Room 11
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Whether thou art a ghost that hath come from the earth, or a phantom of night that hath come, or one that lieth dead in the desert, or a ghost unburied, or a demon, or a ghoul, whatever thou be until thou art removed, thou shalt find here no water to drink. Thou shalt not stretch forth thy hand to our own. Into our house enter thou not. Through our fence break through thou not.

We are protected, though we may be frightened. Our life you may not steal, though we may be scared to death.

Welcome to Scared to Death, Creeps, Peepers, Roberts, and Annabelles. I'm Dan. Hello, Daniel. I'm Lindsay. Hello, Lindsay. Hello, sir. Just five weeks away from our 300th week, our 300th episode. So that's pretty cool. That's so crazy. I know I've been tracking it too, talking to Logan about getting some special merch going for the 300th episode. It's just like...

Where has the time gone? Yeah, big thanks to everybody who's been along for any part of the ride, but in particular the whole ride. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. And also a quick thank you to, I know Lindsay wants to thank you as well, to all the creeps and peepers who showed up to my last stand-up shows, at least for a while, in Nashville recently. I had so much fun. I will definitely miss performing, but I know it's the right decision for me to focus, you know, my energy on the podcast, which keep me plenty busy and not get burnt out and not have the quality deteriorate. And it was just...

In Nashville, the shows were so much fun. And it was just so great to do the meet and greets again and meet everybody outside and so many good conversations. And so many good conversations about this show, these episodes, and also Nightmare Fuel. And that was just really cool to see. Yeah. I mean, it was definitely, I felt, like a message from the universe letting you know that you were making the right choice to continue to step back from stand-up to focus on music.

Yeah.

And so to have that physical confirmation with fans as they came through the line was really, really sweet. It was. And it was just good for our souls to hug you guys, to high five you, to share some words. Sometimes we shared a few tears. And just interacting with the fans still remains the best part of this job. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you for coming. Thank you for the socks and the gifts. And yeah, it was just great. It was.

What paranormal encounter stories have you chosen from those emailed to mystoryofscaredtodeathpodcast.com this week? That is the name of your show. Good job. I have three stories this week. My first tale will remind us why it's so creepy when kids' toys make sounds on their own. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Classic. Yep. Then my second tale is about...

A man in black, not the hat man, but a man in black trying to lure someone to the water, which I think is just so inherently creepy. And then I'm going to finish out this week with just a sweet little tale with an even sweeter reminder about life. All right. Yeah. I am looking forward to hearing those. Good. My first of two tales is a modern encounter story set in Sauk Center, Minnesota's Palmer Hotel. Sorry, did you say Sauk Center? This story is meant for me. It is. It is.

Uh, for the first time I can think of the anonymous author of the story, weave some of the historical lore into the encounter. So I don't have to set it up with any context. I would love to find more of those going forward, but I think they're pretty rare. Well, not everyone's a history buff like you. My second story shares the haunted history of Kansas City, Missouri's St. Mary's Episcopal Church. Does the ghost of an early church leader still haunt its grounds?

So once you're socked up with this week's spoopy socks, I'll start talking about Sock Center, Minnesota. I'm so excited to hear more about socks. Socks on socks on socks. Well, me and my pineapple Sunny Angel co-host. Yeah. You guys, when we were in Nashville, I tried so hard to find Sunny Angels, but they didn't seem for sale there. And we're headed down to Jazz Fest here soon, and I'm really hopeful that...

That some little tiny off-the-wall comic book store or toy store or Asian market is going to have them. I am desperate for more sunnies. Anyways, big thanks to Craxus, one of our fans, who sent in these adorable gremlin socks. Oh, yeah, Gizmo. They're so cute. And honestly, I think I love them because they remind me so much of our dog, Ginger. Yep, yep. She's many different creatures woven into one. This is true.

All righty. Are you ready? Oh, yeah, bro. Let's go. Time now for the tale of Room 11. I don't scare easy.

I've stayed in supposedly haunted locations before. Bed and breakfast with creaky floors and old photos. Airbnbs where the owner swears that someone died in the bathtub. Hotels where the ghost of someone still haunts the room where they were tragically murdered decades ago. That sort of thing. I've gotten myself good and worked up in these places. But ultimately, I've always been able to explain away what happened as being very much of this world.

such as shadows that seemed strange and spooky to me, but ultimately only because I wasn't used to the room I was in and all the objects inside of it. Same for noises. I'll convince myself I've heard something supernatural, when really it was just the sounds of an old house creaking in the wind or settling or the sounds of mice in the walls. I felt strange cold spots, only to realize the AC had silently kicked on, and I was standing under a vent it took me a while to find. You get the idea.

Despite years of striking out when it's come to having the definitive paranormal encounter I was so desperately hoping for, I still hadn't given up in believing that things like ghosts and hauntings were definitely real. And I wasn't ready to give up experiencing something that I couldn't reason away. So when my friend Clara dared me to spend a weekend alone at the supposedly very haunted Palmer Hotel, excuse me, Palmer House Hotel in Sauk Center, Minnesota, less than a two hour drive from my home in Bloomington, I decided why not? And I went for it.

She told me I should try to stay in room 11. I'll explain why before this is over. The moment I Googled the hotel, I saw why she had recommended it. The Palmer house has quite the reputation and not just some overhyped internet ghost story kind of reputation. We're talking actual paranormal investigators, psychics, a number of skeptics turned believers, people who walk in laughing and walk out refusing to ever come back. Uh, it's, it seemed to be the kind of place where the lore and experiences might actually line up for a change.

Looking to Wikipedia to learn the basics, I discovered that the historic hotel, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, was built in 1901 after the original Sauk Center house burned to the ground. A three-story brick building on the northwest corner of Sauk Center's principal intersection, the Palmer was very modern for its time. Electricity, steam, heat, all the amenities.

It must have been quite a sight to behold for the town's residents back then with its round arched windows and doors lining the ground floor. They even imported stained glass arched windows that opened into the lobby and restaurant from Vienna. Looking on some other websites, I learned that over the years, guests have seen shadowy figures walking the halls, heard children laughing late at night, and even seen apparitions sitting at the foot of their bed. But room 11, the one Clara told me to stay in, that's supposedly the most haunted room by far. And that's where I stayed.

And it did not disappoint. The moment I stepped into the Palmer house, it felt off. Nothing overly dramatic at first. Not like stepping into a horror movie or anything. More like walking into a space where something bad had happened. Or a number of bad things. And the walls hadn't forgotten. The lobby smelled faintly of lemon furniture polish and also of something older. Something like burnt wood. I remember that distinctly.

The woman at the front desk gave me a polite smile when I checked in, but her eyes changed slightly when she saw what room I'd been assigned, and she asked, You're an 11? I nodded, and she didn't say anything else. She just handed me the key, then maybe looked down at her paperwork a little too quickly, like she didn't want me to see her reaction. I might be reading into things. She could have just been really busy, but based on what happened, I don't think so.

Room 11 is on the second floor, past a long hallway lined with vintage furniture and black and white photos of Sauk Center from the early 1900s. Walking down the hallway, the thick carpet muffled my footsteps, and I started to have this creeping feeling like something was walking right behind me. I stopped once and turned around, but there was nothing. I remember feeling so disappointed that it would have been so great to have a true paranormal experience before even making it to my room.

Once I made it inside of my room, I found it to be small but charming, with its clawfoot tub, vintage vanity, and iron bed frame. The kind of place that would be really cozy if it didn't feel like someone else was already occupying it. There was a strange heaviness in the air, as if the room had its own pressure system. Having gotten myself worked up so many times before over nothing, I wrote it off as me just once again really wanting it to be something paranormal. I dropped my bag, unpacked a few things, and then decided to walk around town a bit to clear my head.

