 Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and is intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised. Twins are said to share a bond that can defy scientific explanation. Some say that the connection forged in the womb allows twins to feel another's pain or even communicate via ESP. For Ursula and Sabina Erickson, their bond took them on a bizarre trip, one that involved attempted suicide, superhuman strength, reality television, and even murder. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. Coming up in this episode. In 1761 a young Frenchman died violently. This tragedy would lead to what is still one of the country's most famous cases of judicial injustice. Assuming of course that it truly was an injustice at all. Most know them as the hidden folk, the elusive and magical residents of Iceland who live inside rocks and sometimes play games with unsuspecting passers-by. Are they real? That's a complicated question if you ask Icelanders. As two boys were walking back to the house on their farm, a small stone rolled past them. Then a second one. They immediately thought some other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. They couldn't have been more wrong. Belganus lured numerous suitors to her Indiana farm. Not to entertain them or to be courted by them, she simply wanted to kill them in cold blood and dump their bodies in her hog pen. Were people ever really tortured in Iron Maidens? They're going to steal your organs screamed Sabina Ericsson before running toward oncoming traffic on the M6 highway, having already been hit head on by a Volkswagen. Her twin sister Ursula, legs crushed by the truck that had just run her over, was spitting and screaming at paramedics on the side of the road. Now, many years after these events, we're still no closer to understanding the chaos that occurred over two days in 2008 involving the psychotic twin sisters on a UK highway. If you're new here, welcome to the show. While you're listening, be sure to check out WeirdDarkness.com for merchandise, to visit sponsors you hear about during the show, sign up for my newsletter and her contests. Connect with me on social media. Plus, you can visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're struggling with depression or dark thoughts. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness. The Swedish Ericsson twins made headlines in 2008 after a series of strange events took place in the United Kingdom. The truly bizarre story and its aftermath has left authorities and physicians puzzled. What exactly happened that caused the twins to snap? Did they really experience a shared psychosis? Ultimately, the only people who can know what happened to the Ericsson sisters are the sisters themselves, Ursula and Sabina, but their strange case is darkly fascinating all the same. The Ericsson sisters' strange trip began in May of 2008 when Ursula, who'd been living in the US at the time, decided to visit her twin sister Sabina in County Cork, Ireland. Within 24 hours of her arrival, the two took a ferry to Liverpool. Upon arriving in the English port city, the twins made a visit to the St. Anne Street police station to report concerns over Sabina's children, whom she had left with her partner back in Ireland. From there, the Ericsson sisters boarded a National Express coach to London where their behavior would take a more erratic turn. Not long after the twins boarded the coach to London, Ursula and Sabina began acting strangely. Reportedly, the twins had refused to check their bags and became enraged when the bus staff attempted to take them from them. The bus stopped at a service station on the M6 in Staffordshire and the driver, who had been perturbed by their behavior, kicked the twins off. Sabina and Ursula now stranded, started walking the M6 motorway. The road is not designed for pedestrians and concerned motorists began to notify the police. After receiving calls about two women disrupting traffic and causing chaos in the M6, local authorities went to investigate. The particular group of police that responded had a film crew in tow who were shooting a reality television show called Motorway Cops and with cameras in hand, they captured the bizarre events that unfolded. Expecting to arrive at a scene of multiple fatalities, police were surprised to see the two women unharmed. As officers tried to calm the twins, Ursula suddenly darted into traffic, where she was struck by a large truck. Her sister Sabina followed her and she was hit by a speeding sedan, somersalting over the hood and windshield before landing in the third lane of traffic. Both women suffered multiple injuries. As the Ericsson sisters lay on the asphalt of the M6, severely wounded from being struck by vehicles, police and paramedics scrambled to their aid. Ursula's legs were crushed, leaving her immobilized and Sabina was unconscious for 15 minutes. But as the emergency responders attempted to help the twins, they became resistant. Sabina began screaming, they are going to steal your organs and telling paramedics, I recognize you, I know you are not real. Sabina suddenly displayed almost superhuman strength, rose to her feet and punched a female patrol officer who attempted to restrain her. She then ran back into the middle of the motorway. Though it took several police officers and paramedics, Sabina was subdued shortly after. The term foliadua is used to describe a shared psychological disorder wherein two people, typically related, experience a shared delusion. It is an extremely rare clinical disorder and it is thought to be what may have occurred to the Ericsson sisters that day on the M6. The twins were hospitalized in a mental facility following their apprehension, though doctors were unable to pinpoint the delusion or the reason Ursula and Sabina continually leapt in front of traffic. Ursula would spend three months in the psychiatric facility while Sabina would be released back into society after a short stay, a decision that proved catastrophically shortsighted. Days after her arrest on May 17, 2008, Sabina was released by authorities. As she wandered the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, she encountered two men walking a dog and asked where she might find a bed and breakfast. Glenn Hollingshead, a 54-year-old licensed paramedic, invited Sabina into his home for the evening. Back at Mr. Hollingshead's home, where his friend Peter Malloy was also visiting, Ericsson's behavior became increasingly bizarre. She offered the men cigarettes but quickly snatched them from their mouths, claiming