Episode Transcript
Dark Cast Network indie pods with a dark side.
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to Tales of the dark Cast Network's Crypt Keeper.
I'm your host, Jackie.
Join me for this heart stopping episode of dark Tales from dark Cast.
Please step forward into the crypt carefully, keep your hands to yourself or they could end up being someone else's.
Don't touch anything and you might come out of this in one piece.
I trust that everyone brought a change of clothes.
You guys may get soiled before this is over.
Let's begin our first story, shall.
Speaker 3We ay true Crimers.
I'm Hopper Daily, host of the Final Trace.
Normally I tell a true crime story to my best friend Mackenzie.
She's the one asking the questions you're probably asking at home, or the ones I never even thought of.
But tonight, for this dark Cast original Halloween special, I'm going solo.
The story I have for you today isn't an urban legend.
It's the true story of the night Halloween changed forever.
I'm your host, Hopper Daily, and this is the Final Trace of the Candy Man.
Every Halloween parents whisper warning, blades and apples, needles and snickers, A stranger with a sweet smile and poison candy.
Most of those fears are just urban legends, But in nineteen seventy four, on a cold October night in Texas, one of those legends came true.
This is the story of the Halloween that turned into a nightmare, a story that haunted October thirty first for over half a century.
Because sometimes the truth is darker than the myth.
It's October thirty first, nineteen seventy four, Deer Park, Texas.
Children dart from house to house, pillowcases and plastic pumpkins clutched in their hands, the sight of glowing jackal landards on every porch among them.
Timothy O'Brien, eight years old, excited, dressed up his little sister Elizabeth, tagging along, Their father takes them door to door, joined by a neighbor and his two kids.
At one darkened house, no one answers the door.
The kids get bored and run ahead Timothy and Elizabeth's dad.
He waits, but soon he catches up holding five long pixie sticks given to him from the occupant of the house that was slow to answer the door.
He adds one to each child and the last one to a child passing by.
They all add them to their candy hall and continue on with the night.
Later back at home, Timothy is allowed one last treat before bed.
He chooses the pixie stick.
He struggles to get the powder out that had clumped together until his dad helps him out and loosens it.
Moments after swallowing the powder, Timothy feels sick.
He holds his stomach and begins to vomit.
He cries out, Daddy, my stomach hurts before collapsing.
By the time they reached the hospital, Timothy is gone.
Tests showed that the pixie sticks were laced with cyanide, enough poison in just two inches to killed several adults.
Panicky erupts, police scramble.
Parents tore through trick or treat bags across Houston, terrified that their children had been given deadly candy.
The press dubbed the mystery culprit the man who killed Halloween, because if one stranger was handing out poisoned candy, every kid was in danger.
Investigators rushed to track the source.
They questioned neighbors, retraced trick or treat routes, candy bags all sourced.
They finally recovered the other Pixi sticks before any other child could eat them.
But slowly the story began to shift.
The evidence didn't point to a stranger lurking in the shadows.
It pointed to someone much closer.
All of the poison candy traced back to a single hand, and that hand belonged to Timothy's father, Ronald Clark O'Brien, thirty years old, an optician by trade, a deacon at the Second Baptist Church.
Outwardly a steady family man, but beneath that polished exterior, his life was crumbling.
The bills were piling up.
He was drowning in debt, so desperate that he began quietly taking out life insurance policies on his children.
Small amounts at first, but over time they grew.
By the time Halloween rolled around in nineteen seventy four, the combined payout reached tens of thousands of dollars, worth well over half a million in today's money.
To Ronald, those numbers gleamed like a lifeline, and on Halloween night, he convinced himself he'd found the perfect way out the chaos of trick or treating, the flood of candy, the faceless crowds.
If something went wrong, if a child got sick or died, who would ever trace it back to him?
That night, he slipped cyanide lace pixie sticks into the hands of children, one for his son Timothy, one for his daughter, two for his neighbor kids, and one to a ten year old he recognized from church.
Meant scatter suspicion to make it look more like the work of a deranged stranger.
But behind the mask of Halloween, the real monster wasn't in the shadows.
He was standing in plain sight, a father who gambled his own child's life for money.
The only reason that no one else died was chance.
One boy fell asleep with a pixie stick unopened beside him.
Another couldn't get past the staple that Ronald had used to reseal it.
In the end, fate, not Ronald's mercy, kept the body count from rising.
A twist of luck, a quirk of timing, and four children who never knew how close death had come crawling into their Halloween night.
Ronald was arrested days later.
At trial, prosecutors laid it all out, the debts, the insurance, the plan.
The jury took less than an hour to convict him of capital murder in nineteen seventy five, Ronald Clark O'Brien was sentenced to death.
Nearly a decade later, on March thirty first, nineteen eighty four, his sentence was carried out.
He was strapped to the gurney, a needle in his arm, the sterile hum of the machines replacing the chaos he had once unleashed.
Outside the prison that night, crowds of people gathered in the night air, their voices cutting through the darkness.
They weren't there to mourn, They weren't there to pray.
As the poison flowed into his veins, they shouted into the Texas night, trick or treat.
Ronald Clark O'Brien will always be remembered as the Candyman, the father who poisoned Halloween.
His crime became a legend, the fuel for whispered warnings passed from parent to child every October, candy bags dumped onto kitchen tables, wrappers inspected under the glow of a porchlight, fear that the Boogeyman was out there slipping poison into sweets.
But the truth is far darker than the legend, because there was no faceless stranger lurking in the night.
The monster.
He wasn't hiding in the shadows.
He was standing in the doorway, holding his son's hand.
For more haunting true crime stories that linger in the shadows, follow us on Instagram and TikTok at the Final Trace podcast.
Find us wherever you stream your podcast, and remember, not all secrets stay buried.
Speaker 4Hello and welcome to Day by Day True Crime Stories, the podcast where we explore a different crime or justice milestone from this day in history.
I'm your host ConA Gallagher, and today is October thirty first.
On this day in nineteen eighty two, it was Halloween night in south central Indiana, just north of Seymour.
Two men left a small house together.
The next morning, one man one about his normal life.
The other, twenty four year old Clifford Smith, was gone.
Days later, his wife filed a missing person's report.
A month later, two trappers found his body floating in a backwater pool off of the White River.
For more than forty years, the case sat unsolved while rumors floated around bars and living rooms across Jackson County.
That is until a new detective picked up the old file, reopened the story and finally gave the Smith family the answers they'd waited decades to hear.
Today we're talking about the disappearance and murder of Clifford Smith and the answers that took over four decades to find.
Let's get started late on October thirtieth, nineteen eighty two.
It was Halloween weekend in Seymour, Indiana, a small industrial town where everyone seemed to know everyone else.
That night, a few friends had gathered at a modest house on East thirteenth Street for a few drinks and a casual weekend get together.
Among the people drifting in and out that night were Cliff Smith, who was just twenty four years old, and his brother in law, Ronald jaff Anderson.
As the night wound down, Anderson reportedly went to go fetch something.
Witnesses would later tell police that they saw him retrieve a shotgun loaded right there in the house, and then walk outside with Cliff.
It was close to midnight when the two men got into a car and drove off, and that was the last time anyone saw Cliff Smith alive.
By morning, there was no sign of him.
Sunday came and went, Halloween passed, Cliff's wife waited, though, thinking maybe that he'd gone off with friends or needed time to cool down after some argument that no one quite remembered.
But as the days stretched on and the silence deepened, her worry gave way to full blown panic.
On November fourth, nineteen eighty two, she went to the Jackson County Sheriff's office and filed a missing person's report.
Deputies started canvassing, checking the gravel roads north of town, knocking on doors and writing down the names of everyone who'd been at that East thirteenth Street house that night, but no one was talking, not about the shotgun or about Cliff leaving with Ronald Anderson.
Those statements would take decades to make their way to police because witnesses were clamming up.
There wasn't really anywhere for the case to go at that point.
Speaker 5But then, at about.
Speaker 4Eight pm on December one, nineteen eighty two, two animal trackers working a low, swampy stretch off the White River made a horrifying discovery in a shallow flood prone byou.
They saw something pale floating in the water.
When they realized what it was, they called state police troopers and a coroner waited in under flashlights.
The body was dressed in blue jeans, a black T shirt, and brown boots.
In one pocket they found a wallet and an ID card.
It belonged to Clifford Smith.
The body was partially decomposed and the top portion of his head was gone.
An autopsy later found numerous pieces of buckshot and ruled the cause of death to be a shotgun wound to the head.
Local newspapers reported what little they knew.
Clifford had last been seen on Halloween, his wife had reported him missing five days later, and now a month after that, he'd been found dead in a backwater just north of Seymour.
Detectives mapped out the narrow, muddy lane leading from the road to the water, marking tire tracks, footprints, anything that might still linger in the soft ground.
They believed that the killer knew the area, and the remote dump site wasn't random.
That suspicion only deepened as they traced the evidence back toward town and to the small house on East thirteenth Street, where Clifford had last been seen alive.
Over the next several months, investigators interviewed witnesses, gathered physical evidence, and followed every lead that they could, But like so many small town murder cases in the early age, this one just hit a wall.
There were rumors about a fight about money, about a gun, but no one gave them anything solid enough to take to a prosecutor, so the trail went cold.
As years turned into decades, the case was passed from one detective to another.
Boxes of reports and evidence moved from shelves to storage rooms, and for over forty years that was the end of the story.
Then in September twenty fifteen, a veteran detective named Sergeant Kip Maine from the Indiana State Police pulled the case file off the shelf.
Inside were the original nineteen eighty two reports, yellow pages, typed on old forms, black and white photographs of the recovery site, in a list of every interview that had been done that fall.
He started reading, and then he started over.
Unlike the DNA driven cold cases that make headlines, this one wasn't solved by new science.
It was solved by patience and persistence.
Maine reinterviewed witnesses, He tracked down surviving family members.
He compared every statement from nineteen eighty two to what people remembered.
More than thirty years later, one by one, inconsistencies fell away, and this time the picture began to come into focus.
