A Nightmare Before Halloween, Part Two
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Go to knix.com and get 15% off with promo code TRY15. That's knix.com, promo code TRY15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. That's knix.com. This is Murder, She Told. True crime stories from Maine, New England, and small town USA. I'm Kristen Seavey.

You can connect with the show at MurderSheTold.com or on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast. Welcome to a special episode of Murder She Told.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite seasons, so when Shane from Foul Play Podcast asked me to be a part of this special collaboration with over 30 other podcasts, I couldn't resist. In these episodes, you'll hear from podcasts all around the world telling stories in their own voice, whether it's paranormal or true crime or just plain spooky. This is a great way to find other podcasts and hear a little bit in their own voice.

Check out the show notes to see the order of the stories being played. And be sure to go check out those podcasts. And without further ado, this is A Nightmare Before Halloween, Part 2. Hello, friend. I'm glad to see you weren't too spooked last time and you've returned to the woods. Here, take your place next to the campfire. It's all ready for you.

If you haven't listened to part one of this Halloween episode, I highly recommend that you do. We have 31 stories from 31 different crime podcasts. All the podcasts are listed in order of appearance, along with a link on where you can find them. I am your friend to guide you through the darkness, Shane Waters, from Foul Play Crime Series. Oh, my friend finally just showed up, by the way.

Maybe now is a good time to introduce you to my friend Cambo. His accent alone might help ease your fear. Cambo is the host of True Crime Island and this is the tale of who killed little Nima Louise Carter. So grab a beer and pull up a deck chair. It's Halloween.

And it was Halloween night in 1977, Lawton, Oklahoma. At 6.06, Southwest's 23rd place, George and Rose Carter have put their daughter, 19-month-old Nima Louise, to bed. George and Rose then retired to their own bedroom to sleep.

The quiet of the night was broken by little Nima crying in the other room. George and Rose would let Nima cry it out rather than go in to see her. They didn't want to spoil her, a decision they would regret for the rest of their lives. You see, on this Halloween night, there was evil lurking at 606 23rd Place. In the morning, Rose was alarmed as she went to get Nima out of her cot.

nema wasn't there and a search of the house failed to find her the carters didn't lock their back door a thing a lot of people back in the day didn't do george and rose called police but a search of the area failed to find their daughter now there'd been some strange goings on before that hallowe'en night

The Carter's home had been broken into and photos of Nima had been scattered behind a shed in the backyard. Now this happened just days after their dog had been poisoned.

On Wednesday the 23rd of November, Nima's body would be found on the floor of an abandoned house at 1916 D Avenue, just minutes from the Carter's home. Although she'd been found on the floor of the kitchen, she'd had been in an old refrigerator, suffocated and it looked like someone had entered their house, opened the fridge and her body had fallen out.

Now, police on the scene were shocked at the similarity of an unsolved case from the year before, where three and a half year old twin sisters, Tina and Mary Carpitcher, were found locked in an old fridge in an abandoned house less than a mile from where Nima was found. And it was near train tracks. Now, Mary suffocated, but Tina survived by being able to breathe some air from a worn seal on the door.

Now the twins had disappeared from their grandma's house on the 8th of April 1976 and found on the 10th they'd both been beaten, bitten and put in the fridge and left to die. Now these old fridges were before they had magnetic locks and they were able to be locked by the handle at the front and this prevented the girls from escaping.

But Tina was able to identify her abductor. It was her babysitter, 16-year-old Jacqueline Robito. Now this was backed up by a girl who heard her screams from the fridge that day and opened the door. It was 11-year-old Kathy Ford who asked Tina who did this to her. And Tina replies, Jackie Boo.

Not only were the two cases similar in that the kids had been left in fridges to die, but Jacqueline Robideau had previously babysat for the Carters as well. But police in 1976 didn't have any real leads to follow until that Halloween murder of Nima. Now they then interviewed the now 18-year-old Robideau and she of course denied any involvement in either of the crimes and police couldn't get a confession from her.

Anyway, Jacqueline Robito would eventually be charged in the death of Mary Carpitcher and after a mistrial, she would eventually be convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. Now, Tina had testified that Jackie had entered their grandma's living room at 3 Northwest 28th Street where they were watching the telly on the afternoon of April the 8th, 1976 and told them to come with her.

They walked several blocks to the house where they were told to get into the refrigerator and their aunt Thomasina would come get them later and take them for ice cream.

Now, what's also disturbing about this case was that a Mr. and Mrs. Craig that lived nearby saw Robidoux walking near the house and she had hold of the two little girls' arms by the wrists and they were trying to pull loose. Now, Miss Craig said that afterwards they saw Robidoux walking alone.

Now, they also said she didn't report this to the police at the time because, I guess like other people, I didn't want to get involved. Jeez. Jacqueline Robideau would never be brought to justice for the Halloween murder of Nima Carter. Robideau would die in prison on the 26th of August 2005, aged 46.

So, to my question at the start, who killed Nima Carter? Well, I think we can safely say Jacqueline Robideau did it, and she probably broke into the house and threw Nima's photos behind the shed, and I reckon she poisoned the dog as well. Why? Well, it looks like the Carters got a new babysitter and Robideau was pissed off.

Robito had spoken to a friend at the local quickie mart after George Carter had told her that they had another babysitter. Now she said, they told me that was my job. Well, if that's the way he wants it, so be it. A jealous rage or a psycho killer. Lucky they finally locked her up so she couldn't kill again.

So I've been Cambo Ford from True Crime Island. Have a happy Halloween. Don't forget to lock your doors and make sure you delete your browser history. Good night. The accent helped, right? Based on a true story is hosted by Dan. It's the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. You can take it from here, Dan. One of my favorite movies to watch around Halloween is 1992's The Crucible.

That movie is actually based on a play by Arthur Miller, so it's not necessarily trying to tell something directly from history, but nevertheless, it tells the story of the Salem witch trials. So let's take a few minutes to learn more about the true story as we dig into the history behind The Crucible. It's dark. Winona Ryder's character, a girl named Abigail Williams, wakes with a start. There's a girl in the bed with her, and with a little shake, Abigail wakes her up.

Quietly, the two girls get out of bed and put pillows in their place. They carefully cover the pillows with blankets so if anyone were to peek in at them, they would think that the two girls were still in bed. Then they sneak downstairs and out the side door. The camera cuts to another house and we see more girls sneaking out of their homes as well. Then an overhead shot shows even more girls as they quietly make their way down the empty dirt streets of the town.

If you pause the movie, you can see 12 girls at any one time on the screen. And speaking of pausing, let's pause the movie ourselves for a moment here because it doesn't give any sort of indication of time, date, or location. So before we continue further, let's turn to history to date what we're seeing here and give ourselves a geographical setting.

All of this is happening in Salem, Massachusetts, on the east coast of the United States. That's about 15 miles or 24 kilometers to the north of Boston. The year is 1692. Salem has been in existence for 66 years and has quickly grown to being one of the most important seaports on the new continent. In 1692, of course, the United States wasn't really a thing yet, so Salem was an English colony.

More specifically, it was one of the settlements in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Boston was considered another settlement in that same colony. If we go back to the movie, Abigail and the other girls were on their way into the forest. Once there, a slave named Tituba leads them in some sort of ritual. The girls start swaying back and forth as Tituba chants. One of the girls says, make a spell on Joseph Baker, Tituba. Make him love me.

Another one calls out, make Daniel Poole my husband. This whole opening sequence of the love spell ritual in the forest outside of Salem is, well, to be honest, we don't really know if it's true or not, but it's probably not. You see, there's so much about the events surrounding the story that we just don't know. It was 1692, after all, and not everything was documented.

With that said, what we do know of the events leading up to the Salem witch trials, the evidence suggests that it was not because of a love spell ritual being conducted in secret in the forest like we see in the opening scenes of the movie. One of the sources of documentation that we do know about comes from a man named Reverend John Hale. He wrote a book in 1697. You can find the full text of the book linked over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com slash 143.

But here's a quote from his book that gives us an idea for what might have started the whole thing. I fear some young persons, through a vain curiosity to know their future condition, have tampered with the devil's tools. So far that hereby one door was opened to Satan to play those pranks.

I knew one of the afflicted persons who, as I was credibly informed, did try with an egg and a glass to find her future husband's calling till there came up a coffin, that is, a specter in likeness of a coffin. And she was afterward followed with diabolical molestation to her death. And so died a single person, a just warning to others to take heed of handling the devil's weapons lest they get a wound thereby."

Another I was called to pray with, being under sore fits and vexations of Satan. And upon examination, I found she had tried the same charm. And after her confession of it and manifestation of repentance for it and our prayers to God for her, she was speedily released from those bonds of Satan.

This iniquity, though I take it not to be the capital crime condemned, Exodus 22, because such persons act ignorantly, not considering they hereby go to the devil, yet borders very much upon it.

and is too like Saul's going to the witch at Endor and Ahaziah sending to the god of Ekron to inquire. What Reverend Hale is referring to is something known as umansi or sometimes referred to as a Venus glass. It was thought to have been something like a crystal ball, something used to tell one's future.

Remember that scene in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Harry is in Professor Trelawney's divination class and he sees the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup to reveal the Grimm?

That's basically what this charm was, except instead of tea leaves, they used an egg. The basic concept of this method of divination is to provide some sort of heat and drop an egg onto it. Then you read the shape that the egg white takes when it starts to solidify. As Hale mentioned, the girls seem to have been using this as a way of telling who their future husbands might be. So you can see how the idea of the rituals that we're seeing in the forest in the movie

Trying to cast love spells and things like that could be turned into what we see. As the story goes, the two girls who started playing with this form of divination might have been Abigail Williams and Betty Paris. They got scared when the egg white revealed the shape of a coffin, presumably predicting some horrible fate, kind of like what we saw with Harry Potter.

So it's not likely that they were performing the love spell rituals that we see in the movie. Instead, they were using eggs as a form of divination or umancy. Think about that the next time you crack an egg over your pan. The shape you see when the egg white hits the heated pan was one of the ingredients that went into the Salem Witch Trials hysteria.

On the other side of that, Reverend Hale's words also give us a peek into the mindset of Christianity of the day, as he mentions the charm being the bonds of Satan. In fact, Reverend Hale's book opens with a scripture verse from Isaiah 8, verses 19 and 20. When they say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards.

that peep to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. The witch that Reverend Hale mentions is also from the Bible, the witch of Endor. That comes from 1 Samuel 28, verses 6-8. When the first king of Israel, Saul, sought out the counsel of a witch in the city of Endor, he asked the witch to, quote, divine unto me by the familiar spirit and bring me him up.

whom I shall name unto thee, end quote. As that story goes, King Saul asked for the spirit of his old mentor and prophet of God, Samuel. But things didn't turn out so well when the spirit of Samuel prophesied the Israelites would be defeated by the Philistines the next day in battle. And so you start to get an idea for why the Christians in Salem could see this as an example of cause and effect. Essentially, there are dire consequences for getting help from a witch.

Between February of 1692 and May of 1693, more than 200 people were accused of what we now know as the Salem Witch Trials. 30 of those were found guilty by the court, and 20 of those 30 were killed, 19 by hanging, and one by being pressed to death when he refused to go to trial. Looking back on it, many historians have suggested the Salem Witch Trials became an excuse for people to steal land and possessions.