they were poisoned, and she routinely peered out the window as though on the lookout for someone. Malloy left his friend and his guest late that evening. The next day, Sabina in a fit of unexplained rage stabbed Hollingshead five times with a butcher knife, killing him. After murdering Glenn Hollingshead, Sabina fled the scene. She had taken a hammer from her victim's home and was spotted on a road nearby, repeatedly hitting herself over the head with it. Joshua Graddage, a passing motorist, stopped in an effort to help the clearly troubled woman. Ericsson hit him on the head with a piece of roof tile and fled again on foot. Paramedics soon got involved and gave chase to the fugitive Sabina who attempted to flee by jumping off a 40-foot bridge onto the A-50 motorway. Though she suffered numerous fractures, Ericsson survived and was arrested and charged with murder. Sabina Ericsson was charged with the murder of Glenn Hollingshead on September 11, 2008. Her trial began September 1, 2009. It was stalled due to difficulty obtaining her medical records from Sweden. Ericsson pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. She never explained her actions and only responded to police questions with no comment. Sabina's defense team argued that she'd suffered from polyadu, or a shared psychosis with her twin sister Ursula, causing her to have intense delusions during her committal of her crimes. The judge determined that she had low culpability for her crimes due to her diminished state and she was sentenced to five years in prison. The family of Glenn Hollingshead was unhappy with the outcome of Sabina Ericsson's trial. Why they wondered had the woman been released from psychiatric care just two days after apparently attempting to kill herself on the M6? Ursula reportedly went back to the United States after the incident while Sabina was released on parole in 2011. It's believed she returned to Europe, however her whereabouts are currently unknown. As for exactly what happened that set off the bizarre chain of events for the twin Ericsson sisters, that remains a mystery. When asked for a possible explanation, Detective Superintendent Dave Garrett had this to say. The reasons for the two events may never be truly known or understood, but the taking of Glenn's life was a violent and senseless act. When Weird Darkness returns, we'll look at the mysterious and violent death in 1761 of Mark Antoine Callis. We still don't know what killed him. And why do some people in Iceland still believe in elves? These stories are up next. Weird Darkness is celebrating its eighth birthday this month and our way of celebrating is to raise money for organizations that help people who struggle with depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide and self-harm. It's called Overcoming the Darkness and you can make a donation right now at WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. A gift of any amount will bring us that much closer to our goal and your donation helps that many more people who are affected by depression, so no gift is too small. Our goal is to raise at least $5,000 this month. If you've not donated yet, or if you'd like to give again, or maybe you'd like to grab the link and share the fundraiser on your own social media and challenge others to give, visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. The fundraiser ends on Halloween, so please give right now while you're thinking about it. WeirdDarkness.com slash Overcoming. In 1761, a young Frenchman died violently. This tragedy would lead to what is still one of that country's most famous cases of judicial injustice. Assuming, of course, that it truly was an injustice at all. The grim chain of events began on October 13, when the body of 28-year-old Mark Antoine Callis was found dead in his family home in Toulouse. The Callis family initially stated that he had undoubtedly died of an apoplexy. However, the doctor who examined the corpse found rope marks around his neck and bruising behind the ears, leading him to conclude Mark Antoine had died of strangulation. When confronted with this evidence, the family changed their story. His father Jean told authorities that he'd found Mark Antoine hanging from a rope balanced between two open doors in a storehouse on the family's property, quite dead. Anxious to avoid the scandal of a family suicide, they cut the body down, hoping the untimely death could be attributed to natural causes. The young man had wished to become a Roman Catholic, a move that went against the grain of his strongly Protestant family. Mark Antoine was known to be a moody, depressed sort, a state of mind that was strongly exacerbated by his recent spiritual conflicts, not to mention a pile of gambling debts that he'd accumulated. All in all, it did not seem unlikely that he had resorted to killing himself. Most of France believed otherwise. Onlookers interpreted this evidence as pointing to murder, not suicide. France was still a strongly Catholic country which led them to look upon the Hugeno Callis family with deep suspicion and regard the dead would be convert as a martyr. In short, popular opinion had it that Mark Antoine's father murdered him over their religious conflicts with his family's approbation. It was conveniently ignored that another son, Louis, had turned Catholic while still remaining in the family's good graces. Jean Callis was arrested and subjected to a trial that was clearly unabashedly set against him. To the surprise of no one, he was convicted and sentenced to a particularly hideous fate, which was seen as fitting for the particularly hideous crime of genocide. He was broken on the wheel and then strangled. To the end, he insisted that he was innocent. The punitive measures did not end there. The Callis daughters were forced into a convent and the mother and surviving sons exiled. Mark Antoine's death destroyed the entire family. Despite the verdict, the case was still enigmatic enough to attract the attention of Voltaire. After a bit of amateur detective work, he concluded that Mark Antoine had indeed committed suicide. He learned that the young man had, on the day of his death, lost a lot of money playing cards and that he greatly feared facing his father with the news. Voltaire also pointed out that Mark Antoine had been the biggest man in his family, towering over his 62-year-old father. He found it highly unlikely that Jean Callis, even with the help of the rest of the family, could have overpowered his son sufficiently to hang him. He believed the family had been unjustly