Episode 568: Listener Tales 86

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna, I am Ash.

And this is morbid.

Haha, I tricked you lol. This is a crazy silly goose version. I'm always a silly goose, silly goose business.

Listen or tell, and you know what that means brought to you by you, for you.

From you and all about you. Yay, I'm unhinged guys. We needed this after Fred and Rose West.

Jesus Christ, my goodness, what a ride we all took together. I know I think I have literally, do you know, like, I feel like this hit me all of a sudden.

I just feel like you cut off her eyes. Can I just tell you her eyes are closed right now? They were, Yeah, and she's leaned back and she's gesturing vividly.

Wildly, I just picture cutting off the top of my head and pouring out all of that information into a coffee cup and then chucking it off the side of the highway. Huh, that's mine, I like that.

You know what, I like that, it's better than the eraser part, and I might use that. I'm not going to put it in a coffee cup, though, because I hate throwing out coffee cups, well, just like a styrofoam one.

So I'm going to, I'm just going to do it into a trash can, a trash can. Oh, a metal one, yeah.

Because it's like, apocalyptic. Yeah, absolutely, I'll do that, too. Hold on, or into a fire.

Into a campfire? No, because then the fumes spread. Yeah, let's do, yeah, you got to think about those things.

Yeah, you really do. You have to think about these things. You have to think about the significant repercussions of your actions. You do of pouring information out of your brain after you cut the top of your head off.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, we all, we're all there, I think.

The cool thing is that you could put the top of my head back on. I could, because you, I know how to do that. That was like, your, that's like a living of yours.

That was one of the things I got pretty good at, actually taking it off and putting it back on. You have layers, I do. I was talking about you at a place that I went.

I was talking about you at like, a little dinner thing that I went to. And just like, how many layers you have? Hey, thanks for talking about my layers. You're welcome. Everyone in my life is very impressed with you.

And I'm like, Yeah, wow, I don't feel like an impressive person. I feel that's so fucking stupid.

Like a strange and unusual person, but I mean, why can't all of those things be true at once? They can both be true. I suppose you're strange, unusual and wildly successful. Well, thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome, thank you so much. Absolutely. Oh, I have a speaking of like, strange, unusual and wildly successful.

Wildly successful. I have a new TikTok person that you guys should follow. What? And they're an author, what?

A thriller author, Is it the lady that you showed me today? Yeah, I love her. Her name is Geneva Rose.

I like her a lot, her name is great and then I'm telling you she's a phenomenal TikTok follow and I've already like.

The books are coming. She won me over with her personality and now I believe in her, she has a lot of books like.

She has a few books, and the most recent one is like, Home is where the bodies are. Ooh, and the cover of it. It's like, I mean. Also, her husband, like, will jump on her TikTok videos and do like a quick synopsis of her books to, like, market them.

It's wonderful to do. It, makes me want to make John try to do a synopsis of my book, but wait, that's a great TikTok right there.

I know I would have to credit Geneva Rose for that one because she totally you spearheaded that campaign. Creditor and your husband is wonderful at it. But he did like a whole thing.

And he said, Like, there's 90s vibes in that one and it's like a button. The whole cover looks like a VHS tape. Which one is this? It's? The home is where the bodies are buried.

I think it is, and I'm immediately. I ordered it immediately. It does look like a Oh, and she got a blurb from Lisa Jewel, our girl. Oh, our girl, Lisa.

Lisa, Lisa's a sweetheart. I just ordered, you shouldn't have come here, and I think now I have to order.

You gotta get that. So see, go Geneva Rose for the win. She's a great TikTok follow. she's just really funny.

She's got, like, really good, deadpan humor. I love that kind of humor, and I just really, she's one of those people that you're like, Wow, I dig you like.

I just dig you as a person, so go follow her because you know what authors you know, party authors everywhere.

Authors support them in your hair. I love it, and you can also support me by pre-ordering the Butcher game.

It's coming out September 17th. Finger guns, finger guns. I was like, I don't know if this is a good segue, I think it is.

I think it's time I really wish you had done, you know? You could also support me too, you can support me just like root em, toot em.

You know, if you want to pre-order that stuff, all kinds of fun things are going to be coming up this year for the Butcher game. So hang on to your bootays because you should pre-order it. I'm telling you, I think you should, because I already finished reading it.

Do it, or you're dumb. do it or be a rhombus. buy this book, or you're stupid. Buy this book, or you're stupid.

But yeah, that's like my happy note to go follow Geneva Rose. I love that. I've just been baking a lot of bread, beautiful bread.

I know, oh my gosh, thank you. Yeah, very beautiful bread. Yeah, it's over-proofed or no, I think, under-proof.

The proof has gone the wrong way. There's a lot of rules, yeah, and there's a lot of opinions, because some people say under, then some people say over.

You just never know. I think I'm going to buy a bread. Proofer Ooh, yeah, that's when you've really gotten serious about bread.

Drew says I'm on a bread journey, you are on a bread journey. I am. And you know what? We're having a lot of sandwiches and toast.

We're all going to benefit from it. I'm never buying bread from the store again. No, and nobody else should, because you know what hot take here?

Uh-oh, no, hot take. That's not bread, it's not bread. You can pry the potato bread out of my cold, dead hands.

What if I make you potato bread? It'd probably be better because it's probably actual bread.

Accepted, I hope so. I'll make you potato bread. I'll look it up tonight, all right?

Potato bread. We'll have a taste test, blind taste test, let's do it Bobby Flay style.

That's happening. A. b. Bobby Flay. Remember that it wasn't beat Bobby Flay, was it?

Yeah, I think it was beat Bobby Flay, beat Ashkel and her bread. Let's fucking go.

I'll perfect it for a little bit. We're going to do that okay, so everybody prepare. I love potato bread and I love potatoes.

You know what, I love me listener tales. Yeah, we should get to that. I love that.

You didn't even say like, Yeah, you too. You were just like listener tales. I was like, No, I like listener tales. Wow, all right.

There's not a real theme to today's, it's a smorgasbord. Yeah, this is just like a poo-poo platter of wild tales. I love that, lots of paranormal.

I was feeling, you know, I told you guys last few last four episodes, actually that mama needs some ghosties. Yes, okay, mama needs some ghosties, mama needs some lighthearted tales, but I don't think all of these are lighthearted. But let's go.

But they're paranormal and that's fun. Yeah, so in this first one, I mean, it's called that time. I channeled my inner Buffy and still got yeeted from the cemetery, Oh, on topic, because we literally just watched Buffy today.

Go listen to the rewatcher, or else do it. So this one says, Hey morbid friends, my name is Jackie. Yes, you can use my name and any other names in this story.

Don't even think about shortening a single part of this. I would never. I worked hard on it, ha ha, just kidding.

Do what you want. It's your podcast, speaking of. I fucking love all of the hard work you put into the podcast. Also loved the Butcher and the Wren, thank you.

It was so good, it was incredible and I can't wait for the next book. It's coming out September 17th. You can preorder it now. Thank you so much.

I'm so proud of you. ElEna. Oh my god, thank you Jackie. Okay, moving on, I honestly feel like I'm a mashup doppelganger of the two of you.

I was born in 85.

What, what, that's Elena? And when all the other kids were asking what would Jesus do? I was asking, What would Buffy do?

I'm a gemini and former party girl who loves all things spooky, now married to my best friend. We are proud members of the LGBTQ Plus community. Busy raising our three cats and living the fucking dream. As much as someone can these days, you as much as someone can that part.

You really are a mashup of the two of us. I was also mostly raised by my grandparents because my biological mother sucked at being my mom. So my sister, Slash, Aunt and I are very much like sisters, even with our age difference. This is crazy, so I love your banter and it reminds me of her.

Whenever I hear Ash talk about Papa, Ma and crazy mom stuff, I'm like, same, so thanks for being my imaginary best friend. Doppelgangers. Anyway, here's your putafa. let's go come along with me, gentle viewers.

This story takes place in a little town located in the northern part of my home state. It's a hippie artist town surrounded by red rocks. It's got a very new age vibe to it, and it's filled with strange energy, vortexes, UFos and other spooky shit. I want to go to there, I would like to also go to there.

