A Decade of Terror: Village of the Damned Part 1
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Hey strangers, this episode originally aired on May 12th, 2022. Enjoy. Can a place be cursed? We've heard about haunted houses and cemeteries, sure, but what about whole towns? How many tragedies can befall a community before people start to wonder if they're cursed? Is violence contagious?

Welcome to Strange and Unexplained with me, Daisy Egan. I'm a writer and an actor who, I'm not gonna lie, looked up real estate prices in the town I'm gonna cover in the next two episodes because, sure, the town experienced a string of nightmarish deaths that led residents to wonder if it was hexed, but surely that would drive home prices down?

Turns out, though, with everything that happened in the town of Dryden, New York for one horrific decade between 1989 and 1999, even this hardened cynic is like, "I may be desperate to buy a house, but not desperate enough to live in the village of the damned." No offense to anyone who lives there, you're clearly made of hardier stuff than I.

And a quick warning before we dig in. What lies ahead are mentions of some pretty gruesome sexual and physical violence. Take care if these are triggering topics for you. Upstate New York is one of my favorite places in the country. The aesthetic of the bucolic rolling green hills, the leaves that change color in the fall, the rivers that literally run through it. So beautiful.

But the town of Dryden, New York, which sits about a three-hour drive west from the state's capital of Albany and southeast of the Great Finger Lakes, is gloomier than a lot of New York State. For some sciencey reason, Dryden and its immediate surrounding area get more cloud coverage than almost anywhere else in the country.

In a 2001 piece for Spin, author E. Jean Carroll said some people said that Dryden was so gloomy it was like, quote, living in an old lady's underwear drawer. And I don't know about you, but that sounds like heaven to me. A warm, dark place with a bed of soft, clean cotton fabric? Sign me up. Especially if the old lady in question keeps one of those little lavender sachets in there. Something tells me, though, that's not quite what they meant.

It's worth noting here that E. Jean Carroll, whose 2001 spin piece, The Cheerleaders, was named by the New York Times, quote, feminism's answer to Hunter S. Thompson, which is a terrifying statement given her insistence on strong sexual objectification of the girls in this story. That said, The Cheerleaders is one of the most extensive sources about Dryden, New York and the macabre events that took place there between 1989 and 1999.

So I relied on it heavily for this episode. Please know I did so while heaving enormous sighs and rolling my eyes so hard my head began to hurt. Lucky for you, you can listen to this episode instead of reading the piece. Unless you go for statements like, quote, Sarah Hodgney is an adorable little version of a Botticelli Venus.

Or, quote, Or, quote, In which case, have at it. Just know that the girls she's describing are literal children. It's important to me that you know that. Anyway...

Living in Dryden may have felt like living in Grandma's skivvy drawer, but other than that, it was the very picture of small-town America. And by small, I mean tiny. As of 2016, the population was less than 15,000. E. Jean Carroll put it this way.

If you live in Dryden, the kids from Ithaca, that cradle of metropolitan sophistication 15 miles away, will say you live in a cow town. There's a cow pasture right next to the school, says one young Ithacan. But Dryden High School, with its emerald lawns, running tracks, athletic fields, skating pond, pine trees, and 732 eager students, is actually a first-rate place to grow up.

Basically, it's a real-life Thomas Kinkade painting.

Dryden became an official American town in the late 1700s and was pretty sleepy for most of its existence. The only notable person to have come out of Dryden was professional wrestler and trainer Q-Ball Carmichael. Ever heard of him? Me neither.

Other than that distinction, Dryden was as sleepy a town as sleepy towns get. The perfect place for the all-American family to settle down. A family like the Harris's in Ellis Hollow, a small section of the already small town. Parents Tony and Dodie and their two kids, 15-year-old Shelby, a member of the tennis team at nearby Ithaca High, and 11-year-old Mark, a member of the student government and the Boy Scouts.

neighbors described the Harris family as the perfect family, smart and social-minded and sweet, sweet people. Doty's brother told the Orlando Sentinel in 1990 that his sister's family, quote, "embraced life and embraced each other." So one can imagine the tight-knit community's shock when on the morning of December 24th, Christmas Eve 1989, the state police were called to the Harris home after neighbors reported an alarm going off on their property.

