Shows
Dark HistoriesCounterfeiting, Undercover Agents & The Abduction of Abraham LincolnThe ingenuity of the criminal class has rarely been criticised for lacking in imagination. One of the finer examples of this concept was put on full display in America, on the eve of the presidential election in 1876, When a group of shady crooks, who took the American Dream of making money a little too literally, decided they needed to bust one of their own from prison. The affair that unfurled led to one of the strangest stories in criminal history, featuring a small bag of relatively useless tools, an undercover secret service informant and the remains of a dead...
2024-04-021h 13Dark HistoriesEarly Cinematography & The Disappearance of Louis Le Prince
In the 19th century moving images were everywhere. Illusionists cast tricks using mirrors and shadows, whilst flick books, magic lanterns and Zoopraxiscopes unveiled the hidden mysteries of motion to a wide-eyed audience. By the later part of the century, new advancements in photography had made the dream of motion pictures reachable for a few genius inventors, who toiled away in dingy workshops, setting fire to volatile chemicals as they cranked the handles of their machines, hoping to capture moments in time. Most now attribute the birth of cinema to either Thomas Edison, the famous American inventor, or the French Lumiere...
2023-01-241h 02Dark HistoriesThe Black Dog of Bungay & Other Spectral Beasts
From ancient origins, to Churchill, who popularised the Victorian phrase “The black dog on your back”, the concept of the spectral black dog as a portent of doom, death and catastrophe is one that has maintained, with a constant slow progression throughout centuries. From musty old tomes maintained in cold damp monasteries, to the pages of Harry Potter, the Black Dog, Old Shuck, the Barghest, the Guytrash and the Skriker have haunted the stories of our rural landscapes and worked their way into the global imagination like almost nothing else in popular folklore.
This weeks episode was sponsored by The Art o...
2023-01-0954 minDark HistoriesChristmas Campfire 2022 (Part 2)Hi everyone, I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas or at least a nice bit of time off work... Here's part 2 of the 2022 Campfire episode, which should hopefully be something to help pass the time in these strange limbo days.
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2022-12-2937 minDark HistoriesChristmas Campfire 2022 (Part 1)Hi everyone, Christmas Campfire is back for it's 6th year! A big thank you to everyone who wrote in and shared their personal stories. There were tons this year, so I've split it into two episodes and part 2 will be out next week. Until then, I hope you enjoy part 1 and have a wonderful Christmas and holiday period. My very best wishes to you and your loved ones, thanks for listening for another year and all your kind support. Merry Christmas!
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For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com
2022-12-241h 00Dark HistoriesVirginia Campbell & The Sauchie PoltergeistDespite the number of documented cases, the poltergeist has consistently been one of the most difficult forms of paranormal phenomena to define with very little consensus over what they are actually supposed to be. Spirits, invisible, unknown energy or childish hoaxes all form the basis of the most common theories that have been presented. In England, the Enfield case is without doubt the most famous poltergeist case and has, over the decades, had all three theories put forward by those that investigated the small, London house. Hundreds of miles north and over the Scottish border in a tiny village...
2022-12-0558 minDark HistoriesEliza Grimwood & The Lambeth Ripper
In 1838 a violent murder took place in the Lambeth area of London that set a trend for the stories of the Victorian penny papers for decades to come. Inspiring Charles Dickens, who paid close interest to the case, supplying him with the details he would later adapt to in several of his murder scenes, it was a grim affair that made headlines for months whilst the murderer was blindly chased across London. But was it really an isolated crime or part of something much bigger? Murder, confession and conspiracy all manage to play a role in what would become known...
2022-11-161h 11Dark HistoriesDemonic Possession & Exorcism Through The AgesAccording to the late Father Gabrielle Amorth, co-founder of the International Association of Exorcists, Hitler, Stalin, ISIS, Harry Potter and Yoga were all, in one way or another, touched by demonic influence, This does perhaps go some way towards explaining how he managed to rack up over 150,000 exorcisms throughout his long life. Of all of these cases, however, he admitted openly that only a small minority had been true, legitimate cases of demonic possession. Despite this, exorcism remains more popular today than in any other time in history, where it has existed as a long running ritual spanning centuries...
2022-10-3156 minDark HistoriesThe Debosnys CiphersWhether it be hidden messages transmitted around the world from the hundreds of operating number stations, or the bizarre illustrations on the sheepskin pages of a medieval manuscript, unsolved ciphers and codes have been a compelling source of mystery for centuries. In the annals of true crime, cold cases like the Zodiac killer and the Somerton man have inspired people from around the world to come together and take up the challenge of solving their peculiar riddles. From national intelligence agencies, to armchair enthusiasts, breakthroughs have been made by individuals from across the spectrum of experience. One similar case...
2022-10-1754 minDark HistoriesMadeleine Smith & The Dangerous Game of Dating in the 19th Century
Dating in the 21st century can be a tricky path to manoeuvre, but in reality, the difficulties pale in comparison when compared to the complex etiquette and social pressures that one was doomed to follow in the Victorian period. One couple found this out in a unique way when their romantic love affair took a hard swipe left and turned into a tale of arsenic, scandal and mystery that could probably have been avoided had ghosting been a thing.
SOURCES
MacGowan, Douglas (2021) The Strange Affair of Madeline Smith. Polygon, London, UK.
Phegley, Jennifer (2012) Courtship & Marriage in Victorian England. Praeger, Cambridge, UK...
2022-09-291h 13Dark HistoriesThe Bizarre History of the Hollow Earth
Far from being a modern, internet crackpot idea, hollow earth theory has walked a long and winding path, many centuries old. From the mythological pits of hell, to the pseudo-scientific theories of the enlightenment, right through to modern science fiction, founding philosophies of utopian cults and even tenuous links with the Nazis, the proponents have been many and the theories varied, though whether or not they were ever anything other than crackpot is a different question altogether.
SOURCES
Standish, David (2007) Hollow Earth. Da Capo Press, IN, USA.
Bernard, Raymond (1963) The Hollow Earth. Fieldcrest Publishing Co., NY, USA.
Griffin A., Duane (2004) Holl...
2022-09-1251 minDark HistoriesThe Thin Place: Netta Fornario & The Occult
Widely mischaracterized in popular understanding, the early 20th century world of the occult has never failed to serve up a plethora of intriguing tales. From stories of new age magic, otherworldly realms, alchemy and psychic abilities, all practised in shady back rooms of the temples belonging to secretive societies, our imaginations have often run wild, crossing victorian gothic aesthetic with the lure of a shadowy underworld. This common theme has been a driving factor in the continuing propagation of one of the 1920’s most famous mysteries, when a young woman, seeking the entrance into another realm, was found dead on an...