Well, my grandparents, who I call mom and dad slash Papa, spent decades dreaming of retiring to this beautiful little, weird town. They bought property in the 90s and officially built their dream home early 2000s. At the time. They bought the property in the 90s. They also got cemetery plots. Because, well, planning for the future, I guess, honestly, that shit just gets more expensive, it does.

So good on them. My dad often liked for us to visit the cemetery and take walks. I love that, I love cemeteries, same.

It was truly a beautiful and peaceful place. I'm sure you weirdos get it. We do, of course, we do. While visiting one day, he stumbled upon two graves that were a little different from all the rest.

It was a husband and wife buried next to one another. They had beautiful bronze headstones that appeared to have long letters written on them. So, of course, my dad took a closer look. I'm going to sob, the husbands read. During the last few months, I wanted to sit with you and thank you for all you had done for me.

Apologize for the times I might have disappointed you, tell you I loved you and say goodbye. I never found the courage to start that conversation. On the chance you can still hear me, thank you.

I'm sorry, I love you. Goodbye sounds sweet, right? It does.

Yeah, totally. I wonder what the wife says. Must be something really sweet, too, right? uh oh.

Morgan Freeman voiceover. It was, in fact, not sweet, not sweet at all. Oh no, the wife's headstone. We will call her Norma. It reads. You spent your life expressing animosity for nearly every person you encountered, including your children.

Within hours of his death, you declared your husband of 57 years unsuited to being either a spouse or a father. Hopefully, you are now insulated from the dissatisfaction you found in human relationships. Whoa, when I tell you that is the biggest mic drop I have ever heard, holy shit.

Wait, have you guys ever listened to obituary? because this sounds like one of the obituaries that they would write, but like, on a headstone, guys listen to obituary. Because that's that whole show, that whole show.

Like, you will love that also. This is such commitment because you have to pay for, like, oh, by the word, every part, you have to pay by the letter. yeah, every part.

Wow, that's a lot. That must have been a rough go at it. That's a rough girlie.

Yeah, also imagine being the person that has to chisel that into the stone. And you're just like, Oh fuck, you're just like, I think they didn't love her. Yeah, like, damn.

Damn, and it says, Yeah, that's some pretty heavy shit to put on. A headstone. Sure is, obviously that has a story of trauma in there, if not generations of trauma. My dad became fascinated by this.

How could you not? Yeah, I love your dad. He took a picture of it, made copies and snail mailed them to his friends. It's like, check this shit out. Keep in mind, this was the late 90s.

He did this all the time with funny, strange or interesting pictures and articles. Honestly, he was an OG meme dealer. I love that, and I love this makes me think of, like, the time when things were was better.

When it's like, like the time when things was better, I couldn't get that out because I was staring off into the trees outside the window. You were thinking about times of yesteryear, the time when things was better. I just miss the time of things when they was better.

Said the author said The woman who's literally paid to write books the times when things was better. Your literal jobs are just to speak and to write words.

Honestly, it's been a long day. Okay, wow, since I could speak frequently, but no, I was just thinking about it and I was like, this guy saw something cool.

He took a picture of it, he shared it with only his friends, he printed it out and shared it with the people that he cared about the most. Only.

Yeah, that was it. He didn't put it on the internet for strangers to have opinions about. It's a wild thing, it's a crazy thought.

That was a thing that we used to do. Was you only shared cool shit with cool people? You know what, that was it? I think that's coming back.

I would love for that to come back, I think it's coming back. It took a lot of effort. So it's like, if somebody was sharing something with you, you know, it's cool because they're going through a lot of effort to share it with you.

And how much they value you, how much they value you. It made everybody kind of appreciate everybody a little more. We should also bring back video stores while we're at it.

Just saying, don't even get me started on that. I know I was talking with Sean actually from Mostly horror, another show.

Look at us, we're not even meaning to plug video stores. I know this is really unintentional, it's very organic.

It's feeling right. Look at us just being crunchy. I was talking to Sean about how much we loved video stores, and I said, one of my first jobs was at Hollywood Video. It wasn't your very first job.

It wasn't my very first job, but it was one of my first jobs. I remember that, and I loved it so much, so much.

And I miss that vibe, and I miss that feeling so much that sometimes it hurts my heart. It's sad. I feel a nostalgia. I experienced video stores for a little bit.

But I wish that I could experience them for more because you probably experienced them. When did they go out? You were probably a kid, right, yeah.

I was a kid, kid, you were a teenager. No, I wasn't a teenager at all. Netflix was a thing when I was probably 10, but you still had to mail the DVD and everything.

I would mail the DVDs and shit. But it's like there was something about being a teenager and going to the video store on a Friday night that was just immaculate. Yeah, it really was.

I get it, I want to live in that era again. It's one of those things I think, like everything's so dystopian that we're all just like, Can we go back to that time? Oh, we're living 1983, baby, I miss that time.

Or 1984?

But back to the story, it says it became a thing we did. When we visited the cemetery, my dad would take people to go visit Norma. It was such a strange thing to see on a headstone.

I would, too, I would be taking everybody there, honestly. What's maybe not surprising, I always felt weird around her grave, almost unwanted.

Like, she was angry and didn't want to be bothered. Kind of sounds that way. I mean, she sounded angry. I've always been super sensitive to energy. Some things you just know.

And Norma just wants to be left alone. Yeah, she does flash forward a few years. I was maybe 20 years old and my friend Zach and I are obsessed with ghost hunting shows. Oh, hell yeah.

Also fitting for your friend named Zach, Exactly. Wait, who's your friend, Zach? I had told him about Norma and the cemetery and we had to go check it out. So we packed up our snacks, our printed map, quest directions, ghost hunting equipment, which was really just a cassette, tape recorder, digital camera, flashlights and a no-fucks.

We set out for the cemetery in the middle of the night because it's spookier. That way, while navigating the darkness and headstones, I channeled my inner Buffy, the goddamn vampire slayer, and was ready for anything. I love that. I ain't afraid to dust a vamp if I need to. But it was more likely we may come across a grave robber on drugs. At the time, there was news stories about people who had been arrested for grave robbing while high on meth.

Damn so. I was on high alert as we entered the cemetery. You were brave on like so many levels, you were very brave.

She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence when she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police coverup?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a coverup to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop around, she's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls with a diagnosis.

The state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria.

It's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely?

Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

I hit record on my handheld tape recorder and we started walking along the rows, reading some of the headstones. Making our way over to Norma, we asked questions to any spirits that may be lingering as we got closer to Norma. We came across an unmarked, fresh grave with a small hole dug about a foot wide and about two feet deep at the head of the grave. Inside the hole was a coffee cup. What's the actual fuck?

As if someone was trying to dig something up with a coffee mug and then just quit. Was someone here recently trying to rob this grave? Now? It could be that it was just unsettling to see this. But suddenly it got very cold where we were standing. And Zach mentions feeling cold spots at that moment while still recording I think your friend is Zach. Vegans?

I do, too, keep that part in mind for later I will, because I think you're going to reveal that it's Zach. Vegans. We then decided to keep going and made our way to Norma. As we got closer, that feeling started to creep in.

She does not want us there. I could feel it. Zach sets down the tape recorder on the headstone and began to talk, This is Zach. Vegans in the making, too.

Yeah, he's ready, he's like, all ready, like, let's go, let's get Norma riled up, let's do this, let's go.

So he says, Norma, can I ask you a few questions? She said No. As soon as he finished this sentence, the tape recorder stopped recording. Oh, she really said No, she said no.

She didn't even say no, she just said, boop, she just closed the door, literally. She said, I shit you not.

We just looked at each other with one part amazement and one part shitting our pants. Neither of us touched the recorder, the button didn't pop up like it was paused or stop. The tape literally just stopped spinning like the power had been sucked from it.

My god. Zach started to ask another question when it started spinning and recording again, but only for the duration of his question. Do you have any messages for us? Every single time? It would stop recording the moment we stopped talking?

