Maze of Secrets
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Spooky season is here, and today I have a special treat for you. Last season, I did a super fun collaboration to bring you an episode of spine-tingling stories to get you in the Halloween mood. And I actually had a lot of people ask if I'd be doing it again this year. And here we are.

Welcome to the Maze of Secrets, a special collaboration with nine other podcasts, each sharing a different spooky story or mystery in their own voice. This episode features a story from me that you have not heard on Murder, She Told, and I had a lot of fun researching and putting it together. Just a little peek behind the scenes, we have a lot of big episodes in the works, lots of family interviews, court files and documents, and other surprises coming your way.

This collab allows me a little extra time to move those forward since these bigger projects take a lot of time to produce. I also have a special update coming for you this week too, but I'll be back November 7th with the next regular episode of Murder, She Told. My story starts somewhere around the 26-minute mark. I hope you enjoy. Have a safe and happy Halloween. Trick or treat.

Good evening, brave soul. I'm Shane Waters, and tonight we're embarking on a chilling journey. A special Halloween episode featuring nine phenomenal podcasts. We're going to meet each one of these podcasters as we navigate through a haunting corn maze. Every show we cross paths with will be in the show notes, listed in the order we encounter them. So, shall we? Hey, it's me. Here. Here.

Take my hand, and let's begin the maze. To help guide us through the dark, winding paths brought along this old lantern, its fire dances around like restless spirits. It casts both light and eerie shadows, honestly. You better stay close. It's our first marker in the maze. A spectral figure. That's Peter. I'm frightful. He's here to remind us to embrace our fears and double-check under our beds.

Are you alone in the house? Are you sure? I only ask because someone might be hiding in your home right now, watching you as you listen to this. No, it's not some urban legend. It actually happens. It even has a name. Frogging is a term inspired by frogs leaping from place to place. And it describes the phenomenon where strangers hide in other people's houses.

Like in 2008, when a man from Fukuoka in Japan noticed food was disappearing from his fridge. Suspecting a burglar, he locked all the doors and windows. But still, the food would vanish. He set up security cameras linked to an app on his phone and checked the footage while at work. And to his horror, he saw a strange Japanese woman with long black hair crawling over the furniture of his securely locked house.

Shocked, he called the police who searched every possible hiding place. They were close to giving up when someone opened the door of a built-in closet and there was a narrow top section which was designed for mattress storage. But when they looked deep inside, they found her curled up on her side. This 58-year-old homeless woman was called Tatsuko Horikawa and she'd been living in the closet's top shelf for almost a year.

She looked neat and clean because she'd been creeping into the house to use the shower and toilet when the man was at work. Or consider this horrifying case of frogging shared by the author Grady Hendrix in 2019. At nine years old, Grady started to sneak downstairs at night while his family slept because he loved to eat junk food. Yet one night, when he was stuffing his face with some leftover sweet and sour pork, he heard a fork clicking on the counter.

He froze. And he said, quote, The microwave clock light showed the outline of a man sitting at our kitchen counter. The skinny man didn't see Grady, so the terrified boy crept back upstairs to his parents' room. Waking them, he told them that someone was in the house. But his parents didn't find a thing. And they put it down to Grady's overactive imagination.

Grady, however, was not convinced, and from then on he started to meticulously note where items were in the kitchen every evening. He'd check the next morning and find that they had been moved in the night. He started keeping a steak knife under his pillow. After all, he was petrified that the man would want to come and find him, and would eventually climb the stairs to get into his room, a door that had no lock.

But that one night in August, he was reading in bed when he just happened to look up at the air conditioning above him. Quote, behind the vent, a pair of eyes were watching me. He leapt out of bed, screaming for his parents, who again found nothing until August, when the house began to be filled with a horrendous stench. Rice started to fall through the vent onto his bed. Only this rice was moving those maggots.

His parents called the air conditioning company, assuming that an animal had climbed into the vent system and died. Instead, they found the rotting corpse of a man. The man. He'd been living inside the ducts and wall space for at least three months. They had been frogged. Oh, not again. I swear to the dog. Wait, can you go?

A seriously freaky frogger struck in 2019 at the Honolulu home of Brittany and James Campbell. Their doghood began to bark strangely at night, but they shrugged it off as some sort of canine quirk. And this went on for months before the couple headed off on a trip. A week later, they returned, and James went to open his front door when something suddenly grabbed the handle from the other side. And then a face peeked through the gap, and it was a man.

And his voice was calm. And yet he said, This is not your house. He was wearing James's clothes. Dumbfounded, the Campbells called the police who soon apprehended a 23-year-old man called Ezekiel Zayas. But the terror wasn't over.

because when they entered the house, they found that their home had been trashed. This stranger had been drawing up disturbing plans for the Campbells' return from their trip, typing bizarre notes on their old laptops. These notes were entitled, quote, The Omnivore Trials, A Rehabilitation of Rat-Like People. And they included plans to perform surgery on the Campbells, including, quote, Sexual Reconstruction,

and a hand transplant. A set of knives had been carefully laid out next to these computers ready for this operation. They also found a video of Zaius sitting naked in Brittany's chair, looking at the webcam. And the Campbells felt a chill, and they remembered the strange events leading up to their trip. For months, their computer webcams would indeed switch on in the middle of the night. They thought it was just some technical glitch.

but they also would notice that the doors to the house were mysteriously left open or unlocked at times. Again, they put this down to just one of those things. But now, they finally knew why their dog had been barking so much. The pet had seen the stranger creeping through the rooms at night while they slept, and he accidentally had left some doors open and closed, and had set off the webcams. He'd been watching them very closely too.

because the laptop notes included intimate details about Brittany's fertility treatment. Nobody beyond the couple knew of this, except the hider in the house. Zaius was eventually imprisoned for burglarizing a Buddhist temple. While in jail, he murdered a fellow inmate. And so, as you settle into sleep tonight, cast your eye across your room, at the door, at the cupboard, at the vents, beneath the bed itself, perhaps.

And I ask you one more time, are you alone in the house? Are you sure? Ahoy, look over there. Ghostly pirates. That's Aaron and Jack from Marooned. They're here to share in isolation. Look for revelation. Scared to death. Marooned. To place in isolation without hope of ready escape.

By this definition, you could say that Christopher Case became marooned in his own apartment when a hex was placed on him by a witch. Welcome to Marooned, stories of the catastrophically lost. I'm Jack Luna. This is Aaron Habel. The year is 1991. The place is Seattle, Washington. 35-year-old Christopher Case is doing just fine until this hexing occurs.

Case has a burgeoning career as a music exec, creating those soft melodies heard in upscale elevators and classy waiting rooms worldwide. Oh, that explains why someone, a witch, would want to hex him then, Aaron. No, no, Jack, it's not that. Christopher would share with his friend Sammy over telephone that he had been cursed while in business in San Francisco.