A house on East thirteenth Street, a loaded shotgun, two men leaving together, and one gun quietly returned later that night, and it all pointed back to Ronald Jack Anderson.
By twenty twenty three, investigators believed that they finally had enough evidence to prove who killed Cliff Smith.
On October thirty first, twenty twenty three, forty one years to the day after Cliff Smith was killed, the Indiana State Police announced that they had and arrest.
Detectives took sixty one year old Ronald Jack Anderson into custody in his home in Seymour and charged him with murder.
The details hit hard in the small town.
Not only had Cliffsmith been denied justice for over four decades, but the man accused of killing him was his own brother in law.
Over the next year and a half, the case worked its way through the courts.
In April twenty twenty five, after months of negotiation, Anderson pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter as part of the deal.
The original murder charge was dismissed.
A month later, in May twenty twenty five, a judge sentenced him to eighteen years in prison.
For the prosecution, it wasn't about revenge, it was about recognition.
After four decades, they could finally say what happened to Clifford Smith and who was responsible.
The story that began on a riverbank in nineteen two ended in a courtroom more than forty years later.
But at its heart, this is the story of a twenty four year old man who never made it home from a Halloween party, and of all of the people who never stopped looking for justice.
But sometimes justice takes years, sometimes it takes lifetimes.
But on another Halloween, forty one years after the night Clifford Smith vanished, someone was finally held accountable.
Speaker 5Hi.
Speaker 6I'm Courtney and I am the host of the Book of the Dead.
And this is the legend of the ss Urang Madan.
Now some of you may be familiar, at least in the abstract of what the ss urrag Mundan is.
There is a video game by Supermassive Games called Man of Madan, and it is based on this legend, the story of a ship transporting chemical weaponry.
But the actual legend is without a doubt Stranger than fiction.
It may be one of the most mysterious ships of all time, and there is a lot of conflicting information out there, and we're going to get into why.
But supposedly the legend goes as follows.
Sometime in the late nineteen forties, along the Straits of Malacca, which is in between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and SOS broadcast was made.
The message was received by nearby ships and they were extremely alarmed by what they heard.
The message said all officers including Captain dead lying in chart room and on bridge, probably whole crew dead.
This message was immediately followed by a series of Morse code that no one could make out because of how rapid the code was, and then one final message came through in the office Sir said, I die now.
Obviously, the ships that received this transmission were more than concerned for multiple reasons, and one of the main ones was that the crew members sending out this SOS gave no indication as to what caused the death of the crew, what their coordinates were, or what sort of danger these crew members were in.
So the ships sailing out to rescue them were going in completely blind.
According to what seems to be the original legend, an American ship called the Silver Star was the ship that answered the distress call and organized a rescue mission.
They figure out the approximate coordinates of the ship's location, and they immediately set sail into the unknown, not knowing what horrors could be awaiting them aboard the Urang Madan.
Supposedly, they arrive and when they call out to the ship, there is no answer, no movement on the ship.
So the captain of the Silver Star organizes a crew to board the urang Madan and help them.
When this rescue crew gets onto the ship, they are met with a terrifying sight.
Not one single sailor is alive.
Everyone is dead, and they are all exactly a waere.
The man that made the distress call said they would be the chart room, the bridge, the officer that made the broadcast is dead in the radio room, and every single person on the ship is lying there with their eyes looking up, their faces turned to the sun, frozen in fear, their teeth bared in horror.
Even the ship's dog is dead, frozen mid snarl.
According to the original legend, Allegedly, as the rescue crew was looking around trying to figure out what happened?
A fire was discovered in the bowels of the ship, smoke billowing out of the cargo hold.
The rescue crew abandons the ship, and as they flee back to the Silver Star, an explosion erupts so forcefully that the Urang Madan was literally lifted out of the water before sinking to the bottom of the ocean floor.
But what happened, how did the crew die and how did the fire start?
Is this even a real story or is it a ghost story crewman made up to pass the time that morphed into a horrifying mystery.
According to multiple sources, there is allegedly no mention of a ship called the Urang Madan in any shipping registry, and there is no official record of this incident from the nineteen forties when this allegedly occurred.
However, various versions of this story have been printed in newspapers from the nineteen fifties onward.
Now, one of the theories as to why there's no mention of this ship in any registry is because it's a ship that was registered as belonging to the island of Sumatra, which is an island off western Indonesia.
The reason people believe this could be a possibility is because urang Madan translates to Man from Midan and Midan is the capital of North Sumatra.
Now, according to German researcher Professor Theodore Syersdorffer, he discovered a German publication from nineteen fifty three called Dos tolten Schiffen Dersutzi or the Death Ship in the South Seas.
This was written by a man named Otto Melki, and it is believed to contain evidence that the ship and what happened to it was a real event.
Now.
Allegedly, this claims that the ship's cargo Holt contained potassium cyanide and nitroglycerine.
If it did, this could explain the explosion if the containers were compromised or mishandled in some way, and it could explain why the ship's legitimacy is so iffy, because the ship would never have legally been able to transport something like that.
The reason being was because tensions during World War II, when this incident was supposed to have occurred, was very high, and sensitive materials being transported and used inappropriately or maliciously would cause a lot of problems internationally, which is a reason why the ship's records are so hard to find or have never been found.
According to Michael East, a history and true crime writer, he said nobody came forward to say they knew the ship or had served on her.
Equally, the inconsistent dates constantly stand out, as does the changing location.
Mentions of the fate of the Irangmudan have been found in publications scattered from nineteen thirty to nineteen forties, and every one of them have details.
Changed locations vary from the Solomon Islands to the Marshall Islands and even the ship that tried to rescue them.
Berries researcher Estelle Hargraves found quotes from the nineteen forties in British national newspapers from British marine officers describe being a distress call requesting a Medican warship.
In these newspaper articles also claimed that it was a British ship that attempted a rescue mission, not the Silver Star.
Articles found by Estelle Hargraves in the Yorkshire Evening Posts, the Daily Mirror and the Hampshire Telegraph claim this accident occurred in November of nineteen forty and they placed it occurring in the Solomon Islands in the Melanesian region of the Pacific Ocean.
In the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Their information is supposedly from an officer from an unnamed ship that tried to come to the Urangmdan's aid.
Now Allegedly, according to author Alexander Butzig, who wrote the book The urrag Madan, Conjuring a Ghost Ship, he found an article from a French magazine from September seventh, nineteen forty one, that claims this incident occurred in nineteen thirty nine, and it places the location as being around Fiji and the ship was supposedly an Australian ship that had been sold to a smuggler and was smuggling a lee cargo.
However, Michael East blames the changing details on a reporter named Silvio O'shrelli.
Silvio Sherelli is a name heavily attached to the Urang story.
Silvio wrote and published his own version of the Urang Madan story after allegedly coming across the survivor that washed up on the shores of Tanji Atoll in the Marshall Islands in nineteen forty eight.
A Dutch Indonesian newspaper The Locomotif published the story where Silvio claimed he was told the ship was traveling to Costa Rica from a Chinese port because of the illegal cargo they were carrying, which was sulfuric acid.
Supposedly, this survivor's name was Jerry Rabbit.
According to Jerry, he washed up on the shore of the Marshall Islands ten days after the Urang Madan sank in a lifeboat with six other crew members, but he was the only survivor.
Rabbit made it to a missionary and reportedly told them that he joined the Ummdan's crew in Shanghai and the crew was loading fifteen thousand crates of mysterious cargo into the bowels of the ship.
He claimed that after they set sail to Costa Rica, he realized that this was a smuggling operation.
According to this report, Jerry said that after men on the crew started growing sick, he investigated what the ship was carrying and he found out via a log book that the crates they were transporting contained sulfuric acid, potassium cyanide, and nitroglycerine.
After men started dying, Jerry escaped on the lifeboat, and he allegedly died himself soon after telling the story.
The problem is there is no mention of Jerry Rabbit existing at all outside of this article.
This article claims the cargo was mishandled or not stored properly, and the escaping fumes caused the crew's death and caused the explosion.
Now toxic fumes killing the crew is the most common theory, with minor differences.
Some claimed the fumes alone killed them, and some claimed the fumes caused horrific hallucinations that literally scared these crew members to death.
Another theory points to a pirate attack, which, given the time this would have occurred, could have been a possibility except for the fact that the bodies on board reportedly showed no injuries.
A different article by Les Hewett claims that the incident occurred either June nineteen forty seven or February nineteen forty eight, but none of these states were consistent.
According to this article, two ships picked up the distress call from the Urang Madan, the Silver Star, and the SS City of Baltimore.
With the help of a Dutch ship and a British listening post, they were able to figure out the coordinates of the urrang Madan and the Silver Star set out on a rescue mission.
The urang Madan was found around one hundred and fifty miles from the broadcast coordinates.
Now according to this article, the rescue crew noticed a few other things besides the deceased crew.
One of the lifeboats attached to the side of the ship was missing, which means, or at least implies, that some of the crew managed to get off the ship.
The temperature of the ship itself was somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and ten degrees, but the rescue crew felt an unnatural chill, seemingly coming from nowhere.
The bodies of the crew were unwounded, but they seemed to be decaying faster than they should be, though if the ship was that hot, it would accelerate decomposition.
However, there are some glaring issues with these dates.
For the articles claiming the Silver Star was the ship to come to the rescue, It's not possible because the ship that was named the Silver Star was not called that until after this incident supposedly happened.
The ship was registered under the name Santo Juana and the name wasn't changed until the Graceline Shipping Company bought the rights to the ship's registry and changed the name.
In fact, the ship was only called the Silver Star for about one year before the name changed again.
Now, the Urang Madan was completely un damaged, so they were going to tow the ship back to Port to salvage it when they noticed smoke coming from the cargo Holt Also according to this article, the first official mention of this incident is from the US Coast Guard in May of nineteen fifty two.
Another theory has to do with chemical warfare.
According to this theory, the Japanese might have smuggled experimental biological weaponry they created onto the ship for transport.
This was called Unit seven thirty one, and this theory goes on to say that the Japanese aim to create the most dangerous weapon in order to achieve Japanese supremacy.