I wanted to stretch my legs, grab a drink and reset. I didn't want to wonder if I was feeling things or hearing things because of how excited I was when I showed up. Not sure my walk left me feeling less spooked though. It was late October, cold enough that my breath fogged in the air. And downtown Sauk Center felt like a ghost town in its own right. All brick facades and shuttered shops at night. I made it back to my room around 9pm, no strange feeling in the hallway this time, and decided to take a long hot shower. That was when things started to get real weird real quick.

And it definitely wasn't my imagination. That wouldn't come close to explaining what happened. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw something in the vanity mirror. Just for a second, I saw the figure of a woman, pale and blurry, standing beside me. She wasn't real detailed in the heavily steamed mirror. Neither was my reflection, of course. But it looked exactly like another person, a woman. How they would look if they were in the bathroom with me. I spun around with my heart racing. No one. I tried to tell myself it was just the steam playing tricks on me. That it was all in my mind.

That maybe I was expecting to see something like that because of all the stories. But that wouldn't have explained it. I clearly saw her shape. And then the moment I turned back towards the mirror, I saw something else. Something that definitely couldn't be explained away by steam. I saw words on the mirror. As if someone had used their finger to write them. And what they said still gives me the chills when I think about it. He watches. What the hell? He watches? Who was he? I immediately wondered. And why was he watching?

I'm surprised I didn't start screaming. My skin prickled, but I didn't lose it. I know how this sounds, but I was actually excited. I waited for years to have this moment. I couldn't wait to share what I'd seen with Clara. I even took a picture with my phone. I tried to figure out how to post it along with the story, but it wouldn't really be proof for anyone else if I did, would it? I mean, how would you know? I just didn't write it myself. It would certainly be an easy thing to do.

I stood frozen staring at it for what felt like forever before drops of water started to form on the mirror out of the steam and then they ran down the mirror and wiped the words away. Spooky as that was, it didn't make me want to pack my things up and flee. I wondered what else I'd hear. What else I'd see if I stayed. I wondered how much I could handle. Quite a bit, as it turned out. But I eventually reached my limit. The rest of that night felt wrong. Every time I shut off the lights, I'd hear footsteps out in the hallway.

Not creaking, not a thud. Footsteps. Slow and deliberate. Someone pacing back and forth and then stopping outside my door. I got up once and checked, but no one was there. I wondered if it was the woman from the bathroom. When I went out into the hallway at one point to poke around, the temperature there was noticeably colder than the rest of the hotel. Like walk-in freezer cold. I actually saw my breath hanging in the air. That, like the woman in the mirror and the message written on it, definitely was not just in my imagination.

I tried to stay up as long as I could that night, but I drifted off around 2 a.m. And then I woke up around an hour later to the sound of knocking. Three knocks, very deliberate. And they weren't coming from the hallway. They were coming from the closet door in my room, like someone was locked inside and they needed my help to get out. I sat up slowly, trying not to make too much noise, and stared at the closet with eyes that must have been as big as dinner plates.

The room was dark, but not pitch black, just dimly lit by a street lamp outside filtering in through the curtain. It was quiet now, and I waited. Pretty soon I heard another knock, and then another, and another. Three slow spaced out raps.

I got up slowly with my heart hammering and approached the closet. I know, I know, that's not usually how it goes. But remember, I came here specifically because it was haunted, wanting to see what I could experience. I was scared, but more than scared, I was curious. The door was shut. My breath caught in my throat as I reached out and turned the knob. Nothing was inside. I don't know if I was more relieved or disappointed. While I didn't see anything, it was definitely weirdly cold in there. It was freezing.

I turned the flashlight on on my phone, looked around in the closet, and then saw something that finally freaked me out. Words. Somebody had carved into the back. Barely legible, like someone had scratched him into the back of the closet with their fingernails. I see you. First, he watches. Then, I see you. They had to be related. Had whoever written he watches in the mirror written I see you back when they were still alive? For some reason, that's what popped into my mind.

I started to hope that I didn't see anything more intense than I'd already witnessed after that. The atmosphere of the room felt really, really dark, like something truly terrible had happened there. It might happen again. I packed my bag, and I left the light on until I left in the morning. I think I was out of that room by six. I was able to get a refund on the second night of my original reservation. I got the sense they were used to that happening. When I got home, I started digging more into Room 11 online, and that was when I found out about Lucy.

I'd read her name before I checked in when I came across some other lore, but then I decided to stop so I wouldn't be overly influenced by what others said they had seen. That turned out to be a good decision. I think if I would have known more about her before I checked into room 11, I would have completely freaked out in the bathroom when I saw her reflection and bolted. No way I would have lasted until the next morning. Here's what I uncovered. Apparently back in the 1930s, a young woman named Lucy stayed in that same room.

Traveling alone, which was somewhat scandalous for the time, she was supposed to be meeting someone, a man, but he never showed up. What did show up, according to the legends, was something much darker. She was found in that room days later, according to a couple of sources. I couldn't find any official police report or record, but I found enough whispered accounts and local lore to paint a pretty crazy picture that I do believe after what I experienced. The room was locked from the inside. Her body was found twisted unnaturally inside the closet.

Her eyes were wide open, her mouth contorted into a scream, and there was no signs of a struggle. She didn't have any wounds, and yet she'd clearly died in the state of pure, inexplicable terror. Believers say that Lucy has never left that room. That now sometimes she knocks on the closet still waiting to be found, or hoping someone can still help her. And help her from what? Some believe something else, something demonic maybe came for her, something that still watches guests through mirrors, and walks the halls just out of view.

Something Lucy's ghost tries to warn guests about when she writes on the mirror Some staff members have apparently refused to clean that room and others have quit after a single shift And a lot of people who have stayed there have reported the same three things One a woman seen briefly in the mirror Two words appearing in the steam of the mirror or on condensation or dust in the window and three knocking from inside the closet

I don't regret staying in the room 11 in room 11 of the Palmer House Hotel. I got what I came for, a definitive paranormal encounter. And now I think I'm good, at least for a little while. I think I'll wait for my dreams about someone knocking inside of a closet to go away before I take my next big adventure.

It's not funny, but at the end, I was singing our camp theme song in my head. Someone's knocking at the door. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like, wait. Stay in the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was happy that was the end. I got so excited at the beginning, so I was like, Sock Center, 11's my lucky number. This is going to be a great story. And I don't fucking like it. I know. I don't fucking like it.

I know. That thing about like hearing knocking coming from inside of a closet. Yes. That's not fun. Remember just a couple weeks ago here I was talking about how I heard our closet door click shut in the middle of the night. It's a similar feeling where it's like there's no reason why anybody should be inside any closet in any room anywhere. Right. Yeah. A hotel room, your own bedroom.

a supply closet at your office. Like, it just doesn't make sense. But it is enough to make you... You get chills. Yep. I see you squirming over there. It's just enough for you to be like, God, because it is possible. It's not...

proper, but it's possible. I was picturing you and I in the room and then seeing a little hand on the other side of the handle pulling the closet door shut. Worse than that for me. So our closet doors, which I picked out and they are quite beautiful, have a couple glass panels. They almost look like an exterior door for those of you who are into architectural things or really care about doors. You know those

mid-century modern doors and it's like a slat of solid wood and then a slat of frosted glass. And it's like that on our closet door. And I just imagine seeing a hand from the inside of the closet press up against the glass. Fuck the handle. I see a hand. That's worse. Because for some reason, like a rattling handle, I think I can, in our room specifically, we do have ceiling vents. So I would immediately default to the heat or the AC kicked on. Yeah.

why the handle's rattling from that is beyond me when it never has. But, like, I could explain it away. A handprint on glass? Yeah. GTFO, baby! Yep, that's creepy. And also, so in this story that this person is posting...