2022-08-251h 00Dark HistoriesThe Haunting of Willington Mill
In England, the Tyne River, famously flowing through the centre of Newcastle on its way to the North Eastern coast, has for many centuries been a vein of industry. In the early 19th Century the banks were filled with shipbuilders, rope makers and flour, grain, textile and corn mills, creaking and grinding with the constant industrial din. On the Eastern outskirts of Newcastle stood Willington Mill, a flour mill built in 1801 with a local reputation. For decades folks had talked about the old mill house, of how a witch had once lived in an old cottage on the land and...
2022-08-071h 07Dark HistoriesThe Tichborne Claimant: A Tale of Two ButchersWhen Sir Roger Tichborne was shipwrecked and lost at sea in 1854, his mother fell into a deep state of mourning, both devastated by the loss of her son and insistent that he was still alive. As much as the rest of her family tried their best to convince her that Roger was not ever coming back, she just refused to stop searching. It was a stance that paid off handsomely then, when her long lost son made his triumphant return to England 12 years later with a plan to reclaim the family estate. It would be a claim that would...
2022-07-261h 22Dark HistoriesCatherine Elise Muller & Her Mission to MarsThe belief of extraterrestrial life is one of the most exotic, exciting and long endearing throughout human history. Mars in particular has always proven to be of particular interest. One of our nearest planetary neighbours, the red planet has inspired thousands of works ranging from the earliest science fiction, all the way to contemporary fringe theology. In the late 19th Century, interest in the planet saw a boom, as astronomers battled with one another over their beliefs of the existence of a great Martian civilization, creating a scientific debate that crossed over into far more fringe elements. Spiritualism, with...
2022-06-061h 05Dark HistoriesThe Mary Cecilia Rogers Mystery
In the 19th Century, the Elysian Fields in New Jersey, lay just a short boat trip away for New Yorkers looking to stretch their legs, take in some rural, countryside air or relax on the lawn of a riverside refreshment house with a glass of lemonade. Mostly famous for being the birthplace of modern baseball, the fields have another, somewhat less well-known story connected to their dense thickets and green walkways. Far from the straightforward drubbing of that first game of baseball, this story is, of course far darker, full of more twists and turns and has no winners. Hailed...
2022-05-191h 01Dark HistoriesGarbo & The Ghost Spies of WWII
When the Allied forces hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, in June of 1944, everyone was well aware of the importance of success. Gaining a foothold on the beaches was the first step in the liberation of France, placing a force on the ground that would go on to steamroll to Berlin, ending the war outright. The plan was vast. multi-faceted and was as audacious as it was complicated, hinging on the cooperation of every level of the joint military system. Included in this system was a man named Garbo, a man who, squirrelled away in a London office, not...
2022-05-031h 06Dark HistoriesThe Medieval Ghosts of Byland Abbey
Some time around the turn of the fifteenth century, a Cistercian monk of Byland Abbey took it upon himself to pen a series of ghost stories on the empty pages of a folio containing some of the library's more prestigious works. A medieval monk scribbling down ghost stories was, in truth, not entirely unusual. In the case of the Byland monk, however, the stories seemed to be less concerned with religious matters and more with grisly details of the spirits themselves. Undead rising from the graves, shapeshifting from human to animal and back again, hunting down the living to gouge...
2022-04-1249 minDark HistoriesIron Mike Malloy: The Man Who Would Not Die
Depression-era New York was a tough time for a guy just looking to get by. The pressure of feeding a family, the lack of available work, the poor conditions suffered from much of the work that was available and at the end of the day, you couldn’t even relax with a drink or drown your sorrows in the bottom of a bottle. At least, not legally. Whilst laws attempted to stop people from drinking alcohol, the culture of the speakeasy ripped through the underground. It was a place where one could relax and unwind, listen to some live music, pl...
2022-03-291h 16Dark HistoriesJürgenson, Raudive & A Brief History of EVPAn evolution of centuries-long efforts to contact and communicate with the dead, the practice of recording voices from the great beyond was attempted almost as soon as radio and tape recording technology became widely available in consumer devices. From garbled electrical chirps emanating out of swathes of white noise, to perfectly clear, eloquent speech, the results across the years have been as varied as they have been numerous. Up there with the capturing of “orbs” on camera in regards to its plausibility, EVP Research has somehow survived sceptical analysis and become a surprisingly persistent area of parapsychology. Though there were...
2022-03-141h 00Dark HistoriesThe Floreana Affair: Murder in ParadiseGiven a certain degree of infamy thanks to Charles Darwin, the Galapagos Islands are far less famous for their role in playing host to a tiny, isolated German ex-pat community in the 1930s, living quietly, surrounded by the unending blue of the Pacific Ocean. The motley crew of settlers included a doctor with philosophical aspirations, a pregnant housewife and an eccentric Baroness bent on creating a hotel for millionaires, complete with her doting entourage of love interests. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ideologically disparate factions often failed to see eye to eye whilst they precariously shared the island's few natural springs...
2022-03-021h 08Dark HistoriesThe Unsolved Murder of Sir Harry OakesIn the 1940s the Bahamas was something of a tropical paradise for the world’s rich. Used as a tax haven and an island getaway far removed from the battlefields of war, it was an idyllic retreat for those that could afford it. Its society had a somewhat darker underbelly, however, with ties to money launderers, smugglers, spies and mobsters. At least, that was how it started to appear in stories after one of the richest men in the world wound up dead in his Bahamian home in the summer of 1943. The fact that all of this happened under th...
2022-02-141h 10Dark HistoriesTom Slick & The Search for the Yeti
High up in the peaks of the Himalayas, a footprint in the snow baffles a mountaineer as he attempts to climb Everest for the first time. Pulling out his camera, he prepares to snap a shot, eyeing the horizon nervously before placing his icepick down alongside the print for scale and bringing the viewfinder up to his eye. In India, a tea planter reads about the photograph in a local newspaper and turns over the idea of going to hunt the creature that made the tracks, completely unaware that he was about to start what would eventually become a lifelong...
2022-01-231h 16Dark HistoriesThe New York Press & The Headless Torso Mystery
New York journalism in 1897 was in a pretty technicolor space. Newspapers, so long the grey, stolid, medium of the merchants and businessman, were instead being filled with lurid stories of murder, scandal and drunken debauchery and the public were loving it. As papers fought for readers in the streets, sometimes quite literally, the stories that filled the pages and the methods utilised on order to write the stories grew more and more sensational by the day. It all came to something of a boiling point in the high temperatures of Summer, when a body washed up in the East River...