Allegedly, Unit seven thirty one was developed in nineteen thirty two by a Japanese bacterioologist named shiro Ishi, who conducted horrific experiments during World War II, which is an entire story in and of itself.
The last mention of the ss Urang Madan comes from a letter written by a man named C.
H.
Mark in summer nineteen fifty nine.
This letter was written to Alan Doules, the assistant director of the CIA, and in the letter, H.
Mark claims that he has evidence that the Urrang Madan existed and that its demise came from great balls of fire in the sky, and he wanted confirmation that he was correct, But mister Doules only replied, thank you for your inquiry.
As for the final resting place of the Urang Madan, no one has ever figured out where it sank.
There had been no wrecks found along the streets of Malaka, and no identified ships matching its description were ever found.
No one knows or may ever know, if the urrag Madans truly existed, But if it did, the ocean took its secrets to the very depths where no one may ever find it again.
I'm Courtney from the Book of the Dead.
Speaker 7Hi everyone, I'm Pat and I'm Darcy and we are the hosts of Pod of Sarah.
Welcome everyone to the darkst Netbook Halloween Special A lots of really really good stories for you the spooky Halloween, and we're here with one of those two.
Halloween Night in twenty eleven was not a fun one for first responders in Chicago.
When the police arrived at an address in Winchester Avenue, the paramedics were already there trying to help forty nine year old Maria Adams.
There was a loss of blood everywhere, broken dishes, and three knives in the sink.
Maria was found face down, having suffered multiple lacerations and puncture wounds to her the face and hands, and altogether she had over twenty stab wounds and lacerations, some of which led investigators to believe that they had been carried out by someone holding two knives, one in each hand.
So think like fucking windmill situation when you literally go in us, right, Yeah, so.
Speaker 8That's quite dramatic.
Yeah.
Speaker 7Yeah.
There were also injuries to her head, so she was either stomped on or had her head slammed on the floor, So really, really violent.
Unfortunately, Maria died almost a week later on the fifth of November.
All of this has happened because of a bag of Halloween candy.
No, yeah, it's about to get weird.
Speaker 8Everyone.
Speaker 7The Dell People's met Maria Adams in two thousand and seven.
According to him, he'd give her money and gifts in exchange for sex, and she would sometimes spend the night at his place.
So I don't know the exact nature of this relationship, but it seems very transactional race.
But yeah, this seems to this seemed to have had like some sort of arrangements and adults, right, do what you wanted to do what you want exactly, yeah, exactly.
So maybe she just yeah, maybe she.
I don't know what the fuck is going on here, but yeah, they knew each other.
They would kind of bonk and he would like give her dinner.
I don't know standard right.
So that Halloween, Liddell noticed that a bag of his candy was missing, and he was really mad because it wasn't the first time things would kind of disappear when Maria was around.
So she confronted her and she denied having seen it anyway.
She was like, don't know what you're talking about.
May you're tripping.
Speaker 9But to be fair, if my baggy of candy was missing, being I'd be I'd be upset.
Speaker 8There would be.
Speaker 7Words, yes, for sure, yea one hundred percent.
But yeah, she was like, I don't know, I've never seen it what you're talking about.
Well, he apparently found it in her coat pocket.
Oh she did take it, did take it?
Well, allegedly she took it, that's what he said.
So, yeah, it's unclear exactly like what happened here, like how the fight started.
But at some point Maria threw a plate at Laddell and hit him right above his right eye, and in a man shot, you're can see he's got like a nasty little gash above his eyebrow.
But you know, is it It's possible he lunched at her first syndication and she just basically threw a plate to defend herself.
Speaker 8We don't really know.
Speaker 7He claims some other things we don't know, but he claimed that she threw it unprovoked, like just susprandomly decided to throw a place at him.
Apparently.
I don't know about that.
Speaker 8I don't think so bulky, okay, let's with.
Speaker 7That, right, Yeah, and that made him mad, apparently, so he's started walking towards her, and that's when she grabbed two steak knives.
He wrestled them away from her, and then he managed to wrestle her to the ground and began swinging the knives, aiming for the face, like you know, with both his hands, just like she going at it obviously fucking awful.
He stopped when she turned over and stopped fighting back, but she just got quiet.
Speaker 8He was like, all right, it's believed that.
Speaker 7He then grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the ground three times.
She was moaning, and he said that he didn't know if she was faking it or what.
Speaker 10Do you know?
Speaker 7The thembities can't be trustd to can they like?
Speaker 8Is she actually dying or not?
I don't know.
Speaker 9Wait, I just slammed her head a few times, did you.
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 8Whatever?
Man?
Speaker 7Yeah, So he wasn't sure if she was pretending she was whatever the fuck he claims, what's happening?
I don't know.
He then stomped on her back, sorry, on the back of her head once more, grabs the biggest knife from the kitchen drawer and then poked her with it, basically like you're alive, you were alive, if you will laugh, just to see if she moves, or if she talks, or if anything happens.
Of course, she didn't move.
Ladell considered dumping her somewhere outside.
He was like, I can just kind of get rid of her, can't I just to whatever find a body.
But because they'd had sex earlier that night, like literally an hour earlier, he thought that the cops would find them anyway, they would connect it, like connect her body to him.
So he was like, nah, I don't want anyone to think I raped her.
Speaker 5You know.
Speaker 7He didn't want that fucking charge on top of everything else.
So he was like, I'd better just like not do that because I don't know.
I imagine thinking that his DNA sample or details were already somewhere in the bully system, that kind of line of thinking.
Speaker 9But you know, also, you're going to get that mad over a bag of candy.
You must have a problems before, do you know.
I mean, something's going on here.
Speaker 7I have no idea, mate, But yeah, he was like, no, I'm not gonna just dump dump her because I don't want another right of rape charge for something I didn't do, because.
Speaker 8I'm not that kind of man.
You know, I'm not raping.
Speaker 7It interesting that you went there.
So instead he got dressed and he called no one one.
When the police officers got there, they kind of thought that he seemed all right, like he seemed together.
There was no dramatics, there was no theatrics.
He was just kind of, you know, just just a guy, just a guy sitting on the front porch, basically waiting for them.
Yeah, he was absolutely fine.
He told them he didn't want to hurt her.
It was self defense.
Basically, she was holding the knives and when she hit him with the plate, he would he like saw his own blood on his fingers, and he really freaked out, and that's when it kind of lost control and he kind of went for it.
Later during the trial, he claimed that he didn't remember saying anything about all of that, or saying anything about slamming her head into the ground or considering hiding her body, which is what he fucking told them when they first arrested him.
Speaker 8But he was like, I don't remember saying that.
Speaker 7No, I didn't say that.
If I don't remember, it didn't happen.
Speaker 9My Lloyd told me it was a bad idea, So no, I don't remember in it.
Speaker 7And then he said in course that in fact, at the time of that incident, he was actually falling in love with her.
He didn't want her to get hurt.
Speaker 8He loved her.
Speaker 7Yeah, so Ladell was facing charges of first degree murder and aggravated domestic battery.
He pleaded not guilty because you know, he was a self defense he loved her.
He was of course found guilty and sentenced to thirty years in prison, and the sentence was then appealed.
Basically, his defense claimed that at twenty nine he was fifty five and some of the incident at twenty nine he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and so a psychiatrist's statement should have been allowed, and they argued for a lesser sentence of second degree murder because of that that he was little, he was mentally ill.
That makes sense, Yeah, yeah, Well, in the end they kind of there was a bit of you know, pushing and pulling and all that, all of that, but the courts decided that if it's irrelevant actually because the state of Illinois doesn't recognize diminished responsibility defense, they just don't fucking buy that.
They don't believe they don't do it.
If anything, they would have to go for insanity defense, which they so you know, they were like, we don't do that here, darling, Bye bye.
For the next thirty years, Laddell like good luck to you and the psychiatrist, doctor Harlan, said that Laddell suffered from schizo effective disorder, paraloid schizophrenia, cognitive disorder, and cocaine abuse and a very very strong addiction to candy apparently.
So there you have it, a story about a man who killed his missus or whoever the fact she was to him over a bag of god dun candy.
Speaker 9I mean, honestly, at your grown age, you shouldn't be that sad.
You shouldn't have treated this kind of ft, honestly like, I'm sure it sounds to me like that perhaps was violence in this kind of scenario before.
Speaker 8These sound like people who have some sort of they are.
Speaker 7Damaged, I think, but cocaine abuse, I'm sure that's not fucking helpful in any case anyway.
But yeah, just a really horrendous how things can escalate over such a mind and minor thing that you would never even I mean, would you.
Speaker 8Kill over a bag of candy.
I don't think I'll be touching anyone's candy.
Keep your fucking to yourselves.
Speaker 7That's a lesson from today.
Don't steal Halloween candy because look how it might end up.
So that's our lesson for tonight.
Speaker 8Have you ever had your Halloween candy stolen?
Speaker 5No?
Speaker 7I mean I don't really, I've never really done it.
It's not a thing really, No.
Yeah, these days, I tried to have a couple of bigers of candy and just like give it to the kids.
But a lot of the time they.
Speaker 9Just pends on the area that because there's some parts on London where they actually make an effort.
Speaker 8But it's definitely a very American.
Speaker 7Thing is it's not so big here.
Speaker 9But one time when we were kids, right, we went on we really wanted to do trick and treating, so we're like, come, let's try it out.
And then my little brother came with me as well, and he was wearing like a really scary mask.
And the area we grew up in there was zero Halloween anything on there.
Speaker 8There were nobody at decorations.
It wasn't a thing.
Speaker 9Yeah, So we went to our neighbors and one of our neighbors, like most of them didn't even answer.
Speaker 8Some of them did it.
Speaker 9They were like oh no, Like they were giving us whatever they could find, like biscuits are parts for them.
Speaker 8Literally, They're like, oh no, idea.
Speaker 9I think one family were having a wedding, so they had theirs and they gave us some nice that's look.
Most people were just like trying to like felt bad and gave us things.
One time, one of the houses we went to, the lady had obviously had no idea it was a Halloween or anything.
Speaker 8She's on the third she answered the door.
My brother's standing right there with the mask.
