THE MURDEROUS HARPE BROTHERS: A Reign of Terror By America’s First Serial Killers
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In the late 18th century, the untamed country of Kentucky and Illinois was still the wild frontier. Before it could be tamed by settlers, it was the domain of some of the most bloodthirsty killers and thieves in American history. Among them were two men who terrorized the frontier out of pure bloodlust.

It took years for the authorities to end their killing spree because the Harp brothers didn't choose their victims. They simply killed anyone who got in their way, including women and children. In fact, on August 16, 1978, one of the brothers smashed a baby's head against a tree. He said he did it because she annoyed him by constantly crying. That was bad enough, but the worst part...

It was his own daughter. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Welcome, Weirdos! I'm Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, the strange and bizarre, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained.

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Now, bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness! Not much is known about the Harp Brothers before they began their crime spree, and it's hard to separate fact from legend about everything they did.

Most likely, they were born in Orange County, North Carolina, to a Scottish family, but some accounts say they were actually cousins, Joshua and William Harper, who changed their names when they arrived from Scotland in 1759. MacKayjar "Big" Harp and Wiley "Little" Harp were said to have fought for the British during the Revolutionary War.

It was not for their loyalty to the crown, but simply so they could kill and torture people without punishment. Allegedly, the brothers joined a gang of criminals in North Carolina, and they raped, stole, burned down properties, and murdered patriot colonists. One account stated that the gang kidnapped, raped, and murdered three teenage girls,

a fourth girl that was taken but was rescued by Captain Frank Wood, who managed to wound Little Harp. This would not be Captain Wood's last encounter with the brothers either. After the war, the Harps moved west and settled among the Chickamauga Cherokee people at Nicajac, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. They stayed there for around 12 years after kidnapping two young women and forcing them to be their wives.

The unfortunate girls were Maria Davidson and Susan Wood, Captain Wood's daughter. The women were treated like animals: beaten, kept in chains, and raped. Some stories say that Maria and Susan became pregnant several times, and each time the brothers murdered the children. The brothers fled Nickajack in 1794 after word reached their settlement that the authorities had learned of their location.

They took the women to Powell's Valley near Knoxville, where the brothers began robbing and killing settlers who passed through the region. A few years later, the Harps began their so-called "Trail of Death," a killing spree across Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois. In 1797, the brothers were chased out of Knoxville for stealing livestock and for murder, and they fled into Kentucky.

After several more murders, they earned the attention of law enforcement, and after a local innkeeper informed on them, the Harps were arrested and locked up in Danville, Kentucky. They didn't stay behind bars for long, though. They managed to escape and before going on the run, murdered the son of the innkeeper who had testified against them. Kentucky Governor James Garrard placed a $300 bounty on their heads.

The Harps crossed the Ohio River into Illinois, murdered five men along the way, and found refuge with a band of outlaws at Cave Inn Rock. The cave was a stronghold for bandits and river pirates, which were then led by Samuel Mason, who organized raids on the slow flatboats that were traveling down the Ohio River. The Harps soon introduced even more vile methods of murder to the already violent gang.

Unlike the pirates, the Harps did not wait until nightfall or the cover of a storm to do their dirty work. They operated boldly in broad daylight. Their most effective method was to appear on the riverbank and flag down passing boats, usually telling them that they had been attacked by Indians or robbed and needed help. When the sympathetic travelers came ashore, the Harps would slaughter them on the spot and raid the boat.

Their trademark method of murder was to disembowel their victims, load their stomachs with stones, and then sink the bodies in the river. As it later turned out, the Harps were too vile for even the rough outlaws at Keevin Rock. After a raid on a flatboat, the sole survivor of the craft was stripped of his clothes, tied onto a blindfolded horse, and run off a cliff while the Harps watched and howled with delight.

The other outlaws who witnessed this were sickened by the brothers' bloodthirsty entertainment and forced the Harps and their women to leave. The murderous brothers, together with their wives and the children they had allowed to live, returned to Tennessee. The murders that have been credited to them continued, including William Ballard, who had been disemboweled and thrown in the Holton River.

James Brassell, who had his throat slashed, and John Graves and his teenage son, who were found dead with their heads cleaved in by axes. In Logan County, the Harps killed a little girl, a young slave, and an entire family they found asleep in their camp.

Then, on August 16, 1798, Big Harp committed his most vicious crime when he smashed his baby daughter's head against a tree because her crying annoyed him. Later, he stated that this was the only killing that he felt remorse for. A week later, the brothers embarked on one more terrible murder spree. The Stiegel family in Webster County offered them shelter in their house, unaware that the Harps were monsters.

That night, the brothers killed another guest named Major William Love, the Stegall's four-month-old child, because he was crying, and Mrs. Stegall after she began screaming when she discovered her murdered child. The Harps then set the cabin on fire in an effort to conceal the crime. John Stegall, the husband and father of the latest Harps victims, formed a posse with another man, John Leeper.

They were determined to hunt down the Harps and found them on August 24, 1799. When the brothers were told to surrender, they tried to flee. Big Harper was wounded in the chase and was pulled off his horse by John Leeper. He'd been shot in the spine and was unable to walk. While Harp lay dying, he confessed to 20 of the numerous murders that he committed, but he never begged for his life.

John Stegall produced a knife with which to cut off the killer's head, and Harp simply growled, "Cut away and be damned." Big Harp's head was placed on a stake and left outside the ruins of the Stegall house as a warning to other outlaws. The area where the homestead was once located is still known as Harp's Head Road today. Little Harp managed to escape from the posse, and he joined back up with Samuel Mason at Cave-N-Rock.

He stayed with the gang for four years, until he got caught up in a plot to kill Mason. A reward had been placed on Mason's head, dead or alive, of $1,000. This was a grand sum in those days. But Harp didn't just want the money. He wanted to take over Mason's criminal enterprise. He contrived to get Mason alone. Then, little Harp buried his tomahawk into his friend's back.

He finished him off and then hacked off Mason's head. He carried the grisly object off and placed it on the desk of the judge who had been charged with dispensing the reward. The men who were present that day all confirmed that he brought in the head of Samuel Mason. But just as the judge was counting out the gold coins in payment, one of the bystanders recognized Little Harp as an outlaw himself. He tried to escape, but it was too late.

He was captured and hanged in January 1804. His head was placed on a spike along Natchez Road. It was a fitting end to a man who had brought so much terror and fear to the frontier for so many years. I'm not big on trends, never really have been, so I can't be trusted when it comes to clothes shopping for others. I'm married to someone who does understand what looks good.

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In our recent family reunion in Singapore, I shared with my mother and sisters about YGS when the conversation wandered onto the subject of strange experiences. My younger sister, Kara, then revealed that she was sensitive to the spirits as well.

Around 2002, Kara decided to further her studies and get a degree. She and her friend Bea attended university together, and they found accommodation in nearby Bedford Park, a southern suburb in Adelaide, South Australia. The units, or flats, at Bedford Park were built in a basic utilitarian design.

Four square-shaped units arranged side by side like boxes. Three stories stacked one above the other in exactly the same way. It was not five-star housing, but the location was close to campus and the rent was reasonable for students on a shoestring budget. The entrance to their ground floor unit opened onto the living room slash dining room, which in turn led on the far right into the master bedroom.

A short hallway separated the master from the second bedroom, with the latter having the bathroom on its left. The kitchen was located just beyond the living and dining area, sharing a common wall with the bathroom. My mother came over from Singapore later that year to spend some time with my sister, who was the youngest to leave the nest. Mom stayed there for a week before flying to Sydney to see me for a few days, and then came back to Adelaide for the remainder of her stay.

While she was there, at Bedford Park, Mom helped with taking out the garbage. She did this without incident for an entire week. After she returned from Sydney to Bedford Park, she made her way as usual, out the kitchen by the back door, to the Bin Bay area. The little path led past the electrical fuse box on the far wall. Somehow, on this occasion, Mom couldn't get past the fuse box

It was late afternoon. There was still plenty of light around. She couldn't see anything there that would be causing the problem. But she was certain that something big was in front of her, blocking her way. Whatever it was, it was not about to let her past. Mystified by this, Mom gave up after a few attempts, deciding to try again another time. The next morning, she was able to reach the bin bay without any problem.

On her way back to the unit, she met the neighbor who lived upstairs with her young daughter. When Mom mentioned her odd experience, the woman's eyes widened. "I felt that same way too," Kara agreed with Mom there was something not quite right about the whole property. But it was the best she could find at the time, and she could not afford the cost of moving. By now, she had the skin-prickling sensation of being watched at all hours of the day or night.

especially in the master bedroom, which was hers. She had the clear impression of resentment and that someone or something was really unhappy at having them there. Kara found herself staying away from the living room unless Bee was with her. A tree grew outside the living room window. Its leafy foliage obscured part of the natural light coming in from the street.

She thought it had an odd cold spot. It was always exceptionally cooler in temperature from the rest of the place, even during the heat of summer. She and her flatmate, Bea, spent many hours checking all the doors, windows, nooks and crannies for areas where drafts could have possibly been sneaking in. But there wasn't even a crack. Bea proved to be even more sensitive than Kara to the nuances around the unit.

She had chosen the smaller, second room as being less unsettled of the two, but she soon felt so troubled in the place that she asked her parents for help. These parents asked the pastor at their church to cleanse and bless the unit. The uneasiness didn't exactly disappear for either of them, but it calmed down noticeably for a while. But gradually, over time, the strangeness began to build up again.