What's ancient music? Like hitting rocks with sticks? Yeah, that's what I don't know. Maybe? Maybe?

But I think we're probably talking about drums and bells and spooky wooden flutes that call the spirits from the trees. Right. I got you. I believe their shared interest was in musical instruments used in ancient Egypt, a culture known for its mysticism and downright eeriness at times. So this witch throws a hex on Christopher and he returns home to his Seattle apartment where he begins hearing whispers in the night, disembodied voices chanting,

And soon he's so freaked out that he contacts his friend Sammy, who claims psychic abilities, by the way. And his case's only friend, who knows of such things as curses and witchcraft. Definitely. And Sammy, who's knowledgeable in the occult, advises Christopher to get himself some items. He needs salt and a crucifix. He is apparently quite scared after having spent a few nights wide awake and alone in his apartment.

Christopher Case wakes up one morning to find blood on his hands. After washing them, he discovers tiny cuts all over his fingertips.

Apparently not one to believe in such things as curses, he is a believer now. Case visits a religious bookstore and purchases books on the subject of warding off witchcraft. He leaves an impression on the store owner, who later recalls how concerned and haunted Christopher seemed to be. The fit 35-year-old has no history of mental or physical health issues. He's not a drug user, as far as we know, and not religious in any way. Though he leaves the religious shop...

Yeah, it's then that Christopher Case seems to drop off the face of the earth. Sammy, whom he'd been in contact with, trusting him with his plight as he was the only person he could trust not to think him insane, calls in a welfare check when Christopher goes silent. Officers arrive at Christopher Case's apartment and get no answer to their knocks while finding the door to be locked.

After asking around, they discover that Chris had left to stay in a motel the previous night and may still be there. It's clear to Christopher's friend Sammy, upon hearing this development, that Case must have left his home due to the increasingly dangerous conditions inside the apartment. Sammy, we should mention, is on the other side of the country, so cannot help. And it's difficult for investigators to take the claims of a hex and Christopher Case's presumed endangerment seriously.

But when Case leaves an ominous message on Sammy's answering machine the next night, investigators are forced to enter his apartment. Case sounds mentally unwell, monotone, and suicidal on the call. He says they had almost got him the night before, and now he was sure that tonight would be his last night alive.

When officers enter the apartment, they are concerned by the ambience. Religious, chanting-style music plays. A pile of salt greets them at the entryway. Crucifixes adorn the walls. It's dark inside. There are melted-down candles everywhere. Some still flicker, but most have snuffed out. The salt runs in a line all along the floorboards in every room. Piles in each corner. It's clear there's something very wrong here.

Crystal clear, Aaron. When the officers enter the bathroom and find Christopher Case in the bathtub, fully clothed and kneeling as if in prayer, his head rests against the tiles on the wall. His pulse is checked and there is none. Though it seems the man might just rise up at any moment, there's nothing obviously wrong with him, other than the fact that he's dead. They said it was a heart attack, Jack. Christopher Case is known as the man who scared himself to death.

marooned in his apartment, haunted by an unseen force. Except for those shadow people, Aaron. He saw them well enough. Boy, I sure wish we hadn't gone camping on All Hallows' Eve. It's a great story. Do you think it's true? Well, you just never know. It sounds like it's made up, but as far as we can tell, it seems true enough. A man died, and he apparently believed something was after him. Freaks me out. Well...

Great story before bed here, Ann. Let's zip up the tent, click off these flashlights. Good night. Good night, Jack. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature. Whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes, nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it.

But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With AllTrails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently with offline maps and on-trail navigation. Download the free app today and make the most of your summer with AllTrails. Oh, look there. Shrouded in shadows. It's Josh from Rotten to the Core. His lesson for us is this. The devil on one shoulder can be pulling the strings of another.

Hi, hello, and howdy, my darlings, and happy Halloween. The veil is thinning, but I am thickening from all this candy. Halloween brings out the kid and a lot of people. Fun hayrides, haunted houses, caramel apples, and keeping an eye out for all the weirdo. This story has ties to the Son of Sam killer, but he was completely innocent.

at least for these murders. They happened while David Berkowitz was serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of six people and wounding of seven others, which some think were done because David was suspected to be a cog in a larger wheel, a satanic cult. Only a few weeks before Halloween 1981, David told an informant that he had a premonition that a murder was going to take place.

He said that a cult was going to torture and perform a ritual killing on Halloween and described the scene as a photographer's residence near Greenwich Village in New York City. He goes on to say that after the ritual, the cult was going to clean the place to get rid of any incriminating evidence against them.

Even further, he said that one of the victims was going to possess a video of one of the Son of Sam killings that would expose the cult and make people think Berkowitz didn't act alone. In his premonition, he was able to see that one of the victims was actually hired through deceit by the cult to make a video, unbeknownst to him as to what it was actually for.

His premonition was so detailed that after the murders happened, investigators were shocked that David didn't have any involvement, which only furthered the belief that he was also possessed by a demon. On Halloween night in 1981, 39-year-old Ronald Sisman, a photographer, invited his 19-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Platzman, over for a photoshoot.

While they were enjoying each other's company over a glass of wine, there was a sudden knock on the door. I'm assuming they must have thought it was trick-or-treaters because they just ignored the knocks. But the knocking quickly turned to banging, so Ronald opened the door.

Then suddenly, a group of masked people pushed their way into the apartment and what unfolded next followed Berkowitz's premonition to the T. Ronald and Elizabeth were both severely beaten and shot execution style in the back of their heads. The apartment was left in shambles and even the furniture was ripped apart.

There wasn't a spot in the entire apartment that was left untouched and undamaged, as investigators couldn't even take a step without something being underfoot. The faces of the victims were left extremely bruised, showing the severity in which they were beaten. Not found among the mess was a pistol that was registered to Ronald and the couple's driver's licenses, which were common trophies among cults.

They would take them to prove that they had gotten the right people. Investigators couldn't pin down a motive for the murders, though. There was speculation that Ronald may have had some dealings with drugs and either owed someone money or had gotten in over his head. But there just wasn't enough to support that theory. The only real lead was from Berkowitz's premonition and his accurate description of the scene.

But those closest to Ronald claimed that he had never even met David Berkowitz and that he was not in a satanic cult. So, how could the son of Sam Killer know so much about the crime before it even happened? Was it a lucky guess? Or was he truly in league with some dark and mysterious forces that surpass our understanding?

Did David and the cult serve the same dark entity, and he was just able to foresee what was going to be done in the name of the one they served? Halloween is a time to welcome back those who have passed on and celebrate that delicate balance between life and death. Was it the thinning of the veil that played a part in the premonition that David Berkowitz received, or was he just in league with the cult

and had been privy to their plan all along. All I know for sure is, watch out for those who may wish you harm on the spookiest of holidays. You never know who or what may be lurking in the shadows. Have a happy Halloween, everyone, and remember, be happy, find peace, and don't hurt others.