persecuted because of their unpopular religious beliefs. Voltaire used his reputation as one of Europe's greatest intellectuals, his contacts in high places, and his brilliant powers of oratory to launch a rehabilitation campaign, albeit one rather late in the day for Jean Callis. He published A Treatise on Tolerance, pleading with his countrymen to not hate one another, let us not destroy one another in the midst of peace. His campaign worked. In March of 1764, a royal council met to study the matter. A panel of judges was appointed to re-hear the case. The upshot was that a year later they ruled that there had been a terrible miscarriage of justice. Although they could do nothing for a poor old Jean, his family was allowed to return from their exile and their property was restored. Voltaire did a bit of pardonable self-congratulation by proclaiming that France had seen the finest fifth act the theater can give us. Was this a finest ending or merely a bitterly ironic twist? In 1929, an author named Marc Chassain published Laetheur Callis, which contained the fruits of his own investigation of the case. He offered the theory that Marc Antoine's death was not due either to suicide or filicide. He suggested that the young man was attacked and strangled from someone who had followed him into his house, possibly someone from his gaming club. The murderer then slipped out of the house. Chassain noted that servants in the household had overheard a man's cries of murder not long before the body was discovered. Experiments proved to his satisfaction that it was virtually impossible for anyone to hang himself in the way described by the Callis family. Although he acknowledged the brilliance of Voltaire's defense, Chassain believed the great philosopher was motivated largely by his anti-Catholic sentiments rather than an objective desire for justice. Even in the midst of his campaign to clear Jean Callis' name, Voltaire had privately admitted that the case was a puzzling mystery. Chassain proposed that the Callis family was guilty of ineptly stage managing the discovery of the body, although it is hard to explain why they would cover up their son's murder, especially when they wound up paying such a dear price for their silence. In the end, Chassain clearly left open the possibility that the family truly was responsible for the murder after all. So, how did Mark and Tuan Callis die? We'll never know for sure. Houlavoc, the hidden folk, the elusive and magical residents of Iceland who live inside rocks and sometimes play games with unsuspecting passersby. Are they real? That's a complicated question if you ask Icelanders. Also sometimes known as Alfar, Icelandic for elves, though many believe Alfar and Houlavoc are actually two distinct groups, these mysterious people are not quick to make their presence known. But Icelandic folklore is full of strange tales of individuals crossing their paths. Sometimes these encounters end well, with good luck. Other times, not so much. In many stories, the Houlavoc will visit people in their dreams. Elves are most active during the holidays according to legend, and during Christmas and New Years or Yule, they are said to venture out to find new homes. They also partake in wild parties which could be quite dangerous to any humans who get caught in their way. Just make sure you don't throw any rocks lest you might hit an elf by accident, or so goes an old superstition. Many polls and surveys have claimed that over half of Icelanders believe in the existence of these elves and Houlavoc, or more accurately, they won't deny the possibility that they exist. In 2017, one such poll by the Erechivik grapevine showed that 67% of Icelanders believed in elves, or wouldn't outright deny their existence. A previous poll way back in 2007 claimed the number to be at least 54%. The magazine suggests, jokingly, that all these polls are skewed heavily by the hidden folk themselves. But do Icelanders really believe in them? It's a kind of Pascal's wager for elves in many ways. It might as well allow for the possibility that hidden folk exist. Otherwise, you might leave yourself open to all sorts of elvish mischief. On the other hand, many Icelanders believe in elves in the same way others believe in Santa Claus. It's a way of keeping their culture alive and something fun to think about. And yet, there are also those who truly believe the alfar and houlavoc exist. According to local folklore, the houlavoc live in a world parallel to our own. They dress in old-fashioned clothing and are only seen when they want to be seen. They inhabit trees and boulders and venture into our world through certain areas and hills and mountains and other natural formations. Many claim to have had personal experiences with elves or at least know someone who has. The elves' capital is said to be located in Haftarforjór, Iceland, where, according to National Geographic, visitors can venture out on an elf walk to learn about their history. The elf king and queen live at a cliff there called Hemeron. It's all part of Icelandic culture and folklore. The country even has its very own elf school where students learn about the houlavoc and other mythological creatures. Anyone can sign up. The school is led by headmaster Magnus Skarfeddonson and it even has an official website. Quote, the elf school is open all year round in Reysevik. The school is 32 years old this year. What students in the elf school gain and learn is everything that's known about elves and hidden people, as well as gnomes, dwarfs, fairies, trolls, mountain spirits, as well as other nature spirits and mythical beings in Iceland and in other countries. Quote, In 2018 Max Mosher of the Globe and Mail visited Iceland's elf school and shared his experience. Classes typically last a few hours and primarily focus on the retelling of tales involving houlavoc encounters and folklore. They also apparently end with buttered bread and pancakes with whipped cream. Sign me up. Magnus Skarfeddonson is also notably the leader of the Paranormal Foundation of Iceland. One of the major elf-related headlines over the past several years was the incident involving a boulder that had to be moved before the construction of a new road through the Galgaran lava field. The large stone was thought by some to be an elf church. Peter Mathiason, head of communication with the Icelandic Road Administration, told BBC ideas that they agreed to move the rock not necessarily because they truly believe elves congregate there but because they see it as part of their cultural inheritance. Protecting these stones and other areas said to be claimed by elves is perhaps a way of preserving Iceland's culture and natural wonder. In that case, I suppose it doesn't hurt to believe in elves. Iceland is a pretty amazing place after all. As two boys were walking back to the house on their farm, a small stone rolled past them. Then a second one. They immediately thought some other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. They couldn't have been more wrong. Plus, Belganis lured numerous suitors to her Indiana farm. Not to entertain them or to be courted by them, she simply wanted to kill them in cold blood and dump their bodies in her hogpen. 