After all, when someone was accused, all their assets would be forfeited to the crown. Remember, it was an English settlement and not the United States. The United States was not a country yet. But it's not like the king personally took the assets of those accused. That's just how the law worked. And then those assets would usually come up for auction. And often the accuser would coincidentally be the one purchasing or simply taking ownership. That's how the assets would change hands legally. So those accused would lose their possessions and someone else would swoop in

to take them over. It was all legal. Meanwhile, lives were ruined and even lost in the process. It wasn't until 18 years later in 1711 that a bill was passed to officially restore the good names and rights. 578 pounds was split amongst the survivors and relatives of the accused. It's tough to calculate the exact amount from that time, but as close as I can figure, that's probably about $42,000 in today's U.S. dollars.

So far, there has been a lot of tales from the US, but the world is a really big place. Jessica is the host of the Asian Madness podcast. She specifically covers crime on the Asian continent. Who better to bring us a tale from her home country of Taiwan? Many of you may not be familiar with Taiwan and what it's like, but just like any other place around the world, we have some specific spots that are said to be extra haunted.

One of these places is a tunnel in Taipei City called "Shinhai Tunnel". What's so special about this place? Well, for one thing, this tunnel is notorious for all the accidents that have taken place in and around it. Another reason is because the western entrance of the tunnel leads directly to the second municipal funeral parlor in Taipei City.

Not only that, the mountain in which the tunnel is carved from is home to many old graves. So if you drive during the day and you look up, it might just seem like any old regular mountain. But if you look closely, you can see there are many traditional gravestones lined up all around it. Almost everyone is aware that this tunnel is known to be haunted. Many people who drive through this tunnel are wary and extra careful.

It might be a bit superstitious, but it doesn't hurt to be alert while driving through tunnels. Many people have reportedly seen a womanly figure walking in the tunnel, and some have even heard a woman's voice near them when driving. It should be impossible to hear something like that so clearly when you're driving through a tunnel. Which leads us to today's tale. A taxi driver experienced something quite extreme, and this is his story.

One night, he was making his usual rounds around the city, and that's when he drove through the tunnel. At the entrance, he found an expressionless young woman waving at him, so of course, he stopped and let her get in. He didn't think much of it. The area was close to the city, so not exactly in the middle of nowhere. The woman was very pale, almost sickly. The driver didn't pry, just simply asked her for her destination.

She gave him an address and off he went. They drove around and the driver was feeling somewhat uncomfortable, like something in the air didn't feel right, but he chalked it up to him being superstitious and tired. Eventually, the taxi driver arrived at their destination, and as the woman was about to get off, she calmly told the driver that she didn't have money on her and asked if he would please wait outside while she went in and got her purse.

Well, it's not like the driver had much of a choice, so he agreed to this. The woman got out, entered the residence, and thus began the waiting game. The driver waited and waited, and time seemed to go by even more slowly in the middle of the night. Finally, 20 minutes went by and he was a little frustrated. He wanted to continue on his taxi route, or maybe even go home.

So he got out of his taxi, went out to the residence and pressed on the doorbell. It was late, so it took a few tries, but eventually a man answered. The taxi driver explained that he dropped off a young woman about 20 minutes ago and she said she needed to get her purse and that he was still waiting. The man on the other end of the call box eventually walked out, and it was an older man. He handed the money over to the taxi driver and apologized.

The driver was a bit confused, but before he could ask or say anything, the older man opened his mouth once again. According to him, his daughter had passed away in a car accident a while ago in Xinhai Tunnel, where she was picked up that night. Ever since then, she would appear sporadically, hail taxis, and ask them to drop her off at her home. The driver had no words for this older man. He simply thanked him

gave him his condolences, and got back in his taxi. Understandably, he decided to call it a night and headed straight home afterwards. So that's one of the many, many tales involving this Xinhai tunnel, probably the most haunted tunnel in Taiwan. I know that this tale is probably more on the sad and depressing end rather than the spooky side, but can you really not get spooked out as well knowing you gave a lift to a ghost?

It's perfectly normal to feel a mix of emotions, and this is one of those cases. I don't give lifts to anyone, and that was a good example as to why. May I ask, have you ever heard of summoning the Candyman? Mara and Taz from Sisters Who Kill are here to share the tale. Our players this week are the plantation owner, the murderer, and Daniel Ravitel, the Candyman.

There once lived a man named Daniel Robertel. Daniel was a slave who worked on a plantation in New Orleans. Nolens, as they like to call it. But he wasn't just any old slave. This man was also a talented painter. I mean...

Hands down, everybody loved to see his paintings. So his owner, the plantation owner, decides that he wants Daniel to paint a portrait of his daughter, his beautiful, loving, snow-white flake-skinned daughter. Now, paintings, of course, as most of you know, they take time, especially really good ones. So that meant that Daniel had to spend a lot of time with his owner's daughter,

And he ended up falling in love with her, which is one big mistake. The plantation owner, of course, found out about this and he was pissed. I mean, he was livid to the point that he grabbed a mob of people, a mob of angry white men to go get Daniel.

The mob came and they were armed with pitchforks and they were ready to catch Daniel. They chased him through the fields and they finally caught him. And when they caught him, they were near an old barn. Daniel, he had been running and hiding and he was exhausted and he literally could not run anymore. The mob came up, they grabbed Daniel and they were all snarling at him with a snaggletooth self. And they took a rusty saw and they cut.

cut off Daniel's right hand, the hand that he was so famously known for painting these beautiful portraits, the hand of a slave that fell in love with his master's daughter. The next thing the mob did was go and find a whole bunch of honey. Don't ask me why these white folks had all this honey, but they did, and they doused Daniel's body

in this honey and threw him in a beehive. They watched and they laughed and they snickered and they kept making Daniel stay in this beehive until the bees stung him to death. Now listen, the average person can safely tolerate 10 stings

per pound of your body weight. This means that although 500 stings could kill a child, the average adult can withstand over 11,000 bee stings before dying. So needless to say, Daniel suffered a painful, painful,

Painful death. And it wasn't fast either. His arm is throbbing from his hand being cut off. And on top of that, his body is swelling due to all the bee stings. And as if this is not enough, the plantation owner comes over and holds a mirror to Daniel's face so that he could look at himself. He mocks Daniel and says, bet my daughter won't like you no more. Bet that's the end of that. So...

Daniel was like, man, this is really messed up. They could have just killed me, but you going to torture me to death? I bet. So before Daniel dies, he looks into the mirror and he whispers,

Candyman. Now this puts a curse on the plantation owner, the mob, and anybody else who dares speak his name. The plantation owner and the mob, they all end up dying in mysterious ways. Nobody was ever able to explain it. Due to the excruciatingly painful way that Daniel died, his spirit was never able to rest.

Years after passing, his ghost rose from its grave. Daniel's ghost appears with a hook for a hand, dressed in a black trench coat with fur on the collar. Under his black trench coat is a hollowed-out chest cavity covered in honey and bees. Legend has it that those who have summoned the Candyman were killed with his hook, and if that didn't work, the swarm of bees would finish them off. If you decided you want to talk to the Candyman,

All you gotta do is say Candyman five times while looking into a mirror and he will appear. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Candyman. Nah, y'all got it. All right, y'all, we have a part of our show called... I ain't do it, but if I did, this is how I would've got away with it. I ain't do Halloween last year, but if I did, I would've been Reggie from Rocket Power.

I ain't do it, but if I did, I would have dressed up like Josephine Baker. But you know, like a lot of people dress up as Josephine Baker because she is a vaudeville performer that is very famous. But when a lot of people do it, they ended up doing blackface. So we have a couple minutes left and we're going to tell you guys why doing blackface for Halloween is a horrible thing.

Blackface is inappropriate anytime, but people like to think that they can get away with it because it's Halloween and you're supposed to dress up as something. But there's like an actual history behind blackface and why it's demeaning. It's not even just blackface. It's cultural appropriation and all types. But like blackface has been frowned on since black minstrel shows of the 18th and 19th century.

Like, this is a long history of demeaning behavior that you can't just excuse with the date of a holiday. Right. So Blackface actually first showed up in American theater. And fun fact, it is the only form of theater that is original to America. Everything else was made or originated outside of this country. And it is made by actors burning cork. And later they used shoe polish to...

paint their faces black so that they could play these stereotypes of what they thought black people were. To pass on the ideas that black people that were from the South were lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, meant to only be mammies or pickaninnies. And they did this by also

playing music, song and dance. They did this not only by creating stereotypes about Black people, but they also tried to give this illusion because Blackface, the art of Blackface,

started way before the Civil War. So they were giving this illusion through art and propaganda that slaves on the plantation were happy. They're singing and dancing and shucking and driving and eating watermelons, so they must be having a good time. That's why slavery is a good thing. Blackface was something that started off in vaudeville shows and then made its way to the Great White Way, known as Broadway.

From there, it was the most popular form of entertainment to the point where Black performers that may have worked the vaudeville circuit, they ended up having to cork up. Corking up is basically when you burn the cork and you paint your face Black. Famous Black performers had to cork up at that time because that was the only way that they would be able to perform. Because that was the only way that white people would accept entertainment from a Black performer. That was the only way that they would accept entertainment

any type of black media. So when you guys are picking out your Halloween costumes this year, not saying that you can't be somebody outside your race, but you don't have to darken your skin to do it. You can be Wakanda if you want to. Just don't paint your skin black, right? Like I seen some white boys dress up as the Migos and it was one of the best costumes. And they were still white boys. And still white boys. I know exactly who they were.

There's a way to do it. Also, do not dress up as people's culture. People's culture and not a costume. Do not put on headdresses and all that stuff. They have a meaning. They have a purpose. And it's not for you to get voted best dressed at a party. All right. Thanks. So until next time, happy Halloween. Candyman.

Well, I didn't call this the nightmare before Halloween for nothing, I guess. Good luck to both of us. A lot of my friends here tonight have two podcasts, as do I. I'd like to share a little history with you from my podcast, Hometown History. Did you know there is a different Candyman, too? Halloween is really a special time, isn't it? Especially for me. You can see why if you know who I am.

Look up a little. That's me, a jack-o'-lantern. At Halloween time every year, I sit up here and watch everybody go by. It's a nice and scary time, isn't it? All those wonderful costumes and masks and makeup. I think about how much fun Halloween is. I also worry a little bit about the things that can spoil the fun of Halloween. Those kinds of things scare me too.

The best part of old Halloween safety PSAs, like that one, was the long list of well-intentioned, but often terrible advice. Like, don't wear black. Another suggestion was to wear large fluorescent, reflective panels all over your body so you're basically glowing in the dark.

A good way to make any costume easier to see at night is to decorate it with reflective tape or reflective patches. This one was a little more reasonable. Expand the eye holes in your mask. Now, how about the mask? Any problem with it? Do you remember how hard it was to see out through those little eye holes? To be safe at night, you have to be able to see clearly as well as be seen.

We can improve the mask by cutting larger holes to look out of. Or, if you want to have even less fun... There is an even safer way. You can simply not wear a mask. But as every 80s or 90 kid knows, the greatest threat was always the candy. You see, some people think it's fun to play tricks with your treats. Watch out for candy wrappers that have been torn or punctured.

That might be a sign of tampering. There might be things in the candy. So break open candy bars before you eat them. Cut fruit into pieces before you eat it, just in case something's been stuck in it. Watch out for things that look like candy, but might be medicines or drugs or even poisons. Don't eat anything that doesn't look right. If it looks funny, it might not be so funny if you ate it.

Treats are so much fun to collect. It'd be awful to have them spoil your Halloween fun by making you sick. Cory's treats won't make her sick, and I hope yours won't make you sick either.