Over here's another person. It's Kristen. From murder she told, her lesson to us is every town has its secrets, but secrets don't stay buried forever.

It was 11.03 on the morning of Friday, January 4th, 1935. The switchboard operator at the Hotel President in Kansas City noticed that the phone in room 1046 was once again off the hook. This was the third time that morning. The first time was hours earlier, at 7 a.m. And though there was a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, the bellboy, Randolph, knocked anyway. He heard a bell.

There was no answer. He knocked again. A muffled, masculine voice, low and gruff, said, "'Come in. Turn on the lights.'

Randolph thought to himself that the voice didn't sound familiar, but he'd only interacted with the man in 1046 a few times. He tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. He waited, but nobody came to unlock it. Assuming the man was half asleep in bed, he sighed and said through the door, "'Your telephone is off the hook, sir.'" The second time was an hour and a half later, at 8.30 a.m.,

The phone was still off the hook, so they sent up another bellboy, Howard, to take care of it. Howard used his master key to enter the room and found it completely dark. The shades were drawn. The light from the hallway illuminated a man laying naked on the bed with a large dark spot surrounding him on the stark white sheets. The phone and its stand had both been knocked over, so Howard picked them up, returning the receiver to its cradle.

Assuming the man was drunk, he left. It was now 11.03 a.m., and the phone was off the hook for a third time. Randolph again went upstairs, and what he discovered as the door to room 1046 swung open was terrifying.

He later told the Kansas City Star,

When police arrived, they found the man in 1046 with a thin white cotton rope tied tightly around his neck. His hands and feet were bound with a white rope and amateurish knots, and it was stained a deep red from blood. He had been severely beaten. His skull was fractured. He had stab wounds in his chest above his heart and bruising on his neck. There were no weapons in the room, so police concluded that none of the injuries could have been self-inflicted.

Miraculously, the man was still alive when police arrived, but he was barely hanging on. Police tried to get details from him, asking him, "'Who did this to you? Who hurt you?' "'Nobody,' he replied. He said his injuries were from falling against the bathtub. And then the man fell unconscious."

The hospital said his injuries were about six to seven hours old, which meant they occurred prior to the first time Randolph knocked on his door at 7 a.m. Unfortunately, he passed away at the hospital just after midnight that evening, leaving police with a baffling mystery to unravel that still remains today.

The man in 1046 had checked into the hotel two days prior, on Wednesday, January 2nd, under the name Roland T. Owen. Hotel staff said he was between 20 and 35 years old, with brown hair, a large scar on his head, and a cauliflower ear, caused by some kind of trauma.

When Randolph, the bellboy, took him up to his room when he checked in, he noticed that Roland didn't have any bags to carry. His few belongings—toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a hairbrush—were in his pocket. Later that same day, a maid named Mary came to clean the room while Roland was still inside. She noticed that the room was completely dark, with the shades drawn and all the lights off except for one dim lamp in the corner.

Mary said he seemed paranoid about somebody or something. He told her not to lock the door because he was expecting a guest. Around 4 p.m., she returned to bring fresh towels to the room. Upon entering the room, she encountered Roland laying on the bed in the dark, awake and fully clothed. The door was unlocked. On the table was a note that read, "'Dawn. I'll be back in 15 minutes. Wait.'"

The next morning around 10.30, Mary returned to 10.46 to do some cleaning. The door was locked from the outside, using the key that guests would lock the room with when they left, which apparently couldn't be unlocked from the inside. When Mary let herself in, she was surprised to find Roland sitting silently in the dark. Somebody with a key to 10.46 had locked him in.

She remembered Roland receiving a phone call. She heard him say, "No, Don. I don't want to eat. I just had breakfast. No, I'm not hungry." When she returned around 4 p.m. to bring fresh towels, she heard the voices of two men speaking behind the door. Mary knocked on the door, and a man who wasn't Roland asked in a gruff voice, "Who is it?"

She explained why she was at the door, and the same man stated that they didn't need any towels. Mary knew there weren't any towels left in the room, but she didn't press the issue. The next morning, the guest in the room next door said that she was kept awake all night by a man and a woman arguing. It seems she meant 10:46, but there was a party going on in 10:55, so it is possible she was mistaken.

The night of Roland's assault, nobody reported hearing any unusual sounds that indicated the level of violence that had happened in the room.

Roland T. Owen had no identification, no belongings, and bizarrely, his socks, shoes, overcoat, and hat that he'd arrived in were missing from his room. The only clues police found in the room were an unsmoked cigarette, a hairpin, a safety pin, and a necktie label. They also pulled four fingerprints from the telephone. They presumed the prints to be female, but never linked them to anyone.

Police concluded that Roland T. Owen was not the young man's real name. After failing to uncover Roland's true identity, it was decided that he would be buried in a pauper's grave for unclaimed people. Upon the announcement, the Melody McGilley Funeral Home received a phone call from an anonymous man insisting they bury Roland in Memorial Park Cemetery, and he offered to pay for the full burial costs.

Shortly after, the money arrived rolled up in a newspaper, and 13 American Beauty roses were sent to his funeral with a note that read, Love forever, Louise.

According to one source, the caller said, I'm doing this for my sister. According to that same source, the unknown man who called up to pay for the funeral explained that Roland cheated on a girl and that he, the girl, and Roland had a little meeting in 1046. Hotel staff did recall seeing a man and a woman coming out of 1046 that morning prior to discovering Roland. They seemed to be in a hurry.

Finally, the man on the phone said, cheaters always get what's coming to them. And he hung up. It was the spring of 1936, a year and a half later. A friend had given Ruby Ogletree the latest issue of American Weekly. There was something she wanted Ruby to see. And Ruby couldn't believe her eyes.

On a page that detailed Roland T. Owen's bizarre demise, the face that stared back at her was her son, 19-year-old Artemis Ogletree. She hadn't heard from him in quite some time. Artemis had left his home in Alabama to travel, and Ruby hadn't seen him since. At first, he'd handwritten her letters on a regular basis. But as time went on, the letters slowly dwindled.

She explained to the authorities that she'd received three typed letters from Artemis, from three different cities, in the spring of 1935. She thought it odd that they were typed, because she was sure that Artemis didn't know how to use a typewriter, and she noticed that the letters contained unfamiliar slang that didn't seem like her son. Now, Ruby knew it couldn't have been her son. Her son was dead when the letters were sent.

But identifying Artemis didn't give investigators the clues they needed, and instead of filling in the blanks, it only created more questions. At any point during his stay, or on the morning of January 4th, 1935, Artemis could have gotten help that may have saved his life. He could have even told investigators exactly what happened. But he didn't. Who was he protecting? Who was he meeting? Who took his life?