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'll 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. The haunting fascination of a spook or spirit story drives my imagination into realms of wildest fantasies. But I could not resist the invitation to listen to an uncanny mystery which happened years ago in the Molly Wilderness along the River Murray. The descriptions of the weird workings of recent Gawler spirits were jingling in my brain as I sat before Mr. Henry Hayward on Tuesday. The old man, he was 78 last January, came into the register office to tell me a tale of the Molly, and I expected to hear how a ghostly monster had terrified the people in the lonely scrub. But when he began, I knew he meant to deal in spirits and not in ghosts. Mr. Hayward now lives in retirement at William Street, Norwood. It must be 14 years ago now, he continued, since I had a nice little block in the Molly Scrub. My nearest neighbor was Mr. Fred Towell, who now lives in Kenttown. One night my eldest son Edward, who was then about 23 years old and my youngest son Tom, about 12 years of age, went out to feed the horses. It was a clear moonlight night. As they were walking back to the house from the stables, they were being rolled past them. At first the boys took no notice, but when a second something came by, they stopped to see what it was. They found a small stone. They came back to the house thinking that the other boys were hiding in the scrub and throwing stones for a joke. But when they found their brothers in bed, they told me about the affair. Of course I said someone had been playing at Lark. Next night I went up to the stables alone. I got into the yard and was looking into the manger when a stone as big as an egg fell right against my legs. There were mally bushes close by and I jumped over the rails and sent a few stones into the clump. I thought that someone was behind it throwing stones at me. But there was no one about. I then began to wonder what it all could mean. Next day my wife and daughter were washing outside of the house when a large stone came over the building and fell close to them. Another missile followed a couple of seconds later. They could see no one near the place and were sure the stones had come from the other side of the house. Everybody in the district heard of the strange happenings at my place and sometimes parties of twenty people came and watched the pebbles falling and they all went away mystified. At one time a large piece of earth fell near my house and one of the boys saw a piece of wood come from goodness knows where. On the third night I went over to a neighbor named Hutchinson and asked him to come with me to the horse yard. We were standing near the manger while the boys were pulling hay from a stack when a large piece of wood came hurtling down and grazed the brim of Hutchinson's hat and fell at his feet. I looked over the stable shed but again there was no one in sight nor could I hear anything. If anyone had been moving about in the scrub, which was thick near my house, I could easily have heard them because the night was still. As we went down to the house, stones kept descending around us and others rolled past our feet. I'll never forget poor old Duncan Odea and the scare he got the night he came to see the stones, went on Mr. Hayward and chuckled to himself as he recalled the incident. Duncan Odea came with about 13 or 14 others one bright moonlit night. I took them to the horse yard and as we were leaning against the rails a big stone fell between Duncan's feet. He swore that he saw it rise out of the ground. He stooped and felt to see whether it was warm but it was quite cool. Just after this two young chaps from Adelaide visited my place in great style to explain the mystery. They were staying in the district and on hearing of the occurrence at my farm they put on airs and told everyone that they would soon tell what caused the trouble. So they came one night, the stones pelted down around them and they went away as wise as they came about the cause of the trouble as they called it. Bill Roth who is now in Western Australia preceded Mr. Hayward, was a neighbor of mine at this time. He did not believe in ghosts of any kind and when he heard of my experience he laughed and said, all rot. Anyhow, Bill was not afraid to come and have a look at what was going on. He had not been on the farm ten minutes before he saw what he had heard so much about. A short distance from the house was a pine tree and on this night the stones seemed to be striking the tree. Bill listened for a while then a stone struck the ground near to where he was standing. He looked at me and said, don't you think we'd better get out of this? I could see the Bill's idea of ghosts had changed. As we walked away from the yard he turned to me and said, I have never believed in ghosts. I have often heard old men tell stories about them but I thought it was all rot but I am satisfied now. The stones had been falling night and day for almost a fortnight. At last people were afraid to come near my farm. I too was beginning to fear that someone might be seriously injured by the missiles. On several nights the boys had gone out with guns and blazed away in the direction from which the stones seemed to come but they still arrived. I was sure the trouble was not the work of a human being but still things were getting unsafe. I said to my wife one day, I'll go into Manum and tell the police trooper, his name was Gibbons, if I remember alright, and ask him to come out. We decided that we would not tell even the children that we were going to bring the police out. I wrote to Gibbons and on the very day the letter was sent the stoning stopped. It happened that the police officer was absent from home for several days after the letter arrived and he did not get it until he returned. He did not come out but I saw him some time later and told him all that