It was almost as if she did not want to answer us or be recorded. We continued to ask a few more questions out of pure curiosity and amazement, until it got so unsettling in its consistency. We decided it was time to yeet the fuck out of there. We raced back to the car and continued recording to see if it would happen again, and it was perfectly fine. It never stopped recording after we left her grave, and it never behaved that way again. Whoa.

So on the drive home, we listened to the tape to see if we had gotten anything else weird. Turns out we fucking did. Let's go remember the part where we felt cold spots at the grave with the coffee cup dug, hole dug.

Of course, I do, of course I do. You can hear my friend Zach Bagan say, I'm getting, he said. I'm getting some cold spots here it is, I'm sure of it.

I'm sure of it. Then you can very distinctly hear what sounds like a disembodied voice of a woman, say, Who is this? what the fuck? My stomach dropped and chills took over my body.

Zach rewinds the tape disembodied voice, Who is this? Ah, I will never forget this moment. I was driving down the interstate at 4 a..m, going 80 miles an hour, and that's when I heard a motherfucking real life.

EVP That'll change you. We must have replayed that part over a dozen times that night. Was this a spirit from the disturbed grave, or was it another nearby spirit? Next? We listened to the part at Norma's grave, and sure enough, all we got was the eerie sound of the tape. Slowing and stopping, then starting up again with each question.

The distortion in the tape was chaotic, and I'll never forget the unease it gave me. Norma's lack of communication makes me think the EVP I had gotten earlier wasn't her. I don't think so either, I don't think so either. Zach and I would go on to play the tape for other people when we would retell the story, and anyone who heard it agreed. Whatever it was gave them chills, too.

I do believe that it was in fact Norma that had something to do with the recorder malfunctioning. And she truly just wants to be left alone, seemingly the same way she did in life. My dad, of course, got a real kick out of the whole thing at one point. At one point, I think I left the recording with him so he could play it for others. Years later. And I thought I had lost the recording of my night in the cemetery until I got a box of old stuff from my mom. See, my dad passed away in 2013..

Oh, I'm sorry, I know. And is now buried in that very same cemetery. Oh wow. My mom moved a few years later, and since then I have gotten random boxes of old shit from her every so often.

That's funny. Back in 2022, I got a box and in it was a cassette tape labeled Cemetery. So naturally, in this modern age, I went to Goodwill and found a cassette player so I could pump up some ghost jams. I sat and listened, cringing at the sound of my own 20-year-old voice, waiting patiently to hear my infamous EVP. Then bam.

Who is this? It was just as spooky as the first time rewinds tape Disembodied Voice Who is this?

There she was, my long-lost EVP after all these years, a ghost of a ghost. But then, as I let the tape play, I heard something I had never heard on the tape before something familiar.

It started as a low grumble, then a throat clearing, a voice mumbling, a voice. I knew it was my dad. Oh my God. My whole body froze as I listened. I hadn't heard his voice in years.

Oh, turns out this part wasn't anything paranormal at all. My dad had accidentally recorded over part of the tape years prior when I left him my tape recorder. Just dad things, just dad things.

It was mostly just him cursing at the damn thing, trying to figure out how to work it. In that moment, I laughed, and it felt like he was laughing with me. Little did I know that tape would record more than just an amazing EVP, but it would eventually let me hear my dad's voice again. Wow.

I'm going to cry. This sounds like such a good episode of television that I want to watch. Oh it does. I want to watch this. This is lovely.

Every time I go visit my dad at the cemetery now, I always make a brief stop to say hi to Norma. Hey girl, she still hates the company, so it's probably not a good idea to go looking for her. I'm just a spooky idiot. Next time, I'll tell you the story of how a ghost saved me from a possible home invasion.

Please do keep it weird, but not so weird that you end up being such a shitty human that your kids memorialize it on your headstone. And then that headstone becomes a 90s snail mail sensation, and later you become the subject of amateur ghost hunters documenting a trip to the cemetery. And decline to answer any other questions or comments. Also, don't keep it so weird. you dig holes in graves with a coffee mug. don't keep it that weird.

Wow, and also my friend is Zach Bagans. She did not say that, but I feel like it was P.S that Zach I was talking about.

Zach BaGans Oh my god, that was such a good one, Jackie. What a feel-good tale. In the end. I know like that was great at the end.

That just made my heart sore. No, genuinely, I'm not kidding you. I want to watch that. That was lovely, I really liked that.

I loved that so much. My next one is Listener Tales. Bigfoot is a good friend of mine and Demons Possessed my roommate. I love both those things. Let's fucking go.

Let's go dear Ash and Alina, you guys are amazing. The dark humor is my literal spirit animal. I love it, and I die laughing and or cringe hardcore in the best way with every episode.

I prefer that you don't use my real name. You got it, you got it. I will call you Laura because you said to. I've been wanting to tell you my listener tale for a while, but it's so hard to narrow down which ones to tell.

Truly, I don't know how often you even still do listener tales because I'm a latecomer to Morbid. And it's also changed multiple times, not through no fault of our own. None, and I'm trying to listen from the beginning, I'm about 200 episodes in.

I cannot tell you how much anxiety I had for you when you announced all your live shows right before the pandemic. It was like staring at an oncoming train. We felt that way, too. I know that was like four years ago and you guys are probably over it now.

No, we're not never, but whatever it sucked, I'm so sorry.

Oh, thank you for that, that's so sweet. Yeah, it was kind of shitty, but you know, we're over it now. But sad, we prevailed.

We said, let's go virtual. Hell yeah, and that was fun as hell. It was. It still is, yeah, still going to do it.

All right, let's start with why I believe in Bigfoot and probably a bunch of other cryptids. We should be friends, let's do it, we are friends, Hell yeah.

First, we have to set the scene. I grew up in a tiny town in southeastern Utah. Like less than 2,000 people, most of the area is dry, desert. And red rock Oh, theme of the episode Red rock.

Yeah, but my hometown is set on the hillside of a random, long, dormant volcano. Damn, that's fucking cool. So over 7,000 feet of mountainous elevation, only 15 miles away from the Canyonlands.

Canyonlands, Canyonlands, Canyonlands. Maybe the lack of oxygen warped my developing brain or something most of the time. I loved growing up there.

The variety of scenery is amazing. That's so cool, it sounds like it. One of my favorite childhood activities was exploring the thousands of canyons carved into the barren landscape. I love that sentence.

I know my dad would study elevation maps. I remember him exclaiming randomly, Yep, that's where we're going. And then we would just go find an ancient Anasazi ruins that nobody else knew about. And if you ask, he might take you there, but he will never show you on a map where they are.

That's cool, that's cool, also theme Cool dads, cool dads, that's the theme so far.

Let me explain from an outsider perspective. My husband's first trip to meet my parents was before we were even technically dating. Let's call him Jay. We had traveled down there when our mutual friends got married, which is how we met. Cute.

It would be a cuter story if their marriage hadn't been an absolute crap fest ending in adultery with four kids who suffered immensely as a result. Wow, that sucks ass fuck anyway. Jay needed a place to stay for the reception and I offered to let him stay at my parents house. We got there late at night, so I put him on the couch in the basement.

He woke up on a homemade hodgepodge of fabrics randomly sewn in stripes over couch cushions. Love that we were talking literal hot pink spandex next to old jean denim next to scratchy wool, houndstooth patterned nightmare. My great-grandmother made the cover for the couch after the original one fell apart, and then my parents inherited it.

That's amazing. Staring down at his face was a stuffed, giant bull elk, head mounted, looking sideways. Because one side had a huge rack of normal-looking antlers, but the other had two giant spikes. What the hell, there's so much going on here, I can't even picture it. There's a lot.

Chaos. My dad was also peering down at him, asking if he wanted to go hiking with us. Your dad's great. We didn't have our friend's wedding festivities until later, so he said, Sure, love that.

In fact, there's a saying you should always marry a girl from San Juan County. Because whatever you provide for her will be better than what she had growing up. Sad but probably true. Fuck, this is bleak but amazing. My dad drove us out to the middle of absolute nowhere and then pulled off the road and drove like a wild man, as one does on a dirt path for another few miles.