Then my sister woke up in the middle of the night with the weirdest feeling that someone was calling her. Kara sat up in bed and saw a shadow standing at the foot of her bed. From the width of the shoulders and the height, she had the impression it was a tall male figure looking down at her with a puzzled air and some curiosity. Kara had a distinct thought in her mind that she knew came from this shadow man. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

So, she thought the thought right back at it. "But I live here now." At her reply, the shadow man disappeared. Fully awake now and quite unnerved, Kara got out of bed and turned on all the lights. She promptly did a search all through her bedroom, flinging open the cupboards, looking under the bed, everywhere she could think of. But she didn't find a thing. In the days, months, and years after that encounter,

Kara would still get the occasional fleeting glimpse of a long shadow out of the corner of her eyes, but the disturbing feelings of being "worn away" subsided. Kara ended up staying there for a total of seven years. There was no further episode with the Shadow Man. She and Bea got used to sensing the other flatmate simply as a quiet presence in the background.

For many years, Dr. Crippen was a name that would make the blood run cold. Once the star exhibit of Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors, the infamous murderer has become a byword for cold-eyed evil. His case became famous because of the global communications age, with Crippen becoming the first fugitive from justice to be captured with the aid of the then-new wireless telegraph.

Holly Harvey Crippen was an American homeopath living in London, charged in 1910 with murdering his wife Cora. His capture, trial, conviction, and execution were played out on newspaper front pages around the world. The doctor's reserved, emotionless demeanor convinced readers of his guilt, and at his death by hanging in November that year, he had few defenders.

Crippen's trial was one of the first to center around the embryonic discipline of forensic pathology, with the prosecution presenting seemingly incontrovertible scientific evidence of his guilt. The story begins with the disappearance of Crippen's wife Cora after a dinner party at their home in January 1910.

When police questioned the doctor about his wife's whereabouts, he first told them that she had moved back to America, where she had then died. Later, he changed his story, claiming she had actually returned to America to live with her lover, Music Hall actor Bruce Miller. Holly Crippen was, by all accounts, the classic henpecked husband, constantly undermined by his overbearing, flamboyant wife.

Cora was often openly unfaithful to Holly, taking a string of younger lovers and flaunting the fact in public. Crippen himself had also taken a lover, Secretary Ethel Lenev, in response to his wife's infidelity. The motive for murder was as old as the hills. With the police sniffing around, Crippen and his mistress went on the run, believing it was only a matter of time before they were arrested.

Their disappearance led to further searches of the house, culminating in the discovery of a horror show in the coal cellar: a mass of rotting, dismembered human flesh wrapped in a pair of old pajamas. Pioneering forensic pathologist Bernard Spilsbury determined the remains to be of Crippen's wife Cora by matching surgery marks on a piece of still-intact skin.

Spilbury also found traces of the drug hyacine in the flesh, which police discovered Crippen had purchased shortly before Cora's disappearance. Things looked bad for Holly Harvey Crippen, exacerbated by his decision to leave the country. Attempting to abscond to Canada aboard the SS Montrose, the couple posed as father and son, with the diminutive Ethel disguised as a boy.

The ship's captain, Henry George Kendall, aware that Scotland Yard were pursuing the pair, had seen through Ethel's paltry disguise and used the ship's brand-new Marconi wireless telegraph to radio his suspicions to the authorities. "...have strong suspicions that Crippen, London, Seller, Murderer, and Accomplice are among saloon passengers. Accomplice dressed as boy, manner and build undoubtedly a girl."

Inspector Walter Dew of Scotland Yard boarded a faster ship to Quebec and was waiting with the Canadian police to arrest Crippen and Leneve as the SS Montrose arrived in the harbour. This apprehension using wireless communications was a historical first in 1910.

The subsequent trial at the Old Bailey was dominated by the new science of forensics, with Crippen himself showing little emotion or remorse during the proceedings. The jury swiftly found him guilty, and on the 22nd of October, Justice Richard Everard Webster donned a black cap to deliver his damning verdict.

"Holly Harvey Crippen, you have been convicted, upon evidence which could leave no doubt on the minds of any reasonable men, that you cruelly poisoned your wife, that you concealed your crime. You mutilated her body and disposed piecemeal of her remains. On the ghastly and wicked nature of the crime, I will not dwell," the judge added, before delivering the ultimate punishment of death by hanging.

Crippen was subsequently executed at Pentonville Jail on November 23rd, his only request to be buried with a photograph of Ethel. Whilst few questioned the doctor's guilt, some aspects of the case were strange. The remains found in the basement of the Crippens' house were missing the head, limbs, and skeleton.

Why had Crippen gone to the trouble of dismembering and disposing of his wife's body elsewhere, only to leave part of it in his home? These curiosities aside, it wasn't until 2007 that a serious challenge to the long-standing belief in Crippen's guilt emerged.

Like most people, forensic toxicologist John Trestrail had heard the name Dr. Crippen, but it wasn't until he learned of the details of the case that alarm bells began to ring in his head. Cora Crippen's murder contained one feature so unusual that Trestrail had never encountered it before in over 20 years of practice. According to the prosecution pathologist, Bernard Spilsbury, the cause of death was poison.

Yet, Crippen was also accused of dismembering the body. For Trestrail, this made no sense. Murderers invariably chose poison to kill their victims because they want to pass the death off as natural or an accident. So why dismember the body? Trestrail's investigation pushed Crippen's descendants to commission new tests on the piece of tissue Spilsbury had used to identify the body. The results were a bombshell.

the DNA extracted from the remains was not from Cora. Was Dr. Crippen, a man whose name had become synonymous with murder, innocent after all? For forensic toxicologist John Trestrail, the Crippen case was an anomaly. As a veteran of hundreds of FBI cases and the author of standard textbooks on the subject, Crippen's mutilation of a victim he had poisoned was something he had never seen before.

A poisoner wants the death to appear natural so he can get a death certificate. "This is the only case I know of where the victim was dismembered. It doesn't make sense," Trestrail said. If Crippen was the culprit, then he had essentially filleted his wife's body, leaving nothing but a tangled mess of flesh and skin hidden beneath a slab in his cellar. Gone entirely were Cora's head, limbs, skeleton and sex organs.

The grisly treatment of Cora's corpse raises the obvious question as to whether someone as timid as Crippen could have done something so horrific. But more crucially, why did he, having successfully disposed of the majority of his wife's body — indeed, none of the other body parts have ever been found — why did Crippen leave these small scraps wrapped up in a pair of pajamas where they would surely be discovered?

The strangeness of his behavior has led some to speculate that Crippen was framed by the police, although there appears little other evidence or even motive for this to be the case. Clearly, if Cora had later turned up alive, it would have been incredibly damaging for Spilsbury and the police to have staked their reputation on the belief that she was buried in Crippen's cellar.

Those remains did contain a piece of skin featuring what Spilsbury identified as a "surgery scar." This scar was found to be consistent with a four-inch scar Cora had from an operation of her abdomen some years previously.

In the pre-CSI era, and to a jury unused to forensic evidence, Spilsbury's findings looked incredibly persuasive. So much so that it took them just 27 minutes to return a guilty verdict at the trial. Spilsbury was a brilliant man whose findings during his lifetime were rarely challenged. However,

Working with primitive equipment at the infancy of forensics, some of his conclusions look somewhat less impressive to modern eyes. A modern-day forensic scientist, David Foran of Michigan State University, believes Spilsbury was overreaching in his evidence at the Crippen trial, and the surgery scar was nothing more than a fold of skin, something the defense at the trial had argued to little avail.

Foran believes the marks on the skin are simply natural folds because of the visible hair follicles present on the surface, something that would not be the case if it was scar tissue. Trestrail was also skeptical about the poison Crippen was supposed to have used, a common sedative and depressant named hyacine that he'd never seen used in any other poisoning case in the literature.

With hyacine so rare in poisoning cases and toxicology still primitive in 1910, Trestrail believes the prosecution's team would not have searched for, let alone found, the presence of the drug in the remains. Several theories have been posited about the presence of hyacine in the body recovered from Crippen's cellar.

Renowned barrister Edward Marshall Hall thought Crippen may have been using hyacine on his wife as a sexual depressant, due to her promiscuity, and had accidentally given her an overdose. If that theory is true, it still leaves us with the conundrum of why Crippen had disposed of his wife's body in two locations, electing to leave lumps of flesh in his own cellar

Nobody had ever provided a convincing motive for Crippen's actions in this regard, and it remains a tantalizing mystery at the heart of the case. Whilst the evidence used to convict Dr. Crippen at his trial now looks speculative at best, Trestrail's trump card is something undreamt of in the days of Bernard Spilsbury, DNA.

Spurred on by his investigation, Trestrail enlisted forensic biologist David Foran to conduct DNA tests on a sample of skin tissue preserved from Spilsbury's original 1910 slides at the Royal London Hospital.

Trestrail had used genealogists to meticulously unravel Cora Crippen's convoluted family tree in the hope of finding modern-day relatives, and eventually found Marie Hamel, a 64-year-old Californian living quietly in a suburb of Los Angeles.

Foran's team at the forensic biology lab at Michigan State University compared a DNA swab provided by Hamill against DNA from the century-old Royal Hospital samples, only to come to a startling conclusion that threatened to turn one of crime's most famous cases on its head. The skin Spilsbury had used all those years ago to send Dr. Crippen to the gallows was not from Cora Crippen.

