lungs, but also good for your head. If you could beat the executioner in a foot race, you could avoid the guillotine. We begin there. Now bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the weird darkness. Like many historical nations, the Ottoman Empire was no stranger to doling out deadly justice to criminals and those the rulers disliked. Unlike most for several decades, starting sometime in the late 18th century, they did offer some of the condemned a chance to avoid being executed. How? They simply had to beat the palace's head gardener in what amounted to about a 300-meter dash. In the Ottoman Empire, the method in which people eventually came to be executed was directly related to their standing in society, as well as differing based on their sex. For example, commoners who didn't necessarily commit a heinous enough crime to warrant one of the more painful forms of execution favored by the Ottomans, like being impaled or being hung by a jagged meat hook until dead, would simply have their heads lopped off. In contrast, bear-ranking individuals such as viziers, high-ranking ministers and royalty, were often strangled to death, either by the executioner's bare hands, the string of a bow, or even a silk handkerchief. Once dead, the body was often cast into the sea. As for the ladies, for certain condemned, high-ranking women, their fate tended to be being tied up in weighted sacks and dropped into the sea while still alive. Although being beheaded would arguably be quicker and perhaps a little less emotionally traumatic during the actual event, a bloodless death was seen as being cleaner and more refined, so preferred by the elite. Numerous executions in the Ottoman Empire, whether they involved commoners or the Sultan's own family, took place in the Tupkapi Palace in modern-day Istanbul. This opulent residence served as the main home of the Sultan and was reportedly filled with grim reminders of the potential cost of crime or dissent, with severed heads of recently killed criminals being on display at the palace's front gate, along with piles of other severed body parts like noses, ears and tongues. Criminals to be executed on palace grounds were only made aware of their fate on the day they were meant to be executed, via means of a sweetened drink made with sherbet. The accused would customarily be presented with this drink three days after appearing in court. The color of the drink would be indicative of the court's decision. As Professor Godfrey Goodwin of Boghasezi University noted, if it were white, he sighed with relief, but if it were red, he was in despair because red was the color of death. Despite the vast number of executions that took place in the Sultan's Palace, for reference, during the brief 8-year 16th century reign of Sultan Selim I alone, he is estimated to have had over 30,000 people executed there. There was no official executioner tasked with this seemingly never-ending job. Instead, the job of carrying out these executions usually fell to one of the palace's so-called gardeners, except when the person was of extremely high standing, in which case the execution would be carried out by the palace's Bostancy Bashe, which roughly translates to head gardener. While you might think the name for these workers simply came from that they were tasked with pruning off individuals who had been deemed unfit to be members of that society, they were also charged with literal gardening in maintaining the gardens and grounds of the palace. Beyond this, they variously functioned as bodyguards, police and security for the palace as the need arose, with several thousand gardeners on staff at any given time. Now to the race. While most who were given the red sherbet would simply be killed shortly after by a gardener, particularly high-ranking officials such as Grand Viziers still had a little hope. The head gardener was honor-bound to challenge these individuals to a foot race through the gardens to the place of execution near the fish market gate on the southern side of the palace, a distance of around 300 meters. If the person was able to finish the dash before the head gardener, their sentence would be reduced from death to simple banishment. As far as historians can tell from the known documented instances of this, very few people ever managed to defeat the Bostancy Basha in the race. This is perhaps not surprising as the race was heavily stacked in the executioner's favor, considering he knew the palace grounds inside and out and was more often the not-infantastic shape relative to the victim. All condemned who lost were immediately strangled upon reaching the gate. For those exceptional few who did manage to defeat the head gardener, sometimes things worked out even better than simply being banished. For instance, the last known condemned individual to win this deadly race was Grand Vizier Hossi Salish Pasha in 1822. Partially due to the respect he gained for his reportedly impressive and unexpected victory, he was later pardoned and made Governor-General in Damascus. It isn't clear how this racing tradition got started, though one can speculate it perhaps was inspired by condemned individuals or maybe even a specific individual with nothing left to lose anyway attempting such a flight out of the palace once they received the red sherbet. Whatever the case, the race was first reported in the late 18th century with evidence, such as the case of Hossi Salish Pasha, suggesting it lasted at least two decades into the 19th century. Standing at 5267 Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia is a nondescript building with another worldly reputation. In a city with so many historic landmarks, the oddly named Grumblethorpe, said to come from a novel about a German family in England, looks like nothing more than another stone colonial structure. But tales of its spectral happenings go back over two-and-a-half centuries and continue to this day. Grumblethorpe was built in 1744 as the summer home of John Wister, originally Wise Star but later anglicized with an E. Wister was a wine merchant in the city and his family was prominent in Philadelphia. John's brother, Casper, was a German-born glassmaker and one of the first German colonists in Pennsylvania. The Wisters would also become the namesake of the Wisteria plant. Indeed, their horticultural interests were great. Grumblethorpe included several acres of plants and flower beds and a looming ginkgo tree which still stands. The tree is said to have grown from a seedling brought from England in 1754. Thirty