Speaker 9She fully like, she got so panicked she fell to the ground.
Speaker 7This is what happens when you do Halloween and places.
Speaker 9We were like super apologetic, and she's like, it's okay, it's okay, Now I have to find something to give you, guys, and then she just went running into a kitchen.
Speaker 8That just means the costume was great.
Speaker 7Yes, candy was well deserved.
Speaker 8Thank you very much for that.
Speaker 10Guys.
Speaker 7Thank you for listening.
We hope you enjoy your spooky, spooky season and enjoy all the other stories from Dark Cast Network.
Give all of them a go.
They're all fantastic.
We've been Pat and Darcy post of Pot of Sarah.
Thank you very much for listening, and enjoy the rest of your Halloween.
Speaker 10Here everyone, I'm Charmeta and I I host the podcast called Missing in the PMW.
I focus on missing person cases right here in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up, and all of my missing persons are from marginalized communities.
The PNW has some of the most haunted places.
Today, I am going to take you on a tour of three of the most haunted places in my home state of Oregon.
The first stop is Multnomah Falls, one of the most popular tour spots in Oregon, is a half hour drive east of where I grew up in Portland.
On I eighty four, going towards the Columbia River Gorge, you will run into science for Mulnoma Falls, a six hundred and twenty foot high, two tier beautiful waterfall.
Speaker 5It is the tallest waterfall in.
Speaker 10Oregon, the most heiked, and draws nearly two million visitors per year.
But what many people may not know is actually has a haunted past.
My grandma actually told me and my siblings' story growing up, as it is an old Native American tell and if you heard my podcast before, you'd know I'm half Mexican and half Native American.
The story goes that long ago, a deadly illness ravaged a local Native village.
An elder spoke to the tribe and said that the only way the illness could be stopped was by the sacrifice of a maiden of noble honor.
The village's chief had a daughter.
She took it upon herself to sacrifice herself to spare her people.
She climbed to the top where the waterfall now is and jumped off, giving herself for her village.
With that sacrifice, her village was cleansed, and the waterfall was created by a spirit so that her people would always remember her courage, and so that the midst of the waterfall would cleanse and hill.
Speaker 5Those who visited the site.
Speaker 10If you look closely, many people say that you can see the young woman's face in the waterfall.
Most commonly you can see her in the water in the wintertime.
I've actually seen her spirit, or the face of her spirit in the waterfall myself.
I am not taking you to the oron coast thirteen miles north of a little town called Florence, where atop a two hundred and five foot headland stands the fifty six foot tall Hasida Head Lighthouse.
Over the years, many men would keep the lighthouse running and just up the hill from the lighthouse was an actual house that their families could stay in.
One particular member of one particular family is said to have never left.
Many call her the Gray Lady, but for the last couple of decades she has been.
Speaker 5Known as Room are you?
At least?
Speaker 10That is the name a couple of lame community college kids gave her after they decided to play within Luigi board in the house good Oldwichi boards right.
Legend has it that Rue's husband was a lighthouse keeper and had two daughters.
One of her daughters unfortunately drowned, although it's not mentioned if her daughter drowned in the house or if her daughter drowned in the ocean while her husband and other daughter moved on.
She however, did not.
And she's not a mean ghost by any means, but she must likes to play.
Speaker 5Pranks on people.
Speaker 10She will rearrange furniture, move guests belongings, and she's even known to clean up the place.
Speaker 5Hey, who doesn't like a ghost as clean?
Speaker 10She is not just in the house either, though, with some settings of her inside.
Speaker 5The actual lighthouse that actually makes me.
Speaker 10Believe that she's looking out over to the Pacific Ocean.
With that, I believe If the story is true, her daughter unfortunately died and drowned in the Pacific Ocean.
The last haunted place we are going is three hundred miles from Portland and far eastern Oregon to a place called Baker City, which is home to the Grand Geyser Hotel.
One of the most prominent ghosts is the Lady in Blue.
Speaker 5She is believed to be.
Speaker 10A former owner, possibly named Grandma Annabelle, who is seen in mirrors walking downstairs and sitting in room three h two.
Not to be confused by that creepy little doll annabel totally completely different.
There are also a bunch of sightings of many unknown male entities, ladies in red, and even a headless cook.
What would a hand hotel be without some spooky salads, right, guess how reported hearing disembodied voices, a woman screaming, laughter.
Speaker 5And footsteps.
Speaker 10Guests have also seen lights, flickering, doors opening and closing by themselves, and objects moving on their own.
Now, not all the paranormal going on in the hotel is screamy.
Some of the workers at the hotel say that they can hear loud music coming from the upper floors and the attic and they believe the ghosts are up there having a party and they just don't disturb them.
Speaker 5Guess you gotta have fun in the afterlife too, right.
Speaker 10That is all I have for you today, And I just want to give a shout out to CJ and all of my other Dark Cast members.
I'm so excited to be a part of this Hearer's Dark Cast Halloween episode.
And I hope you catch Missing in the PNW.
I am on all the streaming platforms.
You can catch me on Facebook or Instagram at Missing in the PNW podcast and I.
Speaker 5Will talk to you next time.
Speaker 10Guys, Happy Halloween and remember have fun but be safe.
Speaker 11Good evening listeners.
Speaker 8My name is DJ.
Speaker 11I'm the host of the mythical true crime podcast.
Tonight, we're going to hear about one of the most infamous killers that has spawned multiple copycats and has inspired pop culture films and television shows, most recently Netflix's Monsters, the Ed Geen Story.
Edward Theodore Gean was born in Lacrosse County, Wisconsin, late August August twenty seventh, nineteen o six.
He was the second of two sons from George gen and Augusta Gean, now the Gan's only sibling he had was an older brother named Henry Augusta.
His mother, who was feveritely religious and nominally Lutheran, frequently preached to her sons about the innate immorality of the world, such as the evils of drinking and her belief that all women were naturally promiscuous and instruments of the devil.
She reserved every afternoon to read from the Bible, usually selecting verses from Old Testament to the Book of Revelation concerning death, murder, and divine retribution.
Edward idolized and eventually became obsessed with his mother.
In Lacrosse, Gaines's father worked as a carpenter, tanner, and a firefighter.
He also owned a local grocery store, but soon sold his business and left the city with his family to live on a one hundred and fifty five acre farm in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, which became their permanent residence.
Gaines's father was known to be a violent alcoholic who regularly beat both of his sons.
This caused Ed's ears to ring when his father beat him over the head.
Augusta took advantage of the farm's isolation by turning away outsiders who could have influenced her sons.
Edward left the farm only to attend school, and outside of school, he spent most of his time doing chores on the farm.
He was very shy.
Classmates and teachers remembered him as having strange mannerisms, such as seemingly random laughter, as if he was laughing at his own personal jokes.
Augusta punished Edward every time he tried to make friends.
According to family acquaintances, despite his poor social development, Edward was fairly well in school, particularly at reading.
Now On April one, nineteen forty, the game brother's father had a fatal heart attack at the age of sixty six.
Ed and his brother were doing odd jobs around town to help cover living expenses.
The brothers were generally considered reliable and honest to the rest of the community.
While both worked as handymen, Ed frequently babysat for neighbors, seemingly to relate more easily to children than to adults.
Henry began dating a woman who was a divorcee with two children of her own, and planned to move in with her.
He worried that his brother's attachment to their mother, and often spoke ill of her around Edward, who always responded with shock and hurt.
However, on May sixteenth, nineteen forty four, ed was burning away most of the marsh vegetation on the property, and this caused a fire to go out of control, drawing an attention of the local fire department.
By the end of that day, the fire had it been extinguished and the firefighters left.
However, ed reported Henry missing with lanterns and flashlights.
A search party searched for the forty three year old Henry, whose dead body was found lying face down.
Apparently Henry had been dent for some time, didn't seem to be caused by the fire.
However, it did appear that the cause of death was heart failure.
It was later reported by a biographer that Henry had bruises on his head.
Police dismissed the possibility of foul play, and the county coroner listed it as as pphyxiation as the cause of death.
The authorities accepted the accident theory, but there was no official investigation conducted in the autopsy was never performed.
Questioning ed about the death of Bernice Warden in nineteen fifty seven, state investigator Joe Wilhelmonsky brought up questions about Henry's death to him.
George Arndt, who studied the case, wrote later in retrospect that it was possibly unlikely that Henry's death was sort of a canaan able aspect, and Ed was the one that carried out the murder.
With Henry deceased, Ed and his mother were now alone.
Augusta suffered a paralyzing stroke shortly after Henry's death, and Ed devoted the rest of himself for her terror.
Sometime in nineteen forty five, he later recounted that he and his mother visited a man named Smith who lived nearby, to purchase straw.
According to Edward, Augusta witnessed Smith beating a dog, and a woman inside the smith residence came out and yelled him to stop, but Smith went ahead to beat the dog literally to death.
Augusta was extremely upset by this scene, father her most didn't appear to be the brutality towards a dog, but rather the presence of the woman there.
Augusta then later told ed that the woman was not married to Smith, so had no business of even being there.
Angrily calling her Smith's harlot, she suffered a second stroke soon after, and her health deteriorated rapidly.
Augusta died on December twenty ninth, nineteen forty five, at the age of only sixty seven.
Edward, devastated by the death of his mother and the words of his biographer, only had his friend and his only true love gone, he was absolutely alone in the world.
Now, ed held on to the farm and earned money again doing odd jobs.
He boarded up rooms used by his mother, including the upstairs and downstairs parlor, and the living room, leaving them seemingly untouched while the rest of the house became increasingly squaddled.
These rooms became pristine.
Ed lived in the small room next to the kitchen.
Around this time he began interested in reading pulp magazines and adventure stories, particularly those involving cannibals or Nazi atrocities, specifically concerning Ilsa Cooke, who had been accused of selecting tattooed prisoners for death to a fashion lampshades and other items of their skins.
In nineteen fifty one, Edwards started receiving a farm subsidy from the federal government.
He still worked occasionally at the local municipal rail crew and crop threshing crews up in Plainfield area.
However, sometime between nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty six, he had then sold an additional eighty acre parcel of his land.