2021-11-181h 15Dark HistoriesThe Supernatural in War
Prior to the First World War, ghostly apparitions across battlefields tended to be confined to large scale skirmishes fought in the skies. In America, Modern folklore has helped to spawn a cottage industry within the tourist trade of Civil War battlefields. The equation of such high death rates, paired with intense levels of trauma seems to equate to an acceptance that wars were surely the perfect breeding grounds for the supernatural. Though this doesn’t always appear to ring true, war is, nevertheless, a ripe area for some very bizarre stories.
SOURCES
R. Machen A., (1915) The Angel of Mons: The Bowm...
2021-11-011h 05Dark HistoriesThe Borley Rectory Affair
When Harry Price published his first book covering Borley Rectory in 1940, he would have been well aware of how sensational, and potentially controversial, the title would appear. “The Most Haunted House in England” shot Borley Rectory to fame, cementing the name in history with the likes of Jack the Ripper, The Salem Witch Trials and later, The Amityville Horror. That the contents of the book stirred up so many years of controversy is an outcome that was bound to have materialised regardless of the title, with stories of spectral nuns, monks and horse-drawn carriages, ghostly writings on the wall and...
2021-10-171h 28Dark HistoriesBiped Beavers & The Man Bats from the Moon1938 saw one of the world's most famous media hoaxes terrify a nation of unexpecting listeners when the original War of the Worlds radio broadcast was sent out across the airwaves unannounced, leading many to believe it to be a genuine news item. Somewhat more obscure is the tale of its precursor, when 103 years earlier in August of 1835, daily New York newspaper The Sun ran a week-long series of articles concerning the discovery of life on the moon. The paper’s “Lunarians” were a bizarre species of temple building man-bats living in perfect harmony with the animals that surrounded them. It was...
2021-09-271h 32Dark HistoriesThe Many Confessions of Alfred PackerThe North American mineral rushes of the 19th Century saw hundreds of thousands flock to mountains and mines across the continent in search of fame and fortune, from panning for gold to working long, dangerous shifts down poorly run mines, entire industries exploded overnight, sucking in workers from around the world. During the San Juan Silver Rush of the 1870s, one of these workers was a young man named Alfred Packer, an epileptic, military cast-off, who drifted across America looking for his passport to a new life. He had lived a reasonably anonymous existence, until one fateful expedition saw...
2021-09-051h 38Dark HistoriesSomerton Man With Professor Derek AbbottHi everyone, I'm taking a small summer break for a couple of weeks, so to cover the gap I have a few older patreon bonus episodes to put out for the main feed and give everyone a chance to hear them. Here is an interview I did with Professor Derek Abbott on the recent news about the Exhumation efforts in the Somerton Man case.
Professor Derek Abbott is Director of the Centre for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Adelaide, Australia, Somerton Man expert and all-round bloody nice bloke. You can find out more about him here: h...
2021-07-2754 minDark HistoriesThe Barnes Mystery: Kate Webster’s Best Dripping
In Victorian England, fishing all manner of filth, detritus and human body parts from the Thames River in London was not such an unusual affair. Used for centuries as a dumping ground and waste disposal, it became so bad by the mid 19th Century that it was renamed “The Great Stink”. In 1879, a coal porter pulled out an old wooden box and unearthed one of the more macabre treats the river has tossed up over the years when he opened it to discover a heavily mutilated body. The mutilations might have been somewhat notable, but far more so was the kill...
2021-07-121h 01Dark HistoriesThe Disturbing Kingdom of Batavia's Graveyard
In 1628, the Batavia, a flagship Dutch Indiaman left the port of Texel in the Netherlands bound for the Dutch capital in the East Indies filled to the upper decks with gold, silver, gems and jewellery, along with a crew made up of a host of down and out soldiers, sailors and officers. Life in the Dutch East India Company was notoriously hard, but the crew aboard the Batavia were in for a special kind of torture, when the ship was wrecked off the Western Coast of Australia, leading to several months of indescribable bloodshed and violence at the hands of...
2021-06-281h 19Dark HistoriesPercy Fawcett & The Lost City of ZThe life of Percy Harrison Fawcett was never short of adventure. An amateur explorer who obtained a gold medal for his services to the Royal Geographical Society, in a time long before planes, GPS and radio communication. He was a man with a story and a character so much larger than life, that popular fiction has drawn influence on them for years, from Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Lost World” to the Hollywood archeology of Indiana Jones, even making an appearance in TinTin & The Broken Ear as a blowpipe wielding hermit. For over twenty years his career saw him delve deep...
2021-06-131h 27Dark HistoriesThe Midnight Assassin
In 1885 a terrifying string of attacks in Austin, Texas erupted through the city, preying on the servant class. An unknown attacker, or band of attackers, broke into the residences of servants across the city, striking many of them in the head with an axe. The attacks carried on for months with police making little advancement until the night of Christmas Eve saw two of the city's gentry struck down forcing the authorities to act. Queue a flock of noseblind bloodhounds, a trio of fake Pinkertons and a mayor with far too much on his plate.
SOURCES
Galloway, J.R. (2010) The Se...
2021-05-301h 27Dark HistoriesClarita Villanueva & The ThingIn 1953, a strange story crept out of the Philippines, when newspapers began reporting on the Dracula Girl, a young, Filipino vagrant, who had been arrested for prostitution and who now appeared to be facing even darker powers, as she battled with a pair of tormentors, collectively known as The Thing. For over two weeks, doctors, reporters, prison guards and inmates watched over the strange behaviour of the young girl, completely at a loss for what to do, until eventually, in stepped a Protestant Pastor with a penchant for evangelism and a conviction that he knew exactly what to do...
2021-05-161h 06Dark HistoriesJoanna Southcott, The Panacea Society & The Mystery Box
The end of the 18th Century saw the birth of a long line of religious movements focused on the end of days and the biblical second coming. Central to this string of beliefs was an unimposing domestic servant who began to have visions in her mid-life, which she claimed were divine in nature, eventually leading to her insistence that she was a prophetess and at the young age of 64, was pregnant with the new messiah. Far from fading away after the holy childs due date came and went, the movement continued under several different guises for hundreds of years, culminating...
2021-04-271h 08Dark HistoriesThe Laetitia Toureaux Affair
In the late Spring of 1937, the murder of a young Italian immigrant stormed the Paris headlines. The first murder to have taken place on the Metro, it was a baffling affair with no witnesses and a murder of unusual precision. As the country mired in political turmoil, newspapers filled their columns with rumours of the victims life, quickly filling the information void with sensational stories of divey music halls, gangsters and allusions to sordid affairs. The truth, however, would turn out to be far more bombastic than even the most spurious rumours, leading to the slow unravelling of a story o...
