 They will say that I have shed innocent blood. What's blood for? If not for shedding. There is nothing to worry about. You're gonna be just fine. I'm your number one fan. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Hello? Have you checked the children? Children. Wait right there, Mr. Benow. How do you know my name? I didn't tell you my name. You're all a part of them. Whatever you do, don't fall asleep. I'm scared to close my eyes. I'm scared to open them. I'm gonna die out of here. How'd you feel it? It's alive. Watching. Waiting. Now clear your minds. He knows what scares you. It hails from the very beginning. Don't give it any help. It knows too much already. You need to startle, yeah? I'm sorry. You know, Salah, we... I guess everyone's a tad of one good scare, huh? What an excellent day for an excellent... I am Dracula. I have such sights to show you. He said it is my call. One of us. Don't think about knowing that Lewis is a place. He's evil. Movies, movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos for creators. You better drown. You never paid any attention. I'm not even gonna swap that fly. I hope they are watching. They'll see, they'll see, and they'll know, and they'll say, Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly. The census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some father beans and a nice candy. What am I going to do to you now? From your body? I wanna hear you scream. It's from them. The blood of human sacrifice must come. From them. The blood of expiation. It's alive. It's alive. He was weak. No! He was weak. Say it. No! He rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. I'll show you how to throw. They're coming to get you, Barbara. Here's Johnny. I couldn't wait for Halloween night. I loved going trick-or-treating. I loved getting candy. I wanted to get lots and lots of candy this Halloween. I said, Billy said, Dad, Come on, we're going trick-or-treating now. Okay, Dad. I took my costume downstairs and Dad helped me into it. My costume was a werewolf costume that Dad made for me. Nice costume, people would say as we passed by them. Thank you, said Dad. We made it together. He always was good at giving me credit on our projects, even though he did 90% of the work. Trick-or-treat, I said, as I went up to the house of an elderly man. Oh, no, exclaimed the man pretending to be scared. It's the wolf man. Here, take my candy. I don't want you to do any tricks for me. The man gave me a big handful of candy and off I went to the next house. Dad walking directly behind me. Trick-or-treat, I said. The door opened and an old woman dressed in a witch costume answered the door. Well, well, well, exclaimed the witch. Just what I need for my brew. A bit of dog hair. I'm not a dog. I'm a werewolf, I said. True, said the witch, but you aren't a real werewolf now, are you? No, this is just my Halloween costume, just like your witch costume is yours. How do you know this is just a costume? She asked. How do you know I'm not really a witch? Um, I guess I don't, I answered. I would be careful, said the witch, as she dropped a chocolate bar into my bag. You never know what kind of spell I could cast upon you. After visiting the house of the witch, I wondered if that old woman was just kidding. I sure hope she was, but I was a bit afraid of her. Do I really think that she was a real witch? I asked my dad. Of course not, he replied. Didn't you recognize her? Recognize her? No, I said. Why? You see her in music class every day, said dad. Mrs. Thompson, I exclaimed. Yep. We both had a huge laugh and hit the rest of the houses in the neighborhood before calling in a night early because I had school the next day. In music class the next day, I could not help but look at Mrs. Thompson and smile. Billy said, Mrs. Thompson, what's up with you? Why are you smiling at me like that? Because I said, I know that you're not a real witch. Well then, Mrs. Thompson immediately burst into laughter. That was you in the werewolf costume. Yes, I said, laughing along with her. That was me. I sure had you fooled for a little while though, didn't I? Mrs. Thompson asked. You sure did. You looked great in your witch costume. Thank you, she replied. You did too. I left class that day with a huge smile on my face, but it faded as the day passed. How would I ever really know if she was a true witch or not? I would never know. How's that for an intro, folks? Welcome, weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar. This is Weird Darkness and the annual Halloween Live Scream. Tonight, I'll be sharing stories as I normally do in the podcast, live on camera, streaming simultaneously on the Weird Darkness Facebook page, the Weird Darkness Twitter or X account, and the Weird Darkness YouTube channel. Website addresses for all of these locations can be found in the scroll at the bottom of the screen right now that you're watching. Or if you just click on Live Scream at WeirdDarkness.com, you'll find the links there as well. Tonight, I'll be responding to your online comments in between the stories and breaks. I should automatically see comments if you leave them on YouTube. If you are watching on Facebook though, you might need to give permission to Facebook to connect to my system so that I can see your comments there. And you can find that link as well by clicking on Live Scream at WeirdDarkness.com. I believe though, it's streamyard.com slash Facebook. Also for fun tonight, I'll be holding two contests. First, as I did last year, I'll be doing random drawings throughout the evening from my email newsletter subscribers to win a Weird Darkness prize pack. If I draw your name, you must email me before the end of the live stream if you want to claim your prize. If you don't email me before the end of the show, you don't win the prize, okay? So that gives you some incentive to keep listening or keep watching and to act quickly. If I do draw your name, you can email me at the address that you see right now on the screen. Also, I have set up a caption contest which you can also enter on the Live Scream page. We'll announce the winner at the end of the show. Here is your caption, by the way, just in case you want to see it. That's the caption that you will be captioning. So come up with something unique and funny. PG, please. We have a lot of younger, younger ears and eyes that are watching the show tonight. So if you come up with a funny caption for this or if I draw your name from my newsletter subscribers, you'll win a Weird Darkness prize pack. In the prize pack tonight, I've got three Weird Darkness t-shirts and two coffee mugs. So I'll be giving that prize pack to everybody that I draw names for from the newsletter list assuming they get back to me before the end of the show and also for our caption winner. Okay? So there you go for that. And let's see here. What else? Oh, later in the show. So excited. I just added this. I have been given permission to play a short clip of a new TV show that I'm co-starring in called Ping and Roar. It's an animated show for the little ones in your house. And I am the voice of the daddy dinosaur. And the show is going to be launching on YouTube in the next few days. They have given me permission graciously to play just a short clip for you tonight. It's one of my favorite clips that I've recorded for them so far. And I believe this is the first time that my animated character will be viewed publicly anywhere in the world. So we'll be doing that later on tonight. And at the very end of the show, I'll play the music video that you all seem to like last year. The song that I wrote entitled, Where Wolf Girlfriend. If you're new to Weird Darkness, welcome to the show. Happy Halloween. If you're already a member of this Weirdo family, please do me a favor. Take a moment. Invite somebody else to watch along with you. The more people that we have watching, the more fun this becomes. Text or message your friends to tune in during the broadcast. That way they can get in on the fun. Maybe post a link to this stream on your social media so others will know about it. I'd appreciate that. If you want to make it easy, type in WeirdDarkness.com slash live. You can post that anywhere and everywhere. And I would greatly appreciate that. Last year we had our trick-or-treat camp. This year we're starting the show later. So we're not going to have the trick-or-treaters, but for only another 15 minutes. That's when the cutoff is here. But if you look at the ring doorbell, that looks horrible. Let me get back to that. Look at that. Isn't that terrible? I think those are hard water stains and we tried to get them off and we couldn't. You can just barely see there where the buckets are that we're leaving outside because while there's nobody here to answer the door, I'm doing this and Robin's not available to take care of it. I don't think we're even going to worry about the camera tonight because there's nothing to see. So we'll just move on. Before we begin with the fun though, tonight is the last night of October. That means it's the last night that I'm asking you to help me raise funds to combat depression and suicide through our Overcoming the Darkness campaign. And if you're watching, if you're listening to this live, please visit the Hope of the Darkness page at WeirdDarkness.com. There you can make a donation of any amount and help to cause and also learn about those organizations that'll benefit from your financial gift. Every dollar you give tonight will be split equally and be donated to the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, the Crisis Text Line, and Save.org. So please, give generously. Just visit WeirdDarkness.com and click on Donate or blow that out of the water tonight and really bless those organizations that help people who struggle with depression. Lock your windows. Turn off your lights and come with me into the Weird Darkness. Before we get into the spooky stories, I thought I'd take a moment and be personal with all of you. I mentioned it in the Fireside Frights episode earlier this month, but in case you missed that, my dad passed away earlier this month. He passed away on the 17th, so it hasn't even been two weeks yet. I lost both my father and my best friend at the same time, but I'm okay. I did have a chance to pain the disease and the confusion that he had to deal with in the last couple of years, and I bring this up because part of my love of Halloween is my dad. Sorry, I got an itch. Whenever I think back on Halloween, aside from the amazing memories I've made with all of you here on Weird Darkness through the annual live scream, I think of spending it with my dad. The reason werewolves, in fact, are my favorite cryptid and movie monsters, probably because of my dad. I remember one year in grade school, we were working on Halloween costumes to wear at the school, and we've got a cheap plastic werewolf mask with the nylon strap that wraps behind your head and over your ears to keep the thing in place. You could barely breathe through that thing. The springy snap will usually break before trick-or-treatings over, but that's what we had to deal with in the late 70s, or actually probably early 70s. Dad was not satisfied with me just having a mask though, so we found a long-sleeved red and black plaid shirt, at least that's the way I remember it, and then on top of that, we placed a white t-shirt. Now, this is important because I had to be able to take off that t-shirt just in case. On the t-shirt, dad took a black sharpie and made a few round-owned circles to represent bullet holes going into my chest, and then he found a red sharpie to paint blood flowing down from those bullet holes. This is a kid going to grade school looking like this. I thought it was the coolest idea in the world, and so did the kids at school. I kept the t-shirt on all day, things were different back then, and the next year, maybe a couple of years later, I wanted to once again go to school and go trick-or-treating as a werewolf. So they had just come out with this prosthetic foam latex face mask of this makeup for Halloween called the face. I looked online yesterday and the day before, tried to find this. I couldn't find it anywhere, but I'm pretty sure it was called the face. My little brother had one that made him look like a skull, and it was so incredible, and then I had one for the werewolf. It was a little bit pricey, especially for kids' Halloween costumes, but you got what you paid for. It looked real like something Hollywood would have used at the time. Dad painstakingly helped us with our masks, putting layer upon layer of latex on our faces to build up the characters, and then painting us up, it looked so realistic that a girl in my sixth grade class grabbed my face because she thought it was just a single plastic mask she was going to pull off, only for pieces of my foam skin to come off in her hands. She screamed bloody murder, and fortunately I was able to fix it in the boy's bathroom. Great memory, but my favorite memory would be from years earlier, and I don't know if I'm remembering this from myself or from the numerous times that dad and I talked about it over the years, but here's the story. I was probably four or five years old at the time. My dad was accompanying us through the neighborhood while we were trick-or-treating, and I remember at the end of a cul-de-sac there was one house that was really made up well, tricked out with flashing lights, spooky music, the works. I walked up to the door, but before I even had an opportunity to say trick-or-treat, a werewolf came out of nowhere and growled loudly at me. I almost pooped my pants. I was so scared. I ran off without any candy and ran to my dad for protection. Turns out the house had a teenage boy living there who enjoyed scaring kids. The way it's perfect for that. My dad, though, rather than getting angry at the homeowners or being disappointed in me or just ignoring the situation and moving on to the next house, he decided to take me aside and make it a life lesson. He said, son, you know that monster is probably more scared of you than you are of it, right? I guarantee that if you go back there and you growl at him, you'll scare him away. Well, dad never lied. Never lied to me, ever. So somehow I built up whatever courage a four-year-old could muster and I made my way back to the Spooky House. I saw the teenage werewolf coming from around the side of the garage, lifted my hands like claws, and yell, and the werewolf yelped and went limping away. Dad was right. I got my candy and I fell even more in love with werewolves at that point. Oh, and my scary costume to scare off a werewolf? Mickey Mouse. Ah, I love Halloween. All right, let's move on to the scary stuff. The real Annabelle doll reportedly committed a series of attacks in the early 1970s before it was confined in the occult museum of Ed and Lorraine Warren in Connecticut. She sits in a glass case bearing a hand-carved inscription of the Lord's Prayer while a pleasant smile rests on her happy face sitting under a mop of red hair. But beneath the case is a sign that reads WARNING. POSITIVELY DO NOT OPEN. To the uninformed visitors of the Warrens Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, she looks like any other raggedy Ann doll produced in the mid-20th century. But the original Annabelle doll is actually anything but ordinary. Since her first supposed haunting in 1970 this allegedly evil doll has been blamed for demonic possession, a slew of violent attacks, and at least two near-death experiences. In recent years the true stories of Annabelle have inspired a series of horror films, but just how much of Annabelle's story is real? Is the real Annabelle doll truly a vessel for a demonic spirit in search of a human host? Or is she simply a child's toy used as a prop for wildly profitable ghost stories? These are the real stories of Annabelle. Though she does not share the same porcelain skin and lifelike features as her cinematic counterpart, the Annabelle doll that lives in the Occult Museum of famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the pair that worked on the case, is made all the more creepy by how ordinary she appears. Annabelle's stitched features including her half-smile and bright orange triangular nose evoke memories of childhood toys and simpler times. If you could ask Ed and Lorraine Warren, although Ed died in 2006 Lorraine died in early 2019 but if you could ask them they would tell you that the stark fold across Annabelle's glass case are more than necessary. According to the well-known paranormal investigators, the dolls responsible for two near-death experiences, one fatal accident and a string of demonic activities that lasted some 30 years. The first of these infamous hauntings can allegedly be traced back to 1970 when Annabelle was brand new. The story was told to the Warrens by two young women and was told for years after by the Warrens themselves. As the story goes, the Annabelle doll had been a gift to a young nurse named Donna or Deirdre, depending on the source, from her mother for her 28th birthday. Donna apparently thrilled with the gift brought it back to her apartment that she shared with another young nurse named Angie. At first, the doll was an adorable accessory, sitting on a sofa in the living room and greeting visitors with her colorful hands. But before long, the two women began to notice that Annabelle seemed to move about the room of her own accord. Donna would sit on the living room sofa before leaving for work, only to come home in the afternoon and find her in the bedroom with the door shut. Donna and Angie then started finding notes left throughout the apartment building. Help me. According to the women, the notes were written on parchment paper, which they didn't even keep in their home. Furthermore, Angie's boyfriend, known only as Lou, was in the apartment one afternoon while Donna was out and heard rustling in her room as if somebody had broken it. Upon inspection, he found no sign of forced entry, but found the Annabelle doll lying face down on the ground. Other versions of that story say that he was attacked upon waking up from a nap. Suddenly, he felt a searing pain on his chest and looked down to find body claw marks running across it. Two days later, they vanished without a trace. Following Lou's traumatic experience, the women invited a medium over to help solve their seemingly paranormal problem. The medium held a seance and told the women that the doll was inhabited by the spirit of a deceased seven-year-old named Annabelle Higgins, whose body had been found years earlier on the site where their apartment building had been built. The medium claimed that the spirit was benevolent and simply wanted to be loved and cared for. The two young nurses reportedly felt bad for the spirit and consented to allow her to take up permanent residence in the doll. Eventually, in an attempt to rid their home of Annabelle's doll spirit, Donna and Angie called on an Episcopal priest known as Father Hegan. Hegan contacted his superior, Father Cook, who alerted Ed and Lorraine Warren. As far as Ed and Lorraine Warren were concerned, the two young ladies' trouble truly started when they began believing that the doll deserved their sympathy. The Warrens believed that there was actually a demonic force in search of a human host within Annabelle, not a benevolent soul. The Warrens' account of the case states, spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys. They possess people. An inhuman spirit can attach itself to a place or object, and this is what occurred in the Annabelle case. The spirit manipulated the doll and created the illusion of it being alive in order to get recognition. Truly, the spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll. It was looking to possess a human host. Immediately, the Warrens noted what they believed were signs of demonic possession, including teleportation, the doll moving on its own, materialization, the parchment paper notes, and the marked beast, Lou's clawed chest. The Warrens subsequently ordered an exorcism of the apartment to be performed by Father Cook. Then they took Annabelle out of the apartment and to her final resting place in their occult museum in the hopes that her demonic reign would finally end. Following Annabelle's removal from Donna and Angie's apartment, the Warrens documented several other paranormal experiences involving the doll. The first just minutes after they took possession of it. After the exorcism of the nurse's apartment, the Warrens buckled Annabelle into the back seat of their car and vowed not to take the highway in case she had some kind of accident causing power over them and their vehicle. However, even the safer back roads proved too risky for the couple. On their way home, Lorraine claimed that the brakes either stalled or failed several times, resulting in near disastrous crashes. Lorraine claimed that as soon as Ed pulled holy water from his bag and doused the doll with it, the problem with the brakes disappeared. Upon arriving home, Ed and Lorraine placed the doll in Ed's study. There, they reported that the doll levitated and moved about the house. Even when placed in the locked office in an outer building, the Warrens claimed that she would turn up later inside the house. Finally, Ed decided to lock Annabelle up for good. The Warrens had a specially made glass and wood case constructed upon which they inscribed the Lord's Prayer and St. Michael's Prayer. For the rest of his life, Ed would periodically say a binding prayer over the case, ensuring that the sinister spirit and the doll remained good and trapped. Since being locked up, Annabelle the doll hasn't moved again, though Ed is alleged that her spirit has found ways to reach out to the earthly play. Once, a priest who was visiting the Warrens Museum picked up Annabelle and discounted her demonic abilities. Ed warned the priest about mocking Annabelle's demonic power, but the young priest laughed him off. On his way home, the priest was involved in a near fatal crash that totaled his new car. He claimed to have seen Annabelle in his rear view mirror just before the accident. Years later, another visitor wrapped on the glass of the Annabelle doll's case and laughed at how silly people were to believe in her. On his way home, he reportedly lost control of his motorcycle and crashed headlong into a tree. He was killed instantly, and his girlfriend just barely survived. She claimed that at the time of the accident, the couple had been laughing about the Annabelle doll. Over the years, the Warrens continued to recount these tales as proof of Annabelle the doll's horrific powers, though none of these stories could be corroborated. The names of the young priest and the motorcyclists were never divulged. Neither Donna nor Angie, the two nurses who were Annabelle's first victims, ever came forward with their story. Neither Father Cook nor Father Hegan appeared to have mentioned their exorcisms of her ever again. They would appear that all we have is the Warrens' word that any of this even took place. Whether or not any of these hauntings did take place, the tales left behind were all the director and producer James Wan needed to pull together a long-lasting and lucrative horror universe. Beginning in 2014, Wan wrote the story of Annabelle, a child-sized haunted porcelain doll with life-like features and a penchant for violence, using the Annabelle doll as his inspiration. Of course, there are several differences between the Warrens' doll and its cinematic counterpart. The most obvious difference is the doll itself. While the real Annabelle is clearly a child's toy with its exaggerated features and plush body parts, the movie version of Annabelle is inspired by vintage, handmade dolls made of porcelain with real braided hair and glistening glass eyes. Along with her physical features, Annabelle's antics were also amped up for shock value in the movies. Rather than terrorizing a pair of roommates and one boyfriend, movie Annabelle moves from home to home, attacking families, possessing members of satanic cults, killing children, posing as a nun and causing chaos in the Warren's own home. Despite the fact that the real Annabelle only has one alleged murder under her belt, Wan has invented enough destruction for three successful movies Though Ed and Lorraine Warren have both died, their legacy has been carried on by their daughter Judy and her husband Tony Spira. Until his death in 2006, Ed Warren considered Spira his demonology protégé and entrusted him with continuing his work which included caring for his occult artifacts. Those artifacts include the Annabelle doll and her protective case. Echoing the warnings of his predecessors, Spira cautions visitors of the Warren's occult museum about Annabelle's powers. Is it dangerous? He said, of the doll? Yes. It is the most dangerous object in this museum. Yes. But despite such claims the Warrens have a complicated relationship with the truth. Though they became practically household names for their involvement in the Amityville horror case and those that inspired the conjuring, their work has been almost entirely debunked and we'll touch on those stories a bit later tonight. An investigation by the New England Skeptical Society proved that the artifacts in the Warrens occult museum were mostly fraudulent, citing doctored photos and exaggerated storytelling. But for those who still doubt the Annabelle doll's powers Spira likens disturbing her to playing Russian roulette. There might be just one bullet in the gun but would you still pull the trigger? Or would you just put the gun down and not take the risk? The real life fears surrounding the original Annabelle doll only flared up even more in August 2020 when reports surfaced that she had escaped from the Warrens occult museum which closed down temporarily due to zoning issues in 2019. Though the rumors quickly spread on social media, the reports were quickly outed as inaccurate. Spira himself soon posted a video at himself alongside the real life Annabelle doll in the museum. Annabelle's alive, Spira assured everyone, well I shouldn't say alive, Annabelle is here in all of her infamous glory, she never left the museum. But Spira was also sure to stoke the fears that have kept the real Annabelle doll terrifying for 50 years. Saying, I'd be concerned if Annabelle really did leave because she's nothing to play with. From the supposedly true story behind Annabelle's conjuring to the murders that inspired the Amityville horror I have a few ghost stories that might make even casual skeptics believe in the paranormal. Real ghost stories when the weird darkness live scream returns. You can hear the snarls right behind you, the faster you run the closer the creatures seem to get. How can the undead run this fast you think to yourself. Now you're drenched in sweat but your mouth is dry you need to find somewhere to stop and think about how to survive the next few minutes of your life. Then you see it and run towards the water station. The zombie fun run will have to wait until you quite sure thirst. But bottled water is expensive and you don't even want to know what might be in tap water or much less fresh water. Fortunately the horde of horror fanatics at this water station planned in advance and brought Patriot pure outdoor filtration water cooler system. It gives you clean cold water wherever you go. It's 5 gallon tank keeps water cold keeps ice for days on end reduces the levels of over 200 contaminants with a two step filtration technology which you can use with tap water, well water, river water or any water source you find. It's UV resistant so it works just as well at any time of day and you're avoiding the cost of bottled water while also avoiding the unnecessary use of plastic all in one system. It might be the only non-terrifying thing at your halloween or fall themed activity. Get the Patriot pure outdoor filtration water cooler system at 4patriots.com that's the number 4 patriots.com and use the promo code weird to get 10% off everything you order. That's 4patriots.com promo code weird. Uh oh zombies are back. Central Massachusetts is a land of oddities in 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 If you've not done so already or maybe if you want to give again. The more we raise the more people we can help who struggle with depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide and self-harm. Click the donate button at WeirdDarkness.com or visit the Hope in the Darkness page on the website. Currently we're at $5,330 which means I believe somebody gave $100 just within the last few minutes. So whoever you are thank you for that. I greatly appreciate it. Alright, let's take a look at some of the comments that have been rolling in and I have a lot of them. There was like over 150 something to go through so I'll only touch on a few. Little Dove says I love werewolves man after my own heart or girl after my own heart, Little Dove, whichever. Jean Koole asks is the stream off or am I having shroom flashbacks? Am I? Is this stuff back there? I think that's probably what it is and I've tried a green screen behind me and it still won't work. I still get this portal back there and I don't know what it is by the way that's my werewolf back there he sees a lot taller so you can't see him but that's my werewolf back there but stream guards trying to cover that up. Maybe if I move over here a little bit. If I move there will that work? That might help. I guess we'll find out. Sharzy says we need to set up a GoFundMe for Darren so he can get a souped up camera. Let's see here. Kimberly Turner says we used to have the choice of hard plastic face masks and costumes that wouldn't last the night. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Those hard plastic face masks and the costumes were plastic too and I think they were like maybe they were only the front and you had to tie them around the back. They were horrid. They were horrid. Let's see here. A lot of you guys were talking about the plastic string around the masks. Let's move down here a little bit. Talking about the costumes. Talking about the costumes. Oh Randy so thank you man. Happy Halloween brother. Voices smooth as chocolate. See you soon. Pot on. Appreciate that Randy. Thank you very much. Sharzy says I wonder how many pairs of zombie costumes those movies and TV shows go through. Who knows. Love is so much amazing intro. Thank you Tara. I appreciate that. I worked pretty hard on that intro and I use it every year now because I'm not going to work that hard on something and only use it once. If you're talking about the horror movie quotes at the beginning so yeah. Let's see here. Moving on to let's go down to the bottom. Let's see. Jean said we made our own costumes with paper bags and newspaper. I remember doing that once in school but it was for Thanksgiving. We had to do a Thanksgiving play and that's how we made the Indian costume. But of course it was horrid but we were in elementary school. What do you want? Ike says this is my fifth year watching this. Keep up the great work. Well thank you Ike. I appreciate that. We started in 2018. 19, 20, 20, 22, 23. So this is actually our sixth year so you've been at it for a while. Did I say fifth year? 18, 19, 20. 21, 22. I've been saying it's our fifth year but it's our sixth year. We're still discussing the 70's costumes. I'll let you guys continue discussing the costumes then. I do have a winner. My first drawing for the night. If I call your name you need to email me before the end of the show if you want to win a Weird Darkness prize pack. The prize pack, let me show that to you again. There it is. I'm going to be announcing these are the names from my newsletter. It's free to subscribe to the newsletter. Just go to WeirdDarkness.com and you can subscribe. If you're already a subscriber then you're already registered to win. You don't have to go and do it again. But my first drawing name is Julie Ellis. Julie Ellis you have until the end of the show tonight and I have no idea how long that's going to be but you have that long to email me and claim the Weird Darkness prize pack prize. We also have the live caption contest going on and we haven't had any captions yet. You can send in your caption by visiting WeirdDarkness.com and then under the video you'll see a form to fill out for your caption. The picture is not there. The picture is here that I'm showing you. That's where your form is to send in your caption. If you want to do that then send in the same prize pack if you happen to be the winner at the end of the evening. Let's see here is there anything else I want to take care of before I move on? No. Okay great. Let's get back on to those stories. Let me get a sip of drink real quick. Okay here we go. Not everybody believes that there are real ghost stories buried in the annals of history. Skeptics are confident that there is an absolute separation on the other hand most people also know somebody who has had an experience that they can't fully explain. Those to these kinds of accounts across history is staggering though there's also little scientific proof to back them up. But wherever but whether or not you are a believer here are a few ghost stories that will undoubtedly leave you entertained if not unnerved. From the real life Stanley hotel but inspired Stephen King people wandering the Myrtles plantation these true ghost stories may even have you reconsidering what you think you know. The real ghost story of Kate Morgan the beautiful stranger. It was 1892 and Kate Morgan was a grown and capable 24 year old woman. According to California's notorious Hotel del Coronado she checked in to the resort on Thanksgiving day. Some say she never checked out. Employees recall that Morgan said that she was waiting for a gentleman to join her and after five days as a guest the ghost story goes nobody showed and Morgan shot herself in the head. While nothing was found at the scene to identify her police telegraphed her description to authorities around the country. The media dubbed her the beautiful stranger for her description and it was soon discovered she had an estranged husband. Her gentleman caller it was presumed was a lover. Morgan was also reportedly pregnant when she killed herself. Before her suicide Morgan worked as a household caretaker in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. During her travel to the hotel onlookers saw her verbally spar with an unidentified male and he got off mid routes and abandoned her leaving Morgan melancholy upon her arrival. Though unclear whether this figure was spender or not Morgan sorrowfully wandered into town and procured a pistol. According to the book beautiful stranger the ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado which I have linked to on the website on the weirddarkness.com slash live page if you want to get the book according to this book there's no shortage of people who have reported paranormal activity in the Hotel del Coronado. Guests have experienced flickering lights, a rogue television and a change in temperature that appears out of nowhere and then vanishes just as inexplicably. Doors have opened and shut on their own footsteps and voices have been heard but no people have been seen. Because human curiosity knows no bounds Morgan's room has been the most requested room of them all at the hotel even a group of independent paranormal researchers stayed there to document the so-called hauntings. The team employed infrared cameras night vision goggles, radiation sensors, indicators for toxic chemicals, microwave imaging systems and high frequency sound detectors. Though Morgan stayed in room 3327 formerly room 302 her apparition has appeared elsewhere there have been several sightings in room 3519 formerly 3502 intended for maids. Guests have reported objects moving independently. Stranger still the hotel owner's mistress also killed herself at the resort after discovering she was pregnant. Of course countless guests have already reported seeing her both in the hallways and by the beach. The hotel gift shop too has seen unexplained phenomena with items flying off shelves and often landing right side up. Ultimately it is unclear what exactly is going on at the hotel in elaborate ruse by management, buyers remorse on behalf of guests or possibly real paranormal activity in plain sight. James Wan's 2013 horror film The Conjuring introduced mainstream audiences to the quote-unquote true story of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren and their horrifying experience with the parent family. The true ghost story though may be even in the film. According to USA Today Lorraine Warren consulted on the movie and was adamant that it was true to what happened to her and the parent family. The things that went on there were just so incredibly frightening she said it still affects me to talk about it today. Neurologist Stephen Novella president of the New England skeptical society though he investigated the couple and he is convinced that they fabricated the whole thing. The Warrens are good at telling ghost stories but the parents alleged haunting began in January 1971 when they moved into their new farmhouse built in 1736 in Harrisville Rhode Island. Carolyn and Roger Parran and their five daughters began to notice strange occurrences almost immediately. Oddly enough they continued to live there for nine years. Andrea Parran was 12 years old at the time and claimed the film was a beautiful tapestry with many elements of truth to it and some moments of fiction. Little did the Parran family know that the 200 acre home was said to have once been inhabited by a woman named Bathsheba. Bathsheba Thayer and her four children three of whom died young. The town labeled Bathsheba Thayer a Satanist who allegedly hanged herself from a tree in the backyard and the parents were allegedly attacked by her spirit. Some of these incidents were harmless some claim she never lived there at all. Other incidents on the property however were fairly violent. The parent's children allegedly played and did chores with some of the spirits Thayer's ghost was not his friendly she purportedly moved furniture to scare the new tenants appeared fully at times and as depicted in the film haunted the family's matriarch most of all Carolyn Parran was allegedly pinched and forcefully slapped by Thayer's ghost. Whoever the spirit was she perceived herself to be mistress of the house and she resented the competition my mother posed for that position said Andrea Parran. The Warrens were hired to help in 1974 but the parents eventually asked them to leave after Carolyn Parran became temporarily possessed. Her daughter allegedly witnessed this firsthand I thought I was going to pass out she said my mother began to speak a language not of this world in a voice not her own her chair levitated and she was thrown across the room both my mother and I would just both my mother and I would just as soon swallow our tongue and tell a lie people are free to believe whatever they want to believe but I know what we experienced she said. The so-called conjuring house where the parents experienced the paranormal has recently been bought by two new owners and the fearless couple said they have not felt anything evil in the house though it is certainly busy. In 1992 when the proprietors of Louisiana's Myrtles Plantation photographed the property as part of an insurance company requirement something remarkable happened in between two of the buildings a figure appeared a dark female shape stood upright in the corner The St. Francisville site naturally had a cruel history of slavery and today it is considered one of the most haunted places in America According to the Myrtles Plantation website even a film crew for the National Geographic Explorer agreed that the photo contained what looked like the ghost of a slave girl they recommended using it as a postcard which the plantation did though her shape is clearly silhouetted between the general store and butler's pantry of the property the exterior boards of the house are just as visible she was partly translucent partly opaque and entirely glaringly present in a photograph In May 1995 a patent researcher named Norman Benoit visited the site to do some rigorous analysis of the potentially paranormal incident he found that this was indeed the image of a person who was simply not present when the photograph was taken he enlarged it increased the contrasts and found that the dimensions and proportions of the figure were entirely in line with human measurements the postcard has since been dubbed the Chloe Postcard named after the young slave girl who was said to have caught the attention of the plantation's owner Clark Woodruff as the story goes Chloe was propositioned by Woodruff into a sexual relationship when she was a slave Chloe had little choice in the matter and was deathly afraid Mrs. Woodruff would find out so she began eavesdropping on Mrs. Woodruff she was caught one day and had her ear cut off as punishment for revenge she slipped poison into the family's food Mrs. Woodruff and her two kids promptly died the other slaves afraid that they'd be seen as conspirators by the surviving Mr. Woodruff and Chloe from a tree they then cut her down and threw her body into the river some believe her spirit lived on stalking the grounds in the 1970s the plantation was purchased by the Myers family and turned into a bed and breakfast ghostly apparitions and noises have been reported there ever since even before American slavery though the property was built on top of an Indian burial ground which reportedly led to sightings of American women's ghost on the Dezebo centuries later William Winter, a man killed at Myrtle's plantation has also been seen of course there's no scientifically accredited way of confirming whether or not a ghost has been captured on film thus only the stories from one highly ominous photo remain the legend of the Winchester Mystery House has endured for more than a century especially when a film starring Helen Mirren brought the tale into popular consciousness it's a story of love, loss and a good dose of lunacy Sarah Winchester was the widow of William Wirt Winchester the heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and she was born into privilege in 1840 but tragedy struck when Sarah Winchester's husband and infant daughter died she probably visited a spiritual medium who told her that these misfortunes were revenge by the evil spirits of those who were killed by Winchester rifles the only solution she believed was to build a home big enough to protect her from those evil spirits she inherited over 500 million dollars by today's standards as well as half of the company and was thus more than capable of doing this she left New Haven, Connecticut for sunny San Jose, California and got to work building a mansion that could confuse the paranormal it was said Sarah Winchester's intention was to build a home that could confuse the spirits and protect her from them Winchester Winchester never did confirm her true intentions for the house but builders said that they had daily seances during construction she allegedly tried reaching out to good spirits in order to consult them on how best to appease those who haunted her ultimately the project would take 38 years to complete the 160 room home had 2,000 doors 10,000 windows 47 stairways 47 fireplaces 13 bathrooms and 6 kitchens the house featured secret passageways upside down columns rooms that were sealed off and staircases that led nowhere even the bathrooms were meant to confuse them as only one out of 13 worked despite a 1904 earthquake the house was built on a floating foundation that saved it from destruction the top 3 floors were removed unfortunately leaving it with only 4 stories today after Winchester's death in September 1922 the legend of the Winchester mystery house only grew larger Winchester's niece, Marion inherited all of her belongings which she then promptly auctioned off only 5 months after Winchester's death did her home open to the public for tours nearly a whole century later in 2016 a secret attic was discovered 2 years later the eponymous Winchester movie was filmed at the actual house despite the fact that not a single paranormal investigation has captured anything remotely extraordinary there visitors continued to report feeling the presence of spirits visitors have claimed to have heard footsteps in her bedroom doorknobs turned by themselves and even to have felt drastic temperature changes the ancient Ram Inn if you're eager to experience the paranormal there's no better way to visit an establishment built atop a pagan burial ground that's exactly what happened with the ancient Ram Inn in Watten Under Edge, Lauster, England a former priest's residence built in 1145 the inn is not only the oldest building in town but also situated precisely where two lay lines meet lay lines are believed to be supernatural lines that connect the world's monuments in a significant alignment some claim that the inn's positioning along these two lay lines coincidentally leads directly to England's Stonehenge and must thus be a place of strong spiritual energy combined with the 5,000-year-old pagan burial ground beneath its floors the ancient Ram Inn certainly has the makings of a paranormal palace the inn formerly housed slaves and workers who built the nearby St. Mary's church streams on the inn's grounds had to be rerouted around the church's site and many believe this diversion of water is in part responsible for exposing the area to dark energy as if that wasn't enough it was also purportedly haunted by a witch who sought shelter there before being caught and murdered she was burned at the stake in the 1500s and is now said to haunt the room she once stayed in aptly called the witch's room the inn's sole owner and occupant John Humphries claims he was first introduced to the inn's non-corporeal occupants on his first night as its owner in 1968 he said he had just gone to sleep his chronic presence ripped him out of bed by his arm and pulled him across the room now in his 80s he has committed the rest of his life to maintaining the inn rather than running away from it which most of us probably would have done half a century ago perhaps most depressing is the fact that Humphries wife and three daughters decided to do just that leaving him alone on the property Humphries also claims to have found evidence of ritual sacrifice and devil worship underneath the staircase where he reportedly saw children's bones punctured with daggers if any of these reports are true then it's perhaps Humphries unwillingness to leave the inn that is truly the terrifying part of this ghost story the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park Colorado is less than six miles from Rocky Mountain National Park perhaps more notable of course is its literary, cinematic and paranormal appeal infamous by Stanley Kubrick's 1980 classic The Shining According to Colorado.com the establishment's true history began over seven decades earlier when the hotel's founder Freeman Oscar Stanley was suffering from tuberculosis convinced the Rocky Mountain Air would cure him of the illness in 1907 he simply decided to build a luxury hotel there with no shortage of lumber supply from the region's national park the resourceful visionary visionary got to work and ever since its completion people have reported dread inducing disturbances by entities they just can't fully explain most famously horror author Stephen King was inspired to write the foundation for Kubrick's eventual film after a terrifying night in room 217 in the mid-1970s According to King his time there made him so paranoid and afraid that he couldn't help but write The Shining when he was allegedly ripped out of a nightmare during his stay that particular room changed to room 237 in the film for reasons still hotly debated by Kubrick fans and is said to be haunted by the housekeeper neither identical twins nor decomposing old woman have been reported by the cat by the guests but what has been observed is much easier to stomach guests have reported the giggling of children running on the fourth floor corridors doors inexplicably slamming shut flickering lights and dramatic drops in temperature guests have even claimed to have seen a cowboy appear at the foot of their bed in room 428 the fact that guests can hear founder Flora Stanley play the piano at night would not be so chilling were it not for the fact that she's been dead for 80 years most recently the location has been used for the annual shining ball horror events film festivals and more for those brave enough to spend a night there on the fourth floor as well as room 217 it's waiting Los Angeles might not be the first place to come to mind as far as ghost stories go nonetheless Hollywood does have a long history of tragedy the Cecil Hotel for one has seen a litany of disturbing incidents mostly recently the mysterious disappearance and subsequent discovery of young Elisa Lam in the hotel's rooftop water tank Elisa Lam was only the most recent case of the hotel though the alleged hauntings date all the way back to the hotel's opening in 1927 and it boasts 16 murders, suicides and countless other events stretching credulity it is even housed some of the most American serial killers of the 20th century in 1934 Army Sergeant Louis D. Borden slit his own throat with a razor less than four years later Roy Thompson of the Marine Corps jumped off the roof his body was found beside a neighboring building in September 1944 19 year old Dorothy Purcell woke up with stomach pain entirely unaware she was about to give birth she threw her baby out of the window and was subsequently institutionalized in 1962 65 year old George Gianniti was taking a walk past the Cecil when the falling body of a 27 year old woman who had leapt off the hotel's ninth floor killed him according to the non-profit public media group of Southern California locals began calling the hotel the suicide shortly after serial killer Richard Ramirez otherwise known as the Night Stalker used the hotel as his temporary home in the 1980s he rented a room on the top floor Austrian serial killer Jack Unterwäger briefly lived in the Cecil as well few incidents at the hotel however compared to what happened to 21 year old Elisa Lamb her discovery and the disturbing behavior she displayed in the hotel's elevator are incredibly disturbing guests suddenly experienced such low water pressure in early 2013 that the hotel's management properly checked their infrastructure that's when they found Canadian tourist Elisa Lamb who had been decomposing for nearly a month in the hotel's rooftop water system the coroner could simply not assess a clear cause of death the security footage is even eerier than that with a seeming combination of fatigue disorientation and fear Lamb's last moments alive only yield more questions than answers her story could perhaps be scarier than many other ghost stories on our list here the American Brigantine Mary Celeste was found inexplicably deserted near the Azores islands in 1872 spotted by the British Brig de Gracia on December 4th the abandon ship had been sailing through the Atlantic about a thousand miles west of Portugal what happened aboard remains an utter mystery to this day there have been theories involving sea monsters to fire earlier this year there was a new scenario put forth that makes the most sense so far according to the ship's log Captain Benjamin Briggs and his crew departed aboard the Mary Celeste from New York Harbor for Genoa Italy on November 7th, 1872 the ship was carrying denatured alcohol, seven crew members and Briggs wife and daughter for the next two weeks everyone aboard endured treacherous seas and wailing winds until Briggs entered his last log on November 25th according to the Smithsonian when the confused British crew of the de Gracia boarded the abandoned vessel six months later they found everything in order even the crew's clothes had been packed away but nobody was to be found only a disassembled pump in the hold three and a half feet of water in the bilge and a missing lifeboat suggested that there had been trouble there were six months of food and water still on board the cargo was intact and the crew's belongings neatly stowed away a ship's captain would only abandon ship in a matter of life or death generally speaking so what happened here some posit the crew mutinied after drinking some of the alcohol but no signs of violence were present others theorized