This idea that strangers were trying to poison you was everywhere when we were kids. Every kid in America heard this warning every single Halloween. And if people gave you fruit or cookies or unwrapped candy, your parents probably made you throw it away. The irony of all this hysteria and fear was that it came back to one case in Texas where a man named Ronald Clark O'Brien used a giant pixie stick to poison his own son.

O'Brien laced five of these Pixie Stix with potassium cyanide and handed them out on Halloween night. He gave two of them to his children, Timothy and Elizabeth, on whom he had recently taken out life insurance policies. In order to disguise the source of the poisoned candy, O'Brien gave two more Pixie Stix to his neighbor's kids. He gave the fifth to a 10-year-old from his church. Fortunately, four of the children were not in the mood for Pixie Stix.

Unfortunately, Timothy O'Brien's 8-year-old son did eat his and died on the way to the hospital later that night. This next clip is from live coverage from the courthouse during O'Brien's murder trial in 1975.

Most of today's testimony came from Jimmy Bates, a close friend of the O'Brien family. Bates said that before Halloween, O'Brien asked if he could bring his children over to trick-or-treat with the Bates children on Halloween night. Both families ate dinner together, and then the fathers took the children trick-or-treating.

Bates said O'Brien went to one house where no one appeared to be home and after the children had scampered ahead to the next house, O'Brien came off the front porch carrying the pixie sticks. He gave the pixie sticks to the children and then later took them back and said he wanted to stop at his car for a moment. Bates said when O'Brien came back into the Bates house, he returned the pixie sticks to the children. Later that night, Timothy O'Brien died from eating a poisoned pixie stick.

O'Brien was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death by electrocution. He was executed by lethal injection nine years later on March 31, 1984, in the middle of the night. In the words of the prison chaplain, "The most despised person ever escorted into the death house was Ronald Clark O'Brien, a short, puffy man who had been absolutely friendless during the eight and a half years he'd been in prison." In the week before he was scheduled to be executed,

In fact, inmates at the walls had even petitioned to be allowed some manner of organized demonstrations to show their disdain for the former optician who had been convicted of murdering his eight-year-old son. Even if you've never heard this story before, you probably know O'Brien's nickname. They called him "The Candyman."

Obviously, this is an extreme story involving a heinous crime, but there's a lesson in it, even for those of us who are not planning to poison a family member this Halloween.

Personal relationships matter. If the people closest to you are not trying to kill you, it is likely no one will. We often have this idea in life that we have to make everyone happy. We have to make everyone like us. In reality, we just have to be kind and faithful to the people in our inner circles and in our neighborhoods. And if we do that, chances are extremely good that no one will die.

Over 90% of homicides are committed by people we know, and of all violent crimes, homicide is the least likely to be committed by a stranger. If you lose your job, your money, your status, but all your most important relationships are healthy, you're probably going to be okay. So this Halloween season, I'd encourage you again to invest in the things that matter. I'd also like to encourage you to wear black and a mask if you'd like.

and to not ruin your costume with reflective panels or cut your candy bars into little pieces before you eat them. If you can do all that, then you won't have to worry about scary real things happening on Halloween, right? Have a fun and a safe Halloween. History can be spooky sometimes too, right?

Do you enjoy coffee? How about true crime? Well, Maggie and Allison cover lesser known cases and they like their coffee hot and cases cold. On the Coffee and Cases podcast. The setting for our case this week, Maggie, is New York. The towns of Cheektowaga and Depew, New York to be exact.

on the evening of Saturday, October 30th, 1982. 18-year-old James Adamski had on his costume. He was going for what he called the American gigolo look.

The Richard Gere film had just come out two years earlier, and I'm sure James, this 18-year-old, was loving the idea of going as a young man looking for a sugar mama. Oh, I'm sure. I'm positive. Now, Maggie, this was a different time, since it wasn't until 1988 that all states in the U.S. had raised their drinking age to 21. Yeah.

Oh, I feel so dumb. I didn't even know that there was a different age. I didn't know this either until I started researching this case. But at the time, it was legal at the age of 18 to drink in New York. And that was precisely James Adansky's plan.

He was heading from his home on View Court in Cheektowaga to the 5 and 23 Bar at the corner of Transit Road and Walden Avenue in Depew. They were having a Halloween Eve celebration.

And it was one of those pay a cover charge and drink all night deals. Okay. So I feel like very typical experience for a lot of 18-year-olds. Yes. And I'm thinking it happened on Halloween Eve because Halloween Eve was a Saturday. Oh, yeah. And Halloween was on a Sunday. Before making the two-mile walk from his home to the bar, he let his parents know he'd be home later. Okay.

And then when passing by his eight-year-old younger brother, Andy, already in his costume and ready to go get as much candy as humanly possible, James kissed his little brother on the forehead and said, have a good time trick-or-treating, kid, as he strode out the door. I know. I can imagine like a little ruffling of the hair. Yeah, me too. Yeah.

At the bar that night, like most 18-year-olds I'm sure would, James made the most of the all-you-can-drink and by most accounts was quite inebriated by the end of the night. Yeah, again, as most 18-year-old people would be. Yes. While James was a happy-go-lucky, thoughtful guy, he did get into an argument that evening with some other patrons at the bar, but...

It luckily quickly de-escalated before anything got out of hand or got physical or anything like that. James left 5 and 23 in the wee hours of the following morning, October 31st. And 5 and 23 is the name of the bar? Correct. Okay. He

He left the bar walking south in the company of a young woman and walked along Transit Road near Broadway with her for part of his journey back home before parting ways around 3.30 a.m. So I'm assuming because you say a young woman, we don't know this lady's name? I have not seen her name printed anywhere, no. But James Adamski never made it home.

His brother Andy recalled to journalists Dan Herbick and Karen Robinson of the Buffalo News, quote, when he didn't come home the next morning, my mother knew something was wrong. He was very respectful of our parents. He would never have stayed away all night without telling them, end quote. You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of the episode we did, episode 150 on Kurt Sova, that he tells his parents he's going to be out, quote,

And they just kind of trust him and they go to bed. But then when they wake up, he isn't there. Yeah, it's super similar because James kind of had that same relationship with his parents. So when he didn't come home, that was so out of character for him that his parents immediately alerted law enforcement when he didn't come home. However, even with launching a large scale search, officers found no sign of James.

Nearly two months after his disappearance, though, on December 26th, the day after Christmas, two rabbit hunters were out in a rural wooded area right by some railroad tracks near Ransom Road in Lancaster, New York.

when they approached what looked like a thicket. Upon moving some leaves and twigs out of the way, thinking that they would scare rabbits out into the open, they instead discovered a body buried in a shallow grave and covered with those twigs that I mentioned. The very next day, police had identified the body as that of James Adamski. He was still dressed in his costume from the night he went missing. Oh.

though his body was found in a location four miles from where he had last been seen. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. From what law enforcement speculated was an instrument like a baseball bat, a two-by-four, or a tire iron. Oh, my goodness. That is such a wide range of potential weapons. Are tire irons the things that

you use when you're changing a flat tire, those skinny things? He had been dealt numerous blows to the head, making it clear that this was a homicide and not an accident. But finding the perpetrator would prove harder than they thought because James was a young man whom everybody seemed to adore and who had no known enemies. Who would want to harm someone like that? And while there was the argument at the bar...

Those individuals were questioned by and cleared by law enforcement. Yeah, and you said it de-escalated quickly, so that makes me think they kind of resolved it on their own. And the girl he walked partially with, the last other than the perpetrator, to see him alive was also questioned and cleared as well.

Police did collect some of the twigs that had been covering James's body because those twigs were of a similar length and had clearly been broken off of nearby trees, which told law enforcement that the perpetrator had touched them.

While attempting to conceal James's body. So it wasn't as though his body were there two months and so, you know, random branches had fallen. Yeah, it was just natural. Exactly. This is purposeful concealment. Those twigs were sent to a laboratory to test for fingerprints, but they were unable to find any. But what about his clothes? There should be something on those. Yes, and you're right. Because while an attempt at obtaining DNA evidence was unsuccessful with the twigs...

Law enforcement do still have his Halloween costume, and they do hope that one day DNA testing will advance enough that the clothes will point them directly to James's killer.

And it advances. I feel like every day we're learning about new and new advancement. So I'm sure that's possible. Exactly. In the meantime, what police need most is for someone, anyone with information about that night to come forward to detail everything that they remember. The smallest and seemingly insignificant memory of that night could be all they need to solve this case.

And they do believe, Maggie, because of the body's location so far away, that someone had picked James up in a car. I wonder if it was someone he knew. Well, they speculate on that. We don't know. It was either someone he knew and so he willingly accepted a ride from them and then something went awry along the way. Or he was forced into a car by someone with an intent to cause harm.

But despite many uncertainties, one detail actually stands out to me. And that is that his body was found in a rural area that was not easily accessible. So they needed to be familiar with the area. That's what it seems to say to me. While James's father passed away in 2000 and his mother in 2005 without any closure, his brother Andy and James's other siblings still live with hope of answers.

Andy recalled the devastating aftermath of his brother's murder in the Buffalo News article Cold Case Files, 34 Years Later, Halloween Murder Haunts Family, and how his mother became so overprotective of the rest of her children, always worried that they too would be killed.

Of his older brother, James, who he looked up to so much, Andy said, quote, my brother was such a good person. He was the type of person who would give you the shirt off his back just so you'd have a shirt. If they ever do catch the person and the whole story comes out, I know it will be hard for me, but it's even harder not knowing, end quote.

To close, here are a few words from a detective of the Lancaster Police Department. My name is Robert Cornell. I'm a detective with the Town of Lancaster Police Department in New York. My department is still actively investigating the homicide of James Adamski.

If anyone has any information on this case, anything would be helpful to our investigation. If you could please call our police department. There's an $11,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and indictment in this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Lancaster Police Department at 716-683-2800. You could buy a lot of candy for $11,000.

Mama Margo is the host of Military Murder, which focuses on crimes committed by military members, veterans, and sometimes their spouses. Don't worry, you don't have to have knowledge about the military to listen. Let's jump into this true spooky tale. In 1993, an army sergeant named Stephen was notified that his wife was in the hospital. At the hospital, his wife confessed that she was pregnant.

Stephen was like, wait, I had a vasectomy, how can that be? The wifey eventually confessed that she had an affair. Stephen pressed his wife to learn who she had an affair with. The wife wouldn't give him much information, except to say the person's rank, which was specialist.

And once she told her husband that the guy she was cheating on him with was a specialist, he didn't even bother waiting around for the name because Stephen knew exactly who it was. It was his best friend.

So Stephen then marched his pissed off self off to the military base and there he began to hunt for his wife's lover. Mind you, the wife had asked Stephen for a divorce and even though he was hesitant at first, he had finally said yes before this incident.

Fast forward to the military installation which happens to be in Germany and Stephen is looking for his ex-best friend. He finds the specialist. The specialist's name is Greg and Greg is in a phone booth. The phone booth is in front of the dining facility during dinner time so there are plenty of people around. Greg doesn't see Steve coming and in fact he's on the phone with Stephen's wife.

Eventually, he sees Stephen and he tells the woman, your husband is here. And then the call goes dead.

At the phone booth, Steven and Greg are fighting to the death. Then, all of a sudden, Greg collapses. A circle of onlookers gather around. It looks like Steven is whooping on Greg because Greg is just laying there while Steven keeps punching him. But Steve isn't punching him. He's actually stabbing him. Greg is laying there motionless and people are watching.