In fact, the DNA wasn't even female. With one fell swoop, both the central case against Crippen that he had murdered his wife and rumors that he may have been conducting illegal backstreet abortions crumbled. Thoran's results have come under fire, but he stands firm against criticism that the samples were too old to reliably test. "A slide in a museum is a pretty nice way to preserve DNA," he said.

Compare that to bones that have been in the ground for thousands of years. There was a lot more DNA work that showed unequivocally that the remains were male. Other critics believe that the modern-day relatives of Cora may not actually be blood relations, thus nullifying the results, although this is something denied by Marie Hamel, who is the granddaughter of Cora's half-sister Bertha Mersinger. Assuming the DNA findings are correct,

The results have led to speculation that Crippen may have murdered one of Cora's lovers, or even that he was some undiscovered Edwardian serial killer. Whatever the truth, the DNA evidence suggested that even if Crippen had killed Cora, he had not buried her remains at Hill Drop Crescent. In light of the circumstantial evidence against him, and with such an obvious motive for murder,

Crippen's explanation for his wife's disappearance always looked unbelievable. However, some tantalizing hints do exist that suggest the possibility he was telling the truth. Most of these were suppressed at the trial for fear they might damage the case against the doctor, but have been rediscovered over the years by researchers into the enduring case.

One statement obtained by the police, not used at the trial, was from a cab driver who testified that two weeks before Cora's disappearance, he had helped a woman matching her description carry six steamer trunks from the house at Hill Drop Crescent. Similar evidence that around the same time Cora may have tried to withdraw a large sum of money from the Crippen deposit account was also not followed up.

Several letters were sent to Crippen at Pentonville Prison from a woman claiming to be Cora, one stating, "I don't want to be responsible for your demise if I can save you in this way, but I will never come forward personally as I am happy now." Whilst it's generally thought these letters are hoaxes, an all-too-common hindrance in many high-profile criminal cases

They were never passed on to Crippen's defense and so were not investigated further to determine their provenance. If the forensic case against Dr. Crippen now looks decidedly unsound, the circumstantial one remains as strong as ever. Crippen's lies, suspicious behavior, his flight from justice, and his refusal to talk are all redolent of some kind of guilt. But was it of his wife's murder?

Shortly after Cora's disappearance had become noticed, Crippen started to claim that his wife had returned to the United States. He would later write to her friends, saying that Cora had, unfortunately, been taken ill and passed away. This naturally aroused suspicion. Why had Cora not written to her friends herself? Or told them she was returning to America?

Suspicion only grew when Crippen moved his mistress, Ethel Lenev, into his house, and she began to openly wear Korra's clothing and jewelry. After a few weeks had passed, and the whispers about Crippen had become louder, Chief Inspector Dew of the Metropolitan Police called by to question the doctor about his wife's absence.

Crippen admitted to Dew that he had made up the entire story about his wife's death out of embarrassment because she had in fact eloped to Chicago with one of her lovers from the music hall. Having made Dew his confidant about this delicate matter, the detective was inclined to believe Crippen. A subsequent search of the house revealed nothing and Dew elected to drop the matter. What Holly Crippen did next did not look like the actions of an innocent man, though.

Scenting that the police may not believe him, he and Ethel fled the country, taking the ferry to Brussels before moving on to Antwerp where they boarded the SS Montrose for their ill-fated voyage to Canada. Would a man entirely innocent of wrongdoing really have upturned his whole life to become a fugitive? It's impossible to know what was going on in Crippen's mind at the time, but his actions almost look tantamount to a confession.

The case against Dr. Crippen looked open and shut. Shortly after his wife vanished without trace, body parts are found in his cellar. At the first sign of the police, he fled the country. Any prosecution would have successfully won the case against him on circumstantial evidence alone. For their part, Crippen's defense attempted to argue the human remains had predated their client's residence at Hill Drop Crescent and must have been deposited there by a previous tenant.

However, the prosecution would soon thwart Crippen's last chance of escaping the gallows. Crippen's trial at the Old Bailey lasted just five days. Faced with a barrage of damning evidence against their client, the defense countered with the argument that the body buried under the coal cellar was not Cora and had been left there before the couple had moved into the house. This line of defense looked futile from the off.

Holly and Cora Crippen had moved into the house at Hill Drop Crescent in 1905. The body was discovered in 1910. Could the couple really have lived there for more than five years, unaware that a putrefying corpse was buried in a shallow grave in their ground-floor coal cellar?

Crippen's hopes were comprehensively dashed when fragments of a pajama top found amongst the flesh was traced back to a local firm of shirtmakers from the still intact label, which read "Jones Brothers Holloway Ltd." An employee from the firm was called to testify, who confirmed to the courtroom that Jones Brothers had not become a limited company until 1906, the year after Crippen had moved into the house.

This put to bed any doubt that whoever was buried in the cellar had been put there before Crippen was a resident. But in order to be sure of the conviction, the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was specifically Cora and not some other unfortunate who had somehow met a grim fate in the Crippen cellar. The scar Bernard Spilsbury had found on a piece of skin was the most obvious connection.

matching, as it did, a surgery scar Cora was known to have. Also strewn amongst the remains were three Heinz hair curlers of the type Cora was known to use, wrapped in brownish-blonde hair that matched the doctor's missing wife. To round off the case against Crippen, the prosecution produced evidence from an Oxford Street chemist that Crippen had purchased a large quantity of the drug hyacine.

he claimed as an ingredient for his homemade patent medicines, a fortnight before Cora's disappearance. This was the very toxic substance prosecution toxicologist William Wilcox had detected in the remains from the coal cellar. Given the weight of evidence against him, the jury at the trial really had little choice but to send Crippen to the gallows.

Back in 1910, the criminal justice system enacted its verdicts with startling haste, and just a month after his sentencing, Crippen was hung. Ethel Lenev was tried separately and acquitted of being an accessory after the fact, after which she emigrated to America and disappeared from the public eye. The case, however, has never left the public conscience and even inspired a popular song of the era,

Dr. Crippen killed Bella Elmore, ran away with Miss Leneve right across the ocean blue followed by Inspector Du's gypsy-hoy naughty boy. Whether Dr. Crippen deserves his reputation as one of history's most notorious murderers is debatable. The case may have become one of countless obscure domestic murders if not for the novelty of Crippen's capture and the gruesome nature of the crime.

The doctor's presence among other infamous murders in the chilling chamber of horrors at Madame Tussauds and his depiction in fiction have also done much to secure his place in the public imagination. Today, modern forensics has raised serious doubts about the identity of the victim in the coal cellar. On one hand, we have 1910-era CSI and an iron-clad circumstantial case.

On the other, we have seemingly incontrovertible DNA evidence that the body was not Crippen's wife. The two are not entirely irreconcilable. Even if Dr. Crippen's unlikely story about Cora was true and he did not murder her, he was surely responsible for someone's death. But Crippen never talked, and whatever secrets lurked in the gloom of that dank cellar went with him to his grave.

On September 2nd, 1935, the Labor Day hurricane slammed into the Florida Keys, obliterating everything in its path and sweeping scores of men, women, and children out to sea. At least 423 people died in the Category 5 storm, though no one knows just how many perished.

Even today, lost victims' skeletal remains occasionally surface, along with whispered tales of ghosts. In 1935, the only way in and out of the Keys was by boat or by rail. As the storm drew near, escape by boat became impossible, and nearly 1,000 people found themselves trapped. A rescue train braved the pounding wind and rain, but was overcome when it stopped to help the stranded.

The train cars quickly flooded, and many of the people who thought themselves saved were drowned or swept away. For years after the disaster, reports of a phantom train plagued the area. The Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway was never rebuilt after the storm. But in the early 1940s, weird events began to experience along the old line, reports American Hauntings, Inc.

The sound of a steam engine and a train whistle could sometimes be heard later at night, and occasionally a headlight could be seen silently rolling by in the early hours of the morning. The Phantom Train isn't the only hurricane-related haunting. Legend has it the victims' tortured spirits roam the swamps at night, searching for help that never comes.

The hunched figures reportedly stagger in the same direction before fading back into the darkness, only to repeat their fruitless march another night. Do you think victims of the Labor Day hurricane haunt Key West to this day? Or are the stories nothing more than remnants from the tragic past?

I'm not big on trends, never really have been, so I can't be trusted when it comes to clothes shopping for others. I'm married to someone who does understand what looks good.

Quince.com asked me to endorse them on Weird Darkness, and at first I thought, eh, that's a bad idea, for reasons I've already laid out. But I let my bride check out their website, and, well, she immediately started shopping for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, Just Because Day, apparently that's a real thing, and now she keeps going back to Quince.com. Their lightweight layers and high-quality staples have become a go-to place for everyday essentials now.

Quince has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. And the best part? Everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands.

They work directly with top artisans, so they cut out the middlemen. And Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I honestly didn't think I needed Quince.com, but Robin says, yeah, I do. Desperately. I think that means she'll be buying some clothes there for me, too.

She's tired of seeing 98% of my closet being weird darkness t-shirts. Go figure. She's also making me out to be the hero in front of my nieces. We got a cute little toddler-sized poplin-smocked flutter-sleeve dress for my youngest great-niece, complete with pink puppies for the pattern. It's adorable, I'll admit that. We got a pair of cotton-stretched skinny jeans coming from my newly-teenaged great-niece, along with a set of organic cotton long-sleeve and pants pajamas.