I think we all have a little bit of the fear of handwriting showing up on the mirror when we get out of the shower. I know. I'd forgotten that one. I mean, it comes up a lot, but it's been a while since we've told a story where that's come up. Yeah. I'm like, oh, yeah. Yeah. And usually, like, I love to, like, you know, really kind of, like, clear up my sinuses when I, like, a long, steamy shower in the morning. Oh, you sure do. And so the mirror gets so steamy. Yeah. And just imagine, like, all of a sudden a message appearing on there. Imagine seeing it appear.

Like watching it being written. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I know because if you got out of the shower and there was like some message written in the mirror, I'm sure you would start to think like, wait, was Lindsay in here? Did she write on the mirror previously? She messed with me. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. I have some pictures. Yes. Show me Sock Center. I mean, none came with this story, but there's plenty of pictures of the Palmer House Hotel Online. So yeah, I'll share some of those. Here's a basic recent exterior shot of this place in downtown Sock Center. And it's like S-A-U-K-C.

C-E-N-T-R-E. I think that's how it's spelled. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's cute. It's exactly what I thought it would be. It's a big brick box. This is a photo of the lobby taken shortly after it opened back in 1901. Yeah, it's really pretty. And you can see that it hasn't really changed much. Oh, wow. Okay. That's from 2012. Okay. So, you know, they got carpet and different furniture, but I mean, the basic structure is the same. Ceiling panels look the same.

I'm kind of disappointed. It looked better back then. Oh, yeah, with the hardwood floor and they got like the old piano and stuff back then. And just like salon chairs. Yeah, the carpet. Not it makes it right now. This photo of you also told me that this was like an old folks retirement home. I would also believe you. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

Uh, and then I tried to find room photos of room 11 in that second floor hallway, but I, but I couldn't find anything that I was certain was room 11. Fair enough. Too many stock photos about the hotel. So that's, uh, that's all I got. That's it. That's all I got. Yeah. It has the vibe of like a, uh, um, old, like mining town.

That brick building when I see the exterior. It's like if you showed me that in sepia tones with a couple people walking down the street. Oh, yeah. Like horse and buggy in the street. I would. That would feel accurate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He watches. He watches. I see you.

I feel like that could have been you in that story in the sense of like, I can see you being like, okay, I'm good now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then I can also see you like a year or so later being like, okay, I'll do it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be scared for a while. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that knocking from inside the closet. If I heard that distinctly, like they claim like twice, two series of three knocks. Yeah.

And then saw that I, I think I would be down in the lobby or, or somewhere. I would probably just get in my car, like leave them and just start driving back home. I mean, cause let me tell you, if I'm there with you, we're not staying. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be probably too much for me. What if it was knocking coming from underneath the floorboards underneath your bed?

In a hotel, if I was on the second floor, that would scare me less because I would assume it's somebody from downstairs. Okay. What if, hear me out, you couldn't stand it and you got down on your hands and knees, you're pressing your ear to the floor. It's definitely, you can kind of like, it's very specific to that floorboard. Right. And you call down to the front desk and you make a noise complaint and then they tell you no one's staying in the room beneath you. Yeah. I might leave from that too. Okay. Just hypotheticals. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, we're going to leave Minnesota now and head actually not that far over to Missouri. Okay, let's say goodbye to our friends there. But before we move on for more scares, we need to take a quick in-between story sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads, please sign up to be a Robert or an Annabelle on our Patreon to get all these episodes ad free, additional bonus episodes and more.

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I, on the other hand, grew up in a household with mantras like, I worked hard, so I deserve this. And, well, I guess it's another month of robbing Peter to pay Paul. No one talked to me directly about saving and budgeting, but the examples I saw taught me that money was an emotional thing. Once Dan and I got together, he took the time to actually teach me about money and how very unemotional it can be. We all learned about money in different ways. Our parents just doing the best they could.

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This Mother's Day, don't just call your mom. Make that call and also send an AuraFrame as well. I mean, how sweet would it be to call your mom or the mom-like people whom you love on Mother's Day and share your favorite story behind your favorite picture that you just uploaded to their new AuraFrame? Dan and I don't live close to any of our families, so the AuraFrame remains one of the most important.

cherished ways we keep our families up to date on our lives. Anytime we go somewhere that offers those like super cheesy green screen photos, I insist that we get them and we post super weird and we make absurd faces. You can imagine it. Our families all think they're hilarious and it's so much fun to share the story behind the picture with them. A great picture and a great conversation piece all shared thanks to the magic of

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Okay, a lot of historical setup on this one, I'll warn you. Far more than usual, but I think it gets pretty entertaining. A little bit of a feud situation develops. St. Mary's Episcopal Church, originally called St. Luke's, was founded all the way back in 1854, making it the first Episcopal church in Kansas City, Missouri. Back when it was called St. Luke's, in the early years, the church did not have a permanent home, and the congregation would just meet at various locations near the city's river market neighborhood, often in somebody's home.

Then in 1867, the church was able to purchase a lot on the corner of 8th and Walnut Streets, which is now a Hampton Inn. Five years later, wealthy church member Mary Troost deeded a parcel of land at 13th and Holmes to the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri for a new building with the stipulation that the church change its patronage to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Clearly, the church agreed to take Mary up on her offer. The current church was constructed on that lot with the building completed in 1887.

Following his completion, St. Mary's not only acted as a church and also operated schools for both boys and girls in downtown Kansas City, and then as it continued to grow and receive more and more patronage in the form of both tithes and donations, parish members founded the All Saints Hospital, which later became St. Luke's Health System, the third largest employer in the Kansas City metro area today with over 12,000 employees. Pretty impressive.

St. Mary's continues community outreach today in the 21st century by providing groceries to those in need and through supporting fine arts. So it doesn't sound like a place with a past that would lead to a haunting. So why is this exceptional church the site of the paranormal? Because many believe St. Mary's has been haunted for over a century by the spirit of Reverend Henry Jardine, very polarizing figure in the church's early history.

Although the current iteration of St. Mary's was built two years after his death and over 2,500 miles away from where he died, there may be some evidence supporting the belief that the Reverend's soul still lingers inside its walls. Jardine was born in Canada around 1841 and was orphaned at a young age. He was raised by his older sister and her husband in Rochester, New York. At the age of 16, he and a friend robbed his brother-in-law's trunk factory and Jardine was convicted of theft and would actually serve two years in prison.

He then converted to Christianity before his release, and after he got out, he was admitted to Trinity College in Connecticut, where he was introduced to Anglo-Catholicism. Jardine became an Episcopal priest in 1875, then briefly moved to St. Louis before settling in Kansas City. Four years later, in 1879, Jardine was made the rector of St. Mary's, which was still known as St. Luke's at the time, as the new church had not been completed.

He was a key founder of St. Luke's Hospital and started a school to educate the children of sex workers at a brothel down the street. He objectively did a lot of great things, however, not everyone thought he was great. Jardine also introduced rituals favored by the Anglo-Catholic movement, such as adding candles and incense, recruiting altar boys, and introducing formal confessions, which caused a lot of tension among some of his parishioners. These changes were considered so controversial by some that they left the church.

and then others would leave over allegations regarding his behavior. Reverend Jardine was a handsome and charming guy and quite popular with a number of women at his church, perhaps suspiciously popular. And as reported by one paper, quote, among the men, he had the faculty of arousing bitter antagonisms. Maybe some of those men suspected that Reverend Jardine was not exactly practicing what he preached when it came to the women who attended his church.