And then Steve starts to make some sort of chopping motions with what eventually turns out to be a knife. He gets up and starts kicking Greg repeatedly on the head until the head physically detaches from the body. Everyone is now watching in horror. They are probably hiding now as Steven picks up the man's head. He scoffs and says aloud, that's what you get for being an adulterer.

Then Stephen drives off with Greg's head in tow. Minutes later, there is a commotion at the hospital. A blood-soaked Stephen walks into his wife's hospital room and grabs something from his bag. It's Greg's head. He places it down next to her and forces her to look at it. And then he says, now you can picture this for the rest of your life.

Stephen was immediately arrested and it wasn't hard to prove he did it. There were dozens of eyewitnesses after all. And Stephen confessed to the doctors in the hospital. Months later, at his military court-martial, also known as a trial, he put on the good soldier defense, evidence that he was the best thing since sliced bread and he had never, ever, ever, ever done anything wrong in his life. Ultimately, Stephen was convicted of killing Greg.

and was sentenced to life in prison. But the army general in charge of this court-martial ended up reducing Stephen's sentence to 30 years. Needless to say, this former soldier served less than 30 years due to good time and was released. Crazy story, right? Bet you thought it was an urban legend, but it's not. I don't even have a comment for that story. I'll just leave it.

My friends at the Dystopian Simulation Radio are here to share an underwater nightmare that takes place on the floor of a cave that has taken several lives in its time. In 1996, expert cave diver Nuno Gomez of New York City was awarded a Guinness World Record for the deepest dive in Bushman's Hole, a cave in South Africa.

Gomez descended over 270 meters down to the depths of the cave, where it took only 14 minutes to plunge into the darkest depths of what the locals call "Bussmann's Hat", where he spent just four minutes at the bottom in an expedition that took a total of 12+ hours to complete. The lengthy stint factored in a decompression schedule to stave off the bends.

a painful decompression sickness that can cause pain, paralysis and death if a diver ascends too quickly. Nuno Gómez made it out from the deepest depths of the Bushman's cave with his life intact, but the same could not be said to those before and after him. Bozeman Gat claimed the life of Eben Linden in 1993 after Leydon passed out descending 60 meters.

The cave also took the life of DeAndrea, who was only 20 years old when he blacked out in the Bushman's cave while doing an air dive. He died at around 70 meters, his body sinking 270 meters to the bottom where it would remain for a decade.

David Shaw was a technical diver, pilot, father and husband, and lover of all things extreme. His wife, Anne, knew that there was always a risk that Dave may not return from his adventures, but knew how passionate he was about his endeavours, and had never dreamed of denying him of them. David had some close calls in the past, but he always believed that God was watching over him. He was constantly testing his limits and pushing the boundaries to see how far he could go.

David began scuba diving in his early 40s. He enjoyed it right away, but it wasn't challenging enough, and soon he began pursuing more technical dives. This is where Dave became interested in cave diving. In order to dive deeper for longer, divers use rebreathers, a specialist diving apparatus that recycles the air.

David Shaw purchased his own rebreather, but felt limited by what the equipment had to offer. So he made some edits of his own that would allow him to descend even deeper. Dave had always been interested in exploring untouched pockets of the earth, of which few remain. And he believed cave diving offered unexplored territory that he could be the first to see.

Bushman's Hole, a submerged freshwater cave in northern Cape, South Africa, west of Johannesburg, called Dave's name.

and on October 28th, 2004, he completed a record-breaking dive of 270 meters. To enter the cave, a diver must first climb down rocks before connecting with the water below, and descend into a narrow tube that widens as it goes deeper.

The main part of the cave is around 60 meters down, and a rope attached to the ceiling of the main cave guides the diver through the cavernous black abyss. Without the rope, a diver would find themselves disorientated, with nothing but darkness in every direction. Divers carry powerful lights for this reason, strong white beams cutting through the void, alerting other divers on the mission of their presence.

When David resurfaced, he said he had spotted the body of D'Andrea, whose body had been suspended 270 meters down in the cave for an entire decade. David described turning his head to the left while on the cave floor, where he found himself face to face with D'Andrea, his face still covered with a mask. Dave added that at that depth, he struggled to breathe and knew he had to resurface.

David Shaw felt compelled to retrieve Dion Drea's body. Not only had he seen it during his dive, the image of which had played on his mind since resurfacing, but he had even experienced a premonition of finding Dion's body in a dream he had just a couple of days before the dive. David, a father himself, went to Dion Drea's parents and told them of his plans to retrieve their son's body.

They were ecstatic at the news and had always wanted their son's remains back on dry land so they could honor his memory and lay him to rest. Dion's body had been in the cave for so long that it was assumed that his remains would be skeletal. To prevent the bones from slipping out of his diving suit and dispersing in all directions,

It was agreed David would carefully put the remains into a customized body bag that he would take down with him. At that depth, David Shaw would have a maximum of five minutes to load Dion's skeletal remains into the bag. This included cutting the dive suit off Dion's body.

Always pushing the limits, David decided that he wanted to salvage Dion's equipment, which was lodged on the cave floor. He planned to tie a separate rope to the equipment with the hope of excavating it and dragging it to the surface. Within two months, David Shaw returned to South Africa, prepared to retrieve Dion's body.

On January 8th, 2005, with a camera mounted to his helmet, David descended into Bushman's cave for what would tragically be his final dive. With a camera mounted to his helmet to film the dive, and D'Andrea's family waiting patiently at the surface of the cave to receive his remains, David plunged into the water.

factoring in the lengthy ascent for adequate decompression to avoid the bends. David would be in the water for approximately 12 hours, with 12 minutes to dive to the bottom and a mere 5 minutes spent preparing Dion's remains for excavation. Dion's body was expected to break the surface around 1.5 hours into the dive, but this would not be the case.

At 6.15am, David plunged into the darkness, never to resurface alive. The mission was supported by a team of 30, including two world-renowned support divers and others meeting him along the way at various depths of the dive.

One of the team divers, Don Shirley, waited at a depth of 220 meters, waiting for David to meet him. But when he looked below, he could see no sign of movement. Just a still spotlight, static on the cave floor, unmoving. The diver descended to assist David.

but the handset on his wrist cracked under the pressure before surpassing 240 meters and he made the decision to return to the surface. David Shaw died attempting to retrieve DeAndrea's body. When the team pulled up the line, they found DeAndrea's body attached to it, as well as the body of David Shaw, with the camera still attached to his dive helmet.

Although he had lost his life, he had completed his mission of salvaging Dion's remains from the cave floor. When the team reviewed the footage, they watched David Shaw's last moments alive. The video showed David Shaw on the cave floor, his hands pale white in front of him, pulling out the body bag. Although it was assumed that after 10 years, Dion's body would have been skeletal,

The body instead seemed to be in a more preserved state, almost a state of mummification with buoyancy. Dion's body unexpectedly floated up before David, making the task of getting it into the body bag more difficult. In the footage, David becomes tangled in the line, the rope wrapping around his torch and arms, making the job almost impossible.

David attempts to cut himself free from the tangle with his scissors, but misses the rope multiple times, struggling and slipping backwards on the sloped cave floor. His breathing becomes laborious and his hands start shaking. When it was time to leave, David knew this and attempted to swim up, but he was tangled in the ropes, unable to free himself.

The increased breathing caused by David's struggle produced significantly more CO2, eventually depriving him of oxygen and causing him to drift off, his light still hanging as he floated unconscious. The final scene of David's life showed his hands, motionless, the line he failed to cut wound loosely between his fingers.

Despite meticulous planning, David died alone on the cave floor, his teammates helpless and unable to save him, forced to look down at his light, unmoving and still. Maybe our Christmas special can take place at that cave? Whitney and Melissa are the hosts of Cult Crimes in Cabernet. Four times a year they travel to locations to help the family members of the murdered and missing. I'll let them take it over from here.

Mount Pleasant, Michigan is a city located in the heart of the state. If you need a visual and are aware of how Michigan looks like a mitten, Mount Pleasant is right smack dab in the center of the palm.

It has a population of just under 22,000. The main campus of Central Michigan University calls Mount Pleasant home. It is truly a college town, as when school is in session, the population almost doubles in size. Mount Pleasant is also home to the Christ Community Fellowship.

This is a very small church, so small that the congregation was of about 14 people at its height. It was led by Pastor John D. White, who came with a pass. White was a veteran of the Navy and also had worked as a long-haul truck driver in his early years. Before becoming head of the fellowship, he lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, which is a little over 100 miles south of Mount Pleasant.

In 1980 is where our first report of violent behavior really begins. White was 22 years old when he invited his 17-year-old neighbor, Teresa Etherton, over to show her his stock car race track setup. Teresa walked down into the basement where White attacked her and stabbed her 15 times before choking her.

Teresa remembers White's hands around her neck and saying, quote, you're going to go now. I'm really sorry you had to go like this. But what the f***? You're just a woman. Teresa is obviously a badass and survived the attack. And White was arrested after Teresa reported him to police. He pled no contest. And in 1981, he was sent to prison for 10 years. After being incarcerated for two years, he appealed.

and was released. Teresa did not hear of his release until one day while standing in line at his door, she heard his chilling voice and turned around to see White smiling at her. This was the first time the justice system failed a victim of John White's while leaving him free to hurt more people.

There is a gap in White's criminal history after he was released in the mid-80s. He wasn't connected with any crimes until July of 1994. White had gotten married, had one kid with one on the way, and they were living near Kalamazoo, Michigan at the time.

White was working maintenance at a textile facility where he met a 26-year-old woman named Vicki Sue Wall. The two struck up an affair, and the evening of July 11, 1994, surveillance footage confirmed that the two met in the Meijer grocery store on Gull Road. Vicki got into the black pickup truck with John at around 3 a.m., and the two left the lot, and Vicki was not seen again. She was reported missing, and police would call White in for questioning.

He told the police that the two were having an affair, that they did meet at the Myers parking lot, and that he returned her to her home later. There was no evidence to hold him on any charges, so he was free to go after questioning. White checked himself into the Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital not long after Vicki went missing. Six weeks after Vicki was last seen alive, her body was found just two miles away from that Myers grocery store.

This was in a rural area. She was found naked except for a shirt and a bra that had been wrapped around her neck. Her body was very decomposed. The medical examiner could not determine the cause of death and very little evidence was found. White refused to speak with police again and would not take a lie detector test.

His pickup truck was searched, and with the help of Luminal, blood was found in several areas. In early September 1994, about a week after Vicki's body was found, White would be arrested at the psychiatric hospital. Only having the blood evidence inside White's pickup truck and very little other evidence, first-degree murder charges wouldn't hold up in court.

White pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 8 to 15 years. John claimed to love Vicki and that her death was just an accident. While incarcerated, John was seeing a psychologist. He told his doctor that he had murderous fantasies and was turned on by necrophilia. He also claimed to have learned that his fantasies were wrong and that he was aware of that and that he had been reformed.

When White was released on February 11, 2007, he was set on being a man of God. He moved to Mount Pleasant into a mobile home neighborhood about 11 miles west of town. He took on the pastor role at the Christ Community Fellowship Church where he met and fell in love with Sally Gay. The two would get engaged and Sally moved in with him in the neighborhood and her daughter Rebecca Gay and her son lived just a few doors down.

The church knew of his past, but believed in redemption and that John had been reformed. A few weeks before Halloween in 2012, John's fantasies started creeping back in. On Halloween Eve, John was at his home drinking heavily when his urges overtook him. He walked a few doors down to Rebecca's trailer in the early morning hours, carrying a rubber mallet and zip ties.