State Trooper John J. Benno responded to the call and found each family member shot to death and then burned. Unfortunately, it goes without saying that the 15-year-old Shelby Harris had been sexually assaulted before she was shot in the head because the world is a terrible place.

The killer remained at large for a couple weeks. One resident said she saw a man riding a bicycle in a snowstorm, and when she passed him, she got a look at his face. She didn't recognize him, but she was able to give police a description. Though, to be honest, knowing what we know now, it's hard to believe any eyewitness can give a reliable description of anything they saw while passing them on the road in a snowstorm.

But at that point, it was the only thing police had to go on. Until January, when an anonymous tipster informed police that a man named Michael King, who sometimes went by the alias Anthony Turner, had been using the Harris' credit cards.

When police tracked Michael down on February 7th in an apartment in town that he shared with his girlfriend and their one-year-old son, he had a shotgun aimed at his own chin. He lowered the shotgun at police, fired a single shot, and the police opened fire, killing him. Police found evidence that Michael's 54-year-old mother, Shirley, had used the Harris' credit card after the murders and arrested her as an accomplice at her apartment, which happened to be right next door to the Harris' home.

Shirley was charged with helping her son attempt to burn the house down after the murders, along with credit card theft and fraud. The day after the murders, she had used the credit cards at a nearby mall in Syracuse, buying clothes, electronics, and, wait for it, diamonds. Mall diamonds. This woman used the credit cards of people her son had murdered to go to fucking Jared. Come on, people.

Jared says love endures all things, but you know what doesn't endure all things? Someone's life when you murder them. At Shirley's trial, state trooper David Harding testified that he found Shirley's fingerprints on a gas can left at the scene of the crime. And if you don't think that I read that and yelled out, give me a break, then where have you been?

And wouldn't you know it, I was right to demand a break because Harding later admitted to falsifying evidence. I'm sorry, but a fingerprint on a gas can left at the scene? What is this, an episode of Matlock? Come on.

Why it was so important to police that Shirley King be found guilty, who knows? I might venture a guess that since the only actual suspect had been killed in a shootout with police, they still needed someone to put in jail so they could point to that and be like, we did it! Good job, us! Shirley served two years before her case got overturned on appeal. Harding, on the other hand, got four and a half years for falsifying evidence and lying under oath. Oops.

In all fairness, aside from using the credit cards to buy crap, it does seem like Shirley actually didn't have anything to do with the murders and was, in fact, another victim of whatever mental illness her son was struggling with. Shirley admitted to being scared of her son. She said that he would use his own son, her grandson, as a weapon against her, threatening to forbid contact with him if she didn't do whatever he asked.

Shirley was a small woman who one person said looked pretty malnourished. It's not hard to believe she was being controlled and manipulated by Michael. By this point, the people of Dryden were reeling. Nothing like this had ever happened in their town before. It was the kind of town where everyone kept their front doors unlocked. But a chill had descended over the already gloomy, gray town, and people were scared.

Unfortunately for the people of Dryden, New York, they were about to find out that this gruesome, in-cold-blood-style murder was only the beginning of a decade of terror. Less than six weeks after the Harris family murders, before Michael King had been identified and killed by police, on February 2nd, 1990, Dryden resident Christine Lane reported her two-year-old daughter Eliza missing.

A four-day search involving hundreds of local law enforcement and volunteers swept through the nearby woods and came up empty. Then, five days after Eliza went missing, on the 7th, Christine received a package in the mail. It was her daughter's mittens. The only silver lining, everyone thought, was that this was probably a sign that Eliza was still alive. But where she was, was anyone's guess.

If a kidnapper was going to go so far as to send a sign that Eliza was still alive, why not ask for a ransom in exchange for the baby? When police found Michael King the next day, they half expected to find Eliza with him, but she wasn't there. The search went on for another week until February 15th when Christine admitted that the mittens were a red herring. She'd mailed them to herself to throw police off.