On the morning of November fifteenth, nineteen fifty seven, fifty eight year old plain Filled hardware store owner Beernice Warden was reported disappeared.
The hardware store's truck had been seen driving out of the rear of the building at around nine thirty am that day.
The store saw very few customers the entire day, and some area residents believed that this was because it was deer hunting season.
Warden's son, Deputy sheriff Frank Warden, entered the store around five pm to find the cast register open with bloodstains on the floor.
Frank told investigators that the evening before his mother's disappearance, Gean had been seen at the store and was expecting to return the next morning for a gallon of antifreeze.
A sales slip of the antifreeze was the last receipt written by Pernice Warden on the morning that she disappeared.
That evening, Gean was arrested at West Playfield grocery store, and the Sheriff's department searched his farm.
The sheriff deputy discovered not just Warden's decapitated body in the shed of Gean's property, who was also hung upside down by her legs in a cross bar between her ankles and ropes at her wrists.
Her torso had been, in his words, dressed like a deer.
Warden had been shot with a twenty two caliber rifle, and the mutilation were made after her death.
Searching Gain's house, authorities found multiple artifacts such as a whole human bones and fragments of skeletons, a waste basket made of human skin, human skin covering several chairs, a human skull mounted on bedposts, female skulls on top of some top sawn off bowls made from human skulls, a corset made from a human torso, skin from shoulders to waist, leggings made from human leg skin, masks made of skin from female heads, Mary Hogan's face mask on a paper bag.
Mary Hogan's skull was inside of a box.
Bernice Holden's entire head was inside of a burlap sack, as well as her heart in a plastic bag in front of Gen's potbelly stove, nine volvas inside of a shoe box, a young girl's dress and two volvas from two females judged to be about fifteen years old.
A belt made from female human nipples, four noses, a pair of lips with a window shade drawstrain in a lamp shade made from the skin of a human face.
These artifacts were photographed at the State Crime Laboratory and then decently disposed of.
One question.
Gaine told investigators that between nineteen forty seven and nineteen fifty two he had made as many as forty nocturnal visitors and three local graveyards to exume recently buried bodies and what he says he was in a days like state on about thirty of those visits, He said that he came out of that daze while at the cemetery, left the grave and good order, and returned home empty handed.
On other occasions, he dug up the graves of recently buried middle aged women and he thought resembled his mother and took their bodies home, where he tanned their skin to make his paraphernalia.
Gain admitted that stealing from nine graves led investigators to him.
Alan Winnimowski the State Crime Laboratory participated in opening three test graves identified by Gean.
The caskets were inside wooden boxes, the top boards ran crossways, not lengwives, and the tops of the boxes were about two feet or so below the surface in sandy soil.
Gean had robbed the grave soon after their funerals while the graves were incomplete.
The test graves were exhumed because authorities were uncertain as whether the slight Geen was capable of single handily digging up a grave.
During the evening, they were found, as Gean described, one casket empty, the other casket was empty but contained a few bones and crowbar, and a final casket had most of the body missing, but Gean had returned rings and some other body parts.
Thus Gean's confession was largely corroborated.
Soon after his mother's death, Gain began to create a woman's suit so that he could become his mother to literally crawl into her skin.
He denied having sex with the bodies he exhumed, explaining quote they smelled too bad, and during the State Crime Laborator interrogation, Geane admitted to shooting fifty one year old Mary Hogan, a tavern owner who had been missing since December eighth that year.
In nineteen fifty four.
Her head was later found in his house, though he denied any memory of the details surrounding her death.
The sixteen year old youth whose parents were friends with Gean, who had attended baseball games in the movies with him, reported that Geen kemp shrunk and heads in his house, which he described as relics sent by a cousin who had served in the Philippines of World War I two.
Upon investigation by police, these were determined to be human facial skins carefully peeled from their corpses and used by Geen as masks.
During questioning, Sheriff Art Schnelly reported assaulted Geen by banging his head and face into a brick wall.
As a result, Geane's initial confession was ruled inimissible.
Sheriff Art died of heart failure in eighteen sixty eight at the age of forty three, before Geen's trial even took place.
Many who were Sheriff Art who knew him, said that he was traumatized by the horror that Geen's crimes inflicted on him, and this along with the fear of having to testify in court, especially against assaulting Geen who which caused his death.
Now Gain was considered a suspect in several other unsolved cases there in Wisconsin.
In November and fifty seven, authorities confronted him about missing persons cases that had occurred between the death of his mother and that of Warden.
Their suspicions further aroused the discovery of Hogan's remains why detector tasks exonerated Gaen from many of those murders, but his psychiatrists concluded that his violence can only be directed to women who physically resemble his mother.
On November twenty one, nineteen fifty seven, Geen was arraigned in the County court House for one count of first degree murder, where he played it not guilty by reason of insanity.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found mentally incompetent, thus unfit for trial.
Geen was then sent to the Central State Hospital for the criminally Insane, which is now known as Dodge Correctional Institution Maxim's security Facility.
He was later transferred to the Madonna State Hospital in Madison.
In nineteen sixty eight.
Doctors determined that Geen was mentally able to confer with counsel and participate in his own defense, so new trial began on November seventh, nineteen sixty eight, eleven years after and it lasted less than one week.
A psychiatrist testified that gain had told him that he did not know whether the killing of Warden was intentional or accidental.
Gain told him that he had examined a gun at Warden's store and the weapon discharged and killed her.
He claimed to not have aimed the rifle at her and didn't remember anything that happened that morning.
At the request of the defense, Geen's trial was held without a jury, with Judge Robert H.
Gallmer presiding.
Geen was found guilty by the judge on November fourteenth.
A second trial dealt with Gean's insanity or sanity.
After testimony by doctors for the prosecut and defense, Gallmer ruled Gaen quote not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered him to be committed to Central State Hospital for the criminally Insane.
Gaines spent the rest of his life inside that mental hospital.
Judge wrote, due to prohibitive costs, Gain was tried only for one murder, that of miss Warden, and also admitted to killing Mary Hogan.
Now Gean's house, the outbuildings and as one hundred and ninety five acre property were appraised at about four thousand, seven hundred dollars, which is equivalent to about fifty one thousand dollars in today's money.
His possessions were scheduled to be at auction March thirtieth, nineteen fifty eight, amidst rumors that the house and the land stood on what might become a tourist attraction.
Early in the morning of March twentieth, the house was destroyed by a fire.
The Deputy fire Marshal reported that a garbage fire had been set seventy five feet away from the house by a cleaning crew, who were also given the task of disposing the refuse.
Hot coals were recovered from the spot of the bondfire, but that was not the fire that spread along the ground from the location.
Arson was suspected, but the cause of fire was never officially determined.
It is possible that the fire was not considered a matter of urgency by the fire chief.
Frank Warden, the son of Geen's victim.
Gane learned of the incident while in the detention center, shrugged and said just as well.
Gaines a vehicle, the Ford Sedan, which used to haul the bodies of his victims, was sold at public auction for seven hundred and sixty dollars, which is about eighty three hundred dollars today.
The carnival side show operator Bunny Gibbons purchased the vehicle.
Gibbons was then later charged carnivalgoers twenty five cents admission to see them.
The current whereabouts of the Ford Sedan are unknown.
Gain later died at the Montona Mental Hospital Institute due to respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer on July twenty sixth, nineteen eighty four, at the age of seventy seven.
Gain is interred by his parents and his brother in play in Field Cemetery.
Over the years, however, souvenir seekers chipped away at pieces of his gravestone until the stone itself was stolen in the year two thousand.
It was recovered less than a year and a half later in June two thousand and one near Seattle, Washington, and was placed in a storage unit in the Sheriff's Department, and since then his gravesite has remained unmarked.
Thank you very much for listening to tonight's story Again.
My name is DJ and I'm the host of the mythical true crime podcast good Night.
Speaker 12Ooh it's Jackie.
Did I scare you?
How are we doing so far?
Is everyone okay?
Do you need a doctor?
How about a therapist?
Let's see what else the crypt has in store for you.
Speaker 13In December nineteen seventy two, one hundred and one people were killed, with several more floating in the shallow, alligator infested water of the Everglades when Eastern Airlines Flight four oh one crashed.
Second Officer Donald Repo was one of those people who perished, along with pilot Captain Bob Loft.
Though they died in the crash, they would continue to get on flights again and again, leaving Eastern Airlines Flight three eighteen feeling quite haunted.
Hi.
I'm Kayla, host of Tragedy with a View, and this is the Ghosts of Flight four oh one.
If you find that you enjoy this particular story and want more, I will be releasing a full in depth version on my show on November twelfth.
I release weekly episodes of the misadventures in Mayhem that occur all over the globe while exploring the outdoors join me.
The flight itself was smoothly, and when they began to approach Miami International Airport, First Officer stock Still lowered the landing gear.
As co pilot, this was his job on the dash.
There are three lights for each of the wheel wells that tell the pilot and co pilot when the wheels are down and ready for landing, but this time only the two rear wheel lights lit up green.
The front wheel light stayed off, indicating that the land gear at the nose of the plane failed to come out.
Generally, when this happens, there is something with the light itself that is faulty rather than the wheel, and even when the wheel fails to come out, with the push of a button, it can be done so manually.
This is nothing to panic about.
Captain Loft simply tells air control that he is going to make a loop around while they address the issue and then come back in for landing.
First Officer stock Still then turns the autopilot on to keep the plane at around two thousand feet of altitude and moving at about two hundred miles per hour so that he and Keptain Loft are able to examine the control deck at the same time.
Donald Repo, who was the flight mechanic, would end up going down into the small compartment which sits below the cockpit to visually see whether the wheel has come down or not.
Captain lofton first Officer Stock still figure out that it was the light itself that was faulty as is common, and that the wheel was in fact down.
It was eleven forty two pm.
First Officer Stock still began to turn the plane to the left so they could swoop around toward the airport once again when he got an odd sensation of doom.
He had noticed the ground coming up to meet them without realizing that this is what it was, and Flight four oh one crashed into the Everglades.