He entered her home and hit her in the head repeatedly until she was unconscious. He then took a zip tie, placed it around her neck, and tightened it, strangling her to death. Rebecca's three-year-old son was sleeping in the next room. John then took the rubber mallet, towels he'd used to clean up the mess with, and placed all of it in trash bags with Rebecca's body. He loaded it into his pickup. He took her body about a mile from her home and disposed of it in a ditch behind a tree line.

John then returned to Rebecca's home and cared for her son, Conway, as he had before. He dressed him in his Halloween costume and met his father in a grocery store parking lot to exchange custody. When Rebecca didn't show up for work on Halloween, her co-workers became concerned and reported her missing. John took to his congregation, pleading for prayers for her to be found.

The very next day, while being questioned, John admitted to murdering Rebecca and told police where they could find her body. He claimed his motive was his fantasies fueled by the necrophilia pornographic material that he had been watching for weeks leading up. He couldn't remember if he sexually assaulted Rebecca after her death or not, but she was found nude. He admitted to taking her car to a bar nearby called the Barn Door to stage her disappearance as a kidnapping.

His confession was not the only nail in his coffin. Authorities were able to find Rebecca's blood and her necklace inside of his truck. Fingerprints and DNA all tied back to John as well. He was not clean or meticulous in any way when committing this murder. This time, the justice system did not fail.

authorities were prepared to put him away for good. In April of 2013, White was sentenced to 56 years in prison. At the time, he was 55 years old. John only lasted a few months in prison, and on August 28th of 2013, he was found hanging in his prison cell from self-inflicted asphyxiation. Revival attempts were made, but unsuccessful.

I'm sending my brother money directly to his bank account in India because he's apparently too busy practicing his karaoke to go pick up cash. Thankfully, I can still send money his way. Yes, I know I'm sending to your bank account. Western Union, send it their way. Send money in-store directly to their bank account in India.

Services offered by Western Union Financial Services, Inc., NMLS number 906983, or Western Union International Services, LLC, NMLS number 906985. Licensed as money transmitters by the New York State Department of Financial Services. See terms for details.

My friend Emily is coming to the campfire next. Her podcast is Morbidology, where she covers a new crime case each week, taking an in-depth look at any systemic failures that may have had a part to play in the crime. Now let's travel back in time to August of 1992, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where our crime takes place.

Yoshi Hiro Hattori was a 16-year-old Japanese exchange student who moved in with the Haymaker family. He was affectionately known by his friends and family as Yoshi. Yoshi was the third exchange student that the Haymakers had hosted, and the second from Japan. Yoshi settled in perfectly. He enjoyed fishing with the family, and he always made sure to help out with his share of the chores.

Brian Haymaker stated,

especially when he randomly broke into a Western dance step. As his friend Mandolin Fawn said, In fall of 1992, Halloween was fast approaching and Yoshi could hardly wait for his first Halloween in the United States.

He and Webb, who was the teenage son of the Haymakers, had been invited to a Halloween party, which was being held on the 17th of October. Yoshi had already picked out the perfect costume for somebody who was known for their impromptu dances. He was dressing up as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, donning a tuxedo and white jacket, and topped off with some jewellery around his neck.

Webb wasn't as excited as Yoshi, and he opted out of wearing a costume that night. The Halloween party was being held at the host family of another Japanese exchange student. The purpose of the Halloween party was for exchange students to get to know other exchange students so that they could share their experiences and make new friends.

When Yoshi and Webb arrived in the neighbourhood, they went up to 10311 East Brookside Drive. The home was adorned with all the Halloween decorations one would expect for a Halloween party. But Yoshi and Webb were unfortunately at the wrong home. They had transposed two numbers in the address of the home where the party was being held and ended up at 10311 instead of 10131.

The house belonged to Rodney Pierce and his wife Bonnie. Yoshi and Webb approached the front doorstep and knocked on the door. Bonnie opened it up, screamed and then slammed it closed. She hollered to Rodney to go and get his gun. When Yoshi and Webb realised that they must have been at the wrong home, they turned around to walk back towards their car in pursuit of the correct home.

As they were standing on the footpath outside the home, trying to figure out their next move, Rodney appeared at the door beside the carport. He was armed with a .44 Magnum revolver. He shouted at the teenagers to freeze, but Yoshi, who was just learning English, didn't understand what this command meant. Yoshi shouted out, ''We're here for the party!'' as he proceeded to walk towards Rodney.

While it isn't known for sure, there's every chance that Yoshi thought that the gun was a prop, part of the Halloween party. When Yoshi didn't freeze, Rodney fired his gun point-blank at him. Before running back inside, Yoshi crumbled to the ground as Webb ran to the home next door, screaming for help.

The neighbor, Stanley Lucky, immediately called an ambulance and then bolted outside to try and assist Yoshi. He lay critically injured outside Rodney's home. Neither Rodney nor his wife offered any assistance. They stood inside their home, peering out the window, even shouting at Stanley to go away when he came to help Yoshi.

Webb and Stanley attempted to comfort Yoshi, who was bleeding heavily. They held his hand as he sobbed. Both Rodney and Bonnie stayed inside their home until police descended on the scene. Yoshi was bundled into an ambulance, but tragically, he died en route to hospital. He had been shot once in the chest. The bullet had perforated his left lung and then exited out his back.

As news of the senseless shooting swept across the city like wildfire, many people were left wondering how something so tragic could have transpired. Holly Haymaker, whose family was hosting Yoshi, said that if Rodney had in fact shouted freeze at Yoshi, he wouldn't have understood what it meant. As Holly said, Yoshi struggled with English. Rodney was taken into custody but he wasn't arrested.

Bud Connor of the East Baton Rouge Paris Sheriff's Department said that there was no criminal intent on Rodney's part and stated that he was well within his rights to shoot Yoshi. The case was then turned over to the District Attorney's Office for a decision to be made on whether any action would be taken. It would be determined that Rodney would be facing a grand jury investigation.

Just the day after the shooting, all of Japan's national television networks offered a lesson in English, as the anchors explained how the word freeze could be used to mean, don't move or I'll shoot you. The shooting broke headlines in Japan where the shooting of anybody, in particular teenagers, were extremely rare.

In fact, officials of both the government and the student sponsoring programs said that they never even thought that it would be necessary to teach high school students how to deal with possible gun attacks. At the time, tensions between America and Japan were high, and the shooting only amplified the tension, with a lot of people saying that the shooting had reflected a decline in American society. As one TV reporter said...

America, what a country. You can't even walk around outside and be safe. Many people live in fear all the time over there. On the 20th of October, a memorial service was held at the Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, where around 300 mourners packed in. During the emotional service, Yoshi's mother, Miko Hattori, said that she and her husband felt sympathy for Rodney. Turning to the crowd, she said...

We are sorry in our awareness of Mr. Pierce's suffering from this most unfortunate event. She went on to say that she was perplexed by how easily accessible guns are in America, before stating, Without them, Mr. Pierce wouldn't have been put in the position he's in right now. Her words prompted a standing ovation from the mourners, as it highlighted her true compassion even in the face of adversity. Holly Haymaker also spoke.

During the service, she recollected how on the first day that Yoshi entered her home, he put his arms around her and called her mum. She described how he slotted right in with the family and became an integral part almost immediately. She told the mourners how Yoshi liked to keep his room tidy and he loved dancing in the kitchen.

Towards the end of the service, Yoshi's father, Masachi Hattori, thanked the crowd for coming to bid farewell to his son, who had left the world with much undone. He said that despite their heartache, his family were dedicated to the mission Yoshi had undertaken, to make friends in America and strengthen the ties between Japan and the United States. In a news conference the following day, Rodney's lawyer, Lewis Unglesby, said that Rodney felt great regret over what he had done.

He said that his client was not a criminal, but a person who was afraid of becoming the victim of a crime. He said that it was a dark night, and Rodney hadn't realised that Yoshi was dressed up for a Halloween party. In early November, it was announced that a grand jury had rejected a second-degree murder charge, and instead returned a manslaughter indictment against Rodney for shooting Yoshi.

Following the decision, Rodney surrendered and his lawyer announced that he was expecting his client to post bond. Just the following day, Rodney posted a $100,000 property bond and was released from custody while awaiting trial. He pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Within a month of the shooting, Japan collected over 800,000 signatures on a petition urging the United States to adopt stricter gun control. They presented U.S. Ambassador Michael Armacost with the petition, who said that the petition would make a positive contribution to the debate on gun control in America. He also said that he would transmit the petition to the White House. Rodney's trial would begin in May of 1993.

During opening statements, defence Unglesby said that Rodney shot Yoshi because he thought that he was protecting his wife and three children from an intruder.

Prosecutor Doug Moreau asked the jurors not to judge Rodney as a person, but judge his conduct on the night of the shooting. He described Rodney as criminally negligent and said that he should be convicted of manslaughter. He said that after Rodney opened the door, after it had been slammed closed by Bonnie, Yoshi interpreted this as an invitation to the party they had been searching for.

The jury would hear a recorded interview between Rodney and investigators. He detailed how Bonnie told him to get his gun, and he didn't even question why. He said that when he went outside he saw Yoshi, who was wearing a white suit and carrying something which turned out to be a camera. He said that Yoshi appeared to be laughing, but when he failed to stop moving, he shot him.

He said that he was protecting his family, but when he was asked if he knew what he was protecting them from, he simply said no. Prosecutor Morrow argued during the trial that the actions of the couple were not reasonable. He said that it hadn't been rational for a man of 6 feet 2 inches tall to be afraid of a friendly and unarmed boy who weighed just 130 pounds, a boy who rang the doorbell before walking away. Yoshi hadn't attempted to break in.

He wasn't wearing a scary mask. He wasn't armed. He was simply looking for a Halloween party. Following all of the testimony, the jury were sent away to deliberate. Under Louisiana law, homicide can be justified for a number of reasons, including what is known as the shoot the burglar law, which allows people to protect themselves from intruders. It took just three hours for the jury to reach a verdict. They found Rodney not guilty of manslaughter.

Many in court applauded when the four women announced the verdict. Yoshi's parents said that they weren't surprised, but they were disappointed. Rodney was later found to be liable to Yoshi's parents for $650,000 in damages. With this money, Yoshi's parents founded two charities in their son's name. One was to fund U.S. students wanting to visit Japan, while the other was for gun control.

His parents later presented President Bill Clinton with a petition signed by 1.7 million Japanese citizens calling for stricter gun laws. They became big supporters of the Brady Bill, which mandated background checks and a five-day waiting period for the purchase of guns in the United States. The shooting of Yoshi had truly been instrumental in the passage of the bill.

Following his acquittal, Rodney Pierce claimed that he would never own a gun again, and he admitted that he had simply overreacted to his wife's fear. This overreaction caused a teenage boy in the frontier of adulthood to lose his life in the most terrifying way imaginable. Should he have been found guilty?

Mike Brown from Dark Poutine joins us from north of the 49th parallel. That's Canada if you didn't know. Canadians are known for their politeness, but as Mike will remind us, a recent sword attack in Quebec City shows us some Canadians have a dark side too.

In that attack, on Halloween night, a man dressed in what has been described as medieval clothing went on a slashing and stabbing spree with a razor-sharp Japanese-style katana sword. After the attack, two people were left dead, and another five were hospitalized, some with serious injuries, and the attacker had fled the scene.

One of the most notable buildings in Old Quebec City, overlooking the picturesque St. Lawrence River, is the historic and posh Chateau Frontenac Hotel. Chateau Frontenac, a National Historic Site of Canada since 1981, first opened for business in 1893. It was here at around 10pm on October 31st, 2020, that a black four-door Saturn was left motor-still running by its driver, 24-year-old Carl Girard.