My oldest niece, the mom in the family, is getting a pair of ultra-soft high-rise pocket leggings. Emphasis on pocket. That's a pet peeve of my bride. She refuses to buy pants without pockets. And we're also sending a pair of ultra-form high-rise leggings. I would look horrible in all of this stuff, but the ladies in the family are going to look awesome. Of course, we'll be going back to quince.com in the next few days to begin shopping for the nephews.

I'm not allowed to pick out those clothes either. Robin just does not trust me. Good call. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince. Go to quince.com slash weirddarkness for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash weirddarkness to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash weirddarkness

Okay, yeah, I gotta admit, this t-shirt is kind of fading. My guess is that you've heard a lot of people talking about Factor, the two-minute meals packed with nutrition. Up until recently, though, I didn't really care much about nutrition. I was into convenience. Burgers, pizza, you get the drift. But, well, the older you get, the more you realize nutrition is kind of important.

At the same time, convenience is still crucial for me. I am busier now than I've ever been in my life, so eating food fast without eating fast food is a bit of a challenge. Was a bit of a challenge. With Factor, I get to check both of those off my list. I just heat it up, and two minutes later, I'm sticking a fork in it.

Factor is more than convenient though. I don't even have to jump into my car to go through a drive-thru or pay a bunch of extra money so I can wait 30 minutes to an hour for a delivery app to come through for me. Factor meals arrive directly at my door, fresh and ready to eat. And with my new weight loss goals, the menu options are a real bonus. They have gourmet meals if I want to be calorie smart or pack on the protein, go keto and more. They have 45 weekly menu options.

How many weeks are there in a year? 52? Yeah, that's pretty dang close to a different menu for each week. I can use Factor for breakfast, quick lunches, premium dinners, even guilt-free snacks and desserts. Imagine that. Snacking without guilt. I didn't think that was possible. If you'd like to join me on this journey, you can visit factormeals.com slash darkness50off, then use the code darkness50off to get 50% off and free shipping in your first box.

That's factormeals.com/darkness50off. Then use the code darkness50off to get 50% off and free shipping. - At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build blasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at BrightHorizons.com. At more than 300 pounds, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah cut an intimidating figure in the small Montana town of Great Falls. But few in Great Falls knew just how frightened they truly should have been.

Bar-Jonah had moved to Great Falls from Massachusetts, where he had just finished a long sentence for the sexual assault and attempted murder of a young boy. And in this sleepy town at the edge of the Rockies, he would strike again. But now he had a taste for human flesh. Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was born David Paul Brown in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1957.

and there were early signs that he was not a normal child. In 1964, Barjona received a Ouija board for his seventh birthday. Using the promise of trying the board out, he lured a five-year-old neighbor into his basement. There, he tried to strangle her. Luckily, the girl's screams alerted Barjona's mother, who ran downstairs and forced him to let her go. His mother likely assumed that the boy didn't know what he was doing, and nothing came of the incident.

But in 1970, Barjona decided to try again. Promising another neighbor, a six-year-old boy, that they could go sledding, Barjona lured the child to a secluded area. He then sexually assaulted him. This became a pattern for Nathaniel Barjona. But as he grew older, he developed a more sophisticated technique to gain access to victims. In 1975, Barjona approached an eight-year-old boy on his way to school.

Claiming to be a police officer, Barjona lured the boy into his car, where he began to sexually assault and strangle him. Luckily for the boy, a neighbor looking out their window saw the boy being abducted and called the police. Barjona was arrested but was only sentenced to a year's probation.

The light sentence emboldened Barjona, and three years later, he abducted another two boys from a movie theater after claiming to be a police officer and telling them they were under arrest. He handcuffed the boys before taking them to a secluded area and molesting them. Trying to silence a potential witness, Barjona began strangling one of the children. When he was convinced that the boy was dead, he put the other victim in his trunk and drove away.

Luckily, the boy had actually survived the attack and ran to get help. Barjona was soon found by the police with the other victim still in his trunk. This time, Barjona was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison. While in prison, Barjona began meeting with a psychiatrist.

After hearing him describe his fantasies, which revolved around murdering, dissecting, and eventually eating children, the psychiatrist recommended that he be moved to a mental hospital. But in 1991, a judge concurred with psychiatric evaluations that had somehow found him to not be a dangerous threat.

Inexplicably, the judge agreed to release Bar-Jonah on probation if he moved to Montana to live with his mother, though it was recommended that he seek psychiatric help. Just days after being released, Bar-Jonah spotted a seven-year-old boy sitting in a parked car. He forced his way into the car and tried to smother the boy by sitting on top of him.

Luckily, Barjona was stopped by the boy's mother and was quickly arrested. Somehow, after the arrest, no one from the Massachusetts court followed up with probation officers in Montana, to which Barjona had quickly fled. This allowed Barjona to melt into the local community. By now, he had changed his name from David Brown to Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Barjona,

claiming that he wanted to know what it felt like to live with the persecution that Jewish people experienced. He alternatively claimed that he had always been Jewish, and the actual truth may never be known for sure. But despite the name change, he had changed little else about himself. In 1996, 10-year-old Zachary Ramsey disappeared on his way to school. His parents filed a missing person report, but the local police department wasn't used to this sort of crime

With few leads, the case went cold. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Bar-Jonah was living in a nearby apartment complex. There, he had secretly been luring young boys from the area inside his apartment before sexually assaulting them. He'd even installed a pulley from the ceiling where he hung at least one of them by the neck. Yet these crimes went undiscovered for years.

One woman grew suspicious after her child suddenly became withdrawn and angry after spending time with Barjona. But no one thought that someone in Great Falls could be molesting children, and no one suspected that Barjona was a murderer. But other neighbors did notice that the food Barjona made for them was full of a strange meat that they couldn't identify. When asked, Barjona claimed that it had come from a deer he shot,

though no one knew Barjona to ever go hunting. In 1999, he was arrested outside a local elementary school carrying a fake gun and dressed as a police officer. At first, the charge was simply impersonating an officer, but when the police searched Barjona's home, they made a shocking discovery. Inside Nathaniel Barjona's home,

Investigators discovered thousands of photos of children cut from magazines and a bizarre journal written in code. Even more importantly for the investigation, they also found a piece of human bone. The journal was sent to the FBI to be decoded while the police began looking into the possibility that Barjona had murdered Ramsey.

Meanwhile, other neighbors now came forward with allegations that Barjona had been molesting their children, and Barjona was quickly charged with kidnapping and sexual assault. By the time the trial began, the FBI had decoded Barjona's journal. Inside, he described his obsession with torturing and murdering children. There was also a list of 22 names. Eight of them were known to be Nathaniel Barjona's earlier victims.

Many of the rest were local children. The others were never identified. Even more disturbingly, the diary detailed his plans to cook and eat children. "BBQ'd Kid," "Sex a la carte," "My Little Kid Dessert," "Little Boy Stew," "Little Boy Pot Pies," and "Lunch is Served on the Patio with Roasted Child" were all entries in Bar-Jonah's twisted writings.

Taken with the meat grinder that police found in Barjona's home, the writings raised a dark suspicion. Thinking of the strange meals Barjona had fed them, his neighbors began to wonder if Barjona had murdered Ramsay and fed them his flesh. But Barjona denied that he had killed Ramsay at all, and there was never enough evidence to prove these allegations of cannibalism one way or the other.

though there is more than enough circumstantial evidence to make one wonder. That said, there wasn't even enough evidence to substantiate the claim that Bar-Jonah had murdered Ramsay in the first place, and after the boy's mother claimed that she didn't think he did it, the charges were dropped. Instead, Bar-Jonah was sentenced to 130 years in prison for the molestation charges. Others in town wanted to take their own form of justice,

One resident told the press that if Barjona were released, "his life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel around here." But no one would ever get the chance to kill Nathaniel Barjona. He was found dead in his cell in 2008, morbidly obese. He died from cardiovascular disease. To this day, no one is sure how many people Nathaniel Barjona killed.

He is a possible suspect in several murders in Massachusetts, Wyoming, and Montana, but none have ever been conclusively solved. In the world of paranormal research, there are two distinct types of non-corporeal creatures, ghosts and shadow people.

In many instances, it can be nearly impossible to tell the difference between ghosts and shadow people. But after some exhaustive research into these scary monsters and super-creeps, here's a handy guide to help you figure out whether you're dealing with an energy-sucking shadow creature or a full-bodied apparition. Are ghosts and shadow people the same things? It's a question that's bogged down believers in the supernatural for a long time.

While they both share similarities, they're definitely not the same thing. Not only are there different classes of shadow people, but the types of ghosts that you're likely to bump into aren't anything like the ominous figures cut by a shadow person. The following guidelines will teach you how to know if you saw a ghost or a shadow person lurking in your room, and what to do about it.

Paranormal experts have been debating for decades about whether or not ghosts can actually understand what is happening around them, or if they are simply going through the motions of a past life. It is believed that ghostly apparitions are simply the residual energy left over when a person dies, meaning that while you may be able to see them, they can't see or interact with you.

On the other hand, shadow people are sometimes corporeal beings who are, at best, believed to be from another dimension. And at worst, they may be demonic in nature. People who have had interactions with shadow people believe that the creatures make conscious decisions for how they'll treat a person, something a ghost can't do.

One of the many stark differences between a ghost and a shadow person is that ghosts used to be a physical person, while shadow people have always been the creepy crawlies that come to you when you sleep. No one knows why the residual energy released when humans die creates ghosts for some people and not for others, but it very well may have something to do with that person having unfinished business on the corporeal plane.