The Hotel President still stands today. It's a historic landmark for Kansas City, and it's still a hotel. Buried with Artemis are the reasons he ended up in 1046 in the first place. But the walls of the Hotel President hold secrets, and those walls saw a killer slip away unnoticed.

Hidden beneath layers of history, old paint, and wallpaper are the secrets that Artemis Ogletree took to his grave. Secrets that we may never know. Ah!

The darkness ahead is almost palpable. That's Justin from Obscura. His lesson? Even in darkness, there's truth to find. He brings with him first-hand accounts of the paranormal. Story 1. The Dreamer When I was a kid, my favorite uncle was the youngest in the family. He was my hero. He had just finished high school and I was like 10 or 11. We would go and visit on spring break and over the course of the summer...

and I always looked forward to seeing the guy. We'd listen to records and tapes, and he introduced me to bands like The Doors. As I entered my teenage years, my life started, and my friends became the center of my universe. Eventually, I graduated high school, and around the same time, my uncle started a family. A few years out of high school, and my mom called me up and let me know my uncle passed away. I hadn't seen him in a few years, and when I asked what happened, the only reply I could get was, he was sick."

It wasn't until years later I found out he had taken his own life. He didn't leave a note or anything, but the general consensus was he learned he didn't have long to live and took the easy way out. Shortly after the funeral, I start having dreams. I'm a pretty lucid dreamer. Not in the sense that I can decide what I want to happen in a dream, but I can recall my dreams in vivid detail. Anyways, I started having dreams about my uncle. Sometimes we were just sitting in his room from when I was a kid, listening to music and making jokes. Over time, they became strange.

...

He would stare at this bridge and get up and try to walk across it. But there were snakes that would strike at him when he tried to cross. A snake would snip at him and he'd go back to where he was sitting and just look at me. Then look at the bridge. I'd walk onto this bridge and look across and every few feet is a very angry snake all the way across. I grabbed my uncle's hand and took him out on the bridge. He would be apprehensive because of the snakes.

So, I stood in front of him and kind of hopped up and down on the bridge. The momentum, or whatever you call it from me, bouncing on this rickety old bridge made the snakes angry. But if you bounced enough on it, the snakes would eventually teeter over the side. It was a very strange "eureka" kind of dream. So my uncle would step out onto the bridge, walk a few feet, bounce the bridge so the snakes would fall off. The dream would always end with my uncle making it across the bridge and me getting this feeling of reluctance to follow him across.

Then I would wake up with this overwhelming feeling of sadness. These dreams happened for almost 20 years, always the same. Me and my uncle shooting the shit, or me helping him solve a puzzle of some sort. The snake and rope bridge was the most common. Never told a soul in my family about what my uncle and I were up to. I always thought it would be upsetting, like he wasn't at rest, like he was in purgatory or something. Maybe he was. I eventually just came to accept that my uncle was haunting me.

and for the most part I didn't mind. My grandmother died a few years ago, nothing tragic. She caught pneumonia and never really recovered from it. One night she went to sleep and never woke up. We celebrated her life, hugged and healed the way families do when death comes to visit. Since my grandmother's funeral, I haven't had a single dream about my uncle. Not one. I think that was the confirmation I needed that there's something out there for us after we die. Or maybe my grandmother passing away was the catharsis I needed to let my uncle go.

I look back on it now, and I like to think that my uncle was just lost. He was lost in life, and that carried on in death. I also think my grandmother, on her way to the suite hereafter, found her baby boy. Picked him up, dusted him off, and brought him home. Story 2: Haunted I've lived in haunted houses my whole life. I've seen things I would have laughed at other people about if they tried to tell me because it's so hard to believe things such as paranormal activity can happen. It sounds insane.

Well, at 2:20 in the morning, I get a call from my mother and she's crying hysterically. Tells me, "It's back." My mother always overreacts. Makes things up for attention. So I called my brother who lives across the street from my parents. I asked, "Dude, what is she going on about? Is she just bullshitting or what?" My brother replied, "Dude, it was bad." What she caught on audio is the same thing back at Pinecrest when we were teenagers.

At 14 years old, we had a priest come to our house because our father had something that had grabbed a hold of him, and he could not budge an inch. I had just gotten woken up to raspy breathing in my ear, and I stayed still because I was too afraid to move. I thought it would eventually go away, but it did not. It touched my leg, then moved its hand up my leg and grabbed my crotch. I jumped out of bed and ran out of my room into my parents, only to see my mother backing up and saying, "'Chuck, what are you doing?'

I see my father being pushed down into the bed and his chest sinking in like something is crushing him. From this point on, things escalate quickly. And violently. My dad started acting strange. Saying hateful things. Saying he had conversations with us that never took place. He was violent and threatening to us. And we thought he was just being an ass. But we thought it was just his bipolar disorder. One day, I was walking from the living room through their room into mine. And he demands, "'Where the hell is your brother?' I asked. "'Which one?'

He replied,

He storms into the living room yelling and starts walking to my brother, Corey. So me and my two other brothers stand in front of him and beg him to stop, that everyone has been in the living room. He said, "How can I have a conversation with my son 20 minutes ago, if he's been in here all day? Y'all need to stop playing with me, 'cause I know I'm not crazy." And his pupils nearly got as big as his iris. It was dark purple under his eyes. At this point, me and my brothers start backing away.

He gets mad and asks, Why are y'all scared of me? You know I wouldn't hurt you. We told him everything he's been doing and saying. He didn't remember any of it. He then breaks down and starts crying, saying that he's been terrified since the night that happened. This is coming from a man who was literally fearless. Later that night, me, my mother, and my father were walking through the house, holding a Bible, saying prayers and verses...

It knocked the Bible out of my hands and scratched me on my chest. It drew blood and looked as if I was scratched by a cat. We all started sleeping in the same room, and the next day me and my mother went to find a priest or pastor. Anything that could help us. I'm 23 years old now. Back then I saw a priest leave our house and tell us this is beyond his control. That we made a trained, professional walkout. He was afraid. I'm not looking for attention. Not looking to get popularity over fake ghost stories.

I'm not religious or follow any religions, but I'm looking for answers, anything that can help. I recorded the thing on audio and I present it to you now. Over there. See that soft glow?

That's Charlie from Crimelines. Remember, every line tells a story, and every story has a consequence.

This is the time of year when we are talking about haunted houses, but today I want to tell you about one of Kansas City's most famous haunted landmarks, which is actually a church. They say the church is haunted by the ghost of Father Henry Jardine. He appeared in Kansas City in 1879 as the city was growing. He had been assigned to St. Luke's Episcopal Church, and he stepped off the train in the spirit of Reformation.