years after it was completed, Grumblethorpe became the home and headquarters of British Brigadier General James Agnew, who was still recuperating from wounds sustained in the Battle of Brandywine. A few days after Agnew took up residence, the Battle of Germantown raged on October 4, 1777. Agnew rode into battle without support and was promptly ambushed by over 100 enemy troops. As he turned to escape, he was shot in the back. Agnew's soldiers and his servant Alexander Andrew carried the mortally wounded leader away. They took him back to Grumblethorpe where he bled to death on the wooden floor. James Agnew reportedly haunts the home. The bloodstain of his death still remains on the floor of Grumblethorpe and several witnesses have claimed to see a black mist rise from the spot and move throughout the house. Others remember standing on the spot and subsequently hearing the sound of moaning, especially on the anniversary of Agnew's death. But Agnew isn't the only ethereal guest of the old house. There's another ghost referred to as Justinia According to legend, Justinia's father, Justin, died in the 1793 Philadelphia Yellow Fever epidemic. She was orphaned but taken in by the Wisters before she could be displaced. She soon became the house manager. One of Justinia's favorite pastimes was making bread. She did so every Friday night for the purpose of distributing it to the poor on Saturday mornings. Then, late one evening in 1820, Justinia appeared to John Wister's daughters in their bedroom. Believing that Justinia was at their other home on Market Street several miles away, the girls were a bit startled by her sudden presence. The following morning, the Wister family learned that Justinia had passed away the night before. Ever since her death, people have insisted that her spirit lingers in Grumblethorpe and is more often seen on Friday evenings after sunset, usually accompanied by the smell of freshly baked bread. She is a friendly presence and has also been seen by many children who visit the house with their parents. Aside from visitors, staff members at Grumblethorpe have had paranormal experiences that defy explanation. Education director Diana Thompson recalled seeing a black shape, low to the ground, spinning very quickly from the dining room into the colonial parlor. Thompson then said, I am not in the mood for this, after which the shape disappeared. Thompson's son also saw the same black shape. Its description matched the entity seen near James Agnew's blood spot. Other staff members have claimed to see figures or eyes in the dining room mirror. Some young volunteers have admitted that their parents are too afraid to pick them up at Grumblethorpe. Volunteer Kelly Elsup recalled a particularly unnerving experience in an upstairs room. Walking through the room with two other staff members during the middle of the day, Kelly noticed their shadows cast on the floor, but she also noticed a fourth shadow that didn't belong to anyone in the room, one that was clearly wearing a dress when everyone else was in jeans. Despite the eerie occurrences, those who work at Grumblethorpe do not feel threatened. To the contrary, workers have learned to coexist with their other worldly guests. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. It now operates as a museum and is open to the public. Up next. Imagine being born without arms or legs. Two very interesting men not only made the best of it, but they made the rest of the world take notice. And we've all had a trick of the light make it appear something was on the other side of a window, but one girl learned she shouldn't just dismiss a trick of the light so soon. These stories and more still to come when Weird Darkness returns. Central Massachusetts is a land of oddities and apparitions. Stories of the strange and paranormal have been passed down from generation to generation, and only the local populace has any idea of just how vast and deep their superstitions run. The world around you is much more than you can touch, taste, smell, see, and hear. Some of the stories are funny, some are sad, but all of them give you a taste of what it's like to be from the oddest part of the United States. You can't have a region of the country that has been settled for centuries without getting a few odd tales out of it. Open up a whole new world of fact and fiction that will leave you with a deep appreciation for the strange and bizarre ghosts and heroes await, and the only thing they need to live on is you. Slightly Odd Fitchburg by Ed Sweeney. Now available on Kindle, paperback, and audiobook versions on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com. Francis Petalia, The Stone Eater. Charles Dolbury, The Remarkable Glutton. Barbara Ursleron, The Hairy Faced Woman. Francis Troubillot, The Horned Man. And Florum Marchand, The Great Waterspowder. These are just a few of the people James Caulfield and Henry Wilson wrote about in their aptly titled 1869 book, The Book of Wonderful Characters, Memoirs and Anecdotes of Remarkable and Eccentric Persons in All Ages and Countries. With all due respect to The Great Waterspowder, The Horned Man, and the others, the most wonderful, remarkable and eccentric person Caulfield and Wilson profiled was Matthew Butchinger, The Little Man of Nuremberg. Butchinger was born in 1674 with no limbs, only small stumps. Yet he learned to play numerous instruments, performed magic, created masterful artwork, and fathered 11 children with four wives. At 29 inches high, he was indeed a little man, but he lived large. Here is his tale. Of all the imperfect beings brought into the world, few can challenge for mental and acquired endowments anything like a comparison to Vi with this truly extraordinary little man. Matthew Butchinger was a native of Nuremberg in Germany, where he was born June 2, 1674, without hands, feet, legs, or thighs. In short, he was little more than the trunk of a man, saving two extra senses growing from the shoulder blades, more resembling fins of a fish than arms of a man. He was the last of nine children by one father and mother, eight sons and one daughter. After arriving at the age of maturity, from the singularity of his case and the extraordinary abilities he possessed, he attracted the notice and attention of all persons of whatever rank in life to whom he was occasionally introduced. It does not appear by any account extent that his parents exhibited him at any time for the purpose of emolument, but that the whole of his time must have been employed in study and practice, to