Shadow people have always existed. Whether they're from another dimension, a time traveler, or a demonic entity, it's believed that these creatures are fully aware of what they're doing. If you've never been visited by a ghost or a shadow person, your first experience with either can be terrifying and confusing. How do you know with which type of entity you're dealing?

When it comes to ghosts, there are a few different types of entities that you can encounter. There are ghosts with interactive personalities, like Bruce Willis at the end of The Sixth Sense, or a Civil War battlefield ghost, but there are also ectoplasmic mists that are just as visible as interactive full-body apparitions.

Aside from the two visible and easily recognizable types of ghosts, there are poltergeists or "noisy ghosts," which are essentially pure energy. You're more likely to experience one of these if you have a teenager in the home or a large amount of pent-up negative energy. They knock things down, break windows, etc. Finally, there are orbs and the swirling bits of light that are most commonly seen in photographs.

Shadow people, though, are usually described as being tall and human-like, but as if their bodies are made of shadows rather than flesh and blood. The most notable shadow person is the Hat Man, who's been appearing since at least 2001, since he was discussed on Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM.

It's been theorized that "Hatman" is a separate phenomena from shadow people, even though he appears in the same way as the rest of his creepy brethren. Trying to determine the intentions of a ghost is nearly impossible. You might find, depending on what type of paranormal phenomenon with which you're dealing, that the ghost doesn't have any intentions.

If you have a poltergeist in the home, it's taking cues from you or whomever's negative energy helped manifest the creature, and it's going to keep doing what it's doing until you cleanse the home. If you're dealing with an interactive ghost, it could be reenacting something from its life over and over without any ill intent towards you, despite the negative ramifications of a ghost clanging and banging around your house.

The intent of a shadow creature is nothing but malicious. Since the first report of a shadow person, there have not been any claims of one of these creatures doing anything positive whatsoever. Many paranormal experts believe that shadow people want to feed off your negative energy and fear

An interesting theory posited about shadow people is that they're likely aware of other types of paranormal creatures and that they feed off them the same way they feed off of humans. If a spirit or an entity is trapped in a particularly haunted location, meaning that it's rich in negative energy, then it's likely that a shadow person or shadow people are aware of this location and use it as a feeding ground.

It's been theorized that shadow people prefer the fresh, negative energy of someone that they've trapped. But the residual energy of an entity trapped in its own torment for eternity is probably just as good. While no one knows exactly why shadow people exist, one interesting idea is that they are similar to poltergeists, meaning that humans create them from their own negative energy.

While most ghosts are created through outside means , a poltergeist tends to be created when someone with a lot of pent-up negative energy becomes a vessel for their awful feelings. This is usually done subconsciously, although you could probably manifest a poltergeist or shadow person if you tried hard enough. If you believe that you've created a shadow person by accident,

then your best bet is to try and clear all the negative energy in your life. Start meditating. Cleanse your apartment. Do whatever you've got to do to stop feeding that horrible creature. The most out-there theory about shadow people posits that they aren't technically ghosts or creatures of any kind, but rather they're people who are having out-of-body experiences. Some paranormal researchers believe that our consciousness leaves our body while we sleep,

and allows us to "show ourselves" to other people who are tuned into our frequency. This differentiates shadow people from ghosts in a major way, because it means that shadow people aren't even dead. It could be argued that if our consciousness leaves our bodies while we sleep, that they're technically the "ghosts" of the living, although it's likely that we'll never be able to determine if this is actually what's happening.

While shadow people could be a figurative shadow of a person who's still alive, spiritual medium James Van Praagh claims that actual ghosts are usually what's left of a person who can't move on past the mortal plane of existence. Sometimes they just can't accept that they're dead. One of the things that ghosts and shadow people have in common is that they are drawn to negative energy and people who are spiritually open.

The main difference in this scenario is why ghosts and shadow people are drawn to someone. Ghosts may simply be making themselves visible to you because you're open, or something happened to you at a young age that made you a magnet for spiritual activity. While shadow people are also drawn to someone who's open, it tends to be a more malicious reason. They want to feed off of you in one way or another.

If they can feed off your fear when you see them, great. If they can feed off the entities around you and the fear that creates, that's also good. No one knows exactly what ghosts or shadow people even are. While they can both take on the characteristics of a human, that does not necessarily mean that they are or were human at one time or another.

Some paranormal researchers believe that ghosts and shadow people are both creatures from another dimension and that they are simply manifesting in different ways. Some scientists believe that alternate dimensions exist directly next to ours, it's just their vibrations are slightly off. It's possible that shadow creatures and ghosts are actually entities from another dimension that are somehow bleeding through to our own.

Whether you have found yourself haunted by a ghost or a shadow person, there are a few things you can do to get rid of both entities. Unfortunately, clearing your home of an extreme haunting is harder than it sounds. Since ghosts tend to be residual energy, you could always try to ignore them and wait around for the haunting to disperse. Although, in the case of a poltergeist, the haunting could increase if you ignore it.

Paranormal researcher Lloyd Auerbach says that telling the ghost or shadow person to leave tends to work if you are forceful enough. However, if you engage the creature and you waver, you could end up with an even larger haunting than you had. If you can swing it, have paranormal experts come out and sage the haunted area or maybe call a priest. That should do the trick.

I'm not big on trends, never really have been, so I can't be trusted when it comes to clothes shopping for others. I'm married to someone who does understand what looks good.

Quince.com asked me to endorse them on Weird Darkness, and at first I thought, eh, that's a bad idea, for reasons I've already laid out. But I let my bride check out their website, and, well, she immediately started shopping for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, Just Because Day, apparently that's a real thing, and now she keeps going back to Quince.com. Their lightweight layers and high-quality staples have become a go-to place for everyday essentials now.

Quince has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. And the best part? Everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands.

They work directly with top artisans, so they cut out the middlemen. And Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I honestly didn't think I needed Quince.com, but Robin says, yeah, I do. Desperately. I think that means she'll be buying some clothes there for me, too.

She's tired of seeing 98% of my closet being weird darkness t-shirts. Go figure. She's also making me out to be the hero in front of my nieces. We got a cute little toddler-sized poplin-smocked flutter-sleeve dress for my youngest great-niece, complete with pink puppies for the pattern. It's adorable, I'll admit that. We got a pair of cotton-stretched skinny jeans coming from my newly-teenaged great-niece, along with a set of organic cotton long-sleeve and pants pajamas.

My oldest niece, the mom in the family, is getting a pair of ultra-soft high-rise pocket leggings. Emphasis on pocket. That's a pet peeve of my bride. She refuses to buy pants without pockets. And we're also sending a pair of ultra-form high-rise leggings. I would look horrible in all of this stuff, but the ladies in the family are going to look awesome. Of course, we'll be going back to quince.com in the next few days to begin shopping for the nephews.

I'm not allowed to pick out those clothes either. Robin just does not trust me. Good call. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince. Go to quince.com slash weirddarkness for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash weirddarkness to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash weirddarkness

Okay, yeah, I gotta admit, this t-shirt is kind of fading. My guess is that you've heard a lot of people talking about Factor, the two-minute meals packed with nutrition. Up until recently, though, I didn't really care much about nutrition. I was into convenience. Burgers, pizza, you get the drift. But, well, the older you get, the more you realize nutrition is kind of important.

At the same time, convenience is still crucial for me. I am busier now than I've ever been in my life, so eating food fast without eating fast food is a bit of a challenge. Was a bit of a challenge. With Factor, I get to check both of those off my list. I just heat it up, and two minutes later, I'm sticking a fork in it.

Factor is more than convenient though. I don't even have to jump into my car to go through a drive-thru or pay a bunch of extra money so I can wait 30 minutes to an hour for a delivery app to come through for me. Factor meals arrive directly at my door, fresh and ready to eat. And with my new weight loss goals, the menu options are a real bonus. They have gourmet meals if I want to be calorie smart or pack on the protein, go keto and more. They have 45 weekly menu options.

How many weeks are there in a year? 52? Yeah, that's pretty dang close to a different menu for each week. I can use Factor for breakfast, quick lunches, premium dinners, even guilt-free snacks and desserts. Imagine that. Snacking without guilt. I didn't think that was possible. If you'd like to join me on this journey, you can visit factormeals.com slash darkness50off, then use the code darkness50off to get 50% off and free shipping in your first box.

That's factormeals.com slash darkness50off. Then use the code darkness50off to get 50% off and free shipping. ♪

At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

I've never been a religious person. Of course, I believe in a power that makes us who we are, that helps us, and that is fighting to protect us from the other world. I've never been skeptical about the things that others find strange.

I've always been interested in finding out what lies beyond our realm of being. I truly believe in ghosts or any supernatural beings. The first time I had a paranormal experience was during my childhood. I can still remember it very clearly. I went with my grandmother to visit her sister. When we arrived at her house, I saw a silhouette made of steam that talked to me.

I tried to forget this experience because I was too young and maybe my imagination was creating it. Neither my grandmother or her sister believed me, but I do believe it happened. A few years later, during college, I was having trouble sleeping. After several hours, I started to feel cold and I wanted to cover myself with the blanket, but when I sat upright, I saw something like a black shadow standing near my bed.