2021-04-061h 09Dark HistoriesGordon Cummins: The Blackout Ripper“In war, one of our great protections against the dangers of air attack after nightfall will be the "blackout". On the outbreak of hostilities all external lights and street lighting would be totally extinguished so as to give hostile aircraft no indication as to their whereabouts. But this will not be fully effective unless you do your part, and see to it that no lighting in the house where you live is visible from the outside. The motto for safety will be 'Keep it dark!'”
So read the opening paragraph from Public Information Leaflet No.2, published in E...
2021-03-211h 27Dark HistoriesPhantom Airships of the 19th CenturyIn the winter of 1896, a spate of airship sightings spread out from California, stampeding across the United States until, in the Spring of 1897, they hit a wall in the midwest, after a brief flirtation on the East Coast. The sightings totalled in their tens of thousands and many included fantastical descriptions of both the ship and the people riding it. As the ships flew from state to state, the stories often grew bolder in their claims until they were heavily dovetailing with the science fiction of the day. With airships still incapable of sustained flight in 1896, were any of...
2021-03-021h 16Dark HistoriesHaunted Bones: Screaming Skulls
Haunted human remains are a trope popular in modern horror, from the twisted ivory puppet in the House on Haunted Hill to the skeletal corpses, floating in the swimming pool of Poltergeist, human bones have long held a place of fear, worship and power throughout history and cultures, eventually manifesting within the horror genre of the 20th Century. At the time of the English Civil War, the whisperings of an emergent folk tradition seeded its place in the popular imagination, when stories of skulls with seemingly supernatural powers began to seep from the large, rural manor houses throughout Britain. Screaming S...
2021-02-151h 02Dark HistoriesThe Homunculus: From Science Fact to Gothic Fiction
With a long and winding path through history from ancient times, to the renaissance and beyond, Alchemy was a vast subject with a multitude of practitioners, from the legendary and mythical to established medical gentry and scholarly clergy. In fact and fiction, they were men and women obsessed by the magical bending of the laws of nature to their will, creating gold, the elixir of life, stones that shone like the sun or offered immortality. Another sect of the sprawling tradition, however, found its interest in a far stranger creation, that of the homunculus, or “the little man”. Their writings can t...
2021-01-3153 minDark HistoriesWilliam Dove & The WizardThe mid 19th Century newspaper headlines saw no shortage of cases involving poison. Unsurprisingly, given the relative ease of obtaining such deadly materials, a long narrative of death, whether by accident or design, formed throughout the period and still today the Victorian period is often characterised as something of a heyday for poisons and poisoners. From time to time, salacious stories of a murderer utilising these violent compounds broke out and captured the public's attention, stacking up a list of names of cold, calculated criminality. In 1855, William Doves name was added to the list after he killed his wife...
2021-01-211h 14Dark HistoriesLoup-Garou: Witches, Cannibalism & The Werewolves of FranceFrom Salem to East Anglia, Bordeaux to the black forest of Germany, it seems there is no end of infamous witch trials that took place in history, spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles. Somewhat less well known are the many hundreds of werewolf trials that took place alongside them and with such a degree of crossover, that made them ultimately, synonymous with the occult world of demons and the Devil, with witchcraft and the sabbath. Whilst witches may have been feared for the damage they could cause to the crops, or the corruption they could sew within...
2020-11-291h 03Dark HistoriesNandor Fodor & The Alma Fielding Poltergeist(There was a bit of an issue with the sound getting scrambled in the original upload of this episode. If you find you bump into this, please delete the file and re-download and you should get the updated, fixed version! Apologies!)
The interwar years saw a sharp rise in followers of Spiritualism throughout Europe and the wider world. Family houses in the most benign suburban neighbourhoods curtains hid seance circles, congregated in dark rooms, as mediums addressed the realm of the spirits, pulled objects from flowers to live animals out of thin air and delivered messages from...
2020-11-181h 27Dark HistoriesJames Eugene Harrison: The Murder That Never WasThe disappearance of James Eugene Harrison, a young entrepreneur who set out on a business trip in the winter of 1958 and never returned, signalled a tragic loss for his family. Their life suddenly flipped on its head. Mrs Harrison slowly came to terms with the difficult life of a widow with two young sons to raise. A Californian convict admitted to the murder, complete with a detailed confession and the whole sorry affair was tied up neatly for police. That was until James Eugene Harrison showed up on the driveway of a suburban house one night, three months later...
2020-11-0156 minDark HistoriesThe Lindley Street PoltergeistIn the mid-1970s, a series of purported supernatural events took place in a small, yellow, wooden slatted house in a suburb of Bridgeport, Connecticut. At a time when demonic forces were very much in vogue, the Goodin family were plagued by all manner of phenomena that quickly drew the attention of the national press, along with thousands of curious onlookers. Despite the contemporary fervour that it sparked and the similarities to several other, far more well traversed, supernatural tales such as Amityville in America, or Enfield in the UK, the events that took place in Bridgeport in the...
2020-10-181h 20Dark HistoriesThe Mysterious Death of Joseph ElwellRumoured as a top contender as the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgeralds most enigmatic of characters, Jay Gatsby, Joseph Bowne Elwell was among other things, a property developer, race horse owner, author, socialite, broker, tutor and, last but certainly not least, thoroughly famous card player. Winning sums that totalled into the tens of thousands on a nightly basis, he built both wealth and a social circle that placed him firmly in the upper echelons of New York Cities elite. That was until, one morning in June, 1920, when his maid found him, shot in the forehead, dressed in his Pyjamas, s...
2020-10-051h 17Dark HistoriesThe Pirate Life of Henry EveryThere is no shortage of famous names associated with the Golden Age of Piracy. Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Henry Morgan or Jack Rackham hold such levels of fame, they have become household names, legends with largely fictional tales still told of their lives at sea. There is, however, one man who managed to outdo them all. His largest, most audacious crime is one of the most successful pirate raids in history and one that nearly brought down one of the richest, most powerful empires the world has ever known. Captain Henry Every, the pirate that shook the colonies from the...
2020-08-231h 16Dark HistoriesThe Murder of Jane Clouson: The Eltham MysteryIn the spring of 1871, a young servant girl was found in the middle of the night, lying on the ground following a brutal attack that would eventually prematurely end her life. Following a series of fantastic police blunders, a suspect was arrested, tried and promptly acquitted. As far as the police were concerned, the murder had been solved, but the culprit had escaped the hand of justice and as such, the case was closed and eventually buried, slipping into eventual obscurity. Almost 140 years later, that is where the case remains, but had the police been right in their suspicions...
2020-08-111h 17Dark HistoriesThe Hairy Hands of Dartmoor: Birth of an Urban LegendIn 1921, a series of accidents on a small, rural road, carving through the heart of the boggy marshes and fields of Dartmoor, in South East England, led to a brief explosion in excitement concerning the ghostly image of a pair of disembodied hands, forcing drivers off the road and into potentially fatal accidents. Following a little dash of press magic, the story took hold and grew for over a hundred years, until today where it has become accepted as a staple in British Urban Legend. But how did it happen? How did a relatively innocuous story take such a...