pirates raided the ship though no valuables were missing finally in 2002 130 years after she left New York the Mary Celeste's fate was potentially explained documentarian Ann McGregor launched an investigation which included reconstructing the ship's drift and found the ship had been 120 miles off course due to a faulty chronometer since the captain expected seeing land three days earlier than he did he changed course towards Santa Maria Island to find shelter McGregor also found the ship had been recently refitted and that debris from this process clogged the pumps which removed water during harsh weather thus with no working pumps and being so utterly off course the captain decided to abandon ship to save his men of course this is merely the latest in a slew of theories perhaps sea monsters were to blame in the case of this real ghost story after all the Greenbrier ghost it was the winter of 1897 and the devout Mary Jane Hester of Greenbrier County, West Virginia had just lost her daughter her newly wed daughter, Zona had died of heart failure according to the local doctor one more was amiss in her child's sudden death it was to say for weeks Hester couldn't sleep and then the visits began according to the Monroe Watchman on the first night Zona's apparition appeared she disappeared just as suddenly when her mother reached for her she became known as the so called Greenbrier ghost and appeared again in her mother's bedroom one night and begged to climb in perhaps more disturbing Zona told her mother that she had been murdered by her husband Zona detailed how her husband had broken her neck out of anger over supper one night and the apparition relayed such details of her home that Mrs. Hester was totally convinced of the ghost's presence and of the story it told the case of the Greenbrier ghost also then set a historical precedent namely that it is the only documented case of a conviction made on the testimony of a ghost while Mrs. Hester's encounter with the ghost of her daughter is naturally contested by many a few things are clear Zona met 37 year old blacksmith Edward Trout Shoe in October 1896 she was 23 years old the two got married only a few weeks later to Mrs. Hester's chagrin and moved into a home near the husband's shot Zona was dead three months later at the foot of her stairs as Zona was dressed for her burial in a high-necked dress rumors abounded and brought previously undisclosed facts to the surface townsfolk gossiped that Zona had given birth to an illegitimate child that Shoe had been previously married twice and that the latter had died mysteriously some said she was pregnant when she fell through the ice others said it was a brick to the head that did her it and Hester meanwhile was already convinced that Shoe had killed her daughter Mrs. Hester promptly met with prosecutor John Alfred Preston who agreed after hours of convincing to work the case a chat with the doctor confirmed that there were indeed heavy bruises on the girl's neck Shoe also became more suspicious at the funeral when he prevented people from getting too close to the coffin he also placed a pillow on one side of Zona's head and he was assumed for a complete autopsy her neck had been broken it was found while her windpipe was crushed she'd been strangled Shoe was consequently arrested and on the 8th day of his trial a jury found him guilty he was sentenced to life in prison now 122 years later a marker on Route 60 reminds passersby that the Greenbrier ghost helped convict the man who killed her and there's never been a case like that again the Pittock mansion London-born newspaper publisher Henry Pittock and his wife Georgiana met and married in Portland, Oregon in 1860 he went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Oregon he was also an avid rock and mountain climber and so helped to found the Masamas Climbing Club he joined the first expedition climb of Mount Hood his wife was just as active in society women's union and ladies relief society she also helped found the Martha Washington home, a residence for working women according to the Oregon Encyclopedia the Pittocks soon decided to build a home in which to retire in 1909 with the help of architect Edward T. Folk they designed a mansion on 46 acres atop a hill overlooking the town the interior had a huge central staircase marble floors and even an elevator and dumbwaiter it was completed in 1914 when Mr. Pittock was nearly 80 and his wife was 68 unfortunately, neither got to enjoy the mansion for very long Mrs. Pittock died in 1918 with her husband following a year later their grandson, Peter Genteming tried to sell the house in 1958 but was unable to due to the damage the storm had caused in 1962 Portland residents donated $75,000 to help the city purchase and restore it in 1965, the mansion reopened to the public as a museum the hub of paranormal activity guests have reported the presence of ghosts presumably those of its former tenants reportedly true ghost stories on the premises include all the classics the sound of footsteps items moving around on their own and the independent shutting of windows even the tour guides claimed to have seen figures shuffling about others have described smelling the scent of roses which was Georgiana Pittock's favorite flower visitors have reported seeing the Pittocks and their former groundskeeper ultimately no malicious intent has ever been reported on behalf of these alleged ghosts by all accounts they've behaved kindly to visitors grateful perhaps that they can continue their charitable lifestyles beyond the grave that is if any of these supposedly real ghost stories are actually true Amityville the horrifying Amityville murders of 1974 have been cemented as one of the most disturbing American horror stories of the 20th century the house in Amityville, New York still stands to this day though under a different address as a potent reminder of the night when young Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family as they slept it was November 13 when the 23-year-old awoke around 3.15 a.m. DeFeo systematically shot each of his four siblings once Wanjeng is nine and both his parents twice before running to a nearby bar claiming a local mobster had murdered his family but the next day he confessed to police he claimed to have heard voices in the house urging him to kill his parents brothers and sister this was not the first time DeFeo claimed to have heard such voices his testimony to a paranormal force didn't go over well in court considering he was also a drug addict presumably in the midst of a psychotic break he still incarcerated in the New York prison after being awarded six life sentences for his crimes the house remained vacant for more than a year before it was then purchased by George Lutz for $80,000 the price was simply too good to be true so Lutz his wife Kathy and their sons Daniel and Christopher gratefully moved in they only lasted 28 days in the home before fleeing the family claimed that slime began seeping out of the walls knives flew off of kitchen counters and a pig looking creature had terrorized them at times when nobody was inside the house passersby reported figures wandering about Lutz even claimed he saw his wife floating above their bed and that he too began waking up at 3.15 when they called in a priest to bless the house he allegedly heard a voice telling him to get out naturally skepticism about these alleged real ghost stories founded with one of the most famous massacres having occurred at the house and the Lutz family in serious debt it only made sense that they'd cook up an elaborate ruse to bring renewed attention to receiving a book or movie deal into their orbit although the Lutz's lawyer claimed the family admitted to him that they had fabricated their purportedly true ghost stories the couple doubled down and took a lie detector test and they passed with flying colors making their claims all the more unnerving Daniel Lutz who was a child during that month his family lived in Amityville says he still has nightmares about his time there but whether these accounts are scary ghost stories remains to be seen coming up on Halloween night in 1969 police in St. Petersburg opened a large case that had been dumped behind a restaurant and found the body of Trunk Lady now known to be an Arizona mother of five named Sylvia June Atherton that story is up next 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 ever had that eerie feeling of being watched there's no one there at least nobody you can see anyway but still you can feel those ghostly eyes upon you the watchers in the shadows waiting for their moment to scare you haunt you or something even worse that is the theme for these carefully selected creepy true stories of the paranormal designed to have you wondering if you too are being watched from the shadows this all new collection include stories about the Batman black-eyed kids shadow people poltergeists UFOs the premonitions of a dying man forest demons and much more all absolutely true all chosen by the master of the paranormal himself G. Michael Vasey watched from the shadows scary true stories of the paranormal available now on the audiobooks page at weirddarkness.com that's weirddarkness.com slash audiobooks hey thank you to people who have been giving we just bumped it up another $60 for our overcoming the darkness fundraiser we're now at $5,390 which is great seeing as our goal was $5,000 I'm really really amazed at how generous you all are being if you've not given yet or if you'd like to give again you can still do so just go to weirddarkness.com slash hope that's also where you can go to find out everything about the overcoming the darkness fundraiser and who we're supporting that's weirddarkness.com slash hope let's take a look at some of the comments that have been coming in and you guys are doing a great job of just talking back and forth amongst yourselves so it's really hard to know if I have any questions here I think what we might need to do is you say Darren and then type your question I think that's probably the better way to go and my bride just stepped in hang on two seconds I told you guys we had the buckets out there we have three candy bars left over the buckets and then and then half a bucket of the non-chocolate everybody loves the chocolate so that's what we're saying okay so if you want to ask me specifically a question type in Darren and then Darren like it all caps or something and then your question I think that way it's going to be a lot easier for me to see if I have any questions specifically I'm looking here and you guys are just doing a great job of just talking to each other more than anything else you're entertaining yourselves the music is too loud seriously I can't get it any lower um it's all gone I don't think I can get it any lower than that I worked on this throughout the weekend trying to get the right level and okay I'll try it right there that's 8% that's 8% of the entire volume so let me know if that works for you because I'm not hearing anything I got to turn it all the way up for me to hear it okay this is there but that's uh if it was too loud I'm sorry and I know this is also going to be something that people just that's going to different people are going to have different tastes so okay now we've got a couple things here Dwayne says you need to do a show of Witold Pilecki Witold Pilecki drop me an email on that and remind me because I'm not going to remember that hold on telling hold on yes I'm talking to you while I'm doing the show okay okay alright I was just trying to my mom said the camera quality was good in the beginning but not so much here I don't know how to fix that sorry I don't know what to do it's a live show so um okay uh Barbara says we singing to you thank you very much uh maybe volumes at 10 it was at 10% the volume was at 10% it wasn't cranked to 10 but uh alright this isn't great it's weird on everything YouTube weird darkness page everything it's a weird thing on your camera I don't know mom wanted to tell you I'm sorry alright well I can't do anything ah alright so yes Charzy that was mama Marlar so um she she likes to listen and she'll she'll text once in a while or or call and say hey this is happening this is happening she she she's sort of my my uh content quality quality control there you go that's that's uh she she kind of acts that way sometimes so if the if the picture is is bad I'm sorry I know I have this little portal thing back here and that's just something at the green screen that I can't I can't change that um the only option would be to turn that completely off and then you see my closet everything behind me which is not any fun to see either so um we're just going to have to deal with it and I'll look at the video once it's over and make some changes for the next live stream I guess it's a that's about all I can do so sorry I did get another another person for our email newsletter it's a Tatiana Leilken um L-Y-U-L-K-I-N Tatiana Leilken um Tatiana you need to email me before the end of the show tonight if you want to win a weird darkness prize pack what's in the prize pack well in the prize pack tonight we're giving away three weird darkness t-shirts and two coffee mugs that's the weird darkness prize pack that's also what you will win if you happen to win our caption contest and right now we do have a caption by the way here's here's the here's what the caption's for and we've had some come in already which is great um Mark came in saying I love Halloween but the world is already preparing for Christmas man ain't that the truth there there was actually I live in the Rockford area and there was actually a house the other day we were heading towards doing a trunk or treat last Saturday and there was already a house with its Christmas decorations out I'm not kidding we could not believe it um Mark also said in another one saying you'll be known as Gordy O. Lantern the lesser known brother brother of Frosty uh Mark's on a roll he said in a bunch of me says guess this is what one does when a headless horseman family loses their heads in your yard and then Ross sent in I love Halloween and Anchorage well yeah I hear I was complaining on Facebook and Twitter earlier about how it was snowing earlier today and much people jumped in saying hey I'm in Michigan it's already been snowing we got a lot of snow here so I guess I really shouldn't complain if we end up having a little bit of snow here once in a while in northern Illinois okay moving on let's let me get another sip here for the drink and then we'll move on to the floor at a trunk lady oh wait a minute we have more comments coming let's make sure just to make sure that we don't have any um alright terry says darin I love this we'll move through the camera effect video issue it the moon is this a new feature to go live I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that is it a new idea for me to go live like with the with the video stream uh no I do this every year on Halloween it's just the Halloween live scream I have done a few called Friday Frights um but I just haven't been consistent in those I've just gotten too busy to keep up with those uh let's see here Ross said Darin even tried turning it off and turning it back on again uh I would but I have a feeling that would probably screw up the live stream uh Darin you look simply marvelous thank you Janice I appreciate it uh Steven says how's miss mocha miss mocha is very fine um she's a little fat but she's doing well uh would not leave me alone earlier today I have to close the door so she can't get in otherwise I'll not get anything done in the office and every time Robin comes in even if it's just for a couple seconds mocha knows that she's coming in here and she immediately comes in and wants and wants attention I'm telling you I mean she could have the door open for like just 10 seconds just giving me an update on what she went shopping for or whatever and mocha will see even if she's like in the basement somehow will know it run up here and immediately come into the to the office fortunately she no longer um she no longer bats her her claws at the at the door saying please let me in please let me in and meowing meowing that we we finally got away from that so so that's good um Rebecca says hi Darin I think you're doing great virtual hug we'd rather hear you than the music last year I think I just turned the music off because it got it got too loud I thought I had it set this year but if it's still too loud at this point um let me know so anyway there we go all right moving on now with the story on halloween in 1969 two police officers in st. Petersburg Florida came upon a black steamer trunk in a wooded area behind a seafood restaurant inside they found the dead body of a partially clothed woman wrapped in a plastic bag after being strangled with a man's necktie for years police attempted to identify her but all efforts led to dead ends for more than 50 years police and locals alike referred to this Jane Doe simply as trunk lady finally advanced DNA testing has now uncovered the woman's identity a 41 year old mother of five from Tucson, Arizona named Sylvia June Atherton according to an announcement from the st. Petersburg police department Atherton's body had initially been found in a horrific state clothed only in a pajama top the woman had several injuries to her head and strangulation marks from a man's western style bolo tie on her throat at the time the only lead that police had were eyewitness accounts from local teenagers who reported who reported seeing two men in a pickup truck dumping the trunk in the woods and driving off but unfortunately this bit of information led investigators nowhere a lack of leads eventually led to her being buried at Memorial Park Cemetery under a gravestone that read Jane Doe Atherton would remain there for 40 years eventually the brutal and mysterious nature of the crime caught the attention of researchers at the University of South Florida in 2010 by February of that year the research team got permission to exhume Atherton's body and begin DNA testing the team attempted to extract DNA from her teeth and bones but they had degraded so much that testing was virtually impossible meanwhile various newspapers articles and even true crime television shows dug into Atherton's case but no leads were uncovered but now the st. Petersburg police department announced that they discovered a couple of skin and hair from Atherton's original autopsy and sent it to Ultram Labs in Texas in April the lab contacted the police department and told them that their trunk lady was Sylvia June Atherton with her name now in hand cold case detective Wally Pavelski tracked down her living relatives and got into contact with her daughter Silan Gates who was nine at the time of her mother's disappearance according to Gates Atherton had left her husband Stuart Brown and her children five-year-old daughter Kimberly Ann Brown adult son Gary Sullivan adult daughter Donna and her husband David Lindhurst the group reportedly left Tucson to move to Chicago but evidently had some problems along the way Gary Sullivan eventually returned to Tucson by himself and public records show that Stuart Brown died in Las Vegas in 1999 without reporting that he was ever married to Atherton but never reported his wife missing even more mysterious is the fact the police have been unable to locate the children that traveled to Chicago with Atherton and her husband Gates who stayed in Arizona with her father told the Tampa Bay Times that she never heard of the trunk lady and that she had no idea how her mother made it to St. Petersburg it was so shocking she said we had no idea none whatsoever police are now actively investigating the murder of Atherton and the disappearance of two of her children so far they've been unable to identify Atherton's killer or how she even made it to Florida in the first place the authorities are now hoping that more witnesses or family members can help shed further light on this baffling case it was Halloween 1936 a crowd of 300 people gathered at the Hollywood Knickerbocker hotel they'd come to see a ghost legendary illusionist Harry Houdini had died on Halloween 10 years earlier and his widow Bess commissioned the séance hoping that her husband would reach out from the grave this séance was an unlikely exclamation point to the legacy of a man who built a curious reputation in his final years as the world's greatest unmasker of mediums and skeptic of the spirit world Harry Houdini wasn't always opposed to mediums and he always wasn't Harry Houdini he was born Eric Weiss in Budapest in 1874 four years later his family immigrated to the United States where his father worked as a rabbi in Wisconsin Weiss wanted to be a magician after reading a biography of magician Robert Houdin who even gave himself a new name excuse me after reading a biography about Robert Houdin he gave himself a new name Harry Houdini soon enough Houdini became a famous escapologist in his signature act he escaped handcuffs in high stakes situations such as being suspended over New York City submerged under water or buried in a coffin thousands jostled for a glimpse of the great Harry Houdini cheating death yet again Houdini's greatest partner was his wife Bess a vaudeville performer they married in 1894 and one of their early acts was a seance show in which they performed as mediums through that act he likely learned what a fake medium could accomplish and what an audience was willing to believe but he would later come to regret it as he grew ashamed of playing with people's grief as an illusionist Harry Houdini believed every trick had an explanation and his experience in show business taught him that most mediums especially those with props were only tricksters nonetheless he flirted with the idea that there could be unseen mystical forces in the world after his death after his father's death that is in 1892 he accompanied his mother to mediums though she fervently hoped that they would contact her late husband they never did disappointed Houdini was unimpressed with them all in 1913 Houdini experienced the worst pain of his life when his mother died he would later write I too would have parted gladly with a large share of my earthly possessions for the solace of one word from my loved departed alas he never found the solace he sought and mourned her the rest of his life soon after Houdini plunged into grief the world plunged into war by the time world war one ended in 1918 Houdini's friends had turned to spiritualism a religion that believes spirits are accessible as a balm for a mass loss Houdini's friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creator of Sherlock Holmes was one of them spiritualism comforted him after the death of his son Kingsley who died just weeks before the war's end though fascinated with spiritualism Houdini did not share his friends faith even so Doyle convinced Houdini to sit for mediums but these sessions only further convinced the illusionist that they had no extra extraordinary gifts and so Houdini found a new line of work exposing fraudulent mediums after all Harry Houdini knew every trick in the book as a professional magician he could detect sleights of hand that others would have missed Houdini began to unmask mediums who deployed trickery one after the other in 1923 he demonstrated that George Valentine used electric wiring to give the illusion that a trumpet floated during seances another medium, Nino Pacarano failed to produce any of the strange phenomena that he'd been known for after Houdini bound him before sitting he even targeted spirit photographers like Alexander Martin whose pictures supposedly depicted ghosts that the naked eye could not see Houdini sat for a photograph and was skeptical when Martin's picture included a surprise cameo Theodore Roosevelt who had died four years earlier the photograph Houdini pointed out was likely nothing more than a double exposure in 1922 Scientific American drew down the gauntlet any medium demonstrating paranormal abilities under rigorous examination could win a $2,500 prize Among the mediums buying for the prize in 1924 was Boston socialite Mina Crandon Crandon claimed to channel the spirit of her deceased brother Walter whose crass and aggressive demeanor contrasted with charming Crandons tables seemed to levitate during her seances and a bell in a box rang even when no one touched it Her apparent abilities won admirers including researchers who believed it was the real deal Houdini remained skeptical when he participated in a sitting as part of the Scientific American examination Houdini claimed to have cracked the mystery of Crandon's ringing bell she simply rang it with her feet, he said after he felt them brush against his legs when all was said and done Houdini found plenty of evidence for tricks and none for ghostly abilities Scientific American ultimately agreed leaving Crandon fully handed Houdini's crusade against fraudulent mediumship earned him many enemies including his one-time friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mediums and their associates also took to the press to condemn Houdini some even predicted his death True the master escapist could not escape death yet Harry Houdini did not die from a magical curse instead a burst appendix killed him on October 31st 1926 as Bess grieved she hoped to witness her husband's final trick contact from beyond the grave before Houdini's death they had settled on a final test for mediums by choosing a secret code that a medium would need to say to be proven legitimate it translated to Roosevelt believe referencing a song from their youth for 10 years Bess Houdini visited mediums hoping that one of them would deliver the code psychic Arthur Ford cracked it in 1929 but probably not through paranormal means he likely discovered the phrase in a Houdini biography and so on Halloween night in 1936 Bess hosted what would be the last seance fitting it had the air of a spectacle complete with invitations, music recording to capture the event but after an hour of calling upon the ghost of the illusionist there was only silence Harry Houdini had missed his final cue coming up in the 19th century a mysterious illness struck rural New England those affected had hacking coughs a