Gerard, dressed in black jogging pants, black leather boots, a short-sleeved kimono, and a black mask, had his sharpened 76.9-centimeter bladed katana sword in hand. He'd left his home in Saint-Thérèse, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, in the afternoon and had driven the 270 kilometers to Quebec City with murder on his mind. After exiting his vehicle, Gerard approached his first victim, a 26-year-old musician named Rémi Belanger.

Boulanger was out for a leisurely stroll. He was listening to a podcast and stood to take a picture of Chateau Frontenac when he noticed a man, clad in black, advancing quickly toward him, sword above his head. Boulanger later recalled thinking at first that it was a Halloween reveler playing some kind of joke to irritate him. But when the first blow landed...

Hitting him in the head, he knew he was in trouble. Belanger put up his hand to defend himself and his fingers were severed. He fell to his knees as the attacker kept slashing and stabbing at him. Remy Belanger managed to pick up his fingers, got to his feet and fled toward the lobby of Chateau Frontenac, screaming for help in both English and French. Remy Belanger was later treated for wounds to his skull, neck, back, chest, arms, hands and hip.

A cellist, Remy was transferred to a hospital in Montreal that specializes in limb replantation. There, doctors worked hard to save his hand so he could play music again. As Belanger ran away, Girard did not pursue him, but turned his attention to 56-year-old François Duchesne. He was much beloved as the communications director for the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. He was out for a slow jog. Girard,

frustrated by his failure to kill Remy Boulanger only moments before, made sure he succeeded this time. He attacked Duchesne from behind, hacking, slashing, and stabbing the defenseless man 13 times in the neck, trunk, and back. Francois lay bleeding on the sidewalk of Dutraiseur Street, where he was tended to by two good Samaritans who had called 911, but it was too late. Francois Duchesne bled to death at the scene.

Another couple walking together on DeBaud Street, Pierre Lagreville and Lisa Mahmoud also encountered Carl Girard that night. They too thought he was wearing a Halloween costume as he walked up to them, sword in the attack position. Lisa Mahmoud didn't feel threatened and smiled at Girard just before he hit Pierre Lagreville. During the attack, Lagreville had screamed for Girard to stop, but the attacker persisted, unfazed.

Pierre, who had serious wounds to the skull and shoulder, said, quote, he looked serene. He wasn't in shock mode from what he had just done, end quote. As Carl Girard slashed and stabbed at Lisa Mahmood at least 13 times, Lisa recalled exclaiming, what are you doing? Luckily, before Girard could finish the job, Lagrival and Mahmood managed to flee. Girard's next victim was not so lucky.

On Days Rampart Street, 61-year-old Suzanne Claremont had just stepped out the front door to have a cigarette. Suzanne's husband, Jacques, inside doing the dishes, was startled by the sound of Suzanne's loyal dog howling like he'd never heard before. A hairdresser, Suzanne was a bright spot in the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, participating in regular, socially distanced gatherings with neighbors to watch the sunset every evening atop the Old Quarter's fortifications.

Jacques ran outside to find Suzanne laying on the sidewalk bleeding heavily from several wounds. He later said, I saw that she had a deep gash in the middle of her forehead. I tried to close the wound with my hands to hold her face together. Their neighbor, an emergency room doctor, ran outside, baseball bat in hand. She tried performing CPR, but Suzanne Claremont had lost too much blood. In the last group to encounter Carl Girard was Gilberto Lucio Porras Alvarado.

He was out with three of his friends when they came across Gerard all in black, sword at his side. Gerard said "Happy Halloween" before drawing his sword. Porras Alvarado, who thought the sword was fake at first, said he quickly realized the weapon was very real as the first blows landed. He and two of his friends fled together. The fourth person of the group, a young person whose name is under publication ban, was pursued and injured by Gerard. That young person also escaped, hiding inside a gas station.

He was later treated for injuries. Porres Alvarado, who'd suffered cuts to his head and a finger before he managed to escape, spent two weeks in hospital. There'd been a flood of 911 calls, coming in talking about a sword-wielding attacker dressed like a ninja and last seen heading in the direction of the port.

Shortly before 1 a.m. on November 1, 2020, a port officer on patrol in the old Port of Quebec noticed a man hiding in a bush. Aware of the attacks, the officer notified police and cops arrived en masse, taking the blood-covered man into custody.

Carl Girard, who was not talking at first, had no criminal record. It was quickly learned that in 2015, Girard, quote,

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was one of many dignitaries to weigh in on the situation as the nation woke up to the news of a horrific series of attacks in what is normally a peaceful city. Flags in the province were temporarily brought to half-mast to honor the victims.

Witnesses and police described Carl Gerard as calm and compliant during his arrest. He had no ID and at first refused to identify himself. After he was in custody, he was taken to hospital and later transported to a detention facility to be interrogated.

He was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and the killings of Suzanne Claremont and Francois Duchesne. Carl Girard's defense team claimed that the 24-year-old was driven to kill and who his victims were didn't matter at all. He admitted to killing Duchesne and Claremont and injuring the five others.

But his lawyer argued he was not criminally responsible at the time of the events because he was suffering from a mental disorder. At the outset of the trial was chilling testimony from witnesses to the attacks and surviving victims, all noting Girard's deliberate, eerily calm demeanor during the stabbing and slashing spree that Halloween night.

The prosecution had argued that the acts were premeditated, noting Girard had spoken to mental health workers since his late teen years about using a sword to attack people. The Crown's primary expert, psychiatrist Dr. Sylvain Fauchier, concluded that Girard suffered from a personality disorder and was on a narcissistic quest to express his resentment towards society, concluding that there were no signs of delusional thinking. The accused knew very much what he was doing was wrong.

Shackled and handcuffed in the witness box, Girard testified on his own behalf. The accused killer claimed that his goal was to create chaos, change the world, and encourage like-minded people. He stated that by the time he was 18 years old, he believed he had a top-secret mission to kill and that his life would be sacrificed at the end of it. After Claremont's killing, though, he said he began to question his actions.

I thought I would have a feeling of accomplishment, but that wasn't the case, Girard told the jury. I decided there shouldn't be one more death, my own or anyone else's, end quote.

Gerard told the court he was fearful when he arrived in Quebec City and didn't want to go ahead with his plan but felt he had no choice. He described the killings as duty. I went against my will. I didn't want to, but I had to, Gerard said. I saw lots of people and I attacked them with my sword to execute my mission. Gerard then told the jury that the killer no longer existed. There's a Carl Gerard with you today who likes making people laugh and helping others, Gerard said.

It's different from Carl Girard from The Mission, who feels obliged to isolate himself. But that's in the past. There's no Carl Girard from The Mission anymore.

Dr. Gilles Chamberlain, a psychiatrist, testified for the defense, concluding that Girard was on the autism spectrum, suffered from schizophrenia, and was delirious and in a state of psychosis the night of the killings, unable to distinguish right from wrong. On May 20, 2022, minutes after beginning their fifth day of deliberations, the jury came to a decision, guilty on both counts of first-degree murder.

On June 10th, 2022, Carl Girard was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole before 2045. Hopefully, residents of Quebec City will rest a little easier knowing that the killer is behind bars for a long time. That said, Halloween will never be the same for those who lost loved ones or lived through the attacks. Did you think I first misspoke when you heard me say sword attack?

My next friends that are joining us might have moonshine, by the way. I hope you don't mind. They are a husband and wife duo, Jerry and Tracy, from the Hillbilly Horror Stories podcast. I have no doubt that you'll love them as much as I do. So Tracy, let's jump in. For this episode, we're going to cover a Kentucky story, since that's where we're from. We're going to cover a story from Lewis County, which is up around the West Virginia-Ohio border. Yeah.

Mary Lou and her family move into a house. I had an Aunt Mary Lou. Is that a fact? Yes. Rest in peace. She's passed on. It was my mommy's sister. Okay. So her family moves into this house. In case anybody cared. Sorry. Go ahead. That everyone said was haunted. Everybody in the surrounding area. Now this house at one time belonged to an older couple who was having some marital problems.

And during this time, the wife basically kicked the husband out of the home. Well, the husband really didn't have any place to go, so he decided to stay in an outbuilding that was just a few feet from the house. That seems fair. Yeah, the building was actually connected to the house by a walkway. Okay, yeah, like a breezeway or something. Yes. Now, this was during a very hot summer, and that building must have become unbearably hot.

Hot to the point that the husband was found dead of an apparent heat stroke. Oh, wow. Dang, that's hot. You heard of a fan? Soon after, there were reports of the deceased husband being seen wandering the property on very hot nights. Now, when Mary Lou's family moved into the house, it was spring. So there really were no issues except...

The family couldn't seem to keep the door closed on that small outbuilding. I wonder how long it was until Mary Lou found out that he had passed. I don't know, and I didn't have any way of researching that. I don't even know what year any of this happened, to be honest with you. Well, I wouldn't want you to lie. Eventually, Mary Lou's husband had to lock the door with a padlock. So we're going to fast forward a little bit. Mary Lou's husband goes to work one morning. Mary Lou's just sitting up in the kitchen drinking her coffee.

She hears heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. This is inside the house. And then she hears the back door slam shut. She thought, well, this is odd because anyone leaving through the back door would have had to walk right past her first. Yeah, in the kitchen. Don't act like you know the layout of the house. I do. I got it down in my mind. The footsteps were too heavy for a child, but she went and checked on the children just to make sure. And all the children were still asleep in their beds.

She took a look around and she found the back door standing wide open. Which is odd because it did slam shut. Yeah. But now. It's open. It's wide open. Yeah, I'd be scared. She decided to ignore the noises that she'd been hearing in the door slamming shut. Because it was extremely warm outside and she wanted to just shut the door and not let the hot air in. Later that day, she decides to go out and do some work in the yard. Some little bit of gardening.

She sat down under a tree to take a little bit of a break because, like we said, it was kind of warm. She hears the back door slam shut again. She knows the sound because she already heard it once that day. So she looks towards the house and she can see the curtains parked in the kitchen window as if someone's peeking out. Kind of moving it with their two hands. At a second glance, she saw nothing. But then she saw the curtains fall back across the window.

She immediately gets up. She walks around her house trying to convince herself that she's just imagining all this. She comes across the opened basement door. She was sure that she had locked that door. She assumed that maybe the heat was just kind of making her delusional. She relocked the basement door and then she went back to her work in the yard. She later passed by the door to only find it open again. The basement door? The basement door.

This really shook her up this time. Well, yeah, that's where it's cooler. What are you letting all the hot air in? As soon as her husband got home, she told him about the events of the day. Now, her husband couldn't believe what he was hearing. And in fact, he scolded her for believing it herself. Now, over the next few weeks, the weather got extremely hot.

With that, the paranormal activity increased as well, or should we say, heated up. Aha, well you know the paranormal don't like a daggone heat either. Shoot. The building in which the old man died was now padlocked, as we talked about. Even with that being the case, the door was still found standing wide open on several occasions. Mary Lou would lock it back, and time and time again, to no avail. I would have just given up.

Her husband kept telling Mary that there had to be some kind of a simple explanation, but he sure didn't have one to offer up for. I mean, because, you know, padlocks just become unlocked and taken off the lock and doors open all the time. True. I mean, I wonder what else was in there. I don't know. I can't imagine there was anything in there that anybody would want to take.