2020-07-261h 01Dark HistoriesAlbert Hicks: The Pirate King of New YorkJust before dawn, on the outskirts of New York harbour, a small Sloop sailed listlessly into the bay. The ship had no crew, no lights and a deck covered in blood. It presented a mystery to the local police, who set their detectives on the case which led to a manhunt up the East Coast of the United States in pursuit of a phantom. The police may have had a description, a name, but they had no idea of the monster they would find at the end of the trail. More than a phantom, they were chasing a legend...
2020-07-141h 15Dark HistoriesThe Strange Tale of The Campden Wonder
When William Harrison left his house on a calm midsummer evening of 1660, no one expected him to not return for two years, Except maybe William himself… Or maybe not. Equally surprising would have been the confessions that would follow of his murder from a trio of servants, one of whom was an alleged witch and none of whom can possibly have been guilty, given that the victim was very much alive. Later to become known as the Campden Wonder, this is the tale of a tightly bound mystery made up of lies, superstition and sensationalism that after 350 years is as bi...
2020-06-281h 06Dark HistoriesPhotography, Spiritualism & The World of William MumlerThe technological breakthroughs of the 19th century were, to many people, both equal parts exciting and terrifying. Known as the black arts, the newly emerging techniques of commercial photography were often spoken about as though they were a mysterious or even supernatural process. Of course, there was nothing supernatural about the new technology, at least, not for most photographers. When William Mumler picked it up as a hobby, lured in by his attraction to a local studio owner and a propensity to tinker, he decided to lean into the mystery by offering a spyhole into the unseen world of...
2020-06-151h 09Dark HistoriesAlexander Pearce: A Disturbing Journey Through The New WorldThis week we go back to the Penal Colonies of Australia to visit a story of grimey adventure, with Alexander Pearce, a convict who escaped into the bush and then, naturally, ate all his friends SOURCES Knopf A., Alfred, (1987) The Fatal Shore: A history of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787-1868, Collins Harvill, UK Collins, Paul, (2004) Hells Gates, Hardie Grant Books, Australia Boyce, James. “Return to Eden: Van Diemen’s Land and the Early British Settlement of Australia.” Environment and History 14, no. 2, “Australia Revisited” special issue (May, 2008): 289–307. Convict Life, libraries.tas.gov.au/family-history/Pages/Convict-life.aspx. Pearce, Alexander, talis.e...
2020-05-311h 06Dark HistoriesChristiana Edmunds: The Chocolate Cream KillerIn 1871, the seaside town of Brighton, England saw one of the more bizarre cases of the Victorian age play out when a lady of the town, Miss Christiana Edmunds, found her romantic feelings for a local doctor knocked back. As the pain of the unrequited love affair became too much, Christiana attempted and failed to commit murder and then in a perverse effort to clear her name, decided to carry out a mass poisoning campaign.
SOURCES
Wohl, Anthony S. (1983) Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain. Cambridge: Harvard UP
Jones, Kaye (2016) The Case...
2020-05-191h 23Dark HistoriesBenandanti: Anti-Witches & The InquisitionThe witch trials throughout medieval europe have become renowned for their relentless, brutal torture and widespread execution. Whether floated as a form of class warfare, patriarchal dominance or religious persecution, the stories that remain are pitch black with their depictions of callous violence. Likewise, the legacy of The Medieval Inquisition, is too one of severe brutality and overzealous, corrupt authoritarians crushing those with differing beliefs and lifestyles. Despite this, there is one story from history of a group of individuals in Northern Italy that whilst crossing over with both The Inquisition and witch trials, somehow came out the other...
2020-05-031h 07Dark HistoriesThe Cardiff Giant & The Great American Humbug
The world of the strange has always held a certain draw. The pull of a mystery, the intrigue of a natural obscurity or the exciting twists of the unexplained. This was a market that was heavily seized upon in typical bombastic fashion in America during the 19th Century when the art of the humbug was refined, polished and displayed on a grande stage by the likes of P. T. Barnham and his museum of magic, conjuring and social, cultural and natural oddities. In 1869, a new chapter in the pantheon of the strange was freshly penned with the discovery of a 10...
2020-04-201h 04Dark HistoriesConan Doyle & The Case of Oscar Slater
In December of 1909, a few days before Christmas, the murder of a wealthy old woman in Glasgow sparked a cascade of events that would go on to write an incredible story of prejudice, conspiracy and eventual justice. Featuring a starring role by none other than the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it was then and remains still, one of the most fascinating, perplexing and straight confusing incidents of cause celebre in modern history.
SOURCES
Doyle, Arthur C. (1912) The Case of Oscar Slater. Leopold Classic Library. London, UK
Roughead, William. (1910) The Trial of Oscar Slater. William Hodge & Company, Gla...
2020-04-061h 41Dark HistoriesThe Horror of M.R. James
Something a little different this week, as you may have guessed from the title. All is explained at the start of the episode, but the long and the short of it is that the episode I completed for this week, seemed, in light of the current events, somewhat tasteless to me if I'd have released it right now. So... for now that episode is benched to return at a later date and instead, I put together a very quick episode introducing the genius of M R James and have narrated two of my favourite of his stories for your listening...
2020-03-221h 19Dark HistoriesChimeras: Ilya Ivanov & The HumanzeeStories of human-animal hybrids have existed for centuries, from the ancient Greeks, to modern Hollywood cinema, as humans, we have always held a fear and reject the idea of science meddling with genetics in uncomfortable ways. Creating wild stories of half human-half beast monsters, or conspiracy theories of hushed up, top secret laboratories operating on man made mutations, the fundamental fear of the hybrid has persisted. Our mythology, folktales and conspiracies have created fictional accounts which horrify some, and morbidly entertain others, but whilst the story of Stalin's desire to create a half man, half ape, super warrior army...
2020-03-0859 min
Dark HistoriesJoseph Vacher: The French Ripper
In 1888, Whitechapel, was gripped by fear of a brutal series of murders perpetrated by a sadistic killer that named himself Jack the Ripper. He would go on to be one of the world's most famous, and elusive serial killers of all time. Jacks escapades took place just a single step ahead of the curve of criminal forensics, an opportune window in time aiding him in his flight from capture. Across The Channel, just a decade later, another, less well known nightmare was stalking the countryside. No less brutal in his killing spree, Vacher the Ripper, was tearing up victims in...