When I saw it, it stopped moving and it seemed like it was looking at me. I covered myself with the blanket and closed my eyes because I was afraid. After this, I have felt something watching me almost every single day. It's like someone is following me and when I stop and look to the place where I feel that he stands, I feel like he's getting closer. I somehow know that it's a he. I don't think that he wants to hurt me.

but I don't feel like he's protecting me either. This incident took place in the mid-1980s. My mother died suddenly just a few weeks before this all took place. We were not terribly close as my parents had gotten a divorce during the 1970s. I was living with my boyfriend at his apartment and it was getting dark outside and I had to go get my boyfriend from work at 8 o'clock. I planned on cleaning and finishing my housework,

I bent down to pick up something I had dropped and, standing back up, I saw, as clear as day, my mother just sitting in the corner of my hallway outside our bedroom. I only saw her for a split second. I even second-guessed if I was seeing things, but it was just too real for me to conclude that it was my imagination. After cleaning up, I collected my boyfriend from work

I was freaked out but not too scared because she didn't really look scary or threatening, and she wasn't doing anything but sitting there. A few hours later my boyfriend and I were laying in our bedroom and I was telling my boyfriend about what had happened. All of a sudden there was a boom and all the power cut out. What happened was that the breaker had tripped and the box was wide open and the breaker box was behind the chair I saw my mother in earlier that day.

This freaked us both out and we basically just laid in bed the rest of the night. *** This morning I felt my hair being pulled. I normally experience this only in my house. It especially happens in my room, home office and kitchen and it always seems to happen while I'm alone. Today I felt two tugs at my hair while I was in my room. I've been trying to sleep and then out of nowhere I felt a tug

I have medium-length hair, so at one point I thought it was just static or my hair getting caught on something, but then I noticed it happening more often. There was one time when I was alone, listening to my music in my room, and I felt a tug. Whatever was tugging at my hair pulled my hair so hard that a strand broke off. I felt and heard the strand break, not to mention I was spooked after that.

What was odd was that I wasn't wearing any jewelry and I also hadn't done anything with my hair that day. As far as the history on my house, I wasn't made aware that anyone had passed away here or anything of that ilk. I was informed that the house was built in the 1950s. It does show its age from time to time with creaks and weird sounds, but I've not seen anything. Where I grew up we had a lot of empty lots.

I remember one of them had a huge tree growing in the center of the lot. Actually, it was very jungle-like and overgrown. My mother and I would often go past that lot when we went grocery shopping. One day, we were walking next to that land and I suddenly saw what looked like a man hanging from one of the branches. He was wearing a white shirt and white pants. It was not clear because he was a little transparent and I didn't see his face clearly.

He did nothing but hang there. Surprisingly, I didn't get scared at all. I told my mother that I saw a hanging man on the tree and she looked and said, "There's no one there." So I looked back and he was gone. After a few months, I totally forgot about this incident. Then a few years ago, a very nice family came and built a huge, beautiful house on that lot and they cut down that tree. The owners moved to another house but they didn't tell us anything.

Another family came in and even they moved after two months. But nobody told anything to anyone. Like this four or five families moved every two or three months. So this house was totally abandoned. I think that hanging man is still there. That is why nobody can live in that house. The interesting part is I saw a few people cleaning this house a few days ago and they painted the house. Looks like a new family is going to move in.

I hope they stick around longer than the last few families who tried to live there. This is my friend's story. His mother told him this story, which happened when he was a baby, about 3 or 4 years old. One day he was playing with a toy with his mother. Then he said he heard the telephone ringing and picked up the receiver and began talking into it. His mother had not heard any ringing from the phone and he was sure he was just playing with the telephone. After talking into the phone for several minutes,

he hung up and said, "Mom, that was grandmother. She said to tell you goodbye." At that moment, the phone rang for real. His mother answered the phone, and she was surprised. It was the unexpected news that his grandma had just died. A lady who moved into her deceased aunt's house began to suspect something was amiss when small objects appeared to move around the house by themselves.

However, she became quite alarmed when the TV in the upstairs bedroom came on all by itself. This wasn't a one-off occurrence. It happened regularly at the same time on certain days of the week, and no matter on what channel the TV had been on, it always featured the same channel. Eventually, she began to realize that the TV came on for her aunt's favorite TV shows.

She also discovered that if the TV came on by itself, she could tell it to switch off by itself, and it would do so. She even videoed this to prove to stunned neighbors and relatives that it was true. She became convinced that her aunt was continuing to share the home with her and her baby as a result of this activity. "I had a period in my late 20s when I wasn't necessarily doing that well, drinking too much, which left my nervous system shredded and vulnerable.

I woke up in sleep paralysis while living in my mom's basement, with a spectral hag floating not far above me, maybe six inches. Classic banshee form, skeletal face, half-rotted in parts, cheekbones exposed, gaping mouth, eye sockets, stringy hair. I just freaked and froze, not that I would have been able to do anything anyway, as I couldn't move.

I was living in a semi-raw, semi-unfinished basement at the time, with Styrofoam insulation in the ceiling. I watched in real time as the specter gradually went from 3D to 2D, becoming a shape and a texture of ceiling insulation that completely matched the skeletal hag I had just been seeing.

It leaves you wondering if it's your unconscious mind putting pieces together and making patterns or if it was a true visitation. That house is haunted, and those spirits did not like me. Either way, I don't intend on going back to verify. I took a nap midday once. Slight lucid dream, but nothing spectacular. I woke up to sounds of people talking outside my bay window and moving my porch furniture.

I tried to get up to stop them but realized I was in sleep paralysis. Talked myself through it, blinking frequently. The sounds go away but a shadow starts growing in the corner of my living room. I just keep telling myself that it's sleep paralysis but the shadow turns into this very tall black shadow of a witch with black tattered robes hanging off her and long claws.

She walks up to me and gets her face close to mine and then vanishes and I can move again. It really bothered me. I don't scare easily, but she was the embodiment of things that scare me. I recently moved into an apartment with my dad, my sister, and my brother. My sister and I share a bedroom. One night, my sister told me that she knew how to contact the dead. I was a little freaked out, but I wanted to try it.

I said that we should contact our great-grandma, who died in the 90s, so we did. We began asking her questions like, "Are you at peace? Are you disappointed in us? Are you in heaven? Are you happy?" The only positive answer was she's not disappointed. After that, she told us that she was not at peace, not in heaven, and not happy. We felt like she was there to protect our family.

"Since I moved in, I have felt a presence. Not a good one. I'm always on edge and I always feel like I'm being watched. My sister said she felt like our grandma wanted us to break the chain. We were holding hands. She looked very scared, so we did. We felt like there was something evil in our room. We sat with the lights on for about an hour before deciding to go to bed. We turned out the lights and soon felt the presence again, only it felt stronger

We sat with our eyes closed. We did not want to see it, but I did anyway. I had a vision in my head of a tall, dark, menacing figure standing near my bed, staring at us. I asked her to turn on the lights and she said no. She felt like it was a demon. Spirits can't do anything to you, but demons can. We began to say the Lord's Prayer and pray in tongues. The presence went away and we turned on the lights.

I still feel it, not as prominently as that night, but it's still there. My house was located near an old two-lane highway just outside the city limits of a town named Elizabuthton. This area was settled in the late 1760s. Its historical notability is among the most fascinating in the entire state. It's home of the first permanent settlement outside the original 13 colonies, so it's bound to have a lot of history.

To be more precise in the description of our home, we settled in a small three-bedroom home off a one-lane road originally made for logging trails. I've also heard these roads called "Ridge Runners" which were built by moonshiners so I'm not sure what the original purpose of this road was used for. I'd like to add that moonshining is still prevalent in this area today.

In addition, this is an old neighborhood where mostly senior citizens live, so the nights stay very quiet apart from the tree frogs, crickets, and a few neighborhood dogs that bark at raccoons or other stray animals that dare venture into their domain. We shared only one street lamp down the road, so besides the tranquility of the quiet country life, unless there was a full moon, it was so dark that you could practically cut it with a knife

Up behind us was another one-lane road with a few old homes, and behind and above that road consists of woods mixed in with some farmland. When we first moved to the area back in the mid-90s, we were told some creepy stories that I presumed to be nothing more than old Southern folklore. I didn't put much thought into it other than just that. Until later. We weren't there even a year when we experienced our first paranormal experience.

My older daughter came running into my room late one night and told me she had heard something strange and thought someone was standing outside her bedroom window. She said she was almost asleep when she heard something tapping on her end of the house and then the window. As I explained earlier, this was an old neighborhood, so the likelihood of it being some teenage kid messing around was very small.

Her bedroom light was off, so we crept over to her window and, after adjusting our eyes to the darkness, we could see something tall, dark and slender standing about seven feet from the window. It appeared to be a man, but then a little too tall and lanky to be a person. We stood there whispering to each other because we couldn't remember if there was a tree outside her room or not.

The moon shed just enough light so that we could see something but couldn't tell if it was someone or something standing outside her bedroom window. My husband noticed that I wasn't in bed and got up to see where I was. He turned the hall light on. I motioned for him to turn it off. Once he turned it off and we looked back in the spot, it was completely gone. No sign of anything standing there, not even a bush or a small tree.

We were both freaked out and of course my husband just made a joke of it and summed it up to us girls and our wild imaginations. About a year later we were asked to move out of that house so that the landlord's brother and family could move in because he had been out of work for quite some time and could no longer afford to pay rent somewhere else.