had happened and how the thing had ended so soon as the letter was written. Another strange thing about the affair was that during the whole of the time the stones were falling, no one was hit by any of them. In 1908 in La Porte, Indiana authorities were busy digging up a hogpen but it wasn't hogs they were looking for, it was bodies and they found more than a dozen. All signs pointed to Belle Gunness as the killer behind the mass grave. She was a Norwegian immigrant and nowhere to be found. Belle was an exception to the serial killer model. While the vast majority are men, she was a woman. Moreover her motives were different. While most serial killers are driven by pure sadistic pleasure, Belle was mainly motivated by insatiable greed. Born in Selva, Norway in 1859, much of Belle's early life remains a mystery. She was raised in poverty and worked tirelessly for a profitable farm for three years in order to fund her trip to the United States. In 1881 she crossed the ocean, changed her name and settled in the Midwest, abandoning her old life forever. Belle married a man named Mads Ditley Anton Sorensen in 1884 and the couple soon opened a candy shop in Chicago. The store never amounted to much and within a year it mysteriously burned down. The couple collected the insurance money which they used to buy a new home. According to a census the couple had four children, two of the children allegedly died of acute colitis, a malady with symptoms that closely resemble poisoning. Then Mads died on July 30th, 1900, the only day on which both of his life insurance policies overlapped. His cause of death was ruled a heart failure and Belle claimed that she had given him medicinal powders to ease his suffering. She also, of course, collected the insurance money on his life. Mads' family was suspicious of murder but Belle fled. She bought a farm just outside La Porte, Indiana and rediscovered an old friend named Peter Gunness, also a widower. The two married in 1902. Soon thereafter Peter's infant daughter died while under Belle's care. Months later Peter also died of strange circumstances. Belle claimed that he was scalded with brine while reaching over the stove. Once more Belle's pockets brimmed with insurance money, but her lucrative personal tragedies were getting suspicious, so she placed personal ads in major Midwestern newspapers stating that she was a comely widow. Trifilers, she said, need not apply. Men Arrived There was John Doe from Minnesota who came with money to pay off Belle's mortgage and disappeared a week later. There was George Anderson from Missouri who also brought money for the mortgage but woke to find Belle's sinister face staring down at him in the dark. He fled as fast as he could and never looked back. Belle's house became her citadel. She kept the windows shut and her blinds drawn. She spent nights shoveling in the hog pen and often placed large orders for trunks to be delivered to her home. Gentleman suitors never ceased to show up and all were never seen again. Belle's final victim was Andrew Helgellian from South Dakota. After many letter exchanges Andrew finally decided to take the leap and meet Belle in person. The words that persuaded him, My heart beats in wild rapture for you, my Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever. Andrew arrived on the farm like the lonely hearts before him and like those doomed suitors he too vanished without a trace. Throughout it all stood one man, Ray Lampier, Belle's farmhand. He did anything Belle asked of him and seethe with jealousy whenever a new suitor arrived at Belle's door. Eventually Belle realized Ray's instability was a risk to her livelihood. When she fired him in 1908, the man went mad. Helgellian's brother meanwhile had grown suspicious of his missing brother Andrew. Belle tried to shake him off with vague stories about Andrew's disappearance but it was clear her excuses weren't cutting it. With the walls closing in on her, she drafted up a new will and left her entire estate to her children. Then on the morning of April 28, 1908, Belle's home burst into flames. Her newly hired farmhand, Joe Maxon, awoke to thick smoke filling his room. He leapt out of his second floor window, dying from the fall. Belle's children, unable to escape, were found dead among the ruins once the smoke cleared. Belle, however, was nowhere to be found. Belle had previously reported Ray to the police as a threat to her family. When news of the fire broke, authorities arrested him and charged him with murder and arson. But one mystery remained. The charge remains of a headless woman uncovered in the rubble. Belle's large stature, she stood six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, didn't seem to match up with the diminutive corpse. Yet a set of real teeth had been found in the debris. Belle's dentist claimed they contained gold plating work that he had performed on her. No one knew what to believe. The fire was found guilty of arson, but was struck ill soon after his conviction. Shortly before passing, he confessed everything to a priest. He said he'd been an accomplice to many of Belle's murders. He revealed that Belle typically drugged the coffee of her victims before caving in their heads with a meat shopper and dismembering the bodies in the basement. The remains were then dumped into the hogpen. Lamphere claimed that on the day of the fire, Belle beheaded her new maid, dressed the body in her own clothes, set her home ablaze, and never looked back. Belle, Ray said, was still alive. She was still out there, somewhere. It's believed that Belle Gunness murdered between 25 and 40 people, though only 12 could be verified from excavations in a hogpen. Prior to the fire, Belle had withdrawn all of her money from the bank. In 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles after poisoning a Norwegian-American man for her money. Some people who knew Belle claimed that they recognized Esther as her. But she died while waiting to go to trial. Up next, were people ever really tortured in the Iron Maiden? We'll find out. They say you are what you eat, and if that's true, I'm soon going to be looking like Pumpkin Head from that horror movie because I just received my limited release box of Pumpkin Cookie Chunk from Bilt Bar. This is a seasonal flavor, so I have to stock up on it when it comes out. Bilt bars are not candy bars, they're protein bars. The Pumpkin Cookie Chunk bar has 19 grams of protein, plus it's low sugar, low carbs, and low calories. But you'd never know it's a protein bar if you just taste it. Bilt bars have