wasting fever and weight loss the disease was known as consumption because of the way it literally consumed people from the inside out gradually making them weaker paler and more lifeless until they died today we know it as tuberculosis an infectious disease caused by a bacteria that generally attacks the lungs but back then the prime suspect was vampires but first on October 31st 1977 19 month old Neema Louise Carter was abducted from her home in Lawton, Oklahoma but her parents didn't realize she was missing until the following morning a month passed before Neema's body was discovered in an abandoned home where it had been placed in a refrigerator although no one has ever been officially charged with Neema's murder strange events in the Carter home as well as another child murder in the town led to endless speculation the horrific Halloween murder remains a hotly debated case over 40 years later that story is up next and after the break I'll share that exclusive video clip from the new animated kids show Ping and Roar it's coming to YouTube in the next few days and I get to play the part of a dinosaur that's gonna be a lot of fun I'll share that with you coming up you shut yourself in the lights are out and you're 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 it is the dark and lonely road you drive you're tired and falling asleep behind the wheel the windows are down the cool air blowing through your hair as you crank up the stereo AC DC blurs on the radio screaming out the chorus then a set of headlights emerges from the darkness and your night has become a nightmare welcome to Last Exit an anthology of 17 horrific tales where life on the road can sometimes take a dark and unexpected turn Last Exit by Jason R. Davis narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar you're a free sample page at WeirdDarkness.com let me know that you heard your name before the end of the live stream otherwise you don't win your prize your prize is a live a live scream prize pack Weird Darkness prize pack 3 Weird Darkness t-shirts and 2 Weird Darkness copy mugs and my next name is Jessica Goodman Jessica Goodman you have until the end of tonight's live scream to get Timmy and let me know that you heard your name Jessica Goodman ok also we had another caption come in for our caption contest whoever wins the caption contest wins the same prize pack 3 t-shirts and 2 copy mugs Jeffrey sent in something saying I just shouldn't I just should have just made pie and let's see here we got a couple more in here Ross came in with snowman snowman we don't need no stinking snowman Mark says I love Halloween but the world I'm sorry we already got that one I just want to make sure we're getting all of them here ok so that's the last one alright so that's what that's what we've got so far if you've got a caption for that though just go to WeirdDarkness.com slash live and you can leave the caption under the video there's an actual form there that you can fill out and be sure to fill it out entirely because if you win I want to be able to get the right stuff to you for your prize pack I want to know your t-shirt size and everything else so there's your caption come up with something fun unique and maybe you'll win the prize pack the 3 t-shirts and the 2 copy mugs ok let's see here we got those let's check a few comments before we move on um uh Alexia says hey I wore your t-shirt for a costume party I was a serial killer it was Lucky Charm cute alright um you guys are just talking mostly to yourselves uh Juan Ali Romero says thanks for making this happen this year Darren uh you're very welcome I enjoy actually enjoy doing this I'd like to do it more often I just don't have the time to put it all together uh let's see here again if you want if you want me to answer a specific question be to put be sure to put Darren in capital letters and then your questions so that way it's easier for me to see here and all the comments because there are a lot of comments pouring in between all of these uh let's see I just want to make sure I haven't missed any actual questions uh looks like we're doing alright okay so I promised you that I would share something with you it's this is the I think this is the world premiere of seeing this character of mine I have been asked by a company to be the voice of a cartoon character and this is not just a short film or one-time thing this is going to be an ongoing series and they're going to launch on YouTube in the next few days I just finished signing the contract earlier today in order to officialize everything they didn't want to move forward until they did that and uh so while I had them on the line I said would you mind if I maybe just share just a little clip with my viewers just to show them what this is all about because I'd really like for them to follow on Instagram and get the details and then when it comes on YouTube I'll tell everybody about it as well so here is here's the clip and yes this is my voice Forest Hill a little early for Dino Metal I guess and there you go I've had a lot of fun with that character the character's name is Tremble Tremble McGruff and I we've done several episodes already and I just can't wait to share the whole episodes with you but that particular scene was just so much fun they just said just have fun playing air guitar and I said okay so I just came up with something and then they went out and then they found a guitar player I don't know if they went to like Fiverr or maybe one of the people who work for them actually does play the guitar but they found a guitar player to play along with what I what I did vocally it wasn't the other way around they matched me rather than me matching them great job they did a wonderful job in that and she's just such a fun fun character to play and again they're on Instagram at magical underscore moms magical underscore moms on Instagram I have that link at weirddarkness.com slash live on the page that we're broadcasting to tonight as well in case you in case you missed that but be sure to follow them on Instagram so that way you'll get the notice when the show actually comes out obviously it's not weird darkness related at all it's just for the little ones but it's just so so much fun to do all right moving on so Ross and George Carter could hear their 19 month old daughter Neema Louise crying in her bedroom after they put her to bed on Halloween night 1977 since they subscribed to the cry it out parenting method however they didn't check in on her the following morning Rose asked George if he had seen Neema after finding the child's crib empty as they searched the house together the couple quickly realized their daughter was gone the nursery window was locked as was the front door to the house George later speculated that someone had been hiding in Neema's room that night and he spent decades questioning his and Rose's decision to let Neema cry herself to sleep what if we'd gotten up to check her that night what if we brought her in to sleep with us George wondered in a 2007 interview after Neema's subduction police searched the lot in Oklahoma area for any sign of her they also closely investigated Neema's parents of course George and Rose Carter but they found no evidence linking them to their daughter's disappearance the day before Thanksgiving a Fort Sills soldier investigated an abandoned house where a group of children claimed a child's body had fallen out of an old refrigerator the soldier later found Neema's body in the home an autopsy determined that Neema suffocated in the fridge while still alive on April 8th 1976 a lot in babysitter named Jackie Rubidow reportedly lured twin sisters Mary Elizabeth Carpacher and Augustine Tina Jackwin Carpacher out of their home 16 year old Rubidow took the girls who were both three and a half years old to an abandoned house and locked them in an old refrigerator after being trapped for two days Mary perished from suffocation but Tina managed to find enough air to survive until a group of children playing near the home heard her cries for help when questioned about the incident the surviving twin indicated that Rubidow was responsible even with Tina's witness statement Rubidow did not stand trial until three years later despite Tina Carpacher telling police that Jackie Rubidow had kidnapped her and her sister the child's young age and a lack of physical evidence prevented any charges from being brought against the teen girl Rubidow was described as quiet and shy and she eventually began babysitting for other families around this time Rose and George Carter began hiring Rubidow to babysit Nima both of the carters worked full time and enjoyed going out on the weekend according to George Carter Nima was found was fond of Rubidow and would greet her with a hug when she came to babysit two months before Nima was abducted on Halloween the carters experienced two other strange occurrences at their home first the family dog was poisoned by an unknown person and only a few days after the poisoning the family's home was vandalized again there were no suspects but George Carter stated that he felt the crimes were committed by someone close to his family and likely by the same person who killed Nima although police initially suspected Rose and George Carter in their daughter's death the couple passed lie detector tests and were ruled out as suspects as the investigation continued police then questioned Jackie Rubidow along with another neighbor babysitter when asked about her whereabouts on Halloween Rubidow reportedly told authorities that she'd been playing bingo though Rubidow said nothing and despite her potential guilt investigators noted odd behavior later stating she never looked you in the eyes her eyes were always somewhere else or looking at the ground according to retired police detective Cecil Davidson Jackie Rubidow was the most likely suspect in Nima's death however despite her connection to the Carpacher twins abduction and Mary Carpacher's subsequent death the district attorney never charged the Carpacher's death Davidson acknowledged the detectives weren't able to find any conclusive physical evidence that pointed to Rubidow or anyone else but circumstantial evidence regarding Carter's case was later used when Rubidow was tried for the murder of Mary Carpacher one of the Carpacher's neighbors Thelma McCreg eventually testified that she witnessed Jackie Rubidow dragging the twins from their home and that both girls were trying to get away from Rubidow however McCreg didn't report the incident to police later claiming that I guess like other people I didn't want to get involved the numerous similarities between Nima Louise Carter's abduction and the Carpacher twins abduction paint a compelling picture but are largely circumstantial evidence to begin with Jackie Rubidow babysat for all three children she was also spotted near both of the crime scenes before the girls disappeared not only that Rubidow had easy access to both homes as the family's babysitter furthermore all three children were found in the refrigerators of abandoned homes some have also noted that all three children were Native American while not related to the actual crimes it is a strange coincidence that children were the ones to find both Nima and the Carpacher twins although Jack Rubidow was never officially charged excuse me Jackie Rubidow was never officially charged with Nima Louise Carter's death she was charged with first degree murder in 1979 for the death of Mary Carpacher the surviving twin Tina took the stand as a prosecution's key witness during two trials the first occurring when she was just 10 years old the first attempt to put Rubidow behind bars ended with a mistrial in 1985 Rubidow was found guilty during the second trial and the judge sentenced her to life in prison the former babysitter attempted several appeals but she perished in prison from cirrhosis of the liver on August 26th 2005 despite all the speculation surrounding Rubidow's possible involvement in Nima's death George Carter was never convinced that she murdered his daughter the Jackie Rubidow we knew no it just doesn't add up I never sensed that about Rubidow in contrast Nima's grandmother Audrey Carter characterized Rubidow as just weird and believed the babysitter was capable of committing the crime in a 2019 interview George Carter said that he wished he could speak with Rubidow who had died 14 years prior I'd like to talk to Jackie now Carter told a reporter if I did I'd ask her if she killed Nima I'd hope she'd tell me the truth Carter also stated that he had forgiven Nima's killer in order to move on with his life he doesn't take much imagination to understand why bacterial disease came to be associated with vampires although tuberculosis or consumption has been around since at least 5000 BC it was poorly understood because it can look really different from person to person in some people the disease remains latent for years before they fall sick in others tuberculosis hits them hard and fast and they die soon after symptoms of tuberculosis include wasting night sweats and fatigue and a persistent cough as the disease progresses the lungs aren't able to support the oxygen supply their muscles atrophy eventually they start coughing up blood and it was the blood that helped solidify the diagnosis and the gradual wasting away as if something or someone was sucking the life force out of the person consumption appeared to run in families because of how easily and rapidly the disease spread if one member became ill or passed away the others did too people believed that one of the dead was a vampire who was preying upon the surviving family members exhumations were frequently necessary to halt the vampire's predations the bodies of the dead were dug up and examined for tell tale signs of amperism such as lack of decomposition or the presence of fresh blood in the heart and other organs after the culprit was identified a number of different ways were proposed to stop the attacks the most benign of these was simply to turn the body over in its grave in other cases families would burn fresh organs and re-bury the body sometimes the body would be decapitated others would torch the heart of the alleged vampire and the affected family members would then inhale the smoke or consume the ashes in a further attempt to cure the consumption one of the earliest known cases of New England vampirism was that of Rachel Harris who died of tuberculosis in 1790 a year after her death Dr. Whitower, Captain Isaac Burton married her stepsister, Hulda soon after, Hulda began to exhibit symptoms identical to Rachel's and family and friends concluded that Rachel was to blame in February 1793 Rachel's body was exhumed and her liver, heart and lungs were taken out and burned on a black smith's forge her exhumation was attended by more than 500 people some versions of the story say that some of the organs were saved to prepare medicine for Hulda regardless Hulda died in September of that year in another early case that occurred in 1796 Cumberland resident Stephen Staples obtained permission from the town council to exhume the body of his 23-year-old daughter Abigail she had died of consumption shortly after Abigail's death her sister, Lavenia had started showing the familiar symptoms of consumption Lavenia told in her dreams of her dead sister who would come into the room and sit heavily on her chest and draw out her breath there's no record of what came of the exhumation or whether Lavenia was cured Michael Bell, a Rhode Island folklorist who had been studying New England vampire exhumations has documented at least 80 cases of exhumations reaching as far back as the late 1700s and as far west as Minnesota the majority of the exhumations occurred in Rhode Island one remarkable case that Bell has discovered is that of Reverend Justice Forward and his daughter, Mercy Reverend Forward, who had five daughters of which he had already lost three to consumption his remaining two daughters including Mercy were fighting the illness and one day while traveling to another town with her father Mercy began the hemorrhage at first Forward was reluctant to open the graves of his deceased family members but allowed himself to be persuaded if it could save the lives of his living daughters Forward described in a letter how the ritual went this morning opened the grave of my daughter who had died the last of my three daughters almost six years ago on opening the body the lungs were not dissolved but had blood in them though not fresh but clotted the lungs did not appear as we would suppose they would in a body just dead but far nearer state of soundness than could be expected the liver I'm told was as sound as the lungs we put the lungs and liver in a separate box and buried it in the same grave ten inches or a foot above the coffin the act did not save Mercy but Forward's other children seemed to recover one of the best documented cases of suspected vampirism in New England was that of Mercy Brown in December 1883 Mary Eliza Brown the mother of Mercy Brown and the wife of George Brown died of consumption seven months later her eldest daughter Mary Olive followed her mother to the grave within a few years the son Edwin Brown also became ill Mercy Lena Brown eventually became ill as well and died in 1892 some of the neighbors who were fearful of their own health approached George Brown and persuaded him to exhume the corpses of the three dead women perhaps one of the three brown women wasn't dead after all and instead secretly feasting on the living tissue and blood of Edwin on the morning of March 17, 1892 a party of men dug up the bodies in the presence of a family doctor after nearly a decade Mary Brown's and Mary Olive's remains had completely decomposed but Mercy Brown's body which had been dead for only a few months was in a fairly well preserved state thanks to the winter the doctor cut her open and found organs intact there was even blood in her heart Mercy Brown was clearly a vampire and the agent of young Edwin's condition as the old time remedy instructed Mercy Brown's heart and liver were cut out and burnt on a rock and the ashes were mixed with water and began to drink unfortunately the cure didn't work Edwin passed away two months later 10 years after Mercy Brown's exhumation German microbiologist Robert Cook discovered that the cause of tuberculosis was not vampires but a bacteria Cook, who was a strong proponent of the germ theory proved that specific germs caused specific disease such as anthrax, cholera and tuberculosis and are transmitted from one body to another by the turn of the 20th century public health measures around sanitation improved that helped contain the spread of the disease but an immediate cure didn't happen until 1946 with the development of antibiotic Streptomyocin even after the introduction of antibiotics some remote communities continued to exhume their dead the last vampire exhumation that Michael Bell found took place in the mountains of Pennsylvania in 1949 coming up next whatever the cause of their existence vampires have been with us for a very very very long time long before author Bram Stoker introduced readers to Dracula in 1897 terrifying reports of real vampires struck fear in the hearts of people around the world we'll look at some real very real cases of very real vampires when the Weird Darkness live scream returns What goes on in the mind of a murderous killer? What is it about some people that lead them to commit murder? Is there something that is different? Or is it simply a switch that gets turned on? Murderous minds stories of real vampires who have been killed and killed and killed and killed Murderous minds stories of real life murderers that escaped the headlines offers a look into the lives of individuals who didn't just become killers but who managed to avoid the media storm that usually accompanies them Inside you will hear about people like Sante Kheims a 65 year old mother who was driven by greed and who committed multiple murders James Ackerman the MBA graduate who murdered three people in order to continue getting lap dances from a stripper that he became infatuated with Larry Jean Ashbrook who became deluded into thinking that strangers were accusing him of murder when he could not take it anymore he carried out a massacre at the Wedgewood Baptist Church and more Each story harbors its own narrative and reasoning for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes along with the background to the case their lives and the aftermath of their actions sometimes the truth is more appalling than anything fiction can provide and murderous minds proves it once again Murderous minds volume one stories of real life murderers that escaped the headlines in Becker narrated by Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar hear a free sample or purchase the title on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com Welcome back weirdos you still have time if you'd like to give to our overcoming the darkness fundraiser if you've not done so already please or if you'd like to do it again if you want to give me a birthday gift because tomorrow is my birthday maybe you can give in my name if you'd like to before we raise the more people we can help who struggle with depression anxiety thoughts of suicide and self harm so please click the donate button at WeirdDarkness.com or visit the hope in the darkness page that's WeirdDarkness.com slash hope and you can learn more about the organizations that we are supporting with the fundraiser and also find a lot of the resources that we talk about things that can help you with depression or thoughts of self harm, suicide but there's a lot of other things in there that you can find help for as well it's WeirdDarkness.com slash hope I really do hope that somebody someone else tonight might jump in and make another donation we're currently at $5,390 and I'll try to keep a running total on that as the evening progresses and it ends at midnight tonight so if you are planning on giving don't wait anymore go ahead and just give now otherwise you might forget and then at midnight when I cut things off it'll be too late and I won't be able to turn it back on so I would appreciate you giving if you plan on doing it let's take a look at some of the comments that came in let's see here we got Kimberly saying I love the got to take care of something drawing me on the toilet yeah I had fun that that was a lot of fun putting together let's see here if there's anything else in here Kevin says love the dino medal thank you appreciate it that was I think that was my idea I think they wanted me to do something but I I'm the one that coined dino medal I might be wrong on that but I think that was that was my idea the tune was definitely mine let's see here Debbie go to oh I'm sorry Debbie must have had a question and they were replying so Don says hi Darren hello Don Darren do you also do Krampus I know it's too early for Krampus it's just big for my mom's neighborhood European Latin stores are very familiar I do I play the character or do I just talk about the character Krampus ends up in a lot of the Christmas stuff that I do I have a lot of Christmas specials that I come out with the 12 days leading into Christmas I've got the 12 nightmares of Christmas I've got holiday horrors and I also have spooky Santa which is the reason that you see the beard trying to grow it out a little bit just in case I decide to do something a spooky Santa on the on video but yeah so there's a lot of Christmas specials that I repost every year as well as add to as I come as I come across four stories and Krampus ends up in there a lot I don't specifically do a Krampus day or anything if that's what you're asking but he ends up in there quite a bit let's see here Rebecca says Darren's really awesome your voice is going to be on a cartoon look out for it you have an awesome voice face blue smile thank you Rebecca I appreciate it being a character voice actor is actually something that I've always wanted to do I've been doing voice overs themselves for like 90 seems like 90 years 30 some years I started in 1990 getting into radio and that's kind of what leads most people into voice overs and then we did our own version of a Christmas Carol at the radio station and that's when I really stepped into voice acting I realized I could play another character it was one and so yeah it's just something I've always wanted to do I've done a lot of audio theater online I've played Green Lantern in the past I've played a werewolf in the past I've played Frankensteins monster the voice of Frankensteins monster just played a janitor once I played a doctor on the Star Trek audio theater show once but that's all just fun fan fiction stuff you know that kind of stuff this one King and roar when I'm playing tremble the dinosaur is a legit thing and I'm really excited about this and one of the things that I talked to them about I said you know I don't really care if I get paid a lot for this I just want credit for it because I'd like to have other people know that I'm a capable of this and I'll want to call and say hey would you like to be like to at least if nothing else at least audition for our projects that's what I really like so we'll see how that goes Ross says rock and roll dinosaur I can relate yeah I hadn't really put that together but yeah I guess the older I get the more of a dinosaur I'm going to be with the with the music that I like Debbie wants to know how to sign up for the newsletter Debbie it's very easy if you go to weirddarkness.com slash newsletter that'll take you right there to where to sign up for it it's weirddarkness.com slash newsletter if you just go to the website weirddarkness.com though there is a place there you can just click on newsletter as well so either way that'll work for you let's see here looking up congratulations Darren oh you're congratulating me for the cartoon thank you I appreciate that I think I think that's everybody now take it back we got a couple more here again if you put like what Stephen did here if you put Darren in caps it's a lot easier for me to see and I could if it's especially if you have a question specifically for me you should do a live spooky Santa with your black and white Santa suit that's what I was