It would be Bob Marquee who arrived on the scene first.
He was out frog hunting with his friend on a flat bottom boat when he saw the explosion from Flight four oh one hitting the water.
It took him several moments to comprehend what happened, but when he made his way toward the accident, the sound that rose up was undeniable.
It was the sound of people crying out for help.
When Bob saw the first victim, he noticed it was a man in only about a foot of water, but he was struggling to keep his head above the small waves.
His head was bloody, and when he shined the light around the water surrounding them, Bob saw body after body floating.
Speaker 5In the water.
Speaker 13Some were still strapped into their seats.
But it would be the things that happened away from the wreckage that leaves a chill no one can explain.
Sadie Messina, the wife of Rosario, who was a passenger on the plane, was standing in the airport waiting for her husband to arrive when she heard his whistling of a song.
He loved this song and whistled it frequently, but when she turned to find him, he was not there.
When the plane crashed, multiple people mentioned that they saw flight attendant Stephanie's Danish struggling out of the plane and then clumsily staggering her way through the swamp, which we will later learn was impossible because investigators found that she had died on impact in March of nineteen seventy three, nearly three months after the crash into the Everglades.
Eastern Airlines Flight three eighteen was flying from New York to Fort Lauderdale in Florida.
While preparing meals for passengers, one of the flight attendants, Denise, went into the plane's galley to help heat up some meals.
In this area there is a refrigerator and ovens, and when she stepped into the space, she noticed that Ginny, another flight attendant, was no longer there.
She didn't pay any mind to this, though, and got to warming up meals.
Suddenly she felt that she was no longer alone, but when she turned around, she saw no one was there.
She thought that maybe Ginny or one of the other flight attendants was playing a trick on her, and so she began to open all of the doors.
That feeling of not being alone only intensified when she found no one was there.
Then there are odd stories like that of a different flight on flight three eighteen, where Sis, a flight attendant, was making her way down the row counting passengers as they settled in for their flight.
She was doing this to quickly identify if everyone was on board, and when she was done, she realized that they were over by one.
As she turned around.
At the front of the plane, she noticed a man in a pilot's uniform sitting in first class, and she realized that this must be why they were off by one.
She assumed that he was dead heading, which is when a pilot needs to get to a different airport to fly a plane and they will hop on one of the company's other flights to get there.
They don't really have to have a ticket or anything, and this was a pretty common thing to have happened, at least in the seventies, but she still needed to be able to identify him and have him on the record for being on the plane.
She approaches him and says, Hi, I'm Sis.
Can I get your name?
And are you dead heading?
And he just doesn't acknowledge that she is there.
He is just staring directly at the seat in front of him.
She repeats herself, and then another flight attendant, Diane, comes over and hears Sis ask for a third time, but he still doesn't answer.
By now, the passengers are noticing that this weird interaction is going on, so Sis decides that she is just going to have the pilot, George, come out and deal with this man who just won't respond to her.
When George comes out, he kneels down so that he is at the man's eye level, and when he looks into the face of this extra pilot, he is stunned to see Captain Bob Loft staring back at him.
George doesn't know Bob because of photos.
He was good friends with Bob.
George is so surprised that he kind of falls backwards and exclaims that's Bob Loft, and everyone kind of turns their attention to George.
He's he's kind of on the ground.
He's fallen backwards on his butt, and as they do so, the captain vanishes from his seat.
We all know how cramped planes can be, so people are a little bit worried at this point and they're shaken up.
They end up delaying the flight and telling passengers to stay in their seats so that way they can search the plane for this man.
Many had clearly seen him, and they find nothing.
Eventually they have a safe flight to their destination.
But this is just one of numerous reports about sightings of both Bob Loft and Don Repo that were reported over the years.
Eastern Airlines would eventually remove and replace all of the repurposed parts from Flight four oh one, and this ended their sightings, but it hasn't ended the stories of the ghosts of Flight four oh one.
Thank you for listening.
If you want to hear more about the story or more of the ghost stories that have come from Flight four oh one, hop on over to Tragedy with a View on November twelfth, anywhere you listen to podcasts.
See you there, Hey there.
Speaker 14I'm CJ to Rainbow Crimes formerly Beyond the Rainbow two Crimes of the LGBTQ plus and I'm the founder of Darkcast Network.
I hope you were enjoying the stories our fabulous creators have been bringing you so far.
I have a historical case of murder for you that happened on Halloween Night in nineteen fifty eight.
The place Charleston, South Carolina.
In nineteen fifty eight, Charleston had several bars and clubs that would cater to strictly the LGBTQ community, although the term LGBTQ didn't make its existence known until the mid nineteen eighties, and then it was just lgb adding the T in the nineties.
Charleston also had several bars and clubs that would be both for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
These were called mixed clubs.
Oftentimes, the mixed clubs they saw much more of a clientele than the gay only clubs.
The reason being people were scared if they were gay, lesbian, or bisexual and their employer found out, it could result in losing their job.
That is why the most closeted and curious individuals stuck only to the mixed clubs.
Twenty nine year old Jack Dobbins was a supervisor for a chemical company, but in the evenings he would often volunteer his time bartending at Club forty nine.
Club forty nine was a mixed club.
Jack was gay and as opened about his sexuality as he dare be.
In nineteen fifty eight.
Jack was kind of cute, albeit a little chubby with some dark, thick eyebrows.
Jack shared his home, a pink stucco house on Queen Street, with another young man named Edward Otie.
The men were more than just roommates.
They were friends too, just not romantically in each other.
On Halloween Night nineteen fifty eight, Jack and Edward went out to dinner and then to a Halloween party.
Jack would leave the parties somewhat early, as he had promised.
The bartend at Club forty nine that night.
As you can probably imagine, clubs on Halloween Night were poppin' and jam full of people in costumes.
Oh some wore their regular attire.
Some may have even been scantily clad, although it was the late fifties, nothing like the costumes in shock type clothing we wear today.
Club forty nine also had a large crowd that night.
Eighteen year old John Mahone walked into the club at some point during the evening.
John was an airman with the United States Air Force.
He didn't have much money with him, but he had enough for a beer or two.
He sidled up to the bar and he ordered.
Jack was immediately taken with how attractive John was.
The two engaged in some conversation.
After a bit, Jack began serving John beer's on the house.
A few hours later, around two am, Jack shift was nearly over and John was still at the bar.
Jack thought he and John were vibing and he was into it.
He invited John to go to another bar.
John agreed to, but said he didn't have much money on him.
Jack laughed and shoved some dollar bills into John's pocket.
As the two headed off to another bar, Jack wanted to take John somewhere upscale, so they went to the Elbow cocktail lounge.
However, when they got to the door, the men were denied entrance because John's blue jeans and leather jacket did not coincide with the lounges strict dress code.
Jack shrugged and told John, why don't you just come back to my place.
The bourbon there is much better than it would be here anyway, John said, lead the way, and the two men walked to the Pink House on Queen Street.
Jack's roommate, Edward, was already upstairs in bed by the time Jack and John entered the residence.
Jack went into the kitchen to make some drinks.
Early the following morning, Elizabeth the housekeeper of the pink stucco house on Queen Street.
She used her key to let herself in.
To her horror, she found Jack lying naked on the living room couch.
He had tried blood stuck to his head.
Jack was holding a candlestick against his chest.
Elizabeth quickly called the police.
After the police arrived and inspected the crime scene, they spoke to both the housekeeper and to Edward the roommate.
Edward had slept throughout the night and he hadn't awoken to any sounds coming from the house.
Now, don't forget Edward was at a party before coming back home, so he might have also been intoxicated.
Going back a little bit to that prior night.
Upon leaving Jack's house, John went back to his Air Force barracks.
He bragged about how he had beaten and robbed a queer to some of his fellow airmen.
He showed them his bounty.
He got a lighter, a key, and twenty three dollars.
That was his big haul.
But later that day, John saw in the newspaper the headline read the candlestick murdered.
Below was a picture of Jack Dobbin sitting in a chair reading a book.
John saw it was the man who had been so nice to him on Halloween night, the man who had provided him with free beers, given him some cash, and invited him back to his home.
That man had died.
John was sure when he left Jack's house it only hit him enough to make him unconscious, not to kill him, But John ended up turning himself into authorities.
At John's trial, his account of What happened that night from the time they got back to Jack's place went something like this.
John sat on the couch in the living room while Jack went in the kitchen and poured each of them a high ball glass of whiskey.
Jack came back out of the kitchen with the drinks and he sat on the couch next to John.
Jack then began to make some uncomfortable comments to John.
John excused himself to use the bathroom.
When he came out of the bathroom, he found Jack standing naked in the living room.
Jack said, come over here, John, John said, he panicked and ran up the stairs, trying to look for an escape.
He went into Jack's room and he grabbed one of two two and a half foot long candlesticks.
Then he made his way back down stairs.
He told Jack, I just want to leave, he stated.
Jack made another sexual advance towards him, so he started to swing the candlestick at Jack's head, and he made contact three or four times until Jack fell backwards onto the couch into what John figured was just an unconscious state.
And then he got the hell out of there and he went back to his base.
Many have questioned if John was so freaked out by being hit on, or even around a gay man.
Why in the first place would he even go to a bar with mixed clientele.
There were an abundance of straight bars he could have went to.
Why did he stick around so long at the bar after he bought the one or two beers that he could afford.
Why not just leave after his money ran out?
Why I agree to follow a man a man he just met to the man's home.
He must have known what Jack was after.
And why would he run upstairs to escape when he just got through the front door that he came in.
And why not just threatened to hit Jack with the candlestick and safely see himself out the door.
Something more must have been going on other than what John offered up as his story.
John would be arrested and charged with Jack's murder.
At his trial, he would have an all male jury.
The prosecution went after the death penalty, claiming John committed murder during a botched robbery.
After three days of the court proceedings, the jury came back with a not guilty verdict, citing that the victim was a deviant and John was freed.
I sure hope the ghost of Jack haunted John in that jury for the rest of their days.
This has been CJ, host of Rainbow Crimes on the Dark Cast Network.
Speaker 5Halloween.