A pamphlet was published attacking Jardine's character in this regard, and Jardine responded by excommunicating the authors of the pamphlet from the church, accusing them of attending service while inebriated. That didn't sit well with many, and it of course made him look that much guiltier to some. Following that, the same allegations against Jardine were printed in the Kansas City Times, the editor of which was a church member, John C. Shea. And because Shea allowed those allegations to go to print, now he was excommunicated.

which added more fuel to the fire of Jardine's supposed improprieties. Then on June 10th, 1885, the Times read an article titled Jailbird Jardine that detailed Jardine's past crime and prison sentence. Jardine was honest with the congregation about his past arrest. He acknowledged his youthful mistake, but said he had paid his debt to society, been forgiven by God, and the matter had been put to rest, or at least should have been.

But then six days later, the excommunicated Shea published an article titled Jardine's Jolities, accusing the Reverend of various immoral acts with parishioners during confessions. For example, Jardine had been caught literally red-handed in a sense, or I guess she was red-bottomed. He might've been red-handed. He got caught literally spanking a young lady described as being in a state of undress as a form of penance, penance that sure sounded sexual in nature.

I wish I could list out more details of his supposed improprieties, but in old newspaper articles from 1885, they're referred to only vaguely. He's mainly alleged to have been a, quote, depraved individual and a, quote, lecherous scoundrel. And now word of Jardine's alleged behavior spread much further. Newspapers all around the country were publishing stories about Jardine and Shea's conflict.

Jardine attempted to clear his name by filing libel charges against Shea in his paper, but his case was dismissed because Jardine could not conclusively disprove the allegations. Around that time, Jardine, worried about someone doing him harm over what had been printed in the papers, or perhaps worried that somebody's husband was going to try and kill him for what he may have been doing with some parishioner's wife, he began preaching with a revolver on his person.

Then in September of 1885, an ecclesiastical court convened Grace Episcopal Church to discuss the allegations against Jardine. Over a month later, he was found guilty of inappropriate behavior with female parishioners and of the habitual use of chloroform.

Not common, but some people used to abuse it recreationally. He wasn't using it on other people. He was using it on himself. Very dangerous to do so. I guess the high is similar to feeling drunk, but doesn't last long. Not great from a risk-reward standpoint. Big risk, not much reward, and almost no one abuses it like that today. Jardine claimed he used the drug to treat a chronic nerve condition.

Jardine was now to be removed as a priest, but the verdict was not announced immediately. He was allowed to appeal the decision and possibly have it reversed. Jardine's initial motion for a retry was quickly denied. Then he traveled to St. Louis at the very start of January of 1886 to appeal to the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, but he didn't get the outcome he wanted there either. Instead, Jardine quickly received word that his conviction would stand and would be announced in just a few days on January 9th.

The following morning, Father George C. Betts, minister of Trinity Church where Jardim was staying, found him in the sacristy. At first, he thought Jardim was sleeping, but instead, when he examined him more closely, he discovered the priest was dead. His body was found with a handkerchief over his face, a bottle of chloroform at his side, and a rusty iron chain welded around his waist in a presumed act of eternal penance.

Jardine's remains were returned to Kansas City on January 29th. His casket was transported to St. Mary's, and the crowd saw the formerly welded chain beside him in the coffin. After the mourning ceremony, Jardine's remains were taken to Union Cemetery for storage until a proper burial could be arranged. Despite the medical examiner expressing doubt that Jardine had killed himself, the bishop ruled his death as a suicide, and now Jardine's detractors saw that as an admission of his guilt.

Many of his supporters, however, argued that the stress of the trial caused a flare-up with his nerve condition, which led Jardine to accidentally overdose him, and some of his supporters argued he had been murdered. Jardine's final letter had not indicated he had felt either guilty or suicidal. Instead, he had expressed his intentions to keep fighting the accusations leveled against him.

Most church leaders wanted him buried under the altar of the new St. Mary's, which was still under construction. However, because Jardine's death was declared a suicide in line with church policy, he could not be buried on consecrated ground. In 1890, Jardine's remains were moved to Elmwood Cemetery and remained there for over three decades until his supporters lobbied to finally have them reinterred at the consecrated St. Luke's burial ground at Forest Hill Cemetery in 1921. Despite his name being, in a sense, kind of cleared,

his spirit might not have been at rest after that time now for the tale of the ghost of henry jardine soon after the reverend's death strange things began to happen inside the church a great number of parishioners have spoken of feeling the sensation of being watched and some have added they've smelt incense when none was burning

Recent organist Keith Gottschall claims to have experienced something much more intense than that. He said he was once standing in the church parking lot when he saw the clear figure of someone walking past the upstairs music office window. He told writer John Hurtz in 2000, So I went up the back stairs and up to the door, and I felt a cold space in the stairway that made my hair stand up. Frankly, I didn't go into the office. The office door was locked when he left, but he said he found it unlocked just minutes later when he was brave enough to return.

He believes the figure he saw was the ghost of Reverend Jardine. Gottschall also said that he occasionally brought his dog to church while he practiced and recalled his dog, the hair on his back raised up and growling, carefully tracking an invisible object across the sanctuary more than once. Because of that, he stopped practicing in the church after the sun went down. Reverend Edwin Merrill is another man who claims to have encountered Jardine's ghost during the roughly 50 years he spent at St. Mary's.

He recalled several instances when he distinctly heard somebody walking up the back steps to his living quarters at night. When he was positive he was alone in the church. The phantom visitor never entered his quarters, or at least he never heard or saw them do so. Merrill also claims to have heard unexplained knocking, creaking, and thumping noises around the altar that had been dedicated to Father Jardine. He would speak about all this with psychic investigator Marie Schwalm. Schwalm thinks Jardine was murdered, and that's why his spirit has lingered inside the church for all these years.

Schwamm walked around the church with a gauss meter, which measures electromagnetic waves, and apparently the meter buzzed loudly at the back staircase and also buzzed a lot near the altar. When Schwamm took infrared photos of the altar, he claimed he saw what looked like the image of a priest carrying a candle. Schwamm also claimed that in 1977, he encountered Jardine's ghost in the sanctuary, smiling and levitating above the ground. In 2000, some church members decided to unearth Jardine's remains and move them again.

now placing them under the altar at St. Mary's, where his supporters originally wanted them to be placed. Schwalm theorizes that because of this, Jardine's spirit is present but calmer now that his name has been further vindicated. He said, quote, I think Father Jardine's definitely functioning as a guardian spirit for the parish. Back in November of 2000, Senior Warden Thomas Atkins said, I've been up those back steps hundreds of times, and a cool breeze would be welcome in the summer. There's nothing to be afraid of in there, but there is something different.

Some wonderful spirit has helped us to restore the church. Many parishioners view the reverend as now being a protective spirit watching over his former church. The following story was posted online, a little short modern encounter here, by someone who claims they had an unusual encounter in the church's music office, possibly with this protective spirit. I've been attending St. Mary's my entire life, and I've sang in the choir for at least a decade. Practice ran late one evening around Christmas time.

We were practicing for the special service, and I volunteered to stay behind to help prepare the sanctuary. My director asked me to go to the music office to print off extra pamphlets, since we were expecting higher-than-normal attendance. The sanctuary is beautiful at night, but those back offices and hallways always take on an eerie air when it's dark outside. I was pretty tense as I made my way to the music office, startling at even the slightest sounds.