thinking if I if I can do it so you know that I have the black and white Santa suit yes so yeah that's why I'm growing up the beard just in case I want to do that I'm not really sure I almost cut the beard today for the live screen I came this close because it's dry it's starting to drive me crazy it's I it's it's better now I trimmed it a little bit earlier today it was getting a little bit shaggy and especially on the sides it was kind of getting kind of crazy so I changed it up but yeah I would like to do spooky Santa in the voice of spooky Santa on video just once something for the kids I think it'd be a lot of fun Dwayne says he likes the Christmas episodes almost as much as the Halloween episodes thank you I appreciate that although they're all repeats it's like it's like my time a year to finally take a break and so they're all repeat episodes but you don't like like when you're watching your Christmas episodes on television like the Rudolph or it's a wonderful life or Miracle on 34th Street or whatever you know that's something that you've watched numerous times but you don't care you want to watch it again because you enjoyed it I hope my specials my Christmas specials are the same way that people don't mind hearing them again and again and again let's see here Sonia says thanks for the weird stories telling you have the best voice lots of love from Belgium you're in Belgium amazing it's amazing how how far people are that listen you're on okay you're on YouTube alright so yeah so many people on YouTube listen to me in different countries so I can understand like Canada here something like that maybe even England but that's it that's pretty cool let's see here if there's anything else that I need to need to get to I don't think so I think we're good Oh Kimberly says I love Christmas Carol it's both of my favorite holidays and one yeah it does have sort of the Halloween Halloween aspect to it too doesn't it if you are interested that's one of the things that I do during Christmas I tell a Christmas Carol I narrate the entire book but you don't have to wait until then on the audio books page at WeirdDarkness.com you can actually listen to my version of a Christmas Carol it's there right now and I do create different voices for each character really hard to do that when it's mostly male characters and they all have English accents but I did my best so I think that covers it for most of the I think that covers it for most of the comments that have come in so we'll move in back to the stories which is the whole reason you're here anyway of all the ghouls lurking behind dark corners vampires may be the most terrifying quick fanged and with an insatiable thirst for blood they have haunted and delighted humans for centuries so are there examples of real vampires in history the answer to that question is kind of complicated but it's not really an outright no in Europe and the United States some people were dubbed vampires after they died as their fellow townspeople believed that they continue to spread pestilence from the grave as we were talking about earlier they were dug up marked as undead burned to ashes meanwhile there have been plenty of bloodthirsty rulers and even more vicious serial killers who could be described as vampiristic velace and prince glad the impealer thought to be the inspiration for Dracula he allegedly dipped his bread in human blood German serial killer Fritz Harman killed many of his victims with a love bite straight through their windpipe today there are even thousands of people who readily identify as vampires yes they drink human blood so Richard Chase a blood obsessed serial killer who murdered at least 6 people in the 1970s certainly qualifies as a real life vampire known in fact as the Dracula killer Chase displayed sociopathic tendencies from a young age he set small fires and was cruel towards animals as he grew older he also began to suffer from delusions that his heart had stopped and that he was a walking corpse chase developed an obsession with blood and was institutionalized after attempting to inject himself with rabbit blood though he was briefly held in a psychiatric facility where fellow patients allegedly observed chase drinking the blood of birds that he caught and killed chase was released in 1976 surely thereafter he turned his attention to humans on December 29, 1977 chase killed his first known victim Ambrose Griffin in Sacramento, California chase shot Griffin as he helped his wife unload groceries from their car unless then a month later, June 23, 1978 he shot Teresa Wallin after entering her home through an unlocked door he then stabbed her and drank her blood allegedly using a yogurt container as a cup four days after that chase killed four people at once after entering another home through an unlocked door Evelyn Miriff her six year old son Jason her 22 year old nephew David Ferrara and their friend Daniel Meredith History.com reports that chase removed Miriff's organs filled them with blood and took them home with him though police were able to track chase down quite quickly there were not even more horrors at his apartment human blood was everywhere in his sink on his utensils even his blender it appeared that this real life vampire had been drinking blood for quite some time he was found guilty of first degree murder and sent to prison where he died by suicide on December 26, 1980 our modern day conception of vampires was largely sculpted of course by Bram Stoker who had a novel Dracula Dracula, of course is about a fearsome vampire who hunts human victims and drinks their blood and Stoker drew some inspiration from a real vampire the violent Balashian ruler Vlad Dracula born between 1428 and 1431 Vlad spent the first part of his life as a hostage with his younger brother Rado in the Ottoman Empire there he was possibly tortured and might have witnessed the impalement of the Ottoman's foes which is a technique that he would later infamously use on his own enemies after Vlad's father and older brother were overthrown in a coup, Vlad went home to Valacia he was able to rest power back from his father's enemies but Vlad never forgot what they had done to his family before long he set out to establish dominance in the most violent way imaginable Vlad hosted the banquet and invited those who had opposed him he never intended to listen to their concerns though those who continued to resist him were rounded up and bloodily impaled on spikes and thus Vlad Dracula became known as Vlad the Impaler from there Vlad the Impaler's bloody reputation only grew in a 1462 letter to an ally describing his campaigns against the Ottoman Empire Vlad boasted of killing peasants men and women old and young we killed 23,884 Turks by the time he was imprisoned by the Hungarians Vlad had killed an estimated 80,000 people tens of thousands of whom were impaled Vlad had also shown a fondness for human blood as evidenced by claims that he dipped his bread in blood before he ate it though this particular assertion has never been verified many of Vlad's vicious deeds have been and they supposedly inspired Stoker as he prepared to write his iconic vampire novel in the early 18th century Arnold Paoli or excuse me Arnold Paol had the bad luck of falling off a hay wagon and breaking his neck then after he was buried he had even worse luck when people in his Serbian village were convinced he was a vampire as National Geographic reports the modern vampire myth arguably began with the story of Paol's exonation which spread across Europe and became a subject of interest to philosophers like Voltaire, Denis Deterot and Jean Jacques Rousseau filled with bloody gory details it triggered a superstition about vampires that endures to the modern day in some ways Paol's story bears a remarkable resemblance to Percy Brown's after he died dozens of other people in his village also died which made the living suspicious that Paol was undead and sucking their blood Austrian authorities sent a military doctor named Johann's Fluckinger to investigate the claims and he watched as the villagers dug up Paol's body 40 days after his death and penned a shocking report to his superiors in 1732 describing what he saw quote they found that fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears that the shirt the covering and the coffin were completely bloody that the old nails on his hands and feet along with the skin had fallen off and that new ones had grown unquote even more shockingly Fluckinger reported that Paol's corpse groaned and bled profusely when the villagers drove a stake through its heart they saw from this that he was a vampire the doctor wrote to those who knew him Fritz Harman seemed harmless if a little bit odd the Harman was in fact a fearful killer who targeted young boys and men he killed at least 24 victims between 1918 and 1924 in Hanover Germany known as the vampire of Hanover because he often bit his victims to the windpipe in what Harman called a love bite this real vampire hunted for young men at Hanover's train stations their teenage runaways fleeing post-war hardships were easy to lure back to his apartment where Harman promised to give them a good meal then after feeding his victims Harman would attack he'd strangle them or bite through their windpipe sexually molest their bodies and dismember them Harman dumped many of their corpses into the nearby lean river but he also ground up their remains into meat that he sold as pork in May 1924 children playing along the riverbank found human skulls and bones which led to the discovery of more than a dozen sets of human remains suspicion quickly fell on Harman who had been observed attacking a young boy in the train station investigators went to his apartment and found blood on the walls and floors and clothing belonging to his victims after he was arrested Harman readily confessed he eventually claimed that he had killed upwards of 70 young boys or men but he was found guilty of 24 murders he was sentenced to die by a guillotine in 1925 at Hanover prison his last words were quite vampiric quote I repent but I do not fear death like Arnold pale this next real vampire died in Serbia in the 18th century man like pale Peter Plagazovitz was exhumed by his fellow villagers out of fear that he was an undead bloodsucker in the weeks after Plagazovitz sorry in the weeks after Plagazovitz died a number of his fellow villagers also perished after suffering from a mysterious 24 hour illness the dead were both young and old and many made a terrifying claim on their deathbeds they said that Plagazovitz had come to them in their sleep and strangled them even Plagazovitz's wife claimed that her husband had visited her in her sleep though she said that he had just wanted a pair of shoes the villagers decided to exhume Plagazovitz's body and search him for telltale signs of vampirism according to the book vampires, real and death, folklore and reality by Paul Barber they asked the perished priest and an imperial provisor to be present during the exhumation reluctantly the provisor agreed and recorded what he witnessed first of all I did not detect the slightest odor that is otherwise characteristic of the dead the provisor wrote the body except for the nose which was somewhat fallen away was completely fresh blood in his mouth which according to the common observation he had sucked from the people killed by him as in Payol's exhumation the townspeople quickly sharpened a steak which they plunged into Plagazovitz's chest to the provisor's shock fresh blood flowed from his ears and mouth other wild things also happened which the provisor declined to detail writing I passed them with one of high respect his body was then burned to ashes unlike in the case of Mercy Brown however it doesn't seem that anyone consumed them Elizabeth Bathory was not a vampire in the traditional sense she was alive while she took her victims for one and though she did horrible things to them she did not suck their blood but Bathory did allegedly have vampiric tendencies like bathing in their blood in order to maintain her youth indeed the so called blood countess seemed to have an obsession with violence between 1590 and 1610 she allegedly tortured hundreds of young women and girls from her lair in Kastis castle in present day Slovakia legend states that she started with servant girls then targeted the daughters of the gentry and finally resorted to kidnapping local girls her victims were purportedly subjected to terrible torture Bathory was rumored to burn and freeze them beat them and mutilate them with scissors she allegedly covered them with honey and let bugs feast on their flesh sewed their lips shut and stuck needles under their finger nails Georgie Thurzo an official who investigated the claims against Bathory interviewed 300 witnesses who told him horrifying stories some claimed that she was a vampire while others said she'd had sex with the devil Thurzo eventually charged Bathory with the deaths of 80 girls but some believe she had as many as 650 victims for these crimes Bathory was put under house arrest until her death in 1614 however not everyone believes the incredible claims against her it's true that King Matthias II sent Thurzo to investigate owed Bathory a great debt it could be that the charges against her were less of a vampire hunt and more of a witch hunt and that the king merely wanted to remove Bathory from power to avoid paying the significant sums of money he owed those stories of real vampires like Arnold Pale and Peter Plagozhevitz were well documented by officials who witnessed their exhumations many accused vampires were dealt with by villagers without the authorities looking over their shoulders to understand the breadth of this you only have to look at recent archeological discoveries of vampires in Poland while excavating a site near Pien for example archeologists uncovered a shocking site a female skeleton with a sickle laid across her throat and a padlock on her toe as experts explained this was a preventive measure to keep the vampire from rising from the dead the sickle was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up most likely the head would have been cut off or injured Nicholas Copernicus University professor Darius Polinsky explained to the Washington Post of this hair-raising find the more they looked the more vampire graves the archeologists found near Pien most recently they uncovered the grave of a child with a padlock on its ankle the child had been buried face down which was likely another preventive measure to keep the vampire from rising from the dead a similar discovery was also made in Lusina, Poland where archeologists found a graveyard full of vampires many had been dug up and reburied and some were decapitated many of the dead had coins in their mouths and others had bricks laid near their arms and legs in Polish lore some of the graves are like zombies corpses that can rise from the dead thus measures like laying a sickle across a grave or putting bricks on a skeleton were meant to keep them buried securely in the ground while it's not all that shocking that the past is full of stories of vampires it might surprise you that at least 5,000 people identify as vampires in the United States at least as late as 2015 these people are not undead or particularly violent but they do have vampiristic tendencies according to today the television show some have blood fetishes and participate in various blood related activities others merely act like vampires avoiding sun exposure and drinking donated human blood that said, not all self-proclaimed vampires drink blood those who do are known within the vampire community as blood vampires or sanguinarians but there are also psychic and energy vampires who feed not on blood but on the life energy of others we are people you pass on the street and likely socialize with on a daily basis Murdochus, the founding member of Atlanta's vampire alliance told the Guardian magazine we often keep this aspect of our life secret for fear will be misunderstood and to safeguard against reprisals society deems taboo Murdochus an antique dealer by day added that he prefers to keep his vampire identity private I'm more concerned about family life the economy finding a steady donor and hoping the media doesn't attribute the latest murder to non-existent vampire cults that I am worried about seeking social justice and acceptance for my identity, he explained as such there's actually an incredible range of real vampires throughout history and even up to today the vampires like Dracula are of course fictional there are Serbian peasants, blood thirsty rulers violent serial killers and others who might fit our definition of a real vampire and since there are thousands of self identifying vampires in the United States today you might even know one without knowing it coming up from real vampires the real witches the mass hysteria that gripped people during the numerous witch trials that took place in our history is still difficult to understand equally incomprehensible is some of the weird ways they tested witches one of the main sources for practicing witch hunters was a book titled Malleus Maleficarum which translates to Hammer of the Witches the book outlines numerous ways to identify and prosecute witches these witches were tested ranged from the bizarre to the cruel and included having their victims scratch them until they bled baking their victims urine into a cake and being asked to perfectly recite a prayer while these witch trial tests might sound absurd to us today for many men and women the outcomes of these tests would determine whether they lived or perished testing for witches, people accused of being witches and some possible reasons causes that ignited the start of Salem witch trials Up next commercial free recordings of the weekly radio show listen to chapters of audio books I narrate even before the publishers or authors hear them get video updates about the Weird Darkness podcast and future projects that I'm working on before anyone else and share your opinions on ideas to help me decide what to do in the Weird Darkness podcast in the future you get all of these benefits starting at only $5 per month join the darkness syndicate at weirddarkness.com slash syndicate that's weirddarkness.com slash syndicate when Salem Roanoke took a job near his family's new home as a hired hand in the Texas Hill Country he anticipated learning the ranchers trade but a series of strange events shocking murders and unholy revelations divert him down another path this terrifying trajectory puts him directly into the middle of a struggle between monsters, magic, and men armed and backed by a militia of ranchers Salem attempts to combat the creeping tide of evil that threatens to engulf his new home and destroy the people most important to him will Salem manage to save his home or have his actions condemn everyone he hopes to save The Witch Trials A Summer of Wolves and Season of the Witch by SR Roanoke available in paperback, Kindle, and audio book versions look for The Witch Trials by SR Roanoke on Amazon or find it on the audiobooks page at weirddarkness.com that's weirddarkness.com slash audiobooks welcome back to the live scream weirdos and I just checked we had another $50 come in thank you so much to you who gave we're now at $5,440 for our overcoming the darkness fundraiser if you've not done so already please give again tonight is the last night that you have an opportunity to click the donate button at weirddarkness.com every dollar you give is going to help somebody who struggles with depression or thoughts of suicide again that's weirddarkness.com slash hope you can go to the hope in the darkness page and find it there or just click the donate button at weirddarkness.com let's check the comments again real quick and see what's going on over there we got people talking about psychic vampires and Kimberly Turner said that she liked the snack drawing as well Eric says it's pretty great Halloween graphics with the live scream thank you I appreciate that spent a lot of time with those I didn't I mean I'm not a graphic artist I found a website to help me help me do all that but still putting them all together and getting it all done is very time consuming so thank you very much I'm glad that somebody appreciates that let's see here Jane says I'm truly enjoying tonight's live stream first time joining you know what nice Halloween is a big deal for my family thank you so much for all you do you're very welcome you actually you make it worth it excuse me I tickle on my throat that's why you saw me cough right before that break in fact let me take a sip here real quick I could not do what I do without people such as yourself Jane anybody that's listening and watching right now you have no idea how much it means to me I would never have expected that I would be doing this for a living I've been in radio like I said earlier you know since 1990 it's that's that's what I thought I would be doing the rest of my life is radio I'd be working at a radio station somewhere some on the air entertaining people or maybe in the production room doing audio production like creating commercials and stuff but working for radio somewhere and I'm still in radio and the fact that I do have the syndicated radio show which is which is great the weird darkness radio show that plays on weekends at on several stations and while while we're talking about it November 6th so week from yesterday Monday November 6th KGRADB.com or KGRA KGRARadio.com you can go either one starting then I'm going to be on their radio station five days a week in the mornings you can get more details on that actually I think I have I have more information on that on the events calendar for the launch date on that so you can find that at weirddarkness.com on the events calendar but yeah I thought I'd be doing radio you know the rest of my life or maybe voiceovers which would be nice I love doing that but I don't see myself ever giving this up because I really enjoy the connection that I have with you the audience and that's one of the reasons that I really like doing the live stream because I can actually connect with you here and talk to you like right here instead of reading the comments later on YouTube or seeing somebody comment on a post that I make on Facebook which is great I don't mind doing all that but I like the immediate that's one of the things that I kind of miss about radio is the immediate action the immediate interaction so thank you very much for the comment I appreciate that Randy wanted to know did it snow by me yes it did it snowed for a little while we were thinking that we were supposed to get a lot more snow than we did it didn't last long it didn't last long at all let's see here if there's any other questions that came in no I think we're good alright well then let's move on oh you know what we haven't talked about the the caption contest let's do that here real quick we do have a caption contest going on at weirddarkness.com slash live and that's the page you can actually watch what we're doing here I embedded a YouTube player there so you can watch if you want to there but if you scroll down under the video there is a form to fill out for the creepy caption contest you won't see the actual photo for the caption but you will see the form for you to fill out if you are chosen if I like your caption the best tonight it's purely up to me so it's purely subjective but if I like your comment the best then you'll win three weirddarkness t-shirts and two weirddarkness coffee mugs and the caption that you are looking to find a caption for is this, this is the picture that you want a caption and we did get a few more that came in Derek says snowman who this is pumpkin man let's see Jaina says this would be so much easier with snow yeah it would Jill says looks like Jack is getting ahead this year cute very cute, I love it if you got a caption for this again just go to weirddarkness.com slash live and you can give us your own caption and maybe you'll win and again if you do win you'll get this price back right here with three t-shirts and two weirddarkness coffee mugs that you guys throw into stuff like that let's talk about testing for a witch shall we? one way to identify a witch was to bake a cake with rye and the urine of a witch's victim and then feed the cake to a dog there are differing accounts on how witch cake was used to identify witches if the dog began to exhibit symptoms similar to that of the victim often that would indicate the witchcraft was at work and the dog would then identify the witch a ducking stool which is if you look at a ducking stool it looks more like a dunking stool but it was called a ducking stool it was a medieval torture device that was primarily used to punish and humiliate women the contraption resembled a seesaw with a chair fixed to one end and the device was placed along the edge of a river and the offender who would be strapped into the chair was repeatedly plunged into the cold river water like I said dunking stool but they called it a ducking stool witch hunters would use this device to coerce confessions from the accused the method was later simplified accusers just forewet the device and just toss suspected witches into the water to see if they drowned probably the ultimate example of a situation some accused witches had their hands and feet bound and then they were thrown into a body of water and it was believed if the person was a witch the water would reject them and spit them back out however if they were innocent then they would sink and would drown so it's like they say no situation you're dead either way this method was used to manipulate accused witches into their guilt the witches in question had a board laid on top of them and their accusers placed heavy rocks on the board until they either confessed or were literally crushed Giles Corey one of the few men who had been accused of witchcraft he met his end in this unfortunate manner some of the accused were tested by being scratched by their supposed victims it was believed that those cursed by a witch would experience relief if they scratched the person responsible for their affliction victims would scratch the witch in question until they drew blood and if their symptoms improved