Christine had smothered her daughter and buried her in the woods. Can you even imagine? Because I cannot. At her trial, Christine said that Eliza had died in her crib after getting herself tangled in her blankets. Christine panicked, she said, and buried Eliza in the woods and then led police on a wild goose chase instead of just admitting what had happened.

And if Eliza did die by accident and Christine super panicked and buried her in the woods, okay, I get it. I mean, I don't, but... But then, according to her then-boyfriend, at her daughter's funeral, kneeling by her casket, she said, "'Why couldn't she have just laid down and gone to sleep, the little shit?' Which, I don't know, doesn't exactly sound like the words of an innocent, grieving mother."

And I think any parent will agree there were times when our children were babies when they wouldn't go to sleep and we felt like we were at our wits ends and we maybe in our darkest moments had some pretty disturbing thoughts. But acting on those thoughts, that's a different story.

Christine was found guilty of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree obstruction of governmental administration, third-degree reporting of an incident, and fourth-degree just really horrible choice-making. Not really. I made that last one up. Just four days after Christine admitted to, at the very least, burying her already-dead toddler in the woods, yet another member of the community was found murdered. ♪

On February 19th, 31-year-old Ellen Newhart was found dead in the woods. Three days later, a man named Ernest Vann was caught hitchhiking and was arrested for Newhart's murder. Vann maintained his innocence and at first tried to argue that the only reason he'd been fingered for the murder at all was that he had tattoos similar to Newhart's ex-husband's tattoos.

But it turns out there was actual DNA evidence linking Van to the murder, or at the very least linking his truck to the murder. Newhart's blood on the inside of Van's truck and on a shirt of his found inside the truck. The prosecution argued that Van flew into a rage when Newhart wouldn't have sex with him after leaving a party together. To be fair, this theory couldn't have been more than a wild guess.

In addition to trying to implicate Newhart's ex-husband, Van also claimed that he had loaned his truck to a man named Don Harding, who left the party with Newhart. Considering Van was caught while hitchhiking, I have to admit this alibi doesn't sound that far-fetched. Why would he be hitchhiking if he had a truck? Unless he had loaned the truck to someone else. Newhart's blood in the truck doesn't put Van in the truck. It just puts Ellen Newhart in the truck.

According to court documents, though, witnesses said Newhart left the party with Vann and that he was wearing the shirt that was later found covered in Newhart's blood in his truck, which is, I have to admit, pretty damning. Also, Don Harding obviously denied any wrongdoing, and when the police conducted a search of his home, they found nothing linking him to the murder. It makes you wonder what Don Harding ever did to Ernest Vann to have him throw him under the murder bus like that.

Anyway, the evidence against Van must have been bad, because the only defense his court-appointed attorney could come up with was that Van was so drunk and high on LSD that he just didn't remember killing Newhart. Not that he didn't do it, necessarily. Just that he didn't remember doing it. Yikes, bro.

The people of Dryden were delivered yet another blow less than a week after Newhart was found brutally murdered in the woods. Two children in nearby Ithaca, 10-year-old Samantha Bax and 10-month-old Blake Estes, died in a house fire. It goes without saying that the whole town was traumatized. It was like they were caught in a landslide of one horrific tragedy after another.

A local therapist told the New York Times that the whole community was on edge, not sleeping well and having nightmares when they did sleep.

According to a New York Times article published in 1996, quote, people are in an uproar. A sense of security they had from believing they lived in a safe community where violence was not present is gone, end quote. The article went on to quote a local woman who owned a yarn store who said, quote, I listen for cars slowing down. Noises that were once familiar, like wood clunking down in the stove, are now not familiar, end quote.

Suffice to say the locals were freaked out. Who could blame them? They all wondered who would be next. Some opted not to wait around and find out and instead moved away. After nine shocking deaths in three months, things quieted down for a minute and the people of Dryden thought the worst was behind them.

That is, until August of 1994, when 24-year-old Scott Hume was murdered in his girlfriend Colleen Mumma's apartment by her ex, Paul R. Jackson. According to Mumma's friend, there were no warning signs. Mumma had broken up with Jackson the week before and started seeing Hume.