attain the wonderful perfection he arrived at in drawing and his performance on various musical instruments, the manner of general amateurs but in the style of a finished master. He likewise possessed great mechanical powers and conceived the design of constructing machines to play on all sorts of musical instruments. If nature played the niggard in one respect with him, she amply repaid the deficiency by endowment that those blessed with perfect limbs could sell to him achieve. He greatly distinguished himself by beautiful writing, drawing coats of arms, sketches of portraits, history, landscapes, etc., most of which were executed in Indian ink with pen, emulating in perfection the finest and most finished engraving. He was well skilled in most games of chance, nor could the most experienced gamester or juggler obtain the least advantage at any tricks or game with cards or dice. He used to perform before a company, to whom he was exhibited various tricks with cups and balls, corn and living birds, and could play its skittles and nine pens with great dexterity, shave himself with perfect ease, and do many other things equally surprising and a person so deficient and mutilated by nature. His writings and sketches of figures, landscapes, etc., were by no means uncommon, though curious it being customary with most persons who went to see him, to purchase something or other of his performance, and as he was always employed in writing or drawing, he carried on a very successful trade, which together with the money he obtained by exhibiting himself enabled him to support himself and family in a very genteel manner. Mr. Herbert of Chassant, editor of Aims History of Printing, had many curious specimens of Bushinger's writing and drawing, the most extraordinary of which was his own portrait, exquisitely done on vellum, in which he most ingeniously contrived to insert in the flowing curls of the wig the 27th, 121st, 128th, 140th, 149th, and 150th songs, together with the Lord's Prayer, most beautifully and fairly written. Mr. Isaac Herbert, son of the former, while carrying on the business of a bookseller in Paul Mall, caused this portrait to be engraved, for which he paid Mr. Harding 50 guineas. Bushinger was married four times and had eleven children, one by his first wife, three by his second, six by his third, and one by his last. One of his wives was in the habit of treating him extremely ill, frequently beating and otherwise insulting him, which for a long time he very patiently put up with, but once his anger was so much roused that he sprang upon her like a fury, got her down and boveted her with his stumps within an inch of her life, nor would he suffer her to rise until she promised amendment in future, which it seems she prudently adopted, through fear of another thrashing. Mr. Bushinger was but 29 inches in height. He died in 1722. Imagine being born without arms or legs. How would you manage? How would you live your life? Like the famed little man of Nuremberg before him, Nikolai Kubelkoff learned to live just like anyone else by fully compensating with his stumps. Kubelkoff was born on July 21, 1851 in Woznesensk, Russia, as the 14th child at a family of farmers. As described in an 1888 publication called Artificial Limbs, Surgical Appliances, etc., with illustrations of remarkable cases by James Gillingham, Kubelkoff has the rudimentary of legs, one thigh being six inches long, the other being about two inches longer, but for a right arm he has merely a conical mound, and for a left arm a rounded bone representing the humerus. This didn't stop Kubelkoff from doing many things that must be seen to be believed. As Gilligan continued, he could write letters, cut paper with scissors, pour water from a bottle into a glass, eat with a fork or spoon, take his watch from his pocket, open it and put it back, thread a needle and fire a pistol. Such feats helped Kubelkoff gain fame at fairs and on stages across Russia, Europe and America. His audiences include Tsar Alexander III, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. The Russian manages to make himself fairly interesting, Gillingham wrote of his performance. He sits at a table, fixes a pen between his cheek and arm, and writes away in a good, clear commercial hand. And with the same combination of cheek and shoulder, he does most of the other things, the most seemingly difficult being that of feeding himself. The way he threads a needle is to take it in his mouth and stick it in his jacket, and then putting the thread in his mouth, pass it through the eye. He can draw passively well, and he draws as he writes. The strangest thing is to see him load a pistol, aim it at a light candle and shoot the light out. He even tries some acrobatic performances but these are not very striking, consisting merely of jumping off his chair and doing a sort of sack race across the floor. Offstage, Kubelkoff found success as well. In 1876, he married an Austrian actress, Anna Wilfert, and fathered six children, all of whom were fully limbed. In 1900, he appeared in a short film. And in 1913, the Shulman built a toboggan ride at a Vietnamese amusement park, Worstle Prater. Kubelkoff died on January 19, 1933 in Vienna. Oldership of the ride remained with the family until the 1970s. When I was 18, I shared a flat in Boise, Idaho's historic Warm Springs neighborhood with two of my younger brothers. The house we lived in was old for the area, divided into our upstairs apartment and our neighbors below. We were smack dab between a hospital, the old Idaho State Penitentiary, and the old Fort Boise Cemetery, a few blocks or so from what is left of historic downtown Boise and the tunnels where Asian immigrants were forced to trade. Plenty of history roam it about. We all loved that house, even though its odd division meant that our living room was formerly an upstairs porch, complete with a front door and windows which opened into the main house. The porch had been closed off with more windows all along the three outer walls. We rallied some milk crates, a boom box, a hideous pink rescue couch, and a posh, velvety spinning 1970s thrift store rocker slash recliner. We tacked up a few yards of gauze as curtains and considered ourselves smartly furnished. The only way the couch really fit into the narrow room was along a shorter wall, facing the length of the room and three walls of windows. The rocker we put in the middle, just even with the door beneath the front set of windows. It was humble, but only in the way only a grubby punk