2020-02-231h 45Dark HistoriesThe Mad Gasser of MattoonIn 1944, residents in the town of Mattoon in Illinois came under a prolonged series of attacks by a man the papers named as “The Mad Gasser” and “The Phantom Anesthetist”. Despite the witness accounts that claimed to see a man stalking around the victims houses on multiple occasions, the authorities and subsequent psychological studies chalked the whole saga up to nothing more than a case of “Mass Hysteria”, but did that diagnosis really answer every question posed by the evidence of events that ran for over two weeks, as summer faded over the small farming community, or was it just a conve...
2020-02-091h 17Dark HistoriesScratching Fanny & The Cock Lane HauntingWilliam Kent was what some might have called a rather unlucky man. Twice widowed shortly after marriage to his relatively wealthy wives, his relationships had not been the fairy tales he had longed for. The 19th Century was an age where bumping off an unwanted spouse could be as easy as a trip to the local apothecary, and as such, one might have expected William to harbor fears of a few unsavoury rumours surfacing around him, however, when this inevitably did happen in the spring of 1762, his shock could certainly be forgiven when it became apparent that the accusations...
2020-01-271h 36Dark HistoriesThe Death of George Bodle & The Birth of Forensic ToxicologyIn 1833, a small village in Kent, England became the focus of attention when the patriarchal head of a wealthy farming family wound up dead, presumed murdered after an attack on the entire household, presumed to be the work of Arsenic Poisoning. The 1830’s were on the eve of a new era in Forensics, and the previously vague symptoms of poisoning were being slowly unravelled and understood on levels far deeper than ever before, but would these new methods of detection prove to be enough to not only detect the presence of poison, but to finger the culprit and see th...
2020-01-121h 18
Dark HistoriesSeason 3 Finale BonusHey everyone, thank you so much for listening this year! This is the season finale which I sort of didn't expect to do, so I'm releasing a bit of an intro that explains whats going to be happening throughout the Dark histories season break in December and what episodes will be coming out and included a patreon bonus episode for this weeks fix! I hope you enojoy it! Remember, if you'd like to get your story in for the Christmas Campfire episode this year, do go ahead and get your story in to me before the 20th December, it's...
2019-11-2538 min
Dark HistoriesThe Yatton Demoniac: George Lukins
“Sir, When you can spare room in your Gazette, I think you will not be able to present your readers with an account so extraordinary and surprising, as the following.”
So began the letter, written to the Printer of the Bristol Gazette, from the Reverend William Robert Wake in the Summer of 1788. The account he wrote of was one of possession and exorcism that would spark a controversy and ignite bitter debate over belief versus non-belief, enlightenment versus superstition and materialism versus spiritual salvation. As the debates raged on, the facts fell by the wayside, leaving readers with...
2019-11-1057 minDark HistoriesThe Sarah Duckett Ghost Mystery & Other StoriesWith Halloween on the horizon, I took time to cover some of the smaller stories that I've dug up over the previous year that weren't chunky enough to fill up a full episode. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!------For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistoriesConnect with us on Facebook: http://facebook...
2019-10-2748 min
Dark HistoriesSadamichi Hirasawa & The Teigin IncidentTokyo, Japan, 1948. A man walks into a bank, announces himself to the manager as an official of the local Government Health Department, instructs the staff to take an inoculation medicine and walks out leaving 12 of them dead from poison. Upon first hearing an overview, this might sound like a somewhat unique, but trivial bank robbery. But this is post-war Japan, a country with many secrets and a population with many grievances.
SOURCES:
Gold, H. (2011) “Japans infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accounts of Japans Wartime Human Experimentation Program”. Tuttle Publishing, HK
Trestrail, J H. (2000). Criminal Poisoning: Inve...
2019-10-131h 02
Dark HistoriesGraham Young: The Tea Boy
Graham Young was an unusual boy. Infinitely fascinated with chemistry, he devoted large amounts of his early life pouring over thick medical textbooks, educating himself on the properties of various chemical compounds. What stood Graham out from his peers more than his intellect was that his obsession with chemistry revolved almost solely around the usage of various poisons. Curiosity has always been inherently dangerous and this is infinitely more true in the case of Graham Young, when theory turned to practice.
SOURCES:
Holden, A. (1974). The St Albans Poisoner. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London, UK.
Wilson, C. (1974...
2019-09-291h 13Dark HistoriesHarry price & The Séance of RosalieOn a cold December night of 1937, renowned Psychical Investigator Harry Price strode up the steps outside a large, Victorian house in a quiet, well-to-do London suburb. He’d come to the house to partake in a séance, invited by a woman known only as Mrs X whom in their communications leading up to the night, had guaranteed a spirit manifestation for him. Price had seen it all before, he had crafted a career from debunking such fraudsters and in all likelihood, this event was to be much the same. Or was it? What unravelled that night has been the...
2019-09-151h 49Dark HistoriesDeath Raft: The Wreck of The MedusaAs The Medusa sailed from Rochefort in 1816, many aboard saw bright futures ahead for themselves. They were escaping a country torn asunder, harshly divided by war, revolution and eventual restoration. With the French Empire floundering and a band of Hard-Right ultra-royalists creating laws in France, the promise of a new start in a fresh land was enticing for many. Little did they expect to meet such a high degree of incompetency on their voyage, had they foreseen even a fraction of the horrors that lay ahead for them, many might have chosen to stay in France no matter the...
2019-09-011h 03
Dark HistoriesJames Dunham & The McGlincy MurdersCampbell, California. Lying in the heart of Santa Clara County, a periphery city of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of E-Bay. In 1896, 100 years before websites facilitating the auctioning of used underwear and haunted paintings had been dreamt up, Campbell was the scene for a gruesome family killing that saw posses of bounty hunters and bloodhounds, looking to cash in on the reward placed on the head of the murderer, embark on manhunt across mountains and valleys that would span years and eventually, decades.
SOURCES:
Gilman, T. (2018). The McGlincy Killings in Campbell California: An 1896 Unsolved Mystery...
2019-08-181h 13
Dark HistoriesWilliam Cragh: The Not So Hanged Man
William the Scabby was lead out to the scaffold on which he was to be hanged. A rebel against the Anglo-Norman rule, he had been sentenced to death on 13 counts of Homicide. Now it was time for him to meet his maker. Except, that is not how the story ends, for though William was hanged “until dead”, he was not to stay as such and later in the day, his miraculous resurrection was witnessed by a large proportion of the population of Swansea, including the highly experienced executioner himself.
SOURCES:
Hanska, J. (2001). The hanging of William Cragh: anatomy of a miracl...