I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard soft footsteps behind me. I turned around, expecting to find the choir director there, but the hallway was empty. After taking a moment to calm my rapidly beating heart, I continued down the hall, only to hear what sounded like footsteps again a few moments later. They were soft, but regular, like whoever was around was casually strolling to their destination as opposed to trying to sneak up on me. I wondered if perhaps somebody was pulling a late-night prank.

Or, I'm sorry, I wondered if perhaps someone else was also pulling at late night, so I called out, hello? But received no answer. Now this is getting ridiculous. I remember thinking to myself, did one of my kids stay behind, I wondered? Were they trying to prank me? I thought my director had said everyone had been picked up, but then I wondered if maybe I was wrong. Deciding to confront this possible prankster, I turned back down the hall, checking all the open doorways.

As I was looking into an empty office, the air at my back instantly chilled, and I felt the distinct sensation of a hand tapping my shoulder, followed by the brush of someone's arm, as if they were squeezing past me in the narrow hallway. It was over in a moment, but I knew exactly what I'd felt. Someone had touched me, despite the fact that I'd been alone in the hallway.

I decided the printouts weren't that important and ran back into the sanctuary shouting my director's name. When I told her what happened, a devious smile came upon her face and she actually had the nerve to laugh. She'd been at the church for decades and told me I was far from the first person who had shared that kind of story with her. She claimed it was the old reverend and that she'd also heard his footsteps in the hallway on a number of occasions. She reassured me he was harmless and went up to the office with me to print out the pamphlets without further incident."

Thankfully, that has been my one and only encounter with the ghost of the infamous Reverend Jardine. Well, I guess you just don't get to move people's dead bodies around without some sort of incident. He had a very tumultuous end of his life. And it is crazy. I was trying to find more details of his supposed improprieties. You can go on newspaper.com, this database. It's crazy how many old newspapers it has. Every day for years, from all around the world.

And, you know, they would just say, like, lecherous. They wouldn't say, like, specific things other than spanking. Uh-huh. Which is pretty funny. Which is pretty funny. And actually, yeah, he spanked her, like, I said red-handed, but I think he actually spanked her with a shoe. So it sounded like her bare ass with a shoe. Okay, well...

Yeah, a little weird. Okay. But you do what you got to do. But it was crazy that that editor clearly was very pissed off about being excommunicated. Oh, yeah. I loved it. And it was day after day after day after day of articles about this guy. I love that it took on a life of its own, like being published across the nation. Oh, yeah. Just like this big feud in Kansas City between this priest and this newspaper editor just going back and forth with libel claims. Yeah.

And then, you know, the editor had the upper hand because he had the paper and just hammered him for like weeks over this one summer. I just was thinking like how different obviously it was then than it is now. But it's like, I mean, I keep up on news across like various states and feel like up to date on like a little bit of what's happening here, what's happening there. But generally speaking, it's like.

When are you reading the news about what's going on in Kansas City? Right. Yeah. If it doesn't garner national attention. Yeah. You know, and if you don't care. Yeah. But like back then, it's like things were simpler in a variety of ways. I mean, definitely a harder kind of life. Yeah. But just imagine waiting for the paper to come out and be like, ooh. What are they saying today? You live in, you know, Bend, Oregon. And you're like, ooh.

Yeah.

And I bet it was a bigger deal because religion held a different place in society at that point in history, too. Yeah. And so it was a big deal to be excommunicated and a big deal for somebody excommunicated to go up against their former priest and be like, uh-uh, buddy, you're a dirtbag. I love it. I have some photos. Okay. I would love to see a photo. Here's an old black and white photo of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, date unknown. That's pretty. Yeah, it is pretty.

And this is a more recent photo. Oh, wow. It's in great shape. Mm-hmm. You have that brick built to last. Mm-hmm. And that's Henry D. Jardine, old portrait of the guy. Interestingly, I don't think he's handsome. I know. It's different for the time. I know. There are plenty of handsome people. I see plenty of photos from back then. I think like, okay.

I don't get it. Maybe it wasn't photogenic. Here's an old cartoon. Oh, my gosh. Printed in the Kansas City Times about him accusing Jardine of inappropriate acts with female parishioners. Does he have the shoe in his hand? Is he about to spank her? Oh, he sure does. Oh, she's about to lift up her dress and he's about to spank her bottom. She likes it. Yeah.

hopefully uh and then uh this is uh oh that's pretty the obligatory yeah kind of night shot of the haunted church it is a cool photo it is cool photo okay that's it all right well thanks for that yeah uh and again you can find those photos on uh at scared to death podcast on either instagram or facebook maybe i'm just kidding i mean if i remember to post them uh i do

Do you have a Layla with you? I do. I have a red Layla. Okay. Spicy Layla. She's a spicy meepo. Okay. Well, if you're ready, I'm ready. Yeah, let's do it.

Afternoon, Mrs. and Master of the Spook. Oh, Mrs. and Master, okay. My name is Jason. I'm a 20-year-old kid currently trying to become a programmer. Oh, wow, cool. I have lived a relatively peaceful, normal life. I was never religious, and I don't think I ever will be. When I was young, I was never scared of ghosts, the boogeyman, or really anything other than home intruders.

It was just the way I was raised. I, however, am not here to write an autobiography. I want to tell you about an experience that spanned the course of about two months for me, and to this day, I can't really explain as anything other than paranormal. That, or some sort of anomaly of science. And so I'll begin.

I was around eight years of age and my family at the time, me, my father, stepmother, and stepsister, finally got the chance to move out of our crowded two-bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah. My parents found a quaint little red brick home for rent that was roughly the same price as our crowded apartment.

Needless to say, it was a no-brainer for my parents for us to move there. It was just a five-minute walk to the elementary school I would be attending and a five-minute drive to a grocery store. We all walked the home together to get a feel for the space.

I felt the same old new home uneasiness I had experienced before. I knew the home wasn't scary. I just was not used to this new place. At the time, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and I soon learned to love the home. Thus, we all gathered our things up and set up shop.

Days and weeks passed. We played in the backyard. I went to school. We had our first Thanksgiving in the home. As days went by and curiosity grabbed my mind, I began to want to explore the otherwise empty basement. It was a rough, hastily finished basement. The concrete walls were coarse and would cut you oftentimes if your hands brushed against them too quickly. There was a shower down there that always dripped.

a door behind the stairs that was screwed shut, likely to keep cold air out. But these weren't the strangest things. The laundry room had no lights and held a very old workbench covered in cobwebs. One day, I opened the drawer to investigate and found them filled to the brim with keys of all shapes, sizes, and types. I thought nothing of it. Sometimes, when I was in the basement for a while, I'd take a moment to stand still and listen.

A growing feeling of dread that I needed to get out of the basement would wash over me. A feeling that something was coming. Childhood imagination? Probably. However, I soon stopped going into the basement altogether.

I slowly started feeling more and more weird about the home as the weeks went by. One night, something particularly strange began to occur. Do you know what Tamagotchis are? They were, essentially, little virtual pet games. You would carry, you would take care of them, grow them, and if you didn't, they would die. I happened to own one that my cousin gave me months before moving into our new home.

The batteries, however, fell out long before we ever moved, rendering it useless and unresponsive. One night at 9.02 p.m., I began hearing a digitized version of Beethoven's Führer Elise playing from the corner of my room. It played the beginning of the song for about five seconds and then stopped.

Before I could find where it was coming from, it had already ended. Puzzled, I went back to bed and fell asleep. The next night, 9.02 p.m. rolled around and it happened again.

This time, I ran out of bed and found it was coming from my toy bin, but I couldn't find the exact toy. The third night, I found it. The sound was coming from my battery-less Tamagotchi. I knew the toy couldn't work without batteries. I tried pressing the buttons over and over after the music stopped, but nothing happened. No beeps, no lights. It was dead. I woke my dad up and told him about it. He told me to go back to sleep.