My parents had bought five acres of land about a mile up the road from us. They had a house built on top of the land/hill and were just waiting for my dad to retire in six months. We told them our situation so they gave me two acres of the land to move on. We stayed in their new home while we had a modular home put on the land that they gave me. About six months after we were settled into our new home, one evening I heard someone beating on the back door.

We ran to the door to find my daughter's boyfriend who eventually became her husband. I opened the door and he was white as a ghost. I had him come inside, of course. He stood there pale as a sheet and shaking. He said as he was driving on our road, right about at the road where he used to turn off to go to our old house, he saw this tall, slender thing with stringy hair, no face.

He said it was walking on the same side of the road that he was driving and appeared to be walking toward him at first, but then it looked as if its arms and body were walking one direction but his head was facing him. He said it did not have a face, just the head, long black stringy hair facing him, yet the rest of the body was walking and facing the other direction. Fast forward about ten years. I had been over to my daughter and son-in-law's new house.

I took my little Jack Russell, I was driving my Honda Element and had my dog Milo in his cage just behind me. We were on our way back to our house on the same road. I was on the phone talking to my younger daughter telling her that we were almost home when about a half a mile from the old road cutoff something that looked like what a werewolf would look like if there was such a thing ran right out in front of me on its hind legs.

The only thing was he was somewhat transparent, but just slightly. I was able to see every detail. It was like something you would see in an old sci-fi movie. It looked right at me. I screamed and knew there was no way of missing it. I braced myself for the impact. He looked right in my eyes. It looked straight evil. My dog went crazy and my daughter was yelling at me, thinking I was in an accident.

Whatever it was went right through my car. I made my daughter come outside and meet me while I got Milo out of the car and into the house. To this day, I will not drive down that road at night. I don't know if any of these things are related, but I do know there is something about that road and area that really creeps me out, and I hate even going to that area in the daytime.

I'm not big on trends, never really have been, so I can't be trusted when it comes to clothes shopping for others. I'm married to someone who does understand what looks good.

Quince.com asked me to endorse them on Weird Darkness, and at first I thought, eh, it's a bad idea, for reasons I've already laid out. But I let my bride check out their website, and, well, she immediately started shopping for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, Just Because Day, apparently that's a real thing, and now she keeps going back to Quince.com. Their lightweight layers and high-quality staples have become a go-to place for everyday essentials now.

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They work directly with top artisans, so they cut out the middlemen. And Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. I honestly didn't think I needed Quince.com, but Robin says, yeah, I do. Desperately. I think that means she'll be buying some clothes there for me, too.

She's tired of seeing 98% of my closet being weird darkness t-shirts. Go figure. She's also making me out to be the hero in front of my nieces. We got a cute little toddler-sized poplin-smocked flutter-sleeve dress for my youngest great-niece, complete with pink puppies for the pattern. It's adorable, I'll admit that. We got a pair of cotton-stretched skinny jeans coming from my newly-teenaged great-niece, along with a set of organic cotton long-sleeve and pants pajamas.

My oldest niece, the mom in the family, is getting a pair of ultra-soft high-rise pocket leggings. Emphasis on pocket. That's a pet peeve of my bride. She refuses to buy pants without pockets. And we're also sending a pair of ultra-form high-rise leggings. I would look horrible in all of this stuff, but the ladies in the family are going to look awesome. Of course, we'll be going back to quince.com in the next few days to begin shopping for the nephews.

I'm not allowed to pick out those clothes either. Robin just does not trust me. Good call. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince. Go to quince.com slash weirddarkness for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash weirddarkness to get free shipping and 365 day returns. quince.com slash weirddarkness

Okay, yeah, I gotta admit, this t-shirt is kind of fading. My guess is that you've heard a lot of people talking about Factor, the two-minute meals packed with nutrition. Up until recently, though, I didn't really care much about nutrition. I was into convenience. Burgers, pizza, you get the drift. But, well, the older you get, the more you realize nutrition is kind of important.

At the same time, convenience is still crucial for me. I am busier now than I've ever been in my life, so eating food fast without eating fast food is a bit of a challenge. Was a bit of a challenge. With Factor, I get to check both of those off my list. I just heat it up, and two minutes later, I'm sticking a fork in it.

Factor is more than convenient though. I don't even have to jump into my car to go through a drive-thru or pay a bunch of extra money so I can wait 30 minutes to an hour for a delivery app to come through for me. Factor meals arrive directly at my door, fresh and ready to eat. And with my new weight loss goals, the menu options are a real bonus. They have gourmet meals if I want to be calorie smart or pack on the protein, go keto and more. They have 45 weekly menu options.

How many weeks are there in a year? 52? Yeah, that's pretty dang close to a different menu for each week. I can use Factor for breakfast, quick lunches, premium dinners, even guilt-free snacks and desserts. Imagine that. Snacking without guilt. I didn't think that was possible. If you'd like to join me on this journey, you can visit factormeals.com slash darkness50off, then use the code darkness50off to get 50% off and free shipping in your first box.

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At Bright Horizons, infants discover first steps, toddlers discover independence, and preschoolers discover bold ideas. Our dedicated teachers and discovery-driven curriculum nurture curiosity, inspire creativity, and build lasting confidence so your child is ready to take on the world.

Come visit one of our Bright Horizons centers in the greater Chicago area and see for yourself how we turn wonder into wisdom. Schedule your visit today at BrightHorizons.com. Between 1930 and the early 1950s, the Greenville County Tuberculosis Hospital treated hundreds of patients suffering from tuberculosis. Several patients succumbed to the deadly disease, though it's not clear just how many never made it home.

After closing for good sometime in the 1950s, the South Carolina hospital sat largely abandoned until a fire ravaged the building in 2002. Before its fiery demise, people exploring the old building claimed to hear screams, sobs and footsteps pounding down empty halls, and locals say the ghosts are still there.

though the building is long gone. Legend has it that deceased patients now haunt Hurdklotz Park, which stands where the hospital once did. In "Haunted South Carolina," author Alan Brown reports that visitors hear a number of strange sounds on the playground, including banging, screaming, and the clanging of unseen bells. At night, people spot shadows flitting in the darkness.

In fact, some people living near the park claim these shadowy beings enter their homes after dark. Reports of pools of blood also surround Hurdklotz Park. In "Haunted Hospitals of the South," author Randy Russell writes, "All that is left of the former sanatorium is a few puddles that turn red with blood after a rain." The puddles are located near a memorial bench in Hurdklotz Park.

Locals suggest the blood is from patients who died at the TB hospital and that the park bench stands on the site of the institution's former morgue. Last week my parents went out of town when I spent a few days alone. This was no big deal as I'm 18 and stay alone often, but this time the creepiest thing happened while they were away. One afternoon I was up in my room when the kitchen cabinets downstairs started banging

I'm not talking about little thumps and thuds. It sounded like someone was in my house slamming the cabinet doors as hard as they could. Bang, bang, bang! I was sure someone had broken in. I stood there for a minute, freaking out and not sure what to do. I eventually snapped out of it and headed to my parents' room to get the gun. Like I said, I was sure someone had forced their way inside the house and was ransacking the place.

So I got the gun, loaded it, and left the room. The cabinets kept banging the entire time. I headed downstairs and the second my foot touched the bottom landing, the banging sounds stopped. I mean, one second there were these deafening bangs and the next second it was silent. I thought that whoever was in the house had heard me coming down and was hiding somewhere.

I searched the house from top to bottom. I looked under the beds, in the closets, up in the attic, everywhere. There was no one around, and nothing had been disturbed. The cabinets were all closed when I got downstairs and the dishes were fine. Once I was sure the house was empty, I grabbed my uniform and went to work two hours early. After my shift, I was too afraid to come home, so I stayed out until two in the morning.

Thankfully, nothing happened when I got back and nothing weird has happened since then. This happened to my dad some years back. The house my parents were living in was a two-bedroom house. There was a small patch of grass in the front of the house and the veranda was just two steps from the front gate. When visitors arrived during the day, they always walked to the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door.

However, when visitors arrived after dark, they would knock on the front door, which was very close to the street. One evening, at around 20:00, my mother got into bed. My father joined her a few minutes later. They weren't in bed more than five minutes when, to their complete surprise, they heard a knock at the kitchen door. My father, although somewhat concerned, got out of bed and walked out of the room and toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

Somehow, my mother had the feeling of foreboding and called my father back to the bedroom. She said, "Don't open the door. First ask who is there." My father replied that was exactly his intention. Then he turned and left the room again. As soon as he walked into the passage, he felt what seemed like hands on his elbows, lifting him entirely off his feet. He was carried down the passage, through the living room, toward the kitchen,

He recalled that out of absolute fear he was shouting at the top of his voice, yet there was no sound coming from his mouth. Once he was in the middle of the living room, it felt as though he was being pushed from behind by whatever was carrying him into an invisible wall. Something or someone was stopping him from being carried any further. Suddenly he was let down ever so gently back onto his feet.

He never made it to the kitchen door. He turned and walked right back to the bedroom. My mother recalled that when he walked into the room, the sweat was pouring down his face and there was no color in his face. When he lay down, the bed shook for quite some time before he could calm down and tell her what had happened. They never found out who their night visitor was. In Hillside, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, is Mount Carmel Cemetery.

In addition to being the final resting place of Al Capone, Diano Banyan, and other notorious Chicago mobsters, the cemetery is also the burial place of a woman named Giulia Bucola Petta. While her name may not spring to mind as part of Chicago history, for those intrigued by the supernatural, she is better known as the Italian Bride.