become my go-to guilt-free solution for dessert late afternoon or even late-night snacks, and often I just grab a Bilt Bar as a full meal because they're pretty filling. You know how everything Pumpkin is going to disappear soon though, so grab your Pumpkin Cookie Chunk Bilt Bar while you can before they sell out. Visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Bilt and look in the limited release section for Pumpkin Cookie Chunk. That's WeirdDarkness.com slash Bilt, and use the promo code WeirdDarkness all one word to get 10% off your entire purchase. The people of the Middle Ages have a reputation for wanton brutality, and, as supposed evidence of this, countless instruments of torture sit in museums around the world, arguably the most famous of which being the Iron Maiden. This hellish contraption supposedly caused unthinkable pain and anguish for those unlucky enough to be sentenced to suffer its merciless sting, condemning them to a slow and agonizing death. Or at least that's what the stories say, because as far as anyone can tell the Iron Maiden didn't exist as a real-world object until the 19th century, and for reference here the so-called medieval times are generally considered to have ended around the end of the 15th century. So who invented the Iron Maiden and why? How did it become the face of medieval torture? And has anyone actually ever been killed in one? As for historical examples, there are a couple references to similar devices in history, with the oldest being a device known today as the Iron Apega, supposedly made about 2200 years ago. Described by a Greek historian, Polybius, the device was an automaton replica of the wife of 2nd and 3rd century BC Spartan leader Nabus, with the woman in question named, you guessed it, Apega. The automaton was apparently lavishly dressed up in one of Apega's outfits, with Polybius then stating of those who were made to meet the wife replica, when the man offered her his hand he made the woman rise from her chair and taking her in his arms drew her gradually to his bosom. Both her arms and hands as well as her breasts were covered with iron nails, so that when Nabus rested his hands on her back, and then by means of certain springs drew his victim toward her, he made the man thus embraced say anything and everything. Indeed, by this means he killed a considerable number of those who denied him money. So in a nutshell of the whole story, anyone who refused to pay their taxes would be made to give this mechanical version of his wife a hug, with at any point them being able to make the hug of death stop if they agreed to pay. If they did not, the hug continued until they died. Whether this device actually existed or not, or was just an allusion to Apega's supposedly ruthless nature to match the reported cruelty of her husband, isn't known. Moving on from there, we have an account from one of the earliest Christian authors and the so-called father of Latin Christianity, Tertullian, who lived in the second and third century A.D. In his work, To the Martyrs, he states of the death of Roman general and consul, Marcus Attilius Regulus. It would take me too long to enumerate one by one the men who at their own self-impulse have put an end to themselves. Regulus, a Roman general who had been taken prisoner by the Cathaginians, declined to be exchanged for a large number of Cathaginian captives, choosing rather to give back to the enemy. He was crammed into a sort of chest and everywhere pierced by nails, driven from the outside, he endured so many crucifixions. A follow-up account by Augustine of Hippo in his fifth century City of God elaborates on the tale of Regulus' death. Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman general was a prisoner in the hands of the Cathaginians, but they, being more anxious to exchange their prisoners with the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special envoy with their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange, but bound him first with an oath that if he failed to accomplish their wish, he would return to Carthage. He went and persuaded the Senate to the opposite course because he believed it was not for the advantage of the Roman Republic to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus exerted his influence, the Romans did not compel him to return to the enemy, but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed. But the Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elaborate and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow box in which he was compelled to stand and in which finely sharpened nails were fixed all around about him so that he could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain, and so they killed him by depriving him of sleep. That said, whether any of that actually happened or not is up for debate as 1st century BC Greek historian Diodorus claims Regulus died of natural causes, with no mention of such a torture device involved. Moving on from there are old European fairy tales of unknown dating and origin in which certain individuals were killed by being placed inside casks that had nails driven in. The cask would then apparently be rolled down a steep hill, sometimes into water, which, if we're being honest, almost sounds worse than the actual Iron Maiden. Sort of the spiked version of death by a thousand paper cuts, and then as a reward at the end, terrifying slow drowning as you writhe an agony from all the little holes in your body, no doubt also trying to reflexively break the cask to get out once it starts to fill with water, creating some more holes in the process. We suppose at least this one's a bit quicker if a lot more dramatic. Other than that, there are no references to such an Iron Maiden-like device until just before the 19th century. This first reference comes from German philosopher, linguist, archaeologist, and professor at the University of Altdorf, Johann Philippe Sabinkis, in 1793. According to Sabinkis, on August 14, 1515 a coin forger was sentenced to die in a casket that had metal spikes driven into various parts lined up with particularly sensitive bits of the forger's anatomy. Writes Sabinkis, the very sharp points penetrated his arms and his legs in several places and his belly and chest and his bladder and the root of his member, that would be the penis, and his eyes and his shoulders and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him, and so he remained making great cry and lament for two days after which he died. Of course, if this was a real method of execution used, each such