bachelor pad can be. One warm autumn day, I came home from work to find my brother's girlfriend, Kay, waiting for him. She was sitting on the couch, so I plopped in the rocker and chucked off my shoes. It was sunny and hot and we did not say much, just listened in to music and smoking cigs. We did not know each other real well, so we were just kind of both awkwardly waiting for the guys to come back. Lazy and sweaty from biking home, I was shoving the rocker slowly side to side, back and forth, pushing with my stocking feet on the window sills. Several times as I came around the backside, I imagined that I saw a grumpy little wrinkly face staring into the sunny upstairs window. And that is impossible. I assumed it was simply tricks of contrast or reflection and just kept rocking back around. Then I had to stop and stare out the window. Floating away from the window and turning to my left was a clear or pale, very skinny, small, wise and figure with the face of a grumpy old person. It had like a ruffle nightcap like Little House on the Prairie. The figure was very small, maybe two feet. It glided with its arms drawn up stiffly, gnarled fists at chest level. It sort of clouded and trailed off at the waist. I could not even believe what I was seeing. It stared straight ahead, unhappy, so I turned away with a childish hope that it had not seen me. I had goosebumps all over sitting in the sun. I sort of mentally chastised my wild imagination and just kept sitting there quietly with Kay. The last thing I wanted was to make things more awkward. Then, out of the blue, she is like, did you just now see that banshee behind you in the window? It looked sort of like the banshee in Darby O'Gill. She had been watching it float outside behind me. Freaking out, we both described seeing basically the same thing as one another. She was in tears. We went downstairs and sat outside until my brothers came home. Kay was still very upset and one of our friends, an army medic, treated her for shock. As far as I know, neither of us has the sight, but she was young and troubled. I did not know then that that age can be sort of a magnet for weird energy. Other weird unrelated things happened at that house. Before and after, my brothers heard footsteps in the empty kitchen on the other end of the house. They did not tell me until years later. Or that our neighbor's house, one could sometimes hear laughing or a party in the house. It had been a brothel. I don't think what Kay and I saw was an actual banshee, but I can't say it was a ghost or what. It was so small. Wouldn't a person's ghost be person-sized? It didn't seem like it was trying to get in or be seen. When Weird Darkness returns, it's fairly rare to come across a ghost story with a relatively happy ending where the living are able to accommodate the dead and even provide them with assistance, but one such story happened in 1957. Plus, witnesses say they've seen people vanish into thin air. Drivers and motorists saw a young woman suddenly materialize in front of their vehicles. There are some strange things being seen around Bluebell Hill. Are you a member of the Darkness Syndicate? The Darkness Syndicate is a private membership where you receive commercial-free episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast and radio show. Behind the scenes, video updates about future projects and events I'm working on. You can share your own opinions on ideas to help me decide upon Weird Darkness Contests and events. You can hear audiobooks I'm narrating before even the publishers or authors get to hear them. You also receive bonus audio of other projects I'm working on outside of Weird Darkness. You get all of these benefits and more, starting at only $5 per month. Join the Weird Darkness Syndicate at WeirdDarkness.com Slash Syndicate. That's WeirdDarkness.com Slash Syndicate. Published in The New York Times on June 26, 1957 Last September, the 125-year-old Red Brick house at 11 Bank Street, just off Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, came into the hands of Dr. Harvey Slatton, an engineer and his wife Yuffie Kimball, an Osage woman known for her Indian paintings. They heard from neighbors that Willa Cather had lived in the place 40 years ago, but it turned out that she had owned number 5 Bank. They did establish that a villager who was the noel of the novel Marjorie Morningstar had boarded in their place. A Mrs. Macario had run number 11 as a 19-room boarding establishment for years before she sold to them, but she not bothered much about its history. Anyway, the Slattons, anxious to do the house over, came to amicable agreement with the rumors. The house got empty and echoey. Now, it may seem a little contradictory, but the Slattons are sensible bohemians. In quiet hours when they were alone or with a few friends, they thought they heard a woman's footfalls on these steep staircases, sometimes just crossing upper floors. Sometimes there was light hammering. The sounds were heard more often by day than at night, Dr. Slatton says. I'd call them rather friendly sounds, a wee bit spooky maybe, but somehow not frightening. When he and his spouse went up to explore, they never saw a soul. They never could work out an explanation, either. They clocked the ghostly pacing one Sunday morning last January. It started around 11 o'clock and kept up at intervals through four in the afternoon. They made quite a few trips upstairs. They sleep on the first floor, but as before, no one, nothing in sight. Arthur Brody, a Britain-born carpenter and rather a stout fellow in his own right, heard the footsteps as the Slattons did. He said, you do hear odd sounds in old houses. Sadie, the Slattons made, was uneasy in the beginning, but she'd just cock in ear and listen after a while without panic. One morning last February, Brody started to hammer through the top floor ceiling for a room change there. Plaster and lath dust showered down. There was a loud bump. Mrs. Slatton heard it in her first floor bedroom. A few minutes later, Brody came down. He knocked at her bedroom door. He said, it's me, ma'am, Brody. I'm leaving the job. I've found the body. But when Mrs. Slatton opened the door, he grinned. In his hand was a black-painted metal can about twice the height of a tin of ground coffee. He held it out. A faded, gummed label on the can said, the last remains of Elizabeth Bullock, the ceased, premaded January 21, 1931, that was in faded-typed lettering. In heavy print below that, the United States Crematory Company Limited, middle village borough