Jackson walked into her apartment through an unlocked door and plunged a kitchen knife into the new boyfriend Hume's heart. This is when the people of Dryden, New York began to wonder if their town was in fact cursed. At the very least, toxic masculinity seemed to be spreading like a cancer in the small town because the next month, another family was struck by a so-called scorned lover. The patriarchy hurts everyone, friends.

Dryden High senior Amber Starr briefly dated a boy named J.P. Merchant in September of 94, who E. Jean Carroll described as, quote, a sulky rogue with dead poet good looks who was irresistible to young women, end quote. Although clearly to Amber, he was quite resistible because she broke things off after only dating briefly after he professed his love for her and she was like, meh.

Amber's family, the Stars, were another picture-perfect unit in Dryden. Her younger sister Tiffany described the family as perfect. And from the way the three Star daughters gushed about it to E. Jean Carroll, it really did seem like the kind of family that makes the rest of us go, wait, there are actual families like that out there?

Carol called the three star girls the goddesses of Dryden High. The goddess's dad, Stephen Starr, was the head coach on the Dryden High football team and was about as lovable a dad as they come.

Amber broke up with Irresistible Merchant on September 21st, and Merchant, joining a long line of toxic men before and after him, decided that wasn't acceptable, and began stalking Amber and threatening to kill himself if she didn't get back together with him. Let me just do a quick sidebar here.

Amber, being the good person that she was, spent hours on the phone with JP trying to let him down easy. Also, side note, don't do that either.

And then, when Amber began dating someone new, JP threatened to kill the new boyfriend. So, on December 27th, Amber's mother Judy went to the police and asked for an order of protection for her daughter. Police arrested Merchant, set his bail at $500, which his family paid immediately, and as soon as he got released, Merchant called Amber and continued threatening her. Clearly, this person needed help.

The next day, on December 28th, Judy went back to the police and begged them for help. She was truly scared for her daughter's life. The sheriff promised to post a cruiser outside Merchant's House 24/7 to monitor his comings and goings. But less than 24 hours later, the policeman on duty left when his shift ended without waiting for the next person to relieve him. And no one did.

And so, of course, Merchant left his house with a 20-gauge shotgun early on December 30th and went to the star's home, looking for Amber. According to E. Jean Carroll, Merchant shot the locks off the back door, but it seems no one heard it, or if they did, no one seemed tremendously concerned, because Merchant made it all the way upstairs where he found Amber's younger sister Tiffany standing in her bedroom doorway. Tiffany later told Carroll...

I think for sure this is it, but something as simple as shutting my door keeps me alive. He is not after me. He wants Amber. He just isn't going to let anyone get in his way, and I don't try. I shut my door and let him go. And look, Lord knows I have no idea how I would have reacted if I were her. Knowing me, I would have fainted straight away, but I will never understand how Tiffany just quietly shut her door and waited.

By the time Merchant made it to Amber's bedroom, though, Stephen Starr must have realized something was wrong, because when Merchant told Amber to wake up, Stephen came running in to protect her. Merchant turned and fired two shots into Stephen Starr, killing him. By some miracle, Judy was able to get herself and her three daughters out of the house. They ran toward a neighbor's house, and by the time Merchant realized it, they were gone.

Merchant then drove to the cemetery and stopped at the grave of old girlfriend Sherry Fitz, who had killed herself three years before while they were dating. And it's probably worth noting that Sherry's friends always suspected JP was behind Sherry's death, even before he killed Stephen Starr. At her gravesite, Merchant shot himself in the head.

The community was, understandably, shaken. If such a horrific tragedy could befall a perfect family, who was safe? Unfortunately for them, Stephen Starr's murder marked a new string of unspeakable deaths for the people in and around Dryden, New York.

If the people of Dryden, New York thought the next couple of peaceful months meant the worst was behind them, they were snapped back into reality in August of 1995 when 19-year-old Billy Pace was riding in the backseat of a car that his buddy lost control of and spun out into a stand of trees.