after doing that they knew they had found their witch accused witches were asked to recite the Lord's Prayer and to recite it perfectly this means perfect pronunciation no stuttering no twitching real witches were known to be unable to recite the prayer perfectly that is without skipping a word or stuttering even passing this test wasn't always sufficient to reach an acquittal George Burroughs was executed in 1692 in Salem Massachusetts even after passing the Lord's Prayer test I've been a church going guy for a long time we've been a Christian since 1989 still went to church I was born and raised Catholic the Lord's Prayer was there but even today if somebody were in a situation where my life depended on it I knew I'd die if I got it wrong I don't know if I'd say the Lord's Prayer perfectly with no twitching no stuttering, no shaking with perfect pronunciation I would probably be called a witch and killed some victims were afflicted with violent fits that caused them to shake to prove their innocence some witches were asked to touch their victims if the victims were brought out of their fit then the accused was declared a witch the reasoning behind this test was that only the person who put the spell on the victim could remove it this method is known to have been used exclusively in and over Massachusetts suspected witches were searched for a third nipple it was believed that this third nipple was used to feed one of the witch's helpers or their familiars witches were supposedly given this mark by Satan during their transformation in addition to being searched for a third nipple suspected witches were also examined for unusual markings during witch hunts moles, scars and birth marks were often believed to be the mark of the devil it was believed that anyone who made a deal with the devil would bear his mark it was believed that witches bore a special mark that identified them as a practitioner of witchcraft witch hunters would identify these marks and use a pin or a needle to prick at them if the suspected witch felt no pain he or she was declared a witch and some witch hunters would dull one end of their tools so that the accused would not experience any pain known as charging or incantations some of those on trial for witchcraft in the devil supplicating him to stop possessing an individual who might be in the middle of a fit or seizure of some sort in this test the witch really couldn't win if the fit stopped she was clearly in league with the devil and she should be treated accordingly if the fit kept going then she wasn't doing a good enough job summoning the devil another test required that a suspected witch would be weighed more than the stack of bibles if the accused weighed more than the bibles she was innocent however if she was lighter than the stack of bibles she was deemed a witch and punished accordingly evidence that Weight Watchers is of the devil this one's cruel and bizarre to the extent that it turns what was likely upon a mental illness into a tell-tale sign of a witch if you could observe a potential witch talking to herself muttering under her breath in some fashion odds are she was probably a witch doing incantations or something else evil so being ever vigilant for this manifestation of witchcraft was something any good citizen should have been ready and willing to do Sarah Good one of the women slain during the Salem witch trials was particularly famous for having a habit of talking to herself for some unfortunate women the only test they needed to pass for the public to declare them a witch was to be a bit older according to John Gall an English Puritan cleric during the height of the witch trials every old woman with a wrinkled face a furred brow a hairy lip, a gobbler tooth, a squint eye a squeaking voice or a scolding tongue a dog or cat by her side is not only suspected but pronounced for a witch spectral evidence where it refers to testimony provided by a witness states the accused person's spectral shape appeared to the witness in a dream this was an accepted form of accusation during the Salem witch trials too if a neighbor claimed a woman appeared to them in a dream with malicious intent that was enough to condemn her for witchcraft if you've looked into witch trials before you might learn the majority of these cases were pure hogwash mass hysteria, political motives hatred, they've all been used as reasons for an individual to be executed as a witch but in some rare cases people killed as witches really did confess proudly to their crimes and a few even committed acts so terrible people assumed that they had to be supernatural so keep in mind that a few of these following stories are a little graphic and climb aboard your broomsticks as we look at some various souls who were killed for their witchy tendencies after I take a sip of my drink here people accusing each other of witchcraft it's entirely a new concept around the year 415 BC I'm sorry, no, 415 AD there was a young woman by the name of Hippesia living in Alexandria, Egypt people thought that she was a bit unusual unusual in the sense that she wasn't really embracing the Christian religion and instead spent her time studying the pants off of the other mathematicians of her day in fact she's still known as the first female mathematician in the world which unfortunately upset a lot of people at that time Peter the Lecter in particular wanted to make sure that she and her pagan, math loving ways were stopped immediately the best means of doing that well tell everybody she's a witch and then kill her she was not exactly quick first a mob dragged her from her carriage and stripped her clothes off at a nearby church they then beat her with roofing tiles until she was dead or near enough and then for good measure they tore her into pieces and burned what remained in short they really wanted to make sure this supposed witch was eliminated the first woman to be executed for witchcraft in England was Agnes Waterhouse also called Mother Waterhouse she was known for having a cat that answered to the name Satan for possibly killing men and for being labeled a witch when she was as young as 12 the cat supposedly spoke to her in a dark tongue telling her to take the lives of children and certain people that she saw it demanded to be fed blood and milk and it supposedly tormented her sister with these demands as well Waterhouse also claimed to have had relations with demons who threatened to harm her if she did not do their bidding once she was convicted she was sentenced to death at first she stood strong and proud acting unafraid however eventually she began to plead for her life saying that she believed and trusted in God it was not enough and she was executed in 1566 some people accused of witchcraft really were nasty people though case in point, Giles Garnier he was a hermit living in France up until 1573 and committed terrible acts for which he was accused of being not just a witch but a werewolf when Garnier married his new bride was not happy with the lack of food variety surrounding her husband's isolated way of life to make up for this Garnier began killing, butchering eating children he also fed the meat of these children to his new wife to satisfy her craving for variety he did this with at least four children when he was caught and put on trial he claimed that he'd come across a specter in the woods that gave him the ability to change into a wolf and do magic in order to hunt more easily witnesses claimed to have seen him eating the raw flesh of children in the fields even claimed to have seen him in wolf form he was found guilty of witchcraft and lycanthropy for which he was burned at the stake in 1573 from then on he was known as the werewolf of dole when a village's harvest fails it can be easy to blame it on witchcraft unfortunately this was what caused the demise of Stadellen a man who lived in the late 1300's in Switzerland and happened to make a very powerful enemy one day Peter von Greiers a judge during that time firmly believed that the occult was alive and well in Switzerland he claimed that miscarriages crop failures, marital disputes storms and more could all be linked to dark magic specifically Greiers accused Stadellen of sacrificing a black rooster on the Sabbath and of placing a lizard under a doorway you know full witchcrafty stuff the thing is that Stadellen actually admitted it after being tortured of course he admitted that he'd made a pact with demons and was promptly burned at the stake after his demise Greiers went on searching for other members of satanic cults and continued persecuting people for years women were tortured excuse me we got another tip here women were were tortured men were killed and it all began with that one incident the Inquisition definitely had its share of torture cases and gruesome killings and that included executing people for witchcraft in 1275 a French woman named Angèle de la Barth can you imagine going through life with the name of Barth anyway Angèle de la Barth was accused by the supreme chief of the Toulos Inquisition of having relations with the devil and giving birth to a monster that ate babies a tall order perhaps but she didn't really claim to be innocent during the course of her trial she admitted that she had been feeding the monster babies for two years and even boasted about having slept with the devil she was burned alive for her deeds this incident is widely credited as being the first killing in a string of terrible witch persecutions and there were many more that followed some people now believe the account is fictional but either way the time period was full of people being executed for witchcraft you might have heard this name before or at least the name of his associate Thomas Dowdy was a nobleman, explorer and soldier who lived in the mid 1500s before he met his untimely end he sailed with famed captain Sir Francis Drake who was also a slaver and politician and he also ended up being his accuser the two men started off as friends but in the summer of 1578 Drake became separated from the rest of his fleet during a storm and slowly convinced himself that it was because Dowdy was practicing witchcraft the two argued but Drake eventually snapped and had Dowdy tied to the mast accusing him of being a witch there was a brief trial once they landed and although Drake later seemed to regret his decision it was far too late Dowdy was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be killed by beheading a decision that would haunt Drake for the rest of his life Native Americans have their own version of witches and they are often viewed with no less malice Leatherlips, a wine dot Indian in the 1800s in Ohio is perhaps best known for having signed the Treaty of Greenville and for encouraging peace and cohabitation with European settlers however this didn't sit well with many other chiefs and some began to conspire against him in 1810 Roundhead ordered that he be put to death for witchcraft settlers who were living with him at the time pleaded for his life but to no avail he went back with the other tribal leaders without a fight once there he prayed ate and drank with his people he then dressed up in his very best clothing gave a ceremonial death chant and was promptly taken out by a Tomahawk blow there is now a statue in his memory in Dublin, Ohio Salem isn't the only place to have had a witch hunt in the late 1590s northerly in Germany was hit with a swath of witch accusations and executions in all 32 women were convicted of witchcraft one of them a woman by the name of Rebecca Lemp Rebecca was the mother of six children she didn't stop local lawyers and burgamasters from arresting and torturing her she was tortured on at least five different occasions and eventually she confessed to witchcraft unfortunately things didn't end there in order to make her appear more guilty Rebecca was forced to write a letter to her husband who was away on business and children in which she admitted to being a witch although her husband didn't believe it there was nothing he could do she was tortured a bit longer and then burned at the stake many other women followed her down this path of torture and death in 1895 a man in in a ballet of Adelaide Ireland and I'm sure I'm butchering that and I apologize for my friends in Ireland he was tried and eventually convicted for killing his wife this might sound dark but not terribly unusual except that Michael Cleary claimed to have done it because his wife was actually a witch or changeling you see Bridget Cleary had gone missing and when investigators eventually questioned her husband he claimed that his wife had been taken by fairies and replaced by some sort of magical evil creature when he realized this Michael did the only logical thing there was to do burn his wife to death it's still not clear if he burned her body before or after her death but it's pretty clear that he was the one who killed her the trial was a long man arduous one and Michael was imprisoned for 15 years for his crime and to this day there's still an Irish nursery rhyme that goes are you a witch or are you a fairy or are you the wife of Michael Cleary when thinking about people who have been killed for being witches the 1692 Salem witch trials inevitably come to mind around 72 people were accused of being witches with 20 actually being executed for it the first of whom was Bridget Bishop she was a rather flamboyant woman for her day and other women took notice eventually women accused Bishop of being a witch claiming that her shape would haunt or threaten people and during the trial they screamed and flailed claiming she was hurting them even then men also stepped forward saying that she had tormented them and even poisoned them after disputes previous now deceased husbands were even brought up this was enough to seal her fate and despite the fact that she claimed to be innocent Bishop was sentenced to death and was hanged one thing that comes to mind when thinking of witches is their mysterious potions and Giovanna Bonanno held to that stereotype pretty well she was a beggar in Palermo Sicily in the late 1700s when she was brought to trial for witchcraft she confessed during the trial to being a professional poisoner and had been selling poisons to women who wanted to murder their husbands she claimed that initially the poison would cause pain then put them in the hospital and then eventually kill them the doctors at the time could not figure out the cause of death and it's unknown who so excuse it's not known how many people she poisoned during this time many women testified against her as did the local apothecaries who sold her potions she was supposedly very good at creating various ointments and magical potions to help with minor and major ailments however her poisoning habit was where she found her end she was executed by hanging on July 30th 1789 to this day she is known as Old Vinegar even the nobility was not a free from the accusation of witchcraft in 1621 Christend's Crocow was a noble lady living in Scandinavia and her life was pretty good unfortunately her sister Ann was not so lucky Ann had given birth to 17 children all stillborn it could not seem to conceive a healthy baby after a while people started to blame this misfortune on witchcraft women were accused of carrying out this deed and one was even executed at first none of these people were nobles but eventually Christian IV the king of Denmark pushed people to accuse Christend's Crocow of the act upon being arrested Crocow admitted that she had cursed her sister's marriage bed in jealousy she was found guilty of sorcery and was decapitated with a sword she was however given the burial of a noble rather than a witch and some might think that killing people for witchcraft is a thing of the past but that's not entirely the case Marie Ben Ali Ben Issa al-Asiri of the Najran province in Saudi Arabia was a bit of an adulterer and had committed this act with two women when he was finally investigated he was found to have books in his possession as well as various talismans when accusations of witchcraft were added to his list of misdeeds he was enough to have him sentenced to death he was beheaded amid protests from human rights groups in 2012 yeah, it means that some parts of the world people are still being accused and killed for supposedly witchy behavior in 1692 the quiet Puritan settlement of Salem, Massachusetts descended into madness when its residents suddenly began accusing each other of witchcraft we know them now as the Salem witch trials and the phenomenon would go on to become the largest witch hunt in American history but what caused the Salem witch trials in the first place between 1692 and 1693 more than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem and 20 were executed but almost as suddenly as the trials began they stopped Salem came to its senses and life carried on since then the Salem witch trials have fascinated and perplexed scholars like few other episodes in American history many experts believed misogyny played a big role especially since most of the victims were women however some men were also put to death during the Salem witch trials perhaps the most infamous, Giles Corey as we mentioned earlier the 80 year old farmer who refused to stand trial after being accused of wizardry denied the typically quicker execution of hanging so he was instead pressed to death by stones which were piled on top of him one at a time not even animals were safe, at least two dogs were executed due to their alleged involvement in witchcraft so even though gender played a role in the Salem witch trials it could depend the only factor what really caused this quiet Puritan town to descend into total paranoia and persecution let's take a look at some of the most popular theories one theory suggests that the Native American wars may have contributed to the hysteria that took hold in Salem in 1692 one of the brutal conflicts known as King Philip's war raged in the colonies during the 1670s and the front lines of this battle were not that far from Salem most people in the region had been impacted in one way or another by the wars and this created an atmosphere of intense anxiety many were afraid of further attacks and raids from neighboring Native American tribes some of the afflicted girls who accused women of bewitching them had actually witnessed some earlier raids prior to making their claims so it's been suggested that watching those attacks may have caused some post-traumatic stress which might have played a role in inspiring these accusations in the first place historian Mary Beth Norton believes that the Native American wars may have impacted the trials in another way she suggests that the accusation and execution of Ex-Minister George Burroughs who led a number of failed military campaigns against the Native Americans indicates that town officials were trying to shift blame for their own inadequate defense of the frontier onto supernatural causes in other words, they wanted to believe the devil was threatening them instead of their own weaknesses so if safety was just a witch cleaning away, in the minds of the public at least, it would be a powerful incentive to root out the culprit who was terrorizing their community the witch trials began in early 1692 after 9-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began to exhibit some strange behavior they hid under furniture cried out in pain and sometimes even barked like dogs Samuel Parris, the father of Betty Parris called for a physician to look at the girls since the doctor found nothing physically wrong with them, it was then concluded the girls had been bewitched but some sources suggested that the girls may have been acting strangely because they were simply frightened by a fortune telling game in Salem at the time children were restricted from almost all forms of play they were expected to spend most of their time doing chores and studying the Bible this lack of stimulation naturally led to boredom and this boredom may help explain why Betty Parris and Abigail Williams became so interested in fortune telling which was allegedly introduced to them by a slave named Tideba as one of their only outlets for activity they naturally became drawn to these superstitions that's why some believe that their involvement in these forbidden activities and a combination of guilt and fear they felt from participating in them may have been the real cause of their strange behavior some of the first people who accused others of being witches in Salem were very young girls and many accusers that followed were teenagers or in the early 20s of course it wasn't just young people who were making claims about alleged witches but the fact that their accusations were so prominent early on have led some to believe that simple teenage angst may have been a factor that led to some of Salem witch trials in the book entertaining Satan witchcraft in the culture of early New England which I have linked to in the show notes at weirddarkness.com Jon Putnam explores the idea that the witch trials were essentially a teenage rebellion against the Puritan authority of the older generation after all most of the people accused of being witches were adults if teen angst truly inspired young women to make these accusations that these feelings could have very well stemmed from the patriarchal oppression of the time but whether that was true or not older women often bore the worst effects of this oppression during the actual trials some feminist historians have interpreted the Salem witch trials as just another way the patriarchy persecuted women who acted in ways that were different from the accepted social norms at the time as was the case with many similar witch hunts in Europe there were the primary targets of accusation during these Salem witch trials particularly women who acted unusual for the era while the exact cause of the Salem witch trials remains contested there is almost no doubt that underlying social forces played a role it may sound strange but cold weather has been suggested as a potential cause of the Salem witch trials in 2004 Harvard graduate Emily Oster suggested this theory to the senior thesis in her paper Oster points out that the most active era of witchcraft trials in Europe and other places coincided with a 400 year period of lower than average temperatures the most active period of the witchcraft trials mainly in Europe coincides with a period of lower than average temperature known to climatologists as the little ice age Oster wrote the colder temperatures increased the frequency of crop failure and colder seas prevented cod and other fish from migrating as far north eliminating this vital food source for some northern areas of Europe Oster posited that people would have searched for a scapegoat in the face of deadly changes in weather patterns as it turns out the year 1692 fell right in the middle of a 50 year long cold spell from 1680 to 1730 giving some weight to this theory on top of that many people at the time believed that witches were able to control the weather and destroy crops so when people suffered from poor harvests and bad weather some may have concluded that it was all the work of witches while mass hysteria is usually associated with the time the trials were happening some are proposed that it may have caused them as well mass hysteria has been defined as the rapid spread of conversion disorder involving the appearance of bodily complaints for which there is no organic basis in such episodes psychological distress is converted or channeled into physical symptoms there is a mouthful some have argued that this is exactly what the girls who were first bewitched were experiencing the stress of living in such a rigid and religious society on the dangerous wilderness frontier may have led these girls to convert this stress into physical symptoms the hysteria experienced by the girls may then in turn have triggered a collective delusion among the villagers that witches were in their midst if pretty much everybody is feeling the same way this could certainly have paved the way for a witch hunt mass hysteria was clearly at work but how much of a feedback loop these delusions created can probably never be known regardless it is a compelling theory that can't easily be discounted by the rational explanation for what caused the Salem witch trials in the 1970s a truly wild theory about the cause of the Salem witch trials took off hallucinogenic fungi sounds far fetched but the fungus ergo can be found in fungus ergot I believe is how it is pronounced can be found in rye and wheat under the right conditions known to cause convulsions, hallucinations and pinching sensations are sometimes used to create lsd but it might also offer an explanation for the symptoms of people who were bewitched in Salem first introduced by Linda this theory posits that ergot poisoning may have caused the bizarre physical afflictions associated with being bewitched after all many of the symptoms of ergot poisoning were quite similar to what was happening to the girls interestingly enough weather conditions in Salem during the winter of 1691 to 1692 were just right for ergot to grow plus studies on ergot poisoning have found that children are the more susceptible most susceptible ones to its effects but is it really possible that something like ergot poisoning could have caused the Salem witch trials it's no wonder why this theory is one of the most controversial and also one of the most fascinating theories ultimately we may never know for sure what caused the Salem witch trials but there's no question that this strange piece of American history remains just as curious today as it was centuries ago when the weird darkness live-screen returns the real life monsters who made trick or treating not only more scary but deadly by putting tricks into the treats paranormal experiences encountering extraterrestrials extraordinary states of consciousness spiritual phenomenon encounters with non-human entities that can't be explained by science these stories of what people have come across are ubiquitous here on Weird Darkness and often those who've had these encounters choose to stay quiet and not even tell close friends or family out of fear of ridicule and they suffer silently trying to deal with the