of Queens, New York City. Stamped into the top of the can and at the bottom, as with a metal punch, was the number 37251. Mrs. Slatton called her husband. He hurried home. He and Brody put a flashlight through the ceiling break. Nothing there but dusty rafters. There was a puzzler. Near as the engineer could figure out, the ceiling that hid the container had gone in around 1880, a half century before Elizabeth Bullock died. Dr. Slatton called the crematorium. After a record search out there, he was told that Mrs. Bullock was 51 years old when she died in 1931. She'd been hurt by an automobile in Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, had collapsed, then carried to a drugstore, and death had taken her. But this was rather strange, these Slattons thought. Elizabeth Bullock had never lived at 11 Bank Street. Her home address in the middle village books was 113 Ferry Street in Greenwich Village. Dr. Slatton called Charles Dominic, the undertaker in the case. His place had been on West 11th Street, not too far from Bank, but he too was dead. All that remains of Elizabeth Bullock, these Slattons lost the trail in search for her kin, stands quietly now on the grand piano in the Great Brick living room at 11 Bank Street. Sadie dusts it every day. The Slattons can't think of what else to do with it, and there's a chance they think that someone someday may come for it. There's one other strange touch to the story. A few weeks before Brodie broke through to Elizabeth Bullock, a well-dressed young man rang the house doorbell to ask about rooms. Mrs. Slatton told him she couldn't say exactly when they'd be ready, but she'd take his name. The young man left a card. Mrs. Slatton said the name on it was something like E.C. Bullock. One last thing the Slattons have no answer for, and they acknowledge no belief in ghosts. There have been no whispering footfalls since Elizabeth Bullock came down to the parlor. There was a sequel to this tale. The story I've just told caught the eye of famed ghost hunter Hans Holzer. He contacted one Ethel Myers, a friend of his who was a medium. Without giving any details, he asked her to accompany him to a haunted house in the village. He arranged with the Slattons to hold a seance at their place on July 17th. When Ms. Myers went into her trance, a curious story emerged. The medium said that present was the spirit of a small woman with a heart condition who was paralyzed on one side. She's Betty. As she slipped further into her trance state, Betty began speaking through her. The spirit murmured in a strong Irish brogue, he didn't want me in a family plot. My brother, I wasn't even married in their eyes, but I was married before God. Edward Bullock, I want a Christian burial in the shades of the cross. Any place where the cross is, but not with them. The last words were said with such anger that Holzer became alarmed and tried to calm her. Betty went on. I didn't marry in the faith, she explained. She added that her brother was named Eddie, that they were from Pleasantville, New York, and that her mother's maiden name was Elizabeth McCuller. Now, calm again, she said. I'm at rest now. How, she was asked, did her ashes happen to wind up in a house she never even lived in? I went with Eddie, Betty replied. There was a family fight. My husband went with Eddie. Steal the ashes, pay for no burial. He came back and took them from Eddie. Pied ashes. Charles knew it, made a roof over the house. Ashes came through the roof, so Eddie can't find them. Holzer asked if she had any children. Eddie and Gracie, the spirit said. Gracie died as a baby, and Eddie now lives in California. Charlie protects me. Holzer pointed out that there was no point to her remaining in the house. Why not go off to the great beyond like she was supposed to do? Betty was not impressed with his reasoning. I want a cross over my head, have two lives to live now, and with a nod to Mrs. Slatton, I like being with you. Holzer then made the mistake of asking if Betty would like her ashes buried in her family plot. The spirit again went into a rage. Ma never forgave me. I can never go with her in rest. I don't care much. When she's forgiven me, maybe it'll be all right, only when there's a green tree cross and when there's no more fighting over the bones. I want only to be set free, and there should be peace. I never had anything to do with them, just because I loved a man out of the faith, and so they took my bones and fought over them, and then they put them up in this place and let them smolder up there so nobody could touch them foolish me when they're mixed up with the papal state. Betty went on to explain that her husband was a Presbyterian. He would have put her in his church, but I could not offend them all. He and a friend of his named Peabody stole her ashes from the crematory and hid them. After Mrs. Myers had awakened from her trance, Holzer suggested to Mrs. Slatton that she bury the ashes in her garden, but she declined. She had no problem with having to late Mrs. Bullock as a house guest, and she thought Elizabeth was happy on the piano. Mrs. Slatton, who had psychic abilities herself, felt that she'd formed a friendship of sorts with the ghost, whom she described as brown-haired, plump and fun-loving. Why she reasoned to deprive Mrs. B of her new family. And so, Elizabeth Bullock became a permanent resident of Eleven Bank Street. In 1980, Harvey Slatton and his second wife, Ann, told Washington Post reporter Joyce Waddler that Elizabeth, whose ashes remained on the piano, liked to show up at their parties. Guests would smell her perfume. You know, said Ann, she really is kind of nifty. She's a benign ghost. She doesn't really do anything. Maybe once in a while she'll act up and Harvey will say, oh Elizabeth, go fix yourself a drink. The reporter asked Ann if she had ever seen the ghost. No, replied Mrs. Slatton, though of course living with a ghost you don't pay much attention. I did see the ghost of Harvey's mother the day she died, the figure of an old woman, but that's another story. Just one big happy family. A few years ago, parapsychology researcher Stacey Horn did her own research into the story. Thanks to Ancestry.com, she was able to learn that Ethel Meyers' trance information was an intriguing mix of hits and misses. Elizabeth was indeed married to an Edward Bullock. Charles was her brother. However, Elizabeth's death certificate revealed that she died from chronic myocarditis, not from being hit by a car. Although she did die at that very drugstore. She was