Julia's grave is marked today by a life-sized statue of the unfortunate woman in her wedding dress, a stone reproduction of the wedding photo that is mounted on the front of her monument. While a beautiful monument, there is nothing about it to suggest that anything weird ever occurred in connection to it. However, once you know the history behind the site, you'll soon realize that this is one of the weirdest tales in Chicago's annals of the unknown.

Julia was born on June 6, 1891, in Italy. Her father George passed away in 1913, and her mother, Philomena, emigrated to the United States with her daughter. They traveled to the west side of Chicago, where three other Bucola children, Henry, Joseph, and Rosalia, were already settled. In June 1920, Julia married Matthew Petta at Holly Rosary Church on North Damon Avenue,

Giulia became pregnant soon after the wedding, but complications occurred and on March 17, 1921, Giulia died while giving birth to her son, Filippo. Because of the Italian tradition that dying in childbirth made the woman a type of martyr, Giulia was buried in white, the martyr's color.

Her wedding dress also served as her burial gown, and with her dead infant tucked into her arms, the two were laid to rest in a single coffin at Mount Carmel Cemetery. Philomena Bakula was inconsolable over her daughter's death. Shortly after Julia was buried, Philomena began to experience strange and terrifying dreams every night. In these nightmares, she envisioned Julia telling her that she was still alive and needed her help.

For the next six years, the dreams plagued Philomena, and she began trying without success to have her daughter's grave opened and her body exhumed. She was unable to explain why she needed to do this; she only knew that she should. Finally, through sheer persistence, her request was granted, and a sympathetic judge passed down an order for Julia's exhumation. In 1927, six years after Julia's death, the casket was removed from the grave.

When it was opened, Julia's body was found not to have decayed at all. In fact, it was said that her flesh was still as soft as it had been when she was alive. A photograph was taken at the time of the exhumation and shows Julia's incorruptible body in the casket. Philomena set out to raise money for a more elaborate tombstone. The finished work would be a grandiose tribute to her dead daughter, a life-size sculpture of Julia on her wedding day.

Her mother and other admirers affixed the post-mortem photo of Julia on the front of her grave monument. Below the image is the Italian phrase "prese dopo sex anni morta" which roughly translates to "taken six years after death." A photo of Julia in her bridal gown, presumably the inspiration for the statue was also fastened to the stone.

The post-mortem photograph shows a body that appears to be fresh with no discoloration of the skin, even after six years. The rotted and decayed appearance of the coffin in the photo, however, bears witness to the fact that it had been underground for some time. Julia appears to be merely sleeping.

Her family took the fact that she was found to be so well-preserved as a sign from God, and so, after collecting money from other family members and neighbors, they created the impressive monument that stands over her grave today. What mysterious secret rests at the grave of Giulia Petta? How could her body have stayed in perfect condition after lying in the grave for six years?

Many devout Catholics in the neighborhood believed that Julia's incorruptibility meant that she was a saint. Skeptics scoffed at the idea, claiming that the post-mortem photo must have been taken before she was originally buried, although this doesn't explain the condition of the casket or the decomposition of the infant that is nestled in her arms.

Another explanation was attributed to adipocere, also known as corpse wax, a waxy substance consisting chiefly of fatty acids and calcium soaps that is formed during decomposition of dead body fat in moist or wet anaerobic conditions. In other words, the shape and state of Julia's body was preserved by a natural process. Of course, these explanations did little to dispel the local belief that Julia's preserved body was proof of a miracle. But was it? Really?

There are stories that have since been told about her mother, Philomena, questioning the reality of her dreams. There were those who claimed that she fabricated the entire story as retaliation for a marriage of which she did not approve. She never liked Matthew Peta, the stories say. And this story is given some credence by the fact that Julia's married name does not appear on the grave monument, only Lucola.

But if Philomena lied about her nightmares to gain sympathy from the community and to help finance the building of the elaborate monument, how does this explain the post-mortem photograph? The photo of Julia in her casket, six years after her death, appears to be real. It has defied explanation for nearly a century, and that's not the end of this odd story.

Reports have been told over the years of a ghostly woman in white who has been seen wandering at the edge of the cemetery where she rests. Stories claim to have seen her in the daytime and at night, and many who know the story of Julia Peta believe that this is her restless spirit. One eerie tale that was told involved a young boy who was accidentally left behind at the

When they returned to Mount Carmel to look for him, they saw him holding the hand of a dark-haired young woman in a white dress. When the boy ran toward his parents, the woman in white disappeared. The story of the Italian bride lives on today. It's the story of a woman who became more famous in death than she ever was in life. A prime ingredient for many eerie tales.

In the small town of Irondequoit, outside of Rochester, is Durand-Eastman Park. The park is frequented by many hikers and nature enthusiasts who spend their days exploring the vast area, enjoying its pristine beauty. But there are others who travel to this park for far different reasons. They come from far and wide and make their way to the crumbling remains of a structure that sits near Lake Ontario along Lakeshore Boulevard. They aren't here to enjoy any pristine beauty.

Instead, they are looking for a glimpse of the mysterious crumbling remains of the White Lady's Castle. Before this area became Durand-Eastman Park, this was the home of a reclusive woman and her teenaged daughter. The daughter was very beautiful and was pursued by many young male suitors. Her mother, however, was incredibly protective and insisted that she ignore the charms of these boys and spend her time at home in their isolated estate.

The mother warned her daughter of the danger these young men presented and told her that they had nothing but unsavory intentions. Her daughter was respectful of her mother's warnings, but still secretly longed for the company of a young man. One night, the daughter left their home to take a walk down to the shores of the lake. Her mother waited up all night for her, but the young woman never returned. The mother convinced herself that her daughter had met a young man from the area and must have run off with him.

But some people believed that the young woman was far too devoted to her mother to have not returned home that night, and for this reason they say that the girl must have been murdered that evening. Unable to cope with her daughter's disappearance, the mother took to wandering the desolate area every night with her two white dogs. Looking for her daughter or the young man she had run off with, people would see the grief-stricken old woman out on her solitary walk every night, wearing a white dress.

Eventually, after years of her nightly vigils, the old woman died alone and heartbroken. Her house fell into disrepair, eventually to the point where it was nothing more than a foundation. Teenagers began using the area as a lover's lane, driving out to the quiet private area with their dates. Reports began spreading of something very unusual taking place at the site,

Many of these young couples were scared away from their amorous activities after seeing a white apparition, followed by two ghostly dogs coming toward their car. Some even reported seeing the specter rising out of the waters of the lake, always flanked by two dogs. Most witnesses say they are Dobermans. The tragic story of the mother and daughter was remembered and passed down from one generation to the next for years now.

The foundations of their former home have come to be called White Lady Castle, and she is known to all in the area as the White Lady. Today, Durand Eastman Park is frequented by many curious locals and ghost hunters who spend their evenings in the vicinity of the White Lady Castle hoping for a glimpse of this enigmatic entity and retelling the legend of how she came to wander. I first visited the White Lady's castle not knowing any of the legends associated with it,

My friend had just heard that it was a good drinking spot, where kids from different high schools congregated to cause trouble. So we made our way down there, hoping to join the party. And there were a lot of teenaged miscreants who hung out there on weekends, at least in the early 80s when I was of the proper teenage miscreanting age. When we got there, it seemed unimpressive, just an old foundation tucked away in the park. But the locals filled us in on the real deal of the place.

told us all about the lady who used to live in the building who showed up looking for her daughter. We were told that she was particularly aggressive towards men, especially ones who were disrespectful of women. One story they told us was of a real wannabe tough guy, you know the type, high school jock, thinks he's hot stuff, says whatever he wants to anyone at any time,

The type of guy who people despise, but who for some reason runs the show and gets the girl in those teenage years. Well, he had this girl in high school, and everyone knew he was hitting her, cursing her out, and all sorts of awful things. So one day he brought her back to the park to make out in their car, and she did something wrong.

spilled a soda on him or something trivial like that, and he went nuts. He started yelling at her, calling her stupid, and even shook her up a little bit physically. The next thing anyone knows, there was this white flash outside the car and the sound of something banging against the door. He turned around, freaked out, thinking someone's messing with him.

Being a testosterone-ridden jock, he gets out looking for a fight, only to come face to face with the white lady. No one knows exactly what he saw or what happened, but the girl told everyone that when he got in the car, his face was all scratched and he wouldn't speak. He was never the same. He barely graduated high school and became totally antisocial. Nowadays, he still lives with his parents and never leaves his house.

He just sits silent in his room all day watching TV. Now I don't know that this story is true. In fact, I never heard anyone tell it except that specific group of guys and I've heard stories about this place for decades. But to be standing at the White Lady's castle hearing about how the White Lady hates men, knowing you came out looking for trouble, well, that will put a little bit of fear in you.

Thanks for listening! If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. All stories used in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find links to the authors, stories, and sources I used in the episode description, as well as on the website at WeirdDarkness.com.

If you like the show, please, share it with someone you know who loves the paranormal or strange stories, true crime, monsters, or unsolved mysteries like you do. You can email me and follow me on social media through the Weird Darkness website.

WeirdDarkness.com is also where you can find information on sponsors you heard during the show, listen to free audiobooks I've narrated, get the email newsletter, find other podcasts that I host. You can visit the store for creepy and cool Weird Darkness merchandise. Plus, it's where you can find the Hope in the Darkness page if you or someone you know is struggling with depression,

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