cask would have had to have been custom spiked for each new victim in order to line everything up perfectly, given people come in all shapes and sizes. This creates something of a logistical problem that many other means of torturing and killing somebody wouldn't have. Nevertheless, Sabinkis claimed it happened, at least this once. So did it? Well, given the complete lack of evidence or even reference to any other such Iron Maiden-like device used elsewhere in the era, nor who this forger was or any such pertinent details other than the oddly specific date, most historians think he made it up, or that this was an exaggerated tale of the use of a device that we do know existed in Europe. So what was this real instrument of torture? Sometimes called the Shant mantle, or coat of shame, the drunkard's cloak or the Spanish mantle, this was essentially a wooden cask someone who was being punished for some crime would be made to wear about town. Sort of a mobile version of stocks with similar purpose, mocking someone publicly and having people throw random things at them, in this case as they trudged along. Consider this account from Ralph Gargier's 17th century England's grievance discovered. Men drove up and down the streets with a great tub or barrel opened in the sides, with a hole in one end to put through their heads and to cover their shoulders and bodies down to the small of their legs and then close the same, called the new-fashioned cloak and so make them march to the view of all beholders and this is their punishment for drunkards or the like. Jumping across the pond to the land of the free, at least some soldiers were not always so free, as noted in an article titled, A Look at the Federal Army. Published in 1862 where the author states, I was extremely amused to see a rare specimen of Yankee invention in the shape of an original method of punishment drill. One wretched delinquent was gratuitously framed in oak, his head being thrust through a hole cut in one end of a barrel, the other end of which had been removed, and the poor fellow loafed about in the most disconsolid manner, looking for all the world like a half-hatched chicken. In another account by one John Howard in 1784, in his The State of Prisons in England and Wales, he writes, Denmark, some of the lower sort, as watchmen, coachmen, etc., are punished by being led through the city in what's called the Spanish mantle. This is a kind of heavy vest, something like a tub, with an aperture for the head and irons to enclose the neck. I measured one at Berlin, 1 foot 8 inches in diameter at the top, 2 feet 11 inches at the bottom, and 2 feet 11 inches high. This mode of punishment is particularly dreaded and is one cause that night robberies are never heard of in Copenhagen. Of course, much like the Iron Maiden, as you'll note from the dates mentioned here, most detailed contemporary accounts of these devices of humiliation and sometimes torture seem to indicate they weren't really a medieval thing, despite sometimes claiming to go back to the 13th century in Germany. In any event, whether Saibenke's much more elaborate cask with spikes put in was really just a tail he picked up that was exaggerating these coats of shame, he made it up completely, or whether some inventive executioner thought to add the addition of spikes to such a cask and a forger really was executed in this way in the 16th century isn't known, with most leaning towards Saibenke's making it up. Even if it did really happen, however, this still is post-medieval times by most people's reckoning. Whatever the case, a handful of years after Saibenke's account, the first known actual Iron Maiden appeared in Nuremberg Museum in 1802, not far away from Saibenke's home in Aldorf. This device was supposedly discovered in a German castle in the late 18th century. Not just a cask, this killing machine was roughly human-shaped, made of iron, and even had a face, supposedly based on the face of the Virgin Mary, hence the torture instrument's name, the Iron Maiden. This probably first real Iron Maiden was sadly destroyed during World War II by Allied bombers, but a copy created as decoration for the Gothic Hall of a patrician palace in Milan in 1828 survived and currently resides in the Rothenberg Das Criminal Museum, Museum of Crime. From this copy we can see that the device was certainly designed to cause unimaginable agony in its victims. Along with having strategically placed spikes designed to pierce approximately where a person's vital organs and sensitive nether region dangly bits are, the face of the maiden did indeed have spikes designed to pierce a victim's eyes upon closing, assuming the person wasn't vertically challenged. This copy did a lot to help popularize the idea of the Iron Maiden as a real thing thanks to its prominent display at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 in Chicago and subsequent tour across the United States to much fanfare. Incidentally, this was the same world's fair that gave us the name Ferris Wheel, for a device previously called a Pleasure Wheel with George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.'s iconic version being rather massive compared to anything that had come before, holding an astounding 2,160 people at a time. This was also the same fair that saw famed serial killer H.H. Holmes taking advantage of the extra people in town looking for a place to stay, keeping business booming at his so-called House of Horrors Hotel. Going back to the Iron Maiden, beyond the tour of one of the originals and extra exposure at the World's Fair, another man largely credited with popularizing the idea of the Iron Maiden was 19th century art collector Matthew Peacock. Among other things, he managed to collect a wide variety of historic torture devices to, as he put it, show the dark spirit of the Middle Ages in contrast to the progress of humanity. You see, at the time it was in vogue to not just act like people from medieval times were all scientific rubes, which is where the myth that people in medieval times thought that the world was flat came from, despite all evidence to the contrary, but also that they were extremely barbaric, with the Iron Maiden creating a rather nice illustration of this supposed fact. Naturally, unable to find the real McCoy, Peacock cobbled together an Iron Maiden, apparently partially from real artifacts of other means of torture, and then donated it to a museum to be displayed as a symbolic representation of the former era's cruelty. The public ate all of this up, and the idea of the Iron Maiden slowly