of German descent, not Irish, and her mother's maiden name was Mary Schweiker. Horn could not find any evidence Mrs. Bullock had any children. She was also able to find that in 1942 Edward Bullock moved to 11 Bank Street, where he lived until his death in 1949. Why his wife's ashes would end up in the attic remains a mystery. And what became of this famed tin of ashes? In 1981, the Slattons received a letter from Thomas Devereux, a priest in Lalita, California. He offered to have the tin buried in St. Patrick's Lalita Table Bluff Cemetery. Over the objections of some of their neighbors, who quite liked having a resident ghost, the Slattons agreed. Elizabeth's parapetetic ashes were given a funeral mass attended by 50 people, and buried beneath a cedar cross. Finally getting a proper burial apparently did nothing to dampen Elizabeth's love of a good time. In 1981, Ann Slatton reported that Mrs. Bullock still made regular visits to Greenwich Village. Closets and cupboards at 11 Bank Street would pop open unexpectedly, and her cheap perfume would still be sensed at parties. There was a fear among the tenants that Elizabeth wouldn't be around, but now she is, and there's a sigh of relief, she said. Strange sightings in the vicinity of Bluebell Hill have been reported for decades. Terrified witnesses say they have seen people vanishing into thin air. According to other accounts, drivers and motorists were stunned to see a young woman suddenly materialize in front of their vehicles. There are currently more than 50 reported supernatural sightings in the area, and they seem to be connected to a tragic real story. Bluebell Hill in Kent, United Kingdom has a reputation of being one of the most haunted places in the country. If you're interested in the unexplained and the paranormal, Bluebell Hill is a great place to investigate. Due to a series of inexplicable supernatural events, the road through Bluebell Hill has been classified as a fascinating but also scary place that in recent years attracted national publicity. Locals tell the road is haunted and many motorists claim they've seen a young bride waiting by the roadside, but no one knows where she came from or who she is. This has led to speculations the young woman is the ghost of 22-year-old bride Suzanne Brown. Suzanne died together with two other women in a tragic car accident while being on her way to her wedding on November 19, 1965. Suzanne, who had a bright and happy future ahead of her, was going to be married to RAF technician Brian Wetton. Sadly, she lost control of her car and ended her life. Shortly after the accident, people started reporting sightings of a pale, ghostly-looking woman standing next to the road. About four years after the tragedy, a man reported witnessing two pedestrians walking towards him. He was stunned when they suddenly disappeared into thin air. Even more peculiar was that he claimed he witnessed the pedestrians again, walking across the road. However, this time a car drove straight through them. Kent Live reports in 1971, James Skeen was driving home from work when a girl in her early 20s suddenly appeared in front of his car. He gave her a lift to Chatham, but when she got out, he said she disappeared into thin air. Some years later, in 1992, three drivers reported hitting someone who ran into the road at night, but there was no evidence or a body to be found. Yet one of the most perplexing stories is the one about the vanishing hitchhiker. According to this account, coach driver Ian Sharp, 56, observed a ghostly figure along the road. It was just one week before the anniversary of Suzanne Brown's car crash. The young woman ran straight in front of his car and Ian was afraid he had killed her. Terrified, he got out of the car and rushed to help. He knelt and looked beneath the car, but there was nobody there. Ian is not the only one who reported this incident. As Kent Live explains, over the years huge numbers of unsuspecting motorists have witnessed a woman running out in front of their cars late at night, often locking eyes with them before being hit and vanishing. No evidence of a collision has ever been found, nor has there ever been a victim found either. There is definitely something odd about the Bluebell Hill, and all stories are not related to the young woman witnessed in its vicinity. A curious incident was reported as far back as 1934, long before Suzanne Brown died in the car crash. One autumn evening, a young woman named Renee was riding home on her bicycle. Suddenly, she was enveloped by a dark mist and something hard hit her. She fell to the ground and looked, but there were no visible objects anywhere on the road. Why she fell and what hit her remains unexplained. Still, peculiar sightings of unusual objects and people go even further back in time and they are connected to an old hag with grotesque features. Locals tell there was once an old woman who lived alone in the woods near Bluebell Hill. Her ghost is sometimes reported by terrified people and she is known for cursing anyone who invades her realm. Sometimes, people say they witness an old woman standing along the road. She appears to be angry and frightened drivers witness how cars fill with an evil black fog. Whether one believes in ghosts or not, such stories make you think deeper about the nature of space and time. Many time slips have been reported in the United Kingdom. People say they have witnessed scenes and persons from other time epochs both the past and the future. An RAF pilot once reported his curious time slip and journey into the future and he is not the only one who experienced how one can suddenly be in a completely different place without knowing what is transpired. This raises once again the question if there could be so-called interdimensional time portals on earth. These interdimensional doorways would be invisible to the naked eye but stumbling upon one of them could transport a person to a different time and unknown world. Those who believe in ghosts think Albert Einstein's law of physics and particularly those on conservation of energy offer proof that ghosts are real. There is no solid evidence of ghosts, at least not according to most scientists, but as we always say, we still do know very little about the world we live in. Now, suppose parallel worlds do exist. A while back, scientists reported they had discovered the first evidence of parallel universes. If our reality is surrounded by a number of invisible parallel worlds, isn't it possible for a person to enter one of those unknown realms