One of the first things Father Jardine did was change the name of the church from St. Luke's to St. Mary's. The move to the patronage of Mary, Mother of God, was just one piece of a larger plan of Father Jardine's. He hoped to bring the congregation closer to the rituals and traditions of Catholicism, which had been slowly, very slowly, fading from the Anglican Church since the English Reformation in the 16th century.

But Father Jardine's introduction of Anglo-Catholic traditions was hardly the only impact he had. Father Jardine did a lot of charity outreach. Most of all, in 1882, he called together a bunch of businessmen to rally funding for a hospital. This led to the founding of All Saints Hospital, which is one of the first hospitals in the Kansas City area. Charity care was their mission.

In spite of his good works, some families left St. Mary's as the rituals and traditions began looking more like a Catholic church. Most stayed, but not all who stayed were supporters of Father Jardine. One of these congregants, John C. Shea, had a platform that few others had. He was the editor of the Kansas City Times.

When Father Jardine refused to resign his position in the aftermath of families leaving the church, Shea took to his paper to expose Father Jardine. He published two articles in the summer of 1885, the first exposing a robbery that Father Jardine had committed as a teenager. When that article didn't push Father Jardine out, he tried again with a new article titled

Jardine's Jollies, in which he accused the father of being inappropriate with female parishioners in the confessional.

It is widely believed that these accusations were lies, and Father Jardine, to defend himself, sued John Shea for libel. In Shea's defense, he found a 13-year-old girl who would testify about an incident that allegedly happened with Father Jardine when she was nine. She claimed he spanked her while she was only partially dressed.

Unable to prove the accusation was false and that John Shea knew it was false, Father Jardine lost his case. And this loss came at a high price. The accusations were now public record, and the church couldn't ignore it. They convened an ecclesiastical court in September of 1885 to investigate if Father Jardine had been acting inappropriately.

A month later, they rendered their verdict, finding 44-year-old Father Henry Jardine guilty of improper conduct with a girl, improper conduct with adult female congregants, and habitual drug use. The drug in question was chloroform, which Father Jardine had always said he used to control a nerve condition that caused twitching in his face.

Many believe this conviction was just a political move to get Father Jardine and his Catholic beliefs out of the church.

Father Jardine appealed for a retrial, which the bishop denied. In January of 1886, Father Jardine traveled across the state to St. Louis, where he took refuge with his friend, Father George Betts, the rector of Trinity Church. Father Betts had found an attorney for Father Jardine to meet with in the hopes of stopping his removal from the priesthood.

Time was running out. His conviction in ecclesiastical court would be announced soon in Kansas City if he couldn't find a way to stop it.

On the night of Saturday, January 9th, with one day before his removal, Father Jardine met with his attorney. Father Betts stayed by his side as the attorney told them that the bishop had refused to reconsider and there was nothing more that could be done. Father Jardine held his face in his hands and said that his real character was unchanged. He was innocent.

They left him around 1.30 in the morning to sleep. Father Jardine laid back on the two pews they had pushed together as a makeshift bed and took out his bottle of chloroform and a rag. He pulled the sheets up and went to sleep. The next morning, Father Betts entered the vestry to get ready for Sunday services. Father Jardine had slept in, missing breakfast, so his friend tried to wake him. And that's when Father Betts found Father Henry Jardine dead with a handkerchief over his face.

Attempts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead in St. Louis as the announcement of his removal from the priesthood was reverberating in Kansas City. There was no question that Father Jardine had died of a chloroform overdose, but was it intentional? Father Betts refused to believe it was. The medical examiner ruled that it was undetermined, but the bishop declared it a suicide.

Even Father Jardine's death did not stop the Kansas City Times from reporting on the accusations against him and about a peculiar thing discovered in his death. When preparing Father Jardine's body for burial, they found a metal chain welded around his waist, something he carried for penance.

More evidence of his guilt, for some, because why would an innocent priest need to carry around the weight of his sins? Because the bishop had determined that Father Jardine had taken his own life, he could not be buried on consecrated grounds, and instead he was buried in a city cemetery. He remained there for 35 years, but in 1921, the last surviving supporters of Father Jardine's lobbied the church to reconsider.

They had a reinvestigation done, and it was ruled that the amount of chloroform used was not excessive enough to assume that Father Jardine would think it would have killed him. The official church finding of suicide was overturned, and Father Jardine was reinterred at Forest Hill, which is where the other rectors of St. Mary's are traditionally buried.

But eternal rest would not be easy for Father Jardine if the stories of the parishioners are to be believed. According to them, Father Jardine still walked the floor of St. Mary's. For years, parishioners would walk through the church with the feeling of being watched. Some would smell incense when none was burning, much like the incense that Father Jardine had introduced to St. Mary's when he introduced his Anglo-Catholic traditions.

Some said they would see a figure move by a window from the parking lot, but no one would be there when they went inside. Most of the activity was near the church's altar, a place dedicated to Father Jardine and where his supporters initially wanted him interred. For some people, paranormal happenings and experiences cause distress.

The observers feel the need to push the spirit out or aid them in making their journey to the other side. But for the congregants of St. Mary's, they welcome Father Jardine, as he has remained not to haunt the church, but to protect it.

So strong was this view that the church had Father Jardine's grave at Forest Hill excavated in the year 2000. They brought his bones and his chain back to St. Mary's and entombed them beneath the altar as his original supporters had intended.

And since then, Father Jardine's presence has been even more pronounced. The church's alarm service has reported that the system detected doors being opened in the middle of the night. A repairman was there one day fixing the organ, which is located near the altar, and he brought his dog along. His dog chased something that he himself could not see. Shuffling footsteps have been heard and a strong presence is felt on the second floor of the church,

always within the view of the altar, and it is always a protective feeling.

The truth is, whether you believe in spirits or not, Father Jardine is protecting Kansas City, whether in a temporal sense or an ethereal one. All Saints Hospital, which he founded, has exploded into the St. Luke's Health System, which remains Kansas City's only locally owned, not-for-profit hospital with a mission of charity care and medical education.

While his detractors faded into history, Father Jardine's protection of Kansas City has remained. Oh, listen to those wind chimes. That's Esther from Once Upon a Crime. She reminds us that not every story has a happy ending. Serial killer Ted Bundy cut a murderous path through the Pacific Northwest in the mid-1970s.

Wherever Bundy landed, girls and young women would go missing. Some were found dead, raped and strangled, and dumped in nearby hillsides or ravines. Others vanished and were never seen again. Detectives in Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Colorado were all investigating cases of missing and murdered young women. Bundy would become a suspect in many of these unsolved abductions, rapes, and murders.

when a sharp-eyed highway patrol officer in Granger, Utah, noticed an unfamiliar tan Volkswagen parked in his neighborhood and decided to investigate. I'll give you more details about that mostly forgotten piece of Bundy lore in a moment.