2019-08-041h 04Dark HistoriesLost & Found: The Mysterious case of Pauline PicardWhen Pauline went missing in 1922, all hope was initially lost of her return, until a month later, when she showed up 200 miles away. Her parents collected her, took her home and lived with her for several weeks before a body showed up just 800 metres from their house. The body alone was shocking enough, but quickly became doubly so as it was identified as the body of the lost & found Pauline.SOURCES:‘Whose Child?’ (1922, May 27), The Pall Mall Gazette, London. P.8.‘Killed & Stripped by Foxes’ (1922, May 31), The Pall Mall Gazette, London. P.4.‘A French M...
2019-07-2150 minDark HistoriesBelle Gunness: Lady Bluebeard & The Murder FarmWhen the Altic Farm House, on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana burnt down in 1908, locals thought it a tragedy that claimed the lives of three children and their heroic mother, who had died trying to protect them from the flames. During the excavation of the debris, the story flipped on its head as far more than the 4 bodies expected were eventually found. Butchered and cast into pits they were victims of Belle Gunness, a woman the newspapers would come to call the La Porte Ghoul, The Indiana Ogress, The Human Vampire, Hell’s Princess & Lady Bluebeard.SO...
2019-07-071h 31Dark HistoriesThe Dodleston Messages: Ghost in the MachineOn Dark Histories, we hear the words of people lost to history, echoing through the writings of labourers, servants, judges, juries, maids and mistresses exactly as they were written in decades and centuries past. This one way communication with history is always limited by it’s very definition and no matter how much we dig, we can never ask the writers what were they feeling as they wrote each line, and whilst we judge them by the information they give, we can never invite them to ask what they make of the people and things of today in our al...
2019-06-231h 29
Dark HistoriesThe Curious Case of Not TownsendGetting away with murder has always been a difficult, and ultimately, unlikely affair, even in the 19th Century, before DNA analysis, fingerprint databases, or even any real, proper detective agencies, it was still a challenge that many criminals tried and failed. There were some however, that did manage to achieve the feat, whether it be through cool calculation, or dumb luck, there was always opportunity for the enthusiastic murderer willing to think outside the box. In Canada during the mid-19th Century, one man, William Turner managed to commit and get away with murder, either through dumb luck, due...
2019-06-091h 22Dark HistoriesDetective Whicher & The Road Hill House MysteryThe events that took place in the village of Road during the year 1860 would seem straight out of Victorian detective fiction. The characters played their roles as the family, the live in staff, the day staff and all with their own lives and their own secrets entwined inside the gated middle class household of Road House, one of them guilty of a shocking murder. With all its twists, turns and bombastic, final unravelling, the Murder of Road Hill House is the original whodunnit.Sources:Summerscale, Kate (2008) The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or: The Murder at...
2019-05-261h 28Dark HistoriesTerror in Gévaudan: The BeastIn 1764, France was a tumultuous place. On the eve of Revolution, the peasant farmers of the remote region of Gévaudan were suffering from decades of difficulties, brought about by war, poverty, poor agricultural conditions and plague. As the Summer brought about favourable weather and life for the population of the barren and sparse region should have begun an upswing in fortune, a series of attacks marked the beginning of a reign of terror that would last almost three years, headed by a monster known simply as “The Beast”. Bodies were found half eaten, the remains left on the groun...
2019-05-121h 18Dark HistoriesThe Balham Mystery: The Death of Charles BravoIn April, 1876, Charles Bravo took to his bedroom, rubbed a dose of laudanum into his gums and poured himself a glass of water from the jug on his nightstand. Within minutes of retiring to bed, Charles Bravo fell desperately ill. Within two days, he would be pronounced dead, the victim of Antimony poisoning. Suicide, manslaughter and murder have been cast forward by amateur historians and famous crime writers alike. 145 years on, some have claimed to have solved the mystery of the death of Charles Bravo, but in reality, the truth lies as buried as the characters themselves. Two inquests t...
2019-04-281h 26
Dark HistoriesWaverly Hills: The History & The HauntingsA much requested episode on the history of Waverly Hills, a Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Kentucky. These days, it features in just about every bad cable TV show on ghosts all around the world, but whats the reality behind the decrepit walls that are left standing today? And how much truth is there to the ghosts that allegedly walk the halls?
Sources:
Thomas, C. C. (2007) With their dying breaths: A history of Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium. C C Thomas, 2007
Opening of Waverly Hill Sanatorium (1910, October 2), The Courier Journal, p. 18.
Waverly Hill Sanatorium D...
2019-03-311h 01Dark HistoriesLurancy Vennum & The Watseka WonderThis week, we have a story of a 19th Century spiritual possession, when 14 year old Lurancy Vennum began suffering from fits that eventually led her to visiting heaven, speaking with angels and finally, taking in the spirit of deceased 19 year old Mary Roff, the daughter of local spiritualists.Sources:The demonism of the ages, spirit obsessions so common in spiritism, … Peebles, J. M. (James Martin), 1822-1922.The Watseka wonder; a startling and instructive psychological …Stevens, E. Winchester, 1822-1885.Iroquois County Genealogical Society – http://sites.rootsweb.com/~ilicgs/bio/bio.htmMorni...
2019-03-171h 07Dark HistoriesThe Disappearance of Lord LucanLord Lucan, a name of considerable infamy, not as a member of the aristocracy, but for the murder of his children's nanny in a house in the elitist district of Belgravia, London in 1973 and his subsequent disappearance. It was a story that the press went to town on, a classic us vs them tale of Class superiority and those that would seek to protect the hierarchy at all costs, but how much of it was based on truth and how much just a convenient narrative for the journalists that covered the case? It was a case that was launched...
2019-03-031h 21
Dark HistoriesBridget Cleary: Away with the FairiesFaeries, changelings and herbalist doctors might seem like characters in a winding tale of medieval folklore today, but in 1895, Ireland bore witness to a case that saw these facets of folk tradition flare up in a very real way when Michael Cleary, a skilled tradesman of County Tipperary set fire to his wife, burning her to death. As the body of Bridget Cleary was placed in the ground, her husband was convinced that he would see his wife again, riding on the back of a grey horse as she emerged from an invisible plane. The body in the ground...
2019-02-171h 51
Dark HistoriesEveryday Sensationalism in Victorian Britain: The Illustrated Police NewsWe take a deep look at the Victorian press and in particular, hone in on the wonder that was The Illustrated Police News. Most famous today for its coverage of Jack the Ripper, the paper covered all manner of Victorian crime, punishment, murder, suicide and cultural oddities. Aimed at the masses, it was sensationalist, scandalous and wildly popular, much to the chagrin of the established press.
Stay tuned to the end of the episode for a special announcement, or if you like spoiling surprises, take a look at this little link here: http://www.darkhistories.com...