internal horror of what they've experienced describing you or someone you know there is now a place you can turn to for professional counseling from experts who unlike others in their field are open to the paranormal supernatural and extraterrestrial experiences of others and they're not there to explain away your experience but to help you recover from it and move forward with living I'm referring to the Opus Network if you want to reach out for help or learn more look for the Opus Network towards the bottom of the Hope in the Darkness page www.darkness.com I've mentioned it numerous times but I'm going to mention it again because it's so important to me tonight's the last night of our overcoming the Darkness fundraiser we can really use your help to raise as much as we can to support organizations that help people who struggle with depression those organizations by the way are the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline save.org the Crisis Text Line and the International Foundation for Research and Education on Depression and you can donate right now by visiting the Hope in the Darkness page www.weirddarkness.com you'll also see a big donate button on the website and that'll take you directly to a donation page but please give whatever you can I'd greatly appreciate that we're only raising funds through midnight central time tonight or actually until the end of the broadcast whichever comes first excuse me whichever comes last so if I go over midnight tonight which I don't think I will then I'll keep it going but as soon as I shut things down I've got to shut down the fundraiser too so again weirddarkness.com if you want to get more information on the fundraiser and also all the organizations that we are supporting with it I did draw another name for our newsletter contest again you have to email me before the end of the show tonight and while you're getting shorter and shorter amount of time to do that because we're getting closer and closer to the end so if you want to win our prize which is three Weirddarkness t-shirts and two copy mugs you need to register for our newsletter it's absolutely free to subscribe just go to weirddarkness.com if you are not already subscribed and the name that I drew is Michael Slonwhite Michael Slonwhite you now have until the end of the show to email me at the email address right there right there there I've got things flipped around on me anyway at the bottom left hand of your screen but you'll see my email address there email me and let me know you heard your name on the show and I will send you a prize pack also had a couple more captions this is the picture that you're looking into caption and we had two more come in I believe, Stephen came in with come on great pumpkin this has got to be my year and then Mark came in I think Mark has entered the panderverse I'm truly addicted to Weird Darkness I can't even make a normal snowman anymore nice nice very nice pandering there Mark I really appreciate that it was really good alright so if you've got a caption for that picture again here's the picture go to weirddarkness.com slash live and there's a form that you can fill out under the video where you can place your caption there and if I draw not if I draw but if I choose your caption as the winner at the end of the show tonight you too will win that prize pack of three t-shirts and two coffee mugs from the Weird Darkness store so we got that alright I share this story every year during the Halloween live screen because well first it's terrifying second it's a true story and third it addresses a long held belief about Halloween a trick or treating that we've all held since we were children so hold on a second if you're a parent what's your greatest fear just about every person that I know where the child is going to answer this question almost immediately it's that some sort of tragedy might befall their children accidents calamities automobile crashes natural disasters fires the list goes on all these things terrify parents these are the things that keep them awake at night staring at the ceiling of their bedrooms wondering how they would handle the nightmare if something terrible happened to their child of course accidents and calamities are cruel twists of fate bad luck if you believe in luck or perhaps providence if you don't it plays no favorites the idea that a terrible accident might occur that claims the life of your child might keep you from sleeping at night but in the end there's nothing you can do about it accidents happen right but what about that terrible thing that's not an accident at all what about when the horrible death of a child comes at the hands of another there are without a doubt killers who walk among us is there a more loathsome killer lurking in the darkest corners of America than one that would prey on children such monsters have been with us since the first settlers arrived on American shores we often fool ourselves into believing that the good old days were actually good but this is far from the truth monsters have always been with us they stalked the innocent in the days when children stayed close to the rugged settlements of the colonies afraid to wander into the dark forest they were among us before the civil war claimed the lives of thousands of men and boys these monsters claimed the lives of the young and naive during the gilded age at the dawn of the 20th century through the depression and beyond these monsters are not the stuff of fiction they are bloodcurdlingly real they've been among us since the nation began and they are with us still always looking for their next victim we know this as did our parents and their parents before them the fear of strangers and their terrible deeds have been rooted in the minds of multiple generations of Americans we created myths and legends of monstrous shapes hoping to scare children so that they never strayed too far from the welcoming light of home and yet blood was spilled children vanished never to be seen again they became faces on milk cartons and they were like a child we must keep our children safe parents told themselves but even the most watchful eyes weren't always enough our cautionary tales created one of the most popular and most terrifying urban legends of all time it involved just two things a babysitter and a telephone it tells the story of a babysitter who's been left in charge of young children the parents hoping for a much-needed night out of dinner and a movie left this trusted and neighbor girl with their children she was experienced, she was reliable and the parents had nothing to fear the night is quiet and after finishing some homework the babysitter turns on the television and then the telephone rings when the girl answers she hears a man's harsh voice have you checked the children he asks her assuming it to be a prank call she hangs up the phone the telephone rings again and once more the same man's voice repeats the question the babysitter slams down the receiver but it keeps ringing and the same man keeps asking her about the children now terrified she phones the police who assure her that they will have the calls traced and find out who has been harassing her a few minutes later the police operator calls back with horrifying news the calls are coming from inside of the house when officers arrive on the scene they find a distraught babysitter and two murdered children in the upstairs nursery the killer had somehow gotten into the house he made the calls to terrorize the babysitter and lure her upstairs to her death of course this morality play ends in tragedy for the young woman who did not watch the children closely enough she loses her mind she locked away in a mental institution for the rest of her life of course this is only a story right? we all know that it's just an urban myth that illustrates the perils of being a babysitter and the fact that children are never really safe even in the most innocent circumstances stories like this and a lot of others like it have been told and retold thousands of times over the years it's only a story or is it? when you were growing up how many times did you hear stories like that one? or were told never to talk to a sketchy looking man that your mother pointed out on the street or to never accept a ride in a car with someone you didn't know or to never accept candy from strangers especially at Halloween it was at Halloween when every horror story that your mother could ever imagine came to life never knock on the door of a house without a porch line on never accept treats that were not professionally packaged never bite into an apple that your parents had not carefully checked they were filled with needles and razor blades don't you know they'll all boil down to never take candy from strangers but that was crazy wasn't it it was Halloween for Pete's sake who was evil enough to stick razor blades into apples or put poison into candy bars stories aren't they those kinds of things never really happen every Halloween without fail my mother retells the story of her worst Halloween ever her dad after biting into an almond joy from her Halloween supply began feeling a tingling sensation in his mouth sending him quickly into an anxious spiral as he convinced himself he'd been poisoned it was to say the night ended with a distraught and confused and forced to dispose of the remaining pieces of his delicious spoils and later an apologetic father with a clean bill of health after a frantic trip to the hospital revealed it was solely a case of anxiety so why is it that so many households to this day have a fear that their children's lives are at stake every Halloween night is there any truth behind this old urban legend of Halloween candy tampering should parents really be checking their kids candy piece by piece to ensure no tricks are hiding among the treats well as it turns out stories like this often get started for a reason although the paranoia surrounding Halloween candy tampering began popping up more prevalently in the 1950s and 60s and appeared to grow even more drastically through the 70s and 80s the fear of contaminated food actually began all the way back in the 1800s consumers began feeling worried about the content of their food during the industrial revolution since it moved fresh food that used to come from farm to table to a distant factory where people were forced to put their trust in companies to look out for the well-being of their families the community did seem to be rightly concerned since the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry tested thousands of candy samples in the late 1800s and found traces of copper, cheap dye and syrup although thankfully no traces of poison jumped forward to the 1960s and 1970s and the anxiety bred from societal fear surrounding otherness within middle-class white suburbs directly influenced neighbors to feel distrustful of one another there was a deep fear of not only people of color transforming their neighborhoods and cities but also the new concept of the career woman who could intimidate by being both a doting mother and a highly successful employee or boss rising in rank these changes led people to become suspicious about the lives that their community members were leading therefore in 1985 a poll by ABC news and the Washington Post revealed that 60% of parents were fearful of candy tampering during Halloween time before we investigate whether we should be afraid of the goodies gifted to us on Halloween night by our seemingly friendly neighbors it's important to mention that there have been various large-scale accidental poisonings due to unregulated food production take the 1858 candy poisoning in Bradford, England for example to save money on sugar expenses a local candy maker William Hardaker wanted to purchase powdered gypsum which could conveniently be used both in drywall and as a food additive in his humbugs a peppermint flavored hard candy William Hardaker then conducted business as usual and directed his gypsum supplier to add it to the candies but he didn't know that a series of events would lead to catastrophic consequences it just so happens that this day his supplier sent another man James Archer to buy the ingredient from pharmacist Charles Hodgson Hodgson down with sickness asked his young apprentice William Goddard to complete the transaction on his own unfortunately the young man mistook arsenic trioxide for a gypsum leading to 40 pounds of humbugs being made from 40 pounds of sugar 12 pounds of arsenic trioxide 12 pounds of gum and a bit of peppermint oil even though the candies had an odd discoloration Hardaker accepted them after taking a discount and although he became violently ill after testing some of his new batch of candy he ended up selling 5 pounds of them having not realized the source of his sudden bout of illness 21 people died and 200 people became extremely ill Goddard, Hodgson and the supplier Joseph Neil were all arrested and charged with manslaughter by gross neglect but were eventually acquitted this sad event ended up resulting in better protection being put in place to prevent other similar incidents from happening for instance the Pharmacy Act of 1868 was enacted to control the distribution of poisons and resulted in a national poison register nevertheless this occurrence shows how helpless consumers can be when it comes to putting unwarranted trust in food companies you may be thinking well thankfully that happened far in the past you come a long way with different food policies and prescription drug policies in place to protect us right yeah that might be true but sometimes that doesn't prevent twisted people from finding a way to do harm anyway consider the 1982 case in which 7 people died after taking Tylenol which was then tested and found to have traces of cyanide the manufacturer of Tylenol Johnson & Johnson sprang into action by issuing a nationwide recall stopping all further production of its product however it was clear that the bottles had been tampered with post production since each bottle had come from a different manufacturer although there have been various suspects the culprit sadly has never been caught this disturbing case of poisoning led to the creation of Title 18 which makes it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products it also pushed drug and food companies to develop safer tamper proof seals and Johnson & Johnson to develop excuse me and it also pushed Johnson & Johnson to develop the caplet form of their drug rather than the capsule that was easily tampered with despite the positive effects that came from this incident this case destroyed the American people's sense of safety and added to the deep rooted fear that their everyday products could easily be tampered with all that would be needed was a sick minded individual willing to execute a deadly plan so getting back to our initial question do we need to be wary of neighbors with a secret deadly status or plans for cruel pranks on Halloween night possibly there have been instances in which candy has been tampered with throughout the years however as you'll see with the following examples many instances could be considered sick pranks meant to do minor bodily harm rather than with intent to commit callous murder take New York housewife Helen Field our file who was upset with older trick-or-treaters who knocked on her door even though her teen sons were out doing the same thing so she placed a bottle cap shaped ant trap labeled poison in their bags for the trick-or-treaters to find in 1964 19 ant traps had been handed out but when she was arrested with child endangerment charges she claimed it had been a joke then there was California dentist William V. Shine who handed out 450 candy coated laxatives to trick-or-treaters causing 30 kids to get sick and Shine to be eventually charged with outrage of public decency and then finally the case from 2000 in Minneapolis when Joseph Joseph Smith hid needles in Snickers bars that resulted in a 14 year old boy getting pricked as he unsuspectingly took a bite none of these cases thankfully resulted in death but drew alarm to community members who wanted to ensure kids safety Professor Joel Best's research suggests there have been around 80 cases of sharp objects in food incidents since 1959 only 10 led to minor injuries the worst case being a woman who needed to get stitches most cases appeared to be hoaxes planned by parents or children to get some laughs for some good old fashioned Halloween trickery even if they are deeply unsettling laughs if you ask me yet there has been one case of candy tampering that has led to an innocent life lost and one sinister cover up of murder both are in some ways more sinister than the myth of trick-or-treat murders of random unsuspecting kids these murder victims and murderers were not strangers in 1970 5 year old Kevin Tostin from Michigan died after ingesting heroin yet at first it appeared to be a case of candy poisoning since the heroin was found sprinkled on his treats in reality the boy mistakenly swallowed some of this uncle's heroin stash so his family dusted his candy with the remaining drugs to make it appear like somebody outside the family had killed their son thankfully the investigators were able to determine what actually happened to the young boy on Halloween night 1974 Timothy O'Brien and his sister Elizabeth had anxiously waited for their father Ronald to get home from work so that they could go trick-or-treating the family which included their mother Danine lived in the suburb of Deer Park, Texas Ronald was an optician at Texas State Optical in Houston he was a deacon at the Second Baptist Church where he also sang in the choir and was in charge of the local bus program and was as far as everybody who knew him was concerned a wonderful loving father when he finally walked through the door of the family home the children rushed to him hurrying him back out to the street still wearing his white optician's lab coat Ronald took Timothy and Elizabeth out to celebrate Halloween they met some friends and went to the first house of the night Timothy rang the doorbell there was no answer if anyone was home they were taking far too long to answer the door the children impatiently ran to the next house on the block leaving Ronald to catch up when he did he had 5 giant pixie sticks in his hand tubes of pure sugary goodness that the kids couldn't wait to consume but Ronald promised he would distribute the candy among the children when they got back to the house it was late when they returned home Ronald got the children ready for bed but before he fell asleep Timothy asked for just one treat from the night's bounty of sweets he chose a 22 inch giant pixie sticks the sugar had hardened in the tube so his father helpfully rolled the candy between his hands to loosen the contents Timothy poured the confection into his mouth but his face wrinkled and disgust it tasted terrible Ronald quickly ran to get some Kool-Aid for his son to wash the bad taste away Timothy never had a chance to drink it within moments he began to choke vomit and then convulse something was terribly wrong when paramedics arrived they found Ronald creedling Timothy in his arms as the little boy gagged and foamed at the mouth he was pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later an autopsy later revealed that the 8 year old had died from a fatal dose of cyanide where had it come from the top two inches of the giant pixie sticks that Timothy had been so excited about contained enough poison to kill two grown adults the little boy never had a chance words spread about Timothy's death naturally starting a panic in the community numerous parents in Deer Park and the surrounding area took the candy their children had collected from trick-or-treating to the police terrified that it was laced with poison none of it was but the authorities could understand the fear that Timothy's death had caused they had already started their investigation into the boy's murder thankfully the other four laced pixie sticks which Ronald O'Brien claimed he received from the first house on the trick-or-treating route after the kids had run ahead had not been eaten when questioned by detectives Ronald sobbed as he suggested that the monster must have handed out poisoned candy to trick-or-treaters he told police he vaguely remembered where the candy had come from but he never got a good look at the owner all he saw was a shadowy hand clutching the pixie sticks from behind the door the police went to the address and questioned the owner of the house Courtney Melvin who worked as an air traffic controller at Hobby Airport but the police were confounded when they learned that he had not left work until 10.30 p.m. on Halloween night his wife had stopped answering the door when she ran out of candy around 6.45 that was before Ronald O'Brien claimed that he was there in addition Mrs. Melvin had not given out pixie sticks that night detectives interrogated the entire neighborhood and still could not find the source of the deadly candy Ronald O'Brien was grief-strickened by his son's death he was already having a terrible year and Timothy's death seemed to have pushed him over the edge with grief Ronald was 8 months behind in car payments and was being threatened with repossession he had defaulted on several bank loans and was suspected of theft at Texas State Optical and was close to being fired he had held 21 different jobs over the last decade and was more than $100,000 in debt he further strained his family's finances by taking out a $10,000 life insurance policy on his children earlier in the year to which his wife protested as an unnecessary expense she also probably would have objected to the additional pair of $20,000 life insurance policies Ronald took out on Timothy and Elizabeth on October 3rd if she had known about them and she definitely would have been horrified to find out that earlier hours after Timothy's death her husband called to collect on those policies the police didn't know about the life insurance policies not yet anyway but they did discover that Ronald had visited a chemical supply store in Houston to buy cyanide just a week before Halloween you left without purchasing anything after the smallest amount available to purchase was five pounds when they found out about the life insurance policies they were convinced they had their man detectives theorized that he had laced the candy with poison so that he could kill his own children for the life insurance money poisoning their friends with the extra pixie sticks would help cover up his crime luckily none of the other candy was ever eaten investigators repeatedly questioned Ronald but he maintained his innocence he blamed the whole thing on some mad poisoner just like in the stories who handed out Halloween candy laced with poison or needles and candy apples with razor blades inside surely the police had heard those stories hadn't they O'Brien was arrested and brought to trial on June 3rd 1975 a jury took just 46 minutes to find the dedicated father and devout member of the second Baptist church guilty of capital murder and four counts of attempted murder Ronald was sent to death row in Huntsville, Texas he was so hated by the other inmates that they reportedly petitioned to hold an organized demonstration on his execution date they had to wait a while because his first execution date was set for August 8th 1980 but his attorneys managed to drag things out until March 31st 1984 shortly before midnight he was executed by lethal injection outside the prison a crown of about 300 demonstrators cheered during the execution while others yelled trick or treat Ronald O'Brien didn't just kill his son and try to kill four other children on October 31st 1974 he also killed the idea of Halloween for several generations of kids that hadn't even been born yet Ronald who was known as the Candy Man by his fellow death row inmates successfully perpetrated a perpetuated the legend that there are strangers out there intent on killing children with poisoned Halloween candy after all is said and done it's highly unlikely you'll have to worry about your candy being messed with this Halloween many people who take part in the holiday do so because they want to bring joy for the spooky holiday season since they remember the fun they had trick or treating when they were young but Ronald O'Brien was a monster in human form and a nightmare brought to life up next, redditors share some of the strangest and most frightening experiences they have had on the spookiest day of the year plus thousands of people flocked to Halloween haunted houses mazes and amusement parks to get scared easily by a bunch of actors and monstrous prosthetics if you frequent Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights or other big scare hotspots you probably wonder what it's like to work as a haunted house actor well here are a few of their stories coming up you'd find somewhere to stop and think about how to survive the next few minutes of your life then you see it and run towards the water station the zombie fun run will have to wait until you quench your thirst but bottled water is expensive and you don't even want to know what might be in tap water or much less fresh water fortunately the horde of horror fanatics at this water station planned in advance and brought patriot pure outdoor filtration water cooler system clean cold water wherever you go it's five gallon tank keeps water cold keeps ice for days on end reduces the levels of over 200 contaminants with a two step filtration technology which you can use with tap water well water river water or any water source you find it's UV resistant so it works just as well at any time of day and you're avoiding the cost of bottled water while also avoiding the unnecessary use of plastic all in one system it might be the only terrifying thing at your halloween or fall themed activity get the patriot pure outdoor filtration water cooler system at 4patriots.com that's the number 4 patriots.com and use the promo code weird to get 10% off everything you order that's 4patriots.com promo code weird uh oh zombies are back Central Massachusetts is a land of oddities and apparitions stories of the strange and paranormal found 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 