But first, I'll tell you how the story I'm about to share with you is tied to Halloween. On October 31st, 1974, 17-year-old Laura Ann Amey attended a Halloween party in Orem, Utah. Sometime that evening, Laura left the party alone. She was never seen alive again.

Almost a month later, just before Thanksgiving, her body was found by hikers, partway down an embankment in American Fork Canyon, just north of Orem. The medical examiner determined that Laura's cause of death was multiple blows to the head and strangulation. She'd also been raped.

Laura Amy was born on August 21, 1957, and grew up in Salem, Utah. She attended North Sandpete High School. Not long before she went missing, she had dropped out of high school. Although she is sometimes referred to as a runaway or a chronic runaway in newspaper articles, Laura's parents, Jim and Charlene, were in frequent contact with her. Laura had simply decided she wanted to be on her own and left school, took part-time jobs to support herself, and couch surfed in friends' homes.

Her father, Jim, said he and Laura's mother were learning to accept their daughter's nomadic lifestyle.

Because of this, friends and family didn't immediately discover Laura's disappearance. It wasn't until his daughter failed to appear for a planned hunting trip that her parents became aware that something was very wrong. Jim Amy said that Laura was looking forward to the trip and it was not something she would have missed. It wasn't long after this that a young woman's body was found in the canyon. However, the Utah County Sheriff's Department was already investigating at least three other cases involving missing teen girls.

On October 2, 1974, 16-year-old Nancy Wilcox vanished after leaving her home in Holiday, Utah. She would be listed as a possible runaway, but would later be identified as Bundy's first victim in Utah, where he had relocated the previous month to attend the University of Utah School of Law. Her body would never be found.

16 days later, Melissa Smith, 17, disappeared after leaving a Midvale, Utah, pizza parlor. Nine days later, deer hunters found her nude body on a hillside in Summit Park. She'd also suffered head injuries and been strangled. Melissa was the daughter of Louis Smith, Midvale's police chief.

By the time Laura Amy's body was discovered, another teen, Deborah Kent, had gone missing from Bountiful, Utah. The body found in American Fork Canyon was initially suspected to be Debbie Kent's. On November 9th, Debbie vanished after leaving her high school, where she'd attended a high school play. A key found in the parking lot where Debbie was last seen would turn out to be the clue that led to Ted Bundy's capture.

Jim Amy, holding out hope that the body he was asked to identify in the morgue was not his daughter Laura, was devastated when he saw a distinctive scar on her arm. Laura had suffered a horse riding accident as a girl, which had resulted in the scar. There was no doubt that this dead girl, beaten, murdered and dumped naked in the freezing cold hillside, was his baby.

So many victims. So many devastated families. Laura Amy would be number 12 of Ted Bundy's identified victims. There may have been many more. There would be at least 18 more identified before Bundy, after two prison escapes, was finally caught and executed.

Theodore Robert Bundy was first identified as a suspected serial kidnapper and murderer when Carol Durant bravely and miraculously escaped certain death after being kidnapped from a Utah mall. In November of 1974, 19-year-old Carol was tricked by Bundy into believing he was a police officer. Once he got her inside his tan Volkswagen, he attempted to handcuff her, but she got free and ran to safety.

Later that day, Bundy abducted Debbie Kent from her high school's parking lot, dropping the handcuff key in the process, which would later link him to Carol's attempted kidnapping. Police searched for the man who said his name was Ted and drove a tan VW Bug. Carol provided a description, but it wasn't until August of the following year that a wrong turn would result in Ted Bundy's arrest.

Utah Highway Patrol Sergeant Bob Hayward was on duty in the early morning hours of August 16, 1975, when he received a call. The streets were deserted at 3 a.m., so Hayward noticed when a tan VW drove past him. He started driving to the location the dispatcher had provided to him, but he made a wrong turn.

He ended up near a neighbor's home and saw the tan VW he had just seen pass him parked on the street in front of it. Sergeant Hayward knew the homeowners well and knew that they were out of town. He also knew that the homeowners' teen daughters were home alone. As his patrol car's lights reached the parked VW, the driver suddenly took off. Hayward hit his lights and siren and followed the vehicle as it sped through the neighborhood and onto the main road.

As the officer gained on him, the driver finally pulled into a parking lot and stopped. Hayward got out of his cruiser and approached. The driver, a white male with bushy brown hair, raised his hands to show he was no threat. He told the officer he was lost. But his spidey sense tingling, Hayward had the man step out of the car and searched it. He found pantyhose with eye holes cut out, a ski mask, a crowbar, an ice pick, and handcuffs.

The man, who was identified as Ted Bundy, was arrested for possession of burglary tools. Hayward's brother was also a law enforcement officer. Sheriff Pete Hayward told his detectives about the arrest, and they right away had a feeling he might be the elusive Ted. They contacted Washington State detectives, who had 10 open cases of missing and murdered women. They had narrowed their suspect list to 25 men, and Theodore Robert Bundy was on that list.

In October, Carol Durant picked Bundy out of a lineup as the man who called himself Officer Ted and had attempted to kidnap her. In March of 1976, Bundy was found guilty and sentenced to 15 years. He was extradited to Colorado to be tried for the murder of Karen Campbell. In December of 1977, Bundy escaped from prison for the second time and made his way to Florida. In January, he snuck into the Chi Omega sorority house and attacked four sleeping women, killing two.

His bloodthirst not yet quenched, he attacked another woman a few blocks away the same night. Just weeks later, he kidnapped and murdered 12-year-old Kimberly Leach. He was arrested a week later in a stolen car. This time, Bundy would not escape.

he was tried and convicted for the three murders in Florida and sent to death row. As the date drew closer to his scheduled January 24th execution in 1989, Bundy met with investigators from several states who were trying to clear up their unsolved cases. Detective Dennis Couch met with Bundy two days before his execution to question him regarding the murders of Laura Amy and Melissa Smith and the disappearances of three others, Nancy Wilcock, Debbie Kent,

and Nancy Baird. Fifteen years had passed, and Bundy was responsible for so many murders before and since that time that he could not recall all the details, or so he claimed.

He admitted to abducting Debbie Kent from the school parking lot and said that he had taken her to a Salt Lake City apartment where he'd killed her. He would not provide details of how she died. He provided some details of where he'd dumped her body. Somewhere off Highway 89, he recalled. A small bone from a kneecap was found in the area and is believed to be Debbie Kent's only remains.

Nancy Wilcox was also taken to Bundy's apartment and was killed the day after she was abducted. He provided a vague map of where her body was dumped, but it has never been found. Bundy denied that Nancy Baird was one of his victims.

As for Laura Amy, who'd gone missing Halloween night in 1974, Bundy didn't deny that she was a victim. He couldn't recall the details, though, he said. Quote, I'm just having a hard time placing the names, he told Detective Couch. It's starting to get all mixed up. I don't remember a thing. I don't know who it was. It could have been one of these, he said, gesturing towards the photos of the murder victims.