With no indication of why, he randomly declared this was far enough. We walked for a little bit before coming to the cliff edge of a giant canyon. We walked along the rim for a while before my dad found the literal handholds that the I hope I'm saying this, right, Anasazi would have used. We descended down to the next rim of the canyon, and then we walked that rim until we found another pathway down, etc. Until we found ancient stone and mud dwellings. That is cool.

Jay's horrified to this day that we did this with no ropes or any kind of equipment. Yeah, no, I couldn't do that no way. The fact that none of my siblings fell off a cliff remains a miracle that I never appreciated until I saw it through his eyes. How did we survive the 80s number one?

Truly so. Archaeologists don't all agree about what happened to the Anasazi. It is thought that environmental disasters, combined with famine and war and disease, led to them either dying off fairly suddenly or migrating into larger pueblo communities away from the region. Regardless, many of their dwellings were left remarkably intact. They often left pots and granaries and weapons and toy dolls called kachinas behind.

I feel like we might have talked about this on, like on a Spooky Lakes episode or something. I think there's a lake that's over one of these dwellings. Oh, I think you might be right. It's starting to sound familiar to me. But some of them are more remote sites that still have the artifacts, and it's creepy as fuck.

Sometimes I remember from an early age being told that they were to be respected and left alone. Under no circumstances were we to take artifacts home or damage them in any way. Unfortunately, some people do take items and either sell them or just keep them for their own pleasure. And I hope that everyone that does steps on legos barefoot every single day, even after their kids have long since become adults, just rogue legos in their house.

Good, or even especially if they don't have kids. Hell yeah, just find rogue Legos, yeah.

Also, I hope the spirits that haunt these areas are pissed off enough to follow them to their home and curse them forever. Get it. I love that my dad has all kinds of stories about things following him in and out of these canyons. He talks about hearing, screaming and snarls and all kinds of bat poo crazy stuff.

Bat poo crazy. I love that. He will tell you that there are things living down there that no one has seen and nobody wants to bigfoot. Maybe more on that in a minute.

He wouldn't even tell his kids most of the scariest stories, but there is one he dubbed Devil John that haunts me to this day. I literally remember nothing except the name, and it scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm going to call John that I think you should.

Devil John, I know that fresh air is for dead people, but I can't help myself. My body just needs a really high dose of vitamin D from the sun to survive every day, which is why I basically hibernate all winter and wait for the sun to come back. I'm like, the opposite of a vampire, another theme of the episode.

Oh yeah, I emerge every spring, all desiccated and gaunt. As a kid, I would 100 go hiking by myself on the mountain early in the morning. One day, I was hiking down a windy, bumpy road we dubbed the Whoop-dee-doo Road. This goes back to the earlier days when we would have cookouts as a family and all six kids would pile...

I knew it was going here. All six kids would pile in the back of my dad's pickup truck. And he would drive as fast as humanly possible to see if he could bounce one of us out. How did we survive the 80s number two?

The air was clean and crisp. The sun was just barely peeking out over the horizon as I set out. It was quiet, but outdoors quiet, you could hear the wind in the trees.

Little furry creatures were scurrying about, birds chirping. You get the whole bucolic scene, right? Well, all of a sudden everything just stopped, I swear, even the wind stopped.

And then, out of nowhere, there was a horrific screeching, screaming noise. I've heard many kinds of animal noises growing up in the middle of nowhere. But this was like nothing I had ever heard before something was being slaughtered and not cleanly. I don't know how long the screaming lasted, but I immediately decided to note myself right out of there. As fast as I could. But not fast enough because Bigfoot, or his demon mountain lion pet, was following me and growling behind me.

What? I have never been so terrified in my entire life. I don't know how I made it back to my car and off the mountain in one piece, damn.

You said that, like, pretty casually, too. Yeah, just like, I don't know. I guess Bigfoot or a demon was following me. I kind of like to think that Bigfoot does have a pet. Yeah, I like that.

I like that fast forward. A few years. Jay and I moved to Washington State and decided to go camping one beautiful summer. We have lovingly termed this camp out the deep, Dark Woods trip, we went down the slopes of Mount Rainier, right?

Yeah, rainier, rainier. And drove for a good long while until we found a nice clearing to set up our campsite. We were talking many miles into the middle of nowhere.Sville quarantining before it was a thing. About 20 feet from our camp trailer was the edge of the forest.

Like a good girl, like a good girl scout, like a good girl scout. I couldn't get that out. G-g-g, g-g-g.

I dug a hole for a latrine, I think, just inside the tree line between two downed logs. Perfect forest toilet or PFT, and then we started exploring. The trees are insane in this area.

We only explored about 50 feet inside the tree line until it was completely dark because of the dense tree cover, and we couldn't see our campsite anymore at all. And the vibes inside the forest just indescribable, like anything could be watching you, and you would never see it coming. It feels like stepping into another planet.

It's like in Planet of the Apes, when Charlton Heston crashes in his spaceship and assumes he's on an alien world, except it isn't, but whatever. We walked right back out and had our fun, riding dirt bikes and enjoying the scenery around camp the rest of the day. After dinner, we roasted our obligatory marshmallows and then went inside the camper to play cards until bedtime.

I remember Jay had to pee and he just looked at me and was like, I'm absolutely not going to your PFT. No shame, I wasn't going out there after experiencing the weird forest vibes either. Soon after he got back, we heard voices outside the camper. It sounded like normal human voices. But remember, we're in the middle of nowhere.

We purposely avoided any type of civilization or campground, and there were no flashlights or vehicles or sounds of vehicles. It was just a pitch black, moonless night. We turned all our lights off inside and just listened, but the voices didn't say anything we could understand. I can't remember if our little kids were already asleep, or if we had to hush them. Whoever was outside walked past our camper and just kept going.

In the morning, there was no sign that anyone had been there, no footprints, no signs of vehicles, nothing. Bigfoot and his mistress disappeared right back into the forest from whence they came. I mean, maybe they were just passing through, you know?

Yeah, you know, to this day, I'm convinced that we had an encounter with Bigfoot. I don't think he's scary me, neither, I'm pretty certain.

He just wants to live his best life without human interruption, honestly. And don't we all? Yeah, to which I say peace, my man, I get that. Yeah, I'm bigfoot.

Yeah, people suck. Maybe he needs ridiculous amounts of vitamin D to live, too. These are not the only encounters I've had with weird stuff in the woods. But those stories are fairly mundane and more explainable by animals we know exist. Good grief, Laura, Laura.

LAURA That was cray, cray, Laura, I think you're right. I think you encountered bigfoot.

I think so, and I think Bigfoot is just a guy who doesn't want to be around humans and for that I can't blame him. I can't either, you know?

Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole and I'm Sarah Hagee. And we're the host of Scamfluencers, a weekly podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time. The impact on victims and what's left once the facade falls away? We've covered stories like a Shark tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment but soon faced mounting bills. An active lawsuit filed by Larry King. And no real product to push.

He then began to prey on vulnerable women, instead selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of Real Housewives stars like Teresa Giudice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame. Follow Scamfluencers on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. you can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.

So my next one is going to be called Listener Tale. I had to abandon my home at 3 a..m because a murdered woman wanted me to solve her death from beyond the grave. And her demonic man is who terrorized me in the process. Whoa, that's a loaded tale.

This one says, Hello, I'm Becca and please use my name Becca.

And yes, you can share their cuteness should you wish to do so. I love them so much.

I also love that you wrote, Hello Ash, Elena, Deb, Deb, Mikey and Dave. Wow, everybody got a shout out. I love it.

I love that, all right, I'm going to start your put a foot. It says Hello to my favorite spooky bitches. My name is Becca.

You can absolutely use my name because I'll shit in my cat print nightgown and sensible sandals. If I ever hear y'all read this, I love sensible sandals. Get yourself a new cat print nightgown and some sensible sandals. Two of the names in my story will be changed just because the real people are scary, and I think one of them might still be alive.

The other piece of shit died when I was a kid lol. May his crusty ass rest in distress, bitch. Side note I'm not the best writer and I can't tell a story in a short and sweet way.