And then, almost exactly one year later, Billy's younger brother Scott, a star tight end on the Dryden High football team, who remember had just lost their head coach less than two years earlier, died when a truck hit the car he was riding in with his girlfriend. I can't even begin to imagine what Billy and Scott's parents were going through. It goes without saying that losing a child is probably the worst pain a person can suffer. But two in one year?

The community was, once again, thrown into a panic. Just one month after Scott's death, 29-year-old Robert Bergman, a husband and father of two little girls, was shot and killed by a chagrined co-worker at the car dealership where they worked. Flash forward a couple weeks later, October 4th, to a football game. It's been a rough stretch for the people of Dryden. But here the town was gathered in all of its quaint glory for a Friday night under the field lights.

It was a night similar to what came before all of this mess, minus the star tight end everyone was mourning. Tiffany Starr, whose dad Steven had been killed a couple years earlier while trying to save her sister from a murderous ex, was now captain of the cheerleading squad. She arrived at the game to find two of her squad members missing.

Jennifer Bolduc and Sarah Hodgney were described by friends as kind, funny, and responsible, and described by E. Jean Carroll in colorful, objectifying terms that made me want to throw my laptop across the room. Tiffany's sister Amber, who was also on the squad, later told Carroll that at first she thought the girls were just taking advantage of Sarah's parents being out of town and playing hooky. But then I'm like, wait a minute. Being a cheerleader at Dryden is the closest thing to being a movie star as you can get.

It's like being a world-class gymnast, movie star, and model all in one. It's fabulous. Fab-u-lous. Because we rule. I'm like, hold on. Jen and Sarah would never miss a game.

Before the game was over, police were at Sarah Hodgney's house, where what they found was very troubling. In the bathroom, the shower curtain had been pulled off the rod and the soap dish had been broken off the wall. Jen's cheerleading skirt was hung to dry on a towel rack and Sarah's was found hanging in the basement. Clearly, whatever happened there happened before school hours.

Police caught a lucky break when they found the Hodgney's car in the parking lot of the Cortland Line Company, a fly fishing equipment store, only eight miles up the road from the Hodgney's house, the same night that the girls went missing. Workers had spotted an unidentified man park the car and walk away. Once it got dark, they noticed the light inside the car had been left on.

A night shift worker went to turn the light off to try to prevent the car's battery from dying, and that's when he saw the bloodstains inside the car. I'm sure it was with extremely mixed emotions that police forced the trunk open. If the girls were not in the trunk, it could mean they were back at square one with no leads. If they were in the trunk, it would put an end to the search. On the other hand, if the girls were in the trunk, the girls were in the trunk. You know what I mean?

The girls were not in the trunk, but it was obvious that they had been. A thorough search of the car revealed blood and diamond-shaped fingerprints like the kind you'd find on regular kitchen gloves, leading investigators to believe that the kidnapping wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision, but had been planned out.

And here is where I leave you, dear stranger, back at Sarah's house, where Sarah's best friend Katie Savino, another member of the cheer squad, was supposed to have stayed the night before, along with Jen. Sitting there with Sarah's parents, waiting for the news about her best friends, Katie knew that the only reason she was there and they weren't was just dumb luck.

Even worse, would the whole thing have not happened at all if Katie had chosen to stay the night? Maybe whoever took the girls would have decided that three was a crowd. But where were Jen Bolduc and Sarah Hodgney? And who was the mysterious man who had left the blood-stained car in the parking lot and walked off?

As hundreds of flyers went up around town, a population of grieving, terrified neighbors tried to put their own trauma aside to help locate these girls before it was too late. And the hits would keep on coming. So much tragedy was still to befall this small town that we're going to have to wait till next time to find those answers.

Next time on Strange and Unexplained, part two of Decade of Terror. This episode was originally produced by Becca DiGregorio and Natalie Grillo, with engineering by Jess McKillop, editing by Eve Kerrigan, and sound engineering by Jennifer Swatek. Our voice actors for this episode were Lauren Hooper and Andrea Jones-Sojola.