Speaker 15Everyone, Greetings, my dear witches and spooky listeners.
This is a bonus haunted episode for Halloween or Sooen as us witches know it to be from Swales the Friendly Green Witch of the Bell Witch podcast.
Today, I'm going to tell you about a gruesome haunting.
It's a Britannia hotel.
I actually have had the pleasure in staying in twice whilst doing a spot of ghost hunting.
It is true I heard knocks and creaks and saw flashing lights on the gizmos and gadgets in some rooms.
There is a feeling of being watched and a boarding sense.
When you go to touch the piano in the grand hall, it does make me think, oh.
Speaker 8Perhaps I shouldn't do that.
Speaker 15Bosworth Hall in Market Bossworth in Leicestershire, UK a beautiful grand manor house with viewed staircases and detailed paintings of those that may haunt the halls today.
If you imagine a stately home, you will envision this beautiful place with its mahogany detailed banisters, and beautiful decord rooms.
It is a very impressive place, a courtyard with a charming woods surrounding, beautiful great and strangely a prison door.
Within one of the bars, there is an actual door from a local prison.
The neighboring structure is a seven hundred year old church, complete with gargoyles and grow tests of different natures.
A graveyard of old accompanies the church and is indeed in need of a little TLC.
The quaint little town of Market Bosswell is a host to thatched roof houses and even a building where children's fingerprints have been fired within the structure of the bricks, giving it a Foeboe haunted feeling from those kids who perhaps died in the fire as they made the bricks in Victorian slave labor.
It is not a surprising setting for perhaps a genuine haunting.
Some say if you walk the grounds of Bossworth Hall on a still autumn night, when the mist clings low to the earth and the wind dares not whisper through the trees, you might hear her the light almost mournful footsteps on the grand staircase, And if you're truly unlucky, you might see her take a breath.
For this is the specter or the ghost that is known locally as the Great Lady of Bosworth Hall.
She is said to wonder the corridors of Bosworth Hall at night, as if time had forgotten her, and perhaps it has, for she has walked them for over two hundred years, trapped between this world and the next.
Bosworth Hall, nestled in the Leicestershire countryside, has stood here since the seventeenth century.
Its ivy covered facade hiding centuries of secrets, and although it has had many ad up buildings added, transformed and altered throughout the times, it still hasn't changed in its strange, dark vibes.
It was once the proud seat of the Dixie family, a line of baronets with wealth, status and whispers of scandal.
One such whisper was that of Lady Dixie, believed to be the spirit of the Gray Lady today.
Her name was Anne.
Some say she was the wife of one of the younger baronets.
Speaker 5Others say she was the.
Speaker 15Daughter of the Sir Walston Dixie of the Manor.
We'll never know for sure.
Young Sweet and Dixie, who arrived at the Hall full of hope, only to find herself and snarled in a lonely, loveless marriage.
Sir Walston Dixie, her husband or an unloving father, was a stern, controlling man, a magistrate known for his cruel justice and called demeanor.
The locals feared him, his servants obeyed him without questioning, and Anne she suffered in silence.
Some say she fell in love with another, perhaps a tutor, a stable hand, or a gardener, a forbidden romance that, when discovered, ended in tragedy.
When her husband stroke father found out of this forbidden love, he was horrified and outraged and set a series of man traps throughout his stately home in secret, hoping to snare the unsuspecting snake in the grass that was taking this young woman away from him.
Speaker 8Was it a bare.
Speaker 15Trap, automatic crossbow her hole to fall in, perhaps a mechanism to impale the poor, unsuspecting human.
Speaker 8Nobody knows for.
Speaker 15Sure because there are no records.
But it went bad, as these things often do, when unfortunately the trap snapped clothes, not on the unsuspecting young man, but actually on and herself.
Desperately and fighting for her life, seeking help, she crawled up the stairs of the manor house, calling out people's names, servants' names.
Nobody seemed to hear her poor had it appeared she was completely alone, desperately seeking assistance.
It is said that she crawled up the staircases her hands, dragging her broken body behind her, leaving a long streak of blooded carpet as she went desperate to cling onto her life.
She found herself in her room, lay on her bed and prayed somebody would rescue find her assister in this devastating situation.
Some say she died instantly, while others say she were left for some time, suffering in absolute agony, desperately clinging on to her soul.
It must have been hell?
Could it have been ours?
Could it have been days?
Others tell it differently, that she died of sorrow, alone in her room, abandoned by a man who saw only hairs, not affects.
But all these tales end the same, with her spirit, cloaked in a soft gray gown, gliding through the halls, searching for her lost love that never came to her rescue or sat by her side as her poor soul slipped away.
The guests at Bosworth Hall, now a Britannia hotel and a delightful wedding venue with a very nice spar reported cold spots in otherwise warm rooms, the sudden scent of lavender where no flowers grow, and the feeling unmistakable of being watched, whether by the gray Lady or the evil man that set the traps.
There is being reports that strange blotchers appear on the ceiling and on carpets that resemble something like blood, dark slime that cannot be removed and can disappear just as it has appeared.
That's there and then gone.
Guests catch something at the corner of their eye on the ceiling or on the floor, and when they turn to look, well, there's nothing there.
A housekeeper once told of entering Room seven to prepare it for the next guest, only to find the bed had already been disturbed and an imprint on the pillow as though someone had just risen.
The windows were locked, the door had been bolted from the inside, although it hadn't been used the night before, but the room was occupied by someone or something.
Another guest claim to see a pale woman in the hallway in the middle of the night.
She did not speak, She only stared, eyes dark and sorrowful with longing before she turned and vanished through the wall.
They say she appears most often on October nights, when the moon is high and the veil is thinned between the worlds.
And if you ever stay in Bossworth Hall, as I have done on two occasions now and wake in the dark to the sound of sobbing, don't rise, don't open your door, and above all, don't follow the footsteps as they descend up the grand staircase, because once she knows you can see her, she may never leave you alone.
Yes, this gray lady of the stately home Bosworth Hall.
Speaker 10The Pacific Northwest is a geographically diverse region of the US and Canada.
Speaker 14Characterised by its majestic mountains, dense forests, rugged coastlines, and deep river canyons.
Speaker 10But it has also been the home of many who kill.
Thank you for joining me Carmita.
Speaker 14And me CJ for a murder in the PMW.
Speaker 1T.
Speaker 14Carmita.
This case is unresolved.
Law enforcement thought that they had her killer in custody, and nine years later the guy gets acquitted.
But we'll get more into that as our case evolves.
Twenty four year old immigrant from India in recent college graduate are Panna Janaga.
She seemed to have her life together.
She was a software engineer for Dell Computers in Bellevue, Washington, which is just across the lake from Seattle.
She had a degree, a good job, her own apartment.
She volunteered at a local animal shelter, she volunteered at a fire department, and she had a load of friends from all the places and all the things that she was involved in.
Are Pawna also loved riding her motorcycle, which made her something of a free spirit.
Dell Computers the company that she was employed by, They said she was very talented, that she was very right, and she was very outgoing in a rising star.
Speaker 10Girl was making that money for sure.
Speaker 14Yeah, she was young, beautiful.
Speaker 5And making that money.
Speaker 14Go queen well.
Speaker 10On Halloween Night two thousand and eight, which happened to be a Friday that year, Our Ponna and several other residents of the complex that she lived in were hosting a Halloween party.
Attendees were most of the other people who lived in the building.
They would filter in and out of the host apartments, sharing their costumes, eating, drinking, intermingling, and such at different intervals During the night.
There were, however, at least a dozen or so people who did not live in the complex that came to enjoy the fest eties.
As you know most places with parties, that happened.
The guests in our Panna's apartments would leave a little after nine pm to go to another apartment hosts party, in turn would lock her door when her apartment was cleared and go join the other parties too.
This went on until the early hours of the morning.
Speaker 14Sometime around three am, our Pana decided that it was time for her to go home and go to sleep.
She bit her friends at the apartment on the first floor goodbye, and she headed back upstairs to her third floor apartment.
Sometime between three am and eight am, our Pana's nearby neighbors were woken to moaning sounds coming from our Panna's apartment.
They went back to sleep, assuming that she and a partner were having consensual sex, but around eight am, her neighbor right next door heard an eerie growl that lasted nearly twenty seconds, and then they heard a thud.
They then heard footsteps and water running for almost an hour.
The neighbor didn't think too much about it and went about their day.
Speaker 10On Monday, November three, Our Pawna didn't show up for work and her parents in India were worried when they couldn't reach their daughter by phone all weekend.
They asked a family friend named Jay if he would go by and check on our Pawna.
Jay went to her apartment complex, where he bumped into one of Our Pawna's neighbors, a man named Cameron Johnson.
Jay asked Cameron if he knew our Pawna and if he direct him to her apartment.
Cameron willingly obliged the stranger and the two men walked to Our Panna's unit.
At very first sight, the two men noticed Our Pana's door appeared to have been forcibly kicked in.
They proceeded to enter.
Once inside, they walked around and then into Our Pawna's bedroom.
Her naked body lay face down on the carpet of her room.
She had been partially covered with the cloth.
Our Panna had been gagged with her own underwear, shoved into her mouth and duct taped over it.
She appeared to have been beaten about her head.
There was a thin ligature mark around her neck, and there was strong evidence she had been raped.
Speaker 14Urupona's hands were covered in blue toilet bowl cleaner.
Motor oil had been poured over her body.
Her fingers and fingernails had been cleaned, removing any defensive DNA that could have been under her nails.
She had burn marks here and there on her body, suggesting that someone had tried to light her on fire, but they were unsuccessful.
Upona's bed had been stripped, her comforter was soaking in bleach in the bathtub, and a fleece blanket had been partially burned.
The apartment wreaked a bleach, and there were bleach spots all around in various areas.
For rooms, police searched not just our Panna's residence, but the complex's trash dumpster.
Also there they found a bag containing our Ponna's Halloween costume, a blooded robe, an empty court bottle of motor oil, and a shoelace from a boot.
This was assumed to have been the murder weapon.
Speaker 10Detectives quickly got busy interviewing residents at the complex.
They asked for pictures taken that night.