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 Weirdos welcome back to the live stream and thank you to whoever gave another $120 came in just over the last few minutes we are now at $5,560 for our overcoming the darkness fundraiser thank you so much to everybody who's been giving you still have time before the end of the evening like I said after the show around midnight my time which is central time I'll have to shut it down so you have a little over an hour if you want to give all those donations every dollar that I receive is going to be split evenly between four amazing organizations that help people who struggle with depression and thoughts of self harm you know how important that is especially to me I suffer from depression so please if you can just give every dollar makes a difference let's check on some of the comments I forgot to do that last time let's see if there's anything going on that people wanted to ask me most of it is just you guys talking back and forth which is great there's like what 93 people right now listening or watching live which is a whole lot more than I usually get with a video premiere so no looks like looks like we're still okay so I'll check on this again here a little bit later on but if you do have a question for me if you want to answer something again put my name Darren in all caps and then follow that with your question that way it's a lot easier for me to recognize we did get another caption for our caption this contest here's the picture and it's your job to come up with a caption for this if you win if I choose your caption as my favorite is really what it is then you will win the prize pack for tonight which is and two mugs from the Weird Darkness store and the one that came in is from Janna saying surely this will be the best of the neighborhood decorations this year well it's definitely it's definitely a good one so thank you very much for that Janna and at the end of the evening I will choose a winner for the caption this contest and you guys are going to make it tough on me to do it after the show and then announce it in the podcast or probably on social media and I'll also place the winner on the Weird Darkness website on WeirdDarkness.com on this page so that way you can see it I'll put the photo up as well so people will know what we're talking about but then I'll also place the winning caption there and I will also connect with whoever it was that won and thank you very much to everybody that gave those I really appreciate it alright so Halloween season is the spookiest time of the year and during the cooling fall months many people are just a little more open to the idea of haunting hijinks, spectral sightings, all sorts of other worldly antics so here are some of the creepy strange and downright unexplainable experiences that people have had on and around this infamous holiday from ghosts to cryptids to demons there's something here for everybody from a former redditor a few years ago yeah a few years ago my sister and I were walking back from trick-or-treating across town to set the scene it was a small historic town with lots of old homes, churches, grave yards and wrought iron so even the houses that don't go all out look like sets for a horror movie on Halloween I decided to walk along the creek on the railroad tracks it's a lot quicker than walking the road back to our house from the center of town it was around 10pm and a light fog was setting in as we were getting close to our property we heard some splashing in the creek I turned around because I thought my sister was being stupid and had jumped in I was about to say something but I realized she was still right beside me what caused the splashing must have been a big animal I was going to tease her and say something about seeing a bear or a wolf but she seemed genuinely scared so I just grabbed her hand and kept walking still about 15 minutes from our property we heard splashing again closer than before and both spun around this time it was clear exactly what was making the noise there was a young girl wearing a dirty, frilly dress and playing around in the water just sort of splashing it with her hands waiting in the creek she looked in our direction but it was like she was in her own world oblivious it scared the heck out of me and I jogged the rest of the way home with my sister needless to say every light in the house was on that night our parents didn't believe us they thought it was a prank but we know what we saw funny thing is I didn't find out until I visited a town historical society meeting last year there used to be a grist mill on that creek and the owner's young daughter drowned in the mill pond in October of 1984 from Redditor Yu Fang Runt so around about 2013 my senior year of high school my mom, brother and two friends planned a Hollywood ghost hunt type deal we headed out to this park and that was notoriously haunted we even made sure to go at 3am to get maximum results here my brother decides to sit on the end of the pier on the lake and do some recordings and he ends up getting the clearest creepiest EVP I've ever heard in my life about two minutes in he asks a question he goes quiet and you can clearly hear a man's voice yelling out don't shoot followed by a few seconds of silence and then an agonized groan none of us heard this until we played it back in the car I remember shivers running down my spine and I started crying because I was so freaked out I still have the recording but I only ever show it to people I trust that wasn't the only strange thing that happened that night but it was by far the one that sticks with us all the most my brother's only listened to that one time in the car afterwards he refuses to listen to it again from Redditor welcome to Wonderland so on Halloween ten years ago three of us decided it'd be scary to walk through the woods nearby where I lived I knew my way around well as I had grown up going there we were walking along chatting when by a hollowed out tree I saw a yellowish glow I stopped where I was and just stared at this glow as it got brighter and my friends did too we all glanced at each other with a what the heck look on our faces I'm literally thinking I'm imagining things but they both confirmed they were seeing the same thing in the glow a young girl appeared who looked to be about eight years old she started off looking quite washed out in color and kind of transparent then she became more of a solid looking shape and the glow got brighter I went from feeling normal and in disbelief to feeling uneasy then fear and dread then finally like we needed to get out of there and that our lives were possibly in danger I grabbed my friends hands and started pulling them down the steep hill as the main road was at the bottom of it we stood at the bottom of the hill by the main road looking at it for about 30 minutes maybe longer eventually it was gone and I just saw a slight glow in the distance then nothing later Sarah Grace 151618 this whole ordeal happened two days away from Halloween around 1.45 am I heard what sounded like a distorted house alarm and then my dogs started going bananas so I woke up my husband and I asked him to go to make sure the doors were locked after he looked outside and checked the doors he came back to bed and immediately passed out but I still felt super uneasy later I was almost asleep when suddenly I was jolted back to wide awake by a scratching sound it sounded like someone dragging their finger across the walls of my room but I looked all around the room and saw nothing and I have the bathroom light on at this point so I lay back down it gets louder it sounds like it circles the entire room until it stops directly above my head then I felt something touch my neck it sat up for a while and turned on the closet light too before finally trying to go back to sleep only to wake up again around 3.45 to what felt like someone else's foot against my foot but my husband was asleep under a separate blanket so I stayed completely still until his alarm went off at 6 am when I sat straight up ready to fight anyone but no one was there time to sage the house again from Redditor Solo Hobo I went camping with friends on an island down near La Crosse, Wisconsin typical fire, drinking some fireworks and cooking food on the fire it gets late and someone in the group brought a Ouija board never paid those things any attention but we're on an island drinking so I'm sitting there watching as some of the girls move it around or it moves itself they're asking it questions the typical if you're here let us know and then off in the woods I hear a hello I thought it was my imagination but then my buddy sees me looking at the tree line and says you heard it too I said what did you hear someone just said hello that's what I heard it came from the trees we shined a few lights but don't see anything everyone's pretty drunk and a little freaked out we continue sitting by the fire but we're running out of wood so couple of us go into the woods to look for branches or a dead tree as we gather wood I'm shining my light and it falls on a grave not a graveyard, just a single grave on this random island we picked the camp on it looked very old and was pretty much in line with where I was sitting by the fire it was really weird and we all heard that voice from Redditor Mixum Null I worked nights at a hotel it was my first it was my first overnight shift on Halloween it was about 3 a.m. when I spotted a man in the kitchen he was a little over six feet tall and he was wearing an olive green windbreaker we stayed motionless for a long moment just watching each other before suddenly he lifted both legs at the knees and floated out the door I didn't initially think I'd seen a ghost I ran into the back hallway looking for him and spent about two minutes searching every room back there never found anyone it was dead silent I returned to the desk angry that this dude had gotten away and it took me a good five minutes more to accept that I'd seen him float and that people don't do that from Redditor Silence Voice 21 The night before Halloween my roommates and I were in bed and everyone was asleep except for me I woke it up around 2 a.m. which would make it Halloween day feeling uneasy and a little creeped out I kept telling myself to shut up and then I was freaking myself out until the doorknob started shaking like someone was trying desperately to get in the door was just off to the left of a window so I know no one was standing at the door unless I would have seen their shadow cast on that window all I could do was lay and stare at the door while this was happening for a solid two to three minutes I tried to listen for voices and stared intently at the window to see if I could catch someone's movement outside but I was too scared to actually get up and peek through the blinds after it stopped I said out loud that's it I'm done good night and close my eyes to go to sleep then I heard a voice in my ear say good night I immediately opened my eyes and I frozen for a hot minute before proceeding to get onto YouTube to watch happy videos while listening to our desk chairs creak as if someone was leaning back in them from Redditor Corrine DeSavani my sister was riding home with her boyfriend from the Halloween gathering they had gone to it was dark of course when he pulled into the driveway to our house she said the lights landed on something large running on all fours it was humanoid shaped he didn't see it she told me about it and I told her that it was fine not to go outside again that night later I was pulling into my driveway at night after getting off work it was late and everybody else would have been gone to bed by then it was the first time I had seen something like it and hopefully the last I understand my sister was freaked out that time a large humanoid creature on all fours was running through the yard it was only a few seconds that I saw it but it was close it was big maybe twice the size of our chocolate lamp once we passed each other I didn't see it again needless to say I made a mad dash into the house and would not let the dogs go out to use the bathroom Halloween is not always fun and games from Redditor heathendemon420 had an experience with my soon-to-be brother-in-law I'll call him Bill it was Halloween we were going to check out a place where witches and some satanic cults would practice their rituals as we're heading down the road Bill and I noticed the headlights dim soon after the radio cuts off then the car dies all together that's when we noticed something moving in the bushes well okay we're out in the middle nowhere not something that should be odd at all but that's when the thing walks out we stare for about a minute looking like idiots I hear Bill ask if it's standing on its back legs I answer yes it is we continue to watch this thing walk for about five yards before crossing the middle of the road and jumping off into the opposite side of bushes car finally fires up on its own after whatever leaves we look at each other then Bill hits the gas and we're on our way home closest we could figure we just saw a coyote come out of the bushes and walk across the road on its hind legs only problem with that outside of the coyote crossing the road on its hind legs is that we both realized the hind legs weren't bent or angled right they were bent or angled like a human's legs we also realized the coyote was bigger than either of us had seen before that's when we note the subject and went to sleep good times on Halloween in Oklahoma from Redditor nonsense for a name I took my little sister's trick or treating invited some friends over for a bonfire then went upstairs to watch scary movies we went on watching scary movies late into the night one by one my friends started leaving and finally the last friend left around one in the morning I was tired so I just fell asleep on the couch upstairs I woke up around 4 in the morning to someone saying my name and was surprised to see my recently deceased great grandmother sitting in the chair across from me but she looked young I almost remember she said it's so beautiful here and I was never sure whether she meant here as in the house or whatever afterlife she's in now anyways we sat and talked for a while just catching up eventually she just kind of faded I guess just disappeared I woke up a little bit later I must have just fallen back to sleep at some point this was about 3 years ago I told my siblings about it but never told my mom she was really close to grandmommy and I didn't want to upset her or have her think that I was lying I guess what would have been grandmommies 100th birthday is coming up and I'm tempted to tell my mom about it then but I'm still not sure how she'll respond also when I told my sister she told me that she had seen her around the house before from redditor memehooms memehooms hoomst is viet whatever anyway a few years ago we were treating with my friend we went to this house got candy moved on typical stuff no we had been going in a straight line making no circles but later on we came across the same house we joked about it oh we traveled back somehow and the house owner joked about how we came back for more then later on we came across it again we were super confused whatever happened that night might not be natural and I'm going to end tonight with this some true stories from haunted house actors some of them are scary some of them were funny the scare acting it's a grueling but rewarding test of a performers improvisational skills and physical fitness they work every night of the week audition months ahead of time even after being employed for years and they wear these cumbersome costumes regardless of the weather there's also a chance the nervous guests are going to punch on you urinate on you is it a job worth all that effort it certainly seems like it though scare actors love what they do and they have loads of funny stories from haunted houses to share at boring dinner parties from an actor's account in USA today I decided to become a murderous flirty demon a name I will continue to call myself these after this job I approach men who are walking arm and arm with their dates and hold intense eye contact then I strut alongside them tussle my hair and put my hand on my hip finally out of nowhere I threaten their girlfriends with a hatchet once I master that I widened my scare demo I stalk stare some flirt back others scream a few say hey girl many laugh for Redditor never enough muffits we had a guy who would chase after you with a chainsaw chain removed after you left the house you know just run after you a few steps when you came out the door well one time these two girls came out and I swear one of the girls just had like an extreme panic response and I guess her body chose fight over flight she literally chased the guy down while he was yelling I'm just kidding it's just a joke and she kicked him in the groin so hard he vomited she apologized and said she just freaked out from Redditor fatal B we had a haunted outdoor maze section I chased people dressed as a hillbilly werewolf with a real chainsaw replaced the bar and chain with the fake one the smell of real chainsaw exhaust would hang in the air and only added to the effectiveness of the scare I liked to hide near the exit in hidden walls I'd start the chainsaw only five feet away from my prey one night I was carrying a particular group of teenagers particularly well the girls were borderline in tears and the guys were trying to push them in front but would run away full speed anytime I started the saw they only finally made it to the exit when a group led by a ten year old passed them and the youngest made fun of them the kid barely flinched when I ran at him with the saw and when I got close he just stopped and looked at me and said werewolf then why would you need a chainsaw proceeds right past me out the exit from an actor's account in the Los Angeles magazine some guests are runners some will cower in the corner that's the worst thing you can do that means we're all going to surround you until you get on the floor and curl up in a ball then all six of us would hold hands and dance around them until we saw a puddle on the floor we get a high five from the supervisor if somebody peed their pants from Redditor Eddie Minyan one year I'm doing the autopsy room body parts everywhere, the basket of intestines dangling from the ceiling blood everywhere, you know, the normal stuff one night early on I missed dinner so I raided the candy bowl and grabbed a bunch of those fun sized snickers and hit them in the gut basket group comes in faster than I expected just in time to see me taking the candy bar out of the basket and pop it in my mouth a woman screams, oh my gosh she's eating poop she swears she saw me squeeze a big old lump of human feces out of one of those intestines which can't be true, they were made out of expanding insulation, foam and painted they were all solid after that I started working that into my routine made more than one person vomit that year from Redditor Spooky Throwaway we are emphatically told to scare everyone a lot of scare actors don't like to scare young children which is understandable, but I do children shouldn't be there in the first place the parents usually force them to go not my fault, your kid is going to have nightmares from Redditor again from the same Redditor Eddie Minyan little old lady had to be 80, dragging her two 60 year old sons by their hands into the haunt telling them in the sweetest little old grandma voice you can imagine now now boys, don't be scared she gets into the last room which was dressed as a movie theater where the entire screen would break open as a giant monster jumped out she sat front row center my friend literally got his phone out and dialed 911 and was waiting to hit send monster jumps out two inches from her nose she shrieks and then just collapses we all rush in she turns and looks at us and starts laughing another Redditor said I was dressed as death big antique scythe and everything this little boy like maybe 6 to 7 years old got it in his head that I wanted to personally off him he's crying like a baby I get yelled at to take my mask off so I take my mask off everybody turns around to look at him going see he's not going to get you I on the other hand am furrowing my brow nodding my head and mouthing I'm going to end you he starts shrieking he's still going to get me and from Redditor Brendan 685 I volunteered at one for a few years in high school the best thing that happened was that I saw a girl from grade school going through the room she obviously couldn't recognize me so as she passed I whispered her name she got a huge fright and the next day she asked on Facebook who was working in the haunted house I never told her who it was sorry Jenna 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 I would 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 and look in the limited release section for pumpkin cookie chunk visit WeirdDarkness.com and use the promo code WeirdDarkness all one word to get 10% off your entire purchase ever had that eerie feeling of being watched? there's no one there at least nobody you can see anyway but still, you can feel those ghostly eyes upon you the watchers in the shadows waiting for their moment to scare you, haunt you or something even worse that is the theme these selected creepy true stories of the paranormal designed to have you wondering if you too are being watched from the shadows this all new collection includes stories about the hat man, black-eyed kids shadow people, poltergeists UFOs, the premonitions of a dying man forest demons and much more all absolutely true all chosen by the master of the paranormal himself G. Michael Vasey watched from the shadows scary true stories of the paranormal available now on the audiobooks page at WeirdDarkness.com that's WeirdDarkness.com slash audiobooks let's take a look at some of the comments that have come in we only have a few and Kimberley says Darren, thank you for the live stream you are greatly appreciated well you're very welcome Kimberley I had a lot of fun and looks like everybody had for me so we'll get out of that and I did have time to choose a winner for our caption contest our caption let me bring that up again so you can all see it here's the picture that we were captioning and I looked through all of them during that break I think my favorite one is probably from Mark Jenkins he says you will be known as Gordy O. Lantern the lesser known brother of Frosty he's our winner thank you very much Mark I appreciate that and I'll be sending you your prize pack with 3 t-shirts and 2 mugs thank you so much for getting involved I really appreciate that and well that's it folks I'm going to go ahead and call it a night I'm getting really really tired and my voice is going so thanks for watching keep watching though through the end because I am going to play my song Werewolf Girlfriend before the stream ends you guys liked that last year so I'll do it again this year and this is my last opportunity to ask you for help in raising funds to combat depression and suicide our current Lee now at $5,585 we had another $25 coming in thank you very much for that gift if you're not already done so please visit the Hope in the Darkness page if you're darkness you can make a donation there any amount to help the cause and also learn more about the organizations that are going to benefit from you so please skip visit WeirdDarkness.com click the donate button or just visit WeirdDarkness.com slash Hope and if you like the show please share it with somebody you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories true crime monsters or unsolved mysteries like you do I might do this live stream once a year but I upload episodes of the Weird Darkness podcast 7 days a week so you can email me anytime with your questions or comments at Darren at WeirdDarkness.com you can see the email address right there on your screen WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find all of my social media you can listen to audio books that I've narrated you can shop the Weird Darkness store sign up for contests find other podcasts that I host including Church of the Undead and more that's WeirdDarkness.com all stories that I use tonight are purported to be true unless dated otherwise links to all of those stories in the show notes which you can find right now at WeirdDarkness.com slash Mark Weird Darkness is a production and trademark of Marlar House Productions copyright, Weird Darkness and now that we're coming out of the dark I'll leave you with a little light Psalm 23 verse 4 even though I walk through the valley at the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me and the final thought from Shane and Maguire the problem with people who say monsters don't really exist is that they're almost never saying it to the monsters I'm Darren Marlar thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness I met her in the park on a moonlit night I met her in the park on a moonlit night I met her in the park on a moonlit night without a single word without a single word I knew our love was right I felt her heart breath get near when she nibbled on my ear that I saw her face come into the light she's my werewolf girlfriend it was love at first bite she's my werewolf girlfriend she's only dangerous at night she's still a fox to me even though she has like cathropy my werewolf girlfriend and me every month she has her womanly change but instead of getting grumpy she suffers from the mange I don't need to buy her furs the best in the world is already hers her manicures are out of my price range she's my werewolf girlfriend it was love at first bite my werewolf girlfriend she's only dangerous at night she's still a fox to me even though she has like cathropy girlfriend we're dangerous when we fight it's really strange when we kiss good night she's always in the best place to be the leader of my party more hectic to silver so I buy her gold I know she's healthy when her nose is cold I know our love will never fail when she starts to wag her tail she's my werewolf girlfriend it was love at first bite and she's only dangerous at night she's still a fox to me even though she has like cathropy girlfriend