So bear with me as I'll definitely have 68 plus grammatical errors lol. Feel free to edit or shorten as you please. I can already hear y'all saying never, never.

I would like to start out by saying, I adore you both and I've never felt like I relate more to any other podcaster. Ash, I am also trash and you're both my whole ass spirit animals and Elena. Me and my man are also obsessed with ghosts. Oh shit. The episode with Tobias had me squirming with excitement at my workstation.

The episode with Tobias also had me squirming with excitement at my workstation. Still does to this day, so glad that we could be there together. Thank y'all for keeping me entertained while I work these long ass, 10 to 11 hour shifts. I've been wanting to send in my story ever since I found y'all, but I keep getting distracted with life.

But I'm glad it took me a while because I have recently been spiritually blessed with some new theories. Those are my favorite emojis that you put there, the little sparkles. Well, here we go. Hold on to your butts, boobs and any loose objects lying nearby. Because this shit is about to get wild and y'all are gonna be shooketh.

This, My Lovelies, is the story of the time I was haunted, terrorized, and forced to abandon my home. At 3am. By a potential murderer's ghost because his victim's ghost was trying to get justice from the grave. Upside down, smiley face, Wait the next fucking line before I start this whopper of a story.

That's weird. Elena has a whopper sitting right next to her. I do. Today. We got a potential sponsorship from Burger King. And she said, That makes me want to go get a whopper because I said, I haven't gotten a whopper in so long.

And so she got one years and years. I have never had a whopper. I'm still upset about that. We need to change that.

I know I had cottage cheese and fruit for lunch. So which is not the same as a whopper, it's very, very, fundamentally different, but we're going to make her have a whopper.

And also, I just took a picture of my whopper so that we can post it with this episode so you can see Becca how connected we are. Whoppers, there's a whopper sitting next to me. As you said, this is a whopper of a story that's crazy.

So it says. I would like to mention that all of the women in my family have always been extremely sensitive and intuitive. When it comes to spiritual supernatural beings dreams, good, bad feelings, seeing past loved ones, etc. We can walk into a room and know if something bad happened there. For example, when I was a kid, I saw my dad's dad that passed a year before I was born.

I sat and had a full conversation with him and I still remember every detail to this day. He told me to tell my mom, dad and sister that he loves them and he's okay, and then said, Y'all be careful up in those woods.

There are snakes up there. My mom was flabbergasted, my dad cried. It was a lot. But a few days later, me, my mom and my sister were up in the woods getting pine cones to make a fall wreath.

This was normal. We've always been crafty. That's adorable. I love that when, out of nowhere, a copperhead snake is right in front of us, acting like it's going to strike.

Our dog, buster rest his soul went and laid down on top of this snake so we could get away from it, then soon followed behind us. Oh my God, I love it, that's a dog right there, that's a dog.

Although my sensitivity to spirits has always been strong, it is strongest in dreams. Remember that for later, for a little bit of backstory. My great-grandparents had a 60-plus acre farm here in East Tennessee. It was just minutes away from Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Long story long. The deed to the farm stated that it had to stay in the family as they wanted to make sure we were taken care of.

When it was passed down to my sister and I, I'm not sure who did it, but between my granny and great-aunt and great-aunt's husband. The deed was burned and the farm was sold. That's shitty. We then decided to take all of the money aside from about $1,000 and go on lavish vacations. That's fucked.

What the hell? However, they did buy one property with the money. And that's where our story begins, dun-dun-dun. I would like to add that I hold no resentment for that anymore. If it hadn't turned out this way, I never would have met my best friend or my lovely boyfriend.

Wow, you're a good person, isn't it funny how things work out like that, though? Yeah, like if one event didn't happen, like so many great things would have not happened. Yeah, it's true.

That would have not happened. The man who sold them this land, we'll call him Mitch, because, well, it rhymes with bitch, and that's exactly what he is. Slash was. I don't know if he's still alive or not, but finger crossed for being warm food. He was in on this with a man named Toad. I'm literally obsessed with that, because why not?

Toad and Mitch Toad tried to poison my granny at a cookout once. What the hell? But with her having worked in a hospital for 29 years, she knew something was wrong and made herself throw up and survive. That's the baddest bitch behavior on the planet.

That's the bad bitch behavior. Side note I used to have recurring dreams about this house that I had never seen before, and I don't remember what happened in the dream. But it was a very evil place. Probably 10 years later, I was with my dad and we drove past this exact house from my dreams. I told him about the nightmares and he was shocked.

He informed me that this was Toad's house, not Toad. Blew my mind anyway. Mitch basically scammed them and was able to con about $250,000 out of them for a maybe half acre piece of land with a barn on it. Are you kidding?

When they realized what was going on, they threatened legal action. That was when he told my aunt that he was a warlock and practiced dark magic. No toad He told her that if they went to No toad, No.

No, Toad is it?—?I think it's Mitch, who's the?—Is it Mitch or Toad? who's the Warlock? Maybe Toad? I think you're right.

He told her that if they went to the cops, he had connections and that they would abduct little four-year-old. Me and I would never be seen again. Fuck these guys, Oh my god, no, it was. Mitch, You're right.

Mitch is the warlock, an asshole. Keep in mind, Mitch lived two doors down from this place. Naturally, they chose to protect me. Thank God over the lost money. That's when my granny decided to convert this old barn into a house.

Now, a little background on this barn. It had already been not only a barn, but a garage, a two-story loft and a gunsmith shop. This place only had two out of four rooms finished downstairs, sheetrock and all this may be important, and I'm not sure if any of the upstairs was finished.

It had a lot of work to be done, but Granny sank the rest of her money into making it a home. She's a badass, she really is. Her house always creeped me out, but whatevs I would always feel like somebody was watching me.

I even remember seeing the silhouette of ghost cats, which I love, to be honest, because I'm a crazy cat lady. Plus, I've heard that this is supposed to be a sign that a witch has cast a protection spell on you. But don't hold me to that because I'm not certain on that one anyway. She fell into bad health, so we moved into a nice little single-wide trailer that we placed on the property so my dad could take care of her.

As the years went by, her mobility was getting worse and she couldn't get up and down her stairs anymore. So we made the decision to trade houses with her. The first few years, there were mostly normal, with just little things happening here and there. The first instance that I recall was in the summer of 2012. Me and my sister were home alone. My dad was going to pick my mom up from work.

Our main entrance was in a tiny foyer, about 6 feet from our living room. You could see the 12-light window door from the couch where I was sitting, and my sister was a few feet away from me in a recliner. We were doing our usual at the time, watching the top 20 countdown on CMT country music, television. And sitting as close to the edge of the furniture as possible to steal enough wi-fi from the neighbours to check our Facebook accounts. Iconic. Suddenly, we heard a man talking outside our front door.

It was loud enough to tell it was a person, but we couldn't understand what he was saying. I looked out the window from my perch on the couch and there wasn't anybody there. So we called our dad to see if maybe he was home. And just out of earshot, he assured us that he and mom were about 15 minutes away. So, panicked, we grabbed the dog and ran upstairs to lock ourselves in mom and dad's extremely creepy bedroom to wait for them, thinking it was an intruder.

Keep in mind, all the doors were locked and we left the TV remote on the coffee table. All of a sudden, we hear the TV volume turn all the way up. No.

Ugh, I'll never forg. Oh my god, this is a nightmare to me. I'll never forget it was blaring Blake Shelton, Oh, even worse.

I would be like, thank you. I'm trying to think of a song that Blake Shelton sings, just, Oh, you be my horny circle, I'll be your horny bee. EW Why? just full blast?

Because everyone goes through a phase at least once, except for you, where they, like, can't sleep for a minute. No, I was gonna say to not say everybody nor, but yeah, that's rough, Mikey.

Mikey is literally like melting into a puddle of disgust right now. I had a for real country phase in high school. That's really upsetting. It is. I know I don't like to talk about it. Yeah, it's a dark past that everybody has.

You be my summer day. EW I know I'm sorry. If you love country out there, like, love what you love, yeah.