From the pictures, they were able to find a scattering of the people who didn't live at the complex.
They discovered names of the non residents and one became a person of interest.
A man named Emmanuel Fair had been staying with someone who did live in.
Speaker 5An apartment there.
Speaker 10Emmanuel was a convicted felon and had served time for weapon and drug offenses and a rape conviction in two thousand and four.
Another person of interest also caught their eye, neighbor Cameron Johnson, the guy who led Arpaonna's family friend Jay to her apartment.
Apparently Cameron had a big crush on Arpauna and he had done some odd things after our Pawna was murdered.
There was a record he had called Arpauna around three am.
Then he tried to scrub that evidence from his phone, but he told detectives he didn't remember.
Speaker 5Making that call.
Speaker 10He also told detectives on November first, he drove to Canada but was denied entry.
Speaker 14Cameron's computers showed a search of pawn shops near the US Canadian border.
When he went to the police station for questioning, the cops took notice of Cameron limping and favoring one hour.
He quickly told law enforcement it was due to an arm wrestling incident, but probably one of the weirdest things from Cameron was that he asked family members and close friends, what if I did the murder?
And I just don't remember.
Emmanuel and Cameron did talk the night of the Halloween party.
They even went and sat in Cameron's car for a bit to listen to music.
Emmanuel stated that he went back to his friend's apartment around one thirty am, but his phone records show that he was making phone calls between two and five am, including some to the woman whose apartment he was staying at.
Speaker 10DNA from three mails were found at the scene of the crime, but Our Pawna did have guests there for the party.
Two sets of DNA belonged to Emmanuel and Cameron.
Emmanuel's DNA was found on Our Pawna's neck and on the piece of that covered her mouth.
It was found mixed with her blood on the bathrobe that was tossed into a bag in the dumpster.
Cameron's DNA was found on the discarded bottle of motor oil that.
Speaker 5Was also found in the bag in the dumpster.
Speaker 10It was reported in the Seattle Times an unknown male DNA was found on the shoelace from the boot.
Speaker 14Manuel Fair was the only man charged with Arpana's murder in twenty ten.
His case didn't go to trial until twenty seventeen, and then the jury deadlocked and the affair was called a mistrial.
Emmanuel was back in court in twenty nineteen.
This time the jury came back with a not guilty after hearing all the supporting evidence that Cameron was upon his killer.
Emmanuel was released in twenty nineteen after serving nine years with no conviction.
He's suing the county for wrongful detainment.
Cameron has never been charged for involvement in our Pawna's murder.
Speaker 10It's been seventeen years now since our Pawna Janaga was brutally murdered in her own apartment.
There has been no justice for the twenty four year old who had such a bright future ahead of her.
Speaker 14You know, Karmita, I kind of feel that Emmanuel was guilty along with Cameron and maybe another man.
Speaker 10What do you think, Oh, definitely, I mean DNA, for one doesn't lie, and there's so much evidence.
I mean, I don't know about this Emmanuel guy, but there was so much evidence against Cameron that he definitely wasn't involved.
Speaker 14Well, the DNA, like you said, doesn't lie in Emmanuel's DNA was on the duct tape that covered her mouth, who was also around her neck?
Yeah like that and had a hand in it too.
Why is he calling her at three am?
Speaker 5Definitely?
Speaker 14Well, we thank you for joining us and we hope you will add Murder in the PMW to your favorite podcast list.
Speaker 5Thanks to ourcast.
Speaker 10We are happy to have Murder in the PNW as part of your incredible lineup of shows.
Stay alert, stay vigilant, and always keep your head on a swivel.
Speaker 16Hey everyone, my name is Raven and I'm the host of Rogue Darkness.
In this Halloween special episode courtesy of the amazing dark Cast network, I wanted to discuss the unsettling case of a small cult from Sonora, Mexico, known for their dedication to Santa Muerte also known as Saint Death, a deity in Mexican folklore, and how the cult committed horrific murders as ritualistic sacrifice their deity.
So now let's start off from the very beginning, a woman by the name of Sylvia Maraz who would eventually become the leader of an immensely small, but nonetheless severely brutal cult was born in Amosio, Sonora, in nineteen sixty eight.
It's been reported that Sylvia's family lived in poverty within a poor neighborhood of Nakazari de Garcia municipality in Sonora.
At just the age of sixteen, Sylvia gave birth to her first son, Ramon Omar Palacios Maraz.
She would then go on to have three more children with her first husband, Martin Baron Lopez.
The children were Ivon Martin, Francisca Magdalina, and Georgina Guadalupe Baron Maraz.
When Sylvia was twenty nine years old, she had her last child, her daughter, who she named Sylvia Yahara.
Facing struggles throughout her entire life, Sylvia ultimately became convinced that she could and would received financial help from deities if she offered the ultimate sacrifice life.
It was at that time that Sylvia decided she needed to perform human sacrifices in order to gain the favor and help of her personal revered deity, Sante Morte also known as Saint Death.
Motivated by her delusional ideas of presumed power and the potential of gaining financial help from the other side, Sylvia orchestrated the sacrifices with the other individuals who ultimately joined her cult, which ended up including four of her five children, ramon Omar, Francisca, Magdalena, Georgina Guadalupe, and Sylvia Yahara.
Along with her children, there was also Sylvia's father, Cipriano Maraz, her partner at the time, Eduardo Sanchez, and also another woman named Zuila Hada Santa Cruz Ariki.
Together they systematically planned out their murders to use ritualistic sacrifice as a means to gain approval and favors from Sante Morte.
Beginning in two thousand nine, Sylvia had picked her first sacrificial victim, her fifty five year old friend, Clotild Romero Pacheco, who was ultimately found dead in December of that same year.
Clotild Ramero was known by the locals as a lady who sold popsicles.
She reportedly had no close relatives living or otherwise known, which made her an unfortunately easy target for Sylvia and the others of the cult.
On the day of the murder, Sylvia had told Clotild to pick up a twenty peso note that she saw off the ground as they were walking together, but unfortunately, when Clotild bent down to pick up the money, she was then swiftly struck in the neck with an axe, being instantly decapitated.
Sylvia had just made her first human sacrifice.
Now with Clotild dead, the group made an offering of her blood to Sato Muerte in an attempt to obtain protection, and then they went on to burn and bury Clotild's body near Sylvia's family home.
The next murder wouldn't take place for a few months going into the next year.
In June of twenty ten, ten year old Martin Rios cipparo A Sanchez Rieta, who was the biological son of Eduardo Sanchez, Silvia's partner.
Martin was also the adopted son of Sylvia herself.
Martin was the colt's next chosen victim, and he was ultimately murdered in June of twenty ten.
Sylvia reportedly had gotten the young boy drunk and then had her youngest daughter, Sylvia Yahara, who was just thirteen years old at the time, stabbed Martin repeatedly for a total of at least thirty times while young Martin was still alive.
Even after the brutal stabbing.
The group then held a small ritual around him, where they proceeded to cut his veins and then spread his blood around an altar while he bled out.
The third and final victim of the cult was another ten year old boy named Jezus Actavio Martinez Janez.
He was the adopted son of Ivan Martin Barone Maraz, Sylvia's son, and so was therefore Sylvia's grandson.
Jesus was murdered just a month after Martin in July of twenty ten.
This time around, Sylvia reportedly held Haesus in front of the altar while one of her daughters brutally slaughtered him, decapitating him like the victims before him, and then deraining him of his blood to spread across the altar for Santemirte.
Investigations into the crimes began after Jesus Martinez was reported missing by his mother and his mother's boyfriend.
Investigators looking into the missing persons case initially thought that young Jesus might have been kidnapped by a human trafficking network due to some alleged eyewitness sightings of Jesus near the Arizona border begging in the street.
This theory, however, was quickly ruled out due to a lack of evidence and the reliability of the eyewitness accounts not being very viable.
After two years of eyes on going investigation into the missing person's case of Haesu's Martinez, in March of twenty twelve, Sylvia, along with the rest of her family living in her home, were implicated and arrested for the murder of Hayesus as his body was eventually found under the floor of Sylvia's youngest daughter's bedroom.
The other two victim's bodies were discovered shortly thereafter in an unpopulated area not far from Sylvia's home.
The state police actually discovered the bodies during an unrelated investigation and were then able to tie Sylvia to the crimes.
Sylvia, Maraz and the other seven members involved in the heinous sacrifices were arrested and brought to trial.
Sylvia was sentenced to one hundred and eighty years in prison, while the rest of the adult cult members were sentenced to sixty years in prison.
Sylvia's youngest daughter, Sylvia Yahara, was spared prison as she was just a miner at the time of the murders and was instead sent to a youth detention center.
Records show that after psychological event valuations were done on Sylvia Yahara.
Since she had been involved in the cult since her childhood and was surrounded by it on a regular basis, she didn't view the atrocious actions performed as anything other than normal.
It's truly heartbreaking how the adult members caused such delusions and distortions into the mind of such a young child to enable them to actually believe murdering another human being in such a callous manner was normal.
According to one of Zoila's Onta Cruz's daughters, Sylvia Moraz had reportedly threatened to kill the other members if they did not partake in the brutal, ritualistic crimes, which is why none of them objected to the murdering of their own family members.
Fear mixed with brainwashing had unfortunately persuaded them to oblige.
We unfortunately see this happen in many cultures, many belief systems, and no matter which deities the sacrifices are being meant for, it's still a horrific crime to have to hear about.
May the innocent lives laws be Never Forgotten.
If you enjoyed this episode of Rogue Darkness, be sure to follow me for even more dark tales of true crime and the Paranormal.
I release new episodes on Friday at midnight Central Standard time.
I also have many of my episodes in live video format over on YouTube, so definitely subscribe there.
If you like visual storytelling.
Speaker 2Be careful on your way out, the chains may try to keep you here.
We hope you enjoyed this Halloween special Tales of the Dark Cast Network crypt Keeper.
If you did, tell all your ghoul fiends about us.
Happy Halloween from all of us at the dark Cast Network.
I'm Jackie Morante from Cause of Death one hundred seconds to Midnight, Stay Spooky and