Yeah.

We watched the clock until it landed on 9.02 p.m. On cue, the song played. A confused look on his face, my dad told me not to worry about it, saying, It's okay, buddy. I found a way to charge it. Nothing to be scared of. In later years, he would tell me he never touched the thing. Not once.

once. Never mind the fact that there was no way to charge it. It ran on batteries. The Tamagotchi continued to play from the basement every night at 9.02 p.m. on the dot until, slowly, I began getting used to it. My dad told me to throw it away and he'd buy me a new one, but I refused. 9.02 p.m. on another night, I listened to the muffled music from the toy ring out through the air vent next to my bed just before falling asleep.

Just as quickly as I fell asleep, I woke up.

3.57 a.m. I felt as if I had closed my eyes for only a moment and then skipped ahead in time somehow. I felt confused and uneasy, and I wanted my dad. I began rolling over to get out of bed when I saw a man leaning against the left side of the hallway. I froze, petrified by fear, and so scared I couldn't even scream for help. I thought he was a home intruder as he stood motionless in the hall, looking at where I laid. He was about...

5'10", wore a red t-shirt, blue jeans, and boots. The more I stared, the more uneasy and puzzled I felt. I could see him clear as day, yet he was enveloped in the darkness of my home, as if he were unaffected by the darkness. His face was blurred. It was impossible to make out. His facial features were moving in a fast staccato haze, making them impossible to interpret. I stared at him for what felt like hours.

Eventually, I came to understand this was not an intruder. This was something else. My legs crept out from under my covers as my bare feet touched the cold hardwood floors. I stood up and then stayed standing, staring at him for several minutes before I took my first step.

Then another, and at a glacial speed, I finally made my way towards him. His gaze, not following my movements, but rather focused, remained on where I had been lying in bed.

Even up close, he seemed to have no face, and yet he had every face I could possibly imagine. I reached out my hand to touch him, but he disappeared. I stood in the dark hallway, arm extended in silence, tears rolling down my face as I trembled. I shuffled to my parents' room and told them, "'There's a man in the house. I don't know where he went, but he was in the hallway staring at me.'" My dad jumped out of bed, grabbed a baseball bat, and started flipping on lights."

There was no sign of a forced entry. All the doors were still locked, the windows still shut. No one was there. From that night on, the Tamagotchi never played music ever again. Life returned to normal. I could not fall asleep for months afterwards unless we left the bathroom light on to shine into the hallway.

I still can't find a way to explain a toy that requires disposable batteries playing five seconds of a song that was never programmed into the toy in the first place, then playing that music at the exact same time every night for weeks to then only stop after I saw the man in the hallway.

Not only had I heard and witnessed this, but so had my family. We later moved into another home about six months later. Nothing else ever happened in that home. We simply had the money to move into a better one. Never again would I have an experience so remarkably hard to explain.

Thanks for the stories you share and the experiences we get to investigate through you. You guys really are a unique shelter from the normality and biases of most forms of media nowadays. It does not go unappreciated. Keep on spookin', Jason. Well, thank you, Jason. Oh, you're welcome. Speaking for Jason.

Well, Jason and I were kind of like one in the same. I like the detail in that story about his dad telling him that like I charged it or whatever. Yeah. Because with an eight-year-old, I can totally see myself doing that. Absolutely. Yeah, like one of the kids has worked up about their toy and they thought like, but dad, but there's no batteries. How can it be saying, oh, no, no, no, no, I charged it. Yeah. Just to get them to be like, oh, okay. Yeah, because you want them to shut up and you want them to sleep because you're tired and you want to sleep. And they don't, you know. And you do think it's their imagination. Of course you do.

Of course you do. Yeah. The 902 PM over and over and over detail is super strange, obviously. Yes. And then it's stopping after the night where the weird guy with the blurry face, the dark figure in the hallway showed up. Yeah. Weird ending. Yeah. And to just like, poof, okay, done. Yep, we're done. Whatever was in that toy is out now. Yeah. Or like whatever was in the basement. I think it's tied to the basement because...

Jason says early on that the basement made him uncomfortable, which is, you know, a fairly common thing. But the Tamagotchi got placed in the basement. So it's like somehow I feel like the two are connected. Yeah.

I can't quite figure out how. Do you know what a Tamagotchi is? Do you remember them? I don't. I know what they are. I never had one. I did look them up. And it's like a little digital, it's about this round, sort of like egg-shaped, had a very teeny tiny screen. Because you could put it on your keychain. It had like a keychain extension on it. Oh. So it was just like, you know, this very teeny tiny, like, compartmentalized,

computer looking screen? I think I, you know what, I think I might remember that actually. Yeah, and it like, you said the keychain detail. Yeah, and it was like digital, like the screen, the way that like, I think I do remember this. Oregon Trail, you know, like those little like blocks is kind of how it looked. I don't know how to explain that. I think I know what you're talking about now. Yeah.

Yeah, and then the fact that Jason said it was playing a song, a snippet of a song that was never programmed into it. Yeah, and like specifically a Beethoven song. Also, I'd like to know how Jason, at eight years old, I'm like, were you guys just listening to nothing but classical music? Because you could play Beethoven's Fiora Elise, and I would not know that. Or maybe I would, and I just don't know that that's what it's called. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I definitely didn't know any classical music songs growing up. Do you know any now?

No, I listen, you know, it's so funny. I listened to Tchaikovsky briefly. I thought it helped me study for like maybe one semester just for that purpose. Yeah. And convince myself that I liked it. I think it was maybe like Swan Lake or something was one of his songs. Sure.

Today, I could not name a single. There's no way. I might be like, maybe Flight of the Bumblebees, but I think that's it, but I don't even know who did that. Yeah, yeah. I can't pull that from memory. Classical music's just never really been my thing. Yeah, I think I have like a slight... Well, I always enjoyed it, but I couldn't name composers and all that, and then Kyler got really into... Oh, my God. Grieg. Grieg, yep. Edvard Grieg. And so there's a lot of... I have a lot of it on my phone just from listening to it, but...

Really? We would just turn on classical music in the car and make the kids go to sleep. Right. Cracks me up that both of the kids are way more into classical music than I've ever been. Monroe, hardly. But she plays it. She'll play like piano. She's taking piano lessons now. Well, yeah, but that's the only reason she's playing it because that's where you start. But I'm like, man, if I was learning music, it's just funny. I'm like, oh, man, go for rock and roll. Go for a popular song. Go Billy Joel. Even some basic. Yeah, but she's got to learn the basics first. Like how did we get to rock and roll? We had classical music first. Yeah.

Actually, I disagree. You do? Yeah. I think some rock and roll songs are simpler in their structure and that you can just like once you learn how to read music, you don't have to go to the old stuff. You can go to the new stuff. Well, that's not what her teacher is telling her. Oh, yeah. Her teacher is a family member, so we're just going to leave it at that. Okay. Well, are you ready for another one? I am. All right. Let's go. Hello, King and Queen of the Suck.

Hello. I was introduced to... Oh my God, I can't even say the name. I was introduced to Scared to Death and Time Suck by my mom. Sweet. Shout out to Mama McD. So cute. Mama McD. I feel relieved knowing that there are others out there that share my dark and twisted sense of humor. I personally do not believe in any higher powers

And I have always been a skeptic of the paranormal. Now, that being said, I am a huge creeper. As a kid, I was drawn to scary movies and stories, and I loved the feeling of being scared. As an adult, I'm desensitized to horror. I do not believe in ghosts, demons, or anything of the nature. I believe in monsters that commit real crimes every day. However, this made me question everything.