2019-02-0353 minDark HistoriesBella Wright & The Green Bicycle MysteryIt was the summer of 1919, in a leafy rural region of Leicestershire that we turn our focus towards today and a woman named Bella Wright, who was found lying dead by the roadside one quiet, Saturday evening. At first, police assumed her death to have been an accident, but things escalated quickly, when a gunshot wound was later discovered and the last man seen with Bella alive appeared to have disappeared completely.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you...
2019-01-131h 38Dark HistoriesThe Rise & Fall of Spring Heeled JackVictorian England, an age of great industry, enlightenment, of learning and of advancement. Equally, it was the age of spiritualism, parapsychology, and restrictive social practices. In the chaotic streets of the suburbs of London, the first Victorian Urban Legend was waiting to be born, beating out Sweeney Todd by a full 9 years, Spring Heeled Jack brewed in the fears of an uncertain populace and burst onto the scene, metal claw and all, stirring a sensation that was far too ripe for anyone to ignore. His was a legend that was overshadowed by only one other when in 1888, Jack the...
2018-12-1659 minDark HistoriesThe Euston Square MysteryThe Lodging houses of Victorian London held no shortage of scandal and intrigue for the more imaginative Londoners in the 19th Century. The Maids and their masters, the comings and goings of a transient household and the very concept of strangers living together under one roof in an age when such situations were not seen as natural. Still, even the most imaginative of passers by could not have expected the stories that would soon come flooding out from one particular household, when in 1879, the body of an elderly woman showed up in the coal cellar of 4 Euston Square, a...
2018-12-021h 27Dark HistoriesRoom 1046The tale of room 1046 of the President Hotel in Kansas City is a strange one. A murder mystery with almost no clues and no evidence at the crime scene, but a victim with three names, left beaten, possibly tortured and a trail of several peculiar phone calls.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories...
2018-11-1855 minDark HistoriesDemons & Witches: Ann Glover & The Goodwin ChildrenThis week, we have a tale of Devilry and witchcraft, demonic possessions and a good dose of Persecution on all fronts! Pre-dating Salem by 3 years, Ann Glover was an Irish immigrant living in Boston in 1688, hung for witchcraft, an event which laid the groundwork for what would happen up the road a few years later.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early...
2018-11-041h 05
Dark HistoriesHalloween Bonus: Five Folk HorrorsHappy Halloween! As a special bonus episode to celebrate the good Hallows Eve, I decided to dig up and re-write five old folk horror tales from around the world. The stories span the last 500 years and show that no matter what time you lived in or which language you spoke, we all have a fascination with telling a good scary tale. Usual schedule will commence with a new episode this coming Sunday. Cheers and have a good one!
Stories included:
Mae Nak (Thailand)
Sawney bean (England)
Botan Doro (Japan)
...
2018-10-3045 minDark HistoriesThe Spider Man of Denver: Theodore Edward ConeysIn 1941, a man named Phillip Peters was found murdered in his home in Denver, Colorado. The doors and windows to the house showed no signs of forced entry and were locked when neighbours discovered the body. Strange stories of odd sightings flew around the neighbourhood, with the attack becoming known in the papers as “The Denver ghost house slayings”. The truth however, was to be something far stranger and probably for most, far more terrifying.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link...
2018-10-2152 minDark HistoriesPhantom: The Texarkana Moonlight Murders (Part 2)Part 2 of 2In 1946, The American twin city of Texarkana was plunged into the depths of panic and fear. The population of the postwar suburb was subjected to a series of murders that shook the dual cities to their core, prompting curfews, rumours and unease to spread through the area like the rail tracks that crept from it’s central hub. Nights of midnight movies, drive-in cafes, the songs of Duke Ellington and big band orchestras were perforated with tales of a man with a white sheet over his head, holes cut out for eyes, performing brutal executions up...
2018-10-0858 minDark HistoriesPhantom: The Texarkana Moonlight Murders (Part 1)Part 1 of 2In 1946, The American twin city of Texarkana was plunged into the depths of panic and fear. The population of the postwar suburb was subjected to a series of murders that shook the dual cities to their core, prompting curfews, rumours and unease to spread through the area like the rail tracks that crept from it’s central hub. Nights of midnight movies, drive-in cafes, the songs of Duke Ellington and big band orchestras were perforated with tales of a man with a white sheet over his head, holes cut out for eyes, performing brutal executions up...
2018-10-0847 min
Dark HistoriesRussian Dolls: Anatoly MoskvinIn 2011, Russia bore witness to one of the most bizarre cases in the countries criminal history. A story of Black magic, the Occult and one man's unusual hobby.
For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com
Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories
Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast
Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com...
2018-09-2354 min
Dark HistoriesAmericas First Documented Ghost: The Nelly Butler HauntingHalf a century before the Fox Sisters showed up on the scene to propel mainstream spiritualism onto the populace of America, there was a much lesser known haunting taking place in the cellar of a small frontier settlement, named Sullivan in Maine. Though it was extensively documented at the time, the many eye-witness testimonies fell to the back pages of history. Despite its relatively unknown status, it remains as one of, if not the very first documented cases of a haunting in North America and is a story that culminates in an event that was utterly bizarre.
...
2018-09-091h 09Dark HistoriesA Topper & A Beaver: Thomas Briggs & Franz MullerAll aboard, we're going back to the Victorian era to shed some light on the first ever murder on a train in Britain at a time when people were already terrified on this crazy new technology. It's not all high speed steam trains though, we've even got a super slow-mo police chase across the Atlantic!For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early...
2018-08-261h 08
Dark HistoriesThe Murder of Julia WallaceWe're crashing back to earth this week with the lesser known story of William Herbert Wallace and his wife Julia. This is a case named over and over again as the quintessential murder mystery, despite its relatively unknown status.
For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com
Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories
Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com...
2018-08-121h 16
Dark HistoriesTransmissions from nowhere: Numbers StationsStarting off in 1890, we take a look back at the history of secret radio transmissions, leading up until today and unravel some of the mystery, whilst uncovering some new oddities, of what are known as 'Numbers Stations'.
For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com
Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories
Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast
2018-07-291h 14Dark HistoriesZigmund Adamski & Alan Godfrey: A Tale of Two HalvesWe head to the Yorkshire moors to take a look at one story of a mysterious death and then through bizarre coincidence, a second story of lights in the sky and little men with lamp like heads.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistoriesConnect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast
2018-07-151h 15Dark HistoriesRoch Theriault & The Ant Hill KidsWe take a look at Roch Theriault, the brutal leader of the Canadian cult, The Ant Hill Kids. More than mere eccentric, Theriualt brutally abused his followers in the name of God, going to depths of depravity that is rarely seen even for this podcast.For extended show notes, including maps, links and scripts, head over to darkhistories.com This episode is sponsered by sudio.com headphones, use code darkhistories at checkout for 15% off, site-wide and free global shipping.Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http...
2018-07-011h 01