One morning, she heard noises coming from the kitchen. And when she got in there, the whole room was vibrating as if an angry hand was shaking the whole room. There were also sounds coming from inside the walls. It sounded as if someone was tearing at the boards trying to rip them away. Later that evening, as Mary Lou was lying in bed, her son comes running into the room. He said that he heard a noise coming from the attic that was above his room. He said it sounded like someone was trying to get out.

Ooh. She put them in her bed to calm them down like most good mothers would. But just as she was about to doze off, the whole house started violently shaking again. Okay, was the husband there? Did he hear it? We'll get to it. The windows were vibrating so hard that it seemed like they were going to basically come out of their frames. And yes, her husband actually witnessed this event. He could no longer deny that something supernatural appeared to be at work here.

His answer was to vacate the premises. Looking back at the events years later, Mary Lou realizes that each of these occurrences happened at extremely hot days or hot nights. She said it was almost as if the poor old man's soul was opening doors to get air. Mary Lou says she wonders if maybe someone had locked the door on that outbuilding trapping the old man inside, causing his death and leaving his soul to wander forever.

trying to tear out windows and doors seeking relief from the intense heat oh bless his heart that's an awful way to go there would be an awful way that's so terrible so yeah like i said i don't know what the situation was i don't know what year it happened i don't know if somebody did lock the man in and that's why he was so against locks or maybe yeah but who would have known he was in there except for uh his wife i don't know i mean who else would have a reason to lock the door

Well, that mean have her. We don't know that she did that. That's just an assumption that that could have happened. I mean, it could just be that he wants the door open so he can't be trapped in there. Yeah. It didn't mean that it got locked in there at one point. Right, right. He just wants to keep it open now. Yeah. Well, that poor soul. I could smell the moonshine, couldn't you? Bless their hearts.

You must be thinking, "Man, Shane has a lot of friends." And you're right, I do. And isn't it also amazing that this campfire doesn't need replenished with wood?

I have four more friends to introduce you to, and here comes Eric Carter Landon now. Eric is the host of True Consequences, which focuses on crime and mysteries in New Mexico and the American desert southwest. Plus, he is a really good person altogether. You'll love him. Eric, take it away. Sometimes, late at night, on the ditchbanks, rivers, lakefronts, and arroyos of New Mexico...

People claim to hear the wails and sobs of a woman. She sounds distraught. She cries out. If you ever hear this cry, it's best you avoid any waterways and by no means should you try to find or help this woman. If you value your life, you will close your eyes and go to sleep. Children, heed this warning. Be wary of the cries of this woman.

i am eric carter londin and this is hallowe'en and true consequences maria was the most beautiful woman in her pueblo she was well sought after by all the suitable bachelors in town but she was not interested in any of them

It wasn't until she met a tall and mysterious man from out of town that she even considered dating anyone. He was quite the catch. He was rich, handsome, well-traveled, and the pair started dating. And very soon, they were in love. In a matter of months, they were engaged, and a short time later, the couple were married in a huge celebration. The whole neighborhood was decorated with colorful paper flags and flowers.

Within a couple of years, Maria and her husband had two kids. Everything was going perfectly. Until one spring night. On the night of March 13th, 1550, on the streets of Mexico City, Maria was wandering the streets, grief-stricken and angry. She had never been treated in such a way. The shame she felt was consuming her. How could her husband have embarrassed her like that in front of everyone?

She waited faithfully for him while he traveled around the country. And he has the nerve to show up with a new woman in his carriage? He didn't even apologize for what he did. He simply told her it was over and rode away as his new lover laughed. She laughed. Who did they think they were? Maria was the prettiest woman in their neighborhood. She could have any man that she wanted. No one treated Maria that way. Not if they didn't want to suffer.

Oh, he was gonna suffer. She'd show him. She'd show them all. Maria would make sure that no one tried to hurt her like this ever again. She gathered up her resolve as she headed back to her house. She was wailing loudly as she made her way back to her doorstep.

Maria was heartbroken. How could the man of her dreams betray her like this? She walked up the stairs and inhaled the smell of fresh tamales that she had made for her husband's arrival. He was going to pay for what he did. He will never forget this day. She was going to make sure of it. As she approached the bedroom of her children...

She gently and silently opened the door. She strolled across the bedroom and walked over to their beds and kissed each of them on their foreheads. Her son Julian and daughter Sofia were softly breathing. She gently woke them and led the pair down the stairs. What's happening, mama? The boy asked. No te preocupes, mi amor. Don't worry, my love, she said. Where are we going, mama? Little Sofia asked. Somewhere beautiful, mi hijita. They crossed the street and headed to the creek.

"Mama, tengo miedo." "I'm afraid," said Julian. Maria said, "Ay no, mijito." Then she picked up her two children and submerged herself into the forceful stream. Her final thought was that her husband would be destroyed by what she did. Unfortunately, they all perished.

As a curse for her horrible deeds, Maria was forced to wander the waterways of the southwestern United States and Central and South America searching for her children. But her heart was so twisted with vengeance and rage that she became a predatory ghost, seeking out children who misbehave or are foolish enough to wander the bodies of water at night. She became known as La Llorona, or the Weeping Woman.

She's been seen in what seems to be a white wedding dress, all the while crying for her children.

When an unsuspecting child finds themselves near a river, stream, or lake, they are likely to be taken and drowned by La Llorona. This story, or maybe something similar, is told over and over to children in Latino households as a means to keep them away from the water and to make them behave. Other cultures have Santa Claus giving you coal. Well, we have a ghost that will abduct you and drown you. Yeah.

I know, it's messed up, but it is such a rich folktale with a long history and it continues to be passed down from generation to generation. All I can tell you is that if you ever hear the cries of a woman looking for her children late at night, don't go near the water or La Llorona just might get you. Life is full of adventures. Do you take this man to be your husband? I do.

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Okay. Okay.

You just heard a tale from New Mexico, so now let's go to Texas. Gone Cold is hosted by Vincent. He covers crime and mysteries specifically in the Lone Star State. In the early 1990s, at age 13 or 14, I joined a group of friends at what was reportedly a haunted attraction off the beaten path in Fort Worth. If I remember right, we timed our arrival there at around midnight.

now i personally did not expect to hear the screams of the ghosts who were said to haunt this area rather it was the punk rock blasting from my older friend's car radio cigarettes booze and a lack of adult supervision that got me there

Many of the folks I was with, however, were there to hear the ghoulish, anguished cries of the apparitions rumored to roam this particular pitch-black, dark, and heavily wooded spot in Tarrant County. They were there for the scare, and we all got one. But it wasn't the result of the roaming ghosts of three teenaged girls constantly reliving their deaths thirty years before. Instead, it was the cops.

and at the height of the absurd era known as Satanic Panic. It's likely those boys in blue figured they'd busted up what was about to become some sort of devilish ritual or blood sacrifice rather than what it was, a bunch of latchkey kids cutting loose. Several of my delinquent friends and I successfully outmaneuvered and outran the police, luckily for us.

Anyway, it didn't matter that the cops broke up the party, though we were somewhat close. We hadn't even gone to the right spot to hear the lost souls, the place known as Screaming Bridge.

On the night of Saturday, February 4th, 1961, Arlington High School juniors Mary Lou, Kathy, Claudia, Donna, Joanne, and Dorothy left an Arlington movie theater as the credits for the film Butterfield 8, starring Elizabeth Taylor, began to roll. Packed tightly into Mary Lou's mid-1950s two-door Chevy, the girls went cruising.

perhaps the chilly foggy night under a near full moon as inspiration five of the girls wanted to show the new girl joanne the area's haunted spots like hell's gate through which legend has it a group of union spies were led to their hanging deaths at the hands of confederate soldiers during the civil war and where the cries and prayers of their ghosts can be heard

And, perhaps, a lover's lane near the railroad tracks where a hobo who had just jumped off the train is said to have been shot to death as he tried to help a woman in a car who was being assaulted. His ghost, if you're apt to believe such a thing, taps on the windows of parked cars, making sure the occupants are safe.

joanne was a recent addition to the student body at arlington high and there seemed no better way to break her into the area than to introduce her to local apparitions but before showing the new girl those sights the teenagers made their way to another known lover's lane near by

As they did, the girls spoke of an escaped convict, an urban legend about a sometimes masked man with a hook for a hand that terrorized teenagers necking at lovers' lanes. Likely a tale inspired by the terrifying and true Texas crimes committed by the phantom killer of Texarkana in the 1940s, there was little doubt the teenagers worked themselves up.

they drove to an especially dark and secluded area of arlington bedford road heading south from mosier valley and parked still eerily whispering the tale of the hook handed man after a few minutes they noticed a car coming toward them flashing its lights and honking its horn the driver was shouting at them but the girls couldn't understand what he was saying and anyway they were too spooked to find out

instead mary lou put the car in drive and stepped on the gas the driver of the other vehicle was horrified he'd stopped just beyond a railroad crossing and between the passing train's lights and those of his own vehicle he saw blackness where the road's bridge had once been it was just in time the young man said he was no more than two feet from the long drop to the ditch below

After backing up, his headlights caught the barricades and sign warning, bridge out, that some malicious person had removed from the road. But the girls weren't so lucky. Unable to see what was ahead in time to stop, the car carrying Mary Lou, Kathy, Claudia, Donna, Joanne, and Dorothy plunged 25 feet down to the wooded and rocky drainage ditch below.

the vehicle slammed into the other side's embankment some forty feet across it was approximately ten fifteen p m later it was estimated that they were traveling forty five to fifty five miles an hour mary lou and claudia were killed instantly upon impact

Weeks-old ice patches on the road from an earlier winter storm, along with the embankment's mud-slicked surface, made the rescue operation a difficult one, as did the sleet coming down. When responders and authorities were finally able to pull the girls from the wreckage, ambulances transported them to area hospitals. Kathy died upon arrival at a hospital in Dallas.

donna joanne and dorothy sustained major injuries that caused lifelong physical impairments and of course unimaginable immeasurable emotional trauma the wooden bridge at arlington bedford road was burned down by four teenaged arsonists the week prior

though their actions would be labeled in a kind of boys will be boys way by local authorities who called what they did vandalism or mischief it's long been rumored they'd set that particular bridge on fire because of who crossed it going south the first freed persons community in tarrant county mosier valley or the river bottoms as it is also known was predominantly black in nineteen sixty one

some say the boys burned the bridge to impede members of that community's travel into north arlington a tarrant county grand jury later declined to indict the boys all of whom were white they deserved a chance to make good grand jurors said no good would come of blighting the entire future of a group of bright and religious young men

whoever moved the barricades put in place by county employees after these boys destroyed the bridge was supposedly never identified no one has ever been held accountable for the deaths and injuries of these girls and the case in my mind remains unresolved

countless iterations of the origins of screaming bridge have been told over the years including that the girls were cheerleaders who were waved on by a sadistic man who knew what he was leading them to they were neither cheerleaders nor waved on by any one

also folks say two cars crashed in the middle of the one lane wooden bridge which caught fire and gave way sending the passengers of both vehicles twenty-five feet straight down that of course isn't even close to the truth

besides the screams of the three teenaged girls who were killed at screaming bridge on february fourth nineteen sixty one folks have reported phenomena like the rolling in of heavy mystic fog whatever that means and the appearance of mary lou claudia and kathy's tombstones on the surface of the murky dull water

on the wrong bridges folks report seeing the shimmering of headlights or almost dying as they nearly drive off the structures themselves many ghost hunters and pursuers of the paranormal have tried to find the deadly site but most often find instead one of two of the wrong concrete bridges in the area that are admittedly scary places in their own right

However, after being replaced with a concrete drainage tunnel filled in with dirt and rock around it soon after the deaths and injuries, no trace of Screaming Bridge has remained for many decades. Thanks for listening, y'all.