On the day he was executed, Bundy confessed to one more Utah murder. 15-year-old Susan Curtis vanished from Brigham Young University while attending a youth conference. Her remains were never found. Laura Amy's family is convinced that Bundy was responsible for her murder. It does fit his profile. She was abducted, raped, strangled, and dumped in a remote area. The only small mercy the Amy family had was that they could bury their daughter.

At 7 a.m. on January 24, 1989, Ted Bundy was strapped to the electric chair and executed. His brain was removed from his skull to be studied. His body was cremated. He requested that his ashes be scattered in Washington's Cascade Mountains, where it's believed at least four of his victims' bodies were dumped. Thanks for listening. From me, Esther, and everyone at Once Upon a Crime, we wish you a happy and safe Halloween.

This particular Halloween story is going to be a mixture of the paranormal and true crime, so let's start off with an interesting trivia question. What cases have been featured on both Unsolved Mysteries and Forensic Files?

Well, since these programs are considered to be the granddaddies of true crime television, it probably shouldn't surprise you to learn that nearly two dozen cases have been featured on both shows, so here's a more specific trivia question: What is the only location to be featured as a paranormal segment on Unsolved Mysteries and a true crime segment on Forensic Files? Well, the answer to that would be an historic location named the General Wayne Inn, as each of these shows decided to produce their own segment about it for entirely different reasons.

The General Wayne Inn was located in Pennsylvania's Lower Merion Township, and when it was originally built in 1704, it was known as the William Penn Inn, though it was eventually renamed after General Anthony Wayne, who fought during the American Revolutionary War.

Well, it wound up lasting for three whole centuries, and for a time, it was the oldest functioning inn in the United States. I mean, look at the wide variety of famous figures who frequented there at some point. Everyone from George Washington to Edgar Allan Poe to Benjamin Franklin to basketball legend Dr. J. Julius Irving.

Well, in October of 1988, Unsolved Mysteries aired a special Halloween episode featuring four stories about ghosts, and like many other fans of the show who grew up during this time period, this special was a huge part of my childhood. Of course, one of their stories was the General Wayne Inn, but their other segments included reported hauntings on the famed Ocean Line or the Queen Mary, as well as a family named the Tallmans and an elderly couple named the Tatums, who both believed that their respective houses were haunted.

The General Wayne Inn contained a ton of reported ghost sightings and unexplained paranormal events dating all the way back to the mid-19th century, and it earned a reputation as being a place where, quote-unquote, the ghosts check in, but they don't check out.

Now, while these other three Unsolved Mysteries segments featured people who were legitimately frightened by their supernatural encounters, the segment about the General Wayne Inn was a bit more light-hearted, as the innkeeper at that time flat-out said that he enjoyed having these ghosts around, as they tended to play silly practical jokes rather than maliciously terrorizing people.

Some of their pranks included starting up an empty Cadillac in the parking lot in order to spook the valet, screwing up the picture on the inn's television set while it was broadcasting a local news segment on the hauntings, and blowing on the back of the necks of female patrons sitting at the bar, which would prompt them to turn around and get angry at the innocent male patrons. But that's not to say that the segment didn't have its scary moments, or rather, moments which seemed a lot more scary when I was 10 years old.

In particular, there's one reenactment where the Innsmaetra D sees the ghostly specter of a human head suddenly appear in the kitchen, and while the special effects have not aged well, to say the least, this moment did help keep me awake for a few nights back in 1988, as he became convinced that a ghostly head was going to pop up in my bedroom.

It seems like a good chunk of the paranormal encounters at the General Wayne Inn involved eyewitnesses who believed they saw the ghosts of soldiers who were dressed in uniforms from the American Revolutionary War and would suddenly appear and disappear from locations like the main staircase. This would make sense, since soldiers like that did frequently stay at the inn during that time period, but there were also additional sightings of a ghostly figure who appeared to be dressed in the green uniform of a Hessian.

Hessians were German soldiers that served as auxiliaries to the British Army during the American Revolution, and they also frequented the inn. The sightings of the Hessian would take place at the same spot in a creepy-looking basement next to a wine cellar, and a man claiming to be a psychic medium once said that the soldier appeared to him in a dream.

The Hessian apparently told the psychic that he was killed by a group of patriots who then buried him under the General Wayne Inn, so his ghost was doomed to be stuck there until his remains were unearthed and he received a proper burial. Well, in February of 2006, just over 17 years after the Unsolved Mysteries Halloween special aired, the General Wayne Inn would be featured on Forensic Files in an episode titled Murder on the Menu.

On December 27, 1996, one of the inn's co-owners at that time, Jim Webb, was found murdered inside his office after being shot through the back of the head with a .25 caliber weapon. The previous year, Webb and his business partner, Guy Saleo Jr., had agreed to purchase the General Wayne Inn together, but the inn did not do well financially and they found themselves over $1 million in debt.

The two men had both taken out $650,000 life insurance policies on each other in order to protect the business, so obviously, Saleo seemed like a promising suspect in Webb's murder. But Saleo pretty much sealed his fate when he offered his condolences to Webb's widow and said, quote, who would want to shoot Jim?

The problem? When Saleo said this, the authorities had not yet revealed Webb's cause of death, so the only people who should have known that Webb was fatally shot were the detectives. Whoops! Anyway, even though the actual murder weapon was never found, the authorities got an informant to secretly record Saleo bragging on tape that he once owned a rare, untraceable .25 caliber Beretta semi-automatic pistol before he got rid of it.

When a grand jury was convened for the case, Saleo testified under oath that he had never owned a Beretta, which contradicted what he had said on that recording and led to him being charged with perjury. Investigators eventually built up a strong circumstantial case to charge Saleo with Webb's murder, and he was subsequently convicted at trial and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

But I gotta tell you, if I wanted to murder someone, I would probably be hesitant to do so at a location which had a reputation for being haunted, because I would be terrified that my victim's spirit was going to come back and torment me. Now, as far as I can tell, I don't believe there were ever any reported sightings of Jim Webb's ghost at the General Wayne Inn, but that's probably because it closed a short time after the murder, and likely ruined anyone's desire to keep the establishment going.

In 2005, shortly after passing its 300-year anniversary, the General Weighed Inn was converted into a synagogue and community center called the Shabbat Center for Jewish Life. I have not heard any stories about paranormal encounters at the synagogue since this transition took place, so perhaps after three centuries, the ghosts finally did decide to check out. Anyway, have a happy Halloween, everyone, and make sure to keep an eye out for ghostly severed heads on your kitchen counter.

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She's here to share this lesson. Even in the most convoluted mazes of life, your co-pilots make the journey worthwhile. It's a dark, stormy evening, and I'm walking through flood meadows in Hampshire, England, taking a shortcut on my way home, when I hear the sound of laughter. It sounds like a child. I turn, searching around me in the darkness. There is nobody there. I must have imagined it. But no, there it is again.