I started dating my now husband, Logan, seven years ago. Due to both of us going through some not-so-great breakups, we were both living with our parents. My husband lived right on the edge of town, where the school and football field sat feet away from my in-law's southern property line. The rest of their property is surrounded by 40 acres of wooded area that was once a rock quarry. Within the last 15 years or so, the city has turned the area into a nature preserve with multiple hiking trails.

Many of the trails will lead you down to the river and around what remains of an old mill. The area is beautiful, and yet something always feels a bit off. While we were living there on the weekends, we would host fires and campouts in the backyard. My sister-in-law, Bailey, and other friends were always there. We were never near the previously mentioned nature trails, and no one ever ventured off to explore them at night.

Once everyone else was sleeping this one particular night, I could not shake the feeling that something was off. It was not a someone is watching me feeling, rather a gut feeling that something was simply wrong. The feeling eventually passed without incident.

Fast forward to early 2023, my father-in-law, Richard, passed away unexpectedly at home. My mother-in-law, Susan, was devastated. We spent many days and nights with her. During this time, Bailey moved back in with her daughter to help her mom. Susan was convinced that Richard's ghost was still there and was watching over all of us. She said she knew this because when she would cry and say his name, the lights would flicker or the TV would turn itself on or off.

We chalked this up to faulty wiring, but she was convinced otherwise. Later that fall, we were watching a football game together at my in-laws when some cousins popped over. Their two-year-old daughter kept waving and smiling at the woods. Susan joked that she must be waving at Richard. I joked about a satanic worshiper in the woods waving at her and that I wouldn't be surprised if there was a pentagram out there. This was an ongoing joke amongst all of us.

Later that night, Susan asked me why I had said the pentagram thing and asked if I had seen anything in the woods. I apologized, told her no, and that I was only kidding. She replied with, It's okay. I was just thinking about the time when Bailey was younger and she talked about the man in black. Excuse me? The fuck did she just say?

Apparently, when Bailey was about four or five, she would play with the man in black. He continuously wanted her to play in the river. Worried about her child, Susan took Bailey to see a doctor. On the way to see the doctor, Bailey told Susan that the man does not want me to go to the doctor. I have no clue what kind of doctor this person was, but they gave Bailey a book that talked about seeing people that weren't really there.

After the appointment, Susan went to a Christian bookstore to purchase a bottle of holy water. She then proceeded to do a, quote, blessing on both the children, to which Bailey complained about the water burning her.

At that point, I was not sure if I should laugh because my family was clearly fucking with me or should I question what kind of fucked up family I married into. I called them out on it, but they were dead serious. No one budged. Susan, being the hoarder she is, went to her closet and pulled out a picture of the man in black that Bailey had drawn and the empty bottle labeled holy water. I immediately started thinking about my beliefs.

These are people I love and trust. Am I really supposed to just believe this? I talked to Bailey's boyfriend, Alex, about his thoughts on the situation. He too was in shock. He had no idea about any of it and shared that he always felt weird in that house at night. He also said that whenever they slept at the house, Bailey talked in her sleep to someone telling them she didn't want to go to the river.

This has never happened when they were at his house, only at Susan's house. I tried to investigate the history of the area, but believe it or not, in a small town with three churches, people are willing to speak about this kind of topic about not at all.

Time has passed and the topic has not come back up. I'm still skeptical, but I do think about this from time to time. Why is it just Bailey that he wants to go down to the river and should be worried about Bailey's daughter? What exactly is going on here? Fellow creeper, Sam. Thanks, Sam.

Yeah, that, I mean, that's just, yeah, it's just weird. It's just like a little unsettling to think that there could be some man in black in the woods near there. It's terrible, honestly. As a parent, you know, hearing that, I would be just, I would be worried about real world stuff. I'm like, is there an actual dude? Oh, yeah, hanging out out there? Mm-hmm. But that would

He would have to have been there for so long because Bailey is now an adult with a child of her own. Yeah, I meant more like originally when Bailey was the young kid. Oh, yeah. Not when Bailey has a two-year-old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, either way, but definitely if I'm Bailey's dad and then I hear that, I am exploring the shit out of those woods. Not only like trying to see somebody, but also looking for signs of someone having been there recently. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh...

I thought it was pretty funny that the mom took the daughter to the doctor and then they gave her a book about things that aren't there. So I don't know why it was so funny to me. I just imagine like taking our kids to the pediatrician and she's like, here's a little book. Yep. I mean, such a common little kid thing. Right. About like imaginary friends and all that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and just, I don't know. It just sounds like this house is a little festering paranormal activity going on. You know, like the dad still hanging around after he dies. Richard, yeah.

I don't know. Sounds like a cool, I mean, not paranormal, but also sounds like a really cool piece of property. It does. I know. I was thinking like, what'd they say? Like 40 acres? Yeah. And then right by the school. And then it just sounds really like cool where they have like the fire pits outside. Yeah. Yeah. Like bring friends over. And yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Uno mas. Uno mas. Let's go.

Hi, Dan and Lindsay. Hello. I wanted to share with you a story that my aunt told me when I was younger. My aunt is married to my mom's older brother and is from the Philippines. Many strange things have happened to her throughout her life, but one tale always stuck with me. The story of her younger cousin, Poppy. Growing up in the Philippines, my aunt had a large extended family that would get together for every holiday and birthday. She grew up playing with a mix of first and second cousins.

One of her many cousins was Poppy. Poppy was born with many medical ailments, but still had a good outlook on life and played well with all of the cousins. They did a good job of always including her. However, certain activities were simply too hard for Poppy, specifically physical ones. Her ailments required her to wear a pair of large, bulky orthopedic shoes that made it very hard for her to walk quietly, making games of tag or hide-and-go-seek especially challenging for her.

You always knew when Poppy was coming because of the dull but loud thud her shoes made on the wood floor. Poppy had a decent life filled with family and friends, but sadly, her chronic conditions caused her to die at a very young age. Everyone attended the funeral and mourned their loss.

One year passed since Poppy's death. My aunt and all of her cousins were at their grandma's house playing when one of the parents broke out a box of sparklers for the kids. As each kid lit their sparkler and waved it around, one got too close to my aunt's head and caught her hair on fire. Thanks to the quick action of one of the other adults, the flames were quickly beat out and my aunt suffered no serious injuries whatsoever.

Other than a large chunk of her hair being singed. Being only 12 at the time and very self-conscious about her looks, my aunt began to sob. She locked herself in the bathroom so no one would see how hideous she was now.

As she was sitting on the bathroom floor with her back to the door, cursing the unfairness of her life, she heard a dull thumping right outside the door. She paused, mid-sob, listening intently. She knew exactly what that sound was. It was the sound Poppy made when she walked, a dull, hollow thump that only her large, orthopedic shoes could make.

My aunt saw shadows moving underneath the door, going back and forth as if someone were pacing right outside the door. This was accompanied with the dull thumping of Poppy's orthopedic shoes.

My aunt slowly reached for the door handle, but the minute she swung the door open, the sound stopped and there was no one on the other side of the door. To this day, my aunt believes Poppy visited her as a reminder that although her day seemed awful and unfair, at least she was alive and well. Patrick. Thank you, Patrick. I thought that was cute. That is a really cute one. I mean, sad that Poppy dies young. Sure, of course.