Like, that's okay. I'm not saying you're gross. Of course it is. I'm saying I literally hate country music, you're golf.

You are allowed to love country music, you're only golf like, love what you love. I'll support you, even though I just said, EW.

She doesn't support me, she supports you, but I support you guys. Finally, we pulled ourselves together once we found out our parents had just pulled into the driveway.

We decided to go back downstairs, the TV was turned completely off, the remote hadn't been moved and all of the doors were still locked. We called our mom and she said she had been sitting in the truck in the driveway while dad took some supplies into my granny's house. She said she had been watching the front door the whole time, and at one point, she had seen a dark shadow figure standing on our walkway, right in front of our main door.

The next instance, I was home alone. My sister was still shaken up by the first incident, so she went with my dad to pick up my mom. On this day, our kitchen was upstairs, right next to mom and Dad's creepy bedroom, and I decided to go make a sandwich. He loves a sandwich.

Yeah, you know, now still scared, shitless, you know? I saw a brief little side note because I just think this is a genius answer. I saw Ryan Gosling on, I think it was the Stephen Colbert show. And he said, What is your favorite sandwich? and he answered, ice cream, and I was like, That's a genius answer.

That is fair, and I wouldn't have thought of that, I would have never thought that. I just think that's a good answer and I just needed to say that I like that.

That is your answer, isn't it? Because I agree. Mine's turkey and cheese ice cream sandwich. Hell yeah, but the cookie witch one.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like the two cookies, like, Hell yeah, a chip witch, chip witch, that's what it is.

Cookie Witch I was like, Not exactly I want to be a cookie witch, that's what I want to be, want to be or are.

Yeah, now I was still scared, shitless, but a bitch was stabbing in my best Boston accent, which is bad because my accent is southern to the core. I love that, I love that you did that.

So I grabbed our little chorky named Buford. I'm sorry. Can we all just have a moment for Buford? the Chorky I love that? Is that a chihuahua yorkie?

Buford, Buford, I'm obsessed with that, I love Buford.

Literally obsessed, I love and headed upstairs to make a sandwich. I had him in one hand and was spreading my mustard with the other hand. I called.

I need to add, for context, that it was still summer and it was always blazing hot upstairs. But as I was standing there, I suddenly felt even more uneasy. Right then, I felt an ice cold breeze whoosh past me out of my mom and dad's room, which is creepy. Buford is trembling at this point.

Oh, creepy Buford, and right in my ear was the creepiest, most demonic sounding laugh. No, when I tell y'all, my fat ass has never ran that fast in my life. I was missing steps, just gliding.

I ran outside and sat to wait for the rest of my family to get home. After that, I didn't stay there by myself anymore. I do not blame you. No, my feet wouldn't have touched the floor.

Yeah, I would have gone into orbit, I think I would have kool-aid manned out the front door. Don't even waste time trying to open it. Just, Oh, yeah, I'm out now. Now we get to October of that year.

This is when things start getting really spicy as fuck because the veil gets so much thinner. That's right, oh, I miss it. I need October.

I know my sister's birthday is October 9th, so it's spooky, but like diet spooky, you dig anyway. My former tattoo artist uncle gifted her very first tattoo to her for the birth anniversary of it all.

Oh well, we had just got back. It was about 11 o'clock at night and she was sitting outside in her jeep, still talking on the phone with her bestie. That's when she started seeing a dark figure darting back and forth around the back of her jeep. Oh, what a shit.

Mom was upstairs, my hands and my dad and I were sitting there watching TV. When she comes running in the door, she was convinced that we were trying to play some silly trick on her to scare her.

But no, we hadn't moved since we got home. That night. I got a random voicemail, I had no missed calls, and when I got my voicemail, it didn't read off a phone number or the time in which the voicemail was left. Flip phones in 2012??

Ick, yick. This voicemail was, and still is, the most horrifying thing I've ever heard. It was loud in the background, like a roaring noise, and then, in the most demonic voice I've ever heard, it screeched, I'll kill you, and then the voicemail ended.

So it was like, I'll kill you. Probably a little different, though, but no, that was demonic. it was like demonic light. Wait, let me try.

I'll kill you. How's that? How was that?

That was just fun.

If you got that on your voicemail, you'd be like, that was fun. That was just good fun, that was just good fun. Hell yeah to that fun.

That actually hurt my throat so bad, I didn't even practice that in my head or anything. Oh my God, I'm screaming, I am screaming, so the voicemail ends after that.

And she said, That was just good fun, that was just good fun.

Sorry, that reminds me of a parent trap. When she's like, you can call me it's Vicky. See, it's just good fun.

So my dad listened to it and immediately went pale. He called 911. So it wasn't just good fun. Hello officer, I'd love to report some good fun, some good fun.

Although the officers also looked horrified and pale listening to it, they couldn't trace the call and basically chalked it up to a prank call brought on by it being so close to Halloween. Like, thank you so much for your help, thank you so much. I'm so glad you're going to pay for this, appreciate it.

Around this time, I had started having horrible nightmares about this man and woman. I had never seen these two before in my life and their features never changed. They looked like they were probably in their late 20s. The man was probably between 5'10 and 6-ish brown, shaggy hair, kind of in a comb-over style, looking 70s as fuck.

We love the woman was also tall-ish, maybe 5'9, 5'10-ish. I'm 5'2, so everyone's tall. To me. You're taller than Elena.

I hear that you're taller than me anyway. She had bleach blonde hair and looked to be about 8 to 9 months pregnant, in a white shirt and jeans. They both gave me late 70s, early 80s vibes. In my first dream, I'm walking through a wooded area.

When I get to this tree, there's a digital camera and a brown leather purse. please remember this purse noted. I pick it up and I'm trying to turn on the camera when I hear a noise.

I look up and see this pregnant woman hanging from the tree, Oh my God, still alive, screaming and fighting. She was trying to get my attention to help her because she hadn't done this herself, her man had.

I was trying to get up the small embankment when I started sinking into the mud and couldn't move. It was like quicksand, almost. That's when this scary man, who was her boyfriend, fiancé, husband, I don't know, ran up with some crazy eyes, like he was going to get me. She was still screaming and fighting when I woke up, partially numb and in a cold sweat. That is horrifying.

I could feel something watching me in my room. It felt like a male spirit diamond. I was too scared to look, but I managed to catch a glimpse of the clock. It was 3 a...m.

Of course, of course, it was. The second nightmare came a few days later. In my dream, I walked into my living room, which was technically the basement. There was no furniture or anything in this room.

There was a plastic draping the walls as if it was under construction. In the direct center of the room, the same woman is hanging in the middle of the room. She's still alive and screaming once again for my help and was saying again that he had done this to her. At this point, I'm standing at the entrance of the foyer, where the 12 light window door is that I mentioned earlier, and I could hear him come in the door. Then my dream ended and I woke up once again before I could get to save her.

As I woke up, I felt that familiar but terrifying male entity watching me like the first time and again looked at the clock. It was 3 a..m. By the time I had the second dream, I was so terrified that I went and told my mom. Because there's no way that it's a coincidence that I've dreamed about the murder of a woman I've never met twice now. Once I explained the dreams, she went pale. She said You need to go talk to your granny immediately.

What so? She went with me, and when we got across the yard to my granny's, my mom asked her to tell me what she found. When she got to the house for the first time after buying it, she was like, Well, there wasn't a whole lot of anything really, except for a purse, a purse, a leather purse.

A brown leather purse I went numb, she continued. Yeah, when I walked into the basement that day, the room was completely empty, except for a brown leather purse on the floor in the center of the room. Oh, that's so creepy. I looked in it and found a woman's license cards. all her belongings were still in it.

I didn't know how to get a hold of the couple, so I threw it away. My brain screamed, Wait, Granny, what couple? Why did you throw it away? She then told me she hadn't met them, but it was a young couple, maybe late 20s. He had shaggy brown hair, and she was bleach, blonde and like, eight or nine months pregnant.

When I tell y'all, I went through the five stages of grief. In that moment, Dave Grohl himself could have walked up and slapped me across the face and I wouldn't have noticed. And that's a big deal because I'm obsessed with him, I just love that, like, Dave fucking Grohl. And then you're like, by the way, I'm obsessed with him. And honestly, great taste.