simply by mistake? It certainly is, but this doesn't offer evidence of ghosts and yet so many ancient cultures and modern worlds are convinced ghosts are real. Perhaps death is just an illusion and we continue to live in a parallel world. Could this explain ghost sightings? Up next, murdered in Montana in 1983, Marie Philbrick was killed in the days before DNA analysis. Bernard Pease Jr. was convicted of her murder, but was he really her killer? You shut yourself in, the lights are out and you are listening to weird darkness, but suddenly you get that feeling you're not alone. You don't know what might be under the bed or in the closet or in the attic or in the room with you. You don't dare try to sleep now, you're too scared to. If you doze off, you might be vulnerable to the creatures who haunt your dreams. That's just one more reason to have weird dark roast coffee in the cupboard, because you just never know when you might need it. Weird dark roast coffee contains deep notes of cocoa, caramel and a touch of sinister sweetness. Each bag is fresh roasted to order by Evansville Coffee. You can find a link to it at WeirdDarkness.com. Grab a bag before something else grabs you from the dark. My favorite thing about the true crime community is how discerning the fans are when it comes to information. Maybe it's the thousands of hours of forensic files and dateline that we've all watched. Maybe it's the natural cynicism we develop from reading volumes about the evils of humanity, but true crime enthusiasts can usually smell BS from a mile away. We don't accept much on faith, and a person's claims are only as good as the corroboration they can put behind it. To prove my point, let's look at the murder of Marie Philbrick. The state of Montana says that Bernard Pease Jr. killed Philbrick and tossed her away with the trash. But we know that just because the police say somebody is guilty doesn't necessarily make it so. The Montana Innocence Project claims that Pease is an innocent victim of junk science and malicious prosecution. But we also know that just because the Innocence Project says that somebody is innocent doesn't necessarily make it so. At least one of them is wrong. So let's review the facts of the case and see if we can figure out who. Marie Philbrick was a 23-year-old Native American woman living in Billings, Montana, in 1983. She was from South Dakota and had only been in Billings for a couple of months. She was a sex worker who lived with a man named John Salas and a woman named Brenda Cunningham. Salas was referred to as a roommate in court records from the time. That may be a polite euphemism, however, because according to the Innocence Project, Salas was Philbrick's pimp and Cunningham was a fellow sex worker. Philbrick was last seen by her roommates on the morning of November 24, 1983, which was Thanksgiving. Salas saw her walking downtown at about 3 a.m. and Cunningham saw her talking to a man in a yellow pickup at about 3.30 a.m. At trial, defense attorneys introduced two witnesses who claimed to have seen Philbrick as late as November 26. Both were employees at the hotel where Philbrick, Salas and Cunningham lived. On an eventual appeal, the Montana Supreme Court argued that those sightings were by witnesses who did not know Philbrick and were seeing a person they thought was her from a distance. The Supreme Court was ultimately not convinced of the hotel witness sightings. A week and four hours after Cunningham claimed to have last seen Philbrick, on December 1, 1983, Philbrick's nude body was discovered by a passerby on his way to work. Philbrick was laying in an alley in the snow beside two garbage cans. Her body was frozen and almost entirely drained of blood. She'd suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest and her throat had been slit. The skin was sloughing off her ankle, likely from decomposition, and drag marks in the snow suggested that she'd been dragged by the legs to the spot where she was abandoned. Sorry, that was a brutal paragraph. Why are sex worker murders always so brutal? Is it that their lives aren't difficult enough already? They have to suffer the most horrific deaths too? That seems especially unfair, but I digress. The medical examiner estimated that Philbrick had been dead for approximately five to ten days before she was found. Detectives observed that her left foot was more decomposed than the rest of her body and that there were ridges and dents in the foot. They also discovered a strand of orange yarn in Philbrick's hair. A little over a month later, on January 5, 1984, the owner of an auto shop about two blocks from where Philbrick's body was found discovered a bloody sleeping bag and some carpet backing along a fence behind his shop. Officers collected it and found orange fiber similar to what was in Philbrick's hair, along with pieces of brick and a plumb bob, which is a tool commonly used in masonry. The trash cans where Philbrick's body was found were outside of an industrial building that housed a couple of different businesses. One of them was Pease Masonry. Detectives went to Pease Masonry on January 5, 1984 and spoke to Bernard Pease, Sr., who consented to a search of the building. The search revealed orange shag carpet and a chunk of carpet backing that had been cut in a pattern that seemed to match the section found behind the auto shop. When the officers searched the Wash Bay area in the rear of the business, they found white cardboard boxes with blood on them, blood on the floor. A bloody paper napkin stuck to part of a box and a used condom with blood on it. Detectives also noticed heating pipes on the floor of the Wash Bay. The pipes were dusty except for a couple of areas where the dust had been rubbed off. The bumps and lines of those clean areas were consistent with the lines that detectives saw on Philbrick's decomposed foot. The medical examiner also later determined that a hot and dry heat source, such as the heat pipe, could have accounted for why the foot decomposed faster than the rest of the body. There were only four people who had access to the Wash Bay, all of them in the Pease family. Police got search warrants for the Pease's home in Billings. In Bernard Pease, Jr.'s bedroom, police found used and unused condoms, bondage pornography and women's underwear with semen stains. In the business truck that Pease, Jr. drove, a yellow and white truck, police found a bed sheet stained with what appeared to be blood. Pease, Jr. was eventually arrested and charged with murder. A trial prosecutors