My next friend is approaching, and before she gets here, I have to warn you that I've met her in person before and not to get scared. Yes, I agree, I too think the devil himself is likely terrified of her, but in all honesty, she is a very kind lady. While everyone else has scary tales, I thought it would be really nice to hear a personal story from her.

Hello, Nancy Grace here from Crime Stories and CrimeOnline.com. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year, and it always has been. But I have to tell you that once I've had the twins, John David and Lucy, it's so much more fun. I love everything we do. Dressing them up, buying candy, decorating the house.

I think I'm the only person in the neighborhood that has so many ghosts hanging from trees and skeletons sitting on patio furniture. I love it. I think back when I was a little girl in rural Bibb County, middle Georgia,

We were so far out of the city of Macon, which was small itself. It would be like a 30-minute drive in. So there were very few homes to go and trick-or-treat with. And it would be so dark out in the country at night. And we did not have anything like store-bought Halloween outfits. I remember for several years in a row, I would be a ghost. And I was so short.

I'd actually wear a pillowcase and the pillowcase would cover my head, of course, and go down to my ankles. And we would cut holes in the pillowcase for eyes. That was, I didn't know we were poor. I was perfectly happy the way we were, but that would be my Halloween outfit. And I also remember that it dawned on me much later that the pillowcases had pink stripes. So I was a very scary pillowcase with pink stripes, ghost pillowcase.

But it was so much fun. And I remember Miss Julia that lived on a huge farm next to our little spot would always make caramel apples and dress up like a witch and hand them out from her front porch. That was the big thing. Going all the way in the night by foot under the moonlight to get that caramel apple. And believe you me, I absolutely would do it.

Of course, there are always older boys or teens scaring all the trick-or-treaters. At that time in my life, I didn't really know what to be scared of. I didn't know anything about crime or scary movies or anything like that growing up. I really only learned about crime when my fiance was murdered just before our wedding. And that's when my world blew up.

And I found out about violent crime and that there were actually things to be scared of in this world. But growing up in rural Georgia, where there was nothing to see as far as you could look except for soybean fields and tall pine trees, that was a great way to have Halloween. And I remember my mother would always say,

make a meal the one we dreaded and hated the most and we couldn't trick-or-treat until we ate it. For instance, one year it was stewed prunes. Anyway, thanks mom. That said, I have great memories growing up with Halloween. Then I had the twins. Now that's a whole nother can of worms. That is an extravaganza like no other compared only to their birthday or Christmas.

There has to be the right outfit. I remember one year, John David changed outfits, I think it was four times. And the same for Lucy. One year she was a cat. She was a witch. She was some other animal, spider. That takes a lot of wardrobe changes. I mean, you got to have one for the school party, one for the church trunk fest, one for the actual trick-or-treating.

I mean, and no, she doesn't sit, they don't sit out going, I want five outfits. It's just, mom, I want to be a witch now, or I want to be a cat. I'll never forget when John David wanted to be a bush, a bush, so he could sneak up on houses. Well, we got him a ghillie suit and he looked like a bush.

You know those things you see in war movies when it looks like an empty field and all of a sudden the soldiers all jump up? They're wearing ghillie suits. My son has one. I saved it because I'm sure one day I'm going to need a ghillie suit. I haven't used it yet, but oh, I'm so glad I'm doing this because I just remembered. I came up with my costume for this year last year. I'm going to be Cousin It. I love Cousin It off the Addams Family.

and I got the most awesome Cousin It outfit. Sometimes I wear it around the house just to scare the children, but now, you know, they've seen me come out so many times. I've got the whole thing. I've got the long hair that goes head to toe, the hat, and the glasses. I can't wait. Now, that's deviating from my typical, as predicted, witch outfit. A lot of people ask me, do you go see horror movies at Halloween? And the answer to that is no.

A big H-E-double-L-N-O. No, I don't. Why? I've seen plenty of horror movies in real life. They weren't movies. They were real. Triple homicides, one homicide after the next, every type you can imagine. Drowning, strangulation, stabbing, shooting, asphyxiation, smothering, manual ligature, overdose, you name it, I've seen it.

bludgeoning. That's a bad one. So I have no desire to relive those real life experiences on the big silver screen. I'm gonna stick with trick-or-treat. I'm going to help the twins get one of their mini costumes together. I'm going to follow them just as the sun sets at a discreet distance. It's like I'm not even there to make sure that no harm befalls them. We're gonna have fun

We're going to hand out candy in the front yard to anybody that comes by. It's going to be a spooky night. And when the children get home, we're going to talk about all the candy they got. We're going to line it up on the floor so they can count it and see who got the most. P.S. It's always John David. They're going to run around the house stealing each other's candy, laughing their heads off. They're going to go to sleep too late because it's a school night this year. And then once I know they're asleep,

I'm going to go through all their candy to make sure there are no razor blades and they will never know the real life horrors that are out there. They'll sleep like two little angels. And so will I. So happy Halloween. That will be me, Cousin It, Nancy Grace, signing off. That's my very best witch's laugh. How was it? I thought that was pretty good.

and I'm looking forward to seeing Nancy Grace in her cousin Ed outfit. I don't know about you. Okay, now it's time for our last terrifying tale. This one is to help you go to sleep. Kelly Barron's Brinks hosts true crime IRL and true crime sleep stories. In 1912 in Villisca, Iowa, the Moore family was considered affluent in their small community, and they were very well-liked.

Josiah, age 43, was married to Sarah, 39, and together they had a beautiful, happy family with their four children, Herman, Mary Catherine, Arthur Boyd, and the youngest, Paul Vernon. On the evening of June 9th, the Moore family was attending a fun Children's Day program at their church. Lots of people were going to be there, including their good friends, the Stillinger family.

Twelve-year-old Lena Stillinger and eight-year-old Ina Stillinger were good friends with the only Moore daughter, Catherine. The church event wasn't scheduled to end until about 10 p.m. that evening, and the little Stillinger girls were apprehensive to walk in the dark the two miles they'd needed to trek home.

The walk home would have been especially dark for the little girls on this particular night because the electric company and the Villisca Town Council were in the midst of a dispute about lighting. So the electric company shut off all the lights in the town, making the town extra dark.

The Moores arranged sleepover plans with the Stillingers, and Lena and Ina accompanied the family of six to their East 2nd Street home after church services ended. Bedtime would have come a little later than usual this evening, with not arriving home until around 10 p.m. and having guests late.

so we can assume that all the kiddos were tucked in and sleeping by around 11 p.m. with JB and Sarah right behind them. Lena and Ina Stillinger slept downstairs in the main floor guest bedroom. Up the steep staircase and just to the left was the bedroom that the four more children shared.

In between the two bedrooms was a small door that led into an attic storage space, and this is where it's thought that someone may have been waiting until everyone in the house was fast asleep.

The murders are thought to have happened sometime after midnight. They were bludgeoned to death with an axe, leaving their faces unrecognizable. The furious axe swings left scrapes and indentations in the walls and ceilings which can still be seen in the house today.

After brutally attacking this family, he went one by one and covered each person's head with clothing to cover their mutilated faces. The sun would rise on Villisca, Iowa the morning of June 10th over a town that would be forever changed. Neighbor Mary Peckham got up at the crack of dawn to hang laundry on the clothesline and found it immediately unusual to see no activity coming from the normally busy Moore House.

By 8 a.m., Mary Peckham had a sinking feeling that something just wasn't right next door. She knocked on the door with no answer. She rang for J.B. Moore's brother, Ross, telling him something was going on next door but that she didn't know what.

She asked him to come over and check on the family, and he did. Like Mary, he knocked, tried to open the door and all of that, but nothing. He unlocked the house and went inside alone while Mary stayed safe outside the door. The house was eerily still, quiet and dark.

He immediately noticed that all of the curtains had been tightly drawn and covered with additional items of clothing to block out any light that could seep in, making the small house seem all the more stifling. When he opened the bedroom door, Ross saw two bodies on the bed.

and dark stains on the bed clothes. He returned immediately to the porch and told Mrs. Peckham to call the sheriff, and these findings would set into place one of the most mismanaged murder investigations ever to be undertaken. Once the murders were discovered, news traveled quickly in the small town. As neighbors and curious onlookers converged on the house, law enforcement officials quickly lost control of the crime scene.

Had these murders been committed today, it's almost certain that law enforcement officials would have easily solved the crime and brought the murderer to justice. Almost 100 years later, however, the Villisca axe murders still remain a mystery.

While no one was ever convicted of the Villisca axe murders, there seemed to be no shortage of suspects. In the days following the crimes, you could have read about at least four possibilities in any edition of the newspaper. Many of the leads, however, were quickly exhausted, and as time wore on, they began to dwindle.

There are many who believe Frank Jones, a prominent Villisca resident and Iowa State Senator, was responsible for the brutal deaths of the Moores and the Stillinger children. Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones at his Implement store for many years before leaving to open his own store. Moore repeatedly took business away from Frank Jones, including a very successful John Deere dealership.

And Josiah Moore was rumored to have had a sexual affair with Jones' daughter-in-law, though no evidence supports this.

Were these bad business dealings and a potential affair enough motive for murder? Many people think yes, but many people also think Reverend George Kelly was responsible for the murders. Kelly was an English-born traveling minister in town on the night of the murders. He was described as peculiar, reportedly having suffered a mental breakdown as an adolescent.

As an adult, he was accused of being a peeping Tom and several times asking young women and girls to pose nude for him. In 1917, Kelly was even arrested for the Villisca axe murders. Police obtained a confession from him. However, it followed many hours of intense interrogation and later Kelly recanted. After two separate trials, he was acquitted.

And finally, in their 2017 book, The Man from the Train, Bill James and his daughter, Rachel McCarthy James, discuss the Villisca axe murders as part of a much larger series of murders, which they believe were all committed by one single serial killer. They conclude that the murderer was Paul Mueller, an immigrant, possibly from Germany, who was the subject of an unsuccessful year-long manhunt

as the sole suspect in the 1897 murder of a family in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, who had employed him as a farmhand. The co-authors of the book believe that Mueller was guilty of the Villisca axe murders, as well as a killing spree that lasted over a decade, killing at least 59 people in 14 separate incidents,

So who was responsible for the Villisca axe murders? To this day, we still don't know, but there was a strong possibility that a serial killer was actually at work.

To many people, it seems as though the house is trying to speak to them. Visits by paranormal investigators have provided audio, video, and photographic proof of paranormal activity. Tours of the home have often been cut short by children's voices, falling lamps, moving ladders, and flying objects.

Psychics have stated that there's a presence of spirits dwelling in the home, and many have claimed to communicate with them. Skeptics have come into the home and left believers. Who killed the victims of the Villisca axe murders? And is the house haunted? You can find out for yourself, and you can even stay there overnight. Have a happy and safe Halloween, everyone, and be sure to lock your doors. Bye-bye.

Well, all good things must come to an end. I hope you enjoyed A Nightmare Before Halloween, and don't forget you can find the names of all the podcasts involved in the show notes, along with where to listen. Each of the stories you heard in this collaboration were created by those podcasters to give you this extra entertainment, so please, wherever you're listening, let your podcaster know that you appreciate them and what they do.

I'd also like to thank my team at Foul Play Crime Series for helping me put together this episode. It was seriously a massive undertaking. Again, I'm Shane Waters and it's been my honor to be your friend in the dark. Good night.