Great taste. Yeah, Dave Grohl's supposed to be like one of the coolest humans I've always heard that. Yeah. Around this same time, a lady that my mom worked with approached her one day.

She said She had a dream about us. That was strange. Mom hadn't told anybody about what was going on with my dreams, but this lady told mom that in her dream, she was at our house for dinner. But she said it was weird because the living room was downstairs and that the kitchen, bedrooms and bathroom were all upstairs. This woman described our house to a T and had never even set foot on our property. Mom told her that's exactly how it's laid out, and she was shocked.

She then continued to say, There was a man and woman there and she got really bad vibes from the man. She described him as having brown, shaggy hair, around 5'10 6 feet and had this overbearing intensity, definitely 5'10, she described it. Yeah, absolutely.

He did not hit 6 feet. She described that the woman, who was around 5'9 5'10, had bleach blonde hair and was about 8 or 9 months pregnant. Y'all, I started bawling when my mom told me this, Oh my god, this poor woman was trying to get justice from the grave and knew she could reach me.

In my dreams, and apparently in random co-workers dreams, too, I immediately went into detective mode and started researching everything I could. Property records only show as far back as my granny. It says. She built it in 1989..

My granny didn't build this place, she bought it partially redone, and that wasn't until 2000, after my great-grandfather passed. This whole part is shady to me. How could it say that when she didn't even know about the property until 2000? Also, you want to know what rooms were already finished when she showed up that first day the living room, the foyer and the side room beside them.

The same rooms that were under construction in my second dream. Oh, that's weird, that is weird. To this day, aside from the upstairs, those are the only finished rooms downstairs.

There are two more side rooms that are just rafters and dirt floors. We didn't use those after we found an old, creepy wedding dress in there. Shut the fuck up, I promise I'm getting to the crescendo. Don't worry, this has been riveting.

I started researching more and more, searching property records and missing persons, anything. the more and more I searched, the male entity started escalating. I was waking up with scratches and bruises. I'm clumsy, so we chalked it up to that, but it got worse.

I was terrified to sleep. I was waking up at 3am every night, feeling that heavy presence of otherworldly eyes burning into my comforter as it covered my head. I would wake up feeling paralyzed. I even got to a point where I was sleeping in my sister's bed, that was normal.

She had a big bed and she's my bestie. And knocking myself out with benadryl and making sure I went to sleep before her, still 3am. Every night I would wake up and it was escalating and it was happening very fast. One week before Halloween, I did my nightly routine pee pop benadryl, go to sleep as fast as I could.

At 3am, I sat straight up in bed and had this beyond overwhelming feeling of sadness. I was uncontrollably sobbing and I didn't know why. All while simultaneously having the worst and most excruciating stomach cramps of my life, I can only describe them as what I've heard about labor pains. I'm just the cool, childless aunt for now.

What, what? I was sobbing so loud. I woke my sister up. She knew what was going on at this point, so it terrified her. She couldn't wake me up.

I remember her screaming for Mom, Mom came in there and was violently shaking me, trying to get me to snap out of it. This wasn't me. I couldn't control myself. I looked behind her as she's yelling in my face and crying, and I see it.

The dark brown shadow figure is standing at the door behind her, watching this all go down. Finally, I snapped out of it and I was shaking more than I ever had before. I told my mom I couldn't live there anymore. That night at 3am, my sister and I moved to our mama and Papa's. Is it mama?

It might be Mama about four minutes away. My mom and dad stayed for another week before they followed. They were asleep in bed one night when Mom suddenly snapped awake, feeling like an elephant was sitting on her chest. She's a heavy sleeper, so this was extra strange.

A little dog was right beside her, growling at something and she couldn't move what she felt. Paralyzed, she opened her mouth to scream for Dad and nothing would come out, she said. It was so cold. And then she heard the same demonic man's laugh that I heard in their doorway while making my sandwich that day.

It finally released her, and that's when they left, too, all of their stuff was left. We've gone in there a handful of times during the day to get important stuff, but we won't step foot on that property at night. My dad lives in the trailer now as they divorced. Almost five years after this, the old house has been ransacked and is falling apart at the seams.

I've researched it on and off for years, trying to find this woman, and I still can't figure it out. Now, to the theories, we've always felt like she's buried on the property because she still haunts the place, too. Before all of this happened, I remember one of my childhood best friends claimed Sister, rest in peace, my sweet angel, saying that she saw a blonde woman in white at the top of the stairs. She's always trying to scare us, so we brushed it off.

I wish we had taken it seriously now, as she passed away on June 1, 2015, at only 17 years old, only 19 days before her 18th birthday. I won't get into all that, though, or I'll cry, Oh, I'm sorry anyway. We have always wondered if he had buried her under the concrete. Because the pavement next to the garage entrance was poured separately. And has something written in the corner that we can't make out.

Oh, that's creepy, but I remembered something yesterday that makes me think otherwise. When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream about this little girl. It was always in the foyer of the house, you know, the one with the 12 light window door. In this dream, she was stuck inside of the wall and she herself wasn't scary, but she would always quietly ask me to help her.

I never understood this dream, but it was scary, it flooded back to my memory yesterday. And I feel deeply that since I was a child while dreaming this, that this woman was coming to me in my dreams as a child, to not scare me as much. Oh shit, now we truly. I'm getting full chills, I am, too. They're like, literally staying.

Yeah, now we truly feel like she could be in the walls of either the living room, the foyer or the one side room that was finished. When my granny got there. My suspicions go closer to the living room because in that second dream, the walls were covered in plastic, like they were in the process of being finished. Maybe he hanged her, she dropped her purse, then he put her in the wall and sealed it up. Eventually, we want to tear out the sheetrock and see if we can find her. That would be terrifying, but her and I both need resolution.

We don't have any answers yet, but it all feels like little pieces are coming together over 10 years later. One day I'll figure out her name and hopefully give her peace once and for all. Thank you so much for reading and I'm so sorry that this is so long, but there are so many important details. No, don't apologize.

No, this was fucking wild, riveting. I love y'all so much and I'll be so excited if I ever hear this on the podcast. Shout out to my newly claimed sister Amber, who has always been obsessing over this story ever since I told her, and has been researching like a madman lol.

Keep it weird y'all, but not so weird that.

Take it away, ash. Oh my god, I don't even know. Not so weird that you don't tear down that fucking living room and sheetrock. Because we need to find out, we need an update to this story.

Also, you are absolutely adorable. I know I love you guys, you have the prettiest eyes I have ever seen. I know, like, Holy hell.

Girl Becca, like, your eyes are outrageous. they're so blue. you guys are so cute.

I can't handle it. I love you guys, you're a beautiful couple, you really are your man, says Dave Grohl Vibes.

He does have Dave Grohl vibes. So good for you girl, got him, I love, got him.

Got him and your cats are so cute, Becca. That was a story that was crazy, that was wild.

All right, this tale is one of carnage, a delicious just desserts and haunting spooky feelings felt to this day. To start, this story has 26 different versions. Whoa. All the information that is in this tale can be found on the Pig Farm. Murder of 1887 by Karen Field, who married into the Field family, descendants of Lily Field.

Oh, wow, and Clifford Knudsen? It's important for Field that the full story be known, instead of the 26 different versions, Field is quoted as saying. We wanted to make sure that people knew the story behind it. It's not just a ghost story.

It's not just a haunted pig farm, it's a story about how a family came to rural Minnesota and how the family experienced tragedy after tragedy. Aw, I love when you guys focus on the victim first, so that's where we'll start. It's May of 1887, and Lily Field is a young 16-year-old woman who was growing up on her family farm in St.

Olaf Township, located in Otter Tail County, Minnesota. P.S You guys just recently covered a listener tale that took place in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. This tale takes place just a few miles from what Fergus Falls is now. Sorry for the squirrel moment just wanted to represent for my fellow Fergus Falls listeners.

I love that back to Lily, she was the daughter of Mrs Alex Field. You're reading that, right?