permeated throughout society to the point that most today assume it was a real thing used to kill people in a slow and very painful way during medieval times. This all brings us to the question of whether anyone has ever actually been tortured or killed in one. The answer, surprisingly, is possibly, but not in medieval times, nor even apparently in historic ones, unless you consider a couple decades ago historic. Enter Uday Hussein, the oldest son of Saddam, started his murderous rampage apparently by bludgeoning to death one Camel Gageo, who was at the time Saddam's bodyguard, valet and food taster. This murder was done in front of a host of party guests in 1988. The party in question was in Egypt, in honor of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's wife, Suzanne. As to what Gageo did to incite Uday's rage, he apparently hooked Saddam up with a woman, Samira Shabandar. Samira was married when Saddam met her, but that was quickly taken care of, freeing him up to take her as one of his mistresses and later as his second wife. While still in the mistress stage, Uday decided to kill Gageo for the facilitation of Saddam's illicit relationship, which Uday seems to have felt was an affront to his own mother. Saddam did sentence his son to death for this murder, but a few months later switched to exiling him to Switzerland, with the Swiss government allowing the well-known recent murderer to enter the country for some bizarre reason. However, after frequent run-ins with the law there, the Swiss finally gave him the boot and he returned to Iraq without apparent consequence. If all that wasn't enough of a testament of what a swell fella Uday was, beyond some confirmed assassination attempts and other murders by the lovable Rapscallion, rumors of frequent rape of random women swirled around Uday. This all brings us back to the Iron Maiden and Uday's eventual appointment as the chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraq Football Association. In those positions, accusations were rampant that Uday occasionally had various athletes tortured when they were thought to have either underperformed or otherwise screwed up in some way in competition. These included doing things like ripping their toenails off, scalding their feet, subjecting them to extreme sleep deprivation, having them kick cement balls and dragged across gravel roads followed by being dipped into sewage. Allegedly, after a 4-1 loss to Japan in the Asian Cup in 2000, he also had three of the players deemed responsible for the defeat beaten repeatedly for a few days. As for the Iron Maiden, after Uday's death and the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, a mere 20 or so meters away from the Iraqi Football Association headquarters in Iron Maiden was found on the ground. Time magazine's Bobby Gosh states of this find, the one found in Baghdad was clearly worn from use, its nails having lost some of their sharpness. It lay on its side within view of Uday's first floor offices in the soccer association. Ironically, the torture device was brought to time's attention by a group of looters who had been stripping the compound of anything of value. They had left behind the Iron Maiden, believing it to be worthless. Despite this report, there is no actual hard evidence the Iron Maiden was used, nor blood found on the device or the like. But given all the rumors of Uday's penchant for torturing people and some of the confirmed things he did do, as well as the device's location, at the least he is presumed to have used it as a method of terrorizing people, as was more the norm even in medieval times with actual real-world torture devices rather than frequently using them. All that said, given his proclivities for murdering people who upset him, it is further speculated by many that he might have actually followed through and killed someone with it at some point. But again, despite reports, so far there has never been any concrete evidence of this, so it is still not wholly clear if anyone was ever actually killed by an Iron Maiden or not. Thanks for listening and be sure to stick around for the bloopers at the end. If you like the show, please share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me anytime with your questions or comments at darren at WeirdDarkness.com. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on any of the sponsors you heard about during the show. Find all of my social media, listen to audiobooks I've narrated, sign up for the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host, including Church of the Undead, visit the store for Weird Darkness merchandise and more. WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression or dark thoughts. Also on the website, if you have a true paranormal or creepy tale to tell, you can click on Tell Your Story. You can find all of that and more at WeirdDarkness.com. All stories on Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise and you can find links to the stories or the authors in the show notes. The Disturbing Case of the Ericson Twins is by Harrison Tenpas for Graveyard Shift. The mysterious death of Mark Antoine Callis is from Strange Company. The Elves of Iceland is by Rob Schwartz for Stranger Dimensions. Stone-throwing spirits is from the Forty-an. Bellagunas, the Black Widow of the Midwest is by Stephen Casal for the lineup. And the Iron Maiden was written by Carl Smallwood for Today I Found Out. Weird Darkness is a registered trademark. Copyright Weird Darkness. Now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. Isaiah 12, Verses 1-2 I will praise you, O Lord, although you were angry with me, your anger has turned away and you have comforted me. Surely, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. What a final thought. God's plan is always more beautiful than our desire. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me. In the Weird Darkness. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjurjur. Haftanjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftanjur... Haftnar... Haftnar Forjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftnar Forjur. The Elves' capital is said to be located in Haftnar Forjur, Iceland. Hey Weirdos, be sure to click the like button and subscribe to this channel and click the notification bell so you don't miss future videos. I post videos seven days a week and while you're at it, spread the darkness by sharing this video with someone you know who loves all things strange and macabre. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it at WeirdDarkness.com.