Definitely the sound of a child laughing. It's dark. It's night time. My mind must be playing tricks on me. Or could it be the spirit of a young girl that was murdered in this very meadow back in 1867? Whether you believe in ghosts or not, they are associated with Halloween. This is Foul Play. Welcome to the true story of Fanny Adams. This episode comes with a trigger warning.

We will be discussing the murder of a child, and some of the details are graphic. We will put in another warning before this part. We are taking you back to 1867, to the small market town of Alton, in Hampshire, England. A town steeped in history, where life was simple, and where crime was unheard of, unless you count someone stealing a loaf of bread, or a pint of beer. These were simpler times.

where children would disappear all day to play with friends, and doors were left unlocked and often wide open. And so it was on a beautiful, sunny August day that Fanny, age 8, her sister Lizzie, age 6, and their friend Minnie, age 8, skipped down the lane to play in the meadow. They liked to run around and hide from one another. And the hop fields at the top of the meadow...

with their tall poles of vines were the perfect place to hide. As the girls reached the gate that separated the meadow from the hop fields, they met a local solicitor's clerk, Mr. Frederick Baker. Baker was a regular in the meadow, where he would take a break from work, go for a walk, smoke his pipe, and chat to the locals as they passed by. He befriended the local children and had given the girls money in the past for sweets.

Baker watched the girls playing while he stood smoking his pipe, picking blackberries for the children and enjoying the sun. The sun was hot, beating down. Baker was dressed in a dark frock coat, light-coloured trousers, a waistcoat and a tall hat. He gave the girls some money for sweets and asked them to come with him to a more secluded spot in the meadow called the Hollow. Without a care in the world, the girls followed him. Remember, they were very young, only six and eight.

and there was no such thing as stranger danger. These were innocent times, and this was a very safe area." Minnie and Lizzie soon got bored and decided it was time to go home. But Fanny was enjoying the day and decided to stay out a little longer. Baker took this opportunity to grab Fanny, throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her into the hop fields. She cried out as she was carried away. Those that heard the cry

thought it sounded like a child that was having fun, not the cries of a child that was in danger or who was scared. Minnie and Lizzie arrived at Minnie's house and told her mother what had happened. Mrs. Warner assumed that the girls were telling tales, trying to get Fanny into trouble and ignored them. The girls ran off to play, and it was only hours later when they returned tired, hungry and thirsty that they met another neighbour, Mrs. Gardner. As they passed her, she asked where Fanny was.

and Minnie innocently replied that they had left Fanny in the meadow, where they had seen her being carried off by a man. Mrs Gardner was shocked, and immediately went to find Fanny's mother, and the two women set out to find her. As the women entered the gate into the meadow, Baker came the other way. They stopped and asked him if he had seen the girls. He said he had given them all some money to buy sweets, as he often did, but that was all.

He was quietly spoken and held a reputable position in the town, so they had no reason to believe anything untoward had happened. After a quick search, the women returned home empty-handed. They assumed that Fanny would still be out playing with friends somewhere and would return home soon. The evening drew in. It was around 8 p.m., and Fanny was still not home. Her mother was getting very worried now. She gathered the neighbors, and they all went into the meadow to help search for her.

It was then, in the evening light, hidden among the towering hop poles, that Mr. Thomas Gates, who was employed to tend the hops, stopped dead in his tracks. A note for you, listener. This is a note for you listening. Skip forward for two minutes if you would prefer not to hear the exact details of the injuries.

In front of Mr. Gates was a sight that made his hairs stand on end and sent a chill down his spine. As the very last rays of sun reached weakly to the ground, there, stuck on two fallen hop poles, was the dismembered head of a young girl. The beautiful, innocent face had been slashed from mouth to ear, and there was a deep cut across her temple.

Her left ear had been severed from her head. He cried out, and others came running. They fell silent as they were confronted with the horror before them. Visibly shaken, determined to find the rest of Fanny, the search continued. There were body parts strewn all around, but over the next twelve hours or so, most of her remains and her slashed clothing had been recovered. The searchers took Fanny's remains in a stone

that someone had come across that had flesh and hair attached to it, a possible murder weapon, to the police. Fanny's mother, Harriet, collapsed on hearing the news of her daughter. Her father, George, grabbed his loaded shotgun and went to look for the culprit. The news of Fanny's murder spread like wildfire. The townspeople were shocked and angry.

Baker was visited and questioned by the police, before being arrested and smuggled out of the back door to avoid the crowds that had gathered outside. Back at the police station, Baker was searched. He carried two small knives, which were used to erase errors that he made when copying documents. There were a few spots of blood on both wristbands of his shirt, but Baker explained that he had suffered a nosebleed earlier that day. One sock was wet. There were no scratches, cuts or abrasions on his body.

The knives were sent away for analysis and it was concluded that both contained some traces of human blood. Baker's trial began at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 5th, 1867. The Assize Court was held in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle, a huge imposing stone-built room where a replica of King Arthur's Round Table hung on the wall above where the judge would sit. The judge entered the room

wearing a long red gown and the traditional white powder judge's wig. The charge was read out. You are charged that on the 24th of August last, you willfully murdered Fannie Adams in Alton. How do you plead? He says, not guilty. The room was filled to the brim. There wasn't an empty seat to be seen. There were crowds in the street outside. They wanted justice. The judge was firm.

If there was any disruption in the proceedings, those involved would be arrested. Witnesses were called, including Minnie Warner, retelling their stories of the events of the day. Medical witnesses couldn't agree if the murder weapon was the stone, the small knives that Baker had on his person when he was arrested, or a weapon that had not been discovered. The evidence was vastly circumstantial.

Apart from Minnie, nobody had actually seen Baker with Fanny that day. There was, however, one piece of evidence that probably sealed his fate. He has written an entry in his diary, which was found in his desk drawer in his office, that read, quote, Saturday, August 24th, killed a young girl. It was fine and hot, end quote. The jury took 15 minutes to find Baker guilty.

Baker was executed on the 24th of December 1867 for the murder of Fanny Adams. When Shane visited me in the UK, we visited Fanny Adams' grave. The inscription on the ornate stone cross-headstone read, quote, to the memory of Fanny Adams, aged eight and four months, who was cruelly murdered on Saturday, October the 24th, 1867.

Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both the body and soul in hell. Matthew 10:28 This stone was erected by voluntary subscription. End quote. We've made it, dear listener. The end of this haunting maze and our special episode. This is my fifth holiday collaboration and the previous ones are all in the show notes.

It's been my pleasure to be your storyteller in the dark. Thank you for venturing into this maze with me. Stay safe, tread lightly, and until next time, good night.

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