Mrs. Alex Field Just nine months before Lily's atrocious slaying, her father had committed suicide. The Field family was unfortunately familiar with loss before Mrs.

Field had lost Lily's older sister in the process of childbirth. On the morning of May 28, 1887, Lily was left home with her little brother Charles, while her mother ran to town. Lily, Charles and a hired farmhand by the name of Nels Olsen Holong were starting with morning chores. Nels pulled Charles aside and asked him to run to the neighbor's farm, about a mile away to drop off a shovel. Charles did, as he was told, and got on his way with the scoop shovel.

It is reported that Nels was in love with Lily and had been pursuing her for quite some time. However, Lily was not in love with Nels and did not appreciate the attention he was giving her. After Charles made his way to the neighbor's house, it was assumed that Nels and Lily were to finish the morning chores. Lily was in the house attending to chores, while Nels was finishing up in the barn. However, Nels had other plans.

He was back on his bullshit of, I'm going to use modern day terms. Because in 1887, the local paper was all about patronizing women. Harassing Lily, The local newspapers report. Lily was not one to take. Nels harassment or shit, let me just say as you should, Queen, insert clapping hands emoji. Nels was around 28 years old in 1887 and was described by local newspapers as a 5 foot 7, 130 pound man with somewhat stoop shoulders and dark hair.

So he has bad posture, is what you're saying. Nels later admitted that a squabble broke out between him and Lily. This squabble would lead to the disappearance of both Lily and Nels. These disappearances were not immediately alarming to Mrs.

Field, or Charles Nels, was done with his work for the day by the time Charles and his mother had returned. And Lily would normally spend the night at a neighbor's house to spend time with a girlfriend. It wasn't until the next morning, May 29, 1887, that suspicions started rising. Nels had not shown up for work, and Lily had not returned from the neighbor's house for morning chores.

Charles was worried but started attending to the farm chores. He was walking out to the pig pen to feed and was met with his sister's nude, mutilated, slain and partially eaten body. Holy shit, that's so intense, that's horrifying.

Lily was, quote-unquote, begrimed in dirt and found without a single piece of clothing on her body. Her throat, along with her principal veins and arteries severed completely. This horrendous finding was brought to the attention of Mrs Field, who alerted local sheriffs. It wasn't until the evening of May 29, 1887, that Nels was found in the nearby town of Wendell, Minnesota, attempting to flee to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Nels was apprehended and taken to the Fergus Falls jail for holding. Justice. Could have been served by lynching if the sheriff Alonzo Brandenburg hadn't shown up to stop the mob. World traveled fast in the 1880s. While Nels was being held, Lily was laid to rest by her family members, along with community members.

From the Pig Farm Murder of 1887 by Karen Field and Clifford Knudsen, Knudsen noted. I feel confident we know where she is buried. Within a 15 by 20 foot. Wow. It's straight west of Ashby, Minnesota, and is very close to Fort Palm de Terre. While Lily's family was laying her to rest, Nels was awaiting trial and gushing to local sheriffs, reporters and inmates about Lily and what had transpired on the morning of May 28, 1887..

He's gross. Fuck you Nels, this sick fucker would go into detail about what he had done and later retract statements he had previously made. Eventually, Nels confessed, and is quoted by saying that I came in and found Lily washing. I asked her for some tea, but she refused to get any.

I asked for her picture, but she refused that request. Also, we quarreled and Lily picked up a butcher knife and told me to get out while moving towards me. I had a jackknife in my hand from cleaning my pipe.

I struck at Lily with the knife and stabbed her in the front part of her throat. My God, she clutched her neck, ran out of the house and fell. I stabbed her again, carried her to the hog lot and went to the lake to wash off the blood from my hands. After this, I left the farm.

You're a piece of shit, just so matter of a fact. Just yup. I stabbed her in the throat. Yeah, she was like, No, I won't make you tea, and no, you can't have my picture. And he's like, I'll just stab you in the throat then.

Like, yeah, okay. Eventually, Nels had a trial that, quote-unquote went quickly, where he was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. Remember when I said this guy was a sick fuck? Well, as if detailing his crimes to fellow inmates was enough, this fucker had the audacity to have a petition signed by community members asking for clemency. Oh, fuck you.

Nels was then examined by two physicians, who found him to be of sane mind. Less than a year after Lily's slaying, William Rush Merriam, governor of Minnesota, signed his death warrant and Nels was set to hang. On April 13, 1888, scaffolding was quote-unquote erected at the southeast corner of the jail, along with a high fence that did not allow for spectators. On April 13, 1888, at 1.30 p...m. A minister entered Nels cell. At 1.45 p...m. Sheriff Alonzo Brandenburg arrived and said, Nels, the time has come to do my duty.

Nels was handcuffed and read his death warrant on the way to the scaffolding before climbing the scaffolding, the sheriff said. Stand up like a man Nels, I love it. Once Nels was in place, Sheriff Brandenburg looked at him and said, Be a man Nels and pulled the executioner's lever. What a last thing to say.

I know it's wild. Later that day, the Daily Journal reported For the first time in the history of Otter Tail County, a murderer has paid the penalty of his crime. Damn, might I just add hell-fucking-right he did. After 11 and a half minutes, Nels pulse was not detectable.

Damn, that's a long time, long time. His heart stopped after 20 minutes when physicians pronounced Nels Olsen Holong dead. Nels is compared by authors as a contemporary Jack the Ripper.

However, I would disagree and say he's more of a distant Willie Pickton love child. That's literally what I was thinking, I agree. The pig farm, otherwise known as the Ghost Farm, is a hotspot for teenagers and paranormal seekers to visit at night. From my family members reports. Upon pulling up to the abandoned farm site, their cars would stall. You could hear squealing of pigs, screams of a young woman and blood-curdling screams of a mother writhing in grief.

It's rumored that in the late 1970s, a serious seance quote-unquote was conducted at the farm to summon Lily Field. I love that it wasn't a silly goose, goofy seance, it was a serious seance. Don't come if you're looking for laughs because this is a serious fucking seance. Leave your silly goose business behind.

Upon asking for Lily to show a sign that she was present, all the wildlife birds, insects and frogs became silent. It has also been reported that a dim candlelight carried by a woman has been seen moving in the swampy area south of the demolished farmhouse. That's so chilling, I love that. Approaching the woman carrying the candlelight results in the woman and the candlelight distancing herself from the visitors.

Good for her, but listen here. If I were in Lily's shoes, I would run the hell away from anyone trying to approach me, too. Absolutely, I would. Yup, and you can be damn sure that I would scream my fucking head off if teenage, middle-aged man came onto my farm site. Yeah, she's probably like, Who the fuck are you? what are you gonna do?

Yeah, like, what? And those patronizing newspaper articles about me would be non-existent. Because Lily was a 16-year-old badass woman that fought like hell to keep a 28-year-old man off of her. Hell, yeah, she was oof, that was a doozy.

This one was for my mom. Since that last listener tale from Fergus, Falls didn't even write something juicy in, like the Pig Farm Murder. Take it, and that was a quote, Take it away. Ash and Alina, my mom, sister and I love you both. Take it easy. Oh, take it easy.

I was like, take it away, I don't know what to say. You're like, do work, She's like, take it easy. She's like, No goddamn.

There's our go-to do work. Oh man, that was wild that. What an old-timey tale for the ages I know.

Fuck Nels man, fuck Nels. what a sad story. Fuck Nels. Just because she was like, Yeah, I don't like you, he was like, Oh, okay, let me stab you in the throat.

She literally was like, No, I won't make you tea, and No, you can't have my picture. And he was like, murder, I guess ridiculous also. She was so pretty, she really was.

Sad, she was gorgeous. Oh, and he was not, and he was not, so I get it. Oh, he has a creepy mustache.

He's a worm with a mustache. he is a worm with a mustache. Fuck you Nels. All right everybody, guys. Those were some good-ass listener tales.

Brought to you, by you, for you, from you, and all about you. We had a nice little mishmash, we sure did you know, so we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't keep sending in listener tales to morbidpodcast.gmail.com. Xoxo.

Xoxo.