called an expert who testified that the blood on the sleeping bag, the carpet backing, the bed sheet, the cardboard boxes, the used condom from the Wash Bay and the floor of the Wash Bay was all the same type as Philbrick's blood. That isn't always very persuasive, but Philbrick had one of the rarer blood types. A town the size of Billings, with 120,000 people, would only be expected to have about 80 to 120 people with Philbrick's blood type. Furthermore, the condom from the Wash Bay had semen in it that matched Pease, Jr.'s blood type. None of this should be confused with DNA evidence, this all predated DNA. Experts for the prosecution and the defense gave conflicting testimony about whether or not various hairs from the crime scenes matched the suspect and the victim. But it's all kind of moot now that we know how unreliable and unscientific hair comparison actually was as a forensic science. Pease, Jr.'s ex-wife identified the bloody sleeping bag as a wedding gift that they had received and said that Pease, Jr. had kept it after the divorce. Pease, Jr. denied that he had ever seen the bloody sleeping bag. Pease, Sr. testified that Pease, Jr. had gone out on the night of November 23, 1983, and that Pease, Jr. did not see him again until about 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. A friend of Pease, Jr. testified that he was with Pease, Jr. at a bowling alley until about 2 a.m. that morning. Pease, Jr. denied that he ever hired sex workers, but prosecutors introduced one witness who claimed to have patronized prostitutes with Pease, Jr. before, and another witness who claimed that Pease, Jr. had talked about hiring a prostitute. The Innocence Project had argued that the court was wrong to dismiss the witnesses who claimed to have seen Philbrick after November 24. Both witnesses testified that not only had they seen Philbrick on November 25 and November 26, but they had actually seen her with Salas and Cunningham. If the witnesses were correct, then Salas and Cunningham were lying. And to what purpose? The Innocence Project also pointed out that no witnesses saw Philbrick with Pease, Jr. No witnesses saw Pease, Jr. near the trash cans on the night before Philbrick was found, and the wash bay was not sufficiently bloody to have been the scene of such a horrific stabbing. The two hotel employees had no reason to lie. They said they saw Philbrick on November 25 and November 26 because they undoubtedly believed that they did. If they are correct, then my money would be on Salas for the murderer. It is tragically common for sex workers to be killed by their pimps, and I could think of no other logical reason why Salas and Cunningham would have lied about when they last saw Philbrick other than to cover for a murder. But I don't think the hotel employees are correct. There is so much evidence pointing to Pease, Jr. All of that blood was on items linked to Pease, Jr. and in places that he had access to. His truck matched the description of the last person Cunningham saw Philbrick talking to. The blood types were a match in both directions, to the victim and to Pease, Jr., and the victim's blood type was pretty unique. The injuries to the victim's decomposed foot seemed to match the pipes in the wash bay. There are just too many things to dismiss as a series of coincidences. It seems likely to me that the hotel employees were mistaken about the day they saw Philbrick, especially since such an encounter would be an unremarkable event at the time. That's an easier explanation than to dismiss the mountain of evidence against Pease, Jr. But buyer beware, I have been wrong before. Frequently, multiple times today as a matter of fact, and the day isn't over yet. So just because I'm telling you that I think Bernard Pease, Jr. killed Marie Philbrick doesn't necessarily make it so. Of course, being the discerning true crime aficionado that you are, you already knew that. On the plus side, since the Innocence Project has taken the case up, we may get a definitive answer on this one. Assuming the evidence was preserved, which is a big assumption on a 37-year-old murder, all of those bloody items could potentially be tested for DNA. If any of the blood in the Wash Bay or Pease's truck belonged to Philbrick, then I think we have our answer. If you made it this far, welcome to the Weirdo Family. If you like the podcast, please tell your friends and family about it however you can and get them to become Weirdos too. And I'd greatly appreciate you leaving a review in the podcast app you listen from that helps the podcast get noticed. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story at WeirdDarkness.com and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Racing the Executioner is written by Carl Smallwood for Today I Found Out. The Ashes and Ghost of Elizabeth Bullock is from Strange Company. Grumble Thorpe is by Gary Sweeney for The Line Up. Creepy Floaty Faced Thing is by Bettina Marie for Your Ghost Stories. Mysterious Sightings at Bluebell Hill was written by Cynthia McKenzie for Message to Eagle. No Arms, No Legs, Lots of Everything Else is by Mark Hartzman for Weird Historian. And The Murder Trial of Bernard P. Junior is by Barney Doyle for Crime Traveller. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. And now that we are coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Tonight I want to quote a great evangelist, Ravi Zacharias. If you are not a Christian, you might be nodding your head in agreement with what you are about to hear because Ravi has some serious words against how Christians have been so judgmental toward others. If you are a Christian, here is your gut punch. I have found more people objecting to the Christian than they really do to Jesus Christ. No one ever welcomed the outcasts as he did. He set the law on a higher plane, but his mercy was also in proportion in keeping with it. He knows how to humble us without humiliating us and how to lift us up without flattering us. He, Jesus, gives you the true, essential nature of your worth. Ravi Zacharias. And a final thought from John Chambers. Deal with the world the way it is, not the way you wish it was. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in The Weird Darkness. He was little more than the trunk of a man. Saving two excres- excresensors. Saving two excres- excres- excres- excres- excresensors. Saving two excres- excresensors. Saving two excresensors. Saving two excresensors. Saving two excresensors. He was little more than the trunk of a man. Saving two excresensors.