But that is – I like their description of Poppy where I think about those people often in life. Like, you know, you run across – it's like, you know, we all have bad days no matter –

No matter what you're given in life or what you don't have, you know, whether you're poor or rich or healthy or not healthy, everybody has days when they're like, you know, not feeling great. Yeah. And then I will think of like those people who, you know, comparatively have a lot less than most people and a lot more struggle. And I've met several of those people who are, their disposition, they are so happy. Yeah. And they are so positive and they are so grateful for what they do have and not for what they don't. Yeah. That those people, I wonder often if they realize that.

how important they are to all the people around them where they inspire so many of the rest of us. Yeah. And remind us to just to kind of like keep our chin up. Right. And not let things get you down and don't that cliche of don't sweat the small stuff. It's so true. And it's so easy to get sucked into complaining, comparing. I mean, it's,

whatever fucking social media. It's terrible for that. It's terrible. Actually, there's just highlight reels of everybody's life constantly. Exactly. And actually just like, uh, something that I stumbled across today, especially for parents with kids who have phones and social media or are about to enter that phase. I listened to a podcast this morning. It just like played after my morning news. And there is a show out on Hulu. I want to say right now called social studies. Oh yeah. You were just talking to me about that at lunch. Yeah. It just was really, um, our kids are a bit older and I,

I'm not saying that like, oh, not my kids. Because it was kind of had that vibe of like, oh, you think not your kids, but like it can happen to anybody. But it's a four-part documentary series about the effects of social media. And what it does, the director, she got permission from a group of teenagers and their parents to record everything on their phone, I want to say for like a year. And so this journalist is interviewing the director and he's

He's talking about how like you never stand over someone else's shoulder watching their internet consumption. Like what Dan Googles versus what Lindsay Googles, what's in Dan's feed versus what's in Lindsay's feed. And then, you know, how that shapes how we view the world, whether it's news or fitness influencers or travel. I mean, there were just so many angles and it's like the algorithm feeds us.

us each individually what we respond to, what we spend the most amount of time on. And so then it was just kind of starting to break down, you know, like you don't actually know. You might think you know, but you don't actually know what your kid, whether they're 13 or 19,

What they're focusing on on social media and then how that shapes their image and shape, I'm sorry, shapes their view and images of the world and of themselves. So anyways, it was really fascinating and I'm looking forward to actually consuming it myself. But I shared it with several people in my life who have kids that are in that like 12 to 13 range because that's I think generally when most kids get cell phones and start to access social media.

Totally. Yeah. And another good show kind of related to that, just to recommend what we're talking about is Adolescence. Yes. It took Netflix by fire. It was a BBC produced show, I believe, definitely from the UK. It's an amazing show on two levels. It addresses a very serious problem with...

specifically young boys, adolescent boys getting lost in the manosphere, this Andrew Tate type world, which is so misogynistic and terrible and destructive. And again, like how you wouldn't, you might not even realize that your kid is getting these very warped perceptions of like women or men's relationship towards women from this, these online influencers who are just such dirtbags. And also on the other level,

artistically each episode was shot truly in one take and it is mind-blowing to see how they pulled that off yeah it's really cool and just also on that like and it's well performed yeah incredible performances um also like on that like manosphere incel culture like uh dangerous a friend of mine shared a book with me recently called men who hate women the extremism no one is talking about uh my friend's friend is a therapist and recommended this book and uh

I haven't picked it up, but she just said her son is 12 and he is like,

You know what I'm talking about. He is like the sweetest guy. He is like has the biggest heart. He's such a sweet boy. But after all these things that I'm starting to consume and understand, I'm like, oh, actually, I think that we fear that like the quote unquote typical jock boy is going to be the boy who ends up hating women, you know, because like, look at me. I'm hot. I'm attractive. I'm funny. I'm smart. I'm the quarterback. Like, so to speak. Okay. I know that's like broad general strokes. Sure.

But we're generally not worried about like the sweet, kind boy who's going out of his way to like make sure everybody has a friend and sits with the outcast kid at lunch. Actually, we should be more worried about that kid. More susceptible to the influence. Yeah, because they're so sweet. But it cuts both ways. We should just be worried about our boys. Yeah. And our girls. Just our kids. So anyways, sorry for the PSA, but just a couple things that kind of. Yeah.

Came up with that. Well, anyways, Daniel. Yes. My sweet man. Yeah. Would you like to start with the Annabelle shout-outs? I would. Okay, let's go. I would like to thank the following Annabelles for supporting us on Patreon. Thank you so much. To Kuma Kuma Bear. I love how long this one is. The Lady Breen, the Marquise of Transition of the Royal Court of Hedonia. Lovely. Maggot666. Okay. Kelsey Plymail. Bex Armbruster.

Nicole Lindstrom, Selena Raganese, or yeah, I think Raganese, Common Cryptid, Justin Partain, and Katarina Mofo. And by the way, if some of these are repeats, Patreon was being quite strange today. And I was like, some of these feel familiar to me. Don't I already know these? None of those felt familiar to me. Oh, okay, good. Well, I was trying to like command F and like search through all of our previous shout outs. But listen, if you got a second one, good for you. Okay, just let it ride.

I'd also like to thank the following Annabelles to helping us continue to make monthly charitable donations. Just a reminder, this month we donated to Farm Rescue, which is an incredible organization helping our farming families in America. Mike, Eric Owen, Bo, and

Hmm. It's D-S-A- Bo Diddley. Bo Diddley. I'm sure Bo's heard that a lot. D-S-A-T-T-V-A. Okay. I bet the D is silent. Is it Bo Sattva? I have no idea. That's your name now. Shadow Thomas, Hannah Mae Vestal, Stephanie Wren, Christina Johnson, and

Glass of Brandy. I like it. Nancy Pankow and Samantha Blackwell. I wonder if there was a repeat. Only because he's been around a long time. Shadow Thomas is very active in...

on Patreon and very cool. Their posts are always awesome. Oh, is that Animator Thomas? No. No. Oh, okay. I don't know. All right. And then I have just a few spoopy shout outs to Allison and Trevor from Zoe. Have a great time in Tokyo. I hope it's everything you've been waiting for. And I hope cherry blossom season in Osaka is all you dreamed of. Love you both so much. So proud of you.

To Salvatore Arturo Gatti Muccio from your mama, Nikki. You left a giant hole in my little black sparkly heart when you passed away suddenly. You are my forever furry soulmate. I'll miss you until I see you again at the Rainbow Bridge. Aww. Aww.

So hard losing pets. So hard. And to Lily Rain and Jacob Kelly from your mom, Bridget, happy birthday to my sweet girl and my little stinkerton. I love you both endlessly and I hope you each have the best birthdays ever. That's awesome. So sweet.

And that's our show. That's our show. Thanks for continuing to send in your personal tales of terror to mystoryatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. You can continue to email us for everything else at infoatscaredtodeathpodcast.com. Thank you to Logan Keith scoring today's show. He has scored so many now. Thank you to Heather Rylander for organizing the My Story emails, to book editor Drew Atana for polishing and preparing listener stories for book number six, and thanks to Olivia Lee for finding the second story I shared this week. I was able to find the first one.

We are on Facebook and Instagram where we post pics that accompany episodes and more at Scared to Death Podcasts. We also have a private Facebook group called Creeps and Peepers full of fellow horror lovers. Big thanks to the all-seeing eyes at Creeps and Peepers moderators. Thank you so much for making our online community such a fun and welcoming place. And enjoy your nightmares, Creeps and Peepers. Hope you were scared to death. Bye. Bye.

If spirits threaten me in this place, fight water by water and fire by fire. Banish their souls into nothingness and remove their powers until the last trace. Let these evil beings bleed through time and space. Evil may pass through but have no home here within. Scared to death. Mad Magic Productions. Ooh, over there. Yeah, yeah. How fun would that be? Yeah. What a time. What a time.

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